Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

It's that time of year when you're casting a big vision, making plans, setting goals, and thinking about the projects that will move your business forward in 2023. But as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And no business plan survives contact with reality.

So what do you do when reality sucker punches you in the gut? We are gonna talk about this and why this podcast went on hiatus unexpectedly at the end of 2022. 

In this episode:

• How suddenly becoming a full-time caretaker taxed me mentally and physically
• Why I started thinking in terms of Minimum Viable Michelle
• How I evaluated my minimum viable marketing, and why that meant taking time off from the podcast
• How I repurposed content to maintain contact with my email list and continue generating revenue
• What made it onto my Thrive List

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• Tara Newman
• Carrie Soto Is Back,Taylor Jenkins Reid

How do you decide who to trust in your business?

When you're thinking about joining a program or hiring a service provider, do you make those people earn your trust, or do you just default to trusting them?

When we first meet someone new, we want to believe the best in people. We want to believe that they are trustworthy, so we trust them until they give us a very good reason not to. 

However, today on the podcast, my guest and co-host of Duped, Maggie Patterson, is turning that notion on its head.

She believes that in online business, we should be skeptical at first until we’re given a good reason to trust someone, that trust should be earned and not just given.

So how do you earn trust and how do you know who to trust?

Maggie and I are diving into all of that today.

Maggie Patterson is the creator of Small Business Boss and has two decades of experience in communications, marketing, and client services.

She's worked with everyone from solopreneurs to the world’s biggest brands and today she's a mentor and advocate for do no harm business practices in the online space. She's the host of the BS Free Service Business podcast, and her work has been featured in leading publications such as Entrepreneur.com, Fast Company, and Virgin.com.

In this episode:

• Why Maggie says “know, like, and trust” isn’t enough when it comes to building trust in your business
• Why online businesses need to focus on earning trust through relationships, not manipulative marketing hacks
• What a major recent survey can tell us about the state of trust, leadership, and values in 2022
• How Maggie performs a trust audit before doing business with anyone
• The five aspects of creating Trust DNA in your business

Learn more about Maggie Patterson:

• Small Business Boss
• The BS‑Free Service Business Podcast
• Instagram: @smallbusinessboss

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• Duped Podcast
• The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, Charles Feltman
• 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer
• Trust Audit Checklist.pdf

The online business industry is in the middle of a trust crisis.

People have been duped. Your potential clients are skeptical. Heck, you are skeptical.

And that makes people reluctant to trust again, which impacts your business because you are kick ass at what you do.

You consistently deliver great results. You show up and do what you'll say you do, and most of all, you give a damn about your clients. You want them to succeed.

So what can you do to build trust with people who need your work but have been burned before? How can you show them you are not like the other business owners who didn't deliver before?

That's exactly what we're going to talk about today on the podcast. How to build trust with your brand message.

In this episode:

• How your messaging supports the four factors of trust
• Why your marketing should address your potential clients’ present reality, not just your solution
• How to know if a client is ready to work with you
• Why you need a “why buy” statement

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, Charles Feltman
• Rebel Uprising: 3 Word Rebellion Book Club: Owning Your Expertise
• Rebel Uprising: Clarifying Your Message Leads to A More Effective Sales Process

There’s a game Maggie Patterson, my co-host of Duped, plays with me all the time. It’s called “Can I Tell What Makes You an Expert?”

We go to an about page of someone who’s doling out advice like candy on Instagram and see if we can tell why they’re credible to speak on this topic.

If we can figure it out, great! They earn our respect and trust.

But nine times out of ten, I have no clue why they are credible to do the work they do or say the things they say.

It’s no wonder it’s so easy to be duped and burned in the online space.

Real experts who know what they’re doing and how to help you are hard to find online, but pseudo-experts are freaking everywhere.

So how do you know who to trust online? How do you vet them? And if you’re thinking about hiring a messaging strategist, what should you be looking for?

In this episode:

• Three questions to ask when you’re vetting a program or offer
• How to gauge factors of trust–care, sincerity, reliability, and competence–in messaging strategists
• Red flags to watch out for in promised results, timelines, and testimonials
• Why you should steer clear of anyone who promises you “magnetic messaging”

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• Duped: Vetting Coaches and Programs: What to Watch For 
• The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, Charles Feltman

“I’ve been burned before.”

I’ve heard those four words more this year than in any other year I’ve been in business.

Potential clients who fill out my intake form tell me about another “messaging coach” who didn’t deliver on their promises, or the person who they hired created messaging that was unusable in the client’s marketing, or they didn’t see how the message was ever going to bring in clients.

In response to a survey I sent out to my email community, people talked about being burned by various service providers and programs–coaches, courses, etc–that promised everything and delivered nothing.

When it happens to you, it sucks.

And we need to talk about it. When you get burned, it violates your trust and makes it harder for all of us who are doing business the right way to earn our clients’ trust.

So for all of November, we’re going to talk about the crisis of trust in the online business space. But first, let’s define terms.

What is trust and how do you earn it from your clients?

In this episode:

• How trust requires us to make what we value vulnerable to the actions of others
• Four factors that build trust
• How the mega launches and overblown promises of online businesses violate trust
• How to communicate the reliability and competence that are essential to real trust

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, Charles Feltman

You're just one course away from recession proofing your business!

Or are you?

The message around recession proofing is everywhere these days, but what do you really need to know about surviving, and even thriving, in this economy?

Will the course or the membership site be the ticket, or are there other skills you want to cultivate to build a sustainable business in uncertain times?

Those questions are why I wanted to have my friend Tara Newman on the show to talk about the economy.

When Tara talks about the economy and what it means for small businesses, I listen, because this is not her first rodeo when it comes to riding out a recession.

Tara Newman is the founder and CEO of the Bold Profit Academy, where she teaches service-based business owners how to sell premium services and programs without the emotional stress of launching, worrying about ads, overwhelming social strategies, or complex funnels.

Tara hosts a weekly podcast called the Bold Money Revolution, and has been featured in publications like Money Magazine, Yahoo Finance, and the Huffington Post.

She earned her Masters in Organizational Psychology from Hofstra University and has over 20 years of experience, is a Profit First Professional, and holds an advanced level Reiki certification. Everything she teaches incorporates energy, mindset, and strategy as a framework for resiliency and results.

In this episode:

• Tara’s three biggest takeaways from the 2008 recession, and why they still matter today
• The online business models that may be at risk in a downturn
• Why your marketing needs clarity and differentiation more than ever
• Why Tara believes now is the time to make confident choices about where you want to be in three years
• The most important skill you can build–and keep building

Learn more about Tara Newman:

• Bold Profit Academy
• The Bold Money Revolution Podcast
• The Revenue Goal Calculator
• Instagram: @thetaranewman

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

There has been a disturbance in the force.

Or, a shift in the market.

When I first started offering brand 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. Maybe that full potential was landing a book deal with a traditional publisher or speaking on a TEDx stage. My clients have aspirations and messaging was the way to fulfill that aspiration.

Flash forward to 2022.

The economy has a big case of the weirds. Inflation is high, consumers are uncertain about spending, and now when clients come to me, the problem they want to solve has dramatically shifted.

And that shift is key to keeping your message relevant during an economic downturn.

In this episode:

• How changes in the economy mean changes in what basic needs your messaging is trying to meet
• Why you need to consider if your messaging is addressing concrete or aspirational goals
• How to pivot your message so you communicate the value of your offer in these uncertain times

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Resources:

• The Elements of Value, Eric Almquist, John Senior, and Nicolas Bloch

It doesn't feel the way I thought it would.

Once my clients land on their Three Word Rebellion–the message they want their business to be known for, the message that they will be leading with–it’s not uncommon for them to say something like, “I thought this would feel different.”

There’s an expectation that landing on your Three Word Rebellion is going to be some type of peak experience. The skies open, heavens part, angels sing, and there are puppies and unicorns everywhere!

There’s the expectation that this message is going to be a realization of their full potential and validate the worth of their work.

But that’s not really the job of your Three Word Rebellion, or any of the messaging you use to market your business.

And maybe web celebs have sold you on the idea that marketing should feel a certain way, but let’s bust through that notion, shall we?

In this episode:

• How the online business space warps our perception of what our messaging actually represents
• Why messages of self-actualization aren’t actually great marketing, especially in uncertain times
• Why your Three Word Rebellion can actually make you feel pretty uncomfortable at first
• How to separate yourself from your message

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

It's hard to believe that this is the last week of the Three Word Rebellion Book Club. 

You’ve claimed your expertise, you’ve discovered your motivation for starting your own movement and why it’s important for experts to step up and lead. And you’ve heard from some experts about how their Three Words Rebellions have impacted their businesses.

Finally you’ve done the hard work of unearthing your Three Word Rebellion. Or maybe you’re on the precipice and you’ve still got some digging to do. But once you have it, there’s a common pitfall I want you to avoid.

Your Three Word Rebellion is your entry point into your world and your work. It’s what gets people’s attention. And nowadays, it’s a big job to get anyone’s attention, so once you have it, you have to know what to do with it. You have to expertly lead people to your work.

And that’s where this pitfall comes in. You don’t know what to say next. So you relapse into talking like an expert and lose the attention of the person who really needs the work that you do.

So, how do you stop talking like an expert?

In this episode:

• One essential thing you need to remember when talking to potential clients
• The two next pieces of crucial messaging you need to go from getting their attention to getting their business
• Four messages that build the argument for your work
• Three signature stories that support your client decision journey
• The questions to ask yourself as you launch your rebellion

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion Book Club
• Three Word Rebellion
• Three Word Rebellion Book
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message

Sometimes you just need to know something is possible.

As you're digging in to find your Three Word Rebellion, you may begin to realize that encapsulating your expertise into just a few words is a heavy lift.

But it is possible to find that Three Word Rebellion, that core message you want to be known for. And when you do that message can have a ripple effect in your business.

In this episode, I'm featuring five experts talking about their Three Word Rebellion and what it has done for their business.

The goal is to give you inspiration and drive to find your own Three Word Rebellion, while helping you decide what you want this message to do for your business.

In this episode:

• How Cassie’s Three Word Rebellion communicates the intangible benefits of her approach to nutrition counseling
• How Annie’s 3WR helps validate and normalize the experiences of the parents she works with
• How Laura uses her 3WR as the foundation for all of her content and services
• How Heidi’s 3WR sharpened her focus and paved the way for new offerings
• How Stacy’s 3WR grounds her and ties together the threads of her work

Learn more about Michelle Mazur:

• Communication Rebel
• Three Word Rebellion Book Club
• Three Word Rebellion
• Three Word Rebellion Book
• Request a free 1:1 Chat 
• Finally Nail Your Message