Using Books in the Real World

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Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More show. It's Stuart here as always and happy to be joined today by Susan Austin. Susan, how you doing?

Guest: Fabulous, Stuart. Glad to be back.

Stuart: Fantastic. It's been a little while. We've done the last few shows. I've had colored Betsy to go through some stuff. So it's, it's good to get back, get you back on the show again.

Guest: I'm thrilled to be here.

Stuart: Susan, for those who don't know, is our chief onboarding officer, for want of a better term. She's onboarded pretty much all of, I think I can't think of a book that you haven't onboarded. I think you've done all 300 or so so far.

Guest: That sounds about right.

Stuart: Does it feel about right as well?

Guest: Well, you know, and that makes a good point. I was just saying to Stuart before we turned on the recording how I'm amazed at the breadth and depth of the different types of books that we do. I literally, right before this call just got off with an author who teaches guys how to be successful with their fantasy football league. I mean, you know, we did a book last week on teaching people how to fix their golf swing in 21 days because guys get super frustrated with their golf swing. And someone else that did a book, Jamie Larson, on the savvy hearing aid buyer, because his, his clientele are nervous and they don't want to wear a hearing aid because it feels like it's kind of like they're having to admit that they're getting older and their body's not as vibrant as it used to be. And so they, they don't want to come in for an appointment. And so he wanted to write a book that would ease their concerns and show them that there are solutions out there that are life changing for these guys. But they don't know that they're available to them because they won't come in and talk to him because they're nervous and they don't. And they, you know, and they put up with this hearing loss for so long, they're kind of almost resigned to it. And it prevents them from having quality relationships. Their marriages suffer. They can't connect with their grandkids because they can't hear them, you know, and so then people get frustrated talking to them. Anyway, it's a brilliant book and it's very simplistic in that it just explains that there are solutions in the, because of technology improvements and, and I think people are worried about getting ripped off. That was another big part About Jamie's a concern that they concern they have, they feel like they're going to get ripped off, they don't go in and in fact they're cheaper today than they ever were or there's better solutions and they just need to be educated.

Stuart: And it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean the point that we want to get across in today's episode, the thing that we're going to focus on is kind of that, that real life use case, how some people are using them. Because I think some people struggle to think, okay, well I've got this knowledge in my head, but I'm not, I can't join the dots up to how that would fit into a book. And sometimes the mental model around the book, the psychological benefits that we get as marketers using a book are great. But that also holds people back as well. There's too much or sometimes there's too much of a concern that, well, what I know wouldn't fit in a book or the subject matter. I can't think of a way of, of bringing all of this information in because people often think too broad or think of a book terms of like the typical New York Times bestseller, big heavy book. Whereas really what we're trying to do, what the real benefit, the real life benefit of these types of books are is it's put in a, a certain bit of information, it's helping people in a certain way. It doesn't have to be too big or too broad, but it's providing real value to a set of customers that then hopefully starts the conversation and starts a journey that ends up in, in some business. But really the main thing is it's, it's, it's helping people and providing this information in an easy accessible way that really just starts the conversation and helps people take those first couple of steps. I was talking earlier today with Paul Morrissey who wrote the Shockwave Solution and that's a relatively technical subject, talking about a medical procedure, a non invasive medical procedure as an alternative to surgery. So there's the concern there that it could be too detailed or it could be conceived construed as too much of a device and there's too many constraints and caveats to really help people. But actually you're not trying to diagnose someone, you're not trying to give someone a specific answer. It's like the financial services books that we do. It's not that you're trying to answer all of the questions. Everyone knows and understands that there's caveats and there's 20 different things that could have contributory factors to it, but just helping someone, I think it's very easy for people who've been in business for a number of years to undermine, undermined, sorry, undervalue the value of even the most basic information that they've got. So there's so many opportunities and so many ways that people can get something useful out into the hands of customers of readers who would be desperate for that information, who'd be very grateful of that information. So I think today we're going to go through a couple of real world examples that we've come across and elaborate on some in hopes that it will either, A, if you've written a book already, it will give you some ideas to get it out there and start using it, and B, if you haven't yet written one, just give you a few more ideas on what it could look like and how you could use it in your business.

Guest: Well, if you look at what I think what sets us apart, Stuart, from other companies that may do something similar to ours is our unique ability because we are under the sort of umbrella of Dean Jackson is 100% marketing focused. And by that I mean the focus is 100% on the reader and not so much on what the author wants to say, although that's an important part of it. Like we come from and we look at these books through the eyes of the end reader and who is going to raise their hand and say, I want that. And that's what we need. And because just because you could talk for five hours on a topic, it doesn't mean that that person's going to resonate with really one of those comprehensive books that tells them everything they need to know for retirement. Because that book could be literally thousands of pages and still not cover all of it. But that particular reader is having some kind of pain or anxiety or question or desire, and we want to identify what that is for the author and help them peel that back so that everything else kind of gets moved to the side to say, hey, what is the reader that's going to pick up this book? What's their number one concern? What do they want answered? Let's hone in on that so that they, when they see that title of the book, they're like, I want that, I need that, I need that today. And like, here's an example. Teresa Duncan did a book called moving your patients to yes, it's for how to have easy insurance conversations. This book she, Teresa Duncan could literally talk about for weeks at a time to dentist office on how to improve their business and how to put systems in place to help productivity. I mean, she's an all encompassing consultant, but her book doesn't cover all that. Her book is simply for the front office personnel on how to move their patients to. Yes, because that is a real pain point in dentists where the client comes in, they do an exam and the patient needs this amount of work and maybe it's covered under insurance, maybe part of it is, maybe it isn't. But that's where a lot of their system breaks down because the patient walks away and doesn't book that appointment because they have questions, they're confused, they thought this was covered. They. So she explains in the book how to have those conversations so that they book that appointment right there with you before you leave. I can't imagine how much thousands of dollars this means to that dentist office to be able to have their front office people book those expensive procedures that are needed that aren't covered by insurance. And a lot of it was just languaging and phrasing and sort of a mindset that that front end staff need that they're not getting just by working throughout their day. They need someone to come in that is expert in this and that's what Teresa is and share with them in a very simple solution for their front end office. They'll read that book and there's, they'll, you know, write, you know, on post it notes. She says, take a post it note and put this right next to your computer screen. And so that when you're talking to a client over the phone, you know exactly what phrases to use. It's, it's, you know, it's, it does what it needs to do, even though Teresa can do, could help these dentist offices in many, many, many, many other ways and does. This is where we start the conversation because this is where they're in the most pain.

Stuart: And that's a perfect example. As you said, there could be 20 different leads into the business that Teresa's got with the dental practices. But by narrowing it down to one funnel to one specific use case, it helps everyone in the journey. You're not overwhelming the dentist by saying here's 20 things that you should be doing. It's just here's one strategy that could follow through. The usage of that is interesting as well. The way that Teresa can use it in her business. Resonating with other people. We often talk about or if people have heard Dean talk about on the, the real estate side, we've got an example that we refer to quite a lot the Project Cyrus route for the money making websites that we do for the realtors. So that's building a solution and basing it on basing, getting paid on the success of the of the campaign or of the site or of the solution. So rather than asking for people for money up front, Theresa, in fact I need to arrange a call with Teresa. We were talking, this was probably a couple of months ago now, about catching up and doing a podcast. So you've just reminded me I should do that and we'll have trees on a future show. So I'm not exactly sure how she's using it, but you can imagine a scenario where she's doing a Project Cyrus type approach. This one particular tactic or strategy might be one of 20 that she can offer. It might be one of the simplest ones, it might be one of the ones that has the best results. So picking a solution that's easy to implement has relatively known results. Again, looking at Dean's business on the entrepreneur side, we do quite a lot with the nine word emails because from an email marketing strategy, that's a good one for people to understand it's got known and quite dramatic results. Anyone who hasn't used it before can and who has an older perhaps dead list. It's a fantastic approach for re engaging people, but that's one strategy that's easy to implement and it's a starter if you like. It's an easy way for someone to get started, something that doesn't take too much thinking about. So in terms of using the book as a lead generation piece for a broader business, giving that away as part of or as a lead into a slightly bigger program that talks about using this strategy to engage these particular people. So in your dental practice lots of things are happening, but one place that you are leaking money is where people leave the office fully intending to book a procedure, but because of financial constraints they don't. Here's what you can do about it and here's a step by step program, again easy to implement for DRESA if that. Assuming that is just one strategy of many and it's one that very quickly and consistently shows results at very limited or very small cost upfront for the practice to change their ways, then that's a great tool to be able to give to them and lead with that project service type approach. Lead with the approach of saying here's something that I want to give to you just to demonstrate the success of our programs generally. If we never do business again, then hey great, we've done something good here because we've generated some more business. If this looks like something that's good in the kind of subtext being, listen, if I'm willing to give you this away for free, just imagine what we can do if you pay me to be a consultant.

Guest: Absolutely. And I believe if she has a book called moving your patients to yes, easy insurance conversations, how easy is it for her to get tagged by dental conventions to want her to come in and speak to their attendees on that very topic? Because I have to imagine that's a very hot button topic and the dentists are always looking for solutions. She's written the book on this. So for them, if you're choosing who to write, you get the person that wrote the book on it. And there's another one here, the Erin's lost Lucian Victor Pacini. He wrote a book called the Aaron's Law solution for those people specifically, I think in Illinois who haven't implemented the school districts that haven't implemented Aaron's Law. And Aaron's Law is simply a law that says you have to find a way to talk about sexual abuse awareness to your students. And it's a very scary topic for teachers and administrators and parents have a lot of anxiety around this topic. It's a law they have to. But they don't quite know how to go about it. So he wrote a book and explained everything they need to know to talk to their students. But I guarantee you, even though just someone, because someone read the book, they're going to want to bring Victor in and have his team come in and teach this to their school district. Because it is. Even though he tells you it's something that's simple to do because he broke it down, but it doesn't mean it's easy to do because students are going to have questions or they're going to raise their hand. And so you really want to do it. Right. And you need his help. And so this book, again, I think school districts would be like, well, he wrote the book on the solution on how to get this material that's very squirmy, that makes people uncomfortable. He broke it down for them on what to say and what not to say and how to say it and how to present it and, you know, and even shared examples of how not to do it. You know, some people bring in like the sheriff's department because they got the guys in the uniform. Well, that's not necessarily the message you want to send.

Stuart: You can imagine that year old. Yeah, exactly. Setting everyone at Ease. Here's a nice friendly conversation and uniformed officers walk through the door.

Guest: Exactly. And it can backfire. And so, and it's. So anyway. And so now he's written a book and what an easy door opener that is for him to, you know, to. And he's not, he's given away the program but you know that it's not everything because it's only a 40 page book. I mean, you know what I mean? So even though he's given them the highlights, he doesn't, you know, they still need help.

Stuart: And so the book, you said before that it. Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Is absolutely spot on. And again, going back to the point I made earlier that business owners, people who've been doing this year in, year out, it's so easy to undervalue the simple steps. Thinking that, well, why would anyone want to read about that? Because it seems so obvious.

Guest: Yeah.

Stuart: That introduction, that way of bringing in, I mean Victor's book as well. I mean, not only is it a great introduction for his business and he's doing great things with it, but the value that that's giving to, to the community, to the schools that need to do something, even if he never knows, all of the books that go out there, they'll be being read in an environment where that information is helping and that ability to create something that's even more valuable, that is an accelerator within getting that program adopted. And yes, on one hand there's business coming out of it that, that he's benefiting from, but really everyone's benefiting from this information being out there. And it's not detracting from, it's not like he has to go and deliver all of this information to each person. It, there's. There's a leverage, there's a scalability to writing something in the book that, that really amplifies the message and reinforces it. As you were saying, it establishes someone as the expert. So if someone's likely to need additional support, then you wrote the book on it. It's, it's quite outstanding. I think the. Another example flashed in my head but then flashed back out again as, as I was talking, writing the book on the subject. So the errands law, sticking with that one as the example. You can imagine that there's a lot of press coverage or news coverage or industry coverage within the, within the sphere of influence. So within the school districts because this external thing has been imposed on them for all of the right reason. But that then creates A vacuum. There's a lack of information out there until it slowly gets filled over time. But you can imagine being the first to market where all this information is missing, then being the person that steps in and fills that gap just means that you're much more likely to get seen as the leader, as the authority. It makes it much easier to have conversations with people if you wanted to speak from stage, if you wanted to do radio shows, if you wanted to get newspaper or press coverage, because that, that vacuum that's been created and not yet filled by other people, being first to market, first to get in there and write something valuable, is really going to make you the go to person in that industry for that piece of missing information.

Guest: Absolutely. And I think a lot of the authors are under the impression that they need to order 500 of these books and then just start handing it out. And what I really, really like about our approach is that the viral effect of people being able to make this book available as a download so that it can spread faster, it can get into the hands of people that you have no way of interacting with directly. If someone sees it on as a Facebook ad and they download the book and they send it to their friend in North Carolina, well, you have no way of reaching that person in North Carolina. But maybe they have a dental office that is in need of that type of solution because they were just complaining about it to their friend and that kind of thing. And so the books, because we make them available both in a digital copy and up on Amazon and in hard copy where they can, you know, keep them behind, you know, in the office. That that digital piece of using that book, of getting it out there to people that they would never be able to reach, is so critical. And I think that these books have so much. How do I want to say this? There's a lot of anxiety people have on some of these topics. And the book removes all of that and it opens up them to then have a further conversation with the author. It gives them just enough exposure to the topic and oh, this is exactly what I need. And at the end of the book, we invite the reader to call or interact with that author in some fashion. All of the books that we do, for the most part, end with a call to action to engage that reader with the author. Now, not everyone's going to finish the book and dial you up and book an appointment, but we've planted the seed. And now if you have their email address, Stuart, you can actually invite them to a webinar. You can invite them to a Q and A session. You can invite them to a. If you do a special event, some of the authors do kind of client and potential client, you know, activities a couple times a year where they bring them in for, you know, wine and cheese party because they've downloaded the book, they're on the fringe, they have interest. You can invite them in and hopefully engage with them further.

Stuart: And that's a great thing to think about. The funnel in which this sits, the book is a tool, a step in a funnel. So it's not so much that we're definitely not suggesting people write it in order to town on the beach because of the book. The royalties from book sales are coming in. That's, that's clearly not what we're talking about. But it being a step in a funnel towards engaging people. So the old Harvard report, I think it was saying that there's usually sort of, I think it was seven to 11 touch points before someone knows, likes and trusts you enough in order to do some conversion. The book is a big part of that. So there was a couple of good examples that you mentioned there. One is where you're inviting people to a real event and the second one was referrals. How the books kind of spreads virally outside of your control. I think it'd be good to take two minutes to talk about each of those because it's always useful, I think, to elaborate and give people that idea of or picture of how books can be used in real world examples so that they're not just things that sit on the shelf collecting dust, but they're part of active live campaigns that spread the word. So for the real life event, there's a couple of examples that spring to mind of people who've written books already. There was the I forget people's names, but the wine and cheese event book that we wrote last year sometime was promoting how to use wine and cheese type events in order to get clients through the door. Slightly higher ticket, higher value clients through the door. But engaging people in a physical sense. Now using that book either as part of the lead into it. So someone requesting the book is more predisposed to the message before they arrive or even using the book after the event as part of the follow on sequence. So giving them a physical object kind of adds to the value. There's a tangible credibility and tangible value associated with giving someone a free copy of something to back up a message that they've already heard. So those two examples of using the one book either before or after, depending on how You've got your funnel structured and what you're actually trying to achieve. But there are two ways that you can really use the the physical thing to leverage the message a little bit further. Because that is one of the benefits of, of a book. It does have this kind of inbuilt authority around it because it physically exists in the world. So I think building that into the funnel, not thinking that the book is the thing, the be all and end all, it's not going to magically convince people to convert, but it amplifies the message that you've already got in place. We talked before about email addresses versus physical addresses. So to be able to use the book as a cookie, as a opportunity to request someone's physical address, to then send them the book and then once you have that physical address, to then follow up with people in the kind of regular communication touch points. We talk a lot about flagship communications and being able to regularly communicate with people after you've started that conversation. Delivering someone a physical book is often a way of bridging that gap to compel or encourage people to part with their physical address in order to receive something. And that gives you another opportunity, another touch point on the referral side, on the digital referral side, then as you say, it gives you the opportunity to spread further afield than you would be able to otherwise. As people are sharing things. And obviously sharing digital assets is much easier than sharing physical assets now because you might not necessarily be able to collect those people's details. Having something in the book, whether it's the back of a call to action or whether it's not so much an appendix, but whether there's an opportunity in the book to say, okay, go here and get more information on this subject. That way of allowing people to self select themselves as more interested because they request more information. Having that in the digital copy of the book or even the physical one, means that all of those people that you wouldn't necessarily be able to get their details up front, you've then got a way of collecting their details after the fact. We were talking to someone last week who has an event or speaking from stage at an event. And we were debating there the best way of collecting physical details from people in order to hand them the book at the event. So obviously it's a little bit different, difficult rather to be at the event and have a pile of books and say, well, I'm not going to give you one until you give me your name and email address or your physical address. Because the books are physically There. So that's a little bit whiskey. There's a social barrier to doing that, but giving them it and then saying, okay, and here's a way that you can get more information and whether that's putting a postcard in the book to say, my suggestion for this particular person was you're going to an event. The book is broadly on topic of the event, but the event itself is very specifically looking at a subset of these people. So you join the event, you're going to hear lots of questions from the audience. There's going to be two or three specific topics that come up time and time again. So why not record some audio or video specifically addressing those main points and then say to people, okay, great. Here's a copy of the book actually we've seen while we've been here over the last two days. It's people have had a real issue on these two issues. We're going to record some content afterwards to really elaborate on this point. There's an email address or landing page in there. Just shoot me a message after the event and I'll make sure to get you a copy of this straight away. So again, not that the book is the be all and end all of a magic conversion funnel, but it's an amplifier. It's a way to build that relationship. Start with the start by giving something and then lead into a conversation. And orchestrating ways of getting that conversation moving really is the thing that creates the magic. The book is the amplifier.

Guest: We should email our author. I know. Well, we should email our authors, Stuart, and ask them specifically, how are you using your book in ways that you haven't thought that you were going to use your book or what impact has it made? I think that would be a great sort of case study because there may be ways that some of these authors are using their books that we never even saw as a potential user use. And I think that would be an amazing feedback and we could do a show based on what people send in. I'd love to do that.

Stuart: Fantastic. Fantastic idea. Yeah. Well, you shall definitely do that.

Guest: Okay, good.

Stuart: Actually, that links back to. To the call that we had just a couple of weeks ago. Well, a couple of weeks ago, if people are listening back to this. It was actually last year because we've been off cycle for a little bit. But when we were interviewing Kevin Craig and Kevin was saying that his whole. The book helped him launch a coaching business. So that was episode 18. If people want to go back and listen but talk about unexpected outcomes, he really wrote the book. Just to stop having to repeat the same conversation that he was having with people introducing his particular real estate business. But that has led into a significant coaching business now that took off specifically on the back of the book. So I think there's lots of. Lots of examples out there of how surprising things are happening as people get these. Get these books out there actually doing something in the real world.

Guest: Yeah. And he since written another book with us called the McQueenie Method. This is Glenn McQueenie. Own your niche, own your market. And so now I think he realizes how fabulous these books are for reaching, you know, in his case, real. Other real estate agents that are maybe not don't have the business that they want. And his other book was more of a how to be successful in your first sort of year of real estate. And now he's written another book, and I believe he's working on a third about how to really go deep in a niche, because I think that was a topic in the first book. But he probably couldn't say everything in there because there's more strategies than he could allude to and he gets a lot of questions on it. So he wrote a second book. And when someone is struggling with how to pick a target market for real estate, he can hand them this book and say, read this book. And when they have success, someone's going, how did you know how to do this? Well, here's Glenn. And so it kind of feeds on it. Success breeds more success.

Stuart: That was Glenn I was talking about Kevin. So that's two examples of people who. Exactly the same thing has happened. Glenn. We recorded an episode back at 002 and how his business has kind of pivoted and developed since then. But I think you raise a fantastic point that you don't know what's going to happen on the back of this. You know, how it's going to pivot or what information you think is important on day one turns out to be less important six months down the track. So I think the other thing for people to bear in mind is really to get a version, get something out there. Something is always better than nothing. It's kind of the strategic coach, 80%. The 80% approach of get something out there and then pivot afterwards. It's. It's difficult to say up front exactly what's going to happen with it, what's going to get value. And by not overthinking it at this stage, by getting something out there, by thinking about how it can be used in. In different contexts, in different funnels, it's surprising things are going to happen and, and then you can always either update or, or pivot into a different book afterwards.

Guest: Why don't we allow the listener that's not sure what book they want to write? If you have a book in mind, but you're not sure if it's quote the right book or how to narrow it down. That's actually part of my unique ability. Why don't we put in the show notes or something, Stuart? A link to my online calendar and they can pick like a 15 minute call with mint with me and I'll chat with them about their book and see any insights that I can provide on ways to, you know, narrow it down if I think they're too broad and it's not compelling enough or if it, you know, if they need help thinking of a title or anything like that, get on a call with me. I'd love to chat with them.

Stuart: Fantastic. That sounds great. We'll definitely put a note or link in the show notes. Show notes for people listening in can be found@90minutebooks.com podcast guests and this is episode 21. So 021. At the end of that, we'll get back to this episode. I'll make sure that the show notes have got links to all the things that we've talked about today and Susan's calendar. That's, that's gonna be a great opportunity for people, I think, just to grab 15 minutes of your time just to dial in their thoughts. If, if you've got any questions and anything that we haven't covered today that you wanted to talk about in the next show, then just drop us an email to podcastinminutebooks and we'll be making, making sure to pick that up or there's opportunity in the show notes on the, on the website to leave a comment and we'll, we'll keep a track of those. So thanks, Susan. I think today we're going to keep it, we've just gone past 30 minutes, so we should be able to keep it into 30 minutes this time. I think we've got some great ideas for the next show. It's always the case, isn't it? You kind of start talking and your mind goes off on, on 20 different directions. So I don't think content for the next couple of shows. Thanks everyone for listening. Susan Austin, any final words from Phoenix?

Guest: No, but if you've been toying with the idea of writing a book but you're nervous, I don't bite. Get on my calendar. Let's chat.

Stuart: That sounds like a perfect place to end. So thanks, everyone. We'll catch you in the next show.

Guest: All right, cheers.