#139 Dak Frederick sells books through the old school marketing method of business cards

We have Doc Frederick with us. And Doc, why don't you just introduce yourself briefly to the group.

Hi, my name is Doc Frederick. Doc is short for Daquina. And I write nonfiction for Christian men, for men in general, to help them live with victory and impact.

Yes. And we need that in our culture for sure. So thank you for all that you do. And you're going to talk a little bit about is the business card dead? So share with us what you mean by that.

Okay. Well, thank you. So, yes. Is the business card dead? And I have several notes, so I'm going to start the timer, silly. So I'll make sure I'm good.

Awesome.

But, you know, once you write a book, you need a way to get more readers. And most people.

First starting out will take advantage of free tools and resources. And a business card will cost a little bit of money. But that's one of the resources that I believe should, you know, all of us should pay for, you know, one of the things you should spend money on and should the business card be one of the first things? I think it is. And is it possible for you to spend $30 on a box of 500 business cards and make dozens of new book sales as a result? Absolutely. It can absolutely happen. And if you do the math, you can get a box of business cards for about 30, $30 or so, 500 cards comes out to about 6 cents per card. So you can do the math on that. But if you're not using business cars or if you've been thinking about it, I hope that by the end of my presentation that you'll go about, go out and apply the things that I'll talk about today.

So a lot of great things can happen when you, when you have and carry around business cards, but when you don't, that's when you run into situations like what I faced before.

Some of you may not know that where you're, you're out, you're talking to somebody, you meet somebody new, and somehow they seem like they could be a good fit for your book. And the topic comes up that you've written a book, you're an author, and the first question out of their mouth is, do you, what's, what's the title of your book? Do you have, do you have a business card or is there something I can write it on? And if you know, like I've known known, what happens is they reach in their wallet and they pull out a, or their purse, they pull out an old receipt where it's faded and you you write your. The title of your book on it, they ball it up. Who knows where it goes from there? But that's. That's happened to me before, and I feel like I've missed opportunities to connect with people because of it.

But there's a better way. So something. After I've walked away from situations like that, I felt good and I felt this excited about the fact that I've made a connection with somebody who would want to, you know, buy my book and read it. But something just kind of didn't feel right after leaving that. So I kind of examined it and asked myself what I could have done better in that situation.

So there is a different way that that scenario could have panned out. So imagine that scenario where you're talking to somebody, but this time you actually have business cards. So you put a couple of business cards in your pocket or your purse, and before you leave the house, you pray and you ask God to send you the right person to talk to. You meet that person, you hand them a business card. But not just any business card. You hand them what I like to call a book business card. Some of you have probably heard about that. A book business card is simply a card that looks just like the COVID of your book. And I have. I had one made after doing a little bit of research, and I thought it was kind of cool, because when you tell somebody about your book, not only do they get excited, but they get a chance to visually see what the book looks like. And if you have. If you invested a little bit of money into getting a cover design that really conveys the message of your book, that's going to compel them even more to want to purchase your book. So that's a really great, great thing.

And I talked about that a little bit about what a business card is, but it's going to have information about your book, about the author. You may even have a free resource or giveaway associated with that, and you may want to connect them with your social media or website. It is a great way to make an amazing first impression of your book in business and also to let people know that you're serious about your business as an author. All right.

Now, I had a situation. Well, not a situation I had last week. I was in my office, and I just felt like God said, go on a bike ride and put one business card in your pocket. And that was kind of awesome. I was like, all right, got him. I'm about to go on a bike ride and I'm going to put one business card in my pocket. And it was kind of. It was funny because I had this. I knew I was going to be speaking for this, and it was like, right, you know, a week before beforehand. And I rode around the block a few times and I saw a young man going into his house, and I've seen him before and waved at him and spoke to him. But this time we actually stopped, we talked and finds out he wants to join the military. He's really excited about that. And I have background in the military as well, so we're able to talk and let him know that I wrote a book and I had the one business card in my pocket, the book, business card. And right then and there, he scanned the QR code on my, on my business card. He joined my email list. He got my free resource, and he committed to purchasing the book. But he also walked away with the business card. So I immediately got an email subscriber and we exchanged phone numbers. So, you know, we have a connection. But there's been several men like that that I've been able to mentor, and I have a feeling he'll be one of those. So that's just some of the great things that can happen when you do carry business cards and you're prayerful, prayerful about it and asking God to help you along the way. And despite the fact that we live in a highly digital age, I still believe that there is a place for the business card. Plus, I think it's the perfect, perfect way to start your, what I call your marketing mind, your marketing mindset to get that going, especially if you're first starting out. Um, and I believe that because.

With, with your business card, it's going to force you to do a few things. It's going to force you to think about design, how, you know, how is it, how's the business card designed? Where are the fonts? Do you have a logo? Where are you going to send them to? You know, how can you convey what you do in a very short time, time frame and get your message across? All right, I know, I got it. I know. Probably wrap up here in about a minute, but.

It is sure is a great way if you're, if you're not taking advantage of your business card, you know, definitely do that. And just, just in closing, you know, the history of the business card shows that, that they were once used by royalty. And I'm not sure if you knew that, but kings and queens would announce their upcoming arrival to a region that they governed over. And they were once available mainly to Those who were affluent and they were made of wood, stone and other expensive materials. And then shortly after that, you know, traders and merchants and what I call kingdom writers as well. I'm sure there's some kingdom writers in there and they got ahold of that concept and they started to use the business card concept to actually market their business as well.

And so God told us we're royalty, he's the soon coming king and we are his business card, declaring his message through our writing and creative works. Each business card printed represents one person that you interact with and have the chance to impact. So.

You can let me know where I'm at. Shelley, as far as Simon.

Yeah, I think that's been great. There's been a lot of comments coming in through too. But I love how you say that said that we are God's business business card. Right? Yes, that will preach. That's so good. And do you happen to have a picture of your business card with you? I don't know if you have one close by. Okay. Because I thought it'd be cool just for people to see, but you can actually the business card is the perfect size for a book cover and I've done that before too. And then several of you mentioned that you use bookmarks and that you have QR codes on there and ways for people to connect with you buy your book. And so I think all of those are great ideas.

Do you find it? All right, let me.

So this is. That's the business card and this is the book. It's got the same exact cover. Yeah, you can see that as a book, but it has a call to action on top, the QR code on the bottom available on Amazon and it has a book cover and on the back I have a you know about the author section and I have my social media handles for them to follow me as well as my website. So it makes it really clear on different ways they can connect with me.

Yeah, that's great. I love having practical pictures too, and examples because I know for me, sometimes I'm just like, oh, like what do I even start with? Or how do I do it? Do you have a place that you recommend buying business cards or.

So I actually design my business cards on Canva and my wife, she made business cards as well for her business in Canva. Their quality turned out a little bit better than going to Office Depot for her. But hers was like really cute and just, you know, it needed to just be really high quality. You know, mines were kind of on a white background, so if you're if you've got something that needs a little bit more attention to detail and just needs to look, you know, really, really pretty and, you know, you probably can go with Canva or something like that, but they were pretty decent. Four box of 200 cards.

Good. Yeah. Someone also mentioned Moo has great business cards. A couple people mentioned vistaprint. I. You can always get a coupon for them.

Yeah, but I just love that. And, you know, you've just been planting seeds along the way and selling books, you know, in. In a variety of ways. And your book is called 101 Things Every Man Should Know to Experience a Life of Victory and Impact. So if someone wants to connect with you and learn more about your. How do they do that?

Yes. So they can connect with me either through instagram or at docfredrick or on my website at habits for growth.com101 and that will take them directly to my book page. And they can also download my free resource guide that goes along with the book.

Yeah. And hey, this book might be a good Christmas gift for a man in your life. Right.

But along with the business card, I just want to tag this on before we. We head to Esther. But the other thing you can do is add an email signature. That's something all of you can do. Right. It's free. And you can have similar information that you have on your business card. But while you're creating your business card, if you do that, also set up an email signature. And that way every email that goes out, it's just another seed being planted. Oh, someone else asked what size was your business card? Was it a regular business card size?

It was. It was a regular business card size. Now, instead of doing it horizontal or horizontally, I actually did it vertically because I like better. Because it kind of went along with the COVID of my book a little bit better.

Yeah. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Doc. I appreciate you. And definitely connect with him. Get your. Get his book for any of the men that you have in your life.

I will admit I was a little bit hesitant initially to join Christian Book Academy, not because I didn't think it would help me. I absolutely knew it could. Cause I've listened to the podcast for. For a couple years before I even did. But my biggest concern was the overwhelm because I'd done training and done different things before. And you walk away from it and it's like, okay, I have this long list of stuff that's cool. You know, that's. That I should do or that's really cool to do. But then when it comes to the part as far as like actually applying it or you have questions about it, like that part is what I was hesitant about. But that's not been the case at all with Christian Book Academy. I mean, I have questions all the time and sometimes I'm sitting there, I'm like, okay, how do I do this? I'm about to start a podcast. And then I'll be like, oh, you know what, let me check Christian Book Academy. And then I'll check in a module every. There's never been a question that I've ever had that I've gone that I haven't been able to get answered just from the module. So. And then, and then there's been a lot of extra, extra things that I didn't expect. Like, you know, there's an encouragement series where you. There's, you know, several Bible study type.

Modules where you're getting encouraged and just learning so much. So it's been a very big blessing to me personally. There's been, I've been. Had a revival in my life a few months ago from just doing one of the modules. So it's an excellent program and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. And um, Doc was talking about our Kingdom foundations module and there's a whole workshop in there on how to hear God's voice. And I think Doc shared a neat vision that got a given you right. And just some different things that happen as a result of just going through that training. And it's like you don't always expect that from a writer's community. Right. But that's what we're about, the whole person.