In this strategic episode, Everett O’Keefe, Founder of Ignite Press, shares how a book can be your most powerful marketing tool as a stage 3 founder. If you’re struggling with visibility, long sales cycles, and proving expertise that others can’t see, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What it takes to use your book as the ultimate marketing asset
– Why a book dramatically raises your authority even if prospects never read it
– How to write a book that attracts ideal clients and makes them more compliant
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a founder. I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and if you’ve ever watched a less than qualified competitor walk away with a deal that you should have won, you know how frustrating it is to have expertise that no one can see, especially those of you who are fighting through level three, when you’ve got a whole bunch of mouths to feed to make things worse. So, the problem is that credentials, referrals, and even a great track record can all be invisible until someone already trusts you enough to ask, that’s the chicken and the egg problem that most founders never solve. But today’s guest has helped more than 150 founders solve it, and he’s going to show us exactly how. So, let me introduce him with us today, Mr. Everett O’Keefe. He’s a Wall Street Journal USA Today and international number one bestselling author, The Power of the Published is his most recent solo work. He’s also helped create and launch more than 150 bestselling books for his clients. Everett speaks across the nation on the power of publishing. He’s the founder of Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that specializes in helping entrepreneurs as well as business and medical professionals to ignite their businesses by becoming best-selling authors. Well, Everett, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here.
Everett O’Keefe
Scott, thank you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so as I was reading, there’s this line I told you this coming in that just kind of jumped off, and that is, I think it’s more a question for me still. So maybe you can answer it for us, but the question is this: Can you actually influence folks, your prospective clients, other folks in the industry? Can you influence people with a book that they have never read?
Everett O’Keefe
Yeah, absolutely. So, Scott, thanks for having me on. I tell you, the there is great power in the unread book, of course. We all want our clients and prospects to read our books, but the truth is, the vast majority who people who encounter your book won’t read it, right? They’ll have heard about it, they’ll hear your name associated with the title of it, maybe they’ll see the cover, or maybe they’ll actually have a copy of the book in their hand, but how many of us have books on our nightstands, right, or in on our bookshelves? Our best intentions to read, and we never get around to it, but it’s one of the things I love about books, even if people never even open it up, it continuously sits there and screams your qualifications to your prospect or your client. They see it on their desk, they come across it on Amazon, or in your email, or in social media, or whatever. Just the fact that your name is associated with that book just gives so much credibility, and it’s crazy, Scott. Right here, we are in this age where you and I are huge on streaming video, right, and streaming audio, and we understand the power of these things, but we still get, we still revere authors, we still give special credence and authority to authors, and that’s true, even if someone never even reads the book.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s wild. It’s wild. So it’s such an irony to me, because I really couldn’t agree more. We, we esteem authors, but we will pay $15 for a book where it’s such a funny anomaly, but that’s neither here nor there. What I really love about your approach is this idea that the book, in and of itself, yes, it should be good, it’s a, it should be a work, but it’s also a tool. So, if we think of a book as a tool for solving these business challenges that we’ve laid out here, how does it help us approach the book and the whole process of the book differently?
Everett O’Keefe
Yeah, it changes the dynamic entirely, because a lot of people think that a book is especially their first book, they approach it like it’s going to be their opus or something like that, it’s their, it’s their big legacy piece that they’re going to leave the world, when quite honestly, most people should approach their first book as their first book, and it should be approached as the world’s best marketing piece for their business. There’s nothing like a book to help convert prospects into customers, and to shorten that cycle, too. You put, you put a book in the hands of a prospect, your authority level goes up, they see you through different eyes entirely, and if they start to read that book, they’re likely to engage with you much more quickly, and so I think that it causes us to look at the book differently, and what we would include in it.
For instance, one of the things that people never talk about, about a power of a book, is the power to make better clients. When your prospects read your book, they come to you, and they are more inclined, they’re predisposed to accept your recommendations, because you’ve already instructed them in the book, and showing your expertise there. So, when you say, “Hey, we should do this, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I read about that in your book. I totally want to do that, instead of you having to sit there and try to explain to them why you’re recommending that particular thing. So, it tends to make more compliant and accepting clients, it, it also, you can allow a book to help you sort your prospects, because you’re going to automatically attract the ones that really see and understand your ideology, and you’re going to repel the ones who don’t, and I’m, as you, as you teach your clients, you know, repelling people, repelling the wrong prospect is as important, and maybe more than attracting the right ones, and so these are these are things that you weave into your book, it’s language about how you work, what you work, what you do, and why you do it, so that when they come to you, they’re like, yeah, I’m on board, I want to do that.
Scott Ritzheimer
When, when someone approaches you, I would imagine you have the luxury of being in this position, but you have a founder, they’ve had some success in business, they, they’re, they’re struggling with a degree of obscurity, at least relative to their goals, and they tell you, I want to write a book. What do you find are some of the most common misperceptions that they have about either the book itself or the process surrounding
Everett O’Keefe
Hmmm. All right, yeah, some people think it needs to be a really long book, and they have in their mind that it’s going to be three 400 pages that it needs to encompass all their wisdom, and it doesn’t, you know, the sweet spot on the book is really about 25 to 40,000 words, and which is completely manageable, it creates a book of about 120 to 180 pages, and the idea there is that it’s long enough to allow you to come to convey your message. It’s thick enough to be a book, and it’s short enough to be read on a cross-country flight. If you go longer than that, people either won’t start it or they won’t finish it, you go shorter than that, and people may not, they’ll see it as a pamphlet, you know, or something, something along those lines.
So, I think that’s a, that’s a great misconception, is how long does it need to be, and then, and that, and that you need to pour everything into it, you don’t, you need to provide value, you need to solve problems for your clients and prospects, but you’re going to leave things on the table, you’re going to leave things off the table that you’re going to be delivering to them in person or through your website or additional resources. It just think of it as the ultimate marketing tool. I sit there and I laugh at how much people spend on mugs and pens and other tchotchkes and stuff like that that they may provide to people, which provide no indication of your expertise, you know, or your wisdom, and yet when you put a book in somebody’s hand, they have this continual reminder of your expertise, and, and by the way, we tend not to throw books away, right? They’re like, like, it’s almost, it’s almost like a heresy to throw a book away, like, no, no, no, we can’t do that. So they tend to hang around where those other things are like,
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown a book away. We’ve donated books. I don’t think we’ve ever.. that’s fascinating. I hadn’t thought about that. Here’s what I like about this, and it’s especially for, like, the coaches who are listening to the show, or you know, CPAs, or folks who professional services that are doing knowledge work. It’s increasingly less physical. There’s not anything to show for it at the end, and so one of the things that I like so much about a book, and you’ve, you’ve mentioned this multiple times, but I want to draw it out. I was like, you can actually put it in their hands,
Everett O’Keefe
Absolutely.
Scott Ritzheimer
And, and so we try to do that through the tchotchkes, but you’re right, putting something in their hands that one they won’t throw away, unlike the cup or the like the 19th, you know, whatever mug, I won’t use anyone’s brand names here, but that I have no more room for in my, my pantry, but so I love that, so we’ve got this kind of physical presence, we’ve got a state. Of your value to some extent, we have the what we call it the author’s aura, when it, when it comes time to, to kind of get the book out in the world, if the goal isn’t necessarily to get as many people to read it, but to use it as, as effectively as possible as a marketing tool, How does that change our approach in in launch season?
Everett O’Keefe
Yeah, it that’s an important question. Because knowing who your target market is and how you plan to use the book and leverage the book are key. A lot of people are really writing for very narrow target market, and so while we will publish the book, so it’s on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com and walmart.com and we’ll carry out an Amazon bestseller launch strategy to make them Amazon bestsellers. Their target market’s probably something much, much smaller, especially for a founder, an executive of a company. They know who their target market is, and it isn’t the random reader on Amazon, right? It’s somebody very specific, and that founder is probably going to encounter that target market in limited environments – it’s speaking environments, it’s coaching and consulting environments, or networking with proper people. So, having the access and the freedom to get copies into those people’s hands, an unfettered freedom to do that is really important, and that’s where, like, traditional publishing can be a little harder, because you may, you’re selling your rights away for traditional publishing, and you may be limited in how you use it. In hybrid and self-publishing, you’ll have freedom, complete freedom.
You want to give, you want to speak somewhere and give everyone a copy of the book, do it. In fact, most authors, especially in the business world, will make way more money giving books away than they ever will selling them. I like to, I like to say that most of our clients would like to make their ROI back four or five digits at a time through a new client or a new relationship, then they will one digit at a time through selling a book on Amazon, so that that also allows you to really focus your language right in in your book, so you, and that’s why it’s important, if you’re, if you’re going to work with a publisher, make sure your publisher understands what you’re really going to do with this, also, you brought something up, and it just made some.. it clicked on a story. I had a client who was working at the same rates for about 10 years. They were.. they wanted to raise their fees. They kept freaking out about, “Oh, if I raise my fees, I’m going to lose my clientele, you know that type of thing. So she published a book and doubled her fees and lost about 10% of her clients, you know. And if you do the math right, you doubled your fees, but you lost 10% of your clients. That’s okay, that’s pretty good math, and she really used the book, as you know, as one of the reinforcing points as to, as to why, and how she should be raising her rates, and that’s another benefit of having a book out in the market.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so good. So, Everett, there’s this question that I have for you, as a question I ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you have to say, especially from this perspective. So, the question is this: What is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish every founder watching or listening today knew?
Everett O’Keefe
Yeah, you know, Scott, thanks. I couch that in this terms that I don’t know if it’s a secret, I just know that everyone needs to know it, and not everybody does. So, it’s a secret to some mastermind groups. I know, like, my business was struggling, and we were on the edge of cratering when I joined my first mastermind group, and that opened up so many doors, and I learned so much, and so I’m huge on mastermind groups. I host a publisher’s mastermind group, and I have for about 13 years now, and we learn so much from each other, and yet I still bump into people in the world who either A, have never been in a mastermind group, B, they’ve been in one, but it really wasn’t one, right? That you’ve probably encountered that, Scott. Mastermind groups that were really more group coaching or just networking groups, instead of people really pouring into each other, or or C, they’ve just, they just have maybe they’ve heard of one, and just never counted it, you know. And people hear the word, they just hear the word, but I have no idea what it is. So, but yeah, I still think I still think mastermind groups, and you know, on some podcasts I’m asked you, like, what are the things you would tell a 2020 year old version of Everett, I. We say join a mastermind group and publish a book.
If I were, and if I were starting a new career, I would publish a book about that new career right away, even if it was just about like frequently asked questions of that. Oh, that’s a, and Scott, that’s another thing you talked about preconceived notions about what a book must be. A lot of people don’t understand, they can very quickly write a book just around the frequently asked questions of their business, right. These are Scott, these are the things that you roll off, these roll off the top of your head every day when people ask you, what is this? What are what are the phases of scaling? What is one, you know, what? What are the greatest challenges people have with scaling? What things should I have in my mind when I look at scale? What time period should I be considering as for scaling? These are questions you could just answer. Bam! Well, answer those, dictate them into a dictate them into your phone, let the answers to those questions be the backbone of your book, and you know authors can business leaders and founders can write a book like that in very short period of time, especially using AI to help organize their thoughts.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, you just opened a whole can of worms that I’m really trying not to go down, because it is – there’s a whole different set of tools that are available to us now, and I feel right and wrong ways of using those, but the one thing that I want to add on the mastermind thing, there’s lots and lots of really wonderful ones out there. If you’re in a spot where it’s like, you know, I can’t afford another x 1000 to be in a program, then start one. You know, the thing about masterminds, especially good ones, is that they are the group that is the valuable thing, not a curriculum or some other external structure, and so find a couple friends in your industry and see what you can learn from each other.
Everett O’Keefe
Scott, I man, I am so glad you said that, because that is exactly right. And people think they have to be the world’s greatest expert in order to organize and host a mastermind group, and that’s so not true, right? You know, the smartest person in the room is somebody beside you on any given moment, and being open to that huge, huge, huge benefit. And I would.. that’s why everyone should be in one, even if I even think that, you know, garbage carriers could benefit from mastermind groups. I can’t think of an industry that couldn’t.
Scott Ritzheimer
So true, so true, Everett. There’s some folks who would love to explore what a book could do for them, or how to get their idea out into the world, and or they just love to connect with you and hear more. How can folks find you? How can they find your book, and what’s a great next step for them.
Everett O’Keefe
Awesome, so you can always find me at our website, which is Ignitepress.us that’s Ignitepress.us And then I have available one of my books, The Power of the Published: How Rapidly Authoring a Book Can Ignite Your Business and Your Life. And your audience can get a free copy of this if they go to mypodcastperk.com mypodcast perk.com and I think that people will find it is easier than they think to get a book out into the world, and a book will do more than they can ever imagine for their business and brand, and we love helping people make that happen,
Scott Ritzheimer
yeah. Brilliant, we’ve got all those in the show notes for you. Go ahead and check it out, grab a copy of the book as well. I highly recommend it. Got a chance to read it, and so, yeah, Everett, thank you so much for being on, for sharing your wisdom with us really was a privilege and honor having you here. For those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. Hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for listening to The Start Scale and Succeed Podcast. I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the level you’re in right now. If you want to discover what level you’re in, take our 10 question founders evolution quiz for free at foundersquiz.com That’s foundersquiz.com it’ll pinpoint exactly where you are and give you tailored tips to move forward and reach that next level in your journey as a founder. If you got something out of today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, or review. It helps us reach more founders like you, and let’s be honest, it means a ton to me, my team. And all our incredible guests, so keep starting, scaling, and succeeding, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
Contact Everett O’Keefe
Everett O’Keefe is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and International #1 Bestselling Author. The Power of the Published is his most recent solo work. He has also helped create and launch more than 150 bestselling books for his clients. Everett speaks across the nation on the power of publishing. He is the founder of Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, as well as business and medical professionals, ignite their businesses by becoming bestselling authors.
Want to learn more about Everett O’Keefe’s work at Ignite Press? Check out his website at https://ignitepress.us/
Connect with Everett through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/everettokeefe/
Get a FREE copy of his book The Power of the Published at https://mypodcastperk.com/