7 Key Factors in Creating Compelling Ads

Stuart: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart here with Betsy. Betsy Vaughan. How you doing?

Guest: Hey, Stuart Bell. I'm great. Good to be here.

Stuart: It is good to be here. We're just laughing because we jumped on the call a second ago to start recording and realized that was 42 minutes ago. So we've. Don't worry though. We saved the best bit for. The best bit for.

Guest: It's a good thing we don't record those other conversations, though.

Stuart: It probably is kind of silly neither like an After Dark show, right? Okay, so let's get in the zone. Today we are going to talk about something that cropped up in a conversation I had with Dean yesterday morning. We were talking about some ads that we are working with a consulting client for. Those ads are in print magazines and the broad conversation reminded me a lot about the books, a lot about the certain elements of the book Blueprint Scorecard reminded me of elements of conversations that I know we both have with people about what to do when they're thinking about creating a book in the first place and then once it's created, what, what to do with it. So the conversation was around something that we have in the breakthrough DNA program and it's an element in one of the early profit activators called the seven key factors in creating compelling ads, which is surprisingly difficult to say, but this is looking at the seven points of seven points of influence, I guess. Seven points of amplification that you've got. So reminded me of the book Blueprint Scorecard, the eight factors that we've got there in designing the best lead generation book. So I thought it's going to be super useful to run through these. I'm going to put a screenshot of the one particular slide from that program into the Show Notes. So head across to 90minutebooks.com podcast and this is going to be episode 75. So take a look at the image to play along at home. But the seven of them will read out the seven individually. So don't worry too much if you're not on the Show Notes page. How does that sound? Sound good?

Guest: Cool. I think it's great.

Stuart: Perfect. So I guess the easiest way to start. I'll run through what the seven are just so we've got them all in one place and then we'll dive into each of them individually. The first one starts as a lot of stuff that we do starts by selecting a single target market. So whether we're creating a book, creating an ad, I mean almost having a conversation with people going to speak at an event, almost everything starts without selecting a single target market. The second one is an engaging headline. The third one is a compelling offer. The fourth one is looks like valuable information. Then we go into conversational language, crystal clear next steps. And the last one is a free recorded message and a compelling website, a place for people to go. So we'll dive into those each individually that as a framework though as you listen to this, you probably recognize it from the book Blueprint Scorecard, from the Profit Activator Scorecard and the breakthrough, the eight Profit Activators Framework. I think as a, as a framework, as a set of building blocks that before join and after unit type approach that what are we trying to do? How are we trying to do it in the most effective way? And what's the next steps is such a great way of thinking about Almost anything that's done will translate this into, specifically into books. But it really is from, as I said, from conversations to speak on stage, to designing ads, to putting a funnel a campaign in place. It's just such a great simple, easy to understand, not too complex structure to build things around. When you're talking to people in the early stage of writing, does that model translate into the conversations that, that you have? Do you find it easy to frame things?

Guest: Yeah, definitely. I mean I can see this whole conversation if you just look at these sort of, these key factors we're talking about, that is sort of exactly how my conversations go, you know, so we definitely see that and that's the conversation we have and it always start. People are always taken back by and I don't know why, because if they've listened to us at all, why one time or no team, we're always going to start with that single target market and people are people still when, when I say that to them, they still go, oh, there's, there's a pause. Like they've never thought the questions never popped up before. Yeah, like, and I'm like, who's your audience? Like it becomes that simple, you know. And so who are we? Oh, okay, well, well, it's this group of people. But then it could be this group, but maybe that'll be the next book. So that's always interesting to me that when I, when we start there, I'm like, oh, okay, well this is, this we should pinpoint first before we do anything else.

Stuart: You know, it's interesting, isn't it? Because it always seems so repetitive and there's a risk of us thinking about it as being redundant in the Sense of. Well, surely everyone knows this because we talk about it so often. It's the. It's the starting place for so many conversations. But you're absolutely right that it's not until people are. People can hear it and hear it and hear it, but it's not until they're forced to confront it, almost answer the question. They actually stop and think a. At a conscious level, kind of a subconscious level. It goes in and the words make sense and it's not complicated and it's easy to conceptualize. So it's almost like it's too simple. It passes people by because they think a superficial level. Well, obviously I've got an answer for that. I know who I'm trying to target. But when you actually try and pin people down to a specific answer, which is really where the. Where the benefit comes through, trying to be too generic or too. Not having considered the answer as completely as you could means that you're just missing opportunities because you're not leveraging or amplifying that one particular point in the program as much as you could. And particularly the way it's structured, there is a somewhat linear element to these in that they start at the beginning and then the subsequent mindsets build on it that if you don't take time to dial in that single target market, it then has an impact on all of the other things. So looking at the book blueprint scorecard again, or that book blueprint framework, if you don't dial in the single target market, then it impacts the constraints that you've got on the book in terms of what you're creating. That can have problems. It has an impact the outline because you could go off topic or be too vague or not really have that clear. Taking people from the beginning to an end, it has an impact there. The call to action might not be as specific or valuable or relevant as it could be if you built on that. So yeah, it's super interesting that it seems to be something that's so obvious and fundamental and everyone has gone through, but until people actually forced to. So as. As you're listening to this, those seven mindsets or seven factors, I'll pull these. I'll pull the elements out individually and put them in the show notes as well. Not just have them on the slide and the email that will go out when the podcast goes out at the weekend, I'll highlight them there so you don't have to try and make it a little bit easier so you don't have to dig around for them. But really, I Think this is a great opportunity to take those seven points and just with everything that you're creating, just have it as a poster on the side of the desk and just validate that particular piece of work back against these, these check ins. So single target market we've there, we've got many podcasts that talk about this as we just talked about it comes up a lot, but just to re emphasize it and if you have heard us talk about this before, but you're not able to articulate it very specifically who you're trying to target, then it really is the case that having something that is specific is going to resonate with that group better than having something that's generic. So there's a couple of terms that we talk about. One's the horoscope effect of as your eyes are scanning through a newspaper, you're flicking through, you come across the horoscope page, your eyes are going to recognize and be drawn to whatever horoscope, whatever star sign you are, because your brain is great at pattern matching and it matches those words, those characters, more so than it would for any of the other 11 astrological symbols that aren't you. So having a book that specifically targets the question that's in their mind already, the thing that's relevant to them. So a couple of the examples we've got are like the 2019 California Guide to Social Security. Two horoscope effects in that title. 2019 makes it stand out more than 2018 or having no date on it at all, there's an urgency or immediacy related to the date. And then the California Social Security Guide stands out because the persons in California. One of the first books we did was what to do at 62 talking about retirement planning. And as you get closer to drawing down Social Security, there's certain aspects that you need to do. That book was targeted at seniors reaching that particular age. And the horoscope effect of that is going to stand out even more. As someone is 61 or 62. That title is going to stand out to them more as it's passing by in a, in a Facebook news feed or postcard that arrives or in a print advert. The horoscope effect of those numbers being very specifically relevant to the person is going to stand out. We've used the example before of the from the Breakthrough Blueprint book, the we shoot bottles, we shoot cans ads for the photography company that have they obviously do photography for many things, but their individual sites of we shoot bottles and we shoot cans are really going to resonate with people who are looking for product shots of bottles or product shots of cans. Two different markets, one person isn't necessarily interested in the other. So picking that single target market, not only does it help people identify themselves or resonate with the thing that you're offering, it also makes it more, more straightforward to create all of the other parts of the puzzle. So the follow up emails, the call to action, the content that should go in the book in the first place, when you have it dialed into a particular group and that group is big enough to be an interesting market for you to work with, then all of the other steps become more straightforward and easy to, um.

Guest: That's a great place to start.

Stuart: It is. A second great place to start is to take a drink of water, which I've remembered to drink with me today.

Guest: Fantastic. And I'm over here playing with my AirPod. I'm only hearing you in one ear at this point. So.

Stuart: Yeah, a hot swap and keep up with the conversation.

Guest: Right.

Stuart: The second one on the list then is an engaging headline. So as we're thinking about books, this obviously correlates with a, with a title. So the fact that it's engaging is the kind of, the key term. So we talk about kind of engaging and compelling. The horoscope effect we've already talked about and dialing in that single target market, using words in the title that is, that carries that horoscope effect through. So there's some recognition there. Having it, having a, having a passionate element associated with it, having it based around outcomes rather than problems, around solution and success and the promise of what could be, rather than just identifying or building on what the issue is, is a good way to go if you can. I mean, it's not always possible, but that thing that stands out, gets someone to recognize it, uses language that kind of answers the question that is in their mind already, answers the problem that they're trying to solve and answers it in a positive way that gives hope. All of these little elements are what forms a great title. And we've got hundreds of titles now, so if you're struggling to come up with one that's dialed in, particularly with what you're thinking about, then head over to the gallery on the website and there's literally hundreds up there to look through and take some inspiration from.

Guest: Yeah, I'm looking at the gallery now. I went there and I was thinking, trying to think about some of our titles and how they capture you. But then there's some that are not quite specific, you know, and you don't know, just from, you know, taking the plunge, like what that would be, you know, until you have a strong, you know, subtitle that gives you that definition. And that is something that people come to me and they'll say, oh, you know, I have this book that I want to do called Flowers. Okay. Was it about flowers? Well, no, it's not about flowers. It's just about how the blooming process of your business. I mean like, you know, and so I'm like, okay, well you can call your book Flowers if you want, but that's not going to capture somebody enough. They're not going to know and they're just going to keep going because it's not telling you anything about this book, you know, and the importance of that's important. People want to be able to read it and say, you know, part time personal trainer. Okay, this is a book about personal training. Got it.

Stuart: Yeah, it does what it says on the tin. We had a show a while ago where we were talking about titles. It was probably as we were going through the book blueprint scorecard and the, the one of the early mindsets picking the single target markets, it might have been in that episode. But we were saying there, that there is a, it's very fashionable at the moment to have like a one word title that doesn't necessarily. It's a little bit ambiguous and I think the problem is that that works to a certain degree works better in a traditional book printing like a fiction book type scenario where a book is on the shelf, it's competing against other books and the product is the book. So the COVID of that book is trying to sell the book itself. And there is a certain amount of, of intrigue around one word titles that are maybe a little bit ambiguous, obviously amplified by the subheading, just as you said. So it makes a little bit more sense. But that, that cleverness, that cuteness around, around the titles in this scenario where we're talking about a lead generated book and you're trying to start a conversation and identify people who have got a particular problem that you're trying to solve, that cuteness is just noise in the message. It distracts from helping people self select themselves as. Yes, this is relevant to me. So this is often the case. I mean there's really a right or wrong answer and even wrong answers are not necessarily always wrong. It's just they're less effective. So it's having a book out there with a less good title is better than having no book out there. So definitely that's very True, exactly. But it definitely isn't as clear as. It isn't as clear a message. Thinking about it as a headline on an ad. If you were on the headline, you would make that very clear and as unambiguous as possible. You wouldn't try and get all cutesy in the headline. Same with the COVID of the book. It's there to do a job and the job isn't necessarily to win you an award for the cleverest title, it's to do more business.

Guest: Exactly. Yeah. I, I think we've had several people who've, you know, had that like cutesy kind of. And I'm like, it's, it's, let's step back from that. You know, would you really be interested in a book? Would that draw you? You know, it may be cute when you're playing with it on paper and it may sound good and it's lol. But you know, when you're thinking about people actually picking up your book and using the advice or reaching out to you, that's not going to happen, you know.

Stuart: So yeah, I guess the times where it might work again, there's never a one size fit. There's also all answers. So the times where it might work I guess is if you really engage. If someone had their heart set on a particular title and they thought it was the best thing in the world and that was the thing that was preventing them from getting going, then just crack on and get it out there anyway. A less good title is never worse than no if it's that you're using the book entirely in a physical sense to known prospect. So you're not using it to help identify invisible leads, which is often the case that we talk about, but instead using it as part of almost like the profit activated three stage of educating and motivating people who you already know. So if there are certain words or language that you use within the industry or within your framework that people would know and recognize so that they would get the internal joke so that it would resonate with them because they are part of a known audience, they're part of the tribe in that situation, I guess it could work or it worked more successfully than the less successful way of using it with cold prospects because there's some context around it. Always interesting to try and think of scenarios where it does work and when it doesn't work. And I think context is the key. How are you planning on using it? And again, that circles back to knowing who the single target market is, knowing whether it's the group of insiders or outsiders, because that really influences or contributes to the other stages. Okay, so the next one then is have a compelling offer this for us in a book sense is really the back cover copy and the next steps. So the whole purpose of the book that you're writing in the context that we're talking about is identifying invisible leads and compelling them to take the next step. That next step is defined in the kind of closing chapter, the next step, the back cover copy. And we want to give people an easy, unambiguous way of taking it to the next stage. We often say that the absolute best way of thinking about a book like this is to start a conversation to answer one particular point as deeply as possible. But understanding that there's always other things to talk about, there's always more pieces of the puzzle, and allowing people to access that information as here's what to do next is the very best way to build in. So rather than trying to have a book that covers in depth absolutely everything on a subject and trying to convince people or hammer home to people that they should do that, they should work with you instead. Answer the question in the most helpful way possible. That one narrow question that is the most important to them at the moment when they're starting their journey and then saying, now you've yourself to stage one. You're in a great position to think about this in a way that you haven't thought about it before. A great way to start considering more of your options. And the next step is to dive a little bit deeper and in order to do it a little bit deeper, then take this next step, the other option of trying to put in as much information as possible and then say to them, the only way is to work with me. Or the next step is to sign up for a big ticket program. If the purpose of the book is to engage with new people at the top of the funnel, invisible leads who are coming across you for the first time, that's maybe a big step. It's difficult for them to take that. It's not very compelling. They'd have to be quite far down the path of wanting to work with you to know, like and trust you before they're likely to do that. Again, looking at the flip side of it then the context in which it does work. If you use in the book as more of a profit activated three tool to educate and motivate people over time, they already know, like and trust you. This is just compelling them to take a next step, then having that, that harder close that bigger Close for a bigger ticket item is going to be more possible because there's already a relationship there. You're not trying to go from 0 to 100 miles an hour just within the pages of a book that's, that's identifying them from scratch.

Guest: So that's compelling offer. You know, a lot of our authors will usually, it's like go to my website and you know, they've got either an assessment or a free call or that offering of something that like you said, it's not that big ticket item that says I'm gonna throw in $5,000 and start working with you kind of thing. But it's that, it's that baby step of like, okay, I can do this, you know, get a little more information, get a little more comfortable with John Smith and just sort of see more what he has to offer. Yeah, that's what. And, and that's. I'm struggling. Our roles have changed a little bit around here and I've been writing a lot of the back covers and when you ask a client for their input, they, they completely forget about that. You know, I'm like, well, do you have like a 30 minute free consultation or 15 minute call or, you know, oh yeah, we can do that stuff. They, you know, when I got the other day was like these four or five steps of basically the same information that was in the book. But it wasn't, it's not, it's the same information. You know, there was nothing that says like I should reach out to you, I want to come, you know, work with me kind of thing. There was none of, of that anything that would make someone want to go to their website. It was just sort of more of the same. And so when the person passed it back to me, I said, okay, we're going to tweak this up a little bit. You know, if you're offering this, if you. Oh yeah, no, I have this great thing that they can watch on my website, tells them a little bit more and then you know, they can downlo and I'm like, oh, that's, that's what we want to put on there. You know, not more of the same. That's not, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. It's not, it's not guiding them in a particular place to be. There's a line, I forget all quotes, I forget who it's from. But people are desperate to be led and that's true right across the board. No matter what you're doing, whether it's in a, in a big world changing type way or A small type way of going into a restaurant. The worst situation is walking into a. Maybe not the worst situation, but it's always not the best feeling of walking into a restaurant that's packed and busy. There's a lot of people there. You get a feeling that everyone can see you when you walk through the door. And it's ambiguous when you get in. It's unclear whether you're supposed to seat yourself or whether you need to wait for a server or a host to seat you. If you are, should you go up to the bar to get someone's attention or is someone supposed to come across you? That lack of clarity about what to do next is a huge turnoff and really slows the process down. It slows the boat down. It grinds the gears of commerce and stops people wanting to move forward as quick as they do. And when you think about someone who's read the book, who's engaged enough to order a copy in the first place, to make it past the first page, to have consumed the content and then be left hanging at the end if there's no for them to go, all of that momentum starts evaporating from that second. Every, every moment afterwards, it becomes less and less likely that I'll take the next step. Even if they're the most engaged to do so or the most inclined to do so, just because life happens and something else will come up and people get distracted and the momentum goes and the enthusiasm wanes. So having a very clear way that they can move forward is the single most important thing I think after picking the title in the first place, the thing that gets them to raise their hand. And it's super interesting what you said in that people, I think have two mental blocks or frames that are holding up back covers. One is that because the place where this text lives, it's physically on the back of the book and in 99% of other circumstances, books that people read and pick up the back copies purpose is to sell the book because the book is the product. So that's why you have testimonials about how good the book is and a synopsis of what the book's about. Because all of the job of work of the back cover is to sell the book. It's not to give people a next step to learn more and take the conversation forwards. So I think that's one problem. People are thinking about it in terms of not this is an ad and this is the call to action on an ad. They're instead thinking about it as this is a book. And this is the back cover of a book. So I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing, which he alluded to, is people forget and miss the fact that they've probably got all of these things in place already. If you had a customer come in and walk through the door, all of these steps you would probably do, you'd ask them a little bit about themselves. You'd start the conversation slowly to kind of start bringing out some of that information. If they were new to the process or the concept, you start them off with the more obvious stuff and maybe give them something to watch or something to read or something that introduces them a little bit further. You wouldn't necessarily lock the door behind them and say, that's great. You now need to give me five grand for a consultation. So all of these things, the majority of these things people already had in place, they just maybe don't name them or they haven't got them packaged up as a particular thing. It's just some knowledge that they've gotten in their head of the framework that they use. So again, as you're listening to this, you want to go through and make your book the most effective possible. Take that time just a moment to think. Okay, back cover, copy. The job of work is to give them an easy next step. What would I say to someone if they walked through the door of the office at the moment? What would we do to bring on board the people who are the, the earliest in the process and the people who are a little bit further down the track and the people who just want it absolutely done for them? And what are the offers or what are the things that we can put in place to help each of those people at that point?

Guest: That's great. You know, I think you're, you're. I hate to say and I hate to sound, make people sound like they just aren't thinking, but like you said, they've got this information already. And what would. That. I'm going to use that. What would you do if somebody walked in the door? You know, what would be your response? And I'm actually going to use that exact line. I just wrote it down because when I'm explaining to someone, like, it shouldn't be that hard to, to say what is it that you offer somebody? And people go, oh, well, I don't. Well, I'll give them an assessment. Or they can come like, they forget. Like, those are things. That's a great, compelling offer, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, I think it's the. Well, disclosure number one. I'd like to take credit for that line, but Ajay just stole off Dean because he. All the time. So full credit, where that's.

Guest: I say things all the. And they sound really great. I'm like, oh, I think Dean said that. I don't give him credit.

Stuart: So the. The other point is, I think it's like, say it's nothing. It's not a problem that people have got. It's not that they can't. They're not intelligent enough to come up with good background copy or that they're not doing this job already. I think it all comes down to context. So my background people might have heard me talk about before is financial services. In that environment, people are hugely confused by financial products, when in reality, at least for most people, it really comes down to either you're getting a loan for something and that loan might be called a mortgage, or it might be called a personal loan, or it might be called refi, or. But at the end of the day, you're borrowing money and you need to give more money back, or people have got a savings account and hopefully you're putting money in and you get more money back. But that might be called a pension or 401k, your IRA, all of these other things, it's the language around it and the fact that there's all these things layered on top of what fundamentally it is, that just confuses people and then they switch off. So that context of talking about a pension on the one hand, sorry, a 401 switching languages, a 401k on one hand and a savings account on the other hand, there are differences, obviously, but fundamentally it's broadly the same thing. People would be quite happy to talk about a savings account because there's a familiarity, there's a context that they understand and all of the things that they've got in the head, the mental models around their own money and what they do with it makes sense. But as soon as you introduce the word 401k, people switch off because they think it's too difficult or confusing, or the language that's used by industry professionals is intentionally confusing. It's exactly the same product, at least for the sake of the illustration. It's exactly the same product, but just the context of switches switched. And that's what throws people off. And I think it's the same for the back cover, because it's positioned in a slightly different way. The context is different. People switch off, not switch off. But people don't make that connection. Whereas really, you've got all of this stuff already, pretty much, I would say for everyone. I mean, I would say without exception, everyone that writes with us has everything that they need already. None of this is anything that you need to invent or make up. The whole purpose of it is to take the knowledge that you've already got and package it in a way that's, that's compelling and accessible to someone. So all the way through the title, the subheading, the outline, the content, the back cover copy, the design, all of these things you've already got. The benefit that we bring to it really is just helping people extract that from their heads and get it down onto the page. But if you're listening to this and you're not working directly with us or considering working directly with us, then that's the thing. Think about it as this isn't new, this isn't some difficult rocket science. All of this is in your head already. Just try and try and think about the context of the question. Maybe change the context of the question to something that's more familiar, get something down on the page and then tweak from there. Sorry, that's hinted to a bit of a third. Okay, so where do we get to? We got to compelling. Okay, so the next one, the list is looks like valuable information. This is in the context of an ad. For the ads, we often talk about the advertorial type content of writing an ad that gives something valuable there. And then so the we've used before the email mastery example a few times. The ad that we ran in Success magazine talked about the nine word email. That ad as a standalone ad was completely valuable because it contained everything on the one page that answered that one particular question. It was a great illustration of a nine word email. And then again, there was an opportunity to learn more by grabbing a copy of the book. In this situation, we're saying looks like valuable information to me. That correlates nicely with the book blueprint score mindset of creating the content that's all about them, that's answering the question completely, giving as much as possible within the narrow scope of answering the question. So we don't want it just to look like valuable information. We want it to be valuable information. So sometimes we'll be talking to people and they'll want to hold some information back or they'll want to tease or give a give the indication that there's more information. But in order to get that answer, you need to work with me to find out what it is. The much better way of doing it is to put the complete answer as much as possible into the content so that the reader has the promise of the title is completely delivered by the book. There's no concept of holding back. We on the consulting side of things, some of the ads that we've been running with people are making offers. So typically people will put an offer out there of 10% off or with this coupon code, get 10% off this particular service that we're offering. What we suggest pretty much across the board is that Instead of saying 10% off, position it as a hundred dollar gift card. So the monetary value is the same, you know how much the 10% equates to in terms of money. But by positioning it as $100 gift card, that mental model is you're absolutely giving someone a hundred dollars. Exactly the same math of saying there's 10% off, the mental model there is still got 90% to pay. It's positioning one as 100% giving and the other as 10% giving, where the math is actually the same. So from the content of the book perspective, same deal. If you know all of the answers to a question of what example have we used before? We've used like the outdoor wedding guide for the florists before now. So if you were writing that and said, okay, well here's three venues, but actually I'm not going to tell you all of the details about these. If you want to know the full details, then reach out to me and I'll give you them. Or here are three venues, but there's actually five more that are better, but reach out to me and I'll give you them. Or if it was a financial planning book around 401ks and said, okay, for 2019, the 2019 tax guidelines have changed. Here are three things that you need to know, but actually reach out to me for the other two, then all of that is holding something back. Or if you start saying here's some information, but I can't go into it in depth, but I'll tell you it later, all of that's holding back. Now you might be listening to this and saying, Abby, you were saying answer one question deeply and there's always more information that could be, could be relevant. So how do I know the difference between not overwhelming and trying to create a monster, A book that never gets complete versus not wanting to hold back and make it seem like I'm not given the answers to the questions. And that to a certain degree is more than science. But again, think about context. It very much comes back to how something's positioned and the context in which it's delivered. So if you know that there are things that are answers to the specific questions, then they should be included as soon as you start drifting into that next ring act that next level. Be very careful about how you word that and don't word it in terms of holding some information back. Instead term it like as in, obviously there's a second stage now. So here's all the 101 information and the 201 information is available elsewhere. Does that make sense? It's definitely more.

Guest: Yeah, I just kind of process and all that. But yeah, I definitely. It definitely it does make sense.

Stuart: And I think with the book. So if we look at the 90 minute book and the Book Predict scorecard, people who are listening to this are obviously interested in writing a book as a lead generation tool. There are a thousand things that we could talk about around the details of the printing process and publishing and ISBN and websites and funnels and all of those other things. But the book blueprint, scorecard, the eight elements that are listed in there, we answer those pretty comprehensively. So it's not like we're saying, okay, here's a light touch on four of the eight and you can find out some more information elsewhere. We answer those eight things as comprehensively as possible. And there are other things. I think it's just that trying to get as best as possible going back to the promise of the title and re evaluating the words that you include to make sure that it definitely delivers on that promise. As I say, art more than science about where the line is. But think about it from that context. That position is going to be the most valuable.

Guest: That's good stuff there. Okay.

Stuart: Okay. Right. Three more. Hopefully these should be quite quick because we've actually covered a lot of these already in the other. In the other points. So the next one is conversational language. This one is such a. Such a subtle, such key difference and one that I've personally struggled with quite a while because coming from a corporate background, it's never conversational language that we deal with. It's always caveated language that we deal with. This is where Dean really. The difference in the way that Dean writes and the way that I write it really comes through. So the benefit of conversational language, if you look at when you think about the podcast that Dean does, there's no preparation for them in the sense that it's not. They pick up the phone and start recording there. And then there's a lot of history and experience and he's Bringing all of the expertise to it because it's a framework all of the podcasts around, the framework he's very familiar with. But the language that he uses is very conversational, all the examples that are given. He very rarely caveats things in the way that I far too often often do. It's conversational and it's moving forward. The same with the writing. If you look at the 90 minute book. So I'm guessing that everyone that's listening has seen the copy of the 90 minute book and if not, head over to 90minutebooks.com and download it from the top there. But that book is very unintentionally, very, very lightly edited because we wanted to make points with it that the content is less important than the subject and the call to action. But even with it being.

Guest: Say that again.

Stuart: So, yeah, exactly. The point isn't the. Or the importance of point that the words. The important part of the book isn't the content, it's the title and the call to action. Because realistically, the funny thing is we know that the 90 minute book has an example. I mean, it's. In fact, we actually updated it last year sometime and just tweaked it a little bit because it really was pretty rough in places from an editing point of view, because we'd intentionally left it that way to make the point. The point is that very few people read the content because they just want the outcome by osmosis of having the book in the answer to or the outcome to magically manifest in the world. So anyway, the point I was making from the conversational language is the editing on that is intentionally very light, but the conversational nature of it is pretty much there from the first take. No recording, no second edits, no cutting bits of content in and out. That book was recorded from just in one take, straight through. And what you read is almost what was, I mean, pretty much identical to what was actually said. And the conversational nature of that flow, the accessibility of the language, the fact that it's the narrative or the journey runs through it in a pretty clear way, much cleverer than I'm doing now. Even that conversational language is compelling. It makes it more accessible. People resonate with it more. The nature of the typical 90 minute book being a shorter book, a book that's to the point, a book that's answering the question. The whole premise is that this is an opportunity to get in, writing kind of behind the scenes conversation with an expert, someone that knows more about the subject than you do. It would be like A imagine that you were listening in on a conversation that was happening around a kitchen table at home where an expert friend is sharing with the host the answer to the question. Different than a lot of people write in, which makes it stand out and stand out in an accessible, compelling way. Comparing it to the financial services model I was just talking about, I mean, typically that industry is renowned for having unaccessible language and being somewhat standoffish at times. Maybe not so much these days, but historically that was definitely an issue.

Guest: I think conversational language, people, there's a comfort there, you know, it seems because that's how we are in our everyday lives, you know, and we're not. And I think we're getting more so away from this. There's not that formality. People are very laid back and very. That this is sort of how, how people are speaking. And I'm seeing even writing like when in emails and stuff, when you get from people, you're like, the emails are just not as formal, like you said that financially kind of way, if you will, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, that's a great example, isn't it? The kind of social mediaization of interactions generally. When you think about 20 years ago, all of the communications that you saw from corporate bodies came through comms or PR or had been signed off by 10 people before they made it out the door. That's absolutely not the case now. And the objective is to. Is to work with people, build a rapport with people over time so they know like and trust you and want to do business. And the best way of doing that is that authentic voice that comes through through a conversational tone.

Guest: You know, it's interesting whenever I'm talking to people who are coming on board and we're talking about the process and people particularly, I will say our financial clients, and I get it because there is sort of a mindset behind, you know, those people. There has to be the certain professionalism and, and stuff. But so they probably struggle more with the conversational language than anyone. But you know, I said to people, you're talking about sitting around the neighbor's table and answering your questions. And, and that's what I said. People like when you're having this conversation with the person who's recording your call with you and asking you these questions. That's what it is. It's like, yeah, talking to a colleague, talking to a client. It is that. And, and people are more comfortable with it. Except our financial clients still, they're still caught up in like, oh, you know, because they are so Concerned with every word that comes out of their mouth, you know.

Stuart: Yeah. And I mean, maybe it's industry specific as well that regulated industries with heavier compliance are more problematic. But then again, I think that depends on the context of what you're writing. If you think that you're trying to write a compliance heavy fact heavy, math heavy book that becomes a reference material for someone, then that's different from writing the a book that is an introductory piece to a com to a subject that is just a conversation. It's a kind of physical. We were talking with who do we do the podcast with a while ago? I'm blanking on names this morning. This is making for a good bit of the show we did a show with. And I'm talking slow because I'm trying to look on the website. Okay, talk amongst yourselves for a second because this is being a page away. It wasn't Mike, it wasn't David Kurtz. It was Kevin Craig. I don't know why I blanked on Kevin's name so much. We were talking with Kevin Craig. There's an episode back at episode 18. The episode is called Helping launch a Coaching Career, A Coaching Business with Kevin Craig. So the book that Kevin wrote was specifically because he was having a lot of coffee meetings with people who were just coming into town and asking if they could buy him a coffee, talking about his business. And he found himself talking about the same thing over and over again. So he just encapsulated that into a book that a he could give to people who asked those same questions, at least to start the conversation and to give internally to his staff. Because it was good as a benchmark or a baseline because they were growing quite rapidly. So they had people that didn't have the legacy culture, they didn't have the experience with the company. But the premise for that book is exactly what you said. It was a conversation that Kevin was having time after time after time where people were asking similar questions because they had similar interests, they were trying to achieve the same outcome so that behind the scenes, friendly, accessible an expert answering a question. Because you as the non expert don't have that level of history or expertise positions in the perfect way to start the conversation in a way that then logically moves on to the next part in the process. Writing it in a conversational way takes so much of the pressure off as well, because you're not trying to be. It's like the difference between writing a tweet versus a blog post versus a YouTube video versus a podcast versus a traditionally published book versus a white paper appeared reviewed white paper. The headache. The amount of work, the overhead starts ramping up exponentially as it becomes more official. Keeping it conversational. People are very forgiving of if there happens to be a mistake in there or if you put opinion in there rather than fact, or if you talk about something anecdotally rather than specifically. All of that is much more forgiving in a conversational format, which means it's much more straightforward to do and it's much more accessible and resonates with people at a personal level rather than trying to think of it as you were talking about there. A compliance heavy official, official time.

Guest: Yeah, I think that's. I think that's. You said all that very well. That was, you know, that's good stuff. And people really can. I think it goes back to just that comfort level too. You know, people. It's not. That's not as intimidating as that.

Stuart: Yeah, it's more likely that it will get done.

Guest: Yeah.

Stuart: Okay, so we've got two more then. Let's. We should get this knocked out before. Before the hour. The last two. I'm actually combining these together because we've mentioned them a little bit already and they're two sides of the same coin. So the two steps are. Or the two elements are crystal clear next step and a free recorded message and compelling website. The crystal clear next steps that we've talked about that already. It's the back cover copy. It's the compelling offer. I think the reason this is highlighted slightly separately, it's the crystal clear element of it. So quite often you've kind of got a grade of how quickly people get all of these elements. I guess one is the compelling offer. The fact that there should be a compelling offer at all. The second one though is making sure that's crystal clear because it's still possible to be a little too ambiguous in your next steps if you're not explicitly telling yourself or validating that this next step is crystal clear. So oftentimes when we're working on back cover copy with people, you have a couple of default or a couple of templates that we'll try and work three people with. And one of the most popular is a statement at the top, just kind of recapping the problem and the solution, kind of just in 50 words or so, just restating what the problem was that was solved within the book and the fact that there is a path to resolution. And then step one, step two, step three, and then general contact details at the bottom. Because what that does Is at a glance, it very easily kind numerates the next steps for people. And because it's step one, step two, step three, there's also a kind of mental model of one is beginning and three is the more advanced. So you've got the opportunity of putting the zero commitment one at step one and the middle commitment one in the middle and the higher commitment one at the end. In the book Blueprint Scorecard, we go into this in a lot more detail. So check out the, the chapter that talks about the back cover, the call to action in the book Blueprint Scorecard because that goes a lot deeper but a high level, really talking about presenting ways for all of the readers and knowing who those readers are because you pick the single target market, a way for all of those readers to take the next logical step for them. So we'll often say that step one should be something as you said before, visit the website for more information. So if you've got more PDF type materials or videos or audios or blog posts, all of those things where people can learn more at no commitment. So they don't have to phone up, they don't have to give an email address, they don't have to jump through any hoops. It's just there and available. And the aim of that first step is really just to increase and amplify that kind of know like and trust. It's a way for people to wait for people to learn more and, and understand more about you and the process that you're talking about. Step two then is often the assessment type thing. So you've introduced the idea, the concept in the book. How can people validate for themselves what the next thing to do is? So a scorecard, an assessment, a checklist, something that they can download, something that you can identify that this person is now a hotter prospect than just the person that requested it, something that they can evidence for themselves that they're moving in the right direction, that working with you is the logical way of going, that they're answering the question. I often use Jim Hacking as the example and the immigration attorney. So the visa checklists that they've got for certain procedures, they're doing a lot on some immigration delay cases. And there's again another checklist there that people can go through to see if their case falls into this category. That second step is a way of identifying those hotter leads and people who've got copies of the book physically where they haven't necessarily opted in or if the book's been shared. It's a way of capturing email address details of people who you wouldn't necessarily have captured the details of before. And then number three, then the clear next step, number three is for those people who do want to start working with you. And that is, as you said before, that kind of mafia offer that easy to do, relatively low commitment offer, but usually involves some physical contact. So call for a consulting overview or come into the office for a starter type call, a review, an assessment, those things that require that first level of commitment. And then at the bottom, usually after that, if you want to ask me any questions about this, then reach out to me. A phone number and email address is usually a good way of then capturing everything else. The compelling website on the last free recorded message I'm on the fence about how successful free recorded messages are where we are in technology at the moment. I don't know about you, but usually I rarely use the phone.

Guest: Apart from texting.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, exactly. In anything outside of this work type context. So dealing with new companies, it's not typically going to be the focus. If you've got there's a lot of technological solutions around there that will deliver that, that will allow you to give a free recording message that shares more information. Potentially if you're dealing with the older community, they might be more inclined to do that. So context relevant. But yeah, I'll skip by free recorded message because it's the same as the website just delivered in a different way. But the compelling website on the ad example is then specifically for that one funnel. So rather than driving people to your generic page, go to our corporatedomain.com and then you'll find out other information. This particular example is driving people to a dedicated landing page. So for your book, this is less about the back cover copy because they're kind of in the funnel already. But oftentimes we think about this in terms of a landing page for the book itself. So bookblueprintscore.com, 90minutebook.com as opposed to 90 Minute Books, is the book opt in page, the single purpose book opt in page that we've got. So having that compelling, obvious website that kind of the words of the domain amplify the solution of the book itself. Again, that's that last element that kind of ties it all together. Okay, I'm very croaky voice now.

Guest: This is a lot of great information and I think it can, you know, obviously this, what we're looking at in front of us has to do with compelling ads. But you know, we've been able to incorporate into the book industry as well. So I think it was sort of a valuable.

Stuart: Yeah, you know, as we were talking about what to talk about this show, I was anticipating this being pretty a quick run through. But just as you said when we started the conversation, even now, after doing this for five years and repeating the same message over and over again, we're still talking to people when some of these elements aren't. There aren't answers to some of these elements. So it's surprising how much just changing the context of the list of things that we're going through helps share things in a different way. And hopefully, as you're listening to this, some of these elements will have resonated perhaps in a way that they haven't resonated before. I think taking the framework, whether it's the profit activator score framework, whether it's the book blueprint framework, whether it's using these seven steps as a framework, all of those things just act as a way of a check and balance or a validation that you're heading in the right direction. So certainly encourage anyone to head over to the show notes on the website. So this is going to be episode 75 and grab this framework. I'll put links to the frameworks in there as well. I'll include the slide from the Breakthrough DNA. It's the online workshop that this, this came from. So I'll include this image. And then there's the book blueprint scorecard framework up there as well. So all of those things, whether or not you're working with us or whether you're doing this yourself, that should give some a great guideline, really a roadmap to really amplifying each of the elements.

Guest: Yeah, I think it was very valuable.

Stuart: Fantastic. Okay, so let's wrap it there. I'm gonna go and drink some more water.

Guest: I'm not gonna drink any more water. I drank two hours worth of water in this last hour. So I'm gonna slow my roll on the water.

Stuart: So no more. So just bathroom. No drinking.

Guest: Can't do that when you're recording.

Stuart: Yeah, I don't know. Just wait for me to go off on a tangent and then. You've got 10 minutes. It'll be fine. Okay, so I'll put the show notes up. Make sure that all the links in the show notes. So that's going to be over@90minutebooks.com podcast and this is episode 75. As always, if you want to ask us about anything or subject that we can talk about in a future show, then just drop us an email to Podcasty Minutebook. Always suggest the best thing that you can do is just get started. I mean, there's a thousand and one reasons why you could delay it, but just head over to 90minutebooks.com, start or follow the get started links on the website and we'll be able to get you up and running and really walk you through and hold your hand through all of these elements to make sure that your book gets out there in the most effective way.

Guest: Hand holding is my specialty.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we've held lots of hands before. We have looking for salting goals, if that doesn't sound weird. Okay, so on that note, we'll catch everyone next time. Thanks a lot for your time as always, Betsy, and look forward to speaking in the next one.

Guest: Take care.

Stuart: Cheers. Bye. Sam.