Make Marketing Suck Less

Dr. Michelle Maser (00:00): How many marketing courses or programs have you purchased? If you're like me, it's a shit-ton, too many to count. Those programs filled my head with all kinds of tactics to get my work in front of new people, from Instagram to webinars to lead magnets that would explode my list. I feel like I've heard it all, but there's something very important that these courses and programs left out. In fact, it tends to be the secret of success for some of the biggest names in the industry. What was left out? Well, that's what we're talking about on today's pod. Let's dive in.

(00:49): 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 Maser, the author of The Three Word Rebellion and Your Rebel Truth Telling Guide to Building a Business That Gets Noticed. Years ago, I was listening to an interview between Amy Porterfield and James Wedmore, and I discovered something that I never knew before. It was how they got their start in online business. Both Amy and James were approached by Lewis Howes when neither one of them had an audience or even a course or program to sell. Lewis gave each of them the idea for their course. Amy created a Facebook marketing course, James, a video course, and then how did they sell these courses?

(01:59): Well, they sold them to Lewis' existing audience, which was rather large. That collaboration with Lewis Howes was a huge break for both of them. It was the power of that collaboration that grew their audience and gave them their big break so they could be where they are today. Fun story, right? And why am I telling you all of this? It's not like you're going to get Lewis Howes to promote you, right? Now, this is what I find fascinating. If you think back to the marketing programs that you've taken, how many have made collaborating with other people the focus? Finding people to partner with, not just affiliate with, but finding other people to partner with to grow your audience? There's not many. It might be mentioned as an aside, like do an Instagram Live with someone else or get featured on another person's podcast, but the central focus of those marketing programs is how to do something, like how to do Facebook ads or Instagram or build a lead magnet.

(03:20): And those programs will give you strategies to promote whatever it is you're creating, but very rarely does it create a community of collaborators. So many courses about courses tell you that no audience is no problem, except it is a problem when you don't have people to sell your services to. It's hard to be known for your work when you're bootstrapping your audience growth. Even if you just need a small audience, because I know some of you listening don't need that many people to run a really successful and thriving business, but it is so hard to go it alone. And here's what I know to be true. If you want to be known and hired for your work, the best and fastest way to do that is by collaborating with other people.

(04:24): Over the past few episodes, I've been talking about three unconventional strategies for experts to get known and hired. We've talked about the minimum viable meaningful message, your MV-MM. where we translate your expertise into a message that matters to your clients. Then once you have your MV-MM, this is where the second strategy comes into play, experiment to amplify. You might know this as marketing, creating a simple marketing strategy and plan that you then can create marketing experiments around so you can take more intentional action. And finally, figure out what actually works for your business. This last strategy is going to be the key strategy, and it's what helped drive the creation of the Expert Up Club collaboration. In order to change business for the better, experts must become known for their work. We can't do it alone. We need other people. We need each other. A critical mass must flood the zone with our expertise. The way we do it faster than a snails pace is through collaboration.

(05:47): Now, I've been part of a couple groups that help you find other collaborators, and what I found is that there weren't many people who aligned with my values. They were using manipulative bro marketing and sales tactics, and they were all about the amount of figures you make and your audience size. And my best collaborations came from people whose values aligned with mine. During the Three Word Rebellion book launch, I found those collaborators, sometimes within my very own audience. The Copy Chat with Marissa Cochrane was another great collaboration that allowed me to grow my audience. Part of the Expert Up Club is creating a place where people who have similar values can find collaborations. I like to think of these as co-conspirators finding each other. This is not just affiliate relationships, although it can be. There's going to be no rules against that. I have something else in mind.

(06:54): And so this is my vision for what collaboration could look like in the Expert Up Club. First, promoting other people's work. Whether it's lead magnet swaps, co-hosting trainings with each other, podcast interviews or panel podcast interviews, sharing each other's work when it's appropriate, referral partners and probably not even thinking about yet, I want to create a place where you can find each other so that you can work together to grow your business' brand awareness, to grow your audience. I know for me, like I'm hoping to use the club to find other experts that I can interview for this podcast or panel interviews for this podcast. I love to think of it as a space where we can promote each other's work. The second piece of collaboration that will take place in the Expert Up Club is feedback and support. Let's face it, you can't create a message in a vacuum.

(08:12): Messaging is inherently a social project. You need feedback. You need to be heard. You need to hear yourself saying your message out loud, and the community will be there to give you that feedback and support in creating your minimum viable meaningful message. You can also get feedback and support around what's working, what's not, or sometimes you just might want to vent and you can let us know that and we can support you that way. And one thing that has been surprising to me as I've been talking to people about the Expert Up Club is how many of them are interested in the club, because they just feel so damn lonely. They're interested in the club because they want to be around people who are like them, that people that they can talk to, people who get them because running your business can be really lonely work.

(09:19): And I feel like feedback and support can counter that loneliness because we're all in this together. And the final way I see collaboration happening, and this might be a little ways away from the founding member launch, but I see people creating brain trusts. And what a brain trust is a peer led group that focus on a common interest to help people get known and hired for their work. For instance, when we're working on messaging, messaging brain trusts could form where you can support each other and give feedback. There might be specific marketing topics that form as a brain trust where people meet once a month to talk about like what's working with email marketing or podcast marketing or on LinkedIn. There's such opportunity here to learn from each other and get new ideas about what actually works to grow your audience and ultimately your business.

(10:30): In my heart, I believe collaboration is the key to accelerating becoming known and hired for your work. When you've got your MV-MM and you're already marketing, then finding the right collaboration partners can ignite becoming known for your work. And finally, P.S. I am in the preliminary stages of opening up the Expert Up Club for founding members. If the community I've been talking about over the past three episodes is piquing your interest, then head over to ExpertUp.club. Yes, that's the URL, ExpertUp, all one word, .club, to get all of the details and apply. And by the way, the sales page for this is a simple Google Doc since this is a founding members launch, so don't be surprised when you see that. And finally, let's change business for the better. Let's create a movement of experts who are known for what they do and the results they get for their clients. Let's expert up together.

(11:49): 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 Kilda. The podcast is edited by Stephen Mills. Our executive producers are Sean and Tara McMullin. The Rebel Uprising podcast is recorded on the unceded traditional land of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past and present.