Taking a Book to Scale | Nick Gray | 476

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Nick Gray, and I'm just gonna give you sort of a highlight reel from the bio that was sent to me. So he's launched a new book called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. Most people also know him as the founder of the Museum Hack, which is a business he started because he hated museums. Which is another story. He's done a TEDx Talk. He's been in the web space. Let's see what else there. He was in a comedy troupe and obviously produced a Bollywood music video. So without further ado, welcome aboard, Nick. How are you today?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Hello.

Great. So to roll back a little bit, you and I had a conversation probably about a month or so ago, and we were just chatting. Seeing if you'd be a good fit for the podcast. Obviously you are. And it wound up sort of evolving into this conversation around strategy for thought leaders, which is obviously something that I'm really passionate about. And then you called me after and said, could we have that conversation kind of again? And I was like, yeah, that sounds good. So tell me, I don't know, maybe what was it about that that was interesting to you or resonated with you most?

Okay. So I made this book, it's called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. And I am very, I've been focused for the last 7 7 months on more of a B2C audience, trying to get my Amazon sales, my Amazon reviews, trying to share people about my book and things like that. And I've had some success, but I haven't been making money off of the book. I haven't been thinking about bulk sales or the corporate sales or B2B stuff. And you just started asking me questions during the call that made me think in a completely different way. And you shared some resources of other people who are just absolutely crushing it, who didn't have any of the number of reviews or social shares or things that I had. And it just made me think, oh my God, have I been working on all the wrong things for the last 7 months?

So let's stay there for a minute because you're obviously a smart guy. This was your first book. So you do what you think you do, right? So You know what I somewhere between don't like and despise on the B2C side of the world as a thought leader is, you know, number one, unless you've got a preexisting list, right? Unless you're already a rock star, continue to be a rock star. Great. But other than that, you have an unknown customer acquisition cost and you have an unknown lifetime value of a customer. And I think what happens is people look at indicators that they believe they will get from social media data. That just don't play, right? Say, oh, but I have a million followers, but I have, you know, this many views on Instagram, on TikTok or whatever. And there is an exponential difference between the level of commitment to say, I think this guy's Nick's okay, I'll follow him versus I'll spend 25 bucks, let alone, you know, on a book, let alone tens of thousands on offerings and services. So stay with that for a little bit. How did, is that, is that where your thinking got jarred or changed? Before I ruined your day?

Yeah, I think that I have seen people like "Atomic Habits," James Clear, sell 10 million copies. And myself, you know, while I've sold 7,000 or 8,000 copies, it doesn't feel like the book has broken out yet. And so I have spent a lot of time trying to get the book to break out, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 sales. And I've been sharing on social media and I've been doing all these things. I think what was most interesting to me was what you were saying around corporate sales, around working, speaking workshops, around bulk sales, around how to take my book and maybe turn it into a course. I think there's work that you do that you were doing on the call, and I apologize, I didn't write it down. That's part of why I said, well, let's maybe do that call again so that other people can hear some of these ideas. That you do as a part of clients for your sort of introductory call, and then they hire you for these more detailed strategy workshops. And that was my intent here, was to say, hey, let's just riff a little using my book as an actual example so others can hear and maybe get a new idea.

Yes. So let's do that. So your book, Two Hour Cocktail Party, one of the things that I, you know, give you as feedback is I actually read the book, right? Which doesn't always happen, right? Is It's a really, you know, pink— oh, like throw a cocktail party, big deal, like whatever. But it is a very good book because it is concise, it is clear, and you don't leave anything to chance. So it is very— even though you think it's something light like a cocktail party, lots of people don't know how to do it well. And this is really the ultimate how-to from how to invite people, the technology, how to prepare the apartment. Oh, and by the way, your apartment could be a crappy apartment in New York because most people in New York, their apartments suck. So Step 1 isn't buy a $5 million townhouse in SoHo and impress your friends. So, it was a methodology. So, I said to you, this is really, really teachable. And I think there's a lot more money to be made and impact that can be had going to whatever Merrill Lynch and convincing them that they should put this out to every financial advisor that's been on the job for less than 5 years. So, that's kind of where I was thinking.

Yes, yes. Especially, so I'll give you one example. I know that my book of how to host events gets very rapidly adopted by people in real estate and in— who know the power of client events. So, I know, yes, I have that, but now what do I do with that knowledge? Okay. How would I even begin to get it to real estate offices? Would I repackage it? Like, is that what you do to help me come up with a sales sheet to say, okay, let's go to real estate agents, people who have teams, let's try to sell them. There's a noodle of something that I have there, but I'm a smooth-brained idiot. I don't know what to do with that. I've just been laser-focused on the book. And it seems like that's—

I think that's a great title for an autobiography that I might use. I'm a smooth-brained idiot. I think I might use that. Or either that or like a punk band. I'm not sure which. The Smooth-Brained Idiots sound like something that would be playing downtown or something. So, so let me tell you what I think. So I think first and foremost, you gotta have a strategy because you can't tactically dabble in maybe I'll try this and maybe I'll try this and maybe I'll try that. The book is sort of your entrée or, or the ticket or the price that you've paid to get into the club, right? Now what? Now one might argue that, wait a minute, but everything's in the book. Why would they pay me more money to deliver it in a different format? But that's kind of the whole point. When you, look at some of the best business books that have ever been written by whatever standard you choose, whether it's commercial, whether it's by reviews, whether it's impact on people, there are derivatives of those works that exist in the book, but people want help. People want to consume that as a video-based training system. They might want to have some sort of kit, you know, hey, here's all the things that you need to do. Here's the cards, here's how to run your first 5 parties, right? So I think the question is, You're not in the business of teaching people how to run a networking event. You're teaching them how to use a networking event that's low cost, that's intimate, that's personal in their home, probably for early stage career folks to drive business and drive relationships, right? So there might be two different use cases. Hey, you know, I just moved to, you know, whatever, Miami, and I'd like to make some friends, or I'm in a field that requires me, whether that's financial services or real estate or whatever, to constantly build and maintain a network. And I'm early career, so I'm limited on resources and wanna do that. I see that as sort of the two use cases, but you need the underlying strategy there and then you can figure out, well, who else has access to these folks? Are there associations? Maybe I should be speaking at, you know, I don't know, whatever the, there's a million associations in real estate or mortgage brokers or anything along those lines. Should you be speaking there to be the evangelist of the brand? That would be a tactic that would fall under a strategy.

Yes. So is that the type of work— I mean, I want to make one small modification, which is to say that there are also many real estate and financial service professionals who are later on in their career, and it doesn't require a lot of money, but they simply don't have a repeatable format to host events, whether it's to keep their existing clients, their mixes and matches. My book gives them that formula and that strategy, and it works. I see it in people that are in their 40s and 50s that are like, oh my God, This is perfect. I need these.

So stay there a minute. So now we've got, now we've got 3, what I would call client avatars. So one client avatar is the young and hungry professional that's resource constrained, right? So they're using it because they can't afford to take everyone to a fancy steakhouse and spend $1,000, right? So that might be one piece. Second case might be someone that wants it for personal reasons, right? You know, I'm new in a community. Yes. You know, I just went through a life-changing event, a divorce, something like this, and I need to sort of instill that And then you have, you know, as you described, I'm a bit later in the career, so it's not a resource constraint, but I wanna know the how-to. So I have the financial resources, but my events still suck. Yes.

Yes.

So, because there's something about your, your work that is the right connection of connection, intimacy, curation, and then you don't want the party to go on too long. Right, right, right.

So is that the work that you do when you work with authors like myself? That your strategy work is coming up with those avatars? Is your work in saying, okay, we have that one idea, let's now package a product or let's now build a list?

It's all of the above. It's all of the above in that a good strategy, a piece of the strategy is, well, who are we going to serve? Right? And it's usually the one answer to that that is always the wrong answer is, well, everybody could benefit. That's the answer I hate the most. Because unless you have the billion-dollar marketing budgets, probably more than that of Coca-Cola, you can't afford to do that. So we need to get really specific. So notice that when I broke down the avatars, and I'm just doing this off the cuff now, that younger professional, I also put in a component into the avatar that their resource constraint, right? So they want to do all these things, but they see people doing events where, you know, I can't afford to spend $1,000 a ticket to take someone to the US Open or the theater or whatever. How do I create that environment in my apartment or home? Versus someone in their 50s that might have the resources to do it. But you know what? There's something refreshing and incredibly— there's a vulnerability. To invite someone into your home is so different than to say, hey, Nick, can we go grab dinner? I'd love to talk to you about something. It's a totally different experience. And people are relaxed and people are like, wow, Nick wants me in his home? That's an honor. That's something that one would be respectful of.

Yeah, it really is. And it's a part of my book about why it's important to host at home. That 95% of people should host in home. There's very rare exceptions when you shouldn't, but a lot of the objections of my home is too small, too messy, or too far away actually don't really apply. And there's ways to work through. But just like you said, here's why to host at home, because it turbocharges your relationship. It's like going on a mini first date. It is a very vulnerable act to bring someone into your home and you build bigger relationships faster when you host it inside of your own home. It also takes you out of that mindset of a networking, a corporate. It's, it's much more generous to host at home. So I feel strongly about that.

Yep. Yep. If you're enjoying this episode of Thought Leadership Leverage, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com. /ltl and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So, you know, to answer your question, you know, a good strategy covers who we gonna serve, how we gonna serve them, and then what are the products, offerings, and solutions, right? So you might have, like, let's just use for an example, There's the book. Then there might be a video-based learning series with situational pieces, how to set up the home. And here's a video on how to do this and do the cards and do the name tags and all this other sort of stuff. Then there might be a physical kit in a box. Hey, here's a resource on how I, maybe as a sales manager or real estate sales manager, can teach others in the organization how to do this as well. How can I evangelize your methodology? Hey, I've done this 5 times at home, so let me show you, my colleagues, how to do it because I think you'd benefit as well. There might be situations where there's, on the other end of the continuum, people that would pay you personally and you would need to be a premium product. Nick, hey, coach me how to do this. I'm a CEO, I've got a fancy apartment, I've got an EA, I've got all that. But can you work with me one-on-one in a very bespoke, intimate way? Same knowledge, right? It's just a matter of the delivery vehicle, the use case, and be commensurate. And that has to be commensurate with the pricing and the value.

So is that what the work that you do? So you link up with authors and you say, look, you have this book, there are key lessons in here that are amazing, but some people want to learn in different ways. Let's come up with the ideas of which video courses. So then one thing I would ask you is, how do you think about pricing those courses or those video things? How do you— how would I kind of price that?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So there's— everything's a continuum. So on one end of the continuum, there's a ton of stuff that's free, LinkedIn Learning and all these other things. So one option might be— and again, this is all going to be avatar dependent, because if my young professionals in their 20s in real estate aren't on LinkedIn, I would assume they are, and we need to think about TikTok, that might be a little bit different. But we might want to do sort of a premium model where we take a sort of a teaser course, a 10-minute version of the course that we would give away on LinkedIn. And by When I say giveaway, that might be free to $20 or something like that, but it doesn't give them the full robust piece. Maybe that's an upsell, right? So here's the fundamentals of, or maybe you give them the equivalent of a chapter in the setup, but if they want the full piece, it's further up there. When it comes to the enterprise side of the house, and this is where it gets really interesting slash weird, it's usually some sort of a sliding scale based on volume and usage. So you'd say like Wow. Okay. What if we went to Century 21 or better yet, Realogy, the, the parent group of about 7 different real estate companies like Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Better Homes and Gardens, and said, you know what, you should pay me a million bucks a year to license out this video-based program that I developed. It's whatever, 6 modules of 7 minutes each or whatever it is, and push that out to your 2 million agents. Cuz on a cost per agent basis, it's pennies. And the impact that this could have if even 5% of them use this program, you know, they're in a low-volume, high-ticket business. So each agent that went through your work sold one more unit of a house, rented one more home a year. It's a no-brainer for pennies. Like, you know, whatever. Now, if you're in a low, you know, very low margin, high-volume ticket, maybe not. But things like real estate, things like financial services.

Yeah.

It's all about customer acquisition cost and the average value of the transaction. So you have to know your user case, you know, and who's gonna use it and what's in it for them.

Do you then help your clients figure out a contact list or who to sell to, or do you just build the product and then they're in charge of selling?

No, any and all of the above. And in fact, Nick, 70, 80% of the work that we do is on the sales and marketing side of the house.

Really?

Our clients don't come to— yeah, because, you know, clients don't come to us and say, I think I might have an idea. They come to us and say, I've got this thing, it's a book or something I've been doing for 10 years. So they've got the idea. Now the idea might need some noodling, it might need some validation or codification, you know, but it's for the most part, the ideas are 80% there, or there's more ideas than we can ever monetize. Right? They've written 10 books, whatever. Where most need help is how do we get it out there consistently? How do we come up with a sales and marketing and distribution engine and a strategic partner side of the house so that I can go do the next thing? That's a lot of fun because I hate sales and marketing. Right?

Right.

That's not what— why I did this. I did this to solve, you know, and in your case, you— your use case is fascinating because you did it to solve a problem you had. You didn't do this with some grandiose vision of I'm going to take over the world and be the world's greatest networking guy. You're like, Hey, I want to make some new friends.

Right, right, right. Yes, exactly. And then I found those benefits in building my own network in a different way. So that's a good point. Hmm. Yeah. Now, but I think now is the whom—

the whom that you're doing is the whom that I get all the time because it's not where your horsepower goes, right? If I were to say to you, you know, hey, Nick, I'm going to— I'm going to give you 60 days, right? I cleared up your calendar. The revenue is going to be the same, whatever. What are you going to do? You're probably going to tell me write another book, research another thing, finesse another piece of it, not come up with some lead generation strategic partner distribution model. This is just not how you're wired.

Right. I was thinking to my head, I'm like, gosh, I wonder if the goal was around revenue generation and selling bulk copies and things. Right now the name of the book is The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. I wish I would have done like a 2-hour networking event or something like that. That there's a benefit.

So that's the next product. I mean, it could be the 2-hour brand, right? The 2-hour networking event, the 2-hour icebreak, the 2-hour intimacy event, the 2-hour whatever, right? But what I like about yours is it tells me exactly, and you're very regimented in the book. It's not 2 hours, but sometimes it's 3 and a half if you get an idiot at your place that doesn't leave. No. How do you start it? How do you curate it? How do you end it? At like, I can see, like based on reading the book at 2 minutes and 3 seconds, Done.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Which, by the way, for those listeners, the number one tip I have for you, if you want people to show up on time, if you want to run a tight event, if you want people to come back to your events, list both a start time and an end time for your event. Many people never list an end time for their events, and it makes it hard for people to commit to show up. And most people never show up actually on time. Then it creates what I call an extended awkward zone. When you list it starting at 6 o'clock and people say, well, what time should I show up? At 7 or 8 or 9? They never know.

Right. So when it's— when you say 6 to 8, I'm not going to do the standard New York, well, 6 means I'll be cool and show up at 7:15 because now I know I missed half of it. So exactly, I'll probably be a little cool, relatively speaking, and show up at 10 after.

Sure.

You've buffered that into the methodology and say, yeah, we— at 6:01, you don't ring the bell and say start, but you know, because you— the other thing is you've done this again and again and again and again and worked out the kinks.

Yes, hundreds of times. Hundreds of times. Yeah.

Cool. Well, this has been— I want to just start to wind down here a bit. Nick, what would you suggest or advise anyone that's where you are maybe 2, 3, 4 years ago? They got a thing that's kind of becoming a thing, but they're not really sure what to do with it. What might you advise those types of folks?

Best piece of advice that I have is start writing down your stories today. When I wrote my book, I was constantly trying to rack my brain for the personal stories, the personal touches, the real-life moments and memories, people's names, conversations, how it made me feel, these interesting anecdotes. And that's what people really want in a book. If you're ever thinking about a book or a speaking tour or sharing your story, what people want are those personable moments. So my number one suggestion would be to start writing those down now, as small as they may feel today. You will wish that you had those in a couple of years.

Now, I think that's a great point, because if your book was just the methodology, it would kind of look like, you know, a script, stage left, enter this, but you humanize it with real life stories, good, bad, and ugly. Here's someone that broke a rule. Here's someone, here's the benefit we got from following a rule that people feel silly or awkward about putting stickers on. So make sure you get the stickers that don't, you know, rip half of someone's, you know, cashmere sweater off and, you know, all that stuff. So anyway, I appreciate you coming on today. I appreciate your work and I appreciate you, Nick. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. More parties, everybody.

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