Customers Don’t Want “Best.” They Want Fast. Customer Service Expert Jay Baer & His Best Advice #242

Summary

Podcast Summary

Unemployable with Jeff Dudan

Episode #242 (January 13, 2026):
"Customers Don’t Want ‘Best.’ They Want Fast. Customer Service Expert Jay Baer & His Best Advice"

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Episode Overview

This episode of “Unemployable with Jeff Dudan” features renowned customer experience and marketing strategist Jay Baer. The conversation explores why speed and responsiveness are now central to winning and retaining customers, the psychology of customer experience, the mechanics of word-of-mouth marketing, and how small businesses can differentiate themselves in a changing world. With humor and wit, Jay draws from his extensive consulting background, sharing real-world stories, talk triggers, and actionable advice for entrepreneurs and franchise owners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building a Business Without Digital Advertising

• [01:05] Jeff opens by asking if it’s possible to succeed in business without digital ads.
• Jay’s response:
  • “Advertising is a tax paid by the unremarkable.” — Robert Stevens, Geek Squad founder (quoted by Jay) [01:15]
  • The best companies create experiences that customers talk about, effectively turning them into “volunteer marketers.”
  • Word of mouth, not ads, is the most efficient way to grow.

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2. Creating Word-of-Mouth—By Design or by Accident?

• TOMS Shoes as a case study – their “buy one, give one” model is built for conversation from the beginning.
• Personal example: Jay's vivid plaid suits at keynotes became a calling card generating buzz, even though the strategy was added mid-career [03:04].

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3. Delivering Value on Stage (and in Business)

• A practical, implementable keynote leads to repeat business.
• Jay: “Funnier than they thought, more practical than they thought… I wouldn’t dream of giving advice if they can’t put it in practice.” [05:06]
• Takeaway: Lasting impact isn’t the event itself but whether people improve their business 6 months later [06:40].

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4. The Role—and Risk—of Humor

• Humor works only if it’s rooted in true audience insight.
• Jay: “Don’t start with ‘let’s do something funny.’ Start with an insight that resonates, and if humor fits, use it.” [08:15]
• Example: Progressive’s “becoming your parents” campaign works because the underlying truth is universal [09:08].

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5. Customer Experience: It’s About Speed, Not Just Quality

• GEICO example: Easy, hassle-free policy cancellation impressed Jeff, leading to positive word of mouth [12:34].
• Jay: “Isn’t it sad your expectation was that it would be a complete hassle?” [13:01].
• The experience was so remarkable that it got shared on the podcast—proof that customer-centric speed drives growth.

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6. The ‘Time to Win’: Speed as a Differentiator

• Jay’s latest book, The Time to Win, is purposely short to align with the value of customers’ time [14:22].
• Customers post-pandemic value time more, expect responsiveness, and judge companies on it.
  • Research: Two-thirds of customers say speed is as important as price [16:34].
  • 51% of customers will hire the first business to respond, regardless of price [19:42].
  • 83% say responsiveness is critical for loyalty [19:42].
• Memorable quote: “Today, we interpret speed as caring, and responsiveness as respect.” [21:00]

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7. Speed: Finding the ‘Right Now’

• Too fast can create suspicion (e.g., food arriving too quickly, 90-second enchiladas story) [24:11].
• The sweet spot is “slightly faster than expected” — not too much, not too little — the “Goldilocks zone” [24:11].

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8. Stories That Spark Word-of-Mouth (Talk Triggers)

• Businesses need an actual word-of-mouth strategy, not just hope.
• Powerful anecdote (Skip’s Kitchen): Every customer who orders gets to pick a playing card for a chance at a free meal, which becomes the story customers share—“the Joker Restaurant” [27:59].
• Four Pillars of Talk Triggers:
  • Must be remarkable
  • Must be repeatable (available to everyone)
  • Must be reasonable (not too grand/unbelievable)
  • Must be relevant (fit the business context) [35:17]
• Other examples:
  • Mike Diamond Plumbing—“the smell good plumbers” [39:36]
  • Locksmith who performs a free security audit

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9. Authority & the Future of Search (AI, LLMs, and Beyond)

• LLMs change how customers find businesses; your website becomes less important, trust signals become crucial [41:52].
• “Atomize your awareness”: Be present in as many places as possible (community sites, guest articles, etc.) [43:50].
• LLMs will break ties based on signals of authority and third-party trust, not just your own claims.

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10. The Race to Human Touch in an AI World

• Early AI adoption gives a short-term edge, but soon, empathy and uniquely human gestures will distinguish businesses [45:48].
• Chewy.com story: Sends grieving customers an oil painting of their lost pet and a handwritten note [47:06].
  • “If you want your customers to love you, do something lovable. And that ain’t AI.” — Jay Baer [49:48]
• Teller (of Penn & Teller) quote:
  • “Sometimes magic is just working harder on something than anybody would reasonably expect.” [48:47]

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11. Small Business & Social Media Strategy

• Document, don’t direct: Just show what you do (“documentary, not a movie”) [61:38].

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Advertising is a tax paid by the unremarkable.”
  — Jay Baer quoting Robert Stevens [01:15]
• “Word of mouth is the most cost effective and efficient way to build any business.” [01:15]
• “We interpret speed as caring, and responsiveness as respect.” [21:00]
• “If it’s this hard to give them money, how hard will it be to actually get what I need out of them eventually?” [23:30]
• “People think great business creates conversation. It doesn’t. Making good on your promise just prevents customers from leaving.” [27:59]
• “There’s a big difference between a bullet point and a story.” [36:08]
• “If you want your customers to love you, do something lovable. And that ain’t AI.” [49:48]
• “Sometimes magic is just working harder on something than anybody would reasonably expect.” — Teller [48:47]

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Notable Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:15] Advertising as a “tax” and word of mouth as lever
• [03:04] How brands add word-of-mouth triggers later
• [05:06] Practical value and humor in keynotes
• [08:15] Humor in small business advertising
• [13:01] GEICO, speed and customer expectations
• [16:34] Most customers value speed equally to price
• [19:42] Half of customers hire the first responder, not the cheapest
• [21:00] Speed = caring; responsiveness = respect
• [24:11] “Right now” — the Goldilocks zone for responsiveness
• [27:59] Skip’s Kitchen, talk trigger story
• [35:17] Creating sticky, compelling word-of-mouth moments
• [41:52] SEO, LLMs, and “trust signals”
• [45:48] AI commoditization; building human moments
• [47:06] Chewy.com story: Send oil paintings to grieving pet owners
• [48:47] Teller’s “working harder” magician quote
• [61:38] Social media tip: Documentary, not movie

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Fun & Personal Asides

• Jay’s The Time to Win is intentionally short, so people can read it fast—“why make people spend 7 hours reading about speed?” [14:22]
• Tales of tequila: Jay’s alter-ego as a tequila influencer and founder of The Tequila Report [52:25]
• Recommendations for good value and celebration-worthy tequilas (G4, Tears of Llorona) [58:51]
• Jay’s dream business: a Puerto Vallarta dive bar and taco tour [64:13]
• Best life/business advice:
  • “Some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue… don’t get too excited about your wins or too disappointed about your losses.” [64:46]

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Actionable Takeaways

• Embed speed and responsiveness into every customer interaction.
• Design talk triggers: small, repeatable, relevant operational touches people can’t resist sharing.
• Don’t undervalue documenting your work (video, social)—boring to you may be amazing to others!
• Authority and trust signals—not a flashy website—will win voice/AI-powered search for service businesses.
• Leverage authentic human care (especially as AI proliferates).
• Stay even-keeled in business: balance the highs and lows for long-term resilience.

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Resource Links

• Jay Baer Official Site
• The Time to Win (Book)
• Talk Triggers (Book)
• The Tequila Report

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For entrepreneurs and business owners, this episode is a masterclass in competing through customer experience, speed, and talk-worthy operational choices—a must-listen (or read) for standing out in a crowded, fast-changing world.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome everybody to the Unemployable podcast. I'm Jeff Dutton. If you became one of America's youngest congressional campaign managers at the age of 23, working for John McCain. If you were super early Internet executive in 1994 and in a moment of great leadership sold the domain name Budweiser.com to Anheuser Busch for 50 cases of beer. If you ultimately found Convince and Connect, one of the world's most renowned digital strategy advisory firms, advising over 700 brands globally, some of the greatest like Nike, Oracle and IBM. And if you are a global keynote speaker and author of seven best selling books, your name can only be Jay Baer. Welcome, Jay.

[B]

Great to be here, Jeff. Thanks so much for the opportunity and nice to be unemployable.

[A]

Yes, it is, isn't it? It is one of the greatest places to be.

[B]

It really is. And it's been that way for a while. People ask me sometimes, would you ever want to have a job? And the answer is I would not.

[A]

Yeah, well, we're doing a job, but we're just, we. We have more latitude.

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

Indeed. Here's my opener for you. Is there any scenario where a business can spend $0 in digital advertising and still build a great business?

[B]

Many scenarios, in fact. One of the most impactful quotes I ever heard was from Robert Stevens, who's the founder of Geek Squad, fantastic entrepreneur. He and I were both at a conference once and he said, advertising is a tax paid by the unremarkable. And I really think there's a lot of truth now, of course, there's a time and a place for advertising. I've sold a lot of ads. I've bought a lot of ads. But it is also true, Jeff, that many of the most successful businesses in the world advertise the least. They're able to do that because they deliver an experience to their customers that creates conversations. Their customers become volunteer marketers on behalf of the brand. And I will tell you, and this has been true since the first caveman sold an arrowhead to another caveman. Word of mouth is without question the most cost effective and efficient way to build any business.

[A]

You were in the word of mouth hall of marketing hall of fame, correct?

[B]

So they tell me.

[A]

Yeah, I've heard of it.

[B]

Everybody's always talking about it.

[A]

Everybody's always talking about it. I never seen it online.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't have a bronze bust either, unfortunately.

[A]

Nice. All right, well, look, being unremarkable brands and I, I think about. Oh, what is it, Tom Shoes. Who gives One pair of shoes away for everyone that they sell. There's other companies that you hear about, but like do these companies start with the strategy of being unremarkable and building a word of mouth or a referral based brand, building a narrative around their brand, or is this something that either desperation, low advertising budgets lead them to and then when they find success, they double down on it?

[B]

It's an interesting question.

[A]

I.

[B]

It's both for sure. I think for brands where the word of mouth device is inherent into the product or service offering, like Tom's, right, Where it's buy one, get one. Yes. I mean that, that was.

[A]

Is it buy one, gift one really?

[B]

Right, exactly. Yes, yes, that's what I meant. Buy one, gift one. That is, that is endemic to the brand. That was. They didn't add that later. That was sort of the, the, the thesis from the jump. In other cases, most other cases, people either naturally deliver something that, that customers don't expect and that becomes a word of mouth generator, or they decide to add that point. Even my, even my own scenario, I've been a professional keynote speaker now for 18 years, and it was probably 12 years ago, if I have my math correct, where I started wearing increasingly vivid plaid suits on stage. I have a collection of 15 or 20 plaid suits, each one brighter than the next. And I did that initially so people could find me when I was done, if they had questions or wanted to hire me, et cetera. But then it became sort of a shtick. And for a while there, Jeff, when people would book me to give a speech, they would go to a webinar that I would give them. It was dressjbaer.com and on that website we'd have photos of me wearing each and every one of the suits. They could pick which suit they wanted me to wear for their event and then it would go on my calendar so I would know what to pack. And sometimes they'd match their logo and sometimes they'd want it to contrast with their logo. Sometimes they'd have the attendees vote on which suit I would wear, which was fun. So that became one of my calling cards. And that was not something I started from the beginning. It was something that I added later as a word of mouth device. So to answer your question, both are possible.

[A]

The interesting mechanics about what you did there is when we go and do speak making and I do some, you want to create a teaser, you want to create a reason for people to show up, but more often you just want engagement. You just want them to open the Email or to read the message and to understand who you are and maybe learn a little bit about you before you show up. So having them pick a suit, it seems unoffensive. It's non committal, it's fun. What a great opportunity to do that. And so when you do a keynote, other than the choice of outfit, what do what, what, what's people's takeaway and what do you hear the most?

[B]

Well, it depends. Cause I have several different topics, all in the sort of marketing, customer service, customer experience, business growth category. But there's different, different topics. I think what people tell me most often is that it's funnier than they thought it was going to be and it's more practical and implementable than they thought it was going to be. Like, I, I've been a strategist and entrepreneur for 30 years and a speaker for 18. So for me, the assignment of giving a speech is just consulting, but I'm standing up and holding microphone. So I wouldn't dream of giving a client advice if they can't put into practice, nor would I dream of giving that same advice without implementation advice to, to an audience. Right. So people can, can take what I tell them on stage and start working on it the next day. And to me that is sort of. Of course you do that. But, but I've been told that that is not always the case when people give presentations, that it can be a little bit theoretical. And that's not how I wrote.

[A]

Well, if you want to charge a good price, you want to get a value price, then you have to deliver value. People have to, yeah, people. People have to refer you into other people saying, I got things immediately that, that helped my business. And if it's only two or three things, it doesn't really matter. I hear things all the time from people that I spoke to or events that I did and I'll go bounce and they, I have a thing about rushing to conflict. And they'll say, you know, every time I get in a situation, I hear your voice saying, rush to conflict. And I go, and I wade into it. It's not as bad as I thought. Good, bad news doesn't age well. I dealt with it right away. And that's a tool that you gave me that was worth every bit of the $0 they paid me to hear me speak.

[B]

That's, that's fantastic. Yeah. I always feel like, and I say this a lot to clients, like people will have an amazing time in the hour that I'm with them. Like that. I do this for A living, like that's gonna happen. But I don't really care about that. What I care about is six months later, are they making more money? Like, is their business better? That's the measure of the value, is not what happens in the 60 minutes, but what happens in the 200 days. And so for me, that's how you actually determine whether it's worth it.

[A]

You said it was funny. Is the humor baked in or is it off the cuff?

[B]

Both. I've done a lot of emcee work as well, so I have the ability to sort of riff. But there are definitely, you do this enough times, there are definitely pieces of it that are designed to bring humor. Like a lot of people who architect presentations, I try and go back and forth, but it's serious and then it's funny and then it's serious and it's funny. And you, you try and you try and check all the boxes, right. You try and hit all the emotional beats and sometimes it's wistful and sometimes it's, it's nostalgic and sometimes it's a little bit brusque and sometimes it's funny.

[A]

Yeah. What about humor in advertising? Is it when, when is it, when does I know when it works? Yeah, right. Like progressive commercials. Love it. Yeah, like the, you know, the I, I, I, I can't wait for a new one to come out because that's every dad, you know, don't be your parents type advertising. Geico's done an incredible job.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It, it seems like everybody's trying to use humor to connect relationally with their customer base, but that can't be the purpose of the ad. You know, how, how do, how would small companies think about using humor?

[B]

Yeah, it's challenging because of all the ways that you can succeed with marketing and advertising, one of the most challenging is humor. Because people's sense of humor is not the same. Yeah, it's certainly different culturally. It's different by age group and a number of other things. And some people just don't think things are funny that other people do. And so it can be a little bit of a high wire act. But as you say, Jeff, when it works, it really works. But when it doesn't work, it doesn't work at all. Right. So it is a little bit of a challenging assignment. And I always feel like the way to go about that is to not say, let's do something funny, but to come up with an insight that resonates with your audience. And then if you want to deliver on that insight Using humor. Great. Give that a shot. And to me, that's a perfect example of progressive.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Progressive has this insight that everybody thinks they're exceptional, but they end up being just like their parents. That's the insight. The way they deliver that is with a series of vignettes that become very humorous. And one of the reasons that works with everybody is that it is true for everybody. Right. It doesn't matter where you live or your socioeconomic background or your race or your gender, your creed. That insight is universally true. And to me, that's the genius of that particular campaign or sets of campaigns. It's not like, hey, let's just do something funny. You see that a lot in super bowl ads, right? It's like, well, we're spending all this money and we got people watching, so we better do something funny. Funny. And to me, many of those suck. Right. They're not funny, but you can see that somebody sat in a conference room and the first thing they put on the whiteboard was funny.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And when you start with funny, it typically isn't.

[A]

Yeah. They're looking at each other saying, is this anything?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Is it going to work? Exactly. And then. And then the one without a sense of humor approves is unfortunately, the one. The approver.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And they just boost $8 million in 30 seconds. But back to the progressive situation. The tie to the product is almost invisible. I mean, how do you get there? Over to the product? Or is it just simply an awareness and creating an emotion?

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting. I've had that same thought. Right. That they really don't have much by way of call to action, nor do many people in that category, the insurance category, but they spend a tremendous amount of money. And so I think it's primarily a what can we do to get you to remember our name? And then when you're shopping, you will at least give us a chance because you remember the name, which is not a strategy fiscally, that works in most categories. Right. Because it's very expensive to have unprompted, significant, widespread, always on name id. Right. It's really hard. It's hard locally, much less nationally. So you've got to spend a bunch of money. But when people are like, okay, I should look at my car insurance or my home insurance or whatever, they're going to think GEICO and they're going to think progressive and they're going to think all state. Right. And. And maybe they'll think State Farm if they're thinking about more of a local operation or Khakis Yeah, sure. Exactly. Right. And then you got all the, then you got the general and all the other like second and third tier folks right in that. And that is a nationwide. Right. With the nationwide is on your side jingle with Peyton Manning, etc, the same kind of thing. Right. They're not talking about insurance, they're talking about Peyton Manning. And the jing is what keeps in, keeps in your mind or, you know, so it's a really interesting. Insurance in particular is a really fascinating category to study about how they actually attract customers.

[A]

I think everybody was chasing Geico because Geico had so much success for so long. And when they went through the caveman thing and then they get the lizard thing and, and at the end of the day though, they're the ones that have the best call to action, which is save. Hey, it's so simple. A caveman could do it. Save 15, take 15 minutes and save 15%. And by the way, they do my jet skis, they did my boat, they were cheaper and, and they're easier online. I can access my. I cancel. I sold a boat and I had to cancel a policy. I'm like, well, this is going to be a real pain in the ass. And I, it's like, now one of my goals in life is to one day successfully cancel a gym membership.

[B]

You know, it'd be easier to buy a gym than to cancel.

[A]

Yeah, well, I, yeah, you have to buy it just to go ahead and check the box. But in terms of, I went on to the website and this is not a GEICO commercial. We don't get paid for this. But I was able to cancel it. And they didn't try to say, why are you trying to cancel? Don't you need to talk to somebody? Can we do it for 20% less next year? They just made it easy. They sent me an email, I got a confirmation immediately. I got a text and they were like, you're done, sir.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, you just demonstrated the power of customer experience. Right. I mean, isn't it sad that your expectation was that it would be a complete hassle? Yes. What does that say about business? That you are assuming that this is going to be a tortuous walking through glass situation and that you are so delighted and amazed by the fact that that was not true, that here you are in a very popular podcast talking about it unprompted and unpaid, when people say, does customer experience actually make a difference in business in terms of financial outcomes? Yeah, we just proved it.

[A]

Yeah. And I would like to point out Jay just said very Popular podcast now. Jay, what I. What I've. I'm holding up your book for people on Apple or Spotify and it is the time to win. And you just gave me the great lead in because my GEICO experience, it was fast and I've heard you say that the speed of response is even more important than the speed to, to resolution. Yeah, that's true. And you've.

[B]

You.

[A]

I read the book and it's, it's a great. This. Just because it's small and just because it's very affordable doesn't mean that it's not packed full of action. I've got the whole thing highlighted here. So talk to us about some of your insights on time because I found them to be very unique and absolutely intriguing.

[B]

Thank you. Yeah, it is a very small book and that wasn't the initial plan. As always, when I do a new book project, we did a tremendous amount of first party research. It was the largest research project ever in the United States on the power of speed and responsiveness in business. And so I had a lot of, a lot of data and so I sat down to write a book and it was, it was going to be, you know, what we'd consider to be a full length business book, as I've done many times in the past. But I started to write the book and I got into it, I'm like, wait a second. Like this seems weird to make people spend like six or seven hours reading a book about speed. Like that seems to be the opposite of what I'm trying to talk about here. So it just felt like that's not really on brand for this message. So let's instead make a very small book that you can read very quickly, which then includes all the really important stuff and none of the fluff that certainly accompanies many business books. And it's been really popular. People, they get them at conferences or they buy them on Amazon and as you said, it's just a few dollars and you can read the book in an hour. And because the way we designed it, you get all the stuff that you would need in an hour as opposed to six or seven hours. It's also nice in events because people can put it in their pocket. It's always hard when you're doing a book signing and someone's trying to carry around a hardcover book and a glass of Chardonnay. It's just a hassle. It's actually worked really well from that perspective.

[A]

I know which one they're going to keep. If it's my Book.

[B]

There you go. There you go.

[A]

That book's going right in the recycle bin.

[B]

So what we started off with was again, an insight, an observation was that coming out of the pandemic, our relationship to time and how we spend it changed. That was the initial insight that people were making different behavioral choices than they made pre pandemic because the value of time had gone up. And a lot of the trends that we saw coming out of the pandemic, you know, quiet, quitting, great resignation, people wanting to work from home, they have to spend time in a car. Commuting, leisure travel, which is where you. The combination of business and leisure travel. You bring your kids to the conference and double dip the trip. Baseball. Right, baseball. Sort of the pitch clock. And now the games are 25 minutes a night shorter. Record attendance, record, TV ratings. People didn't want to spend 25 extra minutes a night night watching somebody stand around and scratch their nuts. As it turns out, all of these trends are the same trend, which is that we care about our time more than ever. And, and so fueled with that observation, we then did this big research project and said, well, what's the ramifications of that? If you, if you give your customers time, will they give you money? And if you cost your customers time, will it cost you money? And the answer is very clearly, yes. Two thirds of customers say today that speed is as important as price. Two thirds. How many of us run our business as if that were the case? Very few indeed. And that is the opportunity. That's why the book is called the Time to Win, because it is your time as a business owner, an entrepreneur and executive to use speed and responsiveness to outperform your competition before they realize.

[A]

What has happened next year for our brands. And we at Homefront Brands build property service franchise platforms. And I was, I, I have my quad. I'm a very big Jobsian quadrant person. So what am I going to focus on for next year? One is accuracy. And if it's not 100% right, it's wrong. And another is simplicity. Reducing the number of places people look to get the accurate information, which actually it's an undercurrent of speed to it. Another one's capacity. We're driving more bids business and more leads than our franchise owners can produce. And they have to be drowning in business before they'll. Some of them will add the next truck, the next crew, add the next salesperson. So, you know, a lot of our conversation needs to be around capacity.

[B]

Eth dilemma, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. I mean so we gotta help them. I mean, it's great if we can drive X dollars of business, but if they can only produce half of X, then we're gonna do half of X. So the other thing. But I actually dedicated a box after reading your book to speed.

[B]

Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Because I appreciate that very much.

[A]

Because if you think about the speed which a customer can access, the information they need, the speed at which we can coach a franchise owner to make a better decision, and it goes right along with our performance coaching and things that we've rolled out in the last six months. But I think it's so overlooked. And is that because business owners are myopic? They're thinking about what's the quality of the product that people are getting. What's the, what does it look like when it's done? Right, okay, I'm a siding company or I'm a roofing business. And they're like yards clean. The roof looks straight. Nothing got broken. Everything was as expected at the end of it. But if there was all of these service delays from the first call all the way through and poor communication, which feels like a waste of time in uncertainty. I mean, uncertainty is a waste of time. You just wasted my time because I had to try to figure out what you were trying to tell me. And. But I, I think it's, I think it's a huge miss for people that are running particularly small businesses.

[B]

Yeah, I completely agree. Clearly. I think the, the reasons are twofold. One, again, this is a different world, right? Like we, we do care about our time more than we did. So. So to. To deprioritize responsiveness through. In your business was not a huge mistake historically, it is now. So there is a difference in, in the, the viewpoint of your customers as to how important speed is in the stack rank of things that you can deliver. So that is. Is 1, 2. I feel like responsiveness is somehow decoupled in many cases from customer experience and customer service. Business owners, especially small business owners, tend to think that customer experience is attitudinal, that it's about being customer friendly or somehow being polite or kind or nice. And those things are true. But you don't get to that. You don't even get to display that card if you're not the first one to respond. I mean, the numbers are so compelling, Jeff, that 51% of customers, and this one speaks directly to your industry. 51% of customers, more than half bill hire whomever contacts them first, regardless of price. Regardless of price. So if you're in any kind of business where people are going to shop it, if you're in any kind of business where there's a bid or a quote, you should do whatever you can to be the first responder because it will literally line your pocket with money. And then if you're in a kind of business where you have, have repeat customer interactions, whether it's lawn care, pest care, anything along those lines, you know, H Vac, we are going to come in and do quarterly services, things like that, anytime where you're not doing a one and done with customers. The responsiveness part of it becomes even more important from a lifetime value consideration because 83% of customers, which is a shockingly large number, say that speed and responsiveness is a critical factor, not a factor, a critical factor in their loyalty to any particular service provider. So it's not just about being fast the first time somebody says, can you do a thing for me? It's the culture of responsiveness. Every time that customer needs to cancel, needs to change, needs to shift their date, needs to pay a bill, needs to do whatever, not wasting their time is a huge, huge competitive advantage. And it's because in this world today, and this is really the big difference pre versus post pandemic today, we interpret speed as caring and we interpret responsiveness as respect. That wasn't always true. If you are slow, if you waste my time, the way we internalize that as human beings and as consumers in the modern age is we internalize that as I am not an important enough customer to them. Now, that may not be true at all. There may be many good reasons why you weren't able to pick up the phone at that time or answer the email or whatever, send the truck, whatever the deal is. There may be great reasons for that, but the psychology of that, the customer internalizes it as a lack of respect. And that's how you lose your customer.

[A]

Being responsive, it implies priority, it implies importance. You're important to me when you hear or when we don't hire somebody, it's like we've called them three times and they don't care enough about us even to call us back. How much are they going to even care if we have a problem with the job or what the quality of the jobs can be? They might be the greatest fulfillment and service delivery company on the planet, but that's not the messaging that we're getting as consumers.

[B]

If it's this hard to give them money, like, how hard will it be to actually get what I need out of them eventually. And that's it. That tone setter is really important. That's why this first contact responsiveness is crucial because it sets the tone for the entire relationship thereafter. And I've taught this now to a lot of people, people since we wrote the book. And it's. It's crazy how many folks get back a hold of me like, yep, Jay, we. We added more people on the phones or we changed our email response, or we added a, you know, quote via text or all these different techniques that you can use to be. To be faster from the jump. And it is. It's been really, really working for people.

[A]

Can being early be as bad as being late?

[B]

Um, I don't know if it's as bad, but it can be a problem. Now, look, there is a circumstance where you can be too fast, okay? Many of us have experienced it. The example I use in the book is that I live in Indiana, not necessarily home to the most pervasive and authentic Mexican cuisine, but I'm from Arizona originally, so you gotta do what you gotta do. So there's a Mexican restaurant here in town. I went in there and I ordered chicken enchiladas, and they brought me enchiladas. I'm not even kidding. In 90 seconds. It was astonishing. I, like, basically started talking to my wife, turned back enchiladas placed in front of me, and I was first. Like, really? I'm like, wow, that is some service. And then I thought, wait a second, that's really fast for enchiladas, even in a Mexican food restaurant. And I was like, what. What is the deal here? Do they have an enchilada machine? Of which I'm not aware. Did somebody else order enchiladas? But they wanted the beef, and so they just put it on the hot window and waited for the next guy to order it. And it was me. And like, this is already made. Or do they have a fortune teller who checks you in and they already know what you're going to order? The whole thing was very puzzling. It was so fast that I literally distrusted the enchiladas, right? And I ate them anyway, right? And they were fine. But I distrusted it. Many years ago, I tried to get lasik for my eyes. We're both wearing glasses. And I went to the eye doctor. This is when I lived in Phoenix. And I said, yeah, I'm thinking about the lasik. And said, yeah, okay. And I said, well, when could you do the procedure? And he's like, I don't know, 45 minutes from now. And I was like, nope. This. Nope, I'm out. Not if you are that available. That is not a guy that I want cutting my eyes open. Right. You don't want to go to the fastest tattoo artist in your town either. Right. So there are scenarios where speed is a problem only because it decays trust. There is a sweet spot there. We call it the right now in the book. Which is. The right now is the perfect amount of elapsed time in any customer interaction. And we define the right now as slightly faster than customers expect it to be. Slightly faster than they expect it to be. If you're way faster than they expected to be, like, do you want an eye surgery right now? They're like, I don't trust you anymore. And obviously, if you're way slower, then they're annoyed and you've wasted their time. And all the things we talked about a moment ago. So there's like a Goldilocks zone for responsiveness. That's the right now. And this gets vital, highlighted sometimes in some of the scenarios that you're talking about, Jeff, where you might make an online inquiry of a service provider, and then, you know, 30 seconds later, they're calling your phone. Right. We've all had that experience. And it's like, a little too fast, Right. It just feels like operators are standing by. Right. And it just. It doesn't. The. The. It just feels weird. Right. So there's a. There's almost like, take a beat. Not a long beat because you might lose the opportunity, but a beat. Right. So instead of calling them in 30 seconds, call them in 15 minutes. Right? So there's just like a slight delay there that. That makes it the right now.

[A]

Stories are critical. And you. You. Some of your work has to do with under, you know, letting people understand, like, it's not necessarily about the product all the time. It's around a story around the product. Or I've heard you use an example on a podcast where it was a story about a restaurant that lays a deck of cards out when people walk in. Yes. And that. And I thought that was like, one of the best examples of somebody that create. Created a story that people would talk a hundred percent of the time that these people would talk about, and it just drove massive business to the restaurant. It was the simplest thing that they could do. Can you tell us that story?

[B]

Sure. It goes back to what we started the show with about the power of word of mouth. And. And if you tell. If you ask a business owner, any business owner, any is word of mouth. Important to your business 100% of the time, they will say yes. If you ask a business owner, any business owner, do you have an actual word of mouth strategy? The research shows fewer than 1% do. Fewer than 1%. Isn't that a strange dichotomy? You know, we all know word of mouth is important, yet we don't have any plans for it. How is that true? Why is that true? Well, I know why it's true because I wrote a whole book about it. It's true because we. And when I say we, I mean all business leaders have made a colossal blunder for the last hundred years. And that blunder is that we believe, wrongly, as it turns out, that competency creates conversations and it does not. Running a good business prevents your customers from defecting. It does not by any stretch of the imagination create conversations and word of mouth. Because all human beings in the world are wired the same way in their head. Head. We are wired to discuss things that are different and ignore things that are expected. So you delivering on what the customer paid for is satisfying for the customer, but they're not going to tell a story about it. This is why, just incidentally, this is why you never see 3 star reviews. Mathematically, you just don't see very many. What do you see? You see 1 star reviews, which is a story, a sad story. And you see five star reviews, which is a story, a happy story. You don't see a lot of three star reviews. Why? Because it's not a story. Yeah, I paid them and I got pretty much what I thought I was going to get. Three stars. Nobody even writes that review because it's not a story. So if you want your customers to become volunteer marketers on your behalf, and you absolutely do, you've got to give them a story to tell. And that story, and this is really important, is not never ever the thing you actually sell. Because that's what they expected it to be. So in the case that you mentioned, it's called Skip's Kitchen. It's a restaurant in Sacramento, California, owned by Skip and his wife. They used to be the managers of all the Chili's restaurants in Northern California, but they decided to do the entrepreneurial thing, be unemployable and do it themselves. And so Skips is a very good hamburger restaurant. It's counter service. So you walk up and there's a menu board there, and I want a patty melt and I want onion rings and I want a chocolate shake and then they bring it out to your table. We all know how that works. That's not remarkable in the least. But what they do, it's called a talk trigger. In my work, it's a talk trigger is an operational choice that is designed to create conversations. That was my plaid suits that we talked about earlier. So the talk trigger at Skips is after you order but before you pay, the counter person, as you mentioned, whips out a deck of playing cards and fans them out face down in front of you and looks you dead in the eye and says, and you pick a card. And if you happen to get one of the jokers, your entire meal is free. And it doesn't matter whether they're there by yourself or you've got a whole high school baseball team in tow. And about four people a day on average, win this game. And when they win, they go batshit crazy, right? They're calling their mom, they're putting it on Instagram, they're writing Google reviews. It's a crazy situation. But you don't have to win to tell the story, because everybody gets to play. It's not only on Tuesdays, it's not only on your birthday. It's every customer every time. And what's amazing about if you look at the reviews, people talk about it constantly. And in fact, colloquially, in Sacramento, people don't call it Skip's Kitchen. They call it that Joker Restaurant. In the history of their business, they've now been open, I think it's 12 years. They have spent a grand total of $0 on advertising, ever. And there's a line to get into this place every day. Because this game is the advertising and the customers are the sales team, I guarantee you.

[A]

Some people say I've been coming here for years and I finally won.

[B]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. And the beautiful. I was thinking about that today and I was like, man. But the key is after they order. So it's like the game where I'm going to put a piece of number on a paper and slide it over to you and look at it and you're going to say, I'm going to buy or sell the company. It's the same thing. It's like, okay, they're going to. They might order more because there's a chance that they're going to get it for free, but they've already decided to pay for it. So it's not like they're already.

[B]

They're already committed.

[A]

They're already committed. So it's a pretty. It keeps it pretty honest that way. What a. What a brilliant. What a brilliant strategy. Do you have any Other stories like that that you could share?

[B]

Oh, there's. There's tons. Because I, you know, wrote a whole book about it with my. My good friend and co author Daniel Lemon and have spoken about it for years and years. Years.

[A]

Which book was that? Because I'm gonna get that one.

[B]

It's called Talk Triggers.

[A]

Talk Triggers. Okay. Awesome.

[B]

And in fact, one of the stories. So we have to have a talk trigger for the book. Talk Triggers, obviously. Right? So just like. So the deal was. And it's written in the COVID of the book or inside cover. It's like, all right, look, here's the talk trigger for the book. If you don't like this book for any reason whatsoever, let us know. Here's our actual email address, and we will buy you any other book that you want. Okay? That was the shtick. And we sold a lot of books. And we only had two people take us up on the offer. And it was this is this. This story tells you all you need to know about. About readers. One guy emails me and says, jay, I didn't like the book. There weren't enough case studies and stories in it. And I thought, well, that's weird, because I wrote the book, and there's 33 different case studies in the book. And we purposely selected them. Some are small companies, some are big. Some are B2B, some are B2C, some are US, some are global. And, like, we had, like, a matri of stories. I'm like, I don't know how many you think you should have in one book, But I think 33 is sufficient. We made the offer, and so we'll give you the book. And he wanted a book by one of my friends, Mark Schaefer, who's a fantastic marketing author. So that was no problem. Gave him a book. A month later, I get an email from another guy who says, jay, I didn't like the book. I'm like, okay, why? He's like, there's too many case studies. And I'm like, you should talk to this other guy. And you guys need. You guys need to argue this out and figure out what your unified truth is. So I had to get him a book. And this guy was a little irksome. I think he just wanted to see if we would do it. He wanted some, like, out of print, rare, like, French cooking book. It was like 500 or something. And I'm like, well, we made the offer, so we gave him the book. And then we wrote a press release about it and got even more publicity.

[A]

All right, so I'M not asking for free consulting, but maybe, maybe so. I have, we have a fencing franchise. We got a kitchen, bath and closet franchise. We got a temporary walls franchise where we rent high end temporary containment walls. We got an exterior building washing and wind cleaning franchise called Window Hero. And then we have a roofing franchise with a really unique product that we can spray on the roof and extend the life of it and all of that kind of stuff. So if those are kind of the businesses we do, and if I was going to start a business, one of these businesses today and come up with a talk trigger, do you have anything in that book that you think would relate to this? To give us an idea about the talk trigger, we could use a bunch.

[B]

Of examples for home services in the book. And in fact, in the book there's actually a six step process of exactly how to create and implement and measure Talk Trigger. Because again, we developed this as a consulting firm and then wrote the book about it, right? So it's like, here's the worksheets to fill out and the whole thing. It's important to understand though, in terms of the provision of talk triggers that it isn't really just about, let's get in the conference room with pizza and a couple of beers and come up with a fun idea, right? This is operations that then has some kind of byproduct for customers. It's not really about imagination, it's about thinking through the strategy of it. So some of the things that are required for a talk trigger to work, work, it needs to be remarkable, right? So it needs to be a story worth telling. It has to be something different enough or unusual enough that, that people feel that they want to use their own breath to tell their friends about it.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And, and this, that is a fundamental error that many people make when they try to do word of mouth. They're like, well, what we're going to do is, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna do the, the roof coating deal, but it's gonna be $50 off. Well, okay, but no one, that's cool. But no one's gonna tell a story about that.

[A]

That nobody cares.

[B]

No one's going to talk about that, Right. That, that is a bullet point. That's not a story. There's a big difference between a bullet point and a story. So that's, that's the first one. It's got to be remarkable. It has to be repeatable. Meaning in Skip's Kitchen's case, everybody who eats there gets to play one of the mistakes that Business leaders make in terms of word of mouth is they try to truncate it and say, okay, well, let's do it this way. We're going to give this special thing to our biggest customer customers or our best customers, or our oldest customers. Airlines do this, right? They, they, they segment their customer base by value. You don't want to do that, right, because you're trying to get as many storytellers out there telling your tale as possible. So you want to make sure that you launch this talk trigger at a point in your customer journey that every customer gets, gets a pat, gets a piece of it, right? So that's. So in your case, it might be not just for brand new customers, but for all customers, even those you've already acquired. Third thing it needs to be is, is reasonable. Okay? One of the mistakes that people make is they're like, all right, we're going to try create conversations. We're going to shock and awe these people. We're going to, we're going to give away a Caribbean island, right? And you basically try to bribe people to talk about you. And that doesn't work. And in fact, it works terribly. What the research shows, ours and others, is that when, when the, when the thing is too big, people talk about it less because they don't trust it, right? They don't. It's only 90 second enchiladas, right? They're like, they're not. Nobody's gonna win a car. That's. That's bs. There's no way. So it needs, it just has to be small. And then the fourth thing is, it needs to be relevant, okay? It needs to make sense in the context of your business. You know, it can't just be like randomness because in the story becomes about the randomness, not about, not about you. So there's a, there's a locksmith in New York City. His name's Jason Sofr, and he's the highest rated locksmith in New York City. According to Yelp, who I did a partnership with for the book, he is one of the highest rated businesses in New York City, period. Which is saying something, right? He has a talk trigger. His talk trigger is that once he finishes doing whatever he's doing, he's re keying your apartment or whatever. He does a comprehensive security audit of the premises, checks every door, checks every window, gives you some advice, give you some recommendations. Every other locksmith in New York City will provide the same service this, but they do it for $199. He does it for free. Right. He's like, you know, I just want you to be safe. And that is his talk to her. People talk about it all the time. And that makes sense, right? It's locksmith, security audit. I'll give you another one that you'll appreciate. In home services, there's a business in Los Angeles called Mike's Plumbing and Mike diamond actually. Mike Diamond Plumbing. And he's very, very successful. He's grown from one truck. I think he's rolling 50 trucks now or something. And you know, it's plumbing, right. How do you differentiate in plumbing? Nobody. It's a challenging business because everybody's delivering essentially the same services at approximately the same price. Theirs is genius. It's one of my all time favorites. I wish I came up with this, but I did not. They did it themselves on every truck and on their signage and everything else it says Mike diamond the smell good plumbers and everybody on their team wears every day a signature Mike diamond cologne that all of their plumbers wear. And if you look at their Google reviews, it is amazing because about every second review somebody says, well, they unclogged my drain. And you know what? He did smell quite nice. I mean it, it is just, it is amazing. I'm like, that is in the, in the word of mouth hall of fame. And in fact we actually, we did a series of awards for best word of mouth devices and that did win one of the awards that we gave out.

[A]

No, I'd be leaning right in to get a whiff of that.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Absolutely amazing. I'm interested in, to know if you have an opinion on this concept of authority. You know, SEO, optimizing your website, doing off page and on page SEO, doing content, creating backlinks, all of that stuff seems to be changing. For Agentic Engine optimization or generative, you know, g. Whatever you want to call it. I've heard agentic, I've heard generative engine optimization, which is essentially large language models. People are going to have more searches on, on chat by the end of 26th than they have on Google. But what people that said that don't understand is that Gemini's already replaced the old search on Google. So you know, Gemini's already handling all the traffic. The old Google search is, you know, dust in the closets somewhere to go into some historical museum at some point. But so, so it's this concept of authority which is being, being the authority as a human, as a person, as a face connected to a business. So that as the large language models go through websites and they've got to have the right schema so they can read them, but they're actually looking for something to create a bias. Meaning I want to know who said that this company is as good as it said it is? So what are you doing any work around authority? What does it mean for the layperson for people that haven't got clued into this? And why is it going to matter so much going forward?

[B]

Forward. Yeah. The data side of it will be a tie because they will look at all the data and they'll look at all the ratings and reviews and everything else and be like, okay, here's what I know about this business and here's what I know about this business. This business. And then what breaks those ties are trust signals, right? That's what we call them. And those trust signals are ratings. They are testimonials. They are other people who are not yourself saying things about you. They're pieces of content, et cetera. So it is more important than ever to, to, to know two things. One, your website is less important today than it, than it was yesterday. It will be less important to every single day that you draw breath because people won't be going to your website for anything, right? They, they will, they will have this intermediary, this large language model intermediary or their own agents working on their behalf will go find who they should, who they should use to build a fence, right? And they won't go to the fence website. They'll say, Gemini, tell me who I should use to buy a fence year. Your robot who works for you will actually get a hold of the robot working for your fence company and the two robots will schedule the appointment. Like there won't be people involved in this and this is happening like now. I mean this is not, I'm not future casting like this is going on today. So, so the website as a, as a customer acquisition vehicle will be less important. What will be more important is, is you showing up in, in as many places as possible, right? So we call this atomizing your awareness and saying, hey, you should write guest articles in different places. You should be parts of different, you know, websites in your community, whether it's, you know, nextdoor, all these kind of things. Like you just, you need to be in more places because each place that you are is an opportunity to build a trust signal that the large language models then use to break ties. So those two things are super important.

[A]

Well, the large language models generally just give you, you one option, the best option if you don't ask differently.

[B]

I think it depends on which model you're using and it, and it sort of depends on how you structure your query. For sure. Generally speaking, today, no, they will give you multiple options, but once they start fully baking ads into the answers, we'll see.

[A]

Yeah, it's going to be really, it's getting really interesting.

[B]

Yes, yes. I, I was, I was concerned about Google for like five minutes and then I realized, well, look, they already have, they already have your eyeballs. Right. I, I love perplexity. I use perplexity constantly. But then I realized it doesn't even matter if it's better. And I'm not sure that it is. But there's no way my mom's using perplexity. There's no way my mom knows Google trusts Google, has always used Google, knows how to find Google on her laptop, on her iPad, and on her phone. So unless Google completely shits the bed, which I don't think is going to happen, they're still going to win. Right. Because they already have that relationship with the customer.

[A]

Yeah. And as opposed to companies like Amazon or Facebook, other places they have less end user license agreement requirements around the data. They have all of the search data. They own it where the other companies have to access it.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So they, you know, that's, and that's why Google generally wins. I mean, they, they sit back and they watch all these little companies create AI to create videos and pictures and things like that. And then boom, out comes Sora and it's the best. Right. So they, they, they, they don't, they've, they have learned how. They do not need to be first, they just need to be best.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, that's the Microsoft Playbook and the Apple Playbook.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Outstanding. You mentioned humankind. Is that some work that you're doing right now? What is, what is.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a great lead in talking about AI today as we're talking. You can, as a business person outperform your competition by adopting AI faster and more pervasively in your organization today. That opportunity to win will be very short because AI is very quickly being commoditized, Right? Yes. The same way that one point you could succeed disproportionate to your competition because you had a website or a better website. Right. Or live chat or a phone at some point in the past. Your ability to outperform based on AI is going to be very short indeed. Because AI at the, @ the business level is pretty inexpensive and will be so widespread it will just be a tie Right. Like every. You're going to have it, your competitors are going to have it, everybody's going to have it. And that's just the way it is. Right. So then what wins? Right. So, so what? What stands out in a world run by robots? And it is the human touch. It is, it is the personal touch. It is the. It is true caring and empathy and sympathy. And all the things that are in such short supply now, those are the things that will win. Probably the best current example is Chewy.com, the pet retailer who, if you happen to lose a pet, will stalk you in social media. And then they have a network of 10, 11 freelance oil painters that work for them. They will send a photo of your pet to Chewy, to one of their oil painters, who will paint a portrait of your deceased animal. Animal, attach a handwritten condolences note and FedEx it to you. So you live chat this company and you say, yeah, unfortunately, Bailey passed away. I've got an unopened bag of dog food. Can I return that? And they always say, no, please don't just donate it to a local shelter. The next day you get a knock on your door and you open the door and it's a FedEx box from the pet supply company with an oil painting of Bailey daily and a handwritten condolences note. They do this hundreds of times a.

[A]

Day.

[B]

Wow. And what are the chances that you will ever spend money with any other pet supply organization the rest of your life? Zero percent.

[A]

Right? Well, two reasons. Number one, well, you don't have a dog.

[B]

Anymore. That's.

[A]

True.

[B]

Yeah. Your spend goes way down.

[A]

Temporarily. Let's go down. I almost can't wait till Charlie dies now.

[B]

Thanks. Yeah, I tell you. And look, one of the things I talk about in that presentation, humankind kind is I like magic a lot. I like magic and magicians. I really appreciate the art of it and how they combine the verbal with the manual, etc. And one of my favorite acts is Pen and Teller. It's true for many.

[A]

People.

[B]

Yes. Teller's the short one, right. Who doesn't talk on stage. He talks off stage a lot, but he doesn't talk on stage. Teller has a trick in their show that he worked on on every single day for 21 years before he put it in the show. It was that hard to master every day for 21 years. And he has an amazing quote that I talk about in this presentation. I think really encapsulates how I feel about the power of humanity in a robot AI world. He said, sometimes magic is just working harder on something than anybody would reasonably expect. And that human touch, that bespoke paint and oil painting of your pet ain't easy and it ain't free. The problem with business leaders now is they want to succeed and also not work at it very hard. That's not an equation that we can get behind. If you want your customers to love you, do something lovable. And that ain't.

[A]

AI. Yeah. Wow, that's a great. I'm pausing because I am just. I'm absorbing that point. As far as magicians go, who's your favorite?

[B]

David? Well, I would say it's probably Blaine, only because, I mean, he's a little bit. A lot, actually. This guy's a lot. He's a lot. But I will say, the way he has kind of redefined the form in a lot of ways. Right. And sort of changed what magic could be for a lot of people, I think is. Is really commendable and. And certainly puts him in the hall of fame. But. But I would say you're right. If you think about what name is shared by the most great magicians, it's clearly David.

[A]

The. And I'm. I like, I love magic, but I like street magic. I like out there. The big shows with the, you know, we're gonna make. We're gonna make the. The Statue of Liberty disappear. I'm like, okay, all.

[B]

Right. We talked about word of mouth, and there's a case study about Penn and Teller in the book Talk.

[A]

Triggers.

[B]

Okay. Because every single night after their Vegas show, they come to the lobby and they sign autographs and they talk to fans, and they do it as long as fans are there. They will do it for hours every single night. They have done thousands of shots shows, and they still do this. And people don't talk about the show. They talk about, I got to meet Penn. They have a word of mouth device built into their magic show. And it's funny, you talk about the big shows. David Copperfield has a meet and greet in Vegas as well. It's $299 and all you get is a picture and you don't actually get to meet him at all. And if you want to see some one star review that'll make her toes curl. Take a look at.

[A]

Those. Yeah, Yeah. I bet the word, the name Teller, for a magician that doesn't speak is a talk.

[B]

Trigger. I.

[A]

Never. I never understood that. So AF after this. Yeah, that's a talk trigger right there. It's like the guy never says a word. And you love him because he just never says a word. Do. Does he talk after the show? Yes, when he's meeting people. Oh, so he. That's just camera on.

[B]

Only. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he is a brilliant and very, very nice man. I've had a couple of conversations with him in the past and he's.

[A]

Awesome. Fantastic. One of the things that pops up first about you is your love of tequila. What's the Tequila Report? What's going on with the Tequila Report? What is it? When's it coming.

[B]

Out? I am. I've been making videos on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, et cetera, about tequila for almost four years now. I am the second most popular tequila influencer in the world. World non celebrity division. Right. So it's not me and the Rock or me and, you know, George Cl but amongst mortals I'm number two. But now we are moving away from, from video content and moving towards longer form narrative content. So we're building a new company called the Tequila Report. Launches in January and it is Rolling stone for Tequila. So a complete online magazine and an events business and a tourist company, as well as a very robust email newsletter, which is the way a lot of people prefer to get their content these days. So, yeah, it's, it's a whole big project. We've got a bunch of great writers writing for us, doing great content about tequila brands. And I'm down there all the time. I have a house in Mexico. I'm in, I'm in tequila country many, many times every year visiting distilleries and, and we also have a tequila consulting business where we work with brands. So it's, it's. I spent a lot of time on.

[A]

It. I had a trainer tell me that if I had to drink, I needed to drink tequila. It was the cleanest and best for me. Why is it, is that it's.

[B]

The way it's made, right? It's only got three ingredients. Good tequila, what we call additive free Tequila, only has three ingredients. It's water, agave and yeast. And agave is sort of a magical plant with a lot of compounds in it. It's the lowest calorie spirit that you can have. It is the cleanest, make you feel better, certainly compared to something like beer, wine or other things that have a lot of sweeteners in it. Now what gets you is the mixers, right? So let's just be clear on this. Tequila, neat in a glass, it is not good for you. Let's make sure everybody's clean, clear. You should not be Drinking, it's not good for you. But if you're gonna make the choice to drink tequila, neat is probably your best option. What gets you is the mixers, right? So your margarita, your Paloma, your tequila sunrise, et cetera. You know, the mixers is, you know, typically has a lot of sugar in it, and that not only increases your calorie count and your sugars, but can cause some headaches as.

[A]

Well. Yeah, you heard it here, kids. Kids, tequilas, like vitamins, have it every.

[B]

Day. Vitamins. It works. If I move this camera, just a slight about. You would be astonished how much tequila I have in this.

[A]

Office. Is that.

[B]

Right? Yeah, I probably have 800 bottles at home at least. And the UPS guy loves me because I get about 10 a week sent to me for.

[A]

Reviews. Yeah, well, you need to get to work on those. What do you think of.

[B]

Termana? So I've actually interacted with Dwayne Johnson the Rock a few times with regards to his tequila brand, Teremana. It's priced really, really.

[A]

Well.

[B]

It. And that's a smart decision on their part. It's not the greatest tequila in the world by any stretch of the imagination. It's also not terrible. There are many, many worse tequilas. It's not one that I would typically select or recommend, but. But there are a lot of worse options out.

[A]

There. What is the difference between, you know, a colored tequila versus a clear tequila? Reposado? Yeah, like, is that the way they're made? Is it. Is it additives or, you know, how do they come out like.

[B]

That? So it's actually, there's a. There's, you know, base classifications in the industry. The clear one is. Is blanco, also called silver and plata. Those mean the same things, interchangeable. And that is almost always unaged by regulation. You can age a Blanco up to 60 days, and a few brands do. In fact, I did a project recently, one of the single barrel projects that I do, where we aged it for 59 days still. A blanco repassado, which means rested in Spanish, is 60 days to one year in some kind of oak vessel. And that time spent in oak is what gives it a color. Reposado is usually going to be kind of yellow or gold. Niejo means aged, and that is one to three years in an oak barrel. It has to be a barrel that's going to get darker yet, and then an extra anejo is more than three years. As it gets older, the flavors change and become more vanilla and sweeter and things like that. And that's because of the wood. It's not the tequila itself changing, it's the presence of the wood interacting with the blanco that changes it over.

[A]

Time. And these oak barrels, they're not treated in any way. I know that there's some spirits that, that use old wine barrels or they send a, I know there's a whole, there's a whole industry around barrels that are age bourbons here and then they send them over to Europe and they put something else in them and then they send them back here and, and it's all, you know, they're reused and they.

[B]

Create. Yeah, same very common. Most tequila. I, I don't know what percentage but, but most tequila is aged in ex American whiskey or bourbon bar.

[A]

Barrels.

[B]

Okay. Because in, in bourbon and whiskey, by their regulations you can only use the barrel once. You can't reuse barrels. And so barrels are expensive. Right. So so whiskey, bourbon guys are buying new barrels and then they can use a once. Like what are we gonna do these barrels? And, and so there's only so.

[A]

Many people that go over the.

[B]

Falls. Exactly, exactly. And, and so the bourbon guys in particular will sell them to the tequila industry. Industry and tequila can use them over and over and over and over. So it's a nice, it's a nice synergy. Now there are tequilas aged in red wine barrels, there's tequilas aged in French oak barrels which have not of course had whiskey in them or anything else. Some tequila brands, although not many use new barrels as well, but the core is an American whiskey or bourbon barrel. So it could be Four Roses or Jim Beam or Jack Daniels or maker's mark or.

[A]

Etc. So give me a good value tequila. Not cheap, but a good value tequila. You're having a party, you want to have a great tequila and then give me your. I just sold a company, I just had a life changing.

[B]

Event. Tequila that's challenging. Okay. So it's hard because the nature of the spirits business is that different products are available in different places. So I'm going to give you a couple recommendations that I think you'll be able to find in most states. One of our favorite favorite clients, terrific tequila is now in 49 states. Sorry, Alaska listeners, is G4. G4 is an excellent tequila made by Felipe Camarena. Their, their blanco, reposado and Yejo are all excellent, reasonably priced and, and you should be able to find it in most places. So I would, I would give you that one.

[A]

G4. What's a, what's a fifth set.

[B]

You back of G4 bottle of G4, depending on where you get, it's probably.

[A]

35.

[B]

Okay. Something like that, you know, maybe.

[A]

39. I can ruin my life very.

[B]

Affordably. And then for the, for the big splurgy, the one we always recommend is Tears of Llorona, which is a, a fantastic aged tequila. Five years generally. And it's aged in a combination of sherry barrels, otch barrels and cognac barrels. And so it has just a rich leathery tobacco y sit by the fire on a bearskin rung rug in a winter day kind of a vibe. Comes in a beautiful bottle as well. They do sell it in a liter instead of a 750, so that's, that's nice as well. And depending on where you buy it, a Tears of Llerona would be probably 299, something like.

[A]

That.

[B]

Okay. You know, but, but you, but it's a liter. So it's actually, you know, two and two and a quarter essentially for a regular size.

[A]

Bottle. Got it. Fantastic. I appreciate that. Any non obvious places that manufacture or create tequila other than.

[B]

Mexico? No, because it's, it has to be there. It's an international denomination of origin product the same way that champagne is or parmesan cheese. Etc, so it has to be made in. In only five states in Mexico, most tequila is all 90% of tequila is made in the state of Jalisco. Where? Guadalajara. The state of Jalisco is the town of Tequila. Tequila is a town, that's why it's called Tequila. And it was actually named from a volcano. So there's a volcano named Tequila. There's a town called Tequila under the volcano. And then the beverage was made in the town. So it's volcano town. Beverage is the, is the sequence. So there's only 200 distilleries in the world. Most of them are related in some way or the other. There's a lot of families that go back five or six generations in the tequila business. So it is, we love it. But the people are the best. Right. It is an unbelievable collection of awesome folks down there doing really, really hard work and making beautiful, beautiful spirits. And it's a real pleasure for my business partner and I to be part of.

[A]

It. Yeah, that's got to be a great business. Yeah, it's fun, great, great business to be a part of. Look, Jay, this has been amazing. I'm going to tug on the reins here and we'll start to turn this horse towards the barn. But before we do, I'm gonna. I've got a curveball if you wanna Play. I got a curveball and a fastball for you. And that's, that's how we'll, that's how we'll wrap it up. And is, Is there anything that maybe I should have asked you that would really be a, a quick little snippet for small business owners from a marketing perspective. Like you're just a. Just a real obvious.

[B]

Thing. Yeah, I'll, I'll give you one. People are always flummoxed about how to do social media media. And I think the best way to do it for small businesses is to just think of it as a documentary, not as a movie. Just show people what you do every day. Yeah, just take out your camera or train your crews to take out your camera. And when you're putting up a temporary wall, show them how you do that. What you think is super boring because you do it for work. Your customers or prospective customers think. Think is fascinating. Fascinating. Just document what you do and put that in social media. That's the place to start. It's way easier.

[A]

Man. One of my favorite social media vignettes is this guy who is a lawn care service and he goes to people's houses that are just overgrown and there's grass grown onto the sidewalk and onto the driveway and he says, hey, I want to clean your yard up for five free. And then he time lapses it and he just transforms these homes. And I will watch five minutes of that. Yeah, I mean literally. Because I'm like, how good is this going to get? And I mean it's a small business guy. It's not a big company, but I mean he gets, he gets millions of.

[B]

Views. Amazing talk Trigger as.

[A]

Well. Yeah, yeah, Fantastic. Awesome. Jay, this has been amazing. Before we go to the finishers, where can people get in touch with.

[B]

You? You find [e-mail] that's B A E R. You can find all my books on Amazon and for Tequil, go to the Tequila report dot.

[A]

Com. Perfect. Here's a curveball gun to your favorite bottle of tequila's head. You have to create a new business in the next 30 days. It can't be something that you're currently doing but you forced to start a business in the next 30 days. Where do you see the opportunity? In the.

[B]

Market. In my current market at home. My wife really wants to do this, but we got a lot of irons in the fire she wants to do. As I'm sitting here and it's like snowing outside. She wants to do the indoor outdoo dog park with Coffee in the morning and beer in the afternoon, which is a franchise model. So I would never probably go down the franchise road because I know too much. But that is a real opportunity, especially in a town like.

[A]

This. I worked with a company, Arch Footprint Urban Centers. They do exceptionally well. I mean, you got it, you know, and it's indoor, outdoor. There's people working remotely from there all day. Their dogs are playing. They get dog wash stations set up. So, yeah, I'm big, big proponent of those.

[B]

Businesses. But my real answer, Jeff, is, as I mentioned, I have a house in Mexico. I'm there a lot. I've already, I've already designed and have prototyped. This is not a lucrative business, but it'd be fun as hell. The signature J. Baer Dive Bar and Taco tour in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. So that business is going to happen.

[A]

Someday. That sounds like a lot of fun. Sign me up. Put me on the.

[B]

Newsletter. You got it. You got.

[A]

It. All right. Okay, last question. Fastball straight down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that.

[B]

Be? Some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue. The most important thing you can do, in my estimation, in business and in life is to not get too excited about your wins and too disappointed about your losses, because you're going to have both. The reason I say that, there's a sign just off camera that my mom gave me when I started my first business. And it says that, remember, some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the stuff Statue. I look at that sign every day, and I've had a lot of successes and, and also a number of failures. And, and if you can just kind of keep yourself even keel, you'll be happier and the people around you will be happier as.

[A]

Well. Yeah, I think that's incredible advice. Never let the highs get too high and the lows get too low. We'll have a great success and, and we'll take it and we'll just move on to the next conversation and somebody like, aren't you excited? I'm like, no, no, no. Because I got punched in the face three times. It'll happen again tomorrow. You just, you, you literally, you know, you almost have to be extrospective as a watcher of your life from the outside, because if you just get emotionally, you know, engaged to. In every little thing, it's, it's a distraction. You just got to keep moving. It's all, it's all about finishing. Well, that's a great Jay. Thank you for being on today. This has been incredible. The value has been amazing. I've got pages of notes here, and I'm certainly going to order a few more of your books, especially talk trip.

[B]

Triggers. Very kind. I really appreciate that. It's been a tremendous joy. Interacting with you and the audience has been a lot of fun for me, and I'm glad we did.

[A]

It. Awesome, Jay. Thanks again. All right, I'm Jeff Duden. We've been here with the incredible Jay Baer on the unemployable podcast. Thanks for.