How To Rapidly Write A Book With Betsy Tong

Foreign.

It's Henry DeVries with agency Rainmaker TV. That's the show where we help agency owners find right fit clients. And we all know about wrong fit clients. We don't want more of those. How do we find right fit clients? And very excited to have Betsy Tong. She was recommended to us to bring her on by Carly Cunningham. And we just do what Carlie Cunningham tells us to do. We figure things work out better that way. Betsy, how are you today?

Great, how are you?

Well, I'm excited to hear what you have to say. First, why don't we start off with who do you serve?

So the world is changing so fast and so I serve those of us who have achieved great things in corporate environments. We've hit all the marks, we, we've built the big businesses and then we decide we need to live a different life. In my case it was because my mom was dying of cancer and my father had dementia, so I couldn't work the same way anymore. On top of that, AI came and told me that my skills might not be needed in the future. And so I wanted to get ahead of that. And then I jumped out into the real world and I said I'm a consultant. And nobody came. Nobody came, Nobody came. And it was because I thought my reputation, my resume would mean everything. And instead I need to figure out how to be relevant and clear to a specific customer who I serve. And so now I help others like me who are ready to get off the hamster wheel of corporate and start building their own business and understand that that is the way to be resilient into the future.

I think that's a great insight, Betsy. We really have to know our who. We have to know what drives them and if we were one of them, that helps. I know I am a former advertising agency president and agency owner and I say I used to make big plans as an agency owner and watch them go horribly wrong. Now I write about agency owners. So but, but that not just sympathy, the empathy that you have for your who comes through. So that's great. So now what if you're not a consultant? What do you do for these people?

So I have an eight week program that really helps them distill down who matters and why do they like who is their customer? What is their niche? Most of us, for example, I post a lot on LinkedIn and this is my arena. Most of us want to be thought leaders and then we post to this grand arena. I talk to a single person, her name happens to be Shannon. And I think about what she thinks about and what she needs to know. And then I try to write about that. And so that's really niching down to somebody that you care about and help. Shannon is a friend. The second thing is turning your experience, which is amazing and you know, a lot of clients I have are completely badass and turning that experience into a method so that instead of their resume saying I did this, this and this, they're telling a story that shows that they have a methodology and a framework that they can do it again and create acceleration and leverage for their client. And that ends up being pretty powerful.

I stepped on your line. What were you saying?

That ends up being pretty powerful. Because you know, so many of us especially, especially when we are, we have risen to a certain level within companies. We've done every role, we've solved every problem and we come out and we want to say, well, I was the glue, I was the problem solver.

Those are really vague words that sound great to us but are fairly common for anybody who's a senior leader.

Yeah. So there's a couple of things you spoke about there that, you know, intrigued me. One is your eight week course. Does it have a name?

It. I call it the Authority Architecture and Authority Architecture. Yes.

Tell me more.

So this is the exact formula that I used when I was starting again and what got me to 1.8, 1.3 million views and 100k in 100 days. And again, it really starts with some, some really basic, easy to follow concepts, which is who's the person that you're talking to that really needs you? What is it that you do that accelerates them or solves a problem that they have and why is it urgent? So we all know and basis speak we have to solve somebody's problem. But everybody solves a problem. The question is whether you solve it for them in a way they will buy from you or, or from somebody else. And that's the second layer of thing that we dig into. The third is really using AI. So I'm somebody who's a systems thinker. I grew up building big businesses and big tech and that went to hundreds of millions of dollars for IBM, Intel, Lenovo and Symantec. And I take that idea and I think about, we create systems. How do we test what you do? How do we use AI to open doors that weren't possible before? For me, that journey started back in 2024 where I decided to learn AI by writing my first book. Writing a book had always been a dream, right. And I said, great, I'M going to learn AI and I'm going to write a book in 72 hours. And it wasn't about using AI to write the book because we all know that AI can generate lots and lots of schlock. But what it was about was really thinking about the components of the book, the pieces that held me back, the organization, the tediousness, the feeling like I was alone and not having a sounding board that really got me out of my head onto a page and then rethinking the experience of the book. So it's not just a one way street where I am the author and the guru and I'm talking to you from the page, but you can interact with my custom GPTs, my clone, or other things that help you have a richer experience with the learning. And so all of these things I put into my books and now I teach as part of the method for clients like Carly.

Dang it, I gotta get me a clone.

You do, you do.

Really interesting there. Or an AI agent. Somebody said. So.

We like to say here, don't be a thought leader, be a thought follower and be an authority. Be an expert. And you can't spell the word authority without the word author. So you have certainly done it. Well, let's talk about how you make it rain. Talk about how do you leverage that book that you've written?

So the book is a great part of a marketing system, right? First of all, I believe firmly nobody cares what I have to say unless I can find a way to engage them on a personal level to get to know like and trust me. And so within the book, it is not the great American tome of business in any of my books. It really is little vignettes and stories of things that I've been through, my clients have been through, and things we've learned along the way that makes it personal and relatable. And then the fact that I have a clone that sounds like me, has my knowledge, but it's less funny to talk to you as well. Makes it more relatable and makes it more personal. And the book is a great vehicle. Whether the book is the format or it just is a way for you to think through all the things you've done that make you unique and how you tell those stories in a page. And that's really what my book offer does. It really walks you week by week by week through a methodology that gets you from point A to B of why are you writing the book? Why does somebody need to read it? What is the transformation they achieve from point A to point B. And then how do we get you over the tedium of writing a book? So I can write a book now in 10 hours.

My clients aren't usually that fast, but the process works and the system works. It's repeatable. And so now Carly just finished her first book Monday. She's already thinking about her second or third, and she's using the things that she wrote in her book to re redefine her business and close clients and. And close speaking engagements because she can give people the book as a. Here's a way for you to get to know me.

Now, where in the world are you, Betsy? Tom.

I am in Irvine, California.

Oh, well, you're just up the road from me. I'm in Oceanside, California.

Right on.

When we get off camera, I'm doing a event for authors on August 6, and maybe you'd like to attend.

Yeah.

And so an author's roundtable. So we'll talk when we go off camera here. Is there anything else you wanted to add? I see we're almost out of time.

I just think that we know AI is coming. We know the world of work is changing. There's never been a better time to be a solopreneur because of the access to all the knowledge we need and the ability to do things differently than we would have even two years ago. So, you know, it's a $1.3 trillion business that's growing at 10%. There's at least a good living in there for all of us. And that's what I like to think about.

Thank you so much for being with us today and to all our viewers, until next time, make it rain.