The Uncommon Leader Podcast
Are you ready to break free from mediocrity and lead an extraordinary life? Join us on The Uncommon Leadership Podcast as we explore the power of intentionality in personal and professional growth. Our podcast features insightful interviews with inspiring leaders from all walks of life, sharing their stories of overcoming challenges and achieving greatness.
Discover practical strategies to:
- Think positively and cultivate a growth mindset
- Live a healthy and balanced lifestyle
- Build your faith and find inner strength
- Read more and expand your knowledge
- Stay strong in the face of adversity
- Work hard with purpose and passion
- Network effectively to build meaningful relationships
- Worry less and focus on what matters
- Love always and make a positive impact
In each episode, we'll dive into relevant leadership topics, share inspiring stories, and provide actionable steps you can take to elevate your life. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, The Uncommon Leadership Podcast offers valuable insights and practical guidance to help you achieve your goals and live your best life.
The Uncommon Leader Podcast
The Four Pillars That Create Endless Customers in Today's Digital Landscape
Trust is the ultimate currency in today's business landscape, and nobody understands this better than Marcus Sheridan. In this fascinating conversation, Marcus reveals how his near-business failure during the 2008 recession led him to discover powerful principles of trust-building that transformed his pool company into an industry leader and launched his career as a sought-after speaker and author.
At the heart of Marcus's philosophy are what he calls the "four pillars of a known and trusted brand" - be willing to say what others won't say, show what others won't show, sell how others won't sell, and be more human than the competition. Through compelling examples like Yale Appliance publishing which brands require the most service calls and his own company's radical transparency about pricing, Marcus demonstrates how vulnerability creates trust at scale.
The pride cycle emerges as a fascinating thread throughout our conversation - how pain leads to innovation, innovation leads to success, success breeds comfort, comfort kills innovation, and the cycle repeats. Breaking this cycle requires constant self-auditing and a willingness to disrupt your own business before someone else does it for you.
With AI transforming entire industries seemingly overnight, Marcus delivers perhaps his most provocative challenge: businesses cannot allow personal opinions about technology to interfere with smart business decisions. Those creating a culture of AI experimentation today will appear superhuman to competitors tomorrow, offering better services at previously impossible prices.
Whether you're looking to become the most trusted voice in your industry, break free from the pride cycle, or simply build a more resilient business in uncertain times, this episode offers practical wisdom you can implement immediately. As Marcus so powerfully states: "It's dumb not to dumb it down" - the goal isn't to sound smart, but to be understood.
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As a business owner for now 24 years, I cannot allow my personal opinions, john, to screw up smart business decisions. And even if you think AI is the end of the world and it's the Terminator, and it's going to come to get us and it's going to be in 25 years, the world's just going to suddenly boom, be gone and it's going to be the Matrix. My point to you is wouldn't you rather have a successful business between now and then?
Speaker 2:Hey, Uncommon Leaders, Welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher. We've got a class today on communication and connection from Marcus Sheridan, who's the author of the new Endless Customers. He's also the best-selling author of they Ask you Answer. But what I love about the story that Marcus tells is some of the things that he's done in his own personal business to save it through the examples of leadership that he's led through. A speaker who is now sharing that message across many stages and, ultimately, a guy that helps leaders improve their communication and connect better with others. In the case of his book, we're going to focus. It's going to be talking about customers in that space, but I think it flies right in the face of leadership and how we have to be better at connecting. So, Marcus Sheridan, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:John, it's an honor to be here, buddy, and I think we're going to have a great, great conversation, one that the listeners are going to be able to truly take some stuff away and apply, which is, to me, what it's all about.
Speaker 2:I think that is what it's about. I think they'll be able to run something through right off the bat. So let's start you off, though the same time, same way I start off all first time guests, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.
Speaker 1:I think I was about 11 years old and uh, and I grew up in a home that was lower middle class, consistently in debt. And one time I was outside and my dad's white pickup truck was outside the garage just sitting there and some man pulls up to the house and he gets out of his vehicle Another person was driving him gets out of his vehicle, he gets in my dad's truck and he drives it away and I was like what's going on? And I saw my dad just kind of like watched it and I was so confused it's just a completely baffled what's going on. And so finally I'm like dad, this guy he just took your truck you watched. He said that was the bank.
Speaker 2:I said I don't understand.
Speaker 1:He said I I defaulted on my payments and they repossessed the truck and he walked away. And it left quite an impression on me about debt and just how quickly, if you're not a good steward, things can be taken from you. And of course, it's funny how those lessons would come back later on in life as a business owner and as a leader myself. But yeah, that left quite the impression as a young man.
Speaker 2:Well, you've got a lot going on right now and it probably aligns really well with that story of your company back in 2008. You were a partner in a pool company riding the real estate industry I was in real estate at the time as well down to the bottom no pun intended in terms of the bottom of the pool in 2008. And you had challenges to face and choices to make if you're going to keep your business going.
Speaker 1:How did you do that.
Speaker 2:What did you learn and how did you do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, john, we started the company in 2001. I was right out of college. Then you get the crash of 2008, 2009, and it looked like we were going to go out of business. But the one great thing about pain and suffering is that and I'm sure anybody that's listening to this has felt is that it forces us outside of our comfort zone and oftentimes, when we're in pain, that's when we do the thing that we should have been doing a long time ago. And, unfortunately, most people need that motivation of pain. The great companies, the great leaders, they come from that perspective of we're in pain even when they're prosperous. This way, they don't have to, you know, they don't have that constant cycle of pain, prosperity, pain, prosperity, and so, in our case, 2008, 2009,. I'm like we're going to lose it.
Speaker 1:But I really started to learn about the buyer during that time and studied how the buyer was changing, how I was changing myself, looking at things like inbound content, marketing, stuff like that. But what I really heard in my simple pool guy mind was, marcus, if you just obsess over your customers' questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns, and you're willing to address those online, honestly, transparently, you might save your business. And so, to make a long story short. We created just a slew of content, articles and videos that went online that really addressed every single question I'd ever heard as a pool guy, and we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world. As a pool guy, and we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world, and it went so well that by 2017, we were getting so many leads from just around the country that we started manufacturing our own pools.
Speaker 1:And then by 2020, we became the fastest growing manufacturer of fiberglass pools in the US. We had the first franchise of fiberglass pool companies in the US and I was able to sell the manufacturing side of the business in 2020, 2021. I still own the original River Pools, which is essentially a franchisee of the bigger franchisor, but this whole journey was documented in my book they Ask you Answer, along with this framework that we used, and that framework has now been applied to hundreds of thousands of companies around the globe, and fundamentally, it's about how to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. But what's wild, john, is most leaders don't have the audacity, the courage, the faith and the common sense to follow the principles, even though they're so bloody obvious.
Speaker 2:Why don't they what gets in their way?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's just analyze it. And so, because of what happened in November of 22 with ChatGPT and AI and its impact on the world, its impact on Google, its impact on sales and marketing, I said we need a third version of they Ask, you Answer. And that book is called Endless Customers and if you're listening, you can find it at endlesscustomerscom. And so in this book, we have come up with four essential pillars of a known and trusted brand. I'll tell you each one of the four and then we'll quickly see why folks push back on this. All right, and it's going to be pretty fun because it's an exercise in buyer psychology in many ways. So the first one is be willing to say online what other companies aren't willing to say All right. So there's a bunch of directions we could go with this, but let me just tell you one really quick, and I actually opened the book with this story. It's so fascinating Amazing leader named Steve Sheinkopf.
Speaker 1:He's the CEO of Yale Appliance in Boston, massachusetts. Now Steve came to me almost a decade ago and he said Marcus, I'm just frustrated. We're producing this content and stuff, but we're just not really seeing growth when it comes to traffic, lead sales online. I want to grow. We're not scaling like we need to. What's wrong? And I looked at his stuff that he was producing. I said problem is the content. You're producing, just like every other business out there, but you're not really addressing what buyers want to know. You're not obsessed with the buyer. He's like well, what do you mean? I'm like everything they ask you have you addressed it? Well, online? He took that to heart.
Speaker 1:He called me a few months later. He said you know, one of the questions I keep getting is what are the least serviced, most reliable appliance brands that you sell? Because they sell kitchen appliances. And he said my dilemma is I've got all this data, marcus, that I could openly talk about this, but if I openly talk about it, I've got to throw some of these manufacturers, some of these vendors, under the bus, right. And so I said what are you going to do? He said well, I guess I'm going to focus on the group that matters most the customer, the buyer. Make a long story short.
Speaker 1:The first time he did this was in 2017. He's done this every year since then a series of articles and videos that address the least service, most reliable appliance brands. Now here's what's wild about it, though, john. What he does is he takes all the service calls he ran from the previous year. He tracks every unit he sold from each brand as a retailer. Every service call he ran for each brand. Therefore, you learn the least serviced all the way down to the most serviced brand that he sells. He publishes it as this huge chart on his website, and you literally see the 2025 list that says the least service was Gagadon and one of the most service was GE.
Speaker 1:And so it's like wow, and that's what makes him different, because did the vendors get upset? The ones that were ranked poorly, yes, and what did he say? He said well, this is data. That's all I'm doing is showing the data, so maybe you should worry more about making a better product than getting frustrated for the fact that I shared the data of our service calls. That's how he became the gatekeeper of that industry. That article, the first year it was written, got 50,000 reads a month on average, 50,000 readers a month for a year straight. Right Alone, the series has done millions in views and visitors just to his website. This is why Yale Appliance is, in many ways, a household name. When it comes to kitchen appliances today, they are the gatekeepers. This is what's possible, but you see how many. What percentage of leaders listening to this right now. If they owned like an appliance retail shop would do something that audacious.
Speaker 2:Most would not. Great question, I mean. I'm thinking. The thing that comes to my mind is well, I got consumer reports to do that for me. Well, don't let anybody else do that for me.
Speaker 1:To your point you, would you ever leave?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Why would you allow?
Speaker 1:someone else to dictate your success, the success of your company or even the conversations that are having within your space. My obsession is if anybody's thinking it about the product or service that I sell. I, as a leader, want to make sure that my brand, my company, is a part of that conversation. So Steve Sheinkopf was willing to say what other CEOs and leaders in his space weren't willing to say, and see the whole problem. You know it's wild, john. I've been speaking about disruptive, audacious sales and marketing practices for the better part of 12, 13 years. During this period of time, the number one email I've gotten isn't from business owners and leaders saying hey, marcus, we want to grow like Steve. That's the number two type of email that I get. The number one type of email I've gotten from marketers Marketers saying you know, marcus, I get it, but the problem is leadership doesn't. They won't allow me to do some of these things that I know would generate massive success. Bad, very bad.
Speaker 2:So that's who you wrote it for, right. I mean, you wrote it for the disruptor ultimately. You had a disruptor in mind when you wrote it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the ones that are willing to be the digital David in a land of Goliaths, that want to make their own rules and not play by the rules they've been given, because ultimately we see this over the history of the world the rule breakers always end up becoming the rule makers. And the previous leaders become the rule followers because they were afraid to replace their own business models Pretty much similar to what Google's doing right now. Right, google's going to be taken over over the course of the next five to 10 years unless they do a dramatic U-turn in their current approach. They want to continue to feed their revenue stream with paid ads, and so the user experience right now for Google search isn't nearly as good as it is for some of these AI platforms. A lot of people are still learning about them, so they don't necessarily know that, but unless Google changes, they will be replaced by a better UX for the market, and you see, this is what we see over and over again with that pride prosperity cycle that we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2:Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show. Absolutely. Let's just go there right now, because I saw that at the end of your book, in terms of one of those barriers is the pride cycle. So you've said that a couple times. Tell me about the pride cycle and what exists in that, because you say pain, prosperity, but there's other pieces of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's quite fascinating because when you understand how the pride cycle works, you see it in every facet of your life, and not just your life, business, personal. You see it in the history of the world. I mean entire countries and cultures and civilizations rise and fall with this thing called the pride cycle. So essentially how it works is imagine a circle and at the bottom of the circle you have pain. And this circle is essentially a journey that we're going on. And because you're in pain and let's just be hypothetical, let's do a really simple one on a personal level. You're overweight, you're unhealthy and you're like man, I've just let myself go. Now, because you're in pain, you say I got to make changes enough. So you have disgust, I'm going to make changes, I am going to get uncomfortable because I'm more frustrated with this current pain than the pain of change.
Speaker 1:And so we start to do the little things. Maybe we cut out the sweets, maybe we start to go to the gym or get the exercise or get on the treadmill, but we start to do the little things. And because we start to do the little things, we start to get results. Because we start to get results, we start to experience momentum. And now we're coming up that left side of the circle and by doing the little things we start to finally get to the top of the circle, which is pleasure.
Speaker 1:Pleasure means man, I did it, I lost the 20 pounds I am so proud of myself. Yeah, look at me. But something happens when we get to that place of pleasure Very human we get comfortable and we say you know what, maybe I can cheat a little bit today, maybe I can just, you know, have that extra serving, maybe I don't need to go to the gym today. So we stop doing the little things that got us to that place and because we stopped doing the little things, we don't need to go to the gym today. So we stopped doing the little things that got us to that place. And because we stopped doing the little things, we don't even realize that at first we start to slide down the right side of the circle.
Speaker 1:And so you can imagine. The right side is stop doing the little things In business. It's stop innovating, stop pushing, stop disrupting. Get fat, get happy, get comfortable, become Kodak, become Blackberry, right, and just don't change. And because of that, all of a sudden we're back to where we started, and that's the circle. This is why you see economies rise and economies falls. They come into debt and then they, you know, quit the spending like or you know, you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like there's like this cycle that you see with economies. You see this cycle, you know, with governments and with politics, certainly with relationships. My goodness, I mean the person that's like I'm going on date night every Friday because you know we're seeing a therapist, a counselor, and I'm going to do the little things. It's like, oh, you know, relationship is good, but you stopped doing the date night. And you know relationship is good, but you stopped doing the date night. And you know you stopped doing you know like five love languages or whatever it is. And then suddenly you're like oh, we're having problems again.
Speaker 2:We don't know what happened. Pride cycle, love that and I think about that. You know, the I've often used in my coaching said people will change when the displeasure of remaining the same use the wordust, is greater than the discomfort of the change itself, because it's going to be training new muscles one way or the other. If you stay with fitness, get yourself in good shape, but you stop doing those little things, next time you get back in the program it's going to hurt again.
Speaker 1:It's just going to hurt. It's like I don't want the pain. It's which pain would you prefer to choose? That's right. Right, I'm either going to get on the treadmill and experience the pain of that, or I'm going to experience the pain of looking down and not being able to see my feet. Like it's the same. Principally speaking, it's the same. So, yeah, and it's amazing to me how, when I've looked at my life and I look at the ups and downs, usually it's almost always because somehow the pride cycle had crept in.
Speaker 2:It's so real. When I read it I just smiled. I'm like this is exactly what we go through. You start doing a little research on it. It's crazy how much research is available. It seems like to your point, in religion, in our spiritual journey as well. It's part of that too. I mean, it's very much a part of what you find. And so you get to the, let's say, we're at the top of that cycle and we're at that prosperity point. What's the way in which you encourage organizations in which you stay at that point and not go back off of it? What's the way in which you encourage organizations in which you stay at that point and not go back off of it? What's the way to stay there?
Speaker 1:I think that's great. And that just goes back to that constant self-audit, right? So if you look, for example, at endless customers, there's these four pillars, and these four pillars are meant to be an audit that leadership teams can just literally sit around the boardroom table and say can we honestly say we're doing this?
Speaker 1:So what are the four pillars? Number one are we saying online what others aren't saying? Are we talking about the things that others aren't talking about? One of the biggest examples from the book is discussing cost and price. Now this comes from. They Ask you answer. It comes now into endless customers. I've got more data probably than anybody in the world no, not probably I do On the power of discussing cost and price, not giving exact prices, but teaching what goes into cost and price and helping understand a prospect, understand value and, roughly, what is this thing going to cost.
Speaker 1:There is so much power in that, and so most companies refuse to talk about that because they say I want to wait so we can control the conversation. As a buyer, you don't want to be controlled and so this is very, very frustrating to you as a buyer. So, number one say what others aren't willing to say. Number two show with video what others aren't willing to show online. So I would ask you, as we do this audit, what are you saying right now online that no one else in your space is saying? Like Steve Sheinkop with the list of appliance brands, right, like all the companies that were willing to talk about cost and price, even though 95% of all industries, in terms of companies, still don't talk about cost and price at all, especially most B2B service-based businesses. I mean, don't even get me started there.
Speaker 1:So, third pillar, my second pillar was show what others aren't willing to show with video. What are you showing right now that others in your space aren't willing to show with video? Super fast example of that when we started manufacturing pools, we were the first major manufacturer to create an entire series eight videos, 10 minutes long each, that showed everything about our manufacturing process. If you wanted to start manufacturing pools, john, you could watch these videos and it would be like a course on getting started. And my competitors, literally they called us up and they said why in the world are you showing this proprietary information? I'm like you think it's proprietary, give me a break. But the problem is that's the lie they're telling themselves. So what are you showing, from a video perspective, that none of your competitors are willing to show, or at least 95% of them? Number three are you selling in a way that others aren't willing to show, or at least 95% of them? Number three are you selling in a way that others aren't willing to sell.
Speaker 1:Now this one, and I've got some powerful examples in the book, but the most obvious example are self-service tools. Self-service tools are interactive tools that generally you put on a website that allow someone to get answers that previously they would have gotten by talking to a human, but they now get them by having this interactive experience. So, for example, you could be the with River Pools. We were the first fiberglass pool manufacturer. Now, keep in mind, we have dealers that set the in price. Okay, we were the first fiberglass pool manufacturer in the world that had a pricing estimator on our website, and so somebody could come on there and, by answering a series of questions about what size you're interested in, what shape you're interested in, here's some options. What options do you think you're interested in? Just like they would have if they were talking to a salesperson.
Speaker 1:So this estimator tool, this calculator I call it an estimator tool, this estimator tool it allows them to make choices. It also allows them to self-educate as they go through the estimator and then, by the end, it gives them a range as to what they would spend. Now here's what's amazing about this I actually have a software company that builds these pricing estimators, that allows companies, service-based businesses, to build pricing estimators and put them on the homepage of their website. And we've got so much data on this now that we know that if somebody puts a pricing estimator on their homepage that says get instant estimate, okay, that's the call to action get instant estimate. Generally there's a three to 500% increase in leads from the day they do it. So this is especially powerful for anybody that's in home improvement, home services, but any type of service-based business.
Speaker 1:The number one question that people have when they start the buyer's journey, like the moment they know they have a problem, a need and they got to buy something or acquire some type of service or product the first question is, roughly, roughly, how much is this going to cost? So when you have an estimator, it addresses that, and now, once they get it addressed, they're like, wow, I trust this company so much. That was really helpful. But also it allows them now to continue with their buyer's journey to the point where they eventually reach out. Most companies ignore this because they're not following the golden rule. They're not treating these customers, these visitors, as they themselves would want to be, because they're afraid and they're coming from this scarcity mindset when, in reality, if you come from this abundance mindset, suddenly you can generate more trust, more leads than you've ever done.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, that's all for a company I started called Price Guide. It's amazing the results that we're seeing. Three to 500% is the increase, and so, if you're listening to this right now, that's the type of thing that you want to be offering, and in the book Endless Customers, I give you five different types of self-service tools, all game changers, all applicable to most businesses, and that's very, very powerful. Most companies say they sell differently, john. They don't, they don't.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, the fourth one is be more human than others are willing to be. And then, finally, the fourth one is be more human than others are willing to be. What I mean by that is, as a company, is there a face that is associated with our brand? If I say, colonel Sanders, you think KFC? Now somebody might hear that and say, well, we're not KFC, yeah. But if somebody, I've got multiple companies that I own today. Right, I own a company called Impact. I own a company called Price Guide I just mentioned it. I own another communication company, I own River Pools.
Speaker 1:Now, what is more popular online? My face and my brand or these companies? Far and away, it's my face, my brand, right. So I am a key person of influence, as Daniel Priestley would say, and because I've built my personal brand and I've humanized me, people trust me. And then I say, hey, I've got this thing, I've got this company, I've got this software, I've got this pool company or whatever the thing is, and now that generates the trust for those businesses to take off very quickly, right, and so there is a very human element to any brand that I'm associated with because of the human brand that is behind it. And so the audit that you have to give to yourself as a leader is what are we saying that nobody else is saying? What are we showing that no one else is showing? How are we selling in a way that no one else is selling and how are we being more human than anyone else in our space? That's the audit more human. It was frowned upon for us to have our face out as the representative.
Speaker 2:People buy from people. They're not buying from that logo and it used to absolutely drive me crazy. It was so hard to deal with. I love that and the term you used in your book what sounds like what you just defined was that trust deficit. Ultimately, how wide that gap is is going to determine your ability to grow. There's no doubt about it. Inside of that space.
Speaker 1:And never has there been an industry To your point, john never has the trust deficit been so great. Right, it's people. People just don't know who to trust anymore. They don't trust brands, they don't trust politicians, they don't trust you know the person, their neighbor. It's like anything that you can do as a business and as a leader to signal we're not like everybody else. I mean, one of the simplest examples I talk about is every business on their website and just on their just general like messaging should explicitly state who they're not a good fit for. But I bet you, if we had 100 people listening to us through this right now, at least 99 have not said explicitly online this is who we're not a good fit for. But the moment you're willing to say what you're not is the moment you become dramatically more attractive to those who you are a good fit for.
Speaker 2:Can't be everything to everyone. And again back to that trust deficit. Okay, that makes sense, and, frankly, I'll lead you to someone who might be able to help you. That's because I probably know somebody in that space. That's the idea, um, and I apologize, there's a book that I read, uh, two years ago, that talked about that with regards to, hey, be a referrer to others who are with you. That's competition, that's completion, um, and it's the circle of life, it's good karma, it's good energy.
Speaker 1:It all comes back anyway Again to me. Again, that goes back to abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality. There's a lot of business owners, a lot of leaders out there that come from a scarcity mindset, which I know you have to help them overcome. That's one of the big things that you've got to snap them out of, john, because otherwise it's going to hold them back big time for reaching their potential. I never could have done extraordinary things with River Pools and become the most traffic-swingable website in the world and then had this crazy career as a speaker. If I had said you know what? Nobody's ever said that before, so I should probably not be talking about that online.
Speaker 2:Within endless customers. Another list that you talked about, if you will, were the five components of an endless customer right Content right Website right Sales activities, right Technology, right Culture. I mean, I'm I'm certainly a whether you save culture for last intentionally, but again, is it another assessment tool that you use inside with organizations to say how do you donate each one of these spaces?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my company Impact helps organizations become like a true light for those five things and then hold themselves accountable to it. It's like this culture of performance when it comes to endless customers. This is one of those things where so much and you've seen this before so much of what businesses do is a program. It's not cultural, it's a program. Hey, we're going to roll out this new program and the program it comes, it goes, it dies because it's meant to be finite. It comes, it goes, it dies because it's meant to be finite.
Speaker 1:Whereas you have to create a culture of performance, the great Jim Rohn who I know you appreciate, john, and I adore as my greatest mentor, I think said you've got to learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job, and that never stops. That never goes away. To have more than you got, you got to become more than you are, and are we instilling that within our organizations? Right, and so it's like this culture of performance is really a big one today, because, with AI, every one of your employees right now should be in the AI sandbox looking for ways to become faster and more effective. And are you requiring them to do that, or are you just saying, you know, it'd be really great if you could, you know, maybe take a look at AI and see if it can help you. Or are you saying I don't want anybody here using AI unless this or that?
Speaker 1:Right, it's like what?
Speaker 1:Because I can assure you this the amount of leaders that are going to be stunned and shocked at what their competitors are able to be stunned and shocked at what their competitors are able to pull off and how AI will revolutionize business models in their totality in the next 12 to 18 months is just going to be like I said, it's just going to be absurdly shocking to so many people.
Speaker 1:We're going to constantly look around the marketplace and say, how can they do that, how can they offer that, how can they pull that off, how can they do that much work or how can they offer it at that price, whatever the thing is, because they have somehow become dramatically more efficient. And there's pretty much one key to that today is understanding AI and what's possible, and none of us truly understand it, because we can't fathom where this is all going to be, but those that are using it, they feel superhuman, and that's how you and your team should feel, and when we say, you know, having like creating this culture of performance, that is a big part of it moving forward.
Speaker 2:I love that. I mean you touched on that in terms of technologies as well, and if you're going to be a disruptor, I mean too many organizations sit on this side of fear of AI and they say stay away from it. To go all the way on the other side and be totally free with it is not what you want as well, because you've got to maintain your authenticity and those types of things, and that's the people side of what's happening. But if you're not playing to your point in that sandbox, you are absolutely going to get passed by. It's your fiduciary.
Speaker 1:You're fiduciary as a leader to not allow the world to pass us by, and one thing that I've definitively learned as a business owner for now 24 years is I cannot allow my personal opinions, john, to screw up smart business decisions. And even if you think AI is the end of the world and it's the terminator, and it's going to come to get us, and it's going to be in 25 years, the world's just going to suddenly boom, be gone, and it's going to be the matrix. My point to you is wouldn't you rather have a successful business between now and then? Certain things are outside of your circle of influence. Certain things you can control, though, and what's under the roof of your own business you can absolutely control, and AI and our willingness to embrace it and experiment with it is definitely one of those things.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and again, as a man of faith, I know that all things were created for good, but there is evil that exists and they'll use it the wrong way.
Speaker 2:That's right, you're exactly right, but that doesn't preclude us from finding out what we can do to grow ourselves. Also, marcus, your book Endless Customers. By the way, in terms of integrity of what you talked about with regards to who it's for and who it isn't, you outlined at the front of that book who that book is for in terms of business sizes and things like that. So folks who buy the book, or at least look at it on Amazon, they can see what that means. The folks who are going to buy the book though I'm going to put a link to the website You're going to tell me where to find that here in a little bit as well to buy your book.
Speaker 2:They're going to read it and it's going to end up on a bookshelf like the one behind me. For those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you can see the bookshelf behind me. When they see that binder, when they see the backing of your book after they've read it, what is it that you want them to feel and either do or have done after reading your book?
Speaker 1:Yeah. What I want them to say is the whole world around me is changing. What's not changing, though, is the need to build more trust. My brand must become the most known and trusted voice. My salespeople must be trusted, and I, as a leader, must be a trusted voice, and I, as a leader, must be a trusted voice. If I asked anyone that's listening to this is trust going to be fundamental to your business in 20 years, everyone would say yes, but if I said is Google, is Facebook, is any of these other platforms? Are they going to be fundamental? We don't know, because, again, platforms, they come and they go. Trust is a principle. You build strategy around principles. The platforms do what the platforms do, and you bring that strategy over to each one of those, so what you were doing successfully to make you big when there was this thing called Google could be very, very successful during this thing called chat, gbt or AI, whatever it is, but you must become that voice of trust. That's the payoff to the book. That's the payoff.
Speaker 2:This payoff? This one's coming out. This podcast episode will come out on the day your book. We're completing this interview a couple of weeks prior, but it's going to come out on the day that your book releases. Where do you want them to go and find your book and learn more about you as well?
Speaker 1:First off, john, let me just say thank you for having me on here, because you've got just a great energy and what I love about you, you've actually researched the book. You get it. You understand that it means a lot to me. So I think, just in the interactions that you and I have had today and previously and forgive me if I'm throwing too much praise, but I think your clients are lucky to have you and I really really mean that your clients are lucky to have you and work with you, because I can tell how serious you are about preparation, which is such a big deal for any great leader. So thank you for that. In terms of the book itself, you can find it at endlesscustomerscom. That's where you want to go endlesscustomerscom and you'll see there's an amazing companion guide with it. Endless Customers is a system, it's a map for you to follow. So it's not a bunch of hypotheticals, it's not theory, it is a system, it's a map and if you follow that map, you will become that most known and trusted voice in your market.
Speaker 2:Love that and I appreciate the feedback as well. Marcus, I know that's genuine and I do appreciate that feedback Excellent. I know that folks are going to find value in this conversation that we've had today. Marcus certainly would find value in your book as well, and I will have the website for your book in the show notes as well that folks can get to really quickly. Marcus, I'm going to end this conversation. Give me the last word. It's the same question I ask all my first-time guests as they go through. It gives you a chance to really talk about who you are and where you're going. But I'm going to give you a billboard. You can put any message you want to on that billboard and place it anywhere you want to.
Speaker 1:What's the message you put on that billboard and place it anywhere you want to? What's the message you put on that and why do you put that message on there? Well, this one might surprise you, but one of the quotes that affected me most as someone that, since I was 19 years old, I became obsessed with communication and communication that connects communication that is understood. Communication and communication that connects Communication that is understood. Somebody once told me it's dumb not to dumb it down, and I just like tilted my head. I remember I was like huh, and ever since then I have realized the great gift that we can give someone is to share with them something that is so easily understood that it changes their life. But if the goal of your communication is to sound smart, you lose that magic and that energy. But if the goal of your communication is to be understood, now all of a sudden you can move mountains, and so just remember, it's dumb not to dumb it down.
Speaker 2:Marcus love it. I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time and investing it with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Wish you the best in the book coming out and anything you're going through in the future. Let's see how much we can continue to dumb it down for everyone and make it real clear and connect with others. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.
