Building Your Team

Stuart: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the bookmore Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today talking with Betsy. We're going to dive into what turned out to be pretty interesting subject. Thought it was going to be a brief one, but we dive deep into using a book as a tool to build your business via a team. So two elements to this. First one is, is how you can actually build the team with a book. Imagine the scenario where we use real estate as an example, looking to build a team where staff turnover is relatively high, agents have got the freedom to move to any brokerage they want. So using a book to set a tone kind of telegraph the values of the organization really kind of presents yourselves in why people should work with you. So there's a great opportunity there. And we went into a couple more examples broader than that. And then secondly, we looked at using kind of the syndication model. So if you as a business owner have the capability of writing the best possible book, then there's an extended opportunity in being able to, or allowing team members to put their name as the author, as the co author to really build the relationship and a rapport with customers that they're speaking to. So rather than this being a kind of pure ego play that has just your name on it and it being all about you, how you can really leverage a relationship that they have with their people for the greater good of the business. So super interesting, super interesting call today. Really dived into a lot of great examples. There's a couple of links in the show notes, so head over to 90 million books.com podcast and this is episode 94. And there's some links there to some of the things that we refer to. So with that, I will catch you on the other side. Betsy Vaughan, Stuart Bell.

Guest: How are you?

Stuart: Good, thanks. How's it going?

Guest: Good. Great day. Great.

Stuart: Friday, it is another day in paradise, right? Lucy's down in Florida at the moment. So I'm trying to kind of sell the paradise thing quite hard because it's cold.

Guest: Listen, I'm doing the same thing, let me tell you. Don't you want to sit outside some more? She sat out by the pool. It's for the audience. She was here yesterday with me, still here today. And she was out by the pool with her, her little laptop and doing her work. And I'm like, wasn't that just nice?

Stuart: It's very civilized, right?

Guest: And she told me, she said, It's 23 degrees in Philadelphia this weekend.

Stuart: And I'm like, just, it's not going to be you know, Right. We're going back on Sunday. And kind of every now and then, it's like a doorbell camera on the house. Kind of looking like when the postman. The mailman arrives. Postman. Very British. When the helm arrives, kind of. It triggers a look at it every now and then. And haven't yet seen snow on the ground, but it definitely looks cold and leaves off the trees. And yeah, look forward to wrapping up when we go back.

Guest: Not quite as nice. On the side note, Lucy had been dying to see an alligator on her visits down. And finally, we saw an alligator yesterday. And I said, it's not very big. It's only, you know, probably eight or nine feet. And she's like, what?

Stuart: I spoke to her. I got a very excited text at the time with a little alligator emoji. And then when I talked to her a little bit afterwards, she was saying, and Betsy said it wasn't very big, but it was eight or nine feet. It's all relative.

Guest: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So.

Stuart: Well, before heading up to the chilly north, we should do a podcast.

Guest: Let's do it. What are we going to talk about today?

Stuart: I think, because this came up in conversation in the week. So I thought what we talk about is using a book to build teams. So there's a couple of different elements to that. Either using a book yourself to build your team or using a book as an amplifier for the members of your team so that obviously your success is dependent on their success. So how can we kind of orchestrate or help that success as much as possible? And using a book is obviously a great way of doing that. And there's a scalability when we start bringing in team dynamic as well. So we have talked about this in the past in terms of, like, syndication books. So there's a couple of previous episodes. So as you're listening, if you want to go a little bit deeper on more of the syndication side of things, which is leveraging a book, but not necessarily with your own team, but with other people, then I'll put a note. I'll put a link in the show notes, too. I'll find that episode and put a link in the show notes. But, yeah, just search for the syndication episode and there's more on that. But, yeah, this time I thought we'd concentrate on your own team and see where we go then.

Guest: Sounds good.

Stuart: I just realized before we start, I've made the classic podcasting mistake of not getting any coffee before we start. So we might be constrained not necessarily by time, but by my voice, given out today. A blessing for everyone.

Guest: No, no, we love it.

Stuart: I thought we'd talk about team building in two ways. So start off. I'll go a bit deeper on that. First way is using a book to build a team. Now we've talked before, there was an episode that we did with Kevin Craig where his book that he wrote was initially an internal book. It kind of set the, it was kind of like a positioning for their team, almost like a state of the nation or here's how we work type book. But actually because the information he shared there was really this is how we do business ourselves that then expanded into something that he was giving to other people, people who knew him as a successful business owner and kind of had that I'd love to buy you a coffee and talk to you for 10 minutes, that type of conversation. Using that book as a, as an extra resource either to. If you didn't have time to meet people or when meeting people as a kind of something to take away and go a little bit deeper on. But the information was, was broadly the same and that led into a whole unexpected coaching business. And now it's got a pretty successful and big coaching business. But where it came from in the first place was here's our organization, here's our values, here's what's important to us. Let me write this in a book so all of our team members that come on board can read this. And it really benchmarks the expectations to a certain degree and make sure that everyone's on the same page as far as the, the values of the organization go. And him as the business owner and founder and kind of driving thought behind it kind of opens up everyone's, gives everyone an opportunity to see his perspective when he didn't necessarily get the opportunity to talk to them day by day. So we've done a couple of books like this that kind of branches into the legacy book kind of thing, which you've done quite a few of in the past. So that example is where a family member talking about, kind of like talking about generational wealth setting, but the family member who's maybe getting towards an age where they're going to pass away at some point. So trying to capture their thoughts and where they came from and using that as a start of a conversation of what they want to do with their money after they're gone. So this idea of setting the values in stone, giving the stories to back up where they come from as a team building exercise, I think that's a great opportunity and it's not Something we talk about very much because we're often talking about sales and lead generation, but as an exercise to really get the boat moving on the, on the team building side, I think it's a great way of introducing that conversation and then obviously you can go from there.

Guest: Absolutely agree with that. I was thinking about one of the books that we did might have been Ron Age of Egypt, Egypt book and the way that it's a legacy book. But the things that he talks about in that book, the stories are great. I mean, just from, you know, just learning about someone. But the, the stories that he shares, there's so much that. Not just, you know, and he wrote that book specifically for his family, but it became something when I was reading some of the stories. There's so many lessons in there, you know, and so much advice that, you know, and that wasn't necessarily this his purpose, but that's how it came across. Like if you're really reading something and, and seeing what he's saying between the lines, like you really take away so much from those books and you can

Stuart: imagine how that amplifies. So reading it as an outsider, I mean, the extent of our relationship with him was just going through the process as a client, really. But imagine reading that as a family member and how close and personal those stories are and the opportunity to. On the legacy side of things, we do quite a lot of these projects and it's exceptionally valuable. Kind of the wealth management community. And if actually, if anyone's listening to if as you're listening, if you are in that space, the wealth management space and kind of that generational transference, then reach out, just hit reply because we've got another project that we've done some work on, but we're going to push a little bit more in 2020 for the legacy book side of things. So this is specifically looking at people who are doing wealth planning, but the clients have a challenge. Doing the wealth planning is difficult enough sometimes, but then one of the major challenges is being able to have that conversation with the people who are left behind, the inheritors. So using a book as a way to start that conversation because very oftentimes it's, you can do all of this work, but when it actually comes to sharing the details with the family, that's when problems start. So.

Guest: And that's exactly, I think with that book for sure. Like that just the way he was telling things, like there was so much, so much value to that. So if ever the family members forget some of the things or.

Stuart: Right. You know, why it's been done.

Guest: Why exactly there's that reference point because you can't always remember every single thing that you know, your father or grandfather or mother told you, you know, and to have that. And from a business standpoint, not just the. The fun stories of grandpa, you know, back in the day, you know, it's.

Stuart: There's so much, so much value even just itself. The. I've seen quite a few ads in the last year for a service whose name escapes me at the moment. It might come back. If it does, I'll stick in the show notes. But it was a service where almost like. So everyone buys Ancestry. It's a. There's a gift, the gift to give, which is my kind of data protection and security radar goes off about any service that collects everyone's DNA. The guy couldn't possibly imagine a problem with that scenario. But anyway, so that you sound like

Guest: my 23 year old daughter because somebody gave me one of those for Christmas

Stuart: and I knew that. And as I started that I remember you saying at Christmas when we were talking again, I kind of resisted from saying it then and I'd forgotten that you'd got one. So it wasn't a. There was no code in underlying messages.

Guest: It wasn't like, don't do it, Betsy.

Stuart: No, no.

Guest: Yeah, it's sitting there.

Stuart: Right. The funny thing is the like for every kind of ancestry. What's the name of the 23andMe? Sorry. Yeah, for every one of those ads that I see, it's almost like within the next 24 hours I hear another story about someone who was. Got the gift for Thanksgiving, but then by Christmas was in a divorce situation because some weird paternity thing flagged up and unknown relatives are knocking on the door.

Guest: Oh, you know, that's true.

Stuart: We went off on a bit of tangent there. So what I was going to say was this other service, which again, so there's definitely. So Ancestry23andMe. There's definitely a movement out there of people wanting to grab hold of their roots. I'm guessing it's something to do with the kind of. Sociologically we're moving away from storytelling individually with people. So because you'd never spend time with grandparents to get those stories, everyone's heading their phones and never visits anyone. So we're trying to kind of plug that under underlying human need with technology. So I don't actually want to make time to hear all of these stories necessarily, but it'd be good if there was a service that captured it for me so that maybe when I get around to it, I can listen to it. So this other service is again something that you would buy for someone else. But there's a series of 10 to 15 questions they've got. The relative will just dial into the service and record the answers and then those answers will get transcribed and it gets turned into a book and they've got an opportunity to upload some pictures and it just turns into a bit of a more thoughtful picture book of their life. So the legacy book is very much similar. Not only is there a job of work it can do by starting a conversation, but it's also a way to capture those stories which family members with the best intentions might not get around to do. Very different motivations, whether you're actually going into it for job one or job two, so be mindful of that. But there is definitely a secondary benefit, even if you were going into it from a driven by a wealth management desire, but still opportunity to share the stories. Jumping back to the team building and the work side of things, then the same goes, although obviously a different dynamic. People aren't quite as close to their job as they are to their family in most cases. But it's definitely the amount of time. The second biggest amount of time that you spend anywhere is at work. And people do get very connected with the organization, particularly when they're smaller organizations that are more personal touch. So for a business owner to be able to share the purpose and why we do what we do, not only does it kind of make that connection with the employees, but it does allow you to kind of steer the conversation a little bit in, in the direction that you want. So, yeah, it's thinking about.

Guest: We did a book and I cannot for the life of me remember who it was for. But it was strictly an internal book and it wasn't a large business, but it was. It was almost like I'm not even near my computer, so I can't even go searching for it on the gallery. But they did this book as sort of a. An employee handbook. But it was more of a. This happened. This is how we solved the problem. There was a lot of those kind of stories in there. And I thought, boy, wouldn't that be great. Employee handbook. You know, it wouldn't just be this typical, like show up at work at 8 o' clock and leave at 5. It would not be that boring. It was all about their culture. Oh, it's gonna kill.

Stuart: Is it the UK one, The guys who own the parks in the uk?

Guest: No, I don't think so. I'm gonna think about this and look at it. Yeah, yeah.

Stuart: The other one that swings to mind, obviously because we're close to Robin, is Robin Estevez's stories.

Guest: Yeah, that's a great book.

Stuart: And the level of detail. So they own what's bigger than grocery stores? Yeah, grocery stores. I was gonna say what's bigger than a convenience store. But yeah, grocery stores.

Guest: Yeah.

Stuart: As part of a larger franchise. But across the family, they've got. They've got quite a few stores all around New York, Jersey and up in. Up in that area. So that was very much done as an internal book and a book for their customers that they were closest to because they're very much. I think they're Foodtown Stores is the name of the brand, but they're very much. Robin's very front and center in the store. He's very much got this family groceries Persona and engages with people individually. So not only was that used for their team members, but also for their customers as well, particularly those ones that they were closest to. So this idea of not just using a book for lead generation, but using it to serve another purpose and to start another conversation and to feel, make people feel, or give people the opportunity to feel included and involved in the story is there's so many individual opportunities that come from it.

Guest: Absolutely, yeah.

Stuart: The other area of team building is then to build the team in the first place. So we talk, as I mentioned, a lot about lead generation from the customer side, but really lead generation from an employee side is very valuable in a number of organizations as well. So obviously if you only got one or two staff, then writing a book to find a third member of staff probably isn't worthwhile if that was your only purpose for it. But in a large organization, an organization where it's competitive, an organization where the kind of story of your company is as much as important as the thing that you actually do. So I'm thinking about any kind of movement or companies that have set up very much around principles, not necessarily so much around product. A lot of times that's just used as kind of like a lever to get some news traction. But there are quite a lot of organizations that really start out as mission driven companies and then the product kind of comes from it. The other element as well is even if it's not doesn't make sense to write the books individually or specifically just for talent acquisition, then keeping that in mind as a secondary purpose is very valuable as well. So whether the book is focused on culture and why your organization is different, both in A way that it deals with customers and employees or whether it's talking about the unique tools or approaches or products that you've got. And that's why this is the place to work, this is the place to be a customer of. Then all of those, all of those elements can contribute towards that team building. The ones that particularly spring to mind of the likes of real estate teams where there is. That's probably the biggest model I can think of. So this idea of independent contractors being brought together under the banner of an organization or an association. I can't think of many other businesses where it's. That's quite such the common way of working.

Guest: Not to that degree for sure. Yeah.

Stuart: No. So when you think about real estate agents or broker real estate teams having. It's not uncommon to have teams of 100 plus people in a workforce that can go anywhere. Once someone's licensed and has experience they become more desirable. It can get into a numbers game where people are just thinking about well can I get a better deal over here versus over there? Writing the book about why ABC Realty team is the place to both be a member of the team and a customer of the team can have that dual purpose of really making that case for why agents would want to come to work for you because of these values and why customers would want to work for you have it as part of the listing or buyers package that you give to people to onboard them in the first place. It's another. I don't think many people are doing it either. I think that's another reason why it's. It's such a interesting approach because no one else is really doing. Everyone else is concentrating on the numbers or they've got a way of recruiting.

Guest: But I think you hear that lingo in the real estate world a lot like you know, our culture, our family come be a part of the xyz, you know, there's that hole. But then I always, I am always curious and I do think, I think one of the bigger ones. I remember my mother was associated. She owned part of a real estate company in Citrus county here in Florida and the Keller Williams culture, you know and I think there's a. There's a great book out there that talks all about the. I remember seeing it maybe she had on her desk or on her library or something but talks about there culture and that really is so I mean across the board if not real estate but just learning about the company, the, you know, how they got to where they are, how they. I think knowing that stuff as somebody who's new, coming on board, like it's so beneficial, you know, or even before you come on board, sort of that onboarding process, you know.

Stuart: Yeah. That book that Gary Keller wrote, the Millionaire Real Estate Agents, is kind of that founding principle that goes wider than their organization, but it definitely puts like at the. At the corporate level, it definitely sets the tone. And Keller Williams's major events are called family reunions. So they're definitely organizationally in that direction. But you can imagine going down to the individual brokerage teams and kind of following that through and really talking about the culture of the organization and using it as a. Just using it for team building. Talking about the culture and the values and what you can expect and why we're different and why it makes. Why you should come and work for us. Because that turnover is so much talking to people in that space around the bigger teams. That turnover is so high relative to other industries that I think that's the one space where it really does make sense to write specifically for that purpose. Whereas for a lot of organizations probably makes a little bit more sense that maybe have a dual purpose of talking about it in the context of employees, but clients as well. So that was those two examples. So that's building the team, using a book to build the team. So using it as an attractor to bring people towards the organization. The second way of thinking, rather I mentioned before, was using the books to kind of allow the team to leverage their sales activity. So not a syndication book in the sense of going out of the organization, but kind of syndicating it within the organization. So a book's often kind of like a vanity play. Too many times people think about it as getting their name on the billboard or being able to say that they're an author, which we've talked lots of times before. There's plenty of reasons why there are benefits to that. It just shouldn't be the main focus. If you can have a more specific way of using the book, the more direct marketing response type approach rather than just a kind of brand building type approach, then you get all of the benefits of being specific. But also there's a kind of side benefit and all of the side benefits that kind of the brand element brings. So imagine a scenario where you as the business owner write the book which is the most valuable to the customers because you're the most engaged, you're the person that knows it the best. You've been around for the longest time. You've got the authority to go and collect all of this Information and then writing a book that serves all of the needs of the book blueprint scorecard that we talked about before. So it's the best book because you're talking to a single target market. You've got a title that resonates and gets people to raise their hand. The subheading kind of amplifies the emotion underneath the title. You've got the call to action, you know very clearly where you want people to go to next. And the outline clearly takes them from the title to that next minimum viable commitment, next step. So all these things as the business owner, you can write the best version of that. Now if you just had your name on it, that's fantastic. But it doesn't allow the sales team, the people who are out there dealing with the customers face to face. It doesn't give them any authority. Yes, there's an element of hey, here's a copy of our organization book, my CEO wrote it and he's the best and kind of all of that type of thing. Which again is a bit of an ego play. But it doesn't necessarily build the relationship with the individual. If there was an opportunity where instead of having your name on the front, you put the team members name on the front, then that adds that extra layer of credibility. And when we think about the purpose of the books that we're creating, it's to build the business, it's not to build our personal brand, at least not in this context. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we're just not talking about in this context. If there's an opportunity to amplify and leverage the effectiveness of the team, then from a company perspective that's going to be more beneficial than just trying to capture, keep all of the accolades for yourself and not allow the team to build that rapport, build that authority with the customers.

Guest: So I think it also, when you think about teams that we deal with a lot of times there's always a compliance issue, you know, and which is sort of a thorn in our side. So you think, okay, it comes from, from the top level, be it the business owner or what have you, then you kind of save yourself the aggravation of dealing with that kind of thing because you know, you are in line with company policy, your name's on it and it gives, it really is sort of the whole package. It gives you that, that credibility. But you don't have to do all the work behind it. Plus, you know, it's uniform with, with, with the, you know, aligns with, with what the Business is. And you don't have to worry about any kind of issues, you know. Yeah, that's an easy way to get a book done.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. And even if everyone was as lined up with compliance as. As the owner, so they were going into it with the best possible position, just the duplication and the need to have to get it signed off four times all the time and overhead to create. So think about the real estate example. Just because we started with that before, and it's an easy one that people can. Everyone can imagine what that situation is. So a real estate office, even if the business owner could convince the 20 agents that they have in town that they should write a book because that's a great way to engage customers, then what those 20 books is going to look like. Because person one will write living in Winter Haven, the guide to buying and selling in in Winterhaven. So what does person number two do then? A book that's less effective, that has a less good title, that doesn't include some of the same stuff. It's very much unnecessarily reinventing the wheel organizationally. If the organization writes the Living in Woodhaven book and then each agent, as they're working for the company can put their name on the front of it so that when they go to a listing appointment or when they have buyers, when they're shopping, showing homes to buyers, they give them a copy of the book that's got their photo on their name on the front. We do this, we've got a syndicated book because obviously we're not. We don't have a real estate brokerage, so we're doing it externally rather than internally, but we've got a syndicated book, how to sell you book, how to sell your book, how to sell your house for top dollar, which is something that we use with the real estate agents that we work with, but that serves this exact purpose. It allows them to have something that they need to support almost no effort into creating because we done that work for them, it allows them to have their name and their photo on the front of something that they can give to a customer and take some of that credibility, some of that kind of author, kudos for having written something, but then also the super valuable information in there, so it's actually delivering value in and of itself and all other elements being equal. If there were two listing appointments, then someone that also has the credibility and delivers the value in the extra step of the book is again, all things being equal, going to be held in higher esteem than the person that didn't provide that. So as the organization owner, being able to write the first one, but then put someone else's, put the facing person's name and face on it just makes the organization more effective and it makes the boat go faster for the organization separate from the one individual holding onto it, feeling that they need to have their name over it. Because God forbid someone might not realize how much hard work and sweat extra they put into it, regardless of how effective that is. Some of the ways just on that point to elaborate a little bit further or harp on a little bit further, we've seen a couple of examples where people will only be willing to do it if it's co branded, if it's got their name on it, or someone else, or they only want to do it if the other person just writes a forward, so it's still their book, but the other person's allowed to write a forward, given the honor of writing a forward just so that they can get their name on it as well. It's very, it's beholden on everyone, I think, to think about what the job of work if this is, and if it is lead generating to gain more business, then what is the most effective way to get that done? Is it that your face is plastered all over it, or is it that the, the the expectation or the mental model around it is that the customer is being given the book by the person whose name is on the front and building in more of a direct relationship rather than having just to anchor it back to someone else? As with everything, there are a number of examples where that does make sense still. Well, I say that there aren't that many examples where it makes sense, but there are one or two. So if for example, there is a brand building element that also makes sense. So having writing a book that is written by the business owner, but then is supported by the team and has a chapter written by the team member that adds in a dynamic that is specific to that person. So 80% of the content is standard and it's the ideas of the individual, but the 20% is kind of topping and tailing it with the perspective of the salesperson, then that might be a way that works too. So if the content is very ideas driven, if it's something unique, if there's a reason why the individual, the business owner individual in this example is the authority and it does make sense. The main bulk of the content is that stuff. So if for example, you invented a widget and the main topic of the book was talking about why you invented the Widget and why the widget is so special. But your sales team are then out there selling widgets to different industries. So having the salesperson write the top and tail chapter that talks about. In this book, we share with you the story of how it came to pass, the reason that it's very special for this industry, or why this industry can really leverage it, or why it's going to make a big difference to your business. In this industry. That model kind of makes sense because then you get the best of both worlds. You've got the inventor writing the background to the thing, but you've got the salesperson who's going to be doing the facework, introducing the subject, introducing the, the inventor to the reader, and then closing at the end with and they have it. That's why this was important. That's why it's why it can make a difference to your business. And here's what you should do next. So there are some examples where it does work, but I think for the majority of people, writing one version of living in Winter Haven and allowing each individual agent to put their name on the front of it is the most beneficial way of going for most people.

Guest: I agree, I agree with that. Excuse me, less work. But I think the idea that someone, when you're talking about syndication, that's a great idea too. I think it, it gives someone that sense of, I mean, I know most, a lot of people are fine to say, yeah, put my name on the book, it's good, you know, it's great, whatever. But because sometimes people are lazy like that, you know, they just don't want to put the effort into it. But having the opportunity to put, you know, a chapter in there that gives someone a real sense of accomplishment and pride, I think, you know, even kind of elevates them. So that goes to that team building thing, you know, it really like just sort of elevates a person like, oh, this, I really did have a say in this. And so I'm kind of all about that. I like that idea, you know, a little bit. So.

Stuart: And that's actually, I mean, that's another good point as well. The benefit of, of doing the majority of the work and making it as easy as possible is a great solution for organizations or people where they either don't have budget or time or interest in doing something else. It's that entry level, minimum effective dose type book of here's a way of getting something out there. But I completely agree with you. If the context is right and someone can personalize it, even More then it a makes it more personal, obviously, but it also gives them more ownership, as you were saying, and it allows their voice to come through a little bit more. So definitely as the second tier, allow people to have a little bit more ownership of it. And as long as it's serving the purpose that it's designed for, as long as they're not then trying to manipulate it and switch it into an ego play on their own. Right, which probably is less. There's less opportunity for that because there's fewer words that if they want to go down that route then they can write their own book. So there's not too much opportunity for it. But yeah, with the right intent, it definitely gives more ownership and buying, buy in and skin in the game for adding their own stuff to it. So interesting. I mean, before we started recording, we were talking about, as we always do, what we're going to talk about today and thought this might be a quick idea. But as you start peeling back the layers of the onion and start thinking about the individual use cases, I think a great way of thinking about it as an exercise as you, as you're listening and wondering if this is right for you, is thinking take the book out of the context, take the book out of the conversation and just think about it as a physical conversation. So if the three people were in Starbucks, there was you as the business owner, the potential client and the salesperson. All three of you are in Starbucks. What would that conversation look like? Not in the specifics of the words, but in the dynamic of the conversation? Does it make sense that you do all of the introducting. Do you do all of the introducing to the, to the individual salespeople? Does it make sense that the salespeople have got the relationship but they want to introduce you? Does it make sense that you're there but actually just stay the hell out of the way and let them get on with it? So not so much the details of the conversation, but just the connection and how the relationship builds. What's the most likely to have a successful outcome and get that potential client to become an existing client? Those blocks, those moving parts, those kind of Personas or personalities, how they connect together in the most logical way. Thinking about it in a physical sense in a coffee shop is a very easy way to think about. Okay, if I could jot out how that would work. Now I overlay a book on it to do some of the job. Because a book can work when you're not physically there. What should, should that book look like? Because it's so easy to get carried away in the technicalities or the, the process of the book itself that you can disconnect or forget about what you're actually trying to achieve. And what you're trying to achieve is that same relationship, that same dynamic, that same outcome, but just with different moving parts with different elements in a different context. But I think that's really a useful way of validating should you be involved? Should it be all about you or should it be about someone or something else?

Guest: Yeah, I agree with that and I think that's an easy way to think about that. I think your example was great because I think people have tried to of go through it like, oh, should I do this and how should I do this? And what should I do this and should I include this person? And how much is too much? And you know, is it about me or is it about the company?

Stuart: I think I'm going to try and remember that example. I just. If only this was being recorded. I'm going to try and remember this example in the future. Because so often I think there is this issue of getting caught up in the what rather than the why. So like needing to get from A to B. If you think about why you need to get to A to B and what the. What the outcome is and the constraints. So do you need to be there by a particular time? Why are you going there? Which kind of influences what you're wearing and how much time you leave yourself and how important it is and whether it matters, whether you're late. All of that is easy to conceptualize, but often it gets forgotten about if you're thinking about actually driving there. So when you're a very new driver, then the actual mechanics of it kind of overtake the outcome or the purpose because you've got so much mental energy into, okay, well how do I drive from there to them? What's going on with this other traffic and all of these other elements? Because it hasn't yet gone into your subconscious mind. Learning to drive in the UK it's 90. Well, when I was learned to drive, 99% of it was stick shift and automatics were few and far between. So when you add in the extra dynamic there of changing gear and dealing with the clutch and all of those elements, then it's. That takes up so much thinking that the purpose and the other stuff kind of becomes secondary until you get to the point where it's second nature and then you can think much more about the purpose and all of the other elements become more important. So the same with this. In this slightly convoluted example. The same with this. It's so easy to get caught up in the mechanics of writing the book and some of the specifics. Even with the. Some of the elements of the scorecard, the book blueprint, scorecard, some of those are detailed. Although we try and keep them to strategy rather than technique, you can still get caught in the weeds a little bit. So any opportunity you've got to take the, Take the individual, the specifics of what you're trying to do, take those out and put it back into a context that you're very familiar with so that you can just concentrate on the why. It makes it easier. So forget about the book as a mechanism. What you're trying to do is engage people in a conversation that's beneficial to the business. The book mechanism is complicated to think about because there's some moving parts. The Starbucks example is easy to think about because you've done it a million times. So you're you. You into the subconscious stage of the mechanics and can focus on the purpose. So super useful in a number of scenarios to kind of switch the context so that you're just thinking about the. The why in a familiar circumstance. And then once you've decided on the why and you've got that straight in your mind, then overlay the. The how or the what, the specifics. It's. Yeah. Very useful way of thinking about it in the. In a different way.

Guest: That's good stuff there.

Stuart: There we go. I can feel my voice starting to go, if it hasn't already. We had a little bit of a technical glitch in the middle, which I'm going to edit out in post. Hopefully if I hadn't said that, no one would have known. But if you do hear anything a little bit disconnected in the middle, then that's why. But hopefully we didn't lose anything important.

Guest: Exactly. That's the hope. Something you said real fast I just thought was really great and I'm going to remember it. I wrote it down. The book works when you are not physically there. Like that is like such a great statement. Like, you know, it really is to think about it. You know, you've given that book to someone and they can, you know, it's, it's. They're looking at it, reading it, and you don't have to be physically present for that. I'm going to remember that I wrote it down. So I'm going to.

Stuart: And you know what to try dive into it just a little bit deeper while I'VE got a few more minutes in my voice to go into a little bit deeper. It's so often people think about ad campaigns as ways of identifying customers when you're not there, or emails as well as delivering a customer when delivering a message when you're not there. The book is very easy to think about it in just one of those contexts and one of those contexts is important. So it's a way of getting people to raise their hand when you're not there. That's true. But it's also a way of doing all of these other things. And again, a lot of those things we talked about in the book Blueprint School Card, when you look at the higher mindset, so the higher levels of each mindset across those eight stages, then the highest mindset of each of them is really looking to make sure that your book can do all of those jobs when you're not there. So it's not just that it's raising hands, but it's also setting the scene for the story and guiding people towards an outcome at the back and giving people a very easy next step that they can take all without you being there. So it gets them to raise their hand, it gets them to think about what the problem is and presents them with a solution that they may or may not have been aware of previously. It evidences how easy it is to take the next step and presents a very simple to get started next step so that it just moves the conversation one step further down. But I'm glad that you picked up on that because it is worth thinking about and it definitely ties back into the scorecard of the book. Can serve all of those, not all of those purposes, but it has. There's a journey to the book itself. It's not just one step. It's definitely because we do talk about it as one step quite a lot. We talk about these things as profit number two elements of getting people to raise their hand and then you can start the journey. But it definitely does some of that additional work in the thing itself. Not exclusively and not completely. It's not just have it and then suddenly customers will pop out of the back. There is more to it than that in the beyond the book stages particularly. But yeah, it definitely does. It definitely serves that purpose well if you think of each of those eight. Perfect. Okay, well thank you for everyone listening. Thank you for your time as always, Betsy. And we will catch everyone in the next one.

Guest: Take care of.