039 marcus sherindan inbound and content marketing to increase your sales by EntrepreneursRadioShow

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

EPISODE #39: MARCUS SHERIDAN In this episode, Travis had an interesting talk with well-known speaker, established entrepreneur, and owner of the successful online, inbound marketing company SalesLion.com. An experienced trainer and practical speaker, Marcus shares some of his secrets that he has learned through time to all aspiring entrepreneurs. Travis and Marcus talked about a lot of interesting things particularly about Inbound and Content Marketing that Marcus is an expert of. Also they discussed and gave valuable insights on how to create an effective strategy for your content marketing as well as ways on how to start a great marketing campaign. Marcus also emphasized the importance of creating balance in your entrepreneurial as well as personal life, which goes hand in hand in determining your success in life.

Marcus Sheridan – Inbound and Content Marketing to Increase Your Sales Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode 39 of Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, the Entrepreneur's Radio Show, Conversations with Successful Business Owners that Grow your Business. Sandra, my co-host is still in the center of Daytona International Raceway. Sandra, I know you're listening, we miss you, get back to us as soon as possible. Today we're talking about inbound and content marketing to increase your sales. So be sure and stay with us until the very end if you can because I have a couple of things that I want to share with you also. And I'll also want to let you know who I'm going to connect you with next week in the next episode. So if you enjoy these free podcast that we create for you, we'd really appreciate it if you'd go to iTunes and post a comment, and rate the show. Now for some quick perspective on the show for our new friends that have just joined us. Even though we're talking or we're having conversations with some of the brightest entrepreneurs and brilliant thought leaders around, I want you to think of this as a conversation between four friends, me, Sandra when she's here, you, and of course, our guest. Now, everyone that we're talking with has found success doing what it is that they teach, and they want to help you by sharing what they've discovered. Now normally, the only way to get this level of personal access to so many high level entrepreneurs beyond having your own show is to join high level masterminds, go to seminars, events and build those

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

relationships over several, several years. And now through the show, I'm super excited that we get to share these great people with you to fast-forward your success. Our guest today is Marcus Sheridan of Sales Lion. Sales Lion is one of the premier inbound and content marketing companies in the world, training businesses on how to leverage content to build their digital brand, and increase sales directly. So without further ado, welcome to the show Marcus. Marcus: Travis, my pleasure. Certainly great to be here and I'm excited to hopefully offer some nuggets for all those listeners, that massive audience of yours out there, we're going to have a good time man. Travis: Yes, sir. I'm going try to keep our extra guest, my squeaky chair out of the conversation here. By setting still but I'm anxious to go deep with you on a variety of things. Before we get into some of the things that you teach, do you mind sharing your back-story of how you got to where you're at today? Marcus: Yeah, I'll give you the quick 101. Basically, I started a swimming pool company in 2001 with a couple of guys and we're basically, like a lot of companies, we started growing and we were mainly doing in-ground, fibreglass swimming pools. And about 2008, the end of that year when the economy crashed, it really affected out entire industry because nobody could get loans anymore because it didn't have any--most of them are underwater in terms of their home value, right? And so they were big trouble and people couldn't get these second mortgages these home equity loans to get swimming pools. And literally overnight, after the market crashed, the banks were closing, I had a whole bunch of-I think I have four people withdraw their deposits on contracts. So that was a couple hundred thousand dollars in business that went, and then over the next few months, things just got worse and worse, Up until the point where in January 2009, I was 3 weeks overdrawn in our bank account, we're in huge trouble, and we had to do something differently, we had to do it quick, but we didn't have any money to do advertising. Now withstanding we had to--we just like, we literally had 20% maybe of the market that we had previously because of these financial problems and so that was when I discovered inbound marketing. I happened to discover it through this company called Hub Spot, which we'll probably, we'll talk about today. So I discovered it through them and essentially I thought it was, okay, so if I'm a great teacher online through my website, I will be blessed for my labors and the search engines like Google will send people my way and the people that read my stuff will like me more and hopefully I'll learn the business that way, and so that was like my scientific way of viewing it and that's what happened. To make a long story short, we decided to become the best teachers in the world about in-ground fibreglass swimming pools, and we answered every single question we possibly could about fibreglass pools on our website. And it became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world within the next couple of years. And it saved our business.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Today, I share those principles, and how they apply to all industries and I do it through my site which is called the Sales Lion, and it's very, very fun and it's great seeing how--this isn't about swimming pools, this is truly about great teaching and great communication and if we do it well, we'll be blessed. Travis: Okay so, in that, I definitely understand where you're coming from, although I want to go a little deeper in some of the things that you talked about there. So, inbound marketing, what does that mean to you, describe that to me. Marcus: Well, we got to look at what it's not, and the way it used to be was outbound marketing, right? So we would send something out to the masses and we hope that it would stick, be at a T.V. commercial, radio advertising, print, all these things we were just constantly trying to jump in front of people as they were driving by, saying, "Stop, stop, stop, listen", right? And that is not the way it's all going because it's interruptive and we've learned to tune out the interruptions. So like with T.V., we got TiVo, now we don't have to watch the commercials, with radio, we have Sirius, we don't have to have the commercials. You can literally go down the list with phonebooks or we just stop buying phonebooks. We stop doing all these things because we didn't want to be interrupted with advertisements. What we wanted to do is we wanted to control as consumers the conversation, when we were ready, learn about stuff and we started doing it from the internet. So the internet or inbound marketing is the process of allowing people to come to you instead of you jumping out in front of them. And the reason why they come to you is because the value of the teachings and the information that's found on your site. Travis: So how do you go from struggling, what you're saying makes sense. How do you go from struggling and how are we going to cover the bills because it's tough to give back that amount of money and not bringing more sales or at least what you're accustomed to bringing in, so that causes cash flow problems. How did you transition that to cover the gap until this ramped up? Marcus: Well, we--I don't exactly remember what was going on in early 2009 other than the fact that we were struggling to get any business Travis, and it was really, really tough. I threw myself into this process of online marketing in our website. And I said I would literally be out during the day as a pool guy at 9, 11:30, 12 in the morning. I was sitting there writing blog articles, asking questions I've been asked that day from prospects. And within the first couple of months I started noticing some pretty significant results because keep in mind, these are things people weren't doing. Pool guys generally didn't see themselves as teachers; they just call themselves as pool guys, right? And so we started shifting this mentality over and it made all the difference, within 6 months there was phenomenal difference. So we just kind of floated by for the next few months, we didn't spend a lot of money though in inbound in marketing, it was just time, it was time to produce the information and put it on our website and do it in way that people said, "Oh, I understand, now I understand the solution to my problem. I understand the answer to my question whatever it was." Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Right. Well, I also, now I'm from the home improvement industry also although that's really not my passion anymore. I still have that business but I don't work in the business, and one of the things that I noticed and I'd be interested, because this really translates to a multiple of different industries is I found the home improvement industry was 3 to 5 years behind on a lot of different techniques, did you find that to be true as well? Marcus: Yeah. The centennial blue-collar industries are very antiquated thought. And when it comes to online marketing, they're very antiquated, they just don't run with it like they should which means there's huge opportunities for people like you and me that are willing to say, "Hey, let's do it differently than it's ever been done before." Travis: Right. And I got involved in SEO 2004, 2005. So it was almost like before anyone in my industry even thought about it, right? And so I dominated for words nationally, and so there's a point some industries are right on the cusp of all the breaking technologies and different industries move further and further away from that curve. And I think that maybe one thing of why your strategy, because the way that you illustrated or thought it was going to work is exactly how it works, right? Marcus: Well yeah, I look at it like this. I call the CSI, the Content Saturation Index. The CSI of every industry is different and the lower the CSI, the easier it is for someone to dominate on the web. So swimming pools was easy, very low CSI, not a lot of content out there. And so because there wasn't a lot of people, pool guys that were teaching others online about swimming pools and answering all their questions, I had the opportunity to dominate just like you did in home improvement. Now, when I got into the marketing world and started the sales line, it was way, way more difficult. In fact to build my brand with the Sales Lion, I had to spend 10 times more effort and time and it was really, really difficult, that's because the CSI was so much higher. Travis: Right, right. That's clever, CSI, that's a brilliant way of thinking about it, the amount of effort that it takes to penetrate that market, huh? Marcus: Yeah, well it's just a matter of, there‟s gaps online, and those person's and companies that are willing to fill those gaps before others do essentially captured the hill if you will. They're going to likely get on top quickly and dominate, and then there are others that are just so saturated with people writing about that stuff. If you go right now and write an article about social media, it's a good chance nobody's going to read it, and the search engines aren't going to really even see it because there's like a billion and one marketing companies that are writing about social media right now, but there's not like a billion and one people that are writing about what is the best mortar for this specialty brick that you can only find in the Himalayas, right? You just don't see that and the person that's willing to write about that, they're going to quickly become the voice of that industry. That's exactly what we are still to this day for fibreglass pool. We pretty much control that entire industry right now. If anybody is listening to this and

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

they go online and they type any question at all about a fibreglass pool, I mean, any question, I guarantee that we'll be on the first page of search engine results. Travis: Hmm, nice, and so I hear, you're preaching to the choir here, at least with me, because a lot of people will say, who wants to know about mortar from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, or well the people that are having that project done on their house or considering it. Who wants to know about preserving teak wood in the South, well, people that live in the South that are thinking about putting it on their back porch. Marcus: Here's the thing Travis, people all the time will say to me, "Marcus, how did you take an industry that wasn't very sexy and make it sexy?" I'm like, "Dude, what are you talking about?" What's sexy is not the industry; it's the money people are spending on that particular thing in that moment. So just because you and I, 99% of the world doesn't give a rip about fibreglass pools, when somebody's getting ready to spend 50 grand and they have a question that's really sexy in that moment to get an answer, and thus, every industry in the world that involves money, changing of goods is very sexy in the moment that you're ready to start dipping into your wallet and people have got to stop saying to themselves, "Must stop being sexy‟" that's a load of horse manure, it's not true whatsoever, it doesn't matter what you sell, because if somebody's spending money on it and if they have questions about it, you've got a huge opportunity that you need to take advantage of. Travis: Yeah, just because you're bored with it doesn't mean that the person looking for the answer to the problem that they have is bored with it. That 1%, that's the sexy part right there to your business at least right? Marcus: Well see, that's the thing man, business owners screw this all up. They allow their sentiments that have crept in over the years to screw it all up. The way they communicate about it, the way they teach about it. You know they got that course of knowledge, right? They think everybody understands what they understand, the way that they understand, how they understand it, they understand their acronyms, their feelings, their thoughts, etc. It's not the way that it works. You know, there's a lot of people that work that don't even know what the word social media means still. Travis: Right. Marcus: There's still a ton of people. Now you and I talk about it like it's a pronoun. Everybody understands what it is but there's a whole bunch that do not. The key to the great businesses online are the ones that are able to boil everything down like a kindergarten teacher, explaining in a way that everybody understands it. Assume that nobody knows anything at all. And if they can start from that point instead of being the college professor that's interested in hearing themselves talk, that's interested in getting the next award for whatever they just did, versus that kindergarten teacher that just cares that

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little Johnny had his question answered in a way that makes his light bulb go on and say, "Oh, okay, I get it, I understand it." Travis: Go on Marcus, tell me how you're feeling? I love it, laying it on the line, I agree with you. I'm passionate about it too. Get out of your own way and get out of that crazy thinking. We as human beings have an incredible ability to trivialize, getting our own heads and trivialize a lot of really impressive things that we do and I think that stands in the way of a lot of people making the impact that they really should be making an impact and what you're talking about is just one of those pieces there, right? Marcus: Yeah, here's the thing. I tell this to clients all the time and it offends them until they see how it works. And what I say is, "Your opinions just really don't matter at all." So like if you don't like Facebook, it really doesn't matter. If your industry found there your potential clients because if they are, that's what matters. Oh you don't read blogs, well actually you do, but let's say don't, it doesn't matter that you don't read blogs, it doesn't matter that you think the internet is stupid because your opinion doesn't mean jack. There's a whole bunch of people right now that are researching online in different ways, on different platforms within each industry. We‟ve got to address those people on their platforms regardless of whether we like it, we don't like it, we think it's cool, we think it's not. Someone says to me, "I never watch videos, why would I do video?" I'm like, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." The answer is because there's a million other people that do like it, therefore your opinion and mine, it don't matter dude, we got to do this stuff for them. We could either worry pleasing ourselves or we can worry about pleasing the client and the customer, I would rather please them. Travis: Plus, we're not trying to sell you anyways, we're trying to sell your clients, we're trying to educate your clients, we're trying to attract your clients and so just because videos are not the way that you consume things or blogs or whatever, get over the methodology because you actually want to create as many trails as possible that lead back to you. And the best way to do that is through teaching, right? Marcus: Yeah, I said opinions just don't matter. Travis: Yeah, makes sense. So, okay, you have this epiphany here of what you're going to do. So how long, did you say a matter of months before this thing transitioned for you? Marcus: Yeah, I was just a couple of months and I immediately started seeing more traffic, and that's because I was targeting those questions that people ask me all the time. And I brainstorm them, I rolled all those questions out and I started answering one by one by one. Each question was the title of a blog post that was on the site, because your blog is just a part of your website, and I just started answering them and it did get immediate results.

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Now, it's not like that in every industry, again it kind of goes back to that CSI point I was making earlier, but people say how long is this going to take? Well it's not just about SEO or attracting them through the search engine or even social media. I can write an article today that's dang good, right? That really helps potentially a client. I could go meet with that client tonight, and they address a concern, a concern that I had already written about on an article. And then after I leave, I could follow-up with them in an email and say, "Hey, Mr. Jones, it was great meeting with you today. I know you had some concerns here, here, and here. You know I've written about that and here's an article that will help you even further understand and resolve this concern. Make sure you check it out; I'll follow-up with you tomorrow.” That's a way that content, a blog article, or a video, or whatever it is, can be used immediately. Content is not just about getting people into the top of that sales funnel we hear so much about. To me the beauty of content is that it pushes them down, I think it's the best sales tool in the world but we got to use it the right way. If we're sending out emails which all this and out, why do we send it out without content, it doesn't make any sense. Every email I send out to a client or a potential client has got some type of content, some type of article, or video and say, "Make sure you check this out. This will help resolve your concerns or answer your questions." Travis: Well, when you say push them down I'm still envisioning a funnel, so clarify that for me. Marcus: Well, okay. So we got our sales funnel and a 100 people coming to this sales funnel and that 100 people might be 100 visitors to our website. The ones that actually start really reading more pages; they start to move down the funnel on their own. Now once they read more pages, now they might fill out a form or call our company and say I want to get a quote from you. But it doesn't stop there because in this point they're maybe halfway down the funnel. It used to be Travis that somebody called me up, and I don't sell pools anymore, like you, I have the company but I don't physically sell them anymore. But all my sales guys do this, I did this and that is instead of doing it the way we'd always done was somebody would call us, say, we come out, give me a price on my pool. We'd immediately just say yes and we didn't go any further, we just went out there, we answered all their questions, we gave them a quote, they probably got 2, or 3, or 4 other quotes, ladi ladiday. Well now it became, let's say you called me up Travis and say, "Hey Marcus, I've been on your site, I really like it. I want you come on out to my house and give me a quote." I'm going to say, "Yeah, sure Travis, that sounds great but listen, you're getting ready to spend a lot of money, and I know you don't want to make any mistakes, I know you want to be well-informed like everybody else, and so what I want to is I'm going to send you an email right now. And this email, it's got a couple of things you're going to like. It's got a few videos that are going to show you the whole process of having a fibreglass pool installed in your backyard. In this way, you know it, you see it, you understand it. Also, I've included here an EBook; this EBook will answer all your questions about the different types of pools as well as the accessories that you might consider buying. Now, it's an EBook of about 30 pages but its

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

well worth your time. I want you to view that EBook and view those videos before I come out there on Friday, will you do that?" And of course Travis now is going to say, "Yeah, I'll do that." And see, when I get to his house now he's going to be so much further down the funnel, and I'm going to have to spend so much less time actually teaching him because he already knows this stuff. He knows that he wants such and such heater, or such and such salt water system. I don't have to teach him. The problem that we have in sales is that we spend too much time teaching people face to face, when in reality our content is supposed to be the majority of the teaching and when we are face to face, what we're doing at that point is we're selling. That's the way it's supposed to work in business, in commerce. Travis: Well, yeah, I definitely agree with you and the impact when this is done to give you another ball, to tee another ball up for you because again I completely agree with you is the impact on this is your closing rate as well, not just the amount of leads that come to you is the closing rate, your effectiveness in the field instead of having multiple--Well, let me back up and explain. For us what it did is it eliminated the people that were just prized shoppers, because we focused on higher quality customer value type things. And so we would educate our prospects before we got to them and have the quality minded people raise their hand and the people that are just--and I grew up in a very humble part of town and we didn't have any money. So I understand what it's like to not have money to spend on your project, so those people, we were never going to sell them and that eliminated a lot of wasted time and effort, I know that sounds very crude but it's a fact. And it drove our closing rates up. Is that same result for you? Marcus: There is no question, if somebody wants to improve closing ratios, they need to integrate content into the sales process. You're dead on the money with that. I used to spend so much of my time going on fruitless appointments, and you probably heard people say this before Travis, they say, businesses say, "You know we've—our knowledge stink, they're just not very good, they're not very qualified,” whatever they want to say. Well, here's the reality about internet leads, they're as good or as crappy as the website that brought them there. And so if somebody is saying out internet leads are bad, I guarantee that their website stinks, because my internet leads today are way better than they were 4 years ago. So did the people change? Not really, the website is what‟s changed and of course the way that we use that content is what's changed. People now get so much less in terms of total quotes versus what they are getting before, and this is all, this is every industry, it's not about B to B, B to C, it's not about a service, it's not about a product. People call me up Travis today, "Hey Marcus, been reading the sales line, really like it, I want to work with you maybe on some like consulting for content marketing." I'm like, "Sure, have you read my EBook yet?" If the answer is no, they have to read that first before we continue the conversation. They have to, because if they don't, they don't really understand that I want--and it's over 200 pages, right? I want them to really know the doctrine of how I feel about content marketing and email marketing, essentially same thing. And I want them to spend--if we're having conversations face to face, I don't want it to be about elementary principles. I want them to

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

have a foundation. I've given it to them for free, they can take it. But if they don't, if not willing to take it themselves, they're also never going to be willing to do the work afterwards and like you said, the product is price-motivated, so lazy. Travis: Right. They're looking for a quick fix, rather than investing the time. It's a great litmus test just to see, how many pages did you say, 200 pages? Marcus: Yeah, the EBook is over 200 pages and when people read that, they're in love or they're not interested, and that's exactly what I want. Travis: Okay, so, what are the most common problems that you're seeing with entrepreneurs, does it go beyond these couple of things that we talked about? Is there more pillars to this entire approach or does it encompass these 2 things we've talked about? Marcus: You may say problems or you're referring to content marketing, online marketing problems, social media problems, which one specifically? Travis: Well, let's stick with marketing. There's really so many different problems associated with the metrics of successful businesses today that we could go down several rabbit holes. But let's stay on topic of the marketing piece of things because I know a lot of people are struggling to get a consistent flow of business coming in currently. Marcus: We take online marketing, our websites, and the way that they are able to generate leads, so much harder than what it should be, and we make it out to be more of a science than it should be. Let's say somebody wants to start a blog. Right now they're saying, "Okay, this whole content marketing thing, yeah, but how do I get started?" Well this is how you get started. The first thing you do is you get with any person in your company that answers questions of prospects or customers or clients every day, and you say what of the questions that we get every day? And you brainstorm them, you write them all down. Now I've done this multiple companies, big and small. I've never come up with less than a 100 questions over the course of 30 minutes before. We just write away, it's very, very easy to do this. If you take those 100 questions and you turn them into 100 titles of your first 100-blog post, then you write 2 blogs a week, that's about a year's worth of content just because you took the time to brainstorm for about 30 minutes without a filter. That's a start, a great content marketing campaign. Now there's more to it than that but to me the golden rule of all of this is they ask, you answer. That's the golden rule of digital marketing in the information age. And so if I've ever received the question, it is my moral obligation to answer it on my website. So that's why--let me give you an example on what I'm talking about. People used to ask me all the time, "So how much is a fibreglass pool cost Marcus, give me a range." And of course, you know, on the website I didn't put anything like that for years. In fact, 4 years ago when I started this process Travis nobody in the world, if you can believe it, had addressed,

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no pool guy had addressed how much a fibreglass pool cost on their website, and why? Because they were afraid, they're afraid the competition would see their prices, they're afraid of scaring people off, they're afraid of this, they're afraid of that. But if you and I were online today, and we're researching how much something cost and we can't find it, what do we do? We bounce because we become impatient. If we can't find the information we're looking for in a website, we're gone dude. We're all every single person who's listening to this has grown definitively more impatient when they search online over the past couple of years because they know if they keep looking, they'll find. And so I wrote-One of the first articles I ever wrote for my swimming pool site was how much is the fibreglass will cost? I was one of the first ones. And we've been, like 24 hours, it was number 1 on Google for a mountain of phrases. I had to do A fibreglass will cost, prices...lalala. And it was on and on and on. So far from what I can track, my most recent analytics, because I can track leads back to articles, how they came into our site, and those leads had eventually became customers. That article is up to about $1.7 million in sales, one article. All because we decided not to be the ostrich with our head in the sand, we addressed the question, but what's funny is we didn't we actually answer the question. We didn't say in there, "Well this is exactly how much it's going to cost." We just gave ranges and we said, "Hey, it really depends and here's what it depends on." But that's what the search engines and also that's what people care about, are you willing to address the question? Are you willing to control the conversation in your house, or you're basically going to ignore it and then invite people to go somewhere else. It's almost like if you're a car dealer and somebody comes in and says, "Let's see some Ford Travis." They come in to your shop and say, "Can you tell me more about those Mustangs like how much is it going to cost me?" And you say, "You know what, I can't tell you that but if you go down the road, they'll answer the question and if you like the answer you could come on back and you get it." That's a load of crap, but we do it all the time. And I've given this talk a hundred times now in different conferences. If I'm in a room full of a hundred business owners and I say to them, "How many of you talk extensively about cost and price on your website?" What percentage do you think Travis raised their hand? Travis: How many people talk about price on their website is the question? Marcus: Yeah. How much out of a hundred raised their hand? Travis: Out of a hundred, I would say, probably zero or maybe 1-2%. Marcus: 1-2% is the answer every single time but at the same time, if I ask that same group of people, "How many of you get offended if you're shopping and you can't find cost-price information on a website?” 100% raised their hand. In other words, they're all hypocrites, we're all hypocrites. We treat people or we expect them better stated to treat us differently than we want to be treated when we're on a website. That's bad business, it doesn't make any sense. The transparent marketer wins the day when it comes to the information age. The one that is willing to address every single question. Just like people used to ask me all the time, "Marcus, what are the pros of fibreglass pools because I've been Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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hearing about it." So what I'd do, go to the rule, they ask, you answer. I wrote about it, that's why if you go online right now and you type in fibreglass pool problems, I'm number one, fibreglass pool issues, I'm number one, fibreglass pool blistering, I'm number one. It doesn't matter what it is, good, bad, and different, I'm going to be that guy that you're going to read about every single time, because I'm going to control the conversation. Travis: Interesting. I've got to admit that you've given me a unique perspective on the price thing because I've never, because of course we get it out, the construction company all the time. How much does it cost to paint the house, and it's kind of like an inside joke. Well, what size is the house, what color it is? There are so many questions that go into the answer of that, right? And although if you really sit down and break that question down, I could give you the range like you talked about. And we've just really never even, and I excel, we excel or we have excelled at SEO and things like that. So that's a really interesting perspective. So one of the action items I hear you say here for our entrepreneurs that are listening is to, number one, sit down with your staff, with your sales persons or if it's just you. Brainstorm with just titles of questions that you get asked and try to come up with a 100, if not more, is that correct? Marcus: Yep, that's it! Travis: And then answer those questions and schedule them to go out twice a week and you're set for the next year. What other actionable items can people do to start ramping things up in their business? Anything else come to mind? Marcus: Yeah, that's the first thing and see most people don't do that, and I say what you don't want to do what you don't want to do is you don't want to say, "You know what, I'm hearing Twitter is really cool, let's go on Twitter. Everybody's on Facebook, let's get on Facebook. Everybody's on LinkedIn, let's go on LinkedIn.” Because what happens is you're going to be a Jack of all Social Media trades and master of none. It doesn't work, it doesn't work, it's impossible, prevails law always wins. And so if you really want to be good when it comes to all these social media and this content marketing stuff, you got to pick one, capture that hill, right? Get good at that thing and then branch yourself out and starts getting good at other things, but if you try to be good at everything, you'll be average at everything at best. That's one of the biggest mistakes that I'm seeing these days. Travis: So that's a--rather than an action item, that's a not to do, figure out which social media would be best for your genre or your field of expertise of the business that you're in and then focus on conquering that one hill rather than try to do all 4 or 5. Marcus: Yeah, people overwhelm man. I mean everybody's like I just don't know where to start, there's so many things I need to be doing, and for me that's why I keep everything basic. I'm not really into like, Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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here's 10 things you should do because how many people listening to this. If I asked every listener right now to this show. How many questions have you received over the years about that thing that you do? Everybody would say hundreds, maybe thousands. And then if I ask the question, how many of those hundreds, if not thousands of questions have you actually answered on your website? The average answer would be 10. We're talking 99% of the people would say 10, and that is appalling because what we're doing is we're telling people that we really don't care. It's like, why you always question, but just call me. I mean how we feel when call the car-a-lot and we ask them a question, and they say, "Oh yeah, you know, just come on in, we'll tell you all about it. Come on in." We don't go there anymore. And there's a lot of businesses that have that car-a-lot approach, it does not work. Transparency wins the day. I can't beat that horse enough and that's the horse that I beat, because nobody does it really, really well. Travis: But Marcus I do care, I do care. And you're saying go deep with the questions then, right? Marcus: If we care we don't ignore the question. See, most people say they care but they follow an „ostrich marketing‟ approach. Look at what the ostrich does, it's such a stupid animal and it's like most of us. I was an ostrich big time. Ostrich sees a potential threat or problem i.e. So how much does it cost to paint my house? That's a potential threat or problem. And what does the ostrich do? Ostrich buries its head in the sand. And what does the ostrich think? This is what's so funny about the ostrich, it thinks that if it keeps its head in the sand long enough, what will be there or what won't be there when it pops back out. The problem, but it's still there, the dude still wants to know how much is it going to cost to paint my house. We can sit there and--there's a stat that recently came out that's so dug on true. 70% of our buying decision is made before we talk to that company. And the way that it's made is through the betting process online. We make our decision and judgments, we vet them, we're 70% home, and we're basically calling that company to confirm our thoughts or say, "Oh well, maybe they're not such a good fit after all." That's the way that we change the buying process. Business owners can either embrace that mentality or they complain about the internet. Travis: Good stuff. I agree 100% and again, I'm advanced at marketing on many levels and what you're talking about is brilliantly simple, you really don't even need to do the keyword research to find out what people are typing in because the people are talking to you, they're telling you what they need to know. Marcus: Yeah, there's nothing brilliant about me. Every listener of your show has already figured that out. I clearly was not the fastest swimmer in the pool growing up, and I think in some ways though, that has been the advantage that I've had because having over-analyzed this whole marketing thing. So I didn't even bother at first using any keyword tools whatsoever. Nothing, I didn't use anything. Okay, I haven't seen all. I've been in this business for 7 years, I've gotten hundreds of questions, I'm just going to write them down... And I answer them all day long so I'm just going to type out these answers. And Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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oh well, it's not perfect, who cares, because I'm going to put it out there, because I got no choice. Essentially, there's a financial gun to my head and I had to do what I had to do. Travis: Good stuff, I like it. Let's transition to the lightning round. I've got 3 questions plus I've got some other things that I want to blend in there, we're just kind of letting this thing flow. I did give you 3 questions and I'm going to pop a couple of surprise questions on you also. So are you ready to shift into the lightning round? Marcus: Yeah, fire away man, I'm ready for any question you got. You can now ask me my waist size, I don't care man. Here we go. Travis: What book or program made an impact on you related to business that you would recommend and why? Marcus: You know, as far as book is concerned. I'm going oldie but goody here, I think the greatest book that I've ever read is How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is a literal road map for anybody that wants to be good at social media, period. A road map, it's so freaking great. Now a more modern book that I love which is just wonderful is the book Good to Great, because it talks about the concept of fly wheel effect or your hedgehog concept which is that thing that you do better than anybody else. And if you really go after that one thing you can do amazing things within that one thing, right? And that's why I said don't be a „jack of all social media trades.‟ That's why I became just the fibreglass pool guy, that's why I became a content marketing guy. You notice I'm not like a Twitter guy, I'm not like a Facebook guy, I'm all these guys because I want to be great with one thing which is content marketing. So those are the two books that I absolutely adore. Travis: Excellent suggestions. What is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, if any, that you would recommend to other business owners and why? Marcus: Well, the one that started it all for me was Hub Spot, which is all-in-one marketing software, which allows us to be in control. Allows us into email marketing system, it's an analytic system, it's a social media tool, it's all these things and the education makes a lot easier for you. I absolutely love Hub Spot, I talk about it a lot on the sales line, and more than anything, that tool, along with my efforts, is what catapulted my swimming pool company to be the most trafficked in the world. And with their inbound marketing system that they have for the ones that actually apply the teachings, really used the tool because remember the tool is only as good as the person that's swinging the hammer, right? The one that really do it the right way, boy they have phenomenal success. Travis: Infusionsoft owns them now, right?

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Marcus: Oh no, they're direct competitors. In fact I just wrote an article on my site. Infusionsoft vs. Hub Spot, it's a great article comparing two of the more popular, automated marketing solutions for small businesses. Travis: I could've sworn that Infusionsoft have acquired them. Okay, alright. So what is the famous quote that would best summarize your belief or your attitude in business? Marcus: “No success outside the home makes up for failure within the walls of your own home.” And I think about that a lot, because I think, I see a lot of people that don't have balance in their life and I know as I have become more successful Travis with all this web stuff and more successful financially, and more on solid ground, I've also at that same time, become a better father and husband, I spend more time at home than I ever have, and my kid know me better than they've ever known me. And I've got 4 kids, so it's pretty important that they know me. And I‟m really, really proud of fact that feels like the relationship of my family has improved perfectly in conjunction with my success in the financial arena. Travis: I think that's a challenge for all driven people because--I used to feel like the lone ranger when it comes to this. I was the only person that I find that it's a common trait amongst the driven or successful people is they tend to be so driven and so focused that they struggle with balance. So how old are you? Marcus: 35. Travis: 35. So with age you get better and better at those things. Man, I'm glad to hear that you're finding that balance. I know that I was terrible at it at 27; I was better at 35, and much better at 45, although it's still a struggle for me. Do you still...

Marcus: Well, I think it's--I think there is a myth of finding balance because I don't think it's ever possible but I think it's got to be a goal that we're focusing on other components of our life because the reality is if we're screwed up emotionally, financially, eventually we're going to be a train wreck as well. If we're a train wreck financially, it's going to affect us spiritually, it could affect us physically. You know I work out hook or crook every night, one hour on elliptical rain, sleet, snow, hail, tornado, it doesn't matter because I don't want to be physically off. I go to church on Sundays, I'm not saying that arrogantly but I do that because I don't want to be spiritually off. I try to be a good person. I have a date night with my wife once a week because emotionally I want to be on. I stay up 'till one or two in the morning, three in the morning writing blog articles when the rest of the world is often times asleep, because temporally I want to be a success. And that's what I mean when I say balance. I focus on all those things but I do it, like you man, I do it full board.

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Travis: Right. And it balances kind of like, I view it like a ship leaving one port and heading to another. You're constantly navigating yourself back on target and when I was younger I was less flexible and less understanding. And now with age I'm more, I have a more smoother way of getting back on course and handling those that love me, because when you're driven you're just so locked in to being aggressive that you can be very one way or I'll speak for myself. I know I can, I just got a lot better with those important issues in my own family so I'm glad to hear that you're finding balance there. You sound like a super energetic guy, so you have the same problems as all of us do. Marcus: Oh man, we're all going through it, you know. Yesterday I had a 90-minute window. It was my 6 year old‟s birthday, but you better believe man. She and I jumped in the car, we went on a daddydaughter day, and I got her a dozen roses, I took her to the library, I got her first library card, gave her the gift of knowledge. For her it's something she'll never forget. I'm not trying to act like I'm dad of the year because I'm sure I got thousand flaws but what I'm saying is we just got to fill-in those gaps, we got to be aware of those things. Travis: Yeah, I get you completely. Let me ask you, what do you dream of achieving next in your business or your life? Marcus: You know, I would say that the one person--people will say, who do you want to be like? And I don't want to act like I want to be anybody but when I look at any person and say, "I love that man." Jim Rohn is my hero, R-O-H-N, for those that haven't read Jim before, I think he was the greatest personal development mind of the, basically from 1980 to about 2000, I thought he was the pinnacle. And he really had this magical way of helping people on a personal and emotional level, at the same time helping them reach their business potential. And so right now I'm really focused on business. But over time I want to more and more integrate the personal development side more for two together; getting back to that balancing that we talked about earlier. Travis: Good stuff. I like Jim Rohn myself. Okay, so, as far as social media that you use for your own business, I understand you don't want to be this person teaching all of these different platforms. What social media sources are you using to connect with your audience the most? Marcus: Well every platform is different. The swimming pool industry is pretty much for a person that just installs in ground pools. Facebook has very little value because Facebook is more for that customer that keeps coming back like restaurant, great Facebook business. Twitter has very little value for swimming pools because most people on searching online using Twitter to find swimming pool companies, so for River Pools my swimming pool company, it's just about great content and leveraging that in the sales process. Now with the sales line very different, it's a marketing route. I get at least probably like 20-30% of all my traffic through Facebook and through Twitter, it's very, very valuable to me. It's interesting how every industry is different in terms of where the people are and I think the key is

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that we just, we gauge that and then once we see where it is and see the best usage for those particular mediums, then we go after them aggressively. So I would say those are the other ones that I use, I'm just not prolific with them. I love Twitter but I'm not prolific with it at all. Travis: Yeah, it could be a challenge to keep up with it, there's so many things flowing through the river there and I only follow a 120 people so I don't see how people follow 3,000 people. But I'm probably not using the tool as good as many others but I use Facebook and Twitter as well. Let's connect on those and stay connected with each other. You would be a great resource for me on many levels and so I love your energy, you're just such a sincere, straightforward, all-out type person. You're my kind of guy, and the value and the presence that you've brought to this interview is just off the charts so I want to thank you for that. Marcus: Hey man, it's my pleasure. I tell people, it's not my goal to sound intelligent, it's not my goal to write intelligent stuff, and nobody's ever really accused me of that, this is not Victor Hugo, you don't have to really think hard to interpret what you just read. I just want people to hear what I say and say, "Man, this really isn't that hard, we just had to put in work. But the strategy, this is no science, we can really, really be good at this stuff. I want everybody to realize it is possible for them, they're not the exception, their industry is not unique. When all is said and done, all we're really talking about is principles here. Just principles, teaching, communication, be good to other folks, have balance. Man, it's just principles and if we learn how to apply it, we're going to be better off. Travis: Ditto, I agree with you 1,000%. Hey can you hangout for a couple more minutes? Marcus: Yeah, sure. Travis: Excellent. So listen, as always what I'm going to do is I'm going to take and I'm going to post the links. How can we connect with you Marcus? Marcus: Well, best place to find me is on the Sales Lion, L-I-O-N.com, I'm at the Sales Lion on Twitter, and you can email me at Marcusthenumberone@thesaleslion.com

End of Interview Travis: Yeah, and I'll put all of those links up on the site. So one of the things that I want to remind you to do is go below the bio here of Marcus and the introduction of the show, and you'll--into the show notes section and you can find all of the links to the books, the resources, and really everything that he

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mentioned. Also, remember to go to DIYOB.com, so that's short for DiamondsinYourOwnBackyard.com, DIYOB.com, and enter your name and we'll send you the 2013 Business Owner's Guide, “From Frustration to $70 million” a behind the scenes look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success. Now you don't need to want to grow your business to that level, this applies really to all level businesses. It's a lot of the things that I found on my way to building my business to that level. And so when you opt-in, you'll become a member of the authentic entrepreneur nation, which is really a network of people, tools, and resources that you can refer to that you can trust to grow your business. This is basically our private rolodex, mine and Sandra‟s that we use and recommend that you'll have access to as soon as it goes live. Now I want to close the show today with a quote from one of favorite people, a famous person, Napoleon Hill, and the quote goes like this. "Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” Now I know some of you have found that being a business owner in the last few years more challenging than ever and I want to encourage you to keep going. What you're doing does matter. I know this may sound a little hokey but I believe we're connected in a multiple of ways that we really haven't even started to grasp yet, and based on that I believe that one of the many benefits of being an entrepreneur is that you're inspiring others. So no matter where you're at in business, there are people that would love to have the opportunity and the courage to do what you're doing so trust me when I say you're an inspiration to others. In the next episode, I'm going to connect you with the super passionate Forbes Riley and her unshakable belief regarding the impact a healthy lifestyle can make in your business and your life. So be sure to join us. This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. To your success, may you continue to inspire those around you to go after their dreams too. Talk to you in the next episode. Thanks.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

How We Can Help You We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost. Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever! We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within your business. This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons are. As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the middle of a daily management. And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial. This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show “Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

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