Jay Baer has been making the podcast circuits with his new book, Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers with Word of Mouth. I found his interviews to be convincing enough to purchase the book. He definitely added to the conversation of branding with this book. What is the talk trigger for your business? Do you have one? This book will help you discover or create one.
Have you ever been to the Doubletree Inns, Cheesecake Factory, or 5 Guys Burgers? Each one of these places has a talk trigger. Each of these places does very little in terms of advertising but are making a considerable amount of money. The talk triggers for these places in addition to quality is chocolate chip cookie, massive menu, and extra portions of fries respectively. A considerable number of people take the time to mention these talk triggers.
Talk Triggers written by Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin is 258 pages long. The authors arranged the 19 chapters into four major sections:
- Why word of mouth works
- The four talk trigger criteria
- The five types of talk triggers
- Create talk triggers in six steps
Each of these sections built upon the previous sections. Baer and Lemin used stories and case studies to illustrate the points they were making. They also referenced quite a number of other excellent books to consider when you finish reading this one and want to learn more on a specific topic.
Baer and Lemin outlined the criteria for a talk trigger. A couple of the criteria resonated with me. The talk triggers must be remarkable and repeatable. It is also important that you do not simply duplicate what someone else is doing. You need to make a talk trigger relevant to what you are doing. It is more important to be unique.
Spread throughout the book were screenshots of tweets highlighting the different talk triggers. I thought it was interesting to see what people were saying. I took some time to search Twitter to see what people were tweeting about these different companies. People have a lot of good this to say.
For me, the most important section was how to create a talk trigger. Baer and Lemin did not hold back. They outlined in detail what was required to create a talk trigger. The authors supplemented what they included in the book by providing robust downloads from their website. Some of these references include:
- B2C Persona Worksheet
- B2B Persona Worksheet
- Talk Trigger Idea Worksheet
- Complexity Map
- Data and Charts referenced in the book
- And more
I am very pleased with what I have learned in Talk Triggers. Baer and Lemin provided me with a number of ideas that I will get a chance to play with. It is certainly a book all small businesses can benefit from.
Additional Reading
- Book Review: Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers
- Book Review: Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
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