Links Mentioned in Episode

• Marcus Sheridan LinkedIn
• They Ask You Answer Book on Amazon
• Impact – Marcus’ Agency
• Good to Great by Jim Collins on Amazon

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Kevin Dieny: Hello, welcome to the Close the Loop podcast. I’m your host, Kevin Dieny, and today we’ve got a really special episode. We’re going to be talking about How They Ask You Answer, Saved River Pools and Spas. But more than that, I’ve got a special guest here today, which I’m really excited to have on. His name is Marcus Sheridan.

[00:00:18] Kevin Dieny: Marcus is an international keynote speaker known for his unique ability to excite, engage and motivate live audiences. I can say for sure that that’s true because I was there in the audience recently. Marcus also works with hundreds of businesses at Impact, helping them to become the most trusted voice in their industry.

[00:00:35] Kevin Dieny: And I think trust is a big part of how he does that. His book, They Ask, You Answer and his keynote presentation at B2B MX in Scottsdale recently this year have inspired me in how powerful content really can be as a tool for sales. So something I thought our listeners would get a ton of value out of, and also Marcus isn’t, uh, when he isn’t giving his energy field keynotes, he finds himself on adventures with his wife and his four kids.

[00:01:02] Kevin Dieny: So he’s definitely an engaging person, so welcome Marcus.

[00:01:07] Marcus Sheridan: Hey, Kev, I’m thrilled to be here and looking forward to our conversation. I think we’ll say something today is going to help somebody. That’s my, that’s my feeling.

[00:01:16] Kevin Dieny: Yes, I it’s usually like, okay, let’s, let’s help at least one person or give some person some insights. So the thing I wanted to kind of start off with is if you don’t mind, I mean, I’m sure you’ve shared it a thousand times, but that story of how you made your way from what was happening at River Pools and Spas to figuring out and piecing this book together, this concept together, your philosophy that’s in your book of, They Ask You Answer.

[00:01:45] Kevin Dieny: So if you don’t mind sharing or retelling some of that story, I think that’s really, it’s a really powerful story.

[00:01:50] Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, happy to do it. And, uh, I think our stories matter and I never get tired of telling it because it’s made me who I am, because usually everybody says, I hate to ask you to say, and I know, and I think we need. I think we need to own our stories in life, as businesses, as individuals, et cetera. So for me, it really started in 2001.

[00:02:12] Marcus Sheridan: I was right out of university and, uh, my two buddies had just started this little swimming pool company. They said, Hey, we’re gonna open up this retail store. Do you want to come on board with. So I said, well, until I figured out what I want to do with my life shore. And so I joined them and six months later I became a partner.

[00:02:30] Marcus Sheridan: And so we struggled to grow the business with the following years. And then the 2008, the market crashed. And I thought we were going to lose the business and we were in really, really big trouble. Big trouble. And at the time I had 60 employees, I thought I was gonna have to let them all go. I thought I was going to lose my home.

[00:02:47] Marcus Sheridan: And so that’s when I really started to learn about just the internet and today’s buyer. And, you know, I started reading a lot of fancy phrases online, like inbound marketing, content, marketing, social media, blogging, all that stuff that we almost take for granted today, I was listening to it and I was like, you know what, here’s what I’m hearing.

[00:03:06] Marcus Sheridan: If I just obsess over my customer’s questions and I’m willing to address them. On our website, I just might save our business. And so I can remember vividly just sitting down one night at my kitchen table, brainstorming all the questions I’d ever, um, received that I could, you know, recall in that moment about.

[00:03:25] Marcus Sheridan: Fiberglass swimming pools because that’s what we sold. And then one by one each night, over the next two years, every single night, I was producing an article producing a video, uh, that was answering our customer’s questions, honestly, transparently, uh, very thoroughly. We became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world.

[00:03:45] Marcus Sheridan: And the pool company kept growing and, uh, we had more and more influence. And so then we started manufacturing pools, which is a huge deal. And we start having dealers all over the U S and then we became the first franchise of a swimming pool, a fiberglass swimming pool builders in the country. So today we have river pools of whatever, you know, city near you, or, you know, if it’s a bigger city, we’re having to grow all over the United States.

[00:04:09] Marcus Sheridan: And so that. Paul story. And in the midst of all this, I started writing about the experience that I was having, the success we were having. And, um, and I just felt like everybody should know this and very few are doing this. And so obvious to me. And so. That led to, as I was writing about it, people started contacting me saying, can you teach me about it?

[00:04:31] Marcus Sheridan: And can you show us how to do it as a company? So that led to me having an agency today, I have an agency it’s about 70 ish employees. It’s called impact. And then we help companies around the world implement, of course what we call, they ask you answer. And that became the title of my book. That book came out about fours years ago, but each year it’s been selling more copies, not less, which is really wild because there’s like a movement behind they ask you answer now.

[00:04:53] Marcus Sheridan: And, uh, it’s been absolutely fascinating to watch. It’s been a privilege to watch, and I just keep seeing the case studies role in honesty, transparency, teaching trust. That’s, what’s all about Kevin and, uh, it wins the day for any business, regardless of what type of company you are.

[00:05:09] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, so I was trying to step into the shoes of, let’s say a typical listener of ours, which, you know, let’s just say, hypothetically, this is like a, a roofing company or something, and they’re hearing this and they’re going, hmm. And this is like a question that they might have for you, Marcus, how is writing content, putting content out there, putting it on my website, creating information that you know, our customers might find interesting.

[00:05:32] Kevin Dieny: How is that going to lead to sales?

[00:05:36] Marcus Sheridan: Well, the studies have shown that today’s buyer on average is 80, 80%, roughly 70 to 80% through that buying journey before they reach out to a company. And we’ve all experienced it since the advent of the internet, which was roughly 25 years ago, 1996, 1997 is when we really started to use it every single day.

[00:05:55] Marcus Sheridan: That’s passed since that time. You and I have become more educated in how we find things online, how we vet companies online, how we make decisions online. And oftentimes that’s why we’re even more informed than the sales person is that we’re working with. Everybody’s experienced that before. Right? And so that’s why they call it the information age is we have access to this information.

[00:06:18] Marcus Sheridan: And so. You just got to analyze, well, how do I feel when I go to a site and I can learn anything that I want from that company? How do I feel about them? What are the actions that I take? Well, the chances are that we trust them and we’re going to reach out to them before we would anybody else. And how do I feel if I’m going to a website and I can’t find any information that I’m looking for, like cost, for example, which just annoys people to the end of time.

[00:06:47] Marcus Sheridan: Right? We, we jump, we leave because we’re here to get answers and we want them quickly. Where we are in 2022 and beyond. So companies that are willing to take the time to do that, to invest in the people and the resources to do that. They’re crushing their space and we’ve seen, we’ve seen this happen.

[00:07:05] Marcus Sheridan: We’ve got so many companies that embrace. They ask you, answer this philosophy of obsessing over your customer’s questions. Worries, fears, issues, concerns. Addressing them thoroughly on your website through text, through video, through audio, whatever that thing is, we’ve seen so many companies take off and become the most trafficked website in their entire industry because few companies are willing to do this.

[00:07:25] Marcus Sheridan: A few companies are willing to pay the price, um, because this is consistent with what’s called the law of the harvest. You can’t. Create this amazing crop, unless you’re willing to till the ground and then plant the seed and then water it and protect it. And then eventually you have this glorious harvest and that’s what happens with content online.

[00:07:48] Marcus Sheridan: It’s like every article is a seed, right? And eventually enough seeds, you have a field. And then if enough fields you have a farm and then you can just be fed for a lifetime. And that’s what happens for those. That really understand the way content compounds online. It’s a lot, like you’ve heard a compound interest call it compound information.

[00:08:08] Marcus Sheridan: It’s the amount that we’re investing in when we started investing. And a lot of companies don’t think this way and they would rather do something that’s short term. But the problem with anything that’s paid like paid advertising is as soon as your money stops. So does the. In flow. And I don’t know about UK, but I’m looking for leads for a lifetime man.

[00:08:29] Marcus Sheridan: And I want it to be evergreen. I wanted just to keep coming back to me over and over again, without having to spend more and more money to do it.

[00:08:36] Kevin Dieny: I always look at it like, okay, you’re spending money on ads. I think that’s a great place to start, but eventually you’d like to create, you know, either a network or referral network or an organic traffic, something. An inflow of multiple channels that lives and breathes almost by itself. Ads are still on an amazing avenue to control the message and diversify and tests and stuff like that.

[00:08:55] Kevin Dieny: But it’s a, it’s a, it’s just a piece of a greater puzzle.

[00:09:00] Marcus Sheridan: Well, that’s the thing. It’s a, to your point, it’s a bridge, but it’s not a long-term solution because needing leads and earning trust, that’s a long-term problem and opportunity for any business. Right. And so I like to think in terms of, okay. Sure anybody can run a successful campaign. Anybody can get leads today, but I just don’t want to be in an awkward.

[00:09:28] Marcus Sheridan: For attention, the rest of my life as a business owner, I want to attract them to me. I’m going to be the person at the dance that has everybody around them. And they get to choose who they want to dance with versus tapping everybody on the shoulder and saying, will you dance with me? You know, there’s, there’s a big difference between the two and how happy they are at the end of the night.

[00:09:49] Marcus Sheridan: Right, and so that’s, I think really the state of mind where we need to be as busy.

[00:09:54] Kevin Dieny: I mean, that leads me right to the next question I’d have. And it’s something you talk a in the book with, I think it was called insourcing. So a business that says, okay, I content great. I want to, I want to start this path. I wanna have content out there that is engaging. That does drive people to my business.

[00:10:10] Kevin Dieny: Not have to rely on ads all the time, but man, making that content seems like. Difficult task. So I think like the first leap might be, well, let’s go pay someone else to go make it for me. But there’s a really interesting point you made in your book, which was let’s have the company make it themselves.

[00:10:25] Kevin Dieny: Let’s get the company more. I guess thinking tactically, like, okay, well, how can I have my employees, everyone in my company? How can I find a way to generate an extract, valuable content out of my own company? Because they have a lot of knowledge and, you know, internal, um, thinking and strategy and stuff.

[00:10:43] Kevin Dieny: That’s come from their job from working in this company that could provide, a unique perspective on it.

[00:10:49] Marcus Sheridan: A hundred percent, you know, I actually posted on LinkedIn yesterday, which by the way, if you’re listening to this, you should be following me on LinkedIn. Cause I’m a dang good follow. I actually posted about a roofing company and a, you mentioned roofing companies earlier. This particular roofing company started, they ask you answer three years ago and never really answered any questions on the way.

[00:11:06] Marcus Sheridan: And they were trying to answer some questions, but they didn’t have anybody in house to do it. And so then, uh, they, they got somebody and they started posting two articles a week and they really started to grow. And they were getting when they started this process about 200 visitors a month to their website.

[00:11:19] Marcus Sheridan: So classic small business, not getting much traction online. And then they moved to three pieces of content a week. Following they ask you answer framework and methodology. And today three years later, they’re getting over a hundred thousand visitors a month to their website. The business has just totally taken off and exploded.

[00:11:37] Marcus Sheridan: Now the whole key to this, other than embracing, they ask you answer was getting a, an in-house content manager. And this company by the way, is called Bill Reagan roofing. So you can look at their website if you’re listening to this and verify what I’m talking and you’ll see it very quick, like, oh, I see why they’re taking off.

[00:11:54] Marcus Sheridan: They’re killing it. There is power. When the artists can hold the paintbrush versus telling somebody else what to paint and imagine that’s what you’re doing as a business. When you outsource your content, you’re telling somebody else what to paint, and you’re thinking that you’re going to create a masterpiece.

[00:12:10] Marcus Sheridan: You are not here’s. What’s interesting. Kevin, think about how many businesses I’m talking traditional businesses. I’m not talking about like, uh, Whatever company, but I’m talking about how many traditional businesses have become the definitive thought leader of their space by outsourcing all their content.

[00:12:34] Marcus Sheridan: I don’t know, somebody might say well, that’s a nontraditional. That’s like that. That’s not what I’m talking about. But WebMD did follow They Ask You Answer because they address all the questions in their space. Well, so they follow They Ask You Answer, in their case they essentially crowdsource it with medical professionals is a little bit different business model, but I’m talking about how many pool companies, all right.

[00:12:56] Marcus Sheridan: How many attorneys or how many, whatever you want to call it, B2B organizations to across the board, just named the. B2B organization have become the definitive leaders of their space outsourcing, you know, you look at a company like one of the toughest industries to stand, stand out in is, is a digital marketing, right?

[00:13:13] Marcus Sheridan: Cause everybody’s got a blog or whatever. Who’s the foremost leader. Foremost leader of inbound content, marketing information, HubSpot, why they committed to do it in house. They didn’t outsource any of that content. Right. And so it continues to this day. So you can’t show me a company that does it. This is why I don’t believe in outsourcing content.

[00:13:34] Marcus Sheridan: As a whole, now there might be times, and there might be some exceptions. There could be moments when you bridge it so that you can get to the point to do it yourself. But you know, somebody might be listening to this right now and saying, well, I don’t have the resources, Marcus, and I’m small. Well, I don’t feel sorry for you because I didn’t have the money in 2009.

[00:13:51] Marcus Sheridan: And I stayed up till midnight every night, writing articles. Cause I couldn’t afford to hire somebody myself. And in the process of that process of that, I became a pretty dang good writer too. The point is that if we see the vision, ain’t nobody going to produce our content until our story better than us period.

[00:14:10] Kevin Dieny: Right, and you mentioned something else really fascinating, which was like, well, man, what’s the, what’s the quality of this content need to be? Am I a satisfactory writer? Am I going to be able to put this together? Or the people that work here, you know, going to be able to write and create the stuff that we need.

[00:14:28] Kevin Dieny: And then I looked at it like, well, you know, if that’s holding me back from making anything, let’s just start making something. Let’s just start creating things and then it start rolling. Cause I think a lot of times that is a holdup, like, oh, it’s not going to be amazing. It’s not going to be like a Sony commercial on TV, you know?

[00:14:43] Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, yeah, that’s how, that’s how life works. You know, people forget that before they started walking and running, they were literally unable to move and then they were wiggling. Then eventually they started to. Slowly crawl then eventually they were standing up and falling down. Then eventually they were walking.

[00:15:07] Marcus Sheridan: Eventually they were running, but that’s how it works. And for some reason we’ve lost this entire mindset with how we go about digital, you know, what those perfectionist brands, Kev, they stink online. I’m serious about this, the ones that come out the gate and say, we’ve got to be great and don’t give themselves any margin for error.

[00:15:28] Marcus Sheridan: They do not create exceptional experiences for their users online because they don’t launch Jack squat. We’re as one of the points of this, you know, who owns the internet? The internet is owned by C plus students who works for them. A students, I’m serious as a heart attack. Why A student says it’s gotta be perfect.

[00:15:53] Marcus Sheridan: I’ve got to study all night just to get an A. C student says, hello, I’m good. I’m going to pass. Let’s see how this goes. And that’s literally, who’s running the internet right now. If you look at across the board.

[00:16:05] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, I think that’s really encouraging because if you’re like, wow, okay. I believe in this content. And I think a reason why you might say that as I like the idea that, my content is going to convey trust. I like the idea that content is going to answer these questions. It’s going to bring in people through, organic channels or just people who have these questions that have arrived at my website, want to learn more and I’m going to be able to deliver the answers and now, okay.

[00:16:30] Kevin Dieny: I think now I can come up with a way of generating content. I’ll establish, the quality as we go. I’ll figure that out. And then the next part of that journey, at least in my eyes is like, how are we going to track this? How are we going to measure this? And you have some really interesting examples in your book where you’re, where you’ve looked at your website, you looked at your analytics, you looked at how it was going, and you made decisions based on, wow, this is working really well.

[00:16:54] Kevin Dieny: Let’s do more of this or more of that. So that was the tracking, measuring…

[00:16:59] Marcus Sheridan: Tracking is a big deal. Companies don’t do it enough. And if you’re using the right tools like a HubSpot or something like that, you and people are filling out forms on your site. When they fill out a form, you should be able to track what pages they’ve looked at and what was the first page of the site that they looked at.

[00:17:16] Marcus Sheridan: And when you can see first page of. That tells you, okay. This essentially is what brought them to the site, especially if it’s like an article that you wrote, or if it’s coming off of a YouTube link that you did, I mean, you should be able to see ultimately, what was the initial source, and that gives you the opportunity for this magical thing called revenue attribution, which a lot of companies don’t necessarily do very well.

[00:17:39] Marcus Sheridan: But when you have revenue attribution, you can do. Hey, that little article right there, that would be 45 minutes to write. And my kitchen table has generated over $15 million in sales. Right. It gives you the ability to say that. And, uh, that’s also, if somebody is going to grow and scale their marketing, That’s what you gotta do.

[00:17:56] Marcus Sheridan: You gotta show that we’re producing incredible revenue. We’re producing incredible amount of MQL is SQL’s all the leads that we need to be producing. We’re doing it through our activities. Therefore, more resources. Are merited. So as to continue this momentum that we have, instead of the CFO saying, I don’t know if this is making any money.

[00:18:17] Marcus Sheridan: The CFO is saying, you know what? I’m not wanting to spend money, but this is, this is undeniable. That’s what we want.

[00:18:26] Kevin Dieny: Right, and I think that’s really powerful, not just. You know, getting feedback to improve your content and figure out, okay, what’s working, what’s resonating. Maybe I should write something, you know, maybe be more specific or different off this article, but also, Hey, keep the engine going. You know, if this is proving that this is generating sales because of how powerful it can be, content can be so powerful.

[00:18:48] Kevin Dieny: This quote you have in your book, I’m just gonna pull it up. Cause I was like, I gotta mention this. This is a quote from your book. “Content, assuming it is honest and transparent is the greatest sales tool in the world today.” When I read that, I was like, wow. Yeah, it really could be. So what is it that people aren’t getting that’s, you know, why is it businesses may think, well, I tried it before and it failed or it didn’t work.

[00:19:07] Kevin Dieny: Like how are they missing it so badly?

[00:19:10] Marcus Sheridan: Well, in most cases, if you still, if you, if somebody reads They Ask You Answer because on the surface or like I’m answering customer’s questions. Yeah, right. People there’s five in the book, we talk about five fundamental subjects that every buyer wants to know about B2B B to C. They want to research.

[00:19:29] Marcus Sheridan: They’re obsessed with. Here they are cost questions, problems, or negative questions. In other words, what could go wrong with number three, comparison questions versus number four. Reviews number five best. So cost problems, comparisons, reviews, best derivatives of those, those run the internet. That’s like literally the economy is run by people searching those things and what’s fascinating is most businesses don’t want to talk about.

[00:20:01] Marcus Sheridan: Every single company, listening to this right now should be talking about cost and price of their products and services on their website. Now I’m not saying by the way that you had to put exact numbers, but if you’re not teaching companies, excuse me, or readers or potential customers, what drives cost up, what drives cost down, why some companies are expensive, why some companies are cheap and roughly, where do you fall?

[00:20:20] Marcus Sheridan: Then you’re failing to earn trust. And that’s unacceptable in my. If you’re not talking about those negatives, those issues worries, concerns that they have, right. Then you can’t bury the elephants. The elephants are always there in the room. You can’t sweep an elephant under a rug. It’s an elephant. Right?

[00:20:36] Marcus Sheridan: So talk about it. People are constantly asking you comparison based questions. How do you compare to this? You know, you versus that. Your product versus their product, your methodology, versus that methodology, this option versus that option. We’re constantly comparing those things. How come you’re not doing owning your website’s ridiculous.

[00:20:52] Marcus Sheridan: They’re asking your sales team. So why not people want reviews, but they want unbiased reviews. They want to hear about pros and cons. Good, bad, and ugly. Are you producing pros, cons good, bad and ugly reviews of your products and stuff. Why not, you should be, that’s what the marketplace wants if you’ve constantly searched for the best or the most or the top.

[00:21:11] Marcus Sheridan: Right. Because we want to see what the best is. Don’t mean we’ve grown about a message. If he’s wanting to see it so that we can compare off of that and say, okay, I’m getting. Are you talking about that? Or are you just, again, the ostrich with your head in the sand thinking the problem, the question that needs is going to go away, it doesn’t go away.

[00:21:27] Marcus Sheridan: The only thing that goes away is the lead, right, is the trust buy, buy, but their desire to know the thing never goes away, which is why. It is my sentiment that I’m going to talk about it. I want to own every conversation in any industry on a part of I’m going to own the conversation. I’m going to talk about cost and price more than everybody.

[00:21:50] Marcus Sheridan: I’m going to talk about the competition more than everybody. I’m not going to say anything. I’m not going to say anything ugly, but I’m going to be a foremost thought leader. And it’s like, you know how many companies are literally like that, that our parents back in the day, when we went to with them a question and they said, go look it up.

[00:22:07] Marcus Sheridan: Like, that’s ridiculous. Just give them the answer. Don’t be your parents from the 1980s saying, go look at up.

[00:22:16] Kevin Dieny: Right, and there’s a lot of difference and there’s something else you mentioned, you know, being teachable. Right, so there’s a difference in, okay, here’s the information. I think a big difference or a leap even from there to go, okay, here’s the answer, and here’s why, let me help you understand it better.

[00:22:31] Kevin Dieny: Let me explain it better. So you have, the information in a transparent, like you mentioned in that quote transparent sort of honest way. So being teachable is something that in content is a little different of a perspective and how you create it. Then let’s just say, I’m just going to put the answer on like a one sentence a single paragraph.

[00:22:47] Kevin Dieny: So how is it different in your eyes to make content, you know, teachable or a teaching experience?

[00:22:53] Marcus Sheridan: Well, I think the fundamental key to great content is that you don’t attempt to sound smart. Now that sounds counterintuitive to a lot of people, but you got to remember, it’s dumb not to dumb it down. We’re searching for communion communication, communion, same route. All we’re looking for is the audience to have a light bulb moment where they say, oh, that makes so much sense.

[00:23:21] Marcus Sheridan: Now I understand. That’s obvious, right. So as I’m speaking to you right now, okay. I’m not trying to impress anybody. This is me. If you saw me in real life, you’d say, dude, you’re the same person. That’s exactly right. This is how I talk. You’ve read my book. Kevin, Jackie talked like you, right? Yes, that’s exactly right.

[00:23:39] Marcus Sheridan: That’s how it works. I’m not trying to impress. This is what you got and you can sense the realness. Now you might not agree with me, but you can sense the realness of how I communicate that in and of itself in genders, a sense of trust. And so if you, if you apply that to the way we do educational articles and the way we do educational videos and you release the need to be the smartest person in the.

[00:24:04] Marcus Sheridan: And just say here, look, let’s look at this together. And one of the keys Kevin’s you gotta be disconnected with outcome. When I say disconnected with outcome, it’s like, I don’t really care if you buy from me or not sure what I love you too. Yeah. But I ultimately care more about you making the best decision for you.

[00:24:20] Marcus Sheridan: So let’s look at the pros and the cons let’s look at both sides of the story and then boom, you can do it.

[00:24:25] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, that is such a great, a great answer for that, because writing in that fashion. I mean, I, I put a poll out for this podcast and said, okay, what’s the thing. You’d like this podcast to be the least, what’s the thing you wouldn’t want to listen to this podcast for. And I listed a bunch of different options.

[00:24:42] Kevin Dieny: Think it was like 12 options and every single person said, I don’t want this to be salesy. That’s the one thing everyone said.

[00:24:50] Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, amen. Because we’ve all got this BS meter, right. We can pick up on that junk. Right. We can pick up on that junk. So you’re making it, you’re making a great point, Kevin. That’s why, you know, that’s why your podcast is growing because people can feel that sincerity and they see the value and, you know, karma comes back and the value comes back to you as well.

[00:25:11] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, thanks. The last thing I want to just touch on before we close out is now you talked about a lot of stuff here, and if there’s anything else that we. Really mentioned that you think would be helpful for a small local business or something. Who’s listening to this. Is there anything you’d want to leave them with before we finish?

[00:25:32] Marcus Sheridan: Listen, if you’re listening to this right now, do not try to be all things to all people. One of the best books I’ve ever read that changed my life. It saved my swimming pool company, and everybody should read it, read it before you read, they ask you answer is good to great by Jim Collins. Now, one of the things that Jim Collins talks about in that book is what’s called the hedgehog concept, which really just was a huge paradigm shift for me.

[00:25:54] Marcus Sheridan: It’s our concept basically is, the hedgehog doesn’t do really much well in life, but the one thing it does very well is it protects itself when things go wrong. And so the way it protects itself, it rolls up into a spiky ball. And then, oh, lo and behold, it lives to see another day. And so you have to ask yourself, well, what’s the one thing we can be the best in the world at, as a business.

[00:26:17] Marcus Sheridan: Now for me, I used to have a retail stores. I used to sell all types of products and services. So instead of. You know, trying to be mediocre, essentially at all these things, Tanny beds, pool tables, hot tubs above ground pools, which is what I was mediocre at best. And all these things. I said, what can I be the best in the world at was my hedgehog okay fiberglass swimming pools.

[00:26:40] Marcus Sheridan: Now then later on, I said, okay, with fiberglass swimming pools, what can be the best in the world? I can be the best in the world, educating them through content on my website. So I didn’t, I said, I’m not going to be worried about. I didn’t spend no time on social media. So I started become the Wikipedia, pulls on my website first with text.

[00:26:57] Marcus Sheridan: Then I introduced video and we blew up with video. It wasn’t for like six or seven years after I did they ask you answer that I even looked at social media. I didn’t care because I said, I’m going to be the best at this thing. Now this is why for me on social media, I crushed on. Why because I need to spend my time scrolling on Instagram all day long.

[00:27:19] Marcus Sheridan: That’s why, and that’s key to all of us. So don’t try to be a Jack of all trades because you’ll end up being a master of none. Choose your lane and do well in that lane. And it’ll serve you very, very well as a business.

[00:27:34] Kevin Dieny: I think that’s really powerful advice. Now, Marcus, if there’s listeners who want to get in touch with you, find out, follow you, find out more about your company, anything like that, how can they find you?

[00:27:47] Marcus Sheridan: Marcus@marcussheridan.com is my personal email address. Isn’t that nice. You can email me directly if you’re listening this right now. So you’ll Marcus. I have a question for you and I’ll actually have. Marcus and Marcus shared.com, but connect with me on LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn because that’s where you’re going to get my best stuff.

[00:28:05] Marcus Sheridan: Uh, Kevin, it was great chatting with you today. Hopefully people read the book, hopefully they’ll listen, continue to listen to your podcast because you’re doing a great job. And you know, for me, this was a lot of fun.

[00:28:17] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, here’s the book. If you’re watching the video on this, thank you so much, Marcus. I really appreciated your time coming on here. Being able to talk to our audience and answering questions and just the cordial fun time we’ve had together today. So thank you again.

[00:28:29] Marcus Sheridan: You’re welcome.