Building Authority Through the Boardroom | Erik Hanberg | 667

Peter Winick. Why would a self-published author who has a successful book, one that has sold tens of thousands of copies, choose to sign with a traditional publisher for their second edition? And how do you shape the agreement so that it works both for the author and a traditional publisher? Today I speak with Eric Hanberg, author of The Little Book of Boards. Eric has spent two decades working in nonprofit organizations, serving on nonprofit boards, and consulting to nonprofit boards of all sizes. In today's conversation, we explore how Eric's experience with boards initially drew him into thought leadership, how the published book became a success, both through word of mouth and advertising. And finally, we ask about his decision to go with a traditional publisher for his second edition. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Eric.

Thanks for having me.

So Eric, I want to ask you a question, and this is one that I ask a lot of people who practice thought leadership. It's the, how did you become an expert in your area of expertise? And yours is boards, right? Specifically nonprofit. How did that come to be something you know a lot about?

I have, uh, it's been the trial by fire for me when it comes to nonprofit boards. I think I was on my first board at like 23 or 24, and this is when I learned that boards are legally and financially liable. This is my very first board and we fell short by $30,000 after an event that we threw because a grantor didn't pay us or the executive director faked it. I don't know which. And they said, we need to pass the hat. And I was like, are you kidding me? This is what it means to be a board. You have to pay if you don't, if this doesn't work. And, uh, I was very young. I gave them a $100 check and I left the board, which I consider myself lucky that I got away with just that. Since then though, I've been on truly dozens of boards, government boards, uh, in an elected position, regional boards, advisory boards, all sorts of things, and often in leadership positions. And I really love that work and I wanna show people how it's done.

So let's stay there for a moment, right? So you could have gone from Eric Hanberg, the young board member who got burned and wrote a $100 check, to, yeah, I'm never going to do that again. Next time someone asks me, no thanks. Or you could say, once bitten, twice shy. I'm going to be wiser on how I engage on boards. Those are both legitimate responses, but you said something at the end that I want to call out. It's the I want to share with others what I learned. Why? Why share? Why the motivation to teach?

That's a really good question. I think for me, it's this passion inside me to help people and whatever that means inside of my professional career, which has almost entirely, with the exception of my, you know, entrepreneurship has been in nonprofits. I work for boards. I've been directors for boards. I, I didn't mention that. I've worked for many boards as a, as a director or an interim director. So I see it from all sides. And in that particular case, boards are such group efforts that, that you really need to understand what you're getting yourself into. And if I'm going to work with people, I wanna work with good people. I wanna have that good experience. So maybe there's a bit of selfishness there too. I want to work with good, with good people as well.

So I had a conversation earlier this year with a senior operations executive for one of the big logistics companies, UPS, and he said, you know, I could give out books to my senior managers about leadership and everything, but I couldn't give out a book to my newly promoted frontline manager. And so he wound up writing this book, Congratulations, You've Been Promoted, right? And he said, that's the book I wanted to give away to every frontline leader. What I'm hearing from you is something similar, and maybe I'm wrong, of the, hey, if I'm gonna be on a board, what's the book that I could give away to my colleagues? Was that the motivation for you to write? Was it almost the, here's what I've learned, let me make sure that I'm working with good people and equipping them?

Okay. I will be honest with you. A lot of the motivation was also financial. So I wrote—

well, both and is fine.

Both and is good. And I think I've covered, you know, the personal motivation there. I have given this book out to many people, but I've also sold like,, you know, 40, 50,000 copies of it.

And did you expect to sell that many or did that surprise you?

It surprised me. Part of it is, you know, it's been 10, 10-ish years now. So it's over time. But what I saw, the first book I wrote actually for nonprofits was on fundraising and that sold decently. But every so often I'd see a spike and it'd be like 10 books in a single order, 20 books in a single order. And sometimes people would tell me that they were ordering it for their board. And by that point I had served on enough boards. I was like, well, if someone's buying their fundraising book for a board, maybe I should just write a board book and actually dive into this topic, which by that point I knew a lot about. And so I did come at it with this idea that like, I think that this will sell in bulk and be a rare business book that I can sell, you know, in, in a stack and that. Turns out to be true.

Well, and so let's stay with the Board Book. When you wrote it, you self-published, is that correct?

That's correct. I self-published ebook, paperback, and then I recorded an audiobook myself, and that's available as well. And since then I've added hardcover, hoping that that will get into libraries and things like that.

So that's 10 years out now. You've sold tens of thousands of copies. Which is at least an order of magnitude more than most business books ever sell, whether they're hundreds or low thousands, right? So you reached and found an audience by being very specific and saying, this is for people on nonprofit boards. It's not just any board, right?

Yes, it's, it is. And in some ways it's even more tailored than that. The subtitle is A Board Member's Handbook for Small and Very Small Nonprofits. So even within the niche of nonprofits, I've tailored it even further. And some of that is just, it makes it feel like it's for someone very particular. The good news is, is out of the 1.5 or 1.7 million nonprofits in the US, most are small and very small. So it feels niche, but it is by far the biggest category within the nonprofit world.

Well, and you're signaling to an audience, hey, this is for you. This is going to answer questions that you have either coming up to the board and joining, or maybe you are leading the board or on as a member and you've run into a problem. I got a handbook of something other than Robert's Rules of Order, right?

Yes. And in fact, I have a chapter that's like, here's, here's a, a cheat sheet to Robert's Rules of Order. Based on how nonprofits actually use it. Because guess what? They're all adapting it. And I've seen the same thing over and over. So it's like, here's what to actually expect when you're in the room.

Right, right. So the book comes out, you get receptivity, but did you market it? Did you promote it? How do you go from 0 to 50, 60,000 by self-publishing? How do you let people know that it exists?

I think there's, there's a few reasons for that. One of them is Amazon is very good at understanding subcategories and niches. And if you type in something about boards, nonprofit boards, my book shows up because Amazon is good at trying to find people for what they're looking for. So that's the first answer. The second answer is starting in 2018, 2019, I started investing in Amazon ads. And that had really took me from like selling 40 or 70 in a month to selling 500 to 600 in a month. And so that for me, has been the big change.

So that becomes a strategic choice as well as a reinvestment in the business of Vault Leadership, right? And so you also were doing other things in that time. You're— you started doing workshops and talks. How did those come to be? How did you start getting asked, you know, You're the guy with the book, then they want you. Is that how it evolved?

I think that, that, that there were two ways. As I mentioned in my, here in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington, where I have my professional career, I actually, like, for example, facilitated a couple board retreats for free. I just did it. Uh, I wanted to help and they, they had talked to me about things and so they were happy to have me for, come in even for just a couple hours. And then people started saying all over the United States, oh, why don't we just get the guy who wrote the book that we all read? Why don't we get him to facilitate our board retreat? Even though whether you are in San Francisco, Atlanta, DC, I've been all over, there are great board facilitators in every place, I'm sure, but I'm the guy that wrote the book. And so it is worth it to them to Fly me, put me up in a hotel and, and have me in their all-day retreat or whatever, or 2-day retreat.

So are you, and this may or may not be true, the only book in the space for that small and very small board space, or do you have other competitors when people are searching for books and ideas?

There are several within that space and there continue to be new ones. Mine now has more than, you know, 500 4 and 5 star reviews. It looks really good in that space. Um, and many others, I think it's a passion project for someone. They put it out and then they just hope. And I have enough entrepreneurial things that I've done that just hoping, you know, praying to the Amazon gods is not enough. And I don't want to just sell 'em outta my, you know, the trunk of my car. So I have put money into the ads and the newsletters and all of the things to try to get it out. And that has really helped.

Well, selling shoes outta the trunk of the car worked for Phil Knight, but yeah, the, hey, are you a board member? I got a book for you. Come here to the trunk. Might not work as well, right? But you mentioned those Amazon reviews. Were those ones that you proactively recruited? Are those organic of people, you know, typing in? Is it a mix? Because most writers struggle to get 50 or 100. How do you get 500?

I'd be interested to see, you know, sales to reviews and just see how I've done. There is a thing at the back of the book that encourages you to rate it. Who knows how many people actually do it. I have not, that I can think of, more than that ever asked for people to review it. I think that that is all organic. It is over time, and it is probably a reflection of the 40-whatever-thousand books that it's sold, that there are that many.

Yeah, but I know books that have sold, you know, in the tens of thousands, and authors are still, you know, working their network of friends and family to try and go, will you do me a solid and write a review?

I probably in those first few, let's say months, emailed my list and said, if you read it, would you at least leave a review just to, just to get a handful? Now that, now that you say that, but after that, I, I have just relied on the kindness of strangers.

Let's flash forward to the current day.

Okay.

You've got this book that has done very well and you had an opportunity come up where you had to think about what you would do with maybe a second edition. Can you tell us about that?

Yes. About 5, 6 months ago, uh, an imprint of one of the big 5 publishers approached me and asked if I would be interested in them publishing a second edition of the book. And that was an incredible opportunity and something that I had kind of written off. I thought I was, you know, here I was just gonna be self-published. Um, I thought I was too niche. And they saw those reviews. They saw that if you type in Bordes, you know, book into Amazon, you, you find me. And so they were interested and I, I did struggle with this at the beginning because this is the majority of my income. This one book is the majority of my book sales. That's what I'm trying to say. That provides a nice, healthy monthly income to my family. And I get relatively, you know, a lot, uh, several more dollars more per sale than I will with a publisher. That's just how that works. And, you know, publishers only pay twice a year. And I get this monthly thing. August sales, I get paid at the end of October. September sales, I get paid at the end of November. Easy to plan for. But the opportunity just seems so appealing. You know, their sales team, multiple countries, into bookstores, which I cannot get a self-published book into, into a bookstore very easily. All of those opportunities made me think the bet is can I get more sales to compensate for a little bit less? And maybe the imprint of another, of a publisher might get me into rooms that I hadn't been in before. Clearly, you know, when I'm facilitating a board retreat in DC for some, you know, incredible people, my book has done well and I have gotten into many rooms. Are there more that I could get into? Could I become more of a facilitator? Could I do more of it every year? So those are some of the things that I was wrestling with.

So, and I think that—

I signed the deal. I should have said that. I signed the deal. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. I am, I am working. Yeah.

You were leaving us on a cliffhanger there for a moment.

Right.

But also you talk about the payment monthly. Versus 6 months, right? You also have talked about with me the question of, well, what if this bet doesn't work out? Do I, am I stuck with it? Right?

Right.

How did you think about that challenge and what did you do to sort of give yourself an escape clause?

The original contract that they presented to me had, which I think is fairly standard, if the book doesn't sell a certain amount, I can get the rights back. But that was a, a low number. And I was like, I know we can sell that within a few months even. And then it would be theirs forever. And I was like, I'm not a, I can't sign with that kind of a contract. And so what I proposed back to them was an annual number. If in any, you know, year it doesn't sell to a certain amount, I can request the rights back. And that for me was, I had to have it. And you know, we can figure out what the number is. Like, I'm happy to negotiate on what that was, but like, I have to have the ability to ask for it back because clearly I know that this works for me. I want a book that will sell for the next 10 years. And publishers are often not thinking about, you know, what's our sales over 10 years? They're thinking about like, make it look—

their spring catalog. What's our fall catalog?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And once you're in back catalog, you may not get the same level level of attention, right? And for you, it's been a door opener. It's been a monthly annuity as well as, you know, an opportunity to speak, to do the offsites. It's tied to all of the work that you're doing. You can't have it just linger somewhere in a back catalog or out of print.

It has to work. And so if it doesn't work with them, I'm, I'm going to need it back.

Well, it, it has to work because it has worked, right? It's not the, you're coming out and saying, hey, I think I've written a great book. You're sitting there with a track record of sales over 10 years.

Absolutely.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So, did you see yourself becoming the voice of better boards and better board governance for nonprofits and educating board members. Did you stumble into this in some ways, or have you made peace with this is me, right?

I didn't expect that, that the fundraising— I, I thought that my book on fundraising would be more likely for consulting, you know, I'll come help with your annual campaign, or I, I guess that that's where it would be. And that was, that was wrong. It really has been the boards. That is where people have needed help far more often, at least for me, than they have on the fundraising side. That's where I get the call from. And I did not expect that. It's been a really wonderful time.

So if you were able to listen in to rooms and conversations, how many times are they talking about the ideas in the book? Are they talking about you as the ideas? In other words, has this built your brand or have you built a brand around the ideas? Does that question make sense?

It does. And I think that I, that, that it is around the ideas more than me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna respond to yours in a different way. I've heard it said that like some thought leaders are in the answer business and some thought leaders are in the question business. And I think I am in the answer business. How should you run your board? Here's a book. And I am thought— I, I am one of the things I'm really discerning in myself is like, what are those big questions that I could ask in another, you know, book, whatever the next book is. Because I think that there's more opportunity in the big questions, being the big questions guy when it comes to nonprofits. And I am really thinking about it as, you know, my role in this author and in this nonprofit ecosystem. What are some of those things I could be asking that could, you know, level up my business? Here's all of the answers. Now here's a book with questions.

Well, and you touch on something that I think plays very significantly into the current conversation of, of what is the role of thought leadership in an age of AI where you can ask questions and get an 80% answer. What is the human component? What do we bring with our knowledge, our expertise that AI can't? And have you been thinking about that question and how do you sort of wrestle with it or what questions are you asking as a questions guy?

It's a really, it's a really interesting time with AI because, you know, for example, it's not super helpful for me to say like, here's an example conflict of interest statement for your board members to sign because guess what? AI can generate that for you. In 30 seconds and I have, and it's pretty good. Like I'm not the guy to, you know, I don't need to give my, my example. Where I think I come in is I'm really good at here's how it, here's a framework for thinking about it. Here's how it could be slash should be. But I know that the human element and the relationships is so much a part of this work of being on a board. I mean, you're an unpaid volunteer with liability, with responsibility, and you're working with other unpaid volunteers and you all have to work together somehow. AI is not great at that part. Maybe it will be, maybe it will be, but the framework is important to understand, but adapting it to the people, I really do think I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be better at AI than that, that for better than AI for a long time at that kind of stuff.

Well, and you touch on something, well, several things here. One, that the AI doesn't have the same level of accountability in terms of the answers it provides, right? Two, you have a level of authenticity where you can say, I've been in the room as a board member. I've been in the room as a director. I've run these offsites. I've worked with people who have faced challenges like yours, right? And you call out something different that maybe the concept of a handbook is evolving where it's less activities and forms and resources into what you talk about, which is what are the questions I should be asking and what should I be thinking and why? Guide me as someone who has walked this journey rather than give me templates.

I think that, that, that, that's— you said it better than me, so I'll go with your answer. I think that there really is, in these days and age, I mean, you know, first Google and now ChatGPT and Claude and all of those, the answers are out there. Figuring out how to tailor it and figure out how to make it work in your faith is harder than ever. You know, you ask ChatGPT to do something and it says it, and then you're like, well, what about this? And it's like, just totally flips the other way. And it's like, oh yeah. And then you're like, well, now which one should I trust? Uh, right, exactly. That's where the, that's where the people come in.

Well, and if you were a consultant and you gave, with just a little bit of pushback, you gave an opposite answer, your client would look at you and go, either you're totally people pleasing or you're a lunatic. Right?

Right.

Do you stand for something is one of the things that I think becomes essential and is something that AI has yet to really take a stake in the ground and say, yes, this is what I stand for, rather than I will mirror what you want to hear.

Right. Or I understand where you're going, but here's why that doesn't work. You know, I don't know that Claude or ChatGPT give answers like that. And, and I think that that's something that in the room or on a Zoom call I can do where it's like, I totally understand your impulse to do that. I've seen it. Or, you know, here's, here's some of the pitfalls. Talking that through is something that I think is still, is, is valuable now and will become more valuable hopefully.

So you've alluded to something. I wanna switch the topic for a moment. You've talked about doing the second edition of the book. You've talked about possibly other books, it seems like there's something still inside of you where you haven't said everything that you might say, could say, or want to say. Is that true? And if so, what's the spark inside of you that keeps you going down this? Why? Right?

That's a great question. I am trying to crystallize within myself the questions about like how these things work. You know, here's, here's how nonprofit boards work. What if they could work differently? What if there was better ways to do it that didn't require, you know, the meetings and the formality and like there, there's, there's something inside myself that is reaching ahead and trying to look ahead. And say, you know, could we do this differently? Because most of the time I see people playing around with, you know, we could do this differently. And I can almost always see why that's not going to work. I can see the pitfalls of it. And frankly, I'm frequently right. And so I look at some of that and I'm like, but there's got there, we do need to evolve this model. We do need to figure out how to bring, you know, this kind of tumultuous model where we, again, we are relying on unpaid volunteers to carry these organizations. Is there a better way? And that's something that I am, I, I would love if in 10 years I was like, here it is, or 2 years, you know, I'll be give you myself even earlier. But if I could stumble into that by consistently working with these organizations, seeing what works and coming forward with something new, that would be pretty exciting.

And you touch on something that. I think is very important. There have been nonprofit boards for a long time, right? There will continue to be nonprofit boards, but a lot of the knowledge that has been transmitted is almost like in a medieval guild system. You get mentored by the board members who are already there, and that's can be very productive or a roll of the dice in some ways. And so this, we can do this better, is how do we transmit knowledge? How do we prepare the next generation of board members? And how do we save some of the grief, heartache, and pain that previous generations have felt with? In dealing with issues, right? If we run into problems, let them be new problems rather than the same old problems revisited.

Yes. There, there's so much of the nonprofit board work where, you know, if you could have 5 years of steady, calm leadership with people who are doing B+ effort, that's gonna be a great board. Like in many ways that, that would be amazing for so many organizations. Because what frequently happens is they get maybe a couple A+ rock stars and they don't know how to replicate it when they leave, or it actually creates dynamics where everyone just seeds everything to them, and then when they leave, it just— everything falls apart. But what if there was a different way where we were getting B+ efforts from everyone? What if we could not just worry about falling down but moving forward? I, I do feel like, again, when you ask what is What is the spark inside of me? I'm, I keep striving forward for that.

That's very cool. I want to close by asking you one question, Eric.

Okay.

And I want you to think back to the time where you may have been working on your first book on funding, for example, right? What advice about the work of thought leadership would you give your younger self knowing what you know now?

I think the advice that I would give is to make myself as available as possible for interesting and new opportunities. It's not just trying to sell a book. Plan ahead, you know, put something on the website from the very beginning consulting, speaking, you know, what work with me. Some of those things probably could have been there from the start. I was just trying to sell books. I was going with the Tim Ferriss 4-Hour Workweek, you know, like let's sell a lot of books. And I, I, I like selling a lot of books, but planning for those things should have been much earlier in my strategy. Maybe I would be more of a fundraising consultant than a board consultant if I had led with that when I had that first, that first book out.

Eric, I want to thank you for joining us today, talking about your journey in thought leadership as well as your vision for the future in thought leadership around nonprofit boards.

It's been a joy, Bill. Thanks so much.

Okay. You've made it to the end of the episode. And that means you're probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are 3 recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game in thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you're looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas, or even create new products and offerings. I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.