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Your Book Shouldn’t End at the Book · The Expert Method

• speaker-0: If you have a community built, you have people to sell your book to. And your book should be the beginning of your journey, not the end of your journey. If you're asking people to buy your book, ask them to buy at least 10. speaker-1: What do you think separates the great books from every other book? speaker-0: book needs to promise and deliver on a transformation. speaker-1: A lot of people say they want to write a book. And most of the time, what they really want is the outcome they think that book is going to generate for them. More attention, more authority, more opportunities. But they don't think much about what they're supposed to do after the book is written. So the book gets written, maybe. And then it kind of stalls out because there's nothing built around it. So with that, I'm excited to be joined by Brian K. Wright. Brian helps people not only take what they know and write a book, but he builds a system and a plan around it so that this book and writing this book actually lead somewhere. In our conversation, we discuss why a book works best as the starting point, how to build attention before you ever publish, and how creating a real experiences around and with your work is what actually gets people to engage and care about the work that you're doing. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Brian K. Wright. Brian, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Thanks Ian, great to be here. speaker-1: Absolutely. So Brian, a lot of people write books because they think it's going to get them attention. But most of the books don't really go anywhere. So I'm curious how you think about that. Like what actually makes someone worth paying attention to? speaker-0: That's a really good question. think if you have a following built up first, it certainly helps. If you're starting at zero and you want to write a book, I would probably recommend that you maybe have some kind of a following. If you're creating content, which a lot of people in your audience are, then that's a huge step forward because now you have people that you can potentially sell your book to. But I think books can be a very valuable part of your entire experience because I, some of the best marketers in the world, some of the best Entrepreneurs in the world are about creating an experience. Even if you go into the music world, Michael Jackson was brilliant at creating an experience. Madonna creates an experience at her concerts. I've not seen her, but I've seen ⁓ videos of her. would, I have attended a Janet Jackson concert before that was a masterclass in everything you ever want to know about grabbing and keeping attention for two hours. was absolutely phenomenal. Have some content you can do. speaker-1: Amazing. speaker-0: videos, can do live streams, you can write blogs, you can write magazine articles. You can be on shows like this where you can get the transcript and you can repurpose part of it or as I'm sure you probably do, you repurpose clips of this to post on social to get people to watch the entire episode. I do the exact same thing. I've got my radio show, Success Profiles Radio. It's been going for over 14 years. I've got almost 650 hour long episodes. I do Ultimate Achievers Magazine, which I've published since December 2017, which The idea from that came from the radio show because I realized I had all this great content that I hadn't been doing much with. so I just repurposed part of that show into a feature article for the magazine and I asked people to contribute and all my content is made a lot of it by other people and they're very happy to contribute. it's about building a community. And to come back to your original question, if you have a community built, you have people to sell your book to and your book should be the beginning of your journey, not the end of your journey. It's not the culmination of your journey. It is the magnet by which you can propel yourself into other streams of income, such as having events, such as coaching, such as speaking at other people's events, in which case you can sell your book at your event and sign because if you're doing a book signing at an event or at a bookstore, you are the celebrity of the moment and people love to connect with people who are doing that. speaker-1: Yeah, you just establishes so much authority for you in the room if you can find your way onto a stage or if the whole event is about you signing a book for sure. But that all starts by having a group of people that care about what you have to say. And that starts by building a community and that takes time. And you do that through content creation, providing value to some group of people. And you do that through whatever medium works for you. There are thousands of different ways that you can create content and do it. But you just find like what... do you actually enjoy doing? Because if you don't enjoy it, there's no way you're gonna stay consistent long enough to do it to the point where you can get results. I struggle with scripting out videos, doing scripted content. I struggle with it, I still do some of it, but I love conversations with smart people like you, doing this kind of podcast. I love doing this podcast, I look forward to it, and it's just a way that I can stay consistent in creating content. Yeah, that's, just find what works for you. find something that you enjoy doing as far as like content creation, providing value to others through content. ⁓ and then you'll just be able to do it consistently. So there's something that you mentioned there in the, in your answer and you talked about the great marketers, the great business on like, they're all about creating an experience. So how does the idea of creating a book or creating that community, how does that idea of creating an experience play into that idea of building community, writing a book? speaker-0: That's a great question. think if you are creating an experience with your book, you can have book signing parties, which I have sometimes done when I've released a book and I've invited friends, family, whoever, on social media. And when I lived in Arizona, which I know you do now, I had a book signing party and I was renting an office somewhere and they had a conference room and I just invited people. to my book signing party was basically an open house format for a couple hours. had pizza, I had pop and, and the people who already bought a book at Amazon or not were on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble because I was working with Morgan James Publishing. got me in bookstores. They would bring their book for me to sign and the people that didn't already have a copy, would sell a copy right there. And so it's a great way to, to sell your book and to engage with your community. You can also use clips from that experience to post on social media. What you can also do with your book is you can do a live stream for five to seven minutes about one topic in chapter one. And then the next day you do a live stream on one topic in chapter two and so on until you complete the book. And then when you're done, you go back to chapter one and pick a different idea. You see where I'm going with this. You can create content for well over a month on your book. And if you think people are going to get bored with it, no, the only person who will get bored with it is you because the way algorithms go. Not everyone's going to see every single live stream you do. In fact, it's frequent when I start posting about my new book and someone on day five or six will say, I didn't know this. I didn't see anything about this. Well, the algorithm isn't being shown to you every day. So it's a way to create an experience. In fact, I've gone to book signing parties at restaurants. I know a guy who was on my radio show. He called himself the cowboy philosopher. He did a book signing while sitting on a horse. Very memorable, very on brand. If your book is on something a little artsy, you can see if you can get a book signing done at a museum or an art gallery. So you can, you can leverage the type of book that it is to the environment. You don't have to do your book signing in a bookstore, although it's great, but know this, not everyone who's going to a bookstore is coming to see you. They are coming for their own reasons. And so, I mean, we can talk about how to do a book signing if you want to at a bookstore. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: because it's a completely different animal than inviting your friends to come to your book signing outside of a bookstore. speaker-1: for sure. Yeah. Okay, got it. So that makes sense. So the idea of experience and the value of experience comes in once. I mean, it definitely you want to create an experience for the reader of your book and that just comes through in your writing, which we'll definitely talk about because I'm super interested in learning how to write better. I know that's a skill that I have a lot of room for growth, but the main idea with how experience plays into the game plan. is once you have finished the book and it's out there in the world, you want to create experience around the book where you have these book signing parties, you create these kind of on-brand memorable moments with the theme or topic of your book to help in that promotional, the promotional side, is that right? speaker-0: Yes, exactly. And I know people who have done book launches on Amazon and they will say screenshot me your receipt and send it to me and I will give you a free whatever. And one of my clients actually decided to construct a ⁓ raffle. And so he would raffle prizes to people who bought, let's just say at least 10 books minimum. And so that increases, this is a very, very important point. If you're, if you're Asking people to buy your book, ask them to buy at least 10. If you don't ask them to buy multiple copies, they won't. Tell them, give these to your friends, family, and people you care about. Give this book to another entrepreneur who you think might benefit from this message. And gosh, I remember I was at an event where Ed Milet was speaking and he had just released The Power of One More. And what he did is for everyone in the audience who bought 250 copies at retail price, he was asking people to spend. $6,000, you got a free VIP day at his house and everyone who bought 250 copies got to be at Ed Milot's house for the day. for those who did it, it was a great experience. have a friend who actually did that and says it was an amazing experience. yes, you can, and if you've got a well known name, you can leverage opportunities like that, but just get your mind going, get the wheels turning. What can you do to incentivize people to buy more? And what can you do to make your book memorable? speaker-1: Wow, that is a brilliant idea that I have not heard before. And now as you're saying it, I'm thinking back in my head, like I'm a big Alex Hermosy guy. Like I've watched all of his stuff and he just had like the whole hundred million dollar money models live stream that broke all the records, you know, at the end of last year. And his offer was very similar. It was like, okay, you buy 200 copies of the book and then you get all this other stuff for free. So just creating experiences, creating events, creating ⁓ memorable moments in the promotion. Like not just... Hey, buy my book, but like get creative in how you're promoting and how you're bringing the book to the world and incentivizing people to buy more. That's super cool. Okay. So then do you feel like the main reason that people don't get results after writing a book, right? And when I say results, people not buying the book and not getting traction is just all kind of comes down to the promotional piece pretty much. speaker-0: lot to do with it for sure. In fact, I had a client one time who messaged me the day after her book got launched and she said, do I have to post about this again? Yes, it's your baby. You don't quit feeding your baby the day after it's born. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: You have to, because not everyone who, not everyone sees your message on launch day. mean, yes, you want to get as many people to buy your book on launch day as possible. But people will continue buying your book for a few days, even, you know, two or three weeks after, if you just keep putting your message out there. speaker-1: Amazing. So now I want to get into how you actually help somebody go from an idea, right? They come to you, they see your, your book shirt at an event and they say, Brian, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta write this book. I need you to help me write this book. So how do you help somebody go from that idea to something that works? So when somebody comes to you and says, I want to write a book, how do you actually help them turn that into something that leads to real opportunities beyond just the finished book? Right? So we kind of covered a lot of the promotional piece, but what happens in that middle part? speaker-0: I ask people, why are you writing the book? Because that's important. If it's to fulfill a bucket list item, that's awesome. Are you using this to leverage in your business? A lot of people do that. Or is this just to tell your story and whoever, I mean, are you speaking to a business audience or a general audience? In fact, I had a client once who says, I've got two book ideas in my head. One's for a general audience and one's for a business audience. And don't know which one to do. I said, well, which audience do you want to speak to first? He said the. the general audience has said, okay, well then that's the book we're doing first. So know why you're writing your book and know how you plan on using your book. And I'll start talking about some of the things we've already talked about, how you can leverage your book to create authority to start streams of income that will generate a lot more than $20 per sale coaching programs. can charge thousands of dollars at a time. Creating an event where people attend your event and possibly go VIP with you and that goes into a coaching program or an experience of some kind, you know, whether it's a retreat. I mean, if I was to have a book writing retreat, I would probably rent a big house or rent a space that was big enough for us that we could workshop. And I've thought about doing this and I haven't done it yet. But for everyone to have attention, you probably want to limit something like that to 15 or 20 people. you have to think about what kind of an event would you want to leverage this into where everyone attends or a very specific audience. But the events can be a deeper dive into the content you did in your book. For example, secrets of the millionaire mind by T Harv Ecker. He has that book and he was constantly throughout the book, pitching the idea of your three free three day event that you can go to now. to very clear after every session, he pitches a new program. So if you don't want to be pitched word to the wise, but the end he offers you a, and his team offer a whole conglomeration of all the programs into a big massive VIP package. So the numbers work out that yes, you can attend the event for free because that organization is going to make more than enough money to cover putting the event together. And that was the whole reason for the book was to create a bunch of people. who would want to come to his event that he could sell his coaching and mastermind programs to. So knowing why you're writing your book is really, really important. And then what we do is we come up with what your outline is going to be because people are bent on telling their story. Yes, that's great. But why am I interested outside of outside of the five people that you talk to all the time outside of your family, who else cares? And I mean that in a very loving, respectful way. Who else will care? Who is this message for? And we hone that in. We put together an outline, we do recorded sessions, I get it transcribed, and that gives me the skeleton to work with. speaker-1: Nice. So it really sounds like, and from my, I've never written a book, right? But from my outside, and like, as I'm learning more about this process, there's a lot more energy and attention that should be paid to the promotion and distribution. Like, how are you going to get this book in the hands of people who need it? Like, who you want to serve, who you want to get this in the hands of? And then how can you turn this book then into the foundation of multiple streams of income and multiple other opportunities? So... That is something new to me. But let's speak to the person who maybe feels like, what do you think separates the great books from every other book that just kind of just like, like what separates the 1 % of books that actually have a meaningful idea that communicates to people? Like a transformational idea versus the 99 % of other books that are just kind of like this big ocean of books that are out there, you know? Maybe it is like, is it the transformational idea piece? Like what makes a great book great? speaker-0: I think a book that promises and delivers on a transformation is good. I think books on certain topics tend to do better. Something that will improve your health, something that improves relationships, something that helps you build wealth, something that helps you build your business. What core problem is your book addressing? If you're writing a book just to write a book, people can feel that as they're reading it they may not finish it. But if your book is promising a transformation, like Edmund Lett's book, The Power of Doing One More, you just know by the title that he's going to talk to you about not giving up and just doing that one more rep and he has chapters on each aspect of your life. You don't do one more rep in the gym, have one more phone conversation in your business before the end of the day. I'll tell you, I used to work in call center environments and I didn't automatically log out three minutes before the bell. I would make that one more call and I would even make one more call after because if you can get one more sale once a week, That's four more sales a month. That's, you know, 50 extra sales a year. Now, depending on how much money you make per sale, how much extra money is that if you make one more sale per week for an entire year? So the power of doing one more, he's promising a transformation. you, if you keep going and don't give up and just go beyond what everyone else is doing, you're going to have a transformation. I love Mel Robbins book, the five second rule. It's just the idea of stop procrastinating. know, you count down five, four, three, two, one, and then you must take action right now. Because if you're thinking about doing something and you don't take action, you're always going to be thinking about it. And then eventually you just give up on it and you never do it. And that's, and you didn't try. But her way of getting you to try is to just count down five, four, three, two, one, and go. And don't be afraid of looking dumb the first time because you might, your greatest hit will not be the first thing you do. can almost promise you that. So the book, the book needs to promise and deliver on a transformation. The book needs to be focused on what your audience will get out of it. And to your question, I think most people's books are written from I'm fulfilling my ego. Whereas the most memorable books are written from a place of here's how I'm helping you. And that's a big distinction. speaker-1: Yeah. So just coming from that authentic frame of service, like I am doing everything I can in this book to serve you and give you everything that you need to experience this transformation, whatever that is. And it sounds like too, like the, like there are common themes. think Hermosy has broken this down into one of his books where there's like five things, like relationships, finances, health. There's like five common themes that will just always be relevant for, for people. ⁓ so finding whatever area, and if you have been working in this space where you're helping people, like if you're a consultant, if you're a coach, right, you already know what lane you would be in. It's just really comes down to that you need to deliver on that transformation. You need to come from a frame of just serving others, like just doing what you can. speaker-0: And I think one thing that stops people is they have too many ideas. In fact, I had a client once who said, I'm really confused about what this book should be about because I want to talk about this and this and this and this and this. And I said, I think you're trying to write four different books at once. And he stopped and said, you might be right. I said, well, here's what you do. You grab four legal pads. Anytime you come up with an idea, you figure out which book that idea belongs to. pick one, start writing. If you come up with ideas that fit into one of the other buckets, write it down. Write enough down that you won't forget the idea. And that way, when you're done with the first book, you at least have a head start on the next one and the next one and the next one. So if you find that your ideas are just all over the place, ask yourself, am I trying to do too much at once? It is entirely possible. speaker-1: Nice. That's a good idea too. Like the, trying to cram way too much into one thing. And I've definitely been a fault of that. Like I haven't written a book, but like I host workshops and in these workshops, I think I'm definitely going to take that advice and just focus on one idea, right? It's hard. Like people have a lot going on in their lives. If you're trying to communicate like 18 different things to them and one thing, they're not going to remember any of it. Just focus on one clear idea and just drive that home. And then when you have the next idea, that can be a separate piece. I love that. speaker-0: And it's entirely possible that your idea is so big that you might actually need a series to explain it all. Use your first book to give you the general overview of your philosophy or whatever you're trying to do. And then write a separate book for each thing and just go from there. speaker-1: How does somebody know whether or not they have a book in them? know, how does somebody know like for me, right? Okay, like I've built some expertise. I've worked with clients on a specific thing. Maybe the people listening, they've been a consultant for a couple of years. They've helped people with a specific problem for a long time. But then there's like the imposter syndrome that comes in. It's just like, I have a book in me? Like, how does somebody know whether or not they have a book in them? speaker-0: think everyone probably has a book in them somehow. What I would suggest Ian is that talk to, you know, five, six, seven people that you trust the most and ask them, if I were to write a book, what would you expect it to be about? The answer might surprise you. If I were to write a book, what would you expect it to be about? You might get some ideas that you hadn't even thought of. It's like, ⁓ am I really good at that too? Yeah. speaker-1: If I were to a book, would it be about? Because I feel like that question kind of unlocks the block in your brain where it's just, you're not committed to writing this book. You're not saying, okay, I'm writing a book. What is it going to be? But you're just kind of removing that block in your brain. That's, hey, just no pressure. If you were to write a book, what do you think it would be about? Like, what would you help somebody with? I love that. And then once you get into the process of working with a client, you mentioned that, you you interview them, you get transcripts and then you use that to build the skeleton. What kinds of questions are you asking your clients that somebody could maybe take with them in the exploratory process of flushing out the idea for their book? Like what kinds of questions are you asking to kind of pull that book out of somebody? speaker-0: Well, if we have an outline, the first chapter is probably going to be, how did I get here? And then I'll ask them about their background. And in the course of someone telling their story, I might be like, wait a minute, expound on that because I'm thinking as a potential reader. If I hear you say something and then you just gloss over, I'm like, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's, let's explore that some more. So. When I'm interviewing someone for the book, I'm listening as someone who might potentially read it. Well, obviously I am going to read it because I'm writing it, but I'm listening for what a potential reader might want to know. And that's, that's really the core question you have to keep coming back to is how, how is this story serving my audience? And if you're talking about how, let's just say that part of your backstory is that you were homeless and slept in your car for six months. Okay. Well, how did you get there? Cause we want to know that. And then we want to know, how did you get out of it? How did, mean, how did you get by for that long? And why did it take you six months to not sleep in your car anymore? And what epiphany did you have that changed your life? And how do know you're never going to get back to that spot again? speaker-1: Yeah. So just dig deeper. how did you get deeper? Yeah. speaker-0: deeper. I think some people are afraid of being a little vulnerable, but I'm like, you know what? You have to get over that a little bit because the more authentic you are, the more people are going to like you and know you and trust you. People are not interested in reading about the hero story. The person who has never done anything wrong where everything went right. all know that's a little crap. So we want to hear, mean, I don't necessarily mean the salacious dirt. because I don't ever advocate telling a story that doesn't have some kind of a resolution to it. We want to know what was the problem and how did you solve it because there's a pretty good chance that someone who's reading your book also has gone through your problem or knows someone who has gone through your problem and people are looking for answers and they're looking to you as the person who wrote the book to provide some answers. And the more interesting your story is, the more likely you are to get invited on stage to get invited on great shows like this. Yeah. once your book is done, do a podcast tour, get on people's shows, post on social media. Hey, I've got a book and even say who has a podcast that I can be a guest on and my book is about. mean, people will raise their hand, get into podcasting groups on Facebook because everyone there hosts a podcast or radio show of some kind. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, there's podcasts that host for audiences of all types, right? Just find whatever podcasts speak to your audience and then just go. as a podcast host, I'm always looking for great guests that can provide value to my audience. So they're a hundred percent going to be open for that. And once you get to the point where you have a book, right? You already have a structured. process and methodology that you can come in and talk about. You've kind of already thought everything through. So now you'll be able to communicate more cleanly when you get onto podcast conversations like this, which is super valuable. ⁓ speaker-0: And when you have a book it makes show prep a lot easier for your host speaker-1: ⁓ big time. Big time. So easy money. Yeah. 100%. I love it. And so when you're digging into those interviews with your clients, you're asking, so first chapter is how did you get here? Right? Cause you want to give them context on your experience and struggling with the problem that they're going to solve and like what that looks like. then your audience who is also struggling with that problem can now connect with you. Right? If you just open up to chapter one and you're just like, here's how to solve the problem, right? There's, you know, it's not going to resonate as much. If the audience isn't connecting with you as somebody who is like can tell your story of how you experienced and connect with the pain that they're feeling through your own story and your own experience in struggling with that same problem. ⁓ so that makes sense where you start there. And then when you get into. You know, the teaching of the book, is there any kind of like, like, do you recommend, you know, coming up with a framework of some kind, like acronyms? don't know. Like that, that's again, just like my layman. understanding, but like how do you get into structuring the actual teaching? speaker-0: of a possible. structure their expertise around an acronym and that can be very helpful because now you automatically have a framework. So, mean, let's just say just for the sake of example, your framework is logic, L-O-G-I-C. And so each step in your framework starts with that letter and whatever it happens to be, you can pick whatever word fits. ⁓ specific example escapes me at the moment, but acronyms are a great way to structure your book. Yeah, it's great. And the other thing too is you want to get some feedback from audiences while you're writing. What do you want to know about this topic? If I were to ask you to read this book, what would you expect me to talk about? speaker-1: Nice. So yeah, don't just wait to talk about your book once it's done, but talk about your book while you're in the writing process and get feedback from your potential readers as you're writing the book. That is a really brilliant idea where it's don't just be in a cave writing your book in complete isolation, but actually be communicating with your audience while you're in the writing process. It sounds a lot like, you know, building a business, building a product, building a service, right? You're going to have your own ideas, your own assumptions. about what you would want to put in this product or service, but you're only really going to know what people actually want when you ask them, right? When you give it to people, when you ask them. So have a group of people that you trust are in your audience and your potential audience that you can communicate with and ask them and they'd be like, Hey, if I were to like teach something about this topic, maybe chapter one, chapter two, whatever, what would you want to learn? Like, what would you expect to learn from that? think that's a really good, that's a, that's a golden nugget right there. speaker-0: Yeah. And if your book is about health and fitness, I mean, maybe your personal trainer, some of your clients are trying to lose weight. Some of your clients are trying to bulk up. Some of your clients are looking to compete in bodybuilding shows. Those are three very different people. So maybe you might want to have a chapter addressing each one. And your book can be a guide to where I'm only going to read the chapters that apply to me. You know, and there's nothing wrong with that. As long as your reader is getting out of the book, what they are looking for. That's the critical point. speaker-1: Absolutely. Amazing. So even when people know what to do, like write the book, promote it, stay consistent, most Maybe it's even somebody who just like, have this idea for a book. know that this book would be great. Like I've helped a lot of people with this specific thing, but most people don't actually follow through and write the book, right? Very small percentage of people actually follow through and write the book. So where do you see people breaking down in that process? Like where do people struggle the most? speaker-0: They don't schedule it out. They don't make it a priority. They let things get in their way. Life happens. Life happens. I mean, when I was writing my first book, a long time ago, I think I finally released it in February of 2009. It was a student leadership book, but I worked on it for a long time and I just would only write when I felt inspired. But I finally got the book done because a Marine friend of mine said, Hey, are you going to so and so's conference in four months? Yes. I hear you're working on a book. Yeah. How far along are you? And I told him, he's like, I want to read that book. I want that book in my hand. the time we meet up in February, I'm like, okay, I can't disappoint a Marine. So I made myself finish it. Yes, sir. God bless America. I got done. Now I would certainly do some things different because as I mentioned before, your grip, your first, your first Attempt is not going to be your greatest hit. And this book was not my greatest hit. Although I will say I have spoken at high schools with that book and people have purchased multiple copies of that book. And I have done speeches at these high schools. In fact, at one school, they bought 55 copies in advance and I delivered them to the school. It was in Arizona when I was living there. And by the time I showed up a few weeks later, the, was an English teacher. ⁓ who taught four honors classes. So she had four sections of an honors class. I spoke to all four of her classes that day. They all read the book in class before I showed up. I was blown away and every group wanted me to sign their book and they were marking and high. I was blown away. I was humbled beyond belief. And people would ask me questions. So when you said this, what did you mean? It was really a cool experience. In fact, There was one school that liked me so much that they invited me to speak at their commencement in May. I had 15 minutes. I normally speak for 45, but I gave them the fun size Snickers version of my presentation and I did it in 15 minutes. But yeah, it was a really cool experience. So doors will open up when you write a book doors will open up when you have a radio show doors will open up when you publish a magazine. I've gotten to do. Red carpet interviews at two different movie premieres because the person who put those things together knew who I was and what I did. And he had a great experience with me. So again, it's about creating a great experience about being prepared. It's about going above and beyond. Overdeliver. speaker-1: Yeah. And it starts by putting yourself out there and making it a priority. Right? So like people struggle with getting the book out of them. Like they have this idea. You have to make it a priority and you have to show up when you don't feel like it. Right. And that's the same with everything. Right. And a really interesting idea. This is kind of a complete transition going back to the idea of like, how do you know what you could write a book about? Like, what is your idea? And it reminded me and you talking about you writing a student leadership, a book about student leadership reminded me of the idea that just think about the previous versions of who you were, right? And the transitions that you have gone through in your life. Like what transformations have you created in your own life? Think about the previous versions of you and now you can write a book that can help that person, right? And think back to that previous version of who you are. Have you maybe thought about that idea in a little bit more detail? speaker-0: Absolutely. In fact, when I wrote my student leadership book, one thing I did to generate ideas is I wrote at the top of my legal pad, what makes an excellent leader? And my goal was to come up with at least 21 answers to that question. I came up with 30 and as the course of the, over the course of writing my book, those 30 ideas kind of meshed into 21 because some of them were pretty similar. So I had my goal. had 21 short chapters, what makes an excellent leader. And as I was thinking about leadership, I was thinking about the companies I'd worked for. And there were some great examples of leadership and there were examples of leadership that I absolutely would never ever, ever want to emulate. So things happen for you. said for you, not to you. Things happen for you for a reason. And that reason is there to serve you and to help you as long as you think about it that way. But every piece of the puzzle. becomes more clear the more puzzle pieces you add. And so use your past experiences however you can, the good, the bad, the ugly, because it might help someone. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. And just think back about the previous versions of who you were. You've gone through that transformation. You've made that shift in your own personal life. Like you've learned something about how to navigate that moment. And there are seven, eight billion people on the planet. There's a large group of people who have gone through that exact same process. And if you can provide some value to them, you can pack that up into a book and sell it. And the last point that you made there too, it's not inspiration. motivation, action, it flips. I forget exactly who wrote this. I think it was Ryan Holiday in one of his books. It starts with action. Mel Robbins, the five second rule, you just got to start. It's action, motivation, inspiration. You really are going to get inspired through action and through doing the work. If you're sitting around waiting to be inspired to get something done, you're going to spend a lot of time on the couch not doing anything. speaker-0: Right. Exactly. speaker-1: Amazing. Cool. So my experience with books, I've been a voracious reader. can kind of see the bookshelf back there. love reading books. Like I have never had any problem, you know, buying books, reading books, consuming the content, coaching programs, consultants, all this stuff. Like I love buying the knowledge of other people and then being able to use that information. Like, do you see my experience with books, right, is, and maybe you see this with your authors, but struggling to help readers actually take action once they've finished reading the book. So like when readers finish the book and they go through the book and now it's time, okay, we've consumed the content. I know what I need to do. Now it's time for me to actually do the work. Like how do you think about that problem of solving what I call like the client execution gap of getting the readers to take action on the things that you teach in the book? speaker-0: Well, I think some, some authors try to build a community, you know, when, when you're done reading the book, join my community on Facebook and there'll be a link to the group in the back of the book or whatever. might be a QR code that you can scan with your phone to take you to your Facebook community. And it's an opportunity to interact with other people who have also read the book and are trying to do the things in the book. So creating a community around your book can be a really great idea because then people can connect. and keep the conversation going. ⁓ if you create an event out of this, you might want to create a community around the people who've attended your event. In fact, one of my Facebook groups is called author printer live. And I've done three virtual events called author printer live, where we talk about writing, marketing, publishing your book and, ⁓ yeah, author printer live.com. can get access to, you know, the recordings if you really, really want to not selling anything here, but if you want to check it out. You can, and ⁓ create a community around that. And so I know who attended and there's a community and those are people who, some of them are writers for Ultimate Achievers magazine that I publish. speaker-1: Love it. Yeah. And you mentioned that if people want to get a free subscription, like a free speaker-0: Yeah. If you want to get a free copy of ultimate achievers magazine, find me on Instagram, Brian K. Wright, request me on Instagram and message me magazine. And I will send you and I'll just ask you to provide your email so that I can email it to you because the file might be too big to send an Instagram messenger. And I'll give you a free issue of the magazine. And if you want to subscribe from there, that's completely up to you, but I want to give you some value. In fact, the issue that I'm probably going to give you is the one where I interviewed Dr. Dennis Waitley. speaker-1: Nice. Amazing. I will 100 % be in line to get that copy for sure. But yeah, going back to the piece of like, how can an author create kind of accountability with the reader to get them to do the work that they tell them to do in the book, right? Because, and why is that piece critical? Like, why do you see it as important from an author's perspective? Like, if you get the reader to do the work that you tell them to do in the book, like, why is that beneficial for the author? speaker-0: Well, you want self help, not shelf help, because if you don't do anything with it, it just sits on your shelf. Get an accountability partner. If you and a friend are reading the book at the same time, have weekly accountability calls. Yeah. How far are you? I mean, you'll like agree to read a book, read a chapter in the book every week or every day, or whatever your interval is. You want to have someone be accountable with you for, for that. Yeah. And for me, what I do is I make sure I listen to 30 minutes of audibles. every day. I love audible now. do like reading the physical books, but I love audible now. In fact, Dr. Benjamin Hardy is probably my favorite author right now. And listening to who not how it's really awesome. I've listened to a bunch of his books lately. speaker-1: So yeah, I mean, as the reader, right, creating accountability, find somebody that you can do it with, not only read the book, but like going beyond the point, like I, again, I never struggle with reading, but it's like when you get to the end of the chapter and it's like, okay, now go do these three things. That's where historically I have struggled in like, okay, now go do these three things. But if you have that accountability partner, yeah, it definitely helps. Like accountability is. absolutely massive and getting you to take action. Like, like with your book, right? With that Marine, like you told him that he, he was like, I want to read the book in February. You got it done. But kind of flipping the frame from an author's perspective, like why would the author want people to not just buy the book, but why would they want them to read the book and then do the work that they tell them to do to experience the transformation? Like, why is that a good thing from the author's perspective to get people to do the work? So why should they spend time thinking about how can I. get my readers to do the work that I tell them to do. speaker-0: Well, if you're asking your readers to give you a testimonial on Amazon or a testimonial that you can use on your website, social proof is huge. If you can get a bunch of people to say, yes, I love this book and this is how it changed my life. That's massive. People who don't know who you are might be more inclined to want to check out your book. People who don't even know you yet. So it's a great way to draw people in. But yeah, I mean, I think as an author, you want to know that something that you generated made a difference in someone's life. In fact, With that student leadership book, ⁓ one of my cousins was unemployed at the time that I sent him my book and he told me later, my book helped him get a job. mean, wow. That was an incredible thing. That wasn't why I wrote the book, but there were things in it that he took from it and it helped him get a job, which was really cool for me to experience. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like from the business side, if you get more people to read the book, then do the work that you tell them to do, experience the transformation, get value from their reading of your book and doing the work that you tell them to do. That's going to lead to testimonials, them referring it, know, telling other people to buy it. Then also, you know, if you offer other services on top of just the book, like if you have coaching, if you have other products, right, they're going to be more prone to purchase those other things and stay in your programs for longer. If they actually do the work, get transformation, get the value, which comes from, again, them doing the work. comes from them going beyond just consuming the book, reading the book, but actually doing the work you tell them to do to get the transformation. ⁓ So from the business side, but then from like the more heart side, right, you're going to help more people create transformation, provide value, which is amazing and change the world, right? On whatever scale that that looks like. speaker-0: Yeah, and if people liked your first book and got a lot out of it, they'll probably buy your second one too. speaker-1: 100%. No doubt about that. Brian, amazing. Thank you so much for your time. I have one last question for you. This is a recurring question I ask every guest. If you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for 10 seconds, what would it say and why? speaker-0: Write your book. Change the world. speaker-1: That's what I thought. 100%. Yep. Why, why that? Why is that something that you care about? speaker-0: Because I think everyone has something to share. believe that no matter what station you're at in life, I can learn from you. I mean, whether you are far beyond me in the journey or whether you're not quite as far because you haven't had as much experience yet. can still learn something from you because sometimes I wish I would have bet on myself sooner. And it's inspiring for me to see younger people bet on themselves ASAP when I maybe didn't bet on myself quite as soon. So I can learn from everybody. speaker-1: Amazing. Yeah, that's a super productive mindset to have that you can learn from everybody, every interaction that you have with somebody. And then it's funny that you use that language betting on yourself, because I use that all the time. And I think that we're kind of making a shift. shifting into an era where I think more people are going to have to take a bet on themselves to go out and create value in the world, AKA write a book, become an entrepreneur, just because I think that opportunities and finding a job from other places is to be harder to find. Yeah, I'm definitely in line with you that ⁓ take a bet on yourself, write your book, change the world, go out and make things happen and take control. So, Brian, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: Thank you, Ian. It was fun being here. speaker-1: Thank you for listening. The part of the conversation with Brian that's really stuck with me is his focus on creating an experience with your customers. Not just putting something out and hoping people find it, but giving them something that they can step into and really remember. The book is part of that, but it's not the whole thing. It's the events around it, the way you involve people, the way you keep them engaged after they've read it. That's what makes it stick, and it explains why most books don't go anywhere. There's no experience tied to them, so there's nothing for people to connect to beyond the words on the page. The people who do this well treat their work like something people can participate in, not just consume. That's a useful lens beyond just books too, right? applies to content, programs, anything where you're trying to hold attention and build a relationship with your customers over time. If you want to get connected with Brian and check out some of his work, you can find his Instagram and the link to his magazine in the description of this episode. And if you're an author, run a coaching program, course, or mastermind, and your clients aren't completing the work that you tell them to do, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It shows you how to install what I call execution infrastructure so clients actually follow through and get results. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one.