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Episode 7 | They Ask You Answer a Revolutionary Approach to Gaining New Clients

 

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In this week’s episode

  • Are you a bit lost or overwhelmed when you think about digital marketing? Maybe you’ve heard of Inbound or Content Marketing but don’t know where to start?  If either of these ring true then this episode is for you…
  • This week we welcome highly sought-after international keynote speaker and web marketing guru Marcus Sheridan to the Modern Veterinary Podcast to discuss his books “They Ask You Answer” and “The Visual Sale” and how Vets can apply these principles to their day to day marketing activities.
  • Plus on the show this week, Jack introduces Super Deduction – the tax break means that you can claim 130 per cent of what you spend on equipment for your business against taxable profits! 

Show Notes

  • Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform
  • Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
  • Jack introduced Super Deduction, and explained what it is, how it works, whats included and how Vets can use it to invest in their practice! 
  • Jack’s special guest was international keynote speaker and web marketing guru Marcus Sheridan who talked aboutThey Ask You Answer” and “The Visual Sale” and how Vets can apply these principles to their day to day marketing activities.
  • Many thanks to Pennard Vets’ Matthew Flann for recommending our book for the week “Mindset” by Dr Carol S Dweck
  • In our next episode Jack will be joined by Susie Samuel who will be talking to us about the future of Teleconsults post Covid-19 .
  • Please send any questions, ideally in audio-form (or any other feedback) to jack@veterinaryit.services.

Transcription

Jack Peploe:
Coming up on modern veterinary practice.

Marcus Sheridan:
If you said to me today, what is They Ask You Answer, it’s a few things. Number one, it is a true obsession with the questions, worries, fears, issues, et cetera, that your customers, your buyers have. Okay? That’s number one. Number two, it’s a willingness to teach and communicate with them in the way that they want to be taught and communicated with.

Jack Peploe:
Welcome to modern veterinary practice. I’m your host and veterinary it expert Jack Peploe. In this week’s episode, I’ll be talking to Marcus Sheridan about They Ask You Answer and how vets can apply these simple principles to their day-to-day marketing activities. I’ll also introduce the concept of super deduction, the tax break that means you can claim up to 130% of what you spend on equipment for your business against taxable profits.

The government has only released very basic information so far, and there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. But from what they’ve already said already, it looks like for expenditure incurred from the 1st of April, 2021 until the end of March 2023 companies can claim up to 130% capital allowances on qualifying plant and machinery investments. This includes office chairs and desks, signage, x-ray equipment, medicine cabinets, computer equipment and servers, the list literally goes on.

What this means to veterinary practices is it that will cut your tax bills by up to 25p for every pound you invest. Meaning you can reduce taxable profits by 130% of the cost. The example given by HM Treasury and published as part of the super deduction guidance is as follows. A company incurring one million pounds of qualifying expenditure decides to claim the super deduction by spending one million pounds on qualifying investments will mean they can deduct 1.3 million pounds, which is 13% of the initial investment from their taxable profits. In this example, it would mean that the company would save £247,000. That’s 19% on their corporation tax bill. This could be a very exciting way for vets to afford the much needed IT infrastructure updates, or even just general improvements to their practices.

Voiceover:
The interview.

Marcus Sheridan:
Hey folks, I am Marcus Sheridan and in a previous life I was a pool guy but today I get to travel the world and teach organizations how to grow, trust, traffic, leads, and sales through the power of amazing content.

Jack Peploe:
Quite a transition there from pool guy, Marcus. Welcome to the modern veterinary practice podcast. I am just so excited to welcome you onto the show today. How are you?

Marcus Sheridan:
Yo Jack it’s great. I’m great. You know and we’re leaving COVID behind and we are ready to just, I think as a world to do some really great things as a result of everybody being cooped up. So I think there’s a lot of promise ahead.

Jack Peploe:
Absolutely. I know. I think there are definitely some exciting times around the corner. I’m just so pleased to get out of it. I mean I was just thinking today, actually, can’t wait to actually have a haircut. It’s been too long. So just diving right into one of my favorite marketing books of all time, which is your “They Ask You Answer” book. One statement out of many, may I add, that really stood out to me was where you say on average, 70% of the buying decision is made before a prospect talks to the company.

Marcus Sheridan:
Yeah.

Jack Peploe:
Now this is obviously so true of the veterinary market. In fact, a recent study was conducted by a organization called Bayer stating that 77% of pet owners consult Google for medicinal information before even consulting their vets.

Marcus Sheridan:
That’s right.

Jack Peploe:
Plus, obviously I’m sure this is only set to increase more with more millennials using veterinary services, as well as obviously the introduction to gen Z. Now this is obviously where “They Ask You Answer” comes in. Do you mind explaining the philosophy behind “They Ask You Answer”?

Marcus Sheridan:
Yeah so “They Ask You Answer” really… Let me give the beginnings of it as well. So I started a pool company 2001 and by 2008, when the market crash looked like we were going to lose the business. And so that’s when I started to really learn about the internet and read all these fancy phrases online, like inbound, marketing content, marketing social media, all that stuff. And what I really heard in my simple pool guy, mind was you know Marcus, if you just obsess over your customers questions and you’re willing to address them on your website, through text and through video, you might save your company. And so I said, you know what? That’s something I can do. You know, I’ve been selling pools for about seven, eight years at that point, and I’ve heard the questions and so I can absolutely answer them online.

And so that’s what I started to do. Make a long story short. We essentially became the Wikipedia of fiberglass swimming pools and the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world. And from that, I started to write about the success that I was having and that started to get traction and gain a following and eventually wrote a book on it. And this whole philosophy of course, is what we call “They Ask You Answer” Right? And so if you said to me today, what is “They Ask You Answer”? It’s a things. Number one, it is a true obsession with the questions, worries, fears, issues, et cetera, that your customers, your buyers have. Okay, that’s number one, number two, it’s a willingness to teach and communicate with them in the way that they want to be taught and communicated with. In other words, give an example.

We might as businesses or as business owners say yeah video’s not my thing. Well, marketplace doesn’t really care that video is not your thing because all they really care is do they understand, do they feel comfortable right? And video allows them to feel a lot more comfortable. And so that’s an example of communicating and teaching them in their preferred method. And then finally, number three, do we sell it in the way they would prefer to buy it? So that’s really the essence of “They Ask You Answer”. It’s extremely buyer, customer, patient, whatever you want to call it centric.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
In this regard. And if you make the customer your obsession it’s quite amazing what can happen, Jack. And it sounds obvious, but it’s actually not because most companies don’t adhere to this philosophy at all.

Jack Peploe:
No, I can completely back that. I mean, even with my experience with sort of working within the veterinary sector, I just loved the whole concept behind it. And I’ve really enjoyed adopting it within my business. And I think obviously the best bit about it is rather than hard selling or getting frustrated through cold sales or signpost advertising instead I’m sharing my knowledge. And I feel like I’m enabling people, which I just think is awesome.

Marcus Sheridan:
That’s what the buyer wants to.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
You know, there was another stat. So that 70% stat is a major one. I think there’s another one that’s more recent. And that is, I think really changing the world as we know it too, which is 33% of buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience.

Jack Peploe:
Wow, okay.

Marcus Sheridan:
Which is really, really powerful. And that number’s growing to 44% of millennials would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. So what does that mean? Does that eliminate sales as we know it or sales people as we know it? And of course those in the veterinary market they might be saying right now, well I don’t really have any salespeople anyway.
Jack Peploe:

Yeah.
Marcus Sheridan:
And if you’re thinking that you’re missing the mark of what’s happening with you and me, us, as buyers. What we’re saying is I want to have more control over my process of vetting who I want to do business with. And if I can, I want to do as much of it as possible without necessarily having to talk to someone to do the thing.

Jack Peploe:
Yes.

Marcus Sheridan:
And so that’s very, very powerful. It affects every single industry, certainly veterinarian across the board. There’s no exceptions to this. And so I think this is something that we’ve got to have at the forefront, Jack.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah, Yeah. No, absolutely. And I mean, it’s a big decision for the pet owners because I mean, I’m not sure about yourself. I mean, do you have animals yourself?

Marcus Sheridan:
Well I don’t but I understand it in that I’ve worked in the industry and… Well I’ve got a bunny rabbit, by the way. I do have bunny rabbits. I don’t know if that counts, but my bunny rabbit really owns half of our basement. You know what I’m saying? It is, Oh my goodness. And you can’t find vets that really want to do as much with bunnies. So my point is I do own a pet, not the traditional cat dog, but they’re like children to many.

Jack Peploe:
They are.

Marcus Sheridan:
This is the way that… Or sometimes they’re loved more than their children because they have unconditional love back. Right? And so with that, the amount of vetting that somebody could do. And I’ve done a lot in the pet sitting space. A lot, which is surprising, but I’ve spoken a bunch of pets sitting conferences.

And I mean, if somebody will vet five pet sitters, just to make sure that they’re leaving their pet in the hands with the right person, you compound that by 10 when you’re talking about the veterinarian that they’re going to be working with in case there’s a medical issue that arises. Which there always is, right? And so this is serious stuff here. And we as customers, as buyers, we just have so many questions. And you noticed I said it’s not just the questions, it’s the worries, it’s the doubts, the fears.

When you’re talking health, there’s a series of worries, doubts and fears, right? And oftentimes the question starts with something like I heard that, or someone told me that, right. And then you’d fill in the blank from there. And this is where in this case, the medical professional, the veterinarian is able to resolve the issue. The thing about it is you want to have that conversation before they come into your clinic.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
You want to address it earlier rather than later, because if you address it later, you may have already lost a huge percentage of potential business or at least trust that you otherwise would have ascertained by simply being the one to address that fear, that worry, that concern, that question.

Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely. And I mean, ultimately, as we’ve just discussed the veterinary industry is so well-placed to dive headfirst into this content marketing style. But obviously the big problem, or what I see is traditionally vets are slightly resistant to change because they’re busy people. What would you say to those who are kind of on the fence about the idea?

Marcus Sheridan:
Right. So usually we don’t change until we’re experiencing pain.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And so the sad part that I see every day is that you see businesses and business owners so in the day to day that they forget to look around and say, how have I changed? How have I evolved as a buyer? Oh my goodness, what does that mean for my customers as well? Because they’re no different than me. And have I done any of this stuff as a business myself. And sure there are certain things that worked 20 years ago that are going to continue to work for a long, long time. But those are mainly principles. Not necessarily let’s call it platforms or technologies or even methodologies of delivering information. So for example, what hasn’t changed in the veterinarian market in 20 years? Well trust is still as important today as it was 20 years ago, right?

Jack Peploe:
Yes. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
But the vehicle by which we deliver trust and induce it in our customers is very different today. And so that’s what we have to learn to adjust to. And we don’t want to be a lagger, we don’t want to be reactive. We want to be proactive on this because the fact is when you’re reactive it means you’re losing market share. That somebody’s come along and boom, it’s just gone. And I’ve watched a lot of industries complain, complain that somebody came in and somebody did this thing and they disrupted the whole industry. And it’s always a boohoo, but they were basing it on those three components, these innovations, these disruptions. Based on those three elements that I was talking about earlier. Which is an obsession with the questions, worries, fears, concerns, et cetera. That’s number one. The willingness to change the way that you talk or teach about it and the willingness to change the way that you sell it. And so if you’re really leaning into those things, there’s incredibly high likelihood that you’re going to stay way ahead of your peer group. Certainly the marketplace, your competitors.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah. No, absolutely. Because you’re integrated with your clients ultimately.

Marcus Sheridan:
That’s it. You’re not a… You’re not out of touch.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, obviously you discovered the power of They Ask You Answer the content marketing concept. And cause I suppose you could say that it not only changed the trajectory of your business, but also your life.

Marcus Sheridan:
100%.

Jack Peploe:
Now, not everyone can expect that kind of impact, especially at the start. Because it’s quite a long term process, but what could they expect if they took on the They Ask You Answer methodology initially?

Marcus Sheridan:
Yeah. I think there’s a few different things that you could expect. If you said okay, we truly are going to be one of the foremost teachers in our space. I’m going to brainstorm all the questions I get asked or I know people are asking about the different services that we offer within our clinic. And then you take the time to produce articles and videos at a very consistent level. Right? [crosstalk 00:14:33] So, I mean, ideally you should be producing at least 100 pieces of content a year in some way, shape or form to really start to see that you become that trusted authority in your space.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And you might say, geez, that sounds like a lot. It doesn’t need to be a lot at all. You know what I mean? It’s like people say to me, I don’t know if we could do that Marcus.
I’m like, yeah, well, you know, when I was getting ready to go out of business and I was going to lose my home, I stayed up very late every single night for two straight years and produce one article a night for two straight years until I saw that the business had completely turned course. And now of course today it’s just an unbelievable company.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
That’s why I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people that say things like, well I don’t have the time. What they’re really actually saying and they don’t realize it is, I don’t have enough pain to do something about this yet.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And so first you have to get over those things if you want to start to take action. You do your brainstorm, you start addressing them, you do it consistently. But here’s how it’s going to help you immediately. One way that’ll help you immediately is that you’re going to start to see that the redundancy of questions lowers.

So there’s certain questions that you know as a vet, you just hear over and over again. You’re like good grief, if I answer this question one more time today I’m going to vomit. Right? Well, have you ever said to yourself well maybe I’m the reason they keep asking the question. I mean hello, they’re asking that question because you haven’t answered it and nobody else has, right. So if you want to eliminate redundant, silly, ridiculous questions, you answer them.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And you make it very clear, right? So that’s one way, you’ll start to see that the quality of your conversations are higher. And furthermore, one thing that you see in the medical space, whether it’s with regular doctors or in this case veterinarians, is that they get so frustrated with what their patients read online. Okay, well.

Jack Peploe:
Dr Google.

Marcus Sheridan:
Once again, what have you done so as to counteract all that other information? Because the ones that are complaining about this are just as guilty of doing the exact same thing.
So you could take a doctor who gets frustrated. The patient comes in and says well I Googled this and I think I’ve got cancer. And the doctor’s like, no you don’t. This is ridiculous. Stop reading WebMD. But at the same time, this is the same doctor that just watches the YouTube video on how to fix his or her sink and totally now thinks they’re a plumber and then tells the plumber what the plumber’s doing wrong. Right. And this is what happens. This is what happens. So when we look at this we have to say we are part of the problem.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
Our customers are ignorant at times because we have allowed that ignorance or that misinformation to exist in the marketplace.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And so unless we’re willing to speak up and be that teacher be that voice, we really haven’t earned the right to complain about where they learned some misinformation.

Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely. And I mean, it doesn’t need to be that difficult. I mean, one thing that we did as a business was make use of a lot of the freelance style services to sort of help enable us because obviously me being a busy business owner immediately I was daunted by the concept of it if I’m honest when I first looked at it. But you do really see the benefit. And I think if you especially can delegate and make use of external services such I don’t know, for example as Fiverr. It can make a big difference if you find the right people. You just need to brief them well. I mean, that’s a method that I used. Are there any other tips and tricks that you could provide based on your experience?

Marcus Sheridan:
Well, I think one of the issues that people have today is they think you’ve got to be perfect to launch.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
And you don’t. I mean, look at the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. Well, depending on the day right? I mean that dude has like wrecked a bunch of rockets, but he’s progressing every single day towards putting us on Mars. Now will it happen? I don’t know. I don’t know. But what I do know is that he accepted the fact that there’s going to be a lot of crashing and burning. So as to be able to make forward progress, like fall forward, fall forward.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
Same thing applies with content. So let’s say that you produce your first video today, which you could do easily on your phone. Everybody knows how to make a video on their phone. At this point, you hit the red button. That’s how you make a video on your phone. So could someone, if they wanted to, could they produce that today? Could they therefore quickly learn how to upload it to YouTube? Could they upload it to their social media channels? They could.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
Is it going to be perfect and sound? No. Is it going to be perfect in message? No. Is it going to be something that 99% of your competitors are not doing? Yes.

Jack Peploe:
Yeah. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan:
Is it going to make you different? Yes. Is it going to start to build a brand? Yes. It’s going to start to build your confidence? Yes. And because of that are you going to build more and more momentum over time? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So this idea of getting started, progress over perfection is such a huge deal Jack and I just can’t state it enough.

Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely. And I mean, that brings us nicely onto your other new book, The Visual Sale, which again I think is fascinating an absolute brilliant read. Actually listened to it as an audio book and I think also got the written version as well. Now, obviously it’s all about the power of videos when marketing, can you tell me a little bit about it?

Marcus Sheridan:
Well, you know, the thing about video is never in the history of the world have we felt stronger about this seeing is believing computation than we do today. And the problem that a lot of companies have is if you go to their website, they say the same things, right? They say, we’re the best this we’re the most that you can count on us for this. But everybody says that Jack, right? So if everybody says it, what does it necessarily mean? Well it’s just noise to the marketplace until you’re willing to show the thing. And so the moment you’re willing to show the thing now all of a sudden it becomes very, very different. Very different. And so are you willing to show it? And there’s so much that you can show, right? And let me give you an example.
Just think about all the questions that you get about how does that work, right? There’s many, how does that work questions? You know so what is that going to look like? So if we do this how’s it go? Just show all those things. Describe all of the things, discuss those things. Just give me that comfort. You know, I worked with a really large cosmetic plastic surgery company.

Jack Peploe:
Okay.

Marcus Sheridan:
And they did They Ask You Answerquite well with video. And what they had is the doctors just really explained how the surgery works, what you need to be aware of. And they did it just like they were sitting with somebody in the office and that person has said, hey I’m considering this type of procedure. Tell me what are the pros, what are the cons, what do I need to know? And they were willing to do that.

Now think about how many vets have done that in your space about the different procedures, common procedures especially, that they’re doing every day with animals. Not out there. Okay. Don’t really exist. So what if you did that, right? What difference would it make on your sales process and how many more people would say before they even walked into the doors yep I already know I want to work with you. I already know. I watched that video. You’re the only one that explained to me the whole thing.

And I just feel like everything I’ve learned about X I’ve learned from you. That’s what you want to achieve. And outside of that, one of the things about video is the whole idea, especially when it comes to really high trust services like veterinarian services, is you want to have the mindset of our customers need to be able to feel like they have seen us our faces before we’ve ever seen them. That they’ve heard us, our voices before we’ve ever heard them and that they know us before we’ve ever met them. And if you can say those three things seen, heard, and known, they can say that about you. Then you can be assured that you will absolutely dominate your marketplace. And video is the essential key to do just that.

Jack Peploe:
That’s amazing. Marcus, thank you so much for your time today. It’s such a great interview. Really, really, really interesting and insightful stuff that we’ve been going through. So thank you very much.

Marcus Sheridan:
My pleasure, Jack.

Voiceover:
Recommended reading.

Jack Peploe:
Every week we ask veterinary professionals and experts to suggest a best business book for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Pennard Vets’, Matthew Flann.

Matthew Flann:
So the book I’d like to mention is called Mindset by Carol Dweck. I know this is probably quite a popular book and lots of people may have heard about it already. But once you read it and once you understand the concepts behind it, it will change the way you interact with people. Not only your colleagues at work, but also if you’ve got kids, your kids as well. The ideas behind it are so fundamental to shaping somebody’s future and their belief in themselves. It’s really super important. In my eyes it should be taught at school and definitely teachers should be taught this, which I think they are nowadays. I have heard teachers recently talking about this, so it’s called Mindset by Carol Dweck.

Jack Peploe:
Coming up next week we welcome Susie Samuel’s, who’ll be talking to us about the future of teleconsults post COVID-19.

Susie Samuel:
So I see it growing and becoming more and more important and really sort of less differentiated from a normal traditional visit. It’s very natural in all other aspects of our lives to switch between in-person interactions, messaging, video, and that’s how I see the experience for veterinary clinics working.

Jack Peploe:
That’s it for this episode, all links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.