Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:00:00]: I know that there's this unicorn idea that you can preschedule things months in advance, and preschedule all of your content, and, like, sit down for 8 hours in one day, and record 17.6 reels. But that is a lie unto me, and it never worked for me. And so for me, it had to be It sucked even worse if I tried to batch content.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:30]: 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 [00:01:10]: This summer on the podcast, we are going behind the scenes of expertise driven businesses just like yours to unpack why marketing sucks and how these business owners are adjusting course to make it suck less. There's a hard truth about marketing that the web celebs who tout that marketing is easy, simple if you just follow their foolproof formula don't want you to know. And on this podcast, we do not shy away from the hard truths. We lean into it.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:45]: And the truth is marketing is relentless. It is something that is never done and dusted. It's a core pillar of what you need to do to have a sustainable business. So when marketing is relentless, how do you make it suck less? That's exactly why I am talking to Expert Up Club member and my dear friend, Michelle Markwart Deveaux. She is a community leader just like me. And if you are someone who has a group program, a community, a course, a membership, you'll definitely want to listen to this because marketing is key to driving revenue in your business. So a bit about Michelle. She uses her background as a performer and director to make business less annoying.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:46]: As a facilitator, coaching consultant, she helps those in decision making roles rediscover their generosity and playfulness while maintaining high standards of integrity, inclusivity and sustainable business practice. She founded The Speakeasy Cooperative, a company dedicated to teaching artists how to own businesses in a culture of on demand entertainment and embarrassingly awful residuals. Michelle and her husband are raising their 2 amazing kiddos to be deep thinkers and strong leaders through the careful study of the Fugees, Star Trek, and the MCU. I'll see you on the flip side and talk to you about the 3 big takeaways that will make your marketing suck less. Enjoy this conversation.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:37]: Michelle, welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. It's the meeting of Michelle's.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:03:44]: Tada! Michelle Squared.,

Michelle Mazur [00:03:47]: Michelle Squared which means you're gonna get twice the amount of value I don't know. I'm just making shit up.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:03:52]: You get exponential value. Because it's squared. Right? So it's exponential. Mind blown.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:02]: Well, I have to say I am so excited to chat with you because you and I are both community leaders and we have that in common and it's rare to talk to someone who kind of has a similar business model. So, that's exciting. Yeah. Like, and I know there are a lot of people who are curious, like community curious or program or membership curious. So I think hearing about, like, what makes marketing suck for you in your purview will be a fascinating conversation. We're gonna start there. So what has been hard about marketing for you in the past? What makes it suck?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:04:41]: What sucks about marketing is how you always have to do it. All the time, relentlessly. And even when you are not being constant or frequent you still have to be thinking about and planning it and always going to be like one of those pillars of business ownership that is necessary. You know, like bookkeeping or accounting. So the fact that it's not especially in a community, by the way, especially where you're constantly selling, it like, there's just no rest. Like, you're constantly even if you have campaigns, even if you're like, we're gonna focus on this and use this key message. Or we're gonna focus on that. It's just a never ending cycle of continually having to market and decide which kind of marketing goal you have. Like, am I in discovery and audience building? Are we gonna do a season of just nurturing our current followers? And, you know, then are we gonna move into conversion in one way or another? You know? So I would say the thing that sucks the most for me is that I, in the past, is that when I was just doing it by myself, it felt like I could never take a break from it.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:06:20]: Even when I was on vacation, even when I was, needing to attend to things that were important with my family. It was me. I had to figure out marketing. And, yes, I know that there's this unicorn idea that you can preschedule things months in advance, and preschedule all of your content, and like sit down for 8 hours in one day, and record 17.6 reels. But that is a lie unto me, And it never worked for me. And so, for me, it had it had to be. It like sucked even worse if I tried to batch content.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:07]: Interesting. Okay. So I have about a 1,000,000 follow-up questions for you. Yeah so the first one is like how were you going about deciding what season you were in whether it was like growing the audience and discovery, whether it was nurturing or an active sales campaign. Like, how were you making those decisions even though they were making your marketing suck for you?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:07:31]: Yeah. So I think it's for important context for people listening, is when I was when Speakeasy Cooperative was just the community, and the business was the community, it was much more difficult because we had to make those decisions. So how I tended to think about it was when do the people I know in my ideal client, you know, field people that I can serve, when are they the most ready to make change? And that's usually in, like, the artist and music educator field. That's usually in the summer, getting ready, you know, like, late after graduation, but at least a month before school starts. Right? Mhmm. Or at the beginning of the year. So I would kind of be like, okay. Well, we're just gonna, like, push for conversions a little bit all the time. So we're always like, join Speakers Cooperative. Join Speakers Cooperative. Hey.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:08:38]: Are you interested in joining Speakers you know? All of that called action. But specifically, like, why you should join would be in the summers and at the beginning of the year. And then, nurturing was really more a very self self ish, self protective, self loyal decision that I was because I'm very good at nurture marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:06]: Yeah.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:09:07]: But I'm not so good at discovery marketing. Like, I have a person on my team who literally I will write my tome of awesomeness and then she'll turn it into things people want to share. So, yeah. She's amazing because most people do not find my tomes of awesomeness discovery material. They find it like moving on from this essay. So during quarter 4, I would just only do nurture marketing because it's the holidays. And, like, I personally I'm like, I wouldn't wanna spend money on something like this when Christmas is in December. Like, no, personally.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:09:54]: And then number 2, I just didn't wanna think that hard. It's the holidays, and my birthday is in October. And it's like, I want my quarter 4 to be, like, chill.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:06]: Yeah. No. That makes sense. Like, there's, like, the season of your client and what they're going through, but then there's also, like, your season of life. And I like, okay. So I'm gonna be selfish here and ask you follow-up questions because mmy struggles with my own marketing of the Expert Up Club is like, do I go evergreen? Do I go with a launch style? Because, like, evergreen, it sounds great. Like, you can join any time. Like, I can always be promoting this thing and there's also no urgency to keep going because it's always there. So I'm curious, like when you're doing evergreen marketing, how are you kind of baking in some of that reason to do it now versus wait?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:10:54]: Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that helps marketing suck less is understanding your key messages.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:02]: Mhmm.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:11:04]: And, like, really making some just hard and fast decisions about I mean, you teach I'm telling you, but you're the expert. You know, we had to make some hard and fast decisions about, like, what would make this an urgent buy? And then highlight the ways that we can support and help solve those urgent needs, whether they're positive needs, like dreams, like things people are excited about getting done, and they just need some, you know, planning support, or they need some advice, or they need some actual, you know, eyeballs on it, or strategy around it, or if it's a pain point. They're overworked and underpaid. They feel exhausted. They can't do it anymore. So there's always both kinds of people. And my overall belief around using urgency as a sales tactic is - I don’t believe in it. I understand that it works

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:12:11]: I see it work. I think when it is an honest urgency, like in a launch based thing, then it's honest and fair, especially to our neurodivergent friends, to be like, hey, you've gotta do this now. Because they'll just be like, I'm gonna do that and never do it. And I'm gonna do that and never do it. So it's kind of like, hey, hey, reminding you again. You know, which is helpful. But with this evergreen, I'm just like, I don't worry about urgency.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:12:37]: I don't use it ever in the in the selling of the evergreen. One time we used it when we were doing a price increase.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:48]: Oh, well, that makes sense, though.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:12:50]: Because there was a true urgency. Like, if you want the old price, then you're do it by now. And if you don't, then fine. But I think people create their own urgency, and I trust clients to know when they need something.

Michelle Mazur [00:13:04]: Yeah. Because what I'm finding is, like, just since we have, like, the 3 Word Rebellion sprint and the Expert Up Club, I did a whole marketing campaign, and that was great for getting people in. Because I'm like, we're doing it this summer, and then we're not doing it again for another year. So you can join us in the fall or in late August, early September. Cool. But this isn't available. And that was like, oh, that's good, honest urgency.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:13:35]: Yeah. We since we record all of our content, there's not there's not that kind of true urgency. There is around our live event, because obviously. We're doing a live event where, like, you have to be in the Speakeasy if you want to come to the live event. So if you wanna come this year, you've gotta join now, kind of thing. And then we also have some, honest urgency around our programs. Because our programs are launch based, and they have start and end dates. But those were not those were not at the beginning. Those are within the last 4 to 5 years..

Michelle Mazur [00:14:14]: Interesting. I was just curious because I'm still in between, like, I hate launching and I haven't cracked the code on the evergreen marketing yet. So marketing sucks sometimes, people. Even for me. Right? Like, trying to figure that out.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:35]: The other question I have is why do you hate batch content batching your content? Back with Michelle's answer after this short break.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:44]: If marketing feels like a relentless slog, the best way to make it suck less is to do less of it. That's why I created the Market Like an Expert 7 day crash course to create a do less but better marketing strategy that creates demand for your offers and expertise. And one of the first actions you'll take, figure out what to eliminate. Want in on that for free? Then sign up at drmichellemazur.com/mle. That's the letters, M L E. Or open your podcast app and click on Market Like An Expert. Now, back to the show.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:15:44]: So for a couple reasons. First of all, to me, what I have found for my business is that relevancy is key in marketing. And especially for my industry. And I would just I mean, honestly, I think it's for every industry because even the people who are not voice related people that I work with, like accountants and web designers and all of those people, have the same, you know, it kinda goes the same way. But I feel like batching removes a level of authenticity that you can bring to your content when you are thinking freshly about what is relevant to your potential client.

Michelle Mazur [00:16:33]: Well, it's funny because I have never loved batching content either, and I've never been able to put my finger on it. And I think what you said encapsulates how I was also feeling because, I feel like I'm removed from the content somehow and it's not as relevant, or I can't respond to something that I'm seeing or a new need that I've identified in the market place if I batched out 3 months worth of podcasts. Like it's not gonna happen for 3 months and being able to respond is so important. And the cool thing about being like a smaller business is that we can be nimble.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:17:17]: Exactly. I say the really micro businesses are the luckiest. Right? People who are one stop shops, because they're like a jet ski. They can just choom choom choom. They can turn on a dime. They can whip and the water goes in the air. Right? It's so much fun. You're screaming. You're having a great time. The music is blaring. Jet ski. But as you get bigger, your boat gets bigger. And it is not as easy to turn a luxury yacht as it is a jet ski. It is not then it's not easy to turn, you know, whatever is in between a yacht and a cruise ship. I don't know. A mega yacht? And then, you know, cruise ship. Like, as you get bigger, as you scale, you have to plan for being slow. A big wide 6 month terms in the marketing, not 1 week turns.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:18:09]: And I think that, you know, I think the batching of the content is for the kind of content that you know is going to happen. So for example, things that we do batch would be like all the little graphics about, you know, the upcoming events. Like, those aren't generally gonna change. They don't have any sort of call to action other than join the speaking cooperative. Weren't you excited? You know? But anything that is really gonna ask the potential customer or client to review if they are in need, I don't think it's fair, and I think it's a little bit shady to, like, ask that question on Monday the 1st, in real life and then try to answer it when you post it on Saturday, 20th.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:19:00]: Because who we are when we ask the questions, who we are when we are creating the content is as relevant to the content as the words that are being said. And if we're not in that mind space, if we're not in that story with the client, in that piece of content, in that engagement That to me is disingenuous.

Michelle Mazur [00:19:26]: Yeah. And it's just that lack of intimacy.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:19:32]: It is. And as we know, marketing is about relationship building. And one of the things that bugs grinds my gears, just bugs me to tears is how we systematize the wrong things about marketing. e systematize the relationship instead of systematizing the process.

Michelle Mazur [00:20:07]: Yes.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:20:09]: And to one of the questions that I know may come up today, what did you do to start making it suck less?

Michelle Mazur [00:20:23]: Mhmm.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:20:24]: Was I sat down one day and I really stared at the wall and I thought about, Why does this suck? Oh. Why do I hate this so much? And I realized that for me, it's because we're focusing on the wrong thing, and we're trying to systematize something that should be emerging in real time. So really going through with the with my 2 marketing people, we have a fractional CMO. Her name is Sarah Campbell. She's so fun. She's the person who can discovery-ify my tomes of awesome. And then we have a social media manager. Her name is Karen Michaels and she's more like the flashy, oh, this is on trend. Oh, try this. Let's do this, and I'll do your back end hashtag alt text stuff. You know? She's more a social media person. But working the 3 of us together, and really just saying, like, what are we trying to do here? And getting back to our core values and our mission and vision, and then being sure that the way we were implementing marketing was consistently in alignment with those things. And one of our core values is integrity, and you cannot have integrity with an with an asynchronous conversation that you use to just check something off your list. That's not a conversation full of integrity.

Michelle Mazur [00:21:58]: Yeah. I no. I completely agree. And it's just making me think about, you know, especially, like, you and I have been in this game for a long time. Like, we both created a lot of content. And I know for me, I've been going through, like, my back catalog and upcycling it. Because once, the one thing you said in the Expert Up Club is, like, how are you going to use these things again, Michelle?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:22:22]: Yes, exactly.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:23]: I was like, oh. But it's been interesting because I go back in the back catalog and I'm like, oh wait, like this is a good podcast piece and then I can mix it with this other thing and it creates something new and the conversation feels fresh and genuine. I'm just not like rerecording and rereleasing it so I can check the box.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:22:45]: I love that. And to me, that's what the goal of a key message is.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:51]: Mhmm.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:22:52]: Is that goal I mean, I feel so silly telling you what I think a key message is.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:57]: No, Please tell me.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:22:59]: But just this idea that, like, it's a theme. It's almost like a key theme, and it's our responsibility, especially if we position ourselves as a thought leader. Or if people view us as a thought leader or we have the kind of business model that even when we say out loud, this is not about me, they're gonna make it about us because that's what humans do, It is essential that we continually go back to the same spiral learning. We go back to the same themes and messages in order to show that consistency in the brand, the consistency of what people can expect from the offer, can expect from the experience, and, saving. You know, one of the phrases you say that I really just latched onto I actually talk about it in the course that I teach and I, oh, my friend Michelle Mazur. I call you my friend.

Michelle Mazur [00:23:54]: You should call me your friend. I love that.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:23:56]: Name drop, name drop. I said, oh, she says that she says, consistency over constancy. And I'm like, yes. That's what it is. And that's why we need our key themes because it will be new, Michelle. It will that new idea from an old nugget will absolutely be more relevant in today's context because we can never escape context. But it's still the same theme.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:24:22]: It's still the same idea. It's still the same brand, nugget that we want our potential clients and our current clients to trust and know that that's not going away until we have explicitly stated we no longer believe this. We're doing something else.

Michelle Mazur [00:24:39]: Yes. And I think I know for me, like, being able to hit those key themes, those key messages, it's also what persuades people and leads people to your offers because they need to hear this shit again and again and again.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:24:56]: A million times. .

Michelle Mazur [00:24:57]: Before they're willing to take action or before they’re evening willing to take action. I love that you brought up the messaging piece and how those key themes can be so important. So circling back to marketing being relentless, never ending sounds like a slog that's always on your mind. How are you making that suck less?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:25:22]: Yeah. So I completely handed off a lot of that social media. So we have let me answer this in a different way. I did it several ways. I kind attacked it on all sides. So one of the things I did was give my social media manager complete agency over certain types of content. So that is, like, her job.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:25:55]: We touch base about it, but it's like, that's you. All you, girlfriend. Then I have a meeting with my CMO. And before I had a meeting with CMO, I did it had a meeting with myself when I was my CMO. Right? So I don't want anyone out there listening and being like, well, I don't have a CMO. I can't do that. You are your CMO. Yes. You can. Just put on a different hat.

And and write down when do I actually want to market. Do I want to be every day? Do I want to be Monday through Friday? Do I want 2 times a week? Do I want and then on top of that, where? So which avenues am I using? Do I want to use the blog? Do I want to use an email list? Do I want to use podcasting and borrowing audiences, and public speaking, and you know, borrowing audiences, whatever's in that big, big bucket. And do I want to use social media? And really deciding, like, how much I was gonna do and what, and then what I what I was good at is what I was going to be responsible for. And that the things that I wasn't as good at, social media, would be the things that my team would take and make into social media things. So like What? Right? So I write the blogs.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:27:16]: I write the emails. I do not use a lot of AI. I know that people love it. But for me, my email list, like, that's that's me sitting down with a friend. Like, I literally go on my email list. I pick 1 person that I know or that I've interacted with, and I when I write an email, I write to one person. So that has made it so much easier to just be like, this email is to Liz in my head. Right? Then, of course, I change it so that it's to everybody. But it's right there, it's to Liz or it's to Shannon or it's to, you know, Matthew or whoever it is.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:27:58]: I'm For those who don't see what I'm doing, I'm pointing at my head. I'm like, Alright. This isn't video recorded. So that's one of the things that I did. I also stopped trying to be good. I have a real hard time with trying to get good at things that you suck at anyway. I'm very much about leverage what you are good at and get even better at it and then find help Yeah. With things that you suck at.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:28:29]: So when I saved up money, I straight up saved up a lot of money, and we hired people to help redo our graphics for our social media posts. I didn't try to you know, it was fine. When I was fine, but then when we had the money, pay an expert. Just pay an expert. And this is actually something I do hope that listeners would take away is I think that because marketing is constant in a way that it's not financially planned for, They don't save up money for social media graphics. They don't save up money for, doing audits on your accessibility of your colors. They don't or fonts. They don't save up money to start using a new, more effective email campaign platform thingy.

Michelle Mazur [00:29:31]: Yeah.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:29:31]: And I really try I know that we're not a huge company or anything like that, but I really do try to stick to that 7 to 12% of revenue is going back into marketing every year.

Michelle Mazur [00:29:45]: That's a good rule of thumb.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:29:47]: Because generally in corporate, it's 8 to 15% is in of revenue is in the budget. So I'm like, if they can do that and there's a reason why they keep making money, then I will do that. I just spend the money differently. You know, I don't spend it on like a Super Bowl ad,

Michelle Mazur [00:30:07]: Which is smart. Well and and a few things that I just wanna highlight about what you said is number 1, you were talking about the fact that it's like you outsource the things that you didn't wanna do, like social media. And I think for people listening, like, if you can't afford to outsource it, know that you don't have to be on social media if you don't want to. Like, if it's not working for you, if it's not aligned with you, like, don't do it. There are other ways for your for your business to be discovered for you to build awareness.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:30:44]: 100%. And I think, you know, social media in in my particular business is a function of the industry that it's serving. Because and it's a function of that's where I started, so that's where people know the business from. Just anyway, that Facebook just happens to be a good platform for me because I can tome.

Michelle Mazur [00:31:08]: Mhmm. Yes.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:31:09]: You know? And I'm good at toming. And then we can turn those tomes into reels, into all of those things on Instagram. But what I did do, because I'm not a huge fan of social media, there's so much research about how it's just killing us slowly or quickly, is I really I did make an intentional decision in 2018 that I would not use social media for personal things. So even though I am personal and I do share personal things on social media, for me, Facebook isn't about hanging out with my friends. It's about marketing. 100%. Instagram is about marketing. 100%.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:31:50]: Because it's a false well, like any marketing, it's a false level of intimacy. That doesn't mean I'm not genuine. I'm genuinely who I am. I say what I believe. I say a lot of personal things on Facebook, but I don't connect my identity or the beauty of my relationships in into social media. So I could, on a personal level, drop social media tomorrow and not feel any personal loss. I would feel great business loss. Because it is a marketing channel, a tactic that we have chosen to implement.

Michelle Mazur [00:32:34]: And that's working for your business.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:32:36]: It is. And a lot of times what we do is just use the social media to point to other things. Right? Point to the blog, point to a podcast, you know, point to, something we've done. We kinda don't take it too seriously. But still understand that it is an important kind of air quotes top of funnel Thing for us to do since we are a relatively small business comparatively. We will pay the time and algorithm tax so that we don't have to take out advertisements. You know, we don't we're not spending the money on the other things.

Michelle Mazur [00:33:14]: Yeah. One of the other things I wanted to bring up is, like, I love that you just have these great boundaries around, like, I'm deciding when and how much, and I'm only doing things that play to my strength. Like for me, like, I don't love social media, but I'm challenging myself to post on LinkedIn once a week. It's not a part of my marketing strategy, but once a week I try to do like a little video post that's usually based on some other content I've already created and just do it really quick and just form relationships there. But it's been so helpful just to like have the boundary of like, this is a one time a week thing. It's not a part of my strategy. I'm not dependent on it because I think having boundaries around what you're willing to do and what you're not does make marketing suck less.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:34:03]: Yeah. And it's good to have that's why a team is great because the other two people in our little triangle of marketing and this business, the other two people don't have the same kind of boundaries around social media as I do. That's they choose to do it differently. They enjoy doing it differently. And so it's like, great. Have at it then. Please.

Michelle Mazur [00:34:27]: Alright. One final question for you. How does marketing feel to you now that you've made some of these changes?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:34:35]: It feels much more oh, gosh. What is the word? I kinda said this already, but it's like it just feels like systematized

Michelle Mazur [00:34:45]: Mhmm.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:34:45]: And way less personal. And I know that the irony of this is that a lot of things I said were, like, personal things or personal boundaries or decisions I made. But honestly, what these decisions do is they remove you from the myth of believing that your identity is intermingled with your marketing campaigns.

Michelle Mazur [00:35:11]: Oof. I'm just gonna let that sink in.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:35:18]: I think way too many of us have fallen for the trap of thinking that your marketing is your business. And if people aren't responding to your marketing, then they are not responding to you as a person. And if they are not responding to you as a person, then, you know, you go down this whole like, life is meaningless. Why am I alive? And I'm like, friends, this is just a thing you gotta do. I don't care how you do it. And you know what? When people are like, oh, I don't market. I do word-of-mouth. And I'm like, shut your face. Word-of-mouth is marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:35:56]: Is Marketing! Referrals. I hear that too. Like, oh, well, I don't do marketing. I just do referrals.. That marketing.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:36:07]: Exactly. And so I think making marketing suck less or rather understanding that marketing is just a thing that you have to do in your business, just the way that you have to have a client meeting or you have to create a PDF or you have to put a podcast on your calendar, or you have to do your accounting or your bookkeeping.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:36:36]: It's just part of your task list that are the basic tasks for keeping a business sustainable. Getting wrapped up in how effective your content is without just making decisions about what your messages are, being patient, and letting the message settle in is what drives people banana pants.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:37:02]: That is really you get caught up. Right? You this trend, that trend. Oh, I didn't get views or nobody shared my content or I'm not getting engagement. What can I do to make it better? And then you buy all these courses on, like, getting engagement. And it's like, well, maybe you're not getting engagement because you're not saying anything interesting. That's true. You also could not be getting engagement because the algorithm just didn't show it to anybody and has nothing to do with you. So the question would be, why do you keep on beating this, like, dead horse or climbing up this fake tree? I don't know.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:37:35]: Mixing my metaphors. Mhmm. Why do you keep on trying to do something that isn't working? What has worked in the past? Well, all I've ever done is word-of-mouth. Awesome. Let's leverage word-of-mouth. What have you done? What happens when you get word-of-mouth? What are the kinds of things people say? How can you go to your current clientele and ask them to intentionally be word-of-mouth’ing you? Like, there's so many ways that people are coming to you that if you just gathered a little bit of data, you could worry less about content and messaging. And I think that that has helped too. it's, like, worrying about messaging once or twice or maybe once a quarter rather than worrying about it. Like, what am I gonna post today?

Michelle Mazur [00:38:17]: Well, there's this whole thing I was talking about the other day of, like, I don't know what to say. Well, if you have your key themes and your key messages, you'll always know what to say. And yes, probably once a quarter, every 6 months, you need to reevaluate if those themes are still working for you. If one has worked exceptionally well and you need to double down on it. But I think that constant recreation of like, oh, what am I gonna say to get people to engage or to get them to take me up on this offer? And it's like, no, you just wanna hit the same points. And what's really interesting to me is I changed the podcast to Make Marketing Suck Less last year. This message is finally getting traction.

Michelle Mazur [00:38:54]: Like a year later, people are coming to me and be Oh, make marketing suck less. This is awesome. I love this. And I'm like, wow. Only a year I've been doing this. And I'm just getting, like, a fraction of what it could be.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:39:10]: Oh my goodness gracious. It it like I wish it could be faster for you, but also, yeah, sounds about right. You know? And those are some things that I wish small business owners understood better is that, like, you gotta be patient to be a small and micro business owner. You cannot you can you can make decisions like a jet ski, but you cannot expect results like a jet ski. And that's kind of one of those opposite things in, like, big business. It's like a biz big business needs to take a lot of time in order to make a change, but when they make a change, they're gonna get immediate results because of the Yes. Just inertia behind the change.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:39:54]: But a small business, you can make a you can make a change or decision today, but you're not gonna see money from that decision for 6 months.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:40:02]: And or a year, like you said. Yeah. And I really wish I really wish more people had a desire to learn the skill of patience with their marketing.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:40:18]: Because it is a skill. It's a skill to stop yourself from the shiny object syndrome, you know, which we could go into all of the reasons why people feel compelled to work themselves to the bone and, you know, equate hard work with success and all of those kinds of things. But to that end, I would say friends listening, allow yourself the freedom to just make marketing a thing that you do.

Michelle Mazur [00:40:42]: And that's how it sucks less.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:40:44]: And that's how it sucks less. Instead of making it who you are or somehow expecting your marketing to, like, do the work of showing clients how the results of your actual work. I know that sounds weird, but, like, a clip of your marketing isn't the meat of what they get when they work with you? And so to me, the goal of any piece of content is kinda like a resume. The resume isn't there to get you the job. The resume is there to get you the interview. So my content is just there to get you to the next thing to get and then that thing will get you to the next thing, and then that thing will get you to the next thing. And hopefully, some time along there, you'll make a decision that, you know what? I think I need to invest for some targeted and personal relationship, and some advice, and some coaching, and consulting.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:41:45]: And you'll make the investment, and then you'll be glad you did. They'll tell other people, which is testimonials. That is marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:41:55]: Yes. It is. Alright, Michelle. Do you wanna tell people where they can find you if they want more Michelle in their life?

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:42:03]: I would love people to have more Michelle in their life. So, our website is, thespeak easycooperative.com. You can find us also at ins on Instagram at thespea easycooperative. I think I'm on threads, but I don't remember. Facebook, you can follow the page at The SpeakEasy Cooperative. And if you wanna follow my personal profile, Michelle Markwart Deveaux, it's up there as like a content creator or some nonsense public figure or some silliness. So, like, it's like you can read. I post a lot of public tomes, if you will.

Michelle Markwart Deveaux [00:42:42]: And then, you can email us at hey@faithculturekiss.com, which you can just put in the show notes because that'll be ridiculous to try to spell. And thanks for giving me an opportunity to tell people where to find us.

Michelle Mazur [00:42:56]: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all of these great insights. I'm really excited for people to hear this interview and decouple the idea that marketing is personal. And it says something about you as the human running your business when, really, it doesn't, and it never has.

Michelle Mazur [00:43:18]: If you were going to listen to any podcast episode again, I'd recommend this one. There were so many great insights that I had a hard time narrowing it down to just three. But for me, here's what I took away from this episode.

Number 1, don't do marketing that doesn't play to your strengths. Whether it's social media or batching content. You don't have to market in a way that doesn't work for you. I particularly love the conversation around content batching as it's something I've never been able to do but couldn't figure out why until Michelle talked about relevancy and timeliness with your marketing.

Number 2, know your key messages. The number one way to make marketing suck less is messaging. And I am not just saying it because I do messaging. This is a seasoned business owner like Michelle saying that knowing her key messages, knowing what to say to move people closer to her offer saves her time doing marketing, and it's also making her marketing more effective. It just works better.

Michelle Mazur [00:44:48]: And then finally, number 3, your identity is not intermingled with your marketing. If people just don't respond to your marketing campaign, it's not about you. It doesn't say anything about you as a human or about you as an expert. Don't make your marketing mean anything about you, and that will definitely make your marketing suck less. You know what? Marketing is hard, and to make it easier, Do marketing that plays to what you're good at. Know your messages and remember marketing, Hey, it's never about you. Whether it works or it fails, it says nothing about you or your expertise.

Michelle Mazur [00:45:50]: 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.