Women CEOs: Here’s How to Create a Wealth-Building Visibility Gameplan
One Day a Week just Using your Story + FREE Visibility Strategy Template
By Keisha Shields
The problem. You’ve been in the game (and excelling at it) for a long time and yet because you don’t care to be the loudest one in the room or because you struggle with finding your lane on social media (and therefore don’t post consistently), you’re not well-known enough — and that means that you’re not making the money, building the wealth, enjoying the fruits of all of your years of labor. Even worse, YOUR dream clients seem to be spending their money and hanging on to every word of someone else.
If there was an award for the person who has been in the school of hardknocks in this arena, my name would certainly be submitted as a nominee in this category!
What I have found, after working with several hundred women CEOs and leaders, is that not being visible is rarely just about visibility. In fact, I’d say it has a lot more to do with more personal stuff — even if that personal stuff is directly tied to the business that you’re in. In summary, three things need to happen in order for your visibility to work for you: 1) you have to know why you’re not being visible, 2) you gotta create a plan and 3) you gotta do it. Simple enough right? Maybe ;). Let’s get into it.
#1: Assess Why your Visibility is Suffering
Feeling like you don’t know what to say
There is something interesting that happens with really smart women who are some of the most brilliant minds out there. People come to you for advice, for insight, for your genius and you can instantly give them the exact solution they need (and the solutions you give work!), and then when it comes to writing a blog or putting your expertise and perspective out there you can freeze up and suddenly feel like you don’t have anything useful or effective to say.
Out of all of the reasons why the visibility of women CEOs suffer, this one is the one that I have battled with the most. I had to finally own that I prefer to share my genius in conversations where there is an energetic exchange. That’s why one-way energetic exchanges are such a struggle for me! There’s something about teaching and being able to see or feel whether the recipient is getting it or if they need more clarity that makes a world of difference for me. It’s tough to do that when there is not an instant exchange. And there’s a remedy for it, too, which we’ll discuss in section 2 (the game plan). P.S. the following 2 visibility problems can also absolutely affect you feeling like you don’t know what to say when it’s time to be visible over and over again.
Feeling like you don’t have the time or energy to do it consistently, effectively
Ok, let’s say you do have some things that you clearly want to say but you are so friggin’ exhausted that you can’t even bring yourself to wrap your mind around executing on it. Everything begins to feel like ‘one more thing on the never-ending list of things to do that are draining the little bit of energy you do have left to give’. And it’s a cycle lately. And by lately, I mean the last couple of years. Yep, I’m gonna just have you own it right now. Just know that you’re not alone. Being a CEO, whether it’s your own empire you’re building or whether you are championing an enterprise, requires a lot out of you energetically. So long as you are burned out and running on fumes your visibility (in terms of building wealth) will suffer because you won’t have the mental or spiritual energy to be consistent and effective when you do show up.
Because having such little ‘energy of abundance’ is a real issue for women leaders, structuring your wealth visibility strategy as a tool that you only have to “think about” organizing one day a week can change everything! Once you have the week planned out there will require less energetic thinking on your part to figure out what to say and when. You’ll be able to use the energy you do have to show up and do it and not be spread so thin amongst thinking of what to say, figuring out how to say, figuring out when to say it and so forth.
Feeling all the feels
Whew. How many times in the past month alone would you say that you’ve been feeling all the feels? Feeling is such an involuntary state of human nature and yet feeling is still seen in many circles as a sign of weakness, especially for CEOs and especially for women who are CEOs and leaders in many capacities. So let me tell you right now; feeling all the feels means that you may be having a TIFF (an inner battle or even outer quarrels) battling through unresolved traumas, insecurities, fears and frustrations all while needing to lead your enterprise through a successful and profitable journey.
Being aware of your TIFFs (Traumas, Insecurities, Fears, Frustrations) are a very important secret weapon — not just for visibility but for profitability (which we’ll cover in a future post) because they are often the same intersections at which your dream clients and dream partners are having tiffs in their lives. Share them in your story and you’ll be incredibly surprised how your people start to come out of the woodwork.
Knowing WHY you’re not being as visible as you need to be is the most important step into becoming more visible. Give yourself the space to reflect, to cry, to journal, to go out in nature and clear your mind, whatever you need. And if what you need is a highly confidential, professional conversation where you can do any/all of the above and get down to the core of why you’re feeling all the feels or have such little energy or can’t figure out what to say go here to schedule a complimentary call with me.
#2: Create a Game Plan (that you’ll actually want to follow)
Having a game plan aka a strategy for being visible will help so much to those of us who get stuck on figuring out what to say and how to talk about it in a way that won’t get drowned out by everyone else shouting similar things and instead actually showcases our intellect and expertise in the matter and helps us to stand out in front of the right people.
Here are 7 different ways you can know exactly what to talk about and show that you relate to the problem that your dream clients or dream partners/collaborators are experiencing:
Determine What to Talk About
- Shared experiences (street cred) – Do you have a personal story relating to this problem?
- Solved the problem (expertise) – Have you given excellent advice to anyone on this problem?
- Any educational connections related to the topic you’re discussing (degrees, awards, certifications, conferences you attended, etc)?
- What do you think about the highly accepted view of the problem?
- What do you think about the misinformed view (what irks you about the bad advice people are giving) of the problem?
- Why do you think this problem occurs for women in [insert your specialty]?
- Any resources that you’ve come across regarding this? I.e., books, magazines, articles, experts
Map Out the How & When
- What platforms do you feel most called to share on? Or
- Is there a certain format in which you feel most called to share? (i.e., are you really wanting to hop on a video and talk about it, are you feeling compelled to write about it, are visual imageries calling you as a way to express it)?
#3: Accountability Check
If you know that your issue is that living in your head causes interference to your visibility and your profitability, then accountability is going to be imperative for you. Since the goal is to reduce overwhelm and to reduce some of the energetic drain, the accountability check should be simple.
- Download and print the template or take out a journal or notepad
- Decide one problem that you know is affecting “her” (her being your client, whether it’s a her or not) and write it down
- Identify at least one way that you can connect with her and relate to this problem. HINT: it might be the way you’re feeling right now or something you’ve just gone through
- Write a thought on social media, on your blog, or to your newsletter sharing your viewpoint. DO NOT OVER COMPLEX this! Lol. It can be 3 sentences or 2 paragraphs long. As simple as possible.
- You did it! Rinse and repeat.
If you’re like me and you like even more structure to organizing your thoughts, my Wealth Visibility Strategy Template goes into a bit more detail so download it and check it out!
Wanna see me walk-through the visibility strategy?