Make Marketing Suck Less

In my copious amounts of free time, I have been researching NLP or neuro-linguistic programming. I know you're all jealous of my #hobbies. However, I love to learn about things that I don't understand, especially when they're a common marketing practice in the online world. And NLP is one of those things that bro marketers and bro-ette marketers use to manipulate us into making questionable decisions.

In fact, most of the celebrity entrepreneurs -- hat tip to my friend Maggie Patterson for coining that phrase -- they use NLP in their copy and in their word choice. According to Jason Louv who wrote the article “10 Ways to Protect Yourself from NLP Mind Control,” NLP is a technique of layering subtle meaning into spoken or written language so that you can implant suggestions into a person's unconscious mind without them knowing what you're doing.

Now, I know that this sounds like some type of voodoo, and the research is really out on how effective it actually is. However, I had a debate partner in college who was well-versed in NLP, so I knew a little something about how he could subtly influence people to make them come his way by mimicking their body language or their tone of voice.

But what really caught my attention about this article was a note about vague language and vague messages because, holy crap, the whole internet is full of vague language and messaging! But check this out from that exact same article by Jason Louv: “One of the primary techniques that NLP took from Milton Erickson is the use of vague language to induce a hypnotic trance. Erickson found that the more vague language is, the more it leads people to be in a trance because there is less that a person is liable to disagree with or eact to. Alternatively, more specific language will take a person out of a trance.”

And he gives the example of Obama's use of this specific technique in the change campaign, a word so vague that anybody could read anything into it. And, wow, let's think about that and think about the last time you were scrolling Instagram or looking through Facebook, there are a lot of vague messages and repeated promises, and while I'm not sure they will listen to a hypnotic trance, I do know that they shut down our ability to critically think about them because they sound good on the surface and they're agreeable on the surface. So there's nothing to really think about there.

And as people who want to market in a way that feels good and you value having people make the best purchasing decisions for themselves, we actually want our people to think about what we're offering them so that they can make a good business decision. And so it means we need to get away from the same old, same old, boring-ass messages and drown those messages in the sea of sameness from whence they came.

So on this final episode of the podcast in 2020, let's talk about the ten messages that we need to leave in the rear view mirror of this year and let's start talking about how we can create marketing messages that inspire thinking while attracting the right people to our business.

So let's dive in.

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 you 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.

Before I begin, I want to say -- don't beat yourself up if you are currently using any of these messages or you have used them in the past. We all have. It is what the celebrity entrepreneurs teach when they're teaching you their bro marketing techniques. They're teaching you to be vague and to use the same words as other people. That's what a template and formula is all about. I know that I've used some of these messages and I'm sure if you scoured my copy or looked at a past blog post or podcast, I'm sure some of them exist in there.

The point of this podcast is not to make you feel bad about the messaging that you're currently using, but is to become aware so that we can do better so that we can have a message that's not boring. That actually stands out and honors the transformation our clients get from the work we do, and also respects the people who interact with our work.

So I'm going to hit these ten messages pretty quickly as I want to spend more time talking about how we can do better. And when you're listening to these messages think about vagueness and ask yourself, “What do they really mean?” Because sometimes they mean nothing. Right? Alrght. So here we go.

Number one: scale your business. Ugh! What does that even mean? I know what it means in the startup world when they're creating new technology and they're in the startup stage and they want to scale, but online business owners, we actually don't scale our business. We've borrowed this word from startup, and now we use it universally to actually mean growth. But why the heck do we want to grow our business? That's a more interesting message.

Alright, message number two: be the CEO or step into your visionary role. Do people even know what CEOs of companies actually do? Because I worked in corporate America and what we as online business owners and service providers do is nothing like the CEO role. So let's stop saying it. It's not an accurate decision and what the fuck is a visionary role? I don't even know what that means! And just like the change message, you can read anything into it.

Message number three: (this will probably not be a shock) six-figure, seven-figure, eight-figure business. Oh my God. This is so played out. I have seen it used in so many ways. In fact, I saw a Facebook ad the other day that was “unleash your seven-figure message.” Like what the hell does that mean? Can a message make you seven figures by itself? I'm not sure about that. I mean, messaging definitely helps sell in your business.

And why do you want a seven-figure business? That is actually a more interesting question than just throwing out a number. Because I hate to tell you, but the hundred thousand dollar mark is a really arbitrary goal. Like, I live in Seattle, Washington, and a hundred thousand dollar doesn't buy much here. My business needs to generate more revenue than that so that I can actually live and thrive in a big city. So rant over on that, but that money messaging without any explanation just needs to go.

Alright, number four: create more time, create more space in your calendar. Now that sounds really good because it's super vague and nonspecific. And what are you going to do with all of that time? There's no critical thinking that's going into this.

Message number five: live your best life or any variation on that theme. Now I work with a lot of coaches. I love the coaches I work with, but “live your best life” is lazy, lazy messaging. It just tells me you don't know your people. You have to be way more specific in the outcomes that you are able to help people achieve.

Number six: make money in your sleep. There is nothing passive about passive income, and this sounds like the dream. It's vague enough to make us not think about it, but it is just not true and needs to go away.

And related to message number six is message number seven: stop trading dollars for hours. Oh my God. I wish we could stop shitting on service-based businesses. There is nothing wrong with working one-on-one. I have run a very sustainable business doing that for nine years, but the message of trading dollars for hours, it's very alluring because we're not thinking about how we actually work best with people and how we actually get the best result in transformation for our people.

Number eight: spend more time with your family. That's so sweet and nice, but once again, what does that actually mean?

Number nine is just a whole genre of messaging that I wish would die: the rags to riches story. And I've talked about this story on the podcast before, and it's used to manufacture authority and credibility. So if you hear somebody with a rags to riches story, like I was down on my luck and sleeping by my best friend's toilet and now I created a course and it's making me seven figures like, ugh, they're probably not credible. They probably have done that once for themselves. And that is it. And that story is probably way exaggerated. So it just needs to die. People who are authorities can state their expertise with confidence. Watch out for that one.

And number 10 is just a personal pet peeve in the messaging space of mine, which was find your voice. I know exactly where my voice is. I'm using it right now and we can do better than “find your voice.” What does that mean?

And those are my ten big offenders. But if you have a message that you would love to see die an untidy death in 2021, feel free to DM me on Instagram about it, I’m @drmichellemazur. I would love to hear it. I would love to share it and even critique it.

Because the bottom line for me is this type of messaging, which is very much in the bro marketing camp, is lazy-ass messaging. Cause that's what bro marketing teaches us. It teaches us to be lazy with our messaging, that if we just use a template or a formula, we don't have to think deeply about how to communicate what we do.

So now, I just want to spend the remaining minutes of 2020 with you talking about how we can do better. And my friend Maggie Patterson, who I talked about at the beginning of the show at Small Business Boss, she said to me the other day in a conversation that not being boring is work. And it is, my friend, but it is work that is worth it because you get to say something differently. You get to have a different message than everyone else. Something that actually positions your work so that people are drawn to it. You get to have different conversations and build deeper relationships.

And I spent a lot of time with my clients and even with my own business figuring out how to say things differently in my own unique voice. So I am not going to lie to you, this path of ethical marketing and having a better message that allows you to market in an ethical way is work. Not being boring is work.

But the first step in this in not being boring is to know your damn audience. Know your clients and how they talk about what they're going through before they hire you. And I am not talking about some bullshit, ideal client avatar -- the best messaging, especially when you're trying to capture the attention of people who don't know you yet, usually comes out of the mouths of your best clients. And here's a couple of examples from my own business this year.

My workshop Marketing Uprising, which is all about creating a 30-day marketing plan that connects with what you're selling so you can make more money and have more ease around that whole marketing thing because I know it's a pain in the ass for all of you -- that whole workshop came out of a survey I did to my audience. I just sent an email, I got 70 responses, and 50 out of the 70 told me that they needed some kind of plan to get their message out. That's what they told me.

That survey gave me a ton of language for the sales page. And I think the Marketing Uprising is one of the best sales pages I've ever written, if I may toot my own horn. And it's because I had the language. So for example, this line came directly from what somebody said, “You know you've got to market. You've got to let people know you're here. Tell them that you're open for business. Tell them that you're ready to welcome them as a client. And yet it feels like you're shouting into the void. You don't have time, energy, or headspace for any of this.”

And that last bit about shouting into the void was something someone said to me in that survey, and even with my Three Word Rebellion messaging services (I’m getting ready to redo the sales page for that), and I'm going back to my client language and one of my clients said, “I have so many thoughts in my head. I don't know what I know. And I just want to get to the damn point and stay on it.” And, heck, “get to the damn point and stay on it” is the work that I do.

So look at the language of your clients is going to help you really grab people's attention and say things in a different way, and your people are going to feel like, “Oh, she's kind of in my head with this,” which is what you want.

And related to this is being specific. I'm sure you're not shocked by this point. Vague language lulls people into a trance. Or as I like to think about it, it lulls people in to not thinking and specificity wakes them the fuck up. It gets them to pay attention and to think about your message. The more specific you are in your message, in your language, the more they're going to be like, “Oh, interesting,” and relate to it and relate their own experience to what you're saying.

So case in point, we're going to go back to my Marketing Uprising sales page. And once again, I was using client language. And so I could have said on the page, “You've taken a ton of courses. You didn't finish them because they're overly complicated.” But what I did say was, “You've taken approximately 72 online courses that were supposed to teach you a strategy for selling your thing and you completed zero because every time you logged in negotiating peace in the Middle East seems simpler than whatever the hell the strategy that guru was trying to teach you.”

So yes, using a lot more words, but a hell of a lot more specific and more interesting. So think about how you can use specificity in your language to wake people up and capture their attention and make them think about their own situation.

And finally, better messaging, thoughtful messaging really positions your business based on the outcome that you provide. And you didn't think you would make it through this whole episode without me talking about the Three Word Rebellion, did you? I mean, that just wasn't going to happen. But if you want to capture attention, the eyeballs of people who don't know you but who do need your service, you've got to distill your business, the essence of your business, the change you create for other people in just a few words.

And this is what I love about creating Three Word Rebellions with my clients is that each one is so damn unique and just captures what their business is all about, but it's a message that is for their clients. It's for their people. It's not really about them.

And if you're not familiar with the Three Word Rebellion, first, you must be new to the show so welcome. I'm so glad you're here. You picked a great podcast episode to start with, but also you can find out more about how to create your Three Word Rebellion by checking out my book Three Word Rebellion: Create a One-of-a-Kind Message that Grows your Audience into a Movement. You can do that 3wrbook.com.

Through the years, there have been some absolute gems of Three Word Rebellions I've helped my clients co-create. Whether it's “profit without worrying” from Michelle Evans, 
“come by choice” from Mona Rose, “people over paper” from Glen Meyer, “create how you feel” from my coach and my friend, Stacy Fisher (although she has a new one coming out soon because her work has evolved and I'm so excited for its debut), and “uncaged your epic credential” from Caroline Mays, who is an amazing writer of people's stories and their bios and about pages and media bios. She's just brilliant at uncaging your epic credential.

And they're all so good. And they work because they make you think. They're curiosity provoking, which means they aren't inspiring thoughts. It's not the NLP vaguery that lulls you into a trance. It wakes you up and makes you think.

Now you've heard about the messages that we should definitely drown in the sea of sameness going into 2021 and what to do in order to have your work stand out and encourage thinking on behalf of your clients and customers. And I'm so sick of being bored on Instagram. I want to read things that make me think that make me slow my scroll and stop and say, “Ooh, I wonder what that person has going on.” And those are the messages we should be striving for so that we can avoid the vague bullshit of bro marketers.

So let's take a moment to reflect.

Number one: what message would you most like to kick to the curb in 2021? Once again, my DMs are open on Instagram. I would love to hear what you think.

And then number two: which of these techniques to make your message non boring and encourage thinking would you like to experiment with? Is it specificity? Is it understanding your audience better and using their language or trying your hand at a Three Word Rebellion? Because going into 2021, we really have to be focused on how our language is impacting our customers, how it's making them think about our work and making thoughtful purchase decisions.

And speaking of Three Word Rebellions, if you're done blending in or you feel like your business is drowning in the sea of sameness itself and you're ready to have messaging that is specific and speaks directly to your client's desires and what they'd want to achieve, I'd love to help you with that messaging in the Three Word Rebellion Messaging Intensive, where we craft your Three Word Rebellion, your client journey so you know what to say specifically to move them along to work with you. We'll talk about your signature stories and how to make that emotional connection, and a visibility action plan. And right now I'm enrolling clients to work with me in the first quarter of 2021.

So the first step is to go grab the Three Word Rebellion Service and Pricing Guide at drmichellemazur.com/guide. And then there's a link in there to book a discovery call. I would love to talk to you about your messaging. I've got some exciting new ways on the horizon to work with me in 2021 that I'd love to tell you about.

Now remember: don't be boring with your message. And don't shame yourself if you used some of this messaging in the past! 2021 is allowing for a fresh start for our businesses, for our messages, and for what we want to be known for. So I'm here for those specific messages that get into my brain that I can't stop thinking about.

And with that, I will see you in 2021, or you will listen to me in 2021. The Rebel Uprising Podcast, we're taking a slight hiatus. We'll be back on January 12th. So have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and bright new year. May 2020 explode into the past as we embark on a new beginning.

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 superfans 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 at 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. And now get back out there and cause an uprising in your industry. You got this.