How Books Make Clients Chase You

Yeah.

So the, you know, the first step is beachhead, one message, one market, one offer. The second step is educate and excite because people buy from people they know, like, and trust. Right. And that portion right there, if I can get a client to focus in on educating their prospects before the doctor walks in the door, there's a lot of ways you can do it. There's video, there's like a whole, we have a whole script for how you create like an 8-minute video for the patients to watch before you walk in.

Perfect.

So when you walk in, they say, I want that. Very powerful. Yeah. But if we can do that, there's no selling that goes on. Selling becomes superfluous.

Exactly.

And that's what people don't get. The whole purpose of marketing is to make selling superfluous.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. 100%.

Right now you and I are skilled salespeople. I mean, yeah, we've done this a long time.

Yeah.

But is there, I mean, when you have credibility, people just go, yeah, how much is it? You didn't build your clinic to feel like an employee in your own business. I'm Matthew Cologli, and on Out of the System hosted by Dr. Talks, we challenge the broken rules holding healthcare entrepreneurs back. Hear from clinic owners, rebels, and builders who are creating bold, profitable patient-centered practices and doing it their way. Well, I'm glad you're here, man.

Thanks, brother.

Thanks. Glad we could connect.

Glad. Yeah, same, same.

So for those of you that don't know who this handsome 60-year-old man is across the way from me, who's outdressed me, his name is Rob Kossberg and he is the owner and founder of Bestseller Publishing.

Yes.

In fact, Rob is doing my book.

Yeah.

Excited about it. Out of the System. Yep. I'm really, really, it's coming along great. You've done a lot of books, like you did Donna White's book, right?

We did. Yeah. Yeah. I love Donna. Absolutely. Uh, we do a lot of people in In your space and, you know, outside the space as well, all in the consultant kind of expert categories.

Yeah. How many, how many bestsellers have you had?

Approaching 2,000.

Are you serious? You've had 2,000 number one bestsellers?

Yeah. Yeah. We're, uh, we're 15 years in now and, uh, we do, you know, 150 to 200 you know, books and projects a year. They come to us in various stages, but almost all of them we want to take through the launch stage, which of course we'll do with yours. And that's where we, you know, do all the things necessary, then send it to traffic and make the thing a bestseller and get momentum for it.

That's amazing. 2,000 bestsellers. That's got to rival any other major publishing house.

You know, I, I guess, I don't know.

Yeah.

You know, in fact, it doesn't, it doesn't seem all that amazing to me after 15 years. I'm like, yeah, I wish we did more, I guess. I don't know.

It's weird. I mean, it's probably kind of like Michael Jordan, you know, scoring 40 points. It's not that big of a deal. Well, you know, he's done it so many times.

That I would be mentioned in that breath is pretty amazing. So thank you. Thank you.

Well, I mean, you are kind of like one of the best. I mean, you've been doing this. I don't know anybody that has been Gosh. So I've been in this kind of expert consulting space for 20 years, right? Over 20 years, 22 years. I don't know anybody that has consistently done the book publishing thing that you do.

Yeah.

I mean, why do you—

I don't either.

Why do— what's the, what's the secret to your success?

Wow.

Uh, I mean, aside from your charismatic good looks and, you know, the fact that you have a dog named Bob.

Yeah. Yeah. My dog is definitely the secret to my success.

He is. If you haven't seen his, his dog, you gotta follow him on Facebook. What kind of dog is it?

Is it a bullmastiff? Dogo Argentino.

Dogo. He's huge. And he just takes over the couch and lounges everywhere. But anyways.

Yeah.

So what's the secret to your success, Rob?

Well, you know what I'd probably say? Like, like my backstory is I wrote a book that helped me blow up a company and it was all accidental. Like I, I just followed advice.

Is that the mortgage business?

That was in the financial services.

Financial services business.

Yeah.

Yeah.

From, uh, you know, mutual old friend Dan Kennedy. Mm-hmm. Uh, followed his advice. I was like, what do I do? You know, I'm in a mess and I need to reposition myself. And, and he was like, you know, well, my best clients come from my books and that has always been the case. And if you want credibility and authority, then, then you should write a book and use it. And it worked far better than I would've imagined. And then just kind of accidentally people started coming to me asking me how I'm doing it and if I could help them. This is going back now, you know, 16, 17 years. And so I started helping him.

This was like 2010.

This is 2008, '09.

Wow. That's the same time I was in Planet Dan Kennedy.

Yeah.

Of course, getting crushed in the real estate market.

Well, that was, that crushing led to Bestseller Publishing. Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because you were, because that's, I had, I was one of Dan Starr's students from like 2004 to 2008 and the real estate crash happened and it's like, yeah, no more.

Well, we, we certainly passed each other.

Yeah. We had to be in the same room at the same time.

Yeah. I was, I was around at that same time and We were looking for a way to, you know, use marketing and, and use Dan's processes to grow our, my real estate company and mortgage company, and then my financial services company.

And wow. So you had real estate, mortgage, and financial services and the recession hit.

And all that lived was the financial services and that blew up and that did well. Wow. The real, but the real estate and the mortgage, they were our biggest businesses. I mean, I, I made, millions of dollars until I lost millions of dollars.

I know that story really well. I was worth a lot of money.

It was painful. It was really painful.

I'll never forget. So, you know, I was making whatever, $30,000, $40,000 income a month.

Yeah.

Right. Just, you know, at that time it was, I was in my 30s. It was stupid money for me.

Right. Right.

I think my mortgage on my house was $3,600. And I went—

That's a big house then, right?

Yeah. It was like, well, it was Charlotte, North Carolina too. It was like 3,600 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 2, you know, 2 garages. And I went, my controller walked into my office in December and he goes, I'm going home. You're broke.

Wow.

And I go, what do you mean? And he goes, I'll see you after the first of the year. It was like December 5th. I go, why is that? He goes, 'cause your phone keeps ringing looking for refunds. He said, if I'm not here, I can't answer the phone.

Oh my God.

He goes, you're dead broke. You need to figure out what you're gonna do.

Wow.

And, uh, I mean, I knew it was coming anyway. So, so I'm, you know, I can't pay my mortgage. My mortgage is $3,600 a month. And we go to our church and they go, well, you know, let's, let's put you through Crown Financial. And I looked at 'em, I said, that's really funny. Well, you know, your mortgage should— what's your income? I'm like, zero. What's your mortgage? $3,600. Well, you know, you shouldn't be outspending. I'm like, I used to make $35,000 a month. It was 10%.

Right, right.

Anyway, not disparaging to them. It was just kind of funny to look at, look at them in their face. But yeah, that was a brutal time. Brutal time.

It was, man. It was in real estate. You know, I hung on for probably a year longer than I should have.

I did too.

And because, you know, I mean, my dad had been in real estate. I got my real estate license at 18.

Yeah.

So at that point, I'm in my 40s. I'd been in real estate for a long time and real estate had never really gone backwards. We were in Florida. We were in South Florida at that time, owned a ton of real estate. Oh my God. Millions and millions of dollars. And, you know, I mean, not only did it go backwards, but I mean, we had properties. I mean, I, I had a couple of condominium properties that lost 90% of their value.

I had some of those too.

I mean, they were, you know, $250,000 properties that sold for $25,000. Now today they're $500,000.

Mm-hmm.

Right now. And this is only 20 years or so, less than 20 years later.

Yeah.

And they're, and they've gone up 20x since that period of time, but we couldn't hold on because we couldn't close real estate. Like all the real estate that we did at that time was more outside of your Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac limits. Yeah. And the only thing that was lending were government loans, FHA, VA, Fannie, and Freddie. And so we're like, I had investors coming to me that had millions and millions in equity, phantom equity, but I couldn't, I couldn't give 'em a loan. Nobody would lend on 'em.

I remember it.

Yeah.

Remember how like I was coaching people then and I had people call me on, they would close on Friday. They would call me on Monday and say, we got a problem. I go, what's that? Well, the loan closed on Friday. I got a call today, Monday. They didn't fund because the mortgage company went outta business on Monday. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And like, wow. So the tenants have moved in, like the horror stories.

Wow.

It was, it was awful.

I was fortunate not to experience any of that.

Yeah.

I, yeah.

You know, try coaching people at that time and you're supposed to be the answer guy.

Yeah. It was brutal.

Terrible. It was. And plus my real estate holdings, my private lending company, it all went just belly up. Yeah.

It was awful. Same. Same. I mean, I was in a terrible, terrible position and it, it, you know, I mean, it, there's, you don't get out of that without scars, right? I, I'm sure you have 'em too. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, my, I'm, I'm not a person that generally lacks confidence, but I, I tell you, I, I was licking my wounds for about 18 months. I was like, oh, you know, just trying to put one foot in front of the other, you know, make it work.

It took me 4 years. I had to go bankrupt. Yeah. I went bankrupt in 2010. It took me until I opened the erectile dysfunction clinics in 2014, and it felt like every day for 4, 3 years.

Yeah.

Was just, is there going to be enough money? And like, right. Just how can I get a client to make money? Like, yeah, no direction. It was brutal.

It was. No, I remember. I remember it well. And that was when, you know, we went all in on the financial services business. I took advice, took me a lot longer to write the book than, you know, there weren't really companies that, well, there wasn't AI. There wasn't, well, certainly it wasn't AI, but there wasn't even, uh, companies that did the things that, that we do. And now there's a number of them, but, you know, so I, I, I made all the mistakes. I hired a ghostwriter. I spent more money than I should have. That was a terrible experience. And then ended up writing the book myself, which took me probably a year longer than it should have because I'm not, at that time, I certainly was no writer.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, I just followed, I just followed the advice that I got and worked my butt off and the book just Hit it big.

What was the name of the book?

Life After Debt.

Life After Debt.

Yeah. Life After Debt, which is also a funny story because I thought that was a brilliant title. Come to find out there were 6 other books that were titled the same name on Amazon.

Oh my God.

I had no idea. But my book became number one. It was the number one nonfiction book on all of Amazon at that time. Amazon was still kind of fledgling, but it was, you know, it was still a big source and growing really fast. And, uh, all of that was great, but where it really was a game changer was I, I started sending that book out to local radio stations. Uh, 'cause I was like, okay, I, I need to, I need some publicity. Like I need to use this book to, to generate leads. And, uh, I got an opportunity to go into a radio station, local radio station in West Palm Beach and do an interview. So we did an interview, did it live and, you know, 5-minute interview.

Yeah.

Yeah. With the on, on-air talent and, uh, they replayed that interview in the evening that same day, like 6:00 PM. I'm in my office, à la Dan Kennedy. Uh, basically my call to action was, I didn't know what it should be, but I was like, if you want a free book, I'll ship it to you even for free. That was before—

Before we tested the $7.95. Yeah.

Before there was such a thing as free plus shipping. Yeah. Right.

Free plus shipping. Yeah. Yeah.

This was free plus free. I just figured, you know, I, I need leads. And so that night, the same day that I was on radio for the first time, I get a phone call. And, uh, I answer it, the, you know, my kind of team member was already, you know, already left for the day. And, uh, I answer it, you know, financial services company. And they're like, is this Rob Cosberg? And I was like, yes. I was like, oh, is this a bill collector?

Yeah. Yes. Tell me, have you found me? The scar tissue runs deep. Yeah.

Oh God. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah.

Every once in a while that still kicks in.

Yeah.

There's that tone.

There's some fear.

There's that tone of voice that comes through that you're like, it's a bill collector.

And, uh, she goes, I heard you on the radio. You're the author. And I was like, well, yes, I am.

You're not a bill collector.

Yes, I am. And, uh, we had the most amazing conversation and she became a client right then and there. It was about a $6,000 commission to me the very first day that I was on the radio. Now, maybe I just got lucky, right? Who knows? It was incredibly lucky. But we went all in on radio. And from that day, that company did a million bucks in the first year and then multi-millions the second year. And all we did was give away my book on the radio. That's all we did.

Wow.

Yeah. And it, it just blew the whole thing up. And so a lot of the people that were coming were business owners like me and you, uh, that had experienced all of this trauma from the financial crisis. And so I was helping them with their financial issues, but they were like, You know, by then we're, we own the airwaves. Like we, you know, we sponsored everything. I had my own radio show. Like we own the airwaves within about 6 months and, and, you know, had multi-salespeople taking calls, just giving away books. And they were like, how are you doing this? Like, you know, and I'm like, it's my book. My book does it all. So people started asking me for help and I was like, why not? I started helping people for free. It was fun to do. And, uh, I just, I just fell in love with it. And since then, even my current business, it's all based on the books that I write and then use to generate leads into my company. So it's like, why, why would I stop doing it? Like, I, this is how I do it for myself. So of course I can show other people how to do it for themselves too.

It's really, I, I mean, people, I think, so I've done, so In Dan Kennedy's world. I was in one of Dan's books. I think I paid for a chapter.

Nice.

I was in a book with Bob Regnerus, like I'd never done. You know Bob at all? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Bob's one of my closest friends. He's a great guy. And I, when I sold the ED clinics in 2018, I kind of self-wrote a book, right? Basically, what I did was I recorded video, transcribed it, And this was obviously before AI, and then worked with someone to write it, right? Like it was, yeah, 'cause I didn't have any money, right? Like I was, I'd sold the clinics, getting divorced, right? Like had some, had some other personal stuff going on, had 2 kids in college, right? So I needed every penny I possibly could. And I think I did it, I can't remember. It was inexpensive and it's called The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice. Nice. It's still my main book.

Good title today.

It's a great title.

Yeah.

And that has made me millions. I mean, if I were to own a clinic today, I would write a book.

Yeah.

But the thing that people don't get, so let's talk about this process. It's not a quick process, is it?

No, no, not if you want a good book. And that's right.

So let's talk about that because, you know, I see what Donna's book has done for her.

Yeah.

Donna White of the HRT Training Academy.

Yeah.

Gets amazing legs. She's gotten on all kinds of TV and radio, but let's talk about it just from like a niche standpoint.

Yeah.

Like with our doctors. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

You know, Dr. Mark Petropali, he just released a book called Repair, Not, uh, Replace. I know you didn't do it, but again, like, you know, the power of that book. I think you might've worked with a couple of my other clients, but I can't remember.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

We love the space because there's a lot of opportunity to use a book to, you know, make high-ticket sales. Yeah.

So let's talk. So it's a great, it's a great way to make high-ticket sales, right? Yeah. So talk about that.

Yeah. So, um, your typical author, unfortunately, they think of the book as like their source of revenue royalties. And that of course is completely backwards.

Right.

So the book source really is about getting you opportunities. So really you just need to plug it in to whatever it is that that your magic is and that your specialty is.

Mm-hmm.

So if your magic is speaking engagements, you plug your book in to get you more speaking engagements.

Mm-hmm.

There's great systems to do that. If your magic is, hey, I just wanna create lead generation, do content, that sort of thing, and then fill my practice that way, then you use your book as the magnet that shows your authority and credibility to bring in the phone calls, et cetera. So for us, it's, it's the, the book is like the supercharger that you put on the Ferrari engine.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like that, that's how we're gonna work it. And, um, in my business, I don't do a lot of outside speaking engagements, although that some of that is changing with, with a new vertical that we're building. But what I use my books for is lead generation through book funnels. And that works fantastic for people in the medical business that are doing things that are cash-based, right? Where, you know, they're not playing the insurance game.

Right.

They're looking for clients that are paying for the book, But the reality is they're really paying to learn something so they can make a buying decision, right?

Yeah.

Because they're not going to do these things themselves. They can't. Right.

And it's fascinating too. I know a number of people that have bought my book and it sits on their desk and they say, yeah, I've only like flipped through it, but I decided to call you.

Exactly.

Like, it's not that they consume the book, is it? Right. It's like, yeah, it's the ultimate authority piece, isn't it?

It is. It is. Yeah. You've literally written the book on it. If you add a little bit of media to that, right now you've written the book on it and you've been on TV or radio. Holy cow. Why would they go anywhere else?

Right?

Of course they won't. In fact, many of our clients have practices where people fly in to see them from all over the country. Mm-hmm. Even though they may have a practitioner that does virtually the same thing right down the street from, doesn't matter.

Yep.

Right. Yep. And so they're willing to fly all across the country because they want, I mean, right. They have a, medical issue, they want the best. If they can write a check, you know, I, I flew to, my dad passed away unexpectedly, very, very healthy. I had just had, you know, great heart checkup and all that stuff. Walked 3 miles a day. And a couple of years ago, he passed away overnight in his sleep. And I was like, you know what? I need to, and we lost a very good friend not long before that, about 6 more, 6 months before that.

Yeah.

I was like, you know what? I need to, I need to, to, to do a checkup for myself. So what did I do? Well, I have a little bit of money. So my wife and I flew to Nashville, Tennessee at Vanderbilt University. Mm-hmm. Even though I'm, I'm right by Jacksonville, which Jacksonville has, you know, some of the best like executive clinics. Mm-hmm. The Mayo Clinic.

Yeah.

In the world. But I flew right over Jacksonville to go to Nashville, Tennessee because there are some people that I saw as authorities in Nashville, Tennessee to do my executive physical. Yeah. And so I wrote, you know, a big 4-figure check.

Pretty sizable.

for myself and my wife and flew to Nashville to do all of that. That's what authority does.

Yeah. And especially in the space that we work in, functional medicine, longevity, and then the regenerative space. This is one of the things that I talk about with my doctors. It's like, look, one, would you rather have, would you rather make $100,000 on 100 clients?

Yeah.

Which is $1,000 a client.

Right.

Or would you rather have one client that paid you 100 grand?

Right. Right.

Well, yeah, the answer's simple. I'd rather have one client that paid me 100 grand. Sure.

100%.

Right. Because then I can goof off the rest of the time.

Right. and serve them at a level that's unprecedented. Right.

Right. And they'll happily pay it. And yes, look, you and I are, it, you and I are not, we're not Vanderbilts. No, no.

Okay.

Let's, how about Rockefellers? 'Cause Vanderbilts are broke.

So yeah. Yeah.

Let's go Rockefellers. You know, we're not Elon Musk. I mean, no, but there's a lot of people like us that are late 50s, early 60s.

Yeah.

That the kids are outta college, they're on their own. We own the house.

Yeah.

Right. There's, we have disposable income. We're no longer paying, paying for, travel soccer or college or any of that stuff. And we want to live a long time. We'll happily and gladly write the check.

100%.

So did those people have a book? Were those, were those ones that you went to go see? Did they up in Nashville, did they have their own book?

They had their own book and I knew them personally. And so, you know, I had both the authority of the book as well as eventually the personal relationship. And I was like, I'm willing to Yeah. These people know what they're doing. And I was like, yeah, of course. Makes, makes all the sense in the world. I flying out here to LA for a conference that, that I'm at, I sat next to Danny Werfel's younger, younger brother. Mm-hmm. And I'm in Jacksonville. And so Danny Werfel, University of Florida national champion, you know, he, he's kind of legendary status. And normally when I get on, you know, a, a flight first class, I really just wanna be in my little bubble. Yeah.

First class is great cuz they don't, nobody talks to you.

That's right.

They're all like, I'm in my bubble. I'm gonna work.

I'm gonna watch a movie.

So Ben wanted to talk the whole time.

And I'm like, okay. But I got to know him, really liked him. I'm glad he did. But as soon as I told him what I did, he was like, really? He goes, you know, we've been thinking about— manages a CEO of a very big wealth management firm. And he's like, you know what? We, I mean, I look at all these other guys that have books and I know that our process and our system is better, but oftentimes best, our best potential clients are really tempted and attracted By the authority in that book? I'm like, of course, of course they are. That's the way we are. That's human nature. Yeah. You know, and when you have money, you don't need to be the Rockefellers. You need to have some disposable income. You want to use that to better your life. So whether that's me flying up to Vanderbilt or whether that's somebody that has a few million bucks in the bank that says, you know what, I want to work with the best to manage my money.

So how long does it take to do a book?

About 6 months.

Okay.

Yeah. We, we like, One session a week. If we can get one session a week from somebody, then we can get it done in about 6 months. And we don't even need it every single week, but just to get the initial content out of them.

And that's the hardest part.

That's the hardest part. But we have a process that works like magic to do that. 'Cause you don't need just content. You need the story, the context. So every chapter needs like story. It needs emotion. It needs something that people can connect with. We're not writing, you know, a medical book for college, right? We're writing to people that have problems and they want to see themselves in the problem. And in fact, they'll scroll through the table of contents to find their issue.

Right.

And if they can read a case study and, and understand it, that's probably all they need.

Yeah. Because I know with my book, I think every chapter starts with a story.

Needs to. Yeah, it needs to.

There's some kind of story that we tell. Some are anecdotal, right?

Yeah.

Kind of like a mosh pit of a couple of different stories woven together to tell a story. Others are from historical references of like, we tell the story of Ned Cobb, who is a sharecropper. And basically it talks about how to leave the medical Uh, the, the modern medical plantation. Right. Because, you know, sharecroppers, they were like, we're gonna be your partner. And like, they always owed money. Right. And they could never leave. And that's kind of what's happened with doctors.

Yes.

So that story I now tell from the stage, and I got that through the writing process.

Yeah. Yeah.

That story I now, I start out my talks with that story.

Oh, it hits, it hits home. Right. Oh my God.

Yeah.

Like, 'cause they see themselves as slaves to the insurance companies. Right. You, yeah.

You know, you've, you spent a lot of time on stage. You can tell.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, you do this a long time. Yeah. Like I can tell when I get an audience.

Yeah.

Man, within 10, within 5 minutes I have 'em.

Yeah.

Right.

The light bulbs are going off. Like, I'm never getting outta this.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, that story. So let's, so when you go through the process, do you take, you say it takes about 6 months. Is that to get the book done and launched?

Yes.

Or is it just get it done?

Typically done and launched. Okay. Uh, you know, we want with our enhan— what we call our enhanced ghostwriting process, which is kind of our trademark process, we, we create every chapter. So that there's standalone story content, open loops, drama, that sort of thing.

Okay.

Calls to action. Uh, we want to take 'em from the book back to you.

Right.

Your website, your social media, some type of lead magnet. And, uh, all that's done with a writer. And then at the end of that process, it goes in for editing. We have a, a first draft, which is maybe 75, 80% good. Mm-hmm. Then it goes for editing. So there's a month in editing. And then, by that time, we're 5 to 6 months in. Again, if we can get once a week schedule with our, our client, and then, you know, we're ready for cover design, we're ready for formatting, we're ready for the, the next steps.

How important is it to have a bestseller?

Well, I would say very. Um, because—

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most important, where would you put it?

Yeah, 9 or 10.

9 or 10.

Yeah. Yeah, I would. I mean, I, I named my company Bestseller Publishing because I just felt But like, who wants to go through all the pain of writing a book and then not have the accolades and the traffic that show it as something valuable in the marketplace? And so, you know, we don't, when it comes to creating a bestseller, we're not, it's not like, you know, a sideshow. It's not like we're creating something, but really it's an illusion. No, like it's real. We want to create something where this is a legitimate bestseller. Now it may not be New York Times.

I was going to say, define what you mean by bestseller. Yeah.

Okay. So there are bestsellers or lists, right? So Amazon has a list. Wall Street Journal used to, uh, they don't any longer. It's on hiatus. I don't know if it'll come back. USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Times is probably the most famous. New York Times, everybody talks about that. The problem with New York Times is it's actually a curated list.

What's that mean?

Good question. So curated means that there is a selection committee, and if let's say you don't have the right politics, they can, even though you may have enough, you may have more sales than everybody else, they can choose to leave you off the New York Times list.

That sounds very New York Times.

Well, that became, that was outed most famously by Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly, very conservative talk show guy, right?

Yeah.

He wrote his Killing series, Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus. Whatever you think about 'em, those were the bestselling nonfiction books in America. Yep. Many of them did not hit the New York Times bestselling list, even though they were number one, the number one top-selling books. And so he, he called 'em out. He, he exposed them. So they're, they're a curated list. So Now on the, on the good side of the curation is you may have only 1,000 sales, and if they like your message or your politics, they could potentially put you on that list out of that curation. So mostly though, it goes against you, especially if you're writing an expert-type book. Uh, they, they, they don't prefer those, right?

It's not a real book in their book.

It's not in many cases to them. So we focus on what we can like really get traction on. And Amazon honestly is the most important. Amazon sells more books than the next 10 publishing platforms combined.

Amazing.

Combined.

Isn't it amazing?

It's, it's, it's the king. It's the 800-pound gorilla.

It is fascinating to me.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they, they did it right. So we focus on giving Amazon everything that it wants so that it gives us back what we want. And there, there's a number of things we can talk through 'em if you want.

Yeah.

I'm curious what Amazon wants.

So now when you're talking about an Amazon number 1 bestseller, is it spec— like in a category? I'm assuming.

So usually it's multiple categories.

Okay.

Because Amazon's gonna allow you 2 or 3 categories. Sometimes they allow an expanded version of that. When we do a big launch, typically speaking, we are going to get not just the category that it's in, and there are no small categories. There's no basket weaving category that you can put a book in, right? No, these are, they're, you know, every category has tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of books.

So like either business or medicine or whatever. Yes.

They're, they're huge. So it's not like you can find an obscure little category that's got 6 books in it. It doesn't exist, right?

Right.

They, they want there to be a legitimate competition, and that's what the bestseller list is. You are selling or having downloaded more books than anybody else in that category for a period of time. Now, for us, that is over an entire week because traditionally bestseller lists are a week of bestseller, not an hour. And that's the one thing that Amazon gets a knock for, is that people will often call themselves a bestseller when really they had, you know, 12 people buy it one particular hour. In fact, there were even conferences not long ago where everybody would buy each other's book, a conference of 100 or 200 people. They'd all buy each other's book at the same time and everybody hit bestseller. But it, you know, it, it, wisdom is proved right by our children, meaning, you know, eventually what is a real bestseller and what's not.

Right.

Sure. Maybe it hit a, a category or a list, for an hour or 2. But when that book has 2 reviews, you know, clearly it's, you know, like a dead stick. It's, it's not selling, it's not going anywhere. Then it was never really a legitimate bestseller.

What are some of the keys to getting a, a bestseller?

So there's several. The first is what we call building the foundation. There are, there are at least 5 elements to that. So cover and title, mega important. You have to have the right title. You have to have the right cover. Books are sold on covers and titles. And you got the color pixels.

Like the color of the book, the title.

3-word, you know, 3 words or less is what we look for. Generally speaking, you can do research in your genre. You'll find that 90% of the bestsellers will have 3-word or less main titles.

Wow.

Yes, 90% or less. We, we've been researching this for years. Wow. The title itself oftentimes will take up 50% of the COVID because again, you got a little pixel. That you're looking at, right? Right. I mean, when's the last time you bought a book at Barnes Noble? I mean, I, you, you buy 'em online. I buy, I buy books.

I buy 90% of my books online.

Same. Yeah. Everybody does.

Occasionally at the airport 'cause I travel so much.

Right, right.

But even then I'd rather put it on my Kindle. I'm not a big Kindle guy.

Yeah.

'Cause I like the physical book.

Yeah, me too.

But when you know you're traveling and you've already got like a bunch of things in your backpack or whatever. Yeah.

But yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you buy on Amazon, you buy online.

Yeah.

So you're looking at a little pixel. So oftentimes you'll notice that Usually the 3-word title will make up about half of the COVID itself. A clean cover, clean image, really important. So oftentimes it could be a full white background or, or yellow or, you know, whatever color.

Is there a color that works better than others?

Uh, it depends on your genre and your niche and, and kind of the, the vibe that you're trying to give off. So every color is a little bit different, but clean is important. That doesn't mean that you can't have images, but if you fill your cover with images, You're gonna fill the buyer's mind with confusion and they're not gonna buy. So it needs to be clean. So cover and title, then you have the actual description and keywords. So that has to be search engine optimized cuz Amazon is a search engine. That's what it is, right? It's a buyer search engine. You don't go on Amazon to get information. You go on Amazon cuz you're typing something in, you wanna buy something. So you've gotta give Amazon a description that matches the keywords that your ideal buyer is going to be interested in. Guess what? When most people publish their books, they pay no attention to that.

Yeah.

They, they write a few paragraphs or blips. They— publishing houses do the exact same thing. No, it's got to be search engine optimized. The keywords also really, really important. So that's, that's kind of 3 and 4. Then Amazon now allows you to do something called Amazon A+ Content, which is where they allow you to make the Amazon page look like Like a full landing page with graphics and really additional copy. Yes. Beautiful. Most people don't know about that, but that's, that's, these are all boxes you're checking for Amazon. And then the last box, which is a big one, is reviews.

Mm-hmm.

You gotta get a ton of reviews outta the gate, which are immensely difficult. In fact, we, we built our own review team over the last 10 years because it's been so difficult for our clients to do it. Really? Yeah.

And how many reviews do you want?

Ideally 25 to 50 in the first month.

Really? Yeah. That's a big fricking ask.

It's a big number.

That's right.

That's right. That's a big number because it's a big number.

What is it like 10% of people that get a book or whatever?

Not even. Really?

Not even. Because like, I never review a restaurant. I never review. It is rare when I write a review.

Well, I, I, I'm not gonna put you on the spot, but you have a book out. You know how many reviews you have. You probably have a general idea.

Mm-hmm.

Of how many sales that you have. I mean, my book, Publish for a Profit, it hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, hit the USA Today bestseller list. I've sold maybe 50,000 copies on Amazon, maybe another 50,000 through my own book funnel online. And I have 300 reviews.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it is.

50,000 copies and you've got 300 reviews.

300 reviews. Yeah. Yeah. Now many of the copies I've sold myself. Yeah.

Right.

And so they don't go on Amazon to review it. Right. Because I've sold it myself. And so though— Okay.

So $50,000 through Amazon.

Yes.

Yeah. And you've got 300 reviews.

Yes. Yeah. It's really hard to get reviews.

It's mind-blowing.

Yeah. So you have to make a concerted effort in the beginning. Now I tell people after the first 50, after the first month, forget 'em. I don't care. I don't pay any attention to my reviews. Doesn't make any difference to me anymore. My reviews are great. I love that, but it doesn't matter. In the beginning, it matters because it shows Amazon's algorithm, hey, this book is worthy of us sending traffic to it. Now, by the way, everything that I just described to you is before you ever publish or launch the book, except reviews, right?

Right.

Like, like that doesn't— the launch comes after, but you're, you're a marketing guy, you know, like, I mean, imagine that you had an opportunity to send 100,000 eyeballs to an offer, but your offer isn't good. Your landing page isn't good. Your copy isn't good. There's no social proof on the page. What is the 100,000 eyeballs gonna do?

Right.

They're not gonna buy. Right.

Right.

Right. Maybe a fraction of them will buy. So everything that I just outlined is making the book as enticing as possible for the right people when we send the traffic to it. Then we send the traffic and it's like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. That's the idea.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow. I, that's, I'm, I'm stunned that you have 300 reviews. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Now my latest book actually, actually has almost as many reviews and it's only been out for a year.

What book is that?

Uh, it's called Write with AI.

That's the AI book. Yeah, I got it. It's a great book.

Now that book's been on the bestseller list for like 70 weeks in a row.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Because I did everything right. And it is a hot, it's a, it's a very hot topic. It's a hot, it's a hot niche, but I've not done any outside marketing on that book. And that, that's been in the top 5 bestseller list every single week. Now that book has almost as many as Publish, Promote, Profit, and it's been out 1 year compared to 7 years.

Wow.

Now still, I've made way more money with Publish, Promote, Profit because I use it, you know, not as an ego play. I use it every single day to attract clients into my—

Yeah. I mean, I still see the ads. I mean, it's been God, what have I known you, almost 10 years?

Yeah, it's years.

And I've seen you, that ad running constantly.

Something. Yeah. It's some version of that ad runs every single day and it brings us, you know, great people.

Let's talk about AI and writing books.

Yeah.

Obviously you've written a book on it.

I have.

I have it. It's really good.

Yeah.

I've been through your stuff.

Yeah.

I used AI to help write my book.

Yeah.

My process for writing a book is I love to speak.

Yep.

So I get a topic and I'm better at freelancing on a topic.

Yeah, 100%.

I can record, boom, transcribe it, shove it into AI, and then AI will gimme a structure for a book. And I go, I got probably about, I would say 70% of the book, 60% of the book done by AI.

Yeah.

Now I think this book that I've written is way better than the anatomy book.

Yeah.

Because AI really polishes it. Like it's, it's a really amazing tool.

Right.

It is. But it's controversial.

Yeah.

What is, do you, as somebody who's, and I'll call you a publisher.

I mean, yeah, we are.

You are. Do you have a conflict with it?

No, because you did it the right way. So we let people know there is clearly a right way and a wrong way.

What's the wrong way? What's the right way?

It's very simple. I mean, Amazon, first of all, Amazon does not want AI-generated content. Okay. They came out with terms of service a year ago and, and they basically say, if your book has AI-generated content, you need to let us know. They red flag it. Okay. So, and they give a definition.

What can you— I was gonna say, what's the definition?

Okay. AI-assisted content is 100% fine with Amazon. You don't even have to disclose it.

Okay.

What's the difference? AI-generated is where you are using prompts and prompt engineering to write your book. AI-generated means you are telling AI what you want and AI is giving it to you. Mm-hmm. That is, that is not what Amazon wants. Okay. What you're doing is what Amazon wants. It wants your voice, it wants your words, and then AI can enhance that, edit it, adjust it, change it, help you with story ideation, all those things. That is totally fine because it's, it's your content. It's AI assisting you in your content. Now, a lot of people are not doing it that way, and a lot of the tools that they're using are not doing it that way.

Mm-hmm.

And Amazon hates that. And if Amazon, if you lie to Amazon and they find out about it, they're gonna ban your account. And once they ban your account, you're done. You're done. There's no getting it back. There's no, I'll create a new account like on Facebook.

Right.

Nope.

Doesn't work.

Nope. You're done.

And yes, Amazon AI helped me, but it didn't write the entire thing.

That's right. No, you're doing it the right way.

It was interesting 'cause I used Claude.

Yeah.

Right. I know you have your own tool, but I do. Um, I had already done a bunch of stuff in Claude, so it had my personality and all that.

That's great.

And I remember I did the first, and I did probably 5 or 6 versions of the first chapter, just trying to get the right voice.

Right.

And I remember, 'cause I love Michael Lewis, you know, who wrote like Moneyball and Big Short and all that. And I said, write this chapter like Michael Lewis, a version. And it wrote it. And I'm like, wow, that's really good. Then I went, write the entire book. And it came back and said, yeah, I will not do that. But it was really cool. It was really great. I was kind of happy that, 'cause I was really just playing with a bunch of different things and obviously I didn't do it that way. I didn't write it like Michael Lewis, 'cause that would be plagiarism. I'm not gonna, I want it my own voice.

Well, I mean, yes and no. I mean, you do want it in your own voice, but the reality is your voice is gonna come from your words. Mm-hmm. And if you're giving it your words, like we tell our clients, look, it's totally, if you have a podcast interview, you can use that. If you told a great story on a podcast interview, Strip that out, download it into, you know, AI, ChatGPT, Manuscript, or our tool, whatever. And then ask it for rewrite based, but that's your, that's your content.

Yeah.

Totally fine.

Yeah. No, I uploaded podcast interviews cuz I wanted to get my voice cuz, you know, I'm a very—

YouTube videos, podcasts, whatever. Absolutely any content. If you've created a course, I mean, if you created a course, you should have a book.

Yes.

It's not that hard to go from course to book. Or book to course, right? So, so yeah, I mean, AI is a great tool to do that. You just can't have it do it for you. You have to be the originator of the idea and the content.

I mean, I find AI incredibly fascinating and obviously I find it incredibly unnerving.

Yeah.

You know, like my girlfriend's in the acting industry. She's in the entertainment industry.

Sure.

We're here in LA.

Yeah.

And You know, there's a whole big deal. There's an AI actress that, you know, they're shopping around to get for agency representation. I mean, you look at—

It's gonna happen.

It's gonna happen. I mean, you look at, you'd look at the ads now, the, on that are on Facebook or they're on Instagram. They used like the jackets and things like that. Clothing. It used to be live models. Now it's AI.

Yeah. Like it's, I flew to DC 2 weeks ago and I spent 8 hours in a studio with a team and, uh, we created an AI Rob AI avatar for content.

Yeah.

So we're, we're just starting to roll out, you know, an AI Rob that is going to do YouTube videos, Shorts and Reels, Instagram posts, that kind of thing. It's going to happen.

Yeah.

It's happening now. It's really darn good. It's shocking. It is really shocking how good it has become. Yeah.

I mean, I know guys that are doing podcasts on AI.

Yeah.

I mean, some of our high-level friends.

That's right. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's fascinating to me. By the way, do you have another name for your AI version or is it just AI Rob?

I haven't, I haven't rolled it out yet, so I don't know. Probably—

Robbie or something like that.

Something like that, right? Yeah. I mean, it'll be interesting. Uh, uh, it's all, uh, you know, Anik, Anik Singal. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I flew up to his studio and with him and his team and And had this done.

Can your wife tell the difference between AI Rob and the real Rob?

She can. She can.

That's a good thing.

And my team can as well. Okay. But, uh, doggone, it's awful good. It's pretty good. Really close, man.

Really good.

And I mean, they, they shot me in like, you know, full, like walking outside, you know, they, they, they shot.

Did you have like the green suit on? Did they have like—

Well, we did a, we did a green screen. We did, we did all different, we did all kinds of, of, you know, changes in wardrobe and whatnot. And so we created like these 30 different avatars. And I mean, it's, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, it's, it's changing all of our industries. There's no doubt, but people still want authenticity. And, and I think Amazon understands that. I think Amazon also understands that a lot of people in the beginning that were using AI were creating all kinds of garbage. I mean, it was, a lot of it is really bad. It is, it is bad.

It was awful.

And there is something about enjoying somebody's unique voice and their unique style. And maybe there will be a day when Amazon or when AI can really imitate that. And maybe there'll be a day when Elon sticks a chip in our head and it can go right from our memories into AI.

Brother, it ain't that, it ain't that far away. Like, this is moving fast.

It's moving fast. So maybe that's gonna happen. At the moment, that's not going on.

I mean, we're in the process. We've taken, you know, like everybody that coaches, we have, I have 4 years of content.

Yeah.

On my membership site. Yeah. So I'm uploading all of it in a like Google Notebook, right? Yeah. And by sections. So creating your brain, creating my brain.

Yeah.

And creating all these mind maps. Yeah. And creating all these things to make it an easier, like to make it so much easier.

Yeah.

Like we're creating an AI bot for our coaching site, right?

Yeah.

Like that's AI Matt.

Like, exactly.

Upload all my stuff in there.

You've got this, ask it a question.

Ask it a question. It's just like asking me a question. Yep.

How many times have you watched a, a video, a training, or even read some of your old material and thought, man, that's really good. I forgot I talked about that.

All the time.

Oh, me too.

I can't remember anything that I speak. Like, so people, I did something about 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, and I got done and my director of coaching, Dean, texted me. He goes, that was unbelievable. And I literally freestyled it.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's my style.

Right?

Like, right. I've been teaching this stuff. I know it backwards and forwards. And I totally, if my clients knew how much I freestyle and like get on stage and do like a mastermind, 2-day mastermind, I got no notes.

Right.

Right? Like, they're like, that was glo— that was amazing, Logan. I'm like, yeah, thanks. I can't remember anything I said.

Wow.

And like, he's like, that was amazing. You gotta build that out. I'm like, yeah, what did I say?

Yeah. Let me see the video.

Are you— and so I gotta get it transcribed. Like, are you the same way?

Totally. Yeah, totally. I, I do 2 event, 2-day events for my clients. And generally speaking, you know, a, a 2-hour session is like a half a page of ideas.

Yeah. And that's pretty— just a couple of outlines and away you go.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally. It's, it's pretty fascinating.

Yeah.

I'm now to the point where I just have a whiteboard up on stage. Yeah. Or I take my iPad and it's connected.

Yeah. And I'll just doodle out But when you've been doing something every day for 10 or 15 years, yeah. You know, you, you have this unconscious, you know, just knowledge base. I mean, and that's true. We see it all the time when people write books. Yeah. Because sometimes they'll come to us and be like, I just don't know what to talk about. And then, you know, after we start asking a few questions, I'm like, dude, you got 3 books here. Which one do you wanna write?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Because you have all of this unconscious knowledge base that, you know, once people start asking the questions, you can draw it out.

You know, it's funny you mentioned that. I've been going through this stuff and I realized I've already got my second book done. My next, my next, my third book.

Yeah.

Done.

Yeah.

Right. Um, so I'm thinking like, well, when do I, like, when am I gonna do this one? It's a little bit more mainstream.

Yeah.

Right. But it's about human performance.

Um, oh, I love that.

Yeah. It's called The Flow Method. It's a, yeah.

I always say 6 months to a year.

To wait?

Yeah. Yeah.

I, oh, okay.

I, I always say that because what will happen if you wait 6 months, then the launch of the new book will reinvigorate the, the previous book. And so they'll, they'll create a little bit of a synergistic process together. So 6 months is a, is a good timeframe if you're ready. And if not, a year is fine too.

Yeah. All right. Well then let me get this one out.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm gonna launch this over the next 6 weeks.

Of course.

Let's go. Let's talk more about the docs because if I'm listening to this as a doctor and let's say I'm in Orlando, right? Yeah. And I've got a practice that does $1 million a year. Yeah.

Yep.

Is that like, and I'm really just looking for clients in Orlando. Is a book really that powerful?

100%. It is.

Okay. So let's talk about that. Yeah. 'Cause I, I know my docs, I know my clients really well.

Yeah.

And I'm sure a lot of 'em, you know, they all like everybody, they don't think of themselves as that impressive. Right. They don't think that what they do is really all that magic. I have a few that realize that it's magic. I would say 95% don't. So let's talk about that. Why is just that local Local market, how would you leverage it?

Well, I'll think of, I'll give you a couple of different examples, just the ones that pop into my mind because they're, they're clients of mine. So we did a, a book for a doc that was doing a stem cell and maybe, and I don't know all the terminology, so forgive me.

You, you know, there's different— Doctors don't get upset if you say stem cell. We don't know if it's autologous or—

Right. I, I don't know.

Yeah, I know you don't. I know you don't. Um, I think I know the doctor you worked with, but yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. And anyway, You know, the, the book did fantastic. Mm-hmm. And he, uh, wanted us to do PR and media for him. So we did a, a, a TV segment local in Florida. This was actually South Florida. That one TV segment led $100,000 in new business into his office within 30 days.

Yeah.

That one television segment.

And so the segment, was it like one of the longer form interviews on the TV station?

5 minutes.

Yeah.

Those things are just 5 minutes.

I tell my clients, I did those with the ED clinics. Yeah. Those are some of the most Powerful things.

Yeah. It was 5, it was, you know, had his book right there, 5 minutes and basically his call to action. 'Cause you can't really have a call to action on network TV.

Mm-hmm.

But you can, right? I mean, you know, you're not telling 'em to come in and buy. He said, hey, if you have a, a question about this, we have a survey on our website. Take the survey. He had hundreds of people take the survey and it led to 6— one TV spot in a local market led to 6 figures. So can you reproduce that? Of course. How easy is it for somebody to reproduce that with a Facebook ad, for example? Yep. I mean, local Facebook marketing is easy because then you're just focused on zip codes.

Done correctly. It's incredible.

It is so powerful. So, you know, your book can become the thing that leads people back to you, the thing that has a narrow niche with a specific outcome that people are looking for. Mm-hmm. And you don't even have to give it away. You can do the free plus shipping, or you can do a low-priced offer. What I always tell people is, look, you're competing with Amazon. So list the softcover for $15.95, $20. List the ebook for $9.99, and sell yours for $4.95.

Right.

And so you're giving people a discount, plus you give them a few bonuses. And now people are like, well, I have this issue. I have this knee problem I've had for years. Could some therapy actually cure this and I don't need surgery? Is that possible?

Yep.

Right. And so, yeah. How many of us, I mean, I don't want surgery if I can actually— You can avoid it. Yeah, exactly. So yes, we've seen free plus shipping or some type of book funnel in a local market as well as media and advertising create a return on investment that's mind-boggling.

Yeah. It's the free plus shipping. You would think that it's, it's been around 15 years.

Yeah.

Yeah. 20 years. I remember when I was doing work for Perry Marshall, he did the, uh, get my book for a penny.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then he did the shipping thing too on top.

That killed. Yeah. Absolutely. He borrowed one from the, uh, remember the Columbian? Oh, Columbios.

Record club. I did that. Yes.

Yeah.

The record club CDs.

Yes. You know, get 7 for a, for a penny.

Exactly. What a scam.

Yeah.

And they were, it was perfect because they had you.

Mm-hmm.

You had to buy what, 12 more or something?

This was, yeah, this was with Perry's book, uh, The 80/20 Sales and Marketing, right? I think is what it was.

And you know what's so funny is I, I am reading that book right now.

That's a great book.

It's a great book.

It's a great book.

It's a simple read too.

And it, I've reread it cuz I just taught on 80/20 is one of my core principles that I teach all the time. I just reread it last week. What a great book.

Yeah. Yeah.

And he did that and I can't even remember, he sold thousands.

Of course.

Of that book.

Yeah. It's just the, the stuff we're talking about is simple.

Mm-hmm.

But that doesn't make it easy. Right. The, the simple part is you need a, a, a great title and cover. Mm-hmm. A great, a, a well-written book. It should ideally be really niche specific.

Mm-hmm.

So think about who your absolute best clients are. Best from the standpoint of you can really serve 'em, you can save their life, you can really help them, and they are very profitable for your business. Best client in those respects. Write a book to them, make it really clear that the book is for them in the COVID and the title.

Mm-hmm.

And then use that to target those people in a Facebook marketing campaign or target them via local media, et cetera. You can, it's, it's, it's not rocket science.

Then how important is it to do something like with the book, have a podcast or other media? Like, is that, is that something you advocate?

I do. I mean, but I told you my story. Remember my book was really successful, did great. Where was the real money for me? It was that very first radio appearance that I got on. So I, I just believe that that's still true. You have to get it in front of your ideal audience. If your ideal audience is watching media or listening to media, then get it in front of them using media. If they're not, and sometimes they're not, what I recommend is you can still use media, but use it for the purposes of credibility. So if your average client is 50, 60, 45 years old, they still respect TV, ABC, NBC, CBS. Absolutely.

TV is so underrated.

They respect it. So if you can get yourself on a couple of TV appearances, With your book. Now you use that in your funnel. Now you put that on your website. You know, this is the doc who's the bestselling author of and appeared on ABC. It's like, okay, let's see. I could go see this other doctor who doesn't have a book and wasn't on TV. Yep. Or I could go see this doc. I mean, come on. It's just such a, of course you're gonna choose that.

I, I tell my docs all the time, I'm like, look, you do not understand Like media is the most powerful thing that you can do.

It is.

You don't even need to be good.

Yeah.

That's like, we're not asking you to be Robin Hood.

Right, right.

I mean, we, we've built this company, Mavericks podcast, the book, my original book.

Yep.

Then this next one coming out.

Yep.

YouTube.

Yep.

And the only reason, like I stopped everything for about 6 months because I was retooling a bunch of things and like we relaunched the this podcast in November. Um, we had taken about 6, 7 months off and really rebranded it for the name of the book, Out of the System and all of that. But the, the thing is, is that I can't tell you how many times I have people say, I don't know how I got your book.

Right.

I think a friend of mine gave it to me. I don't know how I wound up on your YouTube channel.

I don't know how I listened to your podcast. It's amazing. It's, we hear it all the time.

It's the most powerful thing in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All the, I asked my, my sales team, I'm like, find, I mean, I, I see the application came in through our content. Find out what content.

Yes.

And they ask, and the guy's always like, I don't know. I think I watched something or maybe I read his book. I don't know. I'm like, whatever. They don't even remember.

You know what the most fascinating thing to me is? I have a client here in Beverly Hills and he said, I saw you at an event. Saw you speak. I didn't pay for your $97 thing. I went online and got the book and I listened to all 125 episodes of your podcast.

Oh my gosh. Wow.

And he literally called up and said, I'm ready. I'm ready. And we went, for what? And he goes, how do I work with you? And it was whatever. We told him it's X amount of dollars. He goes, okay.

Yeah.

Right. Like 100% done a consulting day. He's in year 2 with us. Yeah. And I would tell you that is not an outlier. I can't tell you the number of people I have and, uh, that have said, I've read your book, watch, I listened to your stuff. I've watched it for 6 months and they just come in beautifully.

Yeah.

Resold. It's fast. Yeah. It's the most, it's the best form of marketing ever.

It is.

You just have to be patient.

Yeah. And use it. Right. It doesn't happen accidentally.

Ah, okay.

It doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes people will, find the book on Amazon, buy the book on Amazon, and then reach out to you. And that's wonderful. But we don't, we're not big believers in accidental marketing. Like I tell my clients, use the book every single day. We give 'em 2 dozen different ways to use the book. We give 'em a whole process. Okay. First 30 days, here's what we want you to do. We want you to get this book into every current client's hands, usually 1 or 2 copies, because then they'll—

Yeah. That's what I was gonna do. I was gonna do 'em like I was gonna send 'em like every 1 copy personally signed to them.

Exactly. 2 others to hand out.

100%. That's number Yeah.

Number 2 is every single prospect that you've had in the last 6 months that didn't become a client, send them a copy of your book. If you, if you can, depending on the number of people it is, and you think about what their holdup was, what their issue was, put a little sticky note right on the front and say, hey, I was thinking about you. You don't have to read the whole book, but chapter 11 might be really interesting to you.

Mm-hmm.

Think about this. If somebody sent you a book and said, I thought about you and chapter 11. Would you read chapter 11?

Absolutely. Of course you would. Absolutely.

So obviously chapter 11 has to be the right chapter.

It's like the, remember the J letter?

Yes.

You ever do the tear sheets? I did tear sheets.

Yes.

And you put the yellow sticky note, the fake newspaper.

Exactly. Circle it.

Powerful.

It's very, very powerful. So number 2 is you, you get the book out to, you know, all of your prospects that for one reason didn't convert. Number 1 was all of your current clients, but current clients is not just Just by the way, just a—

Alumni clients.

Retraction. Yes.

Alumni clients.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Because they will come back to you. They will be like, you know what? That was such a great experience. And I'm having this other thing that I need some help with. Let me get back in touch.

Yep.

With them. So not just current, but, but all past clients and then any prospects. And the third kind of leg of that stool is think about ideally anywhere between 5 and 10 potential strategic partners for your business.

Mm-hmm.

And get the book into their hands.

Yep.

Because now if you have a strategic partner that you give 20 books to, you only need to give one copy initially because you're building that strategic partner relationship, but then you get 20 books in their hands. How easy is it for that strategic partner to say, you know what, we've had a great meeting. I really think you need to have a conversation with this person. He wrote this bestseller. Just take a look at it. Big. I mean, I, I have clients that do that and they will, they will get a 2 to 3x return on investment in 60 days just doing that, just doing those 3 things.

So I took the anatomy book when we were, it was pretty hard for us to break in, right? Because marketing to doctors online is a little challenging. Sure. Right. They're not really on Facebook.

They're not online.

Yeah. They're not online.

Yeah.

If they are, they're on LinkedIn.

Right.

And content works, but I mean, the adding the ad profile, tool on LinkedIn kind of sucks.

Right.

And so what I did was I went on and I looked at all the board members of the associations that had events that I wanted to speak at.

Nice.

And I sent them my book with a personal handwritten letter.

So smart. And it's exactly what we teach our clients to do.

And it worked beautifully. Yeah. I got into like one, you know, I picked like 10 of them.

Yep.

I got into like one or two.

Yeah.

But I got board members as a client. Yeah. And We would double their business in 90 days and they'd be like, yeah, we need to put you on stage. I'm like, we can only give you 15 minutes. Great. I'll take 15 minutes. Right. And now that's— I get an hour, right? You know, we usually get a lunch spot, which it's just—

I have clients that speak all over the world using that exact process.

I'm speaking in Japan and my book will launch just right before then. So maybe we should talk about having an international bestseller in Japan.

Absolutely. Why not? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

It works like magic. I'll tell you another thing, and this happened with a doctor client of mine. His primary business, cash business, and his primary business is kind of worldwide. Many clients fly in to see him in Chicago, but he also travels at a very, very high expense. But he goes to— He'll go to the richest people in the world in Dubai and they put him up at the Burj Khalifa and all that kind of stuff. What he wanted for prestige and credibility was not just the, the great speaking opportunities. He was having a problem, number one, getting the keynote. He wanted the keynote.

Yes.

So he used this book in the process we explained to just lock down keynotes. His keynote went from 2 of 50 events to 48 of 50 events the following year.

Wow.

I mean, just radical difference. The other thing that he did, which he did on his own, but it was kind of a take on our idea. He wanted to become a, oh, what's the word for it? It's, it's editor, but it's not an actual editor of many of these industry magazines.

Okay.

In his specialty and in his niche. So he would send a book out to the magazine, to the professional journal, whatever And he actually got like seats as an editor or a contributor or something, but not, but he didn't actually contribute. Okay. So he got basically the credibility of being like an editor-in-chief or an editor as somebody in these, in these magazines that he could then use as further credibility because they wanted his credibility as an author and a speaker. I was like, that's That's pretty smart.

Really smart. So smart. So I have a, I have a couple clients that have done books and again, I don't, I'm not going to mention their names because I can't remember if they've used you or not, but here's the point. One of them, he's in Florida and he has a massive longevity institute. Beautiful. Probably almost half, almost half a million dollars a month. And he has a book and he uses that to bring people into Seminars. Same thing with a doctor client of mine in upstate New York.

So smart. Yep.

And, you know, they— and the, uh, the first one, he's used that to get on stages. And one of his core customer bases is financial advisors. So he'll go speak to a room of like 150 financial advisors.

Yeah.

His last event, I called him and he was flying back from San Diego. We were talking and I said, how'd you do? He goes, I think I did okay. I said, well, what, you know, what, you know, And he was selling like a $2,500 diagnostic package.

Yeah.

I go, how many people in the room? He goes, about 150. I said, how many people signed up? He goes, 94.

Oh my gosh.

And he goes, I just felt like I could have done better. I go, you're an asshole. You're, you're an absolute asshole. He goes, well, I don't know. Will you listen to the talk? I'm like, no, I'm not gonna listen to the talk.

I can't make it any better.

Just do it again.

Yeah.

Like you can't do— I'm a professional speaker. I'm like, if I did 94, I'd be buying everybody dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Exactly.

You just, those numbers are insane.

That's beautiful. Yeah.

And I think something like 70% of them signed up for a $15,000 program.

Wow.

And he got on that stage because he has a book.

Yeah.

Like it's just, yeah, it's, I think one of the challenges for people is they, it feels so daunting.

Yeah.

And there's a big imposter syndrome with it.

Yeah, there is. It's in, in the medical and legal profession especially. And here's what I've learned. It's because they do so much writing and they're also, both doctors and lawyers are similar. They're overly concerned about what their peers think.

Yes.

In a, in a very debilitating way. And that is something they have to get over because number one, nobody cares.

Nobody cares. Nobody's paying.

No one is paying attention. And that debilitating, the debilitating nature of that completely takes them out of like the power they would have to grow their practice, make an impact on the world, do more good for people because they're concerned about what a peer thinks. Terrible, terrible. I see it all the time. So that, that is a, that's headspace stuff, right? That's, that's psychology stuff that they gotta go, you know what? Why am I letting this hold me back? Number one, I don't care what those people think anyway. I never talked to 'em. Yep. And number two, I could be doing so much more good for humanity as well as my own family, for crying out loud. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an issue. Yeah.

One of the pillars. So the stairway system is what is in my first book and it's a process I use to grow my practices.

Yeah.

And so the, you know, the first step is beachhead, one message, one market, one offer. The second step is educate and excite because people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Right, right.

And that portion right there, if I can get a client to focus in on educating their prospects before the doctor walks in the door. There's a lot of ways you can do it. There's video, there's like a whole, we have a whole script for how you create like an 8-minute video for the patients to watch before you walk in.

Perfect.

So when you walk in, they say, I want that. Very powerful.

Yeah.

But if we can do that, there's no selling that goes on. Selling becomes superfluous. And that's what people don't get. The whole purpose of marketing is to make selling superfluous. Yeah.

Right. Yeah, 100%.

Right now, you and I are skilled salespeople. I mean, we've done this a long time, but is there— I mean, when you have credibility, people just go, yeah, how much is it?

The best sale I ever made was when that woman called me because she knew me from the radio and heard that I was an author and didn't even have a copy of my book yet. That was— that day was life-changing for me for a lot of reasons because I When I started in real estate at 18, my dad taught me how to sell real estate. Mm-hmm. And I was the number one salesperson in month 2 in my real estate career at 18.

Dad pretty proud.

Yeah, I did. But I mean, because I did what he said, what was that? I was the first one in the office. I printed off the expired listings, I got the newspaper, and I called all the expired and I called all the FSBOs. And I did that for years. Let me tell you, that sucks.

That sucks.

That sucks.

That is awful.

That sucks.

Yeah.

But, but it made me a lot of money. Uh, it did very well until I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And having a book and having media and that kind of credibility, those are the best sales.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's no selling involved.

I know.

There's no, if, if someone comes to me and says something to me, like, tell me again what you do. Uh, we don't, I'm getting off the phone. Right? If they're— and the only reason I talk to people anyways, if they're referred to me, but I'm, I'm getting off the call or I'm being very, very nice and I'm, I'm sending them something that is not a con— tell me what you do is not a conversation that I'm used to having.

Right.

I'm used to having a conversation where someone reads my book and goes, I want what you do. Now let's see if we can figure out how to make that work.

Yeah.

Right. Those are the conversations that are beautiful. That's selling.

I had a conversation last And she was referred to me by Tom Jacobs, and who does like follow-up phone calls and stuff like that. Really, really good. Great client, a great tool for our clients.

Yeah.

And he introduced me to this gal and we got on the phone, same thing. And I was just like, hey, do this. I'm gonna send you a copy of my book.

Right.

And I want you to go listen to these 2 podcast episodes.

Right.

If you like what you hear, here's my cell phone. Text me back. I'll get on it. And we did, right? And I do that a lot where people are really nervous about working with us.

Yeah.

Because it's a big investment in their mind, right? They'll pay twice as much for a machine that'll never, they'll never use, you know, because it's foreign, it's business. And I, and I did it last week as well. They were really hemming and hawing and I said, I'm gonna make this really easy for you. I'm not gonna take you on as a client right now. I'm gonna send you some things. Do me a favor, go take the next 3 months, go through my stuff. If you like what you hear, It'll make sense to you. If it doesn't and you want me to find somebody else for you, I'll be more than happy to refer you to somebody else.

Right.

But I'm not, I'm not here to convince anybody to do anything.

Right.

I'm here to— I'm a lighthouse. That's, and that's what I view as the book. Like, I'm no longer the rescue boat out there rescuing people. I'm the lighthouse. We're going to be in the same place every single day. We're going to send out the same message and signal every single day, every single night. We've got a beautiful harbor if you want to come in and you want to be serviced by our team and taken care of and you want to want to get off of the rocky waves and being tossed about, we'll be a safe harbor for you.

From my experience, 2 things are going to, one of 2 things will happen from that conversation. One is they will read the book and go through the stuff and they will call you and say, I'm ready. Or 2 is they'll read the book or not and watch the stuff or not and decide that they're not. And you'll never hear from them. And it's great. And that's totally cool.

It's awesome.

I don't want to waste my time on I mean, one call, let alone 2, 3, 4, convincing somebody that I am the best person for my— I have the tools out there. They will do all the work and all the convincing. I talked to a gentleman the other day that was referred to me and it was much the same situation. It was a few weeks ago. He was a pretty high-powered wealth advisor and I didn't know how high-powered until later. But he was like, tell me again what you can do for me. You know, I've talked— I hate that conversation. That was it, right? And we all get it. And I said, you know, same ex— let's do this. I'm going to send you a copy of my book. You're in the financial space. I'm going to send you 2 podcast interviews I did that are case studies with financial advisors. I'll send that to you. And I said, hey, reach back out after you see it. A week goes by, not even 10 days. And he's like, he texts me. He's like, we got to talk. I'm like, okay. Yeah. You know, he was given my cell phone number. I'm like, okay. So we talk. He's like, he starts telling me about his, his $40 million mansion in the Keys that he wants me to come to because he wants to work with me and he wants to do all these things with his book and he wants to use his book to grow. And he starts selling me on why I should work with him. I'm like, this is how it's supposed to be. Yes.

Yes, exactly.

You read the book. You read the book, you watch the stuff, you know, I can help you. Now he wants to take me to this. He shows me, he sends me a video of it. It's on YouTube as this, you know, spec— it's spectacular in Key Largo. It's spectacular.

Yeah.

I'm like, you know what? Yeah, I'll tell my wife. We'll go down and visit you.

Why not?

Let's get started.

Yeah.

That's, look, it doesn't always happen that way. Right. But the reality is if you don't have the tools you need to make that happen and engineer that, mm-hmm, then it'll never happen for you.

Last couple of questions here. Does it ever make sense to go with a big publishing house?

No.

Tell me why.

2 reasons. Number one, a big publishing house only wants you if you already have a big audience in place. Most of my, 95% of my clients do not. The ones that do have a big audience in place, cuz I have a couple of very, very big influencers with millions and millions of followers, going with a traditional publisher means they give up the rights, royalties, and control of their book and the publisher is just gonna want them to sell their book to their audience anyway. So why do they need a traditional publisher if they're just gonna sell their book to their audience? So honestly, there, these days, there's no need for a traditional publisher any longer. Now, there are many clients that still want it and they generally want it for one of two reasons. Ego, number one.

I was gonna say ego's one.

It's a big one. They'll say, well, you know, if I'm with Penguin or if I'm with Simon and Schuster, you know, I got 15,000 advance or whatever. Yeah. Or 6-figure advance or whatever. And, and that will give me more prestige. And I always ask them one question. I'm saying, hey, we'll, we'll help you with the book. You can go anywhere you want. But I asked them, when was the last time that you bought a book because of a particular publisher? And tell me one of your favorite books. Tell me who the publisher was of that book. I can't Of course you can't. It means nothing.

It means zero.

It means nothing. You don't know if it was published by the author themselves or if it was published by Penguin. You don't know that. And they're just gonna want you to sell to your audience anyway. So the, the number one biggest reason is because if you, if they want you, you don't need them. And if you do need them, they don't want you. Okay.

Right.

So, and the number 2 is you're better off keeping your rights, royalties in control. Yeah. Because when you keep that, you can now use your book with a funnel. You can use your book with a podcast. You can use the content of it. You can't do that if you sold it to a publishing house.

I had a friend of mine who had a publishing deal, did a couple of books and stopped doing it and went to self-publishing.

Yep.

Because when he would use his book as a lead gen, he had to pay the publishing house $7 for every time.

100%. You do.

$7 or $10.

Yep.

And he goes, this is ridiculous.

Yep.

And he goes, yeah, they might've given me whatever. whatever. They might've given him a $50,000 advance or $75,000.

But they own it now.

But they own it.

They own it.

Yeah. And it was a, you know, and it's an advance.

They're not even really paying yet.

You don't make any, you're not making any money. It's an advance.

No, no, it's, it is a great scam. It is.

It is. They control it.

But the reality is they're, they're these days, the, the benefit risk, it's off the chart. Do it yourself, self-publish it, work with a hybrid company like mine. And own everything yourself.

Yeah. Yep. How do people get in touch with you, Rob? What's the best way?

Yeah, probably my book, publishpromoteprofit.com. So publishpromoteprofit.com, or, you know, they can reach out to us at bestsellerpublishing.org.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, I will tell you folks, I cannot endorse Rob enough. I have known you for 10+ years.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we've had the joy of having some cigars. Yeah. We've never played golf though. We were supposed to play golf that day.

Which is kind of shocking.

Which is kind of shocking.

We were supposed to play golf that one day in Orlando when it was about 40 degrees and raining, and we said, screw it, let's go smoke cigars. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. I remember I took an Uber.

And I was supposed to go to meet you and Hutto in— was it Amelia?

Yeah, that was the last—

that was the last time. That was the last time he played.

Yeah, he— we couldn't even finish the round on the 12th hole. He's like, I gotta go home. I did get COVID from him, by the way.

Did you really?

Yes, I did. 4 days later, I was sick as a fucking dog.

Yeah, well, I'm glad you were, you were healthy.

I got ivermectin.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I didn't take the traditional protocols. I followed what my doctors taught me. Tell you what, when I got it and my doctors found out of it, my phone was ringing off the hook. They're like, you got ivermectin? You taking vitamin D? I'm like, yeah, we got stem cells. Like, it was— I've never— I will say this. There was a period one night I woke up in my entire king bed. The sheets are soaked with sweat. And I tried to walk downstairs and I was breathing hard and I'm like, mofo, is this how it ends? Because I knew Kevin was in the hospital. Yeah. And I was like, Like, you know, luckily the next day, like, all my stuff came in and I started feeling pretty bad. But yeah, we lost a great friend. Kevin Hutto was a brilliant marketer. Yeah.

One of the best friends I've ever had.

Yeah.

I miss him terribly.

Yeah. And I wasn't even that close to him and I miss him, but he was just a big old teddy bear of a guy and just a—

Yeah. We played golf together a couple times a week. We lived near each other. Um, still very close to his wife and his kids and, you know, which, which is good, but it was a painful loss.

Yeah, that one. I got that phone call on the way to, uh, CrossFit on a Wednesday morning. That was not, that was not a fun morning.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Anyway. Okay. Give 'em the sites one more time of how to find you.

publishpromoteprofit.com for my book. Okay. And then bestsellerpublishing.org. And obviously if they say they know you, they don't have to go through traditional sales channels. I'll, I'll gladly speak to anybody that's a friend of yours. Yeah.

Check him out, folks. I mean, he is the best in the industry. Absolutely the best. And, uh, he knows his shit backwards and forwards. And I know many, many friends of mine who have used Rob and their books have become number one bestsellers. And I'm looking forward to my book becoming a number one bestseller.

It's gonna happen.

And, uh, he is the absolute best in the industry and an amazing man.

So thank you, my friend.

You got it. Thank you for coming. Thanks for being out of the system.

Love it.

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