Welcome to Agency Breakthrough, where we bring you real, gritty stories of agency operators who found the path to get past the plateau. Whether it’s hitting on a playbook for massive growth, scaling profit margins, or finding a way to have an agency and a life, we’re here to share how they achieved it; and laugh a little along the way. Presented by ZenPilot and ClickUp, and your hosts today are Jakub Grajcar and Gray MacKenzie.
But show me one case study of someone that became
the most trusted voice in their space by outsourcing
all their content. Show me one. One. I'm still
waiting for an answer. I've never received
one before. Certainly not from an inbound agency.
Never have I gotten a single one. And I have
like a whole bunch personally that have done
the ask you answer. This is an arrogance. This
is the reality of empowering people and feeding
them for a lifetime.
How are you sir? I'm doing pretty good today.
Uh, Gray, how are you yourself? I'm thrilled.
I've got an awesome friend here joining us today.
You want to intro to the folks who's with us?
Do I want to intro? Okay, so the guest we're
going to be having today has got me huffing
in a paper bag basically and uh, it's a journey
for me because I read his book back in I want
to say 2018. It really shaped me as a marketer.
And I look up to him because he has a way of
simplifying the complex that I'm really inspired
by. He's the author of They Ask, You Answer,
which some of you might have heard about if
you're in marketing. And his name is Marcus
Sheridan and he'll be joining us in just a second
here. Welcome to Agency Breakthrough, where
we bring you real gritty stories of agency operators
who found the path to get past the plateau.
Whether it's hitting on a playbook for massive
growth, scaling profit margins, or just finding
a way to have an agency and a life, we're here
to share how they achieved it and laugh a little
along the way. Presented by Zenpilot and ClickUp.
And your hosts today are Jakub Grajcar and
Gray McKenzie. Marcus, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for joining Agency Breakthrough. Hey,
thrilled to be here and Kuba, thanks for that
intro. You said something that You know, I
always find to be the highest compliment is
when someone says something like, you know,
you, I didn't understand that thing until I
heard you explain it. And that makes me feel
good. You know, one of the best lessons that
I ever received as a marketer and just as a
business person and communicator years ago,
somebody told me it's dumb not to dumb it down.
And at first I didn't really understand really
what that meant, but you know, I started to
think about it and it's just so true. I think
there's a lot of people in the digital world
that try to impress and they try to sound smart.
They don't even realize it sometimes. But all
you do is you end up distancing yourself from
your audience. Whereas if you're just looking
for communion with the audience and you're trying
to say in a way that light bulbs come on, now
all of a sudden you have those magical moments.
And so I do appreciate you noticing that. So
I thought, you know, that's the curse of being
an expert. On the one hand, you want to show
kind of the breadth of a subject. On the other,
if you end up overcomplicating it for people
in the process, then that doesn't really accomplish
your goal. So this is what I like about the
ask your answer to. It takes this very big area
of marketing and sales. And without oversimplifying
it, it does show this kind of mindset that you
can have to get great results. Yeah. If somebody
said to me, what is this? What is the phrase
that you want? someone to say to their peer,
to their friend after they read the book or
after they heard you speak, Marcus, it would
be that they look at their peer and they say,
oh my gosh, this is so obvious. Why are we
not doing this? That to me is the ultimate goal
because what's happened is they have heard
the thing and they're saying, this is attainable
for me. This is not outside of my capabilities,
my realm of understanding. Whereas if somebody
Man, that dude is a friggin genius. Oh my goodness.
See what he did? Man, that dude is baller. What
have we done? We haven't really accomplished
anything because now I'm the hero and their
ability to do the thing is not. So they need
to feel like this is 1000% attainable. That
guy's not that smart actually. I mean, sure
he's smart, but he is, he is, if he can do it,
I can do it. And Again, this is very, very
attainable. This is why most marketers really
struggle to get buy-in across the board, especially
within their own organization because they sound
like marketers. They don't say things in a
way that is understood by the masses, certainly
by leadership, by sales. Yeah. That's a good
point. Marcus, this show is obviously meant
for agency leaders who are in some area of
their business, we're all struggling. To your
point about being relatable, like all of us
have something that we're... Yeah, we are not
living up. We've got a vision for where we
want to be and there's the gap and we're trying
to figure out how to close that gap in some
area of life. You've got a handful of super
cool breakthrough moments that are kind of
well known in the circles that we run in but
maybe we can fill in some of those gaps for
folks. So you're running River Pools and Spas,
this pool company in Virginia and I just pulled
up the New York Times article from February
of 2013. Again, it's a- sent that to Cuba.
But I remember seeing that way back in the day
and kind of hearing your story at inbound for
the first time probably 2013, 2014. And then
you've got this second breakthrough that I
really like to dig into today with They Ask
You Answer and kind of the, you know, the whole
growth from that. Can you fill in some of the
blanks here though of your, because I think
some, there's probably a good chunk of folks
listening who don't even realize kind of your,
they know you as the author, Marcus. They don't
know and there's this agency side and kind
of the breakthroughs that you've had. building
agencies as well. Could you fill in some of
the story there? So, people, basically what
I want to give is I want to give listeners
the context of who is Marcus, what's the relationship
to agencies and now let's dig in. Yeah. Well,
if you look at, you know, the pool company was
started right out of university 2001. We have
the crash in 2008, 2009 and that was when I
really started just to learn as much as I could
and the inspiration came for, hey, I'm going
to take every single question we've ever been
asked. We're going to start to... address that
on our website through text and video. And
so within a few months of doing that, I'm like,
holy cow, this works. And, uh, it was literally
March 2009. I started, they asked you to answer
for River Pools. Okay. November 2009 as a birthday
present to myself was turning 32 years old.
I gave myself a blog where I could start. writing
about my thoughts on what we were doing with
River Pools. And I had to share it with the
world. And I picked a really dumb name called
the sales lion because sales sounded better
than marketing lion. And I like lions, that's
my spirit animal. So I chose sales lion and
I started just explaining what I was doing at
River Pools. Nobody listened for about a year,
but then I started to have companies say, yo,
like, can you show us how you did that thing
with your pool company? And then some started
to say, hey, I'd love for you to share that
at our event because I was also writing about
my experience with HubSpot as well. And so
over the course of the next couple of years,
from basically what was 2009 was the year I
start the Ask You Answer for Swimful Company,
I start a personal blog. Within three years,
now all of a sudden, the swimming pool company
is the most trafficked swimming pool website
in the world. Three years later, Elon's starting
to get requests. And because I'm obsessed with
how buyers think and the questions they ask,
I'm like, so they're asking me to teach them
how to do this. Huh, it's probably a business
here. So that's when I started that and people
were saying like, hey, you talk about HubSpot
in a way that just makes more sense to me,
Marcus. And so, I became the first HubSpot partner
that wasn't an agency. I was a pool guy that
became a HubSpot partner because I was just
naturally selling it, you know, when people
were saying you're writing about this stuff,
you're, you're like this thought leader for
now inbound in HubSpot. And then I started speaking
about it. Content marketing world. Number one
was probably one of the first big ones where
I got my first big gig. And what was interesting
about that is I got that because HubSpot was
a sponsor of Content Marketing World. Content
Marketing World, Joe Pulizzi says to HubSpot,
Hey, you have a, you know, you're a big sponsor.
You can have a speaker. They actually, for some
reason recommended me, which was cool. Then
thank you HubSpot. I go to Content Marketing
World and I, um, was the highest rated speaker
and they have a deal where if you're the highest
rated speaker, you get the keynote slot for
the next year. So, Suddenly I went from the
smallest room one year, literally, to the biggest
room the next year and I was the keynote. And
my speaking career has just taken off since
then. I've probably done more than a thousand
events now all over the world. The agency though,
started off where the agency was essentially
just the sales lion and it was helping companies.
learn how to do this thing called they ask you
answer. But the premise was I think the agency
models broke it. So what do all the agencies
do? Well, they do all the work for you. In
my mind, I was thinking to myself, this isn't
built to last. Like do we really think the
best way to build an agency is that you tell
someone we're going to write six blog articles
for you a month and they pay you for that and
then you sit there and debate about whether
or not it's good enough. And they're not really
in it because they're not emotionally invested
as the client. The agency's trying to do it,
but could they do it really well? And I was
thinking, man, at River Pools, we produce freaking
great content, even though it wasn't necessarily
well written at first, cause I wasn't a great
writer. I became a great writer, but it wasn't,
it wasn't necessarily like it wasn't what you
would consider world-class, but it was actually
incredibly effective because it was a pool guy
just answering questions in a way people could
understand them. And so, I said, I want to create
an agency model where it follows the premise
of give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach
a man how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
So I said, I believe there's a certain subset
of companies in the world that want to feed
themselves for a lifetime. And I want to teach
those companies how to fish. And so by 2013,
I am now teaching companies how to do this in-house.
And we did a lot of stuff that was really,
really different. In fact, we told anybody,
if you want to work with us, you have to have
a full time content writer and most of them
didn't have someone. And so they had to hire
someone to work with us. So I'm literally asking
people, you got to hire someone and then you
got to pay us too, which was unusual at the
time, but it made a lot of sense to me. And
I'm like, this is the way, this is how you're
going to become a world class trusted voice
online. The future of the internet is not you
outsourcing all your content, video, text,
etc. to somebody else, an agency or a production
company. It's you being able to do the majority
of your own stuff, if we're being honest. Creators.
So, I was calling out the creator side of the
creator economy long before anybody was. And
then of course, fast forward, whatever, 10
years, and now all of a sudden with chat
what are we going to do now? We better start
thinking about coaching consulting and we've
been doing it for 10 years. Yeah. So, what I
heard here was like you went from point A,
you told us a little about like D, F, G, I along
the way and I wanted to paint a good picture
of like Z of today before we started dissecting
what was happening kind of in between the letters
of the alphabet here if you'll indulge me with
a metaphor. So, you know, where you are today
with Can you tell us a little bit about kind
of the scale, you know? So what happened is
I became friends with a guy named Bob Ruffalo
and he had an agency, a very traditional inbound
agency called Impact and they were HubSpot partner
and I was just a little shop of like three
or four people crushing it with consulting and
they were the traditional agency. And so we
did a couple of events together and eventually
Bob's like, you know, I think we should work
together. And so we decided to merge the company
and I let go of the sales lion and it just
became impact. And after the first probably
year, year and a half of working together,
it was over Christmas break. One time, Bob is,
you know, like rummaging like he does through
a bunch of stuff over the holidays. And he calls
me up one day, he's like, I had a realization.
I'm like, what is it? He said, well, I realized
that all of our great case studies are, they
ask you answer clients, they're your clients.
They're not agency clients. Suddenly, he was
like, I think we're doing our clients a disservice
to do it the way it's always been done in the
inbound agency space. Sure, we can have successful
campaigns, but we're not building successful
cultures. And there's a very big difference
between the two. I do believe agencies can
do successful campaigns. But if you're not doing
coaching consulting training, you're not building
successful cultures. The very big difference
between the two. You're not creating this entity
that's truly, truly built to last. And so most
agencies don't like that idea because they
think that it's very limiting. But the average
engagement with agencies these days is less
than a year. And our average engagement with
clients is usually around 18 months or more.
And that's as a, and oftentimes we'll engage
with them further. So today, how impact works,
it's 100%. coaching, consulting. Companies come
to us and they say, hey, I read the book. I
want to do they ask you answer. And we teach
them how to do this in house. We train their
videographer. We train their content writer.
We train their HubSpot owner. We do not do
stuff for them though. We don't do the thing.
We teach them how to use the tool. We teach
them how to do the strategy. Now, this is outrageously
more profitable on two fronts. It's outrageous
and more profitable for the agency and for the
client because the client experiences unbelievable
results. I mean, the case studies that we have
at Impact, you just don't see in the inbound
space. It's not me bragging, it's just a fact.
I mean, we've got multiple companies that are
the most, literally the most trafficked website
and their entire industry, multiple clients
like this. that are just doing crazy things
that have scaled up, that have sold their businesses.
And it's not because we did a campaign. I mean,
we completely changed the face of the organization.
Now, the one other thing that makes us different
too, that I think agencies really have messed
up on, is that we have a heavy, heavy emphasis
on working with sales teams and sales training.
We won't just work with a marketing department.
I don't believe in that. I don't think you
can do that. responsibly in 2023. Because what
happens? You can be the best market in the
world, but if sales is pushing back, it just
flounders. It doesn't really fly. So you gotta
bring the two together, you gotta eliminate
the silos, you gotta have the ear of sales
leadership, you gotta have the ear of management,
you gotta have the ear of leadership. And so,
as an example, we won't engage a client if their
head leader, CEO, whatever you wanna call it,
is it on our... 90 day planning sessions. So
you have to be on that 90 day planning session
if you're a client and you're the CEO of the
company. If not, we won't engage you because
you're gonna be asking questions, you're gonna
be aloof and we can't allow for any aloofness
or ignorance to exist with leadership. And so
we have high demands of our clients. Because
of this, they achieve exceptional results. But
what we don't do is we don't do the work for
them. And we don't say, hey, we're going to
have these deliverables for you. And I think
those days are or they might not be dead, but
they're dying really, really fast. Right. Yeah,
exactly. If you can have AI doing the work for
you, it's about how you approach all the rest
of it, how you prompt it, how you distribute
it. I get all of that.
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Marcus, can you give us a couple of the numbers
around impact just to help people quantify?
Let's go kind of team size. I know Bob has mentioned
some of these metrics on other podcasts. Yeah,
he knows them better than I do. I mean, we have
about 70 employees and we'll do more than $10
million a year in revenue. I don't know the
exact numbers there. I probably should, but
I just am not as intrinsically involved with
some of the... some of the day-to-day of the
company. I think that's helpful. My point is
like this is not, you know, a four-person consulting.
This is working beyond like a super small scale.
It's really impressive kind of what's been
built here and that this model where it is coaching
and consulting, people look at that and think
there's no way that can scale. You can't grow
that kind of business and you guys are a great
example. You know, the knock against it is like
you're saying, all right, you're teaching them
how to not need an agency because you're showing
them how to do the thing. And what ends up
happening is you become indispensable to their
entire business. If you look at that trifecta
of sales, leadership and marketing and you give
value and become indispensable to each one
of the prongs there, then when times are tough,
they're like, no matter what happens, we just
can't, we can't get rid of impact. We can't
let go of impact. But if you're just doing
simple deliverables for them, you're going to
get cut with the next, you know, budget slash.
And that's why we have a lot of clients that,
you know, stay with us for years, but it's
still on some type of consulting coaching level.
You got to understand that stuff is happening
all the time. So we just had this huge, you
know, like wall wave of AI hit us. So immediately
we went to the market and said, hey, we're going
to teach you how to use it in-house. So instead
of... being worried like a lot of agencies of,
I don't want to show you a tool that's going
to replace us. We're saying, we're always here
for you. We're paying attention. We're using
it. We're in the sandbox. We're now going to
teach you how to use the thing as well. And
so, much higher value to the client. So I am
not sitting there trying to protect my bottom
line at the expense. of the client. So, the
client stays at the forefront. So, me as what
is like the brand ambassador of the company
and as the thought leader, I can sit there
and really, really focus on what are the trends
that we need to be caring about and how can
we teach that to our clients? How can we teach
that to our clients all the time? Whenever
there's a trend, immediately we bring it to
the client. I don't really think it's the job
of every CEO in the world to know trends like
it's our job. It's our job to make sure they're
aware of it. to understand it, to make sure
they're aware of it and then help them apply
it. And so, that's what we're doing with AI
but that's what we're also doing with any other
trends that are happening out there like vertical
short style video. Same thing and we're teaching
our clients how to do that. We weren't teaching
them how to do that three years ago but today
we are. Marshall. Gotcha. So, I wanted to, if
we can, to circle back to the story of your
breakthrough and you know, I've heard you tell
that story a few times and it almost feels
like you know, the comes to life, there's this
momentum that carries you forward almost kind
of to the present day. And I wanted to zoom
in on that story a little bit more and ask
you, I suppose the way I would phrase the question
is, what was the messy middle, you know, between
when they ask you answer was first uttered and
it becoming, you know, such a big trend there
being, you know, they ask you answer certified
coaches, etc. Like, what was the part that
you had to get through that, you know, maybe
you rarely share about or haven't shared about
before, hopefully. Something that you know,
then actually what did it take to bring it
to that scale? Well, just take the phrase they
ask you answer for a second, right? I think
the first time I ever used they ask you answer
was I was at a HubSpot event, I was at inbound,
then I was on a panel and there was a question
about you know, blog articles. And I told everybody,
I said, listen, here's what you need to do.
I don't think I'd ever really used the phrase
consistently. I mean, today I say, you know,
I told my, like I said before, I said, I told
my team, we're going to do this thing called
they ask you to answer. Well, I say that, but
I didn't say that to the team at the time. I
said, we're going to answer all the questions
we've ever received from our customers didn't
have a name for it. But I was sitting on this
panel and I was telling folks, I said, listen,
here's what you need to do. What you need to
do is I want you to go back to the office today.
And I want you to brainstorm every single question
you've ever received in a sales appointment.
to brainstorm every single one. If you come
up with less than 50 or 100, you're being pretty
lazy. Now, I want you to make those 50 to 100
questions. I want you to make those your first
100 blog articles. I mean, look at it like
this, like they've asked you the question, now
answer it. It's like they ask, you answer.
That's it folks, that's all you have to do.
And I saw a bunch of people writing it down.
It was like everybody in the room was scribbling
like I had said something really smart. I'm
like, well, what's interesting is it's usually,
you know, there's a- a scripture phrase by
small and simple things are great things brought
to pass. And I've seen that, that's communication
101. They Ask You Answer was immediately understood.
Audience showed me it was understood. And so
I was like, huh, that's it. So I started talking
about They Ask You Answer heavily from that
point on, which was probably 2013, 2012, 13.
I didn't write the first version of They Ask
You Answer until 2017. Now people constantly
were saying... I could be having written the
book. Well, unlike a lot of speakers that just
write theoretical books, but they haven't actually
done the thing, I wanted to feel like I had
proven it outside of just pools. And so, the
beauty is I was able to achieve a bunch of case
studies in other industries, B2B included,
because a lot of people were like, well, that
work for you's a pool guy, it's not going to
work for my B2B whatever organization, which
is utterly ridiculous. And I could spend hours
talking about how... how asinine that thought
process is because still, you know, companies
think that way today. But I wanted to prove
that this framework existed. If I had written
The Ask You Answer in 2013, it probably would
have been a book about blogging for business.
But because I wrote it in 2017 and I had time
to really start to teach it, the more I'm able
to teach something, the more I'm able to see
exactly what it is that I'm trying to say.
And what it became was a framework. And so today
when I speak about the Ask You Answer, it's
a sales and marketing framework for businesses.
It's also a philosophy. I don't ever use the
phrase, it's a business blogging strategy, right?
Because that dramatically undersells what it
is. And so I launched it, but I didn't have
really any fanfare when I launched it. I didn't
have a really, I had a following, but I didn't
have a massive following. And. What's interesting
is they ask you answer is sold more every single
year. More. So it's now in its fifth year that
it's been available in the market. Six years
better stated six years. It's got a revision
and I'll come out with another revision next
year. So probably revision three will come
back here because I need to talk a bunch about
AI and stuff like that. But the point is that
you look at it. How's it growing every single
year? Well, it's growing because it just, uh,
it is a principle driven. marketing book. A
lot of marketing books, they're platform centric,
which means they're finite in nature. But They
Ask You Answer is built on the emotion of how
can you become the most trusted voice in your
space? So trust isn't going away in terms of
it's important to the market, businesses really
care about it, it resonates, right? And so,
I could talk about They Ask You Answer for the
next 20 years to some degree. right? Because
it's about transparency, trust, etc. in business.
That's helped it to continue to grow. I've
continued to speak about it. That's helped the
movement continue. And you know, I kept the
reason why I started the partner program is
I kept having people tell me like, yeah, I'm
working with this agency and they're using this
thing called they ask you answer and they gave
me your book. And I was like, wow, why don't
I just go to the guy that wrote the book? It
was kind of funny. And so... I'm like, I got
all these agencies teaching my stuff, they're
using my IP, good for them. But I might as well
have a partner program that allows them to
be actual certified and to give them all the
goods because I knew they probably weren't
going to deliver it at the success rate we could
at Impact. And so, that's why we started the
partner program. It's been really, really cool
to see it. What I didn't expect out of the
partner program is it has been a key, a catalyst
in people saying, I want to write, they ask
you answer. in German or I want to do it, they
ask you answer for nonprofits. So, I've got
like one partner now doing it for nonprofits.
I got another one doing it for SaaS companies.
And I'm just going to be a co-author in each
of these. And so, that's a networking, the
power networking effect I didn't anticipate
with this. So, Marcus, launching, I asked this
question recently on LinkedIn around certification
programs and Pete Caputa from DataBox chimed
in and he said, hey, for certification programs
to work well, there's got to be a benefit to
the end. your agencies, the organizations you're
certifying, they need to be able to sell the
benefit of that. In your case, that makes sense,
hey, we're certified, they ask you answer,
coaches, we've got this, you know, we've actually
gone through and worked with Marcus and his
team to earn the certification. How, I guess
from a benefits perspective, so if an agency
is hearing this, they're thinking, hey, maybe
I should get that as well. What are the big
benefits that would draw somebody in to go through
that certification program? Well, here's the
surprising answer to your question, Gray. What
we realize is, sure, they ask you answers nice
for the agency to be able to have and to be
able to use and teach, but that's not the important
value they get from the program. The biggest
value they get from the program is they learn
how to be a coaching consulting company. That
happens to do they ask you answer with clients
if they want to. And so, we actually have set
it up now where agencies can reach out to us
because if you think about... how the agency
world has worked. It's like, we've almost learned
to be yes men and women. That's what we're trained
to be. It's like, hey, I really need this thing.
Yes, we can do that for you. Hey, how about
this campaign? Yes, I can do that for you.
They haven't learned how to say, no, that's
not what we're going to do. But let's talk
about why we're not going to do that. They don't
know how to say no. And so because of that,
there's a lot of incongruence in the relationships.
And it's not oftentimes a two-way street. you're
just serving the client masters like, you know,
the client is just driving the relationship.
It shouldn't be that way. It should be a very
symbiotic mutual relationship, mutually respectful.
And it's amazing how much happier your team
is when they can guide a client, say no to
a client, persuade in a positive way a client,
positively influence a client. where they learn
the skills to ask the perfect question every
single time, which is a huge focus of ours.
They understand how to deal with friction. They
understand how to deal with sales teams who
are very resistant, generally speaking, to new
ideas. How to train sales teams, because they
learn that from us, right? So these are the
big values that we're bringing to them. Take
your traditional agency that is a yes man, yes
woman agency. and turn it into a coaching consulting
company where you're now guiding them in your
margins are dramatically better because of
it. Okay, so I wanted to add one more piece
to the breakthrough story actually. So I'm
trying to, in my mind, I'm trying to answer
the question of what does it take to go on
a journey like yours? And one thing that I already
learned is that kind of one piece that I'm
taking away from it is You come up with this
concept, even though it's extremely exciting
and is catching on, don't write the book just
yet, spend a few years teaching, and then you'll
find that it maybe has a broader application
or you'll accumulate those case studies. It'll
just be so much more refined and that's how
you come up with an evergreen classic. And
you strike me, Marcus, and I think a lot of
people would agree as a natural teacher and
speaker. But still, I wanted to ask you about
this piece, this These few years that you spent
refining the concept and kind of getting it
from its first iteration to what we saw in
the first edition of the book, what was the
difficult part of that you had to get through?
And if somebody wants to take that same journey,
you know, what would you warn them against
that it's kind of an obstacle they might? So
what you want to do, and this goes back to
even to your point, Gray, you want to find ways
to say yes when you're in the sales process
to people so as to make this sale. So, somebody
comes to you and they say something like, I
really like they ask, you answer, but
I don't want to hire a content writer. Do you
think my team could do this if everybody like
took one article a week each? You want to say
yes to that, don't you? But guess what? That's
going to fail big time. And see, that's the
type of stuff that I had to learn who was not
going to work. And so, I would say yes to things
like they would say. Could I outsource a writer
and bring that writer on occasion for this?
I'd say, oh yeah, I think we could make that
work. Doesn't work. Could I outsource the video
and make it work? Doesn't work. Could I have
somebody on my staff that is already on staff
also do this? Oh yeah, I think we can make
that work. Doesn't work, right? It's like these
are the things that don't work. So I said yes
to a lot of these things at first. CEOs not
involved in some of the initial conversations,
doesn't work. Somebody calls me up and says,
that's a marketer, hey Marcus, I believe that
they asked you answer works. Can you talk to
my CEO and convince him or her that this will
work? Doesn't work because I tried that too.
You know, they would, I realized if somebody
hasn't invested any energy. in trying to learn
about this thing. I don't care if I am John
the Baptist, they are not going to pay attention
to my words. So, the point being is I tell
marketers now, I'm like, listen, I'm not here
to convert your CEO. The book will do that
for you. All you got to do is give them the...
If they read the book, they're going to want
to have a conversation. They're going to respect
me also. But if they don't know me from Adam
and I meet with them, and try to convince them
about this thing called they ask you answer,
it's going to go poorly. It's not going to do
that. That's another mistake that I made. Also
have, and this is a much deeper conversation,
Kuba, but I have developed my communication
skills and I have learned the proper questions
to ask to make companies really boil down their
core beliefs. in terms of sales and marketing.
And what I mean by that is, you know, people
want to debate me all the time when they don't
really understand they ask you answer. They're
like, ah, we shouldn't talk about cost and price.
I've just learned to blow things down in the
most simplistic of terms. So do you believe
trust is fundamental to your business, yes
or no? Well, no, no. Just answer the question.
Do you believe it's fundamental to your business?
Yes. Do you want to become the most trusted
voice in your space? Is that a goal you aspire
to? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, we continue
talking. If the answer is no, we're not a fit.
It's okay. It's fine. And so, I've learned also
through this that I'm not trying to convince
anybody to become the most trusted voice in
their space. I don't need to convince them
to read the book. You can do that. That's fine.
If you do it though, this is going to resonate
with you and then we're going to have some type
of conversation and maybe we can, maybe we
can't help you. But too often as agencies...
We're begging for the business. We're just
trying to find a way to help them. And it just
creates a terrible relationship that sucks.
And I'm really happy to say that our clients
adore us and they would like jump in front
of bullets for us and vice versa because of
the depth of the relationship. And that's what
happens when you have a coach-client relationship.
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Marcus, how prior to the book, because this
tees up like everything you just said aligns
really well with one of the principles you teach
in the book, assignment selling and hey, we've
got to have there's healthy friction on both
sides of this relationship getting started.
Prior to having the book, because everyone listening
is thinking the same thing, I wish I had that
book. Dang, I should have written that book
so I could do the same thing Marcus does. What
did you do prior to the book in terms of obviously,
you know, sometimes you said yes. But there's
some evolution there relearned, it doesn't make
sense. And how did you answer it in those cases?
I teach their questions and it is far and away
the best way to teach because the fact is most
people when they communicate, whether it's sales
or whether it's a speaker or leadership or
anything like this, they're almost trying to
force feed information. It doesn't really work.
If you ask questions and allow them to truly
self-reflect, they just might self-discover.
And so, as I was leading up to the book, I was
doing different versions of assignment selling,
but if I met someone cold on the street, you
know, a CEO, and they're like, all right, so
what do you do? Right? So, let's say, you know,
I was at inbound and somebody says, you know,
we got a booth there and they say, hey, what
do you do? I'd say simple, I have a question
for you and this will explain what we do. So,
you're a CEO. I want you to tell me which of
these two would you prefer? It's three years
down the road. If you wanna produce any content,
if you wanna write any articles, if you wanna
produce any videos, if you wanna create anything,
you've gotta call an agency to do it for you.
That's option one. Option two. If you wanna
write any article, you can do that because you
have those skills in-house. If you wanna produce
any video, you can do that because you have
those skills in-house. If you wanna get a report
in HouseBot, you can do that because you have
those skills in-house. Essentially, you can
do whatever you want. because you have those
skills in-house. If you have the choice as
a CEO, which one of those two scenarios would
you prefer to be living in three years from
today? Now, 90% are gonna say, I wanna have
control. Now, me, understanding how to communicate,
I'm gonna say, and why do you want control?
And they're gonna say, because that's how I'm
going to achieve my potential. That's what's
gonna allow me to reach the goals that I want.
And that's what I'm able to say, and we're gonna
teach you exactly. how to do just that. So
that's how we essentially get people interested
in the idea of owning their sales and marketing
success versus outsourcing it, which I just
so very much don't believe it's the way. I
just don't... Now it's fine, but show me one
case study of someone that became the most
trusted voice in their space by outsourcing
all their content. Show me. One. I'm still
waiting for an answer. I've never received one
before. Certainly not from an inbound agency.
Never have I gotten a single one. And I have
like a whole bunch personally that have done
the ASCII answer. This isn't arrogance. This
is the reality of empowering people and feeding
them for a lifetime. Right? That's what we're
doing. That's awesome. Okay. I'm really struck
by that because I would have expected, I was
thinking you know, you had a pitch prepared,
maybe you know, some smaller doc PDF that you
might have shared with them before the book
was a thing but it makes so much sense that
you are doing this through questions and it
stands out a lot, right? Chris Dupre, my head
of revenue at Impact told the story at our
recent They Ask Your Answers Summit and I think
you'll appreciate this. We had a lead at Impact
not too long ago who was interested in HubSpot
and they were debating back and forth. And
they talked to one of our reps for a long time
about HubSpot. And I was just like, I just
don't know. I just don't know. So, I spent an
hour with him, nothing. Then they talked to
what's it called, a cam at HubSpot. And they
talked to one of, you know, one of the great
HubSpotters for over an hour about the value
HubSpot would bring to the organization. And
they still didn't move, still didn't move. And
I... And finally, I was like, let me talk to
the person. Let me talk to the person. The literal
conversation went like this, and this is not
an exaggeration. Here's the conversation. I
say to the person, can you definitively measure
the ROI of your digital marketing right now?
No, I cannot. Okay. If you could, what's the
value of that to your company? I mean, thousands.
How many thousands? hundreds of thousands.
Okay. So in order to get that hundreds of thousands
of value, you need to spend 20,000 a year on
HubSpot. Are you ready to move? Absolutely.
There, done. For years when I was selling HubSpot,
I'd isolate the one problem that they had to
solve, and I literally would never show 99%
of what HubSpot could do. 99% I wouldn't show.
The one person is the only thing that matters.
But you see, most people don't understand how
to sell that way. When you become a coaching
company, that's how you learn how to sell. Because
you learn how to ask world-class questions
that lead quickly to the core of the problem
or the need and they can self-discover on their
own that that's the move they need to make.
That's awesome, Marcus. Driving through questions
is the way to go. Kuba, let's switch over here.
I know you get some, these don't have to be
rapid fire, Marcus. But we're trying to build
here. in the crisp cornucopia is kind of, hey,
we've got a little grab bag of questions and
there's some that are kind of typical. Want
to know, hey, are the top tools, books, that
kind of stuff that you've got, who are some
folks we should follow? And there's a couple
here that are atypical. Kuba, could I drive
with one random off the wall one for Marcus
first? Yes, Gray, you have my permission to
do that.
my parents homeschooled us all. My mom started
homeschooling in probably 84 or 85. My oldest
sister is born in an 81. And my twin brothers,
the youngest two are graduating, we're having
a party on Sunday. I need to come up with a
ball in, hey mom, thanks for homeschooling
for so long. Do you have any ideas of a gift
for my homeschooling mother who's retiring?
I might be the worst gifter of all time. With
that being said, I naturally, when I think
of that, I'm the type of person that I would
immediately think of a listicle, okay, to do.
And I want to create something here for it because
it's much more memorable. And I'd create a
listicle that was 10 things that you no longer
have to do, mom, because we're all done. And
those 10 things would be funny activities that
she always has had to do as a homeschool mom
that she now no longer has to. She'll laugh
the whole time, she'll frame it and she'll
love it forever. Boom. That's awesome. Oh yeah,
and the worst gifter of all time. Yeah. I'm
fine. We'll see. I'm much better with words,
right? So, I'm not good with the physical things
but I'm pretty decent with- with the verbal
things. Well, I'm going to put the hardest
question possible here. Kuba, pick your favorite
one and let's grill Marcus. I want to go with
a much more boring one but like from the person
who wrote one of the most influential books
at least from my perspective in the space, what
are some other books or concepts that you think
kind of get close to what they ask you answer
achieve? Some books that you might recommend?
Or you know, even if they're not in the same
space, maybe something that kind of recently
inspired you. Well, I think everybody should
read Storybrand because I think the two most
important marketing books you can read, not
because I'm biased, I really believe this,
or they ask you to answer in Storybrand. They
ask you to answer of course is the framework
and the strategy for the content you produce.
And Storybrand is the angle by which you deliver
it and learning how to make your audience the
focus and the hero of your content, right?
Which is important. And that affects all communication.
It's not just, you know, let's say your homepage
or your webpage or anything like that. And so,
I'm a big believer in a story brand. I also
am a big fan of Kim Scott's Radical Candor.
I think she did a great job with that book.
You know, for some people, you know, they have
a hard time with the word radical candor. Those
folks need to grow up because if you read the
book, it says that radical candor is speaking
high carrying with high directness. And that
means with love. And learning how to do directness
with love is an absolute life changer. But the
moment you realize you can be the most caring
and most direct person in any room at a given
time, your life will absolutely change. So
I would recommend that. I'd recommend as the
best business book of all time, just for like
a CEO, is Good to Great. by Jim Collins. I've
probably read that maybe somewhere in the range
of 20 times is my guess. And just best interpersonal
communications book of all time is How to Win
Friends and Influence People. It's the great
classic. You should probably read that every
couple of years. I would say this though, you're
much better off reading one book 10 times this
year than you are reading 10 different books
one time.
One thing we rarely ask about is, hey, service
providers, if there's nobody who code pops
into your mind right away, we're gonna skip
to the next question. Over your career, are
there any service providers that stand out to
you? You've used accounting firm, whatever
that may be. I'm sorry I don't have one, but
to that though, you better have a dang good
account, you business owners. Because I went
through an embezzlement early on in my pool
company's career and that was the worst three
years of my life. So, make sure you have a
good dang accountant, please. I'm really curious
to see what percentage of folks on this show
have an instant answer. Like, oh yes, we worked
with this and this was outstanding. Folks who
we should follow. So, Outside of Books, these
are whatever, give them a follow on their blog,
on LinkedIn, on whatever that looks like. Do
you have any favorite recommendations? Well,
I mostly spend my time on LinkedIn and there's,
I mean, there's just people I really like and
respect. Ron Tite is one that I like and respects
a lot. Alex B. Sheridan, he's not related to
me, but he does a lot of fun creative videos
on LinkedIn. Just smart guy. I think he does
a lot of good things. I think he's really thoughtful.
Man, I'm sure there's so many more that I'm
not gonna think of right now. Cody Sanchez,
I love Cody Sanchez, talks about finance. She's
like the Gary V of I would say finance in a
lot of ways of starting a business and buying
boring businesses and becoming profitable. So
I really like her. I think she's a gangster.
She's super good. Okay. Thanks for answering
that. So I suppose we'll call it there when
it comes to the crisp cornucopia section. of
this pod and yeah, like Gray, I'm really curious,
you know, for the service provider is what people
are going to say, what are the recurring themes
going to be, how many people are going to name,
they ask you answer or you know, are you as
a follow. But anyway, we're kind of arriving
upon the end of our time here and just to throw
one last one in there, was there anything else
that you wanted to, you know, given the audience,
given the topic, given the agency breakthrough
name, was there anything else that you wanted
to kind of... share or throw in there and as
we wrap this up. Well, I would just say if
you're listening to this and it's resonated
with you, just make sure you reach out to me,
connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm a really good
follow, my best stuff there. You can also email
me marcus at marcusheridan.com. That's a personal
email you can hit me at marcus at marcusheridan.com.
Remember what I said when I started, it's dumb
not to dumb it down. You don't need to prove
to the world that you're smart to be incredibly
effective. The number one feedback I get to
give to speakers and to creators when they're
asking me to look at their stuff is I can see
that you're trying to prove to the audience
that you belong on this stage and if you could
let that go, you are going to become the best
version of yourself. There's a lot more me
to that Kuba, but it's a problem that people
have. Some might call it imposter syndrome,
but it's just, you have to just find a way to
be very satisfied with what you know, knowing
that it's not for everybody. Even today, you
know, there's probably about 98% of the people
that listen to this podcast today are like,
you know, I really liked him. There will be
2%. Let's say, I just don't, I don't like his
style. I don't like his way. I don't like his
energy. Whatever that thing is. And I'm able
to talk openly about those people because I've
already let them go. I love those people but
I don't care about what they think, right?
Because I'm okay with the fact that we're not
a good match, right? I don't like tomatoes.
I never will. They love it. They love a tomato.
I've tried to like tomato. I just not going
to like it. So it's okay. It's totally okay.
You have to learn that. if you're going to
be really, really successful in business. A
lot of companies never achieve amazing things
with marketing because they're afraid to be
disliked by anybody. So they're very lukewarm.
I'd much rather be a little bit polarizing.
And so keep that in mind as you're trying to
build a brand, whether it's personal, professional
business. You got to be willing to let a few
go in order to be most attractive to the masses
and really show who you are. Or because you
crushed it. I told you we can get you out of
here on time. We're just barely gonna do it.
But I appreciate you spending so much time with
us today on Agents of Breakthrough. Thank you.
My pleasure.
So, that just happened. We just had Marcus Sheridan
on the show on Agency Breakthrough in one of
our very first episodes. That was amazing. Marcus
has so much to say on so many topics here.
Hugely inspiring. Gray, what was one piece of
what Marcus said that inspired you? Yeah, it
was hard not to, you know, Marcus is such a
good speaker that you don't want to jump into
the conversation as he's going. But it was,
you know, I had a million follow-up questions
that I'd love to be able to get. on the recording
as well and obviously little limited by time.
But one of the things that inspired me from
what he shared and this is you know, probably
confirmation bias because this has been a big
focus here at ZenPilot is just basically how
do we build out you know, his story of selling
HubSpot in that situation and helping break
through all these conversations were happening.
There's all this hesitancy, a very simple conversation
and Klein winds up being able to move forward
and make a decision. that's what everyone wants
is just clarity and how do we move forward towards
action. So, that inspired me to continue to
work on our process of what we're doing. I think
that'll impact sales at ZenPilot but I think
more than that, we've built out this agency
operator score card and it's basically, hey,
here's how do we benchmark where we are now,
how do we identify the key metrics we need
to be measuring and then what's the impact of
getting ops? actually streamlined inside ClickUp.
And taking that and making sure that we're actually
using that tool to help people get clarity
and the numbers should be clear. If the impact
is not there, we should not be pushing you
and move forward. We shouldn't even be wasting
time in a conversation and if the numbers are
clear, they should be taking action whether
it's with us or with someone else but there
should be the gift of clarity that we're handing
to them and say hey, now that you've got this
information, here's your freedom to move forward.
So, That inspired me. How about on your end?
So, adding on to yours, that stood out to me
as well. You stole mine. I was going to do
the same one. I was going to say, you know,
the way he didn't even show 99% of Hopspot,
but just the 1% that hit the biggest pain point
and that framed the conversation around value.
And that's one of my big takeaways, frame the
conversation around value and selling becomes
a lot easier. But the second thing then, I have
to go to the second thing because you stole
my first, is it's so powerful when somebody
asks you, what do you do as a business and
you respond with a question. I wanna work on
that. I wanna be able to do that, what he did,
to be able to respond with a question, maybe
show these two scenarios, which one do you
prefer? And that's kind of, that's where we
get you. Amazing, that was hugely inspirational.
And just a lot of the other things that. that
he said, I'm really grateful for this time
that we had together here on Agency Breakthrough.
Glad it happened. So this was one of our episodes.
Hopefully you will listen to the other ones.
Gray, any other thing else to add here as we
finish up? No, let's wrap it there. This was
great. Join us again next time for another
Agency Breakthrough. See you next time. It's
gonna be awesome.