A Beatle walked into a room and nobody recognised him.
Not literally. But effectively.
Who is this Paul McCartney guy?
In 2015, Kanye West released a song with Paul McCartney. When the track dropped, a wave of younger Kanye fans took to social media asking who this newcomer Paul McCartney was.
The post I remember best went something like this: "I don't know who this Paul McCartney guy is, but I think Kanye's about to give him a career."
One of the most famous musicians who ever lived, invisible to a whole group of people. Simply because he'd never shown up in their world.
His talent didn't change that week. His track record didn't change. The only thing that changed was that, for the first time, he appeared somewhere those fans were already paying attention.
The uncomfortable question
So here's a question worth sitting with for a minute. How many of your ideal clients have never heard of you?
It probably has very little to do with how good you are or how qualified you are. You simply haven't appeared in their world yet.
This is a mistake I see business owners make all the time. They worry about whether people trust them. They agonise over whether people like them. They polish the website, rewrite the About page and fret over the tone of their posts.
But trust and liking come later. You can't trust someone you've never heard of. You can't like someone who doesn't exist to you.
The phone in your pocket
I said something similar on LinkedIn back in 2018. Before you can make an impact, people need to know you exist. That phone in your pocket or your bag is the most powerful publishing device the world has ever known. Not long ago, people would have paid a fortune to broadcast to their audience. Now you can do it for free.
There's a line I come back to often: you can be the best in the world, but if I don't know you exist, I can't buy from you.
That's why I bang on about marketing starting the conversation. There's no conversation with someone who's never seen you.
So where do your ideal clients actually spend their attention?
Be honest with yourself. Where they actually are, which may be different from where you'd like them to be. It might be a particular platform. A podcast they listen to on the school run. A networking group, a trade magazine, an industry event, a local Facebook group.
That's where you need to show up. Consistently. Repeatedly. Until you exist to them.
No need to be everywhere at once. Pick one of the three and commit to turning up there every week for the next three months. Share something useful. Tell a story. Answer questions. Be a familiar face.
Everything else follows from that. Liking, trust, referrals, sales. None of it can happen until the right people know you're there.
Paul McCartney got a whole new audience because he turned up in their feed. Where could you turn up next?
