Make Marketing Suck Less

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:00): Do you ever say to yourself? I wish I didn't have to market my business. I just want to work with clients. Why can't I do just that?

It would be great if the results you get for your clients could just speak for themselves or people would land on your website and think, "Wow, she's a badass expert. I'm going to book a call." But it doesn't work that way. People need to know your business exists. They need your expertise to solve their problem. That's why during this very special Three Word Rebellion book club series, this week, we're diving into chapters two and three of the book to talk about why experts need to lead and lead with their expertise. And also to help you find the motivation to build a movement, no matter how large or small around your work. Let's do this.

Get ready for the Rebel Uprising Podcast. The only podcast dedicated to business owners who feel overlooked for their expertise, skills, and experience. Let's claim your expertise and turn your complex ideas into unmistakable messaging that grows your business. I am your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, the author of the Three Word Rebellion and your rebel troop telling guide to building a business that gets noticed.

Last week on the podcast, we worked on claiming your expertise with your, I am the one who knocks statement. This week, while we read chapters two and three of the Three Word Rebellion, I'm going to challenge you to step in and lead with your expertise. And to find the motivation to gather your people and grow your own movement behind the work you do and the change you want to create.

And by the way, you can still join us for this book club. Our first live call is this week. If you're listening to this the week of the 12th, just go to DrMichelleMazur.com/club to sign up. We'd love to have you.

Rebel truth time. Experts who can solve your problem are exceedingly hard to find. On Michael Lewis's podcast Against the Rules, he interviewed Todd Parks, who runs Athena Health and helped solve the healthcare.gov website diabolical back in the Obama administration. What he's learned is that the experts you need to solve any issue, any problem that you have exists six levels down from the most visible person. He calls these people, the L six. Listen to what Michael Lewis and Todd Parks have to say about it, and you'll hear from Michael first.

Michael Lewis (03:11): And the L six, not the officially important person, not the public person, the person on TV, not the person that seems like he knows what he's talking about. No, you need to find the person who spent the last 20 years stuffed inside some basement without windows, quietly learning things, and who as a result might not be very good at advertising themselves or what they know.

Todd Parks (03:33): There are some experts who, for whatever reason, are really terrible at explaining what is going on and what to do. Either because they're just really terrible at explaining, or because they're not clear thinkers or because they want to keep the secret sauce for themselves

Michael Lewis (03:48): In any given situation, you think it will be obvious who the expert is. It won't. We'll go right along believing that the people who happen to be on top are the most important people until we sense we cannot afford to believe that anymore, until say some crisis arises. And just to survive, you need to find someone who actually knows the answer to your question.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (04:12): I see this six level down issue all the time in online business, but for us in the industry, it's more like it's just three levels down. Let me explain. In episode 279, I introduced you to the concept of the visibility pyramid. Imagine online business as a pyramid. And no, I swear, we're not going to talk about MLMs or pyramid schemes. Although, we most definitely could.

At the top of the pyramid is the web celeb. You'll recognize that person because they are the name in the industry. They're paying for ads. You see their face everywhere. And they usually have a course or membership site that they are selling. Their business runs on volume. And they talk about how they are making seven figures, sometimes eight figures, and selling you their life style. Now, I want you to picture the web celeb in your industry. All right, do you have that person in mind?

Good. The web celeb is typically someone's first stop in trying to solve a problem. Let's say it's the problem of building a business. They enroll in the course or the program and realize, Hey, this program helped me some, but my business still has the exact same problem. So the person moves down to the next level in the visibility pyramid, the acolytes and the affiliates. These are people who are associated with the web celeb. They promote that celebs course or they've joined their mastermind. They are in proximity to their celebrity. These people usually have a leveraged business model as well. That relies on volume, but it's a bit more niche and specific. So people buy thinking, "Oh, oh my God, this person is going to solve my problem this time." But it doesn't.

Now the person who's been buying all of these programs really want some help. They realize they need someone's hands on help to get past the issue. So they finally moved down to level three, the level of the overlooked expert. Now this person, they can solve your problem for sure. They have years of experience and practice and skill. And it's the person you wish you would have found years ago. And I am betting people say this to you all the time. I know I hear it a bunch from the people I work with as well. These people typically do one on one work, provide services or small group programs. They've been obsessed with their expertise for a while. Now, the overlooked expert, you and I, we can solve people's problems, but unlike the government expert that Todd Parks and Michael Lewis is talking about dwelling away in a basement, waiting for someone to knock on their door and ask for help, we do not have that luxury. We do not have the luxury of just sitting around, waiting for someone to be like, "Hey, can you solve this problem that I have?"

Your mission is to make your expertise visible to those who need it so that they can find you and don't have to go through the rigamarole of paying gobs of money to the web celebs and their acolytes before they stumble on the person who can really help them. And this means you have to lead, you have to gather your people into that movement you are creating. And that's what chapters two and three of the Three Word Rebellion are all about. So be sure to read them.

So how do you step into leadership with your expertise? And I think about this a lot. I have worked with a lot of leadership coaches in my business and what I've seen time and again, from my colleagues and friends and clients who are leadership coaches, the problem they tend to solve is they have an expert that they're working with who is very good at what they do, is an excellent performer. And then that expert gets promoted into a leadership role and they don't know what the hell they're doing. And I feel for us overlooked experts that we're kind of in that same position. All of a sudden, we, as experts have to learn how to talk about and promote our businesses. We actually need to lead with the expertise. And in the book on page 37, I give a simple equation that influence plus change plus devotion equal a movement and a thriving business. Being able to articulate what it is you do, why it matters and lead people to work with you is the whole purpose of this book club. It is the whole purpose of my work and why my business exists.

This is your messaging, and we're going to be talking about that for the next several weeks. But the other two parts are key as well. Being clear on the change you want to create, which we're going to talk about in the next episode. But also thinking about how can you show up to lead and commit to that change? What are you going to do to champion it? And yes, this is some marketing stuff, right? So where are you showing up? How are you showing up?

And once you decide where and how you're going to commit to this change and showing up to be the ambassador of it, the second question is how can you be more devoted to your people? When people gather around you, your business, the change you want to create, what can you do to be there for your people?

Now I give some examples in the book, but I want you to think about how you can do this for yourself. For me, it looks like doing things that don't scale. Sometimes that's sending video messages to people who sign up to be in my email community, responding to all the DMS that I get on Instagram. But I make a point of being there and being devoted to my people and having this willingness to champion their work and help them figure out how to talk about it. Now I'd bet a million dollars of money that I don't have, that you are devoted to your people. You give a damn about the people who work with you, the people who are a part of your business, you care about the people who are in your email community. You want to get them results. You want to see them happy, successful, and thriving.

You actually care. Your business is not just a money grab with thousands of customers whose names and faces you don't know. Yours is an intimate movement. So how can you create something that makes people feel like they belong? And here are two questions I want you to think about.

Think about, number one, who do you want to gather? Who are the right people for your movement? And then question number two. Why do you want to gather them? For me, I want to gather people who are experts, who are excellent at the work they do, produce real results for their people and feel like they are hiding in plain sight. I want to gather the overlooked experts. Why do I want to gather them? Because there's so many slick marketers out there who are great at marketing, but not so great on delivering what's promised in that marketing. And that harms people, the people who buy from them, and it also harms and tarnishes the industry as a whole.

I want to gather them to fix the problem of not being able to communicate the value of their work and help them stop under promoting their business. I want them to have a way for people to find and hire them. I want them to be at the front of the industry so people won't get duped. Because instead of experts being hard to find, they are easy to find. You know exactly who to hire.

Now it's your turn. Hop on over to the Facebook group or the show notes page. And tell me, who do you want to gather and why? Remember if you're listening to this show the week of September 12th, you can still sign up for the book club and take part in our live discussion. Do that at Dr.MichelleMazur.com/club. And let me leave you with this quote from the book. Don't build a business for you, build it for the people who are changed by your three word rebellion. And I'd add, build it for the people who are changed by your expertise, who will be so glad that they finally found you.

If the Rebel Uprising Podcast is helping you claim and communicate your expertise so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend. The easiest way to do that is through pod link. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player. That's pod.link/rebel. The Rebel Uprising Podcast is a production of Yellow House Media. Our production coordinator is Lou Blazer. Our production assistant is Emily Kildef. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills. Our executive producers are Sean and Tara McMullin. The Rebel Uprising Podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional land of the coast Salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land past and present.