The One Sales Book Every Salesperson Should Read w/ Mareo McCracken
Mareo McCracken is the Chief Revenue Officer at Movemedical where he guides sales, marketing, and customer success efforts. Prior to this, he was the top-performing salesperson at multiple companies in various industries including financial services, marketing, logistics, manufacturing, and commodities. And he’s now the new author of the book Really Care for Them: How Everyone Can Use the Power of Caring to Earn Trust, Grow Sales, and Increase Income. No Matter What You Sell or Who You Sell It.
In this episode, Mareo talks about how, although he didn’t need to write this book to further his career, he needed it to give to people who, upon hearing that he had read over 800 sales books, asked, “What’s the one sales book I should read?” Mareo didn’t have a good answer, so he decided to write the book that would be the answer. Mareo also talks about how he structured his book to appeal to salespeople who don’t like to read, and how, although it wasn’t his intention, the book is now helping him attract and land deals.
Mareo's Links:
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle: Today, my guest is Mareo McCracken. Mareo is the Chief Revenue Officer at MoveMedical, where he guides sales, marketing, and customer success efforts. Prior to that, he was the top performing salesperson at multiple companies in various industries, including financial services, marketing, logistics, manufacturing, and commodities. And now he's the new author of the book Really Care for Them: How Everyone Can Use the Power of Caring to Earn Trust, Grow Sales, and Increase Income. No Matter What You Sell or Who You Sell It To.
Mareo, welcome to the show.
Mareo McCracken: Yeah. Thanks. Good job with that super extra long title.
Josh Steimle: That is a little bit of a long title. I was reading and I was like, “Wait. No, I've read this before, but it's gotta be over. Nope. It's not over. Okay.”
Hey Mareo! For those listening, Mareo and I go back a ways. We've been connected on LinkedIn and through mutual friends and such for a long time. We were just chatting. We both lived in Hong Kong actually, and his wife's from Brazil and I used to live in Brazil. So we're having a great chat before the show here.
But I'm excited to bring Mareo on the show because he is a brand new author. He just launched his book. When did it go live, Mareo?,
Mareo McCracken: October 26.
Josh Steimle: Okay. So yeah, we're recording this December 7th. So literally his book just came out. And so this is all a fresh experience for him. And he's here to tell us about his journey and what he's gone through, and some of the things he's learned at this point. For those of you listening to this who are still on the other side of saying, “Hey, I might want to write a book. I think I want to write a book, but where do I start?” All that stuff, Mareo just went through that. And so we're going to chat with him about that.
But first, Mareo, give us a little bit more background on your professional side of your career, where you come from, and how you got to where you are.
Mareo McCracken: For sure. Yeah. So ever since I left college, I've been in some type of sales or business development type role. So I started off doing sales face-to-face to small business owners. And then I moved into more kind of big commodity type sales. Then went into more B2B where I was selling to distributors and distribution networks. And then I went into financial services. Then back to large B2B. So I've been in lots of different kinds of sales from manufacturing to software.
So I've had a little bit of experience in a lot of different areas. And and now I've working with a MedTech SaaS company and it's pretty exciting.
Josh Steimle: And you're the Chief Revenue Officer. So tell us a little bit more about what that entails at this company.
Mareo McCracken: So because we're a small company, we're only about 50 people. How we've combined the business is sales and marketing report up through the same line. Instead of having a CMO and then a VP of Sales, which lots of companies have, the CRO role combines both sales and marketing under one umbrella, so they can be aligned better, more agile. And then in our company, customer success also goes through that same channel because it's more advanced account management on the tech side of things. So that's how our company is set up.
Josh Steimle: So sales, marketing, customer support, it's all on your shoulders.
Mareo McCracken: Well, I have a good team.
Josh Steimle: You're the guy. So at what point did you say… I mean you've got a successful career. You're doing well. If you're good at sales, you can always get a job, right? What made you feel like I need to write a book? I need to get a book out there. There's something I need to share.
Mareo McCracken: Two things. One, my wife told me I should do it.
Second though was I read a lot of books and I write a lot of reviews about the books I read and I publish a top 10 list every year. And I advocate the books I really believe in. But one thing that people always do is they always ask me, “Hey, what books should I read in this situation?”
And one of the questions I never could answer was, “Hey, if I could only can read one sales book, what should it be?” I just couldn't pick one and I've read at least 300 sales books over the last eight years. And I couldn't pick a single book that said no matter your situation, this is the book you should read. It was always nuanced with, “It depends.”
And so I decided to go about fixing that problem and write a book that anybody, no matter their situation in sales, if they said, “Hey, what's the one sales book I should read?” I wanted to put that together.
Josh Steimle: Got it. Now I'm curious. What are some of your favorite sales books? If we could read 5 or 10 of them?
Mareo McCracken: Oh yeah. So many. So New Sales. Simplified. by Mike Weinberg. Inked by Jeb Blount. The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need by Anthony Iannarino. The Challenger Sale, of course. There's a great book called Selling Above and Below the Line. I really liked that one. So yeah, those are some of the good ones that I really enjoy.
Josh Steimle: Cool. Now I'm going to ask you a question I like to ask salespeople. What's the real difference between sales and business development?
Mareo McCracken: The title on your business card. No. So in lots of companies, business development is more strategy. So the bigger the company, like if you work for a company like Nike, business development is not sales at all, has nothing to do with sales. So it really depends on how your company defines it.
But for lots of people, they use business development as another name for sales. So it's the same thing. In other companies, they say account executive or something like that, but it just means sales, right? Or new business development. It could be the same thing, but depending on your company, new business development might be nothing to do with sales and it could be everything to do with new strategy for a new product line that's way falls more under marketing than it does sales.
So it just depends on the company, but most of the time, nothing.
Josh Steimle: So with your book, when you started writing it, who was the target audience? Was it the people who are always asking you, “Hey, what's the one sales book I should read?” Or did you have a certain person in mind or certain type of person in mind as you were writing it?
Mareo McCracken: So I do have a certain person in mind. That's somebody who doesn't like to read. Most salespeople I talk to, at least in the last 15 years of my sales career, most salespeople I talked to, I’d say at least 70-80% don't read sales. They don't read books. So I wrote a book for somebody that doesn't like to read, and that's how I structured it, how I created the formatting and all that kind of stuff. I made it. So for the Twitter generation, for what we liked on LinkedIn and Facebook and stuff, it's a short post. It's not, we don't like to read 3-4 pages of the same boring content. We want to read something quick and easy to understand, something we can apply right away. And so that was the whole exact profile of the person I was writing for is, “Hey, how's the shortest way to get this information to someone who doesn't want to be reading it, actually.”
Josh Steimle: So I have some experience with salespeople who don't like to read. He's listening to this right now thinking, “Yep. Josh is talking about me.” But why is that?
Do you think there's a reason why salespeople don't like to read and what could salespeople gain if they did read more?
Mareo McCracken: I think there's two reasons why salespeople and myself included don't read as much as we probably should. And one is time to value, is if you read something, often, you can't apply it that exact same day. And so then by the time you realize the benefits, it might be six months, a year down the road. So that's not necessarily advantageous. Salespeople are action oriented. So they want to do something that's gonna give them value immediately.
Josh Steimle: What is this book going to do for me today?
Mareo McCracken: Exactly. Not what it's gonna do for me and my career three years from now. And that's what most sales books are too theoretical that it takes a lot of time. The second thing though, is that a typical salesperson is… this is a stereotype, but they're very action-oriented. So they don't have the attention span necessarily. So lots of salespeople have shorter attention spans because they're so focused on getting stuff done that they could train themselves to have longer attention spans, but they're so focused on shorter stuff that their attention spans don't allow them to sit through a 300 page sales book.
Josh Steimle: Got it. So now you are a sales guy, but you also love to read, you were saying before we started recording that you read a hundred books every year. So why do you read and what have you gotten out of reading that's helped you with sales?
Mareo McCracken: Why do I read? That's a great question. So I started reading professionally because I knew I didn't have enough experience to rely on my own experience. And I would travel a lot for work in my first job. Every week I was in a new city. And so I had lots of times on airplanes. And I remember all the senior sales guys that I look up to because they have so much knowledge, so much experience, but I don't want to wait 10 years until I'm “experienced.” I was fresh out of college. I don't want to wait 10 years until I can say, “Oh, I've done this and this.” So I had to find a way to learn from other people. And that's where reading nonfiction books came into my life.
Before that I loved reading fiction books and I love reading fantasy or novels or historical fiction, but it wasn't until after college and my first job that I started really getting into the world of non-fiction.
Josh Steimle: Got it. All right. So let's dive into your book then. How do you write a sales book for salespeople who don't like to read? What were some of the ways that you structured that book so that they would actually read this?
Mareo McCracken: So each chapter's no more than two pages. So no more than two pages. And then there's lots of white space, lots of font changes. So that way you can read the page and if you just read the stuff that's bolded, you'll get enough of the information that you can understand what’s in that chapter just by reading. And then supporting quotes from other voices and other authors. So there's 99 chapters and there's 99 quotes from different people that support what I wrote. So it's not just my voice, but it's somebody else's voice. And I think the different size fonts and the white space and the short content just makes it something where you don't have to read chapter one and then chapter two, you could read chapter 37 and chapter 40, and then go back to chapter 18 and you won't miss anything.
Josh Steimle: Got it. And what's been the response so far? I know it's only been out for a little while, but what's some of the feedback that you're receiving from your target audience.
Mareo McCracken: The feedback that I've gotten the best results from is sales leaders. So they say, “Hey, this is something I can use as a daily devotional where I can go train my sales force right away. So I might have a team of five salespeople and I'm getting lost. What should I train them on every day? And I can outsource a lot of it, but some of it, when I want to do the training myself, what can I train them on?” So that's been interesting.
My favorite review was somebody said, “Hey, it's a philosophy book disguised as a sales book.” So it's a lot about mindset and about philosophy of how to treat someone the right way, but it's set as a sales book. So that was my favorite review actually.
Josh Steimle: So how did you get started on your book and when did you start writing it?
Mareo McCracken: So I've been taking notes on the sales books I've been reading for the last 15 years. So you could say for 15 years, I've been writing the book. But I started really putting the thoughts together in 2019, and then when COVID hit and I wasn't traveling as much for work anymore, I had a little more time to just think about it.
And that's when I decided to put it together.
Josh Steimle: And what was your process like? What was step one? What was step two in getting the book down on paper?
Mareo McCracken: So I first wrote, “Okay, if I was in sales, starting out my career in sales, What would I need to know? What's the first thing I need to know?”
And so I wrote down a list and I just started brainstorming and I created a list of about 40 things that you have to know. And then it evolved from there. And then I said, “Okay, let's say I was in sales for 20 years. (I've been almost 15 years in sales.) What do I wish I would have known last week? What do I know this week, that I wish I would’ve known last week?” And then I wrote down five items there and I just kept going through that process. Putting myself in different people's shoes, different personas shoes, and saying, what do I wish I knew or I need to know how to do? And then it evolved from there.
Josh Steimle: Got it. Is there any point during the process where you got bogged down or you ran into writer's block here? Where you're like, I'm just done with this. I'm burned out. I don't know if I even want to finish it? Or how hard was it for you to get the book done?
Mareo McCracken: So finishing the content was pretty simple actually. The hard part was all the stuff after the book was finished. When I just said, it's not worth it. I don't need to publish this. Nobody's going to care about it. It's not going to do anything for me. I'm just going to let it be. And that was after I'd already finished writing the book. Because I'm passionate about the topic and I believe in it and I felt my knowledge was good enough. The content was the easy part. It was everything else that was a lot harder.
Josh Steimle: So what was it that got you through that? How did you overcome that?
Mareo McCracken: I guess it's like with anything, if you're tied to an ultimate objective or a superior purpose, it lets you set your daily goals and then your daily goals turn into weekly actions that end up producing results.
And so I ended up having to reevaluate my goals and say, “Is publishing this book something that'll help a lot of people?” If it is, then you should keep going. If it's not, then you won't.
So I had to question myself. And that happened a few times, I had to reevaluate, is this actually something I want to do? And once I decided, yes it is, then the daily actions were a lot easier.
Josh Steimle: Now, did you have any help along the way? Did you have a team that you built around you or just people to help you out through this process?
Mareo McCracken: Yeah. I had a few people that I would bounce ideas off for sure. A couple of people I went and lived in Hong Kong with, actually a couple of people that I went to high school with, and then a couple of my sales bosses that became my mentors over my career, that I would ping ideas off of, bounce ideas from. I really feel having a support system, not necessarily to tell you what to do, but just so you can get confirmation of your ideas from somebody else besides living in your own head all the time.
Josh Steimle: Just to be able to say, “Hey, I've got this idea. What do you think of this?” And have them say, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”
Mareo McCracken: Yeah, or no, that's a horrible idea or yeah, whatever, keep it going. And lots of the times the answer was whatever you think is best. And so it doesn't really help, but just saying it yourself made you express it in a new way to help you think about it in a different way.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. And at least if they're saying, “Whatever you think,” that's different than, “No, that's terrible. You should definitely not say that.”
Mareo McCracken: Yeah, that's true. That's very true.
Josh Steimle: Now you self published the book, is that right?
Mareo McCracken: Well, I used Morgan James, which is a hybrid publisher.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. So we've had them on the show here too. So tell us what that experience was like working with them.
Mareo McCracken: So the content is up to me and that's nice and that's why I wanted to go with them. And then they helped with the physical distribution and the physical aspects of the book. Whereas the interior layout was their job to produce it, but it was my job to direct them in how I wanted it. I actually took over the full interior creativity part of it. And even the layout on the cover was something I suggested. Whereas with their typical partners that they work with they take full control over the cover design and the interior design. But because of the vision I had, I was able to ask for that part back. And they gave it back. So I could control that aspect. But they have tons of resources for first time authors, or any author, but first time authors specifically, they have tons of resources and checklists and different tools to help an author say, “Hey, this is what you should be doing this week. This is what you need to be doing next week.” So those checklists really helped me a lot.
Josh Steimle: No, that's great. They seem like a hybrid publisher that's really easy to work with.
Mareo McCracken: Yeah they want you to succeed. Cause they succeed better when you succeed. And so yeah, they do want you to succeed and I liked their model in that you don't actually pay them a cost, like a typical hybrid publisher, that’s why I call them a hybrid of a hybrid, where you pay them a cost for the services they do. Whereas wit this, you just have to commit to buying a certain amount of books. So it's a very different model because I'm going to use those books anyway, I was going to buy those books anyway, so it didn't matter if I bought them in one way or another. I was going to need those copies anyway. So the hybrid of a hybrid, it felt like there was real value in it, not just paying someone for their services. I actually paid them to do work that I ended up getting more value than I paid for. I felt like I got more value in return than I paid for.
Josh Steimle: No, that's great.
So how did you decide on the title? Let's talk about that long title. But first let's talk about the short part of it.
Mareo McCracken: Okay. One main part was after everything was done and the content was done, it was the theme that kept coming back, if salespeople would just stop being selfish and start caring for other people, everything would solve itself. If you're not an expert in a field that you need to be an expert in a field, if you care enough, you'll become the expert. If you don't understand your client enough and if you care enough, you'll be curious enough and you'll figure out a way to solve the problem. You don't have to know everything, you just have to care enough.
And so that kind of became the theme after the book was over. I realized, “Wow, there's a huge theme in this book.” And the title came about just because most salespeople think they're selling a product and think, “Hey, I'm doing this grandiose effort to help you, so you should care about it.” But in the end, nobody cares about you or your product.
And if you just cared enough about the person you're working with, you would realize that. And so it's not about them caring about you, it's you caring for them. And that's kind of the idea.
Josh Steimle: I really liked the title because I'm working on my book, Seven Systems of
Influence and it's vision and genius zone and content and having an action plan.
It's all these things. But then system number seven, I really struggled with, and I finally figured out that it's love. But love in the sense of goodwill or like you say, caring, really caring about people and wanting to help people. That's what system seven is when I talk about love. And so when you talk about really caring about people and how that solves all the other problems, that aligns with the conclusion I've come to with my book that if you've got love or if you care, if you have goodwill, you'll figure out all the other stuff, it'll fall together, it’ll fall into place.
And people pick up on that when they know that you care. Then they trust you. I had somebody else on the show, not too long ago, his name's escaping me, but his book was all about trust based sales. And he was talking about how once people trust you, then they'll buy anything from you because they trust you to give them something that they really need. They almost don't need to know the features or the details. It's just, “Hey, can I trust you? If I trust you, I know you're going to give me something good.” And they trust you when they know that you really care about them and have their best interest in mind. So this is really resonating with me.
Mareo McCracken: Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I love that love component because at the end of the day, if you care enough, that love has to be a byproduct or it could be the foundation. Some people get it first, some people get it after, but either way it's part of the equation and you can't do anything without it.
Josh Steimle: So here's a question to put you on the spot. What if somebody doesn't really care? What if there's some sales person out there and they're like I don't know if I really do care about these people? Like I care about making the money, but maybe they want to care, but they're not sure that they do care.
Mareo McCracken: So you can be super successful without caring. There's tons of people that are. You can fake it. You can be very selfish. It's just, you're not going to be as successful as you could be. That's really what it comes down to. You're not going to be able to build that sustainable long-term success that would help you feel more fulfilled. So lots of people don't care and they're very successful, but imagine how much more successful they actually could be.
Josh Steimle: So how do I make the transition? Let's say I'm listening to this, I'm a sales guy and I'm like I want to be more successful. So I want to care. How do I care? Where do I start?
Mareo McCracken: So there's lots of things you can care about. So let's say you work for a company and you don't care about the product and you never will. So while you're positioning yourself to transition to a product you do care about, you can care about the people that you're serving. And if you don't care about the people you're serving and that's too hard of a step, you can still care about the results you're driving. So those are the three aspects of care. It's the product, the people, and the actual results or process.
But if you start to care about one thing, eventually the other parts can bleed over. But yeah, if you have a product you don't care about and will never care about, then it's time to think, “Oh, maybe I should make a change in my career and go somewhere else.”
And if you don't care about the people you're serving, you can either try to care about them or switch to a market where you do care about the people you're serving. So sometimes you have to make a switch.
Josh Steimle: Got it. Let's talk about the longer part of your book title there. How did you come up with that? This is a technical detail, but a lot of people are interested in this because people agonize over the subtitle to their book. They're like, I've got the title, it's the short little thing. But that part that comes after, I don't know exactly what to put in there. How did you go through that process of deciding: This is what I'm going to have?
Mareo McCracken: So I think it came from kinda my sales and marketing background, in that, the people who are going to read this, what do they want to do? In the end, everybody knows, like you talked about the trust that you have to have trust to build sales. No sale is made without trust. And if it is, it gets canceled. So you need trust to build sales. And so that was like the step. You need to have trust. And if you have trust, you can grow sales. And if you grow sales, you're going to increase your income. And at the end of the day, people either want to look good, feel good, or help others. And look good and feel good can come from different ways, but lots of times that's tied to income, and even help others.
So if you can increase your income, I'm not telling you what your goals are, I'm allowing you as a person to decide what your goals are and use your imagination, I'm just giving you the vehicle to get there. And one of the drivers people have is to increase their income so they can either look good, feel good, or help others.
And so that's why those three elements were put in. And then the end of it, no matter what you sell or who you sell it to was, “Hey, I don't want people to think this is a B2B book or a B2C book, or this is for first-time salespeople, or this is for complex sales.”
I wanted this to say, “Hey, this is for everybody. So there's no excuse. So erase the excuse to buy the book.”
Josh Steimle: So let's talk about your book launch a bit. When we were chatting a little bit, right around the time of your book launch, what are some of the tactics you engaged in and what was your goal? What did you want to accomplish? Because some people say, “Oh, I want this to be a bestseller.” Other people say, “I want to just sell a ton of copies.” Other people say, “I just need to get these books in the hands of the right people.” And maybe that's a hundred people. Was there a specific goal that you had in mind as you were launching the book and starting to market it?
Mareo McCracken: Yeah. I knew that I didn't have the influence, or you could say the platform to drive huge amounts of sales, but the people that I do respect and that do actually like my work, do. So, I gave them copies of the book and I asked them to help me promote it. And they did.
And so I was on different people's podcasts and I got on lots of “sales gurus” email lists, where they would email out the book to their subscriber list of a hundred, 200,000 people because they're established bestselling authors. And so that was what I did to market.
And the purpose was success by association, I guess you could say. If people see you hang around with successful people, they're going to assume you're successful. So by all these other people who are successful bestselling authors saying, “Hey, this is a good book.” Then my name now gets associated with those authors.
And so in order to help people, I can help people. But then now that I'm associated, I can help more people. And so that's was the driving purpose behind that.
Josh Steimle: So it sounds like the success strategy was all around collaboration and working with others to get it out there.
Mareo McCracken: For sure. Especially since like lots of entrepreneurs, I'm doing lots of different things, and I have a full-time role where I didn't have the ability to spend five hours a day promoting this book. I had an hour a day to promote this book. So what can I do with the most effective amount of my time?
Josh Steimle: So now that you've written one book, some people, this is like running a marathon, people run their first marathon, they reached the finish line and say, “Never again. I will never do this again.” And then three days later, you're like, “Yeah, maybe I'll do this again.” With the book, do you feel like now that you've done it once you're like, “Man, that wasn't that bad. I could write a bunch more.” Or are you like “Nope, one and done.”
Mareo McCracken:So as far as the sales book, I think I'm done. But I'd like the idea of eventually getting into a fiction book. I wanna write a story, but it's still going to be a philosophy book, a parable maybe, but a shorter fiction book, something that's maybe a hundred pages of actual content, something like that.
And I also love the topic of leadership. That's what I studied in college. I got a Master's in International Business and Global Leadership. And so leadership is one of the things that I believe sales is leadership and leadership is sales. And if you master leadership, you're going to be a great salesperson. If you master sales, you're going to be great in leadership. If you actually care and you're good at sales, not just manipulating people and being selfish. So I think they go hand in hand, but lots of people don't see that. And so maybe I would like to write a book about that kind of topic later in my career, not now, but maybe after a few more exits.
Josh Steimle: Interesting. What are some of your favorite leadership books?
Mareo McCracken: A Brave Leadership by Kimberly Davis is one of my favorites. I also love anything by Covey and the Arbinger Institute. Actually probably my favorite is Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute. That's probably my favorite leadership book.
Josh Steimle: It's a fantastic book. I remember opening that book and reading it for five minutes and I was like, Well, my life is ruined now. Now I can't go back. Like the things you learn in that book, it changes you in a way that you're like, Now I cannon not do these things. I have to do these things now or I’m betraying myself.
It's really an interesting book.
Mareo McCracken: Every single time I get in a conversation with someone that's almost to the point where I'm trying to think they're wrong and I'm right. I'm like, “Oh, shoot. I'm totally off track here. I have to reposition, readjust, and all those things.” All because of that one book.
Josh Steimle: Yeah, I'm in the box. I feel like I spend half my life in the box and I'm like, I'm in the box and I know I'm in the box and how do I get out of this box?
Mareo McCracken: I know. Cause sometimes we know you should get out, but you don't like it. You don't want to, you can't let something go, letting go is the harder part, right?
Josh Steimle: Yup. Yup. No, that's a great one. And you mentioned this fiction book. So what would be the target audience or the purpose? The why behind writing that book?
Mareo McCracken: The first target is people that don't necessarily want to read anything nonfiction because they have a bias against it. So I always go back to like books by Paulo Coelho, or even John David Mann and Bob Burg, The Go-Giver. Those books connect with people. Everybody has some type of job, whether you actually work outside the home or inside the home, everybody does something right to help other people. And they don't want to read non-fiction often. Often, they use reading to escape their real life, but anything that has lessons that can help them and they think about, helps them become a better person. So I want to reach a different target audience in that way.
Josh Steimle: Interesting. That's great. And it's a creative way of getting about delivering the message because you have the impact you want to make, and you figure out the message you want to deliver. But then a lot of people would say, “This is a non-fiction topic, I guess I have to write a nonfiction book.” And you're coming at it from another angle saying, “Hey, maybe I can deliver this through fiction. But even though it's a topic that easily could be a non-fiction book.”
Mareo McCracken: Exactly. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Josh Steimle: Interesting. Now that the book's out there, I'm curious in your job, you're working for a small entrepreneurial company, has it impacted your career or your job in any way? Now that you're an author, do you feel like a changed person, a different person, or just life as usual?
Mareo McCracken: It's a mixed bag. So on all my sales calls now, people bring up often, not every single one, but people that I've never met before, it's our first time having a conversation. They're like, “Oh yeah and you have that book out?” So that's a conversation starter. We've started using it in some of our marketing material that we mail out to prospective partners, is we just mail them a copy of my book. That's easy. So it's a trust builder right there. And then when it comes to hiring though, it's been helpful too. Cause now I'm seen as an expert and so, yeah people want to work for an expert. So yeah, there's a few benefits for sure.
And then in other ways, you go two or three days and forget that you've written a book and then you don't even think about it for a few days because you're doing so many other things, but then when it comes back, “Oh yeah, I did write a book.”
Josh Steimle: I love that you bring up the recruiting aspect because it's true. People want to work with other successful people. And once you have a book, it's a badge of that success. It says something about who you are and what you're willing to do and what you've done. And people say, “Oh yeah, they're the expert.”
And of course, everybody wants to work with the expert. At least the people that you want to work with, that you want to hire, are people who want to work with the expert, right?
Mareo McCracken: Exactly. One hundred percent.
Josh Steimle: So I'm curious, are you a co-founder in this business or…?
Mareo McCracken: I am a major shareholder, but no, I'm not one of the two co-founders.
Josh Steimle: Okay. But you have these co-founders, have either of them written a book?
Mareo McCracken: Nope.
Josh Steimle: Has this inspired them in any way? Are they like that's great for you? That's awesome.
Mareo McCracken: One of them wants to write a book, he's been talking about it for a while and he has a plan and yeah, he's pretty into that kind of stuff.
So yeah, one of them wants to write a book.
Josh Steimle: It sounds like they've been very supportive. I mean if they're using it as marketing materials, then obviously they must like the fact that you wrote a book.
Mareo McCracken: Yeah, they think anything that helps grow the company in any way is positive. They're very open-minded for lots of things.
Josh Steimle: That's great. Cause I think there are a lot of employers out there who if one of their employees came and said, “Hey, I want to write a book.” They'd be like, “Yeah, as long as it doesn't interfere with what we're doing.” There'd be skepticism perhaps. It'd be, “Like are you planning on leaving or are you going to start a new career? What are you doing?” A lot of employers tend to have skepticism or be suspicious of somebody engaging in their own thought leadership. And yet I think there's this more visionary side of leadership to say, “Hey, if you're developing yourself and you're putting yourself out there, that's only going to be good for this business.”
Mareo McCracken: Yeah, you’re a hundred percent right. It's the same people that ban their employees from posting on LinkedIn, unless they approve it first. Yeah, same type of that slippery slope of expression and self-development verses I need to control every single minute of my employees.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. We don't want our employees to become too successful because then they might leave. Right? It's that whole fear. It's that whole quote about training, right? “What if we train our employees and they leave or what if we don't train them and they stay, “ type of thing.
This has been great. Mareo, do you have any other advice for entrepreneurs out there who are thinking about writing a book, but maybe they are just debating, should I do this? Should I not do this? What advice would you give to them? If they're on the fence.
Mareo McCracken: If you're on the fence, write the book. That's simple. But you should think about the purpose of why you're writing the book and then make sure you write a book that fulfills that purpose. If you're building a business based off the book, then make sure you can build a business off of the book. If you're not building a business off the book and you have a different purpose, just make sure the book you write, fulfills whatever purpose you have. And sometimes there's a disconnect, but if you have a purpose, then it will make writing the book a lot easier. And it'll actually serve you in the long run.
Josh Steimle: Perfect. I think that's a great place to end things. Mareo, thanks so much for being with us here today. Where's the best place for people to connect with? To learn more about you?
Mareo McCracken: Probably LinkedIn. I'm the only Mareo McCracken on LinkedIn. So you can probably find me there.
Josh Steimle: All right. We got to do a little bonus section for everybody here. You use LinkedIn a lot. How has LinkedIn helped you in your career? Cause I think a lot of people are skeptical of LinkedIn too. It's like, “Yeah, I have to be there, but…” But you use it a ton. So how has it helped you? What are you do on it?
Mareo McCracken: I do a lot of different things on it, but it's helped me professionally and personally, in more ways than I can count.
I do lots of my initial kind of sales and content marketing for awareness on LinkedIn, with my company and my personal. And so they combine, where they see the professional stuff and then they see my personal stuff. So they get to know me as a person, even before I make the first phone call.
So when I make that first phone call, there's a good chance they've already come across something I've done because I use LinkedIn. And then at the same time, It's a way to help me overcome my ADD where every 50 minutes of work, I stop, take a break, and go on LinkedIn for 10 minutes. And so I don't need to go run outside or go do something else. I can just take a mind-shift break. And so then I spent after 10 minutes times eight, right? That's a little over an hour a day on LinkedIn, but it wasn't an hour straight. But then that helps me too. So it helps me in a lot of different ways. But as far as sales are concerned for growing a business, I don't think there's a better way. At least when it's B2B sales and not necessarily to individuals, but when it's B2B sales, there's no better way to build brand awareness and create some initial level of trust then on LinkedIn.
Josh Steimle: Awesome. Thanks so much, Mareo, for being with us here today. Appreciate your time. And hope everybody enjoys this, especially those of you who are in sales. And go read Mareo's book! If you only read one sales book in your life, go read Mareo's book. Thanks Mareo for being here.
Mareo McCracken: Thanks, Josh was awesome.
