Is Your Business Built for the Next Five Years? [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 100]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

 

00:01:31:07 - 00:01:46:23

Alex Winter

Welcome back to Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. This is our 100th episode. And if you haven't noticed, we're not in the studio. We're in Chicago at Impact Live. And I have a very special guest. We're here with, keynote speaker, author of the new book, Endless Customers. Marcus Sheridan. Welcome to the show.

 

00:01:46:23 - 00:01:58:08

Marcus Sheridan

Right. All right, here we go again. Yay yay yay. I'm so I'm so glad we put up that clap sign so that everybody just did that. That was that was perfect. Y'all nailed it.

 

00:01:58:14 - 00:02:12:00

Alex Winter

Yes. And we got the balloons for the hundredth episode. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. Yeah yeah yeah. So we're going to go a little off script from what we normally do on our episodes, and we're going to do more of an AMA today. We had some questions submitted online. We're going to have runners here live at the show.

 

00:02:12:00 - 00:02:29:10

Alex Winter

They're going to ask questions from the audience. So let's just get right into it. Let's do it. Yeah. All right. So I got my questions on my trusty phone here. Let's pull this out. And the first question that we have is from Brian over at Paragon Payroll. And he says Paragon Payroll, at least disruptive content in the form of cannabis committed manifesto.

 

00:02:29:10 - 00:02:50:15

Alex Winter

Initially it was mostly ignored, although we did have one direct competitor. And he responded very angrily, they ultimately self-identified with the negative descriptions. We chose not to respond. More recently, another competitor posted on Lee an open letter to cannabis, reaffirming the commitment these sales leaders reposted. In case anyone was wondering about our commitment to the cannabis industry.

 

00:02:50:17 - 00:03:05:18

Alex Winter

So we drew a line, and now someone is trying to self-identify as being at our level, when in reality they may not meet the qualifications. So do we ignore it? Do we engage as an open dialog? Do we respond? What do we what do they do? What? What advice me to give.

 

00:03:05:18 - 00:03:25:10

Marcus Sheridan

All right. So you know, throughout these couple days we've been talking about disruption and disruption takes more bravery, being very frank with you because what happens is not only you're going to people or people or organizations going to come after you. And when I say come after you, generally speaking, they complain. They say things like, what gives you the right to say that?

 

00:03:25:10 - 00:03:46:18

Marcus Sheridan

What gives you the right to do that? Have you all seen that, Michel at all? Have you all seen that? All right. I know you've seen it. And, anybody that that really pushes the envelope when it comes to sales and marketing in their industry is going to see that, I have always come from this place of whenever I see someone trying to do something like this, making claims to.

 

00:03:46:20 - 00:04:11:08

Marcus Sheridan

I'll take that as flattery. Yeah. And that's generally my first perspective. I also think that, coming from this, like, abundance mindset, I don't worry about what everybody else is doing. I think we should always be more focused on the customer and meeting the customer where the customer is and where the customer is going, which of course, is what we've been talking about this whole time.

 

00:04:11:10 - 00:04:42:22

Marcus Sheridan

I think, you know, they're in an industry that is naturally going to invite negative comments, right? At the same time, they believe what they believe and you know, they're going at it and they're putting their stake in the ground. And I think that's dang awesome. And I think that's all we can do. If someone comes to you with negative stuff, I can tell you this when I am on, LinkedIn and talking about AI because I don't get any negative comments for the most part on anything else.

 

00:04:43:00 - 00:05:10:09

Marcus Sheridan

But when it comes to AI, because there's this visceral, just almost like very carnal fear, primal fear that this is going to steal my identity, my career, my job. People get very, very emotional. And, sometimes it turns ugly. So my general rule of thumb, and this is with any comments or anything that you deal with online, is that if someone is mean, you nuke it.

 

00:05:10:11 - 00:05:36:05

Marcus Sheridan

You just get rid of it. Don't respond to it. If someone is does not agree with you. But it's well intentioned, they're just explaining why they don't agree with you. Then respond and thank them for their disagreement and have some dialog. Those are my rules. They don't have to be your rules. But keep in mind your platform. That's your house.

 

00:05:36:11 - 00:06:04:01

Marcus Sheridan

Your house has rules. Certain people are invited. Certain people are not invited. I don't invite mean people to my house. And so I will, because I've had people say, why do you delete someone if you're Mr. Authentic? Because they're mean and I don't want negative energy. And that's my most authentic self, is I if I see someone trying to just put their negative cloud just out.

 

00:06:04:03 - 00:06:19:00

Marcus Sheridan

But if that person the humanly disagrees but has the best intentions and truly believes it, like keep them there and let's have a dialog. And if you can't agree, it's okay to say we don't agree. But I'm just so grateful that you're willing to share your thoughts.

 

00:06:19:02 - 00:06:25:09

Alex Winter

It's the key. It reminds me of the ostrich. You put that graphic up earlier. Yeah. You don't want to stick your head in the sand. Unless, of course, it's crossing the line.

 

00:06:25:11 - 00:06:31:12

Marcus Sheridan

That's right. Yeah. And you'll define your line, whatever that is. Yeah. As a brand. And that line could move over time.

 

00:06:31:14 - 00:06:45:04

Alex Winter

Absolutely. All right. Next question. We got one from Andy from Paradise Energy. What tips do you have for getting stakeholders on board with publishing content that could negatively impact the relationships they have with their vendors, i.e. yellow clients, for an example?

 

00:06:45:10 - 00:07:25:17

Marcus Sheridan

Okay, so this starts with foundational beliefs. As a company, you have to say as an organization is our most important, let's say, source of influence. Is it the buyer? Is it the non fit customer? Is it the competitor? Is it the vendor manufacturer OEM? You literally have to ask yourself that question. Yeah. If you say our most important the one that we want to to win the trust with the most is in this case the buyer.

 

00:07:25:20 - 00:07:48:14

Marcus Sheridan

Well then you need to base your decisions off of that. Make the commitment. The problem is that company that's saying, I don't know if I want to do that. They haven't made the commitment yet to putting the buyer first. Now, when you say negative things about folks, though, you have relationships with you better do it in a way that yielded, which is inarguable.

 

00:07:48:16 - 00:08:07:11

Marcus Sheridan

So GE might not like the fact that Yale publishes it, but they are not going to argue with the fact that the numbers are the numbers, and therein lies the difference. So don't just say you know, we don't like this manufacturer at all. They're terrible. We don't recommend them. That is not a road that you want to go down.

 

00:08:07:11 - 00:08:10:06

Marcus Sheridan

It's going to invite negative energy. It's not going to be worth it to you.

 

00:08:10:08 - 00:08:14:22

Alex Winter

So really try to use the data and use real, real stuff instead of instead of stick.

 

00:08:14:22 - 00:08:20:04

Marcus Sheridan

With the data and stick with the facts. Use the things that they say about themselves, quote them, stuff like that.

 

00:08:20:04 - 00:08:43:23

Alex Winter

Great points. All right. Noah asks, do you have suggestions to get more prospects to see my stuff on LinkedIn, which you are very good at instead of others in the industry? I'm a CPA and well, average a few thousand interactions on my personal posts, but it's most almost entirely fellow accountants. So trying to spread out of their niche and to a bigger audience basically, right now.

 

00:08:44:01 - 00:09:08:19

Marcus Sheridan

This is one of those things where LinkedIn is really not very easy to build a brand. And, what's most frustrating about LinkedIn and a lot of other platforms is oftentimes the best stuff I put on LinkedIn is going to get the least amount of engagement. Case in point yesterday I published the image of the perfect pricing page.

 

00:09:08:21 - 00:09:29:19

Marcus Sheridan

I think that thing is great. In fact, I've already gotten a couple messages today, which really made me happy of people that are reading endless customers. And two people already said that perfect pricing page is so helpful, so I know it's going to be good. I know it's helpful. I've had some of you that have been doing the me answer for years said, wow, this is really helpful.

 

00:09:29:21 - 00:09:52:19

Marcus Sheridan

I put it on LinkedIn and for me, if it doesn't get more than 100 engagements like, likes or whatever you wanna call it, that's a low number for me on LinkedIn. I don't really think I'm going to publish it no matter what, because it's good. And that's that's my guide. But you just want to remember that, sadly, just because something is valuable doesn't mean it's going to get a ton of engagement.

 

00:09:52:23 - 00:10:21:12

Marcus Sheridan

Then the question becomes, well, what type of engagement do I want? The easiest way to get engagement on LinkedIn is to talk negative about any type of boss or management practices, or to invoke rage. That is how you go viral for the most part on LinkedIn. And that's not really healthy life. So I'm not going to recommend that to anyone.

 

00:10:21:14 - 00:10:48:14

Marcus Sheridan

What you can do, though, is you can be more provocative of thought. And if there's one thing that I am when I look at myself on LinkedIn or how you need to be on any platform, is you need to understand. When we talk about things like hooks and Stephanie was talking about that and drawing people in, maybe with your first line and making them work, establishing that curiosity gap or coming out with a strong opinion.

 

00:10:48:16 - 00:11:13:21

Marcus Sheridan

These are things that are very, very intentional. And so I am very intentional about the style of like, what does that first sentence look like? And I will debate what a first sentence of a textual post looks like for ten 15 minutes. And I'll try multiple before I say that feels right. That draws me in. Now, if I'm a CPA, I will tell you I'm doing a lot of video on LinkedIn and I'm talking directly to businesses.

 

00:11:14:00 - 00:11:14:14

Alex Winter

Yeah.

 

00:11:14:16 - 00:11:23:14

Marcus Sheridan

And I'm being very, very, opinionated about what's happening in the world of accounting, whatever that is.

 

00:11:23:18 - 00:11:25:10

Alex Winter

But really, like staking your claim.

 

00:11:25:12 - 00:11:55:08

Marcus Sheridan

Really putting the stakes in hard and going aggressive after the big mistakes that people will make. The bad practices that you see in the industry, what gets companies in trouble in relationship with their CPA firm? That's another one. Things that CPA firms do that you just don't think are right. Yeah. But doing it in such a way that it doesn't make you look like the boy or girl that cried wolf.

 

00:11:55:10 - 00:12:03:11

Marcus Sheridan

You know, you don't want to be that person on LinkedIn, just a rabble rouser type of person. You want to be very, very thoughtful about it.

 

00:12:03:11 - 00:12:19:13

Alex Winter

I think it goes to your point, because we talk about headlines and setting that hook and how important it is to set the hook. Yes, and the language that you use. But you if everything that you do is shouting from the rooftops, it it's a five alarm fire. People are going to get used to that. People are going to start to realize that that's your stick or whatever.

 

00:12:19:13 - 00:12:23:16

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah. And it's not going to matter eventually does wear off. You have to be very careful about that.

 

00:12:23:19 - 00:12:28:05

Alex Winter

Do you ever use this? I'm going off tangent here. Do you ever use GPT or AI to help? Let me tell you.

 

00:12:28:05 - 00:12:50:18

Marcus Sheridan

Exactly how I write my my posts. Okay, cool. I do the same thing every single, every single time. Today's, post was actually very, very similar to this. I will write the entire post out myself first. Rarely ever do I use any AI with the first draft. I will then look at the post and read it multiple times to see if it feels right.

 

00:12:50:20 - 00:13:10:08

Marcus Sheridan

Then I'll put it through ChatGPT and through Claude and see what their recommendations are based on the prompts that I give it, which is essentially what I'm saying to it, is I want this to be more. This is of the rough prompt AI, and keep in mind that it knows me very, very well, especially ChatGPT. I want this to be thoughtful.

 

00:13:10:10 - 00:13:32:20

Marcus Sheridan

I want this to be clear. I want this to be incisive. Incisive is a big one for me. You notice I have a very incisive style of I say things in short sentences, and it's a very punchy style, and I want it to be provocative but provocative in the right tone, in the right way. I also tell ChatGPT do not change it if it's good.

 

00:13:32:22 - 00:13:34:12

Alex Winter

This that's a good point.

 

00:13:34:12 - 00:13:53:06

Marcus Sheridan

And this is one that I would recommend that you use. I have a game that I play every day, and I was talking about it with someone here, which is every day I have this hope that when I wake up and I produce my post, that ChatGPT is going to say, I got nothing for you. This is great.

 

00:13:53:08 - 00:14:21:22

Marcus Sheridan

It hasn't happened yet. What does happen, though, is generally I end up changing 5 to 10% of the post because there's just something that's a little bit clunky or not. As flowing or not as clear. And I'm extremely, extremely comfortable with that. And I feel very good about that. I see it no different than if I had a writing coach, and I turned in my draft to my writing coach, and the writing coach said, hey, let's look at these two parts.

 

00:14:22:00 - 00:14:44:15

Marcus Sheridan

And I ended up changing them. To me, that's not cheating at all. And I'm not creating the lazy I brain. If you create your post just through AI, I did the all the ideation. I did the first draft, I did the second draft, and then you ended up manipulating or editing a little bit of it yourself. At the end.

 

00:14:44:17 - 00:15:09:04

Marcus Sheridan

I don't think that's actually very good. I wouldn't recommend that because more than anything, you're not going to learn to think for yourself. So I continue to be obsessed with doing all my first drafts and then inviting my editor to come in and offer its thoughts. That's great. The one stinky thing about this for the first time, the other day I did a post and I was really proud of the post.

 

00:15:09:10 - 00:15:30:22

Marcus Sheridan

Really proud. And that's a big gauge for me. Do I feel proud of this? I want to feel proud and if I don't feel proud, I get very frustrated myself later for even publishing the thing. And after posting it and on this particular one, I probably changed out of 150 words. Maybe 3 or 4 words were changed because of I.

 

00:15:31:00 - 00:15:52:17

Marcus Sheridan

Somebody on LinkedIn said this would have been pretty good if it hadn't been written by AI. And I was like, oh, you s oh, I just you little sucker. Yeah. All right. And, that though is a reflection. And you've heard me talk about this. That's something that we're all going to have to deal with, which is the reality paradox.

 

00:15:52:19 - 00:16:11:08

Marcus Sheridan

The reality paradox. You're starting to experience it right now. And this is in the future. Everything you see online, you won't know immediately as to whether or not it was human produced or AI produced. You won't know if it's real or you won't know if it's AI generated.

 

00:16:11:10 - 00:16:12:13

Alex Winter

Yeah, it's already starting to happen.

 

00:16:12:13 - 00:16:33:10

Marcus Sheridan

That's our future. Yeah. Even on my offshore fishing, YouTube channel, which we use 0.0 AI for anything with that channel, I'm starting to post videos now and people will comment. That's not real. That's AI. And I'm like, no, you dingleberry. That happened I was there.

 

00:16:33:14 - 00:16:33:20

Alex Winter

Yeah.

 

00:16:34:01 - 00:17:00:17

Marcus Sheridan

So it's going to be pretty frustrating for a lot of us in this room to experience folks not believing that this is, that this you are the creator. This also, sadly, as a byproduct of what's happening, it will diminish how we view genius because. Interesting. Just like, what's his name? Tom Clancy uses a ton of ghost writers, right?

 

00:17:00:17 - 00:17:02:22

Marcus Sheridan

Like, he doesn't write most of his books now.

 

00:17:03:00 - 00:17:04:04

Alex Winter

He's got hundreds of them.

 

00:17:04:06 - 00:17:21:18

Marcus Sheridan

And that's why he's got hundreds of books. Yeah, but he's got a strong brand, and people buy it. But he didn't write most of those. He just essentially reviews, approves, etc.. Right? Right. If you ran all of his books through AI, you'd find there's multiple authors because there different styles. Okay, okay, that's fine. I don't fault him for it.

 

00:17:21:21 - 00:17:40:11

Marcus Sheridan

But what it does naturally, it changes the perception when people are reading a Clancy book, they might say, so is this the real Clancy, or is this just one of his ghost writers? Gotcha. You see, I'm saying. Yeah. So I'm not excited about that. But that is something, a reality we're all going to have to accept. That's the reality.

 

00:17:40:11 - 00:18:05:12

Marcus Sheridan

Paradox is going to be very, very prominent for you in the future. I do think that there's going to be certain digital watermarks that are going to overcome that problem, that they haven't yet been invented. I think blockchain could also be an answer to this veracity component of, what's online that that's going to might end up being the one of the biggest benefits of blockchain.

 

00:18:05:14 - 00:18:26:11

Alex Winter

In the future. Yeah. You know what I find too. And this, this maybe it's unique to me, but when I try really hard to post something and I spend time and I think about it, those tend to perform not as well as something that I'm just like, I'm just going to send it and see what happens. And that's the one that blows up is it's confusing at times because I don't understand why when I put effort in, it doesn't get the same result as some of these ones that maybe I don't put as much effort into.

 

00:18:26:11 - 00:18:38:09

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, I would just say, remind yourself, am I? Am I writing this or producing this for my buyer? Or am I producing this to get engagement oftentimes through very different audiences?

 

00:18:38:09 - 00:18:39:03

Alex Winter

That's a really good point.

 

00:18:39:03 - 00:18:59:21

Marcus Sheridan

And and there are times when we want to do stuff that is more viral oriented, and there's a value in that, as we'll talk about in August. But there's absolutely times when we just want to produce something that is for something very specific, and we know it's not going to get huge run, but it's it matters and we need to lean into it at that time because it might be very bottom of the funnel.

 

00:18:59:23 - 00:19:05:07

Marcus Sheridan

Right? Less generalist, more specific. Naturally, it doesn't lend itself to virality at that point.

 

00:19:05:07 - 00:19:17:10

Alex Winter

Right. Makes sense. All right. Let's go on to our next question. We got one from Natalie Jordan. She's from Secure Ideas. She asks what characteristics do you see in teams who fail to find success when taking part in the Endless Customers coaching program?

 

00:19:17:12 - 00:19:42:00

Marcus Sheridan

Oh, that's a really great, great question. Oftentimes they start off on the wrong foot. They skipped alignment day. That's the biggest, it's one of the biggest ones that we see. We see a big problem with fake obstacles that are created. That are like like, like you just see situations where you have a company and five people need to approve every single article that gets produced.

 

00:19:42:06 - 00:20:05:08

Marcus Sheridan

That's destined for frustration and failure. It's going to be slow. It's not going to be very good. If you have a situation where you have, the bigger the company gets, oftentimes attorneys can really screw things up. There's two types of attorneys in this world for businesses. The ones that feel like it's their job to say no, and the one that feels like it's their job to figure out how to say yes.

 

00:20:05:10 - 00:20:25:02

Marcus Sheridan

If you are looking for the one that feels like it's their job to say no, I can be your attorney because I can tell, you know, and they have zero value to you. So you want to recognize this because as you do creative things, if you have an attorney who says you shouldn't do that, you're like, well, what you need to do is show me how to do that.

 

00:20:25:02 - 00:20:47:16

Marcus Sheridan

They need to be thinking in a very yes and way. So I would just, you know, I would point that out there is, when we do not have serious leadership involvement from the top, rarely does they ask you answer, excuse me, unless customers just fire off. Yeah, especially on the 90 day planning sessions.

 

00:20:47:17 - 00:20:48:05

Alex Winter

We talked.

 

00:20:48:05 - 00:20:49:07

Marcus Sheridan

About that. That is just.

 

00:20:49:07 - 00:20:51:19

Alex Winter

It's time and time that is a have to. Yep.

 

00:20:51:21 - 00:21:14:10

Marcus Sheridan

If someone approaches us and says, I really want my team to do this, I'm not going to be able to be very involved. But I'm excited for my team. We'll say no because we do know from experience that will fail. That is absolutely a major. Yeah. Also, if your sales manager isn't completely bought in, sales managers have a huge influence on a company just across the board.

 

00:21:14:12 - 00:21:35:00

Marcus Sheridan

They have to be as excited as the marketing team. That's what makes Mozilla so good. Because Tom over there, right? He is like he's he's the CFO. Like it's I'm CRO of a huge, huge company. Yet he keeps coming to Impact Live. It's a nearly $1 billion company. And he's coming to Impact live.

 

00:21:35:00 - 00:21:36:19

Alex Winter

And they brought the most people ever this year.

 

00:21:36:20 - 00:22:06:20

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, they brought 12 people. Yep. So I think that is like that's the model of what we want. But too often we see massive resistance from sales leaders and everything starts to crumble. That's a big one. Yeah. We also see situations where someone hires a content manager and for whatever reason, it doesn't work out. In the first couple months, the content manager, is asked to leave or leaves, and then they just tread water and don't move at all for like the next 60 to 90 days.

 

00:22:06:22 - 00:22:17:09

Marcus Sheridan

And that's that's a killer. So, anything that you can do to hire the right content person, even if you have to slow it down.

 

00:22:17:11 - 00:22:17:23

Alex Winter

Yeah.

 

00:22:18:01 - 00:22:22:16

Marcus Sheridan

Because you don't want that person leaving in the first 90 days, and that's happened before.

 

00:22:22:17 - 00:22:40:05

Alex Winter

It also happens to and we talked about this on the show previously where people have gone through the whole endless customer's journey and they're at an 80 or better, on their, on their scorecard. But then a content manager might leave or the team may shift or change or something may may happen where they're not an 80 anymore and they've regressed back down.

 

00:22:40:05 - 00:22:43:13

Alex Winter

So what do you do in those type of situations? Is it similar mentality?

 

00:22:43:15 - 00:23:02:06

Marcus Sheridan

Well, I think one of the reasons that happens is because and it's a it's I'm glad you bring this up. You should as an organization have an alignment day once a year. Even if you are ten years in the game, you should be having an alignment day. You should recenter. It's no different than you might. You might say to yourself, why would I need to come back to Impact live ever again?

 

00:23:02:10 - 00:23:16:08

Marcus Sheridan

But each time you come, you probably realize, oh yeah, that's why I need to come back to Impact Live. It's like a lot going on, and I got to be in the right headspace. Even though I fully believe in this, just because somebody believes in it doesn't mean we're in the right headspace. We're on the right path. Yes.

 

00:23:16:08 - 00:23:27:03

Marcus Sheridan

So that's why we come here. So is your team coming here often? But we know the whole team's not going to be here, which is why you should have some type of alignment day every single year. That should be an absolute standard.

 

00:23:27:05 - 00:23:28:20

Alex Winter

Absolutely. Stephanie SEO yeah.

 

00:23:29:00 - 00:23:36:02

Stephanie Baiocchi

Are we ready for some questions live from the audience? Yes. Let's do I know Kevin's not ready for some questions lined up.

 

00:23:36:04 - 00:24:11:03

Speaker 5

Hey, Marcus, congratulations on you and the impact team releasing, your new book and customers. Fantastic stuff. What are you guys developing for us as tools in AI that we can use for that are backed by the principles of, and those customers, because there's so much great information in that. I could see probably 20 or 30 different agents that we could use not only for content, but how to disrupt whatever, industry we're in.

 

00:24:11:05 - 00:24:13:06

Speaker 5

So what have you got coming for us?

 

00:24:13:08 - 00:24:40:11

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, I would say that we put so much energy into trying to get the system in the book, right, that because we've known for a while that we want to do exactly what you're describing. And we said, let's get that right. And then let's start to build out the agents. And just generally the other AI based systems that could help people do in less customers better.

 

00:24:40:13 - 00:25:00:23

Marcus Sheridan

For example, one of the things that I know we're going to do is I know when I feel great about the AI avatar for real time chat, which is what we want to do on the River pool site, which is what we want to do. Like, I want to have an AI avatar of myself and any other thought leaders on our team.

 

00:25:00:23 - 00:25:32:08

Marcus Sheridan

Anyone, anybody on our team that wants to, that anybody can converse with at any time and get advice from so that you can have real time Marcus consulting. Even though I can't scale to person on a personal level to do that, there's no reason, based on the millions of words that I personally produce that are online right now, that I that I can't create an incredible LM based on that information via digital avatar to give to the world.

 

00:25:32:10 - 00:25:58:23

Marcus Sheridan

I want to have that done and completed by this year. And that way anybody an impact can use that on a on a personal level to get hey, you know, if you want to get imagine this like if you could take each of your articles or videos you produce and you're like, hey Marcus, I'm uploading this, particular, you know, video, give me some feedback.

 

00:25:59:00 - 00:26:16:16

Marcus Sheridan

And it gives you feedback exactly like I would if, if I was watching it with you. So I don't know when that will happen. And I think there's going to be other versions of that. Because Impact's way bigger than just obviously myself. But that's one goal that I know I have and that we've talked about. Yeah, we also want to come on that in the future.

 

00:26:16:16 - 00:26:33:12

Alex Winter

Yeah, there's a lot more coming. We also have I know we have a lot of GPT, custom GPT for writing in to help you on your endless customer journey that do exactly what you're saying to help review videos and and post to make sure that it's not just on brand, but also in the endless customer system. So that's equally important.

 

00:26:33:15 - 00:26:40:10

Alex Winter

Yeah, yeah. And there's going to be a lot more coming as these tools keep rolling out. We're really excited about. All right. We got a question up front here from from Craig.

 

00:26:40:11 - 00:26:42:16

Stephanie Baiocchi

We're going to start back here. Oh sorry I gotta get to you.

 

00:26:42:20 - 00:26:44:04

Marcus Sheridan

Go and say your name.

 

00:26:44:06 - 00:26:54:12

Speaker 5

I'm Doug from partner, and I was wondering what your thoughts were on a podcast that is entirely AI, whether that's two generic hosts going.

 

00:26:54:12 - 00:27:05:13

Marcus Sheridan

Back and forth. Yeah, that that's it's already happening. And, I would not recommend it.

 

00:27:05:15 - 00:27:36:05

Marcus Sheridan

Because I don't I wouldn't recommend it because right now, if you're starting to see with partner MBD, which is right out of Richmond, who and you wanted to make waves, I definitely don't think you're going to do it with an, with an AI based podcast today. If you had an incredibly establish brand, that was a podcast that was already very, very strong.

 

00:27:36:07 - 00:28:04:04

Marcus Sheridan

You could get away with some of your pods being AI, although I wouldn't actually recommend that either. I could see a lot of situations where people get very, very creative and they create, let's say, animation based podcasts or shows that are that are representative of their brand, and they use that as a very creative way to reach the market.

 

00:28:04:06 - 00:28:34:15

Marcus Sheridan

So I could see that happening, but not purporting to be humans doing something just way different then, you know, a talking head or two people talking. I would see it more like you're creating a show with AI that has these animations and people are having conversations about, maybe in your case, health. And you know, how to have, you know, better wellness and longevity, but you do it in a wildly creative way with AI, I could see that working really, really well.

 

00:28:34:16 - 00:28:48:22

Marcus Sheridan

Maybe even you had a theme that was, you know, very, very funny and you mixed humor all these. Right. Like that I could see with AI, but I definitely wouldn't do it. Just trying to replicate humans talking to each other.

 

00:28:49:00 - 00:28:53:02

Stephanie Baiocchi

All right, we got one over here.

 

00:28:53:04 - 00:29:15:10

Speaker 5

Hey. David Cook with DeFranco painting wallpaper and had a clarification on best of for services. So we're in the Chicagoland area with any certain community, you know, there could be ten painting contractors and one community five miles away. There could be another 20. So you knows best of how big of an area or how small of an area should you be doing those best UVs comparing articles.

 

00:29:15:10 - 00:29:38:19

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, these are types of questions I like. It's tactical. It's very endless customers here. Right. There's stuff that you can do right now. Generally want to do that based on what are people searching. And so if if you've so you've got people that search general Chicago based phrases. But within Chicago you've got a whole lot of and I don't know if you call them like, I don't know, suburbs or areas or whatever it is, neighborhoods.

 

00:29:38:23 - 00:29:40:02

Marcus Sheridan

There's a well that's.

 

00:29:40:03 - 00:29:40:14

Stephanie Baiocchi

Neighborhood.

 

00:29:40:17 - 00:30:03:07

Marcus Sheridan

Neighborhoods. Yes. That I would target some of those. And you can get the data on this. I would target some of those heavily searched neighborhoods and any way anybody says it. So like in Richmond, Virginia, there's this James River that divides it. And a lot of people refer to West End and they refer to South Side. So those are neighborhoods.

 

00:30:03:12 - 00:30:28:14

Marcus Sheridan

But through the area by which people describe where they live, you've got east and west and south side. So I would create east and west and south side based west of. If I am doing Richmond on a very micro level, I would still do Richmond and I would still do some of the cities in Richmond, Chesterfield, mechanics, Bill, Henrico.

 

00:30:28:18 - 00:30:51:06

Marcus Sheridan

But then I would also do some of those, general, like common local vernacular as well. Hopefully that answers your question too. It means that there's probably a decent number that you would produce. This is what that means. All of which is good. And they're very, very effective to this day.

 

00:30:51:08 - 00:30:53:03

Alex Winter

All right. We got one more here to me.

 

00:30:53:03 - 00:31:17:21

Stephanie Baiocchi

Yeah. From Global Metal Finishing in Roanoke, Virginia. I wanted to thank you for the conference. First of all, that's very nice. So I also want to you you've talked about trust. You've talked about being human. We've talked about AI, tar and and all these other things that we question is being human. Would you talk deeply about what it means to be human?

 

00:31:18:03 - 00:31:48:02

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah. I mean, to me, human means connection. To me, human means someone comes to you and says, I feel like I already know you. I having had a podcast, having been on so many videos, having written books, I have had a lot of experiences where I've met someone and they said, I feel like I already know you.

 

00:31:48:04 - 00:32:11:02

Marcus Sheridan

I'll never forget it. This sounds almost, inappropriate, but it wasn't. This lady comes up to me at a at a event for pride ten years ago, and she said, Marcus, you're in the shower with me every morning. And I said, I said, really? She said, yes, I listen to your podcast when I'm in the shower every morning.

 

00:32:11:07 - 00:32:47:20

Marcus Sheridan

She was laughing about it. But that to me is like she was super familiar with my voice and she felt like she knew me. Now, if I can offer someone the ability to do that at a much greater scale, for example, if I had the ability to have a digital avatar of George Washington and I could ask him questions and it looked just like he looked and it had his mannerisms, I would just die for that.

 

00:32:47:22 - 00:33:11:10

Marcus Sheridan

I think that would be extraordinary. I would love to do that. You know, one of these days, our great great grandchildren are going to have conversations with us through our avatars. Now that's weird, but it's also kind of cool, and I think they're going to really like it. But that's where we're headed. Again, I don't say it's good or bad, but it's definitely where we're headed.

 

00:33:11:12 - 00:33:38:18

Marcus Sheridan

I think it's very human. I think they're going to connect. We're going to connect with our ancestors in the future much better than we previously did, because I will allow us to maintain, a living element of what we were long after we're here on Earth. So I think that's beautiful. Anything that ties the hearts, the of the the the parents to the children.

 

00:33:38:20 - 00:34:02:15

Marcus Sheridan

From a generational standpoint, I think it's a good thing. I think if you do it poorly, it's disconnect if and not a net positive. So I'm not going to roll that avatar out until I look at it and I say, you know, that really does look just like me. And it's not doing this out of place, right? Yeah.

 

00:34:02:15 - 00:34:09:09

Marcus Sheridan

Right now I am a handy guy in terms of the way I use my hands when I. When I communicate, it just like happens.

 

00:34:09:10 - 00:34:10:11

Alex Winter

You're very expressive. Yes.

 

00:34:10:11 - 00:34:29:19

Marcus Sheridan

Very expressive, but if it doesn't pass your litmus test, then I wouldn't put it out there. There's going to be a lot of people that roll things out too early. They will hinder trust because they'll lose some trust because of it. But then people will forget about that and it'll be, you know, three months later and then it'll be on to the next thing.

 

00:34:29:21 - 00:34:35:07

Marcus Sheridan

So I think it's okay to to make some mistakes. We all probably will make a few. It's a great question.

 

00:34:35:12 - 00:34:46:03

Alex Winter

I like the you said trust too. We talk about that a lot and endless customers. It's all about building trust. And you always say that trust is a principle. That is never going to die. It's always going to be here no matter what happens. And that's so true. And I think.

 

00:34:46:08 - 00:34:55:17

Marcus Sheridan

If it does, we're in the matrix at that point. I mean we got so I don't see it going anywhere. And I think it should be always the obsession of any great business.

 

00:34:55:17 - 00:34:59:14

Alex Winter

Yeah. Excellent. Any other questions out there or is that everything.

 

00:34:59:16 - 00:35:04:16

Marcus Sheridan

We've got one right here. We've got nine minutes.

 

00:35:04:18 - 00:35:06:23

Marcus Sheridan

I'll try to be briefer with my answers.

 

00:35:07:01 - 00:35:37:18

Speaker 5

I really enjoyed the week here, so thanks for, I'm with TikTok energy. We're about 250 miles south of here. We historically been 80% B2C, 20% our I'm sorry, 80% B2B. So wait, sorry, free one B2C, 20% B2B. Now that's flipping. We're primarily serving a rural downstate Illinois market will come up to the Chicagoland area on a case by case basis.

 

00:35:37:20 - 00:36:02:15

Speaker 5

Operationally, that creates some challenges at the in the short term. So we have a lot to say. There's a lot of content we could create that heavily addresses issues going on in the B2C space. And could be disruptive in, in some, some ways. So I'm trying to think ahead, like how to monetize the visibility, you know, become more of a leader or a thought leader, put some more educational content out there.

 

00:36:02:17 - 00:36:19:20

Speaker 5

And meanwhile, how do I monetize the attention? And so thinking, you know, just want to pose that question to you. And because I've been on river pools, for example, and when I checked out the website, it seemed like you're nationally now. So you went from a local company to a national presence.

 

00:36:19:20 - 00:36:45:14

Marcus Sheridan

So there's no better way to scale a brand to go national. There was endless customers. It's by far the best system out there. We've actually produced quite a few, franchises that have that started with endless customers, and they went on to become, you know, bigger manufacturers, bigger dealers. So it's not it's not uncommon at all. I mean, I would, I would just I would just say, you know, you mentioned monetize a few times.

 

00:36:45:16 - 00:37:06:02

Marcus Sheridan

I never really looked at it like that, Craig. I was just like, listen, do the thing and then just watch the market and respond to the market. So when I started, I had a one hour radius around my pool company, but we started to do the thing, all the things you've heard this week, and that one hour became two hours.

 

00:37:06:02 - 00:37:32:02

Marcus Sheridan

That two hours became three hours. Eventually that three hours became 50 other states. Because we were listening to the market, the market started to pay attention. And suddenly I got forms filled out from people around the country. And I realized we need to scale. And so I think the same thing is going to happen for you. If I always tell people you remember the phrase, build it and they will come build it, that is the enlist customers model.

 

00:37:32:04 - 00:37:53:05

Marcus Sheridan

And what will come is a clear set of signals that you see, that will direct you as to how to scale your business the right way, because the market is always the best answer for strategy. If you're just paying attention, it will show you exactly what it wants. I could see we're supposed to be a national brand. It became very, very obvious, but that wasn't the goal.

 

00:37:53:05 - 00:37:56:16

Marcus Sheridan

When I started. Okay, let's let's do one more question here.

 

00:37:56:16 - 00:37:57:17

Alex Winter

We get one more right back.

 

00:37:57:23 - 00:38:26:21

Stephanie Baiocchi

So going going back to trust. Yeah, sure. How do you make sure what you're out looking at is really the right answer? Like I will put things or I'll search for things. And I'm like, is that really true? Like, is that accurate? So how do we make sure that our employees and our customers and people that are searching our websites or looking for information on us, believe what we've put out there?

 

00:38:26:23 - 00:38:44:15

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, I think that's so great. Great question. Well, if you look at what ChatGPT has been doing, it's already become much better at showing sources real time. And it's getting better daily now it's putting the links into the actual answer that it's giving you versus just showing it on the side. So it continues to get better with sourcing.

 

00:38:44:15 - 00:39:13:19

Marcus Sheridan

I've been very happy with ChatGPT in that regard. The big mistake that Google made early on, remember when they were, you know, people were producing images and they're clearly not accurate. It's because Google early on taught AI to lie, which should be the biggest no, no we have in the future. Never, ever. Even if it hurts the real answer never, ever teach AI to lie now then, becomes the problem of well, what is truth?

 

00:39:13:19 - 00:39:36:08

Marcus Sheridan

Because there's different. There's different beliefs of what truth is sometimes. Okay, that's fine, and I get that. But generally speaking, we have to instruct our AI anything, any type of, chat experience that we might have from a digital perspective, never lie. And I have put in my commands for ChatGPT like some of you have. I never want you to lie to me.

 

00:39:36:10 - 00:39:56:12

Marcus Sheridan

I never want you to protect my feelings. I don't want you to be nice. I want you to be honest. I would recommend everyone. And now when you tell that to ChatGPT, say. And I want you to remember this for the future, you will see that it shows as soon as you put in the command. It's it's like it says something like saving information or something like that.

 

00:39:56:14 - 00:40:20:15

Marcus Sheridan

So you want to do that because otherwise it is programed to be nice. And most of us don't need nice. What we need is honesty, especially when it comes to our content. Yeah. So the more you you learn to be very frank, Vanguard, get in front of those potential issues, never allow it to lie, and at the same time set the parameters for certain subject matter.

 

00:40:20:17 - 00:40:40:14

Marcus Sheridan

So just like I've already had to teach my phone, I know that there are certain things. If it's asking a question outside of pools, you're out to say, I'm sorry, I don't have the answer for that. But even on that, you're going to find it's clunky at times, and you're going to have to constantly iterate. That's not going to go away.

 

00:40:40:18 - 00:41:05:03

Marcus Sheridan

We live in a time of iteration. We live in a time of pivoting. Those that are great and that will stay great, are going to iterate faster than everyone else, and they're going to pivot faster than everyone else. When it comes to marketing strategy, when it comes to sales strategy, when it comes to technology, we're not like are like we are not going to marry stuff like in the future, like we have most of us have been married to HubSpot for a long time.

 

00:41:05:05 - 00:41:24:00

Marcus Sheridan

The days of being married to the hubspot's of the world are pretty. I think those days are very, very over, and in the future, it's just going to be constant, like move quickly. This has changed already. Okay, moving on to the next tool or whatever it is, I think that's going to happen. Well, I wish we had more time.

 

00:41:24:04 - 00:41:28:16

Marcus Sheridan

I, we got three minutes. Stephanie, what is what do you want to do?

 

00:41:28:18 - 00:41:33:20

Stephanie Baiocchi

Alex, I think you have two more questions from the Pre-submitted questions I really do, and,

 

00:41:33:22 - 00:41:35:23

Alex Winter

I do. I actually have one more here.

 

00:41:36:00 - 00:41:38:16

Marcus Sheridan

Let's finish up. Let's finish on a strong one.

 

00:41:38:18 - 00:41:47:20

Alex Winter

Elizabeth asked, what's a question you're still asking yourself when it comes to helping companies build trust and grow?

 

00:41:47:22 - 00:41:57:06

Marcus Sheridan

Oh, wow. I love it when someone makes me look up and say, oh, right, that means I'm having a light bulb moment. Say their question one more time so we all have a chance to think about it.

 

00:41:57:06 - 00:42:10:00

Alex Winter

Yes, sorry, I got them on my phone here. What is a question you're still asking yourself when it comes to helping companies build trust and also scale and grow?

 

00:42:10:02 - 00:42:33:09

Marcus Sheridan

I would say the number one question that I'm asking myself right now is how long will this last? So even as we talk about anything that we talk about with AI, I'm thinking, is this going to be a silly, irrelevant conversation in six months? Is it going to be silly and irrelevant in 12 months? That was the hardest part about writing in those customers.

 

00:42:33:11 - 00:42:58:09

Marcus Sheridan

That's why I was really hesitant on the digital avatar chapter, and even said it at the beginning of the chapter as you'll read, like I debated about this chapter, but I feel like for the because right now we're looking at digital avatars and we're like, remember the phases of of, resistance? First they ignore you, second, they laugh at you, you know, third, they fight you.

 

00:42:58:11 - 00:43:22:16

Marcus Sheridan

Fourth, you win. Those are the phases of resistance. You will see those phases prolifically in the coming years, especially with AI. Some of your friends and acquaintances are moving into phase three right now, mainly because they're scared to death that they're going to lose their identity, whatever that is to them because of AI. And I get it. And I empathize with those people.

 

00:43:22:17 - 00:43:44:02

Marcus Sheridan

So the number one question I'm asking myself right now is, especially as I am saying anything to you all, is, is this evergreen? Is this going to last? Is this the principle that I'm teaching, or just a hack that's only going to help them for the next six months? And what I'm trying to filter out is if I don't feel like it's going to last more than a year, then I don't I don't want to talk about it.

 

00:43:44:02 - 00:43:58:00

Marcus Sheridan

I don't want to pay attention to it, because there's going to be a lot of stuff that will come and go very, very quickly, but then there's going to be some stuff that sticks and some of it's going to stick forever. And that's what we're trying to pay attention to. I hope this was helpful to you. Boy. We sure appreciate you all.

 

00:43:58:00 - 00:44:12:20

Marcus Sheridan

And I know we're closing out the podcast, but before we do, I just want to tell this room that it means the world to me that you gave us these three days and hope, you know. And I don't say this lightly, I love you. I mean, I really do. And you can reach out to me directly anytime on LinkedIn.

 

00:44:12:22 - 00:44:27:19

Marcus Sheridan

And this applies any impact. We want you to feel like you're not alone in your journey. Like I said yesterday, you don't have to be a client for us to help you and to give you the answers that you're looking for. So please, please reach out.

 

00:44:27:21 - 00:44:38:13

Alex Winter

Marcus, thank you for being on the show. Let's give it up for Marcus. Everybody. Thank you all for being here, for everybody out there watching and listening this endless customers. We'll catch you on the next episode.