A look at the add-on elements that people are willing to pay extra for.
* This article was originally published here
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A look at the add-on elements that people are willing to pay extra for.
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The world of business has seen seismic shifts in recent years. If you’re like most business owners, you’ve felt these changes firsthand. You’re navigating a marketplace that’s noisier, faster, and more competitive than ever. You’re likely asking yourself: How do I rise above the noise and stay relevant in this era of AI, trust gaps, and shifting buyer behavior?
If you’ve read Marcus Sheridan’s iconic They Ask, You Answer, you already know how transformative his principles can be. But here’s the thing: buyers—and the way they make purchasing decisions—are evolving at lightning speed. To address this, Marcus has written a new book, Endless Customers, which takes everything he’s learned and reshapes it for today’s market.
We recently had Marcus on the Endless Customers podcast to break down why this book isn’t just an update to They Ask, You Answer—it’s a complete reimagination of what it takes to attract, convert, and retain customers in 2024 and beyond.
Since its release in 2017, They Ask, You Answer has sold more copies every single year, driven largely by referrals. Marcus admits that the book’s success speaks for itself. So why the need for a new book?
“AI has completely disrupted the way businesses need to approach sales and marketing,” Marcus explained. “We’ve seen more change since late 2022 than we did in the previous 15 years.”
He’s not exaggerating. The introduction of ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools has changed the way buyers search for information. They’re getting instant answers from AI instead of visiting company websites. That means fewer Google searches, less organic traffic, and more competition for attention.
While They Ask, You Answer taught companies how to build trust by answering customer questions online, Endless Customers takes it a step further. It focuses on how to:
“This book is all about helping businesses create systems that turn them into the most known and trusted brands in their market,” Marcus said.
One big shift is the name itself. Marcus shared that the original title, They Ask, You Answer, didn’t pass the “I want/I wish” test for great book titles.
“Nobody says, ‘I wish They Ask, You Answer,’” he explained. “But when you hear Endless Customers, that’s something everyone wants. It immediately clicks.”
This change isn’t just cosmetic. It reflects the evolution of the book’s core message. They Ask, You Answer focused on how to approach buyer questions, while Endless Customers shifts the focus to the payoff: building a system that ensures a steady stream of loyal customers.
At the heart of Endless Customers are four pillars that define how to stand out in today’s market:
“These pillars are designed to help businesses disrupt their industries,” Marcus explained. “To be known and trusted today, you can’t play by the old rules. You have to break them—and create your own.”
What sets Endless Customers apart is its practical, system-based approach.
“Too many business books are heavy on theory and light on action,” Marcus said. “With Endless Customers, we give you a clear roadmap to follow. It’s not just ideas—it’s a system you can implement right now.”
For example, the book introduces a modern evolution of transparency. Whereas They Ask, You Answer focused on discussing pricing online, Endless Customers explores the importance of tools like pricing estimators. Marcus predicts that by 2029, over 90% of service-based businesses will need these tools to remain competitive.
This interactive approach to selling is just one example of how businesses can meet buyers where they are while building trust and credibility.
A recurring theme in Endless Customers is disruption.
Most industries are stuck in their ways. But history shows us that the leaders of one era often fail to adapt to the next. Think Kodak, Blockbuster, or even early SEO companies that dismissed AI’s impact.
“The rule breakers become the rule makers,” Marcus said. “If you’re not willing to disrupt your industry, someone else will.”
This isn’t just about technology—it’s about mindset. Marcus encourages businesses to lean into their unique intellectual property (IP) and use it to create new standards within their industries.
He shared a personal story from his early days in the fiberglass pool industry, where his company redefined how pools were installed. By highlighting the flaws of sand-based installations and advocating for gravel bases, Marcus changed an entire industry standard.
“You have to drive a stake in the ground,” Marcus said. “Show the market why your way is better, and then own that narrative.”
If you’re a fan of They Ask, You Answer, you’ll find familiar principles in Endless Customers, but with updated strategies for today’s world. Marcus has written this book to help businesses of all sizes—whether you’re a local landscaper or a global SaaS company.
“This is about becoming the most known and trusted brand in your market,” Marcus emphasized. “When you do that, you’ll have an endless flow of leads, customers, and revenue.”
With its clear frameworks, practical advice, and visionary approach, Endless Customers isn’t just a book—it’s a blueprint for growth in a rapidly changing world.
Marcus’s new book officially releases in Spring 2025, but you can preorder it now at endlesscustomers.com. Whether you’re looking to attract better leads, build trust, or redefine your industry, this book will show you how.
“The goal is simple,” Marcus said. “Read the book, follow the plan, and watch your business transform.”
Don’t wait—get your copy of Endless Customers today.
Marcus Sheridan is a writer, speaker, and business expert who’s worked with companies all over the world. Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer and co-author of The Visual Sale.
Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn
Learn more about Endless Customers
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The home services industry has always been about rolling up your sleeves, putting in the hard work, and delivering great results for customers.
Whether you’re repairing a roof, installing a new HVAC system, or beautifying a backyard, it’s easy to focus entirely on the job at hand and push "new technology" to the back burner. After all, when you’re busy running a business, how can you find time to adopt tools you’re not even sure will help?
This hesitation is common, but it can come at a cost. Customers are changing how they make decisions, gravitating toward businesses that offer faster responses, transparent pricing, and educational content online. As competitors adopt tools like artificial intelligence (AI), they’re gaining ground—and leaving behind businesses that stick to “the way things have always been.”
So, how can you stay competitive without overhauling your entire operation? AI doesn’t have to be complicated or intimidating. In this article, we’ll show you three practical, actionable ways to use AI to transform your home services business:
The home services industry is competitive, but knowing exactly where your business stands can feel overwhelming. Keeping track of competitors’ pricing, marketing strategies, and online presence requires hours of research. AI tools like ChatGPT can turn this time-consuming process into something manageable.
Start by providing an AI tool with details about your business—your services, location, and website. Then, ask it to identify local competitors and analyze their digital presence. It can assess their website content, customer reviews, and social media strategies, flagging opportunities for improvement.
For instance, an AI-generated report might show that a competitor has more Google reviews, or that their blog posts rank higher for local keywords like “affordable landscaping in [city].” Armed with this data, you can adjust your strategy—perhaps by prioritizing review collection or publishing content that’s even more detailed and useful.
Understanding your competitors is a critical step in positioning your home services business for success. AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude make this process faster, easier, and more actionable. Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting an effective competitive analysis using AI:
Before analyzing competitors, give the AI some context about your own business. Open a tool like ChatGPT and provide details such as:
Example Prompt:
"Here’s information about my business: [Business Name], located in [City, State]. We provide [list services] and focus on [key differentiators, like quality, affordability, etc.]. Analyze competitors in this area who are succeeding in the same industry."
Ask the AI to generate a list of competitors in your industry and region. If you already know some competitors, share their names and websites to refine the results.
Example Prompt:
"Who are the top competitors for a roofing contractor in [City]? List their websites and a brief overview of their online presence."
The AI will scan public information to provide a starting point.
Once you have a list of competitors, dig deeper into their websites. Use AI to evaluate:
Example Prompt:
"Here are the websites of three competitors: [URLs]. Analyze their blogs, homepage design, and calls-to-action. What are they doing well that I’m not?"
Ask the AI to analyze the keywords competitors are ranking for and how they drive traffic. AI can identify which local search terms (e.g., “best HVAC company in [City]”) they’re dominating.
Example Prompt:
"Compare the SEO strategies of these competitors: [Competitor Websites]. Which keywords are driving the most traffic for them, and how can I optimize my website to rank for similar terms?"
Customer reviews are goldmines for understanding competitor strengths and weaknesses. AI can summarize recurring themes from Google or Yelp reviews, helping you identify areas where you can outperform.
Example Prompt:
"Summarize common themes from Google reviews for [Competitor Name]. What are customers praising, and what complaints do they have?"
Pro Tip: Keep the Analysis Ongoing
Competitive landscapes change. Use AI tools regularly to update your analysis, ensuring you’re always one step ahead.
By following these steps, you’ll turn raw data into a clear strategy for growth—and position your business as the leader in your market.
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Content is king,” but in the home services industry, content marketing often feels like an afterthought. After all, writing blog posts or filming videos doesn’t seem as urgent as responding to a customer call.
But here’s the truth: customers today turn to the internet for answers. Before picking up the phone, they’re searching for information about costs, processes, and the best providers in their area. Businesses that provide those answers build trust and win more customers.
AI tools like ChatGPT can make content creation faster and easier than ever. Start by asking the AI to generate ideas based on common customer questions such as:
Once you have a list of topics, you can ask the AI tool to create detailed outlines or even write a first draft. From there, it’s up to you to personalize the content, adding your unique voice, expertise, and local context.
AI doesn’t stop at ideation—it can help you organize your efforts, too. For example, you might ask ChatGPT to turn your list of topics into a six-month editorial calendar. You could schedule three blog posts and two videos per month, ensuring a steady flow of content without feeling overwhelmed.
Marcus Sheridan’s Big 5 is a cornerstone of effective content marketing, designed to answer the critical questions your customers are already asking. These five content categories are proven to drive the most traffic, leads, and sales because they align with the natural buying process. The Big 5 include:
By addressing these topics directly, you become a trusted resource in your industry, building trust and driving conversions.
Example Prompt for AI:
"I own a [type of business] company in [City, State] that provides [specific services, e.g., HVAC installation, roof repair, landscaping]. Please generate 10 blog or video content ideas for each of Marcus Sheridan’s Big 5 categories (Cost, Problems, Comparisons, Reviews, and Best-of Lists). Focus on topics that would attract homeowners searching for home service solutions."
Here’s an example of what you might get for a roofing company:
Cost and Pricing
Problems
Comparisons
Reviews
Best-of Lists
This prompt encourages AI to consider your specific industry, services, and location, generating hyper-relevant ideas. By specifying the Big 5 categories, the output ensures a balanced mix of content that addresses your audience's top concerns and decision-making needs.
You can repeat this process for different services or niches within your business to build a robust content strategy.
In home services, trust is everything. Customers need to feel confident that they’re making the right choice, and one of the biggest hurdles is pricing. Many customers hesitate to reach out because they’re unsure if a service is within their budget.
That’s why AI-powered tools like pricing calculators can be transformative.
A tool like PriceGuide.ai allows you to build a pricing calculator for your website in under 30 minutes. Customers simply input details like square footage or project type to receive an instant estimate.
Here’s what makes this so effective:
This is particularly valuable in an industry where pricing is often opaque. With a calculator in place, you’ll generate more leads and set the stage for better customer conversations.
Pricing calculators are just one way to use AI to enhance customer experiences. You can also deploy chatbots to answer common questions, send personalized follow-ups, or track customer satisfaction trends. For example, AI can analyze post-service feedback to identify areas where you can improve.
When used strategically, these tools make your business feel more approachable and professional—without losing the human touch.
The home services industry has always been built on hard work, and that’s not going to change. But AI offers you the ability to work smarter, not harder.
Whether you’re analyzing competitors, creating educational content, or providing transparent pricing tools, AI helps you deliver more value to your customers, and stand out in a crowded market.
Ready to take the next step? Explore tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and PriceGuide.ai to see how they can transform your business.
For more ideas, check out this episode of our Endless Customers Podcast.
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Every company that speaks with our team at IMPACT comes looking to solve a problem they have in their business. Whether it be lead generation, content marketing, attribution reporting, sales team effectiveness, developing a marketing strategy, among many others, there’s a.
The reality is, the solutions to these problems can look different depending on the industry, company size, or goals of the organization. Frankly, this means the conversations our team has with a company interested in working with us needs to be focused on understanding those problems, determining what success looks like, then building out the right solution, assuming our team is the right fit to help.
At IMPACT we have designed our sales process to be efficient, linear, and educational for our prospects, and we move forward only when they understand our unique approach to their success and believe in the philosophy of coaching and training. What does that mean?
We are a sales and marketing coaching company, we’re not an agency where we do things for you. We help you build the team and infrastructure so you never have to rely on an outsourced agency again. We train businesses how to take ownership of their marketing and optimize their sales process by implementing the principles of our business framework, Endless Customers.
Businesses are drawn to partner with IMPACT for a variety of reasons:
At IMPACT, we focus on equipping your team with the skills and strategies needed for success.
We offer a comprehensive program that includes:
Our approach is designed to not just deliver information but to transform your team’s capabilities, making your business more dynamic and competitive in today's digital landscape.
No matter the path a prospect takes to get in touch with our team, anyone who wants to learn more about IMPACT’s service offerings follows the same sales process, which can take as short as two weeks or quite a bit longer, depending on how much education our sales team has to do.
In this article, we’re going to map out IMPACT’s sales process, defining the key steps every company takes when speaking with our sales team, what they can expect at each stage, and the requirements for success as you move forward.
When any prospect enters our sales pipeline, our primary goal is to educate them. What does education first mean?
It means that we don’t pressure sell you. We believe that in order for you to make the right purchasing decision, you must have a clear understanding of the problem(s) you’re looking to solve, how we help businesses like yours, who is successful and not successful with IMPACT, and what it will take to be successful. This guarantees that future clients are well-versed in IMPACT’s philosophy and ensures that only those who are genuinely a good fit proceed, sparing potential clients from committing to a partnership that doesn't align with their needs. Each stage of the process is carefully designed with the goal of educating prospects and keeping their best interests at the forefront. One thing to keep in mind is these steps can either happen with one call or up to three calls.
Who should be involved in the sales process:
Decision-makers from your team are crucial to the sales process. These are individuals who have the authority to make purchasing decisions and who understand your business's strategic needs. While an IMPACT advisor will guide the process, ensuring the right decision-makers are present is key to aligning your business needs with how IMPACT can help.
How long does it typically take:
Each call with IMPACT typically lasts between 45 to 60 minutes. However, the exact duration can vary. The pace of our conversations depends largely on how detailed and open the discussions are. Our goal is always to reach outcomes that best serve your needs, whether that takes less time or requires a bit more.
How does it work:
Our sales process is outcome-driven rather than being tied to a specific type of call. This flexibility allows us to adapt to the unique pace of each conversation. By focusing on outcomes, we ensure that the process moves at a pace that feels right for you and is aligned with achieving your desired results. We measure success by how well we meet your needs, not by the clock.
Your most valuable asset is your time. Nobody likes to waste their time in a conversation that isn’t going anywhere, so before you even talk to one of our advisors for the first time, you can expect a bit of homework.
We aim to ensure that we all have a shared foundation of expectations before we dive into a conversation. IMPACT is not a marketing agency. We’re teachers, coaches, and trainers. We’re not going to write your content and film your videos. We’re going to train your team how to create content at a world-class level and make sure those efforts fit into a larger business strategy.
Before the first call you can expect to receive a video from one of our advisors (like the one below), as well as 1-2 pieces of content to review.
While it should only take you 5-10 minutes to complete, reading and digesting these pieces of content is imperative, and our advisors will not move forward to have an actual call until you confirm that you have done so.
Marcus Sheridan, explains it this way: “We give you resources beforehand to address 90% of the top-level questions you have. That way, our conversations are going to be deeper, more personal, and more impactful on your business.”
Remember, our sales process is really an education process. We can’t want to move forward until we’re all aligned.
During this first step of understanding if you have a problem we can help you solve, our advisors will ask a lot of questions about your business goals, your current challenges, and the priority or importance of each challenge. This helps us determine if there truly is a problem that needs solving and if we can effectively help. We want to guarantee that both your team and ours know as much about your business and your needs as possible. That way, we can begin planning the right course of training for your needs.
Once we have a clear understanding of your challenges and have identified them as critical areas for your business, the next step is to determine if IMPACT is the right partner to help you solve these problems. This step involves a deep dive into your specific needs and expectations.
This discussion can take place during the initial call or might extend into further conversations, depending on the complexity of your challenges and the clarity of the information shared initially. We want to ensure that there is a strong alignment between your needs and our capabilities before moving forward.
Specifically, you’ll have a conversation that sounds like this:
IMPACT Advisor: “We have dug into a lot and I believe we have a clear picture of the problem. Here’s how I’d describe it: [Insert description]. Does that sound right to you?”
Prospect: “Agreed. If we could solve that, life and our business would be a lot better.”
IMPACT Advisor: “Fantastic! Now that I know you’re committed to solving this problem, let’s talk about how our team helps companies like yours solve that problem, and what it’ll take to do so.”
That brings us to step 3 of our process.
Once it’s clear that we’re a good fit for each other, your advisor will schedule a call to introduce you to your coach, who will guide you throughout your journey with IMPACT. We have a team of coaches and trainers that have helped 1000s of businesses grow and achieve success.
In this initial meeting with your coach, the focus is on building a strong foundation. While your advisor may also be present, the coach will lead the discussion. This is essential for your coach to fully understand your business, which is vital for effectively planning and implementing the strategies you need.
During this stage, you can expect the coach to cover both strategic and logistical aspects of the program. They will validate some of what the advisor has shared with them to help explain how the IMPACT program works and how it’s tailored to tackle the specific challenges you face. The goal is for you to leave the meeting with a clear understanding of what to expect from IMPACT and who you’ll be working with.
This stage is not just about reinforcing the connection but also about setting the stage for targeted interventions to help your business grow. The coach will outline the next steps and ensure you are well-prepared to succeed in our program.
This step will be a presentation, separate from previous discussions, where we thoroughly walk you through the customized plan crafted to meet your specific needs.
Once you reach this stage of the process, nothing should be a surprise or new information. This meeting occurs once we've all verbally agreed to move forward, you know your team is ready to engage fully to achieve desired results, and IMPACT is confident in our ability to guide you there.
During this call, your IMPACT coach (and/or advisor) will present a detailed overview of the tailored program, providing a clear walkthrough of each component and how it addresses your unique challenges. Alongside the presentation, we will review the agreement together.
By the end of this call, we aim for a complete alignment and agreement to proceed, marking the official start of our focused efforts to achieve your business goals through the IMPACT program. If that isn’t the case by the end of this call, it means we’ve missed something in our sales process and we need to backtrack to the earlier steps.
Once the contract has been signed and your initial payment has been submitted, your Account Manager will contact you within 48 hours to schedule your kickoff with your coach along with instructions for our onboarding process. This ensures a smooth start to your engagement and helps button up other miscellaneous preparatory activities.
“A sales process is a lot like dating,” says Marcus. “No one is ready to get married on the first date.” Instead, there’s a good deal of getting to know you that happens first, where both parties have to figure out if the other is right for them.
IMPACT stands opposed to the typical relationship between inbound agency and client. We believe you should not be forever dependent on an agency to write your content, film your videos, organize your HubSpot portal, and schedule your emails. You can learn to do these things (and more!) at mastery-level, ensuring true marketing and sales freedom. As such, our sales process focuses heavily on education to make sure our clients are clear about what they’re getting into.
IMPACT believes in teaching you to take ownership. In our sales process, we’ll start you down that path towards independence and excellence. Each step forward represents an investment in the future of your business, so we build these steps deliberately to get you ready.
Ready to start the process? Schedule your first call!
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A look at the add-on elements that people are willing to pay extra for. * This article was originally published here How to make $1000/d...