Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with Kevin Berwald, chartered financial planner and CMO of Catalyst4Growth, a sales team development organization, about his latest book Get More Great Referrals in Less Time, a book born from the feedback he received from an earlier book he created.
This first book contained 20 big ideas that sales professionals can use to acquire more clients. One was the suggestion to create a professional biography as an introduction tool. It was an idea that generated a lot of interest and new clients. Feedback and success that led to Kevin creating a book specifically on this subject.
It's a great example of a 'LEAN' approach to using a book as a conversation starter. You can never be sure which ideas will resonate with potential clients, but when you identify a hot topic - Double down and generate all the leads you need.
We had a great conversation about this and about the idea itself, creating a professional biography you can share with people to help them understand and remember the referral opportunities you're looking for. We discuss the seven essential elements of a successful biography and advise on deepening each element's impact. Kevin also highlights the power of personal details in building trust and connections.
There are a lot of great takeaways here, both when thinking about using a book to build your business and creating a professional bio to easily share what you do.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
- This episode features Kevin Berwald, and we discussed the power of professional biographies as a tool for personal and business growth.
- Kevin's first book contained 20 big ideas for business and personal growth, three of which unexpectedly became central themes, one of which was the power of a professional biography as a dynamic introduction tool.
- Professional biographies have become popular with salespeople as they allow for quick and effective introduction and referral rates.
- The conversation explores Kevin's referral strategy and its significant impact on businesses, specifically focusing on identifying the ideal client and how to effectively communicate your message to them.
- He explains how a well-constructed professional biography can control client perception and influence them towards making referrals.
- The psychological aspects attached to professional biographies and how to effectively wield them to secure referrals are also discussed.
- We outline the seven core elements that form the foundation of a successful biography and offers advice on how to delve into each element to achieve the desired outcome.
- The importance of distilling our narratives to their core elements and adding a memorable quote to the biography is also discussed.
- He explains how a successful biography can serve as the launchpad for a second book that delves into the ideas presented in the original book.
- The podcast episode provides valuable insights into how to use professional biographies as a strategic tool for business growth and success.
LINKS
Kevin Berwald - LinkedIn
Catalyst4growth
Kevin's previous Episode
Amazon
Show notes & video: 90minutebooks.com/podcast/151
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Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here, not being able to speak today, which is a bad sign for a podcast. But a good sign for the podcast is we've got Kevin Berwald back with us. Kevin, how are you doing?
Kevin:I'm doing great. Thanks for having me Fantastic.
Stuart: We just had some technical issues getting sorted out. So if anyone is watching along on the video and sees me kind of staring off screen, I'm not distracted. It's just I had to move Kevin down here somewhere and I try to remember to keep looking here. But hopefully that doesn't confuse me too much, kevin, we had a great feedback on the last show. I linked the last episode in the show notes actually, if anyone didn't manage to catch the first one. But this we visit or an update is going to be super exciting for people because it kind of gives people a real world feedback on what can happen from a first book and lead into the second. So why don't you start with probably just quickly recap for people, if they're joining this one for the first time, about you and what you do, and then we can talk about the new book, which I think is going to be a really exciting case study for people.
Kevin:Sure. Well, you know, this journey with with you guys has really helped propel several of the businesses that we work in. The primary one is now a company that's called catalyst4growth is our website, which has really taken off.
I can't thank you guys enough for the work and support you gave us on my first book, because that book had 20 big ideas in it and knowledge torches that is used to help people grow their business and their lives and has brought so much satisfaction to me and so many other people. But then the next step was what came out of that book. So the interesting thing you really put yourself out there when you write down what you think are some of the biggest ideas to help in the overall catalyst for the sales cycle for people when they're growing their business and generating clients. I don't know if it was ironic or intended, but three big ideas came out of that book and really they weren't the ideas that I thought were going to come out, and one of them has to do with creating a professional biography that is used as an introduction tool. It's really the tool that just crosses the chasm to help your centers of influences and your current best clients introduce you to other clients.
We didn't see this coming, but it was. After probably a dozen to 15 different conference calls, presentations at different conferences, zoom meetings, I started getting requests almost daily from salespeople around the country who said how do I create a professional biography and what are the big ideas to help me implement it? And it got to the point where it was very difficult to handle that volume. So the easiest way to help people grow their business and get more introductions in shorter time to their best clients is to create a book and give them some homework and prep to put everything together before it gets to me. And that's how the book was created so that we can help people much more efficiently and quickly meet their objective of creating a tool that helps them get more referrals much more quickly.
Stuart: And that's the second point Right, and it's such a great point, isn't it? There's an element of we talk about lead generation books so often, but there's also that smoothing the path element that when people now have consumed, are aware of the first idea, of consume the second book, to go into some details and now talking to you for the first time, it's such a time saver for everyone because you're not now going through what could be construed as the basics or the ideas. Now people are turning up with a much more advanced understanding of where they are or questions or what the next steps are, If it does speed the process along quite a lot. You were talking about this idea of the second book coming from the first one. It was the idea that they got a lot of traction In terms of the content for it and what level to pitch that at.
Again, thinking in terms of us usually talking about lead generation books and almost doing the one-on-one level of the book, this one is slightly different because it's kind of instructing people a little bit more, guiding people a little bit more specifically. So was that a different mindset or a different? You approached that in a different way to create it.
Kevin: Yes, I think so, and it's to the point that this book is really less than 80 pages. The content is probably down to 60. So the simplicity of this book is really part of its power, because it actually does a couple of things, and I think the latter part, which I'll mention after the first part, is the strongest. And the first thing is helping people recognize and create and think through the seven strategic elements that are actually embedded inside of a professional biography that is used as a referral tool that actually works. I don't want to say subconsciously, in a bad way, but it's a powerful subconscious message to the person who's consuming the information that we create that makes them almost not be able to hold back from calling you and giving you introductions or reaching out to you. It's a very, very powerful tool, but I've condensed it into such a small part, small amount of information that really in one flight, in an hour and a half, someone can work through this book and piece together the information that they begin to need to share with me, so that I can begin to reweave it together to create something that they're not only proud of but something that, when it is pushed out to their audience, is very receptive to them, and here's the subtle nuance of what I'm trying to say. Most people think of a professional biography almost like a resume, in that there's things that they want to say about themselves to their prospective clients, and the disconnect there is that the prospective clients don't care most of the time whether or not you have a LP's prize and a Heisman trophy for whatever services you get. They just don't care. What they care about is what's important to them, and so the nuance of creating professional biographies is communicating those things that are most important to the person consuming the information, the things that they want to hear and need to hear, and if you can convey that, then their interest is peaked. So that's the first part of creating this book making it easy to consume, easy to utilize and easy for you to get that information transferred over to me and my team to create a document for you that you can use.
The second part, which I think is really important about this book, is all the feedback that we've been getting, even before the book was created, from sales professionals around the country that just call me out of the blue and within the first week they're getting referrals right out of the from centers of influence. They start meeting people at the time and they transfer this document to them, sometimes by text or by email. The percentage of people that respond back is so dynamically greater than the old. Let me hand you a business card or check out my website. I don't even know how to quantify the value, but people will use it the first time and they'll say you know, I started using it this week and I had two people schedule meetings with me that never would have contacted me before, and I take 10 of those ideas and I put them in the back of the book. So there's two parts and this is 80 pages, and you can start to begin to create your own document, understand what the seven elements are, and then I give you 10 ideas, which aren't the only 10, but 10 at the time. There's some that have come from after this that are even stronger, but ways that give you the ideas of how you can utilize professional biography to generate more referrals and introductions to your ideal client profile. So they're in the book. So that's the big idea.
A lot of people will talk about sales generation. They'll generally be talking about the overall sales cycle. They'll be talking about sales interaction and how you can be more efficient or powerful in a sales interaction where the professional biography really is positioned on both sides of it. The professional biography helps you control your perception of who you are to your ideal client profile before you get to them and then you're in the sales interaction. The other, on the book end side, is actually then, when you're done with the sales interaction, how you get more introductions or get that individual to refer more people to you. So it's bolted on and it's so simple that it makes anybody really want to use.
Stuart: Magic trick isn't it To be able to give someone a tool and something that they can kind of grasp in a straightforward way you mentioned before. It's long enough that you can read on a flight. We're both up in the kind of northeastern, the office is down in Florida, so that's like a two, three hour flight. So to be able to consume something in that period of time and leave with something actionable, that's not often the case. I mean, oftentimes people are starting journeys with other professionals in a way that it's the beginning of a long process. So to be able to deliver something that is that valuable in that short period of time, that starts your relationship with them off on such a different footing. I can imagine the feedback that you're getting from people. As you say, I've read this yesterday, I did the action yesterday evening and today it's out there generating leads. It really is quite a magic trick.
Kevin: You know it kind of is, and sometimes the most simplest things, the easiest, smallest tools, all that's needed to be the catalyst to really take you where you want to go. In fact, right right before we got on this call, I just printed off four just replies back I've had from people in the last couple of weeks. I'd like to share a couple just to give you some feedback.
I think there's four here. One is hey, kevin, hope you're doing well. First of all, I can't wait to share with you how this tool has really been helping my personal practice. It is amazing and well worth the investment. Here's another one. Kevin is an invaluable source to all of us advisors. Since implementing his referral strategy, my business has been completely transformed. I've received more referrals this year than in any of my previous three years combined. He has a very special way of getting you to envision the ideal client and how to communicate what that looks like. His advice is priceless. Here's another short one. Check out this email on a referral that one of my clients sent. He included my bio, just like Kevin suggested. I'll keep you posted on when I meet with him. Thanks, kevin, you're the man. That's kind of nice.
Then a quick story. This one is a couple paragraphs, but my hubby and me were recently up in Traverse City visiting the vineyards. When my sister-in-law and her friends who had just arrived from Atlanta, georgia when, asked what it is I do, I replied a financial advisor. Whereupon the friend said could you, she could use one as her mother who she is? The POA power of attorney has money earning nothing in the bank. Instead of giving him a business card, he texted over or emailed over the professional biography. He goes on to say that as soon as he sent it, a reply came back saying can I call you early next week to discuss my mother's account? I was floored and stunned on how effortless it was to follow up on her casual statement need of an advisor over an introduction. That happened regularly at social meetings. Normally I would provide a business card and that would be the end of it, quite literally.
The thing is how do you connect with someone, get their contact information and really control your perception to the right person?
When someone asks what you do and you've heard of elevator statements there's lots of ways we try to create it, but we're not always in the best frame of mind or prepared when someone asks and it doesn't always come across well, like on the golf course.
I've used this on golf courses. I've said to people can I just send you my professional biography, read it, try to digest it, just give me a call back and when they do that, they give me their name and phone number and contact information or email and now I have the control information. Or when my clients refers me to someone else, they'll send this document and copy me in, while they say nice raving fan words about how great I am to that referral. It's just absolutely amazing and I know I'm doing most of the talking, but I just want to point out when I use this exact process back before we had great technology like today, there was a time when I was averaging as many as 16 new clients a month While I was using this product. I would get four a week on average while I was growing my business just using this tool.
Stuart: And there's so many elements to it, as you say. It's kind of so non-threatening, it positions the conversation in the way that you as the business owner want it positioning, because you're in control of what's included and your process kind of helps people highlight who it is they're looking for, use the language that will resonate with those people. So it almost becomes somewhat self-selecting in the people who receive it and are that ideal target group, are more predisposed. That next step you were talking earlier about the kind of subliminal programming element of it, but it really is that kind of persuasion elements that Robert Chalzini talks about a lot, the kind of subconscious or psychological cues in a good way, not a bad way, but it still helps move that conversation forward.
There's so many steps that mean it's easy for the person to create, easy for the person to consume and an obvious next step that it's not really a surprise that it really helps people orchestrate what they're doing in terms of referrals, as opposed to the kind of we appreciate referrals, tell your friends type type message that a lot of people are doing in just the passive sense, the people who. So there's kind of two tiers to obviously there's the people who are receiving the professional biography and how they're responding. But the people that you're dealing with, so the other advisors that you're working with this idea of the professional biography for most of them, is this a new idea or is it something that they've maybe seen in a different context or heard you talk about in a different place, and this book is, then, almost helping conversion process.
Kevin: It's helping them understand that this is a tool that they really need there are some people that I'll find that do have very good biographies I mean, there's nothing new under the sun, right? So there are people who have been very successful at creating and having a bio, and some that know how to use it. I don't find a lot of people who've created one that's as efficient as this process is and know how to use it, and I think that the biggest issue with all of these is sometimes you've heard the story where you'll do things so well, you'll stop using them.
You'll create a biography you'll create a marketing strategy, you'll use it for a while and then you'll go on to something else, and so it's really sometimes for some people it's just reminding them, brushing it off and giving them a new tool. But I can honestly say with complete candor, I don't know a single person no one have I met that has created a professional biography and began to use it, has ever failed. They have always gotten more referrals and they get it in shorter time, and it really is all about creating the perception I like your, you know you kind of bring me back to the, you know, using the psychological things of the way people react mentally, and there's great studies on this. But I'd say if I could boil down everything into one concept about creating a professional biography that's done the right way, that's meaningful to the correct audience, with information that they want to hear, not me telling them what I want them to know about me, but what they want to know about how I can solve their problem is sort of like this and I know there's lots of studies, but when I met you the first time, when you met me the first time or saw me the first time, or we meet anyone, we literally have hundreds of assumptions that we think about someone that are biases based on our own life and information that we have. And those biases and thoughts that we think about someone that we meet the first time only go away one or two pieces at a time. So using a document like this, especially when it's referred by someone, essentially begins to pare down and fence out all the thoughts that we don't want our target audience to think about us and they begin to only know those things that we give them along with our picture. Dating apps although I've never been on one, they've been married for 20 years, I know there's swipe rights and lefts and your picture alone just looking at someone's picture will create dozens and dozens of biases and assumptions, and that's one of the elements that we coach people through.
What type of picture is it? What should it look like? Should it be your company? Should it be you? Should it be your team?
If I could just go a couple points further into the seven elements that are in a biography, the second one is the name, title and content, and it's funny how people wonder well, does my name, title and content really matter? Let me just say this I knew nothing else about you and I saw your picture that resonated with me and I read your title and I saw that you were a president, a CEO, whatever name you'd like to pick. That represents, without being dishonest, who you are. I'm either going to stop and read that title or I'm going to bypass it. And actually it's best if they bypass it and just think credibility right out of the gate.
But what if I put down my website there as a contact information? What if I put my assistance name next to it? Then don't people all of a sudden assume and think of me in an entirely different way of my capacity? So those things are really critical name, title, contact information and photo right out of the gate to eliminate a lot of biases that someone thinks about you or doesn't think about you. We want to control who we are and how they perceive us, and we actually spend quite a bit of time on just those elements.
Stuart: It's surprising, isn't it? There's definitely a point of something will fill a vacuum and if you're not putting those thoughts in someone's head and again, whenever we use these words, we're kind of talking about it in a positive sense, not a negative sense, but without sharing those thoughts or those explicit words or terms or cases that you want people to think. They are going to think it and like you're talking about, with the bias around pictures and images, that might not be a great thing. We might all disagree with it in principle and hope that it doesn't happen, but the reality is it does. So let's not be naive and ignore that fact. Let's understand it and try and make the best of the situation that happens.
I really enjoy that idea of orchestrating it from start to finish and taking just that little bit of extra time to think about each of the elements in a thoughtful way that leads people towards the outcome that you want, rather than just doing something in the hope that it will work or not even thinking about it at all. There's seven elements that you've got as part of the building blocks, and then there's seven elements there in the book and they're the starting position, and then there are more. There's like a deeper level after that, or those seven elements, the real solid building blocks, and you could go deep on each of the elements. But there's not necessarily an eighth, ninth, tenth, yeah that's a good way to look at.
Kevin: I mean, there's probably lots of ways to diagnose this but then create a biography. I've yet to find a better way. There could be better ways to do it and it's not as though I created this out of my own mind, of my own volition. It clearly comes from a lot of help from a lot of other people over the years and, honestly, working and using biographies tactfully and intentionally myself for about 20 years or so. So the elements, if I walk through them and I describe them to you, really start from a broad concept, a broad based thought, and they work their way down to the end, because the intention of using a biography is to get someone to call you and contact you. That's the right person. So if you don't, can I just recap what the seven elements are.
Yeah the first is the photo. We talked about that. The second is the name, title and contact information. The third one I loved your. I had to write it down. Fill the void. You're filling the void. I think that's so great, but a personal or borrowed quote if you knew nothing else, you had to fill the void, as it were. The quote says so much about who you are in context. So using a quote that is aligned with your, your own vision and your own principles and what you actually provide to people, I think is so critical. The fourth element is it's a the biggest chunk and it's professional and personal information. The professional information is just enough to say that I had credibility.
This document isn't designed to give someone an entire dissertation. It's just enough to ask them, to want them to ask for more information, and that's why there's only seven elements. You could put lots more in it, but you'll do that later. This is just enough that someone can get through a quickly digested and then psychologically say to themselves I need to call you. The personal information, by the way, is most important. In mine, for an example, I mentioned that I wrestled in college, that I raise honeybees, that I live on an island on the edge of Lake Erie and like the boat and fish. So people will sometimes see my picture and I've never met them before. As I'm going to meet them, they'll call me, they'll see me and they'll say Kevin, how are you? They'll reach out, shake their hand and they'll talk to me for 15 minutes about raising honeybees and we become friends and trust each other way before anything else happens. Once that occurs, as long as there's synergies that are compliant, they'll almost always do business with me. So I think the most important crafted piece is to get that personal information down so that people aren't scared of interacting with you. In fact, they want them to think that possibly you might actually have the same thoughts that could be friendly with them.
Then we get into the value propositions, in other words what you offer people. So when people read this document, they say I need that. The sixth element of it are elements of your ideal client profile. So when someone reads that, they say they get to this point and say I need what you're offering and then they say, hey, he's talking about me. And then the seventh element is contact information and information of what you need to do to get in touch with me next. So when you follow that psychological process of controlling who you are, when it's written appropriately, when it's about them, it can be so much information that if they truly are someone who is in need of your value propositions or philosophies that you offer, they will almost always call you back because where else are they going to go? Where they have a probability of meeting someone to solve their needs. That is less scary than what you just showed them and easy for them to contact, and that's really all there is to it.
Stuart: Two points that stand out as you were talking there. And it stands out probably because it resonates with our approach and what we do with the books in the first place is the first one you talk about, with seven elements that we want to condense into the essence of what you're trying to communicate, because this document could be 50 pages long. We've all been in business for more than a couple of years. We can all write at length about what we do and who we can help and case studies and examples, but cutting down to their essence, to the smallest, almost like the minimum effective dose type approach of, I want to make this connection, give you a next step and tell you enough that you're comfortable taking that next step. And anything else that happens through the down the track is great, but it's outside of this document. This document's job of work is to make that connection, build some resonance, some reciprocity, give the ideas of what you want them to do and how you can help them next and then allow them to take that step and take conversation elsewhere. And the other point that stood out because I don't think I've heard it before. I mean you said that there's no new ideas under the sun and all of this is a distillation of your experience over the last 20 years of using this. But I think that's where the real power comes in, because, particularly these days, we're not no one's short of information. We can spend five minutes googling things and find all the information that we want, but bringing it together into a useful format, giving clear instructions of how it should work or how it could work, that's the real difference maker.
So the one that stands out from what you were saying was the quote, and that's something that I've never thought about including in bios or kind of like the thinking about it from a LinkedIn perspective. But people are very sound-biting. I mean, I don't know how much of a. I don't know whether that was always the case and people were always like that. There just wasn't the opportunity to see it so much. But certainly these days, having a sound-bite and a hook that allows people to remember you even if they're not ready to do business today, that makes it much more likely that they'll remember who you are and give some context to it when something jogs their memory six months down the track. So I think, bringing those things together in the way, not only is it efficient and effective, but there's also some great pointers in there which I'm not sure that everyone would have come across before.
Kevin: Maybe. So you know, I think listening to what you just said, if I encapsulated the experience that a professional biography creates, that's done the right way, might be something to the extent of what a mentor told me a long time ago when I, after I graduated college and got into the sales business, and he said Kevin, people will probably never remember much of what you say, but they will always remember exactly how they felt when they were with you.
Stuart: Right and it's really an experience.
Kevin: So you know, when we add a quote you know like, to my biography, my quote is from Napoleon Hill. It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. If you knew nothing else about me but my name, my title and my picture and you read that quote, you're going to think all kinds of things, but a lot of them aren't going to be, are going to be leaning towards the fact that I'm here to help you as opposed to help myself. This is more about you, it is about me, right, and that's why I quote.
And I got to tell you that one of the most fun things about helping people build their professional biographies I've never seen too remotely alike from quotes to serve propositions to their background stories. When I learned about what motivated someone to get into the business that they're in, how they got there, when there's a true emphasis behind it of why they're doing what they're doing, it's pretty fascinating. I can spend an hour with someone just talking about their business, listening and taking notes and then creating the documents. The hardest part, the fun part, is listening.
Stuart: Right and that breadth of it they're making a connection with other people, isn't it? We have the same here. Having done over a thousand books now, it's surprising that even people who are in the similar businesses have completely different approaches to things. And even if they have similar approaches to things, their experience of those approaches are completely different and their take on the business or what they bring to the table, their personal background, all of those things come through and mean that the audience that you're trying to attract even if it's the strategic coach abundance idea that there aren't really competitors out there because there's more than enough business for everyone in the space and it's your unique approach that separates you and makes you resonate with Person A and someone else will resonate with Person B. So I think being able to distill all of that into this professional biography, encapsulate it into something that's easy to deliver, easy to give someone the next step such a fantastic way of bringing all those elements together at once as we said last, time goes fast in the podcast here. One thing I wanted to quickly circle back on was this idea of the second book coming from the broader ideas that were in the first. So quite often people will have a will, get feedback from people and identify another opportunity to kind of niche down into a specific way of attracting a group of people, compelling them to take the next step, and then other times it'll be external sources, that kind of highlight that there's an idea or an opportunity. So if people, or rather as people, will listen to this, we're probably in two camps. There's people who have written books already and might be on the fence. Actually, I wonder if it's.
I just realised I was going to make a comment that there was someone that we did one of the early podcasts with who had a similar experience. Their book pivoted into a whole different business and, thinking about it, their name was Kevin as well. That was Kevin Craig. I'm guessing that you don't have to be called Kevin to have this epiphany, but if someone sat there, they've maybe written something, either a book, or they've got some material out there and they're thinking that there might be something in this, there might be something they can drill down into. What's the line between, yes, this is an idea that's worth going into a little bit more and potentially writing a second book about, or a book about versus? Oh, this is just something that people are generally talking about. Was there anything that was a real hot trigger that said, okay, there's definitely enough time and attention or interest out there. That means that this is worth doubling down on.
Kevin: Yeah, well, the first thing I would say is a premise might. So there's two parts of this. The first part is, you know, in whatever business you're in, eventually you've got to retool a message and come out with your next message. I mean, if you've written a book or you have a strategy, a sales strategy that you're utilizing, I mean, when you're using that strategy and it's working, that's the time to get to the next strategy and begin building it already. It's like Western civilization and the waves of what you've got to be doing next. So I'm always thinking of the next thing I want to do. And so, because I know that I'm going to have to write another book eventually and I've got a couple that I'm thinking of, I always have that mindset of what's going to happen in the future, thinking out six, nine, 12 months out of what I'm going to need to do. And I think, if you're paying attention and you're in our business which is, you know, as opposed to writing, you know novels or you know a series of books about a certain character fiction and in our business we're actually thinking about how we can drill down and help people, you know, reach the vision of their ideal future. Stealing a quote from someone else, but that's what we're trying to do. It means that times and evolution changes, the economy changes, politics changes, wars change, things change, and so we've got to be thinking about and aware of that change and what, trying to get ahead to where the puck's going to be somewhere out into the future. Using a hockey analogy right, I've got to be thinking about where things are.
So if you've written a book and you're getting a lot of feedback and sometimes it's the forest for the trees someone keeps tapping you on the shoulder and saying you know, I like this point, I like this point, I like this point then you've got to, you've got to realize it, wake up and think about it and you know. What you guys taught me to do, and the way we developed these books, is begin to just write down an outline of what that point is. When you write down the outline, I think you'll get an epiphany or an awareness of there's enough there or there's not. But if you're getting a lot of attention, a lot of feedback, positive feedback and just writing down the outline of what that concept is should give you a pretty good idea if you can come up with a, something that is going to be important to others and that they'll want to utilize. I hope that answers your question.
Stuart: Yeah, definitely, and I think I couldn't agree more on the outline elements to it. It's so much the I don't know if it's the history of how we're taught to write as kids in school, the it becomes such a process and the words themselves are so much of the things that are marked and scored, kind of flashbacks to red lines and spelling corrections through everything. But it is easy to get hung up on the actual creation of the words themselves on the written page, which really is the last part of the process. Outline the design, the strategy, the purpose those elements are the main things and that's a brainstorming exercise of taking 30 minutes and a blank piece of paper just outline. However, you prefer to outline those elements that take people from the thing that they're interested to the next step, and I couldn't agree more.
If you get that feedback from people where they're talking about particular elements and you can put that into an outline that makes sense and that's the answer straight away, the work's almost done. At that point it's just kind of filling in. The filling in. I want to make sure that people can get access to you and Borkand and find out more about what you're doing, kind of follow along with the journey. Where's the best place for people to go to check out more?
Kevin: Well, my email is [email protected]. That's my email. Or you can go to our website, which is catalyst4growth.org, and when you get there you'll see when you get to the resources page, that we actually have a document that you can use to fill in those seven elements of your ideal client profile. It's a free tool for you to be able to use. If you get the book which you can find on Amazon or Kindle and it's called get more referrals in less time. Or just type my name in Amazon, type in Kevin Berwald. It's at the bottom of the screen, I think, where my picture is just type that in and you'll see the books pop up. That's probably one of the easiest ways to get it Read through the elements it's 80 pages.
Do yourself a favor. You will not regret doing this, even if you just write these elements down, so that you can now convey them to your clients verbally, where you couldn't before, or give it to the people who are developing your marketing programs, because we spend thousands of dollars on people to help us with marketing programs and they never understand what those key seven elements are and why we would choose them. And shouldn't that really be the foundation of what they do. So do yourself a favor, it's a gift, it's on my website. There's a presentation as examples of other biographies. And then, if you want to take it further and you want me to dust it off, you know, for 500 bucks and a few hours of work and using a quality printer, you can get a document and hard copy or a digital copy that will return any expense or time, possibly thousands of times. It's just so important to do and I'd be more than happy to help you out, or some of my team to help you out, to create yours as well.
Stuart: Fantastic. Well, I'll be sure to put all of those links in the show notes. So, as people are watching along or listening on a podcast player or on the website, we'll make sure that the show notes are linked to those within the show notes and kind of shortcut that for people. One quick point you made there was not only is this an exercise that's worth doing in its own right to create the document, but it's also super useful across all sorts of other things you mentioned the marketing team and even the sales teams to understand your approach, what you do. This is a piece of work that will return benefits across multiple different use cases, not only the actual job of working, doing it in the first place, but in all of those other examples.
Kevin: Yeah, I guarantee it. And you know the best way to get referrals is to talk about referrals. So if you take a book like this and you use your own professional biography and someone asked you how you created it and you start talking about referrals, I'm just telling you you're just going to get more referrals from talking about referrals or sharing this book and how to create a biography with some of your best clients who are in the sales business, realtors, insurance, finance. Everything is sold. I'm just telling you sharing the book, giving it to other people, is so valuable. The law of reciprocation is so strong. When you're really in it to help someone out, they're going to reciprocate and it's just a blast. It's a change of mindset of how to grow your business.
Stuart: Yeah, this has been fantastic. I really enjoyed last time we spoke. We got a lot of great feedback from it and I'm sure this episode will be the same. We'll definitely make sure to put notes and links in the show notes so, as you're listening along, click through. And it would also be interesting on this one to send feedback to you if people have gone through the exercise. I'm sure I'd be interested to hear that. So make sure your email you mentioned before. I'll put that in the notes as well. So, as people are doing their biographies, definitely feed that back to Kevin as well, and maybe we can do a roundup show in a few months time and see what kind of feedback we've got and give people some pointers to take it to the next level.
Kevin: That's great. We're starting another podcast ourselves next month and one of the things we'll be doing is bringing on people who are having success and they'll be on our podcast. Maybe I can reciprocate with you. You could be on one of my podcasts.
Stuart: Yeah, fantastic, that'd be perfect. I'll make sure that I'm looking at the camera in the right place for yours.
Yeah that'd be fantastic. That'd be really interesting. And actually I think I said it last time we were talking that I need to go through and dust off mine and get it updated. This is reminding me again it's something I really need to do more urgently. So, for that show, maybe we can go through mine and I'll use their book as the tool to dust it off, and that can be a great example for people of someone getting around to do it, which I'm sure is a barrier for a lot of people. And this is the great catalyst for kind of no excuses. Now, there's not. You don't have to think about what to do, just follow the steps. So, yeah, that'd be fantastic. We can use that as an example. Awesome, perfect.
Okay, time goes fast, as always, I've come. Thanks so much. We'll definitely cycle back in a couple months and get some feedback and do an update. Everyone who's listening watching along, as I say, check out the show at the top of links directly to Kevin's email, the website and the Amazon links and then let us know either feedback directly to Kevin or to us here at Stuart at 90 minute books and be really interested to see what people are doing and, of course, if this is sparked your idea of getting your book out there. Then just reach out to us at like. I say, my email address is Stuart and uscom and we'll be happy to help get that source. So thanks again, kevin. Everyone, thanks for watching and then we'll catch you in the next one.
Kevin: Great. Have a profitable day everyone.