Conversational Syndication

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Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today I'm talking with Dean about the opportunity to syndicate your book and really the art of conversational conversions. So if you run a coaching group or you generate leads for people or you run a sales team, really anything where your success depends on the success of other people's sales, then the opportunity to create a syndicated book can create a huge advantage for you. It's often the case with people talking about books being complicated or difficult to create. It's something that's beyond most people. But even with a straightforward process like ours, it's just not something that they think about. So now listening to this, obviously, knowing what we do, knowing how straightforward it is to create, then really you can kind of get into this willingness gap or this kind of capability gap and create something for them which they can put their name on. You've done all the hard work, but knowing that you have a vested interest in the outcome, you can really benefit from the conversations they're able to start from the book that you've created on their behalf. So that conversations, they get started with the book, then led us into the conversational conversions conversation. And really there we're looking at if they don't engage, then it's not now. So this idea of trying to cover all of the variables of when someone might be ready to get started, really it just boils down to either now or not now. And this idea of conversational conversions is really the way that you can take the next step. So the book is a great way of getting them to raise their hand, but this conversational conversion process is the way that you stay in front of of them, stay relevant to the conversation that's going on in their mind already, and then be there when now is now for them. So with that, I'll let you get this great episode and I'll catch you on the other side. Mr. Jackson.

Guest: Mr. Bell, how are you doing, sir? I'm good. Say for yourself on this fine Friday

Stuart: it is the end of another week, the end of another month, and the year is going scarily quickly already.

Guest: It is, isn't it? That's right.

Stuart: Time flies when you're having fun. That must be yes. Yeah.

Guest: Yes.

Stuart: Well, today, what do you want to know? I want to know two things. I'm not sure whether we'll get to both of them, but two things that have come up so far this year. First, one, lots of people talk about syndicating books, subject that we talked about a couple times before and talked about it on more cheese, less whiskers. But I thought it would be great to dive into that at the beginning of the year. And then the second one, which I'm not sure we'll get to is the follow up. And okay, I've written a book someone's requested opted in, I've maybe got an initial conversation go with an autoresponder. But what do I do to keep that conversation going? And that ties in nicely with the kind of dial talk done type world.

Guest: So sure, okay. So the syndication is a nice winning formula, especially if you're in the business of coaching a number of the same kind of businesses to make more money, to get more clients, to get more leads. A book is a great idea for them for anyone who wants to grow a business. And so if you're the kind of person who is helping them do that, then especially if they're a localized type of business, like if you're talking about chiropractors or dentists or anything that's, you know, where the service is done on a local basis. A personal trainer or a lawn service or landscaper or bathroom planner, all of the things think about the businesses that are kind of only marketing within a very specific geographic area, then that lends itself to a syndication which is what we call when we're doing one book but then licensing it or revolution doing it for many people. So a perfect example on the real estate side of our business we have a book called how to sell your house for top dollar fat which is a great title for a book. It matches our book title formulas. Right. The how to how to sell your house for top dollar fast is crystal clear, clear as to what it's about. And anybody who's thinking about selling their house would want to have a book that shows them how to sell it for top dollar and do it quickly. So a lot of winning on that. Now that title. It's be a shame to waste a book title like that on just one real estate agent in one town when the same book could be used for many real estate agents with very little change. I mean the way we do it and we've got the whole process kind of set up and this is through, you know, I love all the way that our, our sort of collection of companies,

Stuart: yeah.

Guest: Collaborate with each other in that, you know, on our go go agent business, the we collaborate with the 90 minute book team to syndicate that how to sell your house for top dollar fast book to other real estate agents where they get a custom cover for the Book where they're featured as the. The author of the book, and their information is on the inside, you know, pages of the book, along with the, you know, whenever you're ready. Here's, you know, three ways we can help you. All the end matter of the books, all the things pointing you to the right direction are customized for each individual realtor. But it feels like they've got a unique book that's only for them, you know, and the odds that. Yeah, and the thing is there, if one's in Poughkeepsie, they're only gonna. Only people in Poughkeepsie are gonna see that one. And someone else in Kennebunkport is gonna be marketing it in. Just in Kennebunkport. Right. So if you are in a business where you're. You're doing that as a coach, it's a really great tool because you're helping them solve the problem that they need of how to get more. How to get more clients.

Stuart: I think that's the thing, isn't it? Trying to be in a position of a coach, trying to encourage people to write their own book. A subset of people are going to do that and be enthused and engaged and have the time and the mental bandwidth to do it. But for all of that group of people who are at the point where they don't quite see it yet, or they don't have the time yet, or they don't have the inspiration as to what it could be about, or the enthusiasm or willingness to do it, to be able to give something to people that serves 80% of the job, but with 8% of the effort to get it set up as a coach, as the organizer of all of these thoughts, it's such a great way of filling that gap that is difficult to fill as effectively in another way. To be able to do it once and then have it there on the shelf waiting to go and then still have other options for other people who want to do it. A few of the books that we've done for people have turned into syndication ones, almost coincidentally, because they've written their first version first and then have shared it with other people. And that conversation has led to, oh, well, how can I get the same thing? So they almost gone into it as a. As an individual project, but then it's turned into a bigger, much bigger syndication opportunity than they were even thinking beforehand just because of this element. Yeah, I think that point of Betsy and I were talking about last week, I think we're saying this difference between some People get very protective and possessive and want it to be their thing with their name on it and it'd be all about them. Where that's really missing so much of the opportunity. Changing it to the job of work of what it's doing just allows for much more of this syndication idea.

Guest: Yeah, and there's the thing. I mean if it's really, if you're looking at something like, you know, that information can be conveyed, you know, in a standardized way, then it makes total sense.

Stuart: Yeah. So we've got several white level projects and had had several more in the past and there's quite a lot of variation about how we can set those up. And again, this is something that's kind of grown organically by dealing with people and how they individually want to set up the project. So the top dollar example of where it's very automated, it's very cost effective way of doing it because we're just collecting some static details from people, some known details from people, and then adding those into a known place, creating the individualized version of the book. But some of the other projects that we've got, which have been a little bit more detailed but still fall into this kind of white label syndicated route, goes from a financial planning type book where the variables change state by state because the rules change state by state, but it still changes within a known set of variables. So someone will come on board and then we'll start working with them and get those details from them. And then what ends up is a customized version which can change state by state. So there's not a limitation that doesn't have to be a limitation. Three to ones where we've allowed people, the partners that we've been working with have allowed them to add more of a intro paragraph or a closing section at the end of it where they kind of personalize it a little bit more specifically for their business, maybe talk about their approach to working. But still within the framework of the rest of the book has been the same through to the most complicated version that we've got of having the structure of the book, the questions that we ask, the bits that form the chapters, all of those are set up as part of the syndication, as part of the project. But then how people individually answer them, we're asking them the questions and then answering their own words. So it's still structured, but there's obviously more work and more personalization. So the variation, the opportunity to syndicate in many, many different ways. It's been very interest working with people over the last several years to Put these in place.

Guest: And that's, you know, another way of syndicating certainly is how our friend Nick Manton has done lots of, you know, compilation type of books where they'll get, you know, different people to write a chapter, you know, or be a contributor. And that's. And then everybody has the same book. So yeah, there's lots of opportunity there.

Stuart: I think actually that's an interesting one because I think we were talking about something similar with Chris Hill maybe, but the book that he wrote went in a different direction. But one of the early ones we were talking about, and apologies if it wasn't Chris, but he has access to a number of different people in the, in the voluntourism space. So these are all organizations that are trying to make their mark in a movement based space. And he's got, he's the common thread between them all. So one of the options that we were going to talk about there was interviewing each of those to bring that together to create the book which is then you kind of get that synergistic effect of all of these people being brought together in the same place on a, on a white label, a syndication type approach. I can imagine something similar happening if you are in an organization or heading up an organization that has a breadth of experience reaching out to the five or 10 people who are experts in the individual areas within it and then bringing those together as various chapters and then allowing the whole organization to use that book as a lead generation piece. That would be another opportunity that doesn't rely on you creating all of the information yourself, but you're the person bringing it together in a way that creates something for the greater good. It's something that's much more valuable than any one of those people could do individually.

Guest: That's right. And then you've got, now it becomes more of a, you know, then you're. It's going to enhance any sort of coaching program or any type of relationship that you have with, with a client in that you're giving them an actual tool that is going to grow their business, you know.

Stuart: Exactly. And something that would be difficult for them to do by themselves. I mean, yeah, we make the process easy for people to do, but not everyone knows that we exist so outside as a member of the community, just being given that, given that tool as an off the shelf solution, it's a fantastic value add to the program itself. Indeed, that as a. Thinking about the idea of having multiple people contributing to it made me think of the kind of follow on action. So the book Itself is created in an easy way because it's bringing together collective knowledge. But then you've got the opportunity of adding and augmenting the book with interviewing those same people in a. In a video follow up or an audio follow up or getting them on the call to go into the chapters a little bit deeper, which kind of bridges into the second subject we were talking about. Okay, now someone's opted in. How do you follow up with them? What's a good way of following up with them and keeping them engaged until the point they're ready? So the initial autoresponder is obviously the first thing that should get in place, but opportunities to add some more value and add some more of this information that's kind of similar in subject but just goes deeper. And three different mediums is a great way of following up. And then that obviously leads into the kind of dial talk done, podcast type type approach of being that reason for reaching out to people on a regular basis. Yeah, I think it's something that people still don't quite conceptualize. Do you want to talk a bit about the idea behind the thing?

Guest: Yeah. Well, the whole thing, I mean, everything that we're doing is based on our eight profit activators that we talk about in the Breakthrough Blueprint. And the book is a Profit Activator 2 tool which is just getting invisible prospects to raise their hand. So when you're looking at a group of people who live in a marketplace like say Winter Haven or whatever, if you run an ad offering a book called how to Sell youl House for Top Dollar Fast, the people who you can expect that would ask for such a book are people who might be interested in selling their house. Right. Just like if we did a book called the Adult Acne Cure, anybody who asks for it would be someone who has adult acne that they want to get rid of. So it's an identifier more than anything is to get the right people to raise their hand. Now we're immediately into profit activator 3 where the whole goal is to educate and motivate them so that when you make an offer in profit activator 4 that they are willing to come on board and you move them right into your during unit and help them get the help that they want. So when we look at it that we've got a great starting point when somebody asks for the book. The thing, the metaphor that I always use is to imagine it's like a magic portal to your office. And as soon as they press download or send me my Book on the button that they're immediately transported to your office and there's a little knock on your door and they poke their head in and say, hey, I'm here about the how to sell your house for top dollar fast book. Or I'm here about the how to get rid of my back pain without surgery book or I'm here about the adelectric cure book. And whatever the topic is that they're presenting themselves to you as a lead. And you know, I often say, you know, I don't like to think of things in terms of leads because it's very dehumanizing in a way. It makes it very like numbers. Right. But I, but I'm big on acronyms and so I created an acronym to kind of harmonize my dislike for leads with my, you know, my desire to take a one to one approach. And I think about a leads. Think about leads as somebody poking their head in your window, in your door and you know, using the acronym L E A D S of let's engage and do something. That's what they're saying basically, right? When somebody says I'm here about the how to sell my house for top dollar fast book that is really them saying, hey, I'm here and I'm interested in selling my house for top dollar or I'm here and I'm interested in curing my acne. And so whatever the title is, that's why when we titles of books, we make sure that we're, what we're doing is tapping into the silent dialogue that's going on in their mind. The conversation they're already having of boy, I wish there was a way I could get rid of my acne. Or you know, I'm thinking I want to sell my house, but I hope it goes quickly. So you're tapping into the desires. That's what creates that momentum that somebody would want to ask for it in the first place. So when they do that now it's got a great opportunity for us to engage in a dialogue. And the whole thing that we're looking for now is are they five star prospects? And so we kind of put them through the five star prospect filter. And a five star prospect is someone who is willing to engage in a dialogue. They're friendly and cooperative, they know what they want, they're ready to get it and they would like us to help them. Those are, those five things have to be true in order for us to help somebody. So everything that we're doing is just sort of taking us through that process. Of identifying a checklist kind of way is, are they all of these, are they willing to engage? Are they friendly and cooperative? So if somebody asks for the book and we send them a message that's related to what's on the book, if you say we send them a message that the morning after they've downloaded the adult acne cure book and say, hey Stuart, welcome aboard. How often do you get breakouts? That's a reasonable question that you might ask to somebody who presented themselves in your office asking about how to cure their acne.

Stuart: Right.

Guest: It might be a reasonable thing to say, well, how often do you get breakouts? And if they reply to that now, they're friendly and cooperative and you've got a dialogue going in, your whole thing is to see and explore in that dialogue, do they know what they want? Right, right. And so if they're saying, you know, I constantly get breakouts and you're asking what have you, what have you tried so far? And they say, well, I've tried everything, you know, now you're going through all of the things so that you understand what's going on with them and that they understand that you understand. Now he can see if they're ready to get help with it right now.

Stuart: That conversational element of it, I think people get so hung up or caught up with the idea of I just want to put leads in the top and it's a numerical game jumping through the pinball machine and out at the bottom spits a client that's ready to go. So it's so easy to get caught up on that, which unless you're a hundred thousand leads a month level, it's just not, it's not the case. The reality is that you're more likely dealing with individuals in the tens a week rather than in the hundreds a week. And those conversations, especially once you know what the chess moves are, what the next five steps are likely to be, those conversations are very easy to deal with manually because you're going through the motions that are predefined. You know what that friendly, willing to engage, know what they want, you know what the ideal candidate is for that, and then you can add the personal dynamic to it. And that makes such a difference. I was talking to, I was doing some work with Dave yesterday and we were going through a couple of emails there reaching out to people, a kind of nine word email type setup. And the difference between one version that looked very automated and impersonal compared to just changing a couple of words so that it looked very personal as if it was literally a one on one email, that as that conversational conversion idea is game changing really when you think about it.

Guest: Yes, absolutely. I mean that.

Stuart: Yeah, I was just going to say that idea of then expanding that over the long term and understanding that now is not now for everyone, but now is likely to be now for anyone who will convert. So being able to stay in touch with people after they've got to the end of that cycle, but not necessarily, they just weren't quite a five star prospect because now isn't now for them. So this, this thought of keeping that conversation going, but doing it in a way that presents them with opportunities, they raise their hands when now is now for them. The podcast approach that we talk about quite a lot, I think that is a very friendly way of doing it because the alternative is something like a newsletter of broadcast which immediately falls into that automated broadcast, easy to ignore type route, whereas a podcast you've already got the. The whole context of it is a friendly conversational approach. We're creating a rapport with listeners and listeners have a rapport with us, even though we're not actually meeting face to face just because of the nature of the, of the conversation. So that as a way of staying in touch with people, I think has a extra benefit to it just because of the medium almost and because of the psychology of it's not just a newsletter which everyone sees as just broadcast material.

Guest: No, exactly. But there's the thing about that is that you can, you know, address things that when you're looking at the flagship, you know, the podcast, I mean, is, can become your flagship communication that everything kind of revolves around. Right. That when we look at people coming in from a book, the only two time frames that we're looking at is it's either now that they're ready to do something now, or it's not now. And that it sounds so simple. But it's taken me 30 years to get to that point, right. To really understand the profound implications of that. And so I'm doing everything that I can to be there when the time is now. When it's now. And so all I'm trying to do when people ask for a book is to determine if they're ready now and if it's not now, then it's okay. And I go into this orbit of this cadence of a weekly podcast and two emails a week or whatever the right cadence is for, you know, the appropriate kind of scale of whatever business somebody's in that the cadence gets into that. You know, I would Say there's not many situations where twice a month would be the minimum sort of level of reaching out. Most cases you could probably do weekly and in some cases even more. But whatever you figure out that cadence to be is now the, the podcast is a great way to get your message. All the things that somebody would need to know to be educated and motivated enough that when the time is now, they're ready to take action. You know, and it's just such a, it's such an elegant model. It really is. I mean, I've just seen it applied to, to so many things and once you get it up and running, it's just such a beautiful, it's such a beautiful thing. It's an asset.

Stuart: Yeah, I think as well the term just like we talk about the books and a book can mean many different things and we're looking at the minimum effective dose and the things, things about the job of work that it's doing and not getting too drawn into the other things that don't make the boat go faster. Exactly the same with the podcast. You kind of see at the one end of the spectrum there's the, the very, the very low cost services that just broadcast audio, which is great for doing what they do, but it doesn't necessarily tick any of those boxes of the engagement piece that we're talking about. It doesn't give you present an opportunity to be in front of people apart from in that one particular audio channel. Then there's the approach that we take, the kind of middle tier approach which has the audio channel is good enough, but it's easy to do. We're recording on lines like this. We're not going into a studio, we're not trying to line everyone up to be in the same place at the same time. But then we're also putting a lot of focus on staying in front of people across different channels. So putting it on the website, sending out an email about it, putting social media posts up about it so that it reminds people that if they, they are on the edge of now being now, then this is the thing that has the opportunity to trigger them. And then there's the very expensive end of the spectrum where people are suggesting that the only way of doing it is going into the studio and having music beds underneath and producers and engineers tweaking dials and things like that, which just like a very big, heavily produced book is great if you're trying to compete with npr, but very expensive and unnecessary if you're using this as a tool to engage with people. So it's such a great place in time now that there isn't just one opportunity, you've got to invest a massive amount or nothing, or there's only cheap tools or nothing. There's a nice blend of possibilities that really achieve the job of work. The outcome that you're trying to get, which in our case is really the opportunity to stay in front of people in a way that gives them an easy way to take that next step. When now is now.

Guest: Yeah,

Stuart: that's your voice of saying it seemed much more concise than my love I put it.

Guest: That's funny.

Stuart: Yeah, but it is exciting times. It's being kind of.

Guest: And by the way, that whole process can also be syndicated to your. You know, if you're looking at a. You know, if you're coaching people on how to get new business, this whole, that whole sequence can be syndicated in addition to the book. So you're not just giving somebody a book, you're giving them a whole client getting system.

Stuart: And you know what? I've never actually thought about that before, which it seems crazy, the amount of conversations that we have about the individual elements, but that idea of syndicating the podcast element as well, so that it is an end to end system, I mean, that is just a. In fact, I'm immediately just sort of three people that we deal with where that is going to be a game changer for them. Being able to share the content and then allow people to come back to the local representative. That's fantastic. Cool. Well, I think we've given people more than enough to think about. One of the things I wanted to mention quickly before we go is the conversational conversions that we were just talking about is part of Email Mastery. So as you listen to this, if you haven't downloaded a copy of the email mastery book, head over to emailmastery.com and grab a copy of that because that goes into some of these elements in a lot more detail and kind of will help refine the thinking around it, which is really the podcast and the books and the tools that we've got are fantastic. But really getting this conversational conversions idea down will be a game changer.

Guest: Awesome.

Stuart: Perfect. Okay, well, thank you for your time again. We will speak to you next month and I will see you on Monday.

Guest: Okay, talk to you soon.

Stuart: Fantastic. Cheers. Take care. Bye. Bye.

Guest: Okay, bye.

Stuart: There we have it. Another great episode. Always great to get Dean's insights. And it's really a surprise every time something new comes up, like the podcast indication idea there, which again, when you think about it seems obvious, but there's some real leverage to be taken from that follow on process, not just the syndicating of the of the book at the front end. So fantastic episode again. If you want to dive deeper into your book idea, then head over to bookblueprintscore.com and you can measure or score your ideas against the eight mindsets that we've had. If you've got any questions about that or you want to run a thought by us, then just shoot an email to podcast at 90minutebooks and then we'll pick it up. If it's if it's something more one on one, either just make a note on that message or follow the contact us options on the website and we'll pick it up from there. And of course, if you're ready to get going, if you've got a syndicated book idea, if you're just looking to write a book for yourself, then reach out to us. We can have a conversation about how best to set that up or jump on the follow the get started links to get started and we'll be happy to here to help you take it through. Okay, so before I trip over any other words, I will leave you to enjoy the rest of the weekend and we will catch you in the next one.