Today on the Book More Show we're talking about all the ways to take your hard work (writing your book) and create other 'things', other assets you can use to remix your campaigns and funnels.

From the individual ideas that make up the content of your book, you have the opportunity to create many, many short, individual pieces of content to amplify your message, and educate and motivate people toward taking the first step with you.

Once these are created, you'll have an army of assets, all waiting to be remixed into various funnel. From supporting material, to new, top of the funnel 'cookies'.

The trick to getting this done is to split the task in two. First identify the points you want to amplify, and second, have a list you can refer back to, of all the different ways you can create variations of that content.

It's this list that's the secret. You already know the information... This list is the way to shortcut you brain into getting it out there.

At the end of the episode there's a challenge to get your list written. We're collecting the best ideas on this facebook post, so come over and comment.

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Transcript: Book More Show 070

Stuart: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here with Betsey Vaughn. Betsey, how's it going?

Betsey: Fantastic, Stuart Bell, how are you?

Stuart: Very good, thank you. Although I’m distracted because out of the window at the house here is the road in front of the house, and it's a one way street. But maybe a third of the traffic doesn't believe it's a one way street so it constantly comes down the wrong way. A truck came down here the wrong way yesterday, which caused all sorts of problems, and a car was parked outside of the house but just turned around and went the wrong way.  Anyway.

Betsey: At what point do they realize it? I mean, like, when there's a car coming towards them?

Stuart: Yeah, no one seems to care. I can see where, starting off with a bit of a catch up because it's a little while since we've recorded. We've all leave the cross out to do a driving test, despite driving for 25 years. Get a learner's permit, do a driving test across here, and it definitely seems to be the case that road signs are advisory rather than instructions here in the UK. It seems to be a little bit more prescriptive.

Betsey: Yeah, I would say so. You know, people kind of just do what they want, you're right. One way or whatever. It's convenient, I'll just go this way instead.

Stuart: Because obviously, why would it apply to you, because it's more convenient when you don't know the direction?

Betsey: That's a one way for everybody but me.

Stuart: Yeah. Okay, so, catch up's out of the way. Let's crack on with some work.

Today we are going to talk about ... What's the best way of describing this? I shot a quick video and posted it on the Facebook page the other day. I'm not sure how many people listening follow the Facebook page. We don't put that much stuff up there, but definitely try and do that a little bit more now than we have in the past, and use it for the more ad hoc little pieces of advice, or thoughts, or suggestions that come up in the day to day stuff. So if you're not already, head over to Facebook.com/90MinuteBooks and follow along there.

The short video that I posted there was talking about a call I had earlier in the week where it really came ... The gist of the conversation moved towards using the book as an asset at various points in the funnel, and not just at the top end, the entry point. We talk a lot about the funnel being a great way to get people to raise their hands, make invisible prospects visible. It's all this top of the funnel stuff, that beginning of the conversation, but it's just as valid in the funnel and at other points, or to use with people who are already on the list. Once it's created, once any asset's created really, not just the book but anything, you've got the opportunity to look around and see where you can use that in other funnels or other communication touchpoints.

I just wanted to dive into that a little bit deeper today. I'm not sure whether we've ever really talked about it here. We've obviously talked about it quite a lot but I'm not sure whether we've ever talked about it here, and if we have it hasn't been recently.

Betsey: No it hasn't, yeah. I think it's definitely worth revisiting. I think you said some good things that people will grab onto there. Let's dive in.

Stuart: Perfect. I wrote a book a couple of years ago now. It came off the back of a webinar that we did called, called something that I've completely blanked on the name of. What was the name of the webinar? Anyway, it doesn't matter. The book we called Hot Prospects tie into the nature of it. Really it was an exercise to demonstrate on the webinar how easy something is to create. It literally was that talk, presentation edited. Going into it I knew we were going to do that, record it as a book, so it was fit for purpose in that sense. Edit it up and capture it together.

One of the modules in there talked about this idea of multiple funnels. If you think about a regular campaign, you'd have the touchpoint at the beginning, the starting position, and then people would opt in and then you'd move them through the email sequences, educating the most people every time to take the next step. We've certainly talked about that over the last couple of shows recently, this idea of the initial touchpoint is the start of the process. But really, it's the majority of people who convert at a later date, rather than the minority who convert immediately. It's well worth making sure that you kind of orchestrate that funnel and go through.

But when you think about it, creating those assets.  So, let's think about what those could be. The book, obviously, at the top of the funnel. The thing that people can opt in for. Further down the process you might hear of us talking about scorecards and scorecard books. We've got those on both the blueprint side, and the 90-Minute Books side, and the listing agent lifestyle side. So this is another thing, another way that people can score themselves across or against a framework that you've defined in order to evidence their own position, and identify that they are in a position to want the next steps.

It could also be reports or video content or audio content or infographics. All of the things we talk about in the beyond the book type mindset of the book blueprint scorecard. All of these things that you can initially create to lead people in that educational, motivational stage, to take them step by step and amplify the points you make. Each of these things that you create is an asset in its own right. In the first mix, in the first plan, we're talking or setting up the funnel, the process, in a kind of linear way assuming people will join at the front and then go through stage by stage. But it doesn't take too much of an imagination to think that over time, as that list of assets builds, then you've got the opportunity of introducing people in different ways.

Let's take scorecards as an example. Scorecards we talk about in the model I've just described as an educational and motivational piece. It amplifies the things that you've already talked about in the manifested book to being with. We use it as a Profit Activator #3 tool, not a Profit Activator #2 tool. So rather than getting people to raise their hand, it's to educate and motivate them towards that next step.

But, once you've got that audience built, once those names are collected, over time you'll be attracting audiences from other people. You might have opportunities to speak in other contexts where that talk, either on someone else's podcast, or webinar, or live onstage, or a small business event, or a meet-up group, or all of these ways where you can get in front of the audience and really talk through the content and the book, talk through the manifest of the explaining piece. Then you're left with what's the opportunity to get people to opt in and join the overall funnel, overall list or campaign? A scorecard is a great way of doing that because it builds on the thing that you've already had the opportunity to talk about.

If it wasn't a scorecard, it might be an amplification piece of one of the points that you're talking about. It might be an infographic to demonstrate a particular point or illustrate a particular point you're trying to make in the talk or the book you've already written. It might be a white paper that goes on to further explain one particular part of the puzzle, or one particular slightly more, not scientific, but slightly more numbers based element of the thing that you're talking about.

In the retail model, the real estate model rather, it might not be a white paper as such, but it might be more of an explanatory report talking about house prices within a certain subset or certain community that could be backed up with a little bit of anecdotal information. Backed up with data on house price sales in that particular area. I often refer to Jim Hacking in the immigration business. A report on fiancé visas, a report on H-1B1 work based visas. That data driven thing that is nicely positioned in a report that supports the premise that the approach that you're trying to highlight in the book in the first place. All of these additional things can later be used as assets to introduce people and get them to opt in in the first place.

You've got the opportunity to speak about the broader subject, and then asking people to opt in to something. The something can be, because remember we still want a cookie to get people to opt in to, and that cookie can be the report.

That was a lot of words to start off with. Following along so far?

Betsey: Yeah, I was following that.

I'm just thinking about those things that you brought up and those are all great things. I'm just thinking about why people are hesitant to not ... It just seems like a no-brainer, so why are people so hesitant, to not provide this information? I think people get lost. I don't want to say it's laziness, they just don't do it.

Stuart: I think a couple of things ... So from kind of five years of doing this now, three years of doing this now, five years, I'm losing track of time. Anyway, in the number of years I've been doing this now-

Betsey: I've been doing it three ... You know that I came to this conversation three years ago today.

Stuart: Oh is it today? It was today.

Betsey: It is today. Three years.

Stuart: God, we were talking about that earlier in the week.

Betsey: Yeah. So I've been doing it three years.

Stuart: A special anniversary episode.

Betsey: Anyway, so you've been doing it longer than me.

Stuart: Send every congratulations to you at betsey.vaughn@90minutebooks.com.

So five years, five years we've been doing this for now. In that time, in talking to people, it's typically one of two or three things that are always the case. Sometimes people kind of explicitly say it and sometimes people kind of ... It comes out in conversation, and sometimes it's an undertone of the conversation but you can tell. I think that falls into number one, not thinking about it. This is easy for us to think about because this is day in day out what we do. So it's easy for us to think about and spend time thinking about the bigger picture.

Not everyone has that luxury of time or the luxury of expertise to be able to think about how the bigger thing fits in. I think, connected to that, is also a lot of "I just want to get this done. I know this is something that I should do, I'm going to do it, I just want it done." So often, and not just this but in many, many things, it's the mental effort is taken up with doing it and then you kind of just want to move on to the next thing and be done with it. Not have to think about okay well that's really the beginning piece is now done, the thing is created. But actually how I use it then, and how I can use it going forward, is something that people don't want to think about. Because they've kind of exhausted their mental supply.

That's why the Beyond the Book book that we send out to the clients to think about how you could use it afterwards, that's why a lot of the stuff that we talk about here, the strategy calls that we do for the Pro customers, all of that is around the doing it's great but that's just executional. That's why you've come to us in the first place, to get that execution piece done. The rubber hits the road when you start using it. I think for a lot of people, that's just one mental step too far to begin with.

I think the third thing that comes up is, again not really, a lack of imagination isn't the right way of describing it either, but just not really thinking about how they could do it. So when we talk to people like "Okay, so you wrote this thing in the book that talked about these numbers. Why not write a white paper, or write a special report, which really is exactly the same information but you're just positioning it in a slightly different way." Maybe including a couple of more designed elements to it. Maybe there's a couple more chart elements to it that it didn't make sense. Or weren't ready in time to put in the book. But adding those things afterwards. Makes them, if you like, the content that's already gone into it. It's a very small additional step, but it is something that people rarely think about because, well I don't know why. For whatever reason they don't think about including those additional things.

Betsey: We had somebody recently who did a book and he had these random links throughout to these videos. When I was double checking, I'm like, "these don't go anywhere" and he's like, "I know they don't but they will by the time this book is finished." Because that was his goal. I will have this finished. I have to do this. It was important information because he was talking about it throughout the book and it put the pressure on him to go back and make sure that he did these-

Stuart: To need to get it done.

Betsey: Yeah, exactly and so-

Stuart: You think about that-

Betsey: I thought, you know, way to do it.

Stuart: Exactly, and that is so beneficial on so many levels. We're thinking and talking about creating those additional assets that you can use in different ways. We're talking about remixing the funnels so the starting point at the top isn't always the book. But the book could appear in the funnel at some point to amplify and reinforce the message. Really what we're aiming to do all the way through this process is identify invisible prospects, get them to raise their hand, educate and motivate them over time to make that decision to take the next step and, where possible, track and keep an eye on those people who are filtering themselves to show as hotter versus colder.

If you can imagine in your CRM system is all of these people who are in there at the first level. So they've got one level of one bar against their name because they've opted in for the first thing. If they then clicked on a link that showed them one of these videos that we were talking about just now, one of the videos to emphasize a point, that gives them another tick because you can track that link click. They watch a second one and it's the second click, a third one and it's a third click. They then go on to download and re-opt into a scorecard of special reports so that's a fourth or fifth tick.

When you're going back through the entire list of people that you could deal with, the list of people that you want to send a nine word email to, kind of a SPEAR email (short, personal, expecting a reply). Just as in the way that we say that the book is a great way of identifying invisible prospects, so from the whole of the planet here's a group of people who are broadly interested, now we're getting to the point where we can identify groups of people, subsets of people who are specifically interested.

If someone's opened every email that you've sent them, clicked on every link, then they're a much more likely prospect, a much more engaged prospect than someone that never clicked on anything after opening, or after engaging with that first piece. Having these additional pieces, ideally pieces that amplify the message that you already do and not going off on a tangent somewhere but reinforcing that message, taking people, educating people closer and closer to the subject by providing deeper information or more context. All of these things, compared with doing nothing or compared with doing something random, all of these things are dialing in that focus and turning that spotlight on the people who are self-selecting all the way through this process.

Because remember everything that we've talked about so far. Once you've created those assets then the campaign in your CRM, or the way you have your website set up, can be automatically identifying all of these pieces. In the bigger picture, it's just from that initial seed of an idea which, in the context that we're talking about is the book, you're then able to create a set of assets. A set of things that you can offer to people that are either identifying them as more interested, more engaged, a hotter prospect, or gives you more ways of introducing them in the first place and getting them to raise their hand.

I want to elaborate a little bit more on that second point as well. In terms of that. Getting those x-ray specs, being able to identify the hotter prospects from the colder prospects, does that make sense?

Betsey: Yeah, it makes total sense to me.

Stuart: Perfect.

Betsey: Absolutely.

Stuart: Looking at that second point that I was making there, once you've got the assets created there's various ways of using those to introduce people. That's really the conversation I was having the other day with the guys on the phone. That's the point that I want to illustrate here, or reinforce here, is not necessarily think about the funnel just as a linear piece.

As we said when we started the call, you may be in a situation where you've got a chance to speak at an event, or be at someone's podcast, or you've got access to an audience that isn't' necessarily your audience. Offering them the book might not be the right thing for a variety of reasons. It might be that they already know that content because it's an audience you were already talking to. It might be you'll actually go through all of the content so you don't feel like you want to just give them the same thing that they've already got. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure whether that's such a valid concern, I think. Otherwise offer it because it is, particularly if you've got physical copies of the book, it's something tangible.

These other assets being able to point people toward the video, and you've structured that so that it's behind something the people opt in for. Pulling the data and creating a report so that that is something that people can opt in for. At each of these opt in points, then having the rest of the funnel behind it, that follows that flow of "I know how I want to educate and motivate people over time, so I know these are the seven steps." It's just that first one that's getting swapped out, so it's not always the book necessarily, but the book appears further down in the list then to kind of reinforce the message.

Just thinking about that, that remixing of the funnel model, of having multiple entry points that lead into similarish funnels on the back end. It's easy to manage. We're not talking about reinventing the wheel every time. Thinking in terms of that. Doing the work to create it, but then being able to amplify the message and reinforce the message and increase the number of entry points is a great way of not just getting stuck in that single funnel mentality. The things that you can create to back that up are all the things that we've already talked about and any number of variations of that.

It's definitely not the case that everyone should start shooting video because, for some people, it's super uncomfortable, or the barrier to entry is too high, or they're just not interested in it. If that's the case then maybe try audio because for a lot of people that's quick and easy to do, and it's a lower technical overhead. At the end of the day you can just record a voice memo on your phone and use that as the audio. Stick that up on a site somewhere.

It could be you can use services like Fiverr to get an infographic created based off some data that you've got. Ideally it would be data that's unique to your business that no one has got access to because you're remixing it yourself and adding in your own insights to it. If it's just industry wide data then you can use that same, I assume you've got permissions, but use that same data but add your own analysis or commentary to it. That's what makes it valuable.

Whatever it is you can create, it's less of an issue of what it is and it's more of an issue of picking something easy that's achievable for you to do, for you to create. Either because you're comfortable doing it already, or you've got people on the team that can do it, or you can easily find an outsourcer to do it. The what is less important than the fact that you do it. Then once you have done it and you've got those assets, mixing them in various ways into funnels that can identify invisible prospects at the front, and then educate and motivate them over the time by providing all of the other pieces that they didn't opt in for initially to identify those hotter prospects, rather than colder prospects.

Betsey: Did you take a drink of water?

Stuart: Can you tell my voice is kind of getting quieter by the end of that paragraph?

Betsey: That's it. I was even going to take a sip for you, yeah.  You gave some great ideas because I think sometimes it's overwhelming to think "Oh video, that's not me, that's not who I am. That's putting myself out there too much. Okay, it's simple to hit the button and record something quickly. That I can do." That's easier for people. I think you gave some ideas there for people to think a little bit outside the box.

Stuart: I think that whole thing is exactly what you were saying. That kind of outside of the box of what you'd normally be thinking about. It's almost hand.  Should create, this might get lost in translation a little bit but when you were a little kid, did you ever have those books that were kind of cut in three horizontally, or four, and then there'd be a head at the top, then a torso, and then legs?

Betsey: Oh yeah.

Stuart: You'd kind of flip them over and you'd create different things. Or the game that you ... I was playing it with the kids around here the other day, over the summer rather. Where you kind of fold a piece of paper into four and one person draws a head, and the other person draws a body.

Betsey: You'd come up with different-

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. You could almost do with the same thing for assets, funnel assets. In fact, if someone else steals this idea and does it before me feel free at some point. On the top line you could start with the piece of information. The nugget of the idea that you want to share. Then on the next line down you could have the type, the asset class if you like, the thing that you're going to create. Audio, video, image, infographic, blog post, special report. What other things might there be?

Betsey: Blog post.

Stuart: Can't think. Oh, Instagram video, Facebook video, tweet, interview and, as you listen to this think about ten more.

As a separate exercise, rather than thinking "Okay, I've got this piece of information. What should it be?" Which you automatically know is in filters and sifts and sorts your thinking. You can't help but get constrained by the delivery when you're thinking about "Okay I've got this, what can I do with this?" Rather now is a separate exercise writing down all the asset classes that you could possibly imagine for any potential type of content. When you come back to it then at a later date, you've got on the top half just write in the thing and on the bottom half just flick through all of the different options.

Because it removes the constraints. The one job of work you're doing is thinking about all of the nuggets, all of the things that you could write or create to amplify the message that you've already made. So that's one job and your mind can entirely just think about what are the things that could get created? Then as a second task, and as a one off but that you can reuse later, these are all of the things that ... As I'm talking now my iMac's gone to sleep and the screen's gone into the Apple TV video background so it's like a flyover of some dock somewhere.

You've even got silly things like skywriting in the sky with a plane, or dragging one of those banners that you see dragged along the beach behind a plan, or postcards, or flyers, or mail letter, actual mail delivery pieces. TV ads, radio commercials, speaking opportunities. All of these, even now we've just evidenced in the last 90 seconds, we've started off with the list of six or seven, which were the ones that immediately sprang to mind, and then we ran into a pause a little bit. Then, in the background, our minds have been continuing on and another ten things just popped up.

As you're listening to this, do that as an exercise. In fact, how ... We're 26 minutes in. I'm going to do something unprecedented and say we're going to end there. Because that, I think, that as an end point for people to stop listening now and take the extra ten minutes that we might be wailing on for to just go through that. Just write a list of ... Don't think about the content, just think about all the possible asset classes, or delivery mechanisms, or ways of bundling up this information and just take the next ten minutes and write down as many as possible. Because that list will be invaluable and serve you for years and years and years to come. You can always add to it. Then when you're thinking about, "I've written this book that talks about the five bullet points to my plan, or the eight mindsets of how to write a book. For each of those eight mindsets what asset class, what thing can I create to amplify that message even more?"

Having done this exercise, you'll have a list of ten to thirty possibilities. Then you don't need to worry about it or think about it. Over time, you can write people's names next to it as the expert who can do the thing. That, I think, is an invaluable exercise.

Betsey: I think that's great, and share on our Facebook. If we haven't said something and you come up with it, please put it on our Facebook for us to look at. Something that we may have missed. We'd love to hear it.

I love you giving exercises, homework for people. I think it helps us think.

Stuart: I might do it more often.

Betsey: I think that's-

Stuart: Just as long as I don't have to mark it.

Betsey: Exactly. That's great. Stop there.

Stuart: As you listen to this as well, in case you haven't visited the Facebook page, we post the show. As we release it we post it on Facebook as well, so there'll be a post there that's associated with this episode. Definitely, as Betsey suggested, go and make additional comments there. I think, collectively, it’s Friday now, this show is going to go up tomorrow on Saturday, so I'll start that list off and pull out of the transcript that list of things that we've spoke about. I think between all of us we can build that into a nice list.

Betsey: I can't wait to see it. That will be great. And it will be valuable for everyone. For everyone listening and everyone who sees that.

Stuart: Yeah.

Betsey: It'll be a great little nugget out there.

Stuart: I think we can feedback in a couple of weeks as well. I'm sure we'll get some ideas that come from this that really-

Betsey: Without a doubt.

Stuart: Will collaborate into extra things we can do.

Betsey: Perfect. That's great. That's a great way to end, you're right.

Stuart: Perfect. Well, thanks for listening everyone as this is going to be episode number 70 so head across to 90MinuteBooks.com/podcast or follow the podcast link on the menu. This is going to be number 70. Check out the Facebook page. There's links to the Facebook page on the website as well, but it's just 90-Minute Books on Facebook. Shoot us an email if you've got any questions, as always, to either podcast@90minutebooks or support@90minutebooks and that will come through to Betsey and me. We'll be able to feedback and follow up on those. As always, although these exercises are great, but the best thing you can really do is get your book written. We're here waiting to help. Just follow the Get Started links over at 90MinuteBooks.com.

Betsey: There you go. That's awesome.

Stuart: Perfect. Thanks for your time Betsey. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll catch you in the next one.

Betsey: Sounds good, take care.

Stuart: Cheers Betsey. Bye.