Make Marketing Suck Less

Transcript Ep. 364: How To Differentiate Your Expertise To Carve Your Unique Place In The Marke

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: You're right, the client has a lot of options when it comes to solving their problem. There's so much competition and competition for their time, energy, and financial resources. How do you make sure that your business is the one they choose? How do you show you're different from the web celebs with the charismatic marketing? You do it by differentiating your business. So what is differentiation and why is it critical for your business? Well, that's exactly what we're gonna talk about on today's pod. So let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:50]: 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]: Lately, I've really noticed how utterly boring and uninspiring messaging is for business programs. It sounds the same. “Be the Go To Expert!” “Attract Dream Clients on Autopilot!” “Craft your Irresistible Offer!” “Don't forget about your irresistible content and become a client magnet!” I can't tell you how many times I've read those messages, and I've read those messages from people who were promising to help you stand out and be unique.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:16]: And when I see messaging like this, I roll my eyes. Like, I even roll my eyes at past me who said some of this trite shit too. Like, I am not immune. And I understand that the benefits that people want from a business program. But if everyone is saying the same thing, like, be the go to, stand out, attract your dream clients, then why should anyone pick your business? Why should someone pay and hire you to solve their problems over someone else? And that's where differentiation comes in. That's where experts who have frameworks, intellectual property, a unique point of view have an unfair advantage in communicating why your business vs your competition. So let's talk first about what is differentiation. Differentiation is how your business stands out from your competitors.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:34]: In other words, it's the reason your people hire you over someone else. Now there's a lot of ways to differentiate. You can differentiate on price and features and innovations, but you're an expert here. And your expertise can be your differentiator. It can be your unfair advantage. Using your unique point of view, your strengths, your skills, and your frameworks to communicate why people should choose you. So what does that look like in practice? What does it mean to be differentiated from your competition? So let's look at two crews from my world, the world of messaging. first we're gonna meet crew A, and these are messaging experts that pretty much created their own category, that differentiated messaging based on their expertise.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:43]: So you have the Red Hhread Method by Tamsen Webster, Story Brand by Donald Miller, 3 word rebellion by me, yours truly. Now all 3 of us do messaging. All 3 of us have a unique way of creating a business owner's message, and all 3 of us have different types of clients who our approach is best for. So these different approaches are going to appeal to different types of business owners. And what's really awesome about this, it means that we are the captains of our own ship. Right? Like, in the sea of messaging, Tamsen has her own boat with the Red Thread, Donald Miller has his, and I have mine with the 3 Word rebellion. And that means some pretty amazing things for our business. Number one, when you are differentiated on your expertise in this way, your work is in demand because for Tamsen, Donald and I, our companies are the only ones who do what we do.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:03]: Right? I'm the only game in town when it comes to 3 Word Rebellions. You can't get that from anywhere else but me. Same with the Red Thread. Same with Story Brand. And then when we turn to economic theory, we know if there is demand for our work and it outpaces the supply, you can charge a premium because there's only so many people I can work with for a 3 Word Rebellion. Right? So many people that Donald Miller can work with. So when you have a category that you own, you are actually ensuring that you're always going to have some sort of demand for your work. And then finally, we get opportunities to share our work on podcast stages, media, and more.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:53]: And those things land in our inbox because we are known for something. And the best part for me is I don't look at these business owners as competition. We are colleagues who have different approaches that appeal to different types of people. We've all differentiated based on our intellectual property, our frameworks, our body of work and named those things so we could be known for it. So that's crew A. Now let's meet Crew B, the magnetic messaging experts. I dare you to type magnetic messaging into Instagram or Google, And what you'll get is a lot of people talking about this topic. Now magnetic marketing has been around for ages, and it was the baby of one of the OG bro marketers, Dan Kennedy.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:58]: And the word magnetic has an association with bro marketing. So it has a long association of being used with that style of marketing. So when I type magnetic messaging into Instagram, I get hundreds of results and each post touts their magnetic messaging process, and some extolled the virtue of not sounding like anyone else on the Internet, which is ironic. Right? You kind of see the issue there. They're using a term that other people have used for a very long time. So what does this mean for the business owners, for the hundreds of business owners who are talking about magnetic messaging. Number one, they are fighting for a small piece of an oversaturated market. They are not giving you a reason to choose one of them over the other.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:56]: Right? Because it seems like they all do the same thing because they're all talking about magnets. Right? Number 2. In economic terms, when supply outweighs the demand and if you are looking for a magnetic message expert, yeah, there's a lot of people who can do that for you. Tons. So there's a lot of supply, and there's not enough demand. And what happens is these people start competing on price. And, ultimately, it's a race to the bottom because there is not a compelling reason to choose one over the other. When that happens, people go with the one that is cheapest.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:40]: It's just how it works. Right? That's how we buy milk and other commodities. And finally, they get passed over for opportunities to share their expertise on stages, podcast interviews, and more because so many people are saying the same thing. So magnetic messaging for Crew B is a surefire way to blend in with everyone else who does messaging. It's not giving people reason to pick you over the competition. And, side rant that's not how magnets work. Magnets attract opposites. That's what a magnet does.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:18]: North and South Pole. It's the opposites that are attracted. And I don't know if you want clients who are the polar opposite of you. I sure don't. But I don't want a magnet, no thank you. That’s not how magnets work. Side rant, now over.

I can only really speculate why people settle for this kind of messaging and I know it's because messaging is hard and if we think it works for someone else, it’s going to work for us too but what it’s really doing is hurting your own business. It's making you sound like everyone else who's even closely related to what you do. So the question you have to answer for yourself is what crew do you want to be in? Do you want to be in Crew A, where you're carving out your own unique place in the market that you can become known for, drive demand for, and actually have opportunities to share your expertise, or are you gonna be in Crew B? Where you're blending in? And the answer is obvious.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:35]: It's Crew A because being a category of one is better than being one of many. Now I know you might be listening to this and being like, “Ugh, Michelle, I feel called out. I feel seen. I'm in Crew B. But how do I move my business over to Crew A? How do I stop sounding like everyone else on the Internet?” And that's where the 3 Word Rebellion work comes in. This messaging framework is one of the ways to differentiate your expertise driven business. The 3 Word Rebellion is really the North Star for all your work. It's the message you want to be known for.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:19]: It's the connective tissue for all of your marketing message, and it's the umbrella for your business underneath where all your offers sit. And having one differentiates you from your competitors, which is what you want. Like, for me, 3 Word Rebellion is something that I am known for. Even though I'm pivoting to Make Marketing Suck less, which I talked about last week, even with that new 3 Word Rebellion, the 3 Word Rebellion will sit under that message. And if you're ready to find your own 3 Word Rebellion, if you're ready to figure out how to differentiate your expertise and give your people a reason to choose you over your competitors. Coming this summer inside the Expert Up Club, we are doing a 3 Word Rebellion sprint. And I would love for you to join us inside the club because it is the only place for expertise driven businesses that promises that you'll create more demand for your work by doing less marketing. So if you want to make your marketing suck less, if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition, then go to expertup.club or just open your podcast app and click the link for the Expert Up Club and book your tour.

Michelle Mazur [00:13:53]: But do it it soon because the doors are closing for the club for the summer on June 25th. We won't be taking new members until the Fall because I want to focus on helping members create their own 3 Word Rebellion. Now finally, you've worked hard for your expertise. You deserve to have your message outshine your competitors and give them a reason to choose you. You've got an unfair advantage as an expert, and it's time to lead with it and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:36]: 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.