2: Ghostwriting Secrets: How Creative Entrepreneurs Can Use Their Passion to Build a Profitable Standout Business by Telling Powerful Stories with Kent Sanders

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Ken Sanders is the founder ofInkwell Ghostwriting, which helps
leaders grow their businessthrough books and other content.
He is also the author ofnumerous books and he, in addition
to writing books for himselfand his clients, he likes to help
other writers.
He's the host of theProfitable Writer podcast.
He's the founder of theProfitable Writer Community, a member

(00:21):
of a group that helps writersgrow their businesses.
And he was also a guest on myprevious podcast, Cracking Creativity.
You can findthat@CrackingCreativity.org 70 Kent,
can you tell us a little bitabout yourself for those who haven't
listened to the previousepisode and kind of how you got into

(00:43):
what you're doing now?
Absolutely.
Well, Kevin, thanks for havingme on.
First of all, it's been greatto reconnect with you.
It had been a while since wechatted before.
We sort of reconnected what Ithink a few weeks ago or something.
So.
So we've actually known eachother what, probably eight or 10
years, would you say somethinglike that?
Yeah, it's been quite a while.

(01:03):
It's been a while.
Yeah, I know.
So it's been really cool tofollow your journey and see the cool
things that you're doing overthe years.
So a bit about me.
So I am a full timeghostwriter, which basically means
that I write books forentrepreneurs and business leaders
who don't have the time or theinterest or the ability to write
their own books.
Typically I'm helping them toshare a framework of some kind about

(01:28):
a business process or some waythat they help their customers or
clients.
Sometimes I write memoirs for people.
At times that's more of acelebrity basis kind of a thing.
Sometimes it's just somebody'spersonal story that they want to
get out there into the world,but that's the main thing that I
do.
But I also run a membershipcommunity for writers, as you mentioned
in the intro, called theProfitable Writer Community.

(01:52):
And I do some author coachingand I write my own books as well.
And I came to that from beinga college professor.
For how long did I do that job for?
17 years full time.
Did it part time like a yearbefore that and then actually a year
after that as well when Itransitioned full time into my ghost
writing business.
So was a college professor fora long time.

(02:13):
And then I actually was amusic pastor at a church way back
in my twenties about a millionyears ago.
So have have had kind of avaried career.
But I've enjoyed every step ofthe journey and love what I'm doing
now because I get to talk tocool people like you on their podcast.
So that's a bit about me.
That's very cool.
Yeah.
When we talked previously, youwere in the middle of still teaching,

(02:36):
I believe.
Yes.
And you were doing so.
Yeah, writing on the side.
Um, when was the point thatyou decided that you could potentially
turn this into a full timecareer versus splitting your time?
Boy, that's a great question.
There were really two or three.
I'm just gonna call theminflection points.

(02:58):
That sounds like a fancierterm than it actually is.
But I think, I do think that'sthe best word to use to describe
points for me along my journeythat made it clear that I wanna do
something different.
And I'll try to make this abig, long, drawn out, elaborate story.
So I would say one of themhappened in 2015.

(03:18):
So we're recording thisOctober of 2024.
So this has been about nineyears ago.
The college where I worked wasa small Christian College in North
St.
Louis.
I'd worked there for a longtime and there were several issues
that kind of came to a head atone time.
So we had.
And I hope nobody, I'm hopingnobody who I used to work with is

(03:39):
listening to this because theyprobably will feel like they were
misrepresented a little bit.
But I'm just telling this frommy point of view and I doubt that
any of those people evenfollow anything that I'm doing these
days.
So it's totally irrelevant.
But there were several facultymembers who, they were involved in
different controversies,different things that were going

(04:00):
on at the school that wereeither controversial or there was
some kind of an issue theywere involved in of some kind.
At any rate, they were causingsome problems.
And I'm sure they would debatemy language in using to describe
that.
But anyway, the point of thispart of my story was that all those

(04:20):
things came to a head at once.
And when you have a smallorganization, several minor, what
feels like minor problems canall add up to one giant sort of explosion.
So we had a situation at theend of 2015.
It was as actually the middleof 2015.
It was the end of thatacademic year where all these things

(04:40):
came to a head at once.
And a whole bunch of people atour school either got fired or they
left at the same time.
And it was a huge crisis.
I was actually friends withall those faculty members who either
left or got let go, but I wasnot involved in any of the issues
that they were involved in.
And what that taught me whenwe went through that was that I never,

(05:04):
ever wanted that same thing tohappen to me.
And I never wanted to putmyself in a position where I could
be let go and that I would bewithout employment.
And I just never wanted tofeel vulnerable and to be in that
situation.
And so it was really aroundthat time that I determined that
I need to figure out my planB, whatever that was going to be.
Now, another dynamic at ourschool was that our enrollment was

(05:27):
continually going downhill.
So every year it was gettingless and less.
It was a small Christiancollege, which is really vulnerable
to begin with in terms ofenrollment and funding and all those
kinds of things.
And so I knew I needed todevelop something on the side.
So around that time, I startedfiguring out what was I going to
do next.
And so I got connected with afriend of mine who was a podcast

(05:49):
producer, and I startedwriting podcast show notes for a
couple of his clients just tomake some extra money on the side.
And when I started gettingpaid to write, that showed me that,
hey, maybe it's possible to dothis for a living.
And every few months, youknow, I would get.
Get a deposit in my bankaccount from my podcast producer

(06:09):
friend.
And it wasn't that much money,but to us, it was really significant.
And I just remember thinking,man, if I could just do more of this,
that would be really fantastic.
And so I just kind of keptplugging away, doing side writing
gigs, podcast show notes,writing articles for clients, really
anything that I could do tocreate some extra income.

(06:30):
And then around 2019, Idiscovered ghostwriting.
A friend of mine, his name isNick Pavlitas, he runs a great course
called Ghostwriter School.
He had been a successfulghostwriter, and so he let me be
the first student in his newcourse that he was putting together.
It was new at the time.
I went through that, and Ijust started building a ghostwriting

(06:50):
business based on what Ilearned from his course.
And so it was really thosethree inflection points.
Number one, going through acrisis in my day job.
Number two, getting my firstpaid clients, and then, number three,
going through a ghostwriting course.
Those three things kind of setthe stage for me of really wanting
to do this full time.
And I made a lot of mistakesalong the way.

(07:12):
I wasted a lot of time overthose years when I could have been
much more focused, but Ididn't know what I didn't know.
And fortunately, I've had awife who's been very supportive the
whole time.
And once I got those firstcouple of ghostwriting clients, I
knew that I could build thisfairly Quickly into something that
was making as much in my sidebusiness as I was making as a college

(07:34):
professor.
So once I had that thresholdkind of met, then I just decided,
okay, I need to set a pointwhere I'm going to transition away
from this job and then go intothis full time.
And that's what we did.
So that's been several yearsago and I've been doing this full
time ever since.
So that's.
That's kind of the shortversion of the answer.
Yeah, there's a lot thatultimately goes into a decision like

(07:57):
that.
It's not absolutely one dayyou decide, oh, I'm just going to
quit.
I mean, some people do dothat, which is.
Some people do.
Um, but I think ultimately weneed to have some sort of game plan
for how we want to proceed.
If we need a backup plan.
Something like what you weredoing, you have to do a lot of experimenting.

(08:20):
Can you talk a little bitabout some of the things that you
tested out that you said werefor failures and then how you ultimately
ended up with some of theclients that you landed?
Oh, yeah, I.
I love talking about thethings that I failed at because sometimes
I get a little frustratedlistening to people's stories and
they only share the highlights.
And I always, I mean, I'mthrilled for people when they're

(08:44):
successful, but I relate tofailure as well because I failed
at a lot of things.
I've experimented with a lotof things that did not work, things
that were dead ends or thingswhere I'm like, eh, this thing's
okay, but it doesn't reallyexcite me.
So I love hearing about thethings that didn't work for people.
So there were several thingsthat I did that did not work for
me.

(09:05):
One of them was now this.
This was actually before allthe stuff I'm talking About probably
around 2012 or 2013, this wasone of the first things that I tried
to do business wise.
There was.
There was somebody in ourextended family who was getting to
network marketing.
They were selling productsfrom this company that it was like

(09:26):
all these different juices andvitamins and supplements and healthcare
stuff, which I had zerobusiness getting into to begin with
because, no, nobody takes alook at me and thinks, oh, that guy's
really athletic, or he's likesome kind of person who has any valid
credibility with, you know,telling people about health products
or something.
But somebody in our extendedfamily had done really well with

(09:49):
selling these products.
And So I borrowed $2,000 frommy dad, I bought into this network
marketing thing.
They shipped this massiveamount to our house.
Now, to be fair, I reallypersonally loved the products.
They were really, really good.
I loved all the.
All the stuff that we were using.
They were great.
And so it was nothing againstthe company.

(10:10):
It was that I had no businessgetting into network marketing because
I just was not good at thattype of selling.
Now, I'm sure people who aregood at that would argue with me
and they would say, well, youdidn't do this, or this or this,
and they would be right.
I just didn't enjoy it.
That was not the right thingthat I should have gotten involved
in.
And so after just a few weeks,it was obvious to me that this was

(10:34):
not going to work.
So I decided to shut it down.
That was actually the onlything I've ever done where my wife
actively protested me gettinginvolved in it.
She basically said, I thinkthis is a huge mistake.
You don't have any businessdoing this.
You're not good at this kindof stuff.
This is a complete waste ofyour time.
And she refused to help mewith it.

(10:54):
And she was right in doing so.
But being kind of stubborn, Iwent ahead and persisted and ended
up wasting $2,000 of my dad's money.
So I tried to pay him back acouple years later when I scraped
up enough money to be able todo that, and he was like, you don't
need to pay me back.
So he forgave that loan andhas never accepted me trying to repay

(11:14):
him back.
That was one thing I failed at.
Another thing I would say that.
And there's been many things.
But I'll.
I'll share this one, too.
This was the summer of 2015,when I wrote my second book that
summer.
And I also decided that I wasgoing to ignore all the good advice

(11:36):
that my wife was giving me.
She was telling me to focus onmy writing because that was the thing
that I was really, really good at.
So being really smart, I choseto ignore her advice.
I wrote a.
Wrote a book that summer.
It did okay, and I enjoyedthat, But I thought, man, I really
want to make some faster cash.

(11:57):
So I keep seeing this thingcalled Fulfillment by Amazon where
you go out and you buy allthis stuff and then you ship it to
Amazon and you sell it and youget paid for it.
And all the stuff that I sawmade it seem like it was a really
easy thing to do.
And so I bought all the stuff.
I bought, like the heat gunand the shrink wrap stuff and the
scanner to list all the items.

(12:17):
And I listed like a thousandof my own books on Amazon.
It took the whole summer,literally, to figure out what I was
doing to ship all this stuffand go through all the rigmarole.
So I basically wasted a wholesummer on FBA or fulfillment by Amazon.

(12:37):
I ended up making a little bitof money on it.
I mean, it does work if youwork the system and you get really
good at it.
But the problem is that I, Ididn't give it enough time to work.
Also, it was just a lot ofstinking work to list all those things,
stuff to keep up witheverything and like it.
It's a.
I mean, it's definitely a business.

(12:57):
But then the kicker was the.
Some stuff sold, but most ofit didn't sell very well.
And then I ended up having topay Amazon to destroy the rest of
my inventory.
Whoa.
Because, yeah, that's thecrazy part.
So basically they either said,okay, we've got all these hundreds
of books that we're storingfor you.
You either need to pay us toship them back to you, you need to

(13:20):
pay us to continue to storethem, or pay us to destroy them.
So literally, I paid Amazon acouple hundred dollars to destroy
the books that I had, numberone, paid for when I bought them,
and number two, paid to shipthem to them.
So, I mean, talk about anabsolute abject failure of a, of
a business venture that waspretty bad.

(13:42):
So when that failed, I, Ithought maybe I should listen to
my wife more.
And that's when I reallystarted to lean more into writing.
And, you know, lo and behold,who would have thought the thing
that you focus on is actuallythe thing that improves.
So, yeah, I've had a lot of, Alot of failures over the years, but

(14:02):
those are two of the big ones.
Now, you asked also aboutconnecting with clients.
The main thing that I did andthe main thing that I continue to
do is just build relationshipswith people.
I've done a podcast for a long time.
My podcast has been a reallygreat way I've connected with people
and just building relationships.
And specifically withghostwriting, though, I followed

(14:24):
my friend Nick Pavlidis advicewhen he said the best way to promote
your ghostwriting businesswhen you're getting started is just
to tell people that you'rebuilding a ghostwriting business
and to ask if they might knowsomebody who might be interested
or would want to chat and justbe very servant minded, but also

(14:44):
let people know this is whatyou're building, because when you
do that, then eventuallysomebody will refer somebody to you
that needs a ghostwriter.
And the trick is just gettingthose first one or two clients and
then it builds up from there.
So.
So yeah, that was a super,super long answer, but that's the
gist of a couple of bigfailures as well as really how I

(15:07):
started connecting with clients.
I think a really good point inthere was your.
One is your willingness to fail.
A lot of people aren't willingto fail, or when they do fail, they
let it stop them permanently.
So when I was previously doingCracking Creativity and my blog for

(15:28):
helping artists, I did hitthat point where I'm like, okay,
this is not working.
And I took a long break, butnow I'm refocusing because I realized
it was not who I should be helping.
Because you need to find theright people who are looking for

(15:48):
the things that you're tryingto offer.
That's right.
If you're just trying to offerstuff to people because you think
they need it, that's not goingto work.
They have to watch what you're offering.
And when you build that trustand connection that you said you
built with the podcast, you'lleventually land upon people.
And the second thing is thenetworking portion of what you said.

(16:09):
I think that's also superimportant because it is.
That's like the easiest way tomeet people or get referrals to people.
Because that's right.
You might know, I don't know,maybe 100 people pretty closely,
but if each of those peopleknows 100 other people, that's like
your odds of finding somebodythat might need it is going to increase

(16:31):
exponentially.
The trick I think is if you'redoing some kind of client based work
is you have to get to knowpeople who know your ideal client,
whoever that person is.
So like, for example, if youwanted to.
Well, in my case.
So my target client forghostwriting, the general kind of

(16:54):
person that I typically workwith, is somebody who, they have
more money than time.
So they're a busy CEO orentrepreneur, they're running a successful
company, they have the moneyto be able to afford ghostwriting,
but they don't really know any ghostwriters.
And so then who, who is thekind of person that I would need
to connect with?
It's not necessarily other ghostwriters.

(17:16):
I mean, I do, I do know a lotof other ghostwriters and I connect
with them and try to servethem and help them.
But who are, who is the kindof business person that my ideal
client connects with?
It's people like attorneys,CPAs, advisors of different kinds,
people that they wouldinteract with on a regular basis,
insurance people, you know,Any of those people can refer you

(17:39):
to your ideal client.
I mean, think of all thedifferent kinds of people that a
typical business ownerinteracts with.
All those people are greatconnections for me.
You know, people in finance orbanking or, you know, like I said,
insurance or publishing,content creation, web designers.
I mean, you name it.

(18:00):
So one of the, one of theinteresting things that I have learned
over the years, which was asurprising lesson to me, is that
sometimes the people that youconnect with who you think are going
to be a good source ofreferrals or connections, that doesn't
necessarily mean they will be.
And then sometimes you'll havepeople in your life who you kind
of write off a little bit, whoyou don't think maybe they really

(18:22):
know anybody of importance.
And I'm being.
That sounds a little harshwhen I say it, but we all kind of
have people in our life who wesort of think that about.
We don't think they're wellconnected or we don't think maybe
they're worth investing time into.
Sometimes those people willreally surprise you.
They will really, reallysurprise you.
In fact, that's, that's how Igot my first ghostwriting client,
is I connected with thisperson at this little bitty workshop

(18:46):
I was teaching at.
And this person, this is goingto sound a little judgmental, I guess,
but this person was like alittle, kind of an oddball, a little
bit squirrely.
And I, to my discredit, maybeI had written them off a little bit
as just being sort of an oddperson who probably didn't know anybody

(19:11):
close to my ideal client.
You know, why, how, why wouldthis person know any successful entrepreneurs?
Well, as it turned out, shewas really good friends with somebody
who was a very successfulbusiness owner.
And this person ended upreferring me to that person who became
my first ghostwriting client.
And she was an amazing client.

(19:32):
So I learned an importantlesson from that, is that sometimes,
you know, these initialjudgments that we have about people
are not always correct.
And we should never, everwrite off anybody, even if they have
maybe a weird personality orthere's something about them that
turns us off or whatever it is.
You never know who otherpeople know.
And sometimes when we makethose snap judgments, they're completely

(19:53):
off base.
Yeah, I mean, it takes aconcentrated effort to be open and
willing to, to talk to people.
Even if you have that firstimpression, it's like, that's right.
I just need to get to knowthis person for who they are and

(20:13):
not judge that prejudge them.
It's like judging the Book byits cover kind of deal.
You need to just talk topeople, get to know them.
And if it comes up naturally,in this particular case, you're doing
a workshop, so it kind ofcomes up on its own.
But Right.
Even when you're just talkingto your friends or family, it's like

(20:34):
you have to be willing firstto put yourself out there and then
be willing to accept anyrecommendations or anything that
people might tell you, even ifyou thought previously that it wasn't
going to work.
Yeah, I do think that we haveto be open to people.

(20:55):
And again, it is so easy justto make a snap judgment about somebody.
Maybe they look a certain wayor they have a certain personality,
or maybe we connect with themin a certain context where we think,
well, the context of how I metthis person is the totality of who
they are.
But that's not always the case.
For example, the person I wasjust talking about, the context for

(21:18):
that was I had been invited todo a presentation at this writing
workshop, and I had drove likethree hours or something to get there,
and a friend of mine had putthis workshop on.
It was at a local library, Ithink, and there was just a very
small handful of people there,like six or seven.

(21:40):
And so I kind of left thatevening feeling a little discouraged
because I thought, man,there's just a handful of people
here.
Was this even really worth my time?
But that lady was one of thepeople who was there that night,
and we ended up becoming friends.
She got involved in a Facebookgroup that I was leading at the time,
and lo and behold, shereferred my first client to me.

(22:02):
So you just never know where agreat referral is going to come from
or a great connection.
I think something that we canall keep in mind is that you make
your own luck, right?
That's right.
You could have gone there andlet it get you down because you only
saw six or seven people, butyou were still willing and open to

(22:26):
talk to this person who wasable to then refer you.
So I think that's right.
You can only become, like abetter networker if you're willing
to put yourself into theplaces where these sorts of people
are going to be, even if youdon't know whether or not your specific

(22:46):
ideal client will also be there.
Yeah, I think that the size of the.
And here I'm talkingspecifically about events or opportunities
where you meet people.
The size of the event almostalways has no bearing on the value
of the event.
I would say that the two.
I mean, other than you canmeet more people Potentially at a

(23:06):
larger event.
But I have found thatsometimes the bigger events, you
don't always get something outof that necessarily unless you're
really intentional aboutconnecting with people.
But just because you're arounda lot of people doesn't necessarily
mean it's more valuable.
I personally prefer smallerevents because I like a smaller group.

(23:26):
I like talking with people more.
I'm just wired to, to thedegree where I would rather have
a few meaningful conversationswith people rather than going around
and saying hi to 150 differentpeople, but having it be very shallow
and you don't have the time toreally invest in a conversation.
That's just me, though.
That's the way I'm wired.
Some people love the energy ofbig events.

(23:48):
I personally, you know, I'mkind of an introvert, so I tend to
avoid crowds if at all possible.
So, yeah, that's just my owntake on it.
Yeah, I think it really doesdepend on who you are and the best
thing is to know how you operate.

(24:09):
So you wouldn't go into a bigevent expecting to make those super
strong connections.
I mean, you can.
And like you were saying, youdo need to be very intentional about
it because when there's eventslike that, there's so many people
you potentially can meet.
People like to just jumparound from people to people who
have small conversations asopposed to some of the deeper conversations.

(24:31):
So if you're somebody who cannetwork really well, really quickly
and can talk to a lot ofpeople while not losing energy, then
those are the types of eventsyou should go to.
Yeah, and I'm glad youmentioned energy.
I think that's a reallyimportant facet of, of yourself to
be aware of what gives youenergy and what depletes your energy.

(24:53):
And I'm kind of on a quest nowin my life to get rid of as many
things as possible thatdeplete my energy and to do as many
things that give me energy.
One of those things.
It's actually very simple.
It sounds, I mean, it soundsalmost kind of silly that it's so
simple, but I have a prettysolid rule where I don't do any calls

(25:17):
on Fridays.
And I've heard a lot of peopletalk about this where they set aside
like a specific day where it's just.
Them, you know, that's been areal game changer for me.
And I typically don't do themon Mondays either.
Now I have broken that thelast couple of weeks out of necessity,
but knowing that Monday isjust a straight admin day for me,

(25:37):
catching up on admin stuff.
And that Friday is either aday I can go visit my dad, who's
not in good health, he livesin Illinois, the next state over,
or I can just do clientwriting that day, put my head down.
I don't have any, any otherinteraction those days where I can
just focus in on stuff that tome, has really, really helped a lot.

(26:00):
And.
But then Tuesdays, Wednesdaysand Thursdays, those are heads down.
I'm doing a lot of interviewslike this where I'm either a guest
or I'm interviewing people formy own show, or I've got my membership,
community stuff, client calls,you know, all kinds of just connection
stuff.
I'm.
Those days are packedtypically, but I know that Friday's

(26:23):
coming and that I can use upall my, my people energy on those
three days.
But then on Friday, I don't.
I don't have to reserve anyenergy for that.
I've got energy for otherthings that I need to do.
So for me, that's really,really helped.
I think everybody has tofigure out their own system, but
I can tell you for sure that that's.

(26:44):
That's been a.
That's been a really gooddecision for me.
How long did it take you todevelop this?
You know, like, a couple of years.
Yeah, because I would get to,to like, Friday and just go, oh my
gosh, I've got two calls today.
And I would.
And it has nothing to do withthe person I'm talking to at all.

(27:06):
It's just that as anintrovert, you know, maybe people
listening can relate to thisif you're wired this way.
I wake up every single day andI have any.
I have an acute awareness ofhow much energy is in my emotional
battery, and there's nothing Ican do to replenish that energy during
the day.
I only have so much of it, andwhen it's gone, it's gone.

(27:31):
And there have been a lot oftimes over the years where I have
just packed my day full ofcalls and then I would get to 3 or
4 o'clock and I'm like, thebattery's dead.
And I've got another podcastinterview or I've got a client call
or I've got to do this orthat, and you just have to force
your way through it.
And that's really no fun.
When you have to force yourway through a conversation, then

(27:55):
you feel like you're notserving people well.
And so I've just have learnedover the last year and a half or
so to really kind of Gearmyself up for those that Tuesday
through Thursday.
And that's.
That's a totally great way forme to do it.
But it just really kind ofcame out of not managing my schedule
very well.
But I didn't know that Ineeded to do it differently or that

(28:17):
I could do it differently.
So I think a lot of it's just.
It's trial and error andfiguring out what works for you.
Yeah, I mean, I thinkexperimentation in all facets of
life is very important, notjust in your business.
You know, a lot of people willdo the experimentation in their business
and leave their personal lifealone, which usually doesn't work

(28:39):
out, because then you getstuck in this, like, routine of the
mundane, as I would like tocall it.
But if you can figure out whatmakes you tick and operate better,
then you should do that in anyway you possibly can, really.
Yeah.
Gosh, that is such a greatpoint, because especially if you

(29:02):
own your own business, or evenregardless of whether it's full time
or full time, you have to setit up in a way that you want.
And it is so easy to look atwhat somebody else is doing and go,
well, they're doing it thatway, so I've got to do mine this
way.
And I've just tried to be muchmore aware of how.
How I feel emotionally duringthe day about certain things.

(29:27):
And just honestly, one of thethings that really helped me to.
To redo my schedule was there was.
Gosh, this is.
This is probably about a year,a year and a half ago.
There was one particular day.
I don't remember the date, butit was a day where I had, like, six
Zoom calls that day.
And I was on Zoom for, Ithink, six hours that day.

(29:50):
And I was so depleted by theend of.
And I think the previous day,I had been on Zoom for several hours,
and maybe the day before that,too, I don't remember.
But I ended that day, and Iwas so depleted mentally that I literally
could not have a conversationwith my wife because I just.
I was completely talked out.
And some people listening tothis will understand what I mean.

(30:12):
You know, when.
When you're all talked out,you literally don't have the capacity
to form the words to have aconversation with somebody.
I felt the same thing at times.
In my 20s, when I was a musicpastor, the church where I was working
at, we had three morningservices, and for several years we
had a Sunday evening service.

(30:34):
And by the time that Sundayevening service was over, I'd been
in four church services that day.
And I've been talking withpeople all day, blah, blah, blah.
And literally as soon as thatSunday night service was done, I
would pack my guitar away andI would.
This sounds juvenile, but thisis what I did most of the time is
I would pack up my guitar andI would sneak out the back of the

(30:56):
church.
We lived in a parsonage next door.
The church had threeparsonages, which is, I know, kind
of odd, but I would sneak outthe back door of the church to avoid
talking to anybody because Iliterally did not have the words
to have another conversation.
And I think if you're.
If you have your life or yourbusiness set up that way and those

(31:16):
things are depleting to you,then you have to figure out another
way to manage your energythroughout the week.
And there's all kinds ofdifferent ways of doing that.
I suppose for me, one of thethings has just been saying no to
more things, you know.
And there's a great authorthat I really like.
His name is Derek Sivers.

(31:36):
He founded the company CDBaby, I think, back in the 90s or
something.
And he wrote a great bookcalled anything you want.
It's a little short book.
And one of the principles thathe lives by, he basically says that
if something is not a heckyes, then it is a heck no.

(31:57):
He uses profanity with thatand you know, I'm sort of taming
it down a little bit.
But he basically says if youare not super excited about something,
then it should be an automatic no.
And I've tried to follow thatprinciple with the things that I
commit to.
If something doesn't reallyexcite me, then.
And I'm just kind of like, eh,I could go either way on this then.

(32:21):
More and more as I get older,it's an automatic no for me.
And that's really helped me a lot.
Yeah, I mean, it's one ofthose things where you.
You say yes, I guess I cankind of do this.
But then when you're there,you don't bring the type of energy
or presence into the situation to.

(32:44):
To benefit anybody really.
You're just kind of there aslike a standby.
Like you're just there insteadof being someone that wants to be
there and enjoying.
That's right.
Knowing yourself is definitelythe best way to avoid situations

(33:04):
where you're saying yes tothings and not enjoying them because
no one enjoys them.
That's right.
And it's hard when you getinto this sort of online writing
slash entrepreneur slashbusiness space.
The more that you get into it,of course, you know, this because,
Kevin, you and I have beeninvolved in this space for a long
time.

(33:25):
There are so many podcasts andFacebook groups and masterminds and
courses and events.
There's an endless number ofthings that you can be involved in,
and most of them are good, andthey will benefit you in some way,
but you can't do them all, oryou will literally just be in meetings
all day, every day, and you'llnever get any work done.

(33:45):
So I think one of the mostdifficult things doing this kind
of work is you have to makedecisions about where you're going
to spend your time, and whatkinds of things are you going to
spend your time on, and whatkind of business are you going to
have, and what is going to beyour main service or product.
And those are difficultdecisions to make, especially if

(34:07):
you're not wired as a naturalbusiness person.
That can be really challenging.
So that's why, for me, I wasreally grateful to get into ghostwriting,
because it was something verystraightforward and very.
To me, it was simple in theidea of, I write books for people.
I do some other stuff, too,but that's my main bread and butter.
And to me, that's very simpleto understand and explain, and it's

(34:29):
really straightforward, youknow, as opposed to other kinds of
things you can do which aremore complex or they're harder to
explain.
I'm just a very, very simpleguy, and I like the idea of I write
books for people, make adecent living doing this.
It's very easy to explain, andit has a hav.

(34:50):
It has a high value to it.
So for me, this.
The more you can simplify yourlife and get rid of the extraneous
stuff that you don't reallyneed, I think the happier you're
going to be.
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bitabout ghost writing, how you can
adapt to the person you'reghostwriting for and how that process

(35:12):
works for you specifically?
Yeah, of course.
So the first thing that I dowhenever I sit down with a prospective
client is we have aconversation about what their goals
are for the book, what theirdreams are, and what do they want
to accomplish in their life ortheir business, and how does a book
contribute to that.

(35:32):
So I never, ever start out bytalking about, here's how long the
book is.
You know, here's the wordcount, here's the this or the that.
We.
We do get into all that stuff.
But I first want to know, whydo you want to write a book?
And what is this book going tohelp you accomplish in your life
or your business.
I have to be really, reallycrystal clear on that because if

(35:54):
I'm not, then I don't know howto position the book.
So the worst thing that I cando for somebody is write a great
book, but it's the wrong bookfor them.
And there are a lot of peopleout there who write books or they
hire somebody to write a bookfor them and the book can be great,
but the book is taking theirlife or their direction into business

(36:16):
that they don't really want to go.
You know, if your business isabc, but you feel like maybe you
should have a book about XYZand you write a and you hire me to
write a book on xyz, butthat's not what you really want,
then I've actually added awhole level of misery to your life
because now you have this bookon XYZ topic that you've got to invest

(36:39):
resources into and time andenergy and marketing and stuff when
that's actually going to makeyou really unhappy.
Because now you have thisthing that you've got to invest all
these resources into whenthat's not really what you want to
do.
So that's why many times justin the ghost writing process, when

(37:02):
we really dig into it, thebook that they thought that they
wanted to write, we end upchanging it somewhat and it ends
up being a little bit of adifferent thing.
Not always a radicallydifferent thing, but something that's
a little different.
Because I want to make surethat, hey, if we're going to do this
project, this is going tofurther your goals in whatever way

(37:22):
that that is.
So, so that's the first thingthat we do.
And then throughout theprocess of just working on the book,
I listen for things that areimportant to them and stories that
are compelling.
And I really pay attention tohow they communicate because I want
the book to sound like them.
And there's a whole process Igo through with that.

(37:44):
So I just try to be a reallygood listener and to be there to
serve their goals for the book.
And sometimes that's a verystraightforward business goal.
Sometimes it's not a businessgoal at all.
I just finished a book forsomebody who they wanted to tell
their story.
They're a person of faith andthey literally, the reason they wrote

(38:09):
the book is because they feltlike God told them to write this
book and to tell their story.
They don't have any metrics,money wise or any business goals
attached to it.
They were just being obedientto what they felt called to do.
And we've tried to reallyhonor that process in this book.
So that's why it's importantto get clear on what the person wants

(38:32):
from the book because thenthat kind of determines everything
else.
So I feel like that was kindof a convoluted answer, but those
are just a few thoughts on that.
I think it's one of the mostimportant things as a small business
owner or solopreneur that youunderstand what you're trying to
accomplish for the peopleyou're working with.

(38:54):
Otherwise, what's the purposeof it?
You can have your idea of whatyou want to do, but one of the things
that's best in these types ofsituations is to make it a collaborative
effort.
So you have the back andforth, you have strong communication
and both sides are clear onexactly what needs to get done.

(39:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Clarity is really, reallyimportant in the ghostwriting process.
That's why, in fact, before Ieven write a word of the book, I
prepare this whole elaboratedocument for the client.
Now this is, this is a courseafter they have signed, you know,
I don't do all this work andwithout knowing if they're actually

(39:39):
going to sign.
So this is a document verysimilar to what I would prepare for
a publisher if I were pitchinga book to them.
It's not quite as in depth asa full book proposal, but it's kind
of like that, where we getreally clear on here's what the author
wants from the book, here'swhat the reader wants from the book,
here's a super detailed bookoutline, here are some competing

(40:03):
titles, you know, because yourbook is going to set somewhere in
a bookstore.
So what are the other booksthat are sort of in that same space
and how is your book different?
So we go through those kindsof things, including, you know, different
levels of audiences.
Here's the primary audience,here's like a secondary, maybe third
level audience of people whowill be interested in the book.

(40:24):
So we get really clear onthose things.
So we know exactly what we're creating.
It's basically like ablueprint for a house.
You know, you would never hirea contractor to come in and try to
build a house.
And he would go, well, wedon't have any blueprints, but I'm
just going to have the guyscome and drop off a bunch of two
by fours and nails andshingles and we're just going to
get started.
No, they've got to have a verydetailed and specific plan for how

(40:48):
to build that house.
And that's how I Approach theghostwriting process.
Also, we want to have a veryspecific plan before I write a word
of the book, because that ishalf the battle is knowing where
you're going with a book.
Yeah, I think having adetailed plan is just good advice
in general, whether you'reworking on writing a book or, you

(41:12):
know, whatever it is that yourproject is, because without that,
you're just throwing darts ata dartboard, seeing what lands, and
then it may or may not work.
So I think having an outlineplan of all the things you can do,
prioritizing that list, seeingwhere it fits into where you when,

(41:33):
where and when you should beworking on it, and kind of just being
clear on your objectives orwhat every business owner needs to
have in their business inorder for it to run in the most efficient
way.
Now, I will also add, though,and this is going to sound like I'm
contradicting myself, butalmost every single time that I work

(41:56):
on a book for somebody, thebook changes in the process of the
book coming together.
And that's because whenever abook outline is one thing, but whenever
a client sees an actual draftof a couple chapters or of the whole
book, if it's a short book,then a lot of times they'll see it

(42:17):
and go, oh, that's differentthan what I envisioned.
Or, okay, now that I.
In fact, I had a client tellme, literally earlier today, they
said, you know, this maychange a little bit once I see how
the book is actually coming together.
Because the process of seeinga draft of a book is going to just
by definition, bring up otherideas and stories.

(42:38):
And that's how the creativeprocess works.
And so I always try to helpbeginning ghostwriters understand
that you've got to holdloosely to your plans with this a
little bit and just realizethat a book is very personal to somebody.
And if you can't acceptconstructive criticism as a writer,

(42:58):
then you definitely do notneed to be doing any kind of client
work because they're going toconstructively criticize your work.
Sometimes they're going tounconstructively criticize your work.
And if you don't have a thickskin to handle that, then you're
going to have a really hardtime with ghostwriting because it's,
you know, you are writing abook for that person, and people

(43:22):
have all kinds of emotionalresponses to books, just like they
do with music or other kindsof art.
And so you.
A huge part of, I think, beingsuccessful in this type of work is
you have to be able to producethe work At a high level.
But you also have to know howto manage the emotional side of a
client relationship and tolead that client in the direction

(43:44):
you want them to go.
But also serving them, likethat's a really tricky thing.
So you, you have to have a lotof empathy.
I think you've got to be ableto be intuitive about how people
are responding emotionally tosomething and, and to know they're
comfortable.
They're not comfortable.
You know, I think half ofghostwriting is listening to people

(44:05):
and picking up on the thingsthat they don't say in addition to
the things that they do say.
And that's.
I don't know how to teachsomebody that.
That's.
I think you kind of eitherhave that or you don't.
Yeah, I think empathy in anysituation is good to have, but especially
when you're doing any sort ofclient work.

(44:25):
It's just, you need tounderstand their situation and what
they're trying to accomplish.
And you can't let your ego getin the way of what it is that you
think is right.
You have to kind of beadaptable and be able to make this
a living document.
Every document is pretty mucha living document.
Nothing is sentenced to them.

(44:47):
And you have to be able toboth be adaptable, but also when
you do have your own opinions,you can make them known, but that
doesn't mean you need to pushit onto the person until they accept
it.
It's like you just tell themyou have a discussion about it and
see if they want to make anychanges or not.
That's right.
I always tell clients, I mean,they get so sick of me saying this,

(45:11):
but I tell them this over andover again, that I'm not emotionally
attached to this book.
This is your book.
I'm here to serve your goalsfor it.
And so if you don't likesomething, you know, the best thing
you can do for me is tell mewhat you like and you don't like.
Because I don't want to writethis whole book and then discover,
well, I don't really likethis, but I didn't want to hurt his

(45:31):
feelings.
I'm like, oh my gosh, that'sthe worst thing you could do to me
is hold back what you really think.
I need to know what you think.
You're not going to hurt myfeelings unless you tell me my cat's
ugly or something or whatever.
So you've got to have a thickskin with this and be very servant

(45:53):
oriented.
But here's the thing, though,and I try to help other Writers understand
this too, is that a lot ofwriters think that doing client work
is kind of this lower form oftheir creative impulse where, you
know, they have this thoughtprocess that's like, well, I really
want to write my own stuff anddo my own novels and I want to build

(46:16):
my own business, but I've gotto do this client work that's all
drudgery.
And I don't really want to bewriting for these people.
They're doing a business bookon this or that, and they sort of
look at this as a placeholderuntil they can build up their side
thing, which is what theyreally want to do.
But the.
In my opinion, I think, youknow, it's.

(46:36):
It's like that saying, theobstacle is the way.
Ryan Holiday has a great booktitled that.
I think it comes from MarcusAurelius, stoic philosopher originally,
and that is exactly the waythat I feel about doing client work,
is that if you want to becomea better writer, if you want to be
a faster writer, if you wantto increase your business skills,

(46:57):
doing client work is the bestway to do all those things way faster
than you're ever going to dojust working on your own stuff.
So it's kind of like, okay,that obstacle that you feel like
is there, that's quote,unquote, preventing you from doing
the.
The more important creative work.
No, that is the way forwardthat's going to help you be much

(47:17):
more creative and much fasterand more successful is when you do
client work.
I'm not.
I'm not saying you have to doclient work exclusively forever,
but in my mind, that is thepathway to becoming faster and better
as a writer for.
A lot of people.
Yeah, you can either let itget you down.

(47:38):
Like you were saying, peopledon't want to accept it, but you
can also use it as a way tomake yourself better.
Because when you're workingwith a client, you get constant feedback
and you have different ways towrite and you learn how to adapt
different things.
So it's right.
Use it as a learningopportunity to figure out what could

(48:00):
eventually work in your best style.
Because when you're writing byyourself, your feedback is going
to come either through, likebeta readers, if you have the fortune
to have those people, orthrough a publisher which is only
going to wait to see when youhave a draft of it.
So your feedback loop is verylong versus if you're working with

(48:24):
somebody constantly ormultiple people constantly.
You're constantly gettingfeedback to see how you can improve.
Yeah, there have been a coupleof clients I'VE worked with in the
past year, and this isn'talways the case, but feel very fortunate
that a few clients I've hadthe opportunity to work with, they're
really wealthy business leaders.

(48:47):
And, you know, these are guyswho are very accomplished in their
industry.
They're at the top of their game.
They're not celebrities, so tospeak, but.
But they're really well knownin their industry and their.
They've achieved this reallyhigh level of success.
So in ghost writing theirbooks, I get to spend hours and hours
with these guys talking aboutthe intimate details of their business

(49:10):
and their success.
I mean, if you were going togo out and seek out a coach like
that, you would just payexorbitant amounts of money or you
just wouldn't be able toaccess them in the first place, potentially.
But when you're working onsomebody's book, you get to spend
a lot of time with them andyou get a really intimate view inside
their head and their thinking process.
And to me, that's.

(49:31):
I mean, that's really valuable.
Like, for example, there's oneclient that I did a short book for
him last year, and then heactually was on my podcast a few
months ago, and I didn'tmention that he was a client because
he doesn't really tell peoplethat he used a ghostwriter, which
is totally fine.
But he mentioned something inthat podcast interview that I have.

(49:53):
I thought about what he said.
This one little principle.
I've thought about that morethan almost anything else the last
six months in terms of justlike, business stuff.
I've tried to put thatprinciple into practice, and it's
made a big difference in my life.
But I would not have had himon my show or been able to learn
from him if I wasn't his ghostwriter.

(50:16):
So I think that's why I'm sucha big advocate of writers considering
ghostwriting as a great careeroption, because there's so many benefits
to it.
I need to know what thislesson that you learned was.
Well, he talked about thislesson called closing the loop.

(50:39):
And it was because I asked hima question.
I said, you know, it'sinteresting, as I have talked to
people who are highlysuccessful, most of them respond
to emails quickly and theymake decisions about things quickly.
Whereas a lot of people who Iwould consider mid tier, I know that

(50:59):
sounds judgmental, but I'mjust putting a label on it.
People who I know who, theyhave a business, but they're maybe
not super successful a lot oftimes, they take a long time to respond
to Emails or they just neverrespond at all.
And I said, that seems to bethe opposite of what it should be.
Because you would think thatpeople who are really successful

(51:20):
in their business, maybe theyhave a big company, you would think
that they would be so busythat they would take a long time
to respond to emails.
And he said, no, it's the opposite.
Because the thing that makesyou really successful, one of the
things is that you close theloop on things fast.
You make decisions fast.
You don't let emails sit inyour inbox for weeks.

(51:41):
You answer things fast.
And I have noticed that mostof those people, whenever they respond
to emails, they're very shortand very terse.
They don't take paragraphs toexplain things.
Instead, if they want to talkto you, they'll just hop on a quick
call.
And I put those piecestogether in my mind and I thought,
oh, my gosh, he's absolutely right.

(52:03):
So he mentioned this principleof closing the loop, which basically
means don't.
Don't let a bunch of things go undone.
Take care of those littlethings that are taking up space in
your brain, make decisionsfast, take care of them, and move
on to the next thing.
And that.
That has been really, reallytransformative for me.
I.

(52:23):
I wish that I would have donea better job putting them into practice
in my life, but I'm working on it.
And that's.
That's been so immenselyhelpful because when you take care
of those little things, thenyou feel like, oh, wow, now I don't
have these 18 little tasksthat are.
That are undone and I go tobed and I'm stressing about them.

(52:44):
You just do them fast and youmove on to the next thing.
So anyway, that's what theprinciple was.
Oh, that's very cool.
Because when you have a longlist of tasks like that, you usually
just give up before you even start.
You know, there's just so muchto do.

(53:04):
That's why I think a lot ofpeople take time to respond.
I have to respond to all thesepeople because they piled up right
into this list of people.
And it's like, oh, my gosh, Idon't have the time to do it.
But I think you can make timeto do really anything, especially
if it's just responding to a message.
And especially if you'reworking with a client like you are,

(53:25):
it's very critical for you tobe in constant communication.
Or there's an alternative isthat you let them know what your.
How you operate in your boundaries.
So you have to have one of.
The two or you always have theoption of just not responding to
people.
I mean, that is an option.
So I had somebody.

(53:49):
I'm not gonna.
I guess I would call them a friend.
I suppose I would.
It's a connection.
We're not really friends, soto speak.
Somebody that I've met.
I met in person at a conference.
I guess I would say that we'refriends, kind of.
Anyway, it's like an onlinebusiness friend.
You've met somebody, had acouple of chats with them, but you

(54:09):
don't talk to them all the time.
Anyway, it had been three orfour years since I talked to them,
I think, and they had a booklaunch, and they had their assistant
reach out to me three or fourweeks ago and said, hey, so and so
is coming out with a book.
We would love for you tomention the book in your email newsletter
or help promote it if you'd bewilling to, you know, could we count

(54:32):
on you to help support thisbook launch?
And that email kind ofagitated me because I thought, wow,
this person doesn't thinkenough of our friendship to even
reach out personally.
They have their assistantreach out to me, which I took as
a little bit of an insult.
I'm not trying to be a primadonna, but I thought, man, I was

(54:52):
a person who kind of.
I had connected them with acouple of book agents.
And so I'm not saying I wasresponsible for getting them a book
deal with a publisher, but Idid play a role in that.
And I felt like then for themto just not even bother to reach
out to me personally to askfor help with their book promotion.

(55:14):
And I would have done it ifthey would have reached out personally,
but because their, like, bookassistant reached out or something,
I just completely ignored.
And she emailed a couple moretimes, but I just ignored it.
And as I tell this story, itprobably sounds like I'm being petty,
but it's the idea of, youknow, I had invested some energy
into this relationship, but they.
They didn't value ourrelationship enough to even make

(55:37):
a personal connection.
You know, like, the firstthing I heard from them in two or
three years was, hey, can youhelp me with my XYZ thing?
And so you do have the optionsometimes of just not responding.
Like, you don't owe everybodya response necessarily if you don't
feel like a response is warranted.

(55:57):
So that is an option people have.
That's true.
It goes back to this, like,hell yes or hell no.
If it's not a hell yes, it's a no.
And in this particular case,since you felt like you did have
a personal enough experiencewith this person that you felt kind

(56:21):
of slighted by them, essentially.
Yeah.
And I think, gosh, it soundslike I'm being judgmental here.
I don't mean to be, but Ithink an emotionally aware person
would pay attention to thatand go, hmm, my assistant's reached
out to him a couple times.
Why hasn't he responded?
And, you know, if she reachesout, then I'll, I'll respond, but

(56:44):
until then, I just won't.
So, you know, we always dohave that option.
You know, we don't owe anybodyour time and our energy.
So you do have the choice ofthe people that you're going to invest
time and energy into,especially the more people that you
connect with over time.
And so I think that the morethat you.

(57:04):
That your business grows, youhave to make those choices about
where you're going to put thatenergy and time.
Yeah.
Because ultimately it's abouthow you feel for the most part, unless
you're needing to maintainthis relationship.
So say you wanted to keep thisrelationship going, but you did feel

(57:28):
like you deserved, like apersonal invite to do this.
It's something that you couldsay, oh, I talked to your assistant,
but I was hoping that you could.
Right.
We could talk about your lot,you know.
Yeah.
And I would have been happy tochat about it had they reached out
personally, but I don't know.

(57:50):
You know, Mark Cuban is famousfor answering all his own emails.
Like, you can email Mark Cuban today.
He'll probably, unless you saysomething dumb, you know, he'll probably
respond back if you send somekind of legitimate message.
He doesn't have an assistantwho answers his email.
So I don't know.
There's this part of me, I'mjust kind of old school, I guess,

(58:12):
in that way where, you know,don't have your assistant reach out
to people like the relationship.
And the communication part ofbusiness is really, really important.
And there's this wholeindustry of, you know, people doing
podcast reach outs and, youknow, I'm going to hire this company
to then go out and connectwith all my friends and land me podcast

(58:36):
guest gigs when I don't thinkthat's something that should be outsourced
to a company.
I think if you have arelationship with somebody, take
10 seconds and send an emailto that person and see if you can
be a guest on their show or something.
You know, I just feel likeit's so easy to outsource those things
today that we're starting tooutsource a lot of things that shouldn't

(58:58):
be outsourced.
And, you know, with myapologies to anybody listening who
owns those kind of companies.
I mean, it is useful for somepeople who are doing like the one
to many.
But if you're, like you said,working with somebody that you actually
know, it doesn't feel good.

(59:18):
Right.
What I tell people when I getthose emails, and I get those emails
frequently from people.
If it's actually a guest thatI would be interested in having on,
I will.
And I know this irritates thepeople at the podcast companies.
I will say, hey, I think thismight be an interesting guest, but

(59:38):
I typically only have peopleon my show who I know personally.
So have your client reach outto me personally and connect on social
media.
Let me get to know them a bit.
And, you know, when the timeis right, then I'll.
I may extend an invitation forthem to be a guest.
Well, they never want to dothat ever, because it's too much
trouble.
So that tells me right there,they don't have an interest in.

(59:59):
All they want to do is just beon somebody's show.
They don't have an interest inestablishing an actual relationship.
So I'm sure I sound probablylike a curmudgeon about this, but
I think, you know, this is howbusiness relationships get formed,
is investing time and energyinto it, not trying to outsource

(01:00:19):
it to some random company.
Yeah, I think, I mean, itultimately depends on the person
who is hiring this company tomake the decision if that's something
they're fine with.
Yeah, that is a strategy.
It's a legitimate strategy.
But some people like yourselfaren't willing to go that way.

(01:00:45):
Yeah, I just, I feel like,hey, if somebody wants to.
If you want to have a podcastconversation, then shoot me an email
personally and then let's chat.
But that's just kind of me.
Everybody has their ownstrategy for doing these things.
Cool.
I do have some questions towrap up.
I know you have to head outsoon, so.

(01:01:06):
Yes.
Yeah, let's roll.
What do you think makes acreative business stand out?
Well, I would say just whatwe're talking about.
I think it's the personal connection.
There are a lot of people withcreative businesses of various kinds,
but I can.
I feel like I can say with alot of confidence that something

(01:01:27):
that automatically makessomebody stand out is doing the things
that most other people don'twant to take the time to do, which
would be something likereaching out to somebody personally
for a podcast appearance orsending a handwritten Note in the
mail, or sending a gift in themail, or reviewing somebody's podcast

(01:01:47):
or book and then posting thaton social media to support that person.
It's those little things thatthey don't really take up that much
time, but it's a personaltouch and a personal connection.
Those things, I think are animmediate way to stand out.
Especially the handwrittennote thing.
Like, you know, we're allbasically like five year olds.
We, we still love to get stuffin the mail.

(01:02:09):
And whenever you send somebodya book or a card in the mail to say
thanks or just randomly, thatreally, really stands out that I.
And I can tell you I've sent alot of stuff in the mail over the
years and it really does makea huge difference.
It really, really does.

(01:02:29):
So if I can encourage anybodyto do one thing, it would be just
send stuff in the mail.
It doesn't cost that much, butit makes a massive difference.
That's really interestingbecause my wife and I are actually
running an Etsy shop where wesell like creepy dolls.
So we buy old dolls at thriftstores and we upcycle them and with

(01:02:54):
each of those packages wewrite a handwritten note.
That's cool.
Some of the reviews that we'vegotten back from that are like, oh,
I really love the packagingand the handwritten note.
Which means people willappreciate those little small touches.
It doesn't take more than fiveminutes to write a handwritten note,

(01:03:14):
but people will notice it.
Yeah, that's really cool.
Love that.
Do you know anyone personallywho runs a standout creative business
and what do they do and howdid they stand out?
Yeah, I would say one of thepeople that I.
That I work with closely.
Her name is Honore Korder.

(01:03:34):
I am the ghostwriter for manyof the projects that she publishes
for clients.
She does high end, I guess Iwould call them bespoke book publishing
services where somebody comesto her and they want a custom book
that is really well written.
She has a lot of marketing,marketing stuff for it in terms of

(01:03:57):
a great plan for that personto monetize their book and income
streams.
So she has an immensely.
She has an incredible standoutbusiness because she does all the
stuff that I've mentioned, youknow, handwritten notes, highly personalized
service, a high level of excellence.
So I would encourage everybodyto go check out her stuff.

(01:04:19):
She also has a lot of her ownbooks and her website is honoraycorder.com
and the way you spell herfirst name is H O N O R.
So honor, then E, E andquarter C O R d e r autumnrecorder.com
make sure and check it out.
There's a lot of good stuff there.
Awesome.
What are some books, podcasts,or documentaries or tools that have

(01:04:43):
helped guide you on your journey?
Okay, I actually made a listhere because you sent these questions
in advance.
As far as podcast, here's acouple that I really like.
I love James Altucher's podcast.
He's a brilliant thinker.
I love his stuff.
And I love a podcast called MyFirst Million, which is these two

(01:05:08):
guys interview people abouthow they made their first million,
literally.
And it's about generalbusiness stuff.
I also really like.
This is going to feel likeit's coming out of left field.
I like Bill Maher's podcast.
You know, he has real timewith Bill Maher on hbo, but he has
a podcast called Club Randomwhere he just interviews celebrities.

(01:05:32):
And I love that show becausehe kind of reminds me of Howard Stern
a little bit in that I thinkhe's actually a great conversationalist
and people will share stuff onhis podcast that they wouldn't share
other places.
And to me that's importantbecause I love learning from other
people who are different than me.
And I think the conversationshe has on his show are really, really

(01:05:53):
fascinating.
You know, with musicians,celebrities, actors, directors, different
people like that.
So I love those.
In terms of books, I mentionedthe book Anything youg Want by Derek
Sivers.
I think that's a great one.
And a book that your audiencemight enjoy and you might enjoy.

(01:06:13):
Kevin is one I wrote with aclient that came out earlier this
year.
It's called the Business Artist.
And it's all about howcreative people can navigate our
new world of technology and AIand all those kinds of things in
a.
In a heavy, data driven world.
How can creative peoplenavigate all those kinds of things?
It's a really, really greatbook if I do say so myself.

(01:06:36):
I'm going to plug one of myclient books here.
And then I've also beenreading a lot of stuff by this copywriter
named Ben Settle.
His last name is Settle S E TT L E.
And he does a lot of stuff oncopywriting and business.
And he's got this amazingdaily email that he sends out and

(01:07:00):
you can connect with him bygoing to BenSettle.com he's not paying
me to promote that oranything, but I just really, really
like his stuff.
It's good.
So those are just a handful of things.
Nice.
And what is one piece ofadvice that you would give to someone
who wants to make theirbusiness stand out.
Other than, I guess, thepersonal touch, like maybe something

(01:07:21):
that you do yourself.
I would say, in addition tothe, you know, the personal touch
things that we were talkingabout, I would say just keep pressing
on and know that you canfigure it out.
Because business can be really complicated.
And especially when you getinto this online space of, okay,
you know, blogging orpodcasting or doing client work and

(01:07:45):
books and other kinds of things.
There's a million things thatyou can do to monetize what you're
doing.
And you're always hitting upagainst roadblocks where you have
to make decisions about things.
You know, every day is makingdozens of decisions about.
Who are you going to connectwith, what kind of content are you
going to put out there?
How are you going to monetizeyour business?

(01:08:07):
What social media sites areyou going to post on and engage with?
There's all these decisionsthat you have to make.
And I think if you can justget really good at just making decisions
and then following throughwith things, that, to me is half
the battle of having abusiness like this is just.
It's knowing that you don'talways have all the answers.

(01:08:29):
But I'm going to decidesomething and I'm going to stick
with it.
I'll change if I need tochange, but I'm going to figure this
out and I'm going to keepworking on it until I figure this
out, and then I'm going tokeep moving forward.
Because every single day is anopportunity to get distracted or
confused or frustrated by something.
There's always something.
When you run a business,there's always something to discourage

(01:08:51):
you or frustrate you.
But I think the people who aresuccessful at this, long term, you
just have to know you're goodenough and you're smart enough.
It's like that Stuart Smalleything from Saturday Night live in
the 80s where Al Franken hadthis character he played called Stuart
Smalley, and he's like, I'mgood enough and I'm smart enough,

(01:09:12):
and doggone up, people likeme, some of the older listeners will
get the reference to that.
But I do think there's anelement to that that's true where,
hey, I am good enough to do this.
I am smart enough, and I'mgoing to figure this out and I'm
going to stick with it until I do.
So then that would be myencouragement for business owners.

(01:09:35):
One last thing, this issomething I'm bringing back as well,
is just one challenge,actionable thing that people who
are listening to this can doand maybe let them know where they
can find you so that that waythey can follow up with you and say
that they did it.

(01:09:55):
Sure.
I would say go to maybe checkout my website, which is the Profitable
writer dot com.
So I run a membershipcommunity for writers, and these
are specifically for writerswho want to grow their business and
take what they're doing to thenext level.
And I realize that noteverybody listening to this wants
to build a quote unquotewriting business.

(01:10:16):
So I would say check that out,and very, very soon I'm going to
have a free download calledthe Profitable Writer Pathway that
teaches people how to build awriting business from scratch.
And so I would say check that out.
And even if somebody is notprimarily a writer, I think that
they will still really benefitfrom that, because a lot of the things
that I teach writers to dowill benefit people in any kind of

(01:10:39):
creative business.
Things like networking andhaving a daily habit and figuring
out and improving yourbusiness systems.
You know, those kinds of things.
So, yeah, I would say check it out.
Yeah, I think the writing canbenefit really, anybody who's trying
to run a business, because youneed to find a way to communicate
with people.
So either writing or figuringout how to do audio or something

(01:11:03):
along those lines isdefinitely an important thing.
That's right.
Yeah.
Totally agree.
Well, Kent, it's been awesometo talk to you again, as I knew it
would be, basically.
Yeah, thanks, Kevin.
I appreciate the chance tocome on the show again and have this
chat.
It's been great.
All right.
Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, totally.
My pleasure.
All right, bye.

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