In this strategic episode, Everett O'Keefe, Founder of Ignite Press, shares how a book can be your most powerful marketing tool as a stage 3 founder. If you're struggling with visibility, long sales cycles, and proving expertise that others can't see, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why a book dramatically raises your authority even if prospects never read it

- How to write a book that attracts ideal clients and makes them more compliant

- What it takes to use your book as the ultimate marketing asset

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 3 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Everett O’Keefe is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and International #1 Bestselling Author. The Power of the Published is his most recent solo work. He has also helped create and launch more than 150 bestselling books for his clients. Everett speaks across the nation on the power of publishing. He is the founder of Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, as well as business and medical professionals, ignite their businesses by becoming bestselling authors.

Want to learn more about Everett O'Keefe's work at Ignite Press? Check out his website at https://ignitepress.us/

Connect with Everett through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/everettokeefe/

Get a FREE copy of his book The Power of the Published at https://mypodcastperk.com/

Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again

to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that

grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a

founder. I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and if you've ever

watched a less than qualified competitor walk away with a deal

that you should have won, you know how frustrating it is to

have expertise that no one can see, especially those of you who

are fighting through level three, when you've got a whole

bunch of mouths to feed to make things worse. So, the problem is

that credentials, referrals, and even a great track record can

all be invisible until someone already trusts you enough to

ask, that's the chicken and the egg problem that most founders

never solve. But today's guest has helped more than 150

founders solve it, and he's going to show us exactly how.

So, let me introduce him with us today, mr. Everett O'Keefe. He's

a Wall Street Journal USA Today and international number one

bestselling author, The Power of the Published is his most recent

solo work. He's also helped create and launch more than 150

bestselling books for his clients. Everett speaks across

the nation on the power of publishing. He's the founder of

Ignite Press, a hybrid publishing company that

specializes in helping entrepreneurs as well as

business and medical professionals to ignite their

businesses by becoming best-selling authors. Well,

Everett, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here.

Scott, thank you.

Yeah, so as I was reading, there's this line I

told you this coming in that just kind of jumped off, and

that is, I think it's more a question for me still. So maybe

you can answer it for us, but the question is this: Can you

actually influence folks, your prospective clients, other folks

in the industry? Can you influence people with a book

that they have never read?

Yeah, absolutely. So, Scott, thanks for having me on.

I tell you, the there is great power in the unread book, of

course. We all want our clients and prospects to read our books,

but the truth is, the vast majority who people who

encounter your book won't read it, right? They'll have heard

about it, they'll hear your name associated with the title of it,

maybe they'll see the cover, or maybe they'll actually have a

copy of the book in their hand, but how many of us have books on

our nightstands, right, or in on our bookshelves? Our best

intentions to read, and we never get around to it, but it's one

of the things I love about books, even if people never even

open it up, it continuously sits there and screams your

qualifications to your prospect or your client. They see it on

their desk, they come across it on Amazon, or in your email, or

in social media, or whatever. Just the fact that your name is

associated with that book just gives so much credibility, and

it's crazy, Scott. Right here, we are in this age where you and

I are huge on streaming video, right, and streaming audio, and

we understand the power of these things, but we still get, we

still revere authors, we still give special credence and

authority to authors, and that's true, even if someone never even

reads the book.

Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. So it's such an

irony to me, because I really couldn't agree more. We, we

esteem authors, but we will pay $15 for a book where it's such a

funny anomaly, but that's neither here nor there. What I

really love about your approach is this idea that the book, in

and of itself, yes, it should be good, it's a, it should be a

work, but it's also a tool. So, if we think of a book as a tool

for solving these business challenges that we've laid out

here, how does it help us approach the book and the whole

process of the book differently?

Yeah, it changes the dynamic entirely, because a lot

of people think that a book is especially their first book,

they approach it like it's going to be their opus or something

like that, it's their, it's their big legacy piece that

they're going to leave the world, when quite honestly, most

people should approach their first book as their first book,

and it should be approached as the world's best marketing piece

for their business. There's nothing like a book to help

convert prospects into customers, and to shorten that

cycle, too. You put, you put a book in the hands of a prospect,

your authority level goes up, they see you through different

eyes entirely, and if they start to read that book, they're

likely to engage with you much more quickly, and so I think

that it causes us to look at the book differently, and what we

would include in it. For instance, one of the things that

people never talk about, about a power of a book, is the power to

make better clients. When your prospects read your book, they

come to you, and they are more inclined, they're predisposed to

accept your recommendations, because you've already

instructed them in the book, and showing your expertise there.

So, when you say, "Hey, we should do this, they're like,

"Oh, yeah, I read about that in your book. I totally want to do

that, instead of you having to sit there and try to explain to

them why you're recommending that particular thing. So, it

tends to make more compliant and accepting clients, it, it also,

you can allow a book to help you sort your prospects, because

you're going to automatically attract the ones that really see

and understand your ideology, and you're going to repel the

ones who don't, and I'm, as you, as you teach your clients, you

know, repelling people, repelling the wrong prospect is

as important, and maybe more than attracting the right ones,

and so these are these are things that you weave into your

book, it's language about how you work, what you work, what

you do, and why you do it, so that when they come to you,

they're like, yeah, I'm on board, I want to do that.

When, when someone approaches you, I would

imagine you have the luxury of being in this position, but you

have a founder, they've had some success in business, they,

they're, they're struggling with a degree of obscurity, at least

relative to their goals, and they tell you, I want to write a

book. What do you find are some of the most common

misperceptions that they have about either the book itself or

the process surrounding

hmmm. All right, yeah, some people think it needs to be

a really long book, and they have in their mind that it's

going to be three 400 pages that it needs to encompass all their

wisdom, and it doesn't, you know, the sweet spot on the book

is really about 25 to 40,000 words, and which is completely

manageable, it creates a book of about 120 to 180 pages, and the

idea there is that it's long enough to allow you to come to

convey your message. It's thick enough to be a book, and it's

short enough to be read on a cross-country flight. If you go

longer than that, people either won't start it or they won't

finish it, you go shorter than that, and people may not,

they'll see it as a pamphlet, you know, or something,

something along those lines. So, I think that's a, that's a great

misconception, is how long does it need to be, and then, and

that, and that you need to pour everything into it, you don't,

you need to provide value, you need to solve problems for your

clients and prospects, but you're going to leave things on

the table, you're going to leave things off the table that you're

going to be delivering to them in person or through your

website or additional resources. It just think of it as the

ultimate marketing tool. I sit there and I laugh at how much

people spend on mugs and pens and other tchotchkes and stuff

like that that they may provide to people, which provide no

indication of your expertise, you know, or your wisdom, and

yet when you put a book in somebody's hand, they have this

continual reminder of your expertise, and, and by the way,

we tend not to throw books away, right? They're like, like, it's

almost, it's almost like a heresy to throw a book away,

like, no, no, no, we can't do that. So they tend to hang

around where those other things are like,

that's fascinating. I don't think I've

ever thrown a book away. We've donated books. I don't think

we've ever.. that's fascinating. I hadn't thought about that.

Here's what I like about this, and it's especially for, like,

the coaches who are listening to the show, or you know, CPAs, or

folks who professional services that are doing knowledge work.

It's increasingly less physical. There's not anything to show for

it at the end, and so one of the things that I like so much about

a book, and you've, you've mentioned this multiple times,

but I want to draw it out. I was like, you can actually put it in

their hands,

absolutely.

And, and so we try to do that through the

tchotchkes, but you're right, putting something in their hands

that one they won't throw away, unlike the cup or the like the

19th, you know, whatever mug, I won't use anyone's brand names

here, but that I have no more room for in my, my pantry, but

so I love that, so we've got this kind of physical presence,

we've got a state. Of your value to some extent, we have the what

we call it the author's aura, when it, when it comes time to,

to kind of get the book out in the world, if the goal isn't

necessarily to get as many people to read it, but to use it

as, as effectively as possible as a marketing tool, How does

that change our approach in in launch season?

Yeah, it that's an important question. Because

knowing who your target market is and how you plan to use the

book and leverage the book are key. A lot of people are really

writing for very narrow target market, and so while we will

publish the book, so it's on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com

and walmart.com and we'll carry out an Amazon bestseller launch

strategy to make them Amazon bestsellers. Their target

market's probably something much, much smaller, especially

for a founder, an executive of a company. They know who their

target market is, and it isn't the random reader on Amazon,

right? It's somebody very specific, and that founder is

probably going to encounter that target market in limited

environments - it's speaking environments, it's coaching and

consulting environments, or networking with proper people.

So, having the access and the freedom to get copies into those

people's hands, an unfettered freedom to do that is really

important, and that's where, like, traditional publishing can

be a little harder, because you may, you're selling your rights

away for traditional publishing, and you may be limited in how

you use it. In hybrid and self-publishing, you'll have

freedom, complete freedom. You want to give, you want to speak

somewhere and give everyone a copy of the book, do it. In

fact, most authors, especially in the business world, will make

way more money giving books away than they ever will selling

them. I like to, I like to say that most of our clients would

like to make their ROI back four or five digits at a time through

a new client or a new relationship, then they will one

digit at a time through selling a book on Amazon, so that that

also allows you to really focus your language right in in your

book, so you, and that's why it's important, if you're, if

you're going to work with a publisher, make sure your

publisher understands what you're really going to do with

this, also, you brought something up, and it just made

some.. it clicked on a story. I had a client who was working at

the same rates for about 10 years. They were.. they wanted

to raise their fees. They kept freaking out about, "Oh, if I

raise my fees, I'm going to lose my clientele, you know that type

of thing. So she published a book and doubled her fees and

lost about 10% of her clients, you know. And if you do the math

right, you doubled your fees, but you lost 10% of your

clients. That's okay, that's pretty good math, and she really

used the book, as you know, as one of the reinforcing points as

to, as to why, and how she should be raising her rates, and

that's another benefit of having a book out in the market.

Yeah, it's so good. So, Everett, there's this

question that I have for you, as a question I ask all my guests.

I'm interested to see what you have to say, especially from

this perspective. So, the question is this: What is the

biggest secret you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one

thing you wish every founder watching or listening today

knew?

Yeah, you know, Scott, thanks. I couch that in this

terms that I don't know if it's a secret, I just know that

everyone needs to know it, and not everybody does. So, it's a

secret to some mastermind groups. I know, like, my

business was struggling, and we were on the edge of cratering

when I joined my first mastermind group, and that

opened up so many doors, and I learned so much, and so I'm huge

on mastermind groups. I host a publisher's mastermind group,

and I have for about 13 years now, and we learn so much from

each other, and yet I still bump into people in the world who

either A, have never been in a mastermind group, B, they've

been in one, but it really wasn't one, right? That you've

probably encountered that, Scott. Mastermind groups that

were really more group coaching or just networking groups,

instead of people really pouring into each other, or or C,

they've just, they just have maybe they've heard of one, and

just never counted it, you know. And people hear the word, they

just hear the word, but I have no idea what it is. So, but

yeah, I still think I still think mastermind groups, and you

know, on some podcasts I'm asked you, like, what are the things

you would tell a 2020 year old version of Everett, I. We say

join a mastermind group and publish a book. If I were, and

if I were starting a new career, I would publish a book about

that new career right away, even if it was just about like

frequently asked questions of that. Oh, that's a, and Scott,

that's another thing you talked about preconceived notions about

what a book must be. A lot of people don't understand, they

can very quickly write a book just around the frequently asked

questions of their business, right. These are Scott, these

are the things that you roll off, these roll off the top of

your head every day when people ask you, what is this? What are

what are the phases of scaling? What is one, you know, what?

What are the greatest challenges people have with scaling? What

things should I have in my mind when I look at scale? What time

period should I be considering as for scaling? These are

questions you could just answer. Bam! Well, answer those, dictate

them into a dictate them into your phone, let the answers to

those questions be the backbone of your book, and you know

authors can business leaders and founders can write a book like

that in very short period of time, especially using AI to

help organize their thoughts.

Yeah, you just opened a whole can of worms that

I'm really trying not to go down, because it is - there's a

whole different set of tools that are available to us now,

and I feel right and wrong ways of using those, but the one

thing that I want to add on the mastermind thing, there's lots

and lots of really wonderful ones out there. If you're in a

spot where it's like, you know, I can't afford another x 1000 to

be in a program, then start one. You know, the thing about

masterminds, especially good ones, is that they are the group

that is the valuable thing, not a curriculum or some other

external structure, and so find a couple friends in your

industry and see what you can learn from each other.

Scott, I man, I am so glad you said that, because that

is exactly right. And people think they have to be the

world's greatest expert in order to organize and host a

mastermind group, and that's so not true, right? You know, the

smartest person in the room is somebody beside you on any given

moment, and being open to that huge, huge, huge benefit. And I

would.. that's why everyone should be in one, even if I even

think that, you know, garbage carriers could benefit from

mastermind groups. I can't think of an industry that couldn't.

So true, so true, Everett. There's some

folks who would love to explore what a book could do for them,

or how to get their idea out into the world, and or they just

love to connect with you and hear more. How can folks find

you? How can they find your book, and what's a great next

step for them.

Awesome, so you can always find me at our website,

which is Ignite press.us that's Ignite press.us And then I have

available one of my books, The Power of the Published: How

Rapidly Authoring a Book Can Ignite Your Business and Your

Life. And your audience can get a free copy of this if they go

to my podcast perk.com my podcast perk.com and I think

that people will find it is easier than they think to get a

book out into the world, and a book will do more than they can

ever imagine for their business and brand, and we love helping

people make that happen,

yeah. Brilliant, we've got all those

in the show notes for you. Go ahead and check it out, grab a

copy of the book as well. I highly recommend it. Got a

chance to read it, and so, yeah, Everett, thank you so much for

being on, for sharing your wisdom with us really was a

privilege and honor having you here. For those of you watching

and listening, you know your time and attention mean the

world to us. Hope you got as much out of this conversation as

I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.

Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for

listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast. I hope this

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