They Ask You Answer with Marcus Sheridan

James Lawrence: Welcome back to the Smarter Marketer Podcast. I'm here today with Marcus Sheridan. Marcus, Welcome.

Marcus Sheridan: James. Happy to be here. I think we're going to have a great conversation. 

James Lawrence: Excellent, my man. So Marcus is the author of ‘They Ask You Answer’. ‘They Ask You Answer’ was rated the number one marketing book to read by Mashable. It's listed in the top five marketing books of all time by the book authority. Forbes listed it as one of the eleven marketing books every CMO should read. Marcus was described by the international keynote speaker as ‘one of 20 speakers you don't want to miss the opportunity to see’. You've been basically featured everywhere, mate. You've been featured in the Globe, the Mail, Content Marketing Institute, Social Media examiner. You've been described as a web marketing guru by The New York Times. Marcus, welcome to the pod. 

Marcus Sheridan: Hey. Excellent. Good times. Good times indeed. Fun ride. 

James Lawrence: You've been busy. I think I first came across your story when I was at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio. I think maybe 2016-17. I didn't know of the book at that time. I guess it was probably in the works. Heard your story about art, kind of where you went from in business through kind of into the marketing space. Dave and I put Smarter Marketer together. You actually feature in a section about giving prospective buyers what they want as opposed to what you want. But I think just for listeners that aren't as familiar with your story, just yeah, summary of kind of where you came from in business and how you've kind of moved through into the marketing space. 

Marcus Sheridan: Here's the quick 101. Right out of college, I started a company, swimming pool company called River Pools 2001 with a couple buddies. And things were going okay up until 2008, 2009. That's when the market crashed. I thought we were going to lose the business, but the beauty of pain and suffering is it forces us to do things we otherwise wouldn't have done, right? And so I started to really research, learning different things like content marketing, inbound marketing, social media, blogging. What I heard in my simple pool guy mind, James, was, you know, if I just obsess over my customers questions, worries, fears, issues, and I'm willing to address those on my website, I could save my business, right? So I said, that's what we're going to do. We're going to become the Wikipedia of pools. And this was essentially March of 2009. 

Marcus Sheridan: And I can remember sitting down one night that March, and I was brainstorming every single question that I had ever been asked about a swimming pool. And then every night for the next two years, I produced an article or a video that addressed every single one of those questions. And I called this framework, this philosophy, ‘they ask, you answer’. And to make a long story short, we became the most trafficed swimming pool website in the world. And then we took off. And then we started, because we were getting so many leads, I started manufacturing pools. And then we became the fastest growing manufacturer of pools in the US. And then we became a franchise. Now we have river pools all over the country. And it was during this time, too, that I started having companies say, hey, how did you do that? Could you share that from our stage at our event? And I became a full time speaker. I started an agency. That agency today has about 70 employees. And we help companies all over the world implement this philosophy, this framework of they ask, you answer. 

Marcus Sheridan: So I still got the pool company. It's been an unbelievable ride. But what's so cool, James, is watching so many companies become the most trusted voice in their space, turn their business around, achieve heights they never dreamt possible. All because they're just listening really well and answering their customers questions online. 

James Lawrence: So good. Such a good journey. 

Marcus Sheridan: It's great. I love it every single day, my man.

James Lawrence: So cool. The question I did want to ask you was, what's the value of the article now, the famous article of how much does a fiberglass pool cost? How many sales is it up to now?

Marcus Sheridan: So I was the first person in swimming pool industry to talk about how much a fiberglass pool costs, which is one of the principles of the book. If you haven't read the book, there's basically five subjects that every buyer wants to know when it comes to they ask, you answer, and one of them is cost. And so we wrote an article in 2009 on how much does fiberglass will cost, and I've done the recent numbers on this and the revenue attribution to that one single post that took me 45 minutes to write on my kitchen table for just my company in Virginia, not the national company, but the company in Virginia, is much greater than the number I'm going to tell you - is $25 million in sales. 

James Lawrence: I'm going to have to update the number. I think it was six mil in the Smarter Marketer book.

Marcus Sheridan: Originally, when I wrote the book, it was like that. It was about $6 million. Incredible. So it just keeps going up. Right. It's the glories of revenue attribution which, if you're listening to this and you're a marketer, you sure better be looking for some revenue attribution. Otherwise you're never going to get a raise and you're never going to get the resources you deserve within your marketing department. 

James Lawrence: And I think that's the beauty of content, right. It's good content, in theory, is evergreen or close to. And you mentioned 45 minutes to write the article, and it's still generating income. 

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, that's a pretty solid ROI. I'm about a half a million dollars per minute ROI right now.

James Lawrence: Is that your speaking that's your speaking rate as well? 

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, it's tracking pretty well, but, yeah, it is the gift that keeps on giving. It never stops working for you. Content, if you use it the right way, it doesn't sleep, it doesn't leave you for another company, it doesn't ask you for a raise. And so it just takes somebody that's willing to do that, which others in your space haven't done. What's funny, James, is a lot of companies say, yeah, we produce content, but most companies don't produce good content. When I mean good content, that's the stuff that buyers really want to know, that most organisations and businesses are afraid to talk about. Just like everybody that's listening to this right now, if you've got a salesperson on your team, or if you're a sales in sales, you've been asked about the competition before. Well, how much on your website do you talk about the competition right now? And I'm not saying that you should reference anything negative, but you should absolutely be talking about the competition because the marketplace wants to know and they're asking you these questions, right? So that's an example. 

Marcus Sheridan: Most don't talk about it. Most don't talk about the negatives. What could go wrong? What are the drawbacks? Like you're a HubSpot partner, I'm a HubSpot partner. We openly talk about the drawbacks, the negatives, the problems with HubSpot. And I remember the first time I wrote about the problems of the HubSpot, that was probably like 2011 and that was one of my primary lead generators for a long time as an agency. So you don't hide from the negative. But too many companies don’t want to, right? They just bury their head in the sand. 

James Lawrence: That's it. I think the book references that, right. The reality is that I think the reference in the book is to buying a Ford Mustang 2000 something model. And it's kind of like if you're looking at buying that car, you don't want to read the good reviews, you want to read the bad ones. You actually want to know what the drawbacks of the car are, what the issues are. Because it doesn't matter how you frame it. That's what’s in the mind of the prospective client, right? 

Marcus Sheridan: Prospective customer. Well, to that, what's really interesting about today's buyer is - and all of us have learned to do this - the only time we research what's wrong with something, what's negative about something, what could go wrong with something. I'm talking about a purchase is when we're serious about buying it. That's the only time, the only time somebody's going to search online what are the problems with the fiberglass pool? Since they want to buy a fiberglass pool if somebody's searching what are the problems with HubSpot? It's because they're interested in buying HubSpot. That's how it works. But what's crazy is most companies won't talk about what's wrong with the thing thing. We talked about the problems with fiberglass pools. That articles made over a couple of million dollars in revenue attribution so far. Right. Because the greatest way in life to resolve a concern is to address it before it becomes a concern. 

Marcus Sheridan: Best salespeople know this, the best marketers know this. And so what happens oftentimes is because we don't like to address the sticky subjects, the hard subjects. They get asked to us during the sales process. By that point, it's probably too late anyway. But if you get asked, that means you're on your heels, you're being reactive. So proactivity is the key to any great content, strategy and framework. That's why ‘they ask you answer’ works so very well, but it forces you to think way more like a consumer, like a buyer, less like a business. And that's a good thing, by the way. It's a very good thing. 

James Lawrence: Can we can we jump into the crux of the book? Right? I think obviously it's about obsessing over your customer, what's in their mind, their journey. I want to talk later on just about the buyer journey. And it has changed, right? Like 30 years ago, us as brands had the control, you walk into a car dealership to buy that Mustang, it's the car dealer. It's the sales guy on the floor that has the brochure, has the specs. 

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah. 30 years ago we had a sales process. Today we've got a buying process. That's how it works. It's no longer a sales process. If you think it is, you're sorely mistaken because the business is no longer in charge of that game.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's it. So premise of the book, ‘they ask you answer’; obsess over your customer. What are the things going on in their brain that you as a brand, as a business, can share?

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah. And I would say there's a quick way you can audit yourself when using ‘they ask you answer’. Number one, you’ve got to be willing to talk about that which nobody's willing to talk about in your space. Number two, you got to be willing to show via video what nobody else is willing to show in your space. And then number three, you got to be willing to sell in a way nobody else is willing to sell in your space. So tell, show, sell. Those are the three fundamental actions that we've got to be willing to do. And again, in a way that others are not doing in our space, or at least the majority are not doing in our space. 

Marcus Sheridan: Listen, if the content on your website is just pretty much like everybody else in your space, it ain't good. You might think it's good, but it's not going to resonate with the marketplace. If the videos you have in your site are just like everybody else, some glorious about us video, you ain't good. You're not going to get traction if you're selling today like you were three years ago, before COVID, I'm sure is day that you are getting left behind by the marketplace because we shouldn't be selling today like we were before COVID because the marketplace has changed. So what you just said a second ago, the studies today show that today's buyers somewhere between 70% to 80% through the buyer's journey before they reach out to a company. They are vetting us to death. That's what's happening. And to this, what does it mean? It means the sales department is handling less of that buying process, that buying decision than ever. The marketing department is handling more than they ever have, which is why the two departments should be more overlapped than they've ever been in, because marketing should be responsible for revenue, not fluffy stuff anymore. 

Marcus Sheridan: Sales should be responsible for some marketing activity, like being a subject matter expert, maybe for videos, things like that. That should be on the website, because oftentimes they're the most familiar with some of those answers to buyer questions. So many companies do not understand this reality. Go back 25 years. Internet is just getting started. By the time we reach out to a company, James, we're 20% to 30% through the buyer cycle, right through the buyer's journey. Today we're at 70% to 80%. Tomorrow we're going to be somewhere around 90%. This number will not go back. Everybody needs to swallow that pill. That's the huge, massive pill every organisation has to swallow. And then there's the second trend. This is one has been catapulted since COVID and it's just taken off, which is this study by Gartner. 33% of all buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. I'll repeat, 33% of all buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. For millennials, the number is 44%. So what does this mean? Well, I don't think it necessarily means that we don't ever want to talk a salesperson. But here's the reality that we got to all swallow. We do not want to talk to a salesperson until we are good and ready to talk to said salesperson. That's the key. And if we don't feel fed, if we don't feel prepared, if we don't feel ready, we don't feel knowledgeable, if we don't feel like we have our ducks in a row, we're not going to engage. 

Marcus Sheridan: And so the companies that are willing to help them feel those things because they're giving the information that they want when everybody else will not because they're not hedging it, saving it for that face to face interaction with the salesperson, which is ridiculous in 2022 and beyond. So for the company that's not thinking that way, is that instead thinking our buyers are not dumb. They're going to get the information that they want, so we're going to make sure they get it from us. We're going to be a part of every conversation. We're not going to hide. We're not going to be the ostrich with their head buried in the sand. We're to lean into it, whatever it is, question, worry, fear, issue, concern. We're going to go at it aggressively. So that's the key. That's what ‘they ask you answer’ is. And that's why it's fundamental. Because of those two numbers, that 70% to 80% number and the 33% seller free number. 

James Lawrence: And do you see, because I feel here in Australia that so many businesses are still so overly sales orientated, where you've still got this more traditional structure, which is kind of marketing brings the leads in, but then it's all sales driven. It's kind of driven by sales budgets. And if sales isn't performing, it's blame marketing. Do you see the flip is happening where revenue departments are being led by marketers, not salespeople in America? 

Marcus Sheridan: What we're seeing more of is, really forward thinking companies, a lot of them have revenue teams, right? Where there's a lot more interaction between what would be traditionally considered sales and marketing. A lot more overlap there. Just look at the explosion of ecommerce and B2B. Just think about that for a second. Clear explosion of ecommerce in B2B. This goes back to the seller free. This goes back to look, listen, if something is an ecommerce sale, who gets credit for that? The sales department or marketing the majority of the time. That ain't the sales department that made that sale the majority of the time, right. And so we all see the shift. A lot of companies don't want to recognise it or accept it as true or whatever it is. I've got a lot of clients in Australia, New Zealand, a lot of companies do. And ‘they ask you answer’ there and to your point, you're accurate, James; there's resistance. 

Marcus Sheridan: But you know what? In 1996, 1997, this very interesting thing happened to salespeople. Many of them were forced to do this thing called electronic mail. 1990 - 97, a lot of them didn't want to do it. A lot of them pushed back and a lot of them got left behind. And how did it go for those people? Not too well. We're in another era just like that, of continuous, rapid change and growth. And there's companies not wanting to get on board, but there was companies that didn't want to get websites and how did that work out for them? It just keeps going. Right? There's companies that don't want to do video and it ain't going to work out for them. And eventually we're going to say there's companies that don't want to have anything to do with web three. Which, by the way, I don't think you need anything to do with web three right now. But eventually you will. You will. And so even though I'm not worried about it today so much, there will come a day when I'm going to really lean in, because that's what the marketplace is asking for. You see, ‘they ask you answer’ isn't just the questions they're asking, it's how do they want to buy? Right? What are their behaviors? What are their preferences, and can I meet them where they are? Letting go of this idea that I've got to be fully in charge of the sales process. 

James Lawrence: That's classic marketing, right? Market orientation. It's about putting yourself in the shoes of the prospect, not your own brand, right? 

Marcus Sheridan: What's interesting though is that's the great divide on the internet in companies. Certain companies just can't get past themselves and truly empathise and think like a buyer. I believe they could, but just something they just won't allow themselves to. And they'll find every reason excuse not to. Just like there's people listening to this podcast right now that have already said this don't apply to me. You are saying that you are currently being left behind. It's like the person that's sitting at the beach in a lounge chair. The tide is coming in and they're thinking, I don’t want to move my chair. You're going to get wet. The tide will not stop because we don't move the chair. We eventually always move the chair. Even though we're comfortable and even though we don't want to move everything, we move the chair. It's what happens. And so if you're listening to this right now, your company ain't different. It's not special. It's not unique. When it comes to this fundamental emotion of trust, that's really what's the catalyst of ‘they ask you answer’. How can we become the most trusted voice in our space? Well, we got to give more. We got to say more. We got to make it easier for them. We got to tell them. Teach them. That's what we got to do. 

James Lawrence: Can we talk about adoption? Because I think the audience in the pod, they're marketers, right? So I think a lot of what is in the book, a lot of what you're saying, a lot of my perspective I think we're all in alignment, right? I think often- 

Marcus Sheridan: No, we're not in alignment. James. 

James Lawrence: But in terms of-

Marcus Sheridan: how many marketers talk about in the B, two B service based business are talking and pushing hard to talk about cost and price on their website right now. Most are not. 

James Lawrence: That's fair. 

Marcus Sheridan: Most fall in line with what is traditional in their space. Most. And that's sad because we're creative. We're Good. We're better now. That doesn't mean they want to. It means they do. I think as marketers we have to push harder. We can't accept less. Do you know how many emails I've gotten over the years from marketers that have said to me, marcus, I'm so sick and tired of it. Because I know. They ask, you answer would work. But the problem is I can't get buy in. Now, part of that problem is because we got to stop talking like Marketers. I swear. They should have an entire like - in marketing school or in university- they should have an entire year on just how to communicate with sales and leadership so that we can influence them. Because if you want to influence leadership, you got to talk like a leader to the business. If you want to influence sales, you have to talk the language of sales. What we can't do, is we can't sound like marketers. The reason why they ask you answer has been outrageously successful at moving CEOs to the side of; ‘we need to spend more on marketing’, it's because it doesn't sound like it was written by a marketer. And I know it might sound like I'm oversimplifying this, but this is fundamental. It's critical. And this is why we're seeing so many frustrated marketers. This is why the average CMO lasts shorter today than they've ever lasted within their organisation. It's less than 18 months on average for CMOs around the world. There's a lot of frustration, a lack of buy-in still. But we have to look at ourselves and not blame leadership. We've got to get better as marketers.

James Lawrence: That's what I'm coming from, right? How do we do it? I think if you read the book, it's compelling. Right? And I think we all agree that putting ourselves in the mind of the buyer answering questions. Often I do find down here that it's not marketers that don't want to push the envelope, that don't want to open up the gates around information and trust, it's roadblocks that you get from sales departments. Right. No way are we talking pricing on the website or from C-suite. But this should work in three months. This should work in a month. You know what I mean? I'm used to spending money on marketing and getting results, and I do want to get to later on in the pod in terms, of how do we judge success, how long does it take in your experience, but I think from your experience of putting this into organisations-

Marcus Sheridan: Why are we failing? Let's talk about that for a second, okay? Why are we failing to get the buy in? So you've been to Inbound before. You're going to go to what was it called, SMX in Europe this year? I think you might go to that, right? You go to Inbound and you say, okay, how many of you are marketers in this room? 95% raise their hand. And then you say, how many of you are owners? Couple percent raise their hand. How many are sales professionals? Couple percent raise their hand. Okay, so here's what happens. We go to the Inbounds of the world, we get fired up, we get moved, we want to take action. And so we go back to the office as marketers. We present to our team what we heard, and because they weren't there, what do they say? Just not into it. They didn't catch the vision. They weren't in that state of high learning. 

Marcus Sheridan: So I tell marketers all the time what would happen if you went to the CEO of your company and you said to the CEO; listen, I know I've got XYZ budget to go to XYZ event this year. But because it's so important to me that you catch the vision, I would like to ask for you to go in my stead. So I don't want the company to spend any money on me. I'm going to ask for you to go. Would you be willing to do that? And now, how many marketers have ever made that offer to somebody on their leadership team or the CEO of their company - whomever they really need to get that buy in from? I could tell you not a lot. Not a lot. Every sales manager should be at those conferences, and leadership teams should be at those conferences, but they're usually not there, James. And that's one of our biggest problems. 

Marcus Sheridan: People ask me all the time how can I get my team to buy into they ask, you answer am. My first answer. And this sounds terrible, but it's like, don't try to teach ‘they ask you answer to your team’. Instead, here's what you need to do. You need to go to the CEO, to the leadership team or the salesperson, whoever you need to say; I read a book that I think could be very important for our business. If I gave it to you, would you be willing to read it and discuss it with me? Literally? That's it? That's it. Person is going to say yes, and then you say, can we discuss it in two weeks when you're done? And they're going to say, okay. Because, you see, if you go to somebody in your company and say, listen, we need to talk about cost and price on our website. We need to talk about what could go wrong, the negatives on our website. We need to talk about the competition. We need to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. We need to talk about pros and cons of our products and services on our website. They're going to say, you're nuts. You're crazy. You don't understand. Right? 

Marcus Sheridan: So instead of doing that, there's an old saying, James. It says, you can be a profit to the world, but nobody listen to you in your hometown, right? And so there's some amazing marketers out there. Amazing. But nobody listens to them. Why? Because they're a profit in their hometown. That's the problem sucks, really sucks bad. But this is why I have spoken to companies, many companies, because there has to be oftentimes an outside influence for that light bulb to finally come on. I'm just throwing out a couple of things. Our vernacular has got to change the way we perceive getting by and has got to change, got to recognise that we can't sound like marketers - got a lot of work to do. And I'm not trying to throw marketers on the bus. My passion is because I want so bad for all the creatives that are listening to this right now to be able to achieve their greatness. Because a lot of people that listen to this are stallions. And what happens when a stallion is fenced in? One of two things. A stallion either dies or they jump the fence. Because stallions are born to run. And so there's people listening this right now that feel like a stallion, that are fenced in, that are pent up and that; I just feel like I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing my job with my hands tied behind my back. I can tell you right now you're going to jump the fence, or you're going to be unhappy forever. 

James Lawrence: And that's the reality. I don't know what it's like in the States. I think it's similar to here. It's a hot job. Market market, right. And the reality is good marketers have choice. I think you have in any organisation, there's pros, there's cons, there's stakeholder management. You're going to run up against roadblocks. But if fundamentally it's impossible to get things moving, if done the right way, then you will jump the fence. Right? It's what we see. But, yeah, I think it's an interesting observation and the stakeholder management bit is key and it's often a common theme on the pod. I've already probably given the secret away to markers. But the last question will be, what's your one piece of advice for in house marketers trying to make their way through? And I reckon half the time the answer is talk revenue. You know, don't don't marketing, there's a certain reputation or stigma in certain businesses about marketing, and we have a responsibility to have a proper seat at the table and that's to talk about revenue and money and numbers and then go off and do the marketing stuff to the side of that. 

Marcus Sheridan: Right, that's exactly right. Marketers have to be also, by the way, social animals. We've got to be very good at developing trust across departments. We got to get along well with the sales team, we got to get along well with leadership, we have got to elevate every room that we go in in the organisation. That's our job. That's our job. And it might not be fair, but you know what? I don't think life's supposed to be fair. I think we reap what we sow. So let's go out there and let's get it. And one last thing I'll say, just for marketers in general. These are things that you should be discussing when you're in a job interview, by the way. You should be interviewing the company that is interviewing you just as hard as they're interviewing you, if not harder. You should find out what they're willing to talk about. You should vet them, and you should make sure that they want to be honest, that they want to be transparent, that they want to be creative, that they want to push the envelope, that they want to do video, that they're not sitting there saying, no, but we're special. We're different. We can't do those things. Right. Because even if you get more money, you're not going to be happy because you're not using your gift. You're not using your genius. Right. Because you're born to run. You’ve got to create. That's what we do. So keep that in mind as this market, to your point, James, is hot. Many people right now are looking, but make sure that you vet them.

James Lawrence: Yeah, it's a genuine meeting of equals, right? Can we just jump into the actual content side of things? The Big Five; the book talks about five types of content that are very important that you break things into. And I don't want to give away too much. I think marketers listening should go out and buy a copy of the book. But just in terms of conceptually the Big Five, those buckets of content that you kind of divide things into.

Marcus Sheridan: The Big Five is really to me, somebody said, what's the most important element of ‘they ask you answer’ the book? It's the big five. The Big Five are the five subjects that buyers and consumers we're all obsessed with, that we all research online before we reach out to a company. We've seen the pattern of the Big Five, and about 99% of all the companies that we've ever worked with before, they literally run the search economy. They run it. And what's fascinating about these five things is even though buyers and consumers are obsessed with them, businesses don't like to talk about them. Here's the five. Number one, as buyers, consumers, we want to talk about or learn about cost, price rates, et cetera. That's number one. Even if we can afford it, we want to understand cost and price. Number two, we want to understand problems. In other words, how could this go wrong? How could this blow up in my face? Negatives issues, concerns. Okay, so problems is number two. So we got costs and problems. Number three, comparisons. We love to compare stuff online. This versus that. How many times have you gone to Google and typed in this versus whatever this is versus that? X product versus Y product, right? X company versus Y company is done a million times. And so the key is we got to be willing to address those, your sales teams address those many, many times, right? You should on your website. Number four, reviews. We're obsessed with reviews, but we expect reviews to be unbiased, and we expect them to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly, the pros and the cons. Best reviews talk about that, and so we should be talking about that as well for our own products every single time. And then finally, number five of the big five is best. Or most or top. But how many times have you searched best, such and such in Google before? If you're listening to this, hundreds of times. So those five; costs, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best. Again, they run the economy, but businesses don't like to generally talk about these things. I will tell you right now that roughly 75-80% of the content on your website should directly or indirectly relate to these five subjects.

James Lawrence: Because it's the stuff they want.

Marcus Sheridan: I can tell you that's the real questions in the buyer's brain, right? Those five areas, that's what they want to know. Let's break this down for, let's say, a fiberglass swimming pool, okay? So if it's a fiberglass pool, it's fiberglass. How much does a fiberglass pool cost? Or how much does an inground pool cost? Or how much does a concrete pool cost? How much does a vinyl line or in ground pool cost? All those are separate questions. All those important questions are questions I'd want to answer my website problems. Are fiberglass pools ugly? Are fiberglass pools cheap? Do fiberglass pools pop out of the ground? Do fiberglass pools look like a bathtub in your yard? I mean, there's tons of them. Do fiberglass pools crack? Okay, all those are negatives problems. Hey, is it true that I heard that? Okay, those are problem statements versus statements. Fiberglass versus concrete, which is best for me? Fiberglass pools versus vinyl liner pools, which is the best option? Right? So that's another example. But there's other verses; stamp concrete versus brush concrete for your pool patio, which is the best option? So those are verses, right? And then you have reviews. This might be a review of the top five fiberglass pool manufacturers in Australia. That's an example of one. And then finally you got ‘Best’, which is; who are the best fiberglass pool builders in Sydney, Australia? That's an example of something that many people would search, which, by the way, fiberglass pools were really founded in Australia. Just, if you're listening, if you’re an Aussie, the market just is ruch with fiberglass pools. In Australia, most manufacturers, they came from some type of Australian heritage. 

James Lawrence: Interesting. Didn't know that. Didn't think I'd learn that on the pod today, Marcus.

Marcus Sheridan: You learned it today, my friend.

James Lawrence: Can we talk industry? B2B, B2C, short buper cycle, long buyer cycle. We've got a business down here, appliances online, probably really similar to the Yale appliances example in the book, which is appliances. And they've done this incredible job of videos and demos and lots of content for each of their products and comparisons. Where do you find ‘they ask you answer’ works absolutely at its best. And other industries where, yeah, sure, it plays a role, but it isn't as fundamental to kind of being transformative?

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, they ask you answer, works really well if buyers have a lot of questions during the research process, that could be in the B2B, that could be in the B2C. It certainly applies to services as well. There are certain ones where it just always cleans house, to your point, like high end retail; like furniture, like appliances, where there's just so many questions that people are researching. It does incredibly well with that. It's like you might say, well, where would they ask you answer and not necessarily crush it. And by the way, it would work in a lot of areas, but you wouldn't have as much direct results. Like a restaurant, for example. You're not going to answer every question in the world about your food. If I'm a restaurant, I've got a full time videographer and all I do is I create videos about stories of my customers, my people. But it's not a straight they ask, you answer play. If I was a restaurant, for example. But a B2B, service based business. Heck yeah. As an inbound marketing agency, right? It's like, how much does it cost to hire an inbound marketing agency? Example. You could compare different agencies against each other. It's one example. I mean, there's a lot you can compare; different software, different tools, HubSpot versus Salesforce, which is the best CRM for me? That's an example of a type of a traditional B2B, service based question. There's so many. If you're really open to the way people search and the way that they are learning online…

James Lawrence: Is it too simple to suggest that the longer the buyer journey, the bigger the ticket price, the better it works?

Marcus Sheridan: Well, Google doesn't fully agree with that. What we find is the more someone is afraid to make a purchasing mistake, the better it works, because the more we're afraid to make a mistake, the more time we'll spend. I mean, Google's done a bunch of things. They did a study on just how much content are people willing to consume. They said, you know, we found this one particular searcher was looking for candy as a gift for a friend to send to them, but they researched, like, 100 and some pages online before they chose the right candy. 100 and some freaking pages! So it's like you would say they spent $10 on candy, but yet they researched 100 and some pages. Why? Because they valued the relationship with their friend, and they wanted the gift to mean a lot. So that's an example of how valuing the decision is really the key. Some people are, let's say you're super rich and you're flippant and you just make buying decisions on a whim. Well, in those moments, that person not going through much of a buyer's journey. Because they're just like, that looks good. Whereas somebody else might say, there's people that could take a week to go through the process of buying a swimming pool, and there's people that take five years. 

James Lawrence: And most people with the pool example, it's an important purchase. Regardless of the money involved and how wealthy you are or not.

Marcus Sheridan: You want you got a one shot deal. Your backyard. 

James Lawrence: Yeah. That's it. Right. So I think anything household functional? 

Marcus Sheridan: Very much so. It works great in those areas. But again, if you're a B2B service, we've got 50% of our clients, 50%, probably the practitioners, of they ask you answer, And we've just had unbelievable success within the B2B space. 

James Lawrence: And I think that's a big for us, B2B. It's a highly emotional purchase. Just because it's not your money doesn't mean it doesn't matter. You're looking at your job and job security and how you progress through. You don't want to screw up. Because there's a lot riding. Your job is riding on it. Your performance is riding on it. You want to make the right decision for the company. Sometimes people will do way more research in a B2B purchasing cycle than they will, and then they say, well, what about multiple decision makers? That's dumb, because when people are buying a swimming pool, there's multiple decision makers. Oftentimes there's a couple, there's kids. It's like a whole family. That's multiple decision makers. That's the board. 

Marcus Sheridan: And so it's just like again, you know what's interesting, James? Whenever companies are really latched on to this; I just don't see how this applies to us. They're just not very good at marketing. You're not. And a lot of this to me is a reasonable amount of speaking, and often you're speaking to business owners, business leaders not always marketers, right. And there's still this misconception around attribution it's like, well, if we're spending X on digital marketing, this much on Google or on LinkedIn or Facebook, I expect Y in return. And it's like you're selling a seven figure software piece that has a panel of people through procurement. You've got hundreds, if not thousands of touch points digitally and offline. You're probably riding the wave or not of conferences and events that took place 510 years ago. It's insanity to think you're going to measure this from a three month digital campaign. 

James Lawrence: And this is that. Like Google's data around going for the past of purchase, of buying a car is 900 touch points. It's the two adults in the family. It's multiple devices. So putting yourself properly into the shoes of the buyer journey, as opposed to trying to artificially manipulate and make it work based on your business cycles and quarterly planning. 

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, sometimes people say, really, how long should it take all this stuff that we're talking about to work? And there's a reason why if you read the book, they ask, you answer, you're going to see different parts. There's a whole marketing section, then there's a whole sales section, and then there's a whole video section, and there's a whole implementation section. So when it comes to sales, we screw up a lot as marketers. Because isn't it a tragedy when we're out there producing all this content and so often the sales team doesn't even know it exists and they're not integrating it into their sales process. If you want your content to work for you tomorrow, the most important thing you can do right now is make sure that your sales team is integrating it intentionally into the sales process. Now, we call that in the book assignment selling. And if you're listening to this right now, you can Google it, but that's how you can ensure immediate results with your content marketing content production efforts. Because just think of the value of the marketing department if you're producing content that is shortening sales cycles and increasing closing rates. 

Marcus Sheridan: So let's say you never got a visitor from Google again, you never got an additional lead from your content, could you justify its worth? Right? That's a beautiful challenge. The only way you could do it, and you can do it big time because I've done it, is you got to make sure the sales team knows how to integrate it into the sales process. For example, let's say you produce this amazing cost/price piece of content, which really explained the industry and why some companies are expensive and why some companies are cheap. And you talked about what drives cost up and what drives cost down and just really explain all these things about the industry so that they said, okay, now I understand it. Now I understand why you're 10% more. And of course that I can now justify why you're 10% more because you explained it so well. Because I read this thing that you gave me. Well, if they could integrate that into their sales process as soon as it starts, before they had the first meeting, how would the conversation be different? It would be different. I guarantee you it would be different. 

Marcus Sheridan: And so that's what we're talking about here. And that's why when somebody says, yeah, it takes about six months, twelve months, eighteen months for content marketing, ‘they ask, you answer’, whatever you want to call it, to really take off. I'd say, well, it sounds like sales ain't involved because if sales was involved in this process, it would start working tomorrow. 

James Lawrence: I like that. I think that's a really good takeaway. For marketers, if you're wanting to actually get some rubber on the road early, it's working with sales to arm them. And I think so much in the book is about how do you pull insights and how do you actually get into the mindset of customer. And often sales teams are a brilliant place to start. Because most of the questions that are in the minds of your prospects, they're asking to your sales team. And most of the time they're pretty similar.

Marcus Sheridan: 100%. 

James Lawrence: Where do you say that ‘they ask, you answer’ sits with content marketing? And inbound like, they're obviously all kind of related. In some ways, they're connected. How do you kind of describe that? 

Marcus Sheridan: They're very related. In fact, they were born from those two things. ‘They ask you answer’ is just my way of putting a framework around them. Because here's what's interesting to me. And I'm going to give you a little trade secret here. But it's not really trade secret.

James Lawrence: We're recording here, Marcus. 

Marcus Sheridan: You own an agency, right? And so my agency sells against agencies. My favorite question to ask somebody in the sales process, and I taught my sales team to ask this. They ask the prospect, so the agency you're working with, are they going to help you or are they going to guide you? Are they going to produce for you? Content. And the answer is always yes. In some way, shape or form, right? They're either going to guide them or they're going to produce it for them. And then the next question is, okay, so what framework do they use for their content production process? And the prospect every time says, what do you mean, framework? Like framework. What is the engineered plan that they follow in order to produce effective content? Every single time? And nobody ever has an answer. ‘They ask you answer’ was the first true content framework written for the digital age. That's what makes it special.

James Lawrence: Nice. And the last part of the book that I'd like to just get into is video. You write a lot in the book about why video is special, why it's important, and how to get it moving through an organisation. If we can just touch on that.

Marcus Sheridan: Well, everybody has this gut feeling that they know video is taking over. Visuals taking over. Of course, that was cattle halted 100 years forward, pretty much, with COVID. I mean, we jumped ten years in three is what we did. We jumped ten years in three. We can't just tell it, got to show it, because if you're telling it and everybody else is telling it, it's just noise until you show it, because seeing is believing, right? And so our customers need to feel like they've heard our voice before we've ever met them, they've seen our face before we've ever met them, and that they know us before we've ever met them. And if we achieve those things, we'll achieve trust. And again, when we talk with somebody, they should literally say stuff like, you're just like you are in the video, or whatever. It's like, that's the way it is. You've heard that before, James. You meet somebody; you're just like I thought you were, because I listened to your podcast all the time. They know your voice. They know the way- 

James Lawrence: There's an intimacy there. Right? 

Marcus Sheridan: Right. There's an intimacy. That's a great word for it. And so we've got to level up in a time where we're becoming more digital and less, quote, human. Video can humanize us and hold that humanity that we're losing. And so everybody needs to be all in it all in on it, including sales teams. 

James Lawrence: Excellent. Marcus, mate, it's been awesome having you on the pod. Thank you for your time. I think I've just been scribbling notes here as we've been talking, and just so many awesome takeaways for listeners to the pod. I think just that top line obsession over the customer and what's going on in their brain as opposed to what's going on in your brand. Trust. Trust. And the reality is that the buyer journey has changed. We know it that it's the end user that has the control. If they're not finding out from your business, they're finding out from someone else's. I love the vetting us to death analogy. I think that is real. I think it's what we do in our lives as customers and as consumers, so let's apply it to how we market our own businesses. I think just the importance of a decision being so relevant, like, it doesn't matter if it's a $10 confectionery product or a $7 million piece of software. If it's an important decision, we're researching it to death. As I said to you, I have pre warned you, what's the one piece of marketing advice that you'd give to an in house marketer? 

Marcus Sheridan: I'll say this, there's a lot of bad advice out there that says you need to be everywhere. That's terrible advice. You don't need to be everywhere. Find me on Instagram, you ain't. Find me on Facebook, you ain't. Where are you going to find me? LinkedIn. And I crush it on LinkedIn. I put my eggs in the LinkedIn basket for social media because I learned early on that if you tried to be a jack of all social media trades, you'll be a master of none. So focus on being a master of one with your strategy. With river pools, we became the most trafficed swim pool website in the world. And I didn't do any social media for like, the first six years 1and everybody said,because I'm going to be the Wikipedia of pools. You see Wikipedia on Facebook? No. So, sure, I got Facebook today, but that was after I became a master. So become a master and then move on. 

James Lawrence: Yeah. Music to my ears. And to the customers of Rocket. The clients of Rocket. It's definitely what we preach, right? Which is go deep at something, don't go broad at lots of things and do it superficially. Marcus, thanks so much for coming onto the Smarter Marketer podcast. Hopefully we catch up sooner rather than later or at a conference or something like that. 

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, I'd like that. And let me just say, too, thank you, James. And your clients at Rocket are lucky to have you. You all are doing good things and so I'm glad that I was here with you.