When AI Becomes Commonplace, Will Humanity Be The Advantage?

Matching Suits And Warm Open

Stacey Miller 0:00

Jay got the memo. Yeah. Yes. This was not planned. Um, but everybody looks fabulous. Yeah. I'm gonna call you matcha. Okay. I actually don't hate that. I don't know what I'm gonna call Jay. This is very giving like.

Jay Baer 0:13

I feel like I'm giving leprechaun, which was not really was not really what I was shooting for, but yeah.

Stacey Miller 0:18

I'm just gonna call it forced okay, like forced noir. Sure. Like one of those fancy kids. I'll take it. I'll take it. What are you? I don't know. Olive? Green tea.

Jay Baer 0:27

I do have an autocare orange colored suit, but I thought that would be a little too on the nose.

Jacki Lutz 0:38

Welcome to Auto Care on Air, a candid podcast for Curious Industry. I'm Jackie Lutz, Content Director at the Auto Care Association, and this is Carpool Conversations, where we collaborate on today's most relevant power skills. We are all headed in the same direction. So let's get there together.

Why Customer Experience Fails

Jacki Lutz 1:02

Hello everybody, and welcome to another Carpool Conversations. I'm so excited for this episode today because I'm joined by my colleague Stacy. Stoked, who you probably know from her traction control show with AutoCare. I love being on with you when we can. Twinsies. Like once a year, something like that. Yeah. Um, and then we have a very special guest. We are at uh AutoCare Connect in Atlanta. And we have one of our keynote speakers, Jay Bear here. Hello. Hall of Fame speaker, best-selling author, and one of the most recognized voices in marketing and customer experience, and co-founder of the Tequila Report. Huge. Why are we not doing this in a car?

Jay Baer 1:42

That's my question.

Jacki Lutz 1:43

I know, right? It's a big tequila. And why am I driving? Yeah. We got to work on that. I mean, you're typically the navigator, which is correct in this situation, but Jay, honestly, you should be driving if we're being honest. Okay, fair. But yeah, I'm so excited to have you guys on. Um, I want to start with the important things. Um your fashion is out of this world. I have to say, out of all the keynote speakers that I've, you know, I've watched all your videos on YouTube and stuff, and you're on point with your outfits. And today we accidentally matched you.

Jay Baer 2:15

How about this? How amazing. It is green, green, green. If uh you're not watching this. I actually started doing the plaid suit thing um, I don't know, probably a decade ago. Uh the challenge is everybody in men's sort of conference wear looks exactly the same. Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 2:30

Right?

Jay Baer 2:30

Everybody's got the gray suit, the blue suit. Right. And what would happen is I'd get off stage and people want to ask me questions, but they couldn't find me. I'm like, okay, I need a suit that people can find in a crowd.

Jacki Lutz 2:40

Yeah.

Jay Baer 2:41

And so I went to my suit guy, because I'm kind of a Frankenstein shape, so I can't just like off the racket. And I was like, okay, give me like a plaid suit that's kind of crazy. Like, well, this was supposed to be made for drapes, but we could make a we could make a tablecloth, we can make a suit out of it. Sure. I'm like, tried that. And the first one I got, people are like, that's amazing. They loved it and they could recognize it, and flight attendants were all excited about it. I'm like, oh, there's a there there. So then I got another one and then another one, another one, and sort of got more and more crazy. And now they call me when the fabric book comes in. Like, well, nobody in the world would buy this but you.

Jacki Lutz 3:11

Yeah.

Jay Baer 3:11

But we've set it aside, um, this multi-fabrics. And I think I have like 18 uh plaid suits. And for a while, when I went went to events, I did it as an actual word of mouth generator. So the way it would work is the meeting planner who hired me to give the presentation would get a link to a website. It was dressjbear.com.

Jacki Lutz 3:29

Oh.

Jay Baer 3:30

And on that website was all the different suits, and they could pick which color they wanted. And we wrote a little program so it automatically go in my calendar so I knew which suit to pack. It was such a thing, right? And then the pandemic happened and I gained like 50 pounds. And so then half those suits I couldn't fit in, so I had to kill the website.

Jacki Lutz 3:46

But is that when you know you make it in life? I think so. I feel like I don't know if that's it.

Jay Baer 3:52

I hope that's not the actual barrier, is uh having a suit website, but it it was pretty fun. It was fun.

Jacki Lutz 3:57

That's uh to me, if I ever have like a dressjackie.com. Yeah.

Jay Baer 4:01

Okay, listeners, I have an assignment for you. Number one, registered dressjackie.com as a domain name because I think you could sell it to her. And number two, using AI, you could build that technology very quickly.

Jacki Lutz 4:11

Now I have to get it because someone's gonna charge me a lot of money.

Jay Baer 4:14

I just got it with my left hand.

Jacki Lutz 4:18

Well, thank you so much for being here. And we're um doing something a little different. We're uh interviewing you prior to your keynote. So do you want to give us like a little glimpse of what you're gonna talk about later today?

Jay Baer 4:30

Yeah. Uh so we're gonna talk about the three unbreakable rules of customer experience. And there's a lot of nuance in this industry. All industries are different, but I spent a lot of time analyzing and researching these kind of trends. And ultimately, what everybody cares about disproportionately, the things that you have to get more right than other things, are your colleagues and your business partners, they want you to be quick, they want you to be clear, and they want you to be kind. If you can get incrementally better at those three things, you can deliver superior experience to whomever you're working with, whether it's somebody in your organization, an external third party, somebody you're connecting with on different data sources, uh, wherever you are in the pantheon of autocare, if you can be more quick, be more clear, and be more kind, that's the things you should emphasize. When we talk about experiences, where we get it wrong, and let me just give you a little stat that's gonna freak you out. 75% of the experience initiatives that organizations undergo, so like we're gonna get better at customer experience, 75% of the time, those fail to produce ROI. Three and four. And it's always for the same reason because when we talk about experience, we think too big, right? We think attitudinally, not actionably. There's so many speakers like me and books and events and whatever, like we should care about the customers more, like uh cool. Like, what do I do with that information, right? You can't actually implement that. It's just like campfire songs. So you have to actually stop, start, or change very specific things that you're doing every day in order to implement quick, clear, and kind. So what you'll hear me say today is how can you get 15% faster in 90 days? How can you get 15% easier to work with in 90 days? How can you get 15% more empathetic in 90 days? 15% is doable, and 90 days makes it tactical enough that you can actually implement it. Because too often, like, let's get better at experiences over a three-year period. It's like, uh, okay, and then you go right back to the same thing the next day.

Jacki Lutz 6:34

This is a great message for everybody in B2B, but also like really good for like our shop level members. Absolutely. Because we sell car parts, and that's not like something you want to do with your day. Like you're already in a bad mood if your car is not working and you need a part.

Jay Baer 6:52

Yeah. No one's coming to you for like, you know, it'll be fun today is to fix my car. There are some people who would uh can I tell you a little story about this? I'm gonna open with this. Um,

Fired From Selling Car Parts

Jay Baer 7:00

I've never been able to use this on stage before, and I'm so excited to be here. The only job I've ever been fired from was selling car parts.

Jacki Lutz 7:09

Oh, wow.

Jay Baer 7:10

So I used to work for when I was in high school, I worked at a very small department store only in the in the western US. I'm from Arizona uh originally called Yellow Front. And it was a very small kind of general store uh only in kind of rural or semi-rural towns. So they hired me, uh, and like because I was uh a boy and it was uh you know a different time in terms of gender roles, like, okay, I'm gonna put you in charge of um fishing, lures, and car parts. Two things that I knew minus 100% about, right? Like just take a look at this suit. Do I look like I know a lot about car parts? Uh so or fishing lures. Or the fishing, the fishing lures part was very difficult because I'd get a box of lures and I'd have I had no idea what anything was. I had to look at every single hook in the row to find where it went. Took me hours to do one box. Like, we're gonna put you on car parts. So there I'm on the, I'm on the uh, the the the window there. A guy comes in and needs an alternator. And I think it was like a 76 Nova alternator or something. And all the parts are behind you know the shelves away from the customer. And I'm like, okay, I walk back there and I'm like, I don't know what an alternator is. I have no idea how big an alternate, what, what size box it would be in. I didn't know if it was the size of a refrigerator or shoes. Like, literally no idea. Big training program, too, as you can imagine, killer training program. So I walk back there and I'm just looking at the shelves, looking for A. Of course it's not alphabetized. Um, and I walk back around after you know what seemed like enough time. Um, can you describe for me a little bit more the alternator that you're looking for? Hoping I get like a box size or like something. He gives me no information. I go back, I'm looking again, no idea. I come back, I can tell he's getting frustrated. Like, hey, look, why don't you just come back here and grab the alternator and I'll ring you up. He goes back there just at that time. My boss, whose name literally was Mr. Big, that was his name. No. Actual last name, Mr. Big, not kidding. Mr. Big sees the customer behind the counter, fires me on the spot for letting a customer behind the counter. So I spent one day in auto parts sales and was immediately fired. And that's why I am the best possible keynote speaker for autocare connect.

Stacey Miller 9:18

We're gonna win you back. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Jay Baer 9:21

I cannot wait to open with that.

Stacey Miller 9:22

You're gonna have an amazing second half of your career in the auto parts industry. It's coming, it's been a lot of it.

Jacki Lutz 9:28

The training has dramatically increased.

Jay Baer 9:30

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Jacki Lutz 9:32

We have diagrams. Was that your first job?

Jay Baer 9:34

No. Okay. No, I had a few other high school jobs as one does. I started at McDonald's, which is a great training ground for customer experience, actually.

Jacki Lutz 9:41

I was gonna say, because I got fired from my first job in high school. Nice.

Jay Baer 9:45

What was your first job?

Jacki Lutz 9:47

So off topic already, but I worked at a certain uh store that is no longer around. Um, kind of like a Sears. Okay. I'll just say that. Uh, but my um, first of all, I have to press this or preface this with um, I was a frequent employee of the month. So I wasn't just a terrible employee. Um, never had till shortages, nothing like that. I was a cashier. And um, I had a till swindler.

Jay Baer 10:12

Oh no.

Jacki Lutz 10:13

Who swindled me for like $600. And he actually got another guy the week before for the same exact amount. So, like, um, but because of the catch the person. Um, they had him on camera, but I don't know. He's probably not from the area. You know, he probably left town. He's probably watching this podcast for right now.

Stacey Miller 10:33

All the way. I swindled that cheese. Yep.

Jacki Lutz 10:36

But I remember being like, oh my gosh, my life is over. No one's ever gonna hire me again. I'm just gonna be a homeless person.

Jay Baer 10:40

I want to see the Venn diagram of people who are multiple time employee of the month who were then fired. It's a that's a skinny.

Jacki Lutz 10:46

Well, the reason they fired me is my mistake was after they swindled the first guy who got let go. Um, they said, no more giving change out of the till. Um, but this guy was very intimidating, um, big guy. And he had some other guys with them, and it was just very like a very intimidating thing. Um, kind of like barking at me a little bit and like confusing me. So, like the part that I did wrong is not tell them to go to customer service. And I tried to handle it myself. So, you know, that's my fire story.

Jay Baer 11:16

I probably took that 600 bucks, put it in Bitcoin now as a billionaire.

Jacki Lutz 11:19

Like, oh, please know. I shouldn't get a cut, I think. Anyway, back to the back to the um the subject. Uh, so we're talking about customer experience, and I love how simple you make it. That's one thing I I noticed with um all of your talks is that you know, what was it quick? Clear, kind clear and kind. So maybe we just walk through those just real quick. Yeah. So quick. Let's talk about that.

Jay Baer 11:44

All these things would not have been the advice that I would have given a decade ago, maybe even five years ago. Um we care about time more than ever. All of us do. The pandemic is partially responsible for that. So we learned a lot of lessons in the pandemic. One thing we learned was that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Nothing is promised to us. Like crazy things can happen we didn't see coming.

Quick: Speed Matters More Now

Jay Baer 12:08

And when we got out of the pandemic, there's all these trends like quiet quitting and great resignation, and I want to work from home, I don't want to commute. Um, bleisure travel, which is the combination of business and leisure travel. It's actually an industry term now.

Jacki Lutz 12:21

I've never heard that.

Jay Baer 12:22

It's when you bring your kids to the conference and double dip the trip. There could be bleisure travelers here at Connecticut. Absolutely. I know a couple. Yeah. So that's like a thing, right? Um, so all of those trends are actually the same trend, which is that we care about our time and how we spend it more than ever. Uh, even even baseball, right? So one, two, three seasons ago, I guess it is now, baseball instituted the pitch clock. So you have to throw the ball every 25 seconds. And the average Major League Baseball game is now 26 minutes a night shorter than it used to be. 26 minutes a night per game, thousands of games a year. Record TV ratings, record in-person attendance. Turns out people don't want to spend an extra 26 minutes a night watching somebody stand around and scratch their nuts. It's not that compelling, right? A lot of dead time in baseball.

Jacki Lutz 13:08

Yeah, yeah.

Jay Baer 13:08

We care about time more than ever. And and we did a huge research project on this, as I typically do uh before books. I included this in my most recent book, The Time to Win. And it turns out that two-thirds of customers say that speed is as important as price. Think about that for a second. As important as price. And I think most of us feel that in our own lives. Like we don't want to wait. But how many of us run our businesses as if that stat were true? Not very many. Like we we demand speed as a consumer, but we don't offer speed as a business in the same level of urgency. So you just have to stop wasting people's time. And there's a lot of different ways to get at that. Uh, one of my favorite techniques that we'll talk about today is uh reply without answers. Have you heard about this? Reply without answers. Okay, so let's say you you need something from each other um and and you send Stacy an email and say, Hey, we need to talk about this. Uh Jay's coming on the show. And you don't hear back for a day. You start freaking out because you start playing these mental games in your head. Huh, I haven't heard back from Stacy who's been a day. Uh is she on vacation, didn't sit out of office, is she blowing me off? Is she mad at me? Should I follow up my email with a text message, or does that make me seem sad and desperate? This is the the mentality that people get into. The whole time you're just working on it. You're you're working on what she needs.

Stacey Miller 14:42

Yeah, all of the above.

Jay Baer 14:44

If you are working on something for somebody, and this could be a a customer, it could be a colleague, it could be a business partner, it could be a spouse, it could be a child, it could be a mailman, it could be a teacher, it doesn't matter. Works across your whole life. If somebody asks you a question and you don't immediately have the answer, you still respond immediately and you say, Great question. So great. In fact, I have to look it up. I'm gonna do that and then I'll get back to you. Because if you don't do that, they don't know you got it. You they assume that you're gonna drop the ball. We've all been disappointed so consistently that you assume in many cases the other person is dropping the ball or didn't get it or went to spam or whatever. That's so true. And so you're much better off saying, I got it. And two amazing things happen. One, the perception of your responsiveness skyrockets. And two, and this is like the secret, it actually buys you more time to respond. Because we actually tested this for the book, huge research project. Time to response is way more psychologically powerful than time to resolution. Knowing somebody is on it is what you really want. More so than I have to have the answer in this second. It's knowing that somebody is going to give you an answer because when that happens, as soon as somebody says, I got it, you take it off your to-do list and you put it on their to-do list. And that's the big psychological shift. So just that one thing, especially working with colleagues inside an organization, as many Kinect uh participants do, can have a huge impact on, you know, sort of perception of speed and moving things along, reply without answers.

Stacey Miller 16:20

Oh, that's a really good. I mean, you know, I'm gonna have to ask the follow-up question. Obviously, or is it obvious that it's more effective when it's a human that's responding to you versus the automated response? Your message has reached reached an inbox. We'll get back to you within 24 hours, or now everybody is thinking speed to market, speed to business. I'm going to implement an AI agent that's gonna answer these questions, hopefully, correctly. Um, is that more or less effective, right?

Jay Baer 16:48

I think there's a medium place there. The very rote, very lousy, thank you for your email. We'll respond to you in 24 hours is not helping. A couple of reasons. One, it's so clear that it's that it's rote. And two, 24 hours is not exactly setting the world on fire, right? Um that's actually slower than most people's response time expectations for email. We tested that, of course, as well. Uh 40% of customers expect an email response within four hours. So to say it's 24 hours, like, let me guarantee your disappointment. Right. That's not a good way to start. Um, so but the nice thing about AI is that you could set that to be much more human. You you could not determine whether it's a person or not. Hey, it's Stacy. Thanks very much for your note. I'm gonna get back to you as soon as possible. It might take a day or so, but let me know. That could easily be AI'd and make it different every time so that it feels very personal. You don't even know it's AI, you think it's Stacy. Um, so yeah, there's a middle ground there for sure.

Stacey Miller 17:49

It's like a two-pronged approach. You're quick for the customer, whoever you're talking to, but then you're also reducing some effort for yourself so you're more efficient yourself, you're being quick.

Jay Baer 17:57

Because it is true that if you if you execute on reply without answers, it does require you to answer everybody twice, right? The first time is I got it, and the second time is the answer. So it doubles your responses. But as you say, the first one is just I got it, right? Which is pretty simple. And you could automate that at some level. Yeah. But I would suggest doing it in a way that's got some level of nuance to it, not just, you know, robot talk.

Stacey Miller 18:19

Yeah. I love that. Remove your 24 hour replies immediately and offended.

Jay Baer 18:23

Well, and you shouldn't, you shouldn't call out a response time unless for sure you can overdeliver on that. Like everybody learns on the first day in business, doesn't matter what your job is, what the company is, you should always under promise and over-deliver. Overdeliver. But when it comes to speed expectations, we we don't do that. All the time we don't do it. We say one thing and then it takes twice as long. It doesn't matter whether you're working with somebody on on restocking or delivery, or it just it happens constantly. And I don't know why. Actually, I do know why, but but for some reason around speed, we typically say, I am willing to disappoint this person later more so than set reasonable expectations initially. Happens constantly, and it's such a bad decision. You're much better off telling somebody we're gonna do it in 24 hours and you do it in 12 than telling they're gonna do it in 12 and you do it in 24, right? And and just like so my buddy's an airline pilot for American. And he's up in the in the, he told me the story, and I use it sometimes on stage, where where he gets the headset, like, okay, yeah, there's somebody behind you you can't pull out yet. So he gets on the on the intercom i, it's Captain Mendler, and uh, welcome, you know, we're going to Dallas to Phoenix. Um flight time's whatever, whatever. Unfortunately, there's somebody behind us. Air traffic control says it's gonna be an eight-minute delay. He says it's gonna be about an 11-minute delay. Then they push back an eight, comes back on. Guess what? We're leaving three minutes earlier than I thought. It's only, you know, we're ready to go now, and everybody thinks he's a hero, right? So it's just so simple as that, right? Just under promise and uh and over-deliver. And we all know this to be true, yet we consistently fail to actually do it.

Jacki Lutz 20:45

It's true. And I think a little bit of it, and this is just from my previous life, you're trying to sometimes you're trying to outdo the promise that a competitor is giving. Right. Right? Right. Like, oh, we'll do it in 24 hours, you know, but like you think that that's better or helping. Yep. You know, there's some thought behind that.

Jay Baer 21:02

Yeah. Honesty is the is the better way to go, especially over the medium term.

Jacki Lutz 21:05

Yeah, and let's talk about clear.

Jay Baer 21:08

One of the most important things you can do in business now, because everything has gotten really complicated, um, is to close what I call the uncertainty gap. So the uncertainty gap is the difference between what you know about what's happening and what's going to happen, right? How's this transaction gonna go? How's this interaction gonna go? How's this product gonna be built, shipped, supplied, etc.? You work in that company, you know a lot about what's gonna happen next. The customer, the business partner, in some cases, even the colleague in a different department, doesn't know as much. So there is this big uncertainty gap between you know everything and they know nothing. The two industries that have the biggest uncertainty gaps, want to guess?

Reply Without Answers With AI

Jacki Lutz 21:52

I don't know.

Clear: Close The Uncertainty Gap

Jay Baer 21:55

First one, first one is medicine.

Jacki Lutz 21:58

Oh.

Jay Baer 21:59

Medicine. Actually, when I thought that's like I don't know how my knee works. The doctor does know how my knee works, right? So medicine, I don't know what's wrong with medicine. Medicine is a big one. Now, now that uncertainty gap is closing a little bit because people have access to AI and they think they're doctors now. They think ChatGGPT is actually licensed medical practitioner. Um but historically, medicine is number one. And second, any guesses?

Jacki Lutz 22:21

Medical and financial? Yep.

Jay Baer 22:24

No, yeah, nailed. Yeah, financial services. Those are the two. We have the biggest gap between I do this for a living, I know it all. As a customer, a colleague, I know very little. And the the difference is, uh and again, uh this wouldn't have been something I would have talked about ten years ago. Maybe even five. The difference is today, as a customer, even as a human being, we don't deal with uncertainty well anymore. It creates anxiety. And this is because since the development of mobile internet connectivity, it's very rare that we don't know the answer. You can always find the answer. You have a supercomputer in your pants. It's pretty unusual that you're like, I don't know. But I am old enough to remember, neither of you are because you're you're young. I remember before those times, right? So I was talking to my wife about this the other day. We were watching TV and uh Cher came on. And I'm like, man, how old is Cher? Yeah. Like she was done like five farewell tours.

Jacki Lutz 23:26

Like, how old is Cher?

Jay Baer 23:27

No, I swear to God, this is it, the last tour.

Jacki Lutz 23:29

Like, it's like Bob Seeker.

Jay Baer 23:31

I promise. I'm really, this is it. This is the last one. So I'm like, how old is Cher? And we were talking, because this is the kind of thing I think about all the time. Uh I'm like, well, what would it have taken to learn how old Cher was before we had phones in the internet? And I sort of document this process. And you would have to have the next day, because it's at night, the next day, get in your car, drive to the local library, meet with the reference librarian who, in theory, would have a book on actors and their birth dates. And you could cross-reference that under C's and find that Cher is 76 years old. No sane person would do that. No employed person, no employed person would do that. So here's what used to happen. And for you young people out there, this is going to sound insane, but trust me, this is true. You know what we used to say all the time? This is a very common saying back in the day, in the OG days. We would say, wait for it, I don't know. We would just say, I don't know. And people accepted that as a legitimate response.

Jacki Lutz 24:32

And moved on.

Jay Baer 24:34

This information is unknowable. We don't know how old Cher is, and we're gonna have to live our lives. And people were totally okay with it. Now I don't know is not an answer you can give anybody because you can always know. Think about Uber. It used to be before we had all this technology. If you needed to get a ride, you would have to telephone a taxi from a payphone. And this seems like caveman days, but it's not. It's like 15 years, right? 20 years.

Jacki Lutz 25:04

Man.

Jay Baer 25:05

And you'd have to put like a quarter in a payphone and be like, yeah, come get me. And then they'd be like, okay, we're coming to get you. You didn't know which cab was going to be yours. You didn't know what it would cost. You didn't know when they would come. All you would know is that a guy said he's coming. That was all the information. And we were totally okay with that. Nobody's like, you know what we got to do? We got to fix taxis. We're totally okay with it. Now you know everything. You've got like a blood test on this guy, right? Who's coming to pick you up? Right. Yeah. So so you got to realize that that our relationship with uncertainty has fundamentally changed. So anytime the customer or colleague or business partner is underinformed, if there's an information asymmetry, it creates anxiety. And anxiety is what keeps people's money in their pocket, right? So one of the best ways you can address this is to answer before they ask. So that's the idea that if I asked anybody in the room, even y'all, hey, what are the 25 questions that people have most often about your work, your role, your company, your product? Anybody who's been in the business more than six months could do that on command, write down the 25 questions. And then I'd say, all right, well, of those 25 questions, how many can the customer or colleague or business partner get answered without talking to somebody? And usually when I do this exercise in workshops, it's like six. What about the other 19? Like you've just established that this is a common question. So why don't we answer those questions before somebody has to ask them? So one of the best things you can do is to say to a customer, partner, or colleague, most people at this point have this question. And then you just give them the answer. And if they say already know that, okay, fine. You're not out anything. But instead of making them get uncertain, get anxious, then ask you the question, then wait for your response, just give them the answer before they have to ask. And it is so much more satisfying and creates such a bespoke level of concierge experiences, but it's not very hard to do. But nobody ever thinks about it.

Stacey Miller 27:07

Yeah. Builds a lot more trust and it makes it easier for them to make buying decisions if that's what the information is about. It reminds me of um They Ask You Answer. Yeah, from Architecture. Yeah. Really, really good book. Yep. Excellent. I highly recommend.

Jay Baer 27:22

There's a new edition out. It's actually terrific. Oh, okay. You have to check that out. You should get him to come talk at the event.

Stacey Miller 27:27

I would love to. There's a lot of people on my list, like very excited about these possibilities.

Jacki Lutz 27:32

Well, that one, um, I also just feel like sometimes people don't like to feel stupid. And I don't like having to ask questions.

Jay Baer 27:39

That's such a great point. It really is that that like you are you sit there and you wallow in your anxiety and your uncertainty because you don't want to feel stupid. Right. And and that's not a great way to make anybody feel. And so if you can take away that self-consciousness by just being like, you know, you probably in the way you say this is you probably already have this figured out. But what a lot of people are wondering at this stage of the process is this, right? Because then it allows them sort of the the out card if they they they do know it doesn't make them feel stupid.

Jacki Lutz 28:08

Yeah, it's just a that's a great practical saying. And it probably kind of comes along with the kind piece.

Jay Baer 28:13

Yes. Yeah. Which the third one is kind, which is another one that I wouldn't have talked about. Um so I'm a seventh generation entrepreneur. Uh, and my family's been self-employed in some form or fashion since 1842.

Jacki Lutz 28:26

Wow.

Jay Baer 28:27

And the number of conversations that I had with my dad or my grandfather, they're both gone now, but the number of conversations I ever had about treat customers with kindness and respect and dignity literally zero times ever. Never in my entire life. Because for most of my life, that was like the default setting. Yeah, absolutely. Um of like what why would we have to have a conversation about that? But somewhere along the way, uh, we, when I say that we, I mean all of us in all industries and the whole world, kind of lost our way. Like somewhere along the way, we lost our way. And and

Kind: Empathy Deficit In Business

Jay Baer 29:00

today, where we are now, is an era of empathy deficit in business, in life, certainly in politics, treating one another with respect and kindness and dignity is no longer the default setting. Yeah. It's actually quite rare. And if you look at the ACSI, the American Customer Service Index, which measures customer satisfaction with the totality of the economy. So all products and services, right? Auto parts, refrigerators, cars themselves, travel, cable bill, whatever, the ACSI is the lowest it's been since 1974. So despite people like me writing books and giving presentations about customer experience, customers are less satisfied than they've been in more than 50 years. We expect to be treated so poorly by business now across the board that if you just give people a tiny bit of frosting, it's unbelievable. It stands out. Like, I can't believe that they actually like I talked to the my my cell phone provider the other day and I had a really nice conversation. Like, I can't believe how good that was. And they did nothing other than just like execute the basics of their job, but just doing that like stood out like an unbelievable experience. Yeah. Um, the bar is so low. Yes. And and when we talk about empathy, though, we mischaracterize it a lot. Empathy doesn't mean the customer is always right or you roll over. Empathy is literally defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It's can you walk a mile in their shoes? And so your point is is well founded, right? That that that clarity and making sure they don't feel stupid or underinformed is is part of that. I understand how they might be feeling now. So the story I tell a lot about this that happened to me uh a few summers ago is I was going to Australia to do a bunch of work for Volkswagen of Australia. And my wife got to go with me that time, which is fun. And we were flying from Indianapolis to LA, LA to Brisbane, Brisbane to Perth. It was like a 14-day journey, it felt like it was like I think I could have gone to Mercury any amount of time that that took. Uh, but we were connecting uh in Los Angeles and we're getting ready to go on the flight. And the gate agent scans my boarding pass and looks in that, you know, that little black box they have there, you know, and the red light in there. I don't know what's in that box exactly. Uh, but I know it's got your name and your seat number, that I know for sure. But it it must say something about your airline status. Because if she scans the boarding pass, boop. Oh, Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for your diamond medallion status. We

Delta Gate Agent And The Human Touch

Jay Baer 31:25

uh appreciate your loyalty to us here at Delta. We hope you have a nice flight. And that's nice to hear, right? But I I fly every week, right? So I've heard some version of that a lot. It didn't change my relationship with Delta, it didn't read to me as a particularly kind or empathetic gesture. But then, then scans my wife's boarding pass, boop, looks in the little black box, and presumably realizes that in comparison to myself, she has very few frequent flyer miles at all. Because she says, Oh, oh, Mrs. Bear, Mrs. Bear, I would just like to thank you for how much time you allow Mr. Bear to spend with us here at Delta. So, in particular, ma'am, I hope you have the best flight of your life.

Jacki Lutz 32:13

Wow. Okay.

Jay Baer 32:16

And we went down that jetway, like literally in tears, right? Because nobody had ever recognized her that way. Nobody had ever seen her in that way. Nobody had ever acknowledged how important she is to the work that I get to do for folks like y'all. And so now, as often as I can, we fly Delta, right? Even if they disappoint you, which they will, all airlines suck at some level. It's just the nature of the business. It's a very hard business, right? There's lots of points of failure, right? But we still go back to them because I felt like, all right, this is a level of human understanding that you don't typically get or or expect. And what's important about that, and this is really the thesis of my talk today, is that's not a script. That's not AI. That's not technology, that's not automation. That's just a person in your organization who is allowed to act like a person. And in this age where AI and automation is infiltrating everything in good ways in some cases, what's going to stand out at the end of that is the human touch.

Jacki Lutz 33:24

Yeah.

Jay Baer 33:25

Because everything else will be the same.

Jacki Lutz 33:28

I want to say the word genuine. Yeah. Because I feel like AI can't really be genuine because it's not coming from a soul, right? So it's like, yeah, AI could say that exactly the same thing, right? But it's the fact that it came from a soul to a soul. You know, that that connection piece.

Jay Baer 33:45

Yeah, you just have your antenna up, right? And that's that's really what I talk to folks about today is people are scared about AI and and its impact on their jobs. And I understand that. But when AI is pervasive, everybody's gonna have the same robots. You're not gonna be able to out AI the other guy. It's like it's gonna be a commodity, right? Everything gets commoditized eventually, it's just the nature of technology.

Jacki Lutz 34:04

It's hard to imagine at this point in the stage, but it is, but it's gonna happen.

Jay Baer 34:07

Two years. I mean, it it everything goes through this cycle, right? Look, I'll talk about this, I'm sure. At one point, and it wasn't that long ago, like we're not talking about, you know, dinosaurs you know, roam the earth. At one point, like in the 1800s, if you had in your business a flush toilet, you had a distinct competitive advantage. Like literally, we've got plumbing, yo. Buy meat from

AI Gets Commoditized, Best Human Wins

Jay Baer 34:34

us, right? Like that was like a thing, right? When I started in this business, uh, if you had a website at all, if you actually had a dot com, that was a distinct and unique and powerful and defensible competitive advantage.

Jacki Lutz 34:50

And probably felt like a big leap for a lot of people. Oh, like AI does.

Jay Baer 34:55

No idea being on the front lines of that revolution. I mean, I spent years just in meetings explaining to people why they would want to have a website. And they would say, why would we want our customers to be able to learn about us when we're not open?

Jacki Lutz 35:12

I can't even recall.

Jay Baer 35:13

Yeah, but this is this is not like, and this is you know, and this isn't like a butcher shop. This is like Exxon, right? These are like major companies. Like, I don't, why would we want to do that? I don't get it, right? I mean, this is and again, it's a long time ago, but it's only 30 years. Like it's not like that long ago. So all technology gets commoditized eventually, and the AI adoption curve is so straight up, and the cost for AI accessibility is going down, right? Totally Moore's Law. And and consequently, everybody's gonna have a lot of AI relatively quickly. And at that point, like who wins? My thesis is that the the the best human wins, right? What when the robots in a fight between robots, the best human wins. And we're getting to that point relatively quickly, right? So the the the emphasis is yes, you've got to use AI to do your job better and faster and more efficiently, no question. But what people don't talk about is when that happens, the predictions are that AI is going to give all white-collar knowledge workers approximately 25% of their time back. That's the the standard answer. 25%. So imagine whatever you spend your time on now, you have to spend 25% less on that. The only question that matters at that point is what do you do with that 25%? Do you work less hard? Do you take more time off? Do you buy competitors? Do you lower your prices? Or do you, as I think you should, use that 25% to create as many legitimate, powerful, meaningful human reactions and interactions as you possibly can? How can you have everybody in your organization, starting with yourself, be just like that Delta Gate agent that I encountered, right? And now I understand it's hard to do that. You don't have time. I don't got time to do that. I don't have time to be custom. I don't have time to bespoke, I don't have time to be empathetic or compassionate or or spend 40 hours on the phone for something that doesn't really matter. I don't have time. You're gonna have time.

Jacki Lutz 37:08

It feels like it's the opposite. So 10 years ago, it's like you wanted to automate the things that were more human. And it feels like now it's gonna be flipped.

Jay Baer 37:19

I completely agree. That's such an astute observation. Uh, and this is why I I'm passionate about this topic and I like uh going down this road because it's it's very counterintuitive, right? People are like, how much can I automate with AI? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, I get it. But you got to start looking at what's on the other side of AI.

Jacki Lutz 37:36

Yep.

Jay Baer 37:36

Right. And start building those blocks now, right? You and and and you know, when I talk to organizations that are homogenous, right? It was one company, I talk a lot about like your competitors are gonna try and try and win with technology. Don't let them right match them on technology, but win on humanity.

Jacki Lutz 37:52

Right.

Jay Baer 37:52

And it's a message that that most people don't see coming. Um, but I think it's really powerful and really true.

Jacki Lutz 37:57

Preach it. Best human wins. Preach it, man. That that's the title. Like I was talking about that's the thumbnail.

Stacey Miller 38:03

That's it.

Jacki Lutz 38:03

And it feels like so much of this can really be summarized. You're you're quick, clear, and kind. It feels like a heavy lift, but it feels like it's emotional regulation of the customer. Yeah. Right. You're trying to take a situation that's usually they're not contacting you because something's going well, right? And you're trying to manage their emotions. It's like a toddler, right? Yeah. And you're just trying to keep the peace so that they come back, you know, and that you can have a pleasant experience.

Jay Baer 38:30

Absolutely. But but, you know, also, also inside organizations too. I mean, one of the things that we don't talk about enough about experiences is that it is functionally impossible to be great at outwardly facing experience unless you have a really solid internal experience. You can be good at customer experience and only be good at employee experience, but you can't be great unless the first one's great, right? So all of these things have to start from the inside out. You've got to be quick for your colleagues, you've got to be clear for your colleagues, you have to be kind for your colleagues. It has to be a culture inside of working together seamlessly. Because how often is it that that something goes wrong and you disappoint a customer or a partner? And it's because somebody inside your organization couldn't get you what you needed, right? They let you down. And so then now you've got to let the customer, it happens all the time. Um, it's something like I can't remember the stat in front of me, but it's 75 or 82% or something of all like customer disappointments are rooted in some kind of internal communication failure.

Jacki Lutz 39:31

Okay.

Jay Baer 39:31

Right. It's insane, right? So um that's the key, right? Is yes, this is so true for customers, but you got to look inside first and and make sure that you've got your house in order uh in your own walls.

Stacey Miller 39:44

It's all very foundational, right? Like the quick, clear, the kind, but everything we've talked about, no matter what type of technology has been introduced, we're talking about the internet, we're talking about Google, now we're talking about AI. The authenticity doesn't change. The relevance doesn't change. The fact that you need to be quick doesn't change. And the fact that you need to be human doesn't change, no matter what the technology. And I think that that's a thread throughout throughout time since the advent.

Jay Baer 40:11

So I think what's gonna matter most, CC going forward is that your incidences of human-to-human interaction are gonna go down dramatically. So Gartner says that by 2029, which like low-key is like around the corner.

Jacki Lutz 40:23

Yeah, it's wild.

Jay Baer 40:24

Uh, 80%, eight, zero percent of company to customer interactions will be AI agent to AI agent.

Jacki Lutz 40:31

Oh, wow.

Jay Baer 40:32

So you won't be talking to your customer, you'll be talking to your customer's robot. Like I use AI agents all the time already, right?

Jacki Lutz 40:36

But it's not even you talking to the robot, it's the robot talking to the robot.

Jay Baer 40:39

That's what I'm saying.

Jacki Lutz 40:40

Tell me my robot to tell the other robots.

Jay Baer 40:42

No, exactly. And and this is I'll talk about this on stage because most people don't really understand how AI agents work. So the example I use uh in presentations is the new AI dating apps.

Jacki Lutz 40:52

Right.

Jay Baer 40:52

So you build a profile, you answer a bunch of questions. And I've been married for 34 years. I'm taking this on on, you know. I've researched this. I don't have an account. I just want to make sure we're clear on this. Yes, this is not a lived experience. Uh this is research. But you answer

Robot To Robot Interactions Ahead

Jay Baer 41:06

a bunch of questions, you make a profile. You know, like the traditional dating apps, it's like, okay, I like dogs and I don't like sushi or whatever. And here's some pictures that I probably doctored and like swipe left, swipe right, you know, we should get together, whatever. So says my son. But now in the AI dating apps, you fill out a profile, you answer a bunch of questions, and then they make you a robot. So robot Stacy goes on robot dates with other robots. Where do they go? What do they do? I don't know. Do they go bowling? Do they do they go help me each other outlet for electricity? I don't know what they do. Um, but they literally go on robot dates and they interact and all this. And if they get along, you'll get a push notification on your phone. Hey, Stacy, it's robot Stacy. I've been on like three dates and it was awesome. Uh, you guys should get together in the real world. This is happening now. No. Right now. Now, if that can happen now, if that can happen today, think about somebody needing auto parts. Like, why would I need an actual human being to do that? Right. We already have a part number. You guys have a standard language that you developed, right? Um, so what this means is that yeah, it's a little bit of a chagrin situation that like we're not gonna be interacting with people at the same level as we have historically. But to me, this is what makes the case for the kind of work that we're doing here. If 80% of the interactions are gonna be robot to robot, the psychological emotional resonance of that 20% just went up by 400%. So every interaction that you're gonna have in the future with an actual person, which may be in a dire bad times complaint scenario, maybe not, but but doesn't really matter. Every interaction, every at bat you have to interact with a human being is gonna take on so much more importance because there won't be as many of those mathematically. And this is why being the best human becomes the cheat code for success, because you're just not gonna have that chance very often, right? So you got to over-deliver each time you get that chance.

Jacki Lutz 43:03

Oh, that's wild.

Jay Baer 43:04

Mind blown.

Jacki Lutz 43:05

Yeah, mind blown.

Stacey Miller 43:06

I'm into it.

Jacki Lutz 43:07

I have so many more questions about that, but we do kind of have to park this car, if you will.

Stacey Miller 43:12

You should be green with envy.

Jacki Lutz 43:14

You are not over that to see J Barrett talking about it. We're going to have funds now. Okay, great.

Jay Baer 43:18

This is fantastic. Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 43:20

Like I can play this game. Um, I do have two quick ones, and then you had a couple quick ones. Go for it. Um Do you have any thoughts on the business to person uh concept versus like business to business? We're a very big business-to-business industry. Yeah, of course. Um, do you have any thoughts on the business to person?

Jay Baer 43:37

Like a regular customer scenario.

Jacki Lutz 43:39

Oh, more like more like, you know, yes, you're B2B, but you're still working with people at that business, right?

Jay Baer 43:45

Can we do a whole other show on this? Um it is like the bane of my professional career.

Jacki Lutz 43:50

Okay.

Jay Baer 43:51

This idea that somehow this advice doesn't matter because we're working with other companies. In this business that your business is working with, are there human beings? Do they actually have human emotions?

B2B Is Still Human To Human

Jay Baer 44:07

Like everything we talked about, quick, clear, kind, is actually, I wouldn't say this to most people, but I'll say it to you, is actually way more important in industries that are B2B because the value of each customer is so much higher. The replacement cost of a customer is way higher in B2B. You have, you know, like you're not selling licorice to 28 million people, right? You have X number of customers. And so the value of those customers, what it takes to get a new customer, the word of mouth impact in B2B, like 80%, 80% of B2B. B2B transactions are influenced by word of mouth at some level. What creates word of mouth experiences? So when people say, oh, this doesn't make as much sense to me because maybe not all these examples are B2B, or we sell to other companies, like that is the most uh short-sighted perspective on how actual business decisions get made. And it it frustrates me to no end.

Jacki Lutz 45:03

I love that. Yeah. I think our industry needs to hear this message.

Jay Baer 45:06

Absolutely. There is no such thing as B2B. Companies don't make decisions. Collections of people with the same business card make decisions. The whole construct of B2B as if it was literally a company buying from a company, it doesn't work like that. It never has, it will it might work like that in the future when the robot from the company buys from the other robot. But historically, the idea that the company buys from the company, yeah, I understand that's what the paperwork says. But there's a bunch of humans, right? And you've seen the stats, right? The number of um people involved in B2B deals, right? The number of recommenders and people on the kind of approval council has gone up over the years, not down. So there's actually more human beings in each organization that have input on any B2B transaction than there used to be. So if anything, the importance of human connection and experiences is skyrocketing to B2B, but yet some people still think that, oh, this doesn't matter because somehow we're just gonna win the business by the strength of our spreadsheets. Like good luck to you.

Jacki Lutz 46:01

Well, you hear customer experience and you think about the end user.

Jay Baer 46:04

Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 46:05

But like, you know, I used to work for a supplier. We worked with a lot of distributors or retailers, right?

Jay Baer 46:09

And some were great and some sucked.

Jacki Lutz 46:11

How many conversations are happening about customer experience with us?

Jay Baer 46:14

Yep.

Jacki Lutz 46:15

I I don't know that any.

Jay Baer 46:16

It's just the worst thing that ever happened to customer experience as an industry is using the word customer in the name.

Jacki Lutz 46:21

Yeah. Yep.

Jay Baer 46:22

If you just would have called it, if you would have called it like buyer experience, yeah. It would be maybe better. Because B2B buyer, B2C buyer, it's a buyer, right?

Jacki Lutz 46:30

And automatically feels more relevant. Yeah. Yeah.

Jay Baer 46:33

Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 46:33

It's amazing. Words. Yeah. Do you want to do your other one? Um, yeah, maybe just might be long.

Jay Baer 46:38

I'm still flummoxed by that by the matching blazers. It really is. It's really messing me.

Jacki Lutz 46:41

It's it's uh, we were laughing today because we also kind of have the same shoes on and we all have the same nails.

Jay Baer 46:47

It's like a salt and pepper thing going on here. It's it's it's amazing.

Jacki Lutz 46:51

We're spending too much time together. Yeah, exactly. Um, I'm a big uh personal branding person. I do talks on personal branding and and really, you know, do a lot on social media about helping people do better with personal branding. And you have a great one. Thanks. And I just want to know if you have any advice for people who are trying to build a personal brand and have a digital presence out there. Do you have any advice?

Jay Baer 47:13

I do. Uh your personal life, like what you actually care about, is massively more interesting than your job. Unless you are like an astronaut or a rock star or something like that, like whatever you like, people are gonna remember more than what you do to it. Uh, I have been an author, speaker, consultant

Personal Branding Beyond Your Job

Jay Baer 47:40

for more than 30 years. Yet now, every time I get on a plane, somebody says, Oh, you're the tequila guy. Which I've been doing for five years. Because what I care about, my passion, is inherently more interesting than my job. Even most people think my job is interesting, but they don't care, right? They care about that side. It'll happen today. I guarantee you it'll happen today. I'll walk off that stage and someone will say, You walked out there and my mind was blown. Because I'm like, why is my tequila guy on stage? It happens every single week to me. Every week. Um, and so what I find is that in personal branding, especially for people who are on the B2B side, because people think that B2B stands for boring to boring. Uh it doesn't have to, but they they sort of feel like it does. Uh, is like, well, this is, you know, I I like tequila or prize-winning roses or you know, whatever your passion is. I can't possibly talk about that on LinkedIn because that feels frivolous or or demeaning or base, totally wrong, right? Nobody cares that you're doing whatever you're doing. It's not that interesting. They care about what makes you a person, like what you care about is what they care about. And so you've got to give yourself permission to show the whole you. That's what really works in my estimation.

Jacki Lutz 48:46

Oh, I love that advice. Thank you so much. It's really applicable to you too. It really is. She's been testing some things. Yeah.

Jay Baer 48:52

What are you testing? I'm okay. Let's let's focus group this right now.

Jacki Lutz 48:55

I recently became a duck mom. I live on a farm, like I mentioned.

Jay Baer 48:59

Um, I've never heard the term duck mom, but I love it.

Jacki Lutz 49:01

And then he used it because it's your vernacular. I I might have made it up. Um, but yeah, I did a personal branding talk yesterday, and it was the first time I brought ducks into it. And um, my point was all so I have pecan ducks, they're big white ducks. Yes. And they all look the same, same shape, same size, no markings whatsoever. There's no way to tell them apart. And when I bought them, my kids immediately wanted to name them. But I was like, there's a problem here. We can't tell them apart. So we're just throwing out names, right? And there's two ducks that I do know their names because of their behaviors. There's Duck Norris, who's kind of aggro. He's like the leader and he's kind of everybody out there recently deceased.

Jay Baer 49:37

Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 49:37

Yeah, I know. Yeah, he's uh he kind of pecks at the other one so I can tell who he is. And then there's Toad, who's a little bit slower, so I can tell who he is. So I had everybody stand up and I said, okay, well, sit down if you, you know, have a four-year degree. Sit down if you have more than three years in this industry. And I just did some like generic things that people might look for on a resume. And basically everybody was still standing at the end. And my point was like, you're all looking like peeking ducks right now.

Jay Baer 50:02

Yes.

Jacki Lutz 50:03

So you need to think about your digital presence, your personal brand, what sets you apart, your personality, and what's interesting to you is what's going to set you apart in the end. I love that. That's really great.

Jay Baer 50:12

I wish I would have seen that.

Jacki Lutz 50:13

I know. It was actually really fun and it went, thank God, it went well.

Jay Baer 50:16

A duck mom for the win. I feel like a paintball gun or maybe a highlighter can solve your matching duck problem. Just throw it out.

Stacey Miller 50:24

Some creative clothing, you know, scarves, glasses. Oh, duck hat.

Jacki Lutz 50:29

A duck hat.

Jay Baer 50:29

There's a whole C store in your future selling duck hats.

Jacki Lutz 50:33

That I'll be buying from. Yes, yes.

Jay Baer 50:35

It's a successful that we stole from Mexico. We live in Mexico half the year. And uh uh we we brought a cat back last time. She was a neighborhood street cat and she started to follow us and kind of live in our house. We're like, all right, we're gonna take you home. So we did some paperwork to uh import export a cat to the US. Uh but now my wife is spending um, I don't know, about a hundred grand a day on Etsy toys for this cat. Like it's it's ridiculous, right? Um but that's a dream. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacki Lutz 51:03

Is that how you know you make it?

Jay Baer 51:05

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Uh yeah, is it buy it put it once on the lot of paperwork for dogs? Cat's like, yep, it's fine. Take it. Please take that. Take two.

Stacey Miller 51:15

No big deal.

Jay Baer 51:16

They don't care.

Stacey Miller 51:17

Well, successful focus group. Um, I want to end with three rapid fire questions for you. All right. So uh which brand has given you your favorite customer experience.

Jay Baer 51:30

Well, I told my Delta story, which is certainly a powerful one. Um I would say actually consistently, it's probably um our uh financial advisors, John Hurlow and Associates. Shout out to them. Shout out. Um because it's not a family office, but but they act as if it were, right? They they're all the things we talked about, right? Reply without answers, answer before they ask. They they provide advice and counsel and ideas before I think of it, um, which is exactly what you want in that kind of relationship. I do a lot of work in financial services, and so it's nice to have that um opportunity for a for a positive story. And it's um

Rapid Fire Tequila And Marketing Trends

Jay Baer 52:08

it's not hard, right? It's just it's just like, what would this person want right now? Let's give that to them.

Stacey Miller 52:14

Yeah. And what's amazing is a brand of that size being positioned next to a brand Delta that we talked about on the podcast is huge for them. So congratulations to your financial advisor. All right, what's one marketing trend you wish would die? A horrible, painful death.

Jay Baer 52:30

Um well, personally, uh, this is not applicable to anybody, but I will say it because it is a thorn in my side. Uh TikTok has a ever-changing relationship with alcohol on the platform. So we had hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers, and they actually kicked us off, de-platformed us uh for our tequila content. Like you can't talk about tequila anymore, but now they've changed the rules and now you can actually sell tequila on the platform. Now you gotta rebuild. We gotta build from scratch, right? And so that's super annoying. And I let me just broaden that out and say I understand the power of algorithms and how they have to be tuned and all that, but it is very frustrating as a professional to have such little consistency. LinkedIn is the worst of all. LinkedIn can't decide if they want to be, if they want to be a video platform, a written platform, an algorithmic platform, a groups platform. Like it feels like they're just like reach into a fishbowl every quarter, like, okay, we're gonna do this now. Like, and it's like become a cesspool in a lot of ways, and it's really frustrating because it I think it really had potential to be amazing in LinkedIn. To me personally, right now, is a little bit of a disappointment.

Stacey Miller 53:31

Yeah, I like to call it platform whiplash because it's always changing and we're always trying to do that. Chasing an algorithm.

Jay Baer 53:36

It's good business for strategists, right? Like, okay, well, you know, job security. Yeah, exactly. Uh but it's frustrating.

Stacey Miller 53:42

All right. Well, last one is favorite tequila to recommend a total tequila noob.

Jay Baer 53:47

We actually have on the website tequilaport.com. Uh go to tequilaport.com slash subscribe to subscribe for free to our newsletter twice a week. Uh, we actually have a list of top 35 tequilas for new drinkers. Um, but one that I would recommend a lot uh because it's very soft. They oxygenate it a lot. So they finish making it and then they pump oxygen through it for a couple days to soften it so it doesn't have a lot of burn. Uh and it's fairly widely available now. It's called El Bendito Yankee, um, based out of Chicago. Uh, inexpensive, good for sipping, good in margaritas. That's a good choice uh to start. Yeah.

Stacey Miller 54:24

Excellent. You're gonna have to let us know when you start hosting uh tequila retreats. We already do.

Jay Baer 54:29

First one is July 9th. We already do have a tours business uh uh with our partners at Package Tours. Uh first one is July 9th through the 12th that we've got. Tequila Distilleries in tequila. It's super great. I've done a wild podcast. I've done like 12 of them, 12 tours down there, and it's super fun.

Stacey Miller 54:43

It's really great. How do we merge tequila and marketing? Let's think let's think on that.

Jay Baer 54:47

I've already done it. I've got a I've got a talk. I've a I have an event uh Thursday this week in Dallas where I'm doing the keynote in the morning and a tequila tasting for all the attendees at night.

Jacki Lutz 54:57

We'll see you there. Is that how you know you make it? That sounds awesome. Yeah.

Jay Baer 55:00

It's not the worst. It's not the worst. Yeah, it's a whole business now.

Jacki Lutz 55:04

Well, I have to thank you both so much for this. This has been such a good conversation. You're so easy to talk to for being who you are. Like, I just feel like we could have just sat and talked the rest of the day. Let's do it. Sadly, we'd have to let you go.

Jay Baer 55:16

Ah, whatever.

Jacki Lutz 55:17

And let you talk to other people.

Jay Baer 55:18

I guess.

Jacki Lutz 55:18

Gotta get to a keynote. Thank you.

Jay Baer 55:20

Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Great to see you.

Jacki Lutz 55:22

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care on Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our show. Auto Care On Air is proud to be a production of the Auto Care Association, dedicated to advancing the autocare industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocare.org.