Winning Your Customer's Trust and Business: A Guide for Entrepreneurs with Marcus Sheridan

Marcus: [00:00:00] if we try to be lukewarm about everything, what we do is we water down. And you don't become known.

You don't stand out. And that's what so many companies that are listening to this right now are struggling with, Allan. Because they're so afraid to do anything extraordinary, anything different. Again, talk about, show, sell, in a very different way than anybody in their space has ever done. Man, they're in trouble.

Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Allan Dib. And on the Lean Marketing Podcast, it's all about getting bigger results by actually doing less marketing. Today, I'm super excited. I got a very special guest with me today. I've been using him as a case study with my clients, with people that I talk about in my content for a long time.

The longest time and I had the privilege of hanging out with him for a couple of days in Nashville quite recently. And you know, he's even better in person than I knew him before. He's a really top guy. I had a great time. Welcome to the show, Marcus [00:01:00] Sheridan.

Marcus: Yeah, man, it's great. to uh, be here and it was a great couple of days and I'm sure we're going to have just a wonderful conversation. So I'm looking forward to this buddy.

Allan: Thank you, man. Thank you. So for those who don't know you your claim to fame is you had a pool company in 2008. It was kind of struggling with new builds, just everyone canceled their orders because there was the property crisis, the whole financial crisis.

And you started basically creating content. and you were answering essentially questions people had about pools, you know, how much power do I need? How much gas do I need to heat it? And that content started attracting a lot of traffic to your website. You started getting a lot of orders, you started getting a lot of interest, and it became essentially the number one pool related website.

You wrote a book. book called They Ask, You Answer, which essentially outlines that strategy. How did I go? what did I miss?

And,

Marcus: Yeah, I think, you played it pretty well. Yeah. I mean, you know, the great thing about crises and [00:02:00] pain like we had in 2008 and like some might be experiencing right now, Allan, is it forces us to do things that we necessarily haven't done before. we don't have anything to lose at that point, right?

We can send it. you know, we were about to file bankruptcy and I started to really study those phrases like inbound marketing, content marketing, which were new phrases at the time. by the way, right? They were just really starting to take hold. And when I heard, to your point, and my simple pool guy mind was, you know, Marcus, if you just obsess over the questions, the worries, the fears, the concerns that they have during the buying process, and you're willing to address those online on your website, on video, et cetera, you might save your business.

And so, yeah, we became the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. But I think the key was, Allan, is that we were willing to go where nobody had gone before with respect to our content. And that's the big divide.

Allan: when you say you, went where no one had gone before. I assume it's kind of like the level of transparency or, and correct me if I'm wrong, because swimming pool pricing, [00:03:00] swimming pool specifications, all of that seems to be like a very opaque market. It's not easy to get a lot of good information around what I need.

And you generally have to talk to a salesperson. Someone has to come and measure and do all of that stuff. Is that what you mean, or was there something else?

Marcus: Yeah, let me give you two frameworks here, and this can be applied to any business.

Anybody that's listening to this, and I think you're going to appreciate this if you really, just lean into what I'm saying So if you want to become really that voice of trust in the market today,Then you've got to be willing to do four things.

I believe number one, you got to be willing to talk about online what others in your space for the most part aren't willing to talk about. Number two, you got to be willing to show with video what others in your space aren't willing to show. Number three, you got to be willing to sell in a way others aren't willing to sell.

And number four, in the process of doing this, you need to be more human than everyone else. Now, Let's just look at you got to be willing to talk about and you got to be willing to show [00:04:00] what others aren't willing to talk about and show. Well, to break that down in its most simplest form, There's essentially five subjects that buyers are obsessed with.

You, me, Allan. Things that we always research before we engage a company, before we buy a product, before we buy a service. It doesn't matter if it's B2B. It doesn't matter if it's B2C. There's five things people just research over and over again. And they just picked it up naturally over the course of the last 30 years as we've been using the internet.

A lot of them didn't realize it. So what are the five things? You mentioned one, cost and price. We are obsessed with understanding. Cost and price, you research cost and price. Everybody does it before they engage a product or service company. Number two, we want to know what can go wrong. How can this blow up in my face?

All right. We call that problems, right? The negatives, the fears, the issues, the concerns. All right. So that's number two. Number three, comparisons. we love to compare stuff online. Think about how many times you've compared one thing versus another online.

We're obsessed about comparing brands, [00:05:00] products, accessories, options, services, the whole nine. Number four, reviews. But the thing about reviews is we don't just want the good reviews. We want the good, the bad, and the ugly. We want to see both sides of the coin. And then finally, number five, Best. Best, most, top.

Think, like, if you're listening to this right now, how many times have you gone online and searched best, such and such? Maybe it's your town, maybe it's, you know, whatever. So those are the big five. Cost, problems, comparisons, reviews, best. Now here's what's beautiful. They literally run the economy in terms of the way people search, yet businesses don't like to talk about these five things.

And it gets even worse if you're a B2B service based business because then Most. I mean, they're just terrible when it comes to transparency. Every company says we believe in transparency, very few do it. And even though we have tools like AI that can produce all the content in the world, it doesn't matter because most companies still won't address these [00:06:00] fundamental things because they're coming from a place of fear and not coming from a place of abundance and not coming thinking, golden rule, what would I want in this situation if I was the buyer?

Allan: So when you talk about transparency, are you talking about like the specifications of the product, who it's for, who it isn't for maybe. And I think part of it is talking about who this is not for. Like, this is not a good fit for you if, one, two, three, if you're this type of buyer, if you're in this type of situation like expand a little bit on the transparency

Marcus: Very much so. So there's a whole bunch on this, right? We could go in every direction. In fact, every one of the big five. But let's just talk about fit for a second. A couple things I teach companies. Number one, you should have a page on your website that says who you're not a good fit for. Okay? And most companies have never actually articulated who they're not a good fit for.

I'm not talking in a sarcastic or snarky way. I'm talking in a very, like, serious, honest way. So. The same applies to, let's [00:07:00] say you were doing a review for a product for a company, whatever, right? How many times have you seen, let's say, some car dealership do a review on a vehicle and say, But, by the way, you would want this vehicle if You see, they never do that.

They only say, here's why this vehicle is awesome. Here's why it's great. Here's why it's wonderful. Right? Again, it doesn't matter if it's B2B or B2C. It's the same thing. And so, when you are willing to say what you're not, or what a product or service is not, now it becomes dramatically more attractive to those who it is a good fit for.

Let me give you an example. My swimming Pool Company. I'm still an owner of my swimming Pool Company. We sold the manufacturing side because of all the success that we had. But I still own the original river pools in Virginia. And we just sell fiberglass. So if I was going to talk about fiberglass in a way that would most attract, the most people, I would say something like this.

Let's say it was a comparison article or video. I might say, you know, folks come to us all the time and they're saying, what is the difference [00:08:00] between concrete and fiberglass pools? I mean, which one is actually the best fit for me? Well, the reality is. fiberglass isn't always the best fit. In fact, there are times when concrete is the better option.

Now, what this video or what this article is going to do, it's going to explain to you the pros and the cons of both types of swimming pools. And by the end, you'll have a very clear sense as to which is the best fit for you. Now, let's just break down that intro that I just did, because there's a lot of psychology that goes into that.

I come out the gate and I immediately state your question. right? The way that you would say it, not the way that I want. It's the way that you would say it, the way that you would think it. They ask, you answer, right? All right. That's number one. People come to us all the time. They're like, which one should I get?

Which one is the best? I'll be honest, be real with me. Okay. Now, the second thing is we say a disarming statement that immediately causes them to drop their guard and lean in. In this case, we come around and say, fiberglass might not be the best fit for you. So immediately [00:09:00] we're saying our thing might not be the best fit for you.

Then we double down and we say, in fact, concrete might be the better option. So we've now doubled down. You're completely leaning in saying, son of a gun, this guy is willing to call it for exactly what it is. He has my best interests at heart. And then we say, and in this video, this article, we're going to explain the pros and the cons of both types of pools.

And by the end, you'll have a great sense as to which is the best fit for you. And that's what everybody wants, Allan. Everybody wants to feel like they're in control. What they want is for us as businesses to present the facts and then allow them to decide. That's empowering. You know, 75 percent of buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience.

That's a stat from Gartner recently. Very, Very powerful. Think about that for a second. We could totally spend some time on that, right, and how to take advantage of that seller free trend. But, buyers want to feel like they're in control. Most businesses don't communicate [00:10:00] this way. Instead, what do they do?

You know, they come right out and say, Hey, you know, fiberglass pools are amazing. Let me tell you why they're amazing. That's not what anybody wants. That's not what they need. That's not what's going to endear them to your brand. That's transparency right there, right? And that's just the beginning of it.

Allan: Yeah. I love that. I mean, I know from my own behavior, if I'm, searching for any, product, even, you know, maybe not a super expensive product. The first place I'm usually heading is YouTube to see, I want to see an unboxing. I want to see, does it have these specifications? How does it work? What does the reviewer think of it?

All of that sort of stuff. And I think that's becoming much, much more of a thing. The thing I really love about Your type of marketing and the thing that you advocate is it creates so much goodwill, even with people that will never buy from you. Like, for example, when I was building my swimming pool a couple of years ago, I was looking up some things regarding swimming pools, right?

And your website kept coming up, you know, and I'm

Marcus: crazy. I'm all the way across the pond.

Allan: Yeah, I can even buy [00:11:00] from you even if I wanted to, right? So, but I was using some of the information that you had put together and it was creating such enormous goodwill. So for people who are not even necessarily in market to buy from you, and I think a lot of people are afraid to do that.

Marcus: They're like, Oh, if I give out too much information, if I give out all my secrets, I think it's a very abundant way of thinking. That's the word.

It is abundance. this is very hard for people that have a scarcity mindset. it's very foreign. It's just like, oh you're killing me here. Let me give you a couple more examples of this, one of the biggest trends I believe in all of marketing right now and certainly the best tool for CRO or conversion rate optimization is self service on your website. Self service tools. And I like to teach there's essentially five forms of self service that people can have on their website.

And by the way, for those that are listening, this goes back to that seller free phenomena. And people want [00:12:00] to feel like they're in control of the buying process and they don't want to talk to a salesperson until they're good and ready. And so you need to give them ways. To have experiences that traditionally they would've had to have had with a salesperson, but do it on your website.

So what's some examples of this? Well, there's self-assessment, which is when essentially someone does some type of interactive quiz or something and they get some type of score or readiness. Best tool I've seen for that, it's called SCORE app. Then you've got what would be a self selection tool. Now, self selection tool. The self selection tools are when someone has a choice and they're trying to figure out what's the best, blank for me.

Okay. What's the best type of swimming pool for me? What's the best shape and size for me? If I'm HubSpot, it could be, what is the best HubSpot plan for me? Do you see what I'm saying? Okay. So that's self selection, which is like people constantly are thinking about that. All right.

You got self configuration, which [00:13:00] is when you allow them to build and design something. All right. And again, all these involve them taking control, which is self selection. It makes them feel invested, which increases things, all right? You've got self scheduling tools, is when they're allowed to schedule time with salespeople without being forced to talk to a human first.

And then you have the last one, which I think is the most powerful, especially for CRO, especially for leads. And self pricing. is the ability for you to give your visitors a price estimate through an interactive experience, something like a calculator.

Okay, so let's look at self selection for a second, and let's lean into this radical transparency. If you go to the Riverpool's website right now, one of the questions that I know a lot of people have is, should I go? Concrete, should I go fiberglass or should I go vinyl? Those are the three types of inground pools.

And that's a question that you had to answer as well, Allan. When you were looking at your pool, you had to do that. And, you know, it's interesting in Australia, as a side note, [00:14:00] fiberglass is far and away the most popular type of residential pool. In fact, most of the manufacturers of fiberglass pools in the U S came from Australia Because that's really where the industry started.

And so, if you go to the Riverpool's website right now, you're debating about these three. We've got a tool that allows you to have, If a few questions it's going to ask you a series of questions, you're going to answer honestly, and then it's going to tell you or recommend to you what type of swimming pool you should get.

Now here's what's wild. Okay. Every single day, dozens and dozens of people take that tool on my website, and I literally recommend that they buy a different product. than fiberglass. And that's the only thing we sell, right? That's wild. It's because if somebody wants a pool that is longer in our case, than 40 feet, which would be like 13 meters or something like that.

Well, fiberglass doesn't come that long. [00:15:00] It doesn't come wider than 16 feet. And so in the process of taking this interactive like a quiz or questionnaire, right? Okay. We ask these questions. Do you want to pull? That's extremely customized. We can't do that with fiberglass.

Do you want to pull this deeper than eight feet? We can't do that with fiberglass, right? So, in the course of this, we're able to say, at the end of it, we're able to say, based on the answers you've given, It appears your best choice would be Vinyl Liner Pull. Why, you might ask, and then we show all the questions they've been asked, and how each one of the pulls stacks up to that question in their answer.

So, that's powerful. Nobody does that for the most part. You don't see any manufacturers recommending someone else's product. We do it all day long. Now, let me give you another example of this. You take Cost and price, and we could spend hours on this one because so many people want to resist the idea of cost and price.

Let me make a prediction for everybody who's listening to this right now. Every single service based business within five years is [00:16:00] going to have a pricing estimator on their website because they're going to be forced to have it. This is what happens in the world of business and the world of marketing.

Somebody does it and that's caused the first domino to fall and they set the conditions in the industry and then everybody else has to follow. And so River Pools was the first manufacturer in the world to put a pricing estimator for our pools on our website. Now, a lot of people would say in our industry, well, you can't do that as a manufacturer because you don't set the end price.

The dealer does it. the person that's in your backyard, they set the end price. Well, I'm not looking to give an exact price. And that's the key with these estimators. That what you're trying to do is to give someone a range because what does everybody want to do at the beginning of the buying process?

Here's what they want, Allan. They're trying to figure out, can I even afford this? Am I in the game or not? Like, is this a viable, is this possible for me? Right? Because. [00:17:00] Oftentimes, we don't reach out to companies because we're too afraid to be embarrassed to tell them, I can't afford that. And so if we can't find the information, we will keep looking until someone engages us that's willing to give us at least a sense of what we're looking for.

So the concept of ignorance is not bliss. Not online. What gives people the this feeling of trust is when we're willing to talk to them about it. I believe in this so much that I recently developed this tool that is just starting to take off. It's called PriceGuide. ai. PriceGuide. ai. What is PriceGuide.

ai? It allows you, in less than 30 minutes, Allan, to create a pricing estimator. Of course, it uses AI. And what you do is you put in your industry and it says, okay, so based on my AI, it sounds like here's the questions that you'd probably want to ask someone to give them [00:18:00] an estimate. Now you can modify all the questions, and then you put your, you give it the variables, the data, the inputs, the numbers, right?

So, you know, as a, if it's a swimming pool company, it might say, okay, what size pool do you want? And then it might say, what type of patio do you want, and how much patio? And it knows to ask that, it's AI, right? And so, within less than 30 minutes, you can have a working price estimator on your website. Now, here's what's crazy.

I had a company put it on their website. And it's called Gillies and McKay Sheds in Scotland. Now, Gillies and McKay has been doing They Ask, You Answer for a long time. They have been firm believers in transparency. They have a price list on their website. They've got tons of pricing content, videos, and articles.

And so I was thinking, an estimator is not going to do much, because they've already just, they've already put a price list. Do you know what happened, Allan? And here's where it gets nuts. Gillies. Their leads went from 1 2 a day on average to [00:19:00] 5 10 a day on average. Why? Because now what was happening is the person, the visitor, felt like they were essentially designing, building out their price.

Allan: I love it when websites have like a price configurator where I say, okay, if I add this option, how much is it? If I remove that option, if I I think I'll love

Marcus: Ultimate user experience, right? And so, I believe that every company is going to have this. This is a start up for me. This is my first SAS product. I'm very excited about it. Because every single company that's doing it is saying, Marcus, I'm seeing like this. 5X, 3X, 7X in terms of leads. What type of impact would that have?

And a lot of companies right now, we went from a time during COVID where a lot of people had money, right? And there was a lot of spending and leads were plentiful for a lot of companies to now, especially in home improvement to now, all of a sudden they're saying, I got to fight for leads. [00:20:00] I got actually got to do marketing again.

Well, self service is the way. And we gave, we've given you two tools Price Guide for your estimator, Score App for your assessment. And those two alone, you can hit home runs and barely spend any money at all on the tools.

Allan: I love that. a couple of areas I want to go down. So when people went through your tool and you said, okay, I recommend a concrete pool. And for the record, I ended up going with a concrete pool as well. So do you monetize those leads? Do you send those to someone who builds concrete pools and then monetize those leads or, but you could, I guess.

Marcus: I could but you know, what's funny, originally Riverpools was just a local pool builder, right? And we were buying from a manufacturer like everybody else. Then we did this. They ask you answer thing. We became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world.

I'm getting leads all over the United States. I'm like, I'm going to start selling these leads. So I started doing that and it just was hard to manage. It wasn't very profitable. And I said, are you going to just play small [00:21:00] Marcus? Are you just going to just throw your chips on the table? So I said, Push all of them in.

And I bootstrapped a manufacturing company. I started manufacturing my own fiberglass pools. I'm like, I've got more trust than anybody in the industry. So why would I not just build my own instead of buying from somebody else? And then I could just get really creative. Let me give you an example. We were the first manufacturer, once again in the world of pools to show our entire manufacturing process.

We created a series of eight videos that were 10 to 20 minutes long that were literally, Allan, teaching you exactly how we manufacture our pools. Now, I was getting calls from other manufacturers saying, wait, what are you doing? I mean, this, you're showing other people how to build a fiberglass pool. people might start businesses and compete against us, and like, don't you realize they want to see the sandwich made in front of them? You [00:22:00] know, when I was just getting going with video, this is probably about 2009, and I was still selling other types of pools, I went to one of these manufacturing facilities.

I started recording on the manufacturing floor and the person I was with, the manufacturer, was freaking out like, wow, you can't record that. I'm like, why not? They said, that's proprietary. And I said, proprietary? I have seen this same method on every single manufacturing plant I've been to.

You think this is proprietary? You see, that's the problem, Allan. A lot of these companies think they have some secret sauce.

Allan: Yes.

Marcus: they don't whatsoever. This is not secret sauce. Trust me. Everybody knows the ingredients.

Allan: And it makes for great content. I mean, if you're in market for a particular product, seeing how it's made, all the story behind it, all of that sort of stuff, this feels like peeling back the curtain and it's a very powerful selling tool. Even if every manufacturer makes the molds the same way, does the stuff the same way, this is stuff that as a [00:23:00] consumer, as a buyer, you would not get to see.

So being able to see behind the curtain, I think is really powerful.

Marcus: It's very powerful,

very powerful. And something else happens when you do this. The other day I was doing a training with a company that makes plastic food containers here in the U. S. and they ship all over the world, actually. It's a very big company.

And I asked them, I said, What makes your container special? And they said, well, one of the things is they're very leak proof. I said, so some containers in this industry, you know, some delis you go to restaurants, et cetera, when you get this, food away or put it in the container, I said, there's a leak problem.

They're like, Oh yeah, there's definitely issues with that. And so I said, now, is there a standard in the industry of like how much something is likely. to leak. Is there standards there? A leak standard [00:24:00] for plastic containers or food containers? They said, no, there's no standard at all. And I said, would you be willing to create one?

And they said, well, we never thought about that. I said, because we could. And if we start to talk about this standard, then guess what everybody has to do? They all have to fall in line. And then they're referencing our standards and they're like, son of a gun. We've never thought about that. So here's the thing.

If you're listening to this, folks, you're doing things right now that you have lost appreciation for. There's things that you're doing from a methodology standpoint that could become a standard within your industry. You just need to show it and then crystallize it to the marketplace. Going back to pools for a second. Disruption is a huge part of my frameworks. Again, we start off with talk about what others aren't willing to talk about, show what others aren't willing to show, sell in a [00:25:00] way that others aren't willing to sell, and be more human.

And when you do this, it disrupts industries, and these rule breakers, they become rule makers, and everybody else becomes rule followers. So, there's different ways that you can disrupt. So, one way that you can disrupt is Every single person that's listening to this, there's things in your industry that drive you crazy.

There's things that people do and you're like, that's dumb. Why is it done that way? It shouldn't be done that way. So let me give you an example. When I started with fiberglass pools, the way a fiberglass pool is built is they would dig a hole in the ground. They would put sand at the bottom of that hole.

they would put the pool in the ground on top of the sand. They backfill around it with sand and they would pour a concrete patio around all that. Now, What's the problem with sand? Well, even the Bible tells you, you don't build a house on sand. like, this is not new, like, information here.

Okay, there's a reason for that, because sand moves, it shifts, it's not very steady. So I said, why are we building pools on sand? So I [00:26:00] started digging. Beaten this drum. I was doing videos and articles and saying, listen, if you're getting a fiberglass pool shouldn't be built on sand. Here's why. Here's why it should be built on gravel, because gravel goes down, compacted, and you should backfill it with gravel and it doesn't wash, and it doesn't settle and doesn't do all these things.

Suddenly I started getting calls. from pool builders around the country saying, Marcus, you're killing me. The homeowner here is telling me they won't get a pool for me unless I use gravel instead of sand. I said, well, that's not my problem, is it? That's your problem. Maybe you should up your standards and then you won't have this issue.

And so today, whereas before almost all pools, when I started 20 some years ago, almost all pools were built on sand. Today, most fiberglass pools are built on gravel because we set a standard for the entire industry.

Allan: I love that. I love

Marcus: Everybody can do that. Everybody can do it.

Allan: can, and I love the idea of creating a benchmark within your industry. If one doesn't exist, or even if one does exist, having a [00:27:00] variation of that benchmark is very clever because now someone has to compare with the benchmark that you set. So I

Marcus: Well, if you look at marketing books, one of the reasons why your marketing book was so successful is because you put it in a beautiful framework that was more crystallized than others had done. And it was easily understandable or understood. And so somebody could look at it. They could nod their head.

They could say, ah, got it. That makes sense to me, right? So we see that in the world of quote IP authors, speakers, whatnot. But you see, companies, they all have IP as well. And you have to learn to framework that IP in a way that the whole world can say, Ah, that's the way it's supposed to be done. Ah, now that makes sense to me.

And to your point, that's standardizing a process, or a [00:28:00] method, or a belief system, whatever that thing is.

Allan: I totally agree. I mean, had I written the exact same content and it was missing the framework, missing the one page marketing plan, if it was called Marketing 101 or whatever. I don't think it would have been 1 percent successful. The framework is really the star of the show. So, and the content, and I'm pretty upfront with that.

I didn't invent 99%, 90 percent of the content. I mean, I didn't invent marketing. I didn't invent direct response. It was the framework and putting it into an easy understanding manner.

Marcus: Right. That's where you slayed it, right? You really crushed that. And that's why the book did what it did.

Allan: I agree. let's back up and talk about. Being transparent with pricing. I've had this discussion with clients and prospects many times where they're like, you know what? I want to get on a call before I discuss pricing because maybe the price will scare them away. And if I get on a call, then I can convince them, show them the quality, show them the product, show them why it's [00:29:00] so valuable and all of that.

What are your thoughts on that? And how do you respond to something like that?

Marcus: Yeah, I love this. Obviously I built an entire brand on this. I've had massive organizations hire me just to teach their community or their dealer base how to discuss this topic. So to understand this, I want everybody's listening to first let's analyze your own psychology. Okay, let's do this together.

Just so stay with me, everybody. So if I was with you right now, and if I said to you, have you researched how much something costs online the last year? You'd say, sure, Marcus. And then if I said, okay, so when you're on a website and you're looking for cost and price information, And you cannot find it.

What's the emotion you experience? You'd say, I get very frustrated. And so I would say to you, well, why? Why do you get frustrated? And you'd say, well, I'm the buyer and I'm trying to make a decision and you're making it very hard. I'd say Exactly.

And so then if I said to you, well, in that moment of frustration.

Do you say to yourself, well, I'm sure I can find this information somewhere on their website. I'll just keep looking. No, you would [00:30:00] laugh at that. In fact, we know how long on average somebody will stay on a website and look for cost and price until they leave. The answer is 10 seconds, by the way.

Okay? Now, if I said to you, When you're looking for cost and price and you can't find it, do you say, Well, that's okay. They're not talking about cost and price. They're a value based business. I'm going to call them on the phone instead. Do you do that? And you say, No, I don't do that. And I'd say, Nope.

Instead, you keep doing what? And you'd say, I keep searching. And I'd say, You search until when? And you'd say, Well, I search until I find what I'm looking for. And I'd say, And generally speaking, however, al, YouTube. com. They're going to get my business now. With that being said, that's our own psychology.

And the real reason we get so upset as the buyer is because we know that they know as the business the answer or at least assembly of the answer. And because we know they know the answer of how much is it and they're not willing to talk about it. We now feel like they're hiding something from us in the moment you feel like anybody is hiding [00:31:00] anything from you online.

Trust is gone. And that's the business we're all in, the business of trust.

Now you say, but Marcus, you don't understand my business. You don't understand my situation. Oh yes, I do. In fact, that there's three main reasons why companies don't like to talk about cost and price. Three majors. Okay. Number one, we have a very customized solution.

We have a bespoke product or service. Okay. Every job is different. Perfect. And so to that person, I would say, okay. Let's say every job is different. So if I came to you and I asked you, can you help me understand what would drive the cost of your product or service up? Could you explain those factors?

Yes or no? You'd say, yes, of course I can. If I came to you, I said, can you help me understand the factors that would drive the cost of your product or service down? Could you explain that? You'd say, yes, of course I can. If I came to you and I said, can you gave me a quote. Thank you for giving me a quote.

I got a quote from some of your competitors. Some of you are more Some of you are less. Can you help me understand why there seems to be this like Delta, [00:32:00] this price range within your industry? You'd say, of course. And of course, how many times have you had to answer that question? You'd say, I've answered that question or those questions many times.

But what's so sad, Allan, is generally we don't answer those questions that I just described until somebody else does. actually asks us. And by that point, oftentimes they're gone because we know the average buyer does 80 percent of their research before they talk to a company, before they reach out, before they shake your hand.

So that's the first reason we don't like to talk about cost and price because we say it depends. But in reality, the best way to combat that is to explain why it depends. You see, when it comes to discussing pricing, People get caught up in this idea that I've got to share my exact price. That's not the point at all.

What you need to do first and foremost is teach the person how to buy. What does shopping for that thing, researching that thing, what does that actually look like? What drives cost up? What drives cost down? Why are some companies expensive? Why are some companies so cheap? [00:33:00] And then you can explain roughly where you fall.

That's the first reason we don't talk about it. The second reason we tend not to talk about cost and price is we say, well, we tend to be more expensive, and if we're more expensive, we just might scare them away. What's funny about that, Allan, is just a minute ago, we said the thing that actually scares us away when we're in the research phase as a buyer isn't when they educate us, but rather, when they don't say anything at all.

That's what scares us away. third reason we don't like to talk about cost and price. We say, my competitors will find out, which is again, rather ridiculous because if I said to anybody that has been in sales for any period of time, do you have a pretty good sense as to what your competitors charge?

You would say, absolutely I do. And so if you have a pretty good sense as to what your competitors charge, then you Therefore, it means they have a good sense as to what you charge. So this is the big secret, non secret. Everybody acts like nobody knows what everybody's charging. When in reality, everybody's got a pretty decent [00:34:00] sense as to what everybody else is charging.

And besides that, when was the last time your competitors paid your bills? Right? They You see, you don't base decisions on the competition. You base decisions on the market, the buyer. That's who you base decisions on. And what do they want? Treat them as you yourself would want to be treated. It's a very good rule.

It's worked for a long time, I promise. And so those are the three reasons why companies make these excuses. As we just really showed, They don't stand the weight of logic and reasoning in our own psychology and the way that we buy.

And so what every company needs to have is they need to have a pricing page, a pricing video for every major product or service they offer.

In this page, You explained value in the industry. What drives cost up, what drives cost down. You don't have to say exactly what you charge, but you should give people enough to where they're able to say ah, now I [00:35:00] understand. Because folks, if you don't do this, know this, your Competitors will. And the idea that they would learn from your competitor about value, about pricing, about anything for that matter, instead of you, I don't know how that makes you feel, but that makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I refuse to allow that to happen. If there's a conversation happening in my industry, I want to be a part of that conversation. I want to own that conversation. And hopefully if you're listening to this, You're of the same mindset. If you want to become the most known and trusted brand in your market, this is how you do it.

Allan: that's a really good point. The conversation around your product is going to be happening with or without you. Right? So they will have it either with somebody else, maybe your competitor, maybe even just with themselves. But they're gonna have a conversation in their mind around. Pricing around your product, around the value, all of that sort of thing.

And so the idea is you want to be involved in that [00:36:00] conversation, right? And if you're involved in that conversation, you have an opportunity to steer that in a way that's favorable.

Marcus: You're in the arena. It's conceptually what you just described. It's the same when it comes to video. Oftentimes people say, I don't want to do video to build my brand, to build my company, because, well, honestly, I don't want to be judged. Well, the truth is, if they come to your website, And they're looking to learn about it, and they need to see a video.

They're saying, I wish I could see a video. And they can't find it on your website? Guess what they're going to do? They're going to judge you. And they're going to say, this place sucks. Because I can't get the information that I'm looking for. And then they're going to leave. You see, in business, we're always getting judged.

It never stops. That's the human experience. Actually, every single person that's listening to me right now, and it's listening to you right now. We are being judged as we speak right now. Some people really love my style. Some people hate my style, right? And so there's this mix. I have [00:37:00] literally already released those that don't like my style.

I have found that is the way. Because otherwise you can't build an extraordinary brand. And you can't really stand out and be the best version of yourself. Right? And so I drive a stake in the ground. And I do that with everything. I'm very, very in saying, here's who it's for, here's who it's not for.

I'm explicit in saying, my style is a style that not everybody's going to like. It's okay. It's okay if you don't like my style. It's fine. It's okay if you don't like this product. It's fine, right? if we try to be lukewarm about everything, what we do is we water down. And you don't become known.

You don't stand out. And that's what so many companies that are listening to this right now are struggling with, Allan. Because they're so afraid to do anything extraordinary, anything different. Again, talk about, show, sell, in a very different way than anybody in their space has ever done. Man, they're in trouble.

And often times we don't do these things until we're [00:38:00] forced to. Until the market forces us. Until we're struggling. Until it's 2008, 2009 again, and we think we're going to lose our business. Then we throw caution to the wind, and we say, ah, YOLO, and I'm going to send it. Well, don't be that person. Instead, come from a place always of hunger.

Many companies, they become prosperous, they get fat and happy, and they stop innovating. They stop doing the things that we've talked about from a sales and marketing perspective. They stop pushing the envelope. I'm saying keep pushing. And the way you push is by being so obsessed with what buyers want, what they're asking for, and then you being willing to answer.

An answer doesn't mean just answer the question. It means if they want a stinking pricing calculator, an estimator, because it's going to give them incredible user experience, it's going to give them the confidence to call you, well then dag on it, put it on your dang website and get over yourself and get the leads from it.

That's a [00:39:00] beautiful thing.

Allan: I agree. I mean, in a similar way, we get thousands and thousands of leads through it, through our website because I'm offering a useful tool. I'm offering a process around how to do your marketing. So I totally agree with that. Content is really the best form of lead flow.

One thing I want to ask you is what are your thoughts on the State of search, because you built your business, you built your whole reputation around searches, particularly Google and all of that.

Now, if I go to Google and I type in something like best mattress or something like that, you're going to get like, at least half a page of these spammy review sites and the affiliate links and all of the, like the sponsored ads and all of that sort of thing. So what are your thoughts around where search and SEO are going and how this is going to be dealt with?

Also there's AI is now a factor where a lot of the search results are now AI generated responses as well. What are your thoughts around that?

Marcus: Yeah. The [00:40:00] game's changing. And I couldn't do what I did in 2009 today and have the same success with Riverpools. In 2009, I was able just to say, okay, I'm going to just produce all this content, text and video. I didn't do any social media. At first I didn't do YouTube.

I was just like, I'm just going to answer these questions, put on my website. We crushed. Now that mindset of they ask you to answer, especially on your website. That's always going to be, I believe that's going to be important for very long time. But in terms of search, that game is changing. And what's going to happen, we've seen this, and I know you've seen it too, Allan, you know, we've got a lot of clients that we've helped over the years because my agency basically helps companies do they ask you answer.

And they read the book and they're like, I want to do they ask you answer, so they reach out to us. So we're the they ask you answer shop. And so. we've got many clients that are the most trafficked swimmingPool website in their entire industry. It's not swimmingPool. The most trafficked website in their industry, not swimmingPool.

Just whatever industry it is. And for a [00:41:00] lot of those, we've seen since the advent of AI it has progressively started to go down to a degree. So what is, what does this mean? Well, I think number one, it means, We cannot build our house on Google as companies. It doesn't mean we ignore search. I think search still very much matters, but the definition of search as we know it is very much evolving. I think as Google becomes less prominent, I think social media and YouTube become much more prominent. And so today you really have to see yourself, and this might sound like, you know, word salad, but I mean it. You have to see yourself as a media company. And you've got to say to yourself, all right, we've got to show this thing.

We've got to get very serious with video. We need to develop our brand. Because the future of search is really based on signals that tell AI, or whatever is next, that hey, this is a brand [00:42:00] worthy of mentioning. It's a brand worthy of talking about. It's a brand worthy of recommending. You know, when ChatGPT came out just a couple years ago, it was mainly a creation tool.

It wasn't really a recommendation tool. Today, it's now becoming a tool. Very much a recommendation tool because it's getting better and better with every iteration, which means to your point, Allan, people are going to be using Google less and less. Now, I've heard SEO companies say, Eh, I just don't think AI is just going to affect SEO very much.

And I'm like what world are you living in? All you're doing is you're being intellectually dishonest because you're trying to protect that which you built. You know, I've got a third edition of They Ask, You Answer that's going to be coming out next year in 2025 Q1. And it's the Asterix 3. 0, but the name of it is called Endless Customers.

All right. And so it's the evolved framework and it talks a lot about this, but it's, we've got to be great at driving signals and how do we drive signals? [00:43:00] We do it by becoming a media company by talking about. showing what others aren't willing to do. We do that by being great with YouTube, being great with social in all forms of video, by the way, long form, short form.

I think these things are very important. By the way, I'm not saying any of this is easy, but I think it, you know, matters very much. And I think we have to learn to disrupt. And the way we disrupt is what we discussed earlier, Allan. Right? And not to beat this over and over again, but I think it matters.

It's just because I try to make it so simple. You just talk about show, sell, in a way that others are not, and do that in a more human way. All right? So I think that is going to allow companies to build, An extraordinary brand and stand out in a world of search that is going to be ruled by AI, whether we like it or not.

And look, there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna hold on to the old ways. But one thing that I have learned, and I know you're, you know, I know. You know, my sense is [00:44:00] that you and I are pretty aligned on all this, Allan. We can't let our personal opinions screw up smart business decisions. And so it really doesn't matter how we feel about TikTok or social media.

It doesn't matter how we feel about video. The only thing that really matters is what does the marketplace care about? And we've got to get over ourselves. And if the market cares about us, is on these platforms, and we just gotta, we gotta move, we gotta move with them. We continue to use the same principles.

The principle they ask, you answer, never changes. But it's gonna evolve as the platforms evolve with it.

Allan: most definitely. And I mean, there's a rumor that OpenAI are coming out with a search engine. I think that we're going

to call it SearchGPT. Yeah, it is inevitable. One of the things I really want to highlight that's an important thing that you said is you need to think of yourself as a media company.

That's something I've been telling people for a very long time. And in my new book, Lean Marketing, I talk about the fact that, [00:45:00] You know, you used to be able to rank really well on social media, on search engines through technical trickery, because you had 10 backlinks or a lot of backlinks or the keyword stuffing, all of that sort of stuff.

Now with AI, machine learning, all of that is now being deprioritized. And what's rising to the top is the stuff that's genuinely good. good, right? So the stuff that's genuinely of value. And I'm of the, you mentioned that, you know, you couldn't do today what you did back in 2008, 2009, because it was sort of the earlier days of search, all of that sort of thing.

Now, the question comes up is, what can you do now? here's my view. I'd love to hear your view. My view is where, It's like 2008 and 2009 now in terms of personal brand. So there are some people who've done personal branding really well. They've been the front man or front woman of their business.

But I think we're very early on in that and I think that is going to be the key differentiator. When you [00:46:00] look, when you think of Tesla, you think of Elon Musk. When you think of Virgin, you think of Richard Branson. My view is every business that's going to have a lot of success the founder, or whoever's prominent in that business has to be the front person, the personal brand.

And I think that's what you did early on with Riverpools and Spas. But what are your thoughts on that?

Marcus: Yeah. I think you make some great points. For whatever reason, we don't tend to follow brands on social media. We follow the people behind the brands. You know, our friend Daniel Priestley was way ahead of the game on this when he wrote Key Person of Influence, which is still an incredibly relevant book, but he wrote it before people were ready to understand it.

He was just, you know, Too far ahead on that one. You write it today. It was like, Oh, yeah, of course. Right. But back then people were like, well, you know, what are you talking about? The issue though with this, Allan, is most companies won't do this because building a personal brand means that you have to take a [00:47:00] stand.

Allan: Yes.

Marcus: when I mean you have to take a stand, you've got to drive your stake in the ground with certain things. You've got to say, here's our doctrine, my doctrine, my philosophy, here's our belief. And that means, once again, to what we've been saying, you can't just be lukewarm with everything. And when this happens, you will be attacked.

People will say, I don't agree. People will say, that's dumb. You're going to get negative comments. And there's many people, as you know, Allan, that will fold to that. I got attacked so much. I was 35 years old and all these, like, manufacturers, like, who's this snot nosed kid think he is?

Like, literally, that's what they were saying. What gives him the right to do this? Right? And there's this great quote. And here's, here's how it goes. First, they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. And that is what happens with [00:48:00] brands. At first, you feel like nobody's listening.

Because for the most part, they're not. But, you grow. Just like, Allan, you and I went through this. We went through a period, both of us. We were like, crickets, you know, billboard in the desert.

Allan: In fact it was a good thing because

we sucked early on, right?

Marcus: you get refined. That's where you learned your voice, and you learn what resonates. And you learn, in fact, what you should be talking about, and what you shouldn't be talking about.

And so, first you get ignored, and then they laugh at you. They laughed at me at River Pools, and then they fight you. You can't do that. Look at every major innovation we've seen. Uber. They were fought by every taxi company. Tesla, fought by all the major manufacturers. Airbnb, fought by all the hotel chains.

Okay? This is after they had been ignored and laughed at, by the way, right? And so it's the same [00:49:00] cycle over and over again, but eventually you win. That's if you're offering the marketplace what they want. And so, building a business and a brand is not for the faint. It's not for those that quickly fold under just a little bit of pressure.

And this is why some of the legacy brands are having such a struggle. Because, they're finding that they're just not getting any traction anymore. And why are they not getting any traction? Because they don't say anything that is of strong relevance, but they're playing it safe. And because they're playing it safe, all these other folks that are willing to say, you know what?

That's not how it should be. Here's how it should be. Here's why I believe this. Now it's like the market's drawn to that person and their brand, their company starts to win.

Allan: And it's something that really scares to death bigger companies too, because they're very big on, you know, whatever it is, inclusion, on not offending anyone, all of that sort of stuff. So it's a [00:50:00] massive competitive advantage if you can get up there and say your opinion. And it doesn't have to be something that's offensive or anything like that, but it should be what you stand for.

Hey, we think the pool industry should be doing this, or we think this is wrong in our industry, or this is or what I think. That's very powerful, especially when you're competing with these nameless faceless corporations. No one's willing to put a face to the name. No one's willing to take a stand on anything.

No one wants to offend anybody or exclude anybody or, you know, all of those sorts of things. If you can do the polar opposite of that, you're going to be very different.

Marcus: you're gonna be very different. You know, a lot of these big, enterprise companies will approach me about they ask you answer and I'll tell them, I'm like, this ain't gonna work for you. You're not gonna do it. Why? Like, why, Marks? You got too much red tape. I can tell. And, you know, first time anybody says anything that gets one negative comment on social media, you're just gonna roll over.

You're gonna say this isn't working. And so you can't, Expect to do anything extraordinary and let me say this too, not to, you know, take us [00:51:00] too far off track here, but I think in this idea of becoming a media company, Alan, you will not do anything extraordinary online by outsourcing your content and your voice as a brand. You just can't do it, folks. I have attempted to do this with different clients, different companies. I have never had an extraordinary case study or seen one where they were outsourcing their art, their content to someone else. Can somebody help you build a campaign? Yes. Can someone, you know, help you with your ad words?

Yes. Right? Right. Like, but. Can someone help you create 150 short form videos a year that are catchy, that are fun, that are educational, that are entertaining, that are, you know, that builds your brand and all these things? No. Won't do it. And so until you say, [00:52:00] Oh that's us, we're going to hold the paintbrush, right?

You're not going to create a masterpiece.

Allan: I totally agree. That's such an important point that you want to be the face, the person who goes out there, talks about the business, talks about, you know, your beliefs, your opinions, all of those sorts of things. Very powerful. Okay. So Marcus, where do people go from here? So they've listened to you.

They agree with you. What's the first step?

Marcus: Well, there's a few things that I would recommend to you if you're struggling with leads right now. Okay. If you're saying, golly day, I gotta, I gotta get some, some leads, I don't have much money, I have urgency. you want to immediately embrace self service on your website. Immediately. Quickest way for you to generate more leads, to have that conversion rate optimization on your site, is through tools.

like a self assessment, like a tool like Allan has, right? That allows somebody to take something and do something with, like a price guide that allows you to have an estimator. That is [00:53:00] first and foremost for anybody, because it's immediate, and you don't, it's not, there's not a runway there, okay? Something like They Ask, You Answer is very powerful.

But it's gonna take you time to build that, right? And I think everybody should do it because they think it's gonna be very relevant to your experience. I think it's gonna be very relevant for your success with AI and with signals and all those, but that's gonna take you a little bit more time. If you need leads today, you need self service and you need to reach out to previous leads.

And give them some sense of urgency to contact you. Give them a reason. Help them understand that you can solve their problem and give them a reason. Now those aren't sexy things that I just said, but that's like where a lot of people are like right now in business. You need to reach out to old leads.

You need to strum them up. And you need to take advantage of the existing traffic that you're getting. We've got paid media and for a lot of companies they got a bad taste of paid and you're just doing it wrong. And so paid [00:54:00] is evolving. And so if you need leads today, I would do paid as a bridge to get you where you need to be, but start producing that content that we've been talking about showing in a way that nobody's doing.

And as you do that, eventually you'll be less dependent on paid because you'll be driving all those leads and it'll be earned,

Allan: Well, the interesting thing is paid Ads work better when they're good content as

Marcus: Oh, gracious.

Allan: turns out

people want to click on ads that actually are good content. So going from all good organic to paid is a very seamless sort of bridge. But if you've got crappy paid, you know, again, you're going to have crappy results.

Right?

Marcus: Oh, absolutely. You're only as good as what you bring to the party, right? And so I think you make a very good point there. Now, in terms of video in 2024, 2025 short form right now is still the best in terms of awareness in the market top of funnel, building a [00:55:00] brand short form is incredibly powerful, and you can still do very well when it comes to YouTube search and short form in your industry.

That's one of those that is not nearly as saturated as, say, short form. Google Search. The amount of people that are still using YouTube as a search engine is still the second most used in the world right now. Which, I don't know, that might be changing. I think, you know, the amount of people that are using Chat GPT, I think we've been saying for 10 years, 15 years, that YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world.

I don't think we're going to be saying that in two years. I don't know where it's going to fall, but point being is still, I don't think it's going to fall. You can do incredible with search right now with short form video on YouTube. And so I would be aggressive with that strategy. They ask you answer style strategy.

Those big five subjects I mentioned earlier going after those aggressively with short form in your industry. Yeah, that'll pop off. Nice.

Allan: I totally agree. I mean, when I think of my own behavior now, [00:56:00] the thing I use Google for now is to find a phone number. Essentially that's about it. If I'm wanting information, usually one of the large language model tools like ChatGPT or Claude what I go to if I'm looking for, Product reviews or whatever.

Usually it's Amazon. Usually it's YouTube. So where I want to see the product in depth, I want to see someone compare it. I want to see it opened up, all of that sort of thing. So I totally agree. And short form is a good way to get discovered, top of funnel for

Marcus: And I think YouTube and social have a serious legs for the foreseeable future. They're not. I don't know what the future of Google looks like. I know YouTube is very strong. And in fact, eventually YouTube might be the most profitable you know, section or part of, like YouTube's business, of Google's business.

Excuse me.

Allan: I agree. Marcus, thank you. You've been very generous with your time. Very generous with your knowledge. I really appreciate it. Where's the best place for people to find you, [00:57:00] get find out more? And we'll link to all of these things, of course, but priceguide. ai you mentioned is your new product that will help people put a price guide up on their website.

how else can people

Marcus: Yeah. Best place to find me is LinkedIn. I'm really dang good on LinkedIn. I put my best content on there. And so, if you're looking for something that feels very genuine, what's good about my LinkedIn content, not to pat myself on the shoulder, is that you don't necessarily know Exactly what I'm going to say every time you will know what I'm talking about, too.

There's certain influencers that, you know, might get a ton of traction on social media with every post, but you pretty much know what they're going to say every single time. You're not going to know what I'm going to say every single time. And so I'm going to make you think I'm gonna make you think. And so I hope we connect on LinkedIn.

If we do just say, Hey, I heard you on Alan's podcast and enjoyed it. So let me know and we'll connect there. And you can even email me a good email. That's easy to remember. It's marcus@marcussheridan.com. [00:58:00] marcus@marcussheridan.com. Of course, I speak all over the world on these topics.

It's my great passion in life is delivering transformative experiences for audiences from the stage. And that's what, You know, that's really what God put me here to do, is to be a teacher and to fulfill that purpose and, you know, having conversations like this, Allan, is a real joy and, you know, I've, you know, like from a distance, I've looked up to you, I've looked up to your teachings and, you know, it's a real honor for me to, be able to chat with you and I'm grateful that we have the technology.

You can sit there in Australia. I can sit here in Virginia and we can have this real time conversation. Look at each other face to face, get to know each other and share our thoughts with your community. What a wonderful time to live, man. It's just beautiful.

Allan: I totally agree. Thank you, Marcus. Yeah. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. Such a pleasure to connect with you. You're a wealth of knowledge, but you're a awesome human being as well. So that's what I really appreciate about you. Thank you so much.

Marcus: Yeah, my pleasure.

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