Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

Let's get real. Growing your audience is a huge pain in the ass. 

Once upon a time in the wild west days of online business, it was super easy.

 Post on social media, run Facebook ads that would cost you a buck, a conversion and instant audience. 

Nowadays, forget about it. Finding new people who don't know you exist and enticing them into your world, it's one of the suckiest parts of marketing. 

It's such a big job, and it also requires special messaging.  I’ll break it down for you today on the show.  

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

Remember the horror movie The Blob? 

Where this big, massive, gelatinous blob just rolls through a city sucking up everything in its path - buildings, people, trees, pets - it doesn't matter because it's the blob. 

Well, marketing can feel exactly like that. 

It’s this huge amorphous thing that, if you are not careful, will suck up all your time, energy, and mental health in the process. 

But here's the good news. 

There is a way to defeat the marketing blob. It's all about putting some structure to it. Because once you understand the structure of marketing, the blob doesn't have a chance. 

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

Here's the dirty little secret about creating a new offer that nobody talks about. 

The hard part isn't creating the offer. 

The hard part is figuring out how to market and sell it after it exists. 

I get why experts don't tell you this little truth. Because “create your signature offer in 4 weeks”, and then spend 21 months figuring out how to market and sell it is a terrible value proposition. 

Every single time I've created something new, whether it was the 3 Word Rebellion or the Expert Up Club, my first thought after finishing was “Shit, now I've gotta figure out how to market and sell this”. 

It's a process. It's full of peaks and valleys. What I've realized is that it is a big 1,000-piece puzzle, and, today, we're gonna talk about the pieces. 

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The marketing challenges experts face when promoting a new offer
• The “Second Launch Fizzle Phenomenon” and why it fizzles
• The four key puzzle pieces to make marketing your new offer suck less

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

What if you could do LESS marketing in 2025 and create MORE demand for your work? 

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's possible, and in this episode, I reveal how The Expert Up Club's Marketing Retreat helps established business owners transform their marketing strategy through experimentation and personalized support.

Episode Highlights:

• Why what you do today in your marketing pays off in 3-6 months
• How the Marketing Retreat helps you identify what's working and what to drop
• The power of bringing an experimental mindset to your marketing
• Why personal support matters in transforming your marketing strategy

Resources:

• Book a private tour of The Expert Up Club: https://expertup.club/

“If I could just figure out the right way to market.” 

I hear this all the time from my clients, and maybe you've thought it yourself. 

Because I get it. 

There are so many marketers out there who are promising you that they have the proven formula or that there is some secret to success in marketing that only they have. 

And if you pay them, they will tell you all the secrets, and you'll never have to stress about marketing again. 

But what happens? 

• You buy the course or the program. 
• Do the work 
• Then those results never quite materialize as they promised.

And not only that, what they are teaching is making marketing suck more, not less.

So let's deconstruct why there's no one right way to market and how letting go of that idea is going to help your business. 

And fair warning, I'm gonna get a little ranty on this episode.

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

What if I told you that 95% of marketing advice out there wasn't for people like you? 

If you're following this advice or beating yourself up for not following it, you're wasting time, energy, and resources doing more marketing that doesn't lead to results. 

You're unintentionally making your marketing suck more, not less. So how do you know if you're following the right guidance? 

Buckle up, because this episode will shift how you think about marketing. 

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How much of the commonly available marketing advice doesn't work for solo business owners or those not primarily creators
• The distinctions between being a creator and a business owner and how these identities affect marketing strategies
• How creators need a large audience to monetize their content, whereas business owners need a smaller, targeted audience.

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

Sometimes when it comes to marketing, we are our own worst enemies. 

We are kicking off a brand new series about how we unintentionally make marketing suck more for our businesses. 

And sometimes we don't even realize we are doing these things, but there are these tiny ways that we sabotage our business, our sanity with the choices we make when it comes to marketing.

Let's jump right in with the first big sabotage I see all the time. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• How solo business owners unknowingly make marketing harder for their businesses through certain choices
• The instinct to add more marketing strategies and how it may be more beneficial to subtract instead.
• How to focus on fewer marketing tactics that are more effective, particularly for solo business owners

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

This week, I'm sharing our most recent episode of Duped, discussing how Dr. Robert Cialidini's book "Influence" has been weaponized in online business. 

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Do you know what book is one of the most used—and abused—in online business? Many celebrity entrepreneurs and top marketers cite it as influential…which makes sense given its title.  

It’s Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

While we have referenced this book many times on the pod, we have never actually done a deep dive to get into the nitty-gritty of it all.  

In this episode, we explore Robert Cialidini and his code of ethics for anyone who uses his work. We then examine three of his seven weapons of influence and cover the next four in the next episode. 

We discuss: 

• Who is Robert Cialdini?
• Dr. Cialdini’s code of ethics.
• Background on the book Influence.
• What Cialdini means by “principles”.
• The first three principles and how they show up in online business.
  • Reciprocity
  • Liking/Familiarity
  • Scarcity
• How to protect yourself as a consumer. 

For detailed show notes and links to everything mentioned in this episode, please visit duped.online. For more Duped, including monthly bonus episodes, join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/duped

One of the things that pisses me off about online business is how people play fast and loose with words. 

A lot of the time, they use words in a way where they don't mean what they think they mean. 

And this past year, I've noticed a lot of people talking about messaging and how they help you with your messaging. 

But when I look at their programs, because, believe it or not, I take a lot of courses on messaging and marketing to keep my own skills sharp, I often find the program isn't about messaging. 

It's about copywriting or content marketing or just straight-up marketing, 

Or it's just a snippet of what messaging is, like an elevator pitch or content buckets. And nothing makes marketing suck more for you as a solo business owner than being confused about what your business actually needs. 

So it's time to revisit what the difference is between marketing, messaging, and copywriting with examples so you know where to focus, and you're not wasting your time or money focused on the wrong damn thing. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Why online business is confused about the differences between the three
• Defining what the difference is between messaging, copywriting, and marketing
• How to know what your business needs

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.

“Figuring out how to explain what you do in ways that resonate with other people and connects them to what they're feeling right now is tricky.”

Have you ever been talking to someone explaining what you do and they're staring at you like you're speaking a language they've never even heard before and don't even know how to begin to comprehend. 

Please know you're not alone. 

So many brilliant business owners struggle to connect with their clients, not because they lack knowledge, but because they're stuck in expert speak.

 It's like we think, if I can just give you all the information, then that will be enough. You'll be wowed, and you'll book a call with me. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. 

And what's really happening is how we can help them, how our expertise benefits them and their lives is getting lost in translation. 

Zoa Conner is a functional health and wellness expert who helps you feel better, not older, through personalized lifestyle guidance and education, knows this firsthand.

When Zoa and I first met, her message was getting lost and she’ll tell you how she overcame it and how it’s making marketing suck less for her! 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The critical role of messaging in getting clients ready for the work you do
• The difficulties small businesses face in competing with larger companies and the emphasis on local SEO.
• How initial consultations are structured to identify client concerns and create personalized plans.
• The importance of continuously revisiting and optimizing marketing strategies for better client alignment and business growth.

Want to hear more about The Expert Up Club? Book Your Private Tour Here

Full show notes and transcript are here.