Lesson Info
1. Class Introduction
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Lesson Info
Class Introduction
(audience clapping) All right so what we're talking about today is Self Publishing for the Entrepreneurs. So this gets into the side of publishing that you do yourself and is not the traditional side, and it's designed to help anybody who has a business, who wants to become a thought leader. There's a thing in our culture that's very difficult to explain that writing a book elevates you to this place where you're seen as an expert, and you're seen as a go to person. It's kind of magical and I've seen it happen time and time again, when somebody codifies their ideas into a book and puts it out there, they're suddenly seen in a whole new light. And it's a fantastic way for entrepreneur to get noticed, to get seen, and to start being recognized as a thought leader, so that's part of what we're gonna talk about today. I wanna start by talking about the whole idea of ROI which is an entrepreneur term for return on investment. Is the ROI of writing a book even worth it? That's a question t...
hat I get a lot from people because entrepreneurs are busy, they're running a business, they're out there doing the thing. Maybe they are a consultant, maybe they're a coach themselves of some persuasion, maybe they're running a yoga studio, maybe they've got a bakery, whatever their thing is they've got a lot on their plate so they often ask me why should I do this, what is the ROI of writing a book. And the thing I wanna leave with you today is this idea that publishing a book is not about the money that they're gonna make from the cover price of that book, it's hard to make a lot of money from a book alone what it's gonna do though, is put you as a leader in your industry, among your colleagues is gonna lift you up to a place where you probably can get a return on investment of that time and energy that you spend, but it's not about the book itself it's about what that book does for you. So that's what we're gonna kind of get at today and as an example I wanna talk about this guy, his name is Michael Stanier and he represents exactly what I'm talking about how writing a book can elevate you to become a thought leader. Michael Stanierd runs this organization called Box of Crayons, and it's a consulting organization that helps businesses teach our managers how to coach the people under them. So he's got this consulting business so he wrote a book called The Coaching Habit, and The Coaching Habit you can see was a Wall Street Journal Bestseller that's what that little medallion on the top indicates. And you wanna ask yourself, okay why does a guy who's got this consulting company, he consults for companies like American Express, Yahoo, HBO, big clients, why would a guy like that need to stop and take the time to write a book and put a book out there. Why would he even do that? And that's a thing that we want to think about. So I wanna show some of the specific ROI that a guy like this got on his book. So for one thing he got blurbs, which are the things on the back of the book that people recommend the book from people at Facebook, people at Air Canada, he got blurbs from some of the world's best selling authors like Brene Brown, and Daniel Pink, and Seth Godin. So now he's into this club of these people who are considered thought leaders and they're all recommending his book. He was written up and reviewed in publications everything from Harvard Business Review to Forbes and Ink, and all over the media when his book came out. So that's one example or a couple of examples of how writing a book elevates you to this place where you're getting talked about, and seen, and known. In Michael Stanier's case he sold a lot of copies of this book, this is a lot of copies of a book. If you think about the fact that you make somewhere in the neighborhood of on a like a $12 book you take home somewhere in the neighborhood of like $4, $5, $6 per book, he's made a lot of money on this book, but more than that, his ideas are in the hands of a lot of people, so he's amplified his reach to a lot of people, and that's the reason why a guy like this would even take the time to do this. And he spent more than a year writing this book and self-published it, and worked himself on the cover, he had total creative control because he self-published the book and set the price, all the things you can do when you self-publish, and he brought this book out to all these people. And the thing that he says about it, I think this is fascinating. He says, more important than those sales, and the blurbs, and all of that is that it's tripled the number of sales inquiries for his training company, Box of Crayons. "We give busy managers the practical tools "so they can coach in 10 minutes or less "and as a result, our revenue is up 82% "from this time last year. All from one book." That's extraordinary, that's extraordinary reach and amplification, and if you think about as an entrepreneur you're always trying to market yourself to get new people into your ideas, to bring them into your universe. This is one really powerful way to do it, is to write a book. Now a guy like this is kind of in a rare fight air he's got this big time clients, he's got this big time blurbers, so what is that mean for a regular person who's just got a regular business maybe it's your solopreneur, maybe you have few employees, what is that mean for you. And I wanna talk about that today.
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
I absolutely LOVED this class!! I've been a writer/author for years, and this course made me think differently about how I approach my craft in a very positive and inspiring way. The worksheets are outstanding, and Jennie is an engaging instructor with a good mix of audience interaction. Enjoyed her live interview with one of her clients, which was very insightful and thought-provoking. Worth every penny and much much more!!!