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Vincent Pugliese: Generosity is the Key to Book Marketing Success · The Daily Writer

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Each weekday we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: There are many keys to your success as a writer and an author.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Writing a great book is an important part of it, but there are other important things as well.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those components is book marketing, which can seem like an intimidating and mysterious part of your business as a writer.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And while there can definitely be a lot of moving parts to book marketing, it's important not to lose sight of the bigger picture, which is, of course, serving and connecting with your readers.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And on today's episode, I want to share a recent call from our Daily Writer community that deals directly with this issue.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: One of our members in the Daily Writer is Vincent Puglisi, who is the author of the fantastic book Freelance to Freedom.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Vincent is also the creator and leader of the amazing Total Life Freedom Community, a membership group that has had a radical impact on my mindset and success the last couple of years.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you unequivocally that I would not have been able to build a business and leave my day job without the encouragement of this community, particularly the encouragement and inspiration of Vincent.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the reasons that Vincent is so successful as an entrepreneur and a coach is that he looks at things differently.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: He approaches life in business with a generous mindset.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And on this call, he shares how he approaches book marketing through the lens of generosity.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not only does this take the pressure off of marketing your book in a sleazy way and pressuring people all around you and constantly asking for things, it's also just a way more fun approach to book marketing and business in general.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a community call, which means that you'll hear other people speaking in addition to myself and Vincent.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And in the show notes for this episode, you'll find Vincent's links in addition to a link for an episode he did on his Total Life Freedom podcast.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that episode is titled Becoming a Non-Best Selling Author.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that title, by the way.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to encourage you to give that episode a listen.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's only a few minutes long.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, if you only listen to one podcast besides the Daily Rider, of course, I want to encourage you to listen to the Total Life Freedom Podcast.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a daily show, just like the Daily Rider is, and it is really, really good.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I listen to it constantly, and it is a really, really wonderful podcast.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that episode in particular, Becoming a Non-Bestselling Author, gives you a critical perspective on book marketing for any author, no matter what type of writing or content creation that you do.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my conversation and our community call from the Daily Writer with my friend Vincent Puglisi.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome to the um first call of uh September 2021.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a really, really fun call.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh today we're going to talk about generosity in book marketing, which is a topic that I've never heard anybody talk about here, at least in this group, in terms of a different way to approach book marketing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got my good friend Vincent Buglisi here, who is a part of our community, of course, and he's got some interesting ideas and some really fun stories about how to approach book marketing in a different way.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody, welcome Vincent.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everybody.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you have the best?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was a very quiet welcome.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do you have the best queen?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: A silent welcome.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Vince, I'm gonna let you tell everybody kind of what you do.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then if we can just go into this topic of book marketing, I think that would be really fun.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So give us kind of a quick rundown of why this topic is important to you and and really what you do in general.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to me because I kind of got tired of seeing well, I published my first book 2018, early 2018, called Freelance to Freedom.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And watching, I had so many friends who had published books before that.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been in that world for you know a good seven, eight years, even before that in the photography world.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was a photographer for 20-something years before a transition this way.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I just got so tired of the same book marketing tactics or strategies, and it was just you just followed whatever the latest trend was, or even just the old school trend of, hey, here's what I'm gonna do.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna promote it this way.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then even like, even just the whole, like, hey, my book's coming out in two weeks.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Will you join my book launch team?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna bug you for two weeks to buy it and to share it and to review it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep getting back to you in two weeks, and then all of a sudden there's like eight reviews, and they're annoyed at everybody because people didn't do what they asked them to do, and then they kind of fade away a month later when the book kind of doesn't do anything so often.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We would say, and then people would be like, Oh, there's no, there's nothing in this world.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like they had this very just self-involved and just very heavily self-promotional towards what they wanted from their book.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I would imagine the reason why we write books is to help other people.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know we, you know, we we have things that we want to get out of it, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we're gonna spread a message or we want to build a business or make whatever it is, but I just always approach when I would always see it as much as I wanted to support, I was never a fan of book marketing.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when when my book came out, it was like, what do I do differently?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want to do the same old thing.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, and I wasn't really too concerned with marketing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted that book to stand on its own.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted to get the message out.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it was gonna be a long-term project.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when the book came out, or when it was coming close to being come out, I took a way different approach, was like, we're gonna do a thank you tour instead of a book signing tour.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because David from Morgan James said, you know, you can go to the different bookstores and you could travel and do and they could set it up.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I didn't want to do that.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the whole thing is freedom.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our business is called Total Life Freedom.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we set up a thing where I talked to Elizabeth and the kids.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I said, instead of doing it self-promotional towards the book, why don't we go on a trip together, which is what we're about, family, togetherness, you know, generosity.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And let's go on a book tour and instead we'll call it a thank you tour.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we will go on the road for a couple months and we will see the country as a family, but we will stop and see as many of the people that helped us with the book as possible, and we'll give the book to them in person, which I'd never seen anybody do before.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we did.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: We we lined it up, and and it was just this amazing experience to be able to bring our kids along and stop by places like see Dave Ramsey and hand them the book and have him talk to our kids and be like, This is a big deal, and explain.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he literally took the book and he was like, This is a big deal.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was at my son, he goes, This is how it all started for me writing a book, that first book.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: This was and have my kids leave there, you know, not sure what was going on, then look at us like, Whoa, that was pretty incredible and pretty intense because they've listened to him on the radio for years.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then Dan Miller and Pat Flynn and John Lee Doumas and Seth Godin and all these other people that had bought the book or supported, like supported it beforehand.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I sent the book out to a lot of people PDF version to get feedback and get reviews.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing that for nine months before the book came out.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people say, Oh, a month or two before that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I did that for months and months beforehand.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were all these people to thank because the book launched with like 100 and something reviews when it didn't have any type of publicity.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea of just the thank you tour was just such a catalyst to getting the book off the ground.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so many different people I met along the way continued to promote it, continue to talk about it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: That led to over a hundred podcast interviews from the people that I would meet along the way.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it just continued rolling to where this business that some of you are part of called Total Life Freedom was launched from that and now is spawned off into multiple areas and multiple income streams.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it all came from like not seeing what was in it for me to see.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to thank the people that have helped me along the way.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where it came from.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a lot of stuff to dive into with this.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've and I've heard snippets of this before, but I'm constantly amazed at number one, how you approach this differently, and number two, the really cool results that you got from this.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, where I'd love to start with this, if we can, is let's contrast this with the typical way that we are taught by quote unquote experts to market a book.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're basically saying, Vincent, the way that you approach this was giving and thanking and being generous as opposed to the way that we normally experience book marketing.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, would you say that normally with book marketing, it is all about self-promotion, taking, wanting people to do things for you, etc.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And am I correct kind of in that approach that and all of you feel free to respond to this?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the way that we normally think of book marketing?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is what can you do for me to help me get my book out there?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Are you asking me or or to the group?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking you and then the whole group.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about everybody's response.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, personally, I don't want to be too harsh about it because we we do need to market our stuff, we do need to get the word out on our stuff.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just think the pendulum swings way too far with a book launch.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and we have to do these things, but I went too far the other way.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't want to do anything.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, quite literally, I did not even post about my book except for when Seth Godin endorsed it, except when he when he said that he would endorse it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The only time I I posted about my book, and we went on this trip and we're in Cincinnati the first night, and quite literally we're going out to dinner the first night to celebrate.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Holy crap, I haven't even posted about the book anywhere on social media.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was launch day.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I went to, and this was really kind of funny.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It turned out well, I posted, I said, Hey, I completely forgot today's launch day of my book.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 5 30 at night.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, today's launch day of my book.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you want to buy it, here's the link.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: If not, and I remember typing this in the hotel as we were leaving to go to the German restaurant.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, if you could buy it today, if not, it'll be available for the rest of your life.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I got so many people that just loved that, that they started sharing and sharing, and it just kind of like it got a life of its own.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't huge, but it was huge for like a post like that.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people just appreciate the fact that I wasn't jamming it down their throat and I was there for the long haul with it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I don't want I don't want to also say don't do marketing because you have to, but it's just I just in the mode that I was in at that point, I wanted to do it that way.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, is there something that you would have done differently if you can go back in time and and redo how you did that?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, would you do more traditional marketing things in addition to all the things that you did do?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not then.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, I've learned a lot, and not then I wouldn't, because that's where I was at.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and I and I truly subscribe to the t-shirt that I have, which is bad choices make great stories.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of bad choices that I made in there, but it's a great story that you get to tell years later.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's no harm to me because it's a everything's a long-term game.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me ask let me ask this to everybody what are some typical elements of book marketing that that you don't like and that annoy you and irritate you?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here we're just kind of gonna lay it on the table and I'm gonna start.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh obviously I'm not gonna name who this person is, and I don't think any of you know this person.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's a friend of mine from way back.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: They just wrote a book and uh it's on a very, very niche topic.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they messaged me on LinkedIn after two or three years.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I sent them a message years ago, and they were just like, Oh, I'm just not getting my messages, which was crazy.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, they they're like, Hey, I just have this book coming out.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I would really appreciate it if you would be able to buy the ebook and then leave a review today, you know, like here, get the book, read it today, and then leave a review today, even though I was totally not in their target market, and they basically just wanted to get something out of me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I still went ahead and did it just because that's I I tend to be a loyal person and I want to support authors, even if I don't always like the way that they do their marketing.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But secretly that kind of irritated me.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do any of you see things like that where people are launching books or they're marketing their books?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing things that you feel like are just kind of wanting to take from you without first giving to you or really building a relationship.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously, we're probably not gonna mention any names, at least I hope not, but uh I would love to hear any examples that that any of you might have or your thoughts on that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, go ahead.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jennifer, go first, then we'll have Linda.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um I have seen a lot of this is a brand new connection.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_04: I just sent you a Facebook friend request or I just sent you a LinkedIn message or whatever, and we've made this connection, and the very first thing is, hey, buy my stuff.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: So that's very common and it's very off-putting.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Linda.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_08: I was gonna say the same thing, but with email.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_08: Like I get people send me emails and they're like, Oh, can we cross-post this blog or blah blah blah?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_08: And then you look at the blog and it's like they're trying to sell something and they want to post it on your website and like yeah, no.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or it has to be on your podcast.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So this this same person actually, they're like, Hey, do you have a slot on your podcast I can come on and talk about my book?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, let me let me think about it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let me think about it.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I do actually think it'll be a good interview, but but it kind of annoyed me that they were asking all these things of me with that first, you know, offering to help or or does it serve your audience?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, that's that's the question.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like, if it does, then great.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: If not, then go away.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: In in this case, I think that there is some value, but we'll see.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_08: And the other thing is, too, is like if if you're coming on my podcast, I'm taking my time and money to produce my podcast.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I don't do like if if it's me asking someone to be on my podcast, then I don't charge them.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_08: But if it's somebody I don't know coming on, I tell them they either have to do a cross permit or I come on their podcast and they promote me as well, or they pay money, like a I think it's like a$49 fee because like I'm not gonna promote you for free.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard of people doing that before where you basically charge people to come on your show.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_08: So that's that's only it's only people who um just like I don't know, and out of the blue they come on and say, Hey, I wouldn't be on your podcast to promote my book.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_08: But if it's somebody I invite, I don't charge them.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, Vincent, let's go back to this idea of generosity.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's maybe pull out the camera a little bit.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Walk us through your overall concept of generosity.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know you you've got uh some things you're working on related to generosity, and you talk about this a lot on your podcast, uh in the Total Life Freedom Group and elsewhere.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: What is kind of the overall idea of generosity in terms of trying to build a business?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you how do you think about that and why is it so important?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's so important.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I can talk about it because I'm a selfish person, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can talk about it because I'm like it and and it's it's initially it's it's where it always goes to, you know.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way that I I know what it's like to just go after what you want and to have goals and to set those goals.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was I was a you know newspaper photographer in New York.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like an Italian guy that's just everybody's driven and everybody's just going after it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you you can't get left be you can't survive being kind of passive and feeble in that environment.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have to get the shot, you have to get to these you you you always have to win, you have to, otherwise you can't survive.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that I was raised in in the business world, in the in the um, not even business world, in the career world.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it all started.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of like, I gotta keep going.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what I realized with then was nobody ever liked that person.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was kind of like, oh, they get stuff done, but nobody actually really truly likes them.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody was raving about those people, nobody was raving about us if we got a great picture.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then I'd meet people that were just helpful, and they weren't, you know, bulls in a china shop and they were looking out for other people and they were connecting other people and they were thoughtful and they were doing all the things I wasn't doing, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna win.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they were doing, and I started to kind of realize, and it kind of hit me later on when I had achieved a level of success that I was going after, people would praise me for the accomplishments that I had, but very few people were praising me for the person that I was, and they were praising these other people for the people they were, and nobody really was talking about their accomplishments, even though they were very well accomplished.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that made me feel kind of off.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who am I?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Am I am I just about results or am I a good person?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are people saying about me otherwise?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really hard.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't hard to deal with when I was struggling because I needed to make it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when things got a lot better and you look back on yourself and you kind of go, was it just about what I wanted?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it about being a contributor, being a connector, being generous?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to really study this because that's the person that I really wanted to become.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't come from like we a lot of us know Ken Hoops.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ken Hoops is just a naturally generous person.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know him, he's just like he's a martial arts instructor, he owns his own place, and he's just always thinking, How can I help other people?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just and I talked to him about it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was just raised that way and was wired that way.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was envious that that's not who I was or who I'm, you know, who I was becoming at all.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was about results.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when this whole idea of generosity came out, which is really uncomfortable, because when you when you when you know you're not it, it's it bugs you when you know that you're not that type of person.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I just made it a pact to try to become more of that type of person.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect book for me to write because I'll never be where I want to be.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the message that I've learned from so many other people, but I want to become this.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing better.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Dave Ramsey talks about this.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: He needs to teach his stuff every day because he's a spender and he needs to get his money.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he knows that by teaching this stuff, he gets better at it and he helps other people.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing here with me.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the hero in this story at all.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning from the people that I'm studying and how I'm growing.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that idea into a book, and then even in terms of how I want to live my life and how I want to help others.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the whole hour of giving.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I wake up and it's not always first thing in the morning, but I spend at least an hour where it's just trying to leave reviews for people that I've read their books, I've listened to their podcasts, connecting other people together, just doing all those things that other people have done for me that was really impactful.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I try to anchor my day with that to where that's the person that I keep becoming.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to book marketing, when you see all this stuff and you see, like you said, and you and I have had conversations about people that have done this, and it's just all about them.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think it's it's the way that's gonna get so many people to even be excited about what you're doing.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you are Seth Godin's a perfect example of it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's constantly leading with generosity, and it's a great example if you can have massive success when you really have other people's interests at top of mind, as I talk about in this book that I'm writing, generous goals over selfish goals.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: We all have selfish goals, we all have things we want to achieve, but they don't come first.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Bob Berg has a great line, which is like asking how to make more money is not a bad question, it's just a bad first question.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people leave with that as a first question.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we balance this impulse of generosity with also building a financially successful business?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're all writers, we all have different things going on, we're we're all doing different business things.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, we all want to have a financially successful thing that we're doing.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: At least I think most of us here have have that goal.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, most people have that goal.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do how do we balance these things?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I hear what you're saying correctly, generosity doesn't mean you're doing everything for free or you're giving everything away or you're letting people take advantage of you.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we how do we do both of those things at the same time?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, and I'm I love a discussion on this for any questions or any thoughts on this.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think boundaries are a key part of it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think a lot of people when they hear generosity, especially maybe the selfish type, think I can't do that because I can't be taken advantage of.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are worried about being taken advantage of, so they don't.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have boundaries, and I just recorded a podcast today about this, I'm not sure when it's publishing, but my friend Dane Sanders, and we'll bring back go back to Seth Godin.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Dane, Seth Godin said he would, he would, my friend Dane had a conference, and Seth was gonna be the surprise speaker at this conference.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was gonna be through video, but he didn't market it at all.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: But Seth was doing it for free.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was doing it as a favor to Dane, they become friends.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they weren't selling enough tickets for this conference.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Dane's thinking, well, if people knew Seth was coming, we'd sell more tickets.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he went to Seth and he said, Hey, um, can I put your name on the billboard?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can I put it on the on the on the type on the text of it because it would really help?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Absolutely.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Send me, tell me where to send the$20,000 check.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Dane was like, Oh, oh, oh, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: We'll keep doing what we're doing.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because Seth had this, I'm being generous, I'm helping you out.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you're using it and using his name to sell tickets, that was the boundary he had in terms of I'm gonna charge you for this.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of people would get walked over in that, or they would say, Okay, yeah, no problem, I'll do it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was very impressive, where you know, underneath he's very, very helpful, very quiet.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're gonna press the boundaries in terms of the business side of it, he has his rules to it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you can maintain financial viability and success while still consistently thinking about others and being helpful and generous.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: How do we know what the boundaries are with book marketing specifically?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, book a book is a small cost thing, it doesn't cost us a lot to produce books, especially if it's an ebook, it costs us virtually nothing as far as sending somebody a copy or a link.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a print book, it's gonna cost maybe two or three bucks or something if we're self publishing through Amazon or something.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: So are there some specific boundaries that we should have in mind related to I won't give out this number of copies for free or I I won't do this or that?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that we should not are there some boundaries that we should not let be violated as writers?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Without I I think it's comes down to what your goals are with it like what you're doing with it because is your goal the book and I I'd be curious for everybody here that's right is your goal to sell books is your goal bigger good question books my goal is bigger than books it's bigger than book sales so you know you know I was given advice you know that if you if the book gets into 10,000 people's hands and it's good it's gonna spread from there.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you you know I think being generous is also getting what you want as well because if you're if the point is to spread the message of the book and you can get the book out to more people maybe you're not gonna do a physical copy maybe it's an e-copy I'm not sure how you'd want to do it and maybe it's not giving it away but there's so many different ways to but what is your goal if you're if you know that if 100,000 people read this book and you have these other things that you have that that you can sell right down the road that are going to be helpful to them how is that book a lead magnet?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: To me it's the ultimate business card.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: It really is it's I'm not concerned about book sales of it down the road there's all these other options that people can are they going to listen to your podcast and fall in love with what you talk about and then become a raving fan that down the road when you have a live event they want to go to it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: To me it's so much deeper that if you I think just focusing on the books is is limiting.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what how it's going to play out for you and options that you have in the future and then it gets really exciting with the books.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_05: I have a comment too related on his question before about you know it's not always about giving the book away I think generosity starts way before the book is even published like how am I build how am I supporting other people who could benefit potentially benefit from this you know maybe there is a selfish undertone to it but it happens six months a year before you're even writing the book of how am I helping other people so that when the opportunity presents itself to help me, they just are drawn to the idea because they know who I am as a person as well.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_05: So I think it's it's much it starts way earlier than the book.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well exactly and to Kent's point about the guy that reached out to him andor girl whoever it was that reached out and said hey can you read and review this book today right that's the mistake that that's where it all started Kent and how I would get all these requests but hey my book's being published October 3rd um hey you can download it now it's September 26th I need you to read it within the next week and leave a review and I'd be like you know I'm going on vacation my kids are you go starting school I gotta read this book and leave it's all on their on their watch right right and and it's and it's asking a lot I think to do that.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the book's a you know you want to read it so heidi to what I did was I took I wanted to to learn from people as well along the way so I for eight 12 eight 10 months I sent out e versions of the book even while I was writing it a lot of people were afraid of doing this.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: The book wasn't even complete and I'd send it for feedback and what happened was even within that people started sharing and talking about it before the book was even out.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So months before and people would be like when's the book coming out love the book I would get feedback on my book like one of the stories that was in it that was in the very beginning that was impactful I had buried deep in the second part of the book and a guy that had read it eight months before and said you know that story about your dad you know when you were 20 years old that that story at the beginning would really have a lot of impact.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Heidi you would you'd appreciate this you know so I did it I I took the advice you know and and changed it and I gave it to these guys that started this podcast called Choose FI.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was a couple months ago their their podcast just started taking off I met them at a conference Jonathan one of the co-hosts like I want to read the book Brad had already read it and he he was flying to South Africa with his wife and he's he messaged me and he goes I'm reading your book I just got to the story about your dad I was hooked from that moment on.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love this book I want to have you on the podcast.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was the number one podcast that I was a guest on during the thing that that's I still get people signing up for things today from that podcast.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it all came because somebody that I had sent it to for free eight months earlier made a suggestion of how it could be better and it's still paying dividends today.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy and that's been what three years ago that was well I said the book published January of 2018 so that was actually sometime in 2017 when that happened wow that is crazy four years and which which is one of the cool things about podcasts is that they you know people listen to episodes years later yeah I mean because they're they're just there and available there's not a week that doesn't go by then I don't get one maybe two weeks where I don't get a message from somebody that just found me from the podcast I did with them in January of 2018.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wow that's crazy that's absolutely crazy.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so I think just that whole idea of like oh so many people like I'm keeping my book close to my best nobody can see it until it's perfect I didn't care like literally when when Brad read the book there was no there was no second half to the book yet like there was no ending to it yet.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to get feedback and I wanted at least to get hey how what did you feel about this?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And people just appreciated being included in the process.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: They almost felt like they had some I never thought about like this had they had some ownership in the success because they gave feedback while it was still in the beginning stages of it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let me circle back to this point about holding stuff close close to your chest.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay so I have a friend actually it's a very sporadic coaching client uh every three or four months he does a quick call with me and he's spent like three years working on this massive book on on a specific topic he is convinced that he has a world changing framework for for his topic I've I've looked at his stuff it's very solid I don't think it's world changing it's really nothing radically new about it but he's kind of consolidated some things and I think it's very very solid but I've encouraged him many many times to share this material start building an email list start building an audience be generous connect with people all those kinds of things but he is really really terrified of somebody taking his material and stealing it and I know that is even though it's it's completely crazy and I I know some industries that's probably a legit concern I guess but what would you say to people who are afraid to let their intellectual property out there and who have that that they're really scared somebody's gonna take this somebody's going to they're gonna take my incomplete PDF and they're gonna share it and it's I'm gonna lose all my book sales and you know those kinds of things how do you address that kind of fear in people I have a joke about this because people can't even finish their own ideas they can't even finish their own stuff but they're gonna really go and take my idea with my stories and they're gonna go make a success of that when they can't even finish the one thing we've been bugging them to do for two years.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I don't worry too much about that I totally agree yeah and the more real you make it the more personal it can be are they really gonna steal the stories what really respond what do people respond to they respond to stories.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're not you know Heidi they're not stealing your ski list story right they're not taking that story and as as the more you bring yourself into it that's that's what attaches to people because everybody can take theories and concepts in five steps to blah blah blah and everybody kind of repurposes it's the stories that drive people the story about Jonathan and Brad that that's something what people might remember as opposed to if I gave you like here's seven steps to do something.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: So nobody can ever take that away from you.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't ever worry about you know doing a daily podcast I get an idea it comes out there I'm giving away so many ideas so somebody can go run and take and steal and and maybe they have good for them if they do your job is to make work that is so good that people steal it and you keep coming up with new stuff.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't concern myself with that at all.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So part of this thing is really it's almost the fear of uh oh I can't sorry I can't think of the term I'm looking for it's this idea that that our ideas aren't limited that there's only so much so many good ideas to go around it's kind of this oh it's it's like a scarcity mindset of oh if I if I write this one book and and I put all my stuff in one book those are the only good ideas that I'll ever have which is not true because you have good ideas you put about into the world and then you get more good ideas.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're growing that's what should happen right Andy Andrews said this which was great he wrote the traveler's gift if anybody's a fan of Andy Andrews he wrote the traveler's gift he said he learned more about that book after he wrote it than any other time.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow you you think you write a book and it's done he goes out and he teaches about it afterwards and then he hears a story and then he says oh this would have fit here.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: So then he writes more books related to it.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah he's not saying here's my secret sauce and nobody could ever know how it is he's putting it out there and then growing for that that's how you continue to get new stuff as opposed to saying here's my copyrighted material and don't touch this this is this is what I'm gonna work on for the rest of my life to me if I did that I'd never grow because I'd always keep doing these same seven steps for the rest of my life and not expanding out from it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Depends on how you want to view it that's how I want to view it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is this is so fascinating.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost the idea of so many of us we tend to think that the book is the secret sauce that makes a difference when it's really not the book hopefully has good content but the secret sauce is really in the implementation of the ideas it's the coaching it's the speaking it's the the mastermind groups it's connections and networking and all the other stuff that that comes alongside of it it's not necessarily just the book itself.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so I think that's I think that's a a it could be the middle point of where everything comes off of but it's not I think when people think oh I need to sell this book now you're just constantly pushing book sales where it's like well if I can take this content and I can put it into a podcast or if I can go on podcasts and talk about it and I can explain why this concept is important, people are going to want to know more about you.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna want to more know more about what you do.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you keep doing that they my experience they eventually come to you they eventually reach out to you hey how can how can I be a part of this and I think it's the best way to sell because we do have to sell but if you're so generous in terms of your stories people like oh thank you so much for your time to be on my podcast anytime I do it I do it every day of the week I can't imagine a better way to sell and to market than by being your true authentic self in a conversation where whatever I don't like what's your agenda what are the questions I never give anybody any questions when I'm on a podcast.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you want to talk about will go in the direction it goes and that leads to more stories.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because then people like I didn't realize we were going to talk about this that's another thing that people attach to and then you have more content you can pull from that and you can keep going with that.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's it's abundant it really is the difference between abundance and scar and scarcity that's abundance as opposed to like here are the seven questions and you need to stick in line with that like to me that's just boring.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it just can incredibly boring.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple days ago I got in the mail this new book by Joanna Penn called the Relaxed Author some of you have read some of her stuff.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: She does a lot of stuff on self-publishing and book marketing and everything.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the book looks good I'm I'm pretty sure there's nothing in here that is necessarily completely revolutionary, but she's packaged her ideas in a really convenient way and the subtitle of this is Take the pressure off your art and enjoy the creative journey and I I love the concept of this book.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about her though is it's exactly what Vince is talking about.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have learned so much from her podcast and her books over the years that it doesn't matter what she puts out I'm gonna buy it.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't she could put out a copy the telephone book and I'd probably buy it uh not that anybody knows what telephone books are anymore.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Remember those days you know the the telephone book so I do want to get into some specific strategies of how do we actually do this on a tangible practical level but let's stop here who's got some questions or you have something you're hearing and you're like let's dig into this a bit more I want this to be really practical and useful for everybody I have a question because I think marketing is such a big challenge for most authors Vincent what how would you approach it like when it comes to emails because I think emails are important but yet I think so many people focus on them.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like I've only sent like one email out about my novel one and it's been out for like two months now but I just haven't I've just like I'd rather do it other ways I'd rather do you know social media with some memes or sending private messages or whatever.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: How would you approach uh email Vincent because I think that I think it's like there's so much potential there but who wants to be spammy right gotcha.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: What stops you what what stops you from doing because I'm the same way I'm very similar to what you're talking about and we both have things that stop us from doing it.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: What stops you from doing the email side of it it's not confidence and like not a lack of confidence in the book.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's great.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's that I know it's probably not the right audience because a lot of them signed up from nonfiction interaction like my other two books are nonfiction or maybe it was from medium.com and maybe they're just wanting to learn about becoming a writer and I'm kind of thinking in my brain I'm like it's probably not the right place.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: And also I will admit this I can't stand at all when somebody's like hey you haven't heard from me in a while but I have a book now buy it and I'm like I don't want to be that guy who does that have you ever gotten those emails where it's like nails on a chalkboard it's like I haven't heard an email from you in like two years and now it's like here buy from me.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's like that friend who calls you only when they're moving that's what we're talking about, right?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same thing we're talking about here.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah I don't want to do that so maybe I'll do it right off if if I'm an offer this is a good reason to segment your list yep if you're doing fiction you're you know if you have several different categories you know you need to interact with the people on your list and give them the option to you know receive different segments.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_05: I completely agree with that John and I suck at that but at the same time it's nice to be the same person and not try to think in like compartmentalization you know what I'm saying where it's like oh well we only like this what if you're assuming wrong what I could be but I think emails you can have them self-select Jim like do you want this do you want this do you want this do you want all of the above what if you're depriving of them an opportunity where they want to get to know your novel and you're not even sharing it with them like I've had someone say that by me selecting not to share it with certain people I'm not even giving them the opportunity to see who I am or what I'm working on.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_05: And that's a selfish call.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great point.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great point I I'll be honest I think part of it is I really just need to clean it up and just be willing to drop the you know 500 600 subscribers that I just know are like haven't opened anything in a while anyway and they're just you know it's a dead weight in the back of my brain I'm like just drop it and move on it's better to have a small engaged list than to have a like fake list I don't want to be below a thousand I guess in my brain is part of it.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like I don't want to dip but it's it's moving forward not moving backwards right yeah so is there also a way that if this is a nonfiction audience and you went to fiction is there a way of telling a story about how your journey from nonfiction to fiction where you can so you don't really have to be talking about the book but you can be talking about your journey because most nonfiction authors are probably not going to fiction why I'd be curious as some of you follow what makes you now write a fiction book now if you write that story about it now you know here's the it's yeah yeah as opposed to going from what is this what is he doing this fiction stuff for he's the nonfiction guy.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: But if you explain and and also though and I I know Jennifer's probably gonna shake your head up even more on this and can't too it's like consistency is the key as well not just like being the oh I haven't emailed in a month I got to do it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: If it it's like part of me wants to be authentic part of me wants to really truly add value.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's a high call because so often it's like you might not feel like doing it right I mean that comes down to discipline you might not feel it and I think that brings a like you can tell when somebody's just emailing to email versus they have something to say I think and you know feel free to disagree too but I think it's like I'd rather email in something important versus it's Thursday check.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's Thursday check.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: You you are such a creative entrepreneur I just I don't know you that well but I just nailed it right and creative entrepreneurs have a problem with this and I am one of them where it's like systems and structure it's like nails on the chalkboard for us.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my biggest challenge because I'm like yeah I don't really feel like it and then the email doesn't go out and then it doesn't go out for three more weeks and then all of a sudden you're kind of like it's been a couple months now I'm gonna send an email and I hadn't sent it so now it's six weeks.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: John Rulin did a really great thing I'm not sure if you ever saw this and Kent I know I think we've talked about this where he let his email list go dry and he didn't do anything and he sent this really authentic email which was hey listen I screwed up you somewhere along the way you signed up for something that I did.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if I was on a webinar or as a podcast somewhere along the way you signed up and I stopped delivering value to you.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere I stopped completely my fault if you want to unsubscribe here's where you unsubscribe and he went on to talk about a little bit more and each step along the way you gave them the option to get out.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to keep following me on this but I can tell you this I'm promising you I'm gonna continue to deliver value.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna stop here um if you want to unsubscribe I get it but if you want to stick with me I'll keep bringing great stuff to you he got such a great response to that because it was so honest and authentic.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now if you as a creative you can talk about the creative side of how difficult it is to be structured with it if that's you.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: I love that how difficult it is to keep like so maybe I'm sporadically consistent with my email which I consider myself sporadic I'm not sporadically consistent with my podcast that comes out every day.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason I don't miss that my email I will miss some sporadically consistent.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you could accept that yeah you know but but unless you can get yourself into a pattern you go it comes out this time and then structure yourself to where you're like I'm writing in advance so I have this stuff in place as opposed to waiting till it feels good.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah so you can batch when you're in the mood to write write as many as you can batch them and schedule them.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_04: And that way when you're in that dip where you just are not feeling it's okay because you already have great content scheduled to go out.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: This to me this is such a good discussion because I think for creative types it comes back to the question of what is it that prompts you to create your art is it you feel the emotion of creating something or is that you're on a schedule two totally different kinds of things so and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know that there are some musicians who put out stuff because they were feeling the need to put out an album and they had an idea or a concept or something.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: But then there are other creative types who are on a schedule you know there's some authors who they write a book every year.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you know Stephen King puts out puts out probably a a book every year at least and I don't know if he feels that or if he constantly if the well ever runs dry or whatever but he still cranks it out.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I don't I don't know what if there's a right answer or not but it it kind of brings up the idea of the the discipline of being on a schedule and then being on that schedule actually prompts creativity.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It would be an interesting that would be a good book for somebody it would be and what none of us have the time to write and I think the momentum is a huge part for us.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: If we lose the momentum we feel it's really hard to get it back.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you what are your prompts to get your momentum going for Jim I could tell you right now that if Jim like if if if he asked me I would say you got it right now then the next email would be your whole hey I went from well first of all it could be the hey sorry I've been kind of ghosting you then it can go to you know you might know me from nonfiction writing nonfiction books I I did an uncomfortable thing I did something I really want to do I wrote a fiction book and here's what so that's a story about that and then the third one is here's an excerpt from that book that that just just so you could see what it was like you know right there three emails that you can you could now if you said that and Jim I'm guilty of this with you what I need is a a list of the next four months of what the emails would be and they could play off of each other.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right I I would love the challenge of taking on myself like here's what it's gonna be it's not just gonna be a sporadic email it's gonna play off of the one before in some ways you can do that right there.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah you know Vic uh Vincent one thing I've realized too is I am so authentic that I like to write about what is going on like right now what am I learning like today even this conversation with y'all and it's like if I don't jump on it or if I'm like well I need time to process this it might be a week you know I'm saying where it's like oh uh in I I don't like email because it's just it's one of those things I've I've fought it so much I don't like it.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: I like sending a short video to people like hey checking in that kind of thing but then it's almost the wrong medium for that if you're sending videos and emails it's kind of counterintuitive.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I feel like it's really that work in progress you know what I mean where it's like hey just keep playing just keep experimenting.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's important where you said I don't like email I think that's important to be able to say I remember Gary Vanch saying one time if you're not on every medium you're you're lost and I don't believe that for a second.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that for one second if you don't do email and you're not going to be consistent with it and you don't write it and you spent that time in these other areas I think you're gonna be just fine.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think email helps without a doubt if you have the list.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: But to beat yourself Up over it and spend so much time on it when you're not going to do it.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: When you could be doing the things you said the personal messages in the videos, I yeah, I'd I'd spend an hour doing that before I get because email, I'm like, oh yeah.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Did anybody else feel that with email?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I feel that way with social media.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think there's certain things that we all avoid.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love sending out emails, but uh with social media, somehow I perceive that as I sometimes perceive that as an interruption and send someone, even though I know it's really valuable, I I don't know why.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's really weird.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: Here's my opposite of Kent.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'd much rather do social media and be spontaneous, and here's what I'm thinking right now, and I can just get it out there.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like emails I have to like curate a nice story and tell.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean it feels like more work.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for Jim and Heidi and MJ as well.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Emails a struggle.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I hate emails.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I I see I see something we need to work on in our daily writer group.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm curious about something for the three of you.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel when you receive emails?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_07: I just said it depends on who it's coming from.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_07: Like I love Kent's because I find them really valuable.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_07: And others, I open them up, and once I look, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not even reading this.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_07: It's gone.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_07: It's too long, it looks too intricate.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_07: I don't have that kind of time.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_07: You know, it has to be somebody I will I will unsubscribe.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_07: I give them a few, I give them a few, but if it looks like it's gonna take me too much time to figure that out, especially if it's not really something I that I find vitally important.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_07: Like there's certain groups that I'm like, you know, I want to see what they're about, or a certain email list I sign up just to see what's going on.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_07: You know, some of them will catch me, but very rarely.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_07: Usually it's people like I, you know, once I take it off email and I connect them on social media, or if they're offering a class or a webinar or something, once I've taken that, if I'm not pulling value from it, I'm out.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have time.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we don't do it ourselves because we don't like the way it's being done to us.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't like social media because we don't like all these annoying people that are posting selfies five times a day.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to do it, but we know we're never gonna do that.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're never gonna do it, but we don't wind up doing anything with it.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or the email that's always selling you stuff.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: But like I would, MJ, I would say to you, like, what what does Kent do about his emails that you like?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned it, and maybe you can model that to get you in the because it doesn't, it will not hurt you to have an email list, will not hurt you at all.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's only gonna help if they unsubscribe, they unsubscribe.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're all a lot of us are in the same boat, but to understand like what is the annoyance why you don't like you really not like writing?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's Kent, it's the same thing.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're writing on a computer, Jennifer.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right, you're writing, you're just putting into an email template.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's not like email writing, right?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's writing, and you put it writing is writing, right?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because I perceive my my own emails.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: I never give myself an A on anything that I do, like seriously.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I would give most of my emails like a B minus in terms of quality, but I do I do it pretty consistently, and even the stuff that I put out there that I'm like, this isn't really that good.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people sometimes respond to it, so you never know.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: We all I mean, I I can tell you that how many times I've done a podcast and I go, That was a filler.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: That sucks.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then people are like, Man, you really hit me with that one, like that.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be like that one, like I did.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Did you not hear the one two days ago?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was way better.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't respond about that one, they responded about this one that I didn't even like.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you hear that with musicians, they put out a pop song and they hate it.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, anybody's at 80s, if you talk about 80s music, can't you should start with cherry pie next week for this call for the next half of the because well, because if you heard the story, if you ever hear the story about that song, it's it's apparently Janie Lane, who was the singer, was a very good songwriter.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: They needed a hit because the album was about to come out, they didn't have a hit.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote cherry pie in 15 minutes, became their biggest hit ever, and it ruined his career because he hated the song.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's what he was known.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine being known for the cheesiest, least quality product you've ever put out, and being known for that.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he was.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's like Slash with the intro to Sweet Child of Mine.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like yeah, I've heard that he just did that as like a joke.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Joke, yeah, something.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't take it seriously, everybody loves it.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's it's phenomenal.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a phenomenal song, but it's like but that happens so often, like their biggest, or like I would be curious to see if Rick Astley, you know, how much he hates never gonna give you up.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine imagine him walking into a restaurant and the things that they say I hope that he was a songwriter on that because it's got like billions of views on YouTube.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it but it's but the stuff that we love isn't always what people sometimes the stuff that we don't think, but to go back to that point, Jim and MJ and Heidi's like it's just a it's a medium.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's email is just something you put into a template and you send out a certain way, it's no different in terms of what you write.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: It I think there's an association with that that we probably need to understand personally why it hangs us up.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like a book chapter.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a book chapter follows a template typically, yeah.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: A nonfiction or a you know, a story, you know.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jim followed templates with his novel to some degree, because every every story must follow some type of structure that's common.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_03: I agree, but I also want to give you some pushback because with an email, you have more pressure, you're writing for mobile, and therefore it's like that's a big factor in the mix.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: If it's coming up on mobile versus desktop, I think that alone could be a factor in the unsubscribes and like how you format it and length and all that.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um it, but I feel like the the ante is so high.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: If they unsubscribe, that means they ain't buying anything else that you send until they subscribe again.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's why when I write my emails, I always um I send them send myself a test email first, then I of course I spell check and all that, but then I also read it on my phone and I make sure the paragraphs are extremely short, sometimes they're just one sentence paragraphs, so that it does look good on mobile.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it that I always succeed, but I it is something I think is real.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great, great point about making sure it's readable on mobile.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: The one thing we all need to realize with with email, including myself, and is there's the top of mind factor that comes with it that people don't think about very often.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have social media, you got 3200 friends, and you don't see most of them.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Email is coming into your phone, like uh Donald Miller.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't read an email of his in probably two years, maybe one or two, but I still see his name on my phone every week.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I don't read it, I see Donald Miller and I'll kind of scroll.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's advertising.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whereas if I didn't see his name for two years, I mean I'd be like, Oh, is he working at the car wash now?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Did he make it right?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: I like I might have no idea what he's doing, but I know because I see his email without writing it that he's still in the game.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of value to that.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of value in that.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're coming down to our last few minutes here.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, does anybody have any any other questions that you want to throw out there in our last few minutes?
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_05: So I have a question for Vincent around generosity.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so many times our goals, when they're selfish goals, we're chasing a number or we're chasing a metric or some type of status symbol.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_05: What does success look like in a generous goal?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a great question.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: It it's I I think success in a generous goal means that everybody wins.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think everybody wins with with a it's it's not if I get you, if I bug you to buy my book and to and to buy multiple copies of it, and I win that whole thing, and now you're sitting here and you I got a hundred copies of Vincent's book, and I don't know what the hell to do with this.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm gonna I don't think you won in that.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you won in that.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if there's a way that everybody wins in that, you, them, and the person that it's gonna be helping, I think if you could always view it that way.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's a very basic, simple way to start with are are they winning as well as I am with a generous goal?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you can take it that way, you might not you, but a lot of people might not do some of the things they did if if they had that in mind.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if we had less of that, we wouldn't be so down on email or on even sales.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is that the the bad ones make it bad for everybody.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those the the bro marketers, right?
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: The ones with whatever that you see all over the place.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they they make us not want to sell anything.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then people come to me and they go, Why didn't you literally?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was on a podcast last week, this woman Carla, and she messaged me and she goes, I'd love to stay connected.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a community or something like that?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because we might have mentioned it, I don't know, like very little small in passing.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I do.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a paid community, it's not a free Facebook group.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I sent it to her.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Send it over.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Vince, why haven't you told me about this?
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Because first of all, we vet who comes in, and I didn't know you that much, and I didn't want to just hey, join my, I want to do that.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened was we had enough conversations, and then we had a conversation, you know, in the podcast, and then she learned more about it, and then she came to me and was interested.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: If she joins at some point, that's a win-win-win all around.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: The group will be better, I'll be better, she'll be better.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't like, hey, join my group, pay me money.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was hey, I'm vetting to make sure that everybody in the group stays better, that she gets better.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then by her joining, it's not gonna hurt me, right?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna hurt me for the community to get better, but it's not, but if I have to coerce everybody into doing it, or I need some last-minute sales tactic to get you to buy before 1159 so that you get something because you got FOMO, and then you kind of feel like, why did I buy that?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never use it.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us are in those situations where we bought stuff for that reason, and we you're not gonna be a raving fan that way.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna advocate for them if that happened.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Man, there's a lot of good stuff to think about here.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: That this has opened up like a whole new direction for us here.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do a call just on bro marketers because everybody loves when you just say the term bro.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh my gosh, yeah.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Bro, dude, dude marketers.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost all frat boys, basically.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's the young group standing in front of a Ferrari in their garage kind of thing.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I what I think that does is it's kind of like it's kind of like the whole, well, when you have so many negative voices, the the the positive voices get quiet because they don't want to be in that world, but all it leads to is more negative voices, yeah.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can be a positive voice, well, that's gonna make the negative voice just a little bit quieter because it's the pause is a little more a little louder.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's something to really come away with.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you not are you are you not sending a quality valuable email because too many people are sending crap emails?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe you can bring faith back to it by you know where people actually enjoy it again because there's really quality stuff coming out.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way I try to view it.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's awesome.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love this.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, we need to explore email marketing more in some of these calls because this this is a pain point for a lot of us, and it's something that that is always changing and that all of us can do better, even if we've been doing it for a while now.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: So for sure, lots of really good stuff here.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Vincent, thank you for doing this call.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: This has been really, really fun.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for inviting me.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everybody for showing up.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody needs to write a book called The Generous Writer and apply all this stuff specifically to writers and artists.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if anybody wants to write that book, I will buy a copy whenever you put it out there.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer will have it done by next Thursday.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jennifer, that's true.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Next Thursday, Jennifer will have it done by the end of the day, probably.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: By 2 p.m.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: my time, she'll have it finished.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks everybody.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: We will head into our writing spirit here in a second.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I hope you enjoyed that community call.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: I took away a ton of insights and learned a lot from Benson and his approach to book marketing with a generous mindset.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: And really, that's the main takeaway that I that I want to share here is simply to be generous.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: This totally goes against the norm when it comes to marketing what we do.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, whenever you see people do book launches, it's all about support what I'm doing, go buy my book on Kindle, uh, leave me a review, ASAP, do all these things for me so my book can become a success.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is what typically we're kind of taught to do with book marketing.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I want you to think the opposite way.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to think in terms of first, how can you help other people?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: How can you be generous?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: How can you be more thoughtful and not just make it about yourself and your book success?
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, people may support you.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I hope people support you in your book launch.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you support me whenever I launch my next book very soon.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line is what can we do to serve other people?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do to be more generous?
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: People might go along with what you ask of them, but they're not going to be that excited about it if they feel like you're just constantly asking for things.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: The main thing here is we want to be generous and we want to be so generous and giving and thoughtful that people want to support us and our book launch.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my takeaway for today.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that that impacts you as much as it has impacted me.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is how I've built my ghostwriting business through this uh generosity sort of approach, and I can tell you that it's worked for me for sure, and it also works for every type of other business.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure to check out uh that episode that I mentioned, becoming a non-bestselling author of the Total Life Freedom podcast, and grab Vincent's book while you're at it as well.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Freelance to Freedom, and there will be links to that as well as all these other things in the show notes.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much to Vincent for taking the time out to lead this amazing community call for the Daily Rider.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: It has been a ton of fun, and I hope that you found value with this.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can check it out at dailyriderlife.comslash writing prompts.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.