Latest / Author Hour / Harris Nydick on How Writing a 401(k) Book Became His Firm's Best Business Card

Transcript

Harris Nydick on How Writing a 401(k) Book Became His Firm's Best Business Card · Author Hour

• speaker-0: I went out and I bought four orange sharpies. I I printed the manuscript as it was in process and I gave it out to four college kids. And I said, circle any word you don't like or understand, any word, not just financial, any word you don't like or understand, circle it. And I'm gonna change it. I wanted people who were specifically not in tune with any of the jargon or language of our industry. And and and so that was a very, very educational process for me. So now I have to speak in plain English and and and I thought I had and I see all those orange marks all over my manuscript. I've got I gotta I gotta start changing all this. speaker-1: Harris, I appreciate you being here with us today. speaker-0: Thanks so much for having me. speaker-1: I'm I'm excited because you are uniquely experienced in terms of having a book out for a really long period of time. But before we get into the book and and what it's done for you and for your business, will you give us a little bit of a background on you and the career that sort of led you into writing a book in the first place? speaker-0: Sure. So I was part of a very early, early wave, that first wave of people who went into financial planning back in the early 80s when I was looking at career options. If I wanted to work in the investment arena, everything was highly siloed. If you wanted to be in bonds, you were in bonds. If you wanted to be in stocks, you were in stocks. If you wanted to be insurance, you were in insurance. And you bought those products from different people. I was brought in as one of the first financial planning training classes. of of a large financial institution in Manhattan where we were being it was and they didn't know really know how to treat us in the sense that back then if you wanted to work for a stock brokerage firm or one that what we would refer to as a wirehouse now, they would give you the Manhattan phone book and say, Go get ⁓ slugger. And and it was just cold call away because then you could cold call. The the laws were very different then about how you could approach a potential prospect. But this firm took it very differently. They treated almost like a medical residency in where when you're a we're Preparing to become a doctor, you spend eight weeks on orthopedics, then you spend eight weeks on brain, then you spend eight weeks on spleen or kidney or whatever. So we spent eight weeks just on different topics. And because of their connections in the industry, when we were doing municipal bonds, we were we were taught by you know Fred Labenthal. When we were when we were doing international, Mary Babelli came down. Fred Alger came in to talk about small companies. It was just amazing the parade of experts. I don't think we even appreciated. At that time, because they were all mid-career. They weren't the legends that they then became at that time. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't have bothered coming to see us. But they spent a lot of time and they really trained us. And I was actually paid a salary for two years, three years to learn the business. So I was under I was under no pressure to sell anything. So I I was really brought into this in a very nice way, which allowed me to really absorb the information and really think about what's best for the client. speaker-1: Incredible. And so that kicked off your career in advisory management. Did you eventually go off on your own? Did you stay at at the big big houses? speaker-0: Great question. So after after we I worked in the city for about six years. And then when our our first child was born, it was taking me an hour and a half each way to get to New York City and then another hour and a half to get back. And so I felt for three hours a day, wow, if I could move my business closer to home, that would be an hour for me, perhaps to to work out more, just be fit more physically fit, an hour for my family, an hour more for my clients. It just made sense. So I I that that became my first career goal was to was to move my business to New Jersey. Of course. There was a there was an optics issue there because the internet had had not really come out yet. And if you were working in in finance and you were within a ninety mile radius of New York City, you better be working in Wall Street or in Midtown at the worst. So just at the advent of the computer and just at the advent of of of the internet is when I moved to New Jersey. And at that point it didn't matter where you were. speaker-1: Interesting. Good timing. So one of the things you you've said about your book that struck me is it it lived in your head for ten years before you wrote a single word. What was the what was that very first spark? What kicked off that ten year clock for you? speaker-0: That's that that's a great question. Well, the thing is, is that most people in our industry then and now don't really do a lot of work in the 401k or 403B arena. The average advisor has three or four of these plans, you know, on their so-called book of business or in terms of their clientele, but really wish they had none because the service model that's required to handle a high net worth or an aspiring wealth business of personal wealth or family wealth. Is a very different skill set needed for handling 401k clients. Because although the markets have been on quite a rip for the last couple of years, when the markets start to go south on you, you walk in, the average advisor is going to come in and wanna only take care of their most valuable clients, which are their high net worth clients. But by 10, 11 o'clock, the mayor of whatever company you have a plan with has now held court. Now you're getting calls from a bunch of people that have very, very small balances. You better be prepared emotionally and logically and and and you better have the the people power in your organization to treat them with the respect that they deserve and answer all their questions. So that was always the big conundrum. We specialized early in 401ks and 403B. So that had been an early sub-specialty. So that's one of the things that was rattling around in my brain. And what we kept hearing from all of our clients, whether they were our corporate clients or or personal clients, we was that. Hey, you guys tell really good stories. You really need to write them down. So that was the initial spark. And at that time, both my business partner and co-author, Greg McCowski and I had young, we each had two young kids, us four young kids. And we started thinking, wow, if something ever happened to us, shouldn't we at least write down what's in our heads so that they at least know how to invest when they get older, if we're not around to teach them? So it started as something as basic as that. speaker-1: I love that for a few reasons. I I think so many people focused on leaving a financial legacy or setting their family up for success in that way. And they don't think at all about the the intangible intellectual legacy, like actually teaching their kids everything that they know. And and and the experience that you've had is not not contagious. It's not transferable just because you had it, you know, you tend to think that your kids will pick it up somehow. But if you don't deliberately instruct and modeled and you know, that a lot of that gets lost. speaker-0: That's a good point. I can still remember sitting in my kitchen in August of two thousand and eight, I wanna say, sitting down with my brand new IBM ⁓ like twenty-five. I c I mean, it couldn't even run a basic program today. It was and I bought the black and white version because I saved a thousand dollars for not getting the color screen. But what that allowed me to do then was it allowed me to start typing out. a a framework of what I'd want to write down. If I were to write this down, what would it look like? So I actually had almost a table of con a loose table of contents written. And then September of 2008, the markets fell apart, the Great Recession occurred. My kids started growing up and the whole thing just at some point I did save that at the time. I don't probably do a C D, a writable C D, or I was able to get it ultimately so that when 10 years later came, I sat down to look at it. I was able to find that file. And r really life is what happened to me in between. And of course, we got ten more years of of of education with what the markets have done because the market never really repeats itself but it runs all the time. speaker-1: How was your first idea for this book? How how different was it from the book that you eventually published through all the like creative changes? speaker-0: ⁓ a a lot it really it has to more it has to metamorphise 'cause whatever it is in your brain, first of all, if it's too specific, you gotta either widen it out, if it's too wide, you gotta bring it in. So the first thing I did when I really got serious about this, and at some point if I can tell you about the actual ⁓ I know the moment this got serious for me. Tell me I I I walked in well, what happened was is a friend of mine who wrote his own He ghost writ he had ghostwritten his own autobiography. I'm in the book because we're friends. I'm I'm actually one of the stories in one of the chapters. And he had a little book signing party. It was very lovely. And he signed my book and I went home and I read it. And it w it it was a pretty good first cut. And I was very happy for him, but I was mad at myself. I was very I I I had this book in my head that was now becoming more fully formed. And what good is it inside my head? What good is it? It's no good. So I I immediately I I I told my my my wife that, hey, listen, every Saturday and Sunday from twelve o'clock to five o'clock in the afternoon, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna I'm gonna really start to really see if I have something here. Let's see what happens. So that was the exact moment. But before I could do that, the first thing I say, okay, how do I wanna tailor this? Because just because I had an idea in my head doesn't mean this is what the world is waiting to hear or read. So I went to a couple of the local big chain bookstores where they have every possible finance book for ⁓ out there. And and I was and I looked through them and I noticed there's a lot of books about investing. There were a lot of books about retirement. There were a lot of books about investing for retirement. But they were more for people who were maybe on the precipice, maybe they were 10 or 15 years out. It if if you think about writing about the topic we ended up using as a niche, forget it it's it's much wider than that. So I said, wait a minute, let's take our expertise in four ⁓ one K and four ⁓ three B plans. Four ⁓ three B plans are the nonprofit version. nonprofit organization versions of 401k plans. And there's a lot of smart people out there that have to deal with this. And they just don't want to. They're smart. They just don't care to be smart about this. So we said, why don't we take all of our stories and all of our thing, everything we want to do and teach our kids how to invest, but do it through the lens of somebody who is at their first job or their or and or and they've been Back then you were throwing an envelope, now you're just giving a link and they say, you know, go get them, Slugger, and you gotta go out there and figure out what your financial future is gonna be, because that's 401k is the the the retirement plan ⁓ that's used in in modern industry today, as Ray Gore pensions have really gone by the wayside outside of government. So we decided to really hone in on that because we felt there were lot of people who were pretty smart. They just didn't care to be smart about this, and that was that's a much bigger addressable audience. It's everybody who works. in an organization that has a retirement plan. All of a sudden, ⁓ that's interesting, especially if I can write it in a way that would become interesting to someone who has no interest in the subject. speaker-1: Yeah, it's one of those niches that's it sounds arcane until you realize that almost every person working in the private sector has or should have a four hundred one K. It's unbelievably common. And the fact that you happen to specialize in it really early in your career and then of course, you know, plant your flag in this growing segment by writing a book about it, you know, almost ten years ago now, probably seems it seems fortuitous. speaker-0: It almost seems like it was all lined up for me. It was just it was just for me to see it. It was all there in front of me. I just wasn't seeing it. speaker-1: Do you give yourself much credit for for seeing that or are you just kinda making the best decision you could in the moment? speaker-0: I felt more of the latter that we were that we were we were we were making the best decision we could in the moment was the best way for us to tell our stories, for us to educate people. And it also created, it also set me up for our biggest challenge in writing the book. The biggest challenge for in writing the book, specifically writing it, was that this is an audience. So how do you write a finance book with no financial terminology? How do you do a financial book with no equations? How do you do a financial book with no math? Because People are very math challenged. They're not they're certainly not gonna pick up a book for leisure and specifically wanna get into the jargon of our industry or the equations of our industry. Nobody cares what a price earnings multiple or ratio is, and they don't ever wanna know that. That's what other people take care of for them. So how do you write this book and and and and not talk down to you know, you you wanna talk up to your audience, respectful to them. You don't wanna have you know, this is not a, you know, see see Dick and Shainton kind of book. We gotta We got talk respectfully to our audience. And we have to do so in plain English, because the book is called Common Financial Sense. That ties into our company name, which is CFS, which stands for Common Financial Sense. Why? Because we've always told people if somebody can't explain in plain English to you what they're trying to do for you, number one, A, they don't understand it well enough themselves, and B, they're probably lying to you. And we've been saying that for thirty-five years, which is twenty years before Bernie Madoff couldn't have written it on the back of a nap. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a very interesting needle to try to thread that plain English, explaining something that most people glaze over at or find boring, finding the right threshold where you're giving them all the information, you're not holding anything back, but it's it's clear and simple enough for them to understand. And you had a a really good trick for accomplishing that. And I ⁓ hope many authors will hear this story and hear this trick and take it up for themselves. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, it's also so commonsensical. I went out and I bought four orange sharpies. I I printed the ⁓ the manuscript as it was in process. And I and I gave it out to four college kids who are on break. And I said, circle any word you don't like or understand, any word, not just financial, any word you don't like or understand, circle it. And I'm gonna change it. And I made sure these were kids. That did not have finance majors. I went to an English major, a history major, a science major. I wanted people who were specifically not in tune with any of the jargon or language of our industry. And and so that was a very, very educational process for me. So now I have to speak in plain English and and I thought I had, and I see all those orange marks all over my manuscript. I've got it, I gotta, I gotta start changing all this. So that's it was as easy as that. speaker-1: Love that. That's such a perfect, beautiful, common sense. Anyone can do it, but so few people bother to try. And that is a huge bridge. People really I think authors really underestimate how much some of those those words add friction or slow people down or make them feel stupid or make them feel confused. And it's just so easy to put a book down. It's so easy to put a book down and feel turned off. And simple tests like that that sort of pull those rough edges out. speaker-0: Well, I think it's important to the author is is is is to care supremely about your reader and their experience. And are they benefiting from this? They're investing their time and attention, the two most valuable commodities we have, and they're spending the t their time and attention with you, and you've got to make it worth their while. So you gotta have something to say and you got better say it in a way that's receptive for them to read it. Yep. speaker-1: Yeah, serve the reader and and make it legible. W what were your hopes or or expectations going into writing a book? You know, you thought about this for so long, you worked on it on on weekends. What was motivating you? What did you picture as success? speaker-0: Well, we picked I thought was a pretty high bar. I mean, at the time there were far fewer titles coming into the marketplace ⁓ every every year the way they were then, or the way they are now, I should say. And there were fewer then. And then and then so so for I I had read a a factoid somewhere that the aver if you look at all the number of books that get released in a year, ⁓ the average sales across all of them, the ones that sell two copies against a Harry Potter book. But the average I was told at the time was 3,000 copies. So I said, if we could get to 3,000 copies, we're we're at least half, you know, halfway, we're at the halfway mark, and that would be a success. That was so if we could sell 3,000 books, but I I I have to make it clear, we weren't writing the book to sell the book. ⁓ we were writing the book really as a combination business card for potential new clients. It we were writing it. To reestablish ourselves with our existing clients. And we were already recognized within the industry as experts because both Greg and I have spoken, had spoken across the country at different industry conferences, but that was to our industry. We weren't recognized as experts outside of the industry. So my mantra then is what I tell any aspiring author right now, and that is you can't spell authority without the word author. Corny, but boy, that's my mantra. speaker-1: And it seems to have worked out well for you. I mean speaker-0: We we think so because we we accomplished all those goals and we sold far more than that, as it turns out. We also try w we we had another we had another goal with the book. Obviously we're we're capitalists. We're we're in the financial industry, but we believe you can have capitalism with altruism. They're not mutually exclusive. So for every book or two that we sell, we knew that we could give away a book. Our goal was not to profit from the book per se. So we've been able to now. pass that book on to we we've we've spoken at different colleges, we've spoken at different professional societies, different universities, different medical schools. Cause when you're a medical student, you you know, you you barely have time to cover all the bones in the body and all the organs in the body. What on the f what are you going to do with the money when it comes in? So and we give though and we try to give those away. We try to give those books away. Or or at least at cost. So that's worked out really well for us because we're not we're not trying to make money per se from the sale of the book. But ⁓ but let's face it, the I I don't know how many of the clients that became clients after, you know, because I handed them the book wouldn't have become clients if I didn't hand the book. Maybe it's the same, but I gotta tell you, it made it made the whole process a lot a lot easier in terms of in terms of, you know, ⁓ like any competition. It's like the old joke, you know, know it. ⁓ we wrote it. Yeah. So and and of course we do a a very nice financial education presentation to all the employees of a 401k play as they're as they're being handed out their their their book. I want to make another comment that a lot of authors miss on. I want to encourage every author to autograph the their book in the beginning. Even if it's not personalized, I will tell you that I a friend of mine who's written six books generally can't be bothered with signing his books. Well he sees his books on sale for resale all the time for five and six dollars when he's trying to get 3795 for his book. It's a hard cover. Ours is a soft cover. We charge I think $1799, not a not a big a big big price, but we sign every book. And you know what? Our books are never are rarely on eBay. They're rarely on other shows. It's something about a signed book. It's the dumbest thing. Maybe this guy will become something. I don't know. I I I can't explain it. Very few of them are actually personalized. But I'm going to a company, I'm speaking to a hundred people. Greg and I signed a hundred books. So they don't get resold as often. So they they get kept. I hope they get red. I mean they make a very nice coaster for a a a vase of flowers, but I hope they're actually getting red. speaker-1: Yeah, it it it's there's something about having the physical object in the house too. Like even if there are many instances, I think, where the existence of the book has a plenty of impact, even though few people read it. I always say, like, you know, you might ha you might sell ten thousand copies of those ten thousand copies, maybe a thousand people read it cover to cover, but a hundred thousand people are aware of your book, even if only ten thousand people bought it at any time. speaker-0: True. Very true. And it's no different than I stood in the driveway as I was shaking my head, leaving that guy's house that day. He did it. So this is something we did. I I would also encourage an author, to the extent that they're able, to write a book that's largely evergreen. The reason why our book has staying power is because by and large, it was evergreen. We we could have come out with it at the end of 2017, but a huge tax bill was about to be passed, and we thought it would pass. It did pass. So we had to go back and and and retrofit for the latest, the newest, and greatest. So it came out in the spring of eighteen. But then that that lasted all through COVID. It was only it was only a couple of years ago we came out with about that lasted. I mean we must have printed three different editions or four different editions, the printings of the same edition. And then we went back to the to the to the drawing board and actually wrote an additional chapter that we added to the book. We updated all the numbers and did the best we could to make sure that it would remain evergreen. speaker-1: Yeah, th there's an amazing tactic hidden in there also, which is like a big legislative shift is a really good time to publish a new book because everything else suddenly becomes outdated and you you get to kind of plant your flag in the new era. What is the best unexpected good thing that came from this book being out in the world? speaker-0: Best unexpected thing. speaker-1: Didn't plan for it, but you know, something just a door ⁓ appeared, a relationship got created, a client came through, something like that. speaker-0: Some of some of the feed it's really it's all about the feedback. You know, you you you do it and you set sail to it. You don't know how it's going to be received. ⁓ Right. So the feedback for most people, for the people who knew me well, they said it's better. I read it, it's better than I thought it was going to be. I don't know if that was a compliment or not, but but but I I take it as a compliment and I wished I'd read this 20 or 30 years ago. They wish they had had that information earlier. That is a high compliment. And then a book. Some book festival named us the best how to book in the country in 2020 in the midst of COVID, maybe because there weren't a lot of entrants because it was COVID. I don't know. But though actually the entries went out before COVID hit. It was in January 2020. We submitted all that stuff. But yeah, so that was a very nice and just it's just just a general reception of the book. And of course, it really did it's it it there was a noticeable boost in our new client acquisition after that. Specifically specifically our 401k. corporate plans and our four ⁓ three B nonprofit plans. speaker-1: So how did you let's unpack that because how did you use the book in your business? Like do you where where does it fit in your workflows? How does it relate to, you know, some of the other client marketing you might do? speaker-0: So if it's an existing client, I say, look, we want to come in and we want to do here's the book. I give obviously I give it to the key people, this the C suite people, read the book. We'd like to come in and educate your group. And initially we charged for that, and now we don't because we've amortized all costs. So now we just we want to educate your group. And so that all accrues to the C suite folks who brought us in because we're being brought in because they asked us to come in to talk to you about this. We have no agenda except to educate. It's because your boss cares about you and cares about your financial future and wants you to be educated this way. You know, there should have been a course in our what the last half of senior year of high school and then again college, where we were taught. I mean I now it sounds quaint how to balance a checkbook. What's a checkbook? I have Venmo, right? Yeah. But there are cred but there are credit ratings, right? And you should know what your credit rating is. You should know how to transfer money and what and how that works. And you should know how to deal with a 401k. And none of this stuff is taught. There's zero very little financial education out there. And when when you're a completely disinterested in anything school is teaching you for school's sake, here's a here's a real life skill set that you're gonna need the second you leave this place. People would pay attention. So it really isn't out there. So we try to fill that gap as best we can because we think we think financial education is part of our social contract with our community. So that's with existing clients. With new clients, we said, Hey, if you hire us, we're gonna Do what we just did with all of our existing clients. And then as we meet somebody new who's thinking about kicking the tires on our personal side, hey, this is geared towards 401k and 403B, but it has a lot of our firm's philosophies in here. So I want you to read in the book. And if the philosophies make sense to you, we should continue talking together. If the philosophies don't make sense to you, let's still be friends. Let's decide not to work together. So it really is a very good icebreaker, actually. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean for these it's such a high trust transaction, right? Like if you're if they're gonna bring you in and put you in front of hundreds of their employees and entrust that education, like you gotta know what's gonna come out of your mouth. ⁓ you know, you want a preview of that. And how do you build that at scale? You can't spend ten hours previewing, you know, all the material with everybody. This is an incredible way to kind of have that conversation, that deep conversation with hundreds, thousands of prospects over many years at the same time. speaker-0: That that's true. In fact, whereas pre COVID, you wouldn't dream of doing it online or on Zoom. Post COVID, it makes a lot of sense to do it on Zoom. Why? It's easier to record us. Mm-hmm. It's easier to track which one of your employees has seen or hasn't seen it. As you onboard new employees, you you can say, Hey, watch this on co ⁓ you know, it helps if you say watch it on company time. They're not gonna watch it when it's not on company time. speaker-1: And and you've got people, you know, so many more companies are remote, so you can do it for a bunch of different locations all at the same time. Yeah. speaker-0: Correct. Yeah. So it actually translates even better post COVID, which of course none of us had the none of us had the imagination to to to figure COVID out in two thousand eighteen. speaker-1: Did you do you see people f discovering you through the book, or is it primarily for sort of deepening the relationships that already exist? speaker-0: Both, but I'm always pleasantly surprised when I meet somebody new and I said, I'd like to give you a copy of my book to I bought your book, I read your book. Like they as a precursor to even walking in the door, that was part of their due diligence on us. So I'm impressed that they care that much. And I'm impressed that they read everything. Obviously, our strategy, not our strategies, but our philosophies. I don't really discuss strategy specifically, but I do discuss philosophy, a lot our philosophy about investing in the book and so. You know, they agree with it, so obviously they want, you know, at that point they're almost ready to proceed. speaker-1: I I heard about the the seminar that you gave. Was this a big a big pivotal piece for you? Or is this you're talking about the presentations that you're giving in these companies? speaker-0: Well, I don't that it was pivotal, but one of the one of the big early things that were really terrific for me, it was kind of not intended initially to be this way, but we're very fortunate there's a local community bookstore in our community. And and and he is a big supporter of local authors. He's a big supporter of of ⁓ and and the community really we all try to buy our books at at you know, we go to Amazon, we go anywhere, get them cheaper, go to eBay, buy ⁓ on ⁓ use, but we all try to use this bookstore. So it's important. It's a real gem of the community. And he was kind enough to allow us to have sort of like a book opening, book signing event. So by the time we got around to that, it was the it was the end of July end of June. And and and we packed the place. It was great. There was a I think about 150 people in this very small room. And they were very, you know, and they were surprised. I was surprised that that many people came because it was some people we knew were coming, but a bunch of people we didn't. But as we're being interviewed in the front of the room, in the back of the room, if you can imagine, is my mother and father. And I'm just watching them kind of preside over the whole thing. And I could see the pride that they had. And and and this became really, really important because about a week later I left on my summer vacation. And unfortunately, while I was away on my summer vacation, ⁓ a distracted driver killed my father. So my last memory of my dad really is him looking over. And presiding and being proud and see he got to see this. So he got to see that. And that that really that's a a that's a core memory for me now. And that never would have ha you know, it's a funny thing, you can't have a book a book opening if you don't write the book. speaker-1: What an incredible moment. Yeah. It's it's funny, even the authors that I know who who have ex astonishingly big numbers, you know, when you y you yourself sold thousands of books and probably earned huge f sums from you know downstream of this book. And still, you know, the most impactful moments and memories are often with your loved ones or in one relatively small room. You know, it's a it's a launch party, it's retirement party, it's a a talk, it's a a book club. It's it ends up being something very intimate. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it was very heady times. I mean, my book came out at the same time that Jesse Cole's book came out as the Savannah Bananas were taken off. It came out at the same time as David Goggins' first book came out. It came out at the same time one of Tim Ferris' books that that went, you know, just meteoric. So that wasn't in the cards for us, but we never aspired to that either. But it was just a thrill that we were a part of that energy that year. speaker-1: Yeah. I this is it it's incredible. You you did a very good job, I think, of identifying your your audience, your target, and and just running the playbook against that. You know, you knew you knew the book you'd written, you knew who you wanted to reach, and to your point, it's an evergreen perennial topic and new people graduate into this need every single day. And so you're you're gonna be able to use this book for many, many years and it'll keep paying dividends for for a long time. speaker-0: I hope so. I I I think the most important thing for someone writing a book is to have a really clear vision. The bit the forest, not the trees, but the forest. You guys help figure out what trees to plant, but the forest, the big picture, and realize that you think you've written your manuscript and you're done. Well, no, you're not done. You gotta get it edited. Then you get it edited, and then you gotta figure out how you're gonna how what's the look what do you want it all to look like? And then you gotta block it. And then you gotta okay, so now it's printed, now it's ready to go. How you gonna market it? And it it's just the the the there is no there there. The goalposts just keep moving. So you gotta have a game plan for every step along the way. And I don't know how you do it ⁓ on your own, quite frankly. I mean, the guys who started the company, they were brilliant. They wrote a book saying, here's how to do your own book. You read that book, you go, I can't do this. But but but I did steal a page. I did I did steal ⁓ a page of I wanted to have blurbs in the beginning of my book. And and they told you how here's how you go get blurbs. And and I I I I wrote I wrote. Emails to anybody who I could get a hold of an email address that I thought their eyeballs would go on it and say, Hey, I've got a crazy ask for you. But remember, some high school kid last year asked Taylor Swift to go to the prom and she said yes. This is this isn't half as crazy as that. And then I went on with my ask. And I not everybody said yes, but I had some very interesting interactions with some of the real legends of our industry. And then and and again, who's the best person to write? I also wanted to have an introduction. Well, who's the best person to write the introduction to our book if it's about 401ks? Well it would have to be the guy who invented the 401k. Well, it turns out he he's a very home homebody, quiet kind of person who lives in the middle of nowhere out in Pennsylvania. And I I I I cold cold him. And so we're writing a book and you have to be a part of it. And and he agreed to meet with me. And I I remember driving out to see him for five hours, planning in my head everything I wanted to say to him to get him to say yes. And I and he sat down at the lunch table and says, All right, why are we here? I had to flush. Everything I had planned in my own little whole movie of what I was gonna say. And I he put me on the spot and I'm nervous as hell. And I said, Well, and I reversed the engineer. We're writing a book. Here's why we're writing the book, because there's too many people who don't know what to do about 401ks. And so we're gonna do this, this, this, this, and this. And at the beginning of the book, we need an introduction, and that's why we need you. So I started with the end and worked my way backwards to him. He said, I won't promise you anything. This is on a Thursday. He says, ⁓ give me till Tuesday to read it. And The next morning I woke up to my inbox. I read it. The first draft of my introduction isn't close. Wow. He he he was just a an you know, just a great, great guy. His name's Ted Benna. He is the father of the 401k. And I think that added all these are all things that I read in that book about how to get your so how do you do this? You you you ask your if you're an author and you ⁓ I'm not gonna bother this person, they're too busy or they're too this or they're too that. You know, ask yourself this. What would you do if you weren't afraid? What would you do? If the voice in your head wasn't telling you, don't bother. You don't get 100% of what you don't ask for. Did everybody answer yes to me? Absolutely not. But more people said yes because I asked a lot of people. And we got great blurbs, we got a great introduction. All this is it's all part of the finished product. I still, I still am very proud of what's inside. You have to be proud of what's inside because your name is on the outside. But before I would allow anyone to write an introduction or give me a blurb who is an industry icon, I would have to put something inside that they would be proud putting their name onto. So I was very proud of what I did. I told them who the audience was, and enough people said yes, that we were able to get a gorgeous set of blurbs, a gorgeous back cover with a subset of those blurbs and a great introduction from the absolute legend of our industry. speaker-1: That's an incredible story. And I I think it shows one of the most important ideas, which is you you gotta work hard enough on your book to be proud of it. Because if you're not proud of this book, nobody else is gonna believe it's worth their time. You've gotta just you gotta absolutely whole ass it and if you're not proud to put it in front of the most important person in your network that you're like a little intimidated by and really want to show up well in front of, then you didn't they didn't reach a sufficient bar of excellence. And so just keep working on it until you do. speaker-0: Until you feel that way. And and frankly, that's where Scribe comes in, because there were some parts of the process that I felt highly confident in, and other parts of the process I had no confidence in. And I didn't even know what to do. But I knew by hiring Scribe, I knew I'd get a proper ISBN number on the book so it didn't look homemade. I know that I wouldn't spell acknowledgements, which half of the homegrown folks are spell the word acknowledgments is spelled wrong. I mean, right off the bat on page page II, right? So I you know, I just knew all I just knew all. All the rookie thing mistakes, the first time out mistakes wouldn't happen because it wasn't your first rodeo. So we you still need somebody to really put the ball on it, wrap it nice, and then to help you market it for that next year. Cause otherwise you're doing this in addition to your full time job, not instead of your full time job. So you need somebody else. So it does t it does take a team and and and that and that's really where you guys come in. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, we were honored to play a part in getting this book out of your head and out into the world. It's incredible to see what it's done for you. And I I appreciate you so much for taking the time to to share all this. And my two closing questions are ⁓ let's go back to or let's speak to someone who's where you were ten years ago, just really teetering on the edge of committing to this, kind of that that that moment that you had. And what advice do you have for someone who's at that spot on the road? speaker-0: first thing is start. Sit down in front of a blank computer. I would tell you that I would every that Saturday and Sunday, that Saturday, that was the first day I would sit down. That Saturday at noon, I would sit down to a blank screen. I would stare at that screen for 45 minutes, thinking about what do I want to say? Not how do I want to say it, what? And then I would just sort of word vomit the whole thing onto the screen, all the ideas. And I didn't even use punctuation. I would just when an idea was finished, I'd skip a space and I had all these different ideas. And then then at least you've got something to then start molding around. If you've got nothing, you don't you have no plate, you're in the dark. So you gotta write one match. It's incredible. One match gives so much light and and direction. So all you gotta do is just just start. Just write something, even if it's garbage. It doesn't matter. Believe me, the final product had nothing to do with what the early drafts look like. And so and so I would say just starting. is is is is a big part of it 'cause then from there the excitement and the momentum will build. speaker-1: Love it. And finally, where should people go to follow you, read the book, see how you use it, learn more about your business? speaker-0: Look, we're at we're we're ⁓ we're at CFSIA S dot com. The book is available on Amazon. Anyone can ping me on LinkedIn at Har Harris Knightick C F P A I F A, and I'll be happy to you DM me. I'll be happy to give any advice I can offer, any direction I could offer. We learned a lot in these eight years about about how to write, publish, and market a book and all the things that are attendant to it. And if I can help somebody ⁓ in any way get them started. That would be a a great thing. The last thing I'd leave you with is that if it's a book that's a how to book and not really where you're not really telling a coherent story where chapter to chapter it's just the room changes or the the city changes, we wrote the book with the idea that it would be not not not read all at once. The idea was read a chapter, put it down, think about it for a day or two, pick it up, read a chapter, think about it for a day or two. So it also depends on what kind of book you're writing. But But be thinking about your reader at all times. speaker-1: D do you have any ballpark on what the ROI of this book has been to to you and your business? speaker-0: ⁓ it's been huge because our revenue if we're doing our job once we earn ⁓ earn earn the business of a client or a four O and K plan, it renews every year. So yeah. So in some instances, it's kept relationships that we had before warm and it's and and and it's brought in a lot of other things. It's it's been huge. I I have no regret at I mean, the upfront expense seemed formidable at the time. But I have to tell you, I wouldn't I wouldn't hesitate about doing it again if if if I was that first time author or if I felt I had an idea that was marketable and p and p and actionable and pivotable for my business again, I wouldn't I wouldn't hesitate twice. speaker-1: I love it. This has all been so helpful, ⁓ for me and I'm sure for many, many other authors listening. Thank you so much, Harris, for speaker-0: Thanks for having me. Have a great day. speaker-1: Two.