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Matthew Harms on the Inner Workings of the Ghostwriting Business · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a full-time ghostwriter now for the last few years, and although I have a lot of respect for all kinds of writers, I've got to admit that I've got a special place in my heart for ghostwriters.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We do a very specialized type of work, and it's always a fun day when I get to talk shop with another ghostwriter.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm really excited to bring you this conversation with my friend and fellow ghostwriter, Matthew Harms.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew is a New York born and raised ghostwriter and author coach who founded Pin for Hire in 2019.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's been said that everybody has a story to tell, but unfortunately, most people go through life thinking theirs will never be read since they struggle with knowing how to turn their story into a compelling book.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: As a lifelong writer, Matthew has learned from and adapted his various experience in fields such as finance, project management, and real estate to help those with a desire to use their words to make the world a better place.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: In the ghostwriting space, he prides himself on providing a voice for the voiceless, working with clients who have a message of growth or inspiration.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew is also the author of Grow Up Know Really and employed a career readiness manual, which are books designed to help people enrich their lives through basic life skills and career readiness training.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: When he's not focused on helping others, Matthew's other passions are writing works of fiction, both novels and screenplays, and spending time with his children.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this interview is a little bit different because I didn't have an agenda going into it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Almost all the time when I do an interview for this podcast, I come into it with a list of five or seven or ten questions.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of have somewhat of an agenda.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not really an agenda, but I have kind of an outline of where I think the conversation's going to go.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this one was a little bit different because I didn't come prepared at all.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I simply wanted to have a fun conversation with my good friend Matthew.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And since we're both ghostwriters, I thought it would be fun to just kind of talk shop about ghostwriting.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: People ask me about ghostwriting almost on a daily basis.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: They ask me what it's about, why I want to do it, how it works, and so forth.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the same way for Matthew and pretty much every ghostwriter that I know.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: People are really, really curious about ghostwriting.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought we would just have kind of a free-flowing and fun conversation.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this did not disappoint.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: We got into some details about how ghostwriting works and why we do it.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to probe Matthew's uh mind a little bit for some of the secrets that he uses in his ghostwriting business, and we had a really fun conversation.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of that, I also had a chance to learn some valuable real estate investing tips from Matthew because he has a lot of experience in that area.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoy this conversation.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: It has a little bit of a different vibe than what I normally do.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really fun vibe, and I, of course, had a blast talking to Matthew, not only because he's a phenomenal writer, but also he's just a really wonderful and kind and thoughtful human being.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So in just a moment, I'll turn the episode over to my conversation with Matthew.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: But first, I want to give a very special shout out to my good friend and fellow writer and Daily Writer Club member, Lynn Smargis, for introducing me to Matthew a few years ago.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Lynn.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you so much, and I'm so glad that you introduced me to Matthew.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So here's my conversation with the incredible ghostwriter, Matthew Harms.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hope you enjoy it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Matthew, welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is your first time on the show.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to give you a huge welcome and uh appreciate you making time for this.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about our chat today.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Kent, thank you so much.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's been a while since I had you on the Penn Podcast.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'm excited to be here and uh speak to your audience.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always fun to talk to a fellow ghostwriter because you know, we we kind of have this unique thing that we do that's a little bit underground, it's a little bit mysterious.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people have a lot of questions about it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So literally 30 seconds ago, I just tossed out the idea uh before I hit record of hey, let's talk about all the behind-the-scenes stuff about the ghostwriting business that many people probably don't know about.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad you're you're up for this for sure.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's one of those conversations where if you asked me three years ago what a ghostwriter was or what they did, I'd look at you with a blank stare.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I kind of have the same thing.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I had no intention of getting into this for a career.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think almost every single ghostwriter that I have talked to personally kind of stumbled into this sort of work.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like none of us set out to do this for a living.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: We just kind of found our way into this in different ways.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that's actually a great place to start.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to hear your story because I actually don't know the story.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to hear your story of how did you actually wind up as a ghostwriter?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I will give you the abridged version and just try to focus on that part as possible.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, writing's been a passion of mine since I was a kid.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, growing up in the Bronx, it wasn't considered a real job.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you couldn't come home and say, I'm gonna be an author for a living.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was like, yeah, okay, no, get back to reality, get a job with a pension, like cop fireman, um, or go to college and get a degree.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, move out, and then you can be a writer all you want.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: So, needless to say, I chose the college path because I didn't feel like moving out at 17, 18.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: Spent the next 15, 20 years getting a finance degree, working in every possible industry within retail financial services you can imagine, hated every minute of it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in fact, for about 15 years, didn't even work on my own writing because I was just so miserable and my soul had been sucked out of my body by the corporate monster.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, then I finally took a leap of faith, wrote my first book in 2017, quit my job, wrote my second book in 2018, started working with New York City junior high school students in public schools, teaching them how to use writing as a form of social emotional learning to help them with their emotions instead of my own.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, very, you know, contract gig went from a six-figure salary to a very low five-six-figure salary, but at least the fulfillment that I was looking for was there.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then the pandemic happened, the school shut down, I lost my paycheck, and I was fortunate enough to meet a gentleman who was already an Amazon best-selling author.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: His business was doing extremely well.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: He needed a second book, didn't have the time to write it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we got to know each other and he was like, You need money.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: I need a book, so we're gonna work together.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that is when I learned what a ghostwriter was.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Did not think it was a real thing.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: I thought he was pulling my leg.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what was your experience doing that first book?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Were you intimidated and scared, or did it seem like an interesting and refreshing challenge?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it was an interesting and refreshing challenge for sure, because it was also my first foray into nonfiction.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Anything I had ever written prior was always fiction.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I had like four half complete novels that I hadn't touched in years.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: So when it came back to like, I want to write, there was something at my job that sparked this idea for a book that I saw a real world use for, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Not that there's no real world use for fiction.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think fiction has plenty of places in society.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but this particular idea just hit me like people need this now.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so to start from scratch in a genre I had never written before was definitely a little intimidating, but it was refreshing that it came to me.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't feel like I had to write it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was almost like I've got to get this out of me before I can move on to the next thing.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that project is what got me back to working on the um the fiction novel, which came out two years later.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: That that's really interesting that it that doing client work kind of helps you with your own writing.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's my experience too.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say that?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know we both know a lot of ghostwriters, and one of the interesting themes of this seems to be that for some ghostwriters, doing client work has a positive effect on doing their own work.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just curious what you think about that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: So this kind of ties into what we were speaking about backstage, Kent, and there's there's a double-edged sword here.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: So when you're working with the right clients, the clients who you truly get motivated and inspired by, the clients who truly have a story that you can resonate with.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's where that motivation, that drive for your own writing comes in.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Cause it's like, hey, this person's achieving their dreams.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, granted, they hired me to do it, but that just means they have the resources.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Then there's that flip side of ghostwriting, which I learned early on, there was a certain, I don't want to say a certain type, but there was definitely clients that I was not a good fit for.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: There were projects that I was not a good fit for.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and once I learned to stop taking those, I didn't feel a lot of the drain that would detract from me wanting to write for myself.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know when a client is not a good fit for you?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, our general pillars for working with a client are that the message has to be educational, inspirational, motivational.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they're looking to, in some way, shape, or form, make the world a better place, share their experiences, help others get to where they've gotten without making a lot of the same mistakes or spending the same costly resources that they did.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: So, right there, if someone's coming to me and talking about a book on how great they are, not about the problem they can solve or the lessons that they've learned, I want no part of it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if someone in the first two meetings, and now I've learned what to look for a little better, comes across like they're not even the subject matter expert on what they want to write about.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's not my ideal client because I'm not going to go and scour the internet and do your research for you and make you seem like a genius.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: I did that in high school.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: It paid me well then.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um now I only want to work on projects where I am the tool to bring it out of you.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that is that is an important distinction because the big thing that we offer as ghostwriters is we're kind of a mouthpiece for that person's story or for their ideas or for their content.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if someone comes and they don't they don't really have a story, I mean everybody has a story, of course, but if they don't have a story that is going to work well in a book form or isn't going to serve a broader purpose, then we're kind of just making it all up.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the worst mistakes that we can do as ghostwriters is to put something out there that is not a good representation of the author.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there has to be some truth or content or ideas behind that, rather than just saying, Hey, can you do a book on XYZ thing?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't have anything to do with it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Now there's also a distinction there between someone who truly knows nothing about it or they come to you, they have this incredible story, but they're all over the place, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: They're a huge distinction.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: They don't know what the message is.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And then I actually enjoy that part of the job of sitting down with them and figuring out what is your message, who's your audience.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about the process of figuring out uh it's like dumping a shoebox out.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of how I explain it to prospective clients sometimes is we're gonna take all your ideas and stories and we're gonna we're gonna take that shoebox full of stuff and dump it out.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I find a lot of pleasure and joy and satisfaction in rifling through all those puzzle pieces and figuring out what picture we're gonna create together.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: You put it so much more eloquently than I do.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: I usually call it brain barf.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it they both they both refer to the same thing, you know.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: Just we're gonna take it all out of here, throw it on the paper.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: We don't care how it lands.
• 11:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then we're gonna go in and we're gonna clean it up.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or uh word vomit or whatever, you know, whatever label you want to put on it, it's all the same thing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we all need that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it's it's not just people who are hiring a ghostwriter.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I need that for my own stuff.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're all just even if you're a professional writer, you need other people to help you sort through your own stuff to help you identify what's good about it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I don't, I mean, one of the blessings of doing a daily show like this.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now I do an interview once a week, but the other episodes are a little short, bite-sized things.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really know what's good and what's not.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just put stuff out there, and it's not even really my job to figure out what's good and what's not.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have to rely on other people to tell me that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that I think there's when you put stuff out there, you kind of have to approach it with some humility.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't really know if this is what exactly what people like or what they want or need.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, we have to rely on some feedback.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I have this conversation with so many different people.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Coaches have coaches.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Doctors go to other doctors.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Professionals realize that you can't necessarily always treat yourself yours yourself.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: And if you do, it might you might miss something huge that someone who's not you is gonna pick up on.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like the you know, the worst thing with if you're a plumber is you know, your own pipes are clogged up.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: If if you have a lawn care business, your own grass might be tall and and you're not paying attention to it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a sense in which even those of us who write for a living, we've got to have that help and that feedback on some on some level.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_04: 100%.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So what would you say are your what are your biggest challenges as a professional ghostwriter?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, I mean, on the I guess on the client side, I think a lot, and uh I would be curious to hear if you agree with this, because I know several other ghostwriters have said the same thing, is even though someone has never written a book before, they may not have even read a book before, they tend to minimize, they know they can't write a book, that's why they're they're engaging with you, but they have no idea the actual scope of work and the amount of time that goes into writing a 200-page book.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's hundreds of hours.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, right, and then they get your price or your estimate, and they're like, that's correct.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's not really when you break it down per hour.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes uh we're not making as much money as you think.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's very true.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I it maybe it's like that with every industry where you know you go to you go to the mechanic and they're like, hey, it's gonna be fifteen hundred dollars to do some repair.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And internally I'm like, why in the world is it so much?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're just replacing this one thing, but they have you know a rate per hour that they're paying their their guys at the shop or their girls, whatever the case may be.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then they have the actual part, and then you know, when it's broken down on like an invoice or something, then I can kind of see because I'm not a mechanic, I don't want to know what the heck goes into all that stuff.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the other part there, too, as well, and and I see this on uh on memes all the time, is you're not paying for what they did that day.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: You're also paying for what got that got them to that point, yes, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: They know how to fix that car because they probably went to some type of trade school, they've put in how many hundreds of hours apprenticing and working on cars.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's a big difference for me for the first time, going out there and trying to change my brakes.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a good point to have to communicate to prospective clients too, is that hey, you can spend 500 hours trying to figure out how to write your book and doing it yourself and probably not doing it that well if you don't have any experience with this.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just be honest.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can pay me and I'll do it in a fraction of a time.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a lot better because I do this every single day.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I don't I don't have the time to go spend 20 hours trying to figure out how to change a tire valve stem based on YouTube videos.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'd rather just take it to somebody and just and they're gonna be like, okay, two seconds, we'll do it and it's done, you know.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Even to the ridiculous, I had this conversation with my business consultant once, which is when the light bulb went off.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: I would say, like, oh, I can't do tomorrow.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: I have to go shop or shopping or I have to take my car here.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: And the answer is always, why don't you order Instacart?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why don't you do this?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it costs money.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then the question becomes, which I need to start asking my clients more, is how much do you bill your clients per hour?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, is it worth that much to go to the supermarket or is it cheaper to call Instacart?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, Well, when you put it that way, it's cheaper to call Instacart.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's very true.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you just like going to the grocery store, or unless it's part of some some some other value that you have, or I live out a family thing or something.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: I do not enjoy going to the grocery store.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, it's it's uh it's a zoo every time.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I usually leave my blood pressure up, and then I come home.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: It takes a while to bring it back down.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: So, but yes, there are certain things where um you know, like the gym.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: You can have you can't send someone to the gym for you.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: We do it is funny how grocery stores differ around the country.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So here in at least in Missouri, and I know Aldi is like a nationwide thing, but so at least where I live, we have basically have two kinds of stores.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have Aldi, which is like a kind of a budget grocery store.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think they originated in Europe or something, but Aldi's been around a while.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So their prices are pretty low, but they have a limited selection of what they have.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have the kind of bigger huge chain grocery stores that are more expensive, and it's kind of like a trade-off.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can either go to the nice grocery store, but you're gonna pay more for everything.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: The aisles are wider, it's more relaxed, they have a huge selection of everything, or you can go to Aldi and your blood pressure is gonna be up by the time you leave, especially if you go on Sunday afternoon.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ever go on Sunday afternoon.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's bad news because it's packed, but you're gonna pay less.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, what's the better value?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on the day for me, I guess.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, I guess it depends on the day.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: It depends on what's actually in your bank account and what you can afford.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's so many factors that there's never a right or a wrong decision that we can sit here and tell somebody.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: But when it comes to a book, at the bare minimum, if you're gonna try to write it yourself, please call in a professional to edit it, read it, something before you send it out there to the world.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you when you talk to clients, do you sometimes have any trouble communicating the value of spending money on stuff like editing, cover design, the publishing and production parts of it?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: So the editing and the cover design, generally not so much because that's a very simple, you know, you walk them through the progression of do you judge a book by its cover?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you do.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone does.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, if if you want to be seen as a leader in your industry and someone opens your book and you misspelled words on page one, would you be embarrassed?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you would.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the publishing part, like depending whether to go uh, you know, to some of the more expertise outlets where they they do a higher end white glove publishing, most of my clients aren't looking to make money on book sales.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: So when they start looking at the investment on that and getting you know better distribution channels, they're usually uh, and I still introduce them to people so they can understand um, you know, a few people that we have in common.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I want them to see what's involved in those services and if there's uh if there's a need.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: But usually up front, they've told me, Matt, I'm looking to get 250, 300 books for my next speaking engagement, give them out at the back of the room and hopefully walk out with three new clients.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's mostly my clients, too, is just trying to help them see, okay, yeah, you can make money on the book.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: To make a lot of money on books, you have to be really good at book marketing and be in it for the long haul and be very savvy about all the different channels of distribution and all that really granular stuff that most people don't want to really get into.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can use your book to promote other more lucrative kinds of things that you might be doing, coaching, consulting courses, you know, masterminds or whatever the case might be.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's pretty common.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, especially one of the questions I ask my clients when we go back to that pricing situation is what's the lifetime value of one new client to your business?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're a coach and you charge a thousand dollars a month, if your average client stays with you for 18 months, one new client just made you$18,000 that you wouldn't have had without your book.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really good point because, man, if you if you have high-end offerings like that and your book gets you just a couple of those a year, well, then you've recouped your investment many times over.
• 20:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: I know a gentleman whose book on sales landed him an ongoing consulting engagement engagement with a Fortune 100 company that he's made six figures a year from.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, isn't that crazy?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: Just because he had the book.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_04: Man.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's talk about.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about kind of the inner workings of your team a little bit.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's is it just you doing all the writing and book planning, or you do you also work with other writers as well?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: I have a couple freelance writers that I work with, and then I have one um on staff editor, project manager, um, who kind of does all the higher level stuff before we sign off on anything.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: It usually goes through her hands.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then what role do you typically have?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it all depends on the book project, and every book is different.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different animal.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I totally get that.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: But in general, what does your process look like?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you help the client outline and plan the book and then you hand it off to others to do like a first draft?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you sometimes do the first draft?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: What does that process typically look like?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so you know, that's constantly evolving in the past.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: It started as I was involved in literally everything from screening to planning and strategy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Energizing and outlining and interviewing and cleaning up the transcriptions before I finally hand it off to somebody.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, then I learned that not every client really needs or even wants me involved in the entire process.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes there's a better chemistry between one of my writers and the client.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so to date, I still pretty much do all of the outlining and strategization just so I know what that book is supposed to look like.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then it at least meets my criteria for a solid structure.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then if the client's okay with it on call one or two, I'll let them know, hey, I'm gonna bring a writer on this call with us just to see, and also for redundancy.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because if there's ever a day I'm sick or can't make it for some reason, you have someone else, you know, we don't have to miss your meeting, we don't have to push it back.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Clients have almost always been receptive to it.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: And now I probably back, I don't want to say back out, that's a bad word.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I'm probably able to pick and choose on any given week 50% of the calls that I show up to.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's cool.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really cool.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get back to the conversation in just a second, but first, a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: For years, my go-to choice for book formatting software has been Vellum.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: It gives you the power to build, style, and preview your book and have a blast while doing it.
• 23:18
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• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Best of all, you can download Vellum and play with your book's formatting to your heart's content.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: You only have to purchase when you're ready to publish.
• 23:34
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• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: To download Vellum for free and give it a whirl, go to trivellum.com slash daily.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's trivellum.com slash daily.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation with Matthew Harms.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever have it in the back of your mind?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm asking this because I know this happened to another ghostwriter friend of mine, where you may have a writer that you have hired who's also interacting with a client who's hired you, that at some point they might do an end run and they decide, okay, I'm just gonna like work with this client directly, or the client reaches out is like, hey, I'm paying this much for this project.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we cut out the middleman, which in this case is you, if we cut out the middleman, we can do this rate or something.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you ever think about that happening, or has that that kind of thing ever happened to you?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I never actually thought about it happening.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: The funny thing is it's happened twice, not necessarily like that, where someone tried to cut me out of the book project, but for future work, like, oh, so you know, do you do you do editing as well?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: How much do you charge?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: How do I get in touch with you?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Thankfully, the only writer that I allow on interviews is that project manager who's on staff and trusts her implicitly.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Every time it's happened, she's come to me and said, they just want you to know your client tried to deal with me directly.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I sent them back to you.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then the client will bring it up on the next call.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know if it's because they feel like they got caught or they really weren't doing anything.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but they'll be like, Oh, you know, we spoke about this last week, Matt.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: How do we how do we do that?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because realistically, also, as you see, all my calls are recorded.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if there was a writer on a call and that happened without someone telling me, eventually I could figure it out.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I I don't want to have to babysit and live, if I'm gonna listen to every call to see if someone's trying to do an end run around, yeah.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the I think the main lesson maybe is is hiring people that you really trust implicitly.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: But then also as the as the project manager or as kind of the the lead person who owns the business, I think we have to add so much value to the client, but also the people who are working for us, that nobody would ever want to have a weirdness or awkwardness in there.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my job is to make it easier for everybody.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully, when I'm involved, on some level, everybody's like, hey, we we would not want to have a situation where Kent wasn't involved in this.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I suppose just having a deep level of trust with everybody and working with the right people goes a long way toward that, also.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean you you can get burned still, even if you think the person's the most honest, trustworthy political.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: Because business is business, after all.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: I I know I do I white label some work for two hybrid publishers.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: And as far as I don't do any of the invoicing, I don't do any of that.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: Everything goes through the publisher, which is the way I prefer it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, as far as the writer, the client knows, I'm a writer that's on contract with that publisher.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: But like you said, everyone wanting that person still involved in the project.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: I've had projects end where that client has been like, hey Matt, I want to start my second book.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, great, go back to so and so.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: They'll draw everything up, and when they're ready, you know, just request me as the writer.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: What does your, because this is a show about uh, you know, writing habits and writing success and so forth.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about what your writing habits are in your ghostwriting business.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do you write at uh do you write and create at certain times of the day or of the week, or are there any particular methods that you have for getting through a draft quickly or writing chapters quickly?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that's one of those things.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's equal parts art and science.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: First part is the same advice I give my clients who I coach when they want to do the writing themselves, is you have to schedule the time.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: So you've got to block out chunks of time.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, there's never gonna be a perfect time, but don't set yourself up for failure by scheduling the time at a time you know you're never gonna be able to write.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like for me, I'm not a morning person.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: If I put writing at 6 a.m.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: on my calendar, that's me basically just saying I did it when I know it's never gonna happen.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's number one.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Number two is you gotta be kind to yourself because there's a lot of times where you you may get to that time, you're ready, you sit there and nothing comes out.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you gotta write something else.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: I I usually I'm a big fan of, in addition to my clients, I always have multiple of my own projects, whether it be two or three different blogs, a book.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because if I sit there and whatever I'm trying to do isn't coming, sometimes an idea will pop in my head that goes with something else, and I'll just switch gears and go there.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: As long as I get something done, I'm not gonna hold myself like, well, you're supposed to work on that project, and that's not what you did.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's really important too, is to be gracious with yourself.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of creative types are not they're gracious to others, but not gracious with themselves themselves, which is not really helpful.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, what kinds of projects are you working on personally right now?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I am writing a book on ghostwriting, believe it or not.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh very much some of the topics you're you're bringing up here, which is why when you suggested it, I was like, sure.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: But basically, how to turn ghostwriting into a business and not just um a hobby or a freelance part-time job, the actual mechanics of making it a business and separating your passion from your business sense.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing a uh a book on real estate.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and a lot of people don't know, but I'm a licensed real estate broker.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: I've been doing real estate um investing for a number of years.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's cool.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: Writing a book on kind of just, I want to say an idiot's guide or a 101, but a very high-level view at all the different aspects of real estate, whether it be investing for flipping homes, uh cash flow investing, buying your first home, selling your own home, uh, really just to educate anyone who wants to know more about what goes on behind the scenes in the real estate world.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds fascinating.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would I would love to look at that when it's done.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: I have it fully outlined.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: I've got like part of chapter one done, but that was also my progress as of January 15th.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so we we did just finish a few clients.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I do plan on jumping back there.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: So what is the okay, I feel like I'm in Jerry Seinfeld mode here, but you know, what is the deal with so what is the deal with with real estate investing?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I mean by that is I hear people talk about it a lot.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've got friends who do it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is the idea behind it basically that over time your investments grow and then eventually you have all these assets that are producing income for you?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course you could sell those or you could live off, you know, in retirement, you could live off the the with the money that that's bringing you, those kinds of things.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the general idea?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: That is the general idea.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, again, there needs to be a strategy in place because for some people, it's just I want to buy this, fix it, sell it in three months, take a lump sum of money and keep doing it.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: For some, it's it's what you just described.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: I want to buy this two or three family home.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: I want to collect the rents and pay it off and hold it for my retirement, maybe pick up another one, two, three, or four along the way.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because an extra three or four thousand dollars a month in retirement never hurt anybody, especially if you're a freelancer or in an industry where you don't have a retirement plan of any of any sort, that real estate is going to be your retirement plan.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's there's folks like me.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: I try to, I'm somewhere in between.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm big on cash flow because that is my retirement package, but I'm not one to shy away from a good deal if it could just be bought, fixed, and flipped real quick.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if and I didn't mean to like get into a whole whole real estate thing, but that being said, I guess I still am.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like my classic passive aggressive uh move.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, I didn't mean to go down this whole road in this conversation, but I still am.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But now that we're here, we're staying.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now that we're here, so the thing that I've always wondered about with real estate investing is when you own a home that other people are renting, isn't that kind of a big pain to have to be responsible for the repairs and the upkeep and all that stuff?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it can be.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it not necessarily a pain?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, again, um with all things, kind of like picking your ideal client to work with.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: If you've got good tenants, makes a big difference, I assume.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: It really minimizes the amount of heartache you're gonna go through.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Do things still happen?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: So toilets clog, um, roofs leak, yeah, you've got general maintenance.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but the goal is really, in my eyes, to get to a point where you now have a management company.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just paying them to do it, but you still have to pay for your repairs, I assume.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: But you don't have to deal with the phone calls from the tenants, you don't have to deal with arranging the contractors, you don't have to deal with making sure the work was done.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you just pay them their flat management fee and they do all that for you, and then they send you the invoices and you pay.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is that?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just again, I'm just kind of curious.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, in general, what does it cost to have somebody do that?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like to have a manager of your properties.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Depending how many units you have or what the total uh gross rents are, anywhere between like seven and ten percent.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that seems like a pretty reasonable fee considering they're saving a bunch of heartache and hassle.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, as long as you built it into your price, you know, so as long as the rents you're getting cover your mortgage, your taxes, your insurance, um, any upkeep or you know, anything like that, and you can pay that 10% and still walk away with money in hand.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And do you have to have a real estate license to get into real estate investing?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: You do not.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it does it, does it help on some level?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the reason I got my real estate license was because I thought it would help on some level.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: And really, the only way that it's helped me, and I'm not gonna minimize the way that it's helped me, but I can now get paid on every deal that I'm a part of.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Aha.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't either need to go to a real estate agent to represent me on a deal or represent myself without a license where the other agent is gonna keep the entire commission.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: It gives me more negotiating power.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to sell your house for 200,000 and your agent is negotiating with me, I can say I'll give you 190, but I'll waive my commission.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there are some advantages.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are if you interesting okay, use them craftily.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that totally makes sense.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been really interested in real estate.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I first got into doing client work, I was trying to pick a niche that I was going to write in.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh one of one of those two or three that I was super interested in was real estate for the reason that real estate is tangible.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, homes are a huge part of people's lives.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: You make memories in your homes, that's where you live, that's where life happens in your home.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there was something really interesting to me about real estate because it's it you can put your hands on it, it's real.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't, for whatever reason, it was just interesting.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've kind of rejuvenated my interest in real estate investing.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'll definitely get you the book when it's done.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: And you hit the nail on the head.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: Having worked in financial services for as many years as I have, I I learned that, and that this is by no means investment advice, but for my opinion, stock market investments, um, instruments like that, they're they're infinite.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: You can create new ones every day, new like there's no there's no safety and security because it's gonna go up and down.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: Now in real estate, I can't sell it tomorrow.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: If I run into a cash pinch, I can't sell a house tomorrow because it takes time.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: But even if the value goes down in the short term, my rent's never going down.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: Rents only go up.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: So over time, the value of that house is gonna be worth more than I paid for it and go beyond just the house, the land it's built on.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: We're not making any more land.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: There's only so much land in the world.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's really interesting.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to get emotionally attached to stock market investments.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I suppose some people are, but it's just numbers on paper, you know, like whereas a house is like a real thing you could go visit and touch.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: We we've taken my kids, like we've uh a lot of my properties are by where my brother lives in um in the Poconos.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: So anytime we're up there, like we'll drive by a couple and we're like, this is ours, this is ours, and kind of planting that seed, like you're not getting the business, don't get me wrong.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: But get you know, know that it's here, and if you want to learn and as you get older, become a part of it, absolutely.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, that sounds really, really interesting.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I never envisioned that we were gonna get into real estate stuff, but but for those of us who do this kind of work, I mean, this is this is real life stuff, is if you have your own business, you don't have some employer giving you a retirement plan.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, what what are the ways you're gonna plan for your retirement and income in your in your twilight years, as they say?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So and I know a lot of people who do real estate investing, and and I appreciate you rekindling my interest in it.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: My pleasure.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: You can pick my brain anytime.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think this has been a blast.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you're one of those people I could talk to for hours and hours.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um before we wrap up here, though, let people know where they can find out more about your ghostwriting services and anything else that you want to share.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_03: Best place would be the website, penfor hire nyc.com.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: So that's all spelled out P-E-N-F-O-R-H-I-R-E-N-Y-C, as in new yorkcity.com.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're LinkedIn.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: My name, Matthew B.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: Harms.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: All over so every other social media is Penfor Hire NYC.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: So type in penfor Higher NYC, you're bound to find us.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, website has all the links to everything as well.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a uh sign up form.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: You can get my calendar links at a free uh free 30-minute consultation to go over whatever your project might be.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for those who are listening and they're not watching uh a little clip of this on social media, uh what I'm looking at on your screen, when we talked about this before we started the conversation, was you have a QR code that's part of your Zoom virtual background.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And can you share with people what that's all about and where you got that?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is something I'm gonna start doing too.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I know there's several companies out there that do it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: This one is through dot card.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I was tired of always losing my business cards or never having one on me when someone asks for one.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so dot card has a QR business card.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it's still a business card that you have to have in your wallet, but it's plastic.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: They just scan the code, they make uh an attachment for the back of the phone that you can just tap with NFC, all your contact information will come up.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that same QR code from the business code, my assistant was able to drop into my virtual background.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: So this way, if I'm in a Zoom meeting or a networking meeting where there's 50 people and everyone's dropping their contact information in the chat, and you see those chat wars where putting theirs in again to bump everyone up higher, and you're the first one.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have to do any of that.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to contact me, just break break your phone out and take a picture.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it works really well before I hit record.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was had my phone way back here to see how far back it would scan.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: It it you can take it back pretty far.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, phones are getting real good these days.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty soon they're gonna have video on them and be able to play music.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty soon they'll just automatically link you into a conversation with that person, like you scanned my code.
• 38:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: Holographic image appears.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: I do remember, you know, both of us are old enough to remember, uh, not like the young whippersnappers these days.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're old enough to remember when iPods first came out, and man, that was revolutionary.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, a thousand songs in your pocket?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big deal.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's not enough.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: My memory's full.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then it became, you know, oh, it's an iPod with a video screen.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's in color, even more whoa.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: You remember what they said to Steve Jobs back then, right?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: Who's gonna want a phone with a camera in it?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, look, I think you got it right.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's funny.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, what else are they gonna put on phones?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've kind of reached the limit of here's what actually we can put on a phone, but I don't know.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they'll think it's wrapping up.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, my phone can open my garage, my phone does my banking, my phone takes my pictures, my videos.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I can even write from my phone if my computer dies.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: There's literally if someone robs me, like, take everything, just not my phone.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now with chat G GTP, your phone can actually write for you.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that it should, but I'm just saying it can.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's a useful tool when used properly.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sir, thank you so much for making the time to be a guest today.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast, as always.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, appreciate your good advice about all things ghostwriting and real estate and QR codes and and the whole thing.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're just you're on the cutting edge of all this stuff.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad that I know people like you.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I appreciate you because you might be the only person ever tell me I'm on the cutting edge of anything except uh the cutting board.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I appreciate you.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: These conversations really do fly by.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I can't wait till we can do it again.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds fantastic.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: You too, Ken.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, my friend, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with my good friend Matthew Harms.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that you got some insights into the way that ghostwriting works.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned in the episode intro, people ask me all the time about ghostwriting.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you are thinking about getting into ghostwriting, perhaps as a writer and doing that service for clients, or whether you are thinking about hiring a ghostwriter and maybe would love to talk to myself or Matthew about that or some other ghostwriter that you know, or whether you're just a writer who's interested in the inner workings of this weird thing that we call ghostwriting, I really hope you enjoyed this conversation.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: I also encourage you to check out Matthew's books, which I mentioned in the intro, and there will be links in the show notes.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I also want to encourage you to check out Matthew's website, which is penfore.com.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's P-E-N-F-O-R-H-I-R-E, Penfor Hire.com.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Check it out.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew's a lot of fun, so go to his website and see the cool things that he's got cooking.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I appreciate you so much for listening and I will see you next time.