A short YouTube interview clip with Chris Collins (Service Driving Revolution) in which he recounts hiring a ghostwriter to write a leadership/service-management book aimed at the auto industry. He explains the motivations (reach more people, time constraints), the process (interviews, outline, draft), and why the resulting manuscript failed—because the ghostwriter lacked industry knowledge and misrepresented terminology, characters, and dynamics—so he declined to publish that draft. The clip ends with standard channel CTA.
Questions this video answers
October 18, 2023.
Around $10,000 (Chris: "I'm gonna guess it was like 10,000 bucks").
Chapters
So what is it that got, how did you get started? Like, I wouldn't even know where to go to like get a book published, to be honest with you. So how do you remember like that, that initial thing that says, oh, I'm gonna write a book and it's going to be about this and here's how I'm gonna get it done.
Yeah. And I, I would say the thing that I think of too when, when we're talking about this is, and then there's. Most people start a book and don't finish a book. Of the people that finish a book, which is a low percentage, only a handful of them is the book good. Like think about, of all the books that are going to come out this week, how many of them aren't very good or they're self serving or you know, whatever it is. And so, you know, getting a book done and then actually wanting it to have an effect on people is not an easy, an easy task. Right. Like, you can see firsthand the amount of mental anguish I've been going through the last more than a year trying to, trying to finish this leadership book.
It's been a labor of love, but not an easy labor.
And there's days like where I hate it. Like, I hate, it's just the oddest thing. Like you hate everything about it.
And that's all, it's just a part of the process. So I'll tell you what, what, what happened was I was talking to somebody.
Who was, was successful in business and coaching and that sort of thing and they suggested that I write a book. And I was kind of like, you know, no, there's no market for that. And then they made the point to me that if you, they asked the question, do you want to help more people? And I said, yeah, as a matter of fact, like, I'm kind of tapped out. Like, I'm booked, I'm booked out way ahead of time and, and I'm never home and you know, I couldn't, there's nowhere else for me to.
To add time. Like, I'm, I'm pretty, pretty strapped. And they, they asked the question like, well, do you want to help more people? And I was like, well, yeah, of course I want to help more people. And they're like, well, that's the start of helping more people is if you write a book. And then they said it's easy, just get a ghostwriter. They'll, they'll interview you and.
You know, they'll write the book and then you, you just put it out So I did that, and I paid a ghostwriter. I don't know exactly how much, but I. It was. It was probably close to.
Back then. I'm gonna guess it was like 10,000 bucks.
Oh, yeah. I was gonna guess thousands. So 10 grand makes sense.
And the person interviewed me. We came up with an outline. And then they.
A couple months later, handed in a book. And I opened it up and I started reading it and go, oh, nobody, Nobody in the auto industry is gonna think I wrote this book. Like, they don't understand the terminology. They've got all this wrong. And so then I started trying to explain to the person.
How things were wrong and that it's just when somebody isn't in the auto industry to explain to them the inside baseball of what really happens in the dynamics and the characters and the politics and the. You know, we experience that when we bring on, you know, different companies and we're like, no. Well, you know, there's the people that are making the decisions, and then there's the management, and, you know, it's just. It's a whole thing.
So you have to teach every person.
Every time it didn't get better and it wasn't. The book wasn't good enough.
To fix. I didn't think. I. I thought that.
They wouldn't represent me. And people told me at that point, they're like, just put the book out. Most people don't read a book anyways. Just put it out. Like, nobody will read it. It doesn't matter. And I was like, what? Like, no, I can't. I can't do that. Right.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you.
