Your book is the best tool for identifying invisible leads, but the secret is to have a plan to nurture those leads over the weeks and months after they make themselves known.

The aim; to start a conversation with people most likely to be your customer.

So today on the show, Betsey and I talk about some great conversations we're having with people looking to syndicate their books, ways for any business to think about writing a book to start a conversation, and how, once people have joined your 'sphere of influence', you can continue the conversation with people, continually present them with the offer of the next step.

Don't forget, you can see how your book idea stacks up against the Book Blueprint by going to BookBlueprintScore.com and if you want to be a guest on the show to plan your successful book, just head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/guest

During the show we also mentioned this is the model we use for MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com (or if you're a realtor, ListingAgentLifestyle.com). I'd recommend heading over there and grabbing a copy of the book to see how you can model the follow up.

Links:
Ready to get started: 90MinuteBooks.com/get-started
Be a Guest: 90MinuteBooks.com/guest
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 

Transcript: Book More Show 052

Stuart: Everybody welcome to another episode of the book more show. It's Stuart here with Betsey Vaughan. How's it going Betsey?

Betsey: Fantastic. How are you Stuart?

Stuart: Very good thank you although in tradition of starting the podcast of talking about the weather very cold, because it's been 15 degrees in the UK for the last couple of days: Storm Emma apparently.

Betsey: Oh yeah it is ... I just looked in my car when I was running an errand. It's 83 and sunny and there was even a little bit of breeze here in Tampa. As you know I was in Denver over the weekend and it was cold. I had at one point 16 degrees and I've been in Florida far too long for that so-

Stuart: It was ... it makes me laugh when Dean talks about going to coach in Toronto on some of the ... there's four events a year, so two of them are in the winter season and his endless summer, his attempt to not go anywhere where there is snow or too inclement weather. That's the only time its impacted is Toronto in the winter.

Betsey: It's brutal and I know I can't ever live in that kind of climate again so I was happy to come home.

Stuart: Good stuff, so we are going to do a quick show today catching up on a couple of things that have happened in the last few weeks, couple of interesting calls with people. I just want to highlight some of the highlights from there and then we've got two other mindsets in the Book Blueprint scorecard that are very similar to each other, or thematically the same so we'll knock those two off as well and then we'll just have the last two to go on the scorecard and yeah, I think that's it so we should be a good show today.

Betsey: Very good, looking forward to it.

Stuart: Perfect, so one of the first things I wanted to talk about was a call I had last week with a guy from up in Winnipeg. We were talking in the ... the last time you and I we were talking we were talking about syndication and this idea of being the person that adds value by writing the content but then leveraging the distribution of that through syndication so creating something that can be shared with others: A; for the greater good but B; to really ... I'm going to say promote your own cause. That sounds a little bit selfish but it's promoting your own cause through having value driven content, which is one of the scorecard lines that we'll talk about in a little while.

So it's an interesting approach and one that I don't think many people immediately think of. We do it with ... The couple of examples that we always use because they're easy to describe are on the realtor side of things. We have a book called, "How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar." We've created that as part of our own realtor program and then we allow realtors to put their name on it so syndicating that content knowing that we want the realtors to be successful so they remain members of the program. That's a great way of doing that.

There's another book that we have for a financial advisor company. They deal with later life planning, elder planning and specifically around how an IRA forms part of your estate so that coaching organization wrote the first version of the book and then they allow their clients, their members to put their name on the book and it be co-authored as a tool. Again, knowing that their success is based on the success of their members and this helps their members be more successful. So I think those two ideas are great ones that people can think about in how it affects ... How they could use this idea to either promote their message or leverage their reach, their footprint, broader than if it was just themselves.

Betsey: Very good.

Stuart: I think the conversation I was having with Mubarak we'll catch up later on this week but they've done some great work in their local area working with organizations and groups to promote their business training so they've got a lot of great relationships. I think the thing that we were talking about ... I had a similar conversation with Jim Hacking who we've talked about before, and the immigration work that he does around this particular immigration program that's referred to as CARP. It's where visas go into a ... It's like a holding pool but it's where there's not action taken on them and to get the action moving again you need to take some specific action, which not that many people are aware of so it's affecting a particular community, it's a new idea that hasn't got much leverage or much awareness out there rather.

So again, knowing that Jim was successful, when the community is successful and for Mubarak knowing that he's successful when these events are successful, being able to write something that allows the other people to get a book out there, to get people to raise their hands and make invisible prospects visible to spread the word and the message and introduce people to a new philosophy or new framework. All of those things are fantastic opportunities I think, for the person listening to this who knows their subject it's a great way of taking that and being able to distribute it into channels that they don't necessarily control.

Betsey: Right. Very good.

Stuart: That kind of?

Betsey: It does. Yes, yes definitely.

Stuart: It's one of those ones again, because it's slightly separate from the normal approach of saying, "You know your subject you should write a book, at the end of the book you should promote the next step that someone can take that brings them closer to you and starts the conversation." Having this kind of third party element into the mix it just makes it that little bit more, not really complicated but it's a framework that I don't think that many people necessarily think about.

In the conversations that I've had with people talking about it that's what's come up. There's sometimes a resistance or it takes a particular way of thinking about it to think, "Okay well I'm doing all this work and then I'm just giving it to someone else." But to understand that you're giving it to someone else because it serves the greater purpose and if you know that you've got some success based off the success of this idea then as long as it's an effective way of doing of it and ... Potentially not even talking about the physical books, it's not like we're saying, "Put a 10,000 dollar investment into ordering a couple of hundred books and physically giving them to people. The opportunity is always there to do this in the digital sense of course, which makes it far more cost effective but that opportunity to leverage other peoples' channels with something that you're giving them, the content that you're giving them, great opportunity.

The same goes actually with the ... we talked about complementary non computing businesses before so putting the books into dentist's waiting rooms or doctor's surgeries or the reception of vets or doing stuff for schools. Victor Pancini is probably a great example of this and the Erin's Law solution book, so Victor provides training for the Erin's Law programs, which schools in the majority of states, if not all states, are mandated to provide so he's successful when they're successful and by them being successful, raising awareness of what the Erin's Law Solution is or what the requirements are. So for him to be able to write that and then to give it to the organizations to be able to give away that does exactly what we've been talking here, it serves your own purpose because it spreads the word, introduces you as the authority, the leader in the area, you know that a certain percentage, whether that percentage is 1% or 71%, you know you're own number, or will learn to know your own numbers and as long as it makes financial sense to put all of those coins in the machine at the top then what spits out at the bottom still makes the overall effort worthwhile and you've done it in a super valuable way that's increased the understanding across the board and really positioned you as a leader.

Betsey: That was all very well said, yes.

Stuart: Very well said and very croaky because I've just realized that I've forgot when we jumped on the call I forgot to get coffee before so I'm only-

Betsey: Oh no.

Stuart: Ten minutes in and already my voice is starting to crack a little bit. It's the emotion of it, I get passionate about this type of thing and it's-

Betsey: You do.

Stuart: Causing my voice to crack.

Betsey: Yeah. There you go.

Stuart: What other conversations had we had recently? I'm trying to think, so much of it in the last two weeks or so has been tied around this kind of syndication model. I'm just trying to think of what some of the other ones were that have been particularly interesting or distinct that we're sharing. I was talking to someone about a training set up. They've got access to ... I think they were previously a lecturer, so they've got access within their particular niche or speciality. They've got access to a lot of previous material so we were talking about how to leverage some of that, not necessarily in a book. The conversation went a little bit wider so really we were talking about ... and I think this is key, we're going to ... I'm just looking on the screen at the Book Blueprint scorecard as we were talking about this and the last of the eighth of the mindsets is beyond your book. We don't talk about that so much on the podcast but it's probably worth going into a little bit over the next couple of weeks.

This kind of thought of ... Okay so the book, we're not talking about being a fiction author, so the job of the book isn't to gain book sales and then create a lifestyle and a business from the book sales. So the books although we spend a lot of time talking about creating them it's really just to get people to raise their hand and start a conversation so that conversation as it develops ... There are lots of studies out there in market research to suggest that it's the minority of people not the majority who convert straightaway. The majority of people convert between 19 and 365 days later because it's ... and again this is going to be business dependent, but for the majority it's not an immediate conversion so this is why, as we've said before, the books are a great way of getting people to raise their hand, identify them on a list, know that they're the people that you would want to be in conversation with so therefore what is that conversation?

The book's a great way to start it but that follow up sequence ... We were talking ... in this particular case we were talking about using some of that educational material, some of the stuff we've already got from other things. Now this guy was a lecturer so had years and years’ worth of content that he could do something with but even from a relatively small business even if you were a florist on the high street writing a book that talks about how to pick the perfect wedding flowers, or how to make a real change in your office without breaking the budget, or flower arranging, whatever the thing is that might raise people's hand of people who are interested in getting cut flowers. Writing that book to start the conversation in the first place but then over a period of time having something to deliver to them, having something, it doesn't necessarily have to be around a program, but just have a reason to reach out to people.

The reasons to reach out to people is an email and an email contains valuable content to make it worthwhile and interesting to open but really the thing that you want to include is the PS at the bottom of it or the super signature as we talk about, so you'll see that in our emails as this podcast goes out there's ... every so often in emails there's a PS: This is happening now you should do this, or this is coming up you should do this. The super signature at the bottom is, "Here are four ways that we can help you today."

And the purpose of the email is always just to present those opportunities to people and the reason for sending the email is the subject, is the body, so we were talking about that and how it can all tie together with the book as the manifesto, the positioning piece to start off the conversation and then to a greater or a lesser degree those touchpoints or the flagship communications that you send out afterwards how you can follow up with people and continue to make the offers to them knowing that the majority of people are unlikely to convert immediately.

So what is it you can do to make the return on the book worthwhile to get that hand raised in the first place but then to continue to conversation afterwards? And this is actually ... And I'm definitely going to take a breath in a second ... but this is something that we're starting to offer to people because of the success that we've had with the programs internally on the entrepreneur side of the business with More Cheese Less Whiskers, on the real estate with the Listing Agent Lifestyle, to a lesser degree because we haven't had ... put as much attention to it but with the Bookmore podcast to follow up on this side of things.

With the special report that we wrote recently about the book titles that convert, the book title types that convert. All of those things, mechanisms for following up with people, this is something that we're more and more looking to offer to authors who have written and using the book as a manifesto. We're then working with them to create that way of facilitating that model of getting in front of people more regularly, because it really is the game changer, it then is ... it's the opportunity to stay in front of people, stay front of mind so that you're there when they're ready to take that step to do whatever business it was they were originally thinking about.

Betsey: So when you said you would have some talking about ... I wrote this down ... training setup after the fact. Specifically can you go into ... I mean I think I'm ... either I missed something or we got off on a sidetrack because I was trying to think of it. I just had a conversation with somebody very similar and we decided we would discuss it later on in the process because the goal was to get the book started but then we were talking about the 'after the fact' of something else that they wanted to do not just with a training manual but a whole ... a whole other process to offer their clients.

Be it videos or something and so they were actually like, "Hey, would you guys do this? Would you have any interest in doing?" And I'm like, "Let's talk about later"

Stuart: And it is something that this whole ... our model really, although we spend a lot of time focusing on that lead generation, that getting people to raise their hand, the book as the cookie, the thing that raises it through really what we're doing ... And this crosses over into some of the follow on programs that we've got on the other side of the business, the entrepreneurial side of the business around the breakthrough blueprint and email mastery, all of these things are really around keeping that engagement going both with new customers, new potential customers to bring them on board but then existing customers as well to keep them engaged and keep that retention going although that's probably the least attention that we pay to things we're much more in the before unit rather than the during unit ... well the before and after unit rather that the during unit.

Betsey: During unit yeah.

Stuart: When I was talking to ... I've completely blanked on who it was I was talking to ... it was about three weeks ago but the way that we were talking was there are the training modules that came from the physical environment are now being switched to online, so whether for your guys that you were talking to today, whether their currently that in a classroom environment for a university or a school or whether they're delivering it in a workshop, seminar type environment taking that content and moving it into an online delivery framework ... Not that I think that's anything that we'll particularly get involved with because there are lots of platforms out there already that you can just plug into. We're more talking about the how to engage those people so that they eventually end up ... Up until the conversion point of when they go into the program, so whether they put those programs on Linda or Udemy or their own website, that program delivery bit.

What we're interested in is getting people to the point that they convert so if we go back to the profit activator mindset we've got, choose a single target market for the campaign, give a way for them to raise their hand as interested in the minimum viable commitment way possible and then slowly and patiently educate them towards a buying decision and then make a compelling offer so it's easy for them to get started.

So those four mindsets, that's really where a lot of this comes in so taking some of that training material and whether it's a case of breaking that down ... I was talking to Elizabeth on the phone last week this similar thing. So she has a twelve stage program in her world. We were talking about writing the book and she was initially thinking about doing something that at a high level covered all of those points whereas I was suggesting, "Okay on that ..." This was around the personal development side of things so there were three before unit stages where people might come in, physical spiritual and financial, like the 101 level of all of those things the entry level.

So I said, "Okay, potentially then you've got three books because those three things will be trigger words for three different groups of people. You could write the one book that goes deep into that first level on each of the three different subjects and then the call to action in the next stage is just making the awareness that there are obviously other level one things that you need to know and then there's also another nine levels after that, that you can move onto, so taking that overall content, separating out the hand raising stage, stage one and then being able to follow up with a sequence afterwards, that takes some of the other things, some of the other elements and just builds on it."

So the couple of options that spring to mind are taking the ... so let’s say there are three entry points, so in any one particular funnel when someone comes in through number one, the first one, share with them the second and third one so you've got the same content you just positioning it in a different way and then building on that, drip feeding content that builds on those original ideas but again through a different framework so for each of those three books, those three entry points you could have the ... something audio related to the content, some video related something graphic related.

The white paper or ... And again this depends on what your business is and what your speciality is and how much time you've got but you could have a white label type thing, you could have a peer review of other stuff out there. You can break down each of those ... let's say on average that a book's got five or six chapters that go into the details of it, you could take each one of those and then break them down into a little bit more because each one of these emails, again, it's just kind of this minimum viable effort, minimum viable commitment next step.

It's a small thing but just regular. The kind of drip effect of regularly delivering bite size interesting bits of content that are adding a little bit more value, a little bit more value and delivering it in a way that allows you to remind them that, "Hey, here's something interesting, a quick snippet here but there's all of this other stuff whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready there's this next step."

With the training programs, particularly ... so this is getting a little bit more into the delivery side of it but there's always opportunity to create the workbook content that goes hand in hand with the initial ninety minute books. So you've got the ... Like we do with the profit activator, the breakthrough DNA book and the profit activator score book, the score book is the scorecard and the breakthrough DNA book is the manifesto, the positioning piece.

The same with the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast ... the Listing Agent Lifestyle Manifesto. That book is the framework, is the setup and then on the score card side of it there are ways that people can position themselves so someone's workbook element doesn't have to be a scorecard. Having something that, the narrative version of the book is the words that sets the position and that says, "Okay you should do this, this, and this." The workbook side is, "Specifically now do this. Either go away and do this and come back and report here or here's an exercise to do in the book or here's a list of actions that you need to take." Whatever those additional things are.

So we've got a ... The team that we've got in place is one of the best at the production side of things and pulling together content into something that's useful and compelling, brought together in a good way. How then you go on to build that into the program or the steps that you take to set that up and position it all off that's going to vary slightly depending on the individual user case but ... I mean just go back to the florist. I use florist sometimes as an example because it's the other end of the spectrum, like I'm thinking of from something very kind of mathematical like a financial adviser or lawyers or something like that.

So even a florist, writing the guide to buying wedding flowers and putting a lot of valuable content in there about the things that people don't think about, whether that's geographically specific to the area, so I would imagine that the guide that someone would write in Florida is going to be different from the guide that someone would write in the North East because of the climatic changes if nothing else, let alone the local styles and the personal taste for it.

Then you can add in all of the things like the local directory, so the guide to wedding flowers, well actually wedding flowers tie in pretty much hand in hand with these other things, so the photographer, the venue and the decorations and all of the other things that go with it. So adding some of that content in. But then the drip content, the beyond the book stage of, "Okay you've delivered this, you've asked them if they want to buy wedding flowers" ... sorry you've reached out to them, you've got them to raise their hand on something about buying wedding flowers, you probably know as your own business that someone looking at wedding flowers is either in the very early stages, so around the point of getting engaged and just that initial excitement of, okay now we need to think about all of these other things.

All they're in the later stage, they may be six months out and they really trying to get things dialed specifically so that email follow up sequence, there's a sifting and sorting question that you could put in there to see at what point they are. So asking people the question of, "Have you booked a venue yet? Have you got a florist yet?" These things that give you an indication of whether someone is quite far out yet or whether they're quite close and then the emails that you send on that back of that can be either a little bit more high level and theoretical and conceptual and giving people ideas versus being a little bit more practical and specific and almost trying to bring them towards a decision a lot faster. But that follow up campaign, I mean florists particularly, you've got a whole host of things you can do around-

Betsey: Right.

Stuart: Video, audio is probably less of ... is probably the least interesting in that respect, but videos and photos and guides and style guides and reviews from flower shows and wedding shows and pictures of flowers in venues, of the bouquets that you've created, the different styles. All of these other things and each one of those emails has the super signature on the back ... That's my phone being a bit loud. All of those things that follow up from that initial content, all of them have the super signature of, "By the way here are four ways that we can help you today, come in for a free consultation, download our flower pricing guide, come in for a session where we'll specifically match the colors to your dress and engage us to do your flowers," the "come work with us," type call to action.

Betsey: Those were some great examples there.

Stuart: That was ... was it? Do you know we've had a bit of a hard out today, which is why my phone was ringing a second ago so I was pretty confident we would start off with one of two things and then be able to get to cover two of the breakthrough ... Sorry of the Book Blueprint scorecards but actually we haven't done either of those so we're going to have to-

Betsey: We haven't-

Stuart: Leave that till next week.

Betsey: That happens, that happens.

Stuart: It does, we do need to wrap up in a second, I need to jump on that call which just rang through but was there anything, or anyone that, things that we've been saying resonated with conversations that you have had or anything that springs to mind that I didn't give you chance to say?

Betsey: No, no, no. My conversations have been pretty generic as of late so no you covered it well and your examples of the florist were great and I think very clear for the audience to get an idea, you know how to implement-

Stuart: And I think if ... And I think if you're listening to this we do spend a lot of time ... My background is ... as people who are in financial services think tend to think that way ... my mind just defaults down that route but there's so many businesses that are less numbers driven, less regulation driven, less specific. We think of about solving a problem in the words of the book and answering a particular question and we talk about how there's the opportunity around tax law changes and immigration changes and all of these things that are very externally driven and very specific and you can quite easily think of a way of writing about a particular subject. But right down at the other end of that kind of specific external stimulus end of the spectrum a local business or even a local restaurant or local social club or ... I'm trying to think of all the things that aren't necessarily at the services end of the spectrum. So a local restaurant can write the restaurant guide to the area, a 'How to Eat Healthy in Winter Haven' and talk about all of the different restaurants then promote ... subtly promote their own things as part of the book.

The florist example we just gave, a swimming club could do something similar around swimming styles or ... I maybe just shot myself in the foot in the last two minutes by choosing a particularly difficult one but you could imagine writing the guide to local swimming venues, so of course it's the depths of winter at the moment on here in the UK and I go to a swimming club once a week just for exercise, but there are guys there that are talking about lake swimming and triathlons even at this time of year, which is insane so you can imagine the local swimming club writing the guide to triathlon swimming or outdoor swimming venues or outdoor swimming apparel guides.

All of that type of thing. Wherever there is an interest there is enough to write something about the thing that's going to scratch the edge of someone that's exciting and that's started the conversation, it's made the person visible, and then as we have been talking about today it's the follow up, it's the opportunity to present to them the super signature of saying, "by the way, here are four ways I can help you now, or whenever you're ready." All wrapped up in a useful valuable communication point but you can't do any of that communication until first you know who those people are and you've given them a reason to raise their hand, which is the book.

Betsey: Very good.

Stuart: Okay.

Betsey: Yeah.

Stuart: So with that I need to get on this next call, I need to find somewhere to make some coffee in between that otherwise I'm going to really be struggling. As you're listening to this head over to 90minutebooks.com/podcast and this is episode 52 so 052. Show notes and the transcript are going to be across there along with some links. I'll put some links in to the book blueprint scorecard and the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and podcast, just so you guys as you're listening to this, if you haven't listened to that already you can jump into that and start to see how that model works and really the reason that we talk about all of these things is so that you can replicate it and obviously we're here to help you do that so if you've got any questions for me and Betsey, you want us to talk about the show just drop us a note to podcast@90minutebooks.com but obviously the best thing you can do is head over and get started, so head over to 90minutebooks.com and follow the get started links and we'll be here to help you as you get it created.

Betsey: Very good, awesome. Alright so next time we'll talk about the purposeful outline and the value driven content.

Stuart: Yeah.

Betsey: What we'd planned on today. Very good. Good information, useful information though.

Stuart: Perfect. Okay well thanks for your time Betsey, I'm going to-

Betsey: Absolutely.

Stuart: I'm going to try not to talk for quite so long next time.

Betsey: Alright we'll talk soon.

Stuart: Okay, thanks guys, thanks everyone, speak soon.