Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Do you ever feel like you're not marketing enough? You know what you should be doing, but the thought of doing it sucks the life force out of you. You'd much rather work with your clients or do almost anything else, including cleaning your cat's litter box, then market your business. If That's you. I want you to know that you are not alone. So today on the podcast. We're doing something a little bit different. I am letting you in on a recent conversation And I did with 2 export up club members, Laura Gattos Young and Bev Feldman, about under marketing their business, why it happens, what they're doing about it, and some of the unforeseen consequences of not getting the word out there about your business. So sit back, grab pen and paper and maybe a cup of coffee, and enjoy this conversation.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:19]: 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 [00:02:00]: Welcome, everyone, to our very first roundtable discussion, and this one is all about flying under the radar and under-marketing your business. And the reason I wanted to have this conversation is, number one, I've noticed this pattern for a really long time where people come to me and they're in one of two situations.

Either they're under marketing, which can it shows up in different ways. It can look like people thinking to themselves, marketing just doesn't work. I'm gonna give up. I'm just gonna rely on referrals. Or it looks like people marketing, but then beating themselves up that they're never doing enough marketing in their business. Because we're inundated with messages about all these different tactics that we should be doing, we should be trying, and how do you know what is right for your business? And how do you know if you are marketing enough?

So sometimes I wonder if under-marketing is actually a symptom of over-marketing or thinking you should be doing more marketing. And then the flip side of this, and in 2 weeks, we're gonna be talking about this, is overmarketing your business, which is this is the side I index on. I am the person who is chronically an overmarketer. If things get stressful, I'm like, what else could I do? And sometimes we swing in between these a little bit like a pendulum.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:47]: I wanted to have this conversation about under-marketing because I think it's something we don't talk about enough. And, also, I realized during the last Expert Up Club open house that people hung out for a good 15 minutes after the event ended just to chat. So I was like, oh, people really are craving community, are wanting to talk business together and get some ideas from each other. I'm like, Let's facilitate that.

Today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna kick it off, and I have 2 guest cohost experts with me. They are members of the Expert Up Club. They're Laura Gatsos Young and Bev Feldman and I will let them introduce themselves in just a second. And I would just love to know from you, like, What is your business? What do you do? Just put that in the chat, and I will let Laura introduce herself first.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:04:49]: Sure. Thanks for having me, Michelle. It's nice to meet all of you. I am a copywriter, so I focus on sales copy for clients. And I also, through sort of the evolution of my business, started working with consultants, coaches, the people that I initially started writing for on their marketing strategy. So sort of my background is PR and marketing for I worked in for 15 years in the corporate world, and agencies. And then I went on my own, started writing. I love writing. And so my work in marketing, evolved to start working with my clients on that as well.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:26]: Nice to meet you. Well, Thank you for being here, and I've known you for ages. So and, Bev, why don't you introduce yourself?

Bev Feldman [00:05:35]: First of all, I feel all this pressure to get my pitch down after I was on a call with Michelle yesterday and I'm just like, oh, I should write this. Anyway, my name is Bev Feldman. My business is your personal tech fairy, and I'm an email marketing consultant, and I provide personalized and nuanced email automation strategies combined with ConvertKit's tech support for coaches, consultants, small based business owners who have established presence online or or experts at what they do and are transitioning to the online space who wants someone who's gonna understand their business, their business model, what it is they sell, who they're selling to, and who are just feeling done with this one size fits all messaging around how to do email marketing. They're done with it. They want something that's more that's going to fit with their business.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:33]: Alright. Well, thanks, Bev, for being here. And let's see. We have Mora who is a feminist financial planner, which sounds awesome and amazing. Tracy is the home improvement blogger and the queen of painting everything. That is a skill. And Melli is a public scholar and podcaster on lived religion among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Such an interesting topic, especially right now with everything that's happening in the world.

Victoria, “I'm an experienced design marketer and chief of staff”. Kim is a business and financial strategist and accountant for small businesses. And Janet. Hey, Janet. It's been a while. She's a business strategy business Strategist, CEO, and founder of 7 Point Trends, where she's helping exhausted CEOs and entrepreneurs organize their business so they can have a fantastic life. And Kim's also a podcaster, the Sassy Strategist Podcaster. Yay podcasting! I’m clearly a fan!

Michelle Mazur [00:07:41]: What I'm gonna do is ask Bev and Laura to share on, like, a series of questions about under-marketing. And, also, you should reflect on your answers to these questions as well, and feel free to pop them into the chat. We'll also have time to talk about them towards the end, and you can ask us any questions, share any insights.

So the first question I wanted to ask is, what does it look like when you are undermarketing your business, or what doesn't it look like when you're undermarketing your business? Like, what are you thinking, saying, doing, or not doing, when you're in kind of that phase of business?

Laura Gatsos Young [00:08:29]: Do you want who do you want do you wanna start with me?

Michelle Mazur [00:08:32]: Yeah. Okay.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:08:34]: All the things. So when I'm not marketing my business or under-marketing my business, it shows up in a few ways. I'm just not consistent with what I know to be the right, marketing activities for me. I'm very strategic in the things that I do, so I don't have a presence on many different platforms. I know where I should be for my audience, and I know what I should be doing, and I'm not doing it. So that could look like not blocking time in my schedule to get the stuff done, to get the content written. It can also be I've always been sort of in the background of the action, especially when I worked in PR and fashion and that visibility factor of me, you know, what it looks like to show up in groups and do stuff like this or, you know, do a lot of video, which is proven to do really well on platforms like LinkedIn and stuff. I'm just not doing that.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:09:32]: So the undermarketing for me looks like not making time to do it, not getting it done, showing up inconsistently, and prioritizing my client work, over my own business promotion. So, you know, every day, I'm selling on behalf of my clients, whether it's writing copy or helping them get their visibility and kind of their customer journeys going, but I'm not doing it for myself.

I think what's interesting and what we can get into is, you know, the good thing is I know what's working in marketing because I see it working for my clients at at their different stages of business and their different sort of, revenue levels and clientele and stuff. But what I'm finding is I'm seeing what's working for them in this market where things are very much slower, sales cycles are longer, people are not opting in the way they used to, everything we've been told about throw up a lead magnet and you're gonna get grow your email list is really not working even for the, you know, the bigger companies with a lot of recognition. So, I mean, I think under-marketing, I think, really, if I wanted to sum it up, I know what I should be doing and I'm not making the time to do it. And even if I do have the time, I say, oh, but I could rather do Sorry. You know, I'll spend my time doing this.

So it's a bit of a mindset thing, and it's a bit of a time thing.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:00]: I have a couple of follow-up questions, but I just wanna say, like, in the chat, like, Tracy said she sends one email and hopes that's what under-marketing looks like. And people are really resonating with what you're saying about not making time, and knowing what you should be doing. And I wanna follow-up with that, but I wanna hear from Bev first.

Bev Feldman [00:11:22]: So a lot of that definitely resonated with me what Laura shared, Particularly the piece about the inconsistency. I made a goal. I'm gonna, you know, write. I'm experimenting right now with LinkedIn, and so I had made this goal. Okay. I'm gonna post once a week, and I've just been very inconsistent in that. So feel like it's hard to give myself enough time to really experiment and see if something's working because I'm not doing it the way I like, basically, you get stuck and like, oh, this is such a slog.

I don't wanna do it that it's, like, hard to follow through with it. I'd say, for me, a big piece of that too is overthinking. So I send a weekly newsletter, and both when I write that newsletter or if I'm writing a LinkedIn post, I just get so caught up in what I'm saying and saying it right and saying it well that that kind of that takes ends up taking me a lot longer, so I don't have time to do some to do other marketing activities, or it just takes and just on this, it's a really long period of time. And then the the other thing I noticed and, actually, it's funny that Kim's here because I tagged her in a LinkedIn post when I I brought in what she had shared at a conference she spoke at last week about making the ask that I'm realizing my own email marketing. I'm very consistent about showing up consistently. I show up weekly, but I don't make the ask. So my undermarketing shows that is I will be here and, like, remind you I exist, but then I don't actually ask you to take action.

So that's been the biggest struggle for me, and I noticed that with my clients as well, that people don't wanna come off as salesy which I totally understand. I don't want to come off as salesy, but I'm also, in order to be a business owner, I have to be my own sales rep, which means I have to make the ask.

Michelle Mazur [00:13:18]: Oh, so there's 2 things that I resonated with and more I was like, that's me too long on the writing thing. Like, the overthinking thing, I do that as well, especially with my emails that I send. If I don't give it to my assistant to upload into ConvertKit, I will tweak that email you get in your inbox to death, like, oh, is this quite the right word? Or maybe I need, like, a better example here, like and spend hours doing that, and that just makes marketing so much harder than it already is.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:14:02]: I hope that they do, like, the templates they tell you to follow and the frameworks and all these things. I think a lot of time, the templates and all these different, you know, caption your post like this on LinkedIn or do it like this. It's almost sucking the spirit out of you. It's almost sucking your creative energy out of you because you can't just go and do it. It's like, oh, no, but you have to do it this way, and this is what you have to say. I have to say it. So I think that's another thing too. It's like and you're kind of limited by what what the rules are.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:37]: I had this epiphany recently that all of the rules about how to get people's attention and how to write hooks, there's a place for that, and you should think about it. But I also think it leads to more of the same, especially, on a platform like LinkedIn. 99% of people are getting this wrong, And you're like, oh, great, another one of these posts. So there's, like, all of these rules that are made up by people, and actually, when we try to followit can keep us from getting our message out or sounding like ourselves.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:15:20]: Totally. Totally.

Michelle Mazur [00:15:23]: So we've already started touching on this question, but I wanna ask it formally and follow-up on something you said, Laura, as well. What prevents you from marketing your business?

Laura Gatsos Young [00:15:41]: We touched on this too earlier, and I think it's a really great lesson. So I'm luckily, I've always been, consistently busy in my business either referrals, my main source of new business is referrals, and I work with clients long time, long time clients for repeat business or retainers. So what's recently happened, though, and I think this is such a great lesson, and it's actually something I've been talking about with my clients is I recently had a major change in my business where a huge client of mine, my biggest, is, I'll no longer be working with them, not for anything, you know, scandalous, but it was just an actual evolution of their business. And it's something I relied on for years now, and all of a sudden, it's poof. And the first thing I said to myself was, you wouldn't be feeling this pit in your stomach had you been doing what you know you should've been doing and consistently marketing. Because even if you didn't have a lead or a warm lead or sales you know, people you could, reach out to, you would have the confidence that you've been doing what you have to be what you should be doing up until this point.

So it was a real wake up call. So I haven't been marketing my business because I'm busy and I'm not in that spot where, oh, I have to bring in clients. I need to build up my I need to build up my billables, but that's the best time to work - when you're not marketing from a place of, oh, I need to do this, your energy's different. You're coming at it from a different angle, you're thinking about showing up not telling. And when I mean that, you're thinking about showing up and just talking and sharing versus trying to sell or intentionally try to lead people down a path.

So the time you are busy and feeling, you know, say secure and flush is when you should be marketing. So largely speaking, in the back of your mind, even if you don't if even if I don't say, oh, I I have all these clients I don't need to market. That's sort of that security blanket is there. Like, oh, you're busy, Laura. Like, you don't need to be doing this because you're busy. And what if you got more clients, you can't take them on and, you know, it's this whole mind thing. But what it really does is it gives you the freedom to pick and choose who you wanna be working with and experiment. As Michelle always says, you know, you can experiment and play at those times. Like, what is working? What isn't working? What if I tried this? What if I did host my own roundtable? Like, what if one person came, or what if 10 people came? Who knows? But it's okay because you're not relying on the outcome.

So that's why I'm not marketing my business. I'm busy and, I don't have the I also have 2 very young children, so that takes up a lot of, my time as well. I know I'd be working more had I if I didn't have that responsibility as well. So that time is a real concern of mine. But, yes, I don't market it because I haven't been in this position where I feel up against the wall. It's just not what you should be doing. Marketing. Let me just be clear.

Michelle Mazur [00:18:51]: But I understand that. I really understand that. Like, well, things are going well or clients keep coming in, so I don't really need to market. And then all of a sudden, if the tap shuts off or starts to slow down. You're like, oh..

Laura Gatsos Young [00:19:06]: And you don't know when it's gonna happen because life happens win on life's terms. Right?

Michelle Mazur [00:19:12]: Yeah. How about you, Bev?

Bev Feldman [00:19:14]: Say that like, as you're talking, Laura, I'm like, oh my gosh. This is me. I had such A great start to the year that was like, oh, I don't need to do anything. I've got clients coming to me. And then when things quieted down, I was like, oh, shoot that was a missed opportunity, and I'm seeing how not using that time before. It was just like, well, I can focus on my client work. What's you know, it'll be fine. I'll constantly have this stream of people coming in, and I think, you know I don't know if it was luck or some marketing efforts I'd done before, but you you know? I've seen now that I'm also in a very different energy like you talked about that, like not that I'm desperate, but I feel like, it almost makes me wanna hold back more and makes me question myself a little bit more like, oh, you know, is what I'm offering valuable? Is this offer that I created over the summer, are people is it actually something that people want or need?

And I think it kinda also speaks to your point of putting yourself out there and experimenting with things and that wonder if I do this and I put all this energy and time into it and then no one comes. That doesn't feel good. So I think sometimes our own fear of like, well, what if I do the thing and it doesn't work? So, therefore, why don't I just not do it? Because I don't wanna have wasted time and energy. So then we end up just doing it to ourselves. Not like I'm just not gonna put it out there because if it does flop, it's only because it wasn't out there, not because what I did was not what someone wanted, was not what people wanted, or you know, it's almost like a form of protection.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:21:01]: I think the idea of energy is good too. It is really important too. And, you know, my corporate days, I went, what are you talking about? You just plow through. But when you're in a one-to-one service or you run a group or you're working with clients that creative energy, that being on, being sharp, being full of ideas, that tends to go to your clients. So then when it's time to come to put that into your own stuff, you're spent. Unless you block off a day and say or or a block of time and say, you plan it. I'm fresh now. I know I'll likely have the energy and stuff to do it now. But I find that as service providers that work with other people, there's just so much energy that goes into the client work that you can feel like you're tapped out.

Michelle Mazur [00:21:48]: I feel that one deeply too because especially, like, Oh, with the work that we all do, it's very creative work. And then by the time you're like, oh, I have to do my own marketing, I'm like, but I'm tired. And I know

Laura Gatsos Young [00:22:02]: I’ll, say it. I'm tired, all the time. But you show up for your you're professional, so you show up for your clients and you give your all. I's easier to say, well, you know what? I'll get to this tomorrow because it's for my business.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:21]: I love what Bev was saying about, thinking like, oh, well, this probably won't work, so I'm just not gonna do it. Or what if it flops, so I'm just not gonna put it out there or do the marketing around it? I sometimes call that launching with a whisper. Like, you create a really cool thing, and you're like, You. I made this. And then nothing happens.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:49]: One of the things that's helped me with that is that and one of the things that we talk about, like, in the Extra Up Club is that everything is an experiment. So you put it out there and see what works. Because whether it works or not, you're getting feedback, so it gets you closer to what does work. A couple years ago, these 9 word emails were all the rage, and they're just like these very short emails that are like, Hey, are you still interested in interior design services? And you send that to people and then they write back. I did that to one of my emails, and it was crickets. Like, nothing happened. Everybody's like, oh, It gets great response. And I'm like, no. I have trained my email community to expect more substantial emails from me than that. That even if I'm selling, I'm still giving them something that's kind of they can sink their teeth into. And I was like, oh, yeah. That's never gonna work for me. I mean, it can work like it. I found then I tweaked it, and I'm like, oh, I can use it in a follow-up, and that works.

Bev Feldman [00:24:06]: I think this also speaks to the point that, you know, just because something works for someone. And I think, you know, so many times, you know, we see this like, oh, it's a mindset issue. We see this with the online space with business ownership.. Sometimes it legitimately just doesn't work. I tried that too, And I think I had someone reply to that email, ask me if that was a sales email. So, like, stay with my audience. It just doesn't work.

I send much more verbose and robust emails that it kinda feels out of place. And not that I regret experimenting with it, but It just wasn't a right fit. And I think when you talked about, you know, the launch with the whisper, I know for myself, like, we've all probably been in some sort of launch email sequence, and that feels so - it feels like a lot. It's also a lot to put into creating it. And I know for myself, I don't like that that intensity of launching something or the intensity that can come with launching something. So I know that I struggle with when I do launch something new, how do I do it so it doesn't feel like this big thing instead of like, here's just this new offering in addition to what I'm already was already available.

Michelle Mazur [00:25:23]: And the thing is, Bev, because I'm familiar with your business, and most likely, the way that you're launching something will never feel like it's a big thing. Yesterday, I got 3 launch emails from someone, each with a different expiring bonus, and then with a discount code. I'm like, What is going on here? Like, this person has never sent these many emails, and that makes me feel like, oh, you're dominating my inbox versus, like, I'm just gonna send you an email a day about this thing, and then it ends, and you can opt out of it. I feel like I get that, and the spotlight effect is real, and we're more aware of what we're putting out there, and no one else is really paying that much attention to us.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:26:14]: That's a great point. That's what I was gonna so I was like, we're worried about my like, I'm worried about my LinkedIn video. It's like, really, Laura? No one cares about like, it would be great if someone stopped and looked, but they're not going through your marketing with a fine tooth comb like you are.

I think that's true too and, like, you know, what I find with clients too is, like, they're like, Laura, I know I need to do this sales sequence. I know I need to write these sales emails. I'm never gonna do it myself. I'm never gonna feel fully comfortable doing it for many reasons. You know, the feelings and emotions tied into it, but also, like, what it takes to write an email that sells, and I think that's why people hire others to do it because sometimes depending on your business and your audience, you don't need a deal sequence. And I'm happy to tell people that, but sometimes you do in terms of certain offers and thinking of it as a sales conversation as if you were in a store talking to someone about buying something. It's sort of that. But, I always tell people too, this sounds like, to Michelle, like, what you were saying about it sounds likethey hired some copywriter who said, no, no, no. This is what's working right now. We have to send 3 emails on day 1. And if that just doesn't feel good to you, advocate. If you're ever working with someone, just say, this doesn't feel good to me.

And that's for all marketing I find, oh, do this, that, and the other. And if it doesn't sit well with you and you can't just show up as yourself doing whatever it is, people say, oh, keynote speaking is the way to go. I know myself if I get on a stage, I will just legit pass out on a stage. That is not the way to go for me. Like, I know myself. So you have to find out, and I think it's an evolution of figuring out what feels the best for you, what's doable. I know you always say this. It's like, what you know, show up strong wherever you show up, but make sure it's doable for you and it feels like It's your best option.

Michelle Mazur [00:28:12]: And I think that's something there's a lot of conflicting advice in the marketing and messaging world about what you should be doing, and everybody will tell you what you should be doing. And it's like, no, you have to figure out, what is marketing that plays to your unique strengths and that you at least don't want to walk into the sun while you are doing it. Right? I'm not gonna say you need to, like, love it and enjoy doing it, but there should be this just this glimmer of like, oh, I kind of like interacting on LinkedIn or showing up on Threads or whatever it is. Otherwise, you're not gonna do it. And there's some oh, so we have some chats. So Victoria said, I don't have I need deadlines for my own business, so I do client work instead.

Uh-huh. I have been there too. And Kim says brand personality alignment matters. Some people like the quick tip or the catchy headline, while others prefer more depth. I think success lies in speaking the same language as your audience. Yes, Kim. 100% agree with that, because what we're doing, all of what we do had to center on who your people are, what they're talking about. And if it doesn't, and it becomes like, oh, this is the Michelle show, then marketing is never gonna be that effective.

And Maura says, also, it feels like so much of the advice out there revolves around launches as if we all have big programs when many people offer individual services. Yes. And individual services need to be marketed in an ongoing way. It's definitely more evergreen. And also you have to think about your capacity. Like, how many people do you actually need in order to support yourself?

Beth and Laura, you've talked a little bit about the impacts under marketing has had on your business in terms of, like, clients. Laura, you're finding yourself in the situation where you're like, oh, I wish I would've been marketing 6 months ago. And, Bev, you're also seeing that you're not getting the clients you want.

Are there any other impacts that you feel under marketing has on your business?

Laura Gatsos Young [00:30:42]: Well, as a marketer who does this full time, you know, or, you know, half my time, I do beat myself up. I'm like, Laura, you know how to do this. Why aren't you doing it for yourself? Like, it's just where is that internal resistance? And I'm hard on myself anyway about everything, it's think it's just my personality. So for me, it is this nagging thing inside of me that I think about every day. But for whatever reason, I just don't force myself to do it. So I think that on a personal level, like, it does take up my space in my mind.

Michelle Mazur [00:31:15]: Oh, I think she froze. Oh, yeah. Bev, how about you until Laura comes back?

Laura Gatsos Young [00:31:27]: I'm really passionate about and talking about it, right, and getting feedback on it and evolving it and so it's that too. It's like you're robbing yourself of just going out and, showing what wait. I think this is a big thing now too. It's like there's all this advice out there of what you should be doing, and everyone's, You know, the market's almost conditioned to kind of have warning flags up now when you have someone telling you what you should be doing, and this is the way you do it, and this is your framework. I think now the opportunity exists for people to really differentiate themselves experts to differentiate themselves by showing, not telling. So literally, showing up unscripted to answer questions, to share an idea, to, strip this varnish and these beautiful sales pages and these beautiful infographics.

This is what people wanna know. They wanna know that you understand their problem and you have some ideas to fix it. Like, it doesn't need to be this whole complicated sort of song and dance. So I think under marketing and not doing what I wanna be doing is really bobbing myself of wanting to be able to share my opinions and my ideas.

Michelle Mazur [00:32:40]: That's a great point. Bev, how about you?

Bev Feldman [00:32:44]: I'd say it's couple things. It is not giving myself, enough time and to really see if something I'm experimenting with is actually working. I think it's very easy to just try something once and say, Oh, it didn't really work, so I'm just gonna stop doing that. And then I don't get to see if it actually has any impact if I undermarket. And I think the other thing is it also doesn't give me an opportunity to see what about my messaging is resonating with people. So if I'm trying this thing over here and then that thing maybe a few weeks later over there, I don't know. Did the messaging I'm thinking about using, is it actually helpful, or I can't tell if I'm just not being consistent about it.

Michelle Mazur [00:33:37]: I think we do give up on messaging way too soon. Like, we say it once or twice, And we're like, well, that didn't work, and it's like, oh, oh, no. I sent my email that I sent yesterday was about around the math of how many marketing messages we see in a day versus how many we can take in. And the fact is, we ignore 97% of the stuff that's coming in. We don't remember it, we don't recognize it, and that's why it's like, oh, no, you have to repeat the message a lot before you can make a decision whether or not it is working and resonating. And I think that can be hard because you're like, oh, well, it should be working because everybody's paying attention to it, obviously.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:34:30]: I also think how many Nike commercials do you see in a day? How many McDonald's commercials do you see in a day? These are messages that are drilled into us, and we are so hesitant because it's people behind not a brand behind the ad. It's a person…

Michelle Mazur [00:34:50]: And you know she's gonna come back with a rush of insight. So we'll see if she…. Can I freeze? Yes. You froze. Oh, you're back.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:35:00]: Sorry. I was gonna say, did I freeze? I wasn't. But you know what I mean? So it's like you know, to your point, it's like if you think of it outside of it just being you the most successful and well known brands in the world are because they just don't quit with talking about themselves in a way that resonates with their audience.

Michelle Mazur [00:35:18]: I was thinking about, like, Nike's just do it campaign. Which has been decades.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:35:27]: And that came from people not wanting to exercise. And they knew well, if they're not gonna be active in life, this is gonna be a problem for us to be still active wearing shoes. So they said, just do it because psychologists prove that we just don't wanna do it. Don't hesitate. Just do it. And that's where I came from.

Michelle Mazur [00:35:46]: And it served them well for years. I think we're like, oh, I said this once or twice, and I can't say it again. And I'm like, oh no, keep driving it home. Otherwise, people aren't gonna get it. They just won't understand. And Melly asked a good question. Under marketing compared to what? What's the right amount? And I'm gonna take this question because, I feel like number one, it's going to, It depends. It's going to be unique to you. But the way that I look at it, I see marketing as having 3 distinct jobs: grow, engage, offer. And Bev and Laura are probably like, oh, not this again because I talk about constantly in the Expert Up Club, but we have to have we have to have a tactic that grows our audience or raises our brand awareness. And that can be social media, that can be SEO, that can be networking and having a more, like, robust referral system, but it's like, how do I get exposed to new people? And you just need one activity. Like, you don't need, like, 5, because this is where people are like, oh, I need to be on LinkedIn and Instagram and Threads and pitch myself for a podcast and do SEO, and it's like, no. You're not gonna have time for that. Do one of those. You have to have a way for people to discover you.

And then the 2nd phase is engage, and that's where, like, your longer form content comes in. And so that might be the videos you're creating, your blog, your podcast. So many of you already have that down because we have podcasters here, but that's where you're actually engaging with people. And I also say either having email marketing, like having an email list, or depending on your business model, sometimes all you need is a really robust CRM so you can follow-up with people and build relationships. A couple of my clients need 1 or 2 clients a year. They don't need 500 people in their course.

Michelle Mazur [00:38:07]: So for them, it's more of like, how do I build the relationships? How am I networking? How am I following up? Versus, like, I gotta grow an email list.

And then finally, the final stage of this is offer or inviting people into your sales process, and where are you doing that? And you have more than one strategy here, but, like, is it your email list? Are you doing “conversion events”, like having a webinar or something like that. So there's a lot of ways to do that as well, and you have to figure out what is it that works best for me? So one discovery mechanism so people know about you and then longer form content, and so you can nurture and get people ready for your work, An email list where you're probably gonna be making offers or the CRM as well, and that's all you need.,

Laura Gatsos Young [00:39:04]: To your point a podcast or even a blog post, like a long form blog post at 2,000 words. This is a heavy lift. it's a lot of work, So repurpose that info, repurpose that content. Don't try and reinvent the wheel every time on LinkedIn. To Michelle's point, like, talk about the same thing over and over again because you can take snippets from the podcast. You can take snippets from the blog post, and you can use that wherever platform you're on, and you could use it in your email marketing. So coming up with these new ideas all the time is part of the exhaustion. So, like, if you got something there, reuse it. Right?

Michelle Mazur [00:39:39]: Yes. Bev?

Bev Feldman [00:39:41]: I would say that's exactly what I did. I had this email series over the summer to promote a new offer, and I spent so much time and effort writing emails that I wanted to repurpose them, so I turned them into a podcast feed, and each individual episode into a blog post, and then there's a follow-up email series if people sign up for it. So it's like it's the same content kind of reworked a little bit, and then I have like you said, you can pull from that in emails and LinkedIn posts to drive it back to the original thing.

Michelle Mazur [00:40:17]: So my final question, and then I'll open it up for your questions or insights that you're having around this conversation or anything you wanna share. What's your plan for overcoming your undermarketing? Because it seems like both of you are in these positions where marketing is becoming more of a necessity than it has before. So what's your plan?

Laura Gatsos Young [00:40:42]: Think you’ve gotta walk the talk. Like, for example, have all these ideas, and you should see my desk, I have a million pieces of paper. Sometimes you just say to yourself listen, enough is enough. You created an incredible marketing plan for me around my, 3 Word Rebellion, and it's great. And I could action that. I have things to do. So, quite honestly, I've come to realize that I am not going to be doing all of it. I've hired someone to pitch me on blog posts, so I have hired outside help for one thing. Now that is gonna give me some momentum, I think. I've also started looking at different ways, actively looking every day at PR opportunities, which is, like, what I started doing when I was 20. I'm like, oh, well, you know, you know so much about pitching and all this. So going back to my roots as to, like, what I what I know and I'm comfortable with. So I have already started to take those proactive steps. I have a routine where every morning I check for opportunities. I pitch stuff.

Laura Gatsos Young [00:41:47]: And then where I am falling short is, my email newsletter and my LinkedIn posts. Oh, what I also have been doing is, like, getting just my name out there a little bit more. So, like, in the I'm networking in the Expert Up Club, in that ecosystem of other people who are facing the same challenges and it's not to drum up business, it's to just be in community with people and talk about things and learn and, share and, you know, Michelle's amazing. There there's always something relevant and timely in there, So I'm doing that. And just doing that, those sort of visibility things and those showing up to be in community with people, It does build momentum. I'm a big relationship person. I love working with people 1 to 1, so it makes sense For me to be in community where I'm doing stuff like this and talking with people and without expectation.

I guess, an answer to your question, I basically, I'm putting it in my schedule to say this is what you're doing and you're gonna do this and you're gonna look after yourself first. You're not gonna look after your clients first. You're gonna do this first and then you're gonna get your client work. You're not gonna leave your clients, you know, you're gonna get your work done, but you're also gonna build into your business, offer like SOPs, taking care of yourself, your own business, because, you know, I’m 2 on 5 years into my own business that I started, and you get to a point where you're really clear on what you wanna do, what you wanna say, where you need to be. And so that clarity also helps because I think for the first 2 years, you're, like, muddling about, and so and so tells you to take this course and you learn about, like I don't know. I think I even took, like, a Pinterest course. I'm like, Pinterest for business.

Like, all these different I'm like, oh, lord. But, you know, 5 years later, you're like, okay. I know what I need to be doing. I'm clear. I know. So I'm taking action, essentially, which is the key to everything in life. Right? You can take action and be consistent.

I can hire someone to help me. So I have to be realistic about, okay, what will I realistically do on my own and what do have I been thing I wanna do and not doing, I'm gonna reach out and get help on that..

Michelle Mazur [00:44:13]: I just wanna highlight something you said about How we always put our clients first, that's me, and then our business comes second. I hate this metaphor. It's the old oxygen mask. Right? Like, you gotta put your oxygen mask on first. But I think when it comes to marketing, setting aside the time that we need in order to do whatever those activities are for us, whatever our strategy is, and realizing that, yes, we can still get to our client work. And I mean, I realize that there's always complications to that because most of us are on our own, we are solo, or we have one person helping us. I am in the season, ever since I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, like, I'm in this, like, healing journey season, and I just can't be marketing as much as I normally like, I'm not actioning on my marketing plan, and that's okay because there are certain non-negotiables that I will still do, but I just you know you kinda have to accept that because but I'm still putting me first.

I don’t know if you remember this Finance woman, I'm not sure. I haven't caught up with her in years. I don't know if she's problematic, but she used to say, pay yourself first. You know? Pay yourself first. And I'm like, mhmm. Gotta pay ourselves first. Right? Yeah. We're worried about our customer sales and and, you know, their success metrics, and we have to kind of, value our own business that way too. And I think, you know, a lot of it is the mindset thing. Like, it feels like such a heavy lift because it's we've been procrastinating on it or or, I mean, me.

I shouldn't say we, or beating myself for not up for not doing it. And I built this thing in my head about like it's not the it's, you know, it's not running a marathon. You know? It's just like, why is this such a big deal? Right? Like And especially when I could sit down and, like, you know, bang out 5 LinkedIn posts, you know, for my client. And I'm like, oh, yeah, Laura. Like, you should probably do this for yourself.

Michelle Mazur [00:46:28]: Bev, how about you? What is your plan?

Bev Feldman [00:46:32]: My plan is to stick to the plan. As I did in the Expert Up Club. I've always really resisted creating marketing plans, but I really like your approach. It feels very attainable. It's not posting multiple times a week. It's just picking a couple activities, speaking back to what you talked about earlier during this call that will help in those 3 areas and just focusing on that. So focusing on my email, focusing on LinkedIn. And then in addition to that, what I shared before that I have a Friday mornings blocked off as a date with myself to go to this awesome brewery that has great coffee in the morning where I go and write, so I write next week's email. So keeping that time sacred, not allowing other people to schedule things there. So it's actually fully blocked off of my calendar.

And the other thing is being more intentional about like, if people are replying to my emails, jow can I further the conversation? I have an automated email that goes out asking people if I don't know how they found me, ask them. Like, oh, how did you find me? And I found that's a great way to open up the conversation and to just also find out, like, I didn't know what to say after that. I was like, oh, that's that's great, but I've started asking like what do you hope to get out of my newsletter or being here? And it's helping me to have a conversation. And from sometimes from that, I'm just inviting people not to get on a sales call, but just to get on a coffee chat just so we can get to know each other more, and maybe it'll turn into a referral or just a connection. I actually invited someone the other day who joined my email list on a coffee chat. And during the call, she invited me to be on her podcast, which is not why I didn't even know she had a podcast, and I when she asked me, I was just like, oh, I would love to. It was a great person that I met. I have now have a further connection with someone who's on my email list. I'm gonna set up a connection email for her, and she invited me to be on her podcast. This felt so effortless and fun.

Michelle Mazur [00:48:47]: That's such a great way - yes, you're still using email marketing, but then you're just adding this personal touch into it where that's such a great idea for a follow-up email. Like, how did you find me? What are you hoping to get out of this? And then you can, A. get some good voice of customer research too, but then making connections with the right people.

Well, thank you, Laura and Bev, for sharing your insights and wisdoms. Thank you, Laura, for saying this thought provoking, and Tracy said it made her feel less alone. So we have another roundtable coming up on November 15th to talk about over marketing, so if you ever over index on that, feel free to come. Maybe you'll get some ideas from that as well, And then we have the Expert Up Open House coming up on December 6th, so few more, events before the end of the year. But I really appreciate you all being here and sharing, and I hope to see you soon at one of our other events.

Michelle Mazur [00:49:56]: Thank you so much for listening to this roundtable discussion about flying under the radar and how to overcome under marketing your business. I know one of the insights that stood out for me in this conversation is when Laura talked about taking care of your business first before your client work.

And for me, this made me reflect on how can I put my business first so that I make sure the marketing and sales work is getting done because that's a measure of the health of my business. And for me, that looks like rearranging my schedule a bit so that I have dedicated marketing and sales activity time every single morning because it's time to put my own business first and know that my client work will not suffer when I do that. If anything, It will get better because I am taking care of me and the business.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I know it was a bit of a longer one and a different format. And if you are interested in having more conversations like this one and you want to figure out how to overcome under marketing in your own business, then I would love to see you at the Expert Up Club Open House It's happening December 6th at 10 AM Pacific time, and you can get all the details and sign up at drmichellemazur.com/openhouse.

Michelle Mazur [00:51:44]: 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, our 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.