STORY: The Undercover Cop + Me | Visibility

Postcards from Rethink Central

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Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:

Have you ever felt a bit odd about showing yourself online? Being all ‘Look at me! Buy my thing!’ I know a lot of my clients do.

My name is Liz Scully. I’m a business strategist. And I do hear this all the time.

Let me tell you about the only time I felt it was ok for someone with a business to not show themselves online.

I was in New York doing – as strange as it sounds – training on hostage negotiation with somebody who had trained the FBI and the CIA’s team in that.

It’s actually very useful for coaching and it’s extremely useful for working with clients.

So, there I am in the hostage negotiation training, which was fabulous.

I’ve got a little desk and a chum sitting next to me. We get talking during the lunch break and he tells me he’s a policeman now, but he used to be much more involved in the sort of work we’ve been talking about during the training.

Fascinating.

He also has a business flipping houses and doing brand stuff.

He said, ‘I know, I know, I should really show some more stuff online. I should be more visible.’ To which I give my usual reply as it’s a regular thing I talk about:  ‘Yes, you should. You gotta get out there. You got to be visible. You got to have a personal brand.’

Then he says ‘The thing is, Liz, I used to be an undercover cop.’ 

‘Oh.’ I say, intrigued.

He continues ‘Yeah, for about 2 or 3 years I was embedded in drugs gangs and I’m sort of worried

if I present myself online one of them might find me and kill me.’

He had a solid point so I said ‘Okay, this might be the only legitimate reason to not have a personal brand. Can I use you as an example?’ Also, ‘Why are you showing me your phone?’

He was showing me pictures of himself. A tall, quite good-looking guy, clean-shaven. And he showed me pictures of him embedded in 2 or 3 different gangs.

You would never have spotted him. He was a completely different person. His body language was different. He had these hideous kind of side beards. Truly, everything about him was different. From the hairline he was using to the way he was standing, how he was slouching, the clothes he wore.

And, of course, it’s not acting. He was living this 24 hours a day. It was like Donnie Brasco. It was astounding.

And this is the bit I really want to share with you:

He said ‘Yeah, I don’t look anything like that’. 

He said ‘saying I can’t be online is bull$ht.’

Because look at me, nobody’s going to recognize me. I can be online, doing my real estate stuff and nobody’s going to recognize me. Which of the gangs are going to be looking to see whether or not in a completely different city someone’s flipping houses?’

Now, if an undercover cop with his background calls bull$ht on himself for not being visible,

what, my lovely friend, excuse do you have?

You know you need to get out there more. You know you need to do this. And I’m saying this while speaking to you on camera.

I worked behind the cameras for 20 years and let me tell you, there is no distance harder than the 3 feet from behind the camera to in front of it. But I got used to it.  And YOU can too.

It doesn’t have to be video.  But you do need to be visible.

It’s a safe world. Much safer than we think.

If that gentleman with his background called bull$ht on his excuse for not showing up online, I call bull$ht on you.

​

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 5pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.