In this solo video, Mary Schiller challenges the common solopreneur habit of constantly posting on social media to gain visibility. She argues that visibility alone is insufficient; what truly drives client acquisition is authority—the clear, credible claim to expertise. Mary illustrates this by recounting her own pre‑coach journey, where she built authority through a daily audio blog, a self‑published book, and interview opportunities before she even became a life coach. She defines authority as a deep, honest self‑assessment of the unique knowledge you can teach others, and stresses that without a clear claim to expertise, social media posts become random noise. Mary then offers two no‑prep, high‑impact tactics to make authority visible: (1) purposeful collaborations—guesting on podcasts, joining other creators’ programs, and positioning yourself as an expert for their audiences; and (2) hosting live online events such as 45‑minute masterclasses that showcase your skill in real time, capture recordings, and can be repurposed into YouTube videos, transcripts, or even books. She encourages solopreneurs to create “authority assets” (masterclasses, interviews, books) and to use them to build an email list and a lasting presence. The video concludes with a call to subscribe, join her Skool community “Calm Money Moves,” and spend time reflecting on one’s unique expertise before taking action.
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If you are a solopreneur and you're trying to use social media to build your business and it's either not working or you hate it, I have some advice for you. Are you ready? Stop posting. Just stop posting. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Mary, how am I ever going to get clients if I'm not posting on social media? Don't I need to be visible? Well, yeah, you do need to be visible, but not in the way that you're thinking. You need to be visible in terms of your authority. You're going to hear me use this word a lot in videos going forward because it literally means everything. The only reason, and I mean this for real, the only reason that I was able to be successful very quickly as a life coach back in 2016 was because even before I decided to become a coach, I had built up some authority. Before I became a life coach, before I even thought of becoming a life coach, I was helping people in Facebook groups. I was being supportive in there. I had a personal daily audio blog that I sent out to a very small list of people. I think maybe 50 people had signed up for that specific communication from me, a daily audio of 5 minutes. I had that going on. I had also self-published a book called The Joy Formula. Again, this was way before I even thought about becoming a coach. I had also been interviewed by a number of people because I had a rather unique story and people were interested in it. So I had built up some authority before I even thought about becoming a coach so that when I did and I told people, this is what I'm doing now, It was not difficult for me to sign clients. Unfortunately, most coaches and other solopreneurs are not thinking in terms of authority. They're thinking in terms of visibility. So they just post and post and post and post kind of random things. Nothing really makes sense. And all they're doing is putting stuff out there, but it's not building upon anything. It's not forming a foundation and it's not building upon itself. This is where the problem is. And fortunately, there is a really easy solution to this. The solution is to ask yourself this question: is what I am doing building a sense of authority and credibility around what I'm saying? Or am I just posting to post? Am I just sharing to share? Am I just putting stuff out there to put stuff out there? If you bring your attention to this authority piece, everything will start to shift for you. And I do mean everything. Another question you might be asking yourself right now is, Mary, what does authority even mean? Well, what it means is that you have claimed your expertise. You have sat down with yourself and had a heart-to-heart. And sometimes this can be quite emotional. And you've listened and you've realized, yes, this is the thing that I know inside and out, backwards and forwards. This is the thing that I can truly help people with. Now, what can happen sometimes is what you discover through that heart-to-heart might be different from what you originally thought it was. I've had this happen myself. I've gotten to points in my business where I've realized, oh, you know what? I've been going in a direction that doesn't truly reflect my authority, and now I need to bring it back. It's kind of what has happened to me over the last few months is I've realized what my authority is, what my expertise is, is in helping people to do exactly what I'm explaining to you right now. It's helping them to build this foundation with certain pieces that help them to become that authority figure in a totally positive way, not in a negative way, where people know what you stand for. This is why it's so important for you to actually claim your expertise, because if people don't know what you stand for, then they don't think of you in certain situations when they need help with something. This was so important to me when I started as a life coach. I stood for something back then. I had a very unique voice— still do— in the particular niche that I was in. I was recognized for that. I spoke about things in a very different way from all of the other coaches who were in this particular sphere. And so people understood that when they wanted a different type of voice, a different perspective, they could come to me and that's what I would deliver to them. So once you have claimed this authority and claimed this expertise, what are some ways that you can start to make that authority visible? Well, there are several ways you can do this. I'm going to talk about two right now that you can do without any prep, without any setup. One is you can start to collaborate with people. This helped me so much. As I mentioned a moment ago, I was interviewed by a lot of people who were interested in my story. I highly recommend that you seek out these kinds of opportunities, and they are everywhere. There are so many people who would love to have you as a guest on their podcast, as a guest in their community, as a guest even in a paid or a free program that they're running. You just have to start putting yourself out there and saying, this is my lane. This is the thing that I am an expert in. This is my expertise, and I think your audience would be very interested in it, and here is why. Now, don't do this randomly. Really be thoughtful about it. But keep in mind that when you collaborate, you are exponentially benefiting not just yourself, but the other person that you're collaborating with and their audience and your audience. It's an amazing thing to do. And we have so much opportunity for this right now. This next suggestion has also worked incredibly well for my business and for my clients' business, and that is to start hosting live online events. What do I mean by that? Just a simple class, a 45-minute class on something that relates to your expertise where people can see and experience you live online and you can demonstrate that authority to them in real time. A nice bonus to this is if you have the ability to set up a landing page where people need to put in their email address in order to get the Zoom link to attend, That's great because that's a way you can build your email list and build your audience. But if that's too complicated, don't worry about it. Just put the Zoom link out there, tell people what it's about, make sure that it relates directly to what you are an expert in and what your offer is, and then show up and give people a memorable experience. When I first started doing this, sometimes my attendance was up or down. I would have maybe 1 or 2 people, and then the next time I'd have 10 people and then 15, then 2. Don't worry about how many people show up. That's not what this is about. This is about you getting comfortable speaking to people, connecting with them in that kind of environment, and demonstrating your expertise and authority. Plus, you have the recording afterwards, which is pure gold. You could take that recording and put it on a YouTube channel. If you don't have a YouTube channel, start one today. You can also take the transcript and do things with that. Like, I have literally written books based on transcripts of talks like that that I have given. Once you start to get into a flow with live events like that, you won't want to stop. They are such a great way to build this authority, to claim your expertise, and to get yourself out there in front of people. That's not posting all the time. We don't need to do that anymore. If you're new to my channel, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a comment below. I would really appreciate that. I also invite you to join my space on Skool. Called Calm Money Moves. You'll see the link in the description. That's a place where you and I can connect and I can support you to build business that is supportive of your goals. In the meantime, I really want you to take that moment, maybe a day, maybe 2 days, maybe a week, to listen to yourself and listen to what is really calling to you right now. What is that expertise that only you have that you can bring to people that will allow you to speak with authority, to create what I've called authority assets like masterclasses, like interviews, like books. Really get in touch with yourself. So often it seems like we are going a mile a minute. We're trying to keep up with the trends. We're trying to post on social media. We're trying to do all of these things and we don't even listen to ourselves anymore. This is a chance for you to do that. Thanks for watching. Talk to you later. Bye.
