Identifying Patterns that will Build Your Business with Jay Baer

Foreign. This episode, I'm featuring another rock star right here on the Todd Hartley Show. But what is this show all about? It's about you getting next friggin level with your career, with your life. And if you learn anything from me, I admire people, I follow them, I look to see what they're doing really well. I lift up their blueprint for success and I deploy it in my life. When I was growing up struggling with not being able to read, I giggle because it seems weird today, but I had to work on strengthening my weaknesses and developing my strengths to the point of where I became so obsessive with developing my weaknesses that today nobody would know that I used to struggle. What's my point? In these interviews, I want you looking for how people get themselves prepared for their next incarnation. And I've watched this guy, we both went to the University of Arizona. I, I have followed his career. He has always been three steps ahead and always been somebody that I've seen speak. If I've been at the same event, if I'm a speaker, I make sure to stay to watch him. And I've studied Jay's career because he is remarkable. Okay, I want you learning from remarkable people. So each and every episode I'm going to bring somebody remarkable here. And every time I would get to an event with Jay, I would always hustle my way into an interview with him. An opportunity to develop a relationship. And before you knew it, I started to see the things that Jay was doing I was able to replicate in my life. And who are those people that you deeply admire? The ones that you have learned from that have trailblazed for you? Well, in this episode of the Todd Hartley show, it's Jay Baer. And watch Jay, I, I extract from him his blueprint that you can use in your career. So what is this blueprint I want you looking for? I want you looking for how Jay, who's had like five multimillion dollar businesses, he's the author of six best selling books. How do you think he prepares himself for success? You'll find out in this episode. And when he does a book, what comes before the book? And how does he prepare himself to do the research so he could stay on the cutting edge? And once he releases a book, how does he start his process over again? By determining where the biggest trends are going to so Jay can plant himself at the end of that tunnel. So when you and I arrive at that destination, booyah. Jay Bear already has the definitive guide on that topic. Sit back, listen to an exceptional interview with Jay Bear as he explains how he's bared down through his career. That's right. And that's coming up after these words from our sponsor. This podcast is brought to you by the Wirebuzz team. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it's because I've spent the past decade growing Wirebuzz into a digital marketing powerhouse designed to maximize clarity in complex sales processes so we can help accelerate revenue. And we do this in three phases. Phase one, we transform your website to function like your best salesperson and then also incorporate persuasive on demand sales videos. Now, your entire team is aligned on messaging and they're injecting massive clarity into your prospect's head. So your site looks great, but it also has engaging content that helps your team sell on demand 24. 7. The next phase phase two, we train your sales and marketing teams to sell remotely or in person to expand the impact of your sales team. And the third phase is we develop and run targeted ads to your prospects. Scale those ads to help you achieve more business results. Sign up for the Wirebuzz Company newsletter to learn more about effective and simple ways to improve your company messaging, attract more digital attention, and ultimately make more sales.

Hey Jay, thanks for joining me.

Mr. Todd Hartley, welcome, my friend. I'm delighted to be here. Pumped about the new show.

Yeah, thank you.

I always have a great time when I get to connect up with you. And Jay's been one of these torches in my career where he's kind of shepherded the way and I've got to learn from what he's been doing, but marveled at the fact that Jay multiple times has discovered what his next great value is that he's going to be bringing. I mean he went from utility and in through a bunch of different.

Hug.

Your haters and talk triggers. Jay, let's for the audience, help them get to the next level before we get into your process. Bring them up to speed, who you are, what you provide, and then we'll start unpacking some things.

I am a advisor, consultant, speaker, author, expert in the areas of digital marketing and customer experience. Have been in the category since 1993, so nearly 30 years now. As you know, I started in the Internet business when domain names were free. So a long time ago. I have some experience in the category and certainly having seen essentially every change in the Internet since it was invented is helpful partially in that I don't get terribly excited or entranced by any particular development. Right. So I don't care necessarily about video or Clubhouse or Web3 or NFTs or TikTok. It's just the next tool in an evolution of tools. And so maybe because I am an old, it's easier for me to be like, yeah, this is just another thing. It's not any better or worse than the thing that came before it. I just want people to run better companies and make more money, and if I can help them connect the dots to do so, that's what I'll do.

Now I'm, I'm. I've always been intrigued by the next version of Jeff, and in this next version of Jay is always you pushing yourself to discovering what greater value you can bring. And when you do this in each of the times. And, dude, this is literally the reason why I asked you to be here, because other people are trying to figure out how they can get to this next version of themselves and accelerate their path when you're discovering the next thing, like, you get utility. And you once told me that. And I hope this is accurate, but it's totally off top of my brain. But you once told me that you start with your speech and then you write a book.

That's right.

And you've got, like, a process that you go through, but before you start with the speech, you've got a kernel of an idea that you think would be valuable. Kind of walk through that for people.

Well, if you think about contemporary expertise, or I guess I'll use the term thought leadership, although I hate the term of art, but people at least know what I'm talking about. Talking about, there's usually the approach is that you, you pick a topic and you devote the plurality of your career to that topic, and you, you, you plant the crops and you plow that field, and then you replant and you. And. And you plow again. And so you end up writing, over the course of 20 years, whatever, six or seven books, all about this particular topic, and you give speeches on that topic, and you have a podcast about that topic, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That really, really works for most people. I don't want to do that. I don't find it very interesting, I think, because I'm actually intrigued by a lot of topics both in business and in life. I can't imagine singing the same song for 20 or 30 years, right? You go to the, you know, you go to, you know, you drive by the Native American casino and you see a flock of seagulls, right, Playing, right? And they're. They're still doing the same hits, right, that they were doing back in the day. And yeah, it's a paycheck, but how interesting could that be intellectually? So my process is, until recently, I owned a very successful global consulting firm that worked with many of the world's most iconic brands in these same areas. And as a consultant, and I've been a consultant a lot longer than I've been a speaker or an author. As a consultant, one of the great opportunities there, and you know this well, Todd, is that, you know, you have the chance to interact with clients in the real world and listen to the questions that they ask. And so my process has always been when I hear similar questions enough times, and I then determine that there really isn't a very satisfactory answer to that line of inquiry. And if I am also interested in it, I think, huh, well, if my clients, who are some of the biggest companies on the planet, don't know the answer to this question, probably very few people do know the answer. Maybe I should answer it. And if I'm intrigued enough and I feel like there's enough narrative potential there, I will write a keynote speech around that principle, and I will try to do that speech 20, 30, 40, 50 times and get it pretty well polished. And then once it is polished and it seems to work, then I'll turn it into a book and then talk about that particular subject for two, three, four years and then. And then do it again. That's the process. So to make it easier to identify, there are experts out there who, like my friend Shep Hyken, fantastic thought leader, expert in the areas of customer experience. Customer service has been for years and years and years and years. That is his deal, right? Like, he's not going to stray from that lane. He is not going to write a book about leadership. It's just not. He's a. He's amazing at what he does. But then there's other experts think about, like a Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuk or others who, while, yes, Seth's not going to write a book about sous vide cooking, there's definitely a breadth to the topics that, that, that Seth covers. Mark Schaefer is another one in that category. And to me, it's. It. Neither is the superior approach. It's just intellectually, I prefer to stick and move a little bit.

I'm more like you. I'm noticing right now that I'm doing. I didn't want to be the video guy at the beginning because I felt like it was too much of me in a little box. But my friends one night over beers in Fenway park, when I told them, I don't want to be the video guy, they were like, shut up, dude, you're the video guy. Puff it out for five years and back your way out into other things.

That's right.

And I thought that was the right advice, though, begrudgingly, you know, I. But I love video. But I do feel, and this is probably what a lot of people feel, that there is a new version, a next step, a new exciting expression. And I think when you look at, when I look at your career, it's a very similar process. So when you're getting to this point where you're like, all right, I just cranked out utility. It was massively valuable and groundbreaking in the industry at the time. And I think then you, you probably have to be like, what's exciting for me to do next? And now you start with an open heart, seeing what really fires you up based on going back to some utility principles. Where could you be the biggest utility.

That's right.

And help open up a topic. Is that fair?

Yeah. And that's why after I finished the utility project, my next project was. Was hug your haters. So whereas U is a recipe for attracting customers and converting customers based on usefulness, hug your haters is about customer retention and taking care of the customers you've already earned. And the fact that, geez, here we are at that time, it was 2016, I think, and yet customer service and customer satisfaction is at an all time low. Right. So it's been 2000 years since Christ and customers hate business more than ever. Wow, that's a problem. How can that be true? We're spending billions of dollars a year on customer service and we suck at it. So I wrote a book about that and let that project run. And then I realized, geez, we spend all this time talking about social media and SEO and email marketing and programmatic display and everything else, and the one thing we never talk about is the most powerful marketing engine of all time, which is word of mouth, which everybody just takes granted. We just assume that, hey, if we run a good business, people will talk about us. No, that's not how human beings behave at all. And so that's why I wrote Talk triggers with Daniel Lemon and tried to provide a formula for proactive word of mouth generation.

And at the core of this, you're just interested, right? Like if you were bored and not interested, none of this would work.

The worst thing you can be if you're going to try and create content is incurious.

Yeah, right.

Worst thing you can be because then you're just. All you're doing is looking inside your own head and then regurgitating the same material over and over and over in a slightly different way. You will always run out of material eventually if you're not outwardly curious about other topics and drawing adjacencies. I'm not a futurist. Right. I'm not a crystal ball gap. That's why you won't find me a lot of times in whatever is the cutting edge. Like, I'm not web3 stuff right now. Like, that's not my. That's not my role in the world. I am never going to be first. I'm always early, but I'm never first. And that's intentional. I feel like my role is to recognize patterns and then explain those patterns to a larger audience in a way that everybody can understand. One of the things that I hear a lot, and a lot of folks might think it's a criticism, but I actually take it the opposite. I'll get off stage and someone will say, wow, that was a terrific presentation. A lot of what you said is common sense. Like, exactly. But yet here I am being paid to give you a reminder because it's such common sense, yet nobody's doing it right. Like paying attention to word of mouth, for example. So I don't find that to be a criticism at all. In many cases, common sense is not that common, and it's certainly not implemented. So if I can recognize a pattern and even more importantly, perhaps build a system that people can follow to actually execute, then I feel like I've done my job.

Okay, beautiful. I get the common sense thing also. But you just touched on where I always feel better when somebody's like, yeah, well, that's like common sense. But then there's a framework involved. So you build out a framework and you do that so other people can now take your common sense and then execute it. And once you've got a framework now you've got a working model that can replicate what you've got up here and make it easy for people to be successful.

Yeah. My good friend Rory Vaden says people are inspired by ideas, but they pay for execution. And that's exactly right. So that's why I don't typically throw ideas out there unless there's some kind of. And therefore, here's what you should actually do.

Right. All right, now, something tells me that you have a ritual of keeping yourself involved in what's developing or in stories that your topics that you're interested in. What is that like? Because I bet you there's a blueprint here that other people can use. I'll share mine in just a second. But Jay, how do you get yourself so you are in a consistent diet of learning and exploring what you're interested in so you can add value into people's lives?

I don't know that I would bill it as ritualistic. I wish it were that buttoned up. But ultimately it comes down to I read a lot. I probably spend, and this is not an exaggeration, three plus hours a day reading. And I very rarely read books. And if so, it's typically fiction. I'll read some nonfiction stuff from peers and colleagues, but not very often. I read a ton of periodicals, magazines, newspapers, email newsletters, Alerts, blogs, substacks, LinkedIn newsletters, all of that. And what I try to do is, is just take notes, right? If I hear something that's interesting or I see something like huh, that would apply to a client of mine or a circumstance with unfamiliar in this way, I just keep a really large notebook of. No one could make sense of it, right. It looks like a bunch of crazy musings of a serial killer. Right. But it makes sense to partially. No one can read my writing anyway. But, and it's just, it's, it's just bits and pieces of ideas and eventually it starts to kind of come together like a bouillabaiss and start to make.

Exactly.

And, and, and then what I try to do. And I'm actually in this process right now, I have a call this afternoon about it. I try to do some research, some first party research and validate it. One of the things I typically do in all my projects is I do my own research, right. So yeah, I'll pull in data from Forrester or Gartner or Pew or whoever is doing some research on a similar topic. But I always pay to do my own research. And so that's what I'm working on right now for what may be my next project.

Beautiful. I love it.

Okay.

Mine has to be ritualistic or I'm not going to do it. But I'm super interested. Here is my Trello board of all things that I. And I could spin this thing and it just goes for a block.

Yeah.

And it's all these things that like when I see, I'm like, oh, I gotta retain that because someday this Forrester study is going to be valuable and I want to explain it to people. But at the when, but when I see it, there's excitement around it. Like, if I'm excited about that data, like, just for example, going through LinkedIn's state of sales report as I'm going through it. And I don't read books either. I'm normally on the same path that you are. But as I'm going through it, I could see some research and then get excited around the research and almost feel like the universe has opened up a whole different channel where I could express some of the other things in completely different ways. Right? You get something like that.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. You just see the adjacencies. And some people are better at that than others. I'm not suggesting I have some sort of crazy gift, but there's no question that some people can kind of identify lateral connections more easily than others. Partially. It's useful because, as I mentioned, I've been literally doing this now for 29 years. So it certainly gives you an advantage in seeing kind of how things progress and how things tie together. And I've worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies all around the world. And so that helps too.

Right.

You just kind of see around corners a little bit, and it can shortcut some of that process.

All right, so for those that are.

Listening, you should also know that Jay studies or polls his target customers. Like I remember you telling me about a survey that you did or you regularly do, I believe, with event planners on what topics they're interested in. And how does that research help you understand how you can best serve your target customer? For those of you paying attention, just pick this up as a blueprint and understand that whatever you're doing, if you're in car sales, you could start researching your very target customer and serve them at a completely different level. Jay, what's that process like for you?

Yeah, absolutely. So meeting planners are a big part of my business, of course, because I do a lot of. A lot of keynote speaking and MC work, et cetera. And so I always want to know what they're thinking and why. It is an industry, not unlike professional sports or Hollywood movies, that tends to run in packs a little bit. Right. So there's a topic that gets really hot right now. Employee retention, diversity, et cetera. Really hot topics. And so every conference needs speaking speakers on that particular topic. But you want to sort of know what that trend is before it's too late. Now, I should say I'm not all of a sudden going to show up and say, hey, I'm now your diversity speaker or your employee retention. Right. That's just that's putting on clothes that don't fit. But within the realm of my world, which is typically customer attraction, customer retention, I want to know what meeting planners are thinking. And so I do a regular survey every year or two of a few hundred meeting planners that I've worked with and others that, that are friends of friends. And I asked them, all right, rank order these topics. What are you most interested in? Employee retention, diversity, leadership, sales, customer experience, marketing, web, three, whatever, rank order these topics. And then I also ask about how today do you typically find speakers that you might hire for an event? Do you find them via their YouTube channel? Do you find them in podcast? Do you find them via social media, simple Google searches, word of mouth, referrals, et cetera? And that is really useful as well to understand how does your target audience find options and then make decisions. I will tell you this. That notion of customer research, I believe is more important right now than it's perhaps been since the late 90s when the Internet first became a huge factor. And it's because the pandemic, pandemic has changed how we buy everything and what we care about. I did a webinar recently with a global technology company, and one of the stats we were looking at shows that 44% of customers would change banks if they did not believe that their bank supported the same kind of causes that they believe in. I don't know when the last time you changed banks was, but it is a massive pain in the ass. And people are like, you know what? If my bank doesn't believe what I believe, I'm changing banks. That was not true two or three years ago. People would not care that much. And now they do. And of course they're making decisions based on customer experience more than price because of the pandemic and on and on and on and on. So I'll summarize this in this way. I firmly believe that in the next 18 months, the individuals and the companies that will outperform their category are the individuals and companies that understand their audience the best. And it's shocking to me how many major multinational corporations that I work with are using 2019 customer research, 2017 Personas. That is fundamentally worthless and useless. Right? That's. That's like flying blind into our tornado. You have got to spend time and money on customer and audience research right now because the world has changed and what people care about has changed. And it's not going back in the bottle.

Yeah, it's not going back. People like working in their pajamas and they aren't going to be going into an office anytime soon. I call it a Covid gain. Like all of your, you know, we had a lot of COVID losses in our lives, but there's also a great unspoken factor that's governing a lot of our decisions, which are Covid gains. Like my wife and I, you know, we, we live up just outside of Scottsdale, up in the town of Carefree. I bring this up because Jay's in Arizonan and, and so we do a lot of hiking in the morning as the sun's coming up. This is something I wouldn't have been able to do before because I would have been driving to the office. And now I've got a Covid gain and I'm not giving that back. And I think people have discovered that they want to be at home when their kids school bus pulls up, and that's important. So that's changing sales in general. And once we understand and we, and we start pivoting with this big changes that are taking place, it does give people early advantages like paddling out in a wave before the wave gets past them and they can ride that energy. And Jay does it better than most people I've seen throughout my career. I found it to be an incredible inspiration and, and that's why I thought it was important to make sure that Jay could come in and give you guys some of his like, big league insights on getting next level Jay. As you've got next level developing right now, you start socializing ideas, you start checking in with your target customers and evaluating it. And you also gauge this, what is it, 29 year? Did you say 29 years? The excitement that goes on inside of you. Can you describe when you start to hone in on what that next great Jay bear masterpiece is going to be like, the excitement that you feel? Because I think feeling such a big part of it, especially if you're going to be working this topic for the next two years, it's got to have the right feel for you, right?

Yeah. And realistically, it's probably the next four years because by the time you come up with the idea, start to socialize it, do the research, socialize it more, do a year to a year and a half of keynote speaking against it, then write a book, publish the book, promote the book. Yeah. It's a probably four year cycle, so you better like it. Right. Otherwise, otherwise you're not going to be very good at promoting it at all. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really exciting when you feel like you've got a thing. It's also frightening because you're like, hey, what if this thing is dumb? What if it's too much common sense? Or what if it, you know, isn't something that people actually care about or whatever. That's why the speaking really validates it, right? Like if you do a keynote speech enough times, you will know if people actually found value in it. So that before you actually commit to writing a book, it's nice to know that. Whereas of course, most people do it the opposite. They write a book and then they build a speech based on the book. And of course, as we talked about, I do it the opposite. I write a speech. And why do I do that? Well, think about how comedians work. Comedians don't be like, hey, here's what we're going to do. 30 days from now, I'm going to do a hour long Netflix special. Of course not, man. They, they've got their existing set. Get your existing set and what you do is you take five to seven minutes in your existing set and each time you try some new stuff and you work on that a little bit, and that's kind of the 1.0 of the new material. Then you say, okay, I've got enough five and seven minute chunks that I could do a new set, but it's not going to be very Good. So now 2.0 is you do a bunch of practice rooms, right? You do clubs in small towns, or you do mini sets where you can do maybe a 15 or a 20 to kind of polish sections of the show. And then eventually you get to 3.0 where you, you actually have it full form, 60 minutes through, and then 4.0, which you're going to do it in front of a big audience or a television audience or a recorded audience. My process works exactly the same, right? So in fact, I was just talking to my agent this morning. She said, hey, do you want to do this webinar? They don't have the budget that you would typically charge, but they do want the topic that you're going to be thinking about next. Do you want to do it as sort of a lower budget opportunity? But it's a good way to start to work out some. Hell, yeah, I do for sure. Yes, I'll do it right. And, and that process has, has worked for me. Maybe it wouldn't work for everybody, but I think there's some, there's some wisdom to it.

Yeah, repetition's the mother of skill. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I think it's Pretty damn funny. You know, I have the same process as you. Like, I got to get out in front of people, and I got to work the material, and I got to know what's funny and what isn't. And when Tony Robbins asked me to go and speak at Business Mastery for the first time, this was my first time because of the pandemic, being able to speak in front of a live audience in 18 months. And so I'm like, I got to get my. You know, I got to watch Amy Schumer do, like, four nights where she was working the same material. So it's the same process that you got. So I honor that. And. And, you know, as a speaker, doing the Tony event is like playing in the super bowl for me. So I did all of my practice events in when during COVID lockdown, I was like, where could I get in front of people where I get repetition and I could have the distraction of people and work on my focus muscle? And so what I ended up doing is I realized that in Scottsdale, just down the street, is Costco. So I put my headphones in because this is where people go during a pandemic. And I could work my material in front of live audiences so I'm not nervous. And I got my mask on and my headphones so people think that I'm actually talking to a client. And I walked opposite way of traffic, weaving in and out of people. But all I really did was work on my opening six minutes. And then once I got the opening six minutes from Todd 1.0 to 3.0, and now I'm solid, I moved on to the next chunk that I wasn't comfortable with. And when I walked out on the stage, it was like, I had done this in front of a thousand people before, because I already did. They just didn't know that they were listening.

I love that I should have been doing that during the pandemic, because the heart. I did 100 virtual speeches last year, and I love it. I don't mind virtual at all. I don't have to wear pants. It's fantastic. But what's hard about it is when you have new material, you don't know whether it's landing. You certainly don't know if it's funny, right? Because people don't really laugh in the chat. They'll ask questions in the chat if it's interesting and engaging, but they don't laugh in the chat very often. Then you get back out on the road. I did a live speech in Scottsdale earlier this week. And I'm like, I think this is funny because it seems funny to me, but I have no evidence that it's funny because I've only done this virtually. I've never done this, I've literally never done this talk live. So I don't know if it's funny or not that that's a little nerve wracking.

The feedback mechanism is completely different, isn't it?

Completely different, yeah. You're just, you're hoping, hoping for the best.

All right, so Jay's founded five multimillion dollar businesses. So does the same process that you use in speeches in trying to determine what the right topic is, once you get excited about it, you start talking with people and you do your own research, then you start to create a speech out of it and then eventually a book. Do you take a similar approach? And I want people as that are entrepreneurs in the audience because obviously, bro, you've gone through it five times, you've been wildly successful. Is that process somewhat similar?

That's a really good question that nobody's ever asked me before. No, I probably should, but. But I don't. I'm not as proactive or strategic about what businesses I start, right. To me, it's like, this is, I just, I don't have any other options or choices. Just of course, this is what I'll do. So for, for me, if you kind of go to that previous process, which is listen to questions, identify patterns, validate that with research, do a speech, do a book, then the, the caboose of that train is then build a business to do those things, right? So to me, it's all the same process. It's not a process for, for quote, unquote, thought leadership and a process for what companies you're going to have. Now, I would argue that I probably should do it that way. I probably should say, all right, what does the world really need that it doesn't have? And let me create a business to go make that thing. And I scratch that itch through my work as an investor, but not so much as an actual entrepreneur.

But I will say, go ahead.

I will say what we talked about a moment ago about understanding your audience, right, is so incredibly important. When I make investments in startups, I pay so much attention to how this particular startup has researched and how much they understand their actual market fit, right? So I'll ask a question like, okay, so who is the actual target audience for this product or service? And when they say something like women 25 to 54, I'm like, I'm not in. Or they say, well, pretty much everybody's a potential customer for this product. I'm definitely not in. Right. If they don't understand what the true competitive nature is and how they have to go out and probably steal somebody else's customers and how they're going to do that, then. Then I think it's going to be a very long and painful road to success.

Super interesting. A lot of Tony Robbins businesses start the way you explained it, where you, you know, create material, and then you're like, wait a minute. Somebody has to service this material. Somebody has to service what this action item is and create the business, because there's going to be demand after you get out there and explain it. And that's super fascinating to me as I watch his businesses take off.

My wife actually does the opposite. My wife is the one who really understands, like, market opportunity. So she started two companies in the last few years. One was called Political Paperwork, based in Arizona, actually a startup company that handles political campaigns, all of their campaign finance filings. And it's an onerous and arduous. She was a former legal assistant and grew up in politics, as I did, and built a business to just handle campaign finance paperwork for candidates. Really effective business. Now she has a business because so many people kind of our age are at the point where, you know, our parents are aging, many of our grandparents have passed away, our kids are getting old, and you start to think about, where did I come from and where are we going? So she started a business to help people track their. Their family. Right? It's a family tree genealogy research business. Because all of her friends are like, man, I'd sure like to know more about my family tree. She's like, I've got a business to do. Just that. So my wife's the one that's good at that. I'm actually not. I just say, hey, what am I talking about? And how do I monetize it?

Yeah, that's really cool. All right, last question. For those that don't know, Jay is also a certified tequila sommelier and a barbecue competition judge. Which one are your skills stronger? At.

One point, I would have said barbecue, because I did pass a very comprehensive barbecue judging exam in order to get certified. But now I've spent so much time in the last few years in tequila that I would say my. My tequila skills are higher now. And it's just, as you know, especially being in the Southwest, it's just bonkers out there in the agave spirits world. The number of new brands and the consumption pattern. There's an article just last week that suggests that by next year Tequila will outpace vodka as the number one spirit in the United States, which is just like incredibly crazy to even think about. So I don't know if it's a business yet, but my podcast, which I've been running for 10 years, I'm going to be off the microphone relatively soon and pass the torch, but I'm going to be starting a new TikTok based tequila channel. So I'm excited to get into that game a little bit.

Oh, I can't wait for the Jay Bear brand.

Yes, Jay Bear. Well, you know, a lot of people have asked me about that, but man, it's just a recipe to lose all your money. I think I'm disproportionately good at marketing, but I'm not a Kardashian, nor am I a George Strait, nor am I any number of other true celebrities who have brands. So.

Right.

It's yeah, an investment I'm not willing to make. But if, if Tony Robbins wants to partner with you and me on a brand, put me in coach.

Done deal. Right. You'll feel that excitement to let you know that there's an opportunity.

Happy to be the third man in.

Right on. He's Jay Bear. He's a six time best selling author, a customer service and digital marketing expert. Jaybear.com Jay, is there any place else besides jaybear.com you'd like to direct audiences to learn more about you?

Thanks so much for asking. Where I spend a lot of my time and energy is on the content side. Today pre TikTok channel is on my newsletter which is called the Bear Fact. Comes out twice a month. There's marketing and customer experience, parables and advice. There's tequila reviews, we've got book reviews, podcast reviews, all kinds of great stuff on there. A lot of people have said it's their favorite newsletter on the Internet. If you go to thebearfacts.com you can sign up directly. I would love to have you there, dude.

I just had a thought in my head that went through. I went back in time really quickly when you said the bearfax and I think thought of Jay today. Jay. Today was, was a brilliant way for Jay to grab video in the early days of video, drop some knowledge, get his name out there and get into high repetition in front of people. And, and, and now I see you doing this with TikTok, you know, as you just mentioned, which is a good reminder for everybody as you're listening to constantly be thinking about where the next version of you is going to be of highest value and utility. He's Jay Baer. I encourage you to read his books to follow him. Jay, thank you so much for being a wonderful torch in my career to guide me along the way.

I'm honored to be just that. It means a lot to me. Todd, thanks so much and keep on rocking and what you're doing is truly amazing.

Yo, that was a powerful episode and from what we just learned, it should be obvious how you can actually implement these lessons in your life to get to the next level. Now, before you bounce, I just have three quick thoughts. First, thank you for taking me on your incredible life journey. Second, if you receive some value from me and you want to pay it forward, it would mean the world to me. If you left an honest rating and review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, I'd be incredibly grateful. And lastly, if you share this episode, whether it be a screenshot or a photo from where you're listening, anything via Instagram stories or LinkedIn, Facebook, or any of the social media sites, just tag me and the guest. I'll repost your content and I'll reply back in the comments because I love mixing it up. In fact, I'd love to share your shoutouts in my feed too. Not only are these shout outs really good for you and for me, but they also help us book more amazing guests because they'll be able to see the reach that you're helping to cultivate. This is a way for you to help contribute to the show. So thank you again for listening and I look forward to earning a regular spot inside that ear of yours. Let's grow. Sam.