Is your plan for this year to be more visible?

I’m seeing a lot of talk at the moment about visibility.

The team and I work with hundreds of people a year who need or want to be seen and heard at work and that means being visible. It means telling people what you know that they may find useful and being the person others first think of when they want to hear from someone with your skills.

However, a lot of people find the idea of standing up and speaking out (whether metaphorically or in reality) a difficult idea to get their head around, so if that’s your new year resolution here are a couple of pointers.

1. Know why you are saying what you are saying – be it a presentation, blog or post. What do you want others to do once they have seen or heard you? Are you looking for a discussion, input? Are you providing information or do you want people to sign up or buy? If you don’t know the point nor will they.
   
   
2. If you are asked or want to give your opinion, speak your truth. What I mean here is be brave enough to say what you think. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you say … others will disagree and they have every right to (so long as they aren’t rude with their response). But just because others don’t agree with you doesn’t make your opinion any less important.
   
   
3. If you are actually standing up and speaking on or off line (particularly online) … don’t worry about how you look. I don’t mean don’t dress for the occasion but remember that you look very different to others than you do to yourself! It’s like listening to yourself on a recording … I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think they sound different on their answer machine and that’s because you are normally inside your head when you listen to yourself! When you look at yourself on camera it’s the same thing … you are just seeing a different view of yourself.
   
   
4. Be you. Don’t feel you have to be a different version of you because you are writing or speaking for work. People buy from people, and they will decide if you are someone they want to work with based on the you they meet online, on video or on paper. If all of these versions of you are congruent with the real you then you will build rapport more quickly when you meet them face to face.
   

What you say and write is important but so is how you do it. If you want any more tips sign up for our regular emails here.