What is They Ask, You Answer

They Ask, You Answer is a specific a way of doing inbound marketing. A framework that teaches you to create written and video content that your buyers are looking for, publish that content in a way that makes it easy for them to find and consume, and leverage that content in your sales process to close more deals, and close them faster.

They Ask, You Answer (TAYA) focuses on earning the trust of your buyers as fast as possible, by eliminating the need for them to seek out answers elsewhere, like Google.

It was developed by Marcus Sheridan, in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, when his pool company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and he was in need of concrete results in the very short term.

They Ask You Answer is supported by HubSpot and is being used by thousands of businesses around the world, including B2B and B2C companies in retail, manufacturing, home improvement, high-tech, services, software, healthcare, real estate, and dozens of other industries.

How Does They Ask, You Answer Work?

They Ask, You Answer is built on the premise that all buyers want to get answers to their toughest, most common questions which most businesses choose to purposely ignore.

By providing our buyers with those answers in a clear, simple and transparent way, we capture their attention very fast and massively increases the traffic on our websites.

Does They Ask You Answer actually impact sales?

After all, there must be a good reason why businesses don't like answering those questions, right?

Yes, They Ask, You Answer absolutely works! Because it increases and accelerates sales by making your buyers perceive you as worthy of their trust, and as you know, in sales, trust is everything!

On top of that, it gives you the unique opportunity to address the most common objections before the buyers even contact you, which makes your sales meeting much shorter and easier and increases your close rate.

By informing your buyers transparently about your products and services, even about topics that make you uncomfortable such as prices and drawbacks, you:

capture buyers attention,
earn their trust,
filter out bad-fit prospects,
vanguard objections,
shorten and facilitate your sales process.

4 reasons why They Ask You Answer work so well

To be very concrete, let's answer this question by telling you what makes They Ask, You Answer work.

It's a combination of 4 essential elements:

1. It's simple

The They Ask, You Answer is a practical framework based on 10 simple core principles that are true for every industry and a process that anyone can replicate.

This makes a huge difference! Because it enables you to handle it in-house, with your own staff and there is no better position to write the best content than being part of your own company.

That's actually a very important part of the framework, it must be done in-house to deliver unmatched results

2. It builds trust

By openly answering your buyers’ toughest questions, and acting as your customer's advocate, you become the most trusted voice and authority in your industry.

3. It aligns sales and marketing

A sales person contradicting what is said in your website and brochures is one of the fastest way to damage the faith a buyer have in your buisness.

Still, in many companies, this happens all the time!

Why? One of them is received the wrong information, or maybe they disagree with each other. What ever it is, those are just symptoms. And although such a hiccup can always occur, the root cause is that your marketing and sales teams have different goals and priorities and they therefore don't pay attention to the same things, and especially not to each other.

They Ask, You Answer unifies your sales and marketing efforts with common goals and objectives.

4. It makes happier customers

At the core of They Ask, You Answer is a simple idea: educated prospects become happier, better customers.

When prospects feel confident that they've gotten the information they need to make an informed decision, they're happier with their purchase. And happy customers are more likely to come back, tell their friends and even buy other products from you.

The goal of your customer-facing content is not to convince people of the benefits of your product or service, it's to give them the information they need to get there on their own. It gives your buyers confidence in their purchase decision and makes them more likely to come back even in the case something goes wrong with their experience.

On top of that, another way it males happier customers, it's by making you understand your customers better and faster, and therefore enabling you to provide them with a better service and customer experience

4 benefits of They Ask, You Answer

1. It's the fastest way to drive sales from content marketing.

How fast you will see results depends on several things, starting with how you define results (traffic, conversion, meeting booked, closed deals, deal size, average sales cycle length...) or the length of your sales cycle and how fast you execute the framework.

But one thing is sure, is that there is no faster way to see results with inbound than using the They Ask, You Answer framework because it teaches you to:

create content that ranks high in Google within weeks instead of month,
present and index that content to make it easy for your buyers to find and consume,
leverage that content in your sales process, so it not only impacts your marketing, but your sales as well.

2. It makes you close deals faster with shorter sales cycles.

Prospects need less time to make a decision.

The first thing that slows down people in making a decision is the fear of making the wrong one and regret it later on: missing something, lacking experience and knowledge, get tricked.

The more educated a prospect is, the less they have that fear because they feel better equipped to make a decision. And because they got that knowledge from you, they also trust that you exactly understand their problem and that you know what you're talking about.

You spend less time and energy with bad-fit prospects.

Not only because educated prospects know if they are a good fit or not before reaching out, but also because the framework prevents you from spending time with uneducated prospects.

The sales meetings are shorter and smoother.

The main reason for this is that you nearly get no objections during sales meeting anymore as those have all been addressed before hand, either on your website, or via assignment selling.

The direct consequence of building trust faster is that people hesitate less to commit to buy from you. That's why They Ask, You Answer accelerates the sales process at every steps of the buyer journey.

3. It's stable and does not require constant update.

Changes come so quickly in marketing that any new tactic only works for a couple of years, even only a few months sometimes. We rely on technology to generate leads, so we need to keep up with the latest changes.

Ask any SEO or social media specialist about Google and Facebook algorithms, and they'll tell you they are constantly updating their tactics, landing pages, and sales funnels. Some would say that it's what makes it exciting, but the truth is that brings with it uncertainty and unpredictabilities that are exhausting for a head of sales.

There is one thing that does not change though: it's the human brain and what makes us trust people and things.

There is few differences between what was going on in the mind of a citizen of Rome purchasing an oil lamp in a stall beside the Coliseum in AD 2, and what is going on today in our mind when we order AAA batteries on Amazon. It's all about how we build trust and this hasn't changed for centuries.

They Ask, You Answer is based on 10 fundamental trust building principles which, unlike technologies, will not change anytime soon. That's why the framework does not need to be updated.

4. It brings sustainable long-lasting impact on your sales.

They Ask, You Answer get your company become the most trusted voice in your industry. When people know that you are the best source of truth for information in that space, they will come to you first.

And here's the thing: when you have this kind of power, it doesn't just extend to what you do — it extends into other aspects of your business, too! You'll be able to reach new audiences and expand into new markets while still keeping the same brand integrity and trust with your existing clients.

Who is a good fit for They Ask, You Answer?

We believe that all companies are a good fit for They Ask You Answer, because wether you sell coffee or jet engines, building trust with your buyers is always required.

They Ask You Answer is based on 10 trust building principles that are always true:

in every industry,
B2B or B2C,
with short or long sales cycles,
selling online or in-person.

However, there is a decisive factor in your chance of success with They Ask, You Answer. As reported by Marcus Sheridan, creator of the framework and author of the book, who have personally helped hundreds of companies implement it, the criteria that consistently predict a buisness' chances to succeed with They Ask You Answer is the involvement, curiosity and willingness to learn of its CEO.

This is because the required changes are so fundamental for the company that they can only happen if they are actively prioritised by management team, starting y its head.