Please note this transcript is generated by AI - apologies for any mistakes
Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Hello and welcome back to another episode of PR Made Simple. Now this week I am going to try not to rant because I I had a networking call last week with an amazing group of founders. Like the women in this group are so incredible and we all introduced ourselves, said what we do and then we all like say if we've got something that we need from other members or something that other people can help us with and I would say about a third of the
women on that call said that they were focusing on their visibility and that they wanted some help, whether it was introductions to corporate or press or finding some ways to get more podcasts. But visibility was the buzzword. So many people said it. And obviously, as you can imagine, I'm sitting there going, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you do this as a female founder. But.
What really has struck me, and I've been thinking about this so much, and it's not just from that group, from what I've been seeing over the last six months, which I have to say, I predicted this. In December, I wrote a piece for startups about authority over visibility. I could see that the buzzword of this year was going to be visibility.
And I think that a lot of female founders have fallen into what I'm calling the passive visibility trap. And I'm going to talk to you in more detail about this.
I'm going to give you an audit to help you look at how you're approaching your own visibility in inverted commas. And then I'm going to also give you some ways to actually take proactive action. ⁓ Because we are being bombarded left, right, and center with the word visibility. And I know that lots of you listening to this will have had it on your to-do list, whether it's your word of the year or just something that you are trying to be more visible in your business. Okay.
that the word visibility is being used by so many different people that actually it's quite confusing for you as a founder to know which elements, which areas of visibility are the most important for you.
So we've been told that we need to focus on visibility, but I think that it's really confusing. I think we don't know what that actually means in practice. So it becomes a really broad, vague goal. I want to be visible. I want people to know who I am.
And what happens next is that you then take a passive approach to it. You wait, you hope, you ask in a network if anyone has any contacts. You wait to be tagged, to be recommended, to be introduced, to be noticed. So this might kind of present itself if you have gone into a networking group and said, I'd like to be on more podcasts. I can talk about X, Y, Z. Let me know if anybody wants me. Those posts very rarely lead to opportunities because what you're not being
with it is specific and intentional we're being passive we're kind of putting ourselves out there but only like really broadly and in a way that's not really going to lead us to get rejected or to put ourselves out on the line to actually be bold and to make those really
big moves, okay? And I totally understand why we're doing it, okay? Because on the surface, it looks like progress. It looks like you're doing stuff that's going to help you get visible. But I can tell you, and I'm sure that you will feel this within your own business,
nine times out of 10, that's not actually doing the work that's gonna shift the dial for you. And this is exactly what was happening on this call that I was on. A room full of brilliant, capable women
essentially asking the room to do the work for them and occasionally there will be someone that says I know someone here I know someone here because you know people do like to be helpful but that's not you working on your visibility
just because you're saying it out loud that you want to get more visible thinking about it saying it out loud it's not the same as actually doing the work that's going to move the needle for you what i'm calling here now it
Passive visibility does not work because it relies entirely on someone else doing something on your behalf. And the activity that does feel productive, the stories, you're getting new headshots, more frequent posting on social media, is often performance rather than substance, okay? Showing up more doesn't automatically make you known for anything. It doesn't get you known. It gets you seen briefly but forgotten about just as quickly because nothing about it
that you actually know what you're talking about. It's not doing anything to build authority and that is what actually shifts the dial for you, okay? Authority building activity, not visibility activity. And there is a real difference. Visibility activity is showing up. Authority building activity is demonstrating expertise, being quoted as the go-to expert in an article, being the person a journalist comes back to because you delivered value the first time, going deep into what you actually know about.
about
on a podcast rather than just a sound bite on a reel. And that is the distinction that I talk about all the time, visibility versus authority. Visibility gets you seen for a moment, authority gets you known for what you do. And when you focus on visibility, you're asking, how do I get seen more? Okay. But when you're focused on authority building activity, you're looking at how can I prove that I know what I'm talking about in front of the right audience? What is the work that I can do to build trust, to build credibility, to own that expertise?
and that is a huge difference. Okay, can you see the difference there?
What I want to do before we get to what to do instead, I want you to actually do an audit of what you've been doing because I think a lot of you listening to this will recognise this because I've been having this conversations in my DMs where I posted a slightly ranty ⁓ Insta stories about it the other day. Question one, look back at what you're posting, okay? Was any of it actually demonstrating expertise or is it just you showing up, okay?
Question two, have you said yes to opportunities? or have you been hoping that opportunities are finding you? Are you pitching yourself? Are you putting yourself out there or are you being broad and not particularly intentional and saying, I want to do more podcasts, but actually are you pitching yourself for specific podcasts that you want to be on?
Third piece, if a journalist or podcast host searched your name right now, would they find evidence that you know what you're talking about, about you have areas of expertise that you want to get known for? Are you aligning yourself with conversations of topics of areas of interest within your sector, within your industry, within your world? Or are you being very broad brush on the types of work that you do and the types of clients that you work with?
And question four, in the last month, how many pictures have you actually sent? Not thought about sending.
not just posted in a group, I want to do more of this, how many specific researched pitches have you sent? And if most of your answers here are pointing towards waiting, hoping, showing up, rather than intentionally, proactively pitching and demonstrating your expertise, then I would suggest that you are in the passive visibility trap, okay? And you think that you are doing the visibility work.
that is gonna move the dial for your business and you're not, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the passive visibility trap is keeping you stuck, But the good news is this is completely fixable, okay? Because you've started, you've taken the steps towards what we need to be doing to actually make this work count. And this is what I want you to do instead.
Moving from passive to proactive. I'm going to call this your proactive authority shift because that's exactly what it is. Moving from passive visibility to proactive authority building, Step one is getting clear on what you actually want to get known for. Not vaguely visible. Known is something specific. And until you have this, everything else is harder than it needs to be. Step two, identify exactly who you need to get in front of. Okay? Not everyone. It doesn't need to be everyone.
the specific audience that matters for your business. Where do they hang out? What do they read? What listen to? What are they influenced by? And step three, I want you to go micro looking at the right opportunities that are going to help you to demonstrate your expertise, not just show up a podcast where you can go deep, a publication where you can comment with real insight, a speaking opportunity where you can properly claim and explain your thinking, not just an eight second reel on Instagram.
And step four is pitching yourself directly, intentionally. I keep using that word. I think it's the real difference between passive visibility and proactive authority. And this is the step that everyone skips because it's the uncomfortable one. You know, you're not waiting to someone to reach out to you. You're not hoping that someone introduces you. You're sending the email yourself. You're taking this into your own hands.
Pippa Goulden (09:59)
But here's the bit that trips a lot of people up even once they get to this stage. And it's something that I want you to really think about. Sending an email is not enough on its own, It's not just about messaging a podcast host saying, I'd love to come on your show or telling a potential collaborator, I wanna work with you. It's too broad, okay? Even though it feels like you're taking action, what works here is specificity. And that is so important when we're doing this work. You need to be really clear.
about exactly what you can add to that conversation. What value are you bringing to their audience specifically? Why does this particular podcast, this particular journalist, this particular publication need to hear from you right now on this topic? What value are you adding? What are you gonna bring to the table that is going to be of benefit to their audience? And you don't want to make them do any work.
So sending a broad brush email saying, I'd love to work with you is just too much for them. They're not gonna be able to think about all the different things that you could do with them, right? You need to be getting specific when it comes to pitching this stuff, right? And that's why those emails or those posts in communities where you're saying, I wanna go on people's podcasts don't really work because you're not being specific enough about what value you can bring to their own specific audience, right? I don't want somebody
who wants to be on any podcast to come on this, I want people who have something to add to my listeners, right? Who can add to the conversations that I'm having, who can help inspire and motivate you to do this work yourself, okay? So I'm not going to look at a post in a networking group and think, and that's occasionally, okay, occasionally that it might happen, but it's very rare that I'm gonna look at those posts and go, yeah, that's exactly what I've been waiting to happen, right?
no, it doesn't work like that. I want you to want to be on my podcast. I don't want you to be on every other podcast that might happen and help you to get out there, right? We need to get specific. And that's the difference between a pitch that gets ignored and a pitch that gets a yes. Passive Visibility says, I'd love to be featured. Proactive Authority says, here's exactly what I can offer your audience and why it matters to them right now. And the founders who are gonna...
win when it comes to this work are the ones who are focusing on proactive authority.
Pippa Goulden (12:22)
You're taking radical responsibility for getting
this and shifting the dial for your business and that shift from passive to proactive is what we are here for
If you have caught yourself recently saying, I want to get more visible in a networking group or to your business coach or just to yourself, or if you're thinking, oh, I wish someone would introduce me. I wish, you know, someone else can open doors for me. I want you to pause on that because that is passive visibility and it's keeping you stuck. You need to be opening those doors for yourself, not waiting for somebody to open them for you. Okay. This is 2026. are.
opening those doors ourselves people. The shift is simple even if it's not always comfortable and I know that this work can feel really uncomfortable. We cover it, we covered this mindset piece in my one-to-one accelerator, in my membership, in my get known sprint, in all the work I do because whether you are a newbie to this or a newbie to business or whether you are a six or seven figure business owner there will be elements of this that make you feel uncomfortable every time
you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone it will feel uncomfortable. I did it last week I pitched for two things that were really beyond my comfort zone okay and I did it anyway because I've got the tools in place I've done the work that allows me to move through that
uncomfortableness, right? You don't have to sit there waiting to feel ready because you will never feel ready. You'll never get onto it. But I want you to get really clear on what you want to get known for and get clear on who needs to hear it, who needs to know about your expertise and your knowledge and who needs to hear from you about that. And then you need to find those opportunities that are going to allow you to demonstrate that expertise, not just your face, not just showing up, not just posting in a networking group. ⁓
and I want you to go and make it happen for yourself. So stop waiting for an introduction, send the fucking email and if you want help doing that properly, you know where to find me because in the second half of 2026, can we just make a promise that we are gonna stop being passive? We are gonna stop.
Waiting for things to happen to us. Okay, because the opportunities are there I'm seeing it all the time in my DIY PR membership with my one-to-one accelerator clients in my get-known sprint That's happening at the moment. They are going out and doing this work proactively for themselves and they are making it happen and there's absolutely no reason that you can't too they are just Doing the work. Okay rather than thinking about it. So no more passive visibility. Okay, do not get stuck in the passive visibility
trap. Let's get on, let's send the fucking email and I will see you again soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.
