Getting Started with Julia Carlson

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another book More show. A great show lined up today. Today we're talking to Julia Carlson. Julia's just joined the program. I was talking to Betsy earlier in the week and we'd, we're mentioning that there's, we've got quite a few episodes of people at the end of the book process talking about how they're using it, but we haven't had an episode with someone who's just starting the process. So, so Julia's just come on board. So we thought it'd be a great opportunity to grab her, talk about her background and what's brought her to this place of writing a book, go through a couple of the questions or concerns or elements to think about as starting the process, see if we can come up with some evil schemes, to say one of Dean's terms, evil schemes to create the book in a really engaging piece of content for her audience. Julia, thanks for your time today. How are you doing?

Julia Carlson: You're welcome. I'm doing great.

Stuart: Fantastic.

Julia Carlson: I'm excited to take part in this just so it can help me get started as well.

Stuart: Fantastic. Well, thanks for agreeing to. It's going to be a bit of a, it's a strange place to be in a little bit going into it with so many questions. It's almost asking people to talk about the unknown unknowns rather than getting to the back of the process and talk about some specific experience. So I think it's going to be really valuable for people just to hear the experience of someone else coming on board. I'm sure there's a lot of common questions or mindsets to maybe get into thinking about how to use the book as the best possible tool. So I guess the best place to start is just to give everyone a little bit of context, maybe talk about the business that you own and operate and what brought you to the point of being on the call today and thinking about writing the book?

Julia Carlson: Okay. Well, let's see. I started as a financial advisor in a bank probably almost 20 years ago when I was 20 and I just turned 40 and I just fell in love with helping people with their money. And I just really enjoyed the coaching, the learning, the investments, all of that where at the bank. I worked my way up to where I was kind of at the glass ceiling pretty quickly,

Stuart: I imagine.

Julia Carlson: Yes. So I went out independent and started my own business and I've been doing that ever since leaving the bank. And so I own Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group and we've grown to now a staff of 12 and the last Couple years I have. My role has changed from financial advisor or we like to say wealth advisors because we do so much more than just help with finances. It's really like when you think of

Stuart: wealth,

Julia Carlson: wealth encompasses so much more than. Than financial. But anyhow, my role has changed to where I am running the company and doing more tasks at that level. And I realized that I want to make a greater impact. I want to be able to help so much more people than just the people that end up in my office.

Stuart: It's almost like e myth example of the person starting the business because they've got a real passion for it and can certainly hear that in your voice. The organization grows and grows, and then eventually you find yourself away from the thing that gave you the passion and the drive in the first place. And with all your experience, I can imagine there's definitely a kind of desire to share that with people.

Julia Carlson: Yeah. And I would say that I'm a true entrepreneur at heart. I really enjoy and love the building of the business, but I also love coaching and inspiring people to make better decisions and really use money as a tool and not take away. People are so intimidated by it. I think that they just kind of leave it alone and they go through their whole life without really paying attention. Money. And so.

Stuart: So we have a similar background in certain ways. I worked in financial services for a number of years. We're a similar age. And being interested in the subject, being working in the industry, enjoying talking about it, it was never something that was. There was no apprehension talking about the subject. But even on the most basic level, I think the language that's used in financial circles is to a certain degree exclusionary because it's so specific. There's consequences to using words incorrectly. So there's a very strong appropriateness around certain words and that seems exclusionary. And people with products that really are relatively basic in. Maybe not in the specific implementation, but in what they're trying to achieve, even relatively basic products can just seem overwhelming to people. And the fear of making the wrong choice, the consequence of making the wrong choice. I can completely see what you're talking about. People just step away from it and go through their life not wanting to face those decisions.

Julia Carlson: Exactly. Exactly. So it's almost like demystifying it, maybe, or also chunking it down to where, okay, we're going to go through. The idea for my book is to guide them through these steps to help them get on the path to. So another part of my passion is health and fitness. And so I'm going to Weave that into this book as well. And so kind of the idea is I want them to walk away with steps to get their financial life in shape. Right. To play on the fit money.

Stuart: And I think that's such a great idea. And for people kind of listening, thinking about their own industries, their own worlds or sphere of influence, being able to branch your knowledge, your understanding into a framework or an analogy or a series of.

Julia Carlson: Exactly. Stories.

Stuart: Exactly. Yeah. The story that makes the slightly more intimidating things seem less intimidating because they've got a framework that they can. They can link it to.

Julia Carlson: Exactly.

Stuart: Do you have a particular. Your ideal customers? Do they fall into a particular category or group that the story that you're looking at overlaying would also resonate with? Are they?

Julia Carlson: Yeah. I think honestly, who I'm writing this book for is myself. Right. So people. So I'm a. I'm a Generation X. I think millennials will get a lot out of this book as well. And. And it's for busy people that have young children that are usually probably in a good place in their careers where they're making money, but there's also a lot going on. Right. And so I want it to be set up where it's simple and convenient for the steps to be implemented or it's not going to take a lot of their time. Their time. Right. So I don't want to. My goal is not a 700 page book to tell people all the ins and outs of the stock market and all of that. Not at all. The idea is it's like a handbook. Right. To walk people through the process and then hopefully get them to the place where they can start investing for their future at that.

Stuart: Starting that. Making the first step, I think, is such a great point because no matter how big the book is, it's never. You're not looking at writing an educational textbook because that would drive people away, if nothing else, and would take a very long time. And there's lots of other ones out there, but that start in the conversation, giving people a few examples, a few actionable steps they can take so they feel like they're making the. Turning the ship around. We're making the start of the journey is the great way of beginning a conversation that will ultimately lead somewhere else. Do you find that's often the case with people that you talk to? There's a couple of. I don't want to use the word basic in the sense of unimportant, but basic as in first steps that almost everyone can make. Is there a commonality to Those onboarding conversations.

Julia Carlson: Well, I think ultimately it's a decision to say, hey, I'm going to do things differently. I mean, there are so many times that clients are in my office saying, I wish we met with you 10 years ago, or, I wish I could get my kids to come in and talk to you, or, you know, so it's all about beginning, right?

Stuart: Yeah.

Julia Carlson: So it's never too late, but the first step is always to begin and take action and make a decision to say, all right. And I'd say a lot of that is the awareness to face it. Right. So when you're going to go on a diet, you have to know where you're starting at. Right. So you have to get on the scale, you have to look at the numbers, you have to have to face where you're at and then set a goal and just commit.

Stuart: In and of itself, I think, is intimidating for people because they're scared of the others are concerned about the numbers being black and white in front of you. It's very difficult to avoid the reality, I think.

Julia Carlson: Exactly.

Stuart: Yeah. There's definitely a step that people need to take.

Julia Carlson: It's easier to not open the mail or shove it all in the envelope or not open the email. Right.

Stuart: So that. Bridging the conversation as the experts, you know, the types of conversations that people need to be having either with yourself or with themselves, at least bridging that into a book that has a title, something that will resonate with that audience. Is that something that you thought about? The. What's the thing that will grab someone's attention?

Julia Carlson: Well, I. So I already know the book title. The book title is Fit Money. And so I've always. I've kind of, like referred to myself as the Fit Money doctor, just as a fun little nickname. Because I've done fitness competitions. All of my clients know that it's health and wealth. Right. You can't have wealth if you don't have your health. So that is just something that I was. I like that concept. And what I found is when I've done my fitness competitions, you become very focused and very aware of what you're doing. Right. So you just get very aligned with what you want in life. And so I'm hoping to take the story from that and apply that to getting on track with your finances. And so that's why I. So getting in shape with your money is kind of the. The play that I want to weave throughout the story.

Stuart: And I think it's a very. Even for people who haven't been in fitness competitions, everyone has an understanding of the journey that you just described. Going from starting and not necessarily knowing what your weight or fitness levels are through to taking the first steps of benchmarking where you are, some easy steps to start making some changes. The fact that small steps can have a bigger outcome. So I think that story, the analogies that flow through will help demystify the subject and really encourage people to at least take some. Some steps that they've maybe been thinking about for a long time. I think the title's a nice title as well because Fit Money delivers a message outside of the words in the sense that fit. The word fit has a successful connotation to it. So I think it describes. We had a titles show a few weeks ago now and Dean did a workshop we were actually talking about. I think in that. In the workshop Dean was talking about Dave's book. So you're a SmartVestor pro, part of the Dave Ramsey Network.

Julia Carlson: Smartvestor Pro, yeah. Yes.

Stuart: So we were talking about financial peace and the similar message that's communicated in the title. It's the outcome, the success, the. The end result is communicated in the title.

Julia Carlson: Yes, I want that exactly.

Stuart: I think it's very easy to. We, as we sort of see people coming through with book titles, there's definitely a trend at the moment of going for single word titles, which is a bit of a difficult or can be difficult to communicate the outcome of the message. And sometimes there's a bit too much focus on. I just need a single word rather than the message that I'm trying to communicate is such and such. The focus can be the wrong way around. So I think picking a title that has the outcome in mind is by far the better way of doing it, rather than just focusing on another or a particular set of words or one that you find clever or you're drawn to. So the word fit I think really communicates that element in terms of the audience and where you've got access to that audience. Is that something that you've got in mind at the moment? Is it a particular group of people that you're aiming to engage this book with?

Julia Carlson: Yeah. So ultimately, kind of my dream is I want this book to be out there and get the awareness out to it. And then I also want to set up an online course or an online academy that is aligned with the seven steps and then run the course. So in a seven week period, let's say they can go and be on this course and I will help them be the coach through these seven Weeks where they attack each of the steps so they can actually have my support in a format where I can scale it and actually do the work all together in a group where we can support each other and help and accountability and win right at the end. And then ultimately my hope is that that will guide them onto my platform for investing like a digital platform. I don't want to say in the industry we refer to it as a robo advisor, but it's not really a true automatic program because they are getting a financial coach as part of investing on that platform.

Stuart: Fantastic. So the best of both worlds to a certain degree. There's the economies of the robo platform but guided slightly by a real life advisor.

Julia Carlson: Exactly. And I have my own account with this platform and it's so amazing and so convenient and so easy and so it really appeals to people. Busy 40 somethings and 30 somethings just getting started. They know they need to be doing something but they don't really kind of know what to do or how to start. This is perfect for them.

Stuart: And the accessibility of an online platform rather than relying on having to deal with an individual. If you want to check in on portfolio valuations or look at portfolio splits or I think the target of the audience that you're looking at that age group. The end goal guiding people towards this as a solution is again very coherent. It's the funnel kind of leads consistently from the start to the finish.

Julia Carlson: Yeah. So that's kind of what I think that that's what this book is. I would love to meet with all these people one on one but that ultimately there's only one of me. So this is my message to the world. How I can inspire people to make wise decisions and then interact with them somewhat if they want to take step two within that course. And then step three would be working with us and actually moving towards investing for their future.

Stuart: We talk a lot about not letting bronze prospects get in the way of gold star prospects. And sometimes that's miscommunicated when we share it because people think that we're talking about ignoring the ones that aren't immediately gold star prospects. But so often, particularly with the scale of electronic program delivery or content that's that's fed to people in a way that doesn't mean that you have to do it individually. What we're talking about is treating everyone like a gold star prospect until they evidence that they're not. So the ability to share that platform. Sorry to share that program with everyone at exactly the same level as if every one of them was a gold star prospect. As long as the cost of delivery isn't excessive, which usually isn't, you can usually scale it pretty easily, then it just really brings everyone along under the assumption that they would be a gold star prospect until they stepped away. Were you thinking of the seven week program that you talked about? Were you thinking of offering that as a free option or a paid option?

Julia Carlson: I would like to do it as a paid option, you know, so they would pay for that. Although I am in a compliant world and I have to be compliant with my, with the company I work with. And so that's yet to be determined.

Stuart: Right. Well, I know compliance should talk about that in a second actually because we run into compliance challenges a number of times with particularly some of the financial books. I wonder if one option is to get the program signed off at compliance as if it was a free program, but then add the live element, the coaching element as the paid additional part.

Julia Carlson: Yeah, and that's probably what we will have to end up doing because we charge. We have hourly consulting that we charge for. But when I told them my idea and said this is what it's going to be, I think they were like, oh dear, what do we do with this one? And so it's, I don't, it's. I don't think they've seen this idea before. So we're just taking, we're taking it one step at a time. So the book is step one and sometimes.

Stuart: So I mean, just to give you kind of our experience on the compliance side, again from the, from the outside. So as I mentioned, like you from a financial services background, so I have previously dealt with compliance departments. We very often see people who run into the problem of compliance, particularly when there's a centralized outsourced compliance. So if they're a agent of a larger organization and compliance is done centrally rather than if they've got their own compliance team, it's usually a little bit better. But having to have the number of iterations that go back and forth sometimes when compliance needs to sign off on every last period or exclamation mark in a book and without necessarily. It's very much the final step in the process unless there's an absolute comfort level. So we really see the people who talk about it to their compliance guys in a confident way going in with case. Well, not so much case studies, but examples of why this is fine. And really it's just a variation on something that's already been done. Far more success than someone going in perhaps with A less confident standpoint of, well, I'm not sure about this. What do you think? And then as soon as you say, what do you think? Everyone's got an opinion and it comes the next six months.

Julia Carlson: Well, I've talked to, we have a great compliance person. So I've talked to them about this and they're on board and ready to help along the way. I'm going to keep them involved and I'm hoping that we won't have any issues.

Stuart: And the good thing about going down this route rather than, I mean, just looking at the book, particularly going down this route rather than a traditional publishing route, is it's so flexible to make changes either up to the point that you call it version one or even subsequent to version one. It's not like you're having to order 5,000 copies from a manufacturer and then they'd be sat on the shelf if you run into some compliance issues. It's so it's such a dynamic way of doing things and that's a feature of the technology these days and how easy it is to make changes and update things. The whole print on demand environment and the fact that realistically the majority of people probably deal more with the electronic version of the book than the physical version of the book. It's almost like the physical version of the book just gives the electronic version the authority. But really everyone's dealing in more email driven, online driven world.

Julia Carlson: Yes, I agree with all of that. I mean, when I was talking to Betsy, I'm like, I think I was overthinking it. Like, am I ready to do this? I don't have an outline, I don't have all my words. And I've had books, I've had friends that have written books and it's taken them years. And so I'm like, can I just go for it? So when I was, I'm part of Strategic Coach and I was talking to Dan about it and he's like, this is what you do. And he just 90minutebook.com, go there and order your. It was like, is it really that simple? Okay.

Stuart: And it's so easy to overthink it. I mean, I guess to a certain degree it's exactly the same as the customers that you're trying to engage with. There's. I know I need to do something and this is probably the thing I need to do, but I'll think about it later and then hopefully come back to it. And then six months goes down the track. It's.

Julia Carlson: And I did put it off like that. That. So when I. That conversation with Dan was in March and this is now. Right. And so I. I thought, like, okay,

Stuart: you'll be going back in. When will be the next one? July.

Julia Carlson: I. I'm. August.

Stuart: August, yeah. So is the plan to have it done by then?

Julia Carlson: My goal is to get it done by then, yes. And I'm hopefully with. I think it'll come down to compliance, but I'm hoping that will be most. Most of the way done by then. Yes.

Stuart: So even in. So looking at your case particularly, the process generally is that the aim is to get the first version of the book based on the outline and then the interview recording that we do, then we get that transcribed and kind of coach people as best as possible to bring their A game to the call so that they really. What's recorded is that is the best possible version. Get that printed first version in your hands, not in anyone else's hands, but in your hands. So you can kind of flick through, you can give it to compliance and actually flick through and point to the pages. Can you take it to coach as the. As the current working version, but get that in your hands certainly within six to eight weeks to be able to do it, depending on scheduling and everything, but that's certainly not a problem. And then at least you've got the. You've got the working version there to run with. Because what we originally started doing three years ago, when we started was that first thing that you would receive was the electronic word version of the transcripts. Because what we'll often find is that people will receive the first version of the book and then they'll look through it and there'll be things that they might want to tweak or change or maybe sometimes people forget things or leave them out of the outline or afterwards we'll think about adding something in. So what we were originally doing was sending the transcript version, the word document version of it for people to make changes, and then when they returned, that would send that off to print. But it's so underwhelming to receive homework effectively. It's almost like kind of take a sigh of relief that the hard work's been done and then a document lands on your desk and someone's expecting you to do something with it. So switching that around so that we know, print that first version, ship that to you, so you've actually got something in your hand that you can look at and really get the feel for how the content flow is in the actual book itself. And then, of course, can make exactly the same changes if you want to make any changes or add pieces or take pieces out. But just the difference of doing it the other way around has been hugely successful because people get it in their hands and, and you'll see the seven steps of the program. You'll see that laid out and think about how people are receiving it. Think about how it's it will be for them to go through it. Look at it from almost. It almost gives you the outsider's view on the words that you're already very familiar with as the insider. Just seeing it in that printed format kind of switches the model in which you're looking at it.

Julia Carlson: Cool. I'm excited.

Stuart: Yeah, I think it's going to be really good. Some of the things that we talked about today. So the fact that you've got got a clear audience in mind, there's a nice story that will carry the narrative through and give people the examples again. For anyone that's listening into that, listening into this, that's a great example to think about yourselves is we often talk about people undervaluing their own internal experience or thinking things are too basic to share with people. But there's also the flip side of that where it's very easy to find fall into industry based language. So really have that narrative that follows through and then you've got a program that leads to something, a next step. So it's not so much that you're just dropping a book on someone and saying to them okay, well now give me a call and come into the office for a meeting. You've got a very clear next step in line. And even if that program isn't ready on day one, there's almost certainly going to be something that you can lead people to. So. Exactly conscious that we're. I said that I don't. I know it's. It's towards the end of the week when we're recording this, so you need to get on. So we're almost at time but just before we go, just wanted to talk about that next step. So the seven step program, as that full program comes together, is there anything that you've got today that you would usually either onboard people with or give them as a worksheet to, to kind of bridge that gap from.

Julia Carlson: I think if they just read the book that will inspire them to take action, whether it be with one of my advisors here at my company or online through the online platform. Is that what you mean?

Stuart: Yeah, kind of. So that intermediate step, I'll often talk to people coincidentally enough the guys in the financial world particularly, I think because so much of it being compliance driven and the fact that you've got to go through fact finds and all that type of thing, very much the outcome, the ideal outcome if someone comes into the office for a meeting, that step is quite a big step for someone to take. So often I don't want them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's. It's quite particularly if you've got a cold audience. So I mean it does vary, vary depending on whether you. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and they were looking at delivering the book to, using it within a funnel of people that they're already quite familiar with. So they've got the opportunity to write a regular column for a community newsletter. So his audience, they're really, they've got a relationship there already. But for. Particularly as the traffic gets colder and colder, people have got less and less of a relationship. Taking that big step is a pretty big jump. So whilst in the future the back cover call to action might be okay, sign up for the program and there might be a free way to onboard on that. But in the interim, before that exists, I'd maybe suggest looking at something like. Do you have a. I know you mentioned that you were a coach member. Do you have a scorecard?

Julia Carlson: We do, but it's not, I mean it's not out there yet, but. And I would, I mean, so that scorecard is for a client that is appropriate for us in our office which is totally different audience than this book.

Stuart: Right. So the other thing that you could do then is maybe the step by step guidance that's in the, that's in the book. The bits that forms the seven steps. Take that and turn it into not a scorecard but something like an action set or a checklist or something that you can offer to people that's easy for them to opt into.

Julia Carlson: Okay, so they can, So I can capture their email, Is that what you mean?

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. So it does two things. One, for people who have already opted in, so you've got their email address, you've delivered them the digital version of the book, it gives them something else to opt in for so that you can identify the hotter prospects from the colder prospects and all things being equal, give attention there. And then for the other people who get a copy of the book who haven't opted in. So either a physical copy of the book or they've been passed a copy by someone else, it gives you an opportunity to easily a relatively low barrier to entry, capture their details because They've opted in for this follow on thing. And I think the great thing about your book is it's a very obvious follow on. It's something that talks about or gives them the action steps or the checklists or the additional video content or the walkthrough or the mind map or anything.

Julia Carlson: I'm planning to have tools throughout the book. So. Yes. And the videos would be. Those will be done by the time the book's done too. And those will be supportive. You know just where it's engaging them to interact with me.

Stuart: Yeah. Without will compliance have an issue if you gave people free access to that. But they had to log into a system. So creating like a basic membership site where all of this information was just provided for free but they just had to log in so that it wasn't freely available to everyone.

Julia Carlson: Yeah. Let me ask.

Stuart: Yeah, that would just be lead capture. I mean there's no. You're just giving away the free advice. You're just putting it behind the sign in. So in the. We do a lot of realtor, we've got quite a big realtor community as well. We encourage those guys to do like daily or weekly reviews of the property that's come on the market. Perhaps on the mls which isn't publicly available yet. Some Realtor, some MLS providers have an issue with that if they do it and make it freely available to anyone. So those guys often do the same. They say, hey, this is some private special information. More than happy to give it to you for free. You just need to log in because we just can't make it publicly available. So again that way you've got. It's just an opportunity to take people to the next step. So almost like a staged process towards the conversion rather than trying to get them to convert straight away off the book.

Julia Carlson: Yeah, great idea. Okay, I'll put some. I will look into that.

Stuart: Fantastic. We've just blasted past 30 minutes so I promise not to keep you much longer than that. So I'll cut you loose. I think it'll be great to check back in certainly after the book's done and we can talk about some. How you've been using it. I think people who are listening now will be interested to see how it's going, I think offline from the. Offline from the recording. More than happy for us to check in a couple of times alongside the main book process if you want to talk about any strategies or marketing ideas as the book comes closer to completion. So we can always do that as well.

Julia Carlson: Okay, thank you. Very much no problem at all.

Stuart: It's, this is an exciting journey. I'm, I'm really glad we did this. It was a, as I say, it was just a conversation with Betsy earlier in the week saying that we haven't, we have had a lot of people at the end of the process, but no one at the beginning. So hopefully everyone listening into this has kind of been able to overlay their own ideas. And as you were saying, it's, it's easy for it to go a couple of months down the track and not make any progress, but really it's, it's a very straightforward process to get started.

Julia Carlson: They make it very easy.

Stuart: Fantastic.

Julia Carlson: Well, I have to say I got the email two days ago and it said, please fill out this questionnaire to schedule your first 30 minute call. And I found myself not even opening it because I thought it was going to be a really long questionnaire. And I opened it and I'm like, are you kidding me? This is so easy. I could do this. So I'm like, this is going to be amazing.

Stuart: Yes, that's some great feedback. So everyone that's not on board yet to begin with. So we've got the 30 minute outlining call and really just so that Susan joins that call with a bit of. So we don't spend 15 minutes just baselining what's going on. We just ask four or five simple questions to try and get the, get the kind of gist of the, the book. So that's great feedback. I'll tweak that email slightly so we make the point that you don't need to carve out half an hour to answer it. Yeah.

Julia Carlson: Say don't worry, just keep going.

Stuart: Well, the whole rest of the process is really aimed to be as simple and really get something that's out there engaging potential customers as quick as possible. So I'm really looking forward to this coming together if people want to learn more about what you guys do. Over there at Financial Freedom is the. Where's the best place for people to check out?

Julia Carlson: Yes, our website at financial freedom. Wmg.com like wealth management group.

Stuart: Fantastic.

Julia Carlson: And we have a great Facebook page. They can find us there as well.

Stuart: Oh, that's perfect. Well, you've got my email address if you shoot me a link to the Facebook page and I'll put a link to the, to the website and the Facebook page in the show notes. Everyone listening, dive over to 90minutebooks.com podcast024 this is episode 24 for the transcript of the show and a couple of links that will put in. Julia, just want to say thanks again for your time. I know it's getting late on a Friday now, so hopefully not too much more time for the weekend. And I'm looking forward to checking back in as this progresses.

Julia Carlson: Okay, thank you very much.

Stuart: Fantastic. Thanks. Have a great weekend.