1 00:00:00,258 --> 00:00:07,822 But show me one case study of someone that became the most trusted voice in their space by outsourcing 2 00:00:07,882 --> 00:00:15,386 all their content. Show me one. One. I'm still waiting for an answer. I've never received 3 00:00:15,506 --> 00:00:22,670 one before. Certainly not from an inbound agency. Never have I gotten a single one. And I have 4 00:00:23,310 --> 00:00:29,570 like a whole bunch personally that have done the ask you answer. This is an arrogance. This 5 00:00:29,610 --> 00:00:32,984 is the reality of empowering people and feeding them for a lifetime. 6 00:00:37,510 --> 00:00:44,312 How are you sir? I'm doing pretty good today. Uh, Gray, how are you yourself? I'm thrilled. 7 00:00:44,812 --> 00:00:50,233 I've got an awesome friend here joining us today. You want to intro to the folks who's with us? 8 00:00:51,153 --> 00:00:55,395 Do I want to intro? Okay, so the guest we're going to be having today has got me huffing 9 00:00:55,415 --> 00:01:02,317 in a paper bag basically and uh, it's a journey for me because I read his book back in I want 10 00:01:02,337 --> 00:01:08,547 to say 2018. It really shaped me as a marketer. And I look up to him because he has a way of 11 00:01:09,308 --> 00:01:15,071 simplifying the complex that I'm really inspired by. He's the author of They Ask, You Answer, 12 00:01:15,191 --> 00:01:19,814 which some of you might have heard about if you're in marketing. And his name is Marcus 13 00:01:19,834 --> 00:01:26,397 Sheridan and he'll be joining us in just a second here. Welcome to Agency Breakthrough, where 14 00:01:26,457 --> 00:01:33,661 we bring you real gritty stories of agency operators who found the path to get past the plateau. 15 00:01:34,482 --> 00:01:40,423 Whether it's hitting on a playbook for massive growth, scaling profit margins, or just finding 16 00:01:40,483 --> 00:01:48,065 a way to have an agency and a life, we're here to share how they achieved it and laugh a little 17 00:01:48,225 --> 00:01:54,687 along the way. Presented by Zenpilot and ClickUp. And your hosts today are Jakub Grajcar and 18 00:01:54,747 --> 00:01:58,528 Gray McKenzie. Marcus, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining Agency Breakthrough. Hey, 19 00:01:59,328 --> 00:02:06,051 thrilled to be here and Kuba, thanks for that intro. You said something that You know, I 20 00:02:06,071 --> 00:02:10,514 always find to be the highest compliment is when someone says something like, you know, 21 00:02:10,734 --> 00:02:17,039 you, I didn't understand that thing until I heard you explain it. And that makes me feel 22 00:02:17,180 --> 00:02:21,763 good. You know, one of the best lessons that I ever received as a marketer and just as a 23 00:02:21,803 --> 00:02:27,548 business person and communicator years ago, somebody told me it's dumb not to dumb it down. 24 00:02:27,768 --> 00:02:31,851 And at first I didn't really understand really what that meant, but you know, I started to 25 00:02:31,871 --> 00:02:37,523 think about it and it's just so true. I think there's a lot of people in the digital world 26 00:02:37,543 --> 00:02:43,827 that try to impress and they try to sound smart. They don't even realize it sometimes. But all 27 00:02:43,867 --> 00:02:48,671 you do is you end up distancing yourself from your audience. Whereas if you're just looking 28 00:02:48,711 --> 00:02:53,214 for communion with the audience and you're trying to say in a way that light bulbs come on, now 29 00:02:53,234 --> 00:03:00,158 all of a sudden you have those magical moments. And so I do appreciate you noticing that. So 30 00:03:00,198 --> 00:03:03,640 I thought, you know, that's the curse of being an expert. On the one hand, you want to show 31 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:08,663 kind of the breadth of a subject. On the other, if you end up overcomplicating it for people 32 00:03:08,763 --> 00:03:13,385 in the process, then that doesn't really accomplish your goal. So this is what I like about the 33 00:03:13,445 --> 00:03:19,569 ask your answer to. It takes this very big area of marketing and sales. And without oversimplifying 34 00:03:19,649 --> 00:03:24,091 it, it does show this kind of mindset that you can have to get great results. Yeah. If somebody 35 00:03:24,111 --> 00:03:30,074 said to me, what is this? What is the phrase that you want? someone to say to their peer, 36 00:03:30,114 --> 00:03:34,257 to their friend after they read the book or after they heard you speak, Marcus, it would 37 00:03:34,277 --> 00:03:39,199 be that they look at their peer and they say, oh my gosh, this is so obvious. Why are we 38 00:03:39,219 --> 00:03:46,703 not doing this? That to me is the ultimate goal because what's happened is they have heard 39 00:03:46,743 --> 00:03:53,187 the thing and they're saying, this is attainable for me. This is not outside of my capabilities, 40 00:03:53,307 --> 00:04:01,388 my realm of understanding. Whereas if somebody Man, that dude is a friggin genius. Oh my goodness. 41 00:04:01,408 --> 00:04:05,931 See what he did? Man, that dude is baller. What have we done? We haven't really accomplished 42 00:04:05,951 --> 00:04:12,896 anything because now I'm the hero and their ability to do the thing is not. So they need 43 00:04:12,916 --> 00:04:19,681 to feel like this is 1000% attainable. That guy's not that smart actually. I mean, sure 44 00:04:19,721 --> 00:04:27,350 he's smart, but he is, he is, if he can do it, I can do it. And Again, this is very, very 45 00:04:27,390 --> 00:04:33,373 attainable. This is why most marketers really struggle to get buy-in across the board, especially 46 00:04:33,393 --> 00:04:38,975 within their own organization because they sound like marketers. They don't say things in a 47 00:04:39,015 --> 00:04:44,677 way that is understood by the masses, certainly by leadership, by sales. Yeah. That's a good 48 00:04:44,697 --> 00:04:49,439 point. Marcus, this show is obviously meant for agency leaders who are in some area of 49 00:04:49,459 --> 00:04:53,321 their business, we're all struggling. To your point about being relatable, like all of us 50 00:04:53,401 --> 00:04:57,054 have something that we're... Yeah, we are not living up. We've got a vision for where we 51 00:04:57,074 --> 00:05:01,316 want to be and there's the gap and we're trying to figure out how to close that gap in some 52 00:05:01,376 --> 00:05:07,059 area of life. You've got a handful of super cool breakthrough moments that are kind of 53 00:05:07,359 --> 00:05:11,460 well known in the circles that we run in but maybe we can fill in some of those gaps for 54 00:05:11,500 --> 00:05:20,524 folks. So you're running River Pools and Spas, this pool company in Virginia and I just pulled 55 00:05:20,544 --> 00:05:25,230 up the New York Times article from February of 2013. Again, it's a- sent that to Cuba. 56 00:05:26,190 --> 00:05:29,913 But I remember seeing that way back in the day and kind of hearing your story at inbound for 57 00:05:29,953 --> 00:05:34,295 the first time probably 2013, 2014. And then you've got this second breakthrough that I 58 00:05:34,315 --> 00:05:39,078 really like to dig into today with They Ask You Answer and kind of the, you know, the whole 59 00:05:39,118 --> 00:05:43,020 growth from that. Can you fill in some of the blanks here though of your, because I think 60 00:05:43,180 --> 00:05:46,942 some, there's probably a good chunk of folks listening who don't even realize kind of your, 61 00:05:47,903 --> 00:05:52,145 they know you as the author, Marcus. They don't know and there's this agency side and kind 62 00:05:52,165 --> 00:05:55,758 of the breakthroughs that you've had. building agencies as well. Could you fill in some of 63 00:05:55,798 --> 00:06:00,000 the story there? So, people, basically what I want to give is I want to give listeners 64 00:06:00,020 --> 00:06:05,482 the context of who is Marcus, what's the relationship to agencies and now let's dig in. Yeah. Well, 65 00:06:05,502 --> 00:06:10,424 if you look at, you know, the pool company was started right out of university 2001. We have 66 00:06:10,444 --> 00:06:16,687 the crash in 2008, 2009 and that was when I really started just to learn as much as I could 67 00:06:17,187 --> 00:06:22,089 and the inspiration came for, hey, I'm going to take every single question we've ever been 68 00:06:22,249 --> 00:06:26,510 asked. We're going to start to... address that on our website through text and video. And 69 00:06:26,610 --> 00:06:32,892 so within a few months of doing that, I'm like, holy cow, this works. And, uh, it was literally 70 00:06:32,972 --> 00:06:40,335 March 2009. I started, they asked you to answer for River Pools. Okay. November 2009 as a birthday 71 00:06:40,375 --> 00:06:51,774 present to myself was turning 32 years old. I gave myself a blog where I could start. writing 72 00:06:51,814 --> 00:06:57,557 about my thoughts on what we were doing with River Pools. And I had to share it with the 73 00:06:57,597 --> 00:07:02,159 world. And I picked a really dumb name called the sales lion because sales sounded better 74 00:07:02,179 --> 00:07:08,362 than marketing lion. And I like lions, that's my spirit animal. So I chose sales lion and 75 00:07:08,402 --> 00:07:14,065 I started just explaining what I was doing at River Pools. Nobody listened for about a year, 76 00:07:14,745 --> 00:07:20,155 but then I started to have companies say, yo, like, can you show us how you did that thing 77 00:07:20,175 --> 00:07:27,097 with your pool company? And then some started to say, hey, I'd love for you to share that 78 00:07:27,237 --> 00:07:34,959 at our event because I was also writing about my experience with HubSpot as well. And so 79 00:07:35,479 --> 00:07:40,720 over the course of the next couple of years, from basically what was 2009 was the year I 80 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:47,378 start the Ask You Answer for Swimful Company, I start a personal blog. Within three years, 81 00:07:47,999 --> 00:07:51,421 now all of a sudden, the swimming pool company is the most trafficked swimming pool website 82 00:07:51,441 --> 00:07:57,245 in the world. Three years later, Elon's starting to get requests. And because I'm obsessed with 83 00:07:57,285 --> 00:08:02,249 how buyers think and the questions they ask, I'm like, so they're asking me to teach them 84 00:08:02,269 --> 00:08:08,353 how to do this. Huh, it's probably a business here. So that's when I started that and people 85 00:08:08,373 --> 00:08:12,876 were saying like, hey, you talk about HubSpot in a way that just makes more sense to me, 86 00:08:12,936 --> 00:08:21,804 Marcus. And so, I became the first HubSpot partner that wasn't an agency. I was a pool guy that 87 00:08:21,904 --> 00:08:29,248 became a HubSpot partner because I was just naturally selling it, you know, when people 88 00:08:29,268 --> 00:08:32,769 were saying you're writing about this stuff, you're, you're like this thought leader for 89 00:08:33,069 --> 00:08:40,032 now inbound in HubSpot. And then I started speaking about it. Content marketing world. Number one 90 00:08:40,052 --> 00:08:44,586 was probably one of the first big ones where I got my first big gig. And what was interesting 91 00:08:44,606 --> 00:08:49,328 about that is I got that because HubSpot was a sponsor of Content Marketing World. Content 92 00:08:49,348 --> 00:08:54,670 Marketing World, Joe Pulizzi says to HubSpot, Hey, you have a, you know, you're a big sponsor. 93 00:08:54,970 --> 00:08:59,472 You can have a speaker. They actually, for some reason recommended me, which was cool. Then 94 00:08:59,512 --> 00:09:06,415 thank you HubSpot. I go to Content Marketing World and I, um, was the highest rated speaker 95 00:09:06,435 --> 00:09:10,797 and they have a deal where if you're the highest rated speaker, you get the keynote slot for 96 00:09:10,817 --> 00:09:19,034 the next year. So, Suddenly I went from the smallest room one year, literally, to the biggest 97 00:09:19,114 --> 00:09:25,359 room the next year and I was the keynote. And my speaking career has just taken off since 98 00:09:25,379 --> 00:09:33,326 then. I've probably done more than a thousand events now all over the world. The agency though, 99 00:09:34,267 --> 00:09:41,733 started off where the agency was essentially just the sales lion and it was helping companies. 100 00:09:42,458 --> 00:09:48,679 learn how to do this thing called they ask you answer. But the premise was I think the agency 101 00:09:48,719 --> 00:09:54,121 models broke it. So what do all the agencies do? Well, they do all the work for you. In 102 00:09:54,181 --> 00:09:59,922 my mind, I was thinking to myself, this isn't built to last. Like do we really think the 103 00:10:00,002 --> 00:10:06,204 best way to build an agency is that you tell someone we're going to write six blog articles 104 00:10:06,244 --> 00:10:10,765 for you a month and they pay you for that and then you sit there and debate about whether 105 00:10:10,785 --> 00:10:16,228 or not it's good enough. And they're not really in it because they're not emotionally invested 106 00:10:16,248 --> 00:10:20,211 as the client. The agency's trying to do it, but could they do it really well? And I was 107 00:10:20,231 --> 00:10:24,834 thinking, man, at River Pools, we produce freaking great content, even though it wasn't necessarily 108 00:10:24,874 --> 00:10:28,396 well written at first, cause I wasn't a great writer. I became a great writer, but it wasn't, 109 00:10:28,877 --> 00:10:34,201 it wasn't necessarily like it wasn't what you would consider world-class, but it was actually 110 00:10:34,421 --> 00:10:39,344 incredibly effective because it was a pool guy just answering questions in a way people could 111 00:10:39,384 --> 00:10:46,884 understand them. And so, I said, I want to create an agency model where it follows the premise 112 00:10:47,065 --> 00:10:51,327 of give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish, feed him for a lifetime. 113 00:10:51,367 --> 00:10:56,610 So I said, I believe there's a certain subset of companies in the world that want to feed 114 00:10:56,630 --> 00:11:03,675 themselves for a lifetime. And I want to teach those companies how to fish. And so by 2013, 115 00:11:05,116 --> 00:11:10,546 I am now teaching companies how to do this in-house. And we did a lot of stuff that was really, 116 00:11:10,626 --> 00:11:15,728 really different. In fact, we told anybody, if you want to work with us, you have to have 117 00:11:15,748 --> 00:11:21,031 a full time content writer and most of them didn't have someone. And so they had to hire 118 00:11:21,051 --> 00:11:25,532 someone to work with us. So I'm literally asking people, you got to hire someone and then you 119 00:11:25,552 --> 00:11:32,295 got to pay us too, which was unusual at the time, but it made a lot of sense to me. And 120 00:11:32,315 --> 00:11:37,097 I'm like, this is the way, this is how you're going to become a world class trusted voice 121 00:11:37,277 --> 00:11:43,168 online. The future of the internet is not you outsourcing all your content, video, text, 122 00:11:43,248 --> 00:11:48,491 etc. to somebody else, an agency or a production company. It's you being able to do the majority 123 00:11:48,511 --> 00:11:55,154 of your own stuff, if we're being honest. Creators. So, I was calling out the creator side of the 124 00:11:55,214 --> 00:12:01,258 creator economy long before anybody was. And then of course, fast forward, whatever, 10 125 00:12:01,278 --> 00:12:03,459 years, and now all of a sudden with chat 126 00:12:08,666 --> 00:12:12,387 what are we going to do now? We better start thinking about coaching consulting and we've 127 00:12:12,407 --> 00:12:17,610 been doing it for 10 years. Yeah. So, what I heard here was like you went from point A, 128 00:12:17,670 --> 00:12:24,933 you told us a little about like D, F, G, I along the way and I wanted to paint a good picture 129 00:12:24,973 --> 00:12:29,575 of like Z of today before we started dissecting what was happening kind of in between the letters 130 00:12:29,615 --> 00:12:35,257 of the alphabet here if you'll indulge me with a metaphor. So, you know, where you are today 131 00:12:35,397 --> 00:12:40,618 with Can you tell us a little bit about kind of the scale, you know? So what happened is 132 00:12:40,678 --> 00:12:46,083 I became friends with a guy named Bob Ruffalo and he had an agency, a very traditional inbound 133 00:12:46,223 --> 00:12:53,089 agency called Impact and they were HubSpot partner and I was just a little shop of like three 134 00:12:53,129 --> 00:12:58,214 or four people crushing it with consulting and they were the traditional agency. And so we 135 00:12:58,234 --> 00:13:01,737 did a couple of events together and eventually Bob's like, you know, I think we should work 136 00:13:01,777 --> 00:13:06,763 together. And so we decided to merge the company and I let go of the sales lion and it just 137 00:13:06,803 --> 00:13:11,684 became impact. And after the first probably year, year and a half of working together, 138 00:13:11,704 --> 00:13:17,766 it was over Christmas break. One time, Bob is, you know, like rummaging like he does through 139 00:13:17,786 --> 00:13:22,827 a bunch of stuff over the holidays. And he calls me up one day, he's like, I had a realization. 140 00:13:22,887 --> 00:13:29,109 I'm like, what is it? He said, well, I realized that all of our great case studies are, they 141 00:13:29,189 --> 00:13:37,077 ask you answer clients, they're your clients. They're not agency clients. Suddenly, he was 142 00:13:37,117 --> 00:13:42,281 like, I think we're doing our clients a disservice to do it the way it's always been done in the 143 00:13:42,341 --> 00:13:47,466 inbound agency space. Sure, we can have successful campaigns, but we're not building successful 144 00:13:47,506 --> 00:13:52,189 cultures. And there's a very big difference between the two. I do believe agencies can 145 00:13:52,249 --> 00:13:58,234 do successful campaigns. But if you're not doing coaching consulting training, you're not building 146 00:13:58,294 --> 00:14:05,580 successful cultures. The very big difference between the two. You're not creating this entity 147 00:14:05,620 --> 00:14:10,624 that's truly, truly built to last. And so most agencies don't like that idea because they 148 00:14:10,684 --> 00:14:16,369 think that it's very limiting. But the average engagement with agencies these days is less 149 00:14:16,389 --> 00:14:23,795 than a year. And our average engagement with clients is usually around 18 months or more. 150 00:14:24,275 --> 00:14:30,560 And that's as a, and oftentimes we'll engage with them further. So today, how impact works, 151 00:14:30,620 --> 00:14:37,549 it's 100%. coaching, consulting. Companies come to us and they say, hey, I read the book. I 152 00:14:37,569 --> 00:14:42,773 want to do they ask you answer. And we teach them how to do this in house. We train their 153 00:14:42,793 --> 00:14:48,256 videographer. We train their content writer. We train their HubSpot owner. We do not do 154 00:14:48,316 --> 00:14:54,641 stuff for them though. We don't do the thing. We teach them how to use the tool. We teach 155 00:14:54,661 --> 00:15:03,094 them how to do the strategy. Now, this is outrageously more profitable on two fronts. It's outrageous 156 00:15:03,114 --> 00:15:10,556 and more profitable for the agency and for the client because the client experiences unbelievable 157 00:15:10,596 --> 00:15:14,617 results. I mean, the case studies that we have at Impact, you just don't see in the inbound 158 00:15:14,657 --> 00:15:19,619 space. It's not me bragging, it's just a fact. I mean, we've got multiple companies that are 159 00:15:19,659 --> 00:15:26,461 the most, literally the most trafficked website and their entire industry, multiple clients 160 00:15:26,701 --> 00:15:32,259 like this. that are just doing crazy things that have scaled up, that have sold their businesses. 161 00:15:32,279 --> 00:15:37,761 And it's not because we did a campaign. I mean, we completely changed the face of the organization. 162 00:15:38,322 --> 00:15:43,764 Now, the one other thing that makes us different too, that I think agencies really have messed 163 00:15:43,824 --> 00:15:50,987 up on, is that we have a heavy, heavy emphasis on working with sales teams and sales training. 164 00:15:51,907 --> 00:15:56,789 We won't just work with a marketing department. I don't believe in that. I don't think you 165 00:15:56,829 --> 00:16:02,331 can do that. responsibly in 2023. Because what happens? You can be the best market in the 166 00:16:02,351 --> 00:16:07,494 world, but if sales is pushing back, it just flounders. It doesn't really fly. So you gotta 167 00:16:07,514 --> 00:16:11,395 bring the two together, you gotta eliminate the silos, you gotta have the ear of sales 168 00:16:11,435 --> 00:16:15,957 leadership, you gotta have the ear of management, you gotta have the ear of leadership. And so, 169 00:16:16,577 --> 00:16:23,620 as an example, we won't engage a client if their head leader, CEO, whatever you wanna call it, 170 00:16:24,281 --> 00:16:32,048 is it on our... 90 day planning sessions. So you have to be on that 90 day planning session 171 00:16:32,308 --> 00:16:36,890 if you're a client and you're the CEO of the company. If not, we won't engage you because 172 00:16:37,250 --> 00:16:41,792 you're gonna be asking questions, you're gonna be aloof and we can't allow for any aloofness 173 00:16:41,832 --> 00:16:48,554 or ignorance to exist with leadership. And so we have high demands of our clients. Because 174 00:16:48,594 --> 00:16:55,917 of this, they achieve exceptional results. But what we don't do is we don't do the work for 175 00:16:55,957 --> 00:16:59,987 them. And we don't say, hey, we're going to have these deliverables for you. And I think 176 00:17:00,027 --> 00:17:06,910 those days are or they might not be dead, but they're dying really, really fast. Right. Yeah, 177 00:17:07,330 --> 00:17:12,792 exactly. If you can have AI doing the work for you, it's about how you approach all the rest 178 00:17:12,852 --> 00:17:15,873 of it, how you prompt it, how you distribute it. I get all of that. 179 00:17:21,362 --> 00:17:27,086 Agency Breakthrough is brought to you by ClickUp. ClickUp is the number one productivity platform 180 00:17:27,186 --> 00:17:32,471 and fastest growing work management solution for agencies. ClickUp gives you an easy way 181 00:17:32,491 --> 00:17:40,037 to track all of your clients, projects, deliverables, tasks, and team capacity in one place. With 182 00:17:40,077 --> 00:17:46,142 ClickUp, your team will finally be fully aligned and rolling in the same direction. Go to ClickUp.com, 183 00:17:47,142 --> 00:17:54,413 that's C-L-I-C-K-U-P. to get started on the free forever plan. 184 00:17:58,978 --> 00:18:03,059 Marcus, can you give us a couple of the numbers around impact just to help people quantify? 185 00:18:03,339 --> 00:18:10,741 Let's go kind of team size. I know Bob has mentioned some of these metrics on other podcasts. Yeah, 186 00:18:10,801 --> 00:18:15,682 he knows them better than I do. I mean, we have about 70 employees and we'll do more than $10 187 00:18:15,702 --> 00:18:20,864 million a year in revenue. I don't know the exact numbers there. I probably should, but 188 00:18:21,764 --> 00:18:30,531 I just am not as intrinsically involved with some of the... some of the day-to-day of the 189 00:18:30,551 --> 00:18:35,536 company. I think that's helpful. My point is like this is not, you know, a four-person consulting. 190 00:18:35,596 --> 00:18:41,641 This is working beyond like a super small scale. It's really impressive kind of what's been 191 00:18:41,661 --> 00:18:47,506 built here and that this model where it is coaching and consulting, people look at that and think 192 00:18:47,566 --> 00:18:52,930 there's no way that can scale. You can't grow that kind of business and you guys are a great 193 00:18:53,010 --> 00:18:56,833 example. You know, the knock against it is like you're saying, all right, you're teaching them 194 00:18:57,282 --> 00:19:03,424 how to not need an agency because you're showing them how to do the thing. And what ends up 195 00:19:03,464 --> 00:19:07,946 happening is you become indispensable to their entire business. If you look at that trifecta 196 00:19:08,026 --> 00:19:13,928 of sales, leadership and marketing and you give value and become indispensable to each one 197 00:19:13,968 --> 00:19:20,251 of the prongs there, then when times are tough, they're like, no matter what happens, we just 198 00:19:20,291 --> 00:19:24,733 can't, we can't get rid of impact. We can't let go of impact. But if you're just doing 199 00:19:24,773 --> 00:19:29,672 simple deliverables for them, you're going to get cut with the next, you know, budget slash. 200 00:19:30,513 --> 00:19:35,037 And that's why we have a lot of clients that, you know, stay with us for years, but it's 201 00:19:35,077 --> 00:19:41,042 still on some type of consulting coaching level. You got to understand that stuff is happening 202 00:19:41,062 --> 00:19:48,568 all the time. So we just had this huge, you know, like wall wave of AI hit us. So immediately 203 00:19:48,728 --> 00:19:53,693 we went to the market and said, hey, we're going to teach you how to use it in-house. So instead 204 00:19:54,313 --> 00:20:01,356 of... being worried like a lot of agencies of, I don't want to show you a tool that's going 205 00:20:01,376 --> 00:20:08,439 to replace us. We're saying, we're always here for you. We're paying attention. We're using 206 00:20:08,479 --> 00:20:12,981 it. We're in the sandbox. We're now going to teach you how to use the thing as well. And 207 00:20:13,041 --> 00:20:20,884 so, much higher value to the client. So I am not sitting there trying to protect my bottom 208 00:20:21,064 --> 00:20:29,089 line at the expense. of the client. So, the client stays at the forefront. So, me as what 209 00:20:29,129 --> 00:20:32,472 is like the brand ambassador of the company and as the thought leader, I can sit there 210 00:20:32,832 --> 00:20:37,816 and really, really focus on what are the trends that we need to be caring about and how can 211 00:20:37,856 --> 00:20:42,860 we teach that to our clients? How can we teach that to our clients all the time? Whenever 212 00:20:42,881 --> 00:20:47,164 there's a trend, immediately we bring it to the client. I don't really think it's the job 213 00:20:47,204 --> 00:20:52,949 of every CEO in the world to know trends like it's our job. It's our job to make sure they're 214 00:20:53,069 --> 00:20:57,502 aware of it. to understand it, to make sure they're aware of it and then help them apply 215 00:20:57,542 --> 00:21:01,323 it. And so, that's what we're doing with AI but that's what we're also doing with any other 216 00:21:01,343 --> 00:21:05,945 trends that are happening out there like vertical short style video. Same thing and we're teaching 217 00:21:05,965 --> 00:21:09,066 our clients how to do that. We weren't teaching them how to do that three years ago but today 218 00:21:09,086 --> 00:21:16,107 we are. Marshall. Gotcha. So, I wanted to, if we can, to circle back to the story of your 219 00:21:16,267 --> 00:21:21,849 breakthrough and you know, I've heard you tell that story a few times and it almost feels 220 00:21:21,889 --> 00:21:28,299 like you know, the comes to life, there's this momentum that carries you forward almost kind 221 00:21:28,419 --> 00:21:33,842 of to the present day. And I wanted to zoom in on that story a little bit more and ask 222 00:21:33,882 --> 00:21:39,864 you, I suppose the way I would phrase the question is, what was the messy middle, you know, between 223 00:21:40,144 --> 00:21:45,226 when they ask you answer was first uttered and it becoming, you know, such a big trend there 224 00:21:45,246 --> 00:21:50,148 being, you know, they ask you answer certified coaches, etc. Like, what was the part that 225 00:21:50,168 --> 00:21:54,427 you had to get through that, you know, maybe you rarely share about or haven't shared about 226 00:21:54,647 --> 00:21:59,791 before, hopefully. Something that you know, then actually what did it take to bring it 227 00:21:59,811 --> 00:22:08,457 to that scale? Well, just take the phrase they ask you answer for a second, right? I think 228 00:22:08,637 --> 00:22:14,221 the first time I ever used they ask you answer was I was at a HubSpot event, I was at inbound, 229 00:22:14,581 --> 00:22:22,754 then I was on a panel and there was a question about you know, blog articles. And I told everybody, 230 00:22:22,774 --> 00:22:26,676 I said, listen, here's what you need to do. I don't think I'd ever really used the phrase 231 00:22:26,696 --> 00:22:31,659 consistently. I mean, today I say, you know, I told my, like I said before, I said, I told 232 00:22:31,679 --> 00:22:34,540 my team, we're going to do this thing called they ask you to answer. Well, I say that, but 233 00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,882 I didn't say that to the team at the time. I said, we're going to answer all the questions 234 00:22:38,262 --> 00:22:42,124 we've ever received from our customers didn't have a name for it. But I was sitting on this 235 00:22:42,164 --> 00:22:46,727 panel and I was telling folks, I said, listen, here's what you need to do. What you need to 236 00:22:46,747 --> 00:22:50,229 do is I want you to go back to the office today. And I want you to brainstorm every single question 237 00:22:50,249 --> 00:22:54,155 you've ever received in a sales appointment. to brainstorm every single one. If you come 238 00:22:54,195 --> 00:22:58,337 up with less than 50 or 100, you're being pretty lazy. Now, I want you to make those 50 to 100 239 00:22:58,777 --> 00:23:02,900 questions. I want you to make those your first 100 blog articles. I mean, look at it like 240 00:23:02,940 --> 00:23:06,802 this, like they've asked you the question, now answer it. It's like they ask, you answer. 241 00:23:07,002 --> 00:23:11,245 That's it folks, that's all you have to do. And I saw a bunch of people writing it down. 242 00:23:12,125 --> 00:23:15,047 It was like everybody in the room was scribbling like I had said something really smart. I'm 243 00:23:15,067 --> 00:23:21,350 like, well, what's interesting is it's usually, you know, there's a- a scripture phrase by 244 00:23:21,430 --> 00:23:26,793 small and simple things are great things brought to pass. And I've seen that, that's communication 245 00:23:26,873 --> 00:23:35,498 101. They Ask You Answer was immediately understood. Audience showed me it was understood. And so 246 00:23:35,638 --> 00:23:40,260 I was like, huh, that's it. So I started talking about They Ask You Answer heavily from that 247 00:23:40,300 --> 00:23:46,224 point on, which was probably 2013, 2012, 13. I didn't write the first version of They Ask 248 00:23:46,244 --> 00:23:51,442 You Answer until 2017. Now people constantly were saying... I could be having written the 249 00:23:51,462 --> 00:23:55,823 book. Well, unlike a lot of speakers that just write theoretical books, but they haven't actually 250 00:23:55,883 --> 00:24:01,865 done the thing, I wanted to feel like I had proven it outside of just pools. And so, the 251 00:24:01,925 --> 00:24:09,107 beauty is I was able to achieve a bunch of case studies in other industries, B2B included, 252 00:24:09,667 --> 00:24:12,208 because a lot of people were like, well, that work for you's a pool guy, it's not going to 253 00:24:12,228 --> 00:24:16,849 work for my B2B whatever organization, which is utterly ridiculous. And I could spend hours 254 00:24:16,889 --> 00:24:22,432 talking about how... how asinine that thought process is because still, you know, companies 255 00:24:22,452 --> 00:24:31,558 think that way today. But I wanted to prove that this framework existed. If I had written 256 00:24:31,578 --> 00:24:37,062 The Ask You Answer in 2013, it probably would have been a book about blogging for business. 257 00:24:38,003 --> 00:24:42,746 But because I wrote it in 2017 and I had time to really start to teach it, the more I'm able 258 00:24:42,766 --> 00:24:47,869 to teach something, the more I'm able to see exactly what it is that I'm trying to say. 259 00:24:48,974 --> 00:24:53,315 And what it became was a framework. And so today when I speak about the Ask You Answer, it's 260 00:24:53,355 --> 00:25:00,657 a sales and marketing framework for businesses. It's also a philosophy. I don't ever use the 261 00:25:00,697 --> 00:25:06,878 phrase, it's a business blogging strategy, right? Because that dramatically undersells what it 262 00:25:06,959 --> 00:25:13,000 is. And so I launched it, but I didn't have really any fanfare when I launched it. I didn't 263 00:25:13,020 --> 00:25:18,878 have a really, I had a following, but I didn't have a massive following. And. What's interesting 264 00:25:18,978 --> 00:25:26,222 is they ask you answer is sold more every single year. More. So it's now in its fifth year that 265 00:25:26,242 --> 00:25:30,484 it's been available in the market. Six years better stated six years. It's got a revision 266 00:25:30,504 --> 00:25:33,466 and I'll come out with another revision next year. So probably revision three will come 267 00:25:33,486 --> 00:25:38,889 back here because I need to talk a bunch about AI and stuff like that. But the point is that 268 00:25:39,249 --> 00:25:45,132 you look at it. How's it growing every single year? Well, it's growing because it just, uh, 269 00:25:45,333 --> 00:25:51,247 it is a principle driven. marketing book. A lot of marketing books, they're platform centric, 270 00:25:52,207 --> 00:25:59,269 which means they're finite in nature. But They Ask You Answer is built on the emotion of how 271 00:25:59,289 --> 00:26:03,510 can you become the most trusted voice in your space? So trust isn't going away in terms of 272 00:26:04,130 --> 00:26:10,812 it's important to the market, businesses really care about it, it resonates, right? And so, 273 00:26:11,152 --> 00:26:16,174 I could talk about They Ask You Answer for the next 20 years to some degree. right? Because 274 00:26:16,194 --> 00:26:20,455 it's about transparency, trust, etc. in business. That's helped it to continue to grow. I've 275 00:26:20,475 --> 00:26:26,597 continued to speak about it. That's helped the movement continue. And you know, I kept the 276 00:26:26,617 --> 00:26:31,578 reason why I started the partner program is I kept having people tell me like, yeah, I'm 277 00:26:31,618 --> 00:26:36,340 working with this agency and they're using this thing called they ask you answer and they gave 278 00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:40,341 me your book. And I was like, wow, why don't I just go to the guy that wrote the book? It 279 00:26:40,381 --> 00:26:45,506 was kind of funny. And so... I'm like, I got all these agencies teaching my stuff, they're 280 00:26:45,567 --> 00:26:50,529 using my IP, good for them. But I might as well have a partner program that allows them to 281 00:26:50,589 --> 00:26:55,070 be actual certified and to give them all the goods because I knew they probably weren't 282 00:26:55,130 --> 00:26:59,552 going to deliver it at the success rate we could at Impact. And so, that's why we started the 283 00:26:59,852 --> 00:27:04,114 partner program. It's been really, really cool to see it. What I didn't expect out of the 284 00:27:04,134 --> 00:27:11,617 partner program is it has been a key, a catalyst in people saying, I want to write, they ask 285 00:27:11,657 --> 00:27:17,531 you answer. in German or I want to do it, they ask you answer for nonprofits. So, I've got 286 00:27:17,571 --> 00:27:21,413 like one partner now doing it for nonprofits. I got another one doing it for SaaS companies. 287 00:27:21,813 --> 00:27:26,835 And I'm just going to be a co-author in each of these. And so, that's a networking, the 288 00:27:26,855 --> 00:27:32,017 power networking effect I didn't anticipate with this. So, Marcus, launching, I asked this 289 00:27:32,037 --> 00:27:36,919 question recently on LinkedIn around certification programs and Pete Caputa from DataBox chimed 290 00:27:37,019 --> 00:27:41,321 in and he said, hey, for certification programs to work well, there's got to be a benefit to 291 00:27:41,721 --> 00:27:46,325 the end. your agencies, the organizations you're certifying, they need to be able to sell the 292 00:27:46,345 --> 00:27:51,629 benefit of that. In your case, that makes sense, hey, we're certified, they ask you answer, 293 00:27:52,410 --> 00:27:56,633 coaches, we've got this, you know, we've actually gone through and worked with Marcus and his 294 00:27:56,653 --> 00:28:03,239 team to earn the certification. How, I guess from a benefits perspective, so if an agency 295 00:28:03,259 --> 00:28:07,242 is hearing this, they're thinking, hey, maybe I should get that as well. What are the big 296 00:28:07,282 --> 00:28:12,426 benefits that would draw somebody in to go through that certification program? Well, here's the 297 00:28:12,466 --> 00:28:19,229 surprising answer to your question, Gray. What we realize is, sure, they ask you answers nice 298 00:28:19,289 --> 00:28:22,850 for the agency to be able to have and to be able to use and teach, but that's not the important 299 00:28:22,870 --> 00:28:26,712 value they get from the program. The biggest value they get from the program is they learn 300 00:28:26,732 --> 00:28:32,314 how to be a coaching consulting company. That happens to do they ask you answer with clients 301 00:28:32,554 --> 00:28:39,297 if they want to. And so, we actually have set it up now where agencies can reach out to us 302 00:28:39,577 --> 00:28:43,871 because if you think about... how the agency world has worked. It's like, we've almost learned 303 00:28:43,911 --> 00:28:48,634 to be yes men and women. That's what we're trained to be. It's like, hey, I really need this thing. 304 00:28:48,674 --> 00:28:52,116 Yes, we can do that for you. Hey, how about this campaign? Yes, I can do that for you. 305 00:28:52,856 --> 00:28:58,219 They haven't learned how to say, no, that's not what we're going to do. But let's talk 306 00:28:58,239 --> 00:29:02,962 about why we're not going to do that. They don't know how to say no. And so because of that, 307 00:29:03,002 --> 00:29:11,170 there's a lot of incongruence in the relationships. And it's not oftentimes a two-way street. you're 308 00:29:11,250 --> 00:29:15,612 just serving the client masters like, you know, the client is just driving the relationship. 309 00:29:15,632 --> 00:29:20,215 It shouldn't be that way. It should be a very symbiotic mutual relationship, mutually respectful. 310 00:29:21,236 --> 00:29:30,021 And it's amazing how much happier your team is when they can guide a client, say no to 311 00:29:30,041 --> 00:29:37,874 a client, persuade in a positive way a client, positively influence a client. where they learn 312 00:29:37,894 --> 00:29:42,418 the skills to ask the perfect question every single time, which is a huge focus of ours. 313 00:29:43,038 --> 00:29:48,623 They understand how to deal with friction. They understand how to deal with sales teams who 314 00:29:48,863 --> 00:29:54,128 are very resistant, generally speaking, to new ideas. How to train sales teams, because they 315 00:29:54,168 --> 00:30:00,193 learn that from us, right? So these are the big values that we're bringing to them. Take 316 00:30:00,233 --> 00:30:08,146 your traditional agency that is a yes man, yes woman agency. and turn it into a coaching consulting 317 00:30:08,186 --> 00:30:15,688 company where you're now guiding them in your margins are dramatically better because of 318 00:30:15,728 --> 00:30:22,350 it. Okay, so I wanted to add one more piece to the breakthrough story actually. So I'm 319 00:30:22,390 --> 00:30:28,212 trying to, in my mind, I'm trying to answer the question of what does it take to go on 320 00:30:28,232 --> 00:30:34,013 a journey like yours? And one thing that I already learned is that kind of one piece that I'm 321 00:30:34,033 --> 00:30:38,020 taking away from it is You come up with this concept, even though it's extremely exciting 322 00:30:38,060 --> 00:30:43,845 and is catching on, don't write the book just yet, spend a few years teaching, and then you'll 323 00:30:43,865 --> 00:30:48,889 find that it maybe has a broader application or you'll accumulate those case studies. It'll 324 00:30:48,909 --> 00:30:54,613 just be so much more refined and that's how you come up with an evergreen classic. And 325 00:30:55,194 --> 00:31:00,118 you strike me, Marcus, and I think a lot of people would agree as a natural teacher and 326 00:31:00,218 --> 00:31:06,698 speaker. But still, I wanted to ask you about this piece, this These few years that you spent 327 00:31:06,778 --> 00:31:11,859 refining the concept and kind of getting it from its first iteration to what we saw in 328 00:31:11,879 --> 00:31:17,381 the first edition of the book, what was the difficult part of that you had to get through? 329 00:31:17,521 --> 00:31:21,662 And if somebody wants to take that same journey, you know, what would you warn them against 330 00:31:21,682 --> 00:31:26,023 that it's kind of an obstacle they might? So what you want to do, and this goes back to 331 00:31:26,063 --> 00:31:31,925 even to your point, Gray, you want to find ways to say yes when you're in the sales process 332 00:31:31,945 --> 00:31:37,599 to people so as to make this sale. So, somebody comes to you and they say something like, I 333 00:31:37,619 --> 00:31:40,561 really like they ask, you answer, but 334 00:31:44,363 --> 00:31:48,565 I don't want to hire a content writer. Do you think my team could do this if everybody like 335 00:31:48,585 --> 00:31:54,068 took one article a week each? You want to say yes to that, don't you? But guess what? That's 336 00:31:54,088 --> 00:31:59,591 going to fail big time. And see, that's the type of stuff that I had to learn who was not 337 00:31:59,631 --> 00:32:06,422 going to work. And so, I would say yes to things like they would say. Could I outsource a writer 338 00:32:06,582 --> 00:32:11,003 and bring that writer on occasion for this? I'd say, oh yeah, I think we could make that 339 00:32:11,043 --> 00:32:18,605 work. Doesn't work. Could I outsource the video and make it work? Doesn't work. Could I have 340 00:32:18,645 --> 00:32:24,507 somebody on my staff that is already on staff also do this? Oh yeah, I think we can make 341 00:32:24,527 --> 00:32:30,349 that work. Doesn't work, right? It's like these are the things that don't work. So I said yes 342 00:32:30,369 --> 00:32:37,253 to a lot of these things at first. CEOs not involved in some of the initial conversations, 343 00:32:39,154 --> 00:32:44,559 doesn't work. Somebody calls me up and says, that's a marketer, hey Marcus, I believe that 344 00:32:45,500 --> 00:32:51,505 they asked you answer works. Can you talk to my CEO and convince him or her that this will 345 00:32:51,545 --> 00:32:58,672 work? Doesn't work because I tried that too. You know, they would, I realized if somebody 346 00:32:58,712 --> 00:33:07,268 hasn't invested any energy. in trying to learn about this thing. I don't care if I am John 347 00:33:07,308 --> 00:33:14,991 the Baptist, they are not going to pay attention to my words. So, the point being is I tell 348 00:33:15,371 --> 00:33:19,633 marketers now, I'm like, listen, I'm not here to convert your CEO. The book will do that 349 00:33:19,653 --> 00:33:24,635 for you. All you got to do is give them the... If they read the book, they're going to want 350 00:33:24,655 --> 00:33:29,117 to have a conversation. They're going to respect me also. But if they don't know me from Adam 351 00:33:29,457 --> 00:33:32,882 and I meet with them, and try to convince them about this thing called they ask you answer, 352 00:33:33,183 --> 00:33:39,925 it's going to go poorly. It's not going to do that. That's another mistake that I made. Also 353 00:33:40,646 --> 00:33:47,569 have, and this is a much deeper conversation, Kuba, but I have developed my communication 354 00:33:47,589 --> 00:33:58,013 skills and I have learned the proper questions to ask to make companies really boil down their 355 00:33:58,073 --> 00:34:06,158 core beliefs. in terms of sales and marketing. And what I mean by that is, you know, people 356 00:34:06,178 --> 00:34:11,441 want to debate me all the time when they don't really understand they ask you answer. They're 357 00:34:11,461 --> 00:34:15,704 like, ah, we shouldn't talk about cost and price. I've just learned to blow things down in the 358 00:34:15,744 --> 00:34:20,748 most simplistic of terms. So do you believe trust is fundamental to your business, yes 359 00:34:20,788 --> 00:34:25,431 or no? Well, no, no. Just answer the question. Do you believe it's fundamental to your business? 360 00:34:25,791 --> 00:34:30,430 Yes. Do you want to become the most trusted voice in your space? Is that a goal you aspire 361 00:34:30,450 --> 00:34:35,374 to? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, we continue talking. If the answer is no, we're not a fit. 362 00:34:35,434 --> 00:34:41,438 It's okay. It's fine. And so, I've learned also through this that I'm not trying to convince 363 00:34:41,478 --> 00:34:45,441 anybody to become the most trusted voice in their space. I don't need to convince them 364 00:34:45,461 --> 00:34:50,865 to read the book. You can do that. That's fine. If you do it though, this is going to resonate 365 00:34:50,885 --> 00:34:54,567 with you and then we're going to have some type of conversation and maybe we can, maybe we 366 00:34:54,587 --> 00:35:01,123 can't help you. But too often as agencies... We're begging for the business. We're just 367 00:35:01,163 --> 00:35:06,545 trying to find a way to help them. And it just creates a terrible relationship that sucks. 368 00:35:07,185 --> 00:35:12,847 And I'm really happy to say that our clients adore us and they would like jump in front 369 00:35:12,887 --> 00:35:18,329 of bullets for us and vice versa because of the depth of the relationship. And that's what 370 00:35:18,369 --> 00:35:20,309 happens when you have a coach-client relationship. 371 00:35:25,690 --> 00:35:32,193 Agency Breakthrough is brought to you by ZenPilot. ZenPilot is ClickUp's number one solutions 372 00:35:32,253 --> 00:35:38,737 partner, helping agencies get maximum value from ClickUp as quickly as possible. We've 373 00:35:38,777 --> 00:35:46,942 helped over 3,000 agencies get work done faster and better and with more visibility. And we 374 00:35:46,962 --> 00:35:52,825 do that by identifying your operational bottlenecks, crafting the perfect work management system 375 00:35:52,865 --> 00:35:59,419 for your needs, and training your team on how to use it consistently. We also have a library 376 00:35:59,559 --> 00:36:06,782 of over 200 battle tested agency processes and SOP templates that you can leverage immediately 377 00:36:07,082 --> 00:36:13,864 when you start working with us. Go to zenpilot.com, book a call with us, and get on the path to 378 00:36:13,944 --> 00:36:16,905 better productivity and bigger profits. 379 00:36:21,218 --> 00:36:25,941 Marcus, how prior to the book, because this tees up like everything you just said aligns 380 00:36:25,982 --> 00:36:30,726 really well with one of the principles you teach in the book, assignment selling and hey, we've 381 00:36:30,746 --> 00:36:35,650 got to have there's healthy friction on both sides of this relationship getting started. 382 00:36:36,590 --> 00:36:41,815 Prior to having the book, because everyone listening is thinking the same thing, I wish I had that 383 00:36:41,835 --> 00:36:45,698 book. Dang, I should have written that book so I could do the same thing Marcus does. What 384 00:36:45,718 --> 00:36:50,426 did you do prior to the book in terms of obviously, you know, sometimes you said yes. But there's 385 00:36:50,446 --> 00:36:54,127 some evolution there relearned, it doesn't make sense. And how did you answer it in those cases? 386 00:36:54,767 --> 00:37:03,589 I teach their questions and it is far and away the best way to teach because the fact is most 387 00:37:03,949 --> 00:37:08,891 people when they communicate, whether it's sales or whether it's a speaker or leadership or 388 00:37:08,911 --> 00:37:13,272 anything like this, they're almost trying to force feed information. It doesn't really work. 389 00:37:13,892 --> 00:37:19,493 If you ask questions and allow them to truly self-reflect, they just might self-discover. 390 00:37:20,522 --> 00:37:27,586 And so, as I was leading up to the book, I was doing different versions of assignment selling, 391 00:37:27,606 --> 00:37:33,771 but if I met someone cold on the street, you know, a CEO, and they're like, all right, so 392 00:37:33,791 --> 00:37:38,814 what do you do? Right? So, let's say, you know, I was at inbound and somebody says, you know, 393 00:37:38,834 --> 00:37:43,197 we got a booth there and they say, hey, what do you do? I'd say simple, I have a question 394 00:37:43,237 --> 00:37:48,901 for you and this will explain what we do. So, you're a CEO. I want you to tell me which of 395 00:37:48,941 --> 00:37:54,599 these two would you prefer? It's three years down the road. If you wanna produce any content, 396 00:37:55,039 --> 00:38:00,420 if you wanna write any articles, if you wanna produce any videos, if you wanna create anything, 397 00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:07,562 you've gotta call an agency to do it for you. That's option one. Option two. If you wanna 398 00:38:07,582 --> 00:38:11,303 write any article, you can do that because you have those skills in-house. If you wanna produce 399 00:38:11,343 --> 00:38:15,384 any video, you can do that because you have those skills in-house. If you wanna get a report 400 00:38:15,404 --> 00:38:19,205 in HouseBot, you can do that because you have those skills in-house. Essentially, you can 401 00:38:19,225 --> 00:38:22,984 do whatever you want. because you have those skills in-house. If you have the choice as 402 00:38:23,024 --> 00:38:28,288 a CEO, which one of those two scenarios would you prefer to be living in three years from 403 00:38:28,328 --> 00:38:34,653 today? Now, 90% are gonna say, I wanna have control. Now, me, understanding how to communicate, 404 00:38:34,714 --> 00:38:39,658 I'm gonna say, and why do you want control? And they're gonna say, because that's how I'm 405 00:38:39,678 --> 00:38:45,462 going to achieve my potential. That's what's gonna allow me to reach the goals that I want. 406 00:38:46,303 --> 00:38:51,691 And that's what I'm able to say, and we're gonna teach you exactly. how to do just that. So 407 00:38:52,071 --> 00:38:59,655 that's how we essentially get people interested in the idea of owning their sales and marketing 408 00:38:59,695 --> 00:39:05,898 success versus outsourcing it, which I just so very much don't believe it's the way. I 409 00:39:05,918 --> 00:39:13,463 just don't... Now it's fine, but show me one case study of someone that became the most 410 00:39:13,523 --> 00:39:22,716 trusted voice in their space by outsourcing all their content. Show me. One. I'm still 411 00:39:22,736 --> 00:39:28,440 waiting for an answer. I've never received one before. Certainly not from an inbound agency. 412 00:39:29,500 --> 00:39:38,446 Never have I gotten a single one. And I have like a whole bunch personally that have done 413 00:39:38,486 --> 00:39:45,031 the ASCII answer. This isn't arrogance. This is the reality of empowering people and feeding 414 00:39:45,071 --> 00:39:51,623 them for a lifetime. Right? That's what we're doing. That's awesome. Okay. I'm really struck 415 00:39:51,824 --> 00:39:56,327 by that because I would have expected, I was thinking you know, you had a pitch prepared, 416 00:39:56,387 --> 00:40:01,430 maybe you know, some smaller doc PDF that you might have shared with them before the book 417 00:40:01,471 --> 00:40:08,516 was a thing but it makes so much sense that you are doing this through questions and it 418 00:40:08,576 --> 00:40:14,280 stands out a lot, right? Chris Dupre, my head of revenue at Impact told the story at our 419 00:40:14,300 --> 00:40:19,247 recent They Ask Your Answers Summit and I think you'll appreciate this. We had a lead at Impact 420 00:40:19,287 --> 00:40:24,630 not too long ago who was interested in HubSpot and they were debating back and forth. And 421 00:40:24,650 --> 00:40:28,413 they talked to one of our reps for a long time about HubSpot. And I was just like, I just 422 00:40:28,453 --> 00:40:32,256 don't know. I just don't know. So, I spent an hour with him, nothing. Then they talked to 423 00:40:32,456 --> 00:40:38,240 what's it called, a cam at HubSpot. And they talked to one of, you know, one of the great 424 00:40:38,260 --> 00:40:43,243 HubSpotters for over an hour about the value HubSpot would bring to the organization. And 425 00:40:43,263 --> 00:40:48,399 they still didn't move, still didn't move. And I... And finally, I was like, let me talk to 426 00:40:48,419 --> 00:40:53,183 the person. Let me talk to the person. The literal conversation went like this, and this is not 427 00:40:53,203 --> 00:41:00,449 an exaggeration. Here's the conversation. I say to the person, can you definitively measure 428 00:41:01,169 --> 00:41:09,917 the ROI of your digital marketing right now? No, I cannot. Okay. If you could, what's the 429 00:41:09,957 --> 00:41:16,682 value of that to your company? I mean, thousands. How many thousands? hundreds of thousands. 430 00:41:17,142 --> 00:41:23,206 Okay. So in order to get that hundreds of thousands of value, you need to spend 20,000 a year on 431 00:41:23,226 --> 00:41:31,691 HubSpot. Are you ready to move? Absolutely. There, done. For years when I was selling HubSpot, 432 00:41:32,111 --> 00:41:39,355 I'd isolate the one problem that they had to solve, and I literally would never show 99% 433 00:41:39,375 --> 00:41:46,127 of what HubSpot could do. 99% I wouldn't show. The one person is the only thing that matters. 434 00:41:47,108 --> 00:41:51,111 But you see, most people don't understand how to sell that way. When you become a coaching 435 00:41:51,151 --> 00:41:54,975 company, that's how you learn how to sell. Because you learn how to ask world-class questions 436 00:41:55,115 --> 00:42:00,359 that lead quickly to the core of the problem or the need and they can self-discover on their 437 00:42:00,459 --> 00:42:04,022 own that that's the move they need to make. That's awesome, Marcus. Driving through questions 438 00:42:04,362 --> 00:42:08,926 is the way to go. Kuba, let's switch over here. I know you get some, these don't have to be 439 00:42:08,966 --> 00:42:16,511 rapid fire, Marcus. But we're trying to build here. in the crisp cornucopia is kind of, hey, 440 00:42:16,591 --> 00:42:23,134 we've got a little grab bag of questions and there's some that are kind of typical. Want 441 00:42:23,154 --> 00:42:27,055 to know, hey, are the top tools, books, that kind of stuff that you've got, who are some 442 00:42:27,075 --> 00:42:31,337 folks we should follow? And there's a couple here that are atypical. Kuba, could I drive 443 00:42:31,377 --> 00:42:36,559 with one random off the wall one for Marcus first? Yes, Gray, you have my permission to 444 00:42:36,579 --> 00:42:36,880 do that. 445 00:42:42,086 --> 00:42:47,587 my parents homeschooled us all. My mom started homeschooling in probably 84 or 85. My oldest 446 00:42:47,607 --> 00:42:55,409 sister is born in an 81. And my twin brothers, the youngest two are graduating, we're having 447 00:42:55,429 --> 00:43:01,631 a party on Sunday. I need to come up with a ball in, hey mom, thanks for homeschooling 448 00:43:01,671 --> 00:43:08,533 for so long. Do you have any ideas of a gift for my homeschooling mother who's retiring? 449 00:43:11,218 --> 00:43:18,741 I might be the worst gifter of all time. With that being said, I naturally, when I think 450 00:43:18,761 --> 00:43:27,344 of that, I'm the type of person that I would immediately think of a listicle, okay, to do. 451 00:43:28,145 --> 00:43:33,067 And I want to create something here for it because it's much more memorable. And I'd create a 452 00:43:33,127 --> 00:43:40,914 listicle that was 10 things that you no longer have to do, mom, because we're all done. And 453 00:43:41,614 --> 00:43:47,176 those 10 things would be funny activities that she always has had to do as a homeschool mom 454 00:43:47,217 --> 00:43:52,219 that she now no longer has to. She'll laugh the whole time, she'll frame it and she'll 455 00:43:52,259 --> 00:43:58,742 love it forever. Boom. That's awesome. Oh yeah, and the worst gifter of all time. Yeah. I'm 456 00:43:58,862 --> 00:44:06,085 fine. We'll see. I'm much better with words, right? So, I'm not good with the physical things 457 00:44:06,145 --> 00:44:10,058 but I'm pretty decent with- with the verbal things. Well, I'm going to put the hardest 458 00:44:10,098 --> 00:44:17,020 question possible here. Kuba, pick your favorite one and let's grill Marcus. I want to go with 459 00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:24,083 a much more boring one but like from the person who wrote one of the most influential books 460 00:44:24,103 --> 00:44:28,724 at least from my perspective in the space, what are some other books or concepts that you think 461 00:44:28,744 --> 00:44:32,605 kind of get close to what they ask you answer achieve? Some books that you might recommend? 462 00:44:33,334 --> 00:44:36,796 Or you know, even if they're not in the same space, maybe something that kind of recently 463 00:44:36,936 --> 00:44:42,481 inspired you. Well, I think everybody should read Storybrand because I think the two most 464 00:44:42,521 --> 00:44:47,765 important marketing books you can read, not because I'm biased, I really believe this, 465 00:44:47,805 --> 00:44:51,388 or they ask you to answer in Storybrand. They ask you to answer of course is the framework 466 00:44:51,428 --> 00:44:56,392 and the strategy for the content you produce. And Storybrand is the angle by which you deliver 467 00:44:56,432 --> 00:45:02,017 it and learning how to make your audience the focus and the hero of your content, right? 468 00:45:02,057 --> 00:45:06,491 Which is important. And that affects all communication. It's not just, you know, let's say your homepage 469 00:45:06,551 --> 00:45:12,974 or your webpage or anything like that. And so, I'm a big believer in a story brand. I also 470 00:45:13,514 --> 00:45:17,195 am a big fan of Kim Scott's Radical Candor. I think she did a great job with that book. 471 00:45:18,256 --> 00:45:23,038 You know, for some people, you know, they have a hard time with the word radical candor. Those 472 00:45:23,058 --> 00:45:29,480 folks need to grow up because if you read the book, it says that radical candor is speaking 473 00:45:30,101 --> 00:45:38,478 high carrying with high directness. And that means with love. And learning how to do directness 474 00:45:38,498 --> 00:45:43,862 with love is an absolute life changer. But the moment you realize you can be the most caring 475 00:45:43,882 --> 00:45:50,146 and most direct person in any room at a given time, your life will absolutely change. So 476 00:45:50,327 --> 00:45:57,132 I would recommend that. I'd recommend as the best business book of all time, just for like 477 00:45:57,152 --> 00:46:02,903 a CEO, is Good to Great. by Jim Collins. I've probably read that maybe somewhere in the range 478 00:46:02,923 --> 00:46:10,007 of 20 times is my guess. And just best interpersonal communications book of all time is How to Win 479 00:46:10,047 --> 00:46:15,290 Friends and Influence People. It's the great classic. You should probably read that every 480 00:46:16,131 --> 00:46:20,974 couple of years. I would say this though, you're much better off reading one book 10 times this 481 00:46:21,014 --> 00:46:23,895 year than you are reading 10 different books one time. 482 00:46:28,638 --> 00:46:33,501 One thing we rarely ask about is, hey, service providers, if there's nobody who code pops 483 00:46:33,521 --> 00:46:37,024 into your mind right away, we're gonna skip to the next question. Over your career, are 484 00:46:37,044 --> 00:46:41,427 there any service providers that stand out to you? You've used accounting firm, whatever 485 00:46:41,447 --> 00:46:47,211 that may be. I'm sorry I don't have one, but to that though, you better have a dang good 486 00:46:47,251 --> 00:46:51,314 account, you business owners. Because I went through an embezzlement early on in my pool 487 00:46:51,334 --> 00:46:56,838 company's career and that was the worst three years of my life. So, make sure you have a 488 00:46:56,878 --> 00:47:02,301 good dang accountant, please. I'm really curious to see what percentage of folks on this show 489 00:47:02,441 --> 00:47:06,684 have an instant answer. Like, oh yes, we worked with this and this was outstanding. Folks who 490 00:47:06,704 --> 00:47:11,827 we should follow. So, Outside of Books, these are whatever, give them a follow on their blog, 491 00:47:11,867 --> 00:47:16,370 on LinkedIn, on whatever that looks like. Do you have any favorite recommendations? Well, 492 00:47:16,510 --> 00:47:23,270 I mostly spend my time on LinkedIn and there's, I mean, there's just people I really like and 493 00:47:23,310 --> 00:47:28,933 respect. Ron Tite is one that I like and respects a lot. Alex B. Sheridan, he's not related to 494 00:47:28,973 --> 00:47:34,817 me, but he does a lot of fun creative videos on LinkedIn. Just smart guy. I think he does 495 00:47:36,017 --> 00:47:45,203 a lot of good things. I think he's really thoughtful. Man, I'm sure there's so many more that I'm 496 00:47:45,243 --> 00:47:55,901 not gonna think of right now. Cody Sanchez, I love Cody Sanchez, talks about finance. She's 497 00:47:55,921 --> 00:48:05,848 like the Gary V of I would say finance in a lot of ways of starting a business and buying 498 00:48:05,888 --> 00:48:10,611 boring businesses and becoming profitable. So I really like her. I think she's a gangster. 499 00:48:11,152 --> 00:48:16,756 She's super good. Okay. Thanks for answering that. So I suppose we'll call it there when 500 00:48:16,776 --> 00:48:23,000 it comes to the crisp cornucopia section. of this pod and yeah, like Gray, I'm really curious, 501 00:48:23,020 --> 00:48:26,962 you know, for the service provider is what people are going to say, what are the recurring themes 502 00:48:27,022 --> 00:48:30,704 going to be, how many people are going to name, they ask you answer or you know, are you as 503 00:48:30,724 --> 00:48:38,109 a follow. But anyway, we're kind of arriving upon the end of our time here and just to throw 504 00:48:38,349 --> 00:48:41,931 one last one in there, was there anything else that you wanted to, you know, given the audience, 505 00:48:41,951 --> 00:48:46,033 given the topic, given the agency breakthrough name, was there anything else that you wanted 506 00:48:46,053 --> 00:48:52,103 to kind of... share or throw in there and as we wrap this up. Well, I would just say if 507 00:48:52,123 --> 00:48:55,824 you're listening to this and it's resonated with you, just make sure you reach out to me, 508 00:48:55,904 --> 00:49:02,526 connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm a really good follow, my best stuff there. You can also email 509 00:49:02,566 --> 00:49:07,948 me marcus at marcusheridan.com. That's a personal email you can hit me at marcus at marcusheridan.com. 510 00:49:10,109 --> 00:49:14,586 Remember what I said when I started, it's dumb not to dumb it down. You don't need to prove 511 00:49:14,606 --> 00:49:19,249 to the world that you're smart to be incredibly effective. The number one feedback I get to 512 00:49:19,629 --> 00:49:25,572 give to speakers and to creators when they're asking me to look at their stuff is I can see 513 00:49:25,592 --> 00:49:31,055 that you're trying to prove to the audience that you belong on this stage and if you could 514 00:49:31,115 --> 00:49:38,259 let that go, you are going to become the best version of yourself. There's a lot more me 515 00:49:38,299 --> 00:49:44,967 to that Kuba, but it's a problem that people have. Some might call it imposter syndrome, 516 00:49:45,007 --> 00:49:52,971 but it's just, you have to just find a way to be very satisfied with what you know, knowing 517 00:49:53,011 --> 00:49:59,435 that it's not for everybody. Even today, you know, there's probably about 98% of the people 518 00:49:59,455 --> 00:50:03,698 that listen to this podcast today are like, you know, I really liked him. There will be 519 00:50:03,738 --> 00:50:08,480 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 520 00:50:08,540 --> 00:50:14,620 energy. Whatever that thing is. And I'm able to talk openly about those people because I've 521 00:50:14,641 --> 00:50:22,407 already let them go. I love those people but I don't care about what they think, right? 522 00:50:22,447 --> 00:50:26,911 Because I'm okay with the fact that we're not a good match, right? I don't like tomatoes. 523 00:50:26,972 --> 00:50:32,416 I never will. They love it. They love a tomato. I've tried to like tomato. I just not going 524 00:50:32,436 --> 00:50:39,182 to like it. So it's okay. It's totally okay. You have to learn that. if you're going to 525 00:50:39,242 --> 00:50:44,526 be really, really successful in business. A lot of companies never achieve amazing things 526 00:50:44,927 --> 00:50:50,551 with marketing because they're afraid to be disliked by anybody. So they're very lukewarm. 527 00:50:51,532 --> 00:50:56,356 I'd much rather be a little bit polarizing. And so keep that in mind as you're trying to 528 00:50:56,396 --> 00:51:01,680 build a brand, whether it's personal, professional business. You got to be willing to let a few 529 00:51:01,720 --> 00:51:09,374 go in order to be most attractive to the masses and really show who you are. Or because you 530 00:51:09,394 --> 00:51:12,520 crushed it. I told you we can get you out of here on time. We're just barely gonna do it. 531 00:51:12,801 --> 00:51:15,506 But I appreciate you spending so much time with us today on Agents of Breakthrough. Thank you. 532 00:51:16,528 --> 00:51:17,109 My pleasure. 533 00:51:22,434 --> 00:51:27,477 So, that just happened. We just had Marcus Sheridan on the show on Agency Breakthrough in one of 534 00:51:27,517 --> 00:51:34,242 our very first episodes. That was amazing. Marcus has so much to say on so many topics here. 535 00:51:34,342 --> 00:51:39,485 Hugely inspiring. Gray, what was one piece of what Marcus said that inspired you? Yeah, it 536 00:51:39,505 --> 00:51:43,508 was hard not to, you know, Marcus is such a good speaker that you don't want to jump into 537 00:51:43,548 --> 00:51:48,652 the conversation as he's going. But it was, you know, I had a million follow-up questions 538 00:51:48,812 --> 00:51:55,208 that I'd love to be able to get. on the recording as well and obviously little limited by time. 539 00:51:55,288 --> 00:52:01,271 But one of the things that inspired me from what he shared and this is you know, probably 540 00:52:01,311 --> 00:52:04,853 confirmation bias because this has been a big focus here at ZenPilot is just basically how 541 00:52:04,873 --> 00:52:11,136 do we build out you know, his story of selling HubSpot in that situation and helping break 542 00:52:11,196 --> 00:52:15,419 through all these conversations were happening. There's all this hesitancy, a very simple conversation 543 00:52:16,219 --> 00:52:21,450 and Klein winds up being able to move forward and make a decision. that's what everyone wants 544 00:52:21,510 --> 00:52:27,531 is just clarity and how do we move forward towards action. So, that inspired me to continue to 545 00:52:27,611 --> 00:52:36,254 work on our process of what we're doing. I think that'll impact sales at ZenPilot but I think 546 00:52:36,394 --> 00:52:40,995 more than that, we've built out this agency operator score card and it's basically, hey, 547 00:52:41,015 --> 00:52:44,936 here's how do we benchmark where we are now, how do we identify the key metrics we need 548 00:52:44,956 --> 00:52:51,074 to be measuring and then what's the impact of getting ops? actually streamlined inside ClickUp. 549 00:52:52,074 --> 00:52:58,516 And taking that and making sure that we're actually using that tool to help people get clarity 550 00:52:58,576 --> 00:53:02,257 and the numbers should be clear. If the impact is not there, we should not be pushing you 551 00:53:02,277 --> 00:53:06,098 and move forward. We shouldn't even be wasting time in a conversation and if the numbers are 552 00:53:06,138 --> 00:53:09,039 clear, they should be taking action whether it's with us or with someone else but there 553 00:53:09,059 --> 00:53:13,821 should be the gift of clarity that we're handing to them and say hey, now that you've got this 554 00:53:13,861 --> 00:53:19,543 information, here's your freedom to move forward. So, That inspired me. How about on your end? 555 00:53:20,483 --> 00:53:26,106 So, adding on to yours, that stood out to me as well. You stole mine. I was going to do 556 00:53:26,126 --> 00:53:33,070 the same one. I was going to say, you know, the way he didn't even show 99% of Hopspot, 557 00:53:33,111 --> 00:53:39,794 but just the 1% that hit the biggest pain point and that framed the conversation around value. 558 00:53:39,894 --> 00:53:44,377 And that's one of my big takeaways, frame the conversation around value and selling becomes 559 00:53:44,397 --> 00:53:49,185 a lot easier. But the second thing then, I have to go to the second thing because you stole 560 00:53:49,205 --> 00:53:54,709 my first, is it's so powerful when somebody asks you, what do you do as a business and 561 00:53:54,729 --> 00:54:00,194 you respond with a question. I wanna work on that. I wanna be able to do that, what he did, 562 00:54:00,755 --> 00:54:04,578 to be able to respond with a question, maybe show these two scenarios, which one do you 563 00:54:04,598 --> 00:54:11,424 prefer? And that's kind of, that's where we get you. Amazing, that was hugely inspirational. 564 00:54:11,564 --> 00:54:18,470 And just a lot of the other things that. that he said, I'm really grateful for this time 565 00:54:18,490 --> 00:54:24,635 that we had together here on Agency Breakthrough. Glad it happened. So this was one of our episodes. 566 00:54:24,775 --> 00:54:29,379 Hopefully you will listen to the other ones. Gray, any other thing else to add here as we 567 00:54:29,419 --> 00:54:33,963 finish up? No, let's wrap it there. This was great. Join us again next time for another 568 00:54:34,063 --> 00:54:37,185 Agency Breakthrough. See you next time. It's gonna be awesome.