18 Streams of Income in Less Than 90 Days with Kary Oberbrunner

Now, if you're a professional, you sell time and you are looking for leverage, chances are you have a lifetime of success, but nobody knows who you are. You don't have what's known as a platform. And you're looking for ways to produce multiple streams of income beyond your time. And you want to reach out and impact lives and help a lot more people with their transformations. Does that sound familiar? Does that sound like you? Well, what if, in less than 90 days, you could create something that could give you 18 streams of income, increase your credibility, your reach, and help you build an audience and then monetize it? So what is this? Well, you're going to find out in just a moment, because you are about to meet Kary Oberbruner. He's an author, coach, and speaker who helps individuals and organizations clarify who they are, why they're here and where they're going so they can become souls on fire and experience unhackability and share their message with the world. And as a child and young adult, Harry overcame a paralyzing speech disorder and an addiction to self injury. And in the past 20 years, he's ignited over 1 million people with his content. So he lives in Ohio with his wife, Kelly, and three children, Carrie. It is nice to be here with you today, my friend Mike.

It is great to be here.

All right, so I think the first thing that hopefully attracted everyone's attention is this whole notion of 18 streams of income. And before we tell people how that happens, I think why don't you give them a little framework for this whole notion of 18 streams of income and how that's even possible in the first place?

Yeah, well, Mike, 82% of the population dreams of writing a book, according to a article in New York Times. And sadly, less than 1% ever accomplish that dream. And those who do accomplish the dream, they actually only sell about 250 copies a year. So it's this big dream that people have, and then the ones who do sell only make 250 copies a year in sales. But we know a special model that actually changes everything. In fact, this 18 streams of income that we're chatting about is very unique. And the reason why is because most people view a book like a business card. And I don't know about you, Mike, but I've gone to plenty of events where people hand out their business cards without being requested. It's called solicitation. And most of those business cards end up in one place. Where do you think they end up, Mike?

Always the trash. It's sort of like, I didn't ask for that. Who are you? And give me a little context here. So don't make this relationship all about you. That is the consistent challenge that I have with it too.

Absolutely. So, unfortunately, most people are brought up thinking your book is just a business card. And I want to say that I'm diametrically opposed to that view because business cards don't change lives, books do. And if a book is positioned not as a business card, but actually as a business, it has amazing opportunities to increase people's influence, impact, and income.

Yeah. And one thing that I've found because as you know, and in fact, I've been working with your team on my next book, I've written 13 books of my own, and without exception, they were designed around a business first. In other words, that was my objective, was build an audience and then monetize it. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to interview you, is because when you said, okay, I've got 18 ways to make that happen, that should put a fire under everyone to say, okay, well, first of all, is it even possible that I can write a book? And the answer is yes, there's a system and a process for that. It's one of the things that you'll be talking about later, but also the fact that there are so many ways to monetize it in practically any industry. So why don't you just go through some of the different ways that you can monetize? And then I also know that one of the things I asked for today is for some case studies, some practical ways different people in different industries can use a book to monetize their business and also grow a platform. So why don't we just go through that list and then we'll come back and go through a few case studies too, and show some examples of how these business models actually worked.

Absolutely. So many times when people hear about a book, they think just one version or one medium of the book. And maybe 50 years ago that was true, but today we have multiple mediums for that book. For example, many people are away from books during the day, but.

Nobody'S more than five feet away from their smartphone. So think about this. People have their smartphone within five feet of them every second of every day. Little do we know that a smartphone is actually an audiobook player. Audiobooks are actually the fastest growing publishing platform on planet Earth right now. Part of the reason why is because it's so accessible, it's tough to carry a book around. But everyone carries their smartphone. When we have people that do exercise or commuting or just being around the house. They are literally using audiobook material. And as a result, one of our friends, Brian Tracy, says that people can actually have an automobile education. So whether you're a commuter or you drive yourself, the average person drives enough in a one year period that after three years, if they listen to audiobook content, they can actually earn a PhD worth of expertise in a particular subject. So audiobooks are absolutely huge. There's all kinds of programs out there today where people can earn bounties instead of just earning the audiobook sale. If people join an audiobook program based off their affiliate link, they make $70. So there's some massive ways within audiobook, but then just to rifle off some other ones, we have ebooks. Ebooks are great for authors because they retain 70% profit from an ebook. And that's unheard of. I mean, years ago, a traditionally published author would have loved to have 14%.

Today's authors can earn a 70% royalty from ebooks. Then we go into paperback, we go into hardcover, and again, these are just versions of books. But now let's get into some of the bigger streams of income. One of those is a self study course. Courses are blowing up, Mike, and we have many examples of people that have written books, for example, on relationships, and then they have a course tied to it. And we actually encourage people. You know, I have some of my own books here. We call these back ads. In the back of the book, you want to lead people to your next steps. And so sure enough, in this book, one of my books called the Deeper Path, it literally says your next best steps. And one of those is that it leads people to the course. So people only pay $15, maybe $20 for a book, but you can immediately make 10 times that. With a course in our minds, we feel like, oh yeah, there's video involved, there's a guidebook involved, there's access, there's a login, there's a password. And so courses are not that expensive to create, but they create massive value for the listener because they can stop it, they can pause it. Some of these coaching courses have communities tied to them, so you're actually getting involved with other community members that have that same interest in that topic. So we're only on number five. We have 13 other ones as well.

No, it's good. Well, I think going back to this and maybe what we could do is we'll do the next portion after we go through a couple case studies, because seeing these in Real life based around real life examples and the people I think is really important. So why don't you talk about Dr. Pat Luce? And while you do that, we can show his screen as well, and we'll also show off some of his work, which is his product, because not only did your team work with him on his book and help him find some new sources of income and revenue, but also he ended up building a product around that as well. So why don't you use him as a case study, just to begin?

Absolutely. So I have here Dr. Pat Luce's book, and you're looking at it at his screen as well. But here's a guy who's in his 60s. He has had a very successful career, but he's a service provider, and he does all kinds of work with people's health systems and these types of things. Here he is, and he never had a book, and he traded dollars for hours. That's where a lot of professionals are. They trade time for money. As a result, his impact was capped as well. That's the other thing. Your income gets capped, but so does your impact. One of his clients, he talks about this in the book, but her name was Debbie, and she heard about Dr. Pat and his seven systems plan. And again, he only had lecture notes, these types of things. And if you click seven Systems plan, yeah, you can see all about that. That'll drop down into the course itself. There you go. So the point is that Debbie came to him, she's four hours away, and she said, Dr. Pat, I want to be treated by you, but I'm four hours away. And he said, I'll tell you what, I'm working on a book. Let me send you some early examples of the book. And sure enough, on her way back, she then had to be hospitalized and she was in a coma, believe it or not. And she got out of that coma because she struggled with diabetes, overweight, this type of thing. And she started to read his book and subsequently take his course again. This was all being built by our team in the early days. And sure enough, she not only gets out of the coma, obviously, to read the book and do the course, but then she becomes insulin free, she dumps that whole pillbox, and Pat begins changing her lives. You see some pictures here, this woman on the top right, she couldn't even get on the floor to play with her grandkids. And, you know, that's embarrassing. And some people on airplanes, they need the extenders and these types of things. The gentleman there on the bottom left, 170 pounds. That's like a person that he lost. Other people have been missionaries that were going to have to come back to the States and leave the tribes that they were serving because their health was being affected. And Dr. Pat was able to, through a book, leverage his impact, influence and income. And tell you what, Mike, that course there is not ungodly in price. I mean, it's 497 he has sold. This is crazy. He sold 1,000 courses already. So do the math. I'm not good at math, but I believe that's 500.

Half a million dollars. That's a good day in the office, honey. As I like to say, that's good.

Half a million dollars in courses. Not to mention books. We have pictures of Pat when he received his second shipment of books. He's on a semi and he has a forklift shipping the books off. He's won awards. It's fantastic. And here's a gentleman that was again, in his 60s, at the end of his career. Now he's got a YouTube channel, he's got Instagram, he's got all kinds of things, and he's finding that these are the best days of his life.

Yeah, it's a great, great story. And also, I think the most important thing is for people these days, they need to realize that they are not in the transaction business, they're in the transformation business. And what a book really helps them do is bridge that gap and get to the next level. So I think that's a really, really great example. Why don't we talk a little bit about Sonia Jones? Because one of the things that I ask you for are people who may have had some opportunities but aren't able to monetize, they're not able to capture it. And this is the constant challenge we see, is either they've been given a lucky break at some point in time in their career and never are able to capture that fully and monetize it when it happens. And then they're never able to get that momentum back. And so being able to do that is really important. So why don't you talk a little bit about Sonia?

Yeah. So people might actually recognize her. This is Sonia Jones, and she is on the Biggest Loser. So she lost 144 pounds, and yet here she was, lost the final by, I believe, less than a pound. If she would have won first prize, she would have gotten $250,000. Instead, she got zero. So you can imagine that here she's had this great transformation. 5 million people saw her story online and yet when she leaves the show, she's got nothing. People have this belief like, oh, she's a celebrity, she's famous now. She can do all this stuff. She didn't know how to package her story. And this is where a lot of people are. A lot of listeners today that maybe are reading this entrepreneur magazine, Gray magazine. They're probably saying, you know what? I got a story, I got a message, I got a tribe. I just don't know how to position it. And I know, Mike, you have some great things as well that you help people position their stories. But we helped Sonya take this loser strategy, and now she turned it into a win. So it's called 44 Lessons from a Loser. Listen to this subtitle. Navigating life with Laughter, prayer, and the occasional throat punch. And this book is incredibly popular. We had the opportunity to publish it, but I'll tell you what, her speaking immediately now jumped. And you might say, well, Kerry, what about things like Covid or Pandemics? Is she still making money? Absolutely. We live in a world today where now people are saying, you mean I can hire Sonia to be my health coach? I can actually hire her on Zoom to help me in my own journey? Absolutely. People today have expertise, and the world of Zoom and the world of digital has made it that even if you live in a small town, you can absolutely have clients all around the world. So Sonya not only sold a ton of books, but she's able to turn it into then coaching, into speaking and all these other income streams that we've been chatting about.

Right on. So getting back to how many income streams she's got. Audiobook sales, ebook sales, paperback, hardcover. So that's four. She's got her coaching, which is six. Yeah, she's building her course. Oh, and you're building the course right now. So that'll be five and then six, and then also her consulting and her ability to do. I. I'm sure there are partnership opportunities in addition to other ones that, again, we'll go through all of the different income streams in a moment. But it opened up and allowed her to capture something that she wouldn't have normally. And that's one thing you hear about people who might get on tv. Well, she didn't get paid to be on the show. When you're on a show, you're basically getting free publicity, and it's up to you to monetize that. No one's going to do it for you. And I've got a lot of friends who do a lot of television. They Do a lot of radio. Just because you're in the media doesn't mean you're monetizing. Unless you have what's known as a platform, a means of capturing that a book is your first step.

Absolutely. And when her audience is touched by her story, they always want to take a piece back with them. And I've known speakers that don't have books. And it's like they. People walk away wanting to give them money just so they can take part of that talk back with them or share their talk with their friend. But if you don't have a book, you just walk out the door.

Right on. Well, how about someone who has an established business already and they're looking for more ways to generate income and get more leads and grow their client base and reach new audiences? I know you've got a really good example of someone that we both work with. Why don't you tell that story?

Yes. So Dan Sullivan, known as the world's foremost entrepreneur coach. I mean, you look behind any successful entrepreneur and pretty much they've had Dan Sullivan somewhere in his 76 years of being alive. But Dan's someone the founder of Strategic Coach, co founder with Bab Smith, and they have workshops. And these workshop workshops are fantastic. They are the place where an entrepreneur can work on their business instead of in their business. And some of the most successful people on the planet are part of Strategic Coach. The problem is that Dan already understood the power of books. Like, he gets it. He understands that if I can create quarterly books and get them out to the world, that I'm going to have readers. And some of these readers are then going to become people who know, like, and trust me, and then join. Join my workshops, essentially. That's his bread and butter, the workshops. So Dan has a great podcast with people like you and others, and he's got all these places where he's adding value. YouTube and iTunes. The problem is, though, I'm sitting in Dan's workshop the first session, and I see him pass out this quarterly book, which is, by the way, beautiful. It's designed, it's got amazing illustrations. And I look at this and I say, this is absolutely a lead generation tool. I mean, even in the back, he gets it. It talks about how to join his programs. But then I do a little bit of research and I realize, oh, my gosh, he is only making his books available to his existing clients. So you could only buy these books on the Strategic Coach website or if you were essentially a client, visiting the physical brick and mortar workshop location. And I say to Myself, we have 39,000 channels around the world that we help our authors. Not only do we help them write, publish, and market their book, but we distribute it. So I go to Dan and I say, dan, you gotta get these books in places where people don't know you. And he said, can you get me into Waterstones? It's Dan's favorite store in the UK. I say, absolutely. So now Dan is in 39,000 channels around the world, including itunes, the audio books, these types of things. But Australia, the uk, all across the world. And now he realizes, oh, my gosh, my audience is huge. And the bigger that funnel gets at the top, the bigger it's going to get at the bottom. And so now people are saying, oh, my gosh, I can go on Amazon and get Dan's book. And now I get his second book and a third book, and I have here 25 of his books that we're now publishing. And it's fantastic. Dan's business is grow, growing, and he's a ideal client to work for.

Yeah, he definitely is. And full disclosure, yes, I do have a podcast with Dan, and I've been in Strategic Coach for now. I think this is my sixth year, but I've known him over 15, and they've made a massive difference in my life, and that has been their challenges. How do they reach more people? And that's the question that you, as either a viewer or reader of this or a listener should know, is if you want to reach more people, it's a matter of gaining leverage through multiple, multiple channels of distribution. And if you are able to share a message, you can actually repackage content that you're giving away. But people value it higher when it's in the form of a book or an audiobook. And when they see that you're in more places, it's like, wow, this person must be good if they're all over the place. So it's sort of like fame begets fame and momentum begets more momentum. And so I think that's another great example.

And we even have Mike in our English language. We have the understanding that when someone's an expert, we say they wrote the book. So, for example, Michael Jordan wrote the book on basketball, or Tiger woods wrote the book on golf. We have this instant credibility that when you do take your content that might be out in the form of a blog or an interview or notes or lectures, you package it like you said in a book, and automatically the credibility and the believability is instant, right?

On. Oh, it's great. So again with Dan. So he's generating money in terms of the income streams. Audio, ebook, paperback, hardcover. Live coaching there.

Dan even has some studies. Dan and Shannon have created the team success course. So there's courses there. But then what they have also is they have ambassador coaches. You can actually certify people. So there's a lot of professionals listening to entrepreneur right now here that are saying, oh, my gosh, you mean I have my framework, I have my intellectual property, and I could certify others? Absolutely. That Dr. Padlous guy we were talking about has 50 certified coaches who are now teaching the seven systems plan. Book sales are going through the roof, but he also gets a cut of essentially the work because they want a business in a box. Also, keynote speeches. Very good. People know that when you are an author.

I've literally talked to speaking events, the planners. I'm one myself, by the way. I have my own event. But they say that if two people are equal in speaking abilities and one has a book and one doesn't, they will absolutely hire, all things being equal, the one who has a book, because they're just perceived as more of the expert. We also talk about content marketing, vlog, blog, podcast, even Facebook Live or LinkedIn livestream. Mike, all the time, our authors go on and do what's called content marketing. They don't say, buy my book, buy my book. They actually teach a little bit of their book. And I know you do this well, too. You teach them a little bit, and then all of a sudden people say, I love that. Oh, my gosh. This person knows what they're talking about.

That's right. Where can I get more?

Where can I get more? We call it the Jimmy Dean sausage strategy. Just like when you go to Sam's Club or Costco or wherever you go, the nice person's giving you away a little free sample. You don't even want it. It smells good. You try a bite, and all of a sudden you walk away with three packages in your cart. It's kind of like that with intellectual property. Today we also have something called a launch team, and this is key. This is for all your super fans. When you launch a book, you have to have an event. And this doesn't mean it has to be big and rich and wine and all this stuff. You can do that, or you can just sit, put your iPhone up and hit record or broadcast. And literally your launch can be covered all over the world. We call these global live streams. But there's so many more people that you can reach through content marketing and then launch teams. Launch teams. We've even had people pay to be on launch teams. They're so excited to get the book early that they're willing to buy the book as a pre buy. Be part of your street team that's going to get the message out. And these become the people that are evangelists for your message. We also have what's called the subscription service or membership site. Great example. Membership sites are so hot. Think of it as a 15 to 30 to $50 monthly membership that's automatically taken out from your bank account. And people love membership sites. There's a community tied to it. There's even software out there where it's plug and play. So you could literally create the 44 lessons from the biggest loser community and that becomes a group that maybe has a monthly draw of 25 bucks. And sure enough, you start doing the math. You start having 1,000 members, 5,000 members. These are people who now are retiring from their day job because they have so much impact.

It's great. Well, let's continue on because I know you. We've got another case study, and it really is about speaking. And this is a young woman that we both know. I've actually known her for a couple of years through a friend, actually someone I met through Strategic Coach of All the Crazy Things. But it was someone who wasn't getting speaking gigs because she didn't have a book. But she also picked up and gained some amazing celebrity as a result, too. So why don't you talk a little bit about Amy?

So Amy's somebody who is essentially at least YouTube famous. And when I say YouTube famous, I'm talking about millions and millions and millions of views. She's someone. Someone who was an early adopter of vlogging, in other words, video blogging. And she, I believe, went to Ohio State right here in my backyard. And sure enough, she knew that skill. And it started small with like, oh, here's the vlog girl. And then here's the vlog woman. As she got older and she had some followers and she had some speaking opportunities. But again, she felt that weight of when event planners would say, should we pick this one or that one? She kind of realized, you know what? I'm getting overlooked some of the time. So we put this book together with her. She didn't want to go traditional publishing. She didn't want to go self publishing. We have a very unique model where the author retains all their royalties and all their intellectual property. And she said, I'm on board with that because she knew she had some great content. So all of a sudden she writes vlog like a boss. We've gotten this thing translated. This is Indonesian, but it's in Turkish. It's in Slovenia. And all of a sudden she gets picked up as a Gary V. Speaker. So she's done the Gary Vee audiobook. She's become a great consultant. She has her own vlogging business, video business. She even got on Tony Robbins business masterclass as the instructor. So I mean, we're talking about Tony Robbins like 3 million Facebook like Tony Robbins, I know you know him. And sure enough, her credibility went through the roof. In fact, she was able to double her speaking fees because it really credentialed her. She's done a second book and her business is absolutely blowing up. But she knew that she had to take it to the next level with a book. Oh, I got to read this, Mike. Just because I love all my authors. It says right here, thank you for bringing my book to life. And that's what fires me up. It's these people who, you know, send me cards and say that, you know, working with you was the most important move in my career because books change lives. And when you get a letter from somebody or an email that says dear Mike or Dear Amy or Dear Carrie or dear entrepreneur listener, you don't know me, but I read your book and it changed my life. Let me tell you the story. Sure, the income's great, but I'll tell you what, the impact is just as cool.

And I can absolutely agree with that and just say, in my experience.

I've had people walk up to me saying, I've had your book on my desk. I read it and it inspired me to X, you know, and I've, I've written books on all different parts of business. But those, those are, those are the transformations we live for as business owners and the fact that it happened without you having to do a thing. And the other, other important aspect of this is when people even see that you have a book, they are pre qualified, their hand raisers saying, I already know I want to work with you. Which in my language, and that's the business equivalent of saying I love you is I read your book, I already know I want to work with you. How do we start working together? And I think that's.

Great, great way to introduce. I know you put together a package and a resource for everyone who's reading this, watching it, listening to it to learn more about you, but also learn a little Bit more about how to write a book and build a business. So why don't you describe what that is and where folks should go?

Yeah, so we are a unique model. We don't do self publishing where we say, hey, you go build the house yourself. That's a lot of work. And it's a lot of things that you got to know the answers to. And not a lot of people are experts in it. Traditional publishing, you lose control and you lose profits. They take a lion's share. 85%. We have a unique model where it's essentially a third way of publishing, but we talk all about it in this gif that helps people understand what publishing model is best for them. So we tell you the good, the bad, the ugly of all the different publishing models. But the gift is found At Author Academy, Elite Authority.com gift authoracademyelite.com gift Once you go there and get this gift, no joke, you will know 95% more than the publishing industry experts. So you don't have to be in the dark and say, oh, my gosh, how do I navigate this maze? I love writing, I love publishing, I love marketing. I love our authors. You can see all of them on my shelf. And it's amazing when someone gets that book done because again, 82% of the population has that dream, but they don't know what to do. And I'll tell you what else we do, Mike. We finish out the 18 streams of income in that gift as well. We talk about the remaining ones, but I'm fine sharing them here. Whatever you want to do.

Yeah, I think just to fulfill our promise in the front end, let's go through them again and I'll, I'll rattle off a few that we've already covered, which is audiobook, ebook, paperback, hardcover. We've got courses, we have coaching and certifications, keynote speaking. We've already talked about that. And then why don't you continue on with the remaining nine? Because we've touched on them, but it'll be great to hear them too.

So we got the content marketing, which is essentially taking your book and going live to the world. Vlog, Podcast, blog, livestream. We talked about the launch, team events, create energy. And so you don't publish a book and say, hey, friends and family, I wrote a book. It'll fall flat. We actually help you launch the book and create a launch team. And those are early buyers. Then we Talked about number 11, the subscription and membership site, number 12, consulting. I love what you said, Mike. When a book, when somebody can read that they are already pre qualified. It's like, you don't have to sell them. They're already leaning in. I have a mentor who says it's easier to kiss when someone's leaning in. These people are leaning in. They want to work with you. And now it's just a matter of talking about the terms. Number 13. We have what's called immersion experience workshops. It's a big fancy name for saying, let's go on a road trip. Based off the book. We've taken people, believe it or not, to Shawshank Prison. We've had events called the Dream Job. One of my books here, the Dream Job Boot Camp at Shawshank Prison. Because we talk about how people's day jobs are like prison and their dream jobs are like Zihuatanejo, if you remember that movie. So sure enough, we got people from all over the world to come to Shawshank Prison. We taught based off the book, and they had major transformations. Number 15 is masterminds. Everybody an entrepreneur knows the value of masterminds, originally coined by Napoleon Hill. Then we have conferences. We pack out a conference every year. Igniting Souls Conference. People have health conferences, blogging conferences, you name it. Number 17 is partnerships. Partnerships meaning that there's plenty of other people out there who you can partner with, who get excited about your book. Here's a great strategy, Mike, in people's book, highlight other vendors or case studies from your clients. All of a sudden Those clients buy 100 books or a thousand books because it's like they're featured in your book. It's a great way to create some synergy. And then number 18 is affiliates. You actually have people that will get on board. Just like Dr. Pat, where now all of a sudden he has people all over the country selling his book as affiliates, and then also his courses. And so rather than it's you versus the world, now you have all kinds of other people who are getting a piece of the pie, but also a piece of the impact as well. So Those are the 18 streams of income.

Right? Great. Thank you for that. And what I will add is for more and to take advantage of Carrie's gift beyond this, where you'll learn more about the 18 revenue streams, but also how to write a book and create a business. Head on over to authoracademyelite.com gift so, Gary, I want to thank you so much for your time today. This has been a blast spending time with you. And is there anything else you want folks to hear as we finish this up.

I would just say don't. Let me. Let me close with a quick story. Someone was asked, what's the most valuable land in all the world? And this is a story that's covered.

As a popular legend. But the point is this. The individual didn't know. He said, maybe it's the diamonds in Africa or the gold mines or the oil fields. The person said, no, the most valuable land in all the world is a graveyard. Because in a graveyard lies all of people's unlived dreams, unpublished books, uncreated businesses. So I just want to challenge people as we go today. You have a message inside you. You have a tribe to serve and a story to tell. Don't let that story go to the grave. When you write a book, you are literally writing your legacy that will outlive you.

I love that. Very poignant, very relevant. And this is Kerry Oberbruner. I want to thank you again for the time today and go out, learn more about Kerry and start writing your book.

Thanks for having me, Mike.

You're welcome.