Make Marketing Suck Less

What does your business need? When was the last time you sat down and asked yourself this very question, or have you ever asked the question? What does my business need? And the reason I'm bringing this up... because this is the question that I always pose to my clients, when we’re wrapping up their messaging.

They have this new, shiny message. They have this new client journey. They have all these content ideas. They're raring to go. They get stuck and they don't know how to put it out there. And the question I always ask them, “Well, tell me -- what does your business need?” And it's so easy to be flippant and just think, “Oh, well, my business needs sales. It always needs sales and money,” but does it really? I also think this is a perfect question to start thinking about what's next in our business because it is the season.

So today on the pod, we are going to talk about the three needs every business has because your business is actually pretty basic when it comes to its wants and its needs. And I also want to start by posing another question that you can ask yourself to help you ease into 2021. So let's do this.

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.

It's brutal honesty time. It's December and I am in a creatively fallow period. I've got nada. All of the creativity I can muster goes into my client work right now. That means this podcast almost didn't happen and it's happening because of a conversation that I had with a client, which I'm going to get to in just a moment.

Why I'm telling you this and why I'm starting here is because my coach Stacy Fischer -- she's a friend of the pod and has been on the show. She pointed out that every year at this time I teeter on the edge of burnout. I am counting the days until Christmas because every December I take two weeks off to relax, watch movies, read books, and do a little dreaming (by dreaming, I mean pretty much journaling).

Before we can think about what our business needs going forward and going into 2021, I think it's also time to think about what do you need as you head into the new year or whenever you're listening to this podcast. What do you need to show up and be your best? Because for most of us, 2020 has been a bit of a doozy. I think we can all agree that the word “unprecedented” has been used far too many times to describe this year, but that's exactly what it was all about.

And so before we can think about where our business is going next and what it needs next, we have to look inward and think about what do we need? And for me, it's been this interesting experience. I follow Tara McMullin (who will be a future guest on the pod coming in January, super excited about that), but she has been my business coach since the beginning.

She's taking us through this review process -- and you can find this review process on her Instagram account where she's asking a question every single day -- and as I've been doing my year review, the first question really struck me because she asked me, “What did you create in 2020?” And I sat down and I wrote on that question and I was like, “Alright, I created the Marketing Uprising workshop and I created all the sales copy around it. And I created 40 episodes of this podcast.”

Then I walked away and I was like, “Oh wait, I created other things too. I created a new webinar. I created the quiz. I created a new video to show people what the deliverable is they get when they work with me.” And then I walked away and I was like, “Oh man, I created some more stuff. Like the brand message map. Totally forgot about that.”

Now I'm wondering like, “Oh, my gosh, I created so much and I'm in this creatively fallow period. So what do I need right now? I need rest, right? I need time to reflect and recharge because we can't always be out-putting.”

So that is my need. If I don't fulfill that need, it impacts the business. So don't dismiss yourself as you're thinking about next year and building your business. Check in with yourself often and ask, like, what do you need? What do you need to show up and be your best? Because so many times it is rest and we tend to ignore that because we think we always need to be producing. And in these times when we're less than creative and feeling tired and exhausted, it's laying the ground for what comes next. So think back and ask yourself, “What do you need?”

Now, the question that goes hand in hand with that, as you start thinking about moving forward is “what does your business need?” Your business only has three needs. It only has three needs ever. Businesses are pretty basic. They're pretty simple. We tend to over-complicate them for some reason.

Our businesses need, number one, more eyeballs. Audience growth. We need more people to know about us. That's the first thing a business could possibly need. The second thing a business needs is more people raising their hands and saying, “yes, I think I have the issue that you solve and I'm interested in finding out more.” And so obviously this is lead gen. It is finding people to work with you, but really it's that need around like, “Yeah, I want to talk to the people who are interested in working with me. 

And then the final need, the third one, the one we think about all the time is money and sales. And I think this is the default need that we always go to. “Oh yeah. My business always needs money and sales.” But does it really? When we are marketing our business, we definitely go through seasons. We have a season where we need to find people who are interested in our work. We have a season where we're generating revenue, we're launching, we're opening the cart, whatever you want to call it, we're getting on sales calls.

And then we also have seasons where we realize like, “Ooh, more people need to know about me. I better get my message out there so more people know how I can serve and help.” And so it's important to think about what your business needs in terms of what's going on in the business.

So one of the things that I often see with business owners is that if they are only focused on sales or lead gen all the time, they're like, “Okay, I need sales. I need lead gen.” Then they get the sales and they get the lead gen and they stop getting their message out. And they're just focused on, “Okay, I'm going to deliver the work. I'm going to deliver the work.”

But when we are at capacity for clients or we're in a time where we're not actively launching anything, this is a great time, it's a great season to get more eyeballs on our business, to think about reaching those unaware people who don't know us yet, but who could definitely use what we do.

And so any time you start planning your year, you start planning your marketing, you think about how am I going to get my message out there? How am I showing up in my expertise? It always goes back to the question of what does your business need? And the answer will be audience growth, lead generation, or sales and revenue generation. Right

 And so it makes it really simple to think about it. And simple doesn't mean easy because, like, once you answer the question, then you have to think about, okay, so how do I satisfy that need, right? So how do I go after those people who could be interested? How do I grow the audience and how do I make those sales? And that's where your marketing campaigns and your message comes in. But if you always think about, you know, what does the business need, it's going to ground you and how to create that.

So clearly on this episode of the podcast, you have two reflection questions, and I think these are great ones to think about as you go into your 2021. Like, I am not into the new year, “this is going to be the best year yet.” I'm definitely more into the quiet reflection and doing some loose planning this time of the year. But I think asking yourself, what do you need right now? And then what does your business need in 2021? Those are great places to start.

And before we sign off, if your business needs more eyeballs and leads, that might mean it's time to do some marketing. And if marketing has felt hard and like a slog, and you've just been committing random acts of marketing all this time, I'd love for you to get on my list for my upcoming virtual workshop Marketing Uprising: Create a 30-Day Marketing Plan that Actually Results in Sales. And this workshop will be taking place in late January of 2021, so a great time to think about what your business needs during this workshop.

And what we're going to do is, number one, connect your marketing with your sales so that you know how your marketing actually leads to making offers and bringing people into your business. We’ll also be focused on creating content that actually engages and causes interaction online, which is so key -- that relationship building part is key to your marketing. And finally, we're going to develop a simple marketing plan that you'll stick to and you can rinse and repeat each month in 2021, and you'll even get my Marketing Uprising planning template.

So if you're interested in that, get on the waiting list for Marketing Uprising at drmichellemazur.com/list. And you'll be the first to know when I open 30 spots for enrollment and that's drmichellemazur.com/list.

And until next time, my friends, focus on what you need right now and then you'll be in a place to start thinking about what does your business need as you plan what's next in 2021.

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 therebelquiz.com.

If you're loving the podcast, do us a favor 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.