Welcome to the Books, Brands, and Business podcast with your host, Chris O’Byrne, from JETLAUNCH.net.
My guest today is James Smiley. James is a very successful business coach with an impressive list of accomplishments including helping TeleNav IPO, working for AT&T and other huge companies, and working with people like Robert Herjavec and Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank.
Welcome to the Books, Brands, and Business podcast with your host, Chris O’Byrne, from JETLAUNCH.net.
This episode is from a video training that I recorded for my Facebook group, “Make Money with Books.” You can join the group at jetlaunch.link/group.
Let’s jump into the training.
What I’m going to talk about in this video is what to write about. And to determine the answer to that question is to know what your end goal is. So is your end goal to simply have a book out there so that you can cross it off your bucket list? Is it to become a successful fiction writer? Is it to leave a legacy of some sort, either for your family or others, and just to kind of share?
Most people that come to me want to use their book and leverage it to build their brand and to build their business, and so that’s really what we’re going to be focusing on and this is how to do that. Because some of the, in fact, most of the things that you do with that end goal in mind is also going to apply to any of the other reasons why you want to put a book out there and get it seen and noticed in front of people.
So when it comes to building authority, most of your authority is gained simply from the act of writing and publishing that book. You’re like, “Hey, look, here’s my book. I’m a published author.” And you have almost instant credibility, instant authority. You have positioned yourself as an expert, whatever it is that you’re writing about. That’s where you’re going to get most of your authority.
And then the second part of that is to get that book in front of as many people as possible, because the more people who see, the more people who know that you have a book and that you are an expert, which you are. The more people, that means the more authority you’re going to have. If only one person, say your grandmother, knows that you’ve written a book and has bought it and is excited about it, well, you’re not really gaining any authority. You maybe have with her, but you ultimately want to gain authority and positioning as much as you can, which means getting it out there in front of as many people as possible. So that just means selling more books and that’s going to be part of the process.
Now, if you’re writing a book to generate leads for your business or even to start a new business that you’re going to generate leads for, there really is a simple process for doing this. The first one is what is your customer’s biggest problem that you can solve? And you’re going to find that a lot of the questions and a lot of the thought that goes into what you’re deciding to write about for your book is exactly the same as what you would go through to build a business, to start a business. These are the same questions. What is your ideal customer’s biggest problem that you can solve? Now, in the case of a book, if you’re doing this to build a business and you already have a business, you probably already know enough about your customers and what you offer that you are able to then go ahead and answer that question really fast.
What is the biggest problem that you can solve? And whatever that is, that is going to be the topic of your book. Because when people first find out about you through your book, people just see that book separate from you and your business and that’s their first introduction, you want to provide for them the same high potency solution that you do for your business. That’s what’s going to attract them and that’s what’s going to attract your ideal customer. Because whatever the biggest problem is that you can solve for your ideal customer, it’s not going to be the biggest problem for somebody who’s not going to be your customer. Makes sense, right?
So the second one, of course, is to write a book that solves that problem. And there are a number of ways of doing that and we’ve talked about that before. And my biggest, probably my favorite way of doing that is to teach a class. Now, if you can teach a live workshop, somewhere local, have it filmed, you can even just set up your own camera, your own phone, and there’s so many ways of doing it, we won’t even go into it at this point. But if you can teach a course or a class, if you can’t do it live or you’re uncomfortable doing it live, you can do a Facebook Live or you can simply record the video ahead of time and then put it out there for other people to see. But take that and transcribe it and turn it into your book, and then use all of the assets from that, the video, the audio, the photos, the still shots of it. You can reuse those and repurpose those a hundred different ways. So writing that book, that solves the problem. That’s going to be the second part of it.
The next one is to get your book in front of as many people as possible. Because again, you’re trying to get leads, you’re trying to build your brand. The only way to do that is to get out there in front of as many people as possible. So there are a number of ways of doing that. Some of the probably most effective ways are going to be Amazon ads. You can do advertising on Amazon, which will send potentially hundreds of new people to your book. You can do the free plus shipping funnel model, where you maybe send traffic to a landing page where people pay shipping and handling for your book. And people have sold hundreds and thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of books in this way using the free plus shipping funnel, which again, gets people into your email list and then… Well, we’ll talk about that a couple of steps ahead here.
Another one you can do is influencer marketing. Now, that is a topic that I could sit and spend all day talking and teaching about because there’s so much that goes into it, but the bottom line, simplest explanation is that you find people who have an audience of your ideal customer. So it doesn’t mean they’re offering the same thing you are. Maybe it’s something that is complimentary to what you do and you can do some sort of partnership. Maybe it’s not related to what you do at all, but they’re still going to be interested in some sort of joint venture that’s going to benefit both of you. But the idea is these influencers, these experts that already have your audience, you are going to get them to promote your book to their audience and it’s going to be set up as a win-win for both you and the influencer. And then, of course, another big win for the customer because they’re going to then be brought into your world.
Well, first you’re going to sell that book with a good offer. So offers come in twice here. First, selling the book. So when you, for example, write your Amazon book description, you’re not just going to say, hey, this book is about this and it teaches you this, and yay. No, you’re going to have some sort of offer. You know, point out what the pain is. It’s copywriting 101. Point out what their pain is and how much that they would like to have that fixed. Point out the solution that your book offers them, and then give them an offer. Part of that offer… Remember, the offer is not the solution. The book is not the offer, the thing that you’re selling. The offer is what gets them to buy the book.
So in your case the book will be part of that offer, the solution to their problem, and all the benefits and joy and great things that are going to come into their life as a result of solving that problem, that’s part of your offer. And then you’re also going to have more. You’re going to want to say, hey, if you buy this book, I have a free course for you, or a free this, or you can get on the phone with me for a 15-minute call. Or anything that you know is going to be valuable to your ideal customer, you go ahead and put that in there. So, that’s to sell the book.
And then in your book you’re going to put an irresistible offer inside of your book. And maybe again that’s going to be that course or call or whatever it is that you’re going to offer people. But your book is the perfect platform, not only to give information that’s going to help them and be valuable, it’s also the perfect place to do copywriting, to make an offer, to write an offer in there and use good copywriting and show people all these benefits. You can still have the information, but in the front, in the back, maybe throughout the book in different places where it makes sense, you’re going to offer them something that is irresistible to your ideal client. And then from there, of course, whether it’s the free plus shipping or they buy it on Amazon and they sign up, you’re sending them to a landing page of some sort, and maybe it’s for your Facebook group, but it’s some place where you can gather their email address. And then you can use email marketing to sell to them, to… Well, you can do two things with that email.
You provide value, value, value, and all of that is building your authority even more, and then you can also offer them the next step up. Hey, you bought the book, maybe you’d be interested in this course, and here’s how this is going to benefit you. Maybe you’d be interested in this strategy session, maybe you’d be interested in going to this event. A lot of people will sell events that way. But that is where you’re going to be making money with your book by leveraging it. The stuff that goes into creating the right book, which isn’t that hard, selling that book with an offer. Once they get the book, there’s an offer in there and that gets them into your email list, and then you continue to offer them value, which builds your brand, and you offer them a solution to a problem that they have or they didn’t maybe realize they had. And that’s where the money is going to be made, what they call the back end of things. And so that is what you should write about, how to go about doing it, and how to go about reaching that end goal of building your brand and growing your business.
Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you want to be part of a tight-knit community of people learning how to make money with their books, join my FB group at jetlaunch.link/group. That’s the best place to ask me questions and get fast answers.