Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / Most Founders Write The Wrong Book with Ally Machate (stage 2) - Ep. 423

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Most Founders Write The Wrong Book with Ally Machate (stage 2) - Ep. 423 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

• 0:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again
• 0:03
  to the Start, Scale, and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that
• 0:07
  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
• 0:11
  founder. I'm your host Scott Ritzheimer, and today we're
• 0:14
  going to talk about that moment when you realize you're losing
• 0:18
  to people that aren't better at whatever it is that you do,
• 0:22
  they're just better known, and especially for those of you who
• 0:26
  are in that startup entrepreneur stage, pursuing life as a
• 0:30
  successful solopreneur, you might find yourself with the
• 0:34
  desire or even the decision to write a book. But here's the
• 0:37
  thing: I don't think we talk about enough is you can't know
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  what the right book is until you actually know what you want to
• 0:45
  do with it. And being in the midst of my own first book
• 0:49
  release myself, I can tell you that starting out a book project
• 0:53
  with a goal is probably not what most of us do. At least it's not
• 0:57
  what I do. And the moment that I I was able to develop that goal,
• 1:01
  it really made everything else fall into line. My guest today
• 1:05
  is going to help us do that just right. And my guest is Ali
• 1:09
  Machate, who's a publishing strategist, author, services
• 1:13
  expert, and founder of the Writers Ally. A former Simon and
• 1:17
  Schuster editor with over 25 years of experience in the
• 1:20
  industry, she helps authors write, publish, and sell
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  high-quality books that fuel business growth, attract ideal
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  clients, and boost authority. Known for her honest and
• 1:31
  strategic approach, Ali helps authors cut through the noise,
• 1:35
  avoid costly mistakes, and turn their books into real engines of
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  visibility and results. Ali, so excited you're here. This is
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  again, as you might guess from the intro, something that's near
• 1:47
  and dear to my heart because it is right in the center of my
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  world right now. But for founders out there who are
• 1:54
  listening and are thinking about, or have even decided to
• 1:58
  write a book for their business, how you bring up this idea of
• 2:02
  writing the right book, R I G H T. How do you know if you're
• 2:06
  writing the right or correct book?
• 2:08
  Unknown: Well, the first question I would ask myself, or
• 2:11
  I would encourage someone to ask themselves, is: Did you actually
• 2:15
  think about what you wanted this book to do for you out in the
• 2:18
  world? And are you really clear on who this book is for, you
• 2:22
  know. As you mentioned, most people when they start writing a
• 2:24
  book, especially in the very early stages, they're motivated
• 2:28
  by passion, right? There's an idea they really want to share,
• 2:31
  a message they really want to get out there, something they
• 2:33
  really think is going to help people, and that's a great way
• 2:36
  to get started. There's nothing wrong with that, but at some
• 2:39
  point you have to stop thinking about you, right? What you want
• 2:43
  to say, what's important to you to put into the book, and start
• 2:46
  thinking about the person on the other end, right? On the
• 2:48
  receiving end, who is it that's going to buy this book? What
• 2:51
  exactly is it that they're looking for that's going to lead
• 2:55
  them to get your book, right? So if you haven't asked yourself
• 2:59
  those questions, that's probably the first red flag that you may
• 3:02
  not actually be writing the right book, and the risk there
• 3:07
  is falling into something I call the good book wrong book trap,
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  which is that it is possible, very possible, to write an
• 3:14
  objectively good book, something well written, interesting to
• 3:17
  read, got a professional cover on it, but if it isn't
• 3:21
  strategically dialed into your goals, if it isn't clear who the
• 3:25
  book is for, you can end up with this book that, by all objective
• 3:28
  measures, is a good book that does absolutely nothing for your
• 3:31
  business and just sits there looking pretty in your Zoom
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  background. And that's not really what most people want at
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  the end of the process.
• 3:38
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. So when we
• 3:41
  think about this, who I think most folks would say either some
• 3:47
  version of it's for everybody, everyone can benefit from this,
• 3:50
  or maybe even a little bit dialed in, like my existing
• 3:52
  client. How is your book reader different from your ideal, let's
• 3:57
  say, coaching client or consulting client or your your
• 4:02
  typical profile.
• 4:04
  Unknown: Well, they may not be different. It really depends on
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  those goals. You know, if you have a business that's
• 4:08
  successful, and you know, as you mentioned in your introduction,
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  the problem is really visibility. You're just not, you
• 4:14
  know, being considered because people don't know that you're in
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  the mix. Then your target reader may be exactly the same as your
• 4:21
  ideal client because your book is going to be designed to
• 4:23
  attract more of those types of people, but that again goes
• 4:27
  speaks to the importance of knowing what exactly you want
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  your book to do for you. I've had clients, for example, who
• 4:32
  are ready to make a shift in their business. They're pivoting
• 4:35
  into a slightly different but adjacent niche, or they're
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  trying to change how they're perceived, you know what they're
• 4:42
  being perceived as the expert on. If you're writing that kind
• 4:45
  of book, well, the people you're targeting are going to be
• 4:48
  different than the pool that you've been speaking to. So then
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  you'll know that your ideal reader is going to be a little
• 4:54
  bit different than your current ideal client.
• 4:56
  Scott Ritzheimer: So I think it's pretty safe to say that.
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  There are that no goals is not as good as a goal, but is there
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  such a thing as a wrong goal? Like, are some goals for a book
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  better than others?
• 5:11
  Unknown: Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely don't think any goal
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  is wrong per se, but when you are a business owner, when you
• 5:18
  are an expert, and you're thinking about that book in
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  terms of how it can help your business, you really want to
• 5:23
  think of that book as a tool, right? It's a tool in your
• 5:26
  toolbox. It's a lever that you're going to pull on to get
• 5:29
  certain benefits and certain results. So when you think of it
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  that way, just like in any other scenario, you have to have the
• 5:36
  right tool for the job. Sometimes the thing you're
• 5:38
  trying to achieve in your business, you think, oh, I'm
• 5:42
  going to write a book because that's going to help me do that.
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  But maybe the book isn't actually the right lever to
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  pull. It may not be the right tool for that job. You know, I
• 5:50
  go on a lot of these podcasts, and people are always surprised
• 5:52
  because I'm probably one of the few people who work with authors
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  out there saying not everyone should write a book. I actually
• 5:59
  don't think it's right for everybody for exactly this
• 6:02
  reason. I met a woman not too long ago, had been in corporate
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  America, been working for a really long time in the C-suite,
• 6:09
  tons of great experience, tons of wisdom to share. Was just
• 6:13
  leaving her office job, wanted to start a coaching and
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  consulting business, and was thinking about writing a book.
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  But the more we dug into what she wanted to do with the book.
• 6:22
  We realized that what she really needed was a client base and an
• 6:26
  income flow. And a book will eventually bring you
• 6:30
  opportunities and bring more income into your business, but
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  it's certainly not the shortest, most direct path to generating
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  income in a new business. So you know that's just an example of
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  where her goal to bring in clients and bring in money
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  didn't 100% align with her initial plan of writing a book.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, I like that. So this might not be the
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  fairest way to ask the question, but I think it might be helpful
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  when you talk to a new author, you know, new to you at least.
• 6:58
  Maybe they've done it before, and they start. You ask, "What
• 7:02
  are your goals for the book? And they start sharing some of those
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  goals. Which are the ones that excite you the most, or or maybe
• 7:08
  even just feel the most achievable and realistic?
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  Unknown: I love it when an author comes to me with a very
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  clear business growth goal. So they know I want to start
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  getting on stages and speaking, and I want this book to help me,
• 7:22
  you know, get up on stage. Whether that's for promotional
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  purposes or to actually be a paid speaker, you know, keynote
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  speaker, it's a slightly different business model, or
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  someone who comes in and says, you know, I'm I've got online
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  courses, I need to create a better pipeline of people to
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  come in for my online courses. The more clear a client is about
• 7:42
  what they want in their business, the easier it is for
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  me to help them figure out precisely what book is going to
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  be really dialed into. Not only what they want to achieve, but
• 7:52
  like we keep talking about with that reader, what exactly is the
• 7:55
  journey, right? What are they looking for that brings them to
• 7:57
  the book in the first place? What do they need to see there
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  to really know? Like, yeah, this is the book I'm looking for.
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  This is the thing that's right for me. And how do we bring them
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  on that transformative journey so that when they end up, they
• 8:08
  feel both that they've gotten real value and also they've
• 8:12
  gotten enough of a taste of this author of this expert to feel
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  ready to take the next step and motivated to take the next step,
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  whatever that looks like. Because that's ultimately what
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  most people are writing a book for. Whatever that next step is
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  might vary, but that's the whole point, right? We want people to
• 8:26
  read it, get a taste, get hooked, get into it, and then
• 8:29
  want to hire you, attend your class, whatever.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. So let's say we have a goal for our book,
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  and let's use the example you gave of being invited to more
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  stages. How do you know if the idea in your head will lead to
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  the right book for that goal?
• 8:51
  Unknown: So, a simple process. We've already sort of you know
• 8:55
  touched on it, but asking yourself those questions so that
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  you kind of backwards engineer things, kind of the same way you
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  would any product or any offer in your business really does
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  work for a book as well. So you know, starting with that end
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  goal in mind, I want to get on stages. I want to do more
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  speaking. All right, great. Well, what kind of people do you
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  want to be speaking to? You know, is this a situation where
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  you just want to be paid for speaking, or is this a situation
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  where you want to be in front of the room of ideal clients and
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  prospects, people that you might actually you know bring into
• 9:25
  your business in some way. You're not going to give exactly
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  the same talk, right? It's going to be designed a little bit
• 9:30
  differently. You also might not be attending the same kind of
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  events. You know, large large conferences typically will have
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  you know maybe one or two really great keynote speakers who are
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  inspirational and exciting and motivational, but the people who
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  at the conference who are usually giving the talks that
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  lead to work, those are usually the breakout sessions, right?
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  They're the people who are teaching something, a specific
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  topic or on a specific track. So even those kinds of details will
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  change the book that you're writing and how you market it.
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  And I'll give you an. Another quick example: I had a client
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  once who had been very successful running corporate
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  workshops, like retreats, weekend retreats, and had been
• 10:09
  running these retreats for years and years. Didn't want to be in
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  the room anymore. Basically, just wanted to get up on stage
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  and be paid to be a keynote speaker, and that was great.
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  Except he forgot that when he was taking all his material from
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  all of his retreats and putting them together in a book. That
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  ultimately there was another factor. He wasn't just writing
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  that book for the people in the room. He was writing it for the
• 10:30
  people who were hiring the keynote speakers, right? He was
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  writing it for the conference organizers, and he had this book
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  that was truly a great book with lots of great information. But
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  it was so deeply rooted in the workshop that he wasn't getting
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  any results. And when he came to me, that was the question: like,
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  what's wrong here? What's not happening? I pointed out to him
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  that nothing about his book was allowing those organizers to see
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  him as a keynote speaker. They were seeing him as a workshop
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  leader. They were seeing him as an instructor. So the book
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  itself was not positioned to achieve the goal he actually
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  wanted.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: So once folks have dialed in on, they've got a
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  clear goal. They've structured the book so that it aligns with
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  that goal. What are some of the mistakes that you see folks make
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  from that point onward?
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  Unknown: Well, one of the mistakes, one of the really
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  common mistakes, and we touched on it again earlier, was along
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  the path of writing being so focused and so narrowly focused
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  on writing a good book, which is not a dumb thing, right? Of
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  course, you want your book to be good. Of course, it's important
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  that you're conscientious about what you're creating, but again,
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  at the end of the day, a good book is not necessarily a
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  marketable book. So one of the biggest mistakes is being so
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  focused on just making sure the book is good, whatever that
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  means to you, looks good, reads well, whatever. They take sort
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  of a field of dreams mentality. If the book is just really,
• 11:59
  really good, then people will discover it, right? And things
• 12:02
  will blow up, and I'll get those benefits. But that's not really
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  how it works. Your book has to actually be marketable as well,
• 12:09
  and it needs to be the right book, as we've been talking
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  about. So you have to pick your head up out of the sand
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  somewhere in the process and make that shift to start
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  thinking about it differently, and sort of hold those two ideas
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  in your head at the same time to create a book that is both good
• 12:25
  and marketable.
• 12:27
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, when you talked about getting on stage,
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  you talked about kind of the the dual dynamic of speaking to your
• 12:33
  ultimate audience and then kind of the gatekeepers, the the
• 12:36
  folks who are organizing. When you talk about making a
• 12:39
  marketable book, is there a similar dynamic there as well?
• 12:43
  Unknown: Yeah, absolutely. So it's it's always really kind of
• 12:46
  comes down to those things. What do you want the book to do out
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  in the world? You know, you said something earlier about people
• 12:51
  think like, oh, well, anybody can enjoy my book, or anybody
• 12:54
  could benefit from my book. Excuse me. When you ask about
• 12:58
  goals, their goals are often things like, well, I just want
• 13:00
  people to like it, right? I just want people to read it. I want
• 13:03
  people to benefit from it. I'm trying to help people. Really
• 13:06
  common, really wonderful. You know, really worthwhile
• 13:10
  heart-centered goal. It's a great motivation for writing it.
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  But you you really do have to understand and make that shift.
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  Otherwise, it's like the tree that fell in the woods. Nobody
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  will ever know about your book, right?
• 13:24
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, Ally. There's this question that I
• 13:26
  have that I ask all my guests. I'm very interested to to hear
• 13:29
  what you'd have to say. But the question is this: What would you
• 13:32
  say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all?
• 13:36
  What's that one thing you wish every founder watching or
• 13:38
  listening today knew?
• 13:39
  Unknown: Oh, that's such a juicy question. Well, to keep it
• 13:42
  specific to books, I would say the one secret I really want
• 13:45
  people to know is that your job is not to sell books.
• 13:52
  A lot of people, when they write a book, again, especially with a
• 13:55
  business goal in mind, they're consciously or unconsciously
• 13:58
  working with this model that they've probably seen in pop
• 14:01
  culture, they've seen it in the media, and it's the traditional
• 14:04
  book publishing model. You get a book deal, you get a publisher,
• 14:07
  you sell this book, it becomes a New York Times bestseller, and
• 14:10
  all of these wonderful things happen. But book publishers are
• 14:14
  in the business of selling books. That's how they make
• 14:16
  money. Every copy they sell is where their income is from. But
• 14:20
  you, as a business owner, you're not in the business of selling
• 14:23
  books. You're in the business of selling whatever it is that you
• 14:26
  sell, and the book is a tool to help you do that. So the secret
• 14:30
  is not to focus on book sales really at all, because that's
• 14:35
  not where the value of that book really lies for you when you
• 14:38
  have a business and you're selling services or products or
• 14:41
  other types of things, and I have known clients who have had
• 14:44
  a book that didn't sell very many copies. I even know one guy
• 14:48
  who's never sold a copy ever, and he's been leveraging that
• 14:51
  book for 20 years. He's made millions of dollars because of
• 14:55
  the book, but not in book sales.
• 14:58
  Scott Ritzheimer: Wow! Wow! Fascinating. What a fascinating
• 15:01
  conversation and a timely one, at least for me. And I know for
• 15:03
  others listening today. So, Allie, there there are some
• 15:06
  folks that are listening to this. They're in that process,
• 15:08
  or maybe they've got a dream of writing a book and they really
• 15:10
  want it to serve their business and their clients well. Where
• 15:13
  can they reach out to you? What would be a next step be? How can
• 15:16
  they move from here?
• 15:18
  Unknown: So, if you come to our site@thewritersally.com, we have
• 15:21
  a library full of free resources. Is in one, in fact,
• 15:26
  called "Don't Write the Wrong Book. It's a 25 minute webinar
• 15:29
  training, sort of along the lines we've been talking about.
• 15:31
  It walks you through exactly what it means to write the right
• 15:35
  book, how to avoid writing the wrong one, and a simple
• 15:38
  five-step process you can apply to any ideas you're currently
• 15:42
  working with, whether you started writing or you just have
• 15:44
  a bunch of ideas and you're trying to pick one, I highly
• 15:46
  recommend you check it out. If you're already drafting or close
• 15:49
  to finish and you're ready to actually talk to somebody about
• 15:52
  your book, we've got a contact form there you can fill out to
• 15:54
  get a free book strategy call.
• 15:56
  Scott Ritzheimer: Excellent, excellent. I highly recommend
• 15:58
  it. Do not try to publish a book on your own, bring in some some
• 16:03
  qualified help, and Allie is certainly there to help.
• 16:06
  Fascinating conversation again, and and a privilege, Ali, and
• 16:09
  honor having you on the show. Thank you so much for spending
• 16:12
  some time with us today, and for those of you watching and
• 16:15
  listening, you know that your time and attention mean the
• 16:17
  world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as
• 16:21
  I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
• 16:29
  Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for
• 16:32
  listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast. I hope this
• 16:34
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• 16:38
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• 16:42
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• 16:46
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• 16:51
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• 16:57
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• 17:00
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• 17:11
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• 17:15
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