I've been working with entrepreneurs for many years, and I come across the same self-sabotaging behaviours time and time again.

As a PR professional, it's frustrating because I want to get the job done and it's often silly little things being done (or not done) that can have a major impact on getting visible.

But on a personal level, it hurts my heart to see it happening because I know it often stems from personal, inner blocks that stops the expert from doing what they should. And a lot of the time, they don't even realise they're doing it because they're such ingrained, subconscious habits.

As a business owner, expert, thought leader and entrepreneur, you work so hard on your business and you have something incredible to offer that could really make a difference in peoples lives.

I want you to reap the glorious results of getting that feature in a Forbes, The Telegraph or Entrepreneur UK (or insert outlet of choice) that make you feel ecstatic and that helps you to be seen and heard by your potential customers in a way that makes them come looking for you, ready to do business.

As they should!

So, here are three common ways I see business owners sabotage their visibility and ultimately, business growth so that it might help you refine your skills, get you visible and help you grow your business:

1. A complicated website

When a journalist comes to look at your website to understand what it is you do, they will stop reading very quickly if the experience is confusing, over-complicated or in some cases, completely lacking.

You need to strike a balance between having clear, easy to read (and understand) copy along with enough information to help them get a good grasp of what you do, who you help and how - without overwhelming them.

One example comes to mind if a client who had a very technical product but the website was all over the place and made it very difficult to understand how the product worked. We spent hours re-writing the website to simplify the explanations and moved things around so it was easy to navigate to get to the information, only for the client to delete all the changes and put things back they were the night before a launch!

The next day, a key journalist for a globally-reaching outlet who showed an interest in a feature interview, later declined to continue with the opportunity because he was ‘too confused’ and annoyed by the website.

2. Not trusting the experts you’ve hired/ being too controlling

The above example is also a good one to demonstrate that if you’ve brought someone in with more knowledge, skills and expertise, allow them to do their job. Otherwise why waste your money to not take their advice on board?

It reminds me of that joke about the trader who charged a customer £1000 to fix a broken machine just by hammering it once.

The outraged customer objects to being charged so much, to which the trader says it’s £10 for hammering and £990 for knowing where to hammer!!

Like you're an expert in your field and know how best to navigate situations within your industry as a result of years of experience, so to do others. If you're paying for their expertise, be open to hearing their suggestions and following their guidance. I'm not saying don't ask questions or suggest different ideas, just that at the end of the day, if they can give you a good reason why those won't work and why their way will, trust them - and the process.

3. Not doing the work

This is a more common problem than you might expect. I have come across more clients that don’t do the work than those that do - even when all they have to do is something as simple as sending me their headshots (as an example) so I can use them for pitching or passing to a journalist as an example.

I’ve seen many good opportunities to be featured in the press wasted because clients haven’t provided answers to journalists questions in time for their deadlines (we will always try answer these ourselves when we can, however sometimes the client needs to check for final accuracies or give their own answers based on personal experiences if it’s a ‘real-life’ story, for example).

Not delivering to a journalist by their deadline can often mean the journalist won’t work with the PR contact again. This will have a detrimental impact on the PR’s business and could be grounds for firing the client without financial reimbursement of paid retainer fees - and is a clause included in most PR agencies contracts.

Getting press coverage helps people get to know, like and trust you much quicker than advertising and means your customers will come find you, ready to buy, so give yourself the best chance of success by showing up, doing the work, meeting deadlines and making it easy for people to understand, quickly, what you do.

If you're ready to do the work and get priceless and powerful publicity, book a call to see how I can help you become unstoppable!