The most exciting part of creating your book isn’t the layout, or the amazing cover, or even really your great content… The exciting part is getting your book out there, starting conversations once it’s complete.

Today on the Book More Show we’re looking at the last of the Book Blueprint Mindsets – what to do ‘Beyond Your Book’.

There are so many opportunities and ways you could use it, but we start by looking at the simple, inexpensive, and friction-free ways of using your book to orchestrate referrals and revive old leads.

We also talk about how easy it is to over value short term results, and under value the long term. So we cover a few simple ways you can stay front of mind with people, and be there ‘when they are ready’ to take the next step.

There are some great, practical steps here that everyone should take.

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

Lastly, here is a link to the other Book Blueprint Scorecard Episodes and to the Email Mastery book we mentioned.

 

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 055

Joe: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Joe here with Betsey Vaughn. Betsey how's it going?

Betsey: Hi, happy Friday.

Joe: Friday, best day of the week. It means that you can get some work done over the weekend because no one's calling.

Betsey: That is so true.

Joe: It is isn't it? So, picking up on where we were talking last week about it being crazy, this week has got no quieter. So good though. I think this week has been a bit different. We've had lots of great conversations with people, jumping on board. We've commented a couple of times before about how oftentimes we're talking to people, having spoken to them again a year later. But actually the last couple of weeks there's been a lot of new people coming through. Some great ideas. People more and more coming with a clear idea of how they're going to use their book which we're going to dive a bit more into today. But that's been a difference in the conversations I've had. I'm not sure it's been the same at your end.

Betsey: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of new people on board. A lot of the same conversations with people a year ago. Still having those conversations. And I think some of it really does come about ... the problem is where they have trouble pulling that trailer is what we're going to talk about today because they're not all sure what they want to do with the book or what to do with the book once they've done it. And we've talked about this before. I hear that all the time. I mean, I can have a great conversation with someone. They can be dialed in to what their message is, and then they truly like what the heck do I do with this book afterwards? You know, so, as someone who answers this question a lot, I'm excited for this episode. I'm excited to get this information out there and help our listeners know what to do with this book.

Joe: Fantastic. One of the best TV shows in the UK ever was an older show form the 80s, "Yes, Minister," and "Yes, Prime Minister." So it's a bit like ... I don't think of a US equivalent. I was thinking "House of Cards," but it's really, the other end of the spectrum from that. But anyway, there's a minister trying to sort of stick in his career as an elected official, and then all of the officials trying to keep the civil service going. And there's a line from that saying it's the false economy of ministers think they need to do something, and this is something; therefore, they should do this which is the exact opposite of, "We should do this for a reason." So occasionally I get calls like that where I think people have heard other people talking about a book, and they think that this is something that they should do but without that clear understanding of why they should do it and how it fits into the bigger picture and how it can really change some outcomes. It's a different conversation, both to kind of contextualize it and to eventually just pull the trigger and get on with it.

Betsey: Yeah, for sure.

Joe: So today we're looking at the Book Bleeping Mindset Number 8 which is beyond your book. We've touched on it a couple of times in the last one because obviously this is the direction it's going. This is the reason for doing it. So it crops up in some of the earlier mindsets. So today we're going to dive deep into that. I think we might even run over two episodes maybe because there's a lot of opportunities and a lot of different use cases where people can use it, so we might end up running over, too.

So we'll start off today by looking at the mindset in the various stages. Looking beyond the book and what to do with the book at I as going to say a philosophical level, but a theoretical level of what the important pieces are, the building blocks of things to consider. But then really we'll get into a couple of great ideas for how people can use it.

So I think today we'll start off with some of the more straightforward ones, and then we'll go into some of the more bigger, more complicated ones, or the next rung down if you like of ideas of how to use it next time. Does that sound good?

Betsey: Super. Sounds great.

Joe: Perfect. So again, with all of these episodes where we go through the Book Bleeping Score Cards, ahead of which they show there's a copy of the score cards there, this is episode 55, so with 90minutebooks.com/podcast, episode 55, of if you want to fill out your own score card to see how you score, then head over to bookbleepingscore.com, and then step by step we'll take you through the eight mindsets. You can score yourself against each of the stages that we've got and then just see how your book idea is stuck in up against that.

So let's crack on with mindset number eight, Beyond Your Book. So the first level is where you don't really have a use-case for the book in mind. Like we were just saying, you have other people talking about the book, you know it's something that you should do. You've maybe got a couple of good ideas. But in terms of how you're actually going to use it and what its job of work is in your bigger marketing plan, you're not really thinking about that. You're coming to it very much from the point of view of creating something in almost a kind of "If you build it, they will come," type of approach of, "Let me just do this and then worry about it afterwards." So that's the lower level of this particular mindset.

Moving on one from there, we then move into you're planning on doing some things with it. So you're thinking about how to collect the leads. You want to give books away via partners. You want to make the book available on Amazon. But you haven't really yet thought about what happens after that. So you've got as far as thinking, "Okay, I should do something with it," but the follow on sequence, how you engage with people afterwards, what their experience is or what their next step is, again, not really considered. So a little bit better than just building it and hoping at least you're going to be able to put it out there, but you don't yet really have a funnel or structure in place to take those people and then do something with it.

So the stage after that then, the third stage, is you have a follow up email in mind to engage with people who are ready to act now, but you don't have a plan to engage people or potential leads over the longer period. So this happens a lot. People will think about, particularly as they've listened to the show before, the "More Cheese, Less Whiskers" show, they're familiar with the profit activating mindsets, this concept of taking people and doing something in that first stage. It's very ... common is not the right word, but a lot of people can conceptualize that and think about it. So okay, someone is going to download the book and then I'm going to immediately ask them if they're ready to get started. But really it's the less likely you are, the more likely that someone is, that everyone opts in at least, that someone is ready to get started that particular moment. What's more likely is that they're not ready to get started just yet. Either the timing is not quite right or they're mindset is not in the right position or some external factor happens that just prevents them from getting started right now.

So if the only thing you've got is that immediate follow up, that's great, and two stages better than not having anything at all, but there's still the opportunity to keep in touch with people over the longer period, keep front of mind. And that's really when we get into mindset number four, the most developed of these mindsets or the stages within this mindset rather which is, you have a funnel in place to deliver additional value relative to the book after someone has initially requested a copy. So it's a way of asking engaging questions, continuing the conversation with them, and having a reason to regularly communicate with those people who have made themselves visible but who aren't ready to act right now.

This is a lot of what we do around the podcast. Again, we refer to the "More Cheese, Less Whiskers" model a lot because that's the best example that we've got of this. The book podcast, the Book More Show model kind of models that a little bit, but not quite to the same extreme. So really what happens there, again sticking with the "More Cheese, Less Whiskers" example is someone will opt in for a copy of that book in the first place. We deliver them a copy of the book. There's an immediate follow up to try and engage people who are the hottest and are ready to take a step forward at that point. But if they're not, they go into the funnel of receiving the podcast broadcasts every weekend with the podcast is released, and then additionally we've got two other emails that go out in the week that refer back to previous episodes. In each of those email communications, there's a P.S. and a super signature that give people the opportunity to raise their hand again or express an interest, take an action, join a particular program. All of these touchpoints going on for the life of when they're on the list.

There's a good comparative with the realtor example there. So we had a couple of weeks ago now, a month ago maybe, we had the realtor seminar in Orlando, the Listing Agents Academy, and in there was an example that one of the realtors was playing a message that he'd received from a customer. He would bid on his mailing list for four years. So in the realtor space, this flagship communication, there's a regular reason to stay in touch with people. We have around the Marketing Monday broadcasts, all the market watch broadcasts. So this chap had phoned up to say, "Hey, I'm just reaching out to you. I must have fallen off your list or something because I haven't received any messages for a couple of weeks now. We're actually ready to list our property that's up there in this particular area. I couldn't find your number so I had to contact another realtor in the area to get your details, but we're ready to list. If you'll give me a call, we'll get started."

Betsey: Wow.

Joe: It was so funny to listen to. The background to it was this guy had opted into a list four years ago. Kenny had been sending him the regular communications for that period of time. Hadn't heard anything. Had decided to purge the list a little bit over the end of the year. So it had actually taken him off because he hadn't responded, and then they guy reached out saying, "Oh, hey, for some reason I must have fallen off your list, but we're ready to list. And then I had to phone up another realtor and ask for your number," which you can imagine how well-received that call went. And list it. So this kind of concept of he opted in in the first place for what was probably either a pricing guide or an area guide to properties in that particular area. Four years goes by and he doesn't particularly raise his hand or make himself known for any reason, but he has been receiving value over that period. He's built a sense of reciprocity to a certain degree, known I can trust Kenny as a realtor, to then go through all of the effort of doing a bit of a round about route to getting his number and saying, hey, okay, now we're ready to go.

So that is the example of having something that can continue to reach out beyond the book, beyond the thing that's got someone to raise his hand in the first place, is just a great little example of people convert over the long-term. If you were only running at so that people who were ready on that particular day, converted, and this is the problem sometimes with some adware ads, Facebook has that type of thing, where the offer is just for that immediate satisfaction, that's great. But what it misses out on is everyone that you could be putting the ad in front of who would raise the hand as interested but just don't happen to be ready on that particular day at that particular time.

Betsey: Right, you know, I think about, and I've said this before on here, I have a greater sense of urgency than say Dean Jackson. So if we put an ad someplace on Facebook, I want immediate results. And this is a good reminder, this thing with Kenny, you know what, you keep doing those things, and it's not today. It's not about today. But four years down the road, you're still going to want the business. And all of that effort, like you said, you're building that value, you're building that trust, and boom, completely out of the blue ... I think that's a great story just because they reached out to someone else and said, "Hey, I'm looking for this guy." That's incredible.

Joe: I can just picture the story of the guy phoning up and the realtor answering it saying, "God, so you're looking to list, yes, that's fantastic." And the guys says, "Yeah, we've been thinking about it for a while and we're definitely ready to go now. We've got everything lined up, we're going to pull the trigger. So what I really need is Kenny's phone number."

Betsey: That's great. That is great.

Joe: As people are listening to this and thinking about it in their own situation, it can seem a little bit daunting thinking about how that ongoing funnel works. So we're obviously pretty familiar and comfortable with the podcasting mechanism across the business. We've got five or six different podcasts going, and they all follow the same kind of mechanism for getting people in at the front and then having reasons to communicate with them over the long-term. I was just having this conversation with the guys that came on board yesterday. The thing to think about is whatever's comfortable for you. So whether this is an ongoing cycle of being able to communicate with people in the realtor world, that market watch broadcast, Market-Making Monday message, it's easy to create that because there's always things happening in the real estate market.

A lot of people know my brother's a yacht broker register, the Palm Beach Boat Show at the moment, so the follow-on sequence there is less ... It's more difficult to have such a regular interface because fewer super yachts go on the market than do regular houses in the area. So the time frame that we've got for those communications is different than we would have ... we send out monthly communications, we don't send out weekly communications because for that particular business model, that makes more sense.

For another group of people it might be the case that they're really struggling to think about what very regular communication might be. So instead, think about what are the twelve touchpoints or the 25, 26 touchpoints, or the 52 touchpoints, that might be relevant for that person to know after they initially opt in and put them into a sequence that's predefined. Even if you don't have all of those in place on day one, at least have the first ten of them done, and then fill the funnel afterwards. Kind of keep seeding that afterwards. And by the time you've got work through that first situation of it, then thinking about what might be a more common and more frequent communication, things like that might become more obvious. It's sometimes difficult, if you haven't gone through this process before, to think about it now, what it might look like in its perfect form. But really the key is just think about doing something. Have a regular reason to stay in touch with them after that first touchpoint.

So some of the ideas that I've touched on a few times with people, taking the elements from within the book and just expand each of those into a short email that either just puts the same point in a slightly different way or use a slightly different examples, or get things like infographics or images created or have a quick flow chart or guide or checklist or an assessment. Anything that you can do to have the opportunity to deliver some additional value to people, even if the actual thing is the same. You're just positioning it in a different way.

So have the opportunity to deliver that extra value. And then the key is that in each email that you're sending out, there is a P.S. or a super signature or something at the bottom to say, "Okay, here's this additional information," whatever the words are, whatever the image is, whatever the audio or the video, whatever you're sending, and at the bottom saying, "P.S. If you're ready to get started today, we're doing this thing next week. If would be great just to let me know you're interested and I'll get you the details." "P.S. Here are three ways we can help you as soon as you're ready. Go and listen to this additional stuff on the website. Fill out this scorecard over here so you can position yourself. Join us on the next program that starts next week. Just hit reply and we'll get you all the details."

So it's almost that Trojan horse approach of delivering a wrapper of value, but the message that's on the inside is, "By the way, don't forget here's how to get started. Here's how to get started. Here's how to get started." And what that does is it's not only keeping you front of mind because you're delivering something useful to people, but it's also positioning it from you're not just sending them a sales letter, you're not just saying, "Hey, are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? Are you ready yet?" It's saying, "Here's something more that's useful, that's relevant to the way that you came in, and P.S., if you're ready ... "

Betsey: Yeah, I think it is very valuable. When I sat through Dean's breakthrough event back in the fall, there was a lot of conversation about the super signature. And we send out a lot of emails of great value to clients, potential clients. But that little reminder every time, it's interesting people will say to me as well, "Oh, I've been following you. I get your emails for the past year, and so now I'm ready to have a conversation." Maybe never even responded to anything, but it's just that constant little bit of reminder, you know? And like you said, four years later, somebody raises their hand. So ...

Joe: It is overvaluing the short-term and undervaluing the long-term, I think, because if you're ...

Betsey: Say that again? Undervaluing ... ?

Joe: Yeah, undervaluing the ... Oh sorry, overvaluaing the short-term and undervaluing the long-term. So people will put a Facebook campaign out and think, "Okay, I've spent $500 on ads, and it's a month later, and I've only got one person who's on board as a client." So that overestimating the short-term thinking that this is going to be the greatest thing, but then undervaluing the fact that, okay, if you do have that way of continuing to communicate with people, that $500 spent might have picked up 100 people who have opted in, and of that 100 people, one person might have raised their hand today. But over a four-year period or over a two-year period, then ten people or fifteen people or twenty people might have come on board as a client in different ways.

And because it's so difficult to actually reach all of the clients directly with what the reason was that they came on board, it can sometimes be difficult to justify the ad spent in the first place or to continue doing it. It's definitely the case that you need to think about all of the numbers. The short-term numbers are important as well because obviously if you go out of business before the rest of the people get a chance to come on board.

Betsey: Yeah.

Joe: But if you've got an idea of what the long-term success rate is, if you keep an eye on it and track it so that you know, or you've got a good gut feeling about what is making the difference, then it changes your view slightly on what's worthwhile doing.

Betsey: That's true. That's true.

Joe: And just on the Facebook ad type thing, if you were running at ad ... so the two ends of the spectrum, one end is running an ad saying, "Get started with me. We have the ... " what's an example that we haven't used recently? Or a business? An osteopath. Because I was talking to one earlier today. So if you're running an ad saying, "Come to our practice, we're the best osteopath around, and here's a click through to our website where you can find out some more details," and if you're paying a dollar per click on those ads, the likelihood of being able to track that through or those people immediately converting, yes, there's a certain amount of people who are specifically looking for an osteopath at that time and the timing might be right. But instead if you're running an ad that offers people to a guide, the back pain guide, or the over-50s guide to stretching (although as I'm getting closer to 50 I think I need to move that number), the over-70s guide to stretching. Something where you've got an opportunity to capture the details and continue the conversation, then as you've said, the dynamics change quite a lot just from one end of the spectrum to the other one. What you could do for a similar amount of effort in getting the ad campaign up and running in the first place.

Okay, so that gives us the background of the mindset. So we go from the lowest level of the mindset which is you really want to build it and hope they'll come, not really thinking about the follow on, through to the top end where you're got not only an initial engagement but you've also got a way of continuing to follow up with people over time. So what I'm wanting to do with the rest of the time today is go through a couple of the examples of the more straight forward things you can do, the easier steps, the kind of low-hanging fruit, once your book is created.

So not all of this is relevant to the ongoing communication with things. Some of these are immediate touch points. But keeping that framework in mind of really the objective is to get people to raise their hand, make the invisible lead visible, that's kind of step one. But then step two is continuing to have a conversation opportunity with them, then that's the kind of key framework that's underlying this. So with that, let's do a couple of examples.

Betsey: Let's do it.

Joe: So I think the first one that springs to mind is for anyone who's been in business for any amount of time, you've just written a book that's relevant to the customers that you're communicating with because, and let's assume that we're talking about someone who's written a book for their business, so there's a consistency there, there's a relevancy there. So you've got two groups of people who you already know. Those who are existing customers and then there's the unconverted leads that you've already got. So those two groups, you don't need to go out and find them. You know who they are already. There's varying degrees of how much they know they can trust you because some of them are customers and some of them have just opted into something previously.

So on that list, one of the easiest things you can do is send those guys an email letting them know that you've just written a book because they know who you are, you know who they are, you already know that you're interested in the same subject, so there is a super simple day one step of using this thing that you've just spent some time and money and effort to create.

So those two groups, we aren't going to send the same email to both of them because they're different people. Our relationship with them is different. So taking first the ones that are already customers, we can send them an email in some conversational language that's nice and friendly and engaging because what we want to do is A) make them feel special, and B) remind them that they've got the opportunity to refer to us if we can help their friends and family that might be struggling with the same issue. So sending the existing customers a short email saying, "Hey, just wanted to let you know I've just written this book. It helps some people with this particular thing that we're already working together with. I just wanted to let you have a copy of it first because obviously we've done a lot of work together and we've got a good relationship."

After that, then, include a line that says, "By the way, if you know of a friend or family member that's also struggling with this issue, then let me know, and I can give you a copy of this book to give to them." So let's unpack that a little bit.

The first line is a kind of reintroduction, just making a point that it's warm and friendly, giving them the feeling that you wanted to get it to them first because they're your closest group of people, and then the second line, the referrals, this isn't saying to them, "Okay, if you've got some friends and family who are interested, give me their name and email address and their social security number, and I'll contact them and harass them until they become a customer."

Betsey: Right.

Joe: What you're saying instead is if you know people who are talking about it who have this issue already, then let me know and I'll give you a copy of the book to give to them because hopefully in some of the work that we've done to create the book, we've already got a strong call to action on the back that gives people a very easy way of taking the minimum viable commitment next step. So you already know if someone physically gets a copy of the book or even digitally gets a copy of the book, the next step is very obvious to them. It's not like you're obscuring what the next thing is. So you've got some confidence that they'll get back to you in an easy way. And by saying to your customer, the person that you know, you'll give them a copy of it so that they can give to to their friends, means that they are more likely to have that thought in their mind. They're more likely to make that connection because they're not also feeling that, "Well I think Mike might like a copy of this, but I don't want to give you Mike's number because then you're going to bug him."

Betsey: Right.

Joe: And it also gives them the benefit of, I forget what the psychological term is called, but this kind of group supremacy, superiority type thing of if you're able to give someone the book that fixes their problem, you immediately get some kind of kudos or brownie points or you're in a high esteem within the group because you're the one that's got the connection to the solution.

So there are a couple of triggers in play there that means that that action of sharing your book with your closest group of people in the hope that they'll, A) get some value from it, and B) it will boost your relationship a little bit, and C) they'll then refer other people or create that referral opportunity. Doing it in that way, doing it in the orchestrated bit, kind of passive orchestration if you like, you kind of orchestrate in the scenario in which they could refer, but you're not aggressively going after the lead too soon. It's a bit like the dating analogy we've said before. It's saying to your friend, "Listen, I really need a date. If you know someone that we would be a good fit for, then give them my number." It's not like you're going to a friend and saying, "Okay, let's open your phone book." Open your phone book. That's dating us as well. "Going through your phone and then give me that guy's number and I'll call him and hound him for a date." It's a similar kind of analogy.

Betsey: Right.

Joe: Does that example make sense?

Betsey: No, absolutely makes sense. And I think the great thing about some of the first things we're going to talk about are these are not time consuming. You're looking at a few minutes of your time to get this out, and the cost. There's no cost involved.

Joe: Yeah, exactly.

Betsey: So we've got a few ideas that are just not going to cost you a thing to do.

Joe: There's so much overcomplicating and I want to know how to do Facebook ads and lead outs and retargeting and all of this stuff, which is great. But let's pick off the easy ones first.

Betsey: Right, right. Let's work within your budget. I think we've got some great ideas, and that's definitely very simple. Like you said, everybody has some sort of list or can reach out to those people. Those who have already raised their hand a little bit and those who have just sort of opted in or what have you.

Joe: I'm taking it one step further. We're using the example of existing customers, potentially you're a relatively new business or new in the area, you might not have those customers. But there should be groups of people that you know that you can trust already who, if you walked past them in the supermarket, you kind of stop and ask them and see how their kids are. It's not that you'd see them across the other aisle and you kind of turn the other way because you know them but you don't want to get drawn into a conversation. It's this group, this kind of first circle of people who you have relationship with, have influence with, who they like you and you like them.

So the other element to add in is give the email that you right the kind of sniff test, the Starbucks test as Dean calls it as being not too convoluted with the language. So the way that I naturally speak, it comes across in the podcast I think, but the way I naturally speak and naturally right comes from more of a corporate background because that is my background, and that can come across in the emails as difficult. I've definitely got to sort of write an email, put it to the side, come back the next day, and then give it the Starbucks test which is, if I bumped into you at Starbucks and said these words out loud, would it just sound weird and clunky and like a robot was writing it or it was coming from a big corporate machine, as opposed to saying, "Hey Betsy, great to see you, I've just written this ... " I mean, not launch straight into it, but, "I wanted you to know first because we've worked close together before, I know this subject was of interest to you. A lot of stuff you already know, but I want to share this book with you. And then you might have someone else that's talking about this particular issue, so again, let me know and I'll give you a copy and let you give it to them."

So the only bit I'd add into that is just give it the Starbucks test and make sure that the language that you use isn't too corporate speaky. It's more conversational. Just because it's this first group of people that you're speaking to.

Betsey: I love that. Honestly, that's the first time I've heard your or Dean say that.

Joe: Oh is it?

Betsey: Yeah, and you know that's so true, I sometimes think with emails people get them, we all get them, and they're so formal and they're so corporate. I think something that might be a little lightheaded, like you run into somebody in public, it's exactly, "Hi, how are you? This is what's going on." Very light. People respond to that. I think it feels more personal. I know I'm more apt to respond to something like that than this formal, form letter.

Joe: Because your eyes just scan over it. You kind of get banner blindness to emails that look corporate because there's no connection there and you just skip over it because you think, "Oh, I might come back to that later, but it's just not as personal." So this model that we're talking about, it forms quite a substantial part of email mastery which is one of the email based programs that we have on the other side of the business. So as you're listening to this, if this is something that you're interested in, definitely go and grab a copy of the email mastery book at emailmastery.com, and then that talks about a few more of these techniques about making email much more effective than it is in the kind of traditional corporate sense.

Continuing that theme and bridging it across into existing unconverted leads. So these are people who you know who they are, so there's no acquisition cost, but they're not people who have become customers yet. So for whatever reason you don't have as strong a relationship with them. It might not be the right time for them. So with those guys, there's a re engagement opportunity. So you may or may not, depending on how your email strategy is, you may or may not have been regularly communicating with these people anyway. So tweak slightly what I'm about to say. But the opportunity to reengage with them using the book as the example, you can just send an email out, again what we refer to as a spear email, short, personal, expecting a reply to say, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know I've written a book I think you'd be interested in called (whatever it is about the particular business). If you'd like a copy just hit reply and let me know. I'll get one out to you." That way anyone that is still interested who might be interested, there's an opportunity to reengage them in a conversation. They can hit reply and you can send a copy of the book back to them. And again, we're talking about digital copies here. We're not talking about physical copies.

Betsey: Right.

Joe: I mean, the whole premise of the thing that we do, we never refer to books as ebooks because that's needlessly devaluing what it is. The whole term ebook is like a 90s term referring to something that doesn't actually exist. It's not a thing. There's no format called ebook. It's a pdf or it's a mobile. It's something. So referring to it as ... we've seen it before, people sending out emails saying, "Hey Betsy, I've just written a book that I think you'll be interested in. It's about the subject that we've talked about before, so if you want a copy of my ebook let me know and I'll send it to you." I mean, what's the point in that. You've just devalued and diminished the thing that you've offered them.

Betsey: Exactly.

Joe: So the fact that you are sending them a digital book, that doesn't matter. That's not the main thing. The main thing is reengaging someone in a conversation. So they hit reply, requesting a copy of it. Send them that reply and then have a follow up email the next day saying, "Have you tried such and such yet?" So for us we often talk about, have you picked a single target market yet? Or do you have a call to action in mind? Or have you written an outline?" All of these things are short, personal, and expecting a reply.

So the one thing we never do, I should probably check all of our emails to double check, the one thing we shouldn't do is say to people, "Hope you had a chance to read the book." Or, "What did you think of the book?" Because those questions don't move the conversation further forward because really you don't care. You're not asking for them to edit the book or review it or give your opinion. Although all of those things might be useful if they happen to come up in conversation later. "I didn't quite get what you were talking about in this particular chapter," then you might want to look at that and consider adding some stuff to it. Or if they said, "Oh, this bit was the most valuable thing I've ever read on page 37," then you might want to look at what that was and pull that out and use it in some other campaigns further down the track.

So not that you're devaluing their opinion, but we're just asking them questions like that doesn't move the conversation forward. So our aim at kind of each minimum viable commitment step is to move the conversation further forward in order to be able to help them as best as possible.

So that email, going to the other group of people, going to the people who are on your list so there's no acquisition costs, but they haven't converted yet so you don't have quite the same relationship with them, sending them a re engagement email asking them if they want a copy of the book. If you're super concerned about ... Well, okay, I was going to say if you're super concerned about getting swamped with email replies, then you could in theory send them to a download page saying, "I've written this book, if you want to get a copy of it, go to this page to opt in." Technically you could do that, but I would advise everyone not to do that because it's too much resistance. That group of people are on the list already so there's no benefit in getting them to opt in.

Betsey: Yeah.

Joe: The only benefit would be that you would identify who the hotter ones are. In some email systems you could do that with things called intelligent links. So in our GoGo Client system, we've got intelligent links so you can tell when someone's clicked on a link. But even that is unnecessarily relying on technology. The whole thing that we're trying to do is engage people in the conversation. So the best thing that I would say is get people to reply and say, "Oh, yeah, please send me a copy of it." Because the reality is you're not going to get deluged. I would almost challenge anyone to come back and say, "I had so many responses I couldn't cope with it."

Betsey: What a horrible problem to have.

Joe: Yeah, exactly.

Betsey: I mean, come on, that you'd get that many people I think is that you did your best to hurry up and respond to them.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, hire an intern for a couple of days or get a family member and start-

Betsey: Make your kid do it, you know. Exactly.

Joe: So we do hear it a surprising amount of time across the various bits of the business where people will say, "Oh yeah, but the problem is how do you cope with all of those responses?" Well, exactly as you said what a fantastic problem to have. If it is an absolute genuine concern, I mean, I wouldn't suggest sending it out to ten thousand people in one go, but then just break the list down into do some sensible breakdown of the list so that maybe you send slightly different words to people who had opted in through the different routes. So sticking with the osteopath example, if they came in with back pain, send them a slightly different email than if they came in with foot pain. If that is a real concern. But again, don't let the complexity of it stop you from doing it in the first place. Just a short, simple, "Hey Betsy, I just wrote a new book about back pain. If you'd like a copy of it, I'd love to send it to you, just let me know and I'll get it straight out."

Okay, so those two things are ...

Betsey: Listen if we stop right now, that alone is some really great information. Not just from a book standpoint, just from a business standpoint. You know, if you have the opportunity to reengage someone or an unconverted lead, we've given them some great ideas on just that even without the book, you know?

Joe: I'd suggest that everyone heads over to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, oh sorry, I do suggest going there, but that's not what I meant. Head over to emailmastery.com and grab a copy of that book because again in these books there's just a couple of concepts that are just easy to get to grips with, and there's a lot more stuff to pick up from there.

Betsey: For sure.

Joe: Well we are, we should probably do a thing.

Betsey: Yeah.

Joe: What was the next one we had on the list? I know that we drew up a list.

Betsey: We were talking about websites. Putting on a website and then ...

Joe: Okay, I'll just hit on that one quickly then and then we can pick up some of the other ones later. So this one was making the suggestion that you've now got the book, so include the book on the website. So a lot of this ... It really just fascinates me how few people do this. So on your website, on your main domain, you've probably got lots of information about what you do and about your services and how you got started, a mission statement, and a picture of the team. We saw one not so long ago which was I think it was a realtor one of like the power team walking down the street type picture which just made me chuckle at the time. It makes me think of a commercial that has that. Anyway, whatever it was.

So on your website already you've probably got all of these things, but what the majority of people are still lacking is an easy option for people to leave their details. So often, well in fact almost every time, every website has "Call us now for an appointment," and that type of thing. But for those people who are passing by and who aren't ready immediately, it's the same problem as the ad problem that we've talked about before. It's the minority of people who are ready to pull the trigger immediately. Only the hottest of the hot are ready to go now. So by putting your book on the website, allowing people to opt in, serves exactly this purpose. All of this passing traffic that would otherwise just pass away, and you'd have to reaquire this, giving a book option on the website is just a way of capturing at least a proportion of that traffic and then communicating to them over the long-run. And then you've got the opportunity as well as you're out and about meeting people or in an email or responding to things on linked in or social media, you've got the opportunity of saying, "Here's the answer to the question. If you want to know more about, just go grab a copy of my book, and it's on www.whatever." So that was the other very quick way most websites, or even if you need to pay the website manager to update it, it's usually pretty straight forward to add that opt in into the page, put it front and center so that you've given yourself more than enough opportunity to pick up on some of that passing traffic.

Betsey: Awesome.

Joe: So, that was a good start.

Betsey: That was a great start.

Joe: If by next week ... so we've definitely got more of a list that we want to go through and make some suggestions and some ideas. So I think over the next couple of shows we're going to dive into this a little bit more. We've got an interview next week with Joe Jachovich where we were diving into ... He's recently finished a book, so we were using him as an example to go through some of the specifics on how he could use it. So we've got that coming up. I think we've got at least two more shows on some of the detailed ways that people can use it. So some of those things will resonate as you're listening to this because there's going to be some more ideas over the next couple of weeks.

So I think this wraps up the book leaving score card way nicely.

Betsey: Yeah.

Joe: I'm not sure that made sense as a sentence, but ...

Betsey: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: But it wraps up nicely because we've gone through the details of how to get it done and the best ways of thinking about each stage, and now we're really talking about the whole reason that we're doing this is to get it out there it into their hands, identifying invisible leads, and starting that conversation that you can then convert into customers and help people to achieve whatever it is they're trying to achieve.

Betsey: Awesome. This is a great start. I think this whole series has been awesome. This one though has probably been my favorite. I think there's so much valuable ... and I know I say that every time, but there's so much valuable information. I'm excited about it, really.

Joe: Hopefully things that you can execute. I mean the conversations that we have where people ... when we actually check back in with people later and there's some people who haven't been sticking with it and other people who are just knocking it out of the park and what they're doing. And having those conversations with those guys is really ... I mean, it makes us feel like it's all worthwhile. But it's just super exciting to see what those guys are doing.

Betsey: Absolutely.

Joe: Okay, so, as listening to this, this is going to be episode 55, so head over to 90minutebooks.com/podcast and on episode 55. Just in the show notes, so at the bottom of the post of the individual episodes, there's also a tag or a link to the other book bleeping score episodes. So we've got eight of them up there now. So if you want to listen to the others in the series, rather than scrolling, just hit in that book bleeping score tag and that will list them all at once.

The best thing you can do, obviously, is if you're thinking about doing this is just jump on board and get started. So if you head over to 90minutebooks.com and then follow the get started link, then we'll be here waiting to get you through the process and we can have your book up and done by the summer and then implementing some of these plans to kind of really engage those leads and find new ones and really just make this a win-win for both you guys as the business owners and customers who are going to learn some information that they wouldn't otherwise have access to.

Betsey: Super.

Joe: Anything that we've missed?

Betsey: No, I don't think so.

Joe: Perfect. Well in that case, we will catch up with everyone next summer. One last quick one I guess is if you want to be a guest on the show, we've got a nice series of guests coming up. But if you do want to be a guest on the show, just head over to 90minutebooks.com/guest and just drop in your name and a quick note of what you want to get out of the call, and then we can go through some ... hatch some evil schemes for you and get a great book ideas for either how to create it in the first place or how to use it. So definitely do that if you want to run through some stuff on the call.

Betsey: Very good.

Joe: Okay. Thanks Betsy, I'll catch you next time.

Betsey: Sounds good. Take care.