Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where good work stood on its own?

Where, if you were getting your clients amazing results, that would be more than enough to fill up your client roster to always have people clamoring for your programs, that people would just come and ask you to speak on their stage.

And wouldn't it be nice if good work could just be enough? But it unfortunately is not when it comes to business, especially when it comes to getting opportunities to share your expertise or booking clients. The best person at marketing is the person who wins the clients and the opportunities. And that's where most experts struggle.

So today on the podcast we are doing something a little bit different. I am giving you a behind-the-scenes tour of the Expert Up Club. And that is my community that is currently accepting applications for new members. The community is dedicated to helping you get known and hired for your work.

If you're a little bit curious about what the Expert Up Club can do for your business, how it can support you in being known, seen, and valued and the top choice for your “right fit” clients, then, listen in on this guided tour of what you'll find in the Expert Up Club.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:02]: Welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. The podcast that knows marketing is freaking hard, especially when you're a solo business owner trying to juggle it all.

I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, author of the 3 Word Rebellion and founder of the Expert Up Club.

Forget the latest marketing fads and tactics promising social media stardom. I'm here with research-backed strategies to help you clarify your message and get twice as effective with your marketing.

And while I can't promise you'll ever love marketing, I'm here to make you hate it a tiny bit less.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:47]: One of the reasons I created the Expert Up Club is because marketing really sucks for experts. You and I are used to being really good at what we do. We're used to excelling, we're used to getting the gold star. But when it comes to marketing, we feel at a deficit.

We're too close who our work to market it in a way that makes people care about what we do and see the value in what we do. So the Club exists to help experts, get out there and market and share what makes them brilliant and how it helps other people.

So with that in mind, I wanted to let you know before we dived into this behind-the-scenes look that Expert Up Club is accepting applications until September 28th. That is this Thursday so if you are listening to this on the 26th or 27th, you still have time to get your application in to join this cohort of the club. And you can do that at ExpertUp.club expert up dot club, and I look forward to seeing your application and answering any questions you might have. So now let's go on the guided tour.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:25]: We are gonna cover the why, what, and who behind the club. I wanna tell you, like, why this exists, why it's important to you, and some of what you will experience here.

We're gonna I'll give you a tour and overview of the club. You'll get to meet some members in that process and I'll be answering some of the burning questions I often get about the Expert Up Club. Let's dive in!

And I wanted to talk with why I started this Club and the need that I saw. What I realized is I saw this problem that was in the online business industry, but it's always bigger than that. And I had this question…Why are the people who are best at what they do so often overlooked for their expertise?

I really thought about this problem in terms of the overlooked experts. That's the person who is so amazing at what they do, and they create these great results for their clients. But their clients often say to them, like, “oh, I wish I would have known about you first. You would have saved me so much time, money, and energy.” And frankly, it’s great to hear because, you know, like, oh, yeah. you're my “right person”. And it kinda sucks at the same time because you know that that person has been burned the for.

So in my head, I was like. how can I help experts get known for what they do? And be seen as the first choice, not the second or third choice whenever people find you.

And I was listening to this podcast last year, called Against the Rules with Michael Lewis, and he was doing a series about experts and why experts are so often passed over or kind of crapped upon. In one of the interviews. He said the kind of people who sit there thinking about how to market themselves aren't the kind of people who are developing these exquisite expertises.

And I realize that that's you, right?

You are the one with the experience and the expertise, you have the tools in the toolbox, and you're able to get your clients great results. And you'd much rather spend your time working with your clients, learning more about what it is you do and how you do it to improve the experiences your clients have with you. Then sit there and think about “What should I say on LinkedIn today?” Right? Like, that's not appealing.

So how do we go about figuring out this problem? How do we get experts known and seen for their work? And that's really what the promise of the Expert Up Club, is, exist together all of us as a collective, to support each other to get recognized and hired for our exquisite work.

And it matters to you because at the end of the day, I want you to be seen and known as the only choice for your clients.

I want you out there. I want your name on the tip of their tongue because it means better clients and more opportunities to share your expertise. And also it matters for the industry. As some of you know, I am the co-host of the podcast Duped the Dark Side of Online Business, which is a consumer advocacy podcast that looks at, manipulative marketing and sales and cult-like tactics and online business. And I really believe that if we can have the people who are most qualified hired, that means fewer people would be getting duped. And I really believe if we flood the zone with experts, the industry changes for the better. And that's the culmination of my work for years. I hate I hate hate hate seeing people get duped by the flashy web celebs with the catchy marketing, who don't really have the credentials or experience.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:15]

So the way we get you known for your work in the Club is the Club is based on 3 pillars that we're gonna see throughout today. And the first pillar is to translate your expertise into a minimum viable meaningful message. This is important because it makes marketing easier because if you know what to say in order to lead people to work with you, Oh, marketing gets easier. Right?

And that's what pillar 2 is all about amplifying. So it's amplify your message with a do less, but better marketing strategy.

And then the final pillar is collaboration, collaborating with other business owners who help you spread your message faster than before.

And I think what surprised me when I started this is I thought, oh, man, everybody's gonna join because they want help with, like, their marketing and messaging. And They did not. I was wrong. They were really joining for that collaboration piece to be in a room with other experts who are doing this work, who feel a little bit lonely. And there are some people in the club who ONLY participate in the collaboration. Because they feel like they have the other stuff dialed in, and they just wanna be in the room with amazing human beings. And supporting their work and being supported.

So with that, before we go any further, I really wanted just to talk about who is a good fit for the club and who is maybe not yet. So let me just tell you who is a fit because I really, you know, like, if you're not a fit for this, feel free to drop off, I'm not gonna be offended or anything like that. And this just gives you an idea of will this be the right place for you because I think with community, it's so important to try to find your people, right, because we're kinda lonely out there.

So a yes would be somebody who is an expert and or an established business owner. And there's a reason why I use the and/or, because I know that when you have expertise and you're at the beginning of your business, most of the stuff out there isn't for you. It is for the people who are just one step ahead of their clients or 20 minutes smarter, Amy Porterfield's 10% rule. Right? And it doesn't feel like your expertise is actually valued. And it is.

So we have a lot of established business owners, but we also have some people who are at the beginning of their career who really know their stuff. So how do I define established? I mean, you'll see later. We have people who are from range from 1 to 18 years into business, our average tends to be 7. But it's not just time. I think a lot of us have decades plus in our industries or expertise. And I think how we define established business will become clearer as we move on as well.

I think one of the things is that you have a proven offer and know how selling is a big part of this.

And why that's important?

The people who are best for the club are the people who are like, I am great on sales calls. If i can get someone on the phone with me, they are interested in working with me. But the issue lies with getting them on the phone. Right? It's that marketing piece of getting them on the phone.

One of the things I'd like to think about the club is, like, you're serious about business. Like, your business is your thing. Right? It is how you're generating revenue. It's how you're paying yourself, but also, you know, take business too seriously. There's ebbs and there's flow and there's humor and bringing all of that to the table is very important.

You don't wanna be a lone wolf anymore. You really wanna be with some people who are doing this together. And also a spirit of generosity. I feel like that is the core characteristic among every single one of our members. Like, I am consistently blown away about how lovely and generous and helpful everyone is.

So it and not yet might be you're still early in your business or early in developing your expertise. You're unsure about what you sell and who you sell it to. So if you're like, “I don't know what it is that I do yet”, this is probably not place for you to figure that out.

You'd want to be internet famous. Most of us, almost all of us do not need to be internet famous to have a good business, to have a successful business.

And you're only interested in joining because this community is your exact target market. While promotion is something that we do in the community, it is not the reason to join it. I do encourage promotion because you gotta build that muscle. And it's good to build it around your peeps, but that's not the reason.

So if you're asking, I know a lot of you know me, but if you're wondering, like, who the hell is she to be leading this club, that is an excellent question. So a little bit about me, I have 10+ years of working with business owners from a variety of different industries. I have worked with astrologers to attorneys to business consultants to other messaging and marketing folks to coaches and relationship coaches and brick and mortar spas and fitness clubs, veterinarians. Like, I have seen a lot. I've been inside a lot of different business models.

I also have a Ph.D. in communication, which means I understand the science of messaging and persuasion, and how to persuade without being a timeshare salesman. Because I feel like that is what we do in online businesses. People persuade, like, their time share salesman, and we don't do that.

I also have 7 years of experience in corporate America, doing market research for companies that you've heard of, like Microsoft, Burt's Bees, Kerry Gold Butter, Kraft, Foods, General Mills. So I really understand how marketing and messaging works in the real world and not just the online bubble, because let me tell you a little secret, my friends, what we're taught in online business from these web celebs, that's not how it actually works in the real world. But, yeah, the way we're taught to market and sell online is not the way most businesses do it.

So one of the things that sets a community apart from any course or program or 1 on 1 work that you would do is a community has a set of shared values. And these are the values we gather around and everything that I do in the community I'm imbuing with these values.

So the first value that we have is that expertise is vital, and it is valuable. Because I know the one step ahead be your 10% edge, the 20 minutes smarter, like, we hear that all the time, and it can feel like our expertise doesn't matter, but it does. And I really view that claiming and promoting your expertise is an act of rebellion. So if you show up and you claim, like, yes, I am an expert. That's… I love that. That's that's why we are here. This is why we exist.

Our second value is the courage to try. Most communities will celebrate wins. I'm sure you've seen this, like, “share your weekly wins with us”, which is great. And I want to celebrate your wins. But what's more important to me is we just celebrate what you're trying. In the failed events, we share, like, what didn't work and what did we learn. And those are really powerful moments of normalizing failure because when you look on Instagram, it's all hockey stick growth and 6 figures this and 7 figures that, and business isn't actually like that. And it really takes that experimentation.

The 3rd value is curiosity is power. Experts are inherently curious about what they do, how they do it, they ask questions, they look at their marketing and wonder, like, What works? What didn't work? Why? Like, what's going on? We have a defined scope of practice, and we admit when we don't know something. Leading this club. I know there are people in there that are so much smarter than me about other things. There are things I don't know, and I am fine with admitting that. But just being committed to finding out.

Our 4th value is playing the long game. We know this work is a long term strategy, becoming known marketing. It's not 30 days. It is not 90 days. It's one of the reasons the club is a year long experience because we didn't earn our expertise overnight. And we know that success takes time. And figuring out, like, let's just be honest, marketing kind of sucks. It's really hard. And you have to figure out and know what works so that you can really double down on it.

Alright.

And our final shared value is a mandate to communicate. My friends, we have this amazing gift of what we know and our experiences. And we can custom make our solutions to our clients and how they show up for us. So it is our duty to communicate that. It is our duty to make our expertise visible for others because they can't hire you, they can't ask you to be on a podcast if they don't know you exist. Right? So, mandate to communicate, that is what we're all about.

So the first question I wanted to tackle is because we get this a lot is, like, who are the people in the club. So Rachel's here. Becca's here. Those are 2 of our people. And so the people in the club come from a diversity of fields and expertises. We have it's it's kind of an interesting crew. We have 2 interior designers. Which is interesting. They work in 2 very different ways. We have a couple of coaches who were therapists like Rachel, and now are in the coaching industry. We have business consultants, marketing consultants, a copywriter, a practitioner of Eastern medicine. Like, we have branding people, like, All kinds of people are in the club.

We are 90% women or women identifying. We have 2 dudes right now. Who are fantastic and amazing human beings. And we are open to men and women, but I feel like women have always been more drawn to my work and are drawn to an experience like this. And we work either B2C. So consulting with other businesses, business to consumer, or B2B, which is, you know, basically what I do. Right? Like, consulting with other entrepreneurs, other small business owners. As I mentioned before, the average number of years in business is 7. The range is anywhere between 1 to 18. We have several people who have been in business for 10, 15, 18 years. So there is a lot of collective intelligence in the group. But no matter what, even if you've been in business for 1 year or 2 years, you still have something to give, you bring your expertise to this. And the majority of us have transitioned from corporate academia or a therapy practice into business.

So those are the people. Oh, I forgot to say. Yeah. All of them are generous and very helpful. They're lovely. They're like, I'm so excited that I get to wake up and spend time with these people every week. I'm lucky that way.

So let's go into a tour of the club. So what's inside the club? And I would love to open up Circle, which is the community app we use, which is like Slack, but better, Mighty Networks, but way way better than Mighty Networks. And it's not on Facebook. because Facebook sucks, and they can take away your group at any point in time.

So in the club, there are different ways we can support you in collaboration, in your messaging, and in your marketing. So there's 3 main spaces or groups in the club. So there's our training and event space, which is the lobby, support and feedback, which is the expert up lounge, and then in this quarter, we are starting some marketing interest groups, which I'm gonna talk about a little bit later.

So in the lobby, The “Get Started” and “Introduce Yourself”. Get Started has all of the information. I mean, it has our community values, our community guidelines. It has information about recordings and customer service. So it's kind of the one-stop shop. And so after you see you kind of read through there, you'll go to the next, area, which is the introduce yourself. And if you become a member, And you get to introduce yourself and be greeted by our fantastic people.

Announcements are just for me. So I broadcast things like, if something's happening or I need feedback, I can broadcast that in the announcements group.

And then we have Events. So we have typically 4 events a month. They happen every Tuesday at 10 AM. Pacific time. Sometimes they change. And so our events are we have our focus messaging sprints, which I'll talk a little bit about on the next slide. We do twice monthly office hours. So one of our monthly office hours is a Q&A with me. So this is the place to get your questions answered. So if you're wanting feedback on your copy or a blog post or a campaign or your LinkedIn profile or the framework you're working on, That's a great place to do it, plus you get me and the other people in the group who are also have excellent ideas.

And then we also do asynchronous once a month. So I start a thread in the club, and then you can ask any questions. This one is probably the best one for getting, like, feedback on copy because then I can do loom videos for you.

We also have our quarterly marketing retreat where as a group, we gather, we reflect on what's been working, what's not working. We decide what our strategy is for the next quarter, create the marketing plan, and then define our marketing experiments. And those happen four times a year.

We also have monthly community events, like when I was just talking about the failed event, we will be having some happy hours sometime in the future. We will also, have an event, like, an ignite style event where people can share their expertise.

And towards the end of this quarter, we're going to start having support workshops because I don't know everything. So I'm I know there's some interest in, like, having a workshop around SEO. We have an SEO expert in the group. So I'm gonna source what people want to learn more about, then I'm going to find the expert, and I really wanna get experts from the group. And, also, these are going to be a paid, like, paid for the experts who come in to teach. Because expertise is valuable and vital, and we pay experts.

Everything is recorded. We have a private podcast feed. I also post the video and a transcript of everything. So if you miss something, you can scan the transcript and get what you're looking for or just pop it in your ears and go out for a walk.

So with the messaging sprints, now that I've had my founding member round, I'm refining how I'm approaching these messaging sprints. But the first thing you should know, so messaging sprints are focused on the key messages that you need to complete 3 different jobs your message does in your marketing. And so we use these terms grow, engage, and offer, whatever we're talking about messaging or marketing in the group.

So grow is exactly what it sounds like. “How do how are you getting discovered?” “What do you need to say in order to be discovered by new people in order to build awareness?” “How do you get their attention?” And then once we get people's attention, you gotta know what to do with it. So we talk about in which is all about nurturing and leading people to your work.

And then finally, offer is obviously in people into your sales process, what are the key messages? So there's about 3 key messages for each stage. How we structure the messaging sprints is we have, like, a training. And then I'm going to be breaking down, like what you can do in 10 or 15 minutes a day to make progress. Some people just like to sit down and do it all at once. It's fine. Whatever. Works for you. And these are the things you can get feedback on. So if you've really been wanting to become more strategic with your messaging so that you know how everything you put out in your marketing actually leads clients to work with you, then these sprints are for you. So if you feel like they've been a little random with marketing, these sprints are definitely for you.

And if you're thinking to yourself, “Damn, Michelle. That's a lot of events!”. Here's what you should know. We do have one live or async event per week. On average, people spend about 2 to 3 hours per week in the club. I just ask them to tell me because I know everybody asks that question. And what I love about the club is you really get to choose your own adventure. So, like, if you are in a season where you just need to focus and get your marketing out there, coming to the Q&As might be a great option.

I do a 15 minute welcome call with everyone who joins just to kind of get you oriented and make a suggestion of where you should focus and spend your time. And one member of the club asked she was on vacation for, like, a month, and she's like, “how do I re-engage?” And I really love what Rachel had to say. She mentioned that she has been pretty involved in the club since day 1, both online and in the meetings, and she still misses stuff, which is natural. So picking a couple of people whose shares you've enjoyed on here and asking for a live meet is a great way to get connected. And then she suggested the people, like, watch the first messaging or marketing recording. Just get yourself prepped for some of what Michelle is talking about. Because all of it's offered again. It's a very cyclical in the club.

And Rachel said “that's because I don't think any of us have done all of our homework and feel complete with this work. So we keep re-engaging on pieces of it. And I think learning different nuances as we go.”

And Becca says “I spent about 3 hours a week in the club, but if client work is super busy, I know, and I will get busy. I know I will get back and caught up easily.”

And I think that's the thing. Like, people will dip in and out based on the demands on their time. Like, I don't expect everybody to, like, be there every single day. Like, you can be a great member and get so much value out of the club by just have, you know, 1 or 2 hours a week.

So that's inside. So those are our events. Lots of fun things.

And then in the community itself, we have 4 core forums.

So the “Let's Chat” forum is literally about we can talk about anything there. People have talked about summer plans, what they're working on. If they don't know where to post something, just put it in Let’s chat, everybody will see it. So that's for socializing and just kind of sharing things that aren't necessarily related to marketing and messaging. We had someone who had to break up with a collaborator, and she was wondering how best to break up with a collaborator. And that's what gets asked in Let's Chat.

The “Ask For Help” forum is to get feedback and help on any tricky business problem and marketing message. And I will say even though we have, like, these formal office hours, I'm in the club every day, except for weekends. So if you need help have a question, I will get back to you and I will probably tag other people into that question.

And then we have the “Consume This", which is a place. I think this is my favorite forum because we share, like, helpful resources. Or if you listen to a great podcast, or you read a great book, you can share about that in the forum. Like, another member, Charlotte and I just took Jay Clouse's newsletter workshop. And Charlotte did this, like, lovely write up of what she learned in the workshop.

And then finally, “Promote Your Stuff’. Once a month, promote your stuff or ask for help promoting. And this is, like, I try to keep track of club members. So if I don't see them promoting their stuff, I will actually go ahead and start a post for them. So one of our members Meg Casebolt, she has a book coming out on July 27th called The Social Slowdown. And I posted about it because it's a big deal. And we can all help her and support her in the promotion of that.

Alright.

So the final new in Q3, are our Brain Trust groups. And this is probably the first time some of our members are hearing about these. So a Brain Trust is going to be focused on a specific marketing strategy. So examples that some people have thrown around are like having a speaking group for a brain trust or an email marketing group And these groups exist to get support on that specific item and to sure maybe they'll meet, like, once a month or once a quarter to share what's working or not working. But I think the most important thing for me is that these brain trusts will be community member led.

The Expert Up Club is not the Dr. Michelle Mazur show. I do not want it to be the Dr. Michelle Mazur show. Like and honestly, there are some marketing strategies that I don't wanna do for my business. So, like, the speaking group, I used to love speaking I don't wanna do it anymore. So I won't be in that group, but we have amazing people or the email marketing group. Like, there are people in the group who know more about email marketing, and this is a great way for them to step into leadership to own their vertice and be seen as the go to in the group.

I'm so so excited about these. And I really do believe strongly in our experts owning this community and being seen as an expert and owning their you know, and leading in the community. So love that.

So final burning question is “What's the value?” Right? Like, this is a business decision at the end of the day. So the value of joining the club, another great illustration by Ingrid is about becoming an unrivaled expert being seen for that, like having the clarity of message, the confidence, consistently showing up and marketing because it's actually worth your time to do that.

So my goal is to help you create the message that guides your audience to work with you. Like I said, I want every piece of marketing that you put out to have a purpose. I want you to know what that purpose is. Even if you're sharing cat pictures, that can have a purpose in your marketing if you know what that is. I want you to spend less time marketing because you're focused on what's most impactful, like, oh, people do so much marketing and my favorite is I post on Instagram and Instagram automatically posts to Facebook. So I should just do that. And it's like, no, no, don't do that. If you don't wanna be on Facebook, don't be on Facebook. It's it's not actually driving clients to you.

Opportunities to share your expertise, whether that's within the group, whether that's you getting on podcasts, I really want to see people being able to step out there, grow their audience through sharing. And at the end of the day, my ultimate goal is to make your marketing 10x easier and twice as effective. Like, that's what I want because marketing really sucks. How do we make it suck a little bit less?

And here are what our members had to say: So Rebecca West, who's an interior designer, and I have known her for years. She says “after 15 years, marketing sucks less, which I love.” She had a breakthrough during our marketing retreat that she was like, “Oh, that's how I should be doing this.” And after 15 years, that's kind of a huge deal.

Laura Gatos Young, she's a copywriter. “I have the opportunity to get feedback almost in real time on questions. Or the things I'm working on, people are pretty quick. You will get a response, sometimes the same day, if not within 24 hours.”

And Brad Powell, who is one of our guys, his company is Awesome Videomakers, and he says, “Don't sit in your silo all by yourself. There's a nice group of experts who are willing to share whatever they can to help you out and get over whatever hurdles are in front of you.“

And I can see Becca says Becca, who is one of our members. “I love how the group gets me thinking about things I may not have considered before and how it helps me sharpen how I think about and explain things too. Good thinking is stimulating!”

Yes!

And Rach says, “When I have my next project to launch, I'm so reassured that the community will have my back.”

Yes. Yes. We will

“Even though they don't know my industry, they know so much about running a business, including what a launch takes.”

Yes. Yes.

So if you're thinking, “Oh my gosh, This sounds amazing. I would love to be a part of this group of amazing human beings.” Here is how you can join us in the club.

Thank you so much for listening to this behind-the-scenes tour of the Expert Up Club. And if the Club sounds interesting to you and, heck, you've made all the way to the end of this very long podcast. If you think it could help make marketing suck less for your business, then I would love to have you join us.

The first step is to go to ExpertUp.Club and fill out a membership application, then I will be in touch to chat with you about any of the concerns you have, answer any of your questions, and I would love to welcome you in to the Club.

I can't wait for you to meet the other amazing expert business owners that we have there and help you get your message and your work out to the clients who need you.

So once again, taking applications until September 28th today when this episode comes out is Tuesday,, September 26th. So go ahead, get your application in at ExpertUp.Club.

I look forward to seeing you in the community.

Michelle Mazur [00:39:45]: If the Make Marketing Suck Less pod is making your marketing more effective 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 Make Marketing Suck Less podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills, executive producer is me, Dr. Michelle Mazur.

The make marketing suck less podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional lands of the coast salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past, and present all.