The Foolproof System To Bring You Highly Qualified Patients Who Buy Everytime
22 Oct 2021 · 30 min
Rob Kossberg explains how cash-based doctors can self-publish a 150-175 page book to attract high-value patients and boost revenue. Doctors using this system have earned six-figure months or $3 million in annual revenue. The book works as a marketing funnel embedded into speaking engagements, online ads, and referral systems.
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Welcome to the Practice Profit System podcast. Do you own a cash-based practice? Are you looking to start one? Tired of working endless hours and still not making enough money? Want to fire your insurance company? Then you're gonna love our podcast. Each episode is full of insights and proven strategies to grow your practice to 7 figures and more, allowing you to take more time off, make more money, and no longer have to take insurance reimbursements. Plus, get a free copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Medical Practice, where I detail my entire journey to creating my own 7-figure practice. Just go to www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. You just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, and you'll also get over $1,197 in free bonuses. That's www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Now on to our show.
All right everybody, welcome to the Practice Profit System and another edition. And today what we're going to be talking about is how in the world do you get your prospective patient excited to come see you and spend money with you without you having to be this hardcore salesperson. Uh, that is the second step of our stairway system, and the first step is the beachhead, the second is excite and educate. And I could think of nobody better to bring on to this podcast, in this video podcast today, Then Mr. Rob Kossberg, who is Best Seller Publishing. I've known Rob for, you know, it's funny, Rob, we've only really known each other for probably about 6 months, but we've known of each other for probably about 10 years.
We connected and, and maybe talked here or there at Dan Kennedy Conference, but never really had a cigar together until maybe a year ago or so.
Yes.
And that's the only way to know someone, right?
Yes. Cigars and a little bit of scotch and bourbon is always a good way to get to know somebody, along with a round of golf, which, which you and I have yet to do, but we'll figure out a time to do that as well. So bestseller publishing, you've helped over 1,000 doctors, coaches, consultants, things like that get their books. You've had bestseller publishers on Wall Street Journal, number one bestselling publishing. Tell us a little bit about just kind of that background and then we'll dive into the topic.
Yeah. You know, I don't come from the traditional publishing world at all. And I'm kind of the pragmatist. You know, a lot of publishers are about the art. And, uh, you know, I, I love the art, uh, and I have a team of 25 or so that love the art of writing. For me, it's about using the book to grow authority and, and make money. That's what I used my first book for in a financial services company, um, back in 2009. You know what was going on then. It was horrible.
Yeah, yeah, you and I both know. You and I lived that. There was, there was no Great Recession about that. It was more— we called it the meat grinder.
So yeah, yeah, exactly. It was great. All right, great. and terrible. But, you know, I came through that because of the book that I wrote. And my last book was a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. That's published for no profit, which again is written to people in my industry. So for the last 10 years, I mean, that's what we do. We take people, whether they just have an idea or concept, or if they've already written their book, we take them at whatever place in the continuum they are and help them to get the book written, published. We market it to bestseller. That's guaranteed in writing. We can even take someone to a Wall Street Journal bestseller. We've had 2 Wall Street Journal bestsellers back-to-back in the last 2 weeks, which is pretty cool. And, uh, and then we show them how to make a profit with their book. And, uh, that could be book funnels, that could be challenges, that could be speaking engagements. We, we help them do all those things.
So why is it so important to have a book? What is so powerful about a book?
Well, it's only important if you want to be the authority in your space and make money.
Uh, we don't, we don't want—
we, we do not want our competitors to have books.
Okay.
So if our competitors are watching, you don't need a book. No, you know, I guess that's the point, right, Matthew? It's like we're all in competition. And, you know, I have this Dan Kennedy-esque thing that I put together that I call the hierarchy of desire. And basically, it is as you move up this hierarchy of desire, you go from a generalist to a specialist, to an expert, to a thought leader. ultimately to a celebrity, then your desirability increases. And with that, your income and the ease of client attraction increases. And the foundation of that pyramid is a book. I mean, there's— you can't think of a single individual that is like at the height or pinnacle of their career, their business, their expertise that isn't a published author. There's always an additional step. And that is the book. And for us, the book is the foundation, and then from there we build on with media, PR, and online marketing, speaking engagements, that sort of thing.
When you're talking book, you're not talking about writing a book proposal and going to Simon& Schuster to get a book deal. These are self-published, right? Why is that? Why is self-publishing the way to go in today's day and age?
Well, I mean, here's the simple fact that the first maybe hard truth people need to understand is that, um, you know, I just, I just spoke. I did 2 speaking engagements at a, at a medical conference. I mentioned that to you. And, uh, and many of those people want traditional publishing deals. They, they want to sign a deal. And I said, you know, look, they're going to ask you 5 questions first about, uh, you and about your material. They're not going to ask you if you have the cure for cancer. You may. They're not going to ask you if you have the cure for COVID. They're going to ask you how big your email list is, how many Twitter followers you have, how many Facebook followers. All they're interested in is if they're going to sign a deal with you, that you have a platform to already begin selling your book to. And if you don't have that, then honestly, I mean, I hate to say it, but it doesn't matter how good your content is. traditional publishers don't sell books. They don't market your book. They write you a check and employ you to go market your book to your own audience. So the first thing is kind of embracing and understanding that, you know, 20 years ago we couldn't even— it was so difficult to go outside of that traditional publishing model because, you know, there weren't tools like Amazon where all the traffic is for book buyers. So when Amazon came along, they changed the game. And so now, you know, the first thing we just, you know, I mean, my clients are, you know, 9-figure business owners, but they're under the radar. They don't have a following of 250,000 or a million people in most cases. And so getting a traditional deal is like pulling their hair out.
Big time.
And they don't want to pull their hair out, not to mention how long it takes, etc. So we give people an option to get your book out of you quickly, make it excellent, And then honestly make more money with it than you would in a traditional publishing deal. But the money is on the back end, not the front end, right? And that, that's the difference. You know, a lot of people are more willing to take a $50,000 check on the front end than make $250,000 on the back end. There is a reason, by the way, that publishers have their name at the top of tall buildings, right? They're making more money than you are.
Right. So how would that— so when you say that, that I'm sure that piqued our listeners' interest. So, when you say you're going to be a quarter of a million dollars, how? How are they using— how are your clients using this book if they're not going the traditional publishing route? And I know, you know, maybe not getting on Ellen or whatever is out there these days. Let's talk about the local butcher, baker, candlestick maker, the local doctor. How are they using that book and how are they leveraging that book?
Great question. So, the first place we look There's, there's a thousand ways. So, the first place we look is, okay, doc, how are you attracting clients right now into your business? And if the answer to that is, I'm not, then we have problems.
And, and, well, that's, that's generally the first how they answer that one.
Yeah. So, okay, so, so there's—
That's why they're listening to me. Right, right.
And so, so the people that are your clients or the people that are listening to you understand that there has to be a system in place to attract clients on a regular basis. And so, the first thing we look for is, okay, what is your system now? And let's see where the book can supercharge that system. So, an example, I had a client that was a medical practitioner and he did online marketing. He actually did stem cell. Of course, I know some things have changed within the stem cell community and the laws, but he did stem cell therapy. So, it was a cash practice. And he was doing online stuff at that time and doing these mini speaking engagements. I said, well, here's what we can do. We can, because you're already familiar with online, not everybody is, we can plug your book into an online funnel. And then instead of you having to haul yourself 300 miles, you know, 3 times a week to do speaking engagements, because literally that's what he was doing, your book can attract people directly to you and you can just sit on the telephone and talk to these people. Within month 4, he was doing 6 figures a month just from the book and the online funnel. And he did that for well over a year. Now things changed. He's actually writing a new book because he's looking at a different type of cash practice. But so the first step is, what are you doing now and how can the book integrate into that thing? It might be speaking engagements. It might be PR and media. It might be you have a big mailing list and now the book is going to You know, it might be referrals. So there's always a strategy that the book will, will supercharge and simplify your client attraction.
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because, you know, I think a lot of the folks that are listening to this, they may just have a local practice that's doing, say, erectile dysfunction or HRT, and they might be in Billings, Montana, or they might be in Dallas, Texas, or whatever. But you find that it works well even in small local markets like that? You're You're having success?
Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it works great.
It—
in fact, you know, look, I, I mean, your market, your income will only be ultimately related to the size of your market, right? So if you're in a little town of a few thousand people, eventually you're going to reach everybody, right? But your book helps to supercharge that. So, you know, if you're— if you have a 7-figure practice and you've reached, you know, 1, 2, 3% of your marketplace, your book is going to help you to reach 10, 15, 20%, and they're gonna— it's gonna allow you to raise your prices as Because the people are going to see you as more valuable. That— I know that docs go, you know, 12 years of education to get, you know, the, the letters after their name, but I mean, you could create something like this in 6 to 8 months, and it just— I mean, we have clients that have doubled and tripled their, their prices, gone to cash practices and things like that, because the book now attracts the right kind of person.
Yeah, you know, and that's one of the You know, you and I come from the same marketing world, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, all of that fun stuff. And, you know, as I think Jay coined this, I, you know, I've heard so many people say they've coined this, but basically there's only 3 ways you're gonna grow a business, right? Bring in more new customers, sell more to your existing customers, charge more, right?
Right.
And the funny thing is, is the last 2 are easier than the first one. It's easier to charge more and sell more to your existing client base than it is to go out and get more new customers. You and I both know lead generation can be some of the hardest and most challenging things. Which a book really differentiates you from all the other practices out there.
It does.
I mean, I, you know, I have my book. A lot of people here listening to this have gotten the book. I mean, it is by far one of them. It's the number one thing that I do for lead generation. It creates that immediate connection. Now, here's what's interesting, and I know you'll probably see this. Do a lot of people, when they get those shipped, the books, are they actually reading the book? Like, what What is the— I mean, what do you kind of see with that when, when you ship them the book or they get a PDF of the book or whatever? Is the prospect actually sitting down and reading the whole thing?
Well, the whole thing is maybe the, the key point of that question. So I don't know that, that anyone reads or most read the whole thing, but I'd say there, there are 2 keys. Number one key is that your, your book can't be, you know, a medical textbook. Um, your book Well, statistically speaking, Amazon has done all the studies in this. The amount of consumption of your book will fall off tremendously after about 175 pages. So your book needs to be 150, 175 pages. Can't be hundreds of pages. So if it's clean, if it's crisp, 150, 175 pages, then people are going to consume most, if not all, of your book. That's number one. Number 2, is if you lay out your book in a way that people can consume what is important to them, then, you know, they'll consume what makes the most sense for them. And they will convince themselves that you're the solution based on what they read in your book. So I don't need, you know, I don't need people to read every part of my book. If they really want to know how to market the book, they can read the promote section. And they're going to see by the case studies I give, the examples I give, they're going to learn how to do it. And they're going to say, Why don't we just write this guy a check and let him do it for us? Which is ultimately what I'm looking for.
Right. And that's the most powerful thing. Writing a book sounds like it's pretty daunting.
It can.
Yeah.
How do you simplify it? How do you— I'm not asking you to give away your inner secrets, but how do you simplify that process so that somebody who's got all these thoughts going around in their head, like, how the hell am I going to take all these thoughts and organize them in a clean, concise way on a piece of paper and then write everything? How do you manage that?
Yeah, great question, and I'm happy to share everything. But, you know, our, our average client is a busy entrepreneur, right? They don't, they don't have time to sit down and write 1,000 or 1,500 words a day. They just don't. And so that advice of just start writing or whatever doesn't work for the vast majority of people, period. It especially doesn't work for a busy entrepreneur. So, you know, obviously we have a team that helps to facilitate all this, but If you don't have a team or you don't use a company like mine, the process is still the same. That's number one. You have to map out completely what your book is before you get started. This is like the skeleton that holds all the muscles and flesh and everything together, right? So you have to map that out. That's what's the hook of the book? Who's the ideal client that's going to be reading this? What's the title, the subtitle? What's the full table of contents? And even before we dedicate a writer to our client, we have all of this laid out with a project manager, including the content of every single chapter, which should be story, teaching points, open loops, conclusions. I mean, all these things need to be wrapped in there. So the most important thing is all of this needs to be laid out before the writing begins. Now, for our average client, they never write, they speak.
Right.
But they come to the session with the writer knowing exactly what they're going to speak about. So they know, okay, I'm going to tell the story of how I started bestseller publishing and the first media appearance I was on. I'm going to stop right there at the crescendo of the pain. I'm going to teach 3 points. I'm going to come back in. I'm going to conclude it. I'm going to talk about the money I made in year 1, and then we're going to give next steps. And so all that's laid out and I go, And I just speak it, right? That helps facilitate really, really fast but quality content creation. Anyway, that's probably more detailed than you want, but, you know, like I said, the average entrepreneur just doesn't have time to sit down and try to find their way through writing 1,000 words a day or whatever.
You know, it's interesting when you go through that process, In having, again, published my own book and you go through that process, it really starts to crystallize just your, in the case of a doctor, your process for a patient, but your process for healing that patient. And I have found that it makes my, it made my entire sales process, patient acquisition process, customer acquisition process infinitely better.
Right.
find the same when you're talking with your existing clients?
100%. Yeah, 100%. You know, there are gurus that give advice that you just need to sit down and start writing and get the content out of you, but that's a little like, you know, saying to drive from St. Augustine, Florida to Pasadena, California, you just get in the car and start going and get the miles under your belt. It's like, no, you're gonna have a lot of miles under your belt, but who knows where you're gonna end up, right? I mean, You know, there's so many important elements to writing your book that there have to be a lot of questions answered, not the least of which important is who's your ideal client and what are their pain points and challenges and difficulties that we're going to address in your book so that when they pick it up and read it, they go, oh man, you're, you're the gal for me, or you're the guy for me. You get me, right? You can help me.
How does a local guy— so let's talk about promotion. How does a local guy or gal— again, the doctor— clearly we're not going to try and get them, you know, being a Wall Street Journal bestseller probably may not be kind of the plan, but what's the process? Like, what are you doing from a promotion standpoint for local business owners? What's important?
When someone says promotion to me, um, I go right to my book, right? And I think in terms of promotion of the book Not promotion of their business. That's 2 very different things. So when it comes to promoting the book, like if we do our promotion plan for our client, we do paid advertising on dozens of different websites all over the world. We advertise in Sydney, Australia. We advertise in the UK, Canada, the United States. Why? Because we want to get as many downloads and as many purchases as possible to make the book a real legitimate bestseller. Now, are those people going to be in Wichita, Kansas if that's where the practice owner is? Probably not. So we're not focused initially on getting the book out just in a 5-mile radius of the practitioner. We want the book to be a legitimate bestseller. We want the book to maybe hit Wall Street Journal or USA Today because that's massive credibility.
Nice.
Which means that we've got to get, you know, we've got to get it out there to a lot of people. So the— our book promotion strategy is about a massive launch, paid advertising, press releases, social media, all of that, um, to get the book to real credibility, real legitimacy. Now, if a practitioner is only focused on their local market, that's fine. We still want the book to be legitimate and a legitimate bestseller, but then we want to have a separate and distinct plan of profit for that practitioner in their local community. But that's different, right? That's after the book hits bestseller and now we move into the profit phase.
You know, what's interesting is a mutual friend of ours, Perry Marshall, I did a lot of work for him probably about 7, 8 years ago. And there was a client of his who was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he did vasectomy reversals. That's all he did. Right?
Yeah.
He had— he was booked out like 4 months in advance, and he was pulling people from not just— you were like, how many guys want vasectomy reversal in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Well, they weren't coming from Tulsa. They were coming from Denver, Colorado Springs. They were coming from Ames, Iowa, Iowa City. They were coming from St. Louis. They were coming from Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, because he had positioned himself as the go-to guy for reversing your vasectomy.
Yeah.
Right? And I think he had actually even self-published his own book, didn't do a massive promotion like you did, but he— that just always struck me. He had become— people all over the world— country, I should say, I shouldn't say world— all over the country would fly to go see him because he was the guy. In fact, other doctors would be like— other urologists who did vasectomies would say, oh, you want it reversed? Go see him. Like, you know, nice. I mean, so I think that's a great example. When we had our clinics, Peyronie's— and the doctors will know what this is, it's an issue with scar tissue in the penis that causes an unnatural bend— we actually marketed that. That sounds horrible. It's awful. It's a more than 30-degree bend. Yeah, we call it the Bill.
I wish I didn't know that.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I should have—
you know, you should know this with me. You know, I mean, I own erectile dysfunction clinics, for God's sakes. You know that I've seen 10,000.
You know what, I think I remember you talking about that over a cigar. It's a strange cigar conversation, but I think I remember. Go ahead.
Sorry to interrupt. Anyway, no, it's okay. But the point is that we had people come in from all over the country to get that fixed because we had positioned ourselves as the, as the worldwide expert. Uh, we should have done a book, right? I mean, we never did because we then sold the practices. But I think that's a great example, and I think it can be You know, here's what I love about a book. And this is when it really hit home for me. This was again 10, 12 years ago. My friend Bob Regnerus, I was helping him do some work and he had a client come in. He had a book called Big Ticket Ecommerce. It's somewhere on my shelf right here. And the guy came in with the book. It was rubber-bound because he had been through it so many times. He had dog-eared pages. He had Post-it notes. And he was like ready, and he spent a lot of money. I can't remember the exact amount, but he spent a lot of money with Bob because of that book. Victor, a lot of just— they can go through the list over and over again of people get that book, and there's going to be a percentage of people that get that book and they're going to read it cover to cover, and they're already indoctrinated, right, Rob? I mean, they're like indoctrinated in the dogma and they're ready to go. They'll pay anything. Is that—
Yep.
Find this over and over again.
I find it with my book. I mean, obviously, what a hypocrite I would be if I tell other people that they can do it and I don't do it with my book. I mean, my book alone has led to about $3 million in revenue in the last 18 months for my company. That doesn't include the other things we do. Like, I'm starting a challenge, you know, in 90 minutes, literally 90 minutes from now.
90 minutes?
Yeah, yeah, 90 minutes my challenge starts. But so You're 100% right. We have people that come to us that call the office and that say, I read Rob's book, I got it on Amazon, which means I didn't get the lead, it wasn't through my book funnel, but I want to talk to Rob or I want to talk to somebody because I want to get started. And that happened the first 2 months of me writing my book, and, and a client wrote a $35,000 check and got started with us within the first 2 months of me writing my book, not to mention all the things that I proactively do.
to do it.
So yes, it 100% happens all the time for me and for our clients.
Do you get people internationally? I mean, that read your book? You promote your book internationally?
I do. I do. I do focus on US, Canada, and Australia in my direct outreach, like my personal outreach on Instagram, Facebook, etc. But we have clients that call us from all over. And, and I'll give you a client example. So I— we have a doc that, um, focuses on, uh, TOS, thoracic outlet syndrome. And, uh, he speaks all over the world and uses his book to get speaking engagements, to get, uh, keynotes. So he gets referred by other docs as the TOS guy. And, um, he sent me a text like 2 weeks ago. He's a single guy, he loves to travel. And, uh, he sent me a text with a picture from that tallest hotel in the world in Dubai.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was in the hotel, can't remember, the Burj Khalifa or something like that. And he was in, he had a suite, and he takes this picture. He's like, I don't know, 100 floors up or something. It's like ridiculous. And, um, and he says, hey, I'm, you know, I'm in the tallest hotel in the world, and, and I was flown out here by a client. Uh, he's paying me, uh, $27,000 over 5 days. Plus paying all of my travel and $2,000 a day to stay in the hotel. And then I leave here and I go to— I fly directly to London and I have another client that I'm spending 2 days with and he's paying me $7,000. So total was like, I don't know, $35,000 or $40,000.
$40,000. Yeah.
Expenses. And then at the last line, both of these clients came from the book. You know, and he doesn't do any funnel stuff. I mean, he just promotes the book through his speaking engagements, etc., and people find him all over the world, London, Dubai, etc. So cool.
Wow. Yeah, that is great. Yeah, it's an incredibly powerful tool. To me, it's, you know, there's a lot of things that you can, you know, there's, you know, people always just look at, okay, I'm gonna run ads and I'm gonna get people to book an appointment, but there's this big gap. You have to position yourself as the expert. It's one of the reasons why I love podcasting. It's one of the reasons why I encourage all of my doctors to do things like this or to— and then tape, have somebody write the articles. But then to me, the most important thing you can do is, is have a book. It positions just by the mere fact you have a book, you are positioned as the expert.
Yeah.
I can't tell you, you know, some people are like, oh my God, you got a book, you got to be so proud. I'm like, yeah, you know, it's like, I don't want to tell them I paid somebody else to write it, you know, and I like to write.
So it's still your content though. I mean, it's still your expertise. It's your book. I mean, just because a ghostwriter helped you write it or somebody helped you write it doesn't mean it's not your content in your book. And it still needs to be in your voice, right? I mean, you know, it needs to sound like you. Like I had a lady at this medical conference. She already read my book and she had never heard me speak before. And so I spoke and she said, you know, I went back after your speech and she had my book and I was I was going through it and she said, as I was reading it, I could hear your voice.
I'm like, oh my God.
I said, I'm so sorry. She goes, no, no, no, I liked it. I liked it.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, you know, so cool.
It is cool. It's cool when you get a picture from somebody and they like, you know, they show you the picture of the book on their desk and yeah, it's sitting right there and I'm going through it and, and thank you so much and all that. That's really a great thing. So what are some final thoughts here, Rob, uh, with regards to books? Any final things that we didn't cover that you think are important for our listeners to to know and understand?
You know, I think you said it. I'd probably just say, you know, the best time to have a book was probably 10 years ago in your business. The second best time is now. So, you know, I mean, there is no reason to wait. There is no, you know, next year that's going to be my goal. It takes time. Even with our team, it takes, you know, 6 months to crank this out because You know, it needs to be excellent, needs to be, you know, high quality. And so, you know, there's no reason to wait if you're going to do this on your own or if you're going to do it with somebody else. I think the key is just get started on it, and in the getting started, you will find the inspiration to complete it.
Great. And so, where can they get a copy of your book if they want to know more or just read about how to How to write their own book and promote it and publish it and profit from it.
Yeah, they can, they can get a, uh, a free copy, um, at publishpromoteprofit.com. Uh, we have a— we offer a free copy. All they have to do is pay for shipping, uh, or they can get a digital version at a, like, massively reduced price from what it is on Amazon. And, uh, they can learn all about, all about us, uh, you know, there. If not, they, they don't want a copy of the book, they just can go to our website, which is bestsellerpublishing.org.
Great. bestsellerpublishing.org. Um, yeah, so I will tell you folks, this is an important part of you scaling up your practice. Um, you know, as you'll always hear me say, you need to have multiple ways for your prospect to find you. You can't just rely on Facebook advertising. You can't just rely on doing speaking engagements and things like that. or connection through referrals. You've got to have a multi-prong approach in order for you to really dominate that market. And, you know, the great thing about it is, is it actually simplifies your business. It doesn't make it more complicated. Your patient's going to come in ready, willing, and able to buy. They'll walk in and go, how much? Get me started, versus you have to sell them. So can't recommend this enough. Can't recommend doing this enough. I appreciate you taking the time, Rob. And your site one more time that you want them to go to for the book is?
The book is publishpromoteprofit.com.
Great.
Thanks, Rob.
I appreciate it so much. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks, brother. So good to be with you as always.
You got it, man.
Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, take a moment and share it with your fellow medical professionals, or post a positive comment and rate it on wherever you just listened. Now don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical medical practice for free. Just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, plus you'll get over $1,197 in free bonus material. Simply go to srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. That's srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.
