May 6, 2025 • 42 mins
Are you struggling to stand out and earn the trust of today’s savvy buyers? Join Divya Parekh and Marcus Sheridan as they dive into the proven system behind Endless Customers, revealing why trust is the ultimate currency for growth in an AI-driven world. Discover how you can adjust your mindset, build a brand that buyers believe in, and create a business that never runs out of customers. It’s imperative to tune in—you won’t want to miss these game-changing insights!
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Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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W four WN Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W. Park.
Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
and financial goals? Well? Coming up on ZVO parks Beyond Confidence,
you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers
who have steps into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and
are living the life they want. You will learn how
(00:48):
relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.
Moving your career business forward does not have to happen
at the expense of your personal or family life or
vice versa. Learn more at www dot Gvpork dot com
and you can connect with tv ants contact dants gvpark
dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host,
(01:09):
g w Park.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Good morning listeners. It's Tuesday morning, and.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Of course I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Especially more excited because I was traveling. I was in
New York for some business travel and then I'm back
and it's always.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Wonderful to connect with you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So I want to share the kind of story. I
was visiting friends and family and a few clients. So like,
I was at a friend's place and this gardner came
in and you know, he's been working at the place
for quite some time, but he knocked the door and tells,
(01:50):
my friend, listen, somebody has broken your lives in your driveway.
So so just taking that moment and sharing it with her,
you know, as to what it was going. You know,
he could have moved the lawn been down and gone
and she wouldn't have known. I mean, it's not a
(02:10):
big deal, but still that tiny little thing paying attention
and helping someone out is so important. So keep the
kind of circle going. Take out time from your busy life,
whether it is five seconds or five minutes, help someone
out with no strings attached, and also thank you to
(02:31):
each and every one of you who have got her
books Entrepreneurs, got an Expert, to Influencer, or any of
the other books that I've written, And I want to
encourage you and invite you to get the books if
you have not, because I can share with you based
on our readers reaching out to you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
They will be a huge help spread the message.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And also the partial profits from the book go to
Kiwa dot org to be helping all around.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
So let's welcome our guest.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Did you good to see him?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Good to see you? Welcome Marcus.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
So we start out from a moment in your childhood
or youth. Do you have a moment or a person
who left a positive mark on you from that time?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I certainly think there's there's been a few I would
point out here, though probably my mom had a big
influence just because we you know, she grew up. She
her and my dad were separated early, so I watched
her have multiple jobs early on in the effect that
(03:44):
that had on her, I mean talk about grinding. She
was probably doing sixty five hours a week legitimately for
much of my childhood, just running herself in the ground
and trying to pay off whole debts really taught me
a lot about the debilitating effect of debt on a family.
(04:06):
As one of the reasons my parents divorce was because
of the financial arguments that they had, right and then
watching my mom try to raise two sons without really
much financial support at all and working multiple jobs physically
exhausting herself, but that's all she knew right how to
(04:29):
do and just had had a lasting impact on me
to this day. But I would say I'm very adverse
to debt today just by watching how it affected my
parents early on.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, I know, and it's hard because money can be
a divider, especially in family. So thank you for sharing that,
and kudos to your mom. You know, would like to
recognize her for all the efforts she put in and
got you going, and you know.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
She made it work. She made it work, and you know,
she's got two sons today that have done really well. Right,
So it's just one of those things where she didn't
you know, at least she's able to see the fruit
of her labor. And I'm sure in the moment it
felt quite difficult, but that's oftentimes you know, how it
works anyway, just in business, too. Is like the old phrase,
(05:22):
we often overestimate what we can do in a year
and underestimate what we can do in ten. And I
think the same thing applies to its parents. We don't
always realize the impact that we've made in the short
period of time, but you look at them in terms
of what they become and it's like, wow, eat it
pretty well.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, it's congratulations on your success, because especially for a
mom who went through all that to see her sons
thrive and be successful, there's nothing more powerful than that
for a mom, or for an impairent for that matter.
So as you grew up, you did have this i'm
(06:01):
a zooming that you had the desire to succeed. And
how did that drive you in your youth?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
I will you know what benefitted with me is I
was very involved with sports as a kid, and just
partly because my mom she was the uh she was
the leader of the local recreational department, right, so so
she was doing that, which meant I was in all
the sports, or I was refereeing the sports, or I
(06:32):
was just I was involved somehow, and or I was
working with some of the kids. As I got older
with it, but by the time I was in high school,
I was playing three sports. I was the captain of
all three of those sports. And it's funny how you
really learned to lead a team early on within the
athletics arena. The same principles apply later on in life.
(06:54):
You know, you can have, you know, a company with
fifty employees. It's really not much different than than leading
a you know, a baseball or football team back in
the day's just saying concepts, right. You got to learn
how to talk to people. You got to learn that
each person is individual in the way that they are
moved and motivated. Got to speak to them in their
(07:15):
language right, and you just got to find creative ways
to keep everybody on their feet. But that was really
that was the big I think catalyst for my life
in many ways to become what I am is the
athletics background.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm a strong proponent of sports not only brings that camaraderie,
not only builds that spirit of being a sports person
and learning early in life that life is not fair,
you know, not every time things are going to go
your way.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Well to your point, I think we protect our kids
too much from failure at this point as a society,
and you know, the great thing about sport, especially if
the parents don't intercede too aggressively, is that they are
going to They're going to fail, oftentimes more often than
they succeed, especially if you're you think about baseball. You know,
(08:13):
the greatest baseball players in the world hit the ball
three out of ten times at that right, three out
of ten times, So that means seven times you fail,
three times you succeed. That makes you a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Absolutely, And it's like, you know, like you're talking about baseball,
I'm a Yankees fan and Don Mattingly and it's long
time back and all that, but still you see them practicing.
And that's the beauty of athletics that it's a journey.
That glory is short lived, and we work towards that.
So it's important to also pay attention and enjoy the
(08:49):
journey rather than just be in that moment of destination
and find that it's gone.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Yeah, it's yeah, because there's seasons of life, right, they're
leading and the older I get today, I'm forty seven,
and you start to see, you know what those seasons
are like. And I've got four kids, myself, got a
grandson now, Also it's like, you know, and it's just
wild how time does pass by. What's weird though, and
(09:18):
I'm sure listeners can relate to this. You don't feel
like your mind is really getting older. I mean, it
might get wiser, your body might feel older, but your
mind feels essentially like it did when it was twenty
years old. You're like, I don't know, understand, how's this
all happening. This is the way, that's the way it
was all designed, which is pretty beautiful and fascinating at
(09:38):
the same time.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
You're absolutely right. Like my dad in his eighties, he learned,
you know, I think so he was in seventies or eighties,
I don't remember. He learned to use the computers. And
he always said, like I feel like, you know, I
was in college, and so we definitely feel from inside
that eternal youth. It may not show, but it's there.
(10:01):
So as you kind of like, you know, grew up.
Which direction did your career take?
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Well, it's funny and I when I graduated college, I
was working in the DC area. Didn't like my job,
came back home to what is a rural part of
Virginia called the Northern Neck of Virginia. And my two
buddies had just started a swimming pool company called River Pools,
and they asked me to run the retail store. They
had a little retail store while they were installing pools
(10:31):
out in the field. And so I said, okay, until,
you know, until I figure out what I'm going to
do with my life, I'll go ahead and do that.
And what was interesting is within a couple of months
they said, would you want to become a business partner?
And I never dreamt growing up that I would be
a pool guy growing up, but that's exactly what I
became in my twenties. And by the time two thousands,
(10:52):
those two thousand and one, two thousand and eight, we
you know, we're fighting to grow the business. Two thousand
and eight comes around, the market collapses and we have
pretty big crash, and a lot of people remember this
that we're in business at the time, and it looked
like we were going to file bankruptcy. But the good
thing about pain and suffering is it forces us outside
of our comfort zones, right, and then we have essentially,
(11:15):
you know, it's that yolo mindset of you know, you've
got nothing to lose and you only live once, so
might as well just send it. And that's when I
started to really learn about today's buyer and things like
the Internet and marketing and just looking at the world differently.
And as I learned all these new fancy phrases like
(11:36):
inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, stuff like that, what
I heard in my simple pool guy mind was, you know, Marcus,
if you just obsess of your customers questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns,
and you're willing to address those online on your website,
you might save your business. So I said to my
two business partners at the time, I said, we're going
to become the best teachers in the world when it
(11:57):
comes to in our case, fiberglass whining pools. And so
that's exactly what we did through text and video. Every
single day I was addressing through articles and videos on
our website and online the questions that I was getting.
And to make a long story short, we became the
most traffic swimming pool website in the world within the
next two years, and it exploded so much that I
(12:18):
started to write about what we were doing. And as
I wrote about what we were doing online, I started
getting companies say, hey, can you teach me how to
do that, and then folks said, can you can you
speak about that at our conference? And it led to
this crazy, crazy life as full time speaker. I have
an agency now today, but I still have the pool company,
(12:38):
And it's amazing how how I never dreamt of being
a pool guy, but being a pool guy is the
thing was the catalyst to have all these other wonderful
components of my life. Today. I'll go to you know,
I'll be speaking in Europe or something like that. Somebody
will come up to me and they're like, you're that
pool guy right that I read about online? Yeah, that's
(13:00):
exactly that's exactly right. What's funny though about that? Dibya
is kind of like a powerful thing, I think in
terms of identity. When I started as a pool guy,
and I was in my early twenties, I had a
family member at some family event come up to me
and they said, hey, Marcus, I heard you're going to
be a pool guy. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(13:21):
that's what it looks like. And she said, wow, what
a waste. And I thought, oh, geez, really is that
what this is about? And I learned how people put
a value on positions and titles. And what's really fascinating
is some of my most successful and most fulfilled friends
(13:46):
and acquaintances today might not have a title that is
really like revered in society, but yet they've got.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
All the things.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
They check every box in terms of you know, maybe
it's a very successful business and you know, financial peace
and wellness, they've got their health. But yet they might
you know, own some septic tank company. Yet they're just
doing incredibly, incredibly well. That's why I'm pretty passionate about
the trades today, is is because the perception out there
(14:19):
is is oftentimes it's it's off track, you know, for
variety of reasons.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, and actually trades is going to be the people now,
especially artificial intelligence.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Oh they're going to see your renaissance, no question, no,
no question, it's going to see you know. For It's
isn't a while that four years ago the number one,
like most safe in demand job in the world was
software engineer. And today if you listen to any of
the AI experts are saying that, you know, you're not
(14:55):
going to for the most part need the majority of
software engineers in the future because of the fact that
you know, because of things like no code, and because
of AI and the fact that most code is going
to be written by AI, over thirty five percent of
all code right now is written by AI. That number
is only going to grow, So things change very very quickly.
My son is an electrician. He's twenty one years old
(15:17):
and he did not go to college. But he's obsessed
with learning. That's all I really care about, right. Mark
Twain once said, never let your school and get in
the way of your education. And I think education comes
in a multiplicity of forms. There's certainly not one road
for everybody. But you know, he's twenty one, he's got
no debt, he's making about six figures a year right now,
(15:38):
and he's off to the races, and how is that
not a beautiful thing? And he's going to be quite
secure in his job for a long long time and
very much in demand. I taught him. I was like,
the world can say what the world says, but you
need to follow where you feel like you can become
the best version of yourself, whatever that is. And you know,
he found a lot of joy with building things as
(15:59):
a kid. That wasn't my but that was his thing.
And I didn't try to make his thing my thing
or my thing his thing, and he started working as
an electrician part time at fourteen years old and full
time by sixteen, and you know that's where he used
Today he runs a crew twenty one years old.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Oh that's amazing because as you were talking about, you know,
thirty five percent of the code being written by AI.
And also there are companies like Shopify. Shopify CEO said
that you want I think so Tobya. I don't know
how to pronounce his last name, but his internet.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Memo was leaked out on Yeah, you're required that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know before you ask for more headcount and these
were his approximately the similar words that before you ask
for more headcount, the teams must demonstrate why AI cannot
do the work that they're asking for them. I think
so warmly said that I expect thirty percent growth in
every employee using AI.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
So that's leadership, right, That's that's leadership, and that's you know,
there's a lot of leaders right now when they look
at AI, they're baring their head in the sand and
they're saying, well, I don't like it, or you know,
what about this? What about that? And I think they've
forgotten why they signed up to be a business because
you signed up. When you become an entrepreneur, you're essentially
(17:24):
saying I'm going to meet the market where the market is.
I'm not going to say, well, that's not my thing,
and so I'm not going to do it. It's no
different than like a really simple example. And I talk
a lot about like video on some of my content
alge in my books. Nobody has ever gone to a
website before and said, boy, I really wish I could
(17:46):
watch a video about this, but there's none here. But
I'm sure that the owner of this company is just
nervous on camera. So I'm going to give them a pass.
I'll call them on the phone instead. It's just not
how it works. They want to see the thing. The
buyer cares about the buyer. The market cares about the market,
and they certainly don't care about our opinions. So I
(18:06):
learned a long time ago as a business owner to
not allow my personal opinions to screw up really smart
business decisions. I don't personally like Facebook and Instagram personally.
Do I use them for my businesses? Yes? Do I
teach other businesses how to do them?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Why because that's where the market is, or at least
some of the market or LinkedIn or YouTube or whatever,
the thing is right, and so we have to be
very very careful about that. I'm sure you've seen this
yourself as well. Do because like you constantly see these
folks saying, well, that's just not really my thing. Oh,
your thing needs to be meeting the market where the
market is, that's business one on one.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Well, you're absolutely right on the mark. Most people are like,
I'm not comfortable with this, I'm not doing it, and
here's the thing. Market is not going to wait for you.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
As we were talking about AI two and a half
years back, I don't an early adopter for most of
the things, and I jumped into it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So now I'm not terrified of it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I mean, did I go through resistance and fear and
all that.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
We all do.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
So now you talked about Facebook and Instagram and people
being afraid, so we can talk about businesses. But businesses
are run by people. So you talk about that. There
are some crucial signals for businesses. Can you share what
are those and how can companies create those?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Yeah, So if you look at what's happening today, it's
really interesting for the better part of the last twenty
five years. As organizations, the way we generated business, we
had to essentially be recommended by two parties. Number One,
we had to be recommended by customers by people. Number two,
we had to be recommended by search engines. And that
manifested itself through either SEO or through paid ads. That's
(19:52):
been the last twenty five plus years, right, And you
could build a wonderful business on that. But suddenly, as
most listening to this no Oh November twenty twenty two,
we see chatch Gypt, everything starts to change. And I
know you saw this quickly divida but I saw it
as well, which was okay. So you're going to give
me a great answer to my question and I don't
have to click on a blue link to get that answer.
(20:15):
And if you think about what's happening today, so many
companies and organizations right now are saying, I'm spending more
on Google Ads than I've ever spent, I'm getting less results.
I'm seeing less traffic to my website from let's say,
SEO than I saw before. And I'm concerned. I'm worried, Well,
that trend line is going to continue because you're going
to see more people that are shifting over from using
(20:37):
Google as their traditional means of researching companies and reaching
out to businesses to going to AI. Why because if
you go to AI today, if you're using chatch Gypt,
they're not going to show you show you sponsored searches.
You don't see a single sponsored search. So there's there's
there's literally it's a straight line to the answer that
you're looking for. And what do we want as buyers consumers?
(20:57):
We want to get the best, most specific, relevant answer
to our question as quickly as possible, whereas Google is
going to show you a bunch of stuff and also
some search results. And so this is why you're seeing
so many people shift over. And so if you build
your house on Google today, there's a very good chance
that you're going to be in trouble tomorrow. And listen,
I wrote, they ask you answer a book that is
all about how to dominate on Google. And I'm the
(21:19):
guy that's like saying, one of the people that's saying, hey,
this is not your future. And so if that's the case,
and you need to be recommended now by AI, because
you know when AI started for you and I, it's
like a couple of years ago it was mainly a
creation tool, but now it's very much a recommendation tool
as well. We're vetting companies and businesses and whatever brands
(21:39):
by using AI. And so what makes AI say, hey,
you should talk to this company. Well, they're trust signals,
trust signals that are essentially sent out by two parties,
either by your company or by people that they're discussing
your company. So you have to create trust signals. What's
a trust single? Any piece of comment that's out there
(22:01):
about your organization is a trust signal. So if it's videos,
if it's articles, if it's social media, if it's reviews
by other people, rights, if it's statements about you, whatever
that thing is, that is a trust signal. And there's
certain ways that you can drive more trust. There's certain
types of signals that search engines love, AI loves, and
(22:24):
unfortunately most businesses don't want to talk about. And so
in my newest book, Endless Customers, I lean hard into
these signals and how can you become the most known
and trusted brand in your market? Because the one thing
I'm sure of is that Facebook is going to come
(22:45):
and go, Instagram's going to come and go. YouTube, is
going to come and go. Google's going to come and go, Chat,
GBT is going to come and go. They're all platforms.
What's not going to come and go is the importance
of trust and its impact on your business. And if
you always build your strategy around how you can become
that most trusted brand, well then there's a very good
(23:07):
chance you're gonna be able to last, regardless of whether
it's five years or ten years or twenty years down
the road. And so if you're not doing things today
that make you that choice trusted voice with humans, with
a guy with search engines, well then there's a very
good chance that you're being left behind.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, that's a very good advice because, as you said,
a lot of people are being an Ostrich because Ostrich
is known to marry its head. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah, we talk about that, you know, I talk
a lot about the Ostrich and how we're afraid to
address certain things. And in the book I mentioned four
pillars of a known and trusted brand, and they're essentially
the antithesis of the Ostrich. Right, So the Ostrich one
has a problem, it buries its head in the sand
because it thinks the problem is going to go away, which,
by the way, it's a total myth, but it's visually
(23:56):
very very effective, right because oftentimes I'll say to company,
are you being the ostrich right now? Or are we
going to do what it takes to become that voice
of trust? Like we have to make a choice right now.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And so.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
One of the pillars, one of the core pillars of
a known and trust a brand is saying online what
others aren't willing to say. In your space, say what
others aren't willing to say. And if you think about
that one somebode might say, well, what do you mean
by like say okay? And this is also the second
pillar too, very much related to it, which is show
what others aren't willing to show with video. But there's
(24:33):
essentially when it comes to the way people buy stuff,
the way we research, there's five subjects in particular that
we always tend to research when we're looking to make
a buying decision. This is B to B, B two C.
It's a small business, this is enterprise. It doesn't really matter.
So what are the five things that we always research
as buyers as consumers. Number one, we want to understand cost.
(24:54):
We just really want to feel like very clearly. We
understand pricing and that we're not going to get ripped off.
Cost is number one. Number two we want to understand
problems slash objections. We want to know what could go wrong?
How could this blow up in my face?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Right?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
So it sicially fears Number three. Number three comparisons. We
love to compare stuff online. I mean, think about how
many times you've compared one thing versus another thing online?
We love to do that. Number four reviews. We're like
obsessed with reviews. The thing about reviews, you guys, we
just don't want the good reviews. We want the good,
the bad, ind the ugly. If somebody doesn't have any
one star reviews or negative reviews, it actually makes us
(25:30):
a little bit worried, like something's wrong here. And then
finally number five best, best, most, top, Like, how many
times have you searched best plus another phrase online? I
mean that happens time. So cost, problem, comparisons, reviews, and best.
Here's what's crazy. Those subjects run the economy of search.
Those are the subjects that are dictating whether you get
(25:50):
leads or not. Those are the things that people are
searching in Google, The things that they're searching in AI,
and those are the things that most businesses don't want
to talk about online. And if you want to become
the voice of trusting your market, you have to be
willing to talk about those five things. And obviously in
the book, you know, I teach you how to talk
about those five things, and everybody, of course wants to say,
there's no way I can talk about that. I can't
talk about costs, Marcus, because every job is different and
(26:13):
it depends, and we tend to be more expensive, and
we're going to scare them away. I mean, there's all
these things that people say. I'm telling you, we've got
the data on this, and you do not want to
ignore the most fundamental questions that people have when it
comes to your product or service, one of which is roughly,
what's this going to cost me?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, that's such a powerful question. And you also talked
to recently just now about like, you know, showing your
audience what others are not willing to show with videos,
and there's you know, YouTube shorts, there are like long
videos like it keeps on changing. So what would your
advice be to the companies or to entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Yeah, this is one of those things. Video is such
a massive, massive deal. I'll say something here that I
think will scare people to death, but I feel like
it's my responsibility to be honest always, and that is
there's a pretty solid chance within the next five to
ten years that your YouTube page is much more important
than your web page, your website, and a lot of
companies can't even fathom that right now. But if you
(27:14):
look at where the world is headed, it's very much
headed in a videocentric direction. I actually believe the rise
of chat, GBT and some of these other AI based
search engines are going to lead to also a rise
in YouTube. YouTube could be Google's number one revenue generator
within a few years, just based on just based on
(27:36):
where the market is headed. And so if that's the case,
are you really putting emphasis on video? Because this is
what people want to see it to believe it, and
they want to feel like they have fully vetted it.
More and more people are visual learners. This is just
where a brain is going. And it's one of those
things where you have to start thinking as an organization
(27:57):
like a media company. And that's one of those statements
folks are like, really, I didn't sign up for this.
I know, I know, you didn't sign up to become
a media company, but that's where the world is now
headed and you need to go with them, or again,
you're going to be left behind. Right. You can't expect
to be sending, you know, faxes from your fax machine
to your customer base and get the reach that the
(28:19):
person that's sending email is going to have. It's just
doesn't work like that, and so we're gonna have to
evolve and video is a place to do it. Most
companies at this point that are doing at least a
couple of million dollars in sales should have a full
time videographer that works on staff. I mean, that's the
way that you should be thinking. Now some of you are,
you know, like, well, Marcus, I'm much smaller than that. Okay,
well now you're the videographer. But yeah, you have to
(28:41):
be doing video because people buy from those they know,
like and trust. They want to see your face. It
makes you much much more human. And that's where we're going.
And there's a difference, a very big difference between just
stating something in text online versus showing it improving it
in video. They are just nine and day difference. That's
what makes you much much more believable and certainly more
(29:03):
transparent as well, and that's what causes people to say
I trust you enough to buy from you.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
That definitely makes sense because all right, let's say you
even whether you're a CEO or a small entrepreneur, your
product could be the best. But as you talk about,
like you know, being willing to be more human than others,
especially in the world of AI, like you know, so
many people are putting in avatar videos, even ads created
(29:29):
by AI, so in that showing a little piece of
you know, who are you as a human being? Why
would they like you? And a lot of people are
hesitant about putting in those kind of videos. So do
you think, like in terms of products, also, like you said,
like you know, showing that proof that explainer videos work really.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Well, Oh my goodness, yes, I mean anything that you
can do. Listen, if you're a CEO, if you're a
business leader, right now you've got to get from behind
the desk and from behind the camera. You got in
front of the camera. Because one thing that isn't going
to change, that is clearly a principle of truth at
this point is people buy from those they know like
and trust and yeah, it's like, you know, look at
(30:09):
this like pod that you're doing diivious Like a lot
of people do business with you because they heard about
you here. They develop a relationship with you on here.
They like your energy, they like your vibe, and they're like,
I want to I want to work with her. If
this was you know, if this was if you didn't
do any video, or if people couldn't hear your voice
(30:29):
and they were just just reading your words, the relationship
would be different. So you have a very human element
about you with your brand that resonates with the market,
and because of that, the market has responded and allows
you to have successful business. This is all of us.
And so if you, as a business leader, aren't thinking
of ways to show your face more. And by the way,
(30:51):
this doesn't mean that you're posting photos of your family.
You don't have to do that. I mean one of
the biggest advocates of social media in the world is
Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't know as kids look like. I
don't know anything about his family because he doesn't show
his family, but he shows himself a lot and that
benefits his brands, right and so the moral of the
(31:11):
story is he had to Once again, there's common theme here.
We got to get over some of our personal opinions.
We've got to put ourselves out there. Another simple example
of this, I talk about this in Endless Customers is
like listen, one to one video with email is so simple,
so easy, it costs literally nothing, and most salespeople are
(31:31):
sending just tech tech space email today. It doesn't make
any sense to me, Like if I've got an appointment,
If you talk to any of my sales team and
they have an appointment sales appointment with you, beforehand, they're
going to send you a video. They're gonna introduce themselves.
You're gonna see their face, you're gonna hear their voice.
You're going to get to know them on a personal
level before you ever talk to them on the phone,
before you ever see them on camera, before they ever
(31:55):
walk up your driveway to you know, selling your home
or whatever that thing is. That's the way to do it.
Yet most companies aren't thinking like this. I mean, it's
amazing to me how backwards we are in terms of
humanizing the sales process. And listen, I'm all about using technology,
but you can use technology and humanize your business, your brand,
(32:17):
your people even more so. But you gotta get in
front of the camera. It's not going to happen otherwise.
And you don't want to be using just a dang
digital avatar, which I mean, I'm I've written about them,
I wrote about them in the book, but you need
to be showing your face out there as well.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Absolutely, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Now, there are a lot of questions in a lot
of my clients will ask me, I'm not in this
video person or anything like that. So the question I
get from several of my clients is that, like, oh,
you know, people say that you know, you've got to
be personal, but you give a very good example of
Gary Vee. So sometimes you know, they say, go, I
(33:00):
could just be walking down the street and taking a.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Video and I'm.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Putting it on LinkedIn, Like is that unprofessional? So if
you can answer that question, you know, that would be
great because when you're showing your personal side, don't have
to show your family, don't have to show you're going
for many patty or you're going for like this best
barber or haircut, but showing some of your personal element.
What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
It's very fascinating to me whenever I post something, how
just like what people notice if you follow me on LinkedIn.
I'm a pretty good follow on LinkedIn. I'm very active
over there, four to five posts a week. I put
my best stuff on LinkedIn. I do a mix of
(33:50):
photo plus video plus text. I mean, I do a
full mix, and I don't hesitate to do a video
spur the moment. If I'm just outside and I've got
a thought, I share it with my audience. You have
to the thing about it. You got to understand about
(34:11):
all this stuff. It's kind of like learning to walk.
You don't get it the first time. It's clunky, and
you have to embrace the messy that comes with it.
A lot of people just don't want to embrace the
messy that comes with developing a brand voice. You want
a personal brand and you want a company brand. But
(34:35):
I can tell you personal brands are much stronger than
company brands. If I said to this audience right now,
do you know who Kylie Jenner is? Everybody would say, yes,
I know who Kylie Jenner is. I've heard of her.
If I said, do you know the name of her?
Makeup line. Many people would say, I have no idea
it's a billion dollar makeup line, and they don't know.
(34:59):
And I say that because I don't even know what
it is. But I know Kylie Jenner. You see what
I'm saying. Now, somebody might say, well, that's that's Kylie.
No no, no, no no. That is the psychology of
the way that it works. You can go down the
list of companies. Richard Branson is much more known than
(35:20):
his brands, and this is possible. You know, It's like
Steve Jobs was bigger as a as a, as a
like a from a social perspective than was Apple at
the time. And people want to know what does Steve
Job say? Not what does Apple say? What does Steve
Job say? And so we're entering an era where thought leadership,
(35:42):
individual thought leadership matters a lot. And this is especially
true with leaders of companies. And again I know a
lot of folks that I just didn't sign up for that. Well,
meet the market where the market is. And you've got
something to say, learn how to say it in your
own way. Maybe it's driving down that. Maybe you know
(36:03):
you're shooting a video in the cars you're driving, whatever,
the video. You know, maybe you're in your bedroom or
maybe you're in your office or whatever it is, but
there's a style that would work for you. You just
have to be willing to get from point A to
point B and in between. There there's this bridge of
clunkiness that you got to figure out. You're going to
figure it out. It's so different than if you look
(36:23):
at the content that I wrote on my swing pool
site in two thousand and nine. The first the first
articles let's say that I produced. You just said, dibia like, dude, Marcus,
you're just not a very good writer. This is probably
not your thing. And then if somebody reads my books today,
they might say, Wow, you've got a nice style about
the way that you writer. Oh, you seem like such
a natural writer. Yeah, we're a couple of million words
(36:43):
into it by this point, y'all. This is like if
you watch my early videos, just I'm sure it's the
same with you do. It's like, if you watch my
earlier VIDs, you're like, man, video is probably not your thing.
And today people are like, wow, you're really really great
on video. I bet it just comes natural for you.
It's like you forget this, like it's learning to walk
and learning to run, you fall a bunch of times,
you figure it out, and then all of a sudden
(37:04):
one day you realize, holy cow, I'm actually pretty decent
at this thing. That's how it works.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, and I really love what you said, embrace the messy,
because I'll tell you, like you know, I've got some
of my books written, several books, my earlier books. Not
proud of it. But have I taken that down? No,
I've not taken that down because it shows the journey
that and of course this is all pre chpt so
I can clean. So I love what you said. It's
(37:33):
about falling and the way I see this. You know,
we're all work in progress. So what even if you
mess it up?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Now you me up.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
We mess it up, well, we drastically overestimate how much
people think about us, you know.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
About themselves and not thinking about you. I can tell you.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
That's right, that's right, and I tell you it is
powerful though. It's like the moment you just let go
of the need to please one hundred percent of your
audience and say, listen, I'm not for everybody but my tribe.
They're gonna find me just like as I've been doing
this pod today. There's literally been a certain percentage of
(38:16):
people that are like, I really love this guy, and
then there's a certain percentage that you're like, uh, don't
like him. I'm out. I know that that. Like literally
that has happened over the course of this episode. Some
people start off they didn't like me, and now they
like me, all of which I am completely okay with.
See that just say that makes some people say, Oh,
(38:37):
that almost feels uncomfortable. No, it's totally comfortable to me
because I have accepted this is how we work as humans,
and I'm constantly putting myself in front of audiences knowing
that a certain percentage isn't going to like me or
I'm not going to resonate with them. I'm okay with
that because I also know that there's another percentage that
(38:59):
I'm going to your life, and that's what I'm here.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
For, absolutely, And that's what makes a brand trustworthy, and
that's what makes the brand authentic because a lot of
people talk about authenticity. So tell us, you know, you
have given us some very valuable nuggets. So thank you, Marcus.
Tell us how people can connect with you and how
(39:24):
can they reach you? Tell us about your books.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you asking that, Diviya. So I
a couple of things. If I would start with Endless Customers,
which is the new book. That's if if you want
to become the most known and trusted brand in your market,
wherever your market is, whatever it is, that book was
written for you. I think it's going to really resonate
with you. I think you're going to love it. You
(39:47):
can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm a really good
follow over there, and I've got a company called Impact
and you can find us at impact plus dot com.
We help organizations implement this system of Endless Customers, and
so if you're looking for a coach to guide you
on that journey, and go to impact plus dot com.
(40:08):
And we've got a bunch of free content there as well.
In factors there is for the book. There's a five
hour course that I created on Endless Customers. It's a
video course. It's free, and you can find it over
there at impact plus dot com, which is pretty cool.
If you just want to want to watch me, you know,
give the whole book, not read it, but like just
riff on it for five hours in different sections, different chapters.
(40:31):
I hope you'll check it out because it took a
little at time, but it's helpful to people very much.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I'm sure our audience is going to find a lot
of value in what you're sharing, and just based on
the nuggets you have given us, I'm sure that you
know you all will enjoy Marcus's books, so check it
out and see how it can help you, because we
are all selling something, entrepreneur or not. So thank you
(41:03):
Marcus for joining us.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
JABE is my pleasure and appreciate you, appreciate your audience
and you know, love love your subject matter, and so
hopefully this was you know, a positive for those that
were listening today.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
I'm sure, so thank you Marcus. Thank you wonderful audience,
because the show would not be possible without you.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
So reach out to us.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Let us know what experts you're looking for, what strategies
you're looking for. We're here to serve and support you
and help you live the life you want and you deserve.
And thank you one for making the show technically possible.
Be well taken and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence with your
host d V Park. We hope you have learned more
about how to start living the life you want. Each
week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people
who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.
During Beyond Confidence, Vpark shares what happened to her when
she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly
(42:05):
with people across the globe. She not only coaches people
how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to
mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life
they want. If you are ready to live the life
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dot dwpark dot com and you can connect with vat
(42:25):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W. Park.
Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
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(01:09):
g w Park.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Good morning listeners. It's Tuesday morning, and.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Of course I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Especially more excited because I was traveling. I was in
New York for some business travel and then I'm back
and it's always.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Wonderful to connect with you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So I want to share the kind of story. I
was visiting friends and family and a few clients. So like,
I was at a friend's place and this gardner came
in and you know, he's been working at the place
for quite some time, but he knocked the door and tells,
(01:50):
my friend, listen, somebody has broken your lives in your driveway.
So so just taking that moment and sharing it with her,
you know, as to what it was going. You know,
he could have moved the lawn been down and gone
and she wouldn't have known. I mean, it's not a
(02:10):
big deal, but still that tiny little thing paying attention
and helping someone out is so important. So keep the
kind of circle going. Take out time from your busy life,
whether it is five seconds or five minutes, help someone
out with no strings attached, and also thank you to
(02:31):
each and every one of you who have got her
books Entrepreneurs, got an Expert, to Influencer, or any of
the other books that I've written, And I want to
encourage you and invite you to get the books if
you have not, because I can share with you based
on our readers reaching out to you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
They will be a huge help spread the message.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And also the partial profits from the book go to
Kiwa dot org to be helping all around.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
So let's welcome our guest.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Did you good to see him?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Good to see you? Welcome Marcus.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
So we start out from a moment in your childhood
or youth. Do you have a moment or a person
who left a positive mark on you from that time?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I certainly think there's there's been a few I would
point out here, though probably my mom had a big
influence just because we you know, she grew up. She
her and my dad were separated early, so I watched
her have multiple jobs early on in the effect that
(03:44):
that had on her, I mean talk about grinding. She
was probably doing sixty five hours a week legitimately for
much of my childhood, just running herself in the ground
and trying to pay off whole debts really taught me
a lot about the debilitating effect of debt on a family.
(04:06):
As one of the reasons my parents divorce was because
of the financial arguments that they had, right and then
watching my mom try to raise two sons without really
much financial support at all and working multiple jobs physically
exhausting herself, but that's all she knew right how to
(04:29):
do and just had had a lasting impact on me
to this day. But I would say I'm very adverse
to debt today just by watching how it affected my
parents early on.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, I know, and it's hard because money can be
a divider, especially in family. So thank you for sharing that,
and kudos to your mom. You know, would like to
recognize her for all the efforts she put in and
got you going, and you know.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
She made it work. She made it work, and you know,
she's got two sons today that have done really well. Right,
So it's just one of those things where she didn't
you know, at least she's able to see the fruit
of her labor. And I'm sure in the moment it
felt quite difficult, but that's oftentimes you know, how it
works anyway, just in business, too. Is like the old phrase,
(05:22):
we often overestimate what we can do in a year
and underestimate what we can do in ten. And I
think the same thing applies to its parents. We don't
always realize the impact that we've made in the short
period of time, but you look at them in terms
of what they become and it's like, wow, eat it
pretty well.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, it's congratulations on your success, because especially for a
mom who went through all that to see her sons
thrive and be successful, there's nothing more powerful than that
for a mom, or for an impairent for that matter.
So as you grew up, you did have this i'm
(06:01):
a zooming that you had the desire to succeed. And
how did that drive you in your youth?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
I will you know what benefitted with me is I
was very involved with sports as a kid, and just
partly because my mom she was the uh she was
the leader of the local recreational department, right, so so
she was doing that, which meant I was in all
the sports, or I was refereeing the sports, or I
(06:32):
was just I was involved somehow, and or I was
working with some of the kids. As I got older
with it, but by the time I was in high school,
I was playing three sports. I was the captain of
all three of those sports. And it's funny how you
really learned to lead a team early on within the
athletics arena. The same principles apply later on in life.
(06:54):
You know, you can have, you know, a company with
fifty employees. It's really not much different than than leading
a you know, a baseball or football team back in
the day's just saying concepts, right. You got to learn
how to talk to people. You got to learn that
each person is individual in the way that they are
moved and motivated. Got to speak to them in their
(07:15):
language right, and you just got to find creative ways
to keep everybody on their feet. But that was really
that was the big I think catalyst for my life
in many ways to become what I am is the
athletics background.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm a strong proponent of sports not only brings that camaraderie,
not only builds that spirit of being a sports person
and learning early in life that life is not fair,
you know, not every time things are going to go
your way.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Well to your point, I think we protect our kids
too much from failure at this point as a society,
and you know, the great thing about sport, especially if
the parents don't intercede too aggressively, is that they are
going to They're going to fail, oftentimes more often than
they succeed, especially if you're you think about baseball. You know,
(08:13):
the greatest baseball players in the world hit the ball
three out of ten times at that right, three out
of ten times, So that means seven times you fail,
three times you succeed. That makes you a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Absolutely, And it's like, you know, like you're talking about baseball,
I'm a Yankees fan and Don Mattingly and it's long
time back and all that, but still you see them practicing.
And that's the beauty of athletics that it's a journey.
That glory is short lived, and we work towards that.
So it's important to also pay attention and enjoy the
(08:49):
journey rather than just be in that moment of destination
and find that it's gone.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
Yeah, it's yeah, because there's seasons of life, right, they're
leading and the older I get today, I'm forty seven,
and you start to see, you know what those seasons
are like. And I've got four kids, myself, got a
grandson now, Also it's like, you know, and it's just
wild how time does pass by. What's weird though, and
(09:18):
I'm sure listeners can relate to this. You don't feel
like your mind is really getting older. I mean, it
might get wiser, your body might feel older, but your
mind feels essentially like it did when it was twenty
years old. You're like, I don't know, understand, how's this
all happening. This is the way, that's the way it
was all designed, which is pretty beautiful and fascinating at
(09:38):
the same time.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
You're absolutely right. Like my dad in his eighties, he learned,
you know, I think so he was in seventies or eighties,
I don't remember. He learned to use the computers. And
he always said, like I feel like, you know, I
was in college, and so we definitely feel from inside
that eternal youth. It may not show, but it's there.
(10:01):
So as you kind of like, you know, grew up.
Which direction did your career take?
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Well, it's funny and I when I graduated college, I
was working in the DC area. Didn't like my job,
came back home to what is a rural part of
Virginia called the Northern Neck of Virginia. And my two
buddies had just started a swimming pool company called River Pools,
and they asked me to run the retail store. They
had a little retail store while they were installing pools
(10:31):
out in the field. And so I said, okay, until,
you know, until I figure out what I'm going to
do with my life, I'll go ahead and do that.
And what was interesting is within a couple of months
they said, would you want to become a business partner?
And I never dreamt growing up that I would be
a pool guy growing up, but that's exactly what I
became in my twenties. And by the time two thousands,
(10:52):
those two thousand and one, two thousand and eight, we
you know, we're fighting to grow the business. Two thousand
and eight comes around, the market collapses and we have
pretty big crash, and a lot of people remember this
that we're in business at the time, and it looked
like we were going to file bankruptcy. But the good
thing about pain and suffering is it forces us outside
of our comfort zones, right, and then we have essentially,
(11:15):
you know, it's that yolo mindset of you know, you've
got nothing to lose and you only live once, so
might as well just send it. And that's when I
started to really learn about today's buyer and things like
the Internet and marketing and just looking at the world differently.
And as I learned all these new fancy phrases like
(11:36):
inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, stuff like that, what
I heard in my simple pool guy mind was, you know, Marcus,
if you just obsess of your customers questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns,
and you're willing to address those online on your website,
you might save your business. So I said to my
two business partners at the time, I said, we're going
to become the best teachers in the world when it
(11:57):
comes to in our case, fiberglass whining pools. And so
that's exactly what we did through text and video. Every
single day I was addressing through articles and videos on
our website and online the questions that I was getting.
And to make a long story short, we became the
most traffic swimming pool website in the world within the
next two years, and it exploded so much that I
(12:18):
started to write about what we were doing. And as
I wrote about what we were doing online, I started
getting companies say, hey, can you teach me how to
do that, and then folks said, can you can you
speak about that at our conference? And it led to
this crazy, crazy life as full time speaker. I have
an agency now today, but I still have the pool company,
(12:38):
And it's amazing how how I never dreamt of being
a pool guy, but being a pool guy is the
thing was the catalyst to have all these other wonderful
components of my life. Today. I'll go to you know,
I'll be speaking in Europe or something like that. Somebody
will come up to me and they're like, you're that
pool guy right that I read about online? Yeah, that's
(13:00):
exactly that's exactly right. What's funny though about that? Dibya
is kind of like a powerful thing, I think in
terms of identity. When I started as a pool guy,
and I was in my early twenties, I had a
family member at some family event come up to me
and they said, hey, Marcus, I heard you're going to
be a pool guy. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(13:21):
that's what it looks like. And she said, wow, what
a waste. And I thought, oh, geez, really is that
what this is about? And I learned how people put
a value on positions and titles. And what's really fascinating
is some of my most successful and most fulfilled friends
(13:46):
and acquaintances today might not have a title that is
really like revered in society, but yet they've got.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
All the things.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
They check every box in terms of you know, maybe
it's a very successful business and you know, financial peace
and wellness, they've got their health. But yet they might
you know, own some septic tank company. Yet they're just
doing incredibly, incredibly well. That's why I'm pretty passionate about
the trades today, is is because the perception out there
(14:19):
is is oftentimes it's it's off track, you know, for
variety of reasons.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, and actually trades is going to be the people now,
especially artificial intelligence.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Oh they're going to see your renaissance, no question, no,
no question, it's going to see you know. For It's
isn't a while that four years ago the number one,
like most safe in demand job in the world was
software engineer. And today if you listen to any of
the AI experts are saying that, you know, you're not
(14:55):
going to for the most part need the majority of
software engineers in the future because of the fact that
you know, because of things like no code, and because
of AI and the fact that most code is going
to be written by AI, over thirty five percent of
all code right now is written by AI. That number
is only going to grow, So things change very very quickly.
My son is an electrician. He's twenty one years old
(15:17):
and he did not go to college. But he's obsessed
with learning. That's all I really care about, right. Mark
Twain once said, never let your school and get in
the way of your education. And I think education comes
in a multiplicity of forms. There's certainly not one road
for everybody. But you know, he's twenty one, he's got
no debt, he's making about six figures a year right now,
(15:38):
and he's off to the races, and how is that
not a beautiful thing? And he's going to be quite
secure in his job for a long long time and
very much in demand. I taught him. I was like,
the world can say what the world says, but you
need to follow where you feel like you can become
the best version of yourself, whatever that is. And you know,
he found a lot of joy with building things as
(15:59):
a kid. That wasn't my but that was his thing.
And I didn't try to make his thing my thing
or my thing his thing, and he started working as
an electrician part time at fourteen years old and full
time by sixteen, and you know that's where he used
Today he runs a crew twenty one years old.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Oh that's amazing because as you were talking about, you know,
thirty five percent of the code being written by AI.
And also there are companies like Shopify. Shopify CEO said
that you want I think so Tobya. I don't know
how to pronounce his last name, but his internet.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Memo was leaked out on Yeah, you're required that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know before you ask for more headcount and these
were his approximately the similar words that before you ask
for more headcount, the teams must demonstrate why AI cannot
do the work that they're asking for them. I think
so warmly said that I expect thirty percent growth in
every employee using AI.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
So that's leadership, right, That's that's leadership, and that's you know,
there's a lot of leaders right now when they look
at AI, they're baring their head in the sand and
they're saying, well, I don't like it, or you know,
what about this? What about that? And I think they've
forgotten why they signed up to be a business because
you signed up. When you become an entrepreneur, you're essentially
(17:24):
saying I'm going to meet the market where the market is.
I'm not going to say, well, that's not my thing,
and so I'm not going to do it. It's no
different than like a really simple example. And I talk
a lot about like video on some of my content
alge in my books. Nobody has ever gone to a
website before and said, boy, I really wish I could
(17:46):
watch a video about this, but there's none here. But
I'm sure that the owner of this company is just
nervous on camera. So I'm going to give them a pass.
I'll call them on the phone instead. It's just not
how it works. They want to see the thing. The
buyer cares about the buyer. The market cares about the market,
and they certainly don't care about our opinions. So I
(18:06):
learned a long time ago as a business owner to
not allow my personal opinions to screw up really smart
business decisions. I don't personally like Facebook and Instagram personally.
Do I use them for my businesses? Yes? Do I
teach other businesses how to do them?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Why because that's where the market is, or at least
some of the market or LinkedIn or YouTube or whatever,
the thing is right, and so we have to be
very very careful about that. I'm sure you've seen this
yourself as well. Do because like you constantly see these
folks saying, well, that's just not really my thing. Oh,
your thing needs to be meeting the market where the
market is, that's business one on one.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Well, you're absolutely right on the mark. Most people are like,
I'm not comfortable with this, I'm not doing it, and
here's the thing. Market is not going to wait for you.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
As we were talking about AI two and a half
years back, I don't an early adopter for most of
the things, and I jumped into it.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So now I'm not terrified of it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I mean, did I go through resistance and fear and
all that.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
We all do.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
So now you talked about Facebook and Instagram and people
being afraid, so we can talk about businesses. But businesses
are run by people. So you talk about that. There
are some crucial signals for businesses. Can you share what
are those and how can companies create those?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Yeah, So if you look at what's happening today, it's
really interesting for the better part of the last twenty
five years. As organizations, the way we generated business, we
had to essentially be recommended by two parties. Number One,
we had to be recommended by customers by people. Number two,
we had to be recommended by search engines. And that
manifested itself through either SEO or through paid ads. That's
(19:52):
been the last twenty five plus years, right, And you
could build a wonderful business on that. But suddenly, as
most listening to this no Oh November twenty twenty two,
we see chatch Gypt, everything starts to change. And I
know you saw this quickly divida but I saw it
as well, which was okay. So you're going to give
me a great answer to my question and I don't
have to click on a blue link to get that answer.
(20:15):
And if you think about what's happening today, so many
companies and organizations right now are saying, I'm spending more
on Google Ads than I've ever spent, I'm getting less results.
I'm seeing less traffic to my website from let's say,
SEO than I saw before. And I'm concerned. I'm worried, Well,
that trend line is going to continue because you're going
to see more people that are shifting over from using
(20:37):
Google as their traditional means of researching companies and reaching
out to businesses to going to AI. Why because if
you go to AI today, if you're using chatch Gypt,
they're not going to show you show you sponsored searches.
You don't see a single sponsored search. So there's there's
there's literally it's a straight line to the answer that
you're looking for. And what do we want as buyers consumers?
(20:57):
We want to get the best, most specific, relevant answer
to our question as quickly as possible, whereas Google is
going to show you a bunch of stuff and also
some search results. And so this is why you're seeing
so many people shift over. And so if you build
your house on Google today, there's a very good chance
that you're going to be in trouble tomorrow. And listen,
I wrote, they ask you answer a book that is
all about how to dominate on Google. And I'm the
(21:19):
guy that's like saying, one of the people that's saying, hey,
this is not your future. And so if that's the case,
and you need to be recommended now by AI, because
you know when AI started for you and I, it's
like a couple of years ago it was mainly a
creation tool, but now it's very much a recommendation tool
as well. We're vetting companies and businesses and whatever brands
(21:39):
by using AI. And so what makes AI say, hey,
you should talk to this company. Well, they're trust signals,
trust signals that are essentially sent out by two parties,
either by your company or by people that they're discussing
your company. So you have to create trust signals. What's
a trust single? Any piece of comment that's out there
(22:01):
about your organization is a trust signal. So if it's videos,
if it's articles, if it's social media, if it's reviews
by other people, rights, if it's statements about you, whatever
that thing is, that is a trust signal. And there's
certain ways that you can drive more trust. There's certain
types of signals that search engines love, AI loves, and
(22:24):
unfortunately most businesses don't want to talk about. And so
in my newest book, Endless Customers, I lean hard into
these signals and how can you become the most known
and trusted brand in your market? Because the one thing
I'm sure of is that Facebook is going to come
(22:45):
and go, Instagram's going to come and go. YouTube, is
going to come and go. Google's going to come and go, Chat,
GBT is going to come and go. They're all platforms.
What's not going to come and go is the importance
of trust and its impact on your business. And if
you always build your strategy around how you can become
that most trusted brand, well then there's a very good
(23:07):
chance you're gonna be able to last, regardless of whether
it's five years or ten years or twenty years down
the road. And so if you're not doing things today
that make you that choice trusted voice with humans, with
a guy with search engines, well then there's a very
good chance that you're being left behind.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, that's a very good advice because, as you said,
a lot of people are being an Ostrich because Ostrich
is known to marry its head. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah, we talk about that, you know, I talk
a lot about the Ostrich and how we're afraid to
address certain things. And in the book I mentioned four
pillars of a known and trusted brand, and they're essentially
the antithesis of the Ostrich. Right, So the Ostrich one
has a problem, it buries its head in the sand
because it thinks the problem is going to go away, which,
by the way, it's a total myth, but it's visually
(23:56):
very very effective, right because oftentimes I'll say to company,
are you being the ostrich right now? Or are we
going to do what it takes to become that voice
of trust? Like we have to make a choice right now.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And so.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
One of the pillars, one of the core pillars of
a known and trust a brand is saying online what
others aren't willing to say. In your space, say what
others aren't willing to say. And if you think about
that one somebode might say, well, what do you mean
by like say okay? And this is also the second
pillar too, very much related to it, which is show
what others aren't willing to show with video. But there's
(24:33):
essentially when it comes to the way people buy stuff,
the way we research, there's five subjects in particular that
we always tend to research when we're looking to make
a buying decision. This is B to B, B two C.
It's a small business, this is enterprise. It doesn't really matter.
So what are the five things that we always research
as buyers as consumers. Number one, we want to understand cost.
(24:54):
We just really want to feel like very clearly. We
understand pricing and that we're not going to get ripped off.
Cost is number one. Number two we want to understand
problems slash objections. We want to know what could go wrong?
How could this blow up in my face?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Right?
Speaker 5 (25:08):
So it sicially fears Number three. Number three comparisons. We
love to compare stuff online. I mean, think about how
many times you've compared one thing versus another thing online?
We love to do that. Number four reviews. We're like
obsessed with reviews. The thing about reviews, you guys, we
just don't want the good reviews. We want the good,
the bad, ind the ugly. If somebody doesn't have any
one star reviews or negative reviews, it actually makes us
(25:30):
a little bit worried, like something's wrong here. And then
finally number five best, best, most, top, Like, how many
times have you searched best plus another phrase online? I
mean that happens time. So cost, problem, comparisons, reviews, and best.
Here's what's crazy. Those subjects run the economy of search.
Those are the subjects that are dictating whether you get
(25:50):
leads or not. Those are the things that people are
searching in Google, The things that they're searching in AI,
and those are the things that most businesses don't want
to talk about online. And if you want to become
the voice of trusting your market, you have to be
willing to talk about those five things. And obviously in
the book, you know, I teach you how to talk
about those five things, and everybody, of course wants to say,
there's no way I can talk about that. I can't
talk about costs, Marcus, because every job is different and
(26:13):
it depends, and we tend to be more expensive, and
we're going to scare them away. I mean, there's all
these things that people say. I'm telling you, we've got
the data on this, and you do not want to
ignore the most fundamental questions that people have when it
comes to your product or service, one of which is roughly,
what's this going to cost me?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, that's such a powerful question. And you also talked
to recently just now about like, you know, showing your
audience what others are not willing to show with videos,
and there's you know, YouTube shorts, there are like long
videos like it keeps on changing. So what would your
advice be to the companies or to entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Yeah, this is one of those things. Video is such
a massive, massive deal. I'll say something here that I
think will scare people to death, but I feel like
it's my responsibility to be honest always, and that is
there's a pretty solid chance within the next five to
ten years that your YouTube page is much more important
than your web page, your website, and a lot of
companies can't even fathom that right now. But if you
(27:14):
look at where the world is headed, it's very much
headed in a videocentric direction. I actually believe the rise
of chat, GBT and some of these other AI based
search engines are going to lead to also a rise
in YouTube. YouTube could be Google's number one revenue generator
within a few years, just based on just based on
(27:36):
where the market is headed. And so if that's the case,
are you really putting emphasis on video? Because this is
what people want to see it to believe it, and
they want to feel like they have fully vetted it.
More and more people are visual learners. This is just
where a brain is going. And it's one of those
things where you have to start thinking as an organization
(27:57):
like a media company. And that's one of those statements
folks are like, really, I didn't sign up for this.
I know, I know, you didn't sign up to become
a media company, but that's where the world is now
headed and you need to go with them, or again,
you're going to be left behind. Right. You can't expect
to be sending, you know, faxes from your fax machine
to your customer base and get the reach that the
(28:19):
person that's sending email is going to have. It's just
doesn't work like that, and so we're gonna have to
evolve and video is a place to do it. Most
companies at this point that are doing at least a
couple of million dollars in sales should have a full
time videographer that works on staff. I mean, that's the
way that you should be thinking. Now some of you are,
you know, like, well, Marcus, I'm much smaller than that. Okay,
well now you're the videographer. But yeah, you have to
(28:41):
be doing video because people buy from those they know,
like and trust. They want to see your face. It
makes you much much more human. And that's where we're going.
And there's a difference, a very big difference between just
stating something in text online versus showing it improving it
in video. They are just nine and day difference. That's
what makes you much much more believable and certainly more
(29:03):
transparent as well, and that's what causes people to say
I trust you enough to buy from you.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
That definitely makes sense because all right, let's say you
even whether you're a CEO or a small entrepreneur, your
product could be the best. But as you talk about,
like you know, being willing to be more human than others,
especially in the world of AI, like you know, so
many people are putting in avatar videos, even ads created
(29:29):
by AI, so in that showing a little piece of
you know, who are you as a human being? Why
would they like you? And a lot of people are
hesitant about putting in those kind of videos. So do
you think, like in terms of products, also, like you said,
like you know, showing that proof that explainer videos work really.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Well, Oh my goodness, yes, I mean anything that you
can do. Listen, if you're a CEO, if you're a
business leader, right now you've got to get from behind
the desk and from behind the camera. You got in
front of the camera. Because one thing that isn't going
to change, that is clearly a principle of truth at
this point is people buy from those they know like
and trust and yeah, it's like, you know, look at
(30:09):
this like pod that you're doing diivious Like a lot
of people do business with you because they heard about
you here. They develop a relationship with you on here.
They like your energy, they like your vibe, and they're like,
I want to I want to work with her. If
this was you know, if this was if you didn't
do any video, or if people couldn't hear your voice
(30:29):
and they were just just reading your words, the relationship
would be different. So you have a very human element
about you with your brand that resonates with the market,
and because of that, the market has responded and allows
you to have successful business. This is all of us.
And so if you, as a business leader, aren't thinking
of ways to show your face more. And by the way,
(30:51):
this doesn't mean that you're posting photos of your family.
You don't have to do that. I mean one of
the biggest advocates of social media in the world is
Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't know as kids look like. I
don't know anything about his family because he doesn't show
his family, but he shows himself a lot and that
benefits his brands, right and so the moral of the
(31:11):
story is he had to Once again, there's common theme here.
We got to get over some of our personal opinions.
We've got to put ourselves out there. Another simple example
of this, I talk about this in Endless Customers is
like listen, one to one video with email is so simple,
so easy, it costs literally nothing, and most salespeople are
(31:31):
sending just tech tech space email today. It doesn't make
any sense to me, Like if I've got an appointment,
If you talk to any of my sales team and
they have an appointment sales appointment with you, beforehand, they're
going to send you a video. They're gonna introduce themselves.
You're gonna see their face, you're gonna hear their voice.
You're going to get to know them on a personal
level before you ever talk to them on the phone,
before you ever see them on camera, before they ever
(31:55):
walk up your driveway to you know, selling your home
or whatever that thing is. That's the way to do it.
Yet most companies aren't thinking like this. I mean, it's
amazing to me how backwards we are in terms of
humanizing the sales process. And listen, I'm all about using technology,
but you can use technology and humanize your business, your brand,
(32:17):
your people even more so. But you gotta get in
front of the camera. It's not going to happen otherwise.
And you don't want to be using just a dang
digital avatar, which I mean, I'm I've written about them,
I wrote about them in the book, but you need
to be showing your face out there as well.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Absolutely, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Now, there are a lot of questions in a lot
of my clients will ask me, I'm not in this
video person or anything like that. So the question I
get from several of my clients is that, like, oh,
you know, people say that you know, you've got to
be personal, but you give a very good example of
Gary Vee. So sometimes you know, they say, go, I
(33:00):
could just be walking down the street and taking a.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Video and I'm.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Putting it on LinkedIn, Like is that unprofessional? So if
you can answer that question, you know, that would be
great because when you're showing your personal side, don't have
to show your family, don't have to show you're going
for many patty or you're going for like this best
barber or haircut, but showing some of your personal element.
What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
It's very fascinating to me whenever I post something, how
just like what people notice if you follow me on LinkedIn.
I'm a pretty good follow on LinkedIn. I'm very active
over there, four to five posts a week. I put
my best stuff on LinkedIn. I do a mix of
(33:50):
photo plus video plus text. I mean, I do a
full mix, and I don't hesitate to do a video
spur the moment. If I'm just outside and I've got
a thought, I share it with my audience. You have
to the thing about it. You got to understand about
(34:11):
all this stuff. It's kind of like learning to walk.
You don't get it the first time. It's clunky, and
you have to embrace the messy that comes with it.
A lot of people just don't want to embrace the
messy that comes with developing a brand voice. You want
a personal brand and you want a company brand. But
(34:35):
I can tell you personal brands are much stronger than
company brands. If I said to this audience right now,
do you know who Kylie Jenner is? Everybody would say, yes,
I know who Kylie Jenner is. I've heard of her.
If I said, do you know the name of her?
Makeup line. Many people would say, I have no idea
it's a billion dollar makeup line, and they don't know.
(34:59):
And I say that because I don't even know what
it is. But I know Kylie Jenner. You see what
I'm saying. Now, somebody might say, well, that's that's Kylie.
No no, no, no no. That is the psychology of
the way that it works. You can go down the
list of companies. Richard Branson is much more known than
(35:20):
his brands, and this is possible. You know, It's like
Steve Jobs was bigger as a as a, as a
like a from a social perspective than was Apple at
the time. And people want to know what does Steve
Job say? Not what does Apple say? What does Steve
Job say? And so we're entering an era where thought leadership,
(35:42):
individual thought leadership matters a lot. And this is especially
true with leaders of companies. And again I know a
lot of folks that I just didn't sign up for that. Well,
meet the market where the market is. And you've got
something to say, learn how to say it in your
own way. Maybe it's driving down that. Maybe you know
(36:03):
you're shooting a video in the cars you're driving, whatever,
the video. You know, maybe you're in your bedroom or
maybe you're in your office or whatever it is, but
there's a style that would work for you. You just
have to be willing to get from point A to
point B and in between. There there's this bridge of
clunkiness that you got to figure out. You're going to
figure it out. It's so different than if you look
(36:23):
at the content that I wrote on my swing pool
site in two thousand and nine. The first the first
articles let's say that I produced. You just said, dibia like, dude, Marcus,
you're just not a very good writer. This is probably
not your thing. And then if somebody reads my books today,
they might say, Wow, you've got a nice style about
the way that you writer. Oh, you seem like such
a natural writer. Yeah, we're a couple of million words
(36:43):
into it by this point, y'all. This is like if
you watch my early videos, just I'm sure it's the
same with you do. It's like, if you watch my
earlier VIDs, you're like, man, video is probably not your thing.
And today people are like, wow, you're really really great
on video. I bet it just comes natural for you.
It's like you forget this, like it's learning to walk
and learning to run, you fall a bunch of times,
you figure it out, and then all of a sudden
(37:04):
one day you realize, holy cow, I'm actually pretty decent
at this thing. That's how it works.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, and I really love what you said, embrace the messy,
because I'll tell you, like you know, I've got some
of my books written, several books, my earlier books. Not
proud of it. But have I taken that down? No,
I've not taken that down because it shows the journey
that and of course this is all pre chpt so
I can clean. So I love what you said. It's
(37:33):
about falling and the way I see this. You know,
we're all work in progress. So what even if you
mess it up?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Now you me up.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
We mess it up, well, we drastically overestimate how much
people think about us, you know.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
About themselves and not thinking about you. I can tell you.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
That's right, that's right, and I tell you it is
powerful though. It's like the moment you just let go
of the need to please one hundred percent of your
audience and say, listen, I'm not for everybody but my tribe.
They're gonna find me just like as I've been doing
this pod today. There's literally been a certain percentage of
(38:16):
people that are like, I really love this guy, and
then there's a certain percentage that you're like, uh, don't
like him. I'm out. I know that that. Like literally
that has happened over the course of this episode. Some
people start off they didn't like me, and now they
like me, all of which I am completely okay with.
See that just say that makes some people say, Oh,
(38:37):
that almost feels uncomfortable. No, it's totally comfortable to me
because I have accepted this is how we work as humans,
and I'm constantly putting myself in front of audiences knowing
that a certain percentage isn't going to like me or
I'm not going to resonate with them. I'm okay with
that because I also know that there's another percentage that
(38:59):
I'm going to your life, and that's what I'm here.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
For, absolutely, And that's what makes a brand trustworthy, and
that's what makes the brand authentic because a lot of
people talk about authenticity. So tell us, you know, you
have given us some very valuable nuggets. So thank you, Marcus.
Tell us how people can connect with you and how
(39:24):
can they reach you? Tell us about your books.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you asking that, Diviya. So I
a couple of things. If I would start with Endless Customers,
which is the new book. That's if if you want
to become the most known and trusted brand in your market,
wherever your market is, whatever it is, that book was
written for you. I think it's going to really resonate
with you. I think you're going to love it. You
(39:47):
can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm a really good
follow over there, and I've got a company called Impact
and you can find us at impact plus dot com.
We help organizations implement this system of Endless Customers, and
so if you're looking for a coach to guide you
on that journey, and go to impact plus dot com.
(40:08):
And we've got a bunch of free content there as well.
In factors there is for the book. There's a five
hour course that I created on Endless Customers. It's a
video course. It's free, and you can find it over
there at impact plus dot com, which is pretty cool.
If you just want to want to watch me, you know,
give the whole book, not read it, but like just
riff on it for five hours in different sections, different chapters.
(40:31):
I hope you'll check it out because it took a
little at time, but it's helpful to people very much.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I'm sure our audience is going to find a lot
of value in what you're sharing, and just based on
the nuggets you have given us, I'm sure that you
know you all will enjoy Marcus's books, so check it
out and see how it can help you, because we
are all selling something, entrepreneur or not. So thank you
(41:03):
Marcus for joining us.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
JABE is my pleasure and appreciate you, appreciate your audience
and you know, love love your subject matter, and so
hopefully this was you know, a positive for those that
were listening today.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
I'm sure, so thank you Marcus. Thank you wonderful audience,
because the show would not be possible without you.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
So reach out to us.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Let us know what experts you're looking for, what strategies
you're looking for. We're here to serve and support you
and help you live the life you want and you deserve.
And thank you one for making the show technically possible.
Be well taken and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence with your
host d V Park. We hope you have learned more
about how to start living the life you want. Each
week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people
who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.
During Beyond Confidence, Vpark shares what happened to her when
she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly
(42:05):
with people across the globe. She not only coaches people
how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to
mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life
they want. If you are ready to live the life
you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www
dot dwpark dot com and you can connect with vat
(42:25):
contact at dvpark dot com. We look forward to you're
joining us next week.
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