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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 1 of 27
EPISODE #59: JAY BAER
On this episode, Travis and Sandra had a very interesting and informative talk with social media
marketing consultant, well-known author, speaker, and popular online entrepreneur Jay Baer. Jay is the
owner of the popular social marketing website Convince and Convert as well as author of books like
The Now Revolution and his upcoming book Youtility.
Jay, together with Sandra and Travis, share valuable insights on the concept of doing marketing that is
so useful, people would pay for it. One way would be to focus more on giving content than just
promoting or selling your product and that is to provide valuable information in order to allow customers
to see the value of your services. Jay also points out that entrepreneurs should focus more on
customer retention rather than just customer acquisition, because these are people who are more likely
to buy your products as oppose to those customers who just knew your company and services for the
first time. These are just some of the things discussed in this episode and entrepreneurs would
certainly benefit on Jay’s wisdom on creating powerful marketing that actually works in today’s
competitive market.
Jay Baer – Creating useful marketing
with no HYPE to grow your business
Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins.
Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain.
Travis: Welcome to episode 59 of the Entrepreneur's Radio Show.
Sandra: 59.
Travis: Yes, how are you Sandra?
Sandra: I'm fantastic.
Travis: Good.
Sandra: Fantastic, excited about today.
Travis: Yeah, me too. Let me tell you, our guest today is none other than Jay Baer, right. Jay has
consulted with more than 700 companies on digital marketing including Caterpillar, Nike, Billabong, the
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 2 of 27
list goes on and on. He was named one of America's top social media consultants by Fast Company
Magazine, and his convincing--I always mess that name up. His Convince and Convert blog is ranked
as the world's number 1 content marketing resource, pretty impressive, huh.
Sandra: Yeah, he's awesome, and he's also got a new book coming out June 27 I believe called
YOUtility, spelled Y-O-Utility, and it's really about helping people with how you market as oppose to the
hype. So he's a giver and so he's perfect for our show.
Travis: Yeah, well this is a great interview for several reasons other than Jay's a lot of fun and he's
brilliant. We talked about the 5 most common mistakes people make when marketing their business
and the 5 things that you should be doing. So there's lots of incredible value in this show as always, but
there's something that he hit on that I think was worth the price of the whole show, even though the
show's free I think it's just a golden advise that so many people miss, right.
Sandra: Yeah, you don't want to miss that.
Travis: Now as a funny side note, he's also known as the hype-free, tequila loving, social media and
content strategist, speaker and author.
Sandra: Yeah, and I just really like him because he's living example of taking action and making things
happen no matter where you are in your game of being an entrepreneur. Very inspiring, very real guy.
Travis: Yeah, and she's talking about how he got started. Now, before we get started I want to remind
you to be sure and stay with us until the very end if you can, we'd like to share a little inspiration with
you and also reveal who we're going to connect you within the next episode, right Sandra.
Sandra: Uhm hmm
Travis: You want to tell them about the quick reminder?
Sandra: Nope.
Travis: No? If you enjoy the free podcast that we create for you, we would really appreciate it if you'd
go to DIYOB.com and that's short for Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, and click on the iTunes icon
and then just post a comment and rate the show. This would help us reach and inspire more great
entrepreneurs just like yourself with each and every guest that we bring on, right.
Sandra: Yeah, and you know I'm silly. I love to participate in the show and pull out of our guests all
those nuggets, all those bits of diamonds and gold that will make a difference in your life so I just tease
when I say nope.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 3 of 27
Travis: I know, you just don't like doing that part.
Sandra: But you have your part and I have mine.
Travis: That's right, you don't...
Sandra: So, let's just keep with what works and let's get on with the show.
Travis: I like to put you on the spot.
Sandra: I know.
Travis: Just for a little fun, I guess that's cruel humor and...
Sandra: Uhm hmm
Travis: Alright, so listen, without further ado welcome to the show Jay.
Jay: Thanks very much for having me, delighted to be here.
Travis: We know you're super busy, do you want to say hello Sandra?
Sandra: Hello Sandra, no, hello Jay, hello Travis. We're thrilled to have you here today Jay.
Jay: Thanks so much.
Travis: Hey Jay, before we get in to what you teach, one of the things we like to do is kind of get the
background of how you got started and what transitioned you to the level of success that you have
today. Do you mind giving us the back-story of what brought you here?
Jay: Sure. I had been in online marketing since 1994, and I got there in almost literally an accidental
way. My background initially was in politics and I managed political campaigns and things of that
nature. And did that for a while and then I went the client side, and I was a client side marketer for a
little bit, and then I took a very brief turn working for the government as a spokesperson. And I literally
was the spokesman for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. So my job was to give tours of
the juvenile prison, which is even worse than it sounds in the previous sentence. And I also discovered
that my entrepreneurial bent was not particularly well suited for a government environment. They put
me--and this is a true story, they put me in charge of a 13-person business card redesign committee, I
thought if it's going to take 13 of us to work on these business cards, this may not be a place where I
have a bright future.
Travis: Right.
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Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 4 of 27
Jay: So I ejected from government service after 4 long months. I still get a pension, or I don't get a
pension but I have dollars in my state of Arizona government pension. They send me statements every
quarter where I'm like, once you're 65, you could get 16 cents a year, something like that.
Travis: Ohhh…Sweet.
Jay: Yeah, awesome. And so I was working for the department and simultaneously some friends of
mine from school had started the very first internet company in Arizona. And we met up for beers one
night and they said, "You know, this company is starting to kind of get bigger and we don't know
anything about marketing so could you maybe help us with that?" and I said, "Well, sure but I don't
know what you mean when you say the word internet. I don't know what that is." So this is '93 at that
point so it was pretty early in the game and I said, "You know what, I don't care. I hate this job so much
I would do anything."
So I quit my job working for the government and started to be Vice-President of Marketing of an internet
company without ever having been on the internet, which is sort of baptism by microwave.
Sandra: Right.
Jay: And was there for a few years and started a big, local media site and kind of web design business.
So then got out of that and started a consultancy, and then sold that, and started another consultancy,
and sold that, and then started Convince and Convert, which is where I am today in 2008 to provide
enterprise class advice and counsel to companies around social media and content marketing.
Travis: You know, I didn't even think I realize that the internet existed in '94. I'm trying to think back, I
don't know that I can have a clarity but--you know, the internet become an obvious force to be reckoned
with for me in '99. So, wow, talk about ahead of the curve.
Jay: It was early days. I remember the day that Yahoo! launched, and that was like a big thing because
now there was a directory of websites. I actually bought the very first ad ever on ink.com a long, long
time ago. It was clearly a different world then, that's for sure.
Travis: I remember in '99 I had a conversation with a couple of people and they said, "This internet
thing, this is getting serious."
Jay: Yeah, they're like the only good decision I've really ever made other than pursuing my wife until I
convinced her to marry me was, to accidentally get involved in the internet and then stay in that lane for
the next 20 years.
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Travis: Right. So now, did you find financial success, or how long did it take for you to find in this
journey that you explained. How many years before you started finding financial success and doing this
because you've basically been in the internet marketing game for 20 years now, so...
Jay: Almost, yeah. So, well, because it was a pretty rare skill set, at the outset still is but especially
back then. I was certainly doing okay compared to my peer group from the beginning. But true financial
success was really based on when I started to do my own thing and start my own companies where I
had equity as opposed to just being a well-compensated hired hand kind of person.
So I started my first company that I solely owned in 2000 and kind of did that. I wanted to do it earlier
but I was afraid. As a lot of first time entrepreneurs are, I was scared. I had a wife and a young
daughter and I was getting paid pretty well just being vice president guy but I come from a long line of
entrepreneurs and self-employed people and I knew I always wanted to go that route but you sort of get
that--it's not really golden handcuff, it's sort of silver handcuffs. This is a pretty easy gig what I had right
now and I was scared to do it and then my best friend from grade school ended up becoming my
brother-in-law, he married my wife's sister which is a good gig, I totally recommend that, it's fantastic
because when you're at like family gatherings like Easter, whatever, the family can kind of do whatever,
you can go on the back and smoke cigarettes, and hang out, or whatever. So it was a fantastic time
and we were both 32 and he was diagnosed with brain cancer and unfortunately passed away not too
long after, and when he was diagnosed is when next day I walked in and quit my job and started my
own company.
Sandra: Wow.
Jay: Because I said, "What's the worst that's going to happen to me? If this company doesn't work out I
can go get a high-paying job being somebody's internet guru. I really don't have any meaningful risk,
nothing terrible is going to happen to me like it's happened to him and so I walked in and quit. And I've
never worked for anybody since.
Travis: So his cancer was basically a wakeup call for you?
Jay: I don't know about wake up call, I would say catalyst. It just sort of, for me it re-framed the nature
of risk.
Travis: And so you started in 2000 out on your own and how long before you found financial success
doing that?
Jay: You know I was really fortunate because I had been in the internet game for, at that point already
6 years in Arizona, particularly the Phoenix area, and as a result I had a lot of business contacts in that
area. And so when I sort of hung out my shingle so to speak, I made a lot of calls, and this is before we
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 6 of 27
even use the email as much as they knew that you're down. I just called up a few hundred people that I
know and said, "Hey, I'm starting this new thing, so be thinking about me" and I was fortunate enough
to pick up some clients in the first week and was profitable from the first month, and had been profitable
every month since for the last 13 years.
Travis: That's nice. So the early adapters, and I had some of the similar success. I was one of the early
adapters to SEO, especially in my industry and so I--it was like having an entire stadium to myself.
Jay: Yeah.
Travis: And so I ranked for words globally, or nationally I should say. And so it's easy when you're an
early adapter to--or it's much easier, I should say, to dominate those areas. And then what was the
turning point, the convince and convert, what that implies a shift in thinking to me the way I think that
name infers that you had a paradigm shift in your thinking is, am I correct?
Jay: Yeah. So the first company I started in 2000 was called Mighty interactive, and I started off with
just me and then we grew it, and I ended up selling that company to an advertising and marketing firm
that was full service. The advertising PR, marketing, etc. and so we became their internet arm, and so I
co-owned and helped manage that company for a few years during my earn-out process. And then
when that agreement was completed, I started Convince and Convert to really shift corporate thinking
around new media, because at that point, that was 2008, we really were super deep into SEO and
inbound marketing, and SEM, and display ads, and all of those kind of things which continue to be
effective tactics today but when you talk to companies about what are you doing in digital, or back then
we typically call that interactive, they would say, "We're doing from search, we're doing some banners,
and we're doing some email" and I knew that there was more to that story that there would be a
convergence between social and legacy digital and customer experience and so that's why I started
this company to really help organizations think through that transition.
Travis: When did SEO become inbound marketing?
Jay: I think when Hub Spot decided to call it inbound marketing and they were very effective at putting
a label on that category and I think it's always been inbound marketing. The premise of SEO was
always been to create inbound opportunities and lead gen in commerce, we just didn't really have a
name for it. That's what I'm trying to do with my new book, YOUtility, right. Is let's put a label on a
massively useful marketing, and sometimes it's not about being a new ideal, it's about giving people a
shortcut from a naming perspective.
Sandra: Hey Jay, can I jump in for a second, Travis?
Travis: Sure.
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Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 7 of 27
Sandra: I just don't want to overstep this because I think it's so valuable, it's kind of, like what's
happening behind the scenes. Number one is you took great risk and you started your own thing and
that takes courage. And the other thing is you mentioned you made a couple hundred phone calls.
That's somebody who really takes action and it's for myself, for Travis, for the listener to get that,
having success, I mean really takes stepping out and taking some actions. And so even everything
you're up to now, you're really digging in and you're looking for what works and you're going for it. So I
just want to acknowledge that, that is one of the most important things for any business owner,
entrepreneur, is the action. So you're living demonstration of really going beyond what most people do
to have the success that you do, so I just didn't want to overstep that.
Jay: Thanks very much.
Travis: Yeah, you're talking about in the very beginning I believe the full illustration to add some color
to that, at least from my perspective is there's so many people that are trying to find success hiding
behind their computer screen, and it's--if I had to quantify it, it's almost, if you take a cold lead and you
work to that. Cold leads are tough to work with, people that you don't know, right.
Jay: Sure, yes.
Travis: And so they're tough to work with even if you get off your butt and start making phone calls,
right. And there's a lot of people that are trying to make the transition from cold leads to conversion of a
sell online which seems to be about as 10 times as hard as it is in person, does this make sense where
I'm going?
Jay: Absolutely.
Travis: And there's so many people that are confused as to why they're not finding success. Well first
and foremost cold leads are very, very tough to convert, and secondly, when you don't have that
interaction, I think it multiplies it by 10 times, and so when you do the type of marketing that you're
talking about, it makes sales superfluous. So number one the leads are not cold, they have already
been groomed to know, like, and trust you based on the value that you've given, right.
Jay: Absolutely, yeah. They're preconditioned to believe in whatever it is that you're trying to offer.
Travis: Right. And so, I think step one for a lot of people that are getting started is to, in my opinion, is
to get off your duff and make some of those calls that you made initially but further down the line, would
you agree that using the marketing that you teach you can eliminate a lot of that initial face-to-face
transition of sales?
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Jay: Yeah, face-to-face per se I don't believe is required, obviously, it's beneficial but I don't think is
required. In fact, the majority of our clients today, and we work with some very large companies, we've
never seen face-to-face, nor do we want to. It waste time.
Travis: It's not suitable.
Jay: You can't. Yeah, and we're an unintentionally a boutique consultancy now, there are six of us,
we're totally virtual, we run the company on Skype, in Basecamp, and gotomeeting. And we are very
transparent about that with our clients, like we're happy to be your strategic advisors on all things
social, and digital, and content. But if you need us to come sit in your conference room all the time
we're not going to do that, it's not part of our model. We'll do it occasionally and if I happen to be in your
city giving a speech I'm delighted to come see you but we're not going to spend days and days having
meetings. If you can't embrace let's jump on a 30-minute Skype call then we're probably not the right
firm for you and I think increasingly you'll see not just professional service providers, but companies
start to do that with their customers as well, and it fits very nicely into the big trend and I actually talk
about this a lot in my new book that customers are primarily doing that sort of secret shopping and self-
serve information thing themselves. They don't need nor that they want as much face-to-face
interaction with sales people as they used to. If we think about everybody in the history of the world has
purposely not filled out a contact desk form even when they were interested because they don't want to
be hassled.
Travis: Right.
Jay: You don't want to be called, you don't want to be emailed, you don't want to be in somebody's lead
nurturing campaign because you know what's going to happen. You're going to bugged to death. So
instead what happens is that people try and get all the answers to their questions answered themselves
with online research and then and only when they can't get any more questions answered do they
actually reach out. In fact the stat that I use in presentations is that in a B-to-B context, 70% of the
decision is made before the average customer contacts a sales person or uses a contact desk form.
Sandra: Wow.
Travis: That doesn't surprise me at all. How about B to C, does that change much?
Jay: It does a little bit because your risk profile is so much less, right. Making a bad software decision,
or a bad SEO consultant decision is a lot different than making a bad licorice decision. So people don't
do as much research on consumer products in general just because if you're wrong, it's like, "Well, I'll
live to fight another day".
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Travis: Alright. So for clarification for those that don't know is B-to-B is Business to Business and B to
C is Business to Customer.
Jay: Correct.
Travis: Okay. So, now one of the things that really started the show for us and we originally called the
show Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, which is a play on the story of acres and acres of diamonds.
And the gist of the story is a lot of times what you need is really just under your feet, you just need to
recognize that and so for me I had a shift in my life to where I lost everything and I thought it was the
end of my life in a complete sense. When really it was a turning point for me and it created the biggest
shift in my life and also put me on the track of what my real life's purpose is, and I couldn't have gone
through that without experiencing this incredible failure. Have you had anything--a big shift like that or
have you had a series of smaller shifts that was a turning point for you?
Jay: I am really fortunate and that I have not, and it has been a very steady progression over a long
period of time, partially by design, partially by circumstance but I haven't had that sort of what I call
purposing of success where you're killing it and then it's disaster, and then you're killing it, and then it's
a disaster, and you're changing directions and all that. I have been--what I am doing today and where I
am today and where my company is today is exactly where I thought it would be 5 years ago. And I
know that that is both a rarity and a luxury. Partially I'm pretty planned out just in terms of how I think
and I've been trained to do that which is why I'm a good consultant but partially I've just been incredibly
fortunate and there had been lots of tiny, annoying road blocks put in my way but I have not had to
tackle a lot of the issues that a lot of other people have had to. And I'm grateful for it every day.
Sandra: Yeah.
Travis: Jay, most people don't have that clarity and don't get their act together until they been knock
down and so fortunately for you are you naturally conservative?
Jay: I would say medium, and I guess part of it is we're talking about the risk of starting my own
company and things like that Sandra, I think I interpret risk a little differently and that I don't worry too
much about negative consequences because I've proven in the past that I can always going to bounce
back and overcome them and things like that. So I have certainly done some foolishly risky things. I live
in Indiana now but I used to live in Arizona, lived there forever. And back in the last, big real estate
boom in Arizona, bought a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have bought, so if anybody listening to the show
wants a condo in Arizona, just email me after the show. We'll be able to work something out, no
problem.
So, you get caught up in that kind of climate, right, and you start making decisions about things that you
have no business making decisions about. I'm not a real estate professional and so I bought a bunch of
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Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 10 of 27
things, they all probably lose a ton of money on and you live and learn. But that's not core to my life or
to my business, it sucks for sure. I put it in the "that sucks" column, but it hasn't ruined my life or made
me completely change my direction other than as I get older and I realize I have fewer opportunities to
overcome financial mistakes like that, I try to stick to my niddy more, like I do a lot angel investing as
well, and I try and invest in probably 4 companies a year, and more and more I try to invest in
companies that really understand the space. So I tend to do more social technology kind of companies,
things that I feel like I've got a disproportionate chance to be right about. In the past I've done some
things in biosciences and other categories where I have no more understanding than a guy off the
street and that's a dangerous way to invest.
Travis: Right, amen to that.
Sandra: Well, and it seems you've got, even though you might not have had any colossal failures, even
coming from, you'd said before we got on this show that you came from a line of entrepreneurs or other
people. I think you've probably witnessed things and you've learned probably from other people and
seen things, that it all got filed somewhere deep in the subconscious of what to do, what not to do.
Even taking risks and having them in your "that sucks" category, whatever, but moving on, that's all
kind of learned behavior that you got somewhere. So I think that you found your diamonds, you know
what works, what doesn't, you might not be able to put your finger on exactly where but you are an
extraordinary individual, and just hearing you speak it's like I get that you are. So even though we might
not pinpoint where it came from where you want to pull out the gems of what you've got. So that's what
I'm just trying to highlight what it is you're doing because you might not see it. But damn, you're too
great.
Jay: Thank you.
Sandra: You are.
Jay: I have this sign that I'm looking at right now, it's above my desk. I keep it here always which says,
and to your point about sort of things change, it says, "Accept that some days you're the pigeon and
some days you are the statue."
Sandra: Yes.
Jay: That's right.
Sandra: That's great.
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Travis: You know, I think also it helps--you made the jump at a later age and us guys think mature
much later than women. I think we're about 10 years behind. I'm convinced it's the testosterone that
drives us nuts.
Jay: Yup.
Travis: And I started as a very young man and it takes many years of wisdom and experience, and
several other things, and I had some explosive growth, and there's an incredible amount of
responsibility that comes with making, or having a lot of money. And you do and say or I did and said a
lot of very ignorant things, and so I think starting maybe later in life and also that slow, steady growth,
both of those are formulas to help keep you on track. So those...
Jay: No question.
Travis: Those things help as well.
Jay: And I was lucky in a couple of other ways that A, from the time I was 20--well, I started as an
intern on political campaigns when I was 18. So from the time I was 18, except for 1 person, until the
time I was 26 I had a string of unbelievably good bosses, like world-class managers across a variety of
industries and I just got really, really fortunate in that regard and that helps a lot. You look at sports and
there's people who are players who become great managers, and at some cases it's become the,
because they just have an aptitude for the game, but if you kind of dig deeper into that you find that a
lot of the players who become great managers are those who played for great managers. And not just
one but several, and I continue to give credit to all the people who were managers of mine when I was
young because it makes a huge difference. And my daughter is 14 now and I'm talking about in the
next year or so, or two years, getting a part-time job, and I said, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters
who you work for because it will change the way you think about work. My first job I was 15, my first
real job and I worked for McDonald's, and it was an incredibly good experience because they have
such a system and such an approach and you can't be a bad McDonald's worker, you can be mediocre
but you can't be bad because you'll be gone. And I had a particularly good manager and owner of that
particular franchise that really helped. And then from the time I was relatively young, indeed, I didn't
really start my own company until I was in my early 30's, but for most of my 20's I ran companies as if I
own them, it just wasn't my money, I had that level of authority and I just didn't have the dollars at
stake. And that's a great experience because you're making all the decisions you'd be making if it was
your dollar, it just isn't and so if you mess up, you gain the wisdom but you don't suffer the
consequences and that's a fantastic scenario if you can find a way to make it work. I look back now and
realize what an advantage that was. At the time it didn't seem like it but now I sure see it.
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Travis: Well, you know Jay what's interesting is what you're describing is mastery, and we'd
interviewed Robert Greene, which is the author of Mastery, and he explains exactly what you're talking
about. What I hear is an apprenticeship that you've gone through of a variety of people and seeing the
granular steps of what each of those incredible business people do is an education tenfold of college.
Jay: No question.
Travis: And so spending time in--McDonald's is known for systems.
Jay: Yup.
Travis: And systems are what make a business successful.
Jay: No question.
Travis: And so what a great apprenticeship to go there, and then to interact with brilliant people, that
stuff, it can't help but rub-off on you.
Jay: Yeah. I actually thought about, when I was in high school, staying with McDonald's. They recruited
me very hard even when I was 16. They're like, "We want you to be part of this." I was still in high
school and they wanted to send me to the Hamburger University kind of thing and all that and take over
and do that deal. And being in that age it's a little weird to think, "I'm going to make a career of doing
this." It's kind of hard to embrace that. Although it's a great gig, I know people who have done it. So I
didn't go down that route but it was really impressive how buttoned up that organization was, even then,
and we're talking it's almost 30 years ago.
Sandra: Even for them to believe in you is similar to having a great boss. When you have that belief
you start believing in yourself.
Jay: Yeah, no question, it really helped me. I started there when I was a sophomore and I ended up
having a lot of leadership positions in high school and then a lot of leadership positions in college, and it
becomes a trampoline effect and I think people tend to overlook sometimes what those very first
experiences do. It's sort of the butterfly principle, you know.
Travis: Right.
Sandra: Sure. I'd love to find out a little bit about your book because I was sneaking around on your
website--your book is Youtility, and your website, Youtilitybook.com and you're talking about help, not
hype. And Travis and I, our listeners know that we're all about giving, giving, giving, and I would love it
if that's okay with you guys just to hear about what you're up to now and what you're passionate about,
and what the heck is help, not hype?
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Jay: You bet. So the book comes out June 27th, I'm doing all kinds of speaking and marketing and
book pre-sales and the things of that nature right now to support the book. I'm very excited about it, it's
published by Penguin Portfolio which is their business division. Lots of support behind the book. You'll
be seeing a lot about it, you will not be able to escape it, that I can guarantee. And the premise is that
marketing has never been harder than it is right now. You have this massive increase in media outlets
like this one. You have a very fractured and impatient consumer audience who are doing their own
thing and are trying to ignore or delete advertising whether it's by DVR, or Adblockers, or this lack of
patience, etc. and you have the circumstance where businesses are being forced to compete for
attention, not just against other businesses that sell the same stuff but against everybody and
everything. If you think about your Facebook feed, or your Twitter feed, or your email inbox, or your
Instagram, or Pinterest, etc. it is a combination of personal relationships and professional relationships.
So as a company, what you have to do is somehow get my attention when I'm in the same place where
I'm trying to interact with my closest friends and family members. So your competition isn't the other
guy, your competition is my wife in terms of getting my attention, and that is an extraordinarily difficult
scenario for business. And so there's 2 ways to theoretically succeed in that hyper-competitive
environment. You can either be amazing and be viral, and sort of breakthrough by catching lightning in
a bottle, and there's lots of people out there that will tell you that that's the way to go. Just be a terrific
company. But you know what, the reality is you're probably not a terrific company, and you’re not going
to be. It's easier for people who are amazing to provide advice of be amazing.
Sandra: Right.
Jay: And so I believe the better way to go is to not worry about being amazing, but to just focus your
attention around being truly, and inherently useful, and I define Youtility, Y-O-Utility as simply this, it's
marketing that is so useful, people would pay for it. Is your marketing so good, and so inherently
valuable that if you said "Hey, you want to kick any couple of dollars for this?” People would say,
“Absolutely.” That's what it takes, that's the bar that we have to clear. So the new book is all about how
to do that and tons of companies of different sizes and circumstances. We talk about the 3 facets of
youtility, and then a 6-blueprint process for how to create youtility in your own company.
Travis: So that's basically the litmus test if someone would get out their wallet for the content?
Jay: That's right. It's marketing that people want instead of marketing that companies need.
Travis: Great point. Keep going Sandra, I'm just stay out of the way for a minute.
Sandra: Well, no, this is the time you jump in and ask your 5 points and 5 things to do and not to do,
it's all you Travis.
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Travis: Yeah, so actionable take away here is, and you may not be able to make it fit in the five, maybe
it's your top three. But if I asked you, because everybody listening is an entrepreneur, and if I asked
you the top 5 things that people are doing wrong and then the top 5 things that they should be doing,
are they the inverse of each other or are they slightly different?
Jay: I think slightly different. I suppose I could probably construct the scenario where they are the
inverse of one another. But I would have to work at it...
Travis: No...
Jay: ...to put that together.
Travis: Yeah. So I don't want to ask the same question in just in a reverse way, so, I would much
rather than not necessarily tied to one another. If they are tied, they are tied, so it is what it is. What's
the top 5 things that people get wrong with what you're teaching here?
Jay: Well, I think first of all people tend to treat social media as the world's shortest press release.
They're using the same marketing playbook from centuries ago which is, "Hey, we're awesome, click
here to find out why" and just applying that in a social media context, and so that certainly doesn't work.
And the second thing that people do, and these are not in order, the order in which I think of them not in
which the order they should be tackled.
Sandra: Right.
Travis: Fair enough.
Jay: The second thing is people tend to over value communication and undervalue customer
experience. If you want to be great at social media have products that are worthy of praise. People tend
to think that marketing, even helpful marketing can wallpaper over fundamental sins in your
organization and they can't. The third thing is that people tend to think of marketing in particular as a
series of short-term conquests. What are we going to do this week, this month, this quarter, what's the
campaign where it really needs to be more around lifetime customer value and creating relationships
that will pay-off over a much longer time horizon than we typically think about. I would say that,
especially for listeners of this show, modern marketing tends to be under resourced at the personnel
level, we typically are willing to write checks for clicks but we're not necessarily willing to write checks
for people, and I think that it's the wrong approach especially, increasingly social and content marketing
and things of that nature which require you to make stuff and make helpful things that take bodies, not
necessarily just credit cards, and...
Travis: So go a little deeper with that just for clarity.
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Jay: Well, you think about a lot of them sort of digital marketing that has happened in the past has
become programmatic, right. Let's do Google Ad words, let's do Facebook ads, let's do email, let's do
banner ads. There's a lot of technology that has been incorporated toward those channels in such a
way that it's fairly easy, or can be fairly easy to manage them. Not easy to be great but easy to be
competent. And so it's how much you want to pay for a click? Okay, great. Whereas the new form of
marketing, and I'm talking about the book, this notion of having truly and inherently useful content, and
being good at social requires bodies, it requires actual people to understand your customers to create
content that they value, to interact with them and engage with them on a one to one basis. It requires
people, not just dollars, and I hear this a lot from clients. Well, we have a budget but we don't have a
head count, so what difference does it make other than you got to put a desk there, why is that an
issue? But it's an issue for a lot of companies, so that's I think something that has to change.
Travis: Okay. And it seems like that problem can be dealt with, and this is going to go counter to what
you're saying and correct me if I'm wrong. It seems like you could go deeper in the relationship with just
a well-thought out segmented list. Is that aligning with what you're saying there? Although that's not
increasing head count, it's spending more time and effort in what happens after the click because really
what I hear is furthering the relationship beyond the click rather than being focused on getting new
clicks.
Jay: Well, no question, and I think that would be the fifth thing that I would which is that everybody, and
I will borrow, I will appropriate this line from Gary Vaynerchuk which is you have to stop being a 19 year
old dude. Meaning that businesses of all types try to close the deal on the first date.
Travis: Right.
Jay: And it's...
Sandra: I get it now.
Jay: It's like, okay, somebody clicked on my website, where they clicked on my ad, or they found me in
Google, how come they haven't bought anything yet? As if your landing page is so incredible that they
could know nothing about you but yet they'll be reaching for their wallet instantaneously and that's not
really the way it works. You have to understand that there are different questions that people have to be
answered before they make a purchase. And so there's not enough understanding of the funnel and
how customer needs and customer questions change based on where they're at in that consideration
funnel.
Travis: Right. Well, that's one-step marketing, right. So many people still think that, "Hi, I'm XYZ, job
quality is number one, buy my stuff."
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Jay: Right.
Travis: That's how the yellow pages ads worked for decades, and it's like no one has realized that it's,
or the majority of people have not realized that, that no longer works, right. And that's your point.
Jay: Yep, absolutely.
Travis: Okay. And so before we go to the flip side of that question that I gave you, the five. So these
are the five mistakes. You had mentioned a lifetime customer value and so I'm one of these guys that
really needs to bring in revenue this month, just assuming. Because I know a lot of businesses are
struggling for cash flow, right.
And so, Jay how can I focus on lifetime customer value when I need to increase the monthly income
and profit and revenue, how can I focus on lifetime kind of value?
Jay: Well, it's not an either or but the quickest way to get revenue this month is to ask the people who
gave you revenue 6 months ago because they've already proven that they like it, they've already raised
their hand. Just business people in general put way too much emphasis on customer acquisition and
not enough on customer retention and loyalty, just categorically so.
Travis: Jay, that statement right there is worth the entire hour we're going to spend together for
anybody listening. That is the most underutilized thing for everybody, is they completely neglect the
person that's taken out their wallet and spent money with them before. That is brilliant, thank you for
that.
Jay: Let me give you a personal example. So I'm in pre-order right now for my book at
youtilitybook.com, I created a bunch of bonus materials that people can get if they pre-order the book
from me this week. So create all this launch, the e-commerce site, etc. I have a list of 1,200 people who
have said over the last few months, they've seen me give a speech whether I'm interested in the book.
Those people have all seen me live but I don't necessarily have a personal relationship with the
majority of those people. They haven't necessarily raised their hand in a big. In a minor way yes, but on
a big way. So I emailed those 1,200 people and I sold 200 books.
Travis: Nice.
Jay: Then I sat down, and this happened just Saturday, this is just 3 days ago. Sat down on Saturday
and I emailed 150 people who I have known in my life, clients, former clients, friends, former friends,
family members, people who really have been there for me and with me for a long period of time. Those
150 people produced 1,000 books.
Travis: Wow.
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Jay: So, when I wrote my first book, The Now Revolution, co-wrote my first book. Gary Vaynerchuk
who I mentioned a moment ago who wrote Crush It! and the Thank You Economy, great entrepreneur,
one of the best in the world, I talked to him and said, "Hey, give me some advice for selling this book."
And he said, "You've already sold the book, you just have to ask people to close that loop." And I didn't
do it in the first book for a lot of reasons, but I did at this book and I said, "You know what, Gary's right. I
have already sold this book by the value that I've produced in people's life for the last 20 years, the
thousand blog post I've given away for free, the weekly podcast I give away for free, the daily email I
gave away for free and you just have to close that loop with people, and it makes a huge difference.
Travis: Excellent demonstration of your point there. So let's flip it on the other side. You eloquently just
pulled 5 and there was no pre-planning, I didn't send you any of this in advance so that was pretty
good. So let's flip it on the other side, and what are the 5 things that they should be doing?
Jay: I think people have to start thinking about the fact that--let me tell you this in a different way. A,
customer service is a spectator sport, every customer is a reporter. I was in a speech yesterday in
Minnesota and somebody asked me after my talk, "Well, what if maybe we don't want to get involved in
all these social media stuff because what if somebody says something bad about us?" Well, the reality
is if somebody is prone to saying something bad about you they already are.
Travis: Right.
Jay: They just may or may not be doing it online. So it's not so much about whether you solve that
person's problem, it's the fact that everybody else is looking on, whether it's Twitter, or Facebook, or
Yelp, or TripAdvisor, whatever the thing is in your business. Category, everybody else is looking on to
see how you handle it. So this notion that you have a choice, that you can just be like, "Well, we're
going to ignore complaints on Twitter", it's crazy because that's basically this, right. So imagine
somebody calls you and says, "Hey Travis I've got a problem with the show", and you just immediately
hang up the phone, because Travis only takes positive phone calls.
Travis: Right.
Jay: Right? But that's how a lot of companies are treating social media. "We'll answer the phone and
we'll answer emails but we won't answer complaints in social media" which I think is just ludicrous, so
that's the first thing. The second thing is that people have to understand that increasingly, everybody in
your company is in marketing. It doesn't matter who's actually in marketing, everybody's in marketing.
And at the power in digital and new media is at the individual level not the company level. If you think
about most organizations, the number of contacts that they have socially, number of Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, etc., connections they have will almost always vastly exceed the number of connections of
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the actual company accounts have, and that will always be true. So you have to recognize that your
greatest advocates are the people who are in your office.
Travis: Oh, that's brilliant Jay.
Jay: And you have to start working that out as a company that I'm invested in called Addvocate. A-D-D,
Addvocate.com, it's a little browser plug-in that companies can use to send, propose tweets to their, or
Facebook post, or LinkedIn post to their employees who can then with one click, redistribute those
messages across their own social networks, and it gives you stats to know which employees did it and
who got the most clicks, and that kind of thing, and you can get prizes and awards and all that. So
that's a big trend that I think is on the way and already here in some cases. Third thing that companies
should do is realize that you have to make the story bigger. So yes I'm a big advocate of content
marketing and creating more information and being useful and hopeful. But typically being useful and
helpful isn't necessarily just talking about yourself and why your company is worthy. That's not a very
interesting story. Columbia sportswear, guys who make ski jackets and what have you is a client of
mine. I didn't work on this program, I don't want to take credit for it but we do some other work for them,
and they have this mobile application, I actually talk about this in the book. They have a mobile app
called What Knot to Do in the Great Outdoors, K-N-O-T. And this mobile app shows you with
animations how to tie various knots and when you might need that knot. So if you're hanging off a cliff
face, so you're camping or whatever and you need to know how to tie a knot, here you go. And that's
really, really useful for the kind of people that buy Columbia sportswear products. But they don't sell
rope, they're not in the rope business. So what they did is they made the story bigger. They said,
"Okay, it's not about us, it's not about creating an app that shows you which jacket to buy, it's about
how can we help people who are our likely customers."
Travis: Right.
Jay: So that's some of the people have to figure out, make the story bigger.
Travis: Right. Make yourself invaluable to your prospect.
Jay: Yeah. People say, "Okay, got a great content, well let's create an info graphic about our product,"
he's like, "No dude, that's just a brochure with more pictures" that's not what people want. The other
thing that companies need to do is worry less about selling better and worry more about teaching
better. If you can be the best educator in your category, you will dominate that category. If you can be
the place that everybody turns to for real knowledge about that industry I think you can be very, very
effective.
Travis: Brilliant advice.
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Jay: And the last one I would say, especially for entrepreneurs, I think this a play that really works, is
find a way to turn your prospective customers into marketing. And I do a podcast once a week called
Social Pros, it's socialpros.com and I've been doing it for about a year and a half now. And social pros
is billed as the podcast for real people doing real work in social media. So once a week myself and my
co-host interview somebody who's a senior social media manager at a big company. So social media
manager for IBM, social media manager for Low, social media manager for Scott's Miracle Grow, etc.
And we talk about sort of inside business stuff. So for people who really do social media for a living at
enterprise scale, it's a very useful show because that kind of information doesn't really get talked about
anywhere else except for conferences. Because if you're not in that business, sort of like I don't really
care about how all these works, and so it's got a good following in that industry. Well that industry is my
customer base. Those are the people that we consult for. So we have essentially turned our
prospective customer list into a marketing asset. And you can do that in almost any industry. Figure out
who your perspective customers are and then find a way to interview them via podcast, via blog, via
video, and you can really do well with that approach.
Travis: So you basically send them, your podcast is the top of the funnel, right.
Jay: Absolutely, yup.
Travis: So, great advise by the way. I want to say brilliant of you to be able to come with 5 off the top of
your head of opposing so. I know you have your stuff down cold so you're just brilliant there. Question
for you regarding a kind of your business model because I think everything is an illustration of how
things work in a real business and how people can take and apply those things to their own business,
right. All the conversations we have are some iteration of that. It's either an illustration of what to do or
what not to do, right.
Jay: Yeah, fundamentally. That's sort of what the consulting side of the business is all about. We either
say yes, you should do this, or definitely don't do that.
Travis: Yeah. So from a scaling standpoint, it seems like you could scale much bigger through the
promotion of podcast than speaking and your opinion because I know you speak a lot, and I know you
have the podcast, and I know you write books as well, and all of those is focused on giving first. And so
you do what you teach. Now the podcast seems like it would be most scalable for you, is that correct?
Jay: Well, the blog is certainly the most scalable today and the blog which is a larger audience than
anything else. We do about a 110,000 visits a month on the blog which is pretty good for just a small
crew. The podcast is theoretically the most scalable but I don't know that it is because the topic is so
narrow. There's probably not 10,000 people in this world that care enough about that topic to listen to
that podcast. So if I can get 5,000 of those people I feel like I will have had that category lick. And that
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particular piece, it's more about quality of audience than it is about quantity of audience. So either
things that we do like the blog, like the email newsletter which goes out everyday are a little bit more
top of the funnel and intended to be for a broader cross-section of business people.
Travis: So the bottleneck is due to the niche?
Jay: For the podcast, I think it is. Yeah. There's other bottlenecks, just give it a time. We're a small
company, there's 6 of us, and people are already amazed with what we're doing. 5 blog posts, 5 emails,
and a podcast every week, a quarterly eBook, I do 3 webinars a month, and at least 8 speaking gigs a
month. So we're creating a lot of content for a very, very small team and if we had a bigger team and
had more resources we could probably create more but I think for now we're about maxed out.
Travis: Well, you know the speaking part is what takes them majority of the time, doesn't it?
Jay: In terms of an actual time allocation absolutely but the good news is that speaking's also when I
make the most money out. I do very few unpaid speaking engagements, probably no more than 3 or 4
year, and in terms of an actual, what's your hourly yield, the speaking is probably the best. So it takes a
lot of time, you're away from your family and all of that is a downside but as a business it actually works
pretty well.
Travis: Right. Well...
Jay: But that takes a long time to get there. There's a lot of people I know who are good speakers and
want to do that, who are not at the point where they can charge a lot of money to give a presentation
and that makes it an even tougher balancing act.
Travis: But Jay, I bought a program that said I could charge $50,000 for my speeches.
Jay: And someday you may be able to. But, and I've got a blog post cooking about this that the
speaking business is exactly the same as the music business, it's the same industry, right. So as a
speaker you start off speaking for free in your basement and then you do your fraternity party, and then
you do the local bar for free cocktails, and eventually if you keep at it and you keep getting better at it,
then eventually you get to the point where you can charge $50,000. There are people who can jump the
line, and the same way that there are musical acts that jump the line because there's some sort of
transcendent event, either some sort of hit album, or in our case usually it's a hit book, where you're on
a TV show where you have some other device that gets you known, but if you do it like I do which is the
hard way you just--if you give a great speech 50 times a year, in every audience there's at least 3
clients downstream, so literally it's almost like MLM, it's almost like a pyramid marketing plan where if I
speak to a hundred thousand people this year, some of those people will be the folks that hire me next
year.
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Travis: Right. I have joked because I'm a little cynical about all the biz op stuff going on selling hope to
the hopeless, and I'm frustrated with it because they're causing people that have the least amount of
money to part with money that they can't afford to part with. And so I become very jaded, and some of
these people are industry leaders and so it's really kind of disappointing, but a great illustration. I've
never really thought of it that way, that's a great...
Jay: It's good to hear. And I will write the blog post, if it didn't seem too obvious, maybe I will write it.
Travis: Yeah, definitely. Getting close to the lightning round where I've sent you three questions on
that, but before I segway there, Sandra I sense that you have a burning question or two, you want to
jump in?
Sandra: No, I don't have a burning question; I've been quiet because I've been taking notes like a wild
woman. I've got your page opened, I don't have my credit card on me to pre-order the book. I am so
excited and inspired and I just see that there's something new possible with some of the stuff you offer,
so I'm grateful.
Jay: Thank you, it's nice to hear, I appreciate that.
Sandra: Yup, sure.
Travis: Sandra, order a thousand copies.
Jay: Perfect, let's get on then.
Sandra: Yes, I'm all over it.
Jay: Excellent. I've got to threw my podcast if he wants.
Travis: What's that?
Jay: I've got threw my podcast if he wants a thousand books.
Travis: There you go.
Sandra: Okay.
Travis: Alright. So let's transition to the lightning round, are you ready?
Jay: I am in fact ready.
Travis: Alright, you got your seat belt on?
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Jay: I am standing up so that's as close as I can get.
Travis: Okay, good. So what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you
recommend and why?
Jay: I'm a big fan of Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath which really helped--it's almost in some
ways a precursor to what I've done. Made to Stick helps companies understand how to tell more
effective stories about themselves in a way that isn't lame and it's a really good book, I recommend it to
everybody. I also really like a book that came out last year which didn't get a ton of play called Different,
and it's all about how to differentiate your company in a crowded market place, it's really good.
Travis: I've never heard of Different.
Jay: Yeah, it was Harvard Business Press and it didn't sort of jump into the public consciousness like
other popular business books have, but I really, really like it, it's a good read.
Travis: Have you read Mastery?
Jay: I have not, it sounds great though. I’ll pick it up.
Travis: Man, you've got to, get the audio download, it's brilliant.
Jay: I just actually did the recording for my audio book the other day; it’d be interesting to see how that
turns out.
Travis: Have you done audios; is this your first book to do an audio?
Jay: The last time--we published our first book. Amber and I, we did not read it ourselves. We're like,
"We don't really want to deal with that." And as co-authors it was like who's going to read what part and
we just kind of said,” Duh…” and then they got somebody to read it, and I have not actually listened to it
I'm told that that guy was terrible. So I feel bad about people who downloaded on audible. So this time I
said, "Alright, I'm doing it myself," and so I went in to the studio last week and made it happen.
Travis: Good deal.
Sandra: That's perfect.
Travis: How long did it take you to do that?
Jay: It didn't take me too long, the book isn't super lengthy and that was by design. I wanted it to sort of
be one of those books that you feel like you can conquer on plane flight. And I'm pretty facile at the
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speaking sites, I didn't make too many mistakes so it was about, by the time the smoke all cleared,
maybe 8 hours.
Travis: Not bad.
Jay: But I broke it up into a couple of days.
Travis: Cool. What is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered,
that you'd recommend to other business owners?
Jay: We talked about Addvocate, I would say one that I would really, really, like for entrepreneurs and
business owners is another company that I'm investor in called Buffer, and buffer is at--let me just
double check this one, I have you here. It's Bufferapp.com, and Buffer allows you to tick out different
things that you would like to send out in the social media. Different blog post or articles, or videos, what
have you. And you just click a button in your browser, and you say, "Buffer this, buffer this, buffer this,
buffer this, buffer this", and then during the day it automatically sends those out in sort of time release
capsule form. So what I do is in the morning I look at probably 30 or 40 email newsletters and different
blogs and things like that, and then I click, "Yeah, like this one, this one, this one, this one", and all day
Buffer sends out Tweets for me that say, "Hey, you got to check this out, you got to check this out, you
got to check this out." So instead of having to interrupt my day 10 times to jump in to Twitter, or
Facebook, or LinkedIn, I can do it just once or twice, and it's a very efficient tool for that.
Travis: Excellent. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business?
Jay: Oh, I already said it actually, I ruined my own bit.
Sandra: And I love it, it's about the statue.
Jay: Yes, it's "Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue." That's the
only quote that I have in my office and that's the one I pay attention to the most because it's so true,
and especially an entrepreneur, you are affected by the ups and downs more than when you're in a
larger company. And my dad told me this which is sort of a distillation of the same quote. I was just a
kid, I was like 20 and he said, "Look..." and my dad's been self-employed forever. He said, "Look,
here's the deal. It's never going as good as you think it is, and it's never going as bad as you think it is."
And he's exactly right.
Travis: Yes, I agree.
Sandra: I'll write that one down too.
Travis: A very wise man he is.
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Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 24 of 27
Jay: Indeed, and a good entrepreneur. He started 5 or 6 companies.
Travis: How do people connect with you Jay?
Jay: If you just use the Google and type in Jay Baer, B as in boy, A-E-R, you will find lots of ways to
connect with me but I would say our home base where you can get to everything else is our site
convinceandconvert.com. You can find our daily blog, and our email newsletter, and the podcast, and
the books, and all kinds of stuff there.
Travis: Cool. And I guess one final thing. What's your bottom dollar on the condo?
Jay: Well, the real estate business in Phoenix is coming back actually, so it's...
Travis: Hang on to it.
Jay: ...it's roaring back. We may actually be within shouting distance of breakeven which would be
amazing. Like I thought that would be my grandchildren. "Hey, guess what, for your birth gift you each
get a condo."
Travis: Yeah.
Sandra: Nice.
Jay: But we'll see.
Travis: Two weeks in Arizona.
Jay: Yes, luckily they're rented, thank God.
Travis: Cool. Man you've provided some incredible value, would you mind hanging out for a couple of
minutes while we wrap things up?
Jay: You bet.
Travis: Excellent. Thanks a million for being on the show.
Jay: My pleasure.
Travis: Sandra, you want to...?
Sandra: Yeah, a mega thanks to Jay, and for Travis, and me, and Jay, and all of our listeners. It is so
clear from this interview for me that no matter where we are is okay, good, better, and different, and
there are things to do. There really is tending to our customers that we have and helping and not the
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 25 of 27
hype, and so Jay just a huge thank you for giving so generously today. I took a lot out for myself and for
my own businesses and I'm sure our listener has to. So thanks, it's been fun spending the past hour
with you.
Jay: My pleasure, thank you.
Travis: You said listener, like we have one listener.
Sandra: Aren't you funny.
Jay: It just takes one.
Travis: So listen, I want to remind you guys, you can go to DIYOB.com, and that's short for what
Sandra?
Sandra: That would be Diamonds in Your Own Backyard.
Travis: That's right. And that way you don't have to type in the long Entrepreneur's Radio Show. Also
while you're there enter your name and we'll send you the 2013 Business Owner's Guide to a Profitable
Million Dollar Business. It's a candid behind the scenes look at what you need to know to grow your
business to incredible levels of success. What we tell you in the guide is critical to success and no
one's really taking about many of these issues because it's either not in their best interest financially or
they just don't know what they don't know. So in the guide we'll cover the 6 common misconceptions
that cost most small businesses a fortune, the 5 skills that will determine the success of your business
over the next 18 months, and lots more information for taking your business to that next level, and all of
it free for just becoming a part of the authentic entrepreneur nation.
I want to close the show today by reminding you that no matter where you're at as an entrepreneur,
based on the simple fact that you were brave enough to follow your dreams and become an
entrepreneur. You're an inspiration to those around you to go after their dreams too, so keep it up.
What you're doing really, really does matter. Right. Sandra? I caught you off guard, Sandra are you
there?
Sandra: I'm here.
Travis: Oh.
Sandra: I was coughing.
Jay: I was going to do like, "Yeah, yes, I totally agree."
Sandra: Yeah, that’s something. No, I still have my cold and I was on mute coughing.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 26 of 27
Travis: Yeah.
Jay: Hell, yeah Travis, you're the man.
Sandra: You're fun too Jay, we like that.
Travis: We caught her, didn't we Jay?
Jay: If you have them you get a mute button.
End of Interview
Travis: That's right. So listen, our inspirational quote of the day comes from Mary Anne Radmacher.
And the quote reads, "Courage doesn't always roar, sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of
the day saying, I'll try again tomorrow." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now.
Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain signing off, have a great day.
Travis: Yeah. Have a great day. To your incredible success, we'll talk to you on the next episode. Take
care.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW
Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business
Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 27 of 27
How We Can Help You
We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called
gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That’s exactly
why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at
a fraction of its normal cost.
Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive
deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!
We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats within your business.
This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons
are.
As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re in the
middle of a daily management.
And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.
This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man army, or
an army of 150, the problem is still the same.
Travis Lane Jenkins
Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist
Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show
“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

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The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 059 Jay Baer

  • 1. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 1 of 27 EPISODE #59: JAY BAER On this episode, Travis and Sandra had a very interesting and informative talk with social media marketing consultant, well-known author, speaker, and popular online entrepreneur Jay Baer. Jay is the owner of the popular social marketing website Convince and Convert as well as author of books like The Now Revolution and his upcoming book Youtility. Jay, together with Sandra and Travis, share valuable insights on the concept of doing marketing that is so useful, people would pay for it. One way would be to focus more on giving content than just promoting or selling your product and that is to provide valuable information in order to allow customers to see the value of your services. Jay also points out that entrepreneurs should focus more on customer retention rather than just customer acquisition, because these are people who are more likely to buy your products as oppose to those customers who just knew your company and services for the first time. These are just some of the things discussed in this episode and entrepreneurs would certainly benefit on Jay’s wisdom on creating powerful marketing that actually works in today’s competitive market. Jay Baer – Creating useful marketing with no HYPE to grow your business Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins. Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain. Travis: Welcome to episode 59 of the Entrepreneur's Radio Show. Sandra: 59. Travis: Yes, how are you Sandra? Sandra: I'm fantastic. Travis: Good. Sandra: Fantastic, excited about today. Travis: Yeah, me too. Let me tell you, our guest today is none other than Jay Baer, right. Jay has consulted with more than 700 companies on digital marketing including Caterpillar, Nike, Billabong, the
  • 2. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 2 of 27 list goes on and on. He was named one of America's top social media consultants by Fast Company Magazine, and his convincing--I always mess that name up. His Convince and Convert blog is ranked as the world's number 1 content marketing resource, pretty impressive, huh. Sandra: Yeah, he's awesome, and he's also got a new book coming out June 27 I believe called YOUtility, spelled Y-O-Utility, and it's really about helping people with how you market as oppose to the hype. So he's a giver and so he's perfect for our show. Travis: Yeah, well this is a great interview for several reasons other than Jay's a lot of fun and he's brilliant. We talked about the 5 most common mistakes people make when marketing their business and the 5 things that you should be doing. So there's lots of incredible value in this show as always, but there's something that he hit on that I think was worth the price of the whole show, even though the show's free I think it's just a golden advise that so many people miss, right. Sandra: Yeah, you don't want to miss that. Travis: Now as a funny side note, he's also known as the hype-free, tequila loving, social media and content strategist, speaker and author. Sandra: Yeah, and I just really like him because he's living example of taking action and making things happen no matter where you are in your game of being an entrepreneur. Very inspiring, very real guy. Travis: Yeah, and she's talking about how he got started. Now, before we get started I want to remind you to be sure and stay with us until the very end if you can, we'd like to share a little inspiration with you and also reveal who we're going to connect you within the next episode, right Sandra. Sandra: Uhm hmm Travis: You want to tell them about the quick reminder? Sandra: Nope. Travis: No? If you enjoy the free podcast that we create for you, we would really appreciate it if you'd go to DIYOB.com and that's short for Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, and click on the iTunes icon and then just post a comment and rate the show. This would help us reach and inspire more great entrepreneurs just like yourself with each and every guest that we bring on, right. Sandra: Yeah, and you know I'm silly. I love to participate in the show and pull out of our guests all those nuggets, all those bits of diamonds and gold that will make a difference in your life so I just tease when I say nope.
  • 3. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 3 of 27 Travis: I know, you just don't like doing that part. Sandra: But you have your part and I have mine. Travis: That's right, you don't... Sandra: So, let's just keep with what works and let's get on with the show. Travis: I like to put you on the spot. Sandra: I know. Travis: Just for a little fun, I guess that's cruel humor and... Sandra: Uhm hmm Travis: Alright, so listen, without further ado welcome to the show Jay. Jay: Thanks very much for having me, delighted to be here. Travis: We know you're super busy, do you want to say hello Sandra? Sandra: Hello Sandra, no, hello Jay, hello Travis. We're thrilled to have you here today Jay. Jay: Thanks so much. Travis: Hey Jay, before we get in to what you teach, one of the things we like to do is kind of get the background of how you got started and what transitioned you to the level of success that you have today. Do you mind giving us the back-story of what brought you here? Jay: Sure. I had been in online marketing since 1994, and I got there in almost literally an accidental way. My background initially was in politics and I managed political campaigns and things of that nature. And did that for a while and then I went the client side, and I was a client side marketer for a little bit, and then I took a very brief turn working for the government as a spokesperson. And I literally was the spokesman for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. So my job was to give tours of the juvenile prison, which is even worse than it sounds in the previous sentence. And I also discovered that my entrepreneurial bent was not particularly well suited for a government environment. They put me--and this is a true story, they put me in charge of a 13-person business card redesign committee, I thought if it's going to take 13 of us to work on these business cards, this may not be a place where I have a bright future. Travis: Right.
  • 4. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 4 of 27 Jay: So I ejected from government service after 4 long months. I still get a pension, or I don't get a pension but I have dollars in my state of Arizona government pension. They send me statements every quarter where I'm like, once you're 65, you could get 16 cents a year, something like that. Travis: Ohhh…Sweet. Jay: Yeah, awesome. And so I was working for the department and simultaneously some friends of mine from school had started the very first internet company in Arizona. And we met up for beers one night and they said, "You know, this company is starting to kind of get bigger and we don't know anything about marketing so could you maybe help us with that?" and I said, "Well, sure but I don't know what you mean when you say the word internet. I don't know what that is." So this is '93 at that point so it was pretty early in the game and I said, "You know what, I don't care. I hate this job so much I would do anything." So I quit my job working for the government and started to be Vice-President of Marketing of an internet company without ever having been on the internet, which is sort of baptism by microwave. Sandra: Right. Jay: And was there for a few years and started a big, local media site and kind of web design business. So then got out of that and started a consultancy, and then sold that, and started another consultancy, and sold that, and then started Convince and Convert, which is where I am today in 2008 to provide enterprise class advice and counsel to companies around social media and content marketing. Travis: You know, I didn't even think I realize that the internet existed in '94. I'm trying to think back, I don't know that I can have a clarity but--you know, the internet become an obvious force to be reckoned with for me in '99. So, wow, talk about ahead of the curve. Jay: It was early days. I remember the day that Yahoo! launched, and that was like a big thing because now there was a directory of websites. I actually bought the very first ad ever on ink.com a long, long time ago. It was clearly a different world then, that's for sure. Travis: I remember in '99 I had a conversation with a couple of people and they said, "This internet thing, this is getting serious." Jay: Yeah, they're like the only good decision I've really ever made other than pursuing my wife until I convinced her to marry me was, to accidentally get involved in the internet and then stay in that lane for the next 20 years.
  • 5. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 5 of 27 Travis: Right. So now, did you find financial success, or how long did it take for you to find in this journey that you explained. How many years before you started finding financial success and doing this because you've basically been in the internet marketing game for 20 years now, so... Jay: Almost, yeah. So, well, because it was a pretty rare skill set, at the outset still is but especially back then. I was certainly doing okay compared to my peer group from the beginning. But true financial success was really based on when I started to do my own thing and start my own companies where I had equity as opposed to just being a well-compensated hired hand kind of person. So I started my first company that I solely owned in 2000 and kind of did that. I wanted to do it earlier but I was afraid. As a lot of first time entrepreneurs are, I was scared. I had a wife and a young daughter and I was getting paid pretty well just being vice president guy but I come from a long line of entrepreneurs and self-employed people and I knew I always wanted to go that route but you sort of get that--it's not really golden handcuff, it's sort of silver handcuffs. This is a pretty easy gig what I had right now and I was scared to do it and then my best friend from grade school ended up becoming my brother-in-law, he married my wife's sister which is a good gig, I totally recommend that, it's fantastic because when you're at like family gatherings like Easter, whatever, the family can kind of do whatever, you can go on the back and smoke cigarettes, and hang out, or whatever. So it was a fantastic time and we were both 32 and he was diagnosed with brain cancer and unfortunately passed away not too long after, and when he was diagnosed is when next day I walked in and quit my job and started my own company. Sandra: Wow. Jay: Because I said, "What's the worst that's going to happen to me? If this company doesn't work out I can go get a high-paying job being somebody's internet guru. I really don't have any meaningful risk, nothing terrible is going to happen to me like it's happened to him and so I walked in and quit. And I've never worked for anybody since. Travis: So his cancer was basically a wakeup call for you? Jay: I don't know about wake up call, I would say catalyst. It just sort of, for me it re-framed the nature of risk. Travis: And so you started in 2000 out on your own and how long before you found financial success doing that? Jay: You know I was really fortunate because I had been in the internet game for, at that point already 6 years in Arizona, particularly the Phoenix area, and as a result I had a lot of business contacts in that area. And so when I sort of hung out my shingle so to speak, I made a lot of calls, and this is before we
  • 6. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 6 of 27 even use the email as much as they knew that you're down. I just called up a few hundred people that I know and said, "Hey, I'm starting this new thing, so be thinking about me" and I was fortunate enough to pick up some clients in the first week and was profitable from the first month, and had been profitable every month since for the last 13 years. Travis: That's nice. So the early adapters, and I had some of the similar success. I was one of the early adapters to SEO, especially in my industry and so I--it was like having an entire stadium to myself. Jay: Yeah. Travis: And so I ranked for words globally, or nationally I should say. And so it's easy when you're an early adapter to--or it's much easier, I should say, to dominate those areas. And then what was the turning point, the convince and convert, what that implies a shift in thinking to me the way I think that name infers that you had a paradigm shift in your thinking is, am I correct? Jay: Yeah. So the first company I started in 2000 was called Mighty interactive, and I started off with just me and then we grew it, and I ended up selling that company to an advertising and marketing firm that was full service. The advertising PR, marketing, etc. and so we became their internet arm, and so I co-owned and helped manage that company for a few years during my earn-out process. And then when that agreement was completed, I started Convince and Convert to really shift corporate thinking around new media, because at that point, that was 2008, we really were super deep into SEO and inbound marketing, and SEM, and display ads, and all of those kind of things which continue to be effective tactics today but when you talk to companies about what are you doing in digital, or back then we typically call that interactive, they would say, "We're doing from search, we're doing some banners, and we're doing some email" and I knew that there was more to that story that there would be a convergence between social and legacy digital and customer experience and so that's why I started this company to really help organizations think through that transition. Travis: When did SEO become inbound marketing? Jay: I think when Hub Spot decided to call it inbound marketing and they were very effective at putting a label on that category and I think it's always been inbound marketing. The premise of SEO was always been to create inbound opportunities and lead gen in commerce, we just didn't really have a name for it. That's what I'm trying to do with my new book, YOUtility, right. Is let's put a label on a massively useful marketing, and sometimes it's not about being a new ideal, it's about giving people a shortcut from a naming perspective. Sandra: Hey Jay, can I jump in for a second, Travis? Travis: Sure.
  • 7. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 7 of 27 Sandra: I just don't want to overstep this because I think it's so valuable, it's kind of, like what's happening behind the scenes. Number one is you took great risk and you started your own thing and that takes courage. And the other thing is you mentioned you made a couple hundred phone calls. That's somebody who really takes action and it's for myself, for Travis, for the listener to get that, having success, I mean really takes stepping out and taking some actions. And so even everything you're up to now, you're really digging in and you're looking for what works and you're going for it. So I just want to acknowledge that, that is one of the most important things for any business owner, entrepreneur, is the action. So you're living demonstration of really going beyond what most people do to have the success that you do, so I just didn't want to overstep that. Jay: Thanks very much. Travis: Yeah, you're talking about in the very beginning I believe the full illustration to add some color to that, at least from my perspective is there's so many people that are trying to find success hiding behind their computer screen, and it's--if I had to quantify it, it's almost, if you take a cold lead and you work to that. Cold leads are tough to work with, people that you don't know, right. Jay: Sure, yes. Travis: And so they're tough to work with even if you get off your butt and start making phone calls, right. And there's a lot of people that are trying to make the transition from cold leads to conversion of a sell online which seems to be about as 10 times as hard as it is in person, does this make sense where I'm going? Jay: Absolutely. Travis: And there's so many people that are confused as to why they're not finding success. Well first and foremost cold leads are very, very tough to convert, and secondly, when you don't have that interaction, I think it multiplies it by 10 times, and so when you do the type of marketing that you're talking about, it makes sales superfluous. So number one the leads are not cold, they have already been groomed to know, like, and trust you based on the value that you've given, right. Jay: Absolutely, yeah. They're preconditioned to believe in whatever it is that you're trying to offer. Travis: Right. And so, I think step one for a lot of people that are getting started is to, in my opinion, is to get off your duff and make some of those calls that you made initially but further down the line, would you agree that using the marketing that you teach you can eliminate a lot of that initial face-to-face transition of sales?
  • 8. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 8 of 27 Jay: Yeah, face-to-face per se I don't believe is required, obviously, it's beneficial but I don't think is required. In fact, the majority of our clients today, and we work with some very large companies, we've never seen face-to-face, nor do we want to. It waste time. Travis: It's not suitable. Jay: You can't. Yeah, and we're an unintentionally a boutique consultancy now, there are six of us, we're totally virtual, we run the company on Skype, in Basecamp, and gotomeeting. And we are very transparent about that with our clients, like we're happy to be your strategic advisors on all things social, and digital, and content. But if you need us to come sit in your conference room all the time we're not going to do that, it's not part of our model. We'll do it occasionally and if I happen to be in your city giving a speech I'm delighted to come see you but we're not going to spend days and days having meetings. If you can't embrace let's jump on a 30-minute Skype call then we're probably not the right firm for you and I think increasingly you'll see not just professional service providers, but companies start to do that with their customers as well, and it fits very nicely into the big trend and I actually talk about this a lot in my new book that customers are primarily doing that sort of secret shopping and self- serve information thing themselves. They don't need nor that they want as much face-to-face interaction with sales people as they used to. If we think about everybody in the history of the world has purposely not filled out a contact desk form even when they were interested because they don't want to be hassled. Travis: Right. Jay: You don't want to be called, you don't want to be emailed, you don't want to be in somebody's lead nurturing campaign because you know what's going to happen. You're going to bugged to death. So instead what happens is that people try and get all the answers to their questions answered themselves with online research and then and only when they can't get any more questions answered do they actually reach out. In fact the stat that I use in presentations is that in a B-to-B context, 70% of the decision is made before the average customer contacts a sales person or uses a contact desk form. Sandra: Wow. Travis: That doesn't surprise me at all. How about B to C, does that change much? Jay: It does a little bit because your risk profile is so much less, right. Making a bad software decision, or a bad SEO consultant decision is a lot different than making a bad licorice decision. So people don't do as much research on consumer products in general just because if you're wrong, it's like, "Well, I'll live to fight another day".
  • 9. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 9 of 27 Travis: Alright. So for clarification for those that don't know is B-to-B is Business to Business and B to C is Business to Customer. Jay: Correct. Travis: Okay. So, now one of the things that really started the show for us and we originally called the show Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, which is a play on the story of acres and acres of diamonds. And the gist of the story is a lot of times what you need is really just under your feet, you just need to recognize that and so for me I had a shift in my life to where I lost everything and I thought it was the end of my life in a complete sense. When really it was a turning point for me and it created the biggest shift in my life and also put me on the track of what my real life's purpose is, and I couldn't have gone through that without experiencing this incredible failure. Have you had anything--a big shift like that or have you had a series of smaller shifts that was a turning point for you? Jay: I am really fortunate and that I have not, and it has been a very steady progression over a long period of time, partially by design, partially by circumstance but I haven't had that sort of what I call purposing of success where you're killing it and then it's disaster, and then you're killing it, and then it's a disaster, and you're changing directions and all that. I have been--what I am doing today and where I am today and where my company is today is exactly where I thought it would be 5 years ago. And I know that that is both a rarity and a luxury. Partially I'm pretty planned out just in terms of how I think and I've been trained to do that which is why I'm a good consultant but partially I've just been incredibly fortunate and there had been lots of tiny, annoying road blocks put in my way but I have not had to tackle a lot of the issues that a lot of other people have had to. And I'm grateful for it every day. Sandra: Yeah. Travis: Jay, most people don't have that clarity and don't get their act together until they been knock down and so fortunately for you are you naturally conservative? Jay: I would say medium, and I guess part of it is we're talking about the risk of starting my own company and things like that Sandra, I think I interpret risk a little differently and that I don't worry too much about negative consequences because I've proven in the past that I can always going to bounce back and overcome them and things like that. So I have certainly done some foolishly risky things. I live in Indiana now but I used to live in Arizona, lived there forever. And back in the last, big real estate boom in Arizona, bought a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have bought, so if anybody listening to the show wants a condo in Arizona, just email me after the show. We'll be able to work something out, no problem. So, you get caught up in that kind of climate, right, and you start making decisions about things that you have no business making decisions about. I'm not a real estate professional and so I bought a bunch of
  • 10. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 10 of 27 things, they all probably lose a ton of money on and you live and learn. But that's not core to my life or to my business, it sucks for sure. I put it in the "that sucks" column, but it hasn't ruined my life or made me completely change my direction other than as I get older and I realize I have fewer opportunities to overcome financial mistakes like that, I try to stick to my niddy more, like I do a lot angel investing as well, and I try and invest in probably 4 companies a year, and more and more I try to invest in companies that really understand the space. So I tend to do more social technology kind of companies, things that I feel like I've got a disproportionate chance to be right about. In the past I've done some things in biosciences and other categories where I have no more understanding than a guy off the street and that's a dangerous way to invest. Travis: Right, amen to that. Sandra: Well, and it seems you've got, even though you might not have had any colossal failures, even coming from, you'd said before we got on this show that you came from a line of entrepreneurs or other people. I think you've probably witnessed things and you've learned probably from other people and seen things, that it all got filed somewhere deep in the subconscious of what to do, what not to do. Even taking risks and having them in your "that sucks" category, whatever, but moving on, that's all kind of learned behavior that you got somewhere. So I think that you found your diamonds, you know what works, what doesn't, you might not be able to put your finger on exactly where but you are an extraordinary individual, and just hearing you speak it's like I get that you are. So even though we might not pinpoint where it came from where you want to pull out the gems of what you've got. So that's what I'm just trying to highlight what it is you're doing because you might not see it. But damn, you're too great. Jay: Thank you. Sandra: You are. Jay: I have this sign that I'm looking at right now, it's above my desk. I keep it here always which says, and to your point about sort of things change, it says, "Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you are the statue." Sandra: Yes. Jay: That's right. Sandra: That's great.
  • 11. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 11 of 27 Travis: You know, I think also it helps--you made the jump at a later age and us guys think mature much later than women. I think we're about 10 years behind. I'm convinced it's the testosterone that drives us nuts. Jay: Yup. Travis: And I started as a very young man and it takes many years of wisdom and experience, and several other things, and I had some explosive growth, and there's an incredible amount of responsibility that comes with making, or having a lot of money. And you do and say or I did and said a lot of very ignorant things, and so I think starting maybe later in life and also that slow, steady growth, both of those are formulas to help keep you on track. So those... Jay: No question. Travis: Those things help as well. Jay: And I was lucky in a couple of other ways that A, from the time I was 20--well, I started as an intern on political campaigns when I was 18. So from the time I was 18, except for 1 person, until the time I was 26 I had a string of unbelievably good bosses, like world-class managers across a variety of industries and I just got really, really fortunate in that regard and that helps a lot. You look at sports and there's people who are players who become great managers, and at some cases it's become the, because they just have an aptitude for the game, but if you kind of dig deeper into that you find that a lot of the players who become great managers are those who played for great managers. And not just one but several, and I continue to give credit to all the people who were managers of mine when I was young because it makes a huge difference. And my daughter is 14 now and I'm talking about in the next year or so, or two years, getting a part-time job, and I said, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters who you work for because it will change the way you think about work. My first job I was 15, my first real job and I worked for McDonald's, and it was an incredibly good experience because they have such a system and such an approach and you can't be a bad McDonald's worker, you can be mediocre but you can't be bad because you'll be gone. And I had a particularly good manager and owner of that particular franchise that really helped. And then from the time I was relatively young, indeed, I didn't really start my own company until I was in my early 30's, but for most of my 20's I ran companies as if I own them, it just wasn't my money, I had that level of authority and I just didn't have the dollars at stake. And that's a great experience because you're making all the decisions you'd be making if it was your dollar, it just isn't and so if you mess up, you gain the wisdom but you don't suffer the consequences and that's a fantastic scenario if you can find a way to make it work. I look back now and realize what an advantage that was. At the time it didn't seem like it but now I sure see it.
  • 12. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 12 of 27 Travis: Well, you know Jay what's interesting is what you're describing is mastery, and we'd interviewed Robert Greene, which is the author of Mastery, and he explains exactly what you're talking about. What I hear is an apprenticeship that you've gone through of a variety of people and seeing the granular steps of what each of those incredible business people do is an education tenfold of college. Jay: No question. Travis: And so spending time in--McDonald's is known for systems. Jay: Yup. Travis: And systems are what make a business successful. Jay: No question. Travis: And so what a great apprenticeship to go there, and then to interact with brilliant people, that stuff, it can't help but rub-off on you. Jay: Yeah. I actually thought about, when I was in high school, staying with McDonald's. They recruited me very hard even when I was 16. They're like, "We want you to be part of this." I was still in high school and they wanted to send me to the Hamburger University kind of thing and all that and take over and do that deal. And being in that age it's a little weird to think, "I'm going to make a career of doing this." It's kind of hard to embrace that. Although it's a great gig, I know people who have done it. So I didn't go down that route but it was really impressive how buttoned up that organization was, even then, and we're talking it's almost 30 years ago. Sandra: Even for them to believe in you is similar to having a great boss. When you have that belief you start believing in yourself. Jay: Yeah, no question, it really helped me. I started there when I was a sophomore and I ended up having a lot of leadership positions in high school and then a lot of leadership positions in college, and it becomes a trampoline effect and I think people tend to overlook sometimes what those very first experiences do. It's sort of the butterfly principle, you know. Travis: Right. Sandra: Sure. I'd love to find out a little bit about your book because I was sneaking around on your website--your book is Youtility, and your website, Youtilitybook.com and you're talking about help, not hype. And Travis and I, our listeners know that we're all about giving, giving, giving, and I would love it if that's okay with you guys just to hear about what you're up to now and what you're passionate about, and what the heck is help, not hype?
  • 13. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 13 of 27 Jay: You bet. So the book comes out June 27th, I'm doing all kinds of speaking and marketing and book pre-sales and the things of that nature right now to support the book. I'm very excited about it, it's published by Penguin Portfolio which is their business division. Lots of support behind the book. You'll be seeing a lot about it, you will not be able to escape it, that I can guarantee. And the premise is that marketing has never been harder than it is right now. You have this massive increase in media outlets like this one. You have a very fractured and impatient consumer audience who are doing their own thing and are trying to ignore or delete advertising whether it's by DVR, or Adblockers, or this lack of patience, etc. and you have the circumstance where businesses are being forced to compete for attention, not just against other businesses that sell the same stuff but against everybody and everything. If you think about your Facebook feed, or your Twitter feed, or your email inbox, or your Instagram, or Pinterest, etc. it is a combination of personal relationships and professional relationships. So as a company, what you have to do is somehow get my attention when I'm in the same place where I'm trying to interact with my closest friends and family members. So your competition isn't the other guy, your competition is my wife in terms of getting my attention, and that is an extraordinarily difficult scenario for business. And so there's 2 ways to theoretically succeed in that hyper-competitive environment. You can either be amazing and be viral, and sort of breakthrough by catching lightning in a bottle, and there's lots of people out there that will tell you that that's the way to go. Just be a terrific company. But you know what, the reality is you're probably not a terrific company, and you’re not going to be. It's easier for people who are amazing to provide advice of be amazing. Sandra: Right. Jay: And so I believe the better way to go is to not worry about being amazing, but to just focus your attention around being truly, and inherently useful, and I define Youtility, Y-O-Utility as simply this, it's marketing that is so useful, people would pay for it. Is your marketing so good, and so inherently valuable that if you said "Hey, you want to kick any couple of dollars for this?” People would say, “Absolutely.” That's what it takes, that's the bar that we have to clear. So the new book is all about how to do that and tons of companies of different sizes and circumstances. We talk about the 3 facets of youtility, and then a 6-blueprint process for how to create youtility in your own company. Travis: So that's basically the litmus test if someone would get out their wallet for the content? Jay: That's right. It's marketing that people want instead of marketing that companies need. Travis: Great point. Keep going Sandra, I'm just stay out of the way for a minute. Sandra: Well, no, this is the time you jump in and ask your 5 points and 5 things to do and not to do, it's all you Travis.
  • 14. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 14 of 27 Travis: Yeah, so actionable take away here is, and you may not be able to make it fit in the five, maybe it's your top three. But if I asked you, because everybody listening is an entrepreneur, and if I asked you the top 5 things that people are doing wrong and then the top 5 things that they should be doing, are they the inverse of each other or are they slightly different? Jay: I think slightly different. I suppose I could probably construct the scenario where they are the inverse of one another. But I would have to work at it... Travis: No... Jay: ...to put that together. Travis: Yeah. So I don't want to ask the same question in just in a reverse way, so, I would much rather than not necessarily tied to one another. If they are tied, they are tied, so it is what it is. What's the top 5 things that people get wrong with what you're teaching here? Jay: Well, I think first of all people tend to treat social media as the world's shortest press release. They're using the same marketing playbook from centuries ago which is, "Hey, we're awesome, click here to find out why" and just applying that in a social media context, and so that certainly doesn't work. And the second thing that people do, and these are not in order, the order in which I think of them not in which the order they should be tackled. Sandra: Right. Travis: Fair enough. Jay: The second thing is people tend to over value communication and undervalue customer experience. If you want to be great at social media have products that are worthy of praise. People tend to think that marketing, even helpful marketing can wallpaper over fundamental sins in your organization and they can't. The third thing is that people tend to think of marketing in particular as a series of short-term conquests. What are we going to do this week, this month, this quarter, what's the campaign where it really needs to be more around lifetime customer value and creating relationships that will pay-off over a much longer time horizon than we typically think about. I would say that, especially for listeners of this show, modern marketing tends to be under resourced at the personnel level, we typically are willing to write checks for clicks but we're not necessarily willing to write checks for people, and I think that it's the wrong approach especially, increasingly social and content marketing and things of that nature which require you to make stuff and make helpful things that take bodies, not necessarily just credit cards, and... Travis: So go a little deeper with that just for clarity.
  • 15. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 15 of 27 Jay: Well, you think about a lot of them sort of digital marketing that has happened in the past has become programmatic, right. Let's do Google Ad words, let's do Facebook ads, let's do email, let's do banner ads. There's a lot of technology that has been incorporated toward those channels in such a way that it's fairly easy, or can be fairly easy to manage them. Not easy to be great but easy to be competent. And so it's how much you want to pay for a click? Okay, great. Whereas the new form of marketing, and I'm talking about the book, this notion of having truly and inherently useful content, and being good at social requires bodies, it requires actual people to understand your customers to create content that they value, to interact with them and engage with them on a one to one basis. It requires people, not just dollars, and I hear this a lot from clients. Well, we have a budget but we don't have a head count, so what difference does it make other than you got to put a desk there, why is that an issue? But it's an issue for a lot of companies, so that's I think something that has to change. Travis: Okay. And it seems like that problem can be dealt with, and this is going to go counter to what you're saying and correct me if I'm wrong. It seems like you could go deeper in the relationship with just a well-thought out segmented list. Is that aligning with what you're saying there? Although that's not increasing head count, it's spending more time and effort in what happens after the click because really what I hear is furthering the relationship beyond the click rather than being focused on getting new clicks. Jay: Well, no question, and I think that would be the fifth thing that I would which is that everybody, and I will borrow, I will appropriate this line from Gary Vaynerchuk which is you have to stop being a 19 year old dude. Meaning that businesses of all types try to close the deal on the first date. Travis: Right. Jay: And it's... Sandra: I get it now. Jay: It's like, okay, somebody clicked on my website, where they clicked on my ad, or they found me in Google, how come they haven't bought anything yet? As if your landing page is so incredible that they could know nothing about you but yet they'll be reaching for their wallet instantaneously and that's not really the way it works. You have to understand that there are different questions that people have to be answered before they make a purchase. And so there's not enough understanding of the funnel and how customer needs and customer questions change based on where they're at in that consideration funnel. Travis: Right. Well, that's one-step marketing, right. So many people still think that, "Hi, I'm XYZ, job quality is number one, buy my stuff."
  • 16. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 16 of 27 Jay: Right. Travis: That's how the yellow pages ads worked for decades, and it's like no one has realized that it's, or the majority of people have not realized that, that no longer works, right. And that's your point. Jay: Yep, absolutely. Travis: Okay. And so before we go to the flip side of that question that I gave you, the five. So these are the five mistakes. You had mentioned a lifetime customer value and so I'm one of these guys that really needs to bring in revenue this month, just assuming. Because I know a lot of businesses are struggling for cash flow, right. And so, Jay how can I focus on lifetime customer value when I need to increase the monthly income and profit and revenue, how can I focus on lifetime kind of value? Jay: Well, it's not an either or but the quickest way to get revenue this month is to ask the people who gave you revenue 6 months ago because they've already proven that they like it, they've already raised their hand. Just business people in general put way too much emphasis on customer acquisition and not enough on customer retention and loyalty, just categorically so. Travis: Jay, that statement right there is worth the entire hour we're going to spend together for anybody listening. That is the most underutilized thing for everybody, is they completely neglect the person that's taken out their wallet and spent money with them before. That is brilliant, thank you for that. Jay: Let me give you a personal example. So I'm in pre-order right now for my book at youtilitybook.com, I created a bunch of bonus materials that people can get if they pre-order the book from me this week. So create all this launch, the e-commerce site, etc. I have a list of 1,200 people who have said over the last few months, they've seen me give a speech whether I'm interested in the book. Those people have all seen me live but I don't necessarily have a personal relationship with the majority of those people. They haven't necessarily raised their hand in a big. In a minor way yes, but on a big way. So I emailed those 1,200 people and I sold 200 books. Travis: Nice. Jay: Then I sat down, and this happened just Saturday, this is just 3 days ago. Sat down on Saturday and I emailed 150 people who I have known in my life, clients, former clients, friends, former friends, family members, people who really have been there for me and with me for a long period of time. Those 150 people produced 1,000 books. Travis: Wow.
  • 17. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 17 of 27 Jay: So, when I wrote my first book, The Now Revolution, co-wrote my first book. Gary Vaynerchuk who I mentioned a moment ago who wrote Crush It! and the Thank You Economy, great entrepreneur, one of the best in the world, I talked to him and said, "Hey, give me some advice for selling this book." And he said, "You've already sold the book, you just have to ask people to close that loop." And I didn't do it in the first book for a lot of reasons, but I did at this book and I said, "You know what, Gary's right. I have already sold this book by the value that I've produced in people's life for the last 20 years, the thousand blog post I've given away for free, the weekly podcast I give away for free, the daily email I gave away for free and you just have to close that loop with people, and it makes a huge difference. Travis: Excellent demonstration of your point there. So let's flip it on the other side. You eloquently just pulled 5 and there was no pre-planning, I didn't send you any of this in advance so that was pretty good. So let's flip it on the other side, and what are the 5 things that they should be doing? Jay: I think people have to start thinking about the fact that--let me tell you this in a different way. A, customer service is a spectator sport, every customer is a reporter. I was in a speech yesterday in Minnesota and somebody asked me after my talk, "Well, what if maybe we don't want to get involved in all these social media stuff because what if somebody says something bad about us?" Well, the reality is if somebody is prone to saying something bad about you they already are. Travis: Right. Jay: They just may or may not be doing it online. So it's not so much about whether you solve that person's problem, it's the fact that everybody else is looking on, whether it's Twitter, or Facebook, or Yelp, or TripAdvisor, whatever the thing is in your business. Category, everybody else is looking on to see how you handle it. So this notion that you have a choice, that you can just be like, "Well, we're going to ignore complaints on Twitter", it's crazy because that's basically this, right. So imagine somebody calls you and says, "Hey Travis I've got a problem with the show", and you just immediately hang up the phone, because Travis only takes positive phone calls. Travis: Right. Jay: Right? But that's how a lot of companies are treating social media. "We'll answer the phone and we'll answer emails but we won't answer complaints in social media" which I think is just ludicrous, so that's the first thing. The second thing is that people have to understand that increasingly, everybody in your company is in marketing. It doesn't matter who's actually in marketing, everybody's in marketing. And at the power in digital and new media is at the individual level not the company level. If you think about most organizations, the number of contacts that they have socially, number of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., connections they have will almost always vastly exceed the number of connections of
  • 18. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 18 of 27 the actual company accounts have, and that will always be true. So you have to recognize that your greatest advocates are the people who are in your office. Travis: Oh, that's brilliant Jay. Jay: And you have to start working that out as a company that I'm invested in called Addvocate. A-D-D, Addvocate.com, it's a little browser plug-in that companies can use to send, propose tweets to their, or Facebook post, or LinkedIn post to their employees who can then with one click, redistribute those messages across their own social networks, and it gives you stats to know which employees did it and who got the most clicks, and that kind of thing, and you can get prizes and awards and all that. So that's a big trend that I think is on the way and already here in some cases. Third thing that companies should do is realize that you have to make the story bigger. So yes I'm a big advocate of content marketing and creating more information and being useful and hopeful. But typically being useful and helpful isn't necessarily just talking about yourself and why your company is worthy. That's not a very interesting story. Columbia sportswear, guys who make ski jackets and what have you is a client of mine. I didn't work on this program, I don't want to take credit for it but we do some other work for them, and they have this mobile application, I actually talk about this in the book. They have a mobile app called What Knot to Do in the Great Outdoors, K-N-O-T. And this mobile app shows you with animations how to tie various knots and when you might need that knot. So if you're hanging off a cliff face, so you're camping or whatever and you need to know how to tie a knot, here you go. And that's really, really useful for the kind of people that buy Columbia sportswear products. But they don't sell rope, they're not in the rope business. So what they did is they made the story bigger. They said, "Okay, it's not about us, it's not about creating an app that shows you which jacket to buy, it's about how can we help people who are our likely customers." Travis: Right. Jay: So that's some of the people have to figure out, make the story bigger. Travis: Right. Make yourself invaluable to your prospect. Jay: Yeah. People say, "Okay, got a great content, well let's create an info graphic about our product," he's like, "No dude, that's just a brochure with more pictures" that's not what people want. The other thing that companies need to do is worry less about selling better and worry more about teaching better. If you can be the best educator in your category, you will dominate that category. If you can be the place that everybody turns to for real knowledge about that industry I think you can be very, very effective. Travis: Brilliant advice.
  • 19. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 19 of 27 Jay: And the last one I would say, especially for entrepreneurs, I think this a play that really works, is find a way to turn your prospective customers into marketing. And I do a podcast once a week called Social Pros, it's socialpros.com and I've been doing it for about a year and a half now. And social pros is billed as the podcast for real people doing real work in social media. So once a week myself and my co-host interview somebody who's a senior social media manager at a big company. So social media manager for IBM, social media manager for Low, social media manager for Scott's Miracle Grow, etc. And we talk about sort of inside business stuff. So for people who really do social media for a living at enterprise scale, it's a very useful show because that kind of information doesn't really get talked about anywhere else except for conferences. Because if you're not in that business, sort of like I don't really care about how all these works, and so it's got a good following in that industry. Well that industry is my customer base. Those are the people that we consult for. So we have essentially turned our prospective customer list into a marketing asset. And you can do that in almost any industry. Figure out who your perspective customers are and then find a way to interview them via podcast, via blog, via video, and you can really do well with that approach. Travis: So you basically send them, your podcast is the top of the funnel, right. Jay: Absolutely, yup. Travis: So, great advise by the way. I want to say brilliant of you to be able to come with 5 off the top of your head of opposing so. I know you have your stuff down cold so you're just brilliant there. Question for you regarding a kind of your business model because I think everything is an illustration of how things work in a real business and how people can take and apply those things to their own business, right. All the conversations we have are some iteration of that. It's either an illustration of what to do or what not to do, right. Jay: Yeah, fundamentally. That's sort of what the consulting side of the business is all about. We either say yes, you should do this, or definitely don't do that. Travis: Yeah. So from a scaling standpoint, it seems like you could scale much bigger through the promotion of podcast than speaking and your opinion because I know you speak a lot, and I know you have the podcast, and I know you write books as well, and all of those is focused on giving first. And so you do what you teach. Now the podcast seems like it would be most scalable for you, is that correct? Jay: Well, the blog is certainly the most scalable today and the blog which is a larger audience than anything else. We do about a 110,000 visits a month on the blog which is pretty good for just a small crew. The podcast is theoretically the most scalable but I don't know that it is because the topic is so narrow. There's probably not 10,000 people in this world that care enough about that topic to listen to that podcast. So if I can get 5,000 of those people I feel like I will have had that category lick. And that
  • 20. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 20 of 27 particular piece, it's more about quality of audience than it is about quantity of audience. So either things that we do like the blog, like the email newsletter which goes out everyday are a little bit more top of the funnel and intended to be for a broader cross-section of business people. Travis: So the bottleneck is due to the niche? Jay: For the podcast, I think it is. Yeah. There's other bottlenecks, just give it a time. We're a small company, there's 6 of us, and people are already amazed with what we're doing. 5 blog posts, 5 emails, and a podcast every week, a quarterly eBook, I do 3 webinars a month, and at least 8 speaking gigs a month. So we're creating a lot of content for a very, very small team and if we had a bigger team and had more resources we could probably create more but I think for now we're about maxed out. Travis: Well, you know the speaking part is what takes them majority of the time, doesn't it? Jay: In terms of an actual time allocation absolutely but the good news is that speaking's also when I make the most money out. I do very few unpaid speaking engagements, probably no more than 3 or 4 year, and in terms of an actual, what's your hourly yield, the speaking is probably the best. So it takes a lot of time, you're away from your family and all of that is a downside but as a business it actually works pretty well. Travis: Right. Well... Jay: But that takes a long time to get there. There's a lot of people I know who are good speakers and want to do that, who are not at the point where they can charge a lot of money to give a presentation and that makes it an even tougher balancing act. Travis: But Jay, I bought a program that said I could charge $50,000 for my speeches. Jay: And someday you may be able to. But, and I've got a blog post cooking about this that the speaking business is exactly the same as the music business, it's the same industry, right. So as a speaker you start off speaking for free in your basement and then you do your fraternity party, and then you do the local bar for free cocktails, and eventually if you keep at it and you keep getting better at it, then eventually you get to the point where you can charge $50,000. There are people who can jump the line, and the same way that there are musical acts that jump the line because there's some sort of transcendent event, either some sort of hit album, or in our case usually it's a hit book, where you're on a TV show where you have some other device that gets you known, but if you do it like I do which is the hard way you just--if you give a great speech 50 times a year, in every audience there's at least 3 clients downstream, so literally it's almost like MLM, it's almost like a pyramid marketing plan where if I speak to a hundred thousand people this year, some of those people will be the folks that hire me next year.
  • 21. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 21 of 27 Travis: Right. I have joked because I'm a little cynical about all the biz op stuff going on selling hope to the hopeless, and I'm frustrated with it because they're causing people that have the least amount of money to part with money that they can't afford to part with. And so I become very jaded, and some of these people are industry leaders and so it's really kind of disappointing, but a great illustration. I've never really thought of it that way, that's a great... Jay: It's good to hear. And I will write the blog post, if it didn't seem too obvious, maybe I will write it. Travis: Yeah, definitely. Getting close to the lightning round where I've sent you three questions on that, but before I segway there, Sandra I sense that you have a burning question or two, you want to jump in? Sandra: No, I don't have a burning question; I've been quiet because I've been taking notes like a wild woman. I've got your page opened, I don't have my credit card on me to pre-order the book. I am so excited and inspired and I just see that there's something new possible with some of the stuff you offer, so I'm grateful. Jay: Thank you, it's nice to hear, I appreciate that. Sandra: Yup, sure. Travis: Sandra, order a thousand copies. Jay: Perfect, let's get on then. Sandra: Yes, I'm all over it. Jay: Excellent. I've got to threw my podcast if he wants. Travis: What's that? Jay: I've got threw my podcast if he wants a thousand books. Travis: There you go. Sandra: Okay. Travis: Alright. So let's transition to the lightning round, are you ready? Jay: I am in fact ready. Travis: Alright, you got your seat belt on?
  • 22. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 22 of 27 Jay: I am standing up so that's as close as I can get. Travis: Okay, good. So what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you recommend and why? Jay: I'm a big fan of Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath which really helped--it's almost in some ways a precursor to what I've done. Made to Stick helps companies understand how to tell more effective stories about themselves in a way that isn't lame and it's a really good book, I recommend it to everybody. I also really like a book that came out last year which didn't get a ton of play called Different, and it's all about how to differentiate your company in a crowded market place, it's really good. Travis: I've never heard of Different. Jay: Yeah, it was Harvard Business Press and it didn't sort of jump into the public consciousness like other popular business books have, but I really, really like it, it's a good read. Travis: Have you read Mastery? Jay: I have not, it sounds great though. I’ll pick it up. Travis: Man, you've got to, get the audio download, it's brilliant. Jay: I just actually did the recording for my audio book the other day; it’d be interesting to see how that turns out. Travis: Have you done audios; is this your first book to do an audio? Jay: The last time--we published our first book. Amber and I, we did not read it ourselves. We're like, "We don't really want to deal with that." And as co-authors it was like who's going to read what part and we just kind of said,” Duh…” and then they got somebody to read it, and I have not actually listened to it I'm told that that guy was terrible. So I feel bad about people who downloaded on audible. So this time I said, "Alright, I'm doing it myself," and so I went in to the studio last week and made it happen. Travis: Good deal. Sandra: That's perfect. Travis: How long did it take you to do that? Jay: It didn't take me too long, the book isn't super lengthy and that was by design. I wanted it to sort of be one of those books that you feel like you can conquer on plane flight. And I'm pretty facile at the
  • 23. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 23 of 27 speaking sites, I didn't make too many mistakes so it was about, by the time the smoke all cleared, maybe 8 hours. Travis: Not bad. Jay: But I broke it up into a couple of days. Travis: Cool. What is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, that you'd recommend to other business owners? Jay: We talked about Addvocate, I would say one that I would really, really, like for entrepreneurs and business owners is another company that I'm investor in called Buffer, and buffer is at--let me just double check this one, I have you here. It's Bufferapp.com, and Buffer allows you to tick out different things that you would like to send out in the social media. Different blog post or articles, or videos, what have you. And you just click a button in your browser, and you say, "Buffer this, buffer this, buffer this, buffer this, buffer this", and then during the day it automatically sends those out in sort of time release capsule form. So what I do is in the morning I look at probably 30 or 40 email newsletters and different blogs and things like that, and then I click, "Yeah, like this one, this one, this one, this one", and all day Buffer sends out Tweets for me that say, "Hey, you got to check this out, you got to check this out, you got to check this out." So instead of having to interrupt my day 10 times to jump in to Twitter, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, I can do it just once or twice, and it's a very efficient tool for that. Travis: Excellent. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business? Jay: Oh, I already said it actually, I ruined my own bit. Sandra: And I love it, it's about the statue. Jay: Yes, it's "Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue." That's the only quote that I have in my office and that's the one I pay attention to the most because it's so true, and especially an entrepreneur, you are affected by the ups and downs more than when you're in a larger company. And my dad told me this which is sort of a distillation of the same quote. I was just a kid, I was like 20 and he said, "Look..." and my dad's been self-employed forever. He said, "Look, here's the deal. It's never going as good as you think it is, and it's never going as bad as you think it is." And he's exactly right. Travis: Yes, I agree. Sandra: I'll write that one down too. Travis: A very wise man he is.
  • 24. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 24 of 27 Jay: Indeed, and a good entrepreneur. He started 5 or 6 companies. Travis: How do people connect with you Jay? Jay: If you just use the Google and type in Jay Baer, B as in boy, A-E-R, you will find lots of ways to connect with me but I would say our home base where you can get to everything else is our site convinceandconvert.com. You can find our daily blog, and our email newsletter, and the podcast, and the books, and all kinds of stuff there. Travis: Cool. And I guess one final thing. What's your bottom dollar on the condo? Jay: Well, the real estate business in Phoenix is coming back actually, so it's... Travis: Hang on to it. Jay: ...it's roaring back. We may actually be within shouting distance of breakeven which would be amazing. Like I thought that would be my grandchildren. "Hey, guess what, for your birth gift you each get a condo." Travis: Yeah. Sandra: Nice. Jay: But we'll see. Travis: Two weeks in Arizona. Jay: Yes, luckily they're rented, thank God. Travis: Cool. Man you've provided some incredible value, would you mind hanging out for a couple of minutes while we wrap things up? Jay: You bet. Travis: Excellent. Thanks a million for being on the show. Jay: My pleasure. Travis: Sandra, you want to...? Sandra: Yeah, a mega thanks to Jay, and for Travis, and me, and Jay, and all of our listeners. It is so clear from this interview for me that no matter where we are is okay, good, better, and different, and there are things to do. There really is tending to our customers that we have and helping and not the
  • 25. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 25 of 27 hype, and so Jay just a huge thank you for giving so generously today. I took a lot out for myself and for my own businesses and I'm sure our listener has to. So thanks, it's been fun spending the past hour with you. Jay: My pleasure, thank you. Travis: You said listener, like we have one listener. Sandra: Aren't you funny. Jay: It just takes one. Travis: So listen, I want to remind you guys, you can go to DIYOB.com, and that's short for what Sandra? Sandra: That would be Diamonds in Your Own Backyard. Travis: That's right. And that way you don't have to type in the long Entrepreneur's Radio Show. Also while you're there enter your name and we'll send you the 2013 Business Owner's Guide to a Profitable Million Dollar Business. It's a candid behind the scenes look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success. What we tell you in the guide is critical to success and no one's really taking about many of these issues because it's either not in their best interest financially or they just don't know what they don't know. So in the guide we'll cover the 6 common misconceptions that cost most small businesses a fortune, the 5 skills that will determine the success of your business over the next 18 months, and lots more information for taking your business to that next level, and all of it free for just becoming a part of the authentic entrepreneur nation. I want to close the show today by reminding you that no matter where you're at as an entrepreneur, based on the simple fact that you were brave enough to follow your dreams and become an entrepreneur. You're an inspiration to those around you to go after their dreams too, so keep it up. What you're doing really, really does matter. Right. Sandra? I caught you off guard, Sandra are you there? Sandra: I'm here. Travis: Oh. Sandra: I was coughing. Jay: I was going to do like, "Yeah, yes, I totally agree." Sandra: Yeah, that’s something. No, I still have my cold and I was on mute coughing.
  • 26. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 26 of 27 Travis: Yeah. Jay: Hell, yeah Travis, you're the man. Sandra: You're fun too Jay, we like that. Travis: We caught her, didn't we Jay? Jay: If you have them you get a mute button. End of Interview Travis: That's right. So listen, our inspirational quote of the day comes from Mary Anne Radmacher. And the quote reads, "Courage doesn't always roar, sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I'll try again tomorrow." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain signing off, have a great day. Travis: Yeah. Have a great day. To your incredible success, we'll talk to you on the next episode. Take care.
  • 27. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show Page 27 of 27 How We Can Help You We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That’s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost. Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever! We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within your business. This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons are. As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re in the middle of a daily management. And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial. This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same. Travis Lane Jenkins Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show “Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"