Who is Marcus Sheridan?

Pool-company owner turned author of They Ask, You Answer — the case study for radically honest content marketing.

What are the Big 5 topics?

Pricing and costs, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best-of lists — what buyers research and most companies won't publish.

What is assignment selling?

Sending prospects honest content answering their questions before the sales conversation, so calls start further down the funnel.

Growth Marketing Glossary

Marcus Sheridan

/ˈmɑɹkəs ˈʃɛɹɪdən/proper noun

He wrote about prices when no competitor would — and a swimming-pool blog out-ranked the industry.

Portrait mark — Marcus Sheridan

Name: Marcus Sheridan
Company: River Pools & Spas
Key work: They Ask, You Answer (2017)
Framework: The Big 5 topics

Forms & parts of speech

They Ask, You Answer · phrase

His content philosophy.

"They ask, you answer — if buyers ask it, publish it, price included."

Who he is, in plain terms

Marcus Sheridan is the co-owner of River Pools & Spas, a Virginia fiberglass-pool company nearly killed by the 2008 crash, who saved it by doing the thing his industry considered suicide — publishing honest answers to every question buyers actually asked, including "how much does a fiberglass pool cost?" The traffic and sales that followed became the case study, the consultancy, and the book They Ask, You Answer (2017).

The key ideas

The Big 5 — the topics buyers research and companies refuse to publish: pricing and costs, problems (yours included), comparisons (versus rivals), reviews, and "best of" lists; honesty as strategy — addressing your product's drawbacks builds the trust that closes sales; assignment selling — sending prospects the relevant articles and videos BEFORE the sales call, so calls start at question forty instead of question one; and the insight that buyers complete most of the decision before talking to anyone, so your content IS your first sales rep.

Why he still matters

His one famous pricing article reportedly drove millions in tracked sales and still ranks — the cleanest proof that candor is an SEO strategy, because everyone searches for what almost no company will say. In the AI-answer era his thesis sharpens again: engines reward the site that actually answers the question.

Worked example. A regional HVAC company refuses to publish prices, like every competitor. The Sheridan move — a transparent cost guide with ranges and the factors that move them, a candid article on the three most common installation problems, and a comparison page naming rival brands. Within a year the cost guide is the site's top sales-assisted page, and reps report prospects arriving pre-sold because someone finally told them the truth.

Failure modes to watch. Publishing the Big 5 with the honesty sanded off (a costs page that never states a cost); writing answers nobody asked; and skipping assignment selling so sales never compounds the content investment.

Synonyms & antonyms

Synonyms

Marcus SheridanThey Ask You Answer

Origin & history

A college lifeguarding job became a partnership in River Pools & Spas; the 2008 housing crash left the company weeks from bankruptcy. The pricing article that started it all went up in 2009 after he found nobody in the industry would answer the cost question online. The book followed in 2017.

Etymology: source.

Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

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Common questions

Who is Marcus Sheridan?: Pool-company owner turned author of They Ask, You Answer — the case study for radically honest content marketing.
What are the Big 5 topics?: Pricing and costs, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best-of lists — what buyers research and most companies won't publish.
What is assignment selling?: Sending prospects honest content answering their questions before the sales conversation, so calls start further down the funnel.

Related tools & calculators

toolExperiment planner
toolFunnel drop-off analyzer

Resources & people to follow

bookThey Ask, You Answer — Marcus Sheridan
referenceRiver Pools — the original pricing article
referenceMarcusSheridan.com

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

Related training

moduleContent marketing

Disciplines

Areas of marketing where marcus sheridan is a core concern:

Content strategySEO

Sources

trendsGoogle Trends — "they ask you answer"