Syndicate Your Knowledge

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today joined by Betsy Vaughan. We're going to dive into a subject that's digital hearts. Love talking about this with people because it's this whole idea of leverage is, is fascinating and some of the projects that we've seen with people, they've really been able to increase the scope and really make some changes for the businesses they work with. So we're talking today about syndicating books. This is the idea of you creating the first version of the book and then allowing others to use it, put their name on the front of it, use it in their marketing funnels to start the conversations in a way that they don't have to think about the content themselves. So as the syndicate or you've already gone through the steps of making sure that this is the most effective tool that it can be. The content is on point, the type of person that the targeting is on point. The call to action is dialed in. Now, allowing other people to use it means that they can benefit from this and really start conversations. Now, obviously this isn't something that you're going to sell to every man on the street, but this is really for people who are influenced by your way of thinking. So it could be either people that work with you, people that you work with, organizations, coaching organizations that you run, networking groups that you run, or people who you do marketing for. You haven't gone through all of the effort to set it up. This isn't something that they're necessarily going to think to do themselves either because there's no interest, or it's just not an idea that they've had. But allowing them to leverage your content and you being able to charge accordingly for that really means that they get a great product and tool and marketing asset that starts conversations and you obviously get to charge the appropriate amount of money for providing that service for them. So great conversation. We go through a number of different types of examples and again mention at the end that if you've got a project like this in mind or if this has sparked some interest, then for sure reach out to us at hello. At 90 Minute Books, just put syndication in the subject and more than happy to jump on a call and run through it the number of or the projects that we've worked like this with in the past. It's been great to see the numbers that people have generated from an idea that didn't necessarily exist before. So very passionate about this subject. So with that, I'll let you get on with the episode and we'll catch you on the other side. Betsy Vaughan.

Guest: Stuart Bell. How are you?

Stuart: Good, thank you. The recording just threw me for a second because usually I hear it say this call's being recorded, but it didn't actually say that, but the buttons on the screen assure me that it is.

Guest: So I heard it. It said it.

Stuart: Oh, it did. Ah, perfect.

Guest: It did, yeah.

Stuart: So in that case, everyone else is going to hear that as well, which is always good for podcasts.

Guest: So what do you want to talk about today?

Stuart: So today I thought we'd talk about something that's come up. We had a great call earlier in the week with someone talking about the potential for syndicating their book or a version of their book. So there was that call that you and I were both on and then added a conversation with someone else as well. So there's definitely a spike of interest. It's a hugely interesting subject. We've done a number of these projects before and it's. It's pretty astounding to see what people manage to do with them, building this asset, this book asset into programs that they've already got existed or even creating new programs with this as a, as a tool. So, yeah, it's always fantastic to see what people do with it. So well worth diving into that and hopefully sow the seed of a few ideas with people.

Guest: I had a great, great topic, like you said, we have had a lot of conversation and I know I hung up from our call and had a call immediately afterwards with someone else interested in doing it. So, yeah, so there's definitely some interest. So it's a great, great tool to use, you know, just. It's a great tool in a marketing. One of the guys that we talked to is really interesting. He's like, you know, I'm really trying to use this to promote me a little bit more, you know, and it's a great way to do it. So. Yeah, so, all right, let's dig into it.

Stuart: Alrighty. So let's set the scene a little bit. So what we're talking about is kind of syndicating or white labeling a version of the book that you've got. So if you're a person by yourself, you're an independent business owner or you are the head of an organization, but it's just of a, of a charity or a community group. It's just you, you're trying to use a book to introduce your ideas, your framework, your manifesto, if you like. Then this isn't necessarily that relevant in the Beginning because you really targeting that one group of people and it's very specialized and specific to you. But if you're in a business where you've either in a franchise type model, whether or not it's technically a franchise, but whether there's. So the example of the call that we were on it was we're talking to financial advisors who are under the same umbrella, although they're independent. Previously we worked with projects where it's groups of people under elder care. Again financial advisor twist towards it. But elder care groups, medical practices, dentists, all of these organizations where there's a commonality. If you're the who's trying to bring that group together, if you've got a presence in either coaching or consulting or you're heading up some marketing efforts for a broader group. I mean even we've done real estate ones where there were just three or four agents within the real estate office. This idea of having the one book that delivers that great valuable content to start a conversation, but then allowing other people to put their name on it so that you improve the footprint, increase the footprint, but then also improve the overall group's response rate or success because more people are able to use this great tool as a way of starting conversation. So more conversations are started. This whole idea of trying to tell people to write their own book if it's not a thought that they've ever had, they might kind of conceptually understand it's a great idea, but the overhead of doing it is just. It's too much of a step unless they come to it as their own idea. Very few people.

Guest: Well, and sometimes it's not necessary to always reinvent the wheel either. You know, if you're in the same organization and you're all either selling the same services, products, whatever, you know, this is a simple way to do it. You know, we don't need.

Stuart: That's a great. That's a fantastic point because organizationally those a hundred units worth of effort that you've put into create it, expecting five other people to do the same is just such a waste of effort where you could do it once and then everyone else can just get on with doing other things. I mean we often talk about the beyond the book type things of okay, now the book's complete. I've got some leads coming in from people requesting it. Now what do I do? This idea of creating the follow on sequences that really nurture that conversation through to some kind of conclusion or sales opportunity, that's always an afterthought for so many People. So within an office, creating one person creating the book and then another person spending those same hundred units working on the follow up and then another person spending their 100 units working on the referral strategies or this complementary non competing business idea of okay, how do we distribute it further? It's just such a better use of time rather than expecting everyone to, like you say, reinvent the wheel. It's fantastic.

Guest: Everybody write a book on the same subject. You know,

Stuart: particularly in that example of the real estate office. I mean, you hit the nail on the head there in the sense of, okay, everyone now trying to write their version of the same subject. Because in that close group, I mean it's different. If you very spread out in different offices and different specializations or kind of takes on specialization, then you could come up with five or six different best ways of generating leads. Like you might work with different groups of people, so you just tailor it to those different groups. But if the organization is very similar and then you're trying to say, well, this is my book that I wrote and I've got my name on the front of it, but I don't want to give it to you, and now you've got to write a book on a different subject, I mean, that really starts devaluing the most valuable tool if you're just trying to artificially force people down a different route.

Guest: Right, right, it does, yeah.

Stuart: So the, the mechanics of it. So hopefully that's positioned the idea. The idea is you've got a great lead generation tool. It's the, you've written it from your expertise, the knowledge that you're bringing. Hopefully you've taken the time, you've maybe gone through the book blueprint, scorecard and thought about the types of person that you're looking to engage with. What are their main pressing questions? How are they starting the conversation? How can you add value to them? So hopefully you've gone through all of these exercises so you've got the one thing that provides the great value, the next steps, the call to action, this minimum viable commitment call to action on the back. Hopefully again, you've had time to kind of refine that and think, okay, of all of the people who are going to read this, there are going to be very hot prospects who are ready to go now. So what opportunity do I give them to raise their hand to actually get started? There's going to be some people who aren't quite ready yet, but maybe they're going to be, the time is going to be right for them in the next Three to six months. So what things can I give them to encourage them to move down that journey faster, or if they're moving at their own pace, then stay front of mind until today is the day for them. And then there are going to be people who are just tie kickers. And they're not that they're well away from their 18 months out, but they know they're broadly interested. They're just not in a position for whatever reason to be, to be there now. So I mean, let's stick with realtors as the example. That might be people who are thinking about moving into the area as an aspirational thing when their next job move comes up, or when the kids leave home or when they've got a certain amount of equity in their property. These people who are 18 months out, what steps do we have in place where we can stay in touch with them for the long haul, for the long duration and kind of build that relationship over time? And I told the story before, but I know I've told it in other places and Dean often refers to it as well. But if we talked about the real estate, the real estate call that happened up in north of Gloucester, Cape Town, up north of Boston.

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I've heard it. I don't, I mean, I don't know if our listeners have heard it, but I, I know it, but it's a great example, you know.

Stuart: So this idea of staying in for the long haul we often talk about. Dean's talked about the. I'm blanking on the name of the report, but there was a report done a while ago, a conference, a seminar, trade show type environment where they surveyed people kind of like every 90 days for the next four years after the event and found out when people bought the thing that they were interested at. The trade show question, hey, were you interested in particular products? Yes. Okay, if yes, then in what time frame did you buy or have you bought now? And then they just repeatedly asked them. And this idea that only 15% of people are converting immediately, but the 85, the remaining 85% of people who would convert. So again, not 100% of people convert, but of those that do convert, as in buy something, only 15% of people do it immediately or in the very near term. And then the 80% form this long tail of people who had an idea on the day but then didn't get a chance to execute it until somewhere between 90 and three years later, whatever the time frame was. So with the real estate example, we often talk to our realtors about sending out Market Watch newsletters, which is ideally a weekly or a fortnightly update of everything that's happened within the area. Just a compelling way of staying in touch with people. So you're not just sending them a Christmas card every, every year. You're sending them something that's relevant and useful and adds some information, some value on a more regular basis. So Kenny had decided to purge his list. People who hadn't responded in any particular active way for five years. He just took them off the list for. Well, I don't know why, because it's a crazy idea. But anyway, you did it. So pernicious list this idea of getting rid of the deadwood, which is absolutely insane. And I'll quickly touch on another example afterwards. So Kenny purchased his list about six months later, got a phone call and Kenny was at our realtor event, not this year, just gone the year before and actually played the voicemail because it had happened within a few weeks prior to that. And he thought, I'm going to save this to share with the group. So played a voicemail and the message was from a guy phone up and saying, hey, hopefully this is Kenny. I'm not sure what happened. We must have fallen off for some reason we stopped getting your mailings come through. So we'd always had some great information in that looked forward to. Anyway, we're now ready to sell two of our properties. Actually, I hope this is your number because I couldn't find it. So I had to phone another realtor in, in Cape Town and ask them for your number so that I could call you to list these two properties. So I mean as an idea, as a principle that you don't know where people are on their journey and if you continuing to deliver, never make an assumption on their behalf. If you're continuing to stay in front of them with valuable information, even if they're not engaging it, because today isn't the day for them, the day that today is their day. If you're no longer front and center in their mind, then they're going to go somewhere else or they're going to have to jump through hoops. I mean you can imagine that for every one person at that client who does take the effort to phone around and desperately dig out Kenny Stumba, there's another four or five that just never bothered because, yeah, let's phone. That's what we're ready to list now. Let's phone Kenny. Where's that? Where's that mail?

Guest: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, it must be around here somewhere.

Stuart: We'll keep looking for it, keep looking for it and then, well, can't find it. Let's. Let's go somewhere else.

Guest: That is such a great story. I mean, you know, just to think that this person all these years were getting this and they stopped and I mean it really is. I will tell you that I've shared this, I think before in my previous it was sort of like I was always in a sense of people urgency. So people wanted where I was and what I was doing and they wanted it right now because children were involved. And so when I came onto this organization, it was like it was hard for me to think, like, why aren't they coming? Right on. This is so great and this is a great thing we do here and why aren't they, you know, and then as I, as I got further into it and it's so funny now to me that that happens all the time, you know, that either I can have a conversation with someone from. And I go back and look at my notes like 2016 and it's, you know, 2020 and oh, and I can go back and remember always we spoke. I remember we talked here to dad and they said the same thing like, oh, I've been on your, your mailing list and I get dean's emails and search emails every week or three times a week or whatever. And I'm finally ready, you know. And so that was such a. Something I had to learn, you know, for me. But watching it still happen and I still chuckle just like the Kenny story. I still chuckle like, you've been thinking about this for four years and now you're finally here, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, it is. So yeah. You said don't ever don't. There's no need to purge. Just keep saying if they don't want to be there, don't get off your list themselves.

Stuart: Yeah, I'm sure I've mentioned this before as well, but there's a book called Wombat selling by a guy called Michael Gleason, Michael Hewitt, I think. The book I think is out of print, but you can maybe Google around for a PDF version of it online. So he's an Australian academic, has worked a lot with sales teams and sales team site sizing and making the. The effectiveness of sales teams and his position, his point is that you can never close a sale. The power of closing is always in the other person's hand. So for us, we kind of reword that slightly to say we never know when today's the day. Choosing what day is the Day, whether it's their day is always in their hands. So do whatever you can to present the closing opportunities. Present the, the opportunity for the, the day to the day to be today for them or today to be the day for them, whichever way around is. Yeah, just, just keep putting those opportunities out. Kind of got a bit sidetracked there with it with a non syndicated book point, but very important point nonetheless and hopefully having gone through this exercise once to make sure that all of these elements are covered, that the scorecard, your score for your book is as high as it can possibly be because you've considered all of these elements to make it as effective as possible, then syndicating that to the other people is going to make all of that effort, just scale all of that effort you've put into it and get it in front of more people and be more make the organization more successful. If it's not this kind of small office example of the realtors, if that's not your situation, but you have influence with other groups, so either you run and do either marketing or coaching for other organizations, or you've got an opportunity to sell your ideas on how they could be more successful to groups within the same industry, then this applies exactly the same. So the, the end assets is something that we've got created. We've got the words on a page formatted into a book. We've got a back cover, a place to send people some steps that cover as many groups as possible. Then for syndication you're really only looking at what are the variables, what are the elements that you need to change in order to make it valid for the other people. Now there's a couple of constraints to it in the sense of it gets to be too much of an overhead if you're trying to compensate or make allowances for too many different variations in it. So if it gets to the stage where and again this is just giving advice to anyone who's thinking of doing it. If it gets to the stage where you're trying to accommodate two broader group and there would be too many changes, then, then we get into this, into the kind of ballpark of people wanting to do things like use slide presentations for the content of their book or someone I was talking to yesterday had an example of a competitor's book, but it was actually just made up of podcast episodes that they'd done and then they just added a, an intro on the front of it, which his comments at the time were not. I mean great that they got it out there, but this book isn't really doing that much because it's in the ballpark of being interesting, but just the way it's presented isn't right. So again, we talk about this idea of being fit for purpose. Reusing that content means that it's not really fit for purpose because it wasn't created for that purpose in the first place. Definitely better than nothing. But it's not better than writing something that was dedicated. So the same deal with any syndication that's looking to include too much variation. The problem is that it starts to cross that threshold into not fit for purpose because the language and the tone and the cadences is different between the two ways that it was written. So avoid that. That's the first constraint. Avoid this risk of making it not fit for purpose. The second constraint are things like Amazon. So having very duplicated content, just like duplicate content on a website, isn't approved of or liked by Google, Amazon doesn't like duplicate content on their store either. So typically speaking, a syndicated book isn't going to appear on Amazon. But then if we're using this product, if you thinking about it as someone being the syndicate or the person that's got the book and you want to share, then Amazon isn't really the channel that you want to think about anyway, because you've got no way of capturing those leads and starting that conversation. If someone, for whatever reason, wants their name on Amazon, then they should write their own book. A syndicated book doesn't need to be there because that's not its job of work. It's doing a different. A different role. The role it's doing is starting a conversation with people, getting invisible people to raise their hand, and then taking that conversation towards a buying opportunity. And you as the syndicator, can orchestrate all of that. For someone who hasn't had the idea that they want to write the book themselves, who just wants the outcome and therefore is more than happy to pay you for the opportunity to use your book with their name on it and position it as their own so that they're able to start those conversations themselves. Those are the couple of constraints that usually come up. The scope creep problem and the Amazon issue. So just how it's positioned. Again, I say that they're constraints, that they're not problems, they're actually constraints, but they're beneficial constraints because it makes the. The whole project the job of work, the thing that it's actually trying to do, which is lead your own ocean. And beginning that conversation, it makes it all better. So some of the things that you can think about doing to make it as fit for purpose as possible is customizing it as much as possible for the person so that the end reader, the person that receives the copy at the end of the day, builds the greatest amount of rapport with with your client, with the person that has the syndicated book. Because again, this isn't about you. These aren't the end clients, aren't your clients. You don't care about them. Your client is the person. What you're trying to do is make that book as valuable to them as possible. So there's a couple of options and I know I'm blasting through these quite quickly. I mean, obviously if anyone wants to talk about this more in depth and go into nuance of your own project, then just reach out to us at hello at 90 Minute Books and just put syndication in the subject and we can have a detailed conversation with you about your project. But hopefully this has given some context to how the project might work. So that idea or this idea of you making it as valuable as possible and it not being about you are things like whose name appears on the front of the book. So we've had some white local projects where people have been desperate to keep their own name on it and have just wanted to have a forward by the other person. Well, that's fine because at the end of the day you wrote it. But really, who cares? This isn't about positioning you as this is about positioning them. So if you're trying to make it as valuable as possible to them, why the heck does your name need to be on it? Obviously there's some edge cases or some specific uses where that is important for one reason or another. But generally speaking it's not. And it comes from a position of vanity that you want to keep your name on it because you did all the work. Well, you did do all the work, but you're expecting them to pay you for it. So take your name off the off the front, put their name on this idea of a forward versus an introduction chapter forward by such and such clients. Again, not terrible, but much better to have an introduction by the person. The exact same words can be there. They can position themselves in the sense of hey, I wanted to get this book in your hands because we're super passionate about this subject. Our clients are the most important to us. And the well being and how we've developed this program over time and how we interact with you means that we are able to create much more of a relationship. All of these words that set that rapport building Start the relationship that they've got with their end customers in the best possible way, kind of position themselves today and how the relationship will go forwards. That's much better than just a forward saying the same thing or even just doing an introductory chapter where it talks about, I've been in business for 20 years. I'm the best person around. You need to read this book because I'm an authority. And again, just as it's not about you as the syndicate, or to a certain degree, it's not entirely about them as the client as the syndicate. T. I'm not even sure that these are real words, but anyway, with their name on the front, it's really about the end customer and fixing the problem for them. So an introduction that positions why the person is passionate about their business and passionate about helping them and why they're passionate about helping them in this particular framework is the best type of introduction chapter that allows them to kind of refine or put a stake in the ground as far as the relationship goes with the. With the client. A couple of easy ones to then look at, as far as the syndication project goes, are the COVID I mean, depending on where the geographic spread of your people are and the likelihood of two people, two end customers seeing the same book, which for 99% of business out there is tiny. The likelihood of two people seeing the same book, even in a relatively small area, it's. It's surprisingly small. So having the same cover is the most straightforward way of doing it. Having variations on the COVID is another option, but just allow people to pick from one or two, or design a cover that's got a box in it where they can put their picture. So again, one of the real estate ones we did is an easy example to think about because the COVID was designed and then it had a box in the center. Like the main image on the. On the COVID was bounded by the box, so it didn't need to. Didn't need to worry about it flowing out of area. But the actual image itself could be of different property types. So if one person specializes in condos, it can be a picture of an apartment block. If someone else specializes in lakefront homes, although in theory they might be two different books. But. But you get what I mean, that it allows someone to customize it a little bit more, having a box on the front or the back where they can put their picture. Now, usually we would suggest pictures go on the back rather than the front, because the front should be entirely about the customer. But understanding that the syndicated project is Slightly different in that you as the syndicate or need to sell the project, your customers are the businesses, so you need to sell it to them. Then allowing them to put their picture on the front. And because they haven't thought about the book themselves, they haven't thought about all of this job at work and of work and all of the nuance that we're going into. So their vanity is a little bit higher than our vanity is because we know that we don't care, we're just interested in the results. Their vanity might be a little bit higher, in which case having their picture on the front rather than the back next to their name might help you as the syndicate or sell a few more of the programs. Because it's actually. Who was that? I don't know and it doesn't matter. I was talking to someone like 3 weeks ago about this exact point and saying we often talk about. Because they were. They'd written their book with us originally anyway. So I mean, we were very much on the same page about the whole job of working the vanity thing. But it is that point that now being the syndicator, the mechanisms change slightly, the drivers change slightly. You're not selling to end customers. You're actually saying the person writing the check to you is the business. So again, put their picture on the front or the back. Probably the front. Probably the back is better because then the COVID is dedicated to just the question in the mind of the reader. But the front certainly isn't terrible. It's negligible difference that it really makes to the difference. I would haven't said that though. What I'm talking about is like a small bio picture next to their name. I'm not talking about the whole cover being full cover. Smug mug. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Guest: That's a whole other show. Because we are hearing more, we're seeing more and more of that. Having conversation with Glenn, who runs our design department. More and more people wanting that full image of them on the COVID That's a whole other show. But yeah, I think, you know, you said, you said it right. Like that vanity thing. It's, you know, it's prestigious in its own right to have, you know, to be an author. There's that oh, my name on a book, you know, puff your chest up kind of thing. But now my photo is on it too, you know, anywhere little, little image, big, you know, in the back, whatever a front back it is. It's something like, wow, that's, you know, it's not just my name. People could actually see me you know, it's amazing how people respond to, to that kind of thing. Like, oh, that's a great idea. Even though it's all a great idea. It's a great idea to have the book, but, oh, that's an even better idea. My name and my photo, people love. They love it.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. And knowing that you as the syndicate or you can help as many people as possible by having this asset, their marketing is going to improve by having it. So if the cost of that is that it needs to have their little picture on the front because that's the kind of vanity tickle that gets them over the line, then, hey, in the bigger picture, then it works, I'd say, unless you're on the, on the whole vanity element of having your face front and center and big. The only time that I've ever really seen it work well with the COVID and the title is we did a book a couple of years ago called Creating Presence and the author's photo was on the front. But given that the whole book, the whole premise of the book was around presence and this photo was professionally taken. It was, it was some images that he already had. So we went through a couple of them to find the right one, but that backed up the subject. And that, I think, is about the only time where I've really seen this connection between the COVID and someone's. Someone's full face. Now, that's different. I mean, if it's a celebrity book and the book is about you, then obviously that's different. Again. I mean, the, the book is. You say, why not the majority of people. That's not the case.

Guest: It's not. I was thinking, yeah, we have a celebrity type right now we're working with. And that's the plan with his book is. And he came on board a while ago and got stalled out and. But that's what he and Glenn discussed with full shot of him with all of his trophies and awards and that kind of thing. Yeah, I'm, you know, so you can, you can pick. That's exactly what I picture. When you think of a full, you think of somebody that is sort of more well known and. Yeah, but those that are not well known do it too. Stewart.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. And even in that example, I mean, I'm not going to go into too many details because it's not done yet. So don't kind of, I'm not going to talk about it too much until it's completed. But even that example, the person themselves is very famous, but they're moving into A different world. So a lot of the content is about the person and I think that's why we landed in that direction because there is a definite tie. But you could absolutely see an equal scenario where the book that they were writing in the new world, in the. In their new. It's difficult being so ambiguous. But the book that they're writing in a different world than what they're famous for, then the end customer of the reader. The end reader, sorry should be reading it because they want the solution that's promised by the service that's not being offered. Not just because it's being offered by. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So almost that one was one that's on the fence. But like you say, I mean again, drift off subject slightly but like you say, for them, for the majority of people, even if you're well known in your local area, the job of work of this book is to generate leads and I'm thinking like for some reason I've got the image of like a dentist being in my head of. And then wanting their smiling face being on the front of it because they think that they're the most famous dentist around. But I mean even in that case the Perfect Smile book and having. If we've got a book called the Perfect Smile, I'm not picking on that one particularly. It's just what spoke to my. So the Perfect Smile book that you're syndicating for dentists in the area, having a big smiling person with perfect set of teeth and then a small image of the author is going to be far more effective than having a big image of the dentist in his practice looking all. Even if it was professionally taken because the customer doesn't care at the end of the day anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. So this idea of the things that understanding that you as the syndicate or have a slightly different customer, you're one step removed from the end. So what can you do to tweak it so that they, the customers, your customers might be more inclined to buy the program that doesn't detract from the end customers who actually want to get a copy of the book. So photo on the front is one. The other tailoring elements you absolutely need to do is the call to action on the back. Now hopefully, as I said, you've gone through the process of defining the best call to action. So having something gone there that takes caters for people who aren't ready to go today, those that are broadly interested but aren't ready to pull the trigger. So they need more Information specifically on the path and then those that are ready to go now. So including contact details in the best way for the end customers is absolutely something that you want to include. But also tailoring the next step so that it does the best job for them to be able to tick those other two boxes. So it's obviously you'd want to put their phone number and email address on there. But what's less obvious is if your first step, for those people who are just tire kickers, for want of a nicer term, of having a link on there saying visit our website to discover more videos talking about this subject, then providing those videos to the people so that they can put it on their website and still have that discover more option when in all honesty they're not likely to have those videos themselves. Some people will, some people won't, obviously, but a lot of people who are buying this white label project from you marketing maybe isn't the top of their list. So they're quite often not going to have these, I need a different name than Tyekicker, but these kind of broadly interested quite people providing content to them so that there's still the opportunity to include that list. Make sure that you consider things like that the second step. We often include things or suggest things like assessments or scorecards or checklists, all these types of things where people can raise their hand as being more interested, as being closer to buying, but they're just still in an information gathering stage, providing that to your end clients so that again you can have that same call to action. What I would suggest avoiding is allowing the clients to write whatever back cover copy they want. Because unless they've got a very clear idea of how their own version moves the conversation forward, what you'll end up with is just people writing on the back about again it'll just turn into a bio puff piece on how good they are. Because that's what people see on a lot of traditional books. They just see bio type things because those books, the book is the product, not the conversation is the product. So then talking about bios as well. And again going back to this idea of kind of tickling people's interest so that they get on board with the project, that will serve them well. By all means include a bio page, but put it it as the last section, the last part, the last chapter of the book itself, rather than trying to put that at the front or distract people with it as a call to action on the back. And then the last point then, because I'm conscious that we're running on time and I'm running out of voice is this idea of how it's delivered. So we talk a lot about the digital versions and the physical versions and using them in different ways. So here for the end clients it should be thought about in the same way. The digital version is a very good, effective, scalable way of delivering something at a low cost to people. So it's got an economy of scale there. The physical version has a presence to it, has an element of reciprocity to it. So as the syndicate or you've got the opportunity to potentially increase the. If books cost $2.50 to manufacture, you've got the opportunity to sell them for. Add a markup, add a, an element to the, to the physical books for the program, you might change it so that it's a subscription type model so you're not trying to make money on the actual book sales. Instead you've. The individual people who buy the program are allowed to continue to use it as long as they're members of the program. So it's an. It's a value add to an ongoing subscription model where you can give people a more compelling reason to stay part of the program because they've got this very compelling asset that they can use the email follow up sequences. So in the digital sense we talk about these kind of emails that follow up from the initial delivery. So very often, well, always we talk about the initial email of delivering the book and then a follow up email the next day asking that type of spear question of to try and elicit the conversation with people. But if people are in a subscription model with you, then you can provide ongoing information or ongoing autoresponder sequences or this broadcast message to get these. Like we had the example we had with Kenny of sending the market watch you as the program owner can deliver people that broadcast monthly broadcast content that they can send out to the people who are on their list. All of these ways that the book itself, your syndicated book, is the reason that they get people on the list in the first place. But then what can you do as the program owner to keep delivering that value over time to keep people subscribed? Again, particularly in the subscription model it's a bit different if you're trying to sell it as a one off. The one off model that we've seen work very well with people is this kind of shock and all type package of adding in additional assets upfront. So not only is it the book, but you also deliver other people other things there and then at the point of Purchase, if you like, as a one off activity, so you're not tying yourself into ongoing commitments. But then that's the balance within your own program of whether you prefer one time payments or subscription type payments. The last one to mention, which I'd actually forgotten about, although it came back to me talking about that. One example is testimonials. So testimonials are a compelling way to demonstrate to people the value of the product. So again, sticking with the realtor or the dentist example, you creating the syndicated book, allowing people to have their name on the front, their details on the back of where to go, their introduction chapter that is tailored to them and why they're passionate about this subject and their customers, and then also have a section at the back that includes testimonials and that can be structured in such a way that it's easy to complete. So there can be like word counts on the content and the layout can be pretty formulaic. And each testimonial needs an image to go with it. But looking at things to add to the book that again make it more customizable for the individual, then that's another way of really leveraging this syndicated content of the book itself, but also allowing it to feel very customized for the person and be very for the business and be very compelling for the end reader to then take that next step that we've orchestrated on the back cover for them.

Guest: Yeah, that's a great idea. I think sometimes we don't think about testimonials after someone has printed a book and they come back, want to do a second, you know, second version of their book and I want to add it, but adding that right away with that. You know, I'm specifically thinking about the gentleman I spoke to because of, of how he's wanting to sell, you know, this presentation book and for a significant amount of, you know, money. And so I think he's trying to find the most value and I think again, it speaks to vanity, the ego, you know, all the things you can offer. And having a testimonial page that's, that's such a great idea for those that are looking for just a little bit more, you know, value, if you will. So I'm going to suggest that to him as well.

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. And let's catch up once we've done recording because we've got across all of the examples that we've done, there's a big number of variations within the kind of syndication world going from customers that we've worked with that want to syndicate just almost Like a minimum viable product, this very small, effective but quick to market low cost version all the way up to very big and expensive packages that have been sold kind of in like the $15,000 range where they're building something into the syndicated world that is very comprehensive. So yeah, let's you and I talk about it separately. But just as you're listening to this, if you've got an idea of okay, I've got a book already created or I've got an idea for the book, I've got a group of people anywhere from 50 to 5,000 who would be interested in selling this, then definitely reach out to us at hello at 90 Minute Page Books and again just put syndication at the top and we can jump on a call to talk through the ideas because across all of the clients that we've worked with, there's some really interesting ways of, at the end of the day, as much effort and value as you want to bring to it, we can create a product that lives up to that. So there's many, many examples of adding other things to it that will increase that perceived value both to the syndicatees who you're actually selling it to and then to the end customers as well in this kind of sense of creating an automated, an orchestrated rather tool for them that's very effective. So it really does span the width of something very quick to market that just gets the job done through to something that's very impressive in part of a much bigger, bigger, bigger project with many more assets and things being included in it. Yeah, yeah. So for sure, if you're, if as you're listening to this and you've got this idea in mind, just reach out and we can jump on a call and run through some options.

Guest: Sounds good. Yeah, I think that's valuable, something for people to think about another option out there, specifically some of our authors who've already written their books and, and it's a great idea to kind of revisit, you know. So for those of you who've done that, let's take a look, give us a buzz and we'll help you out with that.

Stuart: Yeah, even for people. So two of the examples that we've talked to you recently have been people that don't necessarily have their own coaching organizations but are part of bigger organizations. So they've gone back to the owners and said, hey, we've got this tool. Can we joint venture together within the kind of umbrella of this group? And I mean it's not even as if it's their organization, they're just coming to the table with this valuable tool and able to leverage that audience that's there. So, yeah, it's. There's a lot of opportunity out there for getting that content into more people's hands. Yeah. Fantastic. Alrighty. Well, that's bringing up towards 45 minutes, I think. Two important things have happened. One, I've run out something to drink, and two, I always turn the air off in here so it's not too much background noise. And this thermometer is now reading 86 in the office, so I need to go and do something about that.

Guest: My AirPods did die once while we were on this call, so I had to maneuver myself without making too much noise and, you know, unplug and plug in and do all that stuff. So, yeah, look at that.

Stuart: This is how much we love the audience. The sacrifices we're willing to make. Sacrifices.

Guest: Very good.

Stuart: Well, thanks as always for your time, Betsy, everyone. Thanks for listening. As we said, head over to 90minutebooks.com podcast to check out the show notes. Drop us an email at support at 90 Minute Books. Sorry. Hello. Well, all supports hello at 90 Minute Books. If you've got any questions on syndicating your book, even if it's just like early days and you kind of spitball an idea, give us a show. Always enjoy talking about this type of thing. And with that, thank you. Have a safe weekend, everyone, and we will catch you in the next one.