Hey, John. Welcome back.

Hey, hey, good to see you, Brian.

Good to see you. Uh, I heard you moved

I moved. Nothing, nothing like a good move to cleanse your heart, your soul, and your house.

a good, uh, buyers and sellers experience.

all things considered, it was a relatively smooth experience, but I'm tired. Tired and disorganized.

I think everybody I've talked to that moves says I'm not moving again ever for the rest of my life. Full stop.

Those words may have escaped my lips a few times in the past week. Die in this house and then you can just set it aflame.

Well, I think, uh, speaking of experiences, we have a really good show today that really gets into, consumer experience.

Yes.

And, our guest, Jay Baer is an expert in consumer experience and CX and, um, business growth. And so really excited to talk to him. before we do that, I want to hop in here and talk about some news we're seeing, on technology relating to the consumer experience. So, recently on an investor call, Wendy's. The fast food chain announced plans next year to release new technology that would help facilitate dynamic pricing, so that local stores could change menu costs as they needed or wanted to. News outlets jumped all over this and started touting it as surge pricing, you know, kind of like when Uber or airline jacks up costs when demand is the highest.

they sure did.

Yeah, and so not surprisingly, there's an immediate backlash and concerns of price gouging. Inflation, obviously, as well, has been a serious concern for people everywhere, so the timing of this could not have been worse. Jokes flew around social media that the only time to go to Wendy's would be between 2 and 4 p. m. And, uh, according to the New York Post, Wendy's now ranks already as the most expensive fast food chain in the United States.

Oh,

After already inflating their, um, menu costs 35 percent over the last couple of years, and, one more not surprising thing. immediately, Wendy's tried to clarify what it had meant. They said that they would not be implementing such type pricing with this new technology or would they change prices when demand is the highest? Instead, they were saying that, they would attempt to bring in new customers by actually lowering prices or offering specials when demand is low, ultimate spin spin zone here. John, So, what do you think the takeaway is here for brands as they look to improve their business through technology? And, should consumers trust how brands continue to evolve and grow, uh, their businesses and as they use technology?

right. Well, first of all, I think the brand should stop using technology to manufacture hype before they've thought through how they're actually going to use it, which I think was the case here with Wendy's. And there's a real corporate communications lesson to be learned in this. when you called my attention to this, I went back and I read the original quote, which was from the CEO, Kirk Tanner, during that quarterly earnings call. And he said, beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and day part offerings. Of course, everyone would interpret, quote, dynamic pricing and day part offerings to mean surge pricing's coming, right? And Corporate Communications 101 would have told them to manage that message. So either, you know, their Corporate Communications team did say, Don't say it like this or the CEO ignored it. I would guess or they actually were planning to do surge pricing. So what a what a mess. I guess if the intention was actually about getting smart around offering day part discounts, that's great. But if they were seriously considering turning their menu into a Russian roulette of pricing, I think that's stupid. That whole concept is just at odds with what I would say is the core promise of any fast food restaurant, which is predictability, right? Promotions, cool. Everyone does that, right? Let's get people into stores when stores are slow.

Yeah. What they weren't doing was A system that automatically changes the price. I mean, they were definitely giving local stores more control over the ability to change price, which they already do. I mean, like the cost of a hamburger at a Wendy's in New York costs different than a hamburger in South Carolina. So, it's not like they're going to be sitting in in headquarters, surgically changing prices by the minute based off the amount of cars that are in the drive through line. So, I don't know that they were going full Uber on this, but, the look of this is brutal. So, like you said, uh, this is not a good look for their communications team, which by the way, was probably saying exactly what you were saying and they probably get rid of the rules.

Yeah, that's my guess. Alright, so can I pivot to another story that I noticed that's about that idea of using technologies to improve a customer experience?

Sure.

Sure. Alright. I just saw that Verizon One of America's favorite punching bags, just created a new chief customer experience officer role for someone named Brian Higgins and recruited a Walmart executive, Dory Butler SV as SVP of CX. Now, I don't know Brian or Dory, but congratulations and good luck to them both. That is a big, big and probably thankless job. So Ryan, thinking about Verizon in the past, how, in your mind, how have they traditionally positioned themselves? What are they focused on?

Network quality.

Correct. Well, these moves are intended to make customer experience, also a competitive differentiator. just like they did around network quality. So, Verizon has now brought all of its customer care teams together under one department, which I kind of thought they would have done a while ago, but good that they're doing it now. and they're saying that nearly 75% Of their customer care calls are small, but kind of annoying issues that came from some sort of, you know, small break in their customer experience, and they're saying that a I will play a big role in Verizon's customer care event. So with all the news and the commotion around AI these days, I think this is where there's some really interesting promise. So according to, This new head of customer experience, there are more than 10, 000 articles in Verizon's knowledge base that provide informational promotions or problems that a customer may be having. So AI can synthesize all that info and deliver it to the customer service reps in real time. and personally, I love the idea of talking to a human who understands what I'm looking for. And has AI in the background, helping them focus on being more helpful, empathetic, and, expert. And if they got 10, 000 articles at their disposal, though, that's getting clearly synthesized by AI, they'll be more expert.

Yeah. Well, let me just say one thing about AI, and I love it. And that's great, but they couldn't be doing this without AI. Like AI can just make it go faster. If they have those

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Throwing the AI on top of this to make it prettier and put a nice little bow on it. Some lipstick is great.

You think it's just you think it's just prettifying it

Well, I mean, it'll make it go faster, but at the same time, like, why couldn't they have already been using the database of all these articles? I

well because because the database of the articles sure it's there but having something really quickly figuring out what my problem is and what's unique about my problem and based on all the archives pull the right exact information for me is something I think you're asking an awful lot of customer service rep who maybe went through a, you know, Few weeks or months of training and it's new to the job.

I mean, look, if you want to be a Verizon apologist about that, that's fine. It shouldn't be that difficult. A lot of these things are internal problems. And so, yeah, can you get an AI to help feed them the answers quickly? Yes. But you're enabling people to not do the extra work to understand what the problems are to begin with, but

Well, yeah. And I would argue that if you've talked to, many organizations, customer service reps, you realize they haven't been properly trained and they don't have all the information at the fingertips. So if that means I get less frustrated and I spend less time screaming, uh, at a, at a phone tree, cool. Uh, and I would have to say, I think that's the first time anyone has ever called me a Verizon apologist.

that is, is working towards you trying to improve the experience is great. I like that they're bringing the teams together, which, you know, Ted, why didn't that happen in 2000, but Hey. You bring it in new people. They're coming up with new ideas and I'm sure there's a good reason why they were separate, but,

well, you've been in corporate America, you know, they probably were together and then they got separated and then we got pulled back together and separated and now they're back together again.

completely. all right, well, from there, let's go to our guests.

he's gonna be so much more interesting than me, the Verizon apologist.

Uh, I'm beyond excited to introduce, our guest for today's episode. He's an expert in customer experience and business growth. He's a researcher and author, a founder, a podcaster. He's in the professional speakers hall of fame, a top 30 global guru in CX and internet marketing. He's my favorite keynote at a conference. You're going to love him. He's relatable, he's funny, and he makes sense. His past books like Utility, Hug Your Haters, and Talk Triggers are companions for every marketer. His latest book is called The Time to Win, which focuses on businesses taking advantage of speed of service while they can. And I don't want to leave this out. He's now a major tequila influencer. So let's invite in some conversation with Jay Baer. Jay, we're so happy to have you on the show today.

Hey, Jay.

be here. Hey everybody. How you doing? Thanks for having me on the show.

Thanks for joining us

Yeah, I really appreciate it. So, let's get into this book, the time to win. You know, businesses today face so many challenges to reach and interact with customers. We always talk about the amount of noise and distractions today. There's too much going on in everybody's world. You're focused on responsiveness for businesses and the need to build a Sure of it. So it's so important if you don't act quickly, you're going to miss out. The value of time is, uh, incomprehensible and, if you don't do this right, how can customers even trust you to do the job

Yeah. I mean, you've probably heard the phrase good, fast, cheap, pick any two. It's pretty common business parlance. You know, doesn't really work anymore because you can decide whether you want to be cheap and fast. Or quality and fast, but fast is non negotiable, generally speaking, right? That's one that you kind of have to do that one. And then you can pick whether you want to be the, you know, you want to be Jiffy lube, right? Or you want to be, uh, you know, the opposite, which is emergency plumber, right? It's going to, you know, they'll come, they'll come Sunday night. But it's going to cost you, right? Speed is no longer kind of an optional exercise for most businesses. And, and look, I wrote the book just when AI, um, as we currently think about it was, was breaking and the implications for AI on expectations around response are going to be. Overwhelming, right? I mean, it just everything can happen so much faster without human intervention. And so the culture is going to ratchet up even more around speed expectations.

Yeah. And Jay, before we go too much further, I just have to say thank you for writing a business book that is consumable in an hour. If I have a

it. I mean, the book is only like, I don't know, it's like 5000 words or something, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

to do it that way, John. I've written six other business books that are like, you know, traditional size. And I started writing this one. I'm like, wait a second, hold on. I can't write a full length business book that requires the reader to invest five or six hours. What's the book about speed. That doesn't, it doesn't make any sense, right? It's like the exact opposite of the advice contained in the pages. Uh, so I'm like, wait a second. What if. I wrote a very short book that you can read in under an hour that has all the meat and none of the fat. And it's actually been a really interesting lesson, like how that book is merchandised and sold and everything has been much different, of course, than a regular book. But people love it. Especially at events because you know what sucks when you go to a conference and they give you like the hardcover book from the keynote speaker and then you're trying to hold a book in one hand and like drink a Chardonnay in the other hand and like shake hands with your third hand like it's a very complicated dance. So this book is so small you put it in your shirt pocket your jacket pocket your handbag whatever. Uh, I will say this, however, and I, and I, I learned this. It's late and a hard way. It is a very hard book to sign because it's so small and it's soft cover that it's hard for me to open it and hold it open and sign it. So that, that part has actually been a little bit of a hassle, but other than that, it's been successful and I would do it again because you know, look, I'm, I'm not ashamed to admit that most people, including me, don't actually read business books. Yeah.

finished one.

And they skim up and why not? Because I'm guilty of this too, right? In the first chapter, here's my thesis. And then you repeat that thesis 11 more chapters in a slightly different way. Right. And that's just the nature of it. Right. But, but publishers trust me, cause I worked with all the major publishers. They want that book to be 225 pages or longer because that's the standard size that actual physical bookstores require. You know, this, we're writing books this length because bookstores want them to be wide enough to be shelved. Like, is that the tail wagging the dog or what?

seriously?

Well, I mean, look, I, I am an author and I love books and I read books every day, but the last time I went to a physical bookstore it's been a bit.

Yeah. Did you have to have a rule in your head? Like, you know, sell yourself on keeping something in or did you just kind of create an outline and just sparsely.

It's funny, uh, actually I did it the same way, Brian, that I do all my books actually, just with more rigor. So I, write books in a process that is not unique, but certainly unusual compared to most business authors in that I will write a speech. I go out and do that speech 25 or 40 times and then once I have the speech dialed, then I write the book

Interesting. Yeah, that's

a couple of reasons.

That's backwards for most people, right?

Absolutely backwards. Uh, and I do it for a couple of reasons. One, it makes the book flow better because it's got a narrative. It's got a beginning, a middle and an end. The way speech has a beginning and middle and end. But the real reason I do it. I am allergic to using examples that people have heard of before. So you'll never hear me talk about Amazon or Starbucks or Apple or anything like that in any book I ever write because it's so axiomatic. It's just boring, right? So, what I do is as I'm working out this material, In every speech, I say, hope you enjoyed today's program. If you've got any examples of a company that is faster than you expected them to be, or slower than you wanted them to be, please, please, please, uh, come see me right after I finished. Cause I'm collecting stories for my new book. And so almost all the stories that I have in almost all my books came from audiences who, who saw me speak or like, oh, I've got an example. And that's why I've got all these weird, different industries from all over the world. And so in this case, all I did was the same idea. I just didn't add more stuff. It was like, okay, instead of one example, instead of five examples, let's do one. So essentially it's the same format of a book. I just didn't add all the extra ornaments on a Christmas tree.

got it. I love your examples. Uh, I feel like they always really reinforce your points

Oh, yeah. The best smelling plumber in Los Angeles?

Yeah. Mike diamond, Mike diamond plumbers, smell good plumbers. That's on every truck. The funny thing about Mike diamond plumbers is if you go to Google and search Mike diamond plumbers and look at their reviews. Like all the reviews, like he really did smell good. Like it's, it is, it is hilarious. They have a house cologne. They literally have a house cologne, uh, for, for their plumbers. When you, when you get a job there, they give you a little bottles. Like, this is what you're going to wear.

So is that an example of something that came from one of your audience members or is that something you experienced

So that particular example came from Daniel Lemon, who co authored Talk Triggers with me. Daniel, uh, is an amazing thought leader and, and has some other books of his own as well and, and worked very closely with me as my head of strategy at my consulting firm for many years. He lives in Los Angeles and so he literally needed a plumber, Mike Diamond plumbers. And he's like, wait, the Smogon plumber. And I'm writing a book about word of mouth. Amazing. That, that, that example, like fell into our lap, out of the sky, which are, which sometimes are the best ones.

Of all the tidbits you've gotten from like local companies and things for your books, which one's your favorite?

Oh, geez. I've never been asked that before. And it's kind of

Like thousands of them, so I

Yeah, just just pick from a catalog of

I mean, I, I would say probably the one that I go back to the most often, because I think it resonates with people, is, is Skip's Kitchen, which is the, the restaurant in Sacramento, where when you order your meal, They fan out a deck of playing cards face down in front of you and you pick a card and if you get a joker, your entire meal is free. use that story a lot because it's so easy to execute for businesses and it doesn't matter whether you're in the restaurant business or you're a chiropractor or whatever. People understand the power. Of that technique and how and why it generates so much goodwill and so much word of mouth for that business. So I tend to use that example. Because people really get it. They're like, Oh, that is cool. Oh, I understand how I could possibly do that, etc.

that's cool.

But I have a whole database. That's how I do it. So I collect all the

Yeah.

And then I tag them. So I have a whole like tagging system. And so we tag them by B2B versus B2C, big company, small company. Is it word of mouth? Is it customer experience? Is it bad customer experience? Um, et cetera. You're kind of what's the shtick. And then is it USA? Is it Canada? Is it international? So. When I get an assignment to do an event, like I'm doing one for Bobcat, um, the heavy equipment company in two weeks, I can go into the database and say, all right, what, what material do I already have that might be most appropriate for this industry? And then if I don't feel like I've got gold, then I'll go find some stuff.

That's, that's great. I was doing some research last night and, my kids were like, what are you doing? And I showed them the, um, the pasta playlist on Spotify

Isn't that amazing?

So cool.

Yeah. Can you, can you tell that one real fast?

That's a relatively new one, um, that they haven't been doing it too long and I haven't been talking about it too long. The thing about pasta is when you make it perfectly it's perfect, but when you make it imperfectly it sucks. And what people don't understand very often about dried pasta is that, of course, there are many different shapes. You got penne, you got spaghetti, you got rigatoni, etc. And they each have different densities. Consequently, you really should change your cook time slightly based on the density of the dried pasta that you're using. But nobody talks about this and nobody writes it down. And so, um, Barilla, which is either the first or second largest provider of dried pasta, I'm not certain. Was doing a lot of social media, listening as you should. And they realized that people were like, sometimes aggravated about the pasta, not coming out, right. Undercooked, overcooked. They're like, huh, how could we fix this? So they, they went to Spotify and they created a series of custom playlists. One for spaghetti, one for rigatoni, one for penne, et cetera. So the way it works is you boil your water. As soon as the water is at a rolling boil, you hit play, you put the pasta in the water. And the playlist is a whole series of kind of Italian songs in keeping with the theme of pasta. The second the playlist is concluded, last song is over, you take the pasta out of the water and it is perfectly cooked for that particular shape of pasta. And hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded these playlists. I just think it's, of course, doesn't cost anything. It's just a really good example of transcending the transaction, which so much good marketing really is rooted in that principle.

Yeah, it's, it's a great experiential thing. Just, you know, you're cooking pasta, you're playing the Italian music.

Yeah, that's a it's a great example. Jay, we go back to my talk about your most recent book. You talk about some examples where. Too fast is a problem. You know, you, you, obviously you, you make the compelling case for businesses need to evolve to become faster at delivering great experiences, but too fast is not what you want if you're going to a tattoo artist and, and, and nothing

yeah, yeah, or an eye, or an eye surgeon, or any number of things, or a divorce attorney. Um,

And you also talk about some of the ways companies are kind of pretending to take their sweet time to deliver a thoughtful answer to, like, a chat question, right, where you get little dots or even, you know, you hear the little, if you're on the phone call, you hear the little do do do do do, you know, like, I'm thinking, uh, even though AI is spitting it out pretty much instantaneously. Yeah.

yeah. It's interesting, the reason I wrote this book, well the reason I write all books that I write is, is, I see what I think is a pattern or a trend or an opportunity for businesses to outperform their competition. And then I researched that trend, doing a lot of first party research, which costs me a ton of money, but you know, I'm not just going to stand on a stage and tell you to do something if I'm just, I don't have any proof. So as always, I did a bunch of research on this topic. And my thesis was coming out of the pandemic, we care about time more than ever. And, and that how we use time. is more precious to us than it was pre pandemic. And, and all these trends that we were talking about in the early post pandemic days, great resignation, people working from home, not wanting to commute, et cetera, all this stuff. I was like, this is all the same trend. Like this is all the same trend, which is we care about time more than ever. You can call it whatever you want. And there's different manifestations of that trend. But the trend is that we care about time more than ever. I wonder if that's actually true or I just think it's true and I did the research and it is in fact true. Two thirds of customers now say that speed is as important as price. And so the reality is when I talk about this in the book and on stage when I'm asking businesses to do It's not overhaul your entire business. It's elevate speed on your list of priorities because your customers already have. And if you do that, all the data show that customers will be happier, more loyal, will literally spend more money, will tell more people about your business, like all the things you're trying to achieve, will work if you're just faster. But, the point is true, like, you can't take that. Dogma because there are circumstances where you can be too fast and we are too fast What happens is it decays trust? so if you if you call a Surgeon, you're like hey, I need to have this thing cut out of my shoulder. You're like cool What are you doing in the next five minutes? You'd be like, wait a second, this,

Why are you free right now to

you are too available. This concerns me, right? So there's a very tight relationship that we studied in the book, um, between time expectations and trust. So what you want in every business is, is in every interaction with every customer. It's like the Goldilocks zone for responsiveness. It's the perfect amount of elapsed time. And we call it the right now. The right now is the, like, perfect spot. And it's certainly not too slow, because people hate to wait. But it's also not too fast, because then they're like, Wait a second, this is gonna be terrible. So, the right now, the magic formula, is to be slightly faster than customers expect you to be. So my, uh, this is not an example that you guys have heard because it's not in the book or anything is one of my friends, uh, good friends is an airline pilot for American. And he's the master of this slightly faster than customers expect. When he gets something in his headset from air traffic control that says, Captain Mendler, there's a plane behind you can't back out of the gate. 12 minute delay. He goes on the intercom says, Hey, welcome to America airlines flight, whatever, from San Diego to. to Dallas. I just heard from air traffic control. There's a plane behind us. We can't back out just yet. they're expecting a 15 minute delay. So then when air traffic control gets back to him, he says, okay, you're, you're, you're, you're clear to move back. And it's only been 11 minutes. He gets back on the intercom and says, okay, ladies and gentlemen, I told you 15, but it's only been 11. We're backing out now. Can't wait to have a great flight. Right. And everybody's like psyched, right? They still had to wait 11 minutes, but they're fired up because it's an expectations game more so than a raw speed game in some cases.

And you talk about, that expectation game and going back to the idea of trust Obviously, speed is critical, but there are times when there's a reason for it taking a certain time that might be longer than the customer expectation, but addressing that expectation up front saves the day. Can you talk a little more about that idea of, you know, being up front about how long things are going to take versus informing them on the back end?

Yeah. And that's the, the, the latter is how business has been operated for a long time, which is if you miss a deadline, you apologize afterwards, right? And you sort of take the hit. now that two things are true, one, people care about time more than ever. And two, people aren't nearly as good, especially young consumers, aren't nearly as good at accepting that because we said so. Right. I mean, it's just, they just don't, they, they want to know why. And partially it's the rise of the internet, right? Like information and knowledge is all around us like air in these times in a way that it wasn't in the past. I was having this conversation with my wife the other day. We were watching something Grammys. I can't remember exactly. And, and Cher was on I was like, how old is Cher? She's like, I don't know. Like, we, we really didn't know.

You've been the same age for 40 years.

yeah, it looks the same for sure. Uh, so I just grabbed my phone, you know, Siri, how old is Cher? Uh, and I think it's 78. Hold on, let me check. Hey Siri, how old is Cher? We're reenacting it for the podcast. 77, 77. and that surprised me a little bit. And then I thought, you know, When we were first married, if we wanted to know how old Cher was, we would have had to get in the car, we would have to drive to the library when it's open, we'd have to meet with a reference librarian, who presumably, would have a book of celebrities and their birthdates, and that reference librarian would help us find the piece on Cher, now, that would have taken, I don't know, two hours?

Yeah.

And no,

the right window, it would

yeah, and no,

you would have had to wait.

no sane or employed person would, would spend that kind of time. And so you know what we did in those days? It was a, it was a novel concept. We would just say, I don't know. That information is evidently unknowable. And we were totally okay

again, that was good enough for us,

People are not okay with I don't know anymore. So if you're going to disappoint them, or you're going to bait and switch them intentionally or unintentionally, or you're going to confuse them, whatever, you just have to explain it. And you have to explain it in a way that satiates their need to know. You proactively inoculate against people's ire around time, as opposed to hoping for the best on the back end.

uh, I can't tell you how many, uh, parties always ended with arguments around what, you know, what was the answer to a question and you just, it's great, or you thought somebody was a genius and you just didn't know, you know, that's so much easier to have conspiracy theories back then, cause you just had to be like, is that really true? Right.

about bar bets. There's no books about bar bets now. I just ask my phone.

Right. You're quick to also say that, being fast doesn't always mean being free. And so everybody, uh, knows about the concept of, you know, the fast pass from Disney, uh, you have some cool examples about how other companies are employing convenience in exchange for additional fees and things like that.

Yeah. You know, and at first, when I started thinking about this, I believed it to be really a, a, a technique for solving your own Kind of volume problems that that, you know, Disney Disney parks in particular are trying to even out the flow of guests so that it's not a stampede. And consequently, you do a fast pass. They call it genie plus. Now, at one point, it's called lightning lane, I believe. And so the idea is that you pay an extra fee and you get to enter the park earlier. Beer festivals sometimes do this, they have an hour before a general admission that costs a little bit more and you get access to beers without a huge crowd, etc. And so I always thought about that premise in the context of physical events and crowd management. But then I started thinking about we mentioned it earlier kind of the the emergency plumber kind of folks right like and it's because I had an emergency plumber and I was like, well, wait a second, you know, I needed them to come out Sunday night and they're like, sure, but we're going to charge you more. And I thought, well, that's weird. Why isn't there like an emergency deli? Like, why isn't there? You know, why? Why can't you? You know, if, if, if I care that much about it, why can't I pay more to get whatever I want whenever I want it? And I started to, to research this and, and in the, in the, in the big research project that underpins the book, The Time to Win, which you can get on Amazon. The book's only like 9 cause it's so small. and what we found was that one in four customers will pay as much as 50 percent more to in four customers will pay as much as 50 percent more to not wait and, and, and for whatever reason. Um, they, they procrastinated. Um, they got more money than they probably should have. They just want stuff now. There's a lot of reasons why that might be the case. But that is a colossal financial opportunity. And not just for emergency plumbers. And so then I started to collect other stories of people doing it. And in fact, it's been great. Um, as I've toured this presentation around the world, a lot of people have come up to me in the events and be like, Oh yeah, I do that. So, you know, there's like a chiropractor in Dallas who does the late night, your back's messed up. I'll, you know, I'm going to charge a double, but I can fix it. There's a guy who sell, he has a store retail store that sells, um, fancy pens, like writing instruments and stuff in New Jersey. And a lot of his customers are buying business gifts or gifts for their boss, et cetera. And they always seem to wait to the last minute and like, Oh, I need a gift for my boss. I'm going to get a pen. Oh, but his birthday's tomorrow. Can you FedEx it for me? And he's always passed along the FedEx fee. But I said, well, are you charging extra for this? Like instantaneous, you know, pen, shopping. He's like, no. And I'm like, well, that sounds like a fast pass that you should institute. And he has now and it's, and it's going great. So almost every business can do this, can offer a fast pass. And I realize now I sold my consulting firm a couple of years ago, but man, I'm so stupid. I should have been doing it the whole time because we would have, we would literally have big companies stacked up like planes on a runway. Waiting for us to work on strategic plans for them and a big company like a CVS would call me like hey Can you do our strategic plan and we'd be like, yeah But we can't start for three months because we got other people in the queue. And what I should have said is hells Yeah, it's just gonna be an extra 20 percent surcharge and then you can be next and then and then people I say Well, what happens to the one that was gonna be next we have to bump down and here's how you do it We're going to charge you 20 percent more for you to be next. And then the one that you bump down, you say, Hey, terribly, sorry. we had an emergency client come in. It's going to delay your project for three weeks, but we're going to give you a 10 percent rebate. You okay with that? Sure. So you make 20, you give back 10, you profit 10. And all you're doing is changing your sequence,

changing the order.

serving number 67, uh, you know, and then you're serving number 65.

Well, thank you again, because Brian and I were talking about this, uh, a client we have yesterday and, and we think there's a really good recommendation to be made very much along these lines. So we'll thank you. Well, thank you again. 9. Well spent.

Well, one thing I should note on that, uh, people ask me this a lot is, well, wait a second. Like, what if then everybody wants the fast pass? And it's what I always say is unless you're like an emergency plumber and you know that people are going to need critical care, don't put it on the website, right? This is not a thing that you talk about publicly. This is the thing you talk about one on one. Right. This is the thing that you, this is the thing that you offer on the phone, not on the homepage. Um, that's kind of an important distinction in many businesses.

But, you know, convenience is everything. Like you said, the research even shows that, you know, people want to be able to skip the line. And, um, so it's a, it's

Yeah. Not everybody and not everybody does, but that's okay. Yeah. Um, just, you know, if, if just a handful do it's pure profit, cause that's the thing we don't talk about. Like if all you're doing is changing the sequence, it doesn't cost you anything more. So it's literally pure profit.

well, I want to find that emergency deli because definitely.

that too. Roast beef now!

Yeah. This, this, this harkens back to our, uh, our Wendy's conversation a little bit too, Brian.

Oh my, that thing was, they're so, huge thing about Wendy's, and I love the, I love the intro, uh, to the show about it, because this whole thing, I watched, it's like, it was like watching a car crash in slow motion,

a predictable, uh, uh, uh, an avoidable car crash.

Yeah, and Wendy's is, I think, historically a pretty nimble marketing organization. Um, but this was a suicide, not a murder, right? They, they, and what happened, in my estimation, is you had business school people using business school messaging about a consumer facing scenario. And that's what killed them because no, nobody going out for a Dave's double or a baconator is, is using dynamic pricing, right? That's not all, all they're doing. All they're doing is ladies night

Yeah.

on lady on ladies night. Beers are two for one. That's the same thing. Like at two in the afternoon, when it's slow between meals, you can get 10 cents off a hamburger. That's all they're doing. This has been around since like, there was a happy hour caveman special, right in the, like the Neolithic era. This is not new information at all. It's just, they wrapped it up in all of this like business school jargon, because they were really talking to investors and stock price, not to consumers. So this was purely, uh, A communications fail, and whoever is their VP comms, that's the person who should get the axe, not the actual people who came up with the idea.

Well, we are, we are of similar minds on that one for sure. Hey, Jay, I want to switch a little bit to that idea of outbound messaging, right?

Mm

On this podcast, we talk about how brands and people present themselves to the world. And it does seem like it's kind of rare, even for brands that are really good at delivering a great experience, customer experience, or a great service to use that in their outbound messaging. Um, I did just notice that discover card is using Jennifer Coolidge, uh, to promote 24 seven access to us based service reps. So, you know, the, the kind of the knee jerk reaction to people have to The world of chatbots. I want to talk to somebody and I want them to be someone I understand. are there brands that you think have done this really effectively, promoted the idea of quality service or a great experience for a sustained period of time? Are there brands out there who've done that?

Yes, but it's a great point and a smart observation that a lot of brands have a differentiated experience but then don't use marketing to proactively highlight it, right? They, you experience the experience and then they just sort of assume that that kind of sinks in by osmosis and then maybe you'll tell somebody about it, hopefully, maybe, is not really a strategy, that is a, that is a wish. But there are some examples, like one of the ones that I talk about, is Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme has the hot, fresh light, right? So when they're, when they're making donuts, the light goes on, which is Pavlovian in a lot of ways, right? But if they're not making donuts, the light is off, right? So they're basically just telling everybody who can see this light, you know, that this is the experience of the moment. I think that's a really, really smart way to go about it. Um, in, in the Talk Triggers book, we. one of the signature case studies is, is Doubletree Hotels and their famous chocolate chip cookie that they, that they give to guests. the, you know, they don't do TV commercials like, Hey, we have cookies. Cause that's weird. It's not a bakery, but every Doubletree hotel in the world that is close enough to an airport to have an airport shuttle, that airport shuttle is wrapped with graphics of giant chocolate chip cookies. Right there. They're just kind of like reminding you like oh, yeah, that's the hotel that gives you the cookies, right? They're not beating you over the head with it. And I think that's the way most brands who do it Do it well is is that it's not the star of the messaging, but it's definitely a component and I think The discover example is great. You know, the whole spot is not necessarily about, Hey, our reps are in the U S but it's definitely part of the story. And I think that double or a discover is one of the examples I use a lot for a lot of different reasons. I think they are excellent, excellent marketers and always have been. And of course now they're getting bought. So we'll see how that continues or doesn't.

yeah. Brian and I talk probably a little too much about the experience that Chick fil A delivers. Um, it's not something you ever see in their marketing message. They want to be known for great chicken. Uh, man, you go in there and that experience, once you, you know, it keeps you coming back cause you know, it's going to be, it's going to be the same every time,

Yep. Or, or pal sudden service, which is one of the examples in the book, um, is it a chain in Tennessee, 30 stores, fastest fast food place in the country, right? I mean, they're, they're seven times faster than Taco Bell in terms of how long it takes you to get your food and drive through it's, it's called the business is called sudden Service. So they're kind of committing to the bit there at that point, right? If you're going to, if you, if the business is going to be named sudden service, it better be fast. Uh, so sometimes you can, you can bake it into, uh, You're positioning, which I think, you know, there's a reason why Jiffy lube is called Jiffy lube, not lube, right? They're, they're telling you from the beginning

right? A couple of reasons for

yeah, there's, yeah, there's, there's some SEO reasons. Um, there's some other reasons. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, but, they're telling you what they are in the name of it, which is always the best practice.

So let's talk a little bit more about AI. And I know you don't want to look too far ahead, but what do you see from how AI is going to start impacting that consumer experience?

Yeah, I mean, there's so many different piece. I'm actually working on a speech about this now. As we talked about earlier, first of all, it's going to change expectations around speed, right? You've got companies like lemonade who can process an insurance claim in 3 seconds. If you're Allstate, you're like, bro, what do we do now? Right? I mean, so, so they're just, and there's going to be. In almost every industry that isn't just like hands on like come to my house and fix my toilet There's going to be an AI fueled startup that that literally does whatever your business does 10x faster than anybody else in the business does it today And you're going to have to figure out how to contend with that. so that's going to be crazy. The other thing, you know, we talk a lot about generative AI and that's the one that people understand the most, right? Being able to, to, you know, make me a cookie recipe or create an image for me or make a movie or whatever. And that's certainly going to have huge impact on, on content marketing and, you know, books and music and all the things that are, built by humans. But the reality is a lot of that stuff is just, you Good enough. I mean, they say that AI stands for artificial intelligence, but I think it stands for average information. it, it, you know, there's not, I've never seen anything by that, that I saw either produced by AI or, or I produced it using my own AI tools. I'm like, that's amazing. That is, that is the best version of that I've ever seen. Like that, you know, it's, it's remarkably good, but it's by no means the best. And, and, and what I tell marketers in particular is like, look. If, if the work that you turn out isn't better than what AI can do, that's your fault, not AI's fault. Like, do better work. Do more creative work. and the creative part of it, I think, is, is critical because in a world where everybody has the same robots, the strategist becomes king. You've got to be able to, to, to create marketing. That is different enough or weird enough that AI would never come up with it. And to that end, one of my good friends, Justin Keller, who's now at Movable Inc, Justin, when he's adding people to his marketing team now. He's not looking for marketing operations people or copywriters or designers or photographers or video editors or analysts. He's looking for poets and sculptors and people who have degrees in theater. He's literally looking for people who are raw creative because they can come up with ideas. That AI never will. And the ability to then execute on those ideas is totally commoditized now, right? You can find somebody to execute. You can find somebody to write a landing page for a webinar. You don't need to find somebody. You just go to your AI tool and say, write me a webinar landing page done, but what's the webinar about, right? And, and you've got to have some really creative people on your teams in order to do something that AI would never conjure. And to me, that's one of the success paths that people really need to think about is, is. True creativity will become more important. Faux creativity will become dramatically unimportant. Of course.

like that kind of faux creativity. We had a conversation recently with Margaret Johnson, the Chief Creative Officer at Goody Silverstein and Partners, and she talked about how all of the art directors in their building are being actively trained on mid journey and other visual, uh, AI generation tools. And to your point, like, that's what can win when all the everyone's got those robots, but you've got great creative people who know how to use them and originate something, a starting point. that makes the AI better and then can massage an output to be something special. You know, that's where the magic is.

Absolutely. I mean, I, when I first started, when I was an intern, uh, in college, I interned at an ad agency. And, and when I was there that summer is the first time the creative departments got computers. And it's the same kind of revolution. It's like, Oh my God, now we have to like, we have to, and we can make something better, faster, cheaper, easier, more affordable. You know, is everybody else going to do it this way? Like, what about, we have a photographer on staff, like, what are they going to do? Like, all of that disruption, is, is scary, but it's also a huge opportunity if you can get it right.

this podcast is all about some of those decision points in your career. And you've certainly had a winding way to get to where you are in a good way. but, you know, you started as a political strategist, is that correct? Yeah,

I started as a direct mail specialist for Senator John McCain.

That's awesome.

that?

did you have like a moment of like, this is not for me? Or did you kind of just see there was opportunity to do what you're doing in other industries? Like, how did you

Yeah, so I was a political science major and I, and I, my first part of my career was managing campaigns, but man, it's a tough business. And I got out of it mostly because in those days, You weren't constantly campaigning the way you are today. In those days, you would go into an election cycle and then you would have a period of time in between cycles. So right about then is, is when the very, very, very, very beginning of digital occurred. And my friends from college had started the first internet company in Arizona where I used to live. And we had beers one night and they're like, man, we're starting to grow this company. We don't know anything about marketing and communications. I'm like, well, that's okay. Because when you say the word internet, I don't actually know what that word means. and I didn't, but I said, I don't want to do this anymore. So I'm going to come go work for you guys. And so I ended up being the vice president of sales and marketing of an internet company, having never been on the internet, which makes for an interesting first day of work. Uh, and you may have heard me say this on stage, but it was so long ago, that domain names were free.

Oh yeah.

can get domain names. You just get what you just get them because why would like, there's no websites. Like, why would you have a website? What would you do with a website? So you just get whatever domain you wanted. And, and, uh, my partners and I, in that company, we sold budweiser. com to Anheuser Busch in 1993. So 30, almost 31 years ago for 50 cases of beer.

Oh man.

That's how long ago it was.

Well, it makes you feel any better in today's dollars. That would be like 250 cases of

Yeah, exactly, exactly. that's, I love digital because you have the same kind of finality. Even, even versus outdoor or radio or TV or newspaper or magazine or even direct mail, which I started in, you know, in digital, you're like, okay, how many people clicked? How many people opened? How many people converted? Right? That, that level of like, Math and analytics. I really, I really enjoyed. So, uh, I've only done two smart things in my career. Really one, uh, convinced my wife to marry me, which was still my greatest triumph. And the thing I worked out the hardest, frankly, um, and to, uh, got the good sense to get involved in the internet, like essentially from the first day and, and mostly stay involved since then.

Well, there were the early days of the internet, direct mail. response marketers like they were a natural fit for what was happening there. So yeah, a lot of people

It made perfect sense to me. Absolutely.

then the most recent pivot, you know, now you, you know, you mentioned you sold your consulting practice. Um, and I guess that was to become what you are now, which is the biggest tequila influencer in the country. Yeah.

No, that was not, that was not it. That was

It, you know, it wasn't that,

No, it wasn't that I,

Sounds like the world's greatest midlife crisis.

happy accident. No, I,

more of an evolution than a hard cut. Not

know, for, for, for 10 years, I was running a global strategy firm with really big clients doing great work. And I was also traveling 48 weeks a year as a professional speaker. And, and I've spent. Every minute of every flight doing work and every weekend, and I loved it, I thought, and then when the pandemic happened and I had to stop traveling, I realized that I'd actually been manifestly unhappy for a long time, but I just didn't know because I'd never stopped. I've never stopped. and, and then when I was forced to stop, I was like, I I, I can't keep doing both of these things. Um, it's just too much. And I sold Convince and Convert, uh, to a good friend cause who I knew would, would be a great steward of the business. And they have been, and, and said, okay, I'm going to keep doing the speaking side. Cause it's, you know, nobody ever gives standing ovations in a conference room to a strategic plan. It's more psychologically satisfying to be a speaker than to be a strategist. Yeah. Uh, and it was, man, that strategy. Woo. You know, you're not signing autographs, you know, it doesn't really work

once, not even once.

never. Uh, so I kept the speaking business, sold the consulting business. And, and I hosted a podcast every week for 10 years called social pros did 500 and something episodes. And after I'd sold the business, uh, for a. I've been out for almost a year. I was like, you know what I should do? I should take some of the time that I used to allocate every week to the podcast, and maybe I should just try to teach people some of the things I've learned about tequila in the last 25 years. So, uh, not even two years ago was when we started. I just made a video. It was terrible. Made another video, also terrible. Made a couple more videos, slightly less terrible, um, on Instagram and TikTok. And then it kind of caught fire and now it's like a whole business and I'm the second most popular non celebrity tequila influencer on the planet. I have quarter million followers or something across channels, 25 videos a month. We have a bunch of sponsors and partnerships and I'm in Mexico all the time now, uh, doing work. So it's, uh, it's, it's been a, been a crazy ride. Uh, we really, really enjoy it. It's a fun, it's a fun business to be in, to be in, obviously. And the UPS guy is like, dude, what is your problem? Because I get, I get like eight or 10 bottles a week sent to the house for review. Cause we do so many tequila reviews and he's just like, I don't know. I mean like you gotta, you know, and I keep having to buy more shelves and my wife's like, no more shelves. It's like a whole thing. So yeah, it's Tequila Jay Baer on Instagram. Look it up folks. Tequila Jay Baer.

Yeah, it's a great follow. Um, I asked you, you had a recent video of you going through, uh, the liquor store in Vegas, which is like the collision of, of, yeah,

worlds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually one of the things I'm glad you mentioned that. Thanks for pointing it out. It's one of the things I'm doing now is there's other people who make tequila content for like four other, uh, accounts that, that are, um, they have a pretty good audience and, and I'm like, well, what's our differentiator. Number one, my co host Maddie is amazing. we're the only one who kind of are a duo. But number two, since I do travel every week still, I'm like, well, I'm going to go to the, the top liquor store in every city where I'm doing a keynote. I'm just going to say, well, here's the tequila I'd buy at that store. And so we're starting to do that, that thesis. You saw the Vegas one. Uh, we did a Nashville one last week. This week we're doing one in Phoenix. Next week, um, New Orleans. So every week it's like a new liquor store adventure. So people seem to like that content. It's kind of fun.

yeah, it's great. Yeah. Let us know when you come to Philadelphia.

I will,

For sure. Teach us.

will. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania being a control state is a bit of a, bit of a tequila desert. It gets a little harder. Uh, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. There's a few states that's like, Ooh, this is going to be a tough list.

Well, Philly is a short drive to New Jersey and

Exactly. Exactly.

have options. Yeah. We do

Absolutely.

One of the, the messages I've always gotten from you over the years and it's been helpful advice for, for everybody that I've worked with is just, you know, these things like technology and digital, they're, they're just the enabler, you know, it's not your golden ticket. Especially if you can't, hold up your end of the bar, um, and so, um, you know, with everything you've seen in your career over, many decades, do you feel like the principles of marketing and pretty much stayed the same or, you know, do we just live in a completely different universe from when you started?

I think their principles have always been the same. And always will be. It's just how you articulate and execute against those principles have changed a tremendous amount and will continue to change. And now with AI, we'll change even, even more than we've expected and experienced in the, in the recent past with the ideas of, okay, how do we. How do we make somebody know what we do? How do we make them need what we sell? And then how do we make them tell other people about it? Right? Whether you're executing that on, a, a flyer posted to a wall or an AI driven chat bot, the core thesis around what marketing is about, is the same and we'll, and we'll always be the same. What we forget though, is, is that the tools change probably more and faster in marketing than almost any other discipline other than maybe like medicine or something. Right? Like, even the stuff that, that my team and I were doing five years ago, you wouldn't, you know, You wouldn't do now much less 10, 20 or 30 years ago. So, it's, it's good job security for, uh, for folks like you, right? Like keep, keep telling them what, what today's truth is. Cause yesterday's truth may no longer be true.

Jay, thank you. Your background, your storytelling, your experiences, all really, really interesting. And, uh, we're very grateful that you joined us.

My pleasure. It's great to be with you. I love the show. Amazing questions as well. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'll come back sometime. We'll just, we'll do a whole show on tequila. You let me know when you're ready and tequila, actually the field of tequila marketing is a very interesting, uh, business. There's a, there's some, there's some opportunities there.

Love it. Love it.

That was, it sounds like maybe a follow up podcast,

You let me know

a live edition from

can do, can do. We

one of the road trips we always plan from, from every time we talk, talk to a guest.

I love it. Let me know. We'll do it. I appreciate it

All right, Jay. We really appreciate your time.

Thanks.

Wow, Brian, thank you. It was an amazing guest. hats off to you for pulling in an a list speaker like that to join us. What a treat.

It was, it was awesome to be able to talk to him and go through a lot of the things that we usually talk about anyway, but, his point of view and he's just connected with so many people and heard so many stories. And it's great to get some of that knowledge.

Next time, tequila.

or right now, tequila. Yes,

I know nothing about tequila.

time to time to learn. Never too, never too late to start.

Never too late. Brian, before we transition to our dear, hopelessly unattainable guest segment, feel like we should address something we've been, we've been skipping on this podcast. Relentless self promotion.

Oh, God.

Yeah, so, uh, I would ask anybody who's listening, if you've enjoyed this even a little bit, please, share, post it to your socials, whatever it takes, just listen, subscribe, share, we appreciate it,

Oh, friend.

tell a friend. Alright, so now I will give you my dear, hopelessly unattainable guest. Here we go, I think you're gonna like it. Dear Elon Musk, please join us on the Snap Decisions podcast. We're doing it strictly for the attention, which I believe you'll relate to and appreciate. Sincerely, John O'Brien.

and that's it.

That's it. I mean, I, I, I'm not gonna, you know, appeal to ego and accomplishment and all the stuff that you would expect. Just, I'm not saying he's an attention whore, but he will certainly understand people who are just looking for attention. And in our case, that's us.

I respect that. sounds like a tweet you can fit it.

And it'll fit on X.

Yes. Okay. Good stuff. Let's reel them in.

One at a time. Start booking them. All right, man. Well, thanks for a good episode.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Good talking.

until next time.