FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Daniel Whittington: Welcome to American Small Business Institute. I’m Dana Whittington. I’m here again with the venerable Ray Bard. I’m gonna come up with a different adjective every time. And you may not realize this, but we talk about this a lot at the academy and we talked about it in videos, and I use it for the template of all these videos, which is the idea of these four key ingredients required in any compelling and powerful message. It was Ray Bard that first introduced me to that idea, and brought that idea to the academy. So, tell us first, what are the four things and then how did you arrive at this?
Ray Bard: Well, it started from my own experience, the book world. And so, when you think what are you selling, well you’re selling the book for 25 bucks.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: But is it really a book? Well, you go back the other way, you could say, well, it’s wood pulp that’s been compressed-
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: … and it’s ink. And you talk about the ink and say, “well, that’s not the right way to go. That’s not really what you’re selling because of that only costs, in a book, that only costs a few cents.”
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: So, when does this piece of paper and card … you know, stuff here, when is it going become worth 25 bucks? I began to think, oh, well, first of all, the easy one if you’re selling the information.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: You’re giving people information.
Daniel Whittington: Data.
Ray Bard: Data. Data, information, knowledge, and so on. So, I began to think, well, that’s okay. That’s okay. Then I thought, well, a lot of times, you’re selling how-to. When you think about almost all personal success books are almost so many non-fiction books. Be diet books, sex books-
Daniel Whittington: Here are the steps to.
Ray Bard: … entrepreneur books. On and on and on.
Daniel Whittington: Yeah.
Ray Bard: There are seven steps, 12 steps.
Daniel Whittington: Even Stephen Covey.
Ray Bard: Nine Milestones, whatever it is. There’s all of this. It’s the how-to. How do you take this idea? And this first one, the information I call the big concept. How do you take this concept-
Daniel Whittington: The whole point of this book, and then your eight steps to accomplishing it.
Ray Bard: And how do you put it to work then? Then the next one that came is what’s the promise here? You take this big concept and you do this, what’s the promise?
Daniel Whittington: Yeah, because that’s that whole three quarter inch hole-
Ray Bard: Yes.
Daniel Whittington: … and the three quarter inch drill story. It’s like no one wants the nine steps, they want what they think the nine steps are going to get them to.
Ray Bard: There you go. Yes. That’s the promise. That’s the promise there. If you give me 25 bucks and you get this concept and follow these steps, what’s the promise? What they’re promising in a diet book was obviously losing some pounds.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: What you’re promising in a sex book, or you go down the list-
Daniel Whittington: Improved in any direction.
Ray Bard: Yeah. We used to say about the book world, there’s also this water matrix. There’s the ocean, the whale, and all this sort of stuff, too. Well, up here in the ocean, those are the big books. We used to talk about those like diet, sex, and money. Many of those books have a how-to.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: But what those authors deliver big time and what people pay for is hope. That’s number three.
Daniel Whittington: A different life.
Ray Bard: Yes, a different life and that’s the promise. What you’re really promising someone, you give me 25 bucks for a book, or you pay 2,500 bucks to come to the academy-
Daniel Whittington: And your life will change.
Ray Bard: … and your life will change. That’s the promise that you’re making. Either on a dust jacket on the front of a book or when you’re sending out-
Daniel Whittington: Absolutely.
Ray Bard: … yeah. You’re making the promise. For a long time, when I do seminars-
Daniel Whittington: There are your three things.
Ray Bard: Those are my three things. Then I realized that were are some books that just didn’t … When you look at Freakonomics, and when you look at a lot of stuff, the tipping point, Malcolm doesn’t tell you how to do the tipping point.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: I thought well … and Freakonomics does really talk to you about how to do the steps in this crazy economic world, how we think. So, I thought, what’s going on there? And so I came up with entertainment. What these folks are doing-
Daniel Whittington: The magical ingredient.
Ray Bard: Because of Gladwell, in a way, because it was his writing style.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: He makes it a pleasure to read his stuff.
Daniel Whittington: So you don’t have to be an obsessive nerd reading science journals and things like that in this dry, dusty … It’s like nah, this is-
Ray Bard: No, it’s a pleasure to read.
Daniel Whittington: This is enjoyable.
Ray Bard: It’s entertainment.
Daniel Whittington: Yeah.
Ray Bard: Then when you begin to think about the rest of the world. And this is where what I shared with Roy, he began to retell it. And I heard Roy say, “You have to have all four of these”. And I said, “Well, no, Roy, I’m not quite sure that’s true. You can sometimes do these first three in a book, and get by with it.”
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: Then I began to realize more and more how important entertainment is.
Daniel Whittington: Yeah.
Ray Bard: And my most recent experience with a book, I was deciding on the content. Then I decided … Well, the first part was to do it black and white. It was a business book. Then I was asking a lot of people what should it look like and they wanted to do a nature scene. I thought, okay, I’ve got to go color on that. Listen to your customers. Got to go color.
Then I thought maybe scattered throughout the book, 20, 25 here and there. So, I began to look at it then and think, well, no, that’s not enough.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: I wound up at a 240 paged book with 60 different color images and I realized through that process then what I’m really doing is entertaining.
Daniel Whittington: Yes, totally.
Ray Bard: There’s a lot of hope in this book.
Daniel Whittington: Right.
Ray Bard: A whole lot of hope in this book. And that’s really what I’m selling in this book, but one of the ways I’m making it so valuable, I think, and what differentiates this book from every other book like it, one of the big things is entertainment.
Daniel Whittington: Yeah. You’re not just sitting there taking in information only.
Ray Bard: Absolutely not.
Daniel Whittington: You’re actually enjoying yourself on the journey.
Ray Bard: Yes. Yes.
Daniel Whittington: And that’s the hard part, actually, to get people to enjoy the journey, to self to improve their life, that’s the hardest part. Because everybody’s writing for pain for improvement, but to allow somebody to enjoy the journey to improvement, well that’s magical.
Ray Bard: Yes.
Daniel Whittington: Cool. Well, thank you, sir. Appreciate you-
Ray Bard: It’s great to be here.
Daniel Whittington: And we’ll see you next week.