JW Oliver

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today joined by JW Oliver. One of my favorite types of podcasts is where we get to talk to authors that we've worked with. And JW's just finished writing a book for his organization. The book's called Rise of the Remote Workforce and their organization, as you can guess by the title, deals with remote staffing solutions for various different organizations. So today was a great conversation. Not only did we get to talk about ZimWorks, which is the organization that the company that JW owns, but we also got to talk about how outsourcing, or as they call it, insourcing resources in a different geographic location opens up all of these opportunities for businesses to create more and have more capabilities than they would do otherwise. Particularly interesting in this time of year. Obviously, it's the middle of 2020. We' still kind of dealing with, however, the new normality is shaking out in terms of the pandemic. So this remote working solution is something that we're all having to face. And then we go on to talk about the book that JW wrote, both how it came about, how he plans to use it, and this idea of framing a resource for a specific purpose, having a book that addresses that single target market that carries people through those first few steps of the relationship so that you can get to the point where you're more likely to be having an informal, informed conversation with someone. So, super interesting episode. Check out the show notes for some links that we talk about. I'm really excited to get this one out to you and I will catch you on the other side. Jw, thanks for joining me. How are you doing?

Guest: I'm great, thank you.

Stuart: Fantastic. Well, I'm excited about today's episode. I kind of, I think it's no secret that getting to chat to the authors, people that we've worked with before is one of my favorite episodes. Just to talk about your background and what you guys do. It's one of the more fascinating elements of the privilege of working in this business is we get to talk with such a wide breadth of people and the opportunity to share that with people on the podcast, definitely my favorite shows. So I'll let you do a better introduction of yourself in a second. But just for everyone that's listening, JW's just finished writing the first book with us. He's a managing partner of a business process outsourcing company called ZimWorks, which is z I m w o r x.com, zimWorks.com so the books about that process and the general process of outsourcing. I'll let JW do a bit more of a complimentary explanation of what business process outsourcing is and what the benefits are. But jw, like I say, thanks for the call. Do you want to give people an introduction and talk a bit about your background and the background of the company?

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. Stuart, thank you. I've been kind of a serial entrepreneur all my life and started and managed a lot of businesses. I've failed more than I've succeeded, as I like to tell people. So failure is a person, just an event. But you learn a lot along the way. And we actually, I've been in the medical healthcare industry, digital imaging now as of recent, for the last 30 plus years. And just kind of by chance I met my current partner, Ken Sharp, who is from Zimbabwe, where we now have our BPO and our outsourcing center, as we call it insourcing. And I'll explain a little bit about that, how it's kind of different. And we've been operating three years. We've saw tremendous growth last year and then this year we actually have seen even exaggerated growth. And I think a lot of that's been to do the environment and people getting used to understanding how outsourcing works and how beneficial it can be to work remotely as well. So yeah, so I just say we're, we're definitely right in the middle of, of the remoting or the insourcing, the outsourcing as we're doing here on this call, Stuart, being able to offer our services and kind of explain a little bit about the insourcing. We call it insourcing because we don't do contract or piecemeal work like you might pick up with a contract or if you were working with a remote center to answer your calls or do things until that time period. Let's say that you had somebody who was wanting to handle a specific project or maybe they were handling your help lines or your IT lines or doing outbound calls. We actually place somebody in an office or in an environment, whether it's a medical dental facility or accounting firm or an engineering firm where they work full time for that person. So it's kind of like leasing an employee, but it is kind of in the BPO network as well. But we think we do it. We think we did it a little better and we think we do it a little different as well.

Stuart: It's fascinating. So my background is kind of corporate IT, so I stepped away from that about 10 years ago. So really my history there was from 2000 until 2015. 6. No, that math doesn't work out. 90. God, I'm starting to feel old. The mid-90s through to 2014. 13. 12. Anyway, right about then. And outsourcing there was a huge. IT outsourcing was a huge business, majority of it to India. There's a lot of the big Capgemini Tata, a lot of the outsourcing companies that we were working pretty closely with. So this idea of tasks being moved out isn't something unfamiliar, but I think the breadth of it now and the scope of engagement. So from outsourcing individual tasks to people who may or may not be offshore, people kind of understand that through the uptake in leverage or Odesk or even five of those types of platforms. Upwork, yeah. So that is Upwork now. Odesk, yes.

Guest: One way or the other.

Stuart: Yeah, right, exactly. But this idea of people starting to understand that insourcing to remote location is more of an opportunity, something that they may not have considered before and all of the benefits that come along with that. So it's the ownership of the relationship like you would have with a permanent member of staff on site, but just being able to do that in a more cost effective way or in a way that has additional benefits of someone taking over the HR element of it. That's an interesting separation now that I think people are starting to become more aware of as opposed to just thinking of kind of out tasking or pushing individual projects out to the side. Is that something that you're finding there's more of an awareness of it in the last couple of years?

Guest: Yeah. You know, Stuart, I've. I've used contractors through, as we say, upwork, Odesk and some of the others for a number of years in my business. I think the misnomer years ago was that you had poor Internet connections. You know, obviously video calling wasn't as prominent, that it was lower level skilled people. And even that not only did you have the lower level, but you had a language barrier, you had a high level of an accent. And some of that still exists with some of the countries in the Philippines and possibly in India where you have a heavier accent. And that was really the beauty of what we did is when we came to Zimbabwe, they speak the Queen's English, so they sound a little bit like you. They've got a really cool accent and

Stuart: they've got that uk. I don't feel like I should speak about strong accents too much because when I get going sometimes people find it difficult to keep up.

Guest: Well, and the really cool thing is most of our clients, we actually have some customers in the UK as well. So it's really perfect for them. It blends right in. But most people that are using us, we do a lot of client facing insourcing or outsourcing. And a lot of our clients or all of our people are dealing with customers. And as you said, some of them are in the it, the marketing. We have people that do inbound, outbound calls for medical and dental offices where they're actually doing all the scheduling. So the language is an issue with a lot of, and kind of our bread and butter is that we have, we're able to fulfill that need where they do have well spoken English, you know, the Queen's English, the perfect English is probably more correct. Yours is much better than mine, learning to spell things with a Z instead of an S. So yeah, saying zed instead of Z, all that's fun. But you're right, people have become much more aware of remote use of workers and outsourcing and more commonplace. And I would say the last piece of that is because of the advent of Zoom and Ringcentral and being able to use a video format. We even have one dental office that you think this is crazy. They literally have a computer screen at the front and they are greeted by a virtual person. So you know, things have. And they were just trying to reduce their cost even more. And it's. And it's worked. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for that and it's become much more acceptable. You're correct.

Stuart: I tell you what as well, I don't know if you listen to any of Dean's podcasts, but both on more Jesus Whiskers and the joy of procrastination that he does with Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, which is now pivoting to another podcast called welcome to welcome to Cloudlandia. But this idea that Dean had this Cloudlandia type approach that he's been talking about for, I mean, a good couple of years now, last year it was very much focused on the cloud kitchen type model that was kind of had caught the imagination that there are five star restaurants that only exist as a delivery service and all of the reviews and all the marketing that they do, the actual restaurant itself doesn't exist. It's. It's a kitch in an industrial space that can at scale send stuff out. But then what's happened in the last six months, obviously with the whole pandemic and the shutdown that's just amplified and accelerated all of people's reluctance to take that step into Cloudlandia, to take that leap into a more virtual way of working, whether or not they've been kind of attuned to the idea, but just holding back because the overheads are too much or the resistance to the inertia is not there to make that move. But really the forced change now from the pandemic over the last six months, I can only imagine that that's opening people's eyes even further, both to the opportunity and to the practical difference of being able to find the right resources, regardless of where they are either in the country or even in the world. So I don't know whether you've seen that come through yet, because obviously it's a bit of a trailing indicator. But I can only imagine that the situation in the last four to six months is going to amplify this even more, particularly for guys like you who can provide the answer to the problem that people are finding.

Guest: Yeah, I would totally agree. We've seen that amplified in an enormous way the last six months. Our growth has more than doubled during this last three to four months. And I believe that's one acceptance. Two, we've had a lot of workers who, you know badly enough, they may be getting paid more to stay home and come to work. And so a lot of them, a lot of these people are short on employees. And then they look at it and say, okay, well, if I could, if I could replace or, you know, temporarily replace or long term replace somebody for 30 to, you know, 35% of my overall cost, then I'm going to look at doing that. But, you know, we don't really advocate trying to eliminate for trying to do away with anybody. We say it's elevate your current staff, current team, so that they can do what they're good at. You know, I, I'm sure you're just like the steward. I get caught down and bogged down and the minutiae sometimes, and I'm just like, man, if I wasn't doing this, I could dream a little bit and I could do some marketing that's going to drive business. But I'm, you know, I'm messing with something in accounting or some minor project. Right.

Stuart: Yeah.

Guest: So I think it's amplified that tremendously when it comes to people being able. We call it elevate your team and then grow your business and grow your business with less capital as well.

Stuart: And that way of looking at it, as you say it's not moving existing U.S. jobs offshore. This is adding in a layer of capability to the organization at a price point that makes it more practical than it would otherwise be. If you have to wait to be able to. To invest a significant amount into bringing in additional resources or testing a new service or trying a new way of working the overheads to that, it's particularly in an uncertain time like the moment, you're far less likely to do that than if you can find a solution that will do it, which is cost effective. With a trained team that are used to working in this way and just leveraging it as a whole new capability. I think it's such a. A more broadening way of thinking about it rather than a closing way of thinking about it. It's funny that you mentioned that example of getting bogged down by the minutiae, which is really then stopping you from doing the real value adding thing. That would be a better use of time. Certainly that's something that you and I have got a separate conversation going on talking about that, because that's an exact problem that we have. The clients that you work with,

Guest: is

Stuart: there a split between the people who are looking at amplifying this as a new opportunity, so they're seeing this as a way to do something new and something different, or do a lot of people come to it with a very clear expectation of what they want doing and they're filling certain tasks. So when I think about it from the IT background, when we were outsourcing, we're really outsourcing a known commodity, a known volume of work that needs to be done. That was probably 90% of the work that was, was undertaken in this space. And it was the minority that was. Okay, well this is a little bit of Blue sky project thinking in this way. And this is a. You're now a resource that can help facilitate that. Whereas these days, more in the entrepreneurial space rather than the corporate space, to my mind, it's more being able to achieve that Blue sky project thinking rather than. Than outsourcing. So the people you're working with, do they split down a certain route of whether it's more. We know the task and this is just adding more capacity to the task versus trying new things.

Guest: Yeah, it's interesting. I guess I never had thought about the split, but I would probably say there's three segments there. We've got, we've got people who, their, their staff is just overwhelmed and literally they're doing what might be some, some, some data entry or some repetitive tasks for Instance we do a lot in the insurance verifications for medical, dental facilities and sometimes you might have to call and be on hold with the insurance company for an hour. And that was being done by the front desk or the staff. So it was taking a lot of time. So that's kind of one segment. I think there's another segment where they had those, let's call it the ten to twelve dollar an hour team members in the US and they were having a lot of high turnover and they were just saying, my goodness, we get somebody trained and they leave because they get, you know, a little bit better job or they're just, they probably may be in that position because they're not consistent workers. So it was that. But, but maybe the biggest segment now starting to twist a little bit is that Blue Sky. I can give you two examples. One was a company that had a product that they wanted to launch to do some 3D animation in the church ministry work. They were unable to do it because for them to hire the, they needed to have about three 3D animation type personnel. And those people are in the, you know, 80,000 to maybe even 120,000 for a well skilled trained person. And they just couldn't do it. They were a startup, couldn't afford to go spend $300,000 a year for three people. We were able to fill that need for them and now they've grown to a team of about, I think six or seven people. And a year and a half ago they were able to get their business off the ground and do it at a cost that was, you know, 30% of what was going to be.

Stuart: Wow.

Guest: So, yeah, so I think that's there.

Stuart: Yeah, I was going to say that I guess is maybe a concern of people looking at this as a new capability if they haven't particularly thought about it before, have been aware of it, but haven't kind of taken the plunge. Is that concern about the, both the quality of staff and the skill level? Not necessarily from a, in kind of air quotes, a foreign employee point of view, but just from a day to day control point of view. So is that. I would imagine that's usually something that people are able to overcome once they start doing it. Is there any advice you've got for people who are thinking about this but are concerned about having remote staff that may be very far away in a different time zone and they're worried about having the. I'm trying to think of a different word than control, but I can't. So. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah,

Guest: yeah. I do Stuart, I think that there are some people that probably can't get over that hump. And, and I, you know you can us tell initially from the conversation that that's something that they're really worried about. Well, how do I manage their time and, and how do I do this and how did I do that? And we always like to say we always, I do it, I look at it at the results. You know I have most of my team and so my, so kind of to segment myself I've got my, our company Zimworks and we've got different pieces of it. The support DDS and we support ministry, support cpa, some different segments and, and then I have my medical equipment company and imaging company and we've got about 15 or 16 people working there in that business and I meet with most of them on a every two weeks a bi monthly basis. And we just go over the projects. You know, we say hey, here's the projects you have. How are they doing? Now that I've got some people that we meet with more frequently. So I'm kind of a results driven and I can see what they're doing on a daily basis. Most of our clients are like that. We do have a few that really want to see what hours they were at their desk. So we've got things like time doctor we even have people who they remote into their workstation in their office and they can sit there and watch what they're doing on their screen in their office here in the U.S. so there's a lot of ways to overcome that if they have that issue. But in a general sense I think I look at it as a result or the project business as well.

Stuart: And I would imagine that it's the case for most people unless as you say, they're kind of minority of people who just really can't get past it because they're just not wired that way. But for most people, even when it's a concern to begin with, the outcomes and the freedom that it creates and the capacity in the organization that's generated from it will make that disappear into the background pretty quickly and it just become a non issue as soon as someone takes the plunge and, and dives in for a little bit.

Guest: Yeah, I would add that I would say the biggest advantage people see is you know, you can take an, you can and this is some, this is statistics, this is not me making it up. You can take an average salary. So let's say if you have a $50,000 a year salary in the U.S. they say you have to add back at least 50%. So take 50, turn it into 75,000 and that's for, you know, health insurance and workman's compensation and. And all the benefits you may give internally. But also you may have to expand your office, you gotta buy a PC, you have the Internet services or you know it, you have to deal with. So a lot of times people just look at the standard base rates. Ah, you know, that's not right. I only pay mine 50 a year and it's not enough savings, is that. Well, you know, you need to add about 50% to that to really get to a valid W2 type employee as well. So. But I think you're right. If you look at the savings and then if you're kind of vigilant enough to say, let me look at the results that are happening here, then I think you can get over that concern pretty quick. And most people do.

Stuart: Yeah, the results, the outcomes, the opportunity that it creates, the slightly more difficult to measure, but the more impactful changes that could make to the organization, that's the real. I get excited thinking about the opportunity that it. It unlocks just from freeing up all of the mental time, if nothing else, above and beyond the actual execution time of doing some of this stuff that you might be stuck with day to day. It's. Yeah, it's really exciting opportunity. I want to pivot slightly into the book because I want to make sure that we give people an opportunity to grab a copy of the book because anyone that's interested in the subject, the books, the rise of the remote workforce. So that definitely gives people a lot of more insights above and beyond what we're talking about here. But then also wanted to talk about what brought you to the point of thinking about writing a book in the first place and then picking the subject and talking a little bit about. We often talk about picking the title and this the single target market of people that you're going to want to work with. So what was those original thoughts? Is a book something that you'd written in the past in your particular case? Did it leverage some previous writing that you had or was it just an idea that you wanted to execute on and. And now is the time to pull the trigger?

Guest: Yeah, you know, I've written. I've got a little blog I've written for. I do some. I like to talk about when I'm traveling. I'm a strong Christian believer, like talk about my faith. And I've written on some articles. I used to write a weekly little column and I came to this idea that I wanted to write a book. And I still have that in my head. And more of a, you know, you might say not a full novel or a fiction, but, you know, something that's a two or three hundred page book. And I've got, I do have the outline I've always wanted to do, but because of the cost and because of the time commitment, it. I just kept knowing and pushing it off. Pushing off. It wasn't the right time. And I knew, you know, and I got, I'll be honest with you, when we started this business, Zimworks, I. I was a little skeptical myself and I said, you know, let's try this with my imaging company, my medical dental imaging company. And within about six months, I was so excited about it. I said, this is a hit. You know, this, this works. We tested it, we tried it out. We moved into a larger facility that we're into now where we're on a couple of floors. And I was like, this works. And then, Stuart, it became a situation where I thought, you know, business, if you can't, if you can find a way to tell other entrepreneurs or other business owners or other CEOs, or whether it's small, medium or large about what's out there, it's like, how do you do it? And you know, you can do that through your LinkedIn and your social media and your marketing. And I thought, man, if I could write a book about this, this would be fantastic. And I came across 90 minute books. I believe I came across it through the leadership group. What's the coaching again?

Stuart: Strategic Coach.

Guest: Strategic coaching? Yeah, I think I saw it through Strategic Coach and I saw a link in there about the 90 minute books and I looked into it and I immediately said, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And I'm not paid to do this podcast. And I'll just say it was a fantastic experience. You know, I'm not getting a free book out of this. It was a fantastic experience from start to finish. And this was my first one to complete. It's really cool. Got it on Amazon now, got a Kindle version. We're going to do an audiobook with it. And out of it, we've now just contracted to do three more immediately following. So really excited.

Stuart: And that breakdown. So we're talking about the different, the different niches and the books are being tailored towards. We often have conversations with people and a book is something they've thought about writing before. They want to communicate this information, but sometimes it's a Challenge for them to think about the job of work in the book at the end of the process. So very often people come into it kind of forward first think about writing something and then thinking about dialing in what they write and then at the very end of the process think about how it's going to be used. The ideas. As you were talking with the guys and running through the setup with the first one, knowing that later ones were coming down the track, was there any, was there ever any concern about being too narrow in its scope or the subject that you were writing about being too broad? This idea of tailoring it to a particular job of work, was that something you were comfortable with or did that take some getting past? I'm always interested because we talk about it so much internally about being very specific, kind of almost campaign by campaign. Always interested on talking to other people about what their feeling is around the. Because we're usually pretty adamant, well not adamant but we're very opinionated that people should be writing as specific books as they can. And compared with the traditional book, that's, that's very different. So talking with people about this single target market type approach, as I say, always interested to see what people's feelings about are about that as they enter the process.

Guest: Well, honestly I think it made it a little bit easier. I was curious when we first started, I was sent a little sample book, the 90 minute book which I was able to read quite quickly. So it did a couple things for me. I think number one it is very targeted so you're able to get your message across because to think about writing a 200 or 250 page book and oh my gosh, how many chapters and do I have time to write it? It was nice to be able to turn and refocus on what our core business is and that really was providing well educated, university educated, if you will, English speaking team members and show it how it could impact your business and really make a difference. And so by writing the book and we did, we kind of had this plan and I wanted to see how the me to write a book and very, very cost effective. But so you're right, I think the nice thing about it is we wrote this one which is in general and now we're coming back one writing specifically for the dental market, one for the accounting market, one for the real estate market, one for the ministry market. So we've got our targets on what we want to do. So no, I, it's, I think it is good and when I listen to one of the Podcasts and I listen to the part about people want to read a book and they want to read it quickly. That just nailed me. I'm a very avid reader. I probably read one book a week, at least, if not more. And when I read that, I thought, you know, I read a book on insourcing or outsourcing and it was about 200 pages and I'll be honest with you, I got to about page 60 or 70 and. And it was repeating itself, you know, and I just kind of tossed it aside and I thought, you know, I want to write something that people read, it's relevant. They can read it on an airplane ride or they can read it in an afternoon or two afternoons and they walk away going, ah, I get it. And so, yeah, being targeted and to the point is fantastic.

Stuart: And this idea of people's attention span and how much information you can usefully deliver and, and thinking about the right information at the right time and kind of breaking the model of the traditional book, which has got so many kind of conflicting. When we think that the job of work of what we're trying to do is identify someone who's interested in our business, who wants some information to answer a question, and then wants to be led or know the next steps towards achieving the outcome. As opposed to a traditional book where the model there is to sell the, the book is the product, as I say, that's the COVID and the back cover and everything about it is to sell the book which has a dollar associated with it, which is the product and that's the entirety of it. Or maybe there's a secondary degree of establishing some credibility and bona fides as an expert in the field. But when we're thinking about it, when the real job of work, when the real benefit, no matter how many copies you sell, it's unlikely to match the, the money that you make from even one client, let alone 10 clients. But this idea of delivering the right information at the right time and the book that you've created helps people answer that first part of the question of what is the right way to go about engaging a remote workforce? What are some of the pitfalls and some of the things that I need to know, but just in those first steps and then leading someone to the next part of the conversation, it's such a better way of delivering stuff. It's the idea that in other mediums like TV or film or anything else, or even blog and web type content, there's no way that you would, you were talking about writing a blog before the blog consists of many different posts. It's not like you start writing and then just continue the same thing. All of the information is there and we definitely want to deliver to them the other 140 pages of information at some point in the future. But not just dumping it all on people at one point because like you said, if nothing else, those books never get written because they're overwhelming. People never get around to it and they start and, and then just get. Life happens and the project goes on the shelf and doesn't come off for years.

Guest: Yeah, I think you're right. I think having that, having that singular focus was, has been a real benefit. Absolutely.

Stuart: The opportunity to follow up with people and then deliver further information to them or guide them to a place where they can get further information. Knowing your customers and the people that you work with and the journey that they go through to get to that point of working with you, I would imagine that the majority of people, it isn't the case that they're at home or in the office and thinking about outsourcing and then order up a resource online with no conversation about it at all. I would imagine that it's a longer journey that you have with people. So those conversations just for other people as listening to this and thinking about their business, that engagement that you have with people before they turn out to be customers, is that relatively quick or does it take a few conversations before they're comfortable to actually pull the trigger and get started?

Guest: You know, ours is kind of two fade to kind of two parts. We usually have them either by a referral from another customer or, or they've seen something on one of our ads or hopefully now the book and they've seen, they have a few questions. We can usually answer most of the questions in a 15 to 30 minute phone call and we encourage that. The real closing piece for us is to do the zoom interview. So for instance, if your company was looking to add someone in a certain position, a marketing position, let's say, and you said, yeah, I'm still not sold, we would just say, hey, why don't you do some interviews? We'll send you a resume, CVs as you call them, we'll send you them. And I'm calling them CVs now since I've been there so long. We'll send over three or four CVs resumes, they'll take a look at them, we'll schedule a zoom call and we'll say take 15, 20 minutes with each of these applicants. And usually once they See the gravity and level of how well educated and well versed they are. They're, they're ready to hire. And so if we can get them to that point, it helps. And now we're realizing by leveraging the book and saying, hey, you know, we'll send you a free copy of it, you're interested, let us send you a copy and tell you what it's about or you know, download a copy, either one. And that we know that that's going to be a home run for us. Letting them educate themselves, maybe with a little bit of quiet time too.

Stuart: That's such a fantastic point. And again, another a tip for people listening and thinking about a book in their process. The idea of playing like the chess game of getting people to come on board and knowing what the final move is and the previous move and then orchestrating the journey up to that point. So knowing that most people, I would imagine the questions that people ask, 80% of them, I mean, it's certainly the case for us. 80% of people ask the exact same questions maybe over and over. Exactly right, yeah. So being able to create something in the book that answers those questions for them, that moves them to those later stages faster in a way that they've read for themselves. So feel like it's self evident because it's not you on the call telling them the answers. They've kind of done the, the work to uncover the answers themselves, even if that information comes from the book that you've written. But moving people faster to that point of the conversion opportunity that you know that if you get on a call with them to arrange some interviews and then those interviews happen, that's really where the magic happens in terms of helping people fill their resourcing needs. The book is such a great lead up to that. And again, anyone that's thinking about this as a tactic for their own business, thinking about a book in exactly the same way, it's accelerating that path up to the point where the real value starts, where the real kind of where your ability to help people in the best possible way is after those baseline questions have been asked and they are in a place where they're open to having these conversations. Such a profound way of moving those people, helping them get to that point even quicker and doing it at scale because you're not having to do that individually yourself each and every time that someone has some of these questions.

Guest: Yep, that's exactly right.

Stuart: I wanted to run through you quickly. We've got as part of the completion process that we're Just at the point of wrapping up the first book, a couple of the suggestions that we usually make to people. There are five that I just wanted to quickly run through while on the call. And some of these are things that you might be doing already. But the super signature is something that we talk about in emails quite a lot. So this idea that in the emails that go out and they can either be on your own email address or from the support email address. The super signature being whenever you're ready, here are three ways I can help you. And those ways being something similar to the back cover of the book that we usually, that we usually suggest. A way of just going to the website to find out more information, a way of opting into something that helps people take that next step and a way of just getting started for those people who are ready and hot enough to get started. So for you and the book that's been created, having a super signature on the emails that might say something along the lines of by the way, here are three ways that we can help you. Whenever you're ready, head to the website to look at some of the use cases, some of the case studies where we've been able to help people head over to the website and download a copy of the book or give us a call to schedule some due diligence session or Q and a session. Having that second step as the book is the download opens up a whole load of opportunities for all of this. This thing that's going out anyway, all of these emails are going out anyway. But it's a way of just including that it's not going to, it's not like a silver bullet that's going to change anything. But that email is going out anyway. So including that as a step two, as a way for people to raise their hand and opt into something which is the book which will accelerate that conversation that I'm always surprised. I just sent out some letters to some past clients because I've had a few strategy calls over the summer and I was surprised by how few people people have done. They have updated their signature. So that's the first one that we often talk about. The second one is looking at existing customers. So existing customers are the people who know like and trust you the most already. So with that relationship, what you're looking to do there is not necessarily get new business from those people because you're in conversation with them already, but there's a referral opportunity or just an engagement opportunity where letting those people who would refer you if only they thought about it letting those people know that there is a referral opportunity that exists, then reaching out to existing customers with a message saying something along the lines of, hey, we're kind of six months into this situation now. Obviously the new reality has proven to be something different than we might have anticipated in January. To help people with their resourcing problems. I've just written a book talking about the rise of the remote workforce, you guys, the people who we love working with the most. And we can help people like you the most. So if you know anyone who would be, would benefit from, from a copy, let me know and I'll, I'll get a copy for you to, for you to give to them, or I'll, I'll send them a copy. So leveraging that existing list and feeling the, making existing customers feel engaged and giving them the ability of giving their friends a, a copy of the book, which is going to be beneficial, that's another great way of leveraging the fact that the book's just been released and it's something new and timely that's out there. So that was the second one. Three more to go quickly before my voice gives out.

Guest: I was going to say no, I was, I was, I would just add in there. I mean, it was interesting. You just said a couple things that I was like, okay, we were doing some things like that, but I didn't even think about our existing customers who we have, you know, in our business. And we, you know, we've got over probably 100 customers that have multiple people. I'm thinking, gosh, you could send them a copy of the free book and use this for a referral. So, yeah, great, great point there.

Stuart: And it's building on the relationship as well. So even not from a, not from a negative perspective of, hey, we've worked together now give me the name of someone you know. Nothing like that at all. But actually the book genuinely has useful information for people who are probably like them and in this situation and maybe haven't pulled the trigger on remote sourcing because they've got some concerns about it that no one's just thought to answer for them or they haven't found an answer. So by reaching out to the existing customers and really make them feel valued, hey, you're the, it's people like you who we love working with the most. We know. And you can tailor the, I mean, depending on the practicality of it. But I mean, you can really tailor the letter to be very personal and highlight a chapter within the book that's particularly relevant to that group of people, so we were talking about, I'd asked the question about keeping people accountable and obviously that's, that's one of the chapters in the book. So if a client who maybe had that concern, writing to them saying, hey, I've just released this copy of the book, just like you, I'm surprised by how many people actually have got this held back by this idea of accountability. But really, as we've seen, it's a super simple problem to fix. Anyway, I've just written the book, chapter five. Talk specifically about that. If you know anyone who've had conversations with someone who would is having the same concern, let me know and I'd be more than happy to get a copy of the book to them. So all of this making it as personal as possible because not for any nefarious means, but because you want to, you want to build on that relationship. These really are the people who you enjoy working with the most. It's yeah, such a great opportunity. Absolutely laboured that one enough. The next group is the prospects. So we've talked about the existing customers, the prospects that you've got. People who have been on the list already kind of fall into two groups. There's the kind of cold list of just the people who've opted in and you've never had any engagement with. And there's the not so cold list of people who maybe there's been some engagement with but they haven't converted again. Now the fact that the book exists, there's the opportunity to try and reignite that conversation under the banner of giving them something, rather than just asking them and sending an email saying, hey, you restart interested in outsourcing, then, hey, I've just written a copy of the book. It answers a lot of the questions I know you'd had. I'd love to send you a copy of it. So that existing list of people, it's very easy for people to get caught up on finding brand new people, of running ads to get new leads coming in. And there's this often burn and churn mentality of if someone doesn't convert in the first couple of weeks, then that's it, the lead's dead and move on. But knowing that you've got that asset sat there on the shelf, the names and email addresses and the previous conversations that you've had with them, the engagement that they had, where they were coming from, the sticking points that they had, you've now got another asset to reignite that conversation with. Something that is kind of all giving in the Book answering some of those previous concerns that they had. And that's a way of re engaging that whole list. We talked a lot about the kind of nine word email or spear emails as follow ups. This kind of short personal, expecting a reply message. So reaching out to people who perhaps have gone cold with a hey, we've just written this copy of the book. I know you had some questions about X, Y or Z. Just let me know if you'd like a copy and I'd get it to you. And then following up with this spear email of Are you still looking for someone to do this job? Are you still looking to. To find more resource? Has the I know we talked about six months ago, has the current situation changed the resource allocation that you're looking for? All of these ways are real life in the conversation because the book exists now. So it's a neutral conversation that without the book you wouldn't be able to have. That was number three. Two more quick ones. One is why we feature a lot as complementary non competing businesses. So this is organizations who, who are out there where the cross section of their customers and your customers really, really tie in. So you're talking about medical imaging and helping churches or the dental services. There are organizations, other coaching organizations out there that work specifically with those groups or other marketing companies that work specifically with those groups. So the opportunity of reaching out to those people, particularly with the tailored books that we're going to do next, reaching out to those marketing groups and saying hey, I've got this copy of the book. It would be great to add value to your customers, your list because they've got the opportunity to use this as a resource. You can go as far as co branding the book. It's very easy to add an introductory chapter based on that particular organization or you don't even need to change the book, you can just add a cover letter or you could do a webinar with the people that run that group. But this idea of looking for complementary, complementary groups where the cross section of customers is very similar but now you've got a neutral asset in order to start the conversation. So you're not reaching out to them and saying hey, your people should work with me because we're great. Obviously you are. But reaching out to them with the book because it's neutral just opens up so many more doors or potentially opens up so many more doors because it's leading by adding value rather than leading by asking for something. And then the last one quickly was just this, the advertising opportunity potentially on Facebook, if Nothing else. But in print media as well. The fact that the book exists and you can give it away because it's a very cost effective thing to give away. This idea of running advertising that collects as many relevant leads as possible and then you can sift and sort them as the second stage once you've captured their details. The, the opportunity that the book gives in that advertising space means that you can run ads that say get a free copy of the book rather than run ads that say hey, come and visit us to answer your resourcing questions. It's just a whole other. There's another dynamic by breaking down that advertising opportunity into collect first, then sift and sort rather than what the majority of people do with advertising is thinking of sifting and sorting as part of the advertisement because they're concerned about wasting money rather than thinking I'll collect all of the relevant names first and then sift and sort second. So that was a good question.

Guest: I think your part about the, the last one I think is really, really relevant. I think people are looking for answers in any industry and I mean I could write one about purchasing digital imaging equipment. I think people are looking to position themselves as an authority about ways they can save their customers money or make them more efficient or have them leverage their business and whatever that aspect is. But you're right, you definitely can position yourself as that authority figure or somewhat of an expert in a field, at least knowledgeable of a field. And I think that's super important in the advertising section. Absolutely.

Stuart: And that opportunity to start by giving something by collecting relevant names because the book itself does the sifting and sorting, you don't need to be any more exclusionary. You don't have to put that, that constraint on there of only respond to this ad if you're ready to take an action today because the majority of people aren't ready to take action today. The majority of people are ready to take action over the next two years. But unless you know who they are and how have a way of staying in touch with them those, unless you happen to intersect with them at exactly the right time, trying to time an ad to the, to the point that they're ready to convert is, I mean that's needle in a haystack stuff versus collecting all of the names first and then knowing that that pool of people will convert at some point. I'm conscious with your time. Just before we started recording, I was, I was saying to JW that I often say to people, oh, we'll go for 30, 45 minutes and then we get to 45 minutes and I look at up and we're at that point and the same's happened today. So super grateful of your time. And this has been very helpful for anyone listening, not only if they're thinking about creating a book, but really from the resourcing perspective as well. So I want to make sure we finish up by allowing people to find out more about you guys. So where's the best place for people to go to find out more about what ZimWorks does and your story and ways you can help?

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. You can go directly to zimwork works.com which is z I m w o r x.com you can find that information about what we do. If you want to look directly at the book, then we do have a website called globalteambook.com that's globalteambook.com where you can see the book and actually order a copy or we'll send you a copy if you'll email me if you'll. And if you want to call me, I'll. I'll send you one or I'll send you the link link to download one. We'd, we'd be happy to do that as well. So some, some pretty easy ways to get the resource.

Stuart: Fantastic. And I'll make sure that there's links to those on the show notes in the podcast. So if you're listening on your phone, check out the. The show notes on the on the Podcast app you've got or online@90minutebooks.com forward slash podcast. And this is going to be episode 108. So fantastic. We if, if you're up for it, I think we definitely get hook up again on the show maybe later in the year and see how, how the first one's going and then how the, how the individual titles are going. Because that for. We had a show where we talked about syndication a couple of weeks ago. And this idea of taking one version of the book and then just leveraging it into many other ways of using it is, is something that we've had some great success with a number of people. So being able to do that the way that you're doing it, by tailoring it to leveraging it through tailoring, I think that'll be a great thing to feedback with people if you happen to do.

Guest: Interesting, I might add too, Stuart. I mean, what we've done, because we have the resources, we actually hired kind of a separate entity, hired someone in our office in Zimbabwe, in our center there in Zimworks, and They are actually doing all of our book promotions so we actually put them together where they could make sure that we're getting it. You know, the correct graphics, the designs, the the social media, the follow up to the customers doing the mailchimps and the bombbomb videos. So yeah, it's been great to have have somebody that's jumped on board just a couple of weeks ago and and is kind of heading all that up too. So yeah, we're super excited about this and I'm looking forward to following up with you two and seeing how we did.

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. So that'd be great. Well, thanks again for your time jw. Really appreciate it. I really enjoyed this show. Thanks to everyone for listening. As I say, check out the show notes for the links both to the books, the 90 Minute Books website and ways you can get started there and over to ZimWorks.com for what JW and his guys do out there. Thanks everyone. That's listening, stay safe, wear a mask and we will catch you in the next one one. There we have it. Another great episode. So grateful for jw, first time today. Lots of great insights in that episode. Really interesting to see how people are taking this idea of a single target market book that addresses a particular use case that guides people towards this point of raising their hand and taking an action as a way of really leveraging your own capability in your own time and just being able to speak to those people who are almost predisposed to do business with you because of the book that they've read. So fantastic episode. If you want to take the conversation further, as always, head over to bookblueprintschool.com if you haven't done your own scorecard that goes through our eight mindsets about writing a great book to identify invisible prospects and start some really great conversations. So that's it. Book Blueprint scored. And then head over to 90minutebooks.com and follow the get started links at the top of the page and we'll be here waiting to help you get your book out there starting conversations for you. So thanks for listening and we will catch you in the next one.