Listen Now:

You’ve done it! You’ve written your book!

Now what?

Now comes the fun part – turning that ONE book into an entire business. That’s what we’re going to talk to you about on this episode – exactly how to break down the same information in multiple ways to serve different people at different stages of their buying journeys… creating an entire business withOUT developing a single extra idea.

If you’re writing a book, have already written a book, or simply have a transformational system but no desire to create a book at all… this is the episode for you.

Want to see this broken down even further? Check out the FREE Training at  systemtothrive.com/profitableauthor

Episode 8 – The Bonus Sandwich: How To EASILY Create Bonuses that Increase Sales and Value
Coming Soon – Episode 119 with Bri Williams on how to dive into public speaking.

Alyson Lex 0:02
In this episode, we're going to talk about how to take your book and turn it into a business. And if you haven't written a book, but you're thinking about it, well, yeah, this applies to you. And if you have written and or published your book, this still applies. But I want to be really clear. If you haven't written a book, and you're not sure that you're going to, I want you to take a listen anyway. Because what we're going to do is show you how to create a business using one system, one piece of information, one part of your expertise, and leverage it in multiple ways. So before we dive into how to do it, and what it's going to take, I want to quickly talk about the difference between active and passive income. Okay, we hear a lot about this. And we've probably mentioned it on other episodes in the past active income is you're constantly doing the thing that creates the income, something like holding live workshops. Passive income is you do it once, and you get paid for it multiple times. And you see this in the form of self study courses, or template creation or things like that. But passive income is not as passive as you think it is. You can't just set it and forget it and still make money from it, you still have to hustle to sell it. But you don't have to hustle or work as hard to deliver it. Okay, we're gonna cover both types in this episode.

Jennie Wright 1:36
So why do we want to have multiple income streams? What's going to be the purpose behind this? When one of those income streams might struggle? The others are still okay, so think of, you know, think of COVID. If that hits you, again, if something like this ever happens, are you going to be okay? Right, so we got to look at the different ways that we can actually create some reliable income, we want to create multiple ways, actually, to profit from each potential customer, Allison and I have talked about this before, it's easier to get somebody who's already bought from you to purchase again, versus spending the time and energy to get a new client or a new lead. There's a multitude of different ways to serve people. And we have to look at their different needs, their different income and payment opportunities or abilities, and their different personalities. So when you're trying to think of these multiple streams of income, you actually have to sort of actually not even have to, you really, really need to put the other person, the person who's going to buy first and how you're actually going to build this out. A lot of people tend to look at it from their perspective, the person who's written the book, or the person who wants to create the multiple streams of income, and we build it thinking it's going to be self serving, versus when we build it, thinking about how other people need to receive information, I think that's really important. So we're gonna talk about how to turn your book into multiple income streams. The first one obviously, is the book. And it's using the book to take that next step, right. And there's the setting realistic expectations. Allison, I've had this conversation with a lot of our author clients, people who are writing books that are not yet published, Allison, and I tend to work with authors who are still in the midst of writing or have finished writing, but are waiting to publish. And we have to talk about those realistic expectations, you're not going to get rich from your book. The key is to leverage the book and delete, there's a really good quote out there, the best way to get rich from your first book is to write your second. Actually, I've heard that many times. Because you're you know, you're not going to make all the money off of that, but you can leverage it. And one of the ways we want to, for you to think about leveraging it is how you're going to take this one thing and create multiple streams of income.

Alyson Lex 4:00
Now, I want to mention really quickly that we have a webinar that we're putting together for this. And it's going to help you understand how to get leads from your book, how to really build out this business a little bit more, and you can check that out at System to THRIVE comm slash profitable author, because that's what we're going to help you turn into. But really quickly also, I don't want you to not focus on your book sales. After all, the more books you sell, the more potential leads you have. But it does require that you maybe look at it a little differently other than just standing on a rooftop and yelling Hey, buy my book, have a book launch plan. Really think about how you're going to push this out there when it first is published. If you're already published, have an anniversary launch, you can make it happen. It's not that right? Be creative. build up your community publishers, if you're going the traditional publishing route, they want you to have that community before they sign you, or make an offer or anything. So building your community is essential at every stage, you're going to optimize where you're selling your book, your Amazon, right, plenty of people teach on that, you can just throw it into Google. But also consider where else it's being sold, local bookstores or you know, physical bookstores are still a place. All of these things write offer bonuses to book buyers. And, you know, if you want, you can go back and listen, it's a long time ago, we did an episode on what it's called the bonus sandwich, to help generate some ideas for you. But hey, if you buy this book, which is a book sale thing, you can grab these bonuses, which is now a lead Dang. Right. So you see how you can check multiple boxes with this thing, when it comes to selling your book, I want you to focus on it. But I want you to put it in a larger plan. Don't just start and end the relationship with the book sale.

Jennie Wright 6:16
A lot of people do that. And we want to encourage you to just start looking at different opportunities. And some of this might feel a little bit foreign to you. That's okay, you're not going to be able to do all of this all at the same time. And so the next thing that makes sense is to start looking at different ways you can leverage your new status as an author, you can look at these incredible ways of using stage opportunities, both virtual and in person. And why doing that that's like, you know, podcasting and online stages like summits and things like that, but also the in person stages. So you're the expert. Now you've written this book, it's the quintessential guide to, you know, propagating tropical plants. There you go. That's your book. And what we want you to do is we want you to take that and use it to leverage it into some paid opportunities wherever possible. So we're actually going to be having a very special episode that's coming up with somebody that we actually interviewed before. It's Bree. And we're really excited to have her back. So Bri Williams is going to come back into the podcast and do a very special episode, it's going to be a podcast. We're also doing a Facebook Live with our so you'll be able to find it one way or the other. And it's going to be specifically around using your book as a speaking topic thing that gets you on to paid stage paid stages. She's an expert in this field, by the way. And if you haven't checked her out, she's already got an episode on the podcast, go and listen, it was fabulous. So we want to start leveraging that expert status that you've created and getting you those featured speaking opportunities. The best way you can do this is do your research and find speaking gigs that you're interested in applying to. I know a lot of people are like, but where do I start? Literally, Google. So whatever your topic is, whatever, you're an expert in expert thing, 20, whatever the year, so 2021, or 2022, or so on, and then put conference. Right? So you're when you do that Google's going to pull up all the conferences that are in your niche, niche niche, and I know helps. And I continue to do this in your niche. And then it's going to help you take a look at this. Now, I've done this very rarely, Alison's done way more. So I actually want her input here, because I know that she's actually done this before.

Alyson Lex 8:45
I have. So I've written a lot of copy for a lot of speakers, hundreds and hundreds of them. And without falling down this rabbit hole. Okay, because I know that this is going to be a really interesting topic for a lot of people. We all love that little ego boost and visibility and all of that from getting on stages. But yes, conferences are a fantastic thing to search for. But also think about who your ideal audiences and look for membership organizations, associations, things like that, where those people convene. And then you can reach out to them directly to schedule something. And I want you to be really flexible in the kind of presentation that you're willing to give. Right? So somebody may say, Hey, we're having an event in January, and we'd love to have you come to the keynote. Cool. Somebody might say, hey, I'd love to have you do a breakout. Cool. Hey, I'd love to have you do a three hour class for my people. Cool, right? So the types of stages, especially now has evolved into something that looks really really different. It's not all Is the front of a ballroom in a hotel. Okay, so just be really open to that.

Jennie Wright 10:07
I would love that point. Because I think people get it in their head, what it's going to be like, and if it doesn't fit, what their vision is in their head, then maybe they're not so interested in doing it. So look at that that expansion that Allison was talking about. And that's incredibly important. A couple of ways that we know how to do this, we're going to tell you to get into some of the Facebook groups that are specifically for some of the online speaking gigs. There's lots of these Facebook groups out there, take a look at the ones that have like bought, you know, find a guest or be a guest actually, in the title, look at posting in those groups, talking about why you'd be a good fit for any of these online speaking opportunities. And by the way, online speaking opportunities, just to what Alyson was saying, are so diverse. Now, you know, you don't have to travel to Anaheim and stay in a hotel, and you know, show up on stage and stuff like that. So, you know, you really have to stop looking at a stage as a physical platform, at the front of hotel ballroom like Alison was saying, it's now pretty much anything. And that's the important part, other online opportunities. I also and I really love talking about getting and doing a podcast tour. And we'll do a total feature episode completely on podcast tours in the future. But basically, we want you to go and research podcasts that you want to be a speaker on, apply to them, our goal for you would be 25 podcasts, that's the one that 25 tends to be the breakthrough number, where if you do 25 podcasts, you start seeing some real, like some real growth and some real traction happening. So start looking at doing that, that's gonna be a difference maker for sure.

Alyson Lex 11:44
When it comes to speaking, and I know our episode with Bree, we're gonna have a special episode coming up. We're also we have another just standard episode scheduled, I think that's episode number 119. Coming up, really look at how you can build your speaking plan into your entire marketing plan. And the fun thing here is you've already got the content. It's in your book, you speak your book. Alright. The next stream is the premium package. Again, this content exists, it's in your book. But as you get more well known for what you do, people will want your help. They're going to reach out to you, they're going to say, hey, Allison, love your stuff. Thanks for the book, can you help me write some copy. So your job now is to help them, you can create a coaching product package where you're available to give them guidance, instruction, feedback, all that, or do it for them if you are a service provider. But the idea is that this is all based on your expertise. And so you're coaching them through a process that you already intimately know very well. When it comes to creating a premium coaching package, what I want you to do is sit down and think about the guidance they will require, how often they will need your help or interaction what their outcome tangible outcome will be. And then price it. How long is it going to take? Okay, so I might say, Hey, you know, I'm a copy coach, I'm going to teach you how to write a sales page, it's going to take me three weeks, I'm going to need to talk to you twice a week. By the end of it, you will have a sales page, and your cost is going to be x. Okay, that is a coaching package. And it's premium. So it's going to be your highest priced. It's going to be one on one hyper personalized interaction instruction, guidance, accountability and feedback in exchange for the highest amount of money. And again, the content is already in your book, you have a system, you have eight to 10 chapters or whatever. Take them through it step by step. Done.

Jennie Wright 14:30
I love that. And we've used this method to take our clients books and turn them into courses. It's been it's been an incredible process when we talk to an author.

Alyson Lex 14:44
And they're like, yeah, yeah, I'd

Jennie Wright 14:45
love a course but I have no idea what I would do it on. And then we kind of go, Well, you already have the content. What are you worried about? It's in your book, and the realization when it comes over their faces, and they understand that it's actually already done. It's pretty cool. We want to take you to the next stage, this is stream number four, this is the program. This is the, the, the meat and potatoes of your business, right. So you have that premium package, that's usually like a higher concierge price, this program is going to be the not everybody's going to want that premium offering, this is the next level down. This is the stuff that, you know, this is, like I said, the meat and potatoes, this is your you can sell people into this all day long. It takes what you do during your coaching and it creates that, that that system, and then you can handhold them through the creation of using that system themselves. Right? So is it going to be worksheets? Is it going to be different downloads and things like that? So do you give your premium people worksheets? In the program level? You'd be looking at giving these worksheets as well. Right? So there's, what are the premium people? Here's a good one. What are the questions that your premium people are asking that you are giving them that handholding that Alyson was talking about? Well, in this program level, you would actually create videos for that, so that you're not repeating it over and over again, because again, the program level has less access to you. Right, it's still possibly one on one it could possibly be group, but they're getting less access to you. There's less accountability and less personalization than you are when you're one on one. So look at ways of creating automation on some of this and you know, creating those videos, what templates can you give, right, so when you're working with your premium clients, what are the things that they really, really need that you're providing to them, those those really cool templates, and then in the program, you're just giving them as part of the program itself. So making sure that you understand that that premium level has a ton of personal interaction. But at the program level, you're actually creating some group style interaction, there is feedback, there is accountability, but it's less than the premium. And it's less personalized, and then a one on one, that's what we're talking about. And then it's typically formatted as modules of information. And then you have regular check in q&a calls as well. This is your again, this is the bread and butter. This is the majority of people who decide that they want to do coaching, this is exactly what they do. This is the thing that's going to, you're going to be able to sell over and over and over again, it doesn't matter if you have this running all the time, or if you have a start and stop date doesn't matter at all. And the nice thing about group programs is you get to create it once and then sell it multiple times, and it costs you the same amount of hours each week to fulfill it. So you can plan that ahead. And doesn't matter how many people in the program, it's going to be the same.

Alyson Lex 17:42
I love group programs, because of that same thing, I know, it's gonna take me one hour, or two hours, or whatever, whether I've got five or 500 people in there. It's great. Stream number five takes that a step further. String number five, is for the people who they don't want that hand holding, they don't need all of the accountability, they just want to get in there dive in and do it themselves. Okay, so what now you do is you take your group coaching, and you remove you, you get rid of those group style q&a s or check ins, you don't interact with them at all, this is a self study course. Okay, and this is aside from your book, your lowest priced offering. That's it. So once you have your group coaching together, people love it, you've got all the videos in there, the modules are really working, you're seeing the transformation. Now you say, hey, same stuff as is in here. I've proven the concept. You just don't get me. This is what people refer to as passive income. You create it once you sell it at 5000 times, and it costs you zero more hours. All right, so you have active, which is every time I sell it, that's one on one every time I sell it, it costs me multiple hours to fulfill it. Then you have we'll call it leveraged. I've heard that word a lot lately, which is every time I sell it. It doesn't cost me more hours but there's still a time investment. So it cost me X number of hours to fulfill no matter how many times I sell, that's your group program. Then you have your passive, which is your self study program. I've created it. I've sold it and I I owe no more time. By having all of these. This is how you leverage and scale and protect and mitigate risk and do all of those things with out recreating the We'll, every single time because we all all of these start with the book. Alright, and let me take you through an example scenario of what this might look like, in your business. You've got your book on what was it propagating tropical plants. That's, we are the tropical plant propagation expert. These days, we've got our book, it's killing it on Amazon. Right? And I don't know how much money you make off Amazon sales or book sales, but I'm going to say, look, it's 100 bucks, okay? You're not gonna get rich, unless you're Stephen King, right? Or, or john Grisham or one of those guys, like, it's just not gonna happen. Okay, so you've got your book. And all of a sudden, you discover there is a tropical plant enthusiast Association. And you reach out to them. And you say, Hey, I'm the expert on propagation. Let's let me do a thing for your people. Cool, so they pay you to come in and speak. Awesome. I've just now made money from my book, by the way, right. And then while you're there, you say to them, hey, if anybody needs any help, this is now to the audience while you're on the stage in whatever format, if anybody needs any help, give me a call. I'll help you out. And now you take people through your patented tropical plant propagation process, Mm hmm. One on One, and they pay you lots of money to do it, because those things can get mighty pricey. And these are enthusiasts after all. And then you say, you know what, I've really got this down to a science. I'm going to get all these people together, I'm going to charge them less than they pay. If they were one on one. They're going to get the same information. But I don't have to deliver it 35,000 times. But they get to ask me their questions. Every week Thursdays at 2pm. Cool. So Thursday, from two to 4pm. you're answering questions, everybody feels great. And you're like, you know what, I'd really like to make some more money from this. But I don't want to give up my Tuesdays from two to 4pm. So let me just stop, let me not give up any more time. And now I'm going to charge people even less. I know that sounds counterintuitive. I'm going to charge people even less, and they're just going to get the details. They take care of it themselves.

That is how many, five different ways to sell the same information. And you've built it all by stacking your expertise, proving the concept proving the process on top of each other. That's how you do it. That's how you build a business from one book.

Jennie Wright 23:08
I'm so impressed when you give these examples. That was so good. The fact that you remembered that I said tropical plant propagation was awesome, because that was like at the beginning. Or even callback. Yeah, good callback, I don't have that kind of callback, sometimes. That's really cool. There's a couple things from this, we want you to take, obviously, you know, this is really, there's a lot you can use here, let me put it that way. And I want to reference back the fact that we have a training coming up. And if you're listening to this later, you can actually still go and check it out. Because it is probably still sharing a really cool replay with you. And that's where we want you to go. And I believe we have that URL, which is System to thrive.com forward slash profitable author, go and check that out. Because we have this training that's going to show you how to build this business. If you listen to this episode, and you like what you're heard, go and check out that training, we'll make sure that you have the step by step to help make that happen. And if you want help with this, if you're an author, and you want help with this, Allison and I help authors, we help authors build businesses around books, we help people who are prospective authors, we have a client right now who hasn't even written her book. But she's got a book coach. And she's going to write her book at some point in the future, but we're still starting to build the business around it before he even comes out. So there's this community of vibrant people. Before we even get to that point, that's going to help us a lot. There's a couple things to share our lovely takeaways. If you have the expertise, if you already have the expertise, I should say it's in your book. Don't try and create something brand spanking new. Because that is going to be more effort. You created a system, a process a method in your book, if it's nonfiction. If it's a fiction book that's a little bit different. Probably not the right process, but if it's a nonfiction book, this is going to be a lot easier. Just I just had to clarify there. If you're a fiction author, this is probably not your jam. But definitely,

definitely, if you're a nonfiction author, you can use this method, no problem whatsoever. Just don't create something new use what you have, use that system that that method, that program to really break down what you can build from this and then get people to buy it.

Alyson Lex 25:28
You crack me up, I also want to talk about how different stuff works for different people, different price points, different interaction rates, what they want from you is going to be different from person to person. So how can you serve your people at the price point or the level that they need, with a program, or course or something that meets them where they are. I also I didn't mention this, but some of your self study, people are going to be like, Oh, you know what, I tried this propagation thing on my own. And I, I found it up. So I'm going to need some assistance, and they're going to upgrade into the group coaching. Right, so they're going to discover what they need. But by having those different options available, you're going to meet people where they are, you're gonna serve them where they are. And that is how you create those multiple streams.

Jennie Wright 26:19
So a misnomer out there. Passive income is actually not passive, you still have to sell it, you still have to talk about it, you still have to get people into it. It just means you don't owe any more hours to fulfill it once you've made it. But you still need to get it out there. This is the big, big issue with people who think that they can just step away from their businesses and make money while they sleep. It doesn't work that way. You still need to work at it. Passive is not passive.

Alyson Lex 26:47
It kills me when I see all of those people like make money in your sleep. Oh, okay, but what did you do to get it? Yes, at some point, you're going to get to the ads and the Evergreen. But that is not how most people grow their businesses. Right? It's you still have to get out there and promote. My last takeaway, no matter what. No matter what stage you're in, whether you've published a book, you've published six books, you've written it, but not published your you've not written it, and you never will adjust an idea. Whatever stage you're in, focus on building your community, your list, your visibility among all of your potential customers. Publishers want this your business depends on this list building is huge. If you've listened to more than 10 minutes of any of our other podcasts, you will hear us talk about it. It is that essential. And like Jennie mentioned, you want to check out the webinar that we have coming up because we're going to break all of this down. And if you're listening to this after the webinar goes live, it's going to be on a replay. So don't worry about that you can check that out at System to thrive.com, slash profitable author. And we are also doing a training with Katie Brinkley, to talk more about community building specifically for you guys as authors. So you want to keep an eye out on that for that as well.

Jennie Wright 28:29
When you were saying before, and I just just as a part of the wrap up. This is kind of funny when you were saying before like oh, like yeah, the whole passive. The reason that people think that passive income is passive, it's because they've been listening to people sort of tote that message, and they're getting the wrong impression, don't you think?

Alyson Lex 28:50
Completely. They're getting the idea that I can slap together something that was kind of whatever, and people were gonna pay me some money for it. And frankly, I feel like I feel like those people are really looking at the relationship with their person as ending at the sale, it's super transactional. It's super transactional. It's exactly what it is. It's like, I want your money here. Have my whatever. See later.

Jennie Wright 29:24
Yep, I would have said it a little bit harshly. But yes,

Alyson Lex 29:27
now. I'm like, now bugger off.

Jennie Wright 29:29
Yeah, like it's just not, it's just not quick. It's just give me your money. And then you know, jog on, like they just don't want people to be around. And that's not the way to look at it. This has been really fun to do. And throughout this whole episode, I've had to mute because I keep I have I don't know what's going on. I got a cough or something but I'm muting. But we're all good. We made it through. It's a great episode for authors, potential authors and everybody in between go check, you know, go back and re Listen to this. There were so many good points in here. And then make sure you check out that training that we've got going on. You're going to enjoy it. We're going to out if you've ever watched anything that Allison and I do, we always deliver. We always make sure you have everything you need. And we're gonna make sure you have a step by step. So go and check it out. And thanks so much for listening. If you haven't already, please make sure you follow subscribe or check us out wherever it is that you're listening to podcasts. And we'll be back again soon answering another big question.