The Importance Of Your Personal Brand

Summary

Podcast Summary: Business Lunch – "The Importance Of Your Personal Brand"

Host: Roland Frazier
Guest: Ryan Deiss
Release Date: July 8, 2025

In the episode titled "The Importance Of Your Personal Brand," Roland Frazier hosts Ryan Deiss to delve into strategic approaches for book launches and their impact on personal branding and business growth. The conversation spans over two hours, offering deep insights into effective book marketing, lead generation, and the nuances of co-authoring versus individual authorship.

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1. Introduction

The episode kicks off with Ryan Deiss highlighting a significant shift in consumer behavior. He states, "The second somebody gets out their wallet, second somebody gets out their credit card, there is a fundamental relationship shift that has taken place" (00:00), emphasizing the transition from being mere content consumers to active clients. This sets the stage for a discussion on leveraging such shifts for business success.

2. Co-Authoring vs. Separate Authorship

Roland Frazier initiates the conversation by contrasting his and Ryan's experiences in writing books. He asks, "Ryan, why the heck didn't I get to write this book with you?" (01:56). Ryan candidly responds, "Yeah, it's because you add no value and I'm just not. I just don't care for you very much." (02:00), highlighting the challenges of collaborative writing.

Ryan elaborates on the inefficiencies of simultaneous projects, stating, "if we tried to write a book together, we both would have been very kind of precious with it... by this point, we would have had zero books, whereas right now, we have two. Which is cool." (02:03). This underscores the importance of focused individual efforts over joint endeavors, especially when schedules and contributions differ.

3. Objectives Behind Book Launches

The discussion shifts to the primary objectives of their book launches. Ryan explains that the goal behind his book, "Get Scalable," is to generate leads for Scalable's flagship services. He states, "we help entrepreneurs, small business owners systemize, operationalize, install an operating system in their business so their business can scale without them." (05:58). This approach is designed to create a sustainable deal flow, differentiating it from traditional book launches aimed solely at sales.

4. Strategies for Book Launch and Generating Deal Flow

Ryan emphasizes the importance of intentional strategy over conventional launch methods. He critiques the mass-scale launch approach, arguing that true word-of-mouth growth stems from referability rather than immediate visibility. He notes, "the quality of the book is what's going to keep it up there. And it's going to be word of mouth, I think, more than any ad campaign or promo." (21:03).

5. Engineering Word-of-Mouth and Referability

A significant portion of the episode focuses on cultivating referability to drive organic growth. Ryan articulates, "the whole goal of the book is not to write a book that gets bought. It's not to write a book that gets read. It's to write a book that gets referred." (21:19). This strategy involves creating content that readers find valuable enough to recommend to others, thereby fostering a network-driven promotion.

Roland and Ryan discuss the pitfalls of traditional referrals, where extensive free content can attract DIY enthusiasts who may not convert into clients. Ryan posits, "the simplest way to get somebody to make a commitment is to get them to make a small investment." (10:10), advocating for micro-commitments to filter engaged and serious prospects.

6. Distribution and Production Choices

Addressing the logistics of book production, Ryan explains their decision to utilize print-on-demand services through Amazon instead of bulk printing via Ingram Spark. He mentions, "depend on everything is printed on different qualities... All of them really good though, really happy with it." (31:21). This choice aligns with their strategy to minimize upfront costs and adapt to demand dynamically.

Additionally, Ryan details the pricing strategy for different formats, ensuring accessibility while maintaining quality. "The paperback is less than two bucks. That's great." (32:56) This affordability is intended to encourage wider distribution and sharing.

7. Future Plans for Marketing and Referrals

Looking ahead, Ryan outlines plans to implement referral incentives to enhance word-of-mouth marketing. He proposes, "if you refer three people to the book, then you get these additional benefits and so on." (27:56). Potential rewards include exclusive consultations and tours, designed to incentivize readers to actively promote the book within their networks.

Furthermore, Ryan shares a long-term vision where the book's success is measured not by a concentrated launch period but by sustained promotion through ongoing podcast interviews. He states, "If that didn't work, it will not have worked because the book just didn't hold up." (25:49), reinforcing the focus on content quality over immediate marketing spikes.

8. Conclusion

In wrapping up, Ryan and Roland emphasize the importance of intentionality in business strategies. Ryan advises, "there's not one right way to do something... know the way you want to do it and be intentional." (34:23). This principle underpins their approach to book launches and personal branding, advocating for customized strategies that align with specific business goals.

Roland encourages listeners to implement these insights, reinforcing the episode's central theme on the strategic importance of personal branding and intentional business practices.

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Notable Quotes:

• Ryan Deiss (00:00): "The second somebody gets out their wallet... they're now a customer, they're now a client."
• Ryan Deiss (02:00): "I just don't care for you very much."
• Ryan Deiss (10:10): "The simplest way to get somebody to make a commitment is to get them to make a small investment."
• Ryan Deiss (21:19): "It's to write a book that gets referred."
• Ryan Deiss (34:23): "Know the way you want to do it and be intentional."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Focused Individual Efforts: Co-authoring can lead to delays and diluted contributions; individual authorship may result in more efficient and effective outcomes.
2. Strategic Objectives: Books should serve as tools for lead generation and building business systems, not just as revenue streams.
3. Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Engineering referability is crucial for sustained organic growth and high-quality referrals.
4. Production Choices: Utilizing print-on-demand services offers flexibility and cost-efficiency in book distribution.
5. Incentivized Referrals: Implementing referral programs can significantly enhance word-of-mouth promotion and lead conversion.
6. Intentional Strategy: Clearly defining goals and adhering to a deliberate strategy ensures alignment and effectiveness in business initiatives.

This episode offers a comprehensive guide to modern book launch strategies, emphasizing the interplay between personal branding, intentional marketing, and business growth. Listeners gain valuable insights into creating referable content, optimizing distribution channels, and fostering authentic business relationships through strategic efforts.

Transcript

[Ryan Deiss]

The second somebody gets out their wallet, second somebody gets out their credit card, there is a fundamental relationship shift that has taken place. They're no longer just a fan, they're no longer just a consumer of content. They're now a customer, they're now a client. And that shift is really important.

[Roland Frazier]

How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who share their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Grab your seat at the table, because this is Business Lunch with Roland Fraser and Ryan Deiss. Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch and today's a snackable episode with Roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website and. And we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com www.businesslunchpodcast.com and you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

[Ryan Deiss]

Hey, everybody.

Roland Frazier and Ryan Deiss with another.

[Roland Frazier]

Episode of the Business Lunch podcast where we are going to follow up on.

[Ryan Deiss]

The conversation we had about the book launch of my book with Jay Abraham, Business Wealth Without Risk, which happened recently, we broke down everything on the last podcast, this one, we are going to talk about how Ryan is approaching the launch of Get Scalable. And funnily enough, neither Business Wealth Without Risk nor Get Scalable, which is Ryan's book, was written by us together. Despite the fact that we all talk about all of these things all the time. And we talked about why last time. We'll talk about why on this one as well, and then break down kind of what you're doing. So, Ryan, why the heck didn't I get to write this book with you?

Yeah, it's because you add no value and I'm just not. I just don't care for you very much.

I get that a lot. That makes sense.

At all.

That's acceptable.

Yeah. At all. No, I mean, in this particular case, a lot of this is trying to do things simultaneously rather than sequentially, you know? Right. And so it is one of those. It is one of those pieces where it's like, okay, you're gonna work on. You're gonna work on this book that you're doing with Jay. I'm gonna work on this book that I'm doing, you know, that I'm doing over here. And let's get these both done at the, you know, on. Around the same time. Whereas I think if we tried to write a book together, we both would have been very kind of precious with it. We both would have taken a long time. My delays would have been at different times in your delays. And my guess is by this point, we would have had zero books, whereas right now, we have two. Which is cool.

Which is cool because we actually have been trying to write a book for I don't know how many years now. That is both of us. That is kind of semi done. But actually, during the time we just talked about this last week, the. During the time that we've been writing it, we kind of decided to do everything differently. And so all of the effort and expense that went into writing that one, it's kind of just not going to ever be released. And. And I mentioned last time I wrote with Jay to get access to other markets, but also, you guys, when you're in partnership with people, you don't have to do everything together. Ryan. This was, if not exclusively, primarily all of Ryan's thoughts and ideas about business operating system. And he may bounce things off of me just like he does thousands of other people, but it's really his work. And so it makes sense when it's your work for it to be just. You don't slap your name on it unless there's extra value to be gotten from it. And also, beware trying to write one together when you both have busy schedules and you have one that just doesn't ever come out okay.

Yeah. And you know, in the same way that I didn't care to, because it would have been easy enough, I'm sure. I've been like, if. I bet if I had thrown a little pity party and be like, I want to be in a book with you and Jay that, you know, you would have, like, let me write a bonus chapter or something like that, and I could have put my name on it as well. But as we talked about, we're not in this for the fame. We want the deal flow. And so I get to participate on the deal flow that comes through that book because we're business partners in the same way that you'll be participating on the deal flow that comes from this. I think it's so important, and especially this is not the Topic of today's episode. But it is so important, especially in business partnerships, that you are clear on what is the goal that everybody's looking to achieve. And you just let ego just sit over there by itself and be the little, you know, toddler crybaby that it is. Because I think had we done that.

Partners wrote a whole book on that called Ego is the Enemy.

There you go. Yes. And so I just, it's like, I mean, I think the point. And we've said this, when we try to write a book together, it still isn't done. We said, let's go ahead and get these books knocked out separately. Both get done.

Yeah.

Magic, right? And so, yeah, so I think that's, that's the most important thing. And then we get to benefit from them not just in the awareness that it creates for our respective brands that all again, funnel that, that kind of is that high tide that rises our collective ships. Not only do we get to benefit from the deal flow that it, that it creates, but we also get to benefit from the idea sharing, which is what now everybody else gets to listen too. Because in the previous episode, you broke down your philosophy and your strategy for how you wanted to do the business wealth without risk book launch. Yeah. And it's obviously worked. Right. I mean it. There's no doubt that, that, that worked. And we talked about in the previous episode, you know, are there some things you wish you had done differently from a scheduling perspective? Sure. But the strategy worked.

Yeah. So let's talk about here. Why this book? What is the objective of the book? Because I think that's always the place to start. What did you want from doing it?

Yeah. So the objective to this book, for this book is so if we're going to talk about from a pure business perspective to generate leads for Scalable's flagship services, where at the Scalable company, we help entrepreneurs, small business owners systemize, operationalize, install an operating system in their business so their business can scale without them. Now why do we want to do that? Right. Why do we want to help businesses install operating systems so their business can scale without them? Because then their businesses are more sellable and perhaps we can be a part of the scaling and the selling slash exiting of that business. So everything that we do is in service of deal flow, is in service of the investing, private equity side of the game. But this is first and foremost to generate those kinds of leads. Those kind of. Which is a different reader than the folks that you were targeting with the book. With J. Yeah, we're really Targeting with this book, people who are in that two to let's say 12 million is kind of the sweet spot revenue range and maybe their profits are super constrained, maybe even non existent at this point in time. And they're in that gross messy middle, the swamp of scale. We wanted to target those folks so that we can help them scale in showing value, maybe get to work together when they're on this, you know, hopefully on the other side or close to the other side of the, of the swamp of scale.

[Roland Frazier]

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[Ryan Deiss]

So you always have high quality off.

[Roland Frazier]

Market deals coming to you. Number two, we give you our offer and funding system so that you can structure offers that get accepted and fund them creatively many times with no money out of your own pocket. And number three are closing and integration systems so that you don't just buy a business, you actually successfully run and scale it once you have acquired it. Plus you'll have direct one on one support from an EPIC Deal advisor every step of the way. And that's people that have actually come up through this system and done these deals themselves. That's the only way to become an EPIC Deal Advisor. And if you're serious about acquiring a business this year, don't just sit on the sidelines. Just text I'm in to 334-458-9034 and we'll get you in. So text I'm in to 334-458-9034 we'll get you in no Fluff, no wasted time, just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now.

[Ryan Deiss]

I'll see you there. I like it. So the, the end result is deal flow, but there's a few steps in between. I, I, I want to talk about something because there are other people that have a model of, well, if you're looking for deal flow, why don't you just give away all this stuff for free and, and, and then let the deal flow come from it and the deal flow will, you'll reach way more people that way and therefore you'll have greater deal flow. And ultimately, if you're truly looking for deals, then that's the way to do it. Why do we choose not to do it that way?

Because the way that humans show commitment is in their calendars and in their wallets. I mean, and so the idea that somebody is going to commit, be committed enough to want to bring you in as a business partner or as an investor, that's a big commit. I mean, that's as close in the business world as you can get to marriage.

Yeah.

And so to do that there needs to be some micro commitments along the way. And if you give everything away for free, then you're going to get micro commitments from the people who do actually spend an enormous amount of time to consume that content. The challenge that we found is that a lot of times the people who are willing to spend a lot of time to consume the content are your DIY folks. These are not the people who are necessarily going to want to bring you in. These are the people who are going to want to try to figure it out so they can do it themselves. And God love them, I fall in that camp a lot of times. Not most of the time, but enough. I can appreciate it. But they're the ones that were less likely. The folks, though. The simplest way to get somebody to make a commitment is to get them to make a small investment. And we've seen this time and time and time again. And it doesn't have to be much. Somebody can invest just a few bucks. But if you, the second somebody gets out their wallet, second somebody gets out their credit card, there is a fundamental relationship shift that has taken place. They're no longer just a fan, they're no longer just a consumer of content. They're now a customer, they're now a client. And that shift is really important. And that shift now begins a relationship where they can make ever increasing investments to where now, I mean, we have people that we've been working with who have been giving us through consulting, through masterminds, through the advisory services that we've offered them. They may have given us hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of years and have been thrilled to do it. And so then one day to say, you know, hey, what if we were just to be business partners? That's a tiny little leap. Then, you know, I read your book, I watch your YouTube video. I've been following you on TikTok. TikTok, you know, by my company. I'm not saying that it can't work. We obviously have a good friend who that is his whole entire model. But if you're going to go that route, boy, you've got to be doing massive scale. I mean, you have to be so wide, cast such a broad net for the law of large numbers to kind of work out for you.

Yeah.

That that just becomes a business unto itself almost.

So it's like, and I think it is, it is a business into itself for us as well. But to me, you can eat your cake and have it too because all the things that you said help. All of that experience of having an actual business relationship really lets you see a lot more about somebody to know if you want to be in business with them in the first place. But let's say that that's a BS reason.

Let's say that it's not.

I know it's not and I know.

You know it's not.

Let's disregard everything else and just say it is also possible to build multiple eight figure businesses, adding tremendous value to people, getting them to act more intentionally and consistently on the value that you're given. Because it's not given away for free. Because free typically is valued at, at nothing or less by people.

It's valued at the price people pay.

Right. Who don't pay for it. And we also have the opportunity to create eight figure businesses plus in the process. So you know, to me it's kind of like we get to monetize all along the way and effectively get paid to source deals. We know that very few deals that we actually want to do will come through the machine. We don't want to have a big deal vetting machine that we build as much as we want to just have the people that we've had a chance to have some business experience with before we get to the point of maybe possibly working with them. And so it's just a different business model. But I really like it because we're building income and wealth while finding the people that we want to build Income and wealth together with and I while.

Getting paid to do due diligence.

Yeah.

And you also find out who's actually going to implement. Who's going to take your advice. Who's a good business partner? Yeah, who's going to be a good business partner? I think a lot of it comes down to there was a time when offering courses, offering coaching, offering consulting, offering masterminds was seen as a show of lesser value because it was largely done by hucksters, gypsies, tramps and thieves. I mean, let's just call it what it is. Some of the early people who are out there slanging courses, they didn't always have the best intentions. They weren't always the most professional. Let's be honest, a lot of them weren't real business people. A lot of those folks who were selling courses had only ever made any money teaching other people selling courses on how to teach people how to sell courses. Selling courses. And it became this kind of gross incestuous sort of thing. And so that became the brand around it post 2020 when cohort based courses and we're in a world where LinkedIn learning is now, gosh, 20, almost 20 years old. You know, Udemy is a $750 million publicly traded company. Coursera is a billion dollar company. There's an acceptance of at home training. You don't have the same stigma around core sales to where it's going to be. It's going to hurt your brand. It might with some, but not with most to where the benefits would outweigh it. And that's definitely not the case with, you know, now consulting and doing some type of coaching services. Some of the largest companies in the world are consulting and service based companies, so. But I do believe that there are some people who bring a legacy stigma to it. That's why they don't want to do it. I just think it's, you know, I think it's their own head junk. We haven't seen it in practice, we have not.

So, okay, let's, let's get to the book. So we know now you want to do it to help build awareness and sell the operating system and also ultimately generate deal flow. What is the book launch thesis and process?

Yeah, I should say that's the primary. A secondary is also a brand play. And so both in terms of wanting to carve out a little bit of space in the operating system world, I mean currently the number one, like the de facto leader if you're going to talk about a business operating system is eos. Is traction, you know, our buddy Gino Wickman.

And so who wrote the preface to our book.

Yeah. And I think this is important, you know, is that a competing book and a competing concept? Sure. Will people buy both books? Absolutely. Will some people prefer his, you know, the, you know, EOS to the scalable operating system? Yep. Will others prefer both? Sure. Like, so we don't have a scarcity mindedness around this at all. That being said, we need to make it known to the world, hey, there's another operating system for, you know, framework out there. And so if you tried this one and it didn't work for you, maybe this will. And it doesn't mean that they're bad or stupid or dumb or we don't like them.

Look at both and see which is the best fit. Right.

Bango. And so, you know, so we. So a lot of it is carving out a space in the business operating system world, but also the decision to call it Get Scalable. Look, that is not the sexiest title in the world. You know, Business Wealth Without Risk. I know how to write a headline. You know, I can write some copy. Business Wealth Without Risk is a heck of a lot better headline than Get Scalable. So why do we have Get Scalable? Because there is a sense there where we want to establish scalable as a brand. We have Get Scalable the event. So Get Scalable Live, the Get Scalable accelerator is the flagship program. So a lot of this is also beginning to build some brand around the scalable terminology. And we're willing to sacrifice a little, you know, maybe some conversion rate on the front end to people who don't know us to begin to own the word scalable. Like that is one of our goals. We want in the same, at digitalmarketer.com, we wanted to own digital marketing, right? Wanted to own the term. We really want to own the term scalable. Not necessarily scale, but scale able. So that's a very kind of, you know, strategic intent around the titling of it. And then the subtitle, you know, the operating system your business needs to run without you. We've got operating system in there, that connection works. So I just wanted to say from a goal perspective, that's the reason. So do you want to get into the. You asked about the launch, you want to get into that?

What's the plan? So what's the goal of the launch? Like, let's say there's a launch period. What is the period and what is the goal?

So the goal is actually not to launch. And I Think that this is an important. And it's an intentional, it's an intentional strategy shift that I want to try because I've got a hypothesis and I think it'll work. We'll see. And again, this is the benefit to us doing two different things and trying stuff out. The benefit to listen to the, you know, business launch podcast you get, we'll get to reflect back and see in a year if this worked or not. But when, when I analyzed all of the best selling books that have been kind of that perennial bestseller, like they've stayed on the top of the charts, when I went back and looked pretty much none of them had a launch in the way that we launch books now. Yeah, now you could say they didn't know and had they done it, it would have worked even better. Correlation is not equal causation, I submit. But when I thought about these books, they got where they got because they just were always there. They just, you just, it was just almost. It was like that itch like that, the little hum in the background that you couldn't get rid of.

Yeah, I think it's, it's word of mouth primarily. Like if you write a good book and market it consistently and it's great, then the word of mouth is what causes it to catch fire. And I know Ken Blanchard launched the One Minute Manager after he'd sold, I want to say, two or three hundred thousand copies of it because it was a great little fable type book. Right. But, well, actually that was who moved my cheese. I guess the One Minute Manager was a great little, just, I mean, I read the first one in the bookstore.

Right.

I was in the bookstore and I was like, I read the whole book. Oh, wow. You know, but I was like, that was really good. So I still bought it and I still recommended it to lots of people, but he got published after having sold a ton of copies of the book. I was talking to Jay the other day, Stephen Covey with the Seven Habits. That book was out there for over a year before it really caught on. And, and I think that's, that's what happened. So I think what you're saying has a whole lot of merit.

It's.

You're going to miss the big awareness push to hopefully kind of kickstart the word of mouth. But ultimately the quality of the book is what's going to keep it up there. And it's going to be word of mouth, I think, more than any ad campaign or promo.

And that's the entire strategy is how do you engineer word of Mouth referability. And so the whole goal of the book is not to write a book that gets bought. It's not to write a book that gets read. It's to write a book that gets referred. And so that's why if somebody's thinking in terms of operating system or if somebody mentions traction is, ooh, you should read this one, too. And so that's kind of the category that I want it to occupy. But I think if it went out there in a launch, it would have a splash and people would talk about it. But, you know, we got a mutual friend, Alex, Alex Formosi. He did this massive book launch, sold, obtained hundreds of thousands of copies of this book, but kind of everybody talks about it, screams about it, and then to continue talking about it two weeks later, you almost feel weird. It's like, yeah, yeah, I know about it. Everybody's heard about it. So to continue to talk about the thing that everybody already knows about, now, referring that book, talking about that book is actually a show of lesser value. I get a reduction in status if I talk about something that everybody knows about. But if I know something that you maybe don't know, I'm incentivized to tell you.

So if I, If I ask you right now, what are three books, like the, the top three books you would recommend to me for business, what would.

You say the top three books for. For business at large Business. I mean, yeah, Traction would be one of them that would get recommended a lot. Probably like, you know, good to great. I mean, there's other ones that I like that aren't as recommended as often. But, like, when I.

If. So if somebody asks you that question, do you recommend what you just said, or do you recommend those that. Not a lot of people have heard of that.

No. Yeah, I recommend Art of Profitability, which nobody's talked about. I recommend the Goal, which people heard about 20 years ago, but now nobody has. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to recommend the obscure ones that you haven't heard about.

Yeah, so that's.

That's.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

[Roland Frazier]

And same here.

[Ryan Deiss]

You do a podcast interview, and people, everybody and their brother is going to.

[Roland Frazier]

Say, oh, think and Grow Rich and.

[Ryan Deiss]

How to Win Friends and Influence people, you know, like, okay, great. You know, everybody has already heard that. What can you add additional value? What's the one that I keep in my pocket that I, you know, kind of I want to tell you about, but I also don't want to tell you about? You know, so for me, it's like Black box thinking is like that. The goal is like that. There's, there's those books that, that you read and have huge breakthroughs as a result of reading and then you want.

[Roland Frazier]

To share those and you also want to be different.

[Ryan Deiss]

So I like your strategy from. Okay, what's the book that not everybody's heard about? That's the under the Radar. That's this one. That's Get Scalable and that. I read that and it changed my whole operating system.

Yeah, don't, don't. I mean read that one too. But man, you got to read this one. Yeah. So the entire strategy is built around engineering referability.

Yeah.

And so the idea is don't launch. Don't make a big splash. Let it be everybody's dirty little secret. But my, but the, the way that I'm looking to do this is I want to do 100 podcast interviews over 100 days. Yeah. Now some of them will drop at the same time. I'd like to have about 30 of those happen during pre launch and have the other 60 happen and then never stop promoting it.

Yeah.

You know, for at least I'm seeing this launch as being 15 months.

Okay. Because you got 100 podcasts, that's a hundred hours, let's call it, of your time directly. What period of time are you going to do the hundred podcasts over?

That'll happen over about a six month period. Oh, okay. Okay.

So it's not. I was like, man, that sounds awful. You're going to spend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them. So some of them have already happened. But I'm telling people, don't release it until here.

Got it. Okay, good.

Right. And so engineering, which ones are going to drop during, you know, which ones are going to drop during pre launch. Yeah. Which ones are going to go there and trying to coordinate that and look, same like affiliates. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the nice thing about podcasts is people want to interview you and if you got a book like they're, they're happy to do it. So I didn't have to beg people, hey, will you mail my book? It's just, you know, people ask me all the time, can I, you know, can you come on my podcast? Yep. But I'm not going to talk about marketing. I'm going to talk about this. And you can't release the podcast until these dates. Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. So that's the whole thing there it is. The non launch launch. It is like, let's have it be the thing that. Because When I think about the books that really took off, that's what happened. I remember when you looked really, really, really cool because we knew about the four hour work week and nobody else did because what was Tim Ferriss doing back then? Tim Ferriss was doing hundreds of interviews with anybody who could, who would do an interview with him. And I just haven't seen anybody go and execute that. And when I think about the pressure of a launch week, it's make or break. I mean, you know, you said it in the previous podcast that we did. Previous episode. You know, you had to make it work because it was launch week and it didn't matter that you had 15 events that same week, you know, and that you hadn't slept and that you had like, you had to make it work because by God, that was launch week. And there's something really powerful and magical about that that I wouldn't discount. It's a beautiful forcing function to get people to mail. And it may turn out that this doesn't work at all. But if it doesn't work, it will not have worked because the book just didn't hold up. Yeah, right. It'll just be that like the book wasn't good enough to be referable. If that's the case, it'll obviously be disappointing, but I feel like that's something I can control. That's what works so hard to make sure that it was an amazing book, to make sure that the tools.

Is there any other strategy or device that you're using or tactic to get.

Referrals for the book? So I heard about it on the.

Podcast, I bought it.

Now what we're going to do advertising in Amazon for the books that we want to sell up against. I'm calling in Inside the book to encourage people to refer. We don't have anything inside the book to encourage people to refer. In retrospect, that would have been smart, but we, we didn't. We can, we can build some of those elements. Do what?

That's what second printings are for.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we can do another print run for sure.

[Roland Frazier]

I'm just wondering like, if you, if.

[Ryan Deiss]

You had the ability to like, you could just use one of those like referral candy or something like that and say, listen, here are benefits. Because I'm guessing there's a resources site that supports the book too, right? So come here to get the resources. Now you go there and it's like, hey, here's the resources that you get. But kind of like Morning Brew and a lot of the newsletters. Do, if you refer. Right. Maybe you put Sparkloop on it. Say, you know, if you refer three people to the book, then you get these additional benefits and so on and so forth.

Thousand percent, we're going to do that. And we all the way up to.

1,000 referrals, gets you a tour of the, of the scalable facility and you know, a private consult with Ryan about your operating system or something.

Like, if you sell it, here's the deal I'm going to make. If you, if you sell a thousand books, then you get five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact with Roland Frazier. I like it.

I have an AI avatar that can, that can do that.

Absolutely.

I like that.

I will tell you in all seriousness, when you ask about strategies to encourage referability, a lot of this is what I didn't do. So in the book, there is no forward. And so I know I could have gone out to any one of our, you know, famous friends with fancy names and got them to write a forward for the book. But then the forward would have been that other thing that I, that I know people like. I'm sure that Tony wrote a phenomenal forward for the book business. Wealth without risk. I mean, it's Tony, right? Like that's a good get. Like you can get Tony to write forward. You let Tony write you forward. But I didn't want to have anything in between the. Somebody opening the book. Well, there's a table of contents and then there's the offer. You know, there's the, it's literally, you know, the offers on the, in the flap. So you don't have to buy the book to do it. But there is the table of contents with the offer right next to it. And then you turn the page and you're in it. Yeah, like you are reading the book. Because I want people to make that micro commitment of, okay, I read the book. So there's no forward by anybody else. It's just straight into it as soon as you get there. And again, that was very intentional. That was by design. Because if somebody actually read the book, they're more likely to refer it. Yeah, I read it, so I like it. So that's that particular. So that, that's a strategy and we'll see how it goes. It's a long term strategy. You know, if we look back 12 months from now and you can't find the book anywhere on any category, everybody can point back to this episode and go, wow, Ryan, you sure were a miserable failure with that book. You must have written a Crappy book. But hopefully we look back and it's a consistent, you know, consistently ranked in the categories that we're living in.

Will it be released on Amazon as an ebook also?

Yeah. So that's the other thing. Hardback, paperback, audio, audible version and Kindle, every single format. Because I think a hardback book is something that's nice to gift and refer as that kind of increased status type. Type piece. But I also know some people would rather just get the paperback. So every format under the sun, it's more expensive, it's a bigger pain in the butt. But again, it's all about order them.

Or are you having them print on demand?

No, so we, so we ordered them. We went through Ingram Spark.

Yeah.

And so a. Let's see. This is a 200. We're looking at 212 page hardback book with a dust jacket and a printed cover. So that if you lose the dust jacket, the COVID is the same. Yeah. And I want to say it's like two. Between 250 and $3.

Yeah.

For that ordering thousands of them at a time. You know, I think to get that pricing it was like 3,000. It might have been 2,500, maybe it was thousands, but not like 10,000.

So we opted for no inventory. We just basically ours are print on demand from Amazon, which we were looking at them the other day. And it's funny because depending on where Amazon gets them printed, some of them are like this thick and some of them are like this thick. Some of them are printed on almost cardstock. Some of them are printed on other things. All of them really good though, really happy with it. But that's another strategy. So we were not required to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get, you know, and it's like I said, it's a 450 page book roughly. So it's, it's a lot of money to get something like that printed. So that's something else for you guys that are watching and listening to think about is Ingram was the other place we priced. Ingram's price was within a few cents of Amazon's author price. For when we want to buy them ourselves, obviously we sacrifice the profit on the book, but we're not writing books for profit. None of the books that Ryan or I write are to make money off the book. They're all towards the back, towards another end.

So the paperback is less than two bucks. That's great. Yeah, yeah, less than two bucks. And so getting that out there. But really it had more to do with consistency. I mean, we did multiple test print runs to look at paper quality so that it just felt like a really good. We basically took what you would spend to do a launch and said, let's put that into the book itself, into kind of the finished product. The getting the audiobook is getting professionally done, you know, which is. It's like 10, 12 grand to get that done well, and so that it's going to wind up being the same money. It's just put in a different place. But it's all informed by the strategy of how do we have a book that where we're optimizing for referability.

Yeah, agree.

I love it.

Well, anything else you think we should share with people before we sign off for this episode?

No. I mean, I hope what people take from this is that there's not one right way to do something. There's lots of ways to be successful, even in something as specific as a book launch. I think the key is to know what you want out of it and to be really intentional about your strategy so that you don't get trapped in the middle. Because if you decide that you're going to do a book launch but you know, you're just going to do some podcasts, then you're going to. You're not blending strategies. You're just kind of doing a crappy book launch. So I think. I think that's the important thing. There's not one right way to do it, but know the way you want to do it and be intentional.

I love it. And if you guys enjoyed this episode of Business Lunch, please share it with a friend. This is part two of a two part on book launches. How we did two different launches, two different ways. There are lots of other ways as well. So hopefully you guys will find something good in both of these things. And thank you for listening and watching. And we'll see you next time on Business Launch.

[Roland Frazier]

Hey, Roland Frazier here. If you're looking for a way to grow your business exponentially to get more customers and ultimately increase your wealth, there's no faster way to do it than to acquire other businesses that already have the customers, products, services, teams and media that you want. If you want to double your sales, just acquire a company that has the same sales as yours. It sounds simple, but far too many people end up starting new businesses that fail and forget that they could skip all the hard stuff and just acquire one that already exists. There's a reason why private equity firms, family offices, big companies like Apple, Google, and some of the smartest entrepreneurs on the planet do not start new businesses from scratch. They acquire already successful businesses and when they do it, they instantly increase their sales, their profits. If they want market share, they increase that they can get new products and services to offer all instantly. Hey look, 90% of new businesses fail. 90%. Why not acquire an already successful business and increase your chances of success? My 900% what most people don't realize is you can acquire highly profitable businesses with no money out of your own pocket in pretty much any country in the world, regardless of your credit and without having to go find a bunch of investors or needing any experience. Look, I've been acquiring businesses for over 30 years now and I cover the whole process in my EPIC Investing Strategy training and I want to give it to you 100% free. Just visit businesslaunchpodcast.com epic to get your free access to my EPIC Investing training right now while it's available. Hey, Roland Frazier here. If you're looking for a way to grow your business exponentially to get more customers and ultimately increase your wealth, there's no faster way to do it than to acquire other businesses that already have the customers, products, services, teams and media that you want. If you want to double your sales, just acquire a company that has the same sales as yours. It sounds simple, but far too many people end up starting new businesses that fail and forget that they could skip all the hard stuff and just acquire one that already exists. There's a reason why private equity firms, family offices, big companies like Apple, Google, and some of the smartest entrepreneurs on the planet do not start new businesses from scratch. They acquire already successful businesses and when they do it, they instantly increase their sales, their profits. If they want market share, they increase that they can get new products and services to offer all instantly. Hey look, 90% of new businesses fail. 90%. Why not acquire an already successful business and increase your chances of success by 900%? What most people don't realize is you can acquire highly profitable businesses with no money out of your own pocket in pretty much any country in the world, regardless of your credit and without having to go find a bunch of investors or needing any experience. Look, I've been acquiring businesses for over 30 years now and I cover the whole process in my EPIC Investing Strategy training and I want to give it to you 100% free. Just visit businesslunchpodcast.com epic to get your free access to my EPIC investing training right now while it's available. Hey, Roland Frazier here. If you're looking for a way to grow your business exponentially to get more customers and ultimately increase your wealth. There's no faster way to do it than to acquire other businesses that already have the customers, products, services, teams and media that you want. If you want to double your sales, just acquire a company that has the same sales as yours. It sounds simple, but far too many people end up starting new businesses that fail and forget that they could skip all the hard stuff and just acquire one that already exists. There's a reason why private equity firms, family offices, big companies like Apple, Google, and some of the smartest entrepreneurs on the planet do not start new businesses from scratch. They acquire already successful businesses and when they do it, they instantly increase their sales, their profits. If they want market share, they increase that. They can get new products and services to offer all instantly. Hey look, 90% of new businesses fail. 90%. Why not acquire an already successful business and increase your chances of success by 900%? What most people don't realize is you can acquire highly profitable businesses with no money out of your own pocket in pretty much any country in the world, regardless of your credit, and without having to go find a bunch of investors or needing any experience. Look, I've been acquiring businesses for over 30 years now, and I cover the whole process in my EPIC Investing Strategy training and I want to give it to you 100% free. Just visit businesslunchpodcast.com epic to get your free access to my EPIC investing training right now, while it's available.