Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

The foundation for all your messaging is something that is so often overlooked and skipped by many solo business owners.  This is an essential piece of messaging for ensuring that you're able to capture the attention of the people you want to serve. It helps you grow your audience.  This piece of messaging also makes sure that what you're saying resonates, that it makes sense and that it is persua...

Happy 2024, Expert!   I'm noticing something that I never thought I would see in online business.   Messaging is finally having its moment.  While I'm thrilled that messaging is getting the attention it deserves, there is a catch, my friend.  Most of the business coaches and marketers who are talking about it are oversimplifying what messaging is and leading business owners astray about its true s...

We made it.   This has been quite a year.  It's been unlike any year that I have seen in business before. As we wrap up 2023, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate and also take you behind the scenes of my business for an honest look at what 2023 was really like, what I'm proud of, what didn't go well at all and my secret excitement and hope for 2024. In this episode we'll discuss: My top three h...

There's a famous episode of South Park where gnomes are stealing the kids' underpants. The kids go on a quest to find out why the gnomes are stealing underpants. The reason? It's capitalism.  You see, the gnomes have a plan: Step 1, Steal underpants Step 2, I don't know??? Step 3, Profit! The way marketing is taught often uses the exact same strategy as the underpants gnomes, and it could be the r...

 If you scroll through social media, there are a heck of a lot of marketing experts all screaming at you about how they have the way, the proven formula that will help you book more business overnight.  Much of that advice is conflicting, and it also leaves you feeling like you need to be everywhere on all the platforms to grow your business.  And that's tough, especially as a solo business owner...

All-or-nothing thinking is a scourge when it comes to messaging and marketing for your business.  What I see i sfar too often  business owners spend a ton of time, energy, and even money creating a new marketing asset.  Let's say you create a new lead magnet to grow your email community.  You'll spend hours creating that lead magnet, writing the welcome sequence, creating the landing page for it. ...

Do you ever feel like you're not marketing enough?  You know what you should be doing, but the thought of doing it sucks the life force out of you.  You'd much rather work with your clients or do almost anything else, including cleaning your cat's litter box, than market your business.   If that's you. I want you to know that you are not alone.  I am letting you in on a recent conversation I had w...

It's that time of year when you start planning for 2024 and begin thinking about the support you want for your business.  If that's you, I'd love to put The Expert Up Club on your radar for next year. The Expert Up Club is a fantastic community that focuses on the overlooked experts among us. You know, the ones who are often overshadowed by the flashy web celebs with all their attention-grabbing m...

What's remarkable to me is there are so many courses and programs out there to teach you every marketing tactic under the sun. Yet, what those courses rarely (if ever) teach you is—how to know if your marketing is working.  It's no wonder when I ask a business owner, “Is your marketing helping you reach your business goals?” They stare at me blankly and then shrug. “I don't know.”   It’s time that...

Do you have to be on social media to market your business?  If you're becoming more and more disenchanted with social media, know this, you're not alone.  The number one question I'm asked these days, is there an alternative to marketing on social media?  My clients are requesting marketing strategies that don't have a social media component. Because let's face it, the platforms are demanding more...

Here's something we don't talk about enough when it comes to marketing…  What does effective marketing look like for your business?  I know what the web celebs will say. They'll say, “Marketing works when you're booked out with clients for months on end!” or “When your post goes viral and you grow your following by tens of thousands of people overnight!” Then that is success.  But is it effective?...

There's something celebrity online marketers get wrong about marketing messaging all the time.  They teach you that messaging is just one simple thing, like, it's an elevator pitch, your unique selling proposition, a content plan, or your client avatar.  It’s not.  If you've been a fan of the show for a long time, you know that your marketing message is literally everything your business communica...

The other day in the Expert Up Club, a member asked me a question that surprised me.  It was right after one of our quarterly marketing retreats.  In these retreats, we're setting goals for the quarter ahead. We create marketing plans, and we figure out what marketing experiments they're going to run in order to figure out what actually works in their marketing.   A club member asked afterward, “S...

You've been told to be consistent.  Post every day on social media, Publish a blog post once a week, and Email your list regularly. When you do, good things will happen to your business.  Things like clients, opportunities to share your experience, being asked on other people's podcasts, and all the cool things that will help your audience magically grow just by showing up.  Unfortunately, this is...

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where good work stood on its own?  Where, if you were getting your clients amazing results, that would be more than enough to fill up your client roster to always have people clamoring for your programs, that people would just come and ask you to speak on their stage. And wouldn't it be nice if good work could just be enough?  But it unfortunately is not when...

This show freely admits that marketing is freaking hard. And I, for one, am sick and tired of the web celebs telling me how easy marketing can be if I only had their super secret plan.  I've sat in boardrooms of Fortune five hundred companies with teams of super smart people who can't figure out why a marketing campaign flopped. If huge teams are struggling to make it work, Then it's 100% normal t...

One weird trick to make marketing suck less sounds like every click baby title ever.  But this is actually a weird trick that I have never seen another marketer or messaging strategist discuss.  To me, it's one of the most effective ways to improve your own marketing without actually working on your marketing.  I know that sounds counterintuitive, and I know it works. So what is that weird trick?...

In business, the obsession with marketing tactics is never-ending.  Whether it's the latest Instagram hack or webinar trick, there seems to be an endless array of tactics promising to skyrocket your following and make your business go viral overnight.  But chasing the greatest and latest tactic tends to make marketing suck more, not less. because those promises of social media stardom often fall s...

I don't know if you've noticed, but audience growth is tough right now.   People aren't joining email lists like they used to. It's harder and harder to capture people's attention.  The marketplace is getting flooded with a lot of AI content crap.  This makes it harder for your amazing content, and amazing messages, to rise to the top so it’s seen by the people who need what you do.  Getting new p...

Coming on September 5th, 2023, The Rebel Uprising podcast becomes The Make Marketing Suck Less Podcast!   The only podcast that admits marketing is F@$!ing hard and makes it suck less for solo business owners who are juggling client delivery and sales on top of all those marketing tasks. Unlike most marketing podcasts that share the latest marketing fads that promise “Viral Internet Fame,” Dr. Mic...

If you've been in business for 2 years or more, you've probably created a shit ton of content from blogs to emails to social media posts—and it's multiplying like rabbits.    But wouldn't you like to get more out of all of the hard work you're putting in?   If you want to do less but better marketing, it's time to resurface and repurpose some of your best pieces.  But how do you do that?  When And...

There comes a time in your business when you know something is not working.  It might be your message. It might be how you're choosing to market. There's something nagging at you that you know you need to change, but are putting it off.  You put it off because you might love what you've created. You might keep trying to optimize it, trying to make it work. If you tweak this one thing, then it will...

Why does expertise matter?  When I was asked this very question on a podcast, I was taken aback.  I thought, Duh, of course, expertise matters. Why wouldn't it?  I realize, however, that we live in a world with a strong anti-expert bias. It shows up in the most subtle ways like someone saying, “don't be an expert, be a human.” Experts are so often misunderstood and don’t do a great job of communic...

We live in a world where people get burned all the time. Sales pages, over promise, and under deliver.  And sometimes what gets promised doesn't get delivered at all. Because of this, trust is at an all-time low in the industry.  I know you. You aren't the problem.  You're the type of person who over-delivers. You obsessively make sure you get all of your promises fulfilled because you couldn't sl...

Where are you “should’ing” on yourself when it comes to marketing?  With marketing, you have so many different options, and every marketing expert has their own opinion or proven formula for what works.  But how do you know what marketing strategy is right for you and when you just need to let something go?  I am seeking to answer those questions with my guest, Amanda McKinney.  She is a recognize...