In essence, the 3 Word Rebellion is a way to craft your message as an entrepreneur for people to know and learn about you and understand what you’re selling in three words. Alicia Dunams’ guest today is Dr. Michelle Mazur, who is an expert around the 3 Word Rebellion. Dr. Michelle founded Communication Rebel on the belief that communication changes the world. She and Alicia talk about the 3 Word Rebellion – including the book-writing process of her book of the same title – and what creating a one-of-a-kind message is all about.
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Listen to the podcast here
3 Word Rebellion: Your Work In Three Words With Dr. Michelle Mazur
I’m excited to be speaking to Michelle. She is an expert around the 3 Word Rebellion. What does that mean? It’s how to craft your message as an entrepreneur for people to know and learn about you, and understand what you’re selling. Michelle is not only having a Communication PhD and being able to combine successful social movements, that’s your expertise, with qualitative research. You work with business owners as a way to craft their message and get their message out there. It’s great to have you and you are the Author of the 3 Word Rebellion.
Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
We were talking about your own bio before we came in and I hope I didn’t totally slaughter it.
You did a great job.
We used to fix anything or any gaps that I left, please fill it in at this time.
You’ve covered the highlights so I’m good about it.
Do you have a subtitle to your book?
Yes, it is Create A One-of-a-Kind Message That Grows Your Business Into A Movement.
First, the question I always ask everyone, Michelle, is why did you write a book?
Because I couldn’t stop myself. This is the third book that I’ve published and I’m a former academic as well. Writing is always my jam. When I came up with this 3 Word Rebellion messaging framework, my instinct was like, “I’m going to write a book about it.” I told my husband after my first two books, “I’m never going to write a book again.” I was like, “I’m going to write a book about this.” He’s like, “Of course, you are. That’s what you do. You are an author. You write books about your ideas.” That’s why I decided to write it because this is book-worthy. I want to get this into more people’s hands because I know people struggle with talking about what their business does, the value they create, the impact that they want to make, and they ramble for 30 minutes. I’m like, “How can I get something into more people’s hands other than working with me?” A book is a great idea for that.
This is your third book so congratulations on that. We’re going to focus on this book, the 3 Word Rebellion. It is important to be clear, quick and concise when you are articulating what you do to others. I always say, “A confused prospect doesn’t buy and a confused colleague doesn’t refer.” By being able to equip people with what you do in a succinct fashion, you are able to equip them to spread the message, get referrals, get more clients so you’re the expert at this. Please share some of your tips in the 3 Word Rebellion.
You want your message to have a life outside of you and to be for other people. Click To Tweet
For me, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not because the imposter complex might tell you different, you’re an expert in what you do. Sometimes you might feel like you’re Jack of all trades and master of none but you’re an expert and you’re getting people great results. As an expert, you’re way too in the weeds about your own message and you’re close to it. The 3 Word Rebellion was this way to get people’s ideas out of their head and on to paper. I use a process in a book which is free writing. I give prompts and these are questions that come from social movements like, what are you rebelling against? What pisses you off? What change do you want to create in the world? That allows you to move past your ego and just write. Write everything and vomit on the paper. Once we get all of those ideas out of your head, we can start looking for the words that are going to matter to your audience and they’re going to be captivated by.
To go back and tell you a little bit about what the 3 Word Rebellion is all about, it sprang from this idea of social movements because I came up with this during the end of 2016, beginning of 2017 when we saw the rise of all the social movements, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Time’s Up. I was like, “Do you know what these movements do so well? They encapsulate the change they want to create in the world in a few words.” I also realized that my favorite entrepreneurs and speakers did the same thing. Simon Sinek Start With Why, Mel Robbins The 5 Second Rule, even Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Work Week. It was like these two groups do something similar.
I wonder if I would take those questions from social movements and have my clients write about them if I can help them find that core message they want to be known for. That’s where it came from. For me, the book was such a cathartic way because you get to rant and write everything out that you’ve been holding in your brain and going round and round about, and then objectively pull out some words and phrases that are meaningful, sticky, intrigue people, and make them go, “Tell me more. What is this 3 Word Rebellion? I’ve got to start with why, but what’s my why?” I find it to be this effective method of creating that message based on ranting and the change you want to create in the world.
Let’s show a living example. Can you show us how you took a client, a case study or what have you like some problem, and thirty minutes later, people have already walked off the elevator to something that is clear, quick, concise and succinct?
One of my clients, her name is Michelle Evans, she runs a marketing company. She started a podcast called the Marketing Funnel Show. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to listen to a podcast called the Marketing Funnel Show. Not many people do. It’s solution-oriented. The word funnel is loaded these days.
It’s super loaded like it causes post-traumatic stress disorder. I had a conversation with my marketing person and they’re like, “I can teach your clients the funnel.” I’m like, “No, they don’t want to know the funnel. They want to feel good.”
They want to build relationships. What was interesting is Michelle was one of these people who was very relationship-oriented. The whole reason she does her business is because she wants people to still make money even when life happens to their business and they’re pulled away. I took her through the 3 Word Rebellion process and we ended up with Profit Without Worry which is something her clients want. They want to make money. They don’t want to worry about it, but they don’t know how to do it. As soon as she rebranded her podcast with this new message, her podcast downloads quadrupled overnight because it was more compelling. We got to craft around this 3 Word Rebellion because it’s never enough to have just the three words. You have to figure out how to talk about these three words so people accept what you have to say and move to being customers and wanting to do business with you. We created all of these different messages that would support people buying into Profit Without Worry because once they hear it, they’re like, “That sounds cool. Tell me more.” You got to have the message around to tell me more that’s not rambling either.
I’ve always felt that I’ve been good at naming things. I have a program that I’ve been running for over ten years called Bestseller in a Weekend. To me, that tells a story and people get it. I’m going to write a book in a weekend type of thing. I have a program called Published to Profit, and then I have a new program which encapsulates all the things that I’ve been doing for clients for years, I call it Impact Influence Income. I’m noticing with your three words that it was Profit Without Worry. Instead of looking three distinct words like impact, influence, income, it’s almost like a sentence.
It’s a phrase. There are three different types of 3 Word Rebellion. The book only talks about two but I realized there’s a third after I wrote the books. I’m updating the book.
Is it a self published book?
Yes it is which makes it easy.
You can have it done in a weekend.
It’s funny, I took your Bestseller in a Weekend. It’s how I wrote my first book. That’s why your name was so familiar to me.
That is so crazy. You must have taken it back in the day.
It was a while ago.
You wrote your first book with Bestseller in a Weekend.
I did do it online. I remember I locked myself in a hotel room for the weekend.
You have to be in Bestseller in a Weekend Facebook Group. I don’t know if you’re in it.
I don’t know if I am either. I’m barely on Facebook. It was good because I needed that focus time. I was like, “I’m going to get most of this done this weekend. It’s awesome because I was stuck.”
That’s kismet that it happens.
I was like, “I did that.” If you have three random words, it’s not sticky. They’re not going to remember it. If you have a phrase like Michelle’s is a declaration. It’s Profit Without Worry. That’s the declaration. That’s almost your mantra. It’s the change she’s creating in businesses. That’s stickier because we can remember that phrase. Even a Simon Sinek with Start With Why, that’s sticky. I call that a rallying cry or a battle cry. It’s like, “I’m going to start with my why. What is my why? I have no idea. I’m going to find out more information on how to do that.” Having that phrase makes it stickier in our brain. We can remember it but we can’t remember three words because it’s like purple, dishwasher, monkey. It’s like, “I don’t know.”
I can see that unless there’s alliteration perhaps or something that puts them together. I can see when you say a statement that’s together, it’s easily repeatable. When it’s repeatable, people repeat when you’re not in the room essentially.
Once you nail your messaging, business becomes easier because you know how to market and sell. Click To Tweet
That’s the goal because I want your message to have a life outside of you and to be for other people. I’m starting to see this with my message with the 3 Word Rebellion. I’ve had people say we could see people in person back in the day, they would yell at me across room and be like, “3 Word Rebellion girl.” I’m like, “Yep. That’s me.” It should be able to spread with word of mouth. If somebody sees one of my clients speak and they’re like, “She talked about Profit Without Worry or calm by choice. Tell me more about that. I wish I would’ve seen her.” It’s an easier way to have other people spread your message. If you think about Simon Sinek or a Mel Robbins with The 5 Second Rule, that’s a lot of how they built their platform. People are like, “Talk about Start With Why or talk about The 5 Second Rule.” All of a sudden, you’re down the rabbit hole learning about these concepts.
It’s like the entry point. Mel Robbins has expanded way beyond The 5 Second Rule. I love Mel Robbins. She talks about all kinds of stuff. That was her entry point. Simon Sinek, that was his entry point, Start With Why. Didn’t he also do Leaders Eat Last?
What I think is awesome about him is that he was able to do Start With Why and now it has its own life. People are talking about it. Other people in his company speak on it, he doesn’t speak on it. That allowed him to write other books like Leaders Eat Last or The Infinite Game is his newest one, but Start With Why it’s still going strong. They celebrated the 10th year anniversary of the book. He was able to do other things like with The 5 Second Rule. Mel Robbins still talks about The 5 Second Rule, but she’s able to go do other things because people will be like, “You got to do The 5 Second Rule.” You’re like, “What is that?” It has its own life.
It creates omnipresence. When you have that personal brand and you’ve branded, it’s something that people are talking about it when you’re not around. It’s like an essence. It becomes a hashtag and all of that. Do you have any more examples of taking someone’s big audacious elevator pitch and turning it into something that’s punchy and fun?
One of my favorite stories because this was odd, I worked with a lawyer. He was a lawyer who wants to put love back into the law. He should have been a life coach and he would fully admit that. Law is this adversarial thing. You don’t think about relationship building when you think about hiring a lawyer. You think about kicking someone’s butt so that you can get what’s yours. For him, we came up with people over paper because his whole philosophy is, we start a business because he works a lot with cofounders. You start the business and you lay down the relationship rules of, what is this business going to look like? How are we going to communicate with each other? How are we going to communicate with each other when things go south so that we’re always preserving the relationship? For him, it was putting people over paper which was something that lawyers could get like, “It’s not about the legal brief from the contract?” No, It’s about the people.
Let’s talk about the book writing process for you. This is your third book. We found out that you attended Bestseller in a Weekend years ago and wrote your first book. Now that you did the Bestseller in a Weekend process, what are some other ways or tools and tips that you would give the audience in terms of writing a book? You’ve done your third one. What are some things that you learned along the way?
You already have content whether you’re a business owner, you’ve been blogging, or podcasting. One of the things I took away from Bestseller in a Weekend is start with something. Don’t start with the blank page and think you’re going to sit down and write. When I figured out the 3 Word Rebellion, I started talking about it on my podcast. That’s content. Those are transcripts. I have words and I can shape what I was talking about into a book. That makes the writing process easier because then you can look at like, “This is all the content I have on this topic. What’s missing first? What do I need to add to make this more useful and helpful?”
For me, I ended up having to write things about stepping into the role of leadership because it’s a message that’s bigger than you and that’s scary to people. It’s intimidating to think that other people are going to be talking about your message and that now you’re a leader in your industry versus a follower or blending in with everyone else because you have something to say. I had to talk about, what is your motivation? How do you step into leadership? It was looking at all that I’ve done with 3 Word Rebellion so far and being like, “This needs to be developed more. This is good. I can clean it up and make it into book format.” That was helpful to take things that I’ve already done, repurpose them in a different way, clean it up, and make it into a book. People think you have to start with a blank page. No, you don’t. Don’t do that to yourself.
That’s not the place to start. That’s why we do the whole dictation transcription as a big part of the Bestseller in a Weekend framework. Otherwise, you will do anything. You’ll do the dishes, you walk the dog, you wash the car other than looking at a blank page. That’s why it’s been successful and going for so long. People writing their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd book using that framework. You’ve been featured in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc., and you do this work with entrepreneurs and the like. I want to share some more tips from your book. What would one salient piece of information that you’d want to leave with our audience?
I know that finding a 3 Word Rebellion can be intense. How do you boil down what you do into three words? The thing I want people to remember is since this process is about vomiting on paper, and then excavating what your 3 Word Rebellion is, your 3 Word Rebellion already exists. It’s in what you’ve been saying to clients. It’s been what you’ve been podcasting or blogging on. It needs to go through the process to come to light so that you can see it and you can lead with it. The most important thing to leave people with is your message already exists. It’s there and you can find it.
It’s almost chipping away a piece of clay to what doesn’t belong and then you see it leftover. We have all this content that we’re creating, we podcast, blogs, books, etc., and chipping away to see what is the essence in terms of how you support people. That’s an interesting way to look at it.
If you believe that it’s already there and it exists, it becomes easier to find or you become more persistent and resilient in finding it, but that’s the core thing. It already exists. Once you find it, everything does become a little bit easier in your business because finally, you know how to talk about things in a way that’s going to captivate and bring people into your worlds. They’ll end up getting it. That’s a lovely thing because it will make everything easier. Once you nail your messaging, business becomes easier because you know how to market and sell.
It’s easier when you have whether it’s a methodology, a framework, a 3 Word Rebellion in which people are like, “You’re that person,” as you were saying. I get that like, “It was the Bestseller in a Weekend girl.” I’ve been getting that for years. It’s interesting how that attaches to you. It’s funny because I was flying from New York. I was in LA to tie up some loose ends. One of my friends who is one of the interior designers on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for HGTV and she contacted me on a Sunday. She’s like, “I have a reality TV show opportunity for you. They need someone tomorrow.” It was one of those things. I’m in LA for 48 hours. I talked to the producer and they’re like, “We’re looking for someone who’s an author and who can coach a book out of someone else?”
I’m like, “I think that role was written for me.” I booked it, I went in, and it was the most fantastic experience. She was a reality TV show star. She had a traumatic life. Her life had lots of footprints. To be able to coach her into her book, in-person, on camera, there was tears, opening, and a lot there.
To me, it was kismet to be running in town and they need it. I’m known as that, but I’m always considering I help people to write books and it becomes bigger than that. You help people come up with three word, branding statements, or what have you, it becomes bigger than that. It becomes essence or the foundation of a rebellion. When I help people to write books, I help them heal from trauma, variety of different things, start movements, impact others, inspire change. It’s exciting work. We go beyond. I thought I would share. Is there anything else to add?
My clients tell me all the time that my process feels like business therapy. They get to show up and say whatever is on their mind or what they’ve been thinking about. Somehow, I structure that into a 3 Word Rebellion or a client journey for their business. They’re like, “How do you do that?” I’m like, “I can take in a lot of information and restructure it in a way that’s going to be meaningful for other people.” There’s a lot of healing in there because not being able to express what you do in a way that other people get it, and they see how transformative your work is, it’s deflating and frustrating. You miss out on opportunities because you’re the Bestseller in a Weekend woman, they knew like, “Can you come and do this?” Now you’re on a reality TV show. That’s amazing. That’s the power of having that clear message.
With that, Michelle, how can people find out more about you and purchase your book?
I live over at DrMichelleMazur.com and you can purchase the book on Amazon through the 3WRBook.com. If you’re looking for a taster and you want to try before you buy, you can go to the 3WordRebellion.com and get a free taster of what the 3 Word Rebellion is all about.
Michelle, thank you for sharing your gifts with my audience.
You are so welcome. Thank you for having me.
Take care, everyone. Thank you for another episode of the show.
Important Links:
- Start With Why
- The 5 Second Rule
- The 4-Hour Work Week
- Profit Without Worry
- Bestseller in a Weekend – Facebook Group
- Leaders Eat Last
- The Infinite Game
- 3WRBook.com
- 3WordRebellion.com
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