Today on the Book More Show, we have a great episode as Dean and I talk about 'what to do now, your book is complete'.

It's a question we often get because we talk a lot about your book being the first step in the process. In reality, a lot of the engagement you're going to have with people comes from the longterm relationship you'll build.

Not everyone is ready to take action straight away. Staying in touch with people is key to being front of mind, and there, ready to help whenever they are ready to take that next step.

Some great insights from Dean into your email followup, both immediately when someone opts in, and then over the following days. We're always looking to ask the right questions to engage and elicit a response that identifies your five-star prospects — the people who are most likely to want to do business with you.

Don't forget to grab a copy of Email Mastery from EmailMastery.com to dive deeper.

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Transcript: Book More Show 087

Stuart:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the book more show. It's Stuart here and today. Great episode. I'm talking with Dean about what to do now your book's complete. Question that we often get because we talk a lot about the books as being the first step in the process, but in reality a lot of the engagement that you're going to get with people comes through the long term relationship. Not everyone is immediately wanting to take an action, so staying in touch with people is really key to being front of mind over the long term, and then you're there whenever they're ready to take that next step.

So some great insights today into that email followup, both in terms of the immediate auto-responder sequence once someone opts in, but then the longterm are staying in front of them and how you can ask the right questions to really engage and elicit a response, identify those five star prospects and the people who are most likely to do want to do business with you. So, great episode; super excited. I will catch you after the show.

Mr. Jackson.

Dean Jackson:
There he is. So what do you want to know?

Stuart:
So, there is one very important question that's pressing on everyone's minds.

Dean Jackson:
Tell me.

Stuart:
I've finished my book. Now what?

Dean Jackson:
What do I do now?

Stuart:
Begin.

Dean Jackson:
Begin. Well, here's the thing. Now they've got the ... you know, that's the biggest opportunity is, that the reason that we are such an advocate of either doing a 90 minute book of course is because it takes the least amount of time to get the result, right? So, now they've got the tool in their hands and this is what they need. You know, we always talked about this minimum effective dose and the thing that a book is, is the barrier to entry into using it as a lead generation tool.

And so once you have the book, now you've got enough to trigger that mechanism in people that say, I want that, and you know, a perfect example of it is we're just finished Tony Berendi's book, Working Less Keeping More. And that when we put it up on the 90 Minute Book Facebook page and he shared it on his page there you see in the comments already people saying, "I want that. Where do I get that? I want that. I need a copy of that book." Right?

Like, you see that. If you've done the right thing, if you've done the right job and picked the right title, which hopefully you've gone through the thinking process of what is it that that is going to be compelling to people. Then, just putting it out there is going to attract the people that you want to be in conversation with them, and so you start of course closest to the bullseye. If you've already got a list of people or a audience of people, whether it's your email list, your Facebook, your Instagram, your LinkedIn, whatever social medias you use, then that's the first step is putting it out there. "Hey, my new book is here. Let me know if you want a copy. I'll get you one."

That's a great way to start the ball rolling because it's such a compelling thing when people see a title that is exactly what they want or it's interesting to them, which a lot of people, like you look at Tony's as an example again, that there's a lot of people who feel like they're probably on the working more and keeping less plan and they need to reverse-

Stuart:
Switch trains.

Dean Jackson:
Yeah, they need to switch trains and as soon as they see it, they're like, "Oh, that seems like that's exactly what I need."

And there's something automatic that happens with a book that triggers that, you know? Especially because deep in our brains, since our earliest recollections, books have been something that we as a society have revered. And we've been taught to revere books, right?

Even when you're a little kid and you get a book and you start to like crumple it or you start to be rough with the pages, your parents are like, "oh, hey, no, no, no. Don't," we are taught to treat books with respect and we've got these shrines, these shelves, where in your homes, these prizes are displayed for everyone.

It's embedded from childhood. Then you go to school or you go to the library and you're taught, shh. We gather in the hushed tones to be in the presence of these great thinkers immortalized in print. And so, it's already baked in that we revere that as a society, so we don't need to like take any effort to convince somebody's conscious brain of what a book is or that it might be something that they might find valuable. All we need to do is get the attention of their conscious brain to immediately get drawn and triggers the deeper part of the brain that goes, "Yeah, I definitely want that."

Stuart:
Want that. That compelling versus convincing element, sticking with Tony's example in the social media channel, it's so easy to get carried away and people think about having long form sales letters, they've got lots of convincing words and going out into an audience and beating them over the head with enough information that they definitely want this thing, as well as their compelling and psychological triggers of already wanting a book.

There's the channel that it's going down as well. The audience of people who follow your page already know, like, and trust you to some degree, even if they're relatively new to your world. So just putting that out there, the minimum effective dose of the words on the page, the book's here, do you want it? I mean, there doesn't need to be anything more than that.

Dean Jackson:
And so it's packaged as a book and it's got the title that's compelling. And the reason that I say when you do this, it's like the minimum effective dose. And I want to be crystal clear that I'm not saying to do the least for the least's sake.

Stuart:
Right.

Dean Jackson:
I'm saying the effective dose meaning the result, enough to get the result that you want. Just like if you're taking a medication, they look at the minimum effective dose being how much of this is going to solve the problem or get rid of the symptom.

Or if I have a headache and the minimum effective dose is 200 milligrams, it's not going to make the headache go away faster to take 400 milligrams or 600 milligrams when 200 will do. It's like taking vitamins. Same thing, right? It's the stuff that we can absorb. So it's also important to realize that all of this work that we've done, all of the stuff to get to this point where you've got your book in your hand and you've got the opportunity to get in front of people, to not get too married to the idea that people are going to drop everything they're doing once they get the book.

They are going to want it. They're going to trigger to get it immediately. But the reality is that even among, you know, books that people buy online or in bookstores, more than half of the people, 58%, never open the book. And so, your book isn't going to be any more magical than that anyway, right?

So the odds are that somebody's going to open it, if it's small enough that it looks like they could vantage it, but I'm never counting on them doing it. The whole point of this, if you're using it as a lead generation tool, is that once they've raised their hands, once they've gone from an invisible prospect to a visible prospect, the book has done its job and now we want to start engaging in a dialogue with them. We want to say ... you know, if you know that somebody downloads a book called Working Less and Making More, that you can assume that the reason that they downloaded it is because they want to work less and make more.

So now, focus your followup or your engagement with them on did you get the book? Did you get a chance to read it? Because the answer's going to be no and it doesn't matter. Right?

Stuart:
Right.

Dean Jackson:
It's like, let's just leave it that they're asking for the book. I always say the mind-movie that I play when we're trying to think about the book download that when somebody asks for your book and they fill in the form that you have for them to get it on your landing page, that they are magically transported to your office and there's a knock on the door. They poke their head in and they say, "Hey, I'm here about the Working Less Keeping More book."

And now, how would you have that conversation, now that you're in conversation with the person who has identified themselves as someone who wants the benefit of what you promised on the cover? Forget about whether ... Is reading the book going to be the first thing. Like, would you send that person off and say, "Okay, go read the book and then when you read the book, come back."

Stuart:
Come back when you're done. There'll be a test.

Dean Jackson:
Yeah, that's not ... right. You just start where they are. You want to take them by the hand and you want to welcome them and you may want to ask a couple of qualifying questions or a couple of sorting questions to figure out, is this somebody that you can help?

Stuart:
That idea that the knowing going in with your eyes open, knowing that the answer to the question of have you read the book is going to be no, but also, it doesn't matter. It's so liberating and freeing. It absolutely detaches the whole process.

Dean Jackson:
That's why you're going to feel so good that you spent the minimal amount of time to get that. Imagine if you spent ... Let's say that book, all of the results, all the things that you're seeing there is people ... We put up the picture of the book. It's a great looking cover. It's got a great title, it's a book. Check, check, check.

People are asking for it and they don't know or care how long it took to write, how many pages it is or how well Tony phrased all of the paragraphs in there. It doesn't matter to get people to ask for it. And so, the great thing is that it would feel so kind of much more of a let down if you actually spent six months or nine months or a year of your life writing this book. You have the same title, the same cover, the same posts on your page and the same people asking for it. It's not going to increase the number of people who want your book by spending more time doing it or spending more words saying it. Because the odds are, they're not going to read it anyway, and all we want is to start the conversation.

Stuart:
Yeah. That first step in the process.

I just got off a call earlier with one of our authors, Lisa Frutelli, who's written a book about a mold syndrome that she was dealing with and how she overcame it and recovered from it. And I was saying to her, she has a podcast as well. So we were talking about that as a way of having this engagement, a way of staying in front of people and thinking of a book in one step of an overall funnel and overall process.

And people just want that certainty, the reassurance that they're heading in the right direction. They don't actually want to go through the work of reading and doing homework and answering questions.

Dean Jackson:
Am I in the right place?

Stuart:
Exactly. Yeah. And that next step is leading them. So the email follow up that we were talking about there, because this is something that comes up a lot and I even fall foul of it sometimes as well. Initially thinking, "Hey did you read the book?"

Dean Jackson:
Never. Yeah.

Stuart:
Never, yeah. The followup question, what we often refer to this spear email, the sort of short, personal expecting reply. Was it a framework for people to think about the how they're structuring that. You talked about the mental image of someone coming in.

Dean Jackson:
Yeah, what would you say if someone popped their head in your office and said, "Hey, I'm here about the mold book." You might want to ask somebody, how long have you had it or do you have it? Or is this for someone that you know or is this, do you suspect you have it or do you know you have it or what would be ... Yeah, depending on what the situations are, you're in front of a person now who has self-identified as someone being interested in that.

You know with Luba, we did the adult acne cure book and when somebody asks for the adult acne cure, the sorting question that we ask or the engaging question is how often do you get breakouts?

Stuart:
Right.

Dean Jackson:
That's a reasonable question to ask someone who's just just asked for a book about the adult acne cure. Welcome aboard. How often do you get breakthroughs? How often do you get breakouts, I mean.

Stuart:
Yeah, that conversational flow of thinking that it's one step at a time, although it's email and the timeframe is stretched out, the conversation that you want to have is still that conversational conversion-type conversation of not overstating things or not putting things in too much official or corporate speak, but just keeping the conversation going, because the aim is to get someone to engage.

Dean Jackson:
Yes, that's exactly right. And I don't want to downplay, listen that 58% of people are never going to open it. That's true. But that means that you know, 42% of the people are going to open. And when you say that 22% of the people who open it will ever get past the first 100 pages in a regular book means that 22% of people who open it will read it all the way through. And so, that's great. I'm not saying that the book doesn't need to deliver on the promise, which it should and does. It's just leading enough to say, yes, you are in the right place and it should always end with whenever you're ready, here are three ways I can help you. It's, what do we do now? You're not going to solve the problem with the book. We're going to solve the problem with the help that we can offer after the book or beyond the book, you know?

Stuart:
Yeah. That next step. Talk about that a little bit more, then. So this idea that it's ... because I think a lot of people go into this with the idea of a traditional sales funnel. Someone opts in at the beginning and then a certain number of steps and if people get to the end of that process and don't do anything, then they fall into a deadly category. But the reality is that the majority of people do something in the longer term rather than the short term.

Dean Jackson:
Well, now you're in this world of lead conversion and we've had lots of conversations about lead conversion. I've been studying it for so long that when we look at it that if we take a bundle of 100 people who have asked for a book called The Adult Acne Cure. Take it as an example.

Our studies and the research and the the industry papers and things that we've studied go back decades showing that just over half of the people who inquire about anything will do what it is they've inquired about in the next 18 months. And so for our frameworks, we've taken that and created this framework that how every thing that we count on is that being conservative, 50% of the people will do something in the next two years.

And so that means that if somebody downloads a book called The Adult Acne Cure, that half of them, if we have 100 people, 50 of them will do something about their adult acne in the next two years. So that means that we've got a really great number of these people here. They're really viable because a book is a telegraph. You know when you look at ... The only reason somebody would download a book is because they have an interest in the topic?

Stuart:
What the title is, right, exactly. Yeah.

Dean Jackson:
Like, I know that I'm not going to download a book on how to potty train your parrot. I'm not going to do that because I don't have a parrot to potty train.

Stuart:
I thought for a second you said parent.

Dean Jackson:
We could all equally assume that the only person who would download a book called Potty Train Your Parrot would be someone who has a parrot that they would like to potty train.

Stuart:
So even people who have done the training already, if that problem is solved for them, even within that subset of people, it's the ones who are actually interested in the results, so it's even more dialed in.

Dean Jackson:
Yeah. So if you get a hundred people to download the book, How to Potty Train Your Parrot, we can say with confidence that probably 50 of them over the next two years are going to do something, seek out some kind of advice or solution to potty train their parrot.

Now if somebody showed up at your office and said, "Hey, I'm here about the How to Potty Train Your Parrot book," then what would you say to that person? Now, you're looking to engage in a dialogue and discover whether this person is one of the 50 people who are going to do something in the next two years.

Stuart:
Right.

Dean Jackson:
What kind of parrot do you have? That might be a good, reasonable question to ask if somebody asks. "Hey, welcome aboard. What kind of parrot do you have?"

Stuart:
Because it's not jumping in for the kill straight away. It's starting the conversation with the most obvious question to a conversation that you know is going to lead towards the outcome.

Dean Jackson:
Say, you know, that's the thing is if somebody, if you know now, you've got to know how can you help somebody, right? So if the book is a means to an end, the book is starting the conversation to go to, what are we going to do about this un-potty trained parrot? You can imagine that that's a problem, or you can imagine that there's some reason that they want to do this. And of course, I don't even know whether you can potty train a parrot.

I'm just using it as a visual example that you can imagine they've got some degree of a problem. So, what are the alternatives? And all we're looking for is that in order for us to do business with people, they have to be what we call five star prospects. Meaning that they're willing to engage in a dialogue. They're friendly and cooperative. They know what they want, they're ready to get it and they would like us to help them. They have to meet all five of those things in order to do business with us right now. Right?

And when we look at that, now ... If they have to be all five, then instead of taking the approach of what most marketers do is, "You need to buy this and you need to buy it now," that's how they start the conversation.

Then, if they have to be all five, then we can start at the top and see are they willing to engage in a dialogue. So, if somebody knocks on the door and they poke their head in and say, "Hey, I'm here about the potty train the parrot book." Then if you look at them and you say, "Oh, welcome, come on in. What kind of parrot do you have?" That would be a good ... And then shut up. That would be a good thing.

Stuart:
Test event.

Dean Jackson:
Yeah. Because somebody might say, oh, I've got a whatever. "I've got a Polynesian parrot." And then you're able to further the conversation. Right. What are you doing now? Where is he pooping now? "Well, I keep him in the cage and I put the paper at the bottom," or I let him out. I don't know ... he's pooping everywhere, you know? That's the problem, right? And then you say, then you now have to anticipate what the solution is. You have to now bridge to what you can help. What would be your prescription for somebody?

If you find out that they're willing to engage, they're friendly and cooperative, do they know what they want? "Well, what kind of parrot do you have?" "I've got a Polynesian parrot." "Is he the only one?" "Well, actually, I have three Polynesian parrots." "And what are you doing now?"

You're engaging in the dialogue to find out what they're looking for and now you're able to lay out the solution, you know?

Stuart:
Yeah. Once you've got to that point of understanding a little bit more about them and they're willing to engage back, I think that's such a key. And I think it's a sign of the times maybe, but so many people get hung up on this, they want to automate everything and steer clear of one on one engagement for the big volumes and just trying to get enough people in there.

But the reality is unless you're in a commodity business, and even then I guess to a certain degree, but certainly a lot of the service-type businesses or consulting where there's more of a high touch to it, the quicker you can get into a conversation with someone, a real person, the quicker you can then see what the best solution is.

Dean Jackson:
Right. That's exactly right.

Stuart:
I'm going to suggest that people download a copy of Email Mastery talking about books and talking about email. I think that is a very good next step as you're listening to this now.

So that would be heading across to EmailMastery.com because Dean goes into details on more of these examples. So as you come to the end of the book, it's out there. This email engagement piece there we're talking about, super important. I think Email Mastery as you're listening is a great next step.

Dean Jackson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. And that way you know, then you get to see it unfold to yourself. It gives an example.

Stuart:
Fantastic. Well I think that is a good bite for today.

Dean Jackson:
Awesome.

Stuart:
Give people something to think about without overwhelming them and then we can tease with some more stuff for next time.

Dean Jackson:
Awesome. Thanks.

Stuart:
Perfect. Thanks. Speak to you soon. Bye.

And there we have it. Another great show. I always love it when we get Dean on, and looking forward to making that a little bit more regular going forwards. So as you mentioned, email is really the key to engaging people once they've opted in. So download a copy of Email Mastery from EmailMastery.com and Dean goes deeper into both the the spear type emails that we talked about, the engaging conversational conversions and nine word emails to reengage the list. So, well worth the read. Go grab a copy at EmailMastery.com.

If you want to continue the conversation here, two ways to do that. If you want to be a guest on the show than just head over to 90MinutesBooks.com/guest or follow the Be a Guest link from the podcast area and we can schedule some time to talk about your book, your book idea.

And then the next step, if you haven't already, highly recommend going over to BookBlueprintScore.com and taking the free assessment that's over there to assess your book idea against the eight mindsets that we have for the perfect lead generation tool. So that's BookBlueprintScore.com and then you can see how your book idea scores, gives you some ideas on the amplifying each of the individual stages. So with that, thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next one.