Publishing a book is only the first chapter. Paul McManus returns to the podcast to discuss how financial professionals can transform authorship into a powerful tool for building trust and growing their network.

If you’re interested in learning more, please visit: influentialadvisor.com

I'm John.

And I'm Julie.

We're the hosts of the Hartford Fund's human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week, we're talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let's go!

Paul, thanks for joining us again on the Human Centric Investing Podcast. We're excited to pick up where we left off.

Thank you for having me.

Well, Paul, I'll just remind our listeners, we had invited Paul McManus on the podcast before to talk about something he calls the short book formula, which is also the title of the book that he's authored about financial professionals who can author their own book, not necessarily for royalties, but really as a way to build trust with their clients. So Paul, for today's episode, we wanna kind of start from a foundation of saying, What the fu- We've successfully worked with you and your team through publishing a book. We now have a book that we're proud of, but you say that's just the beginning. And so describe to us a little bit about where marketing goes after the book is published, because just from personal experience, I can remember years and years ago, early in my career, the Hartford PR team asked me to go on. Uh CNBC or something to talk about, uh, whatever the topic was at the time, retirement planning, whatever. And it always amazed me when I came back, I wasn't that long in the business. I wasn't even that old. People were like, John, what do you think about this? John, What are your thoughts? I was like, what just happened? I'm the same guy. I just did 30 seconds on TV and now it's like, it's a different perspective. Does the same thing happen with a, with a book that you have published or that, that I would have published with you?

Yeah, it can then then will it absolutely can and that's really the goal The in the ten years I've been doing this I've spoken to thousands of financial professionals and there's really two Questions that they have and the first one is is it really possible to write and publish a book in eight to twelve weeks? Which we talked about in our other episode and the second question are arguably the more important question is okay Because I know it's not about royalties, but it's about how I can leverage this book to grow my business If I'm to commit the time, energy, and resources to this, what's the payoff? And so that's really the key question, which I'm excited to dive in deeper with you. I did write, you know, this is the power of books. For every topic I wanna talk about, I write a book about. So in addition to the short book formula, I have another book called Book Marketing for Financial Advisors, which is also available on Amazon. And the core... And what I've seen happen over and over again, and this is really where the rubber hits the road, is that a lot of people, when they write a book, they make two common mistakes. And I know this because I asked him, you know, one of the first questions I asked them when I'm doing my discovery call as well, imagine you have the book wanting to do with that. And so I hear this all the time. So the first one is like, I'm going to put it on social media. And there's this, there's a thought in their head that if I only put it on social media. Then it's gonna create some sort of impact. And the second one is, well, I'm gonna print it or I'm going to send it to all of my clients. I'ma have a nice letter, I send all my clients and then I'm to sit back and the floodgates are gonna open. And so if I had a nickel for every time I've heard those two things I would have a lot of nickels. And the first one, the reality is is that when you do announce it on social media you will get a lot likes and comments because authorship is a big deal, right? And very few people do it. And so you will get a lot of immediate praise, but it's not gonna translate into business. And that's really why we're doing this. And the second one, if you simply send a copy of your book to your existing clients, hoping that's gonna create referrals without anything else, people are oftentimes solely, or people are often times disappointed. And so those are the first two things that I would say, don't do those two things. So in the book that I wrote, bookmark for financial advisors, I describe what we've seen over the past 10 years. Is one of the best things that you can do, which is something that I call the inner circle soft launch. And I'm happy to discuss that if you like.

Yes, that would be great. I'm curious. Since we checked the boxes of what most do wrong, let's talk about how to do it right.

Yeah, definitely. So the Inner Circle Soft Launch, it's based on the fundamental idea that people support a world they help build. If you can involve people in the process, they're much more likely to be supportive of that process. And so just like if you were to send a copy of your book to people that didn't request it, that you didn't approach the right way, chances are they're not going to read it. They're not gonna take action on it. The Inner Circle soft launch is all about the psychology of this and what, you know, how human beings are wired. And so. I like to apply the 80-20 rule when I'm coaching clients. It's who are the 20% of your existing clients or centers of influence who are already great clients, people that you would love to duplicate, people that are natural referrers or people that would like to turn into better referrals. Come up with that list. And before you go and make the social media announcement and make it all public is to invite them to what we call the inner circle softwatch. And the core idea here is that You're reaching out, you identify the people, you're reaching to them one-to-one, you're saying, hey, I'm in the process of writing a book, but before we do this, I'd love to ask a favor, which is if I send you a copy of it, would you be willing to read it and give me feedback? And as busy as people are, when you approach them that way, what we've found is about 90% are gonna say, sure, absolutely. And why is that? You know, authorship is special, and you've approached them in a way that they feel special, because now you're part of that inner circle. And so people do take the time to do it, and we see about a 90% success rate in terms of people saying yes. So then what happens is that now they've read the book, and now you schedule 15, 30 minutes, whatever it is, to do the follow-up, and you're not asking them for like grammar things, that stuff that they, I mean really the book is done. What you're really trying to get is their impressions of the book. You know, what'd you think? You know what was the impact? What'd you like? Anything you didn't like? And a couple things happened there. Number one is that Typically, you'll get a lot of praise. You can get some constructive feedback, and that's always good. But what you typically get is a lot of praise, and that immediately creates more confidence in the book. I have a client, his name is Joe. He recently did this, and he had a very influential person who he approached and asked him to read the book, and he gave feedback. He was like, this is really good. And Joe's the kind of guy, he's from New Jersey, and he's like, He's like, you know, this guy is not BSing me. This guy is telling me the truth. And so now that he knows that the book's really good because he's getting validation, now he has that much more confidence to actually use it in this business. But the other thing that happens is that when you approach people this way, now people are invested in your success. And so, you now, once you've done this, the next step is whether, you it's in that meeting or future, it's like hey, you I wrote this book for this reason, I'm trying to, you, whatever the cause of the book is, right? I'm try to help families retire. I'm tryin' to help. Business owners save on tax. So I'm trying to do X, Y, Z. I'm on a mission, right? So you have that missionary purpose behind it. And the best ask that I like, it's not necessarily the, you know, the referral, the one-to-one referral ask where you're saying, you know who do you know? Who could use this book? Because that can sometimes be a little bit off-putting, but it's more, I'm looking for opportunities to speak and to get this message out there more broadly, you know and everyone is associated with some organization, whether it's a company, whether it was a church, whether it's this, that, or the other, and just you put it on their radar. And you'd be amazed that now they actually, even if they don't know the person off the top of their head, they can go to their company and say, hey, you know, do we have someone that, you know, who's the person that organizes these events for our employees about retirement planning? Who's the that does this, then the other? And as you do that, you create a lot more leverage because now you're being invited to speak. And so it's really. Trust that scale, right? So instead of that one-to-one referral that are great, now you're getting that one to many referral, which arguably is even more powerful.

So you know paul when i think about this once that ball starts rolling my guess is that because julie and i have experiences often times it's where we source our podcast gas we resource ideas for new campaigns that are team develop helps to develop and and present i imagine that the goal would be kind of being ubiquitous eventually right getting known known for something what i love about your book concept. Is it's more than just a social media tweet. I can read in depth what Paul McManus believes. And when I'm going through there, I can be like, hey, this guy, I really like what he said, never thought about it that way. I think a book gives us that time to absorb the idea versus having it be a flash. So I'd assume that beyond just like the major media type stuff. It may lead to podcast invites. Do you often see this with the folks that you work with?

Yeah That's one of our favorite strategies. We call it the virtual speaking tour, which is just a fancy way to say guest podcasting and you know, just for the full disclosure, I have my own podcast. And so I see the benefits of having your own podcast, but where I've really seen the most leverage and success is in using the book to get on other people's podcasts who have the audience who I would like to get in front of. Right. And so it gets back to the inner circle soft launch helps to activate your existing clients. It helps to create, it helps to activate centers of influence. Um, but then the next level is, okay, well, how do I go beyond that? How do I get into audiences that don't currently know me? And that's where guest podcasting to me is one of our favorite ways to do it. Uh, because when you have that message, you have the authorship to back it up, then, you know, I mean, and we all know this, cause I'm a podcast host and you guys are podcast hosts. I mean there's reputation risk, you know, it's like, okay. Well, how did I choose? Right? So one's an interaction, but who is this person? And do they have a body of work that shows that they know what they're talking about. Are they an expert? Will they benefit my audience and all those different things? And so when you have a book, it really does open up doors that I would say before may not have been even available to you. In my own case, because everything that we talk about and recommend to our clients, we practice what we preach. And so, when I published my book, the short book, Formula, a few years back, the first thing I did was I went on the virtual speaking tour and over the course of about two years, I was on 20 different podcasts as a guest. But there were two in particular that I went on that I would never have had the opportunity to meet those people and be on their podcasts if I didn't have the book as the door opener. And the through line is that as a direct result of that, I was able to triple my revenue in two years. And so, you know, the question is, well, was that the book? It played a role, right? I mean, because without the book, I would have never been on the virtual speaking tour. Without the virtual Speaking Tour, I would ever have had an opportunity to meet specifically those two people. And so it's, you know, when you view it holistically like that, that's where you can get massive leverage.

Is there some psychology behind when I know the author of a book, and maybe they've even signed it for me? I mean, I'm looking at my bookshelf and I can tell you which books have been signed and maybe even say to Julie and the signature. To me, it forges some sort of relationship or emotional connection, right? And those become extra special to me, right, if I'm cleaning up my book shelf at any point. The ones that are have my name and I'm not getting rid of those, right? The other ones I may say I've read it, so I'm willing to donate it or pass it along. But, but that, that signature that it's to me at least, and maybe it, maybe I'm off base here, but it creates a connection. Is that something that you found with financial professionals when they're, you know, giving these out or connecting with people and, and actually signing them, have they found that it creates, a connection or a bond or a level of engagement that is different somehow?

Yeah, so one of the strategies that we talk about and encourage people to do once they've Published the book they've done the inner circle soft launch and they've set the foundation is to do essentially a book party a book event right where they invite physically to a location a restaurant whatever it is and You know, they invite 50 100 people they cater it and it's really a celebration of their book and I've had the chance to go to multiple of these work for my clients. And that's one of those opportunities where you, you know, you, you, take out all the stops. So you have your book, you do the signing and all those things. And to your point, I think very, very much so. Right. So if, if you, if, you participated in something like that and you've, and you got a signed copy, absolutely, you're going to keep that book.

Mm-hmm.

I'm going to add to that where, whether it's signed or not, one of the psychological elements of this, which I love, is that, and I'll share a story that my brother, who also works with me, shares that he was recently in, he was traveling with his daughter in London. And he was at a laundromat doing their clothes. And this American couple came in. And they started chatting. And what is it that we talk about, right? As human beings, what is that we talked about? We talk about. You know, we talk about finances. We talk about health. We talk all those sports. We talk beauty, you know, we talk the things that are naturally engaging to us. And so they were having this conversation and it came up that my brother, you was talking about one of the financial professionals that we work with and the person was generally interested. And so, you, of course, my brother he's talking about, you there's a status slip, right? You're not saying, hey, the person I work with he's good, you should go work with him. I mean, that's off putting, But instead, you're having this enjoyable conversation about the ideas from a book. But then the magical thing that happens after that is that he's like, well, if you want, I could, I know the author, I can introduce you. Well, what just happened there? The psychology flipped. Now it's like you're an author and you can introduce me, that'd be fantastic, right? I mean, how different is that from the typical, you should talk to my guy about the subject matter. The other one empowers the people that you've taken to this inner circle of soft ones that now just naturally. Enjoy talking about what you do for their own reasons, because they feel a sense of pride, the fact that they're connected to you. I mean, to give this an extreme example, you know, imagine you're someone like Tony Robbins, right? And he signs your book, and he's your buddy. Well, I'd be talking about that all day long. I'd like, yeah, I know Tony Robbins.

Exactly. Well, Paul, as I think about it, I'll date myself here. But, you know, there may be some people listening to us talk, saying a book that's so 1980s. Right. We've got AI now. But my guess is that AI actually like supercharges these marketing efforts. Right. Is that what your is that what you're seeing? Because if foundationally, I'm building trust with people. Now I know from the work that Julie and I have done with our own presentations, I can spin that thing five different ways. Turn it into posts, turn it into summaries, turn it in to a script that I would provide a podcast host. You know, are you seeing the leverage opportunities with AI?

100% it supercharges it because I like to think of referrals in three different in three different lanes. And what is a referral to transfer trust, right? So there's a reason that we all like referrals because the person there's a transfer of trust. And so there's the the client referral. We all love that. There's a center of influence referral. We all loved that. But then increasingly and specifically because of AI, I don't know about you, but increasingly where am I getting my referrals recommendations, draft a Chat GPT because. This literally happened yesterday. I was, I was going through a conversation. I was trying to learn a topic. I came to the point where I realized I needed to have better tools. And so I said, now that it knows all my context, well, what should I use and why? And it gave me out a couple of sources. And what did I do? I went, I chose one. I went there and I signed up. No human involved, but you need the training data to influence the AI, whether it's Google or chat GPT. So that your name surfaces. I think there's two levels of this. The first level is I've heard about you, right? So I'm trying to make a choice. I'm considering two or three different financial professionals. We all wanna make a good choice. And so whether it's a book or not, we go to AI and say, tell me about this person. You know, who are they? Is there any negative reviews, anything like that? And so you absolutely need to win that game because if you're not being surface and if AI is not supporting you as a good choice, you're gonna lose business immediately. The bigger game is when someone doesn't know your name yet, but maybe they're in the Dallas area and they start having a conversation about retirement planning, running out of money, the things that are really top of mind and they care about, and they're having this conversation with AI, and eventually they get to the point, well, I need someone to help me with this. Who do you recommend? And they don't know you're name yet. But when your name surfaces as well as people, because the AI has said, this is the person you should work with, the research and the data shows that those are some of the best referrals you can get. Um, even though there was no human involved that they come already, I like the word pre-sold because they've already done their due diligence through the conversation with AI and to trust that the beautiful thing about AI is that, you know, it has more so than a human. It has, you knows, I don't want to say everything, but it knows everything online and it knows your context. And so we tend to trust it to an increasingly high degree. So it goes back to the question. Well, how do you influence it? Well, you need content, right? And so it goes back to the book as the foundation of everything because it creates that core piece of content that can be discovered on, on, on Chat GPT, AI, et cetera. It creates the opportunity for the virtual speaking tour, which then allows you to go and get your name out there. And now you have multiple podcasts, et Cetera, pointing in your direction about your frameworks. And it takes, you know, I'd say at least 20 or more of these episodes of your name, talking about a very specific subject matter. So that you start being cited in Chat GPT. And so how would you get there if you didn't trace your way back to the beginning? So how do I get on podcasts? We have a book, right? How do I gets cited on AI? Well, I've been on podcasts, I have a book. And so it all, so I'd say today, it's even more important to be cited and referenced and ultimately referred using AI.

It's interesting as you think about all of those aspects, the longevity of this, right? I think oftentimes we're thinking about project-based. So we take the 12 weeks or so to work with our book coach and we create the content and then maybe we have our soft launch and then we have a full book party and we go on a few podcasts. And so, you know, that's a period of time, but as I'm hearing you talk, all of a sudden I am a published author. You can never, that will never be taken from me. I mean, that has as much longevity, I would imagine, as one wants to continue to talk about it as part of your bio, you're speaking with clients and prospects about it. You talked to us a little bit about this longevity and the fact that, again, this is now mine, and it's a part of me, just like any designations or credentials that I have, and how it can maybe build on itself over a much longer period of time, as opposed to maybe that kind of pocket of time that we all might equate with the book process.

Yeah Love the question and it's exactly that is that a book is a permanent something that's more permanent, right? You know the shelf life I would say is easily three to five years if not longer I mean we all know books that have been around much much longer It's very different from if you wanted to grow your your business by say doing Facebook ads, right Okay, you're gonna spread you have your budget you spend it you're the get a lead or you don't and that's it There's there. There's no residual Benefit from it beyond that period of time that you spent money and you can judge it in that moment Did I win, you know, did I get the return or not? A book is completely different in something that you should have the long view. You should have that it's really in stages, right? There's the okay writing and publishing the book and then there's the I would say the the first six months Which really my book bookmarking for financial advisors is addressing which is you know the first 6 months What should you be focused on? But then you have the line game and that's where you can you know? Continue to leverage it for opportunities, speaking, et cetera, to be cited by AI over a longer period of time. And so, you know, you could be leveraging this for years to come. And oftentimes what happens is that because people see the benefits of this, at least the ones that we work with, and they realize the process is doable, it's actually enjoyable, and they get the return on investment, suddenly they're like, first thing I hear is, I want to write another book. Right? And then the process starts all over again. Thank you.

Well, Paul, I want to, uh, on behalf of Julie, myself and our listeners, I mean, thanks for opening, opening our eyes to just a world of marketing that goes beyond just authoring a book, but really, especially given the technological advances that we all use now, uh can become viral, I would assume in just about no time, right? At least that the schedule more accelerated than it was in the past. But before we let you go, and we know you're a veteran at this. Uh, we like to help our audience get to know you a little bit better. And so we subject our guests subjected. I just say that our guests, what we call the lightning round of questions, which are questions unrelated to anything that we just talked about, but they're personal questions, hopefully to allow our audience to get to you a bit better, so if you're willing to go for round two, I'll ask Julie to lead off with our initial question.

Sure, sounds good.

What's your superpower in one word?

AI,

Oh, yeah, I love it.

So Paul you mentioned you're in the San Diego area which happens to be one of my favorite places in the country to travel and Vacation too, but if you had an option to travel anywhere in the United States, where would you like to spend more time?

I like San Diego. I don't know. I mean, it's kind of hard, right? It's like I want to go, I want to get away and go to the beach. Oh, I can do it daily exactly.

What's one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?

I speak more Japanese everyday than I do English. And the reason for that is I lived in Japan in my 20s, I married a Japanese woman who I met out there, and we started our communication in Japanese. And even today, 23 years later, we speak primarily in Japanese

Wow, that's terrific.

All right, my last question, Paul. Sure, you're a very busy guy, given all the things we talked about today. Do you prefer a paper to-do list or a digital to-go list?

Definitely digital.

Mm-hmm.

And what's a hobby you've always wanted to try?

I've been thinking about getting into jiu-jitsu, but I'm also 50 years old and I've watching some YouTube videos. And one of the YouTube videos I watched that said, you will quit. And I watched it and it's like, I agreed. It's like yeah, it's I think I like the idea of it more than the reality of being beat up. So I would like to try it, but I don't know that I actually have the.

Paul, now that you're 50, you're going to find that's true of a lot of things.

Well, Paul, thank you again for joining us today for part two of influential advisor and sharing your process. And for our listeners, if you are interested in learning more, please feel free to visit Paul's website at influentialadvisor.com. Paul, Thank you again.

Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

Thanks, Paul. Thanks for listening to the Hartford Fund's human-centric investing podcast. If you'd like to tune in for more episodes, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

And if you'd like to be a guest and share your best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us at guestbooking at HartfordFunds.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Talk to you soon. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest, who is not affiliated with Hartford Funds.