Peaceful Profits Podcast Ep. 101 - The Financial ROI Of Writing A Good Book
Synopsis:
Writing a book is not just an exercise in creativity or personal fulfillment—it’s a powerful financial tool. On this podcast Mike explores how turning your knowledge into a product like a book can generate life-changing financial returns. From using a book to open doors for speaking engagements, consulting gigs, and high-ticket coaching services, to building your authority in your field, the financial ROI of a well-written book is undeniable. Discover the top three strategies that successful authors leverage to monetize their intellectual property and make a lasting impact.
Transcript:
The Financial ROI Of Writing A Good Book
[00:00:00] Hello, my friend. Hope you're doing well. Mike Shreeve here. Thank you so much for listening to today's very important episode. We're going to be talking about how to think about the return on investment. of writing a book. And look, whether you're doing this yourself, whether you are doing it with someone, whether you are hiring someone to do it for you, there is an investment that goes into making something like a book, whether it's time, whether it's money, [00:00:30] whether it's the mental and emotional energy of creating something from scratch.
Books are, they are really. Interesting things in the sense that you can get a financial return a significant financial return Just from turning ideas and thoughts into a product and what I want to do in this episode is We're going to skip over the Non financial ROI so Pride [00:01:00] and legacy and look mom.
I made a book and all that kind of stuff. We're just gonna skip over That's all great. And that's wonderful. But in this episode, all I want to do is focus on the hard facts The financial return on the investment of all this time resources mental energy and etc What does it look like to monetize? A book.
And so we're going to be talking about that today. Another good episode that you may want to [00:01:30] listen to if this is the sort of stuff that's up your alley or things you're thinking about. If you need more fodder for keeping yourself motivated as you go through the process, another good episode we have is where I break down exactly how I made more than 11 million dollars over five years from one of my books.
And specifically how I did that, what I would even do different, that's another episode you can listen to. But in this one, we're just going to be focusing on financial return, all the different ways that can happen with a book. We're not going to [00:02:00] cover every single possible financial ROI, but I am going to cover the three main ones, which are significant enough that if this is all you do, or you're only able to dip into a small portion of what I'm about to describe.
your return will be significant. And when I say significant, significant, life changing, meaningful significance. And this will be a great episode to refer back to whenever [00:02:30] you're maybe in the middle of your book, or you're towards the end, or you're thinking about launching. Most of the authors that I come across, before they become clients of mine, or if they've really been on the do it yourself track and they don't have a lot of help.
Most authors I know. in that boat are significantly underutilizing their book for financial gain. In other words, [00:03:00] just by lack of experience in the book selling world, lack of knowing what the options or opportunities are, most authors are sitting on. significantly more financial return from this asset that they have created called a book.
It's an underutilized piece of what we, intellectual property, which is an asset. [00:03:30] And so what I hope I can do in this episode is give you some ideas which you may not have even considered were possible. So we'll talk about some of the obvious ones, but I also want to give you some. Non obvious ideas because that will show you that a book is a product.
Yes Is an asset, yes, is a piece of intellectual property, yes, but more [00:04:00] than anything else, a book is a tool. It's like a lever, which is to say, if you've ever heard that saying, if you give me a long enough lever, I can pull or lift the world, I think is the saying, I might've botched that a little bit. But the idea is that a book is a tool.
Disproportionately weighted to help you, especially compared to a lot of other [00:04:30] assets that one can own, and then especially that one can use to grow a business, right? So if you have a book and you're listening to this and you have the book in your hand right now and you wrote it, understand that what you're holding in your hands is a tool to open some tremendous doors, financially speaking it way more than it even seems like right now.
Okay. So with that preamble, let's get into the meat of this episode and let's talk about the three different ways that you can get a financial [00:05:00] ROI from your book. So the first way is something I just call profitable thinking. So what is a book really? A book is an exercise. In putting your ideas and thoughts into a profitable, productized version of your knowledge, [00:05:30] ideas, beliefs, opinions, etc.
In other words, the best way to think about a book is that it is your knowledge systemized. The systemization of your knowledge, ideas, beliefs, etc. is your knowledge system. Intellectual property it's turning the stuff that we have in our head into something that people can buy [00:06:00] Now the process by which you do that is thinking.
Whether it's you doing it yourself or even working with a ghost writer, a good ghost writer should be able to help you think through your thoughts and ideas. Right now, you may only have a nugget of what you think your book should be about. A good ghost writer will help you think through and systemize your thoughts and ideas.[00:06:30]
the rest of that thought process. Get to the conclusions. Come up with the arguments and the ideas and the information and the et cetera. So that in and of itself, what does that mean? It means that you now have intellectual property. For whatever it is you're doing, whatever, maybe you're an attorney and you have certain ideas about how to deal with bankruptcy.
So you're writing a book about bankruptcy. Maybe you are a freelance [00:07:00] writer and you're trying to write a book about how to write books. Or maybe you are a doctor and you have a mission. And you want to systemize and put together your beliefs around this mission and what you think it ought to be and etc.
Whatever the reason for writing a book, the act of turning that into a piece of intellectual property, that's means that from that book you can then hang, or in other words, start, a whole line of additional products, [00:07:30] offers, services, etc. In other words, once you have systemized and productized your ideas and formalized those ideas, making the course to sell off the back of the book, that's the easy part now.
Putting together the speech that people are going to pay you a bunch of money to come and give. That's easy now. You already did the systemization of the ideas of the thought process. You've codified it into a book. [00:08:00] Now you're not just gonna, you don't have one speech. Now you can have five different speeches that you give over and over again.
Now you can do coaching programs and consulting and, Bring people into your medical practice and people will say, Oh wow, I totally understand now how, why you handle bankruptcy this way and why you do this as an accountant and whatever it is that you're doing. Once you have the book, it has been codified and systemized.
And this [00:08:30] is important. If you look at any of the big famous people. The people who are getting paid 100, 000 to give a speech. The people who have multi million dollar consulting businesses. The top, plastic surgeons in the world etc. When they have that intellectual property codified, That's the first piece of financial return, [00:09:00] because now you have the product and you sell the product called the book, and we'll talk about all the different ways to make money from the book itself, but the actual creation of that intellectual property is the same thing as saying, now you have your differentiating factor.
Now you're not just another plastic surgeon. You're the plastic surgeon who [00:09:30] fill in the blank with your intellectual property. You're not just another bankruptcy attorney. You are the bankruptcy attorney who has developed the personal production bankruptcy flip around in seven days. Your awesome system, trademark, all rights reserved.
No one can be like me because I have set myself up apart by having the intellectual property.[00:10:00]
And what's really important here is that what a lot of people miss in creating the book is they think the only thing that happens once you go through the process of creating a book is that you then have a book, but what you actually end up with is when you understand that good writing is first good thinking and that all you're really doing is putting [00:10:30] good thoughts in a structure that's consumable called a book, then you realize that the actual financial ROI of this profitable thinking element of writing a book is that you are actually thinking about what you do and who you're going to be in the market.
And what do you want to do? Do you want to give amazing, inspiring speeches? Now's your [00:11:00] opportunity to sit down and think about what will be in those speeches. Do you want to be the best rated heart surgeon in the entire world? Great, now's the time to think about what is your Beliefs, and what are your, what is your message, and what is, who are you trying to reach?
All of these are questions that must be answered in the process of writing a book. So it's not just an exercise of putting good facts into a book, it's an exercise in thinking about your [00:11:30] Business, or your mission, or your goals for whatever the book might be.
Too many people, when trying to monetize their intellectual property, trying to turn their ideas into products that make money, they just throw stuff together. They think all I really need to do to stand out in the market is [00:12:00] just flip the recording, flip Loom on and record some videos and now I have the best selling course in the world.
That's good for beta testing. I recommend that sometimes if people are just dragging their feet and they need to put something together. But that's beta testing, that's version 1, you definitely need to get to version 2 as soon as possible. But also, in the really competitive markets, these days, that's just not good enough.
In the really competitive markets, consumers and buyers are looking, does this person [00:12:30] have something different about them? And the way that you do that, the way that you can set yourself apart, is by putting together a book. Because, the act of putting together a book, is the act of All of those things you have to do anyways.
I'll just give you one more example here. So a lot of people limit What they sell [00:13:00] because of the limits of their knowledge, right? They say, okay I can put together a course, I could put together a coaching program, or I can sell this service in my thing, or I can I could give a speech on this, but maybe people don't really want that.
There's not a lot of money in that or et cetera, whatever the reasons might be to limit what your financial outcome could be in those regard. Part of. Writing a book, no matter how smart you are right now, no matter how many ideas you have right now, a [00:13:30] really good book includes research. Every good book is, here's what I think the core of my idea is, let me go research, let me go learn some more, let me add to this body of knowledge that I have.
Which by definition means, That who you are when you start the book will be a lesser, more qualified and competent person than who you will be when you end [00:14:00] the book. Why? Because again, the act of writing the book, whether it's you, whether it's you're working with a good ghostwriter, look, a good ghostwriter If anything, should be helping you through this process.
It should be an accelerated version of doing this all yourself. They should be able to help you come to conclusions, extract from you these ideas and your brilliance and help to do the research to help you. But the person that you're going to be at the end of this book writing process will be [00:14:30] smarter, have more information, be more of an expert, be more qualified.
to talk about the things that are in your book than you were when you started your book. Which means, again, by the end of this book, you're going to be able to offer more as a result. There's a reason, for myself, for example, I write as many books as I can. It helps me to think [00:15:00] better, but it also makes me better, because the act of writing is sharpening the tool.
Which for me is running a company like this, offering done for you services, offering coaching, consulting, etc. So what are we talking about here when we're talking about financial ROI? The intellectual property that you possess immediately sets you apart. I've never met an author who [00:15:30] doesn't immediately raise their prices.
And get those prices. After they write a good book, and it's because they've thought things through. I, there's many authors who were going through the process, we were ghostwriting with them, and halfway through they're like, oh my gosh, you know what? This thing that I've been offering, I've, I think about it in a completely different way now.
I know now how to make it better. I've learned something in the process of writing this book. [00:16:00] I can improve it, I can improve the positioning, the offer itself, etc. Now, of all of the different ways we're going to be talking about today to make ROI off your book, This is the, what seems to be least tangible, but will in fact be the most impactful.
I've spent 17 years in the business of multi million dollar [00:16:30] intellectual property. All of my clients, that's been the main thing that they've looked for. How do I make millions of dollars off of my ideas, off of the knowledge in my head? This is the foundation for setting up that kind of return. You will not Get that kind of return off your intellectual property without doing the work that a book forces you to [00:17:00] do.
And so one of the recommendations that I have, so let's say somebody's super, super successful. They've been an executive for many years and they're just like, I want, I have, I know I can help people. I have knowledge and I just want to go out into the world and make people successful just like me.
One of the things I recommend is that they start with the book. Don't worry about the consulting offers. Don't worry about this Don't worry about all those other things because [00:17:30] one you need to codify your thoughts and experience first off Anyways before you're ever going to be able to create a course or know what kind of course to create or know what kind?
of coaching offer etc, but then There's this hidden little trick that's really helpful. Is that when I say, go write a book, people are just more likely to say, I need to set aside the time to write my book. I'm going to spend a half an hour a day [00:18:00] writing my book. But what are we actually talking about?
Go back to the very beginning. Setting aside the time to think well. One of the things that when people hire us for helping them to write their books, do ghost writing, is the, what we call, brilliance extraction sessions. with our team, setting aside that time every week or every other week to meet with our team, to have their brilliance pulled out of them.[00:18:30]
It's not just time set aside to write on the book. That's what we say it is, right? So that we get people to show up and get people to sit down and work with us in that regard. What it really is it's time to sit down and think. And for many of our authors, those sessions, they'll, their book won't even be finished and they'll leave a session and have had a breakthrough that they then go apply [00:19:00] somewhere else in their business and they're seeing a return before the book's even done.
Why? Because this is the kind of thinking that you have to do anyways when you're writing a book. And the natural byproduct of that better thinking is better results in whatever it is that you're doing. So this is something that a lot of people don't talk about. And I think a lot of the reason why people don't talk about this is because if they're selling how to write books, or they're selling, I'll write you a book for you, or whatever they're doing, [00:19:30] their goal is to get you in and out as quick as possible.
They want to sell you the get rich quick. And so the way they're teaching you to write books are to write the lower quality books, right? The little quickie self published on Amazon type books. What I'm talking about, and I probably should have given this disclaimer earlier in this episode, I'm not talking about those kind of books.
I'm talking about the major impactful industry [00:20:00] shifting, puts you on the map type books. And if that's your goal, if that's what you're trying to do, then you cannot show up to that platform, whether you're speaking or getting in rooms with other people or whatever it is you're doing as a result, you can't show up to that level and to that platform without having your thinking pretty key.
Tightly [00:20:30] wound up in a nice little bow and so even something as simple as showing up to a networking event Having written a book makes you a better networker Even if nobody ever finds out you're an author it's because your brain is now different, you know your message You know everything that you need to know about, you've spent this time putting together these thoughts You just simply become more impressive [00:21:00] Because of writing.
Okay, so I think I've talked about that one quite a bit. Let's talk now about three different ways that you can just make straight cash from the book. So we talked about profitable thinking is a byproduct of writing and I frankly think everyone should use the excuse of writing a book as a way to think.
One thing I forgot to mention is Pro tip, if you are a CEO and you are struggling to find the time in your day to think things [00:21:30] through, tell your team you're writing a book and you can't be bothered. And write the book, but also, there's your opportunity to think about things that you need to think about, right?
And think it through and write it down and, one of these days I'll put together an episode about how to think before you even show up to the page so that you can have your thoughts ready to go. Instead of sitting there looking at a blank page, wondering how the heck am I going to do? How the heck am I going to turn this into [00:22:00] 250 pages?
Let's now talk about three actual ways to make money from the book itself. Number one is using a book to sell something else is One of the most profitable now Approaches meaning if you're like, what's the most money I can make as quickly as possible with a book It is to use that book the intellectual property the ideas that are in that book to sell something else So lots of different ways to [00:22:30] do that.
We do book funnels. You can go on book tours There's dozens and dozens of ways to get a book into the hands of someone once they consume that book they pre sell Themselves I know that sounds like hype, but if you haven't experienced it, it's a beautiful change. It's a beautiful ship. They will pre sell themselves.
on whatever else you have for sale. If you're a bankruptcy attorney, and you have a book out there, and people who are really needing help [00:23:00] with bankruptcy, they read it, they're going to understand you, what you do, why you're brilliant, why they should buy from you, more than any other method for getting people on the phone to buy from you.
They'll have spent hours in advance spending time with you and your thoughts, Without you having to be there, in the form of a book, maybe they just spent seven hours reading [00:23:30] your book. I imagine having to go give somebody a one on one seven hour seminar to be able to close them. That's exhausting. Put that seven hour seminar in a book, give it to as many people as you can, and then you're done.
They'll give themselves the seminar by sitting down and reading it, and by the time they show up, they don't just know everything about you and what you offer, and etc. They trust you. So selling coaching, selling services, selling courses, selling memberships off the back of a book is [00:24:00] profitable. To the tune of millions and millions of dollars.
If you've heard my episode where I took, break down, one of our recent book launches and how much we made off of it. You'll see the elements of coaching and services and etc. off of the back of that book. It's not a requirement. Another way that you could sell something else from a book is speaking and consulting.
I spent the first decade of my year, or sorry, the first decade of my career working in the public [00:24:30] speaking world. All the best speakers, the ones that got paid the most, had a book. Every single one of them, without exception. I think of one of my favorite people I've ever gotten to spend time with and be around, John C.
Maxwell, he had a hundred books. And, got paid a lot to speak and consult. Why? Because the book is the productization of What? Thoughts and ideas. What is the speaking and consulting [00:25:00] business? Thoughts and ideas. Getting paid to share your thoughts and ideas. So using a book, people read it. They think we love this.
How can I find out more about this person? What else do they offer? Their thoughts and ideas really help me. Speaking, consulting is the next thing that you sell off the back of that. Speaking of John C. Maxwell, one of the things that a book can sell isn't just speaking and consulting, not just coaching services, courses, etc.
But a [00:25:30] book can sell more books. One of my favorite mantras is from a very early mentor of mine. He said that the best way to sell your current books is to write the next one. And it's because every time you create a book, you're creating this little income stream that can fund itself. to sell itself.
And so the more of those little income streams that you set up again and again, the easier it is for [00:26:00] you to put time, energy, effort, marketing behind this now group of little income streams that then, once somebody buys one, they buy the other, then they buy another, then they buy another, then they buy another.
Again, John C. Maxwell, 31 million copies sold. Of his books. I believe translated in Oh, I should have looked this up. I believe it's somewhere in 50 different languages. I could be wrong. Don't hold me to that one, but I do know for sure 31 million copies sold. [00:26:30] Has written more than a hundred books.
That, my friends, is not an accident. That's how it works. Now he has a hundred little income streams. Every day. Going out to work, selling each other, selling him, and he has speaking and consulting and programs and all sorts of stuff on the back end. That's how someone like John C. Maxwell makes millions and millions of dollars.
That's [00:27:00] how some of our clients who offer professional services are completely booked. They raise their price. They have a book here, maybe two books over here. It's all out there doing work for them. Now, it's not a requirement to have multiple books. Again, if you listen to the episode, I talk about how one book was able to generate $11 million.
But more books does sell more books. Here's another one, again, something that a lot of people don't talk about is that [00:27:30] one of the best things a book can sell is you into a better situation. So for example, maybe you just want to write a book so you can get a promotion. Maybe you want into the C suite.
Maybe you're writing a book because you've been a medical professional for a really long time And you realize if I had this book if I had this background if I had this Clout for a lack of better of a better word if I could prove [00:28:00] to others how valuable I was I might be you know They might name me to some very important position in the medical field A book is a great way for you to be able to brag about yourself and sell you into whatever situation you want to get into.
Maybe you just want to get into a better circle. Maybe you're trying to get into some kind of mastermind, inner circle type [00:28:30] of situation where it's very difficult to get into. It's not just give me money, but give me money and show me who you are because this is a closed circle of very exclusive people.
You could sit there and brag about yourself all day or you could say, actually I wrote this book. And it sold a bunch of copies, and see everybody likes me, they're social proof, and All that kind of stuff. So all of this that I just mentioned, these are not, Oh yeah, you'll make 10 grand or you'll make 20 grand.
What I've just mentioned here, just in this [00:29:00] element, so forget about profitable thinking for a second and the knock on effects that has financially, we are talking about revenue streams worth millions and millions of dollars over time. So you look at, okay, am I willing to spend three months, six months, even a year, to write this book for the potential downstream [00:29:30] revenue that could, no guarantees, but that could and often does result in millions of dollars of revenue.
That's just a, something you have to think about and I understand not everyone can think like that. Not everyone has the ability. To think like that [00:30:00] not everyone has the position where you know They're able to devote the time or the resources or the energy or the etc But if you do and if you are in fact able to think that way The longer you wait to finish the book, the longer it takes to collect on that ROI.
Books are beautiful, wonderful things, but they're not overnight things at all. [00:30:30] Which is why they're so profitable. Very few things that happen overnight have any kind of lasting positive outcome. There's a few things, but not many. So most of the things that we crave and we are looking for, not just an increase, but a permanent increase, not just a small increase, but a large increase, an increase that goes on for a long time.
Yeah, a book is one of those type of things. [00:31:00] Alright, number two. So that's just the first of three ways to make money from a book, of three ways to get ROI from a book, okay? We're about halfway through, hang in tight, we still got a lot of different ways to make money from this stuff. Of course, then you have the royalties from the book itself.
The intellectual property. So your audiobooks, Your ebooks, your print books, your translations, the rights that you have to a book. I was recently a friend of mine got one of his non [00:31:30] fiction books optioned for a TV series.
And that's the beautiful thing is, when you own an asset, like a book, a piece of intellectual property it's a thing. It's not your labor. It's a thing. And it's one of the best asset classes for growing wealth because it has such [00:32:00] low barrier of entry and cost. So even if you were to hire, say us, for example.
And our top shelf premium authorship where we're doing it for you. We're having brilliance in sessions. We're going to make the sales for you. We're going to do six months of selling for all of that stuff. Even if you were to compare that to say a real estate investment, the amount of money and time and energy.
that it [00:32:30] costs to get into real estate is still more than the time, energy, effort, expense of just getting a book out. And it's still an asset. If you're highly leveraged in real estate, for example, and you just have like I say, a single family home, which I know isn't the best real estate strategy, but just for simplicity sake.
Okay. You got to put the down payment in, you got to get a mortgage, you got to deal with the stress of it all the time. It's up and down market, et cetera, et cetera. Then you have to be a landlord and you [00:33:00] have tenants and all this stuff. And if you're highly leveraged and your mortgage is still early days, you may only make like a hundred, 200, maybe 300 a month off a single piece of property.
That's like the real story of real estate that not everybody wants you to know about. If you only made two or three hundred dollars a month off a book, that would be a bad book.
So you know, one of the things that I made a decision on probably ten years ago, maybe a little bit longer than that, [00:33:30] is I just thought, okay, I have a limited amount of time, I run three companies, I was looking at thing, all sorts of different investment vehicles. And I was just thinking and realizing, you know what, for all the same effort and drama and trouble that I could in this type of investment and this type of investment and this thing, and all these different active types of investment, I just realized.
A book is a better investment. I have books from [00:34:00] 2012 that I published, haven't touched them, haven't done anything to them. They're bringing in 1, 000, 1, 500, they're not even related to any of my books. I don't sell anything off the back of them. They're bringing in 1, 000 a month, 1, 500 a month. I have one that brings in 6, 000 a month.
Now, not every book is like that, it's not guaranteed, etc., but that sure is easier than being a landlord. For [00:34:30] me, I look at how many of these investments do I want to make over the course of my life. I think about John C. Maxwell, a hundred books. If every single one of his books only made 500 a month, which would be really that's low.
Especially for someone like John C. Maxwell with the influence that he has. I, that's not even close to what he makes per book per month. 500 a month. [00:35:00] Things start getting interesting, financially. So the, and that's, and why is that? It's because it's an asset. Royalties, and being able to make money off of royalties, is one of the most desirable income classes that exist.
Go listen to all the people, all the David Ramseys, and the rich dad, poor dad, and the etc. They all say, royalties, intellectual property, that is the class of income and asset to be in, [00:35:30] if wealth is of any concern to you whatsoever.
So that's one way to make money from a book, is to be in. And operate in and benefit from the same asset class and income class that the extremely wealthy do. It's just people like you and me actually have the ability to access it. Either we can hire ghostwriters to do it for us, we can do it ourselves, put in sweat equity, etc.[00:36:00]
Alright, now this is another uncommon one. So we already talked about, one uncommon way of making money is that it forces you to think, and the result of thinking is, Generally, more profitable businesses, ideas, differentiation, all that kind of stuff. But here's something that a lot of people don't realize is that when you create a book, there is a by product.
Okay? The by product happens first, and then the money comes. And this by product is profitable relationships. [00:36:30] If you write a good book, and it doesn't even really matter what the If you sell a lot of copies, it doesn't even matter how you sell those copies, but if you write a really good book, I guarantee you, okay I'm happy to guarantee this and to promise you this.
that a good book will cause people [00:37:00] to reach out to you. Now think about what that means, and think about who could reach out to you. So our book, Here for Peaceful Profits, the one book that I wrote for Peaceful Profits at the time of this recording, although we're working on many more,
at least once a week we are receiving Not just, hey, I'd [00:37:30] like to, hire you and all that kind of stuff. We get that all the time. That's daily. I'm talking about outside of that. So outside of selling other stuff, I'm talking about people want to, wanting to partner with us. People wanting to invest in us.
People wanting me to be on a very big podcast. People wanting to pay me to come talk to their team. [00:38:00] Things that are not on the menu. Our coaching and our done for you stuff, all of those things are our set menu as a company. But there are people who are actively reaching out because they read the book saying, I have more ways to make you money.
And not just people pitching us stuff, but Hey, can, want to partner on this thing? I have investment money. Do you want to be on my show? Do you want to be featured in this? So it's like [00:38:30] networking. Yeah, but I like to think of it as power brokering, so power brokering. Specifically, it elevates your position in life, period.
It flips the switch from you being the one who's always having to go out and look for opportunities, which there's nothing wrong with that, right? We all do that in our businesses and things like that. But it flips that to now you have people [00:39:00] coming to you constantly offering. Opportunities and interesting opportunities.
Hey, can you come be a guest at this big event seminar thing? Can you be featured? We would like to feature you in our magazine. We'd like to have you come speak to our mastermind of, really successful business owners. And I, we loved your book on accounting. And we have a [00:39:30] room full of people, they all make over 20 million dollars a year, that's how they got access to this room.
Can you come speak? You want to talk about a room full of potential clients, like this is the kind of thing that is a byproduct of publishing a good book and you don't even have to make a ton of sales for this to start happening. All you have to do is make a good, right? That's the important piece.
And you know this already, inherently, like if you look at the best, any best selling author [00:40:00] in your space whether your health or wellness or whatever it is, I can promise you that if you really think about it and you start thinking, don't go down this path too much because it can lead to jealousy, which isn't good.
But if you just take a couple of minutes. and look at, okay, they got this best seller author status. They really, lots of people are reading this book or whatever it is. And if you really start to think, how is that making their life easier? [00:40:30] You can start to see how much of an advantage they have.
Over what you're trying to do without this. All you have to do is take two people, they work equally as hard, they're as smart as each other, they take care of their people as, whether it's their team or their clients or their patients or whatever, they both are the same in every single way except one person has the elevated [00:41:00] status of having a book.
People are reading that book, and they are coming to them with opportunities, partnerships, etc. Who do you think is more likely to succeed in the long run? I don't know what you do for a living, and I don't know if you've ever experienced a downturn before. I certainly have. I've been self employed for 17 years, I've had my fair share.[00:41:30]
Experiencing a downturn with the backing of a book? Knowing that no matter what else is happening, I've got this book that's quietly selling and people are quietly reaching out with opportunities means that even in the worst downturn, it's not like hope is lost, I still have opportunities coming in all the time.
[00:42:00] And I've experienced a downturn without books. And with one. And I can tell you, I much prefer having a book in my, basically the way I think about it is a book on my team during those tough times because when things are hard, they're hard, and it can be easy to get distracted and, oh no, what am I going to do?
That's really important. Another sort of byproduct of a profitable relationship because of a book is. This [00:42:30] non obvious referral pathway. So what do we all want, right? If we have a service, if we have a program, if we want to be speakers, if we want to get our mission out there, if we're looking for investors or donors or anything, it's exhausting and it's no fun.
I don't care who you are. There's a reason that even the best salespeople in the world have to hype themselves up a little bit. Facing rejection after rejection after rejection, that's something that has to be managed. That's something that you have to deal with [00:43:00] as whatever you're trying to be, a speaker, a business owner, whatever, non profit.
When you have a book, you will get referrals. Without ever having to ask for referrals and you will have other people getting those referrals for you. Now, this isn't, this is, let me just explain how this works because this is [00:43:30] so incredible to me. I can't believe this exists. I don't know why more people aren't just like writing as many books as they possibly can.
Have you ever recommended a book to someone? Say they say, oh, I'm really like, I just got diagnosed with pre diabetes and I'm really you know really struggling and I don't even know where to start and you say oh, you know what I read the obesity code by [00:44:00] dr Fung you should try that book.
It's a pretty good book. I think it'll help you now You think that all you did was gave your friend a really helpful tool What you really did is that friend goes and reads that book the obesity code by dr Fung And then all of a sudden, falls in love with Dr. Fung's stuff, goes and buys something from Dr.
Fung. To be honest, I'm not even sure exactly what Dr. Fung has for sale. If he has anything for sale. Maybe they book him [00:44:30] as a speaker for a health conference or something. Whatever it might be. That's a referral. You just referred business to Dr. Fung by recommending a book. Guess what happens when you write a good book?
People will recommend that book all day. Every day to lots and lots of people, there's this dream that we all have I wish people would just sell me I wish I didn't have to do the one that did the selling. I wish [00:45:00] people would just market for me I wish people would just a hands free selling system.
That's the ultimate dream. No rejection people show up. They love me That is the byproduct of having a good book And again, you don't have to sell a lot. If it's a good book, one reader turns into two, turns into four, turns into eight, turns into sixteen, turns into Because they're sharing it. And what are they doing?
They are sending you referrals. Because there will be a portion of the people who read the book [00:45:30] and then do whatever you are looking to do. Generate funds for a non profit. Get investment. I'm a speaker, et cetera. Of the best marketing and business growth teachers in the world, J. Abraham, he talks all the time about how at least half of your revenue ought to be from referrals.
And then we go out and we build this big referral system and it's a red compliment and it's a, it's on the face of everybody who walks through the door, we have to ask them for referrals. Yeah, you can also just write a book and get that book into as many hands as you possibly can and they will [00:46:00] refer for you and they won't even know they're doing it.
Very low barrier of entry for them to refer people to you. Because they get the opportunity of, I'm helping a friend. But again, what's the core? Good book. Gotta be a good book. That's why, here at Peaceful Profits our focus is not on all these highfalutin tricks for selling a book, let's make a good book.
And then every selling method works and it works like crazy because books shared tools,[00:46:30]
assets that have your profitable thinking contained in that asset that should and can and will lead to all these other opportunities that we're talking about. Here's another one that again, a lot of people don't really think about as a benefit of a book. And that is if you have a team. Oof, you gotta write a book, [00:47:00] because when you are hiring fans who have completely bought into what you're talking about, completely bought into your thoughts and opinions, when you're hiring fans, it's very different than hiring strangers.
I have spent a lot of years hiring. I have hired both. I'm telling you right now, I would prefer hiring fans 11 days out of [00:47:30] 10. Like that is the way to have the right culture. It's a great way to have people pre bought into and understand. What it is you really do. Again, whether you're recruiting for a non profit, whether you're a law firm trying to, bring on juniors, or, you go to the law school career fair day, give away free [00:48:00] copies of your book.
Say, hey, come work for me. Here's why. Copy, copy. When you want to talk about recruiting the top talent, So, it really comes, it's just, again, one of the benefits of having a book is just these relationships the byproduct of having a book are these profitable relationships.
One thing that you have to ask yourself, okay let's assume worst case scenario, this is how I think about business, I don't think in terms of home runs, I think in terms of how many little bunts can I get to get [00:48:30] as many, Runners to home base it's a money ball movie if you think about it that way all right Let's say that for some reason you write a book without doing the profitable thinking stuff We talked about all right.
You just slap it together or whatever which would be a silly idea Miss out on a massive financial ROI. Let's say that you don't really Sell anything again, massive miss opportunity on tremendous financial ROI. So you don't do coaches services. You're not doing professional [00:49:00] services. You've got no speaking, no consulting.
You're not even selling other books. Okay, cool. Understand. Think that would be a missed opportunity, but okay. And let's say you're not even really trying to go for royalties. You're not trying to sell as many audio books as possible or eBooks as possible. Okay. If you wrote a book and enough people read it.
That you had one really amazing breakthrough relationship [00:49:30] that opened a door for you in that really meaningful breakthrough relationship where you may have already had someone like that in your life. I know I've had several. If I wrote another book, personally, and all it did was gave me another one of those breakthrough relationships.
I think about my mentors, I think about key hires I've ever had that have completely changed [00:50:00] everything. I even think about a key client I had that completely changed everything. When you operate in this world whether you're self employed or, whatever you're doing, trying to operate the highest levels, executive, C suite, you're trying to build non profits, that every little while, once in a while, somebody comes into your life, completely changes everything. For me, writing a book is worth, it's completely worth it, the time, energy, effort, etc. Just for that one thing, to have one [00:50:30] more breakthrough relationship. Now personally, that's because I keep lifelong relationships, that's how I work.
I'm able to really get tremendous results from, some new person coming into my world because they read my book. And so think about that for a second, what would, would it be worth writing a book just to get that relationship? And then to realize that it's not just going to bring you one relationship, it will bring you relationships for as long as the book is selling.
And again, bring it back to one of [00:51:00] my favorites, John C. Maxwell. His early books were published in the 70s. So these are long lasting benefits, I can only imagine the number of relationships, the number of people who've reached out to him, the people who've wanted to work for him, the people who've, that's the kind of career that I aspire to.
And books are fundamental to that. I'm not even talking about speaking. I don't do public speaking. I'm not a speaker. I do podcasts, right? You're [00:51:30] listening to my podcast. I'm not a public speaker. I just run companies. But I aspire to that kind of sustainability, that longevity, that respect, and core to that is his hundred plus books.
Alright, one last thought here for you on how to get an ROI from books, and again, this is not covering everything, I just think some of these are interesting and people don't really think about them. They're [00:52:00] non obvious. So I have this thought that I have, and someday I'll probably write a whole book about it, but for now we'll get the short version here in the podcast, and that is the Law of Audience Acceleration.
What the heck does that mean? It's this concept that whatever you're doing now. Whether you're running a non profit, whether you're trying to get a speaking business going, whether you're trying to get a medical practice growing or [00:52:30] started maybe you're an attorney, or you're trying to be a coach or a consultant, or you're just trying to get something going.
Maybe you're even trying to get it to that next stage. The Law of Audience Acceleration states, and this has been proven again and again in 17 years of me doing this work, that as soon as you attach an audience of loyal followers and fans, [00:53:00] To whatever it is that you are doing you start seeing exponential acceleration not linear acceleration Exponential what do we mean by that specifically, one of the authors I had the absolute pleasure of working with is Peter Diamandis He's always talking about his exponential advantage And I recommend by the way that you read a bunch of stuff on this once you grasp how important exponential acceleration is and how that's actually the easy [00:53:30] mode. And that linear acceleration is the more difficult way of doing things.
It'll open your eyes. It's helped me tremendously. But the, when we are talking about accelerating, whatever it is that you're doing, let me try and break that down. So the law of audience acceleration states that as soon as you attach an audience to whatever your mission job, business, whatever it is you're trying to do, everything becomes faster and easier.
Here's some of the reasons why. So first off, we talked a little bit about the [00:54:00] byproduct of partnerships and relationships of people reaching out, say for example for partnerships as one of the results of writing a good book, but there's an element in which writing the book is the step one of developing What I call a useful audience.
So we could go out and just have a bunch of people like us because we're nice. Very [00:54:30] different than a bunch of people who are following and like us because they know what mission we are on. Different level of support. It's a more targeted support. You're getting more targeted opportunities. You're talking to the people who are more likely to get you to where you want to go because it's clear what the mission is and the vision and the purpose and the goals and all that stuff.
A book is the banner to gather that audience [00:55:00] around. A targeted audience is an audience that was built around a book. I'll give you some examples. Atomic Habits. By james clear think about who's in the audience. It's not a random bunch of people It's people who are trying to better themselves. It's people who are trying to achieve incredible things It's people who are trying to change their life because they know their habits are bad and they're [00:55:30] like there's so many things That you can tell about who the audience is because of the book that was written.
I think about one of my past clients, Brendan Burchard. I got to work with him on high performance habits. Who do you think is showing up to read that book? People who are trying to be high performers. And Brendan's excellent at this, by the way. of creating these targeted, specific [00:56:00] audiences, so that he can then experience all the benefits that we've already talked about of having these people like you, follow you, support you, want to help you.
He's got a whole group of people, obsessed with high performance, who love him. How much easier do you think his situation is than people who don't have that?
Dare to lead! By Brene Brown. [00:56:30] What can we tell about those people in that audience? Cal Newport's a great example. Deep work, digital minimalism, slow productivity, all these books about getting off of the internet, stop being distracted, create something, be productive, etc. So the book, is the banner with which we circle up these audiences, and that means we can choose who our audience is when we choose what to write about.[00:57:00]
So then when we go back to the law of audience acceleration, and we're experiencing this exponential growth, it's because we've attached a useful audience, to what we are doing. And see how this starts to compound? We aren't just talking to strangers, we aren't just throwing things out there and praying and hoping that it works.
Again, even if your goal is just to be a speaker, and you're like who I [00:57:30] need to impress is the speaking circuit. No. See, the speaking circuit will choose you based off of who they think your audience is. They will book you for very expensive speaking gigs because they know Your role as a speaker is to bring your audience along with you.
And so if you have the right audience, it ups your fee and Desirability to be booked as a speaker and etc So this isn't just for people who are selling stuff off the back end or professional [00:58:00] services Even something like speaking is directly affected by this law of audience acceleration. You're a non profit you want to generate a bunch of You revenue for your non profit, would you rather have a useful audience?
Dedicated to the mission circling up around the banner you have set through your book or are you going to cold call people again or send random mailers and hope that you break even or better on the [00:58:30] funding drives and trust me, I'm on the board of several nonprofits. I can tell you that I know what my answer is, right?
Like I would much rather have a useful audience than have to do a lot of the sort of typical things that you have to do to generate money. Donations. Now, there's another element to the law of audience acceleration, and the reason that it's exponential is not just because it becomes more focused and more useful, but because that audience [00:59:00] response creates more audience response.
So what the heck does that mean? When you have a book and you start getting readers, this is the most, I love this about books. A book, when read and consumed, will result in reader questions, reader comments, and reader reach outs, right? Every single good book will do that. Now, why is that [00:59:30] helpful? Who cares about that?
What that really means is that a book is a source for more ideas. Reader has a, let's say, for example, you're trying to build a big podcast, right? And you're like, what the heck do I talk about on my podcast? If you have a book, your readers will tell you what to talk about. If you're like, okay, wow, this book thing is going pretty well, what should I [01:00:00] write for the second one?
Guess who will tell you what your second book should be about? And it will be the most reliable information you can possibly get your hands on. You're readers. And they'll tell you by all the questions they asked in your first book. I think Cal Newport actually does this really well.
Basically, he puts a book out, tons of people asking questions. He's great, I'll answer that in my next book. And he's creating asset after asset, getting all the benefits that we've talked about so [01:00:30] far. But it just the thing that you created thinking that you're gonna go into the market and you're gonna have all the ideas and, some writers even feel this burden that's I have to know everything in advance da.
No, write the best book you can and then when people ask questions, you now have fodder for other stuff, including what other things you should sell. So if you have a book out there and everyone's asking, oh my gosh, chapter seven was great but I really wish somebody would help me with it. [01:01:00] I really wish somebody could just hand me a done for you, diet plan.
You get enough of those questions and you got to be silly to not say, okay, we need to come up with a done for you diet plan. We can start selling our readers because they clearly want it. So when we say audience response creates more audience response, you then create that thing, create the next book, create the next product, and then people interact with that and give you [01:01:30] more feedback and et cetera.
So you have this loop. of no longer having to guess. And I, again, it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. You're trying to be a speaker. You're trying to grow a law practice. You're a podiatrist, whatever it is, this stuff taking away guesswork is how you accelerate your results, right? How much of your past five years do you look back on and say, you know what, if I just hadn't have taken that wrong turn and that wrong turn, I'd be [01:02:00] so much further than I what prevents wrong turns?
The right information.
Another element of audience response, creating more audience responses that your audience will share books. Free referrals, but free referrals to building an audience. Now this is important because your sample size grows in the information that you're getting back. I mean, one of the things I'm, I love [01:02:30] this question and this is such a great question.
If you've ever spent any time in selling things online, or selling anything ever really, like maybe you've done a webinar maybe you've done a video sales letter or something, how many times has someone shared a webinar with their friend where you're pitching the whole time and trying to sell your stuff?
Probably not that often. Not nearly as often as they've shared books. So if you've never, if you've never personally [01:03:00] experienced The accelerating factor of having a sales tool, called a book, shared faster than you can sell it. Then you probably actually haven't, you haven't actually experienced accelerated growth.
So for example, you pour a bunch of money into a webinar, mostly only the people you're paying to watch that webinar are going to watch the webinar, which means that your [01:03:30] growth is linear. You put in another dollar, you get one more person, another dollar, one more person, another dollar, one more person.
That's not how books work. You put another dollar into selling a book. If it's a good book, that book will turn into two more book sales because it got shared. You put another dollar, now you're selling two books. Those two books are now turning into six books. Those six books are turning into.
And if you write the book and it's good Useful, valuable, helpful, [01:04:00] people love it, and it sells you. You know how, you now have an exponentially accelerated sales tool.
Books also open the door to audience growth opportunities that not having a book doesn't. So for example, there are just certain stages. in the speaking circuit that you gotta have a book [01:04:30] or the benefits of a book. There are certain masterminds, there are certain podcasts, there are just are certain doors that being a published author and having a book opens that exposes you to either a bigger audience or a higher quality audience.
And one of the biggest keys to this Exponential [01:05:00] acceleration is that what a book does is it helps you to achieve not just volume acceleration, but acceleration of depth. All right, so let's see if I can explain this in two minutes. Okay. I promise someday I'm going to write a book about this because this is just such a fascinating concept and I'm not even saying I invented this.
I'm just, these are just things I've observed over 17 years. If you take someone who has read a book [01:05:30] about, let's say you versus. Another person who's watched a minute long Tik Tok about you, who do you think is more deeply connected with you and your message and what you're trying to do, knows more about who you are, what you're trying to do, is convinced more about who you are.
It's probably the person who spent seven hours reading your book and not the [01:06:00] person who spent one minute Watched maybe not even your whole tick tock may partially or maybe they did watch the whole thing Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, but then immediately watched another tick tock right after that This is what I mean by audience depth.
So it's not just about Volume and thousands. It's about everyone who's in that audience is deeply in that audience. Now, this is an [01:06:30] undeniable exponential accelerant.
This is a terrible example, and it's an example that unfortunately just occurs, but it is an example, and I'll give it to you. It's like having someone say something bad about you online, and either everyone pile on saying no, you're amazing and awesome, Or everyone pile on because they don't know you, and they're just jumping on your back because [01:07:00] They have nothing better to do on the internet.
That's the difference between having audience depth, and just having attention on the internet. When you have depth, you have fans, you have people who will go to bat for you. You have all of these advantages that can only be attained, because they've spent long, long time. Intimate amounts of time with you, your [01:07:30] message, and your, whatever it is that you have.
All of this gets rolled up, all of these different things that we've been talking about, to have this knock on effect of a useful audience. Not just an audience, but a useful audience, which is why the benefit is not just a linear acceleration, but an exponential acceleration. These are just a few of the examples of [01:08:00] how much financial ROI there is in a book.
Again, we didn't even talk about pride and, the fun things that you can do with books and, all that other stuff and, how good it feels to accomplish something and, with your family and all that. This is just the things that will lead to financial increases. And if you did one or two of these would radically change the trajectory of your business.[01:08:30]
or your mission or your goal of speaking or whatever it is which radically changed the trajectory, it would also radically change how hard things are right now. And you may say, oh, they're not that hard. Wait till you have a book. Then you'll be like, I can't believe I used to do it the old way. That was crazy.
Why did we used to do it that way? Having a book is like [01:09:00] playing this game on a much easier mode. It makes things easier. Easier to close, like deals easier to close. It makes growth easier. You say you write a piece of content, you put out a podcast. It's the same amount of effort to create a podcast for a bunch of people who don't know you as it is to create a podcast for a bunch of people who love you.
Which group of people do you think are going to [01:09:30] turn that podcast into something amazing and get the results you're looking for? Whether it's getting shared, going viral, etc. It's a group of people who love you. A book will give you that useful audience. It's just little things like that. It may take me hours to sit and pick out every single hundred little ways that it, a book can benefit.
So I hope that again, whether you're doing this yourself, whether you're doing this with someone, whether you're having someone else do this, That you keep these things in mind. I've been [01:10:00] doing this for 17 years. I have not found anything. It's not just that I'm partial to books. It's that I've not found anything better, more impactful, especially for exponential growth.
Then I have a book. There's a reason that the guy who talks about exponential growth, Peter Diamandis, has multiple books, right? If he's doing it, maybe we should listen, right? That kind of thing. As my very first mentor Jim Rohn says, success leaves [01:10:30] clues. Hopefully this has given you some food for thought, hopefully this is a useful episode that you can come back to time and time again, even if you get stuck somewhere or you're thinking about making investments of time, money, energy, and effort.
I implore you and encourage you to write a book, however you have to get it done. Write the book. It will be good for you. It will be profitable for you. If you do it correctly, it will also be good and profitable for the people [01:11:00] who consume it. And regardless of what your topic is, regardless of what you're trying to do, books make people's lives better.
I'm absolutely living proof of that. In 2007, I was homeless. It was the librarian in the Moulton Noma County Library and books that got me off the street. So I definitely believe in that aspect of their power as well. But today we just talked about the money and the financial [01:11:30] ROI. So for no other reason, write one for that and you'll see the other benefits happen as well.
All right, my friends. I hope that this has been helpful. If you'd like us to help you, please with any of your book stuff, go to PeacefulProfits.com/call have a chat with us. We'd love to help you. We have all sorts of different options. Again, I hope this has been helpful and we'll see you in the next one.
