Ep 137: Secrets of Self-Publishing Your Way to Becoming a Bestselling Author with Chandler Bolt | Recap Episode
Hey, brand builder. Welcome to the influential personal brand podcast recap. Today, we are looking at self-publishing my old friend Chandler bolt, which was fun to go back on memory lane a little bit and see how far Chandler has come and his team, what they have built such a great operation. And so yeah, let’s dive in right away. We got my three big takeaways as well as ADJs for you. And I think the first thing, which is kind of obvious, but I don’t think it’s pervasive enough, which is the idea that every business owner needs to write a book because you use the book to build your business. And so it’s like, you may not care to be a New York times. Best-Selling author. You may never need a traditional publisher, but the power of a book is, is magical. And there’s just, there’s nothing quite like it in terms of the impact it has on your ability to market your business, your product and service.
Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s, that’s similar to my first one, but a little bit different. And this is something that Chandler said and the very, very beginning of the interview, probably in the first, I don’t know, five to seven minutes. So you’ll, you’ll catch this tidbit right off the bat. And he said, before you start asking yourself the question of, Hey, should I do a traditional book or self published book? He said, really the question to answer is, is a book the next best thing to do for your business. And in his opinion, it is, he said, you know, I love what he said. He said, books, change lives. Like they change lives. They can change your business. They can change your mindset. They can change your relationships. They can change your financial situation. They can change your fitness. Like books have the power to change lives.
Ask yourself is a book, the next best thing for my business, then worry about everything else. And I thought that was really powerful because I agree in so many ways. A book is a calling card. It’s a, it’s a giant size business card. But more than that, it represents what you stand for, what you believe in your way of doing business, your methodology, your principles, your philosophies, if you really want someone to know who you are, and if they’re a good fit for you and vice versa, read the book, right. Or, you know, listen to the keynote, you know, in, in many ways. But I thought it was really interesting. And he said, if you, and if you answered that, no, then move on. But if the answer is yes, then that’s kind of step one.
Yeah. And I think the idea of is it the next right thing is good. Cause like, even at brand builders, we’ve got several books that we are working on writing, but we haven’t, we haven’t said we’re ready to do the first one yet. So there’s timing, timing matters. That, yeah. So my second big takeaway from this was where he said, which I love, because this is a guy who has self-published his own books helps people self-publishers runs a school that teaches people how to self-publish. And he says, yeah, we got, we, we got, we got boxes from when you’re, when you’re, when you’re actually in the program. And here’s what he said. The key to a self published book is to publish to self-publish a book that does not look like it is self-published. And I think that was valuable to hear from him.
And I, I really agree with this because I think, you know, self-publishing has gotten to be so easy, which is a great thing that the downside is, you know, it’s, you can print something really quickly and, and not have it kind of look and hold the cache that you want it to, if it’s going to be a reflection of you and your brand and your business. And, and yet now it’s so sophisticated that you really can self publish a book. If you need to, or if you want to, but either way you can do it and it can look as professional and clean and neat and powerful as a traditionally published book. And I think that’s super important.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And I think that self publishing has come a long way in the last five years. Typically it’s come a really long way. All right. So the, the next biggest takeaway for me is I just, I think this is, you know, kind of like a spoiler alert, like tr you know, to traditional publish, to self publish, and, you know, Chandler’s opinion is very strongly in there. Like self-publishing is the way, is that the only time that a publisher would ever want to do a deal with you is when you don’t need them. Right. and so it’s like, you know, it’s like when a publisher wants you, you don’t really need them. Self publishing is the way. And, but I thought it was really interesting, he said, but if it’s the way here are the things that you need to consider.
And I just, so I don’t mess this up. So I wrote these down and he said, you’ve got, these are the three things to consider time cost and royalties. Those are the things you want to consider. What are the expenses to get it done the time to get it done? And then what would be, what would you be for fitting or gaining and royalties? And then he broke it down. He said, them, there’s two types of costs. There’s costs of creation and then cost of production. And then he breaks it down again. And he says, now creation costs are covered design, editing, and formatting. Right. How does it actually look in the structure of the book and then production our print inventory and shipping, right? And it’s like, those are a lot of things to consider because I mean, it’s like if self publishing is the way you need to be really clear on what means in terms of time, resources, involvement, expenses.
I think, I think it is the way for so many people, but there’s also a lot of work to be done. But that’s why I think answering that question first is, is I book the next right step helps make the rest of this checklist very much a checklist of, okay, well, these are the things I need to do. This is just the next thing. Versus what do I do? What’s better. It’s like, well, these are the things to evaluate. And it’s very clear and it’s very transparent. It gives you a really good, accurate view of, okay, this is what it would look like for me to self publish. It was, it was so clear, transparent and very checklisted, which I love,
No, I loved it. I, in those same notes about, about the cost, like if you’re, if you’re considering this, you’ve got to just kind of think through it, treat it like a business. You know, I remember early in our career with our first books, we waffled back and forth between traditional self published. Like for so long,
Roy will not tell you this. Cause he doesn’t want you to know that it exists, but his very first book
That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. And it’s called no, nah, nah, you can’t share it. They’re going to go find it
Like in Oh two. No, that’s like, Hey, I know w how to be funny to make more back. You have, you have a coffee somewhere hidden. It’s actually really cute book, but we actually
Self publish first. That’s right. That’s right. And we purposely didn’t want a lot of people to know about it, but, but you know, so that question comes up a lot. Should I self publish? And should I traditionally publish? I really am convicted that they both can be great and they both can work. And it’s all about, we’ve done both. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all about the right fit at the right time, which is what I think we help people navigate. But you know, if you wanted me to give you the textbook answer on this question, cause we get it all the time. You know, in one of our events is called bestseller launch plan and we teach how to actually launch the book once you have it. And for me, I say is pretty simple. It’s 10,000 units. If you have a plan to move 10,000 units within the first few weeks of it launching, you should go after traditional publishing.
If you you’ve got like that size of an audience of, of direct reach and indirect reach, you go for it. If not self-publishing is probably the way there’s, there’s enough advantages to self publishing. And so you’re a little formula. Oh yes. So, so here’s the thing you just got to keep in mind that to become an Amazon bestseller takes hundreds of units in a day to hit a bestseller, to become a wall street journal bestseller. You need to have thousands of units within a week and to become a New York times bestseller, you need to have tens of thousands of units sold within a week. And so if you can move thousands of units in a week and you want to go after the wall street journal, you probably to traditionally publish. But if you’re going after, you know, a few hundred copies in, you know, hopefully in a day or within a few weeks self publish and you, you know, if your platform is bigger than that, then you can step up to it later. But there’s, there’s, there’s no shame in either they’re both great. They both have good parts. They both have, you know, more challenging things, but that’s, that’s my textbook answer, 10,000 units.
And I think the last thing for me is really just waffling through the question of, well, what are the pros and cons of both because there are pros and cons in both. And I think a lot of the, you know, pros and cons of self publishing, we kind of talked about my second point and Taylor goes into a lot of that, but then it’s also, well, what are the pros and cons of traditional publishing, right? Cause those third year too. And I think one of the things that he liked, he highlighted, which I think is so true is specifically today is that publishers only want to work with authors who can sell books. Like that’s, that’s the short I have to work with, not to hate on publishing.
No, they, they have to work with that. They don’t sell books,
Marketing houses, right. Publishing houses. And I think that’s a huge wake up call. It’s like, if you think your publisher’s going to market and sell your book, you’re wrong. Like that’s not, that’s not the goal. They help edit books. They help publish books. They help format books, they help distribute books. So if you’re looking for a really big advance and lots of distribution, maybe you should try to go for a big, you know, publishing deal and get yourself an agent and get a big advance. But if that’s not the case, and if you don’t have a huge platform, and if you don’t have a way of selling your own tens of thousands of books, then self publishing is maybe the best way to go. And I love too, is that we’d had him on our podcast before Howe L rod is one of the greatest self publishing of all time.
He has sold more than 2 million copies of his book and, and is making tons of tons of money off of this book and has created this empire and impact around a self-published book. Didn’t need a traditional publisher. And then you’ve got other examples of people who started traditional and then went South because they’re like, well, I don’t need a traditional publisher anymore. And I think that the way that Chandler summed it up, or maybe you said it, I don’t know who said it, but I thought it was really good. He said, sometimes you just have to understand is a traditional publishing a step in the path or is it the path? And I thought that too was really good of just, you know, is this a way to help grow your notoriety and credibility and get your message out there? Or is it like, Nope, I’m just doing it for the advance. Yeah. Is it a money-making thing or is it a step in the path? And I thought that was just really good and clear
And you just, you need to know and remember writers, write editors, edit publishers, publish distributors, distribute retailers, retail, and nobody sells the book. So whether you self publish or you traditional publish, you got to sell it. That falls on you, whether you like it or not, there’s other advantages or disadvantages, but either way you author creator, influencer messenger, your job is to sell and we’re here to help you learn how to do that. So thanks for being here. Come back next time on the influential personal brand podcast
Ep 136: Secrets of Self-Publishing Your Way to Becoming a Bestselling Author with Chandler Bolt
Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show.
The more time goes on. The more I start to feel like the old man in this industry, in this space and Chandler bolt is one of the people that makes me feel that way. Because when I met him, it was years ago, maybe like six years ago. And him and his brother, Seth, who is one of the, the, one of the members of my, one of my favorite bands, if not my, the favorite brand need to breathe, they were doing a book together and they were on my old podcast. And I just was like, man, there’s something about this guy. Like he’s, he’s legit, they’re they’re legit. And fast forward to today. Chandler is now the CEO of self publishing school and self publishing.com. So, you know, he’s written six best selling books, but self publishing school is like the premier world’s premier leader in helping people publish and self publish a book and understanding how to do it.
What’s the process, all the nitty gritty details. Where do we go? How does it work? Which is what we’re going to talk about today, but he’s also an investor, an advisor. And as an entrepreneur, this company, you know, they’ve got like 30 plus team members. They’re an Inc 5,000 company, three years in a row. He also hosts a couple podcasts to seven figure principles podcast and then the self-publishing school podcasts. And it’s so weird, cause like, I just am proud of proud of this guy. And and he’s a baller and y’all need to know him and you need to know what they do. A lot of people don’t realize this, but I self published six pieces of six different bodies of work. They weren’t all books before I launched take the stairs. So most people think of that as my first book, which hit the New York times and I was 29, but I had been self publishing since I was 22.
And we don’t hear that story a lot. So this is the guy and we got them here live. So Chandler, welcome to the show, Roy. Great to be here, man. Thanks for having me just proud of you, bro. And I, you know, I have to say at this point, I really have, in some ways been out of the self publishing game, you know, other than our clients do in it and, and, and from a, from a distance like watching it. So I guess, first of all, let’s talk about why self-publish, why, and when because there’s always that like, you know, Hey, I want to be a bestselling author and you know, do I have to have a traditional publisher? Do I need an agent, you know, is self publishing? Does it work? Is it, is it legit? Like, can you just kind of talk about that conceptually
For sure. And I think, and I think probably the first, the most important decision or question for most people here is like, even before then, like is a book, one of the best things I can do to grow my brand or to grow my business. Right. And then you get into the self publishing versus traditional publishing and it’s like, that’s kind of a mechanism or vehicle to take you there. Right? So like I almost look at it as like two independent questions of like is a book, one of the best things I can do to build my brand, to build my business. And we talk about this all the time, like to get, truly get more leads, sales and referrals, which I believe that it is like, you know, I believe that books changed lives. I believe that, you know, they changed the life of the author and also the reader, I believe, you know, they’re one of the best ways to set yourself apart, get your foot in the door.
Like we always joke. It’s kinda like the key that opens this door to Narnia, like this magical world, all these opportunities that only exist for published authors, right? If you have made that decision, then it’s just a matter of which path are you going to take and self publishing versus traditional publishing and like the long and short of it is, and this is not just because I run a company called self publishing school or own self publishing.com is as long as sort of it is that self-publishing makes more sense for most authors, 99.9% of people, unless you can get a big advance. And and, and that’s it, or, and, or you care about distribution like international distribution, especially that’s the only time it really makes sense to, to traditionally publish. Otherwise you’re going to be better off self-publishing and, and, you know, it’s kind of like, maybe you’ve heard the the sayings like banks only loan money to people who don’t need it. Right. It’s like, well, publishers only give posting deals to people who don’t need it and who can sell the books without them. So if you’re Oprah, Seth Godin, Rory Vaden you can get a big advance. Awesome.
Again, I just say, you know, I, I get about the same size advances, both Oprah and Seth Godin. I’m, I’m pretty sure. My, my advances are, are I’m sure they’re the same as what Oprah gets definitely in the Obama
Range, like selling copies on the first day
In all seriousness. I agree with what you’re selling. I think self publishing makes the most sense for the Mo for most authors. And the thing that we tell people is we say, look, if you can’t move 10,000 units on opening week and have a plan to move about 50,000 units within two years, you’re not ready for traditional publishing and you don’t really need it. And the economics of it don’t really make sense. So, you know, I totally, even though I love, I love commercial publishing and I, I love my publisher in that. I think self publishing is like a critical, essential, necessary step in the journey. And then people like Seth Godin, you know, they’re kind of going well, once I’ve done a few commercially published books, they’re going back to self publishing.
Exactly. For some people it’s a step in the journey for other people. It’s the journey, the journey. Yeah. Like how L rod, I mean, obviously that’s one of the most, one of the biggest self-publishing success stories, but he’s sold millions of copies of that. Self-Published and so really, I mean, I think to just like, bring this full circle for people when it comes down to is the time that it’s going to take you the royalty rates that you’re going to make and the cost of published, like those are the three bigger buckets. And so, so it’s traditional publishing is ironically enough, like actually going to take longer. Most people don’t know this is going to take you two plus years. They’re not going to do any marketing of the book. People think that the publishers will market the book they want. And, and then there’s the cost to publish, which, you know, you’ve got to cover that yourself if you’re doing it on your, on your own. So that might be, you know, a couple to a few thousand dollars.
Yeah. Yeah. Talk, give me, give me the details there. Right. Cause if someone’s listening, going okay. If I start looking at self publishing seriously, realistically, I mean, that is one thing that is awesome about commercially publishes. We’re not paying the cost of the editor to the graphic design, the printing, the warehousing, the shipping and those are big costs. Cause there’s a lot more volume, but when you’re self publishing, you also can do a hundred copy print run, right? Like how does that, what are the, how much does that actually cost and, and who does it and how do you do it?
Yeah. Screw all great questions. So there’s the cost of of creation and then cost of production, if you will. So the, so if you get a traditional publishing deal, you’re going to agent then to hopefully get a deal and get in advance. And then they’re going to cover the cost of that for you. Then there’s this middle ground, which is like hybrid or vanity press, which, you know, that might cost five, 10, 15, $20,000 a year paying someone to pay the books. So it’s like part service, part publisher, and then self publishing. Obviously you’re paying for it yourself. And there’s really three main buckets of costs. There’s there’s cover design, editing and formatting. Those are the main three. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you might, you might spend five, 10 grand. Plus if you do know what you’re doing, you can do it for as cheap as a few hundred bucks, if you’re like really on the cheap and really bootstrapping or you’re typically a couple thousand bucks kind of in that range give or take is, is where we see people land. But that
Was cost of creation. You’re saying
Creation. Yeah. Yeah. So of, of actually creating a book that’s ready to be printed and shipped, and then you have the opportunity to go if you’re self publishing print on demand, so they’ll print it, package, ship it when someone clicks purchase, right? So you don’t have to hold inventory or you can do, like you said, runs of a hundred books or a few hundred books or whatever, but that’s the benefit of print on demand is you don’t have to hold inventory. It’s like, we all know someone who has like 2000 copies of their book in their garage and have had those copies of their book for like years. And so that’s the benefit there from a self publishing perspective is you don’t have to pay to carry that inventory. So that’s, that’s kinda how that works.
All right. So, you know, when you think about cost of creation, I want to, you know, cover design is obvious, right? It’s like you can hire the world’s best graphic designer and it’s 50 grand, or you can hire someone on Fiverr and it’s five bucks. So there’s the whole range there. Editing’s kind of the same way. It’s like reputation and all that sort of stuff. What is formatting? Because that was the thing that has always like, in the times I’ve self published. I was like, Holy crap. Like there is a lot more work here than I realized that there’s so many details of like, what’s the gutter size, which, you know, like between where the book folds, like how far the tech sits in the crease of the book. So when you say formatting, you’re saying you’re paying someone to like lay the book out to be ready for print.
Yeah. Totally. And funny timing, hopefully can you, yeah. Since it’s a big difference, actually. So one thing that we say all the time is your self published book shouldn’t look self-published right. And so we want a traditional quality book that just happens to be self published because the fact is not many people know. But what’s, self-publishing, what’s traditionally published, but what, what you really want to do here is a format, or is someone that takes like, think your word doc, and kind of what you alluded to a second ago. It was just like, there’s the margins, there’s the bleed, there’s the, all that stuff. And then they format it to be a, what, like a good looking book or a well formatted Kindle book. So essentially it’s making like th and, and it can be any variants of just like, Hey, literally just make this a book on the very simple side of things. And then, and then artistically, it could be as complicated as like, Hey, I want images here. And I want this format of this way. And I want, you know, these and graphs and stuff like that. So they’re kind of Jerry’s and complexity, but that’s the basics.
And so is that part of what you guys help people do is like pair them up with those people, like who actually do that, or do you just go on, do you just go on Upwork and grab someone?
Exactly. So our goal, like when we work with someone, our goal is, is, is three things like number one, we want to we’ll save them hundreds of hours in the process. Number two, we’ll say them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in book production costs. So like stuff that we’re going to spend money on anyway and then number three, it’s, we’re gonna help them make more money by selling more books. And, but then also using a book to drive business. So that’s specific to number two, right. Which is you know, we’ve negotiated exclusive discounts since we have like our book production partners. And so we
Very similar to what brand builders group does. We’ve got, like, these are our copywriters and these are our podcast people. And these are our social media, like vendor partners. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool. I mean, it’s worth a tremendous amount of just the pain of finding these people and knowing who’s legit and like, do they actually do what I need them to do? And that’s, that’s half the battle. So, and then, and then when you talk about print it, packet, ship it. Okay. So if I have a word doc, so let’s, let’s say I came to captivating content for brand builders group, and I outlined my deal. And then I joined self publishing school and you’re going to walk me through from that kind of outline and concept all the way to completion. At some point I have a word doc, then I send it to a format. That person lays it out. They probably, the finished products is probably a PDF. Right. Okay,
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. A PDF. And then there’s on the, I mean, this is getting into the minutia, but on the ebook side of things is a dot EPUB or.mobi file. And then on the flip side, it’s, it’s a well formatted PDF. That’s really an InDesign format, so that can be ready to be printed. Exactly.
And so then when you go to print it, so what, what does that mean? Like, do I just like run down to Kinko’s and print it, or you, you find like any printer or there’s people who specialize in printing self-published books or does Amazon print it or do you, or, or is there somebody who will print it, pack it and ship it all in one place? Or like is the answer yes. To all of those things? Yeah.
Yes. I, I, yeah. And so really it’s, it’s like there there’s, you could go down any path and there’s any of those things you can do. We recommend, we recommend Amazon from like a full, full perspective. So like they’re print on demand through KDP print, they’ll print it, pack it and ship it as soon as someone like your eye goes on to Amazon and says, Hey, I want to buy this book. They’ll they’ll handle the rest.
Okay. huh. So, so if you do it through Amazon, then basically you just kind of like upload the files, like for the, and everything and set the dimensions. And then Amazon will, like, they don’t really store it in a warehouse because they just print it when a sale comes through. But so you don’t have like warehousing costs, like you would with a normal book where you got to, like, the publisher has to print a bunch of books and put them in warehouses all over the country. You’re not dealing with any of that. And it’s already do. They automatically like index it in Amazon also. Exactly. Okay. So that’s, so that’s why Katie P is like, just the easiest on the production side, if you have it formatted properly. But then the key is to have, like you said, how do you make sure it doesn’t look like, you know, chintzy, self published book. And I, you know, I use that term respectfully, all of my initial stuff did, I mean, it was like, it was embarrassing. Like my first books, I, you can’t find them anywhere deliberately. You didn’t want anyone to be able to find them.
Yeah. So I mean really good cover and good formatting. Like those are the two things, like if I’m going to spend, I mean, I spend good money on editing too, but like pay for a good cover designer and then pay for a good format. Or that knows what they’re doing. This is not your friend or relative or whoever else people try to do that. Don’t do that. Like play, pay a professional and it doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, but pay a professional. And that’s what helps make the quality really. I mean, it’s, it’s indistinguishable.
And, and so when you were talking about earlier, like you might be in a few thousand bucks, this is really where your cause. Cause when you say you’re in a few thousand bucks, that’s for cover design, editing and formatting. Exactly. You’re not, you’re not having to shell out 20 grand to print inventory because it’s just, there is no inventory unless someone goes to Amazon and buys it.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that’s a big benefit.
And then, and then what about buying your own book? Like do you just go to, do you literally just log on to Amazon and go, I want 50 copies and send it to my house. Yeah,
Yeah. You can do the same thing. And actually we’re, we’re exploring some different options right now that are more cost-effective. Cause I think it used to be about $7, 15 cents landed. Like the book landed to someone and I would pay, you know, three, $3 and 25 cents a book and then plus shipping. And that was landed if I shipped them individually. So that was pretty simple. But now we’re just, we’re we’re re-exploring this to say, Hey, where can we save a dollar or two, a book? Can we, can we wholesale print somewhere and then fulfill somewhere else? Or let’s like exploring alternatives of like print, pack, ship kind of thing. But, but yeah, I mean you can the, the most simplistic way to do it, it’s just, I can ship a hundred copies, 200 copies. I do this for speaking gigs all the time directly through KDP print.
Okay. And then if you’re shipping bulk, they don’t charge you the same shipping per book. Exactly.
Yeah. So your discount cost goes down a whole lot more. I mean, you might get, you might be four or five bucks, a book landed maybe a little bit more when you’re shipping in bulk. So it’s like it’s yeah.
So functionally speaking here, you’re like a word document and then some editing and a PDF away from a book, like that’s really a hundred percent gap these days. I mean, there’s the ideas and all that sort of, you know, the content stuff. Of course, but this is doable. I mean it’s doable more today than ever before, ever by far.
Yes. And not only in my opinion, is it doable, but it’s, I truly think, and I know it’s like, Oh cool. The book guys talking about how amazing it is to do books. But it, like, I truly think it’s one of the best things that you can do for your business. It, and I, I mean, I think this is why you guys integrate this as part of your brand building strategy. Cause you’ve seen the impact of this for you personally, but then also for so many other people, I mean, whether it’s Lewis house or it’s like the P S people build entire brands off of books, but not only that, it’s like, it’s, it’s the, it’s kind of this cataclysmic mechanism. If you will, to get your foot in the door to start doing podcasts interviews and start doing speaking gigs to start, like, at least it was for me. And so that’s, and, and we’ve seen that for a lot of people that we work with. It’s like, it’s, it’s one of the first steps and sure. It might not be the first step. For some people it is a, for some people represents like, Hey, I’ve finally consolidated what I believe in, put it in a book. And this is like my first step into this world. And for others, maybe it’s a step along the journey.
Well, like we, we work with like a lot of financial advisors as an example, right? And it’s like, they’re not trying to sell video courses and all that. They need a credibility piece that takes their 25 years of knowledge and they hand it to somebody and go, and somebody goes, Whoa, you’re an author. And like, to what you said, if it doesn’t look chintzy, the average person on the street has no idea if Simon and Schuster made that book, or if you printed it with Amazon, if you, if you do the things you’re talking about, you pay the money to have it nice. They’re going to go, Whoa, like it’s a big deal. So I liked that you raise the bar there on that like production piece of it.
Yeah. And then you plugged that book into your business and you watch how your business grows. I mean, it’s that financial advisor there, their close rate might go from 25 to 37% or their average order value might go up 20% or they’re getting more leads. Now they’re getting more referrals because now all of a sudden, and this is for, especially for businesses like this, or any brick and mortar businesses, we say, Hey, give two copies of your book to every single new customer one for them. And so now the onboarding process is shorter with that customer because if the book is your methodology like that, you’re going to save your team a whole lot of time because they’re being indoctrinated in that methodology. And you give them the second copy so that they can actively refer you business. So you turn customers into active refers, and they’re not going to go around town, handing out your business card, but they will hand a book to someone else and say, Hey, you should read this. Like, why don’t you try to start looking at your retirement, like check out this retirement book. Like I think it would be really helpful for you or insert book that solves whatever problem that you solved. And it just, you make it so much easier to refer business your way.
So, okay. The time is flying by. I knew this was just fly by, but this has been so helpful, I think because there’s, I think there’s still a little bit of a black box and most people there’s a lot of fear going on here. I want to try to spend a couple minutes on the best seller stuff. Okay. So let’s say you go through this, this birthing process of creating this thing, we call a book and then how does the bestseller list work? You know, and, and when we talk self publishing, you know what we tell people and, and, you know, it’s kind of like, you’re really talking about an Amazon bestseller. That’s really the game. That’s really what we’re going after with a self-published book. How does the Amazon bestseller list work? What does it take to hit it? How realistic is it? Is it worth the money? Like how many units are we talking about to, you know, like tell us a little bit about that
Great question. So there’s, there’s really two ends of the spectrum, right? There’s, I’m an Amazon bestseller and underwater basket weaving or some other obscure category,
Which is like a sub category of a sub category kind of.
And that’s where I think the term has really been ruined. And you have so many people just claiming that. And then there’s the other end of the spectrum, which is New York times. Right. And, and I think what’s important and it’s very impressive that you hit the list. It’s very hard to hit. You know, the DOE like you’ve got to sell 10 to 12,000 copies within week one, but it’s also like kind of this breakdown of like, some of them needs to be mom and pops to store some needs to be bulk purchases, some needs to be on Amazon, some of these. And so the fact of the matter is when you look at the landscape of lists, you’ve got kind of four main, you’ve got New York times, you’ve got USA today, wall street, journal bestseller, and then Amazon right now, New York times, most people chase that list.
It is an editorial list, which means it’s, it’s an opinion by the New York times, it’s not an actual bestseller list. Whereas the USA today bestseller lists is the is the most factual, accurate, like number of books sold. So you can make the USA today bestseller list and you can make the wall street journal, bestseller list self publishing, a book. It’s, it’s not likely if, if you don’t sell copies, obviously like the average self-published author, now, you’re not going to make one of those lists if you do it well. And so thousands of copies in week one, you have a great chance to hit one of those lists. But you’re right, functionally, like we look at Amazon bestseller and for most people, like that’s the most likely case scenario. And when we look at that, it’s okay, let’s get number one in a significant category on Amazon. That’s not underwater basket weeding or something
Business, how finance, something like that, those relationships, those are legit. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re, it’s kind of like they’re sub categories. They’re not sub sub sub categories kind of S kind of a thing. Yeah.
They’re meaningful categories with bills,
Books, how many units do you need to move? And is it like within a certain time frame and that kind of stuff,
If you move hundreds within the first day you have a chance depending on the category and then this, and there’s calculators online that, that kinda calculate like, Oh, the number one book in this category probably sells X amount. But definitely if you sell a thousand books within the first few days, you will hit number one and a lot of significant categories,
Kind of like how I said, w if you can move 10,000 units in week one, that’s where you’re like, let’s talk, let’s talk, literary agent let’s talk publisher. Yeah. And then it’s like, if you can figure out a way, how can I move a thousand units in, in, within the first week? That’s like, okay, let’s go, let’s go blow up a number one, Amazon. Like, that’s what it is.
Exactly. Exactly. And what I think is super important is, is we talk about this all the time is like kind of this concept of the the Toyota Camry and the sports car launches. And most people look at book launches like a sports car. It’s fast, it’s sexy. It burns up a lot of fuel AK energy. And it’s gone in a flash, right. It’s like, shoo, okay. That was our launch week. Right. But we really look at like, how do we create a Toyota Camry type book that keeps selling month after month after month? And how do we in our fundamental marketing, yes, we want to have a strong week, a strong launch week, but like, how do we make sure that we’re setting up to where longterm, this thing’s going to keep selling? So there’s a lot of strategic marketing stuff, but building virality into the book, like a lot of just kind of fundamental things there. And so really that’s what I would encourage people is like, make sure that you’re solving a fundamental problem, a painful problem that people have, that you get reviews that you, and then that you focus on marketing strategies beyond week one, because that’s where a lot of, I mean, that’s where the money is from both a book sales perspective. Sure. But also from a using this as something that’s like an, a continually driving drive, lead sales and referrals for your business.
Yeah. So this is, this is part of why we had Chandler on, obviously I’ve known him for years. Yeah. I know his brother like these, these are legit guys in the stuff they’re talking about. We believe in, we we’ve done. We do. And you know, th that’s what brand builders exists is to grow your platform. It’s the, we’re playing the long game and, and that is why Chandler’s here. So here’s one of the things that Chandler and I talked about, his team will do a free call with you if you are seriously considering, okay, what are the next steps look like? If you go to brand builders, group.com/s P S for self-publishing school go there, just like, just like most many of our clients did, you know, they’ll do a first call with you. They’ll figure out where you’re at, what you’re up to. And then they’ll kind of go, here’s some ideas, here’s some pointers. And if, if you’re a fit, then they’ll, they’ll tell you how it works. But brand builders, group.com forward slash S P S as in self publishing school. And, and and so you’re, you’re willing to do a call with people just to help them sort that out. Right. Chandler.
Totally. Yeah. And our goal is, I mean, it’s, I think it’s, it’s, it’s a helpful 45 minutes. It’s get clear on your goals for your book, your challenges with your book and your next steps. So how do we take this from something that you’ve been dreaming about doing, thinking that doing it’s been on the maybe next year list for like five years in a row and, and how do you actually make this happen and make this a reality, but, but in the process of doing that, like save time save money in the process and then, and then create an asset it’s going to build your brand. Which I think is just huge and, and, and a fundamental piece of, of what you guys teach. And I just wholeheartedly believe in the whole process and in this as, as a part of the process. Yeah.
I mean, the book that, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a critical, essential piece and self publishing is this necessary step. And you guys do self publishing better than anybody that, I mean, it’s all you do is why you’re here. Right. It’s why we is like, this is their world. Like they live in self-publishing books all day, every day. So go to brand builders, group.com forward slash SPS. If you’re interested, you know, if not keep hanging around. And then when the time comes, you know, you can take, you can take their team up on it. Chandler man, I’m proud of you, bro. I’m excited. I I’m, I’m, I’m really excited. I think you can help a lot of people in our community with this, you know, important piece, this really important piece of the whole brand building journey. So thanks for being
Here. Absolutely. Absolutely. Really. Thank you so much.
Ep 135: How to Serve a 7-Figure Niche with Lisa Woodruff | Recap Episode
Welcome back to the influential personal brand recap. It’s your man, Rory Vaden. I am rolling solo today. AJ Vaden is out and I am breaking down the Lisa Woodruff interview that we did, which was awesome. I mean, hopefully you hear in my voice or heard in my voice how proud I am of her. Like she is one of our star students. She is somebody that it’s just amazing that we got our hands on in terms of working with her system and her teams or with her systems and her team several years ago. And we’ve known her and she’s been like a student of our philosophies. And over the last, I mean, it’s, it’s been a, it’s been a long journey for her, but
The last, I guess, six, five or six years that we, we have known her and doing the various work that of ours that she has been introduced to. She has gone from a six figure business to now becoming a seven figure business, which is just awesome. A real life case study of a, of a massively successful person in a, in a very specific niche, right? With home organization and everything she’s doing to organize three 65. And it’s just it’s, it’s so exciting for us, right? Like when our clients succeed, we can’t take credit for it. Like they, they have to do all the work, everything we teach you on this show, like you have to be the one to do the work. And ultimately your success is, is about you and it’s up to you, but it does show that there’s a lot of people doing the same types of things as the things that we talk about and teach on the show and obviously to our members.
And so it’s just great to see that in in, in Lisa and she’s a rolling stone man. She’s a rocket, a rocket ship. I think she’s just getting started. So she came through our eight figure entrepreneur event recently which is our event that we it’s a phase four events. So if you, if you haven’t figured this out from listening to brain builders group, you know, we have one curriculum, but that curriculum is divided up into four different phases and each phase has three topics. So overall our, our flagship curriculum is, is 12 topics. You know, our, our full curriculum is is, is 12, 12 topics. And so anyways in phase four one of the topics is called eight figure entrepreneur, where we teach someone how to turn a personal brand into a fully operationalized business and how to scale and, and not just scale your reach, but scale all of your systems and your people and your processes, and build a company that has real value.
And anyway, she’s got some really big goals, which you got to hear a little bit about on the interview, but in terms of me being the student for you know, in and learning from her that so fun here’s my three biggest takeaways from the interview. And, and the first one is so profound and it’s so simple, but what she said, and I, and I wrote this down, she said, the only thing that you will ever have with you, the rest of your life is your own mind. Like that is the one thing that, you know, like, even if you didn’t have clothes, right, like even if you didn’t have food or a house or, you know, friends or anything like the one, the one thing that you will have everywhere you go for the rest of your life is your mind. It will last longer than like the basic necessities. And so personal development is the investment into the one thing that follows you everywhere into the one thing that is a part of every decision into the one thing that is a part of every single day, your mind is with you all the time. In every moment, every situation, every relationship, every single decision, like it’s this asset, it’s the one thing that you can invest into. And yet, how many of us do not?
How many of us think, Oh, that’s silly or, or, or the last time that we invested money into ourselves was when we were in college or we invest a little bit into it. It’s, it’s really scary because I heard Brian, Tracy say one time, I don’t know how statistically valid this is, but I heard him say this years ago, where he said, you know, the, the average person will spend more on car maintenance every year than they will investing into their own self-development and education, which is, which is crazy, right? Like you should spend more on your self-development than you do on your mortgage. Like your brain is the thing that follows you everywhere. And after college, most of us stop investing into it, probably because you’re still paying back. College loans are so long as a, you need to invest in some things that actually teach you how to make some money.
And so that was just so edifying for me of just the and, and she is a living example of it, right? Like, you know, I said earlier, like, we can’t take credit for what she’s done. I mean, I hope she gives us some credit and she pays, you know, she’s super polite and respectful and, and yeah, that works so grateful for the things that she says about us, but she has invested in lots of programs. She’s been through lots of courses. Like, she’s a great example, as am I, as am, as is AIJ like as, is the richest people that I know, like literally the richest people that I know. And there are, there are two billionaires that have suddenly come into my life here recently in our life recently to two different billionaire clients that we have, who I’ve been spending a lot of time with.
And both of them are, dudents massive students of personal development. Both of them have gone through, you know, courses and, and, and read books and, and spent, you know, years learning and studying their trait in their craft. And it’s like, this is the thing that separates people. It’s, it’s not the needy people, the broke people, the, the ignorant people who are at all the conferences, it’s the smartest, sharpest hard work, hardest working, most entrepreneurial, most creative people that are all the events. And and Lisa, just a great example of that. And I just, I want you to think about that, right? Like how much are you investing into your personal development? And Hey, we would love if you did it with us. Of course, we would write, like, we, we happen to think that we are the best among the best in the world at what we do.
I’m really convicted that we are, but whether it’s on your personal brand or whether it’s with us or someone else, or if it’s some area, other area of your life, right. Like, you know Dave Ramsey was a, who was a huge part of our journey personally. We’ve been through things like landmark forum that changed our life, obviously, you know, spiritually AIJ. And I study the Bible every single day. But in terms of, you know, going to marriage conferences and, and going to retreats and summits and video courses in an events, the most successful wealthiest people in the world do these things. So are you doing it are, I mean, are you doing it? Are you investing the money? Are you investing the time? And are you, are you after it? Like, are you investing into your own brain because it’s the one thing that follows you everywhere?
And man, there was just something about the way that Lisa said that that just hit me hard, that hasn’t just, hasn’t just like hit me that hard before. So yeah, invest in your brain and Hey, keep listening to the podcast, right? We, we have so much free stuff that we put out at brain builders group Rory Vaden, blog.com at, at our obviously we’ve got the podcast, we’ve got a bunch of free resources on our website. I think we’ve got like five or six free different trainings now at brand builders, group.com that are totally free, that are amazing. Like we should be charging for this stuff. And we don’t because we just, we want to build trust and provide value and help you make enough money so that, you know, you feel like you have some money to reinvest and, and you know, be willing to do that, be willing to do that and spend more on your brain than you do on your car.
And, and you know, maybe not more than your house, right? You gotta have a place to live, but you know, anyways, make that investment. The second thing. And the second, the thing that Lisa said, and this hit me, I thought this was super interesting. I had never thought about this is she said, think of brand builders group as your college degree for your business. And I thought that was really fascinating. And it, part of it is, is ironic because we have four phases. And we have our phases have three topics. So we typically tell people, it takes about three to four months to, to, to, to go through a topic. So if you went through our three topics, I mean, we teach them as in two day events, we have two day experiences. So it only takes two days to learn each topic, but then it takes about four months to deploy each topic.
And if you did that three times, that would be a year, which would be a phase. So our four phases represent, I mean, it’s crazy like what she said, it lines up so directly with this idea of like a four year journey with brand builders group. Now I, I think it’s, you know, if, if you’re looking to build an, a personal brand or an online business or, or a marketing machine or a marketing engine for your business, I think it’s, it’s extremely tactical. What we do is extremely tactical far more tactical than you would, you would learn in college, which is more about, you know, kind of like abstract thought and problem solving and conceptual learning. Brand builders group is very direct, like do this in this order, in this way, follow this process, follow this checklist. And if you, if you follow the roadmap, we’ll take something that would have taken you 20 years and we’ll help you get there in five.
But anyways, I thought that was interesting about education and, and that is a good way, I think, to look at, at brand builders group. And, and again, just kind of on tying back to what we were just talking about, what are you doing for education? Like, where are you learning? Like, who are you learning from? What are you learning? What are you doing? Like Charlie, tremendous Jones, who I got to meet several times. He was an, a legend in the national speakers association. He died a few years ago, but what was amazing, amazing, just one of the most incredible humans I’ve literally ever been in the presence of, but he used to say five years from now, five years from now, you’ll be the same as you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet. And you know, that is, that is true.
And I would extend it from books. You read to the courses, you take the seminars you attend, you know, the, basically the education you receive and apply, which is true, right? Like some people say, Oh, I have five years of experience. And they really don’t have five years of experience. They have one year of experience repeated five times. They’ve been doing the same thing over and over again, which is, you know, the definition of insanity. If you’re expecting different results is, is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. So what are you learning? Like where are you learning? Who are you learning from? And, and are you learning about the things you need to grow your business? Obviously I’m, I’m, I’m preaching to the choir here, since you’re listening to this show. The only way you’d be hearing this as if, if you are listening and following along.
So I know I’m probably preaching to the choir, but just to Edify the time you’re investing here in another places to, to, to grow your brain and think of it, you know, you could think of brand builders group for those of you that are our clients, that our members you can think of our, our brand builder journey, our four-phase process as your college education. And then the third thing, the, the, the, the big highlight for me was, you know, she, she said this in the interview, it’s, it is just these, these four words that you, you can’t be reminded of enough. I can’t be reminded of this enough. And, and these four words are so important for your personal brand. In fact, they might be the foremost important, I would say definitely four of the most important words that you can remind yourself of on a daily basis.
It just takes time. It just takes time. It just takes a little bit of time. It just takes some time to build, right? Like when you know, I know some, some of our clients are in phase two, which is when we get into like the nitty gritty of building funnels and this thing, you know, the content diamond and managing your social media and all that. And it’s like, you know, we’re learning all these checklists and processes. And then it’s like, Oh my gosh, like, you know, how do I do this? And it’s like, well, if you only have to do it once, and it just takes a little time, but once you do it once you’ll have it forever. And then in general, right? Like when Lisa was saying, you know, I’m, I’m basically doing the same stuff I was doing 10 years ago.
The difference is I’ve been doing it for 10 years. A lot of people I’ve come across. A lot of people, a lot of people know me, a lot of people, I’ve got a lot more clients, a lot more testimonials, a lot more fans, a lot more reach, a lot more systems just from the course of time. So, you know, if you can add education and time, you know, and obviously taking action, those are the, those are the critical ingredients to your success. So just do it right, and just keep doing it. Like, just keep going and remind yourself when you don’t have as many followers as you want, when you didn’t, you didn’t convert as many customers as you want it in your last launch. When, when you’re not seeing the conversion percentages in your funnels, when you’re not seeing the engagement rates that you want on your social, when you’re not getting as many keynote leads, when you get turned down for the book deal, right? When you, when you launch something and it breaks when you’re, when, when you put up a website and nobody comes when you, when you do a video and nobody watches
And all of those moments, and you will have those moments. Every one of us does me, a J our team, our biggest clients, Lisa Woodruff, and you like, you will have those moments. It’s not about if you will have them, you will have those moments. And in those moments, you have to remind yourself of those four words. It just takes time. So keep going, keep coming back here, stay inspired, keep getting education and stay focused on the person out there who you’re trying to serve, because sooner or later you will find them. It just takes time. That’s all we got for today. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 134: How to Serve a 7-Figure Niche with Lisa Woodruff
Hey, Brand Builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show.
This is going to be really fun for me to introduce to you someone who has become a good friend over the years. Lisa Woodruff and I admire her business. I very much think of her as a classic example of someone who has a very specific expertise who serves an audience very well. She’s built a great personal brand. I think a lot of you will love what she does in her business. One of the other things that’s awesome is I guess, I hope you don’t mind me saying this. Lisa, I would consider you one of our star students of brand builders group and just we’ve worked together for years. So you’re both like a mentor and a colleague and a student at the same time. And that’s why it was like, Hey, we got to have you on the show. You all got to meet the powerhouse.
That is Lisa Woodruff. And I want you to know, so she’s the founder and CEO of Organized 365, which is really what you know, is like her, her, that is what her brand is all about and what her main business is. She has a podcast that’s called the same thing. That’s been featured as women’s day podcasts of the month. She appears in online media, a bunch, she writes for Huffington post regularly. She’s been on like more than 50 TV segments. And basically I think, you know, her expertise is just sharing strategies for reducing the overwhelm and kind of clearing the mental clutter that specifically women face, although it doesn’t only apply to women, but just helping them to live a more productive and organized life. She’s the author of several Amazon bestselling books their newest one, the paper solution, which I had an advanced copy of. And anyways, Lisa, welcome to the show.
Well, thanks Rory. As a former teacher and a lifeline learner, you calling me a plus student like that is the thing that I remember everything you just said. All I heard was, Hey, that’s all I heard.
I mean, in all seriousness, you know, brand brand builders groups, we have, we, we are, our official curriculum is 12 topics, but you know, as of right now, we only, only formally eight of them are available to the public. And he went through and I think you’re the only person there’s maybe two others that have completed all eight, but you did it in what the whole thing was like next month you lasted through which is not something we normally recommend, but for you, it was okay because you have the team to help you implement. I mean, number one, you got a team and number two, you’re the most organized person I know. And so you’re able, it’s, it’s crazy how you are able to learn information and immediately incorporate it into your business, your processes your structure. And so anyways, it’s, it’s worth celebrating, but you’re, you’re definitely one of our star students.
Yeah, well the whole brand builder curriculum. And as a teacher, I just look at curriculum. I love curriculum. I’ve built my business as a teacher first because that’s my formal training is as a teacher. And so I approach business differently. And I used to think that was a detriment. And now with the business coaches that I’m meeting with, who have grown these companies and sold them and everything, I realized that because I’ve created a company as almost like a teacher of the company and then a teacher of the community, I am able to implement things really fast in my team because I look at my team as students and they all have different learning styles. And I look at whatever we’re implementing as courses that need to be taught with a deadline and I’m able to break them down. And yeah, I think being a teacher actually is helping me win at business.
Yeah, it definitely is. And, and yeah, you, you’ve got the teaching background and then, you know, one of the things that we say around here a lot is, you know, in order to be a great teacher, you gotta be a great student first. And of course, you know, I’m promoting what you’ve done with brand builders group, but you, you know, one of the secrets, I feel like to you growing your personal brand so fast and so strong is that you are a major investor into personal development yourself. Like you play the role of student. Can you just talk a little bit about your philosophy there? Cause you’re, you are definitely the teacher of your community, but again, it’s as much as anyone I know, you’re always like the first person to sign up, to be in coaching programs, yourself and stuff. And I love that about you.
Yes. So when you take strengths finder, my number one strength is learning. Like I just, I’m a natural learner. I love to learn. I consume a ridiculous amount of content, anybody who I’m not good at telling you where I remember the content from, so that’s bad, but I consume a lot of content, diverse content, and I’m just filling my brain with a whole bunch of ideas all the time. And I listened to podcasts and I follow other entrepreneurs that are successful. And so many people say that the only thing you have control over is yourself. I say that when you’re getting your home organized, or when you’re getting your control of your life and moving from reactive to proactive mode, you have to focus on yourself, getting your mindset, right? And so when you’re growing your business, the only thing that you will have with you for the rest of your life is any investment that you make in yourself in your learning and your mindset and your connections and your relationship, the business they’re in now, maybe a different business.
But you all the, all of the resources you put into yourself will grow. And then I would say in the last three years as organized three 65 has started to gain some traction. And now I know that it’s going to be a company five years from now. It’s not going to go out of business. Like I’m more confident in the fact that we kind of know what we’re doing and that we’re going to stand the test of time now. And instead of investing in me and getting over my imposter syndrome, it has been more in investing in me and becoming a better leader and staying six months to a year ahead of my team, because now my team is growing because I’m a good teacher. Like I provide them with coaches and resources and courses. And honestly we did brand builders, not because I needed a brand builders, but because everything that brand builders teaches, I had learned in eight years on my own.
And it was time where I needed to disseminate all of that information into my team. I need to make sure that I had ticked off all of the boxes, dotted the I’s crossed the T’s so that we’re ready for scale because we are perfectly positioned to be a company that is going to scale soon. I overhired. So I hired people just so I could train them the way I want them to be trained so that we will scale with ease and with grace versus at a breakneck speed. That is fun, but stressful, especially for the women that I employ.
I love that, you know, and I, I have become, you know, more convicted on that, like brand builders is become is, has become such a curriculum, you know, and we’ve got resident experts who teach it that I think you know, a lot of personal brands come to us for like their education, their strategy. But I think in the future more and more people are going to look at us more like you did, which is get your assistant trained, get your team trained, get your CMO trained to where it’s like, you don’t have the time to unload all this information, let us catch them up in, in and also like you said, dot the I’s cross the T’s make sure you’ve got all the cracks sealed. So I love that. So let’s talk about your business a little bit. Can you walk us through a little bit of what your journey has been with organized three, five from when you started as a personal brand? You know, and you don’t have to tell us exact numbers, but any, anything you can, that that is empirical, that you feel comfortable sharing. You know, how many people did you start with? How many people do you have now? How many years did it take? How did your revenue, you know, roughly grow? You know, how many clients did you service in the beginning and, and how many now? Because I just, you know, I I love, I love this story.
I do. I love listening to it. So I know your audience is just like me. So I’m just going to get down to what I wish I was hearing. If I was an entrepreneur growing my own brand, we’re about to celebrate our ninth anniversary. And in hindsight, I now realized that I make leaps about every three years. So the first three years, January, 2012 to 2015, I was a blogger. I was doing in-home professional organization consultations as a service-based business. I represented a direct sales company that first year. And then I realized that products weren’t really what I was going to sell. And I was just getting a lot of boots on the ground, meeting with other people in their homes, men, women, children, old, young, different socioecono economics and realizing what are the true holes in organization? What is, why is it with organization books?
People are still not getting organized. And that’s when I learned some of the basic things I teach today, like organization is a learnable skill. I’m a teacher. I could figure out how to teach you this online. You have different organization in different phases of life. It’s roughly every 20 years, it’s, you’re a child then twenties and thirties, you accumulate forties and fifties. You’re in survival. And then 60 plus, if you stay in your house the same during all of those phases, you’re going to need to reorganize it. And the organization looks different. So all of that like mindset work and I was blogging and I was figuring out that this was the thing I was going to do forever.
And that’s almost like it’s kind of like field, like you’re in the field, just in the nitty gritty, like talking to clients in their homes and they’re going, this is why I can’t do this. And this is what I struggle with. And that’s a part of where your content really went from hypothesis to curriculum. Cause you’re like, Oh, everybody struggles with this.
And what is my unique spin on it? So my unique spin on it is I’m a teacher. I can teach you how to do this. This is a learnable skill up until that point, professional organizers always said, I have the answers. I can fix your problem for you. Let me come in and do it for you. You are not capable. You are important, organized, sorry. And that’s the message that we had as women. So then it was, how do you get that message out? The next three years, I hired a couple of contractors. I hired my first executive assistant. I started producing the Amazon bestselling books. I came out with two Amazon bestselling books. I moved into podcasting from doing the blog and slowly started to move that over. I was taking these concepts that I was learning in person. We still had in-person organization. That’s where all of the money came from for the first six years, I had grown a team. They were doing the organizing for me. And I was really formalizing that thought leadership into books and building my experience. So the first six years really, I mean, I was making a hundred thousand dollars or less a year. I was paying people on credit cards. I was just building up my body of work and figuring out what is it that is unique to me.
And you were, most of the revenue was service-based business, 85%. And when you say a hundred thousand a year, that you’re saying, that’s your ingrown, not your rev. Oh, grandma’s gross. Oh yeah. Okay. It’s taken a minute. Yeah. You laugh now, somebody out there listening it, ain’t funny. At least they’re saying it. Ain’t funny.
Yeah. Six years. I know when I was listening to all these podcasts, they’d be like, it takes seven years. It takes for you. I was like, I’ll do it faster. I’ll work. And I was working 100 hour weeks. Like I was clocking my time 80 to 100 hour weeks. You cannot outpaced time. Like there is a time factor to growing your expertise and learning and developing. I mean, you just can’t shortcut it.
Yup. Yup. Yup. Zig Ziglar used to say, well, no elevator to success. You’ve got to take the stairs, baby. Okay. So that’s year three through six. Is that about when we met the first time? Cause the very, the very first time we met, we were working on your infusion soft. That was when
We had Pat. Yep. And we were doing that. So that was going into 2017 in 2017 was like a landmark year for me in betting on myself and just saying, you know what? This is good, but it’s, there’s more here. It’s going to be great. More people need this message. Women need to hear about grace. They need to understand this is a learnable skill. Like this is a problem that no one else is going to solve. So I’m going to go all in and I’m going to solve it. So that was a year that I paid $10,000 to go to New York for one weekend and learn about how to get a professional book launch. I hired seven people in seven weeks at the end of 2017. Now all of them, except for one were contractors and they’re like three to five hours a week. So it wasn’t like I was hiring full-time people.
But I did this, I wrote my mission, vision and values. I moved from an LLC to a C Corp. I got a patent pending on my Sunday basket. I got a manufacturer to make the Sunday basket. At that point, we had no physical products. I just been talking about these on the podcast, but there was nothing people could buy to actually get their, to do list, eliminated, organize all of their tasks and ditch their filing cabinet. And I knew I had one course, the 100 day program was an active course. It was only sold in the launch model. Yeah, that’s all I had.
It started with an information product. Was the first sort of scalable offering that you had.
Yes, I did have that. And we had just added in 2017, the basic first planner that went along with that. So once I hired all those people, that was to get everything out of my head in the physical products created and to develop what you see today with the warehouse and fulfillment and all of that.
Yeah. So how many, so, so from, from zero, from your zero to three, it’s basically just you from years three to six, it’s like you one full timer and a bunch of contractors. And then years six through nine, it was like, okay. We, we kind of took some contractors, made them, full-time brought on a bunch more part-time contractors. And then where are you at now with like your staff size and, and you know, like how many customers you serve and like, give us a sense of the scale now, nine years in.
Yep. So in year six, seven when I hired all of these people are we ended that year at $441,000 in revenue. And we ended our last fiscal year. So at the end of that three years at 1.3 million in revenue. And I knew at that point that I had taken the company as far as I could, without a physical product and without a team to help me and I could stay at the level I was at, but in order to make the impact that I wanted to make, I had to take all of my profit and put it in people and products in order to then make the ultimate impact that I wanted to make.
Yeah. So that 1.3 million in revenue was, was that like,
Yeah, our year end is June 30th. So,
But that was like your ninth year.
Yep. Eighth year and third year. And it was three years after I hired all those people. So it’s yeah, the numbers are weird because I changed how I end my year.
When did w when, so when did we incorporate infusion soft into the mix? That was like 2015?
Yeah, it was right before I hired all of those people. So it was, it was that 2017 year. I believe it was in January that Pat and I got into that coaching with you to do that for the entire year, by the time we were done that’s when I was hiring all of the people.
Got it. Yes. Okay. So yeah. So then you had so there you go. So that was basically three years from that kind of point that you turned on the, what we would call phase four eight, figure entrepreneur. Like you turned on the like, okay, now I’m I’m turning my personal brand to a business, vision values team systems go. And then, and now here you are making sure.
Yeah, so we have seven full-time employees, one part-time employee, and then four part-time contractors that are still part of our team that all come to all of our all team meetings and then a whole bunch of other contractors, you know, just like you wouldn’t regular. Yeah.
I love, I mean, I just love this and, and you probably made more in income in the last two years than the first eight years combined. Is it something like that?
Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
And that’s, this is part of why I wanted people to thank you for sharing this because it’s like, when we tell people, you know, I know, you know, this I’m kind of talking to the listener right now is we’re always saying we’re playing the long game. We’re playing the long game. We’re playing the long game. If you follow the fundamentals, do the systems build, you know, build the processes, do this. And it’s like, ah, it’s like this slog Fest for the first four or five years, you particularly for the first two or three, but then it, all of a sudden, it’s like it started to catch you in all in you developed as a leader. And I don’t know. I’m just so freaking proud of you. I’m going to, it’s weird to say, but
The other thing I would say about that, well, thank you. Or the other thing I would say about that is when I became a C Corp in that summer, I put myself on payroll and I became an employee of the company. And until that point I had just been pulling money, Willy nilly. So when I became an employee of the company at year, whatever, five and a half six I then had a paycheck and I made my paycheck be the opposite week of my husband. So now we have money coming in our family every single week that is predictable after I’d been doing this about 18 months I realized that everybody in the company was kind of making the same amount. And so then I wasn’t giving raises. And I finally realized, Oh, give yourself a race. I’ve raised my own salary. And then I didn’t feel like I had to hold everybody else’s salaries down.
I was able to give raises there as well. And now that we’re going into year nine I hired a fractional CFO last year and we made profit last year. And he’s like, this is where you take a distribution. I was like, no, no, no, no. Put it back in the company, put it back in inventory, which is what we did. Cause we were in the middle of the pandemic and he says, you have to realize Lisa, you’re also an owner. Like you get paid as an owner. And so I’ve been wrestling for the last six months about how much should I get paid as an owner? How much do you take out as an owner? And I’m finally to the point where that will be a conversation we have next summer is like, okay, now what is your owner pay? In addition to your employee? I’m just so thrilled to have a paycheck now and know what my income is going to be. It’s hard to think about the fact that I’ve also built an asset in addition to a job for myself.
Yeah. And the, in the eight figure entrepreneur event, which you were, you were in, I think we did it in June Aja and I had to figure that out too. And we actually have three different sources of pay. We pay ourselves as you know, like a salary as a, as a, as a manager, we have profits that we draw from the company and then we actually pay ourselves for doing service-based work on the exact same pay plan that we would pay anyone on our team on. And it’s like, you really are wearing different hats. And you got to almost think about like, I am playing different roles, paid in different ways. The owner hat is the one that you don’t get paid on forever. And then one day you do. So I want to talk about your business model now a little bit because I feel like you are more rare. One thing I love about you is you’re the seven figure business. Is it, is it fair to say that products like physical products is now the core or more of a, is it the primary business model or secondary still?
So I will share with you as entrepreneurs when I came up with this idea and I think it is the thing that saved us in the pandemic. And I think it’s the thing that’s going to save us going forward. We’re not a product company and we are not a course company. It is a blend and it is hard for a consumer to figure out what am I paying for the course? What am I paying for the product? Because there’s so much integration and everything I sell has a lifetime value to it. So I’m not selling an MMR monthly recurring revenue. I have a couple of little offerings like that for people who want to go deeper. But the basic customer journey is you buy a Sunday basket, which you see behind me, which is a box and a set of slash bucket. So there is a physical cost to that.
But in addition to that, you get into a Facebook group where we do coworking spaces. Every single Sunday, you have on-demand training, you have extra printables that come out, I’ll come out with extra things that are bonuses for people who have a Sunday basket, like at tax time, I’ll do a tax training and give you some tax printables. There’s no cost. We just add that in there. So you’re kind of like in that level. And then once you do the Sunday basket and you have eliminated your, your to-do list and have five extra hours every week, you usually go into the 100 day home organization program. Again, lifetime membership. We have a on on-demand videos for all 100 days. There’s a planner you get when you purchase and then you can purchase additional ones. You can upgrade and do your planner with me every quarter.
How much is the Sunday best Sunday basket. Basket’s $97. So that’s the, that’s like the entry point. It’s just the 97 come into the community. And it’s like a lifetime access though, to this community which includes like, you know, effectively a course that walks them through what to do
Coworking like every week of the year. Like,
Yeah. And what’s the a hundred, the a hundred day program is the next step up. Yep.
That’s $500. Or you can do six payments of $96. If you want to stay in that $100 a month investment in your home organization, that has a whole bunch of extra things. We’re working on an app. We have extra blog posts, like all kinds of freebies are given into that group as well. And then after that, you go to all access, which is where you ditch your filing cabinet. You get the four binders that replace your filing cabinet planning day. And then you can add on the kid’s course or the photo course. And once you get all that done, then you usually jump into our work box in our work from home offerings.
So an all access. So 97, 500, and then all access is 500, another 500, but those are one time. Those are one time deals. So, so when you do in seven figures, part of what’s amazing about this to me is it’s not recurring, like everything brand builders do. We’re a slow snowball that builds and builds and builds and you’re, you’re new. These are new people coming in. Yep. That’s amazing. It’s extremely difficult to do. I mean, so what, how are you doing it? Like, what are you, what is your primary mechanism for attracting? And hopefully y’all are picking this up, right? Just home organization, expert, extremely clear vertical, you know, clutter in and disorganization, a clear problem, a clear need, a true expert, serving one audience with an entry point that you then, you know, rise up. So you’re like, you’re a perfect example of that. Like breaking through the wall, picking the riches in the niches. So how do you keep getting new customers all the time? Like what’s the acquisition model?
So something I had to realize, which we had a VIP day in addition to going through brand builders. I also did a VIP day with you. And we kind of talked about how I have sold a thousand people into this work box system. And we’ve never really advertised it. Like I don’t talk about it very much. And all of those people have come from the Sunday basket. So when you really look at what is your customer journey, 99% of people in organize three 65, start with this $97 Sunday basket, or they try to make one on their own. Like they get the idea of, I need to plan my week on Sunday. There’s a certain way to do this. It’s not it’s unavoidable. I need to get the time so I can get more time back during my week if they do the Sunday basket, which we advertise on the podcast. And now we have Facebook ads and I do webinars that we advertise through Facebook. If they do the Sunday basket, 60% of them will do the 100 day program. I think it’s 40%. We’ll do the 108 program. And 60% of those will go all access. And 15% of those will go into our certification program. And 30% of those will upgrade in our certification.
Okay. Hold on a second.
I know my numbers,
No. And your digital dashboards and the Facebook ads and stuff. I mean, this is what you would, what you would expect from an organization expert, but it’s, it’s like, it’s why I love teaching you. It’s like you get the stuff we teach implemented faster. Probably that our team does. Like you guys are so fast. Okay. So 60% of them will upgrade. You said to the hundred day, and then you said 60% of those will upgrade.
Yeah. It’s like, it’s like 45. One of them is 41 60. I’m not good with details. But basically if I can get people into the Sunday basket, if the system works because I’m a teacher, like it works. If you are a detail oriented person or a big picture person, it works. If you have ADHD, if you don’t like, because I’m a teacher, I built in all the learning modalities. The Sunday basket works. If we can get people to get it and then get into our community, they have success. And what happens is it’s nothing to do with the Sunday basket. It’s the internal realization that I’ll be darned organization is a learnable skill. She taught it to me. I learned it. Well, if I can learn that, can I actually get my it’s a confidence builder. It’s a quick win within six weeks to realize, Oh my gosh, I have more time than I used to have.
My brain is not talking back to me anymore. I don’t have an unending to-do list. If that worked, I, I can have my home organized women for years have thought they can never have their home organized. And the Sunday basket has to come first because it proves to them that they can. And then when they start believing in themselves and they get in that group, we just shower them with love. We have the most positive Facebook group ever. There’s no negativity in it whatsoever. Everyone is supporting everyone. And then once you have that success, then you get addicted to organizing. And then you’re like, fine. I’ll do the pit. Everybody says they don’t have papers. So as they do the 100 day program, they’re like, Oh my gosh, there’s so much paper in this house. And then they just go right through the customer journey.
But it’s all about believing that you can do it. And the reason I am not monthly recurring revenue is because my target market is women and women invest in themselves last and they need to feel successful. So when they have the Sunday basket successful, I mean, if their child falls down to needs stitches at the ER, Rory, they stopped doing their Sunday basket happened to us three times, maybe those unexpected events derail them. And if it is a monthly recurring revenue, then it’s guilt. Every time that money comes out, if it is a limited time, you only have 90 days to implement it. There’s this pressure on women that they already have so much pressure. I don’t want any pressure. I don’t want any guilt. I just want to love on you and give you the solution.
And I think, you know, you’ve always been so encouraging of my procrastinate on purpose book. And one of the things I think one of the things we tried to do with that book, which it occurred it’s occurred to me. Why one of the reasons why I think it is so aligned with you is we tried to, in that book talk about the emotional side of time management, not just the logical stuff. And I feel like you do the same thing with home organizing it’s, it’s, it’s tactical, but it’s also the emotional components. It’s the guilt and the stress and the anxiety and the worry and your own story of changing your life when you were 40 years old. And like just all of the mental health aspects that having an organized that come along with having an organized home which I, which I, which I just, you know, I really love so, so I hear you on the customer journey.
Basically give them something small that they can have a win, get a result, build community, and then accelerate them up, especially like, you know, I know with your infusion soft, you, you’ve got it all tracked in a, in a process to move them from one to the next, to the next to the next. The, you mentioned the Facebook ads you, we, we teach people not to do it until they get to phase three. Like most people do it way early, but you’re a great example of, like you said, you just started introducing that. And is that so, so are, have you kind of acquiesced to the idea of going okay now that I know what my lifetime value is? I can justify spending ads, driving people directly to Sunday basket. Is that, is that how you do it? You try to, you, you move them deliberately into the front of the, of the journey.
Yes. So we started Facebook ads two weeks before our customer locked in. You know, we all went into lockdown for the pandemic and we’ve been ramping up the spend as you told us to do. So we advertise to our current customers, new products that are coming out. We advertise to people to start in the Sunday basket. We advertise podcast episodes, and here’s something unique to us. And I’ve done Facebook ads in the past with little money. Now I’m doing it with bigger money. Our ads always convert because women are always looking for organization solutions. And there aren’t a lot of people in that industry. And our ads are always not very expensive because they’re not competitive. I’m not in the entrepreneurial space. I’m not in the political space. So I’m able to get a good return on our investment. And we usually have three to four times return on our investment every single week. And sometimes up to seven times return on our investment, which I know is unusual.
So then on that first customer one, do you do drive people to a free training? Like let’s just take Sunday basket, not, not your existing customers, but is it just basically an ad to a free training or do you do a challenge or do you do a video funnel? Like what is that ad driving people to, or do you just take them directly to the sales page to buy the basket?
We’ve been taking them directly to the sales page to buy the basket and, you know, over the course of the year
It’s 97 bucks. It’s also not like it’s,
We redid our website. So all of June, I think we drove like 30,000 people to the website and they all bounced off because the website was broken. So we’re trying it’s, it’s lovely. It’s great. But we still made money on our ads. I don’t know what to tell you. So now we’re retargeting those people for webinars and I’m, I’m doing another webinar. We’re trying that for a while. So we’re taking 90 days and driving people to a webinar that only Facebook ads is getting that webinar and then seeing what the conversion is. So we’re testing. Okay,
Well, I’ve got I did a, I did a training last week on this specific thing I need, I’m going to send it to you. So, because you know, I just, w you are, you’ve done these things, not just the right things, but in the right order at the right time. And it’s, it’s moving, it’s moving along. So I have one more question for you before that. I mean, where should people go Lisa, to learn about you, you know, if they want to connect. And I mean, I’ll also, there’s a huge part of being a personal brand, which is just keeping your crap organized. And so, like the actual skill that you’re teaching here, I think really helps accelerate the success of any, any entrepreneur and, you know, not, not just, you know, you’re saying women and like the home and, and, and that, but it’s any business owner trying to like keep parts of their life organized. So where should they go to find you?
I often say that men are not holding women back your houses. And that’s why I speak to women because the emotional components that you’re talking about do not impact men the way they do women. And so many women have something they’re uniquely created to do, but they’re waiting until the laundry and the dishes are done. And so that is the person that I’m trying to reach. Like I want to free you from your home, so you can go bless the world with what you’re uniquely created to do the best way I do that is through my podcast. So if you’ve liked this interview, go check out the podcast, which is organized three 65. We have over 9 million downloads on that podcast. So it’s pretty popular. I love it. I love, I have a lot of episodes every week. I love talking on the podcast. And then if you just want to know more about the products, go to organize three 60 five.com. You can click on the shop, you can learn about the work boxes, learn about the Sunday basket.
Huh. We got it. We got the sun. We have, we’ve got, we’ve got the Sunday basket. We have the a hundred day program. I mean just really, really great stuff. So, you know, since you know exactly what it is like to be a brand builders group, client, and you know, you know, three years ago, I mean, you had already been at it five or six years by the time we had met. And then, you know, coming, reconnecting with brand builders group here recently, what would you say to that person? Who’s like, you know, in year two and they’re just like, Oh my gosh, like I do it all this stuff and I’m not making any money. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s listening. It’s, I’m frustrated. Like I can’t get crap done. I can’t afford vendors. I don’t know how to do it myself. Like, you know, I don’t have time. Like, what would be your, your advice to that person?
I love that bill Gates quote, when he says we underestimate what we can do in 10 years and we overestimate what we can do in one year. And I think that’s true too. Like you just have to realize that you are in a marathon and it is a self-development and blessing of the world, like whatever you’re uniquely gifted and created to give the world, like is amazing, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but you need to take the next step, take the next step, take the next step. And if you’re in brand builders are looking to join brand builders, look at it as like your college education. So there are four different phases and look at each phase as a year of college education. Now, if you’re like, I was, when you came in and you’re in your eight, then yeah, you can get the whole thing done in a year.
It’s extremely rare. I was over ready. If you’re in year two, then I would look at that for those four phases is like, if I get these four phases done in the next four years, I will be six years in. That’s where you naturally are going to be this, you know, businesses growing. I find it so interesting. So many podcasts that I followed for years and years and years, female podcasts. So many of them in the last two years have become seven figure businesses and moving quickly to eight figure businesses. And it’s just time. It’s not that they found something out that you don’t know, or they have a secret or it’s the super special funnel or whatever. It’s just time. It takes 10 years to grow to a million dollar business. Like it just takes time.
Love it. Lisa Woodruff, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll link up to organize three 65, man, keep going, Lisa. So proud. It’s been such an honor to work with you and we just continue to wish you the best in your journey and thanks for all your encouragement. Thanks, Rory.
Ep 129: How To Get Your Product Found with John Jantsch | Recap Episode
Speaker 1: (00:06)
[Inaudible]
RV: (00:06)
Welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We are breaking bad breaking down John Jantsch interview. And I’ve known him for a lot of years. And so it was a great, a great time to catch up with him. AJ is here with me. We’re going to give you our top three takeaways. I’m going to go first today. And as we were talking, you know, it wasn’t so much exactly something that John said, but it was something that he said that made me think about something that we have talked about. You know he mentioned our mutual friend, Mike Michalowitz and we were talking about writing books and it kind of dawned on me that when you write a book, your book shouldn’t be an initial hypothesis. It should be a final conclusion. In other words, you don’t publish a book when you have an idea about how something is, you publish it at the end, once you’ve kind of tested and tried out your concepts on your clients and yourself and your own business in your own life. And I guess that was just a simple takeaway, but it kind of edified in my mind. Oh, that is, that is worth realizing that it’s what happens at the end of a, of a career of research and testing. So that was my first.
AJV: (01:20)
Yeah. And honestly, mine is quite similar to that. And it just talked about, he talked a lot about when he has an idea I’m reading my notes here, so I don’t forget, but he has an idea. He immediately started writing about it and I thought that was really good. And it’s kind of seems like a duh aha moment, but it’s really more of like putting that writing out into the public. So, so as soon as I have an idea, I start writing about it and testing the content. And that’s where I get feedback and suggestions and ideas. It’s not that all of this content creation happens in a silo. It actually happens out in the open in the public with other people participating and help vet the idea. And that’s very similar to yours. I don’t publish an initial hypothesis. I publish the conclusion, but how I get there is I actually start putting the content out immediately. I put it out in blogs and podcasts and social media, and I use my community to give me the process of bedding through it, to figure out what really stuck. And I thought that was a really great quick takeaway.
RV: (02:22)
Yeah. And it’s kind of like, it gives you a lot more confidence that like this, these ideas have been tested
AJV: (02:27)
And people really like it and it’s valuable. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a very good, it’s creating your own built-in audience for the content.
RV: (02:34)
Yeah. Yeah. And they’re all kind of like your audience is helping you, helping you write it. So all right. So my second takeaway was I think just, just a good reminder of, and this is a central premise of we have a phase three event called high traffic strategies where we talk all about like, you know, paid traffic and everything. And it was just this idea that your audience already exists somewhere. So you just got to figure out while you’re, while you’re building your own audience, you need to also be working to find an existing audience. And I think there’s so many opportunities for partnerships here. And that’s one thing that John has done really well with his whole community. But for you in your business, think about who serves the same client you serve, but in a different way. And at brand builders group, I think as we get more, you know, mature as a company, we’ve only been around for a couple of years, but I think over time, our team will get better at pairing up our own clients. And I was thinking we have this, you know, we have a client ed who has a marketing firm who does marketing for small business owners. And then we have lots of other clients that are financial advisors and they do wealth planning and they often manage 401k’s for small business owners. So they’re, they’re selling to the same person, but they’re selling to different services. They’re not competitive. And that’s a great place to look for partnerships is who is serving your same audience, but with a different product or service.
AJV: (04:09)
Yeah. That’s so good, simple, simple, but really important and strategic and something that quite often we overlook the simplest things. So I think that’s really, that’s really good. Okay. So my, my second thing, and this is not a new thing that we’ve heard from a ton of our guests, but again, it’s one of those things that I feel like out in the normal everyday world world, you don’t hear a lot about, which is the focus has to be on building your email list, not on your followers. And I think that’s just, that’s so huge. And it’s so repetitive with almost every single guest who comes on our show is yes, there’s tons of value when it comes to social media, but the focus has to be on building your email list. Do not forget the importance of your email list. And for all of you out there who don’t have a process or a plan of building your email list, get one, find one, what’s your lead capture. What’s the simple download what’s that ebook or video course or a webinar funnel, whatever it is, whatever you can get out there to drive all of your social media followers to a place where you can capture their email list. That is the priority. And again, once again, that as a, a huge part of the truth behind building a sustainable personal brand is having an email list that you can market to.
RV: (05:29)
Yeah. And you know, one thing that you did, you kind of spearheaded this internally for our new website, which I would have never even thought to do, but you guys did this, the whole team was you created a lead magnet for each different event that we have, or like each different product. So it’s like not only are we building an email list now, now we have a dedicated list, a segmented list for every product offering that we have that’s developing. And that’s kind of like, you know, if you already have an email list, that’s kind of like a next level version of it.
AJV: (06:00)
Well, it’s just like for any of you who already have content, you already have a lead capture. You just haven’t turned it into it. Or you have, and maybe you have several different products. Maybe you have a book and a course and a coaching program, well, you should have a lead magnet for each of those. Or maybe you have a coaching program with four different curriculum offerings while you should have a lead magnet for each of those. Like, if you already have the curriculum, you already have the lead magnet, you just haven’t turned it into it. And that was the beautiful thing about what we did on our new website. It’s like, no, we have 15 event curriculums, 15 different two day events that we do. So I already had the workbook and the PowerPoint I just had to go through and edit it and turn it into a simple lead capture. The content was already there. It just needed to be formulated into something that people would want as a free standalone product. Yeah.
RV: (06:51)
But like, literally what you’re saying, you already have it. Like, I never thought that, and it took another person like you to just go, Hey, we already have this. Let’s just, you know, make a shortened version and make it a lead magnet. So you, you step over this stuff, even, even when you do it all day, every day, like, like we do teamwork, teamwork makes the dream work Baden okay, awesome. So the third point for me is a total nerdy thing, a total tech thing. And you’ve probably heard me light up cause I light up about nerdy stuff like
AJV: (07:21)
This, just trying to get free consulting,
RV: (07:25)
Which is what I’m doing on every, every interview. That’s what I, that is what I’m doing. But you know, when we, when we teach even high traffic strategies and there’s a section on Google and we talk about search engine optimization and H one tags and H two tags and metatags but there’s this thing called structured data that I did not know about. Like, I literally, you know, with you listen to the interview, it’s like, what is this? Like, how do I not know this, this thing with structured data is just apparently like, you know, tables and, and just another way to signal to Google what this element is on your page, so that your page ranks for people searching for those terms. And I mean,
Ep 128: How To Get Your Product Found with John Jantsch
RV: (00:06)
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show
RV: (01:03)
You are about to meet someone. My friend, John Jantsch, who has a reputation for being one of the most practical marketing strategists in the world for small business owners. He and I actually met years ago. We shared the stage at an amazing event called social media marketing world, which we love our, our very close mutual friend, Jay Baer introduced us. And then over the years, we’ve just kind of known of each other. And John is the author of several books. I mean, duct tape marketing, I guess you would say has maybe his flagship book, duct tape marketing is been you know, it’s, it’s become a kind of like a main ubiquitous term in the marketing world, which we’ll talk a little bit about. And he also has an agency they do done for you work. They work with companies, you know, all over the place he’s been featured in all types of major media spoken at large events. You know, he’s spoken for Ted and he’s just a really amazing guy. And he also has one of the, the biggest marketing podcasts in, in the universe of iTunes. And so we connected recently at a an author mastermind group that joined up and I thought, ah, you gotta, you gotta meet John if you don’t know him. So welcome. Welcome to the show, my friend,
JJ: (02:27)
Hey, thanks for having me. And I’ll give my first personal branding tip you. You introduced me as one of the world’s most practical, small business marketing experts. That was actually a line I made up and started saying and saying, and saying, now obviously, you know, you kind of have to deliver on that. But you know, it was sort of a self-proclaimed title that, that overtime I sort of made happen, but that’s my first branding tip.
RV: (02:51)
I mean, I, I love that cause I think you know, do you know Sally Hogshead? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So Sally is amazing and you know, everyone’s always like try to be outside the box, outside the box, but you know, she taught me this lesson when you’re, when you’re trying to market your business, you actually want to put yourself inside a box, something that people can clearly define as like your, the person on this. And most of that, especially when you first start, you just make it up and then, and then it becomes real
JJ: (03:20)
Well again, I think you have to deliver on it, but, you know, you’re the one who gets to at least frame it and, and define it. I mean, it, you know, whether it’s true or not, it will be told by, you know, how the market perceives it. But, but, but framing it, defining it, you know, one of the things I think that’s, that’s beautiful about doing that too, is that, you know, a lot of people have come and gone with this platform or that platform and, and, you know, being like, Oh, I’m going to be the early mover on that. I think when you have a, a point of view, you know, about, here’s what I believe, you know, sometimes some of that stuff becomes, you know, not, not that relevant. I mean, conforms come and go. You know, for example, you know, I’ve basically, I’ve said marketing as a system and that you know, it starts with strategy before tactics. And I have, that’s been my mantra for 25 years now. And frankly, you know, it’s, it’s independent of any of the platforms coming and going because that’s, I believe that that that will never change when it comes to working with and consulting with small businesses.
RV: (04:25)
Totally. And so can you take us, can you take us to the, I know this is like kind of the original work, but duct tape marketing, can you just like tell us what the premise is and like what that’s, what that’s all about? Cause I think it’s super relevant.
JJ: (04:40)
Well, well, so I’ll just give you an, I can do this pretty quickly, but the whole backstory, you know, I started my own marketing consulting firm about 30 years ago. I right out of college, worked for a, an ad agency for about five years and said, you know, any dummy can do this. I’ll launch my own.
RV: (04:56)
However, the entrepreneurs, any idiot can do this on their own.
JJ: (05:01)
I had no plan, you know, I, I knew I could hustle work. And so I got projects, you know, big companies, big projects, little companies, little projects, and took whatever came along. And at some point I realized I really like working with small business owners and they just, you know, you’re working with the person, you know, not necessarily a department or a company. And I just really love that, but they’re also really frustrating because, you know, I’d had kind of agency training and I was like, well, this is how you do it. And you know, they don’t have the same budgets or attention spans or anything. And so one day I just said, look, I’m going to create a way where I can walk into somebody and say, here’s what I’m going to do. Here’s what you’re going to do here are the results we hope to get by the way, here’s what it costs you want it.
JJ: (05:44)
And, you know, after the first three people said, like, where have you been? You know, I realized that in trying to solve my frustration, I was actually tapping into what is still today. One of the greatest frustrations for entrepreneurs and owners, it’s very hard to buy marketing services because everybody’s selling someone a piece of it or, you know, this idea of the week or that idea of the weekend. And so they just kind of lose control of it. And so the fact that somebody was kind of bringing up a package called marketing, you know, made it, made a ton of sense because I was sort of productizing, if you will a service of marketing, I thought it had to have a name. It had to have a brand and, you know, John’s consulting service didn’t really cut it. And so I just on a whim, quite frankly, just started calling it duct tape marketing.
JJ: (06:32)
And, and it was, it was because of my years of working with small business owners it kind of was this idea of look, you know, you’re making it happen, you’re making it up every day. Some days it feels like, you know, it doesn’t have to be always have to be perfect. It doesn’t always have to be pretty, it just has to work. And I think a lot of people kind of associate that sort of practical idea, you know, with, with the, the actual tool of duct tape. So that was the metaphor that I was really, really trying to play off of. And it, and it just, you know, for a lot, I mean, there’s a strange affection in the U S at least maybe in Canada, too, with, with duct tape. So it kind of played on that sort of fondness that some people have even jokingly, but also really kind of hit home with the sort of practical nature of let’s just get this thing to work.
RV: (07:18)
Yeah. That’s why I love that. It also has kind of the like double entendre, if you will, of, of, of stickiness, which is like what you want your marketing to be, but you know, when you say it just has to work, I think there is like this myth, you know, cause we’ve been, we’ve been small business owners several times. We’ve been startups several times that it’s like, you think that, Oh, there’s there’s these, these, these large companies, or, you know, let’s say like a multi seven figure and eight figure company that, gosh, they just have all these beautiful marketing systems figured out and dialed in and it’s like, they fricking down, it’s a mess. I mean, we interviewed Amanda tress. Not that she’s not a mess at all, but, but she admitted, she’s got a $50 million business and she’s running on spreadsheets. Like it’s, it’s crazy of, of going. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to work. So I, I love that. And I think that’s you know, that is duct tape, right? Just, just duct tape.
JJ: (08:18)
Right. And I’m not necessarily saying that’s the best way. I’m just tapping into reality that, that just, as you mentioned, that just is the reality of how so many people do it. I mean, I, there are definitely more beautiful ways in which to build a business. If you’ve got everything figured out, if you’ve got the funding, if you’ve got the, you know, the patients, if you’re not stressed out, you know, there’s a lot of beautiful ways to build a business. But what I was trying to tap into was the fact that people were saying, yeah, that, that is what we’re doing. Can we, can we actually take that and turn it into a system? So
RV: (08:52)
Relating this to personal brands, cause I know you work all different types of small businesses. But you know, you, you are an example of like, you know, the, the kind of people we serve, authors, speakers, consultants the, I feel like we have a lot, I’m gonna take advantage of a free coaching call here. Cause a lot of our members, what we’ve they’ve been doing is they’ve been building their product. Right. So they’re in that stage where it’s like, okay, they’ve been wrestling with building their product, whether it’s a physical product or it’s a video course or a coaching program or whatever. And then one day they go, Oh, I’m done building it. Now I actually have to do something to tell people that it’s here. And when you, can you talk a little bit about both the mindset and then also maybe some of the tactics, you know, tactical advice that you would give to somebody in that moment. It’s like, okay, I now have my widget. What’s the first thing I should go do to like create my first customer or my first lead from, from marketing. Wow.
JJ: (09:58)
So, so I will botch this, but there is a a Chinese proverb that goes something like when’s the best time to plant a tree. And the answer is 20 years ago. You know, but if you didn’t do it, then today is the best time to plan it. So, so my point in that is that, you know, and I know that a lot of things have changed in the world, you know, in the last 20 years. But you know, I started building a following before I had any idea what I was going to sell to them. You know, I started talking to people, I started educating, I loved sharing my ideas. I mean, I had clients. And so I talked about what might, what worked for my clients. But that’s, you know, that’s the first bit of advice, which doesn’t really answer your question, but I mean, that’s the first bit, you know, don’t, don’t wait until you have a perfect product, you know, go out and start talking to people, go out, go out and start seeing if it resonates, go out and get their advice.
JJ: (10:50)
I know some of the first couple of courses I’d built with potential customers you know, I said, Hey, come on in here. Here’s what I’m thinking. Oh, that doesn’t work for you. Okay. What if we did this? You know, and then it was like, okay, here’s round two. I mean, so, so start doing it with people as opposed. I mean, I, I, I know I had a couple products that I D you know, I sat in a room and launched. I said, Oh, no, the world needs us. You know? And then it was like, press go. And like, nothing, you know, nobody wanted it, it didn’t make sense. You know, it was, it was the wrong price. It was all those things. So so you know, that to me is, is what you have to do is you have to actually just go start talking to people. I mean, even if you’re not done, you know, here’s what it’s going to be. You know, here’s what it’s going to look like. Here’s what the problem is solves. Y you know that again, still, probably haven’t answered your question directly, but I mean,
RV: (11:44)
But I think it’s important cause it’s like a prelaunch, right. Is to go build, build the audience before you build the product. Like, that’s, that’s a great thing. It sounds like the way you built the audience was basically like, just teaching and talking about what you were interested in and asking questions and like sharing what, you know, and then people started following and then it was like, they were basically, they were there when you were ready to launch something. Yeah.
JJ: (12:09)
Th that’s right. But, but I think also you know, you get kind of, I mean, people talk about beta users. I mean, early adopters. I mean, you get people that actually help you improve it, what it is that you’re building. And that’s the part that I love. And then those people generally speaking, become evangelists to not just, not just buyers. There was a practice right when ad-words maybe kind of came around. And so this is, this is probably 20 years ago and I don’t think it’s taught anymore. But I think it’s, it’s instructional. You know, w when you could buy clicks back in the good old days for about 10 cents you know, on some things, a lot of marketers would actually put up landing pages and advertise products and courses and eBooks and all kinds of stuff that didn’t exist.
JJ: (12:59)
And then literally would you would, you know, take some of those early opt-ins and early buyers and, and create a product with, you know, they found out which one was the most popular. Again, probably shady, probably a bit unethical certainly not affordable today, you know, because of the, the, the online space has changed so much. But I think it’s instructional in that, that, you know, when I, when I start thinking of an idea, I start writing about it as though it is not like I have this course, but here’s the premise behind this idea, you know, here’s the problem I’m trying to solve. Here’s what I think is broken. And you start immediately getting feedback from people about, you know, not only is that a good idea or bad idea, but maybe, you know, how how to, to actually go about solving. Yeah.
RV: (13:48)
I, I hear that. You kind of saying that that’s kind of similar to what you did. You weren’t like launching landing pages for collecting money, for things that didn’t exist, but you were doing that early adaptive, like come in here, be a beta user and then test it out.
JJ: (14:04)
You and I have a mutual friend, Mike McCollough, which that I think just has done something brilliantly over the years, he gets an idea for a book. And in his mind, his product really is, is booked. He gets an idea for it, and he just starts talking about it get some group of people interested in the idea. And then he just holds a two day workshop and they actually come and they build, you know, how this idea would work, which ultimately turns into his book, which then ultimately turns into a course which ultimately then turns into a consulting or coaching licensing program. And he’s, he’s replicated that model about five times now, you know, and, and his, you know, what he’s personally selling is, is the book itself. And, you know, he’s selling hundreds of thousands of copies of books now using kind of proven method of, of actually having before he even writes one word, or maybe before he even pitches it to a publisher, he’s got a really good book written or, or outline created. And even some case studies, maybe a four for the book, which then again, his books exploded other things. But I think that’s a, I think it was a really informative model.
RV: (15:14)
Yeah. So, so let’s say you now, so let’s say you do that. Is there anything that you go, whether it’s a book or a course or whatever, I think that there’s this fear, you know, for every entrepreneur is going, Oh, crap. Like, what do I do? Cause there’s so many, like you said, there’s so many platforms, right? So it’s like, well, should I start a podcast? Should I do Google ads? Should I buy Facebook ads? Should I have a Facebook group? Should I send emails? Should I go knock on doors? Should I like, like, how do you navigate that list of a bazillion things you could do to figure out what you should do?
JJ: (15:49)
Sure. you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, if you’ve built a product and now you’re facing, like I’m not going to eat unless I sell some of this you know, go out. I mean, to me, the easiest thing is go out and find people who already have a list who already have a following and figure out a way to add value to their community. I mean, that’s the fastest way. You know, if I came to you or you’ve got a community and I came to you and I said, Hey, I’ve got this thing that would be great for your community. You know, we can, you know, we can revenue share or I’ll give it away or whatever it is. You know, that’s, that’s the fastest way to start building some things and
RV: (16:28)
Find an audience that’s that has that already exists. That has an appetite for what you’re offering.
JJ: (16:34)
Yeah. I mean, that’s the fastest way. You know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody, you know, you go, Oh, I’m going to go talk to this person who I know has 2 million followers, and they’re going to put, you know, obviously it’s a relationship building. It’s, you know, I’ve got to have something of value for that person. It’s not just about the money. You know, it’s about serving their community. Hopefully. So, I mean, that’s the fastest way, but, but ultimately, you know what I believe still today, even though a lot of people talk about Facebook and communities and groups and all that stuff, focus on building the list, the email list is pretty much going to be everything for you. So if you’re going to be on Facebook, if you’re going to have a podcast, you know, if you’re going to be doing videos on YouTube, somehow connect those back to a reason why somebody would give you their email address because that’s you know, I’m not saying that just build an email list and it’s like minting money, you know, but that’s how you build the community, the long-term connection to the community that you own.
RV: (17:40)
Yeah. Well, I, I think that, I love this idea of, of the F the first, so the email lists certainly it’s like always really good reminder also though. I do think people were so consumed with the idea of building a following, which, you know, I don’t know for you, but for me every time we’ve done it, and we’ve now done it three times from scratch, it’s been slow and painful and hard, and it takes a long time and you it’s like, what else are you going to do? You got to do it. But there, if there is a shortcut it’s going, who has this? Who has my audience already? And what can I do for that community and that person to get in front of them? I mean, that’s, that is so profound. I think it’s, it’s simple, but it’s easy to overlook that, that this, your audience exists somewhere already.
JJ: (18:34)
Well, it doesn’t just have to be, cause a lot of times it’d be people immediately think of, you know, who are the A-listers, you know, that everybody knows and they want to go to those folks, but there are all these companies out there. You know, I started my, my first big sort of success in that realm of kind of partnering. And again, this was early on and you know, we’re not everybody was producing all kinds of educational content, but I produced a, an ebook for a software company. Well, I, they didn’t know I produced it for them, but I produced it. It reached out to them and said, Hey, all of your customers are small business owners. They’re all trying to learn how to market. If they’re better marketers, they’re going to buy more of your software. And so what if we did this thing where we co-branded this ebook and I probably got 30,000 subscribers, you know, over a five-year period from that relationship, you know, there are lots and lots of people that need you know, what you have to say and have an audience that, that, that if you can make it right for them, make it valuable for them.
JJ: (19:34)
Then, you know, you’ll be invited in, you know, as a friend and effectively, I mean, I did thousands, tens of thousands of dollars of business with those people that they’re resellers, you know, because I was shown, you know, seen as this expert. And, and it just, you know, it really launched a lot of ways that it really launched the commercial side of duct tape marketing from a consulting side.
RV: (19:58)
See, I love that because, because everyone goes, yeah, I want Tony Robbins to send an email blast for me. Well, okay. It might like, it might take a minute right for that to happen, but these companies or the other one would be like associations, right? Associations are desperate for content and training for their members. And if you can show up and do a free training, now it’s like their email list became your email list. And then, and it actually could become that way if you capture those, those emails. I mean that’s, and when you do it with a company they’re not trying to sell the same thing you are, there’s just trying to serve the same people.
JJ: (20:39)
That’s right. And in a lot of ways, the way they’re going to look at it is, Hey, this is, this is work. We don’t have to do, it’s a value add for our customers, you know, whereas the other influencers, like I got only so many times I can send to my list. Right. And so, so the, so the, the calculus for them is, you know, it’s going to be much more what’s in it for me that whereas the company is going to be much more theoretically, you know, is this is, well, it’s still going to be what’s in it for me. But, but the, the math is different. What’s in it for me is I don’t have to do it now. And my
RV: (21:16)
Trying to get at the same thing, they’re both going for different things. Yeah. And I, I think I mean, that’s a, that’s a, that’s amazing. Every, every company has a database of customers and you might have a zero email lists, but you go, somebody is servicing small businesses. Someone is servicing, you know, single moms, someone is servicing, you know, gym owners in some way. And, you know, you just figure out who you get in front of. So I really love, I really love that if like, if there is a shortcut, you know, that, that would be, that would be it. Yeah.
JJ: (21:51)
Yeah. Everybody’s starting a business. Should, that should be their first marketing. I mean, they’ve got to build all the other stuff, but that’s the, that’s the jumpstart.
RV: (22:00)
So what about paid? Can we talk about, well, actually, before we get to paid, let’s talk SEO because you actually have a book on, on this you know, you know, something about SEO. And I, I, what do you think small business owners need to know about SEO? Because it’s kind of like this, Oh, this Ninja tactic, like high-level tech thing, but you know, there’s a lot of simplicity to it too, you know? And I, I thought it was interesting when I found out you had written a book on SEO because I was like, gosh, you know, I, in my mind, I almost think of it as like a big business strategy. And, and yet, you know, you obviously see the, the application for first, for super small businesses.
JJ: (22:48)
Well, absolutely. I mean, if you think about the services that you buy or, you know, you travel a lot back when people used to do that the you know, you’d come into a town, it’s like, eh, I want to find a restaurant and I want to get my hair cut. I want to, you know, whatever. I mean, we turned to a search, right. For that. And, you know, because you’re holding the phone you know, Google says, Oh, you’re in that town. And that’s 3.4 miles. You can find this thing. Well, that’s all SEO. I mean, that’s your, if, if, if local businesses aren’t showing up in the maps pack or, you know, the, the various ways that they show up in search, I mean, they, they don’t exist in a lot of cases. So it is certainly you know, a big business strategy.
JJ: (23:30)
It’s an every business strategy just because of the buying behavior. You know, today we all, I, I, I would guess that, that, you know, 90% of, of purchases today start with some form of search. I mean, if, if somebody came to you and said, you need to, you need to hire this duct tape marketing company. I mean, they’re, they’re amazing, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re certainly gonna turn online. You’re not gonna pick up a phone and call me. I mean, you’re going to do a search and maybe if you’re trying to figure out if I’m, you know, if I’m legit or not, you’re going to deeply search and see what other people are saying and stuff. So any rate SEO is, is hyper hyper important for every business, probably more important for smaller businesses who don’t have, you know, budgets to, to blast over the airwaves.
RV: (24:16)
So when you talk, when you talk about the budget, so what do I need to do as a small business owner? Right? Like, I don’t have a bunch of money to do paid, like, what do I actually need to do when it comes to SEO?
JJ: (24:27)
So truthfully SEO is a long-term game. And a lot of people don’t want to tell you that a lot of people want to tell you, Oh, no, you just, you hire us to SEO this stuff. Well, what you have to realize is that as is that search engine optimization is a strategic combination of your website, your structure of your website, your content, and then some technical factors. It’s not like black magic. If you don’t have great content, if your website’s not set up the right way, you know, for that content to be structured and displayed. And then there’s some little off, you know, are there other signals out there in the world of other people saying your content is great? I mean, that’s, you know, that’s really the part that people miss. I mean, it, it begins and ends with good, relevant, useful content.
JJ: (25:13)
That’s structured in the right way. I can’t, if you hired me and you don’t have much content, or it’s a bunch of crap, I can’t help you from an SEO standpoint. And that’s the part that I think a lot of people misunderstand that the, the optimization part is to take good, useful content. That’s structured in a way that that makes sense to Google and to, to, to send more signals. That’s the optimized part. So there are on page things that you can do in terms of internal linking, you know, amount of keyword structure, those things goofy thing called structured data. And it a goofy thing called metadata, which we will get into, but it’s all pretty simple stuff. And it’s gotten simpler because Hey, people have written plugins that make all that stuff, you know, happen for you. So all of the on-page stuff is just a matter of paying attention.
JJ: (26:02)
And then there’s clearly some off foot what people call off page signals. And those are just do other people like you or other people linking to your content? Do you get mentioned in social media or does your content get mentioned in social media and shared and circulated? I mean, those, you know, that when it really comes down to it, it’s great content on your site. It’s it’s then, you know, content that’s linking back to your content on other people’s sites. I mean, that’s really it. And, and if you, but it, to me, it all begins and ends with a content that is useful, you know, based on what people are searching for.
RV: (26:39)
You mentioned something weird on the ongoing, back to the, you said there’s something weird called data, what structured data, what is structured data?
JJ: (26:49)
It’s just it’s just some HTML code that tells Google very specifically, what something is. This is a book, this is a person, you know, this is an address. This is a local business. This is a blog post. You know, this is a list of products. This is a list of reviews. I mean, so it’s a whole set of different types of data that that, that if you add, you know, the HTML code to the data that’s, that’s under the hood, you know, in your website structure it, it gives, it’s just another very potent round of information for Google.
RV: (27:30)
So it’s, it’s kind of similar to metadata. Although metadata can be visible like INSEARCH, but it’s, it’s just, like you’re saying, it’s a signal back to Google saying, this is what, this, this is what lives here on this page.
JJ: (27:44)
Well, and maybe this is what this specific item is, you know? So, so a lot of times, like if you do a search real easy examples, you do a search for you know, movie, a movie theater you know, or, or, you know, best new movies in 2020. And, and, you know, you’ll see a list that is basically structured data. You know, here’s all the movies, here’s the movie times, here’s the price, here’s the theaters, you know, so it’s a table, you know, that’s presented in your search results. Well that, you know, that table is constructed, you know, using structured data to tell Google, this is what this stuff is, because, you know, there could be something like, you know, duct tape market. Is that a book? Is that a podcast? Is that a blog, you know, is that a company name? And so a lot of what it’s do, you’re using structured data to is to not let, not, not leave Google to guess, you know, what it is that, that thing is that it’s you know, you’re saying, no, I’m talking about the book.
RV: (28:47)
Interesting. I didn’t know that. So when you see like the little tables that pop up, it’s just basically directly populating stuff, right. Off of sites, based on what the structure data like input is.
JJ: (28:59)
That’s right. And, and we’ve had structured data for a long time. If you think about lists, you know, lists are basically structured data, you know, you see, but whether it’s a numbered list or an unordered list with bullet points, that’s, you know, that’s structured data and the concept of structured data, but now we’re basically just putting HTML code around all that stuff to say in the, this is a list of books. This is, you know, these, this is a list of authors.
RV: (29:26)
Interesting. So and so it’s like for each element, almost on a page, you could have some structured data. Cause cause you would have like your H one tags, H two tags, meta-tags your TA the page title, like the, like the URL, those are all things that would, are signals, but then that, this is interesting. I’ve never, I’ve never heard this before. Like
JJ: (29:53)
He’s gotten very deep in the weeds here, but the good news is, as I said, there are some
RV: (29:58)
Practical, small business marketing. Excellent.
JJ: (30:02)
That’s right. That’s right. But the good news, is there a WordPress plugins, if your sites on WordPress that you add to the site and essentially then every page you’ll have the ability to fill in elements that you want. So you’re not actually having to get in there and write the HTML code yourself. Yeah. so, and it’s, you know, for local businesses, I mean, it, it actually, it actually brings in not only the address, but the law latitude and longitude, you know, their business. I mean, so it’s a very, very specific signal to Google. Yeah. This is a local business.
RV: (30:35)
Wow. yeah, that is, that is awesome. Well, so there you go. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot to learn here and you see like, there’s, there’s the strategy and then there is the tactics, but well, thanks for this, John, and for this, this introduction I mean, super, super interesting and useful stuff. Where should people go if they want to connect with you or learn more about duct tape marketing and the stuff that you do?
JJ: (31:01)
So the easiest place is just a pretty much everything I’ve written for the last couple of decades. You could find that duct tape marketing.com and that’s D U C T T a P E marketing.com
RV: (31:15)
Duck tape like D U C K tape marketing.com.
JJ: (31:19)
Well, just plug it into, plug it into a search engine and see what happens, but I bought pretty much every variation of this spelling. And so it all, they all just redirect to, to, to
RV: (31:32)
Right spot. So you get a spelling lesson, you get a bonus spelling lesson as well as fast,
JJ: (31:38)
Because more and more than one more than one time, you know, when I’ve been out there speaking in the world and whatnot, and they’ll have in the program, you know, like not, it didn’t happen in social media marketing world, but, but it has happened before you know, where we’re appropriate. We’ll put John Jansen, D U C K T a P E marketing.
RV: (31:57)
Yeah. Well, I, you know, the D and the F are also right next to each other on the keyboard. So that could be a bad mix up.
JJ: (32:04)
Yeah, that’s right. Well, that’s right. Well, the the the the, the, the, the confusing part is there actually is a brand of duct tape. That is Fran. Yeah. So do, do you want to, do you want a history lesson on where the name duct tape marketing or not duct tape marketing, but duct tape came from, we probably don’t have time for that. We might have to do that on another one.
RV: (32:26)
I mean, if it could go for it, if you, if you think it’s relevant, it’s not relevant at all, but, well then definitely.
JJ: (32:34)
I mean, that’s what we’re really interested is the irrelevant stuff. So, so world war II the, the, you know, the army commissioned the company to make some, some tape that would help them repair the tops of those canvas Jeeps. I had to be waterproof, you know, I had to really stick. And so it was called something like GP 47, you know, fix it or something. And all the GIS just called it duct tape because of the, you know, it was, it was waterproof, you know, so they, they were talking about Duc K after world war II ended we started putting air conditioning in homes. And so that was, you know, all the venting and every other thing that ran through those homes. And some of these ingenious GI said, Hey, you know what? This stuff actually seals the seams in the gaps between the UCT ducks in their air condition. And so it officially became duct tape because it was used in that fashion. Nobody uses it for that anymore, but now it’s sort of universally loved as a, as a fix it for, for everything. So I don’t know if that was interesting or not
RV: (33:45)
Super interesting. I mean, that is like, what that is it? Yeah. You just won somebody a hundred thousand dollars on a future episode of jeopardy or something like, and, you know, you remember John Jansen on the influential, personal brand podcast, when you, you know, you send us a little referral fee when you get that quiz question. Right. that’s, that’s not, I had never heard that. And I have actually wondered that before, like where in the heck, like where in the heck does this name come from? Well, we’ll put a link there to duct tape marketing dot com John Jantz, which is pronounced like pants, but spelled a little bit different. But if you search duct tape marketing, you, you, you will find John. And obviously we’ll link up to him, all of the social profiles on our, on our blog and stuff. Well, John, thank you for being here and just for your, your consistent commitment to marketing principles that have lasted, you know, outlasted all sorts of different platforms, you know, over, over a couple of decades. And you know, certainly your personal brand has stood the test of time, which is a, a great Testament. And we’re so glad to have you
Ep 115: Top Secrets to Effective Speaking with Vanessa Van Edwards | Recap Episode
[Inaudible]
And we are back with another recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Today, we are breaking down the interview with our new friend, Vanessa van Edwards, who we shared the stage with at the global leadership summit, which was awesome. And I’m actually really curious to hear AJ’s top three takeaways because this was, you know, really into the science of delivery. I feel like in presentation mechanics. So why don’t, why don’t you kick us off?
Oh, my honest, my first feedback was literally like the first part of the interview. She talks about her research and her book, captivate sales, which she said that hand gestures show trust. I was like, wow, Rory Vaden is the most trustworthy person on the planet. This is great for you. There is, there’s a future for you
As a speaker, I can do it. I could do it.
I was literally laughing out loud because just about after every podcast recap, I’m like, what is with you and the hand gestures. And then I realized I do the same thing monitor. I’ll just like blow for where you guys can see. But Rory is like literally hands coming, all the places all the time. And I’m like, wow, you’ve got a lot of trust going for you.
Apparently, other than you always, you always make fun of me for my facial expressions.
Those, those are different because no, it’s not the exaggerated ones. Those are entertaining. It’s the ones, his facial expressions are very expressive, very negative.
My neutral looks very Negative.
True. It’s true. So anyways, I just thought that was really fascinating and the fact that they actually watched every single Ted talk that was released in 2010 and compared all these things. And I really appreciate the data that goes into some of these findings, because if you just listen to them without, you know, the data driven back on her, like but I thought it was really fascinating and really interesting in terms of just like the fact that you use your hands shows like the passion and emotional involvement, but then the cues that it relates back to the audience of, you know, simply saying, Hey, there are three things that we’re going to discuss in this recap today, you make this visual connection with the verbal conversation, that there are three things. And I thought that was really fascinating. And just really a great reminder of like, people don’t just listen with their ears. Right. They listen with their eyes and I love that whole concept. So that was my first takeaway. But mostly you hear so many I’m sure Rory was sitting there going.
Yep. Yep. I, I, yeah. I thought that the whole way that she said that your gestures are basically a second talk.
Yeah. There, what did she say? You’ve got to, she said you have two different like content delivery.
Yeah. Two scripts. It’s like the words out of your mouth. And then, and then your gestures are like a whole second one. So I love that. And then the other thing is I was so excited and Vanessa and I nerded out after the interview was over because y’all, I did this, this was how I got started with in the world championship of public speaking for Toastmasters, I took 20 years of championships speeches, which was 200 speeches, analyzed them, graphed them, dissected them, and fact on what was the, we, I don’t know if we’ve shared this story. This is what, yeah.
We weren’t even dating a year. So it was like six months in maybe
So on my birthday the first year that AJ and I were dating you, what did you tell me? We could do anything. I wanted anything you wanted. She told me we could do anything I wanted, honestly,
Because we were also living long distance. And so I was with you on your birthday. I’m like, whatever you want to do I’m game.
And so I said, we’re going to spend the whole day watching world championships speeches from all the Toastmaster competitions. And you were such a trooper, babe.
I was, but I will tell you that’s the last time that I’ve ever said whatever you want, but no, it was actually, it was mostly pretty good, but you know, I was like, we were like watching videos from like the late seventies and early eighties at the time. And I’m like, do we really have to go 20 years,
Mark Brown. That was the day you fell in love with Mark Brown as a physical person from his speech. But so anyways, just for you, like the takeaway for me was this reminder that there is a science to this and, and all the things that we teach at world-class presentation craft are based on a science, a study, the research of, of these kinds of things. And if you’ve either been to that event or you, you know, you’re like me and you sort of nerd out about those things, I was just excited. Cause Vanessa seems like another great resource for people that really love the science part of, I don’t know, here I am using my hands. I can’t, I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it. The hands they just go. They just, they just go. So, yeah. So that was gestures. What was your second?
My second one was really, I, this was so thoroughly fascinated around this whole concept of how do you make a Ted talk go viral. And again, what I love so much about all of this is that it’s not just ideas, right? This is like there it’s very, data-driven it’s data specific it’s research research. I love that. And I think that, to me, it goes back to one of the recent interviews we had with Jason Dorsey around like information and data is your new competitive advantage. And same thing. We had another interview with Aja Yeager and Megan canal. I’m just like data matters, right? Those insights that you gather really matter. And talking about the titles. And so she was very specific and how she really wanted to create a title that was like a command statement that you are something right. So her title of her Ted talk is your contagious.
She talks a lot about how this a little bit different right now during COVID, but again, it’s just like really putting thought and intention into what would people search? What would people be attracted to? How are people gonna find me? And then I thought this was just so fascinating and I’ve really never heard anyone talk about it. The way that she did is the intentionality put behind getting on people’s playlists on YouTube. So just very definitive focus and intention on making sure that her YouTube strategy was intact, which will lead to my third point in a second. But just the whole concept of, you know, there’s a formula for making a Ted talk go viral that really has not as much to do with your Ted talk itself and what you do to make sure people see it.
Yeah. Th that thing about the YouTube playlist was cool because everyone wants to like reach out to the speaker, but she is like, I’m much more interested in reaching out to the person who has a playlist that nobody ever reaches out to, but they have like these really popular playlist. Yeah, that was super cool. Another tactical thing for me, that was just a good reminder, which I actually never realized the brilliance of what Ted did with the red circle. You know, if they do this red circle, the speaking, the dot and you have to stay within the dot. And normally when you take like presentation skills classes, they teach you to use the stage. We talk about that at presentation, craft of different sections of the stage. I mean different things, but one of the big risks is that especially non-professional speakers or early speakers, they have this shifty stance where they’re just always sort of like waffling back and forth and just wandering the stage like meandering aimlessly.
And it really takes away from the power of stand and deliver, which was like classic sort of like 1970s 1960s, I think of like more Utley or Cavett, Robert just standing there with a microphone and just like delivering. And that is, that is one of the most tactical things you can do to enhance the power of your presentations is to plant your feet solid, look, people directly in the eye and deliver a message, right. Not just wandering around because you heard, Oh, you should use the stage, but locking your feet on those key moments in those key points. And that was just a good reminder for me to get back to the basics of like, yeah, I need a lock. I need a lock in place every once in a while. So that was super
Tactical. Same time she talked about the importance of intentional gestures. Yeah. Not just, you know, using hands for the sake of using hands, not knocking the microphone, but for the sake of like, where are you going to place these and what impact does that have? Same thing. Same thing goes for using the stage,
Go to a location plant deliver, go to another location, plant deliver. Don’t just take it back and forth. Yeah. So that was, that was really good reminder. Yeah.
I love that. So then my third and final point was just a great reminder again, which I just keep hearing more and more about this from so many people that we interview on the podcast is like, get Joe self on YouTube. And I just feel like this has been this recurring theme that you don’t hear all the places, but we have heard it repeatedly. Over the last 12 months from all of our guests coming on of, you know, YouTube is still a little bit the wild wild West, right? You’ve got affordable advertising still on YouTube. You’ve got amazing search abilities on YouTube. You’ve got the ability to emotionally connect. It’s all video driven. We already know the data around video and how that’s going specifically with the emerging generations with gen Z. And I can’t even imagine the one after that where video is the most intimate aspect.
And I loved what she said. It’s like, if you’re selling a video course, then you should be on video selling your video course and no better way to be on video than on YouTube. And just like just little things that you’re like, you know, innately, but you’re like, Oh yes. The so those were just really great, but I think, I mean, everyone who is listening, if you listen to this podcast on a recurring basis, then you have heard multiple people talk about the importance of YouTube and the growing importance of YouTube if for a personal brand or for anyone. So I think this was just another, you know, kind of like,
Yeah, we’ve never, I’ve never placed, I think I’ve missed the boat on YouTube, which I talked about. Yeah, there’s still time. But, but I, like, I just have never realized just the power, the magnitude of everything that YouTube is. And there were two things about YouTube, cause this was my third takeaway too, that like YouTube is King. It’s like King of the social media is other than podcasting. But I, I think number one is that YouTube, unlike the other social media platforms, the longer the video has been around, the more valuable,
Right, totally opposite opposite, totally
Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, which is constantly pushing stuff down in the feed. Which is true about a blog and a website also because it’s, it’s like everything, Google, that’s the case. It’s like a fine wine with age. It gets better with all the other social platforms older is, is gone. And then the other thing, remind me, I can’t actually, I can’t, if this was recorded, did we talk about the power of being in the living room and watching the video because you and I are watching the mic, Todd.
Yeah. And also we talked about the TV series, the chosen chosen. So we’ve got this emerging kind of like thing happening with it is to, yeah. I mean, we link it to our TV and that’s what we want,
Literally sitting down to watch church to watch sermons, to watch.
But that is where we watch our, most of our church sermons specifically this year. That is yeah.
And, and sometimes, and sometimes in your bedroom, right. Like
We don’t, but people do. And I just think that’s really a great reminder of like this isn’t like this literally is where people are watching TV series, they’re watching sermon series. So why wouldn’t they also be getting all their content there? And the fact is they are, but you just don’t hear a ton of people talking about it, but you’re going,
Yeah. And we’re doing it. We’re, we’re ramping up. We’ve been, we, we recorded our first set of YouTube ads. Last week. They’re not live yet, but we’re going to be running those. And you know, we’ll report back to you on how those work. But anyways, Vanessa van Edwards, my fellow speaking research nerd. I’m so glad to have met.
Yeah. What you have created right here.
Yes. And now I am empowered.
I am empowered for full head gestures
Meaning, but so anyways, check out the interview. Thank you for being here. We hope you get in practical takeaways. That’s what we’re aspiring to do. We’re grateful for you. Have a great one. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 114: Top Secrets to Effective Speaking with Vanessa Van Edwards
RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) I am so excited for you to meet Vanessa van Edwards. We shared the stage at what I believe is the largest speaking event in the world is the, it’s the biggest one that I know of. It’s called the global leadership summit, and we got to share the stage. And you know, most of you know, I’m, I’m a nerd for technical speaking and built my career coming out of Toastmasters. And she got up and talked about her book captivate and some of the concepts that she studies as the she’s the founder of a company called the science of people. And her book is called captivate, the science of succeeding with people and she analyzes and studies body language and interpersonal communication and human behavior and relationships. And it was just so practical and applicable to everybody. The audience went nuts. I was, I was also tracking book sales. RV: (02:02) So I haven’t shared this with everybody. I was watching book sales with there’s three different tools that we’re using to monitor that. And I was watching Vanessa’s book, which was selling apparently from what we could tell was the top selling book from all the speakers who were there, which is exciting and also a little bit nerve wracking since our book was also for sale. But pretty sales. You got presales. Yeah. I’m I’m I’m sure. I’m sure. So anyways, the other thing to know about her in addition to being this bestselling author she’s very much into data, which I love and, and research and science and analyzing you know, her craft, but she’s also spoken obviously at the global leadership summit. She’s spoken at South by Southwest Google, Facebook, and she has a Ted talk as well. That is called, you are contagious. That also is gone viral. So she’s got over a couple million views on that within just a few years. So anyways, you’re, you’re talking to a pro and I was like, gotta have her, you guys are gonna love her. So welcome to the show, Vanessa. VV: (03:14) Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to talk and dive in. RV: (03:17) So I want to start with your actual work, like what you actually teach, because it’s super relevant to our audience. And you know, we’ll put a link to your Ted talk. You are contagious in the show notes. But can you give us, you know, a little bit? So, so a lot of our audience speaks all of our clients speak. We teach them that the spoken word is the number one marketing tool. There is. So whether it’s free webinars or free speaking, like I spoke for free 304 times, that was how I started my career. In that we eventually turned that into an eight figure business all by speaking for free. But you study a lot of, you know, a lot of your craft relates to speaking and you analyzed Ted talks. What are some of the things that you learned from the viral Ted talks, the successful Ted talks and then the not so viral ones? VV: (04:16) Yeah. You know, I was really intrigued as a speaker on why some Ted talks go viral and others don’t. And what I, when I was searching on the Ted website, I typically watch a Ted talk every day at lunch. I found that there were Ted talks, you know, like Simon Sinek, Tedtalk has millions of views. And I noticed, and I noticed when I was on the website, that there was a very similar talk that came out the same month of the same year. It was released the same on the same year on ted.com, a very similar topic, both 80 minutes, long excepted. Simon’s had millions and millions and millions of views. And this other top had less than 40,000. And I wondered why these were both experts, relatively unknown experts before their Ted talks, by the way. Sure. But something about Simon’s talk, it made it explode. It went viral. And so we decided to analyze thousands of hours of Ted talks. We looked at every Ted talk in 2010 and we split them up based on view count. So the most popular Ted talks versus the least popular Ted talks, RV: (05:19) You looked at weight, you looked at every Ted talk since 2010 in 2010. Oh, in 2010. Wow. Okay. VV: (05:30) I’d still be doing that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also by the way, this was maybe four or five years ago now. So we looked at every, to every Ted talk that was released in 2010, where there’s a limited number that go on ted.com and we didn’t know what we would find. Right. We were looking at all the variables. I was looking at color of clothing. I was looking at entrance. I was looking at smiles. We actually clocked the number of seconds that they smiled. And we found that the biggest difference, the biggest you could actually see it when you put these talks side by side, was that the most popular Ted talkers used an average of 470 gestures, 465 gestures to be precise in 18 minutes, whereas the least popular Ted talkers by view count, use an average of 272 gestures in 18 minutes, almost half. VV: (06:21) And when I looked at this, I realized there were sort of two things happening. One is hands show trust. They show intention. We like to see hands, right? The moment we can see someone’s hands. We feel like we understand them a little bit more, but the second thing was even more important, which was when we know our content exceptionally well. We can actually explain it on two tracks. We can explain it with our words, but we can also explain it with our gestures. And so the very best Ted talkers, it was like they had a two track talk, they had the verbal talk and they had the gesture talk. And what was amazing about it was that it allowed you to have sort of these memory hooks when someone said they had three ideas and they held up the number three, the brain would actually wait, you’d wait to hear all three. And that would also help you remember those three. So I think what was happening is that the really memorable, amazing Ted talks just make it easy to be understood. RV: (07:22) Interesting. And so would you say that Bernay Brown and Simon Sinek and you know, Jan pink? Yeah, sir. Ken Robinson, do they all pass that test or are some of ’em outliers? VV: (07:38) No. Everyone passed the test. The only kind of odd outlier in our data that we looked at was Jamie Oliver. So there is no, yeah. The chef. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s really interesting is most really charismatic speakers. They use hand gestures in a purposeful way. So if they’re talking about something big, they show you how big it is, beach ball big, or is it, you know what ball would this be like? RV: (08:06) Like a Sumo, a Sumo, VV: (08:10) How big is it? Or is it really small and little and just between the two fingers. Whereas Jamie Oliver, his talk is so passionate that he’s actually just making gestures for no reason. He’s just shaking. So that one, I found a little distracting. Now he had a lot of gestures cause he was literally just, he would walk off, he was pacing the stage and just kind of move in his hands. That was the one exception where I thought, Hmm, I think that we, we like the purposeful gesture, the distracted gesture, make someone look out of control. So whenever I teach hand gestures, I like to teach on a spectrum that purposeful is what we’re going for. Jazz hands is not what we’re going for, or even I created some hand monsters in my career and I feel very bad about this. So I taught this research and a couple of students in one of my classes, they thought that I meant like modern dance. So I saw their speeches after my class. And then they came on like this today. I want to talk to you about a big idea. And the sun is going to come out. I mean, it was like, it’s bitsy spider, you know, RV: (09:21) Dan just like interpretive dance, like full VV: (09:24) And so purposeful is good, but like we’re not talking modern dance. I think that with Ken Robinson and Bernay Brown and Simon Sinek, they probably didn’t script out their hand gestures. And I don’t think that we should necessarily either, but we should be so comfortable with our work that we’re able to understand it and explain it visually. RV: (09:43) So gestures. So that’s really interesting. Cause it’s like, what you, where you saw the pattern, wasn’t the type of gesture or like, yeah, it wasn’t like the type of gesture. It was the volume of gestures. And basically twice as many. So that, that, that tells us that that humans are, are nonverbal, which we kind of, we know instinctually, right? It’s like, of course we’re nonverbal. So for an audience of people who are speakers or aspiring speakers or potentially speakers in addition to gestures, are there any other big kind of salient discoveries that you would point to and say, Oh my gosh, if you are speaking a lot, here’s another thing that you really need to know. Like you can’t miss this. And I know, you know, in captivate you talk about voice and you talk about facial expressions. Like in the book, you go through a bunch of different ones, but w VV: (10:43) For many speakers, the book I’m going to give it to you. RV: (10:46) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us one. That’s not in the book VV: (10:48) Book. Is there, if you want to read it, that’s great. But I want to give one, that’s just for speakers. Cause I love talking to audience and speakers. So one thing that I noticed not only in the Ted speeches, but also in working with students is the really, really powerful speakers use the stage as a content aid. And this is a really advanced technique, but once you get it, I think it’s, it’s like you can immediately apply it, which is you want to know where you’re going to plant. And that’s really important. Where are you going to deliver your first line or your first impression? So your first impression happens either the moment the lights turn on at the moment you walk on stage, the more purposeful you all are with that plant. Like I’m going to walk right to the center of the stage that makes your walk more purposeful. I noticed that speakers who don’t have a plant, they kind of wander onto stage. They kind of wander and they’re a little awkward and they, then they don’t quite plant. They kind of, they kind of pivot back and forth. Whereas Vickers who walk out to that plant, that’s one of the reasons why that Ted talk red circle carpet is so brilliant is it just gives speakers. A piece of confidence is this is where you stand. RV: (12:00) Can you explain that? Not everybody knows about what the red dot mean, like what it is. VV: (12:04) Yeah. So in Ted talks, one of the secret ways, I think that they’ve had so much power with their videos is they have a small red circle. And I think that every franchise of Ted talk, they have to have a red carpet on stage or the requirement. And they even have a measurement that they like it to be. And it’s actually a brilliant Lee measured carpet. I think of the red, that circle carpet when I speak without it, like when I just do regular speeches because it’s a plant. So you have someone who walks right out on the stage, they plant in that red circle and then you’re not supposed to leave that red circle. So they really don’t like you to leave it for the cameras, for the lights. I think that Mel Robbins and her Ted talk, she not only left her circles, she actually walked out into the audience was very fair. VV: (12:51) It was a very, you know, avant-garde move and she wasn’t supposed to do it, but I think it worked for her. So the first thing is to know where you’re going to plant have an imaginary red carpet for yourself. And then you want to use the stage as a transition for your content. So for example, okay, I tend to deliver right in the middle. I typically go right to the middle when I speak. And then when I’m talking science or background, I typically go to the left side of the stage and I plant and I deliver the stuff. RV: (13:21) When you say the left side of the stage, are you saying stage left or the audiences left stage left? So to the right, the audience is right stage left. Okay. VV: (13:33) So I, I stand there and then when I’m pivoting or transitioning topics, I literally show the audience. I’m doing it with a physical movement. And then by the end, they know when I’m on the right side of stage, I’m usually telling a story, I’m doing something fun. I’m leading an interaction when I’m in the center of the stage, I’m delivering something super important. And I usually save my super important takeaway challenges. Remember this for the center of the stage and my science and background the other side. And I’ve noticed that it helps people as they take notes. I’ve noticed that helps with attention. I’ve also noticed you have certain people, you know, very warm people who like the stories better. And so everyone needs moments where they’re going to tune out and audience is going to tune out. I would rather it be based on their learning style, but not based on their learning style, I’d rather choose it. So what I’ve noticed is very warm people who love stories and examples, they perk up when I get to the right side of the stage and my science heavy, my high competent folks, my data heads, they perk up when I get to the left hand side. And usually everyone perks up for the middle. So it’s a, I, that’s one of the really big things that I think excellent speakers do to help their audience. RV: (14:48) Yeah. That’s, what’s interesting about, you know, using the stage, but in Ted talks, you can’t because of the red dot, but they force you to plant and be powerful by having that confined space. I think yeah, that’s super interesting. Is there, is there anything you did on the marketing front related to your Ted talk that made it go viral? Like VV: (15:10) Oh yes. So I, I really, you know, it’s a little, it’s a lot of pressure when you study Ted talks that go viral, then you give a Ted talk pressure. You have to then give a viral Ted talks. I was very nervous about it. And the first thing was the title and I argued with them about this, by the way, like we went back and forth on this a lot. Now it’s kind of funny because it’s your contagious, which right now in our current state of the world, it’s getting a lot of use for a different reason. So that ended up working in a different way. And you’ll notice that there’s a lot of comments, recent comments where people are like, I really felt this talk was about something else, but I really liked it. So anyway, in the beginning I wanted a command. I wanted a title that was a command. RV: (16:00) I have a bunch of people worried about contracting COVID that are buying the captivate book and just sitting at home, reading it. VV: (16:08) It’s okay. It’s perfect. Actually, captivate sales have been up a lot in COVID. And so I want, I wanted a command. I wanted to have like a you or like a personal pronoun. So I really wanted to have like a, you are contagious or you are confident or you can do it or you are powerful. I wanted something that was a command because I noticed that a lot of the Ted talks that were out there weren’t, they were very intellectual. They were very much like the future of leadership or how thinking will change the future of humanity. Like, there are a lot of like, talks like that, which is fine, but I just wanted to be a different rant. I wanted to have a different thing. So I wanted to use the word you, I knew that. And I wanted RV: (16:54) I analyze titles by the way or only the gestures and like the actual presentation. VV: (16:59) I didn’t, I did, we didn’t formally analyze titles. No, I should. I, that would be fun. That would be a really easy one to do actually with like just put them all in a big spreadsheet, look at them. That’d be super interesting. So yeah, so that, and then once it came out, not only did I share it, of course, across socials you know, YouTube has been a big driver of our business. I’ve been on YouTube since 2007 when people thought it was like, you know, a joke. And one thing that we’ve learned is playlists are really important. So we did a huge campaign on the backend to get my Ted talk, not embedded in websites that I didn’t care about as much, but to get it on people’s playlists. And so we reach out to influencers, but also just friends who watch a lot of YouTube videos and ask them to put it on a relevant playlist with other videos that we thought people would like along with our sock, with the right search engine title. VV: (17:52) So for example, I reached out to a friend of mine who has a podcast, and I asked him if he would add my video to his playlist called human behavior hacks. And he was like, sure. And then it was immediately placed contextually. So I know on YouTube, your best, you have two options for your, for your game. One is search and YouTube search is very different than Google search. We use a tool called H refs. And so when I’m titling my blogs, I use H refs for Google when I’m titling my YouTube videos and my keywords, I use H reps for YouTube because they have very, very different search. And so I knew what kind of YouTube search that I wanted for the video, but I also knew what I wanted it to be related to. So the second thing that you really like for you to, to elevate your game is watch this next or when your video is listed alongside another video. And so it’s critical to have YouTube algorithm know what other videos people would like. And so I had a list of a hundred or more videos that I thought were the perfect audience for my Ted talk. And so very quickly we were able to scale and we got thousands and thousands of views and then millions of views based on, I think, the placement of relevant videos. RV: (19:12) So when you found a hundred, a hundred videos, a list of a hundred videos that you thought were like your perfect audience, did you just reach out to those people? Did you reach out to those people at all? VV: (19:23) Not typically. Actually a lot of them were other Ted talks, but I wanted to be on the same playlists as those videos. So for example, like if I really liked Allan Pease LMPs is a wonderful author about body language and he has a great Ted talk. He also some great stage talks that have millions of views. I didn’t need to reach out to Allen because his videos are living out other people’s playlists, but I did want to get on to people who listed Allen’s video in their playlists. Does that make sense? So how did you, RV: (19:55) How do you know who, which people have Allen pees on their playlist? VV: (20:00) You can see it. So when you watch his video, you can see, it’ll say like, this is recommended for you. And then you can see that it’s actually within someone else’s playlist. RV: (20:09) Interesting. So just on the video itself, which is like a video you’re probably watching, cause you’re interested in it anyways, you would just go, Oh, okay. I see like other this other recommended video lives on, so, and so’s channel. And so that person is featuring this kind of content. And then you, so it was more like you didn’t contact Alan, you contacted the person that had Allen’s video on his channel VV: (20:33) And they never get contacted. Allen gets contacted all the time. Plus Allen doesn’t own his YouTube, his Ted talk. So it’s not even on, he couldn’t even control if he wanted to. So I don’t need to bother Alan with that. He’s a busy guy, but some of the people who created these amazing playlists who love looking for relevant videos on body language or human behavior or psychology, those are my people. And I love reaching out to them. And they’re also thrilled when I reach out to them. So that’s how we’ve grown our YouTube channel quite a bit since from the beginning. RV: (21:04) That is fascinating. What a super awesome tip. Well, and this is kind of what I wanted to get into as well was a little bit about how, how you’ve built such a great business, because it’s like once you, you know, have a bestselling book and you’re speaking at GLS and you have a viral Ted talk, like you’re checking off a lot of the marks of like pretty big time personal brands, which is, which is super exciting. Clearly the Ted talk has been huge. Is that how GLS found you? Do you know, did you ask him? VV: (21:36) I didn’t ask them. I think that they just knew about me from YouTube. I think they found me from YouTube. So I dunno if that was my Ted talk or other YouTube videos that I had. But that’s where they came to me from seeing those videos. RV: (21:49) Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting to me, to this day, the number one cold way that we book high paid speaking engagements is someone will say, I saw your video on YouTube VV: (22:00) A hundred percent, same as in here, RV: (22:03) Which is crazy. Cause you, you, you know, it’s almost like people put YouTube and Twitter in the same category in terms, and it’s like, they’re completely different, like completely different purposes, completely different audiences. Yeah. VV: (22:14) Yeah. And the way I like to think about it, and this is what I, what I try to talk to my students about is Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and even LinkedIn, our social media platforms, YouTube is a search engine. And that’s how you have to think about it. It’s yes, it’s relatively social, but it is a search engine. So you need to think about it just like you think of Google, you just study your keyword, just like you do for Google. You need to think about your content, like little mini blogs. RV: (22:44) Yeah. I mean, and that’s the other thing like literally is that content on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, the older it is the less valuable it is on YouTube and Google, the older it is the more valuable it is. Like it’s, it’s a complete inverse. That is such a, it’s such a key distinction. I, YouTube is something I’m loving you talking about this. Cause I feel like I’ve ignored you tube, like my entire career. And then, you know, we had a few thousand subscribers and then when we exit our last company that was gone. So, you know, like we had, we’re starting all over and YouTube is the one that I’m going, this is the one that we have missed the boat on. This is the one that drives like real big time revenue, big time credibility. And it sounds like you agree with that. VV: (23:36) Yeah. I completely agree with it. And the good news is you got time, you know, it’s still the wild West on YouTube. I think. I actually think it’s less tapped even than online courses. You know, I got into YouTube in 2007. It’s older. I got into my first online course in 2011, 2012. And even now I feel like online courses, a little bit tapped. I mean, there’s just a lot of opportunity there, but RV: (23:59) Launching an online course, VV: (24:01) Launching teaching, hosting. Yeah. Online courses, you know, like some of the boat has sailed, but like it’s, it’s an, it’s an existing ecosystem, right? Like it exists. You can tap into it, but you really got to work. It YouTube, I think is a lot of low hanging fruit. I think you have time, even though it’s an older, it’s an older beast, the way that people, the amount of video that people are consuming. And the, the bond that you build with people when they watch a video is incredible. And as a speaker and as a, as an influencer, someone who wants to change behavior or change minds, it’s like, you’re getting permission to go into someone’s bedroom, email box, you get to their desk, not as intimate, a YouTube video, you get into their bedrooms, even a podcast, you maybe get to their kitchen or their gym, but a bed is usually YouTube. I don’t mean that in a, in a weird way, but like, it’s so intimate when you’re with someone and you’re sharing a story that they really feel like, wow, I know her. I cannot tell you how many times I’m walking down the street and people are like, I love your YouTube. I feel like you’re my friend. No. And that’s, that’s a very special thing. RV: (25:08) Yeah. I mean, that’s interesting. So Mike, Todd was one of the other speakers with us. Did you get to see his speech and tell us, yeah, I loved it. I thought it was so great. And so AIG and I are watching his sermon series on relationship goals and we either watch it in bed or the living room couch. But to what you’re saying, both of those are that’s where you, that’s very intimate, that’s intimate a space and at different locations. And I’ve never really thought about that. I’ve always thought about the podcast being right in someone’s ear, which is very intimate. But you know, you, you don’t make a date to listen to a podcast, but you will sit down and like, alright. Or have you ever seen the show? The chosen on YouTube? Oh my gosh. It’s incredible. It’s a, it’s a TV series. That’s only available on YouTube and it’s free, but it’s like, we make a date to sit down and watch something on YouTube. VV: (26:02) Yeah. I think that that’s the difference, right? Like when I am listening to my podcasts, I am always doing something else. And even if I wasn’t doing smells, I begin to sweat. I fold clothes. I do laundry. I clean up the toys in the living room. Like I’m always, I’m like, it’s a thing where my hands are free. Not with YouTube. I’m going to watch a video. It’s my ears and my eyes. And there’s not much else I can do. I have to be locked in with you. And so it’s just a much more intimate and fulfilling experience. There’s a reason I haven’t done a podcast yet. I mean, maybe I will one day, but it’s because I also know that I, the biggest, so in our business, our revenue is sort of split between speaking online courses and then a little bit like ad revenue. And we don’t do any paid search. We only have organic search. And I know that the best way for me to sell courses is to get organic YouTube search that turns into an online email subscriber. It then turns into a, a buyer of our video course. And so if I want to sell a video course, the best way for me to do that is being on video. RV: (27:03) Yeah. So let me ask you that. This is so awesome. Okay. So when you say organic YouTube search, most of that is just basically like optimizing your video as a blog post on YouTube. So you’re showing up in search and then in the description, you’re driving people to a lead, a lead capture, which is gonna then nurture like a lead magnet. And then that will nurture them for the course. When you do, when you sell courses, do you do mostly like a video? Do you do mostly like video sales letters, like a video funnel, like yeah. Three videos and then buy on the fourth video or do you more like a one long webinar kind of thing. VV: (27:44) So we’ve tested all of them feels like all of them we’ve tested the three videos to a purchase. We’ve tested a webinar to a 60 minute webinar to a purchase, which so 20 minute webinars, no purchase. We’ve tested a six email written series. We’ve tested, sneak previews, we’ve tested an audio training. The one that doesn’t work very well is three videos. We have too much dripping in the funnel too much, too much loss when we find that when people want it, they want it. So we don’t want to make them wait. So the best thing that we found is either an audio training for 60 minutes right away, or like a webinar for 45 to 60 minutes right away video. RV: (28:23) Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. well, where should people go if they want to connect with you and like learn more, obviously they can get the book captivate, which is awesome. We’ll put, we’ll put a link to your contagious. You are contagious, Ted talk, where else Vanessa, if they want to learn more about all the stuff you do. VV: (28:41) Yeah. If you want to see our funnel and action I recommend going to science of people.com/join. That will be whatever our latest in is. And so you’ll be able to see if he, you go to that, like sometimes it’s our likability training, which is the audio training, which also eventually converts into our big course or you’ll get our one of our webinars. And so that’s a really good way to get kind of acquainted with some of our materials and our free courses. But also if you are interested in sort of the funnel of the backend of how we build rapport and build relationships and teach to sell, you can all see it that way as well. Love it. RV: (29:17) Science of people.com/join. You can go there. We’ll link that up in the show notes, Vanessa, thank you so much. You’ve been so generous and like tactical and just is such, such actionable stuff particularly for personal brands. So we wish you very much the very best VV: (29:34) Gosh, I’m so grateful. Thanks for featuring my story and thanks everyone for listening. [inaudible].
Ep 113: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod | Recap Episode
Hey, welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We are here breaking down the episode with Hal Elrod. AJ was just making fun of me before we started. And so that’s why I see he’s chuckling, but we’re going to give you our top three and three takeaways, and I’m going to go first this time. You know, I have so much respect for how I think you probably hear that in the interview, but from a technical perspective, in addition to his personal story of dying and coming back to life, which is incredible. He also is an eight self publishing success story, probably my favorite self published success story. And everyone thinks you have to traditionally publish. And there’s a lot of advances. There’s a lot of advantages to traditionally publishing, but you know, he tells the story about for three years, he tried to ride it and he thought he had to traditionally publish.
And then finally just realized that actually the publisher doesn’t do that much to promote your book. And so you have to do the promotion anyway. So why not self publish? And he does it and boom, 2 million copies tell, I don’t know of anyone that sold 2 million copies, self published, and it’s just incredible. And to me inspiring that it’s not just traditional publisher. Self-Publish it’s what is your dream? And what belief are you allowing to hold you back? What, what wall are you allowing to be there that you’re, you’re acquiescing to? When in reality, there’s not even a wall there and you can just blow through it and figure it out yourself. You don’t need to get a TV show. You can launch your own show. You don’t need to get a traditionally book published deal. You can self publish, like you don’t need to be on national radio. You can launch a podcast. So many limits just exist in our own mind. And I just, I loved that. It was inspiring to me it a long rant. That was not that long. Hold on, pause the recording. Let’s go look. I don’t think it was though.
It’s felt long, been a long day, but I think is really pertinent to this particular interview. And as you can tell, this is a, not a shower day for me. This is my mommy day. And Rory, actually,
For those of you watching this on YouTube, those of you listening to the podcast,
I sound just as like normal
In full makeup and full hair and her nicest outfit.
Oh, well, yes, but I will tell you it’s, it’s kind of interesting because we, we came in through, from a weekend trip yesterday and didn’t have time to record our recap when we typically do. And Tuesdays are always my mommy day where I’m just full time mom, all day long with my two toddlers. Which means I don’t usually get a shower or hair or makeup or do anything for myself. Maybe I get to eat. But Rory was like, Hey, I really want you to listen to this. And I’m like, Oh, you can just record this one. And then I listened to it and I’m like, Oh, now I know why he insisted that I listen to it. Cause I had a really couple of negative moments of like, I’m so overwhelmed. There’s not enough. There’s not enough time to go around.
No one’s looking out for me. Kind of had some of those moments and he was like, Hey, are you going to listen to that podcast? And I’m like, okay, well now it’s all clicking and I’ll putting together. And I think that was one of the things that was really important to me listening to this and why all of you should listen to this as much as you’re going to learn about your personal brand and self publishing and traditional publishing for that matter and building a community. I think the first half of the interview is worth listening to whatever you, you gleam from the rest of it is awesome. But the first half is just such a great reminder, no matter where you are in your personal brand journey, you control how you feel, right. You control. If you think you’re succeeding or not.
That has a hundred percent to do with your perspective and your perception of what is impact to you. Is it one person? Is it a million persons? Like why does that matter? It’s like, why do you have to have a hundred thousand followers versus a hundred followers? If you truly believe in what you’re doing and what you’re called to do. And that, I just feel like that more than anything else is why you should listen to this interview and follow Hal and read the book and do all the things and why I really needed to listen to this myself right now is that great reminder of, I have nothing to complain about. I have everything to be grateful for and so do you, right? If you have the opportunity to share your message to even one person that is worth it, it is not about your follower count.
It’s not about six, seven, eight figure advances, even though those are awesome, right? Those are amazing byproducts of just doing what you believe in and what you’re called to do. And I just think if you just focus in on what are you called to do and what are you passionate about and what are you grateful for and how does that just exude from every part of your being, this will work out for you at some point at some time in some way, this will work out for you. And how is a great example of, I’m not gonna wait around for anyone else to do this for me, I can just go do it myself, because I feel that called to the message to the mission and to getting this out there and I’ll do what I gotta do. And sometimes that’s what we gotta do. So that’s why I really think this is awesome.
Yeah. And that, as I would, I would count that as my, I was actually going to save it for my third takeaway. But since you brought it up the first half of the interview, if you haven’t listened to it yet is his personal story about how he died. Came back to life, died again, came back to life, made it through this whole bout and then had cancer and just this inspiring outlook on what it means to be alive. And and how you are in control of what’s going on inside. Like there’s a lot of thing, a lot of things externally that we don’t have control over, but everything that’s going on inside, you are in control of your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, what you choose to be grateful for, what you decide to spend your time on and to hear it in the context of someone that has gone through so much challenge is just inspiring.
And I, I agree with you it’s that his personal story is just so moving that it is it’s beyond all the wonderful technical details that he shared, you know, things about how self publishing works and how do you do it and how did the advances work and how does the money work? He was super transparent. But you’re in charge of what’s going on inside of your head. And I think as influencers or personal brands we are, so we’re so used to being the teachers or the messengers, it’s easy to forget how we also have to be the students and getting to learn from other people like how and go, wow. Like I’ve got a lot of personal development work to do myself, in addition to all the business work I need to do on my, on my brand. So it was, that was awesome. That was my second takeaway.
Yeah. And I think one of the, I think one of the more technical components of this as it relates to building your personal brand and, you know, writing and speaking and publishing and all the things that he talks about. But I just really love this, this whole concept of people talk about this a lot in the space of you can’t really make a ton of money selling books anymore. A book is more of like a business card. We’ve even said that well he proves that very, very, very wrong, and I think that’s awesome. Like you need some people to step up and go, no, you can. It’s just, you’re not. And I, that was like a really good like, Oh yeah. Like you really can make a lot of money. I mean, you’ve got plenty of people. Who’ve, you know, you know, you’ve got, you know, the Twilight and Harry potters and all of those ends of the world.
But then, but then like when you come to like the real personal development and business space, it’s like, you’ve got those two, you’ve got, you know, like Dave Ramsey and how L rod on the self publishing route like that, that is worth noting. And I just want you guys to like, pay attention. It’s like he has sold 2 million copies self-published and average retail price is around $20. And let’s just say he even gets to keep half of that, which I think he said it averages a little bit higher than 50%. I’m on print version. Y’all at $9. And I just low balled. It like is $10 would be 50%, but at $9 at 2 million copies, you don’t have to be a mathematician to do this. It’s $18 million. You can make plenty of dough selling your books that you self published. And there is all kinds of talk in the industry about, well, if your book won’t just won’t be seen as credible, or it won’t have the same distribution. Well, that just ain’t the case here. And that just proves all of that wrong of, well, no, you can write, you can do that, but you gotta hustle and you gotta do it and you gotta be committed to it. And I, I think that was a great reminder of, you know, you can just, most people aren’t,
Right. Yeah. If you sell a million of any set and you’re going to make money, right. Like matter what it is. And that’s really good. And, and yeah, I think it’s, you know, John Gordon and John Maxwell are people who traditionally published, who I have sold a lot. They have make plenty of money from just book sales. And the Andrews makes plenty of money from just book sales through traditional route. And then you have hell rod. And then, you know, of course, Dave Ramsey’s self-published stuff and then traditionally published and gone back to self publishing. So yeah, I, I love that. And to your point about the hustle, I was just looking up the notes the first year, he said he did 140 interviews, 30 podcasts interviews did 36 speeches and sold like 13,000 copies. He’s strong, which is super strong, but it’s also not the one where you go, Oh, they sold 50,000 units on opening week. And you know, this is, this is the next book that’s going to sell a million. It was 13,000 copies over the first like year and a half, but then he did it consistent and it grew
Not consistent. It totally multiplied because it went from 13,000 in year, one to six years later, 2 million or a million,
Six years, six years to reach a million,
18,000 to a million in six years is like pretty aggressive.
That’s amazing. Well, and so that was my third point is this Facebook group that, you know, and here’s what I think the point is is that if you build a community around your message, then book sales naturally flow out of that, right? Like most people think, how can I build a community around my book when I have a book launch in order to sell my book. And it’s like this one time thing, how wasn’t doing it out of marketing, he was doing it out of impact. He’s like, I want to create a place for people to support one another in cheer each other on and get them to meet me and I can meet them and to answer their questions. And, and it’s the, the Facebook community that he built that, yeah. You know, when you have 250,000 people in your Facebook group every day, talking to each other, of course, they’re going to like the topic of conversation is around this thing.
That is your book. Of course, those people are going to buy, and they’re not just going to read it and forget about it. They’re in there all the time. It’s like having 250,000 salespeople for your book. And that flew flow out of flown out of it, grew out of it. It came out of a mission to serve and build a community around a message, not build a community around a book. And we actually use house book in our bestseller launch plan, which is one of our phase three events. There’s a, there’s a window of that event that we talk about the long tail sales plan, like the perennial bestseller. And we talk about building a community around you know, a movement, not just around a book and how is this great, an example of that? And you can do that today. Even if you don’t have a book, you can build that community now and pour into people and then it will sell books.
Well, you can tell Roy is very passionate about this particular topic. And now there’s a lot of hand movements, a lot of hands movement,
Youtube. You’re seeing my hand movements come aggressively at the camera.
There’s a lot, there’s a lot of hands moving over here. My third point is somewhat similar to that, but I think that I’m not going to say it’s easy, but how really deep details out the plan of, it’s not that difficult to get your book self published and get it distributed. Right. And he really lays out like, well, here’s the company that does this, and this is how you do this. And this is how you get an audio and here’s on Kindle. And it’s like, I’m not going to say it’s easy because that’s still work. But it is simple. It’s not rocket science. And we just have so many people in our network. And if people who are clients that are just baffled and stuck about what do I do, and it’s like, just do something right. If you’re waiting around to decide if you should get traditionally published, it’s like, I think he made a great point.
It’s like, ask yourself how big is your platform? And if it’s not going to sell itself for you, then you should go ahead and self publish. And here’s what you do, right? Here’s how you set up your distribution with Amazon. This is how you set up your Kindle. These are the percentages, and then you do the deal and then you go out and you sell it. You get on podcast interviews, you go speak and you the pants off of it. But if you really are trying to go for that traditional route, it’s just a great reminder of publishers. Aren’t trying to sell your book. It’s your job to sell your book. So do you want to sell it via a publisher and their distribution or sell it via yourself and use all the other distribution channels that have developed over the last 10, 15 years. That really weren’t there back in 2010, like these are all things that have exponentially made this process easier for people to get their messages out there, which is you. And you don’t have to be traditionally published to make tons of money and to be a super credible author these days, you’ve got tons of examples of that. It’s just how bad do you want to do it?
Absolutely. Amen. And you can find a way you can figure it out, by the way, if you’re looking for tactical strategies on how to actually market your book. I mentioned this already. We have an event called bestseller launch plan, which specifically teaches you tactics to market the books. And we use, like I said, how as a case study, another thing that we address in there is when to self publish versus when to traditionally publish you know, a quick tip on that just to rough, a rough guide is we usually say, if you have a platform where you think you can move 10,000 units in the first four to six weeks, that’s a good signal that you’re ready for traditional publishing. And that it probably makes sense. And if you’re not there, or even if you are there, you still need to take a good look at self publishing because of all the reasons that he was talking about the cool 18 million of them, if you got a calculator so anyways, go listen to the interview. Thanks for being here, knocked down the walls, let us know how we can help you. We’re here to support you along the way. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brands.
Ep 112: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod
RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:04) My day is just better. When I look on my calendar and I see an appointment with Hal Elrod I have grown to love this man. Truly love him. And it’s like, John O’Leary, you heard me, I’ve interviewed John O’Leary before. These are two of like people that most inspire me in a profound way personally, in terms of what they’ve overcome in their life, the attitude of which they’ve overcome it. And what, how has been able to build in terms of a community is just inspiring. And it makes a difference in the world. Like he is someone who is a mission driven messenger. He’s a classic example of what we’re trying to help people become in his book. The miracle morning is what we actually uphold in our bestseller launch plan event, as sort of like the ultimate pinnacle of a, of a self published work. RV: (01:55) It has now sold over 2 million copies. There are multiple derivatives of the book for, you know, different groups. He released another book called the miracle equation, not too long ago and how, and I saw each other again, and we shared the stage at an event, one of the best speaking events in the world advisors Excel in early 2020, it was like one of the last human events in person events. And I got to see him speak which was such a treat. So anyways, how brother welcome to the show. Good to see you, Rory brother. It is, it is a pleasure man. And I’m I’m excited to to dive into that. So I want you to tell the story. We want to hear the story of the miracle morning community, which is amazing 270,000 people in this Facebook group. And I want to hear how you built a quarter million people in a Facebook group and sold 2 million copies of a self published book. But for people who don’t know you, can you just tell us like a little bit of your personal story of like, what happened and, and, you know, you survive this near death experience and then how that kind of led to you starting your, you know, as an, HE: (03:12) On a personal brand. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all have wake up calls at different times in our, in our lives. And they usually come from adversity, right? Some sort of adversity challenge tragedy. When I was 20 years old, I was driving home from a Cutco sales meeting. I sold Cutco cutlery and I gave a speech that night at this conference and driving home that night in a brand new Ford Mustang. My first new car, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And my car spun off the drunk driver. The car behind me hit me at 70 miles an hour in my door. And I broke 11 bones on the left side of my body from the side impact. And that night I bled to death. It took the paramedics and the fire department and our to use the jaws of life and cut me out of the car. HE: (03:55) And so I was just bleeding with 11 broken bones in the car. And that night I was I died on the helicopter. I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes while I was taken to the hospital. You know, heart stopped beating, wasn’t breathing for six minutes and then six days in a coma. And I flat lined twice more. He came out of the coma to be told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And I always joke that my wife will about for the brain damage, but I did learn to walk again. And you know, and, and went on to, and not really did launch me into like, even in the hospital. I’m like, I felt this sense of purpose. Like I’m meant to overcome this in the most positive, proactive way. I can, as an example for other people. HE: (04:39) And I didn’t know who those other people were. I didn’t know if those were just going to be my future kids or my circle of influence or my family or the world, but I did always want to be a, a keynote speaker, motivational speaker. I called it back then. And I remember I told my dad, I said, dad, you know, he, he was the doctors were wondering why I was so positive. And I said, look, I’ve always wanted to be motivational speaker, but I had kind of a normal life. I never had anything good to talk about this. Maybe this is why this is happening. So I have a story of overcoming that I can share with others and, you know, turned into be exactly that. And and then in 2008, when the economy crashed, I crashed. RV: (05:18) So you actually, so you died clinically died three separate times and, and that, that’s how this all started. HE: (05:26) Yeah. That’s where, yeah, that, that, that was where that adversity, that wake up call of like, Hey you know, it really taught me what I think right now is so important year. What year was this? Two a night, December 3rd, 1999. Okay. And yeah, so 99, so 20 little over 20 years, right, right. Over 20 years ago. And and just taught me that our, our outer world what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with other people what’s going on in our government, what’s going on in our job. What’s going on in the economy is not determining the determining factor of our inner world. You know? And, and I really that’s what I learned is that the, the, the world can be falling down outside of me. And I will choose to be at peace, happy and grateful, no matter what’s going on around me. HE: (06:12) And that for me, I applied three years ago with diagnosis of cancer, a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. And, you know, as a doubt, I mean, you know, when you’re, when you’re sitting there looking at your 11 or your seven year old daughter in the face and your four year old son and the doctor just told you that day, that you’re most likely going to die. It’s a hardest, that’s the hardest thing, you know, to deal with. And and I have, I had the same, the same decision. The day I was diagnosed with cancer. And given those grim odds, I called my wife. She was out of town and I had to tell her, and she in buttoned tears. And I said, sweetie, I promise you one thing, I can’t promise that I’ll beat this, but I promise, I believe I will give it everything I have, but I said, I will promise you, I will be the happiest and the most grateful and the strongest I’ve ever been while we endure the most difficult time in our lives together. HE: (07:02) And it was by far the most difficult time, but but I was, you know, there’s video of me, you know, in pain and, and no hair and then chemo. And, but just genuinely, like, I’m not letting my circumstances dictate my emotional wellbeing. And I think for all of us, we, we, we’ve been conditioned to think they’re mutually exclusive like, Oh, bad things happening in the world. And in my life, I feel bad, good things happen. I feel good. But, you know, I think that the most important thing that we can adopt is it doesn’t matter. What’s going on outside of me. I am always in control of what’s going on inside of me. And from that place, we can find joy, happiness, motivation to create the circumstances that we want in our lives. RV: (07:42) Gosh, brother, that is just so powerful and meaningful and needed, I mean, in the world. So, so how does, did the community start first or did the book start and like, did you try to traditionally publish and or did you just kind of go like, cause basically, so miracle morning was the first book, miracle equations, the new book, but miracle morning is this story. And then it’s also a morning routine and set of set of practices that you follow and help people to live this. Did you so, so talk to me about the book. Like when does the book come on? How does that come about? HE: (08:22) So miracle morning, it was, it was never a book idea. It was in 2008, when the United States economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. And after like a six month downward spiral of losing over half of my clients losing my, you know, having to foreclose on my house getting my body fat percentage tripled, like I, I was, I was, I was in debt. I was depressed. I was kind of a mess and a series of events and some advice from a good buddy of mine. John Burgoff do you know John Bergoff? I don’t know John Bergoff and that’s all right, I’ll introduce you at some time. But I said, John gave me advice. He said, how you should go for a run every morning and listen to self-help. He said, put yourself in a peak state, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and listen to something that will enhance your mental and emotional wellbeing. HE: (09:07) And I’m like, Oh, okay. You know, like I need to make money even. And I don’t, I don’t say that’s gonna make me money, but, but it basically led me to realize that how I start my day was the single most determining factor in the state that I begin the day in and thus carried out the day in and thus created my results. And so, in other words, how you start your day sets the tone, the context and the direction for the rest of your life. And so I started practicing this and it changed my life very quickly. I went and told my wife, after two months of doing this, I said, this morning routine feels like a miracle. You know, we’ve doubled our income. We have all these amazing results. And she goes, it’s like your miracle morning. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And then that’s when I started teaching it to people, my clients, and in speeches and RV: (09:53) Quickly that the most successful male authors in the world are simply plagiarizing from their wives. Yeah. Yes. HE: (10:00) Our wives or our muses. Yeah, no, she, she, she came up with the title and even though, again, it wasn’t a different book title, but so I finally was like, I have a responsibility because it changed my life and it was changing all of my clients’ lives. And I went, none of us were morning people. So the, this, if this could change our lives, this could change anybody’s life. And I felt a sense of responsibility to write a book about it. And it took me three years. And during that time to answer your question on the traditional versus self publishing, I thought, okay, I really want to change millions of lives with this book. So therefore I have to traditionally publish to be taken seriously and for it to get any distribution. And then as I kept writing the book and doing my research, I went, Oh, that’s not true. HE: (10:42) Like the publisher doesn’t do much to market your book unless you have a household name and they know that it’s going to give them, you know, give them a nice ROI. I realized that if you traditionally published, you’re lucky just to get a deal and then you still have to do all the marketing. So I thought, I believe in this concept, I’m going to self publish. I self published the book on 12, 12, 2012, so 12, 12, 12. And it didn’t have a huge, you know, I didn’t have a big, I wasn’t an influencer. I wasn’t like Tim Ferriss. I didn’t have a blog. I, you know, I wasn’t well known. And it’s about a year and a half of, of promotion. The first year I did 150 podcast interviews. I did 50 of my own podcasts. I get 36 speeches. HE: (11:24) I was on 12 TV shows. Like I did everything I could. And I sold like 13,000 copies. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I was committed for as long as it took to get the message out. And it took six years, six years to reach a million, a million copies sold. And in that time, the book was translated and traditionally published in 37 different languages. So once it got fractioned being self published an agent reached out, I got an intro to an agent and said, Hey, this, you know, this things like the trajectory of this book is, is, is going off, you know, was on fire. We think that traditional publishers would be interested and publishers. And so, yeah. So then, so it’s, it’s still sell published in the U S and it’s traditionally published in 37 other countries. So RV: (12:14) Do you have to traditionally publish a book to make money from writing a book? HE: (12:19) No. I would say 90. RV: (12:23) That was a short, complete answer there. HE: (12:26) No, no. Tell us about it. 95 to 99% of authors I would say would be better served self publishing. I have 13 books or so, and all of them, except one is traditionally published. And that was last year. And here’s what I learned. The only thing that a publisher cares about, I shouldn’t say the only thing, their highest priority is the size of your platform. That’s it? That’s what you get paid in, advance on. It’s not on how good your idea. Everybody thinks I have the best idea ever. They don’t care because the best idea, if you don’t have an audience that you can reach that, that book too. That’s why anybody that’s on the news or has a talk show, Anderson Cooper, whoever, right? Like Oprah, they get a multimillion dollar band because the publisher knows that it’s a guaranteed success, right? It’s a business. HE: (13:12) So if you have a large platform of, you know, let’s say a hundred thousand followers, then it’s worth shopping around to a traditional publisher and seeing what kind of advance you can get. But the big difference is you’re going to get, you know, let’s say on average, 10, 12% of the royalties are of the book, the profits from the book, if you traditionally publish, when you self publish, you get anywhere from 70 to 90% of the profits. And so in the long game, you’re, you know, you’re almost always better off to self publish. So, RV: (13:47) So I love that. So thank you. Thank you for that. It’s funny you use that 100,000 number. We use the same number. We say once you have a hundred thousand followers, that’s about the time to start, look at traditional publishing. And when you can move 10,000 units, when you feel like you can sell 10,000 units on opening week, that’s when it’s time to think about bestseller, you know, like bestseller, New York times wall street journal, kind of a thing, but the money here. So can you talk to us about how the money works? Like, we don’t need to know how much you make or anything, but like, I think a lot of people don’t realize that, like people say, you know, you don’t make money writing a book. It’s just a business, HE: (14:28) Which, yeah, RV: (14:29) It is a business card, but you actually can make a truckload of money from doing this, but can you walk us through, like, how does the money work? Like where does it actually, like if you, if I type a book, if I write out a book on my computer today, it took you three years and then I go print it and put it in Amazon, or I use create space, or then what happens? And where do you, where does, where do all the sales come? They come from Amazon. I’m assuming a lot of them happen in Amazon. HE: (14:59) Yeah. So all of, I mean, so all true. All self published books. So I self published through it was CreateSpace now it’s called it’s Kindle direct publishing, which they just took over create space. It’s all, they were all, it was an Amazon company. And and so that when you publish the book, you just check a box if you want it on Tindall right. So paperback, Kindle and then Amazon owns a company. I don’t know if it’s changed since I started doing this, but it was a C X, the letter, a letter C X acx.com. And that is what that is there. Audio book publishing arm. So audio book, self publishing. And so I, you earn on your traditional books. So my traditional, my paperback is or on my self published paperback it’s the retail price is 20 bucks is what I haven’t said at 1999. Amazon sells it for whatever they want, which usually ranges from 15 to 18. And I think I earn just under $9 per book compared to a dollar or two per book, if it was traditionally published. Right? So you sell you know, a thousand copies of the book, right times, you know, that’s, that’s what, $8,000 in income now on Kindle you price it at nine 99, you were in 70% yearning, $7 per book sold on Kindle. Okay. Sorry. Hold on. Sorry. Kindle. RV: (16:22) So, so like on paperback, you’re getting like 50% HE: (16:25) Ish. Yeah, yeah. 50% ish and 70% on, on Kendall. RV: (16:30) Got it. Okay. 50% paperback and then 70%. HE: (16:33) And it’s not an exact formula it’s based on the cost of printing based on how many pages you are. Right. So, so, but, but let’s say yeah, you know, 40, 50% and then on audible I got lucky when I signed on the audible, they used to have a sliding scale where the more books you sold, the higher your percentage jumped up and it stayed there forever. So we are now at 90% for audible. So we are nine on, but now that’s not the case anymore. They changed that model. It’s now a flat 40. So you had 40% of all your books sold an audible. When you go through the, the audible exchange, the ACX company, you can find a narrator, put up, put up, you know, a word, a PDF of your first chapter of your book. You can have people audition for it and then choose one and then either pay them a split or pay them upfront. RV: (17:21) Wow. I mean, that’s pretty simple. I mean, really like, that’s, it’s really pretty simple. And then you’re just basically like doing social media and emails and speaking, and webinars and like, whatever, like all the usual stuff, people go to Amazon or Kindle or audible, and then they buy books and, and then get, HE: (17:40) Yeah, you get a direct deposit in your bank account every month. That direct deposit every month. Yeah. Towards the end of the month. Okay. RV: (17:46) That’s so cool. I mean, and 2 million copies is, is all in for paperback, Kindle and audio. HE: (17:54) So 2 million copies, a half of that roughly is self published us and the other half are those other 37 foreign publishers. So the other half are across the other countries, which by the way, I think a million are in Brazil alone. That’s been the biggest, I think we’ve sold more books in Brazil than in the United States. It went crazy there. Wow. RV: (18:15) That’s so funny. I mean, it’s random how that stuff happens. And then, so talk to us about the, the community, the community. Yeah. Like w w w when did you start that? I mean, this is like, this is way before Facebook groups where like a strategy, you were just, I remember the first time we met, I can’t remember. Maybe it was probably John Ruhlin who interviewed, introduced us, or maybe, actually I think it was Peter Vogue actually, who introduced. And I think the first time you interviewed me, it was actually maybe in the community. I don’t even know if you had a podcast back then. I don’t know if that’s right, but, you know, anyways, tell us how did it start? HE: (18:54) W w where did this come from? So it was an 11th hour deal where I had sent the, my almost finished a manuscript for the miracle morning to a handful of my buddies. And I was like, Hey, will you guys read this and give you feedback? And Jon Vroman was like, Hey, have you thought about creating some sort of online group, any, and this was yeah, 2011, right. Or 12. He said, somewhere, he goes, it feels like this is going to be a lonely venture for a lot of people. Like, if they’re the only morning person, their family they’re by themselves. And there’s nobody to, to connect with and be held accountable to. And he goes, I could see them sliding backwards. I was like, Oh, that’s a great idea. You know, he goes, yeah. He goes, I go. And so I started looking like Kajabi. HE: (19:34) I’m like, maybe I’ll create like an online form. And he said, dude, if I were you, I would just do Facebook groups. He goes, don’t, don’t give people another place to log into because they don’t have that as a habit. You’re trying to get them to create a new habit. If they’re already on Facebook, they’ve got notifications built in the functionality of the group has already, he goes, I would remit the wheel, I’d go to Facebook. And I’m like, yeah. Great idea. So I started a Facebook group called the miracle morning community with me, my mom, dad, John Broman, my sister, right. Like, you know, a handful of us. And I put in the, in the book in the beginning, a special invitation join the miracle morning community to, you know, to, to get accountability and encouragement, swap smoothie, recipes, learn new meditation routines, like whatever. HE: (20:19) And I was the only one in there. I would just check in every day and put quotes and means and add value and right in there and this and that. And as the book sold, right. I mean, as the, you know, so in the beginning, the Facebook group mimicked the book sales because that’s where people found out about it. And and so it started out with, you know, grew to a few hundred people and then eventually crossed a thousand and that particular year, you know, and and then and then it just, it just kind of scaled up. And, and now there’s 270 some thousand members from over a hundred countries. And and they support each other. Like, I don’t, it doesn’t run on me. It’s, it’s them logging in every day. And it’s, we’ve really created this culture of people who are waking up every day and dedicating time to fulfilling their potential with their miracle morning. HE: (21:05) And then they’re, they’re lifting each other up, they’re supporting each other and you get in there, people that, you know, that will celebrate, you know, Hey, today’s day 100 of the miracle morning, and then you’ll get somebody that’s like, Hey, I’m brand new. My friend told me about this group in this book, but I’m not a morning person. Should I do it? And don’t get 150 people for an hour. And they’re like, dude, I was the same, I wasn’t a morning person. Like it works, you know? And, and then they’ll give it a try. So yeah, it’s become really, really, really, really a special, special place, RV: (21:35) Man. That, that is so awesome. And so just a technical question here, you know, like normally when you post on Facebook, a very small fraction of the people, see it when you posted in the Facebook group, like at that scale 270,000, is that similar that only a fraction of those people are seeing it? Or is it, is it, is it because it’s a group it’s a little, it’s a little different HE: (22:01) No, it’s still true. And it’s really, really frustrating. Right. I mean, it is what it is, but and we’re, and we have explored, you know, going with a different platform, like mighty networks and yeah, but it’s just, it’s this, it goes back to John Bowman’s original advice, which is like, you know, are they people really going to log into a different thing? And so we’re, that’s still ideal. We want to take the control of that, but to give you an idea yesterday, one of our admin Stephanie Blackbird, she runs the group in terms of the admin for it. And cause we get, you know, hundreds of new requests every day, somebody’s got to, you know, vet those. And she, but she posted, where are you from? And in less than 24 hours, we had over a thousand comments. You know what I’m saying? I’m from, I’m from Belgium, I’m from France, I’m from America, I’m from Russia and from you just all over the place. So I would imagine out of the 270,000 people, maybe 2000 saw it, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s, it’s definitely tough. RV: (22:59) Yeah. Well, I mean, whether you’re sending emails or you’re doing social media or, I mean, you’re always, you’re always dealing with that, but how cool that this community has taken a life of its own and and then it’s like, it just, it’s just growing, like it’s just this asset that just keeps making a bigger and bigger impact in the world. HE: (23:20) So like what else RV: (23:22) Do you do other than the book? I mean, the cool thing is if you have one great book, self published book like this, like you could actually make a pretty fine living just off of the book and then, and then you speak and any other parts of the business model that you’re working on or have been doing that you’re super excited about. I mean, obviously I know you’ve you were dealing with cancer here for a while, so that’s been, you know, that’s got to have been. HE: (23:46) Yeah, well, yeah. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the Mo the miracle morning movie is coming out on 12, 12 to 2020, and there’s nothing I’m more excited about than that, but I will share what I turned before. I I’ll, I’ll get to that in a second. It was that when the book came out I, you know, I, then I started, I was a college speaker and I always wanted to be a keynote corporate speaker and be able to raise my fees and Reno reach more people. And so I used the book to plant the seed in there that, you know, when I was speaking at this event, when I was speaking at this event, you know, I can, you know, I’ll bring the miracle morning to you guys. Right. And and so almost every speech I’ve given in the last, you know, whatever eight years is some leader that read the book and wanted me to bring it to their people. HE: (24:30) Right. So it did, it might, my speaking career launched off of that. The so that was a speaking career. And then we started doing live events every year, and then God, last year, because I was having trouble with the chemo and depression and anxiety, I decided to take a year off of the event, which is this, it would have been this December and who knows what headache. It would have been trying to deal with the hotel and re refunding 500 tickets transitioning to LA, you know, online, who knows. So, so we did have live events. We did have a mastermind right now it’s it’s, I just do virtual keynotes, which are not the same as you know, I’m sure. And so, so, but books and virtual keynotes, and then, yeah, we were making a documentary called the miracle morning movie about five or six years ago, we started making this and I started going around and interviewing, you know, world-class influential people, Muhammad Ali, 18, or Mohammed Ali’s daughter, sorry, not Muhammad Ali mom and all these daughter, Laila Ali she’s in it, her morning routine, you know, Brendon Burchard, his morning routine Lewis, Howes, Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma. HE: (25:40) We started interviewing all these world-class individuals, their morning routine. And that was the movie we were making. And and then I was diagnosed with cancer and I called our director and I said, Hey we gotta put the movie on hold, man. I’m, I’m fighting for my life. It’s not looking, it’s not, it doesn’t look good. And he said, you know, being a filmmaker, he said, actually, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to film this journey and, and, you know, come to the hospital and film you going through this. And Holy moly kind of caught me off guard. And thank God we pushed for it because the, the, the first hour of the movie is what we intended it to be. And the last 30 minutes is the most unexpected inspiring, you know, me fighting for my life, with my family, by my side, a wall, I’m still traveling the world trying to spread this mission. And yeah. And so that, that, that’s what I, my main focus right now is just launching this movie to the world on in December. And and then, and then I’ll take a breath and see what’s next from there. So did you so the, the, RV: (26:44) So the movie is that like, self-published too, like, did you pay for it? Did you get a film? You just got your own film crew and a director and said, Hey, I have a vision for a movie. I’m going to make my own fricking movie. HE: (26:56) Yes, yes, my buddy. So my buddy, Nick Conedera is a director. And a few years, like six years ago, he was at my house for dinner. He said, dude, we should make a movie about the miracle morning. Cause he’s in the miracle morning community. And he does it himself. And he would see these people, you know, this guy, Mike Keaton posted how he lost it. And he lost 90 pounds, six months after he started the miracle morning. And he had been obese his whole life. And he attributed to my miracle morning. And so Nick is goes, dude, we got a feature, all these stories of people overcoming depression and starting businesses and all the sudden you’re good morning. I was like, that’s a great idea. I said, but I don’t even know what that looks like, dude, like, right. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. HE: (27:34) Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I don’t even like talk to me later and he kept bugging me about it. And like a few months later, he, he, he found the angle and he called me and he said, how, what’s your mission in life? And I said to elevate, or actually back then it was to change millions of lives one morning at a time. And I said, why? He said, what percentage of our society, you’re trying to change the world. What percentage of our society read self help books? And right away, I kind of got where he was going. And I went, I like 1%, maybe he said, what percentage watch movies? And I went, you’re right. If we’re going to reach, if we’re going to reach the masses, it has to be in another format. And so that’s when we started making the movie and yeah, I funded it. We had a few producers, but I, for the most part, I funded 98% of it. And he, and then I started just meeting people that became part of the team that just kind of God put them in my life. And it was like, perfect. You know, RV: (28:31) That is amazing. How buddy, you are, you like, you are amazing and your, your life is been used for so much. Good. And then continues to be used for so much. Good. And I just buddy, I’m so grateful for you. Where do you, where should people go if they want to connect to you? Obviously you’ve got the Facebook group. Where else would you direct people to? HE: (28:54) Yeah. Miracle morning.com is the best hub. You can find all the books from there. You can join the community from there. You know, you can join the join, the email list. We don’t the movie isn’t for sale yet. We’re working on getting the site up and stuff. People can buy tickets for the world, premier, which is gonna be really cool on 12, 12, 20, 20, we’re doing the miracle morning movie experience, the world premiere. It’s going to be the worldview of the film followed by an immediate, like, how do you implement this? So like, okay, you just watched a movie, you were all excited, you know, about the miracle morning, how do you start it tomorrow morning? And I’m going to teach how to do that. And there’ll be like a live Q and a with me and the director and the team. And then there’ll be a 30 day challenge that people will be able to join, you know, for free. And so yeah, so go to miracle morning.com. And if you join the email list, you’ll get my weekly podcast. You’ll get that way. We don’t RV: (29:42) Sell anything really to you. It’s just, we just try to add value. And until the movie comes out, I love it. Well, we’ll put miracle morning.com in the show notes, rather, thank you for what you do and for your story and your faith. And just for keeping the fight for yourself and your family. And obviously for the message, we, we appreciate you and we pray for you and we wish you the best. Thanks brother. Appreciate you, man. Keep doing what you’re doing.