The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 149: Marcus Sheridan - The Sales Lion: "They Ask, We Answer"

Episode Date: August 10, 2016

Episode 149: Marcus Sheridan - The Sales Lion: "They Ask, We Answer" Marcus Sheridan has coached multiple businesses of all types from around the globe in an effort to help them achieve world-class communication in all its forms, online and offline. Specifically, he has become known for: Content Marketing, HubSpot Training, Keynote Speeches. In 2015 alone, award-winning speaker Marcus Sheridan has traveled the globe, giving multiple sales, marketing, and leadership keynotes in a total of 8 different countries and 24 states. Sheridan, along with team member George Thomas, can be counted on to teach, inspire, and move audiences of all sizes to action while embracing today's digital consumer and new way of doing business. Episode 149: Marcus Sheridan - The Sales Lion: "They Ask, We Answer" Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show "I teach companies how to become the most trusted source in their industry." In This Episode, You Will Learn: Having an obsession with continuing to learn will help you sustain excellence. A mindset that says "I have not figured it all out yet." His core philosophy is: "They ask. We answer." How Jim Rohn helped him fall in love with learning The process in which Marcus teaches companies to be the most trusted source in their industry "The reason why people buy from you is TRUST." When people go to your website, they want to know how much it costs... So tell them Talking openly about your competitors is a wise way to go about your business What's the most important part of the sales cycle? 70% of people decide what they're going to do before talking to a sales professional The magic happens before they talk to someone (this is why your website is critical) If someone read 30 pages on his website, they bought 80% of the time 80% of the questions are the same... Answer them on your website Why it's required at his company for each employee to build their personal brand Why is Marcus a great public speaker? "He knows how to explain things so that people can actually understand them." "When we tell stories, the audience can see it." Think, Feel, Act - Your speech can hopefully change all three Why he took his daughter on the road with him for an entire semester A learning leader is curious.. Constantly learning "If you're going to be ultra successful in sales, you need a personal brand." Continue Learning: Go to: TtheSalesLion.com Follow Marcuson Twitter: @TheSalesLion To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 082: Dan Pink – The Science of Motivation, Legendary Writer & Ted Talk Episode 086: Seth Godin – How To Become Indispensable & Build Your Tribe Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Marcus Sheridan on the show, please don't hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell Bio From TheSalesLion.com Marcus Sheridan has coached multiple businesses of all types from around the globe in an effort to help them achieve world-class communication in all its forms, online and offline. Specifically, he has become known for: Content Marketing, HubSpot Training, Keynote Speeches. In 2015 alone, award-winning speaker Marcus Sheridan has traveled the globe, giving multiple sales, marketing, and leadership keynotes in a total of 8 different countries and 24 states. Sheridan, along with team member George Thomas, can be counted on to teach, inspire, and move audiences of all sizes to action while embracing today's digital consumer and new way of doing business.

If you are going to be ultra successful in sales, you will have to have a brand. And if a company that you work for is gaining your ability to produce videos, to produce articles, to teach the world what the world has taught you, well, then everything's screwed up. And they're a bad fit for you anyway. You know, at the sales line, my digital sales and marketing company, it's required of my employees that they build their brand, that they are out there. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. This episode is brought to you by Deior Design. If you've gone to learning leader.com

recently, you've noticed a massive upgrade. This is in thanks to the great leaders at Deiore Design. So if you're looking for a new website, website update, SEO, social media, email campaigns, or perhaps you need to create a logo for yourself or your business. So you're looking to redesign your logo. I cannot emphasize enough how great the people are at Deior Design to work with. I personally do not endorse or allow sponsorships of this podcast for people who I do not either buy their products or utilize them for their services. And that is why I'm so excited to partner with DeOor Design to sponsor the Learning

Leader Show. So go to learningleader.com slash website. That's learningleader.com slash website. We'll get you connected directly with the people at DeOor Design and get a good deal for you. I promise you guys will enjoy it. learning leader.com slash website. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. I am thrilled with tonight's featured leader. It's Marcus Sheridan. He's a keynote business speaker and the president of the sales line. He's been called a web marketing guru by the New York Times. The story of how Marcus was able to save his company from the economic crash of 2008 has been featured in multiple books, publications, and stories around the world.

Since this achievement, Marcus has become a highly sought after global speaker and consultant in the digital sales and marketing space. Ultimately, what he works to do, and this is something we discussed during the conversation. He works to help companies become the most trusted source in their industry. And he explains specifically how he does that during this conversation. And then his process for giving world-class keynote speeches all over the world, and also how he balanced. his working life, spending 80 to 100 nights a year in a hotel. And some of the unique ways he's able to build, develop, and grow his family at the exact same time.

I love the ending of this conversation and how he does that. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's Marcus Sheridan. Marcus, thank you so much for being here on the Learning Leader Show. I got a question around sustained excellence. You've spent your career. surrounding yourself with others who have done a fantastic job, achieving and then sustaining high levels of excellence. I'm curious from your perspective, what are some of the common themes that those people all seem to have? Yeah, you know, I think that type of person resonates differently, you know, with each of us, right, Ryan?

And for me, when I look at some of the most successful, sustained now, sustained. it's they have an obsession with continuing to learn and they don't have that mindset of I've got it all figured out and you know there's certainly those people out there that that you can just tell by talking with them that they think they have it all figured out but then there's another group that they're just as curious at age 60 as they are at age 30 and I think that's what's powerful I think that's probably the number one, the number one trait, I guess, that I've seen

that I've seen out there. Who, when you think of the phrase sustained excellence, who are the first people that come to mind, or first person? Well, you know, the first person that comes to my mind, it's probably my first mentor that I think was the greatest personal development mind of the 1980s and 90s

was Jim Rohn. I'm sure some of your listeners have heard him. I'm actually surprised how many have not heard Jim, though. I thought Jim was the person that helped me fall in love with learning. And he just had this magical way of teaching that made me want to be a better teacher and of communicating. And I learned so much from him. And, you know, I wish so much that I had met him personally while he was alive. but I think more than anything from him, I learned the power of simple stories and how simple stories

can make incredible points and can have a major impact on audiences. He was a master. He was certainly a master at that. So he's my number one, even though he's passed on. I think he was just for, he had a 20, 30 year run there where I just thought he held that phrase personal development in his hand. and I thought he was the best in the world. When I think of him too, I think about the importance of the people we decide to surround ourselves with, that we're going to become the average of those people. I think a lot of people who listen to this show know that that's a big aspect to my life and my development is being very thoughtful in that pursuit of who are those people going to be.

And that's why I reach out to the best in the world like you, Marcus, to talk with to try to really level myself up and hopefully help others at the exact same time. And Jim Rohn certainly is a guy who's done that. Question for you in regards to what you do. So when somebody who you've met perhaps for the first time and they don't know who you are and they say, oh, hey, Marcus, nice to meet you. What do you do? How do you respond?

Well, our mutual friend, Joey Coleman, taught me this. at this point in my life, I just tell people I'm a professional speaker. And the reason why I tell them I'm a professional speaker is because they're always going to say what he speak about. It's just a natural byproduct of the answer. And that's, of course, when I tell them what I speak about. And I speak about a couple of things, but mainly I teach companies how to become the most trusted voice in their industry, ultimately building their brand. and their business. I'm also obsessed with helping companies and individuals be the best communicators they can be. And that is my great, great passion, really, is helping someone who doesn't

necessarily realize they have a gift that is communication that I do believe we all have and sharing that with the world. And so those are my two passions. Those are the two things that I teach most about right now, but I also own a swimming pool company. And that's what's, you know, the oddity of my story is I was a pool guy for about 10 years. I still own a swimming pool company. We've had it since 2001, so it's going on 16 years. So I'm a pool guy turned a sales and marketing guy that really is now moving towards teaching companies to go beyond sales and marketing to the way that we communicate and the way that we teach and the way that we solve problems in the way that we see the world.

I got you. So, Marcus, I'm thinking right now, um, there is a business owner who just heard you say, I teach companies how to become the most trusted source in their industry. And he or she is saying, how do you do that? How do you do that?

Well, I think that is the business we're all in, Ryan. When there's, I think the, the great mistake that companies make. and I've done these polls, you pull an audience of 100 people, and you say, how many you fundamentally believe

that you're in a very different business? Everybody's going to raise their hand. They all believe they're different. And the reason why we want to feel so different is because psychologically we want to feel special. It's like I did this thing one time. I talked to two Ford automotive dealerships, okay? And I talked to their sales managers,

and they're within about 10 miles of each other. Both this sales managers have been trained by factory as to the methodology for which they sold. And I asked them individually, I said, would you say that you have, even though you were trained by factory, would you say that you have a very different sales methodology than the dealership down the street? And both of them swore, oh, absolutely. We're totally different than those guys. And so everybody wants to feel different. And the issue with that is it misses the mark in that the reason why people buy from you or listen to you or engage you is the same reason why they did it for my swimming pool company.

it's the same reason they did it for a sales marketing guy. It's all the same thing, and it comes down to trust. We're in the battle of trust. That's the game that we're in. That's the business we are in. And once everybody in the organization understands that, they're able to make decisions that are solely based on that moral compass. So what will engender more trust in this moment right now?

Well, let me give you a couple of examples. Let's just take my swimming pool company as an example. When I was, it was in 2009 when I almost lost that company because of the market crash. And we were looking over the cliff of bankruptcy. I had three consultants say, Marcus, you should file bankruptcy. And so that's where I was in 2009. And as I started to look at my options, I said, I need to generate more traffic, more leads, more sales, more trust than I ever have.

I have way less people to do it with. I don't have any money to do it with either. And that's when I looked at the internet and started really. reading all these fancy phrases, you know, stuff that we call today, content marketing, inbound marketing, social media marketing, whatever you want to call. I don't really care. Digital, digital whatever. But to me, what I kept hearing was this. So Marcus, if you're willing just to hear the questions, to truly hear the questions your prospects and customers are asking, and then willing to address them through texts and video on your website, you just might be

successful. You just might save your business. And so our core fundamental philosophy as a company became four simple words, which is they ask you answer. And they ask you answer. It just basically means this. If anybody's ever asked me the question, I feel like it's my moral obligation to address it on the site. Good, bad, or ugly. And so, you know, we sold fiberglass pools. So here's some specific examples of things that we were doing that nobody wanted to do. We talked very openly, how much is a fiberglass pool cost? So I have found 90% of businesses in the world, unless they're in e-commerce, do not talk about cost and price on their website, which is totally dumb because it's the first thing that we look at when we're looking to

engage a company, a product or service doesn't matter. We want to know how much the stuff costs. So that's number one. So we talked about cost and price. Can I hang on? Can I interrupt one second? I love this, by the way. This is unbelievable. What about in a business to business setting? That's Ryan? That is a fundamental flaw that so many people have and it drives me crazy. Perfect. Go ahead. Go ahead. So B2B is a trust-based business. B2C is a trust-based business. you know, 50% of my clients are B2B clients, and they follow, fundamentally, they ask you answer the exact same way as all the B2Cs do, and the B2Gs, which are really different in air quotes, which is a business of government. And so the issue lies when as soon as we put ourselves

in B2B, we forget the human element of business and why do people buy from you? And you cannot, somebody in the B2B space cannot, if you get to the core psychology, cannot explain how someone buys differently in B2B than B2C because because it doesn't exist. In fact, most of the of the ultra successful B2B companies right now understand that they are essentially B2C, that they sell like B2C and they don't get caught up in all the acronyms that you see in the marketplace. And you see so much of that. I swear, I think we invent acronyms to make exceptions to principles and to rules. and really, in a lot of ways, it's a tragedy. And so, you know, when it comes to they ask you answer,

that does not change, regardless of the type of business that you have. And so let me give you one more, let me give you a couple other examples. People used to ask me all the time, Marcus, I've heard that fiberglass pools have some potential problems. What are the problems with the fiberglass pools, be honest. Now, do you think any pool guy six years ago had addressed that on their website? No, they hadn't talked about the problems of the fiberglass pools. Pfebaclass pools. Fiberglass pools guys hadn't talked about them because they didn't want to address the elephant in the room. Concrete pool guys didn't want to talk about them because they

didn't want to introduce to the reader another option, which is totally stupid because there's no such thing as an uninformed consumer today. I mean, the fact of the matter is, even though we all might start off ignorant at some point in the way that we buy and make decisions, eventually we're going to become informed. They are going to find out the answer to the question. And the question therefore lies for you as the business, are they going to learn the answer from you, or are they going to learn it from one of your competitors, or are they going to learn it from some third party site like Angie's list or Yahoo's answers, which is a joke anyway. I mean, the internet is run by third party sites, which is ridiculous. I hear companies all the time complaining about Yelp, Angie's List,

better business bureau, and all these other sites, and I say, well, the problem isn't them. They were the only ones that wanted to say, what is the customer, the consumer, the buyer, really want to know. Okay, so they want us to compare two brands. Let's compare the two brands. Let's compare the two products. They actually did those things, whereas companies, ostriches, with their head in the sand, said, you know what, we'll just ignore it and we'll let all these other publications, all these other platforms address what the buyers really want to know. That's the flaw. We didn't do that with pools. We didn't do it with what we sell today. You know, it's funny, one of the highest, I am a partner for software called HubSpot, which is a sales and marketing automation.

A lot of people heard of HubSpot. Oh yeah, I'm going to have their, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, for one of the longest times, one of my most successful lead generating articles was how much does HubSpot cost? Really? I mean, seriously, how much does HubSpot cost? And that's because other than HubSpot, I was the only guy that wanted to talk about how much it cost. See, this doesn't make any sense. And it made me hundreds of thousands in revenue.

With river pools, we talked openly about our competitors, right? So let me give you a really simple example. I would be in Richmond, Virginia, which was one of our major areas back in the day, you know, when I was a pool guy. And I was like one night I was sitting there with a couple, met with them for like two hours. And they said, Marcus, we like you, we really do. But if we don't get this swimming pool from you, is there anybody else that you might recommend? And of course, in that moment, I'm thinking myself, dag on it.

They're probably not going to get this pool tonight. didn't get the pool night. But I remember that night I had a long drive home and I thought to myself and I'm like, man, you know what? They asked the question, daggone it. I'm going to go home and answer it. And I, like midnight one night, I write this article, who are the best pool builders in Richmond, Virginia, review slash ratings. And I came on the list of five of the best pool builders in Richmond Virginia. And I didn't even put myself on the list because that would make itself serving and that would cause me to lose credibility and trust, which again is the business we're in. To make a long story short today, if you are researching any of my competitors for my swimming pool company,

usually you land on my website, you read about my competitors, the reviews of them are found on my website. And that one article, the first one that I wrote, made $150,000 of revenue the first year, and it's made more and more each year since then. I mean, today, Riverpools is the most traffic swing pool website in the world. I get over 600,000 visitors a month, and it's all because we have an obsession with answering the questions and becoming the Wikipedia slash WebMD of swimming pools. Really simple. Nothing complex about it. Nothing extraordinary. we just said we're going to be the best teachers in the world.

We're going to solve people's problems. And we've done that and replicated it in multiple businesses now, many which are B2B. We've done it all over the world. And it works over and over again because we're all in the same business, which is trust. Is it possible for you to share an example of a B2B, you know, maybe semi-b bigger company that maybe if you share the before and the after before the market shared in effect took place? on this business. Do you have any examples? Well, I've written, so my book, They Ask You Answer comes out later this year,

and it's got a whole bunch of case studies, many of which are B2B in it. We talk about specific numbers. And, you know, I find that really big companies, generally speaking, do not do this because they've got so much red tape and they don't think like consumers. And that's why they oftentimes get left behind

by the more fast, quicker, more nimble digital Davids, you will. You got the Goliaths, you got the Digital Davids, and, you know, I tend to work with businesses that are less than $100 million. I like those businesses. I like them more than brands in a lot of ways, because brands oftentimes can't get out of their own way. And, you know, they like to make excuses. This is why they can't do this and that. And they have a bunch of lawyers they pay a bunch of money to, and all the lawyers do is tell them no. I mean, really quick, just about when it comes to law, okay, for anybody that has a business. There's two types of lawyers. There's the lawyers that

you pay to say no. And there's the lawyers that feel it's their job to figure out a way to say yes. And if you do not have the latter, then you are misspaying your attorney because the purpose of an attorney is to figure out ways for you to be able to do that which you want to do in order to run a successful business. And in this case, it's about truly becoming a great teacher and talking online as all these other websites, all these other expert places are talking. And so give you a couple simple examples. I've got a company called, I'll give you two really fast ones. I've got a company that I've worked with called block imaging.

What block imaging does is they sell refurbished medical imaging equipment. They sell it all over the world. They'll take an old MRI machine that's been put out to pasture and they'll refurb it and they'll sell to a health organization that can't necessarily afford a new one. So they came to me and they said, we want to embrace this philosophy that you've been talking about, Marcus, if they ask you answer, it wouldn't be the Wikipedia of refurbished medical imaging equipment. And to make a long story really short, that was something. five years ago, they've at a minimum been able to attribute over $20 million in additional revenue

from their digital marketing efforts. It's at least $20 million. Now, they do about $30 million annually, so that gives you a gauge on their business. Got another company called Health Catalyst. These are just two health care examples, but it's good because a lot of people think in the healthcare space that hospitals don't research online, which is a load of horse dung. Everybody that has a breath research is online today. I have not found the exception to that rule. And so health Catalyst does data warehousing and healthcare analytics. Super niche, non-sexy. Average deal time, 18 months. Average deals, three to five million dollars. They came to me and they said the same thing. We want to be the most trusted source in the healthcare analytics space. And once again, to make a long

story really short, today, their average deal time, their average deal time is less than 12 months. When they started, it was 18 months. And they would have swore that hospital. hospitals can't make a decision in 18 months. But lo and behold, hospitals are actually vetting companies and vendors long before that vendor knows they exist. And that's the same, of course, as it is for everybody. We live in this vet-based society where we pretty much want to know everything about the company or the person before we physically call them or contact them. And they've been able to account for millions in additional revenue because of their, because of their, they ask, you answer content, marketing digital marketing approach those are just two i could go on and on but that's uh those that's two

the question i ask um when i've interviewed people to work in a sales individual contributor role um for a sales job is what do you think is the most important part of the sales cycle uh i love to hear your response to that well i mean so here's the reality We can't argue with the studies, the studies, whether it's Google or forced to research. They say essentially the same thing that 70% of the buying decision is made before they actually talk to a salesperson. And so if that is true today, and we'll just call it an average, and that's a B2B study, by the way, for those B2Bs that are listening.

If that is the average today, we've got to analyze history first and say, what percentage of the buying decision was made before someone talked to a salesperson, say, 10, 15 years ago? And my guess it would be 20 to 40 percent, you know, 10 years ago, something like that. And so five years ago it's 50 percent. Today it's 70 percent. So the question is for you and for me, for every single business in this world is what's going to be over the next five to 10 years. I don't know what's going to be, but it ain't going to go back.

It's not going to go lower than that. And so this doesn't mean that it's the death of the salesman. What it means to me is that it's really the death of the way we've been selling in that. if we think that the magic happens once we see the person and know they exist, we're so, so wrong and so fundamentally off base. And so we need to make sure that in the process of them vetting us digitally, that they can see us, touch us, smell us, know us, know our doctrine, our philosophy. I mean, it's a tragedy when I talk to salespeople.

And I asked them, how many people have seen your face before the first pitch or sales meeting? And I hear, well, none of them have. What the heck? I mean, before you do first pitch, they should already know what you look like, what you sound like. They should know what you believe. They should know your communication style, all because of the content that you produce that they have consumed, that they have looked at. And people might say, well, they don't consume content in my industry. That's just not true.

And if you don't integrate content into your sales process, of course it's going to be all jacked up. Let me give you like a crazy number, dude. This will blow your mind right here. In 2013, I was looking at my swimming pool website. And I was like, all right, we've got a group of buyers and non-buyers. And so I took all the people that have filled out a forum on my site and said, I want to get a quote for a pool from you. So, you know, there's some trust that was involved for them just to say, hey, I want to get a quote. and I divided them up from the ones that bought and the ones that didn't buy.

I said, what's the difference between the ones that bought and didn't buy? And I looked at all my analytics and this is what I kept seeing. The number 30 kept coming up. And what I found was that if somebody read 30 or more pages of our website before the initial sales appointment, they would buy 80% of the time. Period. Period. If they didn't, they would buy somewhere between 25% of the time.

So you have an increase of 60% on your closing rates if somebody, is consuming a high number of content. And so I said to myself, well, dang, what can I do to ensure that every person I talk to has consumed 30 pages of the website? And then we built the whole sales process around that. And that's why, you know, in 2007, when the economy was like amazing, right? And anybody could get a loan for a pool. And it was like great to be a pool guy.

I had to go on 230 sales appointments that year. These are in-home sales appointments. I sold 75 pools. Okay? So that's a closing rate, do the math of 30-something percent, whatever it is. And I was feeling pretty good about myself. In 2015, we stopped at this number because we couldn't do anymore. We sold right out 100 pools.

And in order to do 100 pools, we had to go on about 135 sales appointments. Wow. it's incredible i mean to see the power of the content that you you produce i mean just answering their questions and what it leads to i mean that stat actually marcus will share with me by others who who told me that i had to talk to you for my podcast and i trust the people close to me and obviously you've you know already 20 some minutes in and you've uh well exceeded the high expectations I've had with the energy and the content and the knowledge that you bring to this. But I saw that stat and I just thought it was unbelievable and it made me think of like how can

this this could help so many people who currently might be doing literally none of this, none of it. And if people start implementing even a little bit, how it could impact their business in a huge way. Well, think about how many sales appointments people go on. When I say sales appointment, this could be a call, this could be a face-to-face, it doesn't matter. It's all the same to me. you go on and you answer the same set of questions. I mean, 80% of the questions that we answer when we go on sales appointments are the same as the one before.

It's the 20% where the magic is. It's the 20% that are the specific, like their specific needs and addressing those specific needs. And the idea is if we want to be great with sales, that those 80% of questions already answered before we get there. That's what has to happen. Because first of all, you don't need the stink in practice. You don't need, like, how much time do salespeople waste answering the same 80% of questions over and over and over again? And if they had that time back, what could they do with it? More leads, more qualified leads, more prospecting, more time with their family.

I mean, go down the list, bro. You can just do way, way more if you eliminate the 80% of the questions that you get all the time. What happens with the sales cycle? What happened with the length of the appointment? You know, what happens with closing rates? It's all dramatic. I've seen it. I've seen it again and again.

I've seen it in multiple different industries at this point. And our obsession, therefore, needs to be, can I eliminate these questions before I get there? And I believe that you can. You wrote an article titled, Why You Should Quit Working for a Company if they don't allow your personal brand to grow. And this made me think of, again, individual contributors who are doing their own form of content marketing via publishing post on LinkedIn, for example, creating videos so that as you said the potential prospects or customers have seen your face, they've heard you talk, they've seen how you write. And I found the people who adopt that, whether you call it social selling or inbound

content marketing, whatever you want to call it, if you work at a company, you're not a solo entrepreneur or at a small company that they've had immense success. however it does you need to be consistent and you need to consciously have that be part of your plan but when you wrote that article is you know i obviously read it but what i'd like you to expand on that for people who have not read it when it's titled why you should quit working for a company if they don't allow your personal brand to grow well i think that okay if you look at the way sales work and what we've been talking about to this point the idea is they know you your doctor your philosophy before you know they exist.

It is our responsibility as businesses to give the consumer the buyer that opportunity. And if they don't have that opportunity, we have a problem. Just like when, let's say you go to management and you say, I want to produce these articles to help answer these questions we keep getting. And management says, okay, that's fine. But then they don't allow you to put your byline on there. They don't allow you put your byline on there because they're too worried about headhunters coming after you and not worried enough about you and your brand development and the relationship that you have with, you know, leads. Or they're too worried about all the other sales guys and gals on the team that don't want to contribute content and they don't want to give you too much attention.

See, that to me is a flawed philosophy. It rewards laziness. And so if you are going to be ultra successful. in sales, you will have to have a brand. And if a company that you work for is gaining your ability to produce videos, to produce articles, to teach the world what the world has taught you, well, then everything's screwed up and they're a bad fit for you anyway. You know, at the sales line, my digital sales and marketing company, it's required.

of my employees that they build their brand, that they are out there. In other words, like, I want to show them. I'm constantly looking for speaking gigs, not just for me, but for my employees. I'm trying to highlight them. And people say, well, doesn't that cause, couldn't that cause them to leave? They're going to leave if they want to leave anyway. I don't believe people are stupid. I believe, I believe if somebody is going to learn online, they're going to learn it. So they might as well learn it from me. leave is somebody's going to leave your company, they're going to leave it. So I might as well give them reasons to stay. And the fact is, the reason why people leave is because they don't feel

satiated, like something is missing. And if they can, they can meet that need, especially like a lot of people that have that entrepreneurial spirit, whereas they could, they could satiate that. They could certainly more than wet that palette if we gave them the ability to do that within a corporation or within a small and medium-sized business. Same thing. But we oftentimes are afraid to do that because, again, we think their brand might get bigger than the company. This might happen.

That might happen. And that is, it's just a flawed, flawed philosophy. I love it, man. Completely agree. It's when you see it out there that people are doing that and companies are allowing them and not only allowing them to put. But encouraging that, I see good things in the future of those both people as well as the companies. There's a lot of things you do, Marcus.

I'm preparing for our time together. I blocked out, I'm like, I'm going to need like five hours with Marcus. This is going to be really hard. But I want to touch on a few other aspects of it. You just mentioned speaking gigs. And when I was at MassMind Talks in Ohio, California this past this year, more than a few people on separate occasions told me that Marcus Sheridan is one of the best speakers they've ever seen. And these are people who have gone to TED.

They've gone all over the place. And all I thought was why I wish you were here. I wish you were at the event this year. And I also maybe want to reach out to you. So I'd love to learn about your speaking process. Maybe take me back, Marcus, to the beginning and to now looking at how you've progressed and improved. Because this is something I think I get a lot of notes about it.

something that I'm being asked to do quite a bit now, and I really look forward to those moments. It gives me a, like, a natural high to get up on stage and impact people and see their eyes. I love it, man. And so I would love to hear from your perspective, how it was at the beginning and your process for improving and becoming one of the best? Well, you know, I think we all have certain gifts and genius. And unfortunately, society has taught us not to be open about that because it's considered bragging. There's a very big difference between bragging and having a knowing that you have a gift. And when I was probably 21, 22 years old, I realized that I communicated better than most people. And I didn't think that most people

couldn't communicate better. I thought they could. I just realized that I did it better. And I'm tell you how this happened. So I was a missionary for my church, and when I was 20 years old, I was in Chile for a couple of years. So I was teaching gospel principles to Chilean people. And at the end of my time in Chile, I had left with a group of other missionaries. And we were coming back. I had, we were just talking, and I realized that I had, in terms of sheer numbers, just a lot more success, just in terms of numbers of people that had joined, the gospel, let's call it, by my teachings over the course of those two years, versus those versus my peer group, and it was a dramatically higher number.

And so the question was, is why? Why did I have so much success as a missionary? And I attributed to a couple things, and I saw it while I was there, but number one, number one, I have, not to overuse the word, but I have an obsession with, explaining things so that people can understand them. And I'm constantly thinking about, is this said in a way that the light bulb comes on and they get it? Can I make it easier, more relatable?

There is a group of communicators and speakers out there that are not interested in that nearly as much. And this aligns itself with the second major element, which is I wouldn't be, I wouldn't feel very good, Ryan, If you came, heard me for the first time and said, my goodness, that guy's a genius. I would actually look at that as a fail. Here's a success for me. A success, if you heard me and you say, dude, why are we not doing this?

This is so stupidly easy to do. Why that dude did it? Why are we not doing it? And not everybody has that mentality. There is a lot of people that want to look smart and sound smart on stage or are coming from a place where they're trying to prove themselves. I don't feel any of that stuff. I feel nothing like that.

Feel nothing like that. So that's number one. That's number one is the obsession with simplifying it. I think the second thing for me, and I think there's three major things for me that have led to my success as a speaker, is I know how to tell stories. And I'm not afraid to tell the story more than once.

You know, if you ever listen to Jim Rohn, you know that he used to always talk about how he was, you know, how he was a poor guy from Idaho, just a farmer, you know, and he was laid on his bills. And he just had this, he always shared that story. And I've heard him tell that story 500-shinking times, and I still enjoy hearing it. I used to get a little bit nervous that if somebody heard the pool guy's story more than once they would get bored with it until I started hearing from people telling me, you know, it was the second and third time that I heard that story, that I really got it, that I understood it, that it started to become really clear to me. And so I understood the power

of repetition. And I embraced it versus going away from it. Too many people try to constantly, so because they get a little bit bored with their story, they stop telling this story. and they lose their identity. And this happens with professional speakers that lose their way. And all of a sudden, you're like, whatever happened to them? Like, you know, they're on an episode of like, you know, remember them, one hit wonders. And so I'm not afraid to tell stories and to tell them well. In fact, I base everything on the power of story, usually personal story.

And if you look at some of the great ones, I mean, at this point, that's all Seth Godin does. I mean, Seth Godin, on a personal level, hasn't really done much for the last, I don't know, six, seven, eight years. But he's telling everybody else's story better than generally they tell it themselves. And that's how he can continue just to crush. Malcolm Gladwell just tells other people's stories better than they can tell it themselves. And so you don't have to have your own story. You just need to be able to tell it and you may tell it well so everybody can say again, I got it.

That makes sense. How do you become a good storyteller, though? Yeah, well, you see, the thing about telling stories is they're usually very, very short, and they're not detailed, and we can't paint the picture. The problem is, and this goes back to do they really understand what I'm saying, when we tell stories, we see it, because we are telling it, but the audience does not see it. And because they don't see it, it doesn't resonate the same way. So unless we can paint it for them, and I'm not talking about you've got like you're a poet using crazy imagery, but you've got like if you use a name, you say the name of a person. If you're talking about a place, you say the name of a place. These are little things that you do that make all the difference.

And then the story starts to become very, very real and they can see it for themselves. They can see it for themselves. And so that is so very critical. So very critical. I think the third thing that did it for me was that the style that I have is a very, very different style. And so, you know, you can put me in front of an audience of 500 people and I usually come off the stage and I'm engaging with the audience. And this is true for a workshop with 15 or an audience of 1,500. Now, I will go up on the stage the majority of the time for 1,500, but there's going to be some part of talk where I'm going to go

and talk to the audience. I'm not afraid to have that engagement with the audience. A lot of people are afraid to engage in audience real time because they think it's going to throw them off. And so in my case, what I try to do,

I believe in what I call the Columbus principle. And the Columbus principle is essentially, it goes back to Christopher Columbus. And Christopher Columbus, you know, discovered America,

well, kind of. And so I look at it like this. Everybody wants to feel like they discovered America. In other words, everybody wants to feel like the idea, that idea, that thing, was their idea.

And if they don't feel like it was their idea, they won't own it. They won't embrace it. And they probably won't do it. It won't be built to last. And so most speakers just want to tell the audience what they want to tell them. What I am trying to do when I get on stage is I am trying to help the audience understand, sense, and feel, and know what I am telling them before I actually tell them. and then once they themselves say it, feel it,

then I will just tell them what they felt, what I wanted to tell them. And you see, most people don't understand this, right? So let me give you a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You want to do a really fast one? Is that okay with you, right? I literally was going to ask you to like roleplay this thing for me. Okay.

So I'm going to do this and I'm going to be both just to make it faster. I'm going to be both the speaker in the audience for you right now. Okay. So I'll just come in and out of doing that. and this will help you see what I'm talking about. So, like, if you want to, a perfect example of the Columbus principle is talking about cost and price. So let's say I want everybody to realize they need to talk about costs and price on their website. All right.

Well, I can't come right out and say, why are you dumbies talking about cost and price on your website? Because that's dumb. So this is what I would do. And again, this is Columbus principle, but you see how it will lead, it just builds and builds. So here we go. By show of hands, how many of you in this room have researched over the past year how much something cost online by show of hands? 100% of the people are going to raise their hand. Great. Now, when you're on that website and you are unable to find anything about cost and price, what is the emotion you experience?

Immediately somebody's going to say frustration. Yes, frustration. That, my friends, is the F word of the internet. Now, let me ask you, what gives you the right in this moment as the researcher to feel so frustrated now? I'm going to get some answers. People are going to say, well, it's my time or it's my right to know. And I say, yes, yes, yes, yes, exactly, exactly. And then I'm going to ask the question.

So in this moment of frustration, do you say to yourself, oh, I'm sure it's in here. I'll just keep on digging. And then everyone in the audience is going to say no. And then I'm going to say, in this moment of frustration, do you say to yourself, well, that's okay. They're a value-based company. I'm going to call them instead. And everybody chuckles in the audience and says, no, we don't do that.

And then I'm going to say, so instead of calling them instead of research, instead of continue to look on that website, what do you do? And then everybody's going to say, I keep looking. And then I say, and you look until what happens. And then they say, I look until I find the answer. And then I say, and whoever gives you that answer, generally speaking, they're going to get what? And then the audience is going to say, they're going to get my business. And I'm going to say, exactly. And we can all agree here. This is the behavior for each and every one of us, isn't it? And everybody in the room is going to nod their head, yes. And then I'm going to say, great, I'm glad we all agree. Now, by a show of hands, how many of you talk a lot about cost and price on your website right now? And then I'm going to let it sit. Now, if you look at that, Ryan, I asked how many questions in that period. There's like at least 10. But each one of those questions is designed for the person to be able to look in the mirror. Because if they can't see the mirror, they won't own it for themselves.

A powerful moment in your, during those speaking engagements, I could see how it would change. You know, Joey told me during a talk, and I'm sure you guys have talked about this, you can change the way people think, you can change the way people feel, but most importantly, you want to change the way people act. And I'm guessing that's a big part of your success while speaking. You want to, yes. Now, I'm going to say something, though, that sounds very, contrarian for a second.

Just for the person that wants to be a professional speaker, you don't have to add value in the sense of takeaways and action to be a professional speaker. You do not. Here's the shocking part about when you become professional. You can interview, you have people that do events, and you can say, what is your main goal for the audience? And for many of them, it'll just be to get them fired up and entertained. No takeaways.

They're not interested. They don't really care. Now, for me, that sounds like a tragedy. Like the idea of not having someone embrace action when I'm done and know what to do next is very bothersome. And it's the way I roll, yes, but it's not necessary to be a professional speaker. if you have certain speeches that you give that gets everybody excited you know i i once i was once at this conference somebody gave this you know keynote everybody was rolling around it was great it was good it was awesome and i talked to a lady afterwards right and i said to her what do you think of the keynote i love

doing this i love talking to people about what they saw in speakers i said what did you think of the keynote and she said oh it was great it was hilarious that guy's awesome i said so based on what you heard what are you going to apply to your business? And she said, she thought for a second, she said, uh, honestly, I don't know, I don't know. And you see, his goal wasn't to move her to action, at least not after the fact. His goal was for her to feel good. He accomplished his goal. The organizers loved him. And he does a million a year. You see what I'm saying. Yeah. And so, And so I don't, I say this because it's reality. It's reality.

Now, that's also why there's a lot of keynoters that couldn't give workshops. Because if you don't have takeaways in a workshop, you're screwed. You're screwed. You know, me, 50% of my gigs are workshops. 50% are keynotes. All right. And I teach them basically the same for the most part. You're not able to do all the interactive stuff, but you're still able to have a ton of interaction.

That being said, that's not how it is for everybody. And it's okay. And it's okay that people have different styles. And it's okay that if you're stick as a speaker is to make them laugh in their seats and you get invited back and you get, you know, you do lots of gigs, good for you. And I really mean that. Good for you. Because you brought value in the moment. And that's what they asked for.

And it's our job as speakers to give them what they ask for. Yeah, I think it shows that, like a lot of things, there's more than one way to be successful at something. And it's good to have an understanding of that and not be so rigid. I mean, part of being a learning leader, Marcus, to me, is understanding, as we talked about at the beginning of this conversation, that you don't have it all figured out. And we're like constantly learning and trying to figure out better ways or maybe even different and more ways to solve a problem or to answer the bell, so to speak, to somebody who asked you to come and entertain an audience.

There may be one speaker that you have four pages of notes that, you know, the majority of it are things you can implement into your business immediately. And then there's another guy who just makes the, makes the crowd laugh and have a good time and feel good. and both can be successful. That's right. That's exactly right. And that's just, that's the world that we're in. Yeah.

Yeah. This is, this has been great. I, I really appreciate the fact that you bring, you bring your energy and your knowledge and your wisdom here to the Learning Leader show.

It's, it's, I know people are going to feel all three of those things. I just mentioned, think, feel, and certainly actions. Marcus, when you first heard the phrase learning leader, what was the first thought that came to mind? I just, I guess curiosity, maybe.

Curiosity is the learning leader is curious. And they just want to, they just, they don't see things and just look at it like it is what it is. They see the world and they say, why is that? I love it. Love it, man. Where would you send people to learn more about you online? Well, you can find me. First of all, anybody wants to email me. It's welcome to do that. And you can email me directly at Marcus at the salesline.com. And I will do my best to answer you in a timely manner. If you want to find me on the Twitters, I'm at The Sales Lion. I also have a couple different podcasts to mention. One is called Mad Marketing, but it's really, my riffs on some interviews, some riffs on sales, marketing, personal development, things like that, communication. And then I have a new showout that's called The Balance, and it's about our journey, your journey, my journey, of finding work-life balance and how to integrate the two

together. And it's mostly a Facebook show, but it's also on YouTube. And if you just go to Marcus Sheridan on YouTube, you can find the balance there. And it's a brand new show. We've got about seven episodes in, but it's amazing how many people have emailed me directly and said, man, this is what I need. This is exactly what I needed because there's so much talk about the hustle culture that, and I believe, I mean, I think hustle is great, but I think we need to be hustling just as hard at home as we do on our job. I fundamentally believe that no success outside of the home makes up for failure within the walls of the home and that too many of us do not look to integrate the two. I think there's this terrible suggestion, myth, whatever you want to

call it, teaching out there that says we are supposed to separate work in personal life. I think we need to become better at integrating the two and working them together. And so that's why I started the balance and it's something I'm really passionate and excited about. How many nights a year do you spend in a hotel? Probably. Probably. Probably. somewhere between 80 and 120. And I think I saw this. Do you bring one or more of your family members to events oftentimes? Often, yes.

Kids or your wife or both. Yep. Yeah. I took my oldest daughter out of school for three months at the end of last year. And she went with me on every single gig. She went to Europe. She went to Africa. Wow.

She went all over North America. And let me tell you, her whole life has changed. Whole life has changed. That is awesome. She'll never be the same. Wow. How did they go with the... With the teachers in school and everything.

It's no problem. No problem. Today with digital schooling, you can do everything you want online. That is awesome. She was able to go to regular public school the second semester. First semester, you know, she was, like, she was me traveling all over the world. Her worldview is totally different. Everything has changed for her.

How was she? She's a more passionate student learner now. 15. She was 15. When she went, how old? 15? She was 14 when she. When she went?

14 when she started. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. That is a great story. It's total game changer, Ryan. Total game changer for her and for us, you can find some of what she wrote about on Traveling Withdad.com. And I think she'll probably do it again. I mean, I think I could see her doing again. And I'll tell you what, sad. A lot of people say to me, that sounds cool, but I can never

do that with my kids. I'm like, why not? I mean, really, let's get to the core here. Why not? Joey Coleman does it. Yep. You know, Joey Coleman, his little boy has got more freaking flyer miles than 99.9% of the three or four year old kids in the whole world right now. You know, and it's because he says, why not? And he just brings them. The experiences that they're getting from it, like I would absolutely love to do something similar. I think that is fantastic that you do it. I'm part of some groups on Facebook of speakers, and they talk about writing into their contracts that they're going to be bringing children and they're going to need to be paid for, things like that.

I think it's awesome that you do that. I love it, man. Marcus, seriously, thank you so much for being here. I absolutely want to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Yeah, me too. Ryan, thank you so much. All right. Thanks, Marcus.

This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you live. Locked in until next time. Head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.