921: Short Book Formula: Write a Book In 6 Weeks To Attract Ideal Clients Using The Ultimate Business Card with Paul McManus

Robert Plank 00:04 Hey, and welcome back to the podcast. We're here with Paul G. McManus, in He's the founder of more clients more fun LLC. And we're and he's also the host of the million dollar show or the million dollar producer Show podcast. And we're gonna be talking about how you personally were speaking directly to you can become an author, why you should write short books and about Paul's amazing book, the short book formula. So Paul, super glad to be talking to you.

Unknown Speaker 00:31 Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Robert Plank 00:33 And I'm glad to have you here. And you know, you you are preaching to the choir as far as like this whole idea of having like a short little book, like a business card kind of book, when it's super big and thick. I mean, who is even going to read that. So I feel like we are on the same team to convince her audience right now to have short books. And even more importantly, they need to learn and get help from you personally, to get their short book created. So can you tell us all about what you're about and your uniqueness and what your passion is these days?

Unknown Speaker 01:02 Definitely. So I've been, I've been running my company, more clients more fun for the past eight years now. And it started out and continues to be really heavily focused on using LinkedIn, as a platform to help mostly financial professionals, build their brand, drive more leads and create more qualified appointments. During that time, I discovered, you know, through trial and error, what worked, what didn't work as we all do, right. And one of the biggest challenges I discovered for my clients was that we became very quickly pretty adept at helping them schedule appointments with potential clients. But the close rate was more to say the least. And, you know, that's something that's really frustrating, because, you know, my initial conception was, if I could just get them to lead, if I could just get them the appointment, then, you know, these are experienced sales professionals, they're going to close this and we're all going to win, right? And I think the dynamic is that there's my dog behind me, I think the dynamic is, is that for many people, especially before the pandemic, selling, you know, through resume, building relationships with strangers that they didn't meet in person, was just a completely different world. For them. I think, you know, since the pandemic, that's become increasingly more common, but before the pandemic, I mean, you know, even though it's teaching them LinkedIn, one of the biggest insights they had is, wow, this this zoom platform is pretty cool. I don't have to go and actually meet with people in person. So that made me a student of authority marketing. And the idea behind authority marketing, is how can you transform yourself from being seen as a salesperson to being seen more as a trusted authority, a teacher, an expert? How can you elevate your status in such a way that your prospects literally would pay for your marketing or your content, and by the time they get a chance to speak with you, they're already spree Swated, that you're the person to help them. And so along those lines, in 2018, I want to say I met a gentleman, I won't use his full name, but his name was Matt, and he was a was a very successful financial professional. And he was an author published a book. And he used that as a system to build his business, recruit other advisors, etc. And we started to partner and so we built a whole LinkedIn program based off of his book that we did and the results, the consistency of results that I saw for my clients was noticeable, right. So we took LinkedIn, which is a communications platform, we took the idea of authority, more marketing, or book based off of his book, and we put people into the system, we created the system, and it was noticeably more effective, for the reasons that authorship can be. But of course, there were some pitfalls, right. So, you know, it was an improvement, but it wasn't perfect. So you know, passing out distributing someone else's book, while helpful has its limitations. And those limitations are of course, a, if I didn't write the book, the authority does not necessarily represent me, I'm just promoting someone else's book, too. If the book is too long, chances are the person's gonna say, Great, thank you for the book. I appreciate it. They're going to take a big look at it, it's going to go on their bookshelf, they're not going to throw it away, but they're not going to read it. And so through trial and error and just understanding the psychology and the dynamics of all that was going on here. I started studying this about and I broke my own first book back in 2018. Since then, I've written three short books not helped. Over just in the past year, I've helped over 50 finance professionals become authors. And there's some very core strategies or principles that we use as part of our book writing process. And if you want to, I mean, I can dive into it, or do you want to ask me anything? Are you telling me what's best?

Robert Plank 05:20 No, I mean, you're on a roll. So don't let me get in your way. Let's let's dive into what the strategy is all about.

Unknown Speaker 05:26 Yeah, so, so nine principles of the short book formula. And of course, I wrote the book, the short book formula, which can either be bought on my web, or can be purchased on my website or on Amazon, either one. And that's, but there's nine key principles to it. So principle number one, and this is not going to surprise you. But it's keep it short. Right? Go figure. And I recommend roughly 10,000 to 12,000 words, when you format it, the way that we do that creates a roughly 100 page book. And it's key that have a book that when you publish it and print it such as this one, the key is that you want to have it 80 pages or more. And the reason for that is that you need at least 80 pages to get a spine, if it's less than 80 pages, it looks a little bit more like a pamphlet. But 80 pages or more, you get a good an actual book. It's so part of that word count is that it's designed to convey your message. through books, you're educating your ideal prospect. But it's also designed to be read in an hour or less, you want something that you can use as both the marketing tool and the sales tool, and you can reasonably expect that a prospect will read or be willing to read, and they can get through it in an hour or less. If you go beyond that, either, you're gonna get a lot of resistance, the books not going to do what it's meant to do. And rightfully so. That's principle number one. Principle number two is keep it focused. Oftentimes, when you when you when you talk to people, and since you do done for you, podcasting, you'll, I'm sure relate to this. But you know, people it's like, I've still have so many ideas, I continue to talk about 20 different things. And okay, great, but how are you gonna attract an audience around that it's too wide, it's too dispersed. And so you want to keep it focused ideally, on one specific problem for one specific audience that you can help them solve through your book. And the magic of the shortcut formula is that, you know, writing your first book is a big deal, and it's an accomplishment and cetera. But once you get your first book, you kind of get the bug for you're like, hey, I wrote the one book, and I can write this other book on this other narrowly construed topic. And then potentially, over time, you write multiple books, I'm gonna myself, for example, over three books now, and I'm already contemplating my fourth one. So the book itself should have a very specific audience in mind. And the topic and the problem we're trying to solve should be fairly narrowly construed. The third is to use stories. So this is nonfiction. You know, but, you know, if it's too much dry technical data, even if it's 100 pages, people are gonna get bored, they're gonna get lost, they're not going to finish it. And so, you know, it's no secret that stories are, you know, compel are interesting. They hold people's attention better. And I find that just using clients stories is really the best way to do it. Because then, when you're talking to clients are saying, yeah, like my clients, you know, if you've read my book, it's like my client in chapter three, how he did this. And this becomes a big part of your sales conversation, you're constantly referring back to the book. Now, there are some questions or concerns or questions that come up, for example, I said, well, one of my clients don't want me to use their information. You know, I'm a financial advisor. And, you know, this is personal data. So that's a fair question. So there's a couple different ways to handle that one, you can ask them say, Hey, I'd like to feature my book, I just helped a guy write a book called the ESG data revolution. And one of the suggestions I have for him was to actually engage his best clients as part of the writing process, so that he could actually feature them as many case studies in the book. And everybody's like, Sure, absolutely. You know, we want to be part of this project. And that helped fuel and build some further synergies in the relationship. Now, you know, of course, if someone doesn't give you that permission, you can simply change the name, use the same fact set, change the name. Additionally, you can use a composite, right? So sometimes, you know, you deal with 100 different clients, and you get this one story pretty consistent, or you get stories that come up consistently and patterns. And so you know, with the process of writing, you can be creative and just create, essentially a character and you can let your your reader know, it's like, Hey, this is a character based on my clients experiences, but then tell the story. But you want to use client examples and tell the story. Should I continue or any questions?

Robert Plank 09:55 I mean, just no questions just like sort of absorbing digesting what you're saying. I I love your thought process here. Because it's so easy to fall into that knowledge trap of saying like, well, I just want to pile in all these things. And then like you're saying, If you pile on too much, you're getting your reader bogged down, they won't finish, it'll be too long. And then if you think more about the story aspect, it's easier reading. And it's almost it's like more effective to because that's like your readers guard is sort of let down, and it's more fun to read. And then they can envision themselves as one of these clients that you're talking about, instead of you trying to like give them these facts, and they have to translate it into their brain as far as like them using it in the future, they kind of become the character sort of, like, if you you read a book or watch a movie, it's like, you're kind of living through that main character. And the bonus that you're saying here is that if you can involve your existing clients somehow, then that really deepens that relationship as well. So it's like, everybody wins, right? Your existing clients when you win, because you have something that's more effective than these prospects that you're marketing to, they can better understand the message. And for all, you know, they've done research, they've done Googling, they've watched YouTube, they might even read other books, but yours is the one that stands out, because you actually have the story. So I love the groove that we're in right now, as far as making your book fun, making it short, making it targeted, and then working in these clients stories. So yes, please continue. And I'm loving. We're going with this conversation.

Unknown Speaker 11:25 Cool. Yeah. And, you know, for most of my clients are ideal prospects. I mean, typically, they're, you know, experienced sales professionals. And so they have a ton of stories, if anything, they typically have too many stories. And so part of the writing process, it's interesting is that it's really transformational. I mean, I take it that you wrote a book or you're an author, a few, just like you, yes. Okay, perfect. Yeah. So you know, you start out with just some concepts. But once you start writing a book, and you've gone through the process, it really helps you to clarify your ideas, it helps you polish your stories. And so it just makes you that much more effective when you're actually having conversations with people because you tend to tell, you know, the same or, you know, you have a handful of stories that you're telling today, you can expand what you're telling you about, you can just really polish them. And so they go in the book, you know, they're part of your daily day to day conversation. What's most gratifying is that you meet someone for the first time you're on a call, you don't know them, but they're like, Yeah, you know, I read your book, and I'm just really excited about what you talked about in chapter seven about Jane and how she took the book to a networking event. And you know, 10, people were, you know, asking her for a copy, and she scheduled five appointments, you know, it's like, you know, then you know, that you've connected right, when you're able to do that. And so that's really gratifying to hear when clients start telling you their experience and doing that. So, principle number four of the nine principles is essentially is to write for people who believe what you believe, trying to change minds. While admirable in some cases, is essentially a losing battle. And so people, you know, there's this ideal idea of polarity is that you want to speak to your people you want to magnet and the more you speak to them and their values, being willing to take some risks to repel others that don't necessarily buy into that, the more magnetically you're going to attract the right people to you. So it's willing to be authentic, tell your story. You know, be willing to polarize, if appropriate, but you know, the idea of trying to change someone fundamentally, their opinion or approach is just not the right way to do it. Next is make it multimedia. Now, this might sound strange for a book. But in today's world, you know, a book is can easily be a physical copy, I definitely recommend, you know, publishing a physical copy. Because once again, unlike a brochure, you know, becomes your business card. And unlike a brochure, it's something that people keep and don't throw away. But if you have a podcast, for example, you know, part of the stories is that you can, using you know, the written word, you can talk about the story about clients, but if you already have pot, if you're a podcast host, for example, and you already have great client stories or you know, different stories that you can do, why not link to them? Right, you know, let you know take people from on that customer journey from just reading the book, into multimedia, such as videos such as podcasts, we also do what's called a flipbook as another version that we use, and all those things can be easily just, you know, click, it immediately moves a person to the video content, you know, so, as you know, people have different attention spans are not different attention spans, people have a short attention span. So to really get their attention, they have to be really interested in the topic, which is why the book itself is crafted to be read in our last but once you do get someone's interest and you captivate them, they really do start exploring and they want to know more about you. They want to see further proof and evidence that what you're saying is legitimate. And so the more that you can demonstrate that and once again, I like to use clients. You know, I sometimes invite clients on my podcast, interviewed them, they tell their stories, but you know, strategically all linked that throughout my book, and so making it multimedia is really smart thing to do. Next, you know, in terms of publishers, I don't recommend trying to go the traditional route and finding a publisher, because you know, except for about 1% of people that that might be the best fit for, for most people, it's just going to be a waste of time. Likewise, there's some companies out there, like Forbes books, for example, that will charge you north of $100,000, to help you write your book. And they're going to help you, you know, without, well, it's it, I don't necessarily want to say anything bad about them. But you know, you don't have to make $100,000 investment, let's just say, to get a very compelling well written book done, that essentially accomplishes the same thing. So we recommend just simply self publishing, publishing the Amazon, there's different marketing strategies, but but my go to is that once you publish it to Amazon, you can literally publish it for as little as $3.50, they will print it on demand, meaning that you don't have to buy a bunch of books, you can literally buy a copy at a time. And for $3.50, if you're a prime, you can ship it as part of that for free. And so imagine, you know, if you're sending out a brochure, or if you're, if you're mailing anything, you know, for $3.50, you can essentially mail your book. And that cost is negligible compared to most other marketing that's out there. Next one, next principle is be clear about your intentions, right? So I, I help my clients, I guide them to the process where the book is meant to be educational, we want the reader to read it and get something out of it. But by the same token, we want to be clear that the goal of this is that if you like what you're reading, we want you to reach out, and we want to, you know, help you implement these ideas. And so a lot of people have this headspace where they're like, oh, you know, I can't, I can't ask for anything, or conversely, they, they're too aggressive in their approach. But we simply put in the first part of the book, that the reason I wrote this book is to, you know, talk about this, this and this. Additionally, I'm gonna, you know, if what you're, you're hearing makes sense, I'm going to invite you to reach out to me, and then at the end of the book is really kind of a sales letter, encourage them to reach out to you. So, you know, I don't support the idea, just, you know, right, in the right, you know, I mean, you the story I like to use is that it's like the politician, why didn't you vote for me? Well, you didn't ask me to vote for you. Right. So be you know, ask him, tell them why you're writing this book, be clear, make it a value, give them a good experience, but then ask for them to reach out. And you'll be amazed at how many people take you up on it to more, make a direct response. So throughout the book as appropriate, use links that go straight to your website that might have bonuses might have, you know, additional tip sheets, but you can add more content that just goes in the book, and then potentially, if it goes to a website, you can also get additional options, as appropriate. And then the final one, and this is self serving, but it's don't go it alone. It's an extra I take that back, I was joking about that. It's not just self serving, but it's actually in the interest of the process. It's in the interest of the person writing the book, that if they want to do this well, that they do need help, that they would benefit from help. And it's a it's a discovery process that oftentimes you need fresh eyes looking at what you're doing. You know, if anything, most people have this thing called imposter syndrome. It's like, oh, I don't I don't know what to talk about, or, you know, who am I just talking about this. And in most cases, that's completely incorrect. I once had a client and I called it the penguin lady. She was literally one of four people in the world, that, you know, the UN called when there was a problem with Penguin somewhere in the in the world. And she had impostor syndrome. She's like Kumbaya, you know, claim this authority. I'm like, Who are you not to write. And so just simply having fresh eyes helping guide you through this process, in a very personal in a very clear process, or, you know, really can help you create a book that you're proud of, that gets accomplished. And you can do all this in as little as six weeks. And so that's essentially the core service that we offer, which is to help people write, publish and market their book in as little as six weeks.

Robert Plank 19:26 Amazing. We fit in all this great advice. And I mean, I've a flood of great ideas after hearing about your process. And so so many things come to mind. One is that I'm I'm sort of a programmer, I used to do a lot more of it. But there's a thing called the rubber duck method, where if you are stuck with programming, you're like, Ah, I can't fix this bug. I can't get this to work. You. You imagine a rubber duck in front of you and you're just talking to the rubber duck saying like, well, I'm doing this and this isn't working and just the process of explaining it to someone sort of reveals what the answer is and So when you're saying things like, don't go it alone, that that makes a lot of sense. And then like with the imposter syndrome, it seems like having a lot of these sorts of clients success stories overcomes that. Because that way you don't even really have to talk yourself up, you're talking about your results, and the people that you're helping and just so much of what you've been teaching in this podcast episode so far, it seems very modern, right? Because like we were saying that the pandemic, people always look at, like, the bad stuff that came of it. But coming on the other side of it, so much change, like pre pandemic, I don't know about you with your podcasting, but I didn't do a video because the internet wasn't fast enough. And zoom wasn't simple enough, and maybe my camera wasn't good, or theirs wasn't good. And now, post pandemic, everyone zooms everyone is used to video. So there's all these benefits that we have coming out of the pandemic, and even pre pandemic, I wasn't a LinkedIn user at all. And now I use it multiple times a day, I get all I get all kinds of sales conversations, all sorts of sales happening from LinkedIn. So what's good about a lot of your advice here is that it's timely. And that and you're saying at the beginning of our conversation, that this whole idea of having this book is by having a part of your process, you have people sort of beating down your door, right? You don't have to be a salesperson and say, Okay, well, let me have my selling points ready and my objections, and let me try to sort of mold them into what I want, now that they've been sort of pre educated and pre excited about what you can do for them, then these appointments that you have are very pre qualified. So it's almost a formality, right? As far as meeting and maybe having a quick conversation, but you don't have to do a lot of educating or convincing because someone's using your process and your system and your short book that doesn't says all the right things. And so where do people go wrong? In this process, like we've said, that it's really tempting to try to go it alone, and there's, you get stuck one little one little spot, and you're just completely stranded on the side of the road. So they need your help. But as far as going through your system and your process, where do authors get stuck? Is it like narrowing down the stories or coming up with a hook? Like what's a common just snag that people should know about going in?

Unknown Speaker 22:19 Yeah, great question. I think from a technical standpoint, I mean, there's probably, you know, five 10% of the people that are listening to this, who probably already have the technical skills to do it. And so for, for a few people, it could be okay to go into logs. But for 80 90% of the people, first and foremost, just all the different technical aspects that go into creating a high quality product are probably not there, or there's too steep of a learning curve. That doesn't make it very efficient. But to your other point, it's really, you know, we all need this, I need this, you need this is that we need fresh eyes, we need a second opinion. And we need someone to guide us through the process of getting the best out of this. You know, so the, what most commonly happens once again, is that people come and they have all of this knowledge, they have all this knowledge. And they might, you know, end up offering a bunch of different products and services. And so they're just trying to put out too much information there. And in the content just doesn't connect with the right people. So. So really, it's just helping them narrow down their focus, and then helping them tell it in such a way that engages a reader and at a quality that they can be proud of. And so one of the things I tell my clients in terms of writing is that this is a collaborative process. Now, if you come with writing skills, fantastic, if you don't have writing skills, doesn't really matter, we're going to help you. The main thing that we want from our our best clients is that they actually have some experience in the field doing what they do, so that they have the stories, they have this these ideas so that we can help draw that out of them and package it in such a way that is geared towards their best clients.

Robert Plank 24:11 So yeah, like there's the saying, I think it's like Abraham Lincoln said, like, I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, I'll imagine they might even have these stories, not realize how good they are, because they don't have that kind of sounding board for you. But they might have like 50 stories, 50 ideas, and you might say, Well, hey, let's get it down to like maybe like five or six stories, because you could pile in all these things. But it's not about you as the author. It's about the person that you're trying to help. So you do have all these stories and maybe those could be saved for like your blog or your podcasts or your social media. But as far as just this book, just this, this target this goal you're trying to achieve. There's just out of all the things you couldn't say there's a handful of things that you could and should say in the right way. order in order to get to what that goal is, and, and imagine if someone hasn't written a book before, it's so overwhelming, right about even where to begin. But then someone like you, you say, you know, I eat, breathe and sleep books, and I can dive into your exact uniqueness and your exact skill and to kind of narrow this down and figure it out. And so, so I guess, when we're talking, you and I are talking about this whole idea of the story, we're saying that it kind of helps to work their imagination, and they can imagine themselves, you know, being one of these clients. So if someone is listening this podcast here, Paul, and they're imagining that they are one of your clients, what is sort of the approximate price point timeframe? What's the experience, like when they're working with you on their short book?

Unknown Speaker 25:49 Yeah, so we do it in roughly six weeks. And that's all done over zoom. And that and so we guide people through the whole process. And once again, they don't have to be skilled writers. They, you know, they've been doing what they've been doing for at least a couple of years, up to they've been doing this for decades and decades, typically, anywhere in that range, is good, and we're gonna is going to help them get really clear and focused about who the book is for and how to accomplish the goal of using it as the ultimate business card to attract their ideal clients. It's six one hour zoom sessions that we do. And the the pricing, it's actually currently could change, but it's currently three payments of $3,000 as a total of $9,000. Now that, you know, for some people might, you know, I'll get one or two reactions, that's either Wow, that's so inexpensive, or that it'd be like, Oh, that's a lot of money. And both are fair. But when you compare it to companies, such as the one I mentioned earlier, they'll charge you north of $100,000 to essentially accomplish the same thing. And so it's a 10th of that price, if not less. And then it's the opposite, which is I would really just say, What's it costing you not to have a buck? Right? You know, how many clients opportunities prospects, are you not attracting, not closing. And so to me, writing a book is just really a foundational piece of marketing collateral that can last years, if not longer, but it's really a both and strategy. So in other words, a book by itself, you know, if you do any type of networking, or referrals and things like that, which most of us do, it just becomes the ultimate business card. But then when you you know, if you're also advertising or spending money on marketing, whether it's in podcasting, whether it's in any kind of you know, paid lead generation, it really helps to further enhance the return on investment there because a podcast host and a podcast host who has a book, The person who has the book is gonna be that more effective because people aren't, you know, you're in create exposure relationships to the podcast. But now something that people have a tangible takeaway that they can take back and go through your process. You know, if you're guessing on podcast, same thing, it's like, you know, I'm sure you'll ask me, but it's, you know, it's like, if you've listened to this, and you're interested, go to the short book, formula.com, where you'll get a copy of my book. So all of those strategies is that it's costing you, in my estimation, a lot of money, if you don't have a book, and so $9,000 is, I think, a very, very small investment in building the business that you really dream about, which is being able to create and attract your ideal clients very, very consistently.

Robert Plank 28:45 I agree completely, that you ever you need a book. And if if someone was looking up, say, like, a certified financial planner, for instance, and they're looking at two possibilities, and they all look very identical on paper, but one has a book and one doesn't, then who are they going to choose? And there's also something that I took me so many years to wrap my head around this, Paul is that idea about the levels of awareness, right that someone might not even know about the problem that they have. And then maybe they know that, but they don't know about the solution and know the solution, but they don't know about like your solution. And I used to just take that for granted. And I used to only deal with people that were almost at the finish line and just happened to find me and come to me and we it takes especially if there's someone who's been at this for decades, it's so hard to simplify it and make it more beginner newbie friendly for someone that just needs to get caught up to those levels of awareness in order to find you. And so this way, like you said, it can be that business card no one will throw away that way when you're getting on podcast both trying to get on the podcast itself. But then once you're on there, and you say, Well, now that I've just spent all this information what's the except instead of like, oh, go to my website or checking my pockets, it's like, Hey, this is a very easy transaction, get my book. And so that way, the call to action is clear, as soon as we can. And even if someone is not quite ready to dive into the whole solution, they can order the book comes in the mail, like, oh, yeah, I remember this. And then like you said, because it's just an hour or less worth reading, when the timing is right, they can flip through it. I mean, even even my desk, right? There's all kinds of books I have here, and some are red, and some are half red. And so it's, it's painful to throw that away. If you feel like you're wasting trees or something, versus if someone's sent, like a little piece of paper or business card that goes in the trash instantly. But a book, it's like, it's painful to throw that away. So people need books, and they need your help to get the book figured out. Because there's, there's so many ways to go wrong, especially leaving it halfway done which go to loan, that's very likely, but you have a team helping you. And it's very unlikely. So if someone says, Man, I've been so impressed with what Paul has to say, I might have to listen to this podcast two or three times just to get all these principles figured out. What's the logical next step? How did they get your book? And how did they get on the train of this short book writing process?

Unknown Speaker 31:13 Yeah, definitely. Thanks for asking. So once again, my website, it's the short book formula.com. From there, you can get a complimentary ebook version of it, you can go to Amazon, internet, get a physical copy sent to you. That's really the first step because I'll tell you a secret about how I conduct my sales calls. And this what I really want for the listeners, and the people that do become my clients is that, you know, to your point earlier, there's this, you know, most people are operating, I think, unfortunately, just Okay, someone has a need, and they get a referral. And they come to you because they had a need. But there's this whole range of places where you should ideally be engaging people so that you can raise awareness, you can educate them about the problem. And then you can offer the solution and be seen as the right choice. What a book can do is significantly speed up that process. So my own sales process here it is, like a minute or so is that if someone schedules a 15 minute call with me on my calendar, I'm gonna have a nice conversation with them, I'm gonna ask them some thoughtful questions. But ultimately, I'm going to qualify them and see if they're a good fit for me and vice versa. I'm gonna immediately determine though, have they read my book or not? If they read my book, I can extend that conversation out to about 30 minutes, because they're now qualified to have an educated conversation with me about is this correct for them. And I tend to close those calls at about 80% Because they've read the book, and they reached out to me. Conversely, someone who has not read the book, maybe he's listening to this, but you know, is interested in talking to me what's scheduled call, I'll take the same call as 15 minutes. But if they haven't read the book, and I determine that they don't know enough about what I do, I'll intention to say, hey, let's do this, I'm going to send you a physical copy. And as I mentioned earlier, I can do this for $3.50, through Amazon. And I'll say, hey, let's schedule a call for a week from now. Can you read the book in between them? And of course, if they say yes, then we go ahead and schedule a call for a week from now. They say no, it's like, okay, I'm not going to schedule the next call. But the same, but likewise, when they say yes, they read the book, they come to the time, once again, 80%, I close my, my, my conversations, if you will. And so I share that only because that's what I want for you. And by you, I mean, everyone listening to this, you know, gone are the days or could be gone are the days of these chasing these endless sales cycle, these presentations that go nowhere, because I think that's where a lot of people spend a lot of time spinning their wheels, they're frustrated, it's not fun. They're not seen as a thought leader. They're not, you know, in some ways respected because that, you know, they're seen as that, you know, lower level, you know, quote, unquote, salesperson. But when you when you introduce this one tool into the process, you can completely flip it around. So you're spending your time with people that are genuinely interested, high quality prospects, that are more than likely can say yes, and it's just maybe a timing issue. It's a logistical issue, okay, when can we start and do payments or, you know, whatever those things might be. So that's what I want for everybody, because that's what I experienced during this process.

Robert Plank 34:32 And these some of these numbers are very encouraging. And it relates back to what you were saying earlier about how you can't change someone's mind. And so what that says to me is that we need to do better at finding those new leads, and it's sorting them out, sort of like when you were explaining the in my head I was thinking like, like three or four different paths, right? Someone finds you and you say, and you have the conversation and then you say, Well, have you read my book? If the answer to that is yes, then it's pretty easy to get to, you know, finding the right fit and figuring out that sale? If the answer is I haven't read your book, then well, can I send you my book, and then that kind of that sort of that might even save the sale in the end, right? Because if you didn't have that, that book tool there, then you might kind of have a conversation that goes nowhere, or you end up saying, oh, we'll revisit and they never do. But at least with the book, you have sort of this follow up. And then even you say, well, worst case, so to speak scenario is No, they haven't read your book. No, they don't want to read your book. And that's totally fine. Now, you haven't now no one's wasted their time, believing in maybe lands and like maybe ending up in a in sort of a transaction. So it's kind of like back in high school, when you thought, oh, man, like, maybe me and this person need to be friends, and you can't force it. If you don't get along. If you don't like each other, then you know, don't be friends. And if you're not satisfied, use your circle of friends. Maybe it's time to go and find new friends and be a little bit uncomfortable temporarily and take that risk, but kind of put your best foot forward and have this book have this kind of follow up prospecting tool that way, you and this future buyer of yours, who don't know about each other who need each other can then kind of be connected through your book through the short book formula.com. And so is there anything else people need to know going in? Is it just go to the short book formula.com? And find out what's there? Or do you have any final parting words or advice for you, for us here, Paul?

Unknown Speaker 36:34 Yeah, so you know, best place is the sword book formula calm there, you'll see a variety of ways to engage with me, including getting a complimentary copy of my book, I also just want to reiterate that I really believe in the both an strategy and the synergy, especially when it comes to authority, marketing, marketing. In other words, a book, by itself is fantastic. And there's, you know, we talked about a lot of the ways that you can leverage that. Likewise, I think having a podcast is fantastic. And for reasons I'm sure you talked about, there's lots of ways that you could let there's lots of different ways that can leverage it, that the magic really happens when you take a call speaking or a podcast with a book and you put them together, that's really where you start getting results that are one plus one equals three. You know, when you synergistically do these things together, you really take your results to the next level. And so for, you know, anyone that say has a book, I would say, hey, you know, my first question to them is, you know, are you do you have a podcast? Or are you guessing on podcasts, that's like the next logical next step. But conversely, I would say that if you have a podcast or you're guessing a podcast that's like, hey, now you need to get a book so that you can create that one plus one equals three dynamics.

Robert Plank 37:47 I love it. So don't just assume that the book on its own as a magic bullet, make it as part of your whole other system. And and like, I love getting books, when I have podcast guests, and they send things in the mail. I love that sort of thing. And many times, I'm thinking like, oh, yeah, I remember this person, or even when they get the timing right when they schedule with me as the podcast host. And then a few days later, their book arrives in the mail, and then they appear on camera, I feel like you're already know the person it kind of has that same effect you're talking about, like the pre qualified, but it's pre qualifying me as a podcast host. So that so there's, I mean, so many possibilities about having a book, but the person or people watching this podcast need to have a book first in order to appreciate many of these advantages. So the very next step, before you even get up to go to the bathroom, after this podcast episode, go to the short book, formula.com Do it now. So that way, it's no longer just a dream or a shoulda, woulda coulda this is a thing that you are taking action on. Now. That way you can have the sequence the funnel, the system that you know that you want it in a business that runs itself, where you have predictable results, where you're actually getting people to come to you consistently, instead of relying on luck, because luck might be fine for a while, but then you might run out of luck. So the way to make your own luck is to go to the short book formula.com. And we'll see you there. And thank you, Paul, for just satisfying us with so many stories we went about double the time, but that's good, because we fit in so much. So I appreciate you very much for showing up and spreading this very powerful message, the short book, you will be short book formula.com. Thank you, Paul.

Unknown Speaker 39:29 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 39:34 We really appreciate you being a listener of the marketer of the date Podcast the place to go right now. If you want to know more about running your own podcast is dF y podcast.com/free. Go there right now claim your free gift. DFI podcast.com/free