Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: It's a shit show out there. It feels like our economy is a dumpster fire. One day, tariffs are on. The next day, tariffs are off. The stock market yo yos every day, and it's really hard to know what's going to happen next, which means it is hard to plan for your business. When the economy gets chaotic, most business owners make one of two mistakes, either freezing completely or frantically trying everything at once. And today, we're gonna talk about a third option, one that actually works. So let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:53]: 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 [00:01:33]: Let me paint a picture of something that will feel familiar to you because it is something I catch myself doing every single day. You're sitting at your desk, alone in your office, and maybe you've just finished up a client call. You open your browser to check your email, but first you make the deadly mistake of, oh, I'm just gonna check on social media.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:01]: I'm gonna look at Facebook. I'm gonna look at Threads. I'm gonna look at the news for a minute. And what you see is not good. You spend five minutes, ten minutes, maybe even more doom scrolling, feeling your anxiety rise about all the uncertainty. And soon you want to hurl your phone into a vat of lava. And suddenly you're spiraling. Right? I often feel this way.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:31]: You are not alone. And when we start to spiral, we start thinking about the things we could do in our business to make it through. Should you lower your prices? Should you create a new offer? Should you scrap your entire marketing plan? Maybe you should just wait and see what happens. And I call this the isolation tax because it is incredibly expensive to be asking ourselves all these questions and to be flailing about what to do next or freezing completely. Because when you're working alone during uncertain times, that fear gets magnified. Your judgment is clouded. And I say this as an Enneagram six who stays awake at night solving problems that don't even exist yet. And what I need and what could be helpful to you is we need other perspectives.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:35]: Because without other perspectives to balance yours out, it's easy to make reactive decisions, like, oh, I'm gonna start a low ticket membership because that will be easier to sell, rather than strategic ones that really ensure the survival and thriving of your business. Because this isn't my first rodeo. I think every single year since 2020 in March, I have a podcast about the world being on fire. I don't know what it is about March, but we have been here before, my friends. And what I have seen is brilliant business owners who are one day confidently delivering their services, seeing results for their clients, showing up to market their business. And the next day, they're questioning everything because of that out of control nature of the world we live in. And here's the truth. External chaos does not have to create internal chaos.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:52]: But preventing that internal chaos actually requires something that most experts don't naturally seek out because we think we can figure it out on our own. And that is community. All right. Here's something that might surprise you about the weird, uncertain economic times we live in. It actually creates a unique opportunity for experts who can articulate clear value. Because when budgets tighten, people become more selective, not less interested. Let me say that again. When budgets tighten, people become more selective, not less interested in genuine expertise.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:41]: They simply can't afford to waste money on mediocre solutions. We don't have that luxury anymore. And this creates an expertise advantage. Suddenly, being the obvious expert in your field isn't just nice. It's one of the things that can make you stand out. It gives a potential client a reason to choose you over anyone else. And the experts who can thrive under economic uncertainty are those who have crystal clear messaging that speaks to the value of their work and speaks directly to the urgent client needs. Secondly, they know exactly what marketing channels work for them and their specific business model.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:35]: They can articulate a unique approach that stands out from generic alternatives. And finally, they have a supportive community to test ideas with before investing significant resources. It's counterintuitive, but it's true. When everyone else is retreating, that's precisely when clear expertise becomes more valuable in the marketplace. But capturing this advantage requires getting out of isolation and into strategic community. So here are a few examples. I recently received a voice message from one of our members, Heidi Taylor. She is a sales consultant and a member of the Expert Up Club, and she did a great job crystalizing why community is so crucial for her right now.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:37]: She said the first thing that came to my mind about why it's important to be in community when the world is on fire is because we need people around who do things that we either want to be doing, that inspire us, or that push us to greater things. It's easy to get caught in our offices and our business in the fear of what's happening and frozen and not taking action. So being around people that are taking consistent action and have goals and moving forward to those goals is incredibly important. And Heidi nailed it. When we are surrounded by others moving forward, doing the work of marketing, doing the work of clarifying their message, it really creates a powerful counter narrative to the doom and gloom. It gives us an example of what is possible and a way to move forward. And that is really what we need right now. And to give you a few other examples of experts who have changed it up during strange economic times.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:57]: We have Camille Rapacz, who's a B2B consultant, who spent a lot of time taking traditional advice about marketing, that she should be on social media and sending a weekly email. And those things weren't working because she's a B2B consultant. And inside the Club, we helped her restructure her marketing and have her focus on relationship building. And since then, she's had one of her best months ever, and her business continues to thrive because she knows where to focus on. Or there's Elise Enriquez who was investing heavily in creating a course. And, oh my god, who hasn't been here? And it wasn't gaining traction. And the isolation text was really hitting her hard. She kept thinking, maybe just one more webinar, one more ad, one more social media post would make the difference.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:54]: But when she brought this challenge to the Club, she ended up realizing that she didn't wanna be a full time marketer. She wanted to refocus her work on consulting work and working with small teams and building on the relationships she had. And these aren't random success stories. They are direct results from having a community where you can get honest feedback, test messaging concepts, and learn from others who understand the unique challenges of marketing expertise. Alright. So what's the key takeaway here? What's the lesson? During times of uncertainty, focus relentlessly on what you can control. You can't control inflation rates. You can't control what Elon Musk decides to slash from the government or if Donald Trump turns the White House into a Tesla dealership.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:52]: You can't control global supply chains. But what you can absolutely control, how you clearly articulate your value, which marketing channels you invest your time in, how to position your expertise against competitors, and the relationships you build with your current and future clients. And in the Expert Up Club, we focus on all of these controllable factors because when everything feels chaotic, doubling down on your messaging and your strategic positioning isn't just smart, It is necessary. And as of today, we have opened the Club up again for private tours, so you can come and check it out. If you go to expertup.club, you can book a private tour with me, and I'll show you how the club can support you during this economic time. Because the one thing that you can do to strengthen your business position regardless of economic conditions is to find your people. And I just don't mean any group of people. I mean, people who understand the unique challenges of marketing your expertise won't just tell you what you wanna hear, but will tell you what they see as working.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:19]: They are committed to doing marketing and the practice of marketing that actually works. And they recognize that generic advice rarely applies to an expertise driven business like yours. So whether that's the Expert Up Club or another community, don't try to weather this economic uncertainty alone. The isolation tax is too high, and the expertise advantage is too valuable to miss. So I know it's hard right now. I know you have a lot of uncertainty, but keep showing up to market your business. Find your people. Promote your expertise because your expertise is your superpower right now. It's the reason why people will want to choose you.

Michelle Mazur [00:13:15]: 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.