Building Trust in a Digital Age with Marcus Sheridan

Summary

The Home Service Expert Podcast: Building Trust in a Digital Age with Marcus Sheridan

Release Date: May 5, 2025
Host: Tommy Mello
Guest: Marcus Sheridan

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of The Home Service Expert Podcast, host Tommy Mello engages in a compelling conversation with Marcus Sheridan, a renowned entrepreneur and author known for his transformative work in the home service industry. Sheridan, the mastermind behind River Pools and the author of influential books like They Ask, You Answer and The Visual Sale, shares his profound insights on building trust in an increasingly digital world.

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Embracing the Digital Shift

Starting as Media Companies
Marcus Sheridan opens the discussion by emphasizing the necessity for home service businesses to adopt a media company mindset. He asserts that regardless of the company's size, every job performed is an opportunity to create engaging video content.

"You have to start thinking like a media company. I do not care how big or small you are. Every single job that you do is a litany of videos that you could be doing."
[00:00]

The Future of Video in Home Services
Sheridan highlights the pivotal role of video, predicting that YouTube channels might surpass traditional websites in importance within five years.

"There is a very strong argument that your YouTube channel will be more important than your website in five years. It could absolutely happen. Prepare for it."
[00:00]

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Disrupting Traditional Industries

River Pools Transformation
Sheridan recounts his journey with River Pools, detailing how he navigated the company through the economic downturn of 2008-2009 by embracing innovative online strategies. This shift not only saved the business but also positioned River Pools as a leader in the fiberglass pool market.

"We became the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. And then we became the fastest growing fiberglass pool company in the US."
[04:32]

Challenging Industry Norms
A prime example of Sheridan’s disruptive approach is his challenge to the standard method of installing fiberglass pools on sand. By advocating for gravel foundations, he not only improved the structural integrity of pools but also set a new industry standard.

"We put our stake in the ground. We said, this is wrong, and it shouldn't be this way."
[08:43]

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Building Trust in the Digital Age

Trust Signals and AI
Sheridan delves into the evolving landscape of trust signals, now influenced not just by homeowners and search engines, but also by AI. He cautions businesses about the diminishing returns of traditional paid advertising and stresses the importance of creating robust trust signals to maintain visibility and credibility.

"We have to do whatever it takes to create signals. We have to create signals and the world has to create signals about us, period."
[15:01]

Four Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand
Sheridan outlines four foundational pillars to establish a trusted brand:

1. Say What Others Aren’t Willing to Say Online

   "Say what others aren't willing to say online."
   [34:19]

2. Show What Others Aren’t Willing to Show with Video

   "You must be willing to show with video what others aren't willing to show."
   [35:25]

3. Sell in Ways Others Aren’t Willing to Sell

   "You have to name it, talk about it, and educate your customers through innovative selling methods."
   [35:25]

4. Be More Human Than Others Are Willing to Be

   "There needs to be a face behind the brand. Your face."
   [35:25]

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Innovative Sales Strategies

Self-Service Tools
Sheridan introduces five self-service tools that are revolutionizing the home services industry:

1. Self-Assessment: Allows customers to evaluate their needs, such as assessing the health of their garage door.
2. Self-Selection Tools: Recommends products based on customer inputs, enhancing personalized experiences.
3. Self-Configuration Tools: Enables customers to design their products, fostering engagement.
4. Self-Pricing: Provides instant cost estimates, addressing the primary concern of buyers – pricing.
5. Additional Tools: Enhances user interaction and satisfaction.

"Anytime someone does an interactive tool on your site, that's the key phrase, interactive."
[40:29]

PriceGuide AI
A standout innovation discussed is PriceGuide AI, a tool Sheridan developed to integrate AI-driven pricing estimators into contractor websites. This tool not only streamlines the pricing process but also significantly boosts conversion rates by providing immediate estimates to potential customers.

"I've seen this over and over again in home services. If somebody puts this on their website, you will immediately see a 3 to 500% lift in conversions the day you do it."
[46:10]

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Enhancing Sales Training and Team Engagement

Role-Playing and Continuous Improvement
Sheridan emphasizes the critical role of regular role-playing in sales training, highlighting that fewer than 5% of home improvement companies engage in weekly role-play sessions. This practice not only refines sales techniques but also ensures that sales teams are well-prepared to handle real customer interactions effectively.

"Less than 5% of the home improvement industry does role plays once a week. Less than 5%, which is a total tragedy."
[53:30]

Personal Connection and Team Culture
Building a personal connection with clients is paramount. Sheridan advocates for salespeople to showcase their personalities, share their stories, and build genuine relationships with customers. This approach not only differentiates businesses but also fosters long-term trust and loyalty.

"People buy from those they know, like, and trust."
[55:49]

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Leveraging AI as a Team Member

AI as a Teammate, Not Just a Tool
Sheridan encourages businesses to view AI as a collaborative team member rather than a mere tool. By engaging in interactive dialogues with AI, companies can harness its potential to enhance various aspects of their operations, from marketing to customer service.

"Start seeing it as a teammate. Stop thinking it's a tool. It is not that I love AI."
[67:12]

Practical Steps to Integrate AI
He provides actionable steps for businesses to start integrating AI, such as using ChatGPT to understand and implement AI-driven strategies tailored to their specific needs.

"Go to ChatGPT and say, hi, this is my name talking to Chat right now. So my name is Marcus Sheridan, and here's my business."
[67:11]

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Conclusion and Call to Action

Connecting with Marcus Sheridan
As the episode wraps up, Sheridan shares ways listeners can connect with him, emphasizing the value of his book Endless Customers and inviting them to reach out via LinkedIn or his website.

"Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm a dang good follow on LinkedIn. ... Marcusarcass.com is my email address."
[69:55]

Final Thoughts from Tommy Mello
Tommy Mello concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to adopt the strategies discussed and highlights the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the home service industry.

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Key Takeaways

1. Adopt a Media Mindset: Utilize every job as content creation opportunities, particularly through video.
2. Disrupt to Lead: Challenge industry norms and establish new standards to position your business as a leader.
3. Build Trust Signals: Focus on creating and disseminating trust signals to enhance credibility and visibility.
4. Implement Self-Service Tools: Integrate interactive tools like pricing estimators to improve customer engagement and conversion rates.
5. Enhance Sales Training: Regular role-playing and personal connections are essential for effective sales teams.
6. Leverage AI Collaboratively: Use AI as a teammate to innovate and streamline business operations.

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Notable Quotes

• "You have to start thinking like a media company. I do not care how big or small you are. Every single job that you do is a litany of videos that you could be doing."
  — Marcus Sheridan [00:00]

• "Make a better product. Because that's on you."
  — Marcus Sheridan [21:53]

• "This is the system to ensure that you're getting data integrity, that it's being followed."
  — Marcus Sheridan [65:05]

• "Start seeing it as a teammate. Stop thinking it's a tool. It is not that I love AI."
  — Marcus Sheridan [67:12]

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Resources Mentioned

• Marcus Sheridan’s Books: They Ask, You Answer, The Visual Sale, Endless Customers
• PriceGuide AI: Innovative AI-driven pricing estimator tool for contractors.
• Elevate and Win: Tommy Mello’s newest book available at elevateandwin.com/podcast

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a masterclass in modern marketing and sales strategies tailored for home service entrepreneurs. Marcus Sheridan’s expertise provides actionable insights that can help businesses navigate the complexities of the digital age, build unwavering trust with customers, and achieve sustained growth.

For those looking to revolutionize their approach and stay ahead in the competitive home service market, this episode is an invaluable resource.

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Transcript

[Marcus Sheridan]

You have to start thinking like a media company. I do not care how big or small you are. Every single job that you do is a litany of videos that you could be doing. And video is our future for home services, home contracting, etc. It is now a video first industry and there's a very strong argument that your YouTube channel will be more important than your website in five years. It could absolutely happen. Prepare for it.

[Tommy Mello]

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today.

[Unknown]

To do that, you'll have to take.

[Tommy Mello]

A lot of notes. But I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes N O t e s to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299 and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted.

[Unknown]

And developed a winning team that helped.

[Tommy Mello]

Me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com podcast to get your copy.

[Unknown]

Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. I am feeling a little under the weather, just a little cold, nothing bad. It's day five so I'm very excited about today's podcast. This is actually our second round. It was a long time ago, probably five years since we did it the first time I got married. Marcus Sheridan in the house. He wrote one of the best books of all time on getting clients. He's got a new one coming out, but they ask, you answer. He also wrote the Visual Sale. He's got a new one coming out. Endless customers. His claim for fame was River Pools. He saved the company from an economic crash. He's one of the best at content. I'm working with him. He's actually out here to work directly with a one on a new content strategy and I think it's going to blow our minds. We're meeting all day tomorrow and you got a lot of good things going on. You do a lot of keynote topics on sales Marketing, AI, Leadership, communication. Multiple companies impact. River Pools. Marcus shared an international question. First group, price, AI. Just a plethora of great information. I'm going to bring the heat today, and I know he's going to bring the heat. So, Marcus, talk to us a little bit about what you've been up to lately and what's new and exciting for you.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah, there's so much going on, man. First of all, Tommy, it's so nice to be here with you live. This is great. This is very, very fun, I think, for. It seems like I've had river pools since 2001. I was pretty much right out of college almost. And I can tell you in the last three years, there have been dramatically more changes in those three years than I saw in my first 22 years. It's extraordinary. The rate of change right now is like nothing we've ever seen. You know, it's interesting, too, just from a general marketer's perspective, just to talk about that for a second. For 20 years, roughly, we didn't really change marketing very much. There was Google, there was Search, there was paid, and we did it, for the most part, the same way for 20 years. And that game's changing. So I'm thinking about that all the time. I'm constantly in the sandbox right now, which I think everybody should be. It's like your fiduciary as, you know, as a business owner, as a leader. To get in the AI sandbox and to learn a lot about it. I'm obsessed more than I've ever been with today's buyer and how we connect with them, how we earn their trust. I think about that in weird ways, in ways that people do not. I'm also thinking constantly about how we can break rules in industries and disrupt them.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Which I think there's plenty of opportunity there. And hopefully we'll talk about that today because I could even like, we could talk about some just like hacks that anybody could take, if we're allowed to use that word. If you want to disrupt your industry and just really get known very, very quickly. Got some ways for you today that, like, are going to work every single time.

[Unknown]

Well, let's. Let's dive into that because that's an exciting topic.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Disruption.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Okay. We'll go there first because there's just some fun things. Can I give my quick background, just as a. Just so people understand where this comes from. So I started River Pools with a couple buddies in 2001. Things were going okay for us. We were focused on mainly Fiberglass swimming pools. Then we had the crash of 2008, 2009. Looked like we were going to lose the business. The good thing about pain and suffering is it forces us to. To get outside of our comfort zone and say, let's just send it. That's when I really started to obsess about the buyer, about the Internet. Make a long story short, we ended up doing a bunch of things that were creative online, that were innovative and very, very disruptive. We became the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. And then we became the fastest growing fiberglass pool company in the US we became the fastest growing manufacturer of fiberglass pools in the US we became the first franchise of fiberglass pools in the US and it's been. It's been an extraordinary ride. And throughout this time period, of course, I've started all these other careers, one of which is speaking full time to businesses. Just like the people that are listening to this right now. The number one industry that I speak to is home services. That's why I'm so pumped about this being on this pod with you, because these are my people, dog.

[Unknown]

That's right.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Right. So let's talk about just some quick ways that you can disrupt. And I'm just going to, like, take it back. Like, I'm going to go way back in time for a second on this, because I think this whole conversation will probably have to do with. With a little bit of disruption when we started installing fiberglass pools. Now, by the way, when I give an example today for you as the audience, it is your job to hear the principle of what I'm saying and then apply that to your business, regardless of what we're talking about. Because it's very easy for anybody to listen to this and say, but that, that might have worked for him as a pool guy, but that won't work for me, which, by the way, is the death of creativity and innovation and business. Don't be that guy or that gal, please, for the love of all that's pure and holy. Right? So when we started with fiberglass pools, here's how fiberglass pools were built. You dug a hole, okay? You put a base of sand at the bottom of that hole. You set a fiberglass pool shell on top of that sand. You backfilled all the way around that pool with sand and filled it with water, and then you poured a concrete patio around it, and you called that a fiberglass swimming pool. Now, any doofus knows there's one fundamental structural flaw with what I just described, because we learned in some book 2000 years ago that. That you don't build houses on sand, and you certainly shouldn't build pools on sand. But yet they're building pools on sand. What happens as a byproduct of that? Sand settles and sand washes. Fiberglass pools were moving, and they were shifting. Nobody was doing anything about it. We said, this is dumb. What is going on? I started creating videos and articles that essentially said, there is a major problem with the way fiberglass pools are installed. And we put our stake in the ground. We said, this is wrong, and it shouldn't be this way. We are the first company in the world to talk about this. At the time, over 80% of all fiberglass pools were installed on sand. Now, we did this, and suddenly I started getting calls, Tommy, from, like, pool contractors around the country. And they're saying to me, marcus, you're killing me here. Because I got this homeowner that once they're pulled installed on gravel, but it's going to cost me 1000 more bucks to. To get gravel instead of sand. And so, like, what's going on here? And I said, what's going on is the fact that you're settling on an inferior methodology to do your stuff, and you shouldn't be. Make a long story short, the whole industry changed because we spoke up. Today, it's a complete reverse of when we started. Roughly 80% of all pools, fiberglass pools, are built on gravel, some type of crushed stone. So one of the easiest ways that you can disrupt your industry, and this happens in almost every industry. And I'm sure this is happening in garage doors. There's something about the way a lot of people do garage doors. Let's just use you as an example that annoys the crap out of you that you're saying to yourself, it shouldn't be done that way. Like, why is that allowed? There's standards that everyone who is worth their salt drives them crazy throughout home services. So, for example, and let's just see if you can come up with one now, what is something that happens all the time within the garage door space that. That drives you crazy? Maybe not every contractor does it, but a whole bunch of them do it. Can you think of anything that's just.

[Unknown]

Like, well, the number one thing I could tell you is a builder puts on the cheapest door possible. If you're building like a thousand homes.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yep.

[Unknown]

All the money goes into the kitchen, bathrooms to change orders, and they get the money for the garage. They're like, let's just go the cheapest.

[Marcus Sheridan]

So that's the type of subject right there that you can just own it. You have to give it a name, you have to brand it. And there's a process here, but you can go after that. And then everybody is saying, so I'm going to get that strut thing, right? Like that strut technology that I was learning from you, that I was watching that one video. You're like, we're getting that right here. And you're like, yes, yes, it's standard. But now the whole industry has to start to shift because you raised all boats. That's what the great ones do. And a lot of folks aren't thinking like that, but yet they sit there and they watch things all the time and they get frustrated with it. We, instead of just watching it, we did something about it. Can I give you another one?

[Unknown]

Keep going.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Okay, so here's another one that we did. This is it, by the way, all this. Some of these actually give us disruption prompts in Endless customers, the new book. One day, Tommy, I was sitting there and this was circa like 2011, 2012. I was in a grocery store, right? And I was looking at the magazines on the magazine aisle and I saw that. You know that magazine, Motor Trend Car of the Year. Yeah, you know that, right? So I looked at that and I said, you know what doesn't exist? Motor Trend Pool of the year. What if. What if we created an award system for swimming pools? So this story is tripping. Okay, check it out. So what I did, and this, this was before I went, like, our whole site went big, but this was part of the process of us just blowing up, becoming the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. So I said, what if I. And to make it clear to everybody, we were a simple pool builder, a dealer for a fiberglass pool company. We weren't a manufacturer at the time. So essentially we were like a Chevrolet dealer, right? And just like there's about seven, eight major auto manufacturers, there's about seven, eight major fiberglass pool manufacturers. So we were really, really small fish in this pond with these Goliaths. So I said, why don't we create an award system where I give out awards to all the manufacturers, including the ones I'm selling against, for best fiberglass pool shapes of the year. And so, for example, I did a whole bunch of research on all the different manufacturers and I said, okay, just like you might have sports car of the year, I said, we're going to have freeform fiberglass pool of the year. We're going to have rectangle fiberglass pool of the year. We're going to have diving fiberglass pool of the year. And I gave out all of these awards, published them online, made a big fuss about it. Suddenly, okay, suddenly, here's what happened. I was getting calls from manufacturers and they were literally saying to me, first off, they were saying, who is this guy giving out these awards? But they noticed the article started getting a ton of traction. Like the content was getting a ton of traction. So like, okay, it's getting a lot of traction. People are getting noticed. They were getting calls about these different shapes that I had mentioned. And so now they started to reach out to me and they said, marcus, we think we have some shapes here that would go well in your awards next year. Would you come out to the factory and view these different models that we have? So suddenly I was getting invites out to these places and I was just some 30 some year old little kid in their mind. But I was having this influence. Then I was seeing, this is the funniest part, major competitors on their homepage were telling the world that they had won an award for best fiberglass pool in class. Linking back of course to my website. So before I know it, I'm just like getting all this traffic from these major manufacturers. And this is a classic case and.

[Unknown]

They have super high domain authority.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Oh yes. And this is another way that river pools just blew up. So this is a classic case of how does the digital David slay Goliath so easily? Because you don't have a board where you have to sit there and get approvals for everything. You don't have a bunch of red tape. You can be fast, you can be nimble, you can be quick. I mean, it is when someone tells me, I don't know, I'm just so small. Like, I just can't. I don't have this big budget influencer. Like I don't have like, you know, eight people on my marketing team. And I don't have this, I don't have that. I'm like, well then counts are lucky stars because that means you have no limitations and you can just do stuff all day long. And everybody's like, I can't believe you did that. And then that's how you make waves in an industry. We're in a time period where you've got to create what I call trust signals. And we can obviously get into this. But trust signals, because for 20 years, 20 years, like I said, we had to really make two groups very happy with us and recommend us. First off, the homeowner had to recommend us. That's been true in the last decades and it's always going to be true. But then 20ish years ago, for the first time, search engines had to recommend us. Google had to recommend us. And we've been fighting that battle for more than two decades now. But suddenly AI comes out in November 2022, and now there's a third party that has to recommend us, which is AI. And the thing that everybody's sleeping on, Tommy, and the thing that worries me to death about all these home services companies that I'm meeting with all the time and are saying to me, yo, Marcus, I'm doing paid, but it's just not working. I'm spending more on paid right now than I've ever spent. I'm getting less results than I've ever gotten. I am working with an SEO agency, but I don't understand. I'm not getting the traction that I was getting before or my rankings are still decent, but I'm seeing less traffic as a whole. It's like, yeah, that's because everything is going towards you and I are going to be using either ChatGPT or some AI as our fundamental search engine that we search with in the future. And it's different when it comes to AI, because the future of all these home services companies is going to be contingent on whether or not AI is recommending them.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Which a lot of folks don't understand right now because you're not going to be able to throw money at the thing and say, all right, I'll just spend more on Google Ads. Because what happens if we have a world where Google Ads don't actually work very well? What happens when you might rank in search but it doesn't matter because A, a lot less people are using Google search and B, even if you're ranked number one, you're so far down because they've got an AI summary that they have to see and then they've got all these sponsors that they have to see sponsored results and then they've got related questions that they have to see. And then you maybe have a map that they have to see and you've got all these things. Used to be six, seven years ago, whoever ranked number one in Google search results is getting about 80% of the clicks today. That is not true, because on many of these, you are buried down. And what this means, Tommy, is we got to do whatever it takes to create signals. We have to create signals and the world has to create signals about us, period. So when you have major manufacturers, for example, linking to you from their website and saying, hey look, we won an award for best in class, that's very disruptive. But it's also a major trust signal. And that's going to be the future for a lot of folks. And that's why I'm glad we're having this conversation. That's also why I said I need to write enlist customers because they ask you answer is extraordinary in a lot of ways. I mean really, it's probably the best SEO strategy ever, like put down on paper for anyone that can, like, anybody can understand it as an SEO strategy. It's like, oh my goodness. Even though I don't use the phrase SEO in the book, it was extraordinary for that. But it didn't talk about AI, it didn't talk about where we're headed. And so I know that was a lot right there. But this is something I'm thinking about all the time and I think a lot about it for these blue collar businesses that are wondering why is it changing? But I don't know exactly what's happening.

[Unknown]

So let me ask you this idea of commoditization, right? As things become cheaper to make you look at a company like mine, stuff does get commoditized over time and it's a bad thing because necessary if the person get the product, same caliber, apples to apples and it's cheaper, they're gonna go with the price. Now we've got the technician training, the CSRs, nights, weekends, holidays, we're open, the background checks, all these other differentiators that we've got better training so you don't get warranty calls. We've trademarked our parts, we've done all these things. But I think the future, especially with robotics, it's not coming yet for home service, but it will be coming in home improvement. Like literally, like one day the pest control company gonna send out an AI bottle, find out where all the scorpions and spiders and mice mate and they're going to eliminate them because they're gonna know, oh, this is the spot of the house that's got the humidity. It's perfect for that. We get rid of that, we get rid of the bugs. I mean, it's not far from now. I don't think it's gonna happen overnight. In fact, people are saying, do not. If you've got kids, do not send them to college, send them to trade school. I mean, right now we're a dignified.

[Marcus Sheridan]

You know, my son, 21, he's getting his journeyman's probably within the next 60 days, has zero debt, and is going to be making six figures probably within the next year. I mean, he's on that trend line. Life is great for him. And I was thrilled when he said, I'm going to be an electrician.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that's fantastic.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah. So you mentioned a few different things there about commoditization of products. I got to say this another disruptive thing. Let me give you another just example that I think is interesting and that a lot of folks listen to this. I would say, are you brave enough to do what I'm about to tell you to do? All right. Are you brave? Do you have the courage? So let me tell you about Steve Sheinkopf. I started Endless Customers, the book with Steve Sheinkopf. His story. Steve is the CEO of Yale Appliance in Boston, Mass. They sell kitchen appliances. Okay. So the thing about kitchen appliances is over the years, they haven't been built as well as they used to be built.

[Unknown]

No, they're not.

[Marcus Sheridan]

And they're breaking down a lot. The number one question Steve was getting was, so of all these appliances you sell, which one do you fix the least? Now, Steve came to me some years ago, and he was saying, I started to read your stuff, Marcus, and I felt like I was kind of doing it, but I'm looking at my traffic, I'm looking at my leads, and I'm just not getting the growth. And I looked at his stuff and I said, yeah, Steve, you're not doing the system the way it should be done. You're not obsessed with what your buyers want to know. You're not really listening to them. And so we said, okay, okay, I'm going to listen. And he became one of the greatest students I've ever had.

[Unknown]

So me.

[Marcus Sheridan]

What's that?

[Unknown]

Well, I'm a new student to you.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah, yeah. You're a tbd. You're a tbd. Tommy Mello. I got a feeling, though. Okay, so here's what happened with Steve. He kept getting this question about what are the least serviced kitchen appliances? Now, you sell more than one garage door breaker. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Manufacturer. Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Okay, so he sells a multiplicity. I mean, you know, Bosch, ge just go down the list. Now, his dilemma was this. If I tell the world what I serve as the least, and they see all my brands, it means I naturally have to throw some under the bus. Right?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Well, we talked about it. He's like, so I can make my OEMs, my manufacturers happy, or I can make the buyer, the customer happy, which One's paying my bills. See, a lot of people would never do anything to even ruffle the feathers of the OEM or the manufacturer or the supplier or whoever that is. Steve said, no, no, no, no. I'm all in. I'm obsessed with the buyer. So here's what he did. He created a series of articles and videos that were, for each year since we came up with this idea, the least serviced, most reliable kitchen appliance brands of that year. Okay, now here's where it gets really interesting, Tommy Mello. And let's see if you're going to be the student that you say you're going to be. What he did is he took every service call that he ran for the year, which is 34,000 service calls. Okay, 34,000. He analyzed every single one. And on a chart for the whole world, he published every brand that he sold the previous year, the total units he sold for each brand, the total service calls he ran on each brand. And therefore you saw the least service brand that he sold, all the way down to the most serviced brand that he sold. And did the. The OEMs, did these huge brands get upset?

[Unknown]

Of course.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Yeah, they're going to.

[Marcus Sheridan]

And what did Steve say? What do you think he said?

[Unknown]

He said, make a better product.

[Marcus Sheridan]

That's exactly what he said. Make a better product. Because that's on you. And so even this year, even this year, he published it again. And he says in the first line, he said, this will be the most debated kitchen appliance article that you will read this year online. And he does the same thing in video format. Right. He's smart about that. And then he shows all of his numbers. What was the least Service brand of 20, 24 or previous year? This company called Gaggenau, which is basically a Samsung product. A lot of people don't know about them, but they're a really great kitchen appliance, one of the worst that he sold this year. Would you like to know what it is, Tommy? Just say yes.

[Unknown]

Yes.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Okay. Good job. Ge. Ge. Now, this is how David wins again. Because who do you think has more trust in the marketplace? Steve Sheinkopf, Yale Appliance or ge? Steve is willing to go where no one else is willing to go. And because of that, he's the gatekeeper. He's the trusted leader. He is the trusted advisor. People pick any phrase that you want, but that's audacious. And many people don't roll that way. And that's why they don't do extraordinary things. That's the way Steve rolls. And that's why he started off with me at $30 million. Today he's doing over $150 million. And this is in a time when everybody's saying kitchen appliances and retail in general is dying because Amazon's taking it over and you can't be successful. And Steve's like, y'all keep saying that and I'm gonna keep blowing up. And. And he's just crushing because he's doing it differently.

[Unknown]

You know, I think about that. The old Maytag, I'm putting out a commercial. You know Roy Williams, wizard of ants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of the best writers. I don't work directly with him, but I know a lot of people that work directly with him. He's getting older. He's retired kind of, but he still works for certain clients. But I'm always thinking of what's going to tell a story. What do people want to do business with, what's going to affect the market. Because when you know, like, and trust somebody before you go there, like my buddy with Gettle, he creates commercials where people are calling him up, going, first of all, I'm mad at you because what you did for Wendy, your wife, on Valentine's Day, outdoes me. But it's very rarely. He doesn't make it transactional at all. He tells stories, and people are like, I started crying when I heard your commercial. Your dad passed a torch when he handed. Used to hold the flashlight for him. And so this whole idea. But I'm thinking about, like, all these ideas, and people used to call up Gettle when Ken was always on the air and say, we don't have a bad. We don't have an issue yet, but the day we do, we're calling you. And price was irrelevant. And this idea, though, of like, Maytag, back in the day, my grandma had Maytags. Like, those things would run forever. Anybody with an old yellow Maytag, they're still going.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah, somebody's got. That's listening. It's got one in their garage right now. It's still rolling. They've replaced the one in the. Their house like three times.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah, the really nice, beautiful ones. And the old Maytag commercials were similar to what you said is it was the Maytag guy standing around the truck like this, going, no service work. You know, it just keeps going. So a long time ago, what I built, built because there's nothing like this in the garage industry. It's all the springs are on cycle lifes, the cables, you Want stainless steel. If you got any type of snow, you got rollers from a different manufacturer. See the garage door manufacturers were they manufacture the panels.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yep.

[Unknown]

So the all the different accessories. I had to build a Frankenstein and I call that my worry free door. It's got the best of everything. And then you got openers and openers. 10 years ago. We're not. Everything now has got sensors in it. It's not built to last like it used to be, but it's got all this technology in it. So like my stuff, if you want an opener that'll never break, good luck. You're not going to have Internet that you could open and close it from your cell phone. You're not going to have a camera system to invite Amazon or Walmart to deliver your groceries because they don't. They used to put this massive motor in them and now it's all direct current motors and different things. And now there's these four stars in them. But now all the guys complain. These things always have units. They're finicky because you got the safety eyes, you got this, you got the camera, you got the app, you got these different things. So I'm trying to think of how to think outside of the box because doors. Who's the spring manufactured? What cycle springs do they put on if the cables went bad, if this went bad, if this went bad, if this went bad. Panels. Every manufacturer I know creates a polyurethane 2 inch panel. And they got polystyrene then they got hollow back, then they got vinyl back. They got all these different things. And so what are you comparing a lot of it's like for like, you know what I mean? It's really hard to differentiate but certain manufacturers have these amazing doors that are like super contemporary. All the designers love them. They're using them on all the houses, higher end houses. And they got these wood faux doors that they guarantee for 10 years that look better than wood. You don't have to treat them every single year. Clear coat them. So I'm just trying to apply this to my business. I'm sure a lot of people out there are like, okay, I service gutters and there's different things like leaf fitter and all these different ideas and things that work well but which ones last the longest. And some of them, you know, what's, what's the install qualities where I go back to the install quality is how it's done of a gutter. Right. If you got, if you're not putting as much nails every foot and the quality of the nails and the quality of the tools you're using and the craftsmanship and how much the guy knows. So you know what I'm saying?

[Marcus Sheridan]

Well, the problem is, I think lots of times in home service, you see contractors that do something every day of their life, and they forget what it's like to be an ignorant consumer, an ignorant homeowner that doesn't understand the nuance of what quality actually looks like. You said something that was really important. You said, we gave it a name, called it the Worry Free.

[Unknown]

Yeah, Worry free.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Worry free.

[Unknown]

And our own parts are called Max Lifes.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Right. So a big part of this is. And you've naturally done it, or you've intentionally done it, but you've gotten it done, which is oftentimes we are doing things as contractors that are special, that are unique, that are above and beyond, but we don't name it. And it's a big mistake. Everyone has ip, and you have to look at your intellectual property, the thing that you're doing that most contractors aren't doing. And you have to say, all right, sure, maybe 10%, 20% is doing it, but could we name it? Even if 50%, 75% are doing it, could you name it? Could you talk about it better than the other ones? Talk about it? Because if you can do that, then you're going to start to get a lot more attention, and people are going to say, I want that. Or they're going to say, I want to absolutely make sure that when we get our thing, it has that. And you say the name of the thing. Just like, I want to make sure my pool's on gravel and not on sand.

[Unknown]

So an install process, you know, we put a scale under every single door to make sure it weighs zero, it's installed correctly. There's certain things you could almost say, if it's not done this way, it's not the right way.

[Marcus Sheridan]

That's right.

[Unknown]

This install process, and you go through that and you educate the customers on it, and you do that through articles. You could do that through videos. You could do that on tv, radio, billboards, all kinds of stuff.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

What's. What's still economical? Because billboards. I was with Gary Vee about five years ago, and he goes, forget billboards. He's like, If I do 500 tests on Facebook and I'll. I'll find one that'll outperform any billboard better. ROI. And now he's talking about a lot about LinkedIn and these different channels. And I think that's the hard Part for most business owners are like, oh, you're talking about X, you're talking about TikTok, you're talking about Instagram, you're talking about Facebook, you're talking about all these different things. And then you got, now you got Marcus Sheridan talking about AI. Then we still gotta get found in the, get reviews still get found in the map section, the three pack. And what about, they say the newspaper still works and the yellow book still works in Albuquerque. And you get inundated and they're going, well, I need to know my KPIs, I need a mission, vision, core values. I need to make sure I get those trucks, the perfect trucks, because otherwise can I depreciate them? And there's all this information.

[Marcus Sheridan]

It's pretty overwhelming.

[Unknown]

It's way more overwhelming than it used to be.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Marketing has gotten progressively harder, but it's also gotten much more enjoyable like OTT.

[Unknown]

And all these things.

[Marcus Sheridan]

But yeah, because you can be dramatically more creative today than when we started. Like when I started it was yellow pages, it was all traditional, which was gouging your eyes out. I glorified the day they went out of business, by the way, because they were ripping so many home contractors and whatnot all off big time. And then there was, you know, radio, which as soon as you stopped it, it stopped working for you, right? Which I'm not a very big fan of doing anything that the second you stop spending money on it, it just doesn't work any longer. Now that doesn't mean I don't agree with doing paid stuff. It just means that I don't want that to be my only means whereby I'm building something, right? So with endless customers. Can I talk about pillars of a known and trust? Alright, let me talk about something, just give people some context here because I want to give you a system that you can follow if you're obsessed with becoming the most known and trusted brand in your market. So that's the payoff of the system becoming the most known and trusted brand in your market. Which is important, Tommy, because if we said, if I said to anybody that's listening to this right now, if I said, is trust gonna be fundamental to your business in five years? Anybody would say yes. If I said 20 years, they'd say yes. But if I said, is Google gonna be fundamental to your business in 10 years? In 20 years? Like, I don't know, it's a crapshoot. You see, Google is a platform, Facebook is a platform, all that other stuff is a platform. Platforms come and they Go. That's always gonna be the case. What doesn't come and go are principles. And so you build your models, especially how you market and how you sell and. And how you build your brand. You build it on principles. And for me, the principle that I'm obsessed with is the principle of trust. Because if they trust you, they just might buy from you. And that's what life is all about. So how do we engender more trust? So within the endless customer system, we talk about four pillars of a known and trusted brand. I'll give you each one, and then maybe we could break them down, because I think this is going to be super, like, utilitarian for your listeners. Okay, first one is this. They all sound really basic, but then when you get into it, most people aren't doing them. Number one, you, as a brand, you've got to be willing to say online what others in your space are not willing to say. Say what others aren't willing to say online. Now, one thing that was true with they Ask youkanswer and is very true with now endless customers and in the sense that I wrote about it and it's going to continue to be true, is what we call the big five. And the big five are the subjects that every buyer wants to know. They research constantly before they reach out to your company. So if somebody's looking for a remodeler, if somebody's looking for lawn care, if somebody is looking for a roofer, they always research five specific things. And by the way, it's not just B2C. I mean, it's B2B. It's how we research stuff. That this is a principle. It's not going away. As buyers and consumers, number one, we want to know all about cost. How much is the dang thing? In fact, that is literally the first question of the buyer's journey. Roughly how much does it cost, number one. Number two, as buyers, consumers, we're obsessed with what we call problems or fears or objections. In other words, Tommy, how could this go wrong if I make this buying decision? How could it blow up in my face? Number three, comparisons. We love to compare stuff online. Product versus product, brand versus brand, method versus method. We're constantly comparing things online. That's number three. Number four, reviews. We're obsessed with reviews, as you well know. But the thing about reviews, and my goodness, you guys have crushed getting so many reviews, dawg. You've just been nuts on that. Well done. You could write a book on just how to, like, crush on reviews. The thing about reviews though, is we don't just want good reviews. We, we want the good, the bad and the ugly. In fact, we've all gotten to the point where if a company has no negative reviews, it actually creates mistrust because there's doubt there. And then finally, number five of the big five is best, Best, most, top, et cetera. Okay, so those are the big five. Cost problems, comparisons, reviews. And best. This is what buyers are obsessed with. And most companies don't want to talk about it. And that's a tragedy because that's what they want to know. And here's the thing, Tommy, they're going to learn it from somebody. So the question is, are they going to learn it from you, that video, that article, that thing that you posted, or are they just going to say, no, I'm out.

[Unknown]

I love it. So, look, it's all great and dandy. Most people are.

[Marcus Sheridan]

There's a buck coming.

[Unknown]

Well, I'm just going to say most people just aren't going to be able to hire you to come out for a day. I wouldn't say you're more than worth it, but most people don't have the resources nor the time. If they do, if they don't get you and they buy the book, what's the best way to get started?

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah. So let me give you a few things. Let me just say this. Why don't we do this? Let's roll through the pillars real quick and then I'll show you how to get started. Is that cool with you?

[Unknown]

Yep.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Okay, so that's the first one. Say what others aren't willing to say. Number two. Similar to number one, you got to be willing to show with video what others aren't willing to show. So I would ask you, if you're listening to this right now, what are you showing that the majority of your competitors aren't willing to show with video? Okay. In conjunction with that, you have to start thinking like a media company. I do not care how big or small you are.

[Tommy Mello]

Hey, guys, quick thought before we get back to the episode. There's something that Donald Trump Jr. Said recently that stuck with me. He said, in construction, it doesn't matter how smart your architect is, if you don't have the best guys laying the bricks, people with grit, people who get their hands dirty, you've got nothing. And you know what? It's the truth. You can have a slick logo, a killer strategy, and the best tools.

[Marcus Sheridan]

But.

[Tommy Mello]

But if your team isn't competitive, if they don't work hard, you won't have what it takes. That's why I'm excited that Donald Trump Jr. Is coming to freedom 2025 because he gets it. He's been on job sites, he's operated heavy equipment, he's worked alongside tradesmen, and he's seen how real money is made while serving as executive vice president of the Trump Organization. If you want to meet me, Donald Trump Jr. Kevin O'Leary, Al Levi, and a host of other successful home service owners, go to freedomevent.com now. And if you grab your early bird ticket, you'll get over $5,246 in bonuses, too. That's freedomevent. Com. All right, let's get back to it.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Every single job that you do is a litany of videos that you could be doing with that dang phone that's in your pocket. Most of us are pushing back still on video, and that's a crying shame. And video is our future. Number three, by the way, for home services. Home services, home contracting, et cetera. It is now a video first industry. And there's a very strong argument, and I know we can't even, like, go down this road fully, but there's a very strong argument that your YouTube channel will be more important than your website in five years. It could absolutely happen. Prepare for it. Number three, you must be willing to sell in ways others aren't willing to sell. We got to hit that one hard in a second because that's one of my most favorites. Okay. And that's one of the quick starts, is sell in ways others aren't willing to sell. And then finally, number four, you got to be more human than others are willing to be. Okay? What I mean by that, there needs to be a face behind the brand. Your face. If you're listening to this. People buy from those they know, like, and trust. We've heard about that since the beginning of time. We don't want a bunch of just like, you know, standard photos on your dang website that you got online or got AI. It needs to be your face, your team. Obviously, you all do a pretty dang solid job of that. Okay, so let's start with selling for a second. There's a stat here, Tommy, that I think is incredibly relevant to all of our listeners right now, and that is this. 75% of all buyers today say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. 75%. Now, do you think that number is going down or up, Tommy?

[Unknown]

Up.

[Marcus Sheridan]

It's only going to go up, right? What does this mean? Well, it doesn't mean that we hate salespeople. It just means that we don't want to talk to a salesperson until we are good and ready, until we're confident, until we feel informed, until we feel like we're not going to make a mistake and the salesperson isn't going to take advantage of us. Right. This is the mindset of the buyer. So if this is the case, you as a business have a choice. You can say, but I like selling the way it used to be.

[Unknown]

Or.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Or you can say, I'm going to take advantage of the trend. How do we take advantage of the trend? Through what we call self service. Self service is the process of offering interactive experiences online that allow the buyer, the customer, to get answers that previously they would have had to have gotten through talking to a human. So there's five self service tools that are going to change the entire home services industry. I'll mention them very quickly here. One, a self assessment. A self assessment is when you give someone a score that could be like, what's the health score of your garage door? Right. That's an example of it. Okay. So that's self assessment number two. Number two, we got to have self selection tools. That's when the tool gives a recommendation. Perfect. Case in point, let's say you sell garage doors and the person saying, I'm not sure which type of garage door is the right one for me. Through an interactive experience, they take on your website. They get a recommendation at the end. Okay. And at the end they say, oh, that's the garage door I want. Perfect. And then when they meet with the salesperson, they say, I already know which one I want. I took that little tool on your website. That thing was great. So it's no different on the Riverpool site. I've got one that literally tells people after they answer a series of questions, Tommy. It tells them what type of inground pool they should get. We recommend to people every single day that they don't buy a fiberglass pool. And that's all we sell. We tell them all the time on our own website through this interactive tool. Based on what you just said, you should get a concrete pool. Ballsy. Yes. Trustworthy? Very much so. Okay, so that's the second one. Third one would be a self configuration tool. Self configuration tool is when you allow someone to build the thing. So hypothetically they can build or design their garage door.

[Unknown]

Yep.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Right. Which is. This is going to be a really, really big deal in the future in this industry because it's a very, very Visual industry. Okay. All right, number four. This is a. This one is the one I want to talk about for a second because I'm so deeply passionate about it, which is self pricing. Okay. And I got a feeling you and I are going to have a long conversation about this one tomorrow. Okay? So self pricing is when you allow your visitors to get a general estimate of what they're going to spend before they have to talk to a salesperson. Now, let me break this one down for you, Tommy. Then I'm going to get your take. Maybe we'll debate about this for a second. Should be fun. The first and last question of the buyer's journey are almost the exact same question. Someone has a problem. In other words, they realize, oh, gee, I need a new garage door. First question they have is, how much? Roughly. Roughly how much is this going to cost? Literally, the first question. Now, what's crazy is, oftentimes, if someone cannot get that question addressed, they can't continue in the buyer's journey. They don't feel comfortable because everything else is almost irrelevant until I know, am I in the game or not? How many times over the course of years, for anybody that's listening to this right now, has someone said to you, I. I'm not going to hold you to it, but just give me a feel. What are we looking at here? I mean, we're talking anybody that's been in the game hundreds and hundreds of times. So that's the first question. Then they start their research, they start researching companies, they reach out to companies, they start to fill out forms or make phone calls, and then they meet with salespeople. And the last question of the buyer's journey, it's extraordinary. It's almost the same. And now it's exactly how much is this going to cost? We. We start and we stop the buyer's journey with the same question, essentially. Now, what does a pricing estimator do? I've got a company that started called PriceGuide AI and I said, this is a megatrend, and I know where this is all headed. And I want contractors to have the ability to add a pricing estimator to their website. So the data I'm about to give you is based on now hundreds of current users for this software that I started last year. And the thing is catching on like wildfire. Here's how it works. It uses AI, of course, and any contractor can go to PriceGuide AI and they can say, here's my business. I'm a landscaper or I'm a roofer. I'M a remodeler, whatever it is. And then the AI will say, okay, so if that's your business, here's some of the different services that you could offer. Which services do you want to offer? And. And then it selects the services. And then the AI pulls up a bunch of questions that you would likely want to ask the homeowner so as to be able to give them a general price, like, what's the square footage? What's this? You know, typical questions that you would ask someone to give them a range, and then you modify yourself and you put in some number variables, in other words, how that would impact the price based on their answer. And make a long story short, it gives you a snippet of code. In less than 30 minutes and less than $200 a year, you can have a working pricing estimator that you put on your website. Now, here's the catch. Here's what's so extraordinary about it. Tommy, I've seen this over and over again in home services. If somebody puts this on their website, you will immediately see a 3 to 500% lift in conversions the day you do it, 3 to 500% off of your existing traffic. Now, you're not spending almost any money here. Can you imagine if you get five leads a week, let's say to your website right now, and suddenly that 5 goes to 15. What type of financial impact is that on your business? And we're talking about. We're talking about $200 a year. Now, there might be some pushback coming here, so I'm preparing for it. But let me just say, you know a lot about Software. The average SaaS product, software as a service, has a churn rate of 3 to 5% per month. That's normal. I've had this baby out now for just under a year, and our churn rate is under 0.6%. And there's a reason for this. As soon as somebody puts this on their website, they start generating a crap ton of leads that they wouldn't have generated before. But one other catch to this. You have to show it clearly on your homepage. And you need to have a strong call to action that says something like, get instant estimate. Get instant estimate. So now you see what happens is most home contractors will literally on their homepage have like 5 CTA's that are the same freaking thing. And it says, call for quote, call for quote, get your quote, get your quote, get quote. Which is almost like at this point, the middle finger of the Internet. This drives people crazy. Instead of just saying, hey, call for quote, call for quote, call for quote. Fill this form out for quote, et cetera, et cetera. Now you're literally addressing that first fundamental question that they have. They're able to say, okay, I feel like I have a sense. And you can make it as rangy as you want. You see, you don't have to be specific, but you do have to give a range. Because if you give a range now you get the conversion. Now you've got the email that you can re. Nurture. Like you can remarket. You can nurture. And now you're cooking with gas. Whereas before you didn't have nothing. If most people realize just how many people they lose from their website that they could have gotten a lead from simply because the only thing they had on there was call for quote, they would vomit in their mouth. That is. It's that strong because they don't realize this, but yet they. It's been done the same way for so long. This is the norm in the industry. And one last prediction, then I want to hear your thoughts. I'm sorry for the rant.

[Unknown]

No, no, good.

[Marcus Sheridan]

And that is this. Actually, I'm not sorry because I believe in this. And I think it's extraordinary the impact that it can make on people's lives. Because I've looked over that cliff of bankruptcy and it's not fun. Right? And I. And I want to help people find that financial peace. And this is that serious to me. We've had so many companies do this now. And what's wild, Let me give you one example. I had a shed manufacturer in Scotland that had been doing the Ask youk Answer. They had pricing articles, they had pricing videos. They had a price list on their website, Tommy. A price list of their different models. And so they said, marcus, I think I want to put price guide on there. I want to put that estimator tool on there. I'm like, I don't know if it's going to really work because you have price lists. But okay, fine. Suddenly they 5x their leads from that day and it's never slowed down. In their first six months, they did over a million dollars in revenue from it. And here's what we realized. Anytime someone does an interactive tool on your site, that's the key phrase, interactive. There's this thing called sunk cost fallacy. You're very aware of it. The more time they spend working with you, the more they're invested in you and the more they desire to find a way to work with you. That's the power of estimators and man, they're changing the game. Final point, my prediction is this. 90% of all home services are going to have an estimator tool on their website within the next five years. Mark my words. The question is, are you going to wait till everybody does it and then follow the lead? Because it becomes the norm in the industry. Because it's already happened in roofing. Roofing, you're already starting to see it with some like grass cutting businesses, right? So you're starting to see it. It's going to happen, it's going to be standard. Don't wait, lead this conversation and don't be led by your competitors.

[Unknown]

So few things. Number one is if you're buying a roof, if you're buying a pool, that's a really large ticket. I'm going to do my research. Number one, here's the deal. A pool is where I'm going to spend a lot of my summers I'm going to spend with my family. I want to make sure I get the right pool. If I'm looking at a broken spring, I can't get out of my garage, right? I'm stuck. I got to go to my daughter's ballet practice. I need to make a phone call. I'm going to look at reviews very quickly. I'm not going to go to a configurator or I'm not going to go. Let me really do a lot of research to find I got a broken pipe. Let me do a lot of research of who's the best pipe fixer. I just gotta go really quickly and say who's the best company I could find right now? Because I need somebody out here. But there is one day I could ask AI and I could say who's the best company to get out here. And what I think it's going to go after is proximity. How quick can they get out here? Because that's an emergency. So who has the most trucks with all the parts on the trucks? Eventually. But here's the problem. Are they drug tested? Are they background? Can I trust them around my two daughters and my wife, 4 and 6 years old and my wife, you know what I mean? These are some of the questions is price doesn't always win. When you make it about price, price will always win, you see.

[Marcus Sheridan]

But it's not about price. You just heard that and you took. It's about price. It's not about price. What it's about, it's about the person having a sense for roughly what's this going to cost me. There's a psychological need. We've got the data on it. Tommy, the second somebody puts this on their site. Let's just play. Let's just play. You're the homeowner for a second. Okay? We agree, by the way, that when it's a low research, high speed purchase, then estimators aren't very useful. Okay, okay, we agree on that. So there's no use for that. All right? But when it's a new purchase, and I'm talking about for almost literally anything, that's home improvement. Because by the way, we are really funny about our homes. And the price of the thing is not so much the dictator as to whether or not someone will do the research, nor is it the major dictator as to whether or not they'll use an estimator. The major component that dictates how much research somebody will do and whether or not they appreciate something like an estimator or any self service tool is their fear of making the wrong decision. That is the number one factor that dictates how much research anybody will do for anything. And so with this being said, there is, we found, for example with my pool company, that if somebody read 30 or more pages of our website before we did the initial sales appointment, they would buy 80% of the time, which is pretty extraordinary. Right. If they didn't hit that number, closing rates were about 25%, which was industry average. Now, for a long time, people would say to me, yeah, but that's pools. No, it's not pools. In fact, somebody's listening to this right now and they're debating between Samsung and iPhone and they might have done like 100 pages online of research comparing the two because they're like, I really value my phone. And so we have to be very, very careful about what we say isn't necessarily valuable. But if it's going on somebody's home, it's very valuable. Now, with that being said, let's say that you want a new garage, Tommy, you're not in the industry. A new garage door. Excuse me, you're not in the industry. Right. And you have to get a new garage door. You know it's broken and you know you just want to get a new one. You don't want to get a repair. Would you, if you were going to someone's website, appreciate it if they allowed you to get at least a sense for pricing as the buyer?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

So this is golden rule number one. What's funny about marketing is a lot of people don't believe in following the golden rule. But if I ask them, do you believe in the golden rule? They're like, totally. But then as soon as you say, all right, so let's look at this. And they're like, yeah, but. And usually the reason is we're afraid that it's going to hurt our sales process because we've got such a special sales process that we're thinking that might hinder exactly how I do it in the home. And what we see happens every time is I've got a lot of contractors now that use price guide as a standard. Before the salesperson comes, they're like, have you done our price guide yet? And the person's like, well, no, I haven't. We want you to do the price. They're literally. They want them. Which I didn't realize it was going to be used that way, which is crazy. I thought it was just going to be a lead conversion tool.

[Unknown]

No, because if you use the price guide just like with HubSpot, what you figured out was this person's going to wood overlay garage doors. They want the best, you know, where they spent their time. So therefore, you're giving it to the guy with all the right samples, the guy with the most. So you're sending the right guy to the right job. You're putting Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. When they do the price guide, they're saying, I don't want an hoa hollow back door. I want something nicer. And now you're dispatching for dollars, not sending the greatest salesman, but the greatest knowledge source. And some people say, like, there are, unfortunately, every person's created different. And my best guys, they're very personable, they smile all the time. They have great conversations. We go play with the dog, we talk about their Harley. Most of the time, we're not even talking about the garage. We're educating them, any questions they have, but we're letting them know we're a good person. This is a great company, and we like you as a client, which makes.

[Marcus Sheridan]

You dang good, and you're one of the man. I wish we had time to really go into sales training because I'm so deeply passionate about it. I just got to say one thing. Can I say one thing about sales training?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Just a side note, I meet with sales teams all over the world. All I have to do is ask one single question to find out immediately what their sales culture is like, you know, within one question. And the simple question is this. How often do you do real role play training as a sales team? That is the only question that matters.

[Unknown]

Yep.

[Marcus Sheridan]

And I can tell you this. Less than 5% of the home improvement industry does role plays once a week. Less than 5%, which is a total tragedy. Tragedy. What does this mean? It means we're practicing sales on our customers and not on ourselves. Yeah. Which I think is a crime.

[Unknown]

Like a surgeon practicing on. Doesn't make any sense. You know, I used to think marketing was about getting new clients. 50% of my sales marketing brain goes, how do I get the right person? Because I'll tell you what, the right person I interviewed, I interview one of my techs every single week. That's top in the country. We're in 40 markets. This individual is excelling in Phoenix. And he said, I'm riding with this guy tomorrow, my day off. I'm riding with this guy Sunday. I'm going out to this other market this day. And he's obsessed. He's obsessed and he's got massive goals. So 50% of my brain goes, how do I recognize those individuals? They smile a lot. They have great conversation. They believe that they're worth it. A lot of people don't believe they're worth it to even come here. They think it's a pyramid scheme. When they come here, they're like, dude, it's all real. Like, they're drinking the Kool Aid now. And so, like. And then I say, look it, I don't need you guys here to sell a bunch of garage doors, do a bunch of service work. I need you to better your best every single day. I want you to get a little bit better. You're the best you've ever been, but the worst you'll ever be, because tomorrow you're going to be a little bit better. And all I need you to do is believe in yourself, because you got to believe you're worth it. But I do believe this world we're living, AI is going to help pick the person, too. I mean, there's certain quality traits in a conversation you can pull out, like wrestlers, athletes, competition farmers. These guys and gals do a lot. They work out better. But I think some of the conversation is you could have all the clients in the world if you don't have the right people running those calls and smiling and enjoying them.

[Marcus Sheridan]

I think outside of the training side of it, the idea that you would walk up someone's driveway and they wouldn't recognize your face, to me is a crime. But before you get to the home.

[Unknown]

That service Dan does that most CRM.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Before you get to the home, if they haven't seen your face and heard your voice, you have failed them as a contractor. And you have put yourself in the same class as everyone else that walked up their driveway. I can recall a time when. See, for years, I would knock on the door when I was a pool guy and I would hear a kid in the background say, mom, dad, pool guys here. For years, you know, kids were excited, pool guys coming. It's like Santa Claus, right? And then I started to doing. Started doing video very aggressively, and something crazy happened. This is a true story. One time after I started doing video, I knocked at the door and I heard a kid say in the house, mom, dad, the guy on the video's here. So that's what I was, the guy on the video. So I was like, oh, okay. And then right before the end, before I was, you know, like, moved on from being the sales guy at River Pools and started doing all this other stuff, I heard a kid say, I kid you not. Mom, dad, dad, Marcus from the video is here. Think about that for a second. They knew my face, they knew my voice, they knew my name. That's a slam dunk, and that's the way it should be. No different than a lot of people have an attrition problem with appointment set. They lose appointments. So they set the appointment and then before the person can get out there, they back out.

[Unknown]

Cancel something.

[Marcus Sheridan]

They cancel. The easiest way to eliminate that attrition is by sending a personalized video from the salesperson. And the reason is because before that, the person is canceling on a company that they don't know and a person that has no story, right? But if you set the appointment, and this is what my sales team does, point me to sit. Boom. And immediately they send out a video that's a text to the homeowner introducing themselves, saying, my name is Marcus. You know, here's my quick story. I live in the northern neck of Virginia. I have four children. I am so excited to come visit you and talk to you about pools next Thursday at 1:00. Now, that person, when they cancel, they're not just canceling on a company, they're canceling on a father of four children. And it's different. And you'll see, if you do that, you'll see that your attrition will improve dramatically.

[Unknown]

So with our bios, I'm like, first of all, guys, be in front of your truck. Make sure it's clean. Make sure you're smiling. Don't make it a mug shot. Next thing is, people want to Know about you, your kids, your dog. They want to know family, occupation, recreation, material things. If you love Harleys, if you love a soccer team, talk a little bit about it. Next thing is we're always gonna call the client on the way, and we're always gonna say, listen, I know about your problem. Listen to the call. Know exactly what you're going through. I'm here to tell you I'm a certified technician. That's gonna make it all better. I'm stopping off at 7:11. What do you like to drink? Hot or cold?

[Marcus Sheridan]

That's great, man.

[Unknown]

I want to bring you and that you're gonna say, listen, I'm fine. I don't need anything. Listen, if you come to my house, my wife's gonna feed you. I gotta bring you something. If you just want a red cup, tell me red cup. But I wanna show there the law of reciprocity. No one's ever offered me something on the way to do anything for my house. And it's not a trap. It just is like, wow.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Steal that one, Tommy. That's good stuff.

[Unknown]

It's. It's. It's the smallest things. And we actually built a tool to make sure guys are doing it, because all the calls, if you hit the. If you hit the client number and. And the thing actually rings their cell phone and connects to the client. So now I have figured out a way to make sure this is getting done. Because one day, 2018, we place stickers on the garage. That's like, the future of our business. At least. Today is like, the stickers there, it says, warranty void if removed. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We put one on the door, one on the opener, and we put this little nice thing above the wall button. I go into service titan, and I see every picture looks the same from one of my technicians. And I realized he could upload it. He could just upload the old picture. He's lazy. And so I called Servicentan and said, no longer could we upload. Can you make it? You can't upload from your gallery. You've got to now take a new picture. These small things. And he's not a bad guy. He just was a little lazy. And so all my things need checks and balances. As long as I take to come up with a system. I take a lot longer to make sure I've got data integrity, to make sure it's the right things happening. And I think a lot of people are like, tommy, I sit down, I do everything. I followed Marcus's advice I told the guys what to do. I listened to you, Tommy. And like, it's just not getting followed. Because I'm like, what's the system to ensure that you're getting data integrity, that it's being followed? And that's where a lot of people fail. It's like. And then I realized, even with videos, I've been doing it so long, I'm a natural. Like, I've been asking customers, I'm like, listen, let's just do this real quick. Some people, like, I need to do my makeup. All these things need to be perfect. But my techs hate being on camera. So I got to get them comfortable being in front of camera. What's the best time to do that in training? Have them video, video, video. And it's almost like role playing. Get them on video a lot to where they feel comfortable doing it, and then what's in it for them? Why would I make a video every time I'm working on an AI tool that says, if this hits all this criteria, same thing with reviews. I'm making it dynamic. You'll get 10 bucks for a review. But if you get this, this, this, and this. Plus, you know how many clients call up and say, I've gone through your reviews. I want Michael out here. He looks like the best. I say, you're building a future for your family.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Demand, baby. Yeah, I want to talk with the guy on the camera. That's exactly right. To your point, though, we can't just throw our team on camera and suddenly expect them to be great. A little bit of training can go a long way, and it's just really, really simple things. We teach some very. One of the things that my company Impact does is we train organizations how to be world class with their digital sales and marketing in house, and we help them apply this endless customer's system that we're talking about, which was they ask, you answer. And one of the things that we do within all this context is we train teams how to be better on video. Most teams are not trained. Simple, simple little things can go a long way. For example, we have what we teach always is the no stop rule. And the no stop rule is something that you and I are following right now, which is we know right now, well, we could stop, but we're not going to stop. We're going to move forward. When you're selling in the home, you don't stop. You mess up all the time in the home, but you don't stop. You're following the no stop rule. And so if you ask a salesperson, do you ever stop with the homeowner when you're doing your pitch? Like, well, no, I can't do that. I got to keep going.

[Unknown]

You stop with the camera, you go, oh, let's redo that.

[Marcus Sheridan]

That's right. So what do you do when you're in the home? Well, I just move forward no matter what. Could you do that? If we're on camera and they're suddenly like, oh, so you have to. When you're looking at the camera, it's literally like I'm sitting with the homeowner right now. We're following the no stop rule. Another really, really simple rule that we teach with video is, is the three second smile. I was watching you teach your team about the power of the smile in your training earlier. But the three second smile is very, very simple. Which is, before you start a video, you start smiling for three seconds. You should be coming off of your smile and not going into your smile. When you hit the record button, it changes your body too. It's much harder for you to struggle when you're smiling. It's just something powerful about it. So come off of your smile. Three second smile. We have this big joke right before we hit record. We're always saying we're smiling, we're smiling. Like we always do that in studio because we're trying to create that right energy. Sounds silly, but that's how it works. And last thing I'll say about that quickest way that you can start a culture of video with your entire team is you have them do one to one video with their own clients. That is how. Because now it's not going to the world. They're sending it out to the team. It starts with the leader communicating with his or her team through one to one video. They see that you're doing it, you're setting the conditions, the tone, the standard, if you will. Now the team starts to do it, you train them how to do it. Of course. And there's so many tools out there and it costs almost Nothing to send one to one video. You know, I've had email now for 25 years and most people are still sending out text based emails. It's freaking crazy, dude. Doesn't make any sense. I mean, sometimes, yeah, text is fine, but lots of times, to your point, before you go on the appointment, for example, that should be a video. That should be a video. And if you're not sending that as a video, shame on you.

[Unknown]

I've got a tool we just created. We're beta testing it in house. But birthdays, anniversary dates, and because we got power bi, I could see the best day. You could actually ask the AI this is what's coming is tell me the guys and gals that had their best day and it'll just give you the list. And now I just make a quick, simple video and it talks to my HR software. So if somebody doesn't work here anymore, like I know their birthdays and anniversaries and it asks your kids names, their birthdays and your wife or husband's. And so now I get to recognize that I could send a handwritten card through this. I can do all these things, but it's just. You know how many people have cried when I said, hey, listen, I just want to tell you how much I care about you. I don't get to see you as much as I used to because I don't come to Milwaukee as much. But I really appreciate everything you do. I love you very much. I know it's your birthday. Happy birthday.

[Marcus Sheridan]

That's why they don't leave for another dollar an hour. That's why, like, that's why they. That's like. That's the stuff right there. That's the stuff that galvanizes, man, it's awesome. And I love how you build systems around that. Like the little things.

[Unknown]

Yeah, well, those things, like, I got. It was very hard for me to keep track. And then I sent a message to somebody that no longer worked here. And I'm like, we gotta. We gotta forward develop this. Because he wasn't very happy. He got let go and he's like, the guy doesn't even know I don't work here anymore. How am I supposed to keep track? There was hundreds of employees. Now there's a lot more. So like these little systems and the way we do it and then it's. There's something.

[Marcus Sheridan]

What's that quote that you have, like all over the office? I saw about systems today? It's like three.

[Unknown]

Oh yeah, there's three systems that. There's three reasons the system doesn't work. There's no system, it's the wrong system. And most importantly, the current system's not being followed.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Yeah, I was like, I kept seeing that. I'm like, this is so good. This is so good. It's like you could tell, like, you're so system driven. I was like the whole. I love the vibe that I felt walking around your building today. It made me want to be a better person. And anytime you walk into a building and You've got this shrine to Dale Carnegie. As soon as you walk in, I'm like, that was the book that changed my life. Obviously had a big effect on you. I found it for 75 cents at a garage sale. How to Win Friends and Influence People. When I was in college. That was the moment I fell in love with personal development. It just changed my life forever. And I've always thought, you gotta read how to Win Friends and Influence People once a year. Just need to do it.

[Unknown]

Such a good book.

[Marcus Sheridan]

It's amazing how timeless those principles are. If you haven't read. If you're listening to this, please do yourself a favor and listen to it.

[Unknown]

I agree, I agree. Let's just go into a couple more subjects here. I believe AI is a scary thing, but a necessary thing, and I embrace it. But I also know rule number one. Don't hurt humans, don't teach it to lie.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Google was the first one to really screw that one.

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah, like when you asked about. What was the first one when you.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Asked about, you don't teach AI to lie. Here's a couple things about AI. There's still a lot of your listeners that haven't really gotten to the sandbox yet.

[Unknown]

Not at all.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Which is really scary.

[Unknown]

Well, they don't know where to start.

[Marcus Sheridan]

Everybody says, where do I start? Can I just answer that real quick? There's different answers to this, but here's what you want to do. Go to ChatGPT. And by the way, just do the $20 a month version.

[Unknown]

Yep.

[Marcus Sheridan]

And just do it, because it's worth it to you. Go to ChatGPT and say, hi, this is my name talking to Chat right now. So my name is Marcus Sheridan, and here's my business. And I want you to describe your business and then say, to Chat, I don't know how to use you. What do you need to know to help me? And what questions do you need to ask? And then all of a sudden, it'll just go. And you go back and forth with it, allow it to help you to go through this process where it learns about you, and then you can say, so based on these things, how can you help me in my business? And now it'll just go. It is not. No matter what anybody tells you, it is not a tool. It is not. This idea of. Here's the thing, I wouldn't say that. You know, I was using my friend Tommy the other day, and he helped me to write a particular article because he's so good with copywriting. I would say I was working with Tommy the other day, and he helped me produce an article that was much better because he's great at copywriting. So it's the same thing with AI. Stop seeing it as a tool. Start seeing it as a teammate. So if you had a new employee and you didn't know what that employee could do for you or how it could help you, what would you do? You'd sit down with the employee and say, hey, can we have a conversation, please? Say, yeah, sure, your team member. And then you'd say, okay, so this is my needs. Could you help with that? What else could you do for me? Start seeing it as a teammate. Stop thinking it's a tool. It is not that I love AI.

[Unknown]

What it's doing, you know, and here's the deal. You're out here for a reason, because you think differently. And I've always just been a student. I get myself in the right rooms. That's what I told these guys earlier. Is that like, they're like, what's the superpower? I'm like, being the dumbest guy in the room, asking a lot of questions, writing them down, and doing the work. Like, right now, you're thinking, well, Tommy's talking to a game. We'll see if he does it. Look, I do have a bigger ship than most. I need to make sure that the team understands, but eventually, sometimes I have to call the trump card. But I think you're very, very persuasive to understand the reason why. So I don't even think there's going to be a debate, but we got to hear it. Wrap up. So there's a few things. Number one, Marcus, how do people reach out to you if they want to get a hold of you?

[Marcus Sheridan]

Well, I would say make sure you get the book endlesscustomers.com or you can find it on Amazon. And if you get it, please leave a review. That means the world to me. I think you're going to love the book. It is a system that you can follow to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm a dang good follow on LinkedIn. I'm a baller over there. And so look me up and connect with me. Message me. I will personally answer you if you message me on LinkedIn and I'll give out an email here. Marcusarcass.com is my email address. Marcusarcasson.com I've got my email in my book as well, and I put it out there just because I tried to Scale the unscalable, just like you do every single day, man. So, Tommy, this was great. And what you've done is extraordinary. I'm very, very inspired by not just your story, by you. And just like watching your team, I'm like, man, man, man, man. To your point, you execute, you take action. And that's the great difference is you're a doer of, of deeds, not just a sayer. And that makes all the difference, man. So thank you for this.

[Unknown]

No, it's been great, man. And thank you for flying out here. I know it's a big journey out here. We're going to have a blast tomorrow and I'm just looking forward to getting these things going because when's the best time to plant a tree? 10 years ago? When's the next best time? Today. So that's what we're going to do. Thank you to all the listeners. And by the way, Marcus just said it. Leave a review for his book. And you know, it really helps other people listen to this podcast. Either sharing it with them or leaving a review on your favorite place to listen, it means the world to me. It's the best compliment I could ever receive. And as you guys know, we talked about this stuff. Take a quick video, leave a video. It means the world. I mean it literally. People ask, what could I do for you? It's just simply let me know if I'm doing okay and if I'm not, tell me what I could do better. Give an honest feedback. So hope you guys are out there to make an impact in your community and for your people. You guys have a great one.

[Tommy Mello]

Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 garage door service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from steel stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction. Head over to elevateandwin.com podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.