Engaging Readers

Stuart: Hey everyone. Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Bookmore show. A couple of weeks ago, Dean recorded a more Cheeseless Whiskers podcast with Bill Bloom. So Bill, you've probably heard us talk about him before, is one of our authors, wrote a book called the Yachters Going to Early Retirement. It's a great book, really on target for his or audience, the people that he's trying to attract, his kind of core customer group. We spend a lot of time in the show talking about the creation process, how to pick that target audience, how to get a book that's on message, really encourage people to raise their hand and identify those invisible prospects. In the last couple of shows, hopefully you've heard Betsy and I talk about the launching sequence using some of the real world book launch strategies within the model of launching a lead generating book, how you can leverage some of that. So this show I wanted to share with you in case you haven't had a chance to listen to it because Dean goes into depth with Bill now that Bill's had his book for six months or so about how to take the conversation to the next level. So once you've identified those people, once they've raised their hand, they requested a copy of your book, then what next? Some ways of transitioning those, educating and motivating people over time towards taking an action with you, really taking that next step to becoming a client or customer. So take a listen in. This is a really great show. Hopefully you're going to get a lot of actionable steps thinking about how to take the book that you've written and transition those, transition those people who've raised their hands into, into customers. Okay, so enjoy this and we'll speak to you next show.

Dean Jackson: Bill Bloom, good morning, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing, Dean?

Bill Bloom: I am fantastic. This has become my favorite of days. I've got a couple of podcast scheduled for today and I just get to hatch evil schemes and have nice conversations. So it's always a good day.

Dean Jackson: That's a beautiful thing.

Bill Bloom: There we go. So we're recording right now. We've got the whole hour to hatch some evil schemes and I'm really looking forward to it. So tell me what we've got, what we've got going on.

Dean Jackson: Well, thank you for having me. It's been an honor and a pleasure. I know that being a strategic coach a couple days ago and talking about you with some of the people there and Dan was actually there that morning, they're like, oh my gosh, Dean is the man. He Knows so much. He's done so much for the industry, just for marketing in general, so it's been amazing.

Bill Bloom: Oh, that's awesome. Well, thank you. So, yeah, tell me about your situation. What kind of. What's the business that you're in and what are we working on here?

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. So what we do at Bloom Financial is we help clients with their retirement income streams. Our goal is to make sure people never run out of money. I think that's pretty important.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: Yes. Yes. So from a marketing perspective, I've put together two books and one of them was with the 90 Minute Book Company.

Bill Bloom: Nice.

Dean Jackson: I think you're pretty familiar with. And that has been fantastic because I do a lot of sailing. That's been one of my passions. Yeah. And the books, the guide's name is the Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement. So I've been using that to my prospects and the people who I work with, a lot of them are sailors or boaters or power boaters. And it's been a huge hit. An absolute huge hit. I love it.

Bill Bloom: You know, it's funny, there. Byron is a guy in my Strategic Coach group in Toronto. Just with him, we just did a. A book with him called the. The Geoscientist Guide to Early Retirement. I think there's certainly something to it. I mean, you know, we've done. We've had a, you know, different people do, you know, different niches like that. We had a gentleman do a. Cosmetic surgeons. Right. The Cosmetic Surgeons Guide to Early Retirement. There's something about the horoscope effect that it just takes, you know, it really like locks in. When you hear something that is you, you just automatically, you pay more attention. Even if they're seemingly incongruent or don't seem like it's. It's directly related like the Yottter's Guide to Early Retirement. It doesn't seem like the two would be connected, but they're certainly connected in spirit, you know. So how do you, how do you connect those dots and how has that been? How did you come to that conclusion?

Dean Jackson: So I was sitting in an airport. I had probably maybe seven or eight hours before my flight. It was in Nashville. And I had just come back from Strategic Coach and I had two of the. I had the little guides about the book. So I read them and I just started outlining a process for it. I was like, who do I want to work with? The people who I love sailing and boating with. And then how could I reach, how could I reach them? So I just outlined the process and took the time at the airport of all places, you know, make use of your time and basically put the concept of the book together. Then I picked up the phone the next week. The rest is basically history. And I've been able to use that as a nice little marketing tool. And I'll also have that as one of the Go Go clients or the Go Go agents to. So that people could just go online and download it for free.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: And that way they're getting that content as well. And I'm trying to figure out new strategies to market that book. And I've also created a second shorter guide from the Otter's guide to early retirement. Retire as you desire.

Bill Bloom: I like that one too.

Dean Jackson: Yeah, I am working on getting that trademarked right now as well. And so that's a second shorter guide that's like about an 8 to 10 pager that outlines the specific process to help you retire as you desire, which is everyone's goal.

Bill Bloom: That's so great. And so you look at that as that might be a, you know, a next step for people. Right. So you get that whole. You're planting that seed of the Yarder's Guide to early Retirement and then the next step, this Retire as you desire seems like the perfect sort of worksheet to. To help people start the process of building their plan.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. And that's the whole point because I mean, being in the industry for over eight years now, I mean, I came into the industry in 2008. Yeah.

Bill Bloom: Right.

Dean Jackson: When all the craziness was going on and it turned out to be a perfect time to help people. And I mean, Bloom Financial is here to help a lot of different types of clients. But at the end of the day, you want to like who you're working with and they want to like you as well. So they have to enjoy the message that you're sending and it has to be congruent.

Bill Bloom: Yes, I love it. So where. What's happened so far with the book? If we're overlaying now the profit activators of where this fits that you've got a profit activator 2 tool now that can get people to raise their hand. And you mentioned that you're using GoGo clients and you've got your landing page all set up for the book. I'm assuming that's the one we set up for you with your 90 minute book. Just the simple book landing page. Okay. And have you been connecting the dots yet? Now it's about you're there ready for them to. That's the tool that we've got. Have you been able to get that out in front of people and have people ask for the book yet?

Dean Jackson: Actually, yes. I've done some Facebook advertising.

Bill Bloom: Okay.

Dean Jackson: We have a great system at our back office that helps us with our marketing. And our marketing team is fantastic. And getting everything approved. Everything is done so quickly. Yeah. And so I just sent out, I set a small budget just to kind of test the waters because I want

Bill Bloom: to use a couple of different things. You should always do. Yeah, yeah.

Dean Jackson: Just. I'm going to do a couple of different streams of marketing with this, especially with the newer guide, because you're able to reach a broader market rather than just sailors. So with the retire as you desire. I put out a Facebook ad and it had about 20,000 different views. It had. It was a two and a half percent conversion ratio for people going to the landing page to actually downloading the book. And actually the past three days, I've been getting a lot more people downloading the book. So I think they're seeing it more often. I kept it as a very tight group. Right now I'm not trying to broadcast all of America. Big of a of a net right now. I narrowed it down, so there's been a lot more hits and a lot more downloads just in the past three days.

Bill Bloom: Perfect. And so how many people have downloaded the book so far?

Dean Jackson: It was about 35 people last time I checked.

Bill Bloom: Okay, perfect. So now you've got something that most people long for. You've got something that you can operate as a vending machine now. Right. You've spent. How much has it cost you per person who's downloaded the book? Have you done the metrics on that to see what your cost per download is?

Dean Jackson: It's like $20.

Bill Bloom: Okay, perfect.

Dean Jackson: So just simple math because my budget was 600.

Bill Bloom: Okay, so there we go. So you've spent. You got $20, and what you have now is the perfect little profit activator 2 vending machine. Okay. Now, regardless, the metrics, the math we can work on, you know, the fact that you can. You're getting them for $20 right now. There may be ways to get that down and to get that for less, but the thing that you have is that you've got a way to put money in the top and get leads out the bottom, which is so you know that that's the starting point. That's the launch pad. We can figure out the math afterwards. You know, the money part of it. What's more important is that we get the, the, the market of it. Right. That you've got an offer that you're matching with the message that you're, that you're sending. So when people download this book, right now you've. Or the guide, you've got 35 people who have raised their hand and are now in Profit Activator 3, which is about educating and motivating those people. Now, this is where the conversion part of this comes in. Right. And we want to talk about it as a conversation, educational type of thing. So first of all, congratulations, because that, you've got something that is, that's really working. And so.

Dean Jackson: Thank you.

Bill Bloom: You want to enjoy that right now. Now, what happens when somebody leaves their name and their email address? What's the first 24, 48 hours like for that person?

Dean Jackson: This is where I need to build out the tools a little bit more. And with the, with the Gogo clients, this is actually on my schedule to do this afternoon. You're able to do that and you're, you're able to send out the additional emails. You can do the calls, but I

Bill Bloom: have, we can do that whole thing.

Dean Jackson: Yeah. Which is amazing because then you have the automated system working for you. But yes, what I have done is sent out a thank you, obviously, for taking the time to download that. And then there's a call to action inside of that to call the office if you like what you read or send us a note. So we're very inviting. And plus, on my website now that I've just added, there's a scheduling tool where my client or prospective client can go straight to the website and book a meeting. So that way it's very intuitive. If someone wants to speak with us, they're able to.

Bill Bloom: Okay, so what would be the. What does that email say? The initial email. So I download the. I leave my name and email address, and then you've set up with Gogo clients that immediately I get an email that will. That downloads with a download link. Is that how that how it works?

Dean Jackson: Correct. And with your experience, what's some of the best ways to help with that conversion? When they go to the landing page, what have you seen? Glad you asked.

Bill Bloom: You're in the right place.

Dean Jackson: Exactly.

Bill Bloom: You are in the right place. So here's how we want to think about it. But before we get into that, let me just set the stage here of what we're actually working with right now. How long has it been since that first lead came in? Like, how long ago was that? Are we talking about three weeks ago? Three weeks ago? So you started running the, the ads then and that's been sort of steady over the three weeks. Or did you just, or did you turn it on for a couple of days, then turn it off and now it's back on. How has it been?

Dean Jackson: It's been steady. It's been steady, continuously running. So I set a three week time frame.

Bill Bloom: So basically one a day, basically one a day for the last little while. Okay. And now has anybody in that three weeks so far gone on to engage or take another step forward at this point?

Dean Jackson: No. Okay.

Bill Bloom: And so that's what we're looking for now, right? Is now we want to go and see, we're building this bridge from your, from Profit Activator three, which is your, you've got a visible prospect. Now we're going to the role. The goal of profit activator 3 is to educate and motivate them. And then we want to deliver ready to go prospects, people who want some help into your during unit.

Dean Jackson: Okay.

Bill Bloom: Profit activator 5 and the bridge to that is offers that will make in profit activator 4. So this is where it's like you're looking at the transition now. Somebody could be, somebody could hang out in profit activator 3 for years before they take that next step. And what you're building is an asset here, right? You're building an asset of people who have raised their hand because a message resonated with them that they want to retire as they desire right now. Now we want to continue to educate and motivate and to communicate with those people until they're ready. Right. Patiently and systematically until it's the right time. Now here's. Yeah, here's what we're. Where people often make a mistake about their approach to this lead conversion. First of all, they think that there's something they can do to convert these leads. You know, there's always this language that I'm gonna convert these leads into, into clients that I'm gonna kind of wrestle them down somehow. There's something that you're doing that's, that's gonna make this happen. And the reality is that what we're really looking to do is take the approach that we're trying to find who are the five star prospects. Right? And so I talk about five star prospects and I want to define it for us here that a five star prospect is somebody who is, who meets these five criteria. Number one, they're willing to engage in the dialogue. Number two, they're friendly and cooperative when we talk with them or when we email, you know, dialoguing with them. They're friendly and cooperative. Number three is that they know what they want and number four is that they know when they want it. And number five is that they'd like us to help them. So all five of those things have to be true in order for you to be working with an ideal client. Right? So if we start with that as the baseline here, that, that's what we're looking for is if you think about any of the clients that you're working with right now, they're all five star prospects, right? They're all people who they were willing to engage. They're friendly, cooperative, they knew what they wanted, they know when they wanted and they'd like you to help them and

Dean Jackson: they all become like family.

Bill Bloom: Exactly. Because your, because your during unit is all about delivering a world class dream come true experience for people.

Dean Jackson: Right?

Bill Bloom: You're focused on that. So when you look at this now, the goal is not to turn people into five star prospects, it's to discover who are the five star prospects. And so that, so that is a different sort of approach here. You know, if we look at it that it's not so much that you're going to convince people to do anything, right? They're going to convince themselves to do something. You're going to present them with the information that they're going to use in, to build their case, right? To convince themselves. But nobody's going to do anything until they're convinced that it's the right thing to do. And so we look at it now that we patiently take this approach of identifying who are the five star prospects. You know, so we want to know, rather than starting at the beginning or starting at the end and starting to make prescriptions for people, you know, just saying you should do this, you should do this, you should do this. Rather than starting with the prescription, start with the very first thing which is that are they willing to engage in a dialogue? We will kind of disarm people first, right? If they've got to get through all of those, they've got to be willing to engage in a dialogue and they've got to be friendly and cooperative. I mean they, they, they left their name and email address which, you know, there, that's sort of a starting process of being willing to engage in a dialogue. They, they left that voluntarily for you. Now are they friendly and cooperative means that when you email them back, will they email you back? You know, will they, will they have a conversation with you? That's all that we really want to focus on initially is just to see are they willing to engage. So tell me about this email that you send initially to people.

Dean Jackson: Well, I'm glad you asked that because I obviously need to work on this a little bit.

Bill Bloom: Okay. Can you. Are you on your computer right now?

Dean Jackson: Yeah, I pulled it up because I wanted to give you the exact information.

Bill Bloom: Dean, why don't you email it to me, too, so I can look at it while we're talking here?

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. No problem. So, yeah, let me send this over to you.

Bill Bloom: So basically, we can kind of look through the whole. Look through the whole thing here. Yep.

Dean Jackson: So when someone goes to the page, it just says, thank you. You will receive your complimentary guide shortly. And it says, visit my website@bloomfinancialco.com and it has all my contact information there. And then I'm going to forward you. I'm going to put my name in there and see everything that pulls up, and then I'll be able to just forward you the email.

Bill Bloom: Okay, perfect. Yeah. This is, you know, part of what we're looking for is to really now imagine this scenario, you know.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. And see it from their perspective.

Bill Bloom: Mm. That's exactly it. So we want to kind of go through that.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. So. And I'm still getting used to the system here. It's so intuitive. I didn't realize how much stuff was in here to use. Fantastic.

Bill Bloom: Really? Well, down at the bottom of the page or even on the dashboard there, there's a whole, like, library of video tutorials with all the things that you can do with Gogo clients.

Dean Jackson: Unbelievable. All right. And then, yes, here's the email. It says, thank you so much for downloading my ebook. I hope.

Bill Bloom: Did you forward it to me, too?

Dean Jackson: Yeah, I'm doing that right now.

Bill Bloom: Okay, forward it to me. And I can read it while we read along. That you know this, because every little element of this, it's good to kind of imagine it, you know, to take that. That perspective. Okay. Retire as you desire. Here we go. Okay, then. So this is the way that it goes. So did it put their email address? This is the email address that I see there. The gmail.com. thank you so much for downloading my ebook. So your personalization is using their email as rather than their name?

Dean Jackson: It is their name. I just put my email in there twice.

Bill Bloom: Oh, gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right. So that's good. There we go. Thank you so much for downloading my ebook. I hope that it finds you well and that you're able to apply the Principles of this book to your future retirement. Please give my office a call today to help with your retirement income planning needs. Bill Bloom. Okay. And you got your phone number in there and your signature. Okay, so let's talk about this.

Dean Jackson: The

Bill Bloom: thing that we want to imagine now is that a really great mindset to get into or a great mind exercise for this is to imagine that your opt in box is a portal to your office. Okay. And that you're sitting in your office. And then whenever somebody fills in their name and their email address and presses submit or send my book, they magically get transported right into your conference room or right into your office or wherever you are, and they're sitting right there. And, you know, it's an interesting thing to imagine that, but saying, what would you say to somebody if they appeared right there in front of you? Right. What would you say in that situation? What would you say to somebody like that? So you can imagine that they've seen.

Dean Jackson: They've.

Bill Bloom: They've been attracted to this message of retire as you desire. And then how would you engage with those people?

Dean Jackson: Oh, that's a very good point. I want them to know that it's all about them. It's all about the client. And when they do come to us for help, it's all about them. And that's the message that is always relayed in meetings. And the first question that I will always ask a client is, what's most important to you?

Bill Bloom: Mm.

Dean Jackson: And stop talking. Because at the end of the day, I'm able to create a customized plan for them for their needs, whether they're a boater or they have a second home or a sports car that they love, or. Some of my clients, they just love knitting. That's what they do with their free time, and that's what they spend their money on. So it's how it is.

Bill Bloom: No, but, you know, there's the thing like. So when you imagine this, there's something that you want to imagine is that first email that you get, this first opportunity here is your chance to really kind of set the stage for people in a way.

Dean Jackson: Right.

Bill Bloom: Like, you can, you know, give the next steps of what. What to do next, you know, and just kind of ease people's minds. There's a, you know, really interesting example that I talk about of furniture store called Jennifer Leathers, and they are furniture store, and all they sell is leather sofas, and they've got a sister store called Jennifer Convertibles, and all they sell are sofa beds. But when you walk into. When you walk into a Jennifer Leathers.

Dean Jackson: The.

Bill Bloom: They don't take the general retail approach of. Can I help you? No, thanks, I'm just looking, right. It's never, it's not that dance. What they do is they take a different approach. And my friend Eben, Peg and I went into two stores in the same day just to test this out, see

Dean Jackson: how they, how they do it.

Bill Bloom: And you walk in and they stay welcome. Have you been to Jennifer Leathers before? And just right away that question, no matter what you say, so you say no. And they say, well, let me tell you how it works. All of the sofas that you see are available in any of the leathers on the back wall. They're all in stock and available for immediate delivery and they're all guaranteed for life.

Dean Jackson: My name is Dean.

Bill Bloom: I'll be right over here if you have any questions. Take a look around. That's the first engagement with somebody who comes into Jennifer Leathers, right? Because they know that if I just say to you, can I help you? And you say, no, thanks, I'm just looking. What you're not saying is, no, thanks, I'm just looking for a red leather loveseat. That's really what you're looking for. And you think, I'm just going to scan and if I don't see a red leather loveseat, I'm just going to leave because I don't want to be convinced to buy something else or I don't have time for this. I got to stop by a bunch of stores today, right? So I'm going to quickly get in, scan around. If I don't see any leather sofa. Red leather sofas, love seats, I'm going to leave. But what they've done with that interaction is they've overcome the three biggest reasons that somebody might not buy a sofa today, right? They might think they might not see a red leather loveseat. And if they knew that they could get any of the loveseats in any of the leathers on the back wall, they'd know that all they need to look for is the shape and the, the style that they like, knowing that they can get it in red and also knowing that it's not going to be a special delivery because they're all in stock and available for immediate delivery.

Dean Jackson: Amazing.

Bill Bloom: They can get the finest leather even if they have kids and dogs, knowing that it's all guaranteed for life, you know, so they've now it frames the way that people are looking at the sofas. They can relax and just look and find the sofa that they want. Not, you know, knowing that there's not a salesperson who's going to try and, you know, push the blue sofa because they're getting overstocked on the blue.

Dean Jackson: Right.

Bill Bloom: We got to get rid of these blues. That's not it. They're just saying, you know, find what you want. So that is a very important moment, you know, if you can set the stage for what it is that's going to happen and how you can help people. Now, that alone. So in that situation, I'll kind of

Dean Jackson: let that

Bill Bloom: land a little bit, you know, and then the. The kind of pairing to that is to really think like a chess master here and start to think, what is the next couple of moves here with this. In the evolution of this relationship with this client? Where are we heading with this? You know, what's likely to be true about this person and what would be the thing that they would really like? And the more that you can anticipate what somebody's need is or what their desire is, the more that you'll be able to package a solution or suggest a solution for them. That's going to put you in a leadership role, not in a passive role. You know, like just saying to people. Yeah, saying to people, you know, please give my office a call today to help with your retirement income planning needs is. Is very vague. Not a leadership. It's saying, you. You put us into action. You know, it's not making an offer. We're expecting people to take the initiative. And nobody likes to take initiative. Right. It's like, we all. We would rather. You'd rather somebody call you up and. And ask you for some way, for some help, because we're completely wired to want to help people. That's what we're really hoping for, you know, and so I always use that as an example. If I were to bring you into my house, sit you in my living room and say, hey, Bill, I'm really glad you're here. If there's anything you want to eat or drink, there's lots of stuff in the fridge, you know, please feel free. Go ahead and help yourself. Now, it would be very difficult for you to do that, wouldn't it, if we've never met your first time in my house. And we would never feel comfortable imposing on people, you know, of course. And so if I did that, though, and I sat you in the living room and I went into the kitchen and I came out with a plate of freshly baked cookies, and I came right up to you and I said, How, Bill, would you like a cookie? It would be very difficult for you not to take the cookie.

Dean Jackson: I would always say yes to that, of course.

Bill Bloom: Even if you don't like cookies. Right. I mean, it's still the same thing. Even if it wasn't your favorite kind, you would take it. Because you don't want me to feel bad that I went out of my way for you. I made these cookies for you. Right. And that's really why. That's really why we go to such great lengths to deflect these situations from us. That's why we know. That's why we're so resistant when we walk into a retail store to just say, no, thanks, I'm just looking. Because we don't want to feel indebted to the person. Right. Because we know we're helpless against it. Kind of an interesting, you know, societal kind of benchmark. You know, that you look at it in those kind of situations and you see immediately how it applies. But then taking this approach to it, what would be the thing that the person who has been compelled to download your guide to retire as you desire, what would be the next step for that? What would be the thing that you could anticipate that they would. That they would want, you know?

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. I think it comes down to what their needs are and let them know that their wants and their requirements, as far as income goes, will be listened to. Because when you structure the plan around what their requirements are, whether that's X amount of dollars a month or a year, that would change from. To the next client. So I really think that if we could relay the message saying, you're gonna be listened to, what we do is listen to you, the client, for what your income requirements are, I think that would be very powerful.

Bill Bloom: I mean, when you run out of this, when you look at this, how to never run out of money is such a great set of words. Right? How to never run out of money is that. Are those compliance approved words that is

Dean Jackson: part of the guide. So because there's products out there that can help with that.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: All depends on the client. And there's no cookie cutter approach. Everything is customized because you could be working with the client who has $5 million, and yeah, they may have a high likelihood that they don't run out of money because they don't have a lot of expenses every year.

Bill Bloom: Right.

Dean Jackson: You know what I mean? Or if you have the client who has $500,000, where we're having a different conversation, but we're able to help both sets of clients. And that's the beautiful thing about my practice is that that $5 million or the $500,000 client is still going to be listened to and the plan for their income strategies is going to be created around their needs.

Bill Bloom: Their income strategies. Yeah, that's funny. I had an advisor friend tell me a story about a client that was. Made millions of dollars a year but was spending more than they were making. And they had to have a conversation about it. They were saying, you're going to have to, you know, this is the reality. You're, you're making $8 million a year, but you're spending $9 million a year. And then something's got to give her. You know, the client at the end of the conversation was sort of saying, well, is there any other way? And the advisor said, well, I mean, sure, make $10 million a year. And the guy just got this bright, like just beam of satisfaction on his face, you know, like, why didn't I think of that? And he just said, John, he just left there flying, you know, just floating on air that all he had to do was just make another million dollars. He didn't have to cut back on anything, just make more money. Like brilliant. Think of that, you know. Yeah. So when you look at this, that how to never run out of money. I really like those words. And if we were to take that thing, you know, wouldn't it be neat if there was? Because we all love, we all love calculators and we all love things that you can plug in and run scenarios and do you know, all of those kind of things? I wonder if it would be an interesting thing to, about how to tell when you'll run out of money kind of thing.

Dean Jackson: Right.

Bill Bloom: How long, how long will your money last or how much will you need? What would be an interesting sort of compliance, friendly way of doing that kind of a calculation for people or run it? What, what, what kind of thing do you do for people to, to start that process?

Dean Jackson: Yeah, and I think you're, our minds are sinking right now because I was just thinking the same exact thing. I think that would be very inviting for a prospective client to get the book. And then a couple days later when the emails ask them, have you had your income stress tested or have you had your income, your retirement income plan stress tested or to see, you know, how long your money will last for. And I am able to help clients do a retirement income plan review and then the plan itself shows if they are getting X amount of return, if they have X amount of assets and how much they're contributing each year and how much and how much income they want, because that's. That's the main goal. And it will show them if their money will last or not. So that can be done.

Bill Bloom: And so what would be. Do you think that's something that your clients would love to have if they could see a report that showed how that plays out or plays out to different scenarios kind of thing?

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. I think anyone would want to know that because it's very powerful to say, you know, at age 75.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: There might be a high probability of you not having money anymore, or if you are at age 80, you think you're going to live that long. And what are some of the things that you could do to prevent that or to use different products to help you with your income planning? So I think that can be very powerful.

Bill Bloom: Mm. And so I think that's kind of a cool situation. Then that. That would be one thing. What. What else do people want to know about? What else do they. What else would kind of raise their. What other kinds of things, Even in your experience in talking with people, what would be another thing that they would want to know? I just want to kind of quickly get to two or three of these, you know.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. A couple other ones is protection. Protection is a very powerful word because illness, as we get older, obviously our bodies are not working in the same manner. I didn't create this, so I can't take credit for it, but there was a gentleman who came up with, in retirement, you have three different phases. You have your go go years. That's when you're traveling, you're gonna go see the grandkids, you're gonna take that cruise that you've always wanted to do. And then the next part is the slow go years. Isn't that great? I didn't create this, so I can't take credit for it, but I love expressing this because it's so true.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: In those slow goes years, you're not spending as much money, you're not traveling as much. Your kids or grandkids are usually coming to see you because you can't get around as well. And then you have your no go years where you're really not doing too much. You're at home, you might go into an assisted nursing facility at that time. And it's. I think the second thing that people are looking for is protection for their estate and for their monies and make sure that if they do need some form of care, that they're taken care Of. And that's, I think, from an advisor standpoint, that's one of the things that people miss the most. They forget to plan for that. Mm.

Bill Bloom: Well, that was. You know, we did a. I did a book with a financial advisor called How Much is Enough? And that was the question that people always have. That's the question that people want to know. But then we did a postcard that was three avoidable mistakes that derail even the most cautious retirement plan. And that was one of those. Is these. Not factoring in the. The wild cards here, you know, of. Of not protecting the. The downside.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely.

Bill Bloom: So I think that's. That's great. The protection. And then the longevity, the how long it will last. And typically, the people that you're working with, are they. What. What age group are they right now? Are they pre retirement or are they ramping up to retirement or just starting retirement?

Dean Jackson: 90% of my clients are about 57 through 70.

Bill Bloom: Okay.

Dean Jackson: That's the biggest part of my booking business. Absolutely.

Bill Bloom: And that's when they start kind of thinking about it. This late 50s.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. Because that's when they're starting to think about their Social Security planning. They're starting to think about, okay, things are coming quickly. The next five to eight years will happen in a flash.

Bill Bloom: Yeah, that was where we came up with that question of how much is enough? Because that's really. You know, I have friends that are in that age range that Guys that. At my country club or, you know, people that are on the cusp, they're about to retire, they could retire any time. They just. They're, you know, counting their money and counting it again and doing calculations. And then there's always just, I just need another. You know, I just need the next level, no matter what it is. Right. It's always if It's. If it's 5 million, they need 7, and if it's 7, they need 10 or. You know what I mean? It's always just out of. I just need a little bit more to feel safe with this, you know, and so. Yeah, so your approach is kind of to start with the. The number and work backwards, I guess. Right. Like, starting with how. What's their income need for the. For the thing. If you. Because you think about it, that's really. It feels like in retirement, if people could take a guaranteed amount of income, even though it would be less than, you know, they would trade their. Their assets and stuff to have a guaranteed income to last as long as they do.

Dean Jackson: Right? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's interesting here's a perfect example. I was just working with a client the other day, and they make about $200,000 a year. Good money. Then they said to me, yeah, I think when we retire, we'll be able to live off of $90,000 a year, no problem. And they're used to living on more than double that.

Bill Bloom: Yeah.

Dean Jackson: So that's a red flag. Immediately I said to them, do you realize that you guys are going to cut your income in half? Is that really what you want? Do you want to plan for having more than that? And then that really got them to start thinking. They're like, oh, wait, I think you're right. I think we should plan for at least one 25 or $150,000 a year. Because I don't know if $90,000 would be enough. Because once we start going through their expenses and they have three houses, I'm like, what are your property tax bills

Bill Bloom: from all three houses?

Dean Jackson: So just little things like that. You have to have a target to shoot for, and then that way you're able to plan accordingly to get them to that income level.

Bill Bloom: So that might be a. Is there some words that. So the stress tested thing, but is the income. It would be an interesting thing to have an approach to calculating how much they'll actually spend in retirement and figuring out how much asset that will require. Like, everybody's kind of, you know, got some baseline things. I mean, they'll have their. They'll have their Social Security income, they'll have maybe a pension or, or not. And then they've got whatever assets they have that are going to make up that difference. But it becomes that then math game, right. Of figuring out exactly the difference and what they'll be able to. How much it'll actually cost or how much assets you'll need to support that income, rather than looking at it backwards from how can you maximize the income from your assets? Is that a fundamentally different approach?

Dean Jackson: At the end of the day, whether you're doing it from you need $300,000 of income a year, or if you look at it and say you guys have saved $3 million a year, here's what I think we can project. There always needs to be some form of comfort level. And for that $3 million client, there's a lot of different ways to help them achieve their income goals. It comes down to how much they've saved, how much people are willing to save, and really what their comfort level is with the markets. If they love the markets. If they don't love that, we could do a combination of things to protect their money or also grow their money. So really, Dean, it comes down to that person. It's all specifically for that person. I wish there was one way to do everything so it would make life a lot easier, but there's just not.

Bill Bloom: Yeah, no, exactly. And so I think that, that having that kind of discovery process for. For people, you know, one of the things that when you look at it, you know, if you were to imagine your sort of Jennifer Leathers message to these people who, the moment they download the book, the guide to have these next steps, I use something that we call super signature that I always have offers that let people know what to do when they're ready to take the next step.

Dean Jackson: So I always.

Bill Bloom: And every email with whenever you're ready, here are four ways I can help you hatch some evil schemes for your business or whatever the, you know, whatever it is. And that's part of it is the, you know, part of it is being able to be in that leadership kind of role for people, you know, like just letting them know what the. What to actually do. So my like super signature, if I just look at. I'll just go because I sent out an email today and I just said, so it ends, you know, plus, whenever you're ready, here are some ways I can. Here are four ways I can help you out some evil schemes for your business. Number one, be a guest on more cheese, less whiskers. Two, try the new profit activator scorecard. Three, join our email mastery academy and be a case study. Or four, work with me one on one. So I've got. And I just have little descriptions of what those things are. And every time that I send an email like that, then somebody picks every one of these things, you know, that something is just the right time for people, you know. So I would look to say to your people who download the book, you know, here's the copy of the retire as you desire worksheet and it's going to show you this, this, this and this. Click here to to download it. And then whenever you're ready, here are three ways that I can help you retire as you desire. And one could be put your. Do a. What would you call that stress test. You know, put your portfolio to the stress test. Or we can run a stress test on your retirement portfolio and show how long your money will last under different scenarios. That could be one. And we're just, I'm just getting the rough words out there, right? Like this, this would be. Require a lot of Wordsmithing to get the right words. But that's the essence of it, right? They were saying, whenever you're ready here, here are three ways I can help you retire as you desire. One, do a stress test. Number two, we can do a, you know, income income analysis or whatever. What would be the, you know, how that might work out? What did you call the ability to calculate someone's income?

Dean Jackson: Actually in the book. There's seven steps in here. So it's a process. This is a process driven strategy and it's called the navigation process. I took that from the others. Guide to early retirement. Yeah, so it's the investment portfolio analysis. Yep, that's exactly what we're talking about here. To show them how long their money could last for.

Bill Bloom: There you go, that's perfect. So having that as an option and then, you know, you're, I think your retire as you desire is such a great title that that could be the kind of thing that you could say. You could do a workshop around that. Right. Join us for a retire as you desire workshop.

Dean Jackson: Oh, that's good, that's brilliant.

Bill Bloom: Right. Where you can walk through those things. You know, I love that. So now you've got that, you've got, you know, three good options there. You can do, you know, run scenarios on your current one, go through a process to calculate your income goals or requirements or what it really costs to retire or join us for a retire as you desire workshop. And you know, saying those things, that's similar. What we're doing with the, on the real estate side, we're generating buyer leads. We're doing, you know, we offer a guide to Winter Haven real estate prices and house prices for people moving to Winter Haven. And so we say that same thing. Hey, welcome aboard. Here's the, here's the guide. It's going to show you all the different house prices of what you get for your money in Winter Haven. And then whenever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you. Number one, you can join us for a daily tour of homes. We do tours here in Winter Haven every day at 10:00am and 1:00pm you can, you know, see several homes in one, in one session. Number two, join us for a home buyer workshop. We do home buyer workshops at the library, you know, on the first and third Thursdays of the month or the first Thursday or the third Thursday or whatever you want to do it. And number three is get a free home loan report. We monitor hundreds of different loan programs all around the country to find the best zero down loans Low interest loans, low payment loans. We put all our findings together in a customer home loan report. Those three things. Right. We always want to look at having the next step for people, you know.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. I'm just taking some notes right now. This is phenomenal because even with the Winter Haven home, if you wanted to move to a place or Miami or Fort Lauderdale or whichever city you're looking at, you could do the same thing and replicate that. And it's just a great idea to show people that, yes, you can take the next steps or yes, you can learn more about this, and yes, you can be helped because at the end of the day, you want to help the person in your industry.

Bill Bloom: Right? Yeah. And that's really, you know, so that's where you're. The great news is you're at a situation where you've got a mechanism now that can put you in conversation with people who are. Who want to. Who are attracted to that message, either as the, you know, as yachters who want to retire or as people who want to retire as you desire.

Dean Jackson: Exactly.

Bill Bloom: You know that now it's about. Your 100% focus is bridging this gap between getting those leads and getting those people to be clients. You know that you're able to help them, because I know that in your during unit, you're 100% capable and ready to help people.

Dean Jackson: Right.

Bill Bloom: So it's just now bridging that gap from Profit Activator three into Profit Activator five, you know?

Dean Jackson: Absolutely.

Bill Bloom: And that's going to be. That's going to be about email. That's really what your. That's really what the next step would be for you.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. Love that.

Bill Bloom: Mm. So what's your recap? How would you feel? What have we kind of come across here?

Dean Jackson: Well, Dean, my recap is this. Building out the back end of things is, I think, really the most important part, because once you get that person to engage and give you their information, yes, they've already taken the first step. And then secondly, if we're able to give them a clear and concise message, which is something that I need to work on, but we can do that and let people know that, yes, there are solutions for you and yes, your objectives, or if you want to retire as you desire, that can be met. Or if you want to keep your yachting lifestyle in your retirement years, those

Bill Bloom: things can happen too.

Dean Jackson: And it's just planning accordingly. And I know how to do that for people.

Bill Bloom: Mm. So this is great. You're right in the situation now where you've done the right things in that you've, you've generated leads, you know, you've got a baseline to draw from there and you're not going to prove anything. It's not going to make the boat go faster by throwing more money into generating more leads right now until you really solidify this process of converting those leads. So it's not going to, it's not going to improve it in volume.

Dean Jackson: Right?

Bill Bloom: You've got to, we've got a thread, the, the rest of it here. We've really got to focus all of your attention on how can we engage with those people the moment. Because never liked you more than the moment they download your, your retire as you desire guide, you know, or download your book. That's the peak of your relationship so far. And now we don't want to just leave it on. Please call our office for some help with your retirement planning. You know, that's like saying, you know, there's lots of stuff in the fridge, you know, go ahead and help yourself.

Dean Jackson: Right.

Bill Bloom: We want to be very, very clear and we want to engage with, even though there's a group of them, we want to engage with those people as individuals. You know, that's the, yeah, that's what you want to do is imagine that we spent this entire call sort of talking about that one thing of the initial message, but the next level of that is now engaging with those people on a one to one basis, you know, so asking them a question, that's going to engage in a dialogue. So when people immediately put in their name and their email, we're going to send them that initial message that says whatever all the things that we just discussed, plus makes those whenever you're ready, offers for them. And then the next morning we want to greet those people with a short, personal, expecting reply email that will engage them in a dialogue. So when, so for example, on the real estate side, if somebody downloaded our guide to Winter Haven, then what we would send the next morning is a message that says, hey Bill, welcome aboard. Are you an investor or are you looking for a house to live in? Right, Just engage interesting in a conversation with them. Right? And that's where you might send a message to somebody and say, are you, are you retired or are you gearing up for retirement or are you, you know what something that would be easy for people to respond. You know, just an easy way for people to respond. And if you, if you. The great thing about the Yachter's guide to retirement is that you could say, you could literally say to Somebody. Welcome aboard. What. What kind of yacht do you have? Right. Oh, that's so good. Right. Because all you want to do is engage with people as people first, right? We just want to see that they're engaged in a dialogue. And if you have a picture of you on your yacht, then that's a, you know, that's kind of a nice thing because you're engaging with people as people first, you know.

Dean Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that, man, my friend,

Bill Bloom: I've been doing this a while, but that's the, that's the kind of thing, right?

Dean Jackson: It's.

Bill Bloom: You're thinking about just now. Every single person gets, every single person gets that individual attention that you're now speaking to one person at a time. And you just want to find out are they willing to engage in the dialogue and are they friendly and cooperative. And then you're just going to spend all of the dialogue. All the back and forth is going to be focused initially on do they know what they want and they may not know what they want. And so your dialogue is going to be helping them discover what it is that they want and making sure that that's in alignment with what you can actually help them get and only then deciding whether now is the right time for that and then making an offer to help them, you know, so it's all this skillful sort of. I think if you just take these 30 people and you start to think about how can I engage individually with these 30 people and find out who are the five star prospects? You know, that's really where your, that's really where that, that thing is. So this is great. You're. This is where there's, this is where all the asset is, is in this, this lead conversion process here. You know, going from profit activator 3 to profit activator 5.

Dean Jackson: Yeah. And taking those steps and really walking the prospects through the different areas that you can really help them with.

Bill Bloom: So. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Dean Jackson: Yeah.

Bill Bloom: So that's. That's exciting. I've enjoyed this. Our time went fast here. I know.

Dean Jackson: I can't believe it's been over an hour already. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate everything. I really do.

Bill Bloom: I think this is awesome. You'd actually. This would be a really great email mastery case study. I'm starting a new email mastery case study group next week. So I'll get you the details on that because I think you'd be a perfect fit for it. You're exactly at the place where we pick up with that.

Dean Jackson: That sounds Great, Dean. Okay.

Bill Bloom: Well, I sure enjoyed it and I will look forward to working further with you on this.

Dean Jackson: Same here. Thank you so much for your time. And again, you're a genius. Thank you.

Bill Bloom: Thanks, Bill.

Guest 3: And there we have it, another great More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode. And you know, you get to see. I hope that you found your. In that situation, if you've got leads that you've already been able to generate and you've got a mechanism that is like a vending machine where you can put money in and leads come out, the only thing that makes sense to do right now is to focus on converting those leads into people that you can actually help. You know, to say converting those leads with the same caveat that I gave Bill in the conversation is nothing that you're going to convince people to do. You're going to discover who the five star prospects are and make it super easy for them to get started. And I think that you're going to have a really great lifetime learning experience of moving leads from hey, I'd like to do something into working together with you. That's really the skill of any of it. Generating leads is sort of a science and there's lots of ways to. You can pretty much automate the whole process of getting people to raise their hand, but the skillful, the art of converting these leads, of identifying who the five star prospects are, engaging with them in a way that helps them come to their own conclusion that you're the only logical person to help them. Not beating them into submission or beating them into thinking that you are the only one that can help them. But to let them come to that conclusion by really communicating with them and offering the most logical next steps for them and packaging in a way that makes it super easy for them to take those next steps.

Stuart: There we go. What a fantastic episode. It's a great reminder that the magic really starts to happening in those later phases. Stage one is to identify those invisible prospects, help people raise their hand as interested. But really it's stage two that the magic starts to happen and invisible prospects start turning then into people that you can engage with and do business with. So if you're ready to get started, head over to 90minutebooks calm and follow the get started links. We're here waiting to help you get your book written and out there. If you got any questions or any feedback for the podcast, just shoot us a email to either podcast 90 Minute Books or hello at 90 MinuteBooks and we'll be there waiting to answer any questions. Questions. Okay guys, Enjoy the rest of the week and look forward to speaking to you next weekend with the next show.