Why Brands Lose Their Audience with Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, so here’s the quick 101, and I’ll try to make a long story short—it’s great to be here, Shane. I started a swimming pool company, literally out of the back of a pickup truck with a couple of buddies in 2001. I was basically right out of college, and things were going okay until the market collapsed in 2008–2009. At that point, I thought we were going to lose the business. It looked like I was going to lose my home, and my two business partners actually lost theirs. Our 60 employees were going to be laid off.

That’s right about the time I really started to learn about what we might call inbound or content marketing—blogging, social media, and so on. In my simple pool-guy mind, I interpreted it as: “Okay, Marcus, if you just obsess over your customers’ questions and are willing to address them, you just might save your business.” So I said, “Alright, we’re going to be the best teachers in the world when it comes to fiberglass swimming pools,” and that’s exactly what we ended up being.

Long story short, we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world, and it saved our business. We ended up becoming one of the largest installers of fiberglass pools in the U.S., and now we also manufacture fiberglass pool shells, because we generated so many leads outside of our Virginia area that we decided to work with dealers all over the country.

In the process of doing all this, I started to write about what I was learning and began a simple blog in 2009—about six months after I started “They Ask, You Answer.” That blog was called The Sales Lion (I love lions, and “sales” sounded better than “marketing”), and for the first six to twelve months, not many people noticed. Then suddenly it started to pick up traction.

Companies began asking if I could teach them how to do what I did with my pool company. Conferences started inviting me to share the story. That led to two things: I started an agency—originally The Sales Lion, which became IMPACT—and today IMPACT has about 70 employees. We do digital sales and marketing strategy consulting for brands and companies worldwide. The second thing is that I now speak professionally full-time.

I still spend a couple of hours a week on my pool company (I still own it) and around ten hours a week with my agency. But most of my time is spent traveling, speaking, and spreading the word about “They Ask, You Answer.” The book came out about three years ago, and it’s still gaining momentum—usually, a book slows down after six months, but this one kept picking up. It’s been an amazing ride over the last 10 years or so since 2009.

I think there are a few things. If I’m looking at it analytically, one of them is that most people can put their arms around the “pool guy story,” right? And there’s so many directions we could go—there are intricacies of how we had this crazy success. The approach of “They Ask, You Answer” wasn’t some genius idea at all. In my mind, it just made so much sense. But it turns out nobody else was really doing a lot of the things we were doing, and it ended up being outrageously innovative for the time. What’s crazy is that even a decade later, most companies still don’t really embrace this philosophy.

They can grasp the story easily. Also, I’d say I’ve managed this—call it success or whatever—because I’ve never tried to sound smart. I think this is one of those things: when you talk about anything—your content, website, brand, message, being a speaker—there’s a group of people that, if you look at them, you can tell they’re trying to sound smart. And the moment we try to sound smart, we start losing a percentage of our audience. But if we just let that go and say, “My only job today is communion. I’m here to possibly spark a lightbulb moment by sharing what the world has taught me in simple terms, not to prove anything,” that resonates.

I think it resonated with those pool shoppers back in the day. They heard what we were doing and said, “Dude, this makes so much sense. Why aren’t we doing this?” And it continues to resonate today. That’s why it’s been so fun. But I think we forget that, a lot of the time, we try to sound smart, and it’s probably the number one piece of feedback I give people—whether it’s a speaker, a brand doing video, or a company doing content: “What are you trying to prove here?” Because it’s obvious you’re trying to show how intelligent you are. If you just teach me without trying to show it, it’ll happen organically.

There’s a component to all of this—and I say this in the right context—where, whenever you teach something, you’ve got to do it in a way that says, “Here it is; you can take it or leave it, and I’m okay either way.” It’s almost like sharing with nothing to lose.

One of the biggest issues companies struggle with in their messaging and content is that it immediately sounds biased. They’ll say things that make a viewer or reader think, “They don’t really have my best interests at heart.” So let me give you an example. With “They Ask, You Answer,” the principle is that you obsess over your customers’ questions and feel it’s your moral obligation to address them on the front end in that digital realm. Because if you don’t address those questions, they’re going to look somewhere else—and that’s who they’ll ultimately do business with.

When I was a fiberglass pool builder, a common question I’d get was, “Marcus, be honest: what’s the difference between concrete and fiberglass pools? Why should I choose fiberglass?” Now, 99% of pool companies will just start listing all the reasons why fiberglass is better. That doesn’t build trust—it shows bias.

So how do you handle this? Suppose I’m creating an article or video about fiberglass vs. concrete pools, even though I only sell fiberglass. It might sound like this: “One of the questions we get all the time is, ‘Why should I choose fiberglass over concrete?’ Well, the truth is, you shouldn’t always choose fiberglass. In fact, there are times when concrete is the better option. So in this article (or video), we’re going to honestly and transparently lay out the pros and cons of both types. By the end, hopefully you’ll have a great sense of which is the best choice for you.”

When I share that with live audiences and ask how often companies communicate like this, they almost always say, “Never.” I was recently at Bass Pro Shops, helping launch their new ATV line that Tracker makes—they already make boats, and now they’ve moved into ATVs. We were shooting product videos, and we wanted to say, “In this video, we’re going to help you figure out if this is the right ATV for you.” The manufacturing folks were like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa… of course it’s the right fit for them!” But we had a little debate about it, because if you think from the audience’s point of view—“What would I want if I was the viewer, listener, or reader?”—it becomes much clearer how to approach these decisions.

Let me tell you the most important section of a website that every company should have, which nobody listening to this podcast has right now. It’s the section on who we’re not a good fit for. This is easily one of the highest-converting pages on your site if you set it up correctly.

Once again, this goes back to simple psychology. Generally speaking, everybody’s going to say who they are, why they’re special, and the problems they solve. But almost nobody says who they’re not a good fit for. The moment you say what you’re not is the moment you become dramatically more attractive to those who are a good fit for you.

It’s the same thing with fiberglass pools. If I say, “Fiberglass is not for you if you’re looking for something longer than 40 feet, wider than 16 feet, or highly customized in shape or depth. But if you’re looking for a low-maintenance pool that’s less than 16 by 40 and less than eight feet deep, and we do have a shape that fits your needs, then it might be a great choice for you,” the qualified person who’s a fit hears that and says, “Oh, perfect. I wanted a 16-by-32 rectangle, three to five feet deep. This is exactly what I was looking for.”

That creates a greater sense of desire at that moment. But it’s fascinating how companies almost never want to say it. If you put a section on your site about who you’re not a good fit for, and do it honestly—without sarcasm or snark—you’ll find it’s a very high converter.

What’s fascinating about this is I see it across the board—companies just don’t do it. And that’s because they’re coming from this place of, to your point, “We need as many leads as possible.” But all the studies show otherwise. There was a recent B2B study showing that in a typical B2B sale, over 50% of the time, the prospect is not a good fit. Think about that: over 50% of the time. So why in the world aren’t we telling them that on the front end? They really appreciate it, and it sets a tone early on that this company or brand isn’t like everybody else, and that yes, they do have the customer’s best interests at heart.

It’s the little things that we can do. It’s no different than, let’s say, looking at the homepage of your website. A lot of people have a section that says “What makes us special?” or “Why we’re great” or “What makes us unique?” But that’s not the smartest way to say it. A better headline could be, “Are we really any different than anybody else?” That causes me to lean in because that’s exactly what I’m thinking—but it’s not the way most companies would phrase it. It’s all the same principle.

We’ve been teaching companies about video for three or four years now, and one of the most effective things we see is placing a video next to forms on landing pages. When somebody goes to fill out a form, they have four major fears: Are you going to spam me to death? Are you going to email me to death? What are you going to do with my information? What happens if I fill out this form?

So, you want a video right next to that form. That video should have a title—because if it doesn’t, it won’t get watched. And the title needs to address what the person is already thinking. So, the title could be “See Exactly What Will Happen if You Fill Out This Form.” The problem is, a lot of people title it “Why You Should Fill Out This Form,” which immediately denotes bias. As soon as you strip bias from your messaging, it’s way more attractive, and people lean in.

Yeah, I appreciate this question, and it’s actually a more difficult one to answer. I realized around age 20 that I could explain things in a way that people understood better than what I was seeing elsewhere. I was obsessive about watching the “receivers” of information. If I saw someone teaching, I’d look at the person being taught and think, “They don’t understand yet, so why is the teacher moving on?” It used to make me angry, because it didn’t make sense to move on if the student didn’t get it.

That gave me this early, innate sense that simplicity is beautiful. If you can say things in a way that makes people say, “Yes, I get that,” you’re a more effective communicator. That’s also where “They Ask, You Answer” comes from. It’s such a simple strategy—if you get a question, address it the way they think it, feel it, say it, and search it. That’s it. Most people would try to turn it into a science, but I stripped it down to the essentials, and it became more effective.

When you truly become obsessed with the way buyers think—and I don’t use that word lightly—it forces you to consider things you’ve never done before. You’re constantly asking, “Would I like that? How would I feel about that? Do I understand it?” Even now, companies show me things and I’ll say, “This isn’t clear; it doesn’t make sense yet.” Because if something’s truly obvious, anyone can hear it once and then explain it right back to someone else. That’s the quickest litmus test.

If I explain “They Ask, You Answer” to someone, and seconds later they can explain it to someone else, that’s simple. But if you read Wikipedia’s definition of content marketing, how many people will truly get it and share it easily? That’s why so many companies struggle with buy-in. A lot of marketers speak only the language of marketing, which doesn’t connect with the rest of the business—and that’s inherently built to fail.