The long tail

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart here with Betsy. Betsy Vaughan. How's it going?

Guest: Very good. Happy day to you.

Stuart: Happy day, happy day. Yeah, it's happy. Almost the middle of April already.

Guest: It's, it's crazy.

Stuart: It's quite disturbingly fast.

Guest: The whole year somebody posted on social media like how many days it was till Christmas the other day and I'm like, are you kidding me? Like that is. Oh, that just makes me heart think of.

Stuart: That's what the unfriend button's for, right?

Guest: I'm gonna try that. Yeah, yeah.

Stuart: So with the year just being. Let's talk about some more book ideas before it's at Christmas and we can do another end of year catch up. Today I wanted to talk about something that cropped up from some feedback from last week's show. So in the middle of. I think we were using a couple of examples. Maybe it was Chris Hill or I think it's probably Chris Hill that we were talking about. We talked about like this syndication type of book called the. I'll often talk about the kind of complementary non competing businesses as a philosophy of kind of like a group of people where there's some leverage to be had and kind of that synergy of everyone coming together for a greater good. So these complementary non competing businesses are those groups of people or audiences or niches, however you want to describe them. But those groups of people that are close enough that you can help, there's a big crossover with what you do. But they're not competing. So it's not like there's no problem with trying to engage with those guys or talking to those guys. It's a win win situation rather than kind of like a zero somewhere someone might have to lose out in order for you to have a conversation that goes somewhere. So that I think is something to dive into a little bit more. Because no matter what business you're in, I think there's a great opportunity to think about not only a book for your own benefit, but how that bigger group can get some traction and improve the overall picture by thinking about these syndication opportunities or the working with complementary non competing businesses.

Guest: Yeah, I think that's a great. Yeah, I think that's a great idea and hopefully we can come up with some ideas that might help people who haven't even thought of some non competing businesses. So maybe we'll throw a few ideas out there today.

Stuart: Yeah, that sounds good. I think it's definitely a case that everyone, no matter what business type you're in. There's always that group that's just the next circle out, the next level out of people they might not even think about. It's. It's easy for organizations like Realtors I guess is one that springs to mind. It's very easy. Who you're often working with, it would be like appraisers and mortgage brokers and house stages and photographers, all of those types of people immediately because you've got such a regular relationship with them and that as you're listening to this and you're thinking about the syndication type opportunity, the complementary non competing type opportunity, then that's definitely the place to start. The obvious low hanging fruit. But organizations or companies that may be slightly more obscure. So we've used the example of florists before and venue locations, but dress locations and suit hire companies, whatever occasion people would need florists for. What are the other businesses that are also used for that same event? So event planners I guess falls into slightly more obvious category. But people like meal planning, not like the home delivery services, but companies that deal with specialty menus or wine for specialty events. Not that they're necessarily thinking about events that would have flowers, but a subset of their customers are going to be doing events that do have flowers. So if those groups of people also have special dietary requirements or they're trying to make a special impression, a bigger impression with wines, that they're dealing with wine merchants or sommeliers, that group of people aren't necessarily involved 100% all the time. But there is some kind of crossover. It's always interesting when trying to think of examples on the fly because it's immediately kind of just start thinking about the same ones that always spring up. One of the things that I do quite often is look at the gallery of books that we've worked with in the past. Yeah. And as we get this feedback quite a lot as well, people look at that for inspiration. So if you haven't visited it then definitely head over to niceminutebooks.com gallery and there's a list of some of the 500 or so that we've worked in there. And that range of businesses, I think oftentimes people will mention it in terms of looking for inspiration for their own books, their own kind of first layer, first circle book. But in the context of this conversation, when we're talking about complementary non competing businesses, I think this is a great resource to look through for businesses that you wouldn't necessarily think about. So we've got financial planning books in there talking about retirements. So realtors thinking about this second level group, then retirees relocating to a different area, going into retirement communities, active adult communities, working with financial planners might be that one level removed from people that you usually work with. Go into the slightly more obscure examples and again, don't get too hung up on the specifics, but just kind of throwing ideas out there to get you thinking about what it could be for yourself. But we've got the Unleashing Greatness book. They're choosing the hockey club. The number of people that they work with who would also be looking to relocate is, Is probably small. But nationwide the number or countywide. Statewide it's county. My accent give me away. Again, statewide there might be a lot of hockey clubs that deal with people relocating. So as a realtor working with people, working with the person that sets up that runs that organization. Although it might not be the most first circle, if you like book might not be the most obvious when you're looking at marketing to the next group out or you've already set up the initial campaign so you're looking at approaching reaching an audience that you haven't previously reached. It might be a big enough niche to make it worthwhile. Particularly I think if the, if the practicality is of setting up a campaign that has the book as the main kind of the main, the main cookie, the main lead generation pieces the book, but the campaigns around it will vary, then having a number of these little, slightly more random ones, slightly more speciality, slightly more niche based, it's a really great way of leveraging the thing, the asset that you've already built. Makes sense so far.

Guest: Yeah, so far makes sense. I found myself in. Honestly, I was looking at different covers as we were talking, got into them and I was thinking, oh, like some great examples on here. You kind of. Not that we forget about the book, but you know, we'd never forget about the client, but we sometimes may forget about the book. But looking at some of these, you know, like the engagement ring shopping, you know, that one sort of goes back to the florist and the caterer and the venue and you know, all the people that you could work with, you know, around, around that subject, you know, so many, so many different people and those.

Stuart: Yeah, I think real estate, because of the background that we've got in some of the other. It's such a common. The majority of people have dealt with real estate in one way or another, either buying or renting. It's. We've got such a crossover commonality with it with Some of the other business, some of the other sides of the organisations that we run specifically with the realtors, that it's always the one that springs to mind. The engagement shopping ring book is a great example as well. So when we think about what, when we think about complementary, non competing businesses for that, that was a book specifically set up for the jewelry purchase of it. But taking the step back and thinking, okay, someone who's in that position, what else might they be looking for at the same time in the conversation before they actually get engaged? Then it might be things like clubs or activities or specific locations in the area that young couples will frequent. It might be things like financial planners who are dealing with the life planning conversations that these guys are likely to be having at some point. You can imagine, I mean, sticking with financial planners as an example, I guess then for people who are selling jewelry, selling engagement rings specifically, I mean, that's not a minor investment. So to be able to write something which talks about how to make the best decisions, the best financial decisions around engagement ring shopping, so not the romantic side of it, but the practical side of it, positioning that as a joint venture piece or as a, as a promoted piece with a financial planner in the area, then again, it's not going to be the biggest campaign, but it's going to have a small amount of traction. And again, five, six, seven of these small campaigns, that's going to give you a pretty big boost to how effective the return on investment you're getting from the time and money that you've put into creating the book because you're giving it more opportunities to become a friendly referral tool, a warm referral tool.

Guest: And I think you said sometimes people think, oh, if I work with, I work with that person, are they really, really going to benefit me? Is it really going to, am I going to see that return on my investment? But you, I think you can't, you can view it in small scale versus, you know, not everything has to be this huge return or you know, tons of business because sometimes it only takes one or two, you know, to get that, you know, return on your investment. Or you just never know where those two are going to lead. I mean there's that whole, it's, it trickles down, you know, so sometimes I think people are afraid to do that. It's not worth the effort or whatever. But you know, depending on where you are or what your needs are financially, you know, it may make sense that, you know, just that one person could change everything.

Stuart: And I think particularly as you're Talking about not, we're not talking about creating a whole new book just for that very small audience which might be a long return. We're talking about using the existing book and either tweaking it so it is a little bit more tailored or packing, packaging it with some other things that make it that bit more tailored. So have the one copy of the book, but send it with a cover letter or have one copy of the book and send it with a separate. Here's what to do, next step, a more tailored step. Or if it's worthwhile, then do things like add a forward or change the COVID or insert a chapter or change the call to action, all to make it that little bit more dialed in.

Guest: But we're not talking about people. Yeah, we've had people want to do that somewhere, something similar I think, you know, but they wanted to do it for multiple groups like, and I think it was around the real estate market and they wanted to sort of almost, okay, well you own this real estate company, so I'm going to give you the first page, you know, kind of thing. But they were going to do it for multiple different companies, you know, and tailor it directly for your specific company, put you in there, you know, a little bio, how to contact you kind of thing. I cannot remember. I don't think, I don't think they ever did that because it came down to being like a lot of work. I think they got a little scared about it.

Stuart: Well, and I guess that one I remember when you're talking about and they were thinking about the book as the product, I think they were looking at it as a revenue opportunity for the book itself. And it wasn't necessarily their, but it wasn't their primary business. It was something they created already and they were looking at it as an additional revenue stream. And the overheads there, it just didn't ever make it to the top of the list of things to do. But I think that is because their positioning in that example, they were positioning themselves more as us. That's what we do. We've got a number of white label type projects like that where we specifically offer books to people with minimal tailoring. It's almost like an off the shelf version or off the rack version of a 90 minute book. But we're doing that because we've got leverage and scale because we are the publishers. So it's easy for us to do all of the overhead and the hassle that the, the person was talking about, that's what we do day to day. So it's Easier for us to. It's not something different for us to do. A better way of thinking about that example is for. Let's again stick with the real estate example. If you own a real estate office, if you're a broker and you've got several sales associates working underneath you, having a tailored version of the same book for each of the sales associates is going to give you more leverage, more bang for the buck. The customer, the seller or buyer who's receiving the book is going to be more engaged with the sales associate. We'd rather pronounce it is going to be more engaged with the sales associate if the book has their name and their picture on the front of it as opposed to if it was the broker's name. And because it's one level removed, particularly if the customer's never dealing with the broker, it's just their name on the the book and on the forms. So that level of detailing it in and going through the extra, jumping through the extra hurdles of having separate, separate versions of the book is almost certainly worthwhile because you've got a clear path to the market. There's a clear return, clear and immediate return on it. If it was the example of okay, well let's. We're on a realtor track today, so let's. So if it was a case where the realtor wanted to share a book with the, say with a photographer or with a. Into a school, into the local school area like the PTA type organization they wanted to share a book of, if you're moving into the area you're dealing with, they're dealing with parents moving into the area. They wanted to provide something of value to those people by working with the 10 schools in an area, it may or may not be worth. It probably isn't worth to begin with having 10 tailored versions of the book that was the. The ABC School Guide to Relocating in the XYZ School Book to relocating, it's probably not worth doing that in the first instance because you don't know how much traction it's going to get. You've written the book that is the guide to relocating and you're just now testing different markets that might get some traction. And this whole idea of passing it to PTAs might be a non starter because you might only get one conversion out of it just because the market's too small. The turnover or the accessibility of the PTA to people who are relocating isn't high enough. That same model, if it was going into like a university area and it was talking about how to buy an investment property for your kids when the kids are going to college, that might be one more worthwhile because the turnover, the volume is way more. So it might be worth the investment of having the XYZ College Guide to Buying an Investment Policy Property and An ABC School Guide to Buying Good Investment Property. Because just the numbers, the hypothesis, when you're going in it, it seems like it's, it's going to be a better return. Now that's not to say that it's not worth doing the PTA version at all because particularly on things like real estate transactions or buying jewelry sales, these high ticket items, it only takes one or two to convert to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Guest: Absolutely.

Stuart: Tens of thousands to get the project set up in the first place. So testing the market first, doing the minimum viable option to test it and then see which one kind of get some traction and then flare up and then tailor it after that. That's a much better way of doing it rather than just assuming that this idea is the best idea ever and putting a lot of time and effort and cost into getting it set up. Because not only is it then a lot of the return on investment might be longer or lower, but also just the opportunity cost. If you're spending six weeks setting up a project into one small area, then that's as opposed to just one week of it not being so tailored, but getting into six different areas, then the latter is a much better way of doing it because you don't know which one. You can make an assumption, but you don't know which one's going to get traction before it's actually out there in the real world.

Guest: Yes, there you go.

Stuart: This idea of testing little things, I think that's. We don't typically sit and I guess we don't talk about it either with people because to a certain degree we lose contact with people a bit after that first stage. After the book set up, we're not as closely we'll follow up with people, but it's not as close as obviously we're working with them to get the book done in the first place. So everyone idea when they first create it is that first circle of how they want to use the book. They want to use it for themselves, they want to use it in a particular referral campaign or for a lead generation campaign. But then after that, at that point we've kind of lost track or lost that initial that direct contact. But once you've got the book created, putting it out into a lot of different areas. And even if it's just putting the one version of the book out there, but having a cover letter with the complementary non competing business that positions it in a way that adds value for everyone. So not going through the expense of recreating something or tailoring something, but just additionally adding something. So for, for that idea. So if it was a stick with the PTA example location guide, and I think I'm intentionally thinking about sticking it back with that one because it's, it's not a huge idea, it's a very small idea, it's maybe not even the most successful idea, it quite possibly wouldn't go anywhere. But I want to stick with that just for the moment to demonstrate a quick and easy way to test the hypothesis. So the theory that we're putting out there is that the school is attracting parents moving into the area, even if that volume is low. And those parents don't necessarily have any connection with the area. They're moving for work or they're relocating. They don't necessarily have a lot of connections in order to know where the best places to buy are or what the local market conditions are or what's changed or where the new areas are. They'll be asking people and trying to get information, but they won't necessarily have, they don't have a big network in place. So as a realtor in that area, having a book that talks about moving into the area, which you almost certainly should have anyway because multiple reasons for multiple ways that you could use that. But with the pta, then writing it with a cover letter explaining, saying, hey, this is a stressful time moving into the area, you don't have connections. We wanted to write this guide with the pta. We kind of sat down and asked them what the challenges are for parents moving into the area. And we've put together this guide that highlights all the things that you need to know when moving into this area. The only additional thing that you then need to create is the COVID letter to go with it. And don't expect the PTA to write the COVID letter for you, because why would they? I mean, they might, but why would they, like orchestrate it yourself? And equally don't necessarily think they would think about all of the campaign level stuff for you, like the setup. They may or may not remember to give this out, but if you can create the things for them, create the COVID lesson that goes with it. Create the. Oh, if someone phones back and wants to get in touch with me, here's how you get in touch with me. If someone phones back and asks this question or that question, which I'm expecting because I've been in business for a long time and I know that this is typically the questions that get asked, then here are some answers, setting up as much as you can. It turns into this win win because it gives you the opportunity to get something in front of an audience that you wouldn't necessarily have access to. And it gives the PCA a win because it demonstrates that they're doing more. They're going above and beyond, they've got additional ass rather than just a standard welcome letter on a badly formatted email. Probably standard for far too many places. So that as an example, like I said, whether or not that is a good example or not, I don't really care. It's not the point that we're trying to think about ways of going out to that second, third, fourth circle out. It's a group of people that aren't necessarily the most immediately springing to mind campaigns. But we've already got this book created. We're already getting traction in the other campaigns that we've done first because they're the better value ones. Now we're looking to get that the wins from that long tail, as it's sometimes referred to as the lots of little things that are very small and doing it in such a way that it's quick and easy to do. And then we only need to spend additional attention once it's got a lot of traction. So with that example, the thing like 12 months down the track, you might realize that, wow, I actually got four transactions from that because of the 10 people that moved into the area, four of them were brand new and this was the best information that they've seen. So although 4 is in absolute terms a pretty small number that still might represent 40 grand's worth of business. And therefore it's worth spending 2 grand on making a tailored version of the book. So keep bulk of the book that you've done, but then just add a beginning and an ending chapter that specifically highlights the things that were important to that group.

Guest: I think that's a great example. I do think the PTA example was great. But I also think, just like you said, tailoring that end and beginning, it's very little work for what you hope to be a great return on that investment.

Stuart: Yeah, and that's a good point. I mean, I was trying to use the example there with the absolute minimum amount of work that you could do, which would just be a cover letter to go along with it. But really for the amount of additional work that it takes to add an extra intro chapter and change the outro, the what to do next, then in almost every circumstance it's worth going the extra steps. If you think a market is worthwhile doing, then that is probably the bare minimum. Adding a little bit to position it as a tailored intro and outro. Because if nothing else, we also know from people's reading habits that everyone sees the COVID they flip to the back cover because people pick something up and turn it over in the hand so they see the what next steps and then they'll start at the beginning beginning and flip a couple of pages. But the read rates tail off pretty dramatically and pretty quickly as you get through the book. So having that tailored introduction and you can even do things like having the introduction co written with the person that's given the book out. So chair of the PTA co write it with that person. Don't actually expect them to write anything but just put their name on it as well. Obviously you need to check that they're happy with that to be the case. Stick their picture on the back or the front even of the book so that here's the guide to relocating to this area brought to you by ABC pta. Because that then gives the other organization more skin in the game or more. It's kind of like a tweaking the or I can't think of a. I was going to say tickling the vanity something but I can't think it's kind of. It's kind of kind of playing on the vanity thing as well. And that makes people more likely to share it because they're benefiting from something that they haven't thought to do themselves. So they haven't thought to write a book themselves. They might have the assumption or the expectation that this is a huge project that they could never achieve themselves. So by you offering to include them to a certain degree in the project, it's given them an asset of their own that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And they then might be able to use it broader and wider and in ways that you never thought of using it, it kind of increases that engagement from them. As a willing and able and enthusiastic partner in this project, you're giving them the. The credibility maybe, or additional assets, the thing the way of adding more value to their customers, knowing that you're getting some of that radiated goodwill. The call to action, the next step, the easy way to learn more comes back in your direction. But you've started that journey by. By emphasizing A benefit for them which is going to make them more likely to get out there in the first place. Which then in that kind of funnel type approach means that more people are going to pop out at the bottom of the funnel and end up ringing your phone rather than not. And all of these projects, like we said, all little projects, you can imagine all of the funnels lined up in front of you or drawn out on the wall and you've got a couple of very big ones, which are the main funnels that you thought about when writing a, the book in the first place. But in between all of those big funnels, there are small little funnels that are also just dripping leads down to the bottom of the, to your phone at the bottom. And then obviously the aim is for that to turn into business and you've been able to help more people.

Guest: That's great. That's great stuff. I mean there's some great ideas there, you know, just like you said, simple really. Not, not, not a big, not a big investment, not a lot of time, but great potential to pull some business your way.

Stuart: And I think that's the thing, it's this. Everyone comes thinking about the top five projects that a book would achieve. That's a starting point. Everyone is thinking about that already. But once it's created this long tail, anyone that's ever done any kind of SEO type analysis, website analysis stuff, perhaps less effective now, but certainly a few years ago that was very much the case that some of the big high level keywords that people are searching for are the big rocks that are obvious to everyone. But actually if you looked at the volume of traffic over a period of time, then the long tail of the tiny little searches which you'd never actively target or never think to necessarily actively target, but over time that long tail just builds and builds and builds and in certain circumstances can kind of outshine or provide more, more business than the things that you initially started off thinking would be successful. Not to say that they're not, it's just there's a lot of volume in the small.

Guest: Yeah, I think that's what I was saying earlier. People don't, they tend to think on the big scale only. And like you said, this long tail eventually will pay off, you know.

Stuart: Yeah, and I think it's definitely do those first. So the big ones are definitely the ones to do first. Yeah, this is definitely a stage two type.

Guest: Right, right.

Stuart: Marketing campaign. The key thing I think is be thinking about it as you're looking for opportunities of who to work with is really where value can be added. And it's a difficult sell for someone to go into a completely random organization and say, hey, I want you to give your customers my copy of the book which talks about me and how great I am and how I know the answers to everything. Which kind of loops back to what we've had conversations in the past and the kind of value driven content of the book. And it should be completely about them and answering their question and not really about you at all. Because once that type of book is written, the one that does give value, it does answer the one question as deeply and comprehensively as possible, always knowing that there are other issues that you can then go on to answer. But this one asset, this one book, is the most valuable piece of information on that subject. That is then a lot easier to approach other organizations and start talking to them about how this book might be valuable to their customers and what's the best way of working together to get it into their hands. That's a difficult sell if the book has just got your face plastered all over the front of it. And the book's called look at Me, I'm Great, I can help. Like I say, the thought for this conversation came up from a couple of questions from last week's show. We actually did another show back last year sometime. I think it's episode 61. That was. Yeah, 61. That was called Working With Others. So there were a couple of other examples there of where we're going into some of these details as well. But I would challenge any, anyone to think about who that kind of second, third level organization is, whether there is some commonality in a small area of their business with another group of people and how the subject of your book can help that group. Because either they're moving into an area, they're looking at buying something they haven't done before. They're looking at moving into a different phase of life that they might not have come across before. They might be having an event, kind of like an external event happen to them. Either illness or change, a job or a lottery win or kids getting older and moving on through that phase of life. All of these organizations there also in that space, that's where this opportunity lies. I think I was talking to. Who was I talking to a couple of weeks ago we were looking at the. They'd done a lot of work in the disruption space and looking at the opportunities for this is kind of like at the big business scale. But their whole premise was looking for opportunities that lay between the cracks of Existing big organizations. And this is actually multibillion dollar worth of consulting type work that they were doing on very big projects. But they were specifically looking for those gaps in between the process of the industries that they worked in. Looking for the gaps where it didn't quite gel or didn't quite make a perfect match with the next stage. And then there's this kind of intermediary opportunity to sit between the two big blocks. And again, this is where this lies as well. It's not the biggest first level project. It's the. It's the little things where the majority, the information is useful, the majority of the relationship is useful. And then it's starting the conversations with those slightly broader groups.

Guest: Okay, good stuff.

Stuart: My voice is croaking again, things for

Guest: people to think about.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. I think a couple of the. If this is kind of resonating, but maybe not quite, not quite think about who those groups are, then a couple of resources that we mentioned already. Check out that episode 61 on the website. That's 90minutebooks.com podcast. I'll link to it in the show notes as well. And we talk about this a little bit more there. But also do some things like your industry and keywords that are used within your industry can even start just putting those into Google and the autocomplete that comes up, just see what else is in the autocompletes because that is what other people are searching for that is similarly related. So that might be some inspiration for which other industries or which other questions or which other areas people are also interested who have searched for what specifically what you do.

Guest: All right.

Stuart: Okay. So that's, let's draw on and do it for now. If you, as you listen to this, if you've got any questions or want to dive a little bit deep onto any of those, any of those examples that we used. It's obviously a little bit difficult sometimes to come up with the best examples that are bulletproof. But I think hopefully that really wasn't the point of this one. This one was way more about a slightly looser connection to a group of people that you can find. So now you need to go in and drill down a little bit on what that looser connection is and see what comes up with. But by all means, shoot us a question to support and 90 minute books and then we can answer any of those. Otherwise I'll put some links in the show notes. This one's going to be episode 70. I think we're on to 77. This is going to be episode 77. So check it out. And, Betsy, as always, thanks for joining.

Guest: Awesome. Thank you. My pleasure.

Stuart: Okay, we'll speak soon. Bye, Sam.