Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Here's what makes marketing suck for experts. And it has absolutely nothing to do with how smart you are, your nuanced approach, or that you're not curious enough. In fact, you're preyed upon by unscrupulous business owners because you are curious. You love learning. So when you see that shiny new marketing program, you're tempted to buy it because surely you need to learn more about marketing, right? You're not an expert in marketing and learning will get you there. But what if that wasn't true? What if you don't need to learn anything more about marketing? And that's what we're diving into today.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:48]: 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 [00:01:36]: I'm feeling a little feisty today because I get really upset at how experts are spoken to in online business, even by the very people who supposedly help experts grow their business and get known for their work. Because when I see their messaging, I see things like, “Don't be an expert, be an explorer.” “Don't be smart, be curious.” “Don't be an expert, be human.” And it is a covert message that is basically designed to make you feel ashamed of your expertise, of all the years of experience that you put in to master your craft.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:34]: It is a covert message that you should hide your brilliance. Don't show people how smart you are because you'll intimidate them and then they won't hire you. And you know what? This message is out there for a reason. To make you feel like something is inherently wrong with you, and that makes you the perfect mark for people selling courses and programs that are going to teach you how to market. Because you don't need to follow someone else's proven “90-step formula for generating clients on demand.” You need to figure out your own unique way of marketing, a way of marketing that benefits you because you don't hate it. Your clients are there and you have a message that is dialed in. And guess what? You are well prepared to do that because here's the truth.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:43]: Your expertise, it isn't a weakness. It is not something to hide. It's your superpower. It is a huge strength. So let me break down the three strengths that you bring to marketing and discovering what your message is. Number one is that insatiable curiosity and the drive to learn more. But instead of looking outside for another course and another course, how can you look in to what you're already doing and get insanely curious about how it works or if it's not working. The second thing is your willingness to experiment and change course when things don't work.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:37]: What I love about working with experts, they know that knowledge changes. It's not stagnant. They know that in marketing, the market changes. They change. Their clients change. And so you're highly adaptable to changing course when you need to. And I think that makes you a great experimenter, which then sets you up to figure out what your marketing and your message should be. And then finally, you have humility to know you don't have all the answers, but the determination to find them.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:17]: I always know a true expert, not that there's ever a destination for expertise, when they answer the question, any question, well, it depends. Because it does depend. And it takes a lot of humility to admit that something depends and they don't have enough information to really make that decision yet. But you always have the determination to find it. And these aren't just qualities that make you excellent at what you do. They're exactly what can make you great at marketing and figuring out your message. And what you need isn't more information. It is simplification and structure.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:04]: And that's exactly why I created the GEO framework. Over the past four episodes, we've broken down how it works. And as a reminder, G is for growing your audience, brand awareness, and relationships. E is for Engage, nurturing folks so that they are ready to work with you. And O is for Offer, inviting people to work with you. And here's the kicker. You only need one or two marketing tactics per job. You don't need to do podcast interviews and lead magnet swaps and be on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:43]: Just pick one or two things that work for you. And if you want help figuring out exactly what those things should be, that's where my Market Like An Expert free course comes in. It will help you create a social media optional strategy that allows you to do less marketing and create more demand for your work. I made this for experts who are business owners. So if you haven't already, go to drmichellemazur.com/mle or open up your podcast app and click the link for Market Like An Expert and get the course, because it will really shift how you think about marketing your business and how to do it more effectively and save you a whole lot of time too. Alright. So let me tell you why this GEO framework matters so much to me. And the work I do matters so much.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:46]: Because I see so many of you brilliant experts sitting on the sidelines watching people with half your experience and a thimbleful of expertise get more clients and opportunities. They're getting on podcast stages, summits, all of it. And I say no more for that. Because what those people with a thimbleful of knowledge actually have is they're good at marketing. And experts are excellent at what they do. They're not the best at marketing themselves. They feel like expertise should stand on its own. This is exactly why I created the Expert Up Club.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:30]: Because once you know how to talk about your expertise in a way that is compelling and enticing to your right fit client so that they actually enter into your sales process, and then you can dazzle them with all of your brilliance. But once you understand you don't have to share everything that makes you incredible at what you do, you become unstoppable. And my mission and the mission of the club is to help your business be the first person people think of when it comes to your expertise. So people aren't duped by those pseudo experts who don't know what the heck they're doing or selling somebody else's proven formula. What I have found through the years is what helps experts the most, and this is exactly what we do inside the club, is number one, run experiments. Most of the time, we aren't doing simple experiments that can help us track what is working and what isn't. Because through experimentation, you really figure out your messaging, what works for you in your marketing. And speaking of messaging, number two is creating that minimum viable marketing message that showcases your brilliance and why you're good and why it matters to your clients.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:02]: That's the most important part. Your clients don't wanna become an expert. They want to benefit from your expertise. We also build your do less but better marketing strategy and plan so that you always know how to show up, that you have a flexible schedule that you can change as needed. But you know the strategy. You have a plan. And, obviously, having a community of experts that values your experience is always priceless. So we're opening for new members on March 25, so mark your calendar.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:44]: And here's what I want you to know. Inside the Expert Up Club, we will never tell you to be something you're not. We don't believe that you're broken because you're smart. Like, that feels so stupid to me. Your experience matters. Your expertise matters. And it's the damn reason why people choose to work with you. And, by the way, if you are interested in the Expert Up Club, I do encourage you to go over to drmichellemazur.com/interest and sign up for the interest list. I always open it up to the interest list first so you'll get some exclusive tour with me. So bottom line, stop trying to learn one more marketing tactic and start leveraging the expertise you already have because that's how we make marketing suck less.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:43]: 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.