August 29, 2023 • 39 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to become a five times bestselling author? Brace yourself for a thrilling and educational conversation with the one and only Frank Zaccari, renowned author and co-founder of 'Trust the Process' Book Marketing. With a history as rich and varied as his, from corporate executive to insurance agent and radio host, Frank's insights are as unique as they come.
So buckle up and get ready to embark on a journey through the perplexing corners of the publishing world.
Connect with Frank Zaccari to start your project.
https://frankzaccari.com/
#mrspie
Come join us at our virtual events monthly. Visit our website to learn more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
NIghtta.
All right, we are live, we areback and I am excited because I
(00:48):
have been waiting to have thisconversation with my friend,
frank.
So, everybody, thank you somuch for joining.
I miss his pie, where I'm goingto be serving you a slice of
inspiration.
I talk about faith, I talkabout lifestyle, I talk about
business content, but today wehave Frank Zakari.
He's the co-founder of Trust,the Process Book Marketing.
(01:09):
You can see what it says, y'allunder his name.
He's a multiple, five timesbestselling, award-winning
author.
He has been a radio TV host oflife-altering events.
He's an Air Force veteran.
He's a fellow Parade Deckmilitary influencer.
He's a keynote speaker.
He's just amazing, and so I amso honored that you would take
(01:30):
the time to come here.
I do want to do a quick shoutout for everybody who is
watching us live on Parade DeckTV.
We know we have someconnections issues on Facebook.
Y'all.
Y'all can pick up the podcastat the end of this week so you
can hear all of what we've gotto say.
But we're going to dive in.
So if you're watching YouTube,twitter, linkedin, you know
everywhere please love and likeand share and tell your friends
(01:52):
about what's happening here.
If you want to talk aboutaward-winning authors and how
you get there.
This is the show for you.
So, frank, I think I was like Iwas trying to remember when am
I going to get to talk to you?
I'm looking at the schedule,watching the dates go by and I'm
excited that you're here.
(02:13):
So welcome and thank you somuch for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's always a pleasure talking to you, Shalyn.
You were on my show a few weeksago and we had so much fun.
You were just so much fun totalk to Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
All right.
So your expertise, you know, Iknow it goes beyond
award-winning books andpodcasting and radio hosting.
I love the way that and, forthose of you all who are
following Frank on social media,the way that he really engages
with the communities andinfluencers and change makers
and thought leaders.
Y'all need to follow him forreal.
(02:46):
Okay, but in this episodebecause I'm hoping I'm going to
get enough pass at you in thenew year this episode I wanted
to find out a little bit moreabout what you do and why do you
do it.
And then we're going to talkabout trust, the process.
So what do you do?
Tell the people what you do andwhy you do it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What do I do?
It's like the forthcoming of mylife.
I was a corporate executive formany years and had a change in
my year-old status and all of asudden I was single parent of
two young daughters.
So I had to get out of hightech, where I was a tech
executive for about 27 years.
I bought an insurance agency,which is like dying and going to
(03:27):
hell when you go from techbeing proactive to insurance
being reactive.
Well, it was a means to an end.
I had to get my daughters toschool, had to get them done.
So when the youngest onegraduated from college, I was on
the state a couple of yearsback, a few years ago, I sold
the business and then it was notwhat I might do when I grow up,
but at that time I was gettingclose to 60 years old.
(03:51):
What do you do now?
I don't own a rocking chair, Idon't play golf, I don't like
gardening.
So I tried to be retired, butit only lasted about a week and
a half and then I was bored.
So I started basically justhelping some nonprofit
organizations, because that'skind of what you do.
So you just see how it goes.
And I had started writing somebooks and I wrote some books.
(04:14):
A few years back I wrote fivebooks.
I didn't know what I had, hadno idea what I was doing.
But I just wrote five books andthe books were pretty good.
But I didn't know what I wasdoing and I didn't understand
the system at all.
So we sold maybe a lot in totalbetween the five of them
together maybe 200 copies of thebooks.
So I thought, well, this wasfine, but this is getting me a
(04:36):
little.
So I stopped for quite a whileand then I got radio show.
I got a touch byvoiceamericodecom, who contacts
everybody, and they said hey,frank, we want you to write a do
a business show.
And I said, not interested, no,no, I don't like business shows
(04:57):
, I don't want to be trying toinvest, man, that's boring, I
don't want to do that.
But they were real persistent.
They kept calling and callingand calling and they finally
said well, what do you want todo?
And I said I want to do lifealtering events.
I want to talk to people who'vehad something happen in their
life that altered the trajectoryof where they thought their
life was going, and what theyended up finding is the life
(05:19):
that they apparently was forcedupon them.
It's better than the life thatthey thought they were going to
go to or the path that they wereon, and so that's what I wanted
to do.
So I did that for about 69weeks, I think it was.
We had 240,000 listeners in 42countries.
It was a lot of fun, but liveradio is tough.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yes, it is?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It's like 8 o'clock Tuesday.
8 o'clock am California timeTuesday.
Is the person going to show upon time?
Wow Live.
Sometimes it would come to thestudio.
The studio was in Phoenix andsometimes I would do it from the
studio and one day they got inan accident.
No way there.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So I went it's live.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You got to go on.
So you have your show and yournotes and your ideas, and then
you have a contingency plan incase nobody shows up and you
just basically do animal designs.
You know what the overhead does, but it was a lot of fun.
One of my guests, kathleenCanavas, who does dreams, dream
(06:28):
interpretations and stuff Infact.
Dreams is how she determinedshe had breast cancer Three
times.
Oh wow, she discovered twodreams before the doctors even
figured it out, wow.
So I did talk to her.
She was on the show a couple oftimes and then she calls me up
and says, frank, you got tostart writing again because
you're too good not to do this.
And I said, kat, I wrote fivebooks.
(06:50):
It was my most heartbreakingexperience of my life.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I'm not putting myself through that.
And she said well, I'm going tohelp you, so we're going to do
this.
We're going to do a series ofthree books.
We're standing up being fourbooks, so we called it the
business secret series.
So there were four books, andthe first one was about business
.
Speakers are walking out ofwater, things that are going to
happen to you in business, thatyou may not even see coming, but
they're going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Be prepared.
Okay, here's real lifeexperiences.
And that one went to number one.
I thought, wow, how about that?
And then people came back andsaid, well, that was good, Frank
, but I think I got myprofessional life under control.
But my personal life stayed.
And so Kat told me that she wasmuch ready to look about that.
Frank, you failed in marriagesand relationships a whole bunch
(07:38):
of times.
So I looked at your alley.
Okay, thanks, Kat.
So we wrote that one aboutpersonal relationship landmines.
That went to number one Wow.
And then we had people saying,okay, I think I've got that
under control, but I'm stuck.
Everybody gets I don't carehouse access.
Yeah, we're going to be stuckat some point.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Third book was about how to get unstuck.
It went to number one.
It got an award, a nationalaward, and then we did the three
.
And then I told Kat, I want todo one with veterans, I want to
do a book where veterans write achapter in a handbook.
So we got the total cook mantelof 19 veterans or parents of
(08:20):
veterans or children of veterans, and they wrote a chapter and
wrote that book and it went tonumber one.
So I was like, wow, melissa VanOz we may or may not know was my
partner and she and I weredoing these books together.
And we said, okay, we got tofigure this out, because you've
written some books, I've writtensome books and we're getting
nothing.
So we started learning, westarted getting into how do you
(08:42):
play this game, because if youdon't know how to play the game,
if you don't know what therules are, you can't play the
game.
That's right.
We learned the rules and thenwe started coming up with little
processes and we tested them onourselves first.
Okay, so we're going to try tobuild a campaign, a whole
marketing promotion campaign.
Right, we're going to startthree months before the book is
(09:03):
released.
First thing, pre-release who areyou, frank's a car, and why
should anybody care?
Right?
So we're gonna have that break.
Here's Francis.
What he does is good.
Then, little things about whoFrank is.
We go to the launch right now.
I know Frank is here's the bookthat we've been telling you
about.
This is why you get that book.
(09:24):
We have a whole campaign onthat, all right, and it goes to
launch day.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
No, we, what we learn show was launch day is Magic.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
That's magic because if you don't hit best seller on
launch day or the next day after.
You're not going to get there,it's not clown, okay.
So we learn gear everything forthe launch, and what we did
differently than most people Waswe actually do the campaign.
Okay, we eat the content, wesend it to the author and say
(09:57):
post this on these days at theseTimes, right, wow, let's, we
don't want to get it.
We want to log into your systemand so you post them.
So we do a social mediacampaign, we do an email
campaign and we'll create theemails Suggested emails and send
it to the author on this day atthese times.
You send these to these people.
Okay, we do live video trainingand we give them a script, say
(10:23):
these words or similar to thatright.
Yeah and then then you go launchday and everybody is watching
and seeing where it's comingfrom.
You're constantly watching KDP,which is the yeah, amazon, yeah
Kendall, oh, when you hit numberone best-selling new release
(10:46):
and you look at you put in nameof your book yeah, come from.
On the screen it says numberone best-selling new release.
So you take a screenshotimmediately Okay, you did it.
Yay, we got there.
We become very good at pickingmultiple categories.
So all of a sudden, about now,the book becomes a best-selling
multiple categories.
All right, let me go postlaunch.
(11:08):
Post launch is we got to keepyou relevant because you have a
30-day window to make magic.
30-day window.
Okay.
So we then say we're gonna getyou on podcast.
We'll get you on the Shelly'spodcast and my yeah and other
people that I know podcast.
We've got a best-selling,award-winning news report.
It's quite an article.
Wow press release, becausenobody means plus releases.
(11:32):
No News article that we'regonna send out to 14 or 15
publications.
Now we don't know how many aregonna pick it up, but when the
award-winning writer, newswriter, news report sends out a
thing, somebody's gonna pick itup.
Yeah, also, when we did, it waspicked up by 400, 400
publications which had a whichhad a readership of over 1.8
(11:55):
million people.
So 1.8 million people theseWere aware.
So they saw this or that, theyread or didn't actually on it,
but they had, they got theexposure.
Yeah we'll sit down with theauthors and say, no, what do you
want to do?
It's the first thing we go backto.
Was first questions why?
Why do I read?
And people would say to me so Igrew up with back in Dunkirk,
(12:17):
new York, my hometown, my wholelife.
She said, frank on a writerbook so I can do something for
my grandchildren.
I Said we're not the rightpeople.
But since I've known you, sincewe were five years old, I will
help you do that.
But that's the first question.
If you're gonna write a book,you're not gonna get rich
writing a book unless you'reBernabe Brown or Simon yeah.
(12:40):
Yeah, other than that, you'renot gonna make a lot of money
selling books.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, even then, they're making speaker fees,
like there's other, there'sother streams.
You're talking all about thebook, but it's not Exactly yeah
look opens the door.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The book is a ticket to the dance that gives you
speaking engagements, it givesyou membership programs, it gets
you a lot of other things Foradditional revenue streams, but
the book gives you credibilitybecause of its last year, 2022.
4 million, 4 million books werein the United States, or man?
(13:13):
Okay, now, I'm not good at math, but that comes out to 77,000 a
week, a week.
So what do you do me todifferentiate yourself?
Amazon has the top 100best-selling new releases.
Okay, they have top 100.
77,000 books come out.
76,900 people are upset Everyweek and clinic make.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Who didn't know about free?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
They didn't get in the top 100.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But Melissa and I would do when we talked to
people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
First thing we tell them is why you are a book
number two.
Do you want to be a number onebest-selling?
Because if you don't, thenwe're getting.
We say nicer than this.
But we're really not interested, unless you want to get to that
kind of point.
Because when you're out tryingto get a speaking engagement or
yeah and what you're doing, andsomebody says, well, I'm a
public author and so what's?
(14:05):
I've been saying thousand peoplelast week or two, but I'm a
number one one author and here'smy topic so you can increase
your credibility and yourauthority, which then gives you
more of a.
You stand out better.
Yeah, with that, and so that'show to trust the process came
(14:25):
into being was just Melissa vanAustin, I sitting together and
she's in Washington DC.
I'm in California, arizona.
We have never physically beenin the same room at the same
time.
That's okay, and we have putthis program together.
That's 11 consecutive books,the last 11 consecutive books in
a 22 month window.
(14:46):
All went to number one.
Oh my god all the way theprocess, and sometimes you get a
lot of pushback from some whatradius?
Because an author author wantsto get the book done.
That's yeah, I'm writing thisbook.
You go through all and authorsare some of the most.
What's the word I'm looking forhere?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I'm in this group, I understand.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yes, they are there.
They're paying it constantly.
Anybody gonna read.
This is just a right word.
What should I say here?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So you were your part , counselor or counselor than
you are anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So you're walking them through this thing and we
call to trust the processbecause we went off or the
driving is crazy.
Better keep coming.
Just trust the process, itworks.
Just trust the process right.
And so Most of them I looked ateach other was that's what
we'll call the program trust theprocess.
Because we say it all the time.
(15:51):
And what's really interestingis when you, when you create- in
the content.
And we get a copy of the, themanuscript, first, and we talk
to the authors first.
We get a feel for what it isthat they want to get across
first, because we're creatingthe content and we send it to
them, said post it, how they can.
They can either post it or not.
They can tune it up if theywant to create.
(16:12):
One guy who's a professor,professor, george Town
University Professor, would senda thing to him and then he
would write a dissertation andpost it on social media.
And so we were trying to mostlysay Maybe if this is in a
classroom, maybe somebody woulddo it, but in social media
(16:36):
nobody's doing it, nobody cares.
They see your name.
Oh, that's interesting.
How many?
No, I'm not reading that.
So he was a challenge.
But we got to the number oneand nine categories and we
finally just said trust aprocess.
So we got his assistant becausehe was very successful.
He told her just post what wesent him to you.
(16:58):
Okay, don't even ask him, justpost, don't even ask him.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Use these hashtags, tag these people, right, and
then eventually these sort ofcalm down a little bit, but it's
a lot of fun it's.
We meet with the author duringthe process once a week for kind
of an update.
Okay, how are you doing?
Where's it coming?
What kind of feedback are yougetting?
(17:25):
What kind of groups are youbelong to the people who are
responding to you?
Who are they?
You know, show you, tag us,melissa and I, so we can look
and see who else is looking atit, and then we go look at those
people.
Now, who are they?
Oh, this is surely Jeff Cole,surely.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jeff Cole.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
My God, she's like he's the Oprah of parade depth.
That's true.
You have to, we have to makesure we keep it, her in the loop
, because this is somebody whocan if they posted or reposted
or share it, that is a greatdeal of weight.
So that's kind of how it how itevolved.
(18:04):
I never dreamed that I would bedoing this, however, it just
sort of happened and it's it'slike when I spoke, you just sort
of follow the signs.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the universe, scott, scott Mason.
I love Scott Mason, he's aninteresting guy and he says you
know, frank, sometimes I justdidn't pay attention in my
former life to what the universewas telling me and it hit me in
the face with a two by four.
I said I can relate, scott.
I got hit with the two by fourmore than once and it's like the
(18:39):
door keeps opening.
Why are you not going throughthat door?
So we started just to havefaith, trust the process, follow
the path and it's turned out tobe very, very well.
Now that's opened up somespeaking engagements which are
now starting again.
We've got a program now,melissa and I, to speak at
colleges and universities todifferent student type groups.
(19:03):
And she talks a great dealabout resiliency.
Oh, wow, being it's used as atree as an example, there's a
tree is out in the elements andit's doesn't have any protection
, but it survives and it growsand it expands because it has
its resilience, its strength,from the ground, from the roots.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
That's right, it's rooted.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Roots up and I'll talk about that.
The secret quality of our lifeare based on the quality of our
relationships.
And when you're talking toyounger people, my daughters are
now 30 and 35, but I, singleparents with two teenage
daughters, okay, which is reallytough, and you're like why?
Because I was never a teenagegirl.
(19:49):
So this is, this was really achallenging part of my life, but
it was.
It's still the quality of yourrelationships.
Okay, what are the landminesthat are going to prevent you
from having a qualityrelationship?
Well, a big one is you'remaking the same mistake over and
over again, or following thesame pattern over and over again
.
Right, and so after I, thenwife had left and we're going
(20:12):
through counseling with mydaughters, so they would meet
with the counselor individually,then they would meet with her
together, then I would make themas a group, we didn't have all
we were doing is meeting withcounselors.
And then I was, I was alonewith that, and the counselor
said to me Frank, here's yoursituation.
Because she says what do youwant out of this?
(20:32):
And I said I just want mydaughters to be happy, I want to
get them through this, I wantto fix them.
I can put your sword and shesaid well, number one, you can't
fix this, that's right.
They're going to have toprocess it.
So here's what you're going tohave to do.
It's going to be really hardfor you, frank.
You're going to have to knowhow to listen, deep listen.
(20:53):
You're going to have tovalidate feelings.
You're going to have to pose athird.
When she said I got it, butthere were three things.
I'm a type A personality.
Oh my God, just see myself now.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
But that's exactly what you're doing with your
authors.
Yeah, exactly.
It's exactly the same inpatients and patients and more
patients.
Right, it's exactly the sameskill set.
I want to ask you about thebook launch and I know you know
for those of y'all who arewatching, because a lot of folks
, by the way, a lot of folks,let's watch our replay, so
they'll be sitting at homecatching what we're saying, and
(21:31):
a lot of these folks are buddingauthors or maybe they have
already released a book.
Do you work with authors whohave already published?
I'm also asking for a friend Doyou work with it If the books
been released, you got sevenbooks.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
If a book's been released, you have major up your
bell.
So one of the things that we'vesaid to.
One author released a book andshe sold 20 copies of what she
bought.
Them all oh, wow and verydepressed.
And we said what can you do tohelp me?
And I said you already releaseda book.
Consider this Do a release anew revision.
(22:11):
A new revision something new,change the title, change the
cover, add another chapter,something on those lines, so you
can get it into a new category.
So now you got to fight achance, because when she first
talked to us, because this isnot inexpensive to do this- you
have to be sure, and that's acost, the marketing campaigns a
(22:32):
cost.
And so she said well, frank,you know I got big social media
following.
That's wonderful, but itdoesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And she said I'm going to have a launch party.
I said, okay, that's good.
How many people are coming toyour launch party?
150 people said it kind.
I said again I don't want toburst your bubble here, but at
least something you wereactually going to show up.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Maybe five, maybe five, right Four, and that's
your family.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yes, I spent all this time and energy going toward
this that you could have beendoing, toward a campaign to
expand your reach.
And so there's so many myths inthe publishing world.
In fact, melissa and I havedone a little article on a short
video talking about the variousmyths, and the biggest myth is
(23:21):
my publisher will do mymarketing and promotion for me.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, that is a myth.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That is a myth, because they're not.
No their jobs to get the bookready to be released.
That's their job.
And they might do a pressrelease, but they're not going
to do a marketing campaign foryou.
That's the biggest myth numberone.
And then the distribution house.
I don't want to pick any nameshere, but the distribution house
will say well, we'll market itfor you.
(23:48):
And this one big distributionhouse after my third book went
to number one, they called me upand they said why are you not
using us?
Do you know who we are?
And I said yes, I know who youare.
Do you know who I am?
They said well, we can put yourbook in Walmart.
Well, we can put it inbookstores, we can put it in
(24:09):
Target, we can put it in.
And I said how are you going todo that?
And they said well, we havethis, we've got an online
catalog.
And I said like the old phonebook, like the old big phone
book.
And they said yeah, like that,just like that.
And I said so, I'm online bigphone book.
And people in Walmart, they'resupposed to go look it up and
(24:30):
say, wow, it's a card, I want tobuy that book.
And then I wrote 10,000.
And I said well, frank, if youget 10,000 books sold, then
we'll put all of our musclebehind your marketing plan.
And I said if I get 10,000books sold, I don't need you.
I've already figured it out,that's right.
Right, and so there's.
(24:51):
There's all these various myths, because one of the things that
we found in all the researchwas an average, an average
author, if you're lucky sells250 copies of their book 250.
They make less than $500.
Okay, so all this type ofenergy and sweat and hope, and
what did it end up getting?
And they're saying well, now Iwant to use it to go speak,
(25:15):
engagement or whatever.
I say, okay, that's wonderful,but you better know the person
real well that's paying you tospeak.
Because, yeah, all these otherpeople who have a best selling
book that are maybe coming onthe same type of topic that
you're talking about, and one ofthe things I love about.
Parade Deck is because mosteverybody in the military,
(25:35):
colonel, and the love of KennethColonel, the love of the Leeds
they're going to write a book onleadership and that's what they
want to do.
And they said I've got 30 yearsof all this experience.
And I say to them and those inthe military so I just say, with
all due respect, sir, nobodycares, you were in the military
(25:55):
for 30 years.
Now, if you're GeneralSchwartzkopf or you're General
Powell, who care?
But if you're not, don't carewho you are Now, you're just
another author.
So what are you going to do todifferentiate yourself?
And that's what we can help youdo putting this program
together.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I love that In terms of how people get to work with
you.
What is that?
I'm sure there's a website andall that information, but is it
like an initial consult or whatis that intake process like and
how long does that take?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Someone will get ahold of a variety of ways
through websites, through socialmedia, through a writing coach
who's helping the author and theauthor.
He says he'll say how are yougoing to market this?
She says you're looking atblood and so you need to talk to
Frank and Melissa.
So what we always do is we havea Zoom call, maybe whoever
(26:54):
finds it first.
So if Melissa finds somebody,she'll have one first.
And then if she says okay, yeah, they look good, then we'll
have one together.
Okay, or I find somebody firstand I say okay, then Melissa
will get involved.
So we'll have a call togetherand we go through a whole series
of questions, starting withnumber one why you want to write
this book.
What are you hoping to achieve?
What's your long-term goal?
Do you want to have membership?
Do you want to do speakingengagements?
(27:15):
Are you going to Melissa?
She says are you justinterested or are you invested?
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Right, right right.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
If you're interested you know there's a lot of
different ways you can do it.
If you're invested and you'regoing to invest in yourself and
in your business and you'regoing to use this book as a
launching pad, then we'llcontinue the conversation, then
we'll sort of break down.
We'll tell them roughly ifyou're serious and you want to
write a book and you want to useit in your business, you better
(27:44):
plan and spend between $16,000and $15,000 between publishing
and marketing.
Wow.
And people will go oh my God, Ithought I could do it for like
$700.
And I said you probably could.
It's not going to go anywhere,but you probably could.
You could self-publish and driveyourself crazy and try to get
it out there, but it still comesdown to marketing and promotion
(28:08):
, because when I did the firstfive books, took me five books
before I realized, uh, frankly,I did something wrong.
It was okay you write a bookand you put on Amazon and
everybody goes and buys it andthen become rich.
That doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
That's not it.
No, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
They don't just come and get it.
You have to tell them to go andget it and tell them why to go
and get it.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Why that's right?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
And so once we started putting these campaigns
together, the momentum startspicking up.
We tell these people you know,when you trust the process,
magic happens and it's got to be.
There has to be that trust.
We say, Melissa, and I say nomore than we say yes.
(28:56):
Yes, Because someone will say,well, I don't want to spend that
kind of money.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
But what's the range Like what's you don't have to
give us like exact, but what'sthe range that someone you know
would be spending with you guysto market?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
If they're, if they have first, if they have a
publisher, they're probablylooking at $6,000 to $8,000 for
a publisher, wow and thenprobably 8 to 10,000 for the
campaign, depending on who theyare or what area they're trying
to get into.
One of the things that we foundis a health and wellness.
(29:31):
77,000 books come out of weprobably 50,000 health and
wellness.
So if you're, if, you're in thatcategory, you're putting
yourself in a very difficultposition.
So part of the magic that we dois okay, what categories are we
going to select?
But it's not going to be.
(29:54):
You're not going to be lockinghorns with money Brown or Simon
Sinek.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Now we don't know.
One of the don't knows is wedon't know who's going to
release a book on the releasedate.
So we don't know.
So we want to make sure that ifBernadette Brown or Simon Sinek
releases a book, that onelocking horns with them.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So it might be a category and a sub category.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
All right, and that's what we put together, and
that's all the research that wedo on behalf of the authors and
say, okay, here's what you canput this, this is how this could
work.
And then we go from there andit's a, it's nerve wracking,
because on release day, becauserelease day starts midnight,
1201 New York time, that'sreally stay until 1159.
(30:41):
That's the least day, right?
So I can't sleep?
Of course not, and I can't sleep, it's not my book, yeah, so I'm
just watching, watching theresults and watching the needle.
The one person we had had, apretty good international, done
work internationally, workedinternationally.
(31:01):
Okay, midnight, midnight, newYork is like 6am or something in
London or something along thoselines.
So I'm sitting there waiting.
Okay, let's look and see whatit looks like.
So 12, 1205,.
I get online and I look it'sright here, best seller, wow.
And then we have the Europeanorganizations that we have been
(31:23):
nurturing and telling them hey,the book is coming, here's the
date, here's the date, here'sthe date.
And then we put we always tellthe author we're going to go
book and print book.
A lot of people say mycustomers don't pay that way.
And I said what are you goingto do in the book and print book
?
Okay, and this is why.
Because in the world, in theAmazon world, the minute someone
(31:47):
puts the credit card in andsays enter, that counts as a
sale.
Right now, when they buy a book, it doesn't count until the
book is shipped.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Little things we discovered.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Oh, my gosh Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, so if you're not a big name and you put out a
book and they say well, they'llship it within two days.
But you know they're Frank'scar, you're not Simon Sinek, so
the book might be four daysbefore it goes out, okay, so now
you're missing that window totrying to get that best seller
(32:25):
in.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And it's spending a lot of time nurturing key people
, key people that you know youcan go to and say, hey, this is
what I'm going to do.
I need your help.
I put something out where youshare it, will you?
Will you say something about it?
Will you put it out there?
Okay, you're really good at it,because you know that LinkedIn
(32:47):
in particular, if you put up apost and you don't get a
response in the first 30 minutes, your post pretty much goes
away.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
That's right, it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, and now you're looking for it, now you're going
.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Where did it go?
There is a strategy, y'all thestuff that we're doing on
LinkedIn.
There is a strategy behind themadness.
It's not just throwing up postsfor the sake of posting.
So I want to ask you before werun out of time and again for
everybody who is maybe you'rethinking about writing a book,
maybe you're in the process ofwriting a book and if your
(33:21):
intention is to have and becomea bestselling and award-winning
author, who again is leveragingthe book for greater
opportunities, Frank and histeam, that's where you want to
go, and I'm saying this I fullytrust.
I'm not sending you anywherewhere it hasn't been vetted and
approved.
It's been vetted and approvedby Mrs Pie and the entire Parade
(33:41):
Deck community 6.6 millionbooks.
Okay, so I wanted to find out,as you're thinking about, maybe,
what's next for Frank.
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
That's interesting because it's I like what we're
doing with the trust, theprocess, and we'll keep that
rolling.
What I really enjoy doing isspeaking and doing things about
quality of life based on qualityof relationships, or how to
(34:17):
think like a boss, ortheory-versed reality.
Right, when I'll get out ofschool and you know full of this
theory and you'll get that joband guess what?
Reality and theory don't quitematch.
I really love doing that.
I became a NAMCA, n-a-m-c-acertified speaker, which is a
(34:39):
group that works with collegesand universities.
But it's the dream.
Is you ever seen Garth Brooks?
I watched that and I saw himlie.
But I saw showbiz.
Garth Brooks right and he's onstage in the arena like the
(34:59):
Dallas where the Dallas Cowboysplaying right, hundreds of a
thousand people, and he comes up.
You know the thing, theelevator brings him up on the
stage and he is the stage andthe crowd goes absolutely crazy,
right?
I want to do that once, once inmy life, I can give a talk and
have that kind of scenario.
(35:22):
It's almost like now.
It would be like the TaylorSwift phenomenon, but I'm not
gonna do it a hundred times likeshe does this, I just want to
do it once.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Once.
I love that.
I love that and I love the factthat you know you're like me.
We dream really big and weactually try to make it happen.
That's the difference, right,you're a visionary in what you
do and I just again, I justwanted to make sure that you
know I set it opening Y'all ifyou have to figure it out.
I'm a fan of Frank's.
(35:52):
I'm also a fan of his amazingprogramming on YouTube streets,
so that's another place.
You know, please go back andcheck out all of his videos.
Go back and check them out.
There's a really a goodcombination and compilation of
interesting people that you'retalking to and I am so honored.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
(36:13):
This literally made my month.
I was like I can't wait to talkto Frank about you know just
what you do, because you havesuch passion aligned to the
purpose and what you're doing,and people need that
encouragement.
People need to know that, yeah,you can actually, you know,
really do something you love andenjoy.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It doesn't mean that it wasn't a tough fight to get
here, right, because it takeswork, but clearly, I was told
when I first sold the company, Iwas deciding what I wanted to
do and I kept saying no, rightso he said, Frank, nothing's
going to change until you do.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh, I love that and I want.
Okay, Nothing's going to changeuntil you do I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That was, that was the story.
You got me there, so I need tostart saying yes more often.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And then as I, keep saying yes.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
then, great, that came around and I was thinking,
no, I don't want to do it.
Yes, listen, go do it.
I meet you and Mario and I meetAndrew.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Rico and on it goes.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Then grab the thing in November, las Vegas, because
it's a six hour drive from mefrom here, from San Diego.
So I'll go down and start doingthat and it's just simply
decide what it is you want to doand then start moving forward,
walking forward to it.
No, it's not going to be simpleand someday you're going to
(37:38):
take one step forward and threestep backward.
Yeah, get up and you take thatnext step and keep going forward
and just keep pushing andpeople will recognize.
I mean, I think Kobe Bryant onetime said game recognizes game.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
He saw a little clip.
Dirk Nivicki makes this shot.
It's unbelievable and he'spinning it on Kobe and he's just
nodding his head and saying,good shot, nice play.
Yeah, because he's playingagainst them.
But you recognize, yeah, and asyou put the time and energy and
the effort in, people likeShelly are going to notice
(38:17):
whatever you start doing ontheir shows, and that's you're
going to start getting thisexposure that you want.
And then it's just a matter ofcontinuing the push and
continuing the drive.
I was giving a talk to a groupof business owners.
I said you have to.
You have to focus, staycommitted to the plan, because
(38:38):
success leads to complacency andcomplacency leads to failure.
That's true.
So stay on task and stay movingforward.
It's just a lot of fun.
It's a lot of fun trying to besomething new.
It's sometimes a scary as hell.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, but it's fun.
I agree with you, it isabsolutely.
We have a storm raging inGeorgia now.
The lights are flickering.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
So I'm going to I'm going to say thank you, hang out
for a minute in our back room.
But for everybody who'swatching, again, I will drop the
contact information for Frank.
It's also in our description,but please, please, make sure
that you're following Frank toget information Also.
He's got great posts.
I know a lot of folks thatwatch me are on LinkedIn as well
(39:26):
, so follow Frank.
That way, you can stay in tunewith what's happening and get
some of his free advice.
This is awesome.
Thank y'all so much forwatching and have a great, great
rest of your day.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
NIghtta.
All right, we are live, we areback and I am excited because I
(00:48):
have been waiting to have thisconversation with my friend,
frank.
So, everybody, thank you somuch for joining.
I miss his pie, where I'm goingto be serving you a slice of
inspiration.
I talk about faith, I talkabout lifestyle, I talk about
business content, but today wehave Frank Zakari.
He's the co-founder of Trust,the Process Book Marketing.
(01:09):
You can see what it says, y'allunder his name.
He's a multiple, five timesbestselling, award-winning
author.
He has been a radio TV host oflife-altering events.
He's an Air Force veteran.
He's a fellow Parade Deckmilitary influencer.
He's a keynote speaker.
He's just amazing, and so I amso honored that you would take
(01:30):
the time to come here.
I do want to do a quick shoutout for everybody who is
watching us live on Parade DeckTV.
We know we have someconnections issues on Facebook.
Y'all.
Y'all can pick up the podcastat the end of this week so you
can hear all of what we've gotto say.
But we're going to dive in.
So if you're watching YouTube,twitter, linkedin, you know
everywhere please love and likeand share and tell your friends
(01:52):
about what's happening here.
If you want to talk aboutaward-winning authors and how
you get there.
This is the show for you.
So, frank, I think I was like Iwas trying to remember when am
I going to get to talk to you?
I'm looking at the schedule,watching the dates go by and I'm
excited that you're here.
(02:13):
So welcome and thank you somuch for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's always a pleasure talking to you, Shalyn.
You were on my show a few weeksago and we had so much fun.
You were just so much fun totalk to Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
All right.
So your expertise, you know, Iknow it goes beyond
award-winning books andpodcasting and radio hosting.
I love the way that and, forthose of you all who are
following Frank on social media,the way that he really engages
with the communities andinfluencers and change makers
and thought leaders.
Y'all need to follow him forreal.
(02:46):
Okay, but in this episodebecause I'm hoping I'm going to
get enough pass at you in thenew year this episode I wanted
to find out a little bit moreabout what you do and why do you
do it.
And then we're going to talkabout trust, the process.
So what do you do?
Tell the people what you do andwhy you do it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What do I do?
It's like the forthcoming of mylife.
I was a corporate executive formany years and had a change in
my year-old status and all of asudden I was single parent of
two young daughters.
So I had to get out of hightech, where I was a tech
executive for about 27 years.
I bought an insurance agency,which is like dying and going to
(03:27):
hell when you go from techbeing proactive to insurance
being reactive.
Well, it was a means to an end.
I had to get my daughters toschool, had to get them done.
So when the youngest onegraduated from college, I was on
the state a couple of yearsback, a few years ago, I sold
the business and then it was notwhat I might do when I grow up,
but at that time I was gettingclose to 60 years old.
(03:51):
What do you do now?
I don't own a rocking chair, Idon't play golf, I don't like
gardening.
So I tried to be retired, butit only lasted about a week and
a half and then I was bored.
So I started basically justhelping some nonprofit
organizations, because that'skind of what you do.
So you just see how it goes.
And I had started writing somebooks and I wrote some books.
(04:14):
A few years back I wrote fivebooks.
I didn't know what I had, hadno idea what I was doing.
But I just wrote five books andthe books were pretty good.
But I didn't know what I wasdoing and I didn't understand
the system at all.
So we sold maybe a lot in totalbetween the five of them
together maybe 200 copies of thebooks.
So I thought, well, this wasfine, but this is getting me a
(04:36):
little.
So I stopped for quite a whileand then I got radio show.
I got a touch byvoiceamericodecom, who contacts
everybody, and they said hey,frank, we want you to write a do
a business show.
And I said, not interested, no,no, I don't like business shows
(04:57):
, I don't want to be trying toinvest, man, that's boring, I
don't want to do that.
But they were real persistent.
They kept calling and callingand calling and they finally
said well, what do you want todo?
And I said I want to do lifealtering events.
I want to talk to people who'vehad something happen in their
life that altered the trajectoryof where they thought their
life was going, and what theyended up finding is the life
(05:19):
that they apparently was forcedupon them.
It's better than the life thatthey thought they were going to
go to or the path that they wereon, and so that's what I wanted
to do.
So I did that for about 69weeks, I think it was.
We had 240,000 listeners in 42countries.
It was a lot of fun, but liveradio is tough.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yes, it is?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It's like 8 o'clock Tuesday.
8 o'clock am California timeTuesday.
Is the person going to show upon time?
Wow Live.
Sometimes it would come to thestudio.
The studio was in Phoenix andsometimes I would do it from the
studio and one day they got inan accident.
No way there.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So I went it's live.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You got to go on.
So you have your show and yournotes and your ideas, and then
you have a contingency plan incase nobody shows up and you
just basically do animal designs.
You know what the overhead does, but it was a lot of fun.
One of my guests, kathleenCanavas, who does dreams, dream
(06:28):
interpretations and stuff Infact.
Dreams is how she determinedshe had breast cancer Three
times.
Oh wow, she discovered twodreams before the doctors even
figured it out, wow.
So I did talk to her.
She was on the show a couple oftimes and then she calls me up
and says, frank, you got tostart writing again because
you're too good not to do this.
And I said, kat, I wrote fivebooks.
(06:50):
It was my most heartbreakingexperience of my life.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I'm not putting myself through that.
And she said well, I'm going tohelp you, so we're going to do
this.
We're going to do a series ofthree books.
We're standing up being fourbooks, so we called it the
business secret series.
So there were four books, andthe first one was about business
.
Speakers are walking out ofwater, things that are going to
happen to you in business, thatyou may not even see coming, but
they're going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Be prepared.
Okay, here's real lifeexperiences.
And that one went to number one.
I thought, wow, how about that?
And then people came back andsaid, well, that was good, Frank
, but I think I got myprofessional life under control.
But my personal life stayed.
And so Kat told me that she wasmuch ready to look about that.
Frank, you failed in marriagesand relationships a whole bunch
(07:38):
of times.
So I looked at your alley.
Okay, thanks, Kat.
So we wrote that one aboutpersonal relationship landmines.
That went to number one Wow.
And then we had people saying,okay, I think I've got that
under control, but I'm stuck.
Everybody gets I don't carehouse access.
Yeah, we're going to be stuckat some point.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Third book was about how to get unstuck.
It went to number one.
It got an award, a nationalaward, and then we did the three
.
And then I told Kat, I want todo one with veterans, I want to
do a book where veterans write achapter in a handbook.
So we got the total cook mantelof 19 veterans or parents of
(08:20):
veterans or children of veterans, and they wrote a chapter and
wrote that book and it went tonumber one.
So I was like, wow, melissa VanOz we may or may not know was my
partner and she and I weredoing these books together.
And we said, okay, we got tofigure this out, because you've
written some books, I've writtensome books and we're getting
nothing.
So we started learning, westarted getting into how do you
(08:42):
play this game, because if youdon't know how to play the game,
if you don't know what therules are, you can't play the
game.
That's right.
We learned the rules and thenwe started coming up with little
processes and we tested them onourselves first.
Okay, so we're going to try tobuild a campaign, a whole
marketing promotion campaign.
Right, we're going to startthree months before the book is
(09:03):
released.
First thing, pre-release who areyou, frank's a car, and why
should anybody care?
Right?
So we're gonna have that break.
Here's Francis.
What he does is good.
Then, little things about whoFrank is.
We go to the launch right now.
I know Frank is here's the bookthat we've been telling you
about.
This is why you get that book.
(09:24):
We have a whole campaign onthat, all right, and it goes to
launch day.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
No, we, what we learn show was launch day is Magic.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
That's magic because if you don't hit best seller on
launch day or the next day after.
You're not going to get there,it's not clown, okay.
So we learn gear everything forthe launch, and what we did
differently than most people Waswe actually do the campaign.
Okay, we eat the content, wesend it to the author and say
(09:57):
post this on these days at theseTimes, right, wow, let's, we
don't want to get it.
We want to log into your systemand so you post them.
So we do a social mediacampaign, we do an email
campaign and we'll create theemails Suggested emails and send
it to the author on this day atthese times.
You send these to these people.
Okay, we do live video trainingand we give them a script, say
(10:23):
these words or similar to thatright.
Yeah and then then you go launchday and everybody is watching
and seeing where it's comingfrom.
You're constantly watching KDP,which is the yeah, amazon, yeah
Kendall, oh, when you hit numberone best-selling new release
(10:46):
and you look at you put in nameof your book yeah, come from.
On the screen it says numberone best-selling new release.
So you take a screenshotimmediately Okay, you did it.
Yay, we got there.
We become very good at pickingmultiple categories.
So all of a sudden, about now,the book becomes a best-selling
multiple categories.
All right, let me go postlaunch.
(11:08):
Post launch is we got to keepyou relevant because you have a
30-day window to make magic.
30-day window.
Okay.
So we then say we're gonna getyou on podcast.
We'll get you on the Shelly'spodcast and my yeah and other
people that I know podcast.
We've got a best-selling,award-winning news report.
It's quite an article.
Wow press release, becausenobody means plus releases.
(11:32):
No News article that we'regonna send out to 14 or 15
publications.
Now we don't know how many aregonna pick it up, but when the
award-winning writer, newswriter, news report sends out a
thing, somebody's gonna pick itup.
Yeah, also, when we did, it waspicked up by 400, 400
publications which had a whichhad a readership of over 1.8
(11:55):
million people.
So 1.8 million people theseWere aware.
So they saw this or that, theyread or didn't actually on it,
but they had, they got theexposure.
Yeah we'll sit down with theauthors and say, no, what do you
want to do?
It's the first thing we go backto.
Was first questions why?
Why do I read?
And people would say to me so Igrew up with back in Dunkirk,
(12:17):
new York, my hometown, my wholelife.
She said, frank on a writerbook so I can do something for
my grandchildren.
I Said we're not the rightpeople.
But since I've known you, sincewe were five years old, I will
help you do that.
But that's the first question.
If you're gonna write a book,you're not gonna get rich
writing a book unless you'reBernabe Brown or Simon yeah.
(12:40):
Yeah, other than that, you'renot gonna make a lot of money
selling books.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, even then, they're making speaker fees,
like there's other, there'sother streams.
You're talking all about thebook, but it's not Exactly yeah
look opens the door.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The book is a ticket to the dance that gives you
speaking engagements, it givesyou membership programs, it gets
you a lot of other things Foradditional revenue streams, but
the book gives you credibilitybecause of its last year, 2022.
4 million, 4 million books werein the United States, or man?
(13:13):
Okay, now, I'm not good at math, but that comes out to 77,000 a
week, a week.
So what do you do me todifferentiate yourself?
Amazon has the top 100best-selling new releases.
Okay, they have top 100.
77,000 books come out.
76,900 people are upset Everyweek and clinic make.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Who didn't know about free?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
They didn't get in the top 100.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But Melissa and I would do when we talked to
people.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
First thing we tell them is why you are a book
number two.
Do you want to be a number onebest-selling?
Because if you don't, thenwe're getting.
We say nicer than this.
But we're really not interested, unless you want to get to that
kind of point.
Because when you're out tryingto get a speaking engagement or
yeah and what you're doing, andsomebody says, well, I'm a
public author and so what's?
(14:05):
I've been saying thousand peoplelast week or two, but I'm a
number one one author and here'smy topic so you can increase
your credibility and yourauthority, which then gives you
more of a.
You stand out better.
Yeah, with that, and so that'show to trust the process came
(14:25):
into being was just Melissa vanAustin, I sitting together and
she's in Washington DC.
I'm in California, arizona.
We have never physically beenin the same room at the same
time.
That's okay, and we have putthis program together.
That's 11 consecutive books,the last 11 consecutive books in
a 22 month window.
(14:46):
All went to number one.
Oh my god all the way theprocess, and sometimes you get a
lot of pushback from some whatradius?
Because an author author wantsto get the book done.
That's yeah, I'm writing thisbook.
You go through all and authorsare some of the most.
What's the word I'm looking forhere?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I'm in this group, I understand.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yes, they are there.
They're paying it constantly.
Anybody gonna read.
This is just a right word.
What should I say here?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So you were your part , counselor or counselor than
you are anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So you're walking them through this thing and we
call to trust the processbecause we went off or the
driving is crazy.
Better keep coming.
Just trust the process, itworks.
Just trust the process right.
And so Most of them I looked ateach other was that's what
we'll call the program trust theprocess.
Because we say it all the time.
(15:51):
And what's really interestingis when you, when you create- in
the content.
And we get a copy of the, themanuscript, first, and we talk
to the authors first.
We get a feel for what it isthat they want to get across
first, because we're creatingthe content and we send it to
them, said post it, how they can.
They can either post it or not.
They can tune it up if theywant to create.
(16:12):
One guy who's a professor,professor, george Town
University Professor, would senda thing to him and then he
would write a dissertation andpost it on social media.
And so we were trying to mostlysay Maybe if this is in a
classroom, maybe somebody woulddo it, but in social media
(16:36):
nobody's doing it, nobody cares.
They see your name.
Oh, that's interesting.
How many?
No, I'm not reading that.
So he was a challenge.
But we got to the number oneand nine categories and we
finally just said trust aprocess.
So we got his assistant becausehe was very successful.
He told her just post what wesent him to you.
(16:58):
Okay, don't even ask him, justpost, don't even ask him.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Use these hashtags, tag these people, right, and
then eventually these sort ofcalm down a little bit, but it's
a lot of fun it's.
We meet with the author duringthe process once a week for kind
of an update.
Okay, how are you doing?
Where's it coming?
What kind of feedback are yougetting?
(17:25):
What kind of groups are youbelong to the people who are
responding to you?
Who are they?
You know, show you, tag us,melissa and I, so we can look
and see who else is looking atit, and then we go look at those
people.
Now, who are they?
Oh, this is surely Jeff Cole,surely.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jeff Cole.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
My God, she's like he's the Oprah of parade depth.
That's true.
You have to, we have to makesure we keep it, her in the loop
, because this is somebody whocan if they posted or reposted
or share it, that is a greatdeal of weight.
So that's kind of how it how itevolved.
(18:04):
I never dreamed that I would bedoing this, however, it just
sort of happened and it's it'slike when I spoke, you just sort
of follow the signs.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the universe, scott, scott Mason.
I love Scott Mason, he's aninteresting guy and he says you
know, frank, sometimes I justdidn't pay attention in my
former life to what the universewas telling me and it hit me in
the face with a two by four.
I said I can relate, scott.
I got hit with the two by fourmore than once and it's like the
(18:39):
door keeps opening.
Why are you not going throughthat door?
So we started just to havefaith, trust the process, follow
the path and it's turned out tobe very, very well.
Now that's opened up somespeaking engagements which are
now starting again.
We've got a program now,melissa and I, to speak at
colleges and universities todifferent student type groups.
(19:03):
And she talks a great dealabout resiliency.
Oh, wow, being it's used as atree as an example, there's a
tree is out in the elements andit's doesn't have any protection
, but it survives and it growsand it expands because it has
its resilience, its strength,from the ground, from the roots.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
That's right, it's rooted.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Roots up and I'll talk about that.
The secret quality of our lifeare based on the quality of our
relationships.
And when you're talking toyounger people, my daughters are
now 30 and 35, but I, singleparents with two teenage
daughters, okay, which is reallytough, and you're like why?
Because I was never a teenagegirl.
(19:49):
So this is, this was really achallenging part of my life, but
it was.
It's still the quality of yourrelationships.
Okay, what are the landminesthat are going to prevent you
from having a qualityrelationship?
Well, a big one is you'remaking the same mistake over and
over again, or following thesame pattern over and over again
.
Right, and so after I, thenwife had left and we're going
(20:12):
through counseling with mydaughters, so they would meet
with the counselor individually,then they would meet with her
together, then I would make themas a group, we didn't have all
we were doing is meeting withcounselors.
And then I was, I was alonewith that, and the counselor
said to me Frank, here's yoursituation.
Because she says what do youwant out of this?
(20:32):
And I said I just want mydaughters to be happy, I want to
get them through this, I wantto fix them.
I can put your sword and shesaid well, number one, you can't
fix this, that's right.
They're going to have toprocess it.
So here's what you're going tohave to do.
It's going to be really hardfor you, frank.
You're going to have to knowhow to listen, deep listen.
(20:53):
You're going to have tovalidate feelings.
You're going to have to pose athird.
When she said I got it, butthere were three things.
I'm a type A personality.
Oh my God, just see myself now.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
But that's exactly what you're doing with your
authors.
Yeah, exactly.
It's exactly the same inpatients and patients and more
patients.
Right, it's exactly the sameskill set.
I want to ask you about thebook launch and I know you know
for those of y'all who arewatching, because a lot of folks
, by the way, a lot of folks,let's watch our replay, so
they'll be sitting at homecatching what we're saying, and
(21:31):
a lot of these folks are buddingauthors or maybe they have
already released a book.
Do you work with authors whohave already published?
I'm also asking for a friend Doyou work with it If the books
been released, you got sevenbooks.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
If a book's been released, you have major up your
bell.
So one of the things that we'vesaid to.
One author released a book andshe sold 20 copies of what she
bought.
Them all oh, wow and verydepressed.
And we said what can you do tohelp me?
And I said you already releaseda book.
Consider this Do a release anew revision.
(22:11):
A new revision something new,change the title, change the
cover, add another chapter,something on those lines, so you
can get it into a new category.
So now you got to fight achance, because when she first
talked to us, because this isnot inexpensive to do this- you
have to be sure, and that's acost, the marketing campaigns a
(22:32):
cost.
And so she said well, frank,you know I got big social media
following.
That's wonderful, but itdoesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And she said I'm going to have a launch party.
I said, okay, that's good.
How many people are coming toyour launch party?
150 people said it kind.
I said again I don't want toburst your bubble here, but at
least something you wereactually going to show up.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Maybe five, maybe five, right Four, and that's
your family.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yes, I spent all this time and energy going toward
this that you could have beendoing, toward a campaign to
expand your reach.
And so there's so many myths inthe publishing world.
In fact, melissa and I havedone a little article on a short
video talking about the variousmyths, and the biggest myth is
(23:21):
my publisher will do mymarketing and promotion for me.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, that is a myth.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That is a myth, because they're not.
No their jobs to get the bookready to be released.
That's their job.
And they might do a pressrelease, but they're not going
to do a marketing campaign foryou.
That's the biggest myth numberone.
And then the distribution house.
I don't want to pick any nameshere, but the distribution house
will say well, we'll market itfor you.
(23:48):
And this one big distributionhouse after my third book went
to number one, they called me upand they said why are you not
using us?
Do you know who we are?
And I said yes, I know who youare.
Do you know who I am?
They said well, we can put yourbook in Walmart.
Well, we can put it inbookstores, we can put it in
(24:09):
Target, we can put it in.
And I said how are you going todo that?
And they said well, we havethis, we've got an online
catalog.
And I said like the old phonebook, like the old big phone
book.
And they said yeah, like that,just like that.
And I said so, I'm online bigphone book.
And people in Walmart, they'resupposed to go look it up and
(24:30):
say, wow, it's a card, I want tobuy that book.
And then I wrote 10,000.
And I said well, frank, if youget 10,000 books sold, then
we'll put all of our musclebehind your marketing plan.
And I said if I get 10,000books sold, I don't need you.
I've already figured it out,that's right.
Right, and so there's.
(24:51):
There's all these various myths, because one of the things that
we found in all the researchwas an average, an average
author, if you're lucky sells250 copies of their book 250.
They make less than $500.
Okay, so all this type ofenergy and sweat and hope, and
what did it end up getting?
And they're saying well, now Iwant to use it to go speak,
(25:15):
engagement or whatever.
I say, okay, that's wonderful,but you better know the person
real well that's paying you tospeak.
Because, yeah, all these otherpeople who have a best selling
book that are maybe coming onthe same type of topic that
you're talking about, and one ofthe things I love about.
Parade Deck is because mosteverybody in the military,
(25:35):
colonel, and the love of KennethColonel, the love of the Leeds
they're going to write a book onleadership and that's what they
want to do.
And they said I've got 30 yearsof all this experience.
And I say to them and those inthe military so I just say, with
all due respect, sir, nobodycares, you were in the military
(25:55):
for 30 years.
Now, if you're GeneralSchwartzkopf or you're General
Powell, who care?
But if you're not, don't carewho you are Now, you're just
another author.
So what are you going to do todifferentiate yourself?
And that's what we can help youdo putting this program
together.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I love that In terms of how people get to work with
you.
What is that?
I'm sure there's a website andall that information, but is it
like an initial consult or whatis that intake process like and
how long does that take?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Someone will get ahold of a variety of ways
through websites, through socialmedia, through a writing coach
who's helping the author and theauthor.
He says he'll say how are yougoing to market this?
She says you're looking atblood and so you need to talk to
Frank and Melissa.
So what we always do is we havea Zoom call, maybe whoever
(26:54):
finds it first.
So if Melissa finds somebody,she'll have one first.
And then if she says okay, yeah, they look good, then we'll
have one together.
Okay, or I find somebody firstand I say okay, then Melissa
will get involved.
So we'll have a call togetherand we go through a whole series
of questions, starting withnumber one why you want to write
this book.
What are you hoping to achieve?
What's your long-term goal?
Do you want to have membership?
Do you want to do speakingengagements?
(27:15):
Are you going to Melissa?
She says are you justinterested or are you invested?
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Right, right right.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
If you're interested you know there's a lot of
different ways you can do it.
If you're invested and you'regoing to invest in yourself and
in your business and you'regoing to use this book as a
launching pad, then we'llcontinue the conversation, then
we'll sort of break down.
We'll tell them roughly ifyou're serious and you want to
write a book and you want to useit in your business, you better
(27:44):
plan and spend between $16,000and $15,000 between publishing
and marketing.
Wow.
And people will go oh my God, Ithought I could do it for like
$700.
And I said you probably could.
It's not going to go anywhere,but you probably could.
You could self-publish and driveyourself crazy and try to get
it out there, but it still comesdown to marketing and promotion
(28:08):
, because when I did the firstfive books, took me five books
before I realized, uh, frankly,I did something wrong.
It was okay you write a bookand you put on Amazon and
everybody goes and buys it andthen become rich.
That doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
That's not it.
No, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
They don't just come and get it.
You have to tell them to go andget it and tell them why to go
and get it.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Why that's right?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
And so once we started putting these campaigns
together, the momentum startspicking up.
We tell these people you know,when you trust the process,
magic happens and it's got to be.
There has to be that trust.
We say, Melissa, and I say nomore than we say yes.
(28:56):
Yes, Because someone will say,well, I don't want to spend that
kind of money.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
But what's the range Like what's you don't have to
give us like exact, but what'sthe range that someone you know
would be spending with you guysto market?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
If they're, if they have first, if they have a
publisher, they're probablylooking at $6,000 to $8,000 for
a publisher, wow and thenprobably 8 to 10,000 for the
campaign, depending on who theyare or what area they're trying
to get into.
One of the things that we foundis a health and wellness.
(29:31):
77,000 books come out of weprobably 50,000 health and
wellness.
So if you're, if, you're in thatcategory, you're putting
yourself in a very difficultposition.
So part of the magic that we dois okay, what categories are we
going to select?
But it's not going to be.
(29:54):
You're not going to be lockinghorns with money Brown or Simon
Sinek.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Now we don't know.
One of the don't knows is wedon't know who's going to
release a book on the releasedate.
So we don't know.
So we want to make sure that ifBernadette Brown or Simon Sinek
releases a book, that onelocking horns with them.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So it might be a category and a sub category.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
All right, and that's what we put together, and
that's all the research that wedo on behalf of the authors and
say, okay, here's what you canput this, this is how this could
work.
And then we go from there andit's a, it's nerve wracking,
because on release day, becauserelease day starts midnight,
1201 New York time, that'sreally stay until 1159.
(30:41):
That's the least day, right?
So I can't sleep?
Of course not, and I can't sleep, it's not my book, yeah, so I'm
just watching, watching theresults and watching the needle.
The one person we had had, apretty good international, done
work internationally, workedinternationally.
(31:01):
Okay, midnight, midnight, newYork is like 6am or something in
London or something along thoselines.
So I'm sitting there waiting.
Okay, let's look and see whatit looks like.
So 12, 1205,.
I get online and I look it'sright here, best seller, wow.
And then we have the Europeanorganizations that we have been
(31:23):
nurturing and telling them hey,the book is coming, here's the
date, here's the date, here'sthe date.
And then we put we always tellthe author we're going to go
book and print book.
A lot of people say mycustomers don't pay that way.
And I said what are you goingto do in the book and print book
?
Okay, and this is why.
Because in the world, in theAmazon world, the minute someone
(31:47):
puts the credit card in andsays enter, that counts as a
sale.
Right now, when they buy a book, it doesn't count until the
book is shipped.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Little things we discovered.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Oh, my gosh Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, so if you're not a big name and you put out a
book and they say well, they'llship it within two days.
But you know they're Frank'scar, you're not Simon Sinek, so
the book might be four daysbefore it goes out, okay, so now
you're missing that window totrying to get that best seller
(32:25):
in.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And it's spending a lot of time nurturing key people
, key people that you know youcan go to and say, hey, this is
what I'm going to do.
I need your help.
I put something out where youshare it, will you?
Will you say something about it?
Will you put it out there?
Okay, you're really good at it,because you know that LinkedIn
(32:47):
in particular, if you put up apost and you don't get a
response in the first 30 minutes, your post pretty much goes
away.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
That's right, it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, and now you're looking for it, now you're going
.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Where did it go?
There is a strategy, y'all thestuff that we're doing on
LinkedIn.
There is a strategy behind themadness.
It's not just throwing up postsfor the sake of posting.
So I want to ask you before werun out of time and again for
everybody who is maybe you'rethinking about writing a book,
maybe you're in the process ofwriting a book and if your
(33:21):
intention is to have and becomea bestselling and award-winning
author, who again is leveragingthe book for greater
opportunities, Frank and histeam, that's where you want to
go, and I'm saying this I fullytrust.
I'm not sending you anywherewhere it hasn't been vetted and
approved.
It's been vetted and approvedby Mrs Pie and the entire Parade
(33:41):
Deck community 6.6 millionbooks.
Okay, so I wanted to find out,as you're thinking about, maybe,
what's next for Frank.
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
That's interesting because it's I like what we're
doing with the trust, theprocess, and we'll keep that
rolling.
What I really enjoy doing isspeaking and doing things about
quality of life based on qualityof relationships, or how to
(34:17):
think like a boss, ortheory-versed reality.
Right, when I'll get out ofschool and you know full of this
theory and you'll get that joband guess what?
Reality and theory don't quitematch.
I really love doing that.
I became a NAMCA, n-a-m-c-acertified speaker, which is a
(34:39):
group that works with collegesand universities.
But it's the dream.
Is you ever seen Garth Brooks?
I watched that and I saw himlie.
But I saw showbiz.
Garth Brooks right and he's onstage in the arena like the
(34:59):
Dallas where the Dallas Cowboysplaying right, hundreds of a
thousand people, and he comes up.
You know the thing, theelevator brings him up on the
stage and he is the stage andthe crowd goes absolutely crazy,
right?
I want to do that once, once inmy life, I can give a talk and
have that kind of scenario.
(35:22):
It's almost like now.
It would be like the TaylorSwift phenomenon, but I'm not
gonna do it a hundred times likeshe does this, I just want to
do it once.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Once.
I love that.
I love that and I love the factthat you know you're like me.
We dream really big and weactually try to make it happen.
That's the difference, right,you're a visionary in what you
do and I just again, I justwanted to make sure that you
know I set it opening Y'all ifyou have to figure it out.
I'm a fan of Frank's.
(35:52):
I'm also a fan of his amazingprogramming on YouTube streets,
so that's another place.
You know, please go back andcheck out all of his videos.
Go back and check them out.
There's a really a goodcombination and compilation of
interesting people that you'retalking to and I am so honored.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
(36:13):
This literally made my month.
I was like I can't wait to talkto Frank about you know just
what you do, because you havesuch passion aligned to the
purpose and what you're doing,and people need that
encouragement.
People need to know that, yeah,you can actually, you know,
really do something you love andenjoy.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It doesn't mean that it wasn't a tough fight to get
here, right, because it takeswork, but clearly, I was told
when I first sold the company, Iwas deciding what I wanted to
do and I kept saying no, rightso he said, Frank, nothing's
going to change until you do.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh, I love that and I want.
Okay, Nothing's going to changeuntil you do I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That was, that was the story.
You got me there, so I need tostart saying yes more often.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And then as I, keep saying yes.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
then, great, that came around and I was thinking,
no, I don't want to do it.
Yes, listen, go do it.
I meet you and Mario and I meetAndrew.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Rico and on it goes.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Then grab the thing in November, las Vegas, because
it's a six hour drive from mefrom here, from San Diego.
So I'll go down and start doingthat and it's just simply
decide what it is you want to doand then start moving forward,
walking forward to it.
No, it's not going to be simpleand someday you're going to
(37:38):
take one step forward and threestep backward.
Yeah, get up and you take thatnext step and keep going forward
and just keep pushing andpeople will recognize.
I mean, I think Kobe Bryant onetime said game recognizes game.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
He saw a little clip.
Dirk Nivicki makes this shot.
It's unbelievable and he'spinning it on Kobe and he's just
nodding his head and saying,good shot, nice play.
Yeah, because he's playingagainst them.
But you recognize, yeah, and asyou put the time and energy and
the effort in, people likeShelly are going to notice
(38:17):
whatever you start doing ontheir shows, and that's you're
going to start getting thisexposure that you want.
And then it's just a matter ofcontinuing the push and
continuing the drive.
I was giving a talk to a groupof business owners.
I said you have to.
You have to focus, staycommitted to the plan, because
(38:38):
success leads to complacency andcomplacency leads to failure.
That's true.
So stay on task and stay movingforward.
It's just a lot of fun.
It's a lot of fun trying to besomething new.
It's sometimes a scary as hell.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, but it's fun.
I agree with you, it isabsolutely.
We have a storm raging inGeorgia now.
The lights are flickering.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
So I'm going to I'm going to say thank you, hang out
for a minute in our back room.
But for everybody who'swatching, again, I will drop the
contact information for Frank.
It's also in our description,but please, please, make sure
that you're following Frank toget information Also.
He's got great posts.
I know a lot of folks thatwatch me are on LinkedIn as well
(39:26):
, so follow Frank.
That way, you can stay in tunewith what's happening and get
some of his free advice.
This is awesome.
Thank y'all so much forwatching and have a great, great
rest of your day.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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