Latest / The Failure Gap / A Conversation With Michelle Prince, CEO/Founder, Performance Publishing Group

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A Conversation With Michelle Prince, CEO/Founder, Performance Publishing Group · The Failure Gap

• Speaker 2 (00:00.056) Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Michelle Prince. Michelle is a bestselling author, sought after motivational speaker, self-publishing expert and a leadership coach. She's also the CEO and founder of Performance Publishing Group, a partner publishing company dedicated to making a difference one story at a time. She's helped thousands become published authors through her consulting courses, seminars, and publishing services, and she founded the Book Bound Academy. She's also published many successful books herself, including her most recent, Illuminate Your Greatness. Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk with you about this topic because I think so many people think to themselves, I should write a book, but they don't actually do it. And that's a huge failure gap that people can get through and you've helped a lot of people through it. Before we get there though, I would love to have you share with our listeners a little bit about your own journey to leadership. How did you come to be the CEO and founder of the Performance Publishing Group? I would love to say it was strategic and I have this grand plan and this is what I wanted to do my whole life, but it didn't happen that way. I actually wrote a book in 2009 and that book opened up doors for me to do speaking, coaching, consulting, things like that. But what came out of that probably about a year later was as I'm out there speaking, more and more people just kept asking me, well, how did you do your book? How did you publish your book? Where do I find editors? How do I do all this? And before I knew it, I was Speaker 1 (01:33.742) sharing information with people. Eventually I was doing seminars and courses and teaching people how to write, publish and launch books. And so in 2010, I officially decided to open the publishing company because I saw, know, within publishing, you've written a book, you know this, there's a great opportunity for people to do it, but the system's been broken for a long time. And so... When I started this, thought, you know, if I'm going to help people to write books, I want to do it in a way where the author gets the benefit and not necessarily just the publisher. So it's a different model. And that was the beginning of my leadership journey. And that started in 2010. Well, I think that's such a great story of finding your passion as you go along. And I don't know about you, but I talk with a lot of people who are coming out of college and they say, you know, but I don't really know what I want to do. that's a problem. Tell them, that's awesome. Go find out what you want to do. You don't have to know right now. Yeah. I didn't do it for sure. I didn't have a clue in my twenties, my thirties. wasn't until I was, I was just about 40 give or take that I, that I started to really realize, you know, where my strengths are. so passion, experience, gifts, talents, all of those things. They just kind of start evolving. If you pay attention. Yeah, very much a journey of discovery if you let it be. Yeah. Well, I know that for all of us personally, we have our own failure gaps to cross between agreeing that something is a good idea and getting aligned and making it happen. I'm wondering if there is an example that you can share for yourself of where you've thought to yourself, that would be a really good idea, but maybe it's been a little bit of a struggle to get yourself aligned and kind of get it done. Speaker 1 (02:57.292) Right. Speaker 2 (03:19.758) or where you've been successful in that, but it's taken a little bit of effort. Any particular stories that jump out at you that would be good to share? Yes, and I love that question because this is where it gets real. You know, I told you I started this business, but the truth is I thought about doing it for at least 10 to 13 years before I wrote my first book. And I mentioned the book only because that's what opened the business. But the backstory is I started my career working for Zig Ziglar and a big motivational speaker, author, huge impact on me. And I was with him for many years, but I decided to quit and go into software sales. And I did that for decades. And, but inside I wanted to speak. wanted to coach. I wanted to do more of what, what I was doing at Ziegler and motivating people. And I had this gap. I could not get my head around the how I was. If you've ever been in sales or something called golden handcuffs, you know, where if you're successful in sales, you're making money, but yet the payout is so far down. You know, you don't want to leave and leave that on the table. So for years I thought, gosh, I don't want to do this anymore, but I can't leave. for, you know, for a long time, I had no idea what I would do. If, and I really would even ask myself if I could do anything, what would I do? And I kept coming back to three words, motivate, inspire and encourage, but I couldn't figure out the how. And one day I'm at a conference with a friend of mine and somebody hands me their business card and it says, speaker, author, coach. And I remember that moment of thinking, I want to do that. And I had such a limiting belief of like, there's just no way. I don't know how I could do it. It was too hard or, you know, I couldn't let myself go there. And in that same conference, a couple hours later, I just had this epiphany moment and thought, wait a minute, what am I doing? Like, this isn't rocket science. This is, why not try? Why not put myself out there? And why not just, you know, why not just write? Speaker 1 (05:16.94) And I secretly wanted to write for so many years and I didn't do it. So that night I went home and I started to write. Not necessarily the book yet, but it was about within about eight months, I had a full book written. And I went from that, the failure gap being, I don't have what it takes. I have nothing to say to within 30 days, I had a full book written a couple of months later, published. And then once we launched it, it really took off and hit bestseller and opened up a full-time business. But the truth of the matter is that gap, for me was for a very long time. I just couldn't figure out how to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. And I think that's not unusual. think people have that experience. for me, what you just described is a great example of what my dad always used to say, once started, half done. Like, you get started, and all of a sudden it goes very quickly, right? So there's something about getting yourself into that space of like, can I just start? Can I just take a step? Mel Robbins does her five, four, three, two, one, right? How do you just get started on something? And it's amazing what can happen and the doors that can open. once you get started. That's right, it is. And you don't have to have it all figured out, just the one little step, and then it gets clear, and then another step, and then it gets clear. Speaker 2 (06:33.474) And I actually think that might be part of what keeps people in the failure gap sometimes is they can't get that one little step that builds momentum, right? They want to take a giant leap, but that leap feels really far and really scary. And like, if it fails, then it's going to be, it's going to hurt a lot, right? If you can just take one step and then another step and then another step, I think you can find your way through to being both internally aligned to who you want to be and what you want to do. And also getting aligned to. a team or to shared goals that you want to bring together people around and get them moving towards. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I think about this idea of getting people aligned to shared goals, your business is so interesting to me because as a publisher, you need to have an author and maybe some creatives who are working for you and maybe some other folks who are like in advertising and things like that that are all coming together around this idea. Exactly. Speaker 2 (07:29.59) of helping this author bring their vision to life. Tell me a little bit about what that's like in terms of building alignment. And so I, and this is a part I love so much. The industry defines publishing. There's really three types. There's self-publishing, there's the traditional model, and then there's hybrid, which hybrid is really technically what we do. But from day one, I called it partner publishing because the way I see it is, is I'm partnering with these authors and we're kind of locking arms and we're going to get this book done. We're going to get it done well and we're going to do it together. And so it's a very collaborative effort. But it's all about the author. It's their work. It's their story and it's their platform we're building. So, but it takes a village. know, there's project managers, there's editors and cover designers, interior layout designers, there's the printers and the, the marketing people and the launch team and all of those things come together. And I love that whole process of everyone getting on the same page with the same goal. But also, every project is unique and different. So it's really determining, well, what does the author want? Just because they want to write a book doesn't mean they have the same goal as somebody else writing a book. So building that custom approach for them is... and they might not know what they want. Speaker 1 (08:50.178) no idea. They have no idea. And in some cases, well, it depends. We have some authors who, and I'm sure you're this way in all businesses, there are some who come with their mind made up and they want it exactly the way they want it. And then there are others who are like, I have no idea. And frankly, I don't really care. Just get it done, get it done right. And let's make a lot of money with this book. I literally just got off a kickoff call with somebody that's in our, a mutual of the mastermind group that you and I are both in, Collective 54. And that was kind of the, I don't really care, let's just get it done. Like I don't care what the design looks like, I don't care what this looks like. In some cases, that's even harder, right? Because they actually do care, they just don't know it yet. They just don't know yet. It's kind of like the joke I always make. It's kind of like a website design. You know what you don't like, but you can't articulate what you do like. But that's why it's an iterative process. And we go back and forth. from the very beginning, I never got into publishing to be a publisher ever. So the way I looked at it was, and I talked to publishers, I didn't want to have this rigid structure of Here's what you get and that's it. Get what you get and don't throw a fit. Instead, it's very much like unlimited revisions. It's got to be what the author wants at the end of the day. So that's how we do it. Speaker 2 (10:19.758) Yeah, and I really love your concept of partner publishing, that you really are a partner in that process. I know for me, as I was getting Make How Matter pulled together, I have a strong voice and I write a lot. And so there was a lot of content to kind of put together into a book format, but I didn't really know or understand what I needed to have ready to be able to engage a publisher, to be able to say to somebody, like, does it not need to be like... 90 % of the way done or 10 % of the way done or what does that look like? And what I learned over time is that the answer is it depends. It doesn't actually matter. A publisher can help you in a lot of different ways along the journey to getting to a published book. But talk to people, talk to our listeners a little bit about if they have this dream of writing a book, what should they be prepared to articulate or how would they talk with a publisher about what their vision is, even if they don't have that fully baked. I think that is part of what keeps people in the failure gap, right? Is they don't know what they need in order to get started. Absolutely, and they also anticipate it to be a lot harder than it is or needs to be but as you know going through it It may not be hard, but it does take effort. I always I like to break it down to keep things simple. There's really only three parts to a book. There's the writing There's production and then there's a launch which I'll talk about all three But and there's some very basic decisions to make and first one is writing. Are you gonna write the book yourself? Or do you want someone to write it for you? And there's nothing wrong with either one. But like you said, you're a strong writer. I can't tell you how many people we do books for that are not. Or they don't have a passion to write. But they're great at talking. So first deciding, do you want help in the writing part? Do you want a ghostwriter to interview you, pull it out of you? A lot of executives go that route. Not because they can't write a book, just frankly, they don't want to take the time to sit down and do it. Speaker 1 (12:23.402) and it's still their voice. It's just out of your head on the paper, somebody else is getting it done for you. So, and that's the first decision. The production part is really pretty set and there's editing, there's the cover design and all of that. What we try to do is get in their head as far as like, what do you envision for a cover? What covers do you like? What genre? are we going after? But most of the time people don't know. So that's where having a really strong designer to pull some information out of them, looking at their branding, looking at kind of what their client base is, and then coming up with some unique concepts, it's never the cover. But it's at least like, which one are you leaning towards? And then let's take it and do it. I found that the more... We can, it's all about asking questions and understanding what they ultimately want to get out of it. But then too, you know, what books are they drawn to? And, but then designing it the way they want. And it's not always the way we would want it, I will say. So there are times, and this is where as a partner, you have to decide what's most important. And is it the cover that we... design and feel very strongly about, or is it the one that the author loves? And so there are times that we would have maybe chosen a different cover, but at the end of the day, it is the author's book. So that's that partnership. We go back and forth. It's so interesting in the way that you're describing partnership. There are certainly elements of what we also think of in terms of skills for creating alignment to shared goals, which you have a shared goal of publishing the book and asking a lot of questions and staying in that curious mindset and helping to really connect people to what the outcome should be that's best in service to everyone who's involved. think, and you've also talked a little bit about Speaker 2 (14:21.952) needing to adjust and be flexible around your own priorities and the priorities of the author. And what's important to both of you as you try to get to a good outcome, which is a book that that will have the impact that the author wants it to have, which I just say it in that way, because you said earlier, you had someone say, let's make a lot of money on this. I mean, between you and me and the rest of the world, very few authors make a lot of money on the book, right? But it's, but it's really about getting your message out there and being able to have an impact. And then, know, some dollars might come in from that. glad you brought that up because that is definitely a misconception that first of all, if you're writing a book just to make money on book sales, it's probably not the right reason to write a book because you will sell books without a doubt. think of just do the math. I mean, think about how much money do you want to make divide that by a $20 book actually back that out to the cost. I mean, so you have to sell a lot of books. But rather, I'd like to frame it as what let's just say I don't most people especially entrepreneurs, business owners, founders like us, we don't need this book to be everywhere. We need it to be in the hands of our top 100 clients. I mean, truly. And so what's your average deal size? If you could get one opportunity or one new client from somebody who read your book, what would that be worth to you? And so for people who get that, that the book is not the end all be all. It's just the ability for somebody to take notice of you. It's the door opener. But if that's all it's going to do is sell a book, then that's probably going to be a hard road than if you use it to build your platform and to really designate yourself as that authority that you are. But a book just allows you to let people know that a lot clearer. Speaker 2 (16:13.044) Exactly, I think that's so important for people to know is that it is a platform for you. It is not necessarily, you know, going to pay the mortgage. On book sales for sure now We just yeah exactly. I just had a one of our authors we did a book for him about a year ago and he called me recently and He has a great media company. Anyway, call me just and he said that he just signed on a new client He'd never had no idea where he came from whatever he literally reached out to him on social media and said I just finished your book Where do we sign up like I'm Yeah And I'm like, that is exactly the point. It wasn't the $20 you got from that book sale, and actually a lot less because they'd be through Amazon. So the pennies you got on that book sale versus the, that was like $100,000 client. So that's where the opportunity is. 100%. I agree with you completely. I think that's important for people to know going in because again, if you're misaligned on the goal, if you're, and that could be a misalignment between are we building a platform or are we creating a revenue generator? Then I think it's very difficult to get aligned and deliver together as a, as a partner publisher in that space. That's not to say some people do make a whole lot of money on their books. yeah. Great for them. sure. Speaker 2 (17:33.698) But I think the expectation should be that you're going to have the impact that you want to have for your business. Absolutely. And it's your core message. not the book people want. It's what value you are providing. And you're just providing some in a book, some on a podcast, some in a consulting engagement. So just make it easy for your clients to realize what value you bring. And that's one of a book does. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Michelle, I would love to hear a favorite story of yours about where there was maybe an author or an opportunity that was just having, they were just kind of stuck and you kind of had to work through to help them to get aligned on like the let's get this done. Let's get this done attitude. Okay, okay, I have one I'm not gonna say it's game for But this is actually this was one of my favorites still and I'll preface it by saying we have now done like four books for him. So he's got he got over this but one of our clients so says years ago a very very successful doctor and frankly, obviously busy. We're all busy though, right so But that was, he knew he needed to write a book. He knew the benefit of it. was, he got the whole thing. It wasn't a matter of, don't want to do it. he just, every time we talk, I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I don't have the time. Well, I was like, I'm jumping on a plane and we're making the time because I'm coming out there. And he actually lived in a very, very remote area of Idaho. And I went out there and I spent a day with them. And we really just to strategize more than anything, we were not making any progress. Speaker 1 (19:11.724) And I finally just said, listen, I'm turning on my recorder and we are not leaving until we get this whole book out of your head and onto paper or onto recording. And then let me take it to my writers. We can do all this. And literally we had, he went from, he had this failure gap of like, yeah, but I don't really know what I would say and this and that. And then I'm like, are you kidding me? Like everything you would ever put in this book is in your head. And so I just started asking him questions. And so we got that book out. Well, fast forward. So this book was the first book he wrote. He's written many since. He said that one book had an ROI of, I'm not gonna remember the exact number now. It's definitely six or seven figures. No, seven figures, I believe he said. Because what he did with that book is he was a destiny or is a destination practice, offers these huge packages, not just like a copay thing. When somebody would come in to visit with him instead of telling him, here's all the things we can do for you. Here's why you should hire us or what have you. He literally would just pass that book across the table and just say, go to chapter eight. Those are all the stories of the people that we healed or help with exactly what you have. And he said that one thing brought all of this additional revenue. And I just chuckled because now he's just on fire and he's doing great things. And I'm like, really? That's where he was so stuck. He could not. And that's where I see a lot of people stuck is they know they want to write a book and they think they know what they're going to write about, but they can't figure out how to organize it in their head. So they're paralyzed. And that's where I just always tell people, listen, you don't have to sit down and write a book to be an author. You just have to sit down and get it out. What's all up here and get it out. So somebody else can help you write it better or write it for you. so he's one of my favorite because he He got him out of his own way. got out of his Speaker 1 (21:08.204) He got out of his own way and once you do that, and as you know, writing a book, mean, once you write a book, you realize you have a lot more to say. Usually there's more books or like, yeah, I would do a different this time or, you know. Yeah, once started half done, like we said, right? Like you just get the ball rolling, then suddenly there's a lot to come out. So yeah, I love that story. And I really appreciate too, you know, for you, it sounds like part of getting unstuck was showing up for him very literally, like showing up in his space, meeting him where he was and saying, okay, let's get this done. Let's figure out a way to get you unstuck and to get you moving towards this goal that you have. And I think sometimes we underestimate the value of showing up. And when it comes to getting other people aligned to these shared goals, sometimes you really do, whether it's in real life or virtually these days, but just showing up can really unblock a lot of blockers and a lot of misalignment that's happening between people. Well, and also too with it was just that whole opening things up for people a lot of times there's fear there's You know, maybe not a belief that they have what it takes whether it's a book or anything You know a big goal that that that somebody on your team is setting You have to show up to help help them see what they can't see yet You know that that sometimes you have to pull out the greatness in them in order to help them get to where they want to go That's what I've seen a lot. And especially with a book, can be a very personal, emotional process, even if the topic isn't professional. Speaker 2 (22:50.04) Well, I think that that should be your tagline. I'll pull out the greatness in you. Oh, I love that. You know, maybe I maybe I'll do that. I did funny enough the last book I wrote was Illuminate Your Greatness, but it was it was something totally different. So I but I do love that. So like just in that's one of my you we all have our giftings like that's one of my favorite things is I love seeing something in someone else that they're just they're just not fully there yet. They just can't see it quite yet. But it's there. And I think when we get to this idea of how do we get out of the failure gap and get aligned to deliver, whether on our own goals or together, part of it is sometimes letting people help you with that, letting people help pull things out of you and being willing and open to that process. And I do think there are people who think, nope, I've got to get it all done myself or it doesn't count. And you know what? We're all in community with each other in so many ways. And I think being open to and willing to have other people help you pull it out of yourself is a really great way to get to a goal that you might have. Absolutely. You can do everything alone, but why would you when you have the support of a team or community? Speaker 2 (23:57.548) Yeah. And just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Right. Why not do it with other people and have it be even better? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there we have partner publishing. Do it in partnership. Do it in partnership. Well, we have covered some ground here, Michelle, and I'm curious if you had two or three just hot tips for people around how do you just get started? Like, how do we help people to get themselves unstuck around this idea of wanting to put their put their expertise out into the world in some way that has an impact, what are two or three things that you would really recommend that people just take to heart from this conversation? Thank you for asking that. What I see a lot is people underestimate what they have to offer, or they're already providing it to clients in certain way, but they still have that gap between, but nobody would want to read a book about that. Well, the truth is, start thinking, my tip is start thinking about what questions are people asking you about? What do they want to know? Most of what we would ever put into a book is going to be a combination of your experience, know, what you've done, whether it be professionally, personally, You know, in some cases it could be things you've gone through, good or bad, that you now have experience to share with someone else. But it's also the passion factor is super important because you could write a book about anything. But as you know, once you write a book, you're going to be talking about it for a long time. So it better be a topic where you have both passion and experience. It's that intersection of the two. And there's this exercise we do with our authors when I do conferences is Really just making a T-chart. What do you love to do? For me, I do love personal development. I love leadership. like helping people to find their greatness, right? But I also have a lot of experience in that from working with Zig Ziglar and my business and some other things. And so it's that intersection of the two that is a big part of my story. So that's the first tip. I would also just, as easy as this sounds, Speaker 1 (26:05.57) Stop overthinking it. It's not as hard. And I can say this because I thought this for so many years. mean, the 10 year gap between me dreaming about writing a book and actually doing it, the hard part was just all in my head. It really was because once I realized, wow, this is literally, I mean, there's like a couple of steps in here. It's like a recipe. It's you follow the... You do it in order, you know, it's not rocket science, but don't go at it alone. Find somebody to help you do it, but just stop overthinking it. And the last thing I'll say and why I think people overthink this, at least I did for me is it's not about you. It feels like it's about us because our book has our name on it all that. But if you think about what is the book, what is a book? The purpose of the book is serving, right? In your business, whether it's consulting, know, professional services, whatever you do, you're serving people. So a book is just a way for you to serve more people. That's all it is. So almost a little bit, when you let that ego go away a little bit of like, okay, this isn't about me. This is really just about me being able to share what I really know so well with more people. Then it makes it a little less intimidating. You're like, well, why would I not do this? I remember when I do a lot of speaking and that was a tip someone gave me when I was just starting out as a speaker. that most of the time when speakers are nervous, it's because they're thinking about themselves. They're thinking about, my gosh, what will people think? I'm, you know, my, you know, my, is my outfit okay? Is it this and that? Well, it's, that's not the point of speaking. You're on a stage to deliver value. So it's almost like turn that spotlight off of you onto them. It takes away all your nervousness because you're there to serve. And that's what book is. You're just sharing what you know with other people. So it's impact on them. Speaker 1 (28:00.654) I was thinking it's more mindset than it is technique or ability. And it took me 10 years to figure it out. So I'm not judging because I know, cause I've been there, but once I figured it out, it's it's mindset. Yeah. Well, I heard, know, find your intersection, stop overthinking it, and remember it's not about you. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And I think those are great tips for anybody who's either looking to get themselves unstuck around writing a book or somebody who's working to get aligned to other kinds of goals with colleagues, partners, friends, whatever it might be, because those actually apply in a lot of different scenarios. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, we always ask people this one question at the end and we've had such interesting answers, no pressure there. We always like to ask if you could get a community around you aligned to something, it could be your family, your friends, a group that you're involved with, it could be the world. But if you could get people aligned to doing something together, what would that thing be? What would you like to see people come together to deliver on as a group? My answer would be to go mining for gold. And what I mean by that is, know, a miner, when they go into a mine, they're looking for the gold, right? But when they get there, there's just dirt everywhere. But they have to look for that little speck. When you do that with people, whether it be your team, your spouse, your kids, your community, When you go in looking for the good in someone, you're gonna find it. But when you go in looking for the dirt, you're gonna find that too. And so for me, I think it's more about like, we need to encourage people, rising tides raise all boats. And the more we can like help somebody see their greatness and help them elevate it, I just think, first of all, you're gonna be a lot happier, but it's gonna be a much better place. And yeah, so go mining for gold. Speaker 2 (29:59.276) I love that. I love that call to action. We're all going to go mining for gold today. And Michelle, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your experience, sharing this conversation about what it takes to get a book published. I think you could also mine for gold in your own expertise and think about the impact that it can have if you serve it up on a platform like a book can reach so many more people. So I think it's a great way to think about getting yourself aligned to delivering on that and doing it in partnership with a publisher and some creative people. You don't have to have everything figured out for yourself. You can work with other people to bring your voice to bear. So I really appreciate all of those tips for everybody as they think about how can I get this done? And for all of our listeners out there, I want to say thank you for joining us. Remember to like and subscribe and pass this episode along if you have a friend who really needs to hear it. And as we like to say, a Kerikans group, to go far, go together, to go fast, go alone, to go far fast, get aligned. So Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. And to all of our listeners, we'll see you next time.Speaker 2 (00:00.056) Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Michelle Prince. Michelle is a bestselling author, sought after motivational speaker, self-publishing expert and a leadership coach. She's also the CEO and founder of Performance Publishing Group, a partner publishing company dedicated to making a difference one story at a time. She's helped thousands become published authors through her consulting courses, seminars, and publishing services, and she founded the Book Bound Academy. She's also published many successful books herself, including her most recent, Illuminate Your Greatness. Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk with you about this topic because I think so many people think to themselves, I should write a book, but they don't actually do it. And that's a huge failure gap that people can get through and you've helped a lot of people through it. Before we get there though, I would love to have you share with our listeners a little bit about your own journey to leadership. How did you come to be the CEO and founder of the Performance Publishing Group? I would love to say it was strategic and I have this grand plan and this is what I wanted to do my whole life, but it didn't happen that way. I actually wrote a book in 2009 and that book opened up doors for me to do speaking, coaching, consulting, things like that. But what came out of that probably about a year later was as I'm out there speaking, more and more people just kept asking me, well, how did you do your book? How did you publish your book? Where do I find editors? How do I do all this? And before I knew it, I was Speaker 1 (01:33.742) sharing information with people. Eventually I was doing seminars and courses and teaching people how to write, publish and launch books. And so in 2010, I officially decided to open the publishing company because I saw, know, within publishing, you've written a book, you know this, there's a great opportunity for people to do it, but the system's been broken for a long time. And so... When I started this, thought, you know, if I'm going to help people to write books, I want to do it in a way where the author gets the benefit and not necessarily just the publisher. So it's a different model. And that was the beginning of my leadership journey. And that started in 2010. Well, I think that's such a great story of finding your passion as you go along. And I don't know about you, but I talk with a lot of people who are coming out of college and they say, you know, but I don't really know what I want to do. that's a problem. Tell them, that's awesome. Go find out what you want to do. You don't have to know right now. Yeah. I didn't do it for sure. I didn't have a clue in my twenties, my thirties. wasn't until I was, I was just about 40 give or take that I, that I started to really realize, you know, where my strengths are. so passion, experience, gifts, talents, all of those things. They just kind of start evolving. If you pay attention. Yeah, very much a journey of discovery if you let it be. Yeah. Well, I know that for all of us personally, we have our own failure gaps to cross between agreeing that something is a good idea and getting aligned and making it happen. I'm wondering if there is an example that you can share for yourself of where you've thought to yourself, that would be a really good idea, but maybe it's been a little bit of a struggle to get yourself aligned and kind of get it done. Speaker 1 (02:57.292) Right. Speaker 2 (03:19.758) or where you've been successful in that, but it's taken a little bit of effort. Any particular stories that jump out at you that would be good to share? Yes, and I love that question because this is where it gets real. You know, I told you I started this business, but the truth is I thought about doing it for at least 10 to 13 years before I wrote my first book. And I mentioned the book only because that's what opened the business. But the backstory is I started my career working for Zig Ziglar and a big motivational speaker, author, huge impact on me. And I was with him for many years, but I decided to quit and go into software sales. And I did that for decades. And, but inside I wanted to speak. wanted to coach. I wanted to do more of what, what I was doing at Ziegler and motivating people. And I had this gap. I could not get my head around the how I was. If you've ever been in sales or something called golden handcuffs, you know, where if you're successful in sales, you're making money, but yet the payout is so far down. You know, you don't want to leave and leave that on the table. So for years I thought, gosh, I don't want to do this anymore, but I can't leave. for, you know, for a long time, I had no idea what I would do. If, and I really would even ask myself if I could do anything, what would I do? And I kept coming back to three words, motivate, inspire and encourage, but I couldn't figure out the how. And one day I'm at a conference with a friend of mine and somebody hands me their business card and it says, speaker, author, coach. And I remember that moment of thinking, I want to do that. And I had such a limiting belief of like, there's just no way. I don't know how I could do it. It was too hard or, you know, I couldn't let myself go there. And in that same conference, a couple hours later, I just had this epiphany moment and thought, wait a minute, what am I doing? Like, this isn't rocket science. This is, why not try? Why not put myself out there? And why not just, you know, why not just write? Speaker 1 (05:16.94) And I secretly wanted to write for so many years and I didn't do it. So that night I went home and I started to write. Not necessarily the book yet, but it was about within about eight months, I had a full book written. And I went from that, the failure gap being, I don't have what it takes. I have nothing to say to within 30 days, I had a full book written a couple of months later, published. And then once we launched it, it really took off and hit bestseller and opened up a full-time business. But the truth of the matter is that gap, for me was for a very long time. I just couldn't figure out how to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. And I think that's not unusual. think people have that experience. for me, what you just described is a great example of what my dad always used to say, once started, half done. Like, you get started, and all of a sudden it goes very quickly, right? So there's something about getting yourself into that space of like, can I just start? Can I just take a step? Mel Robbins does her five, four, three, two, one, right? How do you just get started on something? And it's amazing what can happen and the doors that can open. once you get started. That's right, it is. And you don't have to have it all figured out, just the one little step, and then it gets clear, and then another step, and then it gets clear. Speaker 2 (06:33.474) And I actually think that might be part of what keeps people in the failure gap sometimes is they can't get that one little step that builds momentum, right? They want to take a giant leap, but that leap feels really far and really scary. And like, if it fails, then it's going to be, it's going to hurt a lot, right? If you can just take one step and then another step and then another step, I think you can find your way through to being both internally aligned to who you want to be and what you want to do. And also getting aligned to. a team or to shared goals that you want to bring together people around and get them moving towards. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I think about this idea of getting people aligned to shared goals, your business is so interesting to me because as a publisher, you need to have an author and maybe some creatives who are working for you and maybe some other folks who are like in advertising and things like that that are all coming together around this idea. Exactly. Speaker 2 (07:29.59) of helping this author bring their vision to life. Tell me a little bit about what that's like in terms of building alignment. And so I, and this is a part I love so much. The industry defines publishing. There's really three types. There's self-publishing, there's the traditional model, and then there's hybrid, which hybrid is really technically what we do. But from day one, I called it partner publishing because the way I see it is, is I'm partnering with these authors and we're kind of locking arms and we're going to get this book done. We're going to get it done well and we're going to do it together. And so it's a very collaborative effort. But it's all about the author. It's their work. It's their story and it's their platform we're building. So, but it takes a village. know, there's project managers, there's editors and cover designers, interior layout designers, there's the printers and the, the marketing people and the launch team and all of those things come together. And I love that whole process of everyone getting on the same page with the same goal. But also, every project is unique and different. So it's really determining, well, what does the author want? Just because they want to write a book doesn't mean they have the same goal as somebody else writing a book. So building that custom approach for them is... and they might not know what they want. Speaker 1 (08:50.178) no idea. They have no idea. And in some cases, well, it depends. We have some authors who, and I'm sure you're this way in all businesses, there are some who come with their mind made up and they want it exactly the way they want it. And then there are others who are like, I have no idea. And frankly, I don't really care. Just get it done, get it done right. And let's make a lot of money with this book. I literally just got off a kickoff call with somebody that's in our, a mutual of the mastermind group that you and I are both in, Collective 54. And that was kind of the, I don't really care, let's just get it done. Like I don't care what the design looks like, I don't care what this looks like. In some cases, that's even harder, right? Because they actually do care, they just don't know it yet. They just don't know yet. It's kind of like the joke I always make. It's kind of like a website design. You know what you don't like, but you can't articulate what you do like. But that's why it's an iterative process. And we go back and forth. from the very beginning, I never got into publishing to be a publisher ever. So the way I looked at it was, and I talked to publishers, I didn't want to have this rigid structure of Here's what you get and that's it. Get what you get and don't throw a fit. Instead, it's very much like unlimited revisions. It's got to be what the author wants at the end of the day. So that's how we do it. Speaker 2 (10:19.758) Yeah, and I really love your concept of partner publishing, that you really are a partner in that process. I know for me, as I was getting Make How Matter pulled together, I have a strong voice and I write a lot. And so there was a lot of content to kind of put together into a book format, but I didn't really know or understand what I needed to have ready to be able to engage a publisher, to be able to say to somebody, like, does it not need to be like... 90 % of the way done or 10 % of the way done or what does that look like? And what I learned over time is that the answer is it depends. It doesn't actually matter. A publisher can help you in a lot of different ways along the journey to getting to a published book. But talk to people, talk to our listeners a little bit about if they have this dream of writing a book, what should they be prepared to articulate or how would they talk with a publisher about what their vision is, even if they don't have that fully baked. I think that is part of what keeps people in the failure gap, right? Is they don't know what they need in order to get started. Absolutely, and they also anticipate it to be a lot harder than it is or needs to be but as you know going through it It may not be hard, but it does take effort. I always I like to break it down to keep things simple. There's really only three parts to a book. There's the writing There's production and then there's a launch which I'll talk about all three But and there's some very basic decisions to make and first one is writing. Are you gonna write the book yourself? Or do you want someone to write it for you? And there's nothing wrong with either one. But like you said, you're a strong writer. I can't tell you how many people we do books for that are not. Or they don't have a passion to write. But they're great at talking. So first deciding, do you want help in the writing part? Do you want a ghostwriter to interview you, pull it out of you? A lot of executives go that route. Not because they can't write a book, just frankly, they don't want to take the time to sit down and do it. Speaker 1 (12:23.402) and it's still their voice. It's just out of your head on the paper, somebody else is getting it done for you. So, and that's the first decision. The production part is really pretty set and there's editing, there's the cover design and all of that. What we try to do is get in their head as far as like, what do you envision for a cover? What covers do you like? What genre? are we going after? But most of the time people don't know. So that's where having a really strong designer to pull some information out of them, looking at their branding, looking at kind of what their client base is, and then coming up with some unique concepts, it's never the cover. But it's at least like, which one are you leaning towards? And then let's take it and do it. I found that the more... We can, it's all about asking questions and understanding what they ultimately want to get out of it. But then too, you know, what books are they drawn to? And, but then designing it the way they want. And it's not always the way we would want it, I will say. So there are times, and this is where as a partner, you have to decide what's most important. And is it the cover that we... design and feel very strongly about, or is it the one that the author loves? And so there are times that we would have maybe chosen a different cover, but at the end of the day, it is the author's book. So that's that partnership. We go back and forth. It's so interesting in the way that you're describing partnership. There are certainly elements of what we also think of in terms of skills for creating alignment to shared goals, which you have a shared goal of publishing the book and asking a lot of questions and staying in that curious mindset and helping to really connect people to what the outcome should be that's best in service to everyone who's involved. think, and you've also talked a little bit about Speaker 2 (14:21.952) needing to adjust and be flexible around your own priorities and the priorities of the author. And what's important to both of you as you try to get to a good outcome, which is a book that that will have the impact that the author wants it to have, which I just say it in that way, because you said earlier, you had someone say, let's make a lot of money on this. I mean, between you and me and the rest of the world, very few authors make a lot of money on the book, right? But it's, but it's really about getting your message out there and being able to have an impact. And then, know, some dollars might come in from that. glad you brought that up because that is definitely a misconception that first of all, if you're writing a book just to make money on book sales, it's probably not the right reason to write a book because you will sell books without a doubt. think of just do the math. I mean, think about how much money do you want to make divide that by a $20 book actually back that out to the cost. I mean, so you have to sell a lot of books. But rather, I'd like to frame it as what let's just say I don't most people especially entrepreneurs, business owners, founders like us, we don't need this book to be everywhere. We need it to be in the hands of our top 100 clients. I mean, truly. And so what's your average deal size? If you could get one opportunity or one new client from somebody who read your book, what would that be worth to you? And so for people who get that, that the book is not the end all be all. It's just the ability for somebody to take notice of you. It's the door opener. But if that's all it's going to do is sell a book, then that's probably going to be a hard road than if you use it to build your platform and to really designate yourself as that authority that you are. But a book just allows you to let people know that a lot clearer. Speaker 2 (16:13.044) Exactly, I think that's so important for people to know is that it is a platform for you. It is not necessarily, you know, going to pay the mortgage. On book sales for sure now We just yeah exactly. I just had a one of our authors we did a book for him about a year ago and he called me recently and He has a great media company. Anyway, call me just and he said that he just signed on a new client He'd never had no idea where he came from whatever he literally reached out to him on social media and said I just finished your book Where do we sign up like I'm Yeah And I'm like, that is exactly the point. It wasn't the $20 you got from that book sale, and actually a lot less because they'd be through Amazon. So the pennies you got on that book sale versus the, that was like $100,000 client. So that's where the opportunity is. 100%. I agree with you completely. I think that's important for people to know going in because again, if you're misaligned on the goal, if you're, and that could be a misalignment between are we building a platform or are we creating a revenue generator? Then I think it's very difficult to get aligned and deliver together as a, as a partner publisher in that space. That's not to say some people do make a whole lot of money on their books. yeah. Great for them. sure. Speaker 2 (17:33.698) But I think the expectation should be that you're going to have the impact that you want to have for your business. Absolutely. And it's your core message. not the book people want. It's what value you are providing. And you're just providing some in a book, some on a podcast, some in a consulting engagement. So just make it easy for your clients to realize what value you bring. And that's one of a book does. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Michelle, I would love to hear a favorite story of yours about where there was maybe an author or an opportunity that was just having, they were just kind of stuck and you kind of had to work through to help them to get aligned on like the let's get this done. Let's get this done attitude. Okay, okay, I have one I'm not gonna say it's game for But this is actually this was one of my favorites still and I'll preface it by saying we have now done like four books for him. So he's got he got over this but one of our clients so says years ago a very very successful doctor and frankly, obviously busy. We're all busy though, right so But that was, he knew he needed to write a book. He knew the benefit of it. was, he got the whole thing. It wasn't a matter of, don't want to do it. he just, every time we talk, I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I don't have the time. Well, I was like, I'm jumping on a plane and we're making the time because I'm coming out there. And he actually lived in a very, very remote area of Idaho. And I went out there and I spent a day with them. And we really just to strategize more than anything, we were not making any progress. Speaker 1 (19:11.724) And I finally just said, listen, I'm turning on my recorder and we are not leaving until we get this whole book out of your head and onto paper or onto recording. And then let me take it to my writers. We can do all this. And literally we had, he went from, he had this failure gap of like, yeah, but I don't really know what I would say and this and that. And then I'm like, are you kidding me? Like everything you would ever put in this book is in your head. And so I just started asking him questions. And so we got that book out. Well, fast forward. So this book was the first book he wrote. He's written many since. He said that one book had an ROI of, I'm not gonna remember the exact number now. It's definitely six or seven figures. No, seven figures, I believe he said. Because what he did with that book is he was a destiny or is a destination practice, offers these huge packages, not just like a copay thing. When somebody would come in to visit with him instead of telling him, here's all the things we can do for you. Here's why you should hire us or what have you. He literally would just pass that book across the table and just say, go to chapter eight. Those are all the stories of the people that we healed or help with exactly what you have. And he said that one thing brought all of this additional revenue. And I just chuckled because now he's just on fire and he's doing great things. And I'm like, really? That's where he was so stuck. He could not. And that's where I see a lot of people stuck is they know they want to write a book and they think they know what they're going to write about, but they can't figure out how to organize it in their head. So they're paralyzed. And that's where I just always tell people, listen, you don't have to sit down and write a book to be an author. You just have to sit down and get it out. What's all up here and get it out. So somebody else can help you write it better or write it for you. so he's one of my favorite because he He got him out of his own way. got out of his Speaker 1 (21:08.204) He got out of his own way and once you do that, and as you know, writing a book, mean, once you write a book, you realize you have a lot more to say. Usually there's more books or like, yeah, I would do a different this time or, you know. Yeah, once started half done, like we said, right? Like you just get the ball rolling, then suddenly there's a lot to come out. So yeah, I love that story. And I really appreciate too, you know, for you, it sounds like part of getting unstuck was showing up for him very literally, like showing up in his space, meeting him where he was and saying, okay, let's get this done. Let's figure out a way to get you unstuck and to get you moving towards this goal that you have. And I think sometimes we underestimate the value of showing up. And when it comes to getting other people aligned to these shared goals, sometimes you really do, whether it's in real life or virtually these days, but just showing up can really unblock a lot of blockers and a lot of misalignment that's happening between people. Well, and also too with it was just that whole opening things up for people a lot of times there's fear there's You know, maybe not a belief that they have what it takes whether it's a book or anything You know a big goal that that that somebody on your team is setting You have to show up to help help them see what they can't see yet You know that that sometimes you have to pull out the greatness in them in order to help them get to where they want to go That's what I've seen a lot. And especially with a book, can be a very personal, emotional process, even if the topic isn't professional. Speaker 2 (22:50.04) Well, I think that that should be your tagline. I'll pull out the greatness in you. Oh, I love that. You know, maybe I maybe I'll do that. I did funny enough the last book I wrote was Illuminate Your Greatness, but it was it was something totally different. So I but I do love that. So like just in that's one of my you we all have our giftings like that's one of my favorite things is I love seeing something in someone else that they're just they're just not fully there yet. They just can't see it quite yet. But it's there. And I think when we get to this idea of how do we get out of the failure gap and get aligned to deliver, whether on our own goals or together, part of it is sometimes letting people help you with that, letting people help pull things out of you and being willing and open to that process. And I do think there are people who think, nope, I've got to get it all done myself or it doesn't count. And you know what? We're all in community with each other in so many ways. And I think being open to and willing to have other people help you pull it out of yourself is a really great way to get to a goal that you might have. Absolutely. You can do everything alone, but why would you when you have the support of a team or community? Speaker 2 (23:57.548) Yeah. And just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Right. Why not do it with other people and have it be even better? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there we have partner publishing. Do it in partnership. Do it in partnership. Well, we have covered some ground here, Michelle, and I'm curious if you had two or three just hot tips for people around how do you just get started? Like, how do we help people to get themselves unstuck around this idea of wanting to put their put their expertise out into the world in some way that has an impact, what are two or three things that you would really recommend that people just take to heart from this conversation? Thank you for asking that. What I see a lot is people underestimate what they have to offer, or they're already providing it to clients in certain way, but they still have that gap between, but nobody would want to read a book about that. Well, the truth is, start thinking, my tip is start thinking about what questions are people asking you about? What do they want to know? Most of what we would ever put into a book is going to be a combination of your experience, know, what you've done, whether it be professionally, personally, You know, in some cases it could be things you've gone through, good or bad, that you now have experience to share with someone else. But it's also the passion factor is super important because you could write a book about anything. But as you know, once you write a book, you're going to be talking about it for a long time. So it better be a topic where you have both passion and experience. It's that intersection of the two. And there's this exercise we do with our authors when I do conferences is Really just making a T-chart. What do you love to do? For me, I do love personal development. I love leadership. like helping people to find their greatness, right? But I also have a lot of experience in that from working with Zig Ziglar and my business and some other things. And so it's that intersection of the two that is a big part of my story. So that's the first tip. I would also just, as easy as this sounds, Speaker 1 (26:05.57) Stop overthinking it. It's not as hard. And I can say this because I thought this for so many years. mean, the 10 year gap between me dreaming about writing a book and actually doing it, the hard part was just all in my head. It really was because once I realized, wow, this is literally, I mean, there's like a couple of steps in here. It's like a recipe. It's you follow the... You do it in order, you know, it's not rocket science, but don't go at it alone. Find somebody to help you do it, but just stop overthinking it. And the last thing I'll say and why I think people overthink this, at least I did for me is it's not about you. It feels like it's about us because our book has our name on it all that. But if you think about what is the book, what is a book? The purpose of the book is serving, right? In your business, whether it's consulting, know, professional services, whatever you do, you're serving people. So a book is just a way for you to serve more people. That's all it is. So almost a little bit, when you let that ego go away a little bit of like, okay, this isn't about me. This is really just about me being able to share what I really know so well with more people. Then it makes it a little less intimidating. You're like, well, why would I not do this? I remember when I do a lot of speaking and that was a tip someone gave me when I was just starting out as a speaker. that most of the time when speakers are nervous, it's because they're thinking about themselves. They're thinking about, my gosh, what will people think? I'm, you know, my, you know, my, is my outfit okay? Is it this and that? Well, it's, that's not the point of speaking. You're on a stage to deliver value. So it's almost like turn that spotlight off of you onto them. It takes away all your nervousness because you're there to serve. And that's what book is. You're just sharing what you know with other people. So it's impact on them. Speaker 1 (28:00.654) I was thinking it's more mindset than it is technique or ability. And it took me 10 years to figure it out. So I'm not judging because I know, cause I've been there, but once I figured it out, it's it's mindset. Yeah. Well, I heard, know, find your intersection, stop overthinking it, and remember it's not about you. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And I think those are great tips for anybody who's either looking to get themselves unstuck around writing a book or somebody who's working to get aligned to other kinds of goals with colleagues, partners, friends, whatever it might be, because those actually apply in a lot of different scenarios. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, we always ask people this one question at the end and we've had such interesting answers, no pressure there. We always like to ask if you could get a community around you aligned to something, it could be your family, your friends, a group that you're involved with, it could be the world. But if you could get people aligned to doing something together, what would that thing be? What would you like to see people come together to deliver on as a group? My answer would be to go mining for gold. And what I mean by that is, know, a miner, when they go into a mine, they're looking for the gold, right? But when they get there, there's just dirt everywhere. But they have to look for that little speck. When you do that with people, whether it be your team, your spouse, your kids, your community, When you go in looking for the good in someone, you're gonna find it. But when you go in looking for the dirt, you're gonna find that too. And so for me, I think it's more about like, we need to encourage people, rising tides raise all boats. And the more we can like help somebody see their greatness and help them elevate it, I just think, first of all, you're gonna be a lot happier, but it's gonna be a much better place. And yeah, so go mining for gold. Speaker 2 (29:59.276) I love that. I love that call to action. We're all going to go mining for gold today. And Michelle, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your experience, sharing this conversation about what it takes to get a book published. I think you could also mine for gold in your own expertise and think about the impact that it can have if you serve it up on a platform like a book can reach so many more people. So I think it's a great way to think about getting yourself aligned to delivering on that and doing it in partnership with a publisher and some creative people. You don't have to have everything figured out for yourself. You can work with other people to bring your voice to bear. So I really appreciate all of those tips for everybody as they think about how can I get this done? And for all of our listeners out there, I want to say thank you for joining us. Remember to like and subscribe and pass this episode along if you have a friend who really needs to hear it. And as we like to say, a Kerikans group, to go far, go together, to go fast, go alone, to go far fast, get aligned. So Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. And to all of our listeners, we'll see you next time.