Today, we have part two of the latest conversation with Helen Pollock, The Content Doc. Last week we discussed creating and sharing content generally and this week we do some live coaching around my latest book project specifically.
Helen does a great job of cramming about a gazillion sessions into just one conversation to give you a flavour of the key elements to look out for. There is a free ebook giveaway to help with your own content creation as well, so tune in, if only to hear me squirm just a little bit.
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Transcription of the show
Today, we have part two of the latest conversation with Helen Pollock, The Content Doc. Last week we discussed creating and sharing content generally and this week we do some live coaching around my latest book project specifically.
Helen does a great job of cramming about a gazillion sessions into just one conversation to give you a flavour of the key elements to look out for. There is a free ebook giveaway to help with your own content creation as well, so tune in, if only to hear me squirm just a little bit.
Property Chatter
Hi again, Helen.
Hi Richard.
This is part two. We just finished recording part one, so there may be a gap between listening to part one and part two. You may join us in part two, and not have heard part one. In part one of this particular chat, we were talking about content creation, content sharing; all the good stuff around that. There were some really good things that came out of that discussion, so thanks Helen, for your wisdom, in that sense. Suggest if you haven't watched part one, maybe you should go and watch part one.
In part two, I'm perhaps going to put myself in a bit of an uncomfortable position. I've been reading a lot about growth mindset, and getting out of our comfort zone. So, I'm going to do that right now, because I'm going to flip the tables around, and I'm going to give you permission to take me through a coaching session; which I believe you're pretty good at doing. And, I'm just going to be the guinea pig, or in the hot seat, or whatever you want to call it, and let you just drive me around specific parts of my content creation program or agenda. I'll let you take over, if you like. That'll be fair enough? Is that okay?
That sounds good to me. Yeah, absolutely. I think the way to approach this is going to be as if this were the initial coaching session with somebody who's signed up for the program. And obviously, in that first session, what we need to work out is, where are we now, and what are your aims? And then, we can work out how we can achieve those. So, I guess the first thing we need to know is, Who is this content aimed at?
Okay, that was a good first question. Who is the content aimed at? Okay. So, to put a bit of context around it, I'm slightly different because I already have some content, and I'm sharing content quite regularly and have been for some time. This is it, essentially ... So, this is a book I wrote four or five years ago, Property Investor Toolkit.
I've got it in my bookshelf.
Oh, fantastic. Great. It's a handy little guide, and it's still selling at the moment, and it's ... It's a fairly short book, as you can probably see. But, it's got lots of external links, and additional bonuses, and resources. But, it could do with a bit of an update. So, I decided I wanted to update the Property Investor Toolkit. I want to add a couple of chapters, which I think would be a beneficial to include in that.
Yeah.
But, to answer your specific question, Who is it aimed at? So, the Property Investor Toolkit is primarily aimed at new and aspiring, or early stage property investors. So, if you haven't yet got your first investment, or you perhaps have got one, maybe two or three, and are looking to progress up the property ladder, so to speak. So, before you've started, or just after you've started; that kind of thing. We're not talking about people becoming a full-time property developer. We're not talking about people becoming a deal Sourcer. We're talking about investors either looking to begin, or have made a bit of a start and just want to go on a little bit further to the next level.
Yeah. Brilliant. And, that was exactly where I was when I bought that book some years ago, now. It was brilliant. But, having said that, I can see that we're in quite a different context now. Conditions have definitely changed quite a lot, so I can see why you would want to update it a bit. So, where does it fit into your goals, personally and professionally?
Yeah, that's a good question. I guess first of all, my purpose, to start there, is ... I think my overall purpose is to share my knowledge with people, to help them progress in their journey. If I wasn't doing this, I might be a teacher, for example, or something like that. I think it's just something that I consistently do. So, it's part of my overall purpose, that's for a start.
The second thing is, when I started out in property myself a few years ago now, I was doing ... I was trying to do some research, rather, and to be honest with you ... it was a bit different back then, to be fair. But, there was a lot of information out there, but it was difficult to assimilate and assemble in a simple format, certainly in a way that was legal, first of all. So, I think it's a case of trying to just simplify the message, condense it into what I call realistic, down to earth, practical guide, so that people can just pick up something, and follow it. I actually had someone recently ... still, someone bought the book ... and they said, "I'm going to keep it next to my desk, because it's almost like a bible to refer to." That would be the intention.
And, why do I want to do that? So, one is the give. The "get" part of it is, some of those people might want a little bit of extra support beyond just reading a book. So, I'm writing the book so they can just run with it on their own. They're not hooked into me. I don't withhold any secrets, it's all there. Perhaps there are other benefits people might want to have, such as having a bit of support and accountability. Having a bit of guidance from somebody who'd been there and done it, who can help de-risk their journey. Help them make a good decision, and not necessarily a bad decision as they're starting out, or as they're at the early stages. So, I do offer some mentoring services for a limited number of people; a small number of people. And so, some of those people who read the book might go on, perhaps, to do that sort of thing. I also have a secondary service, which is called Property Deal Tips.
Yeah.
It's a fairly low-cost subscription service. These are on-market deals, transactions ... property deals, which I don't charge a fee for. They're just there, on the open market. They're all capable of achieving a 10% return on investment, or more. It covers Buyer's Alert, buy, refurbish, refinance, and flips. It's a subscription service, which can help those sort of people to narrow down relatively good income generating, or profit generating opportunities. So, that would be the "get." So, I would give the content and in return, perhaps from some of those people where it's relevant, perhaps a bit of mentoring, perhaps a bit of the deal tip service would be where I'd probably take that. So, that's the goals, generally speaking. They're the objectives, rather than goals. I know you said goals. So, I haven't attached numbers and dates to that. I could, and I do have it, but probably not going to share it in this format.
Yeah, no problem. That's great. Once you have those things ... I guess, when we're talking of ... If we go back to that first point about who it's aimed at. So, it's new and aspiring property investors. At this point I start to create a complete avatar, a reader avatar. And, one of the things that we would be thinking about is, what format would this person want the information in? And, I always ... Again, one of the very first things that I ask, particularly book coaching clients to do, is to complete customer research and competitive research. So, if you have an audience already, I'd ask them, "What format would you like this to be in?" It could be a long form book, it could be a series of short form books, or workbooks, even. Do they want it to be on Audible, as an audiobook? As an ebook? Is it something that's printed on paper? How do they want that book? So, do you have any ideas about that, right now, or-
Well, there are maybe two halves to that. One is the avatar itself, right? And the other one is the format. So, shall I just start with the avatar side of it, maybe?
Yes. Let's go to that.
Okay, I've got perhaps a couple of different avatars. The first one would be typically ... I don't know why I've actually said this is male, but ... age 32 to 40. The old term would be "yuppie."
Yeah.
I don't know what the modern equivalent is, but basically someone who is aspirational, perhaps on a career path, and is starting to think about either income replacement, or retirement. And, maybe helping other people along the way. So, 32 to 40 probably, but not exclusively male, actually. Probably a homeowner. They may have a couple of investments already, actually; zero to three. And, they want to maybe achieve something in the order of $1,000 to $5,000 a month in income replacement within five to ten years. They're also interested in things like legacy. They want a bit of hand-holding to de-risk their decision making, if you like. They might be into things like health, personal fiance, personal development, that sort of thing. I've got even some clues as to what kind of stores they might shop in and cars they might drive. But, that would be one example, there.
Yeah.
And then similarly, I got what I call a second stage of lifer. I don't know if this is a proper way to describing these people. Perhaps female, 38 to 48. Haven't got any properties yet, they've maybe got one. Again, income today might be important to that person; $1-$3,000 a month. And, maybe lacking a bit of confidence, would be one of the biggest pain points that we talked about in our first conversation. And, they're certainly maybe looking out for other people. Maybe it's children, for example. That's just a couple of examples. I've got some other ones, but maybe just ... that would be the sorts of people. So, that yuppie, or the second stage of lifer. Maybe I should come up with a different description, but I kind of know what that, then, looks like. One's a little bit younger. One's male, one's female. If I start to think about where they might hang out, what information they might ready ... so, not necessarily ready, but how they might consume information ... they may be slightly different, actually. I guess as a bias, because I have an existing audience, which is predominantly built up through either my podcasts or my written material.
Yeah.
The bias being, that people who have listened to my podcast, they like audio content, or have read my books and my magazine articles, and therefor like written content.
Yeah.
So, I haven't really tested other media formats, too much. But, my initial thought process, which I think I've just taken one take-away already, actually, is for me to test.
Yeah.
So, something I would like to test is the idea of having series ... Rather than having just this book-
Yeah.
... is mini-series of more short form ... 3,000 word type articles. Not articles, mini-books.
Yeah.
And, also convert those into audiobook format. I think that's likely to resonate with my existing audience already. A bit of a cross-over, especially ... I haven't got this book in audiobook format. So, that would be a good thing, just to do that.
So, that's kind of building on what I already have. I haven't really thought too much about taking it beyond those sorts of media formats, and that's quite stimulating that you've asked me that question, actually.
Well [crosstalk 01:00:26], as we've said in part one, people tend for a variety of reasons to enjoy consuming information in different ways; it's quite a personal thing. So, yeah if the book isn't available at the moment, then you will undoubtedly be missing out on an audience that you could be tapping into and sharing your knowledge with. I like the though of some of these short form books. I think when you're teaching people something, which you effectively are in this book, if you can showcase the theory and then move on to practical exercises that are relevant to them, then that's going to be a really powerful way of getting that information across. Because, I think fundamentally, that's how we learn ... Most people learn best, I think, by actually applying the knowledge to their own circumstances. So yeah, I think that would be good.
So now, that's already given me some extra things to think about, so I appreciate that.
That's all right, no worries. I guess then, kind of fast forwarding somewhat, because I would have sent you off to do your research.
Okay.
Customer research and your competitive research, looking at what other similar books in your sector ... what did reviewers on Amazon say ... enjoy about those books? Look at the five-star reviews, look at the one-star reviews and see, what did people not like? And, are there any opportunities for you to create a better book that addresses some of those gaps? To be fair, there are a heck of a lot of badly written property books. So, I think it's often simple stuff like spelling and grammar. People are like, "Uh, god. It was written so badly. It was awful." What we would really like to identify is gaps in the knowledge, gaps in the content.
Sure. I think that's ... First of all, by the way, that in itself is interesting, because as someone who actually had to have extra English lessons at school ... I don't have perfect grammar, and so for me it was already a feat that I write at all, actually. So, I perhaps had a bit of a self image issue as a result of what happened in my long-ago school days; and yet, I managed to write a book some 30 years later. So, it probably does have the odd typo or grammatical error. But, what you've just flagged to me is perhaps the importance of having it proofread.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And, I really want people to feel that they can do this. They can write a book. I just think of all those celebrities who ostensibly have books to their name. Are they all great writers? No, they're not. Some of them will undoubtedly have used ghostwriters, and that's fair enough. You might not have the time. You might not have the writing ability. You might not have the confidence. Or, they've just got damn good editors.
Yeah. [crosstalk 01:04:15] [crosstalk 01:04:15]
It is important, that. Having looked at things like personality profiles, I know that certain people get really switched off with errors, and grammatical points. So, I think you can try and keep them onboard just by doing a simple proofread, or have it edited. So that's, again, a good tip.
I am not God's gift to proofreading and editing, myself. I'm more of a creative writer. I can't help myself, but pick up some errors when I'm reviewing client copy, but it is quite a specialist skill set, and I would never say, "Oh, if I proofread ..." Well, I wouldn't ever say, "I will proofread your manuscript," because as I say, it's a quite specialist skill set. And then, editing is kind of a bit different. Editors are the red pen people who will not only pick up on spelling and grammar errors, but actually for them it's more about structure, and tone, and consistency, and a coherent story, that sort of thing. And, that's something that I help my clients with, as a matter of course. That's kind of my job, really, as a book coach, is to help with structure.
Which, kind of leads quite nicely on, if we are fast forwarding, to ... It might be useful to pick a chapter, or one of these short form workbooks, and just go through how we would look at structuring that. So, I like to look at ... The basis of this is in the Reuters Style Guide, and it's how they tell their journalists to structure a story; but I've added a bit to it, because I think it's important. Whenever we're looking to tell a story ... and, this could be a press release, or an article, or a blog post, or a social media post, or even a book ... we need to work out: who, what, why, when, where, how, and importantly, so what? And, if we can answer all of those questions, then that should help us define the salient points of our story, and work out what our story is.
So, once we've done that, then we can move on to structuring whatever it is. And fundamentally, just like an essay at school, or a presentation in the workplace, we're going to have an introduction where we're going to tell them what we're going to tell them, and then we'll have the main body of the content where we are going to tell them, and then we'll have a conclusion where we'll tell them what we told them. And then, in business we're very likely to want to add in a call to action of some sort. Also, a note about structure. If we're feeling overwhelmed at the thought of writing a book, and it might be interesting for your listeners to know that, the average business or non-fiction book is between 30 and 50,000 words. So then, if we think, okay well, let's make this, for argument's sake, 10 chapters. One of those will be the introduction, one of them will be the conclusion, and we've got eight chapters in the middle were we impart our information. So, that's going to be an average of 3-5,000 words per chapter. Well then, we can start to break that down even further and think, "Okay, if I've got to write 4,000 words in this chapter, and I can break it down into this many paragraphs, of this much each-ish," then it just starts to look so much more manageable.
Thank you. Sorry, I jumped in. I think ... wanting to go back to, perhaps a little bit, you talked about the research phase. So, one of the observations I had with the research was ... I'm fortunate that I had a lot of very positive reviews for my own book, so I've got that learning. I think there was a couple of negative ones. One person thought it was too short. I can't remember what the other one thought. Most people like ... not hundreds, but I think in the high 10s of reviews, were very positive, so that's good. But, when I did look at some of the competitors, I noticed a couple of recurring themes. A lot of people were frustrated, perhaps that ... you know, the tell them, and then, tell them, and tell them, and tell them, and all that stuff. Well, they didn't feel that they got enough, perhaps, from the book. I kind of observed that, and I thought, "Well, I want to tell them everything. I don't want to hold anything back." So, that's something, there. So, that's just one example of how I have looked at some of the competitive reviews, and also how they position their books, as well.
I think to your point about the structure, absolutely. I'm fortunate here, because I have an existing book, okay? So, I think it ... I'm trying to look, now. So, it has how many chapters? It currently has nine chapters ... yeah, nine. One of which is ... plus an intro. So, that's 10 already. I'm going to add two extra chapters, so it will be 12. I think a minimum of two extra chapters. But equally, I think the story idea is probably an area I can improve on with the second edition, and there's lots of ways you can do that, as you, I'm sure, are aware. I remember reading, for example, recently, the book called Cure by Jo Marchant, and she started every chapter with, literally, a personal story. And, she just ... she shared. "I met such-and-such," and ... She visually described the environment, the person, et cetera, to set the scene for that particular chapter. I'm not saying I would do exactly that, but I thought that was a really neat way to introduce someone to that particular element in her book. So, I think the storytelling piece is a bit I can probably improve on in the second edition. So, that's really good advice. Thank you.
Well, I've worked with several different property clients now, and I can tell you that one of the biggest gripes when people bought a property book was, "There isn't enough actual depth of actionable information in here, because they're trying to flog me their course." That was top of the list.
But I know, obviously, that does not apply to you.
I have all in one services, Helen. So, there's a temptation to hold something back. But, I don't have a training course. So, I have mentoring. But, I actually believe it's the opposite. So, if I can showcase and give away as much as possible in the book that they could actually run with it themselves, people might still choose to contact me, because I've been able to showcase my knowledge. And, what they're going to get for, let's say, mentoring support ... something different. You know, you're getting the benefit of my experience to sit alongside them. I call it ... I'm navigating whilst they drive, for example. So, they're still driving the car, but I'm just navigating, now. Whereas if you imagine trying to drive the car and read the book at the same time, you're probably going to crash. So, I don't want to hold things back. In fact, in a way I want to do the opposite. I want to include as much as possible, give as many resources as possible, so they can actually go and do it themselves if that's what they'd like to do.
Absolutely. Yeah, I wanted to share that. Not because I think you're guilty of this, because absolutely I don't. I've read your book, so I know you give so much. But yeah, that is what a lot of property books are, is thinly veiled sales material for training courses. And yeah, don't treat your readers like mugs. It's so transparent. So yeah, I don't think that's a good idea.
So, you were going to take me down a path of breaking it down, for example. So, breaking it down to chapters, with the intro, et cetera. The chapters, in my case, will be the short form book. Were you going to take me down a path of how to perhaps build that ... maybe, how I go about writing, and the format ... not necessarily format. I mean, how I would get from 0-3,000 words, to then 30-50,000 words. Were you going to take me down that path?
Yeah. Obviously, this is really dependent on exactly what you're doing. I don't know. If you're willing to tell me what maybe one of the short books would be about, if you could see what I mean.
Ah, you want something to go on?
So, finance is definitely one of them. So, property finance ... property investment financing would be one. In fact, actually, it's one that's not in the original.
So, I talk about property financials. I talk about properties and investment. I talk about criteria and calculations. So, I have topics around that topic, but I don't talk about, necessarily, buy-to-let mortgages and bridging finance, which I will do in the new book. So, finance is a big area of property investment, but it breaks down into a number of sub-sections. So, if we take the financing piece that perhaps ... Were you meaning things like mortgages, and things like that?
Yeah, absolutely. So, if this series is aimed at new and aspiring property investors, this is going to be really important them. So, there's going to be an introduction, so Why is finance so important? And, maybe going into an overview of some of the ways that you could finance property investments of different types. Then, you would want to move into more detail about that. So, perhaps you've given an overview in this introduction, and so there might now be a paragraph for each of those points. So, maybe it's like ... I don't know. Obviously, I'm not the expert, here.
What..Shall I dive in with that? Just-
Yeah, dive in.
So, we're talking about conventional property investment, here. By that, I mean buy-to-let, and that type of ... but, maybe it's flips, and maybe it's those sort of rental types of properties, rather than anything a bit more out there. Typically, what you need is, you need a deposit funding, if you don't have funding for the whole property. So, you either need enough money to fund the entire project in cash, or you need a deposit to combine it with some kind of financing. With financing, you've typically got options like buy-to-let mortgage, you've got bridging finance, you've got a hybrid called bridge-to-let. So, that's a two stage financing product. And then, you've got some ... so, obviously I mentioned cash. But, you've got some variations on a theme. What I call alternative ways to raise money. So, you've got things like peer to peer lending platforms. You've also got good old friends and family. And then, getting a little bit out there, you've got some joint venture partners who perhaps you could attract, as well. They're the main categories in this area, off the top of my head. There might be a couple of extra ones, but that'll be the main ones.
Great. So then probably, you would be looking to write a least a paragraph about each of those different possibilities. The other thing we're also wanting to do is to try and break up walls of text. And, to underscore learning by highlighting the key facts, or something. So, it might be that at the end of each paragraph where you're effectively teaching something, you might have a key fact, or top tip ... and, it may be a top pitfall, as well ... for each thing. So, you are wanting to impart the information in this "tell them" section, but then you're going to want them to maybe do some sort of analysis, or order, of where they are as part of the practical section. Something like checklists might be good, here. Also-
Yeah, I've got a couple of ideas already, there. So for example, with deposit raising. It could be any ... There's a couple of steps that you could go through. So, you could save ... you could generate additional income. You could sell old stuff on eBay, and car boots, and things like that. Just, low-hanging free ways of starting that process. So, I can maybe keep it simple and go, "Here's some of the common ways to raise money for a deposit, for example, as a little checklist or a summary.
Yeah.
If you're thinking about bridging finance, a lot of people go, "Uh, bridging finance. Scary." So, I could talk about the pros and cons of bridging financing. Maybe the cons aren't quite as scary as people think they are. People think it's expensive. People think these guys are going to come in and just snatch their property away for no particular reason. It's not the case. Well, it's not the case as long as you pay them back, you know? But, with any form of financing, whether it's a car, or a t.v. or a house. So, someone's going to come and take it back if you don't pay them back for it.
Yeah. And, I think [crosstalk 01:20:13]. There's also an important opportunity here for book bonuses, as well. We want to be thinking ... Okay, so some of this stuff is going to go in the book, but maybe this thing, like a dynamic spreadsheet which you are not going to be able to put in a print book, obviously. Or, maybe you would print a table format in the book, where people could add in their figures, and stuff. But, if they want a dynamic version, then they need to get in touch with you; give you their email address and you'd be able to give them that.
Sure. I mean, that's something I actually had with the first book anyway, as you well know; both of those things. There were some tables in there with illustrations, but equally, people could get the templates for things like spreadsheets, just by writing in. And of course, it's not lost on me ... well, it was lost on me until I realized what was happening ... that when people are starting to connect with me and going, "Hey, I've got your book. Can I have your spreadsheet, please?" That then, I knew who they were. And so, I wouldn't have known otherwise, would I? Maybe I never have heard of them, or they ... again. So, there was an advantage, there. I stumbled across that, but apparently that seems to be quite a thing to have people contact you so they can get bonuses, and then you can start a conversation.
Absolutely, because that's the great thing about books. Writing a book is a good way of ensuring that you have a legacy of your work, because people often hand on a physical book, and it'll go through several different people over years. But yeah, by the same token, then you don't know who's read it.
Right.
Even if you were to know the person you've sold it to, from that point onwards, this book might go on a completely different journey, and you'll know none of those additional destinations.
Yeah. Okay, so that's given me some good thought, there. What should I be thinking of next?
So, I guess ... 3-5,000 words is not a massive amount of words, actually. So, if you're writing a book about property finance ... So, you've got your introduction. You've then gone into detail about the key points. You might want to also go into things that people might be wondering about, but that actually aren't appropriate for this group. So, new and aspiring investors. So, maybe they're interested in HMOs. Maybe you're going to need to say, "Well actually, as things stand, if you don't have an existing buy-to-let property then lenders are not going to lend to a first time HMO landlord." They like to have seen that you've got some experience and understanding of property first, before they ... you know ... et cetera, et cetera. And, you might also want to add in some case studies. Again, it's a powerful way of showing how the theory that you're teaching was used in practice. It's finding that balance. So, where do those things fit, then? Is it, we do the imparting of the information, then we do the case study, then we ask the reader to go through the tools and worksheets, and then maybe we end with a conclusion, telling them what we told them. Yeah, that's probably what I would say.
Okay, sounds good. And as you say, a call to action.
Yes.
So, the call to action in this case would be the end of every short form book. So, the end of every 3-5,000 words, and have a call to action, which is related to that particular theme.
Yeah, absolutely. I guess you would also ... You want to be making sure that people know that you've got a podcast, as well, for regular property investment information. "Don't forget you can sign up to the podcast." Also, this is a series of books. So, we'd want to be signposting them to the other books in the series, perhaps giving them a reason to get in touch so they can buy a bundle from you, directly, at maybe a discount or something like that. Or, get extra bonuses. Discount's not always the best thing. Maybe they get something special. Maybe if they buy the bundle, they get a free half hour coaching session by video with you, or something like that; or mentoring session after they ... kind of, half hour session. I don't know. Something like that, if they sign up for the whole bundle. So, yeah.
I'm making notes as you're talking. That's why I'm looking over here, which is where my pad is. I wasn't reading the news, or anything.
[crosstalk 01:26:25] So yeah, I think obviously with information I have in this particular context. It's not exactly how it would be in a genuine coaching session, but hopefully that's been helpful.It has been helpful, it's been really good. Sorry, if my particular situation is maybe taking us down a certain path. But, I think you did say something, whether it was in this call or the previous call, about effectively starting where that person is, and having the fact find. Now, it just so happens I've written a book, got an audience, and I know kind of what I want to write, and who for, sort of things. So, if people weren't clear on that, you'd take them in more detail, wouldn't you, through those initial steps?
Yeah, fairly enough, when I started offering the book coaching service, I assumed that people would be coming to me, and they wouldn't have written anything. They wouldn't have put pen to paper, it was an idea this is something they wanted to do. But, the reality has not been that. There's a lady called Bronwen Vearncombe who I've coached to write a book about property investment, which will be out at the end of this month. And, she had already written nearly a third of a book by the time she came to me. And, I really am undenied about, gosh, is she going to get much value from the book coaching program, because she's quite far in? And, yes she did. She absolutely did. And she said to me, "Helen, you need to make sure that people know that your service doesn't just work for people who haven't put pen to paper, yet. If you started writing and you're stuck ... you've done a brilliant job for me. It absolutely works for that scenario, too." I wasn't expecting that.
That's nice. That's cool. So, great. I don't know if there's more you're wanting to add, particularly.
I don't think so. I think I've gone as far as I can in this scenario.
I think I'm ... I mean, I already had some idea, obviously, and you've helped really give me some insights into some extras. I know, because I joined your book challenge recently, that you often recommend bit-by-bit ... scheduling time to write, type of thing with people. I'm not, kind of, like that in my style, but I've booked a weekend ... I've reserved a weekend that I'm going to go and hit this hard, if you like, to break the back of this updated book. So, I've already earmarked it in my diary; I'm going to do that. It's a kind of a retreat, and what I do is I go on my own to a nice place, and I ... It's kind of crazy, because I won't eat unless I've done certain activities for my book. I reward myself. But, I reward myself with eating nice food, and a bit of wine. But, I won't allow myself to do it unless I've achieved certain objectives. So, I could go home at the end of the weekend very hungry or very, very full. So, I'm looking forward to that. That's my personal style. And, I know somebody else who's on the same call, who's taken up four hours from 4:00 a.m. in the morning, one day a week-
Yeah.
... as their preferred style. But, I think the most important thing is to put some time away, whether you're a bit-by-bit person, and hour-a-day type, or whether you're a four hours per week, or a weekend every now and again, type of person. I know what kind of person I tend to be. So, I'll certainly break the back of it with a weekend, but I know I need to just spend more time outside of that, too. When I write my articles for YPN magazine, for example ... which, are roughly 14-1500 words a piece ... they're normally done within two hours, unless I'm doing a lot of research. If I'm doing research, it's longer. But, if I'm just talking ... And, if I do a podcast episode, it might be 3,000 words per episode, which can be covered off in half and hour to 45 minutes.
Yeah, it's funny isn't it? But, I guess the good thing about, if you're writing a business or non-fiction book, then usually it's something ... we know what we're writing about. So, it's not like fiction, where we're having to think about plot, and character development, and story arcs, and all that kind of stuff. So, that means that we can write it faster. But, it is important, whichever way works for you, whether it's ... like you, you need to schedule off a couple of days, or whatever, to really break the back of it, or whether you're someone who needs to schedule in an hour a week, or a day a week, or whatever it is. Schedule it in, because if it's just on your to-do list, it tends to just go right down to the bottom, and not ever get done.
It's not the urgent versus important thing, isn't it?
Yeah, definitely.
So, Helen, brilliant. I won't draw it out any longer. I just thank you so much for that. I wanted to give, maybe, our watchers and listeners a flavor of ... This is particularly for a book, but I know you help people with other forms of content, and you can help people get unstuck. If they're blocked, you can help people make a start by following the structures that you have. You probably have other ways in which you can help people. Would you summarize, maybe, how you can help people and how people could get ahold of you if they're interested in that?
Yeah, absolutely. I'd be delighted to. So, I can help people with their general business content, or with their book writing. And, it's all about not feeling overwhelmed anymore, and finding a path ahead, so you can actually make progress. So, it's breaking it down into manageable chunks. It's me giving people the structure and tools to actually get stuff done, and also some support and accountability, which ... more carrot than stick. But, I think it is important. So, people can either find me on LinkedIn as Helen Pollock, or they can check out my website, which is www.thecontentdoc.com. And, on LinkedIn I often share tools, worksheets ... loads of good stuff to help people write better.
I can vouch for that, you absolutely do. And, I know you've got other ... You can even help people who just don't even want to write it themselves. I know that you do that, too. So, it's been great. Thanks for taking me through that process. You were gentle with me.
I know you could have taken me further into certain areas, but I've got some really good take-aways, there. So, thanks for the free coaching.
But, thanks for joining me, again. As ever, Helen, it's great to see you. And, for all the sharing for our community. Hopefully, they've got some good content out of that, too, which they can take away and apply for their own businesses.
Ah, thank you so much for inviting me. And yeah, I hope people find it useful. Bye for now.
Bye-bye, Helen. Bye-bye
That's all from me this week, remember if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you! The show notes can be found at our website www.thepropertyvoice.net
Thanks very much for listening again this week, so all that left to say is ciao ciao!