Make Marketing Suck Less

How to Make Your Message Famous

Here's the catch 22 for you: so many people want their message to be famous, but they don't want to be famous themselves.

They want to be known for their work, recognized for their expertise and feel chosen by their audience. They want podcasts and speaking invites to magically show up in their inbox. They want their work in the world to make a monumental difference, be well paid for it, and have everyone talking about it.

But, and this is a mighty big but, they don't want to be personally known for their work. They want their message to be famous, but they don't want their name or face to be known.

Now, that's a split intention. If I have ever heard one, I want everyone to know about my work and my message, but don't look at me. I don't want you to know about me. The person who created this work, and I get it. Fame is a word that triggers. It is a word that I've had to do my own personal work around.

It's got a lot of negative baggage, but being famous and being famous for your message is how you make an impact.

So let's talk about how to make your message famous. And where this conversation is going is probably going to surprise you because a lot of the work that we have to do around having our message known starts with us.

Before we dive into the show today, I first want to give a shout out to our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by the 3 Word Rebellion messaging intensive. If you're a business owner, speaker or entrepreneur who doesn't do business the way everyone else does, and you find it tough to sell your ideas because they are so different that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around them or you have so many ideas that you end up overwhelming your audience and you need focus so people see the clear benefit of what you do.

If this is you, then you need to check out the 3 Word Rebellion messaging intensive. In the messaging intensive you and I create your 3 Word Rebellion, your customer journey and all the messaging your business needs to grow for the next three to five years and beyond. This intensive helped my clients grow their audience, quickly fill their client roster because they're seen as the only option in their industry, and it has filled their inbox with people seeking them out to speak at their events or be a guest on their podcast.

If you're thinking yes, Michelle, that's exactly what I want then book a free strategy session with me to discuss how the 3 Word Rebellion can increase your impact, influence, and income. 

Tune into the audio:

Your goal is to leave a legacy, make a huge impact, make more income, and have a community that supports you.

What that means is that you need to be known. Your face needs to be seen and that means you need to be famous. 

The first step in making your message famous is that you have to redefine your relationship with fame and with the idea of fame.

Like I said before, my relationship with fame has been fraught. It's been difficult. I have not wanted to be seen in my business, but right now what I would love for you to do is take a moment, put the podcast on pause and jot down what fame means to you. Just write down what your definition is, baggage and all or no baggage at all. So seriously do it. Put me on pause. I'll be right here.

Now that you've done the writing, I want you to look at what you wrote. Are the words describing fame positive or even neutral maybe to you? Fame is just about being known, which is actually the dictionary definition of that. Or is your association with fame negative? Are you writing about the haters and being stalked by people and everyone being all up in your business and the paparazzi chasing you down the street?

If your association with fame is positive or neutral then right now you've got the right mindset to be known for your work and to make a big difference. If the association with fame is negative, I want to offer you a mindset shift, and this is the one that worked for me when I was thinking about being known for the 3 Word Rebellion and being the champion of that message.

The mindset shift is you get to define what fame looks like for you. You are in the driver's seat.

You are in control of how it shows up in your world, so if being known makes you feel out of control, like everyone's going to be all up in your business, figure out what boundaries you need to have in place in order to make it feel manageable, in order to guard your own privacy. Maybe you need a gatekeeper or something else for times when you're on social media and times when you're not on social media. But boundaries are the key and if you feel like you're going to get all these haters who make you feel like shit, then you can get a gatekeeper.

My friend and client Lux ATL is a huge Instagram star I would say. And because of what she does and how she leads with her own sexuality and talks about it she gets a ton of haters. And frankly, she does not want to read their comments. She doesn't care about their comments. So what she does is she has a gatekeeper on her team who reads through her Instagram comments and deletes the haters because she doesn't need that stuff in her life.

So she is defining being famous and being known on her own terms. And she is doing it in a way where she can show up and feel good every day.

So remember you are the boss of fame, you are in control of how you define it. So define it for yourself and make it meaningful to you and make it feel good to you.

The second area I want to talk about is cultivating beliefs that help you get known for your work.

My friend, mentor, and guest of the podcast, Tara Newman, is a leadership coach and she has a podcast called The Bold Leadership Revolution. In a past episode, she talked about her ritual of picking five beliefs that she wants to create at the beginning of every month. So these beliefs might be about, you know, I am a millionaire or I have a team that supports me and my growth and it's easy for me to pay my team, but she's very intentional about picking the beliefs that she wants to cultivate.

When we're intentional about making our impact and being known, we have to cultivate beliefs that help us get our work found.

So for me to have the beliefs I've been working with lately to grow my audience, my visibility and the awareness of the 3 Word Rebellion are number one. Every day people tell me how life-changing and business changing the 3 Word Rebellion work is. The second belief is every day more and more new people find my content and are excited about finding their own 3 Word Rebellion.

And I have to tell you, especially with belief number one, it is really showing up in my life as I've been working on accepting this belief. I am getting emails, I get DMs on Instagram, I'm featured in Instagram stories where people are talking about how my work is impacting them. And the second belief, I'm still working on that one and that this idea that more and more people are finding me every single day and they're excited about the work that I'm doing in the world.

But I know as I cultivate that belief in myself, I will start seeing it appear in my world.

So your action step here is I would love for you to check out Tara's episode on cultivating your beliefs. And figure out what is a belief that is going to help you be known for your work to make your message famous and then start working on adopting that belief in intentionally.

And the final step, if you will, of how to be famous for your message is that you have to become remarkably consistent with your message.

In fact, I believe you should lead with your message. In the last episode of the show, I talked about Brené Brown's Netflix special and how in that special there was nothing I hadn't heard before because she is remarkably consistent. And when you want to be known for your message, when you want to be known for your work, when you want to make an impact, your job is not to keep creating more and more content to share.

Your job is to be consistent and so for that, you need a 3 Word Rebellion you can share.

You should have a system that converts your curious people into customers and raving fans and advocates of your message. And in my work that looks like creating an audience journey and signature stories and then you get to lead with that message every single day and there is power. When you describe your 3 Word Rebellion, the power is that all of a sudden talking about the work you do in the world, it's no longer about you. You get to be the conduit. The eyeballs are on the message.

It becomes easier to show up because you are so wildly committed to the message and getting this change into as many people's hands as possible that you want to lead with that message because it's not about you. It's about being of service.

When I transitioned my work from talking about speaking for impact to the 3 Word Rebellion, I felt this in a way I never felt it before. I always loved the phrase “speak to impact”, but I knew it wasn't quite right. But when I found the 3 Word Rebellion, it had that expansive feeling of, ah, yes, this is it.

This is what I want to talk about. This is how communication changes the world. And therefore it became easier for me to show up every day and share my message.

And when you're consistent, it becomes easier for you to show up every day and share your message. Because at first, you will be the advocate and the messenger of this message. And eventually, I would say in my experience, it takes about a year, but momentum starts to build. And it, you know, you see bits and bobs of it at first, like within the first few months, but then you become recognized for that message and other people are talking about. And for that, you need a plan and strategy for sharing that message. That includes you being the messenger of that message but also being exposed to other people's audiences with that message.

So for me to have this consistency with my message, one of the things I do is every Monday morning I batch out my social media for the week. I have been less consistent with this as I've been on the road traveling. But I take an hour, I batch everything out. I get it loaded into Planoly and into Facebook and I begin to share it because I know that consistency is important. I get on podcasts, I do this podcast consistently every single week, but if you want to be exposed to other people's audiences, having a message that people are excited about is a great way to draw those opportunities to you and to pitch yourself for podcasts.

And the final part of the strategy is just making room for magic because when you start being known for your message, when people start seeing you as the expert, as that famous expert who knows a lot about what you do, magic does happen.

So far, for me, what just happened, and this was amazing, Rachel Rogers of Hello Seven invited me to speak at her Million Dollar Badass retreat. And how this came about was literally it landed in my inbox. She asked if I was available and what my fees are because she was like, my people need a 3 Word Rebellion. Can you speak to them? And when I asked her like, oh, how did you find me? She's like, Oh, I heard you on Susan Hyatt's podcast and I loved it and I got your book and it's book's amazing. So that's how I found you. And I'm like, oh my gosh. So amazing.

I did a lot of work to get to that point. But it's amazing when those opportunities start coming to you. So I'd love to know what your relationship with fame is. And I'd also love to know what one action you are going to take from this podcast that will help you make your message famous, that will help you be known.

So go and DM me on Instagram and let me know.

Until next time, I want you to know that you deserve to be seen. You deserve to be chosen for the work you do. Your message and what makes you special and unique is how you make a difference in this world and ultimately what makes you famous.