What makes someone choose one of your competitors over you and your product or service?
The truth is, more often than not we think it’s because of price, but the most recent research done by business growth expert, speaker, author & tequila influencer, Jay Baer, in his national research study – The Time To Win – shows that more often than not, it’s not price …
It’s speed and responsiveness.
We were delighted to have Jay back onto the Content 10x Podcast where he talks all about his study and how the fascinating findings could help change businesses for the better.
He also discusses his massive global success as a tequila influencer and why his background as a marketer helped him break into that highly-competitive market.
Watch the whole discussion in the video below, if you prefer to listen click here, or keep reading for the key takeaways.
When is The Time to Win in business?
In his role as business strategist and advisor, Jay has conducted a lot of deep, first-party research into customer behavior, with the aim of finding out what lever you can pull as a business to get the biggest competitive advantage.
Over time the results of this research has changed. It was social media at one point. It was content marketing, empathy, word-of-mouth marketing and now, based on his most recent research, the most significant competitive lever that you can deploy for the next 24-months (until your competitors catches on!) is….
Speed and responsiveness
The research has found that 83% of customers say that speed is now as important as price.
As Jay explains:
“Almost nobody in business will tell you that they don't care about speed, that it's not important to them. It's of course important. But what I'm telling you is that you should probably elevate it in the priority list in your organization and float it toward your top, because that's where it lives in the lives of your customers.”
One of the biggest takeaways from this research for Jay, has been, that we don’t realize that responsiveness equals revenue… but it very clearly does.
Key findings from ‘The Time to Win’ research
The research also found that more than half of all customers will hire whoever contacts them first, regardless of price.
Knowing this, it makes sense that you would want to engineer your organization to always be first. However, a lot of companies don’t have this response.
Jay explains that they also discovered 83% of customers say that speed is an important factor in brand loyalty. So if you elevate speed in the importance list in your organization, not only will you get new customers or clients, but you’ll also keep more of the ones you already have.
We live in a world now where speed and responsiveness are interpreted as caring.
If somebody is faster, we take that to mean that they care about us and our business and our money and our life more than those who are slow to respond.
While this might not be the case, that is how it’s interpreted, which is why it is worth your time, effort and money to be as fast as you can in responding.
The dangers of an invisible metric
As Jay explains, the danger when you lose business because of a lack of responsiveness and speed, is that it’s almost always invisible.
When you don’t get a potential client’s business, more often than not the reason is thought to be price. But, Jay says, he’s been doing this research for 30 years and it’s almost never price!
So a business might respond by lowering their prices because they think that will bring in more business but they still don’t get hired because they’re not any faster and ultimately the business is corkscrewed into the ground due to lack of profit.
SOLUTION? Engineer your processes so that you can respond fast and be first – you don’t have to do the job first – you just have to respond first.
There are so many more interesting findings in this research. Bet you’ll never guess which generation is the most impatient!
Jay’s written a (little!) book on the research, which can be read in an hour called, The Time to Win: How to Exceed Your Customer’ Need for Speed which you can get on Amazon. Plus you can download the study for free.
Achieving global success in a niche industry
After the conversation about why now is the time to win, Jay shared the secrets to his success as a tequila influencer and educator!
Achieving fame in a niche industry such as tequila isn’t easy, but Jay has managed to grow his community of tequila fans to huge followings across TikTok and Instagram and is now the second-most-popular tequila influencer in the world! His tequila education business is going from strength to strength.
What is his secret?
Jay explained that he decided to make content about something he loved and had been learning about for the past two decades. There was no strategy initially, but after making a few tentative early videos, he got better at it and his audience grew.
He took the advice of his good friend Rory Vaden of Brand Builders Group, who said, “your ideal audience is the person you used to be.”
So, Jay explains that as often as possible he creates regular, consistent content for the person he was when he didn’t know anything about tequila – the novices or intermediate members of the community who like to dabble, as opposed to creating content for himself as he is now.
This has differentiated Jay’s content from others in the community and has made him stand out and reach a wider audience.
Another factor to his success is consistency.
Through experimentation with times and days of the week, Jay has been able to refine his posting schedule to ensure it coincides with the time his audience most wants to consume his content. He sticks to a consistent 4 videos per week, and always has.
It’s trial and error but it works and the algorithms love it too!
Jay has also gone all-in on short, engaging, vertical videos. The most popular content right now. He’s chosen the perfect content format for him, and his audience, and the right platforms.
Of course, another factor is Jay is extremely knowledgeable, hard-working, entertaining and likeable!
Tips for creating B2C vs B2B content
What are some of the big differences Jay has discovered when it comes to creating the B2C content for his tequila channels, compared to the B2B content that he creates for his businesses?
He says that what he has discovered is B2C content has to be tighter.
The patience level and how people consume content are both different – they consume during their free time as opposed to during their business day. Keeping it concise and to the point works better than longer content.
B2C audiences are also meaner too...don’t let the trolls in your comments section ruin your day!
For all the details, listen to the podcast episode! You can also head to tequilajaybaer.com for updates (and merch!) and find him at jaybaer.com for speaking engagements and more!