Today on the Book More Show I'm talking with Betsy, and we dive into what turned out to be a pretty interesting episode, using a book to build your team and their success.
First, we looked at building your team itself using a book. We used real estate as an example. It's an industry where staff turnover can be relatively high. Agents have the freedom to move to any brokerage, so how can you use a book to attract the best agents, and set the tone, and communicate the values of your organization once people join.
We then looked at using a kind of syndication model, internally rather than externally, to help your team engage more clients.
As the business owner, you're in a great position to write the most effective lead generating book. You have the knowledge, experience, and authority to get it done. You also have the opportunity to amplify its reach by putting the team member's name on the front rather than yours.
At the end of the day, you're interested in the business being as successful as possible. If that goal is helped by the team using your book, with their name, to engage clients and start a conversation, that's a win.
So, lots more examples in this episode.
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Transcript: Book More Show 094
Stuart Bell:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here. Today, talking with Betsy. We're going to dive into what turned out to be pretty interesting subjects. Thought it was going to be a brief one, but we dive deep into using a book as a tool to build your business via a team.
So, two elements to this. First one is how you can actually build the team with a book. Imagine the scenario where we use real estate as an example, looking to build a team where staff turnover is relatively high. Agents have got the freedom to move to any brokerage they want. So, using a book to set a tone, telegraph the values of the organization, really presence yourselves and why people should work with you. So there's a great opportunity there. And we went into a couple more examples broader than that.
Then secondly, we looked at using the syndication model. So if you, as a business owner, have the capability of writing the best possible book, then there's an extended opportunity in allowing team members to put their name as the author, or as the co-author, to really build the relationship and a rapport with customers that they're speaking to. So, rather than this being a pure ego play that has just your name on it and it being all about you, how you can really leverage a relationship that they have with their people for the greater good of the business.
So, super interesting call today. Really dived into a lot of great examples. There's a couple of links in the show notes. So, hello to 90minutebooks.com/podcast and this is episode 94 and there's some links there to some of the things that we refer to. So with that, I will catch you on the other side.
Betsy Vaughn.
Betsy Vaughn:
Stuart Bell. How are you?
Stuart Bell:
Good, thanks. How's it going?
Betsy Vaughn:
Good. Great day. Great Friday.
Stuart Bell:
It is. Another day in paradise.
Betsy Vaughn:
Right? Awesome.
Stuart Bell:
Lucy's down in Florida, at the moment. So I'm trying to sell the paradise thing quite hard because it's cold.
Betsy Vaughn:
Listen, I'm doing the same thing, let me tell you. Don't you want to sit outside some more? She sat out by the pool. The audience she was here for yesterday with me, is still here today and she was out by the pool with her little laptop and doing her work and I'm like, "Wasn't that just nice?"
Stuart Bell:
It's very civilized.
Betsy Vaughn:
And she told me, she said, "It's 23 degrees in Philadelphia this weekend." It's not going to be...
Stuart Bell:
Right. We got back on Sunday and every now and then... There's a doorbell camera on the house. When the postman, the mailman arrives. Postman, that's very British. When the mailman arrives, it triggers. So I look at it every now and then and haven't yet seen snow on the ground. But it definitely looks cold and leaves off the trees. Yeah. Look forward to wrap it up for when we go back.
Betsy Vaughn:
On a side note, Lucy had been dying to see an alligator on her visits down and finally we saw an alligator yesterday. I said, "It's not very big, it's only probably eight or nine feet." And she's like, "What?"
Stuart Bell:
I spoke to her. I got a very excited text at the time, of the little alligator emoji. Then when I was talking to her a little bit afterwards, she was saying, "And Betsy said it wasn't very big, but it was eight or nine feet."
Betsy Vaughn:
It was.
Stuart Bell:
It's all relative.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, exactly. All right.
Stuart Bell:
Before heading up to the chilly north, we should do a podcast.
Betsy Vaughn:
Let's do it. What are we going to talk about?
Stuart Bell:
Today, I think, because this came up in conversation in the week, I thought what we'd talk about is using a book to build teams. So there's a couple of different elements to that. Using a book yourself to build your team or using a book as an amplifier for the members of your team so that, obviously, your success is dependent on their success.
So, how can we orchestrate or help that success as much as possible and using a book is obviously a great way of doing that. And there's the scalability when we start thinking in team dynamic as well.
So, we have talked about this in the past in terms of syndicated books. There's a couple of previous episodes. As you're listening, if you want to go a little bit deeper on more of the syndication side of things, which is leveraging a book but not necessarily with your own team but with other people. Then I'll put a note. I'll put a link in the show notes too. I'll find that episode and put a link in the show notes. Just search for the syndication episode and there's more on that. But yeah, this time I thought we'd concentrate on your own team and see where we go then.
Betsy Vaughn:
Sounds good.
Stuart Bell:
I just realized before we start, I've made a classic podcasting mistake of not getting any coffee before we start, so we might be constrained, not necessarily by time, but by my voice giving out today. A blessing for everyone.
Betsy Vaughn:
No, no. We love it.
Stuart Bell:
I thought we'd talk about team-building in two ways. So to start off I'll go a bit deeper on that. First way is using a book to build a team. Now we've talked before. There was an episode that we did with Kevin Craig, where his book that he wrote was initially an internal book. It was like a positioning for their team, almost like a state of the nation or, "Here's how we work," type book. But actually because the information he shared there was really, "This is how we do business ourselves," that then expanded into something that he was giving to other people. People who knew him as a successful business owner and had that, "I'd love to buy you a coffee and talk to you for 10 minutes." That type of conversation.
Using that book as an extra resource, either to, if you didn't have time to meet people or when meeting people as something to take away and go a little bit deeper on. But the information was broadly the same and that led into a whole unexpected coaching business and now he's got a pretty successful and big coaching business. But where it came from in the first place, was, "Here's our organization, here's our values, here's what's important to us. Let me write this in a book so that all of our team members that come on board can read this," and it really benchmarks the expectations to a certain degree and makes sure that everyone's on the same page as far as the values of the organization go and him as the business owner and founder and driving thought behind it. It opens up, gives everyone an opportunity to see his perspective when he didn't necessarily get the opportunity to talk to them day by day.
So, we've done a couple of books like this that branches into the legacy book thing, which you've done quite a few of in the past. So, that example is where a family member talking about a generational wealth setting, but the family member who's maybe getting towards an age where they're going to pass away at some point. So, trying to capture their thoughts and where they came from and using that as a start of conversation of what they want to do with their money after they're gone. So, this idea of setting the values in stone, giving the stories to back up where they come from, as a team building exercise. I think that's a great opportunity and it's not something that we talk about very much because we're often talking about sales and lead generation. But, as an exercise to really get the boat moving on the team building side, I think it's a great way of introducing that conversation. And then obviously you can go from there.
Betsy Vaughn:
Absolutely. I agree. I was thinking about one of the books that we did. It might've been Ron's book. It's a legacy book but the things that he talks about in that book, the stories are great. Just learning about someone. But the stories that he shares, there's so much. He wrote that book specifically for his family, but it became something when I was reading some of the stories, there's so many lessons in there and so much advice. That wasn't necessarily his purpose but that's how it came across. If you're really reading something and seeing what he's saying between the lines, you really take away so much from those books.
Stuart Bell:
You can imagine how that amplifies. So, reading it as an outsider. The extent of our relationship with him was, just go through the process as a client really. But imagine reading that as a family member and how close and personal those stories are and the opportunity to, on the legacy side of things, we do quite a lot of these projects and it's exceptionally valuable for the wealth management community.
Actually, if anyone's listening and you are in that space, the wealth management space and that generational transference, then reach out. Just hit reply because we've got another project that we've done some work on but we're going to push a little bit more in 2020 for the legacy book side of things. So this is specifically looking at people who are doing wealth planning, but the clients have a challenge. Doing the wealth planning is difficult enough sometimes but then one of the major challenges is being able to have that conversation with the people who are left behind, the inheritors. So, using a book as a way to start that conversation, because very often times, you can do all of this work, but when it actually comes to sharing the details with the family, that's when problems start.
Betsy Vaughn:
And that's exactly, I think, with that book, for sure. The way he was telling things. There was so much value to that. So if ever the family members forget some of the things or-
Stuart Bell:
Right. Why it's been done.
Betsy Vaughn:
It's there. Why, exactly. There's that reference point because you can't always remember every single thing that your father or grandfather or mother told you. To have that from a business standpoint, not just the fun stories of Grandpa back in the day, there's so much value there.
Stuart Bell:
Even just itself. I've seen quite a few ads in the last year for a service whose name escapes me at the moment. It might come back. If it does, I'll stick it in the show notes. But it was a service where, almost like, someone buying Ancestry as a gift. The gift to give, which my data protection and security radar goes off about any service that mass collects everyone's DNA. Can't possibly imagine a problem with that scenario. But anyway, so that's-
Betsy Vaughn:
You sound like my 23-year-old daughter because somebody gave me one of those for Christmas.
Stuart Bell:
I knew that and as I started that, I remember you saying at Christmas when we were talking and I resisted from saying it then and I'd forgotten that you'd got one. There was no underlying messages.
Betsy Vaughn:
It wasn't like, "Don't do it Betsy."
Stuart Bell:
No, no.
Betsy Vaughn:
It's sitting there.
Stuart Bell:
Right. The funny thing is, for every kind of ancestry... What's the name of the... 23andMe, sorry. For every one of those ads that I see, it's almost like within the next 24 hours, I hear another story about someone who got the gift for Thanksgiving, but then by Christmas was in a divorce situation because some weird paternity thing flagged up and there were relatives knocking on the door.
Betsy Vaughn:
Oh, you know that story.
Stuart Bell:
We went off on a bit of a tangent there. So, what I was going to say was, this other service... So, Ancestry, 23andMe, there's definitely a movement out there of people wanting to grab hold of their roots. I'm guessing it's something to do with sociologically, we're moving away from storytelling individually with people because you'd never spend time with grandparents to get those stories. Everyone's heads in their phones and never visits anyone. So we're trying to plug that underlying human need with technology. I don't actually want to make time to hear all of these stories necessarily. But it'd be good if there was a service that captured it for me so that maybe when I get round to it, I can listen to it.
So this other service is, again, something you would buy for someone else. There's a series of 10 to 15 questions that they've got. The relative will just dial into the service and record the answers and then those answers will get transcribed and it gets turned into a book and they've got an opportunity to upload some pictures and it just turns into a bit of a more thoughtful picture book of their life.
So, the legacy book is very much similar. Not only is there a job of work it can do by starting a conversation, but it's also a way to capture those stories which family members with the best intentions might not get round to do. Very different motivations whether you're actually going into it for job one or job two, so be mindful of that. But there is definitely a secondary benefit even if you were going into it driven by a wealth management desire, but still opportunity to share the stories.
Jumping back to the team building and the work side of things then. The same goes, although it's obviously a different dynamic, people aren't quite as close to their job as they are to their family in most cases. But it's definitely the second biggest amount of time that you spend anywhere is at work. And people do get very connected with the organization, particularly when they're small organizations and a more personal touch. So for a business owner to be able to share the purpose and why we do what we do, not only does it make that connection with the employees, but it does allow you to steer the conversation a little bit in the direction that you want. So yeah, it's interesting.
Betsy Vaughn:
I was just thinking about, we did a book, and I cannot for the life of me, remember who it was for, but it was strictly an internal book. It wasn't a large business, but it was almost like... I'm not even near my computer, so I can't even go searching for it on the gallery. But they did this book as an employee handbook, but it was more of a, "This happened, this is how we solved the problem." There was a lot of those stories in there and I thought, "Boy, wouldn't that be a great employee handbook?" It wouldn't just be the typical like, "Show up at work at eight o'clock and leave at five." It would not be that boring. It was all about their culture.
Stuart Bell:
Is it the UK one? The guys in the parks in the UK?
Betsy Vaughn:
No, I don't think so.
Stuart Bell:
We've done a couple.
Betsy Vaughn:
I'm going to think about this and look at it. Yeah.
Stuart Bell:
The other one that springs to mind, obviously, because we are close to Robin, is Robin Estevez's, Stories from Behind the Counter.
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, that's a great book.
Stuart Bell:
The level of detail. So they own what's bigger than a-
Betsy Vaughn:
Grocery stores.
Stuart Bell:
Yeah, grocery stores. I was going to say, "What's bigger than a convenience store?" But yeah, grocery stores as part of a larger franchise. But, across the family they've got quite a few stores all over New York and Jersey and up in that area. So, that was very much done as an internal book and a book for their customers that they were closest to because they're very much... I think they're Food Town stores is the name of the brand.
Betsy Vaughn:
I can't remember. Yeah.
Stuart Bell:
But there, Robin's very front and center in the store. He's very much got this family grocer persona and he engages with people individually. So, not only was that used for their team members but also for their customers as well. Particularly those ones that they were closest to. So, this idea of not just using the book for lead generation but using it to serve another purpose and to start another conversation and to make people feel or give people the opportunity to feel included and involved in the story, there's so many individual opportunities that come from it.
Betsy Vaughn:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Stuart Bell:
The other area of team building is then to build the team in the first place. So we talk, as I mentioned, a lot about lead generation from the customer side, but really lead generation from an employee side is very valuable in a number of organizations as well. So, obviously if you've only got one or two staff, then writing a book to find a third member of staff probably isn't worthwhile if that was your only purpose for it.
But in a large organization, an organization where it's competitive, an organization where the story of your company is as much as important as the thing that you actually do. So I'm thinking about any kind of movement or companies that have set up very much around principles, not necessarily so much around product. A lot of times that's just used as a lever to get some news traction, but there are quite a lot of organizations that really start out as mission driven companies and then the product comes from it.
The other element as well is, even if it doesn't make sense to write the books individually or specifically just for talent acquisition, keeping that in mind as a secondary purpose is very valuable as well. So, whether the book is focused on culture and why your organization is different, both in a way that it deals with customers and employees or whether it's talking about the unique tools or approaches or products that you've got and that's why this is the place to work or this is the place to be a customer of. Then all of those elements can contribute towards that team-building.
The ones that particularly spring to mind are the likes of real estate teams. That's probably the biggest model I can think of. This idea of independent contractors being brought together under the banner of an organization or an association. I can't think of many other businesses where that's quite such the common way of working.
Betsy Vaughn:
Not to that degree, for sure. Yeah.
Stuart Bell:
So, when you think about real estate agents or real estate teams, it's not uncommon to have teams of a hundred plus people in a workforce that can go anywhere. Once someone's licensed and has experience, they become more desirable. It can get into a numbers game where people are just thinking about, "Well, can I get a better deal over here versus over there?" Writing the book about why ABC Realty Team is the place to both be a member of the team and a customer of the team, can have that dual purpose of really making that case for why agents would want to come to work for you because of these values and why customers would want to work for you. Have it as part of the listing or buyers package that you give to people to onboard them in the first place.
I don't think many people are doing it either. I think that's another reason why it's such an interesting approach because no one else is really doing it. Everyone else is concentrating on the numbers or they've got a way of recruiting.
Betsy Vaughn:
I think you hear that lingo in the real estate world a lot. Like, our culture, our family. Come be a part of XYZ. But then I am always curious. I think one of the bigger ones, I remember my mother was associated. She owned part of a real estate company in Citrus County here in Florida and the Keller Williams culture. I think there's a great book out there that talks all about the... I remember seeing it. Maybe she had it on her desk or in her library or something. It talks about their culture. Across the board, it's not real estate, but just learning about the company, how they got to where they are. I think knowing that stuff as somebody who's new coming on board, it's so beneficial. Or even before you come on board. That onboarding process.
Stuart Bell:
Yeah. That book that Gary Calloway, the millionaire real estate agent, that founding principle that goes wider than their organization. But it definitely puts at the corporate level, it definitely sets the tone. And Keller Williams' major events, they're called family reunions. So, they're definitely organizationally in that direction.
But you can imagine going down to the individual brokerage teams and following that through and really talking about the culture of the organization and just using it for team-building. How talking about the culture and the values and what you can expect and why we're different and why you should come and work for us. Because that turnover is so much talking to people in that space around the bigger teams. That turnover is so high relative to other industries that I think that's the one space where it really does make sense to write specifically for that purpose. Whereas for a lot of other organizations, it makes a little bit more sense to maybe have a dual purpose of talking about it in the context of employees, but clients as well.
So, that was those two examples. So, that's using a book to build the team. Using it as an attractor to bring people towards the organization.
The second way of thinking about that, I mentioned before, was using the books to allow the team to leverage their sales activities. So, not a syndication book in the sense of going out of the organization, but syndicating it within the organization. So, a book is often like a vanity play. Too many times people think about it as getting their name on the billboard or being able to say that they're an author, which we've talked lots of times before. There's plenty of reasons why there are benefits to that. It just shouldn't be the main focus. If you can have a more specific way of using the book, the more direct marketing response type approach rather than just a brand building type approach. Then you get all of the benefits of being specific. But also there's side benefits and all of the side benefits that the brand element brings.
Imagine a scenario where you, as the business owner, write the book which is the most valuable to the customers because you're the most engaged. You're the person that knows it the best. You've been around for the longest time. You've got the authority to go and collect all of this information and then writing a book that serves all of the needs of the book blueprint scorecard that we talked about before. So, it's the best book because you're talking to a single target market, you've got a title that resonates and gets people to raise their hand. The subheading amplifies the emotion underneath the title. You've got the call to action. You know very clearly where you want people to go to next. The outline clearly takes them from the title to that next minimum viable commitment, next step.
All of these things, as the business owner, you can write the best version of that. Now, if you just had your name on it, that's fantastic. But it doesn't allow the sales team, the people who are out there dealing with the customers face-to-face, it doesn't give them any authority. Yes, there's an element of, "Hey, here's a copy of our organization's book. My CEO wrote it and he's the best," and all that type of thing, which again is a bit of an ego play, but it doesn't necessarily build the relationship with the individual.
If there was an opportunity where, instead of having your name on the front, you put the team member's name on the front, then that adds that extra layer of credibility. And when we think about the purpose of the books that we're creating, it's to build the business. It's not to build our personal brand, at least not in this context. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we're just not talking about it in this context. If there's an opportunity to amplify and leverage the effectiveness of the team, then from a company perspective, that's going to be more beneficial than just trying to keep all of the accolades for yourself and not allow the team to build that rapport, build that authority with the customers.
Betsy Vaughn:
I think also, when you think about teams that we deal with, a lot of times there's always a compliance issue, which is a thorn in our side. So you think, "Okay, it comes from the top level." Be it the business owner or what have you. Then you save yourself the aggravation of dealing with that kind of thing because you know you are in line with company policy. Your name's on it and it really is the whole package. It gives you that credibility, but you don't have to do all the work behind it. Plus you know it's uniform. Aligns with what the business is and you don't have to worry about any issues. It's an easy way to get a book done.
Stuart Bell:
Yeah, exactly. And even if everyone was as lined up with compliance as the owner, so they were going into it with the best possible position. Just the duplication and the need to have to get it signed off four times, all the time and overheads to create. So, think about the real estate example. Just because we started with that before and it's an easy one that everyone can imagine what that situation is.
So, a real estate office, even if the business owner could convince the 20 agents that they have in town that they should write a book because that's a great way to engage customers. Then what are those 20 books going to look like? Because person one will write Living in Winter Haven, The Guide to Buying and Selling in Winter Haven. So, what does person number two do then? A book that's less effective? That has a less good title that doesn't include some of the same stuff? It's very much unnecessarily reinventing the wheel.
Organizationally, if the organization writes the Living in Winter Haven book, and then each agent as they're working for the company can put their name on the front of it so that when they go to a listing appointment or when they're showing homes to buyers, they give them a copy of the book that's got their photo or their name on the front. We do this. We've got a syndicated book because obviously we don't have a real estate brokerage, so we're doing it externally rather than internally, but we've got a syndicated book, How to Sell Your House for Top Dollar, which is something that we use with the real estate agents that we work with, but that serves this exact purpose.
It allows them to have something that they needed to put almost no effort into creating because we've done that work for them. It allows them to have their name and their photo on the front of something that they can give to a customer and take some of that credibility, some of that author kudos for having written something, but then also there's super valuable information in there so it's actually delivering value in and of itself.
All other elements being equal, if there are two listing appointments, then someone that also has the credibility and delivers the value in the extra step of the book is, again all things being equal, going to be held in higher esteem than the person that didn't provide that. So, as the organization owner, being able to write the first one but then put the facing person's name and face on it, just makes the organization more effective and it makes the boat go faster for the organization separate from the one individual holding onto it, feeling that they need to have their name over it because God forbid someone might not realize how much hard work and sweat actually they put into it, regardless of how effective that is.
Some of the ways, just on that point to elaborate a little bit further, or harp on it a little bit further. We've seen a couple of examples where people will only be willing to do it if it's co-branded, if it's got their name on it or someone else or they only want to do it if the other person just writes a forward. So, it's still their book. But the other person's allowed to write a forward. Given the honor of writing a forward just so that they can get their name on it as well. It's beholden on everyone, I think, to think about what the job at work of this is, and if it is lead generating to gain more business then what is the most effective way to get that done?
Is it that your face is plastered all over it or is it that the expectation or the mental model around it is that the customer is being given the book by the person whose name is on the front and building in more of a direct relationship rather than having just to anchor it back to someone else. Now, as with everything, there are a number of examples where that does make sense still. Well, I say that. There aren't that many examples of where it makes sense but there are one or two. So if, for example, there is a brand building element, that also makes sense. So, writing a book that is written by the business owner but then is supported by the team and has a chapter written by the team member that adds in a dynamic that is specific to that person.
So, 80% of the content is standard and it's the ideas of the individual, but the 20% is topping and tailing it with the perspective of the sales person. Then that might be a way that works too. So, if the content is very ideas driven, if it's something unique, if there's a reason why the individual, the business owner individual in this example, is the authority and it does make sense that the main bulk of the content is that stuff.
So if, for example, you invented a widget and the main topic of the book was talking about why you invented the widget and why the widget is so special, but your sales team are then out there selling widgets to different industries. So, having the sales person write the top and tail chapter that talks about, "In this book we share with you the story of how it came to pass." The reason it's very special for this industry or why this industry can really leverage it or why it's going to make a big difference to your business in this industry.
That model makes sense because then you get the best of both worlds. You've got the inventor writing the background to the thing, but you've got the salesperson who's going to be doing the face work, introducing the subject, introducing the inventor to the reader, and then closing at the end with, "And there you have it. That's why this was important. That's why it can make a difference to your business and here's what you should do next." So, there are some examples where it does work, but I think for the majority of people, writing one version of Living in Winter Haven and allowing each individual agent to put their name on the front of it is the most beneficial way of going for most people.
Betsy Vaughn:
I agree. I agree with that. Excuse me. Less work. But I think the idea that someone, when you're talking about syndication, that's a great idea too. I think it gives someone that sense of... A lot of people are fine to say, "Yeah, I put my name on the book," it's good, it's great, whatever. But because sometimes people are lazy like that, they just don't want to put the effort into it. But having the opportunity to put a chapter in there that gives someone a real sense of accomplishment and pride, it elevates them. That gets into that team building thing. It really just elevates the person. Like, "Oh this, I really did have a say in this." So, I'm all about that. I like that idea a little bit.
Stuart Bell:
That's another good point as well. The benefit of doing the majority of the work and making it as easy as possible, is a great solution for organizations or people where they either don't have budget or time or interest in doing something else. It's that entry level, minimum effective dose type book of, "Here's a way of getting something out there."
But I completely agree with you. If the context is right and someone can personalize it even more, then it, A, makes it more personal obviously. B, it also gives them more ownership, as you were saying. It allows their voice to come through a little bit more. So, definitely as the second tier, allow people to have a little bit more ownership of it and as long as it's serving the purpose that it's designed for, as long as they're not then trying to manipulate it and switch it into an ego play on their own right. There's less opportunity for that because there's fewer words that if they want to go down that route, then they can write their own books. So, there's not too much opportunity for it. But yeah, with the right intent, it definitely gives more ownership and buy-in and skin in the game, for adding their own stuff to it.
So interesting. Before we started recording, we were talking about, as we always do, what we're going to talk about today and thought this might be a quick idea. But as you start peeling back the layers of the onion and start thinking about the individual use cases. I think a great way of thinking about it as an exercise, as you're listening and wondering if this is right for you, is thinking, take the book out of the conversation and just think about it as a physical conversation. So, if the three people were in Starbucks. There was you as the business owner, the potential client, and the salesperson. All three of you in Starbucks. What would that conversation look like? Not in the specifics of the words, but in the dynamic of the conversation.
Does it make sense that you do all of the introducing to the individual sales people? Does it make sense that the sales people have got the relationship but they want to introduce you? Does it make sense that you're there but actually just stay the hell out of the way and let them get on with it? Not so much the details of the conversation, but just the connection and how the relationship builds. What's the most likely to have a successful outcome and get that potential client to become an existing client.
Those blocks, those moving parts, those personas or personalities, how they connect together in the most logical way. Thinking about it in a physical sense in a coffee shop is a very easy way to think about, "Okay, if I could jot out how that would work. Now I overlay a book on it to do some of the job because a book can work when you're not physically there. What should that book look like?"
Because it's so easy to get carried away in the technicalities or the process of the book itself that you can disconnect or forget about what you're actually trying to achieve and what you're trying to achieve is that same relationship. That same dynamic, that same outcome, but just with different moving parts. With different elements in it, in a different context. But I think that's really a useful way of validating, should you be involved? Should it be all about you or should it be about someone or something else?
Betsy Vaughn:
Yeah, I agree with that and I think that's an easy way to think about that. I think the example was great. Try to go through it like, "Oh, should I do this and how should I do this and what should I do this and should I include this person and how much is too much? Is it about me or is it about the company?"
Stuart Bell:
Right. I'm going to try and remember that example. If only this was being recorded. I'm going to try and remember this example in the future because so often I think there is this issue of getting caught up in the what, rather than the why. So, like needing to get from A to B. If you think about why you need to get A to B, and what the outcome is and the constraints. Do you need to be there by a particular time? Why are you going there? Which kind of influences? What you're wearing and how much time you leave yourself and how important it is and whether it matters whether you're late? All of that is easy to conceptualize, but often it gets forgotten about if you're thinking about actually driving there.
So, when you are a very new driver, then the actual mechanics of it overtake the outcome or the purpose because you've got so much mental energy into, "Okay, well how do I drive from there to there? What's going on with this other traffic?" And all of these other elements, because it hasn't yet gone into your subconscious mind. Learning to drive in the UK, when I was learning to drive, 99% of it was stick shift and automatics were few and far between. So, when you add in the extra dynamic there of changing gear and dealing with the clutch and all of those elements, then that takes up so much thinking that the purpose and the other stuff becomes secondary until you get to the point where it's second nature. And then you can think much more about the purpose and all of the other elements become more important.
So, the same with this, in this slightly convoluted example. The same with this. It's so easy to get caught up in the mechanics of writing the book and some of the specifics, even with some of the elements of the scorecard, the book blueprint scorecard, some of those are detailed, although we try and keep them to strategy rather than technique, you can still get caught in the weeds a little bit. So, any opportunity that you've got to take individually, the specifics of what you're trying to do, take those out and put it back into a context that you're very familiar with so that you can just concentrate on the why, it makes it easier.
So, forget about the book as a mechanism. What you're trying to do is engage people in a conversation that's beneficial to the business. The book mechanism is complicated to think about because there's some moving parts. The Starbucks example is easy to think about because you've done it a million times. So you're into the subconscious stage of the mechanics and can focus on the purpose.
So, super useful in a number of scenarios to switch the context so that you're just thinking about the why, in a familiar circumstance and then once you've decided on the why and you've got that straight in your mind, then overlay the how or the what, the specifics. It's a very useful way of thinking about it, in a different way.
Betsy Vaughn:
That's good. Good stuff there.
Stuart Bell:
There we go. So, I can feel my voice starting to go if it hasn't already. We had a little bit of a technical glitch in the middle, which I'm going to edit out in post. So hopefully, if I hadn't said that no one would have known. But if you do hear anything, a little bit disconnected in the middle, then that's why. But hopefully we didn't lose anything important.
Betsy Vaughn:
Exactly. That's the hope. Something you said, real fast, I just thought was really great and I'm going to remember it. I wrote it down. The book works when you are not physically there. That is such a great segment. It really is, to think about it. You've given that book to someone and they're looking at it and reading it and you don't have to be physically present for that. I'm going to remember that. I wrote it down.
Stuart Bell:
And you know what? To dive into that, just a little bit deeper, while I've got a few more minutes in my voice. To go into that a little bit deeper, it's so often people think about ad campaigns as ways of identifying customers when you're not there. Or emails as ways of delivering a message when you're not there. The book, it's very easy to think about it in just one of those contexts and one of those contexts is important too. It's a way of getting people to raise their hand when you're not there. That's true. But it's also a way of doing all of these other things. And again, a lot of those things are talked about in the book blueprint scorecard. When you look at the higher mindsets or the higher levels of each mindset across those eight stages, then the highest mindset of each of them is really looking to make sure that your book can do all of those jobs when you're not there.
So, it's not just that it's raising hands, but it's also setting the scene for the story and guiding people towards an outcome at the back and giving people a very easy next step that they can take, all without you being there. So, it gets them to raise their hand. It gets them to think about what the problem is and presents them with a solution that they may or may not have been aware of previously.
It evidences how easy it is to take the next step and presents a very simple to get started next step so that it just moves the conversation one step further down. But I'm glad that you picked up on that because it is worth thinking about and it definitely ties back into the scorecard. The book can serve all of those. Not all of those purposes, but there's a journey to the book itself. It's not just one step.
Because we do talk about it as one step quite a lot. We talk about these things as profit- ;number two, elements of getting people to raise their hand and then you can start the journey, but it definitely does some of that additional work in the thing itself. Not exclusively and not completely. It's not just have it and then suddenly customers will pop out the back. There is more to it than that in the beyond-the-book stages particularly. But yeah, it definitely does. It definitely serves that purpose well.
Betsy Vaughn:
Absolutely.
Stuart Bell:
If you think of each of those eight steps. Yeah.
Betsy Vaughn:
Well, good. Okay.
Stuart Bell:
Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you for everyone listening. Thank you for your time as always, Betsy. And we will catch everyone in the next one.
Betsy Vaughn:
Take care.