What appearing on Her Career Unplugged taught me about practising what I preach on visibility

I talk to clients a lot about visibility, building authority and finding opportunities to get their expertise in front of more people, so when I had the chance to appear on Her Career Unplugged I was very aware that I should probably practise what I preach. My episode, From Invisible to Award Winning: Bry Bird’s Visibility Strategy for Neurodivergent Founders, gave me the opportunity to talk about my career, neurodivergence, personal branding and the visibility strategies I now use within Hi This Is Bry.

What particularly interested me was that this was not a podcast specifically for small business owners, which meant I was talking to a much broader international audience than the people I usually create content for. Her Career Unplugged focuses on women and their careers, so somebody listening might run a business, but they could just as easily be employed, thinking about changing careers, trying to become more visible in their industry or wondering why they feel overlooked despite being good at what they do.

I actually really liked that, because so much of what I have learned through building my business started long before I was running one. Feeling invisible, struggling to communicate your value and wondering why good work is not automatically getting you recognised can happen in employment too, and I spent enough years working in creative roles to know that very well.

Why would I want to speak to people who are not my usual customers?

I think businesses can become too rigid about who they are willing to speak to, because we are constantly told to focus on our ideal audience and make sure everything is aimed directly at them. That is useful when you are writing a service page or creating sales content, but I do not think every visibility opportunity has to work that way.

Someone listening to this podcast might never need my services, but something I say could still help them understand their own career differently, give them an idea they take into work or make them feel less alone if they are neurodivergent and struggling with some of the same things I did.

They might also know somebody who does run a business, start one themselves two years from now or remember my name when a completely different opportunity comes up, but even without any of that happening, I still think sharing useful experience has value.

I mentor and speak to younger creatives for a similar reason, because not everything I know has to be turned immediately into a sales opportunity. I have had a strange enough career journey at this point that there are things I can say to somebody who feels out of place in employment, doubts whether they are creative enough or cannot understand why traditional ways of working feel so much harder for them.

See also: What rebuilding my business taught me about sustainability as a neurodivergent founder

Visibility can matter long before somebody is ready to buy from you

This is one of the biggest things I try to explain when I talk about visibility with clients, because people often judge whether something worked by looking for an immediate enquiry underneath it.

Business buyers do not always behave that neatly, somebody can hear you on a podcast, find you again through LinkedIn months later, read one of your blogs and eventually visit your website when they actually need what you sell. They may never like a post or comment on anything during that process, which is why visible social engagement alone gives you a very incomplete picture of whether people are paying attention.

A podcast appearance becomes another place where somebody can encounter your name and hear how you think, and unlike a short social post, a longer conversation gives them much more time to understand you. They hear how you explain your ideas, what you care about and how you reached the conclusions you are sharing, which is particularly useful when your business is based heavily on your expertise.

That is one of the reasons I include a visibility and authority plan within my Complete Brand & Visibility Package. I encourage businesses to think much more broadly than simply posting more often, because recognition can also come through useful content, awards, press features, collaborations and opportunities that introduce their expertise to new audiences.

Why was talking about my career useful outside entrepreneurship?

A lot of what I discussed on Her Career Unplugged can be applied without ever starting a business, because visibility is really about whether other people understand what you contribute.

When I worked in offices and agencies, I was good at the actual work but often felt out of place around everything surrounding it. I was undiagnosed autistic and ADHD for a lot of that period, so I did not understand why unspoken workplace expectations seemed to be much easier for other people, while I was constantly trying to work out what everybody apparently knew that I did not.

Starting Hi This Is Bry gave me far more control over how I communicate my expertise, because I could build my website around what I actually know, write about my thinking and deliberately develop authority around the areas where I am strongest. Somebody in employment cannot necessarily build their career in exactly the same way, but they can become more deliberate about making their contribution visible rather than assuming everybody around them automatically notices it.

That might mean documenting the results of something you worked on, talking more openly about your specialist knowledge, contributing ideas publicly or simply getting better at explaining what you actually did when an opportunity arises. I wish I had understood earlier that being good at your job and making the value of that work visible are separate things, because I spent years expecting the first one to automatically take care of the second.

Podcast features are also a chance to practise your message

There is another reason I think appearing on podcasts is useful, particularly when you sell expertise, because having somebody else ask the questions forces you to explain your ideas in a different way.

When I write a blog, I control the entire structure and can decide exactly what I want to cover, while an interview can suddenly take the conversation somewhere I had not planned. That makes you work out what you actually think in real time, and sometimes you realise that something you say constantly to clients makes sense to a much broader audience than you expected.

It also helps you notice which parts of your story people outside your usual bubble find interesting. I am surrounded by branding, marketing and business strategy every day, so some things feel completely normal to me, while somebody with a completely different career may hear the same experience and pick up on something I had barely considered worth mentioning.

That is useful information for your own content too, because interviews can give you new questions to write about, new ways to explain familiar ideas and a better understanding of which parts of your experience actually connect with people.

Should businesses deliberately look beyond their normal audience?

I think there needs to be a reason for it, but yes, because an audience does not become useless simply because everybody in it is not an immediate prospect.

If I appeared on a podcast completely unrelated to anything I know or care about, there would not be much value for me or the listener, but careers, visibility, confidence and neurodivergence all overlap naturally with my experience even though Her Career Unplugged serves a broader audience than Hi This Is Bry.

That overlap is what matters, because it means I can contribute something useful without awkwardly trying to turn every conversation back towards selling branding services.

It also gives people a different route into understanding my work, because somebody might first encounter me through my career story and only later discover that I run a creative strategy business. Another person may simply take something useful from the episode and never visit my website, which I am also completely fine with.

I want visibility to support the business, but I also like the idea that the things I have learned can travel further than my normal customer base.

This is also why I keep telling businesses to build authority in more than one place

You do not control how somebody first discovers you, which is why I do not want all of my authority sitting on one social media account.

I have my own website and long form content, while awards and press features provide independent recognition, then podcast appearances give people another way to hear my ideas in a completely different format. LinkedIn and other social platforms can then help distribute all of that further, so the same expertise is visible in several places without me having to repeat exactly the same piece of content every time.

That wider footprint becomes particularly useful when somebody researches you, because they can find information about your work from sources beyond your own website. I think that matters more as search changes and people increasingly encounter businesses through AI generated results, recommendations and information pulled together from multiple sources.

The practical part is actually using the feature afterwards, because doing a podcast and never mentioning it again wastes a lot of the opportunity. Add it to your website as readable text, share useful sections through LinkedIn and social media, write about what you learned from the conversation and link back to the original feature, which is exactly what I am doing here.

See also: What being featured on Greatest Hits Radio meant to me as a neurodivergent business owner

You can practise visibility without turning yourself into an influencer

I think this matters because some people hear the word visibility and immediately imagine that they need to post their entire life online, develop an enormous following or become naturally comfortable putting themselves in front of people all the time, I do not want any of those things, and there are plenty of forms of visibility that suit me far better.

Long form writing is probably the easiest because I have space to properly explain myself, podcasts allow me to have a real conversation about something I care about, while features and awards give other people reasons to talk about the work without me having to constantly announce that I am good at it myself.

The useful question is which forms of visibility allow you to communicate your expertise properly and consistently, because the answer will look different depending on the person and the business.

My social media marketing services approach visibility in the same way, because I am much more interested in helping somebody build recognisable expertise than forcing them through whatever content format happens to be fashionable that week.

What should you do when somebody invites you onto a podcast?

I would first look at whether there is a genuine overlap between what you know and what their audience cares about, even if that audience is broader than your usual customer.

If there is, think beyond the immediate sales opportunity and consider what else the appearance could do, because you might reach future customers, introduce your work to a new group of people or simply help someone who needs to hear what you have learned.

Once the feature exists, make use of it properly. Add it to your website in scannable text, link directly to the episode or guest profile, share parts of the conversation through your own channels and think about which ideas deserve their own follow up content.

One conversation can give you far more than one social post if you actually take the time to use it.

FAQs

Are podcast appearances good for business visibility? Podcast features can introduce your expertise to people outside your existing audience and give listeners more time to understand how you think. They can also become useful authority signals when you reference the feature properly across your website and wider content.

Should I appear on a podcast if the audience is not exactly my target market? A broader audience can still be useful when there is a genuine connection between your expertise and what listeners care about, because not every visibility opportunity needs to produce an immediate sale. You may reach future customers, people who can refer you or listeners who simply benefit from what you have learned.

How can I use a podcast appearance after it is published? Add the feature to your website as readable text, share useful ideas from the conversation on social media and LinkedIn, then create follow up content where the discussion raised something worth exploring further. Linking back to the original appearance also gives people a way to hear the full conversation.

Do you need a large following before appearing on podcasts? A useful podcast guest needs something relevant to contribute, while audience size is only one possible factor a host might consider. Clear expertise, an interesting experience and the ability to give listeners something useful can all make somebody worth interviewing.

Why Her Career Unplugged was worth stepping outside my usual audience

Appearing on Her Career Unplugged reminded me why I tell other businesses to look for opportunities that extend beyond the people already following them, because visibility grows when your ideas are allowed to travel into different spaces.

I normally spend my time talking to small business owners about branding, websites, content and authority, but my experience of feeling invisible, navigating neurodivergence and learning how to communicate what I am good at has relevance well beyond entrepreneurship. If somebody listening on the other side of the world feels more confident talking about what they contribute at work, starts recognising that their career does not have to follow the standard route or simply feels less weird for struggling with things other people seem to find easy, then I am very happy that the conversation reached them.

Practising what I preach means being willing to make myself visible too, including in places where there is no neat line between appearing and making a sale, because some opportunities build authority while others create connections or let you share something useful with somebody you would never normally reach.

If you want to look at how visible your own expertise currently is, my free Business Visibility Playbook helps you assess your branding, website, social media and wider authority, so you can see what people actually find when they come across your business.