There’s no substitute for the name recognition and credibility that a well-researched and -written book can bring. Yet so many syndicators and investors shy away, fearing they either aren’t capable or simply don’t have the time. In this episode, we tell you how you really can write a book – and it’s easier than you might think. Nick Raithel, host of the podcast “7 Rules for Real Estate Investing with Nick Raithel” and the man behind “The 7-Hour Book,” is our guest speaker. He explains not only how to create your own book to promote your business in just 7 hours – but more importantly, WHY this makes good business sense for you.
Contact via: email
Syndication Attorneys Website
Investor Marketing Materials
There’s no substitute for the name recognition and credibility that a well-researched and -written book can bring. Yet so many syndicators and investors shy away, fearing they either aren’t capable or simply don’t have the time. In this episode, we tell you how you really can write a book – and it’s easier than you might think. Nick Raithel, host of the podcast “7 Rules for Real Estate Investing with Nick Raithel” and the man behind “The 7-Hour Book,” is our guest speaker. He explains not only how to create your own book to promote your business in just 7 hours – but more importantly, WHY this makes good business sense for you.
Contact via: email
Syndication Attorneys Website
Investor Marketing Materials
Edited Transcript from the Teleseminar, “Yes, You Should Write a Book”
With special guest Nick Raithel
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Hello, everyone. And welcome to Syndication Attorneys, PLLC’s free monthly teleseminar. Today, we are getting a little bit of a late start. We were waiting for some other people to join us. Sometimes people join late. So we're I think ready to go now. We talk about topics of interest to real estate syndicators on this show, new and seasoned, with the opportunity for live questions and answers at the end of the call. I'm attorney Kim Lisa Taylor. Also, joining me on the call is Charlene Standridge.
Before we get started, please note that all of our calls will be recorded and may be used for future promotion, posted on our website or broadcast in a podcast available to the public. If you do not wish to have your voice recorded, please schedule a one-on-one consultation instead of asking questions during the live call.
Information discussed during this free teleconference is of a general educational nature and should not be construed as legal advice. This is an audio-only conference.
Today, our topic is “Yes, You Should Write a Book.” Nick Raithel is our guest today. He is the host of the podcast, “7 Rules For Real Estate Investing with Nick Raithel,” and the man behind “The 7-Hour Book.” He’s going to tell us some of his secrets for helping people like you — entrepreneurs, real estate investors — get a database of investors that are ready, willing, and able to invest when you have deals. I will tell you just from my own experience before Nick starts, that is probably the No. 1 biggest nut to crack as a syndicator and as a fundraiser is that you have to have people ready, willing, and able to go. You can have the best deal in the world, but unless you have people that are ready and already know who you are, you're going to have a tough time trying to raise the money. So, Nick, are you there?
Nick Raithel:
I am here, Kim. Thank you very much for having me on this call.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
That's great. We're so glad that you could join us. We talked before the event, you and I, and ran through some of the topics that we thought would be really important for our listeners. And so I'd like to just go through this with you in a question and answer format. But maybe you could just elaborate a little bit about your background and some of the things that you do for our audience.
Nick Raithel:
Absolutely. I'd be glad to. So to give you guys, you listeners, a sense of who I am, I'm the creator of a system for book publishing and book creation really called The 7-Hour Book. And the idea there is that it helps to really eliminate the primary roadblock that stops a lot of people — entrepreneurs and real estate investors — from creating their own book, which is the time component. So without turning this into a commercial for the 7-Hour Book, the basic idea is that over seven one-hour calls, we craft your book and we get the idea out of your head. So that's my perspective coming into this. In addition, as Kim mentioned, I do host a podcast, “7 Rules For Real Estate Investing.” And that actually is how Kim and I got connected originally. She did a great job on the show. Be sure if you get a chance after this webinar to go listen to her episode, but that is also how I'm active in a real estate investing space.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
So I'm not sure I want people to listen to that. You asked me some really personal questions there. I'm just kidding. But anyway, so let's just jump into the questions. What advice can you offer entrepreneurs who want to build a database of prospective investors?
Nick Raithel:
Well, I think that one of the ground-level principles when you are building a database is visibility and credibility. It's actually two ground-level principles there. The visibility being in the sense that you're out there, you're not hidden, you're not under the radar, so to speak, you're out there and people can see you and find you. And the importance of that is when you think about raising capital, doing a syndication, for example, who is a passive investor going to be more inclined to invest with? Is it going to be someone who they're not really sure where the person is, they can't really find them, or is it someone who's out in the open? Just think about it from the standpoint of, if I give this person my money, am I going to be able to find them? It can really be as basic as that.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Yeah, that's pretty important.
Nick Raithel:
So being visible, being out there. And then the other principle that I mentioned, credibility. How credible is this person? And that can be everything from the number of deals you've done, number of syndications you've done, to if you're just starting out your role in other people's syndications. Were you the guy involved who may have contributed a smaller amount, or who ran the numbers and crunched the numbers for the syndicator and the deal sponsor on that deal? Helping them in that role if you're just starting out. So really, what is your credibility and what is your visibility as well? I'd say those are the two of the principle ground-level components when you are looking to get out there and raise the money.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Well, and one of the things I like to point out because I know that there are a lot of listeners on the call that haven't raised money before and they're thinking, "Well, gee, what kind of credibility do I have?" Well, it doesn't have to be your own credibility. You can leverage off other people's credibility by teaming with people that do have experience and then talking about the experience of your team. So I think that's really important to understand. So if you're feeling like, "Oh gosh, this isn't for me because I don't know enough," you can just round that out by bringing in a team of experienced professionals that can cover all those bases. All right. So how can an entrepreneur get someone to provide contact information to them? What would be the avenues for them to do that?
Nick Raithel:
Well, one of the ways could be as simple as to say take a step back. When you say provide contact information to them, we're talking about... I'm assuming getting someone in their funnel or getting into a relationship with them, is that correct?
Kim Lisa Taylor:
That's right. So where do we start? How do we get people to know that we're there and to see us?
Nick Raithel:
Sure. So to start on that, what you're going to need to do is you're going to need to have something that engages the person. So some way to engage them and to begin to build the relationship. And one of the most effective ways to do that is through content. That's one of the reasons why now actually if you look around iTunes (podcasts) — the real estate investing, the multifamily, and just the syndication topic areas as well — but the space is really becoming crowded right now with guys and gals from multifamily, people who are doing flips, everyone in the real estate investing space who's realizing that content is the way to engage with people and to build their database. So that's translating into iTunes now being flooded with all these real estate investing podcasts.
So the takeaway from that is that podcasts are one instance of content that you would use to engage people because passive investors, as they're listening to your show, they're getting to know you, and they're getting to, as they say in the sales world, sales and business, "know and trust you," building that relationship. Now, in terms of specific information where you were saying, Kim, them giving you their information, that could be everything from someone who listens to your podcast, then following the call to action at the end of the show, or during the show to go to your website and to fill out an opt-in page for some kind of a lead magnet. A lead magnet, for those who might not be familiar with the term, is a downloadable or otherwise available piece of content, additional content that an audience is going to find valuable.
So someone might be listening to a podcast, hear about this lead magnet, go to your website, download it in exchange for their email address. And suddenly, they're on your mailing list, and they're in your database. That would be one way. Another that I've seen and that I've helped my own clients with as we're creating their books is having a link to something in the book that expands on a topic or a principle in the book, which might not make sense to expand on in the book, or people just might be interested in exploring elsewhere, so we would have something in the book that tells them, "Okay, go to this specific URL, web address and pick this up." And that also would get them into the database. So those are two basic ideas of how you would engage with people and have that engagement result in them giving you their contact info.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. So I think you talked about two things in there that maybe some of our listeners don't already have, probably some of you do. One, you need to have a website because that's going to add credibility for you, that's going to be where you can send people that you hand your business cards to. And there's two reasons to have a website. One is either to establish credibility for people that you've already met and have a place for them to go and see that you're a legitimate company. The other is to use search engine optimization and try to attract people to you. So that would be one way to do that. And the way to do that is to have a lot of content.
If some of you have been to our website — and if you haven't, I do encourage you to go there — you'll find in our library, there's 20 or 30 different articles, there's a bunch of frequently asked questions. We just posted a new one in the last day. Also, there's ever-evolving content. And our lead magnet, we have three white papers — one's on crowdfunding, one's on private lending, and other one is just on general principles of raising private money. So you can follow our lead and look at the things that we've done and mirror that and emulate those kinds of things for your own practice as well and for your own website. But then you talked about, Nick, the podcast. So that's a little bit more advanced strategy, I think, than some people are thinking. So if the real estate gurus are out in force in the podcast world, how does someone set themselves apart?
Nick Raithel:
Well, that's a good question. I'm glad you mentioned it because it really addresses the fact that not all forms of content are created equal. And that's one of the reasons why people are gravitating toward a medium like a podcast, or even as we're talking on this webinar about books in the title. The fact that not all forms of content are created equal. So you can immediately begin to distinguish yourself by going after the more involved forms of content. And addressing your question specifically with podcasts, that's going to come down to a couple of things. It's going to come down to the angle of your show.
If you are starting a podcast, pursuing this advanced strategy of content, is your show just another general real estate investing podcast? Because there are certainly plenty of those, and that's probably not going to help you as much as being very niche and very refined to ... for example, there's a show out right now, Whitney Sewell, “The Real Estate Syndication Show.” That's a very, very, very niche show within the real estate investing space. There are also podcasts that come to mind for mobile home park investing. That is also very niche within real estate investing. So niches within REIA or entrepreneurship, I realized there are some entrepreneurs on this call. Niches within entrepreneurship too are one way to do it.
Another would be the premise of the show and the way it's set up. My own show being “7 Rules for Real Estate Investing,” I've taken a particular angle. There are other shows out there that take other angles as well, where the topic may be real estate investing overall, but it's set up and structured in a certain way that makes it unique. That's another one. And then I think it also comes down to really the caliber of the guests. Are you having on just someone you met at a local REIA meeting, or are you really going after the truly best-in-class real estate investors out there, or are you throwing in a healthy mix? So those are some ways I would say that if you are pursuing that strategy of a podcast, you could differentiate yourself.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
And so there's two ways to get involved with a podcast too, right? One is you can create your own. The other is you can be a guest on other people's podcasts.
Nick Raithel:
Yeah, that is completely correct and both can be valid. I would say if you're just starting off and you're not sure if you want to take the leap — and it really is a leap, I should say, because you got to commit to consistency if you're starting your own podcast — but if you want to take that leap, great. But one of the easier ways if you are just starting off and you're not sure that you want to take the leap, is to leverage other people's audiences and get on their podcast as a guest.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
And so what kind of experience would you have to have or what do you have to talk about if you're wanting to get started as a syndicator … what could you offer of value that could get you as a guest on a podcast?
Nick Raithel:
That's going to come down to, first, I would say your engagement level. You don't have to be a firecracker as the expression goes, popping off and totally full of life. But you do have to be able to speak intelligently and knowledgeably on your topic and in a way that's going to grab the audience. Also, as many of the listeners would probably imagine, going on a show and being a snake oil salesman or any kind of a guru with too much hype is really not going to go after a while. I doubt that very seriously that anyone on this call would take that approach, but overhype, and yeah, the guru hype angle really just doesn't play well. So that's not going to work. But engagement and enthusiasm goes a long way.
And then also just having actionable insights, no host or few hosts really want to have someone come on to just vaguely talk about things, neither do the listeners. I think that each of us can probably say when we listen to podcasts, if we listen to them, or we listen to other programs, we don't just want to get, in most cases, the general gist of something. We like it and we appreciate it a lot more when someone goes into depth with actionable insights. And for the person who's doing that, if they're the guest, that's only going to enhance the impact that they have with the listeners because the listeners realize, "This is someone who knows their stuff. And it's also someone who's not afraid to put their ideas and their knowledge and their lessons out there. They're that much of a professional really at what they do. They're fine going into it in depth and sharing it."
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So I think my collective experience over the years has been gained by going to as many networking and real estate training events as I possibly could and reading a lot of books in the industry. And I think that's what's gone a long way to shaping the knowledge that I'm able to share with people on these teleseminars. So you can do the same. Try to go to as many events and get as exposed to as many different ideas about what you're engaged in as possible. If you're in an entrepreneur space, go to entrepreneur, networking events, and join groups and meetups and read books on the subject because that's going to help you become an expert.
And that's how I started writing articles is I would find myself asking questions and I'd have to dig a little and do some research. And by the time I started finding the answer, I thought, "Well, I'm sure I'm not the only person that wants to know this. Why don't I write an article?" And once I wrote an article, now I have something to share. Perhaps on a podcast, I have something to post on the website. I have something to teach a teleseminar about. Some of you may have noticed that most of the times when we send out our newsletters, we include a new article in that. And we'll think of a topic that we think is relevant and then we'll hold the teleseminar about it. So you can do the same.
And I just explained what we're doing because we're small business, we're growing our small business just like you need to, and we're using the exact same techniques that you can use. So that's why I thought it would be relevant. All right. So do you have any recommendations about follow-ups? So let's say that we've done these things. We've gotten on podcasts, and we have a website, and we've got people coming to our database, and we've got something there that we can give away in order to get their contact information. And now what? Do we just take their contact information and then just call them a year later and say, "We've got something. Are you interested?" What has to happen in-between?
Nick Raithel:
Great question. In between, this is really where you begin to flex your muscle, so to speak, in terms of being effective at marketing and effective at communication. And this is where you begin to nurture the relationship. The way you nurture that relationship is through continued contact. And the way you engage in that continued contact is through pumping out content. So we've talked a lot on this call so far about podcasts. That would be where putting out a weekly or a monthly podcast episode would come in. It would also be what you were just describing now, Kim, with putting out articles, where that would come in as well, articles, having a newsletter, something that's continually reminding these people who are in your database, a) that you exist, and b) that you're credible, and that you're someone who they should turn to and look to for advice and for guidance and ultimately to partner with and invest with when the time does come.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Yeah. So you've got to have something on your website to engage people, and then you also have to come up with a way to keep them engaged. So that's where drip systems come in and creating not just content that you can post one time on your website, but creating a group of emails or podcasts or whatever it is that can be released out over a period of time that will keep those potential investors engaged with you and then periodically calling them. I'm actually in a law firm coaching program. I've told you guys this before. And we actually have this... I hope not to offend anybody by saying this. But it's drummed into our heads that we have to do something called GAS calls, and GAS stands for give a shit. And it's all about calling people up and asking them what's going on and how are things going? And how can we help them? And where are they at in their practice? And what's holding them back?
So that's something that you can talk to your prospective investors about, too. What's going on in your life? What have you invested in lately? Are you still looking at doing the same kind of thing? Here's where we're at in our deal-finding process. Just establish rapport and become more than just a one-time acquaintance. Become somebody that you can have a free conversation with and you look forward to speaking to each other. And if you're in the same local area, just gather face-to-face. Go have coffee, get your families together, whatever you can do to further deepen those relationships is going to go a long way toward getting that investor to invest with you, getting that investor to refer their friends to you, and just helping you gain confidence and to start speaking to more and more people all the time.
All right. So let's talk about the book. So everybody says you’ve got to have a book. So why? And I have a book coming out hopefully in a month. This is my first announcement of that. And the reason I say that is because I've been working on this book since 2011 and it's taken forever. And so one of the reasons I wanted to have you on a call, Nick, was because you have this concept of The 7-Hour Book. And if I could have written a book in seven hours, I probably wouldn't have been writing it for eight years. But the book is going to be coming out on syndication, kind of a brain dump of a lot of information on how to syndicate step-by-step. And so tell us how you can make that process a lot easier for our listeners than what I went through.
Nick Raithel:
Sure. Well, first off, congratulations on the book. I can't wait to pick it up when it does come out.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Thank you.
Nick Raithel:
In terms of the thing that we're doing, I want to be clear from the onset that The 7-Hour Book, the idea, is not that everything on everyone's end take seven hours. On our side, we are spending a whole lot more than seven hours creating a book. I don't think that any book of any substance could be created in just seven hours of everyone doing it. And it's only requires seven hours of the person we're working with of their time. So they alone only have to spend seven one-hour calls talking with us and working out the book, and we're spending a whole lot more time on our side.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. And so what's going to be the benefit of having a book?
Nick Raithel:
This comes back a little bit to something we were speaking of earlier on this call, which is the idea of not all content being created equal. So the way I like to think about books is that books give you something called a thud factor. They allow you to have that thud factor. And the thud factor is quite literally that when you have a book and you drop it on someone's desk or on a table, it literally makes a thud sound. A book is a big thing. It's something physical, it's something people can touch and hold. And it also shows a few things. It shows your expertise, the fact that you have enough to say and enough knowledge to be able to actually write a full-length respectable book on it. So it shows that.
It also shows commitment. You're not some fly-by-night person who's just dipping and dabbling in an industry and in a space. You actually are here to stay and you're confident enough in yourself and your abilities to actually put yourself forward as an expert with a book. So it says that, too. And then it also engages people in one of the oldest processes really in our society, which is reading. And there's a fantastic book out there ... unfortunately, the title doesn't come to mind for me … but it talks about really the psychological sides of reading and of processing a book and how different that is from the way our minds work and the way we interact with, say, Twitter tweets, or even with podcasts. And just how books lead us into a different experience psychologically than these other forms. So when you have that and you're building the relationship with potential investors through that means, it's going to give you a major leg up over other ways that investors might find you and engage with you.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
And so is the book something that you just have that you can use with people that you meet, or is having the book, I guess, are you going to sell it on Amazon so that it's actually going to draw people to you?
Nick Raithel:
Well, if you are going to sell the book, I would say you should certainly have realistic expectations. And it's not going to make you a millionaire or anything close to being fabulously rich. I think we can safely say you're going to make a whole lot more from your syndication deals than you ever even remotely would with the book. But in terms of selling it, yes, you could do that. Most of the investors I'm working with, my team and I in creating their books, they're using the book really just to give it away to people. And the types of people who they would be giving it to would, first off, be people they already know, people who are already in their database. Another group of people they might give it to are people they've met.
And one of the advantages if you are giving it to people you've met is that it can serve as what I like to consider a screening device. And the idea with the screening device is that let's say if you're a real estate investor, you've gone to a REIA meeting, a Real Estate Investment Association meeting, or a meetup — I know the terms can be used interchangeably — but you've been to one of those events and you've met a few people. And one of them seems pretty eager and he wants to meet you and he wants to really begin developing a relationship. And he's pretty aggressive in a good way about it.
Now, on one side, you could just automatically arrange a meeting with this person and go, but you don't necessarily want to overcommit to something when your schedule might already be jam-packed. And you don't want to necessarily get that engaged with someone having just met them because your time is valuable. So the screening device aspect of books comes in where you meet this person and you're like, "Great. You're excited, you want to find out more, here's my book, give it a read." And you do this of course in a polite way, but you give them your book and they read through the book and they get to know you through that. And then if they want to engage past that point, they've already qualified themselves in a way. And then you can know that it's going to be a much better use of your time to pursue the relationship then.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
So I've seen books ranging from 80 pages to 200 pages in this space. What do you recommend for the number of pages that somebody should be aiming for?
Nick Raithel:
I think there is no set number. But what I would say is upwards of 100 pages is probably good to aim for with a sweet spot that we're finding on my side being in the range of about 120, 130 upwards to about 160, 170. Now, having said that though, the length of the book is also going to be determined by the content. And the content, taking a step past that, is going to be determined by what your specific goals are for the book. You may want to raise capital. But within raising capital, what is it that you're specifically trying to do? And those goals and the way the book is approached are going to vary from investor to investor, deal sponsor to deal sponsor. So I think having that core level understanding of what you're trying to achieve, which then leads to the content, and then the content from there dictates how long the book is going to be. I think that's how you should look at it.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. Well, that's interesting. So do you recommend that people even put their books on Amazon then, or are they just having them available that they can print on demand and send out as needed?
Nick Raithel:
I would absolutely recommend you put it on Amazon because it comes back to the idea of visibility. Amazon is, if you think about it, one large search engine. And we always think of Google as a search engine, and it certainly is, and it's the most dominant in the strictly search engine sense. But Amazon as well being the world's biggest online store is its own search engine with billions upon billions upon billions of pages. So if you're on Amazon and you're having your book on Amazon, that's another way to get visible and another way to essentially be doing some SEO, if you think about it.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good advice. So what would be the first steps if somebody who's listening today wants to have you help them with a book, what would they do?
Nick Raithel:
The very first step is — this might surprise a lot of people — but the very first step is to stop for a moment and think about whether you really do need a book. And the reason I say that is despite the title of this webinar, “Yes, You ShouldWrite a Book,” books are not necessarily what everyone needs. Despite the title, despite everything I'm saying, thus far as I'm answering your questions, books are not necessarily what everyone needs. And it could turn out that for your own specific goals, it makes more sense, say, to start a podcast, or maybe you just need to do something as simple as run a few Facebook ads, or go to more REIA meetings. So really take that hard look before you even go down the book path to figure out what makes the most sense for you in terms of a strategy to get more people in your database.
Having done that though, assuming you make it past that initial point, you decide that, "Okay, a book is something I want to pursue," and it does make sense, then it's going to come down to beginning to think about your goals for the book. So is this book going to be about the topics to educate people, to educate, for example, passive investors? Is this book going to be my own experiences? If you happen to have a lot of experiences that would lend themselves well to the book and you already have something of a track record, that could form the basis of it so you're in more of an expert role instead of taking a back seat and being in more of a tour guide role.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Sure. Well, and that I think goes back to the fundamentals. And some of you, if you've been on our calls before, you've heard me talk about investor marketing plans. We have an investor marketing plan template at our online store, and we actually sell it there for $250 if anybody wants it, or you can become a client and we'll give it to you for free. But that template is going to force you to think about these things. What are these tools? These are all tools, these podcasts, the book, the website, these are all tools that you can use to add credibility to attract investors and to maintain contact.
And so that's the whole purpose of an investor marketing plan is to think about where am I going to meet people? How am I going to get their contact information? How am I going to establish rapport and credibility with them? How am I going to convey my message? And how am I going to keep in contact with them so that when I do have a deal, they remember who I am and they're interested in investing? And that's really what it all comes down to.
And I will tell you that most of my clients don't do this, but the ones that do are highly successful, and the ones that don't are constantly chasing after whale investors or getting deals under contract, and then maybe having to let them go because they can't raise the money, or more likely they're just not pulling the trigger on deals because they don't have the confidence that they know they have an already willing and able database of prospective investors that they can call when they get that deal under contract and can raise a million or a million and a half bucks in the next 60 to 90 days.
So that's really the key is to make sure that you've laid the groundwork and foundation and decided what marketing materials you need, how you're going to use them, and then taking the next six to 12 months to get those things in place and to start implementing that plan. And if you do that, then you're going to become very successful at raising money. All right. So what advice would you give to somebody who wants to write a book, but doesn't have any idea on what the topic should be?
Nick Raithel:
For that one, I think it's important to go at it from the standpoint that, first, there are no perfect ideas and you're not going to get anywhere if you keep trying to find the perfect idea or the original idea. Because unfortunately, those really don't come to too many of us. It really is unusual when a book idea comes around that is just groundbreaking. And we hear about it because it usually wins all the awards, because it is so innovative. So once you get past that, if you don't think you have an idea, the next thing I would suggest is to look at established pathways and established concepts that have worked for books.
So your book could, for example, be taken from the standpoint of a story. That's very popular. If you look at the godfather, if you will, of our industry, and of the real estate investing space, Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” is a story. And that may or may not translate very well into your angle with syndications and with raising capital. And even going a little bit more abstract than that, the parable could work. If you're more of a fictionally inclined writer and you'd like to throw in story components like that, that could be one, or you could go for a much more streamlined and bare-bones approach where you have — tis is one that I particularly like with people who are doing books with us — where you have five, say, or six or seven core concepts or principles. And your book is structured around that.
And you look at a book that has nothing to do with entrepreneurship or real estate investing, not anything directly to do with these topics, but you look at the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” That's a pretty well-defined book. You've got seven habits and now you know exactly going in what the book's going to be about. And your own book could easily follow a similar structure, where it would be if you're raising capital, for example, and you're trying to do multifamily deals, it could be, let's just say, the seven pillars of multifamily investing. So each one of the pillars is a concept from your own experiences.
And for that pillar, you talk about it, educating your readers, and then you also draw in stories or a story of a deal you've done where that principle was involved, or a deal — again, if you don't have as much experience, a deal you've done with someone else where the principle was illustrated — and you build that structure with those pillars. Then maybe you have an introduction chapter talking about your story, introducing people to you, introducing people to the space, why multifamily, or if you're raising capital for a self-storage investment deal, why self-storage. So that would be in your introduction.
And then the conclusion, bringing things to a close, talking about, for example, how bright the future looks for that particular asset class. Maybe not multifamily right now with space getting overheated and crowded, but talking about how bright it looks, throwing in some data. And then of course, having that natural, logical and non-pitch call to action, where you move people from reading the book to being involved with you and getting into your database. So that would be one overall arc I would recommend for an idea and a structure for the book.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Well, I think that's fantastic. When you were talking, it came to mind that I've been invited to write chapters in a couple of people's books, or I've been interviewed to ... somebody then wrote about something about the interview. So that's the other thing you can do. You can invite other people to write sections of your book, or you can interview people and then write about the interview and what you learned as well. And in so doing, you're going to become much more versed in what you're wanting to do, and you're making yourself an authority in that field.
Nick Raithel:
I like your tips there. It's almost sounds like if you're bringing other people to your book like you're doing content syndication in a way, where you're taking content that's not just yours and pulling together the resources of the content to create something you can use, too.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Yeah. And there's no better way to learn something than to interview somebody that's doing it well. And not only will they be flattered and probably maybe you can develop a relationship with them and potentially even some partnering opportunities down the road, but you can just help promote them and help at the same time enhance your own knowledge and the knowledge of the book readers with what you've learned during that interview. So I really think that syndication is such an important business where you have to be of the mindset that you're in it for your own reasons. There's probably some financial benefit that you're hoping to achieve, whether it's your retirement or you're wanting to leave your job and do something where you're your own boss, start your own business.
There's a variety of reasons that people become fund-raisers and get into this space, or you're an entrepreneur that has an idea, you need to raise some money for that in order to promote it and create a company around it. So there's a lot of reasons that people do this. But the really interesting thing about this is you are not the only person that's going to benefit. You're going to benefit all of your investors. If you are able to achieve the goals that you've set for your group and you're able to raise money and generate a profit with your idea, then that's going to help your investors too because they all have their own goals. And the reason they're investing with you is because they see you as a way to help them achieve their goals as well.
So with this kind of a business, you're helping all of your friends, family, and acquaintances achieve their goals as well as achieving your own. And I think that's a really noble cause and I don't think people think of it that way. And you should. And if you want to make it even more of a benevolent purpose, then you can donate a portion of your profits to a nonprofit of your choice. And that will make it even more interesting for some of your investors who are also like-minded and want to be able to benefit others with their investments. All right. Well, go ahead, Nick.
Nick Raithel:
I was going to say, I want to expand a little bit on that and offer one other angle of books that I think ties into what you're saying now about giving a portion of your profits and of also really making a difference. And this is something that I think is relevant from the standpoint of a legacy. We're talking about books from the standpoint of authority and credibility and being able to do deals. But a book can also stand depending on the way it's written and depending on what you're communicating as a legacy point really for you, something that makes an imprint and potentially inspires people in the future. If you're sharing your story, if you have a compelling story, or just a story of how, as an everyman and everywoman, you rose above circumstances and were able to get into real estate investing, were able to have business success, so that can be a legacy that you leave behind through a book.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
That's a really great point. So there's one other thing, and let's just be really quick about this because we do like to open up the call for question and answer at the end, and we don't like to go over an hour. We will, if we have a lot of questions. But you mentioned that you have a unique perspective on time management. Just by virtue of having generated your own business, what are some of the tips you'd give to our listeners on how they can manage time better and be more productive in their daily efforts?
Nick Raithel:
Sure. Well, I think one tip I would give immediately would be where it makes sense, consider using an egg timer and having an egg timer with you. And one instance in which you could do that, which I like to use frequently, is when I'm going to do an errand that can become, if left unguarded, a very time-consuming, very time-suck activity. An errand that comes to mind, for example, would be buying a new pair of running shoes. I would like to run actively and I need to at some point in the next few weeks go buy a new pair of running shoes. Now, I can do research online. I can figure out where I'm going to go. But eventually, when you go to a shopping mall or you go to a store even, that activity, if left unguarded, can easily eat up a couple of hours on an afternoon and the day gets away from you.
So if you're doing an activity like that and you have an egg timer or some other way maybe on your iPhone too of keeping track of the amount of time and saying, "Okay, I'm going to spend 30 minutes in the store and that's it," that can help you to keep focused despite all of the choices in the store for shoes if you're shoe-shopping, or despite the background music that the store themselves is playing — not a good thing or a bad thing, but they're playing to keep you in there and keep you engaged — so being able to manage and literally see how much time you're spending like that is one tip I'd give listeners.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Oh, that's a great tip. I like that one. I'm not sure I want to do it, though. It's going to cut my shopping experience down to nothing. I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy that. All right. Well, let's... Go ahead.
Nick Raithel:
Oh, I was just going to say I would add one more tip if we have time.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Oh, sure. Go ahead.
Nick Raithel:
One more tip I would give in the total opposite direction, a total 180 from what we were just saying is build in time to goof off. I think that that really gets overlooked by a lot of people. You want to be able to have an hour or two or even a half day if your schedule allows it where you basically know that this is my time to watch pointless YouTube videos, to just take a longer lunch than I might normally take on other days. And that then becomes a buffer, if you will, that when you do have to be very disciplined and very methodic with your time later in the week, you can say, "Okay, it's cool because I'm going to have my relaxation point, my undisciplined time point later on, and I can look forward to that."
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Oh, that's a good tip as well. So, Nick, give us your contact information if somebody would like to reach out to you on any of these topics.
Nick Raithel:
Sure. The best place for them to go would be to our website, contentcorps.net. And that's spelled C-O-N-T-E-N-T-C-O-R-P-S dot N-E-T.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay, great. And then if anybody wants to reach out to us, please go to our website at syndicationattorneys.com. And there you'll be able to click and schedule an appointment. And we can talk to you one-on-one about your syndication needs. But I did want to tell you that we are offering some new programs right now. We are starting a clients-only Facebook group. We're planning to have some additional training, a live training and a Q&A time that we'll be able to offer to the members of that group as well as you'll be able to interact with each other. We have quite a few clients that are very seasoned syndicators as well as some people that are just starting out. So it'll be, I think, a really interesting mix of people and perhaps some better mentorship opportunities.
So there's a couple of ways you can become a client. Of course, if you have a property you need to raise money for a specific project, then you can contact us and we can help you with that. But if you're not there yet, we have something we call our Quick Start Annual Retainer. And it's $1,000 for up to three hours over the course of a year, three hours of attorney time over the course of a year. My normal hourly rates are $595 an hour. So we're giving you a break on the time. And with that, we can review your marketing plan, we can help you strategize your marketing plan, look at your marketing materials. We won't draft documents under that agreement, but we will review things and strategize. And you can brag to your friends that you have your own securities attorney.
Any of our clients are entitled to the free investor marketing plan template. And we do offer also a 10% discount at our online store for investor marketing materials for any of our clients. So we'd like to have you join us with that. And if you haven't been to our online store, it's on our website, syndicationattorneys.com. We are going to be spinning that off to a separate company, investormarketingmaterials.com. We're not ready to do that quite yet. But if you aren't finding deals right now, this is what you should be doing. You should be working on your marketing materials and your investor marketing plan and going out and meeting people so that when the time comes — and it will — that the deals are coming back again, that you're going to be able to go out there and actually get them done. But Charlene, we've got a few minutes. What would someone need to do if they would like to ask a question?
Charlene Standridge:
Okay. So if you want to ask a question, you just need to raise your hand and I will unmute you. You do that on your control panel to the webinar. And you just raise your hand, I'll unmute you. And then I'll let you ask your question.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Great. And if somebody has called in, do you know if there's a way that they can also do that?
Charlene Standridge:
I'm sorry, I don't know if they can do that if they're just have called. I think they have to be logged in.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. Yeah. Please do that if you have any questions. If you don't have any questions during this call, that's fine. We can talk to you one-on-one later. We're happy to talk to everybody. And our goal is to create as many successful fund-raisers as possible and help you have the confidence that you can go out and raise money and create a successful investment company. Let's see. One of the other things that we talked about earlier on was a giveaway. And I did want to point out that in our online store, if you don't already have a website, one of their products there is that you can have us set up a website for you. And then we also have an opportunity for you to purchase a white paper. And we've got a variety of topics there that we can create for you or already have ready-made that you can brand and put out there as that giveaway that's going to let people give you their contact information. Do we have anybody with a question, Charlene?
Charlene Standridge:
Well, I have one here that was put in the chat box by O'Brian C. And he wanted to know what the recommended frequency to reaching out, whether it's weekly podcasts, daily articles, etc.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Oh, what do you think, Nick?
Nick Raithel:
I think with that it's going to depend on going back to goals. So what is your goal with the content? And it's also going to come back to, I would say, the relationship you have with the person. So if this is someone who you've just met, that's going to be different than if it's someone who's already been in your database or who you already have a very, very close relationship to. And the closer the relationship to them, the more acceptable it might be to send them, say, daily content. I would say though if you're in doubt, weekly is probably best. And the basis for that is the fact that podcasts, where in most cases you really don't know the hosts that well, are putting their episodes out once per week. And also, to use a totally non-real estate and non-entrepreneur example, you think about religious organizations. Many of them have that weekly meeting and that's the frequency that they use. So that might be a good barometer for your own.
Charlene Standridge:
Okay. And we have another question from a gentleman named Steve B. And I'm going to unmute you, Steve. All right, you can ask your question.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Hi, Steve.
Steve B.:
Hello. I also typed this in the chat box, but it's just a quick overview of how we would be working with Nick to write a book in seven hours. And I've just gone to the website while I was waiting, and I see that it's already answered.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Well, can you share the answer to that?
Nick Raithel:
Sure, sure. Yeah. To give you a basic overview of how it would work if a person had gone through and filled out the contact form on the page and gotten in touch, we would then do an initial call with them about 20 minutes or so just to talk about their book idea, figure out if it was a fit, understanding that in some cases, it may or may not be a fit. Totally cool either way. But if we did get past that point, then we would proceed into that process with figuring out what we were going to talk about in the book and then setting up our seven one-hour calls in a way that got us through each of those topics and got the content out of a person's head through a question and answer process to create the book. There's obviously a whole lot more than that, but that hopefully gives you a basic initial starting point for understanding it.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
And here's another follow-up question I had, Nick. How affordable is this? Is this something that's going to be cost-prohibitive or...
Nick Raithel:
I would say it could be if someone is really is just starting off and kind of hanging on, so to speak, financially. But at the same time, I know that there are professional services, not for those in real estate investing necessarily, but what you've called ghost writers, someone who's doing, for example, a presidential candidate's memoir or something like that. Those projects are obviously going to be substantially more involved with the investment, upwards of... I've heard advances for books like that, six figures. We're nowhere near that. We're safely, safely under that.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. All right. Well, and I'm sure it's all case by case. Okay. Well, any other questions, Charlene?
Charlene Standridge:
Yes. We have another question from David S. And I'm going to unmute you, David, right now and you can ask your question.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Hi, David. Hello? David, are you there? He's probably got us on mute.
Charlene Standridge:
Yeah, I unmuted him.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
He may have us on mute on his phone or something. Okay. I'm sorry, David.
Charlene Standridge:
If you want to type your question, David, you can do that also.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Okay. Anybody else?
Charlene Standridge:
Wait a minute. It doesn't look like it.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
All right, well, thank you, Nick, for joining us today. This was really valuable information and I hope the listeners found it to be valuable. And I hope you get some calls from that. I actually have another book that I'd like to write that I might talk to you about.
Nick Raithel:
I want to thank you regardless of that for having me on the call. And yeah, it was pleasure being on here and hopefully some people got a better sense of books and content in general to empower them and inspire them as they're going out there raising capital.
Kim Lisa Taylor:
Yeah, I'm sure they did. All right. Well, thank you so much. And we will see all of you next time.