Today we have a More Cheese Less Whiskers first as we welcome back Jamie Smart.
If you remember Jamie is the author of two books, Clarity and Results. I’ve enjoyed both of them and this episode is a follow up to Episode 009 where we dived in the details and planned for the book launch of Results. In that show we talked about some out of box ideas on how to market on a local basis, a national book launch. All to support Jamie’s goal of getting on the Sunday Times list, the UK equivalent of the New York Times bestseller list.
We came up with some really great ideas and Jamie and his team were able to execute some pretty neat things. In this show we discuss those results. Jamie had a lot of great insight about what happened through that whole campaign and we spent the hour talking about the insights and results before talking more about the place of books and the importance of books titles. Specifically in the marketing or the attraction of a book.
I always enjoy my conversations with Jamie. I think you're going to love this episode.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 041
Dean: Mr. Smart?
Jamie: Mr. Jackson.
Dean: I’m excited to do the first ever follow-up episode for More Cheese, Less Whiskers.
Jamie: Cool.
Dean: We all seem to make history. You were the first double episode of I Love Marketing. Here we are now, with the first follow-up episode on More Cheese, Less Whiskers. I’m excited to hear what’s happened.
Jamie: Should I just starting talking, and you can then you can interrupt?
Dean: Why not? Yes.
Jamie: We did a whole bunch of stuff, much of it inspired by our conversation. There’s a story behind it, so I’ll tell you that in a second, but let me cut to the chase first, which is that we did all these stuff. “Results” became a Sunday Times bestseller, which is fantastic.
Dean: That’s so great.
Jamie: In the UK, that’s the gold standard, so it’s brilliant. The gap between, so we were number four on the Sunday Times bestseller list. We sold about 3,400 or 3,500 books. The number one bestseller sold like 6,500, so they sold almost twice as many of as us. It wasn’t like if we’d spent an extra $500 on Facebook it would made a difference
Dean: Right, right.
Jamie: It actually felt good because it was, okay, we did everything that made sense to us to do, and we got rewarded for it, so that was nice. Let me tell you the story. We had the episode that we recorded. I don’t even remember when it was, to be honest. Maybe October, or something like that? I don’t entirely remember. September, October?
Dean: It was right before the launch.
Jamie: Yeah, it was pretty early. Probably, yeah, September, October. My first idea, and the thing that had really, there were a few things which you talked about, which really struck me. One was the Snapple campaign. We were talking either in the post the other day.
The other was the chalk drawings outside New York Fashion Show. Both of those struck me. The first idea I had, we had the thing in the book that really seemed to be something that maybe we could pull out and get a response, was this idea of the FedEx logo, and the arrow and the spoon that are hidden in the FedEx logo. If we can get people to see those, and they have an emotional reaction to it, then we could do something with it.
My first idea was to put a sticker on the cover of the book, and say, “Turn to page 17,” and blah, blah, blah. We talked to the publishing company about that, and they talked to WH Smith about it. Smith is the people, if you haven’t heard the earlier episode, basically the book “Results” was coming out in the fall of last year, 2016, and we wanted, A, to become a Sunday Times bestseller, but B, to sell very well in WH Smith. WH Smith is the UK’s biggest bookseller. They do a lot of volume of certain books, so we got what they call their deal of the week, which is great. We got their pole position in their store, which is great.
The first idea was to put a sticker on the book, but the publisher and Smith were like, “No, we can’t do it.” It’s not going to happen. I was like, “We’ve got to do it. We’ll come figure out a way.” Then I spoke to the publisher some more, and they said, “Actually, we don’t think it will work.”
I’m like, “What do you mean?” They said, “Actually, what we found, we studied how people buy these books.” They basically see the book, and if the cover appeals to them, they pick it up, look at the front cover for less than a second, they turn it over, look at the back cover. Maybe riffle the pages, and then they go buy it. It’s very fast, they said.
Dean: That’s great data.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s great to know. They said, “We don’t believe that people will slow down enough to follow the instructions and do the thing.” They’re moving fast. These are high traffic times. The stores are crowded. People are moving very fast. They’re not going to do it. It’s not going to work.
I actually preferred that answer to, “We can’t do it.” They were saying, “We can’t do it,” I was like doing everything I could to make them, but once they gave a rational reason for not, I was like, okay. That sounds more like it.
I thought how could we do that? I still loved that Snapple example so that when people are in the store. I still liked the idea of the FedEx logo. I had been wanted to do some experiments with viral video. I’d never really done much in way of making videos and that sort of thing.
I had my idea, which was what if we went out in the streets and got regular folks just walking past, the business people, and that sort of thing, and got them to have the experience that I was trying to get them to have with the sticker? What if we made a film of that? We did that. We created basically a minute-and-a-half long film of reaction shots of people, “Oh, my god,” and that sort of thing, holding the book outside of WH Smith’s shop.
We did that, and then one of the things we did was, and this was pretty ninja actually, I thought it was, we worked with an agency called Roar Digital. Our contact there, Matt Duggin, we were brainstorming this. He said, “Here’s something we could do.” WH Smith has thousands of shops in the UK, but only certain stores carry these books, would be carrying my books and these kinds of business friendly personal development books.
These are what’s called their travel stores. These are store in railways and airports and hospitals, motorway services, but no one except us knows what a travel store is. You can’t say to people, “Go to a travel store.”
What Matt’s idea was, was that we would get the post codes of every single one of those travel stores, and then when we put them into Facebook, and we set it up so that when people were in that post code, their phone would geolocate, and when they were in that post code we sent them the video of people having that reaction shot. We sent them ads of … In fact, I put it up on the email mastery page, but I can share it on your page, or a More Cheese, Less Whiskers page.
Matt did a case study of that list, with the photographs we used and that sort of thing, of people response because it’s really great. Very cool. Actually, there’s a link. If you type in RoarLocal.com, so Roar as in lion’s roar, RoarLocal.com/JamieSmart, there’s a link to the Facebook campaign, the images and explaining what happened and stuff.
That was really good, and what happened with that is we spent about £675 on it. That’s about, I don’t know, a little under $1,000, I think. What we got is we managed to reach 113,000 unique people in those target locations across the country. That was in the course of one week, so we wanted to target them …
Dean: How many people? Sorry. How many did you target?
Jamie: What we managed to reach was 113,632 people in those target location. That’s how many people saw the ads or the video or whatever because they had walked into that post code.
Because we needed to sell a physical book, we needed to go into the store, buy a physical book, we did things like have popping up on their phone would be a photograph. Let’s say they’re walking through Liverpool Street Station, this big train station in London. What would pop up on their phone was a photograph of the WH Smith shop that would be right in front of them in Liverpool Street Station with a massive copy of my book standing next to it.
Things like that that when they walk into that post code, or when they drive into that post code. We didn’t have a way of knowing how many of those 114,000 actually then went and bought a book. It’s difficult to know. We don’t know what we would have done if we hadn’t done that, but it was still very interesting to just even be able to do that and follow through with that. It’s a really cool experiment.
At the end of the day, we hit our target of the Sunday Times bestseller, but here’s an interesting think, a big learning from it. This is on a tangential subject, but I think it will still be interesting to people.
We hit that target, which was the Sunday Times bestseller, which was the main one for me, but the target we didn’t hit was we didn’t sell as many in WH Smith as we had hoped to. We were hoping to something like 6,000 through WH Smith. We really wanted to smash it so that we get the opportunity to do it again. We didn’thit that target.
I was trying to figure out why it was because “Results” in Smith’s didn’t sell as well as “Clarity” did. I was really puzzled about it because I was sure that “Results” was going to smash it. I was so in love with the title. That’s always a warning sign, by the way. Smoking my own supply.
I realized what it was, or at least here’s my theory about why it was. Everyone I spoke to about the title “Results” said that’s a fantastic title, but everyone I spoke to about the title “Results” is someone who’s in business. The business people loved the title. Everyone else likes results too, but they don’t call them results. They call it make more money, or get fit, or find a boyfriend, or find a girlfriend, or whatever.
They don’t call them results. Results is an abstraction that people in business use, and some people in my field use, but it doesn’t have the same general appeal as a word as clarity does. That was a really good lesson. It’s unfortunately a lesson I keep having to learn, which is don’t fall in love with my own titles. They might not be as good as I think.
Dean: Overall, it’s interesting to see as that carried on even outside of Smith’s. Has that been through the overall sales of “Clarity” versus “Results”?
Jamie: It’s a little early to tell. “Results” is doing well on Amazon, getting good review. It’s probably got more good reviews more quickly than “Clarity” did. I think over the medium to long term, “Results” is probably going to outsell “Clarity”. That’s my guess, but it’s going to take a little longer because I think it’s going to be on a narrower market.
It looks to me that “Clarity” had a broader appeal, whereas “Results” is going to be much more focused on the business, entrepreneurial, life hacking, that sort of thing. It’s a narrower market.
Dean: It’s kind of interesting. You’re right. There’s a lot that goes into a word. Like clarity has its own implicit reward in just the word itself. There’s clarity results. It seems like it has to be contextualized a little bit, attached to something.
Jamie: What I noticed after I wrote “Clarity”, what I heard all over the place was people saying, “We need to get clarity.” Politicians would say it on the news. Talk show hosts would say it on talk shows. It’s a very universal word, the idea that getting clarity is a good thing. That’s very universal, whereas results doesn’t have as broad relevance, I don’t think.
Dean: It’s an interesting overlay when you think about the stats that you were sharing with me or the research that, was it the publisher or Smith’s had for you about the way that people buy the book?
Jamie: It was the publisher. They had actually sent researchers into the store to observe the behavior of people buying from the travel stores.
Dean: It’s really interesting that that level, let’s talk about that. That really goes onto amplify the importance of your title. [crosstalk 00:17:21] the cover of the book, the fact that they’re picking it up. They’re just looking for a little amplification of what’s on the back, and making that decision right there.
For most people, especially in the travel stores, they’re going to read it on that particular journey, and then it’s going to go into the briefcase or in the backpack or in whatever. There’s specifically a good chance that that’s not going to be picked up again too. It’s pretty interesting.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s true.
Dean: There was a big New York Times article about, I don’t know if we’ve talked about or whether it came out after we had done our More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode, but they did an analysis on all the Kindle data, and had stats about readership, about how much of a book people actually read. The frightening thing was over half, more than half of the books that people bought on their Kindle were never opened.
Jamie: Wow.
Dean: You talk about like the ultimate impulse thing. You get it, and you want to have it. You want to have possession of it, but it’s almost like the magic that the possession of it going to give you thing that it talks of. I’ve often said that [crosstalk 00:19:10]. The numbers, some crazy number of the people who actually do go onto read it, it’s like 80%-plus never get past the first 100 pages.
The narrowing of the field of the people who actually read a book in its entirety cover to cover is phenomenally low. That’s where the importance of that title in really grabbing that relationship right away.
I love this idea of having the book especially when somebody is in a WH Smith, or something where you don’t know who they are. They’re going to go and buy a book, but you don’t get the data of who that person is. It’s different than if they went to your website to buy it or download it.
You look at that idea of having somebody take some action that has a payoff that’s preferably within that first reading that they can actually do something to text you or to leave their email address, or to get something that amplifies it. That makes a big difference.
Jamie: That’s one of the things we’ve done with “Results”. We did it with the first book to some degree, but with “Results” we’ve taken it to another level. On the very first page of the book, it says discovery your personal clarity quotient and accelerate your results. Then it gives them a URL to get a free clarity quotient.
Then what we do at the end of each chapter, we’ve got a QR code and a URL where they can get materials, so they can do things like if there are stories about people in the book, they can go and hear a podcast episode, and interview with the person whose story I’ve told in the book. They can get a downloadable PDF of the images or charts or things like that.
We’ve tried to enrich the content at each stage, so that there’s good stuff there for people to go and explore and that sort of thing. What I found is even with this, and it’s funny. It speaks to what you were just saying. With “Clarity” we sold, so far, something like 25,000 to 26,000 copies of that book, and I think we’ve had maybe 2,000 people of those go and get the data. That would square with what you’re saying. Most of them, a whole bunch of haven’t even opened it up.
Dean: Right. That’s pretty funny, but really a big piece of it, I think. That’s why this whole idea, that’s why I’ve been such a proponent of the idea of the 90-Minute Book, to get all of the upside of it really, aside from the Sunday Times status that comes from it or whatever, but to get all the benefit of it, and realizing that just like you said, the publisher has found that people in physical bookstores pick up the book. They look at the front cover, look at the back cover, and then go and buy it.
They’re making that decision on the strength of the title, and so the importance of really being able to strike a chord that resonates. I have always said, it’s 80%-plus of the importance of the book.
Jamie: I think that’s exactly right. People really do judge a book by its cover. Of course, I did a 90-Minute Book as well since “Results” came out actually.
Dean: That’s right. What was the name of your 90-Minute Book? You did you scorecard book.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s called “Your Exponential Practice Scorecard”.
Dean: “Your Exponential Practice Scorecard”. Those words, exponential practice, is really a great, that would resonate with people who that’s what they want. I love titles that are clear. You know what that is about. I look at it I’ve always collecting in my mind the titles that really demonstrate this. I’ve often said that a book like “Financial Peace” by Dave Ramsey is completely in two words getting completely into the desire of his ideal target audience.
Anybody who’s in financial turmoil, that they’re tormented by it, or burdened by it, or in trouble for it, stressed out about it, to think that there’s an opportunity to get financial peace. Those two words just soothe your soul just reading them. Imagine holding that book in your hand must lower your blood pressure, just having it. A calming, soothing effect that comes over top of it.
That goes along way. I just heard Tim Ferriss today actually on a podcast, but I’ve heard him talk about this before. “The 4-Hour Workweek” is a brilliant title. You don’t need to explain it. You get it. It’s what it is. He was talking that the original title that he wanted for that book, and had done his talks at Princeton on, was called “Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit”. It was the story of him building his supplement business, and getting it to an automated business that really took less than four hours a week for him to run.
That message didn’t come unless you know the backstory. You have to figure that out. Most people, when they’re making a decision on a book don’t have the benefit of your backstory or the depth of understanding that will come after they’ve read the book.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s one of those lessons, Dean, that I can’t hear often enough because it’s just so essential. It’s so essential.
Dean: I love those things. I look at it when you hear titles like that, what kind of examples come to mind for you about titles that demonstrate this?
Jamie: I’m just casting an eye over my bookshelf. One that jumps out to me is Nir Eyal’s book “Hooked” because it’s one of those ones I immediately got. I don’t know if it has that same … It doesn’t have the same kind of feeling quality. “Financial Peace” is so good. Here’s one that I think is quite good. This by Paul Zane Pilzer. It’s called “Unlimited Wealth”.
Dean: Right. Exactly. That tells you what that’s about.
Jamie: Yeah, I think that’s a good one. I’m literally looking through my bookshelf right now. Let’s see. I do like “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. I think it’s a good one, but again, it doesn’t have the same kind of feeling quality. I feel like “Financial Peace” has set the bar so high.
I’ll tell you one. This is one of my favorites. It’s one of my favorites by my buddy, Garret Kramer, “Stillpower”. I don’t know if that does what it says on the tin like you’re saying, but it just seems so meaningful. Here’s one that I think is good, by my buddy, Joe Gregory. It’s called “How To Write Your Book Without The Fuss”.
Dean: That’s great. I’m just looking right now through mine. “Influence”.
Jamie: That’s great.
Dean: That’s a good one that comes to mind. I’ve got all these perennials too. “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.
Jamie: Here’s one of my favorites. This is another Paul Zane Pilzer actually. This is one of my favorite titles of all time. “God Wants You To Be Rich”. I just remembered my very favorite book title of all time is by Osho. It’s called “Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously”.
Dean: Wow, that’s good. There was a friend that was on his podcast last week. We’re going to record a More Cheese, Less Whiskers episode tomorrow actually, Alex Epstein, who wrote a book called “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”.
Jamie: Yeah, I’ve read that book.
Dean: That title, what a brilliant title. It’s right up there in that creating and taking a position. I think about the things like almost 20 years ago now, he wrote a book called “Stop Your Divorce” and those words alone promised the benefit, the relief that you’re looking for right in there.
I think that’s something that if people can come out of this that so much of the success of any book, whether you’re doing it traditionally published, through a bookstore, which is going to have to depend on the ability of the book and the cover to get somebody to pick it up, look at it, say, “Yeah, that’s for me,” and then put it in their basket or go and buy it.
More importantly, when you’re trying to go out to attract people, to find the right audience, that you’re attracting them to raise their hand or to buy it from you.
Jamie: Sorry, go ahead.
Dean: No, I want to hear what you were going to say. I’ll remember.
Jamie: I’ve just remembered another one, which is my friend, Shaa. Her first book was called “Stop Talking, Start Doing: A Kick in the Pants in Six Parts”.
Dean: That’s great.
Jamie: I think that became the UK’s number one business bestseller in WH Smith. She just sold a ton of books with that one.
Dean: Yeah, you look at what’s happening there, it’s very interesting that “Stop Talking, Start Doing” is just so perfectly, yes. That’s exactly what I need to do. First, let me just read this book real quick here.
Jamie: That’s perfect.
Dean: It’s brilliant.
Jamie: I just remembered another brilliant one. This is genius, and this was a huge bestseller. This was by Paul McKenna. He wrote a book called “I Can Make You Thin”. It was just a massive seller. I think the reason was because you recognize the people in his audience, they believe the power was outside of them.
Dean: I was just going to say.
Jamie: They weren’t …
Dean: That’s inherent in that title, is not saying how to get thin, or all of those things. It’s saying, “I can make you thin.” That sounds like something is going to magically happen. I’m not going to do anything.
Jamie: Yeah, which is everyone who goes to a hypnotist.
Dean: Yeah, I can make you thin. That’s beautiful.
Jamie: In a way, it’s what everyone who goes to a hypnotist or hypnotherapist wants. They want someone else to take care of it for them.
Dean: While we’re on the book title thing, when you think about the ones that have been the greatest sellers, “Think and Grow Rich”, and “How To Win Friends and Influence People”. “The Magic of Thinking Big”. All of these things are crystal clear on that way.
I just look at it as such a brilliant thing, a skill to be able to tap into the conversation that’s going on in the mind of the person who you’re trying to start a conversation with. That’s really the way that I look at books. What I wanted to ask you about, Jamie, now that we’ve established your repeat credibility as a Times bestseller, did you get the fulfillment that you were hoping, being a Sunday Times bestseller would provide?
Jamie: Wouldn’t it wonderful if we lived in a world where fulfillment could be provided by such things? No, of course not because it always looked to me, Dean, like tactical things. It was more like a, “Yay, we did it. Okay, great. What’s next?” That’s not to minimize it. It’s really useful, and it’s delivering exactly what I wanted it to in terms of I’m in the process of trying to establish credibility and authority for an understanding of the mind that is, to most people, on the face of it, kind of bonkers.
It looks to me it was just a straight up strategic move. Let’s get a Sunday Times bestseller. Let’s do this. Let’s do that. Fortunately, the feelings of fulfillment, they were already there except when they weren’t, and they’re still already there, except when they’re not. I think with the Sunday Times bestsellers, it was just like, “Okay, cool. That worked. Yay, team.” Keep going.
Dean: Check that off your list.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly. Something to aim for. Go ahead.
Dean: Yeah, of course. The thing, if you were to weigh the pros and cons for somebody, thinking that that would provide some magical result for them, how would you help somebody think through that process? Of whether to go down … If we talk about a 90-minute book as the 80% approach sort of thing versus getting a book that’s going to be a Sunday Times bestseller. Certainly, it would be more 800 at 80% effort required, or more. How would you help somebody work that through?
You’re a guy who’s done it, so I just look at it from … Let’s use me as an example, so I’m not going to put other people in that situation. We can talk about it as a real conversation between you and I about it. What would be the approach kind of thing, or the aspiration?
Jamie: This is a question people ask me often because of my track record, they’ll say, “Jamie, I’m wanting to write a book,” and my first question is for what purpose? What is it you’re wanted to do?
For instance, sometimes people will say, “I’ve got a business card in my community, in my market,” in which case I would say self-publish or write a 90-minute book or something like that, which is in fact why I wrote a 90-minute book. It’s because the book that I wanted to create was an educational tool and a lead magnet for a particular audience, my audience of transformation professionals.
It doesn’t make sense for me to put all the time and energy and effort of writing a, like “Results” and “Clarity”, each took me hundreds of hours and effort, rewrite and honed and think through and refine, and all that sort of stuff before we even got to the marketing of the things. That’s my first question.
If it was for you, Dean, if you were wanting to write a book. As you know, I think, when it comes the world of marketing and thinking about marketing and decision making and stuff, I think you’re a genius. If you wanted to write a mainstream New York Times bestseller I have no doubt that you can do that. I would ask for what purpose to write a book, in your case.
Dean: That’s what I ask. I’ll look at an example where I work backwards. It’s funny. Gary Halbert always used to say, and the reason he was really focused on print advertising. He would often say, he would write ads for the newspaper as if the newspaper was doing a full-page spread on you.
The best thing, if you think about, that could happen is you’re trying to get on the Sunday Times list, what would have been a really good outcome would be if the Sunday Times decided to send out a writer or photographer and do a feature article on you, and give you a full page in the Sunday Times book section. That would be the gold standard of what could happen.
Gary would always say, if that’s not going to happen, why don’t you do the next best thing? You be the writer. You write that story. You buy the space in the newspaper to make that a reality.
That really sunk in with me years ago. When I started doing, let’s use “Email Mastery” as an example because I did a 90-Minute Book of “Email Mastery”. That was just a good title. It’s in the right direction. It’s all about email.
I was thinking about the idea that wouldn’t it be great if Success magazine did an article about it, which is not really going to happen, but I did the same approach. I have this idea of the nine-word email as the magic trick that anybody can benefit from, and wrote an article, an ad, that we’d put a full-page ad in Success magazine, that had the headline of “An Amazing Nine-Word Email That Revives Dead Leads” and I had it under a little title slug of executable ideas.
I had a picture of me, three columns. Looked just like an article, and offered a copy. It had a picture of the cover of the “Email Mastery” book, and would explain the whole process about the nine-word email, right there in the article, and then offer people the opportunity to go and get a free copy of “Email Mastery”.
Now that book was largely transcripts from we did a three-episode arc about email marketing on I Love Marketing. The book was the transcripts of that, plus the explanation of the nine-word email and some of other email marketing strategies.
All of that, the only purpose of it was just to get engaged in a dialog with somebody. From that, rather than giving away the book for free and engaging with people, and then having and building a community of people in our Email Mastery program, helping people actually implement these things with a course and a community and some coaching that is a $1,500 investment program, that is more far more profitable right from the very beginning than putting all of that information that would be in that course into a book.
Jamie: You know what, Dean? I just want to interject here. I signed up for Email Mastery back at the end of 2014 with you, and I reckon that $1,500 is the best $1,500 I’ve ever spent.
Dean: I appreciate that. I think that’s my intention with this. To get that level of value, if you’re really focused on I know that I can with these principles, with the types of emails, with the knowledge, have a far greater impact in somebody’s business, than a $20 book. Even though it could be the same information, it’s worth so much more than that to people.
Jamie: Yeah, totally.
Dean: Really interesting. I just think about for most people, if they’re thinking about writing a book, to really think that through as I just look at the book as a throughput into a conversation. It’s like they’re raising their hand by virtue of saying, “I want that book.”
Jamie: Yeah, it’s a different way of thinking about it. Actually, just taking about Email Mastery, it took me a few times of being reintroduced to the material several times before the holistic nature of the approach. The thing you’re talking about with the nine-word email, for instance, is actually part of a full thought-out system or a perspective on how to engage with people and five-star prospects and that sort of thing.
It took me a while to really see it. It’s so distinct from what most of us, I think, has been educated in as what marketing looks like. Actually, what most of us have been educated in, is what bad marketing looks like. It’s funny, when I’m talking to my clients about building businesses and sales because a lot of the people in my community, which is transformation professionals, so coaches, therapists, consultants, trainers, nutritionists, folks like that, they really tend to hate selling. They feel uncomfortable about selling and marketing.
Actually, what they’re uncomfortable about is all the examples they’ve had of it being done badly. I’ll say what was your experience of being sold to by me and my team? It didn’t feel like being sold to. It felt like just, ask me the right question at the right time, and it felt really supportive. This is an example of what selling should be like, rather than some dodgy high-pressure double glazing salesman.
It’s just a very different mindset. I really see that in what you’re doing too, Dean. It’s seeing it from almost like turning the telescope around and looking at it from the other direction.
Dean: That’s true. How’s the engagement been with people have downloaded your scorecard book so far?
Jamie: So far, I haven’t been keeping a close eye on the stats for that. We’ve got a different process that we’ve been using that’s driving a lot of our business at the moment. Actually, the lead magnet that’s doing best for us at the moment is sending people straight to my Facebook group. There’s a Facebook group called The Exponential Practice Professional group. We basically invite people to join that straight off of Facebook ads and email and that sort of thing, and that is working really well.
The scorecard book has only been up for a short time, maybe a month or something, and a proper lead magnet. I’ll get some numbers on that and see how it’s looking. I’m not up-to-date with it at the moment, Dean.
Dean: I’ve found, so I can future cast for you a little bit because I’ve got my profit activator scorecard. We’ve been through ProfitActivatorsScore.com having set up a whole opportunity for people to take the scorecard online. They go, they can fill in the score, and do the segments, and I offer along with it “The Breakthrough DNA” book and the profit activator scorecard book as a starting point.
It’s the place I start every relationship now. What I’ve noticed, and had in conversations with people, is the clarity that they have after filling out the scorecard, is they know where they stand. They know the lay of the land. The way that the scorecards work is rating themselves on a number from 1 to 12 for each of the profit activators.
I’ve really found that I can overlay an interpretation of it by looking at the way, whatever people are answering, I know exactly what they need, but more importantly, they know what they need. They see what the possibility is. There’s a big difference when you look at those 12 numbers, 1 to 12, being divided into four columns. There’s a big difference between column 1 and column 4.
Somebody who’s in column 1, which is failing at that particular one, they may not even know that a column 4 exists or how to articulate it. What I look for to see that people are in, I know that one of ours is delivering a dream result. I think that’s profit activator 5, delivering the dream-come-true result.
I know that if somebody rates themselves highly on their ability to get results for people, that’s really what I’m looking for. Somebody who’s really good at that. They may rate themselves a 9, or a 10, or an 11 on getting dream results, but they may rate themselves a 3, 4, 5 on generating leads, on profit activator 2, on getting people to raise their hand, or on converting those leads.
I look at it, and we know that it’s crystal clear what somebody needs, and the conversation just flows so easily. You’re not coming into it blind. You’re coming into it with a very specific understanding. Especially, I think, where they have set their aspiration, and that was something brilliant that Dan Sullivan built into this, is building your actual score and then your aspirational score is what you’d like to be. If you’re a 3, but you want to be a 12, then you’re feeling that it’s that gap that’s creating the draw to want to move on that.
Jamie: Yeah. We’re seeing similar stuff with our scorecard, and I’m really loving it as a tool. It also allows us to diagnose what’s going on for people because if on the first 5, we’ve got 10 rows on ours, and if they score themselves high on the first 5, but low on the next 5, then I know that they’re delusional. It doesn’t make sense, or there’s something going on there. I don’t mean clinically delusion, but they’re fooling themselves, and it’s a useful conversation to have.
Dean: It really is. That’s exactly right. The way you’ve worded the scorecard, the way you’ve worded the mindsets really can help diagnose and set a path for people. I really love this. I think as a modern business and marketing tool that I can’t imagine somebody for whatever reason would want to write a New York Times bestseller or a Sunday Times bestseller or any level of traditionally successful book wouldn’t first benefit from building an audience with starting with a book that’s really serving the purpose of helping you get connected to people that you can ultimately help.
It’s just the economics of the book, that’s not where the real value is. It’s not that somebody’s going to write a book and all of the sudden it’s going to just magically get on that list and you’re going to be sitting in St Tropez cashing royalty checks. That’s not the way it works.
Jamie: That’s the thing. I guess it might be different if you get a New York Times bestseller that becomes a runaway success and sells millions of copies, but for the vast majority of authors, the amount they make for book sales itself works out at $0.50 an hour for the time they spent writing the thing.
Dean: Right. I get it. I’m very fond of my leisure, more fond than the writing time that it would take to make that happen. Pretty funny, but awesome. Jamie, I appreciate you coming to share the results of “Results”.
Jamie: It’s been a pleasure, Dean, and I thank you for the part you’ve played in many of my successes.
Dean: That’s awesome. I will see you in a few months right now.
Jamie: In the summer.
Dean: I’ll be looking forward to that. What’s your next book, by the way? What’s your next project that you’re working on?
Jamie: The next book is almost certainly “The Little Book of Results” because that’s an easy win, and that’s my opportunity to do a really accessible book, so that’s nice. I’ve just recorded the audiobook of “Results”. I’m really excited about that coming out because I did a thing that I’d never done before, which is I went really off-script in the audiobook. I would record everything that was written, but then I would include bits of extra content who are listening to the audiobook.
Actually dong that got me really inspired for next time I record an audiobook. I’m going to go overboard on the off-script stuff. Just a lot of fun, and a way of connecting with people, and giving value.
I don’t know what the next, except “The Little Book of Results”, I don’t know what the next book will be. I heard what you said about you value your leisure time. I thought, hmm. We’ll see.
Dean: You’ve already done it. There’s no bucket list thing you’re looking to scratch off. You’re a two-time Sunday Times list bestseller.
Jamie: Well, the first one was a number one in WH Smith’s.
Dean: Sunday Times? Okay.
Jamie: No, it could. It didn’t get flagged. It wasn’t categorized as a business book.
Dean: I got you. Right.
Jamie: They didn’t include it. The other thing is, we’ve got a couple of things on the go. We’re putting together a research project for using the clarity principles with veterans who have PTSD. That’s exciting. Growing our team. I did a keynote speech for Hewlett Packard’s European sales division the other day. Loved that. It went really well, so I’ve decided to do more of that kind of stuff as well.
Dean: Nice.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s just experimenting, reaching new audiences, and seeing what happens.
Dean: That’s awesome. Thank you again, and I will see you in June.
Jamie: Looking forward to it. Dean, be well.
Dean: Thanks, Jamie.
There we have it. I really enjoy talking with Jamie. That was such a great episode. It was fascinating to me to hear the insight from the publisher how their research showed how people actually buy books. They pick it up. They look at the cover. They look at the back, and then they go ahead and buy it. That just amplifies the importance of a title in the marketing of your book.
I think when we were talking in the second half of this conversation about the place of a book in your marketing mix, I think we really hit on this idea that the understanding what it is that you want the book to do in your business is really an important thing. Really focusing on the title that’s going to start the conversation that’s going to lead somebody towards a deeper relationship with you, and how you’re going to help them to get whatever the result that you’re promising on the book is. It’s the importance of the next step.
Very encouraging. I would always encourage you if you are thinking about writing a book, you’ve probably been thinking about it for a while. You’re probably daunted by the thought of holing yourself in a writer’s cabin and slaving away, writing all those words.
I’m here to tell you that the 80% of approach to writing a book can really help you tremendously. I love it so much that I created a whole business around helping people write books like this called “The 90-Minute Book”. I would love to help you get your first book out into the world. All you need to do is go to 90MinuteBook.com. You can download a copy of the 90-minute book, which is exactly written using the process and the team that I have set up to help you write your book. 90MinuteBook.com will get you a free copy of that book, and it will start the process so you can understand how to use a book in your own world.
Then we mentioned on the call the idea of using a scorecard. You can see another example or another use case for the way that we use 90-minute books in my business. That’s at ProfitActivatorScore.com. That will give you an example of another way to use a book and a mechanism that starts a conversation, and plus it will be an amazingly insightful for you for your business to see where you stand among the eight profit activators.
Check it out, 90MinuteBook.com, ProfitActivatorScore.com, and if course if you want to carry on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers conversation, you can go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com, download a copy of the book, click on the be a guest link, and maybe we can hatch some evil schemes for your business.
That’s it for this week. Have a great week. I’ll talk to you next time.