Broke Entrepreneur Launches Business With Books, Not Loans

And hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James.

Today we're going to listen to an inspirational female entrepreneur. She's someone who managed to get herself a degree by going around the school system and going online. She got a degree, but then when she went for a job, she told the employers that actually she'd written a book and they were more impressed by her book writing skills. And we're going to talk to this entrepreneur about how she managed to go from being a a graduate with a marketing degree to actually working in financial support for entrepreneurs, writing her own book and having Annie Yang Financial. We're going to Boston to talk to Annie Margarita Yang. Annie, welcome to the show.

Jim, thanks for having me on today.

Well, you know, this is called The Unnoticed Entrepreneur as a show, and I love the fact that you've come on the show to share with us how you've gone from being sort of unnoticed, but also one of the young people that is fighting with the costs of education. You found a unique solution to that, and then you've parlayed that into business. You've also managed to survive the recent Silicon Valley Bank collapse.

We're going to talk about how you managed to do that.

I'm going to talk about your— you know, you've built over 18,000 followers on YouTube in the last year and a half or so. Very, very quick growth, but also how you've found yourself now bumping up against some limits. So, Annie, we've got a lot to learn from you because although you're still fresh-faced as an entrepreneur, you've accomplished a great deal. Tell us a little bit about your story and the founding of the Annie Yang Financial business.

Well, I always knew that I wanted to help people with their finances. This is something that's been, I think, 8 years in the making. I decided when I was 20 that I wanted to help people with their finances, but I just didn't know how. Because a lot of like jobs are not about helping people with their finances. When you're a financial advisor, you're more about selling stocks, selling mutual funds. So I was just like, how does one do it? How does one become the next Suze Orman or the next Dave Ramsey? Right. That's not actually a job. That's more like something more entrepreneurial, something about building your own personal brand. So when I was 20, right, I didn't go straight to college because I couldn't afford it. Worked a whole string of minimum wage jobs. So when I was 20, I went to college and I got a degree in communications. But then coming out, of course, I was working at Domino's Pizza, like you were saying just now. And so I already knew back then that there— I had to do something to get noticed, right? And so already back when I was going to community college, people were telling me that I have to network to succeed in my career. So I was like looking for all kinds of meetup.com events and Eventbrite free events that I found that were related to business and career. And one of them that I found was the Small Business Expo. And at the Small Business Expo, I had come across this really high-pressure sales pitch from this guy who was selling this workshop on how to publish a book and grow rich. And he said, if you buy it today, you know, normally it's $997, but buy it today, it's only $97. And people weren't buying it. So then he's like, okay guys, if you buy it for $97 today, you can bring a friend for free. So I turned to the person next to me, And I asked if she was interested and then she said, yeah. So I paid $97 and I asked her to pay me back for half of it. So I didn't even pay $50 for this workshop. I went to the workshop and I learned that most people don't— most authors, they don't even sell 2,000 copies of their book. The goal is not to sell the book because 99% of authors, even traditionally published authors, don't even sell 2,000. If you can hit 2,000, that's success, right? The goal is to write a book so that you position yourself as an authority and open up opportunity for yourself. So write a book on something you know extremely well and can write quickly so that you can just get it out into the world. Don't spend a year writing it. And so I decided, you know, because I'm so good at saving money on a minimum wage, I will write this kind of book. So I literally— it was a list, you know, 1,001 ways to save money, right? Like literally I just sat down and started writing down the list and then that became the book. I got the book out, like written, edited, published, out there into the world, even the paperback version, not just the ebook, in only 3 months. So by the time I was, I was applying for accounting jobs with no accounting degree. I had put right under the education line where I had the communications degree, I put author of 1,001 Ways to Save Money. And that, that is how I got my start because people were calling me left and right to give me an interview.

Yeah, I think it's a brilliant story.

Well, just quickly, why did you want to always, um, help people with finances when you studied marketing and communications?

Yeah, that— I got the degree just to check the box because people weren't interested in talking to me, you know, or giving me an opportunity. They would like write me off and brush me off just because I didn't have a college degree. And I always think, you know, I was a straight-A student all throughout K-12 and I just don't think college is the right way to filter people out, but I understand people have a certain judgment or perception and that they will filter me out just because I don't have the degree. So, I wanted something quick that I could just check the box. And it's much easier to check the box for a communications degree than an accounting degree. It would take a lot more studying, I'll be very honest, to pass those classes and exams.

Hey, that sounds, well, efficient, I think, would be the way to put that. Annie, so I've got in front of me, and for those people that are listening, just to explain, there's a book on Annie's website. It's called anneyangfinancial.com. It's called The 5-Day Job Search. Now, you talked about The 1,001 Ways to Save Money as being a great way to really gain some traction and get in front of potential employers. Where does the 5-Day Job Search book come in? Because it looks as though you've moved on a little bit from that original proposition. Love to hear how you've parlayed from one into another.

Yeah, because I wrote 1,001 Ways to Save Money. And then I also started a YouTube channel around the same time that where one of the videos went viral. So I started getting a lot of followers very quickly. I also put that on my resume. I was able to land 3 separate— on 3 separate job searches, an accounting job without an accounting degree, an offer in just under a week. So the first search took 7 days. The second search took 6 days. And then my third search took only 5 days. So then I was like, okay, clearly there's something here that I'm very good at. Right. But I thought everyone was landing jobs in just a week. I'll be very honest.

I think not. I think that's not—

Everyone was doing that. I thought that was the norm. Okay. Until I read the statistic that people actually take 6 months to land a job. And I was also growing my accounting, my own accounting firm on the side, like in addition to my full-time job, I was taking accounting clients and I was hiring people for this position to help me. And I like to ask questions that you can't find on Google. So one of the questions I asked was, tell me about the hardest problem you ever experienced and how did you solve the problem? Because you can't find this answer on Google. It's your own personal experience. You have to write it out. And I used this to figure out what is your level of critical thinking. And 80% of the answers came back as the hardest problem I ever had was I couldn't— I was fired or laid off and I couldn't get a job quickly. And I was like, wow, so many people struggle with this problem. And I know the solution to this problem. So I started writing this book last year. Yeah.

Yeah, and your work rate, Annie, is amazing.

And so you've got this book now, and tell us, how have you gone about marketing that?

Because your YouTube channel, you've got 18,500 subscribers, and we'll talk a bit later on about how you are suffering from what you've termed shadow banning, which I hadn't heard of before. So we'll talk about that in a little while for anyone that's interested to know. maybe some of the darker side of YouTube.

The Proven Strategies, um, to Answering Tough Interview Questions in Job Interviews.

Tell us about how you got this book noticed, because you've plainly been able to create the book.

Um, how have you gone around getting publicity, uh, for yourself?

I'm assuming again you've been a bit of a dynamo and a self-starter with this project too.

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Yeah, that's, that's interesting. So I actually wrote this book before ChatGPT was released to the public. So right around the time I actually finished writing the book, finished editing and everything, I was just in the process of making the COVID and the Amazon sales page, and I needed the sales product description, right? And so when ChatGPT came out, I used ChatGPT a lot to help me with the marketing. So I asked ChatGPT to help me write up the Amazon product description. It came out nearly perfect. Now the input is what is important. It asked me for like 10 pieces of information and then I just gave it 10 back and then it gave me this very amazing product description that I hardly needed to edit. Another thing is I asked ChatGPT, I said, I'm an author. I just published a book. The book's not going to sell itself. So give me like 50 sales and marketing funnels that could bring people in to even just know about the book. So like, if you think about it as an entrepreneur, there's 2 sides to the same transaction. There's the person selling something and then there's the person buying something. Now, I don't control whether someone buys the book. But I can sell the book, right? That doesn't mean someone's going to buy the book, but I can sell the book. So I took the 50 sales and marketing funnel ideas from ChatGPT, and I was just like, why don't I just implement all 50 of these ideas? I'm just going to start hacking away at each of these. And then by the time I'm done with all 50, this should be technically like an empire, right?

That's great.

Tell us which one of those has been most successful for you in promoting the book.

I have to say, I just published a book 4 months ago, so I haven't seen many results just yet because I think it's just because I just started and I found out that before anyone buys anything these days online, they need exposure to it 10 times from different sources, whether it's like from a podcast, then they see you again on LinkedIn, and then they see you again on your Facebook. So like they see you from all these different channels. Another one is they check out your website or then they get on your email list. It takes like 10 to 11 touches before they decide to buy. And because of that, I just started marketing 4 months ago since I released the book. It's not a quick game and I don't expect it to be, but I have— and the thing is, I don't do all 50 at once, right? I like to focus on just a handful until I get really good at it and then I move on to the next one until like it's part of a system. So the first one I targeted was podcasts. Because I was like, you know, people who listen to podcasts, they like educational content. So let me get on podcasts. And my goal was to get on 500, which I realize now that's too big. It's too many.

That's too many podcasts.

I'm actually getting burned out. I was like, if I get on 500 and assuming each of them had a 2,000-person audience, then that's a million people that I would expose this book to, right? I was like, I think 500 is a good number. And I'm actually starting to get burned out. I'm booked on 125 and this is my 92nd one.

You know how to make a man feel special.

You know how to make it. So that's huge. That's absolutely huge amount of volume you're doing there, Annie. But you're right. People definitely think that podcasting is one of the best ways because you're getting an unfiltered audience, uh, to communicate with. And you can build your own energy and your own charisma, um, with, with the host in a way that if you have a written article, of course the journalist, um, may be editing that for you, be a filter. So podcasting, great, great idea. And I can see that at the bottom of your website you have all the channels. So, you know, you have LinkedIn, you have Insta, you have X.

Now, more and more people are talking about the need to choose one channel, but you seem to be going on all channels. Do you want to just explain that strategy to me a little bit?

Yeah, actually, because I was researching existing bestselling authors in my niche and I was like looking at their website, seeing where they were online. And a lot of the big names, you know, like Tony Robbins and Marie Forleo, those big names, They are on all channels. Now they might have like one channel where they're extremely popular and they're more consistent in their posting, but because they have a team of people to help them with their social media marketing, they're actually on every channel, right? That's why everyone knows about them. So I decided just for now, I have taken up all of the username handles. So if you look in my media kit or on the bottom of my site, you click on them, you know, my Facebook has only 21 followers. So it's It's not what you think it is, right? But I decided I want to at least take the username handle right now before anyone else can take it. So, that's what it is.

That's great. So, sort of a digital land grab, Annie, which makes a lot of sense, right? Because if you don't do it now with the reputation you're going to be building, someone else will come and squat on it. Speaking of squatting, you've mentioned on your YouTube, that you've been struggling to get above 18,300 and then it comes back down again.

Do you just want to explain what's been happening there?

Because plainly you've got amazing content, thumbnails look great. You've taken a position as well, I think, about student loans as well. So tell us what's happening with YouTube for you and what we can learn from that.

Yeah, YouTube has been cracking down on anyone who poses Like even just a slightly controversial opinion that deviates from the mainstream media narrative. And recently, because of Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, which got struck down by the Supreme Court, but like if, if you take a look at YouTube and you go on youtube.com and you go to the search bar and you just type in student loans, it used to be like all of the search results were shown from like independent small creators, people who were People who had student loans who were complaining about them, or people who found a solution to student loans that other people might not know about, or like information from like just everyday normal people. But now if you search student loans over and over again, 90% of the search results are actually from mainstream media— ABC, NBC, BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. So it's been very clear that YouTube's algorithm, especially in the search, has been prioritizing the mainstream narrative in these kinds of issues. So I was like, you know, one of the things I want to talk about for the book is I want to relate it to people's existing problems, not just they need a job, right? They need a job that can pay off their student loans, or they need a job that doesn't require them to take on student loan debt. So I was talking about these in the videos themselves. And of course, with YouTube's AI now, it can actually transcribe your audio for the video. So they know exactly what you're talking about. It's not just about the title, the description, and the tags, they actually know what the video is about, right? Uh, so I, I think I've been getting shadow banned because every time I hit 18,300, I would lose 20 subscribers, 30 subscribers, and then I would gain it back up again. And then I would lose it again. This happened like 5 times in a row. So I realized while the content is good and people want it, it doesn't necessarily get shown to people and it doesn't necessarily show up in the search results.

Annie, I had no idea that was happening. So that's very, very interesting indeed. Thank you for sharing that. Now, I do want to just talk about one aspect of your book because on Annie Yang Financial, you do share chapters.

And there's one chapter that particularly caught my eye, which is AI Headshot Generators.

And just talk us through that on the, um, YouTube, my, uh, YouTube channel on the Unnoticed Entrepreneur. You can see Annie and see the screen share, but for those of you listening, Annie has detailed here a comparison of top AI LinkedIn headshot generators, pricing and quality of results. Annie, just take us through what you did there and what, what you found, because for fellow entrepreneurs who can't afford, um, you know, a professional shoot, or maybe they're, they're, they're too remote location-wise from a professional photographer, Tell us what you found about the AI headshot generators.

Yeah, there's a lot of people who can't afford it. So I was in a show and I was talking to a podcast host about it, and the host was telling me that people these days are actually using AI headshot generators and that his niece had sent him some pictures and was like, which one do you like the best of me? And he fell for it. He thought it was really her when all of them were AI generated. And so I was like, oh, that's interesting. Let me see what's the best one on the market so that I can actually recommend this the best service on the market to people who are reading my book and need a solution to their problem that they can't afford. So then I, and then I go on Google and there's like 20 of them, right? 20 to 25 of like the list, these listicles, top 10, top 25 best AI headshot generators. But I, I realized like they didn't put any results, like actual pictures. How do I know it's the best? if you don't actually show the actual, like, pictures you got. And I realized that these writers, they are like these, I don't know, click farm kind of stuff. They probably get paid $25 to write up this listicle article that they didn't even try themselves so that they can get affiliate income from, from anyone who clicks on those links.

Yep.

And so I was like, well, there's no way to know. No one's actually, um, tried them themselves. Even on YouTube, no one's actually tried these. So I was like, let me just spend my own money. I spent like $1,000, $1,086 testing all 20 of these out just to see what the results would be if I put in the same picture. If I upload like the same 10 to 15 pictures on each one, what would the output be? And like the outputs are all different across the board, right? And then finally I came across this site, it's called dreamwave.ai. And I was amazed. I showed my friends, I showed my family, and they were like, I would fall for this.

I would fall for this. Okay, so it's dreamwave.ai.

Annie, I love your commitment there.

And actually, as you say, putting in the time and investing the effort, which is why you've got the followers you've got. You've been sort of a complete dynamo, really.

And, but we've all on the whole made one or two mistakes along the way.

Although you haven't had that long to make that many mistakes, Could you share with us maybe one part of your marketing strategy that hasn't worked out quite as planned?

The biggest mistake is in my 4 years of making YouTube videos, I have never bothered to get people onto my email list, never bothered setting up the forms. Occasionally for some of the videos, I did say like, hey, head over to my website, go to the download section or the resources section to download this. worksheet that I made just for this video. And people did, they actually go on the site to download, but I never put it behind an email wall. Like, they can literally go to the section and click the download button. Even just now, you were showing people this, the resources section for my book, and you can download it for free without giving me your email address. And I need to fix that because, like, people clearly, they find value in these downloads that I'm giving. I just never bothered to. I just never saw the need for it, even though existing marketers in the industry were always pushing for it. I was just like, nah, what am I going to do with people's email addresses? And now that I've gotten shadow banned, I was just like, yeah, that would have been nice if I had people on my email list.

Yes. Well, I think that's right, Annie, that mailing lists, they say, really are your treasure. I've been guilty of that myself. I have about 1,000 people now on my mailing list. But I've also not done nearly enough of that. And I think many of us are so busy giving, we don't kind of think about the need to retain the contact details. But that's, that's a common problem. And thanks for sharing. Also one I'm sure that you will solve very quickly.

Annie, let's just talk about something that you have done that you feel really has kind of helped you.

to get NE Yang Financial noticed. Is there one thing that you'd say to other people who are following in your footsteps, what they could do to get noticed?

Yeah, the one thing that has made a difference in my life is the philosophy of go big or go home. That has been the motto of 2023. And that has led to my success because I don't care how many nos I get. I only care about the yes. And I understand everything is just a numbers game. I mean, that's why I'm doing accounting. It's all just numbers to me, right? And let me give you an example just to really drive it home. When I was launching the book, I read that one of the ways to have a successful book launch is to form a book launch team, which is a group of friends and family who will buy your book on launch week when you drop the price to free on Amazon. You can do that for 5 days. So you can drop it to free on the first 5 days, have your friends and family buy the free book and then leave a review, right? So you have to compile that team. They recommend about 200 to 300 people for the team. And then I was like, wow, okay, I don't know if I can do this, especially in such a short time period. I didn't think I could, but I messaged 2,000 people one by one. Anyone who ever connected to me on LinkedIn, anyone who's in my Facebook friends list, anyone who's in my phone book, For the last 10 years, I messaged everyone one by one asking if they want to help me with the launch. And in exchange, I'll give them the actual signed book for free. I'll mail them the book. 300 people said yes. I mailed out 150 of them. And then out of the 150 who got the book, 80 of them actually wrote a review. So that's the go big or go home. I had to message 2,000 people for only 80 of them to actually follow through and write a review. I had a very good launch week because the book was, um, it got the number 1 top new release in the career category on Amazon and also in the entire Kindle Free Store. So just the free version of the Kindle Store, it was number 88 out of the whole store across every category. The only books that did better than mine was erotica.

Annie, I love that story and I love the ambition as well. And I could take a lesson or two from you because I've launched a couple of books and not been anywhere near as diligent as you have and didn't get the same kind of results with my books. So I wrote one called Gap Year Cash recently for young people detailing 7 different business models that they can deploy to make money without needing any capital and without having to be fixed to one place. I need to take a leaf out of your book in terms of a relaunch for that one. Annie, finally, a podcast or a book that you would recommend an unnoticed entrepreneur and me to listen to or read?

Yeah, my favorite podcast in the world is the Life Coach School podcast by Brooke Castillo. I like listening to it because she really puts things into perspective for me. Anytime I struggle with something emotionally or mentally, She, she has a different way of viewing things, viewing your problem in such a way that you come from a position of power and strength and confidence. And that has actually helped me a lot for 2023 in terms of a go big or go home. Because dealing with rejection isn't easy. Dealing with people who ignore your messages isn't easy, but she puts things in perspective in a way that makes me feel like I can do this.

Well, you certainly can. Annie, if people want to find out more about you and someone who Definitely can do this. Annie Marguerite Yang, where can they go?

The best way is to go on annieyangfinancial.com. That's A-N-N-I-E-Y-A-N-G financial.com. And also the 5-Day Job Search audiobook is free. If you go on the website at the top, there's a link called audiobook. Put in your name, your email address, and get on the mailing list and get your free book.

Annie Yang, thank you so much for joining me on The Unnoticed Entrepreneur today.

Thank you for having me, Jim.

Well, I know that I'm podcast, I think something like 91 or 92, but Annie still sounds as fresh as the first one that she's done. So thanks to Annie Margarita Yang for joining us today and sharing, well, a huge amount of energy for a start, a huge amount of creativity and great ideas too. And really wonderfully how someone in her generation, I don't mean to be patronizing here, but it's in their 20s, finding a path that is entrepreneurial, that doesn't rely on the traditional academic institutions. So they're coming out of life without the debt and they're free to innovate and create and to share their wisdom with those around us. So thank you so much for joining me and Annie today on this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. Do please visit her website, that's Annie Yang Financial, and also you can visit me at theunnoticed.cc where I shall have Annie's show along with over 750 other episodes. And you can also sign up to my newsletter on my website at theunnoticed.cc. Thank you once again for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, your host, Jim James.

And until we meet again, I keep encouraging you to keep on communicating.