What to Write When You Don’t Know What to Write

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Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today I'm talking with Betsy Vaughan about this idea of what to write when you don't know what to write. So this was sparked by November being NaNoWriMo month, which is a not for profit organization, helps people write fiction books through the month of November, November. And their key, not only is their support and their, their community, but their key really is this, the structure and resources and tools that they give people and the deadline to a certain degree, the fact that they're getting people to write every month. But they've been very successful in helping fiction writers get their novels written. And that sparked the thought that we had in all of the conversations that we have. Many people have an idea of what they want to write, which is why they come to us in the first place. But in terms of writing a book to build your business, many people know, many others rather know that they want to create something but get a little bit hung up on the content. So we've got a framework, the five by five framework, that really solves that problem. It helps you create something based on the knowledge that you've got already that's compelling, that gets people who would be future customers to raise their hand and start their journey with you. It gives them some value and leads them towards the next step which helps build your business. And the thing that we're really looking to do in the end, the reason that we're writing the book in the first place. So this idea of, you know, a book is going to be valuable, you've got ideas of how to use it, you've maybe seen other people do it, but you get hung up on the content. This five by five model is a step by step outline to kind of overcome that and get something great created. So this one, you're going to want to check out the show notes. This is episode 118. So head over to book. So head over to 90minutebooks.com, go to the podcast section and episode 118 because we go through quite a lot here. So we've bulleted and outlined the five by five method being something that you can follow there. Okay, with that, let's get to it. Betsy Vaughan.

Guest: Stuart Bell. Good morning. How are you?

Stuart: Good, thank you. I've got to apologize, I have a cough still, so I've got a mute button just next to me. I'm going to be hitting that a lot, but I also sound a little bit raspy and potentially more difficult to understand than usual.

Guest: People really like that raspy voice like that, you know, it's the book.

Stuart: More Show Nights after hours.

Guest: There you go.

Stuart: Okay, well, this one will be for the. For the committed people. He can get past the. Get past the tone. I thought that today we would talk about NaNoWriMo. Have you ever heard that before?

Guest: No, I can't remember.

Stuart: I think there's a podcaster that I listen to who has written like fiction books and has mentioned it in the past. I think that's where I first came across it. I thought it might have been Ed Dale, actually, years and years ago. It definitely sounds like reference because he's super into the content and the message side of things. So anyway, this NaNoWriMo project, it's a. A thing that happens every November. If it was Ed that I heard it from, I mean, that must be more than 10 years ago now. 12 years ago I heard about it. So they've been going for a long time. So anyway, it's this project, November Writing Month, something like that. It stands for actually just went on their website and they're actually a 501c nonprofit now. I don't know if they started that way or they just kind of formalized. But the main point is that every November they're encouraging people to write a book in November. They're very much focused on fiction books. So it's kind of every story deserves telling type thing. And the theory is that in 30 days of November to commit to write, I think something like 1300 words every day, which is achievable for most people. And then at the end of it, you've got a 40, 50,000 word novel completed. So the reason I thought it was worthwhile talking about is not that we're into fiction books at all, but it's this idea of having a reason why doing it now. I mean, the genius of November is that it's encouraging people to get finished. There's more in the US at least there's more. There's Thanksgiving and holidays around November, so some people might have vacation time and a little bit more. In theory, it gets the written part done in November and then people could get it but up. That's hard to say with a cold buttoned up in December. And then the project could be finished by the new year. So there is a certain logic to a November start date, having it done for new year, having that thing out there create it, and then you can start the promotion piece as part of like a New Year's resolution of getting it done. The other thing that they provide as well as the big community is kind of resources, tools and structures. So from our perspective, talking to people about writing a book to build their business, obviously as we're going into 2023, it's kind of economically uncertain compared with going into 2022. And that was kind of uncertain enough coming off the of COVID but having some, having something to remind people that now is a good time to do it. And what we're going to do today is talk about a structure that if you accept that a book is a good thing to do, that will help build your business. And we've got, I mean, a thousand use cases of why that's the right answer. But suggesting today some structure that you can use if you don't have that structure already in mind. And that's kind of the thing that's holding you back.

Guest: I think that's a good thing that we're talking about the structure that's going to be very beneficial to our listener because a lot of people really struggle with how much to put in where that. Where to start, you know, because there's so much information. So I think talking about the five by five I think will really give people some good things to think about and really kind of make it a little more simple for them in the long run.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. I think it's one of those things that if you've got an idea and it's formed in your mind and you know how you're going to use it and what information to include and maybe you've gone through the scorecard, maybe you've worked with us already. So that idea is out there. Then that, that's great. That's the best answer because you've already got those things dialed in. If you don't have those ideas, but you're listening to this, you're on our list, you've downloaded a copy of the book, the 90 minute book, you've maybe downloaded a copy of the scorecard book as well. So you know and accept that it's a good thing to do. And there's lots of use cases how you can use the book, but it's really just the content that you're struggling with. And maybe it's the problem of too many opportunities, too many ideas. So the 55 method that we'll talk about today and that for us actually that's. I should use November to do that. Actually that's maybe not a bad idea. But getting that five by five book written so we can share it in a slightly more formal way than just the Podcast is going to be. That should be something that's a high value thing that we should get sorted out sooner than later because the outline for it, I mean, this is an outline that we've used and talked about with some people for years now. So really getting it more formalized would be a good thing to do. But anyway, if you've got your own idea, that's the best option. If you don't have an idea but really understand that something would be valuable, then absolutely do this. And this might turn into your own idea for a further book. Or you might get halfway through this and then realize that, hey, actually I've got a whole other idea here that fits into this model. So it really is. This is a perfect starting position for you. As you know that you've heard all of the ways that a book could make a difference, but it's just getting it started that's the problem. One quick point before we get into the five by five model is if scope is a challenge and you're not using the five by five approach, you're using your own approach, then that is one of the mindsets of the scorecard. This idea of beneficial constraints, the idea of less is more and having a deadline and keeping things on message in order to get it completed and then using all of the other stuff, don't throw it away, but use all of the other stuff in other channels or follow ups. Check out the scorecard@bookblueprintscore.com and the beneficial constraints mindset because that will really help. And there's an exercise there as well, but that will really help kind of dial in this scope challenge that a lot of people run into at the other end of the spectrum where they're thinking about too much to write, not enough.

Guest: That's true because it'll remind you to check out the scorecard and then something else you said and I just lost it. So, like we haven't done one of these in so long conversations. But anyway. All right, so let's talk about it. It'll pop back up to me.

Stuart: Okay. It must be a good thought if it disappears for a minute and then come back. Working off the outline here that as I said, created years ago, this kind of mind map that I've got of this five by five model. So just as we were talking then about more formalizing this into a book to give it some structure and share it with people, that's definitely something that I'm going to get sorted out before the end of the year. So I think that's what it was.

Guest: So that's, that's exactly what it was. That's a great idea. Because a lot of times when people are onboarding and we're having this conversation, we. I talk about the five by five model because again, if they're not someone who's sure about where to start or where to end, you know, this sort of, that, that's a great idea to help them. So finishing that book would be a great resource to be able to send out to those people. Like, hey, here's what I'm talking about in a little more, you know, expand, take a look at it. You know, I think it'll definitely trigger some people to say, okay, I can do this. I can think about it from this angle, you know, and not be so overwhelmed, you know.

Stuart: Right, exactly. Because the purpose is, again, like we say all the time, the product that we're talking about here for anything where you're looking to engage more clients and win more business and identify those people who are out there who would be clients in the future. The product itself isn't the book. The product is the conversation and the information that you can share with people, leading and compelling them towards doing business with you. So the book itself is. The words on the page need to be good enough to add value. So again, another one of the scorecard mindsets is value driven content. So it needs to be good enough stuff. But it's not. It's not NaNoWriMo. It's not a novel. The product itself isn't the words on the page for entertainment. It's the giving something of value and moving people on. Even if it's the most horrendously written book ever, if the value is good enough, then people are opting in for this. People are raising the hand and requesting a copy because they want the outcome. They want the promise of the title, not they want to be entertained by the words. This isn't a distraction thing. The, the information itself needs to be good enough that it's not terrible and definitely good enough that it's given value and it's not kind of just bait and switching people into, hey, here's all the problems that you've got. You're going to be in serious trouble if you don't fix this. And in order to fix it, you need to come and see me. That's not what we're talking about. But the, the content itself, it's really not something that needs to be hung up on. If you've been in business more than here, you know, more than enough answers to write something that compels people in this early part of the journey with you. What I'll do, in lieu of having that book completed, I'll just outline the main five steps in the show notes. So definitely head over to the podcast section of the website, 90 Minute Books website, and check out the show notes for this episode. I'll just put the highlights. So if it is something that you're struggling with, then at least this will give you a great starting position and something that will create something of value. And then if your own ideas overtake it, then that's great. But if not, this is still going to be good. Good enough. This episode is going to be 1:18. So, yeah, head over to the 9 Minute Books website in the podcast section and this will be episode 118. So you can see the. The bullets of the five by five method, if not the entire thing. And then of course.

Guest: Right, that'll be very beneficial to the client. Yeah.

Stuart: Right. Assuming transcribers can hear past my cult, we'll have a transcript at least.

Guest: Right. It may not make a bit of sense.

Stuart: I'm probably way more conscious of it than everyone else is.

Guest: Because you are. Because you sound fine. Yeah, no, you're good. It really is fun.

Stuart: Okay, so let's. So the NaNoWriMo approach. November writing something every day end up with a novel. Now, our approach, if you're working, obviously we're not trying to encourage you to be writers, we're trying to encourage you to be authors. And it's more about the content than the actual discipline of writing. All of our model is very much around recording content and then we take it from there and deal with the words afterwards. If you're doing this yourself, then obviously you can't work around that. You've got to end up. But by having a strong outline, what you can effectively do is chunk it down into manageable sections. So this idea of having a very solid structure around it makes it much less overwhelming. Rather than thinking, I need to create a whole book now, it's, I just need to answer this question. So it's almost working on the end result backwards. So the first thing we want to do is think about the call to action, what you want people to do once they finished reading the book. So the reason that we look at that first is because, again, the book we're writing book for that purpose is to compel people to take the next step. So we need to know where we're going and what that next step is. Ideally, it's not, hey, fix this problem is by employing me to fix it for you. Hopefully you've got what we refer to sometimes as like a mafia offer, a small offer that's difficult to refuse. Or another way of thinking about it is this minimum viable commitment step, a small step that people can take next towards moving forwards. So it might be a further assessment that people do themselves or you do for them. It might be a retirement review, or it might be a analysis of a building survey where you just kind of. Or the car model, job pop in room by room review. All of these things are easy next steps and we know where we're leading towards the beginning of the process. Then is the title. And again, refer back to the scorecard because we've got. There's mindsets on the title and the call to action. So the title we want to compel people to raise their hand. Last week's podcast I put up the recording of the total mindset. The week before that we had the title workshop that we shared about to pick the title. But really we're looking to identify and compel that one group of people who you can help, knowing who that audience is, what we want them to do next, so we know what product we're moving them towards, we know what their problem is. To come up with a title, the content then just needs to be structured to move from the beginning to the end. And the easiest way of doing that is this five by five model that we've got, which I'm pretty sure isn't sure there's other people out there who have similar ideas before. I haven't heard anyone kind of conceptualize in Quay, but I'm sure I didn't invent this idea, but it's basically looking at the five questions that people ask all the time already, the five questions that they really should be asking. So you, your expertise, what would be better questions for them to ask and then five action steps for them to take as readers so that it really feels like the book is delivering some value and it's giving them something they can do now. And that's three by five. So in order for it to be five by five, make a little bit more sense in terms of a model. What we then also do is look at the five email steps or the five emails in a sequence that you want to follow up with them. Because we know as business owners, as people who write things to compel people to take a step, the book isn't going to be the be all and end all. It's the minority of People who take action immediately just based off that book. So we want to email people afterwards and compel them to take the next step over a slightly longer time frame. So five, the five things that should be in that email sequence. And then we've also got in the outline, we've got five suggestions on places to promote the book that you've now got. And we've also got 5 extra credit bonus things which probably are out of scope of this call because we'll be going on a long time. So wait for the actual book to come out and then we'll go into those in a little bit more detail. So that's the five things we know. The title and the group of people that we're with again, refer back to the scorecard to go into depth on that single customer audience. And a title that compels people to stops them in their tracks and makes them realize that I want that. So we've got that, we've got the call to action. We know what we're delivering, we're trying to get them to do next. And that would be in conjunction with the five email steps. So the five main parts of the book that we write to are five questions that they ask all the time, five things that they should be asking, and five action steps that they can take next. So let's dive into those a little bit. Ajay, I'm going to ask you if you've got anything. Does that resonate at all with conversations that you have as an excuse to mute and blow my.

Guest: Yeah, you're good. So I think that is, you know, when I bring that up to somebody that's onboarding, you know, because like I said, they struggle sometimes when I'll say like just starting simply with five things that the five most important things to someone, you know, that you should be telling someone or the five things I mean, that they should be asking. I mean, all of a sudden you can see these like light bulbs go off, you know, and they're like, you know, they're just like, oh my gosh, it was that, right?

Stuart: It's gonna have this conversation there with people. We can wait. We can't. It's. We even see it. I mean, we've been doing this for 10 years now, so we've probably seen all the questions that can come up. But I bet of them are the same every time. It's the. Did you ever see Dean talk about that subservient chicken YouTube video website meme thing from like the 90s?

Guest: I don't think so.

Stuart: So it was.

Guest: Now I'll have to. Yeah, right.

Stuart: I think. See, so this is going back to, I think, before the word meme was even invented. This is really like, early or. Well, wouldn't be early. So early days of the Internet. So I think it was kfc, although I might be wrong there. Anyway, this idea of subservient chicken. So the thing, the website was like a video. It looked like a live stream of this guy. And you'd type things into the box at the bottom, and the guy would do whatever you typed in. So it seemed like magic because it seemed like in very early Internet days, like you were controlling what was going on on screen. But the way that they created it, they had a survey. And I'm not sure how they created the survey, but I'm assuming it would have been something like, hey, here's a picture of a guy in a chicken suit. If you could tell him to do anything, what would it be? And then got all of those answers and collated all of those answers, removed the obnoxious ones, obviously, and then were left with this data set of what the majority of the requests were. They found that 80 to 90% of the requests all fell into the same group of about 20 to 30 things. They might be worded slightly differently, but it was really asking them to do the same thing. Jump up, down, spin around, whatever else it was. So from that, from knowing what the most common answers were, they were able to create this website that looked like it was completely interactive, but it wasn't. So the same thing for questions 88 to 90%, all for the same thing. As you're thinking about the challenges of your customers, as you're thinking about writing a book, what would serve them the most? 80 to 90% are going to be very similar, but if not exactly the same, in the same ballparks, and at least enough to be engaging. So it really is this. It's almost a freeing thought of, I've got all of these answers already. By using this structure, it's just giving me an easy to get them on a page. That makes sense.

Guest: No, it definitely is. Because, you know, and it's true, especially, like, if you're someone who is in Social Security, that's what you focus on. You know, Social Security, you know, the questions are going to be probably the same 10 questions or three questions or whatever, every single day, you know, over and over again. So. And that's one of the things when you remind people of that, like, there's always going to be certain, you know, if Joe Schmo comes and sits in your debt running your desk. What's he gonna ask you? And it really is like it. I like that you said it's a very freeing thought, you know, because then I think it takes the pressure off of people to come up with all the answers, you know, in a 60 page book, you know, and kind of

Stuart: school assignment problem of I think for most of us, if we're entrepreneurs, the majority of us are self employed or working for ourselves or in a kind of advisor real estate agent type model of you might be working under the umbrella of something else, but you're really self driven in your day to day activities. For us, we weren't the best at doing homework or being told what to do. So the idea of being told to sit down and write 60 pages on something is overwhelming. The idea of saying, okay, someone asks what's the earliest age they can claim Social Security? You could probably write 10,000 words just on that question alone. That's maybe not the best approach either. Don't. This is the beginning of the introduction to a conversation. You don't have to. We're not trying to write War and Peace here, but yeah. So this idea of freeing yourself up to write the answers to questions that you know and then okay, well what are those questions? I mean the easy way of getting that out is do what we refer to or what Dean refers to as a 50 minute focus finder. Don't steal credit for his idea. That framework's here, but it's really Pomodoro method or what's another name for it? I always knew it was a Pomodoro method. So writing for a set period of time and giving yourself a timer and a deadline just to write and not being distracted by anything else because it's only 20 or 30 minutes and then just almost like free writing, that was the other name I was trying to think about. Free writing where you just commit to writing non stop for 20 minutes and even if you come against a block and then you just start, just keep the pen or pencil moving. So this idea of saying, okay, for the next 20 minutes I'm just going to focus entirely on what are all. So then for the first five minutes you'll probably write the ones that are top in mind. The most obvious next five minutes you might be stuck and really just trying to keep the pen moving, writing anything. And then for the remaining 10 minutes, then the ideas will start really coming out your brain resistance into remembering all of the questions. Class, that's the easiest way and that's the most direct because it's just you're asking yourself the next ones though are things like looking back on your FAQ on your website there might be some in there that you've forgotten about but also valuable asking the people who deal with that frontline support. So if you've got a service desk or a receptionist or salespeople, whoever's dealing with the customers, ask those guys because they're really day in, day out if you've got. Yeah, because that's where the information lies. People are with the conversations all the time. So definitely, definitely that pool of knowledge. For some of the more common ones particularly if you as. As the kind of business owner or the person doing the work if you're one step removed it's like first line versus second line support. If you're removed from that first line interactions there's going to be some of those common questions you just never get to see because they're filtered out or they get to you. So that's yeah it's definitely worthwhile looking at that source some of the other people, other places. Then once you've kind of exhausted your own immediate circle is look on competitors website FAQs because they might identify other things. Search YouTube for what's being asked about the industry or the or the problem. Google autocompletes when you start typing things, typing words into Google or the address bar on your browser it will auto complete and come up with questions on other common asked questions. All of these places can't come up with five questions that people typically ask yourself then all of these areas are going to be other sources. And one thing that I would suggest is don't just stop. So if you come up with five and then stop you're kind of missing out on all of this other information. So really do take this 50 minute focus finder exercise and use the whole time to gather as much information as you can around the common questions that people ask. Because this information will be useful further down the track it'll be useful to amplify some of the chapters and add more information. If you've identified a question that's quick to answer with adding a little bit more color and depth to that chapter. These questions will help that the email follow up sequence that we talked about how we can compel people over time to take action questions will be more things shouldn't leave in the book but maybe should live in an email. And whether that's the initial follow up sequence specifically for this funnel as people opt in that kind of days after they've opted in, or whether it's more into this kind of flagship broadcast model, which again is a bit out of scope of this call. But the idea that when people join the list and raise their hand, you up with autoresponder sequence, that initial campaign, trying to compel those people who are ready now to take action, but after that a way of staying in touch with them for the long haul until they are ready, which might be months or years down the track. So again, this set of questions, this list people ask is a great content idea pool of information for those flagship forecasts staying in touch with people one, two years into the future. So the last one on where to get these ideas from is social sites like Social Answers sites like Quora or Yahoo Answers, or you might have forums like Financial Advisor forums where people are asking those common questions. I'm more thinking about the consumer facing ones rather than the B1s. But all of these places, you know, have, have consumer focused questions. They bring together into the meat of the chapters answering questions and the issues that are on the minds of people who are ideally positioned to become clients further down the track.

Guest: That's great. I mean it really is. When you say it out loud, it is so simple when it comes down to it, you know, like you said, it's not like, not new stuff, you know, it's just putting it together for someone. And I think this is going to be so valuable to so many people that haven't done books, you know, that are fearful to take that leap or don't know where to start or held back. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that and that really fear of I don't know how to. What to put in it. Yeah, right.

Stuart: Yeah. Because I think people get. And you'll hear this in almost every conversation that you hear me talk about. People get hung up on the book being the product and they say book and their mind automatically goes to a traditionally published book with all of the overhead and the baggage that comes from it. And they'll go back to a school exercise of having a writing assignment and then getting red pen marked all over it and it being difficult and hard. The I was wishing that we could come up with a better term for what we do because it's got all of the benefits of a book, but it's the ease of creating it in a different format. It's almost like a different thing. It's kind of like when you say if you said video, you should. I've listened to a YouTube video the other day. Gary Vaynerchuk presentation was really talking about using video web as that first engagement point because all of the platforms, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, they're all pushing video because it's more, it's consumed at higher rates, but it's also more compelling. But video in theory you could equally be, it's moving pictures on a screen. So you could be talking about one of those things from the 1900s where you've got the lamp and the horse jumping over the fence and you spin it around like a flip book. I mean a flip book at one end of the spectrum and a Hollywood blockbuster at the other end of the spectrum. Delivery mechanism is the same. It's moving pictures at over 30 frames a second. See it as video delivered on a screen, but creating a flip book compared with a Hollywood book blockbuster. Completely different. If you got every time I wanted to record a quick video for someone, that had to be blockbuster production quality and I mean you'd never do anything. So the same with books, we're just more people now because of smartphones are used to very quickly creating video, they're not yet used to very quickly creating books. So it's definitely a holdback for people unnecessarily. I think that's the benefit of the nine minute book process as well. I mean not to drum, although we should, because it's fantastic because it serves exactly this purpose. You can concentrate just on the words, just on answering the questions and then we take care of everything else. The whole production shenanigans that goes on around having to do the rest of it. Which again is slightly outside of the scope of what we're talking about in the five by five model. But it really does just free you up to focus on the valuable bit which is the content and compelling people to move towards that minimum viable commitment step of working with you.

Guest: Yeah.

Stuart: Okay, so before I go off too much on, on that tangent first, the first step of this five by five model, the five questions that they ask, the next one is the five questions they should ask. So going back to the Social Security model, someone asking what's the earliest stage that I can take Social Security? Maybe a better question is okay, well what their assets do you have delaying Social Security? If you've got the anticipation of living more than 10 or 15 years, whatever the break even point is delaying claiming it means that you'll get a higher benefit. Taking it early means you'll get much less benefit. So if till 80, 85 then and you have other assets, then delaying it makes more sense than taking it on time or particularly early because the total amount that you'll be able to claim is will be way more. So that as a question to ask, highlighting that in the book is moving them towards the ultimate goal of hey, the next step you should really do. Obviously we've given you the framework here, the fundamentals, but it's different for each person. So what you really need to do is come in for a complimentary retirement review or complementary Social Security review and we'll go into your record, look at what your contributions amount were. We've got some software that will do some projections, we'll take a quick look and at your other assets and your health and then we can give you a view on what should be the next step. So when we look at all of the structure to the book, sticking with that example, we've got the Iowa Social Security. The Iowa 2023 Social Security Guide answers the that's a title that stops someone who's interested in Social Security in their tracks. We've got questions like what's the earliest stage I can take? Required benefits? Maybe what if I've miss complete contribution record, excuse me. All of these questions that we know people ask now we can move them towards, hey, those are great questions. But also here's some things that you should really start thinking about, like what other assets do you have? What's your health projection? How long do you anticipate living? Because those questions then thinking, hey, you know what, this is a bit more complicated. It's not just hey, do I have, can I take it as 62 or do I have to wait till 67? It's getting more completely and more roundedly about their retirement planning. And as a financial advisor that if you're looking to engage with people who have got 500,000 investable assets, then that group of people are going to be in the group of people who are also interested in their full picture. Now some of them aren't going to have so maybe you'll need to sift and sort those people at a later date and not spend. There's limited help that you can provide for people who don't have any investable assets. Maybe you just say, hey, if you don't have any other pension provisions, then here's a whole load of Social Security elements you really need to double down on. And here's a contact or here's a way of following up on that again if possible. You don't want to drop people, but also understanding that you can't help everyone. So double down on who you Can. But this idea of the questions they should ask is really that transition into moving them towards that minimum viable commitment step on the back cover the thing that we want them to do next. And that's why we start with that. We move towards that. So we've got five questions that they ask. Five questions that they should ask and then we've got five action steps that they can take. I can take a drink of water again. Does that. So don't look logical progression.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. It is. It makes perfect sense. So the five actionable steps, I think that that's going to be interesting to talk about. But I think that could probably end up being an entire podcast because I mean there's. The possibilities are endless there. So. Yeah, but I'm excited this again, I'm just really excited about this whole podcast because I feel like it's going to be so beneficial to people listening.

Stuart: Yeah, I mean we've been, like I said, we've been doing this for 10 years now. We've been doing it for more than 10 years. If you think about books that we would do just as part of our separate coaching programs. And in fact, Dean would say that he was first suggesting doing this. I think the how to make a money making ebook was back in the early 2000s. So all of all has been printed on. Hey, we're giving you the steps on how to do it. But we're assuming to a certain degree that you know what to do in terms of the content, that you come with an idea of what you want to write about. And that's been the majority. I mean not completely because We've used the 5x5 model with clients, but that's been the majority of people that we've worked with expanding this now to say, hey, listen, everyone who knows they should write a book and have got a very strong idea about it, or not everyone, a lot of people have done that already. The group of people who haven't are those people who are just thinking about it for the first time. They've never come across it before or now is the time for them. Maybe they've been holding back for one reason or another. But a big group of people like you were saying, is that group who just get think that they don't have anything to write about or get too hung up on what the words should be. So this really, if you've got a great idea for a book, fantastic, do that. If you don't do this, I mean, it's that simple, right?

Guest: Exactly.

Stuart: Let's move into that last Bit then the action steps. So the reason that we've included this is because the mindset, the breakthrough, the book blueprint school card mindset and value driven content. What we don't want to do is kind of bait and switch people into saying hey, here's some questions, here's why you're screwed. For want of a better term. The thing that you need to do is come and employ me and I'll fix it for you. Now ultimately that's probably going to be the answer for a lot of things because you can only do so much. I'm looking out the office window at the house here and there's a old truck that we were using for moving wood around and just running some chores. Took it for an inspection. The rear shackles on it had collapsed because it's an old rustack truck and it's some of the frames rusted out. It needs some welding on the front of the frame so I can fix the shackles on the back. I'm not a mechanic by any sense, but I'm pretty handy and I don't mind getting hands dirty. I've never done it before, but how hard can it be? YouTubed a couple of videos, Convenient excuse to buy a couple. Another. Another tool. I needed a better jack than I had anyway. And looking around, there was plenty of information out there that gets me past first steps. So if my outcome is wanting to get this truck back on the road, then there's two things that need to be done. One is replacing the rear shackles. I can do that myself or a thousand dollars. Get someone else to do it. The welding on the front, I can't do that. So if there was a book out there that said how to get your 2000 then that would be. And I was looking around for it, then that would be. Stop me in my tracks because that's what I was looking for. Obviously this is a silly example, but just to illustrate this list this spectrum or timeline? Not timeline. What am I looking for? Spectrum between the bits I can do and the bits I can't do. I can do the shackles, I can't do the welding because I'm not a welder and I haven't really got time to get that involved again, how hard can it be? But I've got time to do it. So the same with the Social Security guide giving me five steps and based on the mindset of value driven content, I was drawn to the book by the title. I had a couple of the obvious questions I thought I answered. There was a Couple of other questions that got me thinking, oh, actually there's more to this than I thought. Now what I don't want is someone to say, okay, I've told you that it's more complicated than you think. Now you need to come and see me and employ me to fix it. What I want is the shackles information of hey, the great news is here's five things that you can do yourself. Now obviously the welding bit, the more complicated bit you can't do. So if you still need that doing, I'd love to work with you. But here are the five things that you can do. So Social Security example would be here's the website where you can go to the Social Security guide site and get a statement of your contributions to see if you've got any gaps in your history and if you've actually under contributed in order to get the maximum benefit. Here's a five question. Don't use five again. Here's three questions that you can sit down and ask with your spouse talking about your overall financial position. Here's a. Here's something action sets steps that you should consider when looking at your personal pensions. Go and get a statement for those. Here's an action set step where you consider your medical insurance in retirement and whether that's all covered or whether that's a big thing. The thing that today is give people the first steps that they can do themselves so they feel good about ultimately coming to you. The Ford Ranger getting back on the road book if there were step by steps and some links to videos on how to replace the shackles and the next step is the welding piece. If you're comfortable with welding, then there's the two things look out for. But if you then come in, I'm way more likely to go down that route rather than get to the end of it and thinking, hey, this is great. Okay, now I need to find someone who can do the welding. Let me go, start googling and take my chance out on the Internet of finding someone who can do that bit. I'm more likely minimum viable commitment step on the back cover that says hey, the next thing that we should do is the next thing that we need to do is do your personalized Social Security review, so come in for free. Just here's the link to book on the calendar. That was a random example. The thing that makes me less excited about working on this ranger out here is because I just took delivery of the Rivian, which is not broken. So I'm less compelled to fix this one than I Am just driving around in the nice new one.

Guest: I get a it.

Stuart: Okay, so let's just quickly recap what we've got then because as usual we're running long. I talk too much. We've got the 5x5 model. So if you know if you've got a good idea about engaging your audience with information that you want to share, absolutely do that. If you don't. But you can see all of the benefits of having a book do the five by five model. The five by five is identifying audience and the title that's going to stop them in the track knowing what the next step is, that minimum viable commitment step to get them to start engaging with you. Knowing those the start position and the end position and then focusing on the content. The content is five questions that they ask all the time. So this is the things that probably already resonate with them. And we gave some sources to get those answers. Five questions that they should be asking to kind of their thinking a bit and make them realize that there's maybe another level to what they were considering all towards moving them towards that next step, that minimum viable next step. And we've got five action steps because we don't want to bait and switch people into. Sorry, my phone. Five action steps because we don't want to bait and switch people into hey now you obviously need to work with me. We want to give them some things that they can do themselves to build that rapport and enhance that relationship. And then the obvious next step once it starts getting too difficult is come in for this easy next step and start working with us. So that model is going to get the book created. The other two pieces quickly recap on the five by five model is five emails in that follow up sequence. So don't think about just having the book and then having the call to action. Assume that the majority of people are going to opt in for this book. So you'll have chance to capture their email details and then have an autoresponder for follows up. So that's maybe something like the first email is here's your copy of the book. The second message is then what we refer to as the SPEAR email. A SPEAR stands for short personal expecting a reply. So in the Social Security model, the first email deliver the book. The second email hey Bob, have you got a copy of your Social Security record yet? We're trying to engage them and start that conversation. Third one might be showcasing and delivering more information. So amplifying a point point in the book. So it might be hey Bob, in The second chapter we were talking about the impact of life expectancy. This is something that people don't think about. Here's a few words on why that's a little bit more important because I didn't get a chance to go into that too much detail in the book. So kind of like an amplifying one. The fourth one then could be amplifying or reinforcing the call to action. So hey Bob, the best next step is to come in for a free personalized Social Security review. And then the last one can be anything. One of the previous points. So amplifying a point in the book, giving a case study using the examples of other people, adding in one of those other questions that you didn't get chance to cover in the book itself as an amplifying point. So all of those ways are still ways over time. And five isn't a magic number. But how is over time to keep the fact that they'd asked a question and downloaded the book in front of them and present them the opportunity to take that next step. And then the last one, just quickly because it's out of scope of this call really is five places to promote it. So now that you've got it, do something with it. So these are things like include it in the signature in your email or email, promote it on Facebook or LinkedIn, those kind of tools. You've got the opportunity magazine, magazine advertising, which can be very cost effective these days because everyone's on digital. But you can imagine if you were in a retirement community and there was a community publication advertising in there. You can direct mail postcards to people offering a copy of the book to a targeted group of people. And then this last idea of complementary non competing businesses. Who are the people who you who work with similar clients to you but aren't competitors that you could present your book to that group so that they would get value and it's opportunity to put you in front of that group of people five by five. I'll outline this in the show notes as well. Just so, just so it's just bulleted there and it's a little bit easier for people to refer back to.

Guest: That's great. I think. Yeah. As I said, I think it's going to be good information for people. Those who are sort of on the ledge and aren't ready to jump. This might help them make that decision. So yeah.

Stuart: And circling Back to the NaNoWriMo example, November, I don't know if that happened in November for a specific reason or if it was coincidence. But Thinking of November as the time to get it done really starts to position you well for 2023 over the following year.

Guest: The reason, Absolutely, yeah.

Stuart: Important is because there's such a time based benefit of doing something to a calendar if you've got the opportunity. Now, I wouldn't wait for the New Year just to do it, but because New Year is coming up, then saying to people, hey, everyone's got a New Year's resolution of sorting out their finances. This might be the year that you're thinking about retirement. A lot of people think of Social Security as the first step in that process. So grab a free copy of the Social Security Guide guide because it's really going to answer 10 of the most pressing questions that people have around Social Security and the fact that they've got a New Year's line in the sand, that they're thinking about new things. It's such an opportunity for you to piggyback off the back of that activity. So November is really a key date in terms of if you've thought about this for any amount of time, but it's just what to include has been the struggle. Then just do this first. If it triggers something that you then write a second book further down the track, that's fine. Do this one first and it will get it out there. And starting now means you can definitely get it finished by the new year.

Guest: Great.

Stuart: Okay. My voice is more croaky, but I didn't cough too much. Hopefully during that.

Guest: No, you didn't know. You're good.

Stuart: If I put the notes on, this is going to be episode 118, so head over to the 9minute books website, 9minutebooks.com in the podcast section. And this will be 119 to see the show notes and I'll put the outline. If you want to work with us to do the 5x5 model, that's, that's fine as well. I mean, we don't particularly, we don't have a button on the website saying five by five, but just get started on any of the models that, on any of the variations, the product variations that we've got and we can definitely do a 5x5 version with you for sure. So again, don't let that be the holdback of doing it. We can take care of all of the, all of the production side of things as well then, which obviously was out of scope of this content conversation. But yeah, having it done by the New year definitely should be a goal for everyone.

Guest: Yeah.

Stuart: Okay. Thanks for your time again, Betsy.

Guest: Wonderful. Always a pleasure.

Stuart: All right, thanks, everyone, for listening, and we'll catch you in the next one.