#273: Your Message Matters

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome back to this training. It's a marketing minute Training. My name is Shelly Hitz. I'm here with my husband, cj.

Hey, guys.

And we're your writing mentors and author coaches inside Christian Book Academy. But today we have a special guest, Jonathan Mulligan. Welcome to the podcast again.

Yeah, it's so good to be here. We were just talking about it. It was like five years ago that we had a conversation. So it's fun to.

Yes, I know time flies, like, wow, five years already. But now today you're going to be talking about your message Matters, which actually is your latest book. Have a copy. Those of you that are watching the video, and I love the subtitles, is how to Rise above the Noise and Get Paid for what you know. So we all know there's so much noise out there, and so I love that that you're covering that. And if you guys don't know who Jonathan is, he is a blogger, speaker, online business coach, and he spent pretty much the last decade guiding and directing creative professionals on how to pursue meaningful work. So since 2009, he's run his own portable lifestyle business online. And, you know, I quit my physical therapy job in 2011, so not too far behind you.

But he teaches on how to build a business and lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife, Charity, and their two kids. But we're just so excited to have you just share with our authors not only about the book and what you're sharing in the book, but also maybe some sneak peeks on how you're marketing this book, too.

So just to get started, you've been teaching this for a long time. So, you know, when you were on the last time, we talked about how, you know, you have courses that you would then turn into books and, you know, all the things and what really compelled you to write this book.

So this book came about four years ago. I was doing a typical, what you would call a product launch. So I had a course that I opened up twice a year called Blogging youg Passion University. And the goal of the course was to help people who felt like they had a message, learn how to blog and build an audience around that. And on the last day, I decided to do something I'd never done before. I decided to do a live chat and I said, I am going to actually be on the live chat and I want to talk to as many of you as possible and answer any questions you have because I want this to be. I want you to feel comfortable about your investment and your purchase. And I had like eight different chat windows going. It was like nonstop all day long, 12 hours. And at the end of that day I was absolutely surprised and convinced of one thing. People who were looking at potentially buying my product, the questions was not that they didn't think my product could help them. Their big question was they didn't think they could do it. They didn't think they had a message. They felt like that that fear of not being good enough was stopping them. And I sat back and was like, wow, here I was prepared to like talk about my course and well, you'll learn this in module 2. And they weren't interested in any of that. It was all about the self belief and believing that their story mattered, that their message mattered, that they had something that was of value to somebody else. That was the big thing. And I said, wow, you know, if I get a chance, I'm going to write a book about this topic because I think it's so important.

Yeah, we found that a lot with writers too. You know, just the self sabotage or the, you know, imposter syndrome or you know, somebody's already done it so why should I do it? All the things but you know, you're talking about in the book about finding their purpose, but then also like uncovering it, like what are kind of the differences, would you say?

So part of that came from my own journey. So I came from, you know, as a kid in a ministry background. My dad was always a youth pastor or teacher. He was a high school teacher and coach. My mom was always an elementary Christian school teacher. And so when I graduated college I thought, you know, that's, I guess that's the thing, it's in the family. So I started as a high school teacher and also married. My wife was a elementary teacher. But after two or three years I started realizing that there was something else. And I felt guilty at first because I felt like teaching such a good profession. I have good relationship with the students, what's going on here? And so I spent the next, I would say five to six years trying to find my purpose out there in a thing. And here was the aha moment. And I talk about this in the introduction. My aha moment was that you don't find Your purpose in a thing, a title, a position, a company, your purpose is actually already right under your nose. It's how God made you. It's that unique ability that he gave you, that certain worldview, that story or that life experience he gave you, that is your purpose. And for me, it was. I had to finally realize it was about uncovering my purpose and doing some internal work instead of trying to find it out there in a thing. And so that's why I spent a little bit time on the book helping people discover what that is. Because I didn't want to just write a marketing book. Because if you don't, you know, if you know how to do all the marketing tools, tricks, strategies, techniques, but you don't ever fundamentally believe that you have a message to share and you know what that unique value is, then you'll never do the other stuff. So that's the difference between finding it and uncovering it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. So another question, you know, that we'd have is, you know, in order for someone to define their message, you recommend people answer three primary questions. So we're just curious to know what, what those three questions are.

Sure. So for me, working with people and helping them get clear on what their message is, and that's another hangups. Like once I believe that my, I have a message to share now it's like, what is that message? How do I define it? And something after working with thousands of people and kind of looking at it and trying to me get better at explaining it, helping them. I really came down to teaching just three primary things. It is purpose, people, and passion. We have already talked a little bit about purpose. But also in the book I go into discovering what your one word is. What is that one word that describes your gift, your unique ability that God gave you? And then how can we add to that your influencer voice? And uh, I teach that there's four primary influencer voices. It's writer, teacher, speaker, and coach. And I even have a little assessment to help people take a 32 question assessment to help you uncover what that is. And then once you know that thing, like for me when I really went through this exercise, mine was resourceful teacher. So I'm a teacher at heart and I love being resourceful. And so when I realized that I show up best for others as a resourceful teacher, then, then that's where I knew I could add value and be helpful to people. So once you know your purpose, then it's people you have, you can't help Everybody. So you have to narrow it down. Who are you going to help? And then part three is passion. All businesses, all.

Successful businesses, they solve a problem. And so what problem are you passionate about solving for the next two to five years? Let's just focus there. Who knows where God's going to lead and where he's going to take us in the days and months of to come? I started blogging as a career coach for accounting professionals, and I'm not doing that anymore because God directed my path another way, which is totally fine. But let's focus on just the next two to five years. What problem are you going to solve? And so when you know your purpose, we know the people you're going to serve and the passion or the problem you're going to help solve, that is when you have ignited a powerful message.

Yeah. And it can change. Right?

Yeah, sorry. I was going to say that. That's something else that I think settled me is when I realized that passions change, but my purpose remains. Right. So, like, I know we've had that conversation with my wife and I. You know, it's like, there may be a day where I go back into. I go into ministry. Maybe I go plan a church. Maybe that's what God wants me to do.

But.

But even then, I'm going to show up like a resourceful teacher. My purpose never changes, but my passions may change. And that's okay.

Yeah. And that's what I've seen over the last few years in my own life is like, I call it the twists and turns of life and, you know, just all the things. But in the end, like, I'm still doing this. Like, you said the same things. And I love this image you have in your book and the print book, it's on page 185. It's the messenger product map, defined so for each of the, you know, different parts, like writer, teacher, speaker, coach, you kind of give a beginner, an intermediate and an advanced and kind of where people can go and kind of the flow that they can go. But, you know, what have you seen as a result of, like, people, like, implementing this book and this, this concept over the years? Like, how have you seen this? Do you have a specific case study or something that you could share with us?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, there's a couple, but I'll give you just one. One is a lady by the name of Linda Cardamus. When, when she came kind of into my world, she was a middle school math teacher and she started a blog called Teach for The heart. And her desire was to help Christian school teachers with classroom management. And so we started looking at, you know, her, know, she was trying to figure out, where do I go? And obviously teacher was her influencer voice. And like I talk about in the book, if you're more of a teacher, you should really think about an online course. Online courses are great for, for that or even a webinar where you can teach a live audience. Those are perfect. And so today she and her husband. Her husband has left his day job. He used to do it, now he works for her blog and business. So Teach for the Heart is a home, home based family business now. And so she, she does webinars, she sells courses, she started a podcast. But it started by figuring out the three things we just talked about. She leaned into the fact that she was a teacher. She was looking at, I want to help Christian school teachers. What problem does she want to solve? Classroom management. And that's where. That's an example of how all these three things can work together.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. So in your book, you know, when it comes to marketing your message, you teach this strategy called the hourglass funnel. So can you explain exactly what that is?

Sure. So I need visuals and I need simplicity for myself because I am prone, just like anybody else to be distracted. I mean, we all are like squirrel every second. Like there is just that shiny object syndrome. And so I originally created this for myself. I looked at other successful online business owners and said, what do they do well, and I realized it was really they had four key habits. And so I use an hourglass to try to illustrate this. And if you picture an old fashioned hourglass and the top is open and the grains of sand represent all the audience, the people you want to serve. So at the very top is the connect habit. And the connect habit is about traffic strategies. And I talk about it in the book. There's basically three. There's free, there's paid, and there's partner. And once people come into your world in the top half of that hourglass, that's the create habit. And the create habit is where I just believe you need to be creating value, free value for people. Just like we're doing right now on this video live stream podcast. You can use blogging as that as well. You could do YouTube videos, but you need to be providing some kind of free value so people know like and trust you. Then the skinny part of the hourglass is the capture habit. This is essential for authors, writers, speakers, coaches, building an email list so that you can build a relationship and so we're capturing them and then we could build the relationship with them. In the bottom half of that hourglass is the compile habit. This is where you create your products and services and you present them to people on your email list, whether that's your coaching program, your mastermind, your membership site, your course, your book. This is how it all works together. And so once you start focusing your week and the time that you do have available to work on your business in these four areas and everything begins to work in the right direction.

Yeah, that's good. And you know, it's just, it's not giving up too. You know, I think sometimes I've seen writers that they try something and it's like, oh, it's not working.

And you know, putting in the time and the perseverance. But tell us a little bit like, you know, you know, open the curtain a little bit and take us behind the scenes. You know, this book has been traditionally published. Right. And it's a little bit different than in the past for some of your other books. But what are some things and strategies that you've done to market your book that you've seen that have worked well or you know, maybe didn't work as well as you thought? And share with us some thoughts on that.

Yeah, absolutely. This is fun. I'd love to talk about this. So.

This was my first traditionally published book, so I didn't know what to expect. I'd done self published books before and so there's a much longer Runway to getting your book out into the world. There's many more rounds of edits, there's working with people and it was a great experience. It doesn't mean that I'm never going to self publish again because I still still think it's a great avenue or even working with somebody who does a self publishing for you that you could partner with, I think is great. So when we started to think about getting the book out there, we did the traditional like forming a book launch team. So we did that piece reaching out to some potential affiliates, although I didn't really reach out as early as I probably should have. So, you know, but we did still have some people that helped on that. It did something I've never done before that I really wanted to do was kind of a free book offer. And, and the reason, my main motivation for kind of doing that is.

Building the email list because I just talked about how important an email list is and so powerful. Yeah, it's so even though like for Me, as, as a, as you traditionally published, I negotiated up front as big of a discount as I could on being able to get an author discount on buying books. And so I'm able to get the book for about $4.50.

That's pretty good for traditionally published.

Yeah, it really is. And so, you know, I bought a couple thousand copies of that and then I started by having a fulfillment place do the shipping and all that. That was a, that worked okay, but it was still difficult. And so I kind of. Because I didn't want to take on the monster of trying to do it internally. And my wife works in the business, so I knew she was up for it. So we actually transitioned. After doing that service for about a month or two, it was costing us about 6, 650 per book. And then there was just some quality issues and things not happening. And so we just ultimately said let's just take it in house. And the cool part about bringing it in house is we were able to lower our costs. So I could pretty much ship a book anywhere in the United states for around $3. And. And so we have basically a break even cost on getting the book out to people. But the other cool thing is every morning my wife will bring me a stack of books. Some days it's bigger and some days it's smaller. People who bought the book through our free book offer and I autograph each book and so that's just like a little fun. Wow factor that we like to send out to people is not only do they get the book, but they're like, oh cool, it's autographed.

Yeah. So you did that for me. And then do you send out the bookmark for everyone?

We do the bookmark for everyone as well. Yeah. Just as a way to get them to share it potentially if they want on social media.

And just for those that are listening for an idea, his bookmark just says market your message and it says post a picture with this book on your social media with the hashtag your message matters book. I can't wait to see your smiling faces and hear your success stories. And it has the website and on the other side there's a quote from him. So it's just a, it's a simple bookmark, but this is something that any of you can do.

Yeah, it's simple strategy, but getting people to share it and it gives them a handy bookmark to do as well, which is.

I'll have to take a picture today.

Yeah, yeah. And here's the other thing is you're also Acquiring customers, because even though they might be getting the book at a low cost, you're not only just building an email list, but you're acquiring a customer. Even if they spent just $6 or $7 with you to get the book, you're now able to communicate with them. Whereas when people buy it in a bookstore, they buy it on Amazon. They may love the book, but they just never come into my world. And that's why an email list is so important.

Yeah. And I talk to authors about this all the time because Amazon's not going to give you your customer's email address.

So, you know, you have to have a call to action in your book and, you know all the things. But this is maybe not something that all of you could do, but maybe you could do for. You know, maybe it's a certain amount of books that you decide you want to buy and you want to send out. Maybe not 3,000, but maybe you do. But if you're interested in checking out the process that Jonathan uses, you can go through his system and just kind of see how he does it, but also get his book for free. You just pay shipping at your messagemattersbook.com and what have you really seen to be like, you have this option here, but then you also have, you know, people can buy at the bookstore, obviously, and anywhere there you're doing podcast interviews. You know, you reached out to me because we had done one, you know, five years ago, and. And you're, you're getting stuff out there. But are you noticing a trend? Are you noticing anything that seems to be working more right now with your marketing for this book?

Yes. So the thing that I decided early on was that the success of the book is not going to be based on the first two weeks.

Yeah.

And I think there's that perception out there that if a book doesn't sell the 10,000 copies right away, then it's not a good book. And that's just not true. I mean, if you look at some of the best books out there, they were maybe ever on the bestseller list, but they've just been a consistent seller over time. There's a book I read a couple years ago that really helped me with this mindset. I think it's Ryan Holiday, perennial seller, and it's that concept, and this is the encouragement that I want to give to authors, is don't base the success of the book on the first two weeks. It's think long term. And here's what I love about books. A book is still new for like, What, a year or more? It's like it's got a long Runway. So, you know, this book was published in October, and I'm still saying my latest book, my new book, because a new book has a long Runway. And so what we're just committed to is just trying to reach out to people that we think might be interested in hearing more about this book and just being committed to getting on as many podcasts as we can to share the message and get it out there. And it takes work. It takes dedication, time, and effort, but your message matters. That's what we're talking about today.

Exactly. And we often talk about the. The book, the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. But, you know, it's like, sometimes you won't see that result right at first, but when you don't give up, it's like, boo. You know, all of a sudden it starts coming up and you start seeing all the, you know, the results from your. Your work. And it's like the Bible says you reap what you sow. You know, I think a lot of times there's new writers that think, oh, you know, if I just write the book and publish it, then, you know, it's kind of like the concept of build it and they will come. And yet there's. There's real work that goes into any kind of marketing, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. And so, like, what are. What was one thing? Like, maybe not necessarily a mistake, but, you know, maybe one thing you've learned from this specific book launch that maybe you could give as advice to other writers, something that you might do different or something that was a lesson learned.

So there's a lot. But let's see. We'll try to narrow it down because it's. I mean, part of this. This is a great conversation right now. Part of it is be okay with making mistakes and just trying to figure things out. It's. It's totally okay. And because you're going to learn from it.

I think I kind of mentioned one which was, you know, trying to outsource somebody else doing all the shipping because I was trying not to do it internally or figure out how to not do.

Was I was making it a bigger thing than it needed to be.

So it was like the time and energy I spent on that could have been easier figured out doing that. The other thing is.

Is I think there was times where I struggled writing the book. And it's funny, because you think that the guy who wrote your message matters has that all figured out.

Yeah.

But I can't tell you how Many times. This was my inner talk that happened frequently is this is too good of a title for someone with a story like yours, like somebody else has a better story to tell. And I also was in the first part of the book, I tell my story, and that was not how the book started. So the publisher came back to me and said, we love the concept of your book, but you're not sharing your story. And we don't. Like. We think that people need to connect with your story. And my thought is, my story's boring high school teacher who wanted to have a business. There's not a rags to riches. It's not this, you know, it's this. This steady, plodding guy who just kept serving people over a long period of time, who eventually something worked out and never had a hockey stick moment that they call where it's like the inflection point of, wow, so much success overnight. It was just slow and steady. And so I thought, who wants to hear that? And what I've been shocked at is how many people love the story at the beginning of the book. And so be open. I would say another one is be open to feedback from people that you're working with, your editors, people that are trying to help you. And so those are just a few things that I had to battle through or figure out to get where we are right now.

Yeah. And it's just. I think it's good for all of you listening. You've probably felt that too, at times, like, there's somebody better, you know, to share this, or my story is not that, you know, amazing, but, you know, your story is relatable. So I think a lot of people can relate to that. Whereas some of those big, you know, rags to riches stories, it's like, oh, you know, that almost seems unrealistic for me. Right. Whereas your story seems like, oh, well, maybe I could do it too.

But I think of also testimonies, you know, our personal testimony.

There's no bad testimony. In fact, you know, some people might consider their own story boring. You know, how they came to Christ, and then you have somebody else that, you know, was delivered out of 10 years of heroin addiction. They served 10 years in prison, you know, and this dramatic story. That sounds exciting. The reality is that every testimony is a miracle. Yeah, it's all a miracle of conversion. You know, what God does in our hearts. And so whether the details vary. And I think it's kind of similar to sharing your own story. You know, every story is interesting because.

We'Re all unique creatures that's so true, you know. And my own way I came to christ as a 10 year old boy is here's what happened. So my, my dad used to lead a camp, a Christian summer camp. And so all the boys went to their cabins one night and the girls stayed behind to do testimonies. And as a 10 year old, I wanted to stay behind and scout out who could be a potential pen pal or girlfriend.

That was my reason for being. I was the only guy in the, in the auditorium. And these girls started getting up and sharing their testimony. And one of them was a pastor's daughter who said, I was just faking it. I grew up in the Christian home. I knew all the things, I knew the story, I was just faking. And I finally realized that I needed to give my heart to Christ. And the conviction over me at that moment was overwhelming. Like I grew up in a Christian home. It wasn't a rags to riches story. It was somebody that was relatable, that connected me to Christ. And I leaned over to the assistant director, said, can we step outside? Said, I don't think I've got my salvation nailed down. I know I'm the director's kid, but I don't, I don't understand. I don't think I got this thing figured out. And what she just said convicted me. And that's when I gave my heart to Christ. So you're right. Relatable testimony can be just as powerful.

Yeah, I just got chills. That's awesome. I grew up as a PK as well, so.

We share that. But any final encouragement or words that you want to share with writers as we get ready to close?

Yes. So one of the things I talk about in the book that I think so important, this is especially important for writers is that you have to look at this long term. You have to become a farmer and actually talk about this in the book. And it kind of takes people like, why are we talking about farming in a book about marketing or sharing your message? And the example I give is it's sort of like let's say a brand new farmer buys a field. He goes out to the field his first day, he tills up the land he puts his seed in, covers it up. He goes to bed all excited that night that he just can't wait till the next morning. And he wakes up in the morning, pulls back the curtains, looks out the window, and it looks exactly the same, right? He throws his hands up in the air and says, see, I knew I couldn't be a good farmer. I knew farming wasn't going to work for me. Why did I waste all this money this time? Why did I do that? And as silly as that sounds, that's how a lot of us treat our business. It's how a lot of us treat our platform. Whether that's a book that we're trying to get into the world or something else. You have to have a long term view. You have to not only plant in the spring and really nurture in the summer, but you need to stick around for the harvest. Don't give up before the harvest. That would be the thing. Thing that I would encourage authors right now is to stay with it. Your message is important. It matters. And someone out there is waiting for your dream to become a reality.

Amen. And amen.

Great illustration. Yes.

And so your kind of big promise of the book is turn your passion into a platform. And I thought it was interesting that the author who wrote the book platform endorsed your book, Michael Hyatt. He says for writers, speakers and coaches, this book is a game changer. And so you guys, if you're interested, I mean it, you can get it for free, just pay for shipping, you know, and I'm sure you'll learn some new things in it. And it's, it's a lot of information we've already covered, but it's always good to see it in a new way. And so you can go to any bookstore, but you can also go to your Message Matters book, get the book, you know, support him, go post a review. You know, authors, that's, that's the best thing you can do for someone.

I agree. It's the hardest thing to get, isn't it? It's like it's the hardest thing in the world to get is those reviews.

Yeah. So, but most importantly, never, never, never give up. Right? You know, keep going. God has a purpose for you, a plan for you, and we're just excited to, to see what he continues to do as you put these things into practice. So thank you for being here, Jonathan. We appreciate you. And do you mind if CJ just prays for us as we close?

I think it's awesome. Let's do it.

Yeah.

Well, Father, again, we thank you so much for this time with Jonathan. I thank you for his heart in helping people share their message. And really it's a message of what you've done in that person's life. It's how you created them uniquely. And I just want to pray that you would connect Jonathan with many people that are in need of what he has to offer. And I pray that you expand.

His platform, that you would expand the reach of his message and the services that he offers. And I pray this book would just explode, that it would really get into, as we like to pray, the right hands at the right time and really help people, motivate people to not dilly dally about getting their message out. So we thank you for Jonathan and we pray that you bless his family going forth. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.

Amen. So thank you for coming back on the show. Five years later and you're seeing another five years. I know we'll have to make it sooner than that, but thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you.

Thank you guys for having me. Appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy, where we help you. You give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.