Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: There has been a disturbance in the force or a shift in the market. When I first started offering messaging in 2018, the economy was cooking with gas. The stock market was on fire. The job market was stable, and consumer outlook was positive. And when the economy was great, clients would come to me with the hope that their message would allow them to reach their full potential. And maybe that full potential was landing a book deal with a traditional publisher or speaking on a TEDx stage. My clients had aspirations, and messaging was the way to fulfill that aspiration. But now, flash forward to 2025, and the economy is a freaking dumpster fire.

The stock market is crashing. The tariffs are high. Inflation is expected to increase. So consumers are uncertain about spending. However, they are not uninterested. They are just being more selective. So the problem that you solve for your clients needs to dramatically shift. And that change, that shift is key to keeping your message relevant during an economic downturn and keeping your business thriving. So let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:40]: 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 [00:02:28]: When I first started creating messaging with the three word rebellion framework, people wanted to create their 3 Word Rebellion and all the messaging that supports it because they thought the message was key to landing a book deal with a traditional publisher or being asked to speak on a TEDx stage. They believed that kneeling their message would give them more recognition and respect.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:01]: They would be seen as the go to with the industry later. And, basically, this message would help them realize their full potential, which brings us back to what we talked about in the last episode with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The clients who came to me back in the day when the economy was thriving all had their basic needs met, physiological, safety, and security. And those clients saw my work as a way to meet their needs for recognition and esteem. So my messaging needed to talk about those needs for recognition, esteem, self actualization because it just made sense. That's what my clients are looking for. Right? However, now with the shift in the economy, when I get an intake form from someone who is interested in working with me, the problems they are looking to solve, the needs they want met are no longer about realizing their full potential or achieving respect and recognition, but they want to work on the more basic needs, security and stability in their business. So here's what I'm currently seeing on my intake forms.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:37]: Typically, my clients tend to be service providers or consultants, and they are working one on one, and they've been really killing it through word-of-mouth. That's where all of their clients are coming from. They're doing little to no marketing. Some of them don't even have websites, to be honest. And now they want a more leveraged business model. Most of my clients are thinking about starting some kind of a group program or more leveraged offer so that they can make more money, which is a basic need, impact more people with their work, which is an esteemed need, and work less, another basic need. So to do that, to have that more leverage program, there's some concrete issues they need to solve. They know they need to market, and marketing sucks for them.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:34]: And they know they need to build an audience to sell the more leveraged program to. And they don't want to waste their time and money doing marketing because it has been so ineffective in the past. And trust me, they have tried it all, tried all the courses, the masterminds, business programs, everything, and marketing has never worked. So they realize in order to market effectively and not waste their time, money, and energy on marketing, they need a message so that they can build the audience and then finally launch the group program. Those, my friends, are some pretty freaking functional needs and pretty concrete problems that messaging can solve. And by the way, it's so much easier to sell using these concrete problems, these more functional needs, because I can see the direct line between how messaging actually serves those needs, and it's just an easier sell. I'm just saying. It's one of the upsides of being in a topsy-turvy economy.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:52]: So now that I know that, I know that my messaging needs to pivot in order to stay relevant. My people aren't looking to speak at TEDx or get a traditional book deal. They still might have that in the back of their head, but that's not the pressing problem they're coming to me with. Their aspirational goals are really on the back burner at the moment and they're focusing on the functional side of what messaging can do for your business. So to stay relevant, I have to pivot. And rebel truth, in an economic downturn, people aren't investing in their aspirations as much. So if you are messaging to aspirations and self actualization and realizing their full potential, that's a tougher sell than solving a pressing need that impacts their basic needs according to Maslow. Right? So what does this mean for you? And how can your message stay relevant during this economic weird time we're all going through? Well, the first step is to assess your current message.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:17]: Is your message focused on the aspirational wants of your clients or their concrete needs? And let's face it, we are trained to speak to those more aspirational values and goals. That is what online marketing is. It's the message of live your best life, have the 7 figure business, be all that you can be so that you can give back. Those messages are effective and impactful when the economy is good. So how can you assess your message and see if you're focusing on those more aspirational wants or the more functional needs? A great guide for figuring this out comes from the Harvard Business Review. It's called the Elements of Value, which is based on, you guessed it, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And we're gonna link that up in the show notes. Because at the base of this pyramid are the functional and emotional needs versus the top of the pyramid is life changing or social impact.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:33]: And during a wonky economy, we want to be focusing on the functional that solves the concrete problem. So the first step is to look at your current messaging. Are you talking to more of those life changing, transformational, social impact elements of value, or are you speaking more to the functional or emotional values? Then once you know that, you can move to step two, which is identifying what functional needs your offers help with. And once again, I am looking at the Harvard Business Review article for the Elements of Value. And the first thing I will say about identifying the functional needs is that client research is extremely helpful here. You can identify what your clients are saying against the elements of value. So I told you at the top of the show what my clients are saying to me currently. And when I look at the functional level of value in the lens of my own message, I see the messaging work I must do because my clients now are talking about things that are functional, like saving time, simplifying, especially simplifying marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:55]: They want to make money. That is a functional value. They want to avoid the hassles of ineffective marketing. They want organization and structure of their message and how to apply it in their marketing. So when you look at this article and assess how your offer creates value that speaks to the functional level, pick two or three of those elements of value, and then you can move on to step three, which is messaging to those elements of value. Obviously, you don't just wanna list the elements of value on a sales page. Saves time, simplifies, makes money, organizes. No.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:40]: You need to translate them into how they are showing up in your client's life as problems, and then tell them how your offer creates that value. This is what I'm always talking to about, building an argument for your work. You need to show how your work is relevant right now to your clients, how it meets their needs or solves a problem for them, and then lead them to the offer because the offer is what's creating the value. So for my people, I know they don't wanna waste time trying to figure out what their message is. Most of them have full practices. They don't have time to screw around. And I know from the research I've done that my people spend, on average, three years trying to figure out their message. Three years, they are done with screwing around with this because they want to grow their audience and launch that group program because they want an easier way to make money and make more money.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:52]: So a message that I can test with this audience is get your message handled in ninety days. Right? That's gonna be appealing to someone who wants to save time. And I can also make the argument about how the right message leads the right people to join their email community and hire them and join their group programs. Right? This is the money function of the Elements of Value. And notice I'm not doing any of that slimy stuff of, like, making income claims, but I definitely see how messaging leads to more clients and more money, and I can make that argument. Now I can pivot my message so that I stay relevant and top of mind to the needs of my clients. And let's face it, me helping them figure out their message so they can build the audience and have the group program they've always wanted to have, which is gonna make them more money and help them serve more people, is a far more urgent and relevant message a book deal or be a TEDx speaker. So when I can pivot the message, it's easier for me to build a relevant argument for why people should work with me.

And in turn, sales and lead generation for you will be easier when you start focusing on the more functional value your business creates because that's what people are looking for in this economy. Now, it's your turn to assess, identify, and pivot your message to stay relevant to your people and navigate this uncertain economic time.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:52]: 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.