Ep 429: The Hidden Perks of Podcasting | Carli Van Heerden Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Wanna know three hidden perks of podcasting. Well, let’s talk about why podcasting, both as a host and a guest, has some really truly hidden benefits that maybe you’ve never thought of before. So I’ve got three things that I wanna highlight for you today about why podcasting can bring you more than what you think. So here’s the first thing. Again, this could be as a host or a guest, but the amount of free education that you get is insane. Like I have been the host, co-host of the Influential Personal Brand podcast for five years, which means I have had at least once a week, right? That’s about how many we do every year, about 52 times five. So about 250 hours of free expert training and free consulting advice over the last five years. If you think about that at an hourly rate. So let’s just say I’m pulling up my calculator here, and we’re gonna do some math here together at 250 hours over the last five years times an average consulting rate.
AJV (01:12):
And we’ll just go somewhere kind of low, $200. That means it’s $50,000 of free training and free coaching and free consulting advice over the last five years that is not just helping me personally and professionally, but then I get to share it with people like you. And it helps me build my audience. That is a huge hidden perk of podcasting that I don’t hear enough people talking about, which is the amount of learning and education that you get from being the host. And I would say that too, as being the guest, like when I get to be a guest on other people’s podcasts, I learned so much about them, how they do things, how they got started even just listening to the way they ask questions. So not only am I learning how to be a better host, I’m also learning how to be a better business owner, how to be a better speaker or consultant, or all these other things that I’m interested in just by having conversations with people and a very targeted confined space.
AJV (02:13):
And it’s, it’s interesting because we all know that we’ve got about 50 minutes here to get a as much value in as possible, which makes you as the host ask better questions. And if you have a great guest, it makes them get to the point quicker, which means the value is rich. These, these aren’t hours wasted. This is real education time that you as a host and the guest get as a hidden perk of podcasting. So that’s number one is free education. Number one. Number two is it’s one of the best prospecting tools on the planet. So this, think about this as a second for this one specifically, it’s about being a host. As a podcast host. I get to do outreach, warm and cold to people
Speaker 2 (02:58):
That I would love to be on the show. And there’s two approaches that you get to take if you’re a host. One of them is, Hey, I have this awesome podcast called the Influential Personal Brands Podcast, and I ran across your name or heard you speak here or heard you on this podcast, and I loved when you talked about X, Y, and Z. You would be an amazing fit for my audience. And then I’d do a little sales pitch. Version two. Outreach is a sales outreach, which is, hi, I am aj, the c e o and co-founder of Brand Builders Group. I was looking at your stuff as a speaker and it looks like you could really use our help
Speaker 2 (03:48):
The person who is not gonna take a a cold outreach to be a client will accept a potential cold outreach to be a guest on a show. Because being a guest on our show is the beginning of a relationship. It’s the beginning of a potential paid relationship. But most importantly, it’s just the beginning of a relationship. It’s no different than a sales environment. And so being able to do proactive outreach to have guests on the show is what I do now, whereas I used to do cold outreach for sales calls, now I’m doing it for podcast outreach. And it’s a natural transition where we’re both having a genuine effort of getting to know each other, asking questions, learning about each other, deciding if we like each other. It’s the beginning of a sale. It, it’s a relationship. So being a podcast host is one of the best prospecting tools on the planet because people are more willing to talk to you, and it’s about them being a guest on your show versus cold outreach for a sales call.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That’s number two. And then number three it is an amazing opener for sales conversations, even if you’re not using it for that. I cannot tell you how many times as both a guest and a host, but for this one, it’s more guest specific. One of the reasons I accept tons of invites is because I know that this gives me an opportunity not only to talk about Brand Builders group, my company to their audience, but it’s also to introduce it intimately to a person that I’m having a one-on-one conversation to. They’re literally inviting me onto their show to talk about what I teach, what I do, in the way that I do it at Brand Builders Group. And at the end of that, I guarantee you, 50% of the time they go, you know what? We should probably talk more. We should probably set up a time. I’d love to learn more about what you guys actually do at Brand Builders Group. And so, being a guest in a proactive manner of loving what I do, providing value for free and talking about it with conviction, 50% of the time when I’m a guest on someone else’s show, they’re going, Hey, I’d really love to schedule a
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Separate call just to talk about what you do at Brand Builders Group. And so it’s an amazing sales tool tool. The same thing happens as a podcast host. Many people at the end are like, you know what? I’m so glad to be on the show. You know, I was reading up on the website and everything and I, I really would love to learn more about what you guys do. So there’s this, there’s this, you know, kind of hidden benefit of there is this outreach component where people are more likely to accept a call with you where they may not talk, take a coffee or lunch with a complete stranger, but if it’s them being interviewed on your show, they’re just a little bit more open to it. And then it’s an amazing sales invitation tool. It’s like, if you think about it an interview is like a, a an hour long sales pitch.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
‘Cause What you’re doing the whole time is talking about what you do and how you do it and how you can help other people do it. And if you do a really good job at that, then the host naturally might be interested. And so there’s this dual benefit of an addition to expanding your audience, expanding your reach just sharing value. There’s all these other things that you get these hidden perks. You get education for free. There’s this outreach component that allows you to make new contacts, but you may not have gotten without an invitation to be on your show. And then there’s the bonus part, that’s the sales side. So those are the three hidden perks of podcasting that may not be so obvious to you, but have direct benefit when you host a show or you decide to be a guest on other shows. So go podcast
Ep 425: How To Attract Your Top Customers | Tom Schwab Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So on a recent podcast interview with Tom Schwab, which is a old friend recently got in, reintroduced to an old friend. This phenomenal conversation developed around the concept of borrowed audiences. And it’s something that we talk a lot about at Brand Builders Group, but this was in a, a unique context, and I thought this example was really powerful enough so that I’m making a video about it right now. And the concept is around leveraging other people’s platforms versus leveraging other people’s money. And in the world of entrepreneurship where I have a, a ton of friends who own small businesses, some who own really big businesses but there’s a constant conversation of, you know, the idea of investment money and, you know, do we need whether it’s from you know, an equity company or you’re just trying to get a loan or you’re trying to bring in a, a partner or you’re trying to sell part of your business ’cause you need more funds.
AJV (01:04):
But there’s a lot of conversations in my entrepreneur community around other people’s money. There’s not enough conversation around other people’s platforms. And I love this example that we talked about in the podcast episode on the influential personal brand with Tom Schwab about the importance of not taking other people’s money, but instead leveraging other people’s platforms. And I shouldn’t say, not taking other people’s money, that’s up to you. But there’s another way that you can leverage other people in the business world to help you grow your business. And it’s not just getting in debt or giving up a piece of your business but it’s it’s exposure. And I love this example about Sarah Blakely and how when she was starting Spanx, there was an opportunity for her to go on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And imagine this, imagine if Oprah Winfrey had said, Sarah, I love what your business is all about.
AJV (02:02):
I love what you’re doing. Here’s a million dollars. I’ll give you a million dollars. I’ll take a piece of your business. Or you pay me x amount of interest or even interest free. But here it is. That’s option one. Option two would’ve been, Hey Sarah, I’d love to have you on my show. There’s no money involved here, but I’m going to introduce you to my audience of millions all around the world. Which one would you take? Would you take the million dollars or would you take the exposure? Now knowing Oprah Winfrey and knowing what results from that hindsight 2020 is pretty powerful. But what about in the moment? What if you didn’t know? And what if you were really desperate for money? Would you have taken the money or the platform? And I think that’s a really important question because I hear something else a lot in my community, which is, well, how much are you gonna charge for that?
AJV (02:57):
Or How much are you gonna pay me for that? And there’s a, a part of this where it’s like, would you rather take the money or would you rather take the exposure? Would you rather get the money or the platform? And I think there’s an opportunity for a lot of us as entrepreneurs and small businesses to reconsider the power of the platform versus the dollar. ’cause The dollar has a a short term impact, but access to these platforms is the beginning of something that can last for years and years. And it’s a small amount of money compared to a potentially huge amount of money if you take a leap of faith on yourself and what you’re doing. And the power of the platform today is like never before. And so there’s an, there’s an amazing opportunity for you to hone in as a personal brand, a business owner and entrepreneur of leveraging platform access to audience instead of money that might be more beneficial for you.
AJV (03:57):
And if you’re working yourself through the lens of, well, what should I charge for that? And how much should I charge for this? And I will only do this for that, it’s like, just pause for a second and go, just take money off the table for a minute and just go, let’s not think about dollars and cents at all. Let’s think about audiences and relationships. What would it mean for you to have a trusted relationship with someone who is willing to promote you, advocate for you, introduce you to their audience of millions? It’s worth so much more than a dollar dollar, but it comes from a trusted relationship that you have been building offline for a pretty long time in many cases. But then that introduction is worth millions. It’s worth tens of millions over the course of time versus this very small fin finite amount of money in the short term.
AJV (04:53):
And so in this conversation, it was this idea of how do you attract your top customers when maybe you, you don’t have the money to go pay for paid traffic or do some of these big things, but you provide an amazing service with immense value, and you have a trusted reputation with people who have audiences and that matters. That means something. So here’s a couple of things that I thought were really worth a takeaway from this podcast interview which is, number one is that today when it comes to online business and digital, digital marketing and AI and automation and all things truly we are becoming more efficient all the time every day at things that are not effective. We’re trying to work harder and harder and harder at repurposing content and automating things that aren’t even effective. We’re just trying to figure out how do we do more and less time without even paying attention to does that really work, right?
AJV (05:56):
Does that really work? And instead, we need to go, I’m not trying to get millions of clients or even thousands of clients, I’m trying to figure out what clients do I want to attract and where are they, even if I’m only trying to get 10 clients. It’s like, what if you were able to get introduced to 10 of your perfect ideal clients versus a hundred of your temporary clients that aren’t really a great fit, but they may be willing to spend money on what you offer right now? What do those two different strategies look like? And it comes down from, I don’t care to be seen everywhere, but I want to be where my clients are. And that’s being a hyper disciplined person in a world where there’s so much temptation to do all the things all the time and try to be everywhere for everyone instead of going, no, that’s not where my clients are, right?
AJV (06:50):
It’s like, I need to leverage the platforms to reach my unique and specific audience. So I don’t need to be everywhere. I just need to be where my clients are. And if you don’t know where your clients are, then you just ask them in real conversations, go through you, your list of clients and pick out who are your five to 10 top clients, your biggest clients, your most long-term clients, your favorite clients, the ones who spend the most with you, love you the most, promote you the most, introduce you to people the most. Those have the biggest audience, the biggest platform, whatever that criteria is, pick just a few of them and have real in-depth conversations about where are they spending their time? Where do they go to learn? What are they listening to? Where are they at online? What conferences do they go to?
AJV (07:40):
What you know, masterminds, are they a part of? What forums what whatever, right? What are they reading? Like truly get into the mental psyche of your top 10 clients. It is better to have answers from a few clients that really represent your ideal perfect avatar that have hundreds of responses from the average customer. So it’s like, take the time to get real answers to build real relationships and get real nuanced answers that allow you to go deep and to use tools like Spark Touro to go, okay, I spent a few conversations with these people and now I know exactly where to dial it in. And using Spark Touro will help you know where to spend time on online, what podcasts you wanna be on what websites that you’d wanna be featured in, what blogs what different social content, what influencers.
AJV (08:37):
It helps so much for you just to get clear on who are those top customers, where do they spend their time, where are they learning, what do they want? And it doesn’t take a ton of that for you to have some really clear answers. But that takes time because what you’re trying to do by targeting this in and by looking at the concept of platform and audience is what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to narrow in the time spent online and offline. Because if you’re doing everything, you’re simultaneously doing nothing. It’s like if you’re trying to go, Hey, I’m gonna be on Instagram and I’m gonna be on TikTok and I’m gonna speak at these conferences and I’m gonna do the LinkedIn strategy, oh, and I’m gonna launch a podcast. It’s like, okay, okay, at some point what is actually working right?
AJV (09:22):
And that in itself takes a lot of filtering and data reporting to go, well, this is where it’s all coming from. Instead of just going, let’s do all that market research on the front end to go exactly who are these people? Where are they spending time? Who has those audiences? And how do I leverage the audience that already exists to help me build my platform? It’s the Oprah Winfrey example. He like, would you take a million dollars or would you take exposure to millions of people? Everyone’s gonna make their own choice here, but I would advocate to go look at the, the trajectory of Sarah Blakely and Spanx, which in much part was launched on that Oprah Winfrey show. Not solely, not by itself, but that was a catalyst, right? And I can speak for Brand Builders group our own company. It’s like there was a catalyst event that went from are we gonna do this?
AJV (10:14):
Are we gonna make it to? Like the business is, it’s working and it’s producing. And it’s when we were on Lewis House, the School of Greatness podcast in July of 2018, 2018, and that was a catalyst event that went from, okay, we’re trying to do this thing to, oh no, we’re doing this thing that one podcast generated more than a thousand leads for us because we had a trusted relationship with Lewis offline, and he had a trusted relationship with a huge audience online. But it takes both, right? We did not have the audience at the time. We launched Brain Builders Group with no podcast, with no email list, no social media, and no website. And we were able to use the trusted reputation of Lewis introducing us to his audience, that borrowed platform to grow our business, to attract our ideal customers. We knew who our customer were who our customer was, and we knew where they were.
AJV (11:19):
And a lot of them were in that Lewis house audience. And so it’s a, it’s a huge decision for you to go, you know, I’m gonna spend the time to know who my customer is and where they are, and it’s to become efficient at the things that are working, not just being efficient for efficiency’s sake. So it’s a difference between are you trying to have high volume with lots of transactions, or are you trying to build real relationships and target your ideal customer? Because if you’re trying to attract your top customers not not the short term customers, but the ones that are your true customer who are going like, you know, you can serve them in the deepest, most meaningful way, there is a way to do it that allows you to attract those customers in the most efficient and effective manner, which is you have to know who they are, you have to know where they spend their time, and then you have to have a way to introduce yourself to those people. And a great way to do it is this concept of borrowed audiences, right? It’s using other people’s platforms to help you get introduced to the people that have never heard of you, who you have not met yet. And until you build your own platform and your own audience, your customers exist somewhere. They don’t have to be in your email list. They don’t have to be on your social media profiles. They don’t have to be subscribed to your podcast. You don’t have to have that yet. You just have to know where they are.
AJV (12:42):
What email list Are they a part of? What podcasts do they subscribe to? What events do they attend? What books do they read? That is what you need to spend time doing to be the most efficient person in the world at attracting your top customers. So what do you do from here? You ask yourself, who, who is my top customer? Start with looking at your current clients. Who do you wanna replicate? Who do you wanna duplicate? So first thing, who, second thing, where, where are they? And if you don’t know, get on the phone, dial ’em up and ask ’em. But who are they and where are they? That’s how you start to attract top customers.
Ep 424: How Digital Marketing Could be Destroying Your Business with Tom Schwab
AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. And y’all are in for a treat today. In fact, I am in for a treat today because I am getting to connect with an old friend Tom Schwab, and he just reminded me today that, Hey, do you remember that one time we were on a cruise together? And I was like, oh my gosh. I had so completely forgotten eight years ago that that happened. So this was also a treat for me today. But before I introduce Tom, I want to tell you why you wanna stick around for today’s episode. So ask yourself this question. Have you ever thought that digital marketing might actually be hurting your business? If you have ever asked that thought that, or wondered how could digital marketing help me? Or is it helping me at all? This is an episode for you.
AJV (00:56):
I would also encourage you to stick away. Stick around if you have ever ventured into the idea of, I think one day I’d like a podcast. You know, everyone has a podcast. Do I need one? And I know from talking to so many of you I hear one of three things. I hear one, oh man, I’d love to start a podcast one day. That’s number one. Number two is, oh, there’s too many podcasts out there that market’s already saturated. There’s no room for another one. I hear that a lot. And number three is, oh, I have a podcast. Now, how do I get people to listen to it?
AJV (01:41):
This is an episode that you want to listen to. So, well, let’s get into it. Let me introduce you to Tom Schwab. There’s a couple of things I wanna just kind of highlight. But one thing that I love is he, he is coming with a refreshing new take, a new view on digital marketing and how to use it or not. He’s got a new book that has just come out. It’s one Conversation Away. And it’s based on a data and experience and expertise of working with over six or 700 leading brands. He’s also the chief evangelist officer, love that title at Interview Valet. And so if you are interested in the podcasting world, you probably wanna learn about interview valet and what they do and how that works. And in general, it, this is also just super fun because you always wanna reconnect with people that you actually know and that know you, and that you have shared friends and shared clients, and you know that what they’re gonna talk about brings value. And that’s what we get to do today. So, Tom, welcome to the show. Aj.
TS (02:46):
I am thrilled to be here.
AJV (02:48):
Oh my gosh, I am so excited. And I’m honestly, I’m, I’m so excited because of this first topic that we’re gonna start with. And we had just a quick chat about this before I hit record. And I, this is pretty compelling and it’s pretty provocative, which is how digital marketing is destroying your business. That’s a pretty provocative statement in a world where everyone else is selling you of, like, digital marketing is the way to go. And if you’re not online, you’re dead. So to hear you say that is like, we’re gonna start right there. We’re, we’re gonna bring that to the front. I wanna know, is it, is it, is it destroying your business? What do you think? I,
TS (03:26):
I think for a lot of business, it’s hurting the brand, not helping the brand. Hmm. And you say all the people that are telling you more and more, more louder, louder, louder. Right? You need to break through the noise. Did you ever notice that all the people that are telling you to break through the noise are the ones that are selling the megaphones and getting us all to yell louder, louder and louder? We’re yelling, but we’re not being heard. Right? We’re getting more efficient at things that are getting less and less effective. Oh, that’s good. And, and, and with that, it’s like, we know in our hearts this isn’t working, and this rat race isn’t going in the right place. And I I learned so much from our clients. And I can remember one client came to me and I’m like, why do you wanna do podcast interviews?
TS (04:15):
And I loved his answer. A ha he said, ’cause I think most of social media is the digital equivalent of advertising above urinals,
TS (05:11):
Well, if your customers aren’t there, why should you be? And I, I, I think back when my daughter was in middle school, Instagram was taking off, and she said, dad, you need to be there because everyone’s there. And I’m like, define everyone. And she’s like, me and all my friends,
AJV (05:48):
Oh my gosh, I love that I wrote this down. It’s like, most people today suffer from digital fomo. They do. It’s like, oh, it’s like, if, you know, know, you know, I have to, this is so embarrassing, I can’t believe I’m gonna admit this, but just two weeks ago we had dinner with some of our friends and one of our friends is also on our, our data team at Brand Builders Group. And we’re sitting down and he had said something about threads, and he was talking to Rory, and, and I’m just sitting there and I was like, not really paying attention. And finally they kept talking about it, and Rory was talking about his content on threads. And I was like, what is threads? And they both looked at me eyes wide, and they’re like, did you just say what is threads?
AJV (06:32):
And I was like, I don’t wanna seem dumb here, but what is it
TS (07:31):
Well, I think everybody is online in some area, right? And I would say trying to figure out where your clients are. Ask them, right? It’s a great, great marketing research. Find out other people that you are similar to, right? And you can figure out where they are, right? And if they’re finding success in those audiences, you can also, you know, sort of lookalike audiences. And I gotta admit that, oh, when we first started out nine years ago, it was more podcast guessing than podcast guessing, right?
AJV (08:48):
Yeah. We use Spark Touro ourselves, and I agree. It’s amazing. And it frighteningly ama it’s frighteningly amazing because it’s like, oh, that’s so creepy. You have all this data, but I love that it’s just ask your clients. Right? And it’s like, if you, but I think that’s where a lot of people make the mistake, is instead of asking who, they ask what, like, where, what should I be doing and where should I be versus going, no, who, who’s my audience? And where are they?
TS (09:16):
And I’ve always said, as business owners, as consultants, we always have opinions, right? But the people that have the answers are the ones that are voting with their dollars. Right. Our customers will tell us what they love and what they loathe if we ask them, and then listen to what they say.
AJV (09:36):
Yeah. So, I, I love that. What, what would you say is, is the best way for the person who’s listening going? I agree. I do wanna ask, I have no idea. What’s the best way to ask? How should I do it? Should I just send them an email? Should I put together a survey? Like what’s the best way to do it?
TS (09:52):
Once again, at, at times we get more and more efficient at things that are less and less effective, right? So you could send out a survey to all of these people, but I think you’re much better off having quality conversations with your super consumers. There’s a great book called Super Consumer by a a gentleman by the name of Eddie Yoon. And Eddie wrote it with the Harvard Business Reviews, and he said, or H B R he said that you just wanna market to your super consumer, not to everyone, right? So one of the examples that he uses in there is American Girl Dolls, right? They market to the people that buy every one, right. And all the accessories that go with it, because if you market to them, you’ll get that next ring with it. Mm-Hmm. And often those super consumers are gonna be the people that see your content and repost it. So I would look on that, and I, I’d rather have answers from 10 of my super consumers, my best clients, the people that I know I can bring a lot of value to than a MailChimp survey from a thousand people. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (11:05):
TS (11:50):
Well, I think there’s this idea in marketing today that you are just one funnel away, right?
TS (12:47):
No. If they wanna talk to you, they, you know, they wanna talk with the wizard and take action on there. And I think there’s a misunderstanding that what works for transactional sales at the low level can just be scaled up to relationship scale sales. You know, if that was the case, Boeing and Airbus would be, would be selling, you know, billion dollar contracts off of Facebook’s and funnels. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (13:25):
Yeah. So, you know, and I love, and I love that ’cause I agree, it’s like there’s a time and a place for all the things, but you gotta know what you’re selling and who you’re selling to, right? So in your world, would you say, you know, with some just industry statistics or trends or even your personal insights of like, when does a funnel make really good sense? Like, when, when is doing, you know, some, you know, pay-per click ads and some funnels really makes sense for who you’re going after, versus you gotta know these defining lines between when you’re gonna need to build relationships and work through referrals and, and have real conversations versus trying to just make more transactions. Mm-Hmm.
TS (14:06):
AJV (15:11):
Yeah. And I love that too, because I think that, you know, to that point, it’s like the person who maybe buys the course today with enough, you know, relational, you know, kind of credibility over time might be a prospect for the higher ticket sale. That knowing the difference between, what am I trying to do, where it’s just high volume, low margin, versus no, somebody’s gonna wanna talk to me, they’re gonna want references. And if I’m spending six figures on something, I’m probably gonna want more than just clicking on something online. Right? Well,
TS (15:41):
Well, you, you’re a good businesswoman and you figured out what he’s trying to do, right? He’s got the low margin and then the high margin, and in the middle is the coaching with that too. And so that’s his idea to go out there, do the course, right. And there’s gonna be a lot of people that say, I understand the course, but I want some help with this. Maybe they can’t afford the six figures, but they can afford the coaching. So I think it’s more of a continuum. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (16:23):
Yeah. And I love that we talk about that in our own business, in our own household all the time. It’s just like, it’s basic rules of economics, supply and demand, right? It’s the greater the demand, you can charge more, the lower the supply, you can charge more, right? And it’s like, if you’re on a two year waiting list, there’s a not a lot of supply and a whole bunch of demand, so you get to charge more versus that, you know, high volume, lower fee funnels. But again, time and a place for all the things, it’s just knowing when, what and for who. And I love that. No, on that note, there is something that’s kind of in this realm of how do you start bringing people in and a, attracting them and building a relationship with them that has nothing to do per se with, you know, you know, ads or funnels. But it, I would say that podcasting kind of falls into this, you know, digital kind of marketing realm in some respect. And I know obviously you’re a big proponent and fan of podcasting, so I wanna hear your take on like, how do people use podcasting to build their brand, build their business?
TS (17:38):
Well, I’ll talk about my personal one, right? And here, here’s being honest. Now I’m an engineer at heart, right? People joke that English is my second language and they’re not sure what my first one is, is. So I’ve written a lot of blogs in my life, but every one of ’em was a homework assignment. Hmm. Right? So for me, it’s very easy to talk, right? We can have this conversation here, and there’s a lot of problems in the world today, but there’s no better time to be alive, right? Because we can take this discussion that we had, we can get the transcript, we can clean that up and turn it into blogs, into articles to repurpose it. So really look at what’s the easiest way for you to make the content, and then what ways can you repurpose it so that you can give it to your ideal customers in the way that they wanna consume it, right?
TS (18:30):
Because not everybody consumes the, the same way, right? 51% of the US population listens to podcasts, right? If your audience is hearing impaired, they’re not gonna listen to your podcast. But it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t write a blog or do captions or something like that in order to repurpose that. And the great part is, from a digital marketing standpoint, it doesn’t take any more of my time, right? It used to be you’d have to spend a lot of money to do that, you know, relatively. Now with ai, you can chop that up, you can make it so much easier to get a lot of content through there. So I, I don’t look at it as an either or as an engineer. I, I look at how do you get the most with putting the least amount in? And so if I’m gonna invest the time to do a 45 minute interview, how much content can I get out of that? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (19:25):
Yeah. So what would you tell somebody that’s got a podcast and you’re, you know, they’re going, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, I have not been utilizing all of the assets of these interviews. Hold on. What would you say to go back and do?
TS (19:40):
I would start with your best podcast, right? Whatever your, your top four, top five are, and we used to go out, out and get a journalism intern, right? And say, Hey, here’s our interviews. Could you write some blogs out of here? Could you make some clips out of these? Right? That’s what they’re trained to do. Now with ai, you can also do other ones where ask chat g p t to pull out the best quotes from there. There’s different tools online, and I’m not gonna mention any, because by the time this goes out, they’re gonna be saying, oh, those got superseded by this. But just go out there and look, and you can see the ones that click clip the best portions from that. So don’t feel like you’ve always gotta do more, more and more, right? Do more with what you have.
TS (20:26):
Often we’ll have clients that come to us and I, I can think of one that wanted to do a hundred podcast interviews in the month, and I was like, why? She’s like, oh, that’ll be massive exposure. I’m like, it seems like a massive amount of work to me.
AJV (21:02):
Yeah. And I think that kind of comes back to that thing that we talked about earlier with, is digital marketing destroying your business as people think, oh, more, more, more is what we need to do. I need to post 15 times a day. I need to be on it all the time. And no, not necessarily. So when it comes to podcasting, do you have a recommendation on like, this is a good, you know, flow of how often you should be releasing a podcast if you have a podcast?
TS (21:31):
Well, I’ve got an opinion, but I’ve also got data behind that too. Okay, let’s
AJV (21:35):
Do, I’ll hear it.
TS (21:36):
So for a podcast itself, right? You don’t wanna do it less than two times a month, right? Ideally is typically about once a month, or I’m sorry, once a week. So it comes out weekly. And you think about it, we’re used to that with television, right? When, you know, Seinfeld came out once a week there. So that pace, people get used to it. If you start taking long times off, long time off of it, the idea that you’re gonna come back and they’re gonna find you and get back in that habit, it probably won’t hurt. Hmm. So consistency is so important. Whatever you start out with, make sure you can consistently deliver that. You know, there’s certain people that will start out with the daily podcast and then life gets in the way, right? And then they drop to two a week, and people’s first question is, well, why’d you quit?
TS (22:29):
Why are you giving up? Right?
AJV (23:41):
Hmm. I love that. So speaking of better, what would you, you say makes podcasts better? Like you do a lot, have one, I’m sure you interview a lot. What makes a great podcast?
TS (23:56):
Well, I don’t know that I will say podcasts are better, right? For me, they’re better For 51% of the US population, they’re better, right? On average, above average income, above average education, right? If you are in the academic world, in peer reviewed, you know, maybe that podcast isn’t the ideal one for you. Mm-Hmm.
TS (24:49):
G p t
AJV (25:44):
Yeah. I love, I love what you said about that. ’cause It’s so true. It’s reading something versus listening where you can hear the tonality and the context, and and especially if you’re watching right, then you get all the other components of it. If you’re watching it in video, because I do think it’s true, it’s like people fall in love with the conversation, but more so they fall in love with the people having the conversation. So how do you let your personality come out and doing it on audio? And then specifically video really helps people feel like they know you before they ever know you, right? That that’s,
TS (26:22):
Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but it’s, it, it’s freaky the first time it happens. I remember being at an airport one time and somebody came up and said, are you Tom Schwab? And my first answer was, are you a process server? Right?
AJV (27:01):
Yeah. That’s so cool. I love that. No another question I have on this topic, and I have one other topic to get to and I’m watching the clock, but I just, I love this concept of podcasts since we’re on one, and we both have one. And I’m a, I’m a huge proponent and a fan of it for lots of different reasons. But in your opinion, for those people who have a podcast who are listening to this today, and they’re struggling with knowing, how do I make it better? Like, how do I become a better interviewer? Or how do I become a better interviewee? Or what makes my podcast worth listening to, to the end? Or how do I get people to want to even check out my podcast? Any tips or ideas around that?
TS (27:48):
Very much so. And often people will come to us before they have a podcast and they wanna be a guest so that they can go out there and almost see behind the curtain how other people do it. And if you go out there as a guest, there’s less pressure. You also can practice on someone else’s stage and see how they do it. And it’s like, oh, I like how AJ does this, and I’m gonna work that into my podcast. And so it’s a great way to do that. Another way to grow the podcast cliff Ravenscraft, I, I don’t know if you know Cliff, he used to be called the Podcast Answer Band. And I remember him saying early on, the best place to follow or find podcasts listeners is listening to podcasts
TS (28:45):
Hmm. So going out on other podcasts with your ideal audience is a great way to talk about your podcast, get them back there and grow it. The final thing that I would say on that is watch the game film. And you think about what’s the difference between a professional and an amateur in sports. You know, the amateur goes out there and just loves playing the game, right? The professional plays the game and then they watch the game film. And it’s always different, right? You always learn something from it. So I, I listen to all of our clients’ first interviews to give ’em feedback, but I also recommend that they listen to their interviews because the way I hear this interview is gonna be different than when I replay it and it’s like, oh, I should have done this, or I didn’t answer that question completely. And it helps you get better. Hmm. You know, because no matter what you do, your worst interview will be your first interview. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (29:56):
So I gotta know, since you I think that’s awesome and so fascinating, what great market research that you listen to all of those podcasts. So what’s the number one piece of feedback that you give most often?
TS (30:09):
The biggest one I talk to ’em about is slowing down. Hmm. The studies say that 70% of podcasts are listened to sped up, and I’ll speak for myself. When I get excited, I talk faster and faster and faster,
TS (31:02):
So slow down. And we had a, a client early on Arthur, Joseph Arthur has been the speech coach for the N F L for over three decades. And he’s written most of the Hall of Fame speeches and coaches him. And I remember being at the end of a call one time with him, and it was like, okay, Arthur, you do this, I’ll do that. And as a true professional, he just leaned in and he goes, Tom, you have children, don’t you? I’m like, yeah, Arthur, I do. He’s like, oh, do they listen better when you speed up or you slow down? And I’ve always remembered that,
AJV (31:39):
Oh, I love that
TS (32:39):
When they’re nervous and you know, Chris Voss from Never Split the Difference you know, great, great marriage book, great business book, great parenting book about hostage negotiation, right? And I love how he talks about mirroring. So if you’ve got somebody that talks a little bit faster, you can talk a little bit faster. If they’re very slow, you better be slow because mm-hmm.
AJV (33:17):
Oh, that’s good. That’s a great tip for anyone who’s a guest on a podcast specifically. I love that. All right, last topic. Why leveraging other people’s platforms is better or more valuable, maybe not better, but more valuable than leveraging other people’s money?
TS (33:36):
I made this comment back when interest rates were what 2%. I still, I still believe it at the current interest rates. And let me give you an example. Alright. Sarah Blakely, who started Spanx, right? How did she launch Spanx? It was largely off the Oprah show. Right? Now, if Oprah would’ve said, I love this product, you know, Sarah, I’m gonna give you a million dollars interest free, just grow your business. I’m sure she wouldn’t have said no. Right? But if it was here, I’ll give you a million dollars interest free, pay it back whenever you want, or keep it right, or I’d like to bring you on mm-hmm.
TS (34:38):
I remember seeing Rory a couple years ago up in Columbus at Lewis House event, right? He realized that it was worth his time and investment to go up there and tap into somebody else’s audience. And I think especially today when it’s not, doesn’t mean that you’ve gotta jump on a plane and, and, and take time away. It’s really just, you know, 45 minutes for a podcast interview. I think a lot of people try too hard to build their audience instead of using other people’s audiences, especially at the beginning, like, what you guys always teach, and I love this, you’re doing the right things in the wrong order. Right? If I’ve got a huge following, then it makes sense to do this. And, you know, often people will say, should I be a guest or a host on a podcast? And I’m like, it’s not an either or mm-hmm.
AJV (36:05):
Yeah. No, I love that. And I completely agree. You know, it’s interesting, as you were talking, I was thinking about how many people in the Brand Builders group community come to us initially, and their, their goal is, Hey, I, I, I hear this all the time. I wanna make money while I sleep. I’m like, I think we all wanna do that. What, what, how exactly do you wanna do that? And they’re going, well, I wanna launch a course. And it’s like, okay do you have anyone to sell the course too? Well, I need to do that too. I’m like, okay, do you have content for the course? Well, that’s what I’m hiring you for. And it’s like, their very first thing is, I wanna make money while sleep, so I’m gonna build a course. And they don’t yet have a platform, and they don’t yet have the content thought out for it.
AJV (36:47):
And most importantly they forget that building a platform and launching a course takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And it’s like, back to that, you know, kind of concept of like, well, if you don’t have the platform, you’re going to need to borrow someone else’s. So who do you know who can cross promote this? Or what shows can you be on? What speaking engagements can you do? And don’t be expecting to be paid for them, right? And it’s, do you have the time, energy, resources, and money to wait that out while you do all these other things? And that’s what I, I love about this whole thing of other people’s platforms is, you know, you don’t have to have a huge platform to make a huge impact. It’s like you don’t have to recreate the wheel to make this whole make this whole car turn here.
AJV (37:32):
Other people have the wheels. You just, you kind of need to jump on and, and take it while you’re building yours. And Sarah Blakely is a great example. And even us at Brand Builders Group, it’s like, when we launched this company five years ago, we had no podcasts, no. So no social media, no email list. We didn’t even have a website when we launched, but we had a great relationship and a solid reputation with Lewis House. And Lewis had a huge platform, and that Lewis had a huge reach, and we launched our whole business on his podcast.
TS (38:11):
That is a testament, and I didn’t realize that the, the other thing I would say is you had a great reputation, right? And I think people forget about that and they’ll say, well, you know, Tony Robin sells this course. Brendan Bouchard sells this course. I I can use the same funnel, the same script, all the same hacks, right? And it’s like, but you’re not them. Yeah. Right? They’ve had those conversations, they’ve had that reputation for a long, long time. People will vouch for ’em, and after that, it all becomes easy. And once again, I, I love how you guys say doing the right things in the wrong order. And at the end of the day, we’re not optimizing for activity. Mm-Hmm. Right? We’re optimizing for the value we bring to the market, because when we bring value to the market, we also get profits. Right? Right. And what you were talking about, the conversations you have around home about supply and demand, I wish more people would have that. Right? I see. Optimizing for leads, optimizing for likes, right? That’s not what we’re optimizing for. We’re, we’re optimizing for demand to exceed supply. Yeah. Because economics in high school said that’s where profits are. And if you’re getting profits, you’re delivering value to the community.
AJV (39:27):
Yes. I mean, basic, basic law of economics applies to every single part of what we’re talking about here today. I have loved this conversation. I have one one last random pop question for you. Do you have a favorite podcast that you would like to recommend that you’re like, man, this is my go-to podcast. I learned so much from this podcast.
TS (39:53):
I, I can think of one, but I’ll say, because I listened to everybody’s podcast, their first one. I love it because, you know somebody asked me one time, what was the last podcast you listened to? I looked on my phone and I said, adoption now. And they’re like, huh? And I’m like, yeah, one of our clients were on it. It was really interesting. So I encourage people, just listen to random podcasts or listen to a podcast that you totally disagree with, with their premise, because you’ll learn something or at least appreciate them. I think my go-to one is follow your different with Christopher Lockhead. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (40:56):
Hmm. I love that. That’s so good. Y’all, if y’all have enjoyed this conversation, I would just encourage you to check Tom out, learn more about him, and also check out his new book One Conversation Away. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes, but you can go to interview valet.com/ipb for influential personal brand. Again, check it out, interview valet.com/ipv. And before I let you go, Tom can you give us just a 62nd rundown so everyone knows what is Interview Valet and what do you do?
TS (41:34):
Sure. Interview Valet is a podcast interview marketing agency. Our mission is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders to millions of people they could serve for the betterment of all. So working with high level coaches, high level consultants, brands, nonfiction authors, to really help them get on podcasts, not just as an ego thing, but to drive real business results. So we’ve got a team of 30 in Europe and North America. My microphone makes me sound good. My team makes me look good,
AJV (42:09):
I love that. So y’all go check it out specifically if you’re trying to figure out this whole podcast game. How do you grow your podcast? Well, one way to do it is to be on others podcasts. Use that borrowed audience, and this is one way you could do that. So again, interview valet.com/ipv and stick around for the recap episode and I’ll see you next time.
Ep 423: Turning a Book into a Big Business | Scott Jeffrey Miller Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Scott Jeffrey Miller. And the reason why is because I’ve always been interested in impact, right? For me, it’s been, it’s not about fame. It’s not about you know, notoriety. It’s, it, it’s about impact. And there’s not that many personal brands that have gotten to eight figures and, and even far, far fewer that have gotten to nine figures. And so to get to hear the story of how they took Franklin Covey to be a $300 million public company was amazing. So I love that. And I’m gonna share with you here, I’m gonna share with you two things he said that I really agree with, and one that I don’t, that I, I don’t agree with. So I’ll save that one for last. All right? So stick around for that. But there’s two things he said that were major, major secrets on, on their whole, their whole journey to 300 million, right?
RV (01:02):
So the first is something that we call around brand builders group. If you’re one of our paying members, you know that, I use this analogy a lot. I call it chicken on a stick. And that is because when you go through the food court at the mall, or if you walk it through Whole Foods, right? And you’re going by, how do they try to sell you new food? They hand you a toothpick with a taste of something, right? A chicken on a stick. And it was really, I think Chick-fil-A maybe who first invented this, at least that’s what I’ve heard in the malls. And you go, ah, boy, that’s delicious. Yeah, I would like some more of that. I think I’ll have one, right? It’s the concept of a free sample. And this is how I have built my entire personal brand, how we have built my entire personal brand, how we have built brand builders group to eight figures in five years, starting on zero.
RV (01:58):
How we built six different companies now to multi seven figures and two to eight figures from scratch. It’s based on this principle and hearing Scott Jeffrey Miller tell the story, which go back if you didn’t listen to the interview, you gotta listen to this interview about how they built Franklin Covey. I’m so convicted, right? That like, you have to understand this conceptually, if you don’t understand this one idea, there’s a good chance your personal brand is not gonna succeed at the level that it can, or that it should chicken on a stick. You have to let people sample you. They have to get a free experience with you. You can’t withhold all the good information until they start paying you. They have to experience it. They have to live it. They have to feel what it’s like to be a client of yours before they become a client. And so hearing them
RV (02:58):
Tell the story about how they did all of these workshops and they paid, and that still to this day, they do them, they invite the C-level executives and they pay for them to have lunch, and they pay for the hotel venue, and they like pay for everything, and they get to come free of charge. And then they don’t even sell, they don’t even officially like sell at the event. That model works. That is the model that, that Tom Hopkins built his personal brand, and Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn, and so many of these legends of our time figured that out early. And that’s how we built our former company. We would go out and for free, do sales training. How did we sell sales coaching? We did a free sales training for the team. And then once we had trust, we made the sale.
RV (03:46):
How do we do it? Today at Brand Builders Group, we do webinars for free. We do this podcast for free. We have my whole YouTube channel. It’s free, my blog, everything that I know is like on my blog for free. Why? So people can experience and feel what it’s like to be one of our customers, at least on a small level, that’s what you need to create. If you don’t have enough customers, it’s because you haven’t had enough samplers. If you don’t have enough customers, it’s because you haven’t had enough samplers. You have to go hand out some free samples. You have to give away some free content. You have to give away some free experiences. Give away a free ticket to your event. Give a free seat in your coaching program. Or I’m a fan always of charging a dollar so that you can fully, ethically say, I have a paying customer, right?
RV (04:41):
And then at least you have a paying customer testimonial. But if you can’t get a dollar, do it for free. The way I built my speaking career, I spoke 304 times for free before getting paid a real keynote fee, 304 times for free. But by that point, a lot of people had seen me, and it was only a matter of time before someone knew someone who had an event, who needed a speaker. And they said, do you know any speakers? And they’re like, I saw this Rory Vaden guy. And right, that’s how it happened. And that’s how we get, that’s how I started speaking. You know, 20 years later, fast forward, I’m the youngest American in history to be inducted into the professional speaking Hall of fame. It started by speaking for free. That is how you do this. So, chicken on a stick, and you gotta put that, you gotta incorporate that into your personal brand.
RV (05:34):
Number two is the secret of the train the trainer model was shipping kits. That is powerful. So he tells the story, I think he said something like half of their revenue, but 80% of their profit margin came from shipping kits. What does that mean? Well, it means that they, they, they certified people inside of companies who were employees of the company. They certified those people in the content, in the curriculum that you get to be a certified Franklin Covey instructor. Doesn’t mean you go work for Franklin Covey, you work at your day job, but you get a certification. You can sell the certification, you can make money on the certification, but the real way they made money was not certifying people. The real way they made money was certifying people at huge organizations who then took the content and shared it with their whole organization, and they got the license to do that.
RV (06:41):
But if they wanted the course materials, they had to buy those from Franklin Covey. They were kits, shipping kits, these like a hundred dollars kits where it’s like, here’s a copy of the book. Here’s a workbook, here’s a little diddly do for your, for your, for your desk. Here’s a little sticky pad. You know, here’s a magnet, a little kit. You know, maybe, probably back then it, it, it came with a V H SS tape and then maybe a D V D, you know, and maybe then a thumb drive. And now today, maybe it comes with a QR code. But, but it’s, it’s, it’s, first of all, it’s commoditizing your content. It’s commoditizing your ip. It’s going, you have to get, if you’re gonna scale your impact, if you’re gonna scale your income too. But if you’re gonna scale your impact, you have to commoditize or productize or modularize your knowledge into a body of work.
RV (07:37):
And by the way, if you struggle with this, if you’ve ever struggled with this, you should hire us. We have an entire dedicated course and event and private strategy session called Captivating Content, where we help you create unique frameworks, unique intellectual property. We help you structure and formalize and document and codify your thoughts and your unique ideas into a body of work. We commoditize it. We take it out of your head, run it through our process, and create this brilliant framework. This unique framework that belongs to you. It’s your intellectual property. You go through our process, but it’s your intellectual property, and it becomes a thing that you can make millions and millions of dollars off of, right? You, you can invest a few thousand bucks with us, several thousand bucks, but several thousand dollars or tens of thousands, even if it was a hundred thousand dollars.
RV (08:34):
Even if you invested a hundred thousand dollars with Brand Builders Group, you could make millions of dollars every year, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions at the Franklin Covey level, from commoditizing your knowledge and your expertise into a unique set of frameworks, a unique methodology, something we call the modular content method, that that’s what we take people through. We can help you do that. You don’t have to work with us. We just happen to be one of the best in the world at it. And if you’re thinking about that, man, request a free call with us. We’ll do the first call for free. All you have to do is go to free brand call.com/podcast, request a call with our team, and we’ll show you how we take this from idea to a figure business, which is something that we’ve now done multiple times and we know how to do this.
RV (09:25):
We can take you there. So that’s shipping kits, which is commoditizing your knowledge and preparing it. The more commoditized, the more packageable your IP is, the more it can transmit, the more that other people can spread it, the more spreadable it is. So you’ve gotta commoditize it, you’ve gotta turn it into a kit. And if you do that, then other people can teach it for you. And now you can scale not only your impact, but your income. So that’s a key to scaling that I’ve always believed. And to hear it from behind the scenes, right? Firsthand from somebody who was there when it happened at one of the biggest training leadership and training organizations in the world. Man, I’m just, it’s like I’m so convicted on this. You have to do this like this. I’m telling you, if you wanna create global impact, you have to commoditize it and it has to be yours and it has to be unique, and it has to be original.
RV (10:20):
How do you come up with that? Who’s the best in the world at helping you actually do that? We are brand builders group. That’s the first of one of a few things that we are really, really, really good at. And I would go so far as to say the best, or at least one of the handful of the best organizations in the world at doing that specific thing. And that is the key to scale, right? It’d be worth investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure that out. Just to get that one thing down would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And look at how, look at how it changed the future of history with what Franklin Covey has done. I mean, amazing, the impact that they’ve had. Now here’s the third thing. This is the thing that I don’t agree with what Scott Jeffrey Miller said in that interview.
RV (11:07):
I mean, no disrespect to him. I just disagree with what he said. And that is, how do you become a bestselling author? He said, the key is to write a great book. I starkly disagree with that in terms of hitting a bestseller list. It has virtually nothing to do with writing a great book. It doesn’t. And I have the data to prove this. We know that in the year 2022 of all the books that hit the New York Times bestseller list on the advice how to weekly list that we is the one that we follow the most, the closest right, the most closely. Out of all the books that hit that list, 98% of them hit it the first week the book was published, right? So 98% of New York Times bestsellers, they become the bestseller. The first week the book is out, which is before anyone has read it.
RV (12:11):
And by the way, 2023 year to date, that number is 93%. So it’s dropped a little bit, but that means the vast majority, like at least according to the way we’re looking at the data and that our data science team is processing it, the vast majority of bestselling books happened the first week. The book is out. We know something about this 17 times as of now as the recording of this. We had two new clients last week become Wall Street Journal and u s A today bestselling authors. That’s the 17th time. We’ve helped people do that. Not through cheating gaming the system. It’s not hacks. It’s through the work and the effort that we teach people in our bestseller launch plan training. That is a systematic way to sell a lot of books and then understanding how the bestseller lists operate. And we had two clients last week that did that.
RV (12:59):
Two new clients. So we’ve done that 17 times. We know something about this, it happens the first week. Now, a slight alteration of what Scott Jeffrey Miller said, which I would totally agree with, is the key to building a great personal brand or the key to building a great business is to write a great book. You can’t fake your way to 55 million copies, right? You can’t be James Clear selling 20,000, 40,000 units every single week with a crappy book. You can’t do that. So you can become a bestselling author, even if your book isn’t that good. And we can help you do that. We have what I believe is the best system in the world for ethically achieving that objective, for activating your audience and doing the work it takes to start a real movement of real readers. Not fake bots, not fake email addresses, not fake stuff, real readership.
RV (13:58):
And that takes real work. But it can be done. And we’ve done it several times and we know something about it. But the truth about building a $300 million business off of a book that needs to be a great book. And I think that’s really what Scott, Jeffrey Miller was saying and pointing out. And on that point, I do agree with that, right? You cannot, you can’t fake your way to millions and millions of copies, but you can hit the bestseller list before anyone’s even read the book. And that is, if that’s a goal you have, let’s achieve that goal first. And let’s use that to create momentum to get the book out to more people. And then hopefully you’ve written a truly great book that will propagate and perpetuate and transmit all through society, and then it will build your personal brand, make the impact, and you’ll make the income. ’cause You can’t fake your way to that one. And that’s what we’re really after, right? This is why we say bestseller lists.
RV (14:51):
Don’t change lives, but books do. So you should write a great book, but it’s not necessarily the most important thing. If you just want to be a bestselling author. We can make pretty much anyone, a bestselling author, if they’re willing to work, work at it hard enough and long enough and follow the system. But you should write a great book. ’cause That’s what’s gonna change lives. That’s what’s gonna build your brand. And if you wanna build an eight figure, a multi seven figure, eight figure, nine figure, multi nine figure brand, you gotta write a great book. So you do need to do that. So there you go. Two things I agree with, and one thing that I did not agree with from Scott Jeffrey Miller, what a phenomenal story. What a great, intelligent, intelligent man. Really love that interview. Make sure you go check it out. And if you have, you know, someone in your life that you know that wants to build a personal brand, share these episodes with them, please. Like they will. Thank you for it. It’s our honor to serve mission-driven messengers. So go out and serve somebody today. We’ll catch you next time. Bye-Bye.
Ep 422: How to Build a $300 Million Training Company with Scott Jeffrey Miller
RV (00:01):
It’s not that often that someone cold pitches us for our podcast, and then we agree to have them on. But Scott, Jeffrey Miller and his team, when they pitched us, I immediately was like, yeah, this is an easy yes. He was at 25 years, he had a career where he served as the chief marketing officer and the executive vice president for a little company you may have heard of, called Franklin Covey. He even still to this day, is the senior advisor on thought leadership, where he leads their strategy and development and the publication of their, you know, the firm’s bestselling books. He leads a host, their podcast, which is one of the biggest podcasts in the world on leadership. He personally has written seven books. He’s a Wall Street Journal, bestselling author himself. He’s got a new book coming out from Harper Collins called The Ultimate Mentoring Guide. And he also runs an agency, a speaking literary and talent agency called Gray and Miller. So I recognized all of his friends, all the work he’s done, and blown away by who this man knows how successful he’s been, what he’s been a part of. And so anyways, I was like, yes, I want to talk to Scott Jeffrey Miller, and here he is, Scott, Jeffrey Miller.
SJM (01:19):
Rory, thank you for the spotlight. Thank you for the platform. Looking forward to coming over and swimming in that pool behind you someday, but let’s get it on
RV (01:27):
SJM (01:42):
We get the name right. And Rory, it’s the Ultimate Guide to great mentorship. You, you keep condensing it. Oh,
RV (01:48):
Well, this is what I got from your team, buddy. So we might wanna,
SJM (01:51):
Oh, they’re gonna be in trouble. We
RV (01:53):
Might
SJM (01:55):
Need some inventory.
RV (01:57):
I’m reading it. Well, and here’s what I would love, in all seriousness, I would, I would love to almost treat this as if I were a mentor of yours because at Brand Builders Group my wife and I started a company that we grew to eight figures, and then we sold it. And in that company I was more kind of like the c e o and, and and she was more of the business facing kind of person. And our new company, she is the c e o and I’m more like the C M O. And I’m just totally fascinated and curious about what was Franklin Covey like 25 years ago when you started, what did, what are all the things you did? How did you do that? I mean, obviously you have seven habits of Highly Effective People sells, you know, 20 plus million copies or however many it is. Like 50, is it, is that, is it 50 million now? 55 million?
SJM (02:52):
Yeah, keep going.
RV (02:53):
I mean, what’s another 20 million? Yeah, I mean,
SJM (03:14):
Are not that much younger than me. I mean, come on, let’s go Now. Wait, are you mentoring me or am I mentoring
RV (03:19):
You? You’re mentoring me. Uhhuh
SJM (03:23):
Don’t flaunt. Don’t flaunt your good luck.
RV (03:25):
I’m just, I don’t know how old you are. You look very young, but you say 25.
SJM (03:28):
You’re I’m, I’m 43.
RV (03:30):
43, okay, great. Yeah, so you’re, anyways, you’re mentoring me. Yeah, you’re my senior.
SJM (03:34):
I’m actually 55, but let’s answer your
RV (03:36):
Question. Ah, okay. There. It’s okay.
SJM (03:38):
Let’s see. Born and raised in central Florida. Orlando worked for the Walt Disney Company for four years until they invited me to leave, which is kind of how it goes there. So,
SJM (04:29):
The E V P of thought leadership had an amazing journey. This is of course a public global leadership firm. The most trusted leadership firm we think in the world. Never expected to say 25 years, but it was a great culture. People ask me why did I stay? I say, because the c e o loved me. So my advice to your wife is people don’t quit. Leaders who love them. Mm-Hmm. The CEO liked me with nothing in common. Right. I’m a Catholic, he’s a Mormon. He is like a Kona iron Man. I like, I walk past the Peloton and say hi. He’s very reserved.
SJM (05:19):
I became very aware of the difference between being effective and being efficient. One is not better than the other, but they’re very different. And we sometimes irresponsibly use them interchangeably. Right. Having an efficient mindset is not the same as having an effective mindset under our team’s leadership. We, you know, launched 10 New York Times. We journal bestsellers, which became the lifeblood of a company that really is at its heart, a leadership development firm. Wow. Books represent about 5% of the company’s revenue, if even that. And so books were the front of the spear, the tip of the spear, if you will. And so learned a lot, got humbled a few hundred times along the way, and had an amazing journey. Retired from the firm three years ago. I think the thing that I’m most proud of is I’m still married to my wife after 14 years, and the chairman of the board and the c e o still speak to me and hire me, and I’m still in good standing, not as an employee. And I’m very proud of my association. Yeah,
RV (06:12):
That’s really cool. That’s really cool about that. You, you know, you retired and you’re still, you’re still there. So you, you mentioned the revenue. Okay. ’cause and, and Franklin Covey is a public publicly traded company. Yeah. So were you, you were there when it was a privately held company. Was
SJM (06:30):
I was, when,
RV (06:32):
When did that happen and what was that like going from We are a small private company to now we are an actual publicly traded company because there’s one of the things that we talk about you know, like we have a, we have a course called Eight Figure Entrepreneur that’s one of the like you know, sections of curriculum that we have. And we talk about how almost no personal brands get to eight figures. Like very rarely they get to seven figures, multi seven figures. We call it the swamp. Between one and 3 million. They get stuck. Very few get to, you know, 10 you know, $10 million or eight figures. But then what you’re talking about are Franklin Covey is way past that. You’re in like Dave Ramsey land and like only a few companies that have ever gotten Yes. Into the nine figure territory. So like, how and why did you guys get there? Like how did you pull that off?
SJM (07:24):
Sure. It’s, it’s far, it’s a little bit complicated. You know, 300 plus million worldwide global company based here in Salt Lake City. I think I, I’m gonna answer your question two ways. One is, I think one of the reasons why these personality guru, you know, namesake companies don’t scale, is they become too contingent on the person. Mm-Hmm.
SJM (08:15):
A good friend of mine. And I don’t think Jim has made, in my opinion, all the right decisions on how to make sure his brand endures beyond his passing, like Stephen Covey did. So that idea of diversifying beyond you being the core brand, I think is important. To answer your bigger question, ours happened a little bit differently. So Covey Leadership Center was a private boutique leadership firm owned by Stephen Covey and Seven Investors. The Franklin Quest company, 30 miles North in Salt Lake City, was the planner company. Right. A much larger public company founded by Hiram Smith, but a public firm traded on the New York, New York Stock Exchange. They had a merger known as an acquisition. And so the public company, Franklin Quest, acquired the Covey Leadership Center and came to market as the Franklin Covey Company 25 years ago. Mm-Hmm.
SJM (09:13):
With revenue goals and cost of goods and margin and ebitda. So for 20, you know, six years we were consumed with ebitda. I think I was responsible for 100 quarters, quarter after quarter. You’re only as good as your EBITDA was this last quarter. That’s probably the biggest difference. The biggest challenge was as a private company, you could focus on top line growth and be a little less worried about ebitda. And as a public company, it was an all consuming passion because we had a fiduciary responsibility to not just individual investors, but to institutional investors that had put their, you know, their retirement funds and their, you know, their, their cash into our company. So we took it extremely seriously. And the stock at its low was, I think, under a dollar. We were threatened with de-listing, and I think a few months ago it hit 54. And so it’s been an amazing journey to be part of that wealth creation for millions of people, not to mention the hundreds of millions of people that access our content in their organizations.
RV (10:16):
Yeah. That is, that’s amazing. So it really happened then through the acquisition. So this, this company that did planners Yes. Saw the value of what Dr. Covey and the team was teaching, and then they basically acquired the IP and incorporated into their planners.
SJM (10:32):
That’s a great story. If that were, what happened, I think what really happened is you had kind of two arch rivals in the marketplace. Right? The Franklin Quest company was the world dominator in thought leadership around productivity and planning, planning tools, selling hundreds of millions of dollars of paper planners each year. They had hundreds of retail stores around the nation, but they didn’t have the, the organizational wide impact around leadership development and strategy execution. Franklin or the Covey Leadership Center also had a paper planner, had a few dozen retail stores, but that market was going to go away. The companies knew the future of productivity was not in a paper planner. We knew this, we’re often mocked about that, but I mean, we actually became the, the largest retailer of palm pilots in the world as we migrated from paper planning to digital planning. Although, you know, now paper planning is back with a resurgence. I don’t know anybody doesn’t use a paper planner tool, but it was the Covey Leadership Center that kind of came out on top because Dr. Covey’s brand was still peaking. And his book, the Seven Habits continues to sell, you know, a million copies a year, which is unheard of for a book published 29 plus 30 years ago. Right. Almost 40 years ago, actually.
RV (11:48):
Yeah, that is, that’s amazing. So if, so take so back in the days of Covey Leadership Center, like, like you said today, I guess you said 5% of revenue is books and I guess is that Well,
SJM (12:02):
Probably, probably 2%. I mean, books is about maybe three to $4 million a year of a $300 million company. It’s very small.
RV (12:10):
Okay. Is that what it was? So were you there when it was Covey Leadership Center? It was, I was, you were there. You were there before. Yeah. So what was
SJM (12:19):
The, I was there always
RV (12:21):
What was the business model back then prior to the acquisition? It
SJM (12:24):
Was still similar. I mean, the books were always meant to be marketing tools. Not now, not, you know, overtly. Right. I mean, you and I share some passions and some business competencies. I’m asked daily how to write a, how to get a bestselling book. And I say, write a great book,
RV (13:40):
Uhhuh. Whoa. Wait, say that last part about per the, the daily rate you’re talking
SJM (13:45):
About. Yeah. Dr. Covey was earning $150,000 a day after his book became this, you know, seminal leadership book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. So the book definitely Dro drove his personal income, right. Which was speaking, but it was mainly a marketing tool for organizations. ’cause What happened, Rory, is, you know, every year 5 million people read the seven Habits of Highly Affected People. And a million of them were leaders in organizations. And they said, oh my gosh, this book was personally transformative. I need my 30 team members to learn these principles. They would call us and spend $25,000 hiring someone from our company to come in for three days and train their staff. Or we had to train the trainer model. So we had, at any given time, you know, eight or 10,000 employees of other companies that were certified in our Train the trainer model. And that’s where the margin was. The margin wasn’t in flying a consultant around the nation. The margin was, you know, certifying 20 people at Toyota or 200 people to train our content and go train 30,000 people in the content where the margin on the workbook was 90%. Right. That was, that’s where the margin, that’s where half of the margin of the company was. And proba no half of the revenue, and probably 80% of the margin was in the train the trainer model.
RV (15:03):
And that’s because it was in the kits. ’cause You were shipping kit, you’re basically at that point just shipping kits. That’s right. All over the
SJM (15:09):
World. You’re, you’re taking orders all day long from 8,000 certified facilitators who don’t work for your company. They’re just your brand ambassador. They work for all these major Fortune 5,000 companies, and they’re in human resources and they’re training their people to be effective, and they’re training as many classes as possible so that they can create density in the organization to have a highly effective culture. So for us, it was a genius model where we’re selling world-class intellectual property in the form of a participant kit, digital or print. Now it’s mainly digital, then it was exclusively print. And now we’re growing across the world with 60 offices licensing people to represent us. And now you’ve got content translated into 25 languages. So when Exxon comes and they wanna have a true cultural transformation and train 80,000 employees across 40 countries, we can do it.
RV (16:01):
Mm-Hmm.
SJM (16:33):
It was actually exactly what you just described. First. It was the book. It was hundreds of thousands of people a month buying this book. And in it was a little paper card you could rip out and fill out and mail back to the company. I want more in, more information. I’m interested in attending a public program at a local hotel for my own personal development. I’m interested in becoming a certified facilitator. I’m interested in a keynote. I’m interested in bringing in a consultant. And thousands of these cars flowed back in the mail, like put a stamp on it and mail it back. Wow. Thousands a week came in.
RV (17:13):
Wow.
SJM (17:14):
And then you had Dr. Covey out speaking to every association, every board of directors, every conference out three and four times a day, gin up, you know, thousands and thousands of leads, and the phones were ringing off the hook like they used to do. So then you had to onboard salespeople to take all these thousands of inbound phone calls. There was no email. It was the phone in the mail, and you called people back and said, Rory, we got your inquiry card. Are you still interested? And we were just booking, you know, thousands of engagements every month, not to mention hundreds of open enrollment public programs. So there you, Dr. Covey couldn’t deliver all these, so you had to scale before you know it, you had two Coveys and then eight Coveys, and then 10 Coveys, and then 150 Coveys, meaning certified consultants that worked for our company that were out training our content. And then it just kept growing and growing and growing. And then we, you know, obviously built a massive marketing machine, and it really was based on the foundation of several books. It was the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And then his son, Sean Covey, wrote the book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. This book has sold 10 million copies, and now Franklin,
RV (18:23):
Like teenagers,
SJM (18:24):
Teenagers, it’s the most successful youth leadership book in history. Franklin Covey now has a $50 million education division where they just simply sell leadership training to K 12 schools to train students and faculty and staff $50 million in the K 12 business. And then his oldest son Steven, m r Covey wrote a book called The Speed of Trust that sold 3 million copies that then became a huge trust offering how to become a high trust leader. Then they wrote books on execution and sales. And everyone became a Wall Street Journal bestseller because we made it happen ethically by having, you know, just having a tenacious work ethic and writing great books. By the way, these books took like five and six years to write these books that did really well. They didn’t write these books in nine months like I do with my books. Right. My books sell, you know, six, eight, 10,000 copies a year. They sell 300,000 copies because they take, you know, a decade sometimes to write these books. Mm-Hmm.
RV (19:28):
SJM (19:34):
Well, it was private, so I don’t know their revenue. It was private. We probably had, you know, 40 salespeople. Now they have 250. And so I’m gonna guess it was probably 50 million or 30 million. I don’t know. I was 25 years old and it was 30 years ago. And it was a private company, so it wasn’t disclosed or discussed
RV (19:55):
Uhhuh
SJM (20:00):
Something like that. Yeah. Now there’s probably about 1200 around the world. And not to mention, you know, literally hundreds of thousands of ambassadors, because what happens is when Rory leaves Exxon and goes to Disney, he brings the content with them. And then when he goes to, you know Twitter or X, he, he go, takes it there too. They could use the content by the way. But it’s what, what Dr. Covey did was he very quickly checked his ego. Mm. And one of his best talents was he was a very humble man. He did not need to be the star of the company. He did not need to be on stage. And he realized if the mission was to impact billions of people, that in order to scale, he had to deputize people in his place. Same character, same competence, and sometimes better competence.
SJM (20:47):
I, I don’t think Dr. Covey was a great presenter. I think he was a great teacher. But I mean, there’s a hundred people that deliver the content better than Dr. Covey ever did, in my opinion. That has nothing to do with whether he wasn’t a, a person of enormous influence and character. He was. But he realized if I’m gonna change the world and I’m gonna grow this company into a juggernaut, I gotta step out of the way. I’ve gotta recruit talent. He was a, he was a college professor. He wasn’t, he didn’t know how to run a company. He did. And he, and he did it beautifully in the beginning, but what I think he did best was he stepped out of the way and hired operators and marketers and people understood process. And then he was the intellectual property genius, creating new content and connecting with audiences, and then stepped outta the way to scale it with great salespeople and great delivery consultants, presenters, keynote speakers. Mm-Hmm.
RV (21:41):
So when you think back over, like in the marketing role, c m o right? That’s a pretty big shift from 50 million to 300 million. That’s a long, that’s a lot of distance that you guys have covered. When you look at like, some of the big marketing initiatives that have, you know, made that effort. I mean, you talked about the pullout mailer card. Yes. Were there any other like really pivotal moments Yes. That you think back on
SJM (22:08):
One in particular, and it’s kind of a mantra at Franklin Covey where I no longer work or am an officer, but consult externally on a variety of things for the board and the chairman and the c e o and host two podcasts for them. The mantra is nothing sells Franklin Covey, like a Franklin Covey experience. Hmm. If you take Rory and you certify him as a bonafide Franklin Covey consultant, and you put Rory in, you know, a Western hotel room in Miami, and you get 70 chief learning officers, chief human resource officers, vice president of talent development in the room for three hours with Rory pro bono. Right. Serve a chicken lunch, no charge, get ’em in the room. Don’t try to sell anything to them. Just teach them the principles of engagement. Building a culture, how to be highly effective, how to build a high trust culture with where millennials come and stay.
SJM (23:06):
Eight of them will walk away and buy from you. 24, 22 won’t, but eight will and replicate that model. Get people to taste and feel the experience. It might be reading a book, it might be listening to an audio tape, it might be going to a three day public program at a Marriott with 40 people. You don’t know. It might be a marketing breakfast or a lunch might be a full day program where you invite, you know, CFOs to come and teach CFOs how to build an interpersonal culture where people choose to build their whole career under you. You’re gonna land 10 of them. And that’s what we did better than anybody in the world. Mm-Hmm.
RV (24:13):
Wow. And you were saying that those events might have like 30 people in ’em and typically something like that. They were small. It’s not like you’re packing out arenas, you’re just going No,
SJM (24:23):
Although we did, oh, we, we, we would have events at 200. But the magic model, honest to God, the magic model was, and this isn’t, you know, sales secret to Franklin Covey, but the magic model was curating the list very carefully, calling, inviting people to a non-sales event, underwriting it. Right. We’re not charging you for it. We’re gonna serve you lunch, you’re gonna be with your peers. There’ll be no sales pitch. We’re just gonna teach you X, Y, or Z. And, you know, you invite, you know, 200 and a hundred say yes. And then you vet ’em out and then 70 Promise they’re gonna come and 45 show up. So you set the room for 52, and then you’d give them just a quality experience where they can talk and you talk and they share, and you share and you share principles of effectiveness that they desperately need in their company.
SJM (25:13):
They desperately need people that have great skill sets around technical capabilities and hard skills, but most of them lack the soft skills now known as power skills. And you teach these power skills of interpersonal effectiveness. And we know to the precise algorithm who’s gonna buy, how long it will take and how much they will spend. And you get this formula, you tweak it, you tweak it, you massage it. What you do not do is you don’t shortcut it. You don’t invite ’em, pardon the phrase to a country. And in suites you don’t invite them to Ritz Carlton. You invite them to a, a a, an appropriate hotel that matches their culture and their comfortability. You put them in the right size room at the right time of the day for the right period of time, teach them great content, and then you follow up and you have a winning formula, of course, that, that, that contracted in the pandemic.
SJM (26:08):
Right. Everything became a podcast, a webinar, an email. And now I think they’re coming back to these live person events and they’re seeing enormous benefit because innately people are human creatures that crave connection and interpersonal relationships. And you get into a Franklin Covey room for even 90 minutes. Right. We have C-suite events that are just for the C-suite, 90 minutes. They’re usually breakfast seven to eight 30 ’cause a ’cause you know, a C-level person can do that. They can’t come to lunch, they can’t come to a three o’clock event or a 10 o’clock event. You’ll have an 80% no show rate. You’ll have a 90% show rate if you do a breakfast before the C-suite actually has to be in the office. Just kind of tweaking and playing.
RV (26:52):
Man, that is so awesome and simple and powerful, right. Of just, just adding value to people’s lives first and then letting it, letting it fall out from there. Yeah. You mentioned ego. I feel like the companies that get a chance to scale a a lot of times start to fall apart because of someone’s ego or a few people’s ego. And it’s interesting ’cause you wrote books while you were there, even though you’re retired now as your consultant. So you guys, you’ve mentioned even in the family, they had several personal brands, but also you had a personal brand that you were starting. What was the philosophy there? Because I feel like a lot of companies are not quick to embrace the idea of personal brands of the executives because there’s this fear of they’re gonna get too big for their britches and it causes conflict and jealousy and all these issues. But clearly you guys have done this. How have you balanced personal brands with the corporate brand
SJM (27:49):
Was not well received.
RV (27:50):
Ah,
SJM (27:51):
I was a pariah. The company’s culture, which by the way, I am an unabashed ambassador for Franklin Covey, if you want to change the culture of your company, Franklin Covey, in my opinion, is the most trustworthy, ethical provider of principles in the marketplace. I have nothing but a positive thing to say about this company, period. I’m an unabashed evangelist for them. They don’t pay me to do that. And at Franklin Covey, there was a philosophy that you can’t have a personal brand. It’s all about the company. It’s Franklin Covey. And I think it was a wrong decision. I think it was rooted in the culture of the dominant population in the state. You can read the lines there, but I think it was a dangerous misstep for the company because people don’t follow companies on Instagram. They follow people. People don’t follow people on LinkedIn.
SJM (28:48):
They follow people. And I think I was a pariah. I don’t think I was, I know for a fact I was a pariah for the last three years of my career there, where I started to write books. And my books did quite well because I marketed them and I built a brand with myself on YouTube and Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and you name it. I was very self-promotional. ’cause I knew that was the formula that was gonna take me. And I thought the company to the next level. I think the company is starting to really realize the benefit of raising up individual thought leaders in the organization. Not that are self-serving, but are in service to the brand, but can build a massive followership. People care more what Stephen, Mr. R Covey has to say about trust than they do what Franklin Covey has to say about trust. They care more about what Chris McChesney has to say about executing strategy. He’s the author of the Wall Street Journal, best history,
RV (29:49):
Foreign Disciplines of Execution. Yeah.
SJM (29:50):
Foreign disciplines. Right? Yeah. And so I think there’s a fine balance of not being a grandstander not being an opportunist while still building your brand. And so it wasn’t the case. I I I, there was a cross on the front yard with me and some flames on it for quite a while as I became the Johnny Apple seed of finding that delicate balance and tension of building your brand, not at the expense of, but in service with the overall all brand. And it’s, you know, not everybody gets it right. I didn’t always get it right. The c e o and I are very good friends to this day. He used to work for me, now I work for him. And so we talk a lot about that balance of not having your brand overshadow the company’s brand, but being able to each of you kind of ride each other’s waves in tandem for the service of the company, our clients and our shareholders. It, it’s a delicate balance.
RV (30:48):
Mm-Hmm.
SJM (31:52):
Over and over and over again. Franklin Covey was an interesting test because we were a public company. There’s very few public leadership development firms Yeah. That were, you know, eccentrically founded on a guy who passed 10 years ago. And the company has grown independent of his foundation. Interdependent. And, but at the same time, rising up thought leaders that may or may not stay. I mean, one of my biggest contributions to the firm has been to judiciously select authors that are employees of the company that aren’t gonna leave two years from now when the book’s been outta the marketplace for a year and have to rewrite the book or extract them from the book or whatever. So we take great care with the people that write our books. Sometimes they leave, sometimes they usually they stay, we’ve only had two leave and like 30 years of authors, maybe three.
SJM (32:42):
But they’re all in good standing. Right. it’s a precarious balance that takes a lot of care and commitment and non-disclosures and privacy agreements and high trust. At the end of the day, you know, anybody can violate a non-compete and not be sued. At the end of the day, it’s your character to say, I hope, like I have modeled, I wanna build my brand independent of Franklin Covey not on the heels of their brand and not at the expense of their brand and never in spite of their brand. And I always want that company to serve well. And I think it’s why I’m still able to consult with them and earn a nice living with them because they know that I’m not trying to diminish their brand and I care passionate about what they do and who they are. We don’t agree on all decisions, but as I mentioned earlier, I think it’s the thing I’m second most proud of in life is that I’m able to not just peacefully coexist, but work well interdependently with them in the marketplace.
SJM (33:39):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (34:16):
That’s really cool too. I mean, they, they, you know, to what you’re saying about Dr. Covey and his humility in the first place, that became a culture of philosophy, the whole company that definitely it is really wonderful that there’s never that they’ve been able to reach the size and the magnitude of the impact and not have a lot of those kind of, you know, things going on at, you know, in a public, in a public sense of scandals and all of that. So well, tell us, tell us quickly about the new book. Tell us what you’re up to these days and would love to just hear a a little bit about that before we wrap up.
SJM (34:49):
Thanks. the book I just released from Harper Collins is called The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship book. They actually approached me, they thought that the space needed a very practical book on mentorship and had written several books for them called Master Mentors that are books based on the podcast that I host for them on leadership with Scott Miller. And I’m very pleased with the success of the book out of the gates, including a a robust keynote roster that I have coming up, usually about three a week in person right now. So I’m on the road a lot, which is tough ’cause my wife and I have three young sons. I have a new book behind Me in yellow coming out in February called Career on Course from Baker Up in Michigan. It’s 10 strategies to take your career from accidental to intentional. I have two more books in the queue that are will be coming out in, in 2025. That’s
RV (35:39):
A lot of books, man. You’re cranking out some books.
SJM (35:41):
I like to write books and speak because as you mentioned, I’m a talent agent. I co-own a fast growing, speaking literary and talent agent. So I like to know what my clients are going through. I like to know how to make a bestseller, how to build a brand, how to build a website, how to build your social media, how to build a speaking career, how to productize and monetize your intellectual property in a book into courses and certifications. No one’s making money on books, but Donald Miller, he’s making some money. Amy Porterfield’s making some money. They
RV (36:13):
Sell a lot of books if you,
SJM (36:14):
What’s that? If
RV (36:15):
You sell enough books, right.
SJM (36:17):
Enough books. But yeah, the book business is really about influencing people and being able to monetize it in ways through speaking in courses and things like that. And I like to write books so that I am relevant to the clients I represent. Mm-Hmm.
RV (36:29):
Mm-Hmm.
SJM (36:35):
Champagne Region of France. We can link up and hook up down there in southern France. No you can visit Scott Jeffrey Miller dot com. I like a good glass of champagne, bro. You can visit great mentorship.com. Love to have you follow me on any social platform to my wife’s who I’m on them all multiple times a day.
RV (36:55):
Mm-Hmm.
SJM (37:33):
There’s no shortcuts. There’s no such thing as overnight success. Hmm. There is overnight fame and it’s usually Ill-gotten and fleeting. But you look at the consistency behind people like Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Liz Wiseman, Susan Kane, Kim Scott, Rachel Hollis, Lewis Howes, Donald Miller, Amy Porterfield, on, on and on. These people were not overnight sensations. I met Amy Porterfield four years ago. We were both speaking at Rachel Hollis and Dave Hollis’s Thrive Business event in Charleston. I didn’t even know who Amy Porterfield was. She obviously was a big name in the, you know, entrepreneurship email world. I didn’t even know who she was. Look at her today. Amy Porterfield owns America. It’s like amazing. This did not happen overnight. Look at Donald Miller’s influence, right? It’s just Rachel Hollis a good friend of mine. I think it took her six books. She wrote six books until her book was finally in a bookstore and became a bestseller.
SJM (38:37):
You never heard of Rachel Hollis’s first six books? You gotta build your brand consistently, carefully find who your niche audience is. I think Seth Golden is a genius. I’m honored to be friends with him and have him endorse my books. He talks about this idea of this smallest viable market. I think most of us that have been to business school, we think about the total addressable market or the largest market. Know what is your fa, smallest, viable market? How few people can you build your business around? What are their names? What are the things I like most about Rachel at her peak? And I still, like Rachel had a rough couple years, I see her back on the rise. I’m a big Rachel Hollis fan is she knew exactly who her customer was. She knew what her name was, her age, her fears, her passions, her talents, her weaknesses, her traumas, her dramas. She knew exactly who her customer was. Like no one I’d ever met in my life. Focus on your smallest viable market and take your time. Dr. Covey spent 10 years writing the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He was 54 when that book became a bestseller. Take your time. It’ll come.
RV (39:48):
Wow. I love that. What a word. What a word. Well, Scott, Jeffrey Miller, it’s great to meet you. I’m so glad your team cold pitched me such an impressive career, amazing story. And we’ll be following you closely, man, and wishing you the best. You
SJM (40:05):
And I gonna have lunch in Nashville. I’m treating
RV (40:07):
Sounds good. I’m in for it. I’ll see you then in touch.
SJM (40:10):
Thanks for the platform, Rory. Nice meeting you.
Ep 421: Use Your Existing Customer Base to Double Your Business | Nikki Nash Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
All right, y’all, let’s talk about three things that you can do with your existing client base to help you double your business. Now, it does not matter what kind of business you’re in. These are three things that are universal that you can actually start to do now to help you grow and scale your business. And this is all within the context of the clients you already have. So I will say, I’ll preface, you need to have clients for this to work. So if you’re at the very, very beginning stages of your business earmark this particular training, come back to it when you have a handful of clients because this is gonna be most useful to you once you already have an existing client base. So how do we grow our business from within our current client base? I’m gonna just talk about three quick ideas.
AJV (00:48):
First one is create new products and services that can serve your existing client base. One of the things that we talk about at brand builders a lot is the concept of fractal math. And I’ll go through this very high level but just let’s say you have a hundred clients. The assumption using fractal math is that at least 10% of your clients will spend 10 times the amount that they’re currently spending with you. So if you have a hundred clients, again, for easy math that are each paying you a hundred dollars, at least 10% of those people, 10 people would likely spend 10 times the amount that they’re currently spending a hundred dollars, which 10 times that would be a thousand dollars. So if you have a hundred clients that spend each spend a hundred dollars with you, then at least 10 of those people would be willing to spend a thousand dollars with you.
AJV (01:48):
That is fracked on math. That goes down again. So if you now have 10 clients that are spending a thousand dollars with you, the assumption with fractal math that at least 10% of those people would also spend 10 times the investment. So if you have 10 clients, then at least one person would be willing to spend 10 times their current investment, which would be 10 times a thousand, which would be $10,000 with you. So if you have a hundred clients, then you have at least 10 of them who would be spending a thousand dollars with you, and then you have at least one of those who would spend $10,000 with you. And so a huge part of what we need to do is not create brand new programs to go out and market into the community trying to get new clients, but is to figure out what is the most meaningful, what are the deepest ways that I can serve the people that I’m already serving, right? Your existing customer base, what more do they want from you? What more do they need from you? And how can you package that in a way that they would be willing to spend more money with you to get more access to you, more time with you more work done from you, whatever it may be.
AJV (02:59):
So it’s that concept of fractal math. And if you don’t know what to offer, the best thing you can do is just ask your super clients, right? Go to the top five, top 10, how many of your clients you have, top 20 clients that you have that have been with you the longest, love you, the most that you know of, spend the most money with you and go, Hey, if I were to create something new, what would you want? I’m coming up with some new program ideas and I wanna create it for your, you know, your avatar. You are who I wanna serve. What more would you want from me? And just ask. It’s the best market research you can get is asking your current customers who already know you like you and spend money with you. So that’s the first thing is just find new ways to serve your existing client base.
AJV (03:45):
I e sell more to your existing client base. Number two, keep your existing clients
AJV (04:43):
We forget to continue to market and sell what we do. And so if you’re selling, you know, 12 month agreements or three month or six month, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling. You have to continually talk about, hey, this is the initial terms of our agreement and this initial year together and this initial phase together and these initial steps together. So you wanna help people know, it’s like this is not a 12 month program, right? It’s phase one is 12 months, right? The initial term is 12 months. And that is a very intentional verbiage and language that you need to use in marketing, your initial sales conversations on every single client interaction in your ongoing marketing in your ongoing communication. You need to create that atmosphere of, I have more to give that extends 12 months. So you may not choose to be here 12 months, but my program goes beyond 12 months. We just choose to review and renew at 12 month increments. And so one very quick tip that I’ve always done since the beginning of my coaching years, which, how old am I, how long have I been doing this for? Almost 20 years, that feels impossible to say that,
AJV (05:56):
That for almost 20 years, this has been one of my key policies, key philosophies in retention is that from the very first call, very first coaching call or client engagement, doesn’t have to be a coaching call, consulting, engagement, whatever. As I always talk about the next three calls or the next three months or the next three things. And so at the end of every call or training, I talk about the next three, right? So let’s just say it was a coaching call. At the end of today’s call, I’ll say you know, Hey Terry after our call that I’m gonna send you a recap and I’m gonna go ahead and put together what I think based on our time today are the three topics of conversation that I wanna map out for the next three months. And so we talk every month.
AJV (06:41):
So this is my plan. I’m gonna put that in the email. I want you to think about it. If we need to change things and adapt things, then we can, but based on today, I’m gonna go ahead and map out our next 90 days, our next three months together. And I would do that all the time from the very first time. So when I get to month 10, 11, 12, it’s not new for me to go in month 12 at the end of the agreement of, hey, just so you know, we’re coming up on our 12th call. Here’s the mapping for our next three calls. However, our first set of engagements ends at this next call. Do you want me to go ahead and keep mapping those next calls? Or do you wanna talk about an an exit plan? So we’ve got a continuity plan or we have our exit plan and it’s a very natural ease of transition because I’ve been talking about the next three months from the very first month.
AJV (07:30):
So when I get to month, whatever is the end of my program, I’m still talking about the next three months as if they’re going to continue. And then it’s an easy transition to go. And by the way, like we can use this time to talk about the next three months, or we need to talk about what it looks like for you to carry on in the next three months without me, but would love to keep it going together, right? So that would be the second thing with just retention and renewals of always having a plan for the future and always talking about that. Then. So, okay, let’s just recap. So we’ve got sell to our existing clients. We have to retain our existing clients. And then last but definitely not least is we need to get referrals from our existing clients. That’s real important. So a couple of things.
AJV (08:14):
Getting referrals starts in your marketing language. This should be a part of your company culture. It should be a part of your sales culture, your operations, your customer care, your delivery. Everyone should be talking about growing your business through referral. So it has to start in marketing. Number two, it has to be all the places all the time. So it needs to be visible everywhere you go. It’s not that you’re gonna depend on one person asking for referral. It’s like, no, we talk about how our community is word of mouth. People ask me all the time, it’s like, Hey, aj, is there anything I can do for you? I’m like, yeah, you can give me referrals to help grow my business.
AJV (08:54):
But when people go, Hey, how can I help? I’m like, honestly, you can help share the word of brand builders group. That’s how you can help. Genuinely, we are a word of mouth business. We do very little paid marketing. We are a referral based business. So I depend on people like you telling the people that you think would be a good fit that we exist. So that’s how you can help. It needs to be easily found on your website or in your learning portal, in your email marketing, you know, like a brand builders group. We have a whole slogan for it. It’s called B B G for free. And it’s like, Hey, we want you to invite your friends to be a part of this community. Help us grow the community with people that you wanna be in community with. And it’s called b g for free.
AJV (09:36):
And it’s if you refer people to us we actually pay you referral fees where they’re gonna pay it to a paid marketing agency or we’re gonna pay it to our customer base. We’re choosing to pay it to our customer base. So we’re choosing to pay you to help be our marketing force versus paying a traditional advertising company. So make it a part of your culture, then make it easy. Give people multiple ways to refer you business. So I can just use Brand Builders Group as an example because that’s what I know the best. It’s so it’s like you can click on a link and you can populate your own U R L. Now that’s easy to do for you the customer. That’s not always easy to set up on the backend. It took us a long time to set up that infrastructure, but it’s like you can just click a link, make your own custom a referral link and use that.
AJV (10:24):
We also have a simple form that you can just fill out a form and emails our sales team notifying, Hey, there’s a referral to be had here. You can also click on a phone number and talk to someone and go, Hey, I’m not really sure, but this is someone I think, so that we have three different ways that you can actually refer us business. And it’s like, what’s easiest for you? Do you wanna just talk to us and have us reach out on your behalf? Do you wanna click this form and just give us the info and we can take it from there? Or do you wanna click this link, make your own u r l and you can send it out on social media, send it to your friends in an email send an email out to your list. We’re trying to make it easy for you. And so, again, how do you double your business from your existing clients? It’s one you sell new programs, new services to your existing clients. If you don’t know what, ask them. Remember the concept of fractal math. Number two retain your existing clients. Keep them longer. It’s the cheapest, fastest way of going your business is you’re not having to replace your clients. And then number three, get referrals from your existing client base. So there you go, three ways that you can start to double your business from your existing business.
Ep 420: Rethink Your Business Development Strategy to Grow Sales with Nikki Nash
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Baden, one of your co-hosts today, and today is super sweet and special ’cause I get to connect with an old friend Nikki Nash. And I have to tell you guys this very quick story of Nikki could have so easily reached out to me to schedule this awesome interview today. But she got randomly pitched to me by some podcast company, and they came in, they were, I’m like, Nikki Nash, I must, I must be talking about a different Nikki Nash. And then when it was the same Nikki, I was like, I just so you guys know, I know this woman and you should not get credit for this
AJV (00:50):
So I am so excited to have Nikki on the show. But before I give her a formal introduction, I want everyone to know what we’re talking about today and why you need to stick around. So this should be appealing to anyone and everyone who is listening. And this is not an episode you want to miss if you would like to grow your business, because today we’re gonna be talking about how do you double your business in the next 12 to 18 months. And if you are that visionary, c e o or small business owner, like what are the core things, the key things that you should be doing to double your business? And then what are the five top must haves that seven figure business owners need to do must do to double your business? So there’s a theme here, which is growing and scaling your business, and how do you do that in a way that works for you?
AJV (01:44):
So if you fit in that category, stick around. You don’t wanna leave early, it’s gonna be awesome. Now, with that said, I will give you a quick formal introduction of the one and oh, Nikki Nash, and then we’ll actually get to the interview. But Nikki is a Hay House author. She’s a bestselling author of the book Market, your Genius, which everyone should pick up and give a whirl. She’s also the host of a top rated podcast bearing the same name Market Your Genius. So by the book, listen to the podcast. She’s also a renowned expert in crafting marketing strategies with a unique focus on empowering fast growing coaching and online companies. Most of you are in that category, so that’s why I am having her on the show today. But she also has a real specialty in helping drive a sustainable growth, which is the most important thing.
AJV (02:37):
This isn’t a go hard, you know, like, do or die. We’re going to do it at all costs, and then you’re gonna burn out. So how do you do it in a way that works and that is sustainable for you? So without further ado, Nikki, welcome to our show. Oh my goodness, thank you so much for having me. Oh, I’m so excited for you to get to share your genius with our audience. And so, all right, let’s just let’s start with the most compelling of all of these topics that you and I kind of went through, because I think everyone would kind of like to know how do you double your business in 12 to 18 months? So tell us, what are the secrets that we’re all missing? How do we do this?
NN (03:19):
I mean, the, the super simple answer is to have a really crystal clear strategy and focus, but the reality is, is that there are a couple of ways to grow your business really quickly. And one of them is the obvious. It’s like, bring on a bunch of new clients. That’s what a lot of people think about. They’re like, oh, I gotta market and get new leads and get new clients. But people often forget about the magic of your existing clients and past clients. And that’s honestly the fastest way to go, because the probability of selling to an existing client is 60% higher than selling to a new client. So if you can think about your existing clients, and there are kind of like three ways that they can help you if they can buy more, right? Like if you, if they’re already in a program and you have them buy a v i p day or buy a, a additional course or a session or something, then that’s bringing in more money pretty quickly.
NN (04:13):
If you have them stay longer in your programming, then wow, okay, then that’s having them spend more money with you over their lifetime. And the other piece that a lot of people don’t think about is if they can get their current clients to refer them new clients, right? Because when they have clients coming in, it’s just known that the referred clients end up staying longer and spending more money than clients that just come to you not from a referral. And so those are kind of the, the existing client’s magic. And what I usually do when someone wants to double their business is we sit down, we do the math, and we look at, okay, which is most likely going to happen in that timeframe? Is it, oh, you know, just dump more money on ads
AJV (05:06):
And cheaper
NN (05:07):
And cheaper. Oh my gosh. It just makes the money that you do spend on the front end or the time you spend on the front end have much higher r o i because it’s like, oh, I brought this client in with my blood, sweat, tears and money, but it’s actually bringing in way more money than it did, you know, last year or last month when you, when you focus on really getting the most out of your existing clients. Yeah.
AJV (05:30):
So I’d love to talk about each of those because I think each of those categories are like standalone opportunities to really go. It’s like, man, you could double your business with any one of these three categories that you kind of mentioned. So let’s start with the first one with selling to your existing clients, right? Which means you have to have more than one product offering, one service offering. So for the people who are listening that are going I only offer this one thing
NN (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, the easiest thing for me is to ask yourself, what are your clients really, really needing right now? Hmm. Like, do you have a group of them that are all saying, man, you know, aj I love building out my my focus and my personal brand, but I really could use some help with this TED Talk or TEDx I have coming up and I’ve gotta talk. And you’re, you already have these offers, you’re like, ah, no worries. I’m gonna bring a group of people together and teach them how to craft their their talk. Right? That could be something that you just add on because, you know, you have a bunch of clients that are having a similar pain point or asking for a similar request, and you can bring them together and just say, Hey, on this day, come in person, come virtually.
NN (07:01):
I’m gonna show you how to do this thing. Right? That’s easy. If there’s something you know your clients are struggling with, that’s naturally easy for you and you could bang it out in a few minutes, do that. Right? Like, I’ll give you an example for my business. A lot of clients come to me and say, Nikki, I know that I wanna create content, but I just can’t come up with ideas. I sit there by myself and I’ve got nothing. I sit and listen to people talk for five minutes, and I have a million ideas for what content they should be posting online. And so I just literally offer time with clients to sit down and I interview them, kind of like how we’re doing right now, as if it were a podcast interview, ask them a ton of questions about their expertise, and I just let my brain go with ideas, and I write them all down, and then I give it to them in a nice templated document that’s personalized for them. Here are your content prompts and your content ideas, bam. That’s just something additional. So really think, what do you cl what do your clients need? And what can you deliver easily? Whether it’s in a group, small group setting a one-on-one setting, a done for you type of thing. That’s honestly the easiest way to just add another offer in without blowing up your business model.
AJV (08:15):
Yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s so funny that you bring this up. ’cause I think about so many of the clients that we get to interact with at Brand Builders Group, and then also just friends who are in the industry like you of going, I think most of the time as a, you know, small to medium sized business owner, we just over overcomplicated. We think, oh, well, we need this whole new course, or we need this you know, this new funnel to support. And it’s like, no, you need like A P D F, that’s all you need, right? You need like a P D F or you need an email that you can send to people saying, this is this one new thing that I’m offering. Would you like to participate? What, what would you say? Like, have you seen a lot of clients or even in yourself, like how much weight or how much value do you think it carries to actually just ask your clients? It’s like, Hey, I’m thinking about offering some new services. What would appeal to you?
NN (09:11):
Yeah, I think that’s brilliant and not enough people do it because I, and I get it, there’s oftentimes when you’re the business owner, this feeling or pressure that you have to have it together and know what you’re offering and have everything mapped out perfectly before you speak to anybody about it. And honestly, the whole idea of just coming up with content prompts and in an interview style happened because I sat down with a friend who was struggling with content. I said, I could help her in five seconds, not literally five seconds, but you get what I mean, I did it for her. And she kept talking about how it’s the most valuable thing she’s ever received and how she looks at this piece of paper almost every day. Mm-Hmm. And I’m sitting there like, really? And I just started asking people, Hey, if I did something like this, would this be of value to you? And the number of people that said yes, because I struggle with it. And oftentimes business owners don’t realize what a gift they have, because for me, coming up with content ideas and content prompts, I can do all day every day, probably while I’m sleeping. So in my mind, I’m like, everybody can do that, but it’s not even sort of true. And so really take the time, ask people what is it that they need? What would be of huge value to them? And you never know what’s what’s gonna come out of it.
AJV (10:31):
Yeah. It’s like that old saying, one man’s trash is is another man’s treasure. And it’s like one woman’s genius is another woman’s frustration. And it’s like we all have these unique geniuses within us that someone else is like, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen. Like, it took me literally 10 minutes. I can’t even believe I charged you for this. Right? And it’s like, so I, I love that of going, I mean, how many of us as business owners don’t even pay attention to those little comments of like, this one thing changed my life? Because you take it for granted how easy it was for you to do. So like a big takeaway I kind of just wrote down is just as you’re delivering your products and services, like pay attention to asking questions like, what was the most impactful thing that you received?
AJV (11:23):
Like, what did you love most about this program or this experience? And then try to duplicate that in a fashion for others. I love that. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And it’s such a great reminder, ju, just because it’s easy for you does not mean it’s easy for anyone else. And there is likely many people out there who would pay you to do the thing that you take for granted that you do for yourself. I love that. That’s so good. All right, so the next category retention, right? Yes. So yes. So not having to replace your clients and not constantly find new ones has everything to do with can you keep the ones you have? Can you keep ’em? So what do we need to know when it comes to retaining our customers? What do we need to be paying attention to? Yeah,
NN (12:06):
I mean, the first thing that I would say is to realize that you can retain your clients. I remember for myself, and I, I laugh so hard when I look back and picture myself going through this, but I remember the, one of my first clients on a coaching call said to me, oh, Nikki, I know our sessions are coming to an end and I just wanted to have a conversation with you about how we can keep working together. And I sat there and I’m like, you know what? I would love to do that. Why don’t we schedule a separate call? Because then we can talk through what that would look like so that we don’t use up your coaching session. But absolutely, I have a system and for working with clients longer, I did not, but I was like, oh, absolutely. Like we can keep working together.
NN (12:50):
NN (13:41):
AJV (14:55):
Yeah. I love that. There’s so many comments I have on this. Like, our internal mantra at Brand Builders Group for our membership community is utilization equals retention. If you’re, if they’re not using it, at some point they’re gonna say, why am I paying for this? And it’s like, our number one job is to ensure that one, you use it and two, that you get results from using it. I e you’re loving it, but if you don’t use it, then at some point, like there’s, they’re not gonna pay for it anymore. But it’s, you know, we talk about this all day long, up, down, and all around about the importance of step one. They cannot enjoy what they do not use. So they have to use it. And then we have to ensure that they love it beyond imagination, right? It’s the goal. But you said something in there around just language, and it made me think about being, you know, a former coach and consultant prior to brand builders group.
AJV (15:52):
Like, one of the things that was so challenging for me is, you know, I did all my own lead generation and marketing and sales sales. Then you get the client and it’s like, okay, now I have to mentally transfer from business development mode to, you know, quality content, quality value delivery mode. And then it’s like, at some point you gotta be like, no, you can’t really leave the sales part over there. The sales has to come along with you. So that you’re always reiterating, hey, like this is part one of our time together and this is the initial terms of our agreement. And let’s talk about continuity plans and a maintenance strategy. And you know, all of those words that once you transition from business development mode into delivery, you forget to use. ’cause You’re now, you’re so focused on providing value, but what I hear you saying is like, no, we, we gotta have that part of this into every single conversation so that you’re priming people to be with you way beyond those initial terms.
NN (16:53):
Absolutely. And most people think even if they have somewhere in their presentations or their group program or whatever it is, that they’re delivering a conversation about the next level, oftentimes it’s either too late or not frequently enough. Mm-Hmm.
NN (17:41):
And I’m like, whoa. People decide it’s way too late. Really, I believe those conversations should start in marketing. Like before they even swipe their credit card or, you know, transfer money, you should be having conversations about staying with you throughout a, a long-term relationship. And so I think that’s number one, but number two, get comfortable with speaking about it often and using those language like continuing to work with you or after this, after you hit this milestone, here’s what’s next for us. And speaking about that all the time just helps people know that they’re, you’re both in it to win it. It’s kind of like dating, right? Like, if you’re dating someone and in your mind you’ve planned your wedding and they’re just like, ah, let’s have some fun. It’s probably not gonna go well. So you wanna clearly communicate your marriage plans early on and make sure they’re comfortable with it before you even get to the wedding. Maybe not exactly like dating, but
AJV (18:39):
Yeah, I, I totally agree with that. It’s, you know, but I think the part of it is most people bring it up too late. Yeah. Right? And it’s like, it’s very similar to dating. Like, I, I, I had this nickname can’t believe I’m sharing this, but in college, my nickname was the one date Wonder. And it’s like, because I was like, if I don’t think I’m gonna marry you, I don’t need to go on a second date with you,
AJV (19:23):
And I was like, well, this is our last date. And he goes, what do you mean this is our last date? And I’m like, well, you’re not the one. So this is our last date. And it’s a little bit like that. If you don’t have those conversations early, it’s too late. And it’s like now it feels like you’re back in a sales conversation. And on the client end it’s like, okay, well that’s weird because, you know, I’ve been working with you for six months and we have this relationship. Now I feel like you’re selling me again when all you had to do was tell me from the beginning, Hey, this initial, this initial six months, here’s what we’re gonna be working on, and then we’ll talk about the next six months. If you set those expectations early, it never feels like I’m reentering a sales conversation. It always feels like, oh yeah, you told me, you told me that every single time we talked, and now here we are. So it’s like the more you talk about it, the easier it is.
NN (20:11):
Yeah. For both people. For both people.
AJV (20:13):
Yeah. I love that. All right. Now, now referrals, which I think in my opinion, most people just don’t do why they don’t do it is beyond me. ’cause I do it all. I do it way too much. I’m on the other end of the spectrum, but it’s like, I think people don’t know how to do it. So what I would love for you is to like, what’s the best way for people to go about getting referrals from their clients? Because I think that everyone knows that in theory they should be doing it, and yet they don’t. Yeah.
NN (20:44):
I think part step one is to really just in your d n A and in the company’s d n a, be comfortable and set that expectation and almost that mindset that our clients are gonna love us so freaking much, they’re gonna refer other people. And that this is a community where people just wanna bring their folks into. And you have to start there because I think so often, you know, business owners, you have so much going on. I’ve had early in my business, I obviously forgot to even retain my clients, let alone I stopped marketing. And I’ve been in marketing for like decades, and I like forgot to market while I was delivering. I just stopped marketing. So when you just forget, things go out of your mind. And so you wanna just put it back in there and set it as an expectation. Like, we get client referrals, our clients refer us.
NN (21:30):
And again, that’s a conversation that you can honestly start in the marketing. Like you, you can say things like, we’re so ex we’re so excited for you to join this community, and we wanna make sure that it’s such an amazing experience that you’re bringing your friends in. We want this to feel like a family. We want this to feel like a community. We want the, like you just talk about it. Yeah. And so you set that expectation of referrals from the beginning so that when you talk to your clients about it, it’s not weird, right? Yeah. Like
NN (22:15):
Some people have Facebook groups. So you can say things like, Hey, who is somebody who, you know, would get a lot of value out of our programming? Invite them into the Facebook group. Hey, we’re doing a challenge. Who can you share this with? Oh, the challenge is over, but we have the replays on a page. Mm-Hmm.
NN (23:01):
I I, I was like, I don’t know what I do.
NN (23:45):
Like if you are I’m gonna just weight loss and
AJV (24:49):
Totally, totally agree. And I think if people would simplify it, they would have more confidence in asking. But I’m actually so glad you brought up B N I, I don’t even know if B N I still exists, but if it does y’all should look it up. I should look it up. But if it does, if you feel really uncomfortable with this part of your business, that is a great place to like force yourself to learn and practice because everyone is voluntarily signing up and paying to be a part of a group where we’re doing this together. And I remember I was a part of it a really long time, and it was like, it’s, it’s like Toastmasters to me where it’s like you go to Toastmasters, if you’ve ever heard of that, to practice public speaking in a safe environment, right? It’s like the circle of trust.
AJV (25:37):
You can be really bad at this in here so that you get better for out there. I feel like that’s how b n I is for asking for referrals. And it creates a, a forced environment where everyone has to stand up and you practice and then it gets a little easier and you practice them more and it gets a little easier because everyone is doing it together. So I don’t know if that still exists, but it was so good for me in my early business years to give me the accountability and a safe arena of going, I can suck at this. It’s okay, because everyone’s like, it’s okay. Just keep going
AJV (26:28):
And it’s, it’s like, I, I just remember I was doing a volunteer volunteer, but a complimentary like mastermind for my girlfriend who runs this sales mastermind, and she wanted me to come in and talk, talk about asking for referrals, and I was like, yeah, can do that. And a part of my surprise training is lots of role play. And it’s like, I can only teach you so much until we’re just gonna need to do it together. So this lady volunteered and she didn’t know she was volunteering for role play. And as you were talking, it made me think like this, my mind immediately went here is I said, all right, now I need you to ask me for a referral. So just do whatever you normally do. And she goes, well I am looking to talk to anyone who wants to experience I think she said rapid weight loss. I think it was rapid. And I paused and I said,
NN (27:18):
I
AJV (27:18):
Know lots of people like, who doesn’t wanna experience rapid weight loss? Like, and she was like, well, who are they? I’m like, but I don’t know which one is good for you. Like who? Exactly. It’s like my mind goes everywhere versus if you go, no, I’m looking for a woman in their forties to fifties who has struggled with you know, obesity for most of her adult life who’s tried every diet under the planet and cannot seem to lose the weight. Maybe there’s a medical issue maybe there’s a mental issue, but it is the person who has chronic obesity that does not know what to do. And they tried to solve this for decades, then I was like, I know two people, right? And it’s like, but that, that’s our work to do. That’s not our client’s job. That’s our job. So my question back to you is for everyone listening, what should people do to get that clear? Like what, what work or exercises do they need to do to go, all right, now I know who, so now I can go ask.
NN (28:18):
Yeah, I mean, if you already have clients, the first thing I would do is sit down and go, who are the clients that you love working with that are getting results? Like you’re actually helping them? And that if you could clone them, you would Right? And then get really clear on why, why is that person so clone? What were the qualities about them? Was it where they are before or where they were before they started working with you? Is it their age? Is it the size of their business? You know, what is it that made them so magical that you’d want to clone them? And if you are just getting started and you don’t have clients yet, the cool thing is, is that you’re kind of making it up. So it’s really a hypothesis. And you’re saying you wanna be really specific. Oftentimes when people are getting started, you’re like, oh, I just want people, so I’ll take anybody.
NN (29:07):
But the more specific you can be with your educated guess hypothesis where you’re like, who do you think you can help? If it’s someone who is just like you, then describe yourself before you solve the problem that you’re helping them solve, right? If it’s someone like a client that you had when you worked in another job and it’s similar, then describe that company or person, right? But you wanna come up with a hypothesis that’s really clear and detailed. You don’t need to know like that they’ve lived in a specific spot or, or certain things, unless you have a local business, but you want something so that someone can go, ah, I know exactly who you’re talking about, because I could picture that person in my mind.
AJV (29:47):
I love that. It’s so good. And again, it’s like, in my opinion, the key to growing your business or really scaling your business, not just growing it without adding expenses, is you gotta learn to be a master of getting referrals. Yes. I mean, that’s the cheapest, fastest, most awesome way to grow your business because it’s the quickest turnaround time and you’ve got internal advocates selling on your behalf, which are your existing clients. What better way to do that? Yeah. so all right, well I know that we’re
NN (30:58):
Yeah. So if you wanna double your business, the first thing that I would say that a visionary c e o needs to be focused on, and this is really whether you have a big team or a small team or no team, you have to be clear on where the business is going, right? Like we just listed out a ton of ideas in a ton of ways, right? Which are you going to focus on? Are you gonna focus on selling more to your existing clients? Are you gonna focus on client referrals? Are you gonna focus on you know, having clients stay longer and retaining them? Are you gonna focus on bringing in new clients? Because maybe you don’t have a large existing client pool, but you have to choose the path
NN (31:41):
And that level of clarity is so important for every person that touches your business. Even if it’s a volunteer, a va, you know, your child who’s helping you with social media or a big team. But you wanna have crystal clear clarity on where the business is going for the next 12, you know, or 18 months and the general pathway that you’re using to get there. Or if you have a a definite plan, then the plan to get there at knowing that it may have to shift and adjust as you’re implementing. But that’s number one, if you don’t have clarity on where you’re going and the direction that you’re going in, like how you’re getting there, you’ll end up just trying everything under the sun and not moving anywhere.
AJV (32:21):
Yeah, just even like with the three things we talked about, we started with like, those are three standalone components. It’s like, don’t do all of ’em at the same time. Pick like, what’s my strategy we’re going after? Have the plan, know what, you know, it’s like, what do they say? It’s like always start with the end in mind. Yes. It’s like you gotta know where you’re headed so you can figure out the path to get there. Not that
NN (32:45):
Sleeping cubbies habit number two, it’s my favorite one,
AJV (32:48):
NN (33:11):
So
NN (34:04):
And you may really need to sit down and go, okay, where is the biggest growth opportunity coming from? Right? Is it selling a $97 program where you might need to sell thousands or millions of them to double your business? Or do you have something that’s higher ticket that you need? Fewer people, but if you can get the right people, bam, you’re doubling your business. And so you need to know who the heck you’re selling to, right? So super clear offer, super clear person, target audience for that offer. And then you need to have a really clear message and positioning for that offer so that the person knows why they need it, especially if it’s a new offer for your existing clients or if they’re staying longer, why they need to stay longer in this thing, right? Or if it’s referral, why they need to refer other people to it, like what’s in it for them. But your messaging has to be clear. And I wanna like sit with that one for a second because I think so many people are like, my thing’s not selling my thing’s, not selling it must be the thing. And oftentimes it’s the person that you are selling to still has no idea what it is that you’re selling.
AJV (35:16):
I mean, I cannot second that enough. Like I second that 1000 times. And because we both live in this industry and the business of doing what we do, I cannot tell you how often when someone tries to explain to me what they do, I go, I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what that means. And I think one of the things that I have discovered from just doing this as long as I have, is that they actually don’t know either. They haven’t done the hard work to go, this is actually the problem that what I do solves and this is how it solves it. And so they struggle to articulate it because they think it solves 10 problems and you can’t explain 10. You have to explain one. And the other thing I’ve run to, I don’t know if you run into this, is people try to start being catchy and clever and you know, trendy and cheeky instead of just being clear.
NN (36:20):
And oftentimes it’s like, oh, that sounds cool, but I still don’t know what you do. Like you need to speak to people like they are five years old. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (37:31):
That’s good. Simplify. I love
NN (37:34):
It. Simplify
AJV (37:38):
I love
NN (37:39):
That. Yeah. And then the other thing that I would say tied to the tips just because this comes up often is sometimes people think they know who their target audience is because that’s either who’s purchased from them in the past or who they have a big audience of or who they want to help. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the perfect person for their offer, right? Like I have a client who has an amazing dashboard for helping entrepreneurs truly know their numbers and make decisions based off of their numbers. That stuff is way too complicated for the people that she’s been selling it to. Like they get it when she’s, they’re in her program and she’s training and developing them, but when I was at that level, I didn’t have, and I mean I looked at numbers, but not like that. This is for someone who has alar like Team
NN (38:34):
And so, so even if you’ve had some success selling something to someone, it doesn’t mean they’re the perfect person for it. So you really need to hone in on like who is truly the perfect person for this offer, right? So the offer, the person, the message, and then you really, if you wanna double your business, you need a simple strategy. What’s the game plan? Keep it super, super simple,
NN (39:22):
And the the last piece really comes down to tracking everything and being flexible with how you go about things, right? So if you sell something, if you, I’m gonna just use the, have existing clients buy more strategy. If you have an offer that you’re putting in front of clients and not a lot of people buy it, then don’t be afraid to go back to your clients and ask them, Hey, you know, I noticed only a few of you took this, took me up on this offer. The ones who did ask them why they did, the ones who didn’t ask them why they didn’t, maybe it was that you didn’t market it well to the people that are in your program. Maybe they didn’t understand the value of it. Maybe it wasn’t exactly what they needed and what they needed was something else. Bam, then offer that next time, right? Like, I think too often people give up too soon. And so the fifth way, if you really wanna double your business, it’s, you just have to keep going and keep trying and keep tweaking what it is that you’re doing. And then you’ll figure out what the formula is. There’s no perfect formula that you can have on paper before you get started. It’s a building the machine while you’re on the machine riding the machine down the road type of thing. It’s like, oh my God, build the car,
AJV (40:40):
You know, it’s so true. It’s like, yeah, it’s, it reminds me of that analogy that someone’s like being an entrepreneur is like jumping off a cliff and trying to build an airplane on your way down, right? It’s like, it’s a little bit like that. But you know what I love about every one of these, and I’m just gonna recap these for everyone. It’s, you have to have clarity on your offer, clear on who the offer is for, you gotta have a clear message on that offer. You have to have a simple strategy that you can follow, and then a way to track report and get feedback to make sure it’s working. And what I love about all of that is it’s simple, right? It does not have to be complex. We’re not trying to make it complex. We’re trying to make it usable, doable and you need to do the same thing for your clients, which is know what your offer is, know who it’s for, make sure you have clarity on the message for it. Make sure you have a way to actually go after it. And then a way to track and get feedback. And it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like the, it feels too easy to be true and most good things in life are and we as humans overcomplicate everything because we think that in order for it to be amazing and be smart, it has to be complex when the smartest things and the best things are usually the easiest, simplest things in the world.
NN (41:54):
Absolutely.
AJV (41:56):
Nikki, this has been awesome. I know that we are out of time and it’s like I could probably spend another hour just talking, just like random strategy with you. If people want to stay in touch with you, where should they go? Yeah,
NN (42:08):
I mean, the easiest place to go is to just go to nikki nash.co. That’s my website and it links to literally anything that is right for you at this moment, whether it’s getting access to my podcast or my book or, or working with me in one of my programs. So I highly recommend just go into the website, keep it simple.
AJV (42:28):
Yeah. So everyone, it’s Nikki Nash co. And she’s got an awesome offer on her website with a free masterclass. So we’ll put that link in the show notes. And Nikki, if they wanna follow you on social media, what’s your preferred platform?
NN (42:43):
Ooh, okay. I am currently getting really into LinkedIn, so I’m gonna say hit me up on LinkedIn. It’s really easy, like once you do the whole LinkedIn and the slash in
AJV (43:02):
I’ll, I’ll grab that specific link, throw it in the show notes so everyone can go connect with you on LinkedIn check out your content and then go to Nikki nash.co. Nikki, love you. So happy that you were on the show. Everybody else stick around for the recap and I will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 409: 3 Things To Know Before You Write A Book | Risha Grant Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So this is for the person who has always thought I have this great idea. It needs to be a book. Or maybe it’s for the person that gets told all the time, wow, you’re such a great speaker, or a great storyteller, or, wow, you have an amazing story. You need to write a book. So that is who this particular message is for today. And here’s what I have to say about that. There are three core philosophies that I have along with my company, brand Builders Group around the art and the science of writing, sell and selling books. Number one, a book should be the last thing you do not The first thing a book is when you have a truly vetted idea and you have enough content for it to actually be a book, not a chapter of a book, not a blog, not a podcast, but an actual 200 to 300 page book, which means you need to have points and stories and frameworks.
AJV (01:14):
And I idea for a book is not a book. A great story is a great story, not always a book. And I often wonder when people started writing these books, did they ever ask themselves, should this be a book, a chapter of a book, or a blog, or even just a conversation on a podcast? Because great ideas and great stories can be any one of those things. It does not have to be a truly vetted and fully published book for it to make a huge impact. And so I have read many books where at the end of it, I’m like, man, that would’ve been a great blog
AJV (02:12):
And each of those chapters has to have different stories and points and frameworks that all build together, right? In a through line of what’s an overarching theme of this body of work, which we call a book. And that doesn’t start in the beginning. That’s the end, right? That’s the conclusion, right? You don’t start writing a book with a hypothesis. You start writing a book when you have the conclusion, when you have all the information. And that takes time. It takes talking about it a lot writing about it a lot creating content about it a lot, speaking about it a lot. So if you have a great idea or you have a great story, the first thing you do is not write a book, sorry, to burst your bubble on that
AJV (02:58):
One. The first thing you do is you start talking about it. You start blogging about it. You start writing content about it. You start making videos about it. You start speaking for free or for money, but you start speaking about it. It just needs to be vetted. You need to know what people remember, what appeals to them what you love talking about. Like what stories should you use? And then once you’ve done that for an adequate amount of time, and I’m not gonna put a timeframe on there for an adequate amount of time where you now have an entirely vetted, like, this is the main theme. These are the points I wanna make, these are the stories that support those, and here’s what I wanna teach people, i e frameworks, then, then you’re ready to write the book.
AJV (03:46):
But it’s the last thing you do, not the first thing you do, right? So that’s number one. Is that writing a book is the last thing you do, not the first thing you do. And if you think you have a great idea, start with a blog
AJV (04:36):
You, you think that the message that you have will help impact someone to change their life or their business for the better. Otherwise why do it? Because it takes a ton of your time, energy, resources, and money. So if it’s not going to be something that you’re deeply passionate about talking about for a long time, then write a book, right? So back to this is that writing is just part one. And what most people don’t spend near enough time thinking about and planning and executing is the sales and marketing plan. And I did say those, those in order sales and marketing, right? If you think that you’re going to write a book and send it to your email list, even if you have a huge email list, it will likely not sell as many books as you think. If you have a huge social media following and you think that you can write a book and just use your audience, I think you will most likely be severely disappointed in how even that does not move many books. That’s marketing. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, of course you should do that. Of course, you should market your email list. Of course you should be marketing it on social media and doing a podcast tour and doing all the
AJV (05:56):
Things. Yes, but that’s not the bulk of what actually moves books. What actually moves books is you the author selling. Now I say you the author because you are the best and most well positioned person to make the sale. Now, that does not mean you can’t have support and help doing all these things. Of course you can. But when you think about how do I move books to get them in the hands of people that I think it will actually make a difference in, you literally have to think of old school selling. And here’s what I mean, my old school. Pick up a phone and call somebody. Pick up your phone, text somebody, engage with them, go speak to their group, go meet them in their office. They need to see a, a tangible copy of what this book is, why it’s important. And you need to start with the people who know you like you and trust you the most.
AJV (06:56):
So those are the people who have hired you before. They have paid for your services before. They have worked with you before. They’re the ones who were telling you that you need to write the book. Well, if they think you need to write the book, well then they need to buy a copy of the book, right? But it’s like that is sales. You need to pick up the phone and call people and give them a reason to buy these books. And hopefully you have some people who will buy lots of books at the same time, right? So bulk sales and as well as the individual orders. But you have to be a salesperson to be compelling enough to go pull out your credit card, click on this link and give me at least 24 99 to buy this book that takes sales and supplemental marketing, right?
AJV (07:41):
It’s not one or the other. It is both. But please hear me when I say it takes a sales effort, a sales plan, which means you actually have to have people to call on, right? So back to, are you ready to write the book? Do you have enough content? The second question to ask yourself, am I ready to write the book? I e do I have enough people in my audience in my my client sphere, in my, you know, friends and family sphere that I could actually get this in enough hands of people and make it, you know, marketable enough that this would actually spread and make a difference, right? That matters. Now, if you’re writing a book just because it’s a legacy book and you’re like, man, I just wanna get what I believe on paper, and I don’t care if I ever sell a copy.
AJV (08:28):
I’m not gonna try to, I’m just gonna have some for friends and family to give away. That’s a different story. This, this piece, this message is not for you today, right? This is for the person who’s going, no. Like, I want this book to make a massive impact. I want this to be a part of my business. I want this message to spread. I want this to be in the hands of people I care deeply about that this is who this is for. So number one the book is the last thing, not the first thing. A second thing is get sales ready, be sales ready. And then the third thing, and this is not in order per se, but the third thing is you have to know how you want to actually publish the book. That’s it. That’s it. An important part of this formula that maybe wasn’t such a part of the formula 10 years ago and definitely wasn’t a part of it 20 years ago when we wrote our book take the Stairs in 2010 is when it launched.
AJV (09:21):
And so that’s what 13 years ago, like, there was not a lot of awesome self pop publisher options where it was credible. There was hardly any even less than self hybrid options. I mean, it was like, if you really wanted to get your book in the mainstream, it was a traditional publisher, right? And it took us two years of hardcore whole hardcore sales and cold calling and prospecting and follow up to get an agent to even look at this much less considerate, right? So two years of just going like, please
AJV (10:21):
It’s like, we’ll do your fulfillment for you, right? So it’s like that’s something that we do for our members at Brand Builders Group because we care deeply about getting your message into the hands of others. There are good self-publishers. Like there are books out there that are self-published like Miracle Morning, Hal l Rod, where it has sold it has sold millions of copies and he gets to keep every dollar of it, right? But that this is an important part of the journey. ’cause What, here’s what people think. They think I’m going to get an agent, which is pretty much necessary in order to work with a traditional publisher. I’m gonna get a big advance and whew, my job is done. Earn not true. That’s not how it works. Agents sell your book proposal to publishers. Publishers publish your book. They help edit it, they help formatting, they help with not help.
AJV (11:11):
They tell you what the cover’s going to be. But they do those com right components. They put it into a form of a book where you can flip pages and read it. They do not sell your book. Now, maybe if you’re Michelle Obama, they will help market your book for you. But if you are not Michelle Obama, they do not sell your book. They do not market your book. So the question is if publishers publish and editors edit, then who sells? And who does that? You do the author, that’s your job, right? So being an author today also means that you are a sales person. Going back to step two. But that is an important part of the journey of like the advance. What that really should be considered is like, this is an upfront amount of money that I’m gonna reinvest back into the book launch.
AJV (12:01):
Because if you get a big advance, that means that you’re not going to make any additional money until you earn that out. And royalties. So people are always like, well, I don’t have the money to traditional, or I don’t have the money to self-publish, which is why I need a traditional publisher. I don’t have the money to do a hybrid publishing deal because that takes my money upfront. Well, the truth is, is it takes your money both ways. It doesn’t matter. You’re just going to ex have an expenditure upfront that you then get to earn and keep all the money on the backend, or you’re not gonna have an expenditure upfront, but you’re going to make pennies on the dollar for the life of that book. It takes your money any way you look at it. It’s just, do you have the money to invest upfront?
AJV (12:50):
Yes or no? And that is really the only thing to decide because it does take your money. It doesn’t matter how you do it. It’s an investment of time, energy, and financial means to get a book in the hands of people that it will make a difference. And so deciding which route to go is really important. And if you think that, you know, oh, if I do it this way, I’m gonna get all this support. Think again. There are things that people do and there are silos, and then there are things that are up to you and there are some things that are gonna be on your plate regardless of which path you go. And sale, selling and marketing, the book is one of those things. So consider those things as you’re, you know, going through the options of like, how would I wanna do this?
AJV (13:33):
And it’s like, do I want to have more money for the long tail? Do I have enough confidence in myself to sell this at the back of the room or to sell this to clients or not? Right? And tho those things make a big difference. Do I have enough money upfront to be able to make that upfront investment, but then earn it back and I get to keep it versus no, I’ll take this money upfront, but that money costs me a lot in the long run. ’cause I won’t make another dollar until all of that is earned out. And then I’ll make very small royalties for the rest of the lifetime of that book. So, like I said, it’s gonna take your money either way. It’s just which way makes more sense for you. So those are the three things that you should know as you prepare on the adventure. ’cause That’s what it is. There’s peaks and valleys of writing a book. Check out our entire podcast interview with Isha Grant to hear more about all that it takes to write your first book. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 405: The 5 Reasons Why Authors Miss Bestseller Lists | Patty Aubery Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
What a fascinating, uh, story and recount of the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand. I loved it. Uh, this is a recap, uh, a little bit of that, that interview I did with Patty Aubrey and just, uh, if you didn’t get a chance to hear it, it’s about how they built the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand and, you know, sold all those books and changed the whole world and changed the whole industry. And it’s just a little bit of a, a, you know, just fun to go behind the scenes and, and see how that all worked out. And so I thought for today’s episode, I would stay in the theme of book launching and book selling. And I’m gonna walk you through five of the reasons why I think, uh, the five of the most common reasons why authors miss bestseller lists. Um, obviously Chicken Soup for the Soul came out years ago, and so it was fun to see how they bundled things and packaged them together to, you know, sell so many books.
RV (00:59):
In recent years, this has been a huge part of what we do at Brand Builders Group. We, we’ve helped 14 different authors become New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers at this point, um, including myself, of course, which we’ve done. And it is something that we just, we know a lot about. And we are working with all of the biggest publishers in the world, pretty much, and many of the biggest authors in the world. And, you know, so many of our clients at Brand Builders Group are authors at some point are aspiring authors. And so we, uh, you know, we don’t just do book launches, but that’s one of the things that we do really, really well. And we’ve had a, a really strong track record of success, especially here consistently in the last couple years. So, um, I wanna talk about the five biggest risks that, uh, we see for why authors don’t hit bestseller lists.
RV (01:51):
And number one is volume risk, volume risk. So by far, the number one reason why most authors don’t hit the major bestseller lists is simply because of sheer volume. You know, the way that these lists work, uh, you know, the two major ones, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, we do follow others. We follow U s A today, we follow Amazon, we follow, um, you know, the Washington Post, we follow Publishers Weekly. There, there’s, there’s several other lists, but the two main ones, New York Times and Wall Street Journal are, are the biggest and the most credible, and people just have no idea how much volume it takes. Now these lists, most of them are weekly. The New York Times does have a, a monthly bestseller list, um, that is a business bestseller list, which actually, there’s, there’s more than just business books that qualify for that list.
RV (02:42):
We see, uh, psychology books appear on there, and self-help books also appear on there. But the main, uh, list that most of our clients at Brand Builders Group, uh, are going for in that we’ve, we’ve hit is the New York Times Advice Weekly, how to List, which is arguably the toughest list there is. It’s, it’s a very, very competitive list. And then, um, in the Wall Street Journal, the Wall Street Journal has a, a nonfiction list that many of our clients hit. And it’s all formats, paperback, you know, uh, and, and a hardcover, but, and all different nonfiction, um, BSAC codes. And then there is the, the Wall Street Journal business list. And, um, all three of those are the kind of the main three lists that we track and that we’re helping clients hit. ’cause that’s mostly what we do, right? Is, is non-fiction, business, self-help, health psychology, et cetera.
RV (03:33):
And, um, so you have to, in order to hit these bestseller lists, I mean, there’s a lot of things that have to happen, right? Part of which I’ll talk about here in this, in this, this episode. But the first, the first thing is you have to have a volume of units. And, and you have to understand that not every sale counts, only sales at certain outlets count. They’re called reporting outlets or reporting retailers. And so that’s one of the things that we do. And we advise our clients on their strategy. One of the things that we talk about is making sure their sales count. Um, and that’s something that we often help authors with as in addition to helping them create the strategy for how to sell a lot of books. Um, we also have a lot of strategies around making sure the sales count.
RV (04:15):
Because if you sell books at the back of the room, like, let’s say you’re a speaker and you sell at the back of the room, those books don’t count. Um, for the bestseller list, they have to be sold through reporting retailers. And, um, that’s a whole puzzle in game in and of itself. But, um, the way that these bestseller list work is they’re weekly lists. And so they are the number of units sold through all, you know, reporting retailers within a certain period in a window. And usually that is one week. And, um, in this case, these three, they are in one week. And, you know, just, we have a data science team that tracks this specifically. And once someone becomes a client, we actually share a lot of this data with them. The actual specifics, I’ll give you some broad numbers here though, but you know, roughly to make a run at a New York Times, uh, bestseller, you roughly need to have around 15,000 units in a week.
RV (05:07):
Um, we have had clients that we’ve been able to hit with less, um, but we also know people who have missed with more than that. And so, again, part of it depends on how the sales happen and where the sales happen, which is just one of the things that we just try to speak into and, and that we do speak into. ’cause we’re really good at it, even though our main focus is just teaching authors how to ethically and honestly sell a lot of books. So you gotta get about like 15,000 units though just to hit, you know, the, to be a candidate, you know, to hit the New York Times. So that’s not easy. And then a Wall Street Journal nonfiction bestseller, you know, roughly speaking on most weeks and every week is different. And that’s something that we look at and track, um, is when’s the best time to publish, to hit bestseller list, et cetera, and who your publisher is.
RV (05:51):
There’s lots of things like that. Um, but there is around 10,000 units is usually what you’re gonna have to sell in a week to be a candidate for a Wall Street Journal nonfiction bestseller. And then for the Wall Street Journal business, um, that, that one fluctuates, you know, quite a bit. But we typically say 3000 units sold in a week. Um, and you know, that’s a lot of books to sell in a week. So, you know, you’ve gotta create a campaign and a strategy, but that’s the number one reason why authors don’t hit, is they just, they have volume risk. They don’t have enough volume pushing through and also in the right locations. Like they don’t, they don’t know who the proper reporting retailers are, and they don’t have a strategy there, and they don’t even know that. They don’t know that that matters. And so, um, I mean, I, I see sales, I see books every week.
RV (06:37):
I mean, I just looked up one yesterday, a book that sold 4,000 units in a week should have hit a bestseller list. And it didn’t, it missed, and clearly they didn’t have someone advising them on, you know, the, the full picture of how to run these launches. But so volume risk is number one. Um, and it’s heart, it’s heartbreaking when people get the volume and miss, and the reason they often miss is ’cause of number two, which is what I call technicality risk. Um, so the technicality risk is just being unaware that there are so many technicalities that go into hitting these bestseller lists. Part of how I learned this is that one of the most heartbreaking moments of my professional career, um, was when my, my second book Procrastinate On Purpose came out. Um, and I, uh, we, we sold several thousand units. We should have been, and we expected to be a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, which we were with, uh, take The Stairs, my first book.
RV (07:35):
And I sort of fully expected to do that. And I, we sold the units and then the bestseller list come out. And not only did we not hit number one, we weren’t on the list at all. And that is part of what sent me down a journey of discovery because it was gut-wrenching and, and, and heartbreaking. Um, not because you need the title to feel important, but because you pour your heart and soul into something for years, you know, making a book and preparing and doing the launch. And, and, you know, we know a lot about launching books, um, and, uh, this was at our former company, but, uh, so we weren’t in the business of, of teaching people how to do this, but it was, you know, it was frustrating and discouraging and it felt political, right? I, I felt like I, I got hosed or somebody was against me or out to get me because I sold more books than the books on the list that week.
RV (08:26):
And yet we didn’t, we didn’t hit the list. And that’s because of something called technicality risk. There are many different technicalities that have to be accounted for. And one of ’em, as an example is something called your BIAC code, B I S A C. Um, and so BIAC code is something that most authors don’t even know about or don’t even think to look at. Now, BSAC Codes stands for book industry Standards and Communications. Um, and what it is, is it is like the way that, that the industry organizes and categorizes books, right? There’s so many books, thousands of books, you know, every probably every month or maybe even every week that are coming out. And so these books get organized by category. And the industry categorization method is called the BSAC Code. And the BSAC code is the official category that your book is in.
RV (09:15):
Well, for example, when it came to the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, what was so painful was that, um, my second book was not properly categorized, and it was categorized as a self-help book. And really it’s a business book. Well, why did that matter? It because self-help books never show up on the Wall Street Journal business bestseller list, regardless of how many units they sell. So I did all of this work, our team did all of this work. We pour our heart and soul into it. Our clients are rallying to support us. You know, we’re, we’re, we’re launching this book out into the world. We execute everything and we miss the list on a technicality.
RV (09:55):
It was heartbreaking, right? Um, and, you know, that book never took off. Like my first book, take The Stairs took off, and my first book continues to sell really, really well. Now, it, it, uh, procrastinating on Purpose. My second book, it sold fine. I’ve earned out my advance, I get royalty checks. Um, we sell, you know, a a hundred plus copies every week still, but it never took off, like take the stairs. And part of it I think was ’cause we just, we lost a lot of that momentum of the bestseller and all the buzz, and it was because of an avoidable technicality. And yet no one brought it up to me. No one ever mentioned my literary agent, my publisher, my editor, our, you, you know, our marketing team, like our PR team. No one brought it up. I don’t know that they knew to bring it up.
RV (10:40):
I didn’t know to bring it up. And so that’s a part of where I started exploring this. And then ultimately when we exited that business, it started Brand Builders Group. One of the services that we started providing was book launch, you know, consulting and coaching and teaching people how to not only sell the books, but how to make sure their book sales count for the list. And that you don’t lose out to technicality risk. That’s only one type of risk. There’s other types of technicalities, geographic, there’s publisher risk. Did you know that certain publishers are more likely to show up on the New York Times than other publishers? Um, there are all these things that we track that are just technicalities and you just don’t even know as an author, and no one even brings it up. And you’re so focused on just trying to sell books, which no one has a really good plan for, unless, unless you’re working with us. Then it’s, it’s just like, man, it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s really tricky. So you gotta watch out for technicality risk and you need to talk to somebody who knows what they’re doing and who understands and looks at these bestseller lists. And that’s, you know, part of what we built at Brand Builders Group is a data science team that does nothing but track data just to understand how the bestseller list work. Um, number three is kind of closely related, we call it over estim Overestimation risk.
RV (11:52):
Overestimation risk. And this is definitely one of the reasons why authors miss the bestseller list, which is that they overestimate the importance of PR and social media. Uh, now you might say like, how could you overestimate the importance of PR and social media? Well, PR and social media are good things. You, you need to do them, you should do them for your book launch. But for most authors, that’s what they think. That’s what they think is going to make them make or break hitting the list. And what we know in reality is that only 0.001%, that’s what our team estimates after running several of these launches of your social media falling will convert to become book buyers 0.001%, right? So if you’re Eric Thomas, et the hip hop preacher, we helped, um, Eric Thomas run his entire book, launch the Strategy from Beginning to end, um, and we hit the New York Times with et or he hit the New York Times, we got to be a part of it.
RV (12:51):
And you know, ets amazing. He’s a legend and he is got 5 million social media followers. Well, we estimate that around 5,000 of the book sales came from social media. Um, how do we know that? Because we track all the sales and where all the sales come from. So that’s, if you’re Eric Thomas, right? You might sell 5,000 units from that. So when we created bestseller launch plan, which is our formal curriculum at Brand Builders Group, where we teach people the five mechanisms for how to sell a lot of books, what we created that because we realized for ourselves that social media and PR doesn’t sell that many books. Even when you get on the major podcast, like the biggest podcasts in the world might move a few hundred copies, right? I mean, we’ve had, we’ve had clients and friends and I personally been on many of the biggest podcasts in the world.
RV (13:37):
You might move a couple hundred, 300, a huge, huge podcast would move like 500 units, even the Today Show or national television, right? We’ve had friends, uh, and clients get on the Today Show. We might see a thousand units from that one sale or from that one appearance, which is good. You still need to do it. That’s a thousand units, that’s a thousand lives you’re changing. But a thousand is nowhere near enough to hit any of the bestseller lists, let alone a New York Times, right? So you gotta have a whole other strategy going on here to to, to pull it off. I’ve been on national tv, um, multiple times and I’ve seen, I’ve seen my biggest national TV appearances might move a thousand units. I’ve had some national TV appearances where I can’t even tell, you know, any sort of a, you know, deline able difference in book sales from a national TV appearance, which is hard to get.
RV (14:27):
Um, so there’s this overestimation risk of PR and social media that’s not what move books. You need to figure out a better plan that’s gonna move them. And if you’re a B B G client, obviously we’re, you go through the bestseller launch plan curriculum, you have access to it. We teach you, we teach you the whole system. So watch out for that. Number four is inventory risk. Inventory risk. And this one is another devastating, heartbreaking, tragic thing that makes, gives me so much pain, which is that authors do all this work to create the sales. They have all the money, they have all the people out there buying the books, and the publishers haven’t printed enough inventory, or they have printed enough inventory, but it hasn’t been shipped in time to get to the retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Books Ilion and all the independent stores and whatever.
RV (15:16):
And so when your audience goes to buy the book, either it shows sold out and nobody can buy it. Or what’s even more frustrating is you can buy it. And so you’ll place an order and you’ll buy a book online and you will make the sale, they’ll collect your money, but because they don’t have the inventory, the retailers can’t ship the books out in time. And so the books get reported when they ship. And so even though the sale happened in a certain week, the reporting of that sale doesn’t happen till future subsequent weeks. And so you have an author’s launch where all, everything they poured into this, their, their reporting gets diluted across multiple weeks. And I’ve seen that happen multiple times. And it, and it typically happens with newer authors, younger authors, smaller publishing companies, and smaller print runs because they just, they don’t know how many books the the author’s gonna sell.
RV (16:14):
It’s their first time. They don’t, they can’t take a huge risk to print a whole bunch of copies. They don’t realize how important it is. And they underestimate how long it takes to print books and get ’em shipped, and then for the retailers to get ’em and checked into inventory and you could do everything else right? And then miss on this one, just again, sort of a horrible technicality of, of, of going, man, I, I created the sales. The sales are there, people spent the money. We, we, we had people buy that many units in a week, but they didn’t get reported because of the way that the inventory happens on the backend. And again, as an author, it’s like, how do you know this? Like, you don’t even know to know this. It, it’s taken me years to figure this out and to learn this stuff.
RV (16:56):
And, and obviously part of why we started Brand Builders Group and created the services that we have, one of which in, in this book Launch in Space. And that points to number five, which is the last one, which is Planning risk, planning risk. And this one is the one that’s controllable. And this is the, this is, you know, the biggest controllable issue that authors have, which is they wait way too long to plan for their launch. Most authors don’t plan for launching their book until their manuscript is done. And you might only have a few months before the book comes out. And that’s not enough time to fully plan and execute and orchestrate and pull off the, the, the logistical, uh, masterpiece that has to take place in order for a book to become a bestseller. I mean, most of these clients that we’re working with we’re, we’re, we’re helping them, we’re helping them years in advance because they’re b b G clients.
RV (17:52):
And so we’re helping them build their platform, build their speaking career, build their social media, build their podcasts, build their funnels, right? Build their sales team, build their events. We’re, we’re building all of this stuff up. And so they’re already in position that we can execute a launch quickly. But if you’re just rolling off the street as a new author and you don’t have a clue how to sell books, and you don’t have a team and you don’t have a huge audience and you can’t get on national tv, it’s like there’s no chance. I mean, the, the ship has sailed be before, you know, like that, that game is already over before it began. And it’s just ’cause you don’t know and you don’t realize that you have to plan. I mean, anything that takes excellence, takes planning. Like you have to plan way out in advance.
RV (18:32):
And so, you know, we tell even, uh, our ideal time is that we should be talking to an author about a year before their publication date of their book if they really wanna make a run at a bestseller. Now, there’s times where we have one regardless, right? Um, Tom and Lisa Bilyeu, uh, hired us 13 days before their book launch. And in 13 days we were able to grow their total sales over 30% in 13 days. And, um, Lisa hit the u ss a today bestseller list, kind of just barely. And so we played a really significant role in that, um, which was great, but you know, they also have a lot of things going for them that not every, you know, new person does that we could, you know, so we were able to move some things and make things happen quickly. Can’t always do that with, with up and comers.
RV (19:17):
So, um, you gotta start planning early and, you know, if you have a book or you wanna have a book coming out in, within the next year, I mean, request a call with us now, like, do not wait. I mean, and you can, you know, you can do that every week. If you go to free brand call.com/podcast. We mention this every week. You can request a free call with our team and you can start getting educated on this and learning about this. But don’t wait too long to plan otherwise, you’ll miss your window. So there’s a lot more going on here to becoming a bestselling author than just selling a lot of books. And those are the five biggest risks for why people miss the list. Hopefully, by knowing ’em, uh, you can help avoid, will help you avoid ’em. And if you’re not sure or exactly clear on exactly how to do that, then talk to us and let us be your partner in this process. Share this episode with an author that you know, or someone who’s an aspiring author or someone who has a book coming out. This is a must listen to must see episode. If someone is an author, this can be life-changing information. So I hope you’ll share that with somebody who is on that path. Thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time. Bye-bye.
Ep 404: How Chicken Soup for the Soul Sold 500 Million Books with Patty Aubery
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The first time I met Jack Canfield, I was just a young whipper snapper in my early twenties at the National Speakers Association. Over the years, we’ve gotten to know each other a little bit. I’ve interviewed him a couple times. And now I’m so excited because I get to introduce you to Patty Aubery, and she is the president of the Canfield Training Group. So that’s her current role. But she also formerly was one of the people behind building the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series. And then they, that became a billion dollar brand. They sold that business. And so we’re gonna hear a little bit about that story and how they did it and what they’re up to today at Canfield Group. But Patty also is the author of a group of a book called Permission Granted. And she talks about really like how to find the, the bold courage to go out there and just claim and own your voice and share your message. So she was an easy and obvious fit to bring here to the show. And anyways, Patty, great to meet you.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Thanks. Thanks for having me. It’s nice to meet you too.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
So, and I love, you’re a part-time Nashvillian and a part-time Santa Barbaran, which are, those are, those are great places to be. So you’re, you’re, we’ll have to hook up in person when you’re here, but I’d love to start at the start. And this is probably not the start, but when I, when I think of, when you say Chicken Soup for the Soul, I mean, that is in such a category of its own. I mean, it’s, it’s just, it’s so far different. And, and not just one book, but the whole series. I would love to just hear how did it start and then what did it become? And just like, how did you even meet Jack and, and how did you guys get connected and y you know, just like, walk us through the story.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So I, it was like 1989. I was living in Santa Barbara actually at the time, and I was working for a tech company that sold government software and I hated it. And I was always in trouble. I was not meant to live in a cubicle
Speaker 2 (02:34):
You don’t have a choice. Uhhuh
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Wow. Interest inflation.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And he said, okay, can you have lunch? I’m like, wow. He is smart and he is easy. This is a good thing. And so I ended up taking the job, went home, told my dad who flipped out, you’re gonna work for a hippie. I send you to business school. What’s wrong with, you know, he just flipped
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And then one day he came home, I think it was like right after I started in July. In September, he came to the office and said, you know, I go out and do all these talks and everybody keeps saying, do you have that story in a book? Mostly women? Do you have the story in a book? He’s like, no, but it’s on my Nightingale Conone tapes, or it’s on my career track tapes. Or, you know, and women would say, but I don’t listen to audio tapes because I’m in the car. I’m out of the car. I, you know, I, I read. So I think the universe is telling us to take all the best stories from all the best speakers and put ’em in a book. And I said, okay, thank God I was 24. I had no opinion. ’cause If it was today, I’d be like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So I started working on it with them. And we published our first book in 1993. As you know, we had a hard time finding a publisher, if you’ve heard, a lot of people have heard that story. And we ended up with a real small publisher at a Deerfield beach, which was the biggest blessing on the planet because he owned his own printing press. Ah. And so by, it took us about 14 months to hit a, a bestseller list. And we did every wacky crazy marketing thing you could do. John Kramer’s, 1001 things to market your book. I mean, we did every one of ’em, maybe except for a couple hundred. And at the very tail end of getting the but together, mark and Jack met at a breakfast club and Mark said, Hey, I should do that book with you. And Jack said, okay. And so that was a whole new Mark, Victor
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Hanson, everyone that Victor Hanson see that she’s talking about. Yep. So
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And so
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Who was also an n s Aer. And they, so they, they had known each other, I guess for a while.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
They kind of knew each other, but not well. But Mark, you know, mark is so gregarious and could sell anything to anybody, and Jack’s much more of an introvert. So it was a good team, and it was great for me because I got to learn the, the really anal side of Jack as a teacher. Every detail he explains. And I also got to have Mark’s brain of, you know, come on, kid. Bake it till you make it. If you believe it, you’ll see it. I mean, I’m like, okay, if this stuff doesn’t work, mark work, start a church. ’cause Mark was also a Bible scholar,
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The same publisher.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Same publisher, okay,
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So this is not, this is not like a major New York publishing deal where they’re paying you a book advance and push pushing your book everywhere. This is like a small publisher pr basically, basically like a vanity, like a hybrid publisher today. Maybe you printing your own books.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, they’re, they, they were a regular publisher, but they printed like recovery books like John Bradshaw, you know, healing the Inner Child, Melanie Beatty, recovery Books, addiction, things like that. So they were little, but he had had a couple bestsellers Okay. In the past. And so when he saw the number start climbing, he bought the highest end German printing press. Like he got prepared, he saw, and he would call me, he is like, keep those chickens rolling. I mean, he’d sing to me, you know, I’m like, oh God. Another book. You know, we marketed the first book forever before anything happened. So when Marcy said that, we did that book, and then we thought, well, what else could we do? And then the next book, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my sister had come to work for me and she said, why don’t we put a bunch of stories together for mom about people that have survived cancer? And I said, so all you authors out there listening, or anybody that’s thinking about having a big dream, the words that came outta my mouth, which are embarrassing, were, well, why would they let us do a book? We work here? And she said, Patty, you have been with Jack before it was even an idea who deserves it more. And so, and she was bossy. She was younger than me. And so she convinced me. So I went into the conference room with Mark and Jack and said,
Speaker 1 (08:58):
This is Marcy.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
No, my sister came to work. Oh, your
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Sister, okay.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah. And, and she just gotten her degree in nursing. And so I said, while you’re studying for your state boards, help me read these stories, because there were stories coming in. And so I, I presented this thing, I wanna do this book, chicken Soup for The Surviving Soul. And I was so scared. And they said, okay. And I went, yeah, great. And so did that book, and then that led me into Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul. And I did, I did 14 books of my own out of the 250 that I managed over like an 18 year period.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Wow. You guys did 250 ver iterations of that brand.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
We did 200. Wow. And that it, it was such a blessing. And they
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Were all just different verticals like that. Basically chicken soup for the teacher’s soul and for the brothers soul and whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Exactly. And, and the thing is, because we said in the back of the book, if you have a story, share it with us. And so people started writing stories and it sort of gave us, it was like foreshadowing. We knew what the market was looking for. We were getting a ton of pet lover stories. We were getting a lot of Christian stories. We were getting, you know, all kinds of different things. So at one point, I think my publishing schedule was five years out and Wow. I think the biggest year we did 18 books in one year. It’s, that’s insane.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So did, were, were all the books selling well, or was it just the, like, a few of ’em that were really the main drivers?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think the one that sold the least was probably Chicken Soup for The Surviving Soul. ’cause It was a very small market and that probably sold 500,000. Teen Soul sold 12 million
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
You know, Christian Soul, I sold a million the first quarter out the door. So out of everything we did about, maybe we did like 230 or 240 tiles, but when we sold the company in 2008, we had done, I wanna say, and we did a deal with the Chinese. So there was, so we’re up to 500 million copies sold with all the books collectively
Speaker 1 (11:19):
500 million copies across 240 ti 250 titles. Wow. And so they, and then they bought and they bought all of them. That was the deal was they basically, they said, we’re buying. Like, what, what did they exactly, they bought, they bought the rights for all those books.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well, we didn’t get in advance. He, we actually had to guarantee him that if we didn’t sell 20,000 copies of the first books, we’d pay him back. So, and then we worked out in advance, you know, so we could be off the road and writing books. We got a decent royalty, but we, we also owned all the rights. So we were able to do licensing. We did dog food, we did grading cards, we syndicated columns, calendars, journals. We did a lot of, we did a lot of work with pharmaceutical companies. We did co-branding with a lot of different brands that were launching new products. We
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That Did you sell all of that stuff? So basically, is that what became the business, was like all the books plus all the licensing deals of where you licensed the brand out?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah. So what what happened was we had all these co-authors. So if you think about it, I think I figured it out. I had 26,000 contributors.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Wow. And
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Over 500 co-authors. And so the co-authors all got a nice royalty, but we owned the trademarks and all the rights at the end of the day. And so in 2008, when we sold it, it was about as good as the entire time that we, like, we, we kind of doubled our money in one day and we sold it and we sold it to a couple guys out of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And, and so that, and then after that, as of that time, then it was just like, it was gone. You guys sold it, they took over the rights, all the licensing, all the people and everything. And then basically you guys were starting over, so to speak, like it was all you were out.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, it was weird.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Wow. Like
Speaker 2 (13:16):
How many employees? Chicken soup people. And one day you’re not
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And what, how many people were there?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
W we had, so we had two companies. So Mark had a company, and then Jack and I had a company, and then we had a shell company that kind of held all the assets. So on Mark’s end, they were in charge of licensing and legal. And on my end it was marketing and production and specialty deals. So we kind of, and Mark’s Mark was married to a gal named Patty at the time. So it was basically the four of us kind of running it. And then I had about 15 employees. And Mark Mark’s company, they only had a couple employees that actually worked with chicken. My entire team was on, I mean, from permissions to editorial, to creating marketing plans, getting things ready, and things like that. So
Speaker 1 (14:12):
When you were launching these books, like what worked really well? Like you, you, I mean, you launched 250 books, 18 in one year. Did, did, did you think that, was it really about the launch and it was like, oh, if we, if we set it, if we do a big launch that sets the trajectory? Or was it more of just, we kind of do the same thing for everything. We put it out there and some of them catch flight and some of them don’t?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
No. We did a launch for everything. And we, we did things like Chicken Soup and NASCAR Lovers Soul, and we worked with head NASCAR headquarters. When we did the Pet Lover book, we worked with Marty Becker, who was on Good Morning America as their expert veterinarian. We did a deal with Petco, they got the books for the first two weeks before I went to bookstores. And that was 500,000 copies. We did Chicken Soup for the Traveler Soul and had a giant rig go from New York to LA with a giant chicken on the side with the backpack and stopped in all these small little places. So every single title had a very specific marketing plan
Speaker 1 (15:19):
And like a marketing partner
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Most of the time. Yeah. Some were just authors that were great authors and they already had platforms like Marcy Moff, Lisa Nichols different people. They had a, a decent following. So over time you start to look at, okay, your perfect author has a platform. They know how to speak, they know how to edit. And you know, once you get it going to a certain level, you have all these people out there promoting this massive brand. And so it just, and, and the publisher put a lot of money into placement. I mean, if any bookstore that you went into in those days, we had a whole wall. I mean, those are not cheap.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Oh, so the publisher was buying store placement? Oh yeah. Was it the same publisher the whole time? That’s that like local publisher?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Wow. So they like went all in on you. They’re buying printing presses. They’re pushing it to the front of store. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow. Yeah. That’s expensive stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I know. And he has a very nice jet these days.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah. It paid off for it paid off for him.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah. He was, he was really, he, he is a big horse race guy and he loves to bet on things. And he, he just, he kind of bet the farm
Speaker 1 (16:35):
And picked the jockey, not the horse man. He, he got it. So that’s, that’s amazing. What a cool, I didn’t know that. I didn’t, I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know that you guys were doing, you know, paid promotion and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you, you know, a lot of people don’t realize you just buy that space like in the airport or whatever, like Right. But it’s expensive and, and competitive. It’s expensive.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
That’s why it’s really hard to get a book published with a New York publisher because they, they have a lot of, they have upfront costs, you know, and the thing with us that we were so lucky about was we thought, oh, we, we really wanted a bigger publisher. And we met with other publishers over the years, but nobody could pump out 500,000 books a week. But he could, because he owned the printing presses. He owned the editorial, he owned the art department, he owned the distribution. So it was a one side, it was like a little mini Amazon before Amazon.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Wow. And so how, when you, when you would launch, I mean, you, like you said, 500,000 for Petco. That’s insane. So you, I mean, that was down the road though. That was after you had established the brand, the books were selling and then people are going, Hey, we wanna do, we want to do, you know, chicken soup for the whatever, soul. And then, so we were these licensing deals and these kind of part promotional partners, were they basically just coming to you at some point once or were you always prospecting them?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yes. Always.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
How, how, how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Well, the first time we did anything at all for licensing, we did a book called Chicken Soup for the Golfer Soul. And so we went to the P G A show and my husband owns a golf company. And so one of the companies came and said, Hey, we want 300,000 books. We’re launching this new driver to go up against the Callaway Big Bertha driver. So I went to my publisher and he said, no, we can’t do it. There’s laws, you know, pricing laws and so forth. And so my husband said, well, why don’t you just create like a little tiny book and just wrap it around the head of the golf club and charge the three books and sell ’em how many units they want. And I was like, that’s like a lot for a little tiny booklet. He is like, yeah, but if you do that at the same time, the book’s coming out, it’ll spread the word that way.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
They’ll, he, he said, you guys are like the Callaway of golf, you know, as Chicken Soup. That was our first deal. And it was great ’cause it was upfront money. And so we, we thought, well, that worked for golf, who else could we do it with? And then we, we got a gal that was really in with brand managers and pharma and said, well, we we’re doing a book called Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul. You know, is there a brand that could use us to help launch? And they said, well, we’re doing this new drug, Paxil for depression. If you could put together a few stories on people overcoming depression, we could launch that with it. So when you go to the doc, so we did, zoo would sell a million units to a pharmaceutical. They would then give ’em to the reps, the reps would take them out with the new drug.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
They would give ’em to the doctors, the doctors would prescribe. And then they would say, by the way, here’s a message from the chicken soup people. So we were sort of that warm and fuzzy side of the drug world, which really covered the overhead because when you’re, when you’re writing books, you don’t get a whole lot of money as a royalty. You know, we were only making a dollar or 25 a book or whatever it was. And when you’re splitting that with other authors and you have overhead, you’ve gotta figure out creative ways to pay your overhead. And so that was the beginning. And then we thought, well, what if we got a licensing agent? And so we started licensing greeting cards and cups and mugs. And, and then she came to us and she said, okay, chicken soup for the dog, love soul dog food. And I’m like, this is really pushing it. But it was the biggest licensing deal we did. It was crazy
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Really that, I mean, I used to believe that. I mean, pet lovers are, I mean, people, they’re crazy pets are, they’re, yeah. I mean, they’re family members. Like it’s a, it’s, they’re,
Speaker 2 (20:30):
They’re uhhuh
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Went to an agency. Yeah, we went to an agency in New York and got a licensing agent. And, but when we did specialty deals with farmers and stuff, I had two people in house. So that’s all they did were send out proposals all day long every day. And we would mock up stuff like, this is what we’re thinking, this is what it would look like. We did all, we did the research, we knew what they were doing. So we always went out with, Hey, we know you’re working on this. We think we have a way to help support you. So it wasn’t, Hey, we need you. It was more like they kind of really needed us. It was still a hard sell. We probably did a hundred of those over the years, but probably sent out thousands, you know, to get the hundred that we did.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And you’re just basically going pick a company, you basically like pick a company or, or you pick a market and then you find a company that serves that market. And then you go, what are the goals of this company? And how could we pitch this or present the idea of a book specific to that market in a way that they could use it to help them achieve whatever their other goal was.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Exactly. Like, for example
Speaker 1 (21:50):
That’s so brilliant and simple, but so brilliant.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I’m telling you. It was a crazy like
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Uhhuh
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Pretty much. I mean, it was a little bit harder, you know, mostly like boots on the ground. Who do we know? You know, we reached out to people that we knew. At the time it was February, Sue Mancini that was running Parker Chiropractic. Kathy Cooper was a friend, and I just made her, you know, made a call and sent her a mock up of what I thought it could look like. And, and so we always gave them everything we possibly could mocked up how it would work, what it would look like. The biggest thing was, you know, in the book business, you get returns when you do a specialty deal, it’s a one-time sale. So it was bulk buys of a hundred thousand or a million or whatever it was. So there was no risk, which made it a lot better.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Right. Well, and because they’re u they’re using it as a marketing tool. It’s, it’s not like, it’s not like selling to a bookstore who’s gonna try to resell the book. They’re packaging it. Like when you, when when you said the pharma one, you basically, you were saying that the, the reps would give them basically piles of them to each doctor so that every time the doctor prescribed the medicine, they also gave them a book.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Exactly. Or a sample of the book. But the sample would be like a 16 or a 32 page. And because that, that way you could have a, you know, you weren’t carrying cases of books. And it also was at the exact same time we were launching something in the bookstore.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Right. So,
Speaker 2 (25:02):
So, and, and there were some that were just specialty, that were just never, that never went to bookstores. But we always look for where is there money and distribution that we don’t have, and where can we show up outside of a bookstore? Because only 3% of the population ever went into a bookstore in those decades,
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Even back then, which was the peak, the peak bookstore time. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that’s a really powerful question. Where is there money and distribution that we don’t have? Basically where is there a huge network of people that you just kinda like are tying in, tying into and riding that sort of, riding that wave or working in that circle?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Patty, that’s amazing. What, what a powerful story. So, so then so you sold the company and then you started the training company, then it was Canfield Training Group after that? Or were they kind of running like simultaneous?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
They were, we, we, we would do one big training a year. ’cause Jack loves to do really in, you know, deep workshops, more like, just a lot. It’s a lot of personal work. And so we did that every summer during chicken soup, but we weren’t on the road as much because we were so busy editing and compiling books. And before chicken, we had a company called Self-Esteem Seminars. And so that’s still today our original company and we have a D B A of, you know, the Canfield Group and Jet Camfield companies. So when we sold, we kind of sat around and felt really weird. I was really happy. I’m like, I am good to go. They don’t, I’m done. I’m, you know, they, it’s like they don’t care what I think I didn’t have. And that was the big thing for me. I didn’t wanna have to come onto another organization and be responsible for three years or whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So we didn’t do that. And and I said, well, you know, we, we published the Success principles in 2005, so this is two, 2008. I said, why don’t we circle back and start training people how to do what we did and using the success principles. And all of those principles were used throughout our time of setting goals and creating affirmations and, you know, writing down steps that you have to do and visualizing it and sharing your vision and all the stuff. And, and we had more clout by that time. So we did kind of a year long road trip to about 10 cities and did one day events. And we, we just, we just called it Train the Trainer if you wanna become a trainer of the success principals. And we had a huge teacher market, so they were kind of our ideal avatar because they already knew sort of how to speak.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And then it morphed from that into an online certification when certifications really weren’t happening yet. And so we decided to do that so we could get to more people. So for less than the price of travel, you can get certified online. And so that was a two year process. We did that. And now we, you know, we, we mostly cater to authors, speakers, coaches and teach them interactive exercises that they can bring into the things that they do. How do you make your talk more engaging? We do a lot of author stuff. I just came off a two day author retreat. I do those about eight times a year. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
18, which was an, which was an event, an event that you guys hosted that was specific for authors.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
We worked, we do it with Steve Harrison. Do you know who Steve and Bill Harrison are?
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That sounds familiar to me. They,
Speaker 2 (28:48):
They used to own a company called Radio Television Interview Report, r t I r. Okay. And we would place ads with them for all of the books to get radio shows and TV shows. And so they cater to authors a lot and helping them get their books done and published. So we do about eight a year. It’s me and Jack and Steve, and we did like two, this two we had, I wanna say 18 authors total. So it’s like a, it’s like a mastermind. Mm-Hmm. And we did, we do ’em via Zoom, and we just talk about, okay, here’s your book. This is what you should fix. This is a way that you could market it. Think about doing this. And
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, I mean the, I have to say, this is probably the, just the most creative marketing strategy book marketing strategy conversation that I’ve ever heard. Really. I mean I mean, it’s really powerful and, and simple. And, and so then and so then, and then that led you to write permission granted. So you had written 14 Chicken Soup books or been a part of 14 yourself, and then you released permission Granted. So you’re still at the, you’re still president of Canfield, you guys are still doing all that stuff, but then you released your own book here recently as well?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I did. I released Permission, granted, I wanna say probably right before the Pandemic in 2019, it was a compilation. People like a and Janet Atwood and Marcy Shimoff and Lisa Nichols, and then other people, it’s only like 15 authors. And I just said, just gimme your best story of when you finally decided to give yourself permission to show up and just go for the dream. Like just say it out loud. And, because I feel like so many people, they, they wanna write a book or they wanna do something different, or they wanna put their job, or they wanna say, I don’t wanna be married anymore. Or they wanna ask for a raise. I mean, whatever it is, it’s, it’s, at least in my life, it was hard for me to speak up. And I’m a pretty bossy kind of gal. But I was a professional hider, so nobody knew that I was running the company.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
No. People would call me to speak Rory, and I would turn it down. Oh, we have 7,000 women in the stadium. Can you come and speak about your book? Oh, no, I’m too busy running Chicken Soup for the Soul and the President. And because I didn’t know how to do it, and I thought you had to memorize everything. And I didn’t know there was a formula. So once I figured out, wait, there’s some method to this madness, I, and by doing the online training, I kind of figured it out and I’m like, there’s a methodology here. There’s certain key ingredients that you need to use. And so I just thought, I’m, I’m gonna do it. And I kept waiting for Jack to say, Hey, you should, you know, come on stage more and you should. And he never did. And I literally told myself that he must think that I’m terrible or he would’ve asked me. And the real story was like, well, I didn’t know you wanted to do it. He’s like, I’m not a mind reader. So that sort of set me off on this journey of, of giving other women permission to really mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I love it. Well, I mean, we’ll link up to permission granted in the, in the show notes and everything. Yeah, I mean, what a story Patty is, is where do you want people to go to, to, to learn about that about you or what you’re up to and what you’re working on right now?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
They can go to my website, it’s patty aubrey.com and that’s a U b e r y. Everyone spells it r e y, but it’s a U B E R Y. And I do women’s retreats. I do a lot of coaching for people that need to learn how to share their message more. And just some other fun things and a lot of stuff with Jack as well. So we run a lot of high-end luxury stuff, fun things around the world
Speaker 1 (32:39):
That’s really, really, really cool.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Can we do some in Nashville? So we’ll have to invite you next.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I mean, yeah, let me know. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s in the neck of the woods. I at least gotta come over and say hi. Like I would love to know this. This is such a great story and I mean, this is amazing. 500 million people that you guys reached with just that and every, and that was all the way back in 2008. So everything that you guys have done since then is just really, really inspiring. I mean, if, if there’s somebody out there listening right now who, you know, has that dream and they go, wow, you know, and think back to where you were, where you couldn’t get the publishing deal and before you sold 500 million copies and 250 books and all that. But like at some point there must’ve been a moment where you guys were just starting out where you’re like, what are we even doing? Like what, how, how are we gonna, how are we gonna pull all this off? Like, what would you tell that person right now?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I would say make a plan. Share your vision with everyone. I mean, the reality is, the publisher that finally said yes to us after 144 said no, was the only person we knew at Book Expo. And we said, Hey, could we just park our backpacks here while we go hand out manuscripts? Because our agent gave us the book back and said, sorry, I can’t sell it. And at the end of the weekend, we still got more nos. And then Peter
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Mm-Hmm. Amen. And think we have to go someplace else. So tell everyone, you know what you do, share your message, get it down. Well go hang out with Rory, got brand builders. It’s amazing. I’ve checked it out and, and just don’t give up. I mean, it takes time. And I, I do believe that Chicken soup sort of put a spin on the book world that you can just go out and have these bestsellers. And the reality is, I tell all of my clients books are like babies. You don’t birth them and leave them in the alley to raise themselves. Mm-Hmm. You have to raise them and spin off products and think of trainings and how can you coach people and what, you know, your book is like the hub of a wheel and every spoke is an next opportunity to take that to a new level.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah. Well, you guys certainly did that. And I think I can call, I’m gonna title this from Incense, burning Hippies to the Billion Dollar