How to Use Content Marketing to Explode Your Business

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Go check it out right now. Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen and aliens from another planet. If that's you listening, welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. I am thrilled for you to be tuning in and hearing my voice whether this is the first time, the hundredth time I'd love to know. You can always connect with me over in the Facebook group for the podcast. Go to Facebook and just type in the search Mortgage Marketing Radio. Make sure you join the group. For loan officers, please fill out the questions if you want to get in. We want to make sure we're building a like-minded, well not like-minded, a diverse group of people but they are all mortgage lenders. That's the key. If that's you, head on over to Facebook to check that out. Number one, announcement. Number two, this podcast episode is brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership. What is that, you ask? That is the community of professionals who are focused on two things. Building their referral platform, ongoing referrals delivered to you every single month like clockwork and building out a consumer direct digital marketing business simultaneously. I call it the hybrid loan officer. That's right, the hybrid loan officer. You can learn more about that by going to hybridelo.com. What is that? It's a community where we provide you turnkey, done for you, educational content platform to be able to reach, engage, connect and convert real estate agents to referral partners and also build out a consumer direct strategy that includes digital marketing, templated done for you, turnkey, Facebook ads, Google ads, SMS texting, voicemail, video email, etc. And much, much more hybridelo.com. Check that out. Okay, so this podcast episode, I'm thrilled. This is not the one of those episodes that's probably two years in the making. This is a gentleman, my special guest, Marcus Sheridan. A gentleman I've been following for years, who I originally heard about him years and years ago by reading an article about how he took his pool company, River Pools and Spas from the economic collapse of 2008 when he was just about to go under, started integrating and leveraging content, content marketing back then, of course, in the form of articles and blogs and things like that. And fast forward, what's happened is Marcus not only turned his company around to become the most trafficked pool website in the world with over 750,000 now over a million hits per month. A pool website company that installs fiberglass pools, okay? So he can do that with content marketing, imagine what you can do with mortgage or real estate. And so fast forward, like I said, is to now, Marcus became so successful with content that, of course, he got on the radar of different companies and publications and eventually published two books and is now a highly sought after international keynote speaker who's a transformational presenter but also transforms businesses when he works with him. Let me give you a quick few stats around Marcus. Marcus has been dubbed a web marketing guru by the New York Times and in 2017 Forbes named Marcus one of the 20 speakers you don't want to miss. I'll continue here. As author of the content marketing book, they ask you answer, right? Marcus has inspired thousands to achieve their potential but also given the tools they need to get there. Mashable created Marcus's book, the number one marketing book to read in 2017. And Forbes listed Marcus's book as one of 11 marketing books that every CMO should read. He's been featured in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, Content Marketing Institute and Social Media Examiner. He has inspired thousands of audiences and helped millions of people from all over the world to achieve their own success with his, they ask you answer philosophy. It's one hell of a bio. So Marcus and I have a conversation today all about they ask you answer, content marketing, video or not, what to say, what to post, how to quickly build trust. And most importantly is make sure you also jot this down in the show notes. Marcus generously offered a free two hour course that unpacks his book and the principles behind they ask you answer. So to get that free two hour course, you go to impact plus dot com. That's I am P A C T impact, right, like having an impact impact plus dot com two hour free course. And listen, once you hear Marcus, you'll be convinced that this man knows what he's talking about and that you'll want more. So check that out. Look to the show notes for that and for links to the hybrid LO dot com if you want to learn more there as well. So hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I have and I'm going to go back and listen to this a second time. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Marcus Sheridan, welcome to the show thrilled to be here, Jeff, we're going to have a great conversation. I got a good feeling about this. We certainly are. And I have to say that I have seen a lot of speakers in my day. And when I saw you at social media marketing world, I don't know, two years ago before the world changed with COVID, man, I have to say, and this is not blown scurred, blown smoke. I'm just scared. I mean, dude, like seriously, you clearly know how to control an audience and speak and influence. I was blown away. And so I just wanted to shout out to you. Well, you know what's interesting about that. I think it's analogous to building a brand and online into a successful business too, because early on, the thing that makes me different as a speaker as you know, Jeff, is I go into the audience and it is a very interactive and for some people, that's a bit awkward. And the thing about that is, here's what it produces. What it produces is some of the most fascinating feedback forms you'll ever see as a speaker, because roughly 95% of the audience will say, this was amazing, best talk in the conference, 95% might say, he invaded my space. I didn't like that he yelled at me, or you know, something along those lines. And early on, I had to say to myself, do I want to appease the five, or the 95? And so much has that really lines with building your tribe, your audience, knowing who you are, knowing what you're not, letting go of that which you're not, and being okay with it. And I think so many businesses are afraid to let go of that which they are not, which is why if anybody knows me, not to go off in too much of a tangent here, but I think everybody should have a section on the website that is who are not a good fit for, because the moment you're willing to say what you're not, you become dramatically more attractive to those who you are a good fit for. And I made a career off of being different and memorable as a speaker. Yeah. And you talk about that in your book. It's, you call it the quickest way to build trust, right? Is it disarmament? Yeah, disarming is the process of saying what they least expect. Now saying who you're not a good fit for is absolutely an example of disarmament. So I use that phrase because when you're in a hostage situation, the first thing the negotiator says to the bad guy is put your weapons down. Let's have a conversation. Why? Because it's really difficult to have a conversation and I build trust if somebody's weapon slash guard is up. So if somebody's willing to drop their guard, then we can start to build relationships of trust. So there's many things that people ask us and we communicate where they're actually expecting us, the viewer, the reader, the listener, the audience, they're expecting us to be biased with how we say it, how we show it. But if we can disarm them, then quickly they're going to say, oh my goodness, this company's different. So let me give you an example of this and this may or may not come up. I know we're just going in random order here and that's the funnest way to do it, right? I want to swing pool company and so one of the questions I used to always get was Marcus be honest, tell me why should I choose a fiberglass pool over concrete? Now we only sell fiberglass pools. That only fits a certain percentage of the market. So how would somebody produce an article or produce a video that talks about the differences between concrete and fiberglass knowing that the audience expects you to sit there and spout off all the reasons why fiberglass is great and why they shouldn't go concrete. And that's a dumb way to do it. It's certainly not going to induce the most trust. So how do you do it? How would you say it? Let's pretend I was doing a video on that right now. Let me show you in this, I'm going to give you probably three examples of disarmament in this quick intro, almost like I'm giving a video. So it might sound something like this. You know, one of the questions we get here all the time at River Pools is, okay Marcus, be honest with me. Tell me, why should I choose fiberglass over concrete? Well, the truth is you shouldn't always choose fiberglass over concrete. In fact, there are times when concrete is the better option. So what this video is going to do, it's going to explain to you honestly and transparently the pros and the cons of both types of pools. Then by the end, hopefully, you'll have a great sense as to which is the best choice for you. I said, three things there that would make an audience almost flinch with, I'm surprised you said that, one, fiberglass isn't the best fit for everybody. Two, there are times when concrete is the better option. Three, we're going to talk about the pros and the cons of both types of pools. All these are signals or indicators to you, the listener, the view, the audience of, hey, this person, they're actually out for me. They're not out for them. They're willing to call it like it is and that's rare. Very few businesses and brands speak that way. So you talk about mortgage lenders, right? How often does somebody talk about who they're not a good fit for or a specific type of loan and who it is and who isn't a good fit for when it is or isn't the ideal situation? Rarely do they do that, Jeff, and that's problematic. Yeah, and 100% on point with that, and I love your approach. And oftentimes I'll ask that question to audiences, real estate agents included like, who's your customer, right? And what do they say? Everybody, right? But people are fearful of that, which is, well, if I'm not, if I'm just, you know, you know, you've heard this, if I'm just for this group over here, I'm going to lose that business. Even though I could, they could be my customer because it's not a fiberglass concrete thing. It's just who are you specializing in type of customer type of loan? You know, what do you say that? What do you say to those people who are afraid to put that stake in the ground? You will, if you are afraid to do that, you will live in a sea of sameness. And that's, to me, way more scary. Appearing like coming across as everyone else in your space, and let's be honest, you just take, you know, mortgage lender brokers or even real estate, there's a lot of sea of sameness there. Oh, yeah. They sound alike, look alike, the websites did just show very similar sometimes. And this is, this is very problematic. What are you saying or doing that makes me say, my goodness, they are different. And you got to be honest with yourself, are you saying something so different? You know, in my swample company, we talked about things nobody in the world had talked about. I mean, without exaggeration in the world, that's how we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world by not being like everybody else, by going against the grain, by pushing the envelope. And I've seen now thousands of other companies do it since that time, that have embraced these principles. Conceptually, it's, it's very, very simple, but unfortunately, most aren't willing to do it to your point, Jeff, because it's a leap of faith. It is different. It is change. We resist change. But when you do it, it's liberating because now you can communicate and therefore entrust at the highest of levels. Yeah. Real quick, what I want to do is for those that may not be aware, I want to set up the context of you and river pools and being the most trafficked website on the planet, because you were a trailblazer, why don't you give us the quick setup on how, you know, what the story is there? Start the company in 2001 out of college, things were going okay until 2008. We had the crash, almost lost the business. That's when I started research really about the internet. I knew how I was changing in terms of a buyer. So I said, our buyers, our customers are changing as well. And so as I researched things like in-bound marketing, content marketing, social media, blogging on stuff, what I essentially heard in my simple pull guy mind was, you know, Marcus, if you just obsess over your customer's questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns, and you're willing to address them on your website through text, through video, you might save your business. And so I said, well, dag on it, I got nothing to lose because I'm already going to lose my house. I'm already going to lose my employees. I'm going to file bankruptcy if we don't do something very drastic. And so I said, that's what we're going to do. And I brainstormed all the questions that I had received over the years in sales appointments. And one by one, I started to answer them honestly, transparently through text through video on our website. I did this for two straight years until we ended up becoming essentially the Wikipedia of fire glass pools. And we're getting almost a million visitors a month during the summer right now to our website. And I'd exploded the company. But that is a philosophy that today is called, they ask you answer. It became a book and that book has become a best seller. It's been translated now in multiple languages. But they ask you answer really, somebody says to me, what is they ask you answer? It's three main things, Jeff. Number one, it's an obsession with the questions where he's furious as you concerns of your customers and the willingness to address those on your website. Number two, it's the willingness to teach and communicate to your customer's potential customers in the way that they want to be communicated with. In other words, do they want to see it on video? Okay. Well, if they do, it's your job to show it and not complain about it. And then finally, number three, it's a willingness to sell it the way they want to buy it. That's where it gets really interesting. This is definitely affecting real estate, originally space right now because the sales, dynamic and how we essentially buy online is very much changing, many are resisting that. But the marketplace is asking, I'd like to buy it this way. Are we willing to answer it and evolve the way we sell or are we going to continue to do it the way we've always done it? That's the essence of the ask you answer today. Yeah, there's a lot in there, by the way. Thank you for setting that up. You said something, I want to unpack a little bit here, knowing how the customer wants to see it, receive it, consume it, whatever, video versus text versus how do you know, you know, because the typical default is you've got to be on video, right? And I do think video is important, but I also think that maybe you've brought up something interesting to discuss is, you know, we all know people have a fear of being on video. I've tried for a long time to get people to do videos and I'm sure you have yet there is an constant resistance. So I'm always cognizant, I'd love to hear what you say about this is like, do you think people can succeed without being on video? Absolutely, because there's always outliers, but that is not the norm. Somebody could succeed by having a world class podcast that's not on video where nobody ever sees your face, but they feel like they know you nonetheless. Sure. Those exist. And that's the caveat. Do they feel like they know you enough to trust you individually or as a company? Yeah. Now that feeling of knowing is certainly enhanced if they can see that dang face and hear that dang voice versus just read the written word. And so this is why video is a major component. And of course, for most companies I would say, certainly there are some where it's not as relevant, but I would argue probably for at least 90% of companies and organizations video should be on the card. And the one other thing I need to say about video, just why we're on the topic is our opinions on video do not matter. Only thing that matters is the marketplace, right? If the marketplace says, I really wish I could see that, our job to show it. That's what we signed up for as business leaders, entrepreneurs, et cetera. We didn't say, regardless of what the marketplace wants, I'm going to say, screw it. I'm going to do whatever I want because I'm my own man. No. No business works. It sounds nice, right? But that's, you're not Steve Jobs. We listen to the marketplace, right, right. That's a good point here, not Steve Jobs, I got to remember that. Okay. So I'm sure you and you're speaking and consulting with companies as I do, there's the resistance though of the people who are still succeeding, who are still doing well or to use a term called the fading winners, who are doing well because of the market or because they have a client database, they've got established relationships, and then there's the whole old school hat that people put on. I was interviewing, talking with a manager of a mortgage company the other day, and that's the phrase he kept bringing back, hey, we're old school, I'm old, you know what I mean? He was almost celebrating that, right? And they're still succeeding. So I'm curious like if, you know, if you were advising them, right, is that a, you know, where is the abyss coming ahead of them that they're not aware, they don't see that in the, you know what I mean? On the journey, on the road. This wrote down something as you were talking in big letters, old school ain't nothing to brag about. And I say that because it's the companies that latch on to the past that more often than not get left behind. I mean, there was a period where Netflix really bragged hard about being old school. And if you look at every major leader of every generation in every industry that was replaced and reached their demise, it was because they said, I'm old school. That's who we are. So when my daddy didn't hit daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy did it. Well, it just doesn't matter. And again, once again, the marketplace doesn't care. Okay. I'm going to be willing to adjust. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm going to keep coming at you with thoughts that are popping in my head. This is from real world interaction with people. I've heard two comments about putting yourself out there on social media. You know, either A, I don't want to put my personal life out there or B, it all seems so self-serving. Well, isn't so many ways everything you do is a business leader entrepreneur self-serving? I mean, you started a business why because you're so selfish that you said, I want to be my own boss. I want to dictate my future. I want to be able to achieve financial peace without restrictions. At least that's why I started at this point now, three different companies that I own. It's selfish and that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. That's what literally grows entire economies and allows you because you're selfish and obviously taken into light that I'm explaining it here. Selfish in a good way. Now you've provided jobs to thousands in the long run. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not on Facebook, why am I on LinkedIn? Because that's where my customer is. And you don't really see anything about my personal life there for the most part. It's professional. And I've probably made certainly more than a million dollars in business off of LinkedIn. Which by the way, if you're listening to this, you should be following me on LinkedIn because I'm a dang good fellow on LinkedIn. And so with that being said though, the idea of I don't want to just share my whole world, I don't want to share my whole world. I'm not talking about what I eat for dinner. Not interested in showing you that. You probably don't care anyway. What am I talking about? Talking about principles of success, sales, marketing, et cetera on LinkedIn. That's why I put all my chips and that has served me well. So it's okay that you're not doing those other things, but it's not okay if we say I don't care about the marketplace, which by the way, I'm not saying that everybody even has to do social media to be successful. But you're going to have to do some things very well. And one last thing I want to say about your question earlier about, we've been successful for a while. We haven't changed. Everybody says that until the stuff hits the fan. You know, I remember in 2009, because I live in Virginia, I've got a lot of companies that I'm close to that are in northern Virginia, and they're working with the government to the government contractors. So these are B to G companies. And one of the major things that came out of 2008, 2009, 2010 is the government went through a period of transition with how they were working with subcontractors and budgets, et cetera. And a lot of them lost that government work. So quickly, they might have over the course of just a couple months lost 50, 75% of their contractor work. That's scary. And what did every single one of those companies need to do at that point, transition to B to B instead of just B to G? The sad thing is, Jeff, oftentimes we don't make those moves until we're in a position of panic and stress. Whereas the most successful companies, they don't allow the pride cycle to get in their way. They don't allow themselves to say, it's going so great. I don't need to look to replace myself. I don't need to look to reinvent myself. Instead, they're obsessed with the marketplace, where it's going. They're accepting it for what it is. And heck, I mean, we all know every single person's listening this right now inherently because they're intelligent because they know the housing market is right now. And at the end of the COVID rainbow. And to think that it's going to last is naive. None of us think this is going to last forever unless like yesterday was our first day on the job. Whether it's me as a, I'm directly tied to real estate as an owner of a swample company. I remember 2008, 2009. Many of us do. We were begging for business and all of a sudden we were working on all the little things just to get a freaking lead doing whatever took to keep the lights on. The key to business and long-term stability is not getting really serious about those dark days only when they come. But rather, knowing accepting that eventually they'll come back around because that's life and that's how cycles work and saying, what can we do to stay way ahead of all these things? Yeah, yes, so pay attention to where things it's like the old line from Gretzky, right, not where the puck is, but where it's going. Yeah, yeah, see around the turn, baby. Mm-hmm, but don't just look around the turn, you know, because you could sit and watch, oh, that's where it's going. And then you're like, oh, I'm so busy, I need to just take care of right now. Right. And then you never prepare for. Or sorry, that's why Gretzky went where the puck was going to go and that is what we have to think like as businesses. What's funny about it though, Jeff, is if we're really obsessed with our own behavior and self-aware, it comes pretty easy. Like they ask you answer was a direct result of me saying, yeah, always research this stuff online. These are the questions I'm asking. So if I'm asking it, I know my customers are asking it, heck, I hear them ask me about it. Why would I not address it? Would I like it if they address it? If I was the customer, of course, I would like it. Well, then why don't I do it? Oh, I got no good excuse. Boom. Yeah, one of the, maybe this is a parlay. One of the chapters in your book, though, is talking about ostrich marketing strategy. And is that in line with what we just kind of went through? Like if you're keeping your head stuck in the sand about this, does this problem ever go away, right? So the book really emphasizes the main subjects that buyers, customers, tumors are obsessed with before they'll engage a company, before they reach out with a company. We call these subjects the big five. There's the five most essential subjects literally almost any company in the world needs to be addressing on the front end, because otherwise your buyers are going to go elsewhere to find this information. Here's the five subjects, cost questions, cost price rates, et cetera, okay? Number two, problems, negatives, issues, drawbacks, et cetera, so number two is problems. Number three, comparison based questions, think about all the times you go online and compare it one thing versus another, we love to compare. Number four, review based questions. Everybody saying about it, a really thorough look at it, whatever it is. And number five, best, we love to research best, those are the big five. And what's fascinating is most companies do not address these five things. We call that ostrich marketing, it's bearing our head in the sand. Most buyers are obsessed with it. Businesses don't want to talk about it, it creates a paradox of wants. So if you as a business are just willing to talk about these things. And now here's the key, that's why it's called the ask your answer. Is you got to know what those questions are, and then be willing to address them. And the thing about it is you can't always answer them exactly. You can't necessarily tell somebody what their mortgage rate is going to be until you find out a few things about them. But you could certainly teach them what drives rates up, what keeps it down. You could teach them all about the marketplace, hidden costs, fees, et cetera, so that they can understand what they're getting themselves into and therefore value. That's cost and price, that's how it works. And you go to most companies, do real estate agents charge the exact same thing across the board? No. Because even if they charge the same commission, there's different stuff included in the service rendered. So nobody charges the same thing across the board. So you've got to explain it, and if you do not explain it, guess what, they're going to learn value from somebody else, i.e. your competitor, and I don't know about you, but that sucks. I am not interested in my prospect, learning from my competitor, I want to control conversations. But this is the choice that we have. The ostrich doesn't control jack squat in terms of conversations. You ignore them and you hope that you get some residual. Whereas the company that is thinking like they're buyer and saying, okay, the last question we're going to address it, then they lean into it. And let me talk about the problems one, that second one of the big five that I mentioned a second ago, because this is really prolific in the mortgage lending space. I just think this one's huge. There are so many fears that people have when it comes to loans and types of loans. There's a lot of ignorance as we know. There's a lot of misinformation as we know, and there's certain fears, worries, concerns. What's scary is when companies don't talk about those things. If you're a lender and you're not addressing them head on, you're completely missing the mark. So like with fiberglass pools, I've addressed head on to major issues. Do fiberglass pools pop out of the ground? Are fiberglass pools ugly? Do fiberglass pools look cheap? Just fiberglass pool look like a bathtub in my backyard. Like literally those are fears that people have. So it's my choice. Do I address somewhere? Do I let my competitor do it? Again, we're going to address that. So you got to lean into the negatives, and this is one of the hardest ones for people to do Jeff. It's like, the comparison I like to make is, find me one attorney in the US where on the website, they address the question, what happens if you lose your case? Yeah, that would be totally refreshing, wouldn't it? Yeah, you won't find a single one. Why do you think it's fear, right? It's fear, but it's also ignorance, and it's a lack of self-awareness. Because they're not asking, would I want this? Would I appreciate this? Is this the type of thing that I research? And it's like, it's so funny. These things, these negative questions, these problem questions are like elephants in the room. Every industry has elephants in the room, right? Yeah. And so the question is, do you put the elephant in the corner thinking that when they walk and they won't see the elephant? Y'all, it's an elephant. They're going to freaking see it. It's an elephant. And so, the smart companies, they take the elephant and they bring it to the front. They say, here's the elephant. We just want you to know, this is our elephant. We're very aware of it. Now you're aware of it, and we can move on. That's brilliant. Good analogy. And listeners, right now, you're listening to this. I know you have ideas popping in your head about what are the problems that are happening in the current market that you could bring to the surface. Let's just real quickly state a couple of the obvious ones. Multiple bids, multiple offers, getting out bid, getting my offer accepted, selling my home and not finding another place to live, right? Everybody's, this is the problem I have with the real estate industry, real estate agents specifically. Everybody's talking about, now's a great time to sell. Record price is, you know what I mean, 70,000 over asking, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there's that market that you're talking about that is quiet sitting by the sidelines. That would sell or consider selling. If somebody would address the fear or the unstated concern of, but there's no houses to buy. Yeah. What about inventory? Yeah. I'm going to be homeless, you know, and that's a real thing. And I, you know, it's, here's the thing though, you and I, I'm sure we've talked about this till we're blue in the face. Like my classic prescription when somebody comes to me is, what are the five biggest questions you get all the time? Like what's your rate? What are the costs? Should I buy or sell them? That's five videos right there, isn't it? 100% and in fact, you should have one video that addresses those main five questions that you send to the prospect before that initial sales meeting so that not only do they know the answer, but they've heard it from you. They've seen it from you. And now, how much more effective is that first conversation going to be? You spend more time selling, less time teaching. That's what's all about. Yeah. Stop selling, start helping. Right? That's right. Okay. What's changed in terms of the content marketing approach, this is a big broad question, but when you started doing the blogging and stuff, it was 2008-ish. How have you pivoted in terms of your strategy or tactics? Well, there's, okay, there's a lot that goes into this, this is a somewhat broad question, but it's very good. One of the things that people will often say is, my industry is saturated with content. So I mean, I'm not going to show up in Google, so I bother. I mean, you harm, that's a really dumb outlook. Because even if let's say somebody, let's say you get a referral, and I know many in this space, it's very referral, real estate, lending, et cetera, very referral-driven business. And so even if it's a referral, generally, they're going to vet you after they've gotten that referral, they're going to vet you online before they contact you. They're not just going to like, their friends are going to say, try this, such and such, and they call you immediately. No, they're still going to vet you online. The question is, when they go online to your website, do they see you as everybody else, or do you stand out? Do they fall in love, even? Do they say, oh my gosh, I mean, my buddies said they were great, but this is amazing. I mean, look at all the questions that everything I was thinking is like really right here on this website. So that alone is reason enough to do, they ask you answer. I tell people all the time, if I never got another visitor from Google because of S-E-O, I would still do this all day long because A, I want my user experience to be exceptional when they come to my site from referral, et cetera, or B, I want to integrate that content into my sales process so as to increase closing rates while decreasing closing or sales cycles. Just like we talked about a second ago, if you create a video like that that they're viewing before that initial sales appointment, is your sales cycle going down? Yeah. Are your closing rates going to go up? Why would you not want that? And so when somebody says my industry is just too saturated, I'm like, that's a very myopic viewpoint, but that is something that you see people talking about. No question, there are some saturated industries out there, but there's no reason that you should not do this. What? Just to interrupt you real quick, what should that video say, that video that goes out before you have that conversation? Well, and so in both my books, they ask you answer in my book, new book that I have on video that's out. It's called the visual sale. I talk about this as well. We call this the 80% video, 80% video is the video that you send to the prospect immediately before that initial sales appointment that addresses the top questions you know they're going to ask probably almost every single time. Usually we recommend somewhere between seven to 10 questions. So this is going to be a longish video. It's probably going to be at least seven minutes, could be 10, 12 minutes, you know, like, are they going to watch something that long? Yeah. If it's answering their very specific questions and they're getting ready to make a buying decision, you better believe they're going to watch a video that long. So don't buy into all videos should be short. It's just not true. It's not true at all. So with that being said, what are the types of questions that you should be asking? Well, for you, you know what they are. What do you know they're going to ask or is there a question that you get it asked, you roll your eyes and you say to yourself, how they not know this already? Oh my gosh. This is going to be such a drag, this, this appointment. That's a clue. Right. That's a clue too. So like back in the day, I knew if I showed up on a sales appointment as an example, Jeff, and the person said to me, so can you help me understand, again, the difference between concrete and fiberglass, they weren't going to make a decision that night. They weren't close to being ready. I needed to go into the home with them already saying we know the advantage of fiberglass. We know the advantages of concrete. We feel fiberglass is the best fit for us. Sure maybe there's some selling I need to do on that side of it, but for the most part, they already know the difference. So that's the type of question that I probably want to make sure is very clearly addressed beforehand, right? And so you know what they are because you, if you're listening to this, take those calls, you go on those appointments, you know when you roll your eyes. You know when you're saying to yourself, man, I'm answering this again. Look, sales shouldn't feel like Groundhogs Day. Sales appointments should feel different. They should feel different because you've gotten past, again, that initial 80% of redundancy. Hmm. Interesting. And you can handle a lot of that up front with your content, pre-meeting content in various forms. Really if possible, but other forms as well. Yep. Yeah, I like that. That's good stuff. It reminds me of the Lenders and Agents I've seen who are succeeding with YouTube because that whole process has taken place on YouTube, unbeknownst to them. And when the finally track point where they're ready to reach out, they're like, hey, we've been watching your videos for three months. We're ready to go. Yeah. The story that I love to tell about video is pretty crazy. It's true. For a long time, when I sold pools, and I haven't sold pools now for almost 10 years, but when I sold pools, I would go up to somebody's house that I had set an appointment with. I'd knock on the door and usually a kid would answer because the kid knows the pool guys coming over. Kids fired up. Like Santa Claus is coming to town. And I'd knock on the door and you'd always hear kids say, mom, dad, pool guys here, like all the time happened to me. And then I started to integrate video into the sales process and doing exactly what we're talking about here, which is really answering their major questions beforehand with video, getting them to view it beforehand. And one time, I knocked on a door and a kid said inside the house, mom, dad, the guy on the videos here. Think about that for a second, Jeff. What was happening? This kid with his or her parents had watched a video about pools. They watched as a family. Was that appointment different? And then I had one other final experience with this. It's even more interesting. I once heard a child in the house say, mom, dad, Marcus, from the video is here. No way. Think about that. Marcus, from the videos here, did I make that sale? Yeah. Hell to the air. Aha. Yes, sir, absolutely. That's the goal that they feel like they have seen us before we've ever seen them, that they feel like they've heard us, our voice, before we've ever heard theirs. They feel like they know us before we've ever met them. And if we achieve that, we'll therefore achieve that magical emotion we call trust. Yeah. I love that. So listeners, question is, what do you can implement from what you've heard just now, right? How do you influence somebody before you get to the appointment? You do that today with content, right, in various forms. If you're not ready for video, fine, do it with written or something like that. It's good stuff. I know we're tight on time. So that was a great set up. If I have time, let's do a quick one minute on the other big issue that most people push back against. You sent a newsletter out. I'm sure you don't remember it, but I've got a library of stuff from you. This is from last year. Three pieces of advice that I'm really glad I ignored. I just want to talk about one, which is don't mix business and pleasure. Now, in the context quickly of agents and loan officers, I think that's a very trust-based personal, like on social media. You can't always just talk about business, and maybe you can crack me if you don't agree. But I think that's where the missing opportunity, it's for most, is that personal tie-in. But that's where people struggle or resist. What do you say to that? We constantly hear this battle of balance and having a fulfilled life on a personal and professional level. I'm just of the opinion, why can't we have both? I have traveled the world as a speaker, and oftentimes I've had at least one of my kids with me in that experience. Those memories will never be forgotten. They're just amazing memories. I look to integrate, I take more vacations, and I work some on vacation. It's one of those things where some people say, I take one a year and I completely check out. I take four or five a year, but I'm still working a little bit, and my wife loves it, because I'm not a beach guy. She's going to go to the beach for five hours a day, I can work, and then we have an amazing night. We're still on vacation. Kids are thrilled, everybody's happy. That's what I mean by that. Now, does it take a little bit of a discipline, yes, but is it possible, is it worth it 100%? Yeah, so it's really integrating the two, and realize that people want to know something about you personally. Not everybody, there is that small percentage where they're just like, give me the numbers whatever, but people want to know a little bit about you. The human connection, baby, it matters, Jeff. Yeah, yeah. Listen, let's tell people where they can connect with you. By the way, clearly on LinkedIn, and you made the point earlier, your audience is not the consumer. It's executives, and that's why you're on LinkedIn, and that's where your content is. My audience, less so. More so is their audience, our consumers, and real estate agents, where they need to be a little bit more personal and more real, if you will, more human, so to speak, right? Yeah. Where do people follow you, man? What do you want to give them? Well, here's one thing I'm going to give everybody for free right now that you're going to freaking love. Okay. I've got a two-hour course on they ask you answer. That's online. Love it. That's free. All you have to do is go to impactplus.com, impactplus.com, two-hour course. Yes, that's right, where you can really learn everything about the ask you answer. You're going to love it. So make sure you do that. You can reach out to me directly at MarcusSharedIn.com if you have a personal question for me. The book they ask you answer, it will change your life, so order it right now before you forget. I promise it will change your life. And yeah, I'll see you on LinkedIn. Yeah. All right. We'll put links to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your generosity of that incredible offer of a two-hour course. I'm jumping on that right after this. I've already got your book. That's awesome. And of course, your new book. I got to get that too, because that's the visual sale, right? A little bit more. What's the subtitle there? How do you use video to explode sales, drive marketing, and grow your business in a virtual world? Which clearly we are in now. Yes, we are. All right, man. I know you got to jump. I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for being here. Listeners, you know what to do. Check the show notes for the links. And we appreciate you. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys. What's up? Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before, and I just want to quickly remind you of that. There's a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you, agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you. 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