Summer Off Social: Wanna Try It With Me?

Visibility is a summer job. So let's talk about why the most strategic thing that you can do for your business right now isn't waiting until September to show up. It's actually laying the groundwork so that your fall is full of momentum and not scrambling.

This is the entrepreneur school podcast, where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to entrepreneur school.

Okay, I have a crazy idea, but I think you are going to love it. I have always been the kind of person who is speaking about visibility without relying on social media. And I had a conversation this morning with a woman who literally said, social media is I hate it. I don't like being there. It stresses me out, and then after I post, I feel summoned back to my phone, like I'm attached to it in order to actually respond to the people who are connecting with me. There, I was like, Yes, I know. So I thought, What about could we challenge ourselves to take the summer off social so I want to talk today a little bit about visibility and why it is a summer job, but how you can do it without being on social media. And I am going to publicly now declare on entrepreneur school that I will be taking the summer off of social media. I feel like I was afraid to do it before, because I use it, not necessarily to post. I certainly don't use it to try and attract new people. I just use it as a place to stay connected and have DM conversations with potential collaborators and relationships that I'm building, because I do think it's an effective tool for that, but I'm willing to try this experiment, and if you want to do it too, I'm going to outline in this session how we can think about visibility differently and why summer is visibility season, but you don't have to do it on social media. Okay? It's gonna be a fun ride. Come along. I'm sorry I'm like energy level 12 today, because I've had some really great connections this morning.

And just like a quick side note, clearly, I'm having an impromptu conversation with you today. Quick side note, this week, I worked out of my office like I worked in a coffee shop for the morning or the better part of the day One day, which I haven't done in a long time. And I was actually on a call with a former collaboration partner and somebody who I've done podcasting with, who wanted me to be on her podcast. And I was talking to her about AI tools and how I'm using them, and, well, how it's my newest obsession, and we're definitely going to get into some of the latest and greatest details on that in this episode. But this woman overheard me having this conversation in the coffee shop and slipped me her business card and told me to contact her. So I reached out to her, and this morning, we had a conversation about potentially working together. And I just thought, isn't that just the proof that if me literally going to a coffee shop and having a conversation with somebody else is enough to attract a potential client, then why are we beating ourselves up, feeling like we have to produce all of this content all of the time and be on social media and be here and be there and be all over the place, when it can actually be that simple. So if you're thinking about summer right now, and you're like, how do I want my summer to look I know for me, it's limited work hours. My kids are in only a few camps this year where I'll have, like, full days to do things that I require quiet for, such as podcast recording, but I want to be able to get on my bike and ride through the mountains or go paddle boarding and spend the afternoon in the sunshine, or get a round of golf in, or take my kids somewhere fun and have some quality time with them before they don't want to hang out with me anymore because they're getting older. Oh my gosh, Summer, right? Like, what is your dream of summer? What do you want that. To look like it's really important to have a vision for that, and then I know it's easy to think like you just want to let go of everything and do those things, but I have to let you out in a secret visibility is a summer job. So let's talk about why the most strategic thing that you can do for your business right now isn't waiting until September to show up. It's actually laying the groundwork so that your fall is full of momentum and not scrambling. And I'm going to share the story that I've shared a few times on the show because I have PTSD from it. Clearly a few summers ago, I made the bold decision to not put my kids in summer camp like normally I would have them scheduled every single week so that they were taken care of, so that I didn't have to worry about them. But this summer, I think we're going on our third summer with limited camps. So would be three years ago, they didn't go to camp, so they were still young, and they still required a lot of attention. They were constantly asking for snacks or play dates or take them to the park or go here, or buy them a Slurpee or go to the splash pad or whatever. And I'm trying to run a business, so I'm just constantly dealing with that mom guilt of like my kids are home and I can't get anything done, and I only have these little pockets of time to be able to try and, you know, kick the soccer ball forward, move the needle, as we say, on the business stuff. So I knew I had the choice to either let that summer chaos throw me totally off my game. Just say, Screw it. I'm gonna just hang out with my kids. That's all I have time for and energy for. Or I could figure out a way to stay consistent without fully losing my mind.

So that's when I created my 10 minute a day visibility system. It was born out of necessity, for sure, but very much rooted in strategy. And it worked, and that is why I keep telling the story, and that is why I continue to use the system for myself and all of my clients to this day, 10 minutes a day, connecting with people who you can collaborate with by doing things like applying for podcast opportunities, speaking opportunities and summits, if that's what you like to do, submitting your lead magnets to bundles that are aligned that is high ROI actions. And for me, it's resulted in, like for the first summer that fall, I had podcast interviews, lined up, speaking gigs, booked, collaborations ready to go. Email subscribers coming in on autopilot because I took the time to set those things up, not because I launched hard in September, but because I planted the seeds throughout June, July and August. That is what I want for you. So most people don't realize that the future visibility is built at least a quarter of the year ahead of time, right? So your fall visibility, it comes through June, July, August, even May, where we are right now. That's when people are organizing. That's when podcast hosts are booking episodes. It's when speaking events are finalizing their lineups. It's when people are quietly noticing who's showing up when everyone else is checked out. And showing up doesn't mean burning out, and it doesn't mean being glued to your phone while you're at the beach. I also remember having this beautiful idea of, Oh, I'm just gonna, like, start Facebook ads and they're gonna make me money while I'm sitting here at the lake. That was stressful, too.

So this is a much better method when you have a system that lets you stay visible in 10 minutes a day. So you can know that your system is working for you while you're out at the splash pad or you're sipping rose on the patio tomorrow, I was invited by some of my girlfriends to go for lunch on a Friday. And yes, I can do that, because I know that the moves that I've made this week already are pushing me forward and securing opportunities for me so that I don't have to be hustling all of the time. So you want to take in that gorgeous summer sunset, spend some time out on the lake, go water skiing, go boating, go do whatever you do wherever you are in the world, if you are in a beach place or a pool place, amazing. I know that you can spend your day that way. So here is what's different about visibility simplicity. In 2025 we have AI, right? And I've been talking about this on a lot of the episodes lately, but when you leverage AI properly and you actually calibrate it to your brand, then you can confidently know you really only need 10 minutes a day to land strategic visibility opportunities.

What if you could like here? What I hear a lot people are like, I need to post on social media, because that's just the easy thing to do, right ease in terms of it's on your phone. You know how to create a post. You can write a caption and have a picture or a video and boom, it's done. Versus it seems like a bigger lift for you to do something more strategic, like apply for a podcast, pitch yourself for a collaboration, because that requires just a different set of materials, but if you actually get your AI to know you enough, it can help you produce those things in the same amount of time as it does take you to do a social media post, and the ROI is way higher. So I have built a process that is now part of the way that I'm working with clients, called the brand calibrator. And this is a process and a tool that actually will analyze everything that you've put out so far to create a really strong brand voice assessment, ideal client understanding and clarity, your tone, your strategy, and all the pieces that you need to be able to do things like write me a bio. Write me a different version of that bio. Write me a bio specific for this podcast, and it can produce those things really quickly and sound on point and just like you amazing. So that allows you to actually show up in the right places with the right message and use the right support tools. That's time and energy you don't have to spend on social media. I am daring you to take the summer off of social media. I'm going to do it with you. We're going to start a challenge, and I'll get it out there soon, but it's going to be hashtag summer off social. I'm going to switch my social media to like a few pictures that are pinned. A friend of mine calls it a nine grid. Shout out. Ruby Starrett, she helps with those. If you need help making one of those, please reach out to me and I'll connect you with her.

But this is what I'm all about. And my new beta offer that I'm calling the visible AF authority amplifier sounds fun is for solopreneurs who are done winging their visibility but want to be seen as the go to in their space. Build credibility, build a brand that actually results in conversions. Use AI powered tools to support you in your outreach and leverage your wins for more exposure, and then create a habit out of showing up with confidence, clarity and consistency. There's no va army required. You don't have to hire a team. It's amazing what we can do with the tools that we have at our fingertips and the way that they're evolving so much on a daily basis. My mind is constantly blown. I was having a conversation this morning about how to take this concept and build it into something that can actually like learn and grow with you, versus what the limitations of some custom gpts currently are, and I now know how to do that. So I'm so excited for where this is going and how it's going to support you to grow be seen and be more visible and land the clients and the opportunities that you want, without having to spend hours and hours and hours or hiring people and the expense of that, you don't have to ask yourself, are you going to post today? You don't need to go down that social media spiral. You just have a system that works.

So I want to leave you with a bonus tip. This is what I call the future you mindset. So imagine it's September. You got your kids, the new backpacks, the indoor running shoes, the pencil cases, the whatever else they need, the school supply list is checked off. You're so organized you're patting yourself on the back because you had extra time. You didn't have to spend all summer on social media, trying to make sure you could DM people and try and convert them into clients so their kids are heading back to school. If that's where you are in your life, or whatever. There's always a reset of some kind, a new routine that's starting in September, right? But instead of scrambling, I'm going, okay, better dust off the laptop and get back to my business. You've already got clients on your roster. You're booked out. You have podcast interviews lined up, or speaking gigs confirmed, if that's what you wanted. Opportunities are rolling in constantly because you stayed consistent when everybody else disappeared. So the version of you, future you, is high fiving the heck out of May you for putting in that work and dedicating yourself to this process. It's like washing your bedding and then actually putting it back on the bed before you're ready to crawl in at 10:30pm I know future. Kelly is always proud of herself for doing that, because the flip side is, if you don't take the action now, September rolls around, suddenly, you're feeling behind. Everyone's gearing up for launches. Events are kicking off, and you're stuck playing catch up, feeling like you lost momentum before the game even started. And I want more for you.

So if you want to stop feeling like you're just ghosting your audience or completely shutting down every time life gets a little full, or you want to change your pace for the season, and you want to start building visibility that sticks, and I want to chat with you now, I'm not going to send you to Instagram, because that would be way too ironic, so I want you to send me an email kelly@ksco.ca and just type visible AF, and I will share details with you. We'll see if it's a good fit, and you can snag one of the beta spots before they're gone, because I am going to promise you this future. You, September, you she's gonna be so glad that you started this now. All right, I will be back next week with another episode to keep our visibility train rolling, but for now, I would love it if you would screenshot this and share it with a friend or forward it to someone else who needs a summer plan that doesn't involve burnout or social media, and don't forget, please vote for us in the women in podcasting awards. The link is below in the show notes, and I'll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to entrepreneur school. Before you go, I have a small favorite task. Our show has been nominated again for a women in podcasting award, and I'm so excited. This is a community voted awards program, and your vote could make all the difference. So if the show has inspired you or helped you feel seen or supported your business in any way, I would love for you to take 30 seconds to go and vote. You will find the link in the show notes, or head to entrepreneurschool.ca/podcast, and you'll see a big pink button where you can submit your vote. Please do it before May 31 thanks so much.