Why Most Authors Never Get Clients From Their Book

All right, welcome everybody. Excited to be with you today. Today is going to be something near and dear to my heart. Our bookfunnel blueprint.

I want to give you a very simplified version of this. I I’ll also share uh the more complicated and automated processes, but really want to talk today about how to turn your readers into leads, calls, and clients. So, BSPU authors, BSP, bestseller publishing authors, we know already that the book alone is not the business. Unfortunately, most authors don’t know that. And you may have even come into our world thinking that, you know, the book is the business. the the royalties, the the fact that the book is selling, that’s the business. It’s not. The book is just the beginning. Too many authors even think that the the book is the end. And really, that’s just the starting line for everything that you want to do. If someone reads your book, if they love it, and they don’t have any idea how to reach you or what to do next, then that’s a mistake. You’re missing out. You’re losing. And a lot of authors say things like, you know, my book has great reviews. It gets great feedback, but it doesn’t generate any business. Well, that’s probably because after people read your book or while they’re reading your book, they don’t know what to do next. The problem isn’t the book, especially if people love it. The problem is there’s no path and there needs to be a clear, decisive path for people to be able to take to get back to you. A book without a funnel is just expensive branding for you. then it really is just a glorified business card. And I want it to be much more than that for you. I’m going to talk a little bit more about definitions. When I say funnel, what do I mean? But I want I mean it in the in the simplest way possible that when someone gets your book, however they get it, you send it to them for free. They purchase it on Amazon, they walk into a Barnes & Noble and it’s there. However they get it, they find it, you know, in a doctor’s office. We want them to be able to pick that book up and be motivated, be inspired, and see a path directly within the book that takes them back to you. A very clear path and not one that’s hard to find, but one that is very easy to find. Okay? Your book should always lead somewhere. Obviously, the somewhere is back to you. Most authors we know, they write a book, they hope that the readers and then the leads and the clients are going to magically figure out how to get to them, how to work with them. And they won’t. They need direction. They need guidance. They need a next step. They need a reason to engage. They need something simple, a simple, clear offer and path. And they need a way to stay connected to you. Because many of them are going to love the stuff that you have said. they’re going to love the the things that you’ve taught, but maybe they’re going to need a little bit of additional time before they take next steps with you. So, they need a reason to to engage, a simple offer to engage with, and then a way to stay connected. That way, you have a two-way relationship with them and not just a one-way. A lot of books end with things like, you know, thanks for reading, go to my blog, right? Or or go to my website. And that’s that’s not enough. Okay? Why why go to your blog? Why go to your website? Give the reader something to do as much as possible. Even within every single chapter, your chapters should not end with, you know, the segue into the next chapter. They should end with something that gives them a simple offer and a way to take some kind of steps closer to you. Okay? So, let me go through kind of a a simple fivestep bookfunnel for you. Okay? Nothing complicated here. something that all of you can do and should do. The steps are book to lead to conversation to offer to this person becomes a client. Okay, so let me go through the steps a little bit with you. Step one is your book is creating interest for people. Someone reads a book or or even just a chapter and they think, “Oh, okay. This person like gets my situation. They understand me. They have a process for people in my exact position. This person can help me. This is where the relationship begins. You know, many times I’ll tell my clients, I’ll say, “Look, you want speaking engagements, fantastic. Or you want to get a corporate client, fantastic. Send them a copy of your book.” And if your book is, you know, 150, 200 pages or even longer than that, if you’re sending someone a copy of your book and it’s cold, the likelihood that they’re going to just start in the introduction and start reading is very slim, right? So, what do you need to do? You need to give them a place to begin. So, I’ll tell I’ll tell you I tell people, look, send them a copy of your book, even cold, for a speaking engagement or for some type of corporate introduction or client introduction. Put a sticky note right on front and say, “Look, you may not have time to read this entire book, but I know your situation. I know the event that you’re putting on. Just read chapter 11.” And if you read chapter 11, then you’re going to see you’re going to learn some things and it might intrigue you enough for us to have a conversation. Now, this person only needs to read one chapter. They’re going to be willing to do that. And if that chapter now gives them a step two, a reason to raise their hand, how exciting. So, step two is you have to inside the book offer them something of value. Give them a reason to say yes to you. And what is that? It’s a free guide on the things that you taught in the chapter. It’s a checklist. It’s a three video series where you go into a deeper explanation of the things that you taught in chapter 3. It’s a free assessment. It’s a bonus of some kind, a resource list. I mean, there’s a hundred different things that you can do. Don’t ask people, “Hey, contact me.” Right? They’re not going to do that. People are afraid of people. You know what I mean? They’re like, “Oh, if I contact them, they’re going to try to sell me something.” No. Don’t tell them to contact you. They’re not going to do that. Give them something they want. They read the chapter, they were interested. So, give them something else that they already want. Now, by the way, they may read a chapter and go, “Ah, that that was good.” And then they go to the next chapter and they don’t want more information on that chapter. Great. All the more reason for you to have these types of connection opportunities, opportunities for people to raise their hand spread throughout your book. Yes, you could do it. You could even do it on every single chapter. You could because you can’t you can’t give too much value to somebody that’s interested in whatever your topic is. They’re going to be appreciative. They’re going to be like, “This is fantastic.” Right? So, step number two, give them something of value to make them want to raise their hand and take steps towards you. Step number three, capture their information. You’re going to send them from that QR code or link or whatever it is back to your landing page for the cool free things that they want. And you’re going to simply ask them to give you their name and their email address. If someone reads your book, they want your free thing, ask for their name and email address. If you’re bold, ask for their telephone number, too. Now, you have a way to follow up with them. So, you’re going to capture their information in a simple landing page. a QR code that leads to it, a dedicated page with your free resources behind that page wall. That’s it. Now, you have an opportunity to have a two-way conversation with somebody. This needs to be throughout your book because you want that conversation to be happening. You want that conversation to be ongoing. That’s step three. Step four, continue the relationship. When somebody opts in and they’ve connected with you because of something that they wanted, an additional tool, build their trust, continue building on it. You’re going to email them. Well, someone will ask, “Well, how much should I email people?” If you’re giving value, you can’t give too much value. You can email people every single day and they won’t get tired of you if you’re offering something of value. Send them videos, send them case studies, send them client stories. You can also send them invitations to workshops, maybe a YouTube video that you did, a podcast interview, etc. This is where they go from a reader to connecting with you and becoming somebody that is really warm enough to be a prospect, like they’re interested in your course or your coaching or your done for you services, etc. Step five is simple. Make an offer. Eventually, invite them into the next step. Now, depending on what your price point is, the offer is going to be a little bit different. If you’re selling a course for a couple few hundred dollars up to maybe $1,000, then you could invite them to a webinar. It could even be an automated webinar. It could be a sales page with a video sales letter to sell something like that. Totally fine to do. If you’re selling something that’s more coaching, it’s a higher ticket offer, it’s in the thousands or multiple thousands of dollars, well, you’re probably going to need to have a one-on-one conversation with that person. And if your business is at the point where you don’t have a team of people, even better, because now they’ve just read your book and you’re giving them an opportunity to engage with you one- on-one, personally on a phone call. What do you think is going to happen? They’re going to want to have that coaching call with you. And during that coaching call, you’re going to need a a process. You’re going to need a consultative sales framework. By the way, if you need something like that, we have trainings like that in the BSPU membership area. So, there’s that stuff in there. But, you’re going to need to take them on a process. And I’m not talking about being super salesy, but you’re going to have to take them on a process so that you can make an offer to sell your coaching program, your consulting engagement, your service packages, your done for you, whatever it is. The purpose of the funnel isn’t pressure. It’s progress, right? You’re you’re taking them. These are people that have said to themselves and then eventually you, I’ve read your book, you get me. I think you have a solution for me. I’m interested. I take the next step. Your reader takes the next step, downloads your additional information, watches your videos, engages with your email, and then schedules a call with you. Wow. That is going to be the most warmed up prospect that you will ever have in your life other than perhaps a referral from a very very trusted source. That’s it. I can’t tell you the number of times that we get on calls with clients who have read my book, come through our various funnels, and not to me, but eventually to one of our sales team members, and then becomes a client because they see we have a process, they get it, trust has been built, they’re ready to get started. You need to have this. So, let’s talk a little bit about where to put it and how to put it. I’ve already said this. Let me say it again, but let me give you some other examples. You can have some type of different calls to action in every single chapter in your book. Now, can you just do it in key chapters or every other chapter? You of course you can. And I’m not telling you to put the same call to action in every single chapter. That would be very redundant. And that also would break one of our rules, which is make sure that you’re giving them great additional content that’s related directly to the chapter that they just read. So, put it in every single chapter. If not, make sure you put it in at least every other chapter. You should also have something in the front of your book. I have a free gift right in the very front of my book, looking for my book here, that people can get. It’s on the second page. That means that somebody can even just open up Amazon for a preview and see that, oh, they can go to this site and they can get this free gift from me. Gives me an opportunity to get somebody that maybe was just looking at my book or they opened the book and they went right to the thing. So, front of the book, obvious place, end of the book, great place for a call to action. Unfortunately, most people, that’s the only place they put it. And usually, it’s not a great call to action. It’s something like to learn more about me, go to my social media or go to my website or go to my blog. Why? No. Give people a reason to actually go to your thing. So, let’s talk for just a few minutes about what I do, what we do with my books. And I’ll even share an example of of a client, uh, Craig Weir. And this is a much more complicated process, but here’s three of Craig’s books that we helped him with. Craig and I did a podcast interview which we which you can find and I recommend you take a look at it. You can find on the bestsellerpublishing.org website. click on the podcast link and then type in Craig Weir we a like where and it’s about an hourong podcast and um this was done last year and Craig was on track to do over $5 million from his bookfunnel uh from last year and this was a relatively new venture for him just a a couple few years old and it gives the breakdown Craig had a very simple bookfunnel but here’s the here’s where the real magic can happen right what I gave you was a very simplified method method, which every one of you should do because anybody that reads your book is going to have an opportunity to engage with you. So, you have to do that. Now, if you want to really scale something like this up and you want to have a way that anybody that buys your book immediately becomes a potential client that you can warm up, then you can use a bookfunnel with something like paid traffic. Every day today, I am selling publish proof. It’s been seven plus years of me selling this book online using Facebook ads, using Instagram ads. That’s exactly what Craig is doing with the these three books as well. I am losing money every time I make a sale. So, it cost me more to sell a copy of my book than I’m actually earning from that sale. Now, how can I do that? The only way that I can do that is if I have a process in place so that the readers or a percentage of those readers become my high ticket clients, my donefor you service clients, etc. And so my books lead to one-on-one strategy calls. They also lead to webinar registrations, workshop registrations. They lead to referrals, etc. And they do that all via paid advertising into a funnel where I’m selling the book on my own. I’m I’m selling it as competition to Amazon. And many of you know that because you’ve purchased my book or or you’ve you’ve seen my funnels, etc. Now, should you start there? Well, it depends. It depends on what it is that you have to offer. Do you have an offer that’s really dialed in? Are you really good at selling your offer? Are you generating leads in other ways? and now you just need something that is going to help you create leads on a like a real ondemand basis. Well, a bookfunnel and paid advertising can help you to do that. But you need to have your numbers dialed in because if it’s costing you $50 to sell a copy of your book and you’re only making 30 every time your book sells, that means that if you sell 10 a day, you’re losing $200. However, 10 buyers of your book every single day, 300 in a month, if you have your process dialed in, that’s going to lead to three, five, even as many as 10 high ticket clients for you. And if you’re selling something for5 to $10,000 and you brought in five people and that’s 50 grand, well, you know, you didn’t lose 50 grand on the front end. In fact, it only cost you a few thousand dollars to end up with five new high ticket clients or 10 new high ticket clients. Obvious warning is you have to have your process dialed in. You have to know what you’re doing. So, if you’re not there, then the best thing you can do is make sure that you use your book and you have within your book all of the steps necessary for someone who reads your book to come back to you and for you to start building that relationship and attracting them to you. The reason that Craig was very successful with his three books, if you watch the podcast, you’ll you’ll see what he has to say about it, is that he had his process dialed in, his offer dialed in. He did not make it. You don’t make $5 million by selling books on Facebook, okay? Or on Instagram. You make $5 million by selling books because they lead to much bigger opportunities on the back end. I think you know that already. We talk about that on a regular basis. But have that vision for yourself if you don’t at this moment. Because if you have your process dialed in, there’s nothing better than a book to attract you the absolute right people and warm them up and get them ready to purchase from you. So your book is not supposed to sit on a shelf. It’s supposed to create momentum for you. It starts relationships with people. And the more people that you can help start a relationship with with your book, then the more people that are going to be attracted to your magic and what it is that you can do to help them and the rest of the world. The book starts it, the funnel continues it, and then the offer that you make at the end, well, that monetizes it. And guess what? That allows you to continue working the flywheel. That allows you to say, “I’m going to spend more money on advertising to get the book into more people’s hands. help more people because it’s generating more revenue for me and for my business to be able to do that. Your book will create attention. Your book will build trust. But having your book funnel people back to you, that’s what creates clients. That’s what creates revenue.