EPISODE SUMMARY
Articulating your ‘why’, how’, and ‘what’ are each important factors of transforming your business. In episode 487, Dave Mastovich elaborates on how to effectively answer questions about your company and why they matter to each of your target audiences.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
It’s the No Bullshit Marketing Show. I’m Dave Mastovich, CEO and founder of MASSolutions, the world’s only No Bullshit Marketing consultancy. Today, I want to go through changing behaviors that transform companies. We talk at MASSolutions about that. We talk about changing behaviors and mindsets of your key target audiences. And we stress on finding those target audiences and drilling down because if you understand those target audiences, it enables you to do all the work around them, the marketing and the storytelling. But today, I want to talk to you about what we go through as consumers and what that means to us as business people. Because to change behaviors in a way that can transform your company, you want to be able to articulate the why, and that why comes down to two why questions: your why or reason for being and your customers’ why or reason for buying. That is a handful, it’s a lot of work. It’s defining two key things: understanding your why, your reason for being and being able to articulate it so it matters to the target, but you have to understand their why, their reason for buying and each of your segments will have different reasons for buying. Once you’re able to do that hard work of taking those two why questions and have one big idea that can tell your story in a way that resonates with each target audience – each target audience, current and prospective customers or clients, current and prospective employees, current and prospective referral sources, centers of influence that can recommend you – once you’ve defined them, two why questions, your why or reason for being, and your customers’ why or reason for buying, and then you do that one big idea, cognizant of those six target audiences that earlier I said because it’s current and prospective employees, current and prospective customers, current and prospective referral sources, you then have to go into touching on the how. The how, and there’s two parts of the how as well.
So we’ve got a theme going, there’s two why questions, and there’s two parts of the how. You have to be able to explain how you do things in a way that brings credibility and shows you’re an expert, but not so detailed that you lose the target. Now mea culpa here, MASSolutions, because of me and my style and some of my team, we sometimes get all amped about the how. And you have to watch, because our clients don’t care about the four or five, six segmentation model. It sounds like something good, but they do care that they can break down their customers like Starbucks, Dunkin and their other local coffee shops does. And that’s what the 4,5,6 segmentation model does. So when we’re not at our best, we focus too much on the how in a way that means something to us, the practitioners of marketing. Our clients do that too. And we have to work with them. And you might do that too. You might talk too much about the how in words, acronyms. Healthcare is famous for acronyms. Most industries are, and technical jargon. So when you can explain your how, you’re doing it at a level that makes enough impact that you gain credibility. That who you’re talking to says, ‘Yeah, I can see them making that happen. They seem to know what they’re doing.’
And the second, how is how can that person do the things you’re suggesting? Because most of us when we’re selling a customer or client, we’re selling something that helps them but they then still have to do something with it. An architect can design that but they still have to get that built. The physician can tell you what to do in health care, but we as patients still have to do things. A marketing firm, even the No Bullshit one, relies on the client doing the things that we recommend. So the second part of your how is explaining how they can benefit and implement what you are recommending.
And then the other part about changing behaviors to transform your company is showing them the what. What is that final result? What is the end deliverable? What is the outcome? When you’re able to be aware of each of these points, and build a story that’s true, that’s accurate, that’s not just hyperbole, for every step of the way, the two Ys become one big idea. The two hows bring credibility, and people can understand and believe that they can do it if you’re not there. And the what is the final outcome? The final result? You have to think about that, and you have to build questions to ask your target markets to get you more and more information to build your story, to achieve those two whys, those two hows, and the what, and to be able to articulate that in a meaningful way that makes an emotional impact and builds trust. Because when you do that, you have the storytelling in place to reach those six target audiences that I mentioned, to change behaviors and mindsets and transform companies.
So what do I mean by you have to ask questions? One of the first questions that we ask is we say, ‘Tell us how you make money so we can help you make more.’ Why is that important? That’s important to any type of marketing company, PR company, management consultant, financial consultants, accounting firms. It’s an important question. Tell us how you make money so we can help you make more. And when that question is asked, all kinds of things happen. Sometimes people struggle to answer it. Sometimes people aren’t comfortable answering it. Sometimes people answer pretty well. But that’s an example of a question. You need to have your series of questions, your go-to questions to ask. So in addition to that, we ask who you’re trying to reach and why. What’s the one thing that keeps your customers coming back again and again? What’s the one thing that employees would like to change? So when you ask questions like this and you’re able to listen intently, listen intently, listen actively, not passively, you’re getting the information that helps you to answer those two why questions. You’re getting the information to help you decide what you’re going to explain with how you do what you do, and how they can do what you’re recommending. And you’re getting information about how to build the what, the outcome that’s going to make the most impact for them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. It doesn’t have to be a marketing firm. It doesn’t have to be a management consultant. Doesn’t have to be a healthcare company. Doesn’t have to be a professional services firm. It could be an energy company. It could be a manufacturer. It could be a distributor. It can be any type of company that has to ask these questions, and listen actively so they can go back and figure out how to answer those two why questions accurately, how to build the two hows, how you’re going to do what you do, in terms that doesn’t intimidate and doesn’t make them think they don’t know what they’re talking about, and how they’re going to implement what you’ve recommended for them to buy. And then ultimately, the what, the final deliverable, the change outcome, what they are actually buying. 
When you’re able to ask the right questions, and there’s no right questions. Scratch that. When you’re able to ask multiple questions that are open-ended to get more and more and more information, and when you can listen actively and track that information, and then go and start to craft the two whys into one big idea, the two hows, how you’re going to do what you do to get credibility and show them you know what you’re doing and you have experience and expertise, and how they’re going to implement what you do for them without letting it sit on a shelf or without feeling intimidated, unable to do it. And then what, the what, what is the outcome, the deliverable of what all this is? When you do that, you can then build stories that change behaviors and mindsets that transform companies because you’re able to reach, connect, engage, and change behaviors and mindsets of current and prospective employees. That’s vital to transforming a company. You’re also able to achieve growth by changing behaviors and mindsets of current and prospective customers. Current customers might buy more of what they need, and less of stuff that was cumbersome that you’re doing just to get it done to keep the client happy. Prospective customers might begin to trust you more because they understand the why, and the how and the what. So prospective customers buy from you when they weren’t. And then you also can reach out to people who can be strategic partners and can refer to you and talk about you and connect you with others because they now believe in you and understand your why, your how, and your what. That’s how you change behaviors and mindsets to transform companies through real marketing and top and bottom line storytelling. That’s the biggest reason that I’m here in front of you on camera, on audio, is I’m passionate about changing behaviors and mindsets that transformed companies. I’m passionate about real marketing, No Bullshit Marketing. And I’m passionate about leveraging the power of storytelling, with the science behind it, and the behavioral science driving the creative art. I want to help as many people in the world to do those things, to be able to leverage storytelling, leverage real marketing, and to change behaviors and mindsets that will transform your company. If you’d like to learn more about all this stuff, visit MASSolutions.biz.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the No Bullshit Marketing Show recorded here in MASSolutions studio in bold, beautiful, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Remember, ask yourself, what’s the big idea? And build your story around the answer. It’s all about bold solutions. No BS.
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