Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: Here's a frustrating truth about running a business during a weird, wobbly economy, especially if you're an expert. You can be the best at what you do and still get overlooked. You can still struggle to get hired, still feel like you're shouting into the void while someone with half your credentials and a huge freaking email list seems to be raking it in.

The truth, good work does not stand on its own. If it did, you and I would be booked out for months. And the reason isn't your skills, it's not your experience, it's not your offer. It's your message.

Today on the pod, we're talking about why even the most brilliant seasoned solo business owners struggle to communicate how their offer benefits the person they want to sell it to and what to do about it. So if you've ever wanted to yell, “but I'm actually good at this!”, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:09]: 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 [00:02:06]: Let's talk about something I've seen happen again and again with the experts I work with and members of the Expert Up Club. And maybe it's happening for you too. You've got years of experience. You've worked with dozens, maybe hundreds of clients. You've built a strong reputation. You've got receipts, real results, glowing testimonials, and maybe even a PhD. But when it comes to marketing your work, you feel like you don't know what the hell you're doing. And I felt this deeply when I first started my business eons ago. The first iteration of this business was as a public speaking consultant, and I was focused on writing keynote speeches.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:59]: And by the time I went into business for myself, I had over a decade of experience working with speakers. I had two decades of my own speaking experience, and I have a damn PhD. in communication. I thought people would just flock to me because I was so damn good and so damned credentialed. Spoiler alert, they did not. And what I was finding is that people would say, wow, this sounds amazing. You seem so good at what you do, and then they never would hire me. And it is maddening. And if this sounds like you right now, please know you're not alone in this, and it's not your fault because none of us were born with an innate knowing of how to talk about our work, talk about our expertise.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:59]: So people see how they benefit from it and want to give us money to help them with it. So the core problem here is that your value isn't visible to your client. So let me hit you with this rebel truth. Being great at what you do is not the same as being clear as what it does for other people. And that's fundamentally the disconnect. If your potential clients, your audience doesn't see the value, they won't prioritize your offer, especially now when every dollar is being scrutinized. If they don't see the value, your clients are probably falling into the bucket of pain, but they can wait for it like we discussed in the last episode. So let's talk about three places where I see that disconnect show up the most in expert businesses and then what to do about it.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:12]: So the first place it shows up is you're focused on what you do, not what it does. Experts tend to be very solution focused people because we are obsessed with how we do the work we do. We can nerd out on it all day. It lights us up. It's exciting to us, and our potential clients don't really care. So here's what I mean. If you say something like, “I help people clarify their brand voice”, your audience is thinking, cool, and why is that important to me? What they really need to hear is, “I help you sound like yourself so that your perfect fit clients instantly know you're the one for them, and they say yes faster.” Your job isn't to speak to them in jargon, in your industry's language of expertise.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:18]: And it's not just to describe your process or how the sausage gets made. Your clients don't really care about that until they are in a sales conversation with you. So your job in marketing is to paint the outcome, the change, the result because that's where the real value of your work lives. The second sign, you're assuming too much understanding. Like, you know the power of what you do. You've seen it. You've lived it. You get it.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:50]: But your audience does not live inside your brain. On a scale of 1 to 10 about how much you know about your expertise, you are a 10. Your audience is at a 1 or 2. They don't possess the same knowledge, the same perspective. And now marketing isn't about dumbing down what you do. It's about meeting your clients where they are. So if you're using your own expert language or industry jargon instead of your client's language, you're making it harder for them to see how you help. So for example, if you say, “we uncover your genius zone to amplify your impact,” they're thinking, what the hell? Would you like some ranch with that word salad? They don't get it.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:47]: It's not in their language. But if you say, we figure out what you do best so you can finally explain it in a way that lands with the right people. Oh, okay. That's something they actually get and they value. The final sign is you're selling your framework instead of your transformation. This one is for my fellow nerds. I love a good framework. I've got frameworks for my frameworks.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:14]: I've got the 3 Word Rebellion framework, the GEO framework. Now I'm trying to create one overarching integrity driven persuasion framework. But you know what? My audience doesn't care about my frameworks too much, And they don't care about your four step system. They care about what happens when they go through it. So you say, we'll go through my clarity framework, clarify, launch, align, refine. And they hear, “Well, those are some fine words strung together, but what does it mean? And what does it mean for me?” You need to connect the dots. By the end of our work together, you'll have a message that clearly communicates your value and consistently brings in clients. You lead with the results and then talk about how you get there.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:07]: Alright. So how do you fix this? Let me introduce a little concept that I teach inside the Expert Up Club. It is one of my favorite and most versatile pieces of messaging, and it is called the Why Buy statement. And this is the most compelling, concrete reason someone would choose to work with you right now. Think of it as an elevator pitch for your offer. It combines what your people want, the real typical result you deliver, and gives them a reason to do it now instead of waiting for later. So example, create a marketing message that brings the right clients in without having to post on social media every damn day. Or for the Expert Up Club, do less marketing while creating more demand for your work.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:05]: See the difference? This helps people understand the value and that is what gets you hired. So if your marketing feels like it's not landing, even though you know you're the real deal, pause and ask yourself, am I talking about what I do or what it does for my client? Am I assuming too much knowledge from my audience? And am I leading with the process instead of a result? Then go sharpen that Why Buy statement. Talk to real clients. Listen to how they describe the before and after of working with you. That's the gold. And remember, you don't need to shout louder. You don't need to go viral. You just need to get clear enough that your people see you and say yes.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:02]: And if you want help building your Why Buy statement and clarifying what your marketing message can be so you can finally market like the expert you are, then get on the interest list for the next round of the Expert Up Club. You'll find the details at expertup.club. Until next time, go be unmistakably clear and make marketing suck a whole lot less.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:02]: 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.