Visibility isn't always about like this, public,

viewable, visible, being out there. This is about building

those relationships with the right people. Any coffee chat

done well, it can lead to podcast invites, referral

opportunities, affiliates, bundles, partnerships, or even

just someone who is now your friend that you voice memo when

you're in your head about your next launch.

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.

Hey there, and welcome back to another bite sized episode in

our summer strategy snack series, where we're ditching

social media for the season, but we're not ditching visibility.

And also you don't have to ditch social media. It's just

something I'm doing for this summer, an experiment that I am

implementing, and I will tell you all about it when the summer

is over on the podcast. And if you want to follow along, I am

sending out weekly emails to my list, kind of a little diary of

what my social media detox has been going like. So if you have

been following along. You know, I'm in the middle of this

experiment, and I'm really focusing on strategies that

build real connection and keep my business visible in a

sustainable way, and one of my favorite ways to do that is

through coffee chats or networking calls with other

people. Now, I know some people are saying you don't need them

to grow your business, or how to avoid coffee chats, because

sometimes that turns into 45 minutes of wasted time. But

we're not going to do that.

So here is my hot take. Coffee chats are actually one of the

most underrated ways to meet collaborators, potential

business friends, and even open the door to long term visibility

opportunities. These are not discovery calls. So they are not

about pitching, they are not about sales, they're not about

getting clients. They are about people and relationships. So

before we dive into this episode, quick reminder, if you

are looking for a way to build your own visibility strategy

that feels clear and doable. Make sure that you grab the 90

day visibility sprint starter kit. I don't know why I can't

make names of things shorter, but that's what it's called the

90 day visibility sprint starter kit. It walks you through how to

create a custom visibility plan that fits your season. The word

visibility is very hard for me to say today, for some reason,

so sorry about that. Stick with me. The link is in the show

notes, and you can get it for free because you are a podcast

listener, and I appreciate you. So let's get into making coffee

chats actually count.

So again, my hot take is that coffee chats are for

relationships. They're not for sales. So these are not

discovery calls or consults or whatever thing we are labeling

our sales calls as there is no agenda except for connection.

And some of my best opportunities have come from

these casual chats that just have no expectations other than

creating a win, win situation for both people on the call.

They're powerful for nurturing existing contacts, meeting new

aligned people, and ultimately building that long term

visibility from momentum. So I want to talk today about two

things. One is how to find the right people to have these

conversations with, and the other is what to actually talk

about on the call to make it short, efficient, effective and

a win, win for both parties.

So first of all, finding the right people. You can look for

new connections, right? This is how we can build relationships

with new people. So perhaps social media followers, people

who you've chatted with in the DMS a couple times, or people

who you're following, who you want to make a collaboration

with. Maybe they're people from. Zoom calls like digital

networking events that you might go to, virtual networking

events, or even programs that you're in. I know just being

active in the chat, sometimes on a call that I literally pay to

be part of, has led to making connections, and collaborative

relationships have formed, or other communities that you're

in, right? The opportunity is all about deepening connection

with new people. The other group that you can think about is

reconnecting with people that you've already met. So if you've

been to a networking event or in person conference or something

like that, and you made a connection. Take that the next

step. Build that relationship with a coffee chat. When you get

home, when you meet people, sometimes we forget to continue

that conversation. It's just a lot of lost opportunities. So

let's deepen the relationship, and especially if somebody

referred a connection to you, like from somebody else that you

know, this is another place that you can really reconnect through

a coffee chat.

Now, what you want to make sure you're doing is looking for

alignment. So there's three areas that I like to focus on

here. One is shared values. So right away, like, I don't know,

I am a rather intuitive person. I can read people's energy. I

have a lot of energy, so that vibes, or doesn't vibe with

people as well. When you get on a call, you need to assess that.

And we're assessing our shared values, like, are we kind of on

the same path, on the same mission. Do we believe the same

types of things? This is important when determining

whether you can have an effective collaborative

relationship. It's about humans, right? Sharing values is so

important in figuring that out. And then the next level is your

shared audience. So this is always a litmus test that you

want to run anything through is like, are we talking to the same

people? Because we can't build collaborations if we're not so

but that, to me, is still secondary to having shared

values with somebody, because once we're aligned at that

level, every opportunity really opens up. And then I also say,

like, energy is about assessing how we want to each show up in

the world, because there can't be like, a conflict in what that

is perceived as by the audience that you are communicating with.

So I know that we're not all on the same level. I don't mean

like two high energy people are only a good fit for each other,

but a good balance of energy that flows, and that's just

something that you can really only feel and assess by having a

one on one conversation with somebody else. So you sometimes

can know people by reputation, but when you get on a call with

them, then you really know how you connect and what feels good,

and this is really where those spidey senses come in. This is

all about using that intuition and assessing the other person.

I keep saying assessing, but it's like just reading them and

connecting with them, and that's why we need to have these one on

one conversations before we go into doing bigger things

together. When you're thinking about reaching out, it's very

simple to just send a casual message. If you're using social

media to connect or email right, reference something specific to

show intent, like pay attention to what they're doing. This is

about collaboration and mutual benefit, not just I see that you

host a podcast, I'd love to connect to see if I could be a

good fit for you. This is always about Win, win for both people,

and my pro tip is to have a scheduling link set up so you

want a 20 minute call that you have open in your calendar, and

you use a tool. My preference is tidy Cal. Tidy Cal is a very

inexpensive tool. I will put a link in the show notes for you

to get it. It's a AppSumo affiliate program, where you can

get it for 29 bucks for a lifetime. I used to pay probably

150 to $200 a year for Calendly, and it's exactly the same, and

it's $29 forever. So you're welcome if you're paying for

Calendly right now, because you're going to want to switch

to this, but essentially having that to make it simple, so that

you can have that connection, can send them a link. I

literally just did this before I got on and recorded this, I had

reached out to somebody via response to one of their

newsletters. Hey, we haven't talked in a long time. Love to

catch up and see what you're up to. Looks like a lot of. Great

things, because she was talking about all these events that

she's hosting, and I love that. So yeah, she's like, Yeah, send

me your scheduling, right? That's the way to book, because

we're not going back and forth. Is Wednesday at four, good time

for you. And what's your time zone conversion and all that

stuff. So just make it really simple. That's very respectful

of time, and it really sets the tone for the professional

conversation, but also very personal, right?

So then let's talk about what to actually put on the agenda in

order to create a win, win conversation with somebody else.

I love to just start with curiosity, asking about what

they're focusing on, what they're passionate about, what

current projects are they doing? Where are there some

opportunities like, I just want to see what they light up about.

That's a place for me to really tap into the energy and tap into

the understanding of their audience, and also figure out,

you know, if we're aligned from a values perspective, all of

those things come from just asking good questions, and then

make sure that you have an opportunity to share context

about yourself. And again, this is not a pitch. This is just,

this is what I'm doing right now. This is what I'm looking

for. And if you set the tone of the conversation that way, it's

absolutely reasonable to have that conversation that what

we're doing is trying to build a win win opportunity for us. And

so you tell me what you do, I'll tell you what I do. We'll see

how it can fit together. And then look for some overlap, your

common experiences, your shared audience, and think about the

potential collaborations that you could create out of that,

whether it's somebody's a podcast host or having an event,

an in person event or an online event, or if you just want to do

an email list swap or something like that, and consider your own

generosity. What kind of a resource or insight or even

additional connection might you be able to share with this

person who took 20 minutes out of their day to talk to you as

well. And then I want to recommend you stay open, right?

A great chat may lead to something on the spot. You may

end that conversation with two podcast episodes booked, which

is generally My goal when I'm talking to people about being on

my show, I want to get a podcast interview booked with them as

well, or some other kind of way that I can support their

audience. Or sometimes it's just a planting of a seed, right?

And, oh yeah, I'm working on building something in six months

or next quarter, or whatever it is. And sometimes they're just

not as quick of a turnaround or an automatic win, but that can

be a goal that you have when you get onto the conversation, is

what kind of a collaboration you're thinking about doing. So

have that in mind before you get on the call, and then be open to

the brainstorm and where the conversation goes.

And then I want to remind you to follow up. Send a thank you.

Mention something from your conversation. Just keep the

touch points going. This is all about building and maintaining

and deepening relationships. I talk about this all the time,

relationships, relationships, relationships. That is what you

want to focus on for your visibility, because it is the

key to turning your outreach, your one sided efforting,

pitching, applying, reaching out into invitations. Once you start

building relationships with people, you become Top of Mind

with them, and they start recommending you, sending you

invitations to their things and other things that they're

participating in, because they know who you are, what you're

all about, and that you're good. So the thing is, visibility

isn't always about like this, public, viewable, visible, being

out there. Sometimes it just comes from being in a room, a

virtual one, even, or, like, I didn't even say, like, go have a

real coffee with a real human love. That always a good way to

continue a relationship, right? But this is about building those

relationships with the right people in a coffee chat done.

Well. It can lead to podcast invites, referral opportunities,

affiliates, bundles, partnerships, or even just

someone who is now your friend that you voice memo when you're

in your head about your next launch.

And if you want to make this kind of intentional connection

part of your strategy, definitely make sure you have

grabbed my 90 day visibility sprint starter kit. It is free

and simple, and it gives you that focused plan to make these

visibility moves feel way more doable. You will find the link

to this resource in the show notes. And next week, we are

talking about a strategy that most people know they. Should be

doing, but avoid like the play and why doing it well could be

the visibility unlock that you have been missing, leaving you

on a cliffhanger. I will talk to you next week.