It's hard to sell something that's very expensive
Steve Gordon:and completely intangible that your clients don't understand.
David Shriner-Cahn:Welcome to Smashing the Plateau.
David Shriner-Cahn:We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business
David Shriner-Cahn:owners build their business after a long career as an employee professional.
David Shriner-Cahn:We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid
David Shriner-Cahn:what you're worth ,consistently.
David Shriner-Cahn:I'm your host David Shriner-Cahn.
David Shriner-Cahn:Today on Smashing the Plateau, I'm speaking with the CEO and founder of
David Shriner-Cahn:The Unstoppable CEO, Steve Gordon.
David Shriner-Cahn:In today's episode, you will learn how a book can accelerate the
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David Shriner-Cahn:Now let's welcome back Steve Gordon.
David Shriner-Cahn:Bestselling author and marketing expert steve Gordon gives you the blueprint for
David Shriner-Cahn:writing your own million dollar book in days, not months or years, and shows you
David Shriner-Cahn:how to use your book to boldly win the best clients and command premium fees.
David Shriner-Cahn:Steve, welcome back to the show.
Steve Gordon:David, thanks for having me.
David Shriner-Cahn:So I can't believe that it's been five years since you were
David Shriner-Cahn:on Smashing the Plateau back in 2017.
David Shriner-Cahn:You and I were both podcasting back then.
David Shriner-Cahn:We're still podcasting.
David Shriner-Cahn:Now that says something about either our lunacy or, or our
David Shriner-Cahn:perseverance, or maybe both.
Steve Gordon:Pig headed, determination.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah, and it was a great episode.
David Shriner-Cahn:Then we're going to get into that in a little bit.
David Shriner-Cahn:I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background that will
David Shriner-Cahn:clue people in on how you became an expert on writing a book.
Steve Gordon:So I've been working with, and in myself, professional services for.
Steve Gordon:more years than I want to admit at this point, but let's just say I'm
Steve Gordon:past the two decade mark and heading towards the three decade mark.
Steve Gordon:And I started my career in an engineering firm and bought that firm after I'd
Steve Gordon:been there for about four years out of college and learned really quickly that
Steve Gordon:it's hard to sell something that's very expensive and completely intangible
Steve Gordon:that your clients don't understand.
Steve Gordon:And, I left that firm 12 years ago and started helping, other
Steve Gordon:professionals with their marketing.
Steve Gordon:And one of the very first things that I wanted to do was write a book.
Steve Gordon:established my own authority and expertise.
Steve Gordon:And at the time I found that to be really difficult.
Steve Gordon:It took, took a couple of years to actually get it done.
Steve Gordon:I threw two book drafts in the garbage on the way to getting one done.
Steve Gordon:And when I finally published my first book in 2014, it changed everything.
Steve Gordon:Really almost overnight.
Steve Gordon:I had a one and a half person, local marketing consulting firm at the
Steve Gordon:time, and really didn't have any clients outside of our local area.
Steve Gordon:And we went in about a week, during the launch from being that local one
Steve Gordon:and a half person marketing firm to, having clients reaching out to us from
Steve Gordon:literally all over the world and it changed our business virtually overnight.
Steve Gordon:And we doubled that year.
Steve Gordon:We doubled the year after we've grown ever since.
Steve Gordon:And since then I've written five books and we've reversed, engineered
Steve Gordon:a process to do it really quickly.
Steve Gordon:And now we've helped dozens of other professionals do the same thing.
David Shriner-Cahn:So you've had, a major shift in your business.
David Shriner-Cahn:In particular, since you've written your book and now that has become
David Shriner-Cahn:something that you focus on.
David Shriner-Cahn:Your audience hasn't really changed a whole lot is what I'm hearing, but what
David Shriner-Cahn:you're offering for them has changed.
Steve Gordon:It's grown.
Steve Gordon:So in my first book, which is called Unstoppable Referrals, I talked about
Steve Gordon:this referral process that we had been developing with our clients at
Steve Gordon:the time where we would use what we called a referral kit, which is, might
Steve Gordon:take a number of different forms.
Steve Gordon:It might be a presentation that you go to your clients and you
Steve Gordon:offer through them or your referral partners and you offer through them.
Steve Gordon:That might be a white paper.
Steve Gordon:It might be, at the time we were doing, audio CDs, believe it or not.
Steve Gordon:And we had a client who was using a book and it turned out that the
Steve Gordon:book was really, the most effective of all of the forms that we tried.
Steve Gordon:And when I wrote my book and applied all those same principles and realized
Steve Gordon:not only is it the most effective, it's the most effective by 10 X, our
Steve Gordon:clients started seeing that and they started asking us, Hey, you've had
Steve Gordon:so, so much success with your book.
Steve Gordon:I'd really, I've always been thinking about writing one.
Steve Gordon:Could you help me write one?
Steve Gordon:And I resisted for a long time because it was tough to get that first book out.
Steve Gordon:And I wasn't quite sure we had the process down enough to do it for anybody
Steve Gordon:else, but I kept getting asked and I kept getting asked and it really is
Steve Gordon:the lynchpin for our referral strategy.
Steve Gordon:So now we lead with, Hey, let's create your book because that's
Steve Gordon:going to make every other bit of marketing that you do better.
Steve Gordon:And we also then will teach them the referral strategy on the back.
David Shriner-Cahn:So tell me a little bit about this process to create a book
David Shriner-Cahn:and how you've really simplified it.
Steve Gordon:So the first two attempts that I had to write a book were
Steve Gordon:probably like what most people do.
Steve Gordon:they want to do it and they have some general ideas and maybe you've
Steve Gordon:got a rough outline and I would sit down to write and I'd be all full
Steve Gordon:of caffeine and excitement and.
Steve Gordon:be off to the races and I'd get through a chapter or two.
Steve Gordon:And then somewhere along the lines, things would just take a left turn
Steve Gordon:and I'd look at the, that what I'd written the next day and go, where
Steve Gordon:am I going with this I'm lost now.
Steve Gordon:And that was a wall for me.
Steve Gordon:And so I heard a podcast interview back in, it was late 2013.
Steve Gordon:I started writing that first book in January of 2014.
Steve Gordon:And I can't remember who was being interviewed, but he described his
Steve Gordon:process and how he broke down his book.
Steve Gordon:And I thought, oh, okay, that's perfect.
Steve Gordon:That's what I need.
Steve Gordon:So I went and broke down and outlined what became Unstoppable Referrals
Steve Gordon:in about six hours in one day.
Steve Gordon:And I was able to outline it to such a great level of detail that when I
Steve Gordon:started writing, I never had an issue looking at a blank page with that
Steve Gordon:little annoying blinking cursor that wants to, wants to take you under.
Steve Gordon:And that was really the difference.
Steve Gordon:So I got up every day before the family was up and I wrote for an hour and every
Steve Gordon:time I did that, I'd open the laptop and the next prompt was right there.
Steve Gordon:And one of the real keys was, using questions.
Steve Gordon:So we, the way we do it now with clients is we typically help them
Steve Gordon:organize about a 10 chapter book.
Steve Gordon:And, sometimes it's eight, sometimes it's 15, but give or take 10 chapters.
Steve Gordon:And inside each chapter, we use the rule of three.
Steve Gordon:So there's three main points.
Steve Gordon:And again, these are hard and fast rules, but they're guidelines.
Steve Gordon:And then in inside each of those main points, we have them lay
Steve Gordon:out three questions to ask.
Steve Gordon:And when they get down to that level of detail.
Steve Gordon:And, but the fact that we're using questions really
Steve Gordon:helps the brain keep going.
Steve Gordon:And that is what speeds up the writing.
Steve Gordon:And so my record for writing a book is eight hours.
Steve Gordon:I wrote a book that's just shy of a hundred pages and eight hours using
Steve Gordon:this method and our clients routinely who aren't professional writers,
Steve Gordon:who most of them would tell you.
Steve Gordon:I'm not that comfortable writing.
Steve Gordon:They'll come in.
Steve Gordon:And in about 30 minutes a day, over the course of 30 days,
Steve Gordon:they'll have their book finished.
Steve Gordon:The first draft will be done.
Steve Gordon:It'll be ready to edit and publish.
Steve Gordon:Wow.
David Shriner-Cahn:And what kinds of results.
David Shriner-Cahn:Do these folks get once they get the, and is this their first book typically?
Steve Gordon:For most of them, it's their first book.
Steve Gordon:We do have a number, a growing number of clients who are coming back for their
Steve Gordon:second or third or fourth book with us.
Steve Gordon:But for most of them, it's their first book.
Steve Gordon:And most businesses only need one.
Steve Gordon:One book will transform your business.
Steve Gordon:And the results obviously vary greatly by the type of business they are.
Steve Gordon:But almost universally, what we see is they get this initial sort of bump
Steve Gordon:in the marketplace because it's an exciting thing to publish a book.
Steve Gordon:Most business owners have thought about it at one point or another, and
Steve Gordon:they, when we talk to people, they constantly are telling us, oh yeah,
Steve Gordon:I've had this on my bucket list for 10 years or 15 years or 20 years.
Steve Gordon:And when you go out to your network and say, Hey, I just wrote a
Steve Gordon:book I'm really excited about it.
Steve Gordon:I would really appreciate your help in getting the word out.
Steve Gordon:People get really excited.
Steve Gordon:It gives them some good dues to go share about you and they
Steve Gordon:really want to get behind it.
Steve Gordon:So that typically will lead to, the first wave of new clients
Steve Gordon:coming in for our authors.
Steve Gordon:In that first batch.
Steve Gordon:And it's really exciting to see we'll have people text me and they'll say,
Steve Gordon:Hey, I just shared my book for the first time and you won't believe it.
Steve Gordon:I've got five people that are willing to share it, or, I
Steve Gordon:shared it with somebody who.
Steve Gordon:I know I should have been a client of ours for years.
Steve Gordon:And, now he really understands what we do and we're meeting to
Steve Gordon:talk about how we can help him.
Steve Gordon:So it's fun to watch when those sorts of things happen.
David Shriner-Cahn:Steve, how long are folks commonly in business
David Shriner-Cahn:before they write a book like this?
Steve Gordon:Most of the people we work with are, they've been in business
Steve Gordon:for at least a few years, but we've actually got, three, now we have used
Steve Gordon:this process to launch their business.
Steve Gordon:we're working with an educational consultant out of California.
Steve Gordon:And, she was a teacher who wanted to move into the private sector, start
Steve Gordon:her own consulting business and worked with her to get her book written.
Steve Gordon:She launched it last November and within a month she had
Steve Gordon:received national media coverage.
Steve Gordon:She's been mentioned in national media, had a couple of feature articles
Steve Gordon:on her since then, and went from no business to a thriving now consulting
Steve Gordon:practice in, in less than a year.
Steve Gordon:So it really works at all stages.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:so for somebody who may be a longtime employee, somebody who's mid to high
David Shriner-Cahn:level, who has been in the workforce for 20, 25 or 30 years or more, and they
David Shriner-Cahn:either decide they want to transition into consulting, or they've been pushed
David Shriner-Cahn:out of their job and they decide that they don't want to do that anymore.
David Shriner-Cahn:They want a consulting business.
David Shriner-Cahn:How soon should they think about a book?
Steve Gordon:I think if you're going out to do consulting in an area where
Steve Gordon:you already have expertise because of your role and in your corporate job,
Steve Gordon:I think one of the very first things that you should do is write the book.
Steve Gordon:It's going to leap-fund you ahead, maybe five, even 10 years
Steve Gordon:from where you would've been.
Steve Gordon:Otherwise you're going to be perceived in the market as an
Steve Gordon:authority and an expert right away.
Steve Gordon:And you, and I both know this transition from having a, a regular
Steve Gordon:job and a regular paycheck into the entrepreneurial world into consulting
Steve Gordon:is a tough transition for people.
Steve Gordon:And I, a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's, you now have all
Steve Gordon:of these options for what you should do with your day and your time.
Steve Gordon:And when you're in a job, you've got guardrails.
Steve Gordon:When you come out into a consulting practice that you're trying to build,
Steve Gordon:and you're trying to get clients as the kind of first order of the day.
Steve Gordon:There are easily a thousand things you could choose to do.
Steve Gordon:And, most of them won't give you the level of authority that having a book will give.
Steve Gordon:And, the book will allow you to focus your efforts around that.
Steve Gordon:It'll allow you to let the book go and promote you, instead of you
Steve Gordon:going and trying to sell people and working with you, it'll go do
Steve Gordon:that hard work out in front of you.
David Shriner-Cahn:How hard is it to write a book when you haven't
David Shriner-Cahn:really decided on exactly what kind of niche you're going to serve?
David Shriner-Cahn:Because one of the challenges I see with new consultants is they have
David Shriner-Cahn:built up their expertise over decades.
David Shriner-Cahn:They have pretty broad expertise, in a discipline.
David Shriner-Cahn:So there are a lot of different kinds of problems they could solve.
David Shriner-Cahn:There are different kinds of ideal clients that they could pursue.
David Shriner-Cahn:And they're often really challenged to go narrow and pick one to focus on.
David Shriner-Cahn:Is that a challenge for writing a book before you've really
David Shriner-Cahn:established much of a practice.
Steve Gordon:We work with people who've been in business for
Steve Gordon:decades and they still haven't made those critical decision.
Steve Gordon:They're still working with any client that comes along.
Steve Gordon:So don't know that it necessarily is unique to people who are new
Steve Gordon:to consulting, but I do think it's an important decision to make.
Steve Gordon:It's one of the things that when we have a client come in.
Steve Gordon:One of the first conversations we're going to have is, who are we really
Steve Gordon:serving and how narrow can we make that?
Steve Gordon:And I will tell you that it's hard to make that market too narrow
Steve Gordon:for most consulting practices.
Steve Gordon:And you think about most consultants they're going to work with anywhere
Steve Gordon:from five to 50 clients in a year, on average, maybe there are a few, that'll
Steve Gordon:have a few more than that, but we're not talking about needing to go out
Steve Gordon:and find 10,000 people to work with.
Steve Gordon:And so that, that gives you a unique advantage compared to a lot of businesses.
Steve Gordon:You almost can't create a market too small to serve.
Steve Gordon:So I've got a financial consultant that we work with.
Steve Gordon:We've done four books with him.
Steve Gordon:And, when we started working together, his main market was anyone
Steve Gordon:who was preparing for retirement.
Steve Gordon:And then, within that he had a sub niche of people who were members
Steve Gordon:of the state retirement system here in Florida, where were both based.
Steve Gordon:And then he of sub-nitched that down to professors at one of the universities
Steve Gordon:in the city where he's located.
Steve Gordon:That's maybe 10,000 people total.
Steve Gordon:And since doing that, he's had four record years in a row with a total
Steve Gordon:universe of prospects of 10,000 people.
Steve Gordon:You can't get it too small.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:That's assuming that they have the interest, the need, the resources.
David Shriner-Cahn:Sure.
David Shriner-Cahn:And the willingness to pay you.
Steve Gordon:You it's gotta be a viable market.
Steve Gordon:It's gotta be a group of people who would normally buy the type of thing
Steve Gordon:that you're offering, but you've gotta work really hard to get it too small.
David Shriner-Cahn:Steve, are there things that consultants and
David Shriner-Cahn:people selling their expertise?
David Shriner-Cahn:Can do in advance of deciding to write a book, that'll make the process easier.
Steve Gordon:So I think the number one thing to have, and I think this
Steve Gordon:is really foundational to starting the business, but it also is vital to
Steve Gordon:writing the book you need to have what I call your opinionated worldview.
Steve Gordon:And what I mean by that is, when most people start a business, they start it
Steve Gordon:because they believe that there is, some problem out there in the world and that
Steve Gordon:they have a unique approach to solving it.
Steve Gordon:And, I've had consultants push back on this and say, I do it like everybody
Steve Gordon:else does it, but yes, that may be true.
Steve Gordon:But most of the time there's a twist that is uniquely yours.
Steve Gordon:And it's often that twist that you're building the whole business around.
Steve Gordon:And yeah, you want to have this reason why we exist Thinking done coming into it.
Steve Gordon:I think that's really important to have
David Shriner-Cahn:What's your unique worldview for your business?
Steve Gordon:My, my unique worldview is that selling
Steve Gordon:professional services is different.
Steve Gordon:That the way that most of us are taught to market and sell works really well if
Steve Gordon:you're selling a product, but when what you're selling is your own expertise,
Steve Gordon:you have to take a different approach.
Steve Gordon:Most of the sales techniques that work really well for products actually,
Steve Gordon:erode trust if you're selling yourself.
Steve Gordon:It's very hard to use some of those sales tactics and then go jump in the
Steve Gordon:phone booth and come back out in your Superman Cape to save the day as the
Steve Gordon:super consultant and have the person that you just arm wrestled to the sell,
Steve Gordon:with all your fancy closing lines and scripts and all this other stuff that
Steve Gordon:people teach and then have them accept your advice as a trusted advisor.
Steve Gordon:And you've gotta take a different approach.
Steve Gordon:and that's really everything that we do comes from that place of
Steve Gordon:equipping consultants to, to be able to make that very different
Steve Gordon:type of sale and make it easier.
Steve Gordon:and more simply.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:How closely aligned is the process you're describing to consultative sales, where
David Shriner-Cahn:you're as the salesperson, you're just helping a prospect, solve a problem.
Steve Gordon:I really think that the book is the sort of the tip of the sphere in
Steve Gordon:that, one of the reasons that we lean on that tool so heavily is that for a lot
Steve Gordon:of the people that we work with, putting on the salesperson hat, isn't their first
Steve Gordon:desire when they wake up in the morning, it's not what they see themselves as.
Steve Gordon:And what the book allows them to do, and of course there are
Steve Gordon:other formats you could do.
Steve Gordon:You could do this in a presentation, you could do it in other formats.
Steve Gordon:We just find that the book carries so much more authority with it and is easier to
Steve Gordon:share than any other thing that we found.
Steve Gordon:But the book allows you to take all of your best thinking around how you solve
Steve Gordon:a particular problem for a particular type of person and package it in a way
Steve Gordon:that's very easy for people to share.
Steve Gordon:It's no risk to the prospects, because there's no scary salesman,
Steve Gordon:that's going to jump out of the pages and make 'em buy something.
Steve Gordon:And it gives you the space to make your entire case.
Steve Gordon:And so one of the things that we walk all of our clients through is we're.
Steve Gordon:We're laying out the book, as we want to start with, what is the
Steve Gordon:problem that the people you're trying to serve are grappling with.
Steve Gordon:And not only that, what are the consequences of it?
Steve Gordon:Because they may have an inkling of some of the consequences because
Steve Gordon:they may be experiencing them.
Steve Gordon:But you, as the expert know that if they don't address this, they're a big,
Steve Gordon:scary monsters right around the corner.
Steve Gordon:And they need to know about that.
Steve Gordon:So we need to tell 'em those things that builds trust.
Steve Gordon:Then we need to lay.
Steve Gordon:Your approach to solving the problem, we call it your unique mechanism.
Steve Gordon:And this is I always like to equate it to the Wizard of Oz.
Steve Gordon:you've just been, dumped by the tornado, into this strange place and you want to
Steve Gordon:get home and everybody tells you, you have to follow the yellow brick road.
Steve Gordon:Your unique mechanism is the yellow brick road, and that's going to end
Steve Gordon:at this beautiful gleaming gemed, Emerald city, which is going to
Steve Gordon:be your gateway to your future.
Steve Gordon:And so at the end of the book, we want to paint that picture of what's possible
Steve Gordon:for that person, once you've transformed them and take them on that journey.
Steve Gordon:When you're able to do that, you can do things that are typically
Steve Gordon:hard for most consultants.
Steve Gordon:That is, you can address all of the objections that commonly come up in sales
Steve Gordon:conversations all up front in the book.
Steve Gordon:You can address all the questions that come up.
Steve Gordon:You can address all of the ways clients sabotage themselves as consultants.
Steve Gordon:We know all the time that we can, lead the horse to water, but we
Steve Gordon:can't always make them drink.
Steve Gordon:And we can point out all of the places where they're going to,
Steve Gordon:they're going to blow themselves up.
Steve Gordon:If they don't follow our advice.
Steve Gordon:All of.
Steve Gordon:Increases their trust in you.
Steve Gordon:It increases their relationship with you and all of that can
Steve Gordon:be done before you ever meet.
Steve Gordon:Which means when they show up, you have the experience of them
Steve Gordon:basically trying to sell you on why you should take 'em as a client.
Steve Gordon:And that's an easy sales conversation to have.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah, it is very different.
David Shriner-Cahn:Steve, I want to, first of all, congratulate you on what you've done with
David Shriner-Cahn:your own business is pretty remarkable.
David Shriner-Cahn:And congratulations also on serving folks, that can really benefit by having a book.
David Shriner-Cahn:If somebody wants to go deeper with anything we've discussed, access any of
David Shriner-Cahn:the resources you might have available, or get in touch with you, where would
David Shriner-Cahn:be the best place for them to go.
Steve Gordon:Yes, David, what we've done.
Steve Gordon:We've set up a page where they can get a copy of my latest book, which
Steve Gordon:is called the million dollar book, which will lay out our whole system
Steve Gordon:for how you can write your own seven figure business book that will,
Steve Gordon:attract the kind of clients you want.
Steve Gordon:And, I'd love to make a copy available to anybody listening, for free.
Steve Gordon:They can go to themilliondollarbook.org, themilliondollarbook.org/smashing,
Steve Gordon:and they can get a copy there.
Steve Gordon:And, Again, completely free.
Steve Gordon:We want to get that out to as many people as we can so that it'll help as
Steve Gordon:many consultants as it possibly can.
David Shriner-Cahn:My guest today has been the CEO and founder of
David Shriner-Cahn:unstoppable CEO, Steve Gordon.
David Shriner-Cahn:Steve, I want to thank you again for coming back and joining us.
Steve Gordon:David.
Steve Gordon:Thank you.
Steve Gordon:It's been a lot of fun.
David Shriner-Cahn:When you visit the Smashing the Plateau website at
David Shriner-Cahn:smashingtheplateau.com, you'll find a summary of each episode, along with
David Shriner-Cahn:the links we mentioned on the show.
David Shriner-Cahn:On today's episode with Steve Gordon, we learned how a book can accelerate
David Shriner-Cahn:the growth of your consulting business.
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