The 10-Minute Marketing Fix · Podcast
One real business problem. One durable idea. One move you can make Monday.
Brian brings the principle. Dave brings the business that refuses to cooperate with it. In about ten minutes they work out what applies, what doesn’t, and the one move worth making Monday.
One durable principle, worked through a business you can recognize, including where it stops working.
How every episode works
A problem you’d recognize. An idea that holds up. One move you can make.
The real problem
Dave brings a recognizable business and an honest complaint. Brian reframes it as a different problem than the one Dave walked in with.
The principle, worked
One durable idea, credited to the person who popularized it, applied to Dave’s actual situation, including where the idea stops helping.
The Monday Move
One concrete action a normal operator can take with no budget. One move, not a project plan.
Season 1
The episodes
I Give Away Tons of Value and Get Nothing Back, Reciprocity
A business coach publishes great free guides, runs free discovery calls, and gives away real advice, and almost none of it turns into paid work.
I Have Three Tiers and Everyone Picks the Cheapest, the Decoy Effect (and Why I Won’t Build You One)
You built three pricing tiers, and nearly every customer picks the cheapest one instead of the plan you actually want them on.
Every Client Says I'm Too Expensive, Anchoring
A wedding photographer whose prospects keep flinching at the quote and calling him too expensive doesn't actually have a price problem, he has a first-number problem.
I'm Doing Every Channel and None Is Working, the Bullseye Framework
An app founder is doing a little of every marketing channel, exhausted, and nothing is moving.
Half My Ad Money Is Wasted, Scientific Advertising
A retail owner spends real money across Facebook, radio, print, and Google, and can't say which channel brought in her last twenty customers.
The Meeting Goes Great but the Proposal Dies, the Principles of Persuasion
A financial advisor has great first meetings and then watches clean proposals die on "let me think about it." Brian and Dave find what the ones who do sign show up already carrying — proof and trust from other people — and walk all seven of the principles of persuasion popularized by Robert Cialdini in "Influence," with unity added later in "Pre-Suasion." They get into using only the signals that are actually true, the ethical line between persuasion and manipulation, and — because this is a regulated business — why a client's permission is not the compliance standard for a testimonial.
Every New Customer Costs Me More, the Marketing Hourglass
A dental practice is on an acquisition treadmill — every new patient comes from ads that cost more each year, and nothing is built for the patients they already have.
We Were Flying, Then We Stalled, Crossing the Chasm
A B2B software founder rode a wave of scrappy early customers, then watched growth stall as pragmatic buyers keep asking "who else like us is using this?" Brian and Dave name the wall — the chasm, from the playbook Geoffrey Moore popularized in "Crossing the Chasm," building on the older technology-adoption lifecycle.
I Can't Afford to Buy a Customer, Customer Lifetime Value
A coffee subscription-box founder caps acquisition at fifteen dollars — the price of the first box — and every channel looks tapped out.
I'm Underpriced and Scared to Fix It, Price Elasticity
A bookkeeper has held her rates flat for five years because she's sure raising them means everybody walks.
My Cold Ads Get Clicks and No Sales, Market Awareness
Cold ads get clicks and no sales. The click was never the problem, the awareness gap was.
They Love My Free Stuff and Won't Buy, Voice of Customer
They love the free stuff and never buy. The words that sell are already in their mouths.
I Blast Thousands and Nobody Bites, the Dream 100
Blasting thousands and nobody bites. The fix is a smaller list, chosen on purpose, not a bigger one.
They Admit It's Better and Still Won't Switch, Loss Aversion
They agree your tool is better and still won’t move. What they’re protecting isn’t logic.
The Logo Was Never the Problem, Positioning
Everyone in the market sounds the same. A new logo can’t give the business a position of its own.
They Cancel and Say the Food Was Great, Jobs to Be Done
Five stars on the way out the door, then they cancel. The food was never the job they hired it to do.
My Free Trial Is Packed and Nobody Buys, the Value Equation
The gym is full all week and almost nobody joins. Extending the free trial may be the thing making the offer worse.
The Cheapest Quote That Still Lost, the Strategy of Preeminence
An HVAC owner comes in six hundred dollars cheaper and still loses the furnace job. The problem was never the quote.
A new episode every Monday through the winter.
The Operator’s Letter
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The Operator’s Canon, in writing
Prefer to read it?
The same ideas live on as written entries in The Operator’s Canon, with the principle, its sources, the caveats, and the operator application in full. Read it or listen to it, same canon.
Listen wherever you already listen
Every app, one feed.
Your host
Brian Kasday
A direct-response operator, still learning, not a guru. Brian writes The Operator’s Library for MMS Vegas and hosts The 10-Minute Marketing Fix: enduring marketing ideas, named honestly and put to work on the kind of business you actually run.
Episodes are written and edited by MMS Vegas, then produced with synthetic voices. Brian carries the point of view. “Dave” is a recurring co-host who inhabits a different operator’s business each week, so the principle always has a specific business problem to push against.