Meet Henry DeVries

Henry DeVries, MBA, is the CEO of Indie Books International, a company he cofounded in 2014 to work with agency owners and strategic consultants who want to attract right-fit clients by marketing with a book and speech (www.indiebooksintl.com). He is the author of 17 books including Marketing With A Book For Agency Owners. Since 2010, he has ghostwritten, coauthored, and published more than 300 business books, including his McGraw Hill bestseller How to Close a Deal like Warren Buffett. Henry’s articles have appeared in forbes.com, the Associated Press, and various magazines. He can be reached at henry@indiebooksintl.com. Learn more about Henry by visiting the website for Indie Books International: http://www.indiebooksintl.com.

Henry, how does a book help with your authority marketing efforts? 

Well, as our friends at Predictive ROI and Agency Management Institute say, a book can be the cornerstone for your authority marketing. And then the real leverage is talking about doing what I'm doing here on a podcast with you. Or I'm going to be giving a speech tomorrow at the University of California at Irvine at their innovation center. A lot of these [opportunities] come from the writing that I do and being an author; that makes sense to be on a stage. So, you use the book as the authority marketing tool. Your sales strategy is talking about the book. And that's what gets you the right fit prospects into your sales pipeline.

Why do you say publishing the book is the starting line and not the finish line?

There are so many people out there who're all about the book, about coaching you to write the book, and/or writing the book for you or their publishing service. And you get your book out. But let me give your audience a hard truth… Nobody gets discovered because they write a book. It's like nobody gets discovered because they put a website up on the internet. Books don't promote authors, authors promote books. And in the promotion of the book with the spotlight being on the book, it reflects on you and attracts people who want to have conversations with you about what you do and how you solve problems for people like them. So, we say publishing the book is the starting line. And it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is a long race you're going to be going on, and I have some minimum monthly requirements for my authors. Here they are. One: Do Two Showcase Speeches a Month. Either podcast or something you host like a Q&A session, or on somebody else's stage where you're a virtual or live presenter. Two of those a month and then send 20 books out a month. Two: People Who Could Book You as a Speaker Could Hire You for Your Service. If you do that on a consistent basis, you're gonna sell enough books to pay for the whole effort. And then we measured a return on investment of 4x to 220x. In other words, if people put in, let's say, $25,000 into this effort, they should get $100 to $250,000 to a half million back in extra revenue. And we have a study that shows that. People are on record with the amount of money that the book has made them. And we're out there with measurable results and testimonials to prove it.

Connect with Henry!

Connect on LinkedIn

Indie Books International

Email Henry (henry@indiebooksintl.com) to get a free digital PDF copy of his book “Marketing with a Book” or “Persuade with a Story!”

Lori Highby 0:02

Henry DeVries 1:57

Lori, I am so excited to be here and talk about how your listeners can use authority marketing. And as you know, I'm the book guy. So we'll certainly talk about books,

Lori Highby 2:10

you are the book guy and I would say a good strategy for business owners is to get your name out there. And from a sales and new business perspective, a book can be extremely powerful. So let's start talking about that. Tell me about the nine ways busy business people used to write a book.

Henry DeVries 2:30

Well, most people think about the way to write a book is what we call the misery approach. Named after the Stephen King movie a novel they think they need to lock themselves away in a cabin and not come out until the books done. And that's that's one way I've locked myself in. I don't go cabins I go nice resort hotels. But I've locked myself up in a resort hotel for six days and came out with a manuscript, though I don't recommend it. There are eight other ways that are much better. There's certainly the blog to book I call that the Julia and Julia approach after the woman who cooked every recipe in the Julia Child's cookbook, blogged about it, then wrote a book about it. And they made a major motion picture with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. So blog to book you can do that. Getting a co author. I have worked with Ken Blanchard, who wrote The One Minute Manager and he told me, you know, Henry, I've, I've never written a book. And I said, Ken, you're pulling my leg you've written over 50. And he said, No, I've co authored 50 books. I know what I know. I want to know what somebody else knows. And he always takes energy from that exchange. Another way is hire a developmental editor. A developmental editor is different than a copy editor, line editor. This is a co creator. This is my signature offering i i Do About 24 of these a year where I'll be the developmental editor on a book. There's the early riser approach. Deepak Chopra talked about this in the LA Times where he gets up at 430 writes on his next book from 430 to 6:30am. And then, you know, uses the rest of the day for whatever. Not everybody wants to get up that early. There's the ghost writer where you hire somebody to write. I got a call one day this woman said, Is this Henry DeVries? I said, Yes. Henry DeVries, the ghostwriter. I said, Well, yes. She says, Well, my story takes place on Halloween. It's in an old mansion. A thunderstorm is going on. They're having a seance in the mansion to contact the soul of the den owner and I said, I gotta stop you right there. I'm not that kind of ghostwriter. So business people use me CEOs and other people. And I'm thanked as the Your editor in the back of the book, but really, they're too busy to write the book, I do it for him. There's interviews to books, I do this a lot, where I'll come in, and I'll interview people transcribe it, and then take the transcriptions put it together and clean that up. And it's a book. There's some planning on the front end, you don't just do it by seat of the pants, you have a blueprint. We mentioned blog to book but podcast, the book, you can take these podcasts, you could transcribe them with an editor, figure out which ones you want. I helped Sarah Katz, with her agency in New York City. And they had a very successful podcast for years that we turned the podcast episodes into a book. And that's been doing very well for her. And the last one is the workshop to book where people might have a successful three hour workshop, I've helped some several people who've had a very successful workshop. And then we took the workshop and we're turning the workshop into a book. Now, you know, like a film is different than a book, you know, workshop is different than a book, we've got to tailor it for the audience. But that's where the content generated. So a lot of people have more assets than they realize to get a book done. I help them uncover their hidden assets. Ah,

Lori Highby 6:25

I feel like I have so many different books now that I should write, they sell everything.

Henry DeVries 6:33

As Warren Buffett said, don't ask your barber if you need a haircut. So don't ask the book guy if he thinks you should have a book.

Lori Highby 6:40

I know. It's on the to do list. Right. Yeah. I mean, I we're kind of redoing our website right now and just took a look, we have over 400 blogs on that, you know, I've got two different podcasts. And that's over 400 episodes, between the two podcasts that I've got. I mean, there's I've done workshops, I've done lectures, there's lots of different ways that the contents there. You've got the content by a boatload,

I do. I assure you.

Henry DeVries 7:16

I don't see a book in your future. I see books plural in your future. Because Oh, boy, doesn't do one book. And that's everything they have to say they

Lori Highby 7:27

know I have written 17.

Henry, how does a book help with your authority marketing efforts? You kind of opened with that earlier? Yeah, well,

Henry DeVries 7:38

that's as our friends that predictive ROI and agency Management Institute's say, a book can be the cornerstone for your authority marketing. And then the real leverage is talking about that doing like I'm doing here on a podcast with you. Or I'm going to be giving a speech tomorrow at University of California at Irvine at their innovation center. And a lot of these come from the writing that I do, and being an author, and that makes sense to be on a stage. So you use the book as the authority marketing tool. Your sales strategy is talking about the book. And that's what gets you right fit prospects into your sales pipeline. Yep. Love that.

Lori Highby 8:28

That just makes so much sense. Why do you say publishing the book is the starting line and not the finish line? You kind of alluded to that a little bit? Well, there's so many people

Henry DeVries 8:39

out there that they're all about the book about coaching you to write the book, and, or writing the book for you, or their publishing service, and you get your book out. But let me give your audience a hard truth. Nobody gets discovered because they write a book. It's like nobody gets discovered because they put a website up on the internet. books don't promote authors, authors promote books. And in the promotion of the book with the spotlight being on the book, it reflects on you and attracts people who want to have conversations with you about what you do, and how you solve problems for people like them. So we say publishing the book is the starting line. And it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is a long race you're going to be going on, and I have some minimum monthly requirements for my authors. Here they are. One do two showcase speeches a month, either podcast or something you host like a q&a session, or on somebody else's stage where you're a virtual presenter or even live like I'm doing tomorrow, two of those a month and then sent 20 books out a month, two people who could book you as a speaker, book you as a podcast or a TV show guest or could actually hire you for your service. And if you do that on a consistent basis, you're gonna sell enough books to pay for the whole effort. And then we've measured a return on investment of 4x 220 x. In other words, if people put in, let's say, 25,000, into this effort, they should get 100 to 250,000 to a half million back in extra revenue. And we have a study that shows that, and people are on record with the amount of money that the book has made them. And we're out there with measurable results, testimonials to prove it.

Yeah. I love that. That's, it totally makes sense. I mean, yeah, the book is not the finish line. That's just kind of the getting started. That's the one piece you need to really get, get the attention of that audience and just kind of going all in and the different avenues that you could do that from a marketing perspective.

I love that mentor said it's the ticket to play it to get you into the game and play to be the author of the book. Yep.

Fantastic. All right. I'm gonna ask you some fun questions. Now. Henry, you ready? Okay, I'm ready. If you could go back to your 20 year old. So what would you tell yourself to do more of less of or differently with regards to your professional career?

I love this because I would go back to my 20 year old self and tell him, don't be so anxious about all this. It really works out. You get a funny, smart, beautiful wife. You have children. You live by the ocean where you want to live. You have season tickets to two different baseball teams, life's great. But then I said, well, well, how do we get there? Well, I would have started a business sooner. I was 42 years old, I earned my MBA, working for the man working on Maggie's Farm if you like Bob Dylan, so I decided, hmm, I think it would be better. If I was in business for myself, I read a book that changed my life, the title of the book was Die Broke. It was so funny, it's it was said it's not about amassing all this money. It's about creating streams of revenue that will keep giving you revenue for your life. So it'll give you cash flow and time to enjoy life. One of the other tenants of the book was quit today. So quit the corporate struggle today, and form your own business, so that you have control of your life and control of your business. So it was so comforting that there could never be one phone call or one memo that put me out of business. You know, I I had a variety of clients. Do we have time for a little story on that? Yeah, go for it. So my father was a dairy farmer. And, you know, so this kind of life was strange to him that I was leaving. But I told him about my ideas. Instead of having one boss or four big clients, I was going to have 20 Little clients. That all paid me money. And I was trying to figure out, you know, with my NBA, how I would explain it to my father. And my father said, Hey, you remember Charlie Weaver? You know, when we had the horses, Charlie Weaver, people who bought a racehorse and they needed somebody to take care of it and race it. They would hire Charlie, and he had like the strings of all of these independent horses, and he could get more out of a horse than any trainer I knew. And I mean, he would get these bad horses to finish fourth in the money. And they weren't money losers for these people. They were moneymakers. Well, this caught the attention of one of the big thoroughbred farms in Kentucky. And they wound him away and said, come work for us. We'll give you top facilities, we'll give you top money. You won't have to worry about finding clients anymore. You'll have the best of everything. So Charlie took the job. And then every day the owner came out and would ask him questions like, Well, Charlie, why are you using that jockey next week? And well, why are you training him on the half mile track? And why are you feeding in somebody oats and he just would pester him with questions all the time. Henry Charlie took to drinking. He became an alcoholic, a drunk. We lost sight of him. Nobody knows where Charlie is. And then there was a long pause. My dad said, You know I think this idea of having 20 Little clients instead of one big one is a good one. So, the other thing I would give that advice to is, it's about relationships. It's not about it, you know, no offense to you or your work or anything, because I know you know, it's relationships too. But it's not about strangers on the internet and some transaction. And when I went to go out on my own, my database was my best asset of all these people I knew. And I had done favors for and I continued to do favors for people. And a funny thing happens. The more favors I do for people, the more generous I am. The luckier I get in business. Yep.

It's funny how that happens. Hey,

how that works. give give give, right? Give until it hurts.

Well, that's Yeah, yeah, that's what we do. For sure. Without a doubt. That being said, Here, all right, Henry, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to interview me, what is something you'd like to ask me?

Well, what is your point of view? What is your key piece of advice that you go and share with business owners?

Oh, so broad, new business owners established business owners? What around town? What running a business marketing

down an agency owner with five to 200 employees, and they have a dry sales pipeline, and they want to find more right fit clients? What are you going to tell them that the best things that they can do?

i Well, I would say 100%, get out there, build relationships, tap into the network that you have, and continue to show your expertise and give, give your expertise and educate people on why these things are important. From a marketing standpoint.

There's a lot of things that we're doing in the digital space, and that that world is changing so fast right now. That that's all we can do is we're educating ourselves, and then, you know, regurgitating the information, we're learning and educating our audience with that. And I think that's extremely important to do. So. Whether it's through a book, podcasts, that webinar, blog, in person, seminar, whatever it is, it's just continue to share your knowledge and show your expertise to the

world. Well, let me get to another specific question Laurie. Building the opt in email list, in publishing, we call it the platform. If I'm going to land a client with a big publisher, the first thing they asked me is about what kind of opt in email list do they have? So how do we go about and I assume we're in a niche where we've super niched how do we attract those people what they will actually give us their name and email address, and want to receive material from us?

Yeah, I mean, I, I agree 100%, the quality of your email list and actually had this conversation with someone today is probably in my opinion, one of the most valuable digital marketing tools and assets that you can have is that email list. It is extremely powerful. And that's a whole nother tangent to go on. Maybe I'll write about it on LinkedIn here. How to build that is all about giving, giving that quality content away. So you're giving away quality content, but then you also are offering a gated piece, that's even better, higher quality content. And what I tell our clients, whenever there's any sort of gated content is, you know, people are actually paying for this. So it needs to be high quality content, but their form of payment is their contact information, their email address, or their phone number, if you want to do some sort of a texting campaign. So it can't just be a, you know, a mediocre piece, it has to be something of high value so that they are confident in what they paid, which was their contact information in exchange for the information that you gave them.

High Value in gated I love those concepts. Because that's really what it's about. Some people call them lead magnets, tool, or checklists, or a valuable assessment. One of mine is I go into detail on the nine ways to write a book and get specific on the how to so somebody can see their options. You know, and we're always looking to build more, that people really feel valuable. So some of that I imagine is the scientific method where you have a theory, you have a hypothesis, and you need to go out and test it. And the the public, the target audience will tell you if the experiment was successful or not, by their clicks their votes. They're voting with their name and email.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what that is. All right. We're getting near the end here. So Henry, any final words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Well, this is important advice, I have something I do want to share. And when we're doing all these things, people are going to contact us and ask us questions. And I call them good questions. They're good questions like, Could we meet to talk about us working together? Or would you like to be on my podcast? Or they might like to say, Would you like to speak at our upcoming conference? Or could I write an article about you in a publication like forbes.com? So whenever you get one of these good questions, here's what I want you to do. Number one, pause three seconds for dignity. Take a pause, smile, and then say, Thank you for asking to do it. We don't want to be too eager. Yes, we would you like to be on my pot. Yes. You know, nervous, make them and be thoughtful about something. And then, and then say, Thank you for asking. So you acknowledge the person who made the offer, and what it is. So there's my advice, pause three seconds for dignity, dignity, and say thank you for asking.

Fantastic and love that. I'm going to remember that when because I'm a quick yes, person are so nasty that so I appreciate that. Henry, I know we shared your contact info at the start of this episode. But if anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what is the best way that they can reach you?

Well, I'd like to make a free offer. So they can send me an email at Henry at Indie books, I mtl.com. That's not my clone. It's not my robot. That's me. I look at everything. And if you'd like a free copy of my book marketing with a book or a free copy of my book, persuade with a story, I'd be happy to send you a digital PDF copy of those books. On me, it's my gift to you for being a listener of Lori.

Awesome. And all that information will be included in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Henry.

Thank you, Lori.

All right. This wraps up our episode of social capital A huge thank you to Henry for taking the time to connect. If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, reach out, I'd love to answer it on the show. And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn. I'm looking forward to hearing from you and I hope you enjoyed today. I hope you enjoyed today's show. Go out there and get noticed