Make Marketing Suck Less

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:00): Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. Hey everyone, I'm so excited to announce that my mastermind is now open for enrollment. If you are a coach or a consultant wanting to take your business to the next level, the mastermind is the place to be. It's 12 months long, two hot seat calls every month for your most pressing business challenge, and a one-on-one coaching session with me once a quarter. You don't want to miss it. There are only 12 spots available and they go fast. Go to link in my bio for all the details and join.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:35): That sounds like every launch post of a program ever. Now, I am not against direct asks to your email list or social media. It's exciting and fun to announce the launch of your program, or to tell people you have spots open to work with you, but how can you talk about your offer without sounding like everyone else on planet earth who talks about the offer? How can you use your message and the content you create to get people ready to work with you?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (01:17): How can you talk about what you sell without actually talking about what you sell? Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about on this episode of the podcast. 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.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (01:56): 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.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (02:21): I've always believed that you can nurture your audience and get them ready to work with you while selling. We always think that selling in our content, email or social media is about explaining what our program is, what's included, sharing testimonials, sharing the features of the program and who it's for. But there are ways to make an offer without relying on any of these types of tactics, without relying on the testimonial dumps that you see in people's feeds all the time.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (03:03): There are ways to give people an aha moment to help them shift a belief while moving them closer to working with you, pushing that buy button, or finally booking that consult. So let's talk about those four different ways to make an offer. Now in full transparency, this is going to be easier for you if you have your messaging nailed and you know the key messages you need to talk about in order to build an argument for your work, in order to lead people to work with you.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (03:40): But with that said, even if you are unclear on your message, it still feels a little muddy, I'll be giving you some prompts to think about so that you can use these different ways to make an offer that doesn't feel like you're making an offer. So the first way to do this is to discuss an unexpected symptom of the problem that you solve.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (04:10): So people come to you because they have a problem. So what I want you to do is get out a piece of paper right now, write down what problem do you solve for people? So for me, the problem I solve for people is their difficulty communicating the value they're creating, right? They don't know how to talk about their business in a persuasive and compelling way that makes people want to work with them.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (04:37): Then once you have this problem written down, ask yourself what is an unexpected or unusual symptom of that problem? Think about what people say to you again and again on sales conversations. What do they say that lets you know that they have the problem you solve even if they aren't talking directly about the work you do? So here's an example from my own work and my own messaging.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (05:10): My clients say to me over and over again, I'm great at sales. If I can get someone on a call, I'm confident that I can close them, but it's hard for me to get people on the call. I hear this all the time. And to me, that's kind of an unexpected symptom of their marketing message being off. So what I can do is I can take what they say and create content that gives people an aha.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (05:43): So maybe I'll say something like, do you feel like you're great at sales? As long as you can get someone on a call, you can enroll them into your program, no problem. But the real issue for you is getting people on the call in the first place. It's such a slog. You know you need to market, but when you do, you don't actually feel like you are leading people to work with you, you don't feel like you're getting them excited and getting them curious to know more about your work.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (06:14): When I see that, I know it's a messaging problem. The rubble truth is you do have a great offer that people want and there is a message buried in what you are saying in your sales conversation that people need to hear. You just have to dig it out and then craft that message so that it leads people to have that call with you. And hey, this is exactly the work we do in the three word rebellion messaging intensive.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (06:44): So you can see what I've done here, is that I've first empathized with their struggle, right? I spoke to their strength, they're great at sales and then I identified the problem for why it's such an issue to get people on the call in the first place, their marketing message. And then I can show them how if they just unearth what they're saying in those sales conversations that's so effective and create a marketing message around it, it'll be easier to lead people to the offer, and that's what we do in my work.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (07:18): So that's the first way to talk about an offer without talking about all the ins and outs of your offer, discuss that unexpected symptom. The second way is one of my favorite. This is talking about industry trends. So you spot a trend that is happening in your industry. You talk about it and then segue into how your work gets people ahead of the curve, ahead of that trend.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (07:49): So for instance, if you keep writing on your piece of paper, write down some of the trends you're seeing in your industry, in your niche. So for me, I see that people are sick of creating content that doesn't lead people to wanting to work with them. I also see people wanting the heck off of social media, we talked about that in the month of April. And I also see a lot of business owners talking about a potential recession, the shaky economy and inflation.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (08:24): So if I was going to take one of those trends. Let's say I'm going to talk about the shaky economy. I could start with like one of the things I've noticed lately in business is business owners who are in a crowded marketplace are seeing a downturn in their business. Coaches who once could sell a program with ease are now on the struggle bus. Why is that happening?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (08:48): Well, that's happening because the economy is a bit shaky. Some of the experts are talking about that we might be going into a recession and inflation is sky high. Couple this with the industry changing and consumers are becoming more and more discerning where they invest their money. So what does that mean for you and I? Well, we've got to be super clear on the results we are creating for our clients and be crystal clear in the way we communicate that.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (09:24): We have to be clear on what makes us different from our competition so that it's easier for us to stand out, it's easier for your client to pick you instead of somebody who does what you do. So messaging is going to be more important and even more foundational to your business in order to weather any of the hiccups that are happening in our economy. This is exactly what I do in the three word rebellion messaging intensive, leading them right into the CTA.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (10:00): So why does this work? Number one, you are revealing a trend or you are articulating something you're seeing in the marketplace. You're telling people what they should know, what they should be on the lookout for and giving them something to think about especially if they're seeing a downturn in their own business right now, they might be thinking, "Oh yeah, the economy." Yep, it is definitely shaky out there.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (10:27): Finally, I'm telling them why messaging is now more important and even more foundational so that their business stands out, which leads nicely into the work I do. All right. So that is the second way to talk about your offer without talking about it, discussing an industry trend and dissecting it. The third way to do this is what I call in my work reason to believe stories. And these stories are case studies of your clients.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (11:00): It's not just dropping a testimonial, but it is going deep and talking about the experience your client has had. I love talking about my clients and telling their stories, whether it's on podcasts, interviews or this podcast. It's really fun to talk about the people you love working with. So the best example of this is in episode 285, so last week's episode where I talked about my client Camille.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (11:32): And when I was formulating this piece of content, I started with what I wanted you to take away. And what I wanted you to take away is not that you should work with me. I wanted you to take away that you need to stop focusing so much on your solution and really focus on communicating the results of your work. Now, the way that I got you to that takeaway is I told you Camille's story.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (12:02): And I use a very simple structure when I formulate case studies whether I'm working with a client to do this or myself, it's very simple. It's a before, during and after scenario. So you paint the picture of what was happening for your client before they started working with you, like what was the problem they were experiencing? And then you talk about what you did with them. What were their ahas? What were their belief shifts? What did they realize about their work?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (12:35): And then finally talking about the after, the results, what happened because of the work with you? And then relate that back to the takeaway. So in my case, stop focusing on the solution and start really focusing on the results. Then I can lead people to a call to action about, hey, if you're struggling with separating your solution from the results, I can help you with that in the three word rebellion messaging intensive. So that is the third way to talk about your offer without really talking about your offer, the reason to believe stories case studies.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (13:15): Hey friend, this summer I'm going to be doing a low cost three part virtual workshop called Finally Nail Your Message, harness the power of your words to explain what the heck you do and why it matters to the people who need to hire you. This workshop will give you the messaging essentials so you can be specific enough to attract prospective clients while also communicating what it is you do and how it helps them and why they need it.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (13:51): Interested? Get on the waiting list at drmichellemazur.com/nail, that's drmichellemazur.com/nail and I'll let you know as soon as the workshop opens. Now back to the show. All right, the final way to talk about your work without talking about it is super meta but it's giving an experience of your work. Think about how can you give people an experience of working with you without paying a dime.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (14:29): Now, I have several examples of this. In my own business if you're on my email news list, you know every other week I send out what I call a rebel messaging audit. And these audits, I had people submit their website and I'm looking at a specific aspect of that website and giving it a little bit of a makeover. And so if you want to see what those are like, please go get on my email list. You can do that at threewordrebellion.com and get the little mini audio workshop.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (15:01): But these messaging audits are giving people a taste of how my brain works when I'm working with someone on their message. And another good example was episode 283 where I was talking about marketing messaging makeover. So that's another way just to get you exposed to how I think about messaging. Another great example of somebody who does this is a guy named Harry at Marketing Examples. He is on Twitter.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (15:33): He also has a great newsletter and he does these before and afters of copywriting, of marketing messages, of marketing tactics to show people how they can be more effective. So it's a great way for you to experience how Harry sees marketing, how he optimizes businesses marketing, but also you learn a lot from seeing Harry kind of give these before and after marketing makeovers.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (16:06): And if you're like, "Well, that's great, Michelle. You're a service provider, Harry does marketing, but I'm a coach," well, even coaches can give an experience of their work. And so one coach that popped instantly into my mind as I was thinking about this was Veronica Grant. She is a former client and a friend. She is a love and life coach, and she has the Love Life Connection Podcast.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (16:33): And in some of her episodes, she brings people on to the show and coaches on her podcast live. It's going to give you a great idea of what it's like to coach with her, what that experience is like, the kind of questions she asks, how she makes people feel and the breakthroughs that they have. So if you're a coach and you're like, "Oh, I don't know if I can do this," definitely check out Veronica Grant's podcast because there is a way to give an experience of your work, show your work so that people understand what you're all about.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (17:10): And when you show your work, it's really easy then to segue into a call to action for people to work with you. Now, promoting your offer, asking for a sale does not have to be hard, it does not have to be boring, and it can be an act of nurturing, an act of getting people ready to work with you. So here's my challenge. Take one of these ways to talk about your offer without talking about it and give it a try. Whether you decide to discuss an unexpected symptom or talk about an industry trend, tell a reason to believe story or give an experience of your work, try it out and let me know how it goes.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (18:05): 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 at therebelquiz.com.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (18:28): If you are 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've got this.