I was having a lovely chat with one of my clients the other day. We were talking about an ideal client visualisation that I have as part of my Rock Your Visibility Bootcamp, and she was telling me that she loves the sound of my voice, and has listened to it a few times. She’s even said she thinks I should record meditations etc. She then went on to tell me that she loves to listen to my podcast shows and often listens to them in bed. So much so, that her husband now jokes and asks if they are taking Ruby to bed tonight!

Ok, so firstly, let me tell you my client is not a stalker!! She just said that she finds my voice calm, relaxing and it helps her to get really focused and take baby steps.

So, what’s all this got to do with visibility? Well, as I’ve shared in the past I don’t like the sound of my voice. I often get asked where I come from, and what my accent is and for some reason I have a mental block about it. It makes me feel judged. They might not be thinking that but that’s my perception of their question. It doesn’t matter to me how anybody else speaks, but it does matter to me how I speak.

My client takes me to bed! It’s all about perception. She likes my voice but I hate it.

A limiting belief? It could be limiting me, IF I let it.

I’ve considered elocution lessons but a part of me can’t work out if that’s the right thing because it doesn’t feel authentic to me somehow.

I remember going out for a meal with friends many years ago and we were chatting away, and then one of the girls started laughing and said, ‘Yeah, innit’. This girl was normally really eloquently spoken, so it was a complete surprise to everyone and when we teased her about where that came from – she told us she’d had elocution lessons, so I guess a part of me is worried that my true accent would come out anyway so maybe it’s not the right thing to do.

Conversely, one person I spoke to about this told me that getting elocution is no different to getting any other kind of personal development, you’re just improving yourself.

It’s all about perception

Now, what I realised a couple of years ago is that to build your business you need to get yourself out there somehow, and the quickest way to do that is to let people see you, hear you, get to know you, and start to get a feeling for what you’re like as a person. I knew that I needed to get brave and do video back then so I enrolled in a little 15-day video challenge and started to do my videos. I absolutely hated doing them but with the support of the group they became more natural, and I started to relax into them.

So, why does someone that hates her voice run her own podcast show? Trust me, I’ve asked that one myself.

Simply because when you meet me this is the version of me that you’re going to get, plus I do love to talk!

I talk about showing up authentically on and offline.

Let people get to know the real you

It doesn’t mean you have to share every single thing about you that’s personal, keep some stories just for you. It just means that when people meet you face to face, or on a call, you’re the same person they have seen, heard, got to know online.

The other side of that though is that to be visible in your business, you have to step up.

You can’t keep hiding yourself away waiting for your ideal clients to find you

You have to be the one that shouts out about your business, and by shouting out I don’t mean shouting, ‘buy my services’, ‘work with me’. I mean to build relationships with people by sharing great content, talking passionately about what you do, helping through being of service to others. We all want to earn money from running our own businesses, for sure. That’s why we call them businesses, not hobbies, but we need to build those relationships with people so that they know, like and trust us enough to want to work with us.

What happens though is that we have this perception that people will look down on us somehow, we’re afraid of being judged, we’re full of self-doubt and worried we’ll say or do the wrong thing when we do get brave enough to take those steps.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had clients and friends put themselves down, they just don’t see the fabulous people they are. We’re all guilty of it.

So, what if they do judge you? Well let’s get real here, they might! But that mustn’t stop you. You will find your crowd of people that will love you for you, when you show up authentically and just have conversations, share and do your best work.

There will be people that hate my voice and won’t want to listen to me, and definitely don’t want to take me to bed! Hey, I don’t want to listen to my voice, so why should anyone else, but the reality is if I don’t shout out about my business then nobody else will, and you don’t get anywhere business by taking no action.

So, if something is really holding you back, and it’s something you can fix – go fix it

Maybe, you don’t believe you’re good enough at what you do. Get the training, read the books, put in the practice hours and hard work.

Maybe it’s a limiting belief you need to work on, so that you stop getting into a spiral of self-sabotage.

Maybe, like me, you need to accept that this quirk of yours is who you are, and go out there and be brave anyway.

Whatever it is, if it’s holding back your business, get it sorted. Don’t let your blocks stop you from creating that life and business you love.

So, will I ever get those elocution lessons? Maybe. You’ll be the first to hear about it!

Your call to action this week: Check in on where you’re holding yourself back, and then get to work fixing it.

If you really want to work on both your mindset and your business, and get more visible come and join my Rock Your Visibility Bootcamp – I’ll get the kettle on!