July 12, 2024 • 49 mins
Ask Nigel Rawlins a question or send feedback, click the link to text me.
In this episode of the Wisepreneurs Podcast, my special guest is Debbie Jenkins, an accomplished author and publisher with a rich background in engineering. Debbie shares her thoughts on making a significant impact by writing short, valuable books to build credibility.
Our discussion revolves around the themes presented in her books, "Stop the Credibility Crisis" and "Stop Writing Books Nobody Reads," and how embracing authenticity and using technology can drive business growth.
Debbie’s unique approach emphasises the importance of credibility and how writing concise, impactful books can generate passive income and establish professional authority.
Episode Highlights:
•Debbie’s transition from engineering to publishing
•Key insights from “Stop the Credibility Crisis”
•Strategies for writing short, impactful books
•The role of credibility in professional success
•Using books as tools for business growth
•Maintaining authenticity in the digital age
•The influence of technology and AI in publishing
Resources Mentioned:
Books:
•“Stop the Credibility Crisis” by Debbie Jenkins
•“Stop Writing Books Nobody Reads” by Debbie Jenkins
•“The Emergent Approach to Strategy” by Peter Compo
Mentioned Names:
•Ann Latham, author of “The Power of Clarity”
•Liz Bywater, PhD, strategic CEO advisor
Connect with Debbie Jenkins:
•Website: Debbie Jenkins
•LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debsjenkins/
•Programs: Writing & Publishing Cohorts, Only Authors Club, The Asset Path® Weekly Strategy Calls—see Debbie's website for details
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Wisepreneurspodcast today I'm excited, and I
(00:03):
really am, excited to hostDebbie Jenkins, a prolific
author and experienced publisherwhose engineering background
uniquely informs her strategicapproach to business.
In this episode, we delve intoDebbie's insights from her
latest books including Stop TheCredibility Crisis and Stop
Writing Books nobody Reads.
(00:24):
We explore how you can writeshort, impactful books that can
significantly enhance yourbusiness.
Her expertise in writing andpublishing offers valuable
lessons for independentprofessionals.
Join me for an engagingconversation with Debbie
Jenkins.
Nigel Rawlins (00:40):
Welcome Debbie to the Wisepreneurs podcast.
Can you tell us something aboutyourself and where you're from?
Debbie Jenkins (00:45):
Yeah, thanks Nigel for having me.
I'm really excited to talk toyou today.
So yeah, I am a Brit but I'velived in Spain for the last 19
years.
And so I've driven on theincorrect side of the road for
longer than I've driven on thecorrect side of the road.
And I was an engineer bydiscipline, so I did an
electronics engineering degree,but I wasn't a very good
engineer,'cause I talk too much.
(01:07):
And so I ended up finally, afterrunning a few businesses,
finally getting back to thething I always really wanted to
do, which was anything to dowith business and books and
writing.
So that's what I do and that'swhere I've come from.
Nigel Rawlins (01:20):
Did you start reading books as a young girl?
Where does this interest comefrom?
Debbie Jenkins (01:26):
Yeah, I used to, so I come from a very poor
family and so we didn't havemany books in the house.
And the books that we did have,I would have read them like 73
times.
The old Reader's Digest and Iwould just dive into them.
But we used to go to the libraryevery week and I would use up my
four library tickets.
Siblings tickets and anybodyelse who walked past and didn't
(01:47):
use their ticket.
So I would be reading reading,and then begging us to go back
the week after to swap them allout for something else.
Nigel Rawlins (01:54):
Which part of England was this?
Debbie Jenkins (01:56):
Central Birmingham, quite inner city
Nigel Rawlins (01:58):
Aren't libraries fantastic?
Debbie Jenkins (01:59):
I know, and they're so sad that there are so
few of them.
I love libraries and bookshops,and there's a few of those as
well.
But yeah, they're just, doorwaysinto other worlds.
They're amazing.
Nigel Rawlins (02:12):
Mmm, I think that's good.
All right.
So one of the reasons I wantedto speak to you is because of
the books you've written, whichI thought were fabulous.
And the one I read was, Stop theCredibility Crisis.
Can you tell me why did youwrite that book?
Debbie Jenkins (02:25):
I wrote that book for me, and I think that's
one of the best types of booksto write, if I'm honest.
Cause I wrote that book because,I was grappling.
with my own credibility crisis.
So I've been running businessesfor nearly 30 years and every 10
years or so, things wouldhappen, the environment changes,
the technology changes, stuffchanges.
(02:46):
And every 10 years or so youfeel, and I think it's even more
quickly now, more rapid, youfeel things have changed.
And in 2022, I started, havingsold my previous publishing
company, I realised I was inanother crisis mode and I was
starting to feel bored andboring just like seriously
(03:09):
feeling bo boring and bored withwhat I was doing.
And I evaluated that and thoughtwhat am I going to do to get
outta being bored and boring?
I would I joke, it's not a funnyjoke.
It's a true joke.
I joke that anybody who's everwritten a book then becomes a
book coach.
And so I was seeing competition.
(03:32):
Massive amounts of competitionand and good competition.
It was not knocking them, theywere doing great jobs but
massive amounts of competitionand everybody's saying the same
things.
So we were all saying, I'm abook coach.
I can help you write a book.
You should write a book.
A book's a really good idea.
Business books are reallyhelpful.
And we were all saying the samethings.
And so none of us were standingout.
(03:53):
And I was very fortunate becauseI've been doing it for 20 odd
years and so I had great trustbecause I had what I think of as
credibility clues.
I had all of the testimonials,previous books that I've
published, previous books thatI've ghost written, previous
books that I've written.
I've written 17.
So I had all the credibilityclues, but I was boring and,
(04:15):
slightly bored and so Ievaluated what was going on and
what did I need to do and that'swhen I came up with the idea for
the book and I didn't write thatbook immediately.
Why didn't I write that bookimmediately?
Because I didn't feel capable orconfident to write that book
immediately.
And first needed to write myother two books.
(04:35):
So I've written 17 in total, butthese three recent ones have
come as a trio.
As a short series of books.
And so I needed to write theother two books first.
And so in true Star Warsfashion, I wrote The first one
last because you really shouldread them in the other order,
but I didn't feel, competent orcapable to write that third one
(04:56):
first.
And so I wrote the other twofirst and got some good feedback
on them, changed my businessmodel, changed the way I was
working with clients, and thenfelt confident to write, the
credibility crisis book.
Nigel Rawlins (05:08):
Wow.
Because I read the credibilitycrisis first, and then I read,
Stop Writing Books Nobody Reads.
So which one did you writefirst?
Debbie Jenkins (05:17):
I wrote of these three, Start Writing Books
Nobody Reads first becausethat's my day job.
That is, I can help you write abook that people will want to
read.
And then the second part of myday job is helping you get use
that book to grow your business,which is Stop Selling Books
Nobody Buys.
But the first book, which is, Iwrote third, is Stop the
(05:38):
Credibility Crisis, becausethat's the why you should be
writing a book and using it togrow your business.
Without the why, most people dothe how to, the directions type
books, but without the why, thedoing doesn't make sense.
You need the why to put thedoing into perspective, into
context.
Nigel Rawlins (05:58):
I can tell you from reading just those two, I
really get what I need to do ifI'm going to be writing.
That's when I get the time,because I've probably written
about 80 articles on my website,but I'm revamping that into a
different way of doing things.
And then I want to take thoseand, but the podcast has given
me plenty to talk about too, orwrite about.
(06:21):
But what You Stop Writing BooksNobody Reads, it's just quite
brilliant, but we'll get intothat.
And I'm just going to, plug youright now that if you're not
reading these books, you, andyou're an independent
professional you're not on thepage.
You need to get onto this stuff.
Stop The Credibility Crisis, thewhy.
(06:41):
It's for people who are runningexpertise based businesses to
get credibility.
So tell me something about whydo they need to get their
credibility and how do they getto stand out?
Debbie Jenkins (06:53):
Okay it is the problem.
Standing out is the problem.
And We can stand out for thewrong reasons.
So what I was spotting, so thesewere the problems I was seeing.
There were lots of problems, butthe sort of main problems that
were impacting me.
And so those are the ones Imainly think about was that
there is a really low barrier toentry from becoming an expert in
a company to then be taking thatexpertise and becoming a
(07:16):
consultant or a coach or atrainer or, an independent.
So that's a really low barrierto entry.
Previously, like when I starteda business, the barrier to entry
was much harder.
the tech wasn't there, thesupport wasn't there, but now
that barrier to entry has beenjust swiped.
So that's one of the problems.
So anybody can claim thatcredibility by becoming a coach
(07:36):
or a consultant.
The other problems I was seeing,and this is a problem for all of
us expertise based businessesowners is that there is an
overload of information.
So we are not short ofinformation.
In the 90s you'd still read abook and you'd still go to a
library.
Whereas these days you just typeit in Google and suddenly you
(07:57):
have more information than youcan possibly ever read.
And for me, it became very loud.
The environment feels very loud.
There's lots of noise and how doyou break through that noise?
And then the third thing, sothese are the three things that
really impacted me.
The third thing was abouttechnology and AI.
And this is in 2022, this wasreally very clear, which was
(08:18):
technology and AI were making itso that, that, barrier to entry
disappeared.
Volume of information andtechnology and AI just
accelerated that.
It was just like a sudden whatwas already a problematic
suddenly took off being evenmore problematic.
And so any expertise basedbusiness owner will find
themselves with those problems.
So that's what I was trying tosolve.
(08:39):
So how do we solve that?
And in particular, It was abouthow do people want what you've
got to sell and trust you todeliver it.
So it's a trust desire paradox Iwas, playing with, which is, you
might have.
So for example, I felt that Iwas being boring.
And when I looked around theworld, I thought lots of people
(08:59):
were being boring.
Sorry, everybody, We're allsaying the same things in the
same way, doing the same lookingthe same.
We've gone through that periodwhere everybody was on Zoom and
everybody had their hello andlove heart candle in the
background, and we all lookedthe same.
and so how did your potentialclient decide if they should
trust you or not.
And so there was a trust part ofthe scale, but then there was
(09:23):
coupled with that, the desire.
And so some people are reallygood at amping up the trust.
That's usually our lovelyexpertise based business owners.
They've got the qualifications,they've got the skills, they've
worked with the people, they'vegot the, testimonials and case
studies.
Trust trust.
And then other people are reallygood at upping the desire scale.
And I call these bro commercebecause I'm cheeky.
(09:44):
And so they're the people whoare really confident at selling
something, even if they've neverdone it before.
So they're like, they have thismassive amount of confidence and
they are out there.
And they are really cleverunderstanding what we want.
So they're the people who say,six pack in a week and write
your book in seven seconds.
Boom.
Nigel Rawlins (10:04):
Oh, Twitter's full of it.
Thousand people sign up fortheir writing course and I'm
thinking, but they're all thesame.
Debbie Jenkins (10:10):
And they're just going to churn out more noise,
okay, and that's just going tomake the problem bigger and
louder and so I want for myclients and for the people I
work with is that we can amp upthe desirability and fall back
and use our trust that, thethings that we know we've
(10:31):
already done.
And that puts us into what Ithink of as the credibility
quadrant.
So it's, we're doing somethingthat people want and we are
trusted to deliver it, to beable to do it.
So that trust and desire,without those two things, we
either fall into boring or, intogrowth.
Nigel Rawlins (10:48):
The bro commerce, I look after 18 websites and I
probably say this every podcastI talk about and some of them
don't need to stand out so muchbecause they're fairly
established businesses andthey've got their clientele, but
others are in a competitivesituation and they're competing
against 20 or 30 other websitesand they're all using SEO and
(11:10):
writing booklets and writingblog articles and stuff like
that.
And that's the issue.
And if you're an expert insomething and there's 20 other
experts in the market or ahundred other experts and now
across the world there can beexperts who are competing with
you.
Your problem is standing out, sowhat you're talking about is
actually creating something thatstands out and gets through that
(11:33):
noise.
We live in an expertise economy.
I have hired people in Spain todo a couple of different jobs,
experts there, or hire people inthe Philippines, New Zealand,
many countries I hire peoplefrom, so that we're in a world
economy in many ways, especiallyif you're a freelancer or self
employed professional, so whatabout the technology?
(11:55):
That's obviously changed andthat must be quite stressful
because you've got to, forpeople who are older you're not
so tech savvy and you're outthere trying to work, what are
some of the challenges you foundwith the technology?
Debbie Jenkins (12:07):
Yeah.
So I think the technology, so AIfor, let's use AI, cause that's
the big technology thateverybody's talking about.
And AI is really useful as whatI think of as a sidekick.
So I call him Buddy and I usehim as a sidekick, but I would
never, I personally would neverallow my AI to write my book.
(12:28):
And I know that there's somepeople think that's a good idea.
And I, I'm not going to have astand up argument with them, but
I don't want to read a bookwritten by AI.
I want to read a book written bya real person, a real human
being who's been through all thethings and done all the things.
Gets me, understands me, canbuild rapport with me.
Like for example, this podcast Iwouldn't want to be interviewed
(12:49):
by a robot.
I would much prefer to beinterviewed by the wonderful
Nigel, because then we have aconversation, we build rapport,
we understand each other, we canchange direction.
Technology, back to thequestion, technology has leveled
the playing field.
So it's given everybody access,which is a great benefit, but
all benefits, I think, come withtheir downsides.
(13:11):
And I think it's going to justmake the amount of noise in the
market louder.
And I have three things that Ithink we need to do.
I think we need to bedisruptive.
We need to be creative and weneed to make connections.
And if we don't be disruptive,creative and make connections,
then it doesn't matter how loudwe shout, people are not going
to hear us above the rest of thenoise.
(13:33):
And so Nigel, what you do withyour podcasts is this
connection.
You help people connect.
We connect with you, but we alsoconnect with each other because
we can hear each other's voices.
and that connection, I think is,it's just so valuable.
I think it's only going to getmore and more valuable rather
than get more diminished.
Nigel Rawlins (13:51):
I think that's definitely it.
The personal is going to beimportant.
Again, the biggest problem of meproducing a podcast is I'm
competing with every otherpodcast out there.
And, and that's why I've calledit the Wisepreneurs.
It is aimed at older, moremature professionals, mostly
women.
Who are self employed orthinking of being self employed,
(14:12):
and hopefully that's a narrowenough niche that eventually
somebody will say, Oh, that'swhat I'm really interested in.
But even after 50 episodes, I'mnot getting that many followers.
So it does take a while, butI've noticed a lot of on the
podcast chats, they're saying Ihaven't got many followers or
gee, it's so hard, I've got tokeep doing it with the 50
activities I've got to do toproduce one podcast, there's
(14:36):
virtually 50 things you have todo.
You do them automatically, butI'm, as I said I'm trying to
automate some of those processesso it doesn't take so long.
And that's the issue is there'sso much information out there
and so many people screaming.
And as you said, the brocommerce people they're very
good.
You're right.
I've paid for some Twittercourses to get 50, 000 followers
(14:57):
and it doesn't work.
It worked for them, maybe.
Debbie Jenkins (15:00):
Yes.
It worked for them becauseyou're now one of their
followers.
And so there is a really bigmarket for selling like for
example, LinkedIn.
So how to build your followingon LinkedIn from a person who
has a massive following onLinkedIn, but they don't do
anything else.
Nigel Rawlins (15:17):
I signed up for one of those courses.
Debbie Jenkins (15:19):
Me too.
Nigel Rawlins (15:20):
The course was 200 bucks, so it wasn't that
expensive.
So very smart positioning,expert in that.
But, as I went through it, itwas all formulaic.
And if I was just thinking, andthis is the problem, and I think
you you clicked on it thatyou've got to differentiate in
many ways, or be different orconfront them.
If those people are using thatformula, they're all going to
(15:41):
sound the same again.
Debbie Jenkins (15:42):
Absolutely.
All you're doing is just addingto the noise and still you won't
be standing out.
And I think there is a risk andit's definitely a risk for
people starting their firstbusiness.
I fell into this in my firstbusiness in the nineties, which
is the risk is you say we arebetter.
So now you're commoditizingyourself against everybody else
and you're just putting yourselfin the same band, but you're
(16:04):
saying we're a bit better or abit cheaper, which is even
bigger danger.
And I think what we have to sayis we're different.
This is this disruptive part.
So we're different.
Why are we different?
Because we don't just say do thesame thing.
So for example, with bookpublishing, I don't say write
your book, it's your legacybook.
Okay.
40, 000 words.
Blum done.
I say write short, valuablebooks, lots of them, make more
(16:26):
of them, do a series of thembecause then you're going to get
the flywheel effect.
You're going to get Amazon onyour side because they'll
present your books.
You're going to write fast andget books out there faster.
So that's a differentiation.
That's something a slightlydisruptive because most people
think they're only ever going towrite one book.
And I'm saying, no, write aseries of books.
So it's disrupting the sort ofpattern.
(16:47):
One of the things people when Italk about disruption though is
oh my gosh, I've got to doeverything completely different.
Now, I've got to do podcastsstanding on my head.
I don't know, they're like sillydisruption.
I don't think you need to dothat.
I think you just need to find adifferentiation angle that
people can grasp and understandand that will pass what I think
(17:07):
of as my 12 year old test.
So if I explain to you, write aseries of short valuable books
that I take to a 12 year old,this is my fidelity test, a 12
year old could then tell a 10year old and if the 10 year old
told it to me it would stillmake sense.
That's a differentiator, that isa disruption.
If your disruption is just crazyfor crazy's sake, then that's
(17:29):
not going to get you what you'relooking for.
Nigel Rawlins (17:31):
That's what I love about your book on Stop
Writing books That Nobody Readsbecause you do go into that and
you're saying it's okay to writea shorter book and you go into
why and how and we'll talk aboutthat.
But yes, the 40, 000, words it'sthe thing.
And you might take three or fouryears and some of the writers do
take three or four years or moreto write them, but you're saying
(17:53):
write shorter books.
So let's talk about that.
Because, I thought, wow, that'ssmart.
Debbie Jenkins (17:59):
Think this is how I was thinking of it.
And this is why I did it wasbecause every time I would come
to a writing of my own book I'mhelping my clients write theirs,
it would turn into a giganticproject.
It would get bigger and biggerand bigger, because they would
feel, and I would feel that wehad to get everything in there
because it's'The book'.
Okay.
So there was a pressure to geteverything, in there.
(18:19):
So if you, take that pressureaway and say I'm not going to
get everything in here.
Okay, that's, first of all, thatmakes it easier for you, the
writer.
But it also makes it easier forthe reader because the reader
doesn't need to know everythingyou know.
They don't need to knoweverything.
They just need to know that youcan solve their first, next
problem.
And then after that, you cansolve the next problem.
And then after that, you cansolve the next problem.
(18:41):
And then they'll follow you.
They'll come along with you.
And then You'll build up thattrust.
You'll build up the desire forthe next book.
So you're building trust anddesire by creating the books.
And we tap into this shortattention span Tik Tokers and 30
second videos and that stuff.
And we tap into that, withouttrying to fight it all the time.
(19:03):
We just say, okay.
I'm going to write you a book.
It's a short book, you can readit in a couple of hours.
At the end of it you're going toget a transformation, a result.
And then you're going to love mebecause I've helped you get that
transformation.
And then you might want to workwith me.
And then you might want my nextbook.
And then you're going to tellother people about my book.
Whereas if it's a long book, Idon't know about you.
(19:24):
Our first connection was yousaid you've got all these unread
books on your Kindle.
Oh my gosh, and I was like, yes,me too.
I have hundreds of opened andunfinished books.
Whereas if you write short,valuable books, people can read
them in a couple of hours anddive into your world with you
and then take action, get aresult and be happy.
Nigel Rawlins (19:46):
I think that is fantastic especially for a
specific thing.
Like most of the books I read Idon't really read a lot of
business books.
There's one I've been readingthat I've read twice now and I
will interview the author.
It's about, believe it or not,strategy.
It's brilliant.
But I read it on my Kindle firstand now I bought the actual
(20:06):
physical book and I've beenreading it, underlining, and
then I'll take some notes oncards and then I'll just keep
going through because I reallywant to get this in my head.
This guy's pretty retired now,but he worked for DuPont for
many years, and he's written themost brilliant book.
But it's not something that youcan read in a day.
It's taken me six months andit'll probably take me another
(20:27):
couple of months till I've gotmy head really around it, and I
can actually use what he'ssaying, because I find it
fascinating.
And then I'll talk to him on thepodcast.
And I've already spoken to himand I think he's brilliant.
But Richard Rumelt, who wrote abook on strategy, said to him,
you are the only one I've talkedto because you're not an
academic And I think he wrote anintroduction to him or
(20:48):
something.
So the brilliant thing you'vejust said is write a short book
that I think solves a problem.
And then maybe they'll buyanother book from you.
And then maybe they'll want towork with you.
Now that's the interestingthing, isn't it?
Because if you're an expertisebased business or professional,
you want clients.
(21:09):
So what you're saying is, bywriting these expertise based
books, It builds up yourcredibility and because they're
short and sweet and on the ball,they might buy the next one and
the next one, and they'reaffordable.
Of course,
Debbie Jenkins (21:21):
Yes.
Nigel Rawlins (21:22):
eventually they trust you enough.
You can do it on your website,but it's hard work.
Debbie Jenkins (21:26):
Yeah, and there's still a credibility,
extra credibility clue with aprinted book.
There's still, and I hope thatwill go on for a long time, but
there is still that because ifyou've gone to the time and
effort and energy to get yourbook professionally edited,
produced, published, then thatadds an extra clue to people
that you take yourselfseriously.
(21:48):
I think it's one of the problemsfor e books at the moment,
remember I said earlier aboutthe barrier to entry so low?
Anybody can write an e book.
But it takes just a bit moreenergy and effort to get
published and to publish a printbook.
And that helps with the addingan extra level of trust in you
to help with that credibility.
I was just thinking, thestrategy guy book there is still
(22:11):
space for your strategy guy typebooks, which are, these are the
big, meaty, deep, importantresearch books are still placed
for those books.
But they're not necessarily thetype of book that's going to for
our expertise based businessowners, our professionals, it's
they're not necessarily thetypes of books that are going to
help them build business, togrow their business, to help
(22:34):
them get clients because theytake too long to write and then
they take too long to read andthat lag can be the death for
some businesses.
If the lag between an assetgetting into hands and
converting it to a client is toolong,
Nigel Rawlins (22:48):
my aim of that is to distill it down to something
that's useful for a one personprofessional business.
So I guess that could be a bookin itself.
Debbie Jenkins (22:56):
It would be a brilliant book.
Nigel Rawlins (22:58):
That's what I love about his stuff, it's so
practical and it's just so real.
And it's called the EmergentApproach to Strategy because it
says you cannot predict thefuture.
You have no idea what's going tohappen next week, but you can
plan for it, and it is all veryinteresting, and I think you get
it as well too.
You write about books, that getread.
Let's talk about that.
(23:18):
The book has to get read.
I've got lots of books that Ihaven't read.
Debbie Jenkins (23:22):
Yeah, I call them the sloppy shelf sitters.
I have lots of books that Ihaven't read on my Kindle, on my
desk.
And I have really good intentionto read them.
Usually the title or subtitle isfabulous, or the author is
fabulous.
And you go, I really need thatbook.
And you get the book.
And then it comes, and it'sheavy, and it's big, and it's
thick, and it's deep, and thereare no pictures.
I love pictures in books.
And that kind of reduces yourchances for me of reading a
(23:47):
book.
And so we don't want that asbusiness owners.
We actually want people to readour books.
And why do we want them to readour books?
Because if they read our books,this is my idea, which is if
they read our books, one,they're going to get to know us
a bit better because they'llunderstand why we're saying the
things we're saying.
But two, is if we've written ourbooks well, they're going to get
a result, they're going to get atransformation, something will
(24:09):
change in their lives for them.
And then we, by association, areconnected with that
transformation and therefore wehave more credibility in the
reader's eyes.
And we want our books to beread, and we want our books to
be referred to.
And if you read a book, it'smuch easier to refer it.
You can say, you need to readchapter six, because chapter six
(24:31):
talks all about the problemyou've just been describing.
And so we can refer books.
They don't necessarily need tobe bought.
And that's the subject of thegreen book,'Stop Selling Books
Nobody Buys'.
Because sometimes we can use,and frequently we can use, our
books to generate businesswithout selling them.
(24:52):
We just get them into the handsof the right people.
They will read it, they willenjoy it, they will be
transformed, they have some sortof transformation, and therefore
associate us with that brillianttransformation.
Nigel Rawlins (25:03):
So it's actually being written for that purpose,
to create that transformation.
But your book explains how youdo that and it is, it's quite a
discipline you've got in there.
You're saying, you need to getpeople to give you feedback and
it's got to be a real problemfor one person.
Debbie Jenkins (25:20):
Yeah, I'm so bossy about that.
Nigel Rawlins (25:22):
Yes, I
Debbie Jenkins (25:23):
I am.
Okay, did you notice?
Yeah, I was running a sessionlast week with some clients and
I was saying we need to writethis for one real person.
They're like, Oh, she's on thatagain, the one real person.
Okay.
I really believe this is true.
having written 17 of my ownbooks and having published over
200 over the years.
I know that the books that dobest for the author are the
(25:45):
books that were written for onereader.
Why?
Because if you really, trulyunderstand that one reader and
you write the book to solvetheir real problems, not the
guess problems, the imaginaryproblems you might have made up,
but real problems that theyhave, because you've asked them,
You've understood them, you'veinvestigated with them, you've
(26:06):
seen what they tried before thatdidn't work.
If you've done all of that, ifyou've done that due diligence
and you really understand yourone reader, you will find that
there are other readers justlike them.
But if you try and write for anavatar or a group of people, you
end up writing for nobody andnobody feels like the book was
written for them.
So excited when somebody says,Oh, it felt like you wrote that
(26:28):
book for me, that means I did agood job.
Nigel Rawlins (26:30):
And you also say as you said, the book has a job
to do, not all books are read,and there are types of books
you're suggesting they shoulddo, so you said the'directions
type book','the landmark book',but not'maps'.
Do you want to talk about thosethree?
Debbie Jenkins (26:46):
Yeah, that's another of my bossy things.
Again, I'm a very bossy person.
So I think of books as abusiness asset.
So it's something that youshould Invest in and it should
give you a return on thatinvestment rather than just be a
a cost for you in your business.
Okay.
So I think all assets can fallinto directions, maps or
landmarks.
So what are direction typeassets?
(27:08):
They are one, two, three, ABC,do this, then this.
And in order to write adirections type book, you have
to know exactly the one reader.
Or the one listener, in yourcase Nigel with your podcast,
where they actually are rightnow.
Okay, so you can then give themdirections to turn left at the
pub type directions, yeah?
But you can't give a turn leftat the pub type direction if you
(27:28):
didn't know where they were.
So directions type books andthey're brilliant books.
They are how to get stuff doneand so it might be how to get
your website done on WordPressor how to start a podcast or how
to set your tech up for audio.
Okay, whatever it is.
They're how to type books.
And so in my case, it's how towrite a book that people read
(27:49):
great books, good books You canwrite them, succinctly and you
can make them very valuable.
On the other end of the extremeare the landmark type books.
So these are I'm standing on topof a mountain waving a flag.
I don't know where you are,reader or listener.
But you're somewhere and you'relooking for a flag.
(28:10):
Okay.
And this is my flag.
There are going to be othermountains with other people
waving their flags, theirlandmarks.
And your landmark has to bereally distinct, different,
probably a bit disruptive.
So that the reader or thelistener will take the time and
effort and energy to walk upyour mountain.
They might be already halfway upsomeone else's mountain, and you
(28:32):
need to get their attention andget them down their mountain and
up yours, okay?
So those are landmark typebooks, and they're wide, too.
Really strong, distinct why youshould do this.
And Stop the Credibility Crisiswas a why to book, it's my
landmark type book.
It's if we don't do this, if youdon't do this, there's going to
be a disaster.
Rah! Okay?
And then there's those books inthe middle which are called map
(28:54):
type books.
I call them map type books.
Now map type books, there'snothing wrong with them, I've
written some map type books.
But for expertise based businessowners, we don't want to get
bogged down in mapping theterrain, the rules, the
regulations, giving them muchattention to every part of the
map.
What, how we see the map, it'sour version of the terrain, it's
(29:17):
not the real terrain, it's a mapof the terrain.
We don't, that's quite labourintensive job to do.
And frequently the readerdoesn't care.
They just don't care.
they just want to know how do Iget this job done or why should
I do this job in the firstplace?
And often, if we write a maptype book, we end up writing a
book that won't get read, won'tget referred, won't get searched
(29:37):
for, won't get shared, becausethere's just too much and they
also go out of date.
Our map type books, thedeadliest.
They go out of date quitequickly.
So I've got a map type bookwhich has been in production for
nearly 20 years.
And I'm at my fourth edition.
And every single time I publishon that edition, immediately, I
(29:59):
see something that's out ofdate.
This is because map type booksare dreadful for expertise based
business owners.
This is a different businessthat I run in Spain.
Focus on directions or landmarksand you'll keep yourself safe.
Nigel Rawlins (30:11):
And you do explain those in this book, in
the'Stop Writing Books ThatNobody Reads'.
Now your steps to write thebooks are really quite
interesting.
If you use AI you just say to AIgive me an outline for this
particular topic, but you'resaying capture your thoughts
first.
In other words, maybe use a bitof paper and pen and write it
down.
Then you write an outline andthen you use a pyramid scheme to
(30:34):
write things or the structures.
So tell us what you mean bycapturing the thoughts.
Debbie Jenkins (30:40):
Yeah, I think, most expertise based business
owners, you could class them asthought leaders if they found
that confidence to get theirthoughts out there.
So you Nigel will have a hundredthoughts a day and some of them
will be brilliant thoughts andsome of them will be thoughts
that you'll just let fly by.
And so the key is to capturethose thoughts and to mix those
(31:00):
thoughts up.
That's that differentiation.
That's that, disruption thatwe're looking for.
Okay, so we need to capture ourthoughts first.
If we say to the AI, write me abook about writing books, it's
going to give you the book thateverybody else's could write,
and you don't want that.
You want that differentiator.
You want the distinction.
And so one of the things,another of my bossy things, is
(31:23):
that I encourage my authors tothink for almost as long as
they're writing, so we can writewithin three months.
If we've done good thinkingfirst.
And so I take them through twosteps in that thinking process.
One is to write a workingoutline.
So it's just all these thingsI've captured over the years or
however I've captured them.
I use Notion, sometimes I mightuse Roam or Obsidian.
(31:46):
But however you've captured, youmight use paper.
I use lots of paper and notepadsand cards and post its.
However you've captured them,you now go through the thinking
process and create a workingoutline and you test that
working outline with your one,at least your one real reader,
and then a smaller inner circlegroup, which I think of as the
book lovers team, but you testit.
(32:07):
You don't just assume you knowwhat people want to read.
And then there's another step Iencourage people to do, which is
to create the writing outlinebecause the writing outline,
this is where I use BarbaraMinto's SCQA process because
it's just a beautiful process.
It's a true tried and testedprocess.
It works really well and ithelps you get there faster,
(32:28):
which is SCQA, which issituation, complication,
question, and then your chapteris the answer.
If you go through that for everychapter, you have one situation,
complication, question, answerfor the whole book.
So that's your one, answer foryour one reader, but you know
where they are, you know what'scomplicating things for them,
you know that the question thatthey want resolved, and then
(32:50):
your book is the answer.
And then you do that for eachchapter, and then you do that
for each sub chapter.
You're going to create a bookthat is so easily readable that
people fall into the nextchapter because it's clearly
ordered and organized.
And the better thing than all ofthat, which is brilliant for
your reader, is it makes it somuch easier for you, the writer.
(33:15):
So you, the author, that meansyou can get it written in a
couple of months.
Now you can just say to AI,write me a book about writing
books and it will come up withsomething.
And you can then say, fill inthat chapter, fill in this
chapter, fill in this chapter,and it will come up with
something.
But it's not going to have thatintelligence and that thought
and that nuance and that abilityto connect different ideas that
(33:35):
you add to whatever book youwrite.
Nigel Rawlins (33:38):
Oh, I think that's spot on because I'm
finding now I have used AI alot, but it's not capturing what
I want it to say.
So if it kicks out somethingfrom say, for example, a
transcript of one of thepodcasts I now say to it look, I
was thinking about this, duringthe podcast, and these are the
things I want to emphasize.
(34:00):
Kick me out something with that,and then I have to edit and
saying, no, I want it to be morelike that.
And then I can take it when Iput it into say Grammarly, which
I'll edit in there, and thenI'll rewrite it myself in my own
words.
So it does help you, but I thinkyour approach it's changed the
way I think about how I writenow because that's the big issue
is how do we get who we are, ourwriter's voice out there?
(34:23):
And you won't do it with AI.
It's an AI voice and it's prettyobvious, I think anything that,
like I'm seeing the wordseasoned a lot.
We're seasoned professionals.
Debbie Jenkins (34:33):
Yeah, and'realm' is my favourite.
If I see the word'realm'anywhere, I guess it's AI.
And so sometimes I even actuallyuse it.
In the realm of writing books.
In the realm of podcasting.
Landscapes.
Oh gosh, yeah.
So there's so many words.
But Nigel, you're using AIfantastically.
I think how you use AI isbrilliant.
I think of that as sourcegrounded AI, that rather than
(34:55):
you just give a question to theAI and let it go and find the
average of the average, which iswhat it creates from the large
language model.
You're giving it your source, soyour interviews, your podcasts,
and you're saying, from thatsource, write in my voice,
writing the way I want you towrite, follow my rules, and that
(35:16):
source grounding is a brilliantuse of AI, and I, I encourage my
authors to use that too.
But we never let the AI writeour stuff.
Nigel Rawlins (35:24):
I have thousands and thousands of notes in Roam
because I've been taking notesfor four years.
So I read articles and it feedsin, and then all the books I've
read on the Kindle, I feed in.
So some of those topics, I'vegot several sources so I can try
and mesh it together and bringit out.
I'm even using AI now to processthe notes I have on my ROAM
(35:47):
database.
So asking it to give me asummary, asking it to find the
major themes that are in there,give me an FAQ.
Give me some questions that Ican ask.
Give me some alternative,article ideas that I can write.
But that's because I've beenusing it fairly heavily all day,
every day, and I also learn asmuch as I can about it.
(36:10):
But I think just pressing abutton and saying write me
something like that, that reallyfrightens me.
and I'm hoping that, cause oneof the big issues for all my
clients is that their websitedoes stand out.
Now, if Google is going to have,a keyword dense, article written
by AI, beat a handwritten,thought out professional one,
then we're in trouble.
Debbie Jenkins (36:30):
Yeah, same with books.
If Amazon's going to allow an AIwritten keyword dense book,
trump a thoughtfully written,rapport building, real person,
credible person book, then weare in trouble.
We are in trouble and we dunnowhat's gonna happen.
So we have to read your strategybook to be better at at the
(36:51):
emergent approach.
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (36:53):
The interesting thing about that strategy book
is the strategy is a rule.
It's a constraint that you haveto follow.
And that's what I liked aboutwhat you say.
This is how you write a booklike this.
You have to do these things.
It's a decision he calls it adecision making framework, and
out of that decision makingframework, you come up with the
(37:15):
rule that you follow, which isthe strategy rule.
That helps you make yourdecisions.
Debbie Jenkins (37:20):
I need to read this book.
My engineer background is justlike waving at that book.
I really love it.
The Theory of Constraints.
I put constraints into allprocesses, all books, 20, 000
words is the constraint.
Obviously you can break yourconstraint if you want to, but
otherwise you're tending tochaos and, entropy and all sorts
(37:41):
of horrid things.
And you don't want to do thatyou want to have nice
constraints so that you can getjobs finished.
Nigel Rawlins (37:46):
It's about bottlenecks and the emergent
approach is the whole idea thereis, it's very hard to define
what the world's going to do.
So you have to have some rules.
How are you going to know?
You've got some rules.
Debbie Jenkins (37:58):
Yeah, it's brilliant, I love this idea.
I'm actually writing a book atthe moment, it's called Dog Gate
Stick, which is about the theoryof constraints.
The idea is that, if you imaginea dog with a stick in its mouth
and it tries to get through agate, and the gate is the
constraint, the dog has to dosomething.
If it keeps walking towards thegate with the stick that is
wider than the gate, it's nevergoing to get through, banging
(38:21):
your head against a brick walltype thing.
But so this idea of constraintsand having rules some people
really don't like, I'm not, youcan't tell me how to write my
book, I'm not going to tell youhow to write your book, I'm
going to tell you why to writeyour book with these
constraints, so that your voiceis there and it sounds like you
and we get it finished.
Nigel Rawlins (38:43):
That's the issue.
I'm really interested in AI andautomation at the moment, and
I've got three little e booksthat I've written that I haven't
yet edited and made sure thatit's got my little thing in it.
Because I'm really interested ingetting these automation things
done.
And I really need to do thispodcast.
And that's my biggest dangerwith a strategy rule is that's
(39:03):
really going to constrain me andI want to do 50 things.
And I've realized, that's thelesson we have to learn.
You can't do everything.
The other big lesson you have tolearn is it takes many years to
stand out that it's not gonnajust happen with one book.
You've got to do the series, butthe discipline that you've got
in there, that's what I reallyloved about it.
(39:23):
I squirmed when it said, Show itto somebody, get some feedback.
And I'm going, Oh, but it'smine, it's personal, I want to
just put it out there.
And you're saying, no, getsomebody to look at it, get some
feedback.
Debbie Jenkins (39:35):
I tell you that, that process, frequent and
regular feedback changes books.
it changes the people who writebooks because it makes us a
little bit more humble, I think,because we do have that.
I certainly do.
It's it's a lovely book.
It's fantastic.
I wrote it.
Of course it's brilliant.
I have one of my wonderful betareaders.
(39:56):
She reads everything I write andall.
So thoughtful and chic.
Her name's Karen Cory and she'sfabulous.
And what she does is she makeseverything I do better, and she
does it so effortlessly and shedoes it so beautifully.
When you find those types ofpeople in your life who can give
you that feedback, they don'tmake you feel foolish or silly
for making a mistake or gettingsomething wrong or for not being
(40:19):
clear.
They make you a better writer.
Gather those people around you.
They're your wonderful, I callthem the book Clubber's Team..
You want two or three of thosepeople that are really on your
side, but also have thatconfidence to give you the hard
feedback.
You went off track a bit there,Deb.
Nigel Rawlins (40:37):
That's that will be my biggest fear is finding
three people and asking them todo that.
But, I think that's what you'resaying.
If you're going to try and standout in, with your expertise
based business, these are someof the challenges you're going
to have to face.
Debbie Jenkins (40:51):
Yeah.
Those people that read yourbooks and that give you that
strong feedback, they tend toturn into your biggest
advocates, your biggestreferrers, because they really
get you and they've investedbecause they've given you that
feedback, they've invested inwhat you're creating in your
asset.
And so they tend to turn intoyour biggest advocates and
referrers as well.
(41:12):
So I think getting over thefear, and I have the fear, I
have the fear every time, everysingle book, every single thing
I have the fear of what arepeople going to say, but getting
over that really helps you writebetter books and also create a
little gang of people who lovewhat you do.
Nigel Rawlins (41:28):
So let's just talk about your coaching then.
So people hire you to help themdo this.
How does that work?
Debbie Jenkins (41:35):
So the big thing I changed so yeah, so previously
I've been doing one to one.
One to one is lovely, it'swonderful, but it's very
intensive and that means it'svery expensive.
And so I still do one to one butit's, the price is high.
And there has to be a massivecommitment.
The price is not only in cash,but also in time and energy and
thoughtfulness.
Okay, so what I decided to dowas, I also I noticed that that
(42:00):
one to one relationship isbrilliant because you can build
up lots of strength in that.
But I was always getting myauthors to go outside of our one
to one relationship and get thatfeedback like we were just
talking about getting to thebook lovers team.
So I thought, what if I broughttwo or three or five authors
together and they're still goingthrough that almost one to one
because I'm there with themevery week.
(42:22):
But they also have an inbuiltfeedback gang, peers, group,
book lovers team, already builtin, who are also going through
it, so they're going to be verysensitive to giving feedback and
understand that fear that we'reall feeling.
And so that's when I came upwith the idea of writing
cohorts.
And I've done four cohorts now,and I'm recruiting for the fifth
(42:44):
one in September.
And the cohorts have beenamazing because, this is
community, this is connection,this is everything wrapped up in
one.
It's the intelligence level inthe room.
Each of my clients is superintelligent, but then you bring
them all together and theintelligence is off the scale.
And and the empathy is off thescale, the understanding.
(43:05):
I am so proud to say howbrilliant their books turn out
because It's just like anaccumulator effect.
And that's how I'm working withpeople mostly now.
So you join a cohort and youwork with a small group of
people who are all dedicated.
We get our books written withina year and published within a
year.
And so you have thoseconstraints in there.
(43:26):
So we're in this stage now Wehave the whole publishing
process and package, and so wepublish their books for them.
But the benefit to them is notonly the cohort and the group,
is our publishing model isdifferent.
So this was another of mydisruptions that came up with in
2022, which was the publishingmodel is different.
The old traditional publishingroute is you would go out there,
(43:47):
you would pitch to a publisher,they would take a bet on you,
you would then be on the linefor writing your book and fit
within their guidelines and allof that, and you would have a,
rule set on that.
And then you, the author, wouldbe, on the line for marketing
your book because all publishersrequire and rely upon the author
to market their books.
So that's the old way.
(44:08):
And then a new way came about,which is my old company that I
sold, which is called a hybridway, which is you pay for the
professional services and thenthe publisher takes a percentage
of royalties.
But the new way that I came upwith which has been going around
for a little while, but the wayI do it is slightly differently,
which is you just pay for theprofessional services.
And the addition I've added onthere is, and we do a reverse
(44:31):
royalties, so you have 100percent control of the published
book, and then you pay me aroyalty once a year.
Okay, so it's a very lowroyalty.
So now I am committed.
Traditional publishers, you havethe benefit of them being
committed to making a good andprofessional product because
their name is on the line.
Hybrid publishers you have theircommitment to a good product
(44:55):
because, they're going to getusually 50 50 of the profit.
the publishers of service typethere was no commitment there.
So you pay an editor and theydon't care at the end of the
day.
They just walk off and doanother job.
You pay a designer.
They don't care at the end ofthe day, their name's not on the
line.
It's yours.
Okay.
Whereas this model now bringsthe benefit of, I'm going to
look bad if I do a bad jobbecause I'm committed to the
(45:16):
relationship.
But gives you, the author, allthe control of what you wanted,
which is why you might have goneself publishing in the first
place.
That's the model, our publishingmodel, which is you get complete
control, you get a professionalproduct at the end of it, and
you get to keep all of theroyalties and pay us a
(45:37):
percentage at your discretiononce a year.
Nigel Rawlins (45:40):
Fantastic.
All right, is there somethingelse that we could talk about?
Debbie Jenkins (45:43):
I'm a bit of a chatterbox.
I think we've coveredeverything.
If I could make one suggestion,is if any of your listeners are
finding themselves bored of whatthey're saying or doing.
They might find themselves inthat boring quadrant where I
found myself.
And if they find themselvesthere, then be brave and ask
(46:05):
people what they think of them.
That was my kick out of theboring quadrant.
I said, what am I really goodat?
What do you really like from me?
When you speak to me, when youcome to me, what do you come to
me for?
And so that was when I realizedthat I needed to up the desire.
And so I think that's my, if Icould give one takeaway from my
chatterboxing, it's to be braveif you find yourself
(46:27):
disappearing into the noise andask people around you what they
think you should do next andwhat they think about you.
Nigel Rawlins (46:33):
I think that's good, yes.
It can be a lonely place ifyou're feeling like that.
How would you like people tofind you?
I will put detailed show noteswith this.
So where would you like peopleto connect with you?
Debbie Jenkins (46:47):
The easiest place is just to connect me at
DebbieJenkins.
com, because everything,anything else that you might
want to do with me, and I have afree bi weekly group where we
just meet up and talk about oneof these subjects so anything
that you want to do with me orconnect with me will be from
DebbieJenkins.
com is the best place.
Nigel Rawlins (47:05):
And are you on LinkedIn as well?
Debbie Jenkins (47:07):
I am on LinkedIn, I love connecting with
people there.
It's my favourite place.
Nigel Rawlins (47:11):
That's fantastic.
Thank you very much, Debbie, forjoining me.
It's been a wonderfulconversation, and as I said, I
love your books, and I wouldhope that people are going to
reach out and buy them.
You can get them on Kindle.
Debbie Jenkins (47:22):
Yay! Thank you, Nigel.
Thank you for having me on.
Welcome to the Wisepreneurspodcast today I'm excited, and I
(00:03):
really am, excited to hostDebbie Jenkins, a prolific
author and experienced publisherwhose engineering background
uniquely informs her strategicapproach to business.
In this episode, we delve intoDebbie's insights from her
latest books including Stop TheCredibility Crisis and Stop
Writing Books nobody Reads.
(00:24):
We explore how you can writeshort, impactful books that can
significantly enhance yourbusiness.
Her expertise in writing andpublishing offers valuable
lessons for independentprofessionals.
Join me for an engagingconversation with Debbie
Jenkins.
Nigel Rawlins (00:40):
Welcome Debbie to the Wisepreneurs podcast.
Can you tell us something aboutyourself and where you're from?
Debbie Jenkins (00:45):
Yeah, thanks Nigel for having me.
I'm really excited to talk toyou today.
So yeah, I am a Brit but I'velived in Spain for the last 19
years.
And so I've driven on theincorrect side of the road for
longer than I've driven on thecorrect side of the road.
And I was an engineer bydiscipline, so I did an
electronics engineering degree,but I wasn't a very good
engineer,'cause I talk too much.
(01:07):
And so I ended up finally, afterrunning a few businesses,
finally getting back to thething I always really wanted to
do, which was anything to dowith business and books and
writing.
So that's what I do and that'swhere I've come from.
Nigel Rawlins (01:20):
Did you start reading books as a young girl?
Where does this interest comefrom?
Debbie Jenkins (01:26):
Yeah, I used to, so I come from a very poor
family and so we didn't havemany books in the house.
And the books that we did have,I would have read them like 73
times.
The old Reader's Digest and Iwould just dive into them.
But we used to go to the libraryevery week and I would use up my
four library tickets.
Siblings tickets and anybodyelse who walked past and didn't
(01:47):
use their ticket.
So I would be reading reading,and then begging us to go back
the week after to swap them allout for something else.
Nigel Rawlins (01:54):
Which part of England was this?
Debbie Jenkins (01:56):
Central Birmingham, quite inner city
Nigel Rawlins (01:58):
Aren't libraries fantastic?
Debbie Jenkins (01:59):
I know, and they're so sad that there are so
few of them.
I love libraries and bookshops,and there's a few of those as
well.
But yeah, they're just, doorwaysinto other worlds.
They're amazing.
Nigel Rawlins (02:12):
Mmm, I think that's good.
All right.
So one of the reasons I wantedto speak to you is because of
the books you've written, whichI thought were fabulous.
And the one I read was, Stop theCredibility Crisis.
Can you tell me why did youwrite that book?
Debbie Jenkins (02:25):
I wrote that book for me, and I think that's
one of the best types of booksto write, if I'm honest.
Cause I wrote that book because,I was grappling.
with my own credibility crisis.
So I've been running businessesfor nearly 30 years and every 10
years or so, things wouldhappen, the environment changes,
the technology changes, stuffchanges.
(02:46):
And every 10 years or so youfeel, and I think it's even more
quickly now, more rapid, youfeel things have changed.
And in 2022, I started, havingsold my previous publishing
company, I realised I was inanother crisis mode and I was
starting to feel bored andboring just like seriously
(03:09):
feeling bo boring and bored withwhat I was doing.
And I evaluated that and thoughtwhat am I going to do to get
outta being bored and boring?
I would I joke, it's not a funnyjoke.
It's a true joke.
I joke that anybody who's everwritten a book then becomes a
book coach.
And so I was seeing competition.
(03:32):
Massive amounts of competitionand and good competition.
It was not knocking them, theywere doing great jobs but
massive amounts of competitionand everybody's saying the same
things.
So we were all saying, I'm abook coach.
I can help you write a book.
You should write a book.
A book's a really good idea.
Business books are reallyhelpful.
And we were all saying the samethings.
And so none of us were standingout.
(03:53):
And I was very fortunate becauseI've been doing it for 20 odd
years and so I had great trustbecause I had what I think of as
credibility clues.
I had all of the testimonials,previous books that I've
published, previous books thatI've ghost written, previous
books that I've written.
I've written 17.
So I had all the credibilityclues, but I was boring and,
(04:15):
slightly bored and so Ievaluated what was going on and
what did I need to do and that'swhen I came up with the idea for
the book and I didn't write thatbook immediately.
Why didn't I write that bookimmediately?
Because I didn't feel capable orconfident to write that book
immediately.
And first needed to write myother two books.
(04:35):
So I've written 17 in total, butthese three recent ones have
come as a trio.
As a short series of books.
And so I needed to write theother two books first.
And so in true Star Warsfashion, I wrote The first one
last because you really shouldread them in the other order,
but I didn't feel, competent orcapable to write that third one
(04:56):
first.
And so I wrote the other twofirst and got some good feedback
on them, changed my businessmodel, changed the way I was
working with clients, and thenfelt confident to write, the
credibility crisis book.
Nigel Rawlins (05:08):
Wow.
Because I read the credibilitycrisis first, and then I read,
Stop Writing Books Nobody Reads.
So which one did you writefirst?
Debbie Jenkins (05:17):
I wrote of these three, Start Writing Books
Nobody Reads first becausethat's my day job.
That is, I can help you write abook that people will want to
read.
And then the second part of myday job is helping you get use
that book to grow your business,which is Stop Selling Books
Nobody Buys.
But the first book, which is, Iwrote third, is Stop the
(05:38):
Credibility Crisis, becausethat's the why you should be
writing a book and using it togrow your business.
Without the why, most people dothe how to, the directions type
books, but without the why, thedoing doesn't make sense.
You need the why to put thedoing into perspective, into
context.
Nigel Rawlins (05:58):
I can tell you from reading just those two, I
really get what I need to do ifI'm going to be writing.
That's when I get the time,because I've probably written
about 80 articles on my website,but I'm revamping that into a
different way of doing things.
And then I want to take thoseand, but the podcast has given
me plenty to talk about too, orwrite about.
(06:21):
But what You Stop Writing BooksNobody Reads, it's just quite
brilliant, but we'll get intothat.
And I'm just going to, plug youright now that if you're not
reading these books, you, andyou're an independent
professional you're not on thepage.
You need to get onto this stuff.
Stop The Credibility Crisis, thewhy.
(06:41):
It's for people who are runningexpertise based businesses to
get credibility.
So tell me something about whydo they need to get their
credibility and how do they getto stand out?
Debbie Jenkins (06:53):
Okay it is the problem.
Standing out is the problem.
And We can stand out for thewrong reasons.
So what I was spotting, so thesewere the problems I was seeing.
There were lots of problems, butthe sort of main problems that
were impacting me.
And so those are the ones Imainly think about was that
there is a really low barrier toentry from becoming an expert in
a company to then be taking thatexpertise and becoming a
(07:16):
consultant or a coach or atrainer or, an independent.
So that's a really low barrierto entry.
Previously, like when I starteda business, the barrier to entry
was much harder.
the tech wasn't there, thesupport wasn't there, but now
that barrier to entry has beenjust swiped.
So that's one of the problems.
So anybody can claim thatcredibility by becoming a coach
(07:36):
or a consultant.
The other problems I was seeing,and this is a problem for all of
us expertise based businessesowners is that there is an
overload of information.
So we are not short ofinformation.
In the 90s you'd still read abook and you'd still go to a
library.
Whereas these days you just typeit in Google and suddenly you
(07:57):
have more information than youcan possibly ever read.
And for me, it became very loud.
The environment feels very loud.
There's lots of noise and how doyou break through that noise?
And then the third thing, sothese are the three things that
really impacted me.
The third thing was abouttechnology and AI.
And this is in 2022, this wasreally very clear, which was
(08:18):
technology and AI were making itso that, that, barrier to entry
disappeared.
Volume of information andtechnology and AI just
accelerated that.
It was just like a sudden whatwas already a problematic
suddenly took off being evenmore problematic.
And so any expertise basedbusiness owner will find
themselves with those problems.
So that's what I was trying tosolve.
(08:39):
So how do we solve that?
And in particular, It was abouthow do people want what you've
got to sell and trust you todeliver it.
So it's a trust desire paradox Iwas, playing with, which is, you
might have.
So for example, I felt that Iwas being boring.
And when I looked around theworld, I thought lots of people
(08:59):
were being boring.
Sorry, everybody, We're allsaying the same things in the
same way, doing the same lookingthe same.
We've gone through that periodwhere everybody was on Zoom and
everybody had their hello andlove heart candle in the
background, and we all lookedthe same.
and so how did your potentialclient decide if they should
trust you or not.
And so there was a trust part ofthe scale, but then there was
(09:23):
coupled with that, the desire.
And so some people are reallygood at amping up the trust.
That's usually our lovelyexpertise based business owners.
They've got the qualifications,they've got the skills, they've
worked with the people, they'vegot the, testimonials and case
studies.
Trust trust.
And then other people are reallygood at upping the desire scale.
And I call these bro commercebecause I'm cheeky.
(09:44):
And so they're the people whoare really confident at selling
something, even if they've neverdone it before.
So they're like, they have thismassive amount of confidence and
they are out there.
And they are really cleverunderstanding what we want.
So they're the people who say,six pack in a week and write
your book in seven seconds.
Boom.
Nigel Rawlins (10:04):
Oh, Twitter's full of it.
Thousand people sign up fortheir writing course and I'm
thinking, but they're all thesame.
Debbie Jenkins (10:10):
And they're just going to churn out more noise,
okay, and that's just going tomake the problem bigger and
louder and so I want for myclients and for the people I
work with is that we can amp upthe desirability and fall back
and use our trust that, thethings that we know we've
(10:31):
already done.
And that puts us into what Ithink of as the credibility
quadrant.
So it's, we're doing somethingthat people want and we are
trusted to deliver it, to beable to do it.
So that trust and desire,without those two things, we
either fall into boring or, intogrowth.
Nigel Rawlins (10:48):
The bro commerce, I look after 18 websites and I
probably say this every podcastI talk about and some of them
don't need to stand out so muchbecause they're fairly
established businesses andthey've got their clientele, but
others are in a competitivesituation and they're competing
against 20 or 30 other websitesand they're all using SEO and
(11:10):
writing booklets and writingblog articles and stuff like
that.
And that's the issue.
And if you're an expert insomething and there's 20 other
experts in the market or ahundred other experts and now
across the world there can beexperts who are competing with
you.
Your problem is standing out, sowhat you're talking about is
actually creating something thatstands out and gets through that
(11:33):
noise.
We live in an expertise economy.
I have hired people in Spain todo a couple of different jobs,
experts there, or hire people inthe Philippines, New Zealand,
many countries I hire peoplefrom, so that we're in a world
economy in many ways, especiallyif you're a freelancer or self
employed professional, so whatabout the technology?
(11:55):
That's obviously changed andthat must be quite stressful
because you've got to, forpeople who are older you're not
so tech savvy and you're outthere trying to work, what are
some of the challenges you foundwith the technology?
Debbie Jenkins (12:07):
Yeah.
So I think the technology, so AIfor, let's use AI, cause that's
the big technology thateverybody's talking about.
And AI is really useful as whatI think of as a sidekick.
So I call him Buddy and I usehim as a sidekick, but I would
never, I personally would neverallow my AI to write my book.
(12:28):
And I know that there's somepeople think that's a good idea.
And I, I'm not going to have astand up argument with them, but
I don't want to read a bookwritten by AI.
I want to read a book written bya real person, a real human
being who's been through all thethings and done all the things.
Gets me, understands me, canbuild rapport with me.
Like for example, this podcast Iwouldn't want to be interviewed
(12:49):
by a robot.
I would much prefer to beinterviewed by the wonderful
Nigel, because then we have aconversation, we build rapport,
we understand each other, we canchange direction.
Technology, back to thequestion, technology has leveled
the playing field.
So it's given everybody access,which is a great benefit, but
all benefits, I think, come withtheir downsides.
(13:11):
And I think it's going to justmake the amount of noise in the
market louder.
And I have three things that Ithink we need to do.
I think we need to bedisruptive.
We need to be creative and weneed to make connections.
And if we don't be disruptive,creative and make connections,
then it doesn't matter how loudwe shout, people are not going
to hear us above the rest of thenoise.
(13:33):
And so Nigel, what you do withyour podcasts is this
connection.
You help people connect.
We connect with you, but we alsoconnect with each other because
we can hear each other's voices.
and that connection, I think is,it's just so valuable.
I think it's only going to getmore and more valuable rather
than get more diminished.
Nigel Rawlins (13:51):
I think that's definitely it.
The personal is going to beimportant.
Again, the biggest problem of meproducing a podcast is I'm
competing with every otherpodcast out there.
And, and that's why I've calledit the Wisepreneurs.
It is aimed at older, moremature professionals, mostly
women.
Who are self employed orthinking of being self employed,
(14:12):
and hopefully that's a narrowenough niche that eventually
somebody will say, Oh, that'swhat I'm really interested in.
But even after 50 episodes, I'mnot getting that many followers.
So it does take a while, butI've noticed a lot of on the
podcast chats, they're saying Ihaven't got many followers or
gee, it's so hard, I've got tokeep doing it with the 50
activities I've got to do toproduce one podcast, there's
(14:36):
virtually 50 things you have todo.
You do them automatically, butI'm, as I said I'm trying to
automate some of those processesso it doesn't take so long.
And that's the issue is there'sso much information out there
and so many people screaming.
And as you said, the brocommerce people they're very
good.
You're right.
I've paid for some Twittercourses to get 50, 000 followers
(14:57):
and it doesn't work.
It worked for them, maybe.
Debbie Jenkins (15:00):
Yes.
It worked for them becauseyou're now one of their
followers.
And so there is a really bigmarket for selling like for
example, LinkedIn.
So how to build your followingon LinkedIn from a person who
has a massive following onLinkedIn, but they don't do
anything else.
Nigel Rawlins (15:17):
I signed up for one of those courses.
Debbie Jenkins (15:19):
Me too.
Nigel Rawlins (15:20):
The course was 200 bucks, so it wasn't that
expensive.
So very smart positioning,expert in that.
But, as I went through it, itwas all formulaic.
And if I was just thinking, andthis is the problem, and I think
you you clicked on it thatyou've got to differentiate in
many ways, or be different orconfront them.
If those people are using thatformula, they're all going to
(15:41):
sound the same again.
Debbie Jenkins (15:42):
Absolutely.
All you're doing is just addingto the noise and still you won't
be standing out.
And I think there is a risk andit's definitely a risk for
people starting their firstbusiness.
I fell into this in my firstbusiness in the nineties, which
is the risk is you say we arebetter.
So now you're commoditizingyourself against everybody else
and you're just putting yourselfin the same band, but you're
(16:04):
saying we're a bit better or abit cheaper, which is even
bigger danger.
And I think what we have to sayis we're different.
This is this disruptive part.
So we're different.
Why are we different?
Because we don't just say do thesame thing.
So for example, with bookpublishing, I don't say write
your book, it's your legacybook.
Okay.
40, 000 words.
Blum done.
I say write short, valuablebooks, lots of them, make more
(16:26):
of them, do a series of thembecause then you're going to get
the flywheel effect.
You're going to get Amazon onyour side because they'll
present your books.
You're going to write fast andget books out there faster.
So that's a differentiation.
That's something a slightlydisruptive because most people
think they're only ever going towrite one book.
And I'm saying, no, write aseries of books.
So it's disrupting the sort ofpattern.
(16:47):
One of the things people when Italk about disruption though is
oh my gosh, I've got to doeverything completely different.
Now, I've got to do podcastsstanding on my head.
I don't know, they're like sillydisruption.
I don't think you need to dothat.
I think you just need to find adifferentiation angle that
people can grasp and understandand that will pass what I think
(17:07):
of as my 12 year old test.
So if I explain to you, write aseries of short valuable books
that I take to a 12 year old,this is my fidelity test, a 12
year old could then tell a 10year old and if the 10 year old
told it to me it would stillmake sense.
That's a differentiator, that isa disruption.
If your disruption is just crazyfor crazy's sake, then that's
(17:29):
not going to get you what you'relooking for.
Nigel Rawlins (17:31):
That's what I love about your book on Stop
Writing books That Nobody Readsbecause you do go into that and
you're saying it's okay to writea shorter book and you go into
why and how and we'll talk aboutthat.
But yes, the 40, 000, words it'sthe thing.
And you might take three or fouryears and some of the writers do
take three or four years or moreto write them, but you're saying
(17:53):
write shorter books.
So let's talk about that.
Because, I thought, wow, that'ssmart.
Debbie Jenkins (17:59):
Think this is how I was thinking of it.
And this is why I did it wasbecause every time I would come
to a writing of my own book I'mhelping my clients write theirs,
it would turn into a giganticproject.
It would get bigger and biggerand bigger, because they would
feel, and I would feel that wehad to get everything in there
because it's'The book'.
Okay.
So there was a pressure to geteverything, in there.
(18:19):
So if you, take that pressureaway and say I'm not going to
get everything in here.
Okay, that's, first of all, thatmakes it easier for you, the
writer.
But it also makes it easier forthe reader because the reader
doesn't need to know everythingyou know.
They don't need to knoweverything.
They just need to know that youcan solve their first, next
problem.
And then after that, you cansolve the next problem.
And then after that, you cansolve the next problem.
(18:41):
And then they'll follow you.
They'll come along with you.
And then You'll build up thattrust.
You'll build up the desire forthe next book.
So you're building trust anddesire by creating the books.
And we tap into this shortattention span Tik Tokers and 30
second videos and that stuff.
And we tap into that, withouttrying to fight it all the time.
(19:03):
We just say, okay.
I'm going to write you a book.
It's a short book, you can readit in a couple of hours.
At the end of it you're going toget a transformation, a result.
And then you're going to love mebecause I've helped you get that
transformation.
And then you might want to workwith me.
And then you might want my nextbook.
And then you're going to tellother people about my book.
Whereas if it's a long book, Idon't know about you.
(19:24):
Our first connection was yousaid you've got all these unread
books on your Kindle.
Oh my gosh, and I was like, yes,me too.
I have hundreds of opened andunfinished books.
Whereas if you write short,valuable books, people can read
them in a couple of hours anddive into your world with you
and then take action, get aresult and be happy.
Nigel Rawlins (19:46):
I think that is fantastic especially for a
specific thing.
Like most of the books I read Idon't really read a lot of
business books.
There's one I've been readingthat I've read twice now and I
will interview the author.
It's about, believe it or not,strategy.
It's brilliant.
But I read it on my Kindle firstand now I bought the actual
(20:06):
physical book and I've beenreading it, underlining, and
then I'll take some notes oncards and then I'll just keep
going through because I reallywant to get this in my head.
This guy's pretty retired now,but he worked for DuPont for
many years, and he's written themost brilliant book.
But it's not something that youcan read in a day.
It's taken me six months andit'll probably take me another
(20:27):
couple of months till I've gotmy head really around it, and I
can actually use what he'ssaying, because I find it
fascinating.
And then I'll talk to him on thepodcast.
And I've already spoken to himand I think he's brilliant.
But Richard Rumelt, who wrote abook on strategy, said to him,
you are the only one I've talkedto because you're not an
academic And I think he wrote anintroduction to him or
(20:48):
something.
So the brilliant thing you'vejust said is write a short book
that I think solves a problem.
And then maybe they'll buyanother book from you.
And then maybe they'll want towork with you.
Now that's the interestingthing, isn't it?
Because if you're an expertisebased business or professional,
you want clients.
(21:09):
So what you're saying is, bywriting these expertise based
books, It builds up yourcredibility and because they're
short and sweet and on the ball,they might buy the next one and
the next one, and they'reaffordable.
Of course,
Debbie Jenkins (21:21):
Yes.
Nigel Rawlins (21:22):
eventually they trust you enough.
You can do it on your website,but it's hard work.
Debbie Jenkins (21:26):
Yeah, and there's still a credibility,
extra credibility clue with aprinted book.
There's still, and I hope thatwill go on for a long time, but
there is still that because ifyou've gone to the time and
effort and energy to get yourbook professionally edited,
produced, published, then thatadds an extra clue to people
that you take yourselfseriously.
(21:48):
I think it's one of the problemsfor e books at the moment,
remember I said earlier aboutthe barrier to entry so low?
Anybody can write an e book.
But it takes just a bit moreenergy and effort to get
published and to publish a printbook.
And that helps with the addingan extra level of trust in you
to help with that credibility.
I was just thinking, thestrategy guy book there is still
(22:11):
space for your strategy guy typebooks, which are, these are the
big, meaty, deep, importantresearch books are still placed
for those books.
But they're not necessarily thetype of book that's going to for
our expertise based businessowners, our professionals, it's
they're not necessarily thetypes of books that are going to
help them build business, togrow their business, to help
(22:34):
them get clients because theytake too long to write and then
they take too long to read andthat lag can be the death for
some businesses.
If the lag between an assetgetting into hands and
converting it to a client is toolong,
Nigel Rawlins (22:48):
my aim of that is to distill it down to something
that's useful for a one personprofessional business.
So I guess that could be a bookin itself.
Debbie Jenkins (22:56):
It would be a brilliant book.
Nigel Rawlins (22:58):
That's what I love about his stuff, it's so
practical and it's just so real.
And it's called the EmergentApproach to Strategy because it
says you cannot predict thefuture.
You have no idea what's going tohappen next week, but you can
plan for it, and it is all veryinteresting, and I think you get
it as well too.
You write about books, that getread.
Let's talk about that.
(23:18):
The book has to get read.
I've got lots of books that Ihaven't read.
Debbie Jenkins (23:22):
Yeah, I call them the sloppy shelf sitters.
I have lots of books that Ihaven't read on my Kindle, on my
desk.
And I have really good intentionto read them.
Usually the title or subtitle isfabulous, or the author is
fabulous.
And you go, I really need thatbook.
And you get the book.
And then it comes, and it'sheavy, and it's big, and it's
thick, and it's deep, and thereare no pictures.
I love pictures in books.
And that kind of reduces yourchances for me of reading a
(23:47):
book.
And so we don't want that asbusiness owners.
We actually want people to readour books.
And why do we want them to readour books?
Because if they read our books,this is my idea, which is if
they read our books, one,they're going to get to know us
a bit better because they'llunderstand why we're saying the
things we're saying.
But two, is if we've written ourbooks well, they're going to get
a result, they're going to get atransformation, something will
(24:09):
change in their lives for them.
And then we, by association, areconnected with that
transformation and therefore wehave more credibility in the
reader's eyes.
And we want our books to beread, and we want our books to
be referred to.
And if you read a book, it'smuch easier to refer it.
You can say, you need to readchapter six, because chapter six
(24:31):
talks all about the problemyou've just been describing.
And so we can refer books.
They don't necessarily need tobe bought.
And that's the subject of thegreen book,'Stop Selling Books
Nobody Buys'.
Because sometimes we can use,and frequently we can use, our
books to generate businesswithout selling them.
(24:52):
We just get them into the handsof the right people.
They will read it, they willenjoy it, they will be
transformed, they have some sortof transformation, and therefore
associate us with that brillianttransformation.
Nigel Rawlins (25:03):
So it's actually being written for that purpose,
to create that transformation.
But your book explains how youdo that and it is, it's quite a
discipline you've got in there.
You're saying, you need to getpeople to give you feedback and
it's got to be a real problemfor one person.
Debbie Jenkins (25:20):
Yeah, I'm so bossy about that.
Nigel Rawlins (25:22):
Yes, I
Debbie Jenkins (25:23):
I am.
Okay, did you notice?
Yeah, I was running a sessionlast week with some clients and
I was saying we need to writethis for one real person.
They're like, Oh, she's on thatagain, the one real person.
Okay.
I really believe this is true.
having written 17 of my ownbooks and having published over
200 over the years.
I know that the books that dobest for the author are the
(25:45):
books that were written for onereader.
Why?
Because if you really, trulyunderstand that one reader and
you write the book to solvetheir real problems, not the
guess problems, the imaginaryproblems you might have made up,
but real problems that theyhave, because you've asked them,
You've understood them, you'veinvestigated with them, you've
(26:06):
seen what they tried before thatdidn't work.
If you've done all of that, ifyou've done that due diligence
and you really understand yourone reader, you will find that
there are other readers justlike them.
But if you try and write for anavatar or a group of people, you
end up writing for nobody andnobody feels like the book was
written for them.
So excited when somebody says,Oh, it felt like you wrote that
(26:28):
book for me, that means I did agood job.
Nigel Rawlins (26:30):
And you also say as you said, the book has a job
to do, not all books are read,and there are types of books
you're suggesting they shoulddo, so you said the'directions
type book','the landmark book',but not'maps'.
Do you want to talk about thosethree?
Debbie Jenkins (26:46):
Yeah, that's another of my bossy things.
Again, I'm a very bossy person.
So I think of books as abusiness asset.
So it's something that youshould Invest in and it should
give you a return on thatinvestment rather than just be a
a cost for you in your business.
Okay.
So I think all assets can fallinto directions, maps or
landmarks.
So what are direction typeassets?
(27:08):
They are one, two, three, ABC,do this, then this.
And in order to write adirections type book, you have
to know exactly the one reader.
Or the one listener, in yourcase Nigel with your podcast,
where they actually are rightnow.
Okay, so you can then give themdirections to turn left at the
pub type directions, yeah?
But you can't give a turn leftat the pub type direction if you
(27:28):
didn't know where they were.
So directions type books andthey're brilliant books.
They are how to get stuff doneand so it might be how to get
your website done on WordPressor how to start a podcast or how
to set your tech up for audio.
Okay, whatever it is.
They're how to type books.
And so in my case, it's how towrite a book that people read
(27:49):
great books, good books You canwrite them, succinctly and you
can make them very valuable.
On the other end of the extremeare the landmark type books.
So these are I'm standing on topof a mountain waving a flag.
I don't know where you are,reader or listener.
But you're somewhere and you'relooking for a flag.
(28:10):
Okay.
And this is my flag.
There are going to be othermountains with other people
waving their flags, theirlandmarks.
And your landmark has to bereally distinct, different,
probably a bit disruptive.
So that the reader or thelistener will take the time and
effort and energy to walk upyour mountain.
They might be already halfway upsomeone else's mountain, and you
(28:32):
need to get their attention andget them down their mountain and
up yours, okay?
So those are landmark typebooks, and they're wide, too.
Really strong, distinct why youshould do this.
And Stop the Credibility Crisiswas a why to book, it's my
landmark type book.
It's if we don't do this, if youdon't do this, there's going to
be a disaster.
Rah! Okay?
And then there's those books inthe middle which are called map
(28:54):
type books.
I call them map type books.
Now map type books, there'snothing wrong with them, I've
written some map type books.
But for expertise based businessowners, we don't want to get
bogged down in mapping theterrain, the rules, the
regulations, giving them muchattention to every part of the
map.
What, how we see the map, it'sour version of the terrain, it's
(29:17):
not the real terrain, it's a mapof the terrain.
We don't, that's quite labourintensive job to do.
And frequently the readerdoesn't care.
They just don't care.
they just want to know how do Iget this job done or why should
I do this job in the firstplace?
And often, if we write a maptype book, we end up writing a
book that won't get read, won'tget referred, won't get searched
(29:37):
for, won't get shared, becausethere's just too much and they
also go out of date.
Our map type books, thedeadliest.
They go out of date quitequickly.
So I've got a map type bookwhich has been in production for
nearly 20 years.
And I'm at my fourth edition.
And every single time I publishon that edition, immediately, I
(29:59):
see something that's out ofdate.
This is because map type booksare dreadful for expertise based
business owners.
This is a different businessthat I run in Spain.
Focus on directions or landmarksand you'll keep yourself safe.
Nigel Rawlins (30:11):
And you do explain those in this book, in
the'Stop Writing Books ThatNobody Reads'.
Now your steps to write thebooks are really quite
interesting.
If you use AI you just say to AIgive me an outline for this
particular topic, but you'resaying capture your thoughts
first.
In other words, maybe use a bitof paper and pen and write it
down.
Then you write an outline andthen you use a pyramid scheme to
(30:34):
write things or the structures.
So tell us what you mean bycapturing the thoughts.
Debbie Jenkins (30:40):
Yeah, I think, most expertise based business
owners, you could class them asthought leaders if they found
that confidence to get theirthoughts out there.
So you Nigel will have a hundredthoughts a day and some of them
will be brilliant thoughts andsome of them will be thoughts
that you'll just let fly by.
And so the key is to capturethose thoughts and to mix those
(31:00):
thoughts up.
That's that differentiation.
That's that, disruption thatwe're looking for.
Okay, so we need to capture ourthoughts first.
If we say to the AI, write me abook about writing books, it's
going to give you the book thateverybody else's could write,
and you don't want that.
You want that differentiator.
You want the distinction.
And so one of the things,another of my bossy things, is
(31:23):
that I encourage my authors tothink for almost as long as
they're writing, so we can writewithin three months.
If we've done good thinkingfirst.
And so I take them through twosteps in that thinking process.
One is to write a workingoutline.
So it's just all these thingsI've captured over the years or
however I've captured them.
I use Notion, sometimes I mightuse Roam or Obsidian.
(31:46):
But however you've captured, youmight use paper.
I use lots of paper and notepadsand cards and post its.
However you've captured them,you now go through the thinking
process and create a workingoutline and you test that
working outline with your one,at least your one real reader,
and then a smaller inner circlegroup, which I think of as the
book lovers team, but you testit.
(32:07):
You don't just assume you knowwhat people want to read.
And then there's another step Iencourage people to do, which is
to create the writing outlinebecause the writing outline,
this is where I use BarbaraMinto's SCQA process because
it's just a beautiful process.
It's a true tried and testedprocess.
It works really well and ithelps you get there faster,
(32:28):
which is SCQA, which issituation, complication,
question, and then your chapteris the answer.
If you go through that for everychapter, you have one situation,
complication, question, answerfor the whole book.
So that's your one, answer foryour one reader, but you know
where they are, you know what'scomplicating things for them,
you know that the question thatthey want resolved, and then
(32:50):
your book is the answer.
And then you do that for eachchapter, and then you do that
for each sub chapter.
You're going to create a bookthat is so easily readable that
people fall into the nextchapter because it's clearly
ordered and organized.
And the better thing than all ofthat, which is brilliant for
your reader, is it makes it somuch easier for you, the writer.
(33:15):
So you, the author, that meansyou can get it written in a
couple of months.
Now you can just say to AI,write me a book about writing
books and it will come up withsomething.
And you can then say, fill inthat chapter, fill in this
chapter, fill in this chapter,and it will come up with
something.
But it's not going to have thatintelligence and that thought
and that nuance and that abilityto connect different ideas that
(33:35):
you add to whatever book youwrite.
Nigel Rawlins (33:38):
Oh, I think that's spot on because I'm
finding now I have used AI alot, but it's not capturing what
I want it to say.
So if it kicks out somethingfrom say, for example, a
transcript of one of thepodcasts I now say to it look, I
was thinking about this, duringthe podcast, and these are the
things I want to emphasize.
(34:00):
Kick me out something with that,and then I have to edit and
saying, no, I want it to be morelike that.
And then I can take it when Iput it into say Grammarly, which
I'll edit in there, and thenI'll rewrite it myself in my own
words.
So it does help you, but I thinkyour approach it's changed the
way I think about how I writenow because that's the big issue
is how do we get who we are, ourwriter's voice out there?
(34:23):
And you won't do it with AI.
It's an AI voice and it's prettyobvious, I think anything that,
like I'm seeing the wordseasoned a lot.
We're seasoned professionals.
Debbie Jenkins (34:33):
Yeah, and'realm' is my favourite.
If I see the word'realm'anywhere, I guess it's AI.
And so sometimes I even actuallyuse it.
In the realm of writing books.
In the realm of podcasting.
Landscapes.
Oh gosh, yeah.
So there's so many words.
But Nigel, you're using AIfantastically.
I think how you use AI isbrilliant.
I think of that as sourcegrounded AI, that rather than
(34:55):
you just give a question to theAI and let it go and find the
average of the average, which iswhat it creates from the large
language model.
You're giving it your source, soyour interviews, your podcasts,
and you're saying, from thatsource, write in my voice,
writing the way I want you towrite, follow my rules, and that
(35:16):
source grounding is a brilliantuse of AI, and I, I encourage my
authors to use that too.
But we never let the AI writeour stuff.
Nigel Rawlins (35:24):
I have thousands and thousands of notes in Roam
because I've been taking notesfor four years.
So I read articles and it feedsin, and then all the books I've
read on the Kindle, I feed in.
So some of those topics, I'vegot several sources so I can try
and mesh it together and bringit out.
I'm even using AI now to processthe notes I have on my ROAM
(35:47):
database.
So asking it to give me asummary, asking it to find the
major themes that are in there,give me an FAQ.
Give me some questions that Ican ask.
Give me some alternative,article ideas that I can write.
But that's because I've beenusing it fairly heavily all day,
every day, and I also learn asmuch as I can about it.
(36:10):
But I think just pressing abutton and saying write me
something like that, that reallyfrightens me.
and I'm hoping that, cause oneof the big issues for all my
clients is that their websitedoes stand out.
Now, if Google is going to have,a keyword dense, article written
by AI, beat a handwritten,thought out professional one,
then we're in trouble.
Debbie Jenkins (36:30):
Yeah, same with books.
If Amazon's going to allow an AIwritten keyword dense book,
trump a thoughtfully written,rapport building, real person,
credible person book, then weare in trouble.
We are in trouble and we dunnowhat's gonna happen.
So we have to read your strategybook to be better at at the
(36:51):
emergent approach.
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (36:53):
The interesting thing about that strategy book
is the strategy is a rule.
It's a constraint that you haveto follow.
And that's what I liked aboutwhat you say.
This is how you write a booklike this.
You have to do these things.
It's a decision he calls it adecision making framework, and
out of that decision makingframework, you come up with the
(37:15):
rule that you follow, which isthe strategy rule.
That helps you make yourdecisions.
Debbie Jenkins (37:20):
I need to read this book.
My engineer background is justlike waving at that book.
I really love it.
The Theory of Constraints.
I put constraints into allprocesses, all books, 20, 000
words is the constraint.
Obviously you can break yourconstraint if you want to, but
otherwise you're tending tochaos and, entropy and all sorts
(37:41):
of horrid things.
And you don't want to do thatyou want to have nice
constraints so that you can getjobs finished.
Nigel Rawlins (37:46):
It's about bottlenecks and the emergent
approach is the whole idea thereis, it's very hard to define
what the world's going to do.
So you have to have some rules.
How are you going to know?
You've got some rules.
Debbie Jenkins (37:58):
Yeah, it's brilliant, I love this idea.
I'm actually writing a book atthe moment, it's called Dog Gate
Stick, which is about the theoryof constraints.
The idea is that, if you imaginea dog with a stick in its mouth
and it tries to get through agate, and the gate is the
constraint, the dog has to dosomething.
If it keeps walking towards thegate with the stick that is
wider than the gate, it's nevergoing to get through, banging
(38:21):
your head against a brick walltype thing.
But so this idea of constraintsand having rules some people
really don't like, I'm not, youcan't tell me how to write my
book, I'm not going to tell youhow to write your book, I'm
going to tell you why to writeyour book with these
constraints, so that your voiceis there and it sounds like you
and we get it finished.
Nigel Rawlins (38:43):
That's the issue.
I'm really interested in AI andautomation at the moment, and
I've got three little e booksthat I've written that I haven't
yet edited and made sure thatit's got my little thing in it.
Because I'm really interested ingetting these automation things
done.
And I really need to do thispodcast.
And that's my biggest dangerwith a strategy rule is that's
(39:03):
really going to constrain me andI want to do 50 things.
And I've realized, that's thelesson we have to learn.
You can't do everything.
The other big lesson you have tolearn is it takes many years to
stand out that it's not gonnajust happen with one book.
You've got to do the series, butthe discipline that you've got
in there, that's what I reallyloved about it.
(39:23):
I squirmed when it said, Show itto somebody, get some feedback.
And I'm going, Oh, but it'smine, it's personal, I want to
just put it out there.
And you're saying, no, getsomebody to look at it, get some
feedback.
Debbie Jenkins (39:35):
I tell you that, that process, frequent and
regular feedback changes books.
it changes the people who writebooks because it makes us a
little bit more humble, I think,because we do have that.
I certainly do.
It's it's a lovely book.
It's fantastic.
I wrote it.
Of course it's brilliant.
I have one of my wonderful betareaders.
(39:56):
She reads everything I write andall.
So thoughtful and chic.
Her name's Karen Cory and she'sfabulous.
And what she does is she makeseverything I do better, and she
does it so effortlessly and shedoes it so beautifully.
When you find those types ofpeople in your life who can give
you that feedback, they don'tmake you feel foolish or silly
for making a mistake or gettingsomething wrong or for not being
(40:19):
clear.
They make you a better writer.
Gather those people around you.
They're your wonderful, I callthem the book Clubber's Team..
You want two or three of thosepeople that are really on your
side, but also have thatconfidence to give you the hard
feedback.
You went off track a bit there,Deb.
Nigel Rawlins (40:37):
That's that will be my biggest fear is finding
three people and asking them todo that.
But, I think that's what you'resaying.
If you're going to try and standout in, with your expertise
based business, these are someof the challenges you're going
to have to face.
Debbie Jenkins (40:51):
Yeah.
Those people that read yourbooks and that give you that
strong feedback, they tend toturn into your biggest
advocates, your biggestreferrers, because they really
get you and they've investedbecause they've given you that
feedback, they've invested inwhat you're creating in your
asset.
And so they tend to turn intoyour biggest advocates and
referrers as well.
(41:12):
So I think getting over thefear, and I have the fear, I
have the fear every time, everysingle book, every single thing
I have the fear of what arepeople going to say, but getting
over that really helps you writebetter books and also create a
little gang of people who lovewhat you do.
Nigel Rawlins (41:28):
So let's just talk about your coaching then.
So people hire you to help themdo this.
How does that work?
Debbie Jenkins (41:35):
So the big thing I changed so yeah, so previously
I've been doing one to one.
One to one is lovely, it'swonderful, but it's very
intensive and that means it'svery expensive.
And so I still do one to one butit's, the price is high.
And there has to be a massivecommitment.
The price is not only in cash,but also in time and energy and
thoughtfulness.
Okay, so what I decided to dowas, I also I noticed that that
(42:00):
one to one relationship isbrilliant because you can build
up lots of strength in that.
But I was always getting myauthors to go outside of our one
to one relationship and get thatfeedback like we were just
talking about getting to thebook lovers team.
So I thought, what if I broughttwo or three or five authors
together and they're still goingthrough that almost one to one
because I'm there with themevery week.
(42:22):
But they also have an inbuiltfeedback gang, peers, group,
book lovers team, already builtin, who are also going through
it, so they're going to be verysensitive to giving feedback and
understand that fear that we'reall feeling.
And so that's when I came upwith the idea of writing
cohorts.
And I've done four cohorts now,and I'm recruiting for the fifth
(42:44):
one in September.
And the cohorts have beenamazing because, this is
community, this is connection,this is everything wrapped up in
one.
It's the intelligence level inthe room.
Each of my clients is superintelligent, but then you bring
them all together and theintelligence is off the scale.
And and the empathy is off thescale, the understanding.
(43:05):
I am so proud to say howbrilliant their books turn out
because It's just like anaccumulator effect.
And that's how I'm working withpeople mostly now.
So you join a cohort and youwork with a small group of
people who are all dedicated.
We get our books written withina year and published within a
year.
And so you have thoseconstraints in there.
(43:26):
So we're in this stage now Wehave the whole publishing
process and package, and so wepublish their books for them.
But the benefit to them is notonly the cohort and the group,
is our publishing model isdifferent.
So this was another of mydisruptions that came up with in
2022, which was the publishingmodel is different.
The old traditional publishingroute is you would go out there,
(43:47):
you would pitch to a publisher,they would take a bet on you,
you would then be on the linefor writing your book and fit
within their guidelines and allof that, and you would have a,
rule set on that.
And then you, the author, wouldbe, on the line for marketing
your book because all publishersrequire and rely upon the author
to market their books.
So that's the old way.
(44:08):
And then a new way came about,which is my old company that I
sold, which is called a hybridway, which is you pay for the
professional services and thenthe publisher takes a percentage
of royalties.
But the new way that I came upwith which has been going around
for a little while, but the wayI do it is slightly differently,
which is you just pay for theprofessional services.
And the addition I've added onthere is, and we do a reverse
(44:31):
royalties, so you have 100percent control of the published
book, and then you pay me aroyalty once a year.
Okay, so it's a very lowroyalty.
So now I am committed.
Traditional publishers, you havethe benefit of them being
committed to making a good andprofessional product because
their name is on the line.
Hybrid publishers you have theircommitment to a good product
(44:55):
because, they're going to getusually 50 50 of the profit.
the publishers of service typethere was no commitment there.
So you pay an editor and theydon't care at the end of the
day.
They just walk off and doanother job.
You pay a designer.
They don't care at the end ofthe day, their name's not on the
line.
It's yours.
Okay.
Whereas this model now bringsthe benefit of, I'm going to
look bad if I do a bad jobbecause I'm committed to the
(45:16):
relationship.
But gives you, the author, allthe control of what you wanted,
which is why you might have goneself publishing in the first
place.
That's the model, our publishingmodel, which is you get complete
control, you get a professionalproduct at the end of it, and
you get to keep all of theroyalties and pay us a
(45:37):
percentage at your discretiononce a year.
Nigel Rawlins (45:40):
Fantastic.
All right, is there somethingelse that we could talk about?
Debbie Jenkins (45:43):
I'm a bit of a chatterbox.
I think we've coveredeverything.
If I could make one suggestion,is if any of your listeners are
finding themselves bored of whatthey're saying or doing.
They might find themselves inthat boring quadrant where I
found myself.
And if they find themselvesthere, then be brave and ask
(46:05):
people what they think of them.
That was my kick out of theboring quadrant.
I said, what am I really goodat?
What do you really like from me?
When you speak to me, when youcome to me, what do you come to
me for?
And so that was when I realizedthat I needed to up the desire.
And so I think that's my, if Icould give one takeaway from my
chatterboxing, it's to be braveif you find yourself
(46:27):
disappearing into the noise andask people around you what they
think you should do next andwhat they think about you.
Nigel Rawlins (46:33):
I think that's good, yes.
It can be a lonely place ifyou're feeling like that.
How would you like people tofind you?
I will put detailed show noteswith this.
So where would you like peopleto connect with you?
Debbie Jenkins (46:47):
The easiest place is just to connect me at
DebbieJenkins.
com, because everything,anything else that you might
want to do with me, and I have afree bi weekly group where we
just meet up and talk about oneof these subjects so anything
that you want to do with me orconnect with me will be from
DebbieJenkins.
com is the best place.
Nigel Rawlins (47:05):
And are you on LinkedIn as well?
Debbie Jenkins (47:07):
I am on LinkedIn, I love connecting with
people there.
It's my favourite place.
Nigel Rawlins (47:11):
That's fantastic.
Thank you very much, Debbie, forjoining me.
It's been a wonderfulconversation, and as I said, I
love your books, and I wouldhope that people are going to
reach out and buy them.
You can get them on Kindle.
Debbie Jenkins (47:22):
Yay! Thank you, Nigel.
Thank you for having me on.
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