Make Marketing Suck Less

Funnels Suck: What This Coach Did Instead To Market Her Business With Rachel Alexandria

Rachel Alexandria [00:00:00]: I used to always think, “God, I have all these great ideas! and I make these products, like, you know, digital based products. And if only I had the money that I could actually hire a team and build the thing out and then actually pay money for advertising, I just know it would hit.”

Michelle Mazur [00:00:25]: 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 [00:01:05]: 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 businesses are adjusting course to make it suck less. Now, there is this idea floating in the ether that you're just one funnel away from a successful business.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:33]: If you just build the right funnel, have the right welcome sequence, and the right lead magnet, you can put money into ads and people will come out and wanna work with you.

And this seems like the absolutely best way to make marketing suck less. But is it? I am so excited to have Rachel Alexandria on the show today. Rachel is one of the founding members of the Expert Up Club and she's here to talk about her experience around building out a funnel. What worked, what didn't, and how she is making her marketing suck less now.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:11]: So a bit about Rachel, she helps high performers out of their secret messes like overwhelm, anxiety, perfectionism, and people pleasing, so her clients can finally feel peace and self love. A former psychotherapist turned soul medic, she offers concierge care for the soul and psyche so her clients can build healthier relationships where they can care without carrying. So buckle up my friend, Rachel holds nothing back about her funnel building experience.Enjoy this conversation, and I'll be back at the end of it to wrap up with a few key takeaway.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:53]: Hey, Rachel. Welcome. Well, technically, it's welcome back to the podcast because you've been on the two previous iterations of the podcast. But I am glad that you are here to talk about how to make your marketing suck less.

Rachel Alexandria [00:03:12]: Longtime listener, longtime attendee

Michelle Mazur [00:03:16]: 3rd time podcast guest on the show.

Rachel Alexandria [00:03:19]: Do I get, like, a jacket like the people on SNL when they do multiple hosting?

Michelle Mazur [00:03:24]: You have to get to 5, then you can be in my five timers club. So you're two away.

Rachel Alexandria [00:03:30]: Alright. Working my way there.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:32]: Alright. So tell me, what has felt hard about marketing for you in the past? Like, what is just soaked about it?

Rachel Alexandria [00:03:44]: Oh, god. So many things. I think, you know, what I do is very specialized as every marketing person I've ever worked with has said. I am a bit of a unicorn, so it's not something I can just say I'm a dentist, and people are like, oh, I either need a dentist or I don't. Right? So that's a big part of what's made marketing hard over the years is trying to figure out how to explain to people what I do in a way that's gonna land with them and then tie it to results that they need. Also, it's not a thing you can cold call about. Like, “Hi. Do you have mental health problems? You wanna talk to me and pay me money?”

Michelle Mazur [00:04:36]: Do you have secret messes you would like to clean up?

Rachel Alexandria [00:04:40]: Well, see, that actually works better, but that's part of the result of working with you. Because before, it was just like, “Do you feel stuck?” Is this a thing that every single coach and therapist ever says? Yes.

Rachel Alexandria [00:04:57]: That like, knowing I think what used to make marketing suck more was knowing who to target, how to find those people, because my clients kind of roam the spectrum of types of people. Like, there were there were a lot of things, and then just sort of not knowing what to do. Like, do more networking. Should I make a quiz? Should I put Facebook ads out? Like, what what is the thing to do that will work?

Michelle Mazur [00:05:25]: Well, and you went down the whole, like, build a funnel road as well. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Rachel Alexandria [00:05:36]: I always had this theory. You know, I'm 18 years in business now, and the majority I have done via the mythological bootstrapping, which isn't really a thing people can do, like, in terms of the actual metaphor. But, yeah, I was always just kind of running on a paper thin budget. It would be like, what's your marketing budget? I'm like, you think I have extra money? All the money I make goes to feeding me and paying my rent. My marketing budget is maybe $50. And I used to always think, “God, I have all these great ideas and I make these products and, like, you know, digital based products. And if only I had the money that I could actually hire a team and build the thing out and then actually pay money for advertising. I just know it would hit.”

Rachel Alexandria [00:06:35]: And in later years, I talked to my family and was able to secure an investment in the tens of thousands to be able to fund that and do it. And so I hired a team, and they are great people. No shade to them. Actually, I hired several different people. I rebuilt out my website. That was a good investment.

Rachel Alexandria [00:07:02]: And I worked with this marketing team to try to figure out how to get people from having just experienced me or, like, encountering my stuff to the intermediate step of whatever that would be to them actually hiring me or joining my school program, essentially, my Sole School program. And so we just kinda made up an intermediate step, an intermediate cost, like, product.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:34]: And what was that again? I don't remember what it was.

Rachel Alexandria [00:07:39]: It's it was a small program called “How to Turn Your Inner Critic Into Your Personal Champion.”

Michelle Mazur [00:07:50]: Yes.

Rachel Alexandria [00:07:52]: Which is I mean, sure. Great. Which was like a workbook, like a 10 page workbook and then videos with it, and, I think, 1 or 2 live meetings was what was gonna be part of the whole thing. And that was the upsell from we started out with this quiz called What is your Hidden Purpose. Yeah. Because I had this idea, and I thought, oh, quizzes go viral on social media. People will love sharing that.

Rachel Alexandria [00:08:23]: Like, oh, there's there's 9 hidden purposes, and here's mine, and here's all these cool images. And it was just like a 5 multiple selection quiz. A 5 answer 5 question multiple selection. And it did not go viral. That is not what happened. People took it. People supported me. It did get passed around.

Rachel Alexandria [00:08:48]: We spent probably the majority of the budget on building that out. That took a lot of time and energy and design and that kind of thing to build something nice and that functioned correctly and then hook it up into a funnel, all that kind of stuff. And then building out the secondary product that then no one bought. Connecting from that into hiring me. And then we spent, like, not a ton of money, but some money. Some I don't know.

Rachel Alexandria [00:09:22]: Maybe a $1000, maybe $1500 on ads, you know, that I think the result the net result I got out of it was maybe a 100 subscribers to my list. The majority of whom never opened an email.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:38]: Oof. And it's interesting to me because I think there is that dream. I know that I've had it too, where I'm like, oh, well, if I can just build the right funnel or if I just have the right welcome sequence and then or the right lead magnet, I can put money into it, and then people will come out and wanna work with me. It never works that way, or for the most part, it doesn't work that way, especially when you're doing work that is unicorn like, that is more intangible. I don't think it's like, run Facebook ads, have them realize, like, oh, I have this imposter complex problem. I should do this, and then I should hire you.

Rachel Alexandria [00:10:20]: I wanted to, though. I wanted to work like that so bad!

Michelle Mazur [00:10:24]: I think we all do. And it's really thank you for sharing that because I know that people have all there's been a lot of people that I've encountered who've also gone down that path, and then they're like, why did I spend all that money?

Rachel Alexandria [00:10:42]: I don't regret it, honestly, because I always would have wondered. I always would have thought if only I had funding to do this. Then I could whatever. And now I'm like, oh, I learned. No. That's not that's not the thing that's going to bring me the clients I need. It's just not. And so I don't need to spend any more time, you know, regretfully wishing that I could have tried to you know what I mean? People who actually get to try out for the Olympics or whatever and push themselves and have the coach and whatever they realize their potential or their limitations. And I think there's a gift in that.

Rachel Alexandria [00:11:24]: I'm super grateful. I don't think any of that was a waste of time or energy or money. I wish it would have worked, but it didn't. And that's okay. And I see why it didn't

Michelle Mazur [00:11:36]: So what are you doing? Okay. Just to kind of summarize that before I move on. So it sounds like describing what you do has been a challenge because it is for a very specific person in a very specific moment, and sometimes it's the things that they're not talking about.

Rachel Alexandria [00:11:58]: And what I do is not a traditional job by anyone's definition.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:05]: No. It is very concierge service. So I just wanna like, you talk about it as concierge care, which I really appreciate because I'm like, oh, that gives me kind of a, like, an anchor. So that has been difficult, not knowing how to market like networking. Great. Well, what does that mean, and how much do I have to do? And then testing out this funnel and finding out it doesn't work and that being a really good thing because you know. So what are you doing now to make marketing suck less and making it better for you, more effective for you?

Rachel Alexandria [00:12:43]: One of the things that I really learned from you that makes it suck less is just finding what hits and repeating it a bajillion times. So what hits is I help high performers clean up their secret messes. People know who high performers are, and the high performers know that they have secret messes. They feel identified, and we don't have to name them. And, it just works. And I've started to I'm actually building on this. Like, I'm also learning, from you instead of thinking, like, what do I wanna write in my email this week? Because I do write in a weekly email. They are very good

Michelle Mazur [00:13:29]: Yes. They are!

Rachel Alexandria [00:13:30]: It's better. Thank you. It's better when they're directed at these, like, the same category over and over. So I am going to do, I think, a welcome series of and maybe building towards a book or something of the 7 secret messes of high performers. Seems interesting. The other thing that is a message I hit over and over is how to care without carrying.

Rachel Alexandria [00:14:10]: Both of these are kind of 3 Word Rebellions. Care without carrying is a 3 word rebellion for sure.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:17]: A 100%. YES!

Rachel Alexandria [00:14:24]: I don't know how to make high performers clean up your secret messes into 3 word rebellion, but it's close.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:30]: In some ways, I would say, like, thinking about, like, the messaging methodology we use inside the Expert Up Club, that feels like a good Why Buy Statement to me, because you're identifying the who and the what and the result of that, the cleaning up the secret messes. So I feel like it's it's a good Why Buy. Solid why buy statement because it's compelling. And if you say it to the right person, they're like, oh, yeah. That's me!

Rachel Alexandria [00:14:58]: So that's what I'm focused on. And, the other big piece, because I can't tell you the number of times that people have said to me when they're trying to help me figure out why business gets slow, you know, how to get some more people in the door, they've said, you know, how do people end up hiring you? And I'm like, it's through a referral or they encounter me at this and that, and people just keep repeating to me. People hire you when they've had an experience of you because the experience of you is the magic.

Rachel Alexandria [00:15:41]: I need to help people have experiences of me, which I used to think was, like, teach a class or hold a webinar. It's not. That that is a thing I have to sell people into coming to, which is already hard. No. I just need to get out there and, you know, what's the gross term about, like, class pans or, like, swap skins or what whatever that is.

Rachel Alexandria [00:16:08]: Press the flesh.

Michelle Mazur [00:16:09]: Press the flesh. Is that what we're looking

Rachel Alexandria [00:16:10]: Yes! Gross. Press the proverbial flesh. Ew. Yeah. Like, have my energy rub up against their energy, and then they get a vibe. Like, I I chatted with someone just recently who I barely had a chance to chat with her, and I was just checking in because I'm trying to build a friendship there.

Rachel Alexandria [00:16:37]: And she's like, Hey. To be honest, I'm going through some stuff right now, but I had a really good experience of your energy when we met. And I think it's safe for me to say this to you and be straightforward. Like, I am interested in connecting more. I just can't right now, and I hope that's okay to say. And I thought that was so interesting that she's like, that she gotta read on my energy, and I think people do. So what I am doing differently instead of building more products or writing more books or trying to do more classes or whatever, I'm just trying to get out there and press the proverbial flesh. Like, give like, meet more people.

Rachel Alexandria [00:17:21]: Relationship marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:17:23]: Yes. As our friend Michelle Warner would say. And I think because we've been indoctrinated into this idea that, oh, you have to have the webinar that leads to, the email series with the call to action to buy your thing from a sales page, that we forget that marketing is essentially human. And especially for someone who has a 1 to 1 business model like you have currently. It really is about meeting people and getting a sense of them and allowing them to have that sense of you instead of trying to broadcast that energy to the masses.

Rachel Alexandria [00:18:15]: Exactly. Like, it makes sense when I think I only need to pick up 2 or 3 clients to be full. How does that make sense to try to build a webinar and get a like, a 100 people coming to it? And then I mean, like, that doesn't make any sense, and it also is very much not how my clients work. My clients are busy. They're not going to webinars about personal growth. Well, concierge care isn't gonna go to a 101 about heart attacks seminar.

Michelle Mazur [00:18:51]: And I think that's a really interesting point is that you're keyed into how the person that would wanna work with you, would want to interact or to meet you at first. And I don't think we think enough about the other person who's kind of receiving our messaging and our marketing. We're just like, this is the way you do it. So I'm going to do it that way and hope it works for me.

Rachel Alexandria [00:19:21]: There was a lot of disservice done by all the people teaching that there is this way to market when - no very much no.

Michelle Mazur [00:19:33]: No. I mean, that's the one thing that, you know, while it's it's the hill I'll die on, it's like there is no one right way to market. And I love seeing, like, how all the different members of the Club are deciding to market their business because it's all so different, and they're using different types of strategies, like your networking and emailing your list on a regular basis to stay in contact. And I'm like, that's a very full marketing strategy. Networking is enough.

Rachel Alexandria [00:20:14]: I post on socials, but I just repurpose my emails. And I only do that so my socials, like, are refreshed to recent. So people who because a lot of people when I need them, the first place they'll go is LinkedIn or maybe Instagram to see what I've been doing see what I've been talking about. And if my oldest post is 6 months old, that's not great. But that’s a very low lift, that’s just copy, pasting.

Michelle Mazur [00:20:449]: So how do you feel about marketing now?

Rachel Alexandria [00:20:14]: I feel less confused. That's for sure. I feel I know. Like, that's that's taken a long time, and I feel less much less frustrated. It's more just like, okay. Now it's just the work. Right? It's just straight it's work. Sure. It's not what I'd rather be doing, but that's okay. Like, it is the work of running my business. It feels fairly straightforward, and my moments of confusion are more specific to certain instances. Like, what do I say when I follow-up with someone from my CRM that I've met once? What's the what's the tactic? Like, that's that's an easier question to grapple with and to get advice on. How do I get more people to find me? Like, that's just so broad and so hard.

Michelle Mazur [00:21:40]: And what do you think has helped you the most kind of? In some ways, like, make peace with marketing? Like, that's kind of the vibe I'm getting.

Rachel Alexandria [00:21:54]: I mean, you know, you and I have known each other a long time. So your advice and your teachings have been incredibly helpful. I think one of the things I’ve most heard from you is repetition. Get your message clear and repeat ad nauseam. And you said it enough that finally I got it. You followed your own advice, and finally, I was like, okay. And now I repeat that to other people. What's your message? Figure it out, like, in a way that's clear, and then just say it endlessly, and then you will become known for that. And I think the other piece is just, like, really coming to understand how my clients are going to best experience me and then want to know more. Which is not through online anything.

Michelle Mazur [00:22:51]: Yeah. So 1 question I have. I'm all like, sorry. My brain is going in different directions. So how do you feel like your email list fits into this? Like, if you want to give people an experience of you, is the email list doing that? Is it just a place to keep in touch with people? Like, how are you viewing it? Because your emails are really good, and we will link up to where you can find Rachel's emails in the show notes, and you'll be able to plug it at the end. But I it's just like 1 of the questions I had as you were talking. I was like, oh, how does this how does this fit?

Rachel Alexandria [00:23:30]: Yeah. I mean, it is nurture. Like, my emails are predominantly for nurturing connection. As I've, like, worked on them for the last couple of years because I used to didn't I didn't email at all. I was terrible about it. I didn't know what to say, and then it'd be this huge amount of work to try to get one out, and then I wouldn't be consistent, and then I'd feel bad. And then, you know, people are always like, I haven't emailed my list in forever. I need to apologize.

Rachel Alexandria [00:23:54]: I'm like, don't say anything. Just send an email about a topic. Don't tell them you're sorry you haven't been around. They don't care. They weren't paying attention. But, I digress. When I started getting back into writing to my list, I think the intention is to just serve, you know, like, this is part of what my purpose is in life, is to share my understanding of the world and how to navigate relationships and difficulties and spiritual issues with grace and self love.

Rachel Alexandria [00:24:40]: And this is wisdom that people don't get from many places. I'm given this to to share it and to help make life be a bit less complicated, a bit less scary, a bit more kind. So because I've had someone suggest to me that I was spending a lot of time on that and that it wasn't generating business and I should reappropriate that time, and I was like, absolutely not. At least note right now, this feels like, for a lack of a better way of describing it, part of my ministry. This is what this is what I'm here to share. And I know that there is at least one person on my smallish email list because I don't do enough to grow the list. There's at least 1 person on that list who I know emails me every once in a while and says, Oh My God. This was like you said exactly what I needed to hear today. Thank you so much.

Rachel Alexandria [00:25:33]: I'm saving up so that I can work with you. And there's other people who've been like, how did you know exactly what I needed to hear? So that's that's why. I don't know if that's a good plan for my marketing time.

Michelle Mazur [00:25:56]: Well, but what I'm hearing is you enjoy writing emails, which, like, if you're like, oh, I hate writing these emails, I'd be like, oh, no. That's not a great use of your time. No. Like, let's not do that. But you enjoy writing the emails. They allow you to give back in a way. They allow you to give back and without any expectation of return, which is kind of beautiful because it's like you're planting seeds, and we don't know if or when those seeds will blossom, but you never know. Right? Because somebody on your list might be like, oh, my friend.

Michelle Mazur [00:26:39]: Like, we actually, we talked about this this morning during our Community Hangout Call. Like, you never know how your work is actually impacting people and the ripple effect. So, like, if you enjoy it and you know that there, I'd say for, like, every person that responds, there's probably 10 others who are also really loving what you're putting out there. It does have that ripple effect, and we just don't know where it can go. And I think that's one of the things about marketing is it is a little uncertain. We don't know where networking conversations are gonna go or where this email that you sent out could go.

Rachel Alexandria [00:27:18]: Yeah. I mean, you never know. Like, that's why it's all an experiment. We're all like Schrodinger's cat’ing around until until we get a result. And they're like, oh. Be successful. I might be unsuccessful. I won't know until I open the box.

Michelle Mazur [00:27:39]: And so many people are afraid to, like, open the box. Because what if it doesn't work?

Rachel Alexandria [00:27:46]: Then you learn and you do something different.

Michelle Mazur [00:27:49]: Yep. All right, Rachel. Thank you so much. Why don't you tell everyone where they can join your email list? And I am on your email list. I do love your emails. They are meaningful and thoughtful and thought provoking so I highly recommend people jump on your list. Where can people find you?

Rachel Alexandria [00:28:12]: Thank you. That you can find me at rachelalexandria.com. And if you go on there, rachelalexandria.com/subscribe, I believe, will take you into signing up for the email list. I'm also on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook if anybody's still there. You can search my name.

Michelle Mazur [00:28:36]: If you're the last person on Facebook, please shut out the lie. Shut off the lie.

Rachel Alexandria [00:28:39]: Right? It's not going to be me. There's definitely people who are going to be there longer. But yeah, I do share content from my newsletter occasionally on those places.

Michelle Mazur [00:28:52]: Well, thank you so much, Rachel. This has been so delightful. And everyone who is listening, please go check out Rachel's newsletter. It is soul nourishing. So thank you so much, Rachel.

Rachel Alexandria [00:29:11]: Thanks, my dear.

Michelle Mazur [00:29:15]: This was such an important conversation with Rachel because I think a lot of us believe that traffic marketing is the way to get clients on autopilot. And there's a few key takeaways that I want to highlight and reiterate before you go.

Number one, traditional marketing funnels tend not to work for expertise-driven businesses or super high-touch businesses that are offering concierge care like Rachel is talking about.

Now I am going to talk about this more in my email this week, so make sure you are signed up for the Make Marketing Suckless newsletter at drmichellemazur.com/newsletter.

The second big takeaway, what does work for Rachel and for most of us is repeating our core message a bajillion times. Like, this is the way that we get known for our work. It makes us more referable. So the more you say your message, especially like Rachel has a great message around helping high performers clean up their secret messes, like that is memorable.

Michelle Mazur [00:30:38]: It makes it easier for me to refer her. So the more she says it, the more memorable it's going to be. And then the final takeaway is what works for people who are service-based businesses, only work with a handful of clients every year is building relationships the old fashioned way, meeting new people, spending time with them, letting them have an experience of you. Now while funnels do work for a very specific kind of business, for most of us, we are not one funnel away from our next client. We are one relationship away.

Michelle Mazur [00:31:24]: 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.