Didn't We Used To Do a Podcast

"Foreign."

Stuart: Welcome to the Book More Show. My name is Stuart Bell and today we are. Well, today we are actually going to release an episode. It's been a while. I guess the reality of recording a show or writing a book for that matter is that typically it's not our day job. So over here our day job is helping you guys write books. So something that interrupts the flow of the extra projects so you easy for the pattern to break. And a week turns into a month and before you know it, a month's turned into a year and here we are. We hear it all the time, actually, with clients coming back two years later to finally start the book that they thought would just take them a couple of weeks to finish. Looking at the date of the last show, that's exactly what's happened here. So with that, I guess acknowledgement is the first stage towards redemption. Doing the podcast is something that we really love doing. Actually, we've got a stack of information to share with you guys, so it's good to get back on the horse at this episode we actually recorded a few months ago. So I'm going to share this with you now and then next week we'll be back with a new episode. Okay, let's. Let's get the band back together.

Guest: Betsy Vaughan.

Guest: Dora Bell, how are you?

Guest: Very good, thanks. How's it going?

Guest: Very good, very good.

Guest: I think today would be a good day for podcast.

Guest: How about that? Let's do it.

Guest: Sounds like a plan.

Guest: All right. What do you want to talk about?

Guest: So it is the week before Thanksgiving, which means that 2022 is disturbingly close. So I thought it probably worth touching base, checking in on the lay of land and making some suggestions for next year.

Guest: Sounds like. Definitely sounds like a plan. Can't believe that 2020, 21 is. Has flown by. I mean, 2020, I just, I feel like the last few years have just been a complete blur.

Guest: Sacrifice 2020 as a write off. 2021 more organized.

Guest: That was a trick. I think that was really a trick because it. I don't know that we're any further. No, I think we are. That's not true. I mean, I think people are. They're back and they're working. They're. They had a lot of time to, to plan and sit and think about strategies for the upcoming years. And so I think on our end we're seeing a lot of people do some new things. Everybody got a little more creative in how they do business and that kind of thing. A lot of people interested in books. So I'VE been pretty fortunate.

Guest: Talking about being creative that time that passed by. I know people who taught themselves to play the guitar or learn to paint or do something like that, and looking back thinking, oh, that would have been a good opportunity to do something like

Guest: that, but that would have been great. I didn't do any, I didn't do that, didn't take up a new hobby or anything.

Guest: Realized that maybe talent was the thing that was holding me back.

Guest: Oh, that's the problem. That's the problem. You know, it's funny, my daughter, who loves music, she's 25, she loves music, she's had a guitar. She had guitar lessons as a child. She took piano, she did the quad. She asked me the other day to buy her a banjo for Christmas. I thought, what? Oh, oh, let's not do that. Let's. We're just not going to waste the money because we've been down the road with the instruments and banjo is far

Guest: more hipster than the guitar, so.

Guest: Right, exactly. But it's, I mean, that's. She has talents and I just don't think that is one of them playing a musical instrument. So I'm gonna skip right over that and buy. Exactly. So, yeah.

Guest: Okay. So I think that what we're seeing. So like you were saying, we've had a number of clients all the way through the last couple of years. In fact, interestingly enough, we probably had a bit of a peak earlier in the, in 2020 than we did in 2021. And yeah, as people, as things get back to normal and the day to day pressures of running the business come back into play and kind of adjusting to a slightly different normal set of assumptions than there was in the year before. I think this year has gone back to normal in that sense. But what is super interesting is thinking about the opportunities for 2022. So as we're getting closer and closer, the thought that people are going to be picking up where they left off to a certain degree now, whatever the current situation is probably going to be the way it's going to be for the next period of time. So thinking about all of the work that had to be done, all of the customers that we were engaging, all of the business opportunities that were there two years ago, the opportunity to reach back out to those people now and start those conversations again, whether it's people that you're actually in conversation with or those. That kind of unknown group of customers who hadn't quite yet raised their hand, but who are now probably thinking about, oh, it's time to do this thing again. A book is a great opportunity for the reason to reach out to them. Knowing that those people are all out there, but not knowing how to start the conversation. It's that idea that a book really solves because it's a. Like we've said all along, it's a great conversation starter.

Guest: Yeah. Hey, we haven't spoken in two years. Look what I've been doing. This is what I did. Here's some great information. Here's my book. I mean, that's pretty impressive. I mean, when you think about it, wow, learn to play the banjo or the guitar. But this person wrote a book and that is, you know, that's impressive. It's a great way to get that conversation started.

Guest: And that's a great point. Because the nature of the book itself, the type of the book itself, is less important than the fact that the book exists. Both from the opportunity to start the conversation and the opportunity for positioning things in a different way and reminding people that you were there and we were having a conversation or you were thinking about taking a step. The content of it is less important than the fact that it exists, but the content of it. There's a couple of different mindsets you can have going into or different approaches you can take. So it could either be writing exactly the same book that you might have written a couple of years ago, and now it's just getting it done. Nothing that's happened in the last couple of years has changed what the content would be, or it could be that fundamentally something's changed. So you need to write the book about the new way of thinking about your particular subject because things aren't the same anymore. Something's actually changed. Or it could be the perception of something's changed so why it's important now, or how this can be used in this current climate where we find ourselves today. The concept of how it's how your thing, which actually hasn't changed, but the way people think about it or use it has changed. So for all three of those groups, I think no matter where you are in terms of thinking about how am I going to create this? What is this thing that I'm going to create for all three of those groups, the timing element, the fact that now is a transitional period of time because we're going into a new year, so that's. Historically, that's transitional anyway. People are thinking about planning for the year ahead more than perhaps they do in May. That kind of conversation to crop up in people's minds so much. But also on the coming out of the pandemic and whatever changes you or your customers had to make for that, and the fact that there's a kind of a marketplace opportunity where maybe other people aren't quite thinking about these marketing activities yet. They're still firefighting in the business or trying to come to terms what has changed. So the now of writing something so that you have it available is much more important than perhaps two years ago or honestly even a year ago. Because a year ago, unless something had very much changed and you were trying to communicate what's different. So like a very timely book, then writing something that was standard, that was, has the way it's always been, might just have got less traction because everyone was thinking about what's different and what's new, not so much about what's the same. I can't remember the exact quote, but I'm pretty sure may have been a Jeff Bezos quote that Dean was talking about a couple of weeks ago, saying that let's assume it was Jeff Bezos. It might not be, but he was saying it's not so much what changes in 20 years. That is where the business opportunity is. It's what's the same in 20 years. Because everyone gets caught up in the new and the flashy and the different and wanting to invest in the future. But actually a lot of the fundamentals remain the same. And if you double down on maximizing those, then there's a huge opportunity in what doesn't change because then you can plan for the long term and amortize the costs of whatever effort you put in for the long term. So you can imagine a scenario where someone wrote a book on year end tax planning. I mean, there's a certain 10% of that, 20% of that might change in any given year, but 80% remains the same. It's the same as us writing a book. I mean, we will come up with, share different ideas with people and there's maybe some timely things that will change that people want to pay attention to. But the fundamentals remain the same. It's the fundamentals that we talk about in the book Blueprint Score. It's knowing who you're going to talk to, knowing what it is that's going to capture their attention, sharing their valuable information, that kind of moves the conversation towards an inevitable, obvious outcome, which means you can get in front of people the way that we do, that might change year to year, but the fundamentals remain the same.

Guest: Yeah, very true. Yeah.

Guest: Well, since we've podcasted, I forget how croaky My voice gets.

Guest: I have my water and my coffee going at the same time. Yeah. So, all right, so let's go from there on that. The whole getting started and what I think what people ask me a lot is what do I do? How do I get this out there, how do I make it all happen? Like people really don't have a knowledge on the steps.

Guest: It's a, I know I should do it, but what do I need to do to get it done?

Guest: Oh, all the lots of should, should have, could have been, I should have done it five years ago kind of thing.

Guest: I know, and it's funny, isn't? I was talking to someone in the podcast in space last week talking about the clients coming on board and they had maybe an expectation that they would come on board fast. It would be a short turnaround from that initial conversation to becoming a client. And that really wasn't being the case. And I was using our example, if we talk to people, I mean five, three, four, five, six years ago, we had first conversations with them and then they're coming back to do it now. And just as we started off, I mean, we were saying that 2021 kind of evaporated pretty fast. And that was on the back of 2020, which also kind of on one hand took forever and on the other hand disappeared in the blink of an eye. It's the same with dealing with clients. Unless you've got a very kind of transactional business or there's a deadline where they need to do something now, any other business where it's discretionary, it doesn't have to be done, it would be a nice to have, but not a must have. A year just disappears. And thinking about the leads that you're generating in terms of that kind of five year conversion, not the one year conversion, really makes a fundamental difference in both how effective you think of an individual campaign, how effective it is that you've done this lead generation work, but also the way that you stay in touch with people after that initial activity. So try to think of two ends of the spectrum. So the one that we talk about a lot is Facebook ads promoting a book. And then they download a copy of the book and there's a follow up sequence and autoresponder that runs through. But the likelihood of someone converting into buying a book or into doing whatever your business is just from that book ad within a couple of days of an autoresponder is probably relatively low. It's much more likely that these people, if you stay in touch with them, over the long term are going to convert or do something, raise their hand in some kind of meaningful way over the next two years. So not getting disheartened if someone doesn't immediately come on board in the first two days, but equally knowing that you want an effective way of staying in touch with them for the next two years, that really makes a difference. And if you can get into the mindset of okay, I'm building this pool of customers who are beginning to learn more about the process and out of the whole planet, these are the people who are the most likely to convert, even if they're not individually converting today, then thinking of that as building an asset that is going to mature over the long term, it's really quite fundamentally changes.

Guest: Does I think about when I start, I think about when I first started and we were doing Facebook ads and coming from my background in education where you know, I was in environment where people absolutely, you know that we had wait list and people wanted to just get into our school and that sort of thing. And so coming from that where I didn't do, I did zero advertising. I didn't, it was all, it was word of mouth, which is the best way to get something out there. But we would do now we would do these Facebook ads here on this side of this business and, and I would just be sitting, okay, where are they? Like, why aren't they signing up? I got a little poo poo about the Facebook ads. But again, watching it over the people who've interacted who like you said, they downloaded, there's some interaction we've had with them, maybe even a conversation or two and they're on our list and will reach out once in a while and respond to one of our incredible emails that informative emails that go out and then finally they say, that's what we hear. You have been on your list for two or three years. And so when that started happening for me in this environment, I was like, ah, this is great. Okay, this is it, this is this. You have to reset your expectations. Etsy first of all.

Guest: And that difference between a business that's got very limited supply, you've got only so many places in the classes that you can fill and there's a huge demand because it's seen as like a qualitative difference of a high performing school versus a school that has other issues. And there's a very specific externally mandated deadline. Their kid is starting school on September 1st somewhere, whether it's there or not. So all of those three things, it's not many other businesses that have that type of setup. Many more are in the situation that we're in, that there's a great service that can be beneficial to people, but it's not particularly, practically speaking, it's not capacity constrained because we can scale to whatever level we need to scale. There's no hard deadline, there's no mandated deadline saying people have to do it by this point. It's just opportunity costs that people are losing of not doing it sooner and the same, I think, with the majority of cases.

Guest: Yeah, that's the funny thing because that's what we have a client who came on board in 2018. Oh, I hope I said that. I think it was 2018, maybe that maybe the beginning of 2019. And he started his book and we finished the first version of it and then he just stopped because his business was doing things. And then he came back and he has said, even though he's super, super excited, I think I shared with you today, he was excited about, oh my gosh, he's finally on Amazon, he's final these print books. And it was him that was holding up the process because life just took over and. But you know, he has said, wow, there's, you know, so many these last couple of years. There's been some missed opportunities not to. I haven't had the opportunity to put it out there. It's been one less thing I've, I've had to, to reach out to my clients for.

Guest: And that's the main thing, isn't it? I mean, it's not so much that whether you get your book written or not, so whether you do it with us or not, or do it by yourself, it's not so much that the cock's ticking on that, but it's the opportunity to reach out to the customers knowing that day one, it's like the compounding idea. It's not so much that day one, two or three, if it doubles, doubles, doubles. Those days aren't very interesting. But then when you get up to days 364, 365, if we're still doubling every day, it's the numbers at the end that are dramatically big. So having this out there and missing one opportunity to have it as a way to start the conversation or two opportunities or three, it's the idea that these leads are building into a pool and every lead that you don't get to put in there, it's one at the end and potentially a multiple of one at the end that is missing out. Yeah, yeah. I guess at this point, if anyone's getting to this point in the podcast that they've done a call aid and they're ready to go on creating something. So probably not this audience that we need to convince, although maybe it is this audience that we need to convince to pull the trigger now because we send the podcast out to thousands more people than we have customers. So, yeah, if you are listening, and

Guest: it's funny, I think you shared with me the other day about somebody who you shared with some. Somebody the other day had listened to all the podcasts. And, and so I think about that, I wonder like, how many of our clients have been on that list. And that's. It's another tool, but another tool that we send out to people that a way to engage with people. And we've been, we have, we did, we have slapped in 2021 just with this aspect. But it's just a little bit of information. It's easy information for people to gather. But it's always, it's interesting to me to hear people say, oh, listen to the podcast. And then they will come on board because I honestly don't always think about this as a tool that might be something that, that's reached someone that you

Guest: and I talk so much. If forget that other people are listening to this one.

Guest: Right, right.

Guest: But on that then. So that the question you asked before people have a conversation and have a kind of unclear next step in mind. So I'll talk as if people are working with us because that's the easier context. But if you're not, if you're trying to do this by yourself, then just substitute out, try and fill in the blanks in a bit that I'll talk about that we do, and you'll have to do that yourself. But the framework is still the same for everyone. So I think the most important thing when thinking about what's the best step for 2022 is get past this idea of the content of the book or what the book is more important than the fact that a book exists. Because honestly, it's not. The most important thing is that a book exists and there's a certain number of people who would eventually become clients. Even if you had a book with no words on, if you just had the COVID there was no content, there would be a number of people who would convert because what they're looking to do, they're not looking to be entertained by the content of your book. You're not writing John Grisham thriller. You're writing something to help them solve the problem. Now, a lot of the solving of the problem ultimately is you doing it for them. So if the book moves them closer to that step, some of them are going to take that step regardless of what the content is or isn't. So I think, excuse me, I think that's the most important thing is get past this idea of the book itself is the key thing. Because also what that does is it frees you up from the paralysis, analysis paralysis of making the book turning into this big thing that it's got to be perfect or you've got to do it in a certain way, or it's got to have a certain amount of content or it's going to tick all of these boxes that a traditional book would tick. Because the traditional book is the product, you're selling them the book. That's the reason for writing it in this context. That's not what we're talking about at all. You're selling the idea of there's a fixture problem that's out there closing the gap on understanding. Now, obviously not seriously suggesting having no content in the book, that's ridiculous. But just to break that, break that hang up that people have of separating the job of work of this, which is to start a conversation with someone that leads to helping them resolve something versus the book as a product. A traditional book where it's actually the words on the page that are the thing that you're selling. So with that in mind, once you've accepted that, then the next thing to do is, okay, well, what's going to help people the most? What are the problems that they're struggling with? What answer can I provide them that's really going to help them achieve more in whatever, whatever business or whatever industry or framework or challenge. What is it that they're struggling with that I can help? Because it's understanding those questions that is then really going to help them raise their hand so you know who they are so you can deliver more information to them. So one of the ones that passed over the desk recently was the 2021 Social Security Guide. So this is a book, we've actually got a couple of versions of it that we work with some private clients with and that is used for various CPAs, financial advisor type people to identify clients who are approaching retirement and then you can work with them to deal with a bigger portfolio. All of these people are dealing with high net worth individuals. So the Social Security itself isn't really that much of the portfolio. So it's less about the actual. That's not their only financial arrow in their quiver. They've got lots of other things, but it's the thing that's consistent to everyone who's paying attention to that element of their life thinking about retirement they're coming up towards, they're doing some planning for their finances around retirement. Social Security is one element that's consistent. So the idea that group of people are going to be interested just in the fundamentals of Social Security and the kind of the nuts and bolts of what's happening in 2021, that is a key way of getting that group of people to raise their hand. Now we know that from a book called the 2021 Social Security Guide. No one's necessarily going to immediately convert into paying wealth management fees to manage their portfolio. But it's the first step in that conversation. All of that group of people are interested in this subject. This subject is the gateway to other things. And the information that we're providing within this book is valuable and specific and time based and useful and is bite sized enough so that within something that we can practically write and someone that can easily read, it's answering that question.

Guest: So say bite size. That's a great, that's a great little term there, bite size. Because that's one thing that people, I think, struggle with making sure even though the book is there. And that is an important factor. But when you talk about the content there, people always say, well, how do I know I'm not giving too much away? How do I know if I give, if I tell them everything I know everything, then they're not going to call me?

Guest: You know, that idea of giving it all away is so crazy.

Guest: I mean, we're not going to write that book, right?

Guest: Yeah, no one's going to write that book and no one's going to want to read that book either. It's so funny for a couple of reasons. One is this idea that a bite sized book is like the minimum effective dose of starting the conversation. And this is what we're trying to achieve. So separating out the book as a product from the book as a tool to start a conversation and the conversation as a product, I'm willing to accept that's not what everyone thinks and it's a way, it's a thought technology that we have that is hugely beneficial from a marketing campaign perspective and building your business. So that's why we never talk about ourselves as a publishing company. We're a marketing company and books are the tools that we use to achieve that marketing goal. So I'm quite willing to accept that For a lot of people that thought technology is something new. I mean it's not rocket science but it's not necessarily what people are thinking about. But this idea of I have to write everything and get it into this huge book and. But then I'm concerned about giving it all away in 2021. Anyone that thinks that they're giving away everything when literally they're probably having this thought whilst looking at a phone that's connected to the Internet and then there's the entirety of the Internet. So anyone that thinks that the information itself is unique is, I mean, just delusional. I mean 20 years ago I could understand it because information was hard to come by and if you didn't have access to the right sources. But now, I mean that just hasn't been true for 18 years and definitely hasn't been true in the last 10 years. So yeah, that is, I'm usually, when we're debating things, I'm usually in the middle and devil's advocate in both sides. But that idea is just stupid.

Guest: You're like, no, that's right. No, but it is.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And that's my thing. Like you don't. Who wants to read your five or 600 page book? So nobody wants to read your 200 page book. I mean really, you know, it's not, it's.

Guest: It's the starting of the conversation unless you've got an audience who are. Now I'm trying to Devil's advocate, trying to justify when it would make sense. But I mean there's potential. I mean I can't even, I'm struggling to even come up with.

Guest: But when you're looking at a. More as a marketing tool, the lead tool that there's. No, there's not. Now if you are looking at someone who is a public author, self help or. Yeah, those books tend to be a little bit bigger. You're giving them a lot more information. But again any of that information, most of that information I can, I can put it right here in my little handy dandy phone and, and pull it all up.

Guest: But you know, so that's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing. Those examples that you gave way make sense is where the book is the product. So where the book is the product then you have to make the book worth whatever the COVID price is. But honestly anyone who. Well, I can't imagine anyone who's listening here is thinking of the book has been a product and making money from the book. Everyone's. The book is the introduction to the conversation. So this idea of giving it all away and being concerned about that is just, it's shooting you in the foot because you're comparing your thing. It's not an apples to apples comparison. You're trying to compare your thing that you're trying to create to, to an author who has either got a huge academic career, who has got a huge amount of publicity, who has already written a large number of books already on Amazon, where books like that are selling for 12, 15, $20, even if there's no way, you just can't compare, you can't compare with that.

Guest: Right, Right.

Guest: So it's not even worth trying. And your brain trying to compare it to that is just shooting you in the fort because.

Guest: Right.

Guest: It's just not a comparison.

Guest: So the best they're selling that, they're selling that book and they want to make the money off that book versus what you as the business owner are. You're just trying to use that as these to make the money from the foundation you've already built, build your clientele that way. And I think that one thing.

Guest: So within that and within that, then. So the trick is to think about, okay, well, what is the most effective thing to do? So of all of this knowledge that's out there, I know that I'm not going to share all of it because not that it's magical provider information I'm going to give away, but just it's not practical to do and it's not effective to do either. It would be a complete waste of time to spend two years trying to get all of this information into this book because no one's going to read it all, or it's just not as effective as using that information in different ways. So by thinking about, okay, the job of work of the book is to start the conversation and lead people, help them identify themselves to my world and then my world can share more information with them. And that additional information can be some of the additional stuff that doesn't that isn't included in the book. But within the book itself. We need to make sure that we need beneficial constraints. It's one of the book blueprints, scorecard mindsets. We need beneficial constraints to make sure that we're likely to get this thing finished. So those constraints could be scope constraints in terms of the subject, or time constraints in terms of when we need to get it done, or effort constraints, which is a little bit more difficult to measure. But I've got 10 units of effort a week that I can put into this, and if it demands any more than that, then I'm just not going to get it done. So those beneficial constraints, the whole reason they're beneficial is because it's the thing that gets us to get it out the door. So thinking about what the we're going into 2022, everyone's coming back out into the world, they're starting to pick up projects or thinking about doing things that they couldn't do before. Maybe they want to do things, but they're still unable to because of the tail end of the pandemic. Maybe there are certain reasons why they can't do these things. They need to know that bit of information or they need to just be reminded of the general, the evergreen information that is just going to help them move forward with it. But I can't and don't want to give all of that in the pages of the book, not because of any concern about giving it all away, but just because I need a beneficial constraint to make sure that it gets done. So what's the questions on their mind? What are their concerns and their challenges that they're trying to get past now that I can write something that's going to resonate with them, to help them with that one little piece in the puzzle that that then starts the conversation and then moves them into my world so that we can start sharing more information with them over the next whatever period of time until they convert. So really the biggest step that anyone can take, whether they're working with us or doing it themselves, is think about is understand that job of work. It's starting the conversation and then thinking about, okay, well, with that constraint in mind, who is it that I can best help and what is it that they really, really need to know to help them move forward? But this first step, I'm not going to write something that takes them all away because I'm not going to write it and they're not going to read it. But what is it? What is the first step that's really going to help them and then allow them to move on and consume more stuff over the next period of time? The Email Mastery book is a great example because that book was that Dean wrote was taken from a podcasting podcast that was recorded a few years ago. It was. The content was created really just by transcribing and editing that podcast. So in fact, I think I'm not even sure that we've ever edited that book, to be honest. If we have, it was only a very quick kind of proofread of it because that wasn't the job of Work. The job of work was get the conversation going and lead people towards present them with the offer of some of the other email mastery stuff. So it didn't need to be. It's almost an example of one of the ones that could have been blank. I mean, obviously not quite. But the content really wasn't the main thing. So very easy to create, very on point because it shares a couple of great ideas for email funnels. So it's really leading people towards thinking that. But one of the main, the main marketing channels to get people to even be aware of it was the email mastery ad that we ran in Success magazine. So that was just one of the. And actually I'll put that ad in the show notes. So on the podcast, follow the link on the podcast play or head over to 90minutebooks.com podcast and check out the notes for this episode. I'll put that ad in there. Because the ad which was talking, it was an explainer or an article that was written about the nine word email and this definition of the nine word email and what it is and who it's beneficial for. So there was an article that talked about useful information in 300 words or so. Then there was the option, the next step is to grab a free copy of this book that talks about the seven or eight other strategies. And then from the book it leads towards the email mastery program which has got a whole host of additional information and then monthly calls, Q and A calls with Dean to talk about email campaigns. So when you think about that in this whatever your business is, the very small introduction step, the fact, the thing that people are going to see first, so whether it was an ad or an article or a comment or a forum post or a video, whatever it is, the very small piece that logically leads to the next bigger piece, the opt in this kind of minimum viable commitment step, the commitment is you need a name and email address from them. So what is it that you can give them that's valuable enough just for the cost of the name and email address? And then that provides more additional valuable information within that same kind of the same problem that you're trying to solve. And then there's a call to action at the end of that that leads them into the next minimum viable commitment step. So it's all this staged approach and it all comes back to this idea. We're looking to build an asset of contact of people who have expressed an interest. So the 7 billion people on the planet, it's these 700 who are the most likely to convert I don't know when they're going to convert. I'm not in their head, I can't force them to convert. But what I want to do is provide them some value that leads them towards giving up their email address that gets them on the list where I can deliver even more value so that at some point in the future when they're ready, and just constantly presenting options where they can take the next step. Adding value, adding information, building the rapport. There was a slide. I'll see if I can get that in the show notes as well. There's a slide in the companion to the book Blueprint Scorecard for this idea of a minimum viable commitment step. What is it? Based on the relationship that you have with someone, what is the extent of the thing that you can ask for? So there's this idea of the kind of X axis at the bottom being rapport, how much of a relationship you've got with people. And then the Y axis up the side being the scale of the ask, the kind of commitment that you want from them. And the line on the chart separating the two is this kind of threshold of commitment. So based on the rapport that you've got and the thing that you're asking, the threshold of commitment is how much you can ask them to the step that you can ask them to take. So this idea of the minimum viable commitment, very much. Okay, based on the fact that I've given them a little bit of information in the ad, can I ask them to go to this webpage to read more? Based on the offer of a book answering this one question, can I ask them for an email address? Based on what they've read and what I've shared with them in the book, can I ask them to complete an assessment or fill out a scorecard or give the office a call to ask a question. It's all this kind of chess type approach of not just immediately putting something out there and going for the clothes, but building and building over time so that whether they're ready on day one or day a thousand and one, you've got something in place that's there waiting to. Waiting to catch them.

Guest: Yeah, I think that is. I was processing all that as you're going along, but it's. I hope people listen to that, the whole process that goes through and think about what's out there and how they can get to someone, how they can connect with someone. And again, it's not necessarily day one. It could be day 365 that it happens. And I'm Gonna go back and probably listen to what you just said again, honestly, and write that down.

Guest: Check out the transcript.

Guest: I'm gonna grab that transcript and look. Yeah, but that's the thing.

Guest: If anyone's struggling with thinking, I've had a book on the list today for a while, but it seems like such a big project that I get to it later. Then really thinking about those two things. One, the book isn't the product. So forget about all of the fact that the customers, potential customers, receivers on the other end, the fact that they are swept up by all of the persuasion elements of a book, the fact that a book carries some credibility with it, there's authority that goes with an author, all of those things are fantastic. And secondary benefits of having a book. But as the deliverer, as the person creating it, don't get. Don't allow yourself to get caught up in the same nonsense. The fact that there's a psychological trick to a book that works on clients in the nicest possible way, then don't fall for that yourself. It doesn't have to be. You can achieve 85%, 90% of the benefits at 10% or 15% of the overhead. So, yeah, so the first thing is don't get caught up in this thing, that the book is a product. Forget about traditional publishing. You can benefit from some of the same elements of it, but don't get caught up with the same problems. So that being so understanding that we know that the opportunity to start a conversation is now the product is now the thing that we're interested in. So in order to start that conversation, what can I best do in a way that means it's most likely to get done? That's identify who it is that you want to help, what it is that they're struggling with, and then what's the minimum effective book? What's the. What's the smallest but equally the most useful small piece of information I can share with them, which means that it is something that I'm likely to create and it is something they're going to consume and then that we're going to present them a next step where they can learn more. And by this point, we've captured the details so we know who they are so we can progress that conversation, add more value to the relationship and then every so often, ask them to take the next step with us.

Guest: Very good. Yeah, I think this is. It's good to be back into this. Doing it is right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest: It has been too long.

Guest: It has, but it's good. It's not it's a good reminder for us, but also for the people listening how the process works and how you should be viewing it. And but it's not such an if you look at it in a sense of I've got to write this humongous book and tell everybody everything I know, then that to me I would just go back to bed because that's extremely overwhelming to think about that. And that's. Yeah. And that's just it. And I think that's what happens. And then when people do it, they're like, wow, okay, this was not as difficult as I thought. I didn't have to do as much work as I thought. And now I'm engaging with people that I had not engaged with before. You know, there's actual conversations that is definitely. That was. That's some good information there for sure.

Guest: That is probably a good place to wrap then for this one. And then we'll save some the minimum effective podcast. Yeah. Don't want to overwhelm people. Hop on too much about the same things this time.

Guest: The.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, there's plenty more and well, and that's a great example actually. So we've talked about how to begin the process and think about it so that you really get moving before the end of this year to get ready for next year because there's a timely opportunity in the year end. So it makes now a better time to get this done than later. But just as we were talking about with the books, there's many more elements that, that at some point you need to know. Not necessarily today, but you need to know. So we should give people a place to find out more information. The best one there probably is to head over to bookblueprintscore.com and complete the scorecard because those eight mindsets, the early ones really reiterate what we've talked about here today. And then some of the later ones talk about the thinking around creating, the content itself and then the call to action and the what you can do with the book once you've got it created. So bookblueprintscore.com is a great place to go just to assess your thinking around the book that you're trying to create. And we'll give some guidance on some better approaches to that after as you're going through and then after you've filled it in.

Guest: Thank God, you can always reach out@supportintyminutebooks.com and we can hop on a call if you want to talk about it as well.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. Any questions? Reach out to us. We're always happy to help. Yeah. And then the last one, I guess, is we're thinking about this as we go along. The last one would be just get started. I mean, absolutely. The quickest and fastest way to get this done is just us. How do it for you and guide you through the process and help you with all of the pain in the neck production steps and covers and pulling it all together. So head over to 90minutebooks.com for all of the packages that we've got over there. Definitely, by far the quickest way of doing it.

Guest: There you go.

Guest: Well, this has been good. Good to record some words with you again.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Looking forward to the next one.

Guest: All right. Sounds good.