Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Sometimes when it comes to marketing, we are our own worst enemies. Today, we are kicking off a brand new series about how we unintentionally make marketing suck more for our businesses. And sometimes we don't even realize we are doing these things, but there are these tiny ways that we sabotage our business, our sanity with the choices we make when it comes to marketing. So let's jump right in with the first big sabotage I see all the time. Let's do this.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:47]: 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 [00:01:28]: Picture this. You're frustrated with your marketing. You're spending a lot of time, a lot of effort, and it's just not working. You're not getting the leads, and you're scratching your head and wondering, what am I missing? What should I add? Well, here's an idea that might surprise you. Sometimes, it's not about adding more. In fact, piling on more and more marketing tactics might actually be hurting your results, hurting what you want to see from your marketing, especially when you're a solo-based business owner.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:10]: Now, if you've read Greg McGowan's book, Essentialism, the whole philosophy of that book is to do less, but do it better. Right? We want to do less things so that we can have more focus and see better results. But here's what typically happens when we are marketing our business. We start adding things. Like things don't work, we kinda spin out. Oh, I'm gonna be on LinkedIn and Instagram, and I'll have a podcast and a YouTube channel and email marketing, and I'll do webinars and round tables and summits. And, oh, my gosh, that's so much. And before you know it, your focus is split between 6 different marketing activities.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:52]: Let's be real. When you're already juggling client delivery, sales, marketing, life, and the absolute shit show that's been the past 4 years, it is way too much, my friend, way too much. But we're always thinking, like, well, if my marketing doesn't work, I should be adding something. So let me give you an example of this. I do this to myself all the time, especially when I'm thinking about my grow marketing strategy. So going back to the GEO framework about the 3 jobs marketing can do for you, grow is all about audience building, which I need to do to grow the Expert Up Club. So right now, my strategy is I am doing twice yearly summits. So I do the Make Marketing Suck Less Summit, once in the spring, once in the fall, and I'm currently doing a networking experiment.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:53]: So connecting with people 1 on 1 to see if that leads to projects or collaborations. I feel like I should be doing more to grow my audience. And the one that's really pulling me these days is LinkedIn. Now I don't have time to add LinkedIn. And before I do or decide to go that direction, I need to see how my networking experiment works out. Because then if it's not working, I can subtract that and put LinkedIn in its place. So the million dollar question isn't what can you add, it's what can you subtract. And right now I'm reading this fascinating book called Subtract by Ledy Klotz, and the research in it shows that when we are faced with a problem, like our marketing, our instinct is what to add.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:48]: Like, we are conditioned to constantly be adding, and we don't even see the ways that we can take away. Because sometimes the best solution is what you can remove. So let's take this out of marketing and just give you a real-world example of subtraction. So I live in Seattle, and we used to have this ugly eyesore called the viaduct, and it connected north and south Seattle, goes along the waterfront. If you drove the viaduct, you got a very beautiful view. But if you were on the waterfront, it was freaking ugly. It was terrible.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:29]: And it was also in disrepair. So we, as a city, were faced with this dilemma of, like, do we tear it down? Do we subtract and do a tunnel under the city? It took, like, 9, 10 years for the city to actually make the decision because people didn't want to subtract the viaduct. But you know what happened? We built a tunnel that goes under the city, and then we built up the waterfront. So we subtracted the viaduct, and that gave us access to the waterfront, which has been renovated. And now you can walk from Pike Place Market to the water. It is gorgeous and beautiful. So subtraction can make things better.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:15]: So before we talk about subtraction from your own marketing, one resource I did want to share with you is my free Market Like An Expert course. It is a 7-day email-based crash course that helps you do less but better marketing while increasing results, like booking more sales conversations. So if you're thinking, oh, my gosh, what can I subtract? Go to doctor michellemazur.com/mle. That's the letters m l e, or just open the podcast up and click the link and start the course. It'll take you, like, 5 minutes a day, and you'll start marketing less and seeing better results.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:00]: Alright. So let's apply subtraction to your marketing. Here's what I want you to do. Get out a piece of paper and a pen, if you can, and the first thing I want you to do is write down all the things you think you should be doing for marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:17]: These can be the things that you're actually doing. These can be the things that you're beating yourself up for not doing. These could be the things that are the shiny new objects. So just write it all down. Just brain dump it. Now pause it, come back. Alright. Do you have that list? Excellent.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:38]: Now I want you to go through the list and ask yourself these questions. Number 1, is this a marketing tactic you're genuinely passionate about? Like, do you actually want to do the thing? Do you want to learn the thing? If not, it might need to go. Most likely, it needs to go. So cross the things off that you're like, oh, that feels like such a drag on my energy. Number 2, are your clients actually on those platforms? Like, be honest with yourself. Like, if you are thinking about for instance, years ago now, I worked with someone who was targeting C-suite professionals, and she wanted to start a TikTok channel. C-suite executives tend to be older. They tend not to be on TikTok.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:32]: And I was like, no. Your people aren't there. Like, if you wanna do a TikTok channel for fun, do a TikTok channel. Right? Please feel free. But don't make it part of your marketing strategy for your business. So are your clients actually there? Is that where they're consuming the type of content? Because the other thing is sometimes they're there, but they're not actually consuming your type of content. Right? They wanna look at pictures of dogs or cats or babies, anything cute, and they're not thinking about work. Then the third question, is this marketing tactic accomplishing a specific goal for your work? So if you remember our GEO framework, right, marketing has 3 essential jobs.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:12]: The G is for Grow, so it's growing your audience, building your brand awareness. E is for Engage, nurturing, and getting people ready for working with you. And then O is for Offer, it's inviting people into your sales process. And you need to have all 3 to make your marketing suck less. So do you have something that works for every part of that? And we're gonna talk about this in our next episode because sometimes we're using the wrong marketing tactic to accomplish a job. That's another little self-sabotage. But here's the bottom line. Stop asking what you're missing or what you should add.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:56]: Instead, look at what you can take away. Focus on making your core marketing strategies work for your business and for your life instead of trying to do more and get less effective results. Because sometimes less is really better. And until next time, I am here to help you make your marketing suck less, one subtraction at a time.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:26]: 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.