Paul McManus breaks down why a book isn’t about royalties—it’s about reach. Specifically, how it helps prospects discover you, build trust, and decide to work with you long before the first conversation.

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Hi! 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.

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Paul, welcome to the Human Centric Investing Podcast. We're so excited to be here with you today.

Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this.

Well Paul, I've been looking forward to our conversation as well because you bring a different perspective, one that Julie and I haven't previously explored and it's about a financial professional actually writing a book and you say that a book is the foundation for everything. Why do you say that?

I see that for one very specific reason, which is if you peel back and say, okay, as a financial professional, how can a book potentially help me grow my business? It comes down to one word, which was trust. A book from my perspective, fundamentally helps a person accelerate the speed of trust. And we're all in the trust business. People can go online, they can go to Chat GPT, they can ask their friends, and there's plenty of options for other people that do similar services to help someone potentially. But the one thing that we're all scared of in some way, and this is why referrals are so popular, Is that we're afraid we want to make a good decision, and it all comes down to trust. And so when a person writes and publishes a book and then integrates it as part of their process, meaning that before an initial conversation, someone has had the chance to read it prior to that call, or what often happens is that after the first call and before the second meeting, the finance professional provides the book to the prospective client. And ask them to read it before that second meeting, what happens is that the prospect is able to take the time to do their due diligence, get to know the financial professional, if they're relevant, do they empathize with them, how human are they, their philosophy, and really if it's a good fit. And it's done in a very, it's been on their own time. It could be done, you know, it's not done through a meeting where it could be a little bit salesy. It could be, it's completely done in their own time. If they have other decision-makers in their process, whether it's a spouse, whether it is children, whether anyone else, any other stakeholders, they can say, Hey, this is the person that I'm thinking about working with. Here's their buff. What do you think? And so all of this deciding, all of these due diligence can happen before that first meeting or as part of the process before that second meeting. And something magical happens is that when the prospect reads the book, and then shows up to the next meeting, trust has largely been established. They've been educated on what makes you different or unique, and now you can really get down to what's most important, which is, how can I help you? And what are the next steps to move forward?

That makes sense. I like how you laid that out. So we talked about trust one T word, I'm going to jump to the next T word that I can think of is time. So I know that most financial professionals would probably say, I barely have time to schedule a team offsite meeting, let alone write a book. I don't know how I would weave that into everything I already do. How do you think about the time commitment from your perspective? And what would you say to that financial professional that's. Feeling like time might be the greatest impediment to the next step.

Yeah, and I think it is. I think, I think is the perception of the amount of time it's going to take to do which is the biggest barrier, the people that I've been doing this for over 10 years. And I work with very successful financial professionals, which means that they're very busy, they don't have a lot of white space on the calendar. And so that's that's, that's the immediate question that comes to mind for them. And so a couple things. Number one, we call it the short book formula. I wrote a book about it with the same title. Ultimately, the key concept there is that it's a book that's somewhere between 12,000 to 25,000 words. I'll translate that into it's book that is 100 pages to 150 pages or it's a book can be read cover to cover in about one to two hours. So first, we put that constraint on because the interesting thing about financial professionals is that they tend to be very smart, meaning that they have lots of credentials. They have their CFP, they have their SIPA, they this, that, and the other. And it's almost counterintuitive, but one of the first questions they have is, what the heck do I write about? And so one, by putting that constraint there, we say, okay, who is the ideal reader for this? And what are they gonna get out of this book? Because people don't read books for your benefit, they read books their benefit. They wanna learn, they wanna be educated, they wanna get something out of it. So to be very super strategic is the first thing. And through that process, to answer your question more directly, at least the way that we... Work with financial professionals is that we have a process that takes them through about eight to 12 weeks. It's about two to three hours a week. And we don't expect them to be writers. We don't ask that they have a master's in English lit. But instead, they know they're the subject matter expert, simply meaning that they've experienced have been doing this for years, if not decades. We start with a blank sheet of paper. And everything that goes into that book comes from their stories, their frameworks, their ideas, their philosophy. And so it actually flips it from being this thing where, you know, we're all afraid of the blank sheet of paper and the typewriter and the proverbial, you know that in that image that we all have. And it's actually a very enjoyable process where they work with a book coach, at least in our process, they get to talk out what the things that they've been doing years that probably, you know they're really passionate about, but people don't ask them thoughtful questions all the time. And so becomes a very, enjoyable process. And it really about two to three hours a week. That we take them through. And ultimately though, once the book is done and used as part of their business, it actually frees up a lot of time. And so there's a little bit of time investment upfront, but on the other end of it, it can save massive amounts of time

So, Paul, this may be an unfair question because you mentioned you wrote a book about the short book formula. But my unfair question is, can you summarize for us or walk us through a little bit of the short book formula process, if you will, because one of the first questions in my mind was I'm a financial professional. I wouldn't know what to write about. So how does this process kind of What exactly am I committing to when I commit myself to the short book formula?

Yeah. Um, it goes back to what I was sharing, which is it's, it, you know, it is a process. It's typically eight to 12 weeks. It's there's, there's constraints, 12,000, 25,000 words, but it's it's really before someone does it, it's for them to see the value of a book. Right. Because in like in anything in life, we're not going to put in the time, energy and effort unless we see, unless we have a why, unless we see the reason to do so. And so it's about once you see that it's possible that you don't have to take a sabbatical to write a book, you don't have to. Um, go and rent the proverbial cabin in the woods and you don't have to wait till retirement. I've heard that so many times. Like, yeah, you know, cause, cause a lot of these, a lot of the people that we talk to, you know, they're successful. They're experienced. They're like, you know, people say you should write a book one day. And it comes back to what Julie said, which is, well, where am I going to find the time? And so once we show them that it is achievable, that you don't have to be a writer, that it is a fun process and in the shortest 12, eight to 12 weeks, you come out the other side of the book that now you can start to leverage. And start to actually save time in multiple ways. One, if you're looking, you know, if you are actively in client meetings and bringing on new prospects, because it accelerates the speed of trust, you can shorten the amount of time it takes to go from first meeting to new client. The amount of it takes to go from I was referred to you to not actually fully trust you in your recommendations. Or if you running a larger practice and you're scaling your business, it does something. Uh, second, uh, there's something additionally, which I would say is magical, which is it can help transfer trust to your team, right? How often has a financial professional been out networking and they build a nice relationship and the person has the expectation that they're going to work with you and it's like, Oh, you know, my calendar's full, you know, I'm not even trying to take on new clients, you know, actually in the rainmaker for the firm. I want you to come and become a client, but then I want you to work with the person on my team. That's going to actually work with. And so when your thoughts are out there and people are buying, not you the personality, but buying the thought leadership and ideas that you put forth, they become much more agreeable to the idea of working with a team member versus you specifically, because they already know what you represent, how you're gonna help them. And so it can, again, massively save time and will.

What are some of the questions or scenarios that the book coach, which I love how you put that, would work with a financial professional on? Is there a series of, is it worksheets that go through different, you know, tell us about a scenario when maybe you helped a client have a breakthrough, of course, names, you don't, hidden to protect the innocent, or is it reflecting, or is the financial professional reflecting on his or her? Experience or will you just share with us a flavor of some of those questions just for our listeners if they're wondering, I wonder what the conversations would sound like with this book coach.

Yeah, definitely. And in our case, what we say is that, we start with a blank sheet of paper and someone doesn't too necessarily have thought this through. Oftentimes people aren't sure they want guidance. And so we'll meet people wherever they're at. Sometimes people have already started the first draft and they realize, okay, help, I wanna come and work with you. So wherever a person at is fine in terms of our process. But ultimately it gets back down to narrowing. Right. It's there's so many different topics and just today, I mean, I don't know about you, but I use chat GPT every day. So if I have a question about anything, I go to chat GPT, I ask it, and it gives me an immediate answer. And so I'm not reading a book for generic information. Right. And so, I think that's the first thing is you don't need to write the encyclopedia about any of these topics, retirement planning, et cetera. But what you do really want to capture is two, two angles. One is who's the ideal reader? That first and foremost, who's the ideal reader? And this is tricky because this gets back into the idea of who's your ideal client, right? And I'm sure that you guys can appreciate this through all the people that you've talked to is that as easy as that can be, it could also be extremely difficult because people are worried about going too narrow and then too broad and how do you make the right decision there? So it really forces a decision. One of the things I think is a benefit and we tell people is like, well, for the purpose of this book, who's the ideal reader. And it gets them to think more strategically about their business. That's the beautiful thing about writing a book is that it's really a thought process exercise. It's really business growth exercise because it's what are you trying to build? Where do you wanna be in a couple of years? How's this book gonna help you get there? And it gives people the chance to reflect and think through who their ideal growth sector is, who do they want to expand into, whether it's their existing fly and tell, whether maybe it's a new segment that they want you to become more relevant or maybe it's a new service. They want to become known for. So first and foremost helps them get clarity in terms of who the ideal reader is. On the flip side it gets back to what I was saying that it's not about you know being the encyclopedia of xyz topic. I mean some of those things are going to go in there naturally but ultimately it's about being able to be relatable I think. I mean the more you know your ideal reader the more they're going to see you as the right fit for them. I think that's super important. And so the more you use frameworks and you understand their world and you use examples that are relatable, of course, you know, names are protected and you know all that good stuff. But the more they say, wow, this person helps people just like me. They understand me and they've done this many, many times and they provide some knowledge or frameworks that I haven't heard about. And so if the person can read the book in that one to two hours, and get to the other side. Ultimately, what the goal is, is that we've built trust, we've pre-educated them, we've framed the discussion in a way that would normally take multiple, multiple meetings to do. And when they, when we have that next meeting, now the person's already, I like to use the word pre-souled. It's like, you know, I want to accomplish what you talked about in your book. I want that to be me. So I guess just to summarize that, it's about forcing clarity. It's about force and clarity. And that's where you really need to work with someone else because. There's so many people, there's the imposter syndrome, there are all these questions that live in our mind that we all face to some degree and it's like, well, what would I write about that no one else has written about and how am I unique or different? And I hear this from people that are so experienced. You would laugh when you saw how credentialed they are, how experienced they are. We all as human beings have the same types of thought. And so it's just having an outside perspective to, you know, just help them get strategic clarity. And then the process is every call that we do, we give them the assignment before so they can start to reflect and think through the answers so that when they're actually on the call with us and the coach is asking them questions, stories, frameworks, ideas, that they've already had a chance to reflect upon it. But now we really wanna capture their voice so that the goal is by the end of it, even though our team is taking all those notes and technically doing the writing. There should be no distinction. I mean, the person should say a hundred percent. This is my book. This is not ghost written because every single idea in here is mine.

And Paul, that relates to the question I was gonna ask because when I think about why financial professionals or why myself for that matter, why I would be hesitant maybe to approach this book idea, two different ideas pop into my head. The first one is not my idea, which is, hey, AI can do everything. Why don't I just use AI to write a book, right? And I can put it out there. So that would be. Part one of my question, the second question is, which I think you just touched on, which is I would be a little bit hesitant because I wouldn't want this book to come out looking like an AI book, where it's basically a mad libs like filling in the blank, right? I have a successful practice. I wanna make sure that what I produce isn't hokey. And I don't mean offense by that, but do you run across either of those objections?

Yeah, 100%. And so there's, there's a term called AI slop, which I think has become popularized recently. And I think if any of us are on social media, I think a relatable example is that, you know, people use AI all the time now for social media posts and it was 2am and I couldn't sleep and suddenly, you fill in the blank in terms of product or service. And so, and so we can all identify it now. Right. And so the worst thing you could do is have a book that sounds like AI. It's not a book that sounds like that because if you go back to the core premise about what does a book do it's Not about being an author. It's not about saying yeah I'm an author you want the person to read the book and why do you want a person to bring the book because they get to understand who you are and and and they The goal is that they you enhance trust you enhance your reputation. They see you They get to know you in a way that they wouldn't otherwise and so the biggest and this is actually I'm very common now so people The people that come to me increasingly that have a first rap, well, what do they really do? Well, they tried to go and do it with AI. They got stuck. They realized it wasn't that good. They don't know what they're doing. No offense. I mean, this just isn't what they do. And then they come and we say, right, you know, that's a very useful outline. We can start that, right? And so if you just think about it as the book foundationally, why am I doing a book? It's not for royalties. The average book on Amazon sells about, the average business book on amazon sells about 200 copies. And if you're doing it for royalties, you're making a couple hundred bucks, it's not a good use of your time. But if a book can help generate a billion dollars of revenue by fully integrating it into everything that you're doing to make your existing referrals better, your existing centers of influence process better, to create new speaking opportunities for you more efficiently, to convert your seminars better, whatever it might be, well, now a book is one of the best investments you can make. But the core of that, and really the litmus test, however you go about writing, whether you write it yourself, If you hire Ghost Friday, work with us. Is that a book in order for you to fully integrate it into everything that you do, you personally have to have the confidence that this reflects well on me and it's the polished version of your voice. And if you can't say that confidently, what's gonna happen is you're gonna put it on the side and you're not gonna give it to people because you're going to have questions and you are concerned and it will never, it'll become one of those things that you tried and never actually got any benefits from because you approached it that way.

If I'm a financial professional listening to this and I'm curious and intrigued, and I am thinking, I wonder if this is the right fit for me, could you give some guidance on the ideal or typical tenure of a financial professional that would get into this? So is there a number of years that maybe they should have been working with clients? Just to have enough stories? Obviously, we're trying to create the trust. Or what do you see in terms of sort of the experience level of the typical financial professional that engages you and team.

Yeah I'd say that's typically someone that's been doing it for 10 years or more, oftentimes, and I'll give a little nuance here is that typically the people we work with, they're in their forties or fifties, sometimes they're sixties, and they have experience been in this a long time. And so they're just very natural candidates that built a successful practice in, in whether they realize it or not, they, they have enough insights and stories experience that it gets back to the imposter center. But it's like, we have to shake him and say, no, you do have enough to write a book. And then there's the people that I would say are maybe earlier in their career, maybe starting over. And that one's a little bit more nuanced, right? And so our litmus test is, is that in this process that we take you through, if you don't have enough, if you can't talk out the content of your ideas, well, you don't have a book.

Right. Right.

And it's really, I would say it's up to the person to decide because at the same time, if I was starting out new in anything, just based on my own experience and how impactful I see a book, the first thing I would do is write a book because a book is the fastest way to build trust. And a book the fastest way to go from, you know, nobody knows who I am to suddenly big fish in smaller pond. And so there's, you know, so that you can see it from both angles, a book's gonna help you accelerate that, you're your reputation and trust, even if you maybe haven't fully earned the right to write a book. But if you think about the purpose behind it, then that's the first thing I would do if I was starting out with a new clientele or a new segment that I wanted to expand. But ultimately, if someone can't talk out the content, if they haven't studied it, if they don't have enough information, it just doesn't lend itself to To a buck I can think of one specific person that we've recently worked with his name is Jason he's in a he's a financial professional of Chicago and He recently Restarted his career And he's I think he's been in the current iteration for a couple years, but you know, he's 40 I think now and so he's had enough, you know practical experience and so You know, so he self-success. He was a good fit He we ended up helping him create a best-selling buck and one of the interesting things here And this just shows the power of a buck. Is that One of the things that he did, and we can talk about this in the future later, but he leveraged the buck to become a regular contributor on TV on NBC Chicago, which is like the third largest market in the nation. And so the reason I'm sharing this right now is just to your question is that arguably there's plenty of financial professionals out there that have more experience than him. And so if you were simply weighing it on resume and experience and years of doing it, you'd say, well, you know, he's probably he doesn't have the depth of that resume. Well, what did he do? He wrote a book and now he's the person on NBC Chicago. So if I was in that position, I would I would want to go on the Jason path.

So Paul, for our listeners who may be wondering what's the financial commitment to beginning a book and following the process, like you mentioned, and ballpark's fine. I don't mean writing the sequel to Moby Dick, but writing a book like you described, is there a ballpark that our listeners can be thinking about?

Yeah, definitely. We have three different author programs, and they range from 12,000 up to 36,000. And if someone goes to our website, influential advisor calm, we have a link that breaks down very specifically what's included. So we don't hide our pricing. You know, we want people to come in that are good fit. There's other companies that charge a lot more, there's some companies that charge less. And so we find for the product, and the benefits that we create that, you know, operates about ROI, right? So. We're very confident.

Well, Paul, before we let you go today, you probably heard this saying, I've read you like a book. But one of the things we do with our guests so that maybe our audience can read you a little bit more like a books, is we ask our guests to participate in a lightning round of questions. We're the human-centric investing podcast. So these questions have nothing to do with the topic that we talked about today, but more in line to have the audience get to know who Paul McManus is a little better. So uh-oh If you're good with that, I'll ask Julie to ask the first question.

Yes, if you could instantly master one skill, what would it be?

This is what I love about AI today. Is that AI is creating the capability, the ability to start to master skills in a way that people couldn't before. And so I'm a big AI geek. And there's a movie, there's a line in the movie, The Matrix, where Neo, he's getting some information, you know, into his head. And he suddenly says, I know Kung Fu. And I'm finding because I'm big AI gate that increasingly I'm able to if that master get at least dangerous, in terms of the things that I think that I know. And so my skill set is improving every day, increasing every day.

Paul, what's your favorite way to unwind after a very busy day?

The Jacuzzi.

I might already know the answer to this, but what's your favorite app on your phone?

If I were to look at my thing based on usage, it would have to be chat to PT.

That was my guess, but.

I shouldn't admit this either, but I probably cocked the chat speech more than I do the humans at this point.

I call it my friend chat just so I get it.

Paul, when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I used to be a bit, so I'm 50 years old and I think when I was about five, six, seven, for some reason we used to watch the TV show Dallas with, I don't know if you remember these characters, but J.R. Ewing. And so he was a Texas oil business man. And so for some that was my vision. You know, I had no connection to oil, but I just liked the, I just liked the image of, of J. R. Ewing

Terrific. That's great. Well, Paul, we can't thank you enough for joining us here today on the Human Centric Investing Podcast. And for our listeners, if this conversation sparked something, the next step is very simple. Schedule a conversation with Paul. His website is influentialadvisor.com slash Paul. Thank you again, Paul for being here with us today.

Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.

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