Flagship Broadcasts

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart Bell and Betsy Vaughan. Betsy, how you doing?

Guest: Super Duper, how are you?

Stuart: Very good, thank you. That's the name of a. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that as a response to that question before. But it is the name of a backup software on the Mac.

Guest: Ah. We have a lovely team member and that she speaks all the time like super Duper, hokey dog, you know. And so sometimes it rubs off on me.

Stuart: It's surprising. We were talking about that before as well. It's surprising how much you pick up on other people's accents and their oh yeah, mannerisms as they speak.

Guest: So true.

Stuart: It must be like as we're talking to such a wide group of people on the phones, it's easy to pick up on some of those, particularly when someone else's accent is so strong and so different. It can be an easy trap to fall into to start parroting them by mistake and oh yeah, that's what I said earlier.

Guest: I think you've been in Polk County a long time and now I'm hearing the Southern thing. Bah. And I'm like, oh wow, he's. That made me giggle as we hung up, you know.

Stuart: So it is. This is the, the end of the sort of 10 day stint down in, in Florida heading back up to Philly tomorrow. So this will be my most Polk. I'll go a little bit northern in the next couple of weeks when I get back down again. There you go. That's great.

Guest: What are we going to talk about today?

Stuart: So today we're going to talk about something that has come up so many times in the last week or two that I think it's definitely needs, it's definitely worthwhile talking about because it seems to be something that's on everyone's mind and that is following up with people after that initial opt in. So a lot of the times where we're talking about books, it's in a profit activator 2 type scenario. So we're looking to create an asset that helps people identify leads and gets people to raise their hand. But the reality is that unless you happen to intersect with someone just at the moment they're ready to take an action. The reality is that it's going to be a long burn, a longer cycle where you've got an opportunity to educate and motivate people over time. That profit activator number three thing that we talk about or in the book Blueprint Scorecard, we talk about Kind of beyond the book and following up with people. So realistically, it's in that timeframe, the longer timeframe that you're most likely to engage with people at the time when they're ready to. To take the next step and, and begin that kind of business relationship rather than just a kind of receiving an information gathering relationship. So. Yeah, so I think that that follow up sequence is going to be a good thing to talk about today because as I say, it's really been one of those. The last 10 days. It's really been a question that's come up in almost every conversation that I've had and I know that we were talking about it as well. You'd had similar.

Guest: Yeah, we have.

Stuart: Very good.

Guest: Should be a good show.

Stuart: Yeah, I think it's super valuable as well. I think because it's something that is the way we talk about it. It's not necessarily a common frame that other people talk about certain things. So we had the last couple of days here been meeting with some of the real estate guys that we work with and there's been a couple of scenarios where they're talking about following up with people and staying in touch with people. But it's still from a broadcast point of view, it's still from the kind of corporate newsletter point of view or releasing a video or releasing a blog post or something that's just kind of broadcasting things out to a wide group, kind of almost like passively broadcasting, if that was such a thing, rather than actively broadcasting or orchestrating that next step, that communication path, which is what we talk about a lot and we position it as kind of conversational conversions. So rather than talking about conversions as a, as a funnel and as individual building blocks in it, what we're trying to do is kind of engage people in that conversation at every opportunity. So that as a framework that is a different way of thinking about, makes it a lot more personal. And although we are broadcasting to a large group of people on the list, the position that we're trying to come from is that each email is written as if you were writing it to an individual. It's just that you're writing it to a group of individuals that you know, are all in a similar position because they all opted into a similar thing and they've all expressed a similar interest. But still the language in which we're writing, the language in which we're communicating, we still want to keep it as, as conversational as possible, as kind of engaging as possible and not just think about this broadcast mentality. Of someone told me I should write blog posts, or someone told me I should send out a newsletter and just kind of blurbing it out in the way that large corporations do, or honestly, the majority of other people out there do. So this conversational approach is very much thinking, okay, Betsy signed up to the list last week, last month, last year, it was a list about a particular subject, about writing a book. We know that's the conversation. So as we're sharing information, we want to share it as much as possible within that framework and keep that conversation going and give people the opportunities to raise their hand and engage again at the point that they're now ready to take the next step again rather than just broadcasting things. With the realtor example, a good friend of ours, Kenny, was down. We were going through some stuff that he's getting from the corporate group and we were looking at individualizing it and personalizing it. And it's surprising how impersonal those broadcasts are, but how easy it is to take that next step and make it more personal. So they're in a situation, I'm guessing this is quite common because it's not the first time that I've seen it. They're in a situation where each of the individual businesses, each of the franchises or offices, sends mailing lists into the corporate headquarters and then the corporate headquarters broadcast the message out. And it's the same message that goes to everyone, just with a little bit of individualization, maybe even just as much as the name and address and the photo of the individual agent. But by taking that, they've got access to customize the information, by taking it and customizing it to make it more personal. So still using the same information, still using the same work that corporate have done to bring all of these things together to gather the news, gather the interesting pieces, but by heading it with a introductory paragraph that adds some of the your own personality, by taking out some of the corporate speak or some of the stuff that just clearly looks like this is a mass marketing newsletter that's going out to everyone. It makes it so much more engaging. So we were talking about taking the content. This is Imagine a realist and newsletter that talks about some properties that have come on the market and then some information about the local area. By introducing that with everyone, it's Kenny. It's newsletter time again this month. We've got some super interesting articles about this organization, this local market that's happening, this local restaurant that's in the area. We've also got something on these properties and they're Particularly interesting because of whatever the reason is and then taking that and heading that and just putting that above the corporate newsletter that goes out. It's not that any effort is wasted, it's not that anything. There's a huge overhead in recreating the news. It's just you're adding a little bit of personalization and making it more conversational. Then towards the end of the newsletter, closing it then with a particular call to action. So rather than just sign off and saying thanks, bye, see you next time, ending it with something specific that someone can sink their teeth into. So by the way, we've got some buyers coming up from New York. We're looking for a four bedroom oceanfront property that looks over this particular bay. If you know of anyone that's selling, let me know and I'd be great to make that instruction. We might be able to sell a property without even going on the market. That gives someone a clear next step. So you can tell there the difference between a general blurbing message that goes out because corporate thinks that something needs to. This is something, therefore we need to send this versus this is something. But this is also quite interesting and here's the. Here's a specific reason for me sending you this message. Because I want to get this, this next step out. Then it just makes it so much more engaging, so much more interesting, so much more valuable to you as the person sending out that information for a minimum extra overhead. Makes sense so far.

Guest: It makes total sense. And I think, you know people, we get so many emails, most of us do, you know, on a regular basis and to find something, you have that corporate thing. I think we all kind of skip over that a lot of the times.

Stuart: You know, it's like the banner ad blindness. It just goes into the background if there's no. Yeah. If you know, there's no personal connection, you just don't. Even with the best will in the world on personal emails that you generally want to read, there's so many of them that you rarely get around to all of them. The ones that are just clearly broadcasting definitely get pushed to the bottom of the pile and there's just not that same level of interest. I think that balance, a lot of people find it an overhead and a difficulty in creating. We talk about this flagship broadcast, the kind of regular way of staying in touch with people and so many people find it difficult to create the stuff that should go in there. So what is the content that can go out there? If it's too much of an overhead, then it doesn't get done because it becomes too difficult. So by taking something that is being created already, but then just adding a small amount of effort to personalize it, it increases the value of that by far more, by many more times than the amount of effort that it takes to do it. It really kind of leverages and amplifies it away from what everyone else is doing at a kind of disproportionate rate to the amount of effort that goes in. I got to get hugely distracted here because I'm in the office and it's. This last week has been. There's been some huge storms running through town and it's storming again and it's now raining inside the office, not outside the office because this window must be leaking and it's now leaking on the inside as well as the outside. So I just have to quickly find a towel to.

Guest: Right, I know we've talked about this as you mop up, I'll speak a little bit.

Stuart: So.

Guest: And we've talked about this in the past about how many emails are, you know, too many or there's that, that comfort level. We were speaking to a gentleman just I think last week and he was concerned with, he's getting ready to do something and, and it's going to be three emails a week. And this has been sort of a list that he's hasn't done anything with for a while. And he is, you know, concerns about sending out all these emails all of a sudden. And you know, we have our system where we send out, you know, so many emails. Listen, if you're not, if you're getting, if you're on our email list, you're getting almost an email a day from us around here. But so anyway, my point is like, my question is like, you know, where is it, Is it, is it better to start, start slowly, like, you know, here we are, it's all new, we're doing it. We'll do one a week or maybe two a week and then, and sort of build up and. Because I think that people are hesitating like, oh, there's that. I don't want to bother people. Is it too much opt out? You know, even though what they're sending is probably very beneficial.

Stuart: That's the thing. I think that's the key. It's the same question as how many pages should my book be? And the answer is that's completely wrong. It's irrelevant. If you've got 100 pages of nonsense and 10 pages of quality, then the answer is 10. It's the same with the frequency of emails. I think if you're sending out stuff that you're just trying to fill a quota, you pick a number and then you're just trying to hit that number and there's no reason for sending it, or there's no value that's being sent along with it, then those messages shouldn't go out. If you send able to send something that is useful, then send out as many as possible. Because the reality, just as you said, is that people rarely open all emails. And a lot of emails that go out, I mean, this is just talking about personal experience. There's a lot of emails that I open and think, wow, I really want to read that. I'll mark it as unread because it's the middle of the day and I'm just about to jump on a call, I'll come back to it. And I never ever do because another email will come in and another day goes by and it just gets forgotten about. So when you think about the. The reason for sending the email, it's like the reason for writing the book. All of these things are Trojan horses for the underlying message that's on the inside. The purpose of the thing is to deliver the message that you really want. So the purpose of a book, in the context that we talk about it most of the time, the purpose of a book is to get someone to raise their hands and express an interest. The purpose of a message is to send that. P.S. that super signature, the call to action. The thing that you want them to do, just sending them. I mean, you see this all the time as well. People will send out broadcast messages and the typical standard newsletter type thing and it'll have contact details at the bottom and an address and a phone number and. But there's no, there's no activity call. It's just sending out information for the sake of sending out information. And unless your product is the newsletter, unless you're charging people for the newsletter and providing market analysis, then it's the same. Same as the book. The book isn't the product. The product is whatever service you're trying to engage. The email isn't the product. The product. The thing is the call to action. It's the next step you want them to take. So I think it's very. Much. Now on the flip side of that is you need to be sending something that's interesting enough that makes it still worthwhile. Because if you've got a call to action in every message. But a very. The content is weak and unengaging or at worst irrelevant, then people are just going to stop opening it or unsubscribe because there's no, you've lost that connection with the thing that they'd raised their hand for in the first place. So there's definitely a case of making the communication worthwhile, but making it worthwhile because you want someone to open it, because you want them to read the PS and the super signature because you don't know when they're going to be ready to take that next step and you want to be in front of them as many opportunities as possible so that you do intersect their thought at the time that they're, they're ready to kind of execute on that thought. So I think the. How many times it's as many times as you can practically send something that's, that's valuable. If each of those contains a next step, something that they can do to kind of fulfill the thought that they originally had to opt in in the first place. So I mean, let's stick with the house buying example. Our assumption in all of the models that we've got around house buying is that unless you're dealing with first time buyers, then someone's first thought is I wonder how much my house is worth. Because then once I know how much my house is worth, I can then start looking around for other houses because I don't want to find a dream home, only to find it being completely unaffordable because I misinterpreted what my house was worth. So that in the cycle of the overall buying cycle is pretty early. Someone might have a thought about how much is my house is worth. Months and months before they're ready to list or months and months before they're ready to buy. But if you're able to stay in front of them with something that's, that's valuable over that period of time until they are ready, then at the point that they are ready, you're in their mailbox now sending something daily so that every day you can be there ready and waiting for them to take that step or realize that they're now ready, that's probably too much because it's unlikely that there's enough going on in the market, in the world, in the local area to make a daily email valuable. But weekly definitely seems worthwhile and you can even break it down a little bit further so that you can make that two or three times a week and just have it themed in very slightly different ways. So in the different messages you're sending different things. So on One day of the week it could be a market watch of a property based market watch of what's come to the market. On another day of the week it could be based around some local events and the news of the area. And then the third day of the third time in the week it could be around market trends or how to show your house or tips, that type of thing that's delivering value. So there's definitely a way of crafting it. Now the overhead of doing it is the kind of the got you. For most people, if it becomes impractical, you don't want to give yourself a full time job just to send out emails because most of us listening have got full time jobs to be trying to run the business or get the business in or execute on the business, not just send out the emails for the sake of it. And that actually bridges quite nicely into the, into the dial talk done world that we've got, the podcasting world that we're now just releasing as we've just got the beta group going. Beta group. Beta group, which is the right way of saying it.

Guest: Beta group. What'd you say? Beta.

Stuart: Beta. Yeah, that's one of those words that

Guest: don't translate very well.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. Or it's kind of almost to the point of completely translating in my head and now I can't remember which is the American, which is the English way of saying it. So the tile talk done group, basing exactly what we do for Dean in the mortgages whiskers and the listing agent lifestyle world of taking an hour podcast and creating multiple emails from that with individual valuable pieces that regularly go out. And from one hour recording, we're able to stay in front of people three times a week with a PS and a super signature so that at the point that people are ready to take the next step there, it's only going to be a day or two until they receive another email from us. And that's more likely to intersect with that, that decision making or them being in the right place, rather being in the right place at the right time. So when you think about that side of the world, I mean we're a little bit sporadic with the podcast on this side, but the one that the ones that we manage externally for other people that's regularly going out three times a week, every single week, week in week out with useful information being shared with people and all you have to do is record the hours worth of podcasts to get the content in the first place and then all of the other steps are done for You. So that as a mechanism, which again, is what we were talking about yesterday with the guys, that as a mechanism for creating useful stuff is. Is really. It's almost like a superpower, just in the amount that you can leverage that one seed piece of information into multiple touch points.

Guest: Okay, very good.

Stuart: I should take a drink if that look, because I've been. My voice is starting to get that croaky.

Guest: I was taking a drink when you paused. Oh, boy, I better say something. I want to. Talking about. Talking about podcasts, but talking about emails. Something that you said, and I wrote it down. Talking about people. You know, people sometimes they send out these emails and they're, oh, well, I've had so many unsubscribe. Well, I think you can't actually take that personally. Like, oh, they don't want to read it, but maybe it's just no longer. The service is no longer a need of theirs, you know, so they've moved on. They've either written a book or they've. Whatever. They have a new financial planner or whatever your. Your subject is, or whatever your industry is. But I have a sense of, like, I want everything to be people to respond right now. And there's a sense of urgency that I've always had. I think it goes back to, like, my first job out of college was working in phone rooms, and everything is like, right now, you close the deal kind of thing. And so I've just maintained that sense of urgency. And so I hear all the time from people. So coming into this, and Dean's like, okay, it'll happen. You know, we send him out and they'll eventually come around. And he just really. I mean, it's very chill about it. And because that's Dean's personality, it'll happen, you know, and so that's something I've really had to learn over the past, you know, four years, like to just, okay, we're sending that and eventually it's going to happen. And I hear all the time, like, people say, just with our list, like, it happened to me yesterday. I've been on this list for four years. And I read your emails and. But you know what? I need to write a book. And so all of a sudden, it all just kind of clicked, you know, and. And so four years of emails, you know, probably three, four times a week, and now this man has, you know, he's. He's coming on board and. And he's going to finally do his book. But I hear that all the time, people have been, oh, I've Received the emails for years and I've opted in or I've followed, you know, you all for quite a long time and, and now I need your service.

Stuart: Well, we've seen even with just the book business, the lead times that it takes for a number of the leads to come through. We consistently get people two, three years past opting in and then it's right time. The funny one that always gets strikes me is the, as you were alluding to that the ones where we have conversations with people two or three years ago and they'll say, oh yeah, I definitely need to do this and then disappear and then two or three years, right? And I really need to because, yeah, I really need to do it because two or three years have passed by and what the heck happened? The funny one that gets me and it was actually Kenny again came to the Real estate academy last year and was telling the story to the, to the, to the room there that they send out the Market Watch newsletters. So that's one of the strategies on the real estate side for staying in touch with people. It's one of those touch points. So the Market Watch just talks about the properties that have come to the market over the last week and something that's happening, the thing that's happening in the area goes out week in, week out. So there was a guy that phoned Kenny. He'd moved realtors from one organization to another organization. He gets a message on his phone that says, oh, hey, it's such and such here. I'd been on your list for, I'd been receiving your updates for years. But then something must have happened about a year ago it stopped. Anyway, I'm ready now to sell and I actually had to phone two or three other realtors in order to get number. So what?

Guest: That's awesome.

Stuart: Yeah. So what happened was Kenny had purged his list. So he had a list of a couple of thousand people. Some of them had been on there for five years. Plus I think he purged at the five year point because this guy had been on there for seven years or whatever it was. He just purged his name off. And then this guy six months later was now ready to sell because he'd been regularly receiving these useful updates from Kenny for the past seven years. He never actually wanted to sell, sell. But obviously it was, it was creating that rapport. And then the guy had to phone three agents, two or three agents to get Kelly's number. So you can imagine the other agents receiving this phone call saying, oh yeah, it's, it's such a. I'm looking to list my, my oceanfront property and they're thinking, oh, this is great. I love these phone calls. Yeah, can you give me Kenny's number? Right.

Guest: That's so great.

Stuart: Yeah. I mean, it just goes to show that on the one hand you can never tell if someone unsubscribes. All that it proves is that they're not ready now and they're not engaged enough to keep receiving that email. So on the flip side, though, you can also never tell if someone has been on the list for a long time and will be ready tomorrow because you don't know what's going on.

Guest: You want to be careful purging that list too far back. You just never know.

Stuart: On the email mastery program that we have, we talk there about some examples of the nine word emails. And this is a technique for re engaging lists that may have gone cold after a while or leads that have gone cold and you've had no particular contact with. So a nine word email like we send out, as you listen to this, you'll have received one from us that says, are you ready to start your book this month? So that email designed to re engage people. Phil, my brother, who people have probably heard me talk about before, is a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale. When he moves houses from brokerages from one to another, the office that he took over because the guy had left there was actually a box, like a banker's box of leads that were labeled dead leads. So Phil and I were down to those. And there's a boat, which, I mean, talk about a long burn. I mean, yacht broken businesses is a multi, multi year burn sometimes. But there was negotiations on a project that was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, hundred million, over 114 million, I think it was. But a project which hasn't come to fruition yet, I mean, there's still all sorts of conversations going on. And whether it does or not, I guess doesn't really matter for the point of the story. But that was a box of leads. It was actually labeled dead leads that no one else was looking for. That's collecting dust. And I mean, that's an extreme example and a funny example just because the numbers are involved. But that's the same for everyone. The amount of people that we talk to that have got lists that are amalgamated. So there are names on the list that never get spoken to at all. People are opting to things or express a preference that trade shows or drop business cards off or ask for newsletters or email lists. And just nothing happens to them. And I think a lot of the problem is this idea that it's a big overhead in order to stay in touch with people. And because there's not an immediate return, it's not like you're running an AdWords campaign or Facebook ads campaign where you can Immediately see, see $1,000 spent adds up to 100 leads because it's a longer, slightly less. There's not necessarily that one for one connection with when someone makes a decision to move forward that people get discouraged by it and it becomes too much. Or it's seen then as an overhead rather than investment, or the investment is seen to be too big in terms of time and overhead. But being able to create something in a compelling but convenient way just really is this thing that enables you to keep in front of them. It's the flagship broadcast that enables you to keep in front of them. So that at the point that they are ready, which is information that you cannot know, at the point that they are ready, you're more likely to have been in their world, in their sphere, kind of passed across their eyeballs at a time that marries up. And that's really the difference maker between lists that have gold buried in them, but people never discover it. To those people who are consistently tending and farming and kind of mining that list so that they are in the right place at the right time.

Guest: Yeah, that's great. Some good examples there.

Stuart: Yeah, I think that's like I say, we've talked about those subjects a few times before. It's definitely come up on the show and as we're talking to people, but it's well worth, as you're listening to this and thinking that makes sense, but it's too much trouble to get in front of people regularly. Then think about what is the easy way to achieve that. Because it really is the difference maker. And in terms of what you can create, what you can get out there, it very much depends on yourself, your own preferences, your own skills, organizationally, what you can create internally. So whether it is email or video or audio or animation or infographics or whatever you can create to create the most valuable content at the lowest cost in terms of kind of money and effort, then do that. We talked about DialTalk, done, the podcast service that we've got, I really think that for most people that's the easiest solution. And whether or not you do it with us, I mean, I would always suggest it with us because we know it works and it's done and it only takes an hour of Your time to create the show and then all of these other assets are created for you. But even if you do it yourself, creating audio, most people, just as with the books in the first place, most people know their subject enough in order to be able to talk about it for 60 minutes or 45 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever it turns out to be, in a way that's compelling and shares valuable information and builds a rapport with people. The audio, the audio medium, the way that audio is delivered, it allows you to create a rapport with people that just text by itself doesn't. Because people are hearing you, they're regularly kind of getting to know you because there's more of a, more of a connection because you bring in another sense into the mix. You kind of bring in that much more personal connection. When you can hear someone's voice, not just read some words, right, do you

Guest: really feel like, oh, well, I know them, I'm working with them and I, you know, there is that. I don't care if you're listening to a fun podcast or a, you know, a business specific industry, you know, podcast, you do you feel like, oh yeah, like, hey, I know, I know them. Like we have a thing going here,

Stuart: you know, so yeah, yeah, yeah. Far more valuable that connection. It really, yeah, it really does bridge that gap a little bit. And the other thing is as well, it's, it's easy. Video is great, but there's a lot of technical and time expense to create video because there's many more moving parts and it's more difficult audio. We're just recording this now over Skype. And although today was a bit of a pain in the neck because technology was thwarting us a little bit to get going, I'm blaming the storms outside on that connection. But generally speaking, audio is a lot easier to do. Just dial into a conference line. Again, exactly what we do with the books. Dial into a line, get the audio as good as it can possibly be, push it out to the people who can then move on to the next stage and actually get it distributed and out there. But from that audio, you can create all these different assets and elements to really kind of have some tools or have some things that you can, that you can get out there and share with people regularly. So, yeah, if you're worried about what to do, then I would really consider audio as the first way to go because it's, it's straightforward, it's compelling and it's very dynamic. There are many ways that you can use it. And then even if you just feel like once a week is enough, then that at least is a start above what the majority of people are doing, which is nothing to once a year.

Guest: Very good. Yeah.

Stuart: Alrighty. So that being said, I think we should draw a line then. Probably kind of made enough of a point on that one. Anything that you can think that we haven't talked about.

Guest: No, I think we covered it all. Don't be fearful of sending out the emails. Start with once a week, if nothing else, you know, if you're scared of bombarding people. And that would be my takeaway, you know, from today of just at least once, you know, and. Yeah, and then do it again the next week and see how it goes and you know, and you know, focus on valuable information. Don't just put a bunch of nonsense in there because people aren't going to make time. And I think that's where like our nine word email really, you know, it says it answers a question, engages people. So if you want to start a conversation, find a way to do that using something very simple and not seven paragraphs and then ask the question at the bottom. You know, just keep it kind of simple in the beginning.

Stuart: Yeah, definitely. And simple. We keep it simple even five years down the track. So if anyone wants to kind of copy exactly what we do, then if you haven't already, subscribe to the More Cheeseless Whiskers podcast and visit MoreCheeselessWhiskers.com and opt in to get a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book. And then that will put you on the list and then you'll start receiving those messages and you'll really see how straightforward and conversational we keep it and then replicate that. If you do want us to do it for you, then obviously that's the easiest way to get it done. Reach out to. We're just as I say, a beta testing a group through at the moment before we open the doors on it to the public. But anyone that's listening to this who's particularly interested and wants to be in on that getting on there early, then just send us an email to support a 90 minute books and just put podcast or dial talk done in the subject and then we'll get back to you and share some of the details. Definitely no need to wait for it to be kind of publicly launched and that will by far be the quickest and easiest way to get this done in a way that allows you to get all of these communication points out there by just recording. All you need to do is record that initial content and then we'll take it from there. So, on that note, I will. Let's wrap it up. Show notes, as always across it 90minutebooks.com podcast. And if you've got any questions about what we've talked about today, or you want us to go into more detail, or you want us to jump on board with the DialTalk Done programme for you, just shoot a message to support at 90 Minute Books and then we'll get back in touch.

Guest: Very good.

Stuart: Alrighty. Thanks again for your time, Betsy, and everyone listening. We'll catch you in the next one.

Guest: Very good. Thanks so much. Take care.

Stuart: Cheers. Bye. Bye.