February 20, 2025 • 20 mins
Discover the secrets to cutting through the clutter of ineffective marketing with insights from Dave Mastovich, the mastermind behind MASSolutions. Celebrating two decades of marketing excellence, Dave unravels his no-bullshit approach to targeted growth, sharing how his strategic methodologies transformed a client's business from 19 to 100 locations, skyrocketing its market value. By identifying the pitfalls of random marketing tactics, Dave introduces his six right fit target markets, unveiling a blend of data-driven strategies and emotional engagement that truly resonate. Dive into the systematic gathering of insights, and learn to harness the power of targeted marketing to drive your business forward.
Alongside marketing strategies, Dave sheds light on the crucial role of cultural messaging in service industries. He unpacks how genuine and precise communication helps businesses attract and retain employees who embody their core values, an essential factor in sectors like healthcare with demanding talent landscapes. The episode also highlights the potency of referral source marketing and the benefits of word-of-mouth over conventional advertising. Don’t miss the chance to receive a signed copy of Dave’s book, packed with strategies to energize your marketing efforts and enhance your business continuity. Tune in to revolutionize your marketing game with proven insights from a seasoned expert.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:01):
We are talking about no bullshit marketing and we
have the perfect guest to helpus talk through that.
Dave Mastovich, welcome to theshow.
Dave Mastovich (00:10):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Eric Eden (00:13):
So why don't we start off by you just giving a
submitter to a little bit aboutwho you are and what you do?
Dave Mastovich (00:21):
Sure, I am the CEO and founder of Mass
Solutions and we tongue-in-cheeksay we're the world's only
no-bullshit marketingconsultancy, and I built that
company started about 20 yearsago.
We just celebrated our 20thanniversary.
I come from a background ofturnarounds and startups and
driving growth at largecompanies, one of which was $1
(00:42):
billion when I got there with aB and $10 billion within three
years healthcare system.
I also did turn around a coupleof radio stations, so all of
that enabled me to feel like Ihad experienced marketing, both
the bullshit kind and the nobullshit kind.
And so we built our no bullshitmarketing system years ago and
the book came out in Septemberand reached number one Amazon
(01:04):
bestseller.
And that's really what it's allabout, I guess.
Eric Eden (01:08):
Congrats.
20 years is a great milestoneand the book is a great way to
sort of memorialize some of thestrategies that you've put in
place.
So excited to talk about those,why don't we jump in?
And if you can share a story,we're ready to be inspired about
(01:29):
some of the best no bullshitmarketing that you've been able
to do in recent times.
Dave Mastovich (01:35):
Sure, and it's tough to always pick the best.
So I'll give you one story thatI think encapsulates a lot of
what I strive to talk about,with what real marketing is and
what no bullshit marketing is.
And so you, as a marketer, andall of your subscribers and
audience knows how challengingmarketing is for those of us
(01:55):
that do it to try to convinceour clients of it.
And one client that I workedwith and my team worked with was
we were brought in when thiscompany had about 19 locations
and they were looking to drivemassive growth, and the credit
goes to the leadership team andtheir employees for that massive
growth.
But we were a part of itbecause they entrusted us to
(02:16):
drive both customer acquisitionand also employee retention and
acquisition, and also employeeretention and acquisition, and
those things led, our effortsled that company to end up
growing from 19 locations toabout a hundred and their
enterprise value grew to thepoint where they wanted it to
grow to and they were able tothen sell that company at the
(02:38):
multiplier that they wanted toachieve.
And a lot of that happenedbecause we were able to do the
key marketing to their three keytarget markets, their three
right fit target markets, andwe're able to define those
markets, drill down into thosemarkets and really understand
them, talk to them, hear fromthem and then build the
marketing based on the scienceand math that we had done in the
(03:02):
systematically gatheringinsights phase of our no
bullshit process.
And so we were able to workwith them and continually
enhance and tweak theirmarketing, their patient
acquisition, their customeracquisition, and ultimately it
resulted in that 5X growth andthe growth of their enterprise
value and the sell of thecompany.
And I tell that story becauseit encompassed really all of
(03:22):
what we do over a number ofyears and truly was no bullshit
marketing.
Eric Eden (03:29):
So that's a great story.
5x growth is definitelyremarkable.
Let me ask you, what isbullshit marketing?
Look like, like.
What is the enemy here?
Dave Mastovich (03:43):
Okay, so bullshit.
Marketing is a couple of things.
It's starts with, I guess you'dsay, random acts of marketing.
That would be the first thingthat I would describe.
And random acts of marketingare when people are doing
marketing tactics, marketing taxuh tactics and uh marketing
(04:03):
campaigns and so forth that aremarketing task oriented.
And so they're random acts ofmarketing because the phrase you
hear a lot is oh, they madethis look pretty or they were
able to turn this into a video.
And those random acts ofmarketing end up frustrating
pretty much everyone involved.
So if you talk to a CEO or anowner entrepreneur of a company
(04:26):
or their CFO or even their COO,what you'll hear is a
frustration with marketing.
They say things like I don'tknow what goes on once we send
it down there to marketing.
I don't know what I'm spendingmy money for, I don't know what
my ROI is, and that all comesfrom it being random acts of
(04:46):
marketing as opposed to having asystematic way to gather
insights and define the targetmarkets and hear from the target
markets voice of the customerresearch, drill those target
markets down and build the storybased on what you've learned
from behavioral science and thenhave campaigns that work around
that.
So far too often we asmarketers have caused the
(05:12):
problem in that we have nottaken the time to do the
systematically gatheringinsights and let the behavioral
science, the math, drive ourdecision-making and make the
creative about that, or it'sgone the whole other way.
Now there are quants involvedwith marketing who go way too
far on the quant side and thinkthat every single thing in
marketing can be measurable andthey lose track of the emotion
(05:33):
side of it.
So it's reaching that balanceand ultimately it's also about
the six target markets thatmatter, and that's the key to no
bullshit marketing.
Eric Eden (05:49):
And you've developed a number of ways to fight
against the bad practices there.
I think you outline 17strategies in your book.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat some of those are and why
they work?
Dave Mastovich (06:03):
Yeah.
So the most important one isknowing and living with and
driving towards reaching,connecting, engaging those six
target markets that matter.
They're the six right fittarget markets and I'll go
through them quickly.
So the first is one everyonewill know, and that's current
customers.
Okay, so you got to focus onthat.
The second one everyone willknow, and that's prospective
(06:26):
customers.
I think marketers tend to knowthose and do those, maybe, okay,
but then it's current employeesand prospective employees.
That's four.
And then current referralsources or centers of influence
and prospective referral sourcesor centers of influence and
prospective referral sources orcenters of influence.
Those are the six right fittarget markets that matter.
(06:46):
First, defining that andacknowledging that that's the
key audiences and then drillingdown each of those six audiences
.
That's the first key point.
There'll be a second one, but Iwant to pause to let you, in
case you have any questions,about the six right fit target
markets that matter.
Eric Eden (07:02):
I think that's great .
I do think that having thatmindset of employees, current
customers, prospective customersand referrals I think people
undercook the referrals part ofit a lot.
So I think having that framingis a good place to start the
framework.
So continue please.
So that means business toeveryone.
B it's a good place to startthe framework so.
So continue please.
Dave Mastovich (07:21):
So so that that means business to everyone, b to
E, and that's what we talkabout.
B to E is business to everyone.
It's those six right fit targetmarkets that matter.
So it's not about B to B and Bto C, it's about B to E and it's
not saying that every singlehuman being with everyone,
that's it's being dramatic.
And saying business to everyonemeans the six right fit target
markets that matter and drillingthem down.
Now, once you've done that, thesecond is understanding,
(07:44):
clarifying and defining youradvantage.
I talk to customers andprospects on a daily basis and
if I go into a new client whichwe just added one last week, and
when we go in this week to thisnew client, we'll end up
talking to probably five, sixpeople on the leadership team
separately.
And when we ask them what'stheir differentiator, what's
their advantage, what's theircompetitive advantage, what's
(08:08):
the one thing that makes themunique, we will get five
different answers.
If we talk to five people andif we talk to their customers,
we'll get a different answer.
So the first thing is clearlyis those right fit target
markets.
Make sure you define them andunderstand them.
The second is go out and talk tothose right fit target
audiences to understand whatyour advantage is and once
you've defined that advantagearound your big idea your why or
(08:31):
reason for being and yourcustomer's why or reason for
buying answer those two whyquestions and come up with one
big idea your why or reason forbeing, your customer's why or
reason for buying.
That's defining your advantage.
So if you have those six rightfit target markets and then
defined your advantage, it'sthen about the execution.
The problem is, far too manymarketers jump right to what's
(08:54):
the creative going to be, what'sthe execution going to be,
what's the campaign going to be,but they haven't done those
first two things well.
Eric Eden (09:06):
I think that's a great framing and solves the
problem of random acts ofmarketing.
Like you were saying, you havea strategy, you know who you're
going after, you know whatyou're going to say and that's
probably where the rubber meetsthe road.
The rubber meets the road.
What percentage of people doyou think don't have this
framework in place and are justout there doing random marketing
(09:28):
?
It seems like it's a higherpercentage than people would
guess.
Probably it's got to be huge.
Dave Mastovich (09:33):
I don't want to be negative, but I'll just say
it's the majority and it's asignificant majority, and part
of the problem is us.
Part of the problem ismarketers.
So what happens is somebodybecomes an expert in, let's say,
google ads, so they thinkGoogle ads is marketing in their
mind.
Another person becomes a goodsalesperson, so they think sales
(09:55):
is marketing.
Another person becomes good atvideo, so they think video is
marketing, and so on down theline.
It's more about that broaderperspective of understanding
that marketing is aboutsystematically gathering
insights so you can define thosetarget markets, find out what
they want, develop it and giveit to them when and where they
(10:17):
want it at a price they'rewilling to pay, and then tell
them about it again and again.
The problem is that last piece.
To tell them about it again andagain is what all those
examples I gave you think about.
The Google ads person thinksabout how do I tell them about
it again and again?
The video person thinks how doI tell them about it again and
again?
The person that does salesthinks how do I tell them about
(10:39):
it again and again?
But it starts with clearlydefining those six right fit
target markets and drill themdown then find out what they
want so you can develop it.
Tweak what you already have,develop it based on what you
learned.
Give it to them when and wherethey want it, at a price they're
willing to pay.
Pricing is part of marketing.
When I talk to people early intheir marketing career, I say,
if you're doing marketing in theproper format and you're
(11:02):
defining these target marketsand you're going out and hearing
from them, you can play animpact on what the price ought
to be and develop the price foryour product and you can help
tweak the service.
You know how many times when Iwas in.
I'm in a lot of healthcareexperience and I have people say
to me what are you doing,telling us what we need to do?
You're not a doctor, you're nota nurse, and I say but I'm the
(11:25):
one and my teams are the onethat understand what the
customer wants and needs.
So we have to give them that.
If we want to be competitive,we have to make that our
advantage.
We have to tweak our productand service in a way that
achieves what the customer andthe market bears, and that's why
pricing is part of marketingand that's why the actual
service offering is part ofmarketing.
(11:45):
You play a role in all that ifyou're doing your job.
Instead, when you're inmarketing and doing the random
acts of marketing, they put youoff in a corner.
They don't even give you a seatat the table.
Or if they give you a seat atthe table, they don't listen.
The leadership table is whatI'm talking about.
They put you off in the corner,don't really hear from you,
don't give you proper authority,because they're saying to you
(12:07):
you're going to make it lookpretty, you're going to do what
we tell you to, you're going togo market what we think needs
marketed.
Well, that's okay, they mighthave a general idea, but they're
not the main people.
The customer is those six rightfit target markets have to be
asked what they want and think.
And then you come back andtweak it.
So when you're the one that'sbeing told, go create an ad for
this reason and go do this eventand make it look great.
(12:30):
You had one person got evaluated.
We were doing a mentoringprogram for that client.
They said would you mentor ourone of our marketing leaders?
And she said you know I, I getevaluated on the golf outing.
That's one piece of how I getevaluated.
And I said what if it rains?
And she said I guess things goa mess.
And I said, yeah, and you hadnothing to do with the rain,
(12:51):
unless you have some powers Idon't know about.
So you want to be able to havehad the true marketing seat at
the table, not just making thegolf outing look good and hope
it doesn't rain and not justmaking the video look good.
So that's part of the problemis we've got people in the space
who aren't understanding theirmore global perspective or
(13:12):
aren't pushing for it, orthey're trying to get it and
their leadership's not going toallow it.
Eric Eden (13:19):
I think it's a great point that a lot of times
marketers just get focused onthe campaigns, the programs
they're running, what channelsand tactics they're using and
they don't really have theoverall strategy there with
clients.
(13:39):
Over the years.
Has it driven great resultslike the 5X growth that you were
talking about?
Have you seen different flavorsof that happening?
And I'm curious, employeesbeing great advocates because
they understand the message andreferrals.
I'm curious.
What percentage of the pie arethose when people are living the
(14:01):
dream?
Dave Mastovich (14:03):
I'm curious what percentage of the pie are those
when people are living thedream?
Well, there's a couple ofthings the acquisition of
employees I guess acquisition isnot the greatest word, but I'm
comparing it to customeracquisition and employee
acquisition.
When you land the employees andthe talent that you need, that
drives growth.
So, for instance, there'scertain industries in healthcare
, one being, let's say, physicaltherapy.
Right now, physical therapyprobably has as much of an
(14:25):
employee acquisition challengeas they do patient acquisition.
I think many physical therapyplaces have more of an employee
acquisition problem than patientacquisition.
They probably have enoughpatients.
They need to find the employees.
So part of this whole strategyof these six right fit target
markets is helping to have yourcultural messaging be in a way
(14:46):
that's accurate, Not bullshit.
Accurate Because if you tellpeople like, for instance, when
someone sees Mass Solutions,there's this button, it's the no
bullshit button, similar to theStaples button.
That's bullshit yes, that's myvoice.
Well, if you want to work hereand the word bullshit offends
you, you're not going to apply,because my cultural messaging
(15:07):
and my team's cultural messagingis accurate.
We are no-nonsense people.
We're compassionate andpassionate.
So we're compassionate towardseach other and our clients, but
we're passionate.
I'm not here to sell you on acommercial for me.
I'm trying to explain.
So when we work with any of ourcustomers, we want them to be
accurate in their culturalmessaging, because then they're
going to land people that fitand stay, and that's a big
(15:30):
challenge right now in thistalent situation, especially in
healthcare, which is probablyhalf to 60% of our business,
although 40% or more is otherall kinds of business,
professional service, et cetera,manufacturing.
So that's what to answer yourquestion the employees, the
prospective employees becomes abig part of it.
(15:51):
And then referral sources.
Here's what typically happenswith referral sources.
Let's take outside ofhealthcare first.
If you're a B2B company,someone in your company is out
there getting centers ofinfluence to refer to you,
someone is, and usually it's oneor two people that have great
relationships.
But if those two people get hitby the bus, the old line you
got hit by a bus got to makesure you got hit by a bus that
(16:12):
goes away because they've notsystematically looked at how
that was done.
And you're not going to takesomeone who's not good at that
and make them great.
But you can take someone thatdoesn't see that as a passion
and make them better.
You can take someone that'spretty good and make them really
good and the people that arereally good.
You keep them happy and stayout of their way.
But what ends up happeninginstead is there's not a
systematic way to look atreferral source marketing, so
(16:33):
you're reliant on one or twopeople.
At a company that has 50attorneys, you rely on one or
two people to bring in all thebusiness, and those two are
eventually going to leave orretire or something else.
So referral sources becomeimportant.
So all of these differentelements are hugely significant
and referrals in healthcare arepretty much everything.
You have to get one doctor torefer to another, you have to
(16:55):
get a hospital's case managersto refer to someone, so the
referral sources become huge.
But the key word is prospective, prospective employees and
prospective referral sourcesbecome huge.
But the key word is perspective, prospective employees and
prospective referral sources,because many marketers out there
will say, yeah, we worry aboutour employees, but not
prospective ones as much, andthere needs to be that whole
selling and marketing of yourcompany through cultural
(17:15):
messaging.
Eric Eden (17:16):
I like it because for a lot of businesses that are
services oriented which is thephysical therapy example you
gave professional servicesthere's a lot of businesses
where you just need great peoplein the business that match your
culture.
I think for a lot of companiesthat's not their primary focus
(17:41):
and I can see how their growthcan be determined by putting
that in the forefront.
And I really like the referralaspect and the prospective
referrals because it's reallyone of the most cost-effective
ways to grow as compared to, say, advertising, which can just be
really expensive.
(18:01):
I mean, it's a tactic but it'sexpensive and some people do
have good results with it.
But you know, I think that thereferrals the word of mouth is
is one of the best ways.
I think a lot of people shouldcheck out your book to get into
the details of how to executewhat you shared here.
How could people get people getyour book and learn more about
(18:23):
these strategies?
Dave Mastovich (18:25):
I'm going to make an offer for your
subscribers, viewers andlisteners.
If anyone watching this goes tomasssolutionsbiz
masssolutionsbizM-A-S-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-S.
Dot B, as in boy I-Z, if theygo there and subscribe to the
podcast.
When they subscribe, just goahead and give me a mailing
(18:48):
address and I will sign a copyof the book and mail it to them
at no charge, because I believein you and I appreciate you
having me on the show and I knowyou've got people out there
that are real marketers.
I'd be happy to do that, sothat's a way to get my book.
Eric Eden (19:03):
Amazing.
Thank you very much for makingthat offer.
I'd be happy to do that, sothat's a way to get my book
Amazing.
Thank you very much for makingthat offer.
I encourage everyone to checkit out.
I think the things you'veshared here should be inspiring
to a lot of people to do nobullshit marketing.
I'm going to link to that inthe show notes so you can easily
get to it.
Really appreciate you beingwith us today.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us.
Dave Mastovich (19:25):
Thanks, thanks for having me Enjoyed it.
We are talking about no bullshit marketing and we
have the perfect guest to helpus talk through that.
Dave Mastovich, welcome to theshow.
Dave Mastovich (00:10):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Eric Eden (00:13):
So why don't we start off by you just giving a
submitter to a little bit aboutwho you are and what you do?
Dave Mastovich (00:21):
Sure, I am the CEO and founder of Mass
Solutions and we tongue-in-cheeksay we're the world's only
no-bullshit marketingconsultancy, and I built that
company started about 20 yearsago.
We just celebrated our 20thanniversary.
I come from a background ofturnarounds and startups and
driving growth at largecompanies, one of which was $1
(00:42):
billion when I got there with aB and $10 billion within three
years healthcare system.
I also did turn around a coupleof radio stations, so all of
that enabled me to feel like Ihad experienced marketing, both
the bullshit kind and the nobullshit kind.
And so we built our no bullshitmarketing system years ago and
the book came out in Septemberand reached number one Amazon
(01:04):
bestseller.
And that's really what it's allabout, I guess.
Eric Eden (01:08):
Congrats.
20 years is a great milestoneand the book is a great way to
sort of memorialize some of thestrategies that you've put in
place.
So excited to talk about those,why don't we jump in?
And if you can share a story,we're ready to be inspired about
(01:29):
some of the best no bullshitmarketing that you've been able
to do in recent times.
Dave Mastovich (01:35):
Sure, and it's tough to always pick the best.
So I'll give you one story thatI think encapsulates a lot of
what I strive to talk about,with what real marketing is and
what no bullshit marketing is.
And so you, as a marketer, andall of your subscribers and
audience knows how challengingmarketing is for those of us
(01:55):
that do it to try to convinceour clients of it.
And one client that I workedwith and my team worked with was
we were brought in when thiscompany had about 19 locations
and they were looking to drivemassive growth, and the credit
goes to the leadership team andtheir employees for that massive
growth.
But we were a part of itbecause they entrusted us to
(02:16):
drive both customer acquisitionand also employee retention and
acquisition, and also employeeretention and acquisition, and
those things led, our effortsled that company to end up
growing from 19 locations toabout a hundred and their
enterprise value grew to thepoint where they wanted it to
grow to and they were able tothen sell that company at the
(02:38):
multiplier that they wanted toachieve.
And a lot of that happenedbecause we were able to do the
key marketing to their three keytarget markets, their three
right fit target markets, andwe're able to define those
markets, drill down into thosemarkets and really understand
them, talk to them, hear fromthem and then build the
marketing based on the scienceand math that we had done in the
(03:02):
systematically gatheringinsights phase of our no
bullshit process.
And so we were able to workwith them and continually
enhance and tweak theirmarketing, their patient
acquisition, their customeracquisition, and ultimately it
resulted in that 5X growth andthe growth of their enterprise
value and the sell of thecompany.
And I tell that story becauseit encompassed really all of
(03:22):
what we do over a number ofyears and truly was no bullshit
marketing.
Eric Eden (03:29):
So that's a great story.
5x growth is definitelyremarkable.
Let me ask you, what isbullshit marketing?
Look like, like.
What is the enemy here?
Dave Mastovich (03:43):
Okay, so bullshit.
Marketing is a couple of things.
It's starts with, I guess you'dsay, random acts of marketing.
That would be the first thingthat I would describe.
And random acts of marketingare when people are doing
marketing tactics, marketing taxuh tactics and uh marketing
(04:03):
campaigns and so forth that aremarketing task oriented.
And so they're random acts ofmarketing because the phrase you
hear a lot is oh, they madethis look pretty or they were
able to turn this into a video.
And those random acts ofmarketing end up frustrating
pretty much everyone involved.
So if you talk to a CEO or anowner entrepreneur of a company
(04:26):
or their CFO or even their COO,what you'll hear is a
frustration with marketing.
They say things like I don'tknow what goes on once we send
it down there to marketing.
I don't know what I'm spendingmy money for, I don't know what
my ROI is, and that all comesfrom it being random acts of
(04:46):
marketing as opposed to having asystematic way to gather
insights and define the targetmarkets and hear from the target
markets voice of the customerresearch, drill those target
markets down and build the storybased on what you've learned
from behavioral science and thenhave campaigns that work around
that.
So far too often we asmarketers have caused the
(05:12):
problem in that we have nottaken the time to do the
systematically gatheringinsights and let the behavioral
science, the math, drive ourdecision-making and make the
creative about that, or it'sgone the whole other way.
Now there are quants involvedwith marketing who go way too
far on the quant side and thinkthat every single thing in
marketing can be measurable andthey lose track of the emotion
(05:33):
side of it.
So it's reaching that balanceand ultimately it's also about
the six target markets thatmatter, and that's the key to no
bullshit marketing.
Eric Eden (05:49):
And you've developed a number of ways to fight
against the bad practices there.
I think you outline 17strategies in your book.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat some of those are and why
they work?
Dave Mastovich (06:03):
Yeah.
So the most important one isknowing and living with and
driving towards reaching,connecting, engaging those six
target markets that matter.
They're the six right fittarget markets and I'll go
through them quickly.
So the first is one everyonewill know, and that's current
customers.
Okay, so you got to focus onthat.
The second one everyone willknow, and that's prospective
(06:26):
customers.
I think marketers tend to knowthose and do those, maybe, okay,
but then it's current employeesand prospective employees.
That's four.
And then current referralsources or centers of influence
and prospective referral sourcesor centers of influence and
prospective referral sources orcenters of influence.
Those are the six right fittarget markets that matter.
(06:46):
First, defining that andacknowledging that that's the
key audiences and then drillingdown each of those six audiences
.
That's the first key point.
There'll be a second one, but Iwant to pause to let you, in
case you have any questions,about the six right fit target
markets that matter.
Eric Eden (07:02):
I think that's great .
I do think that having thatmindset of employees, current
customers, prospective customersand referrals I think people
undercook the referrals part ofit a lot.
So I think having that framingis a good place to start the
framework.
So continue please.
So that means business toeveryone.
B it's a good place to startthe framework so.
So continue please.
Dave Mastovich (07:21):
So so that that means business to everyone, b to
E, and that's what we talkabout.
B to E is business to everyone.
It's those six right fit targetmarkets that matter.
So it's not about B to B and Bto C, it's about B to E and it's
not saying that every singlehuman being with everyone,
that's it's being dramatic.
And saying business to everyonemeans the six right fit target
markets that matter and drillingthem down.
Now, once you've done that, thesecond is understanding,
(07:44):
clarifying and defining youradvantage.
I talk to customers andprospects on a daily basis and
if I go into a new client whichwe just added one last week, and
when we go in this week to thisnew client, we'll end up
talking to probably five, sixpeople on the leadership team
separately.
And when we ask them what'stheir differentiator, what's
their advantage, what's theircompetitive advantage, what's
(08:08):
the one thing that makes themunique, we will get five
different answers.
If we talk to five people andif we talk to their customers,
we'll get a different answer.
So the first thing is clearlyis those right fit target
markets.
Make sure you define them andunderstand them.
The second is go out and talk tothose right fit target
audiences to understand whatyour advantage is and once
you've defined that advantagearound your big idea your why or
(08:31):
reason for being and yourcustomer's why or reason for
buying answer those two whyquestions and come up with one
big idea your why or reason forbeing, your customer's why or
reason for buying.
That's defining your advantage.
So if you have those six rightfit target markets and then
defined your advantage, it'sthen about the execution.
The problem is, far too manymarketers jump right to what's
(08:54):
the creative going to be, what'sthe execution going to be,
what's the campaign going to be,but they haven't done those
first two things well.
Eric Eden (09:06):
I think that's a great framing and solves the
problem of random acts ofmarketing.
Like you were saying, you havea strategy, you know who you're
going after, you know whatyou're going to say and that's
probably where the rubber meetsthe road.
The rubber meets the road.
What percentage of people doyou think don't have this
framework in place and are justout there doing random marketing
(09:28):
?
It seems like it's a higherpercentage than people would
guess.
Probably it's got to be huge.
Dave Mastovich (09:33):
I don't want to be negative, but I'll just say
it's the majority and it's asignificant majority, and part
of the problem is us.
Part of the problem ismarketers.
So what happens is somebodybecomes an expert in, let's say,
google ads, so they thinkGoogle ads is marketing in their
mind.
Another person becomes a goodsalesperson, so they think sales
(09:55):
is marketing.
Another person becomes good atvideo, so they think video is
marketing, and so on down theline.
It's more about that broaderperspective of understanding
that marketing is aboutsystematically gathering
insights so you can define thosetarget markets, find out what
they want, develop it and giveit to them when and where they
(10:17):
want it at a price they'rewilling to pay, and then tell
them about it again and again.
The problem is that last piece.
To tell them about it again andagain is what all those
examples I gave you think about.
The Google ads person thinksabout how do I tell them about
it again and again?
The video person thinks how doI tell them about it again and
again?
The person that does salesthinks how do I tell them about
(10:39):
it again and again?
But it starts with clearlydefining those six right fit
target markets and drill themdown then find out what they
want so you can develop it.
Tweak what you already have,develop it based on what you
learned.
Give it to them when and wherethey want it, at a price they're
willing to pay.
Pricing is part of marketing.
When I talk to people early intheir marketing career, I say,
if you're doing marketing in theproper format and you're
(11:02):
defining these target marketsand you're going out and hearing
from them, you can play animpact on what the price ought
to be and develop the price foryour product and you can help
tweak the service.
You know how many times when Iwas in.
I'm in a lot of healthcareexperience and I have people say
to me what are you doing,telling us what we need to do?
You're not a doctor, you're nota nurse, and I say but I'm the
(11:25):
one and my teams are the onethat understand what the
customer wants and needs.
So we have to give them that.
If we want to be competitive,we have to make that our
advantage.
We have to tweak our productand service in a way that
achieves what the customer andthe market bears, and that's why
pricing is part of marketingand that's why the actual
service offering is part ofmarketing.
(11:45):
You play a role in all that ifyou're doing your job.
Instead, when you're inmarketing and doing the random
acts of marketing, they put youoff in a corner.
They don't even give you a seatat the table.
Or if they give you a seat atthe table, they don't listen.
The leadership table is whatI'm talking about.
They put you off in the corner,don't really hear from you,
don't give you proper authority,because they're saying to you
(12:07):
you're going to make it lookpretty, you're going to do what
we tell you to, you're going togo market what we think needs
marketed.
Well, that's okay, they mighthave a general idea, but they're
not the main people.
The customer is those six rightfit target markets have to be
asked what they want and think.
And then you come back andtweak it.
So when you're the one that'sbeing told, go create an ad for
this reason and go do this eventand make it look great.
(12:30):
You had one person got evaluated.
We were doing a mentoringprogram for that client.
They said would you mentor ourone of our marketing leaders?
And she said you know I, I getevaluated on the golf outing.
That's one piece of how I getevaluated.
And I said what if it rains?
And she said I guess things goa mess.
And I said, yeah, and you hadnothing to do with the rain,
(12:51):
unless you have some powers Idon't know about.
So you want to be able to havehad the true marketing seat at
the table, not just making thegolf outing look good and hope
it doesn't rain and not justmaking the video look good.
So that's part of the problemis we've got people in the space
who aren't understanding theirmore global perspective or
(13:12):
aren't pushing for it, orthey're trying to get it and
their leadership's not going toallow it.
Eric Eden (13:19):
I think it's a great point that a lot of times
marketers just get focused onthe campaigns, the programs
they're running, what channelsand tactics they're using and
they don't really have theoverall strategy there with
clients.
(13:39):
Over the years.
Has it driven great resultslike the 5X growth that you were
talking about?
Have you seen different flavorsof that happening?
And I'm curious, employeesbeing great advocates because
they understand the message andreferrals.
I'm curious.
What percentage of the pie arethose when people are living the
(14:01):
dream?
Dave Mastovich (14:03):
I'm curious what percentage of the pie are those
when people are living thedream?
Well, there's a couple ofthings the acquisition of
employees I guess acquisition isnot the greatest word, but I'm
comparing it to customeracquisition and employee
acquisition.
When you land the employees andthe talent that you need, that
drives growth.
So, for instance, there'scertain industries in healthcare
, one being, let's say, physicaltherapy.
Right now, physical therapyprobably has as much of an
(14:25):
employee acquisition challengeas they do patient acquisition.
I think many physical therapyplaces have more of an employee
acquisition problem than patientacquisition.
They probably have enoughpatients.
They need to find the employees.
So part of this whole strategyof these six right fit target
markets is helping to have yourcultural messaging be in a way
(14:46):
that's accurate, Not bullshit.
Accurate Because if you tellpeople like, for instance, when
someone sees Mass Solutions,there's this button, it's the no
bullshit button, similar to theStaples button.
That's bullshit yes, that's myvoice.
Well, if you want to work hereand the word bullshit offends
you, you're not going to apply,because my cultural messaging
(15:07):
and my team's cultural messagingis accurate.
We are no-nonsense people.
We're compassionate andpassionate.
So we're compassionate towardseach other and our clients, but
we're passionate.
I'm not here to sell you on acommercial for me.
I'm trying to explain.
So when we work with any of ourcustomers, we want them to be
accurate in their culturalmessaging, because then they're
going to land people that fitand stay, and that's a big
(15:30):
challenge right now in thistalent situation, especially in
healthcare, which is probablyhalf to 60% of our business,
although 40% or more is otherall kinds of business,
professional service, et cetera,manufacturing.
So that's what to answer yourquestion the employees, the
prospective employees becomes abig part of it.
(15:51):
And then referral sources.
Here's what typically happenswith referral sources.
Let's take outside ofhealthcare first.
If you're a B2B company,someone in your company is out
there getting centers ofinfluence to refer to you,
someone is, and usually it's oneor two people that have great
relationships.
But if those two people get hitby the bus, the old line you
got hit by a bus got to makesure you got hit by a bus that
(16:12):
goes away because they've notsystematically looked at how
that was done.
And you're not going to takesomeone who's not good at that
and make them great.
But you can take someone thatdoesn't see that as a passion
and make them better.
You can take someone that'spretty good and make them really
good and the people that arereally good.
You keep them happy and stayout of their way.
But what ends up happeninginstead is there's not a
systematic way to look atreferral source marketing, so
(16:33):
you're reliant on one or twopeople.
At a company that has 50attorneys, you rely on one or
two people to bring in all thebusiness, and those two are
eventually going to leave orretire or something else.
So referral sources becomeimportant.
So all of these differentelements are hugely significant
and referrals in healthcare arepretty much everything.
You have to get one doctor torefer to another, you have to
(16:55):
get a hospital's case managersto refer to someone, so the
referral sources become huge.
But the key word is prospective, prospective employees and
prospective referral sourcesbecome huge.
But the key word is perspective, prospective employees and
prospective referral sources,because many marketers out there
will say, yeah, we worry aboutour employees, but not
prospective ones as much, andthere needs to be that whole
selling and marketing of yourcompany through cultural
(17:15):
messaging.
Eric Eden (17:16):
I like it because for a lot of businesses that are
services oriented which is thephysical therapy example you
gave professional servicesthere's a lot of businesses
where you just need great peoplein the business that match your
culture.
I think for a lot of companiesthat's not their primary focus
(17:41):
and I can see how their growthcan be determined by putting
that in the forefront.
And I really like the referralaspect and the prospective
referrals because it's reallyone of the most cost-effective
ways to grow as compared to, say, advertising, which can just be
really expensive.
(18:01):
I mean, it's a tactic but it'sexpensive and some people do
have good results with it.
But you know, I think that thereferrals the word of mouth is
is one of the best ways.
I think a lot of people shouldcheck out your book to get into
the details of how to executewhat you shared here.
How could people get people getyour book and learn more about
(18:23):
these strategies?
Dave Mastovich (18:25):
I'm going to make an offer for your
subscribers, viewers andlisteners.
If anyone watching this goes tomasssolutionsbiz
masssolutionsbizM-A-S-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-S.
Dot B, as in boy I-Z, if theygo there and subscribe to the
podcast.
When they subscribe, just goahead and give me a mailing
(18:48):
address and I will sign a copyof the book and mail it to them
at no charge, because I believein you and I appreciate you
having me on the show and I knowyou've got people out there
that are real marketers.
I'd be happy to do that, sothat's a way to get my book.
Eric Eden (19:03):
Amazing.
Thank you very much for makingthat offer.
I'd be happy to do that, sothat's a way to get my book
Amazing.
Thank you very much for makingthat offer.
I encourage everyone to checkit out.
I think the things you'veshared here should be inspiring
to a lot of people to do nobullshit marketing.
I'm going to link to that inthe show notes so you can easily
get to it.
Really appreciate you beingwith us today.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us.
Dave Mastovich (19:25):
Thanks, thanks for having me Enjoyed it.
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