Today we dig deep into two examples of people using their books to generate more business.

It's sometimes easy to forget your book is not the product, but the introduction to your product. A way for you to start a conversation. In this show we look at some great examples of how you can use your book in a Facebook campaign or as a referral tool.

Links:

• Breakthrough DNA

• Ep002: An interview with Glenn McQueenie

Transcript - Book More Show 008

Susan: Welcome back! This is Susan Austin and Stuart Bell for the Book More Show. Welcome Stuart.

Stuart: Hey, Susan, how are you doing?

Susan: Fabulous. I' excited about today's call because we're going to talk about "Begin with the end in mind". A lot of times I think authors don't have a clear vision when they start to write a book of how they're going to use the book to attract clients. I think if we could simplify that forthem, or at least paint a better picture for them, Stuart, about what that process could look like in real life examples and with real dollars, I think it will incentivize them to get excited about a different kind of book versus maybe writing the book they had originally in mind. I'll just jump right in, Stuart, if that's okay with you, and share an example of someone that's used their book to generate over $150,000 in sales in the first 90 days of having his k completed. Is that okay with you Stuart?

Stuart: Yeah, definitely, I think it's great. Starting with some real world examples will give people something to sink their teeth in to.

Susan: Yeah, very good. This guy wrote a book, Stuart, and in his own words, the cover design is not that great, there's probably a couple of typos in the book. He has it up on Amazon and there are no Amazon reviews. This is not a case of "try to become an Amazon best seller". This is the other side of that coin where we don't care about becoming an Amazon best seller because at the end of the day, although it's nice if you could become one, it's not going to hurt you, but we are from the other side of that coin that's says, "Hey, rather than try to get your name out there and become ... promote yourself, promote your book, how great would it be for your business if instead you got people to share their stories with you?" It's almost a complete opposite approach.

This guy puts his book up on Amazon, but what he really does, which is really fascinating to me and what I wanted to share with the listeners is he does Facebook Ads. I know some people have heard of Facebook Ads, some people have done them, some people haven't. I just want to spell out for you guys the way he uses his book. He has a program, an ad on program that sells for about $4,000. What he's offered you is, have you read his book and then you join his coaching program. It's very rare that someones going to read a book on Tuesday and write a check for someone for $4,000.

Here's his approach and I think it's really fascinating, he pays a Facebook store about $1,000 a month to run ads for his book. From that he conservatively, in his own words, gets about 300 new leads on his mailing list. From those 300 new leads, about 5% sign up for a strategy session with him, they just on a call with him to further discuss to see whether they're a good fit for his program. I think that's kind of an common model, that's not an unheard of model, wouldn't you say? Where you're trying to get people, rather than just write you a check, get on a call with them and see if they like you, see if you guys connect, see if you can work together. I don't think that's unheard of.

Stuart: I think, as you say, when we change the lead in at the top from a book to an ad or mailing, I think that's quite common. We talk about how if anyone doesn't yet have a copy of the Breakthrough DNA book, I'll put that in the show notes for this episode. Show notes can find it 90minutebooks.com/podcast/ ... I think this is going to be episode 008. I'll put a link in there to the Breakthrough DNA book, which talks of exactly this, it's identifying that single target market. It's creating a way for them to raise their hand as interested and then patiently educating them and motivating them towards making the first step with you. Making that first step what Dean calls the mafia offer, making it a way that's low commitment, easy for them to get started. It's not like you're asking them to write that big check from day one. I think it's a great model to slowly start that engagement piece, leading someone towards taking a bigger step.

Susan: Yeah. In this example, that I'm going to finish sharing in a moment, his first step is actually very quick, and it's actually very dynamic, and it's actually very profitable. It doesn't always have to a 6 month drawn out process. What happens is he pays Facebook $1,000 and, the nice thing about Facebook, he doesn't talk about this much, Stuart, but you can tailor that very specifically to certain zip codes, just business owners that make of 700 ... I mean it's pretty sophisticated stuff, this Facebook ad. It's not like he's just randomly putting it on people's feeds, he's targeting his book to the people that are mostly like to raise their hand and say they want that book. That's a really, really nice feature about Facebook that a lot of other areas of advertising don't quite let you dial it in that much.

From that $1,000 he gets 300 people, conservatively, that raise their hand and download that book. Basically, when they're doing that, Stuart, they're saying, "Hey, I'm interested in this. I want what you have to offer." Of those 300 new leads, 5% then go one step further and say, "Yes, I'd like to jump on a call with you." They're serious, they're ready to get started. The other 95% of those 300 aren't ready. Maybe they'll be ready next month, next quarter, next year. It's not like they're dead leads but of those 300, 5% are ready to get started right now. Of course, most authors that's what they care about, people that are ready to work right now. That gets him 15 new sessions a month of people that are interested in working with him. Of those 15, he does these free coaching session with them. 1 out of 4 turn out to be a great fit for the program. The other 3 just aren't a great fit, or maybe they're not a great fit now, and it's a $4,000 program. About 4 new clients a month, at $4,000 each, that's $15,000 every month. You multiply that times 12, Stuart, and you get $180,000. You backtrack the $12,000 that you gave to Facebook and you're now sitting on $168,000 from a 50 page book. That's not a bad return on investment for someone. I think he used really conservative numbers.

I'm saying you could potentially pay Facebook more and get more number ... you know what I mean? It's a formula that Dean always talks about, kind of like a vending machine, the more money you put in, the more money you get out kind of thing. It's really nice to be able to have something. A lot of people may be listening to that thinking, "Oh, this doesn't apply to me, it doesn't apply to my ..." I'm going to call them out on that and say, "If you haven't tried it, how do you know?" I just think that's a different way of using their book, rather than the, "I'm going to send a copy to my clients in hopes that they're going to send it to their friends and colleagues." That may happen. I'm not saying don't do that, but why not use this book in a totally different manner than you had anticipated and play around with it and see what happens.

Stuart: I think that's a great example. Like you say, it's not like the other ideas are bad ideas, it's just that this one might ... We were talking about, in the last show, talking about making the boat go faster, this might be one of the most effective ways of generating new business from an asset that you've already got. If you did start to write a book, thinking about it in terms of referrals or authority, then using it in this direct response type approach, you already have the asset there. There's already the book written that you already have the electronic version of it, then why not use it in a particular funnel and make it do a particular job for work?

I think that ties in neatly with what we were talking about last time in how big the book should be and the target market. That congruency, all the way through the funnel of targeted Facebook ads, looking a specific group of people, presenting them with the offer of a free download of a book that answer a question that they're likely to have ... I'll circle back around to intent in a second ... You've offered something to them that's relevant, they're been able to request that and they've been delivered something that's valuable and free. Then, the next step in the process is also an easy step for them to take, those that are interested, that 5% that are ready to do business, or at least ready to engage now, give them a very consistent view.

If people ... I'm going to try not to just spout off too many links here for the reading, but if people go to Email Mastery, Dean's book that we wrote on email mastery, we also had a Facebook campaign for that and had a 30% opt in from the Facebook page through to the book page. The copy on the page there, it was entirely consistent. The look and feel of it was identical: from the ad, to the landing page, to the book that they eventually ended up with. That consistency all the way through just, again, removed any other friction from the process. Someone who's interested in the first place, their journey all the way through that funnel is nicely aligned, it's thematically similar, it's a logical progression from one step to the next. Just as you said with the vending machine example, this is just putting cash in at the top and getting a known set of leads out at the bottom. Why not keep fishing from that well until the well run dries?

It's a fantastic way of engaging people in an easy, non-committal way that you know is something that you can execute. The numbers for hi aren't too high in terms of volumes. It's not difficult for him to deliver on the promise of the book and the meeting and the call. He knows what's his conversion rate. If, at some point, that changes then is changes and he can reevaluate. At the moment, until it stops working, this is a great way of taking something you've created and, in a very direct way, turning it into specific business.

Susan: Absolutely.

Stuart: I just wanted to quickly mention intent around the ad. It's interesting when we're looking at the different platforms and the different intent on each platforms and how people engage slightly differently on different platforms. It's the context in which they're receiving the information. One of the easy to understand examples that highlights the differences is Google search intent versus Facebook ad intent. There's lots of nuance under the surface of this but at a high level, what tends to happen in Google or ad bases, search based search is that people going out there, they're looking for something. The ad in a Google sense might be where they're looking for ... We were talking about retirement planning last time, so maybe people specifically searching for retirement planning advice. I think it as just after the call we were chatting about it a little bit more. There was another book we have: What's has changed in Social Security in 2016. That, as an intent based search would be a great ad in that context. You would advertise for people searching for those key phrases.

In Facebook, the context of it is slightly different. People don't tend to be searching as directly for things, but what Facebook allows you to do is search much more specifically, as you mentioned, on demographic type interests. Demographic type information or interest based information. If, for example, it was retirees that you were looking for, then you can target people of a certain age group. If your business is tied to a particular area, then you can geographically narrow it down. If you're a swimming pool filter sales company and you're looking to share a book talking about poor maintenance or garden design or that type of information, which is less a specific search in Facebook, but more of an intent, then you could advertise to people who like a particular brand of product in their area. You can advertise based on what competitors people may have liked.

It gives a whole new dimension, a whole new element of targeting people and presenting them something in a friendly, easy to access way that is separate but more targeted than, perhaps, the search based searching. Especially when you're offering something like a book, you're giving something for free to people, you're giving them information that they're likely to be interested in because of the targeting, ideally, you'd know your audience. You could target to the right audience. You're offering them something very easy for them to get started. The conversion rates at that early stage are usually pretty high.

Susan: That's awesome. I think, too, that we probably should do a show, Stuart, literally dedicated to Facebook. I don't know a whole lot about the ins and outs behind the scenes, I just heard from enough authors of some of the success they're having. It's another avenue of getting your book out there and you may think, "Well, on Facebook I just have family and friends on there. I don't really use my business for Facebook because that seems more social and I'm more serious." I think there's ways to do it so that, because you're not advertising your book to your family and friends. You're actually targeting and saying: business owners that live within 5 miles of here that are a certain age bracket, and there's a whole bunch of other demographics that I'm not even aware of. Then, you're just going to put the opportunity for them to download the book in front of them, those that are interested are going to raise their hand.

From there, you have a follow up email campaign that asks them if they want to jump on a call with you or do they want to talk to someone. You target your follow up message that's geared towards keeping that person engaged, getting them excited about getting on a call with you and talking about how you can help them solve their problem, from there, then invite them into your coaching program or into your practice or whatever it is that you ultimately make your money doing.

Stuart: I think that's a great idea. I have a call next week with one of our authors where we're talking about some of the follow up sequences now that they've written their book. Facebook is definitely going to be part of that campaign. They're doing something already, but we're going to dial it in quite a lot. I think in a few weeks time we'll have another very specific case study that we can follow up with talking about Facebook as a platform. It's always interesting. You get so ... coming from the position of kind of being behind the curtain of this side, it's easy to forget that not everyone is interested in, or has exposure to some of the advertising opportunity. The point that you make there about it being detached from your own Facebook page, your own personal account, Facebook advertising now is completely separate from that, as far as the targeting goes.

Just imagine that you could go to a vending machine and dial in that you wanted people of this particular gender, in this particular area, at this particular age, who have liked these particular complimentary or competing brand, who have expressed an interest in this particular subject. Put your money in the top of the vending machine and those leads spit out of the bottom. Then all you need to do is dial in your message to make sure that you are making it compelling to that group. Then, the customers that you're requesting can be as automated as just punching in a few numbers into the advertising platform. Obviously, the details themselves of getting into the platform, there's a little bit more to it than that. For people to think about that type of demographic based advertising, putting a compelling offer in front of someone ...

Which leaps back last weeks subject of the single target market of a book, if you are a vet and you do work with dogs and cats and guinea pigs, then you could write a book about animal care, but why not write 3 books: one about dogs, one about cats, one about guinea pigs? Then, when you're writing the ad copy, when you're targeting groups of people, rather than wasting money on ads to people who aren't going to be interested, advertising to people who like animals. You would advertise the dog book to people who like dogs. You can imagine dialing it down even further to particular breeds. You can have the Labrador guide to good health, the Chihuahua guide to good health.

If someone is sat on Facebook, again, because Facebook is an intent based search, people aren't out there searching for particular thing, they're just ... things just pass them by. If you're sat there as a Labrador owner, you're much more likely to respond to a book advertising Labrador health versus just dog health. Although you might be interested in the higher level one, the more specific one is really going to push your buttons. To be able to the advertise to that group of people, if you can advertise to Labrador owners with a Labrador book because you've got a Labrador based product, then it's going to be far more effective all the way down. You can imagine, even just from the conversation, that the conversion rate is going to be far higher because it's much more specific to what that person's interest is and the thing that you could offer them.

Susan: One of our authors, speaking of dogs, wrote a book call Dogs Don't Cry. It was a very interesting book about how dogs don't, by their very nature, because of the way they evolved, they don't want to show pain, because that's a sign of weakness. In the wild, that could mean death. They're actually built to hide their pain from you. He wrote a book on the 8 signs, the secret signs that dogs are in pain, but they're not letting you know of that pain. Wow. Interesting. At the end of the book, he invites you ... He sells a supplement, a natural supplement for dogs that are experiencing some of the hidden pains that maybe you weren't first aware of, but now you've read the book and you are aware of it. I would imagine that would do really well on a Facebook campaign because there are many people that are passionate about their dogs and they would be easy to target and find. There's tons of value in that book, so there maybe someone that doesn't order the supplements but maybe they see a couple of signs that their dog has and they take it down to their vet.

There's a lot of value generated in that. Maybe they'll never do business with this guy, but this vet has helped someone, many someones across the globe, figure out how to diagnose their dog, that they're in pain and you need to take them to the vet. I think that's a great service, and he's going to get a lot of sales from the book, too, I'm sure of it.

Stuart: It's a great example of one to pick on and dive into. I think that one does ... There are such great examples on that book and I love what James has done. When we think about what his end business is, his and business is dog vitamins, that's different from the subject of his book. That's one key take away. The aim of the book is to get people within your broader target market to raise their hand as interested in the subject. That doesn't need to be ... the book title wasn't Ten Ways To Find Out If Your Dog Needs Vitamins, it was getting his target group to raise their hand by offering them something that they were interested in. I think that's one key take away.

The second one is on the title, the title, again, doesn't talk about how to know if your dog needs vitamins, find out why, or find out the 10 things secret reason your killing your dog and you don't even know. It wasn't about that. It was a very compelling title or the audience. Switching it back into the ad campaign, the cover, from memory ... should go back and check ... but I think from memory the cover had got several different breeds of dogs on. Now, I'd like ... I know James, we've spoken a couple of times in the past and we've been at a couple of the same events. I think that he's had a conversation in the past to determine at what level it makes sense for him to advertise by breed versus at the generic dog level. I think in other circumstances, he is a little bit more breed specific. If he knows from his data that, again, Labradors, if they make up 50% of the population of his audience, then it may well worth tailoring the book in a little bit further to Labrador owners.

The book, itself, has a couple of different breeds on the cover. The advertising campaign that he does, it doesn't necessarily need to show the exact cover of the book on that particular ad. Again, we're talking about digital delivery here where most of the things we've talked about, I'm not necessarily talking about physical delivery. On the one hand he's got the physical book with several different breeds on the front. What he could do is have a second set of covers made up, because the cover is just the first page of the PDF, so he could get a Labrador cover, a Chihuahua cover, a Rottweiler cover and then target the books to people who have identified themselves on Facebook as Labrador owners, or like Labradors, or dog owners generally. Then just split test the ad cover type. Then people who are seeing the ad pass by in their stream as they're going about their daily business, again, this isn't intent based, this is kind of passive search.

If he's able to dial it into Labrador owners and advertise to Labrador owners and then deliver them a digit copy of the book, whether or not it's actually got a Labrador on the cover or not, it would be great if it did, but it's not essential. That ad, that ad is the thing that makes them raise their hand. If all that is dialed in, if all of it's as specific as practical to the funnel that you're trying to engage, the uptake, the engagement rate, the conversion rate, each is going to be far, far higher than just having one generic thing that you're trying to advertise to friends and family because you put it just on your Facebook feed and hope that people pick up on that and do something with it. At every stage, that specificity at every stage, from one core thing and, again, last point, just as you said, that core product, 80% of those people, 90% of those people may never need vitamins for their dogs, but they still got something valuable. He still collected the leads of people who have dogs and has the opportunity to communicate to them. He's still delivered something of value.

It's small enough that he was able to create it pretty quickly. In fact, he did the book with us, so he was able to create it with just 90 minutes of his time. He's out there collecting lead rather than the overhead of creating a big book that's trying to cover all of these things and back it up with all this scientific evidence of why dogs need this, or dogs need that, or chemical compounds in vitamins. None of that. This is just a way of getting passionate people to raise their hand about a subject that they're passionately engaged with. A number of those will convert, a number of them don't, but there's no incremental ... As long as he's not wasting money advertise to people who are definitely never going to convert, then there's no incremental cost in delivering 10 copies versus 100 copies as long as you know your numbers. As long as it's worthwhile for those 10 that do convert, then, the ones that don't, it doesn't matter.

One last point and then my voice is going to give up so after I'll let you talk. The last one was just on that conversion cycle. We talk about it quite a lot and, again, I think it's in that Breakthrough DNA book, when we talk about educating and motivating leads towards raising the hand and converting. There was a study done by a seminar group. Groups that put on expos in convention centers where a ... home improvement expo, that type of thing. This organization was the organization that organized the expos. Then they would follow up with the leads afterwards and they would call them. I forget the details. It was something like they were calling 15 days, 50 days, and 500 days after the event to see if they bought anything from the expo in that period of time. It was something like 80% of people who only bought after about 90 days. The point of that is to think about the longer conversation with people. That it's the minority rather than the majority of people that convert immediately.

We get very focused on that immediate conversion and then forget about nurturing the people over time. Certainly we're as guilty at that as everyone else. Just to make the point that, in the numbers that we talked about at the beginning of the show, the guy was putting $1,000 into Facebook generating 300 leads and 5% of those were doing something to convert immediately. The remaining 95% of those people who didn't take that first step, of all of the ones who were going to, the majority of them are going to be over the longer period of time. Just to remind people, those immediate conversions are great, but you've also got the opportunity to think about this is the beginning of a long term conversation. You've engaged with people on the subject that they're interested in by writing a book that's valuable to them. It might only be narrow, but it's deep. It's answering that one question that you promised to answer in the best way possible. You've then got the opportunity to follow up with them and have regular communications, broadcasts going out to them by email, delivering them more information that they're going to be interested in. Giving them opportunities further down the track to convert. Reminding people that that conversion opportunity is always there.

We can have another show talking about that type of thing. You've collected the lead, the book has done it's job in the first place. It's collected the lead. It's the minimum viable commitment is that small step to go from the ad to the first piece where you collect their email address. Then, after that, you've got the opportunity to follow up with them, provide more value, continue to be front of mind and at the point when they're ready, sticking to James' example, a dog owner may have gotten the book because it pushed their buttons, they were interested in it. Their dog may be perfectly healthy at the moment but once they've read the book, if the dog starts showing symptoms, or they start thinking, "You know what, this maybe looks like that my dog's crying on the inside," then they've got the opportunity to go back to the book. James is always going to be there as the person that introduced them to the subject in the first place. If they don't convert on day one, they may convert 6 months down the track when their dog starts showing symptoms, or a friends dog might start showing symptoms and it gives them the opportunity to, again, be front of mind and get back in. There's another opportunity to engage with people further down the track.

Susan: I would imagine if someone's friend, Stuart, has a friend that's dog is experiencing some of those symptoms, you're going to step up and say, "Oh my God, I totally know exactly what you're talking about. Here, you need to read this book." When the books are done right, they're very referable because they're solving a problem. When you hear someone else having that same problem ... I get calls all the time, people are like, "A friend told me about you. I told her I was trying to write a book and I was frustrated and they pointed me to you, here." I'm sure that person was like, "I have the perfect solution for you." You know?

Stuart: You know what, we should do another show on the psychology of referrals as well. We've got quite a big real estate community so we use this quite a lot in that sense. This is covered in the Breakthrough DNA book. Again, I'll like to that in the show notes, which are going to be at 90minutebooks.com/podcast/008. Definitely grab a copy of that. The psychology of why people refer, to a certain degree it's a sense of superiority thing. It's so that you can give your friend the ... You can feel superior by saying to your friend, you're there, "Look at your dog, you don't know it's sick, but I know it's sick," or it's crying, "Let me give you this book that will tell you all about how you can help your dog out," and then I'll get a lot of kudos for being the person that shared that with you.

It's a big like referring a great restaurant. If you're able to refer a restaurant to people and they come back and say, "That was the best meal ever." Gives you quite a sense of ... It boosts you up in social standing of the group by being the person to refer. There's a whole psychology around referring. Exactly say that single target books that answer a question in a compelling way that really give people value, very easy to get people to refer. In fact, it's part of the follow up campaign. We just talked about the minimum viable commitment. Taking people step-by-step down a journey. One of those steps should, in fact, be kind of orchestrating those referrals and saying to people, "Hey, listen, let's play a game. Over the next 3 weeks, as you're meeting your other friends in the dog park with their dogs, see how many symptoms you can check off the list where you think that those dogs might be in pain. Then feel free to give them a copy of the book so that then they can sort that out."

Susan: I love it. I definitely think we should do a show on that. Just tying up this show, Stuart, I think what I would love the listeners to walk away with is an appreciation for a possible other way of manifesting their book out into the world where they, eventually, have thousands of people who have raised their hand and downloaded their book. To me, from a business owners point of view, that is a much bigger, more valuable asset to the business owner than saying, "I sold 200 copies on Amazon," or "I've sold so many books at $10 a pop." You're not going to get rich that way. There is a possibility, if it's done right, that if you get thousands of people that have raised their hands saying they're interested in what you have to say, and what your specialty is, and how you can help them, to me that's potential to hundreds of thousands of dollars in your pocket, all from a 50 page book.

Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. I think that people getting sidetracked on wanting to sell, I mean, unless your job of work is an author, then selling them is almost missing the gold coins for picking the brass coins there, it's a real distraction.

Susan: Yes.

Stuart: I think people should, if they haven't yet, there's a show .. I think it's episode 2 in the stream. Head across to the website or go to iTunes and pick up the show with Glen McQueenie. Glen was talking about really how he's used his book to really grow the business and develop the business and opened some door that were previously closed as he tried to get through them in the past. Really look at how to use the book rather than just how to sell the book.

Susan: Perfect. All right. Thank you, again, Stuart. I look forward to the next one. They can go to 90minutebooks/broadcast to subscribe?

Stuart: Yep, definitely. Head to 90minutebooks.com/podcasts and there's all of the old episodes. There's some show notes. There's a link through to your iTunes. If you haven't yet subscribed, then feel free to subscribe and it will automatically get delivered to your pod catcher of choice. If people have got any questions, we're getting into another Q&A show. I mentioned it last week, we'll do another Q&A show next month. Feel free to send questions through to podcasts@90minutebooks, is probably the easiest address to send questions to. Then we'll make sure that we address those in a upcoming Q&A session as well.

Susan: Thank you so much.

Stuart: Okay, thanks guys, catch you next time.