Review of Book Launchers from Brent Pohlman author of Leaders Look Within

Well, my name is Brent Pullman, author of Leaders look within and CEO of Midwest Laboratories. I wrote my book right as Covid was hitting us. And I really wanted to look at my leadership journey because I think a lot of us are trying to understand where leadership comes from, and it really does come inside of each and every one of us. Leadership is very personal, and I wanted to tell that message in such a way because I've learned so much through this. I think writing the book, for me, again, it started out almost like a personal journey or personal journal. And what I didn't see is the impact it was going to have not only on myself, but the lives of others, my employees, my family. The book was a way for me to connect with my five adult children. They said, dad, we don't know what you do. Can you tell us a little bit? So it was really a good way to reconnect with my kids. And I would also see even my employees, there's something about taking the time and investing in writing a book. They just saw that the leader and then sharing that with all of them, that he values something. He's. There's. There's a reason for his madness or the way he talks or the way he operates the company. And the company has flourished, I will say, since I wrote the book, too, which is, again, I didn't see that coming. I guess my advice for you, too, and what. Why I really like this team at Book Launchers, is they are there to assist you along the whole path. And I think the biggest thing, I think as an author that I had to really deal with myself, was that getting down. Maybe I don't have the right words or I couldn't come up with the right thoughts or organizing the content. If you take a pause or take a breath and even give one of these team members a call, they can help you through that process. And as you do it more and more, you'll get better. I wrote my book, and then I released it in May. And that summer, I had two daughters get married. So I had to put a pause on everything. I thought, oh, gosh, have I just ruined the whole release of this? Don't I need to be out there doing something? I will tell you, once you release that book, you have the next couple years. I am finding more now than when I released it in 2023. More exposure, more opportunities to speak. The book is coming alive. Yes, those first two months are very important, but it's continuing. And that's what this team has really taught me, the marketing. It's a year two process. I'm actually writing my second book. I really like this journey so much. I'm starting another book and I'm in the editing part of that again. And by the way, the second book is much easier to write and get collect your thoughts I think than the first book.

Let's talk about the speaking journey too, please.

I would say the speaking journey just took off so much last year. I think the Last count was 78 podcast interviews, something like that. And each one of those again were just different topics. They take the same. They can go a different route every single time. There's no really template for having to do a podcast. It depends on the host and what they're going to ask. But that whole speaking engagement took off. Then there's a particular conference I did. I brought the book a year ago and this year they asked me to give two different topics on presenting. So I started to talk more about the second book in that topic and I think what it's also led to with myself going to these and again I'm just relating how the impact of this our leadership team at our the company came to me and said can we now have quarterly lunches with the CEO where the employees can ask you questions. So I think people are seeing myself online, they want to know more. And I would say another thing that's really been eye opening to me, if you're hesitant about maybe you've got a small group, maybe it's five people. I did this, I've tried this and it's worked phenomenally, is just give your book out to those five people because they will tell not only five but about 10 more people that you gave a presentation and that you actually gave him a copy of your book. So I think through all that it just showed me that this effect, this roller coaster effect is still going on. I don't see it ending anytime soon. So it just keeps building and building. There was one day I think I did that book Launchers marketing team set me up. I was on the radio or TV or podcast. I think we started at 7am and we finished at 5pm I think it was 13 times I was on different stations. I don't know how they do that again. You don't have to worry about the how on how they get those interviews lined up. But every hour I was talking to somebody different and that was huge. So again the marketing and working with your team, it's just been phenomenal to see this take off.

That's awesome. I forgot about that that you did that whole day. We're now offering that externally. So if somebody really wants a full day media blitz, kind of like Brent said, it sometimes ends up being a day and a half because we can't get everything booked on a single day. But we now have a package offering where we will help get you that. But you have to give us eight weeks. Like it takes a long time to line everything up to make a big full day of it like that that Brent got to do. But that's great. I forgot to ask you about that, so I'm glad you brought it up. Joy was curious if you turn down any invitations for podcasts and if so, why or why not? Why did you not turn any down?

Some of you have initial interviews. I've probably turned down a couple. The topic of my book didn't quite fit with what they were trying to go through. I mean, it's just like anything, you're going to have some good interviews, some not so good. Again, don't beat yourself up. You're just trying to tell your story and you'll get better at it as you go. As far as format and in the beginning, every presenter is really different, but just come prepared. My simple rule of thumb is you'll write that sheet out with book launchers that they'll give to the the companies, but have your own sheet. Just say, I think in this one I really want to touch on these three key themes and keep it really simple. If you just say somewhere I want to bring these three themes out or three examples from the book. If there's an opportunity, I really want to bring these out. Those are my three, I call them goals, my three goals of the podcast. If there's an opportunity, I want to tell that a particular story and always listen to whoever you're talking to. Listen to, to the podcast some previous times that they've interviewed other people just so that you get a feel for the conversation and the dialogue. But keep it really simple. Have a little sheet next to you or even on your screen so you're not looking down and you'll come up with your own little routine as you do these more and more.

Brent, we had a question from David that's directed toward you and your speaking engagement. So, Brent, how did your speaking process take shape?

Yeah, I think when I released the book, I thought maybe I, you know, that you'd get a lot of calls right away. I think one thing that helped me and I would encourage you to do this, but I took the book, I used LinkedIn, the newsletter on LinkedIn and I went through every single chapter. I started one chapter a month and I talked about the theme and then some examples about it and how it applied right now. And I did all 13 chapters. And now it's just a monthly newsletter. But I think it got people, again, interested in the book. The more you can get your book out there in some format or some way, whether it's your site, whether it's social media and all that, it's very powerful. And once people have it, they may not comment right away. But there are so many people who know that I've written a book and I've never seen them comment on social media again. You don't know what that number is, but I think that's where I got a lot of these speaking engagements. The other thing are articles. I never thought of myself as a writer until this book, but I've been asked to write articles for about four or five different magazines. So again, when you speak at a group or you even send your information to a group, somebody's looking at your content, someone's looking at your book. And don't be afraid to send your book with some of your information and then you'll get into other articles and you can find other ways to bring people in on your book. So I think that's really how that whole speaker piece really lined up. But Book Launchers does a phenomenal job about that with the marketing piece. Get you in front of a lot of people. Just be ready because it's a lot. I will tell you that.