#144: How to Be More Likeable and Win More Business (Without Changing Your Personality)

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level.

And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed show notes of this episode@b2b launcher.com episode 144. Those notes include a summary of our discussion, as well as any links to resources mentioned during the interview. Now, before we get to the show, I have a quick announcement. I'm about to coach a small group of new B2B writers and copywriters who are serious about launching a successful freelance business in 2018. And I'm looking for some good people who want to make some great things happen. We're going to work together to get your business off the ground quickly and to land your first paying client. If you'd like to learn more, drop me a line@edlauncher.com and put the word launch in the subject line. I'll then reply to you with all the details. So now back to our regularly scheduled programming. You've probably heard it before. People do business with people they know, like and trust. But what exactly does it mean to be likable? Is it a personality thing? Do you have to act or look a certain way? Do you have to be charming? You have to wear designer clothes? Do you have to have a perfect smile, beautiful teeth? None of that is true. You don't need any of that. That may have been true back in the 50s, maybe, but these days, likability has nothing to do with with any of those superficial things. According to my friend and colleague Michael Katz, anyone can be likable because likability is much more about things you do consistently than about your personality or your outward appearance. And in this conversation, Michael is going to explain what you need to do to be perceived as a true likable expert. One last quick thing before I bring Michael on. Michael and I had some technical difficulties in trying to get our audio right, so we ended up doing this one over the phone. The audio quality is not as great as you're used to getting from this show, but I think the content is fantastic. In fact, I think this is one of the best interviews we've had on the podcast lately. So please bear with me. Don't miss it. I hope you enjoy it.

Michael, great to have you back on the show, man.

Great to Be here. Thanks.

Always a pleasure talking with you. And I know today will be no exception. Always share great information with us. And for those folks who never heard of you, not sure who you are.

What you do, let's start there.

Why don't you give us a quick description of what you do, the type of work you do, what kind of clients you work with and so forth.

Yeah, I'm sort of half marketing consultant and half coach. And I guess the difference is that consultant does things for people and a coach kind of works with them and teaches them. I'm probably 50, 50 in terms of my work. My clients are all solo professionals, by which I mean recruiters, financial planners, consultants, coaches, writers. So they're all people who sell themselves essentially as opposed to a thing. And my approach, as I know we'll talk about, kind of fits well with people who in particular are trying to differentiate themselves from other people who do essentially the same thing. Gotcha.

So, yeah, but they're definitely solo practitioners. They don't have a whole staff of other, say, financial advisors and I guess kind of commoditize in some way. So they have to differentiate beyond just.

Here'S what I do exactly. I always say my ideal clients are people who are really good at what they do, but the thing they do is not marketing and they need clients. Yeah, gotcha.

And just like all of us, right. That in most cases we can't just sit around and wait for clients to come. We have to do a number of things. It's an activity. It's something we have to be mindful and proactive about.

Yeah. And it's, interestingly, it's unlike even 15 years ago. It's a hands on activity. You can't really outsource this the way, certainly the way a big company would. But even 15, 20 years ago, before all the Internet stuff occurred, your options were placing ads and sponsorships which someone else could do for you. This is the kind of stuff you have to do and get involved in. So that's where the coaching really comes in. It's much more about learning an approach than just paying someone to market for you.

Well, I love the term that so much of your business is centered around. And it's this concept of becoming a likable expert. I just love that term because it really does convey what many of us need to be working towards. But let's describe that and define that. What makes someone a likable expert?

Well, just to sort of step back a little bit after being on my own working for a while and in this quest of clients. And I should say that even though I was a marketing person in a big company for many years, when I went to work on my own, I quickly realized that none of that had anything to do with getting clients as a solo because I didn't have a budget, I didn't have a brand name that people knew, I didn't have staff. So all the stuff I did as a marketing person was completely irrelevant. And so I definitely kind of kicked around for several years just trying to make this work. Eventually I started to realize, and I still think this is true, that you need three things to work, and you need all three if you're going to get hired on an ongoing basis. One is people need to believe you're qualified. So that's the expert kind of thing. Although I should say it's much more about them believing than it necessarily being true. And not to say that you're faking it, it's that it's about their perception of you as being qualified. Because people don't know when you hire someone how good they're going to be sometimes even after the fact. Like you don't know how good an accountant your accountant is. He or she hopefully is kind of over the bar, but it's hard to tell. So it's very much this. What do you do so that people perceive you qualified? Even better expert.

Let me pause right there real quick, because one of the things that I hear a lot about from people in my tribe, they said, ed, I don't think I'm really qualified. I'm not an expert. Something along those lines. So what would you say to somebody like that? Because that's kind of a moving target. When do you qualify to start thinking of yourself as a expert?

Well, I think it's exactly what you said. When do you think of yourself as an expert? Because the day will never come where the Wall Street Journal calls you up and says, you know, Ed, we've been watching you and you are now an expert. And so I think that for many people, certainly people who are new, and I would say new as a solo, regardless of your qualifications. I mean, I've talked to people that perfectly fit whatever they were trying to do in terms of experience and background and all that stuff, but who have this hesitation, I think that's sort of just a normal human condition among most normal humans that we doubt if we're good enough. And so the thing you have to remember is the people who are considering hiring you, regardless of what you do, are so far behind you in terms of your expertise. And again, you could take the example of anyone from the guy who takes care of your lawn, to your mechanic, to your doctor, to a writer that you hire, you're way ahead of the people who would hire you. So in their eyes, you're far above the good enough bar. Now, I'm not saying you go around saying, look at me, I'm an expert, but I am saying you have to do things, developing content, the way you present yourself, your website, looking up today and all that, so that people see you and say, okay, he or she looks like somebody who I think is good enough. But I can assure nearly everybody on this call that that's not the issue, you're good enough. It's a question of do other people believe that? Gotcha.

So that's that first point, right?

So you need something, you need to do things that relate to that. You need to be remembered. So we all live in this word of mouth world, like we're not buying ads or anything. And so you need to be doing things. And I'm very big on staying in touch with your existing relationships so that when somebody says, hey, I'm looking for somebody to write a white paper for me or to write my website or fix my car, who do you know? And that's very much how the business world works. And not just B2C but B2B too. That when you're in, if you're in a big company and you need someone to work on the annual report or you need, you just lost your vice president of sales and you need a recruiter, you just go around and say to people, hey, who do you know who could fix this problem? So people need to think of you and remember you because we're all busy. And if you're not doing things to stay present and top of mind with people, they forget you. And then the last thing is this likability thing. And I have to say, when I started to realize this, I really dismissed this for a long time as being it's not really serious stuff. And you know, and we're all in business here and so it's nice to be nice, but that's not going to help you. What I have found though is that it's so tied to how much people trust you, are willing to help you, are willing to pay you more, is do they like you? Which I acknowledge is very soft. But if you can do things that will crank that up, you're going to have a lot more referrals in business. And also just on those three Things expert, top of mind likeability. What I've noticed is people pay a ton of attention to trying to prove their expertise by saying, I've got this credential, I'm going to polish my website a little bit. They pay a little bit of attention to the middle one about staying in touch. But most of us sort of admit and say, hey, I don't really do this very well and practically nothing to deliberately being likable. And what I found is that because of that there's a lot more kind of business upside and likability than capability. You already are good enough and the problem is, so is everybody else that you're competing with.

That is very interesting. I never thought of it that way, but you're right. This likeability thing is kind of, I don't know, swept under the rug or looked at as well, whatever. Which makes me wonder how much of likability is about personality. You know, is this about being a certain way or acting a certain way or having a certain personality or is this something that anyone could do?

I definitely think it's the latter. So I have to say, when I talk about likability, a lot of times people think what I'm saying is how to take Joe in accounting that everybody hates, but he's really good and make him not so bad, how to turn him into a reasonable person. Or on the other hand, you'll hear people talk about do I need a magnetic personality, whatever that is.

Yeah, I need to be outgoing, I need to be extroverted, but I'm introverted, so I don't think I'll ever do this.

I agree. I'm saying the majority of people are likable in the sense that if I had coffee with you or met you in a networking meeting or you live next door to me, most people are friendly and all that kind of stuff. The problem was when it comes to marketing yourself, people tend to lose all that sort of authentic humanity. They don't become nasty people generally, but they lose. They stop telling stories, they stop talking about their personal life, they're afraid they're not going to be taken seriously and so they just become this sort of two dimensional business person. And what I'm talking about is how do you take the way you are in real life or the way you are with that client you have who loves you? Like we've all got a client like that, hopefully more than one where like no matter what you say or do, they think it's brilliant and you get along great with that person regardless of your Personality, whether you're introverted or funny or whatever, they like you. All I'm saying is can you bring out more of that in your marketing and everyday business work so that more people see that and kind of goes back to that same expert thing you were talking about, that there's this fear that if I'm too casual and friendly, I'm not going to be taken seriously. And I found the exact opposite is true in the sense that all these professionals kind of look the same. Here's someone who talks a little more about their life and asks me about that and does things that are a little more interesting. I like them more and so I'm going to talk to them more and refer them more and tell them more about my business or they'll do more work with me.

Yeah, makes perfect sense. I mean, I think it is counterintuitive in a lot of ways. But you think about the professionals that you've hired that you really enjoy. My wife still, and I do too. But we have a 15 year old and his pediatrician has been. He was a pediatrician who saw him on day two or day one of his life. Right. And so because he happened to be making the rounds that day in the hospital, that's who we went to. And he's been his pediatrician ever since. And my wife absolutely loves the guy. Now I should mention this guy is very introverted, very quiet, very soft spoken. She absolutely loves him. I have no idea what this guy's credentials are. Hopefully it's not one of these situations, right? Like what was that movie Catch Me if youf Can?

Hopefully not. Hopefully he really knows what he's doing. But you know, that's what we go by.

We just go by his demeanor, his personality, his friendliness. And I don't know anything about his credentials as a medical doctor.

So yeah, I always like to say to people, you know, half the doctors on Earth finish in the bottom half of their class at medical school. There's a decent chance your doctor's one of them. But you know, the truth is that unless you're getting like a heart transplant, most doctors are good enough. Most accountants are good enough. Most auto mechanics are good enough. That's the problem. Everybody's good enough. And you know, that's why I'm talking about. We spend a lot of time in this expert thing. So if I say to people sometimes, hey, what makes you different? And people will get into these real nuanced differences of, well, I do this kind of thing a little bit better than the next guy. And the problem is, first off, the next guy would disagree. And secondly, I can't tell the difference anyway. As your client, I can tell the difference between likability. And I should also say, your wife may love that doctor, but maybe my wife would hate him. So it's not like there's this universal likability thing. It's more about what authentically are you? And again, why does that great client love you? And can you bring out more of that in your marketing? So you get more people like him or her and you don't get the guy who doesn't like you. I mean, in many ways, the problem clients are the people you don't see eye to eye with. They're not bad. You just don't connect. I don't want those people and they don't want me. I want the people where I want as many of the people as possible who, no matter what I say or do, they think that's brilliant because everyone's happy that way. And by the way, those people who want to pay you a lot more. That's true.

Well, some great ideas here, but let's kind of get down to some concrete steps or actions that people can take to become a likable expert or become a more likable expert. So can you share some concrete ideas with us that we could actually implement?

Yeah. So again, I look at likability not as who you are so much as what you do. I'm going to start with the assumption that you're already likable. So what things can you do? One that I found works terrifically well is the handwritten note. It takes some effort, doesn't scale, requires a little bit of money, not a lot. But if I send a handwritten note to somebody, they know I didn't send a thousand of them. And it arrives in a channel that's essentially empty because no one gets real mail anymore. My goal is I send one of these a week to somebody. Could be thanking somebody, could be a client, could be congratulating somebody. One a week. So the thing is, it's not a lot. That's 50 a year. I've literally been in clients offices and seen my note pinned on the board like the bulletin board, which is kind of weird, but it's so unusual. So doesn't take a lot of money, just takes a little effort. I bet the open rate on a handwritten note is 100%, unlike the email we send. So easy to do if you want to get some nice custom stationery or whatever. Like I have these Cards with my company name on it. That's great. But you don't even have to do that. People appreciate that because it shows a little bit of effort. Love that. Love that.

You're right. Nobody's doing this. I'm a big fan of doing what few are doing. So let everybody else kind of follow the pack and. All right, well, where did that open up opportunities? And this is absolutely one of them. Brilliant.

It's so simple to do. Yeah. In fact, a lot of times I'm working with people who compete with larger companies. So I'm big on. What can you do that your larger competitors can't? Like, say you're an individual financial planner and you're competing against, let's say, Fidelity, essentially. Well, Fidelity can't send you a handwritten note. They're not going to do it. It doesn't scale.

You can do that.

Another one is sending books. So everyone, you know, as the holidays get closer, people think about sending gifts to clients and stuff. And that's okay. And certainly if it's expected, you don't want to not be there. I don't actually do that. I used to, but one day I thought, why am I spending my largest expense of the year at the exact time when everybody else on earth is doing the same thing? And I don't know about you, but that week leading up to Christmas, I very quickly become jaded. Like when the mailman comes in, I'm like, what do you got for me today? Because you're getting stuff like every day. I don't want to be in that mix. I want to be sending people stuff in May when nobody gets anything. And the thing I find is really easy to do, especially if you have a Prime membership with Amazon. I send people books. So, for example, I was talking to someone yesterday, a client, and I mentioned we were talking about pricing and there's a book that's really good on pricing. I was about to tell her, hey, here's a great book, but I don't do that anymore. What I did after we got off the phone was I sent it to her with prime so she'll get this book tomorrow. And the whole deal cost me like $20. But it's a nice gesture. People appreciate. It's again, this physical thing that shows up and it's really easy to do and not that expensive. So I do that on a kind of regular. I bet I said one book a month to somebody.

Yeah. And it's just not a program pre programmed thing. It's really more ad hoc based on Maybe some discussions you've had or what have you, right?

Yes. And it shows. I mean, I think what's inherent in all this is I'm not just pushing a button and sending a thousand whatevers. I mean, I'm big on email newsletters, and that certainly serves a purpose, but it's not customized and it doesn't cost me anything. So there's not a lot of likability baked into that. In terms of the gesture itself, you spend a little money. When you take a little effort, people appreciate that. I think there's this real sort of yearning for a human connection, and you can satisfy that as a small business and particularly well, because we're suited to that much more than a big company.

Well, the thing with Amazon, too, is you can include a note, which they used to not do a very good job of this. It used to be kind of embedded in the invoice somewhere in the packing slip. Now they're actually including a little note, and I think you could even do a card that stands out a little bit more.

Well, I have to say I always pay the extra 350 and do the gift wrapping because I've had people say a couple times where you don't hear anything, and I'd be like, oh, hey, yeah, did you get that book I sent? And a couple times I had people say, oh, geez, I order so much, or my husband ordered it, and I didn't even realize you sent it. So now I have them wrap it.

That is a great tip. What an amazing visual cue. I've had the same thing happen to me, and actually, as a recipient, too, I got this horrible habit of buying books, and then I forget, like, oh.

Did I order this? Okay, maybe I did. I just don't remember exactly. So I don't do that. So that's a couple things. Another thing which is not about, you know, a gift or a note kind of thing, is turning down business because the person you're talking to doesn't actually need you. So this, to me, is an example of proving that you're someone who's trustworthy and likable. So, you know, we've all had this. You have a conversation with someone, they call you, or you get connected in some way, and as you're talking to them, you realize, you know, either I'm not a good fit for this person, or sometimes I find, you know what? This person doesn't actually need it any help, because I start asking them, like, what's the problem? And what are you doing? And what they really Just wanted was reassurance that they're on the right page. A person like that, you potentially could turn them into a client. I find if I say to that person, either, look, you don't have a big enough problem for me to help you, or you know what? I'm not the guy. You need this other person when you do that, now they know they can trust you. And though you are kind of giving up the sale, I look at that as a marketing opportunity. That person goes off into the world knowing that you're selling that they can trust. And I think they'd be a bad client anyway, because if you sell somebody something they don't really need, they're not going to be happy with it. But that's an opportunity. We all have to sort of demonstrate our likability. If you're willing to not take the sale today under the belief that it'll.

Come back to you in some other way, that's brilliant.

I love that.

And you're right.

It's because of the work we do. Since we have to fulfill the work.

You'Re really better off not taking the client because otherwise you're going to have a problem in your hands.

Yeah, I mean, I think recognizing what I think of as sort of client red flags up front is a good thing to learn to do. In fact, when someone tells me, hey, you know, I had a turbo client, I had to fire them, or whatever, I always ask, so when you play it back to when you had that initial conversation, did you know this person was going to be a problem? And people can usually say, yeah, I kind of got that sense. Maybe they were too eager, too desperate, too much. I hated that guy, but I did it anyway. You want to avoid those people. It's not good for them and it's not good for you.

I love it.

Another one.

What's another idea?

Paying attention and helping people who can't help you. So we're all very, I think, transactionally oriented. And, you know, we all have to make a living. And so we want to talk to people who potentially could hire us. But most of the interactions with the people you have every day are not with people who potentially could hire you. My belief is if I can help someone when they're in that situation again, it's going to come back and help me. So, for example, we've all gotten the email from the guy we used to work with or went to college with saying, I just got laid off. Here's my resume. Let me know. Please share this with anyone who might need Somebody like me. Most people say, hey, I'm busy around here, delete. Or you hear from someone who says, hey, I'm thinking of getting into your industry. Can I buy a cup of coffee? That guy can't help you. Easy to go. Delete. My philosophy is I connect back with those people because first off, it's a nice thing to do. But secondly, those people remember you. You were the one guy who had coffee with that guy who got laid off. One day he's going to get a job. And again, this is a marketing opportunity. So I should say that this likeability stuff is not just nice, although it is nice. It's a very deliberate brand building exercise. And we all have dozens of these, really every day. But if you're too busy just figuring out who can get me money today, you're going to miss all this stuff. I mean, it's very. There's a certain amount of sort of leap of faith here because rarely do you do anything likable that instantly comes back to you in a positive way in terms of clients. But I've been doing enough of this for long, enough that I've seen it does come back to me. People I've never heard of call me up and say, hey, Joe Smith sent me your way. And when I go back to my files, Joe Smith's the guy I had coffee with five years ago, got laid off. You have to believe that it works. But it's kind of like exercise where you have to believe that's going to work. You're not going to get stronger today, but if you do it enough, it kind of works out. I think it's the same way with likability.

That's a really, really good point. I found, Michael, that I've learned not to do it because I'm making a deposit in that person's life that hopefully will come back to me from them. I've learned to do it because it's the right thing to do. And whenever I can, I will do it. And in the back of my mind, the only thing that I will accept in terms of self talk is that this will come back to me from somewhere. In most cases, it doesn't come back to me through that person or from that person directly. In some cases it's an indirect thing. I've had people come back to me five, six years later and say, you know, you don't remember this, but you took a few minutes out of your day to have a conversation with me and you gave me some advice that made all the difference in the world. And, you know, that's awesome. And that to me, just. I don't remember having that conversation. Just hearing that makes my day. And then what has happened is some.

Of those people have referred other folks.

To me who have become clients. So that person maybe was never able to pay me back directly, but they did it indirectly in many cases, not even that. But I just know that, you know, whether it's karma or something else, that, you know what, I'm making the world a better place and I can't help everybody to that extent. But Andy Stanley says that, you know, do for one person what you wish you could do for everybody, but as long as you can do it occasionally and be mindful about it, I think that's the key, isn't it?

Yeah. And also you make me think that this is something that a big company also can't do. When I had a job in a big company, this concept of this sort of soft stuff would have been very quickly dismissed. I would never even brought it up out of fear of not being taken seriously. How did it even occur to me back then? But in a big company with a room full of people trying to decide on stuff, it's very much oriented towards trackable results. What can we do that we can then demonstrate work so we can do more of it and spend more money there? And it's really hard to get people to do this kind of thing in that environment. And so I think there's this group think around. We do stuff that's trackable and measurable and repeatable. And so again, that's an advantage for us. Your big competitor's not going to do that. No one's going to go have coffee with Verizon or whatever.

Yeah, right.

Big companies deliberately hire celebrity spokespeople to make them seem more likable. Like, why do they have this cartoon lizard selling insurance? It's because otherwise I think it's Geico. Geico is just some company, but we kind of feel good. It's very artificial, but they have to do it because there's no human interaction going on with real people over time. In our case, we have the ability to do the same thing, but we don't have to pay George Clooney $5 million a year to represent us. So it's good.

Good thing.

So what would be.

Do you have any other suggestions? These are already fantastic, but anything else, maybe you can think of that as practical.

I mean, one thing I do on a regular basis is send what I call stay in touch emails. And so it's important to have a list somewhere of the people you know on earth. And I define, you know, as if you contacted them, you wouldn't have to introduce yourself. And so I don't know, I find the average middle aged person knows like three or 400 people. I mean, some people weigh more and some people less, but I've got my three or four hundred people and I deliberately stay in touch with them. I email people two, three times a day and I track when I've been in touch with somebody and I just say like, hey, Ed, how you doing? How's the family? Hope the weather's good where you are. You know, I just moved, whatever, see you later. I'm not trying to sell anything, I'm not promoting anything. I. I'm just trying to keep my relationships alive. And you know, it's really easy to lose touch with people. And the thing is, when I ask most people, I ask people what do you just stay in touch with people you already know? Most people say, well, nothing, nothing deliberate, I'm deliberate about it. And so all it requires is try and create a list of everyone you know. Yeah, it won't be perfect, you'll forget some people. But something, whether it's in something like Outlook or a spreadsheet or I use a service called consultation tactually for that and then just systematically email people just to connect again. It's one of these really simple things. People are always happy that you thought of them and got in touch and no one's ever annoyed, like, hey, haven't heard from you in a year, Ed. I mean, you haven't heard from them either. So no one's ever blaming you. They're always happy. And it's amazing to me how often someone will come back to me and say, you know, it's funny you should get in touch. Someone I know needs whatever something that I offer. So again, it's an effective marketing technique, but it's really based on likability.

How many times have you gotten that email from Bob? Like your example earlier, Hey, I just got laid off, here's my resume. And one of the first thoughts that crosses your mind is, you know, it's interesting that he's sending that. I feel for him, but you know, he hasn't been in touch. But now when he needs me, suddenly he is in touch. So I think those touch points are critical because not that you're doing it for this reason, but you're paving the way for maybe the occasional ask.

It's a lot easier to reach out.

For me to reach out to you, Michael, if I've stayed in touch with you than it is if I haven't.

I totally agree. I mean, when you hear from someone you've been in touch with, now you're eager to help them out and it could be anything. It could be, you know, I've done it with people and said, hey, I just launched or about to launch a website, could you take a look and let me know what you think? And again, if these are people you've been in touch with, they're eager to help. But yeah, when Bob gets in touch every time he loses his job, there is definitely the feeling of like, well, where's he been? Yeah, well, so that's kind of a.

Good segue into my next question, which is how can we make this stuff more habitual? You know, I'm listening to you and I'm taking notes and I'm thinking, yeah, this is brilliant. I mean, it's simple, I know, but this is a great reminder. Yet I know that a reminder is often not enough. So how can we translate some of these ideas into steady action?

Some of them are a little bit.

More of a rule, right? Turning down business because this person would not be a good fit. But the handwritten note, the sending books, staying in touch, emails, how do we make this stuff habitual?

So I use a very simple form which I'm happy to share with your audience when we talk about how to get more information. But it's a tick sheet. It's just an Excel spreadsheet that I created that contains 26 weeks worth of information. So I can fit half a year on a piece of paper that I print out. I know it's very old school and I keep it next to my desk and it's got every week of the half the year on the left side and across the top is my list of things to do. So, for example, one handwritten note per week for me. I also do one face to face meeting per week, coffee, lunch, whatever. I send three of those emails. I mentioned a day, that's 15 a week. I publish a newsletter every two weeks. I've got this list of things I do. And as offline as this approach is, I find it's easy to track. It's very satisfying, you know, when I send an email to put a little tick there. And the reason I like the half year as opposed to just every week start fresh, is you can kind of see your progress and it feels good to look at your sheet and go, look how much I've done for the last six months. And also if you fall off the wagon for a little bit, as we all do, you can kind of see that I've done this before and get back on. I do think you need some type of systematic approach or the enthusiasm will go away. And so this I find works really well. I've introduced a number of people to this. It's very simple. Again, I'll share the spreadsheet and you're welcome to put in your own stuff, but this idea works very well.

You're speaking my language, my friend. I'm all about simplicity. Anything I can print out that physical and tangible. And I think many people in our audience feel the same way. It's nice to have apps and all that, but at the end of the day, something that's there visible on our.

Desk.

That has, I believe, a higher chance of getting implemented than something that's really digital, fully digital.

I'm holding mine right here. Look, you can hear it.

I love it.

There it is.

We'll definitely want to include that link here in the show notes. And in fact, I want you to tell us about your new book because it happens to be the title of.

What we're talking about today.

The Likable Expert. I got a copy here in my hands. It's a wonderful little book.

So tell us what you got and.

What was your motivation for writing it.

Yeah, thanks. So it's called the likeable 121 insights to start yout Day and Grow youw Business. And it grew out of a blog I created a few years ago. I was doing a six month course with a bunch of people and I just started sending them notes every couple times a week about things I was doing to promote and grow my own business since they were also doing the same for themselves and people really liked it. So I turned it into a blog. And they were all just small things, things you could either implement or just a quick insight. And so I ended up grabbing 121 of these which became the book. But there were things like noticing a client red flag like I mentioned earlier and they all have the same format. Today I did this. So today I noticed a client red flag. The person said this and I realized it wouldn't be a good match. Making a small change in the wording of a newsletter to make it more friendly. Here's what I did and here's how you could do it. Asking questions of people when you're in that selling mode, it's much more effective than just talking about yourself. So it's filled with these little nuggets that hopefully you can use and apply in your own business. And the whole book is all very short format, so it's not like you have to read chapter after chapter. But hopefully if you read one a day, you'll get an insight and improve something in your own work.

Yeah, I love it. I was thumbing through these and what I did is I started marking.

Dog.

Earing the pages that I really liked. It's like, okay, this is something I want to start doing. This is something I've heard about before, but I've never really done consistently, and so forth. You're not supposed to write on it.

You wrote on it, Ed. You're not supposed to write on my book.

I write on every book.

I do, too. That's why I buy my own copies. Me too.

Yeah, I'm a total sucker. I spent years going to the library, and then I realized, wait a minute, I need my own copy.

So where can folks learn more about the book? So I set up a custom landing page for your podcast listeners. It's at michaelkatz.com ed. And they can download some of the book. They can get the tick sheet I just mentioned. Subscribe to my newsletter, a whole bunch of stuff. All right, there's. Oh, that's awesome. Look at you. You're so fancy. Well, you know, do what I can.

I love it.

I love it.

That makes it so much easier. So everything's there on that page. We'll include that in the show notes. And Michael, for those who want to learn more about you and your work as well, where can they connect with you?

My company is Blue Penguin Development, but really the simplest is just Michael Katz.com and the URLs down there. And you'll see that a lot easier to type than the whole Blue Penguin development. Excellent. Well, this has been fun as always.

I really appreciate you coming back. Really one of the most practical interviews that I've done in a while, my friend. So thank you.

Thank you. I love being on the High Income Business Writing podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.