Generating Leads

Guest: Foreign. This is Susan Austin and I'm excited to again be here with Stuart Bell. Stuart and I are going to be talking to you about the greatest lead generation tool you're ever. You'll ever own, a book. Welcome, Stuart.

Stuart: Susan Austin. How are you doing?

Guest: I'm doing fabulous. So today we're going to be talking about how to use a book to engage with an audience as a lead generation piece, rather than. How would you answer that?

Stuart: I think the key differentiator is people often think of writing a book in order to sell the book as a. As a profit center in its own right to make money from it, which is obviously very difficult or sometimes I'll think about it in terms of authority. They want to be a. They're doing it for a. Not so much a sense of Brado, but for the cache that it brings. We're talking now specifically about a book as one of the best lead generation tools you can have. So it definitely has all of the credibility, all of the benefits of those other things. It brings you credibility. It's an asset in its own right that other people don't have. We certainly know people that do sell the books that they create, but those are all secondary benefits. The main purpose that we're looking at in this context is as a lead generation piece because really, unless you're an author. Unless you're an author is your main job. We're talking about books to support other business activities. So as a supporting role for the real money generator of whatever your business is.

Guest: Very good. This reminds me of the distinction of getting your name out to your greater audience versus the opposite of that, where you collect their name into a database. So the lead generation book is meant to be, generally speaking, given away to someone in exchange for their email address or contact information so that you can build a tribe of people that have a following that know like and respect you and then you can further communicate with them. So you don't need to put everything you know about a topic into a book because that's kind of, dare I say, old school way, George, where you would write a book to almost get famous. Right. That was sort of the kind of old model. And now the new way, I think, is to write a smaller book that gives them just enough to get to know and like you and understand that you're someone that they should be speaking to. And then you take them to, as we said on the last podcast, to the next step with you.

Stuart: Absolutely. And I think there's a number of underlying things that have changed that kind of support this. So the first thing is the context. As we were, as we started talking. So the context of this is for lead generation. It's a very effective way of doing lead generation. So the main job of work, the primary purpose is lead generation. And therefore you want to give it away as much as possible, but give it away in a way that you can collect some leads because then once you have, have those leads, you can do something else with it. The book as a, as a, an article in its own right, as a, as a thing in its own right, an artifact, some technology. Things have changed there in the last five years. Whereby you think about, we talk about the old school model, you think about 10 years ago, the only practical, or one of the main practical ways of getting a book written was to go to a publishing house, have those people effectively sponsor the book. You would then go off and write it. You might get a retainer up front, it would take 12 months. And then because of all of the overheads of creating the asset, creating the book, it almost made sense to put as much as possible in there because it was almost a one shot deal. It was very expensive, very time consuming. Therefore the overhead of additional content was negligible compared with the overhead of actually doing it in the first place. Whereas now we're in a world of self publishing, of direct to print publishing. So that overhead, whether you do 5,000 words, 1,000 words, 10,000 words, it doesn't make that much of a difference from the mechanics of printing it because it's print on demand. So there's, particularly from a lead generation point of view. And again, it goes back to the point that we were making last week. What's the job of work of this? The job of work is lead generation, therefore. Exactly what you said. This is the beginning of a conversation. You don't want to give too much away for a couple of reasons. One, for, and most importantly really for engagement, you want, this is just to start the conversation. But two, you don't necessarily want to give everything away in the first, in the first blush of someone's contact with you, it makes more sense to start the conversation. And then if as you kind of sift and sort people down through the process, offer them more information in a way that builds more reciprocity, adds more value afterwards, rather than kind of pushing all out there in the first go and then being left with nothing to follow up with.

Guest: Very good. And a book, a lead generation book is nice too, Stuart, because it gives the reader an experience of you when you meet someone for the first time, you don't want to just go into this hardcore pitch. So a book, the way the lead generation books are created or designed, they're meant to introduce a problem that the reader's having and instead solve that problem for them. And I'll give you an example. Lisa Stassevich did a book with us called Boost yout Sales. And in Lisa's book, you know, a lot of people speak from the front of the room. They go around the country or their, you know, market, and they do talk, but they don't know how to always close and turn that, you know, turn that talk into a money generating tool for them because they don't know how to close and sell at the back of the room. And so Lisa's book gives them the blueprint for that and it just walks them through how to do the secret clothes and, you know, so that they're being, the audience is being sold to, but they don't feel like they're being sold to. And she just covers all of that. But there's actually a lot more to that process than meets the eye. So she covers the topic probably from a 10,000 foot level and gives them the blueprint. But really, if they really, really, really want to get really good at it, they probably should join Lisa's program where she goes even into more coaching and will work with them and tweak their particular topic that they walk away with a talk from an hour talk that they can do in the front of the room anywhere and have it lead to sales at the back of the room.

Stuart: Yeah, I mean, spot on. And it's interesting, isn't it, that we're talking about the context of books. The podcast is obviously focused on this as a, as a tool in your arsenal to generate leads. I mean, there's a lot of other podcasts and that talk about other individual subjects, but the book itself is almost irrelevant to the user journey. I think we might have said this last week as well. It's almost like the Trojan horse. The Trojan horse, the wrapper around the message is a book. The book itself is just a convenient delivery mechanism to get that message across. And when you look at every presentation guidance out there, Lisa's book particularly talks about this in the closing of a presentation. It's all around the story. It's all around where you're trying to lead people. It's all around giving people enough so that they feel comfortable to take the next step. But nowhere in any sales training, for example, would you ever get someone saying that, yes, you Absolutely need to beat the guys over the head with as much detail, as much information as you can, share everything you've possibly got and then at the end of it, stick it handout for check because that's not the way the way the world works. The objective actually as you said, is just to give people a start. Stick to like we say in the, the eight profit activators framework, the breakthrough blueprint framework. We'll put a link in the show notes to that if people haven't read that. But choose a single target market so you're tailoring your book towards one set of people. So in Lisa's example this was people who do presentations already but are struggling with the close. So Lisa's book didn't try and convince people about why presentations are a good thing to do, that's outside of the scope. Choose a single target market, start to engage them in a conversation in a way that makes it easy for them to raise their hand as interested. So the presentation of a book that deals with that one particular issue is a very risk free way for people to raise their hand as interested in the subject and then slowly start to educate and motivate them towards the next step. So it's not that the book is trying to give them all the possible answers. So with Lisa's book again, it wasn't that she went into all of the mechanics of how to, to set up the back end of something once you've, once you've made an offer. It wasn't about some presentation skills as such and how to deliver the message. It was specifically about delivering the secret close. The one, her one strong message that if it resonates with people who, that she wants, if it resonates with people that she wants to talk with, that is people who are already speaking but are struggling to close. They'll raise their hand because they're interested and there's enough valuable information there in this first point of contact for them to want to or be interested in taking the next step. And I think before we finish today we should quickly talk about that, the close of the book as well as we're talking about closing.

Guest: Meaning how the lead generation book has a close to it.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I mean it's absolutely a case of start with the end in mind. So we occasionally get people who are looking to write a book, so whether they've got a concept of writing a large book that's containing all the information they could possibly know to try and overstate their expertise, or whether they get the point that it should be they're trying to do this just for lead generation. Quite often people will start to talk to us and just want to start the book, start to get some words down on a piece of paper because they see that as the outcome rather than the more effective way of creating any presentation, whether it's from stage or in a book or on a website. To start with the end in mind, to know what your next step is and then have the book lead towards that is a far more effective way. So we quite often say to people, you need a strong close, a strong call to action at the end of the book in order to allow people to take the next step. But even with saying that to people, there's still the first draft of those call to actions that we see is often quite weak. It's if you'd like more information, phone us up or we'd love to help you out, phone us up. So that as a step. If you think about this as a. I can't remember where I first heard this analogy, so just forgive me for not attributing it correctly, but it was the dating analogy. So if you're in a bar looking to find someone to talk to, if you go up to someone to say, hey, can I buy you a drink? And they say, yeah, no problem, you start talking and then within the first 10 minutes you say, right, let's go back to my place and jump into bed, that's going to be less successful than oh, I've had a really nice evening, perhaps we can do this again next week. So having that as a. I'm sure everyone can think of examples of either first or second hand when that's happened, but think of that as an example. The call to action at the end of the book should be for the next valuable piece in a funnel, because to expect someone to get to the end of a book and then want to jump into bed with you, make a phone call, make an appointment. Whilst that will happen for the most motivated, that is going to lose. A large number of people aren't going to take that step because they're not yet going to be comfortable. Especially if you're attracting an invisible, an unknown audience. If they've got no rapport, if this is the first time they've come across you. Whereas if, for example, let's stick with Lisa's. I can't remember how Lisa's close was, so this might not. This probably isn't accurate to specifically her book, but for example, you could get to the end of her book and then she'll say, for more information, join up for this $5,000 course. Now, the people who she knows already, who know her, where there's some sort of rapport, may well take that action step, but the large majority of the people won't because it's a big commitment. If the next step was, say, if you've enjoyed this book, obviously we're introducing a new topic to many people, so this is just the first step. However, the best next step you can do is go to this URL and download the secret close template that we've got where we walk you step by step through building your own close based on the model that we've got here. Then once they've done that, the next step, then the next step and then start introducing offers to a larger program. So by thinking of this as not as an A to Z step, jumping from right from the beginning right to the end, but think about it as I talk to people quite a lot about this concept of a minimum viable commitment. So like the minimum viable product, the lean startup type approach that most people are familiar with, think of it as the minimum viable commitment. So what's the smallest step that you can take to the next stage to build rapport with people, move them towards a buying decision, but not necessarily ramming it down their throat. Does that make sense, that kind of small stepped approach, rather than trying to jump in too soon?

Guest: Absolutely. And I think you're making a good point here, Stuart, that the books are geared and I think this is underlying what you're. The point you're trying to make is that we're not trying to write a book. When you're writing a lead generation book, the scope of it is very different than if you were going to sit down and maybe chap, you know, draft out 15 chapters about your topic that you're an expert in. That is a different animal and a different beast altogether. This book is going to be much thinner. It's going to be made to be read in just a couple hours. In fact, the reason we call it the 90 book is because you can write it in 90 minutes. So I want to make that point here that it's a much thinner book. But that doesn't mean it's not any. It doesn't mean it's less effective. We're actually finding from the feedback we're getting from the authors, it's more effective because people actually have a chance to read it when it's a thinner book. As a matter of fact, one author told us that he had written one of those, you know, more traditional 250 page books in the past and he would hand them out to clients and then when he would follow up with him three months later or six months later and said, oh, you know, you never booked an appointment, I was hoping to see you. And they said, oh, well, we never read your book. We were embarrassed. We didn't want to come in and talk to you. You never read the book.

Stuart: You know what this is? Sorry, go.

Guest: No, no, that was my point, that a thinner book, Stuart, sorry, A thinner book, they'll have a chance of reading it and taking that next step. So that's a key distinction here. Go ahead.

Stuart: You know it from your own experience. I mean, I'm just turning around looking. I'm back in the UK at the moment, so back in my apartment here and I've got bookshelves full of books that I've got every intention of absolutely loving and digesting. But I've maybe read the first 20 pages of each of them and I don't want to throw them away because I'm sure there's some useful stuff in there. But the likelihood of me getting around to reading it is very, very slim. Whereas a book that I know is only going to take me 20 minutes to read. I've been offered it for free, I have been charged for it, but there's some value to it because it's talking on a specific subject that I want to know about. I'm way more likely to engage with that, even if it's only to the case of okay reading it and then the information went in and not being in the position to take the next step. I think everything that we've talked about, it's kind of as we're talking now, my hands are gesticulating around, trying to sort of put into the physical space in front of me where all of these pieces tie together. But the challenge with people wanting to from a lead generation perspective now as we started off saying the depending on what you define as the job of work, a bigger job might be a bigger book rather might be the correct answer. But from a lead generation point of view, the reason people get tied into this concept of writing a huge book is because they're tied into the concept of having of their call to action at the end being wanting to sell a $5,000 product or the big ticket item to do that, they think that they've got to push as much information into the book as possible because rather than compelling people to take the next step, they're trying to Convince them that they're the expert, they're the absolute best person that everything that they have talked about in the book, they're trying to overwhelm someone with information and almost beat them into submission to buy the big product at the end of it. The overhead of writing that means that the statistic of. I forget what the statistic is. I bet the small number of people actually complete a book writing project. The tiny statistics on the number of people who actually finish reading a whole book like that and the cost involved. You look at 10 to $12,000 to write what say a big multi chapter book that gets edited through many stages and then printed and then sold for a cost on Amazon versus the low thousand dollars to write a 90 minute book which is quickly and agilely put out there to engage one particular target market to significantly increase the number of leads that you get that you can then engage with in a different way. It really is a different beast. And I think that's why people get tied into this big book mentality because they see it as a one shot deal. It has to be convincing. The call to action is misplaced because it's too big a step. So think of everything in terms of a minimum viable commitment, an easy way for people to raise their hand, a small commitment to the next stage, lots of small steps to educate and motivate people towards making a decision. And make that decision, like a lot of our audience has a crossover with the out of marketing audience. So this concept of a mafia offer a way that makes it easy and irresistible for people to get started with you. So if there's a simple way for people to get started, not necessarily push the big product down their neck to begin with. All of that builds to build credibility, build rapport, build a sense of reciprocity and build a relationship with someone. Not just try and do it all on the first date and jump into bed. This is Matt.

Guest: It was Tony Robbins who said that even after he puts on a performance and sells a boatload of materials at the end of his programs and workshops and weekends and seminars, that 94% of the people that buy his books never crack the cellophane off of it. So that's a pretty staggering number. And that's Tony Robbins who's got some pretty compelling things to say. So what do the rest of us have? What hope do we have? So I think, I think the authors that come to us, Stuart, that want that bigger book and it's. And I kind of have to arm wrestle them a little bit to get them to see it really comes down to find a problem that your you can solve a problem. It doesn't mean you can't solve 40 other problems for these guys, but it really should be aimed at that one problem. Those are the ones that are super effective. You know, very similar to the 90 minute book. Dean could have read a book about how to run a successful business from the ground up and how to launch it online and you could have done a ton of books. But he did the 90 minute book because that solves the problem. One problem that people are having which is not enough time, energy and you know, capacity to write a book but know that they want a book. So I think that really letting go of that need for that bigger book or saying that maybe this is that first step to creating that bigger book. There's no reason why you can't write three in smaller books and then turn that into that bigger book that you want. And we do have guys that are working on their second book along that same line. But each book really because the reader, you're going to overwhelm them. Most readers, if you try to do too much, they just want to know about the problem they have and a solution that they hadn't thought of. And then how can they continue to engage with you?

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. And it really does go back to if the go back to the job of work what you're trying to achieve with this book and if you are trying to achieve things that will be better serviced. Buy a substantial ghost written book that's got a lot of cited facts and backed up information, then just be truthful to yourself. Say that's the purpose of the book. Whether it's to establish credency in a marketplace where other people are doing similar things. So therefore it becomes kind of like a minimum barrier to entry. If you're dealing in a particularly academic market you where cited sources are more commonly that's the norm within the industry, then you might have to do it. But if that's the case, then understand that this isn't the right solution. It's going to be more expensive, it's going to take a lot more time. I think the worst case scenario is where people miss the two. This is the, the whole focus of what we're creating is lead generation towards a greater business goal. And to our mind with this model this is absolutely like you start off this is one of the greatest lead generation tools you're ever going to own because it ticks a whole number of books. Ticks a whole number of books ticks a whole number of boxes in so much as you get in the Trojan horse, the delivery mechanism, the book itself, It's a very lean way, a quick and easy way to target a single target market and then target a second and third and fourth market after that. It's a simple way to help people get started. It's a way of being the first minimum viable commitment and then offering the second and then offering the third. One of the future shows that we'll do is going to talk about the beyond the book process. So once the book's now written, how can you best use that as a marketing tool, as part of a larger funnel, but understand what you want as the job of work first, if it is lead generation, this approach is the best. If it's for authority, authority is the primary purpose or ego is the primary purpose, you might be better suited looking for another solution. But as far as lead generation goes, without doubt this is absolutely the best.

Guest: Very good. And I want to share a couple maybe titles with our listeners to try to get them to see. So one of our authors wrote, Dr. Gerdes wrote a book called Getting A Consumer's Guide to Relieving Neck and Back Pain Pain at Home. And so he wanted to gear this towards people that are reluctant possibly to go to see a chiropractor. They have nagging and chronic pain, but they're not quite ready to make that appointment. And so he shares with them supplements that they can take, exercises that they can do and all these things knowing that if their problem is bad enough, they're probably eventually going to have to come in and make an appointment more than likely. Even though this may improve the posture at sitting at the computer. Right. And taking breaks and everything you can do to prevent some of this neck and back pain. But he wanted to do it as sort of a handout and a way for people to be introduced to him so that when and if they do find themselves in pain that they will, you know, they already know him. They already, you know, it's probably a 60 page book just on what you can do for neck to avoid neck pain and what you can do if you get have back pain.

Stuart: Yeah, and I mean you mentioned there knowing writing that book, knowing that some of the people are inevitably going to need services that he provides. So to target to best engage with those people, a book offering some self help service, knowing that a number of them will eventually get to the stage 7 minimum viable commitments down the road where they need some service, you need to writing the book for 100% of those people means that you can offer it to the other 90% of people where the time isn't quite right for them. But you've also managed to collect those, the details of those people who are broadly interested in the thing that you're offering. So again, we talk quite a lot about the long term value of a bundle of leads. So people have possibly heard it again on the Alepp marketing podcast where we talk about the survey that was done by the event management company. So this is like the home, the Good Home exhibition where vendors will go into an exhibition space. The organization will then collect the details of the people who have been there and over the next two years we'll contact them to see at what point they bought, if they bought at all following the event. And the majority of the leads buy in the 90 to 365 day space rather than the 0 to 90 space. So understanding that collecting leads now, although the people might not be ready to convert today, they may well be ready to commit in the next six months, 12 months, 18 months. It's again the main job of work is lead generation. And this is a great way to start that relationship with people, regardless of whether it's a long or short journey for them to convert. Whatever convert means.

Guest: Very good. So let me share another example. So Tyler Osby did a book with us called the Rent Free Solution. How to Stop Renting, Buy a home in Des Moines and live in it for free. He's going to take that book and do a postcard that he will send out to apartment complexes for people that in apartment complexes may be poised to buy and show them in a very short, in just an hour conversation with me how they can get out of apartment living and into their own home for free. And that's pretty exciting. And he gives them many different scenarios and gives them specific examples in the book of other people that have done this. And then, so then they'll go from the postcard they'll click on a link or go to their phone and or their computer and go to a website where they can download the book and read the book right there on their phone or iPad or wherever. And then he'll now have their email address, right? He has their contact information and then he's going to invite them on a first time homebuyer seminar. And so it's a nice little funnel. You send the postcards out maybe, you know, a week later after they sign up, you ask them a question, a nine word email, or bring them into a webinar, you know, and so he's just constantly building this little sales funnel that. The book is the heart of Tyler's book.

Stuart: I mean it really is one of. I think it's probably the best example of one of the books that illustrates this campaign type approach of a very targeted market with a robust campaign on the back of it to lead people towards a conversion. I think it was one of the quickest books went through our process. He didn't get bogged down in doing lots of edits or iterations. There's not a whole load of additional information there that was added after the recording. But as a receiver of the book, you can imagine being renting an apartment complex, seeing a postcard that tells you how you can swap your rent money to buy to own your own home.

Guest: Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

Stuart: Well, I was just going to say if, if I was even remotely on the fence of being interested, that would be a very specific, non committal way to start learning more about the subject and for Tyler to start engaging with me. It really is one of the best examples, I think, of what we're talking about a minimum viable commitment at each stage where the book is the very best lead generation tool at the beginning of the process. And you can imagine those people who are then taking him up on the next step. Once they've read the book in the first place and are feeling educated about something that they didn't know about before, then they're getting the follow up information. Then they're attending a free seminar that talks about it even more. By the time Tyler actually gets to meet those people, almost the first engagement, the first. All the rest of it can be automated. The first engagement that he's had to have with them as the business owner there, they've raised their hands three times, two or three times. There are hot prospects. And that as a business owner is. I mean, that's astonishingly powerful.

Guest: And he actually is a mortgage broker, not a real estate agent. So he actually gets them set up on if they're interested. He's partnered with a real estate agent in the Des Moines area that will, you know, someone's going to raise their hand. The first thing you want to do is, well, what kind of home can I, what are we talking about here? And so he sets them up as part of the process if they want it on an automatic, you know, here's homes that we could get you into. And so they can go take work with this real estate agent. And then Tyler closes the deal. So it is quite brilliant.

Stuart: Smart guy. Smart guy.

Guest: Yeah. Let's get Tyler on a future podcast.

Stuart: Yeah, definitely. I was, yeah, I was actually talking to him a couple of weeks ago. I think sort of on the back of this process we kind of touched base a couple of times. So definitely. And that we were just blasting past the 30 minute mark. So we'll start wrapping up. But say again, sorry.

Guest: Very good.

Stuart: Sorry.

Guest: Next week, as a matter of fact, Stuart, we're going to have a special guest on our show. We're going to be talking to Glenn McQueenie. He's going to join us and talk about his real estate book, double your income.

Stuart: I think that's going to be an exciting call. So Glenn's done a couple of exciting things with the book. We've talked quite a lot today about positioning the book as a lead generation piece. And we started off by mentioning the Trojan horse type effect of it's a good way of delivering the message but you also get some of the ancillary benefits that are booked provides you. So although we've talk about a 90 minute book as being an authority gaining device, you do by virtue of the fact of being a published author get some authority from it. And I think Glenn's definitely a good example of that where as well as it being a great lead generation device in its own right, he's actually benefited quite a lot from some of the ancillary effects of being a published author. So it'll be a nice follow up to this episode to talk about some of those extra benefits.

Guest: It's funny, a lead generation book gets you the famous part and the lead gen part. It's kind of a better model in that respect because it does. And of course if you did write the 250 page book, you will get business from that. But there's something about the solving the problem in a very narrow scope that is very attractive to clients because in the case of, you know, people are busy, in the case of Tyler's people, apartment livers, you know, people who live in apartments, you know, if you hand them a 250 page book maybe, but handle a 50 or 40 page book about how they can get out of apartment living. Now we're talking. That's just about right for today's kind of ADD world we live in. Right.

Stuart: Attention span. Yeah, exactly. And these 50 pages there absolutely targeted what they're interested in. It's 100% on message because the scope of the message as you say is narrow rather than being 250 pages and a fifth of it being interesting to me. It's yeah, yeah, fantastic.

Guest: Well, thank you again, Stuart. I look forward to. And I think a couple calls after that we're going to open this podcast up to questions. So we're going to actually invite readers to listeners. Excuse me, to used to calling everyone readers listening to ask questions that they have about either their first book or if they're not sure what book they should write or what are some of the questions they can ask us to make it ask us anything. But are we looking for certain types?

Stuart: I think pretty open at this. We're going to do a few Q and A calls through the year. But I think for this first one, whatever questions people have got and I mean we want to make it broader than just the, we want to make it valuable to everyone. So we might not as it, as the scope of the questions drifts further and further away from the 90 minute book, we might have less and less to say. Yeah but if anyone's got questions about the, the funnel and how to best utilize the funnel, then feel free to ask that that question.

Guest: Sorry, Stuart. I'd love if they have, they haven't taken that first step to write their book. I'd love to know what is stopping them. Like I don't know if there's a fear there or if they're uncertain about something. So if you're listening to this and you've always wanted to write a book or you've had it in the back of your mind but you haven't taken that next step, we'd love to know what is blocking with you. Not so much to sort of sell you on the idea of a book, but so that we can educate others that also have the similar concern or question.

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So that's going to be in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, if anyone's got any questions, they can always email us@podcast90minutebooks.com and then we can work out or work in those questions into, into a future recording. If people can't make the, the live call, we'll as I say, definitely make the call available to people. So it should be some, some really interesting points there that we can answer and, and help people move forward, whether it's with a 90 minute book or whether it's just with their funnel using publishing in their funnel in a different way.

Guest: Right. And if someone's interested, they can go to 90minutebooks.com gallery if they want to see some of the books that we've already completed and just sort of like what the titles and subtitles. We call the subtitles the Amplifier description for the book. So they kind of give you. And you can even tell, if you're curious, you can read through this list of books on the website and tell some of them are not lead generation by their very nature, just by their design. And that's okay, too. But we really, really like when authors understand that there's a sales funnel here and the book is a piece of that, and how they can write that book that solves the client's problem and get it into the hands of people that want to do business with you.

Stuart: Fantastic. Like I said at the start, it's definitely the greatest lead generation tool that people have in their business.

Guest: Very good. All right. Thanks, everyone.