Welcome back to Business Unfiltered with Mercer and Jeff Sauer today's topic is Behind the Scenes: Writing Our First Book:

• Initial Thoughts and Experiences: Jeff introduces the topic of writing their first book and the initial challenges faced, including rapid industry changes. Mercer recalls Jeff's earlier work on service stacking and is curious about the process.

• Strategies for Writing a Timeless Book: Mercer and Jeff agree on focusing on strategies and management principles rather than tool-specific content. Jeff highlights his experience with a book accelerator program and acknowledges the effectiveness of a framework-based book.

• Developing the Book Concept and Structure: Jeff explains the evolution of his broad "Profit Pillars" concept to a specific and focused framework on sales and service stacking. He shares the process of validating the concept through workshops and using the recordings as an outline for the book.

• Writing and Editing the Book: Jeff details the process of hiring a ghostwriter and navigating the initial drafting stage. He shares the time-consuming nature of editing and the decision to personally handle the final edits to maintain consistency.

• Marketing and Promoting the Book: Jeff discusses book marketing challenges and the necessity of having an effective book funnel. He shares his experiences with a book funnel service and the importance of having a pre-existing audience.

• Lessons Learned and Future Plans: Jeff reflects on the overall experience, rating it low for immediate results but high for valuable learning. The episode concludes with a recap of the key points and a look at the next steps for their book project.

Welcome back to Business Unfiltered with Mercer and Jeff Sauer today's topic is Creating RAD Products:

• Introduction to RAD Products: Jeff and Mercer introduce the concept of "RAD products," emphasizing the importance of focusing on results, actions, and delivery in product creation. They highlight Amazon's strategic approach to defining results before building products, using the Kindle as an example.

• Defining Results in Product Creation: The hosts discuss the strategic value of focusing on the result for users, which could include saving time or achieving a specific outcome. They stress the significance of benefits for both users and the company, particularly for service providers.

• Benefits vs. Features in Service Provision: Jeff explains how service providers should emphasize their benefits, such as reducing risk, rather than just features. Mercer and Jeff discuss aligning product benefits from the perspectives of the user, the company, and the team for market success.

• Confirming Benefits Through Actions: Mercer discusses the importance of validating product benefits through actions like surveys before investing resources. He emphasizes ensuring the team has the skills and capacity to deliver the confirmed benefits to various stakeholders.

• Delivery and Management of the Product: They discuss how crucial delivery is for meeting deadlines and budgets, and maintaining customer loyalty. Jeff shares examples from Microsoft's different delivery approaches and highlights the role of management in successful product delivery.

• Real-World Example Measure U: Mercer presents Measure U as a real-world example that consolidates multiple logins into one platform, improving user experience. They discuss the simplicity and continuous improvement of Measure U, underlining its benefits like ease of access and better delivery.

Welcome back to the ProfitSchool podcast with Mercer and Jeff Sauer today's topic is Management Mistakes.

Topics Covered In This Episode

• Introduction to Management Mistakes: Jeff Sauer and Mercer introduce the topic of management mistakes on "Business Unfiltered," emphasizing the value of learning from errors to aid others in avoiding similar pitfalls.

• Early Management Experiences: Jeff highlights his journey from a small team to managing 50 people with no formal training, reflecting on the initial challenges of wanting to be the “cool boss” and the importance of providing structured feedback and coaching.

• Importance of Clear Communication and Expectations: Discussing the "wagon wheel mentality," Jeff and Mercer emphasize the need for managers to empower their teams by providing clear direction, enabling problem-solving skills, and avoiding taking over tasks themselves.

• Hiring and Firing Decisions: Jeff and Mercer discuss the perils of quick hiring without due diligence, the necessity of daily check-ins during onboarding, and the difficulty of firing employees who initially seemed promising but failed to meet expectations.

• Empowering the Team and Setting Clear Goals: They highlight the need to nurture team growth through constant communication about career development, warn against early introduction of incentive plans, and stress the importance of setting clear, attainable goals.

• Investing Smartly and Managing Performance: Jeff advises against hiring for multiple roles unless necessary, sharing insights on making smart investments with clear returns. They also cover avoiding quick bonuses, the pitfalls of profit-sharing incentive plans, and the importance of setting realistic expectations to maintain team motivation.