Ep 566: How I Sold 650k Books with One Strategy with Mike Thomas

RV (00:02):
Well, something very unexpected happened in my journey a couple years ago. I was reading a book to my son Jasper, and as we do often, almost every night, we read books to him. And I had this epiphany that all these kids’ books are crap. And a few weeks later, God hit me with a download where I went and wrote a kid’s book that is called Be the Buffalo. And I wrote that entire book in about 45 minutes. And I never, ever expected to be an author in the first place. Definitely never expected to be a children’s book author. And lo and behold, here I am now a children’s author. And so I am suddenly curious about children’s books and how do you write them? How do you sell them? And then recently I was every year we host this I co-host this, this bestselling author meetup with Donald Miller and Mike Malowitz and our, our late friend John Ruland and John Gordon and several other people.
RV (01:04):
And the, it’s not a ticket you can buy there’s lots of people who want to come to this, but it is an invite only event, and the only way you get invited is based on your actual book sales. And so we researched these you know, potential people to come so that we have real colleagues and no one’s making money from it. We’re all sharing collaboratively. And that is where I met Mike Thomas, who you are about to meet. And I have become enamored and fascinated with Mike J. Thomas specifically. My, my son has become enamored and fascinated with Mike Thomas. So Mike is the author of a children books, a children’s book series that if you’re watching this on YouTube, you can see me holding it up. It’s called The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls. And it is a time travel adventure series that helps kids explore the Bible and grow in their faith.
RV (02:02):
And Mike, this, this series has sold over 650,000 copies. It grows every single year. Mike recently signed a deal with Harper Collins and Zander Kids to expand the series. He’s got experience both traditional publishing and self-publishing. And Jasper bugs me on a nightly basis. I’m not kidding. Jasper has read this whole series three times, like through every book cover to cover three times. And he always asks me, he’s like, when is your friend gonna write another book? When is your friend gonna write another book? And so I I was like, Mike, is there any chance that we could have you come on the podcast, hear your story? Mike also is a, has got a lot of experience in marketing and helping other authors to sell more books without having lots of, you know, social media followers and not having a huge email list or a huge ad budget. And he was a president and chief marketing officer of an educational fundraising company. So, anyways, it was all of those things that made me say, we gotta get Mike on the show. Mike’s been so gracious to Jasper and me and now to you coming to share his wisdom. So Mike, welcome to the show, my friend.
MT (03:13):
Well, Rory, thank you for having me. It is a joy to talk to you to share this information. And that’s amazing that Jasper’s read it three times. I have to say, that’s probably more than I’ve read the whole series . I, I did have to go, since I’m redoing the, or extending the series, I did go back and reread it and I was like, ah, there was so many things I just didn’t even remember writing. But it is a joy to be here and I can’t wait to, to share whatever information that would be helpful to you in your children’s author adventure journey. Yeah. Or or to your listeners.
RV (03:52):
Yeah. So tell me, like, where did the idea come from? I mostly want to hear about like how you marketed and sold it and made it, but Mm-Hmm. . But where did the, I where did the idea originally come from?
MT (04:03):
The idea came when my son, my youngest son, Peter, was in third grade and he had a book report due, and he went to a Christian school, and I looked through the book report list and I knew he was a reluctant reader, and if he was gonna take the time to read to something, I wanted it to be something interesting to him, something that could help him grow in faith, something that would be fun. And I looked through the book report list and I just couldn’t find it. It was not there. And, and so then I went to Barnes and Noble, I said, well, surely they’ll have it. And I went back and there’s this tons of books for his age group, you know, everything you can imagine. And I couldn’t find it there. And so I went home and told him, and he said, well, why don’t you write it? And I like,
RV (04:50):
Nice
MT (04:51):
. I was like, okay. You know, I, I hadn’t thought of that, you know, I hadn’t, you know, at the time, you know, I wasn’t an author. I did a lot of copywriting and things in marketing, but I was like, okay, let me give it a shot. And so I wrote it and I read it to him and he liked it. And I was like, well, of course you liked it. You’re the hero of the story. He, and then he goes, read it to my class. I’m like, oh, next stage. I didn’t imagine this getting beyond just him. And so I went and read it to his class, printed it off on eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper, and just read it through to them. And I could see the reactions, I could see, you know, what worked, what didn’t work.
MT (05:31):
And I would run into him in the hallway, some of his classmates, and go, when’s the next book coming out? I’m like, I didn’t think of a next book. So I said, well, maybe there’s something to this. And so I wrote another book and another book. I wrote three books. And I self-published those. And what I wanted to make sure was that it worked locally. I wanted to make sure, like I could see that was having the effect that I wanted to have, I wanted to make sure that it was helping kids learn about the Bible grow in faith. And when I saw that, when I saw it actually happen, I was like, okay, this is something I can get behind. This is something, you know, because as an author, sometimes we’re, we’re kind of afraid to be honest, to put our words out there. We’re afraid that it’s not gonna work. We’re afraid that it’s gonna be laughed at or rejected. And so I just kind of had to wait and see if it had the effect that on the reader that I wanted. And once I saw that, I was like, okay, I can get behind this. I can promote it, I can get it out into the world. So that’s kind of the journey. I
RV (06:46):
Love that.
MT (06:47):
And then from that point, it got put picked up from a publisher and I went kind of that, that route and ended up writing nine books in a three year period.
RV (06:57):
Wow. So when you first wrote the books, were they actually, did you have them printed and like bound or was it just like a Word document that you printed out and took into his class to read it?
MT (07:12):
Well, the, the first was just that, I mean, and that was kind of before I edited it and all that. And then I knew a guy I was like, okay, these are chapter books, children’s books. You’re gonna have to have artwork. And so I worked with a guy named Cody, and I said, Hey, you know, here’s the concept. Can you do some art for me? And he did like the original covers and some line drawings for inside the book. And I published them on Amazon, KDP. And I was like, and I knew like kids needed, you know, a physical thing, you know, they needed a real book to hold onto. You know, you can do some digital books for kids, but they just, it, I don’t, I don’t think it has the impact. You know, they’re very tactical, you know, they need something in their hands. So I did on those original three published on Amazon, and that was it, . Wow. You know, I didn’t,
RV (08:07):
Did they, did they take off right away? Like what did, did you just kind of throw ’em up there and then it was like you had them indexed on Amazon for like Christian early reading or something and it takes off, or
MT (08:17):
Yeah, yeah, it was like Children’s Action and Adventure or Christian Children’s Action Adventure. You know, I wasn’t really good at that point of, you know, how do you talk about it or index it and, you know, categories and things like that. My main thing was I wanted a place that there was a printable book available, and I also bought some of them for myself off of there and put ’em in a local bookstore actually three three local bookstores and two churches had kind of bookstores in their churches. And so I approached them and had them kind of put it in there because I wanted to see, you know, if they didn’t know me, you know, if it was just kind of on a shelf or out there, would someone just buy it? And so
RV (09:02):
You just bought ’em and gave the inventory to the stores to try and sell?
MT (09:06):
Yes.
RV (09:07):
Interesting. So you, and you just gave ’em like, whatever, like five or 10 copies or something to just
MT (09:13):
Yeah, yeah. And I said, here, you can have ’em. I don’t want the money. I just wanna make sure that it sells. Because I just knew that if it gets in their hands and they like it, they’re gonna share it, you know, because, you know, what I’ve found is, you know, word of mouth has always been the best way to sell books.
RV (09:37):
Hmm.
MT (09:38):
And if you get your books out into the hands of enough readers that like it, you know, they’re gonna tell others. And so that’s kind of my kind of book marketing philosophy is, you know, word of mouth is the best, has always been the best way to sell books. So whatever tools or strategies you use at the present time is, you know, how do you keep that word of mouth happening? How do you initiate it? How do you kind of stoke it? How do you keep it moving forward?
RV (10:09):
Yeah. So let’s talk about that. So if you look at the, if you look at the techniques or the tactics or the, the, the actions, the actionable things that you took to initially get your book in front of readers, you’ve already talked about a couple. One is, you went and read, you went read the book at schools mm-Hmm. , you sent, you sent free copies to bookstores. What else did you do to get it in the hands of readers before, you know, it really took off?
MT (10:40):
Yeah, those were kind of my, I don’t know. At, at that point I wasn’t really thinking, you know, this is marketing my book or selling my book. At that point, it was more kinda research, you know, it was kind of in the beta thing, feedback, it, it, yeah. It was more about, I wanted to make sure it was a good book and it was gonna do what I wanted to do. And so once I kind of got it there, and then once the publisher kind of picked it up and it was going out into the world, you know, it was going to like Barnes and Noble and different places like that, I was like, okay, now I gotta figure out how to actually market and sell this book. And so at that point, you know, I had a full-time job, and I was basically write, you know, having to write books, edit books, and sell books, and do the full-time job all at the same time. Mm-Hmm. . And so living
RV (11:31):
The dream baby, living the, the dream. Oh yeah. It’s so glamorous. It was . It’s so glamorous.
MT (11:36):
Absolutely. So
RV (11:37):
You get to wake up at, at 5:00 AM and edit your own books and stay on the on weekends and go speak for free to like, promote your book for, for 10 bucks at the back of the room. It’s so
MT (11:45):
Glamorous. Oh, it’s a beautiful lie. Beautiful lie . And actually 5:00 AM is when I would get up to write, I would, 5:00 AM I would write and then write for hour and a half, two hours, then get ready to go to work. And so when the
RV (11:59):
Books, I did that this morning, by the way. I’m, we’re, we’re writing our first book in 10 years. And I have been doing that every morning for like, weeks. So it’s just, yeah, it, and it’s, there’s something about that 5:00 AM because it’s like, you can just get enough time in before the kids wake up and things get going. Oh yeah. For the day. Oh yeah.
MT (12:16):
No one else is expecting your time at that point. So yeah. So that’s, so when it came to that point, I was like, I kind of dove in to like, what is the best, easiest, quickest way to market a book. And if you, you go to Google, you’re gonna, you know, look at book marketing. I mean, there is an insane amount of advice out there. You know, some of it is decent, you know, some, a lot of it is really kind of gamy to be honest. . Mm-Hmm. . I mean, it’s, I mean, you look it up and you, you can, yeah, after you’ve seen enough marketing stuff, you can look through it and you say, Ooh, this is someone’s trying to take advantage of someone here. And so I kind of went off through that. I had a also a friend Tim Grl, who was a book marketer. And so I kind of talked to him and said, you know, what would be a good strategy here? But oddly, I kind of got this, basically, lemme say I did one thing and one thing only for those three years, and I’ll tell you that in a second. And so I was watching
RV (13:24):
Cliffhanger, cliffhanger, cliffhanger, let’s roll to our sponsors, be back in just a, just a break. We’ll take a be back right after this short commercial break.
MT (13:34):
Cliffhangers are fun in books. The and so it kind of came as epiphany. I was, I saw Gary V had a thing with some rappers, and they were starting off and they’re like, how do I get my music out there? You know, how do I, he is like, look, just get people to hear your music and share it with people. And they’re like, well, how do we do that? And he goes, just get on Instagram. Go to the influencers, DM ’em, reach out to ’em. I was like, okay. And so I saw that and I was like, well, maybe that’s something. So I kind of dove into that a little more. And I saw, well, a lot of people were kind of doing that. It wasn’t, you know, brands were doing that. Those were doing that. So I said, well, I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m gonna go all in on influencer marketing. And another thing at the exact same mo moment popped up Brian Norman is my agent, and he Oh yeah,
RV (14:32):
I know Brian Norman.
MT (14:34):
And so he had I think it was another author or something that he knew, and they had kids, you know, she had kids in the, in the age range. And so he gave her the books, and I think her site was like, thrive Moms or something like that. And she did a post and it just was talking about the books. And it had like a giveaway, and it was like, it just got all these likes and all these comments. And oddly, I went and looked at Amazon ranking and I was like, the Amazon ranking just shot up. And I was like, okay, this is weird. okay, this, there’s something to this. So I just kinda went in on that approach. I was gonna go, I did influencer marketing. The other one was, I had just gone to like a Russell Brunson event and he talked about, you know, the Dream 100. And I was like, you know, find, you know, pick out a hundred influencers and just try to get your book to them. And so that’s what I did. I made a list, you know, I went through, I focused on Instagram just as I was most comfortable in that platform. It seemed to be a way, an easy way to connect my audience, my ideal reader was also there. And so that’s, I just went on that. And so for those first three years, the only thing I did was influencer outreach, influencer market. Wow.
MT (16:00):
Wow. And so I just looked at some of the stats on it when we were kind of pitching the extension of the series. And I think I worked with over maybe 225 different influencers. Wow. And they had, and I kind of, kind of counted up and they had maybe a combined following of over 8 million.
RV (16:23):
Wow.
MT (16:24):
And so, and so that’s, that’s what I did. And, you know, during that time, that’s all I did. And I think within that time period had sold close to 500,000 books. You know, after that I’ve done a couple other things. You know, I’ve done some direct sales Facebook ads and things like that. But the thing that really got me going, ’cause I had no platform, I had no following. I had no email list. I didn’t even have a website for the books that whole time. Wow. The only thing I did was influencer marketing.
RV (17:00):
So , this is so cool, Mike. This is, I love this so much. You know, one of our flagship mantras, if you is, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And we just tell people like, any marketing strategy can work, but doing all of them at the same time is the mm-Hmm. Is the recipe for failure. And just like hearing your story of, of like, I did this one thing, I went all in, and it’s so simple, right? It’s like, Mm-Hmm. , I talk to people like, yes, it’s influencer marketing, quote unquote influencer marketing. Yes, it’s Instagram. Yes, it’s social media, but it’s really, I talked to people, I told them about my book. So, so can you describe what that process was? So, so basically Mm-Hmm. , you’re just, are you just like researching people and then did you just DM them and then do you have to send them a book? Do they have, do you have to do, do you have to pay them? Like how does that, what are the mechanics of that specifically? Yeah.
MT (18:00):
You know, I, I did come up with a system ’cause I was like, I, you know, I had such limited time. I was like, well, let me have a very specific system I do and just do it over and over again. Especially after I saw it work a few times. I was like, okay, this is what I’m gonna just keep doing. So there was the research side, you know, so, you know, once I knew who my, you know, first you kind of have to know your ideal reader, you know, who is your dream reader. And it’s gonna be different for the, you know, mine, since it was a children’s book, I had to say, okay, I’m not really selling directly to children. So it’s mo parents and in particular moms. And it’s like I say, I was like, okay, I have to figure out who are the ideal moms that would like this book.
MT (18:44):
Their children would like this book, and if they like it, they’re going to share about it. And so the first part was just kind of identifying, you know, who your reader is, and then looking at, okay, where do they congregate? And it’s like, okay, who, who are they listening to? And so that’s where I kind of said, okay, let me look through the influencers. Let me look through the, and when you say influencer, like you said, it’s not some, there’s not like a tag on there that, you know, okay, gimme the list of influencers. It’s basically you just looking Instagram and seeing who has a decent amount of followers and are getting engagement and are talking about the things that my readers like hearing about. And so I would just go through and find the ones I thought fit that criteria once I kind of knew who they were.
MT (19:40):
You know, once I could picture that person, then I just went through and found that person on Instagram. I mean, there’s techniques to do that. You know, you can look at hashtags, you can look at fall, you know, Instagram will tell you who is liked this person, you know, once you find another person. And I would simply, you know, there was some steps, you know, I would kind of follow them. But it really did come down to messaging them, you know, making that outreach. And I kind of did a, a kind of a framework that on what does that message look like? You know, how do you, and you actually shared the exact message that I shared with those people over and over again at the beginning when you when you were introducing me. I would basically say, hi, my name is Mike Thomas. I’m the author of The Secret Hidden Scrolls. It’s a time travel adventure series that helps kids explore the Bible and grown faith, I think be a perfect fit for your family. Would you like a copy? And that was it. So that message would be different for different people, but you just have to kind of have the thing that connects that they know, okay, this is something I’d be interested in. Let me look at it. And but you
RV (20:56):
Led with giving them a copy.
MT (20:59):
Yes.
RV (20:59):
You did not lead with, would you post about it? Would you interview me? No, what you just said, can I give you a copy?
MT (21:07):
Yep.
RV (21:08):
That’s a big, that’s a really big deal. You just did that intuitively, I guess. But like, I don’t think that’s what people do. I think they go, Hey, I have this thing. Would you, would you promote it for me? And it’s like, I don’t even know. I don’t even know you. I have no idea who you are, what this thing is.
MT (21:24):
Yeah. So that was, you know, crafting that message, you know, is gonna be different for, you know, different, whatever your ideal reader is, who the influencer is, what your market is. But that’s what worked. You know, that’s what I found that worked. And so I would send it to ’em, wait for a response. You know, there are some follow ups that can be done. But if they did follow up, I would just send ’em the book. I would actually physically mail them the book.
RV (21:55):
Mm-Hmm.
MT (21:57):
If, you know, just ’cause it was a kid’s book, if you could send them a digital book and they’re good with that, you know, that would be a cheaper way to go. But I think getting a book in hand, a physical book in hand makes the possibility of them actually reading it. The possibility of them sharing it or promoting it. I think it exponentially shoots that possibility up.
RV (22:20):
Mm-Hmm. . Well now there’s money there, so there’s time there. But like, so how much are you paying? ’cause You’re, if you’re printing the books on Amazon, KDP or buying them yourself, that’s pretty expensive, right? For a book is like 10 or something bucks. Plus you have shipping. So you is like $20 a, is that right? Am I thinking about that? Right.
MT (22:41):
Well at that point is when I, I was actually working with a publisher. I was with a traditional publisher at that point.
RV (22:47):
Okay, so you were buying ’em at your author discount, like at the wholesale price basically.
MT (22:52):
Yes. And
RV (22:54):
But still four or five bucks. I mean, still had to be like
MT (22:57):
Three. It is
RV (22:57):
Like three to five bucks. Three
MT (22:58):
Or $4, yeah. Yeah. In that range. And then you, you send media
RV (23:02):
And that sort a small book. I mean, that’s a, I mean, these books are, you know, just, they’re, they’re, they’re, I mean they’re kids books, so
MT (23:08):
They’re very light . And so you send a media mail, which is gonna be, you know, about three bucks, you know, all, you can always send a media mail. Even on bigger books, even like sending a box set, like that whole box set media mail is gonna be five. I mean, so, you know, a big hardbound book is gonna be probably five. So there is some expense in that. And so, you know, what you have to see, does the expense, you know, work out you know, does it move books? You gotta
RV (23:40):
Return on that investment and get
MT (23:41):
Right. And for me and for others, I’ve seen you get a good return because again, word of mouth is what sells books. So if you get someone presenting to their audience of 2000 people, 50,000 people, and they’re saying, check this book out, my kids loved it, or I loved it, go get yourself a copy. I mean, that is going out. That’s better than a Facebook ad. It’s better than you telling about it when you have someone that they know, like, and trust telling them that they should get this book. It’s just a much better marketing avenue.
RV (24:27):
Mm-Hmm. . I love it. I love it. So then, so you send them the book. Mm-Hmm. media mail, and then you wait for response. If they don’t respond, then do you just kind of follow up? And this is all in dms, right? So you’re just like messaging? Yeah, you’re just messaging ’em like, Hey, did you get the book? What’d you think? And they’re like, oh, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. And then you like, wait a week and like, ping them back and what’d you think? And it, and then it’s just basically that. And then if they, if they say, I got it, I read it, I loved it. Then do you ask them to post about it? Or do they, you kind of hope they do. Like what?
MT (25:02):
Yeah. That’s interesting. I’ve played with that both ways. Oddly usually if you just said, I just wanted to make sure you got it, they would say, oh yeah, I was just mean to post about it. It was, it, it’s an interesting, it was a, I a couple times I would say, no, I’m trying to think. I was actually just too uncomfortable to ask them to post about it to be honest. Mm-Hmm. . Okay. And they would just kind of post about it. And I never, I, I’ve never worked, you know, some of it is, there’s an understanding in the exchange that that’s the possibility of hand, you know, of happening. You know? ’cause That’s what they do, you know, they’re posting content for their followers, you know, they want to give good valuable stuff and if they really love the book, they’re going to do that.
MT (26:04):
And it was like, I didn’t want to push them if they didn’t really love the book or believe in the book, you know? So if they do, then they’re natural. You know, in my in experience, they naturally posted. There was a kind of another step that I would take with some, you know, and that would be a book giveaway. And so a lot of times they would post it and if we had a good kind of communication back and forth, I would say, Hey, would you like to host a book giveaway? And, and those cases is where you’d really kind of see engagement up. But I never would out the gate say, Hey, do you want to do a book giveaway? It always kind of started as just saying, would you like a copy of the book? I think it would be a great fit. And from that point, you know, if they post it and got a lot of engagement and even, you know, we kind of kept the dialogue going. Then I think the next step was kind of a book giveaway, hosting a book giveaway.
RV (27:06):
Wow.
MT (27:06):
So that was kind of, that was kind of my system. And then as I would kind of keep in touch with them, because each time a new book would come about, you know, I’d reach back out to that group and say, Hey, I’ve got a new book coming out. I can send you a a, you know, an early copy. Would you like to have it? And so it just kind of grew over time. Also, you know, with each thing, you know, there’s a new crop, a new, you know, a new crop of influence just, just to kind of add in there. And it just kind of kept growing. The other kind of byproduct was it helped my I, I still don’t have a ton of followers, maybe 6,000 something, but I started with like 15 , you know, you know, my family and friends. But you know, when they were posting, you know, people would kind of check it out and follow you. So there was this natural kind of thing that helped that ra, you know, rise as well.
RV (28:05):
Mm-Hmm. when you did the book giveaways, would you just give ’em like five copies or something? Or 10 or 20? Like how many books are you talking ’em about? For a book giveaway,
MT (28:14):
I just did a single giveaway. Oh. And it was just like, yeah. And as it got to be the book set, I would, it, it, depending on how many they, you know, when I had five books, I’d do a, a, I would basically give away a set of the books and that was it. There was like one winner. And I, I kind of had a pretty simple system of like, here’s what they post, here’s kind of what it says. Once you choose the winner, you send me the address, I fulfill it for you. So they never had to kind of get in the middle, you know, they simply did a post. You know, they chose the winner from their comments and likes sent me the information. I fulfilled it and did several of those. And it did really well.
RV (28:55):
When did this all start? Like, when did you, when did you really start doing this? Like when did you start reaching out to these influencers and like, how much time passed between that? You said this was like your primary strategy for the first 500,000 copies. So how much time passes between when you kind of like hear the Gary V thing and start sending out to where you sold 500,000 units?
MT (29:19):
So the first book came out in 97.
RV (29:24):
Okay.
MT (29:25):
And so, but I didn’t really, this didn’t hit until like maybe six months after the first book came out. The sales weren’t right. I mean, they sold, it did okay. ’cause They did get him into like Barnes and Noble and some of the, and books of Million and some of those. So there was some movement just kind of naturally that way. But it wasn’t really picking up the way I would like, like it to have. And the other problem was, even though it was a nine book deal, it was like, if the first two or three don’t do well, we’re not gonna print the rest of ’em. , we’re not gonna do. So it’s like, I got it. It kind of hit it this moment between, it’s like after Book one was out I was writing book two and sent it to ’em and I was editing book two and thinking about book three. And I was like, okay, I’ve gotta figure out how to sell these books if this thing’s gonna move forward. And that’s kind of when that moment came when I went in
RV (30:34):
On. But INS, Instagram wasn’t around in 1997, so this had to be way later than that when you actually,
MT (30:39):
Right. Oh yeah. I got the years wrong. Yeah. It would’ve been a, I got that completely wrong. . Yeah, it was in 2007.
RV (30:53):
2007. Okay.
MT (30:55):
Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. 2007.
RV (30:58):
So it all happened like right as Instagram was coming on the scene?
MT (31:01):
Yes, yes. Yeah. It is been a seven year window here, so yeah. So it would’ve been right when Instagram was kind of coming out and I was kind of new. It was kind of, I, I did tinker a little bit. I tried a little bit on Twitter. It just didn’t work. You know, I, I’ve tried some other things for me. Instagram, it just was a great avenue. So the best platform for this did
RV (31:27):
The book, actually the first book was published in 1997, but then basically 10 years past,
MT (31:32):
No, I’m sorry, two 2007,
RV (31:35):
The first book published in 2007.
MT (31:38):
Mm-Hmm. .
RV (31:39):
And then it was like, so then did you start doing this kind of like right then, like right in 2007? Or was it like more like 2010 or something like that? Like a few years after the book was kind of like,
MT (31:50):
It would’ve been about a year after the book came out. So it’d been probably 2008, you know, so Right in that timeframe.
RV (31:58):
And then how long did you,
MT (31:59):
I’d have to map it out a little clearer. . Yeah. I can give you some more specific dates as well. But it was in that timeframe.
RV (32:06):
And then how many, like, how, how long did you do that for? Was it like a five year period or a two year period? Or like,
MT (32:14):
Because like how long have I done the in influencer outreach?
RV (32:17):
Yeah, like how, how long did you stick with the influencer outreach before you just kinda let it take organic flight from there?
MT (32:24):
Probably until the last book came out, which would’ve been 2021.
RV (32:32):
Gotcha. Wow. Okay. So this is like, this is like a .
MT (32:37):
So you know, I gave you the wrong dates. Lemme give you the real dates here. Okay. Okay. So it was really 2017. I don’t know why I said 19 97, 20 17. I was thinking probably the birth of my child was when the first book came out. And so
RV (33:03):
I can look in the book because I got it right here
MT (33:05):
Next. Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s get the real dates. Let me,
RV (33:07):
Let me open the book here and see. ’cause It probably has the publication date. Yeah. 2017.
MT (33:14):
Yeah.
RV (33:15):
So this is 2017 is when, at least when the publishing deal happened. So you might have, you might have had the self-publishing before that and
MT (33:25):
Then Yeah. That was for a few years before that.
RV (33:28):
All that. So then it comes out. So, so, so then really you start hitting this in 2 20 17 through 2021. So it’s like four years. Yes. It’s all four years as you’re like releasing a couple books a year.
MT (33:41):
Yes. And
RV (33:41):
You’re, this is like what you’re, ’cause that was the other thing you said Russell Brunson, you know, like Russell Brunson, that, that’s all like 2015 plus. Yes, probably. Yeah. So yeah, so that makes sense. Okay. So then it’s really like, there’s really like a four year period that you’re hammering this. So that’s what I thought. ’cause I thought this was much, this is pretty recent stuff. Yes. and then and so you did, and, and so over that time you just, it, it started to consistently sell and it’s added up to hundreds of thousands of copies. It, so the book. So it’s really been, it’s only, it’s only, it’s only been like eight years. It hasn’t even been out. The series hasn’t even been out 10 years.
MT (34:24):
Right.
RV (34:26):
Got
MT (34:26):
It. Yeah. So the, like I said, like you said, for those four years while those across that timeframe, those books coming out just did the influencer marketing. Yeah. After that point, you know, I’ve done a few other things. Once the kinda the box set came out, I kind of went into doing also some direct sales and Facebook ads and book funnels. But up until that moment the only thing I did was influencer marketing.
RV (34:52):
Yeah. So ha have, have the, the Facebook ads and the funnels and that stuff. Has that panned out or kind of, or not really or? Yes, it’s amazing.
MT (35:03):
It’s doing well, you know, and I think depending on, you know, I think there’s some kind of milestones that have to be met for Facebook ads, to work for books. Like if, if you just had one single book, you know, that was selling for $10, it’d be really, really hard to make Facebook ads work.
RV (35:26):
Mm-Hmm. .
RV (35:27):
‘Cause There’s not enough profit margin in the book to recover the ad spend to run the ads.
MT (35:31):
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I’ve talked to several people that run Facebook ads for books, and once you really dial it in, you could maybe get between, you know, between 10 and $15 cost of sale on an ad. So
RV (35:48):
10 to 10 to $15 in ad spend Per
MT (35:53):
Or per sale.
RV (35:54):
Per sale. So that’s a, that would be a CAC, a customer acquisition cost of like $15. And that now that’s to sell one of your box sets.
MT (36:03):
Yes.
RV (36:04):
Which is the, the whole nine series box set is like $150.
MT (36:09):
No, it’s $59.
RV (36:11):
Oh my goodness. Steal. Yeah, but then you go, okay, if you, if you collect $60, you take out 15 for ad spend, you take out, you know, whatever the wholesale cost is for the book, and then you gotta like pay the people to run the ads. And like, you’re not, you’re, you’re not, it’s not, you’re not making a lot of money there, but it’s, right. Yeah. But you’re breaking even. You might be breaking even or something.
MT (36:35):
I do a little better than break even. So what I, but the thing that I found was that although I was picking up, you know, the ads themselves point directly to my site where I sell them directly secret, the hidden scrolls.com and so they go there, you know, you can buy the box set. Right now I have like a 25% discount, you know, get a, you know, get some worksheets with it so you can have some things to help promote it there. So I sell enough books there to more than cover the ad spend. But what I found is I, Amazon sells and other sales shoot up, because what happens is, and you know this, and anyone who shops knows, if you look at a product you say, oh, this looks great. You go right over to Amazon and say, what’s Amazon got it for?
MT (37:26):
So if you got Prime, you’re gonna get free shipping. You know, so a lot of people are going from my ad to my website or seeing it over and over and then going to Amazon and buying the book there. Now I’ve tested this several times to say, I’m gonna shut off the ads and see what happens within a day. Exactly. Amazon sales rank drops. I mean, it just, to the moment you can see that it just, the sales start drying up there too. Turn ’em back on. You see the sales, your rankings start getting better and better take it off. I mean, there is a direct tie, even though the Facebook ads are running two direct sales, it’s also driving other sales.
RV (38:17):
Have you run ads on Amazon to the listing on Amazon?
MT (38:21):
I have not. Because it’s in,
RV (38:24):
It’s just tricky ’cause you’re just losing money. Like you just, you’re, you’re literally just losing money. You never you don’t ever get the money back.
MT (38:29):
Yeah, I know people that do pretty well there. The problem is, like in traditional publishing, the, the way mine is kind of set up, it would be really difficult. Like if they’re the one selling it directly to Amazon, you know, if the publisher is selling it through Amazon for you to try to come in and run ads, running it to that thing, you’re not gonna be able to collect on the money. I mean, you’re not gonna collect on the ad spend because at that point you’re only getting your royalty Mm-Hmm. . And so it just makes it where, you know, for traditional publisher, you know, publish Also, this doesn’t really make sense or makes it difficult on Amazon ad spend unless you’re just doing it to kind of, again, get the book out there, get it in the hands of readers, knowing that word of mouth is eventually gonna be the thing that really makes it expand and grow.
RV (39:24):
Mm-Hmm. ,
MT (39:26):
But I don’t have any expertise on Amazon ads, so I can’t really be helpful in that area.
RV (39:31):
But when you run the ads, you just run, like you’re saying like a Facebook ad just directly to your book page to buy direct, like direct to consumer, check out, you know, here’s a shopping cart, put a credit card in. Mm-Hmm. . And, and then how do you, does the publisher mail those books out or do you have to buy your inventory from the publisher at wholesale and then like, put ’em at a warehouse or something and have them mail out? Like how do you deal with the mailing part of the direct sales?
MT (39:57):
Yeah, I buy them from the publisher. And so every couple of weeks I’ll just place an order just to kind of keep, you know, over time I know how many I’m pushing out or how many I’m selling. And so I’ll just have ’em send me the box sets. In our back bedroom, we’ve got a table set up, we’ve
RV (40:18):
Got Oh, so you send ’em from the house,
MT (40:20):
The boxes? Mm-Hmm. .
RV (40:21):
Got it. I’ve
MT (40:23):
Got the boxes. We, you know, I’ve run it on a Shopify site. Love it. I mean, it has just can’t say enough good about it. Just how it tracks things and how the shipping works and things like that. And so, yeah, so we get the orders, we print the orders, my wife boxes them up. Wow. Takes, you know, takes these daily runs down to the post office and it ships out.
RV (40:51):
Wow. Man, this has been so awesome, Mike. Thank you so much. I mean, just, it’s inspiring to hear the story, but actionable that it just to hear the, the strategies and it’s just, and I hope you feel how much of a difference it’s making. Like not just making money and like doing this cool art artistic expression, but just like, I mean, as a parent I go, I struggle so much. It’s, it’s really important to me to curate what my kids are reading, to just make sure they’re not being fed, you know, stuff that is gonna be crazy. And it’s a, it’s a really wonderful blend of what you put together here. And
MT (41:30):
No, I, I appreciate you telling me that because it’s tough as an author, a lot of times you’re, you’re kind of disconnected, you know, from the reader. And I remember early on, you know, just like getting up at five and doing these things and figuring out how to do the marketing, it’s just a task. I mean, it can turn into work and unless you have kind of that mission or that calling or, and believe that this book is actually going to make a difference, you know, that’s the thing that keeps you moving forward. And so at one point, you know, at some point along the way, you know, I started to receive the messages, you know, from parents and from kids. And when you see the transformation, it can help making people’s lives. You know, that’s what gives you the fuel to kind of, to keep for, you know, moving forward in those other tasks.
RV (42:20):
Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. Absolutely. Well so secret of the hidden scrolls.com, we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. Is that the best piece for people to go if they wanna stay connected with you?
MT (42:32):
Yes. Yes. And on the other side, on the book marketing side, I am in the midst of creating a course called Influencer Marketing for Authors. And so that course will probably be available in about two to three weeks. And so if you know someone watching this or some of your people, if they would like to do that course, if they go to roar book marketing.com there will be until it’s up, I’m gonna have, there’s like a little thing that could fill out for a presale and I’ll have a 50% discount offer.
RV (43:09):
Very cool. Very cool, Mike. Well keep it going brother. So nice to thank you. Spend time with you, appreciate all the wisdom and we wish you the best.
MT (43:19):
Thank you very much.

Ep 565: My Favorite Books from Last Year That You Need to Read This Year | AJ Vaden Episode Recap

AJV (00:01):
Hello and Happy New Year. We are in 2025. I don’t know exactly when you are listening to this, but this is being recorded in Q1 of 2025. And a part of what I wanted to do to help start the new year is share my top personal five most influential books that I read in 2024. And I did a full bulk recap episode, if you wanna go listen to this on the influential personal Brand podcast. But this is gonna be like a five minute Cliff notes version of what was the book, who was the author, and what was my favorite quote from the book, right? I did like a full 40 minute solo episode on why these books and why they were selected as the most influential books that I read in 2024. But today, what we’re gonna do to help start the new year, is to give you five of what I think are some of the most powerful books that you can read this year.
AJV (01:06):
And I’m gonna share the book, the author, and the most significant and impactful quote that I pulled out of the book after finishing it. So this will be short and sweet, but if you’re looking for a good new read or a good old read to put on your queue for 2025, then this is a very awesome list of five. I feel like life changing, business changing books that should be on every person’s read list. And if you’ve read them before, like I had for some of these, they need to be on your reread list. So here we go. First one, what got you Here won’t get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. And here was the pullout quote that I picked. No one changes by learning things they change by doing the things they’ve learned. And I feel like if we just take it up a level this entire book is about how to be better, how to be better as a person how to be better as a communicator as a leader.
AJV (02:11):
But it’s how to be better. And realizing that many of us find success by accident . Many of us got to where we are just by pure grit effort. And at some point there’s gotta be a, an elevation, a level up of realizing, hey, the systems and processes that got me here have to change to go to the next place. My availability schedule what I say yes to and what I say no to has to change. But then there’s also some more inherent things such as like the way that I lead, the way that I communicate the way that I, I would say in, in my opinion, the way that I learn and develop people around me. Like at some point it’s got to change if you want to go to that next level. So that was my first pick, is just this over this overhaul of this is a book about being better, being better as a company, an organization, a leader, and just a person.
AJV (03:12):
So that was pick number one. Pick number two was Take the Stairs by Rory Vaden. I know it’s a bias pick, but I had not read this book in 10 years, and I was so reminded of why this is a timeless should read every few years book for me and for you, right? So take the Terrace by Rory Vaden. This is not one of his pullout quotes that he would ever share, but this is what I took from this book. And this particular read, frustration happens in the absence of perspective, frustration happens in the absence of perspective. Now, this entire book is learning what makes you successful in life, right? It’s, it’s all about the things that you can do to be successful in life. And one of the things that I find is that perspective is one of the most important things that you need to be successful in life.
AJV (04:07):
It’s a perspective of do I have enough or is it never enough? Is it a perspective of my glass is half full or my glass is half empty, right? This is, this is a great reread for me about remembering that I get frustrated when I forget to look at how far I’ve come. I forget to be grateful for the people around me and for the gifts in my life. And if I can focus on the good, then the frustration seems to dissipate. And so that was why it was my pick is this, it’s an overall mindset. Reshift re not that re reset book a reshift of making sure that I start this new year. That you start this new year with a glass half full mentality because there is so much good. Yes, there’s hard, but there’s so much good. So that was a perspective shift book of why I recommended this one.
AJV (05:04):
The third one was a personal pick. It’s a Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. And my pullout quote from this book was, A good Marriage is not something you find, but something you work for, right? A lot of the books that I read are business or professional. But every so often, probably every couple months, I pick a really deeply personal one. And sacred Marriage is single handedly the best book on marriage I’ve ever read. I think every single person who is married or who’s about to be married, it should be a prerequisite for your relationship. But this was just a great reminder. To me it’s like great marriages, good marriages don’t just happen. They happen to have two people who are willing to work for it. And yes, it is work, and that’s okay. We don’t have to be afraid of hard work in any area of our life.
AJV (05:55):
Great rewards come from hard work. Like, think about it, it’s like, do you feel the best after you just had like a, I think about this all the time. Like, I feel so good after like a really hard workout, right? And it’s like, it’s like this hurt. So good feeling of like, man, like I could do that. Like, my goodness. Like look what I accomplished. The same thing happens in, in any victory, right? The harder it is, the sweeter it becomes. And I think marriage is a lot like that. Fourth book is the Go-Giver by Bob Berg, and here was my pullout quote, greatness is tied to service and anyone can be great because anyone can serve. And I love the Go-Giver because it is a book about the heart of service. It’s about how many people can you help versus how much money can you make.
AJV (06:49):
And the more people you can help, the more people you can impact, the more income you will have. But it’s a byproduct of loving people, well, serving people well and focusing on people not dollars, right? And so that was my, I guess, business motivation. I love it because it’s in that very story like setting. And I just, I think those are simple, easy reads that illustrate really important parts. And this particular book is a very easy audio read, 90 minutes. But one of those that it’s a complete shift of are you focused on people or are you focused on yourself? And highly recommend it. It’s one of those two that it is so short and it is so good. It could be a every year read. And then my last pick for 2024, these were, these were my five highlights of 2024 I’m recommending to you was Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guera.
AJV (07:46):
And my pullout quote from him is one that I have said probably 1000 times since I read this book, which is, nobody knows what they’re doing until they do it, right? I hear so often in personal and professional settings like, well, I’ve just never done that before. Well, great, go learn how to do it. I actually had this conversation this morning with a team member and they’re like, well, you’re just gonna have to walk me through it. I’ve never done it before. And I’m like, well, guess what? I’ve never done it either. So we’re just gonna have to figure it out. And that’s the truth about so many things in business. Nobody knows what they’re doing until they do it right. It’s the first time for so many people that are successful. It’s like, you know, it’s like you’ve never been a seven figure entrepreneur before until you’ve done it. It’s like you don’t know what to do. Or like, you know, it’s like nobody knows what they’re doing until they’ve done it. And that’s okay. That’s called learning. That’s called growth. But this whole idea of like, you have to know what you’re doing to go and do it. Like, if you really think about it, it’s like, how would you know what you’re doing until you actually did it? Like it, it actually doesn’t even make sense if you just sit there and have like a
AJV (08:54):
Very philosophical conversation of, of course you don’t know how to do it. You’ve never done it before and you won’t know how to do it until you go do it. You can only read so much and watch so much and shadow so much and listen so much. There’s only so much of that that you can actually learn. The best and fastest way to learn anything is to go and do it. It’s to stop the studying and just go do the thing. Now that’s different if you know, like you’re a brain surgeon, and I’m not saying that for everything, but in general business, it’s like, just go do it. You learn by doing it. Don’t be afraid to just put it out there and learn as you go. And I think that was, oh my gosh, probably the most repeated thing that I’ve said this year is like, well, nobody knows what they’re doing until they do it.
AJV (09:34):
Of course, you don’t know what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean you don’t do it. Right? And then I’m also gonna share a bonus quote from Will from this book, unreasonable Hospitality, because I think it’s gonna be like, one of my personal mantras in my family is make it cool to care. It’s cool to care like that should be on a t-shirt will you need bumper stickers and t-shirts. Make it cool to care, care about people, care about your team, care about your colleagues, care about your clients. Care about the stranger on the street. Care about the person who’s having a hard day care about the person who can’t pay for their coffee in front of you. Like care about people. Like if we just did that, like if it was our job to make caring, cool, think about how things would be different. Like think about how your business would be different.
AJV (10:22):
Like what if you said every single day, it’s like, how can I care for someone today? How many people can I care for today? And how can I make it the cool thing to do so that everyone that comes after me does it too? Right? Coolness is contagious. And if we can make caring, cool, then that makes caring contagious, right? So make it cool to care. Those are my five books, five authors, five pullout quotes from my favorite books that I read in 2024. Grab these, check them out and put ’em on your list for 2025.

Ep 564: My Most Influential Books from 2024 with AJ Vaden

AJV (00:01):
So for the last three years, one of the personal goals or commitments that I have made to myself was to read two books every month of the year. And I initially made that goal so that I had some accountability and deadlines. I’m a a highly deadline oriented person but one of the things that I really wanted to do is go, Hey, if I have extra time, I wanna be filling my mind with things that challenge me, grow me, make me think, make me better, versus potentially getting sucked into watching tv. I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m just saying it’s good to limit it. But I really wanted to kind of set these things of going like, Hey, if I have the time, this is what I wanna be doing. So 2024 was my third year doing this the first year I said, let’s, let’s just commit to reading one book a month.
AJV (00:54):
And then in 2023, I did two books a month. And then 2024, I did two books a month. And one of the things that I have found is at the end of the year, I do a reflection of, of all the books, 24 books that I read last year plus the Bible. So technically 25 what were the most influential books that had the biggest impact on me, the ones that I have found that I have put into daily practice the most, and ultimately the ones that become my evergreen recommendation. So when someone says, Hey, what’s a good book that you’ve read here lately? I pull up the note on my phone, I literally keep it right here, and I keep the list of all the books that I’ve read and why I think they’re so significant. And I go, okay, well, let me tell you the five most influential books that I read last year, and here’s why.
AJV (01:40):
So that’s what I’m gonna do for you today on this particular episode. So these were all books that I read in 2024. And these are gonna be my top picks. I think I, I think I’ve highlighted six. But these are my top books and why, and this is a great thing to be doing as we enter in a new year, as we’re kind of like in Q1 of 2025. So I know if this, that you’re listening to this sometime in the future, this is when we’re recording this for context, right, Q1 of 2025. But it would be good for you to go, man, what’s my reading goal this year? Like, what challenge do I wanna set out for myself? And what are the books that are out there that I wanna read? And I’ll tell you one other quick thing before we get started is that there are tens of thousands of books that are printed every single year, new books.
AJV (02:29):
There is so many opportunities to read amazing books and not so amazing books. And one of the policies that I have put in place is I only read a book once I have rather heard the author speak, I’ve listened to several of their podcasts, and I’m like, man, like that is someone I wanna learn from. Or they have just been so consistently referred to me that I’m like, okay, at this point how have I not read this book? And so I would would just say, for whatever it’s worth, not only do I recommend these books, but these are books that had been repeatedly recommended to me at the point of like, well, I have to put it on the list. I have heard these authors speak in person. I have read other pieces of their work. I have listened to countless interviews with them.
AJV (03:18):
But these were not first time introductions where I just went through Amazon or walked through Barnes and Noble and was like, you know, any mey mighty move that one. That is not how this happened. So these were already pretty pre-vetted before I put them on my queue. Right? So with all of that said let me get through this so that I don’t keep you here for the next three hours. The first one is Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guera. And we were fortunate enough to have Will Guera on our podcast, the Influential Personal Brand podcast. And so if you have not yet listened to that particular episode, Rory interviewed Will about a year ago and a phenomenal, phenomenal episode. And I, let me just kind of tell you why I picked Unreasonable Hospitality. And although Will comes from the hospitality industry, this is not a book for the hospitality industry.
AJV (04:15):
This is a book about how to bring hospitality into your industry no matter what you do. And I love it because it approaches hospitality on an individual level, like a personal level, as a leader, as a business owner, as a, a frontline employee, as someone who interacts with customers on a customer service, a sales, a a experiential level. But more importantly, what I love about this particular book is it is back to the roots of what does it mean to serve people well, whatever your job may be. And I love that it took the approach of the hospitality industry in this particular case a restaurant. ’cause It’s like, it does not matter if you’re the one busting tables taking phone calls and seeding people. You’re the one serving the food, cooking the food washing the dishes. Like there is a very interconnected, intertwined element of every restaurant, thus every business, thus every relationship where every role matters and one is not above the other.
AJV (05:22):
And they all connect into what is the client experience? What is the customer experience, and what is the employee experience? Right? I think on average, most adults are gonna spend 60% of their waking hours at work. Think about that for a second. Post school in your adult life, 60% of your time in going to be at your job with your colleagues, with your boss, you better pick something that you love and enjoy and do it with people that are more like friends and family than, you know, coworkers and colleagues. And I think that’s about the heart of this is, and how do you bring service into every element of what you do? How do you take pride and excellence in your role regardless of what your role is? It’s like it, you are the one taking out the trash. How can you be the best trash taker outer on the planet?
AJV (06:21):
I often get to play the role as trash taker outer at Brand Builders Group. We have a lot of live events, and it’s all hands on deck. And one of the things that I love about our team, it’s like, no one’s above taking out the trash. We’re gonna do it with a smile on our face. We’re gonna make sure it’s swift, we’re gonna make sure it’s clean, we’re gonna make sure it’s quiet. And it’s, and I think that is back to the heart of service. It’s like, how do we welcome people so that they feel invited and cared for? And this is an experiential book with so many tactical takeaways of how to do that as a leader, as a business owner as a, as a frontline employee of how do you go above and beyond? How do you just pay attention to your customers and your employees to do things that make them feel welcome, unreasonably welcome, right?
AJV (07:12):
And so that is why that was my first pick of 2024. In fact, we loved this book so much that we made it our mandatory book of the quarter in Q2 for our entire company to read. One of the things that we do at BBG is we have a Book of the Quarter Club. And out of all the books that Rory and I have read, we go through and say, which ones do we think are so important? They need to be, you know, more cemented into the cultural language that we talk about. And Unreasonable Hospitality was one of those books for us in 2024. So that was my first put my first pick and my first recap for you Will Gera Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s the art of bringing service back to your work. And it’s so, so good. I would also say, if you are are an audio listener, this is a great audio book, will has an amazing voice.
AJV (08:00):
But he’s got so much personality and charisma in his storytelling. It’s like, I found it very hard to want to hit pause because it was, it was one of those books where it’s like what’s gonna happen? Like, what’s, what’s next? Like, don’t leave me hanging. I wanna know what you did for that customer. I, I wanna know what they said. So it is also one of those books that I would just say, if you love audios, this is a great audio. Not all of my books are, I think great on audio, but this particular one was great. My second pick is a personal pick. I have read a lot of books on relationships and marriage. Rory and I are about to celebrate 15 years of marriage this year in 2025, which is so awesome. And I love him more today than I did the day we got married, which I think is the biggest win.
AJV (08:48):
But this by far was the best book on marriage that I have ever read. And it’s rare that Rory gets on the bandwagon and reads a book with me. But I was talking about this book so incessantly that he was like, okay, okay, I think I’m gonna read this too. Now he also read Unreasonable Hospitality, but this is one of those personal pics that he was like, man, like I need to read that. So here it is, sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. And here is why I think this book is really important now. Yes. Is it about the, the, the marriage covenant? Is it about husband and wife? Yes. but I would just say for anyone who is married, who is engaged to be married, who wants to be married one day this, this is a great book for the context of what is marriage?
AJV (09:40):
What does it mean to be a good partner in marriage? What are ways to uphold the relationship in a way that, you know, similar to unusable hospitality in a way that serves your spouse? And I think this was a really good book an inner look at what is the point of marriage. Now, for those of you listening to me that know me, like, you know, my background is very faith heavy. I am a, a strong believer. And I do believe that like marriage is like the marriage covenant under God. And one of the things that I found was really amazing is that what I loved about this book that was different than every other book was this is not a communication book. This is not a, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Let’s talk about our differences.
AJV (10:26):
Even though clearly there are lots of personality, inherent traits, differences biological, cultural, all the things, right? Clearly men and women are extremely different. But what I loved about this book is the whole point is like, marriage is not meant to make you happy. Marriage is meant to make you holy. And through the lens of that, it’s like how do you look at the context of your marriage as this relationship with another human being? Right? My husband of going, this isn’t like about me de my happiness depending on what he does for the marriage or what even I do. It’s like, how is this relationship making me a better human being in light of God? Right? So it is a faith heavy book. I’ll put that up there for all of you who, who are like, no, that’s not for me. Totally right. Fine. Just want to let you know upfront.
AJV (11:19):
But in terms of where, I think this was one of the strongest marriage books I’ve ever read, was the inherent focus on what is the goal and purpose of marriage. And I think that, at least for me and my upbringing of how, like even how I went through premarital counseling and getting married, being married, I have never ever heard anyone talk about it this way of like, the challenges are not meant to separate you. It’s to grow. You and I, I’ve heard this a million times and I do believe it to be inherently true. It’s like growth happens in the challenges and that’s no different in marriage. I’ve heard people say to me before, man, it’s just not supposed to be this hard. Says who? . Like, who said relationships weren’t supposed to be hard? Who said marriage wasn’t hard? Like marriage is hard.
AJV (12:09):
Parenting is hard. Being in business is hard. Sales is hard. Like there are hard things, but we can do hard things. I think it’s the attitude and the commitment and the loyalty and the pro we take to doing hard things. And marriage is a, it’s a, an act of obedience and discipline. And I had never looked at it that way before. And it was a very good thing to go like, how do I keep myself in check of not putting my happiness on Roy’s to-do list? But it’s like, no, like this, this is, this is more of a test of my own endurance of like, can I run the race that’s been given to me with who I chose to run the race, which was my husband? And that doesn’t mean every day is perfect most certainly is not. But at the end of every day, it’s like I can genuinely through a new lens, look at my marriage and look at my husband and go, man, I’m so grateful that you are mine and that I am yours.
AJV (13:07):
And I think a lot of that self-talk and that appreciation came through the lens of this book. And that by itself has strengthened our marriage and my per my personal take on marriage and the way I approach disagreements or household tasks or anything like that really shifted through the pages of this book. So that, that was my second pick, A personal pick for the year, but Sacred Ga Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. All right. Next one, I have I have my little list here of all the ones that I picked out. The next one I picked, sorry, I’m looking through all of these this is an oldie but a goodie, which was the Go-Giver by Bob Berg. Again, super great audio read, you can knock it out and probably a daily commute. It’s about a 90 minute read.
AJV (14:02):
It is extremely short, and it is very what I would say anecdotal in its nature. It’s very like chocked for chocked full of a story. And here’s what I love about this book, and it’s actually one of the books that we’ve picked to be one of our books of the Quarter for 2025 for our team at Brand Builders Group is the Go Giver is all about the lessons you learn through relationships and removing perceptions removing what I would say would be expectations that you have on other people. And there are five laws that you learn in this book, and I’m gonna give them to you in a quick recap. It’s the law of value, which is what you give versus what you take. It’s the law of compensation, which is all about how well can you serve.
AJV (14:52):
It’s about the law of influence with putting others above you and ahead of you. It’s about the law of authenticity being true, being true, honest to yourself. And it’s the law of receptivity. How open are you to accepting what people have to give to you? And it was through these five laws, and they each come with a different encounter and a different individual and a different anecdotal story all through, like the same main character. And I loved this book so much for two main reasons. One, if you’re listening to this, have you ever had the thought, what’s in it for me? And let’s just be honest. We’ve all had that thought. Likely by the time that you listen to this today, you have already had that thought. I have already actually even said those words, I think to my husband. He was telling me about something he was gonna do, and I was like, well, what’s in it for you?
AJV (15:48):
And I literally like, had to bite my tongue and catch myself and be like, oh my gosh. Like, it doesn’t have to be, there doesn’t have to be anything in it for you to do it, right? And I think that’s the, the heart of this book. It’s like, are you doing it to be of service? Are you doing it to get something in return? And that approach to relationships and to business is absolutely vital. And at some point, it’s the, the truth of it sneaks through, right? And I think it’s a really important book and approach of how people do business and how they build business relationships, right? And I I love what the book talks about. I said, the three fundamentals of why you work are to survive, to save and to serve, right? Those are the three fundamentals of work, right?
AJV (16:37):
Survival, right? You gotta pay your bills, buy food, pay for shelter, right? But then it’s to save so that you have some surplus for retirement or for vacations, or whatever you’re gonna use it for. But then it’s to serve like we work to serve people. That is a part of what we do, regardless if we view it that way or not. And I think this was a really great book on each one of those elements. And one of the things that I love is this entire book back to the, the Law of Compensation is your income is directly tied to how many people that you can touch, how many people you can impact, right? And if you look at it through the lens of that, it’s like, if you go, how many people can I serve today? How many people can I help?
AJV (17:21):
How many people can I impact? Not how much money can I make, right? Not as well. What can I, you know, make in a salary or a bonus or a commission, or how do I make more money? It’s how do I serve more people? How can I impact more people? How can I help more people? And if you just went through every single day of like, all right, here’s my goal of helping this many people today. If you just shifted from, man, I need to make this much money to, I need to help this many people, how much money, how much more money would you make in 2025? And that is why it’s one of my recommendations for 2025, is it’s a perspective shift of not how much money can I make or how much money can I save? It’s how many people can you help?
AJV (18:07):
And if you focus on helping people, I have no doubt you will make more money. But if you always focus on making more money and not helping people, it, at some point, it’s just going to burn you out. It’s exhausting. And you’ll likely not hit those goals at the speed that you would like, but if you focus on helping people, you’ll likely hit them faster and you’ll hit, you’ll exceed them faster as well. So Go-Giver by Bob Berg. That is my third recommendation from books that I read last year. Alright, the fourth one. And listen yes, I’m aware that this might be biased, but this was also one of our books of the quarter in 2024. And it, again, it’s an oldie, but it’s a goodie. This particular book has been out for more than 10 years. And it’s Take the Stairs and it was written by the one and only Rory Vaden.
AJV (19:04):
But here’s why it made my list. You know, I’m just gonna be honest, it’s been about 10 years since I read this book, right? I read it, helped edit it clearly read it again when the book came out, and my husband wrote it. But it also has been a decade. And we picked this book to read because we are embarking on our new book that Rory and I have written together that we are launching later this year, this, this summer. And one of the things that we wanted our team to do is go back and read the very first book that Rory wrote in preparation to be like, okay, what’s it gonna be like for this entire team to do a new book launch this year? And I reread it, and I was reminded of how good this book is and how timeless the principles are, and how evergreen the truths are.
AJV (19:57):
And I actually listened to most of this book with my kids in the backseat. So they could listen to their daddy talk about discipline and success and time and faith and action. And it’s, it was fascinating for my kids to pick up on these little things. And it just was such a great reminder to me that not only is this a great book, it it’s a book for all ages. Like, there is nothing about this book that did not apply to my 5-year-old and 7-year-old, that what doesn’t also apply to me in my life. It’s do I have faith? Do I believe that things will eventually work out for my good, right? Regardless of how hard today is do I believe that discipline is important and necessary for my success and my personal and professional life? And what does discipline mean?
AJV (20:53):
Do I believe that there is a there’s an onus on me to take action and not wait around for other people to do things for me, not wait around for it to show up on my doorstep on a silver platter before I go and do something, right? Am I willing to take action and do something before I’m ready to do it? And is there reward in the action versus being perfectly ready? Right? Those are, those are some of the things. But also what my kids really latched onto was this story that my husband talked about called Mr. M, which is a little guy who sits on your shoulder and m stands for mediocrity mediocrity. And this, this little guy who sits on your shoulder, Mr. M is the one who whispers in your ear. You can’t do that.
AJV (21:38):
You’re not smart enough for that. You, you don’t have enough experience. You’re too young, you’re too old. You’ve never done that before. It’s that little mediocrity monger who whispers in your wi your ear. You can’t, you’re not enough. This isn’t for you. This is for somebody better than you. And that’s what my kids latched onto. And quite honestly, it’s what I latched onto. And it was the power of do you have a management system over your words and your thoughts? And this is where I spent most of my time reminiscing about the book and talking about this book with my kids. I ended up also talking a lot about this with our team of how often do we hear it’s like, well, I just don’t have time for that. I just can’t take that on. Like, there’s not enough hours in the day to do that.
AJV (22:29):
Like, that’s too much for me. And here’s what I keep telling my kids, and here’s what I tell our team, and here’s what I’m gonna tell you. Whatever you believe is true, and whatever you tell yourself the most is what you believe. I’m gonna say that again. Whatever you tell yourself the most is what you believe. And whatever you believe is true, if you believe that you can’t because you’ve been telling yourself I can’t for the last 10 years, then magically you can’t. Right? For some reason, other people can, but you can’t. That that is not because that’s true. No one else has more minutes in the hour or hours in the day than you do. We all have the same, some of us have just said, I can do it anyway. Right? We all have things vying for our tension and more than we can manage in most cases, between the different social platforms and family commitments and work commitments and technology distracting us from our, like distracting us and taking our attention. Like we could all sit here and go, there’s just too much to be done in a day. Or there, there’s a difference saying, which is, I choose where I spend my time.
AJV (23:59):
I mean, that’s it, right? It’s, it’s, it is a difference in going, this is where I choose to spend my time, versus, oh, I just can’t fit it all in, right? It, it, it’s the exact same thing. It’s like, no, that just means you have to say no to some things because you have chosen that other things are of more significance at this time, at this season of your life. And those are all mental choices that we get to make. That’s a discipline, that’s an obedience. That that’s also a faith element of going, I believe that this thing is right for me. But I just thought it was just so important in this particular book to go back and, and re harness the power of our thoughts and our words and what we say to ourself, and how that becomes our actions and our beliefs and ultimately our reality.
AJV (24:45):
And now, that’s not the whole essence of take the stairs, but it’s why it made the list. And my favorite quote that I don’t even remember reading in this book, I don’t even recall Rory ever mentioning this in a keynote, which I have heard hundreds of times over the years, but this was the number one quote that stuck out in this particular time, reading the book, right? Different season of life, different season of business. But this was the quote that stuck out to me that I’m gonna share with you. Frustration only happens in the absence of perspective. Frustration only happens in the absence of perspective. Now, perhaps this stuck out to me at the season of life because I say the words, I’m so frustrated on a daily basis with everything going on or perhaps that that was just the message that I needed to hear in this particular book.
AJV (25:40):
But that was something that I thought was really powerful because I think I hear a lot of people say, I’m just frustrated that I’m not where I thought I would be. I’m, I’m frustrated. Things aren’t going faster. I’m frustrating. This isn’t working the way that I want to, or it didn’t happen this way. I’m just frustrated and I hear those words so often. And I think that that also ties into that is Mr. M, Mr. Mediocrity, Mr. Mediocrity, that sits on your shoulder telling you the untruths, right? Being frustrated is a, a choice. When we don’t have perspective, it’s the other option to going. No. Like, there’s perspective here of like, and, and maybe it’s not going as fast as you want, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t progressed. And it’s a choice of going, am I, am I happy with progress?
AJV (26:30):
Am or am I dissatisfied with the lack of speed? And those are just, those are perspective shifts. And I think it was a really good review for me at least to go. It’s like, where am I missing perspective? Like, where am I not paying attention to all the progress and all the good, and I’m only focused on all the lack of progress and all the bad, right? So all of those things combined was really that internal mindset general inspiration book that made my number four pick for 2024, which was Take the Stairs by Rory Vaden. And then not well, I mean, gosh, if I’m going through these, there’s, there’s like five more that I probably could pick. But this is, this is the last one that I’m gonna pick and I’m gonna share with you. I forgot I had highlighted so many as I’m reading back here, the last one that I picked is What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith.
AJV (27:32):
I think this is one of those timeless reads that I will probably make a habit to go back and read if not every year, every couple of years. I think that this is a, a really important read for anyone who has gotten to a point where they’re like, okay, I know what got me here won’t get me there. And that could be a personal or professional endeavors. But I think that at some point, whether it’s one year, three year, five year, 10 years doing something, the things that you started with eventually have to change and evolve and elevate. That includes systems, processes, people business models, prices. At some point, things have to change for you to keep growing, right? And I, I think it’s a really, really important book as people are stepping into what I would say a level up kind of mentality.
AJV (28:29):
Like they’re ready to up level, they’re ready to take it to the next level, whatever, you know, phrase you wanna use there. But this was a, this was a book that I thought was really, really important because it focuses on the things that you can do that are super simple. And I, and I loved so much of that. Like, I thought it was so important, just the importance of listening and, and, and gratitude and, and some of those best practices. And I think it was also really important to talk so much as I think in business we talk so much about what we should do, and we don’t talk enough about what we shouldn’t do, right? And I, I love this in this book, is that we have to talk about what we have to stop doing as much as we have to talk about what we need to start doing.
AJV (29:20):
And I think that as an organization and, and being, you know, my previous life, a consultant to a lot of organizations, there’s a lot of talk around, well, this is what we’re going to do. There’s not a lot of talk about, this is what we’re not going to do. This is what we need to stop doing as an organization or as an individual. But that’s a really important part of this, right? If we’re only talking about all the things that we’re gonna start doing or all the things that we are doing, then we’re leaving out a huge category of things. And hey, there’s also some things that organizationally speaking, categorically speaking, we don’t do. And I feel like that is a missing part of the puzzle. That if you are listening to this and you’re going, man, I wonder if we have a culture problem or a communication problem or a collaboration part problem, or if you’ve ever said, it feels like the right hand and the left hand don’t know what they’re doing, it’s probably because you’ve been focusing on just one part of that.
AJV (30:15):
Maybe you’re a part of a, a team that only talks about what we’re not gonna do, and you need to spend more time talking about what you are gonna do. But I find more often, specifically in the newer parts of the year and the early parts of the year, it’s a lot more conversation around, these are all the things we’re gonna do this year, and there’s not a lot of talk about, and this is what we’re not gonna do this year. Both are equally important for clarity, communication, collaboration, and culture, the four C’s, right? Clarity, communication, collaboration and culture. And you need to both know what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do as an individual, a team, a company, you know, whatever it is that you wanna be. But I think that’s a, a really, really, really important thing.
AJV (31:02):
So there’s a feedback matrix that they share and that Marshall shares in the book, and it’s like, what do you stop doing? What do you start doing? What do you need to do less of? And what do you need to do more of? Right? So high level, that would be a very quick thing that you can just go back is a feedback perspective on, man, what are we doing as an organization? It’s like, what do you need to stop doing? What do you need to start doing? What do you need to do less of? And what do you need to do more of very simple components to help you take like a holistic perspective. I mentioned earlier that I loved that there was such a huge part of this book about listening. One of the things that I discovered about myself in this book is that I need to be a better listener.
AJV (31:47):
If you would’ve asked me before this book, aj, are you a are you a good listener? I would’ve said, yeah, I’m a great listener. I listen all the time. After reading this book, I’d be like, Ooh, that might be an area of weakness for me. And he goes through this entire checklist of, are you constantly thinking in your mind what you’re gonna say as the other person is talking? If so, you’re not such a great listener. Are you constantly interrupting to get your thought in? If so, you’re not such a great listener. Are you constantly counteracting like, well, that’s not true in your mind. You’re not such a great listener, and then this is the one that hit me. Are you constantly finishing other people’s sentences? And if so, maybe you’re not the great listener that you thought you were. And I caught myself going, man, I, I think I do interrupt too often.
AJV (32:37):
I, I think I do try to finish sentences too much. And I went through and I shared this with Rory, and he just laughed out loud. And I was like, okay, well, that was probably the confirmation that I needed there. Like, this is, this is an actual goal of mine this year. This is a commitment to myself as I’m going to be a better listener. And again, we’ve probably all been taught this before, but I thought this was a really important skillset to get back to, which is simply think before you speak. Like, and so, like one of the goals that I’ve had for myself, as soon as someone’s done talking, I’m gonna let there be a nice pause before I speak. And I practiced this yesterday in a conversation, and after this individual was done sharing their thoughts I just paused and I said, is there anything else? And they said, no. And I said, okay.
AJV (33:33):
And then I said, okay, let, let me share my response. That is not typically my mo in that, but it was so helpful to them to be like, wait, is there anything else? No, I’m not that. I had a little pause because I needed to, to get my thoughts. Then I proceeded. And I have found that that’s so easy. It’s easier for me to do in, in-person conversations, but I’m trying to do the exact same thing in written communication. And if I don’t have a good clear response during some written communication, I’m just saying, Hey, I, I’ve seen this and I’ll get back to you. This was actually some feedback that was given to me because I didn’t do that. I saw the message. I knew I wasn’t ready to respond to it, so I just didn’t respond. And the feedback I got was, Hey, that was, felt really inconsiderate.
AJV (34:24):
That was like a really important message I sent. And then you just didn’t respond. And I was like, yeah, I was gathering my thoughts. They said, well, that would’ve been just good to know. And I said, oh, good, good feedback there. So now I’m just saying, Hey, I have received your message. I’ll be back to a response in the next couple of days. And it’s because I actually need the time to sit and listen. And even though they weren’t talking, it was in writing, I was still listening. And I think that these are just little things that make communication and collaboration and culture so much better because you have more clarity. So if you have never read this book, I highly recommend what got you here won’t get you there. Again, doesn’t matter if you are in any position in a company leader frontline, employee, owner, it doesn’t matter.
AJV (35:15):
It is for you. And I also think that this is one of those books where it hits some of the most practical things, like listening and saying thank you and giving feedback and receiving feedback but then also brings it up on a higher level as well. So it’s, it’s very into the weeds with like, here are things you can do, here are checklists, here are reminders, here are best practices, as well as some of the higher overview stuff that I think is really, really, really important. Here’s, and here’s again, I’m trying to like do some pull out quotes from each of these. And here’s what I would say this is one of my favorite quotes from this book. No one, and this is not a direct quote, this is my interpretation of the quote, so don’t cite me. No one changes by learning things.
AJV (36:07):
They only change by doing the things they’ve learned. And I think that’s also a great quote to end my book recap for 2024. Because here’s what I have found about people who do read and go to a lot of classes and seminars and sign up for courses and programs. And I think all of those things are good. The question is, but are you doing anything with what you’ve learned? It’s one thing to say, Hey, I read 24 books last year. It’s another thing to go in. Here’s what I learned and I’ve implemented from every single book that I’ve read now, I’m not gonna be able to implement every single thing that I jotted down in my notes from every single book. What my goal has been in this process in the last few years is what’s the one thing that I need to take from this particular book and put into action in my life?
AJV (37:00):
What is the one thing? And so for this book, right, what got you here won’t get you there. It was listening. Like, I took that to heart and said like, I have had an aha moment. I need to improve my listening skills in a, in a very important way to be a better communicator, a better leader, a better friend, a better spouse. But that was like my one thing I took away. And one of the things that I find is that if, if you as a reader can just take a moment of reflection at the end of every book and go out of everything that I’ve read, all the quotes, all the things, what’s the one thing that I’m gonna put into practice? And really try to make it one, that doesn’t mean you can’t do more, just highlight one. Then you’re not just learning things, you’re actually doing things. And that’s what creates change. Learning things does not create change. Doing the things that you’ve learned is what creates change. So regardless, if you go and read any of these books that I read last year I would say whatever books or whatever podcasts that you listen to or read this year or whatever coaching programs or courses that you participate in, ask yourself, what’s the one thing that I can actually start doing to create real change in my life?

Ep 563: Three Keys to Speaking Success | Lesley Logan Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. There are three key components to a world class presentation, and most people don’t even know what they are. So let me walk you through it. The first one is your content. The content of your presentation is the base. The second one is the charisma, and the third one is the circumstance. I’m gonna explain each of ’em to you in detail. So first, there is the content. The content is the basis of your presentation, no matter how funny you are, and no matter how inspiring you are, if your content is lame, it’s not gonna be an amazing presentation.
RV (01:14):
People will say, oh, that person was really funny, or They were really entertaining, but it didn’t change my life. And no one’s gonna invite you to come speak or hire you or recommend you. Beyond that, typically. So how do you make great content? Well, the way you make great content is to forward the thinking that’s already been done. So content is about having a clear message and making sure that the, the people in your audience know exactly what to do when they’re done hearing you, and that you share a balance of stories and education, what we would call frameworks, visuals, charts, tables, illustrations that help emphasize the point that you’re making. And in a perfect world, it’s original thought leadership, accompanied by what we call pillar points that are written by you, these catchphrases that you made up that no one has ever heard because they came from your mind.
RV (02:09):
The second part of a great presentation is charisma. It has to do with your delivery. How funny are you? How inspiring are you? How engaging are you? Being a masterful storyteller is one of the most important skills of charisma. Also, learning how to use the stage, learning the psychology of laughter, and how to tell jokes. Learning how to use your voice to command the audience. Learning how to use gestures, learning the, the mastery of the mechanics, of the professional trade of speaking. By the way, if you ever want to learn more about coaching with our team on how to be a better presenter, just click on the link around this video and I’ll set you up with a free call with one of our strategists. Third part of a great presentation is the circumstance, and this is the one that almost nobody knows about or thinks about.
RV (03:01):
The setup of the room in which you are speaking has a tremendous amount to do with the experience of that event. It is one third of the power of that experience, and that presentation is dependent upon the circumstances of the room. Now, when we talk about circumstance, we’re talking about lots of things like how close is the stage to the first row of the audience. The further the distance, the stages from the audience, the less connection you have, the less intimate the experience will be. It also includes things like the height of the ceiling. The more space there is between the tops of the heads of the people and where the ceiling is, the more energy that is lost and absorbed into empty space, rather than having that energy transmitted through the audience, creating a powerful experience. Also, the space between people in the room, right?
RV (03:57):
If you have a room of a thousand people and only a hundred are there and they’re all spread out, that’s gonna create a less than desirable experience. Other things include the time of day. The, the earlier you speak in the morning, if you speak very early, sometimes people aren’t awake yet, or sometimes they’re hungover, or if it’s late at night, they’re just thinking about going to bed, or maybe they’re thinking about going to the bar. So the time of day that you speak matters a lot. And then also who’s in the audience? Believe it or not, female audiences laugh a lot more than male audiences. So if you’re ever in front of an all male audience and you don’t get a lot of laughter or engagement, don’t be alarmed by that. That’s perfectly normal and typical for most all male audiences. All female audiences are my favorite.
RV (04:44):
Put me in front of an arena of 10,000 women at a direct sales conference, and we will literally make the walls shake with laughter and fun and have an awesome time. How well do the people in the room know each other and how well do they feel connected to each other? Has a lot to do with the power of the experience. The closer they are to one another, the more impactful the presentation tends to be. The more that they are strangers or feel only distantly connected, the harder it is for you to connect with them. All of these elements are related to circumstance which affect the connection you have with the room. So these three elements, the content, your charisma, and the circumstances of the setup determine the connection that you have with the audience. The more you maximize each of these three areas, the stronger the connection.
RV (05:36):
The more powerful the experience, the less effective you are at maximizing each of these three areas. The lower the connection will be and the lesser the overall experience for the audience. So if you want to have an amazing presentation, you first have to have amazing content, but content alone is not enough. You wanna layer on top of that the secrets of charisma. This is some of the things that we help people do for a living. It’s being charming and engaging and inspiring and motivating and entertaining and funny and, and touching people emotionally. But then also it’s controlling the circumstances, setting up the environment, do those three things, and I promise your presentations will go to a whole new level.

Ep 562: How to Sell Out Live Event Tours with Lesley Logan

RV (00:02):
It’s one of my favorite things when one of the people that we get a chance to teach becomes one of the people that we get to learn from. And that’s what’s gonna happen today with my dear friend Leslie Logan. She has been a long time brand builder. She was a, a brand builder for years, and we absolutely adore her and her husband. And she is one of the world’s leading experts, if not the world’s leading expert on Pilates and how Pilates changes your life. So she’s the, the Chief Pilates [email protected]. She has taught thousands of students, trained hundreds of Pilates teachers, led dozens of workshops at global conferences. We’ve had her do stuff at BBG. She’s done stuff for the Associated Press. She’s been featured in Sports Illustrated LA Magazine. She’s been on Fox and CBS and KTLA. She also has certifications in trauma informed breath work mindset, habits, coaching, and a number of things sort of just related to health and, and physical health and mental health overall.
RV (01:06):
I think but the reason that I invited Leslie to come on the show is there’s a piece of her business model that is doing live event tours. And that is something that we haven’t talked a lot about on this show and is actually a big part of how when we launched Take the Stairs, we don’t tear this, we don’t tell the story very often, but one of the ways that we launched the Take the Stairs book was we did a 23 City nationwide tour. And I really haven’t had anyone else talk about it. And so I was like, oh my gosh, Leslie, you gotta share what you are doing. And anyways, Leslie, welcome, welcome to the show.
LL (01:50):
Oh, Roy, thanks so much for having me. And I love that you did a 23 city tour. We’re about to do one, and I think that this is hopefully gives people some ideas on how they can get themselves out there without waiting for someone to ask them to come to their, to their stage.
RV (02:04):
Yeah, I love that. And it’s, ’cause you know, when, when you think about, all right, how do I monetize a personal brand? You, you know, there’s like or, or, or just how do I get traffic and awareness for what I’m doing? There’s sort of like the online world, which is ads and webinars and funnels and social media and podcasting and YouTube and all, all things that can work and do work if you know how to do them right. And then there’s sort of like you know, this offline world of like hand to hand sales and referrals and there’s that, and then there’s speaking and speaking at events. But when you’re first starting out, you go, nobody’s really calling you, inviting you to speak, and you’re not famous. They’re not paying you to come speak on their stages. And so the idea of building your own stage, building your own event is so powerful.
RV (02:57):
And, and that is what we did with Take the Stairs. We had a tour bus actually, and, and, and did it. But even before that, when we started our first company, we were early twenties, nobody was paying us to come like teach our, our, our pearls of wisdom. And so we were doing our own events, we were doing public seminars and we would sell tickets to them. So, but a completely different vertical from you. So tell me, what are you doing? Like how many years have you done this exactly? What do you call them? And just like, tell me what the, what the big strategy is here?
LL (03:33):
Yeah, so originally I don’t even know what I, what I thought the strategy would be, but I was actually in like one of the first coaches I ever hired as dear friends of yours, I’m sure. ’cause That’s how I heard about you was Brad and I were in Rory and Lori Harder, and Chris Harder’s like fast Foundations group for like newish entrepreneurs. And someone asked a question like, we wanna go on a book tour. And I just wrote down, how do I go on a book tour , I don’t have a book, so what would that look like? And that Christmas, so a month later we were driving across the country to go home for the holidays. And I promise this story has a, an an ending to it, y’all. But I had, I had been traveling to teach retreats and teach workshops all over the world.
LL (04:17):
We’d done 145,000 miles that year. And I was like, I just, there’s, I’m not , I’m not gonna get on a plane domestic during the holidays if you’ve done domestic during the holidays, you know what I mean? And so we went on a road trip and people were like, oh, are you teaching? Like they, I was just posting like, Hey, we’re getting lunch in St. Louis, like, oh, are you teaching? And I was like, oh, this is how I can go on a book tour. Hmm. So what we did is, anyone who asked me if I was teaching, we reached out and said, Hey, we’re gonna do this again. And our first tour started in 2019, and we had eight cities and we, it was the, I mean, it was just Brad and I and like our assistant trying to like, put together events and finding locations that would let us teach.
LL (04:57):
Ideally not charging us our rent. And then we put tickets online and then we sold them and we did it through those events were like just people who were big fans of us who wanted us to come. And we also hit cities that people just don’t go to. Like a lot of big huge events happen in the big cities, but no one is going to these smaller cities to do an event. We actually did a stop in Nashville on our first tour, and we had 25 people there. And and so that’s kind of how it started. And then because of that first year, people want us to do it again. So the next year, obviously 2020, we didn’t do it, but in 2021 we were able to do it again. 2022 got bigger, we got sponsors in 2023, and we can talk more about that. And then 2023 is also our first year we did two tours. We did a summer tour and a winter tour. And this year in 2024, we did a, a summer tour. We were about to adore our winter tour, and they just keep getting bigger each time we do it. And we’ve gotten more sponsors to join in on the fun.
RV (05:54):
Nice. This is so cool. And it’s so simple and everybody is like, there’s so many people that are waiting for like, someone to wave a magic wand and say, you deserve to speak at my event or my company or my association, not realizing you can wave your own wand, build your own freaking event and do it the way you want it. So I wanna talk about the venue. Okay. So you, you, you, you know, you talked about the Cali City selection. It’s funny that when we did our tour, we were getting like 50 to 75 people every night. But then, like we were selling, 50% of the audience was buying, were buying books, and many people were buying more than one book. The biggest event we had was like 450 people, and it was in Salina, Kansas. Like
LL (06:37):
I’ve been, I’ve taught near Salina. I know that well,
RV (06:40):
It, it, it was crazy because it was like we went to LA and Atlanta and like these places and it was the smaller cities where people totally showed up. So that’s interesting about the location selection, but I, I found that the, the key to the whole thing was getting the venue and like you said, is going a place that will host it and not charge you or not charge you much. How did you go about doing that? Like how did you find the location?
LL (07:13):
Yeah, so in the beginning we had to really rely, and we still do this to an extent, we rely on the, the local person who is like excited for us to come. And so we used our members, so on, on OPC with members all over, we use our members like, Hey, we wanna come to your place. We wanna see you in person. Do you have the location? Do you know someone who does? So we are able to find hosts in each city to kind of be the ambassador of that city. And they either found us a, we use their space or they found us a space that was rent free or because we actually do a rev share with all of our hosts because it helps us, like, yes, we could, we could spend money on ads, but that cuts into all the margins.
LL (07:55):
And to be completely honest, like we try not to do ads unless we really, really need to. And what we found is we usually have to do ads when it’s a big city. Like you’d be surprised at how hard it’s for me to sell Los Angeles when I lived there for 14 years. Mm-Hmm. versus Kansas City , you know, and I’ve never been like so and so what we, we do is we, we rely on, on, on the person who’s on the ground there. Obviously that’s an option we have based on using our members. And then we will do a rev share with the host. So we actually, for a class we pay per head. And then for a workshop we actually pay more. So the reason we pay more in the workshop is when we can charge a little bit more in the workshop, but also those are a little harder to sell because of the price points we want the
RV (08:38):
Person in direction. What’s the difference between a class and a workshop and yeah’s the prices?
LL (08:42):
Yeah. So the classes range from 25 to $45 a person and a class could, because a class could have 30 people in a mat class or an equipment class might be limited to the amount of pieces of equipment that a studio has. Usually 12 or 14. So we don’t pay a ton on those. Also, people of all levels and, and Pilates can come ’em to a class will or will come to a class, they’re like, oh, I wanna learn from this teacher, or someone tells me that they should come and they’ll come where a workshop that’s limited to someone who’s super dedicated. So that’s just like people who pay for coaching, that’s a, there’s a small percentage of people who are like, yep, I’m gonna invest in that. Gotcha. So the price point on those, we try to keep around one 50 because again, I want as to be as accessible as possible, but it’s obviously going to limit some Pilates levers are not going to pay that kind of investment.
LL (09:33):
So we do our payer hosts more for a workshop, and that is to encourage more sales. ’cause There’s a bigger tire ticket on those. And it works well for everybody. We’ve had hosts, we paid out $1,600 because they sold out all of their events that was in Boston last, last winter. Don’t tell me people don’t do things on December 14th, you guys, we sold out all three events in Boston. So, so that’s how we find locations. Now we have done some that are like public, like in Scottsdale there’s this really cool container park and they had heated it was, it’s an outdoor indoor kind of a thing. So all the walls are containers, all the stores are containers, but you’re kind of outside. But they had those like heated lamps and we did a, a New Year’s Eve class in Scottsdale, outside Cool. With heaters on. Yeah. So they were just like, yeah, you can just use the space because you’re promoting it. So that’s another thing you can do is we are promoting every stop that we go to. So every location is getting social media promo, they’re getting email promos, they’re on the app. So if you can leverage how much promotion each stop is gonna get, there’s something in it for them as well. ’cause Their, their name is getting out there. You just have to actually make sure that you do that. Mm-Hmm. .
RV (10:44):
Mm-Hmm. yep. So I, I love that. So then, and, and you’re saying if you do a workshop, it’s like $150 and you can have how many people come?
LL (10:58):
Yeah, so for the workshops, we we’ll do two to three people per piece of equipment. So I can have up to 30 people, which is why we don’t always have, like, I don’t think I’ll ever have a hundred percent sellout of tickets because the workshops can have often have even more people than a class just because of limitations on space where on a workshop people can be standing so I can have more people on a workshop than in a class. And that’s that we deep dive on a topic that would be like, if you were a, a breath work presenter and you did a breath work class, but then you did a workshop on like the importance of, of doing belly breaths or a lateral, like you could find something to be nuanced and then teach people who wanna go even deeper on a topic.
LL (11:40):
And that’s what we do. And here’s what’s so cool is at every event, because they’re not a hundred person, of course, of, although I’m sure I could, I could figure out a way to do like a wanderlust version of this and make them the venues even bigger. And that would be super, super cool. And we are trying to figure out things with our sponsors on that. But what is cool about these intimate settings is they have, they’re with us for an hour to three hours in a day, and we actually get to talk to them about our other stuff that we don’t promote so much because we, you know, you’ve talked about it, you like, you don’t wanna confuse people. You gotta make sure that you’re really specific what you do. So we try really, really hard to promote Pilates and OPC as much as possible, but at these events, we can actually talk to ’em about the retreats that we offer and we can talk to ’em about my mentorship program. And so we actually sell out our higher ticket stuff from these smaller events that are in person without ever having to market them.
RV (12:32):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, it’s just basically paid. That’s what speaking is. I mean, live events is, you know, I call it speaking in my world, right? I’m not doing Pilates, I’m not, I’m not doing that. But the, it’s like paid prospecting. I mean, you’re getting, you’re, you’re finding a way to pay to be there, but really you’re just forming a deep bond with these people and then the opportunity to go, Hey, let’s, you know, I have all these other things. So I, yeah, I I I love that. So you’re leaning somewhat heavily on the local person, it sounds like, for finding the venue and then also helping get the word out about it, and then you’re sharing in that with them.
LL (13:11):
Yeah. So especially in the beginning, that’s how it worked. And it, and I will say in the beginning, there’s a lot of, like, I would, anytime anyone was a new follower, I was like, where are they from? near a place I’m going on tour. Like, so I will say in the first four tours, it was really like hands-on, on me figuring out, and a lot of just individual reach outs and then relying on locals. And then, you know, our email list is really good. Since, since, you know, 2022, having our own podcast and our, obviously our membership continues to grow, we have a little bit more access to promo with just our own members hearing that we’re coming to a city and they have a friend, so they’re sending their friends there. Like, that’s also been really cool. So what I would say to anyone wanting to do this is don’t let the first one be the last one because they build on themselves.
LL (13:59):
I’m sure similarly to you, every book tour gets bigger because the people from the past books are coming and they’re telling their friends about it. So, so that’s been really helpful. And then now since 2023, having sponsors different sponsorship levels, one of the things we look at before we sign on with them and agree to a price is like, can you help us promote this? Mm-Hmm. . Because if you can’t help us promote it, yes, I want your money and that’s great, but you’re not like, like it’s not a partnership. So I’m promoting, I’m getting paid to promote you, which is totally fine. That’s what a sponsorship is. But if I can, like our, our headlining sponsor actually has access to a lot of our ideal client, so they’re part of their sponsorship price is that they actually will do targeted emails to the areas that we’re going to. So that has been a benefit in having us done so many and also having proof to show them this is how it benefits you and this is how you’re gonna get your money back on the investment.
RV (14:56):
Yeah. And I’m just doing the math in my head here. You know, if you go, if you sell a hundred dollars ticket for 30 people, yeah, that’s $3,000. And if you do that, you do that in 20 cities, that’s 60 grand and you can do 20 city tour in a couple months, I guess like a, a month or two
LL (15:19):
Mm-Hmm. , I mean, I would probably push that in a month because I like to get home uhhuh.
RV (15:24):
But yeah,
LL (15:24):
You totally can. This is what’s like, so our, we are our goal for these tours, and, and if anyone is listening who’s coming to my tours, like our impact is always like the, the reason why we do this, right? But our goal for like, as a business for doing them is how can these make us 50 plus grand as a company? Because they do take a lot of time to put together. Like, that’s time, that’s the, you don’t like, what people don’t see is like, and I can go into more detail of like what the back end looks like, but there’s lots of hours of reaching out now that we are on our seventh tour, we have people who, we have a sheet that they can request us to come to, so that makes this a little easier. But, you know, there’s, there are contracts that have to go out.
LL (16:06):
There’s all the, the planning beforehand, there’s logistics. We use a really cool app that allows us to plan it out literally where we’re sleeping, where we’re eating, where we’re stopping, who we’re seeing for lunch when we’re getting there. So it’s, it’s a whole, it’s like if I was going on a call, what is it? The, the app? Yeah, we use, we use Wander log and you guys, the free version, like you don’t , we, it’s called Wander Log. It’s, I think it’s for like people who do road tripping. And so we have a, we invested as a company on a van that we can outfit and live in. So we can reduce a lot of our costs because we’re not staying in hotels. And and then we it’s not completely built out, but it, it can carry equipment. So the other thing that you can think about if you’re wanting to do one of these things is like, it’s not even just the money on the tickets.
LL (16:54):
Maybe you want to do it where you don’t have a high ticket fee like I do. But what we what we also can do is I make money on affiliates. So one of our headlining sponsors I’m an affiliate for, so I get sales off of Pilates equipment from them. So at the end of a tour, I am getting paid still on the affiliates from different events. And then all also the other sales that we can make on that. So there’s all these, you, the more you do it, the more you can think like, oh, okay, I can bring this company in and they can be the, I can be affiliate for the blankets people are gonna sit on, or, you know, so that people are trying things out. And we just really keep trying to figure out how do we make this better for the person coming? And then how do we make sure that, that that also benefits the company that we’re working with. And then of course our company. So everyone is winning.
RV (17:42):
How do you, how do you manage the ticket sales? Like what, how do you collect the money and like, schedule, like here’s our tour dates and like all of that. Is there a tool that you use?
LL (17:53):
So we, two things we use, so we use monday.com as a like project management tool. And the way it is used, like I can literally look at the board and has every city, we will have every single person who buys a ticket. So we, our, our websites are built on WordPress, so we are gonna use probably WooCommerce on that, but sell the tickets through our own site so we’re only losing money on the strike fees. That’s, you know, which is like the best thing you can do. We also, this is something that’s really important. We make sure everything is a non-refundable, but it can’t be transferred to a friend. So if somebody can’t come like , we, there’s not a 24 hour cancellation policy on this, that would be too much work. So we do have streaks on that. We also have automations built into place that as soon as you sign up, you get sent a waiver form so that we have, ’cause obviously we’re a physical fitness we do need to have waivers for that.
LL (18:42):
But it’s something to think about with your event. Like, do you need to have waivers? And so we, we have all the tours all the stops on the site. We’re trying to get better with just the layout of it because the, the, the current tool we use shows like every single event. So if you are the last stop, you’re going through like 60 events. Mm-Hmm, , which we don’t really love. We’d like it to be citywide. So we’re, we’re looking at a different plugin tool for our winter tour for that. But they can buy through our site. And then our site has obviously all the automations in place that pushes it to our project tool, which lets us know which city each person’s going to, what they signed up for. So we can check them in at the event and it can, Brad can actually see like, okay, you signed your waiver, alright, you can go, oh, you didn’t sign your waiver , sit over here and go sign a waiver. So we have things in place for that. But if you are just starting out, like, my goodness, Eventbrite is still a thing, you could probably use that. Like, I would say you don’t, don’t make it so complicated to get started because each tour you can change how the interface works to make it better on getting yourself set up. Mm-Hmm.
RV (19:47):
Got it. Yeah. So, so an Eventbrite, can you collect money through Eventbrite or Mm-Hmm. you can, but then they take, they take a cut of it.
LL (19:54):
I’m sure they take a cut of it. Uhhuh, , I’m sure they do. But also what’s cool about Eventbrite is like it sends out to anyone in the area. Like, here’s the things happening in your city. True. So like, if you aren’t super known, you know and I would just say I would just build that into the cost, you know, like we build into the costs, our rev share with our with our partners and also obviously the Stripe fees on ourselves. So we are, you know, that a hundred dollars times 30, we’re obviously losing the 3% plus the rev share. So you know, you, but you just build it all in so you know what you are, you’re taking away. Mm-Hmm.
RV (20:23):
, Uhhuh, . And then tell me about the sponsors real quick. Like how do you, how do you find a sponsor? What do you charge ’em? Like how do you know to go, what is this worth? And like how do you approach them and pitch this to them?
LL (20:36):
Yeah, so this is something that we are obviously like learning as we go. And what I will say is like every time we’ve had a sponsor sign a contract, we’ve then updated the contract for the next time . ’cause You learn things, you learn like, oh, well I don’t like the way we’re communicating. I don’t like how long I’m waiting for x communication. You know so couple things. A lot of anybody you’re an affiliate for, if you already are making them money, I would reach out for a sponsorship because they can see like, oh, this person sends us, you know, a hundred customers a month or 50 customers a month. Like, why wouldn’t we want to participate on a bigger scale? So I would start there as opposed to like just reaching out. We do have a publicist who has been working with other companies to do sponsorships.
LL (21:24):
I will say that it hasn’t, we’ve only gotten one through her. So as far as like, can you pay to plate? You can, but it doesn’t mean you’re getting anything. So we have been able to get one because she put out like, Hey, we’ve got this tour and they’re willing and the, their, the ask is $5,000. So so that there are different things like that where publicists for different companies are looking to see what they can pay for. But how I got our biggest sponsor is relationships. And I think that’s probably how you do a lot of your things and a lot of the coaching, and I I’m sure everyone listens like, oh, this is so annoying. I have to network, but like truly like go and and network. So I’m already hired to speak at conferences. So I went to the person who hosts those conferences and I said, Hey, you’re never gonna go to Spokane, Washington.
LL (22:11):
Like, we already know you’re not gonna do Bend Oregon. You’re not like, you’re not gonna do these places because the, the, the, the draw isn’t as huge. You’re not gonna get hundreds of people to go to this. So what if you sponsored our tour where we’re going into smaller cities, we’re doing these events and we’re putting your product already in front of them. We can do it on a bigger scale if we have your help. And so that’s really how we got our first sponsor. And then what we did to figure out like what can we offer them is first of all just sit down and write down everything you could do. Like what would, like, first of all, what,
RV (22:43):
Like for the sponsor? Like what, that’s what I was gonna ask. Mm-Hmm. like what’s in it? So what’s in it for the sponsor? How do you make it valuable for them? Yeah.
LL (22:49):
Yeah. So, and again, we didn’t have a sponsor until our fourth, fourth tour. Mm-Hmm. . So ’cause we needed to have, and we, ’cause we, you, I do think you need to have some sort of proof of concept of your ticket sales. So you might have already had done something where you could, you could prove that I, I didn’t, you know, we had the 2019 tour , we didn’t have 20 20, 20 21 was half. And then 2022 we got to go back to our full thing. So we had to take our stats. And this is really important. You wanna have ticket sales stats, you wanna have any kind of di demographic stats you can give them, because this is what sponsors are gonna wanna know. It’s the same thing as having a sponsor for a podcast. They’re gonna wanna know what it is. So the more information you can have, the better.
LL (23:29):
So we could go to them with three tours and say, on average, this is what our current ticket sales are, and this is who’s coming and this is what we are charging, this is what our payouts are. And then this is by the way, like what we’re already doing. We’re already putting their product in front of them. We’re already putting this in front of them. So really having that information. But then what do they get in exchange for their money? So what I would write down is like all the different ways you could promote a product, not just on your event, but, or at your event, but like before and after. So we wrote down like, what do we have access to already? What do we have? So at the time, we had just launched an app, guess what, every time we open an app, there’s two seconds where you look at a logo.
LL (24:11):
We could sponsor that. We could put that as the sponsor’s logo instead of our own. We can make sure that they’re on obviously every page for the for the, for the promo, but also the social media posts. So we just wrote down like, what are all the different things we would be doing to promote this tour before, during, and after, and what can we sell on that? So we put diff we put, we made three different sponsorship packages. And I think this is important just like what you guys would do for like coaching you’ve done on like, you know collapsible like packages. Like what are, what are the different tiers, right? So this tier gets all these things. The second tier gets this. We do have a free tier, meaning that it is, we don’t get paid from the sponsors, but the sponsors give us product to give away.
LL (24:58):
Mm-Hmm. . So the sponsors can be, to me, paying a lot of money in physical product. And I really like those sponsors ’cause they help us have prizes to give away that makes people excited that they could win something. And it’s really fun. And then, you know, people get, they get in front of it, but the, the top two tiers are paid and we just go through like, do they get an ad on the podcast? You know, that’s just about their product. Is it before the tour, during the tour? Like what is that gonna look like? And then the other thing to just note is like, we have a whole packet that explains who we are as a brand and who we serve and the impact we wanna make, and then all the different ways that you’re gonna be in front of people on any, any single piece of data on impressions, likes, shares that we could put together on past tours. And then we just said, but then we get on a call with you and we figure out like what is gonna work, right? What do they want? And then based on that, we send out a contract and that contract will be for both parties to understand like, here’s what we’re gonna do. Our
RV (25:56):
You tell ’em most recent sponsor the price before the call.
LL (25:59):
Yeah. It’s all, it’s, it’s all on there. Like, so you have
RV (26:01):
Key packages, like this is what the package includes. Mm-Hmm.
LL (26:04):
. So like, they’re pretty aware of what they’re gonna be paying. You know, we’ve only ever, we had we had someone negotiate with us because they were an alcohol brand and out of the 13 stops we were going in, they were only in eight states. Mm-Hmm. . So we, you know, we were, we were cognizant of that, but also we worked it out. We’re like, you’re still gonna get exposure for those seven cities you’re not in. And so here’s what I’m willing to do and here’s what we can do about that. And it’s very interesting when you work with an alcohol brand, there’s a whole other contract that happens . So like, but it’s but you, but I think people don’t realize how much they can promote another person’s brand in a way that is meaningful to them. You know, especially when you think about, like, our 13 city tour had 26 events. That means at 26 events with over 400 people, we told them about our sponsors, not just at the event multiple times, but before the event in every email that they saw in their confirmations, in their, like, it’s, it’s in front of them multiple times. So if you were wanting those like seven, what was it before the pandemic? It was seven to 17 touch points to get someone to click. They’re getting all of those and most of them in person, which makes them even more attached to those people’s brands. So it’s, it’s really worthwhile.
RV (27:25):
I love that. I love that. Yeah. So and so then you just did it, and then you do the event. You do an awesome thing. Mm-Hmm. , if you have products and services to sell, you make ’em available. You sell people. Mm-Hmm. And you have the
LL (27:39):
Fun table.
RV (27:40):
You just have a table, bring
LL (27:41):
A table. Yeah, we bring a table. We got one of those little covers. You know, like, again, every time we go we like upgrade. We feel like, you know, we’re like becoming one of those booths that we had a conference. But we have a table has the things people can take away. We take pictures with people, we do a group picture, which was really fun. Then we can airdrop it to everyone. And then as soon as they leave within two hours, they’re sent a thank you text and email that has a request for a testimonial. Mm-Hmm. . And we got over 10% of our last tour, sent us a testimonial within 24 hours of their event. And so we walked away with dozens of testimonials for, from the tour, which we can use to get sponsors for the next tour. Here’s what people are saying we can use to sell tickets to the next tour.
LL (28:25):
So they’re really important. Then we actually send emails for four days after the event. So they’re getting a, a testimonial one, then they’re getting one that’s a thank you from us and our sponsors. They’re getting one that also is upcoming events and things like that, that they can get involved in. And then the last one is like, by the way, here’s all Leslie’s favorite things in case she missed it. Which is again, sponsors affiliate links. And this is where we insert other affiliate links of mine and where we, that again, can be additional income on the, on the tour.
RV (28:56):
Yeah. And you know, there’s a part of this that you’re saying here, kind of saying without saying, which is there’s nothing more powerful than an in-person event in terms of building trust with people. It’s like you’d have to watch, you know, a hundred, 200 social media videos, listen to 10 hours of podcasts or, you know, spend 45 minutes in a room with someone. Like, it’s so powerful. You build, you build, you build lifelong fans and customers. Yeah. This is really, really cool. What, what, so first of all, so I got one last question to ask you before I do that. Where should people go, Leslie, if they, if, you know, if they happen to be listening and they’re a Pilates fan and like they’re going, oh my gosh, like you are the, you’re the, you’re the Pilates queen of all the . Where, where do you want people to go to connect up with you?
LL (29:51):
Oh, go to opc.me/four zero and that’s going to take you to online plus classes.com. It’s gonna allow you to try us out. You’re gonna be able to enjoy the different things that we have. You do not have to know what pils is or how to spell it to start out. We have really amazing products and support for you
RV (30:09):
. That’s awesome. So my last question is, what should I have asked you about this business model that I didn’t ask you? So if somebody is out there kind of going, like, whether it’s a book tour or a product launch tour, or maybe it is, you know, like a speaking tour or like you’re doing, you’re doing classes. I mean, CPAs probably wouldn’t do this across states, but they could certainly do it in their state. You know, financial advisors could do this kind of thing in their state.
LL (30:37):
Be easy for them. ’cause Like you just, like, they’re . Like you’re, you can stay within a, some of these, unless it’s California or Texas, you can do several stops in a, on a weekend. Like, you don’t even have to take a week off or two weeks off. I cut you off, but you asked, well, it’s a question that you didn’t, didn’t ask me. Mm-Hmm.
RV (30:54):
Is that, is there anything else that we need to know about, like, if, if we were gonna try to pull this off and make it reality?
LL (31:00):
Yeah, I think, I think I would probably, what I think I would ask anyone listening is like, why are you doing your personal brand in the first place and how would an in-person event accelerate that? And because you just said it, like there, you cannot, like the in-person trust that you build, you, you can’t even put a price on it. You like the, the, I can’t wait to see like the lifetime value of clients that we have at, if they go from a tour stop to what happens next. And what I truly love, and one of our, one of our values as a company is community. And these in-person events, even though our online platform is the only one that allows for community to exist and to support each other and do Pilates, you know, even though they’re on demand, there’s, they, they have that community.
LL (31:51):
There, there is something so special about these in-person events that allows our online community to come together. Hmm. And then they actually hang out afterwards. And of course I wish I had the time to go with them. Like sometimes I can, but truly like the fact that I can go to a city, do an event, hug all of them, and then they go off and have happy hour together. Like that is like, that is ma that makes the impact that I wanna have with my Pilates. It makes it, it accelerates it on such an amazing level and then they’re doing it right. And so then they have this empowerment, this agency. And so I would just ask yourself like, why am I doing my personal brand? Like what is this, what is the goal of this was the impact I wanna make? And how does in in-person accelerate it? And then start with what you got. So I did not start with the 13 event. We started with eight cities. I did not start off with a huge team. So with three people I did not start off with sponsors. It was just us. And then, you know, in the beginning our goal was just that it paid for itself. And now our goal is that it does, that it actually is our, one of our top products of our business because we know down the road the impact it’s going to have.
RV (32:59):
Mm-Hmm. . I love it. Well, friend, you’ve been so generous with this. Thank you so much. You know how much we respect and admire you and Brad. Thanks for sharing this. You obviously we’ll be following your journey and cheering you on and I just wish you all the best.
LL (33:17):
Aw, thank you for having me. Thanks for letting me share this. This is a lot of fun.

Ep 561: Choose Your Hard | Chris Janssen Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Choose your hard. That’s the conversation that I would like to have today. I just got off of an amazing conversation with author and coach Chris Janssen. She’s the author of a new book called Grace Yourself, how to Show Up for the Sober Life You Want. And our conversation was about choose your hard and whatever, whatever we choose in life can be hard. Like I heard somebody say the other day, it’s like, life is hard. It’s, it’s just hard. And so it’s up to us to choose our hard. And in this conversation that I had with Chris Jansen, we were talking about very specifically choosing a sober life versus a, a life where something has a stronghold over you. Not necessarily just alcohol, but in this quote I saw the other day, it was like, you know, choose to be fit. That’s hard.
AJV (00:55):
Choose to be fat. That’s hard. Choose to save your money. That’s hard. Choose to go in debt. That’s hard, right? Choose to focus and work on your marriage. That’s hard. Choose not to and get a divorce that’s hard. Choose to prioritize your time and spending time with your kids while you’re young. That, that can be hard. Choose not to do that and miss out on knowing your kids while they’re young. That’s hard. It’s like, regardless of what we choose, there is going to be hard parts to it. It’s just what hard are you going to choose? Right? And it doesn’t matter if it’s a health journey or a money journey or a relationship journey, or it’s a sobriety journey, right? Either way you go, it can be hard and there’s going to be hard parts of whatever it is that you choose.
AJV (01:49):
The differences is, do you want to, you know, choose the salad and be healthy or, you know, choose the dessert and have a temporary indulgence. And I’m not saying having a dessert is bad and having salad every meal is good. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying the repetitive nature of those choices lead to rewards and consequences. Not all that different than, you know, spending money or investing in relationships or anything else. Our choices are what lead to the rewards or the consequences. And there’s going to be hard parts about either there’s gonna be hard long days lots of extra work. There’s going to be discipline and obedience. There’s going to be missing out on some things to get something else later. Like they’re, they’re just hard things. But we each get to choose our hard, and this conversation with Chris was about, you know, you, you could choose right? To, you know, have that quick fix and have that drink in the moment, or you can choose to make a better, healthy choice for your life and
AJV (02:58):
Not do that. And again, not saying having a drink is bad. I’m not saying that. But for some of us, it is for some people it is. And it’s for each of us. We just gotta choose our hard ’cause it’s gonna be hard either way. And so as you’re, as you’re sitting here and listening to this, I just wanted to pose a couple of quick questions. One, what’s the hard that you need to choose in 2025? And it could be, it’s like, I’m gonna choose the hard of getting up at 5:00 AM to get in early morning reading time or time with the Lord, or going on a walk or going to the gym, right? Could it be that it’s like I’m gonna choose the heart of missing out on seemingly a lot of fun stuff because I’m committing to getting in bed by, you know, 9:00 PM it, I don’t know what your heart is.
AJV (03:49):
I’m just saying what is the hard that you need to choose for 2025? Because they can go both ways. There’s the good hard and the bad. Hard, but there’s hard either way. So that’s my first question is, you know, what is the hard that you need to choose for 2025? My second question to you is, what are gonna be the rewards of choosing that hard and the consequences of not choosing that hard in 2025? Because with any choice, right? There comes an opportunity for reward or for consequence. And if you know that there is a hard that you need to choose, and I can just tell you personally for me almost two years ago, it was, I had to give up alcohol. I knew that it had created a default mechanism in my life and my choices. It had a strong hold on the way that I was decompressing.
AJV (04:45):
And I had to give it up. And it was hard. And then it wasn’t . It was hard until it wasn’t. And there were a lot of hard days where it’s like, man, it’s like, am I not getting invited because they know I don’t drink? Or do I, I’m not gonna go to that networking meeting. ’cause I, I feel awkward if I don’t have a drink in my hand. It’s like there was a lot of firsts and a lot of hearts, but the reward has been a healthier, happier me. The consequence would’ve been I was in the same position thinking the same thing two years later, and I hadn’t done anything that would’ve, that was my reward and that could have been my consequence. We all have hearts that we have to pick. I’m just asking you, what’s yours and what’s the reward that you can get from it this year, and what’s the consequence of you not doing it? So it’s 2025. What’s your hard for this year?

Ep 560: Grace Yourself with Chris Janssen

AJV (00:00):
Hey, y’all. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here today. And I am so, so excited for today’s guest for so many reasons. One, I love her personally. And as I get to introduce Chris, Jan since you guys formally in just a second, I have had the privilege of getting to know Chris over the last year in a variety of different ways. But she’s one of the sweetest, hardest working , personable. Honestly, like when you think about like the ideal person to kind of partner with, like Chris is always, we use her as the exemplary example of like, this is what it means to do the work all the time. And you’re gonna learn about what kind of work she’s been doing as we get into our interview today. But for those of you who are listening, I always tell you why, why do you need to stick around?
AJV (00:51):
And how do you know if this episode is for you? So I invited Chris on the show today for two reasons. One, she’s in the middle of a book launch, right? So when I talk about hardworking , that’s what we’re gonna talk about. Like, what does it mean to launch a bestselling book? Not necessarily just the writing part, right? But the marketing, the selling, the promotion all the work that goes into the words on the pages, but then getting books in hands of people. So if you are an aspiring author, you are an author in process of writing a book, you are just in the process of selling your book. You’re in a book launch, or man, you’re just curious of what it would be like to do that one day. And this is an episode for you. This is a custom tailored episode for the authors and aspiring audience, aspiring authors in our audience.
AJV (01:38):
Secondarily, though, we’re gonna actually talk about the contents of her book, which I think is just a really important topic. And Chris’s upcoming book is called Grace Yourself. And without getting too much into the contents of the book right now, let’s just say that it’s a great reflection of a lot of people are talking about dry January as we are in January, 2025 at the recording of this episode. And so we’re gonna talk about what it means to be sober, curious, and Chris’s journey on that path. So that is, that is who this episode is for. Now, let me formally introduce you to Chris so we can get to our interview, which is the best part. Chris Janssen is a leading results coach in performance and mindset. She’s a bestselling author who’s worked with hundreds of sought after creators entrepreneurs soldiers, small business o owners. She has been taught by and has worked with Tony Robbins on his team of results coaches. She’s a board certified coach with a master’s in counseling psychology with more than 20 years of experience. Chris, welcome to the show.
CJ (02:42):
Thanks, aj. I have the biggest smile on my face ’cause it’s so fun to be here with you. Yes.
AJV (02:48):
This is going to be an amazing episode for so many reasons. But I know that I just get asked all the time, like, what is it like, what do you have to do to have a bestselling book and what, what does that even mean? And since you’re in the middle of a book launch right now, and this is not your first book, what I would love for you to share with the audience is one, what’s been your journey of writing and publishing books up to this one? And how has this one similar or different than what you’ve done in the past?
CJ (03:20):
Mm. That’s such a good question. Yeah, because people ask a lot, you know, what, what do I have to do to write a book? And there’s so much to know, and I am a good person to ask because the first book I self-published and no regrets. I did learn a lot of what I wanted to do differently the second time, though. And so I kind of thought, like a lot of authors, I hear this a lot, that I would write a great book. I had a great editor. I had, I had help. I knew what I was doing. I’m really proud of it. It’s a really good book. It’s a coaching book. But I thought, you know, let’s, let’s self-publish. We’ll put it out there so people can start reading it. I didn’t, none of the, you know, the prep, right? I didn’t, I didn’t have the audience ahead of time. I didn’t think about lists. I just thought all that came after that. If you write a book, you then people start calling you
AJV (04:13):
. Did they?
CJ (04:15):
They, it was, they did not like, I thought though, , but they did. You know, I was asked in small things, you know, I was asked to speak at church. I was asked to do, I, and I did things that were very fun. And really though I did write that book for my clients because I wanted a tool. And I think that’s a great reason to write a book, is who are you writing it for? So I, every word of that book, I knew who I was writing to and I wrote it to my clients. And it’s, it’s a very handy tool. The second time, I would say call brand builders . I called brand builders because, you know, I’ve, I’ve heard you talking about bestselling books. And by that time I knew I had missed the window to make bestseller lists. So now I am full of information of what to do different.
CJ (05:07):
I am still doing it a little bit backwards where I am writing this second book, and I don’t have a huge audience. I have a thriving coaching business. So I have kind of doubled up on the PR side where I’m using the bestseller bestseller launch plan strategy. And then I’m also using a little bit of PR to get me on more stages, right? Because I didn’t have that element. And that’s been phenomenal. I mean, that, it just, it’s like the butterfly effect. It just, people tell, people tell people, and then the message gets to get in the hands of the people. ’cause Not everyone wants to read a coaching book or a book on sobriety. And then when you have these specific audiences, though, those are the people who are looking for that material and they tell the other people looking for that material. Yeah. So it’s been great this time
AJV (06:03):
Around. Well, you know, I, I love that you’ve done it both ways, right? Mm-Hmm . And for all of you guys listening, Chris was our first ever signed author at Mission-Driven Press, which is the hybrid publishing imprint that we started which is a sister company of brand builders group. And so Chris has been so gracious and so helpful to come along as we kind of like cover the, the bumps and bruises of her being our very first author. But what I also think is so powerful is that we tell this to people all the time. There’s like, there’s, there’s self-publishing, there’s hybrid publishing, and then there’s traditional publishing. And they’re all three extremely different. They’re, they’re very different. But I would, I would say something to you that you said, it’s like, I’m kind of doing it backwards. I still don’t have the biggest audience, but we have also seen, for everyone who’s listening, we’ve seen people who have mm-hmm . Millions of followers on social media. Mm-Hmm . Millions of people on their email list mm-hmm . And they still miss the bestseller list. Mm-Hmm . Why? ’cause they thought all they needed to do was write the book.
CJ (07:07):
Right?
AJV (07:08):
I don’t have to go Right. Tell people to buy it. I don’t need to pick up the phone. I don’t need to like do a launch. I already have a huge following. If I write a book, they’ll just buy it. And we’ve literally heard people tell us that. And you know what? Nobody bought the book.
CJ (07:24):
Right? Yeah. We’ll sit on a black, in a black hole on Amazon, or wherever it is, , right. Where books are sold. So that’s exactly right.
AJV (07:33):
And so sometimes it’s not always about how big is the audience, it’s mm-hmm . How engaged and how Target is targeted, is the audience. ’cause We’ve seen the exact same thing happen mm-hmm . So I would love to know so through this process, what would you say out of all of the things that you’ve been doing during this launch season what would you say for you has been, like, for everyone listening again, who’s thinking about like, okay, well I want to do that one day. Like, what would you say here, here’s what you need to know if you want to write and launch a bestselling book. Like, what would you tell that person listening today?
CJ (08:09):
Get in front of targeted audiences. And you’re, before you even pick up the pin, know who your audience is, know who you’re writing to, and then those are the people that will, you’ll want to get in front of, to start talking about your book months before the launch and months after the launch. So the, those, those specific people, like if you have a following on Facebook or Instagram, a lot of those people might be your friends now. Like, let’s use me, for example, I have lot of friends and they follow me on my socials and they wanna hear what my kids are up to and this type of thing. They don’t all wanna hear about my book, and this book might not be for them. So I, it was the, the most helpful thing was getting help, getting in front of the people who want and need this.
CJ (09:00):
And then also not getting tripped up in the numbers, just staying focused on impact. You are a, a steward of your message. If God put it on your heart to write a book, especially if it’s a vulnerable book that was uncomfortable to write, then you, then your mission is to steward that message after launch for the rest of your life, really. And so if God put it on your heart, he’s going to help you do that. So the people will, the people that need to hear the message will show up. The reason for wanting to make bestseller lists though isn’t fame or numbers. It is the impact, right. It is being a steward of your message. And if it does make lists, your message, you’ll being a better steward of your message because it’s, it’s going to reach more people.
AJV (09:51):
Mm. I love that. I think that’s such a great clarifying distinction of hitting a bestseller list is not for ego or vanity or any of that. It’s, it’s, it’s a sign that you are doing what you are supposed to do and reaching the people that you wrote it for. Mm-Hmm .
CJ (10:09):
Exactly.
AJV (10:10):
That’s really, really good. I would be, I would be so curious to go, so you said you’ve had some luck with pr,
CJ (10:17):
Right?
AJV (10:17):
Mm-Hmm . And have, we have a variety of experiences on both sides of the corn. Right? Right. But you know, our, we, you know, our opinion, and for those of you listening, so we have a love hate relationship with pr, right? Yeah. Because sometimes it moves the needle and a lot of times it doesn’t. Right. But when it does, what, well, it’s a great success story. Mm-Hmm . So I would love to hear from you, as I’m sure everyone else is, is like, well, is it worth the money? Where should you put the money? So on the PR scheme, what’s been working?
CJ (10:45):
So what’s, well, I, I’m a lucky one. My daughter, she’s 25, she runs a pr, an LA based PR company. She runs the UK division in London. So I had the advantage of one, the publisher, you guys sent me a, like a list of maybe 15 vetted PR places that they know love and work with. So that’s great. Have a rep get it from somebody you trust in anything, in anything to do with the publishing world. Trust is a big thing, right? People are out to make money on your dream. So no, these hybrid publishers, you know, you wanna have a reputable vetted people that you’re working with. So we, my daughter helped me take those, say 15 PR companies and reach out to the top five that, that I thought were really in line with my mission. So of the book like that. So, so not my mission as a coach, not my mission as a person, the mission of the book. And so those people I reached out to, and then, you know, there was one, I just had a gut feeling that stood out above them all. And, and I, it, it was a really good match. She’s been wonderful. And so the audiences I’m getting in front of are very in line with the mission of the book.
AJV (12:07):
So I think this is a great question because I think a lot of people hear about pr, but they don’t really know what it means. Mm-Hmm . So can you like, and not everyone gets to have a daughter in the industry, right?
CJ (12:18):
Exactly. Right. That’s why I’m trying to like, teach what I know from her.
AJV (12:23):
But I think it’s really like, so like for those who are listening, it’s like, okay, great, but what did they do for you? Like, give us some insights.
CJ (12:29):
Mm-Hmm . Right? So there’s digital, like somebody could come and they could do take over your Instagram page, for example. They could do your newsletter so that mine doesn’t do that. So know, you know, know those questions to ask, are you gonna be help me digitally? What are you helping me? And then there’s, are you helping me get on podcasts, TV shows, writing news article. For example, mine were, were really FI was on a TV show this morning, but she’s helping me with mostly podcasts because, and then also know the trend. It needs to be what the trends change every six months. So it has to be what’s helping people make bestseller lists that month. Mm-Hmm . And then she had an idea to get me in front of, because I love writing to get me in front of people that would run articles that I write.
CJ (13:21):
So I’m writing some articles for different publications, and then you get to talk about the book and it tells you where to buy the book. So that’s all good. So that’s what this, but not all PR companies are gonna do that exact thing. Some are just more tv. Some are just virtual things. Some are more social media. Some do all of it. Some do a lot of in-person events. One of the ones I interviewed is here in LA and was going to get me in front. That was like my, I was trying to decide between this one and the other one. They were gonna get me in front of a lot of in my community in la a lot of like book signings or the, at the local bookstore, that type of thing, which is also really good. So that was, it was a tough decision because they’re all good. So there’s not one size fits all for sure. Like anything.
AJV (14:16):
Yeah. Well, I love that. ’cause I think what I hear you saying, it’s like, like with anything, before you go searching out a PR firm or like with anything else that you’re gonna spend money on, do your research and know what are you actually trying to get out of this mm-hmm . And I think when a lot of people say, oh, well I’ve hired pr, it doesn’t work. It’s like, did it not work? Or were you just trying to like, throw mud against the wall and see what sticks? And I love that there’s like a, a very targeted approach. It’s like, no, are you trying to get in front of audiences? Is this podcast, is it tv, is it digital? Is it book signings? And again, with anything without a clear strategy, anything is likely not to work,
CJ (14:55):
Right? And like as a coach, we’re always very hyper-focused on the outcome. So what have a crystal clear outcome. So I came to the these inter these vetting these people with the outcome. The outcome for me was to make a bestseller list, right? Like I said, for the reasons I said. So somebody’s outcome might be to get well known or famous. Those are two different outcomes. So know your outcome before you start looking for who to work with.
AJV (15:23):
Yeah. And so I know that you did this too, looking for publishers, so mm-hmm . Same thing with pr. So what were you looking for when you decided to go on a publishing hunt? Because the first time you did this, it was a self-publisher mm-hmm . And I think, again, everyone who’s listening very high level, right? You have self-publishing, which is basically, you are paying for it, right? But you’re also mm-hmm . You’re doing the editing, you’re picking out all the artwork. It’s the cheapest way to get a book out there. But you’re doing all the work, right? You’re the writer, you’re the editor, you’re the creative , you’re all the things. Then there’s hybrid where it’s like you pay for it upfront. But you have a partner on the back end who’s gonna take care of the editorial and the cover designs and the printing and the publishing and the distribution. And then you’ve got traditional publishing, which is typically they pay you upfront, but then they take all your money on the backend, right? So I think
CJ (16:17):
It’s, well, and they take the rights to your book
AJV (16:18):
And they own it, right? Mm-Hmm. And I think mm-hmm. For people who are going, well, if you listen to that, you just have to like, pick up the nuance of the creator at some point is always paying for it.
CJ (16:29):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (16:29):
. Right? Right. There is, there is an investment on behalf of the Craig creator. So you’re gonna pay for it upfront and own it, which is our preference, or you’re going to get paid for it upfront, and they’re gonna take all the money on the back end and you don’t own it. And so That’s right. So I think it’s, it’s when people think, well, oh, it’s better to have an advance. It’s like, well, is it it depends on your goals, like with anything. So you did self-publishing the first time mm-hmm . You decided hybrid publishing the second time mm-hmm . What was a part of that choice? What was a part of that decision?
CJ (17:02):
Right. So a few distinctions. One I’ll say even traditional publishing, you’re gonna spend money because you’re gonna have an editor help you make it look fantastic before you send the proposal in. So there’s always an investment on the author’s part. Especially with the, the first one to three books, let’s say. And, and technically hybrid publishing is self-publishing. We have, you’re, you’re technically called an indie author, like when I go into my books in book contests and stuff, because I’ve done hybrid the second time in self, the first time. They’re both in the self-publishing category as opposed to traditional publishing. So the greatest thing is you get to keep your rights. Now self-publishing can be done really well. Like I did self-publishing. The first time I hired a developmental editor, she helped me hire the copy editor, and I hired a cover designer and interior designer.
CJ (18:04):
And there’s websites in places that can help you. And I, it, I will just say this, all of me wanted to do hybrid because I didn’t want to be the one out there hiring these people. I couldn’t trust anybody. Mm. People need to know there’s not, every hybrid publisher is trustworthy, right? There’s Vanity Pub publishers, some of them will even take the rights if you can believe it and, and take a lot of royalties too. And so that is why I kept coming back to the self-publishing with the first one. And then when I met brand builders, I thought, okay, well I’m working with them. I already know and trust them. So that took care of the trust part. And then I heard you all were having a mission driven press, and I just thought, well, let’s get . Let’s get it going. We need it now. And so that was the biggest thing for me, was finding someone I could trust. And this has been so much more fun the second time because, because you all came with this really professional team of people that’s been doing this for years, that have the developmental editor, the copy editor, the cover designer, the interior designer, and then even the people helping with marketing and audiobook and all the other things. So it really is a one stop shop. So if people can find someone they trust, hybrid’s a really wonderful way to do it.
AJV (19:39):
Yeah. And I, I, I think that’s such an important conversation on the trust part, because I think it’s all important at, at the end of the day, what’s most important in my opinion, is like the creator gets to keep what they create. Mm-Hmm . And that is a huge, like, you’re trusting someone else with your intellectual property. And it’s not only that, it’s like what you said, it’s like, Hey, this is a message that wasn’t meant just for me. It was meant for me to put on the pages of books and get it out into the world. And you’re trusting in, you know, the validity of, Hey, are you, are you gonna do what you say you’re gonna do? Do you believe in this message? Are you gonna help me get it out there? And it’s, I tell people, it’s like when you know that you’re supposed to write a book is when you go, like, it is not about anything else other than getting this message to the hands of other people.
AJV (20:28):
And that is a big trust jump. Mm-Hmm . I mean, that is a huge partnership endeavor of going, I’m entrusting this thing that I feel called to and I’m trusting you to help me do it. So I I love that you said that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else talk about that when selecting, it’s been more of the logistics and details of the partnership and arrangement, but it’s like, no, trust is a big deal because you’re gonna spend years of your life on this between the ideation and the writing and the publishing and the selling and the marketing and the talking mm-hmm . About it forever and ever and ever. Like, this is a large part of your life. It better be a trusted partnership.
CJ (21:06):
That’s right. And it’s a really vulnerable process. Right. There’s I don’t get hit with a ton of rejection and, and criticism. It is vulnerable though. So you wanna be around people that, that make your nervous system calm. Mm-Hmm . You know, that you wanna be around people that, you know, have your back. Right. And so there are some, you know, like your team is fantastic. There’s some other teams, though I know a lot of other authors where, you know, it’s yucky. There’s, there’s lawsuits people feel like they were taken advantage of. So I just think those feelings on top of all the work that you need to do to launch a book, I just don’t see that helping at all to have that contradictory feelings when it’s already hard enough to be vulnerable and get a book out into the world.
AJV (22:00):
You know? I love too that you brought this up because I have also never heard anyone else bring up this part of, Hey, don’t forget, like, this is also an emotional ride for the author . Yes. There are some vulnerability factors here of I, I, I remember maybe it was like a year ago, ’cause at Mission-Driven Press, I, I still am the one who approves all the books that we decide to publish. Not every book is a fit for us. So I still do a content review of all the books that are being submitted. And I just remember someone saying, it’s like, well, before I submit the book, like, are y’all gonna like critique it ? And it was like one of those like very interesting things. And I’m like, oh my goodness, there I, you, you forget that this is someone’s life’s work.
AJV (22:47):
Mm-Hmm . Right? Mm-Hmm . And I was like, well, I was like, well, no, I won’t critique it. I’ll just tell you if it’s a fit for what we do or not, but not looking for a critique unless you, you want us to critique it. And they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. Right. And I think it’s a really, it is vulnerable and it’s like you’re, especially through the editing process mm-hmm . Rory and I just finished our manuscript a few weeks ago and it’s been in content development. Yes. Yay is right. Yeah. Yay is right. We are, yes. Yay. But it was interesting ’cause both of us were waiting on the content development edits to come back and you know, it is vulnerable to go through all the comments of like, well, this is a little wordy here, and I wouldn’t use this word there and I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t think it’s gonna hit the reader. Right. And it’s like, what do you mean? Like says who says who? It won’t hit the reader, you know, and it is vulnerable and you have to put your ego aside and go mm-hmm . This is not about me. Mm-Hmm . Or this is not about me. This is not about what I wanna say. It’s about what they need to hear.
CJ (23:46):
Right. That’s right.
AJV (23:48):
But I think that’s a good thing of like, the writing process is vulnerable, the editing process is vulnerable, the sales processes too. And it’s like, right there is a lot of people who are like, yeah, I love what you’re doing. Not gonna buy any. It’s like, great, thanks. Great welcome. You know, welcome to to business and to sales. Mm-Hmm . And I think that’s probably the underlying tone that it’s important for everyone to, to hear. Like, this is like a business.
CJ (24:15):
It really is. I’m so fortunate I have my husband around me because he’s so great at business and he works from home, so he, you know, and he sees me working from home. So he’s been a constant sounding board for me to keep going. Don’t take it personally, to really believe in the impact and the message and have, have confidence selling, right? Yeah. So,
AJV (24:42):
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a huge thing for everyone to realize. Mm-Hmm. It’s like launching a book is like launching a business.
CJ (24:47):
Yes.
AJV (24:48):
Genuinely speaking. Now let’s talk about the book for a second. ’cause Okay. I wanna make sure that as we talk about the process of writing and, you know, publishing and launching a book, but you have a book coming out mm-hmm . You have a book coming out in March. So we are just
CJ (25:03):
February, February
AJV (25:04):
18. Oh, is it February? February 18th? Yes. Okay. Yes. So we’re just a few weeks away. Mm-Hmm . And so let’s talk a little bit about what is, what is Grace Yourself about
CJ (25:14):
Grace Yourself, the subtitles, how to show Up for the Sober Life You Want. And I love the subtitle. So the subtitle of my first book is The First Book’s, living All In How to Show Up for the Life You Want. And I love Show up and for the Life you want because in coaching, we need to know what we want, right? That’s always my first question. What do you want? And we need to show up for the strategy to get what we want. Showing up iss easy when it’s easy, and we need to show up when it’s not easy. So for this book particularly, because it does share my story of sobriety to me showing up is for life is the opposite of numbing out when things get uncomfortable or checking out, and we can check out or numb in small ways and big ways.
CJ (26:06):
And it doesn’t need to be alcohol. It can be all kinds of things. We all can think of ways. I mean, it could even be biting our nails, right? There’s just things that we do to check out or not show up. And I’m writing this to let people know, here’s my story, but I’m using this story to couple it with my coaching tools to show you, you don’t need to be afraid. You can show up for life. And here’s all these tools to help you do that. So someone doesn’t need to be even in an act of addiction, and it doesn’t even need to be alcohol for this book to be beneficial, because you’re gonna take whatever that thing is, and these tools will help, they’ll help take the shame off, get it out of the darkness. Let let you know you’re not alone. Let you know there’s millions of people struggling with the same thing. We’re not unique. We don’t, you know, we’re not special. We are special just like everybody else. . That’s right. Right. And so our addictions and hangups and things are not, they’re not unique. And so we do need to share stories and be in community. And it’s a very practical book that walks people through this hold your hand and says, here are the questions that ask yourself to get unstuck.
AJV (27:24):
I love that. What, what does the title Grace Yourself, like, where did that come from?
CJ (27:32):
So I love this title. The, to me, since I am a Person of Faith, to me it’s God’s grace, and that’s unmerited favor. And I explain in the book how, to me, what I’ve seen with people that fall into negative patterns and addictions. A lot of us have control issues. We, because in essence, we’re controlling our state. We’re, we’re, we’re looking to control the way we feel or control not feeling the way we don’t wanna feel. And we do that, like I said, in with lots of different ways. And so grace, since grace from God is unmerited favor, it means I don’t get to control whether I receive it or not. And so as a person, as a young woman who struggled with perfectionism and rigid thinking, and really, you know, high achiever, I have to control everything. I did not understand grace as a young person because I thought I had to control everything I earned.
CJ (28:36):
I’ll tell you what I’m worth. I’ll tell you if I deserve it or not. The concept that something’s free, even if I don’t deserve it, just didn’t compute with me. So I go through that in the book and, and what I really want people to know is they’re worthy no matter what, you’re worthy and you get grace, even though we don’t deserve it. Mm-Hmm . You’re worthy. If you’re addicted, you’re wor you don’t have to get clean to take a bath. You’re already valuable and worthy. Right. So we can start from wherever we are right now. And that is where the Grace yourself came from, is understanding that unmerited favor and not, and letting go of needing to be in con in control of our own worth.
AJV (29:23):
Mm. I love that. And I think it’s so applicable too to the story of sobriety. Mm-Hmm . I’ve had so many people share that, you know, hey, it’s like you know, I started with, Hey, I’m just gonna do a week mm-hmm . And then they were like, well, maybe I can do a month and if I don’t make it though, you know, and it was so interesting. It’s like there is a little grace of, it’s like, it’s okay to fall off and it’s okay to get back on mm-hmm . But I feel like there’s a, a growing trend mm-hmm . Of people who are sober, curious and sobriety. And I, as you know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and I’d say like one of the biggest trends in Nashville right now are zero proof bars. Mm-Hmm . There’s like a zero proof I don’t even know what you call it. It’s not a liquor store, but it’s a zero proof liquor store. There’s
CJ (30:11):
All these, right. We have the mm-hmm
AJV (30:12):
. Yeah. But it’s like their entire stores of is, everything is zero proof. There’s all these new bars and every menu now has some sort of zero proof wine or, or drink or whatever. And it wasn’t that way even a year ago.
CJ (30:27):
No.
AJV (30:27):
Like, it, this is a, a very big growing trend. And I’m just one, so this book is like right on par with a lot of the things mm-hmm . That people are talking about. And I’ve, I have a lot of friends who are sober, have been sober. My husband Rory, he’s sober eight years. I’m sober almost two years. Yay. And I, I don’t know if you have noticed this, ’cause you walk in this life as well. Like, what have you noticed in terms of why now? Like, is is it not just now or is it just because people are on social media talking about it now, but there seems to be more of a growing public, like no, like, we’re accommodating this, like we’re promoting this that didn’t exist before. Why do you think that is?
CJ (31:12):
Well, I think it’s like cigarettes, right? We all . If we, if we remember back then, we all used to smoke. And then over time the knowledge, right? We became educated that these were killing us. And there’s a lot of content out there right now that alcohol is a toxic poison. And now we have the facts where, remember they used to say a red wine, a cup of red wine a day is good for your health. Yeah. Well, so is grape juice and eating blueberries because it has antioxidants, right? So it’s misinformation. So I think that’s part of it. It is interesting to me though, because I got sober out of necessity in 2007 and, and I tell this story in the book where it, we didn’t have sober curious. We didn’t have mocktails. No, you were weird. If you didn’t drink , it was, it was no like, and you were alcoholic.
CJ (32:09):
I do identify as an alcoholic. I do go into detail in that, in the book and explain that there’s no la regarding labels use what label works for you. It energizes me because to me it was a solution to something that I was trying to quit on my own. Like, I walked into a meeting, heard, there’s this thing called alcoholism, and there’s all these beautiful women in the meeting that just beautiful humans that like, yeah, we’re alcoholic too, and there’s a solution and it’s not your fault. It’s like an allergy and you never have to have another drink again. That for me, took all the shame off my shoulders. It changed the narrative from I’m a monster because I can’t stop drinking to, I’m worthy of sobriety and recovery because I can’t stop drinking. So it, it’s so much easier now for people. I do think, I do touch on this in the book.
CJ (33:05):
I think that it’s important if you’re like me, where you kind of re because alcohol is a progressive condition, which means the more you drink, you don’t, you don’t build up a tolerance and get better at it. You get worse at it. And if you quit drinking for a certain amount of years and then pick it up again, you’re going to be worse off than when you started Just age. Does that, so it is, that’s a medical fact. It’s a progressive condition. So some people we, like we say, in recovery, you can’t you’ve been pickled, so you can’t go back to being a cucumber. Hmm. Even if you quit drinking 30 years and then decide to try it again, you can’t go back to being a cucumber. So the book is really for people like me who got pickled. Mm-Hmm. And we can’t go back.
CJ (33:53):
And we do have a stigma. Like it really messed with us. It messed with our self-worth. We dealt with shame and guilt. And I am all for all for any recovery movement. I love that people are sober curious that we have mocktails, that people are going alcohol free. And for these people, I, a lot of my friends and clients are doing this. And it’s wonderful. I don’t think those people all need a support community or recovery community, if that makes sense. People like me, and there’s a chapter or section in the book called Alcoholic Like Me. We, we have to be in community because the world is changing, but it still is the way it is. And so we have to be sharing stories. We can’t do it alone. And we need to stay in community. So we don’t, our forgetter doesn’t forget and start thinking that we are like these other people that can just quit for health reasons.
CJ (34:48):
Some of us just can’t. And so do make that distinction in the book. And I also say in the book, look, don’t, don’t diss anybody. If they wanna call themselves an alcoholic, if they wanna go to AA or don’t wanna go to aa, let’s not get hung up on these things. Recovery, sobriety, health, it’s all a win. We all have, we’d have different churches for people. We have different therapists for people. Mm-Hmm . We have different recovery groups for people and different mocktails for people. Because there’s no one size fits all. So we all just need to be kind and not dis the language or get hung up on the, the logos or you know, of it all. I love that. Yeah.
AJV (35:32):
I think that’s really important. ’cause I think that that’s a great distinction. It’s some people do it for health reasons, some people do it. Because it’s a necessity, right? It’s a lifesaving choice. They have to make, there’s a lot of different reasons why people are making these choices. For the person who’s out there, who’s going, what does it even mean to be sober? Curious? Like what, what, what is the first step? What would you say?
CJ (36:00):
I think it’s probably yeah, they starting to ask yourself those questions. Could I live without this thing in my life? And it might not be alcohol. Like I said, it could be something else that’s a stronghold. And so I think that the important thing to ask is really get leverage on yourself and ask and write it down, what is the cost of giving this thing up? And be honest about it. Because there will be a cost, it will require some grit. It will require the neuroplasticity in your brain to change. It will require, you know, when you pick up a new workout routine, it’s gonna require going to the gym and doing that. We don’t just get biceps one time at the gym, so it’s gonna, there’s gonna be some cost, unfortunately. Unfortunately. I know. So be honest with yourself about that and write down what, what is the cost of removing this thing from my life?
CJ (36:53):
And then write down what is the cost of not removing it from my life? And really be honest and look at that. And that’s how you get leverage on yourself. And so if the cost of not removing it is greater, then you’re gonna need to find some grit, read some self-help books like mine and then, and get in community. Right. But I’ll say if someone’s trying to do this at dry January, I really want people to take the shame off of it. If they start my friend across the street, oh, I did dry January and I already messed up. Well, we don’t need, you didn’t mess up. You’re just, it’s all there. It’s, it’s not a straight line. Mm-Hmm . Right. It’s two steps forward, three steps back some days. So just grace yourself, keep moving forward, but keep asking those questions to make it sustainable.
AJV (37:46):
Why do, that’s a great point. So why, why do you think that for the person who, who does resonate with this, and they go, well, I’m, I’m curious. And then some, like, I know I need to make a change. I know that there, I do have a stronghold in my life and I need to get rid of it. Why is it that’s that we, some people can just be like, cold Turkey, I quit. I’m, I’m never doing it again. And there’s others of us who it’s like, man, it’s like, well, I did fall off. Mm-Hmm . And again and again. Like what, what trends have you seen both in your coaching practice and in your own personal life? It’s like, what causes the fall off?
CJ (38:25):
Hmm. Oh, well we’re human really. I mean, and the reason for falling off is ’cause it’s hard. Mm-Hmm . It’s hard to give something up. That’s a pattern. Especially if it’s a really ingrained pattern and something you’ve been doing for years. So, you know, there’s a chapter in the book, choose your Heart. It’s hard to get sober. Is it gonna be harder to not get sober is the question. And so you wanna choose. It’s, and you can use that, you know, I was saying to a parent the other day, it’s hard say to your kid, yeah, it’s hard to put clothes on to go to church. ’cause Kids don’t wanna get dressed sometimes. Right. It’s harder to go to church naked. .
AJV (39:05):
.
CJ (39:06):
Right. There’s always a cost. So so just, yeah, I think it’s because it’s hard. And so I think, and that’s what we talk about in recovery is hitting bottom. And I think people, it’s, I’ve heard so many stories over the last 18 years. Everybody’s, when you say enough is enough is looks different for everybody. Mm-Hmm . So it doesn’t need to look like the next person’s. You don’t need to get thrown in jail or get a DUI or any of those things. It can be enough is enough. And you, you know, in your gut, the cost is gonna be greater than not giving it up. Mm-Hmm . And so that would qualify as a bottom. And that’s the time to find people to help you. Because right now, that’s the beautiful thing. We have so many communities online and in person that that can help and that are supportive and that people are joined together with a common goal of being sober.
AJV (40:06):
Well, I love that honesty and that it’s like, why do people follow up? ’cause It’s hard , right? It’s hard the end. Right. It’s hard. And I think that’s a really honest, powerful, you know, truth. It’s like, yeah, it’s hard, but choose your hard. It’s, it’s hard either way. It’s just which harder are you gonna pick? Now we, we you mentioned dry January that’s when we’re recording this. And so can you give us like two or three quick tips on how can you, if, if you’re listening to this going, yep, I did dry January, and if you haven’t, it’s never too late to start. Doesn’t even matter if it’s the last day of month. But like, what are some quick tips to carry you know, sober curious lifestyle past this dry January? Like how can you keep it going?
CJ (40:52):
Right. Well start with those questions I just talked about and ask what, write it down too. What, what did January give me? If you made it all the way through January dry, get honest about that and write it down. What did it cost and what did it give me? My guess is if alcohol is a stronghold in your life, that you’re gonna have more benefits that you got out of it. But write it down so you know. Right. And then ask yourself, well, why wouldn’t I wanna carry this on to February? Why wouldn’t I wanna keep doing it? And and knowing that any habit we, the best way to approach it is one day at a time. And so we say that in recovery all the time. And we don’t, we, if we come in and think, I need to be sober like the next guy for the next 20 years, we’ll we’ll panic and run out of the room because who can sink like that? So you just have to be sober right now for today. And maybe it’s not one day at a time, maybe it’s one minute at a time. And so just keep doing that and then do it the next minute and the next minute. .
AJV (41:59):
Yeah. I think it’s good. It’s like we used to tease, it’s, it’s no different than getting healthy or losing weight. It’s like if you told someone you’re only going to get to eat fo you know, foliage for the rest of your life, people would be like, I’m never doing this. But if you can just be, just focus on eating salad today. Just get a salad for lunch. Just get a salad for dinner and wake up and just do the same thing. It’s like, it’s the difference of like the magnitude of, wait, am I never gonna get to have a cookie again? What do you mean Versus Nope, just pick a salad today. Pick a salad at the meal that you’re at. And it’s, it’s, it’s a lot like that is what I hear you saying. It’s like, just make the choice in the moment and then in the next moment and then in the next moment.
AJV (42:40):
And I think this is a, a great conversation. I I wanted you to have a time to talk about the book. ’cause I, one of the reasons that we wanted to partner with you in publishing the book is because Rory and I personally resonate with the message of both of us would not identify as someone who had a, a problem with alcohol, but we both identify that it, that it had a strong hold and the way that we were living our daily life both of us were fortunate enough to be able to go, we’re just not doing this anymore. Like, we’re done. But both of us recognized a pattern that we were no longer comfortable with. And it’s like we, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but you know, for those of you who are listening of going like, well, I don’t, I don’t really know if that’s me.
AJV (43:24):
It’s like, I would maybe have a glass of wine every couple of days, but here, here was the pattern that I noticed. I would always default to a glass of wine on a hard day. And I would also default to a glass of wine on a good day. So if it was a really good day, I wanted to celebrate glass of wine. Mm-Hmm . If it was a really, really hard day, I wanted a, a glass of wine to decompress. Right. What I wasn’t doing is I wasn’t decompressing with God. I wasn’t decompressing with my husband. I wasn’t even talking about it. It was like, Nope, I just wanna go grab his glass of wine and go take a bath. Mm-Hmm . And I realized I was like living in this this isolated environment where it’s like, like I went to the wine and never to the point of ever getting drunk, but it was like, man, this, this is not a healthy default for me anymore.
AJV (44:19):
It is, it is a negative trend that I can see in my life where as I started giving it up, I noticed it’s like, oh my gosh, they serve mimosas at breakfast, margaritas at lunch, you know, aifs for pre dinner. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s everywhere. And it’s, it was never so recognizable of like, oh man, the access, the accessibility is right. What had created some of the problem of it was there when you celebrate, it’s there and it’s a hard day. It’s there at the sporting event. It’s there, it’s at the adults’ table, at the kids’ party. And it was like, it wasn’t until I just said I can’t have it. It’s a hard no. Right. that I could actually even set limits for myself.
CJ (45:00):
Right? Yes. I mean, happy, sad matter, glad that’s how we drank. That’s, that’s a saying too. You know, it it, when you start thinking of it as, ’cause you had mentioned it’s hard to give it up, right? And when we start changing our language to what am I gonna gain? Like, we’re gaining all this other stuff, we’re gaining sobriety, and yes, we’re giving something up, but like you just said, it’s, if we think of it that we’re giving something up, we’ll, even subconsciously, we’ll feel sorry for ourselves. We’ll have a little pity party and then that’s really unfair to us because you’re right, it’s everywhere. It’s at the kids’ birthday party, it’s at breakfast. And if we have that mindset, it makes us feel like we’re not disciplined because we can’t partake or like we really don’t wanna have it, but it’s, we feel like we should almost, because it’s everywhere, which is the good news why it’s starting to not be everywhere. Right. But we, we wanna flip that mindset to, yeah, maybe I’m gonna miss out for 20 minutes or an hour or that first hit feeling, but what I’m gaining is so much more and really focus on what we’re gaining not on what is not on what we’re giving up.
AJV (46:19):
Yeah. I love that. I can’t repeat this enough. It’s like, it’s gonna be hard either way. Choose your heart. Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love that. Y’all I could talk to Chris about this for much longer, but our time is up and I want you guys to know where you can go pick up a copy of this book. So if you go to grace yourself book.com, you can get your pre-ordered copy right now. At the time of the release, there’s just a few weeks left, but very soon, February 18th, you can get your real copy in the mail immediately. Chris, what would you tell to the person who’s like, yep, I’m going to pick up your book. What, what would you wanna tell them and why they need to go do that?
CJ (47:04):
Well, first thank you and yeah, it, it’s, you are going to gain tools for that will just make you happier, really. Right. It, like I said, it’s, it’s really a book about what you’re gaining not on how to give up one thing. You know, you’re giving up one thing to gain everything and if you, you know, on the flip side, you could lose everything to hang onto that one thing and that’s not what we want. So this book will really reframe your mind to all the way, all the things that you’re gaining and all the things that you want for your life.
AJV (47:38):
I love that. Again, y’all go check it out, grace yourself book.com, coming to bookstores everywhere, February 18th. Get your copy now. Chris, thank you so much. It was so awesome to have you on. And everyone else who’s listening, stick around the recap episode will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.
CJ (48:00):
Thank you.

Ep 559: What it Means to be a Bestselling Author | Lucinda Halpern Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Something truly amazing just happened this week, which is that we had our 24th Brand Builders Group client become a national bestselling author. That means that they had hit the Wall Street Journal and or USA today, or Publishers Weekly, or one of the real major national bestseller lists. Not only that, but we had two clients that hit the New York Times bestseller list. We’ve had the eight that has happened eight times in the last 12 months.
RV (01:01):
So we know something about becoming a bestselling author, and I myself hit the New York Times bestseller list when I was 29. I wanna share with you some of the most popular misconceptions that people have about what it means to become a bestselling author and how you become one. So the first misconception that I think every author has, and I think a lot of people in the industry have, is exactly how you become a bestseller. Most people think that publicity and PR is what sells books. People think that it is social media and pr and that for authors, that’s their entire strategy. And when they come to us, they go, well, we hired a PR firm and you know, we’re, we’re gonna do some contests on social, and that’s what they think sells books. And I hate to burst your bubble, but PR and social media don’t sell a lot of books, not typically, and not for most authors.
RV (02:00):
And we have authors like our clients, we have pretty famous clients. It’s very normal that one of our clients gets on Good Morning America or The Today Show or some other national television show. And even on those national television shows, they might move a few hundred units, maybe 700 to a thousand units, even if you get that Hail Mary Miracle Dream come true shot on like national television, typically it’s not even gonna add up to around a thousand units. But to hit a New York Times bestseller list, you’re gonna need at least 10,000 units typically. And to even hit the USA today or the Wall Street Journal is usually several thousand units sold inside of a week. In fact, we have a whole data science team that is a part of Brand Builders Group that all we do is study and deconstruct and analyze these bestseller lists to understand what does it really take to get there?
RV (02:51):
And that’s part of why our clients are hitting it. But the misconception is that PR and social is gonna get you there. And here’s the, here’s the real secret. It’s not online strategy that sells books. It’s offline strategy, it’s offline relationships, it’s offline stages. It’s humans that you have a, a deep relationship with. It’s the people who already know you and love you, getting behind you and supporting you and telling all of their people in their communities and sometimes buying books for their people in their communities and, and creating opportunities for stages for you to be on. And that’s something that we talk about in our training, but social media and PR is not what’s gonna get you there. The second misconception that authors have about what it means to become a bestselling author is they don’t understand how much it depends on a team.
RV (03:42):
In fact, the way that we say this at Brand Builders Group is there is no such thing as a bestselling author. There is only such a thing as a bestselling team. You need a team because you need a lot of people to rally together to pull this off, right? Even though Rory is a New York Times bestselling author, the truth is, I’ve only gotten there because I’ve had lots and lots of people support me and help me and be on that journey. So you need literary agents, typically, and publishers, and you need graphic designers, and you need social media, and you do need email, and you need speakers program managers, and, and you need strategists, right? And that’s part of what we do, is we quarterback and control the whole strategy to pull this together to really, really make it happen. Because the part that everyone misses is selling the book.
RV (04:33):
Writers write editors, edit publishers, publish distributors, distribute retailers, retail, and nobody actually sells the book. And that’s what our team at Brand Builders Group does. We have strategies for how to sell books, how to actually get people to pull out their credit card and buy books in a way that makes the bestseller list tick. So that your hard earned sales get registered and counted and hopefully report in the most optimized way so that you can get the dream of becoming a bestseller. But you need a team. You need, you need to enroll everyone around you. Hitting the bestseller list is not about tricks. It’s not about hacks. It’s not about gimmicks. And it certainly is not about buying your own books to get on the list. What it is about is taking every relational asset you have and pointing them all in one direction at one moment to create a huge spark so that you move the most books possible and get that, you know, that big dream of becoming a bestseller.
RV (05:36):
And that leads me to the fourth misconception that people have about becoming a bestseller, which is, what does it mean when you actually become a bestseller? Well, here’s what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you’re gonna get a call from a producer to host your own television show, or that emails are gonna flood into your inbox with invites to go speak around the globe for tens of thousands of dollars. It doesn’t work like that in many ways. The day after you become a bestseller, your life will look no different than it did the day before. So it’s not some magic pill or secret sauce that suddenly makes your life easy. But what it does do is it opens doors, it makes things possible, it gets you in front of more people. I mean, think about it this way, if you are a podcast host and you get pitches several of our clients at Brand Builders Group are some of the biggest podcast hosts in the world.
RV (06:34):
Louis Howes, ed Millet, Amy Porterfield, Jasmine Starr, right? People like this, they have huge podcasts. And just imagine that they get pitched every day, people wanting to come on their show. They don’t have time to read all the books, they don’t have time to watch all the videos. They don’t have time to learn about every person who wants to come on the show. So what they typically are gonna do, either literally or at at least metaphorically, is they’re gonna divide the list into two piles. There’s gonna be a no list, the automatic no list, which is gonna be a big pile that grows really fast. It’s just the automatic nous list. Then there’s gonna be another list, which is, we’ll give ’em a second look. We’ll give them a bigger chance. We’ll spend more time. And if you are a bestselling author, there’s a much higher chance that you will go from the no list to the maybe list.
RV (07:26):
And that’s where it starts. The same is true for speaking on the biggest stages in the world. I personally have spoken at several of the biggest speaking events in the world. That is an amazing honor. Many times that happens because people are looking at lots of speakers and they look at all of these different things. There’s all of these different, what academic criteria do they have and how big is their following? And what is their message and how good are they on, on stage? And how funny are they? And all these things. So it’s one notch on the belt, but especially if you’re gonna be paid a lot of money, if someone’s gonna pay you a lot of money to come speak, that means somebody’s job is on the line. Somebody is recommending to say, we should hire this speaker and we should pay them this money.
RV (08:11):
Well, it’s a lot easier to justify if we go, they have all of these credentials, right? They meet all of this criteria to justify getting a higher fee. Becoming a bestselling author is one of those things. It’s one of the most, the biggest pieces of notoriety and credibility that there is. So it does open doors it does open relationships. We, we hosted an event this summer where I, I coed this with my, my good friend Donald Miller and Mike Mcal and John Rulon and some of my other friends. And we hosted an event, and the event was free to come to, but here was the catch. You had to be a New York Times bestselling author or someone who had sold a million copies of a book to get invited to the party, right? So that opens doors, it opens relationships. So it’s just one more thing that, that, that really gets you a chance to, to get in the second look pile, to get in the maybe pile to get in the separate yourself from everyone else pile.
RV (09:09):
But what matters more than anything else is realizing this bestseller lists. Don’t change lives, but books do. Bestseller lists don’t change lives, but books really do. If you become a bestseller, it’s maybe gonna open some doors. It’s gonna do some really great things. But what really matters more than a bestseller title is getting a lot of people to read your book. Making a difference in the world, having your ideas spread, ha having, having your concepts out there, improving and elevating humanity. That’s what being a bestselling author is all about. It’s not about just some silly title or some vein recognition, and it’s not just about getting more opportunity for yourself. Those are small games to play. The big game to play is to go, how do I get lots of people reading my book? How do I get people sharing my book? How do I get people benefiting from my book? And that has to do with first writing a great book, and second, doing everything you can in your power to let people in the world hear about it. So does being a bestselling author matter? It sure does. But what really matters is having a mission that makes a difference. Having a mission is what matters. But if you wanna become a bestselling author, you need to make sure that you don’t have these four common misconceptions.

Ep 558: How to Land Book Deals with Traditional Publishers with Lucinda Halpern

RV (00:03):
Hey, my, one of my biggest dreams and one of the most important moments of my life as a personal brand was the moment I got assigned by a literary agent. And that took me years to figure out. It took me years to even understand who they were, what they did, how they worked, and then trying to get ahold of them to where I could actually talk to one and understand like how I could possibly build a relationship. And I figured that out. It eventually led to the book deal that became Take The Stairs, which became the New York Times bestselling book that launched my career. Well, today we are going to shave years off of your learning curve because you are about to hear from one of the most successful literary agents in our lifetime. Her name is Lucinda Halper. She has worked with several bestselling authors, several of my friends, Dan Martel, Ron Friedman I’ve known, I’ve known them for years.
RV (01:00):
So she has signed book deals for authors as a literary agent with Maj, all the major publishers, penguin Random House, Hachette, you know Simon and Schuster McMill and so forth and so on. They have represented several New York Times bestselling books in all different categories. And Lucinda is was never my agent. She would not sign me. I could I actually didn’t know her back then, but she has been a friend and someone that I know is an expert in this space. And she is switched sides to become an author. And she has a new book coming out called Get Signed, find an Agent, land a Book Deal, and Become a published author, which is coming out or came out from hay House. Yeah. earlier this year. And she is we love Hay House. And I was like, man, what an opportunity to learn from somebody. So she agreed to come on and basically teach her knowledge for free. And I was like, this is so perfect. So, Lucinda, welcome to the show.
LH (02:04):
Thanks so much, Rory. If I had met you with Take the Stairs, I would’ve signed you right away, so don’t worry, .
RV (02:10):
Well, thank you for saying that. It’s funny because Michael Hyatt is a good friend of ours, and he has someone who works on his team, who was the acquisitions editor at Thomas Nelson, who turned down take the stairs, and now I see him all the time, . And so that’s always a, always a laughter, a little bit of a, of a funny thing, but you and I didn’t know each other, but I’m so excited about what you’re doing. Thank you. I would love for you to just share the transparent, real deal on what does it take to get the attention of an a-list literary agent, and effectively a publisher, a major publisher. So if, if we’re talking traditional publishing, our audience knows that, that we have our own hybrid imprint, you know, Mission-Driven Press, that we can publish books. But usually if someone can get a huge book advance from a major publisher, we’ll tell ’em to go that direction much of the time. But a lot of people don’t understand that game and they don’t understand why you need a literary agent, and most of all, how to get the attention of somebody like you. ’cause I know you have people banging on your door all the time. So can you share a little bit on that? Yeah.
LH (03:24):
So I’ve simplified this to a very like, easy way to understand it, which are these three keys, right? That every publisher and agent are looking for. ’cause Agents have to think like publishers. We all have to think like the media, and we all have to think like readers. So those three keys are great. Writing a big idea, and an irrefutable platform. What’s interesting for your audience is you really only need two of those three keys. Can you guess which ones they are? Rory, can you guess which they might be? Idea. Idea and platform.
RV (03:55):
Idea and platform.
LH (03:56):
So the first thing that an agent, and I’ve quizzed editors on this, we interviewed about 20 New York editors, big five houses, literary agents and bestselling authors on like, what they look for in first time authors. The idea leads and the idea, by what I mean, a big idea has gotta be something that is timely and timeless and feel really of the moment, but like, it’s going to stay, right? So if you’ve got that big idea, which means it’s, it feels a little new and different, but it’s proven ground to be popular. And then you’ve got this platform, which we could spend time talking about. I know your company builds platforms so well. That’s really about an author’s public recognition in their field to their audience. If you’ve got those two things, idea and platform, you should be a slam dunk for any literary agent or publisher. And if any of your authors listening, or your aspiring authors and thought leaders listening are thinking, yeah, but all I’m looking at all these query guidelines and I don’t know how to query these agents and how to get through to them, and that, you know, their guidelines are so confusing, I can assure you that we’re all actually looking for just those two or three things.
RV (05:13):
Mm-Hmm. . I love that. So you said it takes three things to get a great book deal, great writing, big idea, irrefutable platform. You said the one that we don’t need is great writing. Yep. And is that because that’s a mon that’s a problem we can solve with money is great writing
LH (05:29):
. I love the way you put that. Yeah. You only need two of the three to get signed, to get an agent or book deal. So in the case of your nonfiction entrepreneur authors, it’s definitely about big idea and platform. The writer, as you said, can be outsourced or maybe you write well. But I always encourage, you know, my, my thought leaders and entrepreneurs, so many of whom we work with at Usin, the literary, why do you wanna be in a trade where you are not the expert, you’re the expert on presenting your business, beating the drum. You are being hired by a publisher to do exactly what you do so well. So if you know what you don’t know, and I only wanna be in business with people who know what they don’t know, I know what I don’t know, then you hire another expert to do that writing piece for you. There’s just no use in trying to do it all. So, you know, that is a problem to be solved with money. , uhhuh, , I think you’re right. Yeah.
RV (06:23):
Uhhuh , yeah. No, it’s
LH (06:24):
Really different for fiction. Right? And, and it’s different ’cause I’m sure you work with memoirs also. People are writing their life story.
RV (06:30):
Yep, yep. We do some of those. We do No, almost no fiction. We other than a few kids’ books.
LH (06:35):
Right? So, so there you go. If you’re writing your life story, which many of these like land on my desk as memoirs as their life story, and we transform them into something that’s much bigger. But if your intent on writing your life story, the writing’s gotta be so beautiful. It’s gotta, it’s, you’ve gotta see the movie. Mm-Hmm. . And that’s where that key of writing becomes actually most important.
RV (06:58):
Hmm. I love that. So yeah, one, one of my favorite quotes is from a guy named Dan Sullivan, and he says, if you have enough money to solve a problem, then you don’t have a problem. And if you get a big enough book deal, then you can hire someone to do the writing and you don’t have a problem. Right? Yeah. So then the, the, so we go, great, one third, we can just cross off right away. And we go, we gotta get a big enough book deal so that we can just pay the writer. And now we’re already a third of the way there, but then the big thing is going okay, in order to get a big book deal. Mm-Hmm. , I need a big idea. So you said the big idea has to be timely, but also timeless.
LH (07:37):
Yeah. Yeah.
RV (07:38):
How do we know what, I think we know what ideas are timeless. You look and see which books have been selling for decades, right? Mm-Hmm. . And you go, oh, well, you know John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is timeless. It’s been, it’s been selling 2000 units a week for like, you know, a couple decades. Right. How do we spot the timely ideas?
LH (07:59):
Yeah. Well, even just to add to what your friend Dan said, you know, the way I say it is, it’s not a problem, it’s an expense. Right. . That’s what, that’s
RV (08:08):
Good. I love that. It’s
LH (08:09):
Not a problem, it’s an expense. And mainly these authors that you and I work with are looking at the book as a calling card, as a tentpole, you know, holds together the other businesses, but is really an investment on what they’re going to be seeing on the backend in terms of their courses and their speaking and everything else. Amen. So the timely, timeless, by the way, I’m the only I’m, I’m the only person that I know of who’s actually identified that equation. And so what, what I want people, when they’re listening to this interview to understand is this is a formula for them to think about it. But it’s not, it’s not as though you need to fill in a sheet to your agent or your pub publisher that you’re aspiring to and say, here’s what’s timely. Here’s what’s timeless. You just wanna be striking those cores.
LH (08:56):
Yeah. So, ind terms of figuring it out, the timely, easiest way to think about it is the new and the different. If you’re thinking about John Maxwell’s book that’s existed on the shelf and is a bestseller, you have to compete with that now, right? If you’re writing a book in the same category. So instead of saying to an agent, because we love comps, comparative titles, we love to envision what this book has the power to be. Instead of saying, my book is just like John Maxwell’s Law of Leadership, you now need to say it’s like the laws of leadership for millennials or for people who work in Silicon Valley, or with this sort of twist to it. It’s like, it’s adding your different, what we call your differentiator that makes it, that makes it timely. And really paying attention, like doing the data collection of, of what’s selling in the market. The number of people that you and I both, both work with who wanna write books, write books, but haven’t read books or don’t read in their genre, a lot of ’em. And then how are they gonna know what’s popular with selling? Mm-Hmm. . Right?
RV (10:01):
So that’s, so you’re saying it’s, it’s like something timeless. Mm-Hmm. . But it’s timely because it, it strikes this differentiation point. And is it, is it like one example of that formula is who it’s written for, like millennials or whatever. What are some other, is it always a who, like is it always the, the who it’s
LH (10:26):
For? No, it’s not. No, it’s not. And it’s just paying attention to like what’s in the current conversation. So I think of a book I represented as an example that was about I talked to her today, so it’s on my mind, like minimizing consumption, right? So she could have pitched her book, which was ultimately called the Year of Less. It was more, it was like a secret, like the secret for another generation. But riding the wave of this minimalism of van life, of people like, of Marie Kondo, right? Those are the sorts of categories that make her book timely. And so she’s, the, the timeless is always those universal themes. It’s like love and loss and resilience and how to get rich and how to lose weight, , you know, all those things that we’re perennially interested in. But there’s some new appetite in the market.
RV (11:18):
It jumps One book that’s, that’s selling like crazy, which is a phenomenal book, is called The Psychology of Money.
LH (11:25):
Yes. Love that. Yeah.
RV (11:26):
And you go, it’s just a book about money. There’s a bazillion books about money, but it’s the psychology of it. It’s not the, it’s not the empirical, you know, it’s not the analytical or the tactical. It’s more of like the, the emotional parts of money. Yeah. That’s what we tried to do with procrastinating on purpose. My second book was the emotional Side of time management. That’s how we pitched it and got the deal. But it was really about how to multiply time. And my Ted talk went viral ’cause it was called How to Multiply Time. And it’s all about the emotional side of time management. Mm-Hmm. But we didn’t call the book How to Multiply Time. We called it Procrastinate on Purpose. And that’s a fatal, that was the fatal mistake. I talk about why the idea was good, the title was terrible, and that’s what tanked it. But anyways, the psychology of money would be maybe, is that a good example of going, it’s about money, but it’s like a new example, new spin on it. Example,
LH (12:16):
Although yours is an even better example because Title Aside, had that book been pitched and published today, it would be incredibly timely. ’cause Now there’s so much burgeoning about eq psychology. Mental health is huge. Wellness is everywhere. You know, I was thinking today I am like, if, so if we have another wellness day for someone else in my company, you know, there’s, there’s . Like you’ve gotta be so sensitive to that now. It’s in
RV (12:44):
Big deal. Yeah.
LH (12:46):
So mental health, emotionality finding its way new masculinity, Brene Brown, all about vulnerability, right? Like, these things are all coalescing, which means that your book, if it were sold today, would absolutely strike those chords of timely and timeless and may have had a different verdict.
RV (13:04):
Interesting. Well, maybe you can sell it to my publisher again. Maybe they’ll pay based on the terrible performance. Maybe they’ll pay even, even more money. The second time story. The, the so I think, so one of the things you said here is you, you said something like, pay attention to what’s happening in the go. Go back to that for a second. So
LH (13:26):
In, in inside I’ve got these it’s right in the intermission, there’s a, there’s a great story in it about our friend Ron there. Four types of writers who get book deals. And they’re the ideator person who has great big ideas, always prolific in their ideas. The data collector, who does the market research, who figures out the comps, those comparative titles that are selling? Well, the everywhere is whose person has a platform very visible. And the and the crusader. And the crusader. That’s who I’m through, through That’s who you are. It’s, it’s usually the type I work with is that combination of idea or crusader that is constantly relentlessly advocating. The problem with the crusader who runs a company is so many people for so many years have said, you gotta write the book. I love your story. You know, you’re surrounded by yes men essentially.
LH (14:18):
And what they’re not doing is going out into the world, particularly in business books and seeing that this has been said before, dude, it’s been said like 20 times. And, and another issue that most aspiring business authors. ’cause I love business books. I love to represent business books. I can learn some, like any, any book I can learn from is a book I wanna represent. But so many of them come to us as memoirs. It’s like, I just wanna tell my story of founding an amazing company and making millions of dollars. Like that’s not interesting. Let’s, let’s consider how this can be applicable and universal to a wide audience of people. Not just the people who work for you and not just your spouse and your sister-in-Law, but how this can be applicable to a wide audience of people. And how we’re gonna make it timely and stand out in the market. Like what’s its contemporary hook or appeal
RV (15:12):
Uhhuh . And, and, and to make it, to make it stand out in the market. It’s kind of like you said, like basically like pay attention to what the market is talking about or pay attention to what the hot topics are. You know, pay attention to the news cycle. Is it all that kind of stuff?
LH (15:26):
A thousand percent. But you know what? Right now, and it is here to stay. Diversity and inclusion is like the order of the day, right? Yeah. So if you are not writing from that perspective, you should be including portraits of others, anecdotes of others from that perspective, right? And so that’s like a small twist that you can be making in your pitch to show that you’re not just like your average. You, you know, I hesitate like how much of this is gonna be edited, but you’re not just like your average person sitting around and writing a book ’cause you feel like it and you feel like you’ve got a message to share. It is going out there and seeing what hasn’t been done. So the number of people come to me, say, I’m writing the next Ben Hardy, or what’s that book that everyone loves to write? Hard thing about hard things. Another Ben good to Great. I’m writing the Next Good to Great. It’s like, fantastic. Those books were are 20 years old easily. So what’s the new book that people are talking about and what is it missing that you can expand on that you can lend your unique vantage point to?
RV (16:30):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So you’re not just gonna rewrite a version of the same book, you’re gonna write a new angle on a proven a new angle on a proven concept.
LH (16:41):
Right? But the issue with this crusader type that again, love to work with the crusaders, the ones who run companies, is that they’re not out there. They literally don’t have time to go about searching the market and doing the data collection. They’re just saying their spiel. And people are like, oh, that’s amazing. It should be a book. A keynote’s not a book. Yeah.
RV (17:02):
Yeah. And I would say it’s, it’s interesting, a lot of who we publish at Mission-Driven Press, they are the crusaders. They’re going, I’m not so concerned about a new idea. I’m concerned about sharing. This is what’s worked for me hardcore tactical. And it’s like, it’s, in many ways, it’s not really new. Mm-Hmm. . And the goal is not new. The goal is like what works. And it’s really about platform, right? They’re just going, well, I can sell it to all my customers. I can sell it to all my people. And that’s dawning on me as you’re talking going, that’s, that’s a perfect fit for that person. But if you want a traditional publisher liter, a-list literary agent, big advance. Yeah. Half the battle here is the big idea. And in order for it to be a big idea, it’s got to somehow be new, different, unique, feel
LH (17:50):
Radical feel, feel like something we know. You know, it is, it is a Hollywood business. Publishing is a Hollywood business. So a lookalike, what what I mean by that is it’s a lookalike. This is an X meets y. So we wanna feel like there is a po a popularity around this. But you have a new spin. What I like about what you just said about your particular clients is that it is highly how-to imp practical, which is also a trend in the market we see for books by entrepreneurs. Again, veering away from the life story unless you’re like the guy who runs Disney, you know? Yeah.
RV (18:22):
Unless you’re celebrity, like the life story place,
LH (18:24):
The life story piece is not what we we’re looking for is the replicable is the useful. And always being oriented toward your reader, which is different from your employee, is, is how I encourage aspiring authors to think. It’s not just like the big advance though for many of our authors. Funny, your, the name of your press is called Mission Driven Press. It’s about impact, mission, legacy. And you just don’t get that. If we were to speak about why even traditionally publish it in the first place, why even work with someone like me? It’s because you’re just not going to get those distribution possibilities, those media opportunities, foreign rights, general word of mouth, unless you’ve got at the moment that pedigree of a traditionally published book.
RV (19:11):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And that was the, the game all changed for me when we figured out how to get our books distributed through Simon and Schuster. Yes. That was where, when, when, first of all, when we hit the New York Times and when we could get distribution through Simon and Schuster, it was like, whoa, this is hybrid. But it’s not really hybrid. It’s really as close to traditional publishing as you can get with just being inside the hybrid line for the reasons that you’re saying. Now, the difference is we don’t pay advances. People have to pay for us to produce the book. Mm-Hmm. . So, hybrid aside for a second. ’cause That’s a, that’s a fun, exciting area to me that’s like, you know, emerging and, you know, has lots of great things and some challenges and all that, but traditional publishing is still here. There’s still big advances. But when you talked about there’s three things you need, you need, you need great writing a big idea in a refutable platform, we don’t necessarily need great writing ’cause we can hire it. And the editors are really good. I mean, that’s another thing of traditional publishing that’s incredible. It’s just like, yes. My, my editor is freaking phenomenal. I mean, I’m absolutely amazing. The big idea, I hear you on it. I go, that’s good. What I have not, you come up with it
LH (20:27):
Yourself, you gotta come up with it yourself. Right? We’re with a team. Gotta
RV (20:30):
Come up with it.
LH (20:30):
It’s not like the publisher gives it to you, or the agent gives it to you. Totally.
RV (20:33):
And I, and I hear you on the big idea. I’m totally with you in my experience, and you tell me if you have a different experience, if you have a big idea, you need a big idea to get a book deal. But if all you have is a big idea and you don’t have a platform, you not gonna get a very big advance. True. So, so when you start talking about not only getting a book deal, but getting a big advance, the platform, I think is the thing that probably matters the most, is that matters the most. True or false.
LH (21:03):
True. True, true, true. And also, I, I tried to approach this unscientific business of publishing as a science, and I’ve actually done some of the math on like, oh, they’ve got a hundred thousand email list subscribers. They got a hundred thousand dollars advance, they have 500,000 TikTok artists. They got a $500,000 advance. Like it sometimes is that unfortunately simple? Mm-Hmm, . Incidentally, my, my publisher at Hayas said that only 30% of an email list generally converts to books to book buys. Because if you’re an expert of any kind, it’s not, maybe your audience isn’t long form readers and book buyers, right. So you can’t like, make the assumption that everyone on your list is gonna buy the book. Oh,
RV (21:48):
And I, I have a secret and I I love Hays. Oh yeah.
LH (21:50):
Tell me.
RV (21:51):
There’s no way It’s 30%
LH (21:54):
You think it’s a higher than you should than no
RV (21:56):
Way lower.
LH (21:58):
Yeah. Right. But I mean, is like that they overestimated. Yeah. They,
RV (22:01):
And that’s a, I mean, 30% is a generous, so if you have a hundred thousand email subscribers and they give you a $30,000 advance thinking, you know, or whatever, based on 30,000, it’s like that’s being super generous. The reality is, if you send a hundred thousand emails, only 3% of those are getting clicked on anyways. Right. So, you know, 20% are getting open, 3% are getting clicked on. You’re talking about you got 3000 people. Like, so email is, I’m not saying email is not important. It’s still to this day, in our opinion, the most, the single most important metric, way more important than TikTok and social media and all that stuff. Mm-Hmm. . ’cause That converts even less. But anyways, that’s fascinating to go. And I think publishers are waking up to this. They’re going, Hey, I have someone who has 5 million Instagram followers. I’m gonna pay them a million dollars. And oh my gosh, they sold 2000 books. Not, you know, and they, they vastly overestimated the impact of social.
LH (22:51):
Totally. But if we were just to look at, ’cause this is a burning question for all aspiring authors about the way that agents assess platform.
RV (23:00):
Yes.
LH (23:01):
Just to give you some like very basic and overlooked secrets, people are gonna Google you the minute we pick up your pitch. If we’re even interested, even if, if you’ve got us with the idea and you’ve indicated that you have some sort of credential to write this thing, the next thing we’re gonna do is Google you. Because why would we want to get into marriage with someone we haven’t Googled? You know, like this is a lifetime relationship. So we Google you and we find, eh, there’s nothing. Well, that’s a bad indication that you have any public recognition around you. So what you’re going to have to tell us in your letter, if you’re not all over social media, is I have this email list of X numbers, I do this amount of speaking year, I have these like five people in my network that could all end endorsements and their, their names you’d probably recognize. And in fact some of them are on your client list. Right. So this is like, those three things alone, network speaking and email list are three things that we can’t necessarily find out about you unless you tell us in the letter. And so the optimistic message of get signed is here all the different ways. And by the way, this is cross genres, this is for fiction, for children’s, for memoir. It’s not just for business
RV (24:08):
Books. Oh, really? Interesting. I was curious. I was curious about that. Well,
LH (24:11):
This book is, this book is for any writer, any stage, anything they’re writing. And because I’ve tried to craft the universal rules
RV (24:20):
For how Yeah. But and and that’s even what you’re saying, like, you know, platform matters even for those non, for even for fiction writers and even for those people. ’cause That doesn’t equate in my mind ’cause that’s not our space. Like most of our space is nonfiction.
LH (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, it does. I mean, again, with, with moderation, right? So like, if you wanna be a fiction or, or a children’s book writer, it is much more about that timely, timeless idea and the writing itself. So there’s a different weight being placed on two of those three keys.
RV (24:48):
Ah, that makes sense.
LH (24:49):
Nonfiction space. But any way you cut it, like you should be working on your public recognition because how else are you, how proving to the first agent who googles you, that someone knows who you are.
RV (25:02):
So you’re saying if you show up blank on Google, it’s a very uphill, a very uphill battle. It’s
LH (25:09):
A totally uphill battle. So for my, for the older folks in our community, ’cause we’re, as you know, we do a ton of coaching workshops, live events, and we’ve got a lot of people who are 50 and above writing the books that they always dreamed of writing. And they’re like, I’m not going on Instagram . And, and frankly, even for thought leaders, business people, psychologists, finance professionals, lawyers, they’re not going all over social media. They’re like, who has the time, the interest, the publicity sometimes bad for their business. So what I’m trying to instruct all of these folks to do and get signed is like, here’s some other ways you could prove and build your platform. You gotta be explicit about it in your letter. Mm-Hmm. a lot of people aren’t.
RV (25:49):
And a, a letter meaning the letter to the agent. Yeah. And then in turn, the book proposal y’all put together that you pitched to a publisher. ’cause They’re gonna go do the same thing and they’re gonna find the same result and be like, who, who you guys sell this to?
LH (26:03):
So wait, good clarification on that for your audience in terms of what you need to even be at the stage where you’re pitching your book. It can, it’s not just a query letter. And then you get in conversation with someone like me and you pay us to do the book or we develop the book together. That’s not, that’s not how the traditional model works. You have to have that pitch letter. The minute someone like me says, we’re interested, send us your book proposal. You’ve gotta have this 50 page roadmap of what the, it’s basically a sales document of what this book looks like, how it’s gonna be, does it have a plot, , is it interesting? It, does it have a platform? Let’s see more about it. Who are you, what’s the like larger bio? What’s the, you know where’s the sample writing? So you’ve gotta have that whole book proposal already. What you don’t need to have as a nonfiction practical business thought leader author is a full manuscript. And so I don’t wanna make everyone listening to this episode. Please do not write your full manuscript if you’re trying to get an agent. Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:03):
. Yep. They don’t, they, because they wanna shape the idea. The agent that wants to help you, the publisher, they, part of it is they’re buying the idea, but they want to shape the, the outline of it. That was something that, that I learned, which is another reason why it’s slower. It tends to be a slower process. ’cause It’s like, first I have to sell the agent, then we gotta sell the publisher, then we all gotta collaborate on what the outline is. Then we have to write it, then we have to edit it, then we have to sell it, then we have to, you know, do all this stuff. So it’s a, it’s a slower process, which to your point, it’s like another thing to weigh where you gotta go. You gotta balance. How much am I playing this like, big, big long game with a publisher and an agent? Mm-Hmm. versus like, I just want to tell my story. I just wanna teach my method to get it out there. It’s like a balancing act.
LH (27:52):
Yeah. But more than ever, I mean, I’m thinking of authors of mine, like Jake Wood, I don’t know if you if you work with him, but he did tours in Afghanistan and Iran. He runs, he used to run a nonprofit called Team Rubicon. You know anything about this?
RV (28:04):
Heard of Team Rubicon? Yep. Yeah.
LH (28:05):
So he’s a phenomenal guy. Speaker, author, you know, all of the things. But he was classic in terms of the client I worked with. He’s like, assumed I wanted this book out yesterday. We’re not waiting three years to get this out on shelves. Well, pub day arrives and you’re like, wait a second, this is way too soon. I’m not nearly as lined up as I want things to be. Right. Because, you know, it takes so much groundwork, it takes such a village and you’re never really ready when it comes out. But more than that, the people who contact me and say, this book has gotta be out tomorrow, immediately my antenna goes up because I’m thinking if this can’t be successful in five years, it’s not a book I want on my list because it doesn’t have that timeless appeal. Publishers love the New York Times bestseller list. Like we love the New York Times bestseller list, but what they really want end of day is the long tail.
RV (28:56):
Yep.
LH (28:57):
The book that sells on the long tail.
RV (28:59):
Yep. And the other thing is, if you, if you tell an agent or a publisher like, I want this out tomorrow, that means you better have your whole marketing and sales plan not planned. It better be done. Like it, it takes six months, Tori, just do a proper marketing and sales plan. And so it’s like if you’re trying to advance faster than that, you better have the thing on lockstep. Yeah. Before you go, I know we have to wrap up soon. Yeah. I wanna ask you about advances because I never like to ask authors what their specific advance was. I don’t like to ask publishers what their specific advance was, but in general terms, I feel like literary agents can talk. You are more educated than anyone. I’m like, what’s realistic Lucinda? Like, if I’m a first time author with 20,000 email addresses, you know, can, what, what am I talking about? Like, realistically, I know the range depends on how big the idea is and, and obviously stuff like that. But like, do do authors get more than a half a million for an advance? Do they get more than a million for an advance? Like what are the, what are the ranges and the quick, you know, factors on that? Yeah, it
LH (30:08):
Was super rare. I mean, I would say that I remember looking back at like Todd Herman Steel and it’s widely advertised, so it’s, you know, I’m not sharing anything I shouldn’t share, but I think he was like the last in the space that I’d seen as a new author to get a million dollar advance in the space. We’re talking about pre pandemic, right? So it’s like, if you’re James, I don’t know what James Clear got paid to begin. I’m guessing it was a handsome advance because he built that list way past 20,000. You know, so he had, he had it all on lock. So I, I’m taking a roundabout way of answering your question. The six figure to half a million is very much the sweet spot for authors that are first timers, but have a robust platform, a great idea, and then if they hire a writer and do a great proposal, like that’s also gonna help. Right? so that’s sort of like where we’re, where we’re focused
RV (31:02):
And what’s robust platform
LH (31:05):
Robust would be more in the range of like 50 or even past a hundred. But it’s a composite, right?
RV (31:12):
Like a hundred thousand email addresses.
LH (31:14):
Yeah. But I’m ta I’m talking about not just that data point alone, but they’re doing speaking, they’ve got 20 people they’re connected to are gonna have ’em on their podcasts or blurb the book or do X, y, Z for them, right? It’s this composite. So it’s network, it’s speaking, it’s email lists, it’s social, it’s media that you’ve obtained. Like how widely recognized are you by the media? How often are you on the media circuit? So to qualify the advance based on just an email list. Like, I don’t, it’s not enough anymore, right? It’s all of these things that can lead to a six to seven figure advance. But we’re seeing the seven figure advances, mainly not with the first time authors at this point, but with the proven track record they’ve had like , even
RV (31:58):
If they’re like a celebrity, like a reality TV star
LH (32:00):
Oh sure. If it’s Oh, a thousand. Yes. A re I’m, I’m talking more in our spot of like business books, thought leaders but celebrities. Absolutely. You you would be looking at that. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.
RV (32:10):
. Yeah. That, that is it. Lucinda, this has been so good as y’all, you could see this is why I wanted to have her on the book is out right now. Get signed, find an agent, land a book deal, become a published author Lucinda Halper and is who we’re talking to. You know, make sure you go, go check out this book and you know, this is the real deal on, on what it takes. You want to go traditional publishing. You want to get an a-list agent that’s in there. Or if, regardless of that, if you just want to go, how do I spot my big idea? How do I write the book and what do I need to be thinking about? If I’m going a different route, I still need to write a great book that’s in there too. So Lucinda, this has been amazing. I’m so grateful for you and my friend. We just wish you all the best.
LH (32:57):
Thanks so much, Rory. Love it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Ep 557: Create an Environment You Thrive In | Dr. Cody Golman Episode Recap

AJV (00:00):
Here are a few things that I just pulled out that were phenomenally important to me that just hit me in a certain way, so hopefully they hit you the same way. So the first thing is we started the whole conversation of just remember that you have a choice. And I think that’s just a good reminder for anyone, no matter where you are in life, it’s, you have a choice of how you feel. You have a choice of your attitude. You have a choice of whether or not you’re happy today or you’re stressed today. And I’m not saying that we don’t have days where we’re stressed and overwhelmed. I have those days often, but those are also choices I make. And it’s, I think it, the difference is am I choosing to focus on the things that aren’t going well? Or am I choosing to focus on the things that are, and it’s not that you ignore the things that aren’t they need fixing, but it’s choosing to put your, your, your hope and your aspirations in the things that are working and not get bogged down by the things that aren’t.
AJV (00:59):
It’s, are you choosing little things that make you feel good versus choosing things that don’t make you feel good? I know for me it’s like, am I choosing to go on a walk or am I choosing a glass of wine? I need to choose a to go on a walk, right? And it’s like, you have a choice. You have a choice about are you gonna be disciplined and do the things you know you’re supposed to do, or are you not? Are you going to do it? Even if you think it doesn’t make a difference, even though it does or not. It’s like you have a choice and all the things, you have a choice. And I think that is just a good place, a good foundation to start for the rest of this conversation is we all have choices to make. How we spend our time, our attitudes, how we feel, how we treat people.
AJV (01:46):
Those are choices that we get to make. And we do have influence and control over those things so you have a choice. So that was the first thing I think that was really good. Second thing is similar to that is you have a choice in your environment. Now, sometimes we are temporarily stuck in an environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create counter environment. So maybe you are temporarily in a, a job per se that isn’t healthy for you and you can’t just up and leave. You have bills to pay, you have a family to take care of. You have responsibilities, but there can be other environments that you surround yourself with IE community outside of work that help counter negative environments. So environment, your environment is a really important part of your ability to make progress. And I love what Lori said, and I’m totally just stealing this right outta her mouth.
AJV (02:39):
Your environment has a mental, emotional and physical impact on you. And if you are not consciously making decisions, choices to improve your environment, then your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer. So let’s all just take a a second, take a step back and go, what environments am I in that are healthy and good and, you know, moving me in the right direction? And what environments may I be in that are not those things? And how do I have more of the good and, and less of the not so good? Right? And I think, again, it’s like environments can be places. They can be groups of people, they can be communities, they can be all different sorts of things. But I know for me, and I love what she said when she talks about her childhood and an environment she was used to seeing versus a new environment when she went to go stay with a family a a a set of friends.
AJV (03:38):
And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? I, I didn’t even know this existed. If we don’t create new environments, then we convince ourselves that things are just the way that they are. We don’t even know things are possible ’cause we’ve never seen them be possible for anyone in our environment. So it’s, I think it’s just so incredibly important to have different and varying environments so that you see new patterns and new habits and new ways of living or thinking or acting or doing that create new possibilities for you. I don’t remember who said this first, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you are who you hang out with. Well, I think that’s probably true for most of us. It’s like we are the, you know, culmination of where we spend our time, energy, thinking resources, right? That begins to create who we are.
AJV (04:27):
So what environments are you in and what environments do you need to be in? I love this quote. This is so good. And she said that your environments are often stronger than your willpower. So if you know that you have a temptation to do things that you don’t want to do, then remove yourself from those environments, right? If you’re trying to eat healthy, then do not put yourself in environments where it’s, you know, chips and dips and nachos and hamburgers and hot dogs, right? Remove yourself from those environments. If you hang out with a group of people who aren’t healthy and you’re trying to be healthy, remove yourself from those sorts of temptations, not from the people, from the environments, right? See them on a hike, see them doing something else. But you’ve got to know that if you’ve got struggles in the willpower discipline arena, then you’ve got to change the environment.
AJV (05:24):
So, so good. Oh my gosh, this isn’t like brand new, but such a new fresh context of looking at this really does hit it in a different way. And just remembering, it’s like your environment is often stronger than your willpower. So good. Love this. Okay, moving right along here. This next one is like same kind of quote where I’m like, this should just be all over lord’s social media. I don’t know why this isn’t everywhere she goes, but there is always a gift in what you just did. And if you have ever said to yourself, I just wasted so much time, or I just wasted so much money, or what a bunch of waste of time, resources, emotions, I would just encourage you to rephrase that and go, you wasted nothing. You learned a ton, a ton about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, what you want and what you don’t want.
AJV (06:25):
But there is a gift in what you just did. And a lot of times that gift comes in experience and it comes in knowledge, and it come, it comes in clarification. But there isn’t a, there is a gift in what you just did, whether it was a success or it was a temporary failure, whether it worked out or it didn’t. There was a gift in what you just did. You just have to make the choice to look for it. And that is so powerful because often we look at things that don’t work out as failures, and we look at failures as a waste of time. And I’m currently reading a book right now called, called to Create by Jordan Rayner. And in this book he talks about something in Silicon Valley where they talk about the fail faster rule. And that’s just my syn my, my synopsis of what he’s talking about.
AJV (07:19):
I don’t know if that’s really what he said in the book, but this is how I remember it anyways. But the fail, the fail faster rule is like in Silicon Valley, it’s like, if your startup fails fast, that means that you’re learning just as fast. So it’s like if you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough, risked enough that there hasn’t been something that happened enough. And I think that’s both healthy and potentially not as long as we’re willing to express that. You know, failure does not, failures do not mean we are a failure. That means we did things that didn’t work. Welcome to life, , right? We all fail. That doesn’t mean we are failures, right? And I think this whole idea of fail faster, learn faster, get better faster, those are all part of just the life experience. It’s not, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just a part of the experience.
AJV (08:10):
And so creating different ways of looking at this of like, what are the lessons learned? What are the gifts I received from what I just did? Because nothing was a waste of time. There was something that was received, there was something that was learned. There was something that came out of it that is going to make you a better person, but you gotta make the choice to find it. So just, I thought that was such a good reminder of everything that we do, whether it was a, an investment loss or it was a business loss, a relationship loss. Whereas in the what is the gift and what you just did also in, in the wins, right? There’s clearly gifts in the wins. I think it’s easier for us to find those, but it’s, it’s a mental, a discipline to find the gifts and the things that we don’t consider wins.
AJV (08:58):
But there is always a gift in what you just did, I just thought was so good. Now, tactically speaking there were a few other things that I’m gonna share that I thought were equally as powerful here. So with courses we talked about the concept of less is more. The whole idea of this, it’s like you want to save, like this is what we say at brand builders all the time, is you wanna save the best for first. Because if you give, if you serve up the best first, if you give your audience the best first, they feel accomplished faster, they feel more empowered faster, they feel more educated, more knowledgeable they feel like they can do things right up front. And so you wanna give them as much as you can as early as you can because that shows a very quick return on their investment.
AJV (09:44):
They don’t need to spend six hours and 66 pages to feel like they got their money’s worth. You want ’em to feel like they got their money, their money’s worth in the first hour. So how can you do less is more and help ’em feel accomplished way upfront? Love that. Second thing about courses is just don’t forget that fundamentals never get old. We think we have to create some new twist and make new shiny objects and, you know, talk about a brand new way of doing something. And sometimes people don’t need a brand new way of doing something. They just need to hear it in a new way. They need to hear the solid, basic fundamentals in a way that hits them, right? The whole concept of there’s always a gift in what you just did. You could say that a hundred different ways, but the way that Lori said that hit me, right?
AJV (10:32):
The fact that she said that, you know, your environments often are stronger than your willpower. It’s not like that has never been said before. It’s just never been said that way. And so sometimes it’s not that you’re saying brand new stuff, you’re just saying it away that your audience can relate to in a way that they don’t relate to the way someone else says it. So just don’t forget, like fundamentals don’t get old. Just make sure to share it in your lens and your perspective and provide as much value as possible right up front. Now, when it comes to podcasts, Lori’s podcast now has more than 47 million downloads. So how do you go from a new podcast or a podcast that maybe has a few thousand downloads to millions of downloads? I thought this was really good. Keep it simple. It’s fundamentals, but talk about it everywhere you go.
AJV (11:21):
It’s be consistent. Don’t give up. It takes time. But talk about it everywhere you go. Ask people to share it. Ask people to rate it. Ask people to give reviews on it. But talk about it and then ask people to do what you want them to do. We talked about how it’s like if you never ask, the answer is always no. So you’ve got to ask, remind people, tell people this is how you can help talk about it everywhere you go and tell people what to do. That’s how you grow your podcast and you to do those two things consistently right? Now, last but not least, we also talked about stepping into the world of physical products, right? So that could be anything from t-shirts, shoes to water bottles, wine, food, snacks, nutritional supplements, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (12:13):
Could be any sort of physical product, but going from an an educational and information product world to a physical product world. And what are some of the things that we need to know and what should we be looking for if we are considering making this transition or adding a physical product line to our business offering? So first, find some help , don’t do it by yourself. Please find someone who has actually, who has actually done what you want to do in the, you know, sector that you want to do it. So if you were trying to launch a nutritional supplements, don’t talk to someone who has only done a clothing line. Actually talk to someone who has done what you want to do. So find some help. This is where you want to hire a coach, find a mentor, join a mastermind, go to a conference, read books, but find some expert help and exactly what it is that you want to do.
AJV (13:08):
That’s the first thing. Second is make sure that you’re just filling a need that you see in the market. Don’t think don’t, don’t create a product as you think there’s a need. Find a need and then create a product to fulfill that need, right? And if you’ve got a trusted audience, you can start by asking them, but fill a need that you already see in the marketplace. ’cause There is there, focus on why your product is different than competing products, right? So focus on what differentiate your products. How are you gonna market it differently? How does it help differently? How does it serve your audience differently? How is it made for your audience specifically? So focus on your differentiator. I loved this one that this was so pa impactful. Avoid any sort of products as your first product that have lots of legal tape, right?
AJV (13:58):
So anything that would require like FDA regulatory issues, anything that, you know, like beauty products, food, beverage nutritional lines, anything that has lots and lots of legal take. What’s gonna happen is most of your investment money or your own money is going to be going to the lawyers versus product development, research and development marketing. Most of it’s actually just gonna go to the pockets of attorneys versus actually helping develop your product. So as your first product entry to market, avoid anything that has lots of legal red tape almost to the end of my list here, focus on one thing. In other words, don’t create a product line that has lots of skews first. So if you’re gonna create a makeup line start with one thing, right? Is it a lip gloss? Then stick to that.
AJV (14:50):
Is it a mascara? Stick to that. Don’t go, here’s an entire makeup on, we’re gonna have this and this and this and this. It’s like, no, start with one thing. So you have centralized focus on what works. You do all of your checks and balances, all your trial and error, all of your market testing with one product. So you get the marketing right, you get the audience right, you get the pricing right? You get the packaging and the shipping and all the things right on one product, and then you expand from there. So start with one sku, one product,and that will save you lots of time, lots of money, and actually help you generate revenue. So y’all, there’s so many things I could talk for another 20 minutes on this. Ubut I’m looking at my timer and my time is up. So,go check out this full interview.
AJV (15:35):
Catch us next time on the influential personal brand. And if this has been helpful to you, please go and like this episode, share this episode, comment on it, leave us a review, rate it. If this is helpful to you and you think it would be helpful to someone else, please share it with them. You get to be the conduit of sharing good information out into the world. So I’m asking for your help. If you like our podcast, the influential personal brand, please like it, share it, leave a review and get it out into the world and share it with a friend. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.