Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: If everyone is saying the same thing to market their business, how the heck do you as an expert stand the hell out? How can you say something different that catches the attention of your right fit clients so they pay attention to you and hire you and not your competition?

Today on the pod, we're doing something a little bit different, Marketing Message Makeovers. So you can stop using overused marketing cliches that make you blend in. Instead, you can stand out by asking yourself two very simple questions.

Let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:47]: Welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. The podcast that knows marketing is freaking hard, especially when you're a solo business owner trying to juggle it all. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, author of the 3 Word Rebellion and founder of the Expert Up Club. Forget the latest marketing fads and tactics promising social media stardom. I'm here with research-backed strategies to help you clarify your message and get twice as effective with your marketing. And while I can't promise you'll ever love marketing, I'm here. to make you hate it a tiny bit less.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:27]: If there's one thing that you do not want your business to be, it's this - MILK.

I know that's a weird comparison, but let's think about it. Milk is a commodity. There are a million different brands of milk but at the end of the day, milk is milk. And do you know how people decide to buy milk? They buy whatever is cheapest, whatever is on sale that week. And when you rely on messaging cliches to market your business, you're being milk, my friend. Whether it's something like “Grow Your Audience!” or “Take It To The Next Level!” or “Increase Employee Satisfaction!” or “Do it Without the Burnout!” What I actually hear is milk, milk, milk.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:25]: You don't wanna be a milk because all of a sudden, you're the low cost solution of your industry, you know, kinda like Walmart. And you're not Walmart, and you don't want your right fit client to breeze right past you because they don't know what you offer. So let's get specific and do some Marketing Messaging Makeovers. Before we do, I wanna give you the two questions I always ask to help make a message stand out and be more specific to the person you're talking to. And they're very simple questions: Why and what impact does it have?

Apply those questions to some familiar marketing cliches. So messaging cliche number one: grow your audience. Now, I'm gonna fully admit, this is one that I've relied on a whole lot in my business because I know for me that my people are community and program leaders and they want to grow their audience.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:41]: But when I ask why do they want to grow their audience I am know that a lot of people in my community really want to have a leveraged business model. They want a one to many model. So they need to grow their audience so they can produce revenue that pays them well. That's the why. And what impact does growing the audience have for them? Well, when they have an audience, they know they can reliably launch and fill their programs and their communities with the right people. So, all of a sudden, grow your audience had become something like grow your email list with people who are ready to work with you so you easily sell out your programs. And that's way more specific and way more interesting. It also has the effect of narrowing my audience from anyone who wants to grow their audience because, wow, there's a lot of people who want to do that so they can be an influencer.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:04]: So think about course creators and digital product makers, internet celebrities who want branding deals, podcasts who want sponsorships. Those are not my people. And now it is clear that they are not my people because my message is hyper-specific and it speaks to my best clients just by answering those two questions. Before we get into a messaging cliche number two, let's take a quick break.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:43]: Do you ever wish you could get my expert feedback on your messaging and marketing? You can inside the Expert Up Club. In this curated community, you'll get personalized support tailored to your business. So you can market less by figuring out exactly what works for you, your business, and your sanity. You'll market better because your message will matter more to the people who want to hire you and we'll do it together because growing a business and an audience is easier with a community of co-conspirators. So if you wanna join us, your first step is to open up your podcast app and click on this episode. Find the link to the Expert Up Club or simply go to expertup.club and book your tour. I can't wait to show you around the club and how it can support you and your business. Now, let's go back to the show.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:49]: Alright. Let's dive in to messaging cliche number two, Overwhelm. It seems like everyone is talking about overwhelm these days. People who sell marketing advice, business advice, parenting, and dating advice all talk about being overwhelmed. So how do we make this idea of overwhelm be more specific so it doesn't sound like another marketing cliche, another person promising to help decrease your overwhelm, and really speaks to a specific audience. Once again we’re going back to our two questions: Why and what impact is has?

Let's say I'm a dating coach and I say, dating feels overwhelming. Yes, it does. Now let's ask why and what impact does it have? Well, why? I'm recently divorced and haven't dated in a long time. So much has changed. Right? Everything has changed. There's all these apps. I haven't been on a date and it just feels like a massive undertaking.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:00]: Now, asking what impact does that create? It can create loneliness, right? Because logging into Tinder and trying to create a bio, then thinking of all the people who are gonna swipe left, not right because of a picture and a few words just feels terrible and overwhelming, so you delete the app. Dating feels overwhelming becomes you haven't dated in a long time and the thought of logging into Tinder and creating that profile makes you want to hurl your phone into the Atlantic Ocean. So much more specific. I know exactly who this is for and who it's not for because clearly, it's not for people who are single and have never been married. It's not for people who are younger, who are used to being on all the apps. So I have now narrowed my audience and made my message more specific while still talking about the key message of overwhelm.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:11]: The final messaging cliche is for our folks who are working business to business. Meaning, you're a consultant and you are selling your expertise to an organization or a team. And here's something I hear all the time from consultants, successfully manage change. Cool. There are so many consultants out there offering to help organizations manage change, solve their challenges with change, successfully navigate change. But what does that even mean? Because what I notice when consultants talk about the challenges around change, they don't talk about why it's important and the consequences that navigating change poorly has on an organization. Why and what is the impact? And here's the thing about selling B2B. You have to make sure that your messaging, the why they need it, talks to the three different types of stakeholders in an organization.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:30]: There is the decision maker who holds the budget, makes the ultimate decision, and really cares about solving organizational problems. There are the team leaders who want to be solving the team problems and want to know how what you're going to do is going to make them look good as well as make their teams more successful. And then there's the employees who get to directly experience your consulting. So let's apply the why and what's the impact for the message of successfully manage change. So we're gonna be talking to the decision maker, the person who holds the budget and makes the ultimate decision to hire you or not. With this decision maker, they care about the profitability of their organization. So, why do they need to successfully manage change? Well, their employees and the leaders of their teams, they don't believe in the change and aren't acting to make it happen. They haven't bought in. They're not taking action. You're getting delayed on your strategic priorities. The impact of that is a decrease in revenue that impacts your overall profitability. It might require you to make layoffs, Right?

Michelle Mazur [00:12:03]: So that's a pretty meaty problem that change management consultant can solve. For the decision maker, the message becomes, get buy-in for change across your organization, so you reach your strategic priorities and increase your profitability. That's what successfully managing change can look like. And obviously, this message would look different if you're teaching leaders in an organization how to navigate change on the team. The bottom line is the more specific you are, the easier it will be to stand out and get the decision maker's attention and also get your proposals across the finish line. My challenge to you is to go to your website and find a marketing cliche, something a lot of people in your industry say and then ask yourself the two questions, why and what's the impact? This is the way to go from being an overlooked expert to standing out, being seen and valued by the right people so you get hired.

Michelle Mazur [00:13:23]: If the Make Marketing Suck Less pod is making your marketing more effective so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend. The easiest way to do that is through pod link. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player.

That's pod.link/rebel.

The Make Marketing Suck Less podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills, our executive producer is me, Dr. Michelle Mazur.

The make marketing suck less podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional lands of the coast salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past, and present.

people, original stewards of the land past and present.