Two parts to today's show. We stared off talking about a book project we recently completed to generate leads of realtors and closed looking at the Book Blueprint Score mindset 3: Choosing an amplifying sub-heading.
600 leads
People sometimes get hung-up on the content part of their book and what to write about. We covered 5 of the most effective types of books in 5 book titles formula field report but today we focused on how straight forward it can be to create something the resonates and get's people to raise their hand.
Once written, it can then be a challenge to know how to get your book out there, so in this example we run through the Facebook campaign we used to generate almost 600 leads in about 2 weeks.
Then, regardless of the traffic source, or the content, we finish by mentioning the Short, Personal, Expecting A Reply (spear) email we send to start the conversation with people.
The examples of these are all below.
Book Blueprint Score, mindset 3: An amplifying sub-heading
We continued our discussion of the 8 Book Blueprint Scores by looking at number 3 today. Some people fall into the trap of 'keyword stuffing' their subheading thinking that more words might attract more people.
If you have your audience dialed in and you know who you are trying to reach, your subheading is the place to amplify the benefits of your book, and use those power words to compel then to think 'I want that'.
You can find out your Book Blueprint Score at BookBlueprintScore.com
Links:
Ready to get started: 90MinuteBooks.com/get-started
Your Book Blueprint Score: BookBlueprintScore.com
Titles Workshop: 90MinuteBooks.com/Workshops
Interview Shows: 90-Minute Books Author Interviews
Questions/Feedback: Send us an email
Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
Example
Facebook Ad Overview
Type: Facebook Lead Ad
Target:
1) Demographic > Work > Employers
We then identified a number of real estate companies.
2) Demographic > Work > Job Titles
Identifying a number of relevant job titles.
All of the leads fed into our GoGoClients.com account to manage the emails.
SPEAR email
Immediate:
Subject: Your Listing Agent Lifestyle book
Body:
Hi Diane
Here's your copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle.
It's a great read.
(Book cover with link)
Dean
Day 1:
Subject: Re: Your Listing Agent Lifestyle book
Body:
Hi Diane
Have you tried GoGoAgent.com yet?
D
(followed by the original copy)
Transcript: Book More Show 049
Stuart:
Hey everyone. Welcome to another Book More Show. It's Stuart here with Betsy Vaughn. How's it going Betsy?
Betsy Vaughn:
It's fantastic! I'd like to say Happy New Year because it's been a while since we've been on here, but we're in February so.
Stuart:
Do you know I was thinking we're about six weeks in is it now February 9th? What's that more than a 10th of the year gone already?
Betsy Vaughn:
Oh wow.
Stuart:
Yeah, yeah.
I tell you what February is shaping up to be pretty busy. I think if people have been off in January then they're making up for lost time now. We're definitely seeing a lot of people starting to plan their year ahead and thinking about reasons for writing a book, or deadlines that they've gotten, or needing things in the first kind of three to six months of the year.
Betsy Vaughn:
That's true. I've had a lot of conversations the last couple of weeks. To use your word, I find my voice getting croaky on a regular basis. So yeah, it's a lot of good conversations. Like you said people are ... usually we see that in January, but like you said people were ... either extended their holiday or were sick so we're seeing more of it now in February. Very busy trying to meet some deadlines and everyone wants to get their book out there now.
Stuart:
Yeah, it's interesting isn't it? Planning ahead I think this time of year's always good. People start to think about what's coming up and it surprising how quickly time goes. So some of the conversations we've been having are around some shows and expos, people having particular events and they're trying to time things for. I think it's definitely worth taking a moment, anyone listening, to think about what's coming up in that kind of well we're now in February, kind of May, June, July type thing before the summer break. What steps can you put in place now so that prepare for any event there?
We've got an interesting case study that I want to go into a little bit of detail today. I think a lot of people will get some use out of that to kind of ... and to process that we went through right through conceptualizing the book in the first place, to almost 600 leads that we've collected over the last couple of weeks. In a project that took, maybe ... I mean including all of the ads on the testing that we've done, that was maybe nine weeks or so, maybe a little bit more end to end. That was a very quick turn around on a project that's given some great returns. Wanna go into that.
After that, we're gonna talk briefly about ... get back to the book bleeping score cards. We got as far as mindset number one and two last time, which is selecting the single target audience, and dialing in the title. Today we're gonna talk about the subheadings, or the subtitles on the books and how they can really amplify the message that you're trying to get across. We'll wrap up, in a bit, talking about that.
Some of the other things that have happened as we're getting into the new year, we're seeing a number of other programs, or other people out there promoting books as either a way to engage their audience or people talking about creating books themselves. There's always this conversation, you hear me a lot in the kind of YouTube world about, is it too late? Or has the ship sailed? Is it too difficult to get in now? A couple of people have always raised concerns, or on the flip side, raised opportunities saying that a lot of people in their industry are writing books already. They're starting to see it more and more.
We often talk about this being a intertactical strategy that works and it's amplified by the point in time, there's still a extra credibility, or cache of having a physically printed book that, at some point, will go away or lessen, because it becomes available to more and more people. I think we're very, very far away from that still.
Betsy Vaughn:
From that, yeah.
Stuart:
Yeah.
Betsy Vaughn:
I don't think that ... I think, when I talk to people, I just had a conversation with a gentleman yesterday. He said, "You know, is this really gonna add ... Is it gonna make me look an expert?" I said, "Just stop and think about that. If you meet somebody for the first time, or maybe you've heard about somebody, and all of a sudden they hand you a book. What are you gonna think?"
He was like, "Well, I'm gonna think they might know what they're talking about." I said, "Exactly."
People wanna complicate things. We've said that before. He was like, "You know, you're exactly right." I said, "It really doesn't matter if you've been in the business six months, six years, 30 years. If you know what you're talking about and are conference valuable, then people are going to perceive you as, 'Yeah, you know what you're talking about.' It's gonna add that additional credibility."
I do think we're away from that, 'cause I think people are still afraid to pull that trigger on a book. Do I have the right information? Do I have enough information? Will people think I know what I'm talking about?
Stuart:
Yeah, absolutely. I think ... backing up briefly, when we're talking to Caesar and Victor last week, talking about it's easy to underestimate as the business owner, as the insider, it's easy to underestimate the value of things that seem relatively basic and straightforward to, also, to you, because you're in it day in, day out. I think if you ... fall into the trap of trying to write something that's the industry leading tone of a book that covers absolutely everything, you write yourself into a hole, or try to write yourself into a hole, because you're just trying to do too much. Then the information in there might be too high level. It might not be comprehensive. It might not position you as an expert.
If you're really trying to answer that one or two questions, the most pressing to the audience, you're not trying to sell this book. You're not trying to, often, most cases, we're talking about terms of kind of regenerating and engaging people, rather than making profit from the book itself. There's not the same expectation that people have got in terms of breadth and ... I was gonna say completeness, by that I just mean people aren't getting a copy of the book to be a complete answer to a whole industry wide issue. They're requesting a copy of the book to get an answer to that one question.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right.
Stuart:
That makes it far more easy and compelling for you to be an expert in that area, because you've given as much information as you can trying to be as comprehensive as you can about that one thing.
Of course there's always other things. We talk about the objective is to start the conversation, not to try and convince, or kind of beat people into submission into words on the page to make the decision to do something else with you. Just answering those questions that are the most pressing, giving the most comprehensive way is very easy to come across as the expert, because, to a certain degree, you leave people wanting more. You kind of comprehensively answer the amount that you're answering and then leave them wanting more for extra-
Betsy Vaughn:
Right, exactly.
Stuart:
... reading.
Betsy Vaughn:
And having that conversation, sometimes I get approached by people who, they do have that thought in their head, that they have to answer all the questions. There's a sense of being, certainly, overwhelmed, "I can't do that." When we come and go, "Okay, you don't have to do that. Let's focus on two or three things that are the most important, that get people excited about, get engaged about it. We're not writing a 200 page business book that you're gonna send out."
You can almost hear a sigh of relief when I say that to people. They go, "Okay. You're right. We're gonna focus on a specific audience, specific market, with the specific content." Like you said, we want them to come back and ask more, and engage that person a little bit more.
I think that, sometimes, keeps people from pulling the trigger. That has a lot do and-
Stuart:
Again, 'cause, this is the thing I think why books are still ... it's definitely still not a mainstream thing. It might be the feeling of ... if your friend suddenly gets a white car, you're seeing white cars everywhere? Or if you -
Betsy Vaughn:
... rare, yeah.
Stuart:
Hear a word for the first time, you're hearing it everywhere. I think the same goes with this. Once you start thinking about a book, you then start seeing everyone else's books. Whereas, that's the 5% of the population, the other 95%, they're just thinking on the surface level. They're seeing them as readers or recipients of the information, not as people who are thinking about creating it. I think that's why there's still a power to them, regardless of how you're creating it, or why you're creating it. It still has authority, and I think that's gonna be around for quite a long time to come.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, if you think about when ... having a website first came around. "Oh, do you ... So what's your web ... ?" "Oh, I don't have a website."
In your brain, eventually that translates, "If you don't have a website, you can't be a legit business. Everybody has a website." I remember thinking, "I don't think I wanna work with somebody that doesn't have a website." Because it was
Stuart:
It's a credibility thing.
Betsy Vaughn:
It has no credibility without one.
Stuart:
I think it's interesting, though, even now ... how long are we now? 2018? I think I got my first email address maybe in '95, '96? Holy cow. That makes me feel old.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right.
Stuart:
That credibility of a company having an email, even for us, we've still got some of the original versions of the 90 Minute Book and a number of our contacts from the early stage, sort of, our partners and friends that to each, some we'll be referring. We created the first version of the book with a Gmail address on the back. That's still out there. The amount of businesses I see around here, not, admittedly, relatively small businesses rather than kind of big ... certainly not national companies, but the amount of plumbers, or builders, or local storefronts that have just Gmail accounts, even if they've got their own domain, they've often just got Gmail addresses as their Contact Us. Sometimes you see it on the wraps on vans driving around, "Call us," on a cell phone number or, "Email us at ..." I think most people have passed AOL addresses now, but "Email us at," a Gmail account.
It's really surprising. Those businesses are still viable. They're still bringing in all the leads. There is a ... not so much of a perfection problem, but there is a ... it's easier to come up with excuses why not to do something, because, "I can't possibly do this until I've got a website, or until I've got an email address, or until I've got a domain, or until I've got all of the book elements in my mind," rather than just starting it and moving forward.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right.
Stuart:
So, talking about moving forward, the thing I wanted to run through before we get into the mindset number three, is the Listing Agent Lifestyle book that we wrote over the Christmas break. This is, I think, a great example of anyone looking for an example of an end-to-end successful campaign of having an idea in the first place, creating version one of the book, which is more than good enough to collect the leads. Those leads then have a way of driving them to a destination where you can collect their names and email addresses, and then start a conversation with them.
I wanted to take a couple of minutes just to run through that campaign. This is probably one that you wanna go see show notes for. Show notes for this show will be at 90MinuteBook.com/podcast, this is show 49, so 049. In the show notes, I'll make sure we've got some screenshots and some examples of the Facebook campaign that I'm talking about, and the book, the Listing Agent Lifestyle book. Head across there and it'll give some context to the things that we're talking about now.
The background for this is, we also have ... most people know, I think ... we also have a coaching side of the business. We deal a lot with entrepreneurs and realtors. Dean, particularly, has got a big background in helping realtors for 30 years, plus now, I think. We're looking for a way of engaging people in that space, a new audience. We've got quite a big list already, but we're looking for people who haven't, necessarily, come across those before, and therefore don't necessarily ... haven't had the opportunity to know I can trust those and take it to the next step.
The realtor marketing tool that we have here is GoGo Agent. That tool is a hub for realtors to create their own marketing tools and create successful campaigns in their own light. For us, in the context of this campaign, the product that we're interested in promoting is GoGo Agent. And that's at GoGoAgent.com. That's the end product.
The beginning of the conversation, we were looking for a way of engaging realtors. For this campaign, we're not interested in people from other industries. We have a number of mortgage brokers in that space as well, but that concept is picking a single target market. If we attract mortgage brokers, that's fine. But as far as the outgoing effort goes, this campaign is looking, specifically, for realtors.
Just before Christmas, we recorded a book called The Listing Agent Lifestyle. This is something that Dean's talked about for years, really, in one way or another. But it's really kind of come together and codified around this Listing Agent Lifestyle. We recently started, just before Christmas, probably November sometime, maybe, the Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast. That is a show very similar to the More Cheese, Less Whiskers Podcast, if you've heard that. Dean talks to and interviews a realtor each week. They talk about applying the Listing Agent Lifestyle mindsets to their business. And how they can tailor those mindsets, and accelerate those results to create a more balanced life.
A number of episodes in, we've gotten the mindsets, the eight stages of that ... not really program, but that approach dialed in already. The Listing Agent Lifestyle book, very similar to the Book Blueprint Scorecard, and the Prophet Activator Scorecard, or the Breakthrough DNA book, all of which I'll link in the show notes as well. Go grab a copy of those. All of those books, they're talking around a particular eight step framework, very similar to what Strategic Coach used to do. Strategic Coach had their scorecard tool setup, or they teach scorecards in their business as a way to get people to think about the way their customers interact with them across eight mindsets, and four stages across each of those mindsets.
The Listing Agent Lifestyle book was created by Dean talking through each of those mindsets. We often talk about the outline as being the key thing that takes someone from the promise of the title, through to the call to action on the back cover, that kind of logical journey through a particular subject matter.
Went through his eight mindsets, or whether it's one particular thing within your business or industry that's very pressing to the client, having that context of a narrative of the story, a kind of scene setting, the kind description of the problem, the resolution, and then the reminding people of what the problem was and how to get a fix or resolution, having that kind of thread going throughout, taking people from the front cover to the back cover, is really ... excuse me ... is really the way that you should think about writing anything.
We're not creating a story. We're not talking about creating a work of fiction. This is literally just having a logical order to taking people all the way through from the beginning to the end, the eight mindsets of Listing Agent Lifestyle. Super straightforward way of getting that understanding for the realtors.
With me so far?
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah. I'm with you so far. This book went out in November, is that when ... no. Just went out, right?
Stuart:
Yeah. It just went out. The Podcast started in November. We just released today, actually, as we record this, we just pushed episode 12 out, so 12 weeks back from today. The Podcast started in November. That was about the time that the mindsets were really kind of brought together in a cohesive way under this one particular framework. The principle is generally, once a theme's taught for many years. Again, this is another classic example of someone really understanding their craft, and being able to pull those elements together that are engaging for the audience, that kind of introduces them to the subject. Pulling it together into something under one label, under one banner.
Betsy Vaughn:
Okay and so ... Go ahead.
Stuart:
I was just gonna say, the podcast started 12 weeks ago, back from today, the book we recorded in December, in early December. Used exactly the same process that we do ... for the 90 Minute Book. In fact, I'm trying to think how exactly this came about. It was slightly different in the sense that Dean didn't need to talk to Susan about creating it, because it was already ... This is like an internal project. This was the very first episode of the podcast, the episode that kind of positioned what the Listing Agent Lifestyle was all about.
That was recorded in a way that we knew was gonna get turned into a book. We had this structure to it. It was that, that was taken, then edited, turned into the book. We had it finished just after Christmas ... I'm just trying to think of the timeline. Finished just after Christmas, because we were doing some edit and layout over the Christmas break. The design was relatively straightforward. The call to action on the back, because this is a very targeted at realtors, is talking about the Listing Agent Lifestyle.
The Listing Agent Lifestyle is kind of realized within the GoGo Agent community, so the call to action on the back is super straightforward. Just reminding people of what the eight mindsets are, and then, "Here's what to do next. Join the community of realtors focused on creating a Listing Agent Lifestyle at GoGoAgent.com. It's just pointing people in that direction.
Able to create a very targeted book. Knowing exactly who the audience was. The content leads people from the cover to the call to action. It introduces the topic. If people listen back to the Book Titles Workshop that we did, towards the middle to end of last year, one of the Book Title Types we talked about was introducing a new idea, and positioning a new idea. This book falls into that category.
The Facebook ad that we ran, or ads that we ran, to target realtors that might be interested in the subject, would be interested in a book called The Listing Agent Lifestyle, would ultimately be interested in GoGo Agent as a platform. We created a set of Facebook ads that targeted those people directly. As part of the 90 Minute Book Program, we created some design assets for people, so images of the book so they can use in social media. We took one of those image, and ran a Facebook lead ad campaign, which just had a little bit of copy saying, "New Book. Listing Agent Lifestyle. The future of real estate is better than you think. Click to download." And then the heading text at the bottom just says, "Free book download." And a big button that said, "Download."
A Facebook lead ad for those that don't know, is an ad in Facebook's platform that connected with the users ... so rather than sending them out to a landing page, and asking them to enter their name and email address, they click download, and then confirm, and the Facebook details that are already in the system, are passed through as a lead. It removes one step of friction. You're not, then, having to drive traffic to a landing page, and then having the landing page to confirm. It just kind of squishes those two bits together. The conversion's done in the ... as soon as the button's pressed.
The groups that we ran it to were two groups. We actually ran it to three, but the third, we killed one of the ads because it was less effective. But we targeted people who were employed by real estate companies. In their Facebook profile, had those companies listed as an employer. We also ran it to people who had specific job titles, so their job titles in their profiles were realtors and were associated with that.
The campaign that we killed, 'cause it was converting ... and it's not to say that it wouldn't have converted, but the others were definitely outperforming it, was where people had expressed an interest in real estate. On this particular campaign, that wasn't effective. But, for anyone else listening to this, it might well be worth trying that demographic as well.
Those have run for ... They've been running for about two and a half weeks now, I think. On that, we've collected just under 600 leads.
Betsy Vaughn:
Wow.
Stuart:
In the space of ... pretty impressive, right? The average cost per lead was, maybe, about $2.00. And even that, it started much lower, then I just crept up a little bit towards the end of the campaign. So let's recap-
Betsy Vaughn:
That's great. Through all of that, I was waiting for that. How many leads -
Stuart:
Yeah. Good stuff.
Betsy Vaughn:
Counting on my hands, "I wanna know how many leads." That's pretty impressive.
Stuart:
Yeah. Those leads then, we've counted all of those leads. The whole point of counting leads, from our perspective is to start the conversation. We've given them a copy of the book, the thing that they've requested in the first place. They, then, go into a campaign that follows up with them the following day and sends an email saying ... actually, I think it's two days later, but saying, "Have you tried GoGo Clients yet?" A short, personal looking email that expects a reply. In addition to that, they also go onto the main broadcast sequence and then weekly, we're sending them a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast.
So, separate from any other interaction that we're having individually, separate from any other individual specific broadcast that we send out, that's someone who's a targeted client, specifically interested in specifically, the thing we're talking about. Has raised their hand and got something of value straight away. Has gotten an email from us, short personal, expecting a reply to engage conversation. I don't know if the numbers are in front of me, 'cause I'm not in my mailbox, but the numbers to those responses ... just like we see on the 90 Minute Book side as well, the response rate to those short, personal, expecting reply email, is way higher than just a generic email that goes out.
Even if people don't respond to that, they're then, on a regular sequence, so that they get an opportunity to listen to the Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast. We were talking just offline a few minutes ago about people not necessarily being ready today, but are ready six months down the track. That makes sure that we're able to stay in contact with people and build that relationship and that rapport over time.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right. Yeah. Exactly. I think it's amazing to see how it all starts. We see it because we're in it every day. But, to someone who's not familiar with Facebook campaigns and how all of it works, and the upkeep of it, like I said, I'm that anxious person that, I have that sense of urgency. Right here, right now. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by people who are not like that, with you and Dean.
It is nice that we can sort of stroke that relationship. They get a lot of valuable information. Then I have that sense of excitement that somebody's converted after six months of ... or eight months, or whatever. It's done its job, even though it may not be what Betsy wants at the moment.Yeah. We were saying ... We pushed out recently the Five Book Titles report. As I was writing that, based on the Book Titles Podcast and workshop that Dean did originally, some of the things that I was adding into that was bringing in some of the other elements that we teach elsewhere. That point that it's the minority of people who are ready to convert today, the majority of them are ready to convert later. The job of work of the book is to get people to raise their hand and start that conversation. It's not necessary to do the conversion. It'll be interesting over time to see how many of these 600 leads in this particular campaign convert into either trial accounts for GoGo Agent, or then paying accounts for GoGo Agent. Or, even, because we track the source of these people, so these 600 new people that we didn't have a relationship before. We see this on the coaching side of the business, people will convert, and join projects, and programs years and years after they originally opted into a list for a small report or whatever we were offering at the time.
Stuart:
I think the key takeaway of that one is to get across to people listening for this particular campaign is just the speed at which it turned around, the simplicity around it, and the fact that we didn't let ... I'm sure there were things in that book that can be tweaked and updated later. We might drop one of the mindsets, and add another one, or add some clarity to it, or whatever it is. Those 600 leads wouldn't have been captured if we'd have said, "You know what? I really need to do that. I'll do that in the new year. I just need to get all of my ducks in a row."
Betsy Vaughn:
Right. Just pull the trigger, yeah.
Stuart:
Yeah, exactly. Getting the thing out there, turned it around very quickly. And collected all of those leads, and gave us the opportunity to start that conversation that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.
Just on whether ... Facebook ads are sometimes scary to people as well. We talk about it a lot, because we use them a lot. But, whatever that traffic source is, is almost irrelevant. Pick whatever is the most use for you, whether it was Facebook ads, or whether it's Google Ad Words, or whether it's an ad in a local newspaper, community newspaper, or whether it's industry specific . We've run ads before in yacht magazines and pulled leads from that. I've worked in the UK, where we've run ads in golf magazines. I know Dean's run a lot of ads. In fact, some of the current campaigns in the realtor space for a different project, are running in ... I forget what the name of the magazine is ... Homes and Land?
Betsy Vaughn:
Oh yeah. Over here? Yeah. Homes and Land, yeah.
Stuart:
Whether it's print or whether it's even talking at ... Jim Hackings, a good friend and immigration attorney, who's written a couple of books with us, he's got a particular service that's hugely effective and really changing people's lives. He's got the opportunity to speak at community groups. So, immigration attorney, obviously working with immigrant communities. He's got the opportunity to speak in a lot of those places, and uses the book in those environments to either give to people there and give something that they can takeaway. Or, give people the opportunity to refer the book to others, because it's a nice noncommittal, low barrier to entry way of people becoming aware of this particular solution.
Regardless of what that traffic source is, again, I don't want that to be an excuse for people to say, "Well that will be fantastic, but I don't know anything about Facebook ads." Okay, either find someone that does, or figure out about Facebook ads. Find another source.
Betsy Vaughn:
Another source. Yeah.
Stuart:
I also wanted to run through, quickly... The book Belief in Mindset number three. We're getting pushed for time. We've just gone past a half an hour. I wanna quickly go through it, otherwise we'll ... we won't get around to it.
Yeah, exactly. We got it on a couple of other shows coming up as well, with some of the people. It will be a little while.
Let me just jump into ... run through this.
Betsy Vaughn:
Okay.
Stuart:
The Book Blueprint Mindsets, the Book Blueprint Scorecard, as we said in the previous shows talking about it ... and again, I'll link those in the show notes ... are really a way of positioning where you are across the eight mindsets that lead to a fantastic book. We've already talked about selecting a single target market. We've already talked about picking a title that amplifies the ... that resonates with the people and really builds on ... gets them to raise their hand and say, "I want that."
We're gonna look briefly today at the subheading, and creating and amplifying subheading. Oftentimes people come to this from the point of view of wanting to ... have you ever heard of the term keyword stuffing? It seems like an old search engine optimization-
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Stuart:
... SEA term. The theory is to stick as many words as possible in there, and hopefully that will resonate with more people. It's a very brutalist way of doing something.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right.
Stuart:
Sometimes people will think of the subheading as that. They'll try and use it to bring on other elements that they weren't able to get into the title, or they'll try and stuff in more words and hope that someone will read it, and not resonate with the title, but resonate with a word by reading the subheading somewhere.
That's definitely one tactic, or one technique. But a better way of thinking about it, is to think about a subheading that amplifies the title. So, rather than adding more, it builds on whatever is there in the first place.
The Listing Agent Lifestyle subheading on the books that we've created there is, the title, Listing Agent Lifestyle, and the subheading: The Future of Real Estate is Better Than You Think. Those words amplify the title. It's not like the Listing Agent Lifestyle and How You can Find all of the Sells and Buys You Need. Or it's not talking about How to Use Technology to Streamline Your Real Estate Business. It's just amplifying the message, the feeling the title kind of establishes in the first place.
Betsy Vaughn:
When you have a book, I happen to be looking at some of our titles. You have a book like Retirement Planning. That book is pretty self explanatory, to a certain degree, as to what the book is about. There's a subtitle there involved. But, you take a book like Edge, with the football player, if that was just the title, that was it? You'd have zero clue about what this book is. But then, of course, it goes onto say, "How to Make It Into Your 2017 Fantasy Football League Playoffs," which for some reason I keep being drawn to this book. I don't know why.
Stuart:
Nothing to do with the buff looking football player on the cover.
Betsy Vaughn:
Exactly, yeah. You think about ... Thinking about that subheading, it really is how important it can be to your book.
Stuart:
Yeah. This is a good point, because people will often ... I was talking about this yesterday with someone, they were talking about a technique that we described, and were getting hung up on the specifics of the technique. This is, I think in one of the shows before, I've talked about the difference between strategies versus technique. The strategy is the thing you want to concentrate on, because techniques change all the time. At the highest level, the strategy that we talk about in the book business is really about engaging customers. The tactical, the technique of the moment is to write a book. But, in 100 years time, who knows what it'll be? The strategy will still be the same, engaging people in a way that resonates and make it easy for them to start the relationship with you. But, whether or not that's a book, might be completely different.
The same here, we're talking about creating a subheading that amplifies the title. But you just hit on a perfect example of where the title isn't necessarily ... It's one of those titles that isn't explanatory as a standalone title. It needs a subheading. It needs a subheading that goes into more detail in order to make the whole thing work.
It is a good point. We talk about in this, having an amplifying subheading in a way that doesn't add more words to the title. It just makes the title resonate even more. That's fine, up until the point that your title doesn't work when it stands alone by itself. It needs a subtitle to support it. That's perfectly fine as well. Again, refer people back to the Five Book Titles, either the workshop, or the guide that we wrote, the field guide. That goes into some more detail about those different types of titles.
The Retirement Planning book, I'm not sure exactly which one it is, but, without having seen it, the subheading ... an amplifying subheading there would really talk about reassuring a secure, relaxing retirement, rather than adding in extra words about whether it's a 401k or this particular-
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah. Have a plan so you can live your life.
Stuart:
Right. Right, yeah. So you can live your life. That kind of building on the title that resonates the feeling, that resonates with the person that reads it. I was just looking at one of the other ones in trying to go to the other end of the spectrum. We have a book called Process Triage, which is really aimed at the operation side of business. Not really a touchy, feely title at all. But, a subheading of How to Build a Repeatable, Sustainable, and Scalable Process in Your Business, those elements build on a title, which, isn't the most self explanatory. I think, within the industry, it makes sense, but ... those words amplify the words that are in the title. It doesn't try and add in or bring in a different element.
Just quickly looking at the stages on the mindset itself. At the low end of the spectrum, it's someone that hasn't really considered a subheading at all for the book, and has not elected to not to have one, which might be a valid choice, it's just that they haven't considered it at all. The kind of middle ... low to middle end of the spectrum would be they have a subtitle that talks more about you versus them, or tries to bring in the ... it changes the focus.
We spend a lot of time talking about titles and do a lot of work with people about titles, making sure that resonates with the reader. But oftentimes ... not oftentimes, but sometimes, thankfully not often but sometimes, people will try then and use the rest of the cover to amplify their own. To try and reinforce that ... establishing them as an expert. This might kind of resonate with the people who are considering their book isn't going to establish them as an expert. They try and kind of stamp it on the front and kind of push it in people's face. But it's too on the nose.
The next level up then, the kind of above the kind of 60 to 80% kind of range on the scorecard would be a subheading that is descriptive, but it doesn't amplify either the challenge or the problem that's in the title. That's really where we just ... where we were just talking about. Not so much adding more words, but adding the words that amplify the thing that's already gotten them to raise their hand.
The last element where you really kind of have this particular mindset dialed in, is you've got a strong subtitle that builds on the promise in the title, and it amplifies the benefits and the outcome that they'll experience. So, really taking the seed of the idea that got them to raise their hand in the first place, and pulling the levers a little bit to get that emotional engagement, and to almost hit at the promise of solution in the end of it.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right. I have like Fit Money in front of me.
Stuart:
I was looking at that one as well.
Betsy Vaughn:
Oh were you? Yeah, yeah. Fit Money. You're like, "Oh, what's this about? Fit Money. Oh, seven steps to get your financial life in shape." Boom. It's ... It's about what it is. You have that mental picture of the whole fitness aspect, but it's ... we're talking about financial here. It says what it's gonna do.
Stuart:
Yeah. I think that is an example of something super straightforward that amplifies the title. It reinforces the health and fitness element of it. Anyone that Julie is looking at, I think she already knows that's who she resonates with. She knows that's the audience. So the title catches their attention.
The Get Your Finances in Shape kind of reinforces it, and the Seven Steps, just gives a hint of, "Okay. This is a straightforward process. It's the easy thing to do." It kind of gives a sense of reassurance and amplifies that title of Fit Money again.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah. That's a good example. When you really get in here and start looking at some of these ... some of our titles that we have, they're pretty good when you look ... some of the things, like the 2007 Guide to Maximizing Your Social Security. There is a subtitle there, but that title alone, I think, says exactly what it's gonna be.
Stuart:
Yeah.
Betsy Vaughn:
Or what it's gonna do.
Stuart:
And I got-
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Stuart:
... looking down the list, looking down the gallery, for anyone that hasn't been there, we're looking at ... if you head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/gallery, we keep a gallery of a lot of the titles that we've put out, just so people can see, and get some ideas. I think for all of these, at the end of the day, it comes down to the individual choice. The customer's always right, for-
Some of these, or all of these, rather, have been considered with the customer, and they've gone with ... People know their market best. We give advice and guidance, but people know their market best.
Some of the ones that have titles or subheadings that fall outside of what we're suggesting now as the optimum way of going, it might be that we've talked with all of these people, and they have a particular different use case. There's never one answer to things. I don't want necessarily one people to look at this for the exceptions, and think that the exception is wrong or problematic. It's quite often the case just that it's been used in a slightly different way.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, exactly. Wow.
Stuart:
I've got the screen up in front of me now, going through them all. It's quite ... It is quite an impressive list. It's easy to get distracted in the middle of the podcast looking at-
Betsy Vaughn:
Do you know what? That's what I was doing. I was like, "Oh, I forgot about that. Oh that's a great one." I was doing that. It's not ... people always ... either people come to us with either their title and their subtitle, or they don't. It's either they're completely know exactly what it is, or they have zero clue what they wanna call this book. So it's kind of fun just to have these conversations and see some of those through the process, the title appear and the subtitle appear.
Stuart:
This sticks out. I think it's because of the cover itself sticks out, but this one was written by Mike and Amanda Hinman called the Vibrant Child, just on this example as well, The Vibrant Child, 7 Steps to Increase Your Child's Health and Happiness. Health and happiness, as it amplified vibrant in the child is just the perfect ... I think that's really one of the perfect examples of what we're talking about. It's not trying to add in other things. It's not trying to give the technical elements of the solution. It's giving people the promise that there's just seven steps, that's all you need. And, that it does something to improve the health and happiness, which is that amplifying words to vibrant, which is the one that's the word that caught the attention in the first place in the title.
Betsy Vaughn:
Absolutely.
Stuart:
Fantastic. Okay. We have -
Betsy Vaughn:
... the list though, to come to it, to understand it. They really should take part in our just daily conversations. We're hour and a half into it.
Stuart:
But, if anyone does want to join in the conversation, and you do have questions, then definitely reach out to us. If you've got any ... My phone's going buggy. Give me a second. I usually put it on mute, but I forgot today. Either that or I said to somebody, "Give me a half an hour." And then it's 45 minutes later.
I was just gonna say, if anyone does wanna join the conversation, and have any ideas for the shows, then definitely shoot us an email to podcast@90minutebooks we're always interested to hear people's feedback. If you've got any questions specific about your book and you just want to reach out to us, just shoot us a message to support@90minutebooks. We'll be more than happy to answer any questions that you've got there.
Show notes for this episode are gonna be at 90MinuteBooks.com/podcast. This is episode 49, 049. I'll make sure we've got ... We talked about a lot in this show, so I'll make sure we've got good links to everything we've talked about in there. And really, we've give the example of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book and how quickly that was turned around. From the conversations we're having, I know people have got a lot on this year and there's a lot of great plans people have got. Just head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/getstarted, and really just jump in and we can have your book out there in the next ... well, before the beginning of the summer.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Stuart:
Okay.
Betsy Vaughn:
Very good.
Stuart:
Thanks again for your time, Betsy. It's been great-
Betsy Vaughn:
Always a pleasure.
Stuart:
... and we'll catch up in the next couple of weeks.
Betsy Vaughn:
Sounds good. Thanks.
Stuart:
Thanks guys. Bye.