Monday Jul 07, 2025
24: The Marcus Sheridan Episode
In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sid Graef interviews keynote speaker and best-selling author Marcus Sheridan, known for his book They Ask, You Answer and his newest release, Endless Customers. Marcus dives deep into the changing landscape of trust in marketing, emphasizing why home service businesses must focus on radical transparency and self-service experiences to win customers in 2025 and beyond.
Listeners will learn why traditional marketing tactics are becoming less effective in the AI-driven world, how to use video and pricing estimator tools to generate 3–5x more leads, and the "Big 5" questions every business must answer to earn trust and drive conversions. Marcus breaks down the four pillars of a known and trusted brand and shares powerful real-world examples that business owners can implement immediately.
If you're a service business owner ready to stand out, dominate your local market, and future-proof your lead generation, this conversation is a must-listen.
Resources
Transcript:
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef Outta Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in.
The industry folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses and they want to help you succeed. Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience.
0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guest will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the wild. Journey of entrepreneurship.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to the Huge Transformations podcast. This is Sid. I'm your host today, and today we've got a really special treat, and that is Marcus Sheridan. Marcus Sheridan is best known for his, uh, bestselling book. They ask You Answer. He just published a new book in April of this year, 2025, and it's titled Endless Customers.
Marcus is going to be keynote. Presentation or the keynote speaker at the huge convention this year in Nashville, Tennessee. Tennessee, uh, August 22nd. 2025. So Marcus is really sharp. When we did this recording, uh, we were actually on our live stream for the huge convention. So it's not a traditional interview like we normally do, but really insightful Guy knows his stuff when it comes to generating customer leads and making sure that your calendar's full.
He's got it down. But the most important thing that he teaches is how you can become the most trusted. Company in your industry, in your marketplace, and that carries a value far beyond just getting more leads. So I hope you have the opportunity to take notes or listen to it twice or whatever. 'cause Marcus said really shares some gold and drop some value here that, uh, is hard to overstate.
All right, so he is really great. I hope you enjoy everything about this episode. Meet Marcus Sheridan. They ask you answer endless customers. This one is red hot. Talk to you soon. Welcome to the show, Marcus Sheridan. This is the huge live show. I'm really glad you're here. How, aside from the storm at your house, how are things going man?
Well, thank goodness for home generators and uh, the thunder is rolling outside. We've got a tree down across the driveway. Uh, but it's all good, man, and I'm excited to be, uh, talking about the subjects that we're gonna be discussing tonight because. It's a big deal. There's a lot of change happening in the world right now.
Uh, businesses feel a little bit confused, right? So this is an important time in the history of the world, and there's a lot of opportunity for those that understand how to take advantage of those opportunities. So, yeah, I'm ready to get into it, buddy. Oh, okay. Good. So, excuse me, uh, for those of you joining us live, thank you very much.
Our guest tonight as Marcus Sheridan. Marcus, you're gonna be our. One of our keynotes at the huge convention on Friday, August 22nd. I hope I did that. Yeah. August 22nd. And, uh, I'm really looking forward to it. It was a couple years ago, a buddy of mine's got a, a substantial business in Denver. He's like, Hey, you gotta check out this book.
You're probably familiar to you. They ask you answer, and this is the first one that you published in 2017. Um, and I'm like, well, that, that sounds so simple. And he is like, it is. Like the concept is like, it's just truth and it's way human nature works. So, um, with that, you, you mentioned, uh, you know, like things are moving really fast right now and I was excited.
I did get a copy of your second book, the one that's just released, uh, April 15th this year. Endless customers with. The speed and challenge of changes in business and internet and ai and in short attention spans. Let's start with what are the principles, uh, for business or for the, the methodology you teach?
Like, what are the principles that are never gonna change no matter what technology does? Yeah, and I think that's, I, I like the question a lot because you can build businesses on, on, on platforms temporarily. You can build them on principles forever. And when it comes to your sales and marketing strategies, you really wanna be principle driven.
So that's why if I said to you as a business, uh, is trust gonna be fundamental to your organization in five years, you'd say yes. 10 years you'd say Yes, 20 years you'd say yes. If I said, is Facebook gonna be fundamental in five years? You'd say, I have no idea. Google. I don't know. Right? Yeah. Because these are platforms that are gonna come and go, but trust is the centerpiece of every business.
It's the battle that we're in every single day. So endless customers, the payoff of that book, it is a system that shows you how to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. And these are, these are. Uh, components of business that are truly built to last, and they're gonna be evergreen in terms of their importance.
And that's why, you know, whenever you're debating about a sales or marketing strategy, one of the first questions you should start with would be, yeah, but if we did this, would it induce more trust? The answer is yes. Well, you need to go in solution mode and stop saying to yourself, well, there's no way we could do this.
Yeah, a hundred percent. So, uh, and I'm gonna segue a second, uh, as you're joining us live, guys, thanks for being here. First of all, uh, go ahead. We're gonna give away a couple of tickets to the huge convention later in the show about about 15, 20 minutes from now. And if you would like to win a ticket, all you need to do is this one.
Go ahead and take this live stream and share it into a group or two that you frequent. And then just report back and hit the comment and say, Hey, I'm here. I shared in the group. And, uh, then we're gonna ask a question later. The first person to answer of course, wins the ticket and it's gonna be fun. So we're gonna do that in just a few moments.
Excuse me. So, um, we go back to like the, the root of the issue is trust and the, the old sales strategy forever, or just business strategy or saying. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. That's right. Yeah. It's never gonna go away. It's more true than ever today. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, um, I've got a, I've got a handful of questions for you and we'll just like, if it's okay with you, we'll just run and see how, how the conversation goes, see where it goes.
Try not to make it super standard, but with, uh, with one of the core principles in they ask you answer and, and what you did with the pool company in 2000. Did you start the, the concept in 2008 when the economy tanked? That's right. That's right. I started a swimming pool for those that are listening, I started a, a swimming pool company called River Pools in 2001.
Uh, you know, we have the crash of 2008. Looks like we're gonna lose the business. I. We ended up really leaning into the changing buyer and this thing that today we might refer to as content marketing, inbound marketing, whatever you wanna call it. But make a long story short, we became obsessed with our customer's.
Questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns. We said, we're going to be the best teachers in the world when it comes to, in our case, fiberglass swimming pools. And we became like the Wikipedia of pools, if you will, the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. And that framework, which I called, they Ask You Answer, became a book.
That book became a bestseller. Now the third edition is actually called Endless Customers. So that's the, that's the timeline of what has been 20, you know, 20 years. Yeah. There's some up two decades in a sentence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with one of the, the, uh, you know, the, the principles there, it was, uh, extreme transparency.
Mm-hmm. Lot of people are not really, you know, maybe they're not, eh, they're so, so comfortable with being transparent. You know, in the world of social media, people like to look good and be, you know, you see the highlight reel online, extreme, transparent, like, how far do you go? Well, I mean, to me this is just really, really common sense.
I mean, if you are being asked the question by your potential customers. I believe it's your, it's your fiduciary to address those things online, to not ignore them, to not be the ostrich with your head in the sand, right? Yeah. And really, um, in the book, endless Customers, we teach that there's four pillars of a known and trusted brand.
So if you wanna become the most known and trusted brand in your market, really you can follow this system. On the surface, it's gonna sound simple, Sid, but as we get into it, you'll see the complexity. So number one, first pillar, you gotta be willing to say what others aren't willing to say online. All right?
Mm-hmm. We'll talk about that in a second. Number two, you gotta be willing to show with video what others aren't willing to show. And that's, again, sounds simple. Most aren't doing it. Number three, you gotta be willing to sell in a way that others aren't willing to sell. And then finally, number four, you gotta be more human than others in your space are willing to be.
So those are the four pillars of a known and trusted brand. Now, getting back to your. Transparency question. Let's look at say for a second in show, but what we teach and they ask you answer. Now, endless customers, it's basically five subjects that buyers are obsessed with. You, me, all of us. When we research stuff online, we wanna understand five fundamental things.
It's what we always research. It's what we want to know before we reach out here are the five. Number one, as buyers, consumers, we wanna understand costs. Mm-hmm. The first question of the buyer's journey, once someone realizes they have a problem, so the second somebody says, I think I might wanna, you know, like, redo our kitchen, I think we might need a new roof.
Whatever the thing is. First question is roughly how much? How much is it gonna it cost? Yeah. That is the gateway of the buyer's journey, my friends. That's the gateway. Unless people move through the gateway, you got nothing. So that's the first question. Many people, if they don't get that addressed in a way that helps them understand, okay, I get a sense now for where I am.
They won't move forward. So that's the first one, cost. Second one is problem slash worries or fears. You see, when anyone is thinking about buying something, now all of a sudden they say, yeah, but what could go wrong? Mm-hmm. Okay. Problems, worries, fears. So we'll call it problems. That's number two. Number three of the big five is comparisons.
We as consumers, buyers, we're obsessed with comparing stuff. We're constantly comparing this versus that. Company versus company. Brand versus brand. Method versus method. Material versus material. I mean, it just goes on and on. We love to compare. Number four, reviews. We're obsessed with reviews. The thing about reviews is we want the good, the bad, and the ugly, not just the good.
And finally, number five, best, best, most top. Anything that allows us to rank what we're looking at in some type of order so we get a sense for what's the best, what's the worst? Think about how many times, if you're listening to this, have you gone online and researched best? Plus another phrase happens all the time.
Yeah, so cost problems, comparisons, reviews, best. Those are the big five. That's what people wanna know and incredibly, most businesses still don't wanna talk about it. You look at most folks in the home improvement space, home contracting space. If I ask them right now, if I said to them, do you address, uh, do you, do you heavily address and teach about the cost and price of your products and services on your website right now?
Most are gonna say no, no. If I said, do you address some of the biggest fears that people have when it comes to that thing? So let me give an example of that. Um, let's say you sell metal roofing, right? So, uh, some of the biggest fears are what are the problems of the metal roof? Uh, does the metal roof rust?
Is a metal roof ugly? So these are things, have you addressed those online? Probably not. Comparisons, are you comparing your product versus the other major products that people are looking at? Probably not. Right? It's like this is the thing. This is the thing. But that's what everybody wants to know. So when we talk about radical transparency, that's what we're seeing, Sid.
Yeah. Well, when, when I first read they asked you answer, um, one thing. I mean, it, it seems so simple, but it, it surprised me. You guys do fiberglass pools, they, everybody else doing concrete pool or whatever, like those are the two main categories. And you just answer the question, what can go wrong in fiberglass pool?
Oh yeah. I mean, listen, anything that you could think of, we address it. Our fiberglass pool's ugly. Our fiberglass pool's cheap. Do fiberglass pools pop out of the ground? Does a fiberglass pool look like a bathtub? I mean, if somebody was worried about it, we are gonna address it because if we didn't do it, guess what?
We're giving the ownership of that conversation to someone else. I don't know about you, Syd, but I don't, I don't have any desire to have my potential customers learn from my competitors or from some third party site. No, sir. Yeah, to learn from me. Okay, that's, and I actually hadn't thought about it that way, but I mean, who's the expert in your field?
Like whoever's watching and listening, like if you're the expert in window cleaning or roofing or whatever, like for God's sakes, don't let 'em learn about it from someone else. That's always the choice you have. Now, some people might say, well, that really doesn't matter now, Marcus. They're getting their answers from AI anyway.
Oh, well I would push back because. For those that are getting it on ai, guess what? Ai, especially chat, GBT does a pretty solid job sourcing where gets its information from. Yeah. And so I know Sy, you've clicked links off of chat GBT to go to the website. I have clicked links. I probably do it every single day and I'm getting leads constantly from chat BT right now.
So the fact is you wanna own the conversation. Let's look like this. For 20 years, we had to get recommendations by two essential parties to be a successful business. Number one, the homeowner. Number two, Google. Mm-hmm. The way we got recommendations from Google was twofold. Number one, SEO slash content marketing.
Number two, paid ads. Then suddenly November, 2022 chat, BT comes out and it's starting to immediately shift people away. Everyone that's listening to this right now is using Google Less today than they used it in November of 2022. Because if you have half a brain, you quickly realize, oh, I have a better user experience over here.
And so what does that mean? What it means is. A, you shouldn't build your house on Google, at least for the future, because if you do, you're gonna be sorely disappointed at some point, okay? Mm-hmm. And many of you are listening to this and saying, geez, I'm paying more on Google ads right now than I've spent in a long time.
I'm getting less results and I'm having a harder time from a SEO perspective to get visitors to my website. Well, that's because of all this stuff that is ai, AI answers and where the buyer's headed, right? Yeah. What does that mean? It means that you must get AI recommendations. This is gonna be a thing that's gonna drive your business in the future.
And then you say, well, what drives AI recommendations? We call 'em trust signals. These are all the signals that are put out to the digital universe. Essentially say, is your company trustworthy? An example of a trust signal is Google reviews. An example of a trust signal is the information, the content that you have on your website, and I could go down the list.
In fact, I have an extensive list. I probably shared it Huge of the fundamental trust signals that matter the most to get AI recommendations. Okay. Okay. So you're, you're, you're already crossing, you're dipping into what I was gonna ask next was like in the, and you've got a chapter about it in those customers, like in, what do you do in a No Click world where you do a search and you just get the summary and you read the AI summary at the top, and you're like, okay, got my answer.
And you move on. Like, what's, what do we, let's start with trust signals of reviews. Like where's the. The value and how much importance should we put it in, in these transitional times with, um, like focusing on if don't version ai. If don't have, yeah. If you do not have a, a, a engineered program of some type right now within your company to get reviews from every single possible customer you can, then you're missing.
The opportunity right now, customer reviews are the number one, at least what I have on my list, the number one trust signal for AI recommendations. All right? Uh, this is especially true for home contractors. Now, if you're listen to this, you might say, well, that's kind of the way it's been with Google Maps and reviews and whatnot.
Yeah. Alright. It's a major trust signal. Yeah. Which also means though, that every single review you get, you should be answering Yeah. As a standard. Automatic, right? Yeah. Good, bad, ugly. But the problem is, as we know, a lot of folks in the home improvement space aren't even, like, they're not soliciting the reviews like they should be, you know, and they might have done a thousand jobs and they have 75 reviews.
Come on y'all. That is, that is not the way it should be. We gotta do better than that. And, um, I'll use our company as an example, uh, on that. It was like, I think four years ago we said, dude, we got, I just made a goal for us. I'm like, we have Window clinic company in Montana, like. We gotta focus on reviews.
'cause that mm-hmm. Is like, what does everybody do if they're looking at a restaurant, whatever, they're like, look at the reviews and people are like, eh, no, no. Word of mouth. I'm like, we're gonna kill it with reviews. Yeah. We made it a contest and now my goal then was we should always have 10 times more reviews than the number two player.
Beautiful. And that became more difficult as you know, it's like that guy gets one and we gotta get 10 more. But now we've got 650 reviews. The next guy's got 90, the next guy's got 40. Everybody else in the marketplace, there's not that many. We small town, but 18 window cleaners, everybody has 10 or less.
And I just can't fathom why you wouldn't like capture something that's Yeah, just free for the asking to make yourself, you know, to like to boost your online reputation. It's just. Well, I love, see, but you notice what you said there, right? And for our listeners, Sid designed a program. He made it a contest.
He incentivized it, and now he's at 600 plus. That is, he's crushing, right? He's 500 ish ahead of his closest competitor. Lights out baby. I mean, you know, and that's because you've been so intentional about it. So yeah, that's the number one trust signal. There's many, there's many others. Um, I have, uh, some that are in my top five.
Uh, one of my top five is helpful or original thought leadership style content. Mm, specifically the big five. All right. The big five. That's another one that is, uh, in my top one. That might surprise everyone right now. But this is gonna be table stakes for home improvement, home services. And that's, uh, pricing estimators.
Pricing estimators. Yeah. I talk about this a lot in the book. There's a stat that is so powerful, sidd, 75% of all buyers today say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. So this number's growing by the day. What it means is. It's not that we hate salespeople, we just don't wanna talk to a salesperson until we're confident, comfortable, and we feel like we're not gonna make a mistake.
Yeah. And so with that being the case, as a business, you say to yourself, all right, I can either complain about this or I can take action on it. I can do something about this. And of course, the way that you can do something about it is, uh, leaning into this self-service 'cause buyers want control. Yeah. Now, in, in the book we talk about five types of self-service tools.
Of course, I'm gonna lean into this at huge, but let me just talk about one right now, which is so powerful. Self pricing tools, IE calculators on your website. Now, before anybody freaks out and says, there's no way I could do that, because I was talking to an agency the other day who, who only works with um, uh, uh, contract home contractors, builders, et cetera.
And he said, I talked to my community and I said, how many of you think we should be addressing pricing on our website? And. 70% said, no we shouldn't. And I said, you asked the question the wrong way. Yeah, because, and I could hopefully, everybody here, you know, reads, they ask you answer endless customers because you're gonna see some mind blowing case studies on this.
Um, if I said to you, if you could right now increase your leads from your website by three to 500%. Automatically do it. Would you put a pricing estimator tool that gives a general range so that the homeowner can say, okay, now I have a sense for what it's gonna cost? Yeah. Now, if you're still saying no to that, I can't help you any further.
I've got the data on this. You know, I, I started a, a software company called, uh, price Guide. And this is what it does. We have a mountain of data on this now, Sid, three to 500%. When companies and home improvement add a pricing estimator to their website, this honestly is the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth and it is immediate.
It almost costs you nothing to add. Yeah, it's extremely inexpensive and it, you get so much financial impact quickly. So. The problem is when people hear this conversation of pricing, and oh by the way, when we go back to those pillars, when you discuss pricing online, that's saying what others aren't willing to say, showing what others aren't willing to show and selling in a way others aren't willing to sell.
This is all three of those, and I could argue be more human, but when it, when it comes to pricing, you have these like group that says, oh, I'm gonna put myself in a corner. You're not giving an exact quote. There's a difference between a quote or a proposal and an estimate. An estimate, yeah. My friends. And you gotta gotta understand the difference.
Yeah. So if you look at an estimator tool, what it does, it's just gonna give a range. So if you went to the River Pools website right now, river Pools and spas.com, you can build and price your pool. Now, we were the first manufacturer of fiberglass pools in the world that had a pricing estimator tool on on the website.
And everybody said, well, you can't do that 'cause you got dealers and they set the end price. There's no way you can do it. I'm like, of course we can do it. We just gotta give a range. Yeah. So you might go on there, you build your pool out and you'll get a range. That range might be 110 to $150,000, but guess what?
That range is way more than any other contractor or any other manufacturer's gonna give you. It allows us to capture the lead. That's the beauty of the trade. The trade is you're giving the homeowner much more value than they're able to get anywhere else, right? Because they're giving a, they're getting a general estimate, which is that first gateway question.
Right? That's the entryway. Yeah. And now they are thrilled. You got the email so you, you can remarket, you can re nurture and, uh, everybody wins for it. My promise, and I mean this, Sid, within five years, 90% of all. Home improvement home services businesses are going to have a pricing estimator on their website.
Mark my words, and I'm not, I've not been wrong very much with most of my digital marketing predictions over the last 10 years. Yeah. So can you see that on the bottom of our screen? Is that correct? That is it, sir. Yep. Okay. Yeah, I looked at that earlier and I was like, okay, this is it. Because at first I thought, well, this is, you know, it's a price quota.
Uh, not an estimator, but I mean, it's, it's ca if you're the first to answer the question, it gives automatic trust and it, it's like most customers just have an itch if you help scratch it. But I, I didn't think about it and I'm glad you mentioned it, like they can get that itch scratch, but they gotta give me their email so I can continue to follow them.
That's correct. And now you've got a bigger database and you've got, you can nurture. It's just incredible. And you'll see a lot of people. You'll get leads earlier now, and you'll get leads that are further down the funnel. I mean, you get all types of leads from an estimator. This is just one type of self-service, but self-service is the future.
And listen, guys, as people are doing more of their research on AI and chat, GBT mm-hmm. The website becomes more of a conversion asset. Okay. Potentially less of a teaching asset. And so, you know, somebody might, might go to chat GBT and they say, Hey, I'm thinking about an in ground pool. I don't, I, I need your assistance as to what type.
And they go through a series of like, experiences with chat to the point where they realize, okay, I think I wanna get a fiberglass pool, let's say. Then what they say to chat is, okay, well I live in Virginia, um, which, uh, fiberglass pool company would you recommend near me? Then they're gonna get their recommendations.
Now they're gonna go to different websites. The question is, when they come to your site, are they gonna get what they want? By this point? They're ready to get the thing, like the estimate. Yeah. And they're ready. They're much, much further along the journey than they ever were. And what's interesting is since the internet started, typically most people were already 80% through the buyer's journey.
By the time they reached out. Oh, now because of ai, they're gonna be even further than that 80%. It's gonna get closer to that 90% range because of the availability of information. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I don't think this will ever go back. I don't think it'll ever lessen. Oh, no, no. Not unless we all become Amish, which is totally.
Yeah. And I remind, you know, our, our contractors a home service business. I'm like, you're not competing with just the guys across town. You're competing with Amazon with the experience. Correct. That's frictionless. Where you go, Amazon, I want this, click clack and it's done. And any barrier or friction you add to the process, such as how much did it cost?
Well, we'll have a sales person come out and talk to you like, Nope. It's just too much. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And, and it's, this is, listen, it's 2025 and, and I would just say this, do you believe in the golden rule? If you believe in the golden rule, and if you say, yes, I do believe I should treat my customers as I myself would wanna be treated.
Mm-hmm. Well, I would say to you, do you appreciate it when you can get a general estimate as to what the thing might cost on the company, a company's website, the answer is gonna be yes. If I said, you will induce more trust, you're gonna say yes. If I said to you, is it more likely that you give them a call?
You're gonna say yes, and this is why. Here's one other stat that's crazy. Because again, I got the, I got the data. Do you know that the average, um, monthly churn for SaaS products is about, uh, seven to 10%. Okay? Okay. For price guide, and this is because of what it is, the average churn 0.7%. What? Okay, now here's the reason though.
Once a contractor starts seeing the amount of leads. They're like, why in the world would I stop doing this? They literally stay with it forever. Yeah. And just like when I added it to my site at River Pools three, four, maybe four years ago, and everybody said it was crazy. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
And I'll get over a hundred leads a day during the summertime. Yeah. Yeah, that's moving. Hey, um, I, I want to ask you this question with this co So you've with, uh, with Impact Group, with your public speaking, not just talking about the book, but like real in person in the consulting, you've helped thousands of companies.
I. In, in this process and they ask you answer and becoming the most trusted in the marketplace. What's a a as would love to hear an example of what's a time where radical transparency went wrong? Well, I think, let's go back to this pricing thing. Um, when you, if, if, if you talk about pricing, what you want to do also is you wanna help them understand value.
And I've always said that you should have a pricing page and a pricing video. Mm-hmm. The pricing page should be very robust. It should really explain what drives cost up in an industry, what drives cost down, why some companies are expensive, why some companies are cheap. Really help them see all of what would define value and value proposition.
Well, if you only just slap a couple numbers. That's all you do, and you don't teach them well then at that point you might be commoditizing because they don't understand really, okay. Here's the difference. I understand the differences between these things. You, if you build an estimator the right way, you can do that type of same education.
I. As they go through the estimator. So that's an example of it. Uh, another mistake that somebody could make. Extreme example, if you, you know, I don't suggest that you talk really negative about other companies, but I do suggest in the book that you compare yourself to other companies mm-hmm. Without going negative, but just give honest comparisons as the difference between them.
Um, I would say that, but rarely. I mean, I'm telling you, it's almost impossible. It's like 0.01% of all the, you know, people I've ever seen do this, have gone into the too transparent zone. That just doesn't really happen. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're, when you're coaching people or when you're, you know, in a conference setting, like even like the huge coming up, um.
People that already have a business established. Yeah. What are the areas that are there? Like they're most resistant or they just screw it up? If they're gonna try to implement, they ask you answer. And those customers, well, I mean, yeah, there's a few different ones here. Number one, I. Almost always, their content strategy is wrong.
They're not following the Big Five, and therefore, because of that, they're not really popping off on social. They're not popping off on YouTube. They're not popping off on their website. Number two, they're not taking a video nearly as seriously as they should be, and they're probably not doing video the right way.
And so I'm gonna talk about that Summit huge. But you gotta start thinking, I'm serious about this, y'all. You have to start thinking. Much more like a media company. Mm-hmm. Every single job. You should visually show the before and after. There's a video behind every single job, uh, multiple videos. In most cases.
Uh, most folks that are listening to this, I'd say 98 to 99% of the companies listen to this, don't have a full-time videographer on staff. Yeah. Uh, that one position, if you hired it, would revolutionize your business. 'cause if you're popping out videos every single day, it's a game changer. And users, your brand's gonna blow up.
Yeah. So most folks aren't doing it, uh, like that. Then they're, you know, blaming things like, oh, you know, I've got a, a face for a radio. I'm like, yeah, but the problem is you still go to that home and ask them for their money, and they gotta look at you at some point. So you got no excuse. I mean, no excuse at all.
And like you said earlier, Sid, people buy from those they know I can trust. If the first time they see your face and hear your voice when you're walking up their driveway and you shake their hand, you have failed them. Yeah. They should recognize you and they should say things like, you, you, you look just like you looked on video, or, you know, you're a little taller than I expected after seeing you on camera, whatever the thing is.
But that's what they should be saying. They should, you should be familiar to them. So that should happen. It's so surprising how, like in a, you don't have to be Alex Ozzi to get that done. You're not, we're not dealing with national audiences like we're dealing with, I've got a marketplace, I have a marketplace of 70,000.
Most people have one. You know, like there's half a million or a million people in the marketplace, so it's not that hard to become known. I want to pause one second. I'm sorry because I, I got a question from Jason. Hoffner, and this is very specific to the show. Jason's been to the huge convention the last four years.
He's grown a really successful business in Florida. His wife is a super fan of yours. Are you gonna be around to sign his book? Uh, I'll sign his book. I'll address it to his awesome wife. If she's there. I'll give her a hug. I'll take a photo. Um, we'll call grandmother, whatever. Whatever we need to do, whatever we need to do.
Heck yeah. Okay. Um, a couple of years ago and to the point of being known, like your people should know you beforehand, it was when we first started that, uh, the strategy of getting, you know, like focus on reviews and I had a, a woman called we, it was when I used to go out and give personal, you know, estimates in person and I showed up at the door and she went, are you Sid?
And I'm like, yeah. And she, there you go, hugged me and said, I would never call anyone else. I read every one of your reviews. Let's go. I was like, that's what we want. Right there. Okay. Double down, you know, and, and it's, podcasting is another example. This one's extreme, but I'm gonna share it 'cause it's kind of a wild story.
I'm at a conference, uh, this lady, uh, comes up to me, she's like, Marcus, ah, you know, I'm such a fan. I'm like, oh, that's so great. She's like, you were with me in the shower this morning. I'm like, really? What? She said, yes, I listened to your podcast. Every time I'm in the shower, I'm like. Oh, that definitely clarifies it.
Right? Yeah. So it's like these are the things that you should be hearing because you're putting yourself out there. And then, you know, I've got the same sentiments as like, in terms of, I just, people I feel like, I know they don't know me from Adam or Eve, but I know them. And that's what matters here. Yeah.
That's what matters. That's what we're trying to, that's what we're trying to achieve, man. We got so much to like, get into it. Huge. I am so stoked about it. It the, the amount of takeaways and that's the thing. It's one thing to make an audience feel good. That's easy for me, but it's another thing to move them to action.
My commitment is that you will have a plan and you're gonna immediately say, we're going to do this, like in the hotel room tonight. We're gonna start. That's what, that's the feeling you're gonna have after you attend my keynote. That's my promise. That's awesome. Hey, we're, we're coming up, but we're approaching our end of our time, so I wanna be respectful.
I, I did have this question in specifics with like, if you're making video regularly or, or every day, and you talked about like, you know, basically having a videographer on staff, but not necessarily, so if we're we're pushing video, pushing video, is that, does it have the same or similar effect if those, let's say I'm doing a daily video on.
Facebook and Instagram, that that doesn't have the same gravitas as your website does it, or does it? Well, let's start with YouTube. There's a strong argument, Sid, that your YouTube channel will be more important to your brand than your website will be in five years. Ooh, this could very well happen. If you look at everything that's just.
Happening in the market. For example, you've had a ton of companies that have said, gee, we've really been, our website's really been affected by ai. Have you heard one person say, man, our YouTube page is getting its teeth kicked in by ai? Nope. Not at all. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? And so this is why.
YouTube pages and just your video presence in general. So you gotta look at it like, you know, your website in many ways was always your content hub, and it will still be your content hub. YouTube is gonna be a core video hub for you, and those videos are gonna be spread across and repurposed on social media.
And that's, that's when you're cooking with gas is when you're, you know, when you are creating. Um, you know, one, let's say longer form video, and then you're repurposing it and you're putting out multiple videos a day on the TikTok, on the Instagram reels, Facebook reels. Maybe it's a YouTube reel, maybe it's a YouTube long.
Right? But these are the things that we wanna be doing, and this is where you've gotta get, and this is what, you know, problem is. It's not really a problem. It's great in the world of home improvement, like as a pool guy, everybody was always just busy digging a hole. Yeah. And I said, instead of digging a hole.
I'm going to create awareness by creating content, and that's available to all of us today. Your brand will matter more in the future than it's ever mattered before. You got to create these trust signals, my friends, and so much of that is the content that you're producing across that multiplicity of channels.
But unless there's people on staff, at least one that owns content and is obsessed with it. Then you're gonna lose traction. You just will. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um, as, as we wrap up like with that, in that context, like what would be your recommendation too? You got the, the guy's got three employees. He's, he's digging the hole every day.
He's trying to get off the truck, but he knows he needs to do content. What could he do? What are some like just some options for this guy to actually get content made that hits A lot of people stop because they think it's gotta be perfect. It's gotta be, oh my gosh. In fact, it works against you if it's perfect.
Okay. Um, that guy has a camera in his pocket that is better than anything Hollywood had 20 years ago. Yeah. Literally anything they had 20 years ago, he can start producing right now. He can go live right now. He can do now. If you really wanna take it a step up, do that. And hire yourself A videographer that's in the Philippines, like I have for $1,500 a month.
Mm-hmm. Who's working full-time for me and he's got a degree in videography. He's actually very, very good. He's living large because he's making 1500 bucks a month, which is a huge amount for him. He can buy a house with that. And I'm getting an incredible videographer. Everybody wins and I'm not having to do the editing.
The thing that holds a lot of people up isn't necessarily the shoot. It's the edit and upload. So get somebody to do that for you. You get a full-time person these days, 1500 bucks, no brainer. That's what you should do. Boom. Okay. Um, well, let's see. What's, what's the ideal way for people to, how can they connect or follow or like, how do, as almost said, how do people get in touch with you?
What's your cell phone number? Yeah. Yeah. 8 0 4, right? Other people follow you? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, check me out on LinkedIn. That's where I put my best stuff. Okay. Always LinkedIn. Um, you can also go to endless customers.com, Marcus for the book, or Amazon for the book. Marcus sheridan.com is my website. If you're interested in never having me speak to your group, your event, your company, and, uh, you've also got, uh, price Guy, ai of course, for that.
Incredible. Three to 500% of immediate lead increase. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. That's excellent. Okay, so I, I would love to get into more with your, your journey because you know, I read the entire bio starting in 2001, digging holes for a swim pool, and then became partner, then owner, and then up and down and like you probably, did you ever have a plan to be a keynote speaker and consultant?
And write a book. It's wild, man. I never dreamt any of this. Right. You know, my wife tells me all the time, she's like, how did this happen? Yeah. You know, and, and you know, we were struggling so much financially for many years and my only goal was that she could go to the grocery store and wouldn't get anxiety by looking at the prices.
And, you know, today she can go there. She doesn't have to worry about what the food costs, and she can get what she wants for her family. To me, that's, that's the essence of financial peace and prosperity. And that's really why we're saying all this is so that you can have that financial peace and prosperity in your life.
You deserve it. Um, you just can't do it like everybody else. You gotta be willing to think a little bit differently, act a little bit differently. That's what this is all about. And that's what I'm gonna be discussing when I come to Huge. Yeah. Well, I can't wait. I'm really excited and really grateful for your time now.
And on August, uh, 22nd, when we see you again Friday morning. Nashville, Tennessee. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Marcus. Thanks very much. My pleasure. Sid. Hello my friend. This is Sid. Thank you again so much for taking your time to listen to today's episode. I hope you got some value from it. And listen, anything that was covered, uh, any of the resources, any of the books, any of the tools, anything like that is in the show notes.
So it's easy for you to find and check it out. And also, I wanna let you know the. Mission for the huge convention and for this podcast is to help our blue collar business owners like you and I, to gain financial and time freedom through running a better business. And we do that in four ways. Number one is our free weekly newsletter.
It's called a Huge Insider. I hope you subscribe. It is the most valuable newsletter for the home service industry. Period, paid or otherwise, and this one's free. Next is the huge foundation's education platform. That is, we've got over 120 hours of industry specific education and resources for you, and every month we do, uh, a topical webinar and we do question and answer with seven and eight figure business owners, and it's available to you for a $1 trial for seven days.
Next, of course. Is the huge convention or the huge convention? If you haven't been, you gotta check it out. It's every August This year it's in Nashville, Tennessee. That's August 20th through 22nd and 2025. And it is the largest and number one rated. Trade show and convention for home service business builders.
We've got the biggest trade show, so you can check out all the coolest tools and meet the vendors and check out the software to run your business. And it's got, we've got, um, education, world class education and educators and speakers that will teach you how to run a better business. And it's the best networking opportunity that you can have within the home service business.
And then lastly, if you wanna pour jet fuel in your business. Check out the Hughes Mastermind now. It's not for everyone. You gotta be at over $750,000 of revenue and you're building toward a million, 5 million, 10 million in the next five years. And it is a network, and a mentorship and a mastermind of your peers, and we help you understand and implement the Freedom operating system.
We can go into more detail, but you can get all the information on all four of these programs and how we'll help you advance your business quickly just by going to the huge convention.com. And scroll down, click on the freedom path. Or of course you can find the links here in the show notes. So, sorry, I feel like I'm getting a little bit wordy, but I just wanna let you know of the resources that are available to you to help you accelerate and advance your beautiful, small business.
So keep on growing, keep on learning, keep advancing. And if you'd like to show. Go ahead. I mean, if you would go and take 90 seconds and give us a review on iTunes, then subscribe and share it, man. It would really mean the world to us. It would help other people, and as we continue our mission to help people just like you and me.
So thanks again for listening. We'll see you in the next episode.
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