Effective Word of Mouth Marketing and Talk Triggers with Jay Baer

CSP, CPAE, New York Times Bestselling Author of Hug Your Haters, Youtility – Jay Baer

I’m excited to have my great friend, Jay Baer, back on the show. Jay is a serial entrepreneur and has spent 25 years in digital marketing and customer service industry, consulting for more than 700 companies.

He is the founder of Convince & Convert, a Hall of Fame Keynote Speaker, and the best-selling author of 6 books, including The Now Revolution, Hug Your Haters, and Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help and Hype. He’s well-qualified to speak (and write!) on today’s topic.

He’s back on the show to talk about his newly released book called Talk Triggers, which is a complete guide in making a business grow through word of mouth or customer conversation.

“Word-of-mouth has always been important since the first caveman sold a rock to another caveman, and the third caveman was like, “Dude, this guy has the best rocks.”‘ -Jay Baer

Episode Highlights:

• Jay’s proven 6-step process to create your own talk trigger.
• Why the best way to grow any business is for your customers to grow it for you.
• Why you should make a strategic operational decision to do one thing your customers won’t expect.
• Case studies and real-life examples that make all the difference.
• How Talk Triggers Ignite Your Story Marketing.

Jay’s Website:

TalkTriggers.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters, and I?m so excited to have Jay Baer back on the show. He is a brand-new book. You can find it at TalkTriggers.com. It?s called Talk Triggers, and it?s all about word of mouth, which is so interesting. Thank you so much for coming on the show today again.

Jay:	Fantastic to see you my friend. Thanks for taking the time.

Jaime:	Heck yeah. Well, you are like the researcher extraordinaire guy, and so I love having you on, because I don?t have to read anything. I just ask you questions and I learn so much. So, thank you for coming back on. Tell me what a talk trigger is so we set the stage.

Jay:	You bet. A talk trigger is a strategic operational choice that you make in your business that customers will notice and talk about. Because you see, Jaime, the best way to grow any business is for our customers to grow it for you. And I think we all know that to be true intuitively, yet we don?t actually do anything about it. That?s the mystery.

	That?s why we wrote this book is that we have historically taken word of mouth for granted even though lots of studies, including some in the book, will show you that word of mouth is the number one, the number one way that people make buying decisions. Nobody has an actual word-of-mouth strategy. Nobody. Right?

	You?ve got a content strategy, social strategy, a PR strategy, hiring strategy, recruiting strategy, sales strategy. You got a strategy for everything. But the one thing you don?t have a strategy for is the one thing that you absolutely positively should have a strategy for, which is giving your customers a story to tell. So, that?s why we wrote the book, and it?s applicable for businesses of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions.

Jaime:	This is why I think it?s so genius, because word of mouth seems so vague. So, when clients come to me, they?re like ? what?s their biggest way you get customers? Word of mouth. And then it dies there. It?s like what does that mean? Tell me ? how do you do that, right? 

	And it?s so inconclusive that nobody really knows what they?re doing in order to do more of it. So, tell me more about how you can orchestrate what this is.

Jay:	I mean you raised a really great point. And look, there are a number of excellent books about word of mouth that have been written before Daniel and I wrote this book, and most of those authors are quoted in our book and they?re friends of ours and all that. 

	But here?s the problem that I have with the existing literature around word of mouth for business. There are lots and lots of good book that say word of mouth is really important. You should go get some. And that?s the end of the book.

Jaime:	Wait. Now what?

Jay:	And that?s the end of the book.

Jaime:	Yes.

Jay:	And you?re like I totes agree with that, but now I don?t know what to do.

Jaime:	Yes.

Jay:	So, what we did is we took the exact same system that we use in our consulting firm, Convince & Convert, when we help companies get better at word of mouth, took the same system and then gave it away in the book. And so, the book is set up in the four, five, six schema. 

	So, it?s four things, four requirements that your talk trigger ? your special operational difference, four things that your talk trigger must have, five different types of talk triggers, and then a six-step process for how to create your own talk trigger. And this process works every time for every company. 

	So, we said yes. Word of mouth is important. Here?s why, but then here?s a system, a repeatable, reliable, viable system for actually making it happen in your business. Because of that the system, all you get is frustration. You know what? I do need word of mouth, but I don?t know how.

Jaime:	So, later I?m going to ask you about how you create your own proprietary systems, because I also find it so interesting that you?re like it?s four, five, six. It?s so simple, right? Let me explain.

	So, let?s dive into that first before I ask you how the heck you created it, but what are the four talk triggers, and how do we even come up ? because I feel like people are grasping at straws. Like this could be a good idea. Let?s see.

Jay:	Well, you definitely want to test it. And in the six-step process, we talk about the very worst way to create a talk trigger. The worst possible way to build a word-of-mouth strategy is to brainstorm it, which is the way that every body ? 

Jaime:	Everybody does it. Oh. Great.

Jay:	? wants to do it. Right? 

Jaime:	Yes.

Jay:	Because, just like well, I'm gonna do ? here?s what we?re gonna do. We?re going to get pizza, and we?re gonna get six beers, and we?re not leaving until we come up with a good idea. And I totally get that. I understand why people tend to gravitate towards that approach, but it doesn?t work.

	So, you have to do some fairly rigorous customer interviewing and some things like that to understand what customers expect, because here?s the key to this. We have convinced ourselves in business that competency creates conversation. That if we just run a good business, people will talk about it, but Jaime, that?s not how consumers behave. That?s not how the world works in reality.

	How the world works in reality is that we ignore things that are average and we discuss things that are different. I don?t know all of your viewers, but I bet you I know some of them, and I know this for a fact though. Nobody watching us right now has ever said, ever said, ?Hey, let me tell you about this perfectly adequate experience I just had.? 

	But we don?t say that. Why? Because that is a shitty story, and word of mouth is all about telling a good story that people want to tell and people want to listen to. So, it?s not about making your business better. That?s really important. It?s good for customer retention. Word of mouth and talk triggers is about doing one thing different. It?s not about better, it?s about different and having the courage to do one thing ? I'm only asking for one thing guys, one thing that you?re customers do not expect. That?s the key.

Jaime:	Okay. Tell me more. Because a) it makes me feel so much better that I only need one thing. So, I don?t have to be like now I have to orchestrate this whole symphony of things to make them think I?m amazing.

Jay:	No. Actually if you try to do too many things, they conflict with each other, and the story gets too confusing and too muddled. So, you just want to do one different ? I?ll give you an example.

Jaime:	Yes.

Jay:	This will help.

Jaime:	That?s exactly what I wanted.

Jay:	There?s dozens of examples in the book, and they?re from all different types of companies and sizes and locations, and so we did that on purpose so that everybody will see themselves in this book. That?s very much intentional.

	But I?ll give you one of my favorite examples. There is a restaurant in Sacramento, California. It?s called Skip?s Kitchen; a very simple business. It?s counter service. So, you walk in and you say ? the menu board there. I want two patty melts, and I would like an onion rings, and a chocolate shake. And when your food is ready, they bring it out to your table. We've all been to restaurants like that, right?

	Except they have a talk trigger. They have made a strategic operational decision to do one thing differently that their customers do not expect. And Jaime, here?s how it works.

	After you order but before you pay, the counter person says to you, ?Let?s try something.? You?re like, ?Okay.? And they whip out a deck of playing cards from under the counter and fan them out face down in front of you. Pthwwwwwp. And they say, ?Pick a card.?

Jaime:	What the heck? Okay.

Jay:	Pick a card. And if you get a joker, your entire meal is free, whether you've ordered for just yourself or for like a whole high school baseball team.

	Now, Skip?s has been in business for ten years. It?s owned by Skip Wahl and his wife, and they have spent a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents on advertising ever in ten years. 

	There is a line to get in almost every day. They were just named the 29th best hamburger restaurant in America by USA Today newspaper.

	On average, about three people a day win this sort of special joker game, and when they win, they go bat-shit crazy. Right? They?re like freakin? out. They?re putting reviews on Google and TripAdvisor and Yelp. They?re calling their mom crying. They?re taking like patty-melt selfies. It?s like a whole thing. Right?

Jaime:	I'm a winner. I'm going to Disneyland. Yeah. Yeah.

Jay:	It?s a whole thing. And it?s so effective that in Sacramento, even though they have a big neon sign on the restaurant, most people don?t call it Skip?s Kitchen. They call it, ?That joker restaurant.? 

Jaime:	Yep. Wow.

Jay:	Right? They made a decision to do one thing that customers don?t expect, and that?s what a talk trigger is. Now, again you shouldn?t just randomly come up with one, because it won't work, which is why we have a system ? 

Jaime:	That?s what I was thinking.

Jay:	? for how to do that.

Jaime:	How did they ? did they come up randomly with it or did they do it on purpose?

Jay:	They didn?t purpose a hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. He actually used to be ? Skip used to be the guy who ran all of the Chili?s restaurants for Northern California. And he?s like, ?Man, I wanna to do my own thing. I don?t want to work for the corporation.? They have lots of restaurant experience, and he understood the power of word of mouth and things like that, and so they devised this joker game.

	And to your point about doing other things, they have some other little fun things they do, but it?s not really their core talk trigger. So, for example, if you come to the restaurant, they have T-shirts that are really great, but you?re not allowed to buy them. You only get a T-shirt if your name is actually Skip. So, if your name is Skip on your driver license, you get a T-shirt for free. Otherwise, you can?t have one.

Jaime:	What the heck?

Jay:	Which is awesome, right? So, that?s not your whole ? that?s not really your differentiator, but it?s just a little extra like oh that?s kinda funny. 

Jaime:	Weirdo funny nuts. But did they ? when they created that, when they created the initial one that really, really worked, do they create other ones and wasn?t sure which one was going to do it, or did they know that this is more the orchestrated one because of the background info that they had?

Jay:	They tested it like you should, right? And what was amazing ? Skip told me the story when I interviewed him for the book. He was like, ?Okay. We gotta figure out this thing.? There are a couple reasons why they did it. One, obviously word of mouth. Two, it?s a really small restaurant, right? So, the line can get kind of long, and what happens as people are driving by and they see the line, they?re like, ?Oh. It?s too busy. We?re not going to go.? 

	So, he had to kinda keep people motivated in line. So, now what happens is people kinda gather around to see each other play the joker game, so it makes the line experience more fun too. So, when ? he tried it, right, and he?s like, ?Okay. I'm just going to do this. I'm gonna see how this works.? First person won. The first person ever. 

	And he?s like, ?Okay. It?s meant to be. This has to be true.? Right? And they were going crazy and all that. And so, yeah. He said he knew within the first week that they had something there. When we do this on the consulting side, and we talk about it in the book, is usually you want to take your potential talk trigger and you want to give it to about 100 customers. Depends on your type of business, but 100ish, and then test for talkability. 

	You ask them a question about it. You see if it shows up in social media, etc., and then if it seems to be working, then you roll it out.

Jaime:	Okay. I love this. So, what are the four things of the talk trigger?

Jay:	Four requirements.  Four requirements of the talk trigger. The four Rs. We call them the four Rs, because each of these words, Jaime, begins with the letter R.

Jaime:	Haah. You guys are so smooth. 

Jay:	So, as you can see, it all makes sense now.

Jaime:	You?re so smooth.

Jay:	First one is it has to be remarkable. It has to be remarkable in the true sense of this word, which is worthy of remark. It has to be a story worth telling. As we mentioned earlier, if the story is an interesting ? I've never told anybody about going over here and if I hit this switch, the light will go off. That?s a story I?ve never told, because it?s not a story worth telling. It?s not remarkable, right? So, it has to be something that your customers don?t expect.

	The second this is it has to be repeatable. This one?s critical. And what I mean by that is every customer has access to the talk trigger. It?s not just for your best customers. It?s not just for new customers. It?s not just on ladies night or at lunch or on Wednesdays. It?s every customer, every time. 

	This is not about, in any way, going viral. That?s not what we?re talking about here. When I say word of mouth, I mean something that produces customer conversations, every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year, something that reliably grows your business with your customers being volunteer marketers. This is not a stunt. This is not a rent an elephant and see if anybody notices, repeatable. Everybody gets access. Everybody at Skip?s gets to play the joker game. Everybody. Right? So, that?s key.

	Third one is it has to be reasonable. And what I mean by that, it can't be too big. See, I'm sure you see this when you?re talking to people, Jaime, that consumer attention is hard to come by now. And there?s a lot of competition for attention. And one of the mistakes we make and businesses we think okay, well, we go to break through.

	So, what we?re gonna do is something really, really big. They won?t be able to ignore it if it?s really big. So, what we?re going to do is we?re going to have a contest see, and we?re gonna have this amazing contest and every customer?s gonna put their name in a fishbowl, see? And we?re going to pick out one of these names, see? And one of you is gonna win an island. Wait. What? An island? What are talking about, right? 

	And it becomes so big that people don?t trust it, and we don?t trust it, we don?t talk about it. So, what you want is Goldilocks zone, right? You want your talk trigger to be interesting enough to be remarkable but not so big that it becomes untrustworthy.

Jaime:	Normal remarkable instead of ? because yeah. Because I don?t want to be the scammed person that put my name in the fishbowl and was like oh I?m an idiot. That sucks. Yeah.

Jay:	And you don?t want to tell your friend, right?

Jaime:	No.

Jay:	Because now you?re sort of guilt by association.

Jaime:	Yes. Okay. Wow.

Jay:	Right?

Jaime:	Hm-mm.

Jay:	And then the fourth one is it has to be relevant, right? It?s better if it makes sense in context. I?ll tell you two quick stories about this. You may know, one of the most effective and long-standing talk triggers in the world is Doubletree hotels. When you go to a Doubletree Hotel, they give you a warm chocolate chip cookie; every person, every time. They?ve been doing it every day for 30 years.

Jaime:	Has it really been 30 years? Wow. 

Jay:	30 years. Today, as we?re having this conversation, they will give out approximately 75,000 cookies worldwide per day. So, in the book, Daniel and I did a bunch of research, as I always do my books, and we talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Doubletree guests, and we discovered that 34 percent of them have told somebody about the cookie.

	Now, what this means mathematically is that today, and tomorrow, and the day after, every day, 22,500 stories a day are told about that cookie. Now, related question. When?s the last time you saw a Doubletree ad?

Jaime:	I don?t know. No idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Jay:	Yeah. They don?t advertise very much, because the cookie is the ad ? 

Jaime:	Because I remember the cookie.

Jay:	? and the guests are the sales and marketing department. One of my business crushes is Robert Stephens who is the cofounder of Geek Squad, the services for Best Buy. Great guy. Robert has a saying that I love. And it?s not 100 percent true, but it?s true enough. And it goes like this. Advertising is a tax paid by the unremarkable.

Jaime:	Ouch. That one hurts.

Jay:	There?s some truth to that. Like I said, it?s not 100 percent true, but it?s true enough, right?

Jaime:	Yeah.

Jay:	And Doubletree proves that every day. So, one of the reasons that talk trigger work so well is that Doubletree?s brand position is the warm welcome. So, warm cookie, warm welcome. They spend a lot of money on lobby design and front-desk training. It all makes sense.

	There?s a different guy. His name is Jay Sofer, and he?s a locksmith in New York. He?s the number one rated locksmith in New York, and he?s also one of the top five rated businesses in New York City, regardless of business type. So, you can imagine that?s pretty crazy. He is the man.

Jaime:	Everyone?s pissed off when they have the locksmith there too. I'm kind of ?

Jay:	I know.

Jaime:	? surprised that they would be happy about that.

Jay:	I know. That?s how good he is. He is extraordinary. His talk trigger works like this, Jaime. When he finishes rekeying your apartment or whatever, he does a thorough security audit of your premises. He checks every door, every window, makes sure things are cool, makes recommendations, does all of it for free. Also oils all the locks. He?s great. People love it.

	Now, imagine though that the last two stories were reversed. Imagine Jay Sofer finishes your locks and says, ?Hey, Jaime, before I go, listen. Would you like a warm chocolate chip cookie that I baked in my locksmith van?? You would say, ?I do not want that. That is a thing in which I do not have interest, and I?m also freaked out about how these cookies are being made.? 
	
	Or if you went to Doubletree and they said, ?Jaime, before you get to your room, would you like us to perform a thorough security audit?? You would say, ?If that?s required, I?m going to leave now. Thank you.? 

	Each of these stories makes sense, and each of these stories get told over and over and over because they are relevant to who those businesses are and what they stand for, and the best talk triggers fit into that circumstance. This is just about being weird or wacky. It?s about oh, here?s a story that ties back to the business that we?re in. Does that make sense?

Jaime:	Totally. Because that?s what I wanted is a big ole list of talk triggers that we just pick from. Really. That sounds way easier than trying to actually go all in to your customers and find that thing that actually really makes a difference.

Jay:	Yeah. And the customer ? and you can't. So, that?s not how you do it. If you ask customers what they want, they can't do that. It won't ?

Jaime:	So, what do you do? Tell me more. So, now that we have ? 

Jay:	So, here?s what you do.

Jaime:	? the four. Yes. Tell me more.

Jay:	So, those are the four things that have to be true. Then there are five different types of talk triggers, and I?ll touch on those briefly. Talkable generosity. That?s when you give customers more than they expect. We've talked about two of those just a second ago. Free security audit. Free cookie. Those are both talkable generosity. That?s the one that you see most often, because it?s the easiest to implement typically.

	There are four other types. Talkable speed. There?s an accounting firm just up the road in Indianapolis called Bogdanoff and Dages. Small accounting firm. Two guys; Bogdanoff and Dages. Two associates. Here?s their talk trigger though. You?re gonna love this one. 

	They reply to every client, phone and email, within five minutes. You leave them a voicemail, they call back within five minutes. You leave them an email, they email back within five minutes. An accounting firm.

Jaime:	Yeah. Who ignores everybody typically, yes.

Jay:	I've had a lot of accountants in my day, and many of them are quite good, but I have never had an accountant that gets back to me within five minutes every time, and if I did, would I tell that story? Oh hells yeah. I'd tell it all the time. I am right now, and they?re not even my accounting firm. Prove that point. 

	So, that is an operational choice that they have made. They chose to do that. And here?s the crazy secret about this, everybody can do that. They chose not to.

Jaime:	Do they tell people in advance though that that?s what they do, like they?re USP ? 

Jay:	No.

Jaime:	Oh. It?s an above and beyond. Oh.

Jay:	Yeah. And most of the time, you don?t. Most of the time, the talk trigger is not mentioned very much. A little bit of amplification we recommend, but we don?t want it to be the start of your show, because then they expect it, right?

Jaime:	Yeah. Exactly. That?s where I was trying to go. Like wait a minute, where?s the USP versus the ?

Jay:	If they expect it, then it?s no longer a surprise. So, that?s responsiveness.

	Third one is talkable usefulness, which when you?re more useful than your customers expect, similar to my book Utility. You have talkable empathy, which is when you?re just kinder and more human than customers expect. There?s better service. 

	There?s a dental surgeon, oral surgeon, incredible at this. His name is Glenn Gorab, and he works in Clifton, New Jersey, just across the water from New York City. There are 1800 oral surgeons in his trade area. That?s a lot of competition for mouth surgery.

	He is the highest rated one out of all of them, and he?s also the only one that?s never been sued. Ever.

Jay:	Really?

Jaime:	And he?s been doing it for 34 years. And it?s because of his empathy, his empathy talk trigger. Every Friday, his office staff gives him a list of names and phone numbers. Every Saturday, he calls each of those people. And he says, ?Hi. This is Glenn. I'm your oral surgeon. I understand that you?re coming into the office for the very first time next week. Before you get here, do you have any questions I can answer?? Pwuuch.

Jaime:	Right.

Jay:	You might have had a dentist you after a surgery, but you've never had a dentist call you before you ever set foot in the office. He gets call literally every day, every day, from new patients who say I have to drive nine miles out of my way. I have to pass up 37 other oral surgeons, but I want you to be my guy, because you?re the guy who called my friend, Shirley, before she ever came to the office.

Jaime:	That?s insane. Yes. 

Jay:	Again, that?s an operational choice that they had made, that anybody could make, but nobody does.

Jaime:	Yeah. Like how much time did that actually take him to do the day before and yet ? 

Jay:	It?s like an hour a week.

Jaime:	Wow.

Jay:	It?s like an hour a week. 

	And the last one is talkable attitude. And that?s where you?re just a little bit more funny, casual, wacky, interesting than customers expect you to be. It is an attitude, right? Do you know UberConference? You ever use that?

Jay:	No.

Jaime:	UberConference is a free conference calling service. There?s lots of those online, right? UberConference is just like the rest. Free conference call, and they all have really, really terrible on-hold music, right? It?s like really bad smooth jazz except UberConference. UberConference is on-hold music is this hilarious, and I mean outright hilarious song about waiting on hold, and it was written by their CEO, and that?s their on-hold music. 

	And if you do a Twitter search for UberConference plus on hold, you?ll see dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of tweets of people saying the only reason I use this is because of the on-hold music. I show up to calls 10 minutes early every time so I can listen to the on-hold music.

Jaime:	Which is insane, because everybody hates that stuff. Yes. That?s insane.

Jay:	But again, it?s an operational choice that they made to do one thing different that people notice in the talk about. So, those are the five things.

	It is generosity, responsiveness, usefulness, empathy, and attitude. And so, when you come up with your own differentiator, it will have all four of the Rs that we talked about, and then it will be one of those five.

Jaime:	Okay. So, you don?t want to meld the five. You want to pick one and go with it.

Jay:	There are certainly some that you could argue kind of fit into multiple categories. So, Glenn Gorab, the surgeon, right? I categorize it as empathy, because it is about reducing fear of the dentist, but responsiveness, because he?s answering questions before you have to ask them. You know what I mean? So, sometimes it kind of straddles both lines, but that?s not important, really.

Jaime:	Okay. But they tested ? so, that?s the other piece there too. There?s probably a bazillion talk triggers that sucked and we?re not talking about. So, how do they rise to ? how do test that ? how do we know that they rise to the top? Because if the conference music was a funny song but nobody actually liked it ? do you know what I mean? Like it could've ? it wouldn?t have worked.

Jay:	Yeah. I mean if it?s funny but they don?t talk about it, then all we have is a funny song. Absolutely. So, first thing you gotta do ? I won't go through this in great detail, because we?re talking about ? 

Jaime:	Because get the book. Get the book. Get the book. All right. Go ahead.

Jay:	Well, you got to ? well, it?s also 70 pages worth of stuff. So, you want to do a whole set of customer interviews. To do this ? well, okay. The first thing you do is you map your customer journey, right? So, you have to write down all the touch points that your customers have with you. Okay? Map the customer journey. That?s step one.

	Step two is customer interviews. What we recommend, and what we do at Convince & Convert, is 18 interviews. Six with new customers, six with old customers, and six with lost customers. Three by six. And it?s best on the phone. You can also do it via email if you have to.

	And what you?re going to do with each of these interviews, and if you?re a new company or a really small company, you can get by with three by three. Your results may vary. But what you?re going to do in each of these interviews is essentially the exact same thing. You?re going to review the customer journey with this customer, and you?re going to say, ?At this step, when we sent you a proposal,? for example, ?what did you expect would happen??
	
	And then you just shut up, and let them talk. ?When we got to this step, when we sent you an invoice,? perhaps, ?what did you expect would happen?? And then you just shut up. Because, Jamie, what you?re trying to do here is create an expectations map that lies on top of a customer journey. Because as we talked about, for something to be talkable, it has to be something that people do not see coming.

	The only way you can give somebody something they don?t expect is to first know what they do expect. So, what these calls are designed to do is develop an expectations map, because the gold in the river, the talk trigger, is always located where the customers don?t expect it.

	And the big mistake, when you brainstorm this, is you think you know what your customers expect, but you don?t. And if this is so easy that you could just brainstorm it, everybody would already have a talk trigger, but nobody does.

Jaime:	Right. Man. But knowing what those expectations are of front, especially when you own the business or you?re part of the business, you feel like you know your customers so well that I can self identify.

Jay:	Yeah. But you don?t really.

Jaime:	No. Exactly. Okay.

Jay:	You don?t really.

Jaime:	You might also be noticing that you?re failing on some of the expectations that they ? you know what I mean? That you?re lower.

Jay:	Well, you say that, because I got to tell you, one of the things that we?ve really loved over the last few years as we built the system out is irrespective of the power of word of mouth and building a word-of-mouth strategy, just doing 18 legitimate customer phone calls, I mean is a really good thing to do anyway.

Jaime:	Times a million. People please actually do it. Nobody wants to talk on the phone. Please do.

Jay:	Yeah.

Jaime:	The fact that you do this ? and I want to hear the rest of those before we circle back around to this, but your research and your actually going out to customers over and over and over again is impeccable, and that?s how come you know so much just because you?re asking, as a side note. All right. Finish that, and then I want to go into that.

Jay:	So, then you figure out what their expectations are. You come up with a list of candidate triggers. So, you say, ?Hey, when we send them a proposal, they just expect us to send them a PDF as an attachment. That?s what most people expect. It?s the modern age.? So, you think huh. 

	Well, we could probably do something there that they don?t expect. What if instead when we send a proposal, we sent them a sheet cake and the frosting on the sheet cake was designed to look like the cover of the proposal, and the proposal itself was printed out and put in a laminated sleeve so that in order to access our proposal, the customer had to eat an entire sheet cake. That would be something they wouldn?t expect. That would be something they would probably talk about.

Jaime:	My face hurts from smiling from that.

Jay:	Right. So, you just come up with five or six things. You?re like oh, expectation gap, right? And then, you take one of those things, maybe it?s that sheet cake idea and detested. And what you want to do is ideally the best way to do it, it depends on the business, but the best way to do it is to test it in a segment.

	So, to say every nth customer or only customers in this market or only customers in this segment or of this product; so, you can isolated ideally. Some companies are small enough you can?t do that. It?s not hugely important. You roll it out to a test group and then you measure that talkability. And do that in two ways.

	First, do people raise their hand? I mean do you see it in social media? Do you see it in reviews? Do they mention it to your sales guy like whatever? Right? But then you also want to ask all the customers who have accessed the talk trigger three magic questions. And a lot of times you can tag these onto a net promoter score survey or something else you might be doing in your business. Three questions, goes like this.

	Question one. Since you bought from us, or whatever the kind of frame up is, since this thing happened, I?ve told anybody about our company? Yes or no.

	Question two. What did you say?

	Question three. Did you mention any of these things? A list of six. One of those six is the talk trigger. Because then what you end up with is word of mouth, yes/no. Unaided mention of the talk trigger, yes/no. Aided mention of the talk trigger, yes/no. And that?s all you need to be able to prove the talkability of the idea.

Jaime:	That?s genius too, especially because people sometimes forget. So, if you prompt them for the last time, they?re like oh yeah, that was perfect. You actually get accurate data. 

Jay:	Absolutely. Yep. So, that?s how we do it. That?s the system.

Jaime:	Okay. I love the system. How the heck do you create a system ? like you are so good at research. Like I was saying at the beginning, the amount of data that you probably combed through in order to create this system must be insane.

	So, what is your process for putting it into something and then being like that?s good, let?s go with it?

Jay:	Well, it helps having a consulting firm, right? So, we?ve been working on word-of-mouth strategy for eight years for clients and have just steadily improved it and improved it and improved it, and then obviously as part of the book, we read 30 other books, probably 200 academic papers, interviewed 30 authors and probably 50 businesses. So, we took in a lot of information, right?

	And then, you probably know Neen James. Do you know Neen?

Jaime:	Yes.

Jay:	So, she?s a terrific speaker, author. Her book, Attention Pays, is spectacular. One of the things that Neen is really, really good at is helping people create contextual models.

	So, we had a pretty good process at Convince & Convert that we use for word-of-mouth strategy for our clients that we?ve built and adjusted over the years, and then we worked with Neen to kinda help take it into like ? all right. How can we make this ? I'm I have a full consulting firm of lots of really smart people do this all day, every day. Not everybody has that. So, how can we take it and put it into a system that like oh, this works in a book, right? So, she helped us kinda modify it and get it to the point where it?s easy to understand.

Jaime:	And that?s the piece. Because if you add it up, you have 15 different things that I'm supposed to remember, but you went, ?Four, five, six.? And I was like, ?Ooh I remember. This is the four. This is the five. This is the six.?

Jay:	This is the six. Yep. Yep. It really helps. You know, look. We really want people to do this. It?s not just about selling books. We know this works. Word of mouth is so incredibly powerful, and people just go to sleep on it and blow it off, and we want people to do it. And so much so that the book itself has a talk trigger, and on the back of the book is says satisfaction guaranteed. If you buy this book and all of it unconditionally, the authors, that?s me, will buy you any other book of your choosing. And we will. 

	So, if you buy it and you don?t like it for whatever reason, if you want like a first edition Bible or something, like we?ll track one down somewhere and hook you up. And I totally mean that. So, there?s no risk. You are not risking anything to buy Talk Triggers. So, if you don?t like it, I will absolutely buy you whatever you want.

Jaime:	Darn. I like the book. Darn it. That would?ve been good. I just wanna ? I want you to buy something from me so I can send you an invoice, so I can send you a sheet cake right now. That?s the only thing I?m thinking.

Jay:	Wouldn't that be great? Here?s what I?ll do. If you don?t like my book, I?ll buy you Jamie?s book. How?s that?

Jaime:	Yeah. They?ll be like didn?t like that one either. What do you get?

Jay:	I?m gonna sign it with my name. It?s going to be great.

Jaime:	I love it. See, this is why you?re so good. Like, being able to put it in a model where people can actually use it, small business or large. I know you have the resources and work with really large companies, and it?s been difficult when you read books that are more geared that way to take the interpretation and put it in a small business that only has 100, 200, 500 customers a year, right?

Jay:	Yep. Yep. And there are a few pages in the book that are definitely more applicable to larger companies as you might suspect, because you can?t not give them what they need as well, but the system works the same way. In fact, we just launched a brand-new training course a week ago, the Word Of Mouth Marketing Master Class, Daniel and I. And so, we?ve got a whole cohort of small businesses that are going through this process where we?re actually taking them through the system ourselves, and it?s awesome. It?s super great, and people are loving it.

Jaime:	See. It just sounds fun too. And it?s ? you can scale it and get ? 

Jay:	Oh. It?s so fun. It?s so fun. And I gotta tell you the most exciting thing. I just launched a brand-new show yesterday called The Talk Triggers Show. And every week, it?s a six-minute video on YouTube, it?s also a podcast if you want to go audio only, and each week I tell a story of a business that is killing it with word of mouth. Like Skip?s Kitchen. That?s one of the stories, right?

	And every week?s a different type of business, but I don?t tell you what the business is until the very last part of the show. So, you can kind of guess along the way. And it?s so fun. It?s the most fun content I've ever created. So, The Talk Triggers Show comes out every Tuesday. It?s on YouTube right now, and also podcasts. If you go to TalkTriggersShow.com, you can find all the stuff.

Jaime:	How did you come up with it? I feel like we?re a little played out with ? not played out with content, I know that?s where it?s going, right? Like we always have content, but how did you come up with that as the framework of not telling people until the end? That?s awesome.

Jay:	Yeah. Thanks. Two things. Well, one, there?s so many case studies in the book, and then, since the book came out, so many more that I?ve either discovered or people tell me about. What?s fun is ? I do a lot of speaking and when I come off stage, probably half the time someone will grab me, they?ll be like oh hey, do you know this one. This is a talk trigger I was thinking about. It?s my brother?s company or whatever. I?m like no. I?ve never heard of that one. And it?s all just like fresh case studies. It?s really, really fun. 	

	There?s one that I learned about in Seattle. It?s this doctor. He only does vasectomies. That?s it. That?s his whole business. His name is Dr. Snip. Now, that?s pretty great. It?s not his talk trigger, but it?s pretty great.

Jaime:	Oh it?s not. Okay.

Jay:	No. You would think it is, right? But it?s not.

Jaime:	I would talk about that. Yeah.

Jay:	Because again, it?s got to be an experience, right?

Jay:	Yep.

Jaime:	Talk trigger is an experience. It?s operations. And you know, I may just say quickly, we always talk about word-of-mouth marketing, but this isn?t really marketing. It?s operations that creates a marketing advantage, right? And that?s an important distinction. 

	So, I was on stage in Seattle, finish, guy comes to me, hey let me tell you about Dr. Snip. I'm like tell me more. Dr. Snip. This sounds amazing. 

	When people leave Dr. Snip?s office after their vasectomy, Jaime, they get three things. They get postoperative care instructions, they get insurance paperwork, and they get a small, black, velvet box. And in that box is contained in engraved, silver pocketknife. And on that knife it says, ?Dr. Snip, vasectomy surgeon.? 

	Now you can imagine you?re watching football, you?re playing golf, you?re on your boat and you open a beer with this, and you?re buddy?s like hey, Lenny, that?s a sweet knife. Where?d you get it? Like where?d I get this knife? I got it from Dr. Snip, vasectomy surgeon. Guarantee new customer.

Jaime:	I was scared as to what was going to be in that black box, so I really appreciate that story.

Jay:	I built that up for you. Suspense. So, that?s why I love this new show, because every week, Dr. Snip?s going to be one of the stories. Every week there?s a new story to tell, and I tell it in six minutes so it?s not all slog. 

	So, where I got inspired on the format is to my favorite shows ever are ?Paul Harvey?s, The Rest of the Story,? which does the hidden deal, and then ?Mike Rose, That?s they Way I Heard It,? which is Mike Rose?s current podcast, which has the same kind of conceit where you don?t really know what he?s talking about until the very end. I'm like oh, I can steal that. Sorry, Mike. And so, that?s kinda how we structure it.

Jaime:	How did you ? I know it?s new. So, I'm asking questions and we don?t totally know ? like it seems like such a skill set to be able to do that storytelling-wise. Are you coming out ? I know you?re good at that. Don?t get me wrong. You told a million stories. That?s what you do, but is that a skill set that you already know and you know you can do it, or is it something that you feel like you?re going to have to improve as this show goes on?

Jay:	Yeah. So, I feel like we've got it pretty ? I write all the scripts myself. I shoot it myself. We?ve got a team that does some of the edits and puts the graphics on and all that kind of stuff, but yeah I do them all at home, right? Actually, right here, and you know who helped me with just making the show better when I was sort of in beta over Christmas and kinda getting it figured out is Dru Davis. 

	So, Dru and I are really good friends, and Dru?s a terrific speaker, author, and is really, really good at video. He?s got a video series called The Loyalty Loop, which is incredible; way better than anything I could ever do, and he helped me think through some of the ways to scripted, but yeah.

	I mean writing case studies and telling stories is like I can do that all day long. If I could only do that, I would just do that.

Jaime:	Hence the new show. No.

Jay:	Yeah. Exactly.

Jaime:	Gather the data. Tell the people the stories.

Jay:	That?s right.

Jaime:	And that?s what you?re so amazing at. Thank you so much. I know I have wrap up. What?s one action, besides of course getting the book and actually taking action on the book, because it?s really important, one action listeners can take this week to move forward towards their goal of a million?

Jay:	TalkTriggers.com is the place to go. There are all kinds of free stuff on the website too. The one goal that I would ask people to take action on is to set up those customer interviews. Because as we mentioned earlier, yeah, it will absolutely in your path to creating a talk trigger, but even if you don?t do that, although you should, it will teach you a lot about your business, and you?ll be better off if you actually say, ?All right. We?re gonna make this a habit.? 

	So, yes, we should tackle this talk triggers creation process, but if I were trying to get to a million, I would set up a system where I?m talking to five customers a week, every week, for the rest of my life, and you will be a much better business person for it. 

Jaime:	Do it, people. I think we said this last interview, and if you haven?t done it since the last interview, listen to Jay, do it now, because you?ll make more money because of it, and the reason why you didn?t do it is because you?re probably scared. Just saying, people.

	All right. Thank you so ?

Jay:	Yeah. You?re scared of what they?re gonna tell you. And if you?re scared what your customers are gonna tell you, that tells you a lot about what kind of business you?re actually running, right? If you?re like I don?t know if I want to know the truth, you've taught yourself a lesson right there.

Jaime:	Seriously. Please talk to the people. Thank you so much. Now, everyone go to TalkTriggers.com. Get it. Listen to his new show, because it sounds amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Jay:	My friend, always a blast.

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Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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