Today on the Book More Show we've got a great interview with Regan Archibald, a healthcare professional from Utah.
Regan has a great story. Having developed a number of clinics in Utah, he went on to found Go Wellness, a training and mentorship program for Acupuncturists, Chiropractors and Doctors in the healthcare field, and you'll hear us talk about the progression in how he uses his books (he's now on his 4th), to identify and engage both patients and clients.
I love talking to the people we work with, to hear about the real life examples of how they are using books to attract more customers and grow their businesses.
If you haven't yet started your book yet, the information Regan shares will be a great reminder to get started because there are so many opportunities out there, and you can never tell where it will lead.
Learn more about Regan: GoWellness.com
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Transcript: Book More Show 069
Stuart: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Book More show, it's Stuart here and today instead of Betsy, we have with us one of our authors, Regan Archibald. Regan, how are you doing?
Regan: Really good. Thanks for having me on, Stuart.
Stuart: It's a pleasure. I was just saying before we started recording that I don't always get to speak to people as they're coming through the system on a day to day point of view, but kind of see everyone's names, so it's always great to put a voice to a name and the opportunity to catch up.
Regan is on his fourth book with us now, so pretty prolific in the system. We've got a couple of people who have really jumped on board with the first one, but then seen the benefits and the ideas have exploded from there. They've really taken the system and run with it. Regan definitely falls into that category.
I guess the best place to start, can you give the guys a background on who you are and what you guys did and then we can move into what brought you to writing a book?
Regan: Yeah, of course. My background is I've got four health clinics in Utah called East West Health. I'm the founder of those, I've got training in Chinese medicine, acupuncture, functional medicine and stem cell therapy. What I've done is also created a group called Go Wellness where I consult and train and coach other practitioners and their teams in growing larger practices where they can help more people and make a bigger difference in health care.
I've used the books primarily just as a communication tool and to get the word out, you know, reading something, it's that one avenue where you've got someone's attention.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: If you can keep their attention for about five minutes, then it's amazing.
Stuart: Right. In a world where there's lots of other demands on attention, it's actually surprisingly difficult to get even that amount of focused attention. I think the opportunity that you've identified and really run with is finding that thing that triggers someone's interest. It's engaging enough and kind of on message enough to keep their attention for the duration, and then of course the stone cold action towards the end for them to take that next step.
Regan: Right.
Stuart: Two sides of the practices, the clinic and the coaching side of the business, was there much a time difference between those? How soon after they clinic business did the coaching business come up?
Regan: You know, I actually was just talking about this with one of my friends last night at dinner. My Go Wellness practice, that's my coaching side of things, I came up about 12 years after this and so, I started Go Wellness three years ago because of the need for something more innovative in the health care space. I decided well, I'm going to start doing what I'm doing, I'm going to start training other practitioners on how to build better teams, how to collaborate more, how to look at their community and provide better value, better service and that just happened three years ago.
My clinic, East West Health, I founded that four years ago, always with the vision that eastern and western medicine could work side by side.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: I grew up on a farm in Idaho, and so I ended up having multiple autoimmune disease and exposed to a lot of chemicals. I was almost forced to find a new method of healing and health care. Instead of going into western medicine, because of my own experience with it, with antibiotics and steroids, I decided man, I've got to find another path. I ended up going to school in Hawaii, where Erb Bachen was the founder of my school. He invented the pace maker and lived in Hawaii for four years and then came back to Utah and set up East West Health and we've grown very well over the last 15 years.
Stuart: Wow. That's quite an interesting story. People often took business being a passion project, but to have such a kind of strong personal connection to it before getting into the business, it's quite a different story from someone who just goes to school and falls into a job and then turns into a career. There's a strong personal connection there.
Regan: Yeah, definitely.
Stuart: I mentioned this as we started, we're on the fourth book now as we're recording this. The first one a couple of years ago. That conversation that brought you to writing a book in the first place, was it something that you'd been thinking about for a while and we just happened to cross the radar at the right time? Or was it not an idea before you saw the 90 minute book process, but you thought that that was something that was straight forward and easy to do with your experience?
Regan: Two things is one is I've got another book called, Your Health Transformation and I worked with a great publisher on it, but it literally took my probably 300 hours to write the book and to go back and forth. It just sat there. I published that book and then I started my second book and then, as I'm still working on that second book by the way, and I've been working on it for two years, but in the meantime, I saw 90 minute books. I've got a contract with them so I've got to fulfill it, but I saw 90 minute books and I said, holy cow. Can you really do it in 90 minutes?
When Susan and I got on the phone, I was like this is so easy. All I have to do is talk about the things that I talk about all day long, every day, the things that I love, I can reference my research in these books and they literally are done. My next book on brain health, you know, that's going to be published in about two months, versus a two year process. I had to move, I took my family, I did a little sabbatical in Hawaii for a month just to finish that first book because I couldn't get enough focused attention on it.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: The 90 minute book process is just ... It's made my like 10 times easier.
Stuart: I'm happy for you and sad for the family. Happy for you that you got them done so quick, now sad that the family will now miss out on Hawaiian vacations while you try and get the first stuff.
Regan: Well, now I can go vacation and I just don't have to work on my book, you know? I don't have to wake up at four in the morning.
Stuart: And try to get it finished off.
Do you know that we hear that story so often of people who potentially come with something started at very different, that whole drag and the challenge of, again, some of the long slog of getting through it. It really is one of the things that resonates with anyone that started trying to go through this process already. I think as people are listening to this, the thing that really stands out to me is not only the process, which we've now got pretty refined and it's pretty smooth the way that we can extract the kind of outline in the first place and that turns in to the words.
Particularly for people who are in your situation where you've got great knowledge, you talk about this subject all day, every day anyway, so just to be able to extract that from you. I think in addition to the actual process side of things, there's almost the freedom of the books being typically smaller and targeting that single target market that we talk about, having a very clear purpose and function so that you don't get this kind of scope problem.
I was listening to someone on a podcast, it was probably six months ago now, and they were talking about the book writing process and they had written something like 120,000 words and they were having to cut it down to about 80,000. All of that wasted effort, all of that stuff that ended up coming to air off of them because it was important at the time but it didn't quite fit the parameter, all of the culling in order to make it into this contractual, edited, more traditional book version that they were having to write.
I think that element is not just the process, but that element of the focus being a lot more specific. I think it gives that mental freedom so that it doesn't become such a baggage, so that it's not such a problem even before you kind of started. It just makes it seem more achievable.
Regan: Right. Stuart, do you know the statistics? I've heard that the percentage of people who actually finish a book, cover to cover, if the book is longer than 60 pages, it's like maybe eight percent of people. Do you remember that statistic? I can't remember if I heard it from Dan Sullivan, Dee Jackson, I can't remember which person was talking about that. Do you know that?
Stuart: I think it's about eight. I can't remember off the top of my head. I'd referenced it a little while ago. There was article written, it was coached in terms of the move to Kindle and digital publishing, so there were some statistics that were in there. But you're right, that number was super low, sub 10%. The interesting thing there is that's even on fiction books. Books where people are buying them for the sole purpose of being entertained by the thing that they've bought, not necessarily being educated or given additional information or answering your question, but things where there entirely 100% motivation for completing it. It's still that low.
The whole premise of what we try and get to in the 90 minute book set up is this concept of kind of like a coast to coast flight. By the time you've kind of bought it and sat down and been offered a drink and the turbulence has settled down a bit, you've maybe got kind of two to three hours of reading time in between where you can go through and digest some information and eat some pretzels and drink some bad coffee. By the time you're coming in to land, you've consumed all of this thing.
That size book that you just mentioned, the kind of 50 to 80 pages, on the single subject where it's all dialed in, you're answering a question and providing value. The read rate of those, obviously we don't have- This is mainly offline stuff so we don't have statistics to back it up, but anecdotally at least, the read rate is far, far higher. Even if it's not cover to cover, word by word by word, at least to the point of getting the concept and someone being motivated to take that next step, which is really the thing that we're interested in, kind of guiding people towards improving their knowledge and understanding and having a further conversation.
Yeah, it's an embarrassing truth. I was listening to another podcast, when I'm working I tend to listen to podcasts a lot so I get through quite a few, but there is a ... I can't remember whether it was the cross fit one or the technology one, but the guy was talking about having written the book, and the fact that it's now sat on the shelf because in the time it took to write, some things had moved on so it was slightly out of date. Their own business had pivoted slightly so it wasn't necessarily the book that they would choose to write today if they were starting again just because this process took so long from start to finish that the relevancy or the specificity of it kind of had died off. They'd spent all of this time and money creating something and it was an asset that was then just sat there really not being used, which is the biggest disappointment.
Regan: Right.
Stuart: Yeah.
Regan: Yeah. I love it and I think people look at books as the end result is I want to write a book so I can get an idea out. My books are meant to get a person to take action and do something to get healthier and to get their life back, or as a practitioner how to cultivate a more sustainable practice, where we can actually transform health care. The last thing I'd want is for them just to read the book and say, that was amazing. I loved it and then it sits on a shelf and they do nothing.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: I'd rather 60 or 80 page conversation with somebody and if they like the conversation that I'm having, because your books are conversation because I just have a conversation with Susan or one of the coaches there, and if they like the conversation, then it's so easy for them to look on the back cover and there I am. It's so easy to find me and we have people who call from all of the ... You know, international calls. It's been amazing. Really love the process.
Stuart: It's interesting you talk about that scope and that reach. A good friend I work with back in the UK is an osteopath and they do shock wave treatment as part of the practice, and that, he's already had a good reputation established in the business because he was one of the early movers and worked with all the big money factories as one of their ambassadors, but they see exactly the same. They see quite a wide scope worldwide from people researching the subject, coming across it in the same way that people do for your books because it's available as a digital download on the site.
Starting that conversation, but they're out of area. We've had this conversation a couple of times with people because they talk about there's almost a fear sometimes of people not wanting to put something out there and coming across an audience which is geographically irrelevant because they're in a certain place. It's always interesting conversation because what I saw with Paul, there's two things happen.
One is if people out of area do come across it, then that's just an inevitable part of being out there as a thought leader. Just because some wider people, some, I'm going to use the word irrelevant, but irrelevant in the sense of they're not going to walk into the clinic and get treatment because they're overseas. But, the people who are going to walk into the clinic, still fall into the same funnel. It's part of the same campaign.
We talk quite a lot about this two stage approach of step one is identifying the people who are possibly interesting and that's the job of working the books. The books does a great job of all of the population of addressing those ones who are interested. But then, there's a second stage of sifting and sorting. That sifting and sorting stage can be through follow up emails or even if people are calling into the office, having some kind of sifting and sorting check and balance that separates out the five star prospects from the non-five star prospects, but trying to make the point to people that it is two separate stages.
The collecting of names on stage one and the sifting and sorting at stage two. If you try and combine those and sift and sort at the first stage, the risk is that you've kind of thrown away five star prospects because they get caught up in the sifting and sorting. Rather than collecting them all in the first place and then moving on.
The second thing that we saw as a kind of side effect of that or by product is that Paul's credibility and his kind of global presence, increased even further because of this kind of non-restricted view of getting the information out there to as many people as possible. Not just trying to restrict to the people he would be more likely to ultimately turn into clients.
I do with your footprint, the kind of breadth that you've now got across the three and soon four books, I don't know if you'd seen anything similar in terms of kind of the reach?
Regan: Yeah. Oh, definitely. We actually have patients that fly in from all over. You know, I just had a patient who received ... I'm in Utah and I had a patient who called from Calgary and said, hey I read your book. It was her sister who gave her the book and she said, I loved it. When can I come out and get treatments? That happens at least once a week.
Stuart: Wow.
Regan: We have patients here in Utah and then we'll see patients all over the country, they'll give the book away or people will hear me on my podcast or in a blog that I've written or, you know, places that I've been interviewed and they will go to my website, they'll download the book, they'll read it and they'll enjoy the book and give me a call. It's been great and then, we can create videos around it. We've created You Tube videos around the content in the book that we can send as an educational tool before a patient ever comes in. The get the book physically if I'm doing a presentation to a group of people, then I have something physically to hand it out. Because it's a smaller book, you know, it's basically a two dollar business card that someone is not going to throw away.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: They're not going to like walk out and see a garbage and just toss it in there like they would your business card, but they're actually going to say well, let me read this book. It was a gift and so, I want to take some time to dive in. I enjoyed what the presenter said but now let me get kind of my own head wrapped around these concepts and then I'll decide for myself, but if they've got that book there then they can really make an educated guess or an educated decision on if they want to work with you or not.
Stuart: I think that point you made about the book, just the physical, the actual thing itself, the fact that a book has in society at the moment or really ever since the printing press was invented and it is probably going to continue for some time, there's an authority and a kudos and a presence that a physical book has that very other few things, if anything, actually carries the same weight. We often talk about the whole concept of the 90 minute book, this is a marketing strategy to start a conversation with people who are likely to benefit from the service and become a customer.
The fact that it happens to be a book is irrelevant isn't the right term but it's kind of the quirk of fate, it's the easing ... The fact that we've got a process now that makes it easy to create, the production costs are lower because of technology, but all of the benefits of the old world of printing still stand, it's completely agree that if you go to a ... What's the word I'm looking for? Like a workshop, an expo type place and I come home with a bag full of business cards and brochures, and a book. The book is going to be the last thing that ends up in the trash, as you're kind of filtering and sifting things out of the bag to pick up on some more interest once you get home and the moments died down.
The medium itself I think has some extra-
Regan: Yeah.
Stuart: Although it's not the most important thing, it definitely has a lot of extra ... It juices the system a little bit more because of what it is. The point that you touched on there about referrals and people passing the books on to other people. Do you find that happens either physically with the books or people will contact the office because they're trying to get ahold of one because someone else had mentioned it?
Regan: Yeah, we find that all the time. We have new patients who come. They sign up for a plan of care and we ask them if they have anyone in their life that they think could use some help with the types of services we provide. They say absolutely and we say how many people? What are their names? We write down the names and the people, and so in the book, we have a nice little gift for the person they're giving the book to, a free consultation and then we just follow up with that individual so when they come back for their next visit, we just hey, were you able to get this book to your dad? How did he like it? Would you like us to reach out to him?
It's just a nice way of giving some value to somebody and then when that person, what I find is when the person reads the book, then they're already created a relationship with me. That's the difference between a business card and a book is, as a book if it's not an intimidating, big old 500 to 1000 page book, someone can pick up a 60 page book and your brain is already thinking, I can read this. I can really dig in.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: It's a way you can start, like you said, the conversation and then when that person actually comes in, it's as if they know me already.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: There's no breaking the ice, they understand where I come from on health and it's just really been a great entry way for getting people to make a better decision when it comes to chronic disease and getting rid of pain.
Stuart: That element that you talk about in just the referrals, the psychology of being given a book by a person that you know, like and trust already and they kind of pass through credibility or pass through edification of you because you've been introduced, even if not personally, but you've been introduced by a friend, someone that they know, like and trust already. I think that has quite a ... It's a much stronger position, rather than a book turning up in the post from you that maybe appears to be unsolicited.
Also, I think for the person making the referral, it's much easier for you to give the book to your patients and say, here's the package to pass to the friend, rather than asking the patient to kind of give up their address book and the name and address details of someone else because there's a reluctance there in the kind of world at the moment where there's a lot of the marketing activity that's done out there and they kind of darker side of the web and tracking. There's a very much ... It used to be a low barrier of entry of getting someone's email address because everyone was perfectly willing and happy to do so, but increasingly these days getting someone else's contact details are more and more challenging.
The way that you do it in passing the book to the patient to pass to the third party and then following up with them to see is far more effective I think than trying to do it the other way around or just saying, can you give us the details of someone you know, we'll get this out to them.
Regan: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It makes it an easier conversation starter for that person too instead of kind of the awkward like, hey you've got this knee issue that you probably ought to get addressed, here's a place to do it. They can start the conversation with why don't you read this book and see if maybe they've got some answers for you.
Stuart: Does the whole psychology around that gift giving and being the kind of leader in the pack that makes the great referral say if you're the person in the group that always refers a good movie or talks about a good restaurant, then that ... It almost builds your standing within the audience so there's kind of little endorphin hits all the way down of the most effective way to do it. When we finish up today, I'll shoot you a copy of the Broker Breakthrough Report that we've got that is specifically targeted to the realtor customers that we work with. Don't kind of sell out the contacts, but it talks about this psychology and I think 99% of it you're doing already, but I'll shoot the report across because it might be interesting.
Regan: I would love it.
Stuart: So, people who are listening to this, should grab a copy of it. It's at a website called gettingreferrals.com. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. As I said, it's written specifically for our real estate community but just sub out your own industry because the psychology around it and the psychology of those referrals is really quite a different way of thinking than most people are truly interesting to hear you talk that you're already thinking down that alley, but I'll get a copy of that across to you.
Regan: Okay, great.
Stuart: The other thing you mentioned in that conversation, which I think is a little thought of element but it's super important is it almost pre-conditions the people who are reading to understand the elements that you guys believe are important and use the language and kind of the premise and the set up, and it almost predisposes them to be dialed in to the way that you're ultimately going to be talking to them when they do walk through the door.
I think that positioning piece that the book does as well is again, something that's not really- I mean, it's rarely thought of as the main reason for writing, but it's definitely quite a strong benefit. Before they even walk through the door, it really gets people dialed in or starts to get them dialed in to the channel in which you're talking and the language you use and the direction that you want them to go.
Regan: Right. Yeah. I think the last thing I'd want to do is to have somebody show up at my clinic and they say, well I want surgery on my knee or my back or just a medication to mask some of my pain. That's not the type of people, that's not the services we provide. It saves them time and saves us time and the people who really are looking for a true experience and a health transformation, those are the people that I want to come in. I find that it's out of respect for the person as well because, you know, we've spent a lot of time with people who are not in the right place and the right time and since I've had a book, it's been able to narrow that focus down to the people who we can really help.
Stuart: Yeah, it does that element of ... It gets past all of those initial sets of questions that I'm guessing often come up anyway and the people then follow up-
Regan: Right.
Stuart: Are those ones that are more dialed in.
Regan: Yep.
Stuart: You talked about writing in the first place and how the process was straight forward because this is stuff that you talk about day to day. In term of the way that we structure the chapters and get people from the title on the front cover that kind of identifies the problem or the challenge to the next step on the back cover that gives people a place to follow up and take on more. The chapters in the center, we really look at kind of structuring those around either common issues or common questions or a way mindset change that they need to have.
You're on the fourth book now. In terms of structuring the book, the content with the ... Did you go into it knowing that you wanted to cover a particular topic or did that come out as part of the conversation with Susan and our guys? Quite often we'll get people to come aboard who say, okay I've been in business for a number of years, but I can't think of what to write about particularly and then, a lot of the time is then spent dialing people in on what the most valuable idea is.
From your perspective, was that already dialed in or was that something that came out in the process?
Regan: You know, it was in my case, the majority of the books I've written is where we've had a new breakthrough in science or medically in our clinic and I'm doing the massive amounts of research on it and then I do a presentation. I'll have people from the community and my patients and I'll do weekly presentations and just to see how the content is resonating with them and to see how well I can communicate it. Then what I'll do is once I've got that presentation fine tuned, then that's where I will record it and then I send it to Susan and we have conversations around that.
I think my process certainly is different than probably the majority, but I like it because then I know I've got a message now that resonates with people and I've gone through it a few times in front of several audiences to see what works and what doesn't work.
Stuart: Right. What a refined process, this is what I love about talking to people kind of on the call face, they're kind of cutting edge of doing these. That process you've now got dialed in, so it might not have been as smooth on the first book, but you're the fourth one and now the audience that you've got or the ability to speak in front of an audience to kind of just being to dial in that message, as you said, to see what resonates and then commit it to the page. That's such a fantastic process and I think out there people listening are going to have those opportunities, maybe not in exactly the same way, but the opportunity to here's a subject that has some traction at the moment, either because this is kind of ever green topic that people always ask about, we're always getting calls about this, in which case that kind of audience testing has already been done because people are asking the questions in the first place.
Or it may be that they've got opportunity to speak at a school or they might come on a podcast or I think there's often people skip over those things because they don't necessarily think about in the bigger funnel. It's not necessarily something that falls into the there's a book silo over here that they're thinking about and there's a speaking silo over here that they're thinking about and they don't necessarily make that connection as you've done to really get that process refined through.
Interestingly, with a couple of people we've worked with, it's almost then gone the other way around and they've used their book writing process to do the brain storming and the dialing in and version one of the book has been that starting position, this is what they've assumed. It's then been out there for six months, they've got some feedback from the people who are reading it. They've done a version two that's then dialed in even further, just to kind of highlight a point or they may have missed a particular subject the first time through, and then they've used that refining type work to then turn that into a speech or perhaps video content online. They've used the book as kind of the testing field and then, created other stuff.
You're doing that as well. You mentioned some of the after unit stuff that you're doing, the after book stuff that you're doing. You've got the opportunity to do that testing first in front of an audience and it's really interesting to hear people come to the process, kind of the same building blocks, the same structure, but just with different pieces in place to actually get it done.
Regan: Yeah.
Stuart: It's great I think when people have that opportunity to kind of leverage what they've got. There's no kind of one size fits all. We've got a framework that guides people through and gets things created but it's definitely a frame work. It's not a prescription. It does vary person by person. There's lots of opportunity.
I think there is in fact, we do a lot of work with the Strategic Coach guys and we create a lot of score card books for them and that's one of the differences in-
Regan: Are you there?
Stuart: Did I lose you for a second?
Regan: Okay, I got you now. We're good.
Stuart: Sorry. That might have been my voice cracking out a little bit as well.
Regan: Okay.
Stuart: We do a fair amount of work with the Strategic Coach guys, they've over the last couple of years they've been working on score card books. We've got a lot of authors who have written both kind of a manifesto book, a 90 minute book in the first place and then, have followed up with a score card. That's one of the differences in the process of the products that we've got. The 90 minute book is definitely a frame work and it's pretty flexible, no matter what type of book that you want to write and how you come to it. Whereas, the score card books, we treat much more as a product, because the framework has already been done the coach guys where they've set up the score card in the first place.
The variations that they go through in order to create it has already been done. We structured the score card book as a product that's very prescriptive to get it done in a particular way because we over time have refined that to be the most effective way of creating it because all of that variable work, that thinking about work has been done. People often are thinking about the 90 minute book as a product, as you've got to do in this particular way and it's usually based on the way that they've seen their first book.
It's very flexible and I think you've seen that as well as its developed, really it's a case of no matter how you're coming to the process, what the background is of the information that you want to get out there. Within the framework, there's a way of being able to easily, easily create that.
Regan: Yeah. I love it.
Stuart: That was a bit of a tangent there just as I was thinking about it.
One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was how you're using the books. You mentioned it's on the website as a digital download for all of that passing traffic or traffic that you want to point to it. Just before we started recording, you were talking about physically using the copies of the book at events and that type of thing. Do you want to go through a couple of the examples of how you're actually using them out in the real world?
Regan: Yeah, so that's where we just were at, it was the Mind Share Summit. Jay Jay Virgin's program there and one of the things they asked was if you've got a book or some type of product you like to introduce to all the Mind Share members, then send those out. We were able to send hundreds of books out, I saw people carrying them around, opening it up. There were people who was seeking me out because they had the book, that what we do on the professional level.
Whenever I go to an event, I just put several books in my backpack and I will meet people and I will say, oh let me give you a copy of my book. It's a conversation starter and then as far as it goes in our clinics, each of our clinics we have, you know, books. We have massive quantities that we order every month and we have people who come in for educational seminars every week, and of course they get the digital download before they come in and then, when we're giving them their notes and their surveys, they're getting seated and ready for the seminar, they also get a copy of a book, so it's a gift that we give them. It's the law of reciprocity.
You know, that creates some credibility, some authority with us because, yeah, here's the author of the book now speaking and then it also, like I mentioned before, we give people the book where that we ask them who has got someone else out there who could use some help and then they raise their hand and we get the names and give them an additional copy of the book. It's just a way of multiplying our message and our reach in a way that's very thoughtful and non-aggressive but in a way that that person can really add value to someone else's life, which makes their day too. It's a win win.
Stuart: That idea of looking at the end product is two slightly different things, the digital version and the physical version and looking for the ways to kind of maximize the medium, maximize the way that you can use the different versions of it to achieve more, but kind of ... I like the way that you were talking about the people coming in to the clinic have their digital version already because they've probably read it before coming in, but then following up with a physical copy because it does tick all of those other psychological boxes of the reciprocity and the authority but the gift giving as well. It almost sets of the relationship on a giving hand rather than a taking hand, even to the point where they've become a customer. It's not like you just using them for leads on the outside. It's kind of building that relationship on the inside as well.
Regan: Yep, exactly.
Stuart: What about in terms of challenges or areas that you feel that could be amplified? I definitely want to take some opportunity to kind of brainstorm some ideas, given the experience that we've got with how other people are using them, is there anywhere that you haven't quite cracked the code on here, or it's not making as much of an impact as you like, or a new about getting the book out into people's hands? Is there anything that we can run through on the core not that would be actually useful for you day to day?
Regan: You know, I think on one of the things I would like to see in the books are some images. In my next book, we're actually going to pilot that where there's some images. Because, you know, everyone learns different. Some people they just don't learn well reading words and they need visuals. And then, people need audios too, so I think one of the things I've looked at is having an audio version of the book and then having some images in the book so that you can target all the different types of learners. I think that's kind of an obstacle we're trying to overcome.
The other obstacle for me is just, you know, I've already got my next book, it's already right there in my brain. I don't know if you have like a monthly check in for a guy like Regan, where he's just like okay, what's next? Or if you have any advice on getting more books out there, you know, that would also be helpful too.
Stuart: It's interesting that you talk about the kind of frequency and the keeping things moving. We've had a couple of people ... The last couple of shows I was talking to Betsy and were just doing a check in on who she's been talking to recently and there are a lot of people who seemed to have popped back up who maybe had raised their hands a year but then, a year had gone by and before they realized they hadn't got started. That regular check in process, perhaps we were looking at more for unconverted people rather than people we were actually working with.
That definitely seems to be an issue at the moment of life coming up and getting in the way and then time moving on. I think a couple of people we hear ... It's quite funny to see the notes come through sometimes and a couple of people say because the first step in the process is you know obviously is getting touch with Susan and scheduling those initial calls. Quite a few people will kind of buy in advance and say, okay that's great. I've done this now, but I'm actually not ready for three months because of x, y, and z coming up. Let's definitely schedule a call in there.
A number of people kind of pull the trigger almost giving that as a motivating reason to follow up. Then once people are in the system and we've got books to create with people and obviously we've got that regular check in process.
I was talking to someone a little while ago about having an informal Q and A type call. The lines that we use to record can have multiple people on them as well and we've got another conference call system where it's possible for people to raise their hand and just kind of structure a Q and A session a little bit more. I was talking to someone a little while ago about setting that up and having a monthly just kind of office hours, open call session where people can dial in and ask anything. That would be something that we would email out about just as a reminder. I don't know whether that would be enough of a trigger to kind of do that check in.
It doesn't mean that, particularly for yourself maybe more than other people listening to you because we've got pretty close relationship now, being four, five books in. We can definitely use Betsy's skills of staying on top of things as well and can get her to schedule a check in with you as well just to see how things are going.
Regan: Yeah, for the people who are listening to this, if you've not done it, there's something liberating about it when you have the book when it's complete, then it clarifies your mission and your purpose.
Stuart: Right.
Regan: You know, my mission I want to change the lives of a million people by 2025, end pain, end chronic disease and so, there's lot of different types of pain and different types of chronic disease. I want to create books on all the major types that we help, and so that's where you know, it becomes very important for me to get that message out as quickly as I can.
Stuart: What a fantastic goal that is as well because using the non-gen experience, this is what you say to a lot of people, particularly we pick on the financial services' sector quite a bit because it's an easy target sometimes. Some of those guys and it's absolutely not all of them but a couple of the guys particularly, you really get the feeling of holding back information because they don't want to divulge some stuff until people come through the door.
In this day and age, the exact opposite is true. Information, there's very little that you've got in your head that doesn't exist out there and with some kind of diligent Googling around, people can find it so why not be the message carrier and share all of that knowledge?
Regan: Right.
Stuart: And increase people's awareness and particularly from a health point of view, the opportunity to allow them to make a difference that has a very real physical impact on their life.
Regan: Yeah.
Stuart: The images and the audio you were talking about adding in, images I think you were talking to Betsy about images in the latest one, so that's definitely no problem at all. The broader issue to be aware of is just kind of the resolution and we get so used to seeing things on screen where the resolution can be quite low because you've got the color saturation and the screen resolution isn't really an issue. Sometimes if people try and put complex images in there or images that turn out to be pretty dark, there's just that kind of resolution challenge to be aware of.
Regan: Yeah.
Stuart: I think the simpler the better. In fact, I'm in the office this week down in Wind Haven and one of the books that came in, the guys who created that actually had a whole kind of image suite already created for a lot of the stuff that I do so they had stick figure drawings created that they reused in the book and because that was relatively simple and straight forward and they were created kind of on message, those images worked fantastically well in the book because they stood out. They weren't over complex, they illustrated the point they were trying to make because it was kind of that combined ... The image was created specifically for the point they were trying to make.
The flip side of that, I mean, we occasionally see people who have obviously just grabbed screen shots off the internet from somewhere and that's usually the least likely to work because A, it's not fit for purpose. They probably don't have the right permissions to use it and just the quality isn't there for it to come out on the page. It almost distracts because it becomes a distraction to the content as opposed to this other example of it being perfectly aligned.
In the bigger picture, because you do have such a big suite of books and there's the desire to create even more to the library, having that ... If there is the opportunity to get something kind of thematically created, almost like a visual identity, like a brand identity almost that where that particular figure or character or shape or style, represents what you're trying to make. Because you know, looking at creating such a broad suite, having that set created to illustrate things might be worthwhile because then you've got the opportunity to not only use it in the book, but reinforce that point that you're trying to make about a particular thing across all of the other assets, so on the website, on the material, on presentations. You can get that kind of visual identity flowing through and with the amount that you're doing, that might be a worthwhile investment.
The audio side of things, as part of the pro product book, we provide audio version in that. That's definitely not the produced sampled type of audio book. What we do is free up one of the conference call lines os that people can read there that. Actually it works in two ways. Either the initial recording you do is if that's good enough to use as the audio and use that as a kind of behind the scenes, position it as a behind the scenes, the more content as this idea came together and provide that as the audio. That's one way that we do it.
Or if the initial recording is a little too choppy and not quite fit for purpose, then the other is just a version of the book to be complete, either record it locally and send it to us and we can clean it up and package it, or we can free up one of the conference lines and then just record a read through in to the conference line and use that as the version for the audio.
Regan: Yeah, that would be-
Stuart: And that is super easy to do as well. Again, sticking with the idea of the 90 minute book publishing versus traditional publishing. The idea is to easily and quickly get something out there that can engage people. That recording option is far better.
I mean, we have had Mike Mac, who was on the show a little while ago, they did actually go into a studio and record it as a professional audio book with all of the chapters and everything like that. That had a big price tag associated with it. It was a great end product, but it did come at a cost.
Yeah, there's definitely options to do it easier. The thing I haven't seen anyone do yet particularly is then kind of provide additional supporting audio information to go with things. There is the option, what's the best way of ... My kind of hand to gesticulating in front of me as I'm kind of drawing a funnel in the air. Stick with me for a minute.
If you can image the book funnel, the book sits usually towards the top of the funnel, that funnel steps through towards someone taking a buying decisions in the end. With your examples, the second one, the acupuncture, and the following one was stem cell. Each of those funnels are pretty disconnected. There is a cross over, but they're targeting very different groups.
Regan: Right.
Stuart: The book at the top of the funnel is a way of introducing the subject and bringing people in, but further down the funnel, there's the opportunity to add elements in that either A, reinforce the message that you're trying to make, so its additional information to back up someone that joined at the top of the funnel. Or, there's the opportunity to inject people partway down the funnel because they resonate with one of these sub-assets, if you like.
Using either audio or video or presentations to support one of the chapters as a new asset, as a way of either reinforcing the message with people who have come in at the top. The acupuncture book as an example ... Let's use Health Care on Purpose because I actually happen to have that in front of me at the moment.
So, of the chapters that go through that book, talking about the different mindsets that people need to understand the different elements, recording pieces of audio that kind of just give a more in depth explanation of each of those chapters, kind of the expanded version of one of those points, using audio I think for most people is one of the easiest ways of creating it because it's very easy to record something. I mean, you can even do it into your phone and end up with an audio file that you can just put on a website somewhere.
Regan: Right.
Stuart: Recording something that expands it and goes deeper and gives people that behind the scenes look, I think is a great opportunity that not that many people are doing at the moment because ... Well, I'm not sure why but it's definitely not something we see but I think it's easy for almost everyone to create. That for you, I think is another fantastic opportunity and that may be leads then into the podcast type method, which we were talking about on the show last week, as we record this it might be two weeks ago, as these actually get released.
But we were talking about the book as a way of getting people to raise their hands, but because it's only the 10 to 20% of the people who raise their hand who are ready to move in the short term, the rest are ready to move in the long term. It's having a way of engaging with those people who have been able to continually send them an email with a super signature that talks about here are three ways that you can get started today. Just constantly reminding people, like you were saying, being reminded about the writing process in the first place, reminding people that this is something that they're interested in.
Audio might be a great way of pushing that out there and whether or not it's a long term commitment, as far as a podcast goes or whether it's just pushing out shorter audio snippets. Yeah, I think that's a great opportunity to kind of increase that understanding.
Regan: Beautiful.
Stuart: That was a lot of words.
Regan: I know.
Stuart: Some of the tools that there might be an option for there. There were services like Anchor, which is a very easy to record podcast distribution type platform. I think they're still free at the moment. There's obviously like the social channels like Instagram stories and Snapchat, although maybe it's not like the audience mix there. There are services like Orphonic that do a lot of audio cleaning, so if you record something into your phone and then push it into Orphonic, Orphonic is an automated way of cleaning up the audio and actually distributing it to certain places as well.
There's a lot of tools where you can quickly kind of get these things out there and that is just a choice of deciding, okay well how do you want people to kind of receive it? Are you expecting them to subscribe to something or do you want to back something up with an email, which is probably the recommendation. Back something up with an email announcing the release of the thing that you just recorded, but the main job of the email is to include that super signature, which has got the reminder of by the way, whenever you're ready to get started, here are three ways that we can help you and give people almost reiterate the three steps on the back of the book that give people those ways to take the next step.
I think we covered the things ... Images in books, definitely a thing-
Regan: Yeah.
Stuart: But it's the thing with images is just be aware of the quality. The audio, there's a couple of ways of getting the audio for the book recorded. I'll shoot you an email later on today when we're finishing this and put a few reminders in there and give me a shout about any of these specifically we can follow up, but there's definitely ways of getting the audio or the book. Audio snippets or the kind, is I think is a great way of staying in touch with people and giving them, adding to that value.
Once you've got this library of additional deep dives, then you can always turn those individual assets and have those as introductions to the funnel as well.
Referrals, we were talking about. You kind of hit that out of the park already.
Do you know the one that might be interesting that we haven't talked about is this kind of idea of complimentary non-competing business. Is there anyone that you might working with or aware of or part of the community where you can add value to their community by sharing the books with them but then by virtue of you sharing them, you're also getting access to that audience as well that's maybe a group of people you wouldn't otherwise have access to. Does that ring any bells? Is there anything kind of complimentary, non-competing that is in your world already?
Regan: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of different groups as far as professionally. There's orthopedists, there's other medical clinics that are non-competing that do a completely different type of service that we do here. Those are some great groups, for sure. I think there's a lot of great applications with this, Stuart and I appreciate the avenues we can go in on this.
Stuart: It's such a great to be talking to someone who is really grabbing it and running with it. I've been walking around the office as we were talking, I just got back to the community room and realized the time. We should probably wrap up and I'll let you get on with the rest of the day. I'll follow up with you an email. Just before we did go, I just wanted to give people who were listening the opportunity to check in with this stuff you are doing. What's a good place if anyone is listening and wants to learn more about what you guys do across there in Utah? What's a good place for people to head across to?
Regan: You know, the best way is they can call us at 801-230-1611. Or they can easily email me at info@gowellness.com.
Stuart: Fantastic. I'll make sure those connections are in the show notes as well. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'll follow up with you if a couple of the things we talked about in an email. Definitely give me a shout if there's any more, if you got any more questions, we'll touch base with Betsy as well and just follow on a few of the specifics. It would be great to have you back on the show in a little bit down the track and just touch base and see how it's going.
Regan: Would love to do that, especially once I get the book with the images in there. Just really appreciate you gets and everything you do. We'll be in touch.
Stuart: Fantastic. Well, thanks for your time. Thanks for your time listening everyone. As always, head over to 90minutebooks.com/podcast for the show notes and if you're ready to get started and race Regan to creating 10 books, then the challenge is down, so follow the get started links and get the first one started.
Regan, thanks again for your time, thanks everyone listening, and we'll catch you in the next one.
Regan: Take care everybody, bye-bye.
Stuart: Thanks.