Now that we’ve covered the first subject of the Big 5—or the five content subjects that move the needle in every industry, let’s move to the second one: problems.

You may be thinking, What do you mean by “problems,” Marcus?

Well, the simple answer is this: When people buy, they worry more about what might go wrong than what will go right. It’s true. It is for this reason that, for example, when someone is buying a 2017 Ford Mustang, their main searches would be either “2017 Ford Mustang Reviews” or “2017 Ford Mustang Negative Reviews.”

But, what they would not search is “Positive Reviews 2017 Ford Mustang.”

Make sense? In fact, I’d venture to say as a consumer you’ve searched by this point in your life hundreds of “negative”-based phrases, but no positives.

As buyers, although we want to know the good, bad, and ugly, we are mostly concerned with the ugly.

The same was true for me as a pool guy. Let’s imagine for a minute that you had met with me back when I was a pool guy, and you had gotten a quote for a fiberglass swimming pool. Let’s say you liked me as well as my pools, and you decided you might just want to buy one. But just to keep me honest, though, you elected to get a quote from a second swimming pool company—a concrete pool company. Let’s call this company Concrete Joe’s Pools.

Once you meet with Concrete Joe and tell him you met with Marcus, the fiberglass swimming pool guy, what do you think he’s going to say about my fiberglass pools?

Of course, Concrete Joe is going to make such statements as:

• “Fiberglass pools aren’t wide enough . . . or long enough . . . or deep enough.”
• “You can’t customize them.” Or, “They crack.” Or, “They pop out of the ground.”
• “You don’t want a fiberglass pool! They are not even real pools. It’s like having a bathtub in your yard!”

And finally, he’ll likely say something like, “If you buy a fiberglass pool, you’re going to have nothing but problems, problems, problems. Don’t get that pool if you don’t want those problems!”

You might think I’m exaggerating with this scenario, but it’s true. I saw it hundreds of times during my years selling swimming pools.

And when it does happen, as the buyer, you now have a moral dilemma. You liked me and you liked my pools, but after talking with Concrete Joe, you’re a little freaked out worrying about all their potential problems.

So the question is, What do you do next?

Sure, you may ask a friend, but what you’re most likely going to do is go to Google and search something like, “fiberglass pools problems.”