Kevin Dieny: 00:00:00

Hello, welcome to the Close the Loop podcast.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:02

I'm your host, Kevin Dieny, and today we've got a really special episode.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:06

We're going to be talking about How They Ask You Answer,

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:09

Saved River Pools and Spas.

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But more than that, I've got a special guest here today, which

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:15

I'm really excited to have on.

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His name is Marcus Sheridan.

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Marcus is an international keynote speaker known for his unique ability to excite,

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engage and motivate live audiences.

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I can say for sure that that's true because I was there

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in the audience recently.

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Marcus also works with hundreds of businesses at Impact,

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helping them to become the most trusted voice in their industry.

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And I think trust is a big part of how he does that.

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His book, They Ask, You Answer and his keynote presentation at B2B MX

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in Scottsdale recently this year have inspired me in how powerful content

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really can be as a tool for sales.

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So something I thought our listeners would get a ton of value out of, and

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also Marcus isn't, uh, when he isn't giving his energy field keynotes,

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:57

he finds himself on adventures with his wife and his four kids.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:02

So he's definitely an engaging person, so welcome Marcus.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:07

Hey, Kev, I'm thrilled to be here and looking

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:10

forward to our conversation.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:11

I think we'll say something today is going to help somebody.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:12

That's my, that's my feeling.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:16

Yes, I it's usually like, okay, let's, let's help at least one

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:19

person or give some person some insights.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:21

So the thing I wanted to kind of start off with is if you don't mind, I mean,

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:26

I'm sure you've shared it a thousand times, but that story of how you made

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:34

your way from what was happening at River Pools and Spas to figuring out

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:39

and piecing this book together, this concept together, your philosophy that's

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:42

in your book of, They Ask You Answer.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:45

So if you don't mind sharing or retelling some of that story, I think that's

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:48

really, it's a really powerful story.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:50

Yeah, happy to do it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:51

And, uh, I think our stories matter and I never get tired of telling it because

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:55

it's made me who I am, because usually everybody says, I hate to ask you to

Marcus Sheridan: 00:01:59

say, and I know, and I think we need.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:01

I think we need to own our stories in life, as businesses,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:07

as individuals, et cetera.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:09

So for me, it really started in 2001.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:12

I was right out of university and, uh, my two buddies had just started

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:17

this little swimming pool company.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:18

They said, Hey, we're gonna open up this retail store.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:21

Do you want to come on board with.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:23

So I said, well, until I figured out what I want to do with my life shore.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:27

And so I joined them and six months later I became a partner.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:30

And so we struggled to grow the business with the following years.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:34

And then the 2008, the market crashed.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:37

And I thought we were going to lose the business and we were

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:39

in really, really big trouble.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:40

Big trouble.

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And at the time I had 60 employees, I thought I was

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:44

gonna have to let them all go.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:45

I thought I was going to lose my home.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:47

And so that's when I really started to learn about just

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:49

the internet and today's buyer.

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And, you know, I started reading a lot of fancy phrases online, like inbound

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:56

marketing, content, marketing, social media, blogging, all that stuff that

Marcus Sheridan: 00:02:59

we almost take for granted today, I was listening to it and I was like,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:03

you know what, here's what I'm hearing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:06

If I just obsess over my customer's questions and I'm willing to address them.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:10

On our website, I just might save our business.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:13

And so I can remember vividly just sitting down one night at my kitchen

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:17

table, brainstorming all the questions I'd ever, um, received that I could,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:22

you know, recall in that moment about.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:25

Fiberglass swimming pools because that's what we sold.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:28

And then one by one each night, over the next two years, every single night,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:33

I was producing an article producing a video, uh, that was answering

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:36

our customer's questions, honestly, transparently, uh, very thoroughly.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:42

We became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:45

And the pool company kept growing and, uh, we had more and more influence.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:49

And so then we started manufacturing pools, which is a huge deal.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:03:52

And we start having dealers all over the U S and then we became the first

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franchise of a swimming pool, a fiberglass swimming pool builders in the country.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:01

So today we have river pools of whatever, you know, city near you, or, you know,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:06

if it's a bigger city, we're having to grow all over the United States.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:09

And so that.

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Paul story.

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And in the midst of all this, I started writing about the experience that I

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:15

was having, the success we were having.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:17

And, um, and I just felt like everybody should know this

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and very few are doing this.

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And so obvious to me.

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And so.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:26

That led to, as I was writing about it, people started contacting me

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:29

saying, can you teach me about it?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:31

And can you show us how to do it as a company?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:32

So that led to me having an agency today, I have an agency

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:35

it's about 70 ish employees.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:37

It's called impact.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:39

And then we help companies around the world implement, of course

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:41

what we call, they ask you answer.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:42

And that became the title of my book.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:44

That book came out about fours years ago, but each year it's been selling

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:47

more copies, not less, which is really wild because there's like a movement

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:50

behind they ask you answer now.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:53

And, uh, it's been absolutely fascinating to watch.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:55

It's been a privilege to watch, and I just keep seeing the case studies role

Marcus Sheridan: 00:04:58

in honesty, transparency, teaching trust.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:02

That's, what's all about Kevin and, uh, it wins the day for any business, regardless

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:06

of what type of company you are.

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:09

Yeah, so I was trying to step into the shoes of, let's say a

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:11

typical listener of ours, which, you know, let's just say, hypothetically,

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:15

this is like a, a roofing company or something, and they're hearing

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:18

this and they're going, hmm.

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:20

And this is like a question that they might have for you, Marcus, how

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:24

is writing content, putting content out there, putting it on my website,

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:28

creating information that you know, our customers might find interesting.

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:32

How is that going to lead to sales?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:36

Well, the studies have shown that today's buyer on

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:39

average is 80, 80%, roughly 70 to 80% through that buying journey

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:44

before they reach out to a company.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:47

And we've all experienced it since the advent of the internet, which was roughly

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:49

25 years ago, 1996, 1997 is when we really started to use it every single day.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:55

That's passed since that time.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:05:57

You and I have become more educated in how we find things online,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:02

how we vet companies online, how we make decisions online.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:07

And oftentimes that's why we're even more informed than the sales

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:09

person is that we're working with.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:11

Everybody's experienced that before.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:13

Right?

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And so that's why they call it the information age is we have

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:16

access to this information.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:18

And so.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:20

You just got to analyze, well, how do I feel when I go to a site and I can learn

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:26

anything that I want from that company?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:28

How do I feel about them?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:31

What are the actions that I take?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:32

Well, the chances are that we trust them and we're going to reach out to

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:35

them before we would anybody else.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:37

And how do I feel if I'm going to a website and I can't find any

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:40

information that I'm looking for, like cost, for example, which just

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:45

annoys people to the end of time.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:47

Right?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:48

We, we jump, we leave because we're here to get answers and we want them quickly.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:54

Where we are in 2022 and beyond.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:06:56

So companies that are willing to take the time to do that, to invest in the

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:00

people and the resources to do that.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:02

They're crushing their space and we've seen, we've seen this happen.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:05

We've got so many companies that embrace.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:06

They ask you, answer this philosophy of obsessing over your customer's questions.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:10

Worries, fears, issues, concerns.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:13

Addressing them thoroughly on your website through text, through video,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:16

through audio, whatever that thing is, we've seen so many companies take off

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:20

and become the most trafficked website in their entire industry because few

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:24

companies are willing to do this.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:25

A few companies are willing to pay the price, um, because this is consistent

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:31

with what's called the law of the harvest.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:33

You can't.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:35

Create this amazing crop, unless you're willing to till the ground and then plant

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:39

the seed and then water it and protect it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:42

And then eventually you have this glorious harvest and that's

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:45

what happens with content online.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:48

It's like every article is a seed, right?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:50

And eventually enough seeds, you have a field.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:53

And then if enough fields you have a farm and then you can

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:56

just be fed for a lifetime.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:58

And that's what happens for those.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:07:59

That really understand the way content compounds online.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:04

It's a lot, like you've heard a compound interest call it compound information.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:08

It's the amount that we're investing in when we started investing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:12

And a lot of companies don't think this way and they would rather

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:15

do something that's short term.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:16

But the problem with anything that's paid like paid advertising

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:19

is as soon as your money stops.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:21

So does the.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:24

In flow.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:26

And I don't know about UK, but I'm looking for leads for a lifetime man.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:29

And I want it to be evergreen.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:31

I wanted just to keep coming back to me over and over again, without having

Marcus Sheridan: 00:08:34

to spend more and more money to do it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:36

I always look at it like, okay, you're spending money on ads.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:39

I think that's a great place to start, but eventually you'd like to create,

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:43

you know, either a network or referral network or an organic traffic, something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:46

An inflow of multiple channels that lives and breathes almost by itself.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:51

Ads are still on an amazing avenue to control the message and diversify

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:54

and tests and stuff like that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:55

But it's a, it's a, it's just a piece of a greater puzzle.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:00

Well, that's the thing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:02

It's a, to your point, it's a bridge, but it's not a long-term solution

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:06

because needing leads and earning trust, that's a long-term problem

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:11

and opportunity for any business.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:13

Right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:14

And so I like to think in terms of, okay.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:18

Sure anybody can run a successful campaign.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:22

Anybody can get leads today, but I just don't want to be in an awkward.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:28

For attention, the rest of my life as a business owner, I

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:33

want to attract them to me.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:35

I'm going to be the person at the dance that has everybody around them.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:39

And they get to choose who they want to dance with versus tapping

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:42

everybody on the shoulder and saying, will you dance with me?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:45

You know, there's, there's a big difference between the two and how

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:47

happy they are at the end of the night.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:09:49

Right, and so that's, I think really the state of mind where we need to be as busy.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:54

I mean, that leads me right to the next question I'd have.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:57

And it's something you talk a in the book with, I think it was called insourcing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:01

So a business that says, okay, I content great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:04

I want to, I want to start this path.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:05

I wanna have content out there that is engaging.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:08

That does drive people to my business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:10

Not have to rely on ads all the time, but man, making that content seems like.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:14

Difficult task.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:16

So I think like the first leap might be, well, let's go pay

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:18

someone else to go make it for me.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:20

But there's a really interesting point you made in your book, which was let's

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:23

have the company make it themselves.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:25

Let's get the company more.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:27

I guess thinking tactically, like, okay, well, how can I have my

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:31

employees, everyone in my company?

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:32

How can I find a way to generate an extract, valuable

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:36

content out of my own company?

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:38

Because they have a lot of knowledge and, you know, internal, um,

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:42

thinking and strategy and stuff.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:43

That's come from their job from working in this company that could

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:46

provide, a unique perspective on it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:49

A hundred percent, you know, I actually posted on

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:51

LinkedIn yesterday, which by the way, if you're listening to this, you

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:53

should be following me on LinkedIn.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:54

Cause I'm a dang good follow.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:55

I actually posted about a roofing company and a, you mentioned

Marcus Sheridan: 00:10:58

roofing companies earlier.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:00

This particular roofing company started, they ask you answer

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:02

three years ago and never really answered any questions on the way.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:06

And they were trying to answer some questions, but they didn't

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:08

have anybody in house to do it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:10

And so then, uh, they, they got somebody and they started posting two articles

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:14

a week and they really started to grow.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:16

And they were getting when they started this process about 200

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:18

visitors a month to their website.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:19

So classic small business, not getting much traction online.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:23

And then they moved to three pieces of content a week.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:26

Following they ask you answer framework and methodology.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:29

And today three years later, they're getting over a hundred thousand

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:33

visitors a month to their website.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:34

The business has just totally taken off and exploded.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:37

Now the whole key to this, other than embracing, they ask you answer was

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:41

getting a, an in-house content manager.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:45

And this company by the way, is called Bill Reagan roofing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:48

So you can look at their website if you're listening to this and verify what I'm

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:50

talking and you'll see it very quick, like, oh, I see why they're taking off.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:54

They're killing it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:56

There is power.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:11:58

When the artists can hold the paintbrush versus telling somebody

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:00

else what to paint and imagine that's what you're doing as a business.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:04

When you outsource your content, you're telling somebody else what

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:06

to paint, and you're thinking that you're going to create a masterpiece.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:10

You are not here's.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:13

What's interesting.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:14

Kevin, think about how many businesses I'm talking traditional businesses.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:20

I'm not talking about like, uh, Whatever company, but I'm talking about how

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:24

many traditional businesses have become the definitive thought leader of their

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:28

space by outsourcing all their content.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:34

I don't know, somebody might say well, that's a nontraditional.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:37

That's like that.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:39

That's not what I'm talking about.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:40

But WebMD did follow They Ask You Answer because they address

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:44

all the questions in their space.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:46

Well, so they follow They Ask You Answer, in their case they essentially

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:49

crowdsource it with medical professionals is a little bit different business

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:52

model, but I'm talking about how many pool companies, all right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:56

How many attorneys or how many, whatever you want to call it, B2B organizations

Marcus Sheridan: 00:12:59

to across the board, just named the.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:02

B2B organization have become the definitive leaders of their space

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:06

outsourcing, you know, you look at a company like one of the toughest

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:09

industries to stand, stand out in is, is a digital marketing, right?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:13

Cause everybody's got a blog or whatever.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:15

Who's the foremost leader.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:17

Foremost leader of inbound content, marketing information, HubSpot, why

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:22

they committed to do it in house.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:24

They didn't outsource any of that content.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:27

Right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:27

And so it continues to this day.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:29

So you can't show me a company that does it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:31

This is why I don't believe in outsourcing content.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:34

As a whole, now there might be times, and there might be some exceptions.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:38

There could be moments when you bridge it so that you can get

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:40

to the point to do it yourself.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:42

But you know, somebody might be listening to this right now and

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:44

saying, well, I don't have the resources, Marcus, and I'm small.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:47

Well, I don't feel sorry for you because I didn't have the money in 2009.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:51

And I stayed up till midnight every night, writing articles.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:54

Cause I couldn't afford to hire somebody myself.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:56

And in the process of that process of that, I became a

Marcus Sheridan: 00:13:58

pretty dang good writer too.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:01

The point is that if we see the vision, ain't nobody going to produce our content

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:07

until our story better than us period.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:10

Right, and you mentioned something else really fascinating, which

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:13

was like, well, man, what's the, what's the quality of this content need to be?

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:19

Am I a satisfactory writer?

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:20

Am I going to be able to put this together?

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:22

Or the people that work here, you know, going to be able to write

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:25

and create the stuff that we need.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:28

And then I looked at it like, well, you know, if that's holding

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:31

me back from making anything, let's just start making something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:34

Let's just start creating things and then it start rolling.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:36

Cause I think a lot of times that is a holdup, like, oh,

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:38

it's not going to be amazing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:39

It's not going to be like a Sony commercial on TV, you know?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:43

Yeah, yeah, that's how, that's how life works.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:46

You know, people forget that before they started walking and running,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:51

they were literally unable to move and then they were wiggling.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:14:57

Then eventually they started to.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:00

Slowly crawl then eventually they were standing up and falling down.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:05

Then eventually they were walking.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:07

Eventually they were running, but that's how it works.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:10

And for some reason we've lost this entire mindset with how we go about digital,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:16

you know, what those perfectionist brands, Kev, they stink online.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:21

I'm serious about this, the ones that come out the gate and say,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:24

we've got to be great and don't give themselves any margin for error.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:28

They do not create exceptional experiences for their users online

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:35

because they don't launch Jack squat.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:40

We're as one of the points of this, you know, who owns the internet?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:45

The internet is owned by C plus students who works for them.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:49

A students, I'm serious as a heart attack.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:51

Why A student says it's gotta be perfect.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:53

I've got to study all night just to get an A.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:55

C student says, hello, I'm good.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:58

I'm going to pass.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:15:59

Let's see how this goes.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:16:00

And that's literally, who's running the internet right now.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:16:03

If you look at across the board.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:05

Yeah, I think that's really encouraging because

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:10

if you're like, wow, okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:11

I believe in this content.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:14

And I think a reason why you might say that as I like the idea that,

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:17

my content is going to convey trust.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:18

I like the idea that content is going to answer these questions.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:21

It's going to bring in people through, organic channels or just people

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:24

who have these questions that have arrived at my website, want to learn

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:27

more and I'm going to be able to deliver the answers and now, okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:30

I think now I can come up with a way of generating content.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:34

I'll establish, the quality as we go.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:36

I'll figure that out.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:37

And then the next part of that journey, at least in my eyes is

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:40

like, how are we going to track this?

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:43

How are we going to measure this?

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:44

And you have some really interesting examples in your book where you're, where

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:47

you've looked at your website, you looked at your analytics, you looked at how it

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:50

was going, and you made decisions based on, wow, this is working really well.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:54

Let's do more of this or more of that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:16:55

So that was the tracking, measuring...

Marcus Sheridan: 00:16:59

Tracking is a big deal.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:01

Companies don't do it enough.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:03

And if you're using the right tools like a HubSpot or something like that, you and

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:07

people are filling out forms on your site.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:09

When they fill out a form, you should be able to track what pages they've

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:13

looked at and what was the first page of the site that they looked at.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:16

And when you can see first page of.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:18

That tells you, okay.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:19

This essentially is what brought them to the site, especially if it's like

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:23

an article that you wrote, or if it's coming off of a YouTube link that you

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:27

did, I mean, you should be able to see ultimately, what was the initial source,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:32

and that gives you the opportunity for this magical thing called revenue

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:36

attribution, which a lot of companies don't necessarily do very well.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:39

But when you have revenue attribution, you can do.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:41

Hey, that little article right there, that would be 45 minutes to write.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:44

And my kitchen table has generated over $15 million in sales.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:47

Right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:47

It gives you the ability to say that.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:49

And, uh, that's also, if somebody is going to grow and scale their

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:53

marketing, That's what you gotta do.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:17:56

You gotta show that we're producing incredible revenue.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:00

We're producing incredible amount of MQL is SQL's all the leads

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:04

that we need to be producing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:05

We're doing it through our activities.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:07

Therefore, more resources.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:10

Are merited.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:12

So as to continue this momentum that we have, instead of the CFO saying, I

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:15

don't know if this is making any money.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:17

The CFO is saying, you know what?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:19

I'm not wanting to spend money, but this is, this is undeniable.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:18:24

That's what we want.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:26

Right, and I think that's really powerful, not just.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:30

You know, getting feedback to improve your content and figure out, okay,

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:33

what's working, what's resonating.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:34

Maybe I should write something, you know, maybe be more specific

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:37

or different off this article, but also, Hey, keep the engine going.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:40

You know, if this is proving that this is generating sales because of how powerful

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:44

it can be, content can be so powerful.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:48

This quote you have in your book, I'm just gonna pull it up.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:50

Cause I was like, I gotta mention this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:51

This is a quote from your book.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:53

"Content, assuming it is honest and transparent is the greatest

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:56

sales tool in the world today."

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:58

When I read that, I was like, wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:59

Yeah, it really could be.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:01

So what is it that people aren't getting that's, you know, why is it

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:04

businesses may think, well, I tried it before and it failed or it didn't work.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:07

Like how are they missing it so badly?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:10

Well, in most cases, if you still, if you, if somebody reads They

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:13

Ask You Answer because on the surface or like I'm answering customer's questions.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:18

Yeah, right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:19

People there's five in the book, we talk about five fundamental subjects that every

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:25

buyer wants to know about B2B B to C.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:27

They want to research.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:29

They're obsessed with.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:30

Here they are cost questions, problems, or negative questions.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:36

In other words, what could go wrong with number three, comparison

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:40

questions versus number four.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:44

Reviews number five best.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:47

So cost problems, comparisons, reviews, best derivatives of

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:50

those, those run the internet.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:53

That's like literally the economy is run by people searching those

Marcus Sheridan: 00:19:57

things and what's fascinating is most businesses don't want to talk about.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:01

Every single company, listening to this right now should be talking

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:04

about cost and price of their products and services on their website.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:07

Now I'm not saying by the way that you had to put exact numbers, but

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:10

if you're not teaching companies, excuse me, or readers or potential

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:13

customers, what drives cost up, what drives cost down, why some companies

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:16

are expensive, why some companies are cheap and roughly, where do you fall?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:20

Then you're failing to earn trust.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:21

And that's unacceptable in my.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:23

If you're not talking about those negatives, those issues worries,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:27

concerns that they have, right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:29

Then you can't bury the elephants.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:31

The elephants are always there in the room.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:33

You can't sweep an elephant under a rug.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:34

It's an elephant.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:35

Right?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:36

So talk about it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:37

People are constantly asking you comparison based questions.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:40

How do you compare to this?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:41

You know, you versus that.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:43

Your product versus their product, your methodology, versus that methodology,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:47

this option versus that option.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:48

We're constantly comparing those things.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:50

How come you're not doing owning your website's ridiculous.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:52

They're asking your sales team.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:54

So why not people want reviews, but they want unbiased reviews.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:58

They want to hear about pros and cons.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:20:59

Good, bad, and ugly.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:01

Are you producing pros, cons good, bad and ugly reviews of your products and stuff.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:05

Why not, you should be, that's what the marketplace wants if

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:08

you've constantly searched for the best or the most or the top.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:11

Right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:11

Because we want to see what the best is.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:13

Don't mean we've grown about a message.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:14

If he's wanting to see it so that we can compare off of that

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:16

and say, okay, I'm getting.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:19

Are you talking about that?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:21

Or are you just, again, the ostrich with your head in the sand thinking

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:24

the problem, the question that needs is going to go away, it doesn't go away.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:27

The only thing that goes away is the lead, right, is the trust buy,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:31

buy, but their desire to know the thing never goes away, which is why.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:38

It is my sentiment that I'm going to talk about it.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:41

I want to own every conversation in any industry on a part of I'm

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:46

going to own the conversation.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:47

I'm going to talk about cost and price more than everybody.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:50

I'm going to talk about the competition more than everybody.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:52

I'm not going to say anything.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:53

I'm not going to say anything ugly, but I'm going to be a foremost thought leader.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:21:57

And it's like, you know how many companies are literally like that, that our parents

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:02

back in the day, when we went to with them a question and they said, go look it up.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:07

Like, that's ridiculous.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:08

Just give them the answer.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:10

Don't be your parents from the 1980s saying, go look at up.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:16

Right, and there's a lot of difference and there's something else

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:18

you mentioned, you know, being teachable.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:19

Right, so there's a difference in, okay, here's the information.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:24

I think a big difference or a leap even from there to go, okay, here's

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:28

the answer, and here's why, let me help you understand it better.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:31

Let me explain it better.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:32

So you have, the information in a transparent, like you mentioned in that

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:35

quote transparent sort of honest way.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:36

So being teachable is something that in content is a little different of

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:41

a perspective and how you create it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:42

Then let's just say, I'm just going to put the answer on like a

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:45

one sentence a single paragraph.

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:47

So how is it different in your eyes to make content, you know,

Kevin Dieny: 00:22:51

teachable or a teaching experience?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:53

Well, I think the fundamental key to great content is

Marcus Sheridan: 00:22:58

that you don't attempt to sound smart.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:01

Now that sounds counterintuitive to a lot of people, but you got to

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:03

remember, it's dumb not to dumb it down.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:08

We're searching for communion communication, communion, same route.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:13

All we're looking for is the audience to have a light bulb moment where they

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:18

say, oh, that makes so much sense.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:21

Now I understand.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:23

That's obvious, right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:25

So as I'm speaking to you right now, okay.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:27

I'm not trying to impress anybody.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:29

This is me.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:30

If you saw me in real life, you'd say, dude, you're the same person.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:33

That's exactly right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:34

This is how I talk.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:35

You've read my book.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:35

Kevin, Jackie talked like you, right?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:37

Yes, that's exactly right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:39

That's how it works.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:40

I'm not trying to impress.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:42

This is what you got and you can sense the realness.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:44

Now you might not agree with me, but you can sense the realness of

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:48

how I communicate that in and of itself in genders, a sense of trust.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:54

And so if you, if you apply that to the way we do educational articles and the way

Marcus Sheridan: 00:23:59

we do educational videos and you release the need to be the smartest person in the.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:04

And just say here, look, let's look at this together.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:07

And one of the keys Kevin's you gotta be disconnected with outcome.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:11

When I say disconnected with outcome, it's like, I don't really care if you buy

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:13

from me or not sure what I love you too.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:15

Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:15

But I ultimately care more about you making the best decision for you.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:20

So let's look at the pros and the cons let's look at both sides of the

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:22

story and then boom, you can do it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:25

Yeah, that is such a great, a great answer for that,

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:29

because writing in that fashion.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:31

I mean, I, I put a poll out for this podcast and said, okay, what's the thing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:35

You'd like this podcast to be the least, what's the thing you wouldn't

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:38

want to listen to this podcast for.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:40

And I listed a bunch of different options.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:42

Think it was like 12 options and every single person said,

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:44

I don't want this to be salesy.

Kevin Dieny: 00:24:47

That's the one thing everyone said.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:50

Yeah, amen.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:52

Because we've all got this BS meter, right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:55

We can pick up on that junk.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:57

Right.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:57

We can pick up on that junk.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:24:59

So you're making it, you're making a great point, Kevin.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:01

That's why, you know, that's why your podcast is growing because people can

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:04

feel that sincerity and they see the value and, you know, karma comes back

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:09

and the value comes back to you as well.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:11

Yeah, thanks.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:13

The last thing I want to just touch on before we close out is now you

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:18

talked about a lot of stuff here, and if there's anything else that we.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:23

Really mentioned that you think would be helpful for a small

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:25

local business or something.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:26

Who's listening to this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:28

Is there anything you'd want to leave them with before we finish?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:32

Listen, if you're listening to this right now, do not

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:35

try to be all things to all people.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:38

One of the best books I've ever read that changed my life.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:40

It saved my swimming pool company, and everybody should read it, read it

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:43

before you read, they ask you answer is good to great by Jim Collins.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:46

Now, one of the things that Jim Collins talks about in that book is what's

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:49

called the hedgehog concept, which really just was a huge paradigm shift for me.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:54

It's our concept basically is, the hedgehog doesn't do really much

Marcus Sheridan: 00:25:57

well in life, but the one thing it does very well is it protects

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:02

itself when things go wrong.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:04

And so the way it protects itself, it rolls up into a spiky ball.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:09

And then, oh, lo and behold, it lives to see another day.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:13

And so you have to ask yourself, well, what's the one thing we can be the

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:15

best in the world at, as a business.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:17

Now for me, I used to have a retail stores.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:21

I used to sell all types of products and services.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:23

So instead of.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:25

You know, trying to be mediocre, essentially at all these things,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:30

Tanny beds, pool tables, hot tubs above ground pools, which

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:33

is what I was mediocre at best.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:35

And all these things.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:36

I said, what can I be the best in the world at was my hedgehog

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:38

okay fiberglass swimming pools.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:40

Now then later on, I said, okay, with fiberglass swimming pools,

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:44

what can be the best in the world?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:45

I can be the best in the world, educating them through content on my website.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:49

So I didn't, I said, I'm not going to be worried about.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:52

I didn't spend no time on social media.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:54

So I started become the Wikipedia, pulls on my website first with text.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:26:57

Then I introduced video and we blew up with video.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:01

It wasn't for like six or seven years after I did they ask you answer

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:06

that I even looked at social media.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:08

I didn't care because I said, I'm going to be the best at this thing.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:11

Now this is why for me on social media, I crushed on.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:16

Why because I need to spend my time scrolling on Instagram all day long.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:19

That's why, and that's key to all of us.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:23

So don't try to be a Jack of all trades because you'll end

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:25

up being a master of none.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:27

Choose your lane and do well in that lane.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:30

And it'll serve you very, very well as a business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:34

I think that's really powerful advice.

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:36

Now, Marcus, if there's listeners who want to get in touch with you, find out, follow

Kevin Dieny: 00:27:41

you, find out more about your company, anything like that, how can they find you?

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:47

Marcus@marcussheridan.com is my personal email address.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:51

Isn't that nice.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:52

You can email me directly if you're listening this right now.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:55

So you'll Marcus.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:56

I have a question for you and I'll actually have.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:27:59

Marcus and Marcus shared.com, but connect with me on LinkedIn.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:28:02

Follow me on LinkedIn because that's where you're going to get my best stuff.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:28:05

Uh, Kevin, it was great chatting with you today.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:28:08

Hopefully people read the book, hopefully they'll listen, continue to listen to your

Marcus Sheridan: 00:28:12

podcast because you're doing a great job.

Marcus Sheridan: 00:28:13

And you know, for me, this was a lot of fun.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:17

Yeah, here's the book.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:18

If you're watching the video on this, thank you so much, Marcus.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:21

I really appreciated your time coming on here.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:23

Being able to talk to our audience and answering questions and just the cordial

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:27

fun time we've had together today.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:28

So thank you again.