Make Marketing Suck Less

Growing up, I was obsessed with the paranormal -- things that go bump the night, UFOs, Bigfoot -- but the thing that scared me the most was the Bermuda Triangle. And in case you don't know, the Bermuda Triangle AKA the Devil's Triangle, is located in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and the Southern tip of Florida.

And this area has a history of ships and planes mysteriously disappearing, never to be seen or heard from again. Now as an eight-year-old, this blew my mind. How did that happen? Where did these huge boats go? How can a plane full of people just disappear with no wreckage found? What was going on?! I had so many questions.

As an adult and as a business owner, I see a new Bermuda Triangle emerging. One that business owners are getting sucked into -- where they put out their work, no one notices, and they're not making the sales they want to make. And so their business just gets sucked into the Bermuda Triangle of marketing, never to be heard of. I'm over seeing so many thought-leader businesses, people who are talented, who have big ideas, who get their clients these transformational results just being sucked into this Bermuda Triangle.

Because you and I are here to make a difference. So why does this happen to the best of business owners? And how can your own business escape the Bermuda Triangle so it can be noticed, so that it stands out, so that you start making sales and impacting lives? Well, that's exactly what we're going to discuss on the podcast today.

You’re listening to the Rebel Uprising podcast. This podcast is dedicated to helping passionate business owners become recognized leaders who make more money and impact the world by turning their messy, complicated ideas into thriving, thought-leadership businesses. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur. And I'll be your no-BS guide in the art of building a business that gets noticed. Each week, I share strategies, tools, and insights on how to turn your complicated ideas into great messaging and solid business structures. Are you ready to create an uprising in your industry? Let's do this.

How does a business get sucked into the Bermuda Triangle of marketing, never to be seen or noticed again in the online world?

The biggest culprit I've seen is investing in marketing too soon. That might sound a little strange to you. You're like, “What, Michelle?! I know I'm supposed to be out there marketing my business!” But I've seen this time and time again -- the toxic marketing culture is always selling business owners on marketing before they are ready for it, before they have foundations in place. I have people who come to me who have spent $10,000 on a funnel that doesn't work or spent $15,000 working with a PR agency that didn't get them any media attention. And then they start wondering why?

Last year, I wrote a very ranty blog post on this called “Stop Setting Money on Fire” because I was just over seeing business owners make the same mistake again and again, whether it was with PR or investing in a $3,000 course that promised you seven figures in seven seconds or that “you are one funnel away from a six-figure business.” The tactics that are taught by celebrity business coaches and marketers don't work for people if they don't have some foundations in place in their business.

So just like the Bermuda Triangle has three points, escaping the Bermuda Triangle of Marketing has three foundations so that your business doesn't get sucked into oblivion.

Foundation number one:  you have an offer to sell.

A business is not a business if it doesn't have something to sell, whether that is one-on-one coaching, whether that is providing a service for other people, whether that's membership or a book or an online course -- you need to have something to sell.

And I know the majority of my audience already has an amazing offer that gets great results, so I'm not going to spend a ton of my time here, but if you're unclear on how your business makes money, what you're selling, then do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go create an offer because working on your marketing or even your messaging or your sales process doesn't really even make sense to you if you don't know what you're selling. So create something and then sell it.

If you're a more experienced business owner, then we get to have the fun of optimizing the experience that we give to our clients. We can always revisit this foundation of our offer by creating a better experience for your clients to go through and show them a really good time.

And I want to be clear that this is a work in progress. In fact, optimizing your offer and making it better, it seems like it's never done because we're always learning more about our clients and how they're interacting with our work. For instance, I've been delivering the Three-Word Rebellion Intensive for over three years now and I keep evolving it to create a better client experience, whether that's adding Voxer support or adding an extra session  because I want to spend more time in one area. For me, it's always about how can I make this easier, better, more transformational for my clients. But I will tell you that I did test this offer first and made sure it's what people wanted.

So go out there, sell your offer, get results. Keep track of those results because, yes, you'll need that for your marketing and messaging later on. When you feel like you have an offer that people want and you know what you're selling, then you can move on to foundations number two and three. And I do want to say it, these next two foundations, they are not linear. You know, you don't get one locked in place and then move on to the next. I'm just presenting them in this order because this is the way that makes sense today. But for foundations two and three, you’re always going to be ping-ponging back and forth.

Foundation number two: once you have an offer and you know what you're selling, you have to start focusing on your messaging, which is probably no surprise to hear this from me.

In episode 212 about unfucking your marketing, I told you that marketing is simply communicating. And, remember, thought leadership is about having a great idea and then advocating for that idea. Yeah. And advocating is communication. It's communication and the conversations that we have with people that grow our audience or generate leads or close sales.

So it all goes back to communicating what your business does, who is this business for, how can your business help those people get results? Messaging is probably the most overlooked foundation. Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you hanging -- next month in October is going to be unfuck your messaging month, so we're going to go into more depth about the problems that I commonly see with messaging and thought leadership businesses and really how to start fine tuning and honing in on what your message is.

So many people just don't know how to talk about what they do in a way that grabs attention in a way that says, “Hey, you! I'm for you! I created my business to help you!” And this is one of the reasons why I created the Three Word Rebellion -- people just skip the messaging step. Online, celebrity business coaches gloss over it, or they give you a one-size-fits-all solution for messaging that, quite honestly, doesn't fit most people. And in October, we'll be talking a lot more about creating that messaging that's unique to you and your business and captures your strengths and what your audience is looking for because that messaging will help you execute.

Foundation number three: how are you selling your offer?

Sales always goes through three phases. First, we have the growing awareness phase because you can't sell anything if people don't know about you. So part of what our businesses have to do -- and this is where marketing comes in as well -- is grow awareness. Right? Reach new people with your message and with what you do. And then once more people know about you, you get to engage with them and help them figure out, do they have the problem that you solve? Are you the right provider for them? How can you get them to raise their hand and say “yes.”

And then we make the offer, right? That's what we think of as traditional sales. You need to have some kind of process to make sales, whether that's a discovery call, a buy now button on your website, but you also need to have a plan to get those people on that discovery call or to your website.

So going back to foundation number two, you can see why messaging is so important. And part of this foundation as well is that you have to have a way to take people's money. So this is more of a technology aspect, whether that's PayPal or Stripe, but you need to know how are you going to receive that money?

And finally -- probably most importantly -- you have to know how your marketing connects with your sales. This is where I see people fall down all the time. They have no idea how  what they're doing in their marketing, what they're communicating regularly, actually leads to their sales process. It is this big abyss, another Bermuda Triangle if you will, that people fall down into. That's why that sales process is so important because you have to grow awareness, let people know you exist, and then help people figure out if you can help them.

This process, it's not one size fits all. There's not just one webinar funnel that's going to work for every single business everywhere or discovery call process or however you want to bring sales into your business. It's going to look different for everyone. And it's going to depend on what your offer is, what your offer is priced at, how much money your business needs to bring in every month -- those are all things we have to think about in our sales process that can help inform our marketing.

Here are a few reflection questions for you:

Question number one: what foundation do you need to work on most in your business?

I highly recommend only. working on one foundation at a time. Is it your offer? Is it your messaging or your sales process? No matter what stage of your business, we are always improving on these foundational pieces. So just reflect back in your head and think, “What do I need to work most on in my business? Offer, messaging, or sales?”

The second question I have for you is what is one action you can take to improve one of those foundational pieces?

What I'd love for you to do is DM me Instagram (I’m @drmichellemazur) and let me know what action you're taking and how that's going to help you stay out of the Bermuda Triangle of business.

Before we go, if you want to learn how to connect your sales with your marketing and create messaging for your business that gets others to engage and raise their hand to say “yes” to your offers, I just opened enrollment to my upcoming live, virtual workshop Marketing Uprising: Create a 30-day Marketing Plan that Actually Results in Sales. It's going to take place the week of September 28th, so if you are listening to this the week this podcast came out, you are not too late to get in!

You can get all the details at drmichellemazur.com/uprising. During this workshop, we are going to be connecting your marketing with your sales, so that your marketing actually leads people to paying you. We will be talking about how your content is actually a piece of your thought leadership, and how to create that content so that people will engage and think, “Wow, get out of my head!” and raise their hand and say “yes” to what you do. And finally, we're going to develop a super simple marketing plan that you'll stick to and you can rinse and repeat each month. And you're going to be getting a Marketing Uprising planner as part of the workshop.

This workshop is just $99 and you get the recordings for life. If you're listening to this the week of September 22nd, go grab one of the 30 spots for this workshop at drmichellemazur.com/uprising.

And finally, always be working on the foundational aspects of your business - your offer, your message, and your sales -- because it's the key to escaping the Bermuda Triangle of Marketing and creating a thriving thought leadership business.

Thank you for listening all the way to the end of the show. Your support means the world to me. Did you know the Rebel Uprising podcast has a quiz that can help you pinpoint the number one way to build an audience of super fans while staying true to your unique personality? We do. And it's called What's Your Rebel Roadmap to Exponential Impact and Influence, and you can take it therebelquiz.com.

If you're loving the podcast, do us a favor and rate and leave us a quick five-star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps more people like you find the show. Until next week, remember: your ideas matter. Now get back out there and cause an uprising in your industry! You’ve got this.