Visibility is More Important than Ability

When I was growing up, hiding was essential—when playing hide and seek that is! And believe me, I was good at hiding. But in business—especially in the 21st Century, being visible is incredibly crucial to your success. As personal branding expert Chris Mureithi wrote in a recent interview, “You don’t exist—if we don’t see you, if we don’t hear you.”

I learned some of the most important things about personal promotion, branding, communications, and marketing while serving as National Marketing Director for Hobbs Herder Advertising and Design, the top advertising and training agency for real estate agents in the nation. In my countless workshops on personal promotion to agents, one of my key talking points for every presentation was “Visibility is more important than ability.” Now, I can tell you…on that one point…I normally got pushback.

So, my natural counter to that objection was to ask the most experienced and successful agents in the room to raise their hands. When they did, I asked them this question, “Despite your success, all your qualifications, and the excellent job you do…did anyone you know ever forget you were in business? Did they list their home with someone else instead of you?” Having been a successful real estate agent, I knew their answer!

As this objection was eliminated by the same people who raised it, I followed up with one truth. No matter how good you may be at your profession, if people can’t find you…can’t remember you when they have a need…they will use someone else. And in real estate, the newer agents who took the time to develop solid communications initiatives and invested in personal marketing which made them more visible were the ones doing more business. It’s a fact that all businesses need to appreciate—you are either visible and useful or invisible and unable to fulfill their needs.

So, stop playing hide and seek and instead become the most obvious and easiest person to find in your field of expertise.