Beneficial constraints

"Foreign."

Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart here with Betsy, Betsy Vaughan.

Guest: Hi Stuart. Good to be here. Fantastic, gorgeous, beautiful, fantastic.

Stuart: End of the week, we're recording on Friday this week, so it's always good to wrap up the end of the week with the podcast. I think we've got some. Always good to get to this stage having dealt with so many people, particularly this week, it's really seemed to be pretty busy. So lots of examples of helping people through and we'll try and tie them

Guest: into like we were talking about before we came on board, you know, before we started recording. It has just been. This entire week has been non stop going, busy, busy, busy. And specifically today for Friday, very busy. A lot of great conversations, you know, about books and potential books.

Stuart: It's almost as if people have kind of surfaced after kind of all of their financial end of year stuff has kind of settled down. Now obviously we help a lot of financial advisors and people in that space, so they're busy not only with their own stuff, but with client stuff as well. So definitely seems like people are getting to this point in the year and then thinking, okay, I've been thinking about this for a couple of months now, need to get started. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. So let's make a move now and, and pulling the trigger to get started. Both in terms of jumping on board with us, but also just thinking about a book as a lead generation tool more generally.

Guest: Exactly. And you know, it kind of feels like January. That's that kind of the kind of buzz around it. That's really how I was feeling like, wow, in January, typically we're very busy and a lot of conversations, a lot of conversations, so kind of feeling like that. But like I said, good conversations are going on. People are excited about getting their books out. Like you said, they've been talking about it for a while or thinking about it for a while.

Stuart: And lots of great use cases, lots of different industries, lots of ways that people are thinking about engaging them, engaging their audience in, in slightly different ways. It's, it's always great to see that variety coming through as well.

Guest: It really is. And I will tell you, having doing this podcast and, and people speaking to people on a regular basis about our specific process in writing a book. Lately I have more and more people and I'm hearing, first of all they're listening to the podcast, which is awesome, we so appreciate that. But people are really getting the idea of the purpose of this book, like not being A best seller about it truly being a lead generation tool. And that is something I really picked up on this week. I'm hearing a lot of that like this. I'm really wanting to build my business. I'm wanting to use this as an extension of my business card. So that really excites me a because it makes my job a lot easier. When we're having the conversations about the purpose of writing about the reasons to write a book. But so that really for people to know that they're listening and they're hearing that and that's their purpose.

Stuart: And anecdotally I think that ties in a little bit with the conversation I was having with Dean a couple of weeks ago saying that as markets and trends and the hottest thing kind of ebbs and flows in the last six to nine months maybe have really seen a fall off in the number of people out there. Other programs, not ourselves, but talking about write a book as bestseller, get it on the bestseller list. That's the most important thing. And I think it's a reflection of that was a particular point in time. There was a kind of quirk in the Amazon space, particularly where getting something onto a best sellers list was relatively straightforward. The system could be, if not gamed or manipulated. There certainly was an algorithmic element that was known that could be leveraged. And I think that as a trend or as a tactic rather than as a broader strategy that we talk about sometimes that as a thing seems to have definitely died down. Now it might be just the kind of filter bubble of personally, I didn't engage with much of that stuff on Facebook as an example, so I just saw fewer of those types of ads. But I'm still following broadly the same group of people. So I think it is very much now that we've got past that gaming the system type approach of oh you should do this because it's a way of getting a quick win. And now more and more people are thinking about the actual underlying strategy and how it can really make a difference away from the kind of top level, headline grabbing, bestseller type stuff into oh no, this is really around leads and probably as well some of the stuff that we're doing pushing out both on the podcast and on the other side of the business. So through More Cheese, Less Whiskers and the Listing Agent Lifestyle, when you see numbers. I was just put the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast up earlier today and was looking at the distribution list that we send the email out to. So just checking the increase of that over the last month or two. So this is the program. This is the Realtor based program. Dean recorded the first episode of the podcast as the kind of Listing Agent Lifestyle manifesto. Kind of stating the. We talked about the different types of books in the past. So there's the, the type of book that is kind of the, the declaration type book. It's the stating the manifesto, it's the introducing someone to a topic that they might not be otherwise aware of. So the Listing Agent Lifestyle, is that created from episode one of the podcast? We're at episode 17. I just put live earlier today. The Facebook ad leading into that is for the book. So it's targeting realtors asking them if they want a free copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle. I think from memory, the copy, it's in an earlier episode. I'll try and put a link in the show notes to the episode that we were talking about specifically. It's about four shows back from this, so maybe about episode 49 or 50. The ad copy for that I think is as simple as Listing Agent Lifestyle, New books, Listing Agent Lifestyle. The future of real estate is better than you think. Download a free copy. So using that as an example, which more and more people are hearing about and, and thinking about how it works for them, that's generated just over 3,000 leads in two months. Less than two months. I think we pushed it live just at the end of January and we're now March 16th. So 3,000 leads. There's 25. Just over 2,500 in North American campaign and about 400 or so. So just under 3,400 or so in. In a Canadian campaign. So I really think that as more and more examples are going out, those examples are resonating with people. People are thinking more and more about how they could use it. And I think that's what we're seeing more and more of coming through.

Guest: Yeah, I think I agree with that. So that's great. It's funny, I was just thinking about that campaign yesterday. I was talking to somebody about it. So I'm glad to know those numbers and see that kind of success there. Yeah, as Dean Jackson would say, it's all very exciting.

Stuart: Just on that we were trying to think in one of the shows a couple of weeks ago we were talking about different examples in different industries. I mentioned last week, if anyone's listening wants to be a guest on the show, then head over to 90minutebooks.com guest to fill out a couple of details. And we've got quite a list of people now. So we're going to start scheduling Those over the next week or two. In fact, I think the first one I've got maybe is next week. So if anyone wants to talk through some ideas of how they can use their book, we're going to talk today about the break, the tripping over my words. We're going to talk today about the book Blueprint Scorecard and mindset number seven, which is beneficial constraints. But in the next episode we're talking about beyond the book and how to use it. But thinking about that, knowing that's coming up, if anyone wants to jump on a call to strategize how they could use it, whether they've written it already or they're thinking about writing it, then definitely head over to 90minutebooks.com guest, fill out a couple of details, name and phone number and what you want to get out of the show and then we'll schedule something and that'll be a great opportunity to brainstorm specifically for your business.

Guest: Right, Very good.

Stuart: Alrighty. So as I just mentioned, we're going to go through another one of the book blueprint scorecard mindsets today. So we're up to number seven of eight. We're going to talk about beneficial constraints. So this is really looking at, we've moved past the kind of what you're doing and why you're doing it and where you're taking people. We talked last time really about the content, the leading people from A to Z. So all of the building blocks are in place. So these last two mindsets, we want to talk about one of the biggest things we see with people coming to us who have started to do something. So this is around beneficial constraints. And then one of the most common questions we get, okay, now that I've done it, what should I do next? So we don't want another hour long show. So we're just going to hit one of them this time and one of them next time. So as always, head over to the show notes for this episode, which is episode 54. So notesbeamitbooks.com podcast episode 54 and we'll have a copy of the book Blueprint Scorecard there so you can follow along. As always, if you want to complete your own book Blueprint Scorecard so you know where you sit on the scale. Then head over to bookblueprintscore.com and that's the site that will walk you through the eight mindsets and allow you to score yourself and then give you just a summary at the end of where you position. And that's, I think is really a Great way of looking at which elements you're doing pretty well on, which ones could you. You could do better on. And equally looking at it as a whole, where to put your effort, which, which lever to pull is likely to give you the best returns. So number seven, beneficial constraints. I'll read through the four stages and then we'll talk a little bit more about each one of them in turn. So at the lowest level, we're talking about having no constraints at all. You really want to write as much as possible, and you haven't really even considered what a constraint might be. The second level is you're focusing on a specific problem to answer, but you haven't really defined the scope of the content and more specifically what not to include. And you haven't given yourself a specific deadline. So you know really what you're doing. But there's not really that much in terms of constraints around it. The third level, the next level long then, and this is probably where most people, as with the last ones we talked about, most people are probably going to be in between this second and third level. So the third one, you've got a clear scope in mind, you've got a specific deadline in mind. And narrowing the content, the work really now is narrowing the content to ensure that it still delivers on the promise of the title. And then the fourth and the top level, this is where it's really dialed in, is you starting with the end in mind. You know, the purpose of the book in terms of the specific funnel or campaign that you want to use it with. You know what its job of work is, that it's trying to identify leads within a specific group of people at a specific time within a specific funnel. So the constraints around that at the very top level are really dialed in and you've set it up in a way that kind of stops you from going off, off the, off the rails or running long or scope creep, all of these other things that we talk about.

Guest: Yeah, I definitely think our clientele starts somewhere between two and three for sure. When they come on, you know, come on board. I think maybe once in a while you have that person who has, who's. Who would fall under that, you know, that fourth, fourth category there was starting with the end in mind, you know, but most of them, yeah, I would say definitely two and three there.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's because we've talked before. A lot of our clientele are also coach clients, strategic coach clients. So there's a lot of crossover in the programs there. A lot of Them have already worked with Dean in other areas. So. So email mastery or have been to the Breakthrough Blueprint Live events, maybe longtime listeners to the I Love Marketing podcast back in the day or Cheese Less Whiskers now. So a lot of this framework that we talk about is really based around the eight profit activators, the breakthrough DNA model. And if you're listening to this and you don't know what that is, if you head over to breakthroughdna.com then there's more information on that there. But I think falling into that second or third category is really where people have got this kind of an idea of the scope and then it's just dialing it in jumping back to the first level. So this is really not considered any constraints at all and not even really thinking why a constraint is important. We do occasionally see people come who have started to write something already and it's literally been a couple of years and they just haven't got it over the line. I think this is. I can remember back in, back in school whenever you'd have to write kind of anything long form. I was terrible for this, the opening act, if you like. If I was thinking about writing something in three acts, which I never was, I was just thinking about writing something in the quickest way possible. But it wasn't necessarily the most rigorous with homework, apart from working out ways of avoiding doing it. But anyway, if I did get around to doing it, the introduction or the opening section would be super, super detailed because I'd be enthusiastic enough to start. But then it would get to the point where either the time or the energy levels are just completely run out. So without a very clear plan of where to go and wanting to kind of include all of this stuff, it's like I was trying to recreate Lord of the Rings on this one essay and this elaborate opening that then petered out into and all of a sudden they all died because either the time constraint or the scope constraint or the energy constraint, all of those levels just ran out. So quite often and we'll talk, we'll talk to people about this in terms of both the not having a time constraint. So just open ended, I want to get this finished, but it will go on until it's done, which is a problem or scope in terms of. I know I want to write about this subject, but this subject is huge and I want to cover all of the areas and I want to make sure that they've got enough detail and I want it to be the best thing. We always talk about creating Something that's the best thing, but within a certain specifically defined scope so that you've given yourself a chance without adding these beneficial constraints, wanting to do, unless your job is an author, and literally this is what you're dedicating all of your time to do, then this is something you try and do in addition to everything else. So really making it the best it can possibly be, but giving yourself the constraints of within this particular set of parameters is the only way that it's going to get done. I mean, I can think of very, very few people who are able to just start writing and then give themselves the discipline to stop without something external or something written or something a guideline within their own mind of saying, okay, this is it, and then no more. It's interesting to see those ones that do come back and either people that we've been talking to a couple of years ago maybe, or it's the first conversation that we've had with them, but they do say, oh, well, I've made a start. I've got sort of 20,000 words. That's great. That's two books straight away or one book and a whole load of supporting material which we'll cover in beyond the book next time. Right, the next level. So that's the basic level. If anyone is as they're scoring. As you're listening to this and scoring yourself on the scorecard, if you do score in that, that first section, the first thing to really think about is jump back to some of the earlier ones. It's quite possible that you don't have a single target market dialed in, or you don't have a specific call to action. You don't know where you're trying to lead them to. And without that start and end position, you could be driving all over the place to get from A to B. So if you are in that position, practical advice there is to jump back to those two early ones and that might immediately start to help. So the next level.

Guest: That's good advice. That's great advice.

Stuart: And I think it is something that we harp on about quite a lot and sometimes we get feedback about the. We were talking about this just before we started recording as well. And two pieces of feedback are either we're always talking about the same points about single target market and where are you leading people? But as we've said before, we still get all the questions all the time. As soon as people stop asking us or stop mentioning it, then we'll stop talking about it as well. But it's one of the Key things. And the other bit of feedback is you talk too fast. I'm trying not to do that today.

Guest: You're doing a great job. Thank you. I was going to tell you, I'm

Stuart: really trying to breathe in between words. It's quite funny. I've got my podcast. I mean, I'm listen to hours worth of podcasts a week and I've got them sped up to like 1.6, 1.7 times. I wonder if there's a setting where you can go the other way and maybe people listening need to go down to like 0.7 or 0.8. So I was going to make another point then about that, but I've lost the training thought. Yeah. Jumping back to those first things, constraints are sometimes something that people see as a negative. The Joy of Procrastination podcast, if no one's listened to that, that's Dan Sullivan and Dean talking about their challenges overcoming procrastination. But the realisation that procrastination can actually be a good indicator of things that you need to work on. So likewise with this, constraints could be seen as limiting and bad, but they're not. They're empowering and give scope and make the likelihood of something getting completed and out there far, far, far higher than it would be if you didn't have those. And you just started with the aim of finishing at some point in the future. So hopefully it's a slightly different way of thinking about it, moving on to the second level. And again, this level and the next level are probably where most people, as you listen to this, you probably fall somewhere in this category. So you are focusing on a specific problem to answer because you've heard us banging on about it, however many times about defining a single target market. But within that, you maybe haven't defined the scope of the content. So you know who you want to talk to and to a certain degree you know what you want them to do next. But you haven't necessarily taken the discipline of going through and thinking, okay, well, that means I am going to talk about this and I'm not going to talk about that. And the challenge there is that sometimes it's easy to drift down an alley that you didn't necessarily expect to go down. And whilst doing that on the podcast isn't too bad, because within the we've got a constraint, more of energy than anything else to get to the end of it. You can get away with it in conversation, obviously, but as you're trying to write, the challenge there is that you're just going to write yourself into a hole and get further and further and further away from the path with potentially the problem of not being able to get back or it'll take another 500 or a thousand words to get back.

Guest: So, and at that time you've kind of lost the. I think that, that I had that conversation today with, with the gentleman or gentlemen just they have, they know what, what they want to answer, but they want to answer like every possible question to every, you know, so I, I, and I think I shared that with you. I was a little overwhelmed with the whole conversation because there's so much information. They don't know how to, you know, define that scope of that. They don't know how to make that happen. In my head I truly, I visioned like a thousand page book sitting on someone's desk. Like that's what I was visiting, having this conversation. There was no possible. And they, I think, and the longer we talk, the more we, I saw us in the rabbit hole, you know, at some point there was no coming out.

Stuart: Right. And it's a great example, I think, of some of the things that we talked about before in a lot of people come to the project thinking about a book in a traditional sense of a book because all of that magic and authority around a book that makes it so beneficial to do as a business owner or an organizational leader trying to start a conversation, all of those mental cues can also shoot you in the foot a little bit because as the person that then also being the right, you're thinking about in the same way. So thinking about making it look like a textbook or the authoritative source that's going to answer absolutely everything. Again, if there's a, if you assess the situation and there's a genuine use case and benefit for doing that, so you actively make the decision to do it, then that's perfectly fine. But then understanding that that decision has baggage that comes with it and that's potentially a year's worth of time, tens of thousands of dollars worth of editing all of these extra things. And again, if all of that's worthwhile, then absolutely do it. But imagine breaking those thousand pages and 10 different subjects into 10 different books, being able to attract 10 different groups of people all leading them to the same conversation, then it's much, much easier or much more likely that you'll complete the first one first and then move on from there, rather than trying to deliver it all in this, this piece. I was talking to a dentist on Monday or Tuesday this week, I forget which had been referred to us by someone else that's written already, not sure that he'd even seen the website. So wasn't that aware of the bigger picture, certainly hadn't listened to the podcast and wasn't aware of some of the other program based stuff that we do. So it was pretty much coming to it. Apart from that, it was a warm recommendation, was pretty much coming to it as cold as possible from the point of view of the program that we have and the way that we structure it and suggest that it's done. So what I was saying to him was we build through the program from a 30 minute outlining call and then to thinking about the content, because the outlining call is really to get the chapter structure and the chapter structure is the journey that leads them from the front to the back. So if you are scoring yourself on this mindset in the kind of mid to low second tier, so a score of kind of four to a score of kind of four to six, then taking a step back for a moment and thinking, okay, I need this constraint around the content. I know it could be anything, but I've already dialed in what the target is. I know who I'm talking to and I know where I want them to go to. But even within that, I could still talk about a lot of different things and then there's a lot of things running parallel to that that I could fall into. So the way the pointer on this mindset, this level of the mindset is think about the chapter headings first. And the way I described it to the dentist the other day was think of the chapter headings as a slide that you might have in a presentation. So say you've got the opportunity to speak in front of a crowd of these people that you want to, you want to be in conversation with. One of the first slides that you would probably put up is a bullet of what we're going to talk about. So in the old kind of training mantra of tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you've told them. Similar here, the table of contents is the bullet points that kind of give people the, the reassurance that they're in the right place. Then tell them in the content and then tell them what you told them in the wrap up at the end and the call to action. But we were talking about physical books and we've said on the podcast before, many times that the actual, really the number of books that get read is infinitesimally small compared with the number of books that are bought or, or people intend to read. So that's why we say the most important piece of real estate is the front cover, because that's what gets them to raise their hand and identify themselves. Then the back cover is the call to action because most people turn over and flip to the back. The next one after that is probably the table of contents. I think people request a book, particularly this. And again, we're not talking about fiction, but this type of book, that's where the COVID promises the answer to a question. Ideally, people then don't want to read it. They just want to be able to touch the book and have the answer. It's a bit like the Matrix thing. Put money on the fact that if you gave someone the option of, okay, you can either request a copy of this book and I'll give you 1,000 pages that you can read, or even 100 pages you can read, or even 50 pages that you can read, or I'll give you a copy of this book and take this blue pill and then all of the knowledge will be in your head. Everyone, 99% of people would go for the second option because they almost the answer through osmosis. I've bought the book, I've requested a copy of the book. I want the answer, but God damn, you're telling me I've got to read the damn thing as well. I mean, people would ideally just want the answer. So the table of contents is a way of allowing a certain set of people, those who are maybe slightly warmer anyway, who are more likely to take an action to open it, see enough in the table of contents that it does, that they know it's answering their question and then just cut to the chase and see what the next step is. So that table of contents really should be the words that are on there. Think about them in terms of bullets on slides in presentations. And then the content that goes in each chapter after that, the kind of the meat that fills up those areas, a little bit of the pie, then that is what is in that chapter. That's the extent of the scope that you need for that particular chapter. And as long as you've done a good job of outlining one chapter to the next to the next, chunking it down like that, and almost writing each chapter independently of the others, Obviously you want some kind of coherent story connection from one to the next, but stopping and writing it in that way, which is the same way that we suggests that people who work with us, we do the outline call, the outlining call is really all about Creating that chapter structure, because we know when we get on the phone to record that we want to lead you from one to the next to the next, not allow you to. It happens occasionally, but sometimes we'll get on the full call and say, hey, Betsy, that's great. So we're on today to talk about how to run a great school. What would you say the key important pieces when thinking about starting that journey, and then 10 minutes later, someone's blasted through all of their content, they've hit on all of the bullet points, said about two words on each, and then a weird breath, and then we'll think, right, okay, well, now what? Obviously I haven't done this a few times. We're good at spotting that and we step in earlier to try and stop people. But having the main chapter structure thinking of each chapter independently, having the bullet points below that of the. Specifically the points we want to hit to make sure that nothing's forgotten. But just as important is the kind of negative space is the things that aren't on that list and the things that you shouldn't get sidetracked on talking about. And sometimes taking them section by section is an easy way to add the scope constraint and make sure you're more likely to get through it.

Guest: Yeah, I agree with that. Because it can go fast. We can lose track very quickly.

Stuart: We do on the podcast quite a lot. And you hear on other podcasts a lot. It's so easy because particularly when you've been in business for any length of time, your mind makes all of the connections. You see the whole jigsaw puzzle as you're talking through it, and you know that this piece here connects to that piece there, even if it's something behind the scenes that the reader won't necessarily know or isn't far enough into the journey or doesn't have to care about yet, because it is fresh in your mind, because the connection is there. Because you know, and maybe it is something that's very important, but it might be really very important, but not very relevant at the moment. So unless you are giving yourself that scope again, rabbit holes to fall down and a thousand words later, you'd be stuck in a situation of, I can't dig myself out of this. Okay, so that's the second level, the third level. I mean, really, it's just the development of that that we've just talked about. So some of the things that haven't been done if you're in the level 4, 5, 6, then have been done when you're here. So A clear scope in mind in terms of what the outline is and what you are trying to talk about. A specific deadline in mind so that you know that there's a hard date here that I have to hit. Now this one can be a bit challenging on both ends of the spectrum because sometimes people will give themselves a hard deadline and not allow enough time to actually get through the process, which can be a problem, particularly if you're making kind of external commitments to things. And on the other end of the spectrum it can be very difficult for people to. There's a saying that I'm going to both misquote and misattributes of. I think it's Douglas Adams saying, I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as they go whooshing by. So having setting yourself a deadline that is artificial, that is a constraint, you just put it on yourself is sometimes difficult as well. So at both ends of the spectrum a time based deadline can be a challenge. But without it, particularly on the open ended side of the spectrum, it can be very difficult not to dial it in. If you know that you've got a, that you've got to hit a particular point in time that will stop you writing. Because otherwise if you don't hit that then there could be consequences. And I mean they could be real again or artificial. So a couple of the, a couple of the tricks around that might be an event that's coming up. If you know that you're speaking at an event or you're visiting an event as a guest, if you've got the opportunity to get in front of a particular client, that's of high value if you know that there are dates out there. So in the retail space the lead up to Christmas is obviously big. In the real estate space, the spring market is a big one. If you're in a college community, then coming to through the summer into the fall, that's going to be a big one. All of these things that are markers in the sand and it can go down to, I mean really artificial things. So this is maybe 18 months ago, I was talking to someone about an artificial constraint because they couldn't think of anything legitimate. So we went on to. There's a website, I can't remember what it's called but it's got all of the national holidays and then the made up national holidays, like I don't know, Grandparents Day or National Salad Day or whatever.

Guest: Right, right. Pizza Day.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, exactly. National Pizza Day. So speak like a pirate day. So if in order to give yourself A deadline. If you knew that you were writing a book that was very relevant to wooden legs or pirate costumes or parrot sales, then you know that the one of the biggest days in the year, apart from Halloween, maybe, might be National Speak Like a Pirate Day. And if you could write the book on how to dress Like a Pirate for less and launch it ready for National Speak Like a Pirate Day. I really don't know why I've chosen this as an example, apart from the fact that I've got a great pirate joke that I'll you tell at the end. So if you knew that that was a particular point, you could quite possibly get a whole load of local press. I don't know when National Speak Like a Pirate Day is, but I'm quite sure it's around the day that nothing else is going on. So you could get a whole load of local press and maybe even national press because you wrote the book that was associated with the day. Particularly if it's on, if it's a quiet news cycle anyway, you're going to have a huge opportunity to leverage that deadline. So just thinking about artificial constraints, there's a whole opportunity to create something. And I'm a firm believer that your mind can't tell the difference between reality and a lack of reality, as many modern situations tell us. But you can convince yourself that a deadline is very important, even if you begin by thinking that it's not particularly important. So all of these things, having that hard deadline, even if the Dress Like a Pirate Book was half the thing that you really wanted to do, even if you never talked about particular types of eye patches or the history of one pirate costume versus another pirate costume, the fact that you get something out there on a quiet news day before National Speak Like a Pirate Day actually exists, is going to be a thousand times more effective than getting something out there that does talk about all of these particular eyepatches, that does talk about the history of the costume four weeks after National Pirate Speak Like a Pirate Day happens. I mean, even just as we're talking about it, it's very easy to kind of conceptualize what the difference in the benefit is of getting the 80% thing out there on a good day versus getting the hundred or the 90% thing out there on a bad day.

Guest: True. Very true. And just for those of you listening who might be interested, International Talk Like a Pirate Day will be Wednesday, September 19th.

Stuart: So there you go. So look at that as a. Okay, so I really didn't know this beforehand, but when you think about that so we're marching 16th now. So that's six months away if you want to put in. If you run any business where that's even remotely important and assumedly then, if you were talking about pirate costumes, then Halloween six weeks after that is going to be an important day as well. Then the traffic and the interest and the importance and the recognition or the mind share that you're going to get by writing the book how to Dress Like a Pirate for less, launching that September 16th, that's two weeks after or a couple of weeks after, depending on where you are, that all the kids are back to school, everyone's been back to work, everyone's. The kind of excitement or relief of getting back to work has kind of died off. Christmas is still. And Thanksgiving is still a long way away. So being able to grab mindshare in the middle of September for something that is going to precede your funnel for Halloween two weeks later, I mean, that's just. That's phenomenally more beneficial, especially when you think about. And I'm really trying not to talk too fast here, but especially when you think about.

Guest: But you kind of got excited about this. Yeah, there's that passion. Yeah, yeah.

Stuart: Because when you think about it, and again, I don't think that we've actually talked to any costume companies about wanting to write a book, but that as you're listening to this, if you know someone, then feel free to give them this as your idea and look like a genius. As long as you tell them to write the book with us, I guess. But that everyone else is running ads. So I would imagine if we were to look at Google Trends or AdWords or Facebook Ad prices in the lead up through the end of September through October towards November and Halloween, then it's going to ramp hugely as it gets towards that point. Because everyone else is thinking, oh, man, we're two weeks out, we need to start running some ads. So it's going to spike through the roof. If you can steal all of that traffic in the middle of September when no one else is thinking about it, but people are slowly starting to think about Halloween or even if they don't come on board in September, if they've seen an ad or seen something that talks about how to dress like a pirate for less a week or two before, there's a huge opportunity to steal that traffic at a time when no one else is doing it. We did for anyone that's on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers mailing list, the Thursday broadcast that we put out, which is A snippet from an earlier show went out on Thursday, obviously, but that was talking about a More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode we did last year. Sometimes it was a lawn care company and we were talking to them. Everyone does like the free treatment type postcards and flyers at the beginning of the season in the spring, that's when the majority of the activity goes on. Because everyone's starting to think about, okay, some spring is coming back now, winter's passing, everyone's starting to think about their lawns, mosquitoes and things like that starting to come out that little bit later. But what if instead of spending exactly the same money, instead of offering a free treatment at the beginning of the season, what if you offered a free treatment at the end of the season? So almost like winterizing your car. What's another example? Like vacation rental homes, summer vacation homes, kind of winterizing them and shutting them down, ready for the end of season. There's a certain crossover into lawn. So everyone else is talking about spring and going into it, highly competitive time. If you talked about winter and winterizing and the steps that you can take now to make next year's lawn the best it can possibly be, then there's the opportunity of stealing the customers six months before anyone else. Because those same people are going to have the same lawns when it comes to spring. But you've had the opportunity to give them a beneficial treatment at the end of the season and continue, continue the conversation with them through the fall, sending them maybe a monthly check in to say, okay, so now we're going into November. The thing about your lawn that you want to do in November is such and such. We're going into December. The thing you want to do now. So when it does come to spring, all of the everyone else is rushing around looking for new customers and you're looking to engage existing customers, people that you've already got a relationship with, people who already know, like and trust you. So this pirate book opportunity to kind of have that artificial constraint is a way of getting something in there to a deadline that means you're going to get it done. There's a huge benefit of being slightly off cycle to everyone else. And again, I mean the main thing is trying to dial it now back into this particular mindset. You've given yourself a deadline that means it's much more likely that you're going to hit it rather than just being open ended and thinking, well, I don't really have a deadline in mind.

Guest: That was a great example there.

Stuart: That was a great little Rabbit hole, which it's fine to fall into when you're on a podcast because it's only words. So that, that's mindset three and three, the middle ones that where most people are likely to sit. So we'll quickly touch on. Oh, actually, most important thing before we move on. Do you want to hear the pirate joke?

Guest: Yes, please.

Stuart: This is so silly. Why are pirates called pirates?

Guest: No idea. Why?

Stuart: Because they are. Right. Okay, so that'll insane all of the three year olds listening to you listening to the podcast. Okay. That might not make it through the edit, by the way. So if anyone does hear that, that has to stay. Okay. At least people can't see you blushing when you're on a podcast.

Guest: Right, exactly.

Stuart: Mindset number four of. Oh, sorry. The fourth stage of the beneficial constraints mindset. So this really is the. This is where you've got it really dialed in. So you started with the end in mind. You know the purpose of the way you're leading people to what you want them to do next. More specifically, you know how the book's going to work in terms of the funnel or campaign that you're using it for. And all of these things tie in together. So you know when you need it for because of the campaign. You know what you need it for because of the target market. You know why you need it because of where you're leading them. You've got all of this scope dialed in, the constraints dialed in of the, the what it is and the when is. So that allows you, you to go back to the outline that we talked about before, the table of contents, make sure that at the top level, the table of contents level, it makes sense. So someone just looking at that one page by itself has a clear understanding of the thing that you're saying, the thing that you're communicating. There's a very clear beginning, middle and end at each level. Below that, you've got a clear constraint about what it is you're talking about. So there's maybe four, four or five bullet points within each chapter that are the key things that you want to hit. And that gives you a scope constraint because you've got the discipline and you know that you don't want to go outside of that because not that it's irrelevant, not that it's important, but it's just not important for this particular thing that you're doing. And you've got the time constraint of knowing when you want it to get out there. So at the top level, all of those things are dialed in and the the outcome of that is not that you can pat yourself on the back that you've scored highly on this mindset, but the outcome is it is 100 times more likely that you're actually going to get it done, rather than thinking, this is something that I should do, this is something I want to do, this is something that I've started, this is something that I've been doing for two years and still it's not finished. Dialing in with the beneficial constraints is really the best way of making sure that this is going to be a project that you're likely to, to get finished. It will get out there doing its job of work, collecting leads, starting conversations, engaging existing clients, being a tool that you can give to existing customers as a referral for their friends to give their friends value that automatically or eventually leads back to you. Working with complementary non competing businesses so that you can give them something of value, so that you can spread your message. You can be known as the economical pirate outfit, guy or girl. All of these things, none of it makes any difference unless the book's actually out there doing some work and engaging those, those people.

Guest: Yeah, that was, that was a lot of great information today.

Stuart: That was quite a lot. I just looked at the clock and we've definitely blown past 30 minutes. We saying that we were just going to do one is definitely the way to go.

Guest: The idea of a 30 minute podcast just kind of gets thrown out every

Stuart: week, so maybe we should just stop saying it. The problem is this is if maybe there's a slight concern about saying it's a 45 minute or 60 minute podcast because then we might be an hour and a half in and.

Guest: Right. Yeah, let's say for 30 minutes.

Stuart: Yeah. I mean, this is the example though, talking about beneficial constraints. I mean, we don't mind talking. I think psychologically we've kind of got the expectation that if an hour is the hard deadline, because that is when it really starts getting long. Leading up to that, the constraint that we put us, the constraint that we put on ourselves for the show is more around energy and subject matter rather than anything else. We know we've got a. We know that the scope constraint is less important because as the podcast recorded and goes out, there's not additional work that needs to be done to it. Unlike a book, the more you talk and the more you try and put into a book, the more you have to edit and the more you have to make sure that it's cohesive all the way through. So one minute's worth of Talking in a book sentence is five minutes worth of effort down the track. And I think it's worth thinking about constraints in that way of the relevant constraints and. And the less relevant constraints. So time, as long as you don't go past an hour, but time is less of an issue here. Scope is. We still obviously try and keep it dialed relatively dialed in at least. But the impact of not being quite so dialed in, there's more of a benefit than there is a constraint or a cost to it. Because if we talk about things that are slightly broader, then it will give more examples to people. And hopefully, as you look listening to this more, the things that we say will resonate and give you that enthusiasm, encouragement to get it done, whereas in the book sense, it's problematic because it means further effort down the track. So that's another way of thinking about the constraints as well, and why it's important. It's not necessarily important because of a date or a deadline or the fact that in your table of contents you said that you're going to do this and not that those things aren't so relevant. It's the getting out there that's the. It's just one part of getting out there, and it's the getting out there that's important.

Guest: Exactly.

Stuart: All righty.

Guest: Thank God.

Stuart: I was going to say that I'm a bit. I need a drink, so I was going to make some coffee, but I'm actually, we had some good examples today, so I'm a little bit amped up on the enthusiasm of looking for someone that wants to write a pirate costume book now, so maybe I'll not. Nothing else going into the bloodstream. So anything. Anything else that, that we haven't mentioned you can think about?

Guest: No, I think we got it. I think there's, you know, if anybody's following. I mean, I, I hope everyone just. I hear from people that they're listening to this and, and they've been following along. And somebody was able to quote our purposeful outline conversation today when I was having a conversation with someone. So that's kind of, it's. It's fun. It's great to hear people that are really absorbing this information. And I think this specifically, you know, if you weren't thinking about a book, you're really thinking about one now, I think, you know, and there's a lot of valuable information that we've provided here, so.

Stuart: Perfect.

Guest: One of my favorite subjects is beyond your book. Yeah, that. That'll be great next week. We get that a lot. And I think we'll have a lot of examples so that one may be close to an hour next week as well.

Stuart: Yeah, you know what, we might need to spin that over a couple of shows. We'll see how it goes. Maybe because there's so many examples as well and it's so broad. I mean, we've talked about some of them in the past and they've come up as we've been talking about things, but it'll be good to get them in a in a specific show. So as listening to this, then hopefully it's given you either A the motivation to or some reminders of how you can get this done yourself. Obviously, we think the best and quickest and most successful way of doing it is jumping in and doing it with us. So if this has pushed anyone towards that decision, then jump over to 90minutebooks.com and follow the get started link and we'll be here to guide you through all of those steps of the purpose and the outline and then the content afterwards. To check out the show notes for this, head over to 90minutebooks.com podcast and this is episode 54. As I mentioned at the beginning, if you want to be a guest and we can go brainstorm some hatch some evil schemes for your book, head over to 90minutebooks.com guest or there'll be a guest link in the podcast section of the website and then fill in some details and we can get you on. And equally, if you've got any either A suggestions for the show, something you want us to talk about, or B questions about the process generally and how your book might come together, or the audience that you can target, then just drop us an email to supportyminute Book and myself and Betsy both see those and we'll be able to get back in touch and follow up.

Guest: Sounds good.

Stuart: Perfect. Okay, well, thanks again for your time, Betsy. It's great show as always and thanks for everyone listening and we'll catch you next time.

Guest: Take care.