711: Start With Why and Build Your Interview-Based 7 Hour Book with Nick Raithel

Robert Plank 0:00 Marketer of the day Episode 711 start with why, and build your interview based seven hour book with Nick Raithel. Hey there, and welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We are here with with guest Nick rayll, and he is the creator of the seven hour book, which is a proven system that allows any entrepreneur to get their own professionally published book while only spending not seven years, not seven months, not seven weeks, but seven hours of their time on it. And with the seven hour book, Nick, and you can find his website at content corpse.net. That's C, O, R, P, s.net, with the seven hour book, Nick is on a mission to help entrepreneurs finally get the recognition they deserve. Because time and again, Nick has seen that those in nearly every community who have incredible stories and knowledge to share, they just don't have a book, and they need one, and a book is the ultimate way for these people to share their insights, and in doing so, attract more qualified leads to their business. But here's the problem we all have, is not enough time, and this is where Nick is going to jump in today and save us and tell us what we need to know and get us pointed in the right direction. So Nick, glad to be talking to you.

Nick Raithel 1:15 Pleasure to be here. Robert, thank you very much for having me. You're very welcome. And

Robert Plank 1:19 you know, with this whole book thing, I think that a lot of people want it. Some people see the value in it. They know that if they had a book that would give them the credibility and would open a lot of doors. But then you see these really bleak, depressing statistics, like how a lot of people spend an average of 10 years making their book. And those are the lucky ones, right? Those are the ones that actually finish. You hear about how the average person only sells 1000 copies of the book, and again, those are the lucky ones. Those are the ones that sell it all. And I saw something the other day that said, like, the average author makes something like $4 per hour, just from all the all the time involved, and all the just focusing on the wrong things, not selling enough copies, and then it ends up being a huge disappointment, a huge waste. And I love this whole idea here of doing it quickly. So I mean, can you just jump in and tell us about it and tell us what we need to know?

Nick Raithel 2:14 Yeah, absolutely. The seven hour book, as the name suggests, and as you've hinted at in describing it is a process that helps to streamline it and make it more time efficient. So we're taking out, like you were saying, the 10 years and just the gargantuan amounts of time that often consume people when they're trying to get a book out. We've broken that process down into seven, one hour calls that people will do with us over zoom or Skype or phone, whatever their preferred means are, and then with that, they're only spending seven hours of their time on it. And on our side, my team and I, we're putting together the book, helping them with the marketing, doing all of the other legwork on our time. And naturally it's taking us quite a bit more than seven hours. But

Robert Plank 3:04 as far as the the front facing time, the time that a client has to put in only seven hours, which sounds really great, and it seems like, from what we're setting up, what you're talking about here is we're talking about a real book, right? Because sometimes people say, Well, I can make a book quickly, and it's one of these, like, like a coffee table book with, like, just pictures, or it's like, just, like, like PowerPoint slides. We're talking about, like, a real legitimate, like, printed book, right?

Nick Raithel 3:34 That's correct. And we're big on the printed book because of something I like to refer to as the thud factor. And the thud factor is quite literally this sound that a book makes, a physical book makes when it thuds on the desk or on the table of your prospect or of the person you've just met at a business networking event or rea meeting, if you're in real estate, when it literally thuds like that a blog post, and they're great. And other pieces of content, a YouTube video, those are great as well, but they can't stud literally on your table and have that impact exactly there you go. They can't do that in the same way as a physical book.

Robert Plank 4:16 Well, fantastic. And so as far as making a book, I'm sure that some people are listening and they're having that lack of confidence, that lack of self esteem. So if someone says that, well, I want a book, but I'm not sure if I have a good idea or if an idea can be developed. What would you say to someone like that?

Nick Raithel 4:34 I would say to take a step back, even before the idea, and think about the why cliches that might sound I know we've all heard Simon Sinek talk start with why, and that idea gets circulated around quite a bit, but it's so true, particularly where books are concerned, because a book certainly is a very powerful engine for your business, but in many cases, you might not need one. It might. Just be that you need to start a podcast or start a YouTube channel, or just double down on Facebook ads or other marketing things that you talk about on the show Robert with your guests, that might actually be the answer to your solution, excuse me, the answer to your situation. A book can help with that. But just make sure you're clear from the onset that it is the best one. And then once you have decided and gotten clear that of everything out there, of all the marketing channels right now, and to this particular end, a book is going to be the best one. Then from there, it's a matter of just fleshing out your idea and quite often, simply having confidence in yourself that you know, being a unique person, you have knowledge insights that others don't have. You have a perspective too that others don't have, which you might take for granted, but that other people who aren't coming from your vantage point are going to find helpful and valuable and approach it that way.

Robert Plank 5:56 And so you say that that we need to, like, figure out the why, and decide that a book is an appropriate marketing channel, or one of a handful, as opposed to other things. And how do we come to that decision? Is it a matter of knowing our personality, looking at our competitors, knowing that we want to target readers? How do we decide if a book is for us, or a book is not for us.

Nick Raithel 6:24 Number of ways you could go about doing it. One of the ways that I would recommend tying it back to that why is what are you looking to achieve specifically through a book? And of the things that you're looking to achieve which one's tied the most directly to a book? I'll give you an example here. A book in its chapters, depending on how you structure, it could be designed so that each chapter essentially is a keynote speech. So if you're looking to do more public speaking, or to get live speaking engagements like that at conferences other events, you could structure your chapters, or even a few of those chapters in a way that they resemble keynote speeches. So then, when you're reaching out to conference organizers, you can say this chapter is essentially what my keynote would be at your conference. That would be one example. Or if you're trying to educate your market, and your market doesn't listen to podcasts, or they don't follow YouTube, or they're not as socially social media active as other segments in other markets. A book might make the most sense for reaching them, because they're more traditional, let's say, in how they consume their media, and in the forms of media that they do consume.

Robert Plank 7:38 So when you say like, that type of person that is not active on social media. Are you saying maybe, like, maybe like lawyers or doctors, like that sort of profession where they do a lot of reading but not a lot of playing on the phone?

Nick Raithel 7:51 It could certainly be people from that profession, although it's worth noting that doctors and lawyers certainly do have their own shows, but those shows, I would say, just from my own survey of the landscape, tend to be geared more toward younger members of the profession, simply because they're more social media savvy the younger members, in many cases, than those who are on the older side. So trying to reach that older demographic of attorneys or doctors specifically, would make the most sense, or make more sense, at least for people who were running businesses that required, let's say, investment from these people. They were trying to raise capital from them, or simply their client base was more of that segment.

Robert Plank 8:40 That makes a lot of sense. And like, you know, we've all heard, or you and I both heard, of this whole concept of figuring out, figure out your customer avatar, figure out where people hang out, figure out how they like to be spoken to, because nowadays, there are so many choices. And that idea, I always thought, was just theory, and it didn't really hit home for me until I was speaking to a guy who was an expert in cold calling, and he was saying cold calling is great with the older people, because they always pick up the phone with them. It's rude to not pick up the phone, but then you try to market to that younger generation, they probably haven't picked up the phone in five years. They're better at the texting or sending a messenger and so, so that makes a lot of sense to me, that it's you figure out, like, who you're talking to, who those customers are, and some of those people, they're just they're missing out. They don't like podcasts, they don't like YouTube, but then they are hungry for this book that you can provide. And I also really like that advice you gave of have each of your chapters be a keynote speech. And I mean that speaks to me in a lot of different ways. Because, number one, it means that you don't have to do a lot of extra work, right? You don't have to, like, write the whole book and then figure out how to then adapt that to these other speeches that you want to give. And then also, it seems. Like by maybe having that mindset of making each chapter at that keynote speech, then every chapter is important, right? There's no filler, and then it's speaking to a specific crowd. So I really like that, that idea a lot of having the the keynote speeches each be a chapter in this book.

Nick Raithel 10:17 One thing I'd like to add to this being marketer of the day and a marketing oriented show in that context, as you're creating the content for your book, you can also essentially cheat in a good way by bringing in marketing partners to your book and having them provide some of the content, or at least giving them a shout out in your content. So then they not only provide you with content, but they also then have an interest in promoting the book and marketing the book once it's out. So an example of how you might do that is, let's say that your business, one of its partners, was a law firm, you would then bring in in a relevant section that added value to the readers, but you would bring in the law firm to provide expertise on that particular topic or in that particular area as it related to the overall book, getting their insights, getting their commentary, and then, of course, as it made sense, in a non spammy way, in a completely natural way, Giving them a mention at the end of that chapter.

Robert Plank 11:24 That's huge. And what I like about, I mean, there's a lot of things I like about that, that strategy there, and that, number one, it doesn't even necessarily have to be someone who is, is in the same industry as you, right? Because, like, you can, like, say, say you are that law firm. And there's like, some other specialists, and you want to give them a chapter. That's one way to go. But then there's also, like, maybe you're, you're a website agency, and then you need to cover that issue of, like, the legalities of your website. And instead of going off and, like, doing your own research, you just have that expert come in and you have them provide their expertise. And even as you're even you were describing that, what came to mind also is that you can go as shallow or as deep with that as you want, right? Because, because my understanding of what you just said there was, you can have them write their own chapter, and then they can plug their business or their practice at the end, but then you can also maybe just have little micro stories, right? Little little shout outs and little pieces of advice or things you learn from specific people, or like, mention their URL or mention a quote from them, and so that can just be a little blip on the radar. And I don't know about you, Nick, but I love doing that in my books, and I love when people do that for me, right? Like, if I get some book in the mail, or someone says, read my book. I could care less, but then, or I guess, to be proper, we should say I couldn't care less, but then if they mention me, I'm like, Hey, I'm on page 54 I love that. They just gave me a shout out. It makes me feel really good inside. And so I think that there's a lot of things people can be taking away from just all the possibilities here what you just said, of involving other people in your book,

Nick Raithel 13:03 absolutely. And think about what kind of a calling card that would be if you're trying to create a long term relationship, or any kind of an affiliate relationship, with a partner. If you put out a book and it has various partners mentioned, providing valuable insights at various portions of the book. And for a single partner, you've taken a copy of the book for each one, highlighted their name, earmarked the page, so it's going to open by itself and open on its own without them having to flip to it and mail that to them. Totally marketing that doesn't, as they say in the startup world, doesn't scale. But even if you just did that for 10 potential partners you were trying to woo for your business, or even 20 or 30, mailing that physical book with the highlight, the physical highlight, using a highlighter of their name mentioned in your book, and the chapter and earmarks like that, that's going to send an unbelievable impression.

Robert Plank 13:59 Yeah, and as you said, like that doesn't scale. But some things don't, but some of the most important things that we do don't scale. Like you're here on a podcast, and there's only so many, so many podcasts a person can be on during the day, only so much time and during the day, but those little thoughtful touches are things that a lot of people these days won't do. So if we're those few people that will just spend the time to take those handful of people, those 10 people that you said, that we mentioned in our book, highlight each one. Make sure to earmark it so it opens to that, send that in the mail. How long does that take? Not very long at all, just to do that 10 times on on a, on a, you know, Sunday afternoon or something. And so I think these are all really good ideas. And one thing that I want to make sure that we get to is that one of the questions you wanted me to ask you is about writing your book or using your book for self defense. And I think that's that kind of piqued my curiosity there, right? Because when we say, well, make your book for self defense. Does that mean, like, if someone's attacking me, because we have. The thud factor. Do I like hit him away with the book. What does it mean when we are using our book for self defense? Well,

Nick Raithel 15:07 you could certainly use it if you wanted to, depending on how thick your book was, particularly if it's hardcover, for literal self defense. But the context we're talking about in a more appropriate context, it's probably not going to land you behind bars, is in the sense of safeguarding and defending your time. And what I mean with that is that when you are out at a business networking event, let's say you meet people often who are very enthusiastic and very excited to talk to you, and in many cases, they'll want to do a follow up coffee session or a follow up meeting session immediately afterward. Now there are certainly times when that meeting ends up being fruitful and productive, but there are also cases where that meeting ends up being an instance where you're sitting there at Starbucks, you look at your watch, you're wondering where this person is. You know that you've got maybe 510 more minutes. You've got to get back to the office, get back to work. You know that you move some calls around in order to accommodate this particular meeting, and now you're not doing those calls now you're not prepared for your next call, let's say so it safeguards you from that kind of a situation where this person, if you provided them with your book ahead of time, you might have been able to educate them and help them to see for themselves whether or not it made sense to continue talking to you. That's how a book safeguards you.

Robert Plank 16:38 Fantastic. I love that idea. I'm gonna I'm gonna steal that and start doing that. If I'm doing some kind of, like one on one coaching or meeting, or like a, you know, Discovery prospect thing like that, send my book ahead of time that way, it would legitimize me more. They would know more about what I do, and maybe hopefully, they would even have an idea for themselves, about one specific thing to focus on, and just, I love this, that word, and we're now dealing with people that are more educated, and we don't have to repeat ourselves and get them up to that, that level of education, where they're ready to make a buying decision, or where they can see how we can help them. So, I mean, this is all really great stuff, and I'm sure that, you know, people might be listening and wondering how this seven hour book concept is different, because there's a million ways to go about this whole book thing, right? People could sit down and try to write a book, and good luck with that. Hundreds of pages later, you might give up. People say, Well, you know, I could. I could speak it out and transcribe it, but without a structure, without a system, you might not even finish speaking it out, and then when you get it transcribable, there's a whole mess to clean up. It might not even be something that could be turned into a book. People might say, I could always get the book ghost written, but then it might not sound like you. So with all these possibilities, all these ways to go about it, that how is the seven hour book different and and why is it the superior solution here?

Nick Raithel 18:04 Well, you mentioned the superior solution. I think that depending on a person's needs, they might find that one of the things you've mentioned made sense, or that something even outside of books, as we've noted before, made sense within the context, though, of this discussion and the seven hour book, what helps it to stand out and make it for the authors we're working with, their most desirable option is number of things, one of them being that it strips out time as being an excuse for them not getting their book out. We really have broken it down into just seven one hour sessions where they work with us. So those seven sessions can be scheduled at any point. They can be broken out. It's certainly not seven hours straight of a call. This is not a Tony Robbins marathon. We're standing up on stage or anything crazy like that, but they can be spaced out and arranged conveniently around their schedules and their time. And it's also unlike you've mentioned Robert A ghostwriting service, pure ghost writing service. This is coming at it from a marketing standpoint. This is coming at it from the standpoint that this book needs to produce results in my business. This is not just an English essay. It's not just a piece of literature. This is something that has to work from a business context. Has to be designed from a business context to draw people to a website or to get you speaking engagements, and not just have that flowery language, but to work as a moving part within your business structure.

Robert Plank 19:45 Well, great, and that's a really good point there in that, what's the point of having that flowery language, right? We're not going to win any awards for that. Our book has to do something. It has to produce results, as you say. And I just love this. Concept that people can schedule these one hour blocks according to to their lifestyle, according to when they have free time, if they're busy during the day, if they, you know, say they're a doctor and they have they're running to appointments, dealing with patients, maybe scheduled that at night or on the weekends. Or if they have a nine to five and they've always wanted to have a book. Maybe they can schedule it during, you know, their lunch break or the morning or something. So that's great, that people can do this according to their schedule. And so you say that there are these seven one hour sessions, and is it possible for you to tell us, like, what the sessions are, or is that a secret reserved only for the paying clients.

Nick Raithel 20:41 No, it's not a not no backroom cloak and dagger kind of secret like that. Happy to talk about it the way we'll typically structure the calls is going over sections of the book, individual sections of the book on a call. And we will design the book in a way too that makes it work and fit around that. So I'll give you an example. Let's say that your business, the book, idea for it, involves five mistakes, five common mistakes that you see people make in regards to your area of expertise. Each of those five mistakes would be a chapter. And then over the seven calls, we might do an introduction call where we're covering the introduction to the book itself. That would be call number one. Then the middle calls would be those five deadly mistakes, or five deadly sins, however you wanted to phrase it, that you see your prospects making providing the solutions and giving them correct guidance so as to avoid those mistakes. And then the final call would be covering the book's conclusion and also integrating in planning for how the marketing of the book would be done.

Robert Plank 21:56 Well, fantastic. And then as far as the book getting made, it's just a matter of, like you, you do the planning, and you get your client up to speed, and then click the record button and they speak little segments. Or is it like, like an interview thing where, like, you ask these pointed questions, or is are things written on the call? Or is it changed based on the person? Or just, how is the how do these pieces come together? How is the book kind of created here? All right, so, so Nick, as we're wrapping up, winding down here, my last question before we tell people what to do and where to go is, how does the book come together? Exactly, are we saying but on the seven one hour calls, there's like planning, and then you click the record button and people just talk. Or is there, like a back and forth interview or or words written like, how is the content generated?

Nick Raithel 22:46 Sure we are 100% toward a collaborative approach, with that collaboration coming in the form of an interview style. So we'll create a set of questions and ideas prior to each of the calls, fully customized to each person we're working with. And then on the calls, we'll discuss the ideas, go over the questions, and use that to get the book idea essentially out of the person's head and into notes and into a form where we can then, on our side, with our writers and other staff, proceed to create the book from there, and that's really how the book comes together.

Robert Plank 23:25 Well, super cool. I love that collaborative process. And as you know, sometimes are actually pretty much all the time. With this writing process, it can come alive, right? You start off with one idea, or you have one idea in your head of how you think things are going to go. But then, when you have like time spaced in between these meetings, you have multiple people working on things sometimes like this, the magic happens, and these ideas seem to come out of nowhere, and you create something that's unexpected, something that is new and unique and refreshing in the marketplace. And I think that if anyone out there is thinking about a book or wishes they had a book, if they try to go about it themselves, I think they're crazy, because it helps so much to get those those fresh, unique angles and ideas. And so if people say, I want to have a seven hour book, I don't want to wait. I want it now. I want to get started, or maybe they just want to have a quick chat conversation with you. Where should they go to take the next step here,

Nick Raithel 24:22 the best place would be after they've thought about a book and really determined that it made sense and how to why behind it. The best place would then be to go to our website at content core.net, and you spell that as c o n t, e n t, C O R, P S, dot n e t, content core.net,

Robert Plank 24:48 fantastic. So content core.net, that's like we said, c o n t, n t, e n t, C O R, P s.net, and then when people. Go there. What is sort of the price point, or is that just on a case by case basis,

Nick Raithel 25:05 more than that, or it's more on the case by case basis?

Robert Plank 25:08 All right, fantastic. So if they, if they want, like a real big book, or our small one, or if other work is is involved, just it's a, what I'm hearing from you a lot here is today is that it's it's almost never a one size fits all right, as far as their strategy, or if they want to do like that, like five mistakes, or they want to land speaking gigs like everyone really is unique. And so this way someone can jump in, have a conversation with you, figure out that why, get some ideas, and then when it comes time to move forward with the book, it's something that is uniquely them. And so that way they can find their own unique clients and customers that way too, absolutely. Yeah, we're

Nick Raithel 25:51 very big on the book as an expression of you, the individual, thus being unique too,

Robert Plank 25:59 super cool. And so if you want a book that you actually finished, that does not fall flat, that comes with a strategy, a plan of getting it out there, and most importantly, just having a book that delivers results. Isn't something that just has the fancy language, isn't something that you spent years of your life on. Instead, you only spent seven hours of your own time. And the Nick and his team get to work and work their magic. The place to go is contentcore.net and that's course, spelled, C, O, R, P, S, we have to spell it out because we're on an audio podcast. So contentcore.net go to that website, and there will be a button there where it says, Have you heard enough request a complimentary 20 minute call to discuss your book. So go there, and just because you made it this far in the interview and because you took the time to go to that web page, we both know that you have more than a passing interest in this. So don't let the idea of this seven hour book be something that passes you by. Take the next step. Make sure it makes sense for you and get some results. So contentcore.net, and we'll see you there. And thanks, Nick for stopping by and for sharing with us the things that we need to know about creating our own book. I really appreciate it.

Nick Raithel 27:09 It's been a pleasure. Thank you again, Robert, and keep putting out good episodes of the show. Enjoy listening to it.

Robert Plank 27:15 Will do I'll do that just because you told me to. We really appreciate you listening to today's episode of marketer of the day. Subscribe to us on iTunes and rate and review us at marketer of the day.com/itunes. You.