The Worlds Greatest Business Card with Bill Bloom

Stuart: Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the book More show the video editions. It's Stuart Bell here and I'm super excited again because I get to talk to another one of our authors and somebody who I've spoken to over the years since we first did some work together. But it's probably been a couple of years since we caught up last. So everyone want to introduce Bill Bloom. And Bill, I'll let you give the, give the listeners or the viewers here a bit of the background of the Bill Bloom story.

Bill Bloom: Oh boy. How much time do we have here? This is going to be a good one.

Stuart: The highlights and the good bits.

Bill Bloom: Absolutely. We'll keep it high level fire by nature here. But first and foremost, I'm an author. You know, this is a book show. So I've done four books and I really have become a different person throughout this whole entire process. When you write a book, when you put it out there, your confidence changes, you know, your messaging changes. I think your outlook changes too because there's so many more new and better, bigger and better opportunities that come from it. And I am a financial advisor by nature. That's my business. I've started another business. My wife and I, we have two little kiddos, love sailing. I love reading and I go for my morning runs and get, get a reward and get my morning coffee every day. So that's who I am in a very simple nutshell.

Stuart: Stuart, that's in the highlights. Well, you're talking now about sailing. That was, I think that was the first book we were doing together, talking about the Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement and back in the time. So I've got a little bit of sailing background, not very much at all, mainly like little dinghies. I love the go kart effect of them. But that kind of stood out at the time because we were talking to people a lot about that niche specific idea. So not the all encompassing book that's supposed to be the knowledge tomb on the tome on the industry, but more that targeting that single target market. So yours obviously stood out for that. But that then led into some others and the idea of your approach being crystallized and in a book and formalized and the framework carrying through that also is a fascinating idea. So we'll get a chance to dive into both of those. But I guess I start at the beginning, the first one. What was the seed of the idea of taking the conversations that you were having and turning it into a book?

Bill Bloom: Well, I was stuck in an airport for eight hours. I was in the lounge we were actually at my friend's bachelor party and they all booked their flights at like noon. I thought they were all going to do it at night. So my flight was 8 o'. Clock. So I hit had 8 hours. So I was just sitting in the lounge and I had that little blue book. I think I have it here on my bookshelf where it talks about how you could do a 90 minute book. And I'm thinking to myself, what am I going to do with eight hours of my time? So I did the outline for the book, why I did it in the airport, because I made really great use of my time. So that's where the idea came from. Stuart. It was really just an aha moment for me. I always wanted to do a book. My company was fairly new at that time too. It was only a couple years old. And I'm a sailor. I love, love, love working with boaters and power boaters and sailors and people who love being out on the water. Because that's my passion. And I wanted to create a really simple giveaway for people. It's like a business card, basically.

Stuart: Yeah.

Bill Bloom: And that was where the idea came from. Do it very specific because when you get very specific, great things happen in your business. And really some of my very best and fun clients have come from this book, like handing it out.

Stuart: Right.

Bill Bloom: I still promote it in our yacht clubs like quarterly newsletter. So it's just, it's a really fun tool to show people how you could be a professional in a very, you know, very elaborate yacht club.

Stuart: Right.

Bill Bloom: And it was a great process that

Stuart: I think is such a great point. The idea that it is the establishing part of an ongoing conversation that really establishes you at a certain level. It's kind of you're the guy that wrote the book and it gives the authority that comes along with it. But I think what we find in conversations with people is that's almost intimidating in some ways. So you were saying that the business was pretty new at that point. It's not like you had 30 years of experience that you were trying to build into this authority piece. Would. What would be the advice to other people? I mean, our advice is always, if you've been in business for more than a year, more than two years, you know all of the stuff to start the conversations. You don't have to wait for the perfect time or think that it has to meet a certain level.

Bill Bloom: Yeah. My best advice would be just get the book out there. If you have an idea to write a book, just do it. Don't Overthink it. You know, the process was fairly simple working with you guys. I mean, truthfully, it was very simple and it was incredible because I'm not a great writer. I know that editing is a nightmare for me. And going back to the whole strategic coach aspect, you know, Dean created who, not how, and then Dan took that to a whole nother ionosphere with Ben. So finding the right people to do the work for you is so incredibly important. And I'm sure, Stuart, a lot of people say 90 minutes. Can you really do a book in 90 minutes? The whole process did not take a ton of time. Yeah, I'm sure it's evolved for you guys too. I'm sure it's really evolved because this has been years now. But for me it was really easy and the things that come from it in the background are really the special parts. Because I've had people read the book, they say, you know what, this really helped me a ton of. And then I was selling the book on Amazon, I think it was like 9.99. And I had a friend said say to me, bill, this is not a 9.99 book. And that was great feedback too. Now I give them all away for free on my website, so you can download it. There's no emails, they don't take any of your data. They're free and open for anyone to read. And I think that's the way it should be because you and I both know, Stuart, if we're looking to sell a million million books, like millions of books, that's hard to do. It's very. That's an outlier.

Stuart: But I was listening to the. Sorry, just on that point on the sales, I was listening to the. We were dialed into the Genius network event that's going on at the moment yesterday. So I was around at the house with Dean and they had the Ryan, I can't remember his surname, who owned or as the CEO of Hay House, because that group. It makes sense for some people to go the traditional publishing route and actually look at book sales. But the two things that stood out when he was talking was one, there's a difference between being an author and a writer. And some authors are also writers. But he was saying from a very well known bestseller perspective, you'd be surprised by how many authors don't write their work at all. He was talking more from the traditional publishing ghost writing. 30, 40, 60, $100,000 type end of the market, which obviously is not where we're, is not the job of work of these books. But Just getting over that idea of you don't have to be a writer in order to be an author. Now we're not talking about being best selling authors and selling the books, but we're talking about authoring of an idea and getting it onto a page. You don't need to get hung up. It's not a college assignment where it's going to be marked. It's just starting the conversation. And then the second point you talked about in terms of actual book sales for all of the audience here and everyone that we're talking to, where we're talking about a book, the job of work of the book being the beginning of a conversation, not actually selling the book to try and make profit from the book itself, then selling them is. There's no way you're going to make anywhere near the money that you'd make from getting clients from the books. And to get to the point where it's. It's valuable on an Amazon shelf next to all of the other books there, the amount of work you've got to put into it to get it to that level, that doesn't change the authoring of the idea. The idea is still the same. It's just the writing overhead of the document. Completely unnecessary. It was. It's always. It's not frustrating. What's the right word? I'm going to stay frustrating. But listening to a lot of other more traditional publishing people talk about the need to have a book which we're completely on board with, but they're talking about it in the traditional sense. The months of work and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of effort. For most business owners, that's a complete. That's not the most efficient use of time. A better use of time is having something like you've got now four books that are introducing four conversations and accelerating four conversations. The return on that is unbelievable compared with just thinking about it in terms of book Sal.

Bill Bloom: And I think there's like a thousand times multiplier on top of that Stuart, that no one ever talks about. It's that goodwill that you're never going to get that one client but you change their life. I gave my latest books Money Habits for Success. I actually wrote this. I wrote the whole entire thing during the pandemic when it first started. And the your money journal, I gave it to the people who were the security in the door, men and women in our building.

Stuart: Right.

Bill Bloom: And the maintenance people. Just as gifts, holiday gifts. And the feedback that I've received from them, they read the book, they Changed their lives. Right. They're not a proper fit from a client standpoint. Right. They don't need my help. They figured it out. And that's what it's all about for me, like internally, that makes me so incredibly happy. I've had people read books, I get feedback. That's what it's all about. Yes, you'll get clients from it, potentially, you may make money from it, but if you're going to put something out there and change someone's life, imagine how that's going to feel when you do that.

Stuart: Yeah, that point. Because we get so kind of hung up on the return on investment of doing the book in the first place. Because we're often talking to people who are. No, it's an idea. But are not necessarily. They don't want to put tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours into it. So we're very much talking about that just beginning point, the return on investment and it's worth. Excuse me, why it's worthwhile and the initial steps. But that making a difference and having something. I think it's one of the benefits of our approach to keep the books conversational, informat and informal because it makes it more accessible. So for those people who are reading it, they might not have picked up a financial advice book off the shelf. It might not be something that entered their mind, but the fact that someone's given something to them and the content was accessible. And there were some straightforward steps to get started which might lead to bigger conversations down the track. Some people might turn into clients years down the track. But just making a difference, sharing your idea, getting it across in a way that really encourages them enthusiastically to take a step, it really makes a big. That's the thing that makes a big difference. Like I say, clients will come, but meaningfully making a difference to someone's life, that's difficult to quantify.

Bill Bloom: Yeah, it's really difficult because you don't know. It's like doing a podcast. You have no idea who's listening. I've had great messages from friends like, hey, I really, really like this episode from high school or from grade school. Some people have become clients. I had no idea they were listening. You have no idea. But if you go into doing a book and your first question is, what's my return on investment? It's always the wrong question. That's such a scarce mindset. Always.

Stuart: Stop.

Bill Bloom: Stop right there. Because the way to think about this is, how can I affect the most people possible? Change it. Change that mindset, make it abundant. Not If I spend a couple thousand dollars or 5,000 or 10,000, whatever that number is, how quickly can I make that money back? Such a scarce mindset. That's not the way to go into doing a book. It's never going to work like that. I mean, you could reverse engineer that, Stuart. This is how my brain works. This is how we do the retirement planning is you reverse engineer things like, how many books do I need to sell? It's not how it works. It's like, okay, do I need to get only one client to pay this back? There's 8 billion people on the planet. You need one, maybe two, depending on what you're selling or what you're working on.

Stuart: What's the influencer problem of people? The success that's out there is seen at the extremes. So influencers who've got hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, the edge case, viral video that the Brambury Juice guy on his longboards skating down the road. The likelihood of that's what you're benchmarking against, the barrier to success is just too great because the numbers are too big. That edge case of very big success may or may not happen, but for most people, it's a thousand raving fans. For most people, affecting a small. A very small. In numbers terms, percentage of the population out there can have a dramatic effect on your life and on theirs. And I think sometimes people get too held back. And I don't know if it's a fear of success or failure thing or whether they're just thinking about the wrong numbers, but you just get the feeling that some people are just held back, not wanting to do something, because they only want to do something if it's going to have this huge outsize effect, which it just isn't realistic and it's not gonna meaningfully make a difference to the people who are in your immediate circle that you can impact.

Bill Bloom: So true. So true. I mean, you're playing the wrong game if you're trying to make it a viral thing.

Stuart: Yeah.

Bill Bloom: You have to start small. It's gonna take time. And the thing that I didn't do, well, I mean, this is good feedback for everyone listening is when I did the first book, all of them really, I mean, I didn't have a backup plan. Meaning, okay, what are the 10 steps I need to do afterwards? How do I keep this relevant? How do I keep you? Because this content is. It has a lifespan, it's renewable. You could transfer this on. You can create intellectual property from this. You can trademark it. So there's value to all of this, because when I did the Yachter's guide to early retirement, that was my quick start saying for those Colby fans out there, I was like, okay, let's do this. Let's put it out there. And it's worked. It's been incredible. But then I had that book redone into retire as you desire. Now, my uncle and I were just on a phone call. He helped me kind of reword some of it and make it into more of a general book so that anyone could read it in case you're not a boater or a sailor. And we were spitballing back and forth and retire as you desire came out of his mouth. I'm like, stop.

Stuart: It's fantastic.

Bill Bloom: It was like a holy, you know what moment. So I trademarked that right away. So I still own that property, so that's something I could pass on to my family, my kids, one day. And that's been my big brand now. So people think retire as they desire. They come to me for that. They think about retirement. You don't have to stop working to retire. I mean, it's all about doing the things you don't like doing and finding out how much that's actually going to cost you from an investment standpoint, to live the life that you want to, getting rid of those crappy things, like Dan Sullivan always says, my dear friend and mentor. So, so many great things come from these books over time, and it's worth every second, every heartache, all the energy you put into it, every dollar. It's incredible, Stuart.

Stuart: And that piece that you said that you don't know where it's going to end up. I always think that people get hung up on the first version. It's like if you do go down the approach of spending a lot of money and a lot of time and investment in it. No plan. What's the quote? Something about even the best plan doesn't survive the first contact with the enemy or the Mike Tyson one. If everyone's got a plan, until I get punched in the face. This idea of putting all of your time and investment into something that hasn't yet been tested. You don't know which direction it's going to be. Get the first thing out there and then be open and willing to pivot. So there was a bit that I really love. I mean, apart from the title. I mean, that's just such a fantastic title, Extra bonus to your uncle. But the fact that it's turned into a framework, and that framework is then consistent all the way through the way that people work with you and how you work with them and the fact that you can tie in other assets down the track because you've named it and claimed it and you've got tentpole pieces throughout the or milestones throughout the process that people can very easily understand and picture where they are on the journey. So this bigger asset and property creation that you were talking about probably wouldn't have happened if you'd have tried to plan it first and then put all of the building blocks in place. It really comes from that development, development and real world feedback. But the amplification of it is, as you can see from the images behind you there on the wall, that kind of amplification of the main points. It's such a great way of introducing people and making, helping them make the most of their journey.

Bill Bloom: Yeah, I mean, talk about money is hard. People are very scarce with a mindset around money. And when you hear retire as you desire it makes you smile. It kind of takes that edge off a little bit. It's like, okay, this is fun. Retire as I desire. Right? How I want to make it about me. And that's how I run my business. It's all about the end user, never about me. None of this stuff would have happened. I don't know where my business would be. I don't know where my life would be. It's just really been a blessing. You have to put yourself out there. I never would have started the retire as you desire podcast without it. None of this stuff would happen. Things would be different. Would they be good, better, worse? Who knows? We, yeah, we will never be able to tell that. But just by having the confidence, do it. Stuart was. Yeah, that's why I said earlier, just do it. See what happens. Because you're not gonna know until you

Stuart: do it, until it's done. Right. You were talking there about the podcast being something that came out of this approach. I know when we were talking, I'll link to the last did, which I haven't looked. I meant to look before we jumped on the call, but it was probably some time ago that, that we did that and we were talking about the things that had come up from the Yachters book. So there was opportunities to speak at different events and it was a door opener to other groups. Retire as you design now has the podcast and the framework built around it. Talk a little bit about some of those things that have kind of been triggered by the book and opened doors or presented opportunities that wouldn't have otherwise come up.

Bill Bloom: A lot of things have changed from an opportunity standpoint, I think more people have been raising their hand and self selecting to come into the retire as you desire family, which has been pretty cool. It's less work. People have already kind of bought into your theory and they trust you. They get to listen to you. I think the biggest framework from a business standpoint would be I'm able to help the right people who I want to be a hero. It's made my business very specific and very focused because again, you don't need a billion people as your client. You need a handful. You need a thousand rating fans. And I think that's been the biggest game changer because business has been great. You know, when we're recording right now, the markets haven't been great, but this has really just been a great year for business because people want help and I pick up the phone and do the little things. It's all about little things. And I think those are the biggest opportunities is knowing who you are. You don't have to impress anyone, which I always used to try and do. And it just gives you. It's given me, Stewart, so much more peace of mind and just calmness around my life, knowing I don't have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off, looking for every single person with a pulse to become my client. It's just. It's really mitigated all of that. And that's just been the evolution from the Otter's guide to early retirement to book four. And yeah, it's just been a fun journey.

Stuart: Yeah. So you mentioned the four books and the development from the one to the first one to the fourth one. You talked about the podcast and you also talked about having a reason to stay in touch with people over the long run. So oftentimes when we're talking about the process for engaging people, it's yes, there'll be some people who are ready to move immediately and raise their hand. And a book is a great way of starting that conversation. But the majority of people are on a longer cycle. Today's not the day for them, but at some point in the future is. So the. I'm guessing that the podcast is a great way of staying in touch with people and having a reason to reach out to them. Are you using the books or part of the books in that framework and in the newsletter, Are they kind of like the touch points bringing anchoring people back to a next step they can take?

Bill Bloom: So what I've just recently done is my podcast people, they're incredible. By the way, they have started their own social media type experiment and their guinea pig right now, which is kind of cool. They're starting to post on my behalf and the lady posted one. Basically, here's a free download for my retire as you desire book or whichever book it was. There's money habits for success, that one. And then I'm getting messages on LinkedIn. Hey, I just downloaded your book.

Stuart: Fantastic, right?

Bill Bloom: Just little things like that. You could pull quotes out of your book, you can make Twitter posts, you could do social media posts, you could take one quote thing that you said. There's so much quantity in a book book that you could reuse, repurpose, you could do a 30 second video on it. All that data is always able to be reused and I think people forget about that. I do, I have. And now it's coming to fruition and you just gave me a really good idea too, Stuart. So thank you for that. To take little excerpts from the book and talk about it on the podcast and then they can go into it. So there's so much, there's a true body of evidence there in the book that you could always repurpose that. So it's always a mark, a marketing piece.

Stuart: This idea, like you mentioned, of people completing the work, the thing and then almost forgetting about it. It's such a missed opportunity. The idea of topic bridging into into something that is the next step. So in the book Blueprint Scorecard that we have the eight mindsets to really create a book that builds the business. One of those is the minimum viable commitment. And we're often talking about it in terms of back cover, having steps for people to take. But that idea of the minimum viable commitment goes for all of the interactions with people and if you can bridge from whatever the topic is. So where are we now? October, November. God, November 4th. Fed fund rates obviously substantially different from where they are a little while ago. There's talk now of a potentially a pivot or a softening on their approach that as a piece of news versus something that's in the book talking about how inflation has an impact on retirement or correct level of planning for the income that you want that topic bridging option into rather from the news piece into something that is part of the framework and then is the door opener to the other things that you talk about. I mean there's limitless opportunities. So anyone who talks about. I'd really love to stay in touch with people over the long run, but I just don't know what to talk about like you were saying, there's tens, hundreds, thousands of things in the thing that you've already created that you can bridge into something of the moment.

Bill Bloom: Yeah, that's true. And I learned something from a few folks at Strategic Coach and just being on a ton of podcasts over the years. People don't want to talk to you until they want to talk to you.

Stuart: Right? Right.

Bill Bloom: And if you have that mindset going into it, like people will pick up the phone when they're ready. You can't force it. It needs to be organic. It needs to be authentic. That's the biggest thing you need to be authentic. You know, I've tried to do things that other advisors or other business people have done in their way and it never worked for me. Never ever. It needs to be authentic. That's what people want. And people know when you're not authentic too. So people will raise their hand when they want to. Give it time. Give it a 25 year time frame. Think about this. This will be a good exercise. Put the book into the world and then give yourself 100 quarters, 25 years total strategic coaching this thing right now. And just do 90 day sprints, 90 day accomplishments for the book. Okay. I want to do five social media posts in the next quarter. Easiest thing in the world. Or find someone to do it for you. The next quarter I want to be on two podcasts. You could do that. Do things like that. Give yourself a longer time frame and you're not going to be upset or worried or really ask yourself that terrible question, what's my return on writing this book? It's just a mindset thing.

Stuart: Right. Missing the benefit of the long term for the being caught up in the short term. Yeah. Super grateful for your time today. It's always great to check back in with people. I want to make sure we give people the opportunity to get more Bill Bloom if. If they're looking for. Looking for more Bill. So where's the best place for people to check out to understand a little bit more about what you're doing or be inspired by some of the ideas that you've got?

Bill Bloom: Oh, I'm always coming up with ideas. I'm a futurist in IDE for my strength finder. So that's just how my brain works. The retire as you desire podcast is a great place to go to. We're on all the fun platforms and we also have our YouTube, the retires who desire YouTube page where you can see all the videos like what we're doing right now. We should Put this up there, by the way. And if you go to retire as you desire dot com. See, there's a theme here. All the books are on the website for free. At the bottom of the page click on the books you do not need to put in your email. I don't need your phone number. I don't need anything. No information. You can download all four books for free, no cost. And hopefully it changes your life in the most positive way.

Stuart: Yeah, for sure. Thanks again for your time. It's been really good. We I'll look back once we drop off the call. I look back to when it was that we last spoke and I'm sure I'll be shocked and horrified by how long it was. So we'll definitely have to make it not so long next time check back in. I'll make sure that we've got links to retire as you desire and the podcast and the YouTube channel in the show notes. So as you're listening and watching this, check out the head over to bookmore.show or 90minutebooks.com in the podcast section and then we'll have all of the links down there. And Bill, just again, thanks for your time. It's really, as we're saying just before we recorded, I get to speak to people all the time about the books they're creating. I get to speak to fewer people sometime afterwards to see how they're using them. But every time I do, it really kind of reinforces the passion that people have got to get their message out. So really excited that we could get to share this with more people. So thanks again for your time.

Bill Bloom: So happy to be here. Go write your book, go take care of business and just put out there in the world and let the magic happen.

Stuart: Fantastic. Thanks everyone. Thanks, Bill. We will catch you on the next show.