Hey, welcome to the Summit Host Hangout Podcast where you'll learn how to host a high converting virtual summit that leads to your biggest signature offer launch yet. I'm your host, Krista from Summit in a Box and I have a fun episode for you today. I know there are a lot of you out there who love the energy of summits, and are always looking for other ways to keep the momentum up between your events, keep the connections going, all of that good stuff. You know, I love challenges for that, but there are other options too. And today, I've got a special guest to talk about a good one that I ended up way more excited about than I thought it would by the end of the episode. So specifically, we're going to talk about using a visibility tour to build momentum with easy daily actions between your events. And if you've heard me say visibility, and you're like, No, like, stay tuned, because that is also my thought when I think visibility. And I'm so glad I had to record this intro separately, which I normally don't do, because I've already recorded and just heard how doable this is like I'm obsessed i have a calendar already created, which you'll hear us talk about. It's some good stuff.
So to give you some background information on our guest. She is the founder of entrepreneur, school and education hub for ambitious moms who want to start and grow their brands. She's an award winning marketer, brand strategist Visibility Coach and the host of the entrepreneur school podcast. So without further ado, let's dive in and talk with Kelly Sinclair from chaos and Co. Welcome, Kelly, I'm so glad to have you here.
Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this for so long, Krista? Yes, this has been good. What was it like three, four months ago, probably that we chatted for the first time and knew what needed to happen. Yeah, isn't that funny? Like, that's really we all want to be so fast paced as entrepreneurs, and let's do it all tomorrow. And then the truth is time to develop and relationships to build and like schedules to align. And there's so many layers to all of this. So it's happening now. And that's fantastic.
It's gonna be good. Well, tell us a little bit about you and your business before we dive in today.
Yes,
Yes, so I am a visibility coach with a background in PR and marketing and branding. So bringing kind of all three of those things together to think about your visibility specifically for service based entrepreneurs, course creators, coaches, those types of people. And I work with them to get more visible so that they can build an audience of ready to buy clients, ideal clients who are actually looking for what they have, and ultimately, so that you can become a sought after and well known brand in your space, you're getting referred. People are talking about you when you're not in the room. They're tagging you on posts, because you are known for the thing that you do.
The dream, right? I actually stumbled across a post earlier today in this Facebook group I'm in someone posted, I send it to my team. So I have it right here on my screen still. The question was, "What resource would you recommend for getting started with the summit?" And there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people straight "Summit in a Box", "Summit in a Box", "Summit in a Box". That's what we're going for. Right? That's what visibility will do for you. But I want to hear what got you into visibility? And when did you first see the power in it? Because I think most people think about visibility, and they're like, oh, no, I don't want to deal with that. But you are like, yes, let's talk visibility. So what was that for you?
Well, innately. I mean, immediately, as soon as I decided to start a business, I was like, well, the only way to make this work is if I tell people about it, right? Because you can't become, you can't be a well known thing, you can't be a well known brand, and a best kept secret at the same time. Right? You have to start putting yourself out there experimenting with things, figuring out the different ways that you can create connections and build relationships, because you have to do something in order to get clients. And I think it helps that I have, you know, a communications degree. And so naturally sort of think a little bit that way, but I remember actually, when I was first getting started in my business, I was like, Well, I'm gonna focus on building my reputation within the community that I live in. And I think this is something that's overlooked a lot, too, especially when we have so much access to technology, and the online space. We think we're building online businesses, but we're forgetting we actually have like a network and a community that we can build relationships with in at the same time and also faster. So I decided I wanted to be like the go to PR branding marketing person. I don't know I've shifted that all around. And that's what happens, it evolves. In my community, so I started going to things and one of the first things that was available to me was there was a guy in town who was hosting like co working sessions. We didn't have a co working space yet. And he was hosting them at like different cafes. He said anyone who's running their own business come get together will like network and will work. We mostly just networked. We did not work, but he ended up being my first client and I helped him open the first co working space, and now he has five. So it's pretty amazing.
Yes.
And that was because I was reading the newspaper and I was like looking for stuff that was related to whatever I do, you know?
Wow!
You can start there. And so the power, the power is the relationship building. Absolutely. Because that led to actually the second one of his events. Me meeting my second client that became a five year long term, like retainer client that I worked on different campaigns and strategies for around their marketing and branding developed the brand for the organization, and we won a national marketing award.
Wow. Oh, my gosh, okay, I love this. So we can see that it's powerful. We all know, it's powerful. But you know, sometimes we like, but I feel like what you're going to talk about today, and maybe it's just the positioning of it, but we'll see what the way you talk about it. To me, it sounds more fun than just visibility. So we're here today to talk about visibility tours. So can you talk about what that means and what it can do for your brand?
Yes. So I think where you're coming from here is that the idea of visibility just seems like an extra thing. And also, I want to acknowledge that most people get into business to do the thing their business does not because they want to become a marketing specialist. Right. So that's where that kind of comes in, where it's not like this is second nature. So for sure, there's going to be some growing pains and some need to actually embrace and embody this as as a habit. And so I have thought about it, because 1- super inspired by Taylor Swift Eras Tour, where it's like, hey, everybody knows that this exists. How do you get your own version of that working? So as much as visibility has to be part of your every day? How do you get it to be part of your everyday well, by doing a visibility tour, is where you are going to build up the habit of focusing on intentional visibility. And really, the way that I've defined it is that this is an eight week sprint, to boost your visibility, increase your marketing cadence, and focus it on a single topic for a condensed period of time. So especially if you're if you're a business that has multiple facets, or multiple specialties, we're talking about picking one and becoming known for that thing during those eight weeks. And it's really a pre launch strategy. So this isn't about, like, making sales pitches, every time you're out there doing something either it's about getting exposure, building awareness, building an audience and building relationships. And so the other piece of it well, I'm gonna leave it at that for a second to see how like you react to this idea. Does this sound a little more fun and doable? Part of it is like I think about the habit building piece is so important, right? Whenever we're trying to learn a new skill set or incorporate something new into our lives, we need to create a routine around it. And so what I designed, and this was all based on doing this experiment for myself, was I was like, well, first of all, it was summer, Krista and my kids were off school and I was like, It's nice here. I live in Canada, we don't get nice weather very often. I got a new paddleboard and I want to use it more. And so how do I stay relevant, feel like I'm doing something that is going to move the needle in my business, and not take all day long behind my laptop when I really just want to go outside and be in the sun. And that was this idea of like, if I focus on one thing per day, that's visibility related. And I'll define that a little bit more in a minute. I can do this in under 10 minutes a day. And I can still be making progress, and building my business and building those connections and creating those opportunities for myself. And I can go do the other things that I want to do living my life as an entrepreneur and a mom.
Oh my gosh, okay, so I love what you said there because at first, I mean, I had a little bit of a leg up going into this because I knew you were going to talk about the 10 minutes per day thing. But if I would not if I would have just been a listener, hearing that first part when you had the 8 week sprint, I think my reaction would have been like "ugh, visibility for eight weeks, what?" to like on one hand, that was part of my reaction, even though you know, I actually knew the 10 minute piece. But on the other hand, I am obsessed with the idea of an eight week sprint focused around a single thing or a single aspect of what you do or now we have a challenge course so I could do with any week sprint out summits, summits for either just making money as the summit itself summits for launching that could be another one. Challengers can be another one now, and I love that and it simplifies the messaging. I'm sure it simplifies the pitches you're making, which we'll maybe talk more about and everything you're saying it can do. I am just very much loving this. I also, you know, the summit strategist in MI sees this as such a great way to get a warm list of potential speakers. So I'm obsessed with this idea.
No, I totally thought of that, too when I was thinking about, like how to bring this into summit language. And as someone who's hosted a summit before, too, I really truly think that this visibility, and this is like maybe let's dive into a little bit. What does it mean? What does visibility mean? What are the types of actions that you can take? And what am I talking about? And I first want to say, I am not talking about relying on social media, this is not about eight weeks straight of posting three times a day, on your favorite social media account. No, I despise that. I also think, you know, social media is just becoming an over prescribed tool that so many people look at it as like, if only I can figure out how to break through the noise and get more likes and go viral, then I will become what I want to become in my business. And I don't see any version of that being true. Right, it just becomes a frustrating place where we're now attaching our own worth to the number of likes and comments and responses that we're getting by the content that we're making. And that is so unhelpful. It just drives you into a spiral of negativity. As like social media, we all know, what's an addictive platform. And there's all kinds of those things there. What it's great for is connecting, having conversations with people and building relationships. So I was saying to you beforehand, I use social media 10 times more to talk to potential collaborators, like yourself and people that we're connecting for opportunities to support each other, rather than reaching out to potential clients. So I am not seven years into my business, I am still not seeing social media as the core driver of my business growth, it is a supplementary tool that yes, I will admit needs to be used, you need to have a presence there, you need to have some thing that says that you're still alive and active, and a place where people can go kind of like creep you and see if they think you're legit, and they want to learn more about you and work with you more. But it doesn't have to be like the focal point of all of your efforts. We shouldn't be leaving from a social media first perspective, like let's create content, and then figure everything else out. I look at it differently, where I'm looking at things like having going to networking events, having one on one conversations with potential collaborators, applying for speaking opportunities, looking at all kinds of different collaborations, really, that's a core piece of visibility to me is when you can get yourself in front of an audience of people that has already been curated by somebody else. And you see that alignment. So that is one of the core assessments to make when deciding what kind of visibility you want to do is like who's already made this happen? Like, I think this is coming up as a trend. It's going around, as you know, using other people's audiences or other people's networks. And to me, that's just what PR is, and always has been, in my mind.
Yeah, it does have a really negative connotation. But I think it's really silly to stress over something like that. As long as you're bringing value. Everybody wins. You know? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I like this. And I totally agree with you on the social media piece. And I would say I use social media in the same way. It's for relationships, or even relationships with people who are, like you said, lurking and stalking and deciding if they want to join our program, I am using way more for the relationship aspect of that than any kind of direct sales. And I have no interest in publishing daily reels or anything like that.
No, and focusing on trying to be found in the Explorer. Like, yeah, yeah, I don't want to do that. And how, and if anyone has figured that out, it'll probably change in the next, you know, 30 days.
That's true. All right. So you talked about this a little bit of like finding people who have already curated the audience you want what would you say someone needs to look for to make sure they're doing this visibility tour intentionally in a way that actually gets them results and doesn't just waste 10 minutes of their day, every day for eight weeks?
Yeah, absolutely. So that audience alignment is the key. And so audience alignment comes from audience awareness for you. Right, so you knowing your own business, your own audience and who you serve, and then being able to find opportunities to reach those people through any channels. And this is collaboration specific. So me being able to say how, how I can support your audience, Krista, by bringing this conversation to your podcast. That's a win win for both of us, right, but even in thinking about applying it into other things like it if you want to try and do some media outreach, for example, you have to understand the audience connection, because that's the thing that's going to get the media to be interested in what you're talking about as well. Because they care about their audience. That's their job. How is this relevant to my audience? How does it affect them? How do we position that? And so your awareness of your own audience, and then making the kind of connecting the dots to the audience of the platform, publication or person that you are looking to leverage for visibility is what makes it successful.
I mean, this aligns perfectly with what I teach everyone, you should be looking for in summit speakers, they're the same people, same people. And that leads me to a question like, would past speakers be worth it as people to reach out to on a visibility tour or not, since they would have like, ideally promoted your summit to their audience already?
I think it's great. The idea, you know, what they used to say, you would take seven touch points for someone to remember you. And now it's like 8 million, probably because there's so much going on out there. I think duplication and overlap, because people hear things differently at different times, like, see, if you think about the audience that you're trying to reach. They're in a different place. They're in a different state of mind. They're on a different platform, all of these things kind of, Oh, I heard, you know, Krista, talk about this person, because she promoted her Summit. And then I started following that person. And then oh, there's Krista again. And it's like, Hmm, interesting. Because what it all comes down to is that trust, right, and so as soon as you have a trust built up with an individual, that trust is then lent over to the person who they're promoting or sharing are partnering with. And the more times that that happens, I feel adds to the overall trust building there. And so I would say absolutely, your past summit speakers are great to do multiple collaborations with, you know, especially if you don't feel tapped out. I think if you know, every other week, you were doing something with the same person, you'd be probably exhausting the audience, but definitely do a few.
Yeah,
Yeah, I totally agree. And I love that it makes your it makes the work you do to connect with people and give them a great experience during the summit even more worth it because it opens it up for more collaborations down the road.
Yeah, so like, even as an example of that I hosted not a summit, but a little private podcast party, where I did have six guest speakers come in, and I did interviews with them. And I put that out as my own hosted event in the fall. And then I did follow ups with many of them, I did guest trainings inside of their private paid programs, or I was on their podcasts, those kinds of things. And and again, I know I think probably part of the strategy, at least what I loved about summits was that it was the give when you're the one hosting, it's the give, and then the receive comes from being able to be the one featured on the other side later, right, you've already given them something to say like I hosted this amazing Summit, you are so amazing. Thank you for being there. And now what can we do that features me and puts me into the spotlight as well?
Yeah, even after my sentence, I send my speakers a survey to get feedback and stuff. And one of the questions is like, how can we collaborate next? You come on my podcast, I come on your, you know, like, they can click buttons for how I feature them again, but also, there's a free forum for how they can feature me, that has worked like way better than I ever expected it to. So people are really open to it as well, which makes it easy makes your 10 minutes a day easy for a while at least.
Yeah. And you know, I feel like there may be a subtext here of people going, Oh, is that like a little bit slimy to think that I should ask for something after I give something and I'm kind of like this is what relationships are this is, this is like one of the best ways that business is done. If you have a good experience with somebody and you trust them, and you, you know, think that you would be aligned, which you've already done that work to assess that in order to invite them to be a speaker on your summit, then yes, you should lean the other way, too, right. Like I was just sharing on a podcast on one of my my podcasts on entrepreneur school, about how I landed a speaking opportunity in Nashville. So I am so excited about this, and it'll be done by the time this episode airs. But I saw that a friend of mine was speaking at this event. And I was like, that sounds really cool. So I started following them on social media. And I started kind of engaging with the content of the event host and creating a little bit of a relationship there like you know, by sharing their stuff and, and then all of a sudden they did a call for speakers. And I was like, Yep, I'm applying. I want to talk I want to talk to that crowd. I want to be at that event. I want to go to Nashville. And then when the application closed, I reached out to my friend who was already on the speaker roster, and said, Hey, I've applied, can you give a recommendation for me, because that is leveraging relationships. And I don't know how to say that in a way. That's like, there's nothing slimy about that she was happy to do that, because she knew that I could bring value. And she has had experiences with me. I've been on her podcast and vice versa. And all of those things, and that just becomes like, who knows? Who, who you need to know, to get to where you want to go?
Yep. As far as, that's how it works, right? And like, I'm thinking of the time people have asked me for things and like the give and take away, I never think anything bad of it. It's like, Yep, I can do that. Or no, I can't do that. But I don't think anything negative like, Oh, they're just trying to use me. It's like, oh, no, this is how this is how business works. It adds value for my people. And for this person who's pitching me.
And you know, think of it I think that the way that we got connected initially was that I was doing a collab with somebody else. And I asked her for recommendations on other people to reach out to and she introduced us. It was like, it was Dolly?
Oh, yeah, of course, it was Dolly.
Anybody that Dolly sends my way like Yes. So again, those relationships, and that is what you're focusing on, when it comes to visibility is building, like I would call this relationship based visibility, not visibility for the sake of visibility, because there is no point in just getting exposure. Like it's not just about the number of times that you show up somewhere. It's about how connected you're getting to the right people. And so one of the important pieces when you're thinking about your visibility tour is making sure that you're capturing leads, that you actually have a way of bringing people into your world. So you're not like I equate this to, you could go in a parade if you want for your business, and you can wave your little flag. But that's so nice that everybody saw you and your flag. And you have no way of knowing who was there at the parade watching you if you didn't collect their email address, essentially. So having that as part of everything that you do like a clear call to action, where you're inviting people into your world in some way, shape, or form with a lead magnet and event or whatnot. That's a really core component as well.
Yeah, you definitely need to make sure that that is planned out. And I know I used to feel weird about that. Like, I think okay with it if I share a freebie, but I almost feel like it's doing the audience a disservice if you don't, because then you just leave them hanging. They're like, Oh, okay, that was helpful, I guess. And then they're done. Like, I also see it as a service to give them that next step. So I'm glad you brought that up as well. Okay, so I'm curious what this 10 minutes a day looks like. We know who to look for in cloud partners, we know we need to be collecting leads, we kind of know how long the system is what we should be focusing on for like how long we should be focusing on one thing, what are we doing in those 10 minutes?
Okay,
Okay, so this is where we're focusing on trusted touch points. So this is about external facing actions. So things that involve another person, I, there's proof that you did it because there was a witness. There's a witness in your 10 minutes. It was not listening to a podcast, though this link to this podcast is definitely good for you. But it's not getting you visible by you listening to this podcast, you are reaching out to Krista or myself about something that we said here that's getting you visible that's making a connection that's, again, like proof that had happened. So focusing on that relationship building collaboration, and building trust. So those are the kinds of things it's like, inviting someone to have a networking call, like, Hey, I saw you here on this event. Like let's connect or just sending them a DM to start a conversation reaching out to somebody who you admire doing something scary, right? There's everyone has something on their list right now that it's like, you just keep moving it like to the next week to the next week. That thing that thing needs to happen today. You need to just rip off the band aid and do that thing where it's like it's a big pitch somebody that you want to speak on it's it's a summit speaker like your dream guests summit speaker reaching out to your dream guests summit speaker, that is one of the things that you would call as part of your...
Okay, so we are doing big things like that. We're making the big asks, but we're also just making connections, building relationships and things like that.
Yes,
Yes, applying for podcast opportunities or speaking opportunities if you like to do those kinds of things. And again, what's important here is this is about customizing it to you. Because I'm not going to give you a a map that says this is exactly what you need to do. Like for me, I did like in my first visibility tour, I did some media outreach, right, because that's something that is a little more natural to me as somebody with a PR background, and I actually have relationships with our local media. And so I did media outreach, which resulted in amazing coverage. I was featured in our local newspaper and to online articles, I had a radio interview, all just because they actually put myself out there and did that. But it also led to a few, I think I had some numbers here, eight networking calls that I had with people like that I'd met through different events, or if somebody reached out to me on social media, or whatnot. And then we just we had a conversation and from that conversation, agreed to some kind of collaboration, essentially, I applied for I think, 11 speaking opportunities, and my first eight weeks. And that was just like, if you don't put the application in, you don't get the opportunity. So and these are all kind of like future paced things as well, because some of them don't happen right away. Right. Like, I think if we went back, our first conversation with like, four months ago, and here we are now, right, as we were saying, it can take some time to build these things in, and then doing podcast episodes, those, I think I did four podcast episodes or guest trainings within that first eight weeks. And those were again, kind of booked in advance. kind of activities.
I love that you're highlighting the importance of what we might see as those smaller actions. And, you know, because what I teach, I get asked a lot, how do I get pitch to be on more summits? How do I get on more summit stages, because you can't do it, once you see the summit out there, it's too late. If they're already promoting the summit, they need to know you ahead of time. So you need to have had some kind of contact with that. And whether it's through someone else knowing about you and telling them or them just knowing who you are, again, through hearing you on podcasts or through talking to you on social media, or these other things that I feel like are really easy to undervalue. And I totally undervalue it, I have a task on my calendar. Every week. It's called the page it says networking. And I have a few different sub tasks that I'm supposed to do like thank somebody, make an ask, there's five different things. And can I tell you how many times I just move it to the next week without doing anything. But when I do it, there are results all the time. I just need to buckle down and let myself be a little uncomfortable for literally like three minutes. You know, it all pays off when you do it.
Yes. Thank you. That's exactly it. Right? We're like, oh, this seems hard right now. And yes, I get it. Like, sometimes you're like, this isn't the thing I want to do right now. It just reminded me of like, you've heard that phrase, eat the frog first, you know? And so it's just like, what if you just focused on that, and you didn't even do anything else today. And you made that connection and that led to you being featured on a summit, which then led to you getting like 20 new people in your program, that three minutes was definitely worth it. And like the results are almost immediate, because you're gonna get a response, when you're connecting to somebody, right? The response is going to be Yeah, let's set something up, or No, I don't think that's a good fit. And then you have a result because results are not just you when results are learning and lessons and pivots and shifts as well. And you can see this all happening, which is what I love about putting it together into this visibility tour, it really stacks your momentum, and things can really start spiraling into such good things. And so if I can share just a little bit of an example of how that happened for me and my first one and I'm saying my first one because I've literally just been rinsing and repeating and doing this method ever since I started because it's been so effective that I'm not going to stop it's a habit now it's like I go to the gym five times a week because I've been doing that for multiple years. Because in COVID I was like It's wine are working out which one am I focused on.
And so literally it's exactly the same with visibility I focus on that every single day I have a calendar that I write down my what I did this this podcast will be written down today, as well as a networking call I had this morning and so I'm almost doing like multiple things a day now but anyways, don't get overwhelmed. You don't have to do this forever. But if you do it you will figure out what works well for you and you will be able to rinse and repeat it and see the results. So from the media coverage that I got within the first like five days because that was like one of the first things I did I'm like I'm going vague right off the bat, I ended up, my podcast ended up ranking high because the the media coverage was about my podcast turning six months old, and it's so easy to be like that's not very big deal. Like it's not like I got some award. It's didn't seem like it'd be very newsworthy at all, but I managed to make it newsworthy. I got featured and then my podcast boosted and as a podcast host you know you get pitched all the time. Right, yes, all of a sudden, I get this pitch for this guest who piques my attention. I look into him. He's like, mentored by Ed, having these 8000 person events in Utah, like doing big things, multi, multi millionaire. And I'm like, Okay, I'll talk to you. So that led to the guesstimate to lead to like, and the feeling. The thing that's like the subtext of all of this is that there's, there's this feeling of success and momentum that you're almost unstoppable in between these things happening, where it's like, Oh, I know this is happening. And so I'm now brave enough to reach out and ask for bigger opportunities, like I want to get on a stage like that. That's when I found the Nashville opportunity. And I decided to apply for it. And I applied for other like in person events. And it was all because I felt more confident because I was taking actions that were that were creating results. And it all just like compacts itself into just an amazing momentum that will skyrocket you, not only are you getting the visibility benefits, but you're getting the personal growth, and the confidence that comes with taking the actions. And so actually, that's why when I designed a program around these pieces, where there's the visibility tour, and like the how to do it all, there's also a challenge, like there's also a a weekly visibility challenge that makes you do the things so that both these things are coming together, and you're seeing the results from them.
Oh my gosh, I love the summit being a challenge. And I would just with the way my brain works. I love the sound of having a calendar, where I write down what I did, because having a blank day where I missed it would drive me crazy. So I can't skip it. I really love all this. Okay, good stuff about visibility tours, my wheels are turning I'm sure everyone else's are as well. What is like the biggest takeaway you would want people to get from what we talked about today?
I think that where we started our conversation was visibility. Oh, and how we can shift that into Can you shift your mindset to believe that prioritizing relationship based visibility is what can move the needle in your business, we can get so consumed with all the behind the scenes work and the listening to podcast and trying to do it all and the admin and the whatever, we can also get hung up on this need to publish more content and do more social media. And then we feel exhausted and frustrated by the lack of results. But if we can boil it down to taking one action per day in under 10 minutes, and knowing that that in fact is what's going to stack up and create the most epic results for our business. Can we can?
I love that so much! My answers yes. Oh my gosh, I'm pumped. I'm gonna go now I'm ready. Okay, but where can people go to learn more about you and what you offer and how to be in your world in case they want more help and guidance with us?
Yeah, absolutely. I am a open DM on Instagram. I invite people all the time to come and connect with me on on Instagram, @ksco_kelly. And when you actually take me up on that invitation, great things can happen. Somebody did that recently. And then they asked me on my podcast, and now they're gonna be on my podcast and just say and I love when I see people taking the action, and I can, you know, give something back from that as well. And I'll also make sure to share a link to a masterclass where you can learn more about this visibility tour and essentially like how to burn your content calendar and shift into like the strategic intentional actions that will have the most results for your business and your visibility.
I love that. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being on. I will link to all that in the shownotes, Instagram and the master class. This was so great. And thank you so much everyone for tuning in. For shownotes and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the link in the episode description. Now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual summit.
