Make Marketing Suck Less for Expertise-Driven Solo Businesses

Let’s play a quick game. I say a thing, and you tell me if it’s:

• Essential
• A Treat
• Postponable
• Expendable

Toilet paper? Essential.

Fancy lip gloss? Treat.

A new couch when the old one still works? Postponable.

An app that teaches your cat to manifest abundance? …Expendable (sorry to my kitties cat…you manifest enough Churus).

Here’s the rebel truth:

Your clients are playing this exact same game with your offer.

R...

Here’s a strange but true fact: some businesses actually thrive during economic downturns. Weird, right?

But once I really sat with that, I realized it’s not because these businesses have some BS “recession-proof” product. Nope. They’re thriving because they’ve nailed one crucial thing:

They’ve positioned what they do as essential, not optional.

And that’s exactly what I want to help you do too.

Want to hear mo...

AI is everywhere in marketing right now, and I get it—it's tempting to let it do all the heavy lifting. 

But if your strategy is just "Hey, Claude, write me 10 LinkedIn posts about email marketing," then we need to talk. Because that approach? It's turning business owners into content-producing robots, all sounding the same. Like the Borg. "You will be assimilated."

So, let’s pull back the curtain. AI isn’t here to r...

It’s a shit show out there. The economy is a dumpster fire, the stock market is on a rollercoaster, and it feels impossible to know what’s coming next. And for business owners? That uncertainty can be paralyzing.

Most people react in one of two ways:

1. Freeze completely and do nothing.
2. Frantically try everything at once.

Neither works. But there’s a third option that does.

Want to hear more about The Expert U...

Whenever I tell someone that I work with business owners to do less marketing while creating more demand, more interest in their programs, their offers, their services, and their expertise, these people look at me like I have lost my ever loving mind. 

Like I have 27 heads because the idea of doing less and getting more, it just doesn't make sense. 

Don't you need to do more marketing in order to get more clients? An...

Do you freak out a little bit at the idea of narrowing your focus to speak to one specific client? 

Because if you do that, wouldn't that mean you're losing out on other potential clients? 

So today, we are talking about a word that you've heard a lot about that probably makes you roll your eyes. But in 2025, this word is more important than ever. 

I'm talking about niching. 

Through my many years in business, ...

Once upon a time, you created a new offer. 

You launched it, and at first, it sold like gangbusters. 

People are clamoring for it. You have a wait list for it. They're excited, and you feel like this success train is just gonna roll forever. You figured it out, finally. 

Except it doesn't. And at some point, the sales, they just peter out.

It's so easy to blame the offer, to think, “Oh my gosh, I need to tweak ...

Here's what makes marketing suck for experts. And it has absolutely nothing to do with how smart you are, your nuanced approach, or that you're not curious enough. 

You're preyed upon by unscrupulous business owners because you are curious. 

You love learning. So when you see that shiny new marketing program, you're tempted to buy it because surely you need to learn more about marketing, right? 

You're not an expe...

You've grown your audience. 

You've nurtured and engaged them by building a case for why they should work with you. 

You've helped them diagnose what problem they're actually having. 

And now it's time for the moment. You know, the one where you have to transition from being helpful to actually inviting people to work with you, and that's when shit gets weird. 

We are tackling the O in the GEO framework, the Of...

You do all this work to build relationships. 

Get the word out about your business and grow your audience. 

Then once you have someone's attention and they are finally following you or joining your email list, 95% of the time, they are not ready to work with you. 

Surprise!

After you've got someone's attention, how do you keep them engaged and that relationship going strong? Today, we're talking about what's ne...

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 bi...

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 ne...

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...

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 Market...

“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 a...

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 ...

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...

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 ref...