Rob Kosberg:
Hey, everybody. Rob Kosberg here, excited to be with you today for another episode of Publish. Promote. Profit. Podcast. I have a great guest for you today, Judy Hoberman. Judy and I think we may have met. We both think we may have met, but certainly I think we’ve run across each other in the past. Judy is an award-winning international speaker, of course best-selling author, a trainer and leading authority women in leadership. Three decades in business, she combines wisdom and humor, and we’ll get to enjoy some of that today with her behavior shaping insights to impact audiences of 10,000 and even as small as one-on-one through executive coaching. Judy’s mission to help one woman a day by following an important philosophy, and I love this, women want to be treated equally, not identically. Judy, thanks so much and welcome to Publish. Promote. Profit. Podcast.
Judy Hoberman:
Thank you so much, Rob. I’m excited to be here and I couldn’t wait for today.
Rob Kosberg:
Yay. Well, thank you. Great to have you on. You are a bestselling author of numerous books. I know how tough it is to write a book, and so I want to ask you questions about your books, I want to ask you questions about your business. Probably the best place for me to begin, and I’m happy to go in a direction that you like, but I would really love to know, you’ve obviously written several books, tell me how have your books led to great opportunity in your path? How have they helped you to get your message of making a difference to women’s selling in a skirt or walking on the glass floor, so to speak?
Judy Hoberman:
When I wrote Selling in a Skirt, I didn’t care if it was best-selling or anything. I just wanted to have something because it was a brand-new business. When I first saw my book in print, it was when I was at a very large conference. That’s when it was delivered. It was supposed to be at my house a month before, and of course you know things happen. When I opened up the box and I saw everything, I started to cry because I was so overwhelmed with this. I sold a ton of books that day because I was the keynote. It worked.
Rob Kosberg:
Beautiful.
Judy Hoberman:
The reason I wrote the book is because I wanted to use it as a calling card for people that I had not met or people that I had just met. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to get the book in the hands of people. Again, being the number one bestseller was not even in my radar. Anyway, I remember meeting the CEO at an event and he said, “We have to get something together. What you’re doing is great.”. A lot of people say that. Anyway, I sent him a copy of the book and on page 119, in bright pink ink, I wrote, “Call me when you get to this page, I’ll take you to lunch.” I said, “I’ll give you a call.” A couple of weeks later, I hadn’t heard from him, so I called, and I said, “Hey, I just wanted to know, did you get my book?” He said, “Yes, loved the book.”
I said, “Really?” I asked, “What was your favorite part?” He said, “I loved your stories because I could hear you in the book,” which is true. Most people say that. I said, “Great, did you read everything?” He said, “Cover to cover.” I said, “Okay, so what about page 119 because it was about bringing more women into the industry?” He said, “Page 119.” I said, “Do you have the book handy?” He said, “Yeah, let me get it.” He opens the book and you hear the turning of the page. It’s dead silent. He said, “I must have missed that page.” I said, “I’m sure you did.” It was bright pink writing. Well, anyway, long story short, he took me to lunch, and we ended up doing business. It was a calling card. That’s what it was.
That’s what the book was all about. I give the book away. I do sell the book of course as well, but I’ve given the books away. I do a lot of things with nonprofits and I’ll give them copies of the books because I truly believe there’s a message in all my books that I really believe people should have, women and men. Because even though it says Selling in a Skirt. The subtitle is The Secrets Women Don’t Know They Know About Sales and What Men Should Know Too. That’s right on the bottom. It talks about men.
Rob Kosberg:
I know. I love it.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah, it brought me business, but it was funny how it came about.
Rob Kosberg:
Great story. I loved the idea. This is something that we talk to our clients about pretty regularly. I love the idea, number one, of sending your book ahead of you, especially if you’re trying to build a relationship with someone, you want to frame the conversation, not as the needy person. I want to speak at your conference, or I want to work with your corporation, but more the expert who can serve and help, and it sounds like that’s exactly what you did and what you do with your book. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about that?
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. Sometimes you’re trying to figure things out such as building a new program. What I do a lot of times is I’ll take a chapter of my book and make it into a PDF, and I’ll send it out. I’ll say, “Do me a favor, read this, so-and-so.” But I did a survey, and I picked 300 of my first connections on LinkedIn. I’m not talking about people that say, “Oh, Judy, I love you so much. Whatever you need.” It wasn’t that. It was people that are truly colleagues, that would do business if they found the reason to do it. I asked three questions. First, I asked permission. I always ask permission. Can I send a survey? Of course, 100% of 300 people said yes.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. Then I send out the three questions, two were yes or no, and one was really the meat of the whole thing. I think about 70 something percent responded, which is also great. Then I sent a copy of my chapter of “Walking on the Glass Floor” about courage, and I thank them for their courage to actually address this very important topic. Then they had the copy of the courage chapter. Then when everything was done, I sent out the survey results and it was really a nice pie chart and everything that they needed.
Then I just said to them, “Knowing how important this is and knowing how much courage it took, who should I be talking to?” I got tons of introductions from that. Then people said, “Do you think you could have the book sent here so all of my women could read it?” Or, “Can you do a talk about what all of this means so all of my men and women could do it?” Then I created the training program that went along with the book, which had exactly what they told me they needed in the training, and that’s what the survey was about. You have all different ways that you can do business, but you don’t just go ahead and say, “Hey, you know what, Rob? You’re awesome. Buy my book.” It doesn’t work like that. That’s not what business is.
Rob Kosberg:
That is brilliant. If I could pry just a little about that, you must have done some business directly with, you said that those people were ideal prospect/colleagues. Did you end up speaking for any of their places? Did you end up actually coaching? That just is a brilliant strategy. How did it end up working for you?
Judy Hoberman:
Well, like I said, one of the questions was what would this initiative have to include for you to want to be interested in it? What I got was executive coaching gigs, I got speaking engagements, I got sales and leadership training.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
Then also somebody asked me to be on their board and all different things because they realized that what I was trying to do wasn’t going after the business first. I was going up to what would make sense for them, and that’s the whole secret. Even with the books, when you’re doing the title and you’re doing the cover and you’re doing everything about it, and when somebody thumbs through it, it has to be something that’s going to draw them in. I always make sure that when I do is what’s in it for them. It’s not what’s in it for me because what’s in it for me, it’s going to be nowhere. I’m very careful, very intentional about making sure, because this is how I am, this is who I am, that it’s not about me. It never has been about me. It’s always about others.
Rob Kosberg:
Congrats.
Judy Hoberman:
Thanks.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s fantastic. I quote Zig Ziglar often. Everyone’s listening to the same radio station, WIIFM, What’s In It For Me, and that’s a great. What you just described for anybody listening is a beautiful organic strategy, doesn’t cost anything to implement the strategy. You don’t even need to have your book completed. You can have one great trap chapter of your book done that addresses the issue, the main issue. Here you are, you didn’t put a dollar amount on it, but executive coaching, leadership, all those kinds of things that had to be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of income by just serving people, asking questions and not spending a dollar on Facebook ads or Google ads or anything. Just using your book. Love it. Love it.
Judy Hoberman:
That’s it.
Rob Kosberg:
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah, and it’s funny.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s worth the price of admission right there.
Judy Hoberman:
Totally. When I first moved to Dallas, and that was in 2007 I think, I moved here. I had a corporate position. I was recruited here and then I ended up leaving and that’s when all the books came out. I remember when I was networking, I would go and talk to people and they would say to me, “I’m a servant leader,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I said, “Okay. I had no idea what they were talking about.” The next person would say, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, what do you do?” “I’m a servant leader.” After the fourth or fifth person, I said, “What do you mean you’re a servant leader? What does that actually mean?” They said, “You don’t know what being a servant leader is? Well, let me describe it.”
I said, “I do that all the time. I didn’t know you have a title that said you were a servant leader.” Yeah, if you just do the things that are right, you don’t have to announce that you’re authentic, you don’t have to announce you have high integrity, you don’t have to announce you’re a servant leader. You just do. You just do it. The book actually gives you that more exposure to show. When you give, you don’t give what the expectation of receiving. You give. If something comes back to you, awesome. It usually does, but that’s not why you give.
Rob Kosberg:
Well said. Thank you.
Judy Hoberman:
Thanks. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
All right. Let’s leave the book for just a minute because that’s probably a good segue. I want to come back to it because I’m the book guy, so why not? Right?
Judy Hoberman:
I know, yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
But tell me, what’s the big vision for your business? I love the mission statement, the stuff that I’ve read on your website. But maybe you could tell us, what is the vision? Whether it’s the helping one woman at a time or thinking more globally, what are you trying to accomplish with your writing, with your teaching, with your training, et cetera?
Judy Hoberman:
It’s always been about helping one woman a day. The reason I say that is because as I was coming up through the ranks, there were no women, it was me. There wasn’t anybody that not necessarily physically looked like me but had the same kind of challenges that I had. There were plenty of men that were single dads. I was a single mom, but it’s still different. If I could help one woman a day, exponentially that’s a lot of women. What I want to do is I want to give women the tools that they need so that they can be successful, whatever their definition is. My big vision is actually to create more of that, and still one woman a day, but I get called to work with different entrepreneurs.
Now I’m being called to executive women. I’m not leaving the entrepreneurs because that’s who I am, but I’m going to add that. My big vision is really to start working with executive women and get them to where they need to be as well, whether it means giving them the help that they need. I don’t just mean physical health, it could be mental health, spiritual health, financial health. But to get them in a healthy position so that they can move forward. Because a lot of times, women that are in executive positions in corporations, sometimes they’re not in the right position. Sometimes they’re given a position and they have no idea how they even got it.
A lot of times we struggle with where are we and what are we supposed to do? What about all this thing called balance? That’s one of my big visions. We’re in the process of rolling out sales programs for entrepreneurs for women, designed by women for women. It’s not to say that men don’t take the course because they do, but there’s very few courses that are really by women for women. That’s the vision for 2021.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. You mentioned that when you were coming up, you were alone, right? You didn’t come up amongst a group of peers. That must’ve been challenging. What was it like in a male-dominated industry? Can you talk a little bit about that, the industry that you were in and what that looked like?
Judy Hoberman:
Well, I first started on commercial roofing. Okay? So just go there. I started on commercial roofing. I was the only female, obviously.
Rob Kosberg:
Pretty male-dominated, I’d say.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah, it’s very male-dominated. But it was very interesting to me because they hired me because they wanted me to be the face of the company. I was young, I had no idea what that meant until I started having to climb up ladders. When I would have to climb up ladders, this was in the time where women wore skirts and dresses all the time. They told me I always had to wear a skirt and don’t worry because there will always be somebody underneath you in case you fell. It was that kind of stuff. Obviously-
Rob Kosberg:
That’s a little creepy.
Judy Hoberman:
You think? Yeah. Obviously, it didn’t last much longer. I’ll tell you; the roofers were much kinder and much more of gentlemen than the management. The roofers would always protect me and make sure that I was safe and so on, but that didn’t last very long. But I got into financial services and insurance. Again, I was the only female. What I do know is originally I was hired because I was female. I do know that, because I remember hearing them say, “Okay, we can check off the box and when she doesn’t make it, we can say we had one.”
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
I remember hearing that.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. Then they would tell me, “You are too much of a girl, you ask too many questions, you take too long,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To me, all I kept hearing other than the blah blah was just build relationships, just keep building relationships, and that’s what I did. When I started to get to be successful, they would say to me, “How did you do that? Why did they buy that? How are they staying on the books? Can you show me how to do that?”
Things started to change a little bit. Then when I was in charge of doing recruiting, because I had my own agencies, a lot of women came in and they couldn’t understand how I did that either. It was a learning curve for everybody, and that’s why I say women want to be treated equally, not identically. It is my tagline because we just want the same opportunities. We don’t want to be men. We don’t. It’s too confusing for everybody.
Rob Kosberg:
Sure.
Judy Hoberman:
We want to be us. Just open up a door for us, because you can’t do this by yourself. It was a little tough, but I wouldn’t change anything. I really wouldn’t. I wouldn’t change anything because I wouldn’t have my company the way it is, and I wouldn’t know the things that I know, and I have a really good sense of humor about a lot of things.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s good. That’s good you kept your sense of humor through it all.
I think you’re right. I think about many negative experiences that I’ve been through, and quite frankly, some of the more difficult business experiences led me to exactly where I am today, which I’m so grateful for. I would have never gotten here had it not been for those negative experiences. I don’t want to be cliche about it, right? We are a product of our past, of our history, and if we don’t learn those lessons and then have something to share, then it wasn’t worth anything.
Judy Hoberman:
But sometimes you have to rewind tapes, because sometimes they bring back memories. I did a TED talk, and when I did my TED talk, it was about being outside the lines. That was the theme, and mine was about being prejudged because I’ve always been prejudged. My entire life people thought I was intimidating, people thought I was unapproachable because they didn’t get to know me. I am an introvert by nature. If you don’t start talking to me first, I may not start talking to you, so you think I’m aloof and whatever. Anyway, when I decided to do that, a story came to me that I was going to have to tell, and it was about my father and it was the very first time that I told the story out loud in a TED talk.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow. Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
Right. As I was getting ready for this, doing a TED talk is very different than writing a book. Because when you write a book, you can disappear. When you’re doing a TED talk, you’re right there. You’re right there in the lights and the videos and everything else. As I’m practicing this, I couldn’t get through it, at all. I got through the first three or four minutes and then I couldn’t get through it. A friend of mine, who’s also a coach, she said to me, “You can’t talk about yourself. You have to talk about as if it’s someone else,” and so that’s what I did.
I also talked to a friend of mine who does NLP and she gave me all these things to do before I got on stage. Everything was working and whatever, and I was really good. I started to feel it coming up, that I couldn’t breathe anymore. Then I would just take a deep breath and it went back down. I was very good to the very end, and then I burst into tears, but I was already done.
Rob Kosberg:
Okay then.
Judy Hoberman:
Right. My point is that if it was my book, I could have written this and it’s still drawing you in, but it wouldn’t have been as painful. When I did it in person, it’s going to be different. It was probably one of the best things I ever did, and so now I could say I did that because I’m not going to do another one.
Rob Kosberg:
Why? You’ve done it.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. Really, I don’t need to do another one. But if you say, “You’re going to write another book,” I might say, “No, not now,” but I probably will write another book because it’s very different and I could do that and I could just sit down and say, “Okay, I’m going to write a book.”
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask about the writing another book idea. But before you mentioned your TED talk, I was on your website, you have tons of media appearances. We have our own PR team at Best Seller Publishing, and so we know how hard it is to book clients for TV, radio, podcasts. We do it every day. Did you use your book to get those placements? What was the connection between you getting on media and your book? Or was there not, and how did you do it?
Judy Hoberman:
Originally, no. Selling in a Skirt didn’t get me on any of the podcasts. Back then it was radio shows and whatever. It did get me on a couple, but not really. It wasn’t really what we were promoting because remember, I didn’t care if it was a best seller. It was really more about this. When I wrote Walking on the Glass Floor, we did a whole PR campaign and we had to get at least 100 people that followed you and they would tell you what their social reach was. When the books came out, everybody just hit send and so everybody would start blasting out about it.
Well, we became a bestseller because of that. But again, to me, somebody said, “Well, just pay me 10,000, I’ll make you a number one bestseller.” I said, “I don’t want it that badly.” It wasn’t like that. But with the book, with that book, because we did a whole PR campaign, I did get on tons and tons and tons of podcasts. We did get lots of write-ups and I was given the nod by Thrive Global as one of the women to watch for-
Rob Kosberg:
Nice.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah, for Women’s International Day. It was that kind of stuff. It was pretty awesome. It really was, it was pretty awesome. But again, it was a concerted effort. It wasn’t just you can’t do this by yourself. You can’t. You have to have other people that are willing to support you and I’m not afraid to ask.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. No, that’s beautiful. You’re a humble person, I say that because your desire was to help people and it wasn’t about the accolades of being a number one bestseller or the accolades of being on media. Now, with that said, impact is what you’re looking for. Right? So, media gets you in front of people, and the more people that buy your books, the more people that you can impact and the more people that you reach, the more people that will be changing. I’m sure that because of that effort with Walking on the Glass Floor, I’m sure many, many more people were impacted simply because they saw you everywhere. Right? Do you have any stories about that? Were there any stories about people that heard you somewhere or saw you somewhere speaking, et cetera, who said, “Yes, this really helped me,” or that motivated or inspired you?
Judy Hoberman:
There’s one story in particular which was weird. It was weird because we were doing a big training for one of the insurance companies. There were probably 100 women and we were doing it virtually. When you have 100 women and you’re on the big screen, when you look out there, you see part of the room because you can’t see everything. The person that was there kept turning the laptop so I could see them because they were all talking to me. Well, there was one woman that said, “Can you turn the camera this way?” She was all the way to my left.
She said to me, “We know each other better than you think we do.” Now, I had never met her before, I had never seen her before. Not never. I said, “Okay.” Now remember, you’re on the big screen, so you have to have a poker face. You cannot be like, “What!” Right. Okay. Anyway. I said, “Okay.” She said, “So let me tell you my story.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “When I graduated college, I have a degree in archeology and it didn’t go anywhere, so I went to music education. I wanted to get a job as a music teacher and my husband wouldn’t allow it. He just wouldn’t allow it.” So, he was physically violent to her. This is what she’s telling me. Again, when somebody says that to you, and you can’t, so I was just sitting here hanging onto my chair.
Then she said, “But that’s not the story.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “So I went back to school and I decided that I was going to do,” I can’t remember what the second piece was. “But then my sister gave me a book. My sister lives in Dallas and she gave me this book to read. When I read the book, I thought I have to go into financial services. Still didn’t hear, didn’t get it, nothing.” She said, “I went into financial services. This time my husband really did a number on me, and I finally had the courage to leave him because I knew that if I would just follow what this book said, I knew I could be successful even if I was by myself,” and she holds up the book.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
I burst into tears because she said to me, “I owe my life to you.”
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
Well, what do you say? Right now, I can feel it, but what do you say? When you hear something like that, which you would, how would anybody hear that? You wouldn’t hear that. If I could have hugged her, I would have hugged her. But obviously we were in two different parts of the country. But you get things like that when people see you on a news program or they hear you on a radio show and they say, “Oh my goodness, it’s really you,” and I said, “I’m nothing different than what you are. I’m just not.” There’s lots of stories like that, and I hold onto them because they’re so important to me. They really are so important.
Rob Kosberg:
I know what that’s like.
Judy Hoberman:
I’m sure you hear it all the time. It’s just the same. It’s the same thing. Everybody hears it but people forget it. You can’t forget it, that’s the thing. You have to remember because it’s those things that brought you to the dance and you shouldn’t forget them.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. I love that. Now that was your first book, that was Selling in a Skirt?
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
Okay. I love that title. I also saw you had some other cool catchy titles. It was either blog post or individual chapters. One was How To Outsell Every Man In Your Office. I love that one.
Judy Hoberman:
That’s a special report. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
The special report. Beautiful. I saw you had multiple special reports. That one stood out to me. I thought that was fantastic. You do a great job with hooking people, I feel. Again, the whole what’s in it for me, right? You need to address people where they’re at with the title of a book, with the subtitle of a book, et cetera. Any particular strategies that you use or any particular process that you use to come up with a cool title, like Selling in a Skirt, or “How to Outsell Every Man In Your Office”? Anything that you do or use to put those together?
Judy Hoberman:
I do a brain dump. I really do. I have a pad and paper and I have other people that’ll sit there and just write down everything that you could think of that’s sales or anything, whatever. Okay, we’re close, but we’re not close enough, and you know when it’s right. But I remember many, many years ago, I was opening up a high-end stationery store and we had to come up with a name. We didn’t want it to be the gift this or whatever. We all did this. We all wrote things down, anything that had to do with stationery, anything that had to do with gifts, anything, anything. After hours of doing this, I took my pad and I threw it down, and I said, “I am not doing this anymore. I have writer’s cramp.” I went, “Oh my God, that’s the name” The name of my stationary store was The Writer’s Cramp.” That’s a lot of times what we do, we’ll say something, and think, “Yeah, I don’t know.” But with Selling in a Skirt, it’s an acronym.
Rob Kosberg:
Yes, I saw that.
Judy Hoberman:
Right. When you think about what are the problems that women have? Well, I had every one of those problems, and when you mushed them around, which is a very technical term, it’s spelled out the word skirt.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, go through them, Judy. Go-
Judy Hoberman:
Okay. It’s standing out, it’s keys to success, inspiration, results, and time management.
Rob Kosberg:
Nice.
Judy Hoberman:
It’s spelled skirt, how convenient. I’m female, I’m selling, so why don’t I sell in a skirt? But sometimes the men will say to me, “Well, I don’t wear a skirt. Can I wear a kilt?” All that funny stuff. I tell them, “It has nothing to do with the article of clothing.” In reality, you have to be careful how you brand yourself because everywhere I go, I have to wear a skirt because people will call me out on it. They have.
Rob Kosberg:
No kidding. They say, “You can’t sell in jeans”?
Judy Hoberman:
I said my next book is going to be selling in pajamas.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s a good one.
Judy Hoberman:
Or selling in yoga pants. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
Love that. Now, I read the How To Outsell Every Man In Your Office and talked about that and Selling in a Skirt. Now, I’ve mentioned before, you have a wonderful disposition, easy to talk to, fun. Do you ever get a situation where people think you’re different than you are? I tell my clients; this is the way to do it. If you believe something, don’t worry about the opposition viewpoint, take a stand even if it provokes some negative emotion. I just wondered. Do some of these titles provoke some negative emotion, or at least the preconceived idea of what Judy’s like?
Judy Hoberman:
Well, that’s another whole story, because as I said, growing up, everybody thought I was intimidating because they didn’t give me this opportunity. But I will tell you, there was a company. The woman that was in charge of programming, she came up to me at an event. We were both displaying at this big event, and she said to me, “I just have to tell you, I hate the title of your company and your book.” I asked, “What?” She said, “Selling in a Skirt. I hate it.” I’m asked, “What do you mean You hate it?” She said, “It’s very sexist,” and I said, “Well, I don’t think so, but I hear you and thank you for letting me know that.” Millions of people, no one has ever said this before. Anyway, they decided they want to bring me in to speak and I could see her cringing because she has to introduce me.
Rob Kosberg:
Oh no.
Judy Hoberman:
She asked me for my bio, and I think I put Selling in a Skirt, I don’t know, 20 times.
Rob Kosberg:
Judy.
Judy Hoberman:
I did. I did, because she was rude about it. She wasn’t even kind. But she was rude, and I thought, okay, here’s my bio.
Rob Kosberg:
You went ahead and gave it to her.
Judy Hoberman:
She’s looking at it, and you could hear her gulp. I just thought, okay, okay. The talk went great and she thanked me, and they did bring me back again and I didn’t do it the second time. But yeah. It’s more like that. Here’s what they do say, “Why isn’t your company called Judy Hoberman?” I say, “Because it’s not about me. It’s never been about me and it’s not about me.” They say, “I know, but you should talk about yourself.” Yeah, no.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. Or you’ll turn people off maybe. I don’t agree with any of that. I say, if you believe something and you’re trying to get a message out, then don’t worry if it’s going to provoke some negative emotion. Those people aren’t going to buy from you anyway.
Judy Hoberman:
That’s correct. Beside the fact, people remember Selling in a Skirt more than anything.
Rob Kosberg:
Yes.
Judy Hoberman:
People that have heard it when I first brought it out in 2009, that when the book first came out, I think it was 2011 when the book came out. But since 2009, when I started talking about Selling in a Skirt, people have come up to me and they said, “I heard you speak when you first started,” and they said, “I remember everything that you said, and I remember the name of your company.” Okay, there’s nothing better than that.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s right. That’s exactly right. No, it’s very memorable. That’s why I wanted to ask you specifically about how you come up with titles or subtitles, because that’s just a huge mistake. It’s the first and oftentimes the biggest mistake that people make because if you don’t have something that’s a great hook, they’ll never get to page one.
Judy Hoberman:
No, no.
Rob Kosberg:
They’ll just move on to the next book. You got what? 2.8 seconds or something to get their attention on Amazon anyway, so you better do a good job with it. Great. Great, great talking to you. Tell me what am I missing? What have I forgotten to ask or what else would you like to share?
Judy Hoberman:
Should I tell you how my book got written? Do you want that?
Rob Kosberg:
Yes, there you go. Tell me about the problems you had, challenges may have had. Yes, please do. That’s a good one.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. My business coach at the time, she was my very first female business coach, she’s the one who helped me develop Selling in a Skirt and she had an office, it was all whiteboards and whiteboards make me nervous anyway because I’m not that person. I’m going to implement, I’m not the strategist and she’s a strategist. Anyway, first she said to me, “Where do you want to end up?” I said, “Well, I want to end up with this really cool bar on a very remote island, but it’s only for amazing people.” She said, “Okay, how do you want to get there?” I said, “By plane.” She said, “No, how do you want to get there?”
I said, “Boat.” She goes, “Judy, listen to me. How do you want to get there?” Then I realized what she was saying. Then we came up with Selling in a Skirt and how it was going to be. She said, “The very first thing you need to do is you need to write a book,” and I said, “I’m not writing a book, not on my radar. Don’t care about it.” She said, “No, no, listen, you have so many years of experience. Let’s get it out. Let’s organize it, get it out.” I said, “Not doing it.” She said, “Okay, don’t write a book. How about if you just, if you were going to ever write a book, why don’t you just write the chapters? What they would include?” I never said yes. I went, “Okay.”
Rob Kosberg:
I know where this is going.
Judy Hoberman:
Right. Well, sort of. Here we are, the next visit that we have, we did our own thing, and at the end she said to me, “Read it to me,” and I said, “Read what?” She said, “The chapters.” I had nothing to say. She said, “So you didn’t do it, did you?” I said, “No.” She said, “Okay, can you do me a favor?” I said, “Absolutely.” She said, “Do you know the busiest street in Dallas?” I said, “I know I could find it.”
She said, “Okay, I want you to get a new car, I want you to drive to that busy intersection, I want you to roll down your window, and I want you to take your wallet and throw it out. I want you to roll up your window and drive home.” I said, “Well, that’s stupid.” She goes, “That’s what you to me every week.” All of a sudden, I thought, I have disrespected somebody so badly that that’s how she told me?
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Judy Hoberman:
The next week I had my chapters written.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow, nice. Nice.
Judy Hoberman:
Because it took somebody to really say, “Okay, get over yourself. We’re going to do this.” I always say if you’re going to hire a coach, you might as well listen to them.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. I have a similar story in one sense. In 2008, nine, when my real estate related company failed miserably, I don’t know if there’s another way to fail by the way. Maybe you can fail happily, but I couldn’t. I asked a couple of mentors what they would do if they were in my situation because I was branding myself in a new way. They told me also that I should write a book and it took me about 18 months. I don’t know how long it took you, but it took me about 18 months from beginning of 2008 to the end of 2009 to actually get that accomplished, and it obviously changed my life since then. I’ve obviously written several my own, but 1,000 plus for clients that we’ve helped. I’m glad you eventually took her advice.
Judy Hoberman:
Yeah. It took me about four months to write my book. My second book I wrote in a weekend because the woman that was going to be my copy editor, she said, “Stop writing a book, write 80 blog posts. That’s all. It’s just 80 blog posts that you need to write.” I can do that, and so I did.
Rob Kosberg:
Are you a natural writer? Do you write every day or?
Judy Hoberman:
Well, I always post on social media and there’s usually a good amount of stuff that I’m saying, because I love to write. Sometimes I get stuck on the first word, how do I start it? Once I get that, I could just do the whole thing. But I love to write. I do.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s beautiful. A lot of people are listening to that and going, “I hate you.”
Judy Hoberman:
Nah. If you follow me on social media, you will see exactly what I do every single day that I post every day before 7:00 AM Central Time.
Rob Kosberg:
For those of you listening and you’re thinking, “Well, Judy, she has all of the ability,” I am not a natural writer. It comes very difficult for me. Believe you can do it whether you are a natural writer or not.
Judy Hoberman:
Absolutely.
Well, I wasn’t always a natural writer. I became a natural writer.
Rob Kosberg:
It sounds like that’s what happened, actually. You said something about yourself a few minutes ago. You said that you’re more an implementer than the strategist, and of course we all have different strengths and weaknesses. But I have found that people that are implementers are the most successful people. Obviously, you have gifts to strategize and all of that, clearly. But if you’re willing to implement and get your hands dirty and really put the work in, then man, you can develop some incredible talents and you obviously have.
Judy Hoberman:
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
Awesome.
Judy Hoberman:
Strategies like…
Rob Kosberg:
Not as fun as implementing, I guess.
Judy Hoberman:
Just tell me where to show up, I’m there.
Rob Kosberg:
Beautiful. Judy, where can people go to learn about you, maybe get your materials, book you for speaking, whatever it is? Give us a few places and tell us what’s next on your radar also.
Judy Hoberman:
You can go to my website, which is sellinginaskirt.com.
Rob Kosberg:
Can’t forget that.
Judy Hoberman:
Or walkingontheglassfloor.com. Either one, they’ll take you to the other one, whichever one you go to. I’m on all social media, either under Selling in a Skirt or Judy Hoberman. Like I said, I do post every single day because I really do believe that either you need to hear something that’s inspirational or something that makes you think. I do that every single day. What’s next for me is there’s not going to be a book in 2021. I know that because I have too many other things that are working right now.
I’m building this program for executive women and we have a sales program for entrepreneurs and just those kinds of things that really, I need to focus on. I know if I start to do a book, then all the other stuff happens when you write a book. I just have to really be focused. But my husband keeps saying, “You need to write another book. It’s time.” I would say by the end of the year, probably, we’ll start to write something.
Rob Kosberg:
Good. Good. You should, because your books have led to wonderful things for you as evidenced by that heartwarming story that you shared. There are more people like that in the world that want to be touched by you. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you so much for being on Publish Promote Profit. Of course, I follow you and will continue to do so.
Judy Hoberman:
Thank you.
Thank you so much, and thanks for the opportunity to be here. I really, really appreciate it.
