Scorecards

"Foreign."

Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart here with Betsy Vaughan. Betsy, how's it going down there?

Guest: Fantastic. It is a gorgeous day here in central Florida. Get out and enjoy it a little bit. Yes. So not hot. We're having some great weather. We can as we refer to our boots and sweater weather, so take advantage of that, you know, so not flip flops and shorts. So gorgeous day here.

Stuart: So I was just talking to Lucy before we jumped on the call here and she's off heading into school. They've got an event there today. So she's also wearing boots and a sweater, but that's because it's about 35 degrees up there, not 75.

Guest: I was gonna say it might be 70 right now here.

Stuart: So my folks were visiting with my brother who's in Fort Lauderdale. He's a yacht broker across there. So they were across for the Fort Lauderdale boat show. So they just landed back this morning and called on the way back up as they're driving back up from London where they flew into, saying that even within the first hour, they were already struggling to re acclimatize back to the UK Fall.

Guest: Oh, I'm sure we've had some really great weather the last week or so, you know, so just, just perfect temperature. So. Yeah, I'm sure. What is. How's the weather there? Cold.

Stuart: It is definitely very fally. So. So mid-40s and, and not, not too many sunny days. But it's just the, the dark this time of year that I'm not a fan of. I don't think I actually diagnose myself as having seasonal affective disorder, but definitely seasonal lack of contentment.

Guest: You know, that happens to people that when it's, when it's dark, it gets dark. You know, I mean, in our household, we're sort of house divided. I like when it's dark earlier and, and it's, you know, I'm okay with losing a few hours of the day. You know, I think it's maybe even

Stuart: worse because I tend to stick on east coast time, so I'm rarely up early UK time. So I then lose an extra couple of hours of daylight anyway because I'm asleep. So that kind of, I think, just compounds the problem this time of year. And then in the summer, you've got the other side of the problem where it gets light. It's kind of like 4am so it's not surprising for me to still be awake then. So it gets a little bit weird. Both sides.

Guest: Yeah, yeah.

Stuart: People will be thinking They've dialed into the Weather Channel. We are today going to be talking about scorecard books. So just before we started recording. I don't think we've run through this topic at all before. I think we've occasionally mentioned them, but I think we've gone into detail on them yet on the show.

Guest: No, I don't think so.

Stuart: So this time we're going to talk about. We're going to look at scorecards kind of in the context of lead conversion books. So a couple of shows ago, Dean was on, we were talking about three different types of books. So lead generating, lead converting was the second one we mentioned. We've referred back to that a couple of times in the last few weeks just for context. So going a bit deeper on that idea, scorecards or the scorecard books that we do are specifically a. Can I talk about the 90 minute book product or the nightmare, the wrong words, the 90 minute book as being a service because within the framework of completing something, that something varies quite widely depending on what people need to do. The scorecard book is then specifically a product and that product came out of strategic coach. So we've got a lot of coach guys who are clients and a lot of coach guys listen to this. So they'll be familiar, hopefully somewhat familiar with what I'm talking about and why will set the scene for those who aren't. But the scorecard framework was a coach tool originally, something that they teach to their members, encourage their members to create this thing called a scorecard, which allows people to position themselves or benchmark themselves on a continuing continuum and identify opportunities for development. So I think Most people listening CWAs now will have heard us talk about the profit activator scorecard because that's one that's quite close to. There's a big crossover between what we talk about on the 90 minute book side of things and then on the coaching side of the business, on the entrepreneur side of the business that is Dean's other business. So the profit activator scorecard is the scorecard set up to reflect the eight profit activators. And obviously we've talked about the eight profit activators a lot. So between those two things, a coach crossover and the eight profit activators, the profit activator scorecard crossover, hopefully people have got a lot of context. Anyone that's listening to this for the first time and has got no context to it at all, then it's probably a good point now just to pause for a second and jump across to profitactivatorscore.com and there's steps then to run through the eight Profit Activator Scorecard and then jump back and then hopefully the rest of the conversation will have more of a framework to, to tie it to. How does that sound?

Guest: Yeah, that sounds great. Let's get started.

Stuart: We've had several coach clients come through the process and write a scorecard based book based on their scorecard. It's been quite interesting to see the guys who have kind of done all of that work already to create the scorecard and then really amplifying it with a book to support that process. But we've also had a couple of guys come through who have just heard us talking about scorecards separately or heard Dean talking about scorecards separately and then without the coach, without being directed by coach have created them as well. So it's been quite a mix of people so far.

Guest: Yeah, definitely. There's definitely an interest in it from a coach standpoint. I guess how that seems to work. Some folks are very familiar with the scorecard and then others don't. I think it's certain groups within the group if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken. So we have a lot of, a lot of conversation. People like it, people like to use it. And when you really sit down and look at it, I happen to have one in front of me. Thomas Ruggie is in front of me for example, just looking at his retirement scorecard. And it's really a simple, it's a really a simple way to assess your. The needs of the person you're looking to deal with or who you should be working with, why you should be working with someone. When it comes down to it, it's very, it's just a very simple process to, to work with. You know, it's very, it's very straightforward.

Stuart: So the thing that's nice, the thing that's nice about it from the, the author's point of view is it's really very, very straightforward to create leveraging the work that's been done already. So we talked, we actually had this week just had a book outlining workshop that we did and there was, I think there was about 190 or so people had signed up for that. And the call went on for over two hours as we were running through things. And a lot of those issues or questions that were being raised is just the mental overhead or the, the challenge of people thinking about the outline and what should best be in it and how they should structure it. So there's a lot of. Not ambiguity, but there's a lot of questions to answer. Just, just thinking about creating a book without a very specific framework. And obviously that's one of the benefits of the 90 minute book process because it overlays a framework onto the ideas that you've got in the first place. But the scorecard book takes it to the next level even, even further because it's very constrained, but constrained in a good way. It's very much just levering work that's already been done. So it's super straightforward. And then for the customers who are reading it, so we talk about, let's just position it again slightly in its lead converting tool rather than a lead generating tool. Although again, there's always crossover. But it's less about introducing someone to an idea brand new, less trying to get people to raise their hand as broadly interested in a subject. It's more the next stage down, the second step in the funnel of trying to educate and motivate them into taking that specific next step. So they already have identified what the problem is, they're already familiar with the concepts that you're presenting. And the scorecard then is a way of people kind of reinforcing for themselves or kind of providing their own evidence that the next step that you're suggesting makes perfect sense because they've just spent 15 minutes or so scoring themselves on a scorecard to really reinforce the point that they are weak in this particular area or assistance or help in another particular area would lead to the outcome that they're looking for. So it's really beneficial on both sides. Super easy to create and very valuable in from a customer's mindset of being given something of value, getting something from the process itself, and then being given a clear next step. So we're going to run through some details now to help people understand how it sets up. I'm going to use the eight profit activators as the example because I think more people are familiar with that. But then we probably won't have time. We're going to run out of time today. But in the next couple of shows that we do, we'll then start going through the author scorecard that we have for people who are looking to create a book for their business and generate more customers, get more leads. The author scorecard will then help you kind of measure your own progress in writing a book to fulfill that purpose. And obviously the outcome that we're trying to achieve is to identify, okay, you're strong here, you're weak here. This is really where we can step in and fill that Gap. So typically what we see is people obviously strong on their idea. They know what message they want to communicate, but the details, the kind of technical, the production side of it, the sitting in a bigger funnel, all of those things that people tend to be weak on because it's not necessarily the first thing that springs to mind. So for this show, we'll use the eight profit activators as the example and the next couple of shows we'll go through specifically the author scorecard. And then as you're listening to this, you get a lot of value on positioning yourself on those eight mindsets within that to identify where the strengths and weaknesses are.

Guest: Okay, very good.

Stuart: So the eight profit activators, the breakthrough DNA book, that is the lead generating book. It's the book that sits at the top of the funnel. It introduces the concepts of the breakthrough DNA and the eight profit activators, it goes through them step by step by step, each of the mindsets in turn, but it's really focused at introducing the concept. So lead generating book gets people to raise their hand at the first, in the first contact, gives them a lot of benchmarking background information, introduces the concepts at the end of it. Someone should have a pretty good understanding of separating their business into the before, during and after unit. Those guys then are already on the list. We're communicating them through regular communications with the Mortise Whiskers podcast, which is a weekly podcast. We then send out two other emails through the week that reinforces or highlights or brings out one of the points from a previous show. So all the time it's reinforcing this message. There's a super signature on each of the emails that gives people. Here are three ways that we can help you get started right now. So at every point we're offering something of value, we've introduced the concepts, we're reinforcing them through the regular email communication, and we're giving the people the opportunity to raise their hand and get started. On top of that, then we send other broadcast emails when we have events coming up or specific things that we're looking to do that we want people to opt into and raise their hand for. And the reason I'm reinforcing this message again, or reiterating this message is this is exact what you should be thinking about in your business. I think we mentioned it last week that the book itself is. We did mention it last week because we were talking about the, the expo, the Small business Expo. And so much of the time people think of the book as the product and there's so much time and attention into creating this thing that it's easy to lose and forget and miss the bigger picture of where that sits in the funnel. So the book is really just the tool to get people onto the email list and create some rapport and some sense of reciprocity, give something of value, start the conversation. But the, the job of work in the book isn't to get sale book sales. The job of work is to get the conversation started. So all of those things build towards, in the eight profit activators world, building towards having a understanding and a, and a, a common language within all of the people who are on the list about what those eight profit activators are and an understanding that enhancing those or developing those is really going to move your business forward. So the scorecard book, then the profit activator scorecard then goes through each of those mindsets and the four stages associated with those mindsets and allows people to score themselves on a where you are currently and where you want to be, the purpose of which is to identify where those gaps are. So when we look at the eight profit activators, we kind of move from the before unit, which is really around lead generation, the during unit, which is about the delivery of the service, and the after unit, which is the lifetime relationships, the lifetime value of customers and the orchestrating referrals. So very, very often what we see, in fact the majority of submissions that we get back in through that route is that people will identify themselves as scoring high in the drawing unit. They're very good at delivering the service that they deliver, but they're weak at the before and the after unit. So they're weak in terms of the lead generation at the front end and the orchestrating referrals and the lifetime connection at the back end. And that's really where we can offer a lot of value on that side of the business around the breakthrough DNA live events and the coaching that we do and the email Mastery series and the breakthrough Blueprint online, all of these programs are really designed to enhance those before and after unit elements. So the scorecard sits in the funnel at a stage where we've engaged with people at the first place, we've shared with them the concept so they can understand it. But this converting, this education and motivating tool, this scorecard book, allows people to score for themselves. It's not, we're telling them they're weak in a particular area, they can score them for themselves and identify where those weaknesses are. And then the call to action at the end of it is, okay, for the next step, you really should do this. And for the, for the profit activator score particularly, it's really around the online program of Breakthrough, around Breakthrough DNA and then the live events in terms of kind of context on where it sits. Does that make sense?

Guest: Yeah, it makes sense to me. Yeah.

Stuart: That's always the risk, isn't it? Because I mean, we're in this day in, day out and this particular episode I'm talking a lot about the breakthrough DNA program. But really exactly the same applies on the book side of the business because we use the exact same model, the 90 minute book, everything that we do in 90 minute books is really designed to enhance that kind of before unit, the identifying leads and that helping educate and motivate people to take the next step and to a certain degree, the orchestrating referrals. Because using books and referral strategy is powerful as well. So we're talking a lot about that model. But the same applies to the breakthrough DNA. Sorry, the same applies to the 90 minute book model. The same applies to Clay Anderson and the pilot scorecard that we've just been doing this week and Tom Ruggie, as you were saying, the retirement scorecard, and Kim White with the Life Architect scorecard and all of these frameworks, all of these scorecards that allow people to score themselves and kind of provide their own evidence that they're weak in particular areas and would benefit from more retention. That same model applies regardless of the business. And hopefully as we're talking through this and you're listening, then you can start to think about, okay, well, this particular model that I want to expand upon and draw people to in a book, there is then a next step of a scorecard to help people identify themselves and kind of provide their own evidence that some further, some further work or some further support and help in this area is going to be of benefit.

Guest: Exactly. You know, and I think it's so good to sort of have that. Yeah, I always say things like I need to check myself. And so I think this is just a definite way to, you know, people don't. People will tell you always about their strength, always. But we have a hard time identifying our weaknesses. And I think this is a good, a good in your face kind of way to do it. You know, I think you can tell

Stuart: that they should be doing something for. Until you're blue in the face, but it's not quite the same as them in their own time with no pressure of someone looking over their shoulder going through something where they evidence for themselves that they, that they are weak in particular areas and whether or not they choose to do anything about that, at least then they've taken the step to identify it.

Guest: But I think as far as we're pretty good, we have a pretty good healthy balance here of saying like when we have a concern or something was this legit? Is this. You know and I think if, if with. With me and I think with you, if I really identified my weaknesses it would nag at me into the point where I had to do something about it, you know. So I mean I. I would truly be thinking about that on a regular basis. So it would definitely kick me in the high knee to get me to do something.

Stuart: I would say so the school couples that we've had come through so far I think in part because as I say this is a coach tool and certainly don't want to suggest that this is our idea that we came up with in the first place. This was fulfilling a need that had come to us by customers. So the coach setup. Anyone that's interested in learning more about that. I'll stick a a link in the show notes to some of the coach resources and I think the majority of the audience are aware of strategic coach just because the. Our groups cross over so much. But for anyone that's not. It really is the world's leading entrepreneurial development organization. So there's a lot more great information there. Coach naturally attracts or the people that we see from coach are happen to be slightly skewed heavy in either the legal or financial services businesses. I think that's in part there is a slight skewing coach towards that group and in part just there's then the. The kind of crossover then of the people who want to write books tend to be it's just the way that it worked out. But the scorecard as a methodology, as a way of speaking to customers is really can apply to whatever your business is. So I want to take a couple of minutes just to break down how a scorecard looks and what the approach should be when you're thinking about it. And again strongly suggest heading across to profit activator score to look at a real example, the breakthrough DNA example. So it's built around eight stages and each stage is referred to as a mindset. So I'm not a coach member and Dean is obviously that's where we created the profit activator scorecard. A lot of people that come through to us to write scorecard related books although they're referred to as mindsets they're not necessarily. It's not necessarily that they're looking for psychological tendencies or psychological traits. It's more the mindsets of. Here's a way of thinking about something. So when we look at the profit activator scorecard, it is the breakthrough. It is the eight profit activators. So the first one choose a single market, then compel people to raise their hands, educate and motivate. So it's not so much that it's an individual mindset of the person reading it, it's more a kind of a phrase or an element, a specific element to look at and measure. So referred to as mindsets a lot doesn't necessarily mean specifically that they have to be kind of psychological states of mind. Guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Guest: Right.

Stuart: So for each of the eight mindsets, they then break it down into four stages. And of those four stages, or across those four stages, you can score from 1 to 12. So 1, 2, 3, you'd be scoring yourself within the first stage. 4, 5, 6, you'd be scoring yourself within THE second stage. So you can see there, the aim is to really get it a little bit more granular than just score yourself on 1 to 10. The other element of the scorecard is that it works best when they're not contradictory, where each mindset has kind of a linear development from beginning to end. So for example, I was talking to, I think it was Clay a couple of weeks ago with the pilot scorecard, the pilot aptitude scorecard. So we were talking there, hit the initial ones that he had were you could really pick one of the four mindsets and it wouldn't. It wasn't necessarily on a line of. Of weak to strong. It was just more four variations. So the example I gave him was think about if you went to a restaurant and the mindset was for a particular type of food. So you could say on the mindset could be, what side dish do you want? And is it salad, fries, broccoli or something else? In which case you could pick one of either one of those four, but it's not necessarily that one is better than the other, it's just ones. They're different from each other. Whereas if the mindset was how do you want your steak cooked? Rare, medium rare, well done, burnt to a crisp. You can only pick one of those. It's not one is kind of the exclusion of the other. It can't be both. Any of them are a preference or any of them are a development, but it's on a linear Development, it's not just completely discretionary. So we see some people come through with mindsets that are a little bit more. In the first example, when you could select more than one of the options, that they're not particularly linear, it's just preference based. So the challenge of that is that as a customer, as the reader is kind of sitting and filling it in, if they're presented with too many things, well, it could be A or it could be B then, and both are equally valid, then it's a little bit difficult for you at the end of the process to say, well, you scored low here versus high here. Does that make sense? I was trying to get that across a couple of weeks ago to say, think about starting with the end in mind. So what you want to finish up with is a scorecard where the person can clearly identify themselves as yes, I meet this criteria of moving forward with you, or no, I don't meet the criteria of moving forward with you.

Guest: Yeah, no, it does, it does, it makes sense for sure.

Stuart: So the only variation to bring into that, again just something else to slightly think about, is the first example of what side dish do you want. The only time it makes sense to do something like that is if you're only looking to identify people who order broccoli as a side dish. It's always the problem with analogies like this. Sometimes they break down once you try and drill a little bit deeper into them. But usually the easiest way of thinking about it is on a linear scale. So what you want to do is have people evidence to themselves that they're weak on a number of things that you can help with. That's the easiest way of thinking about it. The preference based one of do you want salad or fries or home fries or broccoli? If it's a situation where you're looking to just identify the people who like broccoli, then it is possible that that example kind of works. I can't yet think of an example of where that works particularly well in the scorecard kind of way because it's not quite as neat as it being on it on a scale and you just identifying yourself as weak. It almost turns into a little bit of what's the best way of describing it. It's almost as if it's a little bit more whiskery and kind of self determining. Imagine you've got eight mindsets that are very preferential and really you're just trying to say to people, well, if you've chosen these eight preferences, then obviously you need to Work with me. It's not quite as. It feels a little bit more contrived than if people were just scoring themselves where they could score themselves high or low. And if they happen to score low, then the suggestion is it will be the most use for them to work with you. Does that make sense, that difference?

Guest: That makes sense, yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely makes sense.

Stuart: If, if anyone's listening to this and that, they're kind of not getting that and they've got a real strong question about it. It's a thought that hasn't quite. Haven't quite got the right, the right model to communicate it. So if anyone's got any questions, just shoot us a message to support a 90 minute books or leave a comment on this, this episode which is going to be the show notes as always@90minutebooks.com podcast and this is episode 45045. Leave a comment and we'll, we'll try and manage those through. So jumping back then to the scorecard. So eight mindsets and four stages and people can score themselves on one to 12. At the end of the process, once they've gone through and answered each of the questions, they'll have a score for each of the mindsets that should quite clearly identify where the weaknesses. Weaknesses are particularly I think, if you can kind of group them together. So again, this is why the eight profit activators one, the profit activator score is a great example because not only are they developing kind of from a low score to a high score, they also develop almost chronologically from Mindset one through Mindset eight because it follows the before, during and after unit model. So it's very easy for people to say, okay, well I'm weak in the before unit, I'm strong in the drawing unit, I'm weak in the after unit. Having that framework where someone can kind of just at the end of the process be sat there with your scorecard book in hand. They've read through each of the mindsets that you've described. They've been described in a way that makes sense. So they can easily score themselves on each individual mindset. And then at the end of it, they've got then a collected. They've got the results on one page in front of them where they can clearly identify where the weakness is and where the strength is. Then that in the process that in the funnel that you're trying to create, you've then got a very strong way of saying, okay, at the end of the process, you've now sat with a score you've got your current score, you've potentially got a desired score. So you're looking at where you are now and where you want to be. What we typically find is people score themselves in one of three ways. They'll either be weak across the board, in which case it may be the situation that you haven't really thought about this concept before. So let's switch into say, one of the financial advisor books, so a particular book about 401ks and retirement planning. So as you run through your score, it might be that your week across the board is. In which case retirement planning isn't something that you've really thought about before. The best next step is to head over to the website and we've got three videos talking about the introductory, the introduction to 401k planning. And we run through the basics, we kind of demystify some of the language, but really that's a great place for you to score. What most people score is low in certain areas and high in other areas. So the way that we structured the scorecard, we talk about your ability to see save in the first place, your ability to determine how much you need in the middle, so the kind of what target you're going for and then your understanding or knowledge of what happens when you come to retire, so how you take that money out at the end. So what we typically find is people will score high at one on one of those particular areas and low at the others. So depending on which one of those apply to you, then again head over to the website and potentially fill out the. Fill out the savers, the savers budget plan or the all the withdrawal. We've got a withdrawal top 10 withdrawal withdrawal fund opportunities. Like in the UK, we call them annuity providers. It's the kind of insurance product that gives you the money, whichever one you're low on, head across and do this extra thing. The third scenario might be people score high across the board, in which case you're probably a relatively savvy investor. This is something you focused on for a long time. What you would benefit from the most is from talking to one of our partners about ways to optimize and leverage the scheme even further. In which case either fill out this assessment or send me an email and we can take it from there. So starting with the end in mind, as with all of the books that we talk about, what you're really looking at doing is creating something that gets them to that minimum viable commitment. Next step, that next thing in the sequence that you would ideally like them to do so building the scorecard back from those results, knowing that you want to give them a framework that's easy for them and doesn't feel like someone sat over their shoulder or judging them or kind of leading them down an alley, giving them something they can complete so they can score themselves. But then once they have scored themselves, giving them the sensible next steps based on where they've been, that's really where the value comes in, the magic comes in of creating that book as a conversion tool. Because not only have they just spent 15 minutes proving to themselves that they're weak in this particular area, but you've given them the very convenient, useful, valuable, minimum, viable commitment. Next step to take the conversation further and get that one step closer or even pulling the trigger and actually working with you and getting the outcome that they're looking for.

Guest: Yeah, all right.

Stuart: That was a long.

Guest: It was.

Stuart: Yeah, that was a lot.

Guest: I was following a lot. But I was thinking we have a lot of resources people can go to sort of, if there's any confusion about it, you know, they can go to the profit score.com and they can do breakthrough DNA.com. they can kind of look at it. They're just an email. So it is a lot, but it's broken down a few places very simply, I think, you know, for people to be able to.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, hopefully, if anyone's. So we're kind of just drawing up on time now. So in the next. I think next week we're gonna be chatting with Dean again, and then we've got a good call with one of the authors the following week. So a couple of weeks down, you now catch up again. And then we'll start going through the author scorecard. Because anyone that's sat listening and thinking about creating a book, then the author scorecard in and of itself is a super valuable tool to kind of position where you are against our eight mindsets of creating the best possible tool to generate more business. So we'll start running through each of those mindsets. So. And that will give people another kind of touch point to the scorecard as a process. But I think two things to leave people with. Then head over to profitactivatorsscore.com to see the example of the breakthrough DNA, the 8 Profit Activator Scorecard. Because then this conversation, in fact, I'd go across there and grab a copy of it and print it off. And as we're talking through these things, kind of use that to run against what we're saying. And then the second thing I'd say particularly for any coach, guys that are listening or anyone that's thought about this scorecard type approach of allowing people to evidence for themselves that they need some support. Anyone that's struggling with that. We've done a lot of these now and they're proven to be super valuable for people. So if you want to shoot us a message to, well, either shoot me a message directly if you want to. Stuartay minutebooks.com or, or just shoot a message through to supportyminutebooks.com and we'll get both of those. Ask any questions about the scorecards. We can give you some examples and run through and more than happy to jump on a call for 15 minutes and kind of dial in your particular scorecard to how it can best serve your funnel, whether you are a financial advisor or running a pilot school or a life coach or however many of the other types of businesses that we've helped create scorecards for.

Guest: Awesome. Great ideas there.

Stuart: Perfect. Okay, guys, well, hopefully that was valuable. Head over to get the shownotes nineminutebooks.com podcast and this is episode 045 and there'll be links to some of the things we've talked about. And then as I say, a couple of weeks until you and I are back, Betsy. But then we'll start running through the author scorecard and, and, and that's going to be very valuable for anyone that's sat there thinking about creating a book but is maybe struggling in one of the areas. The site isn't live yet, but if anyone wants to get a bit of a head start in the next couple of weeks, authorschoolcard.com is going to be live with the, with this scorecard. So a bit of a secret access there for anyone listening. We're just coming up to, we're recording now on the 18th, so week before Thanksgiving. So we'll have a bit of time over then to get that project finished. And I guess we're not going to speak to people until after that. So everyone listening, have a great Thanksgiving. Hope you get some time to relax. Betsy, same goes for you and we'll speak again in the next one.

Guest: Very good. Always a pleasure.

Stuart: Thanks, guys. Bye.

Guest: Sa.