Ep 442: The Time to Win with Jay Baer
RV (00:02):
Well, I am excited and honored to introduce you once again to one of my very best friends, one of my favorite mentors someone who I legitimately think is one of the smartest people on the planet. We’ve had him on the podcast before. His name is Jay Baer, Utruly one of my best friends in real life. And I’m so grateful for this man. And he has a new book out. And every time Jay writes a new book, it completely like changes the way I think about whatever the topic is. And we’re gonna talk about speed as a competitive advantage today. Uif you’re just meeting Jay, he is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books. He is a hall of fame speaker. He has worked with over 700 different brands. He speaks on some of the biggest stages in the world.
RV (00:48):
He’s worked for companies like Nike and Oracle and I b m and United Nations. And another thing we’ll probably talk about, which we’ve never talked about on this show before with Jay, but something fun happening is he has blown up on TikTok and Instagram, this personal brand. He is now the second, the world’s second largest influencer on tequila, which is something he does in his personal life. And it has become a huge explosive personal brand. So that’s kind of like a, a side project we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about, but mostly we’re gonna be talking about his new book. It’s called The Time to Win. Without further ado, my brother, welcome back.
JB (01:33):
Thank you very much. Great to be with you, my friend. I gotta tell you, I’ve been a business strategist and author and speaker for like 30 years, and there’s been some degree of, of notoriety as a result of my behaviors and activities in that category. But now that I have a tequila education channel, I get recognized in hotels and airports, literally every week,
RV (02:22):
Yeah. So hold on a second there, buddy. So you cut out, I think I cut out. So just you were saying, I get recognized in airports every week.
JB (02:32):
Yeah. Every week for, for, and it’s always like, oh, you’re Tequila J Bear. I watch all of your videos. Like, nobody caress that I’ve written books. Nobody cares that I’ve ever given a presentation, but they are locked and loaded on the personal brand of tequila educators. So I think there’s a lesson there for, for you and your audience,
RV (02:51):
Man. Well, I do, I do. I I do want to hear about that because I, I, I, I’m curious, and it’s part of that is I have a side project, I’ve got like a personal side project going on right now. Yeah. That’s very similar.
JB (03:01):
I know. It’s exciting.
RV (03:02):
It has nothing to do with like our business, but it’s like, I have to do this. Yeah. But let’s talk about the time to win.
JB (03:10):
Yeah.
RV (03:11):
‘Cause this was something that I was like, it’s another one of those things where when you started talking about it, I was like, oh my gosh, how have I missed this? And you just blew it up. Like, oh, this is such a big idea, such a simple idea. So, so tell us, what’s the premise here? What’s going on? Yeah. And then the research that started it,
JB (03:28):
My, my observation coming outta the pandemic Rory, was that it changed the way we think about time and, and reshuffled how important it is in our lives. Time’s always been important, of course, but the pandemic made us remember a simple truth, an important truth, an often overlooked truth, which is that all of us only have and will ever only have 1,440 minutes a day. Doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, what you are, you get 1,440. You can’t make more. You can’t buy more. I’ll tell you this, I think now that I’ve been studying this for a while, I, I think time is the only resource that we actually share equally on this planet. The only one.
JB (04:13):
And a lot of the trends that we talk about now, things like the great resignation or people wanting to work from home don’t wanna come back from the office because they don’t wanna commute, or people spending more time with their kids or, or bleisure travel, which is the combination of business and leisure travel. That’s when you bring your kids to the conference and double dip the trip. Even baseball games are 25 minutes a night shorter now, right? Because they got a pitch clock. Like, all of these trends are the same trend, which is that we care about our time and how we spend it more than ever. So that was the, the premise. But as always, as you mentioned, when I, when I write a book, I first validate it with really deep research. ’cause I’m not gonna go on stages and pages and tell people to change their business unless I’ve got it proven other than just Jay says to do this. So it turns out that in the research we found that two thirds of people say that speed is now as important as price.
RV (05:09):
Wow. But
JB (05:10):
There’s not very many businesses that behave as if that were the case. And you should.
RV (05:16):
Yeah. I mean, that makes, I mean, you know, when you shared that with me, it was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. As a consumer, I go, I, I just want it fast. Like, I don’t, you know, I think about the hotel thing. It’s like, I don’t wanna tell you my life story. I just want my key and get to the room. And like, I just wanna be like, it’s a long day of travel. It’s not that I wanna be rude, but it’s just like, I just want as fast as possible to get from the car into my hotel room to just chill out. Right? And then I go, but as a, as a business, how much are we really thinking about doing things shorter? We’re trying to go, maybe we make it better, better. Maybe we can charge more money, but not going, how do we do this faster?
JB (06:02):
That’s the mystery. That’s why this book, the Time to Win exists. What I tell people is you’ve gotta elevate speed and responsiveness on the priority list in your business because your customers already have.
RV (06:19):
Hmm. Like
JB (06:19):
Most businesses think they’re fast enough, but then when they look at the world through their own eyes as a consumer, they realize that they’re not fast enough. Partially because speed expectations never go backwards. Right? What was, what was fast five years ago is very slow today. And that will always continue. And I’ve been doing this a long time, as you know, I’ve never, in my whole life, under any circumstances whatsoever, heard a customer say, Hey, you know what? Next time it’d be cool if you guys just did that more slowly.
RV (07:03):
Yeah. And
JB (07:03):
I got, and the key, the key thing to this real quick, is that the reason why this book is so important now is that everything contained in this book is going to happen three years from now. We’re gonna have to delete this episode because it will be pointless. Everything we talk about will have been done by every business because your customers will simply require it of you. But this is your opportunity. This is why the book is called The Time to Win. This is your time to use responsiveness as a competitive advantage before other people in your category start to do it. You’ve got, in my estimation, a 24 to 30 month headstart where if you lean into speed, now you can eat your competitor’s lunch until they realize what’s going on and are forced to catch up.
RV (07:53):
Yeah. And I just on this, on this note of not priorit, prioritizing speed as a competitive, like not thinking of speed as a, as like a value to the customer. We had Amy Porterfield on, on this show a while back. You, she’s one of our clients and she’s sort of like the queen of courses, right? I know. You know, Amy and I, I asked her, I said, I said, you know, what’s the right price to charge for a course? And I said, I said, basically like, if, you know, if I have six modules or 10 modules, like how many modules do I have to have in there in order to charge $2,000? And she said, the price has nothing to do with how many modules are in there. She said, everyone thinks that having more modules makes it more expensive. She said, it’s the opposite. If you can deliver the result to the customer with less time and less modules, it’s more valuable to be able to get your customer from point A to point B. And I was just like, I literally have been thinking about this backwards in the pricing, you know, game. And then, and then you’re going, oh, you need to do this for every part of the business.
JB (09:08):
It, you go back to the 16 hundreds blaze, Pascal, a famous writer from, you know, those days said, I, I would’ve
JB (10:04):
And here’s when I can come give you an estimate. And here’s when I can come do the job. Second painter got back to me in two days. Third painter got back to me in 11 days. At which point I’d already painted the house
RV (10:50):
Dude, whoa. That this, not just in your business life. This is one of the central marriage issues between me and aj. Responsiveness is her love language. And her, one of her frustrations is she’s like, you take forever to respond to my work emails ’cause we work together. But she’s like, you are so slow to respond to like, project deadlines and that stuff. And it’s like, she, she treats it as like, I’m disrespecting her. And I’m like, I’m busy. And she’s like, I don’t care. It’s, it is disrespecting. Like that is absolutely true. Responsiveness is, is a form of respect. Well, so, so you have this, you, so the time to win, which is, that’s the, the url, right? The time to win.com is where you’ll go to get the book. And y’all, just fyi, this book, Amazon, this book is a small book. You can read the entire book in an hour, like the entire book in an hour. It’s also, which
JB (11:53):
Is obviously intentional because I sat down to write a book and I’ve written six full length books in the past. And I started to work on this. And I’m like, wait, I, I cannot ask people to spend five or six hours reading a book about speed and just like, just like did. I’m like, wait a second. This is the exact opposite of the advice in the book. So it’s like, alright. And look, the reality is, and I, I’m not ashamed to admit it, the reality is most people don’t read business books. They skimm them,
RV (12:22):
Right? Because
JB (12:23):
Most business books say a thing, then they say that thing six different ways. And I’m like, you know what? I’m just gonna cut out the middleman here. No, no fat only meet all the key pieces that you need to implement. It’s a six piece framework for, for winning with responsiveness. And that’s all that’s in the book. There’s, you know, and boom, in and out. And people love it.
RV (12:43):
Yeah. And so, and so speed, like, okay, so, so now when you go, let’s apply, apply speed to business
JB (12:50):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (12:50):
You know, like the example that I used that construct is deliver the result for the client in less time. And we, we are super focused about on this right now. Yeah. Of now, now we’re going, we’re embracing this, right? And going, how do we get our client the result faster? How do we teach them the information in less time? How do we give them tools to help them implement, you know, like cheaper, faster. So there’s that construct of like con condensing the time for them to have the experience. But then it’s almost like there’s another half of this, which is responsiveness. So yeah. Which side is it? Is it both of those things? Or is it more one side than the other? Like
JB (13:35):
It’s both. We actually tested that in the research. So we asked people, and I, and I will say, this is very comprehensive research. This isn’t, Jay did a SurveyMonkey. This is many, many, many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars university level research. And we found when we asked people, okay, where is responsiveness most important to you? Early stages when you’re just trying to get information. Late stages. If you need help in the middle where somebody’s actually delivering whatever it is they’re delivering out, always
RV (14:47):
Well,
JB (14:47):
How can that be? Well, remember if we interpret responsiveness as respect, at some point, every customer has to revalidate the buy. It could be a week later, it could be a month later, it could be a year later, it could be a decade later. But at some point in every customer and client relationship, they’ve gotta say, do I wanna sign on again? And so, yes, it’s important to be quick at the beginning of the relationship, but it’s also important to be quick throughout the totality of the relationship, because that’s going to ultimately impact whether or not they rebuy, which has of course, huge implications for your conversion rate, your churn rate, your lifetime customer value probably,
RV (15:28):
And
JB (15:28):
Everything else
RV (15:29):
That builds great
JB (15:30):
Business. All of it. Yeah.
RV (15:31):
All the things. So I wanna ask you about ai, ’cause I haven’t asked you about, about, about, mm-hmm. This, right? So the part that’s scary about this to me is to go absent ai, this is ha I think this is happening anyway, right? Absent, we’re just going like, I need an answer. I need it yesterday. I need it immediately. I want my food immediately. I want, you know, my show immediately. I want to be on the airplane immediately. I wanna be in my hotel room immediately. Like it’s, everything is speeding up. The part that freaks me out is you go, you add AI into this conversation. And now it’s like, dude, it’s just gotta be an exponential multiplier of this. Yep. Entitled, I need it immediately thing. Yeah,
JB (16:20):
Yeah, yeah. Probably. Yeah. And look, I, I’m not suggesting that this is a net societal positive that that’s not my job in the world. My job is to tell you how to beat your competition. And that’s contained in the book. Now, whether
RV (17:01):
Right? So
JB (17:02):
I think you were there one time when our, our mutual friend, Jason Dorsey was talking about Lemonade, which I use as an example. Now in the stage presentation of this material, lemonade is an insurance company. They primarily work in rental insurance, but others as well. They’re the number one rated rental insurance company in the country. Highest average revenue per employee as well. I mean, every success metric there at the top of the table. Here’s how it works. They were built for speed from the beginning. This guy, Paul has like a $979 Canada Goose, like Parka, super nice jacket, lives in Manhattan, goes to a bar in Manhattan. Someone steals the jacket. Oh man, my jacket got stolen. I gotta get a insurance claim. So he goes on the Lemonade app on his phone, presses, opens the app, presses file a claim, makes a 25 second video into his phone.
JB (17:56):
Hey, it’s Paul, I’ve had this Canada Goose jacket. It was $979 that got stolen at the bar. Submit after he hits, submit Lemonade, runs a bunch of fraud algorithms. Not only on the, on the video itself, but on Paul, his case history, the location, his age, a bunch of other stuff. They already have access to his bank account ’cause he did it. When he set it up, they decide to approve the claim. They wire $929 into his account because he is a $250 deductible. All of that happens, right? Assess the claim, approve the claim, wire him the cash. All of that happens in three seconds.
RV (18:36):
Holy smack.
JB (18:38):
Three seconds. So if you’re Allstate,
RV (18:42):
Yeah. Now
JB (18:43):
What? Now what?
RV (18:46):
I mean you don’t even, you’re trying to set an appointment to talk to the person and then the paperwork, and then you file the thing and take all the pictures and you fill out a police report. I mean
JB (18:57):
Yep. So now obviously, does Lemonade have a higher ratio of fraud than the alternative where like, you know, sitting down with somebody Of course. But one of the lessons in this book that I think is really applicable, it’s okay to be a little bit wrong if you’re a lot, a bit fast.
RV (19:17):
Ooh, that’s good. Yeah, it reminds me of like John De Julius says, you know, don’t punish 98% of your customers for what the 2% take advantage of.
JB (19:31):
Yeah. It’s an edge case.
RV (19:33):
Yeah. That’s so good about being a lot of, bit a, a lot, a bit fast. Well, so
JB (19:42):
Do you think, here’s something I wanna mention if I can. It’s a really important technique, especially for this audience that I wanna make sure we get to, is one of the key recommendations in this book. And it’s to offer a fast pass. So the idea of offering a fast pass is that in the research we found that one in four customers will pay as much as 50% more to not wait. You should give them that opportunity. Now, there are increasingly FastPasses all around us ’cause people are figuring out how powerful this technique is. TSA pre is a fast pass. You pay more. Wait list clear is a fast pass. Disney has one now, I think it’s called Genie Plus, we pay more. You don’t have to wait in line to go on Space Mountain or whatever,
RV (20:27):
Right?
JB (20:29):
You should do that in your business. Everybody should do it in their business. So when people come to me and say, will you review my new tequila? And I say, well sure, but we’ve got a 10 week waiting list. Or you can pay us this amount and you can be the next tequila we rate. All you’re doing is offering them a fast pass. Every sort of, every business in the world has a sequence, has an onboarding, has a customer list. You just charge them more to jump the line. Now, I was at an event and a guy came up to me and said, well Jay, what do I do about the person who was the next customer I was gonna help? And now they get bumped back one, aren’t they gonna be mad? Here’s how you do it. You say to the customer, who doesn’t wanna wait? Who wants to be the next, okay, it’s gonna cost you 20% more to be next. Then you talk to the person who was next and you say, I’m really sorry, something came up. We gotta bump you back. It’s gonna be an extra week. Now you’re second, but we’re gonna give you a 5% discount. ’cause We feel bad about it. You just kept 15% for doing nothing other than shuffling your customer sequence.
RV (21:31):
Mm-Hmm.
JB (21:33):
It’s free money.
RV (21:35):
Yeah. I mean, I’m that guy. I mean, I’m that guy. Like, it’s like I, I will pay. I do not wanna wait in long. You’re
JB (21:41):
Literally that guy. I
RV (21:42):
Will not, I will pay so much more to not wait in line. It’s the most frustrating thing that I experience is waiting. Like if my computer is loading, my internet is down, loading a webpage, you know, waiting in line at the grocery store, like waiting in line is probably the most frustrating thing in my life where I get angry. Like I am losing time. So, and I think probably that’s true. Like people who, the people who have, it’s
JB (22:11):
Not true for everybody. It’s not
RV (22:13):
True for everybody. It’s not true for everybody.
JB (22:14):
But for those who it is true for it’s manifestly true for like you,
RV (22:18):
And they will pay more money for it.
JB (22:20):
Absolutely.
RV (22:21):
They’ll pay more money. Won’t
JB (22:22):
Even bat an eye
RV (22:23):
Won’t even bad an eye. Yeah. No way. And it’s like, I don’t care if
JB (22:26):
You give ’em the choice,
RV (22:27):
The same experience as someone else, but I can just not have to, to have the weight. That’s so good, Jay. Like, that’s so simple. You know,
JB (22:34):
You’ll make so much money for, for free. Like, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a consultant, an author, a chiropractor, you’d run a preschool, you’ve got a landscape business, you’re doing plastic surgery, it does not matter.
RV (22:47):
Oh yeah, the country club,
JB (22:48):
What business you’re in club or getting into, it doesn’t matter.
RV (22:50):
Private, the private school, oh my gosh, like this is I’m trying to think about how we would apply this to brand builders group. We need to have a conversation about what, what can do, what we would, what we would do. So what else should I be asking you about this that I haven’t asked you about as it relates to speed as a competitive advantage?
JB (23:10):
The, I’ll tell you what the first piece that you’ve gotta do on this. Okay. lemme two, two quick things. One, I don’t want people to think that the takeaway here is Jay says, be as fast as possible all the time. That’s not true. And it’s also too simple. Yes, you should probably be faster than you are much of the time because your customers will reward you for it. If you give your customers time, they will give you money. If you cost your customers time, it will cost you money. So yes, you should probably be faster than you are much of the time. But there are scenarios when you can be too fast. When you are too fast, it decays trust. So if somebody came to you, Rory, and said, Hey I’ve got a book I’m writing, can you help me with a bestseller campaign? And you said, sure. Can you start in an hour? That would probably feel less trustworthy because if you’re that available,
RV (24:12):
Right?
JB (24:13):
Like, how could, could you be? Right? So what you want in your business is not necessarily to just be as fast as you can. What you want in every customer interaction is to adhere to the right now, the right now, the right now is the perfect amount of elapsed time. It’s not too fast and it’s not too slow. It’s the Goldilocks zone for speed. And you’ve gotta figure out what that is in your own business, right? There’s no standard for that. But for every business there is a, right now it’s the perfect amount of time. So the first assignment that you’ve gotta do as a business leader is to figure out what the right now is in your business.
RV (24:57):
Well, and the subtitle of your book, okay, so the book’s called The Time to Win. The subtitle is How to Exceed Customer’s Need for Speed. And the way that I go is part of what we know about the right now is it is at least a little bit faster than whatever their expectation is. That’s right. If, if we are, if we’re faster than their expectation than we’re winning, and then probably you know, the, then, then, then, then we’re ahead. So we probably need to look at what’s their expectation. But, but similar to how I remember like one the things
JB (25:32):
And how to set that expectation too. Like how to, how to actually manage that expectation. It’s one of the thing that, that a lot of businesses are terrible at this, they’re really bad at, at giving customers any sort of cue or clue as to what to expect. And one thing I’ve learned since I started down this, this research path is absent of any guidance, customers will expect everything to happen instantly.
RV (25:59):
Yeah. So
JB (25:59):
You’ve gotta tell them the thing that you want or need is going to take this long. And crucially, especially for younger consumers, here’s why it takes that long.
RV (26:14):
Uhhuh
JB (26:15):
You’ve gotta connect the dots for them. Because if you don’t, they will always think it should be faster. We learned this in the first day in business that you should always under promise and
RV (26:31):
Overdeliver,
JB (26:32):
Overdeliver. But you can’t do that if people don’t know what the promise is. So if you know it’s gonna take 10, 10 days, you always tell them it’s 12 days always. Because then you are slightly faster than they expect. And that’s the, right now
RV (26:53):
Uhhuh
JB (28:02):
Yeah. I mean, you think about the world we live in, technology and big enterprise companies have changed everybody’s perspective on what is quote unquote fast. Like if Uber and Lyft didn’t exist, we would have a totally different perspective on transportation. But it does exist. And that experience of being able to press a button and a car shows up naturally leaches into your expectations for other things that you need in your life. And, and that’s just the way it is, right? So yeah. Does the fact that Amazon can bring something next day put a lot of pressure on a mom and pop business who doesn’t have that kind of warehouse? Heck yeah, it does. Freaking does. But but then, but them’s the breaks, like what, you know, sorry, that genie’s not going back in the bottle, right? Mm-Hmm. You know, well
RV (28:53):
That’s why I think about the AI thing, right? You know, it’s like in and bb in brand builders group. We don’t have like a queue, right? People can come, but where our, where our delay is, is helping our customers implement faster, right? Getting their funnels built, getting their website built, getting, and, and, and that’s where it’s like AI is going to compress that even more. Like you’re saying is just AI applied to every, you know, rising customer expec expectation, growing, you know, speeding up technology, adding in ai like you’re saying three years from now, five years from now, this is, this game is over. Like it all, we’re all gonna have to be instant. Yeah. And
JB (29:29):
That’s why you’ve got this chance now, right? If you lean into it sooner. If you don’t wait for your customers to pull you kicking and screaming and you lead them, you’ve got two, three years where you can dominate your category. You’ve just gotta get started.
RV (29:44):
I think this is so brilliant. This is like, you, you, you were, you were so ahead of the curve on content marketing, right? And it’s like, if I would’ve done then what you were saying about that, I would’ve caught that wave. We’d miss that wave. But like nobody else is talking about this. I mean, it’s like we talk about speed, but no one is going speed as a competitive advantage until you said that. And the moment you said it, I was like, that is so freaking brilliant. So the time to win.com is where to go to get the book
JB (30:13):
Yeah. Or Amazon or anywhere else that you get books at the time to win.com. There’s also the full research paper that powers the book. It’s like 30 pages and you can have, don’t we don’t even ask for email address, you can just have it. I just want you to have it. Cool.
RV (30:26):
That’s awesome. So that we can go download the research there. So we’ll put a link to the time to wind.com. Okay. I don’t wanna let you go without talking about Tequila J ’cause this is such a phenomenon. You spent 30 years of your life becoming one of the most respected consultants. You know, you after that you’ve amassed, I don’t know, a whopping 10,000 or followers or something on Instagram or something. And then you start Tequila Jay, this side project, give us a sense of the magnitude that this total, like my personal passion, hobby, give, give me a sense of the magnitude of how long you spent on it and what, what your reach has come with your, it’s truly like your personal, personal brand.
JB (31:10):
Well, first I, I’ll acknowledge that none of this would’ve happened without you, you know, your premise that, that your ideal audience is the person that you used to be
RV (31:19):
Is
JB (31:20):
The north star for my work in the tequila space. Because when I started this project which is just 18 months ago, there were a number of people creating content for advanced tequila fans, right? So there’s nerds talking to nerds, and I like that content. ’cause I’ve been a tequila fan for a long time. I like the kind of deep dive nerdy content, but I realized that there’s just not that many people in that category. There’s a lot more people who are just getting into tequila or have a margarita here and now, or have a Paloma here, and now that’s the much larger addressable audience. And so I always try and keep in mind what it was like to be a person who didn’t know much at all about tequila. And I was that person. It was a while ago, but, but I was that person. And so the content that we create is very intentionally pegged to the novice and intermediate tequila
JB (32:13):
Fan. And that’s been the lift underneath the whole project, right? That’s why it’s so popular because we’re not talking over people’s heads. Mm-Hmm. And it’s been a really interesting journey. We did it on Instagram reels and TikTok mostly because I don’t have a lot of experience historically with short form content. I’ve always done long form content. And I was like, well, let’s just see what this is. Like, let’s learn how this algorithm works, et cetera. And, and it’s been great. You know, five videos a week is a big lift. It’s a heavy lift you know, to do it every single week. But, but we love it. And now we’re really monetizing it across a bunch of different dimensions, right? We’ve got brand sponsors and tequila sponsors and a, a merch store and our own tequilas and a a and events business and private tastings. So there’s a bunch of different revenue streams that all kind of funnel into are in the business. And I’m not ready to quit my day job as a speaker and consultant yet, but, but it’s it’s definitely a real business, right? And considering my only goal was to be able to buy tequila on a business card instead of a personal card. I have, I have very much past, past the goals.
RV (33:19):
Well, the other thing is what’s gnarly is like you have pretty major celebrities reaching out to you.
JB (33:24):
Yeah, yeah.
RV (33:25):
Like, I mean Yeah. And you just built this huge audience. What, so it’s a couple hundred thousand followers, right? On TikTok? Yeah.
JB (33:31):
Between, yeah, between Instagram and TikTok. It’s a couple hundred thousand. Last month I think we reached 400,000 accounts. Wow.
RV (33:39):
So it’s,
JB (33:39):
It’s pretty, it’s pretty good group. Yeah.
RV (33:41):
And then you’re getting, you’re getting all these celebrities who are launching their tequila lines going, will you please review my
JB (33:47):
Absolutely. Yeah. And my house is just full of tequila. Allison is so mad
RV (34:05):
Oh man. Yeah.
JB (34:06):
I mean, if I move this camera like six inches, you would be flabbergasted how much tequila I have in this office.
RV (34:12):
That’s awesome. So is there, is there any other lessons that you think for personal brands, like specifically? I mean, that’s super powerful. I didn’t, I didn’t, I never even realized to put that together that, you know, ’cause we you that that you, that’s what you were doing was specif specifically creating content for the person that you once were, you know?
JB (34:30):
Yeah. And I talk about that in a lot of podcasts and people ask me about tequila and I always give you credit as I should. And how powerful that that premise is. And it’s really, really effective. You know, look, we all have the curse of knowledge and the curse of expertise. And if you don’t constantly disvalue yourself of that notion, you are truncating your addressable audience. The other thing that we do in the tequila space that I think you’ll appreciate and your audience will appreciate is we are the only tequila educator that de anonymizes the audience. So there are a number of other people, four or five that do Instagram, TikTok stuff like me. There’s a handful of kind of YouTube tequila educators. There’s a couple of podcasts, et cetera. But we are the only ones who have a list. So I produce a list every quarter of my recommended tequila brands.
JB (35:19):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (36:25):
Mm-Hmm.
JB (36:33):
It’s,
RV (36:33):
It’s a game changer. It’s al it’s also amazing to me how it’s like, you have social media and you have lives and all this stuff, but like building the email list, it’s just like, it always just re still the, it’s still the holy grail. Like Yeah,
JB (36:46):
I mean, I I, I mean, it’s great to do lives and social media and everything else, but, but you know, if all of a sudden you know, meta decides that they’re not gonna do any alcohol content on the platform.
RV (36:59):
Yeah. You’re hosted
JB (37:01):
Business is over close up shop. Right. and that could ha I mean, that’s not a, that’s not that far fetched. Like that could definitely happen, right? So you know, you gotta un you know, you’ve gotta build reliable reach, not, not unreliable reach.
RV (37:17):
I love it. I love it. Well so j tequila.com is where people can go get that list if they’re, if they’re
JB (37:24):
Yeah. J tequila dot com is for the list. The merch store is tequila j bearer.com and yeah, we got, we got a lot of web properties. Now all of a sudden,
RV (37:33):
I mean, if you’re, and if you’re a tequila person, which I’m not, I don’t drink, but like, you just, like, you’ve gotta go see this, right? You gotta, and and even if you’re not a tequila person, I would go, go check this out because you’ll see, I’m
JB (37:45):
Still gonna send you a hat though ’cause the hats are pretty great.
RV (37:48):
Well, I’m a hat person, so I could do, I could just, I know you’re, I can wear hats to soccer practice for the kids. So it’s really awesome, dude. But, but anyways, this speed as a competitive advantage blows my mind and scares the crap. It scares the crap outta me. And go, and I go, you know, this idea of going, how do we build brand builders group from the ground up from here for speed is like really has, has rocked my world and it’s, it’s affected us, right? So you know, I’ve been talking to you about instant automation toolkit, like this has been in development luckily for the last couple years, and we’re, we’re, we’re finally hitting, we’re finally about ready to release because it’s just like, that is the whole thing. Instant automation. It’s like we have to help people get this stuff deployed faster. So powerful stuff. Y’all. The time, the time to win is the book like it, this thing is, it’s so, it it fits in the palm of your hand. You read it an hour, get the, get the good stuff. So check it out. And it’s
JB (38:49):
Like nine bucks too. The book’s like $9. So if you don’t like it, let know. I’ll send you $9 back.
RV (38:54):
JB (38:59):
More than $9. Yeah. Private.
RV (39:01):
We’ll figure private stash at the house. Like when you start emptying those out. Well,
JB (39:04):
Because, because I, because as you know you know, we live right by campus in Indiana University, so all of our neighbors are university students. And so I get sent a lot of tequila that I don’t want to keep because it’s not very good. So I’m just like, I’m, I’m like, I’m like
RV (39:16):
Dishing it out, walking
JB (39:17):
Through the neighborhood, like who wants a bottle of tequila and all. Yeah. The college students love me. That movie neighbors. Like I’m the Seth Rogan character in that movie. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Yeah.
RV (39:27):
I love it. Well brother, thanks for sharing your wisdom. We wish you the best and it’s a pleasure. You, you, you are, you are stud, my man. I’m so grateful for you and my life and for having you share your wisdom here.
JB (39:38):
You too. Say hi to AJ.
Ep 06: What it Takes to Build a Personal Brand with Jay Baer
There are people that I bring you that are experts. There are people that I bring you that are clients. There’s people that have read you, that are friends. Jay is first and foremost a friend. He is first and next and an expert that I learned from. Truly one of the people I think I’ve learned the most from in this space of all things. Digital Marketing, digital reputation personal branding. He is the New York Times best selling author of six books. He is one of the original Internet pioneers. He’s owned and sold several agencies. He’s a hall of fame speaker and MC. He speaks all around the globe. His new book taught his newest book talk triggers is all about kind of like word of mouth marketing. He’s been doing kind of innovating the space of customer experience and customer service in a digital world. But the book that he originally wrote that changed my life, which I absolutely love, we give it to all of our clients that come to strategy days with us as utility. While utility, why smart marketing is about help, not hype, which was a number three New York Times bestseller. I don’t know what else to say. He gets 250,000 unique visitors every month. He’s got millions of people following him online and email and he’s just freaking awesome dude and a great dresser. So welcome to the show Jay bear.
Thank you very much Rory for that kind introduction to kind a at least 51% of those things are true. Which is a true enough for this summit.
Yeah, exactly. So I don’t, I, I was trying to think about what do I really want to know from Jay Baer? What do I think people want to know? And, and I think that saying that I wanna dive in the most, there’s a lot of directions we could go, but I think the thing that a lot of our clients struggle with is once they get clear on their positioning and their messaging in is then the content management, just like the muscle, the day in and day out grind of like, how do you make it all work? How do you pull it together? Like for you personally, you’ve been doing this for years, so would love to hear that. And there’s a, you know, there’s a great quote that you told me about being a media company one time. And you know, I shared a lot when I go out and speak. So I’d love, I’d love if you could talk about the mindset of a media company and then let’s just kinda dive in there.
Yeah, I think I’m fortunate in some ways in that I worked in, in media before I got into digital in this regard, right? So I worked in television, I worked in radio, I worked in newspaper, I worked in magazines. And so thinking like a media company sort of came, came naturally to me. And when I started this from convince and convert 11 years ago I started a blog and I’d never had a blog before per se. I’d written a lot of magazine articles and columns and things like that, but, but I literally had zero followers and zero readers. And then I convinced my mom to start reading. And that was a big wins. Then I had one, everybody starts with their mom, right? And then after that, hopefully you grow from there. And with Rory student Legit, you can do that. But I said, look, you know, I have some ideas and if I just, if I just keep producing content that people find value in, eventually good things will happen.
And I still, after all these years, I still really believe in that. I think the biggest problem with personal branding is not lack of brand clarity, although that’s certainly an issue. I think the biggest problem is lack of patience. You know, especially in the world that we live in today, people feel like, well, hey, you know, I’ve got this, you know, swell Instagram account and I’ve been killing it on Instagram for four months. How come I’m not a millionaire yet? You know? And, and you know, it’s, it’s every day, every day you gotta keep showing up, you gotta keep showing up. You know, a brand is built on perspiration, not inspiration. And every time I hear people say, well, I didn’t get a chance to do the podcast, or I didn’t get a chance to write the blog post, or I didn’t get a chance to do whatever other, the video, whatever content is in their wheelhouse cause I just wasn’t feeling it today.
That’s when I know they’re not gonna make it. I can tell you right now, they’re not gonna make it. Because if you ever say you just don’t feel like it today, that means that you were driven by inspiration and your audience doesn’t care if you’re tired, your audience doesn’t care if you’re hung over. Your audience doesn’t care if you’re sad or busy or distracted or anything else is going on. What they want is to learn from you each and every day. And so I’m actually kind of bad at brand consistency. Like I need this somewhat as much as anybody. I don’t have a very clear sense of exactly how I fit in the marketplace, partially because I get new ideas a lot and I get bored of old ideas. But the one thing I am good at is delivering value every day. And, and I feel like, look, I’m not in a hurry.
And as long as you just keep building one brick on top of another, eventually you got stairs and then a wall and a [inaudible]. That’s it man. You just gotta play the long game. So why, let’s talk a, I want to talk about value. I mean that, that’s something that you said that really stuck with me, which I think is a huge part. You know, it’ll be interesting when we get a chance to do a deep dive on what the Jay Baer brand is all about, but I think it will be somehow probably connected to that last sentence that you said that you know, you know David Newman, our mutual friend, David Newman, terrific speaker and speaker trainer. He sent me a note just today and he said, I really enjoyed your session at the National Speakers Association. He said, one thing that I tell everybody is that you’re the king of value over delivery.
And I thought kind of like that kind of like that give them, give them more than they expect. Right. And you know, it’s sort of like five guys when you go to five guys and you get French fries and they give you like 400 pounds on the French fries and that’s a small order. You’re like, damn man, that’s a lot of French fries. And that becomes their talk to her. It’s actually one of the case studies in my book is that, and when I, I interviewed their CEO and he said, if people, I love this, he said, if people are not complaining about too many French fries that I’ve not given them enough French fries. Oh Wow. And that’s kind of how I feel about content, right? If people aren’t like, like the other day, Jason Hewlett, there’s another hall of fame speaker, tremendously talented visual said to me, I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten so many emails from one person, but I read every email you sent. And I thought, well, there you go. Right? If you just keep delivering value, you and you over deliver value, then then you got some set of very sophisticated personal brand. But I guess it works
Well. I want to talk about what you mean by value because I think a lot of people don’t understand what that means exactly. But what I want to first ask you about why every day like why not? I mean an Instagram feed, it’s always there, right? Like a blog. Like your archive is always there. Your Youtube Channel, your podcast, right? They’re all archive. Like
Why the every day part of it. Yeah. And I, I want to make sure we’re clear on this. I don’t, I don’t blog every day, but I do something every day for sure. And my take is that the atomic halflife of a piece of content, especially digitally continues to shrink. So yes, of course you could go back and look at blog posts from two, three, four, 10 years ago, but that is mathematically rare, right? Typically what happens is people find the newest thing you’ve done, they consume with that thing. And they might go back and look at the two or three more recent things, but generally speaking, you have to continue to, to kind of feed the top of the funnel. And then some of those people will fall out the bottom as, as subscribers. But I think we’re, we’re folks get in trouble as they feel like, all right, I have quote unquote made it. So now I can take my foot off the gas and, and only create things on, on you know, every once in a while basis. And there’s a lot of other people out. I don’t care what your personal brand is. There are a ton of people that want to do or already do exactly what you do and more of them are coming. And if they are publishing something every day and you’re publishing something once a week, eventually that’s not gonna work for you.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t remember if you said this or you inspired it, but it’s always sort of set with me where it’s just like I want to become a part of their either daily routine or their weekly routine or the rhythm. Just like the morning news or the evening news. I think you were talking about being a media company. It’s like the news comes on every night at nine
Whether there’s news or not, right? Yeah. They’re not like no show today. They’ll make something up. Right though. Yeah.
And we want to kind of do the same thing, right? We want, we want to be in there the rhythm of their life.
Yeah. You wanna you want the audience to be able to, to set their watch. Right. And tune in. Which is why so much of the work we do with clients and and a lot of the things we do for my personal brand or are evolved around shows. So you’ve heard me talk about being a media company. Where we’ve evolved that to is that there are three types of shows in your content strategy, right? You have binge worthy shows, which is a higher production value program where people can sit down and watch, you know, 11 episodes of the, of the Youtube show or we’re listened to five podcasts in a row. It is, it is a binge worthy production. Then you have what we call onetime shows or special shows, which are typically deeper kind of heavy thought leadership programs that you’re not going to do on a regular regular basis that maybe monthly or every other month.
So we do a lot of research reports at convince and convert. And those are sort of our one-time shows. We just did one on the 50 best hospitals in America and ranked all of their social media programs and one through 50. Right? That’s a big, deep 30 page report that that’s kind of a one time show. Think of it like the Emmys or the Oscars or the SBS in, in a television world. And then you have your regularly scheduled programming, regularly scheduled programming or everything else that happens on your TV network, you know, between 8:00 AM and, and and midnight. That may not be like a hit necessarily, or it may not be an award show, but it’s still on the air, right? So that’s your blog, that’s your Instagram stories, that’s your Instagram videos, that’s, you know, maybe some other little short form things that you’re doing.
It’s all the other things, the ligaments, if you will, that your audience can kind of tune into and, and, and, and have an affinity for. So if you think about like a and D, right? So a and needs a television network. There are number one show far and away is walking dead, right? Walking dead is, is there binge worthy show, right? That that is, that’s the tent pole. Okay. So as a personal brand, you have to have a tent pole. Maybe it’s your podcast and your video show, but that’s the thing. That’s the hill that you will die on, right? That is your binge worthy show that is walking dead. Then you’ve got your one-time shows, which a and d might be you know, special event or award show, then you’ve got the regularly scheduled programming. So Rory a and D is on 24 hours a day.
Okay? The, the network is on 24 hours a day. Name another show on A&E. Right? Other than walking dead, 23 hours a day is another show, right? They’re still on the air and they’re still selling ads. Right? So you’ve got to have some other stuff. And sometimes I find that what’s happening today in personal branding is that people have the tent pole, right? They’ve got like the signature podcast, the signature video show, but then they don’t have the regularly scheduled programming. And the reality is the way algorithms work today, you can’t live on the tent pole alone, right? You can’t. And so you’ve got to have the other stuff as well.
Interesting. That’s a really interesting way of thinking about it. Just again, like a media company the way that they would approach it. And I think that’s kind of what’s happening, right? Like now there’s so much power moving away from companies and organizations and media like enterprises to the individual and individuals are stealing attention and so individuals are having to like think in that way and produce content and operate and all that. I want to talk about, I want to go back to the value thing now for a second thing. What does that mean to deliver value? Because, cause here’s what I see a lot, right? I see a lot of pictures of myself, like personal branding. I think a lot of people think personal branding is pictures of yourself, right? Right. I think no matter what your personal brand is, there’s probably a place for that. Of course, I you know, on some level and you know, different things like it’s different if you’re a fitness model or you’re, you know, coaching CEOs or whatever. But like, what does value really mean? What does that, how does it, what does it look like?
Here’s where I think about at Rory. Everything you can create, everything you create can either teach the audience about you or teach the audience about them. And I feel like if you can teach them about them over and over and over and over of eventually that is worth their time because that’s all that’s all value means, right? Like here, here’s the, here’s the thing. Relevancy is the killer app right now. Relevancy is the only thing that matters. That’s all that matters. Even Instagram models have to be relevant in the way that they are relevant, right? It has to because time is the only inelastic resource, okay? Everything else you can do more, right? You can push harder or you can, you can borrow money, you can do it or you can do lots of different things, but you can’t create a time. However, relevancy actually create.
Simon, here’s what I mean by that. If you, if you create content that doesn’t actually help your audience, doesn’t make them better in any way, it just is, look at me, look at me, look at me. Eventually your audience will tune away and just stop participating in that. And what happens, and I see this all the time, is that people think, well, you know what? They’re not, they’re not tuning in anymore because they don’t have time. They’re too busy. The audience is too busy to, to engage with me. And that’s not true. It’s not about being too busy. It’s that what you have given them does not actually benefit them. And I know this is true because when you give somebody something that really generally helps them, again going back to the utility concept, some that actually improves their life in some way, the time necessary to consume that content is magically created.
Right? Somehow they find the time, if it makes them better. So where I am actually terrible at personal branding is I’m actually, I don’t do enough of the other side. Like I don’t, I don’t do enough of the, let me tell you about me. I actually, I actually take that equation and probably swing the pendulum too far just around value, value, value. But, but I feel like if I’m going to pick one, I’d rather the one that helps them as opposed to the one that pats myself on the back. Yeah. And that I think that that was the part is such a simple concept, but I think that’s the part that utility just like nailed like square dead on forever, which was like the whole like marketing is is just being useful. It’s like by teaching them, you are selling to them like you are marketing themselves.
They’ll sell themselves, right? If you just, if you just answer every question and help people with what they want, that’s why that sort of ask me anything is one of the greatest marketing opportunities of our age, right? Just turn on Instagram, TV, turn on Youtube, live turnout of linkedin live. You have access. I’m just answering questions and just do that all the time and eventually your people will sell themselves. Should I shift to, do people need to be worried about giving away too much? Like oh no, they should not be worried about that and I’m glad you asked it because I get asked this question almost every day and here’s why. And then look, I get it. Like if you’ve, if you’re a thought leader and you’ve got some, some magic potion, you’re like, hey, I don’t want to give away the secret sauce. I’ve got a couple of couple of pieces of information for you.
One, your sauce isn’t secret. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been in this business for 30 years. I’m disproportionately youthful looking. It’s the soft lights. And I will tell you this, that almost never is the sauce that actually secret. You just don’t know that everybody else is saying the exact same thing that you’re saying. So, so a, you probably don’t really have, you know, something that’s differentiated that much. And B, more importantly, a list of ingredients doesn’t make somebody a chef. And one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned in business is this. If you have a potential customer for whatever it is that you do, information products, consulting, actual products, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a potential customer who is thinking to themselves self. I could either buy this thing from world renowned expert and Nice Guy, Rory Vaden, or I could listen to [inaudible] podcasts, go to his summit, read his blogs and that I could figure out how to do it myself.
That’s not a customer you want because if they think it’s that easy, if they think a list of ingredients makes them a chef, they will never be entirely happy. They will always be looking for a way to get out of whatever relationship you have brought them into. I don’t want those customers. Their money is no good to me. I want people who want to be educated and inspired by what I give away and then say, wow, that’s great to take it to the next level. I actually need Jay. What I always tell people is the goal for me in personal branding is so simple, Rory. It’s take everything you know and I mean everything
And give it away. One bite at a time for free, for free. You give away information, snacks to sell knowledge, meals. What you sell is the assembly instructions, right? You’re giving away, you’re giving away the pieces. Like think about Ikea furniture, right. Okay. Ikea could literally give away all the pieces and sell the instruction. That’s a good example. You could just, they could just, they could say come over and get whatever, get whatever shelves you want for free. We’re going to sell you the assembly instructions. That’s the business they should be and it would take no storage. Huh. Well Gosh that’s such a, and that Ikea is such a great example cause they have so many parts but the reality is anybody who teaches something, there’s so many parts. One of the things we started saying is people don’t pay for information. They pay for application. There’s information everywhere. It’s, it’s, it’s the application part that’s valuable and no matter how much you teach on your podcast or your youtube show or on your Instagram live, like they still are going to need that assistance. And what I’ve never really thought about is what you just said is the person who doesn’t believe they do. You don’t want that person anyways. That’s right.
Not a valuable customer. It’s never going to be a good, it’s never going to be a profitable relationship and it’s never going to be a frictionless relationship.
Well, there is one, there’s one exception to that, which is I think you used this example years ago, I heard you two in a, a keynote. And you were talking about like home depot, you know, using all these videos like the DIY videos. Yeah. But then what happens is the moment that person tries to do it that, that it’s a good thing when they try to do it themselves cause they stumble about two steps in and go, what the hell? Like I need a buddy.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, look, you can, you could go to youtube and learn how to cut your own hair too. And I guess what you’re going to do that once, right? That’s going to mean, and then you’ll know, and then you’re going to have massive loyalty with your salon person. Right? Like that’s just the way it is.
Yeah, that’s a great example. That’s a, that that is a great real life example. And I think, I think people do get so, so scared of that. All right, so couple other things related to this. What about production value? Like how much it’s interesting as it’s like, you know, I, I see back and forth like, no, I just like, you know, no makeup, turn on the thing in the morning and go live. That’s what people want to see. But then, you know, I see Jay Shetty like producing these fricking amazing video. I mean, they’re like little freaking movies and they’re amazing and gone. Okay, well that, that one seems like a lot of work. You know, so what is it both? Is it [inaudible] like what
It’s circumstantial. So a couple things. One, production value is to some degree dictated by platform, right? So there are certain places where production value’s gonna matter more than others, but I think even more so production value is dictated by the preexisting relationship you have with that audience. So when when people just turn on the camera and go live and they’re sort of being real and I’m throwing up my air quotes here, they can do that because their audience is already part of their tribe and so the audience wants to have that, that that pho intimacy with, with the thought leader, that intimacy that that is, that is sort of conveyed by, look, I trust you guys so much and we’re actual friends to the degree that I don’t even need to put on makeup. That only works if you’re low funnel, right? You’re already a customer essentially.
If you’re going to just try and create customers and try and kind of get on people’s radar, you’re probably not going to do it. Just lets go live, turn on the camera because then people are like, who is this person? Why can’t they shower? Whereas, right, if you’re trying to sort of cast a broader net top of the funnel production value matters. Now all of that being said, as more and more people become more and more comfortable and confident, frankly with creation of digital content and all forms and facets, audio, video, voice activated content on Amazon, Alexa, obviously blogging, Instagram, Pinterest, the whole jam, right? As, as the sort of net average level of comfort goes up, production value will also go up. So if you’re not on a regular basis, and I wouldn’t, if I was me, I would look at it quarterly or at least twice a year. If you’re not looking deeply into your own work and saying, how can we increase production value without messing up sort of our overall unit economics, then then you’re probably getting left behind.
So it’s, it’s so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s like there’s the content value, but then there’s the production value and you’re, and you’re, it’s like the content value and you’re pushing to be more useful. The production value [inaudible]
Pushing to be like more in entertaining or engaging. Yeah. I mean, look, w when, when there were 50,000 podcasts, you can just do a show, right? And it’d probably find an audience. Now there’s 750,000 podcasts and a lot of very professional audio talent and companies are doing amazing things. So, you know, it’s not as easy to just turn on the microphone and succeed and nor should it be.
Yeah. Well, it’s again, it’s like think like a media company, right? Like it’s, it’s
Yeah, you know, you, you can’t get, you can’t live by your cable access TV show for, you know, looking at, you know, you can’t be Wayne’s world forever at some point. Like, Hey, let’s get a real camera.
Yeah. so how do you manage it? All right. So let’s, let’s come back to that kind of a thing, right? So you go, okay, well freaking, Jeez, it’s Instagram and it’s not just Instagram. Now. It’s Instagram, your feed and your lives and your TV and, and, and you know, so now you’ve got all these mediums and you got multiple mediums inside of each medium and then have your own crap, your own website, your own blog and your podcast. Like what, what is the you know, like how do you personally think about it? Like the mindset of it and then also like some of the tactics may be related.
Yeah. So, so we think about as I mentioned it from a, from a show’s standpoint, right? So what are the tent pole productions? I have a podcast called social pros, which is one of our biggest productions. I, I, until recently had a video podcast sort of a youtube show called talk triggers. And, and so those are kind of the tent poles. And so each time we create an episode, we do all the things that, that you teach new, you know, how to do Rory, where we down sample all the content, right? So it starts as a video and from a video goes to a podcast from a podcast, it goes to a transcript from a transcript, goes for blog posts, and then we create, you know, five or six or eight or 15 million teasers for each platform for stories and regular Instagram and Twitter and Linkedin, et cetera.
Now we’ve got an amazing production team on the back end that that helps me do all those things. So my responsibility is to, is to create things that people believe are beneficial or somehow helps them live their life better or build their company and then we’ll execute all the different things on the backend. But you know, it is tricky, especially because we’ve been doing this now for a long time to to not only keep doing the new thing, right? So what’s the Ige TV strategy, but to also maintain success with the old things because we have a, a large and and successful blog, right? So, even though fewer people read blogs then used to, in a lot of ways we feel like we have to still kind of continue to do that because we have such a presence there. So that does become a real challenge for us. What I always tell clients is, hey, if you’re going to add something new, you got to get rid of something, right. You, because again, time is inelastic. You can’t just make yourself spend more time because then you’re robbing from something else. But I don’t take that advice my own company if we just keep adding, keep adding more things. Unfortunately. so, so this is sort of the do as I say, not as I do portion of the program.
Yeah. Well I mean that’s an interesting question, right? As this is like, do you go all in on one and like one medium? Just all in like, this is my place. This is my thing. If you want me to go here or do you go lots of fishing poles in the water and let’s go, let’s go fishing every, you know, social media outlet that is everywhere.
I think the, I think the answer is in between Rory. I think you, you want your tent pole show to, to be resident somewhere, right? So it’s a youtube show, it’s a podcast, it’s a linkedin video show. Oh. Like it has to have a home. And that’s where that kind of, the content is designed for that home. That’s where it lives, that’s the first place it’s posted et cetera. But, but then you can use other platforms, Instagram, what have you to, to either tease it over at the home or, or, or Sorta do greatest hits. So like we, my podcast, we do about 45 minute episodes. The, the, the show is audio, but we use zoom and we record the video because our team then takes each episode and creates a five minute video highlight reel of the sort of most interesting things that were said in the podcast.
And that goes on Youtube. Then we create a two minute video, right? And put that on Linkedin and Facebook. Right? And we have a one minute video that goes on Instagram, right? It’s not a video show, right? It’s an audio podcast, but where we’re trying to fit the individual pieces into the, the, the places where they make the most sense, right? I think we’re where people get messed up. It’s like, okay, we’ve got this one thing, now let’s post this one asset in eight places that doesn’t work. Right. It just doesn’t work. People don’t want the exact same graphic, the exact same thing in every social network because people have expectations for what an Instagram story feels like versus a tweet. And you can’t just copy and paste across the board.
[Inaudible] Well, and then, yeah, that’s just such a, such a puzzle to like be in all those places all at once. Like you said, you’ve got to have a team. Like you have to have a team. There’s like, there’s no way to be really doing this.
Yeah. I mean it’s just, you just, this takes time, right? And, and that’s why you need to be really serious about your tent pole show. Like whatever is your main production. Like you’ve got to realize to do that well and to grow an audience, you’re gonna have to spend like real time. And it’s not even the time making the thing, it’s the postproduction time downsampling it and put it in all these places so that it has exposure in a lot of different social networks. That’s, that’s the trick. I mean, to some degree, I think youtube has have it easiest because you tubers don’t necessarily have to promote in other platforms, right? If you, if you have a successful youtube channel, typically because of the way subscribers work, you don’t necessarily have to be promoting your youtube channel on Facebook. Now, as a matter of course, a lot of people do, but, but you can kind of live in that youtube environment. I’m not certain that’s what I would want to do. But you can that’s, that’s probably an advantage in some ways.
So you’re just saying, because, because youtube so actively pushes the content out to the subscriber base,
Right? Yeah. And it’s kind of a self contained universe, right? I mean, you, people go to youtube for a reason. People, you know, which is I want to go find this particular piece of content or I need to learn how to cut my own hair or what have you. People go to Facebook to waste time, right? They go to, they go to youtube cause they need something. Right. It’s a much different psychology. And so if you’ve got, if you’re successful in youtube, people are coming to you. Right? Facebook’s a little different.
Okay. So what’s next? Like what like when you look ahead and you go, I think one of the things that I love, you guys do so much research, you put out amazing stuff. For those of you watching j primarily in his team primarily work in like kind of the corporate market. They’re helping big companies like create their, their social and word of mouth and customer experience strategy used in digital. So they’re very sophisticated, but like you’re always got your pulse on, you know, what’s common. So like if I, if I want to write, if I’m looking for the next wave that I can sort of like ride what, what should I be looking at?
A, what we call dark social. So dark social is also sometimes called conversational marketing. All the different ways to interact with your audience that, that I still use a lot of the same technologies that we’re familiar with but bought our private instead of public. So things like Facebook Messenger Bots and, and what’s app and all, all of those kinds of technologies. Even even even group texting and eye mdms. Yeah. Instagram, dms, like all of those kinds of things where you’re saying, look, we’re going to take a, a smaller group maybe of of a a few hundred or a few dozen and, and sort of say, look, you’re in my, in Rory Super Special Club and an already super, super special club. We send you something really amazing every day on Facebook messenger or on whatsapp or what have you. That that kind of a messaging application driven interaction is going to be huge in the next year.
Ken, is that odd? Is that automated? Like the kind of chat bot sort of stuff like messenger bots? Is that right?
Can Be can be you know, or can just be a different way to distribute and interact with, with your audience. But it sort of the like the behind the scenes interaction. That’s it. That’s it. That’s cool. And Am already seeing a huge shift in on the brand side from a customer service perspective. So as you know, I wrote a book called Hug your haters, which is all about social media, customer service and customer service on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, et cetera. What we’re seeing now already is, is a reduction in people using those platforms and instead using dms and Messenger and whatsapp and and those kinds of things, which, which changes a little bit the nature of customer service cause it’s no longer in public. Now it’s private, right? Same, same platforms and a lot of ways. But in private. So it’s a, it’s a big, big shift in and you’re gonna see it really ramp up probably by the end of 2019, as Facebook has announced that they’re going to try and combine whatsapp and messenger and Instagram dms into one messaging platform. That’s, that’s their stated goal. In which case we’re going to see some real changes in a lot of the things that we’re talking about here in this amazing summit.
So one other, one other kind of last technical thing. What about the voice activated? Like, I feel like there’s a lot of buzz going around around like the Alexa and like, you know, all that sort of stuff. What does that mean for a personal brand? Like what do I have to do to get my content to be accessible there? Or like w you know, like I, there’s a disconnect for me in my head. We in like my Google Home Bot and what that has to do with me getting my personal content out.
Yeah. It’s actually, I think it’s a opportunity for, for personal brands and thought leaders. I’m working on one right now where where you take your content could be a podcast. So obviously it’s a voice activated device. So audio content works amazingly well. It could be a podcast, could be a blog, could be some combination there in a, and, and it’s, you know, Alexa, ask Rory, what’s new this week? And you get Rory giving you the weekly tip for, for you know, improving your personal brand. I mean, it, it’s, it’s not terribly difficult to program. It works really well. And for people who say, hey, it’s just kind of a small niche thing. I’ll give you a stat today as we’re having this conversation, there are 126 million smart speaker devices in the United States owned, right? So that’s Amazon, Alexa, Google home, et cetera. 126 million.
Now that’s a big number, but it, it’s hard to do big numbers without context story. So I just want to let you know, there’s 90 million dogs. Wow. Crazy. Nobody ever says, Hey, that dog thing is a niche, right? So, so there’s a lot of speakers out there already, you know, and it’s just going to go up and up and up because it’s such an effective platform. You have to actually upload your audio content somewhere or can you voice to do it? Yeah. Well so, so think of think of a voice application or a skills, what they call it, an Amazon. I think of a skill as a, like a, like a website, a CMS content management system, right? Where where you have to upload something and, and it can be very easy if you just take a blog post and upload it to your Amazon skill and say, ask where, what’s new?
Here’s what Rory says. And you get the robotic voice right. And they will literally read the content to you. He will read the blog post or you can take an MP, three file of you using rorys voice reading that blog post or some other tip and then uploaded the MP three file. And then when you say ask for where I went to new, you actually get your voice, which is pretty cool cause at that point it’s almost like podcast on demand and some ways. So, but so, so there’s actually like, you actually have to go to Amazon and take an MP3 of like your podcasts and uploaded. It won’t just pull it from like the iTunes directory or something. You can, you can set it up as you can do that. You could set it up as a feed, right. And say, okay, each each period of time grab the new file and you could build it like that.
Yeah. But you have to go set that up somewhere in Amazon. Yeah. You have to, you have to build the skill, right. You know, you have to actually create it. So we build a mobile app now it’s not terribly difficult, frankly. Especially for something like that, which is ask Rory what’s new? But you do have to build it. You can’t just like press button and it’s, it’s live. We’re not quite, not quite there yet. Okay. So, so that’s Amazon and then also for Google, I guess, are those, those are the big ones. Yeah. Yeah. Amazon and Google the biggest, Amazon’s about three quarters of the market. Google is about a quarter give or take right now. Which is interesting. The, the new trend also is that more and more of these devices have screens. So they look like a iPad minis. Right. And, and that’s interesting too because now you can do more with video, you can do more with photography. So, so it may not just be voice, it may be voice plus some other stuff. And so a whole new way to interact with your audience, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, man. Every time I talked to you, like my mind is, is blown and, and there’s also a part that makes me feel like I’m so far behind, even though in reality I know, like even having this conversation means we’re pretty far ahead of, you know, the average group out there. But
That’s, that’s the curse of doing all big corporate work, right? Like, you know, the challenge for me as a business owner is I’ve got a whole team of incredibly brilliant strategists who are far smarter than I am at these kinds of things. But our clients are super smart too, right? So,
Okay,
We have
[Inaudible]
Can they get like smarter and smarter cause our clients keep getting smarter and smarter. Right. So it’s a, it’s the, it’s the challenge for all people in that sort of custom high dollar big company consulting space. Right? It’s you can’t ever sit still.
Yeah. Well I follow convincing, convert the blog and I follow you and, and you know, I agree that it’s like there’s so much content and even though it’s not targeted to our personal brands, it’s like social pros, podcast and stuff. It’s like if you’re going to think like a media company, it helps to like learn from the people that big companies are learning from which is used. So where do you want people to go if they want to kind of follow your journey and plug in with you know, what you have going on. Yeah.
Thanks Jay. Baer.Com is my personal brand site, Jay Baer, B e r.com. And then as already mentioned, convince and convert.com is our main site. Convince and convert. We’ve got 5,500 free articles at this point. Thousands of podcast episodes, videos, all kinds of free guides, downloads. You can you can lease a master’s degree, at least a master’s degree for sure. Yeah.
Last little thing, just more of a curiosity question. You know, there’s a lot of people at t social media, like there’s a lot of people that teach marketing, you know, on and on and on. Somehow you have stayed in the game a long time and been at the top like just even your personal brand and the people followed you. Why do you think that is? Like, what do you think it is that has created the staying power of, of the Jay Baer personal brand in, in a, you know, a fairly crowded market?
Well, yeah, it’s, it’s funny you ask that because I’ve been thinking about that a little bit myself recently. Some of the people who were in social ended integer beyond your good looks and your crazy suits. Of course. Maybe it’s the suits. You know, when a lot of people who started when I started kind of my contemporaries who were just kind of coming into social digital when I started are out now or, or, or largely out, right? They took a job, you know, corporate or they started to do something different or they just, you know, they just don’t, they’re not, not there anymore. There’s only not, I’m kind of doing it full speed and I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know if it’s, I mean, partially because I just won’t rest. Right. Like, like, you know, I, even though we’ve had some measure of success in this business, I treat every day as if we haven’t.
And especially in a field as competitive as mine. I think you almost have to have that mentality. So, you know, I’ve been in startup mode for 30 years and I think that certainly helps. There’s a level of urgency and a corresponding lack of satisfaction that I think continues to drive me and my team. Also I have a team, like a lot of people who, who started when I started were trying to do it themselves with themselves plus a VA. And as we’ve talked about, it’s, it’s really difficult to continue to scale that way, right? You, you’re, you’re gonna burn yourself out, right? We have 15 people now plus another 10 or 15 kind of in our, in our orbit. So we’ve got like a factory, right? And, and that makes it a lot easier to sort of be more places. And then I would say the third thing, Rory, is that we’ve been so fortunate to have so many amazing partners and sponsors and companies that have partially underwritten my content or, or you know, things that we’ve done together, joint ventures that I don’t have to carry all of the water myself.
Right? So, you know, if we do something with Oracle or Cisco or salesforce or some of these other big software companies, and I’m going to do a Webinar with them, well, they have a huge audience, right? So, so their audience has been introduced to me as part of our programming and in our, in our partnerships. And that really helps also. And I think that’s something that frankly, everybody who’s interested in building a better personal brand needs to think about. I’ll tell you two things that are true. One, everybody in the world is your competition because attention is the only commodity. Everybody has competition. Rory is your competition. I am your competition. On the other hand, nobody is your competition. All your competitors are, are just people you haven’t done a partnership with yet. And if you actually live by that philosophy, if you say, well, who can I partner with today? Not just at a transactional affiliate relationship, but a true partnership and you think about who can I partner with next over time? That’s going to do you wonders in the sort of lifespan.
If you’re a personal brand while well, that is a punctuation exclamation point. I think to end this on, I think j it’s, you are so consistent to delivering value every single day and you’ve done that for so long. You’ve certainly done that today. And over-delivered. And we just, we love you, man. We appreciate you. I’m so grateful for you. I feel just lucky to have you as like a friend and a mentor and I’m, I’m honored you took the time here and I’m, I’m excited to hopefully expose a whole bunch of people from the personal brand world. Let’s do it. It’s awesome. So thanks brother. Thanks. I appreciate your time. Yeah.