The MOCK Framework

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we reach our Ideal Customer Persona.

When I take a step back and look at the vastness of the marketing and sales world in SaaS, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

The thought of “Do More Marketing” is as daunting as it is unhelpful.

To that end, I’ve tried to really restrict myself from doing marketing in places, in ways, and to people, that just aren’t important.

Of course figuring out what’s important (and what’s not) is hard. But I think I’m settling into a framework that I like, and it is the MOCK framework.

Let me explain.

I was on a coaching call last week where a client said “We’re running some Meta ads, we’re doing cold outreach on LinkedIn, and we’re ramping up our YouTube channel…it’s a lot but we’re starting to see some traction from some of the channels”.

This is a 4 person company.

I restrained myself from losing my shit, but worked with the client to help them realize that they were just spreading themselves too thin.

It is impossible for a 4 person team to effectively master more than one customer acquisition channel. Heck, I’d even say that until you’re a Marketing team of at least 4 you should stick to just one channel.

3 channels, probably to 3 different types of audiences, and probably with 3 different messages. I can’t do the math on that, but that’s a lot of variables to try and decipher.

Instead, I posit, that if you’re <$3M ARR you should only have

1 Message

1 Offer

1 Channel

1 KPI

This is the M.O.C.K. Framework.

Message

By forcing yourself to go all-in on just 1 message, you’ll hammer that term, that thought, that ideology over and over in your market. And eventually your brand will be known for that.

Think about Hubspot and “Inbound Marketing” or ConvertKit and “Teach what you know”

and on the personal brand side, Justin Welsh and “Solopreneur”. Matt Paulson “Email Newsletter” (before they were cool even). Andrew Gazdecki of Acquire and “life changing exit”.

These people, these brands, all bang the drum. Relentlessly, on one topic, forever.

What is the message, the ethos, the brand identity you want your company to be known for?

Offer

What value do you bring to the market? What is the unique angle you provide that nobody else in the industry can?

It’s never been more competitive in SaaS, and probably won’t get less competitive in the future. So how are you standing out in the solution that you’re providing.

Here I like the Vertical SaaS model. You can be:

A CRM for Plumbers

A Website for Gyms

An X for Y

Doesn’t matter, just pick a lane and stay in it.

Channel

Pretty self explanatory here, but in practice this is the hardest one to master.

In fact, I have to admit something.

Late last year I put out on Twitter a boastful goal of releasing 200 YouTube videos this year. Because I thought (and still do in the depths of my mind) that YouTube is THE CHANNEL that most of us should be focusing on.

But, reality check, it’s really, really hard to do YouTube well, and it’s not where most of our existing traction has come from. Either for me personally or for Castos.

So I have a “channel misalignment” issue. The channel I want to be ‘the one’ just isn’t.

For Castos it’s always been Inbound Marketing, and for me personally it’s been LinkedIn lately. So I have to focus on those channels, and tune everything out.

Have to admit, this is the hardest because if you’re not everywhere, posting on every channel, doing everything at once, with your hair on fire, you feel like you’re missing out.

Where in reality I think that forcing yourself to focus on one channel and make that channel work, you have a greater chance of being successful.

Less is more sometimes.

KPI

Yep, good ole jargon. Key Performance Indicators are the heartbeat of a company. Or at least they represent the heartbeat.

How could you possibly know if you’re doing a good job, or not, if you’re not measuring the outcomes of your efforts. This is KPIs.

But the challenge doesn’t come down to measuring stuff…god knows there’s more data than you can shake a stick at in any business. It’s knowing the One Thing to focus on.

<as an aside, if you haven’t read The One Thing, do yourself a favor and pick it up. Life changing>

Once you know what this One Thing is, focus maniacally on it.

Ours at Castos is New Trial Starts. Everything leads to that, or then is derived from that. Here’s what I mean.

Blog posts, website traffic, email signups to nurture campaigns, retargetting, etc. are all inputs that lead to Trials.

Trial-to-Conversion ratio, churn, MRR, and cash in the bank are all the outputs that are derived from new trial starts.

What is that one pivotal metric for you?

Putting This Into Action

I’m self-reflecting a lot as I write this, because I currently have 3 different Chrome windows open, each with like 10 tabs. So I’m just as guilty as you are of trying to do too much.

But I know in my heart that hammering one message, with one offer, on one channel, with one KPI in mind is what will lead to success.

Now it’s time to put the blinders on, say NO a whole lot, and get focused.