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How to Get More Leads Through LinkedIn (with Bjarne Viken) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're active on Facebook.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: You play around on Instagram.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably dabbled with Twitter.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the great mysteries of life is what in the world should I do with LinkedIn and how do I use it to grow my business?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're in luck because today we pull back the curtain and reveal some of the secrets for getting more business leads on LinkedIn.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello my friend.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kent Sanders from Inkwell Ghostwriting.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks so much for joining me today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm excited to bring you this conversation with my friend BJ Viken.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: BJ is a marketing and sales expert who helps professionals get more leads from LinkedIn and teaches how to close them.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I first got to know BJ a few months ago when I joined a ghostwriting mastermind on LinkedIn.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And BJ shared some amazing business strategies, and I was really impressed with his generosities and all of his systems.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, BJ breaks down his process for getting leads on LinkedIn.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: He goes into a lot of detail about why LinkedIn is so valuable, why it's important to treat your writing like a business, and one of the most important things, which is what you should include in your LinkedIn profile.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I took extensive notes on this conversation, and as you listen, I would recommend that you grab a pen and paper or you get ready to type on your phone or on your computer because you are going to take some notes, and this is going to be super duper valuable.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I've ever used the phrase super duper on this podcast before.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow that's transporting me back to watching the Justice League cartoon as a kid in the 1980s.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that aside, let's get to the conversation with my friend BJ Viking.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: BJ, thanks so much for doing the show.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you making time for this, and I'm excited about all the cool stuff that we're going to talk about.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The coolness primarily coming from your end, of course.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So based on my uh experience in the ghostwriting group that I was a part of for a bit on LinkedIn, you have so many different things that you could add to a discussion on business and writing and LinkedIn and clients.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a lot of trouble kind of narrowing down a focus for this conversation, which is a good problem to have.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: However, that being said, I thought we would focus in this conversation on how business professionals and ghostwriters or freelance writers can get and close leads on LinkedIn.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a passion of yours and a huge area of expertise.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So does that sound cool to dive into that direction?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:43
  unknown: Okay.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Far away.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start out, though, with kind of a general overview of what exactly it is that you do.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have a very strategic mind.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have a very systematic way of approaching problems and solutions.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So but break down business-wise, what is your what is the main thing that you help people do?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, with my company, uh scaleup.com.au, uh, what I do is I help professionals get in contact with their ideal target audience.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or alternatively, I help them get in contact with people who can open doors to their ideal target audience.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the way that I do that is first I have a conversation with a professional, asking them what is it that they want to achieve, and ask them why they want to achieve it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to identify their core audience.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's a fit for them, uh then I run campaigns to reach out to that core audience so that they're able to get uh meetings, and from those meetings, hopefully uh close a sale or two, or if they have different goals, um, that they're able to get those goals achieved through the meetings that they're having.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's actually a fairly straightforward system then.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: With with obviously lots of moving parts, but but that is a that does sound like a pretty straightforward system.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is it is pretty straightforward.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a lot of the people that I'm working with do a lot of classic mistakes.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So LinkedIn, one of the biggest things that people do wrong is that they tend to ask for the sale very quickly.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so what I try to say to a lot of ghostwriters is try to be strategic on who you're reaching out to, what it is that you want to achieve.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And try to educate more than you're actually trying to sell.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because the the new way of generating sales nowadays is try to be as on salesy as possible.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a ton of sense because we've all gotten on LinkedIn and made a connection, and then all of a sudden somebody's pitching you on some service or some kind of thing, which of course turns people off.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a great way to sell.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: It works for some industries, it works very well for ghostwriting still.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you if you reach out to consultants and speakers, it still works extremely well.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: The challenge though is turning that conversation is into something that is tangent.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I've also been experimenting with the ghostwriters that I'm working with on doing indirect outreach to publishers, entertainment lawyers, um, people that already are providing services to the clients.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that is actually working better than doing direct outreach in terms of the actual reply number.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: But it does require the ghostwriter to have a little bit more of a business mind, which sadly often is not the case.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Most business most ghostwriters tend to be uh employees in their mindset.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the the big problem with having that mindset of being an employee is that you you don't think of it as a business.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: You don't think of all the things that you gotta do, all the the responsibilities you have as a business owner.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, you having a budget for marketing, having a system for generating leads, having a system for closing it, maybe thinking about how you can put yourself out of the business and instead of managing it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of those questions, a lot of ghostwriters don't think about.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And because of that, they end off end up often in a feast or famine situation where either they're very happy because they're having a gig, or they're very miserable because they have nothing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that is not in a good position to be in.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that most ghostwriters, and I would put most writers in this category probably as well, why is it that most ghostwriters are wired that way not to be thinking of themselves as a business person?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something fundamentally about being a creative type person that it's hard for those people to think of themselves as a business person?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, if I start with the creative angle, um, most creative people are struggle with the structured element of business.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Business should ideally have two elements.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: There should be the creative aspect of uh challenging a system or being a little bit of a rebel, trying to come up with something that is unique, but that should always be supportive with the system.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: So ideally, there should be two types of people inside of a business person's mind.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: It should be the creative person who comes up with an idea, and it should be the structured person who goes, Okay, now I'm getting that, we're testing it, it worked, let's put it into a system.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if I try to go to the second part of your question, actually, the first one you mentioned, is there something special about writers and the way that they are approaching it?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think writers fundamentally um are introverts, people who like to reflect.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Writing is in itself is a very nerdy profession.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: You if you think about it's just the the act of reading a book, you are putting yourself in a situation where you are exposing yourself to someone else's ideas uh without any other type of sound, any other type of stimuli.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's entirely you and the book.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: When you are a writer, it's you and the naked page, and you're putting your thoughts, your words out of the page.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: That is a very, very solitary activity.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Versus an entrepreneur um has to be very social, they have to be very outgoing, they have to be willing to have conversations.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And sadly, for a lot of writers, that's not what they want to do.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it's also the reality for a lot of business people, sadly.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's a very common joke among a lot of um successful businesses, that this business would have gone even better if we managed to get rid of all the customers.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's true, yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's it's necessary because we we need to really business owners and ghostwriters need to generate revenue.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's that's always the dilemma.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is it that I'm diving into the psychology a little bit here of the writer's mind?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is the difference between writers who are successful?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So introverted writers who are successful at building a business versus introverted writers who are not successful.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just the willingness to break out of their shell and do what's necessary, even though they don't feel social?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really what it just comes down to?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just a decision to think like a business person.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it's a hard question to answer.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I can only tell it based on the clients that I've worked with.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the ones who are financially successful, they treat it like a business.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: They might not have started off as business people, but they should just approach it and go, they focus on the numbers, they focus on what they need to do, they are willing to do what needs to be done to achieve their outcome.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's one aspect of it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: The other part of it, a lot of writers are struggling with mental issues.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And by that I mean particular confidence issues, not putting a lot of value into what they're doing themselves, um, and making the mistake of valuing their work based on their own self-perception.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Their work is not really a representation of who they are, the their work should have uh an independent market evaluation.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're writing a 50,000-page book, uh the value of that book should be estimated in the marketplace, not based on who you are as a person.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: However, for a writer, the way you express yourself, the way you get your thoughts onto a page, it's a deeply personal project, even if you're doing it for someone else.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: All that is deeply, deeply personal.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So the challenge for a lot of writers is to make the process, which can be deeply personal, unpersonal and just looking at it as a business.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's one aspect.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: So if I try to think about the the clients that I have that are that are the most successful, um one in particular comes to mind.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he is extremely business oriented.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he almost doesn't come across as a writer when I speak to him about business, but he does come across as a writer when he has to present himself as a writer.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's very numbers-oriented, um, very clear to the point, very short.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, think of another successful client that I have, um, extremely intelligent, very numbers focused, um, a math background.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Think of another one again uh that I'm regularly working with, um, it fits a lot of those characteristics where the person knows the business side of it and decides to learn about that, versus the person who's just, I just want to have another writing gig.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess if I'm gonna try to separate the two, the not successful writers when I speak to them are just looking for a writing gig.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: The people who are successful, they treat it like a business and see whatever it is that you're providing, if you're doing lead generation or any other type of server business as a service to grow their business.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that makes a lot of sense.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we we could spend hours unpacking all that because you're diving into some really important aspects of the writer's psychology, I think, and how we and how we think about ourselves.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm understanding you you correctly, the way the way that I'm um sort of filtering this is you have writers who think of their writing as primarily a personal or artistic expression.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is my writing, it represents who I am.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that's deeply personal to them, and they they cannot separate their personal value and worth from that writing.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have the business-oriented writers who see their writing not just as some kind of personal expression that's self-validating themselves, but it's a it's a it's a business product that has a market value, and therefore they they treat their writing like it's a business and not just as a personal expression.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It am I framing that correctly for the most part?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, that is correct.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the successful writers, the successful ghostwriters are very, very much aware of the market side of what it is that they're providing.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: They think about putting in place market funnels, they think about having a website that looks professional, they they think about uh their sales process.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they make sure that they they come across as being professional, versus the people who are making less money who often devalue themselves in the way that they appear, in the way that they communicate, and as a result of that, they end up in problems.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: So problems I I I've been working with ghostwriters who are charging fifty thousand dollars for a book, uh,$100,000 a book and higher.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, I've had conversations with writers who are charging$8 an hour.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a big difference.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's all mindset, it has nothing to do with the value.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: So what I say to a lot of writers who are uh struggling with increasing their prices, I say, look at the market, and they go, Well, I'm not sure if this it's worth it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I say to them, it's not about you, it's about the market.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Get yourself out of the picture and just think if I write this book um and I put it out in the market, what's the value to the client?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: What can they do with this?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that varies a lot from project to project.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of ghostwriters sadly take on projects which have little commercial uh value.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is there's a lot of stories out in the world that are important to tell, but it's not the ghostwriter's responsibility to tell them all.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's not every project that has um financial return.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're gonna look at it in in pure numbers, the type of books that there's a high demand for are books that enables the author to come across in a good way.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only purpose of the book.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of books never get sold, um, never have a massive shelf life.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can see it on Amazon, but the main purpose of the book is to get the person who is the author to come across as an expert.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a ton of sense.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you're whoever's listening to this um after this is posted, if there's some pauses in here, it's because I'm taking furious notes.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of so much good stuff here.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the main purpose to kind of summarize so the main purpose really is to uh uh help the client to get more business, to come across as an expert, as an authority, to help them develop their credibility and grow their business.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's ultimately what the most successful ghostwriters are doing.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair to say?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: It varies on from client to client.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you're reaching out to consultants and speakers, and they're interested in getting more business.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you're reaching out to and getting a work from someone who's in their 60s and 70s working on his memoirs, then what they're mainly interested in is completely different.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: They want to leave a legacy.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: So what I would suggest is first have a conversation with the client to understand what they want, and they have then have a conversation with them, why it matters to them.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you want to do this?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like I have uh one of the clients that I'm working with, she's in a very, very interesting situation.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: She has a very, very uh interesting, wealthy client from what I get the impression of, uh, who wanted to have a book written.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And she's willing to give 70%.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Initially, she was willing to give 100% of the royalties to the ghostwriter, which is very unusual.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then the ghostwriter basically talked her down, again unusual, to 70%.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is unusual.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and what makes that project unique is uh that that the author uh will be going in for assisted suicide in November.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you have the story on one end, you have the entire process of getting the story written, which is another, and then you have the the relationship you have with the with the author.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in that person has a completely different motivation than someone who is in their 30s and want to have a business book written.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: So your challenge as an author, uh sorry, as a ghostwriter, is to really, really listen and try to get an understanding of what is it that the person or the other end deems as a successful outcome.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is it number of sold books?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is it to leave a legacy to their family?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh is it to have an impact on the world?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: All those things matter, and you don't know that until you're having a conversation.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: For a lot of speakers, they might say they want to have speaking gigs, but many of them want to just want to be heard.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that in itself is a deep human desire.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so if you're able in the first meetings that you're having with a client to uh to make them feel that they're being heard, then you're going a long way to closing the deal.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: I often say to the clients that I'm working with that you're taking them through three stages.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: The first stage and the first meeting always talk about their problems, get a full understanding about their problem.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: In the second meeting, have a proposal ready for how you're going to solve their problem, and workshop with the client, ideally with a proposal that you change in the meeting, uh, until it's something that is perfect for what they want, and in the third meeting goes straight into implementation.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, that varies from client to client, how much how many meetings they might take, but ideally you want to take them through those three stages: problem, solution, implementation.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's great.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if a writer is listening to this conversation right now and and they're the kind of writer or ghostwriter who really takes their projects personally, you know, like we're talking about the ones who are not financially successful or not business oriented, how how can someone begin to move away from looking at their writing as a very personal product, they're very emotionally tied to it.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go from that kind of person to someone who is more business-minded and who can look at their writing and their business much more objectively?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is there as you have worked with so many people, what are the how does someone begin to make that journey?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a complicated question, I'm sure.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think the I'm probably not the best person to answer that because I'm not a writer, but I think we might have to go back to the reason why someone become a ghostwriter.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're if you if your drive as a as a writer is to express your own thoughts, uh your own stories, then you should be doing that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: But don't confuse that with ghostwriting.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Ghostwriting is when you are telling someone else's story.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: So if you feel that you want to tell your story, what I suggest is separate the two.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Be very, very clear that you are telling the other person's story.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay if you provide your input, your thoughts on on how you might want to tweak it to improve the client's narrative.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: But if you go into telling your own story, you're not you're no longer a ghostwriter.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think um Claudia Susan, who is uh a very, very well renowned ghostwriting teacher, is very clear with her clients and her um her students that they shouldn't be doing any type of projects on the side.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't necessarily have that viewpoint myself.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really have that much that much knowledge in that particular field to answer that question, but I understand where she's coming from.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're if you're treating the project as being your own, then it's something it becomes something else.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I suggest as someone who's looking at this from the outside, be very much aware that you're telling someone else a story, that you're there in a way as a as a tour guide.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you might your your role is as a tour guide, you know the path that you're gonna take them on.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know the highs and low, and you can guide them and warn them against certain areas that might be more difficult than others.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they don't step on a stone, don't jump off a cliff, cliff or whatever.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, it's their journey.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to make sure that at the at the end of the journey that they manage to get the outcome that they're after.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that's probably how you separate it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure that the process is yours, give the best advice that you can, and make make sure the person that you're working with is aware if they take a um a walk off the path.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And don't take it as necessarily being your fault.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: It could not be your fault.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how can it be your fault if the client decides to take a different trip than the one that you you envisioned?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Apart from that, if you're having your own projects.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: My personal advice is just do them, but just make sure that they're separate from what you're doing, course.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go back for a second to something you mentioned a few minutes ago that I'm I'm really curious about.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You you made a passing comment about in the context of being a professional, about our appearance as writers or ghostwriters.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious for you to dive into that a little bit more because this is something that a lot of creative types, including writers, don't pay a lot of attention to.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just fidd physically how we look and how we dress and how we carry ourselves.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts on how to be more professional in our appearance and how we carry ourselves?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it that varies a lot.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um Claudia, I had a I remember speaking to Claudia Susan about that a while ago, and she basically suggested when you're speaking with clients, you should dress down, you shouldn't try to come across as being in a in a suit and and and up because it it is entirely psychological, because you want to have a conversation with someone at their level, and how you dress is very much um a conversation about what it is that you want to achieve.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like when I'm having meetings uh for another company that I run scale of VC, uh, I do that in the capacity of wearing my investor hat.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the conversation that I'm having with the person with other end is okay, um, we're interested in investing$10 million.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Do you fit our requirements?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, I have to wear the uh the white shirt to fit that fit to fit that role being the investor.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but as a ghost provider, you want to be on the level with the person that you're speaking with.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: So what I would suggest is pay attention to what your um your clients are wearing, are they suiting up, are they fashionable, whatever it is, and then try to match it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll very very quickly find that a lot of the people that are very successful can be extremely casual.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason behind that is also psychological.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you think about it, uh the people who um try to look their absolute best need to look their absolute best in order to achieve a particular outcome, versus a person who's extremely successful had people coming to him all the time, don't necessarily need to be wearing a$5,000 suit.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's it really it really comes down to what position is that person in, what what what suits them.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Often uh many of the most successful people that I speak with are extremely casual, and if they have to to dress up for something, uh they almost make a point out of it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm having a meeting, I have an often conversation with uh with uh with a guy who has generated over two billion dollars worth of revenue for the people that he works with.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he's extremely casual.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: When he's having a meeting with potential clients, he basically goes over to his left, takes uh takes down a shirt and puts it on.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: But that's only for the meeting, and then he takes it off and puts it back again when having on a regular conversation.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that that that's a big part of the reality.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um we want to come across uh a certain way.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And LinkedIn is in in a way it's a good representation of that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because on LinkedIn, there's a lot of people who want to look their best, but then when you're having Zoom meetings with them, they extremely casual.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess in a way, this is all just kind of a game.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, in a way, business is a game, life is a game in some ways.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have certain rules that we play by.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, certain rules are going to help you, certain rules are going if you break those rules, they're gonna hurt you and so forth.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's funny because every time I'm on a Zoom call, including right now, I had a friend of mine who's a ghostwriter, and he said every time he's on a client call, he always puts on a button-down shirt.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I've done the same thing, except I only button the top one.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I leave the rest of it just hanging open because it's more and I have shorts on right now, no socks.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't see that because you're just seeing you know a small slice of it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just funny the rules that we live in and and how we operate in this new world of Zoom and the images that we create for ourselves and how we try to come across and all that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really interesting.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, and I I personally like to mock all that.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't I'm not wearing it at the moment, but I I used to have these uh dog-shaped slippers uh we walk around with, so I could wear I could look absolutely professional from from head head down to the waist.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you look at what I was walking, and it was I I purposely wore it because it was outrageous.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like it made fun of the entire corporate lifestyle, which I always find extremely funny.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to circle back to LinkedIn.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're an expert on LinkedIn, and I've been really impressed with uh in the small amount of time that I've known you, just a few months, uh, just at your breadth of knowledge on how to use LinkedIn effectively.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who are listening who are not very active on LinkedIn, they're writers, they're ghostwriters, they're they're professionals, what does LinkedIn offer that you cannot get on other social media platforms?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a super elementary question, but but I think there are some people who who don't really realize why LinkedIn is so powerful.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So can you help us get a little bit of a grasp on the power and the value of being active on LinkedIn?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um starters, I don't like to say that I'm an expert on LinkedIn or anything like that.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not because I I don't have a lot of knowledge about it and about LinkedIn, but uh there is so much that I can still learn about LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: So at best, I like to say I I for my company, I like to say I'm a LinkedIn specialist.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um not that I'm gonna attack, not say that I I'm not able to live up to the expert moniker, but it's just a a matter of perspective.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I like to focus on it.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, to answer your question, um what LinkedIn allows you to do is access to a certain amount of people.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like if I'm trying to simplify internet at any type of social media, it's kind of like this: you're trying to connect with your with your ideal target audience in a setting um that makes sense for you to connect with them.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: So imagine yourself that you're trying to sell a product or service.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Where are most of those people located?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that is where we end up going to LinkedIn.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, LinkedIn is not by any stretch of imagination a perfect website.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a perfect business.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think their LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool is horrendous.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the way that the uh the way that they are providing the information and segmenting it is is awful.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: There are other tools out there that is definitely better.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: But where LinkedIn comes across as being really valuable is the database that they can easily give you access to.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: So if you are a ghost provider, it makes it very easy for you to reach out to a business owner of a company that has between 50 and 11 employees.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: You can reach out just to the owner and make a pitch to that person.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that is extremely beneficial for you as a ghost provider because then you can think, okay, this person is already employing 10, at least 10 staff.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: That means that he has enough budget to hire an extra person.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: At least that's my logic, that they had they're at a certain revenue level.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's the first thing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you have access to a completely different type of professional network.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: The second benefit, and it might this might not come across as that much of a benefit, is that on LinkedIn, up until recently, uh the platform wasn't really set up to be uh a freelance platform.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: You just present yourself socially, um, and then if you want to interact with a person, you reach out to Connect, you might send an email and so on.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now you can add services to your LinkedIn profile.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the benefit of that is that it doesn't become like a freelance platform, like for instance, Upwork, where you you see a job being posted and there are 50 people that are applying.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: So your opportunity with LinkedIn is to present yourself in a way that benefits what it is that you want.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: So when I'm reviewing people's LinkedIn profile, I have the conversation with them.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what is it that you want to achieve?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you want to come across as a ghostwriter?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, where does it say on your profile that you're a ghostwriter?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then I go, uh, it says that I'm a writer.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, where does it say that you're a ghostwriter?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then I go to their about section and I'll say, Okay, um, when you wrote this about section, did you write it for your target like your target client?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the times they go, No, I just looked at it as a CV.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And again they start to realize that they have problems.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then I say to them, Okay, um, maybe you want to write to your target audience.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I suggest to them answer five questions.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: What can I do for you?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: How do I work?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Who have I worked with before?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: What makes me different?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And how can we get in contact?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Variations of that, rewrite it to whatever works for you.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then underneath that, I say to the writers, include samples of your work, make your profile stand out so that whoever is looking at your profile will immediately go, ah, that person knows their stuff.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I should get in contact with them.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because if your profile is so informative, provides so much valuable information that you don't have to sell yourself, then you will notice A that you will be ranked better related, and B, those people who reach out to you will not be asking the same questions than the people who uh just contact you out of the blue, or you contact them out of the blue because they have more information about you.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: A big challenge that you will have if you don't have a solid reputation and you you reach out to someone is people getting back to you asking, okay, so what are your rates?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: If people are asking about your prices, then they don't know enough about what it is that you're offering.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Your profile can be improved the way that your positioning could be improved.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now Okay, now why why is that?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if they're asking about your pricing, does that mean that means you're not you haven't presented yourself in a way where they're perceiving that they're gonna get enough value from what you're doing if they're asking about pricing?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: If they're asking you about price, it means one of two things.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Either A, they're not a customer for you.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, quite simply because if you ask, if they ask what's it gonna cost, then if you think about it using your head a little bit, the answer back should always be, well, it depends.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, kind of like if someone if someone asks you, okay, what's the price for a house?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't be able to answer that.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason why you're not able to answer that is because you don't know all the specifics about the house.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone is asking you what's what's your what's your price, then very often you're dealing with a low-cost um potential customer.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're just looking at you as a commodity, in other words.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're turning you into a commodity.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: But the the reason why they're doing could be because of the way you're reaching out to them.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: It could be because they're not the best fit.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that have a million dollar dreams and a shoebox of of actual budget.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: They have no no money to spend.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And often if you go to places like Upwork, you will very quickly be surprised.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Not surprised, but you get shocked, but what they want versus the budget that they have to do it with.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just a knowledge gap.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can you review those those five questions that should be on your LinkedIn profile again?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was running those down, but they went really fast.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: So what I'm referring to is the about section.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the about what's called a summary.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Some places it's called about sections, other places it's called a summary.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it's the first part of your profile at the very, very top where uh you can present yourself, you can write a little bit of a bio.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: What a lot of people do is they talk about themselves.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And what I suggest is instead of talking about yourself, imagine that you're sitting down and you're having a conversation with your ideal visitor of your profile.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: The emotion like the number one person you want is to look at your profile.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine that you're having a one-on-one conversation, and imagine that that person is asking you questions about what it is that you that you're doing.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine that you're talking to an ideal customer, and the top five questions that I think they might be asking is okay, um, what can you do for me?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Second question is how do you work?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: What is your what are the steps in how you work?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Third question is who have you worked with before?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Fourth question, um, what makes you different?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Fifth question, how can I get in contact with you?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not suggesting imagination that you should copy those questions and put them off your profile without tweaking it because as people might be listening to this podcast, they will be doing their own variations of the questions.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and if everyone does uses the exact same questions, every every profile will look identical.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: The point is you want to have you want to have questions that allow you to directly engage with potential visitors, potential customers, potential people that could be a part of your life.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And ideally, you should provide as much value as possible, and you want the person to go, wow, okay, so this is this is someone I should speak with, and that varies from person to person.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: So normally I would suggest follow that strategy.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: The only exception to the rule, um, and I suggest uh your listeners to just check check it out is when you want to come across as a person who is in extremely high demand.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because you going back to what I said to you before, a lot of those people choose not to have the most flashy, flashy website.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: But the the hard reality is if you are LinkedIn as a ghost file, you're doing you're there to do sales.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: That that's why you're there.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I suggest look at your profile as an argument, and the argument should have three elements um a logical argument for why they should reach out to you.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: It should have um an emotional connection with your target audience, so you should be basically be able to speak their language, uh, relate to their problems and so on.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And finally, you should have evidence, should have evidence to back up your skills so that it should be clear beyond doubt the type of quality uh of the work that you do.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: And for a lot of ghostwriters, you don't have that to start off with.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't have a lot of evidence, what you can do is you can um uh document how it is that you work.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have a particular process for how you do your ghostwriting, uh you can write that down, create a slide deck, uh, upload it to LinkedIn.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: The benefit of that is um LinkedIn uh owns uh slide share that you purchased.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um so any slide deck that you add is automatically shared on SlideShare, which means that you get higher ranking, you get high visibility.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um so look at it as a way for you to expose yourself.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it can also be a useful tool if you want to reach out for joint ventures.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say that you are a ghostwriter and you want to get more spe more gigs, you can reach out to uh publishers, you can reach out to other people who have the exact same customers as you.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, um those who work with um uh podcast owners and book uh guests for them.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: Same audience, different product.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: So an easy joint venture partner.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was actually going to be my next question because you had you had mentioned then on a this is you had mentioned this on a message to me on LinkedIn about this exact strategy, which I find really, really fascinating.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: So can you break that down a little bit more for us about okay, take me for example, I guess uh I'm a guinea pig on half half of my episodes, which works well since I'm the host, I guess.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if I wanted to connect with my potential clients who are generally consultants, speakers, corporate trainers, people who would like to write a book and who would benefit from writing a book, but they don't have the time, the interest, or the ability to write a book for themselves.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I come in as a ghostwriter.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: What kinds of people would I do well connecting with?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, you mentioned things like publishers, podcast booking people, things like that.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: How would I go about identifying which people I should be connecting with who also serve my clients, and what are some good strategies for going about that?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so let's let's go back to the basics.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: So let's imagine that you're having a conversation with um someone who's a public speaker and a consultant and a coach.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: What type of services do they buy?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really where we need to start having the conversation.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which services do they buy?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what do they do to generate promotion?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: So once you're able to ask those questions, you can then go, okay, um, maybe coaches read a particular type of magazine.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: So then you can go to a magazine store, maybe pick up a magazine that you know that they might be reading.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say there's a magazine on coaching.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And by just looking at the magazine, you're able to very quickly get an understanding of what type of product service they're interested in.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can look at the ads.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: The ads is usually the uh the biggest gold mine.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're able to be able to identify the the ads, there you have a a list of people that you can reach out to, a list of companies.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's just one way.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the other way is try to ask yourself, well, how do these guys promote themselves?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Where on which on which mediums are they active?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, where have they been seen?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you can start, let's say, if you if you have identified um a coach, and you might Google the name of the person, and then you look at all the places that is associated with with that person.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can just go, oh, he was he was uh present in that podcast.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: You make a notice of that.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you do that for let's say ten different coaches, and you identify that there is a thread.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: It might be that uh three out of ten coaches might um be very often be um uh featured on a particular podcast, might be featured on a particular blog, might um be associated to a particular type of product or service.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now you see a pattern.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: So you're cross-referencing things essentially.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: And once you've been able to identify the pattern, you can then go back and um go to each of the sources that that that that the group you're trying to reach out to is associated with.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: So going over to to give you a practical example of that, uh, podcast that is focusing on coaching.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because they already have coaches on the podcast.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, why why would it be of benefit to the the podcast owner?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it could quite simply be a referral fee.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you reach out to them, have a conversation, and say, look, I'm providing ghostwriting services that are particularly targeted towards coaches.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm willing to pay you a referral fee.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that means you are willing to pay them for the people they say your way, so it doesn't cost you anything.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a it's a it's it's a benefit for them.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you can say to them, and by the way, I might be able to give you access to the clients that might be of value to you.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: So then you show something back.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one part of it.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the other part is if you if you want to grow your business from nothing, what you can do is you can take advantage of the position that you're at.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that I started doing with a motivational speaker.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she wanted to learn how the um motivational speaking circuit worked and wanted to get an understanding of how the big professional motivational speakers make money and how she could carve her own niche.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I suggested to her, let's let's do an outreach for one month where we just reach out to all the motivational speakers and say, I'm reaching out to you because I'm also a motivational speaker.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought there might be a couple of people in my network that I could introduce to your services.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you're not selling anything, you're just saying we're doing the same thing.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: There might be a couple of people that I can introduce that might open your open opportunities to you.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you're in a way saying that you're open to to give them business.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Why would a motivational speaker say no?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and the data was very clear when I ran that campaign last time I looked at the stats 49% acceptance rate on the connection.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was 26% uh who accepted, who got back with a reply, and she had a hundred booked appointments in a month.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I actually had to do less work because she had too many appointments.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good problem there.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was a good problem to have.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then I said to her, What we can do in month two, this was before corona hit.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Um, um, in month two, what we can do is we can reach out to all the people that book these motivational speakers, all the agencies, uh all the people that you know uh make money by placing motivational speakers in front of a crowd.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And say, look, I have a list of motivational speakers and their biggest clients.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to have a conversation?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what you've done here is you've taken all the work you did in the first month, you compiled it, turned it into a database.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now you have something that is a value.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're reaching out to the agencies, you can say, look, here's all the work that I've done.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: You want to have a conversation?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Why would I turn it down?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a lot of useful market data.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they are the people who could book you.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: So the the trick around this is to try to think yourself, think of what is it that most people are doing?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And what would be completely different than that?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you were able to do if you're able to just analyze how people around you are acting and go, okay, most people are doing that.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what are they not doing?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: What what what is the one outrageous thing that I could do, which would be completely shocking, out of the world, but we would but could be extremely effective.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then just test that.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: So often what I suggest with a lot of clients, the the simplest and most effective technique can be to offer to give something away.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because most people on LinkedIn reach out to you and they want something.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: So for a ghostwriter, no immediate idea comes to mind.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: What I often suggest is uh with Ghostwriters, one of the campaigns that I'm running, the Canadian Ghostwriter, is um she reaches out and says, Look, uh, I'm a ghostwriter looking for complimentary services to add to my customers.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the word complimentary means something else in the US, it means like free.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you might want to change it to additional services, new services, value-added services, whatever you want to say uh to introduce to my clients.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, would you be interested to have a conversation?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or do you know someone I should speak with, which might is actually even better?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know someone that I because then you're not reaching out to that person specifically and you're leaving up to them to go, oh maybe I know someone.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Which actually has a higher reply rate than if you're asking that person to get back to you.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then you follow up with one message a day later, uh, with basically the same content reworded.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if they get back to you, there might be uh something in there for uh for a conversation.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I suggest generally be open to having a conversation with one before you judge on whether or not their industry is the right fit, because often the people who are the best fit might not look like they are in the best industry, but they are a big fit because of uh their values, because they they might have a network that isn't visible on their LinkedIn profile.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, um, they might know someone who could be of great value, and you don't know that until you're having a conversation with a person.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've been surprised by the massive difference between the people on LinkedIn, how how well they might look and how they might appear in a meeting.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Often the people that I have the best conversations with didn't impress me that much on their LinkedIn profile.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, so let me make sure I I comprehend the strategy correctly.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: So a potential strategy for me would be reaching out to to a connection on LinkedIn to say, hey, I'm I'm trying to figure out some additional value-added services for my clients, things that I can add to you know my my current services that would be helpful or would be interesting.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know anybody who I could talk to to get their feedback on these potential services?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the gist of it?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you do you have any suggestions for anyone I should speak with?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any suggestions for anyone I should speak with?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because then you're you're not putting any pressure on them, they might know not know someone, and it's completely aligned with what LinkedIn ideally wants.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: LinkedIn wants um their platform to be a social medium, they want it to be used for uh business-like communication, for uh personal development and all that.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: In reality, it's a sales platform.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: It always has and always.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in the beginning, it was supposed to be a resume platform, and then it became a social network, but then it became a place to generate leads.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, how would we use what are the best ways to use LinkedIn?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say, taking myself as an example, I'm a ghostwriter looking for clients.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's really why I'm on LinkedIn.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: What kinds of things should I be posting on LinkedIn?
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Should I be doing articles?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh should I be engaging with other people's posts and commenting?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or is all that kind of fluff?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do I really need to be posting a lot of stuff on LinkedIn?
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or is is that really not essential?
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the there's a short and a long-term strategy.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: The uh the short-term strategy should be to reach out to people uh that you can have a benefit from being associated with.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: The long-term strategy is to provide additional value to the people that you are connected with.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the way that you should do that can be in a variety of different ways.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can create content, add it to your your blog, you can do regular updates to just nurture the relationship with the people that you you are connected with.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um personally, I don't do any of that for my own businesses.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't do any more of it.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: I used to do some writing and put it up on my um my LinkedIn blog.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and now I should I do some of it, put it on my business pages, and then I move it over to the LinkedIn page later on.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't do it as a particular as a long-term strategy, and a big reason behind that is just cost.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it takes a lot of time and effort to create really good content.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Versus if you're reaching out to someone offering a joint venture or even less, even if you're just reaching out offering asking for help, then there's no no pressure on you.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you're reaching out to someone and saying, look, I'm working on this project, I noticed that you have experience in the same field, and I thought I might be able to get five minutes of your time to get some feedback.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people will say yes to that.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that that person just so happened to be uh the ideal customer for you, what a shame.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um what a shame.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it it takes the onus of being the salesperson.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can just provide the information, uh, have the discussion, um, and you're much more successful.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: So the less sales you are, the more likely you are to get feedback, the more likely you are to become successful.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: That makes perfect sense.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: So one final question, and I mean I could go with this for hours and hours.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we're doing this as a podcast interview, obviously.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of me being a ghostwriter, what what are the best ways that you feel I could be using my podcast to connect with potential clients?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can use a podcast for so many different kinds of things.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: And at times I have wondered, am I using my podcast correctly to help achieve that goal?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I want to offer value to listeners.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and plus I just love doing podcasting as a medium.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if I want to be more strategic with it, are there some ways that I could be using my podcast to be more strategic with connecting with ghostwriting clients?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: In order to do that, uh, you need to be very clearly positioning the uh the podcast towards uh a particular market.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say for instance that you want to position it towards uh coaches.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I would probably then suggest to make the the goal of the podcast to help coaches become more profitable, become more successful.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I would probably suggest reaching out to the most successful, most profitable coaches there are and and get them on the podcast, build up a list of let's say 10 and 20 interviews, um, have that clearly visible on your online profiles and all that, promote it, and then there will be other uh other coaches that would be interested in being a part of the podcast.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: The the challenge then is how do you turn the podcast over to be um uh uh a value add for potential clients, and that might be where you try to link your uh questions with with marketing.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you could, for instance, make it a little bit more niche, uh could be a podcast around marketing for for coaches, positioning for coaches.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now all of a sudden you're providing more value, and then you can interview all the people who are who are coaches who's looking for ways to grow, and then see if you're able to to provide additional value.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: Then you get seen as the thought leader, the person who knows everything about marketing, and then you can say, look, one of the ways that you can you can provide value is to be the person, the the spider in the web.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you take that route, it's completely different than being um a ghostwriter.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I would actually say that if you take that route, you might actually be in a position where you have multiple income sources, much like um a YouTube channel owner.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um YouTube might be another example of the same where um you'll see that the owner of a YouTube channel makes certain percentages of income from um from advertising, something else for product placement, something from guests, and whatever.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: So you you can you can decide that you want to turn it into a promotional tool where you get guests on board, and then uh you might have to have a follow-up conversation.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you talked about this, might you be interested in uh doing some ghostwriting to facilitate this?
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then what what you can then do is if you're having guests on, um ask questions that get them to realize that they have a problem.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's the big challenge.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: Always ask questions that get the person on the other end to realize they have a problem, and always be the person who gets the person on the other end to realize that they have a problem because then you are the first the person they get, oh he got me.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think that was a problem.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he can help me.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you get them to realize that they have a problem that need help with the getting something done, then all of a sudden you have a solution.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: I use that technique for three different businesses, and I always use the same solution, same solution.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, first have a conversation, have a checklist to go over whatever it is they're doing.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: The checklist should have about 10 points.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Ask questions uh where you want the person all the end to say no.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the moment they say no, you write it down and and basically show it to them, okay.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the checklist.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: You said that you were looking for$10 million investments, uh, you only failed seven out of ten points.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um do you want to help with getting this to ten out of ten so you can raise capital?
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if it's if it's five points that is in between them and making a$10 million, getting a$10 million investment, then all of a sudden they might be willing to do a lot to get to it.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: Same with being being a ghostwriter.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're able to um take their book manuscript and you have a process for evaluating it, you've identified that they have seven out of ten critical errors which stop their book from being um of best seller quality, and often the questions are very simple.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: For a lot of ghostwriters, the questions are laughably simple.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: What's your table of context?
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what is the purpose of your book?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Have you done market research on who the book is for?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um have you um looked up case studies?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: Have you created specific case studies for each chapter?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh have have you created uh an index breaking down how the book is structured?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: All these simple questions um that you can put together in like 30 minutes easily and present that gets the other person to realize they have a problem.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Challenge for a lot of ghostwriters is often um they don't really know the level of ignorance that their clients can be in about how they can present themselves.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just asking tests that get them to go, oh my god, I know that, uh can save them from um doing a lot of mistakes.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: So your role as a ghostwriter is actually the same as my job when I'm doing something else, when I'm doing lead generation, and that is to save the person that I'm working with time.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: Any the purpose of a ghostwriter is to help your clients become successful faster than any other means of um uh any than any other solution.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be a a really common problem with ghostwriters, but with freelance writers as well, is that they believe it's about the writing and it's about the book.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: When it's not really about those things, those are just tools to help your client achieve something that's important to them.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a fair way of saying that?
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like it's it's that that that's exactly it.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like what it is that you are selling to clients might vary in their minds.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like this goes back to the point that I think I was trying to explain earlier.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: Understand why they're buying it, because why they're buying is is very close to what they're buying.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm buying this, so so for instance, um a guy in in his 80s might be want to have his memoirs written, so he's able to leave a legacy for his children.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: So what you're selling is a legacy, you're not selling the the written word.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: So then the question becomes, how can I provide that legacy?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there could be different solutions to providing that legacy.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it could be um it could be um uh a scrapbook being put together of all the pictures of the person's life, it could be uh ghostwritten book like we already talked about, it could be um a video documentary, it could be explained in a variety of different ways.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the the the challenge for the for the ghostwriter is just to try to understand what is it this person wants.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if am I able to give the person what it is that they want?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: If if you're not and you still manage to sell it, you're doing something unethical.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're if you think you can deliver something uh and you have the credentials to do it, go for it.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be a really important distinction between creative people and artistic people who are successful and those who are not.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking business-wise and financially, is that particularly when it comes to ghostwriters, you're selling you're selling a solution to a problem.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're not selling your words or selling a book because those are those are just means to an end.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a fair way of saying that?
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's that's exactly it.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: You are it's kind of like you're you you have decided that you want to go to on a vacation to let's say Hawaii.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what what is the reason why you want to take an airplane instead of taking a car or taking a uh taking a boat?
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's speed.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you want you want to get wherever you want as quick as possible, and what you are doing is you're providing a vehicle for the client to get the outcome that they want.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: So when I'm doing lead generation, I'm providing an opportunity for them to get the clients.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: A ghostwriter is providing an opportunity for them for the clients to express their story.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: So you're the vehicle to take them, to get that story across.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I love that.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is so helpful.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: Man, this has been a great conversation.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to go back and re-listen to this a couple times to get all the value out of this.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's very simple.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very simple.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: The big challenge that I have with all the people that I speak with, let it be ghostwriters or business owners of various companies, is to get them to stop talking lingo and just explain to me in very simple terms what they're doing, because most people are doing the same thing.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it it is simple when you look at it in those terms.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think where the complexity comes in for creative types, and I'm speaking as a creative type myself, is that we see our art, we we see our writing or our music or painting or whatever it is.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: We see that as an expression of ourselves, and and therefore it's it's hard to see it as a business product.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to see what we do as a business because we think of it as, oh, I'm expressing myself.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: But once you can move away from that and begin to look at yourself objectively as having a business, then it does seem actually very straightforward.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I and this goes back to the the point I mentioned earlier.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Separate your own projects from the projects that uh you're doing for someone else.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: When you're doing someone else's project, it's someone else's project.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: Respect that and make sure that it's their voice that comes across.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I think about at that time when I uh look at one of my favorites ghostwritten books, which is um Ozzy Osborne's I'm Ozzy.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's by far the funniest books I've book I've ever read.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's impossible to understand what he's saying.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so the the work that that ghostwriter did on that job is absolutely unbelievable because it's uh an absolutely hilarious read.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to check that out.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know a lot of his music.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I know a a few songs, but that's pretty much it.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's not about the music.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh it what makes that book so special is we are given it away to people who didn't know anything about him, his background, what he was doing, and everyone has read it cover to cover, and everyone has been laughing and laughing and laughing.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to know anything about the man, he just he has the the weirdest, most bizarre, funniest stories.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh going back to the the point about ghost writing, um what the ghost writer did there, uh I forgot the name of the Paul Ayers, I think was his name.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, is absolutely incredible because he's managed to encapsulate the voice of the author of Ozzy Osborne telling a story, um uh without losing anything.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and what Ozzy is very, very good at is telling stories which most people wouldn't be able to remember or or see the way he sees it, and be able to be able to encapsulate that person's perspective so that stories that wouldn't be funny end up being becoming absolutely hilarious, just by the way that they are being described.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is really the job of a ghostwriter, to to step out of it and and just try to listen to the person telling a story, and not only telling the story, but also telling it in their in their language, their words, their syntax, uh their of course you need to you know improve the grammar and all that, but that's a big part of the the magic.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that you're getting into someone's headspace, and you need to have the passion for for for trying to use your skills to listen to someone else and bring basically bring forth the best in who they are, both the good and the bad.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, you gotta, whenever you're playing a story, you you're presenting a story, you gotta take the highs and the lows and all that, but present it so that it generally comes from them, and that's something I think in in that book, the the author did absolutely splendid.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was just uh some of the descriptions are just out of this world, just the first couple of pages.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember vividly I was in in the car with my wife, and um uh I I said I got this book by Ozzy Osborne, and my wife reads you know the really complicated high-level literature, you know, Dorothy Donaton and a few others, really good, really good stuff, and she said, No, I don't want to listen to that idiot.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, She goes, let me let me just read a page or two.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think halfway through the second page, she had to um drive into the curb and stop the car because she was laughing so hard she became a traffic asset.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's true, that is true.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the first just the first couple of pages.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't if you don't like it after the first couple of pages, you you don't have a pulse.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's so funny.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been giving that book away.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of those books that I that I have somewhere in my shelf, and we just give it away to people to for them to to experience, and you don't need to know anything about the past at all.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like wow, I I've given it away to to people who have come from completely different cultural background and didn't even speak English and gave it to them in Spanish and laughing as hard as someone else who were a fan of the man and his music.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm definitely gonna have to check that out.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a blast.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: While we're all at home, you know, stuck at home with this uh virus.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh we we need to get uh to to take the opportunity, and this one message I'm gonna give to uh the ghostwriters that might be listening to this.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um what you what we're now seeing is a huge opportunity for ghostwriting because now you can reach out to people who are at home, they got nothing else to do.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly the uh the baby boomers um that already have their money, they have c cashed up, they they've got their retirement pensions, they they have their savings, they don't have to worry about anything, they've got plenty of stories to tell.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: The challenge is how do you reach out to them?
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where LinkedIn can be one solution.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do you mean for writing business books or writing memoirs or all of the above?
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: All of the above.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um LinkedIn style isn't really good in trying to identify the um core uh demographics.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I wish I could go into LinkedIn and say I want to speak to uh someone who has experience as a CEO who's between 50 and 60 years of age, uh, who's male, um, comes from that state, all that all that information together.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do it.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's where Facebook is better.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_02: So ideally, you you want to be able to use a lot of um sources together.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mentioned that LinkedIn Sales Navigator had a c has a couple of weaknesses, a couple, a billion weaknesses.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a a really good tool called zoom.info.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not to um be confused with Zoom, the um channeling tool that we are recording this on.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um zoom.info provides a very, very detailed database.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: It costs a lot to use it though, it's way more than a LinkedIn sales navigator, but it provides a level of detail in the data that you're not able to find in um in on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I I could bash LinkedIn for a very, very long time.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's a company that is owned by Microsoft.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: So whenever there's a technical issue, I say it's owned by Microsoft.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: My son and I, so I'm a Mac and Apple person.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: My son, who's 16, he loves PCs, in fact, is working on building his first PC.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we always have these uh back and forth discussions about which is better.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: So technology, you gotta love it.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh I personally uh I use Linux.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I always recommend that on radio the solution, but it really depends on what you're using it for.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: For writers, many of them like to use Scrivener.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's not available able to see on Linux operating systems.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so a Mac is usually a bullet rep solution.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: I started on initially on Windows, then I moved over to Mac, and then I moved over to Linux because I just use computers when I'm online.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: I use the browser function, but I don't use any anything else.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_02: I have very few programs on my computer.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_02: But um Linux is the best way.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to check that out.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, BJ, this has been a blast.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, gosh, I really appreciate you taking time to do this and sharing lots of wisdom and uh really good info for us.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: How can people get in touch with you and find out about all the cool stuff that you're doing?
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, um, if you're interested in LinkedIn stuff, um scaleup.com.au is the the website.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can always look me up on LinkedIn.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_02: I at the moment I got two profiles, I gotta shut one on them down.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one for uh where I'm focusing on my uh LinkedIn stuff and the other one where I focus on on scale up VC, where um we're basically helping companies uh that have a product market fit grow faster by giving them access to people and knowledge and funding.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_02: For Ghostwriters, it's probably the uh scaleup.com that I use a good place to go.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm on your list, and I would definitely encourage people to sign up for your email list because you put out some really great stuff for sure.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks again so much for doing this, and um I appreciate your time and your expertise, and uh maybe one day we'll get to meet in person.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I gotta travel to Australia to uh to make that happen.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_02: See you later.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was an amazing conversation with BJ.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I took a ton of notes, as I mentioned earlier, and I hope that you got a lot of value out of this as well, as I'm sure that you did.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me boil it down to my three biggest takeaways from this conversation.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is simply the power of LinkedIn.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, BJ knows his stuff about LinkedIn and connecting with people and then walking them through a sales process.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's very, very good at this.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to actually go through and listen to this interview a second time to soak up all the strategies and information that he mentioned and then start putting it into practice on LinkedIn.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, the writers who are financially successful treat their writing as a business.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: The writers who are financially successful treat their writing as a business.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: The successful ones think about their sales process and how they get clients.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, everybody is in sales.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what your job is or what kind of an industry you're in, you are in sales.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sales is simply getting people to make a commitment of some kind.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, oftentimes that does involve you giving them a product or service and they give you money, but not always.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes sales is getting people to make a different kind of commitment.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever it is that you do, the more you can be intentional about your process of getting leads and then of having that transaction or that sales process or that commitment, the better it is.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this can be very tough for many writers who see themselves as artists who are producing a work of self-expression rather than doing a service that helps people make money or get some other kind of a result.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is a real mentality switch.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I'm I'm all for arts and creativity.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I love the creative process.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: My last book was on the creative journey.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a musician.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, I'm an artist through and through.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to wanting to actually make money with your writing, you cannot look at it as this is a precious work of art or this is a work of self-expression.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your writing is a product that you're selling to people to help them get some type of result that they want.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to be just an artist, that's totally fine.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I don't mean like just an artist, like I'm putting down artists, but I mean if you want to only be an artist and you're not concerned with making money from that, that's totally fine.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and by the way, artists can definitely make money.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have a good friend, in fact, who's been very successful with streaming music on Spotify in Pandora.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: He makes a great living with that.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you can make money from that.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But on this show, we're talking specifically about business writing.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the writers who are the most successful financially are the ones who view what they produce as a product that serves people.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps clients to get a result that they want.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, and here I'm specifically talking about ghostwriting.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The highest paying writing jobs focus on books that allow the client to come across or to present themselves in a good way.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the main purpose of the book that I write for someone is to make that person look good.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's to help them to get a result of some kind.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if they're a coach, a speaker, or a consultant, the main objective of that book is to help them to get more business and get more prospective clients or customers.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that means in my sales process with a prospective ghostwriting client, I need to focus on what they want and why it matters to them.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: BJ talked about the power of listening and figuring out how the client determines success for the book because not everybody determines success the same way.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if I talk with prospective ghostwriting client A, it might be that they are looking to get more prospective leads for their business.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a very business transactional kind of a thing.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe client, prospective ghostwriting client B, maybe they're not interested in, you know, getting a sales thing going.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're just interested in telling their story or um having their memoir recorded for their grandkids or something like that.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: The point is to listen and to find out what is important to that customer or client and then use that book, specifically for ghostwriting.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a ghostwriter, use that book to help that client get more of what it is that they want.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if a client feels like they're being heard, if they feel like you're listening to them, that goes a long way toward making them feel that they can trust you and that you can deliver a book that helps them to get what they want.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you one small example of this before I start to close out this episode, because I know I can tend to ramble in this section.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm a college professor, so um I do have the tendency to like to teach a lot, I guess.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I'll give you a perfect example of this.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm as I'm recording this, I'm finishing up writing in the next couple days.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to finish writing a book, a book draft for a client.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the client in our in our regular weekly calls, they're always a little bit apologetic for wanting to change little things in the book.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I have said to them multiple times because I and it's not because they're not listening, it's because I want them to really, really know this.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've said many times that, hey, you don't have to apologize for wanting to change something.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's your book.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_00: What I want is for you to be happy.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is not my book.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is I'm telling your story and whatever it is in the book that you want to change, that's awesome.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am definitely all for that.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want the client to know that I'm listening to them.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have their needs first and foremost in my mind.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said to them before, and I've said this emphatically multiple times, that I am not emotionally attached to this product.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is something that we are doing for you, and I want this to be something you are really, really completely happy with because I want them to know this isn't about me.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about my expression, my self-expression or my inner security or any of that jazz.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is about making them happy and making them look good and helping them to get a result that they want.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different way of thinking than kind of a typical creative or artistic way of thinking where you're concerned about self-expression.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to make money with your writing, if you're working for clients, you know, if you're wanting to hire yourself out as a writer, that's the number one thing is what does the client want and how can you help them to get that result with that writing that they're hiring you for.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, this has been an episode absolutely packed with all kinds of great insights from BJ.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So please check out his website.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is scaleup.com.au.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I strongly encourage you to go to his website.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's scaleup.com.au.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: That link will be in the show notes also.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Go there and sign up for his email list because his lead magnets are a lot better than most people's paid stuff.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So check out his site.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_00: He is such a great guy, so knowledgeable and so generous, and just a cool guy that you need to get to know.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for listening.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you hanging in there with me through this long last section in this podcast.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that you can find lots more resources for writers at KentSanders.net.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.