Transcript

Dominique:
You’re listening to The Sigrun Show, episode number 422. My name is Dominique, and I’m Sigrun’s content manager. Unfortunately, Sigrun’s sick today so I’m filling in for her. Today’s episode is an interview Sigrun had with Michelle Mazur about why messaging is more than a tagline.
Each week, Sigrun goes live to share with you inspiring case studies and interviews to help you achieve your dream and turn your passion into profits. Thank you for tuning in today. Building an online business takes time, Sigrun shows proven strategies to help you get there faster. You’ll also learn how to master your mindset, up level your marketing, and succeed with masterminds.
Today’s episode is an interview with Michelle Mazur. Michelle helps entrepreneurs become thought leaders by crafting powerful, captivating messages. She’s the author of three books, and was featured in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Inc. In this episode, Sigrun and Michelle talk about why messaging is more than a tagline.
But before we dive in, do you want to learn how to launch? In Sigrun’s 12-month group coaching program Momentum, you get the coaching, accountability and support you need to take your business to 250K and beyond. You’ll create scalable programs to leverage your time, learn how to launch so you can sell more in less time and create your ascension model. Go to the show notes at sigrun.com/422, where you will find a link with more information on Momentum, plus all the links to Michelle Mazur.
Sigrun:
I’m so excited to be here with Michelle Mazur, and talk about why and how messaging is not just a tagline. Welcome to the show.
Michelle Mazur:
Thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to dive in on this topic with you.
Sigrun:
Yes. Messaging is a big thing. Just in the background, as I am recording this episode, I’m working with a lot of my students on getting out new courses that they have created. And, some people are not getting sign ups. It’s free courses, free courses, and some people are not getting sign ups. I said, “Well, are you really sure your ideal client exists? If they do exist, have you really created the offer that they actually want?” And they’re like, “Yeah.” Well, what’s missing is messaging.
So I’m so glad to have you here on this episode to talk about this topic because this is often the make or break, the disconnect between your client and yourself, why you’re not getting together is that piece, but it’s fluffy, what it is.
Michelle Mazur:
Yeah. It’s an art and a science I think. My background is I have a PhD in communication, which is definitely a social science degree, and I take a more scientific approach to messaging, which we can talk about later. But, it feels like this fluffy thing, but I think the reason for that is because it’s so foundational. It’s everything your business is based on. Once you have an offer, and you know okay, this is what my people want, this is who it’s for. The challenge becomes how do you talk about that in a compelling and persuasive way in your copy, in your marketing, in your sales. The disconnect is usually with your message just isn’t resonating.
That is what I see time and time again as I go into businesses, and I’m looking at somebody’s funnel. They’re like, “I don’t know why my funnel doesn’t work.” I was like, “Because your messaging is not really speaking to your people.”
Sigrun:
Well, we’re going to dive into that. Before we do, though, I am curious about you, you as a person. Why did you do a PhD? And, what has brought you to the place that you are now, helping entrepreneurs with their messaging?
Michelle Mazur:
Yes. I got a PhD because I’m obsessive, and I was passionate about communication. For me, my journey really started when I was in high school and I took a public speaking course, and it was terrifying for me. My teachers always described me as the girl who sits in the back row who has all the answers, but would never raise her hand. That was me.
So I’m in this course, and I have to stand in front of the room, and my knees are knocking, my voice is trembling. I’m trying to get this message across, and it was terrible. I got the gentleman’s C in the class. But, there was something in my head that said, “This is really, really important, and you need to master it.” I went home and I told my mom, “Hey, I’m going to take advanced public speaking.” She’s like, “Honey, you got a C, you suck at this.” I’m like, “No, going to take advanced public speaking.” And then, I joined the speech and debate team because if you want to get good at something, do it competitively, every single weekend, and just put in the time.
I just loved the field of communication, figuring out how to get a message. I was just curious about all the theories, and how it works. That curiosity drove me to get the PhD in communication. I loved being a graduate student. Being a grad student is great, you get to think big thoughts and have big conversations. Being a professor was nothing like that. So even though I had the dream, the tenure track position, I was at the University of Hawaii, which was lovely but also a very hard place to live. I just decided, this is not what I want to be doing, this is not my impact in the world.
At that moment, there was this voice in my head that was like, “Oh, you should start a business, do public speaking coaching.” This was before we had this whole online boom, there was nothing out there about how to start a business. I decided to go a different direction, and I went into market research because my degree’s in research, so market research. Which has really served me well, because I got to work on a ton of research studies, and message testing, and it really showed me how important, to these big companies like Microsoft and General Mills, messaging is to their business and to the brands that they’re promoting.
I hated corporate, I’m psychologically unemployable, which probably surprises no one who’s an entrepreneur. I didn’t like people telling me what to do and what my priorities were. So when I started the business as a side hustle, I was working in public speaking, and really on the messaging side of things. It was write the keynote speech, let’s figure out how to market this. I hate the speaking industry. The speaking industry is really set up not to value speakers. They don’t pay speakers well, you have to be New York Times bestselling author to really get paid well for what you do and for your knowledge. That just ticked me off. Do I revolutionize this industry? No, I don’t want to do that.
But, what I saw with my clients is they were taking the keynote speeches that we created, the marketing messaging that we created, and then they were using it in their business. I’m like, “This could be something.” And then, that point of burnout, I just was at this moment. Okay, what is next for me? That’s when the idea of the Three Word Rebellion came through. It was 2016 in the United States, we had Make America Great Again, we had the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, Never Again. I’m watching all of these movements come about and I’m like, “You know what they’re good at? Communicating the change they want to create.”
And then, I thought of my favorite entrepreneurs, like Simon Sinek, Start with Why, Mel Robbins, the Five Second Rule. You know what? They’re doing the exact same thing as these social movements. What if we took questions from social movements, had people write about those questions, like what are you rebelling against, to see if we could find the core message, their three world rebellion, from whence all their messaging springs from. That’s really my journey. It’s been a long and windy journey, but it’s always been about communication and messaging, at the heart.
Sigrun:
So you wrote this book, or you came up on this concept, and that was the beginning of your business that you have today?
Michelle Mazur:
Yes. This iteration, 100%. Because as soon as I found that concept, I road tested it with my clients who were very open. “Oh, you think you might have a way to help me figure out what my core message is? Awesome, I’m in.” I tested it with my clients, and it worked really well.
And then, I rolled it out as a webinar, just because I didn’t know if this was a thing. I came up with this framework, I came up with this idea. And I’m like, “Is anybody other than me and my clients going be interested in this?” I just was, “Okay everyone, I’m doing this webinar. Come, give me feedback. There’s no pitch, I’m just testing this idea.” I did the webinar and people were like, “I love this.” They gave me great feedback, they gave me some suggestions, and they’re like, “Yes, go this direction. Write the book.” I kept working with clients, finessing the concept, and then wrote the book.
Sigrun:
I love it, Three Word Rebellion. It feels like everyone needs it.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes! Yes. Even if you don’t think you’re necessarily a rebel, I always think a person is a rebel if they’re wanting change. As business owners, we want to help transform our people, change their lives or their businesses in some way. Yeah. Yes, I believe everyone needs a three word rebellion.
Sigrun:
But, the danger I see with that is that people think that’s it. If I find my three word thing, then I have fixed all my messaging.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes! That is not true. I always, when I hear that, I picture Simon Sinek in my mind, standing on the street corners of Seattle just saying, “Start with why, start with why.” Nobody’s going to respond to that. It’s the same thing with your three word rebellion. Because even in my journey, when I came up with this idea and landed on, “Oh, this is a three word rebellion,” my next thing was oh, how am I going to communicate about this to get buy in, because people aren’t going to know what the heck this is. They’re going to be intrigued by it, they’re going to be curious about it, but then you have to have supporting messaging that takes people who don’t know you at all, on a journey to becoming clients and customers in your business. That was the next big question I had to answer.
Sigrun:
You did the Three Word Rebellion, but then you went into the whole messaging piece?
Michelle Mazur:
Yeah. Because what I found with the Three Word Rebellion is, once you have those three words, then you can use them for the client journey. It’s a very generative thing, because then you get to define what it means, and why it’s important. If it was a person, what does it smell like, look like, sound like? And really, it was a very rich way to create that client journey. And then, once you have the client journey, well then you’re on a hunt for stories to make that emotional connection, to empathize with your audience, to build trust with them. It was just this okay, you get your three word rebellion, then you have to figure out how to talk about it. And then, how to make an emotional connection.
Sigrun:
The topic of this episode is messaging is more than a tagline. We’re already touching on it. But, this is a common notion that, “Oh, if I just had my tagline that everything would be fine, then my messaging would be clear.” What is messaging?
Michelle Mazur:
To me, messaging is a foundational piece of your business. What I see in the online business world especially is we create an offer and we’re like, “Okay, I have this offer.” You test it out, it gets some great results and you think, “Okay, I’m going to go market and sell this.” Hold up there. Really, you have to figure out how you’re going to communicate about this offering, and grow an audience around it, and get people to buy into what you’re selling. Messaging, to me, is that foundational piece where all of your copy comes from, your marketing springs from, your PR efforts comes from it, all your sales. You do that foundational piece, and then you apply your messaging to all of those different contexts.
Once you know what to talk about, how to talk about it, what stories to tell, then it just makes marketing, sales, copy just so much easier.
Sigrun:
Messaging is even the graphics, then?
Michelle Mazur:
Yeah, there’s definitely visual communication. I’ve worked with several web designers in my practice, and one of the things that is hard for them is people come and be like, “Okay, I want this website,” and they don’t know how they want to visually communicate. And also, when it comes to, “Okay, I need your copy for this website,” they’re like, “What? What do you mean you need my copy for this website?” They haven’t done the work of messaging, they just think oh, to be successful I need this pretty website. No, hold up. You have to be way more strategic about that.
Sigrun:
I actually made an interesting experience, because I wanted a new website a couple of years ago, so glad you said this. And, I knew that I needed to refresh my brand, and worked with a branding director, I don’t know what you call this person. A brand strategist, I guess that’s the name. We worked together, and out came this beautiful PDF of my brand, what it stands for, whom was my ideal client, how is the visuals going to be, and all of that. But, I didn’t implement it because I didn’t think it was clear, the message.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes. Yes.
Sigrun:
So you’re saying almost flipping it around? Are you suggesting you flip it around?
Michelle Mazur:
I 100% suggest you flip it around. Start with your message first, because if your message is clear, and it captures attention, and it persuades people, and connects with people, the visual look of your brand is less important because your people feel like, “Oh my gosh, you are in my head. I totally get what this is about, and I’m in.” Starting with that message, and then adding the branding piece on, is very powerful to me. But, I think we just see, “Oh, I need to have a cool brand.” But then, if you’re not clear about how to communicate what that brand does, you don’t implement it. Or, you think it’s going to bring all the clients to you, but it doesn’t because the message isn’t clear.
Sigrun:
I thought, somehow, that the brand strategist would do all of that, and that’s not how it works. Now I’ve learned my lesson, and now I’ve communicated this, and shared this with you, listeners, so don’t do the same mistakes. I absolutely agree that the message has to be clear for us.
But first, what would be the steps, then? How would someone go about and find their message?
Michelle Mazur:
As we were talking about earlier, it does really start with your client and your audience. Deeply understanding who they are, what are their challenges, why do they say no to your work. Why are they hesitant about going all in on the change that you can create for them with your business? Really understanding and empathizing with your people.
And then for me, when I work with people, the next step is working on their three word rebellion, because that is foundational for where all the messaging comes from. I take them through the free writing process, I do the analysis for them to come up with here are the different words you’re using, here are some different choices. Sometimes people’s three word rebellions are blinking neon signs. I’m reading through it and I’m like, “Oh, there it is.” I just know. That’s 30 years of experience of just being, “Yeah, those are the right words.”
And then, we just do that client journey piece, and the storytelling piece. And then, put it all together and think about how are you going to launch this. What do you need to create in order to get this out in the world? What could a marketing strategy look like around this message?
Sigrun:
When you say a client journey, are you thinking from discovering someone, to being nurtured, to actually buying a program, and then upgrading to another program? Or, is it just until they buy?
Michelle Mazur:
Yes. I take a more holistic approach to it. Definitely, it’s informed by Eugene Schwartz’s Customer Awareness Spectrum, because I feel like one of the most ignored areas in the client journey is the unaware piece, people who don’t know you yet. That’s where audience growth happens. When anyone ever says, “Oh, my audience isn’t growing,” I’m like, “Well, because you’re not speaking to them. You’re not reaching them where they are.” We go through that okay, how do we capture people’s attention? How do we then make an offer that’s compelling? How do we figure out what your lead magnet should be, that will get people into your email community?
And then, the final piece is that conversion evaluation. How are you generating those leads? Are we doing this through sales emails or consults? What does that look like, and what do you need to say? And then, if there are upgrade offers, I always feel like those are easier, especially for people who work with one-on-one. Because if you’re coming to an end and you’re like, “If you want to continue this, we can do it this way,” so we definitely talk about what is that next step for them.
Sigrun:
I love that you talk about the unaware stage. I don’t remember the name of the book, but there was a book about exactly that first piece. You almost need to be shocking that people pay attention to you, and that’s why the Three Word Rebellion almost links together. We’ve had people that have maybe blue, or yellow, or red hair. Just if you scroll through the Facebook feed, there are things that pop visually to you, or even some copy that is a surprise. Can you dive more into that unaware stage, in terms of copy or three word rebellion?
Michelle Mazur:
Yeah. The three word rebellion, what its job, its mission, is to really capture people’s attention, garner curiosity, and make them think. My first experience with this was Mel Robbins and the Five Second Rule. I found some video on Facebook that she was in, I watched it and I was like, “Oh my gosh, she’s awesome.” And then, she said something about the five second rule and in my head I’m like, “What’s the five second rule? Should I be following that rule? I’d better find out.” I’m Googling, I’m going down the rabbit hole, watching videos and her TED Talk. I’m like, “Oh, that’s so interesting,” because she got me with the five second rule. All of a sudden, I am on this journey with her.
Really, I call this, I think about it as the intrigue loop. So if you have a three word rebellion, the first thing it should do is get people’s attention, and make them lean forward and, “Huh, curious. What is that about, what does it mean?” Then, the next step is making them think about themselves. What does it mean for me or my business?
For instances one of my clients, Michelle Evans, her three word rebellion is “profit without worry.” When people hear that they’re like, “Oh, I want to profit without worry. That sounds awesome. How do I do that?” They know okay, I have to ask her, I have to read or listen to her podcasts, or read her blogs, or sign up for her email list for that next step. It’s really a great way just to get people curious and interested. And then, once you have their attention, how do you keep it with the content and the conversations you’re having online?
Sigrun:
Yeah, and that’s where all the messaging pieces come together, because the three words alone, they don’t do all the work. But, they get people in the door.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes, yes. Because for me, when I would say three word rebellion people were like, “Oh, that’s intriguing. I wonder what my three words are.” If I didn’t have a way to tell them this is what three word rebellion is, it positions you as a thought leader, it’s a message that is spreadable for your audience because it’s essentially not about you, and it creates intrigue and captures attention. People are like, “Yeah, get that. I want that.” But, it needs that supporting message otherwise it’s just, “Cool. What is it?” Oh, you don’t know? You don’t know how to talk about that? And then, it just stops. People have really short attention spans, and they just move onto the next thing.
Sigrun:
Yeah. It’s so important to pay attention to how people find out about you. And then, once they’re in the door I think most of us know what to do next, but it’s grabbing that first attention. It doesn’t have to be with having colored hair or doing something TikTok crazy dance on the internet, pointing all the directions. Maybe the smarter way, maybe the cooler way is just three little words.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes, I agree. Because anybody can have red hair or blue hair, you can buy that in a salon. But, when you have your own three word rebellion, that is your unique mark on the world. It’s something that I always encourage clients to trademark, because it’s part of their intellectual property. It’s really this asset for their business, and they uniquely own it. There’s tons of messaging people, there’s only one Three Word Rebellion. There’s lots of marketing consultants, but there’s only one person who can help you Profit Without Worry. It’s just this powerful way to own your space in your industry.
Sigrun:
Be a Category of One.
Michelle Mazur:
Yeah, exactly.
Sigrun:
Basically, you’re creating your own category.
Michelle Mazur:
Yes. Yes, and I think that is powerful because … I always pick on life coaches, but life coaches, you go to their website and their messaging is interchangeable. It’s, “Live your best life, be less overwhelmed, be happy.” Yeah, that sounds like I could literally take that and put it on some other person’s website.
Really, the challenge is how do you make what you do your own, and then offer that up into your industry. That’s how you, yeah create a category of one.
Sigrun:
I love that. I love that. I think this is a good end, Michelle. I think we have explained well what messaging is, what it isn’t, and why people should start with that before they waste time and money on doing another website, or a branding exercise that doesn’t lead to anything because the foundation isn’t clear.
Michelle, we’re going to link to your book, obviously, because now we have mentioned it a gazillion times, and now everyone is curious how they can create their own Three Word Rebellion. Thank you for coming on the show, it’s been a joy, and I am sure we will be in contact more.
Michelle Mazur:
All right. Thank you so much for having me, this has been amazing.
Dominique:
Go to the show notes at sigrun.com/422, where you will find a link with more information on Momentum, plus all the links to Michelle Mazur.
Thank you for listening to The Sigrun Show. Did you enjoy this episode? Let Sigrun know that you listened by tagging her in your Insta Story, or your Instagram post, using her handle @sigruncomm and the hashtag #sigrunshow. See you in the next episode.