The important things really start to happen once you’ve completed your book.
That the opportunity to start sharing what you’re written and identifying those invisible prospects.
In last week’s show we looked at the free or inexpensive ways you can use your book with the people who already know you, and today we take that a step further, looking at the things you can do locally to share your book with the people most likely to be clients.
The best way to think through these ideas is always with a real example, so today we’re talking with Joe Yocavitch from New Jersey.
Joe’s a great guy. He persevered through some compliance headwinds to recently complete his book Getting Down The Mountain. A guide to preserving your retirement by reducing one of the biggest threats. Taxation.
We had a great call looking at not only the process of creating his book, and some of the challenges, but also, not it’s ready, what are some of the ways he can get out there and make the most of these first few weeks after release.
I’m excited for you to hear (and steal) the ideas we had.
Links:
Titles Workshop: 90MinuteBooks.com/Workshops
Ready to get started: 90MinuteBooks.com/get/started
Interview Shows: 90-Minute Books Author Interviews
Questions/Feedback: Send us an email
Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
Connect with Joe:
JMLFinancialGroup.com
Transcript: Book More Show 056
Stuart: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart here. Today we got a great guest with us, we got Joe Yocavitch, who has just finished a slightly arduous process through compliance, but we've gotten through a book called Getting Down The Mountain. Joe, how's it going?
Joe: Very good, very good. Other than the fourteen inches of snow and the Eagles winning about a month ago, I'm feeling real strong today.
Stuart: We were just saying before we started, my fiancée's in Philadelphia, so while I'm in the U.K. I was guiltily looking at a picture of her shoveling out snow this morning, which made me feel bad. Joe's doing the same.
Today, we're going to run through, as I mentioned, Joe's just recently finished his book, so we're going to take this as a great opportunity to spend half an hour and do some real life brainstorming on some of the beyond the book stuff that we've talked about or will be talking about over the next couple of shows when we go through the book blueprint scorecard.
I guess a good place to start, Joe, is if you give us a bit of, or give the listeners a bit of a background on yourself, your practice, what brought you to writing a book, and then lead it into what the book's about, and then we can bridge that into where we go from there, now that it's written.
Joe: I came into the business different than most people. I was a professional athlete for a football team here in K.C., and then as I progressed knowing that I was not going to do that forever, I got into the financial business. I've been in the financial business arena for 33 years now. I've always collected information, and I go to seminars and workshops and what have you. I've collected so much data and from probably the smartest minds on the planet, and I just collected it and collected it and collected, and I said some day, some day, I'm going to be able to write a book. With the time, we're doing our business, and raising a family et cetera, et cetera, you never get around to spend the time to be able to write a book or thinking about writing.
I keep on collecting these boxes of information, so when it came time when you guys were on the radar screen, I immediately thought, "Well, what a great way to take that information of some 30 years and put it into a book format." You made it very easy for me and such. The only people that didn't make it easy for me was my compliance department, which we worked through, a lot longer than I like to tell you. I was persistent, and I was not going to not let this thing take off and run with it.
I couldn't be happier with your persistency and my persistency of working together and having the writers that helped me put this together. We called Getting Down The Mountain, and basically, it's just a snapshot of everybody focuses on getting up the mountain, or putting money away, but no one in my business have actually had the discussion on how do you get the money out of the things that you're in. To me that was the key element of my conversation for the last some 25, 30 years, and when you put it into a book format it all makes sense.
Stuart: It's definitely one of those things that so much of the marketing and so much of the experience of the public around financial planning is around putting the money in, in the first place. I think it's one of the key things that can make such a difference thinking about how to ... Well, like we say with the books, to a certain degree, start with the end in mind, and then it helps you guide the path to get from the beginning to the end.
The customers that you're talking to, the clients that you have, do they find that this is a new approach? Do they often go into it thinking about just the climbing up and not the getting down?
Joe: Well, my conversation has changed dramatically over the some 25, 30 years in this business. It changed from chasing rates of returns to having people understand that it's not about that. It's more important of where your wealth is located than what it earns.
Our philosophy in the book, and we talk about it, we and everybody has been using that philosophy, it's more about the swing than the club. If you think about the analogy with a golfer, a pro, everybody focuses on golf clubs. In our business, everyone focused on the club, how to sell the club, how to get the club. Our philosophy has always been swing, swing.
We're big believers of that, so when the book came out, I was able to take that information and put it into a book format. Even to the point where if people do not want to read the book, or read the whole hundred and something pages, it started out with 140 and ended up getting weeded out and chopped up by the compliance, it's about 105, 106 pages now I think. Actually, I point out certain pages for the person to look at, so when I give them the book, and then maybe they will or will not read the book, I'll say to them, "Take a look at page 38 and page 52, these are two critical pages or critical sections of the book that really will highlight the conversation of the book, and then you can read the whole book."
We sometimes give them the opportunity to read the whole book, which we want them to. It also gives them an opportunity to say, "If you're not going to read the book just make sure you check out these two or three chapters in the book."
Stuart: Yeah, and that is such great way of thinking about it. We were talking ... I was talking with Betsey on the show last week, as we record this, talking about the constraints, the beneficial constraints to put around creating the book so that you dial in the scope. As part of that, we were talking about the table of contents, and the fact that really the person that receives it, particularly books like this as opposed to a bestseller, narrative book where the job of work is entertainment, here really the job of work is education and motivation.
I think most people receiving the book like this, ideally they just want the knowledge through osmosis. They just want to be able to get all of the benefits just from having it. It's almost giving them an extra job, more effort to make them actually read it.
We were talking in terms of the table of contents make sure that the structure there is such that if they just like the title, think they're getting a benefit from the title, it resonates with them, then flip it open and see the table of contents, and then that resonates further and further reinforces that they're in the right place.
What you're talking about is a further step down that analogy of saying, "Okay, well, you don't need to read all of it. Here are the two or three key sections that even if you've only got five minutes, look at this, and this will help you achieve what you're trying to achieve." The reason that you requested the book in the first place.
Joe: Also, something else, Stuart, that we took, and I know you had this conversation with us before we got online was, I took the book, and I blew up the cover, because we do workshops. Now when you walk into my workshop, you see a big sign of my cover of my book. Now we're in the process of taking the book title and book cover and putting it onto a small brochure.
Instead of handing the book out or give the book out or have it being sold, I'll have a brochure in my workshop to be able to reiterate about the book in itself. That has been a process of going through that which is I think that's much easier than obviously writing the book because of the compliance issue, but it's duplicate of just reiterating what we accomplished.
The other thing that most people in our business, and they're starting to understand this is, it's no longer an art and a science. It's more logic and common sense. I say this in my workshops and with clients. I don't know if you know this or not, Stuart, but I have a PhD in common sense, and people laugh. It's kind of funny, because it's all about common sense, of what we do. We make a very complicated subject, and we do our best to make it as simple as possible.
Most people that are in our space, they want to share with the client how smart they are, or how much of the strategies, or how much of the illustrations are dictating. Basically, it's conceptually first, and this is a perfect way to show a client, because I have a lot of graphs in the book also and backed up with fact of where these graphs came from.
It's quite interesting. I'm looking forward too, because I just received my first 100 books in the mail. I think I was sharing with you, I was on a plane going to L.A. at a convention and purposely for high-end net worth, grabbing the elephant, bagging the elephant.
It was really interesting when I went out there, I was on the plane flying out there, I had another half, three or four books in my bag, and I gave the lady next to me the book and within a half of the book, she said, "This is unbelievable. Can I have your business card?"
When I got to the presentation, I was listening to, it was really interesting, because all the information that was in the book was actually being told to me on the platform that they were doing. Different numbers, they were throwing tens and millions of dollars around like we throw around in this area decently nickels and dimes. Out there they were just talking bigger numbers but the conversation, the core conversation is exactly what's in this book. It was eerie. It was funny when I was talking to the main guy, the main platform guy.
Stuart: It's still exactly as you say, it's the same concepts just the different scale. I really liked the point that you were talking about simplifying it and making it straightforward particularly in the financial services sector.
My background's on the IT side of financial services, so a lot of the terminology that's used within that, and the language used within the organization that makes perfect sense as an insider, but to the outsiders and the customers, it can definitely sound exclusionary.
I think one of the real benefits of having read through yours and looking at the details in there, there's information to help people take their understanding to the next step, but the language is very accessible. It's not trying to be exclusionary. It's not trying to prove how clever someone is. It's about helping someone make it to the next step, and that next step isn't solving all of the problems for themselves. But it's just knowing where to go to get the information, and obviously, working with you guys is a great way of doing it, because you've got all of the experience.
Joe: We came up with that idea about the mountain purely as I was going to these workshops, and I would envision what I'm going to say or the conversation. It became apparent to me, everyone's trying to climb the mountain, climb up to the top to have enough money to take you down the mountain. Then we started to realize that if you climbed Mount Everest, 75% of the people that climb Mount Everest died coming down the mountain. We use that in our book, it's a fact. You look it up. Just find out. We have that in conversation.
It's not just getting up with putting money in at different times of the market, or what you're doing going through life. It's how to get that money out while Uncle Sam and inflation and health care and some of the uncertainties that no one ever talks about unemployment, for instance. When I say unemployment, I'm just talking about your wife dies before you. You lose her social security. That's a conversation that you should have with a client that depends on that.
It's so much stuff, and we try to do it in a book and very quickly with backup material to make a point, like you said when I was talking to your people, it's taking action now. It's sharing that book, and I've been handing it out, I only had 10 of them, and I've handed every one of them out until I got my shipment today for 100. I'm really looking forward to how this is going to be implemented in my practice and also with the workshops that I'm doing.
Stuart: Fantastic. Let's talk of that then and bridge this into what we're doing now that it's created. At the moment, do you have a particular plan in mind for how you might use them, or a particular group of people that you're looking at first targeting with these books?
Joe: No, not specific, but I'm going to try to just, I guess, a shotgun approach, because I have so many people in my practice that I do business with. There's not one ... I don't just do business with doctors or professionals or ... I do business with lunch people, they're making $200,000 and up to a million. I call that lunch bucket people, dual incomes, small family, or older people in their 50s or 60s.
My approach is first to go after, and I have been going after, the professionals and position ourselves with the other CPAs and tax attorneys to work with. How is your plan and asking more and better questions? This book has given me the power to be able to do so. Ask them, "What does your plan look like? How do you do what you're going to try to do in terms of spending the money? And then you're lucky and might make it to 100 years old, now what do you do? Have you put enough away, and how are you going to take it out?"
It becomes a major conversation. Just a conversation, and with the book attached to my conversation, I'm looking forward for seeing how that would work. Right now, I'm still an amateur just handing the book out, and so far, I've gotten pretty good, "You wrote a book? Oh, great, I can't wait to see it! Would you sign it for me?" kind of thing so far. It's like, "Yeah," so I'm like,
Stuart: It's definitely a-
Joe: "Okay-
Stuart: It's a good way of introducing a conversation when you're there in front of people. It's a talking point that-
Joe: Yes, absolutely.
Stuart: ... without it might be more uncomfortable to bridge into it. We've got a couple of ideas that we usually throw out with people when we're talking, just to talk around a couple of different ideas.
Joe: Sure.
Stuart: Let's dive into those, and then some of them will resonate, some of them won't. Some of them might just be a seed that sows now and comes up next year some time. A good place now is probably run through those four, five, and then some of those might really resonate, and then we can dive into them a bit deeper.
Joe: Sure.
Stuart: Some of them might not be quite as relevant today.
You were talking about the workshops that you guys were doing. Let's dive into those a little bit. There's been a couple of the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcasts, I don't know if you've seen that series. It's one that Dean does for the other side of our business.
The last two shows that are published, as we're recording today, were for people who ... One was a financial advisor guy, the other one was a medical practice, and both of them, their cone funnels, were around inviting people to a workshop on a subject, and then from the workshop, they convert people that are in the room.
The workshop that you talked about was that a similar model, or is that for people who are already engaged?
Joe: Well, yeah, I would definitely consider that. I tried that a few times. Like everything else, I tried it. It worked, and I stopped doing it.
Stuart: Take the bucks and move on.
Joe: I made money there, why should I keep doing ... I'm going back to old school a little bit, and I'm doing some workshops at some restaurants, high-end net worth area where I live and a little, within a probably a 30-minute radius of mine.
I have a presentation, we call it SMART, a strategic movement around retirement taxation. I use that workshop, it's an hour long, but it's given me some ideas, because already my room has already been filled up. I have probably both nights, Tuesday and Thursday over 40 units are coming in to see me, to hear what I have to say.
It's just funny you sit here asking that question, because I just was on a phone call yesterday about a doctors' organization, physicians in New Jersey. I got the director on the phone, and I told her about the book, and she asked me, "Yes, would you send it to me?" I said, "Absolutely, I want to be part of your ...”
Because different counties meet every month, and they'll have between 30 and 60 doctors that will meet and talk about whatever. They have a person that will talk for an hour in that conversation. For me, I plan on using that book as my entrée. I'm going to be sending it to this young lady now, and I don't know what's going to happen, but I can't imagine it not being good.
She was very interested, and I said to her after the conversation, Stuart, which is really kind of ironic, she says, "No one ever talks about taxes." I go, "Really? At the end of this conversation with me and you, I'm going to probably make you a client of us. I'm looking forward to it."
She was so easy to speak with. Besides the book in hand, and the conversation I'm having with taxation, it made it much easier for me to have this conversation with that individual.
Stuart: I think because it takes the pressure off the topic. It's almost easier for people to talk about something when they're talking about the book rather than for them to talk about themselves and their personal situation. I think definitely it eases that transition a little bit.
The workshop where we're inviting external people to, let's quickly run through the mindset that was shared in the other podcast. Inviting people to an event where it's tied to a specific time or place, the kind of synchronous requirements of you being free and them being free. To a certain degree means that not everyone, even if they were interested would be able to, just because of the timing doesn't ... Either the timing doesn't match up, because they're not available, or the timing doesn't match up, because they're not in that mindset just yet.
The suggestion that was made to the other people was instead of advertising out to come to the event advertise out the book. That way it's a way of making those people visible from the invisible group in a way that disconnects it from the synchronous requirements of them being in the right mindset that day and being in the right place on that day.
If you are advertising down that route, if you are spending money to collect those leads in the first place, it might be a more efficient way of doing of offering the book first, and then the follow up sequence after they've request it, is to invite them to the event. All things being equal, the same people who were going to be going to the event would come anyway, because they're in that same short funnel. But the ones who weren't ready yet or weren't available yet, you've still got the opportunity to capture those details, and then have a conversation with them over a longer period and invite them to a later event, rather than having to find them again and invite them again at that later date. That was one way that the book could be used to begin the workshop funnel.
The other way of using it in that context, and this bridges slightly into the conversation you were having with the lady that you talked about in the organization. Is using the books when you've got a physical presence, but you don't necessarily know who those people are. That might be an event that you go to that isn't yours, or if you're speaking at an event or you have an opportunity to speak at an event, but you don't have the opportunity to capture the leads of those people and know who they are. Just sharing the physical copy, or if it makes sense, give people the opportunity to opt in to get a copy of it, but in that presence where you're in front of them.
Joe: It was really interesting Stuart, but since I had the book in hand, and it's just a few I've handed out in my area, because the shipment has not arrived yet until today, it was interesting even the books I've handed out ... The people that I've handed it out to, I haven't done business with them yet, some are clients of mine so that's easy. They're going to look at them. They're going to look at the book, and they're going to read it ... And I asked them to critique me on the book. One already said, "That's unbelievable. It's exactly what you have pretty much said to us when we started to work with you." I took the book, and I pretty much made it a first or second appointment in a conversation with a client. It was very conversational with my book.
The people I've handed it to not just yet are doing business with me yet, it's surprising the feedback, and you can see the body language, "You wrote a book?" You almost immediate ... A credibility factor, you can see it from just their physical ... When they're talking to you, it's funny. I go, "No, yeah." "Would you sign it?" Like, "Okay, sure." I'm signing books. Like I'm signing my autograph back in the day, and it's kind of funny.
It's almost like you're doing an out-of-body experience as you're speaking with these folks. You're signing the book, and I just say the same thing like, "Keep chasing your dreams, regards Joe Yacovitch," and I put the date. I have something I say, most of the time I use that just make it simple and clear.
It's really funny, the ones I've given out the book to that the reactions, and they're like, "You wrote a book?" Meaning like I became this star-
Stuart: Yeah.
Joe: ... overnight, because I've given you 30 years of information, I actually wrote it down. Which is that in it itself was ... I've just experienced it, so I'm very ... I'm in the rookie year of that or rookie time of that of being able to do this.
Stuart: That's what ... That kind of authority or presence that a physical book has, we talk about this quite a lot, because it's both beneficial, and it can catch you out a little bit as you're writing. Because whenever someone not knowing the process that we've been through, the outsider sees it ... There's a credibility and authority around just the fact that it's printed.
Joe Public thinks that there are a lot of hoops to jump through, and it's an exclusive club. Where the reality is, it is to a certain degree, because as we've experienced, there's a lot of steps to get through, particularly when compliance are involved. But realistically speaking, it's not like you've got to ... You don't need it to be signed off by a particular deity or authority to say that you can produce this. It's something that you can do by yourself.
The trick is to get out there and get on with it and do it and not let looking at the process at the beginning, not let it become overwhelming, just do something and get it out there. Because to the public, there's still the same authority whether it's created and printed by yourself, or whether it's created and printed by Random House or another more traditional publishing organization.
Joe: Well, I'm looking forward to do another book too, Stuart. It just seems to me this is a perpetual momentum of now I got it, and I understood it. It took a little longer, because we talked about the compliance issue. I'm ready for the next book on something similar but not the same. You could use it ... You could say Getting Down The Mountain for Physicians or Getting Down The Mountain for Veterinarians, or you could say ... Anything you could spin off of that, but it's just amazing that the way that it has opened up another door of how I look at marketing.
You're mentioning the WebExes, and what have you. I would definitely think that would be my next entrée into the marketplace, because let's face it, that's what's happening now. When I started out that was not the case, evolution has ... I'm always progressing to get better at what we do, for better language, better narratives, and what have you, so I'm looking forward to it.
Stuart: Looking back to the conversation you were having with the lady from the doctors' organization. Using it as entry point, as a speaking point to other organizations is another great opportunity that I think you have as well. Particularly within the local area, and that local area depending on how densely populated it is, but there's probably a couple of larger cities not too far away. Having access to either professional groups like the doctors or business groups or Chamber of Commerce or Federation of Small Business or local Rotary clubs, all of those things where there's a concentration of people, who are likely to be both your best clients, and people who you can help best.
Using the book as an opportunity to start that conversation with the people who are organizing it. Because really from their point of view, they've got their members to satisfy. They know that they've got a schedule of events that they want to put on through the year. It's a headache and a pain for them to find people, reliable people, interesting people to come and speak at those events.
If you can step up and take some of that pain away from them and say, "I'd love to be able to deliver this presentation to your guys. We've had some great feedback from it in the past. We've got a whole book. I can bring some copies to give to the guys and give them really a step-by-step approach to assess their current position, and that I think would be a great opportunity for your members."
Joe: I actually, and as you're speaking that way, and I started to use it this way also not even realizing what I was doing. I was handing books out also in the earlier stages before I had to go to compliance again, this is the second time, because you sent me a bunch of them. I handed them out to my own peer group. Guys in my own business. I said you can do joint work with me, and you can use the book as your partner that wrote this book.
I'm actually inside my own operation, in my space, I've spoken to other advisors, planners, whatever so they can promote me, so we can do joint work. CPAs are a perfect example. I have two CPAs that are very proactive. When I handed them book, "That's perfect. I'm going to hand it to this guy." "How many ..." "Can you get me 10 copies?" They were asking me.
It's starting to spin out in a way that I don't know where I'm going to be, or how it's going to end up. I really don't. It's fun, because of my background, being a sports person, I'm never satisfied from my last game I played. So therefore, I'm always looking to get better, stronger, faster in the world that I live in. I'm like, "This is fun." You can really see when another professional takes your book and says, "That's exactly what I ... I'm going to share that with my clientele." I went, "Okay." That's exactly where I'm at right now.
Stuart: Well, that opportunity comes under something that we talked about in terms of complementary, non-competing businesses. Depending on the ... As the circle of influences goes further and further out from you so that first level is the close people that you're currently working with in some way, and then it goes out to those people that you've got a relationship with but not necessarily working, and then wider and wider from there.
An opportunity is to look for other complementary, non-competing businesses where you providing that book to them to add value to their customers, who might well turn out to be your customers as well, is one opportunity.
The other opportunity, the people, who you were just talking about, those guys in that first circle out. The ones that you've got A, a working relationship with already. There might be an opportunity to prime the pump a little bit more and give them a little bit more of a funnel to help convert clients. Whereas at the moment, without the books, they're just out there doing their own thing. With the book, it gives them another asset, something to start a conversation.
If you get to the stage where you can follow up with that conversation in a way that adds even more value, so for example, there might be something like the part of the onboarding questionnaire or part of the due diligence that you do. There might be some standard tools that you've got access to that just give a very finger in the air type of assessment of where someone is. Or you might have something like an infographic or a chart or a spreadsheet, something that potential customers can add a little bit of their own information and get something out of it that furthers that thought.
If there are things like that, that you can create both for your own funnel, but also give it to the other guys for their funnel as well, as long as you know that, that's eventually working its way back to you. Their funnel might be a way of juicing it up a little bit.
Joe: I was shocked Stuart when I got back from L.A., and I didn't give the whole detail to you. The main presenter, and this guy is a genius, he was saying things to me that obviously, well, not obviously, but that my book almost resonates with. He says positioning is so important. Meaning that our profession, unfortunately, sometimes is looked at down. We're like some kind of used car salesmen. We're more professional ... It's sad, but it's true. It's because you have so many different type of people doing what ... Some of them just strictly are selling clubs. Nobody really takes a vested interest.
Therefore, to me, when he said that on stage, it's positioning and being able to teach that person that you're going refer to or he's going to refer to your or his client, you need to have that person be taught on how to make that introduction. We need to be the ones to be able to do that, not the accountant, not the tax attorney. Remember in my world, they need us more than we need them, bar none of what we do. We're the interpreters, so to speak, to the client.
Now if you can position yourself with the book to that other professional and have that professional in the room when you're talking to the client, it makes everything easier. That was where I was at in L.A. for a week. It was amazing from my book with the information that was in it from what they were saying was very much duplicate, other than the numbers being with ... They were throwing numbers around like it was nothing. It was interesting that the book that was in my hand thinking, I'm looking around the room...
I'll give you an example, I'm looking around the room, and this gentleman was talking for probably 45 minutes non-stop. Didn't take any breath, he was like, "Phwoof," and I was copying like an animal. I'm like ... I'm this ... No, kid ... I'd probably say, I probably wrote down 12 or 14 pages of notes. I walked up to him, and I said ... I introduced myself. He kind of knew who I was, and I kind of knew what he did in terms of athletically. He was a good handball player back in the day, and he knew I was a ball player, and we yucked up a little bit.
I said, "I got a question for you, Simon. Why isn't it ... I looked around your room ... " And there were like 50 guys, the top guys in the world were at this convention. I said, "I'm the only guy that's taking notes, and nobody else was taking notes, and I'm just taking more notes, because I can't hear enough." You know?
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. It's surprising, isn't it? People in that environment not sucking in as much as they possibly could.
Joe: Yeah, I'm a Sponge Bob. I want to be able to take the book, share it with people, and see how they react to it. Lucky for me, I wrote the book in a way that it's common "sens-ish". It wasn't real techy. It was more a little bit of a story telling. I got help from your people, and they come back and forth with me, "What do you like? What do you don't like? What do you think? What do you don't think?" They were very easy to work with.
Like I said, the compliance department got me a little bit and just changing some simple words from most to some, which I did through the book. At the end of the day, I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking forward to what you mentioned about the WebExing. I think that would be perfect for my practice, because we're somewhat ... I'm not going to say I'm a super IT guy, but I know enough about how some of this stuff works, and how social media has been taking off, and now I can use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and everything that goes along with that with my website, because I do have a nice...
The website, believe it or not, because of you and because of the website at the same time, I changed the whole ... The front cover of my website, it now has a mountain on it.
Stuart: Fantastic.
Joe: ... and it's duplicated in my book so-
Stuart: That consistency will provide the positioning. You talk about the positioning and differentiating, I think that-
Joe: Correct.
Stuart: ... consistency all the way through.
One opportunity might be the SMART framework that you talked about as your prime delivery methodology. Taking ownership of that even to the next level and branding that a little bit more, and on the back of the book, not physically on the back of the book although technically you could do, but on the follow-up sequence after the book. Introducing people to that SMART methodology, and if there was an easy way for them to get started like the 101-level SMART assessment that you make available to people. They can do by themselves to start that process, but then obviously, the real steps is when you take it to the next level.
There might be an introductory-level SMART assessment that without falling foul of compliance or without giving too much away or without making it too complicated that might be that transitional piece. Allowing the guys that you're working with to suggest that people go down the SMART approach, so they've come from the other person to the 101-level SMART assessment that introductory piece, and then the next level obviously is to get with you guys and dig into it a little bit more. That might be-
Joe: I don't know about the U.K. Stuart, but the people in U.S., they have a tendency to be very close to the vest on information in terms of what they know in the financial world.
Stuart: Yeah, it's the same here.
Joe: Unfortunately, they don't. They really as much as we believe as advisors, as planners. Even though they look at you, and they nod their head, they still don't know what's going on, because there are too many things going on. Let's face it, in our country, it's amazing. I don't have to tell you. You know. Our president himself is ... Every day it's something different than what we should be talking about. Creating new jobs and what have you.
Stuart: There's a lot ... Yeah. There's a lot going on. It's complicated. It's something that people are pushed away from ... The finances, now, I'm talking about. People are pushed away from, because they're scared of making the wrong choice.
Joe: Correct.
Stuart: Think that they don't have enough knowledge. I think anything to ease that process just one step at a time-
Joe: Correct.
Stuart: ... really moves that conversation forward.
Joe: They're embarrassed. They're really embarrassed to share with you sometimes. The book gives me a really interesting track to share with them, and say, "This is what we do. This is how and why we do it. Read the book before you meet me or look at the book before we have our meeting, whatever."
It's really interesting how I position the book, and believe when I say this to you, I'm still going up alleys that I don't know if it's the right alley or not, but I know it's only positive stuff when I do this and say this to folks that I get a great feedback. For me, it's just okay so what you're telling me, what you're telling me today, I'm definitely going let the old, let Mikey try it first. I'm going to definitely give an attempt, because it's easy, and it's clean, and it makes sense.
It's almost unfailable. It's something that ... What the pricing of it is almost ... I went outside and got more information to be able to give you more content on what we were doing. It's really interesting. I'm liking this ride right here so far, and I haven't even made a lot of money doing it. I just know it's been a credibility factor, and it's just a matter of time before it starts to turn big time because of what I'm doing.
Stuart: Like you said, in the first few days, there's been positive results, and you can see that continuing over-
Joe: Oh, yeah.
Stuart: ... time. Of all of the times you take the swing not all of them are going to be a home run or a touchdown. The ones that are, it's now easy to do, because you've got a tool that helps that.
Joe: Agreed.
Stuart: Another thing, I'm conscious of the time slightly, I don't want to keep you too long.
Joe: No.
Stuart: But a couple of other things that are worth mentioning I think, just continuing this thought of taking people to the next step. Having something in between them requesting a copy of the book in the first place, and actually walking through the door as a client, to try and grease that path a little bit, make it easier for them to evidence to themselves that they should take the next step.
One of the things I'd suggest looking at is either the Book Blueprint Score or the Profit Activator Score, those two websites, which are the scorecards that we have for both the book process and the breakthrough DNA process, the broader coaching program on the other side. That's bookblueprint dot ... Sorry, bookblueprintscore.com and profitactivatorscore.com.
The scorecard idea is a strategic coach idea of creating a scorecard that allows people to assess and measure themselves across eight mindsets in theory. Then once they've scored themselves on the scorecards, they can see where the gaps are, and then as part of the broader conversation you can fill those gaps.
It may well be something that you could create the SMART scorecards, again around that framework, five of the eight mindsets will be covered just by the SMART framework itself. When we talk about things like how the family assessment, have they had a conversation with their family recently? The diagnostic review, do they understand ... Are they comfortable with the current market trends or economic things? Offensive versus defensive that might be two mindsets where they can score themselves on how comfortable they are against that.
Take a look at those two websites, because creating a scorecard that supports the SMART methodology might be a great way of introducing them in the first place, identifying them as an invisible prospect through the book. They've read the book, and things start resonating with them. You then give them the offer to complete their own scorecard. It's not like they have to be embarrassed about answering the questions, because they're doing this themselves. It's not that they have to be nervous about knowing all of their financial answers, because it's straightforward.
But then at the end of the scorecard, follow-up with them again to say, "Okay, typically, we see these three things." Either someone caught scores low across the boards, in which case it might not be something that you thought about at all. Now having done the scorecard, there's a couple of pointers here for how to take the first steps.
Most people score somewhere in the middle high in some areas and low in others, because they've got, previously had an interest in those areas. Now's an opportunity to assess those low areas, and see if you can really improve your position by doing this, this, and this. Obviously, some of those answers are working with you.
On the third level, people score themselves highly across the board. In which case, you just want to assess that you're not being overly confident or make sure that the information that you're scoring yourself highly against is still current. Again, the best next step might be to come into the office, and we can do a full review.
Joe: Yes, absolutely. Well, you sound like you've read my book already, because you used words like diagnostic, which we use in our brochure. Believe it or not, I was a big advocate of a guy named, Dan Sullivan, if you know who Dan is I'm sure you do. He was my mentor for about 10 years. He must have said to me, I can't even tell you how many times, "You got to write a book. You got to write a book. Write a book."
Just to get a brochure out, because most of us, and I won't say myself, I'm a little ADD and Type A, so I'm a fast start, so to be able to actually sit down and do this with, forget it. When I finally did the book, I took a lot of the brochure that he kind of held a gun to my head, "You've got to do this, and this is what ...”
I got it off the table, took me a long time to do that, but then I took that, and I put that in the back of my book, and I used the last pieces, the financial playbook to help you implement the plan. What you're saying is right on line in that corridor of all the opportunities that are endless. It's just I'm like a little kid in a candy store. I don't know where to start first.
Stuart: That's the ... Yeah, yeah. That's always the risk, isn't it? Well, I think as we're coming towards the end of the time then and to wrap it up into some action, some of those things, and obviously, the podcast will be live, but I'll send you the recording of this afterwards anyway, and then this can be something to jump back to in the future.
I think maybe the initial steps, doing exactly what you're doing at the moment and using it in the opportunities as they present themselves is perfect. The other things that might be a good opportunity now, because the point in time now is it's just launching, is to send that email to all of the existing clients that you've got and maybe segment them in slightly different ways if you want to tweak the language a little bit.
Joe: Okay.
Stuart: Broadly, it would be to send an email out to everyone just mentioning that you've launched the book, and you would love to send them over a physical or digital copy of it depending on what makes financial sense. More importantly, use it as a referral opportunity, so saying that the reason that you're getting this email is because we've had a conversation in the past. I know that this is something that is important to you, and you're interested in. Hopefully, the book provides some more value to you, but what it can really do is introduce some of these subjects and conversations to friends and family. I'm definitely not suggesting that you give me their names and email address and that type of thing, but if you've got a family member who this would be beneficial to, feel free to either share it with them or let us know, and we can send you a copy of the book to give to them. And then if you go down that route include it with a letter on where they can find out more, and that might be pointing them to the SMART video that you've got on the website, because that's a good introduction to the subject as well so-
Joe: Stuart, this is beautiful, but you know why? Because you said something earlier, but I don't think you realize it. This is so to me, this is the most inexpensive way to get recognized that I can, it's almost embarrassing for me, because it's I would have rather ... I don't know what I would have done differently other than ... I know I talked to your people there. I said, "Should I put a hard copy on a book, hard copy?" I was like, "No, Joe, you don't need to do that." I wanted to spend more money to achieve it. It is a great, great leveraging tool. I just ... I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you in a year from now and sharing with you that I have another book, or what it has done for us in our firm.
Stuart: Yeah, that's going to be fantastic. And exactly as you say, I think when you think about what this compares to, so the cost of even printing and shipping a book to someone is substantially less than $10.
Joe: I know.
Stuart: I would willingly pay for a lead.
Joe: Oh, forget it.
Stuart: As long as the math works out, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's such a great and different opportunity.
Joe: Absolutely.
Stuart: Okay. I'm conscious of your time, and I just looked at my calendar, and I've got a something I have to do as well.
Joe: That would make it easy for me. I made it easy for you today. You made it easy for me.
Stuart: Fantastic. Is there anything that you particularly wanted to talk about that we haven't had the chance to cover? I'm more conscious of talking too much and missing things.
Joe: No. I'm just happy that I found you guys, and I'm really looking forward to it, to a future book. Right now, I'm going to play this out as fast, as hard as I can. I think it's an opportunity that we haven't had in the past. I have one of my, actually my son is getting in the business, so it's a great tool for him.
Stuart: Oh, fantastic.
Joe: He's a 24-year-old, and he has no baggage, and I don't have to unteach him or unlearn him what he knew from the traditional way, so it's easy. He's also a sponge, and he can use this book to help his career and launch his career. It really is an opportunity, and I'm very excited about it, and being dealt with your folks there are very professional. I can't tell you enough, because-
Stuart: Nice to hear.
Joe: I'm meticulous about that. I have to applaud you for that, and you make it very simple. The hardest part, like you said, starting it, getting it started is the toughest thing, and we're looking forward to it.
Stuart: Ground Hog Day movie. It's the first step that's a doozy.
Joe: Right, right.
Stuart: Well, thanks for those kind words. I'll make sure that the team hear that, because it's always nice to be able to pass that through and-
Joe: Absolutely.
Stuart: ... I think really being able to talk to people like we've had this conversation about really what makes the difference, because it's hearing how people are using it, and I'm super-excited to catch up a little bit down the track and see how it's going and strategize on the next call.
Joe: Me too.
Stuart: Perfect. Okay, guys, well, as your listening to this, we've obviously talked around lots of ideas here, so the transcript as always will be on the show notes, and the show notes are, of course, at 90minutebooks dot com forward slash podcast, and this will be, actually, I'm not sure, which episode this will be, because we've got another one in to slip in before it, so this is either going to be Episode, I think, 56 or 57, so have a look around there for Joe's name and take a look at the show notes.
Joe: Okay.
Stuart: Thanks again for your time, Joe. It's been a pleasure, and we'll speak in the future.
Joe: Thank you very much.