Beautiful. So five probably way too unfiltered things. I wish I knew before publishing my first book and that I’m actively, like, as in in this moment, self correcting with my second. So, obviously, Many of y’all have, yeah, been sharing, stating, committing to writing books in twenty twenty four or on the verge of committing to it.

Potentially on the verge because of unanswered questions and fears and concerns and anxieties and all these things around what the process may entail or may not entail.

So, yep, I wanna clear all that up, not just in this session, but beyond this session. So I am declaring myself available for questions on Slack, right, about, that process and obviously how I can assuage fears and steer you to the best of my ability, right, in the most streamlined, efficient, productive, and profitable path towards, getting your books out there. Because despite what I’m gonna share in this presentation, I am a huge advocate of writing your book, and you writing your book, not AI writing your book, you read in your book and all the amazing brilliant things that can come out of that. So having published twice in twenty twenty three, the person was May twenty twenty three. When it came out, and the most recent one, three weeks ago, about three weeks ago, maybe about a month ago.

The first one, hybrid slash traditional, I’m still ambiguous on where hybrid begins and more traditional ends.

I’m just like, yeah, you’re hybrid. Sure. I get it. So I still don’t really understand the difference.

And one self publishing, which I absolutely understand what that is. It’s me publishing my own thing with full control, full oversight of the metrics and all the things that go into it.

So, yeah, with that experience and a lot of experience over the last two years on that, definitely have some thoughts, warnings, and words of encouragement. So necessary disclaimers. This is all, of course, my personal experience, observation, things I’ve gained and gathered in dozens of con conversations with other authors while I was going through this process, and it’s, of course, limited by my own. Understandings, perceptions, conversations, and at conclusions I’ve drawn by them, drawing through them.

And I’m open. To other discussions perspectives experiences in all the nuance within it. So I really see this more of a mastermind style discussion, then a, this is what you must do and should do, although I will have some instances where I probably say, don’t do this. But, yeah, I’m open to it all, being masterminded and conversed because there’s certainly nuance within it.

So first, the necessary warning. Right? I think, like, this is the main takeaway I want everyone to have here because this is where I’ve done, like, the most ragey around the industry where I’ve heard the most, like, horror stories, stories of regret, stories of, like, overwhelm, even stories of, like, business bankruptcy of people just throwing ridiculous amounts of cash to try to get a best selling book with a bias that it would work, right, and that they’ll be James Clear by next weekend. Right? And, yeah, the publishing industry, whether you know, of course, there’s many people within it, right, and many people with varying degrees of ethics.

But overall, I found it to be quite predatory. And I know that’s a big harsh word. I’m not afraid to use it here. So what you may be offered, I was offered these things. I don’t know why I was offered these things. I don’t know how I got on the list of people who offer these things, but I got on the list of people who offer these things. And I had to run this gauntlet and stiff arm the fuck out of people offering these things.

But, yeah, there’s a price tag to all the things you may have seen out there. Right? People raving about being a New York times best seller, we probably all seen the social media posts, Instagram posts of someone you know, like taking a selfie, showing, like, their book on the list with a whole, caption, post around how it’s dream come true, right, how they bailed English class and were told they would never be a writer. And look at you, missus Elliot. I’m a best selling author right now.

You could buy that experience. You could buy that redemption story.

It’s literally available for sixty thousand dollars.

I was offered it.

I had no intention of spending sixty thousand dollars. I did not need to assuage that childhood wound.

To show my mom and my dad that I’m a best selling author, although, yeah, that inner child was present. I just had to have chat with chat GPT tell them, told space for that part, and then I saved myself sixty thousand dollars.

So that has a cost. Wanna be, on a times square billboard. Probably also seen that post of people pointing to the billboard. Look, my book in New York Times Square, can’t believe it.

Never thought this would happen in a million years. But you kinda could have predicted it because you could buy it for fifteen thousand dollars. I was offered this. Once again, I rejected it mostly because I hate New York City and wouldn’t have flown there to take the selfie.

Anyway, so, yeah, that, on the lesser scale, You have paid reviews, you know, companies that will review your book, right, for anywhere between, like, three hundred dollars to a thousand dollars per review I’ve seen, which is kinda crazy.

One review doesn’t move the needle, and it paying for reviews, and all you’re doing is paying for reviews, you’re not even gonna get enough reviews to move the needle. So, yeah. There’s that.

Paid podcast appearances. I was offered a ton of these, said no, mostly because I just didn’t feel like having conversations about my book by the time it was published, and we can talk more about that later in this presentation.

One thousand dollars for paid Instagram shutouts or some accounts out there with, you know, like, three hundred thousand followers.

Bookgram, book a gram. I think that’s what it’s called on a hashtag.

Yeah, you could pay anywhere between a thousand dollars for a shout out to three thousand dollars for a package of them.

I was offered that multiple times. And then, yeah, coaching companies that will charge fifteen thousand dollars or more to help you write and launch it.

Mixed results. I’ve definitely seen and observed some people get decent results out of it.

And mostly what I’ve seen is people ending up with a book, that they’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money, even just producing, with the hope and expectation that once it’s out there, it’ll just be out there. Right? And then they’ve kinda lost steam and lost budget when it comes to actually promoting and moving into things. So that is a really common story that I have seen.

So these opportunities, thrive on the fallacy that your book just needs an initial spark or push.

And then will cash fire go viral on its own. Right? So that’s what these opportunities tend to pitch in my observation. This is absolutely false, right, and it kinda prays on people’s biases, believing that their book is destined for mass success.

Cause why wouldn’t you believe that? You absolutely should believe that and hold that belief, but don’t let that belief be weaponized against you by these opportunities that won’t be part of getting you there. So in my experience, all that as follows, a momentary spike of purchases will indeed get you on a best seller list for one to two days, whether it’s an Amazon best selling category, or in your times or a USA today, All that is doable, all that is true, you can get on that list for one to two days, maybe a week, but it will do nothing beyond it. Right?

And this is not opinion. This is verifiable with certain tools. Helium is one tool. You can look into kind of expensive use more for, like, Amazon, ecomm, and Kindle Rockett, more specific for, books, but you can literally check.

I’ve done this work.

Where you see someone, you know, posting the New York Times bestseller. You know, I made it.

I’ll look at those books right now, but six months later, and they’re moving maybe, like, I don’t know, like, four to ten, copies per month. Right? So that spike doesn’t sustain. It drops way back down. You’re not acquiring real fans, real qualified leads out of it.

On those, like, offers to get you onto New York Times best seller list. Usually, what happens is you have to discount your book to ninety nine cents, right, or a dollar.

And then it gets blasted out to these massive lists of, like, a million or more people right, who essentially signed up and raised their hand for wanting cheap and discounted or free books.

So you’ll get that spike. These aren’t likely to be buyers who will take you up on your buyer ticket offers or your services.

Yeah. You’ll just get, the screenshot, right, and you’ll get the social post, if you want it. So that’s essentially what, you’re getting out of that.

What you really need is real readers who are qualified or your higher ticket program services offers and workshops. So I’ve witnessed or overheard Oh, far too many stories of people who burnt through twenty, fifty all the way up to a hundred thousand dollars only to end up with a book that a year later moves, like, barely any units.

Right? And no one talks about this. As why would they? It’s a little embarrassing. It’s a little cringe.

It’s, a tough thing to admit elements of regret in the process that one was so invested financially, emotionally, and energetically. And so it doesn’t get talked about a lot, which means, Yeah. It just keeps on happening. So that is my warning.

Can we agree that warning has been heated? I’m gonna stop my share because I really need to make sure that this warning has been heated. Have I gone cool? We’re not gonna pop for that.

I will show you amazing.

Cool. Thank you for the heads up. Really interesting insight there.

Yeah. Why? On that note?

Because a lot of the hybrids, you know, are are and I’ve even looked at a few of assessing their services and even their services of what they provide are not the same.

Mhmm.

And it’s so confusing around, like, what what the minimum starting is.

Like, there’s no Mhmm.

Initial. This is what you get, and and it’s not clear. So it’s it is it feels like an up sell all along the way.

And, yeah, I just would love your perspective on it. Like, if you do want support, and I know you’re probably gonna go into this, It feels like you have to ask a lot of an industry you don’t know anything about and be somewhat knowledgeable. So Yeah.

What if that if that raises anything for you?

Yeah. The offers of the hybrid publishers are so ambiguous.

The typical response I’ve heard right in my own, like, process of going through some of them and then hearing other stories is that, like, you kinda get threaded along. Right? And, like, you’re coming at it with the bias and the belief that this is gonna blow up, and you’ll put in the money you need to put into it. And once it’s out there, it’ll be out there and it’ll just catch fire because that is what you should be believing because you’re writing a book. Right? Why would you write it unless you really believe it would take off?

So, yeah, it’s really easy to get strung along. I’ve heard stories, right, where, like, you know, the hybrid publisher, if you will, right, will they’ll design your cover, right, they’ll assign an ISBN, they’ll do the interior layout.

They’ll get it distributed, right, on different platforms.

And when you haven’t done this before, all that sounds so valuable because it sounds so confusing and overwhelming, right, and it was for me. I remember I went with the publisher the first time around because, like, I don’t know the first thing about turning this Google doc into a good looking book. Right?

And the truth is is, like, the upcharge that these Harvard, they’re making money on that. They have margin what they’re charging you on that. I’ve seen literal examples.

There’s a hybrid publisher I was looking at, like, two and a half years ago for my first book. And, you know, they I think it was, like, a ten thousand dollars starting package right where they’re, like, well, design your ebook. We’ll design your print book. We’ll assign it the ISBN.

We’ll give you your initial keywords for descriptions in Amazon SEO.

I went on fiverr. Right? And one dude on fiverr had as his testimonial on case studies books from that publisher. Right? So they’re just outsourcing it to fiber.

And this guy was charging, like, five hundred bucks for all of that. This publishing is charging ten grand, and maybe they have, like, a few other things they were doing on top of it.

But I’m like, no. Like, they are making money off off They’re not making money off of your book blowing up and becoming atomic habits. Right? They’re making money on getting authors, selling them on the dream of becoming best selling authors.

And it’s a very easy out for a publisher if you don’t become a best seller. Right? It’s like you didn’t promote it enough. Your book wasn’t good enough. We did what we were supposed to do, but the stuff they’re supposed to do, really little and really inexpensive.

So, yeah, like, all those things that intimidated me the first time around and had me just say, yes, oh, someone else to do it. Second time around, I’m like, this will this will feel so much more self empowering to just learn to do it myself. Right? And Mhmm. I hate learning to DIY. Like, I’m so quick to hire on so many things.

But, yeah, honestly, like, It may not be perfect, but, like, this is my new one. I designed this cover on Canva, right, and I like it better than my first cover.

The interior layout, like, not, like, I’d say, like, eight on ten, like, good enough.

Fifty five bucks from a legit dude in the UK, Clear Communication. He did it over Christmas y, which I didn’t even expect to. He designed the spine. He designed the digital version, as well as the paperback for fifty five bucks, right, like total, amount per hour, per total on a twenty four hour turnaround. That was the thing I had the most freak out I’m like, I would hire a self I would hire a hybrid publisher and take that five grand, take that ten grand, because I just don’t even wanna care about these things.

Start a DM conversation with a guy on fiber who’s done it, like, thousands of times. Right? And Yeah. Like, that was just my own, like, comfort edge to feel like I could do that on my own.

But, yeah, so glad I did. So, yeah.

Hybrid publishers know what you’re getting. Like, I think if they have legit distribution and reach and can promote your book, not just produce it and leave you to promote it, then there could be merit there. If all they’re doing is producing it, probably not worth it because you’re just gonna end up with something that you’re going to have to promote anyway.

Other things I’ve noticed in my own publishing process, y’all are writers. Right? You know your material better than anyone else. You know how to write.

Like, I don’t think you need to pay for an editor. Like, that might be lost from this. I don’t think you need to do it. I regret doing so, and I love my editor.

He was great. Like, nothing wrong with him. I don’t feel like it improved my book for the money I invested as well as the delay in going through revisions. That’s the other thing I really hated about working with a publisher.

Is you’re going through revisions, you’re feeling like it may not necessarily be making it better. Right? Because as an author, you’re typically gonna be really happy with that draft that you’ve polished. Right? Maybe not your first draft, but your your final draft. Right?

You inherently probably don’t want anyone to touch it at that point. Right?

And to go through a year of revisions without feeling like it’s really making it better, and the tedium of reviewing it each and every time, that was, like, painful for me. Right? And I think by the time the book got published, I didn’t even wanna look at it anymore because I was so exhausted by my own message and my own material, that the last thing I wanted to do was conjure up excitement about this thing that I had become tired of, if that makes sense.

That got ranty. Right? But the short version of it is if all they’re promising is book production, probably not worth it unless you’re really, really, really, really, really, really, like, I’m not confident, overwhelmed, and feel like they have, like, the right reputation, but, like, speak to other authors who’ve worked with them if you can, get their honest feedback, like, people might say, yeah, it was fine. It was good.

Right? And, like, push back. Right? Like, when you do it again, that’s a really good question.

And if they delay on the would you do it again, you get, like, an, because that would be my response. If someone asked me today, like, you work with that publisher again, I’d hesitate. Right? I’d try to salvage the good things about it just to defend my ego of having made that decision, but ultimately, you know, like, I’d self publish in a second.

So yeah.

Is that is that helpful? Cool.

Alright.

I think I think the fiverr thing is an area I’ve already gone to to check out and, like, such an interesting thing that you saw that thread of those books being, you know, Because because here’s one of the things I don’t know what other people are thinking about. I’ve actually thought about testing an ebook, rather like a smaller booklet, like a mini book rather than the whole process just to learn it in a way that is lower risk.

Yep.

To the bigger book. So I’d love people’s thoughts on that as as a way to be like, hey, let’s just do this.

Let’s and if it’s a manual or a workbook or I and I’d love your perspective on it.

Mhmm.

You know, it it’s it feels like why not? Because the the whole, and I’ll let people know that I’m having gotten some materials from some companies. They say that you won’t get published till, like, twelve to eighteen months after your manuscript. After your manuscript. So we’re talking, like, two years.

Yep. That’s part of my rant. Yeah. And your your material better be evergreen. Right?

Like, That data do you mean.

Right? Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Cool. Well, I think the warning’s been heated. So I’m gonna jump back in and get really really practical data. Sweet. So, observation number one, your publisher probably He would probably will do a whole lot to promote it. This is my personal experience and also observed in conversations with, yeah, well over a dozen business and personal development authors, across a range, right, hybrid publishers, traditional publishers, some of the bigger publishing houses that you may be familiar with as well.

It’s likely gonna fall mostly on you to market your book, which I think is a good thing and an empowering thing.

A publisher can be helpful, absolutely in distributing across all digital book plat forms, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Indigo, all the kind of, like, smaller ones as well. And maybe, Keart, maybe getting on some shelves, which very, very, very, very, very big maybe.

If they’re saying they can do that and will do that, I would push back and ask them what percentage of books they published have are currently on shelves. Right? Like, put them in that position to qualify that because that is typically one of the bigger selling points they try to make. And, actives are only so much shelf space and so many books.

So, yeah, I would push back on that. Self publishing on Amazon KDP or super, super fast and simple. And roughly eighty percent of the US book market. So if you’re looking for, like, a literal eighty twenty, Yeah.

So publishing on Amazon KDP is that literal eighty twenty for the US book market, at least. You retain higher royalties. It’s about sixty percent. On paperback and Kindle.

And if you are doing paid advertising, you have more control over cash flow and reporting with in my view is the most most important point. So, when I was playing around with Amazon ads before, my book came out. So as of it’s kinda like going through that, like, uploading process and the interior design process and all that, I really wanted to, like, acquire that skill. And I remember, like, why not? I’ll just, you know, run ads use my last book as a test, as a test case.

And, it was really exciting and also really sad because the ads started working, like, right away. Like, I sold two copies of the book, via ads, essentially on day one at a, quote, unquote profit thing is I don’t know if I was I don’t know how much I was actually making or losing on it because Amazon takes their cut, the publisher takes their cut, And worst of all, right, with Amazon, you know exactly what you’re getting as your royalty, and you’re getting it within sixty days. Right? A publisher, it has to go through two tiers of reporting. Right? I think Amazon pays the publisher in sixty days, then the publisher pays you maybe sixty days later, so you might be on a hundred and twenty day cash flow delay.

And, of course, they’re double dipping on the, on their cuts. Right? So your margin is lower.

Your delay of getting the money back to reinvest is much longer, and makes it pretty much impossible in my view to cover advertising on a book that is going through a publisher. And this is, like, the most painful thing for me in retrospect. Right? Cause I realized, like, okay. I know how to run Amazon ads. I’m getting results, like, totally not optimized, like, totally one zero one strategy.

I wish I could do this all the time, and I can’t because, yeah, the margins aren’t there, and the delay on cash flow isn’t there. Or is there. So, yeah, that kinda sucked. So that is a really important reason to consider self publishing or at least, you know, if you are working with a hybrid publisher, just get really clear on, royalty structure, and if you’re getting paid directly your Amazon sales or if it’s going through those two layers.

So number two, your book probably won’t go viral or gain organic traction on its own.

It might. Right? And I just wanna set, like, fair expectations, a rule of thumb, is that a could take twelve to eighteen months and over five hundred reviews for a book to start really taking on a life of its own.

You’ll likely need to work for those initial two three thousand orders that could yield those five hundred or more ratings and reviews and incentivize ratings and reviews, meaning your topic has to be pretty evergreen. Right? If it is going to have its best year in year two and year three and year four, the topics you’re discussing and the strategies and the tactics, that you’re talking about probably can’t go out of style. You need to be pretty sure that content that end of material you’re covering is gonna have longevity.

So this is a really important point, especially in the marketing or the copy or just the business sphere in general. Like, you’d really wanna be talking principle based or tactics that you are certain aren’t going to be disappearing in the next few years.

You can, of course, support it with short term spikes, right, getting on podcasts, shout out, launches, either internal launches or affiliate launches, but where I would focus my energy, right, is the everyday sales engine that moves copies every single day. Right?

Your first five hundred to a thousand sales will could be your hardest and costliest Amazon is a social proof driven platform. It’s really, really, really difficult for someone to buy a book that only has one rating or kind of like the one next to the five stars. Right? They’re like, do I wanna take that risk or do I wanna go to this book that, you know, has been showing up on my, recommended products forever, right, and has over five hundred ratings and reviews. So that’s just kind of how it is. That’s just the buying behavior there, social proof driven. So it gets easier.

As you get more reviews and your ratings increase the amount of ratings you have. So your cost to acquire a reader will decrease over time. So there needs to be some degree of a threshold at least at the beginning in my view to absorb a certain cost to acquire a reader, which brings up another important point. Don’t over identify with being an author, like, this pug, like, I really wanted to be this pug when I was growing up. Like, I wanted the knitted wool scarf or best into glasses, I want to feel like a writer writer.

Yeah. So, like, you know, when it comes to your book, especially the book that you’re writing as part of your business, you get to decide, right, you wanna be an author author or a business owner who happens to be an author the former will invest a lot of energy bandwidth and attention in writing and selling their book. The latter knows precisely where the book fits within their sales funnel, most likely top of funnel knows its purpose, which would be lead acquisition and nurture someone who literally has a physical copy of your thing is reading it. It’s interacting with it. It’s seeing it on their copy table or in their office.

All that is amazing. You’re literally in their home, and knows how much they’re willing to spend to acquire a reader. Now this is and band stuff, we could do a whole workshop on this.

It’s relatively simple math to figure out.

But, yeah, you want to know or have a hypothesis of what a reader would be worth to your business.

And therefore, how much you are willing to spend to acquire a reader. These are really important metrics to know, no one’s really talking about it, even kind of the bigger book writing coaching businesses, I brought this up at a conference where one of them was kind of promoting their thing and, like, no, this just isn’t within that consciousness or that conversation. So yes, you get to be a business owner and know where it fits within your funnel.

And the latter also has a clear ascension path from leader to client and is excited, right, eager to spend money to acquire a reader with full competence of their economics.

Next, you’ll need to launch and think long term. If you can only choose one, think long term. Right? So my first book had bit of a launch, right, I had a list. I had small humble list, maybe three thousand people between my list and my partner lists.

The new book hasn’t had any list. Right? I literally just came up with the pen name two or three months ago. Right? No listen to space, no reputation, no authority, no nothing.

If you’re gonna choose one, do the long term, launch if you can, but put the appropriate level of energy into your launch. Right? And this goes back to, like, do you wanna be an author or a business owner who has a book? So you can You can, but should only hit up your list or social on your book so often.

Right? You don’t wanna, like, burn out your list per a five dollar royalty. Right? There are other things you need to be discussing as a business owner or other conversations you need to be having.

Other things you need to be marketing. Right? So give it the appropriate level of attention, lump style, a lot of publishers and book coaching companies, right, will really push you, right, obviously, because, you know, it’s better for them to push it every day. Right? Like, be the thing that you promote and talk about all the time on all your podcasts, all your, blog posts, all your emails to your list, and that’s a decision you get to make. Right? Do you really wanna, like, use that well earned attention, on promoting your book all the time, right, or give it its appropriate space?

What I recommend, right, an initial launch with bonuses, right, early reader early reader bonuses or pre order bonuses, of five to seven emails like max max max, max, with an upsell or a booking application on the thank you page. Right? Like, make this more than just your book. Make the bonuses, other authority building things you’ve done, whether it’s a presentation, a workshop, a master class, how that thank you page be, you know, a short video, right, that says, like, amazing.

Right? If you need help with this, this, and this right now, then is a conversation we can have. Right? So you have the authority about the book, and you also have the, application for people who are ready to have that conversation at.

So Yes. Make it fit and work within your current business structure.

Don’t over engineer for a successful book launch.

Hit up your socials, but once again, your business owner with a book. Right? Don’t make it all about that.

And understand, right, the initial surge can move you up to number one, any releases in your category, which is great. It’s fun. Like, I posted a screenshot in Slack yesterday, right, that I was number two in new releases on Amazon for a pretty cool category of business, business motivation, I think. Right?

Like, right next to noah Kagan. I’m like, that’s a win. That’s fun, and it’s just that. It’s just fun.

Right? It doesn’t mean much more than that.

The ranking via any short term spike won’t sustain. Right? It’ll be gone tomorrow. Right? Like, I could take this screenshot of that same category today, and I think it’s like number eight or number nine.

Right? So it’s like, a short term win, like, it’s fun, it’s exciting, and it’s not what you should be optimizing for. So the ranking via that spike won’t sustain no evidence.

I’ve done a lot of research on this. No evidence that it will actually help you sell more organically because your audience probably isn’t navigating to the best selling books of a certain Amazon category looking through it and deciding what they wanna read next off of that. Is probably not how they’re browsing or making buying decisions.

So, get cozy, spending to acquire a reader or a lead my favorite platform for that is Amazon ads.

It’s cost per click, meaning you don’t pay for impressions, which is really, really cool if you’re, like, MU author or trying to build your authority in space, you don’t pay for those tens of thousands of impressions you’re getting for free alongside the other authority figures and thought leaders in your space that you want to be associated with. That it’s really, really cool.

Yeah. So that’s a really cool aspect of Amazon ads. And you get to target, right, keyword phrases that your problem or solution aware audience would be typing or looking for. Right?

So, in my case, right, that looks like, a keyword I think I’m running that is doing really well for me is, like, best books on money mindset, best books on money mindset twenty twenty four. Right? So these are the phrases people are typing. You find the search volume for these.

You use a tool for it. I use, Kindle Rocket.

I think there are some other higher paid ones like Helium, where you see how much search volume is being, generated for those keywords, but use keywords, right, that your target audience, someone who would be qualified for your higher ticket services or courses, would be using and then you get to form a hypothesis where you get to engineer, you get to engineer the reality where a book reader is the warmest possible lead in your business just based on the words they were typing or the other books they were looking at before find your books. So that’s what’s really cool about Amazon ads.

And yeah, I love the fact that you get tens of thousands of impressions for free. Right? And I think it does take I couldn’t find a stat on this. I’ve been looking for it. I’m like, how many impressions does it take of your name of your boat before someone?

Makes that buying decision. Right? So, yeah, I think, like, I read somewhere that it could be seven, it could be ten.

I think on Amazon right now, it’s probably, you know, at least fifteen to twenty. If you’re book just showing up on the feed, showing up as sponsored books, like, before someone’s like, oh, this is really showing up a lot for me right now. Like, oh, this person’s name is showing up a lot for me right now. Let me click through and actually, I know a bit more about this person.

So yeah, Amazon had big fan of it. Really easy to get started with it. Like, I got started with it, I think, like, learning it in an afternoon off of Udemy course or some YouTube videos to get masterful at it, obviously, it requires some optimization into next work, still in the process of that. So I can’t really report, but your cheat code and all that is being willing to spend and lose money on acquiring a reader.

So the vast majority of folks that are running, book ads on Amazon, are publishers or authors who need to be profitable on their book sale. Right? So I’d estimate that ninety five percent of people who are running book ads aren’t thinking lifetime value or backend. Right?

They are they are authors and they are publishers. Right?

So this is a really important point. Like, your mindset going in time zone ads is you can be bold, right, in your bidding strategy.

You can have a certain threshold of being willing to spend money to acquire a reader. You don’t need to be profitable on your book.

And of course, the confidence in this comes through, once you actually look at the metrics of your whole funnel, right, like we could talk about that. I don’t know if we’ll have time today, of what, like, a book funnel looks like, but you need to be able to know what a book reader is worth within sixty days or ninety days. Right? And therefore, know how much you’re willing to spend on, acquiring a reader.

So where I’m at with this little experiment? So this was my first book, seven initiatory fires of modern manhood, really mouthful like, a big mouthful. A lot of words to say. Like, I think this is why I didn’t do podcasts because I didn’t wanna have to keep saying that word out loud.

But it was cool. Right? Like, I don’t have regrets about this process. I definitely don’t have regrets about writing it. So that two years to write it, amazing, fulfilling, self revealing. I really wrote it to coach myself through a lot of the things that I was experiencing, the part that sucked a year and a half to publish it, between the publisher’s timeline.

Yeah, and obviously when you write something that is kind of in the self development, spirituality realm, like, the things you feel and think about. Right? Three years later, differ a little bit. Right?

And I didn’t really feel incredible about, hardening ideas that were so real and raw three years ago. And now I’m like, I’ve kind of evolved beyond some of those ideas. A lot of them, I still feel so strongly about and others. I’m like, yeah, I don’t know.

My thinking and feeling about this has evolved a little bit. So, yeah, that delay didn’t really work for me. So by the time I was at, I just wasn’t as hyped about talking about it. I got hyped about other people reading it and experiencing it and having conversations about it.

There are definitely some cool experiences.

I think, like, I got tagged on a post from, Soleai, a hip hop artist who I think it’s married to Atlanta Mooreette. Yeah. That was it. I’m like, that’s amazing.

Canadian, you know, fresh when I I was like, fourteen years old, amazing. It’s in their living room now. Maybe. I don’t know.

I just made that up. The part that it’s in their living room. We have no evidence of that. But definitely some cool wins out of that, so I don’t regret that.

But, yeah, all in all, I think I paid five thousand dollars on that deal initially, right, to get with that publisher. And I honestly can’t remember what I was paying five thousand dollars for.

I was just like, thinking long term. I’m like, this book is gonna sell hundreds of thousands of copies. It’s five thousand dollars, no bank. Whatever. Let’s just get it done.

Another two and a half to three grand maybe. Book editors and formatters, once again, amazing people love them.

But I don’t necessarily know that it made anything better.

I despised their initial cover designs. I ended up pretty much designing my own on Canva and giving it to them and saying you know, improve on this or do this, but better. And they just pretty much did that. So that kinda sucked.

Apparently sold over four hundred copies, but unclear reporting, and to be honest, like, I just haven’t seen a royalty check yet. And I don’t understand their reporting. Haven’t really had the time, the energy or the desire to go into the forensics of trying to understand it. Which is frustrating, and I feel a little handcuffed in this one.

Right? Cause I know that I can advertise it well. If I use my unpaid media and I use my own copywriting skills, but I just don’t really have the capacity or the capability to put paid dollars behind something that is on a literally, like, a four to six month delay to get the cash flow back on that sale Mhmm. With some yeah, with pretty much all margin taken out between those two layers, Amazon and the publisher.

So I’m handcuffed. Right? I have skills to promote it and market it now, and I just can’t justify doing it. So, yeah, that kinda sucks.

Had to survive that gauntlet of being pitched. All these promotional services that’ll be shared at the beginning.

And I likely made my ROI in indirect ways. So when, so I do have a paid men’s group that I run every Tuesday night to co facilitate. We had a higher ticket program that we ran over the summer on, certifying people to become MEM’s coach facilitators, which is awesome.

The book helped indirectly. Right. So when leads just weren’t ready for that, I was able to share the book, they would buy it. They would get comfortable with me based on kind of reading the ideas, the authority based on, you know, just having the book, and some of those did turn into members of the group, as well as, part ticket certification clients.

But, yeah, indirect. Right? So overall, I don’t regret writing the book. I love the process of writing that book. I love that it’s out there. I love that it’s making an impact.

I do regret.

The method I used to publish it and the delays and the timelines that felt in retrospect highly unnecessary and now have me kind of handcuffing how much I can actually do to, promote it in ways that, Yeah. I just can’t track the ROI so easily or recoup the investment on paid ads so easily.

Book two, shadow money, sixty days to write. Jim idea inspired on, like, work I was doing in that men’s group. So, yeah, there’s some more indirect ROI, a thousand words a day. Really easy to commit to. I think, like, that was usually a coffee shop visit, sixty to ninety minutes, usually. So very easy to commit to on a schedule.

This part blew my mind taking five days to publish on Amazon KDP, fifty five dollars for the interior design, made my uncover in Canvas. So spent fifty five dollars to produce this, for both the Kindle and the paperback, created a mid tier program to support read or acquisition cost. So that’s something I could talk about maybe later. What time is it? You’ve got ten minutes.

So, yeah, created a mid tier program to, offset the cost of advertising so that I could be willing to spend money to acquire readers, offer to lead magnet literally on page one, which brings readers into that mid tier funnel.

Learned Amazon ads one zero one in an afternoon. No big launches to any lists or socials, because, yep, it’s a pen name. It’s a person who didn’t exist, three months ago. So a twenty day result, four hundred and fifty to five or, yeah, four hundred and fifty dollars in Amazon ad spend. Once again, totally not optimized. I’m not trying to break even on it. I’m just letting Amazon do its thing.

There is probably a lot I could do to, optimize my ad spent and my OSS on my Amazon ad spent.

But here’s yeah, the nuts and bolts of it. So seventy three units sold, most importantly real and qualified readers. So three hundred and fifty dollars in royalties, so not quite break even on the Amazon ad spend, which I am more than happy about, I think, like, seventy three readers at a hundred dollars loss.

I don’t know, I’m paying, like, a dollar fifty per reader right now, which I’m really happy about.

One unit of the mid tier sold, for a hundred and eighty dollars. So possible there are you beyond breakeven.

One high ticket coaching package came out of that. Or two thousand dollars just as a test run. So profitable there, reader to list conversion. So this is something I’m tracking. So the funnel that readers are moving into is just for book readers. It’s not being muddied by any other channel.

Reader to list conversion approximately fifty percent.

So half of the people who are actually opening the book and reading the book are getting on the list.

List size is a hundred and fifteen, that includes other people who didn’t buy the book. So that’s why that number is a little higher than it would be, numbers wise.

But it’s cool. Right? Real readers when real readers buy it, opportunities open. So I had one, One fellow in Spain, right, who has a decent sized list wants to translate all the materials into Spanish, just really resonating with everything I’m sharing.

Really cool little win there, invitation to a major podcast in February. That just wouldn’t have happened, right, kind of spark magically just by having this done. So not mind blowing crazy results and wins, and I’m already far more profitable than I was with my last book, and this is really just twenty days in with so much room to optimize so much room to grow. My goal is to move at least for the first three months, a hundred books a month, right, a hundred real readers per month, with the hypothesis that the cost to acquire a reader will go down month by month as it gets more social proof, gets more traction, get some more opportunities to speak on podcasts.

And, yeah, so grinding for those hundred readers initially and letting it kinda snowball from there as I layer in more optimized strategies. So that is What I got? Let me get off this screen, stop share, catch a breath.

Oh, is that too ranty, guys? Like, I don’t know. It wasn’t too great. Alright?

No. No.

No. I’m not super informative. Okay. Cool.

I wanted to see you lose your shit. Like, where was the real world thing? It’s way too chill.

That was way too chill it.

Yeah. I mean, I was, like, I mean, me being close to losing my shit still looks really common collected, but, the conference I went to, right, like, which was sponsored by one of the, one of the bigger kind of, like, self publishing coaching companies. And they’re cool. Right?

And, like, so much of it just felt off. Right? Signing the dream of, like, you need a book. It’s gonna be your legacy.

Right? Not your legacy if you’re selling two or three copies per month. Right? So it’s like, yeah, a lot gets invested that doesn’t get recouped, and there’s so much, like, shame and regret around it that just people don’t have those conversations.

And I think the path to doing it well and doing it sustainably, is there. I just don’t see a lot of people doing it. So it felt really empowering to, like, create that path and create that hypothesis for myself on this one. And, yeah, so far, so good. It doesn’t generate you know, copywriting service money yet, and it’s pretty cool to see what it’s able to do, like, twenty days in. So Yeah.

That’s interesting. You say that I went to the last fifty books conference and it was in Vegas in November.

And I really resonated with that decide if you’re an author or a business owner happens to be an author because my experience at that conference while it is predominantly fiction authors and and small publishers a bit.

It was really obvious to me that these folks were business owners first despite the fact that their predominant income was books. They still would be the first ones to say, oh, okay. Well, my series, this series of mine, the it’s the readership isn’t there. It’s not doing what it should.

Boom. Done. I’m not writing anymore. That’s not, you know, that’s not ROI positive anymore. So they it was just really obvious to me that while they were writers and artists and creatives and all those things.

They were very much business minded and it was cool being in a room of so many people with that.

I think we’re creatives or, you know, kind of portrayed as these.

Well, we don’t do numbers and we don’t do And I was like, nope. All these people pay attention to numbers and they hear.

So, That’s awesome.

Yeah. It was it I mean, it’s different. I realized in non fiction versus fiction. There’s just a drastic difference, but I still was really impressed by the business mindedness of the group.

So Yeah.

That’s cool. And and there are some, like, really, like, like, I was throwing a lot of shade at, like, some aspects of the industry. There are some, like, really good and affordable, like, companies out there that are empowering authors to know the number side of it. Right?

Yeah. Kendall Kendall Printer comes to mind. They’re really good in terms of, like, what I’ve seen and learned from and, like, really affordable stuff.

But, yeah, there’s just, like, the the most predatory aspects I think that I’ve witnessed and seen a lot of regret and remorse of are, like, the promotional specs, like, to get on best seller list ones. Mhmm.

And it’s just like yeah. Kinda like sad and cringe to throw so much money at that, and you are getting over promise. You are getting over promise that you’ll get on that list, and it’ll kinda sustain. That’ll be that spike you need, because everyone feels like everyone’s confident in their book, and they feel like it just needs that initial push, right, and the rest will take over.

And, yeah, when you’d, like, look at the raw numbers, like, when you actually look, and I I went through this exercise because I didn’t want my own bias to cloud it. Like, I so there there’s one company I I won’t name names, right, that, like, offers a service. You see the testimonials, right, of those authors on that page.

Look at their books now, how much volume are they actually moving? Where is it actually ranked on Amazon now, right, a year later?

And the numbers are the numbers. Right?

Like Mhmm.

So I think that also I I sometimes wonder because if I didn’t make it clear, the conference is it’s for indie author.

They’re like small little kind of I’m not even sure I call a publisher because that feels not portrayed accurately, but it’s indie authors.

And I kind of feel like as an indie author, it also forces you to pay attention to the numbers because who else is gonna do for you, you know.

Right.

And so that was the I don’t know. I I just thought indie author becoming an indie author first to me like to monique you mentioned, should I just put something up? I think yes. The faster you can put out a book and publish it and get it on a platform where you can see any number.

It doesn’t matter. Zero, whatever. I think that’s the better way to go. That’s what Abby and I have been talking a lot about with my book because I feel like the seasonal sales psychology book feels bigger and I want more to it.

And I feel like that’s keeping me from let’s get something out there.

Let’s, you know, let’s do something simpler, get a book out there and learn fast.

Her. That’s so I’m totally with you on that. If you were doing that, that’s what I’m I’m thinking I’m gonna shift to that as well.

So Yeah.

I kinda yeah. I kinda feel like there’s the mini version, right, where I’m I’m would love your thoughts on this ride if you’ve seen people do this. Like, it’s a lead magnet and and or you give a discount code to the Amazon. And I don’t I don’t know the version of that funnel, but the idea is If you publish it and it’s on Amazon, it brings a whole bunch of credibility than a lead magnet download book that someone gets sent that no one really reads because it was free off your website. And so I kind of feel the same way. Like, why not publish it? Why not make it a book somebody can buy, get printed?

And have it as soft copy. I’ve heard that, I would love your stats. Like, what percentage of the sales are actually soft like print printed books rather than downloaded books. I think it’s like ninety percent usually as a ratio.

Yeah. I could give you the exact numbers right now.

Right. Do you have the do you have is it how do you drill down your numbers on that?

Give me one sec.

Alright. So Right now I’m, just on my KDP dashboard, suite.

So, yeah. I mean, I’ll show you what the reporting looks like there.

Sweet. So, yeah, this is this month. It shows you how many people many pages have been read on Kindle Unlimited if you make it available for Kindle Unlimited.

So this doesn’t account for, like, people who everyone who bought, like, the candle version. This is just for those who access it versus kindle unlimited.

There we go. So paperbacks, seventy percent, about thirty pis thirty percent ebook, shows country breakdown.

Yeah, I think the ebook had a higher percentage because I didn’t know what I was doing at the beginning, and I’ve made the ebook available for, like, a week earlier than the paperback. The paperback’s only been out since January seven not even twenty days yet.

Whereas the ebook was available before. So, yeah, I think that would account for it. But, yeah, probably closer to a seventy five percent twenty five percent ratio.

Mhmm.

Otherwise.

Yep. And you can you can obviously optimize for that. Right? So I think, like, I would want to optimize for more paperbacks than kindles, right, just because I think having something physical in their home that they’re seeing every day, is amazing for, like, the nurture and just you being top of mind.

Right? So I would absolutely optimize for pay for back. The simplest way to do that, right, is just make the price gap such that, like, you know, I don’t know, like, thirteen bucks per kindle and seventeen bucks for a paperback. It’s like, yeah, why would I order the kindle?

Unless, I really, really like reading on it any reader.

So Mhmm.

Mhmm.

Yep.

And so how does they pay on, like, a print on direct or purchase? How does that work?

Yeah. So with, KDP Publishing, in particular, you don’t pay anything upfront. Right? So you upload your book. Right?

You upload, like, the dimensions of it, right, all the files, and then it’ll give you, right, the cost to produce at the raw raw costs. So for this one, it’s like four or five bucks.

But you’re not paying for any copies because it’s print on demand. So you don’t need to, like, print you don’t need to pay for an initial run or anything like that.

It’s just, like, comes off of your margin. Right? So if you sell it for seventeen bucks, the first five bucks is used to pay for production, and then you have your royalty on the remaining twelve bucks. So yeah.

Yep. But no no inventory, obviously, which is amazing. If you are speaking at a conference, Oh, gosh. This is so much easier with Amazon than it is with a publisher.

Right? So a publisher, I have this conversation once because they’re the US. I’m based in Canada. I’m like, if I wanted to if I’m doing a workshop in the US, can you just ship it to them, right, directly?

Right? Ship it there. They’re like, no. We gotta ship it to you first in Canada.

Right? So crazy duties with a minimum order quantity, then I gotta ship to the US. Right? At that point, it’s not even worth it.

I’m paying, like, thirty bucks per unit to just get give away free books.

Amazon, right, like, so easy to order order, author copies at a discount at cost. Like, you get it at cost. Right? And, yeah, you could have it shipped wherever you wanna ship it. So a lot easier.

That in itself is a huge insight. Wow.

Yep.

Yep. And once again, I don’t know if every publisher is like that. That was just the conversation I had with, the one I used.

He is interesting when Joe write books in kinda similar and I our stats for the paperback to Kindle version. Now we started with Kindle so that probably impacted it as well. But Mhmm. We’re like opposite yours. Paperback versus Kindle is Really? Oh, yeah. Is completely up similar way more people taking ebooks but if you think about it like Joe’s initial books way back when, you know, ten years ago that classics kind of.

Those were ebook only unless you printed it off yourself or something. You know, so I wonder if there’s also that She kind of set in place a I do ebooks. I write ebooks digital.

Yeah.

You know, but anyway, I just thought that was funny because you’re his Maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think, obviously, it’s just like a hypothesis as I just really see a paperback sale being more valuable than a Kindle because I forget about all the books that I have on Kindle, because I don’t see them. Right? My iPad has essentially been hijacked by my son to watch, like, yeah, YouTube videos and frankly the turtle. So, like, I don’t even see my kindle anymore.

But, yeah.

Cool. Any other questions?

Yeah. I have a couple. Oh, after you you, Abby, I have a couple I’ve written out.

Hey. Sure. You can You are first. Here you go.

Well, I have one pen name. I’m so curious about your pen name and and what made you decide to do pen name.

Yeah. I mean, all my, yeah, all my books are essentially pen names now.

But Yeah. It was, like, really clear to me to not, like, muddle brands.

Right?

Initially, like, yeah, I’ll be totally honest. It’s, like, the first book I release, I’m, like, no one knows me in the space for this thing, and it feels weird, and it feels awkward.

And I kinda wanna, like, hide a little bit behind it. So, yeah, totally admitting that.

Like, the first book there were elements of not wanting to be seen and wanting to hide, got through that shit, and then it just kinda like made sense. It’s a different brand in a different industry with a different voice and different socials. So let it have its own name, practically speaking, right, like, if you Google Ryan Schwartz, like, you’re gonna get, like, the copywriting stuff, and then you’re gonna get literally, hundreds of other running shorts just because it’s a super common name. So I really wanted to have names that I could rank number one for on the books. That felt really important right off the bat.

As well as getting And what do you mean?

What do you mean by that when you say rank for names? Oh, based on on Exactly.

So if you, if you Google Hendrix Black, for example, like my book will be first page, all first page will be me, essentially, which felt important and not been a good enough reason to run with that.

And, yeah, so I think, like, that’s really the main reason for pen names is the authorship is just in different spaces and different brands, and I wanna rank on the first page or those names.

Cool. And it’s cool to be different people. I don’t know. Like, I know. It’s just fun. Like, live out the names that your parents didn’t have the courage to call you. Like, Why wouldn’t I do that?

Yeah. My dad was gonna call me Siddhartha.

As in like the Buddha?

Yeah.

Could you imagine how embarrassing that lady? Like, the her the Herman Hasssey novel, like you read that and got inspired or I don’t know.

He was just, yeah, happy in the nineties.

Oh, yeah. That would’ve been kinda cool. Like, do you regret not being considered that?

No. No. At all. I think I would have gone by Sid. Like, I feel like Sid’s a cool name, but Samantha.

Good book. Yeah. That could be a pen name once you start writing your own spirituality books.

So, you know, yeah.

It’s a good segue into my question. So I’ve I’ve a mindset question. I’m a total newbie at mindset, but I’m I’ve been reading it about it for making money. And I’m like, okay.

So, like, you wanna, like, attract, like, wealth abundance, like, I’m trying to get into that. But then when I think about my book, like, you know, I’m excited about it, but I’m also kinda like, yeah, like, you know, probably five people will buy who follow me on LinkedIn. Like, I’m totally like, yeah, like, no one’s gonna buy it. Like, do you have any, like, advice on what kind of mindset you should have?

Cause I don’t wanna set high expectations, but I’m also, like, my expectations are so low that that can’t be good for, like, actually attracting, you know, for actually thinking I’m gonna sell any.

Yeah. I think, like, there are definitely mindset and energetic components of that. Like, I would check-in, like, how do you feel if it was selling hundreds of copies? Like, this part of you freak out about that. You’d be like, oh, they’re reading my stuff, they’re judging. They’re, you know, like, tune into the parts of you that may not want it to take off as well that may be kind of like halting and sabotaging the process.

I think that that is valuable work to do.

I get really excited about your book and how it fits within your business. Like, that gets really exciting. Right? Like, it just ties.

And so brilliantly with what you already do, anyone who’s read your work whether it’s your copy or client’s copy, whatever. It’s like, shit, she can write. Like, I wanna read that. So, some, I mean, on the mindset stuff of, like, will it sell?

Right? I think I think it’s, like, the wrong question. The right question would be like, do I want it to sell and what will I do to insure itself? Cause there are pathways to sell books and move volume.

Right? Like, I didn’t have an audience for a made up name called the Money Shopping, and it’s sold seventy five copies this month. Right?

And real readers who are in my inbox right now is, like, loving on the work. Right? And So, yeah, like, your readers are out there.

It’s actually quite easy and simple.

To get your book in front of them using Amazon ads and to write keywords and getting it, yeah, getting it displayed as a sponsored product on those because I do leading. Right? Like, I gotta look at my stats again. Right?

But, like, you you are a bad ass at and money. Right? Like, that was one of the books where I bid really aggressively to get mine as a sponsored book next to that. Mhmm.

Right? Because even if people aren’t clicking through, I’m getting that impression on that association hundreds of times per day. Right? And it might take six months of people seeing my next to that one.

Before they’re like, oh, maybe I should check out this one as well.

But, yeah, that’s something you could do. Right? So, like, you can bid really aggressively to have your book next to Jeffwalker’s launch, right, and Amy Porterfield’s two weeks notice. Mhmm. And, you know, those evergreen trees are gonna be to it, like, for months.

And then people will be like, who’s exactly? Right?

To Sedarta the marketer. Right? Like, that’s that’s your pen name. And, yeah, I think, like, you can engineer that with in a really predictable way. That’s not something you have to think. Will this happen? Like, you can create that just with a bold bidding strategy on your cost per click.

Like, it will be there next to Laura Belgrave. It will be there next Sandy Porterfield. It will be there next to Jeff Walker or Ryan Lavac or Whoever, if you want your book to be next to. Right?

Mhmm.

You will rank for how do I launch an online course, right, if you want to rank for that keyword so, yeah, there are ways you can pretty much guarantee your book will move volume.

It’s obviously harder to guarantee that your book will blow the fuck up and turn into atomic habits. Right?

Which, like, I looked at the volume. I think he’s making or the book is making on amazon dot com, like, over eight eight hundred grand a month right now. Like, which is insane.

It’s wild. It’s absolute madness. And that is the best selling book on Amazon. Like, So it is what it is.

But the thing is is when the book is just a component of your business, you don’t need it to sell half a million copies, right, to do really, really, really well. Like, because you have your mid ticket course already done, that complements it.

Like, it’s as simple as, like, you create your book on page two.

Like, you have the lead magnet, right, that gets them into the Evergreen funnel. And you have the course directly if they’re interested in, like, taking to the next level. So, like, I give that opportunity right away so that they could skip the funnel.

But you will know, like, if you duplicate that funnel, for book readers, you will know what a book reader is worth within sixty days, like, really easily.

And then you could reinvest, and it becomes your lead gen strategy for your course and for your services. And you can compare that with, like, is this more profitable? Is this bringing better leads than Facebook ads or worse leads.

So, yeah, you can control the outcome to a certain degree of moving volume, you can’t control while it blow up. Yeah. But you can definitely control where it appears.

And yeah, to a certain degree, you could definitely control, like, volume, especially with your skills. Right? And, like, yeah, writing good descriptions, good cover. Good cover is probably one of the more important things well.

Yeah. There’s, yeah, there’s a lot there. Like, I didn’t realize you could control, like, where your book appeared next to.

One follow-up question, just like, around mindset if that’s okay. Like, I mean, this is a really, really basic mindset stuff, but I think it’s partly, like, I just don’t wanna be disappointed. Like, in business, I’m kind of fine to make moves if I fail, but I just feel like with a bug because it’s something I’ve wanted since I was like, about four years old. It’s just like feels like I like, it would kind of break my heart if I put it out there and people hated it or didn’t buy it. Like, you have any, like, advice around that, or does that did you feel like that?

Yeah. So, like, when I really tune into the honesty of, like, the emotions there, or, like, they’re mixed on the first one. Like, I’m disappointed. It’s not selling more. I feel angry to some degree that, like, I want to control its movement, but feel a little handcuffed out the economics.

So that’s, like, frustration that I compartmentalize.

Right? Again, I’ll admit that truth.

Yeah. Look, like, it’s natural to really desire it to do well. Right? Like, why would you do something without that desire?

I think, like, there are elements of that risk and that vulnerability, right, where, like, it may meet your expectations. It may exceed your expectations.

It may not exceed those expectations. And I think you could definitely yeah, there’s definitely, like, work to be done on, like, preempting that disappointment and that fear and that sadness. Right? Like, that is mindset work, that is a personal growth work, that is, like, the emotional clearing work, and that is available to you.

And, right, like, I think.

To to a certain degree, yeah, and we could keep we could keep having those conversations, like, in the mastermind and on Slack because I think, like, when we’re all taking this, like, next leap, Like, there are definitely vulnerable components of that. Right? And we do wanna be assured success on whatever we do to make it feel safe. Because otherwise, like, it it sucks, and it stings to not meet your own expectations for something you’re doing, especially the thing that feel really important to you from, like, dear to your heart.

But yeah, I think, like, there’s definitely work that can be done effectively to, like, clear those emotions, clear those fears, and then get really resourceful and determined around optimizing for success. And I do feel like there’s more.

I I think that there’s a lot we could do, to create the probability of success. Not necessarily guarantee it, but in the book world, if you have a really good book on a topic that people, like, are actively looking to learn about, Right?

Yeah, you can really kind of, like, feel good about the probability of success there. Right? And just making sure you’re doing the eighty twenty to really, like, drive for that.

But, like, for you, for example, like, if you really wanna feel like you can ensure that success. Right? Like, you can have the outline of the book. You can have the cover design, right, and, like, go to five or ten, like, past clients, colleagues, friends, right, in the space with that audience, like, how does this sound, right, is this something you would, you know, help share with your list, right, like, down the line? You can almost, like, preempt your fear by getting kind of like a verbal confirmation from, you know, the donors of over ten thousand people. Like, what do you share this? Right?

To assuage that beer.

Yeah.

Mhmm. Thank you.

I I have a question for you, Ryan, about I guess, like, where would you go if you want? And I think Jessica, you were saying this. Like, if if we’re going down this journey, We don’t wanna get caught up in the industry of what you experienced. Mhmm. Who who are those people that’s still so new, I find even like where to even start an outline.

Like Google, I’ve I’ve started writing my book, and I’m like, oh my god, I get so lost in that Google doc where I can’t remember where things are, and I’m like brain dumping. And so the process of actually organizing the thinking in a way that’s not great creating work after, like, this continuum of work. That that is so I I feel like for me, the tools to do it right and efficiently of, like, either thumbnails or or index cards or just that would be super helpful because I think a part of the dream of going to somebody else, they could teach you all that is what the hope is to shortcut.

And if there isn’t that an absolute need and the confidence is just in like you said, the doing the words and keeping it organized, in testing with people and maybe having some accountability partners in this group. And then, oh, by the way, when you’re ready, let’s, like, hey, Roy can be the person that says, you know, send to this person, check-in with this person. These are the people that will keep it, initially on the inexpensive side to publish. That would be so helpful for me as like, hey, just take these five steps. Do this?

Yep.

Systemize it like this. And these are the people.

Yeah.

So what I’m hearing is I just the initial part getting started with, like, the outline and the structure is kind of a bit of an obstacle right now. Mhmm.

Yeah. I have a lot of stuff being written out, but it’s the keeping it organized.

Yeah.

So you have it written out. Like, are you confident in the structure element, and that’s just about, like, keeping the pieces organized within it?

Or Yeah.

I have a I have a book outline.

Okay.

But it’s sort of like I like the chapters to almost the index cards. Like, I know that maybe and I’ve been thinking Trello is probably the most visual way of doing it, but maybe there’s a better way of doing it.

Yeah. I mean, trello’s good. I like I mean, you could have columns for each chapter, right, and cards for each components within it.

I’ve used actual, like, cue cards in the past, index cards, sorry, like, literally putting them on a board, right, or on my floor, right, because I have, like, messy floors.

So use what works for you, like, on the last so so when I wrote screenplays, I was a lot more structured because there are more moving pieces. The last two books, right, the structuring to flow are so clear. Right? And, like, what I found was, like, the more I tried to organize, the more overwhelmed and stressed I got, where I felt relaxed and relief is when Google Docs started populating, right, and I had a table of contents and detractors. And each chapter had a very similar structure, right, and how it was presented.

But I felt a lot of my anxiety was disappearing as the thing was actually getting done. Right? So I feel like just even committing to that writing cadence of, like, however many words per day, you feel confident you can accomplish And knowing that in, like, six weeks, you’ll have a certain output that is self organizing. Right? Like, that might feel really good.

Yeah.

Does that does that help? And, I mean, I wish I was, like, more organized myself. I organize as I write, and I know that’s not always, like, the most ideal thing. But, I feel I feel most confident when I see the thing actually getting flushed out.

That’s just how I work. Yeah.

So I I have a thought, and I just I don’t know what you think about this. So page two that was recommended, they’re they’re I mean, I’ve looked at their services and they start at, I think, thirty five thousand dollars.

For, for who?

Page two. Yeah.

Okay.

I haven’t I haven’t gone so far yet as I hope to meet with them at some point, like, just to learn about theirs. But I don’t know if that’s the real cost, but that’s what they sort of shared.

Mhmm.

I was I was actually really blown away by it. I thought the whole you know, hybrid publishing was like maybe fifteen thousand max.

Mhmm. So one thing you can do pretty easily. Right? Like, this is a twenty minute exercise, right, is like, they have all these books on their homepage, you can definitely see how much volume they’re doing.

Yeah, some of these books I definitely recognize. Right? So, like, they’re doing well, like these books, but are those the outliers? And did they succeed despite or because of Right? Like, I think that’s an important part.

Let me see what their services are.

So our team of editors designers project managers and sales and marketing professionals take close attention to detail while giving you full control over every decision.

Yeah. I mean, I’d be really kind of like, H two books are sold around the world both online and in brick and mortar stores, we have a team of a hundred plus sales reps through our distributors.

Post twenty five agents selling translations on our behalf.

Yeah, honestly, like, at that price point, thirty thousand dollars or even ten thousand dollars, like, This is where this is why, like, when I published my second book, I’m like, I don’t care how much I’m losing on Amazon ads right away I’ve saved over ten thousand dollars. I’m just getting it here. Right?

Yeah, I get a lot more excited about saving that money and turning it into, like, real ROI on a real measurable funnel than a, kind of a ambiguous thing they’re doing. Right? We have sales reps that are actively doing this and that, but they’ll never guarantee an output or an outcome out of that. Which has you fill in the gaps of the best possible scenario because, of course, you want the best case scenario.

Right? So it’s like, I I went through a similar process. Right? Like, we have sales reps.

We have connections to all these stores. And, of course, I’m defaulting to the optimistic side of, okay, these sales reps are gonna get my book, and I’m gonna be at an airport flying here, and I’m gonna see it there, and I’m gonna have that moment taking a selfie into airport, being like, my book is here. Right? And, like, this is where the brain and the heart naturally wants to go.

You just don’t have control over that, and they won’t give you a guarantee on that because that’s not how they work, and not every one of their books ends up in a store. Right? And they may or may not give you an accurate percentage of, you know, how many of their clients actually get there.

Yeah, that’s a bit of a judgment call, but, like, my intuition is if it’s a five figure investment, and you can likely create a similar product, the book itself, for you know, under a thousand dollars. Right? And that’s if you hire a really good book cover designer.

I get really excited about having nine thousand dollars of marketing and ad budget on a measurable funnel. That’s just me.

Yeah. I totally agree with you. I mean, you’ve convinced me that while I was already trying to make sense of it in a in a very complicated way. Like, I actually put information in a chat, GBT, and my tell me what these services have in common. And it was like, I don’t know. Like, it was very so if, like, if if it’s complicated at the beginning and then you go down at the contractual agreements stage, like, it gets even more complicated and confusing.

And it just felt like it was dampening the whole you know, opportunity. And then you add in the after manuscript fifteen to eighteen months or something, you know, very long.

Yeah. To me, that’s like the deal breaker. Right? It’s like fifteen to eighteen months is a long time in, like, business terms. Right?

I know.

You have your, like, workshop already done. Right? Like, the workshop you wanna be presenting?

Yeah.

I just got, like, intuitive hit, like, create the book version of that that slides into the, like, we’ll do the workshop together. Right?

Well, and that’s kinda what I was thinking. If I like you said, it’s like the manual that you sell that, hey, you can buy and go and do it your on your own or what if we all did it together? Yeah.

That that is sort of the mini version idea of, like, So and then and then that sort of builds and you get the experience off of just that and you get to make it something that you can have authority on.

You can, like you said, get it out out and out the door, maybe three or four months.

Yep. And it’s part of your product suite. Right? Your fractional work well as your workshop work, it connects with both those opportunities.

Right?

Yeah. And it guarantees that any reader of that is likely going to be the right audience, right, for those higher ticket packages, which is not what you get, right, even bookstore distribution ninety nine point nine percent of people who will work on a Barnes and Noble and, like, browse, like, probably not your ideal market.

Right?

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, and once again, there are parts of us that really want that experience. Right? I really, really wish I could go to the local bookstore in Montreal that I used to spend so much time in and pull my book off the shelf and be like, look, I did it.

Right? And, like, the price we pay just for that validation is, like, crazy. Right? And marketers definitely prey on that.

But it’s not necessary. Like, you can rank for all the things that you need to rank for on Amazon.

And you can build a funnel that really tracks the KPIs and all the metrics you need to know, like, how much is a reader worth for you? And how much are you willing to spend to acquire a reader and compare the lead quality of that reader with your other lead gen sources.

That’s awesome. Would you be willing to share the people that you worked with on your your book?

Yeah. Totally. I mean, I think there’s only, like, one person because I designed the cover.

I would invest in getting the cover done. Right? Like, second time around. I think this is just part of my own, like, ragey reclamation of, like, like, the publishing industry.

And, yeah, like, playing around with Canvas because it makes me feel more talented than I actually am.

But, yeah, let me just kinda, like, drop you that link here so that I don’t forget because he was awesome. That’s gonna be awesome.

So there are a lot of I mean, it’s fiber. Right? So, obviously, there’s a lot of people who aren’t so great, even with a lot of five star reviews, because I don’t know how they get all those five star reviews, but they do.

But this one guy was really good.

So this name is Damien and let me drop it in chat.

Yep. So he’s in the UK, super professional, once again, like, as far as, like, interior layout and back cover and spine and all that, probably, like, a seven and a half to eight on ten, right, but for fifty five bucks, Canadian, I think.

So Yeah.

That’s crazy. That’s so cool. Night and day differences between your first and your second one and like I know it must have driven you crazy and you mentioned it because, you know, you’re You know, you you love math. You’re in direct response.

So you can see those metrics usually. And you’re like, what’s going on? What can I optimize? What can I optimize?

What’s going on? And then the second one, like, You mentioned it’s nothing wild, but man, I disagree. That’s, like, crazy to see not only when you can break even what your ROI is. You know your LTV going into it.

You know your KPIs, just gonna have to ask anything to see that, like, in the cost, the those margins are wild to say the least. Like, what?

Right. Yeah.

Yep.

Right. That’s exactly it. When you’re familiar with the direct response, like, you just can’t tolerate things that you can’t track. What’s going on? I know this works.

Exactly.

But I’d say, like, that would be the number one reason I would never work with a publisher or hybrid publisher is the double layer of reporting as well as the delay in the cash coming back in to reinvest. Right? I think that that is, like, unacceptable for a marketer. Right? To accept, like, four to five months delay on, like, you sell a book and the revenue from that book comes in.

Yeah. That part ain’t cool. So Yeah.

And this has been, like, so valuable information, Ryan. I can’t even tell you, like, probably saved me time, energy, a struggle. Right? Because I think truth is when you meet with people in this industry, you likely wanna keep some sort of, I don’t know, connection with them, or you feel like I don’t wanna string a law. Like, there’s a whole bunch of emotions I think that really can go down this road that in a way that maybe is unique in its industry.

That it plays on legacy.

And I think you’ve just been like, I I’m grateful that you put this together.

Thanks a lot.

That they prey on the dream. They’re like, we know that they want it, you know.

Yeah. It’s it’s the bias, right, because you just naturally see yourself. Selling millions of copies, and it is possible. Right? But, yeah, I think, like, Yeah. I think I think the self empowered path, right, of just having control over your own marketing and the speed of which it gets out, right, is so vital.

And I’ve seen that case play out a lot, right, the eighteen month delay. And then, like, as an author, as a creator, you sometimes moved on, right, from those ideas and the strategies.

And then when you have to get on podcasts to promote the thing, you wanna talk about something else at that point, right, or your strategies or thinking or best practices have evolved, it’s just, like, weird. So I think, like, the speed of thought moves a lot faster than the speed of traditional publishing. And to me, that’s like a really big, challenge, but Yeah.

So, Rai, one last thing I lead a women’s financial mastery series for about twenty women where we actually go through and so interesting that you have this side brand of yours because I do too. And this is my big struggle I’ve had, and it’s in the same area, which is crazy.

Where we un unlock and untangle all the money messages and issues that have held back women owned particularly their wealth rather than, you know, just pay equity being in its gap of you know, eighty two cents on the dollar. Women in US, single women retire with thirty two cents on the dollar to to the males, save wealth. So it’s kinda like breaking down all that. And I’ve struggled with this too. Like, you seem to have, which I didn’t know about two areas that you’re really kinda like drawn to.

And that has been one for me. And I I love that you’ve done this in a way that makes me helps also helps me realize, like, I felt like I was abandoning that passion of what I love doing in supporting, the conversation around, literacy information and in the and I think there’s a struggle I’ve had around being the one thing that I’ve developed, which I’m excited about, but I’m It’s how to be too excited about two things, and I know that’s not the purpose of a one thing, but it is also great to hear that you have to lives in some cases.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s such an important point. Right? And in my personal experience, right, like, I’ve had a lot of difficulty abandoning really vital parts of myself. Right? And work that just wants to be created. Like, I have abandoned those for periods of time, and I’ve never felt great about it.

I think, like, yeah, working in sprints has definitely enabled that. Right? Like, I wrote that book with a thousand words a day over fifty five days, published it, right, like, around a holiday season when things were a little bit more quiet on the other biz other side of the business. And now things are kind of, I wouldn’t say passive, right, but not a huge time allocation right now.

I’d say, like, my one recommendation would be, like, you know, choosing the one thing within the one thing. Right? Like, my copywriting work and my client work there and my teaching and training work is pretty streamlined and focused and disciplined.

Same thing with the other books that I create and the companies around them. Like, my men’s book filters really clearly into a Tuesday night men’s circle, right, that I co facilitate.

Like, there’s not a lot of variability around that.

So yeah, it’s like being really disciplined within those lanes, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Totally. I’d love to know your men circle. I I do have a lot of, guy friends who are talking about the need to connect with, like, genuine guys who really wanna, you know, be be present in the way that they didn’t learn, you know, as kids growing up through their There’s there’s, you know, observational parenting styles, but I’d love to know if you’re if you’re sharing that side of what you do.

Yeah. Of course. I’ll be happy to share that. We’ll be reopening, space for that soon.

So, yeah, I’ll give you a ping. Cool. But yeah. I mean, I find it really personally important, right, to make sure that the things that are vital, important to you, have lanes of expression, right, otherwise, just kinda feels shitty and brings a bit of remorse and regret at some point in my view.

So Yep.

Happy to keep the combo going as y’all go deeper into your work, but, probably appreciate the conversation.

Nolan, are you working on a book as well? I didn’t catch that initially.

I am kind of, like, yes. Definitely. It’s in the line. Like, I’m reading where I’m right now about my things.

I’m still trying a hundred percent dialer, and it’s all about, like, behavioral marketing. And I’m reading this book, called. Actually, it’s over there, but it’s called, using the science in behavioral marketing. It’s super fascinating.

It’s, like, exactly the kind of stuff I wanna wanna write about and it’s just, like, every word that I read is just like resonating with me fully. So I’m trying to absorb all the behavioral marketing content I can find out there so I can kinda see what’s going out there, what’s working, and what’s not working.

Mhmm. Awesome.

And there’s actually not like a ton on it.

So it’s it’s kinda fascinating.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, I’m here for all all the questions. I’ll go deeper on those paths. And, yeah, thank you for entertaining my cathartic rant, and, hopefully, there’s some useful tidbits within that.

So a ton. A ton.

Cool. Yeah. Thank you, Ryan.

Alright. That’s it. Have a good one. Take care. Yeah.

Please have a good one. Take it easy.

Today’s session is to go through and really do our best to nail down the general category at least of what you want to own.

What should be your thing. There are questions galore about this, and that’s good. If you have questions, bring them up, and we’ll actually start by tackling any questions you might have. And then we’ll see if those questions reveal that everybody needs to kind of like go off and work for a few minutes on their thing alone, then we’ll pause and we’ll take some time to do that. But if it’s like, no, let’s let’s workshop some then we’ll do that. So we’ll see how today goes based on what y’all are wondering.

I have found that when I’m having, DMs with people about this, about what they’re supposed to own or what they should own.

There are a lot of questions around, Hey, I don’t know anything about the thing that I wanna own, or I haven’t really done that much of what I want to own. And so I just wanna preface this with I get that it feels counterintuitive to say I own this now.

But that’s how people do it. It doesn’t mean you have to, but just know that that happens for anybody I’ve talked about this, if you were ever in, anybody here who was in ten x freelance copywriter or even still is. I have talked many times about, And there’s actually bonus videos, which I think you have access to. Pep Laya, who runs C XL and also Winter He came in as a special guest years ago to talk to our mastermind, and he’s told it like it was, which F is good at doing, and it, he said, like, I just decided one day I was going to be the person for Convergent Optimization.

And he had literally no background in it. And a year later, he’d spoken on, like, fifteen stages already about it. So if you feel like you have to wait until until until I keep hearing that word, it’s not I’m not ready yet. I have to wait until.

Would encourage you to just suspend that. You can go back to that way of thinking in six months.

If it’s like I it’s not working, then allow yourself to go back later. You don’t have to kibosh it entirely. But suspend disbelief. You’d be shocked, at how many people have just said this is my thing now, and then that’s their thing. And that’s, like, you just now you can focus to make your thing. If you say this is it, then you make it that. Now the challenge is, hey, There are already a lot of people in that space that can feel like, well, if I can’t own SEO copywriting because they’re so many people in SEO copywriting, which there aren’t, by the way.

Okay, fine.

That doesn’t mean you still can’t own it. Though, but we might wanna, like, work through your feelings that you have about that and the reality of the competition out there. So keep that in mind. Now who has questions about owning their own thing? Or, Ryan, Shane, if you want to tack anything on to what I’ve just set.

Okay.

Jessica, you raised your hand. Do you wanna go ahead and chat and say it?

Sure.

That’s alright. So I I did try a lot of options, Joe.

You know that I’ve done a lot of things.

But I inevitably kind of circled back around that.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Circle back around to something I was kind of going into a couple years ago, and so it doesn’t quite fit into one of the stages of conversion copywriting say, but so my idea was, I used to get I I was really into the idea of being the person that’s Well, sorry.

No. I just muted. Make sure you’re on mute if you’re not talking, please. Thanks. Go ahead.

So I kind of I guess I just wanted to be the person for seasonal and holiday sales.

Okay.

And promotions.

Okay. There’s a lot that goes into that.

So that’s why I was like, well, there, you know, it goes across the entire conversion copywriting process. And there’s all sorts of things you could dive into with that optimizing the offer, email strategy, I mean, all the things, right? But I I don’t know. I was I guess I was just hoping for feedback.

Yeah.

I mean okay. My notes, and then Shane and Ry, if you wanna add anything, My initial notes are that’s cool. One, because it would actually help you build a lifestyle that although you’ll be very busy from August to November, you’ll not be quite as busy the rest of the year. I mean, holidays happen obviously all the time. There’s always like a president’s day sale or something like that.

So I think it’s cool. You’re right that it covers everything, but you could work through that. I can say that I don’t know anybody who’s the go to person for seasonal sales or for, holiday based campaigns. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

But I if they exist, I haven’t heard of them, and I don’t know if others have. So it does feel like a space you could own. You don’t have it doesn’t mean you have to, like, know everything about email and everything about sales page or anything like that. You would have to know how to talk with your clients and coach them through understanding the difference between selling during Black Friday and selling the rest of the year.

Where your offer would probably be the thing that you’d be working more on, with clients and in a book you write or whatever that thing might be instead of doing a lot of customer research where it’s not evergreen, so you don’t really have to, like, you’ll have to, but you wouldn’t have to know that or be an expert in it.

Ry says seasonal sales, psychology.

Yeah.

You could sell out books on that pretty easily and give cool workshops at e commerce, events in particular.

I don’t think you’d be able to target SAS very well.

So you’d be kind of narrowing down to e commerce, but e commerce isn’t narrow. That’s really, really big. There there are a few e commerce companies out there. So you’d be fine. Ry or Shane, anything you wanna add?

Yeah. I hear a lot too, like, the I’m not an expert, but I think, like, that’s that’s one of the least things to worry about. You you can learn it.

It’s not just dive in, make mistakes, figure it out. You will learn it. I promise. I think for me, it was or what I’m saying is, like, find something you’re passionate about.

I think that’s probably one of the most important things. And, obviously, like, there’s demand, but you can that’s important as well. But I think you have to like what you’re you’re doing. Right?

That’s that’s key.

Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like, like, there’s so many expertise and knowledge gaps within these things that we we tend to think that everything’s figured out. Right? And there are so many gaps here, and there’s so much that is ownable within seasonal sales, right, from the offer creation side. I’ve seen so many different offer formats over the last few days.

Like Kajabi is hitting me up with, like, an upgrade to pro for two grand. Right? It’s not a cheap deal. Right?

And then it renews at, like, four thousand a year. Right? So there’s conversations to be had about how you actually optimize for LTV, right, within seasonal sales? Like, no one’s having that conversation.

And it’s such an important conversation because Add costs are crazy during Black Friday. Right? The cost to acquire a customer during Black Friday or seasonal sales could be higher than other times of the year. Right?

So it’s like there’s a whole blog post, right, or a whole block to have just around how to optimize for LTV while your cost to acquire customer is higher during a seasonal sale. Right? So there’s so much terrain that isn’t owned yet is also really freaking important. So, yeah, I love it.

Yeah. All I would say then is Jessica, if you don’t see any reason, if it doesn’t break easily, like the idea doesn’t break pretty easily when put under a little bit of pressure, such as this conversation, then tell yourself, okay, I own this now, and stop thinking of other things and don’t let other stuff in. Julian, did you wanna add to this conversation?

Okay.

So I had to do a follow-up question to what well, what you said initially Joe and then what Shane brought up because I totally get what you’re saying about, like, I haven’t done it yet, but you can just choose it.

And that makes total sense. And then, but then Shane mentioned, like, oh, pick something that, you know, you know, you’re gonna like doing. And I think that’s where I’m having to disconnect is, like, if I haven’t done it, how do I know that I’m gonna like doing it? And, like, what if I choose something? And then I’m like, I don’t actually doing this.

Yeah. So, yeah, I just wonder if you could speak to that, like, how to give a sense of whether you’re like it or not if you haven’t really done it.

Yeah.

I think that’s a good question.

And then we’ll we’ll go with Chris because you had your hand up after, before.

So I maybe someone else can dive in.

There are definitely moments when I don’t love conversion copywriting. And I’m like I mean, I’m a creative at heart. I’m not a salesperson, like, I’m creative.

And so I like sales. I have learned to like it. I learned to like it because I found things that I like about it.

But I don’t walk around going so glad I’m in sales.

I’ve always been a creative person. So creative copywriting is the thing that probably would have made more sense, except the world didn’t need more creative copywriting.

That’s all anybody was doing was creative copywriting.

So that’s why I didn’t do that.

I knew I would get gold stars from people, and I’m very gold star driven.

So I knew I’d get gold stars from clients if I was able come in and say, here’s how we’re going to increase your conversion rate just by changing your words. So I found the thing that I like about conversion copywriting. I need that reward from clients, and you don’t get that for creativity unless you’re gonna work at a big agency and get awards.

Which wasn’t in the cards either. I lived in Victoria, BC.

There’s no agency there. Now there is, but there wasn’t at the time.

Anybody else wanna wanna attack on or or add any new thought on, liking what you don’t do? Like, what if you don’t like it? Have you Any thoughts? Yeah. Rita.

I wanna know what Randall said. That was exactly what I was gonna bring up. If anyone has an experience from Newport.

And amazing, really, bright humor as well from these podcasty questions. There it is. So did they categorize you?

Cal Newport is, like, I love him.

I will fangirl that man, the end of the earth. But he talks about, which was something that, like, go find your path and do things. I don’t have, like, a huge passion around social ads. That’s not I didn’t, like, wake up one day and go, oh my god. Thanks for god. This is so amazing.

But I I paid attention along the road.

And I found out that when I love working with the people that I love working with, which to prevent it to figure out.

I like making really cool people. It happened to be a lot of just, like, seven and eight figure female founders of online businesses. I like making crap out of money, and we have a lot of fun. And we like talking about private jet problems.

And, like, all of these really crazy things, That fills me up. That’s fun. It’s challenging. I love the mastery of it.

I’m really driven by, like, mastery of things. And so for me, it hasn’t always been, like, I can get confident about anything if I decide to be. And that’s just because I get to get good at it. It’s interesting.

It’s kinda hard. I like doing hard things.

But for me, it’s been more about that. Is that, like, you could put me anywhere and I’ll figure it out. I I could be passing it by running with Donald. They’ll do it like a bad ass.

So, like, but I have that cultivated that makes it over the years. So I think it’s less about dropping into a thing, at least for me, Right? I’m I’m not gonna drop into a thing and be like, oh my god. I found the answer to the, you know, the magic of the universe.

I’m just gonna get really good at it. And then I just, like, keep paying attention for what feels good where I’m having fun, what feels easy, and then just keep iterating along the way. Because in the fourteen years, I’ve been in business I’ve done everything from web designs to JavaScript to analytics and data to etcetera. And it’s just been, like, this huge process of iteration over time.

Really paying attention to what I love and what feels easy. So that’s how I’ve now I’ve done the thing and Cal newport all day long. Amazing amazing beard at at that. I think tackling that in a different way than the, like, go in the woods, find your passion.

The angel can have this thing about it. That kind of thing. Like, I just found that a re his take really realistic and it it landed in my analytical mind really nicely.

I’ve done something, like, similar where we have, like, I feel I do affiliate marketing as well, and I’ve done some affiliate stuff. I’m like, I don’t, like, I like cats they’re great, but, I’d I don’t own a cat. I’m a dog person. I know Joe, you’re you’re a cat fan.

You don’t have to choose.

I have a dog right here right Okay.

I love dogs, but there’s more money in pets. You can there’s less competition. And I always find it helpful to sort of, like, what’s what’s my vision? What am I trying to achieve in life? Right? And then I link that to the broader picture, and that helps.

It’s for that little for you. And there’s other topics. Like, there’s there’s a lot of money to be made in, drones, but, like, drones? What you know, it’s it’s just a it’s a boring bland topic. So I don’t know if that helps anyone at all.

Yeah, I was gonna add something around the not liking what you do, because for me, my, like, thing actually emerged from really disliking something. So I like working with course creators.

So I assumed that meant I had to do live launches.

And I I hated them because I would get, like, sick every time I did a live launch because it was just so much fresher. And then that actually led me to create my evergreen process, day one evergreen.

So I think as well as, like, finding what you love, to find your thing actually, like, finding what you hate and what you don’t like can also inspire you to kind of, you know, like, I’ll hate something change something, make something better kind of vibe.

Making money tends to to make you like things more too. Right? If all of a sudden you’re making money from it, it’s a little easier to digest, I guess, or you can pay for that therapy, right, if you need it?

Like, no matter how much people pay with live launches, like, it just makes them so like, physically sick.

Like, I have to go and update them anymore.

That’s fair. That is fair.

She says that she’s in the middle of a lunch. Cool. Chris, did you wanna go ahead a question earlier?

Yeah.

It’s related to, like, the niche. Right? So I kind of narrowed down to one thing that I want to do message market feed for b to b SaaS. That’s what I actually think I want to do.

But when it comes to the niche, like b to b SaaS, b to c, how do you decide, how do you think about that? Is that something that comes with your one thing? Or is that something that you decide after you decided the one thing or or what?

Do you have one? Do you have to choose a niche? Sometimes you don’t.

And how can you maybe make that If you do have to, if you feel like you have to, instead of that you want to, some of us just want to. I’ve wanted to work with small startups.

Because I like them a lot.

April, Dunvard, wants to work with tech companies because she has always worked with big tech companies other people want to work with a certain kind of group. So there’s the who do you want to work with? And if you don’t want, to. Do you need to niche? You can specialize without meaching, especially if your specialization is narrower.

But that’s my take on it. Only niche if you have to or you really want to.

Anybody else? Yeah. I know Niching is like understood to be the thing to do. But I think we conflate meeching and specialization a lot into one thing, where a specialization is like, here’s what I really, really well.

And it does come up.

I was also thinking in terms of, if I am if I want to own, like, the message market fit should I be the b to b SaaS message market fit guy or the message market fit guy?

Then that’s I’d have the same answer as before.

Like, do you think you need to If you want.

Yeah.

Does it does it help? And are you worried that you’re gonna get somebody who’s like, I’m a course creator. Help me find message market fit. And you’ll be like, I don’t know how, or I don’t care about your business, that kind of thing.

Right? And if you’re like, yeah, there are groups that I don’t want to work with, then Yeah. Then narrow it down and say SaaS. And people always say B2B SaaS, and I struggle so hard to find B2C saaS.

Like, there’s not a lot of b to c SaaS.

I actually worked for one.

Campbell, what did you who did you work for? I work for, a us, there was basically, like, an Instagram, like, promotion thing and was selling, like, influencers or, She’s a business.

Just people on Instagram, but even just, like, normal people who would want to followers or likes.

Spray is always always a little at it.

But, yeah, I’m currently using one.

Are you?

I’m currently using what yeah. It’s a personal business.

I’m in a program where she teach my coach teaches communication. So this is an app called Utley and it helps, like, it it just helps me find the filler words.

It comes on meetings, records the meetings, and then points those Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Cool.

Got it. I’m working for one right now too.

Okay. Wow. It’s, like, everywhere. I guess I only work for b to b set. So it’s, like, it’s hard to imagine.

Okay. Cool. Well, then, fine.

Chris I love the box, Chris.

At it.

David Olgaly there. I’m just I’m staring at those amazing books behind you there.

I do have some feedback on that, the the Nashing down. So I’ll give you an example. We did just that eighty six years ago, where, we offered, GMV services for physicians. And we could have niched down to the different, like, primary care versus cosmetic, but we found it was about solving patient problems.

So by, you know, by just targeting physicians, whether it’s cosmetic or primary care, we could create systems around that. We didn’t have to change things up. But if you go to if if you’re b to c versus b to b, you can’t apply the same systems to both. I think that’s important as well.

Right? Cause you wanna automate as much as possible. Right in the end. So I would take that into consideration as well.

Yeah. A question I like to ask is, like, you know, which boardrooms are actively saying, oh, shit. We have a product market fit problem. Right?

Yeah. I was just thinking about that.

Where is that an active conversation. Right? And different ways to go about it. Right? It could be, you know, a sub niche thing.

Right? Or it can also be a product or company maturity thing, right, year zero to one Right? Or a repositioning once they realize they have a problem, you know, five years down the road and things have cooled off. So it’s like there could be a whole other industry to own of repositioning right or re product market bidding once you realize, oh, that wasn’t quite it.

We’ve kinda hit a ceiling here and nothing’s budging. So, yeah, just a different way to view it.

Oh, thanks.

Cool. Who was up next with another question? Hands go down, and that always sucks. Who was after Jillian before? Rita, your hand, was up, but was at to comment?

Okay. Rita, you were up, and then Elias.

Okay. So my question is it’s a little bit it’s a little alphabet, so this will be like a fun a fun thing to talk I have a thing, that is successful and lovely. And but it feels like a really complex thing to talk about. And so I always, if I’m in the right room with the right people, so this may not actually be a problem, it is never an issue to talk about because I’ll say, oh, I do this thing and they’re like, Excuse me.

You do what? Let’s talk about this more. So I know, like, when it lands with the right people, it’s good. And so essentially, like, I do social ads for customer acquisition.

Or my agency does, but it sounds really obnoxious. There’s a whole lovely group of people who is working right now doing some of the stuff.

And and we focus on that customer acquisition, like, bringing in new customers into online sourcing program businesses at break even or better. So we like to do break even funnels. Port note we don’t like to. We’re just really good at it and it’s like useful.

So that that is what we said, sir, then we do do all the launch and stuff as well, and all of the support that goes with from an online business and with programs and traders, but that’s not. Right? Like, that’s the other stuff.

But what we that’s really what we do specialize in, and I think I think it’s our special sauce too because it’s something that’s quite different than what a lot of social ad companies do.

And so it’s just it’s full of jargon y words, like customer acquisition.

Breakevens, things like that.

But when I say, like, Facebook ads and tunnels, right, that positions us in the Russell Brunkins of the world that positions us in, like, some other spaces that we don’t necessarily fit in.

Yeah. So I guess some thoughts, some questions, anything that would kind of help. Like, I’m just really looking to simplify that so that people really understand.

Or does it matter? Because when I’m in rooms with the people that understand that, they don’t have questions other than can we get on a call and talk about numbers?

Right?

So Yeah.

So what do they get excited about? Because break even doesn’t sound exciting. To me. What’s exciting?

Really? I can break it even. I get mad at ads all the time. I’m like, how can what am I doing here?

Like, I don’t understand the business model I don’t know why we keep running.

So that’s confusing.

But see, I think that’s why breakeven would be exciting because you’re like, could you imagine actually running out and not being the thumb because they actually bring you just as much money and or profit on the front end, and then you have all this luxury in the back end to sell your back end offers. Right? Because your front end’s actually paying for itself.

And so require a back end. Yeah.

So the, like, depending the vast majority. Yeah. I’ve got one client that doesn’t have a back end offer.

That’s fine, but most people, they need to have some sort of front end and then have like that basically whatever their main core offer is on the back end, for that to work well. And, yeah, because that’s true, breakeven isn’t cute.

Which is the part where they get excited though? Is it, like, at what point?

It is that. It’s usually like when we talk about, like, how can we actually design a system that builds brings customers onto your list and actually has them paid for while they land there because you’ve got it removes cash flow problems from the business, which is especially obviously quite trendy. From there right now, as people don’t want to, you know, outflow tens of thousands of dollars like out of your thing on lunches where everyone gets really ill putting out technically hundreds of thousands of dollars for some lunches and then they’re waiting for that to come back. So in this particular climate, kind of having something that cash flows within twenty four to forty eight hours, like when it’s working, obviously, like, this isn’t magic.

That when it’s when all the fun was set up and everything’s going, they actually get cash flow back into the business really quickly.

It’s really like, lovely for them. And then they also all the optimization and testing that happens to get people to then move into core offers and then few bigger offers in the back. And there’s just a lot more grace there because they don’t have all of this money and capital problems sitting out there and ask.

Stacy, do you have a question or do you have something to add to what reason?

I have I have a question. Yeah. What’s the common denominator between these clients?

They’re all part of the business or program and course creators.

Okay.

And so usually, like, a million plus in in revenue, like a lot of them around.

So they’ve already been in business for a few years and have a certain list or whatever. I mean, what yep. So given then, it seems like the thing to do. I don’t think that there’s a problem with using, insider language when you’re targeting an insider group of people. This is, you know, my my opinion, obviously, but because I think that that can filter out customers that are not best fit customers for you.

You you know, I I do something what I I mean, I call it engineering ejection. I want the people who are not a good fit for me to fall off. I don’t wanna deal with him at all because Right. Why? You know? That’s a waste of my time and energy and resources.

So, I think insider language can be a great way to do that. But if you add something to it, to to sort of couch that that’s the type of audience that you’re targeting, you know, that we work with with with, you know, course creators who are expert at blah blah, you know, show that you’re targeting someone who has expertise in paid social advertising.

In other words, the that you’re that that something to label them as insiders. I don’t know what those words are right now because I don’t have enough information, but did does that make sense at all?

Yeah. I think that makes sense when it comes to, like, the next step for me at least, which is, like, if Sounds to me, like, we’re still trying to figure out the part before that, which is like this break even or better idea ish.

Is that accurate Rita?

Yeah. It’s kind of the because I I agree with, like, Stacy, well, like, when it when I’m having a one on one conversation, when I’m, like, talking about that piece or, like, having a sales call or an accept call or what have you, that part’s really easy, right, to, like, because I’ve got a diagnostic thing that we go through and all of that stuff. Definitely, like and that’s exactly what we do is, like, we wanna screen out a lot of people, like, if someone hasn’t run ads before they’re usually not a really good fit for us, things like that. Like, I want them to have, like, experience the pain.

And I want people to hate ads a little bit. Like, those are usually people, that are fun to work with. And But then, like, that one step away from those people, right? Like, when we’re talking to, like, or do I even need to talk for general audience?

Most of the marketing that I’ve done has been a relationship marketing, like, really thoughtful relationship funnels, around, like, masterminds teaching in people’s groups, like things like that, audience aggregators of my ideal client.

So I’ve never done anything that would be like I don’t know. I usually get, like, you know, after someone’s mastermind. Right? They’re like, oh, I’m gonna do mastermind and they’re like, that’s where I get my people from.

There’s always been like the secret backdoor.

What I do requires an awful lot of trust as well. And so there’s a lot of trust transfer that comes with that, which has always made sales really easy for me.

We do that with Google ads. Like, there’s gonna be keywords that I know, just off the keyword, what’s the stage of awareness is. Right? And if it the more product aware or late late solution aware.

I know, hey, that’s that’s gonna be a quick win, but then the other ones we’re gonna have to nurture. So maybe like, I get it depends, right, on the stage of awareness and just tweak the copy based off that. Even if you want it, but then is it gonna take longer to qualify them get them to that point. Right?

Then you’re gonna have to have a whole system, so to speak, set up. Right?

So Uh-huh.

So we’re really talking about are we talking about profitable ad funnels or is there some what I am just and I’m and I’m trying to figure out, like, okay, what would your what’s your book about? Like, if you were to write a book, Rita, what is it about? What are you saying. Don’t worry about the work of it, but what is it about?

Good question.

I could try to come up from them, like, what would be the thing?

Like, potentially profitable ad funnel, Maybe.

It just it really feels hard to simplify all the things that, you know, we all do.

But but that’s really like the core of it. It’s just that people need new customers and we help them get those profitably. Like, that really is the core of it And when people are coming to us that, like, the big pain point is, like, I’ve tried to spend money on them. They’re expensive, which I think is relative.

Right? They’re only expensive if they don’t break they don’t make money, enough money. And when they do make money, they’re not expensive at all. So it’s you know, there there’s no pieces to it.

But they’re really just coming out of Vegas. I need more inflow. I need more awareness.

I need more leads. The back end of the business works. Like, we don’t work with people that don’t have a back end. Like, if they don’t have product market fit, if they don’t have really good sales records, like, if they don’t have really great customer service and excellent reviews, like, we don’t usually touch them.

They won’t let us see inside the course, all that kind of stuff. So that part is done, and we’re just really helping them leverage their time. These are usually people that have been like creating content forever and really want to, like, simplify that a bit. Right?

Take a little bit of the stress off themselves.

Are you helping them prove ROI?

Is that essentially what you’re doing? Do they have do they know their numbers going into it? And then you have a system to help like, they’re running ads, but they don’t know what’s working because they don’t have the system in place to prove ROI. And then you help them implement that?

Or I would say, like, rarely did I have that?

I think you’ve had, like, one. It’s amazing. Just so everybody knows.

Everybody knows.

A million dollar business. I’m like, who’s measuring what?

Nobody says? Nobody knows. Nobody knows anything in this world is crazy.

So illuminating. They’ll be like, it’s okay. And we can all be secretly a mess behind the scenes.

But but you help them set that up as well.

Like, yeah, like, we we we take care of all of, like, the measures of the funnel tracking so that they get really clear, transparency on it and also get, like, a level of competency and and control around being the well, the levers we’re pulling.

Right? This is how you identify constraints and attack them with different strategies and optimizations and things like that. So we’ve really We just they feel like a lot more empowered because it’s like this is what you do. This is how you fix it because obviously like there’s these things take maintenance all the time with optimization and testing.

So, yeah, like, lots of that, lots of measurement, and helping them understand how it all works. Because a lot of them just because, like, in the heyday of, like, course and program creators, the modules are still kinda there. But the the margins are so big that a lot of them didn’t even have to worry about it. Right?

They were just throwing money at lead gen. Like, it was just going out of style. And they just didn’t have the margins that they had to worry about that as much, and that’s definitely become something we’ve seen in the last couple of years where people are talking about that a lot more. That they actually they can’t just lead gen to lead gen.

They actually need to lead gen and prove it. Right? Because they just don’t have the cash flow that they used to. They’re not sensitive to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, they’re definitely, like, no one used to talk about cash flow on calls and now they’re now people are talking about that.

Because it’s getting more expensive advertising. They’re like, they could get away with it because of the high ticket item. And now they’re like, oh, what’s going on?

And they’re like See, I wouldn’t I see that as much.

I will I will always I will not I do it on platform CPMs and impression costs. I’m not necessarily more. Other than COVID Haiti, when we were all on our phones and it needs so many to make so much inventory, it was, like, ridiculous. Like, outside of those times, the CPMs, I was just, like, checking all the VPN this morning, right, for everybody and, like, even just good, like, Black Friday tomorrow, it’ll go up tomorrow. But relatively speaking to, like, pre covid or, like, last year?

No. No. Like, not not in our verticals anyway. Obviously, it’s a very small part of the internet, but Yeah.

So I guess, yeah. That’s that’s the like, how do we talk about this to people that might be a good fit as Shane like a little bit more problem aware potentially, a little bit earlier stage.

Because in the in the going out bigger and wider and talking to more people, I feel like we would need to be there, or do we just say like a whole tool around this, like, to be honest?

If that helps. Like, ROI Connector literally solving this problem with Google ads because no everybody’s advertising, but no one knows if they’re making money. And then so we take into account gross margin.

And that was our cell. Like, as soon as you you explain to them, like, the difference between, like, in our space, it’s cost per lead. It’s not cost per acquisition. You have to go a layer back.

And then you have to take into gross margin. Everyone optimizes their own return on ad spend. It’s not real ROI. And as soon as you, like, I would pull up the Google screen and say, they define this as ROI, but it’s not.

Like, you’re you could still lose money and then their eyes light up. Right? They’re like, oh, crap. And then then you sell them a solution.

Which is the tracking. Right? And then we book it up to Google ads. I find that works.

But then there’s pressure too. Right? Because then you gotta You gotta maintain that. Right? Is there any met something curious about, is there any metrics that, the clients responsible for, though?

Like, in our space, it’s it’s, closing ratio. Like, we can do everything right, but if their closing ratio is really crappy, they’re gonna lose money. So we have to work with them on consult of selling and help them build that up. Do you find anything similar in your space?

We do for the selling piece. Like, if they, like, we have some people that do sales, some people that don’t, and they just, like, straight through off a one time sales page. And so we do the opt like, we do all the funnel optimizations that they add touch. So if there’s any, you know, any sales pages upsell, the email sequences, all of that kind of stuff.

We work on improving that because most of them don’t have a very mature most of them don’t even have an experimentation.

Program within their businesses let alone a mature one. So they usually do that really poorly, so we come in and help them with that. So we’re basically kind of iterating more profit into the business. For them over time. And then we have we just we have referral partners for, for selling and things like that. We don’t hang out there, but we do send people off there for for folks that are having struggles with that on their teams.

Sounds like a cool you guys sounds like a really cool service.

You’re offering us a lot of value.

We decided it’s fun.

Yeah. Exactly. Design it’s fun, and then it is.

We decided it’s fun. Well, there’s endless challenges. To it. Right? And and it fits, like, my natural tendencies are, like, I used to be a social worker before I is it this?

I don’t know how that’ll happen. But the, like, I love the relationship part of things, but then I also went to university for data analytics and microbiology and all sciencey stuff. So it’s like the data and the people and the, you know, all of the empathy, all, like, it’s just like this neat little combo of, like, way my brain was made to work, and it just happens to work really well for ads and marketing.

So Isn’t it funny when you show people positive marketing or why they get happy?

It’s so crazy.

But it’s so rare.

You’re like, really That’s why.

I played because it’s like a white plate.

It’s mind blowing in.

Think about like Well, in fact, should be able to run a spreadsheet for people and just show them really simply, like, inputs here, outputs here, understanding, like, all of that stuff.

And then to go, oh, this isn’t actually that hard. And then and then being able to, like, empower them to focus on the, like, the things they have the most control over because certain things like CPMs, Right? While we have some limited control over that, we we don’t ultimately, you know, control audience and auction and all those things. So it’s it’s really cool to be able to say, like, let’s focus here. This is where you actually most impact.

And Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark, good for you. Take it for you.

We’re going, like, ten million though. That’s a, like, that’s a broad stroke. Ten million.

Like, you work with the life coach school.

No.

We do. Yeah. I work with work with school. Yeah.

I don’t know where I saw as you were talking.

I was listening. Don’t get me wrong, but, like, you had front end acquisition as a line. I’m trying to think of, like, and once you’re a LinkedIn profile, and the line is paid social marketing funnels customer acquisition. So I feel like I don’t know. And I noticed in the interest of time, is there would owning front end acquisition for ten million dollar course businesses work or training businesses or coaching businesses or whatever that thing is? Let’s break it. Does it not work at all, Rita?

No. It does, like, most of our our best humans, like, the often start with them between one and three million and then, like, our core group is between ten and twenty or ten and fifty, pardon me, million.

You can say profitable, friends hand acquisition profitable, whatever.

I love profitable. I love profitable.

Okay. That gets me something to work with. I don’t wanna get her on more. I’ll need to go in the woods and quietly have some thought. Yeah.

Okay. Good.

Thank you, everybody.

If anybody else also, it’s mastermindy time. So while my dog barks in the background at the mailman, Feel free to chime in and chat with anything that you’re thinking that can help Rita or anyone. Elias, do you wanna go next?

Yeah. If anybody doesn’t wanna follow-up on Reader’s reach out as question.

Oh, yeah. I’d love to.

Go for it.

Alright. So, my question is kind of a follow-up on what Chris asked about, you know, choosing a nation. Making it our own. So, my question is, what exactly is expected of us when we select an issue?

Let’s say we we figure out that this is this is what we we we like the most in the conversion governing process. And then we find out that there are dozens of other copywriters doing the exact same thing. So, how do Are we expected to, you know, bring something unique in that in that specific niche as well? Because so what happened today is, me and Chris, we hopped on a call today, and we both realized that both of our, thing is message market fit.

So you’re both interested in, you know, nailing that. So then that got me thinking.

Is it is it expected of us that alright. Now that I’ve I know that message market spin is my thing. I’m expected to, you know, give it a spin that nobody else ever has.

Not necessarily. I mean, the spin is kind of you and what you bring there. Like, they are buying into you and likability and all of those persuasive back or does that go on?

It’s it’s kind of like, you know, competition’s good. It means that someone else is doing marketing for you. And, like, you can, you can leverage that too.

So I think, like, so a lot of people are doing it. I didn’t invent the work behind conversion copywriting, direct response, copywriters have done everything that I do since forever. It’s just we added a little more VOC.

If there is something we changed, it’s that, and then we just plunked it over in the tech world, which doesn’t use direct response, like it should still to this day, sadly.

So, no. You don’t have to it doesn’t have to be unique.

It’s good if more people are trying to do similar things. It’s good for marketing. It’s easier to get that. And it probably means that the world is looking for those things. The reason that you’ve landed on message market fit because the world is frustrated with message to market fit. If that’s not the reason, then it’s worth unpacking.

But I’m gonna guess here that that’s the reason. The uniqueness is how you go about it, and that might You can start by just saying, I own this. So what if Chris owns it too? I own this.

And then figure out how you own it and be a thought leader. And as you do that, you’ll very likely stumble upon your way of doing it. It’ll be some research you come across changes something with how you’re thinking. And now you’re like, whoa, I need to add this to my process or whoa, I actually, like, this is a more narrow view of message mark could fit.

And this is what I’m finding that I’m owing as you go. So competition is good. Don’t worry about it. Yeah.

You know, it’s the process. Right? It’s it’s your it’s how you solve their problem. It’s like, do your conversion copywriting is there’s a there’s a three step process. Right? It’s a proven process. Is it three or five now?

I think we’ve added to right?

Seven now?

The seven? No. Is this still three?

The core is three.

Okay.

Yes.

But I’ve seen people try to change that and build off that, but everyone reverts like, even when people call conversion copywriting, it’s still no. Like, it’s a three step process. Here’s what you do, and people try to change it. But that’s an opportunity, like, even if it’s competitive, like, say Chris Christopher’s in there.

It’s like, what’s he doing? No. Here’s my process, my five step or three step, and it’s gonna get better results than the competition. Right?

Because then it’s like an apples to oranges comparison, if that helps.

Yeah. Yeah.

And make it into a nice graphic and do all the other stuff.

And how you bring into life in your authority building. Do you have a more engaging newsletter that talks to certain people in different ways? When you get on a podcast, how do people hear you? Like, it’ll turn into because we’re all individual personalities. Your personality matters who you show up as is gonna be a big part of why people choose to listen to you eventually buy your book, invite you on stages, things like that. Yeah.

Correct me, if I’m wrong, you know, it’s like market sophistication as well. Right? If you focus on all of these credibility boosters and trust, like, everyone has it, like, as seen on and you know, recommended by, but it’s that’s an opportunity for you to sell your process and then leverage all of this trust and, like, ability to reinforce that. Right, why it’s better than the competition. That’s your opportunity. Right?

That’s what I would do.

Yeah. Agreed.

Yeah. Cool.

Alright.

Johnson’s note taker just told us there’s only a few minutes left in this meeting. I can go over for those who are stuck So don’t worry about it if you’re like, I need to talk more about this.

Any other questions?

Who would like to oh, wait. Esther Grace, go ahead and then we’ll do Stacy, and then Randall.

I just had one question.

So how much should the products or productize services or services you want to sell in the future, influence what we choose or sort of one thing. Like, if someone is deciding to be a messaging expert, for instance, that already kind of boxes it into. You kind of have to work with the companies one on one to figure out their messaging.

So that’s just one thought I wanted to ask you.

I wouldn’t worry too much about that yet.

That’s, like, it’s it’s quite execution level. So try to stay strategy level for now, so up. What what am I going to own? And then out of that, you’ll start to be able to shape what that is, but I wouldn’t let execution influence strategy start with the strategy, the the the what you’re going to own, then you can get into how that is brought to life in your marketing and in the products that you sell. Is that help, Esther Grace?

Yes. That helps. Yeah.

It it will mean that. I mean, in a lot of cases, like so for me, I don’t look at product type services as, like, strategic offerings. I’m like, practice services are a really great way to grab some cash when you want cash. Or if you’re like, hey, I only wanna work like, a week in the summer, like, at for the four summer months, I’m gonna put in a max of a week of, like, working with clients.

So I might sell a VIP week. But that’s not strategic. That’s just like reacting to what I want in life. It’s not going to shape a roadmap necessarily.

A recommendations report, if you’re a messaging analyst, you are gonna have a hard time escaping, delivering messaging reports. Like, you’re gonna have to do it versus being someone who comes in and focuses only on editing. They’ll never have to worry about a recommendations report. They’ll just, like, do the work.

So but think about that later. Unless, it’s so critical to you that you never do a messaging recommendations report, in which case I’d say, well, then don’t do message strategy. Like, you won’t want to be involved in that. But you’ll already know if you, like, hate doing something, And I think that will, like, automatically filter up the things that would require that you do that.

And if it doesn’t, we’ll we’ll get there. But mean, I think that’s that’ll be an edge case. Stacy?

Yes. Okay.

I wanted to say something instead of I’ve just been sitting and commenting on everybody else and not talked about myself. So, I am not, don’t have my thoughts super well organized, so I’m gonna ramble a little bit. But my primary goal right now is has to do with my software company, which I definitely know that I want to make that the software, the Eai software for marketing professionals.

Okay.

So that I’m absolutely certain of. When I’m kind of not certain of is how I’m gonna interweave doing that with maintaining my my personal brand.

I do I’m the thing that I’m known for is doing all the things. I’m a polymath, so I I am an ex expert in many things. I have I have tons of authority in multiple areas. I have tons of original intellectual property, frameworks, I have written a book.

I’ve, you know, got lots of marquee clients great reviews, all all that stuff. I already have, like, the, you know, celebrity status thing, but because I am a polymath and do many different things. I’ve never been known for one thing other than doing all the things. Okay.

So my my client My personal client lifetime value is, you know, six to seven figures per client.

In tech, minimum project size is usually a hundred thousand. Right now, I’ve the the for the past year, I’ve been mostly focusing on my software. And then I’ll do, like, a twenty or thirty thousand dollar copywriting or digital project every month or other month kind of interspersed with that. So I already have everything all productized standardized pricing for my copywriting services.

All that stuff. So I I guess I’m just wondering, you know, do I can I can I say both things at once, or do I just need to focus on being the software company or marketing festivals for now while I’m growing that? And I should mention also that my my litmus test for the company was I started it just with, like, ten people were the first customers. And I said, okay.

If I can get this to a hundred people paying a hundred bucks a month while it’s in beta with no marketing and no giving them anything for referring other people simply by word-of-mouth because people are telling other people because they really love it. Then I know that I have something here, and that’s where I am now. So I’ve just hit a a hundred customers. So I have ten thou ten k MRR right now.

My next goal is to get to a hundred k MRR. So that’s where I am open to whatever anybody wants to say.

To celebrate Good for you.

Yeah. That is. That’s amazing.

That is awesome.

Awesome for yourself in particular.

Good for you.

I will share this story with you and, hopefully, it will tell you what my answer for that question is then we can go around and share.

I’ve probably told this before because I’ll never forget this. I was in a mastermind with Nathan Berry, founder of ConvertKit, before when ConvertKit was in its earliest stages.

He was known for his, book called Authority, and, he was a designer. He did, like, design stuff.

So we knew each other for a couple years. And we were in this mastermind, and he had just launched ConvertKit. It was maybe a year old. It wasn’t making any money wasn’t promoting it yet.

And we were sitting around in this little, like, session in Las Vegas, the mastermind participants, And someone said to him, Nathan, when are you gonna launch your authority course next? And he said, I’m never launching it again. And we’re all like, what are you talking about? It pulls in, like, a hundred grand every time you do it?

What are you talking about? Of course, you’re going to? And he said, no, I’m all in on ConvertKit.

And now it’s worth nearly a billion dollars.

I don’t think you can do more than one thing at a time successfully.

You you can’t Elon Musk maybe.

But then it fucks with you clearly.

So you can’t do more than one thing without being absolute wild exception. Now Stacy, you might be an absolute wild exception. I wouldn’t wanna put my money on being the absolute wild exception though.

I would say if Well, I will say I I am an exception in to to some degree.

And and I have founded or cofounded nine companies.

So just to, you know, six, seven, and and eight figure just everything you said, and I think that’s wonderful.

I’m saying the people who get the most out of the thing focus on the thing. So if you can afford to and, obviously, Nathan had to go through a lot of, hey, ups and challenges along the way. He’s like, I wish I had taken out a loan back when I was making a hundred grand every time I did a launch because now I could use that loan, but the bank give me a loan because I have this freaking startup and they don’t think that ten thousand MRR is anything to write home about. So I get there will be a hard times.

But you ask the question for a reason. I think your resistance is that you’re a polymath, and you have seen success with doing lots of things. You’re like, why can’t I keep doing lots of things. And the world will tell you whether you can or whether you can, but you asked the question, and I think that’s a big part of it.

I think a part of you knows you’re going to have to focus or something has to change that’s not having to do directly with focusing. If I were you, you have money in the bank and you can afford it and you’ve got good signals that your software is bad ass and we’re in an age of AI.

The only thing stopping you is that you’re good at lots of things, and that could be the stumbling point. Yeah.

And my and my personal, my real, you know, underlying goal is that I do wanna I’ve never I haven’t built a nine figure business yet, so that’s my my thing that I wanna do. So Yeah.

Are you involved in these other businesses, or have you sort of delegated it off, created your system?

That that’s been over a number of years. I I don’t there’s one that I’m still loosely involved with, but I’m not active in the company. So, no. I don’t have any demands on my time for any of those other things.

Yeah. Sounds like you and I. I’m I’m in the same boat, like, a bunch of different stuff going. Like, I lucked out in a lot of way where I just I created systems and delegated and and stepped back.

But it’s tough. Right? I think is, like, we’re in our heart. We’re entrepreneurs. Right? And we we have bright and shiny.

See opportunity. We go after it, but that’s the trap. Right? Lack of focus as well.

Right? So I’ve been there. I hear you.

Cool. Alright. Who was up next? A Randall, you were up next. Yeah.

Thanks. So I am going to, pick landing pages. I guess, persuasion for landing pages.

Right.

And I’m working my way through, ten x again.

And, I so I guess and the other things I’m working on are, are the persuasion, big biography that, Vry helped me put together. So you know, getting the background work on that. I guess one of the things I’d be looking for somebody else is also thinking landing pages is, a copy buddy for the letter from the second module.

So if anybody remembers that exercise, I think, What did you you had a different name for it, but you took the letter from admin at Find Network?

Yeah. Exactly. Yep. The letter. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I guess the challenge for me is that I am still full time, with this start up. And I I think I can you know, put together my framework, make some tweaks and do some more landing page work for this company for now. And then it’s just a matter of timing and what I decide to do in twenty twenty four.

But, but I’m thinking that, you know, I I guess I go from being an employee to a contractor with this company as I’m building more clients or perhaps even before. So I’m I’m in position to, Yeah. Build that authority. That’s gonna be difficult to do, you know, while working for, the start of what dare I say, some whimsical moments from leadership.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool.

And as we go, it might be like, is this a situation where you can own the entirety of persuasive landing pages, or is it like persuasive landing pages for x, x grade or whatever that I mean.

I’m thinking tech for now, but, Yeah.

That’s The early stage, is it like series b?

Do you have, like, do you is there a group you like to I like series b? I like working with series be tech companies. That’s why I mentioned them.

There’s just something different going on there. So it might be worth just, like, thinking through.

Yeah.

Because the problem is Nice. There’s a lot of work for me to do still, but That’s cool though.

And you were looking for a copy buddy, someone to review your letter?

Yes.

If somebody else is thinking about landing pages, that’d that’d be great or if somebody just wants to take a look.

You know, different case.

So, yeah, copy feedback.

Alright.

Is it paid or organic traffic?

What’s that?

Is it paid or organic traffic like landing pages?

Well, this is relatively new for me. So, I’m I’m I’m an aspiring monomath unlike Stasis.

Abby, did you put up your hand to look at the letter? Oh, wait. Sorry. You’re just on mute. Sorry.

Sorry. I said I’d be really happy to go over it. I’m pretty harsh.

Nice.

That’s great.

That’s great. I’ve got a a deep masochistic street. So that sounds great.

Yeah.

I’d be I’d be I’d be really happy to go over it.

Give me give me a week, Abby, but that’s awesome. Thank you.

Excellent. Sweet. Thanks. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Randall.

Alafaya ish.

I think that’s right. Isn’t it? No.

It’s Olivia. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. I think it’ll be easier easier for you because my nine my name like, all these script apps transcribe visit Olivia.

So it’s very similar to you guys.

It sounds like Olivia. Okay. Okay. That helps. Yeah. Thanks.

So I just wanted to get, like, all your great greens on what I’ve been thinking and what what what I think the setback is.

So as I mentioned earlier, I want to own humor copywriting.

And for now, I wanna get started with the funnels and course creator space.

Now what I, like, the last time the questions Stacy asked is, like, how how do you communicate the end benefit? And then I I I read something really interesting with stick with me is when humor fades away when someone is exposed to the joke, like, more than one time. And I was thinking it’s this similar with messaging. Like, when when the ten k dream was launched, like, everybody wanted that. But now, it it seems like a red flags.

Like, maybe someone would be genuine, but whenever we see someone saying, oh, I’ll, like, make you ten k in a month or so. Unless that person has public civil rights of your authority, it seems like a red flag now because everyone seems to be talking about that.

So I I kind of am thinking that I want to use humor in a way to say that whatever messaging you’ve been sharing, it will it will it will stand out because it will not be set in a in a it will be set in a different way. I wanna add an example to that in the chat.

Okay. Great. I read that to myself. Sorry.

No problem. So the idea is, like, Like, then can I, like, own it? My question is, is it is it that big that I can go and say, okay. Like, can I make an entire business out of saying that?

Okay. I’m and then what are what are people who say that? Okay. My business is a US business, and I cannot like, how do I tackle that objection?

Because humor doesn’t only mean that, okay, I cannot work with serious business. It actually just means that we have a different take on what you’ve been saying till date.

Oh, sorry.

No. No. And something that I, like, I I love comedy, and, I think this is a a really cool area to go into.

But way back when I was, like, researching about the psychology of comedy and something that came up, and it just feels relevant to what you were saying.

Is that, a key component of comedy is, and and what makes something funny is surprise. It’s it’s it’s the setup, and and the punch line is a surprise. It’s it’s leading in one direction, and then it goes another, and that tickles our brains and makes us stuff. So if you, you know, you you’re talking about how do you position it as something that, companies need, I mean, it’s it’s and and it makes you stand out.

I mean, that’s exactly what comedy does. It it’s a surprising way of presenting something, that people haven’t expected. So if you and there’s, I mean, I think there’s studies out there that that support this. So there’s a there’s a ton of content you could you could put out there around that that helps your leads understand why comedy would help you, help them make more money?

Is is that what it’s about making? Is that the ultimate goal, like, using comedy in your copy is gonna lead to more conversions and that’s gonna lead to more sales. That’s the is it? Okay.

Yes. That is and and to my surprise, like, I was going through some reports recently, and it said that ninety five percent of consumers ask brands to be funny but only five percent of brands meet that need.

So there’s, like, the this nine sorry.

Data to support this? Like, to support it? Yes.

Yes. Yes.

And, like, there there are people reporting more sales through humor, and there are also reports on that. I’ve actually included one of one of the reports in my retread as well. So I know there is a huge gap But I’m just curious that why aren’t brands doing that? Like, if there’s so much need, like, what’s what’s stopping them and Are there any objections? Like, are people saying I need that? Versus they don’t need that, but they just see say that they need that?

Like They don’t know.

Marketers aren’t funny though. Like, marketers aren’t funny, and most brands aren’t funny, and people reviewing copy aren’t funny. So it’s, like, it’s clear why it’s not getting out there. When you try to be funny, it usually backfires on you or falls flat.

And everyone’s, like, that was awkward. So I think that’s part of it. But I do think further what John said, I don’t know that funny has to be the thing because it’s scary. Because you’re like, but will it fall?

Like, everything. There’s a reason most of us will never get on stage until a joke.

It’s intimidating.

So it’s one thing to say, okay. You can outsource that to me. But I feel like the surprising angle is potentially more interesting, more evergreen, bigger opportunities to scale that with cool companies and it might also force you outside of just comedy. Leanna Patch has been a comedy copywriter for several years and maybe more to come, but it does feel like to me, I’m like, well, the surprising there’s also other ways to be surprising that’s still emotional.

Like, the surprise of a tearful email, not saying that, not saying melodrama or anything, but, like, there are there are lots of ways to be surprising that you could help companies explore for those who are like, humor’s not our gem. Like, we’re saved the children.

We’re not going to be using humor at any point, obviously. And you could say, well, they’re not my audience then, but this is just an example.

Is there another way to be surprising that you could unlock for them because that could be interesting. And secondly, I will add before I let others talk because I’m talking to a blue star. Doesn’t need to convert. When we think about the whole part, the whole process of building a customer through marketing, The pieces you add on to make that customer come to life to transition a person into a customer.

Emotion happens along there and it doesn’t have to be the final step. It can be at different parts in that. It can be top of funnel. It can be middle, and sure it can be bottom.

But I wouldn’t be in a rush to tie it to conversion. It’s a happy outcome if you get a conversion.

But I don’t know that you have to focus on that sort of growth. It could be growth really nicely at top of funnel as well.

But I don’t enjoy top of funnel. I’ve tried that, and I really love the sales part. I’m good at that. Like, I’m good when it comes to money and making money.

This is I I’ve yet to test if humor helps there. Like, I’ve not worked like, I’m currently working on the sales page, and I will be testing it on that. To see how well it lands.

But when when I was going through some of Liana’s work, and I was just, like, her recent, ecom project, And what I’ve realized is humor doesn’t necessarily need to be jokes and copy. It just needs to be, like, you know, some elements and fragments of comedy. And sometimes it’s not even funny. It’s just how well it because as the more I’m studying comedy, I’m seeing how well aligned it is with conversion copy principles.

It just adds that screen writing part, like, I think, which even why it does, like, it it it just adds to that. And screenwriting has humor in it.

In some forms.

So I’ll share some very brief experience here, because I love infusing comedy. And also the resistance points that I anticipate and or have heard over the years, right, is like it’s too much of a departure from our brand voice. Right? And the second you start trying to infiltrate such a sacred thing that feels so static there’s naturally gonna be resistance.

And I know you just had, like, you’re not into top funnel. I’ve had so much fun infusing comedy Top funnel, which are isolated tests. Right? Like, you’re gonna get very little pushback of saying can we test this ad set.

Right? And I remember the best performing comedy piece I wrote was so isolatable. It was like a two minute or Yeah. We created three versions of it.

Sixty seconds, ninety seconds or two minutes, and it was a total spoof on the whole, like, my father was a farmer and a father before he. Right? And it was, like, a riff on one of those, like, old school commercials before that industry. Right?

And it was their best performing ad for months. And, of course, it’s tied to ROI, right, because you’re measuring all the metrics from that ad set.

So isolatable. Right? They don’t need to change their brand voice, their tone, all the things.

Another place to test if that’s very isolatable. Right? Like, emails. Right? I think, like, over our launches, like, even with Joe, right, we’ve had a few that were, like, outliers from the traditional copy Hackard’s voice. Right? And it was easy enough to just put it in there without changing the tone of everything.

So that would be my recommendation to overcome resistance is just have them in isolatable areas where it doesn’t feel like it takes over the brand voice as a whole?

And what are your thoughts on, like, working with brands who has like, poo pourri is coming to my exam my my mind who have some sort of, like, fun element included, and then because what I, in my research, like, currently last week, ever since I’ve been thinking about re threat, is that human writers are very scarce.

Because half of them are taken by television. And then, like, in marketing, why actually that that gap is there as Joe mentioned? Because The very scarce, and I’m not saying I’m great at it. I also be learning at it as I’ll build the expertise, but it’s just I’m inclined towards it.

So I’m just thinking, will there be a very small market if I only target brands that are already fun?

I mean, smaller, right, than if you were able to create, like, state or test for brands that were, like, humor curious. Right? You definitely don’t wanna have, like, you know, companies that are gonna have folded arm refusal every time you bring it up. Right? They’re to be some degree of openness for that sales cycle to even be worth your time.

But yeah, like e comm startups could be really interesting. Right? When you look at the track record of companies that launched brand off of bunny videos, one of my good friends, like, launched an eight figure ecomm brand. I think it was, like, twenty sixteen dollar dollar shave club, dollar something club and, like, yeah, dollar dollar beard club.

Sorry. It was the spoof on dollar shave club, so dollar beard club. Right? And that started with a funny video.

Right? Like, there was no brand. Nothing. They shot this video. It went viral because it was funny.

And then they’re like, oh, fuck. We have a fulfillment problem. Like, how am I gonna get all this, like, beard oil to people?

So, yeah, I think, like, where are people gonna be most open to the conversation? I think ecomm startups, right, you said, like, poopery? Was that the name of it?

Poopery. Yeah.

Squatty potty. Right? Like, all these e com startups, like, exploded, right, off of funny. Yeah. Exactly.

But let let’s take it easy on all these. We’ve named two. So there are not that many brands out there that are willing to go all in on comedy, which is, again, for me, that’s a that’s a pause.

I I would pause before saying, I’m the comedy copywriter.

I think that this is the kind of thing where you scale back and say, like, what’s the, but what is it? Like, either what’s really good about comedy and then figure that out.

Or what’s like the outcome of comedy? Are you relatable brands?

Are you a emotion? Like, what else is it? I vote I I wouldn’t if I were I wouldn’t go all in on comedy. I would find a way to make comedy what you deliver, but not call it that.

I wanna add something. Can I?

Every yeah, please.

If you suppose you want to own conversion comedy, first of all, you have the issue of proving that that’s a viable thing. Right? So I think what you have is an opportunity to AB test something with comedy and something without comedy and see if, in fact, the comedy does give it a lift in which case, then you have data, and you don’t have to worry about overcoming your resistance problem as much anymore because you can say you know, here’s what I did, and here’s the results. You know?

Exactly. Like, a a wrench and say, okay. Like, let’s define the data though. Right? You can, you can if you increase conversion rate doesn’t mean you’re gonna increase sales. Right? Like, are you at what level are you gonna show, like Right.

Well, it has to be a well structured test, not not one structured to prove your point.

And Yeah.

Has with bias built in.

Sure.

I would even suggest, like, maybe just don’t don’t worry about this stuff. Don’t AB Tessa. I think of like Laura Belgrade and she never calls herself a funny copywriter, but she’s funny and people read her work. And she said, I think in her the six figure book, she’s like, when people see your copy and they love it, they all hire you because they want to overlap yourself. So maybe you don’t need like, say I’m a funny copywriter, maybe, like, take Joe’s advice, take a step back, but just be funny and those brands come to you. Like, you don’t need to start that conversation. Like, they will want you to write like you write yourself for them.

Yeah.

Because I think Sorry.

No. Go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say Go ahead.

No. Let’s let Johnson go and then you can go.

I was just gonna say it’s I think we kind of touched upon it. It’s it seems like comedy is, it’s the same, problem with comedy for brands as it is for real people.

It is super high risk and potentially high reward, but the the the damage you you could potentially inflict to, to, to perception of a brand.

If you make a go out there and you do a funny campaign and everyone thinks it’s absolutely lame.

You’re you’re gonna be, that that’s a really risky proposition. Whereas, I think, like, what Joe was saying earlier, you know, there’s something broader there. There’s something with a with a with a broader appeal and and something that’s much safer. If you can tie it into, I don’t know. Yeah. Like the psychology of, catching people’s attention. I mean, yeah, you could do that with humor, but you like Joe said, you could also do that with emotional storytelling, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other things.

Okay. No.

I I I I love what you all said.

Okay.

Go for it.

So, so I I love what Abby said, but I’m just thinking that if, like, Laura, since she has this huge prime, but to in order to stand out, don’t I need, like, word to describe it. Like, if I just go and say, I’m a conversion operator for course creators, don’t I just blend in the crowd verse versus if I say, I’m a conversion command director for course creators who plans in the conversion principles or uses the frameworks of comedy, not necessarily, like, have humor or a scotty, then there’s more chance for me to get notice.

You you need something to own. It’s absolutely true. We’re just saying rethink comedy as the word.

So it might be like surprise driven conversion be writing or unexpected or something like that where the idea is you’re going to unlock new growth for people by having unexpected ways of messaging x where unexpected could be funny. And maybe that’s your default, and that’s like what you actually do focus on. But people don’t need to hear that.

Personality, I think, and then good point, it might be not quite enough because personality sounds like you’re gonna come in and just do brand voice or something like that.

But that could be it too. But I would say explore something, like, kind of mind map comedy. So you put comedy in the middle and you just start, like, shooting off different words around it and see what, like, might fly, try out different ones in your LinkedIn profile in that line under your name, just whatever it is, if it’s personality driven conversion copywriting or the world’s most surprising conversion copywriting or whatever that is that you want to do. Yeah.

There’s a whole industry on this. I’m noticing, like, there’s proven humor frameworks and formulas that people use. I didn’t realize that.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Cool.

Okay. So work on that and then let us know everybody who we will talk do after this. But, thanks for those who are sticking on as well.

We have Abby then Adnan.

Cool. So yeah, I feel like this is a very Joe question as you dealt with this in your business. But so, yeah, my thing is they wanna ever agree I love it. I believe in it. Like, I totally wanna, like, make it the solution, of course, Grace is you want passive income.

But My audience is just all copywriters. Like, it’s like ninety percent copywriters, and I know, like, because, you know, I’ve did where I get featured is, like, copy hackers in the copywriters club and I’m probably doing, like, the world authority building. But I feel like I have this audience there and so many people are resting me for coaching. I’m like, Maybe I should be monetizing this, but then I don’t wanna distract myself on day one evergreen because I am so passionate about it and I really believe in it.

So, yeah, how do you Like, I guess this is maybe this is more an execution question, but how do you navigate it when, like, the the distraction thing, like, do you just stick with your thing? Or do you are you like, okay. I can have two things? I mean, that just feels greedy, but do you have any advice?

Like, I have some advice.

Yes.

We we do have that situation.

I would say, why are you publishing on copy hackers? Why are you doing things for copywriters if you don’t want to copywriters.

So there’s that to consider, but it’s like, well, because I did it. So it’s happened. Okay. Fine.

Have something you can serve to audiences.

You can. It’s just harder, and you’ll probably have to hire people in there even if it’s like VAs and stuff like that to handle it.

If copywriters are already finding you, One, do you like working with copywriters?

Okay. Good. So they don’t take energy from you. They give energy to you. Okay. Good. So that’s good.

So kind of table that. And then there’s the evergreen side of things, if you had to choose. Copywriters or evergreen course businesses?

I think it’s, like, two c two, like, cake of pizza. Like, Bye. I mean I have to choose.

Yeah. I guess.

I have to, but today, you know, ultimately, they wanna agree because I do believe, like, the copywriters will find me anyway.

Like, copywriters still buy my course.

I just I feel like there’s this opportunity there. And I’m like, I have this audience and I’m not monetizing it. And should I monetize it, or should I just focus on my thing?

Or both. Right? Like, you can. Depends how you monetize it. It depends what your calendar looks like. Depends, you know, what your priorities are on a day to day basis.

So if you were like, okay, every Monday is my day to work with copywriters, that’s it. That could be a way to approach it. Right? Like, it’s really tack ago.

Like, it’s way down at execution rather than strategy. Like, Monday is when I post on LinkedIn to copywriters, and I take my three copywriters that I coach, and we have sessions together. And that’s my Monday, and I’ve monetized it because I’m coaching these copywriters on that day. The rest of the week is focused on Evergreen course business stuff.

And that’s where you wouldn’t any longer publish anything on copy hackers, unless it’s talking to Evergreen Course creators, which wouldn’t make sense.

But then you start, like, focusing on writing the book on Evergreen courses. And I would say that’s where, like you say, the copywriters will find you. They do. They just find you. So Yeah. You can serve both, but you’ll need to make one a priority.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that that’s answers there, and I’ll just leave it there and take that on board. Thank you.

Okay. Cool. Thanks, Adna.

Know we’re pastime, so I’ll I’ll try to be quick.

So I I’ve tried to work through things that I have done and I like to do. So and I’ve narrowed it down, and maybe you can tell me, like, if I’m just all over the place here, but SaaS emails, SaaS web copy and UX. So these are three things. And then I listed a bunch of things that I can kind of offer or would like to offer.

So am I being too broad too broad here or should or or should we be more specific into like, hey, I do SaaS pricing pages for web for websites or like If you say I do SaaS pricing pages, it’s really easy to own that and to master it too. Like, Okay.

Easy.

And I say easy not you can do it in ten hours. I say easy. You can take the next two years to do it and be masterful by the end of it. And over that time, share things and prove your expertise as you go. Right? So that’s easy compared to trying to be all SaaS, which could take your entire lifetime.

So that’s the easy option.

Okay. Is that something you wanna do? Because honestly, I did this certification program for SaaS copywriters and pricing pages.

Somehow, nobody came out of it caring about pricing pages. And I’m like, they’re the most interesting thing in SaaS in my opinion.

Like, what I’m actually working on handing that.

That’s the those samples for for the certifications.

So Oh, good.

I think page is one of the things that I was like, hey, this is something I I like to do. So Yeah.

Like, it’s the site of conversion. I know what it’s crazy to meet. And then there’s the customer, the visitor facing versus the actual customer, like there’s two different ones that you can work with. Anyway, there’s so much you could do there.

I would say if you can focus on one thing because there are a lot of SaaS copywriters out there. I don’t think there are enough of them, and I definitely don’t think there are enough great ones out there, but there are a lot of SaaS copywriters out there. So I would focus on a thing. If it’s SaaS, I would go more narrow than that and identify, like, which are the ones you like writing, and then which are the ones that people struggle with.

The most. And by people, I do mean your ideal client. So if it’s like sprout social, I wanna work with sprout social or companies that are fifty million to five hundred million a year, which is really big range, but still, then you’d see, like, what are the emails that they struggle with the most. And then you could easily, I think, focus in on just getting really good at those emails.

Don’t even know what they are, but if you could find that out and work on it and then just build authority on that.

That’s it. That’s like, job’s done, boss. You have a whole business now.

Do you think it it it it will take away from my focus if if I was to say, okay.

Let’s say SaaS pricing pages and just onboarding emails for, I don’t know, trial to pay it or or or like retention emails.

Connect the two. So if you’re like, I like pricing pages and I like emails, do they naturally fit together in a way where then the the two puzzle pieces click together become a new thing and you name that new thing.

Okay. Okay.

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because, I mean, if you’re in that free to sorry, trial to paid, you’re gonna end up landing on that pricing page anyways.

Yeah. Okay. Exactly.

Yep.

Thank you.

Yeah. Totally. Cool. Fun. Yeah. Excited. I just want someone to own pricing pages already. Jillian.

That’s so funny. I just did the pricing pages course this week and I was like, this is so and I put that to my my list too. Like, I was like, oh, maybe I’ll just do pricing pages. I see a question. Like, I was like, can you just own, like, something like a page or a deliverable or something.

So that yeah. It’s fine that you brought that up, but there was another one I wanted to ask you about because I’ve I did the same thing that Adnan just mentioned is, like, what are the things that I’ve done? What do I like doing? And I’m kinda broke down possibilities from there.

So I had my deliverables that was one, but then I also have about research, and I’ve really only done customer interviews because that doesn’t surveys haven’t made sense for the clients I’ve worked with. And I like that, but then I was trying to think about how to narrow that down. And it came across I didn’t even know about this, but I wanted to get your thoughts on, like, lost customer interviews or lost customer now.

Oh, cool.

Is that a thing? Because I just haven’t heard I had never even heard of that and I was like, oh, I was trying to think of like a more specific angle than just customer interviews, which everyone does.

Yeah.

So I don’t know. Why is your thoughts on that? Are people doing that?

Is that, like, what’s I don’t know.

If people are doing it, they’re not making noise about it.

So is that because it’s not valuable, or is it What what got you excited when you heard about it?

I think just because I never hear anyone talking about it and I’m like, oh, this seems like it could be like another piece that’s maybe missing.

But I don’t know because I don’t have much experience in that space.

Yeah.

I’m thinking about, like, focusing more on SaaS. I’ve only worked with a few SaaS companies, but I’m thinking of making that more my foot, like, my checking out my focus. So I’ve been trying to research. So I don’t know that much about SaaS that I haven’t worked in it. So I’ve just been doing some research, but don’t know, like, what really makes sense for them.

Yeah. Shane, what were you gonna say to Jillian?

No. I love that. I think that’s super that’s exactly the way to think. I think that’s brilliant. I like it personally.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s really so okay. And then if we try to break it, like, how is it possibly a bad idea?

Outside of that you haven’t done it, that’s fine. That’s totally fine. You’ll learn how you’ll you can find.

What’s bad is I would say one, a assumption that people might make, a business might make is we lost them because they’re a bad fit. So I don’t wanna know anything about them anyway. They’re a bad fit.

Do you have to overcome that?

Which you can do, with thought leadership. Anybody else have ways to break this idea.

Yeah. Use that data to especially when you’re getting into paid traffic, use that data to to not target. Right? You need to know who you’re targeting versus who you’re not. That’s that’s an angle you can go with it.

Okay.

So let’s support it here.

Ways to do, webinar negative webinar survey.

Or interview. Like, sorry, write a webinar negative web so people who left negative webinar reviews, and she turned it into a whole email So the thing if it’s about the, like, you you ask that if they want to lose it, maybe there could be something that could be talked about there.

Anyone else? I think go explore it, Jilliam. Yeah.

I think that’s the the product team is gonna be excited about that. You know? That’s who that’s who cares about that. Is more than marketing? It’s the product team.

And product has more money than marketing. So that’s good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can close more projects for more money.

It looks like Chris says he does SAS cancellation interview surveys sometimes.

Harder to get them to provide feedback, but really cool.

Yeah, curious to hear.

Yeah.

Maybe I’ll follow-up with Chris about that.

Yeah. The harder it is, the more you can charge as long as it’s, like, high value. Like, what are they going to get out of learning about these lost customers.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. And like would it be I guess that would kind of move me away from copy would just be more like recommendation. It’d be more like findings and recommendations. Would that be what would come out of that?

Or I guess would it be copy recommendations too?

Don’t necessarily I mean, what do you you can go as far as you want to. Yeah. So if you wanna stop at just making recommendations, you can you can do that. Yeah. Just be more consultative rather than, which is, again, a good thing execution just never makes as much money as consulting strategy.

Yeah. I like it. Thanks for yeah.

You could even be the person who, like, finds, like, turns all the negative stuff into gold, like, find all their bad reviews and all, but just find, like, everything that’s bad about the company and find ways to turn that into value.

Cool. Awesome.

Anybody else have anything? I know we’re thirty minutes over. Anything in order to get you to a place where you can say here’s what I’m going to own.

We’re good. Okay.

So Very helpful.

Good. Wonderful.

So I will post just in general, in our general channel, in the Slack group, I’ll, post where to add in your one thing, just like declare it, state it, it’s your thing. And then we can start digging more into that stuff as we move into December.

Cool.

Alright y’all. Cool. If you have any questions, pop them in slack as always. I don’t think we have any more sessions this week.

But, yeah, we’ll we’ll follow-up more next week. And I want you to feel really good about what you’ve landed on So if you’re leaving this session still unclear or if, like, a couple days passed and you’re like, I don’t know. Don’t keep that to yourself. Bring it out and we can we can work through it with you. Okay?

Alright. Thanks, everyone.

Have a good rest of your day.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.