Today on the Book More Show we're talking with Shane Melanson from Alberta Canada. Shane helps people invest in commercial real estate across the US and Canada, and his book, 'Club Syndication' helps people find the right deals and raise capital.
We had a great conversation about how he dialed in the target market for his book, and now it's complete, we focused on some of the best ways he can get in front of the people he can best help.
Shane has a great opportunity to work with a 'complementary, non competing' group of investors, and the book is proving to be the perfect door opener to people and conversations that were previously difficult to access.
We dive deep into looking at various ways he can leverage his book that brings value to everyone and puts him in front of the right people at the right time.
This is a great example of why your book is a 'charge neutral' way of starting a conversation with people who get pitched all the time, and why, when you start by give something of value (to potential clients or peers), it sets an expectation of value creation, rather than starting by asking for something.
I really enjoyed catching up with Shane & it's exciting to hear how he's getting more people to raise their hand and there are lots of examples you can use to promote your business.
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Transcript: Book More Show 073
Shane: Stuart, how are you?
Stuart: Hey, how's it going?
Shane: I'm great. How are you?
Stuart: Fantastic. Good. Thank you. Looking forward to this call. Betsy, I'd caught up with her when it popped up on the calendar. I've got some exciting things to talk about. I look forward to running through the process and the chairman on the podcasts. I think a lot of people get some great insights from this. Definitely seems like you guys have got a pretty robust, the things that you're doing at the moment and pretty robust and set up. This isn't a new venture that you're trying to work out on the fly. So it's be, I think, good opportunity to dial in some strategies and tactics to sell on top of what's already been successful.
Shane: Yeah. Absolutely. I can obviously share my journey, if you will and what I've been doing, but certainly any guidance and advice that you have because this is what you do. And you obviously know what's working, and wherever you want to start, wherever you think would be the most appropriate. I put a lot of energy and effort into creating the 90 minute book, but that's just because I knew it was going to be the people I was giving it to, it was more than just a business card, people are reading it. And I just wanted to make sure that it represented who I was. Because it's one thing to speak to have the questions, but the person that actually put the text together and, and worded it, such a tremendous job. I was just really impressed. And the feedback I've got from very, I mean the book that I wrote, Clubs Syndication, it's really geared to high net worth. I shouldn't say that. It explains how high net worth individuals invest in commercial real estate and how they raise money and find deals.
And so the target market is really, call them accredited investors, people that have enough money to invest in commercial real estate. And so this is a pretty discerning market and if I just threw something against the wall and hoped that a fancy cover was going to do it, it would've fallen flat. And I must say, it was funny. I can't remember who it was. Was it Betsy or one of the ladies there that I had the interview with?
Stuart: Probably Susan.
Shane: Susan. Right. Susan. So I sent her like a 32-page outline. And you know what though, she went through it all. And when we had two conversations and she really helped me flesh, distill it down to the essence. What I had initially envisioned was much bigger, but I can create multiple books. How to find deals, how to fund deals, how to do these various avenues. And when I really distilled it down to what I'm best at, which is helping investors raise money and find the right deals, we really just honed in on that. And it was just just a tremendous process. And now that the book is done, yeah, it's just been, it's been really cool.
Stuart: And that's such a key thing. I think as we've talked on the show three times before, I have thought about it quite a lot, so people will probably get fed up, it definitely deserves repeating, is that absolute point. You could have taken 10 times as long, wrote your book 10 times as big, try and make it the all-encompassing piece, but then that becomes overwhelming for people to read, and the read rates fall through the floor. But by separating things into thinking about it from a campaign point of view, from a conversation point of view, having the potential for multiple touch points, whether people are thinking about it from a finance perspective or a property perspective or just a pure investment play perspective, then there's multiple opportunities to have those funnels set up with those touch points at the beginning that intersecting a conversation that is already going on in their minds.
And then you can still pass through the rest of your information, still follow up with the other books in the series or refer back to the other books in the series as part of this ongoing developing conversation. It's so much more valuable to take that tact and approach rather than investing $30,000 in a book that takes 18 months to write and then you still effectively just get one bite at the cherry because you're loading all of the efforts and the touch points in what's really the wrong place if you thinking about it from a funnel that was looking at engaging people and then educating and motivating them over time to take that first step and start a relationship.
I think for you as well, one of the other things that is worth mentioning is the difference between people who are looking for, occasionally we'll get people coming that other people have talked about. A book should be a thing that I do. I've heard other people talk about it. I know that I should do but I don't really want to think about it too much and I'm just going to jump to process quickly and there and then and have it gone, which is probably better than not doing it at all. At least you end up with something.
But if you go into the process as you did with a mindfulness about what the outcome is and more of a thoughtful approach about the content, I mean we often say that read rates are dismally low, really, even for fiction in terms of the words actually getting written, and it's the cover that catches people's attention and gets the opt-in in the first place. That's the most important thing, but it's absolutely the case that understanding your audience and having content that is good enough that's fit for purpose, that delivers value. That's also a key component as well because just as you said if you created something that didn't deliver on the promise on the cover, that wasn't thoughtful in its journey, it wasn't guiding them towards something, then it's collect leads then. But if they never go anywhere then that's also not the most effective use of everyone's time.
Shane: Yeah. I guess the way I looked at it was, and obviously I didn't know this one before I'd written the book, but now that I have the book, what I would say is if someone has never written one, to envision that you're going to actually hold this book in your hand and you're going to walk up to someone and you're going to give it to them in person, when I do it, I'm frigging so excited to hand my book to someone, because I know that it's got immense value and I've had such great feedback. It was funny, like when the books first arrived at my house, my daughter, I've got three kids, two girls and a little boy, and my oldest daughter, I think she's maybe seven now, and and she's like, "Look, my dad wrote a book."
I was a little bit nervous at first, because I'm thinking, I don't know how people are going to respond to this. And so my father-in-law, who I respect tremendously and he was my mentor, and I talk about him in the book and he's a CEO of a large commercial real estate development company. And so he's very, prominent individual. And I'm thinking, oh, like I didn't know. I wasn't sure I was going to feel comfortable giving the book to him first, but it was, my daughter that did that.
And a couple of days later, he called me up and he just said, just really congratulated me and how probably was that I had taken the initiative to do it, and he really enjoyed the stories and the content, and in the meantime, I was talking to some friends and some people and a lot of clients on mine, doctors and dentists and they were just like, all the feedback was so great. And I mean it's 60 pages and so literally a person can get through it in under an hour. So that they'll go through the whole thing versus a 200-page book, which-
Stuart: That's such an important point.
Shane: Yeah. And so I was able to get what I wanted, and so later today, I'll back up and this is what made me think I should get on here and have a conversation with you, is I was at a real estate investment network networking thing where there was maybe a couple hundred people in Calgary, and the president of this event, and they've got 20,000 members plus or minus. And so I went up to him after his presentation and I just said, "Hey Richard, I just wanted to introduce myself. I wrote a book and I thought you might find it interesting." And there were eight other people that wanted to talk to him. And he looked at it and he was like, "Give me your business card. I want to talk to you." And all he did was look at the title, and it was like something that resonated with him.
So today at three o'clock, he and I are having a conversation. I don't know what's going to happen, but the fact that I'm on his radar, I've got his phone number and we can have conversations, it just opens doors, and so it's pretty incredible what that simple authority piece, if you will, of having a book and being like published author just elevates you.
Stuart: It's easy insiders, because we know how the process works and what it actually takes to create. It's so easy to forget that outside of this circle of, oh, so you're doing this day in, day out. So obviously we're eating and drinking every day, so we really forget and take it for granted. The next layer of people, I have people like you guys who are actually writing again these completed so you get that look behind the curtains and actually realize through your own experience how straightforward is, but as soon as you go one layer away from that, two layers away from that, people just have a book is a book. It's got exactly the same authority as something on the shelf in a library or the bookstore. It's surprising how much credibility it carries, which to a certain degree outshines the, I don't want to say outshines the effort that's put into it because there's always a lot of effort put into these things. But you could quite easily create a 60-page online report, put the exact same thing, just have it on a webpage, and it wouldn't have near the same amount of traction.
I think the other thing that I wanted to mention as well, again, specifically using yours as an example, is the authenticity of what's in the book. So it's not about the size of the book, the size doesn't matter to a certain degree, as long as it's good enough. It's not a fiction piece. It's not about the writing itself. It's not about, this is an academic exercise and getting a high score on a test for a writing project. It's not a literary award, but the content that's there is authentic and valuable and useful. So some people get scared off, I think, a little bit, because they think writing is the thing that they couldn't possibly do because they never enjoyed it when they've tried to do it before and it's a burden. The process is an easy process, but really it's not about the words that are on the page. It's about the message that's being delivered.
So with yours, compelling stories, valuable information, clear insights, and a direction of how to take this conversation further and understand more, all within a relatively few number of words compared with a bigger book project, but it still has that credibility and value for people. So as you're listening to this, that's absolutely, I try and remind everyone, don't get scared off in this process as long as there's an authentic and useful message there. As long as it's giving something of value, then it's not about the writing, it's about the helpful information that is being shared with people.
Shane: Yeah, go ahead.
Stuart: I was just going to pave the way to the meeting this afternoon then, so that sounds like you talk about the duals being opened, that's one of the key elements that certainly, the likes of Betsy as she's talking with a lot of people in the early stages, we talk about that as one of the key things, the exposure into that group of people, it sounds like it's pretty great opportunity to get in front of the exact people that you're looking to get in front of, because it's a very aligned group of people, that organization is very aligned to you and what you do.
Shane: The organization, they're very well respected, and the content that they create as it relates to investing in real estate is something that I've followed and agree with their methodology the most part. What's interesting is their focus is really on residential investing. And that's where a lot of people get started, but my journey has been, and I've been pretty fortunate to learn how to invest in commercial real estate, and I think that that's where they're noticing, okay, the majority of our clients are here and they're happy to buy and invest in single family, buy and hold, but there's a group that we're underserving, and I know this because I get some of those people that contact me, and because it's such a tight knit community in terms of commercial real estate, not a lot of people talk about it or teach others. It's like you either know it or you don't on the inside, then you are able to do very well. And if you are the guy that comes in and you don't know anything, then you might end up spending a lot of money and learning some expensive lessons. And so I think that they're seeing someone like, I hope anyways, that's the direction that I want to take it anyways in terms of, I think that I can bring a different perspective to people that are looking to invest in real estate following the same model and long-term approach, but focused on commercial cash flowing real estate and how I do it, which is pooling money together from other high net worth individuals. And in doing that versus investing in a home every year or two years and slowly building a portfolio that way. So yeah, I'm pretty excited about the opportunity.
But it got down to the book, because I've been going to those events and I've met him several times and he didn't remember me, but now all of a sudden I'm on his radar.
Stuart: We were talking to, it must have been a little over a year ago, talking to another real estate guy in the Phoenix area, and he had a similar experience coming to it from a slightly different perspective, but there was a broader group of people it was trying to interact with, and had had exactly the same experience, had had exposure to them and had been in the same place for a number of years, but it wasn't until that stood out and made him seem different that that connection was made. And again, similarly, they start a conversation, there was an alignment in the thinking anyway, had a similar mentality to the group, but just had never cracked the code to make it into that inner circle. I'm not wanting to make it sound like a cult, but there was definitely that, everyone's busy and unless you start out for a reason, it's always super interesting when I hear stories like that.
A couple of things that just went through a couple of strategies that popped into my mind as we're going through, and this comes from both our own experience of what we do internally and then obviously accidentally talking with hundreds of people now that we've helped over the years. Using the book as a cookie and opt in, I mean the most straightforward way of thinking about it is as you've got experience or exposure to that group, just always having the book that as the thing that people can opt into, it will just sit there now as an asset that's waiting to be referred back to. So in any conversation, there's always going to be here's the quick answer, whether that's physically in a meeting or in some online material, printed material they're doing, here's the quick answer, but if you want to learn more, then go grab a copy of the book because there's a whole load of useful information in there that takes this conversation deeper.
So that's a little bit like, I don't know whether you've ever seen the Email Mastery example that we talk about it sometimes. So this was a Success magazine ad that we ran talking about the Email Mastery program that the Dean has. So the email mastery ad had one particular section of the book. So there are eight or nine different strategies in the email mastery book as a whole, and one of them that's the easiest to talk about is the nine-word email, which is a short personal expecting reply email.
So Dean wrote a, it's like advertorial, it was like a one-page ad in Success magazine that talked about in the nine-word email. And then the call to action at the end of it was, "If you've got some value from this technique, then head over, grab a free copy of the Email Mastery book where we talk about the other seven or eight techniques that can be as game changing." The aim was that ad itself, that the words on that page, if no one did anything else, they'd still get a whole load of value from it.
So it wasn't like sales copy saying, "I've got this book, you should go and get this book and the answers in the book." It's that within the relatively narrow scope of a nine-word email, he's a very strong thing that you can do today. Add value with that state. And then here's more. So similarly with what you're doing, there's lots of opportunities to thoroughly answer the question and narrow question in whatever format or forum you've got, but then refer back to the asset elsewhere.
One of the other things, I'm going to jump around a little bit as my mind jumps. It pops all over the place. So hopefully all this come together at the end. One of the other things that people don't necessarily think about, again, because it's a little bit behind the screen, but just from a production point of view, there's the opportunity that I would like a joint venture with these guys and have Richard write a foreword to the book that contextualizes the book specifically for their audience.
So that can go just from like a little pool quote, which is like the bare minimum but gives you some additional credibility because it's almost like an endorsement from the organization leader through to something, which if you can get to the stage will be fantastic. But you can imagine if Richard wrote a foreword or a first chapter to the book, that absolutely contextualizes it. That almost makes it seem like it's a co-written book or they supported or sponsored, maybe not sponsored, but supported or sponsored in the non-financial sentence, but really endorsed by the organization.
And then that opening chapter will really set the context for those particular members. So talking in terms of maybe some of the overall programs, maybe talking in terms of bridging it from residential to commercial. So Richard's saying, "Hey guys, we've spent a lot of time talking about residential real estate and there's a benefit with the portfolio building over time, but there's this other world that makes a difference. There's the opportunities to leverage more, there are some timing elements that right now when we look at all of the other stuff that we've got within our portal and our world, we talk about this program and that program, but actually here's a whole other strand strand that's worth talking about. Once you've read this, then had over to this bit of the sites where we've got a video that I recorded with Jane and we run to see some more details, but here's a copy of this to get started and go from there.
So that really bringing it together as an in-house piece, because to a certain degree, and as, sometimes when we have these types of conversations, people get a little bit proprietary and protective and saying, "I don't want to. I want my name on..." the ego comes in a little bit. "I want my name on the front. It's my book. Why would I want to put someone else's name on it?" Well that would be true if it was a literary piece or if the book itself was the product. But the job of work is to get as many relevant leads as possible, then do what you can do to make it as relevant.
And from a purely production point of view, that's pretty straightforward to do, because the book already exists, that varied version. So you could imagine over time that you would have one version of the book that is with this group and then another version of the book that's with a completely different set of people, just top and tailing it with something different and changing covers, that's relatively straight forward to do because all of the hard work's done in creating that first main asset. It's almost like the version one and version two part of the process, that version one part of the process, the initial version of the book that you got it hopefully 80% to 90% there. And then depending on how much time and efforts it mathematically makes sense doing, you can then get it somewhere between 80% and 100%, depending on what's worthwhile. No doubts that exists. You can definitely leverage it into different areas.
And I'm just jumping back to that first point, talking about the asset being something that it's always able to be referred back to. I talked about in the context of that initial point of contact. So if that group has a foreign, you can do things like change your signature or bio in the profile in the forum and have the book as the main call to action for anyone that's checking you out because they want to find more. Or if you're answering posts or you're writing articles for them referred to the book as the thing. And there's also the opportunity to refer to specific sections of the book because that does answer more. So there's always the opportunity to exit parts of the book that answer the questions in a useful way.
So I always give a bit of a warning or remind people to not get too carried away with that. And think about it. Do you ever watch the Big Bang Theory, the US TV show?
Shane: Yes.
Stuart: There's one of those episodes where Howard's gone to space and then he comes back from space and for the following week, any reference at all, "Oh that reminds me when I was in space." So no warning given, not getting too carried away. You don't want people to say, "Hey, how you doing?" "I'm great. I'm feeling good. It was like that day that I finished writing the book. It's how I felt, I feel as good as that day." So yeah, be careful not to get too carried away, but there's lots of opportunities, particularly with the value that you've got in there, the specific value of exits and different ways and the thing that you can do to tweak that a little bit further to make it even less like you're just topic bridging immediately into the book, is to take that exit but change the format that it's in.
So there's probably six or seven major and minor concepts within there that as a pull quote or as an idea that stands alone, it's useful. Some of them can be big, some of them can be small. Those individual ideas are probably the ones that crop up most of the time. So 80% of the questions get answered by 20% of the content, because it's all the same stuff, just worded in slightly different ways, the questions that come in. So taking those key concepts as they come up and they're just positioning them in different ways. So you can do things like infographics or audio or video or a further written pieces or data to support it, and then have the particular section from the book that answers the question but then beef it out a little bit with this other ancillary asset, this thing that develops it a little bit further.
Shane: Sorry. Because my wife is just helping me with my Instagram because up until, I think it was Sunday night, I basically had maybe a few pictures of my family on my Instagram account. But she started to take quotes out of my book and started to put those on Instagram. And then obviously then we mixed in some pictures of developments and investment properties that I'm doing. Hearing that, should I put like at the bottom of the quote, like "page 62" or "page 28" or something or just leave it as the quote and not, because I've got a picture of the book that's in there as well on my Instagram, but I'm just curious how you would maybe...
Stuart: I'd be tempted to not put the page reference in it.
Shane: Too salesy?
Stuart: Yeah. It's a little bit too on the nose. So maybe one level away from that is for every five quotes that are in there just as quotes, the sixth one, then in the body of the text of the post describes it a little bit more and maybe makes reference to the book and says there's a link to your book in the bio. It's a bit like Gary Vaynerchuk's, jab, jab, jab, right hook, kind of, give, give, give, give and then ask for a little bit. I mean it's more art than science. If it trips too much into just pure promotion, then people get a bit outline to it because it just seems like banner ads.
And this is where changing the context helps, because it gives the perception, and it he legitimately does because people learn in different ways, but it gives the perception of adding value. So you could have the pull quote is the beginning of a broader paragraph, but if you just had the pull quote there and then said, "Read the rest of the paragraph in the book," that's one thing. But if you have the pull quote and then the rest of the paragraph was a quick audio that you did or a quick video that you did or a infographic that backed it up a little bit more, it's exactly the same information, is drawing people in the same direction, but it's giving the perception of adding more value because it's in a completely different context.
And that context both for you and as you're listening to this is going to vary. With these little things, I'd really suggest people doing whatever's easy and convenient for them because if I said I should back it up with the video because it's easy for us to do video now actually just got on your phone and some people are more comfortable. But if you're the type of person that doesn't have a particularly convenient phone and you're really super uncomfortable doing it, then seize to get hung up on the thing that's uncomfortable and then you never do it.
So, yes, I'd really focus on whatever's comfortable. But trying to change the context in the way it's displayed is a great way of doing almost exactly the same thing, but it adds those things as well. So assuming that there are, and this all builds over time as well, this is the fantastic thing about it. You've got an aircraft carrier now of a main asset, but you've got the opportunity to, this analogy is going to fall down pretty quick, but you've got the opportunity to every now and then add another fighter aircraft to the arsenal or add another major gun missile system to the arsenal.
But then there are also lots of little things after that. You can add more soldiers onto the ship and you can add more ammunition onto the ship. And I don't know what I started to going down that as an analogy, but there's the big main thing, and then over time you can build lots of little things that add to it, but all refer back to or all derived from this bigger thing. So over time it can just slowly build and build and build and build. And because it's all in the same ballpark, it's all in the same sphere as you're trying to guide people in the same direction, that's where the real leverage comes from.
I'm wondering, so part of the deliverables that I got from the 90 minute book included a Facebook ad and postcards. And so I just had 500 postcards printed, because I'm going to the big Grant Cardone, 10X, where there's like 35,000 people, and probably, I would say minimum 25% of those are investors. And if you follow Grant, he's big into multifamily and investing in commercial real estate. And so I thought, "Okay, well I don't know if it's going to be feasible to bring 100 books with me." I was going to get them shipped to the hotel I'm staying at, but I thought, "You know what? Instead of that, because just giving out books, that might not be as valuable, why don't I get the postcards printed, and so I'm bringing all these postcards and I have some different ideas whether I put them on cars, or I put them on seats or I just hand them out to people. How would you think about that? Or I can be as guerrilla marketing as possible or I can be a little more discreet. I'm curious how you might go about something like that.
Yeah. Again, personal preference comes into it a little bit and what you're comfortable with. A lot of what we do is more tailored towards the smaller numbers than the larger numbers. So there's a bit of a personal bias that we don't play in that pool very often. But you saw some great you've got in there. Putting them on seats is like an all or nothing. It's just a numbers game, because there's no opportunity to build any relationship at all. So if you think about putting them on seats, which may well be worth it because like you say, if it costs $500 to get a couple of thousands of them printed and then you get out of every seat and then two clients come from it, then it's worthwhile doing. But that's a bit of an all or nothing thing.
The other way of thinking about it if you're dealing with smaller numbers and you don't want to put with them on every seat, quite often at those events, you've got VIP seating or more expensive tickets at the front, so start from the front and go back rather than the back and go front, just little things like that.
One other option on a slightly more personal, making it more of a connection is if you know the other people out or if on the first day you make some connections with people who are asked to talk about complimentary noncompeting businesses where there's this synergistic effective, here's a close group of people but we're not in the same space, then having that stack of cards, and if they've got a stand there, then putting those cards on their stand or if they're there with a group of people, an investment club, say, "Oh, I'll tell you what, here's 20 of these postcards, obviously it was impractical to bring the books down here, but absolutely get a copy there, and actually let me write my phone number on here and if people want to give me a call, more than happy to get a copy of the book in the post for them."
Shane: That's a great idea.
Stuart: That thing of writing on cards, it's something that personally I like a lot. I've done that in the past just with business cards, because obviously my accent stands out a little bit when I'm in North America, so on the business card, when I've been in events where there's a large number of people and a high turnover, to try and make that more personal connection, I've written on the card "British guy with beard." Although I need to work on my handwriting because I remember talking to one guy a year or two later and he said, "Oh yeah, I remember. I wouldn't have thought you said 'British guy with bread,' and that never made any sense to me. But no, it was 'British guy with beard.'" But anyway, doing that little extra step. So anything that you can do to add that personal element to it is definitely worthwhile.
The volume side of things is, it really does just turning into a numbers game. You've been to these things before and you come away with goodness knows how many pieces of paper and some of them stand out more than others. The nature of the postcard offering a free copy of the book for nothing else, it's as close as possible to all give, albeit that there is an email opt in. But that's typically better than just a business card that talks about what you do. So that what might stand out from the crowd in and of itself. And obviously the postcards are relatively single purpose and focused and it's easy for people to see what they are. So that hopefully will put it above some of the other stuff.
Events like that, if you've got the opportunity to personalize things even further, then you can do things like, if you've got the opportunity to talk to people while you're giving the postcards out, you can say to people, "Hey listen, we came to this event, wasn't sure exactly what the crowd is going to be. I've had some great conversations over the last day with some people and they've convinced me to do a conference call talking specifically about this thing. Obviously this wasn't something we planned, it's a bit last minute. Let me give you this copy of the postcard. I'm going to buy a phone number on here, but if you grab a copy of the book beforehand, we're going to run through this and I'm going to talk at some behind the scenes stuff that actually led to it. So obviously the book's great, but I'm going to talk specifically about some of these points that it was too detailed to go into the book, or it was too specific to go into the book."
And then just coordinate a conference call or webinar the following week because that adds an element of, a, giving further value in a legitimate sense and give people a reason to opt in. So again, depending on the context, that it's easier if you're talking to people, more difficult if you're just leaving cards on the seat. Having something that's time based, because then you're bridging some of the emotion and energy and momentum of the event into something of your own and being able to position it as, this is a, not a one time thing in terms of scarcity, but this is something organic and of the moment. And this came from the real questions in the event here and it's very specific and timely. So we're going to jump on a call as quick as we can as soon as I'm back next week. Here's the way of getting on the list. Either here's my phone number and call me, and I'll give you the details, but even better, opt in to grab a copy of the book and then I'm going to send this email out to this group of people.
Have you had those printed already?
Shane: Yeah. Yeah, I have them printed, they're ready to go. So on the plane, and I've got a long plane ride, I can easily write stuff on there. I just jotted down, I thought, like how easy would that be to get a conference call bridge line set up, set up a time the following week, and to your point, just go into the book deeper and talk more about the stories and the specifics that people have with respect to the biggest questions that they have as it relates to finding the right deals and raising money.
Stuart: And again, it comes back to how comfortable you are with doing things, because you don't want to give yourself too much of a technology burden of setting up a whole load of stuff. But for example this UberConference line that we're recording on, they will broadcast to, I forget whether it's 100 or 1000 people, it could be on a line so you could use this system. For the real estate conference calls and some of our member’s calls, we use another system called Free Conference Calling, and that has a Q & A section to it as well. So you can open the lines up to two questions and answers if you want us to start with like 30 minutes of more broadcast and that open it up to a Q & A.
So there's lots of different options. If that's too much of a pain in the neck, then you could have the call and then ask for questions afterwards and say you going to do a follow-up call but you'll actually just record some answers to and get them sent out, or you ask for questions beforehand and then answer some of the questions. Although typically if you don't already have relationship questions beforehand, it's usually less successful, because you've typically seen the same one or two questions come through and radio silence from everyone else. So if you do do that, just be prepared to have your own have your own questions on the side.
Jumping back to the additional assets that we were talking about in terms of here's the book, there's a couple of key main points and then here's some additional assets, what do you think you can use to answer points as they come up organically in the various different places? You can also orchestrate that process as well and use some of those elements to back up the opt in cycle because we've talked a lot today about the initial opt in, but actually the majority of the work over the longer period of time is just staying in touch with those people over the long haul so that when they're ready, you're still front of mind. And those additional assets that you create, the things that reflect what's in the book but maybe in a slightly different way are exactly the same thing, just presented differently or going deeper onto some points.
All those can go into the follow-up funnel. So what we typically suggest people do is think about a follow up funnel of six to seven emails in that immediate two-week time after someone opts in, so that that is engaging with the hottest group of people. And you do that by adding value. And again with the jab, jab, jab, right hook type approach of give, give, give, ask, give, give, give, ask, don't always be sending me a new follow-up email saying, "Are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? Are you ready yet?" Isn't the best, but adding that, "Here's another way of looking at it." Or, "Do you know, I was just talking to someone who's in a very similar position to you and they I asked this question which I just really
And then after that sixth or seventh cycle, the group of people who were immediately ready to go, hopefully by that point would have engaged or if they haven't, they're less likely to. But for that long group of people who might engage over six months to six years, having a regular broadcast thing that you can send out to people is a great way of staying in touch for the long haul. So this immediate cycle and then the longer cycle of really drips and drops into like a newsletter campaign afterwards, whether that newsletter is actually a newsletter or podcast or some market insights or on the real estate side, on our coaching real estate coaching side of the business, we recommend that the real estate students do like a weekly market watch type broadcast sent out to the list that talks about what's happened in the town over the last seven days. Again, just as a way of sharing some insights and valuable insights that people might not otherwise have got on a regular timescale going forwards with a relatively endless supply of information because the market's always changing, and without too much of a cognitive load on someone thinking, "Oh, I need to send out an email, what can I talk about this time?" Just have something that's straightforward to do.
Shane: That makes good sense.
Stuart: That was a lot of words. I can always tell when I've been talking too fast or too much because I realize that I take a breath and sort through-
Shane: No, I've just been writing some notes down on my whiteboard and then I went into my notebook. But all that, it's interesting because sometimes you hear things and you've heard them before, but either resonate or sink in and then all of a sudden, on this call it's like two or three key takeaways in terms of how to really repurpose the book in different ways. Giving the book away or having people buy it is really just a start. It's this ongoing conversation that is necessary to build that relationship. So, now I've got some solid takeaways on how to do that.
Stuart: Fantastic. I think we should definitely catch up again in the not too distant future to see how it's going. Was there anything that you came on the call wanting to ask that we haven't got to yet or anything that we haven't touched upon?
Shane: No, I'm quite happy with everything that we went through, and yeah, I'd certainly like to follow up after I've had a bit of time to put all this into place and see what kind of results I'm able to generate over the next, call it three months, four months or whatever.
Stuart: Fantastic. Well, I've just got notes I'd, before the call, had written a couple of notes I thought might come up that we haven't got to. So I'll just quickly rattle those off and then we can follow up at some other time. One of them, which we kind of touched upon in the context of this particular group of people, but it's that engaging new groups of people where those groups already exist. So the various investment clubs or business organizations or people looking for retirement income, those groups of people, whether it's geographic or discipline or interest based, being able to identify those people, and again, this is where maybe Facebook ads or direct conversations with people or postcards in some specific high value residential areas, all of those different things fall into the new conversation categories.
The other one is the referral categories. So your existing group of clients, all of the people you've worked with so far, there's a great opportunity to work with those guys as referrers, and particularly when there's some launch excitement around the book, reaching out to that group of people and saying, "Hey, you guys are the ones I work the closest with. We got the best relationship. I wanted to make sure that you guys had a copy of this first. Either grab a copy of it over here or let me know, more than happy to physically send you a copy of it. You guys are the closest to what we do. I just want it to get it in your hands first. And then of course, if you know anyone else that has talked about real estate investing and would get value from this, let me know and I'd be more than happy to send you a copy of it so that you can give it to them." And that leverages, then they get a sense of being the person that does the introduction, so it's not like you're asking, "Hey, if you know anyone else, give me their details and I'll reach out to them," because people don't want to sacrifice their friends' contact details.
But by you saying, "Hey, I'll get you a copy of the book and you can give it to them," then people are much more likely to do that. And then you can accompany that with a physical letter or an email that says to the third person, and here's the way that you can take further. "Hey. We know that you've got a copy of this book from someone that really values this. We know that that relationship is one of the best. This isn't something just off the street. So if after reading this, if you've got any questions, I'm more than happy to jump on a call and give you 15 minutes of my time because I know through experience that having a referral from someone, that conversation is much more valuable." So you can position it in that type of way.
Shane: That was great.
Stuart: The complimentary non competing businesses we talked on very slightly in terms of other people at the event, but for you guys, particularly, the things that sprung to mind were those kind of investment groups, financial advisers, realtors, other wealth management professionals, there's a whole group of people that fall into that complimentary noncompeting, and whether it's a full white label type approach and co-branding the book, or whether it's just giving them copies of the book to give out to their clients, whatever you can do to orchestrate that conversation and add value to them so they're getting some benefit from it as well, I think there's a huge opportunity for you guys in that. Because it's so niche, it really does tick that box of absolutely complimentary and absolutely noncompeting, because there's such a crossover.
The other one I had on listed as the white label one, but we talked about that already. And white label in the sense of co-branding and making it look like both parties really have some kind of stake in the physical book itself.
Shane: Yeah.
Stuart: Cool. Alrighty. I looked down at my watch sometimes and 50 minutes just disappears before you even know it. Before I cut you loose, just want to give people opportunity to follow up more, because Club Syndication as we talked about is a fantastic book. So as people listen to that, if they want to find out more about you and the book and what you guys do, are you mainly Canadian focused or does it cover a North American audience as well?
Shane: I've got experience investing in both Canada and the US. Actually I've got probably more experience investing in the US, but the principles are the same with respect to finding value add commercial real estate assets and then raising money from high net worth accredited investors. That would be the 32nd high level pitch, if you will. And yeah they can go to Get the Book www.ClubSyndication.com or you can Google my name, Shane Melanson, and I think, there's a link on that website as well that would take you to get a copy of the book using the strategies we've talked about, which is essentially just put your name and email and you'll get a copy to download right away. And it's on Amazon now too.
Stuart: Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Well, I'll be sure to put some links in the show notes as well, so as always that's over at 90MinuteBooks.com/podcast, and the email that we send to everyone that's on our list, we'll put the links in there as well. Definitely recommend if this is a subject that anyone's interested in, absolutely grab a copy of the book because there's a lot of valuable information there.
Shane, this has been really great call. Really looking forward to seeing what you guys do. We definitely have to connect again in not too long a time and see how it's going.
Shane: That'd be great.
Stuart: Look forward to feeding back to anyone.
Shane: Okay, wonderful. Well, thanks Stuart, I appreciate it.
Stuart: Fantastic. Thanks, Shane. We'll speak soon.
Shane: You bet.
Stuart: Okay.
Shane: Bye-bye.
Stuart: Bye. Bye.