BMH Book of the Month

Week 1: Read Intro & Chapter 1 “The One Marketing Plan You Will Never Regret.”

• Think about the five - step marketing plan Donald outlines in the first chapter of the book. Taking that as an example try to come up a one-liner for your brand. Bring an idea for a PDF "freebie" for your funnel. 
• What do you need to complete steps 1, 3 and 5? Create a task list to complete these steps.

Week 2: Read Chapter 2 “The Actual Stages of a Relationship”

• How are you piquing your audience’s curiosity?
• How is your “product” making your audience’s life better?

Week 3: Read Chapter 3 “An Introduction to The Marketing Made Simple Checklist”

• Write down three or four things you want your customers to know about your brand. 
• Answer these questions about your brand: 
  • What Problem do you solve for your customers
  • What will your customer’s life look like if they buy your product?
  • What consequences does your product help customers avoid?
  • What does somebody need to do to buy your product? (click here, buy now, call now)

Week 4: Read Part 2 and Chapter 4 “Create your One Liner”

Create your one-liner using the method explained in chapter 4.

• Start off by stating the problem or pain point that most of your clients face.
• Talk about your solution to the problem you just stated. 
• Clearly explain how your customer will feel and what they get after you solve their problem. 

Week 5: Read Chapter 5 “A Wireframed Website that Works”

Week 6: Read Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 “Lead Generator” & “The Power of email”

Week 7: Read Chapter 8 & Chapter 9 “Nurture Email Campaigns” & “Sales Email Campaigns?

Week  8: Read Chapter 10 & Conclusion “How to Execute the Marketing Made Simple Sales Funnel”

Week 1: Read Section 1 “Your Content GPS”

• Define your niche and reader persona.
• What have you learned about yourself and your content while trying to figure those out?
• What’s your content's "Value Proposition"?

Week 2: Read Section 2 “The One Hour Content Plan”

• Start generating ideas for your content. Start by creating content buckets and content sub-categories. 
• Answer the questions on page 3 of the content plan. 
• What are some of the content ideas you got while filling out the One-Hour Content Plan?

Week 3: Read Section 3 “Content Ideation”

• Pick a tool to keep your swipe file. (Spreadsheet, notepad, word file, etc.)
• Start researching to get ideas for your swipe file. What’s your favorite place on the internet to get ideas from?
• Add content ideas to your swipe file based on your audience categories. Fill out pages 4 and 5 of the content plan. 

Week 4: Read Section 4, Chapter 9 & 10 

• Pick three attribute words to describe your brand and put these together in the ADDE formula.
• Think about the format that you enjoy creating content in, and that allows you to produce on a regular basis.

Week 5: Read Chapters 11 & 12

• Think about a blog post idea  that follows the steps to create a “Smart Blog Post that Keeps Readers Hooked” explained in chapter 11.

Week 6: Read Section 6, Chapter 13 “Do’s and Dont’s of an Editorial Calendar”

Week 7: Read Chapter 14 “Nurture Email Campaigns” & “Sales Email Campaigns?

Week  8: Read Conclusion & Next Steps

Week 1: Part I - The Category King Economy, Chapter 1-3, Pages 1-68

• Do you see the Category King economics applying to your industry? Why or why not?  
• What part(s) of the magic triangle is missing in your business: Category Design, Company Design,or Product Design?
• What is your froto: From the way they used to think, to the new frame of reference. In business,in family, in relationships?

Week 2: Part II - The Category King Playbook, Chapter 4-5, Pages 69-122

• Can you answer Dave's Three Questions? 

1. Can you explain to me live a 5-year-old what problem you are trying to solve
2. If your company solves this problem perfectly, what category are you in?
3. If you win 85% of the category, what is the size of your category potential? 

• What is your unique POV (Point of View) for your business, family, and your life?

Week 3: Part II -The Category King Playbook, Chapter 6-7, Pages 123-169

• Describe your lightning strike: Where, how, when, what could it mean long term?
• What are the biggest obstacles to your lightning strike?
• What resources in the group could you call upon for Strikes, Hijacks, and Attention Grabbing

Week 4: Part II- The Category King Playbook, Chapter 8 (May 26th)

(Using Category Design in Your Life)

• How can you define Category Design in your life?

Week 5: Part II- The Category King Playbook, Chapter 9 (June 2nd)

Week 6: Part II- The Category King Playbook, Chapter 10 (June 9th)

Week 7: The "So What" Recap (June 23rd)

• What is the name of the Category you business is in? Your family? Your Life?
• What concrete actions can you take to be a Legend that expands the category instead of a Loser that claws for his share?
• How can we teach this principle to others, especially our children?

Week 1: Read chapters 1-3

• The majority of interactions we have at work and at home boil down to a simple, animalistic urge: I want. What “wants” are you negotiating the hardest for?
• Good negotiators precisely label emotions belonging to others and themselves, and then talk about them without getting wound up. Are you able to unplug emotionally while negotiating?

Week 2: Read Chapters 4-5

• By giving someone permission to say "no" to your ideas, emotions calm, effectiveness increases, and the other party can really look at your proposal. Are you ok with giving others permission to say “no?”
• Before you convince someone to see what you're trying to accomplish, you must say the things to them that will get them to say "that's right." Are you willing to put this effort into your next request?

Week 3: Read Chapters 6-7

• We don't compromise because it's right, but because it's easy and we save face. Distilled to its essence, we compromise because it's safe. Do you normally compromise?

• Negotiation in a tit-for-tat, reciprocity-driven manner fails because we all want to extract something from each other, but don't want to give. Are you only willing to give if you get something in return?

Week 4: Read Chapters 8-10

• "How" questions, correctly used, are gentle and graceful ways to say "no" and guide your counterpart to develop a solution that's your own. How good are you with asking “how” questions?
• Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible, or never thought of at all. Are you open minded enough to search for never thought of negotiation possibilities?
• What is your strongest takeaway?

Week 1: 

• Is your perception about your current situation fact or fiction?
• Have you learned how to limit your passions, so they are not controlling your life?
• Can you learn to control your thoughts to see your situation not as good or bad but merely facts?

Week 2: 

• Do you have the courage to move forward?
• Do you possess boldness and persistence to accomplish the task?
• Understanding your situation is one thing, taking action is another.

Week 3: 

• Down deep is the will, our internal power. No one can affect this. What is your will telling you?
• True will is humility, resilience, and flexibility. Do you have these traits?
• What traits show up when your will is being challenged?

Week 4: 

• Is your mission bigger than yourself?
• Will it take a near death experience to motivate you to be your best yet?
• How will you tackle your next obstacle?

Week 1: 

• Are you an “egotist?” (Someone that is dangerously focused on yourself).
• Have you ever checked your ego? What puffs you up?
• Is a certain amount of ego healthy?

Week 2: 

• Are you continuing to learn, listen and focus on what matters when you succeed?
• Have you become a victim of yourself or your competition?
• Do you possess the great stabilizers: Sobriety, open-mindedness, organization and purpose?

Week 3: 

• Is your ego prepared to handle what’s ahead?
• What if the success is not what it first appeared to be?
• What if the win is delayed or never comes at all?

Week 4: 

• Are you maintaining your own scorecard? Who are you comparing against?
• What is your ego motivating you to do? Should you pursue this or leave it alone?
• See much, study much, suffer much, for this is the path to wisdom. Are you willing or is The Ego Your Enemy?
  
  

Week 1: 

• How generous are you?
• Are you willing to invest big in the relationships that matter? What is big to you? 
• What are your thoughts on token gifts? Worth it or not?

Week 2: 

• Do you have the tendency to make gifts more about you than the recipient? What are your thoughts about including your corporate logo?
• How do you know if you should send a gift?
• How are you doing on gifting your employees, VA’s, suppliers, and vendors?

Week 3: 

• Who are the ones that are helping you go to the next level? Have you done all you should to show appreciation in a tangible way?
• Are you giving to your primary recipient's inner circles? Should you?
• How well do you need to know someone to give to their spouse or children? Is there ever a time you should do this?

Week 4: 

• How do you determine if it’s a gift or a promotion? Which should it be?
• Is your gift BEST in class or is it just good enough?
• Are you too tight for your own good?

Week 1: 

• You are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating and sustaining extraordinary health, wealth, happiness, love, and success in your life, as any other person on earth. Do you believe this?
• Hal knew that the solution to all his problems was that he had to commit to making personal development a priority in his daily life. This was the missing link that would enable him to become the person he needed to be able to consistently attract, create, and sustain the levels of success that he wanted. Have you made this daily commitment?

Week 2: 

• When are you going to actually live your life instead of numbly going through the motions looking for every possible distraction to escape reality? What if your reality—your life—could finally be something that you can’t wait to be conscious for?
• It’s all about having an effective, pre-determined, step-by-step strategy to increase your wakeup motivation level in the morning. Don’t wait to try this! Are you willing to implement an aggressive plan?

Week 3: 

• Are you too busy for the 6-minute workout? Any excuse might work then...
• Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life. Have you?

Week 4: 

• What is the next level in your personal or professional life? Which areas need to be transformed in order for you to reach that level? Give yourself the gift of investing just 30 days to make significant improvements in your life, one day at a time. No matter what your past has been, you can change your future, by changing the present. Are you ready?
• Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you end up depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment forward. Excited about the change?

Week 1

• Do you have the ability to quickly master hard things?

• Do you have the ability and desire to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed?

Week 2

• Deep work should be a priority in today’s business climate. But it’s not. The reality is that deep work is hard and shallow work is easier and in the absence of clear goals for your job, the visible busyness that surrounds shallow work becomes self- preserving. Are you giving clear goals to those around you?
• Do you regularly see yourself stretching your mind to its limits, concentrating, and losing yourself in an activity—all of which also describe deep work? Once in this state of mind, your work becomes meaningful. Are you there?

Week 3: 

• The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration. Do you have a clearly defined work habits?

• Once your brain has become accustomed to on-demand distraction, it’s hard to shake the addiction even when you want to concentrate. To put this more concretely: If every moment of potential boredom in your life—say, having to wait five minutes in line or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives— is relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone, then your brain has likely been rewired to a point where it’s not ready for deep work. Do you allow yourself to be bored?

Week 4:

• Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts. Are you willing to quit using social media if it radically impacts your ability to produce and enhance deep work.
• Treat shallow work with suspicion because its damage is often vastly underestimated and its importance vastly overestimated. Are you able and willing to drain the shallows?