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Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
New episodes delivered every Tuesday.
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm joined by Marcus Sheridan. Marcus is an international keynote speaker and best selling author if they ask you answer. He's also an owner and partner at the agency impact where strategies around content marketing and sales are delivered through strategy, implementation and education. Markets played a large role in how I learned and delivered content marketing. So I was very excited to see how he thinks things are shifting in the agency space, and this episode, very much delivers. So on this episode, we discussed trust as a business currency. AI's impact on content creation, sustainable business models with AI, preserving humanity in AI integration, and more. In another news, we have a new free email course that explores some of the biggest problems agencies run into and trying to create a profitable, efficient business, and you can get it at Dynamic agency course.com. Now, let's get to today's episode with Marcus Sheridan.
Unknown Speaker 1:02
It's easier than ever to start an agency. But it's only getting harder to stand out to keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward.
Unknown Speaker 1:23
I think I first heard you speak in inbound 2019. And I was brand new to the agency game I'm trying to take everything in I'd already been exposed to they ask you answer.
Unknown Speaker 1:37
Since then, a lot of changed. Just within those five years. I think from from your part, you guys launched an entire coaching program for agencies around they ask you answer.
Unknown Speaker 1:51
And then I think just by looking at like your LinkedIn, you're probably one of the most outspoken people that I know, in regards to talking about, like the future of agencies, especially in regards to AI.
Unknown Speaker 2:04
So I guess my first question for you is, why are you so passionate about this?
Unknown Speaker 2:09
Well, I've always been the type Chris, that, that simply, if I feel it, and I see it, then I generally want to talk about it. And I'm not afraid to talk about things that could disrupt my own business model. I don't see that as a bad thing. You know, I think a lot of folks in the agency world right now are pretty similar to the way Kodak was when digital film was was beginning. They, you know, they actually what people don't realize about the Kodak story is they had every opportunity they were working on
Unknown Speaker 2:52
called digital film as well, but they just didn't pursue it because they were making too much money on film.
Unknown Speaker 2:58
And we see since the beginning of time,
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businesses and civilizations suffer from this thing called the pride cycle. And the pride cycle is to make a to simplify it is when everything is great, we tend to get lazy. And we don't do the little things. Because we don't do the little things. It leads to frustration and eventually suffering. And the depths of hey, I'm going to change, I'm going to take action. And so we start to take action. And we start to do the little things again. And as we start to do the little things again, eventually, we hit a place of prosperity. And then we hit the prosperity and the cycle starts all over again. That's the pride cycle. And so I'm keenly aware of the pride cycle, I'm always looking for it. And I think agencies had a pretty good run there.
Unknown Speaker 3:54
Because let's be honest, you know, with everything that was happening in the world of marketing with the world of digital, there's so much ignorance, especially by business owners, that you could offer a lot of services and get paid pretty well to do things that folks just couldn't do themselves or wouldn't take the time to learn themselves.
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Those days are coming to an end.
Unknown Speaker 4:21
And nobody wants to talk about it, which I think is odd. It doesn't really make sense to me that nobody wants to talk about it. We like to say things like there's this whole idea within the AI world. There's this group of people that will say AI will not take anyone's job. That is so irresponsible.
Unknown Speaker 4:40
It is the dumbest statement I've ever heard. I have seen AI take people's jobs already. It's already happening. So to say AI won't take people's jobs. It's either you're like the ostrich with your head buried Six Feet Under, or you're just probably refused
Unknown Speaker 5:00
seem to accept what
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reality is telling us. And so it's like, why do we deny what's happening around us? Now one of the things that's important to know about me, Chris, I don't say this in a, like a braggadocious. Way I say just because it's how I'm wired. And that is I in the type of person that has always paid attention to patterns, and to strategy, and to trends. And I tend to notice them. And I tend to predict pretty well, assuming the window is a shorter window and not a long term window. So I'm not the guy is going to tell you where we're going to be in 20 years, but I can usually predict pretty well, where things are going to be over the next few years, you know, under 10 years, I would say, and I think the agency model, the traditional agency, do it for you model is in incredible trouble. It's under threat. I would agree and entirely and yet, not enough people are talking about it, and hence the entire premise of this bar guest to be able to get these conversations going. When talking about the pride cycle. Right. I'm wondering now how much is learning AI, and getting into this going to lead to that kind of complacency more rapidly? Because people aren't necessarily using it to to do better work. But to do things just faster?
Unknown Speaker 6:35
Yeah, I think I think there's going to be some agencies that will use AI
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as a means of saving time, and the quality of the work will suffer.
Unknown Speaker 6:51
Easy to do, easy to allow to happen if especially if you don't have like religious standards, in terms of what is quality and delivery, you know, just have product or experience.
Unknown Speaker 7:04
At the same time, I do think that if an agency is playing its cards the right way, if they're using AI in really just swimming in it, they're going to deliver a much better product to their client, I think what a lot of agencies really need to become is an AI filter of sorts for their clients.
Unknown Speaker 7:29
Show me any person that can keep up with the the rate of AI product development out there.
Unknown Speaker 7:39
I mean, you just don't, that person doesn't exist. The only thing that can keep up with AI is AI. That's the only thing to keep up. And so because of that
Unknown Speaker 7:50
you got all these folks that are like saying, okay, so what you're saying now is I can use a tool that's going to help produce content, let's say from my website. So what should I use? Should I use chat GBT? Should I use Jasper? Should I use Gemini? Like, wherever I go? They don't, this is going to be the hard part. So if the agency can be the filter for that, and the vessel that trains the company on how to use that. And that helps them you know, with their just refined, there's going to be a lot of refining needed, you know, any of my, like, clients right now, could could go to chat, GBT with the right prompts, and could get a really beautiful, they ask you answer strategy laid out with an editorial calendar, you can absolutely do that. Now, there's going to be a lot of refining, or a decent amount of refining that would occur after that, but they can get a lot of the foundation, a lot of the basics, don't necessarily need my team for that anymore. But there's a big difference between saying, Okay, here's a written plan, versus doing the thing, and having somebody hold your hand. And while you're getting off track, you know, putting their foot in your tail and saying, Hey, let's go you're doing this wrong. We're not gonna allow this to happen. You know, I think agencies need to become in a lot of ways accountability partners, coaches, right. And that's why I think the coaching model is one of the few things that is much more built to last night, somebody could argue, Well, I think Chechi b t, or I think AI is going to become a tremendous coach. I think that's probably true.
Unknown Speaker 9:29
Once again, it's probably going to happen. But I'm not going to sit there and
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just play gloom and doom all day, I'm going to get really busy in the sandbox, and I'm going to try to stay ahead of what the competition is offering. And so that's, you know, that's where I am today, and I think I'm gonna evolve this more and more as we go forward. But I think there's always going to be a place for great accountability.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Coaches and business. I definitely think that applies to sales and marketing.
Unknown Speaker 10:04
I very much think and I've said for a long time that agencies need to be much more involved in sales training set up for a long time. And a lot of agencies have never wanted to do that. But I think they're going to need to do that in the future to reach the heights of success that they can, and that they should. And so I, I don't think that you're going to get to the day where, at least in the next 10 years, where sales teams are flocking to use AI as great sales, training, sales, role plays, etc. Could they do it? Yes. Could it be okay, experience? Yes. Is it going to be as magical as a one to one experience with a really seasoned sales trainer that can throw curveballs consistently? Probably not, not for five to 10 years? So I think there's a you know, a big place in that, but I think agencies are gonna have to iterate incredibly, every 18 to 24 months, just constantly, there's gonna be constant iteration as to where were you going? And I definitely don't think most are going to make it. I think a lot of the household names that we know of aren't going to make it I'm not sure HubSpot is going to make it and I'm not sure HubSpot is going to be around in 10 years. I love HubSpot. HubSpot. I was one of the original users of HubSpot. I'm a big HubSpot Partner of the Year. I don't know if HubSpot is going to be around in 10 years. I hope they are. I loved our mash. I love Brian, I love you know what they've done. I love inbound marketing changed my life. It saved my business in so many ways. But, you know, I'm not sure if they're going to be able to
Unknown Speaker 11:48
I see the same thing with Salesforce, I'm not sure Salesforce gonna be around in 10 years, at least as we know it. I'm not sure I think we're gonna see a pattern with a lot of the SAS companies have,
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there's a chance that the ones that make it are the ones that truly build off of AI and not add a AI to what they've already built. Because when you have a legacy software, let's call it right.
Unknown Speaker 12:16
It means automatically you're holding on to old things, old models, especially compensation models, right. So the idea that some of the SAS products are going to be you know, are going to be making, you know, $50,000 a year
Unknown Speaker 12:34
in reoccurring revenue, I don't think is very realistic, per se, I just don't really believe that's going to be the case, I think some amazing all in one tools are probably going to come out. In the course of time, I could be really, really wrong about that one. But it wouldn't shock me whatsoever. So I'm paying attention to it. And I'm open to it. You see, I'm able to talk about that. Knowing that I love HubSpot and hope they're built to last. The two things can exist at the same time. I can want them to be built to last and do really, really well. And also think you know what, there's a chance that the product doesn't exist in 10 years.
Unknown Speaker 13:09
Right? So, yeah, I want to go back to a couple of things you said first. So I use a business accountability, AI coach, to try it out wave AI,
Unknown Speaker 13:23
like 20 bucks a month, you put in everything you're trying to do, right? And then you're gonna get that accountability. And what I realized was, even though it's giving me sound advice, it couldn't hold me accountable to any things, I didn't care whether a computer was, you know, this algorithm was like, doing anything like its opinion didn't matter to me versus the way a human would. And even if you're bringing in an agency where you're paying them money, and now you have to go to someone, look them in the eyes and say I didn't do everything that we said we would write, there's like another layer that goes in there. And then just to kind of further on this, the something else you mentioned about just patterns, right, being able to see the patterns.
Unknown Speaker 14:04
I think an expert is someone who sees the patterns faster than anyone else. And so even if we do have all of these prompts in the right, you know, structure for someone to be able to, you know, for example, use they ask you answer and have it spit out a strategy, they won't necessarily know if it's the right strategy, and they have to go into that refinement. And having that accountability coach now speeds up the actual process of learning and then doing all that. And so I guess
Unknown Speaker 14:30
my question for all of that is, like, how would you recommend we kind of maintain that humanity that's needed in order for AI to be successful?
Unknown Speaker 14:41
Well, when I think about
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when I think about humanity, I think a lot about
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the nuances of communication
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that make us who we are and
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Oftentimes, there are imperfect nuances. Right? I think we're AI is gonna get very good.
Unknown Speaker 15:08
Is
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there gonna learn to be imperfect?
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And
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I would expect, let me give an example.
Unknown Speaker 15:22
I would think certainly within two years, at the latest, I will have on let's say, my swimming pool website, on on river pools, I think I'll have a synthetic version of an employee, that is the Chatbot,
Unknown Speaker 15:39
that you'll be able to engage with that person, when you get to the website and talk to him or her it exactly as if you were talking to a salesperson in your living room, I think it's going to feel the same thing is gonna look the same.
Unknown Speaker 15:57
It might have been two years, it might not have quite the same nuanced, but I think it's going to be a very human experience. But it's not going to be a human that you're talking to.
Unknown Speaker 16:07
So how do we maintain the humanity with this?
Unknown Speaker 16:11
Don't really know, some people would say that's not very humanized, I would say that it is. I'm more than happy to have people all over the world, engaging from synthetic Marcus, helping them with, let's say, a content strategy, or some type of communication technique, right? That's my thing, right? Communication contents, all the same thing, connection, trust, right, it's my thing. So I don't think the majority of people in the world would have any issues with that.
Unknown Speaker 16:45
And, in fact, I think there's going to be this whole genre of new thought leadership that we're gonna see.
Unknown Speaker 16:54
So you know, you have software as a service, you're gonna have thought leadership as a service. So, you know, you can subscribe to,
Unknown Speaker 17:05
to synthetic Marcus, you talk to me.
Unknown Speaker 17:09
And you're basically tapping into everything that I've ever said ever written, which is ton of crap online. I mean, it's just a ton of stuff. And that's giving you feedback, and it's having legitimate conversation with you. And if it's outside of my scope, ideally, synthetic Marcus is, is going to tell you that, you know, I just don't I just don't know the answer to that.
Unknown Speaker 17:34
Which is, which is very possible, right? Which is very possible. But I see that being the case, I see that being a pretty strong business model, a whole genre of, of revenue opportunity for thought leaders around the world. And that could be agencies to but much more so thought leadership, which is why brand matters, you know, so very much. And we're getting to that place, you know, brand being just more important than it's ever been. I don't think most people, and we were talking about AI and I know I'm rambling a little bit. So forgive me, Chris was like,
Unknown Speaker 18:06
I don't think most companies and most individuals, even though they've been using the word brand, probably for years, they're not going to truly get it until AI starts to take everything away from them.
Unknown Speaker 18:22
And currently,
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most AI is exceptions. But most AI, most AI usage is about creation, much more so than recommendation. But the time is coming, when it's going to be just as much about recommendation. So it's you know, it's going to get to the point where instead of and, you know, instead of so much of what somebody does on Google, in the in that buyers journey occurring in terms of how they learn and how they vet, they're going to learn the majority through AI, they're not going to interface with a with a website.
Unknown Speaker 19:05
They're going to get recommendations through AI not going to interface with a website. And then they'll interface with a website, probably before they reach out to the company.
Unknown Speaker 19:15
And what's going to dictate whether or not they they're able to attract that person in so many ways
Unknown Speaker 19:23
is brand and how they are able to build an exceptional brand. That's why I'm thinking way more about social media right now than I ever was brand thinking way more about YouTube. And just video even though I've been thinking about and preaching it and like beating the stinking drum like crazy for a solid 10 years. Thinking way more about it. You have to prepare yourself for a world where
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search engines as we know it don't exist.
Unknown Speaker 19:52
And the buyers journey as we know it is least as we've known it for 25 years now since roughly 2000 People have been super
Unknown Speaker 20:00
Super active learning about products and services online and using Google and whatnot. Right. So that's going to be just a fundamental shift. And this is why an agency that's offering SEO services.
Unknown Speaker 20:15
I think you can offer SEO services for a few more years. But not Not, not after that. Not after that. I don't I don't think you're going to be able to sustain it, I just think there's going to be too many free tools. And, and, and less and less traction, just from a Google perspective, generally speaking,
Unknown Speaker 20:36
for that, and so I don't think the whole I mean, what percentage of agencies right now are doing search, you know, in SEO and things like that? And then you look at it like, Okay, what's the other major salt major offering of agencies out there? Well, it's sometimes the paid advertising, right? So I paid advertising on Google or an on some type of social media or whatever. But if we're being really honest, what type of future does paid advertising have? Now? I don't think it's a very strong one. First of all, I think there's going to be plenty of AI tools that would, you know, allow me to say, Okay, I want to do something, you know, with, let's say, Google ads, and, you know, tell me everything I need to know. And then all of a sudden, the tools says, Okay, so what's your budget? How many leads? Do you need data, data, data, and it just boom, boom, it spits it all out. And it does it all for you. And then you can connect it right to your, let's say, whatever you're using, but let's call it AdWords for now, or whatever it is, Google ads or whatever. And it can, it can even set it up for you potentially. But I don't even see that as having a sustainable future. Because that'll have a season until search really, just doesn't, just doesn't really happen anymore, at least not to the degree that we think it's that we think it's going to happen. I think that's the maybe the most interesting question is how do these companies make money? How does chat GBT outside of subscription,
Unknown Speaker 22:11
make money? Right? We know how Google makes money. We know how YouTube makes money. We know how social media makes money. But what happens when that entire models potentially flipped on its head social can continue to do what it does, because people are going to go to the platform. But when it comes to regular searching for information in the buyers journey, that is the part that I think is going to change so dramatically. And so going back to the agencies, now all of a sudden we say, okay, SEO Services, probably not really existing so much in five to 10 years, paid advertising, probably not existing so much. And five to 10 years, when search for the most part isn't really happening, maybe they can still have a have a run on social media. But that is unless AI tools are doing it for you at a much much much, much cheaper and more effective rate. So where do agencies come into play here?
Unknown Speaker 23:13
I think it's with the recommendation side of being able to feed those recommendations and create the brand, I think, I think you better be freaking great at training your clients how to use AI, so as to improve their sales and marketing in a couple of years. So I mean, talking like a virtual sales rep. On on your site, I mean, that does entirely revolutionize the sales process just on its own right. When I have a rep you can go talk to and there's no time pressure, that a sales rep has 30 minutes on a call with you, right, and they're trying to advance the sale. And so even though they're trying to feed you information, and they're trying to really discover those pain points and work through that, there's like a finite amount of time that they're going to be actually with you working with you versus being able to talk to this virtual rep that you just have the conversation collected.
Unknown Speaker 24:05
If you use air air.ai Right now ir.ai embedded server you set up really freaking mind.
Unknown Speaker 24:13
It will blow your mind in terms of already sounding like a virtual sales rep.
Unknown Speaker 24:22
And you interacting with it and feeling like I'm I'm interacting with human it can fool it can fool you right now. That's in 2024 Where's he going to be in 2026?
Unknown Speaker 24:34
Yeah, that's crazy. Now what's what's nuts is a lot of these. It. There's just a lot of business owners that are just so aloof, that it's going to take time for them to catch on. If you think about it. The first businesses started having websites.
Unknown Speaker 24:54
Mid to late 90s. Right. But there was a whole bunch that just just didn't. They just weren't even
Unknown Speaker 25:00
In the game, they think in yellow pages, they think in traditional advertising. They weren't in the game. And
Unknown Speaker 25:08
it took a solid 10 years, for every single business to say you don't have a business unless you have a website. Anatomy took about 10 years. And so that's why I would expect we've got 10 years
Unknown Speaker 25:24
to where we have just complete full, full adoption. Wherever buddy is go, that goes into business that has a business is just obsessed with integrating AI into the mix the entire time. Right. Just like today, we're pretty obsessed with the digital for the most part, even though they're still laggards, I mean, heck, I still speak at conferences, and people brag to me that they're spending half a million dollars a year on TV, and I'm just like, That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And they're like a small business, you know, and they're in, they're doing like, you know, 10 million a year, and they're bragging to me about spending 100 million on TV, like, that still happens in 2024. That's what's so crazy. But
Unknown Speaker 26:08
I What's what's interesting to me, Chris, is I don't really have these conversations with most people, most agencies, nobody really wants to have the conversation.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
And so I think there's certainly like this, like dearth of intellectual conversation that's happening with this in the agency space, but just goes back to everybody's, you know, trying to protect what's on their plate. And it's just not how I roll. I'm just not really interested in that. I don't want to be put on it. I mean, it's the AI paradox, right? Like, again, where they're, even if they do want to start including AI and just focus on what is on their plate. I mean, going back to whether you're adding AI to or building from
Unknown Speaker 26:52
a lot of agencies if they're not rethinking just the entire approach for being an agency and what that actually means in the future. Like, it's a irrelevant conversation, because they're going to be gone by next year, or the year after.
Unknown Speaker 27:09
I knew a content house out in New York City, they weren't overseas there. And in New York City, they had 250 employees year and a half ago. And today, they have like, 15.
Unknown Speaker 27:22
Yeah, just do the math people.
Unknown Speaker 27:26
In you think you think it's not common for you to? It's coming from agency? It's coming from mind. I know it's coming for years. So there's, there's no question of if it's coming. And this is like, this is the pride cycle, just sitting there, you know, folks denying saying, there's always going to be a place for the problem is, they don't know what they don't know. Right? So when somebody says, there's always gonna be a place for, like, human interaction and engagement?
Unknown Speaker 27:58
Well, what happens when you can't tell the difference?
Unknown Speaker 28:02
I do think we're going to see live events, increase in significance and popularity in the coming years. Because of that need for connection? Yeah, like skin to skin experiences. I see that
Unknown Speaker 28:21
coming into play, and so that that one, as a speaker, that's when it's going to serve me pretty well, especially as a pretty engaging speaker.
Unknown Speaker 28:30
But in terms of what would be 90% of the current things agencies do, you ain't gonna be making money on that five to 10, you ain't gonna do it.
Unknown Speaker 28:41
Right. So I guess, at impact, how are you kind of shifting things within your own teams competencies? Wherever the things you're developing them in?
Unknown Speaker 28:51
You know, the different things you're just focusing on, for in order to impact your offer.
Unknown Speaker 28:57
Yeah, how has that shifted? I guess for you guys.
Unknown Speaker 29:00
Well, we've created
Unknown Speaker 29:05
you know, we've had some, quite a few internal conversations and trainings on the importance of getting in the sandbox, playing in the sandbox of AI, of becoming a multiplier of your time,
Unknown Speaker 29:20
in your production,
Unknown Speaker 29:22
to consistently look for ways within your own job, that you can leverage AI.
Unknown Speaker 29:31
In fact, you know, the point that we've made to the team and I have no problem saying this and people will be annoyed was hearing this, but
Unknown Speaker 29:41
if someone refuses to use AI, and to find out how to become more efficient, well, then they're not gonna have a place on our team.
Unknown Speaker 29:51
We're just not gonna have a place because that means, you know, they're, you know, they're the person that's, you know, holding on to the horse and buggy and we can't afford to do that.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
that, because the world won't allow for that. So even though it's nice, and it's romantic, the markets not going to be there for that.
Unknown Speaker 30:09
And so we're gonna have to adjust a lot of things as an agency. And so we, you know, we are absolutely talking about that. But I think the other big shift that we've made that I don't really know of many agencies that are doing this is, we're really actively teaching our clients AI. We even created G PTS that we use, to better serve our clients. And we're showing those to clients.
Unknown Speaker 30:36
So somebody produces a piece of content right now we have GPS that we've created, that help us vet those on as a phase one vetting.
Unknown Speaker 30:46
In, we're not replacing a human with that, but what it's doing is, it's one more safe safeguard in the system that ensures utmost quality control of, of, you know, of the stuff that, you know, our clients are producing, and that we're checking off. And so we're very transparent, in what we're doing with AI.
Unknown Speaker 31:09
openly talking about it, and, you know, you see how I am, I mean, in a lot of ways, I'm kind of like the, the brand ambassador or whatever of the agency, you know, and
Unknown Speaker 31:21
I'm not shying away from anything, talking about anything online, just like I'm not shying away from this right now. I mean, there's gonna be people that listen to this, Chris, and that are going to be offended, and not sure if they're going to be offended with at what I said, or just offended with the fact that they don't want to accept the reality, I'm not sure what it is, you know, or with the fact that I'm not emotional about it. Like I'm not, you know, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I've just, I'm not wanting to kick the bricks and say, Oh, geez, you know, what was us? You know, in, in 2008, when almost lost my sample company.
Unknown Speaker 32:01
And everything went south of the economy. I learned real quickly, it just nobody cared, nobody was going to save me. If I was just going to sit there and complain about the market, and complain about the industry, I was either going to save the business and think outside the box, or we were going to die. And I was going to file bankruptcy, and the company was was going to be gone. Those are my choices. Nobody cared. Nobody was there to save, you know, people that cared, were the people directly tied to the company. And so, you know, that's why I'm able to, I'm able to just look at, you know, I'm able to look at things differently, then a lot of other lot of other agencies necessarily, can or will it because I've been through that deep, deep struggle.
Unknown Speaker 32:48
So you talk a lot about trust.
Unknown Speaker 32:53
With I think I've heard you say multiple times that trust is the currency of all business.
Unknown Speaker 32:58
You talked about the trust gap they asked you answer is, I think, set up ideally, to build trust through the content process. Right. So now in a world where people are going to be distrustful, and they're kind of leading with skepticism of everything they're seeing online? How are you kind of getting in front of that to be able to build the trust initially, so that people just associate your brand with something they can trust?
Unknown Speaker 33:25
Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 33:27
this is, obviously I mean, it's something I've been, once again, I've been, I've been thinking a lot about this, because
Unknown Speaker 33:35
we're quickly coming to a place where
Unknown Speaker 33:42
just nobody knows if anything is real. That is, that is really, really crazy. I mean, that is just really, really crazy.
Unknown Speaker 33:53
I, you know, I've got a couple of different YouTube channels, and one is a is a fishing channel. And I'm telling you what, for the first time, I'm starting to see people say on some of my like, videos, I don't think that's I don't think that's real. Like, what do you mean, that's not
Unknown Speaker 34:13
free? What do you mean, that's not real, right? I mean, it's crazy. But this is like, this is what's happening already. And so we
Unknown Speaker 34:24
got some interesting times ahead. I don't look, I don't think people mind AI. I think you just had to be honest, when you're using it, to represent a person. I think that's one of the biggest keys is representing a person and representing, you know, like a, like, a saint like thinking, human human being. That's the thing that you got to be very, very careful about. I'm not going to sit there and say I used AI, if I am, you know, maybe changing the background of an image nobody
Unknown Speaker 35:00
He does that as it is, you know, we've had thumbnails that we're doing that for on YouTube for 10 years.
Unknown Speaker 35:06
But when it comes to
Unknown Speaker 35:09
tricking the audience, that's where I have problems, tricking them to think that there is a human there when it's not. You know, that's when we have this we have, we have some issues, and that's what we got to be careful of. But yeah, you know, I think this, like this whole trust gap, I think is going to be it's going to be big, big, big, going forward.
Unknown Speaker 35:30
We're nothing we see, from a media perspective online, will we be able to say that's definitely true?
Unknown Speaker 35:42
Everything from World News to politics, to you know, what your, you know, what you're seeing on YouTube, we won't know if it's true.
Unknown Speaker 35:52
And that's a little bit sad, because it almost kills the imagination.
Unknown Speaker 35:59
I'm not sure what to do about that. And I hope there is a way to have some true
Unknown Speaker 36:07
gauges or verifiers of, of, of truth or AI generated synthetically generated content. But I don't know if that's going to happen.
Unknown Speaker 36:19
So I'm curious why why people thought your fishing channel is using AI? Or are they just jealous of the size of your catch?
Unknown Speaker 36:28
Well, in the case of my channel, it so there's two reasons why we as a society are going to think everything's fake online. The first one is because AI could make it look fake, potentially. The second one is because
Unknown Speaker 36:45
it's there thinking it's staged.
Unknown Speaker 36:49
Right? That, oh, they created that it's not real, because they are looking for some clicks, they are looking for some views. So in the so like, I had a video on my fishing channel, where the we hooked up with a massive fish.
Unknown Speaker 37:08
And we got spooled, which means the fish took the entire spool of line and just took it. I don't know if it was a whale that we caught. I don't know what it was. But we, there's no like, it was just crazy. And it all happened so fast. That before we could even try it, we were in the process of trying to turn the boat around so fast, we couldn't do it.
Unknown Speaker 37:33
fastest I've ever seen anything like it in my life. Suddenly, you got people saying, not not not real, I can tell. And of course, my response is, you're an idiot. Because I've got footage of 10 other different angles of this moment. And you're sitting there thinking we're doing it for clicks. But this is like the new reality that we're going to be that we're going to be dealing with. So there's going to be a lot of like wonderful creative stuff that people produce.
Unknown Speaker 38:04
That's not staged, but it's going to be labeled as fake news, fake moments, fake content.
Unknown Speaker 38:12
Right.
Unknown Speaker 38:14
So I've been reading Jared Fuller's new book near bound. And in it he very quickly is making a case for how we used to be like an oil driven economy moved into like the data economy. And so like those who were investing in each of those ended up making a lot of money during it. But the case that he's making now is that we're moving into a trust economy. And the companies that are able to build the most legitimate trust are going to be the ones that are the most successful in the future. And
Unknown Speaker 38:44
I think a lot of the
Unknown Speaker 38:46
I wouldn't say dishonest
Unknown Speaker 38:49
participants in all this, but the the people who are just seeking the clicks and stuff are going to be the first ones to try getting, you know, using AI to just be disingenuous on some of these in order to drive those rather than those creatives who are actually trying to build a legitimate brand that is able to help people to solve a very specific problem and create those results that businesses need.
Unknown Speaker 39:13
Yeah, I think though, it's going to be harder and harder to build
Unknown Speaker 39:18
an invincible brand going forward. And I think the reason is because there's a certain in not not to get to like I don't know, esoteric here but I think there's a there's a growing portion
Unknown Speaker 39:35
of modern day Mob members online.
Unknown Speaker 39:39
On various sides sides of the aisle that feel like it's their job that when a person or an entity grow in popularity
Unknown Speaker 39:52
and start to have significant influence, potentially influence that goes against what they might wish. They want to tear him down.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
I want to tear him down. And
Unknown Speaker 40:04
so, I mean, I just think that's a once again, not to be depressing, but I see in many ways
Unknown Speaker 40:14
going in that direction, and
Unknown Speaker 40:19
it's going to make brands really, really gun shy, you will not be able to build an effective brand in the future, if you can't handle
Unknown Speaker 40:30
falsehoods being thrown at you all the time.
Unknown Speaker 40:34
Thought Leadership comes with a, a toll, a price and requirement.
Unknown Speaker 40:42
Very much so. And, you know, as a pool guy, I was probably one of the first I might have been the first digital thought leader ever, in swimming pools. Like there's thought leaders in like, like, conference world there. But in terms of online, I was probably the first one ever. And, you know, I was I was a major influencer, and I got attacked hard, I got attacked by some of these big manufacturers, because I was the small guy, I was like the Ford dealer. And now all of a sudden, you get this little Ford dealer in Virginia that's affecting all these other major automotive manufacturers around around the world. That's what it was like for me. And to this day, it's to a degree, it's like that, and so
Unknown Speaker 41:30
not everybody's built for that. And so there's gonna be a lot of people that want to become thought leaders and want to build their brand. And that's gonna go hand in hand, and they're going to quickly crumble because they're gonna get pushed, they're gonna get attacked
Unknown Speaker 41:43
online. And that's a bummer. But that's, that's also going to be a part of this, of this new economy. And so because trust is going to be, you know, such a, such a,
Unknown Speaker 41:57
an imperative for many companies, there's going to be like,
Unknown Speaker 42:03
you know, how, like,
Unknown Speaker 42:05
Seo was a big deal for marketing. Right. And so what a lot of companies did, is they,
Unknown Speaker 42:14
they they pointed, a lot of, they did a lot of blackhat seo techniques to kill the search rankings of their competitors. Right. And I'm sure you've heard, Chris, right.
Unknown Speaker 42:28
So that was like modern day digital warfare? I would, I would expect that to happen in many ways. When it comes
Unknown Speaker 42:40
to, when it comes to that, that trust equity that brands have built, there's going to be like, just nefarious groups that
Unknown Speaker 42:50
could be competitors, what have you that just tried to take them down? You know, and you actually, you actually see that all the time. Even. It's, it has already started?
Unknown Speaker 43:01
Definitely,
Unknown Speaker 43:03
I think so business by nature is a zero sum game, right? Someone has to at the end of the day win. But I think there's still a place for, for people to lean into the positive sum game side of this, where we can all grow like, I mean, if they ask you answer style, right? Who is this brand, the best fit for you? It doesn't mean you need to serve everybody. So why don't I can create content and promote you, but I'm going to point out who you're the best fit for so that those people can find you. And it's like, I feel like the same thing can happen with with AI, that we just need to be able to lean into that side. In a world that's becoming probably more polarized on everything. I mean, to your point, I think there's, there's so much to be said for that mentality of there's room on top for everyone. I've always felt that way. I've always felt that way with other agencies.
Unknown Speaker 43:51
But not everybody, not everybody feels that way. They come from more of a scarcity mentality, right? And so because of that, it can really, it can really cost them and cost everybody everybody loses. When there's such like a scarcity mindset that exists within an industry. I've seen it affect entire industries, because let me give you an example in the fiberglass pool industry, there's, there's like 12 main manufacturers, for the most part, they don't communicate with each other. So what happens it stifles innovation, because they think that oh, gee, I don't want to I don't want to share anything proprietary with you. I'm not saying they're all like bad agents, but there's a lot of bad agents because of the fact that they don't have this more of like this open source let's all let's let's raise all boats mentality.
Unknown Speaker 44:37
Right.
Unknown Speaker 44:39
So let's go back a little bit since you brought up your your days, starting to build up this thought leadership, but also just staying up late writing blogs at your kitchen table. If you had to kind of relive that with all the the technology and advantages that we have now how would how would you approach it
Unknown Speaker 45:00
I
Unknown Speaker 45:02
don't I mean, I don't know, like, I feel like I did pretty dang good for the time period. Then
Unknown Speaker 45:09
if I was going to start new today, I would,
Unknown Speaker 45:13
I would latch on to
Unknown Speaker 45:16
the the trends that I'm seeing today, you know, which is I would go all in with vertical video today, three years from now, I don't know, I don't know exactly what I'm going to be saying to somebody. But I think the premise of, of building your brand, it's only going to grow in significance. difference was when I started in 2009. With they asked you answered my swing pool company.
Unknown Speaker 45:40
It was like I knew, if I just could could dominate with text and video on my own website. I could build an extraordinary brand, I could drive incredible trust traffic leads and sales. And that's what I did. I didn't do any social media, because I thought it was a waste of time in a would have been for me, because I didn't need it. And it was a distraction. I couldn't do that today. Today. I had to I had to I would have to lean into social. I couldn't expect to get it off from search today. Because it wouldn't be you know, a viable, or you know, it had a 15 year. Really incredible run. But that's not going to you can't it's can't work like that. That's a blockbuster way, right? And so that's why if I had to start again today, I would just say okay, we're a media company. We just sell pools, everybody clear on that. We're a media company, we just sell pools. Alright, knowing that we gotta go all in on producing media, what's the media, we're going to focus on what we're going to focus on video, what type of video we're going to focus on vertical video, mainly, right? That's what we're going to just drive home. And I would be producing multiple a day. You know, if I wasn't producing at least one a day I'd be that would be a lazy bad day. For me. That's, that's where I am.
Unknown Speaker 46:53
All right. Well, lots of great insights in this conversation.
Unknown Speaker 47:01
Two more questions for you. Sure. With the first being what book and I'm going to caveat this besides your own? Would you recommend every agency owner pickup?
Unknown Speaker 47:12
Oh, man,
Unknown Speaker 47:14
I think that
Unknown Speaker 47:18
challenger sale would be a good one.
Unknown Speaker 47:21
I would actually, you know, recommend some type of sales book just because a lot of them are really a lot of agencies really struggle on the selling side of things. And two could really,
Unknown Speaker 47:36
they could really improve on that quite a bit. I'm always though going to recommend Good to Great by Jim Collins, I think it was one of the great works of, you know, of the 20th century. Well, I guess it was 21st century, in terms of in terms of like a business book, I think Jim Collins is, is the great business mind of, of this time period. And, you know, he doesn't just produce books because he's got a contract to produce books.
Unknown Speaker 48:06
He produces books that are worthy to be produced. And they're landmark books, generally speaking. And so Jim's a really, really special guy. Awesome.
Unknown Speaker 48:19
Alright, then last question, Where can people find you?
Unknown Speaker 48:22
Well, currently, best place you could probably find me is on LinkedIn, I'm pretty active over there. And people tend to enjoy my content. But if you listen to this right now, and if you want to reach out to me, you can email me Marcus at Marcus sheridan.com. That's an easy one to remember Marcus at Marcus sheridan.com. And of course, you know, I speak on this stuff. I do workshops and trainings on this. So if you're listening to this and you, you want some help and guidance in this arena, reach out we'll have a conversation about it. I can I can certainly help you or at least point you in the right direction.
Unknown Speaker 48:54
Marcus, thanks for joining us. My pleasure.
Unknown Speaker 49:02
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai