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

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

In this conversation, Marcus Sheridan discusses the evolving landscape of marketing in the home services industry, emphasizing the importance of video content, disruption, and building trust with customers. He shares insights on how businesses can adapt to changes brought about by AI and commoditization, and highlights the need for transparency and innovation to stand out in a competitive market. He also discusses the evolving landscape of sales and marketing, emphasizing the importance of adapting to new consumer preferences and leveraging technology while exploring the significance of self-service tools, pricing estimators, and the psychological factors influencing buyer behavior. Don’t forget to register for Tommy’s event, Freedom 2025! This is the event where Tommy’s billion-dollar network will break down exactly how to accelerate your business and dominate your market in 2025. For more details visit freedomevent.com   Show Notes: 00:00 The Future of Media in Home Services 02:11 Navigating Change in Marketing 04:31 Disruption and Innovation in Industries 09:50 Creating Trust Signals 13:39 The Role of AI in Marketing 17:11 Commoditization and Differentiation 19:03 The Power of Transparency 31:05 Building a Trusted Brand 37:01 The Future of Selling: Embracing Change 40:50 Self-Service Tools: Revolutionizing Buyer Experience 46:35 The Power of Pricing Estimators 52:34 Understanding Buyer Psychology 56:02 Building Trust Through Personal Connection 01:01:21 Leveraging AI for Business Growth  

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. 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. To do that, you'll have to take 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 and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 States. Just go to elevate and win.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. 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. 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 A1 on a new content strategy. And I think it's going to blow our minds. We're meeting all day tomorrow. And you've 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 Sheridan International, Question First Group, pricegod.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. Yeah, there's so much going on, man. First of all, time is so nice to be here with you live. This is great. Yeah, very, very fun. I think for it seems like, you know, I've had Riverpools since 2001. So 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 marketers 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, 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 are going to work every single time.

Well, let's dive into that because that's an exciting topic. Disruption? Yeah. Okay, we'll go there first. Okay. Because there's just some fun things. Can I give my quick background just as a-

Yeah, absolutely. 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 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 trafficked 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 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 dogs, right? So let's talk about just some quick ways that you can disrupt and I'm just gonna like take it back Like I'm gonna go Way back in time for a second on this one because I think this whole conversation will probably have to do 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 that might work for him as a pool guy but that won't work for me which by the way is the death of creativity and innovation in business don't be that guy or that gal please for the love of all this pure and holy right so when we start 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 2,000 years ago 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. And so what happens as a byproduct of that, right? So sand settles and sand washes. And so fiberglass pools were moving and they were shifting. Nobody was doing anything about it. So we said, this is dumb.

What is going on? And 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're 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 pooled installed on gravel but it's gonna cost me a thousand more bucks 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 this, what is something that happens all the time within the garage door space 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 like- The number one thing I can tell you is a builder puts on the cheapest door possible. Yes. On a... if you're building like a thousand homes. Yep. All the money goes into the kitchen, bathrooms, the change orders. Yeah.

They get the money for the garage, they're like, let's just go the cheapest. 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 gonna 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? Keep going.

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 2011, 2012. I was in a grocery store, right? And I was looking at the magazines on the magazine aisle.

And I saw that magazine Motor Train Car of I saw that you know that magazine Motor Trend Car of the Year? Yeah. You know that right? So I looked at that 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 would like our whole site went big But this was part of the process of us just blowing up The most traffic swimming pool website in the world So I said what if I and let me just 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 There's just like there's about you know, seven eight major auto manufacturers There's about seven eight major fiberglass pool manufacturers So we were really really small fish in this 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 gonna have freeform fiberglass pool of the year. We're gonna have rectangle fiberglass pool of the year We're gonna have diving fiberglass pool of the year, and I gave out all of these awards Hey 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 notice 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 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 suddenly, like I was having this influence. Then I was seeing, and this is the funniest part, major competitors on their home page 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 example. And they have super high domain authority. Oh, yes. And this is a classic example. They have super high domain authority. 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 Like I don't have like, you know eight people in my marketing team and I don't have this I don't have that

I'm like well then count your 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 two groups Like I said, we had to really make two groups, two groups very happy with us and recommend us. First off, the homeowner had to recommend us, right? That's been true in the last decades,

and it's always going to be true. But then, 20-ish 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, you know Marcus I'm doing paid but it's just not working like 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 gonna be using either chat GPT 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.

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 alright 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 want 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 endless customers because they ask you answer. It's extraordinary in a lot of ways I mean really was it's probably probably the best SEO strategy ever like put down on paper for some for anyone that can under like anybody can understand it as an SEO strategy is 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 it 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. So let me ask you

This idea of commoditization, yeah, right as things become cheaper to make you know, 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 CSR is nice 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 the home improvement like literally like one day the pest control company gonna send out an AI bot

Find out where all the scorpions and spiders and mice the pest control company, gonna send out an AI bot, 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 you know my my my son 21 he is Getting his journeyman's probably within the next 60 days Has zero debt and it's gonna be making six figures probably within the next year I mean he's on that trendline life is great for him, and I was thrilled when he said I'm gonna be an electrician Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah So you mentioned a few different things there about? Commoditization of products I gotta 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? 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 Scheinkopf. I started Endless Customers, the book, with Steve Scheinkopf, his story. Steve is the CEO of Yale Appliance in Boston, Mass.

They sell kitchen appliances. OK? So the thing about kitchen appliances is, over the years, they haven't been built as well as they used to be built. No they're not. 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 you know 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, OK, OK, I'm going to listen.

And he became one of the greatest students I've ever had. And what's that? Well, we're I'm a new student Yeah, yeah, 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 break, okay All right, 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? Yeah. 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 gonna be the student that you say you're gonna 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 OEMs, did these huge brands get upset? Of course. Yes. And what did Steve say? What do you think he said? He said, make a better product. That's exactly what he said. Make a better product because that's on you.

And so even this year, even this year, he it again, and he says in the first 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? 2024 our 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. Yes. Okay, good job. GE. Now this is how David wins again. Because who do you think has more trust in the

marketplace? Steve Shonkoff, 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 the trusted advisor 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 isn't a time when everybody's saying kitchen appliances are in 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 he's just crushing because he's doing it differently

You know, I think about that the old Maytag I'm putting out a commercial, you know, Roy Williams Wizard of Ads. 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 I can trust somebody before you go there, like my buddy with Gettle, he creates commercials where people were calling him up going, first of

all, I'm mad at you because what you did for Wendy, your wife on Valentine's Day out does me. But it's barely rarely, he doesn't make a transaction 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, you used to hold the flashlight for him. And so this whole idea I'm thinking about like all these ideas and people used to call up ghetto When Ken was always on the air and say we don't have a bad it 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 of the day But my grandma had Maytag's like those things would run forever

Anybody with an old yellow Maytag. They're still going Yeah, there's something's got an that's listening. It's got one in their garage right now. It's still rolling They've replaced the one in the in their house. Oh, yeah Yeah, they're really nice beautiful ones and the old Maytag commercials were similar to what you said is it was the Maytag guy Stand around the truck like this going no service work. You know it just keeps going so a long time ago What I built, because there's nothing like this in the garage industry. It's all the springs are on cycle lives. The cables you want stainless steel if you got any type of snow, you got rollers from a different

manufacturer. See, the garage manufacturer, they manufacture the panels. So 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 openersers and openers ten 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 gonna have internet that you could open and close it from your cell phone You're not gonna have a camera system to invite Amazon or Walmart to deliver your groceries because 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 serers 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 try to think of how to think outside of the box because doors Who's the spring manufactured? What cycle springs they put on if the cables went bad if this went bad if this went bad if this went bad panels every Manufacturing I know creates a polyurethane two-inch panel, then they got poly siren, 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 using them on all the house higher-end

houses and they got these wood foe doors that they guarantee for ten years that look better than wood you don't have to treat them every single year it's 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'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? 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. Yeah, worry-free. We had our own parts that are called max lives. 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. Yeah. And it's a big mistake. Everyone has IP and you have to look at your 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 percent's doing it But could we name even a 50 percent 75 percent 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 gonna start to get a lot more attention and people gonna say I want that or they're gonna say I 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 pulls on gravel and not on sand. So an install process, you know, we put a scale under every single door to make sure it was zero, to install correctly. There's certain things you could almost say, if it's not done this way, it's not the right way.

That's right. This install process and you go through that and could almost say, if it's not done this way, it's not the right way. That's right. This install process and you go through that and you educate the customers on it. And you do that through articles, you can do that through videos, you could do that on TV, radio, billboards, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. What's still economical because billboards, I was with Gary V about five years ago, and he goes, forget billboards. He's's like if I do 500 tests on Facebook it'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 tick-tock 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 got to 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 KPS, 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. It's pretty overwhelming.

It's way more overwhelming than it used to be. Marketing has gotten progressively harder, but it's also gotten much more enjoyable. Like OTT and all these things, 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 was I glorified the day they went out of business by the way because they were ripping so many Home contractors and whatnot off big time. Yeah, 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 kind of talk about I love it. I'm gonna trust all right So let me talk about something just give people some context here because I want to give you a system that of a known and trusted. All right, 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 going to 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 trust going to 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 going to be fundamental to your business in 10 years, in 20 years? They'd be like, I don't know, it's a crap shoot. 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 going to 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 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 a utilitarian for your listeners. Okay. First one is this sounds and 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 You Answer, and it's gonna be, is very true with now Endless Customers, in the sense that I wrote about it, and it's gonna 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 is looking for a remodeler, if somebody is 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 B to B. It's how we research stuff. This is a principle that's not going away. As buyers and consumers, number one, we wanna 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 and 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, dog. You've just been nuts on that. Well done. You could write a book on just how to crush on reviews. The thing about reviews, though, is we don't just want good reviews. 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 etc. 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 gonna learn it from somebody so the question is are they gonna learn it from you that video that article that thing that you posted Or are they just gonna say? No, I'm out. I love it. So What look it's all good great dandy most people are coming? Well, I'm just gonna say most people just aren't gonna 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? Yeah, so let me 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?

Yep. Okay, so that's the first one. Say what others aren't willing to say. Number two, similar to number one, you gotta 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?

In conjunction with that, you have to start thinking like a media company. I do not care how big or small you are. 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, 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 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. 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, etc. 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've 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've 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 This is 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 numbers going down or up Tommy up it's only going to go up right. So 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, 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? That's an example of it. 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 is 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. 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. Yep. Right? Which is

this is gonna be a really really big deal in the future in this industry because it's a very very visual industry. Yep. Okay? Alright. 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? I got a feeling you and I are gonna 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 gonna 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'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 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's extraordinary. It's almost the same. And now it's exactly how much is this going to cost? We start and we stop the buyer's journey with the same question essentially.

Now, what does a pricing estimator do? So I've got a company that started called priceguide.ai and And I said, this is a mega trend. And I want, 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 like catching on like wildfire. Here's how it works. It uses AI, of course 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 then it selects the services and then the AI pulls up a bunch of questions that you would likely want to ask the homeowner 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 them 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 time I've seen this over and over again in home services if somebody puts this on their website You will immediately see a three to five hundred percent lift in conversions the day you do it. 3 to 500 percent 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 five goes to 15?

What type of financial impact is that on your business? And 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 percent 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 percent. 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 home page 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 home page have like five CTAs 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. And so instead of just saying, hey, call for quote, call for quote, call for quote, fill this format 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 rangey 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-market, 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. It's been done the same way for so long This is the norm in the industry in one last prediction then I want to hear your thoughts and sorry for the rant No, no good. 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 All right, and I and I want to help people find that financial piece 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 they ask you 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 wanna put price guide on there. I wanna put that estimator tool on there.

I'm like, I don't know if it's gonna really work because you have price lists, but okay, fine. Suddenly, they five extra 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, okay, 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 until everybody does it and then follow the lead because it becomes the norm in the industry because it's already happened in roofing. You're already starting to see it with some like grass cutting businesses. 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. So a 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 want to spend a lot of my summers. I want to spend with my family. I want to make sure I get the right pool. If I'm to spend a lot of my summers. I'm going to spend with my family I want to make sure you 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 gonna look at reviews very quickly. I'm not gonna go to a configurator or I'm not gonna 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 got to 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 can say, who's the best company to get out here? And what I think is 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 four or six years old in my what 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 but it's not about price you just heard that and you took is 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 you're the homeowner for a second. We agree, by the way, that when it's a low research, high speed purchase, then estimators aren't very useful. 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, there's like somebody's listening this right now and they're debating between Sansong and iPhone and they might have done like a hundred pages online of research comparing the two because they're debating between Samsung and iPhone and they might have done like a hundred 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 necessary 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. All right, and you have you want a new garage Tommy you're not in the industry a new garage door excuse me you're not in the industry All 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 Yeah, 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 a price guide yet? And the person is 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 gonna be used that way, which is crazy. I thought it was just gonna be a lead conversion tool. 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, 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 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 about sales training. 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 roleplay training as a sales team that is the only question that matters yep 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, which I think is a crime. 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 interviewed I interviewed one of my texts 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 from running this guy Sunday I'm going out to this other market this day and he's obsessed. He's obsessed. 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, I don't need you guys here to sell a bunch of graduates, 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. You guys, 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. 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. Before you get to the home, 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 pull's here for years. You know, kids were excited. Bull guys coming. It's like Santa Claus, right? And then I started doing video very aggressively. And something crazy happened.

Is this 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 is here. 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, I heard a kid say, I kid you not, Mom, Dad, Marcus from the video is here. Yeah. 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 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. 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. But if you set the appointment, and this is what my sales team does, appointment is set, boom, and immediately they send out a video, that's a text, to the homeowner,

introducing themselves, saying, my name is Marcus. 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 o'clock. 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 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 is people want to know about you, your kids, your dog. Yeah, 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

going to call the client on the way. And we're always going to 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 going to make it all better. I'm stopping off at 7-Eleven. What do you like to drink hot or cold? Great man. 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 want to 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's just is like wow they're very steal that one Tommy that's good stuff 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 in in the thing it actually rings their cell phone it connects to the client so now I have figured out a way to make sure this is getting done because one day 2018 we placed stickers on the garage. That's like the future of our business, at least today,

is like the stickers there says, warranty void if removed, 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 realize he could upload it He could just upload the old picture. He's lazy

And so I called service and I 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 follow Marcus's advice,

I told the guys what to do, I listen 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 so they can feel comfortable doing it. And then what's in it for them? Why would I make a video every time? I work on an AI tool that says, if this hits all these criteria, say, with reviews, I'm making it dynamic.

You'll get $10 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. Demand, baby. Yeah. 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 customers 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 gonna stop.

We're gonna 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 gotta keep going, okay? I'm gonna let you stop on the camera. You go, oh, let's redo that. 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 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 the three-second smile And 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 and so 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 will we always do that in studio because we're trying to create that right energy sounds silly But that's how it works And the 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. I've got a tool we just created we're beta testing it in house, but tool we just created we're beta testing it in house, but Birthdays anniversary dates and because we got power bi could see the best day you can 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 somebody doesn't work here anymore Like I know their birthdays and anniversaries and it asks your kids names their birthdays birthdays and your wife or husbands. 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. 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 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 works here I'm like we got a we got a board developed 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 much was to keep track there was hundreds of employees now there's a lot more so like these little systems in the way we do it and then it's there's so

what's that quote that you have like all over the office I saw about systems today it's like three 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 is not being followed. Yeah, I was like I kept seeing 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. I 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've got to read How to Win Friends and Influence People Once a Year. Just need to do it. It's such a good book. It's amazing how timeless those principles are.

If you haven't read it, if you're listening to this, please do yourself a favor and listen to it. 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.

Google was the first one to really screw that one up. Oh yeah, when you asked about, what was the first one? When you asked about the founders. 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 the sandbox yet. Not at all, which is really scary Oh, they don't know where everybody says, what do I start?

Let me can I just answer that real quick and there's different answers to this, but here's what you want to do Go to chat GBT and by the way, just do the $20 a month version and just do it because it's worth it to you. Go to chat GBT 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 I was using my friend Tommy the other 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?

He'd say, yeah, sure, your team member. And then you'd say, OK, 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 what it's doing I you know, and here's the deal there 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 I 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 you're right now you're thinking well time. He'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 you know 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? Well, I would say make sure you get the book, EnlistCustomers.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 follower on LinkedIn. 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. Marcus at MarcusShardon.com is my email address. Marcus at MarcusShardon.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. You, to your point, you execute, you take action. And that's the great, that's the great difference

is you're a doer of deeds, not just a sayer. And that makes all the difference, man. So thank you for this. No, it's been great, man. And thank you for flying out here. I know it's a big journey out here. We're gonna have a blast tomorrow 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 is 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 it 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

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 stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and

we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.