Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Why is it so hard to claim your expertise? To own what makes you truly exceptional at your work. To own the capacity and the ability you uniquely have to guide your clients to results. Then why is it so hard to promote that? To tell people about it? And I get that marketing sucks, but it is truly time to expert up and claim your expertise for yourself. But first, let's talk about what prevents us from doing that and why I believe owning your expertise is an act of rebellion. Let's do it.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:43]: 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 [00:01:31]: My first day of teaching as a brand new assistant professor, I walked into the classroom, greeted everyone, and started handing out the syllabus. A very soft spoken student raised her hand and asked, “Is the professor not coming to class today?” Oof. I smiled at her and said, “I'm the professor.” And I could see a flash of crimson begin to color her cheeks as she started to profusely apologize. “I get why you asked,” I told her, “when you think of a professor, what image pops into your brain?” And my students started shouting out exactly what you would expect. An old white dude wearing a cardigan with leather patches on the elbows, sitting in a dusty office surrounded by piles of books, usually having a monotone voice and being less than enthusiastic about teaching. And there I was in a shift dress, flip flops. I did mention this was the University of Hawaii. Right? Excited to teach and barely 7 years older than the majority of my students. I defied every stereotype of professor.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:01]: Now, I want you to take a moment and picture expert in your head. Do you have that image? Good. For me, some reason, I see Tony Robbins, an old white guy who knows everything there is to know and comes off as a bit of a blowhard and an authoritarian. And while that might be the living embody of the Dunning Kruger Effect, which if you don't know what that is, it is a person's lack of knowledge and skill in a certain area, causes them to overestimate their own competence. So people who have a thimble of knowledge believe they are far more competent than they actually are.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:51]: That image in your head is not what an expert actually is. It's not what an expert actually looks like or the characteristics the expertise actually embodies. But still it’s what your mind associates with being an expert. And let's face it, you and I don't want to be associated with those negative stereotypes. We don't want to be perceived as a cold, distant blowhard who is rising to the level of our own incompetence. Because we think that is how an expert acts, how an expert shows up in the world, we push away that title for ourselves. And as I talked about in Episode 356 about the Overlooked Expert Phenomenon, culturally and especially in online business, there is a strong anti-expert bias that people like you, people like me are up against. Where we are more likely to trust what lay people have to say, you know, I always think about the wellness influencers pushing their covid solutions on TikTok than what an actual expert has to say, right? Where you just see that layperson and think, “Oh, they're like me and I'm going to trust them.” And this is why claiming your expertise is an act of rebellion. It is counter to the prevailing winds of our culture that tell you what you know, your years of experience, your level of mastery doesn't matter.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:54]: And what really matters is the people who are just a few steps ahead of their clients and promise fast, easy, foolproof formulas for success. And here's the rebel truth. That aloof, blowhard, authoritarian stereotype is not what expertise actually looks like. What does expertise look like? Well, it looks a lot like you. And we're going to take a quick break and talk about the hallmarks of expertise next.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:33]: Do you ever wish you could get my expert feedback on your messaging and marketing? You can inside the Expert Up Club. In this curated community, you will go on a journey with us to get personalized support tailored to your business so you can discover how to market less by figuring out exactly what works for you, your business, and your sanity. And you'll market better because your messaging will matter more for the people who wanna hire you. And, of course, we do it together because growing a business and audience is easier with a community of coconspirators.

Wanna join us? Your first step is to open up your podcast app and click on this episode. Go to the link for the Expert Up Club and book your private tour, or you can also go to expertup dot club. I can't wait to show you around. Now, back to the show.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:41]: After working for over a decade with expertise driven businesses, I know for a fact that experts look nothing like the stereotype. Experts are passionate weirdos in the best way possible. We love what we do and we tend to be a bit obsessive about it. Experts possess this unquenchable thirst for learning and discovery. If you ask an expert a question they don't know the answer to, you'll see a little mischievous look in their eye while they admit, I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Because real experts are keenly aware that what they know is a drop in the ocean of knowledge. And as we talked about in the three stages of expertise, becoming an expert is a journey, and you never feel like you've quite arrived at expert even when you've more than earned it because the more you learn, the more you know there is to learn.

Michelle Mazur [00:9:01]: And this brings me to my final point. Humility is the hallmark of an expert. It's not this weird fake it to you make it bullshit we see so often in our culture or just answering a question even if we don't have a mother loving clue about what the answer really is because we need to appear authoritative. Right? Like, oh, don't want people questioning my authority, which is why all of this makes marketing hard because of that humility, because we're intimately familiar with the limits of our expertise and our knowledge, but we need you to claim the mantle of expert for yourself because no one can value your expertise until you value it for yourself. And let's face it, people right now are looking for experts to hire and they're struggling to find you.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:07]: So my challenge to you is it's time to expert up. I named my community the Expert Up Club because it is a play on words between batter up and man up. Batter up, it's your time to step up to the plate and take your shot. Not just one shot, multiple shots to become known as the person who does what you do. And man up, which is a phrase I personally do not love because it's time to do the hard thing and go on the journey to make what you're good at visible. Your experience and mastery is the most valuable asset. It's what sets you apart and has earned you the respect of your client and peers. You've worked hard for it and you deserve to be known for it and paid well for it. But it starts with you. It's time for you to claim the title of expert to step into that identity. It is time to expert up and if you're listening to this and thinking, Yes, this is me. You belong in the Expert Up Club with the rest of us curious weirdos. And I do hope I see you there.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:39]: 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.