Jaime Jay is the founder and managing director of Bottleneck Distant Assistants. Founded in 2016, Bottleneck is an outsourcing agency that helps businesses identify, hire, and cultivate their workforce through a carefully designed systematic approach to growth. A veteran US Army paratrooper who received the Army Achievement Medal for Meritorious Service, Jay’s additional business experience includes a twelve-year career in corporate America and advanced education in Business Administration and Management at Florida Institute of Technology.

We discuss:

• Three reasons to write a book other than anything else [03:02]
• What makes 184 pages much more than new authors think [06:24]
• A very affordable way about finding a hybrid publisher [09:15]
• What it feels like going through the different levels of editing [11:18]
• Thinking about thinking about leadership [13:17]
• The seven-year itch in business [15:35]
• The little things that make writing a book worthwhile [17:03]
• The best way for book authors to get feedback from readers [19:34]
• How crazy other people’s lives are [21:30]

Jaime likes networking with big-picture thinkers and proudly proclaims he is unemployable. In his spare time, he enjoys playing hockey, camping, boating, playing guitar, shooting guns, traveling, and spending time with his wife, Sara.

In Quit Repeating Yourself, author Jaime Jay shares how he built a seven-figure business by focusing on the power of creating systems and processes so he could stop doing the wrong things and focus on doing his best work. After other business professionals kept asking him to explain what he was doing differently, Jay compiled his best strategies and systems, hoping readers could learn from his successes and his mistakes. Through personal stories and professional examples, he teaches leaders how to build a strong company foundation using small and actionable steps.

Learn more about Jaime at https://bottleneck.online, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

There's people that I don't even know that are buying the

I don't know anything about them.

And maybe I'll get an email or a message on Facebook or LinkedIn,

welcome to smashing the plateau.

We help you get on stock so you can do what you love and get paid.

What you're worth.

Consistently.

I'm your host, David Schreiner.

Today on episode 610 of smashing the plateau.

I'm speaking with the author of quit.

Repeating yourself.

Jamie J should you write a book?

How can your book help your business?

First time author Jamie shares, why he wrote quit repeating.

How he wrote it and how he uses his book to help his business, stay with us, to

We share methods to help you reach more of your ideal audience.

We also give you a range of tools and resources to support your business,

Check out the smashing the plateau community so that you

What you're worth.

Learn more@smashingtheplateau.com slash community.

That's smashing the plateau.com/community.

Now let's welcome, Jamie.

Jamie is the founder and managing director of bottleneck distant

Bottleneck is an outsourcing agency that helps businesses identify,

Jamie is the author of quit repeating yourself, where he shares, how he built a

So he could stop doing the wrong things and focus on doing his best work.

After other business professionals kept asking him to explain

Jamie compiled his best strategies and systems hoping readers could

Jamie teaches leaders how to build a strong company foundation

Jamie, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, it's so great to have you on again.

And I know you and I have been talking about your book for a long time.

And as I was thinking about, about, Session today.

And this episode, there are lots of ways that you could have shared

Why of all things did you decide to write a book?

And this is your first book, right?

Yes.

Yes.

It's my

first book.

So why

a book?

three reasons actually, number one, I wanted to prove to myself

I asked the same questions, quite a bit, very similar, over and over again.

And I thought, what's a great way to quit repeating myself.

And I figured, you know what, why don't I write the book?

And that way I can put the answers out there that so many people have asked me

Maybe that means something maybe that more people have this same question.

So that was the other reason that I wrote the book.

And then the third reason was I was challenged years ago by one

And let me live with him and his wife and their two kids and supported me.

And he said, Jamie, at some point, you're going to have to put this in the buck.

And that was the third reason on why did that I've really wanted to get that done.

And initially, when I first got with my publisher, I was actually going

I don't have enough time.

I got to live a little bit more life experience a little more life

I said, why not do the business?

Yeah, you actually, to a certain extent answered the

So initially you were thinking about an autobiography now, was that

A

lot of it was because, and what's ironic about this is Rob

I've known him for over 20 years.

He's one of those guys that he's an attorney it's really on the outside

And I think maybe the irony of me writing about another friend of mine who helped

And I said, if you don't have, I didn't really know.

I still have another book in me.

I just don't know when.

And that's where I think I want to dive into more of that

And I think I need more time in this life to experience more.

I'm still so young in the, 15 years entrepreneur, but I still have a

By that time, the full circle, starting a company, growing a company, maybe

So I want to be able to live that full life cycle and see what

next book.

So I do definitely want to talk to you about the content

That I know how much of a process guy you are.

I have to talk first about the process, and I know many people who have written

It was just overwhelming.

Did you think that the process was going to be exhaustive and

Yes.

And I think it got even more exhausted than what I expected.

it was challenging.

It was hard, but a lot of it, you know what I think, David, and

Actually.

I thought it was going to be challenging, but I thought, wow,

They're going to help me with this stuff.

So I thought they'd make it a little bit easier, but I think I had a

I think in my head I was, it was going to be tough.

Why?

Because I'm not around.

I just not a good writer in my opinion.

And so in my head, I thought, man, this is going to be hard.

How in the heck?

Write a book.

If I don't consider myself a writer, maybe I should just hire a ghost

But then I was like, no, I want to do this.

I want it to be for me now, of course it's been edited, punctuation,

But the ideas, the research that was, I did that and I'm really proud of that.

And it made it the day.

That I was able to get this book published and see it physical copy in my hand that

It's not a big novel, but at the same time, the people that are going

These are the people that are, don't have a lot of time, but I

And I think it was really rewarding.

So by having a hard time and struggling through this process, even more so than

first of all, 184 pages is still 184 more

It's more than most people.

I've written because most people have not published a book and

And it's shaped in a way that is easy to digest, easy to understand and

So that's my takeaway after reading it.

And I have to say thank you for that.

Cause that was one of my concerns is that.

Or that was not one of my concerns, but one of my objectives was

So that was easy for people to understand.

I tried to, I really tried to simplify it.

And then of course, I got to interview a lot of cool people like you and still

Yeah.

And I'm touched by that.

So thank you.

How did you figure out what process to use and who.

Could best help

you in the books.

Yeah for writing.

So that was, I can't say that is a lot of research that went into this.

I tripped onto this relationship because I was introduced by a friend of mine.

And I think, Ashley, Bergoff, but she's also a systems person.

We were just talking one day and she goes, Hey, have you

And I said, I'd absolutely love to write a book.

I just don't have the time right now.

And she goes, maybe you can talk to these pers.

So she introduced me to new degree press and I think it's called crazy.

Dot Institute is the website there.

If people are interested because it's a very affordable way about,

And it is a fully process systemized way of turning out a book.

10 months later after beginning of the.

You can have your own book.

It's pretty neat.

And the way that you go about it, they have different options for you to go in.

They help raise the money.

So not all of it comes out of your pocket.

They help you do a go fund.

Me account.

I think it was.

I think it was something like that.

It was a fundraising, app.

I forget which one it was, but they help you, come up with all of that.

and that's how you pay to get the pay the publisher to get your book done.

And it's just a, it was an incredible experience.

the challenges are deadlines, at one point I met with a publisher and he said,

Do you think you want to extend to December?

And I'm like, I seriously considered it, but I said, you don't know.

I want to get this thing launched on time, just like I promised.

So they all kind of circle the wagons around me and really

So that accountability was unbelievable having that debtor.

yeah.

fortunately it was an introduction from, one of my friends, one of my colleagues.

Did a great press.

It was great.

Wow.

So 10 months start to

finish.

10 months start to finish.

And how many hours per week would you say you spent on the

process?

I don't know that every single week I actually worked on the book.

There was that there was some points to where I would cause.

And then they would give you feedback and the first round and

there's, different levels of editing, but at certain points you would turn

And then.

After the first, I forget what they called the first editor, but

And this is how you lay it out.

And this is, they would explain a little bit about the story arc of

So they'd worked with me a little bit harder on the first four chapters

Each has four chapters in it.

And so they helped me with the first part.

And then the second, third part, I was more left to be on my own, but

And it took a while for the revisions editor.

there was 70 some people going through this particular cohort, so it took some

You might work, maybe 10 hours a week, something like that.

And then when the deadlines would come up, you'd work a little bit more.

And the revisions and the editing that was even more time consuming.

I had one heck of a time with chapter five and thankfully my wife jumped in

And.

Yeah.

I just really had a hard time.

It wasn't making sense.

And she just came in and whizzbang did all together and did a great job.

And, yeah, that was probably the most time spent on one chapter, probably

Okay.

Now it sounds like it was a good process and a.

Yeah, congratulations for getting it done, but let's talk about the content.

so you said, basically this was your way of putting your answers to

Yeah, exactly.

So I thought about what is our business entail?

we're huge fans of company culture.

I think leadership is something that needs to have a lot of time

About leadership and then of course, systems and processes.

I'm a massive fan of systems and processes.

I'm a practitioner of creating systems and processes and workflows.

And then of course, for the company that we have, recruiting

That's our.

That's it.

That's your bread and butter.

That's our bread and butter.

So I thought there's a lot of leadership books out there.

There's a lot of culture books out there.

There's a lot of sales books, a lot of marketing books, a lot of books on

So what I did is I have three parts in the.

And I want to send a special shout out and thanks to Christopher Lochhead.

He wrote the forward to the book and talks about the entrepreneurial journey

And I broke it down into three parts.

Part.

First part is culture and leadership.

Second part is systems and processes.

And the third part of the book is recruiting and hiring.

And I opened up the book, pun intended, open up the book to our own business.

And I wanted to share with other people what it was that we were

And then what kind of culture do we have here and what am I doing?

To become a better leader every single day.

What do I keep challenging myself with?

So I interviewed a lot of amazing people you're included and got some wonderful

And it was a really neat way to bring that all together.

I think, yeah, that's the content of the book.

Who's the ideal reader.

The ideal reader is either a new or a veteran.

entrepreneur that as having problems, they've gotten to a

They can't quite get to that next level or, the experience

What it probably more designed for that maybe a team leader.

high level executive people that have been around awhile and

They're starting to identify different friction points in the business

This book will really help them out and being able to not only identify,

And you heard the seventh year itch in marriage.

There's the same thing in business that seventh year itch in business.

I actually, it could be third three through seventh year.

They're just going to that next level.

And now all of a sudden, certain things are pointing out.

Your customers are maybe complaining about this or that, and it's starting to occur

Those are great examples that your systems or processes haven't been

You might even not even have them.

And this is a real opportunity for this book to help you.

Get a better direction going,

Jamie, what are some of the unexpected bits of

What has surprised you with some of the things you've heard?

This was in the part.

I had a massive imposter syndrome.

I almost thought at one point I go, I wonder if I should market

it's not that bad, like I was so afraid to put this out there.

I really was because I'm like, who in the heck am I to write

Who am like, are you kidding me?

I started solely hearing, you know what?

It's very actionable, very topical.

And you know what?

That's what I meant for it to be.

Now I heard one person say I read it in two hours.

I heard another person say, yeah, I read through it the first time into.

But I went back and I really spent some time studying it and I'd learned a lot.

And then I'd even get like little messages.

And this has happened a couple of times.

And if people have taken pictures of where they were at in the book and one

Help them and resonated with them.

And I was like, this is unbelievable.

Or, Hey, I was so entertained by this book.

I was on the airplane and I didn't even care that the

I was just into your book so much.

And I just was like, that's so cool.

little things like that.

The people are really getting something out of it.

And now, as I can say, I'm an author and as an author to do something

Yeah.

Have you heard anything that was, totally unexpected,

Not yet.

And that's a really good question cause now I really want to dive into that.

Maybe explore it more and see if I can reach out to find that out.

I don't know if people have had enough time to implement against

That's a really good question.

I should really, I have to be more intentional about finding.

So here's a question that may help.

I don't know if you have an answer to this or not, but could also help other

Yeah,

that's huge.

and this is as many people know, if you go buy a book on borders, I'm sorry.

Borders, Barnes, and noble

stating you, Jamie.

Yeah.

That

is, that is really bad.

Amazon, any place where you can go and buy a book, you don't get that data.

Amazon's not going to give you the customer's data that bought the book.

They won't do it.

Hopefully they'll leave a review and you'll know, but that's why I think

And then after they give you their name and email or whatever information

I think that's really important.

That's what we've done here.

But I'm still finding there's people that I don't even know that are buying

I don't know anything about them.

And maybe I'll get an email or a message on Facebook or LinkedIn, or I'll see

I have no idea who that is, So

you can't reach out to them?

No, I can't say thank you.

Or I can't say, what did you like most about it was there?

What about this book helped you, overcome the challenges are, what

What motivated you to get the book?

I lose those interactions and it's a bummer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

you got the first one done.

You hinted that this is not going to be your only one what's in your head.

What's now.

Yeah, my publisher said right as we were wrapping up, they said, okay,

You want to start in the next cohort?

I'm like, no, let me take a breather from that.

Cause it's a lot, it's a very.

It's very heavy on your brain.

There's a lot of thinking that needs to go into it.

So I needed to relax cause, me, my brain doesn't, I'm not the brightest

So I said, I to know about that.

I know my limits, so don't push it, Jamie.

So yeah, I would love to write another book and maybe explore, the next.

In, whatever it is that we're doing here at bottleneck, we have some

So maybe this is something that I can cover in the next book,

And then I think, yeah, when in about another five to 10 years, I seriously

There's some pretty crazy stuff that happened in my life.

and a lot of people like.

Look at how crazy other people's lives are and hope,

David Shriner-Cahn:

hope that helps people.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Sounds great.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Jamie, congratulations again on this, milestone achievement, I've

David Shriner-Cahn:

You writing a book or not writing a book.

David Shriner-Cahn:

So congratulations on getting it done.

David Shriner-Cahn:

And, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us again

David Shriner-Cahn:

My guest today has been the author of quit repeating yourself.

David Shriner-Cahn:

Jamie, Jay, thank you again, Jamie for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When you visit the smashing the plateau website

You'll find a summary of each episode, along with the links we mentioned on

We share methods to help you reach more of your ideal audience.

We also give you a range of tools and resources to support your business.

Access to experts, answers to your burning questions and the comradery of

Check out the smashing the plateau community so that you

What you're worth.

Learn more@smashingtheplateau.com slash.

That's smashing the plateau.com/community.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.