Latest / The Heart-Led Business Show / Disrupting Publishing with Heart with David Hancock

Transcript

Disrupting Publishing with Heart with David Hancock · The Heart-Led Business Show

0:01
Speaker: Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
0:09
Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
0:20
Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
0:29
Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
0:36
Tom Jackobs: Welcome, welcome, welcome, marvelous listeners to another episode of the Heart-Led Business Show.
0:42
Tom Jackobs: Today we're rolling out the red carpet for a true publishing powerhouse, David Hancock, as the mastermind behind Morgan James Publishing and a bestselling author with over 20 acclaimed titles under his belt.
0:56
Tom Jackobs: David is reshaping the world of hybrid publishing, one heartfelt book at a time.
1:01
Tom Jackobs: So join us as we explore his journey of Heart-Led entrepreneurship and the magic that happens when passion meets purpose.
1:08
Tom Jackobs: So David, welcome to the show.
1:10
David Hancock: Tom, man, I'm so excited to be here.
1:12
David Hancock: I appreciate the opportunity to share, but meet your audience and again, just further get to know you.
1:17
David Hancock: I have really enjoyed what you've been doing.
1:20
Tom Jackobs: Oh, thank you so much for that.
1:21
Tom Jackobs: And I'm also equally excited for this conversation, primarily because when we were first introduced, and I think that was with Jason previous guest on the podcast, and we spoke, and I just love what you're doing with completely different approach to publishing than the traditional publishing.
1:38
Tom Jackobs: I think that is completely Heart-Led and I can't wait to share your business with the audience as well.
1:45
David Hancock: It was very intentional.
1:47
Tom Jackobs: Good.
1:48
Tom Jackobs: But first I always like to ask the first question, which is, what's your definition of a Heart-Led business?
1:54
David Hancock: That's a great question and I appreciate just being a part of the listening into the podcast that you've done to kind of what to expect.
2:01
David Hancock: For me it's very intentional.
2:02
David Hancock: A Heart-Led business is one where profits follow purpose, not the other way around.
2:07
David Hancock: And it means putting people before transactions and value before spreadsheets.
2:13
David Hancock: I think a Heart-Led business builds trust in impact first, and then let's profits be the natural byproduct.
2:19
David Hancock: And of course it's about leading with integrity and relationships so that our business leaves a legacy, not just a ledger.
2:29
Tom Jackobs: Right, and hopefully those are connected in terms of legacy plus a nice little cash infusion as well.
2:36
David Hancock: It is.
2:36
David Hancock: The more you serve other more you'll serve yourself.
2:39
David Hancock: That we learned that a long time ago.
2:41
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
2:41
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
2:42
Tom Jackobs: That's that famous quote by Zig Ziglar, help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want.
2:46
David Hancock: He was one of my mentors back in the nineties.
2:48
David Hancock: I started writing books back in the day.
2:51
Tom Jackobs: That's right.
2:51
Tom Jackobs: And I think from that previous conversation that we had, that prompted me to download an audio book of his, like an original recording, redone with his son.
3:00
Tom Jackobs: The way that he speaks is such a cool kinda mad men style, like old 1950s, announcer voice.
3:09
David Hancock: Yes, indeed.
3:10
Tom Jackobs: Anyway, let's talk about you and, and your business.
3:11
Tom Jackobs: So tell us how you've upended the publishing world.
3:15
David Hancock: I'll try to give the short version'cause it is a very good story.
3:18
David Hancock: I was a banker back in the nineties, dumb and happy.
3:20
David Hancock: Never imagined doing anything else.
3:22
David Hancock: I found a great niche for a college dropout.
3:24
David Hancock: I just, for whatever reason, God had a sense of humor to getting me where I was at.
3:29
David Hancock: But I was doing well.
3:30
David Hancock: And then when my bosses started to lean into me like, Hey, David, you're doing good.
3:33
David Hancock: I'm like, thanks.
3:34
David Hancock: He said, why don't you start hiring people to do what you're doing and we can build a team of you.
3:38
David Hancock: And I'm like, I don't even know why I'm successful like, but okay, we'll try.
3:43
David Hancock: So at that point I really started to step out and try to figure out, well, what was it that was making me successful?
3:48
David Hancock: I knew it wasn't the a$100,000 a month in marketing and advertising that the bank was doing.
3:52
David Hancock: I knew in my heart that's not where my business was coming from, but they were doing that long before I showed up.
3:56
David Hancock: And who am I to rock?
3:57
David Hancock: That apple cart.
3:58
David Hancock: But I started to go out there and just venture and try to find out what was it that was making me successful or how could I hone in on it or what I really didn't know.
4:05
David Hancock: I just knew I needed to do something to help, that new team he wanted me to hire to be successful.
4:09
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
4:10
David Hancock: So that's when I started to study under Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Bill Backrack, Todd Duncan, John Maxwell, you name'em all the gurus from the day.
4:19
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
4:19
David Hancock: It was all amazing.
4:20
David Hancock: I read their books.
4:20
David Hancock: I went to their seminars, I bought their courses, I implemented'cause if you don't implement, nothing happens.
4:25
Tom Jackobs: Right.
4:26
David Hancock: And sure enough, I fine tuned some processes.
4:28
David Hancock: I hired a couple assistants, you know, I, I made a little bit more money.
4:32
David Hancock: I went home from work a little bit earlier, but nothing was really, resonating with me.
4:36
David Hancock: This is why I had been successful.
4:38
David Hancock: I was just able to fine tune it, but it wasn't until I discovered a book and got introduced to a gentleman by the name of Jay Conrad Levison, and his book was Guerilla Marketing.
4:47
David Hancock: And it's funny, I was looking for that kind of stuff, but for a reason I couldn't find it.
4:51
David Hancock: It wasn't in the library when I went there maybe it was checked out, it wasn't at the Barnes Noble.
4:55
David Hancock: Maybe they were sold out, and I didn't find it, but one day I came to work and somebody on my staff.
5:00
David Hancock: left a copy of Guerilla Marketing on my desk
5:02
Tom Jackobs: Oh wow.
5:03
David Hancock: To this day, I'm still friends with all of'em.
5:05
David Hancock: Nobody's ever confessed to being that one person to gimme that book.
5:08
David Hancock: So I say it was divinely left.
5:09
David Hancock: In fact, I still have a copy of it.
5:12
David Hancock: I still have it.
5:13
David Hancock: And I resonated with it.
5:14
David Hancock: I realized I was a guerilla and didn't know it.
5:16
David Hancock: I was leveraging my time, my energy and my imagination to generate, referrals and relationships.
5:21
David Hancock: I was trying to help others realize their goals'cause I knew, even back then, the more I improve that process and help others realize their goals, hopefully in a stress-free process, it would always come back to me and it did.
5:31
David Hancock: And that was all called Guerilla Marketing.
5:34
David Hancock: So I immersed myself in Guerilla Marketing.
5:37
David Hancock: And realized, this is pretty amazing, but in one of the books, Jay Levinson said, Hey, if you have questions, email me.
5:43
David Hancock: And I'm like, I'm gonna email him, but he is not gonna respond.
5:45
David Hancock: Who am I?
5:46
David Hancock: And ended up responding.
5:47
David Hancock: We became pen pals and then we became friends, and then I hired him as a mentor coach, and he ultimately got me to write my first book.
5:55
David Hancock: But he continued to secure that whole philosophy of serving others, the whole philosophy of having relationships and building a family and building, ways for others to succeed around you, whether it was the clients we were serving or my staff I was trying to help, it was all about their success because, know, almost selfishly its true.
6:13
David Hancock: The more that we as individuals can help others, we'll never have to worry about our success.
6:18
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
6:18
David Hancock: After writing three books, two of them co-authored in the Guerilla Marketing Series with Jay, traditionally, I was really frustrated.
6:26
David Hancock: For me, you know, a Heart-Led business is one that remembers people are at the center.
6:30
David Hancock: But when I started Morgan James, I wanted authors to feel like partners, not products.
6:34
David Hancock: That's exactly how I fell with my publishing house.
6:37
David Hancock: The traditional model was transactional.
6:39
David Hancock: Sign a deal, hand over your rights.
6:40
David Hancock: Hope for the best.
6:41
David Hancock: And my heart said there had to be something else.
6:44
David Hancock: And so I even tried self-publishing and the same thing.
6:45
David Hancock: There was lots of wonderful things about doing it on your own and going at it on your own, but it lacked credibility, distribution, and opportunity.
6:52
David Hancock: So we flipped the model.
6:53
David Hancock: We put authors first.
6:54
David Hancock: We gave them ownership of the work and involvement in the process and built a community around their success.
7:00
David Hancock: And that's what I think Heart-Led businesses look like.
7:02
David Hancock: Leading with people, relationships, and impact.
7:04
David Hancock: And then of course, as I alluded before, the revenue did in fact follow.
7:10
Tom Jackobs: That's awesome.
7:11
Tom Jackobs: What a great way of taking just an opportunity and just growing with it.
7:16
Tom Jackobs: Something that just like fell into your lap.
7:17
Tom Jackobs: I mean, that, that is like true entrepreneurship in my opinion, anyway.
7:22
David Hancock: If I had known how complicated publishing was, I probably would've never done it on purpose, but that's what we call entrepreneurial bliss.
7:30
Tom Jackobs: That's awesome.
7:31
Tom Jackobs: Let's go in into a little bit more about the traditional publishing so that we can get a good contrast between how that works versus how you're putting the authors first and leading with heart.
7:43
David Hancock: Yeah, absolutely.
7:44
David Hancock: So good question.
7:45
David Hancock: It's not necessarily that traditional publishing is bad, it just seemed to be not the right fit for we budding entrepreneurs.
7:51
David Hancock: And I do think the late nineties, early two thousands was when we, entrepreneurs really started to lean into the power of the printed book.
7:58
David Hancock: It certainly was one of the Guerilla Marketing weapons long before I discovered Guerilla Marketing.
8:02
David Hancock: But it was probably, the mid nineties before we really started to take advantage of it.
8:06
David Hancock: And we took publishing by storm.
8:08
David Hancock: They didn't know how to handle us.
8:09
David Hancock: 'cause we, entrepreneurs don't always like giving up control.
8:12
David Hancock: Not that we're control freaks, but we like to be able to do things with our content.
8:16
David Hancock: We like to be able to create other products and services, and we just like to be involved and certainly like to have decisions made with us than for us.
8:24
David Hancock: But that was the way that the traditional model was.
8:26
David Hancock: You literally, you would sell them the rights.
8:28
David Hancock: And I say sell loosely'cause the way it works is a publisher will dangle some sort of advance.
8:34
David Hancock: You've all heard of that before, but an advance is exactly what it sounds like.
8:37
David Hancock: It's an advance payment against future earnings.
8:39
David Hancock: So it's a loan, so they're gonna loan you money into a certain point where you say, uncle, I'll give you all my rights to my manuscript.
8:45
David Hancock: And then they go do with it as they please.
8:47
David Hancock: And most publishers again, not this is a bad thing for everybody, but entrepreneurs it's a restriction, but most publishers just go do with it as they please.
8:54
David Hancock: I had zero involvement in my first book.
8:56
Tom Jackobs: Oh geez.
8:56
David Hancock: They finalized a title without including me, the cover without including me.
9:01
David Hancock: They even added three chapters to my book and I didn't know about it.
9:03
David Hancock: So I got my sample copies in the mail and that may be a little bit extreme.
9:07
David Hancock: They just thought something, I could have written it.
9:09
Tom Jackobs: Yeah,
9:10
David Hancock: But it just was, no, I had no relationship with them.
9:14
David Hancock: And when as I started to do as I'd call'em up for to order books or ask questions, they're like, who are you again?
9:19
David Hancock: Not that I'm anybody at this point, but I'm starting to do pretty well.
9:23
David Hancock: And it was just very restrictive.
9:25
David Hancock: I had to get my PowerPoint presentations approved every time I went out and had to speak on it.
9:29
David Hancock: They wanted make sure I wasn't giving too much content away.
9:31
David Hancock: I ended up having to pay retail price for my books'cause I was giving away a lot of books.
9:35
David Hancock: And they said you bought as, as much as we're gonna allow you to buy it at a discount, so you gotta pay retail.
9:40
Tom Jackobs: oh my gosh.
9:41
David Hancock: It was just frustrating.
9:42
David Hancock: Somehow all my royalties got paid at a lower rate because they were sold at nonstandard discounts'cause the typical publishing may say, Hey, we're gonna pay you 10, 12% or whatever, if it, sells here or there or the other.
9:54
David Hancock: But there's a little tiny clause on page 33, they said, oh, by the way, if it sells at a nonstandard discount, we're gonna pay you 5% or less, or something like that.
10:01
David Hancock: Imagine that most of my books got sold at a non-standard discount.
10:04
David Hancock: How did that happen?
10:05
David Hancock: The publishers in control of that, so that's how that happened.
10:07
David Hancock: But after my third book, two of the last two were co-author with Jay.
10:11
David Hancock: There's a fun side story there, but I went to Jay and just said, Hey, they want me to do another book and I don't like them.
10:17
David Hancock: You're like, what else do I have to say?
10:18
David Hancock: But I had moved to the wholesale side of banking so I could respend the book.
10:22
David Hancock: My mentor was still becoming my best friend, and I'm like, I don't wanna do it, but, he said, we'll figure it out.
10:27
David Hancock: And I said, not unless you co-author it with me.
10:30
David Hancock: And he said yes.
10:31
David Hancock: So after those books, I was outta my three book deal with the publisher.
10:34
David Hancock: I sold 40,000 copies of my second book to the bank.
10:37
David Hancock: Our workforce, we were doing really well.
10:38
Tom Jackobs: Oh nice.
10:39
David Hancock: So then I went self-published thinking, Hey, what do I need a publisher for?
10:43
David Hancock: I went out there and self-published them, loved them.
10:45
David Hancock: The covers were mine, the content was mine.
10:46
David Hancock: I was very proud.
10:47
David Hancock: There's pros and cons to everything.
10:49
David Hancock: Very limited credibility with me saying, I'm wonderful, though I had a good track record with being a best signed author but I couldn't get media to interview me.
10:56
David Hancock: I couldn't get in to bookstores'cause even today, most bookstores won't carry a self-published book.
11:00
David Hancock: And the humbling thing was I filled up my garage with books, assuming I would be able to sell the number of books that I had sold before.
11:07
David Hancock: But could not without the same level of distribution and the termites ate them up faster than I can sell them, which frustrated me, but also my bride'cause I had to push her car outta the garage to make room for'em.
11:18
Tom Jackobs: Yeah, I bet she's not very happy.
11:20
David Hancock: Yeah.
11:21
David Hancock: I went back to Jay and said, man, there's got to be a better way.
11:24
David Hancock: And uh, he was very loving, very gracious, and got me to put an outline together for what I thought didn't know this at the time, what a Heart-Led business could look like.
11:33
David Hancock: What should a relationship between entrepreneur and publisher look like?
11:36
David Hancock: And he alluded to me that he would take it to Houghton Mifflin.
11:39
David Hancock: Now, Houghton Mifflin's an amazing old school publisher.
11:41
David Hancock: They originally published Guerilla Marketing.
11:43
David Hancock: They originally published Mark Twain and he had a great relationship with them.
11:46
David Hancock: And he's maybe I'll take it to them and maybe they'll create an imprint to support entrepreneurs.
11:49
David Hancock: So I pour my heart into this outline, layered it with Guerilla Marketing, a lot of values based selling, serving others to help realize your goals and just flexibility.
11:58
David Hancock: Authors retain control of their ownership, make decisions.
12:01
David Hancock: Just kind of pour it in there.
12:03
David Hancock: And I present it to Jay, like, ta-da, take this.
12:05
David Hancock: So now we'll have a place to publish.
12:07
David Hancock: And he loved it.
12:08
David Hancock: And laughed and any good mentor would do, he said, now go do it.
12:14
David Hancock: I laughed and cried at the same time,
12:16
Tom Jackobs: Oh, I bet.
12:17
David Hancock: but I was obedient and decided to launch it named it after my kids, Morgan.
12:22
David Hancock: Just had enough of God's favor and a lot of friends who gave us a little bit of help, and we just had to earn the rest.
12:28
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
12:29
Tom Jackobs: Well, certainly you have.
12:30
Tom Jackobs: How many books now are published under house?
12:32
David Hancock: We probably have just under 6,000 titles in almost 24 years.
12:36
David Hancock: We do 150 to 200 a year each one hand selected, but as you're probably not surprised, 80% of our decision is the author.
12:44
David Hancock: Who are they?
12:45
David Hancock: What are they doing and why?
12:47
David Hancock: And do we think we can help them realize their goals?
12:50
David Hancock: And in the book, certainly important.
12:53
David Hancock: But you can't fix an author that just doesn't care about their audience.
12:57
David Hancock: So our author is need to be Heart-Led as well.
12:59
David Hancock: And that's what we're doing now.
13:02
Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's beautiful.
13:03
Tom Jackobs: And you know what's interesting?
13:05
Tom Jackobs: I've self-published two books and co-authored like two other books.
13:09
Tom Jackobs: I don't have that experience of going to a publishing house, but I can imagine how frustrating that is to not be able to put up your own website to use some chapters as a lead magnet to be able to do all this stuff.
13:21
Tom Jackobs: So tell us a little bit more about transition'cause I always like to hear transformation stories from the banking, which is very much, can be very much profit led.
13:31
Tom Jackobs: And going from that environment to entrepreneurial your own thing and being a Heart-Led, what was the mindset shift that you had to go through personally to be successful in a new venture?
13:43
David Hancock: Actually it was pretty easy.
13:44
David Hancock: I was a mortgage banker.
13:45
David Hancock: I was a loan officer.
13:46
David Hancock: Then I run little loan officer shop.
13:48
David Hancock: So for us it was still about serving others, helping others realize their goals, and adding value and building rapport and relationships and, leave an impact, and hopefully get your referrals.
13:58
David Hancock: And as a loan officer, I was a 100% commissioned.
14:01
David Hancock: Though I didn't have any entrepreneurial ventures prior to that, knew that if I didn't hustle, I wasn't gonna get paid.
14:07
David Hancock: So I treated it as if it were my own business.
14:09
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
14:09
David Hancock: And then just grew it from there.
14:11
David Hancock: So when the transition came, it was an easy transition.
14:14
David Hancock: But it was slow, I became very passionate about the power of the book.
14:18
David Hancock: I literally doubled my income after the book coming out, and I didn't raise my fees, just nobody negotiated with me anymore.
14:23
David Hancock: The power of the book gave me this authority for people to say, Hey, this guy knows what he's talking about.
14:28
David Hancock: I, I can trust him.
14:29
David Hancock: And of course, I demonstrated that trust by being consistent and adding value and creating valuable relationships.
14:34
David Hancock: It started to overtake me with just how powerful the book was.
14:37
David Hancock: So, as I grew in my mortgage banking career.
14:40
David Hancock: I ended up getting promoted to the wholesale side, which means that my client was now the old me, the old loan officers or those mortgage brokerage shops that they would get money from me.
14:49
David Hancock: So I spent all my time trying to help them grow their business the way that I grew my business.
14:53
David Hancock: And one of my secret weapons is, oh gosh, you need to write a book.
14:58
David Hancock: But I had really just started to lean just like Jay, and he said that I would be able to get clients that would never give me the time of day, have them start coming outta the woodwork, start doing business with me because it's the power of the book, the authority that the book gives.
15:10
David Hancock: I was on television, radio, or print on a weekly basis because I was the only local knucklehead who wrote a book about the banking.
15:16
David Hancock: And in 90's something was always happening in banking and it was crazy.
15:19
David Hancock: So I started to teach that to my clients, you've gotta guerilla market your business, you've gotta serve, you've gotta help others, all the things we've talked about.
15:25
David Hancock: But to really stand out, man, you need to do a book'cause that's what I did.
15:29
David Hancock: They all had bought my books, so just trying to just teach them.
15:32
David Hancock: And I got very, very sidetracked.
15:34
David Hancock: I was probably working two-ish hours a day in my banking business, which was, I had co clients across the country, but my local part was, I was just taking my best friends to lunch every day,
15:44
Tom Jackobs: yeah.
15:44
Tom Jackobs: Nice.
15:44
David Hancock: Then I would spend 20 hours a day helping authors or helping entrepreneurial-minded people in the banking space to do what I did, write a book.
15:51
David Hancock: So I'd compel them to write a book.
15:52
David Hancock: I'd help them flesh out their ideas.
15:54
David Hancock: I'd connect them with friends that I had made in the space, whether they're my agent or publishers, or helping some go out and self-publishing, which is absolutely better than doing, nothing at all.
16:02
David Hancock: When I finally had those conversations with Jay about the publishing.
16:05
David Hancock: World being broken.
16:07
David Hancock: It was because all the people that I had helped and met that were doing traditional were having the same struggles that I had.
16:12
David Hancock: All the people that I had met that doing the self-publishing side were doing really well.
16:15
David Hancock: But they were having the same frustrations that most of the self-published authors had.
16:19
David Hancock: Credibility distribution and opportunity and just when we were compelled to do it, we just said, Hey, let's do it.
16:25
David Hancock: I didn't quit my day job right away.
16:26
David Hancock: It was years later before I realized, I need to quit this day job'cause i'm having more fun over here.
16:31
David Hancock: Now granted, I was getting paid still stupid money, which is hard to walk away from.
16:35
David Hancock: But just the passion, the relationships I was building and the fun that we were having, creating something brand new from scratch.
16:40
David Hancock: We didn't hire anybody from the publishing world or space for years after we started'cause I wanted to do it the right way.
16:47
David Hancock: When I quit the day job as bankrupt went full on publisher and just continue to serve and it's just been so amazing.
16:55
Tom Jackobs: That was a great answer.
16:56
Tom Jackobs: A lot of Heart-Led business owners struggle with making a profit and still being Heart-Led.
17:02
Tom Jackobs: How do you kinda balance those two for yourself and your business?
17:06
David Hancock: Well, let me just confess there.
17:08
David Hancock: It is a challenge sometimes when you need to close that next deal.
17:12
David Hancock: But the real challenge is the more that you demonstrate that you need it, the less credibility, approachability, trustability that you have with your clients.
17:20
David Hancock: So it is an exercise in patience, certainly is an exercise in faith.
17:24
David Hancock: But don't ever pray for patience'cause God will give you reason to be patient.
17:27
David Hancock: You just gotta lean into it.
17:28
David Hancock: You just have to spend as much time as you can figuring out what your client needs, how you could help them realize their goals, how you can serve them, and the profit will come.
17:38
David Hancock: You just have to trust and lean into it, and it will come back on you, and it will come back quicker than you think.
17:43
David Hancock: If you just keep that mindset.
17:46
David Hancock: Sometimes you may have to raise your fees, so the ones you're closing, but if you're adding value, you're serving others and you're trustworthy and you're getting referrals, you deserve it and it will be not unexpected.
17:56
David Hancock: So it's a little blend of patience, persistence, and understanding that the lowest price isn't always best, especially for the value that you've got.
18:02
David Hancock: So that's my short answer.
18:04
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
18:04
Tom Jackobs: Nice.
18:05
Tom Jackobs: And what kind of like pleasant surprises have come out of being Heart-Led that you never would've expected?
18:11
David Hancock: I never would've expected that all of my best friends today or whatever, Morgan, James authors, I've always had great friends since kindergarten, now, I'm almost 25 years into this, I go back and I look at who am I spending the most time with?
18:22
David Hancock: Where is my joy?
18:24
David Hancock: Who do I travel to go see?
18:26
David Hancock: Its authors who end up have becoming my best friends.
18:29
David Hancock: That was definitely unexpected.
18:31
Tom Jackobs: Nice.
18:31
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
18:32
David Hancock: Oh my gosh.
18:32
David Hancock: Yeah, I, Jay demonstrated that with me and we became best friends.
18:37
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
18:37
David Hancock: I met him in the mid nineties.
18:38
David Hancock: He got me to write my book.
18:39
David Hancock: We co-authored two books together and I didn't meet him in person until after I started the publishing house.
18:45
Tom Jackobs: Oh wow.
18:46
David Hancock: It was all via phone, no zoom, phone, and email was our entire relationship.
18:50
Tom Jackobs: That's amazing.
18:52
Tom Jackobs: You talk about the distribution and the opportunity that comes from working with a publishing house.
18:58
Tom Jackobs: Why is that versus, self-publishing?
19:02
Tom Jackobs: What's the process, one versus the other?
19:05
David Hancock: The distribution's pretty, pretty significant.
19:07
David Hancock: Now, we all think
19:07
Tom Jackobs: Amazon
19:08
David Hancock: is amazing and huge, but they're not the end all.
19:10
David Hancock: Especially for the last eight years or so, they've really come under fire.
19:13
David Hancock: They're not the favorite choice to go to anymore.
19:16
David Hancock: But people do like options.
19:17
David Hancock: And for us it was always about discoverability, being discovered by somebody in Alaskan bookstore who never, ever went on the internet to find, or may have found you on the internet, who discovered you because they wandered the aisle in the bookstore when they were in need for some sort of content.
19:32
David Hancock: So I love the distribution side of publishing because in open up our circle of influence to virtually unlimited.
19:38
David Hancock: Certainly with social media, you can reach just about anybody on the planet, but those algorithms are limited and not everybody is on social media.
19:45
David Hancock: Not everybody's looking for business on there.
19:46
David Hancock: So finding that right CEO who picks it up at the airport bookstore, or just wanders into the bookstore has been significant.
19:54
David Hancock: Fast forward to today.
19:55
David Hancock: Amazon's our largest client, but they're a very small percentage compared to our overall.
19:59
David Hancock: The bulk of our sales are coming from brick and mortar,
20:02
Tom Jackobs: Really?
20:03
David Hancock: Generally, they're either were referred to go buy the book from a friend or they discovered it.
20:08
David Hancock: And one cool thing about having that brick and mortar distribution is Amazon pays the least, the and mortar stores pay the most.
20:15
David Hancock: So, we ended making more money, by serving the client that's wandering down through, the bookstore aisle.
20:20
David Hancock: But that kind of credibility is significant, especially with media.
20:22
David Hancock: Their producers require that the people that they interview for media, whether it's a radio or television or print, generally they have to be vested or vetted, and they, they don't have time.
20:32
David Hancock: So they let publishers do the vetting for them.
20:33
David Hancock: And I learned that the hard way'cause I was getting picked up by media on a weekly basis, but when I started to self-publish, they just didn't have time to vet me in the content that I was talking about.
20:43
David Hancock: And I couldn't get those interviews.
20:44
David Hancock: They talk to me all day long about my traditionally published books, but not my other ones.
20:47
David Hancock: And then that bookstore distribution, just not being able to get in the stores on the self-published side was very limiting'cause even back then, early days of Amazon, obviously when I started my books.
20:56
David Hancock: But having the books in the brick and mortar stores was very powerful.
21:00
Tom Jackobs: Oh yeah, but when I published my first book and one of the guys that, uh, was, we're kind of in a mastermind group that was working on this together, we're all doing our own books, and one, one person said, Hey, I have an idea.
21:12
Tom Jackobs: Let's reverse steal our books.
21:15
Tom Jackobs: And I was like, what does that mean?
21:16
Tom Jackobs: He's like, take your book into Barnes and Noble and buy it.
21:19
Tom Jackobs: So when they scan it, it tells the register, the inventory system that they're outta that book now and they're gonna order it.
21:25
Tom Jackobs: I was like, ah, that's not gonna work.
21:27
Tom Jackobs: That was a clever little concept though.
21:30
Tom Jackobs: But instead, just take a box of books and put it in the bookstore.
21:33
David Hancock: But now when they scan it if not in their system, they'll just say, go ahead and take the book home.
21:37
David Hancock: So a wife's tale, but a great way to get noticed.
21:39
David Hancock: So I'm not saying don't do it but the other thing if you take a book to a bookstore and put it on their shelf, generally within 30 minutes they'll discover it and get rid of it.
21:48
Tom Jackobs: Oh, okay.
21:49
David Hancock: Until recently publishers paid for premium placements.
21:53
David Hancock: So every time somebody drops a book in a bookstore, they may put it cover out, and that's something that you're used to really police.
21:57
David Hancock: So if you two go, even if your book is in the store, you go in there and turn the book cover out, walk back, and just watch it within 30 minutes, they'll put it back, that's definitely a very cherished space.
22:06
David Hancock: Under Barns new ownership, they don't allow publishers to buy that kind of placement.
22:09
David Hancock: They let their local managers of curate their own promotions and we can't even buy them from the local stores, uh, or the local manager.
22:17
David Hancock: But still they do watch themselves.
22:19
David Hancock: So if a book shows up where it's not supposed to be, or if a book turns cover out like it's not supposed to be, they'll fix it.
22:25
Tom Jackobs: That's interesting.
22:26
Tom Jackobs: It just, the more I learn about the whole publishing and thank you for sharing all that stuff, I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I self-published that first part.
22:35
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
22:35
Tom Jackobs: I love your model though, in terms of putting the author first and giving them all the resources to be successful without the restraints that traditional gives.
22:45
Tom Jackobs: So thank you for doing that.
22:47
Tom Jackobs: That's amazing.
22:48
David Hancock: Absolutely.
22:49
David Hancock: One of Jay and I's most famous books was called Guerilla Marketing for Writers, and it was just really to help the authors understand what no publisher's gonna teach them.
22:57
David Hancock: Ultimately, no matter who publishes the book, whether it's some random house, or self publish, or even somebody like Morgan James, though we do more than most publishers, it really is gonna fall on the author's shoulders to get the books out.
23:05
David Hancock: We know how to sell our widgets or create value in other ways.
23:07
David Hancock: But selling books is a very specific thing, and what we've learned, it's really hard to sell a book.
23:12
David Hancock: Nobody wants to buy another book.
23:13
David Hancock: So you lean into the message.
23:14
David Hancock: You lean in how it serves others.
23:16
David Hancock: You lean into the relationships and give access and demonstrate authority.
23:20
David Hancock: Then they trust you.
23:21
David Hancock: Then they'll buy the book and talk about it.
23:22
David Hancock: but we have to teach them, you know that it's on you.
23:25
David Hancock: So you've got to do these things and there's over a hundred different ways to market and sell the book without wasting time or money.
23:32
David Hancock: You just need to know about it.
23:33
David Hancock: So it's a process.
23:34
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
23:34
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
23:35
Tom Jackobs: No, that's great.
23:36
Tom Jackobs: And I'm sure your whole program kind of, streamlines that whole process, that learning process shortens the learning curve.
23:41
David Hancock: Yeah.
23:42
David Hancock: We start early on with our authors.
23:43
David Hancock: Um, hopefully, again, the goal is to have a great relationship with them and serve them.
23:46
David Hancock: But we start talking about, you know, the best time to start marketing your product book in this case is the moment you decide to create it.
23:54
David Hancock: Now, notice I didn't say the best time to start selling your book is the moment you decide to create it.
23:58
David Hancock: Because you've gotta demonstrate authority.
23:59
David Hancock: You need to lean into it.
24:00
David Hancock: People need to see you as the right person saying the right thing at the right time.
24:04
David Hancock: And you need to earn the right to ultimately say, Hey, go pre-order my book.
24:08
David Hancock: 'cause pre-orders matter.
24:09
David Hancock: And then you've earned it.
24:10
David Hancock: They've expected it.
24:11
David Hancock: They're like, when and where and how can I support you?
24:13
David Hancock: And then you give them a path to and then they will.
24:15
Tom Jackobs: Ah, that's great.
24:15
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
24:18
Tom Jackobs: And I love processes too.
24:19
Tom Jackobs: That just speaks to my heart.
24:21
David Hancock: Ah, awesome.
24:22
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
24:23
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
24:23
Tom Jackobs: This has been just a great conversation David, and thank you so much for being on the show.
24:27
Tom Jackobs: But before we kinda sign off here, how can people learn more about you and Morgan James publishing?
24:33
David Hancock: Well, I appreciate the opportunity.
24:34
David Hancock: It certainly wasn't my goal for being on the show.
24:36
David Hancock: I really wanted to serve you and to get to know you, but serve your audience in however I can.
24:40
David Hancock: You can discover me@morganjamespublishing.com on all social medias at David Hancock.
24:45
David Hancock: Happy to connect anything I can do to serve you, I'd be honored to.
24:49
David Hancock: In fact I could probably give, if it's okay, I could give two gifts to your audience
24:53
Tom Jackobs: Absolutely.
24:53
David Hancock: Since we talked a whole bunch about books one our best-selling books is a book called Guerilla Marketing for Writers.
24:59
David Hancock: Now I have a third edition coming out in March, but if you wanna get this one, just go to G as in guerilla g, marketing for writers.com, and you can download a free copy of this and I want you to use it and it and grow your author business without wasting time, without wasting money.
25:14
David Hancock: And then in March, I've got the Babylon Blueprint for Authors, which is in essence the third edition of Guerilla Marketing because Jay has passed away years ago.
25:21
David Hancock: So it was tough to do it under that brand.
25:23
David Hancock: But the other gift is because you've extended so much generosity to me, to introduce me to your audience, and I'm so grateful I wanna give back.
25:29
David Hancock: And one of my Wall Street Journal bestselling books is called Performance Driven Giving.
25:34
David Hancock: Which is all about the power of generosity in your life to grow your business.
25:38
David Hancock: And you can get a copy of this as well at your favorite bookstore.
25:41
David Hancock: But go to Performance Driven Gift, my super secret website, performancedrivengift.com, and you can download it for free.
25:48
David Hancock: You can put it in your Kindle, your Cobo, your Nook, or whatever device you have.
25:51
David Hancock: No obligation to read it, but if you read it, tell all your friends.
25:55
David Hancock: If you hate it, we never had this conversation.
25:57
Tom Jackobs: Right.
26:00
Tom Jackobs: Exactly.
26:02
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
26:03
Tom Jackobs: I always tell people, if you have a compliment, tell 10 of your friends if you have a complaint, tell me personally.
26:07
David Hancock: Right, right.
26:08
Tom Jackobs: Exactly.
26:09
Tom Jackobs: That's awesome.
26:12
Tom Jackobs: Well, David, again, thank you so much for spending your time with us and sharing your wisdom with the audience.
26:17
Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate you.
26:18
David Hancock: It's my privilege.
26:18
David Hancock: Thank you.
26:19
Tom Jackobs: You are very welcome and thank you audience for tuning in today.
26:23
Tom Jackobs: We really appreciate you tuning in on YouTube or on Spotify or Apple, whichever you choose for your podcast.
26:29
Tom Jackobs: But make sure you're checking out what David's doing.
26:31
Tom Jackobs: We're gonna put all those links and all the books down in the, uh, show notes.
26:35
Tom Jackobs: So make sure you're checking that out.
26:37
Tom Jackobs: And while you're down there, uh, why don't you just give the show a rating and review.
26:41
Tom Jackobs: Help spread the word about the Heart-Led business show and helps more people realize that they can have a heart and lead with heart and still make a profit.
26:49
Tom Jackobs: So until next?
26:50
Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
26:51
Tom Jackobs: And until next time, lead with your heart.
26:55
Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
27:00
Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.