They Ask You Answer is the Marcus Sheridan FAQ approach to growing your business
Sometime you just know.
Sometimes, when you start a conversation you just know your world is not going to be the same again. This is the feeling I got as soon as I started chatting with Marcus Sheridan about his philosophy of inbound marketing and how to grow anyone’s business WITHOUT spending a fortune.
If you want to change your business, get more customers and make more money, then this one is for you:
| How to grow your business and get more leads TODAY: |
Talking Tech with Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion – Show Notes:
Welcome to another episode of Talking Tech with TheTechieGuy where we make sense of the world of technology one question at a time
My name is Liron Segev and today’s show is all about answering Questions to grow your business exponentially. Not by spending a ton of money on marketing. Not by hiring insane PR firms. But by answering some basic questions your customers are asking every day.
I am honored to be joined by Marcus Sheridan, who is the original Sales Lion a marketing guru, consultant, and author.
Where it all began
I am a firm believer that in order to know where you a heading, you need to remember where you came from.
Marcus story began back in 2008 where the entire world was shaken by an economic wobble. Marcus had to make a decision for his company River Pools. File for bankruptcy or come up with a plan to get customers!
Marcus decided that they were going to be the company that addresses all the questions that customers have – even the difficult ones and even the questions that other companies refuse to address.
Needle to say that strategy paid off in a big way as people were searching for pool related questions and always landed up on their website. Therefore, it positioned them as they experts and the ones to go to for advice and of course, when it’s time to buy, they were the default and obvious choice.
Our shopping starts at the Google Search Box
Today we start engaging with companies and brands at the Google Search Box. We get a bunch of hits and we begin the clicking journey. Click the top results usually under the ads that we ignore, and if we don’t find answers we simply move onto the next hit.
Marcus agrees and says that there are 5 elements that companies should have on their websites
- Cost – How much does this cost?
- Problems – It’s true. The XYZ camera is not a beginner’s camera but here is ABC which is perfect.
- Comparisons – How long does the battery last on this phone compared to ….
- Reviews – we tested this car over a month and discovered that….
- Best of – what’s the best Tex Mex restaurant in Dallas?
They Ask You Answer Teaching
Firstly, I recommend getting Marcus’s book: They Ask you Answer
In this book, Marcus teaches the fundamentals, case studies, examples and practical advice on what each and every business should be doing when it comes to “Inbound/ Digital Marketing”.
Importantly too, Marcus helps you to get buy-in from the company’s executives who are still not so sure about Digital and are objecting heavily to “exposing” the company’s info online – especially Price!
The Marcus challenge
I asked Marcus to challenge the audience with a task that will have the most impact and Marcus of course, had a task at his fingertips:
- Part 1: Write down at least 7 reasons as to why someone would NOT want to buy from you assuming they know you exist.
- Part 2: Of those 7 items, how many of them have you addressed on your website?
- Goal: Address all 7 of these items on your website in the next year!
In Summary
Think about your own online patterns. If you head to a site that has the information you want but has no price, then you simply move to the next site. If you search for an answer about which items is better A or B and all you get is a bunch of sales fluff, you move on.
If you ask a question about a well-known issue, the first website that actually addresses that will be the site that you trust more.
