Welcome to episode number 95 of ChiroCandy. On this episode, we're going to talk about 7 reasons to write a book.
Before I get into that, I want to go over a couple of key things that I learned from this year, some takeaways that I have from this year. I hope that you guys do the same thing with your practice, your business, your relationships, your spiritual life, your physical life, all these different areas. What are some takeaways that you have for this year and what are some things that you want to do different?
Takeaways For 2016
For those of you new to the show, we started ChiroCandy back in May of 2015. I have a background in ministry but also in sales and marketing. I was a sales manager for a long time but I spent 17 years in the precious metals industry, (Rare coins, gold, silver, things like that).
About eight years into that, I left that industry, went to work for a chiropractor for a few years and that's whenever I really "drank the Kool-Aid," if you will. I just really fell in love with the profession but I wasn't making as much money as I did in the coin business. Ended up going back into coins. After awhile I was so tired of working for somebody else, building somebody else's dream and having somebody else tell me when and where I needed to be here and be there. It was just time for something else.
We started ChiroCandy. I didn't even know how we were going to monetize it. I just wanted to give value.
1. Value Pays: One of my big takeaways for 2016 is value pays. I talk a lot about that in the different episodes. Episode 67, where I talk about this sales process. How the more and more value you give, the more you're going to "sell". It's like whatever product or service you offer, there's a scale. Their money, whatever you're charging for that service, is on one side. Your product or service is on the other. Well the more value you add then it ... Once you get it to outweigh whatever you're charging, the sales mate. My goal was just to give value. Not charge anything. I just wanted to give value.
I can say that 2016 being my first year, 100% full-time just doing this, we were able to collect more money than I ever did in 17 years in the coin business. Now my wife stays home. She helps me out. I've got a son in college. He's going to bible school right now. He's learning how to do a lot of this stuff. Really there's three main ways that we monetize ChiroCandy. It's through affiliate marketing, the Facebook marketing that I do for doctors out there and then the ghost writing that we do. We help docs. We sit down with them, come up with a really tight outline. It's all their content. We just do all the hard work. We do all the heavy lifting and then we get it professionally designed, edited and it's listed on Amazon. Then you get to use it for publicity, all kinds of things for your practice.
That's really what we're going to get into for this episode. Value pays. That was one of my big takeaways from this year is when you come at whatever you're doing from value, you're going to be okay. As long as you have ways to monetize in the backing it, but just be concerned with giving value. Everything else will work out. It's been a great year. We look for bigger things to come.
2. Consistency: Another takeaway I have is consistency. I release a podcast every Tuesday, 5:00 a.m. Central Standard Time. I don't know. It may go unappreciated by a lot of the listeners. It really doesn't matter. It's important to me to make sure for those of you ... There's a lot of docs out there that listen to the show. We get thousands of downloads every week. Last I checked, we're in well over 90 countries across the world. For those of you who look forward to, "Hey, tomorrow a new show comes out. I want to listen to it at the gym." I know there's podcasts out there that I do that with. If a podcast comes out let's say Tuesday, one of the marketing shows I listen to, if I know it's coming out on Tuesday, I'll wait to make sure it comes out before I go to the gym because I want to listen to it at the gym or whatever it may be.
I found that just being consistent, it holds ... I think it builds credibility for me and for what I do. I don't know why I'm saying that's one of my takeaways. I feel that it's paid off. I feel that being consistent every week with the show helps hold me accountable to deliver value. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's where I'm going with this.
3. Ready, Fire, Aim: Then a third takeaway I have is ready, fire, aim. There's been some things we've done this year that haven't worked out real well as far as from a marketing standpoint to produce income for the show or income for our family, stuff like that. There's been some things that have just really been home runs.
There's a book by Michael Masterson called Ready, Fire, Aim. Too often people get so caught up in waiting to make sure everything is perfect before you go for it. Sometimes you've just got to go for it. Just get out there, fire and then aim along the way. The book by Maxwell Maltz called Psycho-Cybernetics came out back in the 50s I think. He talks about how we're all created with this internal guidance system. It's almost like a heat-seeking missile that we correct ourselves along the way. It's just the way God created us. There's a lot of truth in that. That was another takeaway for this year is you just get out there and you do it and you go. Then it all works out.
Well we've been married almost 21 years now. The majority of that time, I've been straight commission, especially in the coin business. Now when I was manager, I did have an override that I knew was coming in but for the most part, the income has been consistent but not always ... Just like you guys. Owning a business, it's different. I think that's really helped me a lot starting this business. It's going to help me grow the business because there are times like, "Ugh. I don't know where it's going to come from next month." We just keep doing what we're doing and next thing you know, we're having a better month than we did last month and then another better month than that month. They just continue just to grow. It's just getting out there and putting stuff to work. Proverbs 14:23 says, "All hard work brings a profit but mere talk leads to poverty." Sometimes you've just got to get out there and do it. Then if it doesn't work, tweak it and try it again.
4. Think Bigger. Dream Bigger: Then the fourth thing is just think bigger and dream bigger. We had some guest speakers come and do this thing at our church here a couple months back. That was one of the big things they talked about. It was one of the big takeaways I had from this weekend thing that we did was not to limit myself, not to limit my thinking, but think bigger, dream bigger and do bigger. That's one of our big things we want to do for 2017 is just really how can we get out there and help impact more doctors and help you guys impact more people in your community to help you build that dream practice? I see this all the time. Whatever your dream practice looks like in your mind, there are people out there that have built it. What can I do to help guide you?
I'm not an expert in any of this. I do feel that I'm good at marketing but I'm not a doctor. I'm not a chiropractor. I've never built a clinic but my goal is to help provide value and get guys on the show that can help you do that. Anyway, there's eight minutes, almost nine minutes into the show. There's some takeaways for this year for me and hopefully you can apply that to your business and what's coming up for 2017.
Let's get into the core of what we want to talk about for this podcast...
I'm very passionate about this. I've written four books and book number five is actually almost done. It's done. We've been going through the editing process on it. I started it last year. This one has taken me a year but the funny thing is is my Instant Influencer Course, which walks you through how to write a book, I brag about how you can write a book in as little as three weeks. I've done that. My other books I've written in as little as three weeks from the idea in my head to my book in my hand, as little as three weeks. This one was different. I just had different goals for the book but also this year, because of things that would happen ... New clients that would come in, speaking engagements that I would have, just being busy, the book wasn't a priority. I've been still doing a little bit every month and every month to get it to where it is. Now we are at the point where hopefully in the next month or two it's going to be released. I'm really expecting some big things. I'm really excited about that.
1. Authority
That's one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about this today. The first reason you should write a book is the authority that it gives you. There's a reason that the root word of 'authority' is author. People automatically look at you different when they realize you've written a book. That's number one.
2. Branding
Number two is branding. It really ties into the authority. You can use it in all of your marketing messages, all kinds of things. It really helps shape who you are, your clinic, when you want it to. Now some docs write a book and it's just something they have on their shelves. They use it a little bit. If you do it right, it can really help with your branding, their image, especially making an impact in your area, which leads us to number three is publicity.
3. Publicity
Whenever you have a book, it becomes easier to get free publicity in your local area. Whenever you have your book done, you should plan out a publicity campaign where you do what you can to get on the local talk radio. Have articles written in the local newspaper. If your area has a local magazine that comes out, reach out to them. They're always looking for good content. The local TV news station, they're always looking for good quality content and whenever you are an author and you have that authority, it also helps them want to say yes to you, to bring you in front of their audience, knowing that you're going to deliver good quality content. It's huge.
One TV appearance on a local news show ... One of my docs did this on the morning news show and had over $6,000 in business just from a little ... It was a three-minute spot on the news one day. Another one of my clients, we helped do a book and he had 60 phone calls that afternoon after his spot aired. His clinic, you're looking at anywhere between ... The different programs and stuff that he offers, he profit-wise collects ... It's all cash. No insurance. Anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 per case. It had 60 people call after that. He was able to do that. It was easier for him whenever he was an author. They had their book on TV. He's showing the book and they're talking about the book and then talking about his practice and what he's doing. It's a huge opportunity for that.
4. Share Your Message
Reason number four is you get to share your message. You guys have a message. I don't know if there's another industry that's as passionate about what it is they do as chiropractors are. This gives you a platform to share that message.
5. Patient Education
Reason number five is patient education. Typically whenever you're seeing these patients, you're only spending ... What? Three to five minutes with them at a time? Sometimes longer. After your day one and day two and you're just doing your adjustments, you don't have that much time. For you to get all this philosophy that you have to teach that to these patients, it takes more than that. When you have a book, you can say, "Hey, Ms. Jones. Look, I want you to do this. In chapter three of my book, it talks about the benefits of drinking water," or whatever it may be. "Before you come in next time, read that chapter. There's some things that I want to talk to you about." You can use it as for patient education.
6. Legacy
The sixth reason is to leave a legacy. When you have a book that you've written, nobody can ever take that away. It's there always. I recently lost my grandfather. This was just here within the past month, six weeks. Even his grandfather ... I'm sorry, his dad. I heard all these stories about how he was just such a great man and was real involved in church and all these things that he did. They have a building named after him. I always thought, "You know what? If he had written a book, I would love to read it." That's one of the reasons I wrote ABCs of a Leader is I wanted it to be something not for ... To be on Amazon, for everybody to buy and all this. I wanted it to be these key fundamental principles that I feel make people successful that my grandkids could read about, that my great grandkids could say, "Well you know what? Your great great grandfather, here's one of the books that he read and this is the philosophy that made him who he is." It's leaving that legacy is the sixth reason.
Let's go over these real quick. Let's recap and then we have one more.
1. Authority
2. Branding
3. Publicity
4. Sharing your message
5. Patient Education
6. Legacy
7. Who You Will Become
Number seven is because who you'll become in the process. The late Jim Rohn talks about this... He says his mentor told him, "You should have a goal to become a millionaire not for the money, but because of who you have to become in the process to be able to earn that." I think it's the same type thing. Once you've done work ... Even though as far as my side of things, we try to make it as easy for you as possible. It's still being able to say, "I'm an author."
There was a guy that we used to go to church with. I knew him for years but we knew each other at church. Really not anything outside of that. This was really before Facebook so he didn't ... It's not like he was getting on social media and would see me and knew that I was an author. We were at worship practice one day. Something was said about one of my books. He stopped and he said, "Wait, you've written a book?" I said, "Yeah." At the time I had written, I don't know, maybe three of them. He started treating me different. He started talking to me different. It was funny but I bring that point up because that's what happens. When you have a book, people look at you differently.
Anyway, those are seven reasons why you should write a book. I really encourage you to make that ... Put that on your list for 2017 as a goal. Whether it takes you a year, whether you want help ... We can help you do it pretty quick. Or even as just something that you sit down and make that a long-term goal, whatever it may be, I really think there's a ... I know that you have a book inside of you. You have a message to share. Share it. Do what you can to share it. That's going to be it for this episode. We'll stop right there. I hope you guys have had a great year. If you were interested in finding out more about writing a book, the different programs that I offer, whether it's being able to get you into our course that shows you how to do it yourself or actually sitting down and talking to us about us doing the work for you.
We actually just finished a project for a doc who ... He and his pastor, they wrote their book and then came to me to help go through and edit it, to lay everything out, do all the interior design, the book cover design. We did the website for him. We got it listed on Amazon and all that. Even if that's where you are, I'd love to help you any way that I can.
Work With Billy
You can go to either workwithbilly.com or you can simply go to chirocandy.com/schedule. Just schedule what time to hop on the phone with me and we'll take 10 to 15 minutes just to find out what's going on, what your goals are and any way that I can help. Same thing if you're interested in Facebook marketing and some of the things that we do for that. Reach out to me the same way, either workwithbilly.com or you can go to chirocandy.com/schedule. Schedule a time to get on the phone and we can talk about those options as well.