What's the zero moment of truth? Listen to this episode and find out. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I just finished listening to a book by Jay Baer called Utility, Y O U tility. And it's a book that I've had on my bookshelf forever, and I don't remember if I read it years ago or not, but I just listened to it because I know Jay through National Speakers Association.
And I've mentioned some of his other books as well. But this one was really interesting. And again, I just, it's not quite up to date because it wasn't done this year or last year. It was done, done quite a few years before, but the idea of it is absolutely fantastic. And the idea of utility is that you want to be useful to your potential audience without asking for sales so that you're, you're this.
And then you become the natural one to go to when they do want to make a purchase. And he tells many, many, many stories in the book about different companies that are doing that. And I got thinking, actually this podcast is a version of utility, didn't ever thought about it until I, I did the, read the book, but it's a version of that because I don't charge for it.
I don't allow any ads on here, anything that I do promote is something that I'm involved with personally. I don't sell ads to other companies. So I'm giving this information away and I'm giving it away for free. And that's a version of utility. But one of the things that came up is the zero moment of truth.
And what that means is, when someone starts looking for something like what you do, right, just looking for information about it, doing a Google search or whatever, that's that zero moment of truth. And you want to be there or be accessible at that point. When you get the inquiry through your website, through an ad, through social media, through whatever it is, that is so far past that zero moment of truth when they decided that they needed what you do.
That's an entirely different moment, right? That's when they've crossed over to eliminating most of your competitors. But the zero moment of truth is that they decided that they needed your service, that they needed your product, that they needed whatever that you wanted information. They, they forward to the book, the preface to the book is someone who's talking about they are a pool installation company.
So they install fiberglass swimming pools. And when they started putting up articles and articles and articles, I think there are blogs, but they're really articles about all these different things and answering all these potential questions until they had hundreds and hundreds of these up there. Well, people are going and consuming this information that will never do business with them because they're not in their market or whatever.
But then there are people that are, and they're reaching out to them and they're getting them to come in and do a consultation and install a pool. And they're doing that because of this free information, because they were the one that gave them this stuff, this expertise. And I would say, Probably the same thing, you know, for, with this podcast, I don't do this for direct business, but I have people reach out and say, you know, I listening to your podcast.
I need help with this, but I know that they've also probably seen me on a webinar for wedding pro or at wedding MBA or at another conference or read one of my books or something. I know that there's many, many things on here. So what's the zero moment of truth when somebody decides that they need you.
That they need a wedding venue, caterer, dress, invitations, officiant, photography, video, or any of the 12 to 14 services that the average wedding has. And how can you be there? And in Jay's terms in the book, in utility is, are you providing information that shows that you're a giver, right, that everything isn't transactional, that everything isn't about you have to do business with me, that you're giving this information being helpful, so that they reach out to you.
And at that point, you're the natural one that they're going to go to. Now, some of this might sound like it goes against something that I've spoken about in another episode where, is it your job to educate your customers? And I think there's a difference between what I've seen in education, which is, you know, why you need a professional planner versus answering somebody's questions, having an FAQs, having a blog that's really helpful with talking about information and giving people ideas and ideas.
I need to tell you why you need to hire someone professional because that's a different kind of an education. Right? I think you want, by the time they reach out to you, you want them to know that they need someone professional and you were the one that was free, freely answering their questions, whether it's You know, involving yourself in either chat rooms or groups online where you're answering people's questions without asking.
Like when I go on Facebook and people ask a question, I go on and answer a question. I don't say, Hey, now do business with me. So unless the answer is. You know, this is the book you need and that's rare. I try not to do that unless it's very specific or somebody says, Hey, you should get Alan's book. And I'll say, okay, here's the link.
Right? Otherwise I just try to answer the questions because you're trying to be helpful in trying to do that. People email me, somebody emailed me recently that saw me at Wedding MBA. And they reached out to me and they asked me a question. Now I'm a consultant. I charge for my time, but I answered their question, right?
They saw me at Wedding MBA. They paid to go to that date, came to my session. They wanted to ask a question. They could have done it in the hallway and I wouldn't have charged them. So I do the same thing. Right? It doesn't happen that often. Therefore, it's not something that I say, Hey, you have to pay me for that.
And what I'll say is if you want to go deeper into that, okay, we could schedule a time, but here you go. The same as I would do in the hallway at a conference. I don't say I can't answer that because I'm a paid consultant. So utility is you being that helpful one. And that could be also, you know, you could extend that to when you're having a meeting with someone, whether it's in person, phone, zoom, or whatever, and that you're giving them helpful information.
You're being the one that is not just selling. But you're, you're helping, right? That's the idea. But going back to the zero moment of truth. You want to be where your customers are or your potential customers are when they're looking for someone like you. And that's the key. When are they looking for someone like you and where would they go?
And then you decide to be there. And in today's world, very often that means spending money, right? Spending money for Google ads or social ads or the Nodder wedding wire, things like that, because You know, just face it, the way the world works today, if you're on social and you're not paying, and you're just posting stuff, not a lot of people are seeing it.
And people that don't know you, very few of those are going to see it. You know, we hear about the great stories about people going viral and stuff like that when people sharing your stuff, and that's wonderful, but you can't count on that. What you have to count on is consistency of being out there, putting out good information, useful information.
And if all you're putting out is stuff that's about you and they should do business with you, you're going to chase them away. Zero moment of truth. At the point that somebody goes online and does a search for something like you, how do you be where those people are at that time? That's what zero moment of truth is.
I, I know I veered a little bit more into utility here and it's definitely because it came from the book. If you have not read or listened to utility, Y O U tility by Jay Baer, B A E R, you definitely want to do that. He, he also has some other books. What's this other one that I mentioned here was Oh, there's talk triggers.
That's right. Talk triggers, which is kind of the same thing. How do you get, what is the thing that people talk about when they talk about you? What is that thing? If somebody thinks about this, like the warm chocolate chip cookies at Doubletree or the size of the menu at a cheesecake factory, those are talk triggers, right?
So. Utility being useful people, but the zero moment of truth is thinking about where are your customers going to first go? And then what are those places that they're going to get in, in this path? And how do you put yourself in that path so that they're going to see you? And then how do you be useful?
What's your utility? Once they get to that, how can you be the one that they say, okay, this is the company I want to reach out to next. Because by the time you get that inquiry, many things have happened before that you're way past that zero moment of truth. Hope I gave you something to think about.
Thanks.
I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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