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A Business Review of My 2020 and Goals for 2021 · The Daily Writer

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this special edition of the Daily Writer.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But here in today's special edition, I want to take a break from what we normally do here on the podcast and take a look at where things have been for my writing and my business this past year.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And also take a look ahead to where things are going to be going in the next 12 months in 2021.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I do anything else, I want to make a couple of quick notes.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, this is an odd episode because I'm actually recording this.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: As I look at the clock, it says 3.13 a.m.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is on, well, I was going to say New Year's Eve, but this is actually New Year's Day, just in the very early morning hours.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We had a small get together here at our house tonight.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um actually everybody was here until about 2 a.m.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: So which was super unusual for us, but this was kind of a unique thing.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: My wife planned this very cool 1920s themed murder and mystery dinner, and we had a blast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of fun, and we kind of partied until the wee hours.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, partying as much as somebody my age, a 46-year-old writer, actually parties, which is which is to say I wasn't partying very hard.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, people were here till pretty late.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um I've committed to get this episode out on January the 1st.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, what the heck?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna stay up and record this.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for all you night owls out there, this is my shout out to you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Party on Wayne, party on Garth.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody probably under 35 won't get that reference, but that's okay.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, another note that I want to make is that for those who listened to the short episode that I put up the other day where I said that I would be back on January 1st, and I mentioned that I would be doing an episode called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Writers.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: For those who listen to that, just an FYI, I've actually decided to change directions a little bit, and I will be doing that episode in a week or so.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I did mention that on the previous episode.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go a different direction today, and hopefully that's okay.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple of reasons I want to get into this episode about goals and about where my business has been and where it's going.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I think it's helpful for me to have some space to reflect on the past year and to see what went well and what didn't go so well.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And second, I hope that it's helpful for you to hear another writer reflect on their successes, their failures of the previous year, as well as their goals for the coming year.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love to hear about people's successes and their failures.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the failures sometimes help me more than hearing about their successes because I relate to the failures more.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But also I'd love to hear about people's goal setting processes and how they think about their goals and what they think about achieving in the next year.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that this helps you on maybe multiple levels as you listen to this episode.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll dive into the review of 2020 and a preview of my 2021 goals here in just a second.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But first, I think it's a good question to ask, and it's something that a lot of people are thinking about.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is in the midst of a pandemic where everything can go haywire, and it seems like everything has gone haywire this past year, is there even any reason to do annual planning right now when things are changing constantly?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer is yes, absolutely.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why the writing in the book business is not as affected by the pandemic as other industries are.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I have a good friend who runs a food tour business in Nashville, and her name is Christine Wheatley, and she has a fabulous podcast called The Five Star Experience, and you should really check it out.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, when the pandemic hit, it basically shut down her whole business because her business depended on restaurants being open.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Christine, being the genius business person and the awesome creative mind that she is, she found some different ways to pivot during this difficult time, including starting her podcast, which I mentioned, and building another arm of her extensive experience and knowledge in customer service.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that that is already bringing her some very cool opportunities.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's honestly a lot of industries that were severely affected by the pandemic, including, of course, restaurants and any place where people are gathering, you know, the music industry, the live event industry, and all kinds of other things.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: However, industries and businesses that don't depend on physical locations have not always been as affected by the pandemic.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: For example, my ghostwriting business has actually done very well this year.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, um, well, I'll talk about that here in a little while, but my business has actually grown quite a bit this year.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want you to believe all the hype that you shouldn't do planning just because there's a pandemic happening.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I want you to think about what opportunities that something like a pandemic will bring you.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is a pandemic by definition, by definition a bad thing?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course it is.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean that you just have to sit around and wait two years for hopefully everybody to get a vaccine and for life to hopefully return to some kind of normalcy, whatever that is.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you are approaching your writing as a business, which I hope that you are, then that means that you're out there looking for new opportunities to do business with people.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for new opportunities to serve people with your writing and with your related talents and gifts and skills.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for example, here's just one example off the top of my head.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people are staying home more right now.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that means they're probably gonna be reading more books.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be ordering more books from Amazon, they're gonna be reading more books on their Kindle and other e-reader devices, and they're also gonna be listening to more podcasts.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: People are also gonna be on their devices more.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there are tons of opportunities for writers and content creators to really thrive during this time.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't ever want you to get the impression that, oh, there's a pandemic happening.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: That means I need to not plan at all or to just kind of wait till this thing blows over.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think we're kind of in the long haul with this pandemic deal.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be figuring out some ways that we can thrive and be creative with our business during this time instead of just sitting on our hands and hoping for the best.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So use this opportunity as a time to start developing your message and getting your message out there.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this is absolutely the best time in human history to be a writer.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: There have never been more opportunities for you to get your message out there on so many different platforms to so many different audiences and to be able to make money as a writer in so many different ways.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you set annual goals, are you probably going to have to make some adjustments along the way?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, probably.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it is far better to make some adjustments to well thought-out goals rather than to have no goals at all.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or another way of looking at this is it's better to plan your trip and have to take a couple of side roads along the way than to just start driving randomly and hoping that you arrive at someplace interesting by accident.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a good plan at all.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So don't believe all the people who say that we just need to sit around for a couple years and wait for this thing to blow over.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to get busy planning and thinking and uh praying and hoping.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But most of all, we gotta work.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to work.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what they it's like that old saying, you know, plan your work and work your plan.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is that even a saying?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I just dreaming dreaming that up?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is almost 3 30 in the morning.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not the best time to be recording a podcast for for my mental state, but hey, it is what it is.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this is kind of the name of the game in the podcast world, folks.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you got to get it out there and uh do what you can to serve the people who listen to your show.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening to this, thank you.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, with all that said, with my mostly coherent mindset here in the middle of the night, let me do some reflecting on my business in 2020 and also think about some goals coming up for this coming year.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, let's reflect on my business from this past year.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I want to take a look at the good.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: This was by far the best year for my business ever.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I basically tripled my income from last year, and this was almost entirely due to two book ghostwriting projects.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I finished the first one a few months ago, and I just turned in the second draft of the second book a couple of weeks ago.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind that these two ghostwriting projects happened, they both happened in the second half of 2020.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I basically made the same amount in my ghostwriting business as I make in my day job during that same period.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially I'm duplicating my day job income in my ghostwriting business as long as those ghostwriting projects keep coming in.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna, I've gotta tell you, I'm really, really thankful for that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's made a big difference, it's made a big difference for my family.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I am so, so grateful for that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been listening to this podcast or following my journey any length of time, you probably know that I'm a pretty open person.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any interest in presenting an image of myself to you that is something that I'm not.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna come out and say that it feels really, really good to finally, to finally have some money in the bank and to have some financial cushion that we've not had there in a long time.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: My wife recently lost her job, as in December 31st was her last official day on that job.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: She worked at a nonprofit art center in a neighboring town where she was the director, and the city that that art center is in, it bought it out and it only rehired one of the staff.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And even though my wife was doing an absolutely amazing job in that role, she was not rehired for um for any role, actually, at that uh at that art center.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that is a long, long story for another day.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the good news is that she's gonna be going back to school to get an interior design degree, which she is amazing at, and I'm so excited for her because of that.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that she has wanted to do to do for a long time.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And she's also gonna be working part-time in that field and actually already has a job lined up doing something that's very similar to interior design and event planning and so forth.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my point with all that is to say that it has felt really, really good to have a financial cushion of a few months of expenses there in the bank while we've been going through this transition because we didn't know what was going to happen with her job.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: We honestly didn't.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But even if she had had not gotten a job right away, or we had some other kind of a situation come up, it has felt so good just to have a cushion there for us.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that is directly due to ghostwriting.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We went through a very bad time financially for honestly a number of years.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we got into some serious trouble with debt, and ghostwriting and freelance work over the last couple of years has allowed me to pay off almost all of that debt, and it was a fairly significant amount of money.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, I am extremely, extremely thankful for the blessings that ghostwriting has brought into my life and into my family's life.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what has been really surprising about ghostwriting, and that is how much I've actually enjoyed it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: When I first got into it, I was like, hey, this will be a good way to make money with my writing skills, but it's turned out to be so much more than that.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have learned so much from my clients, and ghostwriting has opened so many doors for me in my in my personal and my professional life.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just amazing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriting is kind of like a backdoor to somebody's business.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're learning things from successful clients that you would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn in a traditional MBA program or something like that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: But instead of paying to learn those things, you're actually getting paid to learn since you're writing their books for them, but you're you're expanding your knowledge base, you're getting to know them on a very personal level, um, you're getting to know their business on a very uh sometimes uh deep level, and that's a pretty cool deal.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or as my ghostwriting mentor Nick Pavlita says, he says, now I get paid to write the kind of books that I used to pay to read.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So man, ghostwriting has been really, really cool.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's blessed our family in a lot of different ways, but also it's allowed me to get an education that I would not have been able to get otherwise when it comes to business and personal development.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, where do things stand right now?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with my ghostwriting, I have several projects that are circling the wagons, and I'm doing some work here in the next couple of weeks actually for a very successful ghostwriter.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm helping them with some of their client work, which is going to be a lot of fun.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I anticipate that ghostwriting for me is gonna be a long-term thing because it's working so well for me on several different levels.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, while ghostwriting has been my main source of income in my business the past year, there are several other points of growth that have been really important.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I want to also highlight these is because I want to make it clear that I'm building multiple streams of income in my business.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really important for any business owner.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't just be relying on one single stream of income because if that dries up, then you're gonna be in some serious trouble.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let me point out five other positive developments in my business from 2020.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is that I became a literary scout for Morgan James Publishing, and this is a very fun role where I'm basically on the lookout for entrepreneurial authors who are a good fit for their publishing model.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's this puts me in the orbit of successful people, both on the Morgan James side but also on the author side.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is I started a new focus on this podcast.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started out the year doing the smart business writing podcast.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then back in November, I switched it to the Daily Writer Podcast, which of course it is now.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is going to be my primary branding moving forward.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the main way that I will help writers is through the podcast as well as through the community, which I'll talk about in just a second.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: For the podcast, my downloads have been increasing month by month the last few months, and I'm having an absolute blast creating content for the show.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: The response to the show has been really good, which tells me that I'm on the right track and that people are really enjoying it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mentioned the Daily Rider community just a second ago, and that has been, and this is number three, by the way, this has been in beta launch for the past month, and I'm officially launching it this coming Sunday, so in a couple days.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna hear more info coming out about that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But suffice it to say, I've been thinking about the Daily Rider community for a long time, and it's been going well so far.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've loved our beta group that we've had, our small group where I'm kind of testing out some ideas and schedule stuff and other concepts.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna be doing a public launch of that in a couple days, and in fact, all of this next week.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number four that I want to mention in terms of five positive developments from this past year in my business is my next book, which is called Drumroll Please.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Sorry, that was a really lame drum roll.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually a drummer, so you'd think that I would be able to pull off a drum roll on my podcast, but it's hard to do without drumsticks.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, this book is called Let It Flow.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this book has been in the works for some time, but honestly, I just have not had the bandwidth or the energy to work on it the last few months because I've been really, really focused on client work and my podcast and some other things.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: However, my good friend Jim Woods, who I interviewed recently on the show, he and I have decided to help each other with getting our writing done the last couple months by doing something really fun.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Back in October, Jim sent me$500 on PayPal, and he said that if he did not have a first draft of his novel finished by November the 15th, that I could keep the$500.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unfortunately, and actually, fortunately, but I'm kind of joking here.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Jim got his novel done early, so I had to send the money back to him.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was a pretty effective way to motivate to motivate yourself.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually did the same thing, except the opposite way.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I made the agreement with Jim that I would have to get a first draft of my next book done by the end of the year where I would owe him$500.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this actually presented a huge problem because I spent all of November in terms of the time for my business.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I spent all of November focused on getting this podcast ramped up into the new Daily Writer version, as well as launching the beta group of my Daily Writer community.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as December hit, it was full pedal to the metal on the second draft of a client book.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I worked basically like the Dickens for three straight weeks.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um the first three weeks of December, basically, getting this second draft of this client book done and doing a bunch of interviews for it and so forth.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So literally the only time that I had available to work on my book was the week between Christmas and New Year's.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I made the mistake of telling my wife about the bet, and she basically said, You better find a way to get that book done because we are not paying$500 for this crazy bet that you made.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, and she was absolutely right.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to find a way to get it done.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I had a basic outline, and I've been thinking about this book for months, and I had about 500 words worth of ideas.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So on Sunday, and I mean this past Sunday, I started writing.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I did about 5,000 words on Sunday, 5,000 words on Monday, and then I dictated about the same amount on Tuesday and Wednesday.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, on Wednesday night, this has been just a couple days ago, um, I told my wife and my son, I said, I'm gonna go out driving for a couple of hours.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to dictate like the rest of this book.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So literally, I went and drove to South County in St.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was gone for about I think almost two hours actually.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: This was, you know, like the day before New Year's Eve.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to get it done.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I went out driving and I just dictated, I dictated, I dictated the story as best as I could as it was coming to me.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, this is a very rough draft.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very ugly draft in the writing world.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: We call this a vomit draft because I was just like vomiting out ideas.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got some basic ideas for the story there.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've got some, I think, really good pieces of the story for this book there.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that was how I was able to get it done.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh understand though, this is not normally the way that you should produce a first draft.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: But this was my very desperate way to generate some ideas and get the basic elements of the story there, just so I have something to work with in a couple weeks when I start revisiting the book and working on it in a more kind of refined, true first draft.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's really going to be more like a second draft way.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might ask, what is this book about?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a super quick summary.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let it flow is a story about a discouraged novelist whose creative well has run dry.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: A mysterious invitation sends him on a journey that helps him learn the four practices of a great writer that get his writing and his life back on track.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a super quick summary of the book.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, what I'm doing in this book is through the lens of a story, I am teaching the four practices of writing that I teach here on the podcast.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of writing kind of a standard nonfiction book about these practices, I am writing a story where I'm illustrating how these practices would actually work in someone's life.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see where it goes.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a different thing for me to try this, but I'm really pumped about it.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, in fact, this is the first time I think I've talked about that book on this podcast.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: That book will be coming out either in late spring or sometime during the summer of this year.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mentioned that I had five positive developments in my business this year.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let me share the fifth one and then I'll get on to a couple of challenges that I faced this year.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, number five is that I have focused my client services to book development coaching and ghostwriting.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what this meant in practice was that I had a decision to make.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could continue trying to be all things to all people, or I could let go of certain aspects of my business and instead choose to focus on the parts that I enjoyed more and were more profitable for my business.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, I've done things like book editing, web design, podcast show notes, setting up services like ClickFunnels and Convert Kit and a bunch of other stuff.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the most consistent type of freelance work that I've done, aside from ghostwriting, is writing podcast show notes for several clients over the years.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I have written show notes for many hundreds of episodes, and I've gotten very, very good at this.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you do something a few hundred times and you learn some ways to be really efficient and effective at it, and you learn to get really good at it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it took me a long time to develop those skills, uh, but at this point I'm I'm pretty darn good at writing podcast show notes.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here's a big problem with that, though.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with doing podcast show notes as your mainframe.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Freelance work is that it just doesn't pay that well.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a type of writing that a client can leverage nearly as well as they can leverage a book, which is why ghostwriting pays a lot better than writing podcast show notes.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by leverage is that if I write a book for somebody, they can use that book directly to get speaking gigs, to get consulting gigs, and a whole bunch of other things.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's harder to do that with podcast show notes.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess what I'm saying is that podcast show notes is a, it is seen as a not as high value type of writing as ghostwriting a book is.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because, well, it's just because it's true.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I made the decision a few months ago to transition one of my show notes clients to a friend of mine who's an excellent copywriter.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I went to the client and said, Hey, I no longer want to do this type of service, but let me find somebody for you who's who's actually going to be probably be better at this than I am.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be happy, you'll be happy, I'll be happy, everybody wins.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what I did.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And currently I have one more show notes client who I will be transitioning to another writer as well.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me be really honest with you.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Again, on this podcast, I believe in being honest and authentic and sharing with you as much as I can about my life because I want it to be something that you can learn from, both the good things that I'm doing and also the mistakes that I have made and continue to make sometimes.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to learn from those things.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: For the vast majority of my life, I have operated from a scarcity mindset when it comes to money.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So much so that even though now, as I'm making far greater amounts of money, ghostwriting books, it is still hard to willingly give up the money that I can make from podcast show notes.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Especially since I can do that work really, really fast.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a hard thing for me.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to learn to stop operating from a scarcity mindset and really operate more from an abundance mindset.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what that means in practice is that I'm learning to trust my own abilities and to trust my relationship-building skills and also to trust God that God's going to bring the right clients into my life at the right time.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I believe we should work hard, but also trust God in the process.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you operate that way, but that's kind of how I operate.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want to trust in the value of generosity.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is better for me to spread the work around and to help bless some writer friends with more work rather than me hoarding all the work that I possibly can and hanging on to all the client work that I possibly can.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really great way to burn out as a writer.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I have been there before.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's way better to focus on doing a couple of things really well for clients than trying to do all kinds of different services for clients.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can really fine-tune one or two or three things that you do super, super well, you can serve those clients at a super deep level.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can, as you hear about needs that other people have, you can refer those needs to friends of yours who would love to have that kind of work.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just think that's a better way to operate.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And but I'm that's a journey for me.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm still on that journey of learning to operate in that abundance mindset, but I'm way further than I was a year or two ago.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very thankful for that.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful to be learning that, and I'm thankful for the the ways that sometimes these business decisions test me a little bit.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they test my faith in my own abilities and they test my faith in the concept of giving and generosity, um, which I have grown a lot in in the past year.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's honestly a big lesson that I have learned this year.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I needed to give up writing podcast show notes when I kept trying to justify it to myself.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I was thinking through, should I give this up?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Should I not give it up?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can do it really fast, it pays okay, it doesn't pay great, but it pays okay, it's still some money.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you try to justify those things to yourself, and internally you know you don't want to do it, then you know it's time to give it up.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that when you constantly switch back and forth between several types of work for clients, everything suffers, and you never become world-class at anything.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that said, those are uh kind of five things that that were positive developments in addition to ghostwriting for my business this past year.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And let now let me share with you some challenges that I faced, and then I want to get on to talking about some things that I've got planned for this next year, and then I'll wrap up this episode.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the clock now says 3 40 a.m.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I cannot tell you the last time that I was up at 3 40 a.m.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a really long time.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but here we go.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of loving this.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of fun.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's talk about several challenges that I faced.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, five specific challenges that I faced in my business this past year.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Challenge number one was balancing my day job and my side business.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know this is not unique to me, but it's something that everybody building a side business experiences.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in some ways it makes it harder because I really do enjoy my day job.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am a professor of communications at St.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College in Florescent, Missouri, and I have taught there for 17 years.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I went there in 2004, and I've taught a lot of different things over the years, and I've had a few different roles over the years, and I legit, I love the people I work with.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love our school, I love my students.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, I told my wife the other day, I'm like, I can't wait to go back to work.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm legit excited to go back to the office next week.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I love ghostwriting, I love the podcasting, I love all the stuff in my side business, but I legit do really enjoy my day job.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that that does make it a challenge because you know, if I hated my day job, I would probably be more motivated to build my side business even faster.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: But but the problem is that I really do enjoy what I do.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And also I have the added benefit of the fact that the things that I do in my college teaching and the things that I do in my in my side business, those things complement each other very well.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So my writing and my ghostwriting, my podcasting, I use what I learned in those realms.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I use those in my college classes because I teach communications, I teach podcasting, I teach media and storytelling and writing and all that stuff.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a very direct connection there between those two things.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think being a college professor and also being a pastor, those experience, those experiences really help me in the realm of ghostwriting and client work.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting how those things kind of crossbreed, and there's some interesting things happening there.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I legit do really enjoy my day job.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is a challenge sometimes balancing those things because you know, I know a lot of friends who are like dying to get out of their day jobs because they have this job they hate and they're so unhappy and blah, blah, blah.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I totally get that.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh I have a job that I actually really enjoy and I and I love.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that is a challenge to balance those things sometimes.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that's not unique to me by any stretch.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's one challenge.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Challenge number two is here's a question that I keep wrestling with.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the question Am I trying to build too many things at once?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, truth be told, I'm really building two side businesses at once.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: One is ghostwriting and doing client work, and the other one is the content side, which is things like this podcast, things like writing my own books and things that tie into my daily writer community.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the community is the other main business I'm building, and my writing and my podcast are designed to lead into that, or at least that's kind of what I'm working toward.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I worry at times that by building what really amounts to two separate businesses, I worry that because I'm doing that, I'm shortchanging both of those things.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: However, they're all connected in a lot of different ways.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe a better way to look at it is that I'm building several different streams of income, each of them related to the same main business of writing, and uh and they're all connected in in different and interesting ways.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably a better way to look at it, but but honestly, at times I do wonder am I trying to do too much at once?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am, I don't know.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm chronically an overachiever.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been that way my whole life.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was the kid who always made straight A's in school, you know.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I wrestle with that overachiever mentality sometimes.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just gonna throw that out there for those of you who can relate to that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's go on to challenge number three that I faced this past year, and that is learning to write faster and more efficiently.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Last month I was talking to my wife about a client book that I'm writing.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just finished the second draft of it.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think I mentioned that a bit ago.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I made the observation to her that the reason that ghostwriting pays well is because it's very time-consuming and detailed work.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people think that ghostwriting is just about having a lot of talent.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, you're so talented you can write books for people.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there is talent involved, obviously.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: However, I also think that a huge part of success in ghostwriting is really just the ability to persist.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ability to stick with a long, meticulous project and see it through to completion and to be very detailed in what you're doing and to, you know, just persist and just see it through.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriting a great book, it just takes a huge amount of effort, and there's no two ways about it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the challenges that I'm facing is that I need to learn how to write faster, I need to learn how to write better and to be more efficient and more effective.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing that with every project that I'm that I'm writing, but I'm impatient and I always want the results right this second.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can relate to that or not, but that's how I am.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I know it's a process, I know it takes time, I'm getting way better with every project, um, but that is still something that I that I faced this year and will continue to face this next year probably as well.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Challenge number four that I faced this past year was managing my energy and getting healthier.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really the big one because to be honest with you, I've not done a lot with my health and fitness this past year.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I need to lose about 50 pounds to be at my ideal weight, and I was so busy with client work, especially the last six months, that I just didn't make it a priority.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know that's not an excuse, you know, and and you always make time for the things that are most important.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I totally get all that, but when you just when you feel like you're constantly barely catching up to the next thing and to the next deadline, and you've always you're you're just always trying to stay on top of things, it's hard to get out of that mentality to then say, okay, let me let me really make time for exercise.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I know that's a mindset thing, but I have not done well with that, and I need to change my mindset and my attitude about it.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know that my my lack of paying attention to my energy and my health, uh, I know that it affects my sleep, and I know that I need to do it more consistently and to eat healthier and lots of different things.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm using the NUM app, N-O-O-M.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably seen advertisements for that.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using the NUM app to help with that, and this whole thing of health and energy and sleep and diet and all those related things.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is a keystone habit that I know is going to make a huge difference for me in this next year.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, challenge number five that I faced this past year was simply delegating work.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I need to do a lot better job of working on my business rather than in my business.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: I spent way too much time this past year doing stuff like podcast editing and lots of other stuff that I should have had other people doing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I have transitioned some of my podcast production work to my son, but honestly, I need to do a lot better job of this so I can give more attention to growing my business.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a review of my 2020 from a business perspective.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to do is take a few minutes to share some plans for 2021 with you.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this section is going to be a lot shorter because instead of making these big grandiose plans with tons of details, I want to focus on a few major pieces this year and then just doing the daily and the weekly work to build those things.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: A huge mistake that I have made in the past is to make these big detailed annual or even quarterly plans, and then something goes off the rails, and then everything just bites the dust.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do here is share eight major initiatives and projects that I'll be focusing on in 2021.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is my health and my energy.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I just talked about this a couple seconds ago, but I just want to say again, this is the area I have neglected the most, and it's also the one that's going to make the biggest difference.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I mentioned, I'm using the Noom app to eat healthier and to focus on my weight, but I'm also immediately starting to train for a 5K.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've already done a 5K and a 10K.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did that a couple years ago, but I'm honestly kind of out of practice, and I would like to do those this year in addition to running a half marathon.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that is initiative number one.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is writing my own books.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've already mentioned my next book, which is called Let It Flow, but I will also have another book coming out in quarter three or quarter four this year that I that I was a co-author on.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you will hear more about that later in the year.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: The book is basically done.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's in like the editing stages, but that'll be coming out with a publisher later this year, and I will share more about that as it comes out.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's also a couple of other book projects that I'm toying with.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, these are not done deals.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if they're going to happen for sure, but I'm thinking about them and they might happen.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to tell you about these real quick.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: One is a co-writing project with a good friend of mine, and right now we're working through an outline for the book, and this is going to be a book on writing.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other project that may or may not happen is a book that I'm going to either ghostwrite or co-write for a family member.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that'll be a memoir type of book.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see where that goes.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if it's going to happen for sure, but it might happen.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is uh in terms of initiatives for this year, is building the daily writer community.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really big one.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear a lot more, a lot more about this very, very soon.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal is to get 100 paid members of the group by the end of the year.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is a very, very exciting thing.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to really be pushing that because I know how helpful it is.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just because I want to sell something.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I I put this off for a long time because I was kind of resistant to doing it.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at a retreat a few months ago, uh, some good entrepreneur friends really pushed me to do this if they felt if I truly felt like it was something that I could do to help writers.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it absolutely is.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I went ahead and launched a beta version of it, and uh you'll be hearing more about this very, very soon.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Initiative number four for 2021 is of course my ghostwriting business.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I keep my current pace up of book writing, I would love to write four client books in 2021, plus an assortment of articles as well.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Initiative number five is marketing.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's several pieces to this, so let me take a second to lay this out just a bit.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the first piece of marketing is this podcast, which is by far my strongest marketing channel.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: My downloads are up, and this is a daily show, and the response has been very good for the show.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this also has the added bonus of giving me the opportunity to create content for a book that's also called the Daily Writer, which I'll be releasing in the fall of 2022.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the short weekday episodes that I'm doing now for this podcast will basically be the content for that book.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that book is going to be a daily type of a reader for writers.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be 366, essentially really, really short chapters, basically a page a day.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So as I'm creating these weekday episodes for the podcast, that's what I'm creating it for, is for that book that'll come out uh almost two years from now.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we have the podcast, but also I'll be focusing a lot more on being a guest on other people's podcasts this year.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my aim is to do a hundred guest interviews in 2021 that averages out to about two or three a week, which is very doable.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm also going to be diving into writing for large publications online, which is a great marketing strategy.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I purchased a course for this like a year ago and I just haven't done much with it.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great opportunity that I just have not had time to dive into, but I really want to make that happen this year.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the final thing with my marketing initiative this year is really focusing on building my email list.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: All the things that I've mentioned, uh podcast guesting, this podcast, and writing for large publications, all those things filter into building my email list.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm currently re uh reworking my new lead magnet for subscribers, and that's going to be done later on this month.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Initiative number six for 2021 is simply to be more efficient in my writing and my business.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I need to write faster, I need to rewrite faster, and I also need to do a better job of running my business better and delegating more things.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Initiative number seven is affiliate marketing.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just yesterday, I got a small payment from a company that I'm an affiliate with, and I had totally forgotten that I'm an affiliate with them.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, I was sitting at my desk and my phone gave me a notification, and I was like, oh, what's that?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked down at my phone and I saw, oh, you've got this like$55 payment from this company that I'm an affiliate with, which is pretty cool.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just kind of shows up in your account.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to be doing a lot more with affiliate marketing this coming year because that's a missed opportunity I have not paid much attention to.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, initiative number eight for 2021 in my business is building relationships.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the best way to grow a business, and it has worked extremely well for me so far.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I talk about building relationships, I'm talking about serving people well, getting on calls with people, leaving reviews for the books and podcasts, introducing people to each other, finding ways to help people, and so forth.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: One very, very effective way to do this is by ghostwriting a client book and then interviewing a bunch of people to feature in that book because that just builds tons and tons of really cool connections.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I just did this over the last few weeks and it's really paid off in some crazy fun ways.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a ghostwriter, I would encourage you to start using that strategy for your client books.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, you you take your client and then you figure out who in their network would be good people to interview for this book, and it creates all these cool connections and networking opportunities.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there you have it.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is a rundown of my 2020 as well as my business and writing goals for this coming year.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear how your 2020 went and what your goals are for this year.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So please hit me up on Instagram at Kent Sanders or on Facebook as well.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from you.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again so much, and I will see you tomorrow.