Make Marketing Suck Less

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:00): Hey Rebels. It's that time of year when you're casting a big vision, making plans, setting goals, and thinking about the projects that will move your business forward in 2023. But as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said, no plan survives contact with the enemy and no business plan survives contact with reality. What do you do when reality sucker punches you in the gut? We are going to talk about this and why this podcast went on hiatus unexpectedly at the end of 2022. Let's do this.

(00:46): 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 3 Word Rebellion and Your Rebel Troop Telling Guide to Building a Business That Gets Noticed. You might have noticed that I took off an extended period of time from the podcast with zero explanation, no programming note, just dropped off the face of the planet, and there was a really, really good reason for that. At the end of October, the hubby and I were on vacation in Palm Springs. It was the last full day of our vacation and we were having a fantastic time. We decided we would go to the Museum of Architecture and Design to view the exhibition.

(01:53): Once we came out of the museum, I took a left and started back towards the car and the hubby went to take a picture. And then the next thing I heard was a scream. My hubby fell. He fractured his right elbow and left shoulder. And if you're thinking, "Holy shit, he can't use either arm?" You're absolutely right. He spent a full two weeks in the hospital in Palm Springs. And side note, if you're going to break bones, Palm Springs is a really great place to do it. They have a full orthopedic wing with amazing top-notch surgeons and nurses. Now, while my husband will make a full recovery, he gets stronger every day, he will be setting off metal detectors in airports from years to come. However, I found myself in new territory after this happened, and that was being a full-time caretaker. I also found myself physically taxed and emotionally on the edge.

(02:58): It's so hard to watch someone you love suffer that much. Once I was over the initial shock and I could actually sleep through the night without waking up with tons and tons of anxiety and racing thoughts and worries, I realized that I couldn't run the business like I always had. I couldn't accomplish the plans and goals that I had set out. I couldn't take care of myself, my hubby, and our three cats, and my clients without running myself into the ground. I started asking myself, "What would minimum viable Michelle do?" You know, much like companies create a minimum viable product that have just enough features to get it into the marketplace? I was thinking about what does just enough look like for my business? And I feel like this is a question we don't ask ourselves enough. Who is minimum viable Michelle and how does she show up?

(04:13): When something like this happens, you get super clear on what's truly important in your business and what absolutely is not. It was clear to me that my clients were my number one business priority. I needed to show up for them and be at my best for them while taking care of my husband, our house, our cats. Shout out to my clients who were so flexible, so understanding during the first few weeks after this happens. You made my life infinitely easier because of your flexibility and your understanding and your empathy. I so appreciated that. My second priority was I still needed to earn revenue in the business to make my life work and to pay my bills and to pay my team. And this led me to ask the question, what's my most important marketing task? What marketing brings me closer to revenue? How does minimum viable Michelle do a minimum viable marketing?

(05:33): I assessed, I was looking at what I was doing in my marketing strategy, and it was clear straight away that the furthest thing away from revenue for my business was social media. I ditched that immediately. I knew I could let it go. And let's face it, like when the shit goes down, social media starts feeling really silly. The call to do reels and to dance on camera, like all of that just seems so trivial when your life is literally a shit show at the time. Social media went, and while I love podcasting and recording episodes, I know that this podcast performs a nurturing function in my business. The job of the podcast is not to find all the new listeners. It's to engage the current audience that I have and nurture them and lead them to working with me whenever they're ready.

(06:38): There are nearly 300 episodes of this podcast for people to listen to and get familiar with my work and my POV on messaging and marketing. I felt I could take time off and still have this podcast do its job. And what's really interesting, you think, "Oh, if I stop podcasting, no one will download it" and that's not true. I was still getting downloads of the podcast every single day through December and the first part of January. That is like the beauty of podcasting. People can find it, and if your content is evergreen, they can listen to older episodes and still get so much value and learn so much about your work, your business, and what it means for them. The podcast went on hiatus. That left me with my email list, and to me, my email list is the most valuable marketing asset that I have.

(07:36): I decided to commit to emailing my list at least once a week, and I was going to launch my marketing workshop one last time. This is the Marketing Uprising Workshop. It is now retired, but that was the decision. I figured the email list and the workshop would help generate revenue for the business. And what made that plan work was repurposing content like a rebel. Now, I know that most of you feel a little bit weird about repurposing your content, reusing it. I get this question all the time. How can I zhuzh up my content and repurpose it without people knowing that's what I'm doing? And here's the deal, people don't remember what you post. People don't remember the email that you sent three months ago. And we work so hard on the content that we create, whether it is a podcast, an email, a social media post, that the ones that work we should be resurfacing and reusing because I knew that most days I was not going to have creative capacity to create brand new emails.

(08:56): Once I had that thought, a funny thing happened. My brain started looking for opportunities to reuse content. For instance, a client sent me a question and I wrote her a very lengthy response. And at the end I realized, "Hey, I could reuse this as an email to my list." And I did, with her permission, of course. I did a podcast interview and asked the host if I could reuse part of the transcript and repurpose that into an email. And when I launched the marketing workshop, I reused all the emails from a previous launch. I just brushed them up a little bit, zhuzhed them up and sent them out, and that's how I sold spots. Here's the rebel truth. There are opportunities to repurpose your content everywhere. Don't believe your brain that you need to always be creating content because as I said before, no one remembers that email you sent three or six months ago.

(10:04): And once you have your message nailed and know that it works for your marketing, repurposing is so freeing and you keep resurfacing your best work, it's going to save you so much time and you're going to be so much more effective in your marketing. Letting my brain find repurposing opportunities is something I am totally keeping in my business as I go forward to 2023 because this really freed my time and my energy up so I could still do the creative work I do for my clients. Another thing minimum viable Michelle did during this time was saying no or not yet, to a whole host of meetings and opportunities. I got ruthless with my calendar and my schedule. I had to say no to a lot of people who wanted to collaborate or interview me for an event. I had to reschedule all non-essential meetings. To me essential meetings are client calls and sales calls, and I had to just say, "No, I can't do that" to some opportunities that came my way and that was the best thing that I could do, so that I could thrive and not merely survive.

(11:30): And that brings me to the final thing that saved minimum viable Michelle during this time, and it's my Thrive List. And shout out to Tara Newman of the Bold Money Revolution and the Bold Profit Academy. She talks about creating a Thrive List, and this list is all about activities that help you thrive and refill your energy and capacity. Most of the things on my Thrive List are free. Because of this Thrive List, I knew that naps and sleep were a strategic business priority. Reading fiction daily was a must. And by the way, my favorite read of 2022 is Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It's such a great book, highly recommend it. I also knew I needed to move my body and go for walks because all of these things energize me. They extended my very limited capacity. During the day or between client meetings, instead of trying to do the business stuff that I normally do, I took care of my physical and emotional needs.

(12:50): How did 2022 end? Well, my husband's getting better. Yay. He's able to do more. Yay. And the business was slow. I made less revenue than expected, and that's okay. I wasn't able to make as much progress as I wanted on my new community offer, and that's okay as well because I was able to be there for my husband and my clients. Oh, and the cats, I can't forget the cats, always have to be there for them. While you make your big plans for 2023, I also challenge you to think about what minimum viable you could look like so you can run your business while taking care of you and the people who matter most.

Audio (13:57): 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 Podlink. 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 Kilduff. 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.