2152 - How to Leverage Your Book for Business Growth with Million Dollar Author Steve Gordon

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

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1:05with us right now it's steve gordon steve you are the founder and ceo of million dollar author you're found on the web at milliondollarauthor.io steve thank you for joining us josh great to be here thanks for having me yes absolutely well steve give us uh before we kind of get into stuff uh what have you been into lately any anything uh entertainment wise or hobby wise that that's uh that you've been enjoying? Yeah. So we've kind of become big fans of the sport of lacrosse. We've got a, our youngest son is a senior in high school and he's going to be playing in college. And so the last four or five years have just been sort of consumed with that.

1:43But I've really been, I didn't know anything about the sport, you know, growing up in the South in the eighties, we didn't really have it. So we've been following it and it's just a blast to watch. We got to go up to the, the NCAA national championship up in Philly last year. And it's just super fun. So that's what we've been doing a lot of lately. For someone who's never watched lacrosse, me, how does it compare to spectating other sports like football, baseball, soccer, basketball? Yeah. So it probably took my wife and I two years of watching him to figure out what was going on. It's sort of like this combination of hockey and basketball on grass.

2:27It's very fast moving, a lot of the same sort of ball movement that you have in basketball, but very fast paced like hockey and very physical like hockey, but it's just fun to watch. Yeah. Well, Steve, let's talk about what you do as the million dollar author. Awesome. Yeah. So we help business owners write books about what they do, about how they help people, about how they make an impact in the world. And we show them then how to use that book to attract their very best clients. And when we're able to do that, what we love about that is we take people who are often just amazing at what they do, but sometimes you might call them the best kept secret in town.

3:13They're really good at what they do, but only a small number of people know about them. And we're able to take their very best ideas now and get amount to a lot more people so they can have a much bigger impact. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go through and teach what that might look like. And I hope you can maybe just lay out kind of a mini TED Talk on the steps necessary because a lot of folks might be a little trepidatious. Is that a valuable use of my resources in time? Because it is an investment of both in order to produce a book. Why, what is the, what is the, what are, let's start off by talking about what are the outcomes that you believe that if done well, a book can create today?

3:59Realistically, given that there might be some things people are saying, well, listen, people aren't even consuming books in that way anymore, unless you're a bestselling author. Is this just kind of a vanity project? Yeah, I hear that all the time. The truth of the matter is people are consuming books. people will always consume information that is relevant to them. And so relevance doesn't necessarily mean you're a bestselling author, or you've got a big following, it means that you're speaking to them about a problem that is something that they're suffering with that they're laying awake at two o 'clock in the morning, staring at the ceiling worried about, and you've got a solution for it.

4:39And so if you put that in front of your ideal client, they will pay attention to it. And we see that again and again, even in boring businesses. And so my favorite example, Josh, to share is I have a client who's a financial advisor, and he's written three books with us. And the last book, he had to really convince me, twist my arm to write it because I didn't think it was going to work. And he wanted to write a book on life insurance because that's how he got started in the business. He was selling life insurance. And I thought, who in the world is going to read a book about life insurance? That sounds like the most boring subject ever, right not only do we have to think about death when we read it it's insurance it's not super interesting so he's like now i want i'm convinced it's going to work i want to do it so we write this book on life insurance for him and he promotes it out to his database when we launched the book and within 48 hours 52 people had requested a copy of the book on life insurance And he had a relatively small list.

5:36Of those 52 people, 37 of them attended a webinar the next week. 11 of them booked appointments with him. And I think 10 of the 11 invested in a new whole life insurance policy. If you don't know what that is, those are very expensive, usually five-figure premiums a year. It was a very profitable thing. It paid for the book many times over for him just with that first batch. And then he just repeats that process about every six to eight weeks all year long. So there are, you know, I'd say for everyone that has had success with a book, I would speculate that there are far more who have not had success with their book.

6:15And I can say that from a podcaster standpoint, because I see a lot of broke author speaker coaches out there. And it's kind of almost a meme in the podcast world that there's a lot of those types of folks. So what are the things that an author can do to differentiate themselves? And maybe this just begins with the concept and, you know, what the book is to begin with. Well, I think that the first trap that authors fall into that leads them down a path of little result from their book is that they turn creating the book into their magnum opus. It's sort of their art form. And what that usually means is that they spend years trying to get it done.

6:56They worry far too much about it being perfect. and really what you want to do is put yourself in the place of that what we call the million dollar reader the person that you're going to impact with the book what do they need to know that well first they need to know that you understand the problem that they face so that you can empathize with them then they need to know that you have a roadmap to get them out of that problem state and into a bigger better future and then they need to get a clear picture of what that bigger better future looks like so the book doesn't have to reveal everything that you know, which I think is the trap a lot of experts get into, they try and turn it into a textbook.

7:34Really, it just needs to reveal the transformation that's possible if someone works with you. And when you write that kind of book, and follow a process, so we, we look at the book creation process is almost the trivial part of the exercise. We've, I'm a recovering engineer. So we've reversed engineered a way to create a book in 90 days, which is fast and still create a high quality book that will move the needle for your target reader. So you want to get the book finished as quickly as possible and focus on that transformational story. And we've got a formula that we take people through to help build that, to take their intellectual property and sort of put it in that framework.

8:19but that gets you to the starting line. And that's where most people go wrong is they think, well, I've worked for two years on this book. I put all this effort in and they think they're at the finish line. No, no, no. You just walked to the starting line of the race. Now you have to use the book to go make an impact, to go attract clients. And so what happens with most people is they put so much time and energy and effort into creating the book that they run out of energy to promote after the fact. And so we see them often, they'll kind of launch like this and then they'll crash. And with our clients, we want to make sure they've got a system.

8:53So they launch and then they keep going. And so we give a marketing system with every book project that we create that's customized every client. And that makes a huge, huge difference. Yeah. So what would be some of the elements of a great launch? Like, you know, obviously, again, we want to get this in the right hands. And I think that's probably where I see a lot of authors struggling is they just can't get it in front of enough eyeballs because there's so much information and noise out there. So what are some tips for kind of breaking out a bit? Well, again, the big mistake is people try and get it in front of a lot of eyeballs.

9:33And most business owners don't have the budget to do that. If you're Oprah or Dave Ramsey, and you have a platform, it's pretty easy to get a million people to get your, you know, to go buy your book in the first few weeks. But for most business owners that we work with, they don't have a big platform, they don't have a big email list, they don't maybe have a podcast following of 100 ,000 like you have. And so then it's not about how many people can I get in in front of it's how many of the right people can I get in front of. And we the way we look at defining the right people, it's who who's closest to being able to do business with you.

10:09And so when we design a launch for someone, we've got our own proprietary process. We call it the inverted viral launch. And it's inverted because we've turned the pyramid upside down. We're not trying to get the big wide pyramid. We want to get to the very tip top, the ones who can buy from you now. So that starts with anyone that's been in your pipeline in the last two years. It starts with all of your current clients because they're your biggest fans and birds of a feather flock together. So they know your next best clients. and we'll engage them in spreading the book. It starts with your centers of influence who already know you.

10:42And we all have those people who have been in our network and you've probably referred them again and again and again, and they've never reciprocated. Well, let me tell you, having a book and showing them a very easy way to share it with their clients and their network is a really easy way to get them to refer you. They don't even know they're referring you. They're just sharing your book. And so we start with those groups and that makes it really, really easy. You don't need a big budget to do it. And our clients see almost immediate result from that. They're landing clients right away because we're talking to the right people.

11:13Yeah. And Steve, we were connected through a mutual friend. And I know that your relationships are very key to you. Can you tell me a little bit more about your business, like what you do and kind of what, like how you engage with folks? Yeah, absolutely. So again, we work with entrepreneurs who want to increase credibility, who want to grow their business and scale. And we really help them unlock what is unique about their business. And we put that into a book. And so when we're working with a client, we really want to help them see the thing that is most valuable in their business. And what I find is a lot of business owners can't see that.

11:55So first and foremost, that's what we do. We sort of are able to dive into a business, find what's unique, and then amplify it through the book. And so, you know, the book part of it, the book creation part of it is the easy part for us. We're expert at it, just like podcasting is, I'm sure, second nature to you. It's then how do we really understand the relationship with that client, what they're trying to achieve, and what their superpower is? And then how can we help them amplify that? And that's really what we do. Yeah. Your website is, well, I want to point out a couple of things, milliondollarauthor.io.

12:35But before we talk about that, you also have a podcast, Authority Builder Podcast. So to our friend that's listening, very simple. Just search in your podcast app right now for Authority Builder Podcast. And Steve, tell me about the show. Well, so the show ran for about seven years. Okay, yeah. And we've paused it for the moment, but we've got some plans to sort of revitalize and go in a different direction. But during that seven years, I interviewed hundreds of highly successful entrepreneurs from all over the world. And, you know, people like Steve Sims and Dan Sullivan, a strategic coach, and Perry Marshall, all kinds of folks.

13:19And one of the things I loved about it is we were able to have deep conversations that ranged anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour that and touch on subjects that maybe these people didn't talk about in other interviews. And and so there's some just fascinating deep dives with some very smart people. And it's a it's it's a ton of fun. I know that's why you you do this. It's fun to connect with. It's fun to have these conversations. And I'll tell you the best thing I love about having a conversation with someone on a podcast is unlike any other conversation you'll have with them, because the cameras are on and because we're recording, they always show up with their A game.

13:56So you get the best of that person. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's true. Your website, milliondollarauthor.io. I know you've got some resources here. And obviously, if someone is interested, we could talk about that as well. Obviously, you have a book. yeah do you mind sharing if i didn't have a book yeah i would hope so i've got five sharing just a little bit about the resources including the book uh for someone that that wants a little bit more and i hope that you're going to mention that you have a uh a free master class on your website that you can click and watch right now too absolutely so um so i do have a book um i've got five books but the latest one, which talks about how we use a book, how we develop a book for a client, and then how to market it is called the million dollar book.

14:47And it's all about how to use a book to add seven figures to your business. And that's available for free on the website. So people can get it and download it there. And we also have a free masterclass, which is really condensed. It's designed for a busy entrepreneur. It's just 20 minutes long, and it'll walk you through the whole process. So if you'd rather not read the book and you want to get sort of the 20 minute executive summary, watch that. And we also have a YouTube channel. And so if you go to YouTube at million dollar author, you'll find all kinds of videos where I talk about all aspects of writing a book about marketing and answer all the questions that people send into us.

15:29And so, so those are some great places if you want to learn more. In fact, one of your clients I'm seeing is Davina Frederick. We just interviewed her. I don't know when her episode publishes. It either has already just published or is about to be published. But a great conversation with Davina. And again, probably someone who was quite successful with her book, given who she typically works with. Yeah, she's been very successful with her book. And she's amazing. She's just an awesome person and super smart. She's doing great work, helping lawyers. Well, Steve, and as we mentioned, someone, when they go to milliondollarauthor.io, they can talk with an author advisor and just kind of lay this out and kind of play, you know, what if and see if this makes sense.

16:22There's a blue button there. Anything else that you would share about that process? Well, for people who have sort of always had it in the back of their mind that they wanted to write a book. And I talk to business owners all the time. I joke that when I go to a meeting, you know, conference somewhere and they have those round tables where there's six people. So it's me and five other entrepreneurs. At least four out of the five have thought about writing a book. And when they hear about what I do, they get really interested. And so if you're listening to this and that's you, somebody's told you, you should write a book about what you do, or you've been thinking about it for a while, go to our website, there's a blue button there where you can talk with one of our author advisors, and they'll, they'll help you kind of think through the strategy around your book and whether or not it makes sense and kind of talk about what the possibilities are.

17:10So I definitely take advantage of that. There's no cost to it. I can promise you there's no big pressure, you know, to buy, we'll walk you through. And if it makes sense, great. We'll share with you what that could look like. And, and if not, we'll tell you that too. And we'll hopefully send you in a better direction. Awesome. Steve Gordon, the million dollar author, the book million dollar author that's on your website. And of course, the free masterclass and everything else that we talked about all there as well. Steve Gordon, thank you so much for joining us. Josh, thanks. It's been great.

17:47Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

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