Jay Baer

I recently launched a comprehensive, proprietary research study to measure the relationship between responsiveness and revenue. The key finding:

We care about time (and how we spend it) more than ever.

Speed has always been an important part of the customer experience. But the research suggests it’s now the single most important component.

Today, 2/3 of customers say that speed is as important as price.

If you give your customers time, they will give you money.

And if you cost your customers time, it will cost you money.

And that’s why, instead of writing a full-length book that asks you to devote five or more hours to it, I’ve created this concise mini-book.

This is truly The Time to Win. Business leaders have a massive opportunity to lean into speed and responsiveness throughout the customer journey, and use it as a competitive edge.

You’ve no doubt heard the adage: Good, Fast, Cheap – pick any two.

Today, you can decide whether you want to be fast and inexpensive, or fast and high quality. But being fast is not optional.

Because today, we interpret speed as caring, don’t we?

If a business or organization (or friend, spouse, colleague, or offspring) responds more rapidly, we interpret that as them caring more about us and our issue.

Which means that, in your business, if you can outperform your competition in responsiveness, you can gain and keep more customers than they do.

In this short, but meaty book, I give you the 6-piece Time to Win framework. It includes specific recommendations–with examples–for how, why, when, and where to optimize your responsiveness inside your organization.

I’ve trained thousands of busine

Talk Triggers is the definitive, practical guide on how to use bold operational differentiators to create customer conversations, written by best-selling authors and marketing experts Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin.

Word of mouth is directly responsible for 19% of all purchases, and influences as much as 90%. Every human on earth relies on word of mouth to make buying decisions. Yet even today, fewer than 1% of companies have an actual strategy for generating these crucial customer conversations. Talk Triggers provides that strategy in a compelling, relevant, timely book that can be put into practice immediately, by any business.

The key to activating customer chatter is the realization that same is lame. Nobody says "let me tell you about this perfectly adequate experience I had last night." The strategic, operational differentiator is what gives customers something to tell a story about. Companies (including the 30+ profiled in Talk Triggers) must dare to be different and exceed expectations in one or more palpable ways. That's when word of mouth becomes involuntary: the customers of these businesses simply MUST tell someone else.

Talk Triggers contains:
- Proprietary research into why and how customers talk
- More than 30 detailed case studies of extraordinary results from Doubletree Hotels by Hilton and their warm cookie upon arrival, The Cheesecake Factory and their giant menu, Five Guys Burgers and their extra fries in the bag, Penn & Teller and their nightly meet and greet sessions, and a host of delightful small businesses
- The 4-5-6 learning system (the 4 requirements for a differentiator to be a talk trigger; the 5 types of talk triggers; and the 6-step process for creating talk triggers)
- Surprises in the text that are (of course) word of mouth propellants

Consumers are wired to discuss what is different, and ignore what is average. Talk Triggers not only dares the reader to differentiate, it includes the precise formula for doing it.

Combining compelling stories, inspirational examples, and practical how-to, Talk Triggers is the first indispensable book about word of mouth. It's a book that will create conversation about the power of conversation.

Eighty percent of companies say they deliver out­standing customer service, but only 8 percent of their customers agree. This book will help you close that gap by reconfiguring your customer service to deliver knockout experiences.

The near-universal adoption of smartphones and social media has fundamentally altered the science of complaints. Critics ("haters") can now express their displeasure faster and more pub­licly than ever. These trends have resulted in an overall increase in complaints and a belief by many businesses that they have to "pick their spots" when choosing to answer criticisms.

Bestselling author Jay Baer shows why that approach is a major mistake. Based on an exten­sive proprietary study of how, where, and why we complain, Hug Your Haters proves that there are two types of complainers, each with very differ­ent motivations:

-Offstage haters. These people simply want solutions to their problems. They complain via legacy channels where the likelihood of a response is highest--phone, e-mail, and com­pany websites. Offstage haters don't care if any­one else finds out, as long as they get answers.
-Onstage haters. These people are often disap­pointed by a substandard interaction via tradi­tional channels, so they turn to indirect venues, such as social media, online review sites, and discussion boards. Onstage haters want more than solutions--they want an audience to share their righteous indignation.

Hug Your Haters shows exactly how to deal with both groups, drawing on meticulously researched case studies from businesses of all types and sizes from around the world. It includes specific play­books and formulas as well as a fold-out poster of "the Hatrix," which summarizes the best strate­gies for different situations. The book is also filled with poignant and hilarious examples of haters gone wild, and companies gone crazy, as well as inspirational stories of companies responding with speed, compassion, and humanity.

Whether you work for a mom-and-pop store or a global brand, you will have haters--and you can't afford to ignore them. Baer's insights and tactics will teach you how to embrace complaints, put haters to work for you, and turn bad news into good outcomes.

The future of your company is not in measured, considered responses and carefully planned initiatives. Business today is about near-instantaneous response. About doing the best you can with extremely limited information. About every customer being a reporter, and every reporter being a customer. About winning and losing customers in real-time, every second of every day. About a monumental increase in the findable commentary about our companies.

Having the time and information required to make a considered business decision is a luxury - a luxury that's quickly facing extinction. Yet business hasn't adapted to this evolution. And adapt you must.

This book isn't about how to "do" social media. Instead, The Now Revolution outlines how you must retool your organization to make real-time business work for you rather than against you. Read about seven shifts that will help you make your company faster, smarter, and more social:

• Engineer a New Bedrock
• Find Talent You Can Trust
• Organize your Armies
• Answer the New Telephone
• Emphasize Response-Ability
• Build a Fire Extinguisher
• Make a Calculator

The Now Revolution is pushing you to adapt the way you do business, from the inside out. It impacts your organization culturally, operationally, and functionally. This book is your guide to making the changes you need, and to harnessing the potential of this new communication era.