March 2, 2022

How to Best Make Money Without Working Yourself to Death - BM308

How to Best Make Money Without Working Yourself to Death - BM308

Do you want to know how to make money with your book without working yourself to death?
Listen as Katrina Sawa shares the marketing savvy you can use to create and scale a consistent money-making business.

Do you want to know how to make money with your book without working yourself to death?

Listen as Katrina Sawa, The Jumpstart Your Business coach shares the marketing savvy you can use to create and scale a consistent money-making business.

In this week's powerful episode "How to Best Make Money Without Working Yourself to Death" you will discover...

  • What most authors fail to do because they're too busy on social media
  • What you really need to convey when selling your book
  • The best call-to-action to use when being interviewed by the media or as a podcast guest
  • And a whole lot more...

Get more gems from Katrina and other guest experts, when you become a Book Marketing Mentors Premium Member today!

 

Transcript

Susan Friedmann:         Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast, where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is The Jumpstart Your Business coach, Katrina Sawa. She's been helping entrepreneurs create and scale consistent money making business since 2002.

                                    She's the founder of jumpstartyourbusinessnow.com, and is a tell it like it is speaker, an international bestselling author with 16 books. As the creator of The Jumpstart Your Marketing and Sales Systems, and The Jumpstart Your Business Training Series, she holds events annually and also runs the International Speaker Network. Katrina, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest, expert, and mentor.

Katrina Sawa:                Thank you, Susan. I'm happy to be here.

Susan Friedmann:         I just love what you do. You've got so many talents in so many different areas, but it all comes down, I think, in the end, to marketing. Would you agree with that?

Katrina Sawa:                Yeah. Well, it's down to making money for me.

Susan Friedmann:         Oh, let's take that one step further. Yes.

Katrina Sawa:                Yes. Making money.

Susan Friedmann:         It's about marketing and making money. Yes.

Katrina Sawa:                Because making money comes too, with a lot of different things. You have to have a good foundation in your business, plus the marketing in order to really make money and not work yourself to death. Right?

Susan Friedmann:         Oh, well let's go down that avenue. That sounds exciting because many authors are solopreneurs. So, it's me, myself, and I in the business. You get to do a lot of things, if not everything. What kind of advice would you give or do you give to solopreneurs with regard to their business?

Katrina Sawa:                Well, I definitely started as a business owner and business coach first and then became an author four years into my business. Some people that might be listening did it the other way around, then you became an author, and then you're like, oh wait, now I have a business, right? Cause if you have a book, you have a business. Either way you go, you have a business. If you have something to sell, you have a business. Whether you decide to stay as a solopreneur or you incorporate into an S-corp or LLC, that's your choice. And it depends on what else you're doing. Right?

                                    I think the majority of us though, have to focus on marketing and sales. If you want to make any money, you got to know and continue honing your skills around marketing and selling. Period. If you don't like it, then you should not be a business owner or try to sell books because you need to be a marketer and a salesperson. It doesn't have to be salesy and annoying, but you need to embrace those strategies in various levels of them to be successful.

Susan Friedmann:         I love that you stress that, because obviously that's something that I preach as well because sales is not a four letter word, which so many authors think it is because there's comparison with a car salesman and a sort of the negative side of selling that we've seen so much, the snake oil salesman, but we are not doing that. We've got a great book that we want to promote. It's falling in love with sales and marketing. Talk to us more about this whole concept of falling in love with sales and marketing. What do you advocate for us to be able to do?

Katrina Sawa:                Well, if you have an amazing book, which most people who are listening have probably, or they're creating, then you want more people to read it, right? And you want it to inspire people, or educate people, or entertain people. One way or the other, you want to help other people with your book, or your work, or your program, or your course, or your coaching, or whatever else you have to sell. In order to do that, you have to get it in front of more people and they have to want to buy it. They have to understand that the transformation is going to get them somewhere where they want to be, either entertained or to a result for a solution or something like that.

                                    Therefore, you have to think about you have to offer the transformation, that is the sales. Most people say, "Well, I'm selling my book." Well, that's great, but what does your book do? What's it going to do for me if I read it? What's it going to help me do? The transformation that you take people through when they read your book is what you're selling. You're not selling the book, you're selling the transformation, regardless if it's a book, a course, or a coaching program.

                                    Always be thinking about selling the transformation. You're talking about the result they're going to achieve and how they're going to feel at the end or during the process. You don't have to think of it as I have to sell my book. You just think of, hey, if you want to be inspired to help you reach your dreams, you definitely want to read my book. It's going to help you give you the five tips to blankety-blank. There's that.

                                    So, you think of it as serving and inspiring, educating, or entertaining rather than, I have to sell my book. Just change your mindset around how you're looking at that, in my opinion.

Susan Friedmann:         Yes. I love that whole idea of changing your mindset because you're absolutely right. People don't buy books. They buy what the book will do for them, which as you said, is the value, the transformation that's going to happen. And yes, I love that question, is just even going through in your own mind. Well, what does my book do? What is the value? What is the message that I want my target audience to have that my book will help deliver. Now, I know that you are a marketing maven. I've seen so much of what you do and you're constantly sort of inventing and reinventing, and working with people. I know that marketing basics for consistent cashflow is something you love to talk about. Let's go down that avenue and see where that takes us.

Katrina Sawa:                Yeah. The thing is, if people think, okay, well, I know 200 people, or 200 people are on my email. Of course, 200 people are going to buy my book, right? It's just not true. Number one, you can't guarantee all 200 people are going to see the email that you send them, the one email that you send them to buy the book. So, you have to reach out. And same with Facebook or LinkedIn, if you have 500 friends or connections, or 5,000, it doesn't matter, you can't guarantee all of them are going to see the post that says, "Go buy my book." Or, "Hey, I have a book coming out," or whatever.

                                    It's really, it is, I want to say it is a crapshoot of who's going to see what. And you have to get in front of thousands of people, even if you just want a few dozen sales. It's a huge numbers game. I've been in the sales and marketing arena since I was 16-years-old, and I'm 51. I've done door-to-door sales, I've done advertising sales, I've done retail sales, I've done network marketing sales. I've done all kinds of different selling in my life and marketing. You just have to talk to more people.

                                    When we talk about marketing, you can't just put a post out. I put a post out today and nobody bought my book or nobody bought my thing. Well, that's because probably 12 people saw your post. I don't care how many friends you have, but you can't control social media. Same thing goes for email. Most emails go into spam or trash these days. You have to get outside your comfort zone perhaps, and do more marketing in many different ways. You got to get on podcasts like this. You got to do some speaking gigs and get a speaking opportunity, or two.

                                    I try to speak at least four or five times a month minimum, okay? At different groups or whatever, whether it's 12 people in the room or a hundred people in the room, you have to get in front of more people more often and in more ways. So, social media, email, speaking, networking events, podcasts. You can do your own podcast. You can do your own Facebook lives. You can do your own YouTube lives or Instagram stories. Those are all getting in front of more people, but most people just don't do enough, and they don't get in front of enough people.

                                    The first basic is really getting in front of enough people, and I'm talking like a thousand new people every month. So, how are you going to do that? There's ways where you can do it without killing yourself and working 24/7. You just may not know what they are.

Susan Friedmann:         Let's go down that avenue. Let's talk more about that. You're putting the little seeds out there for me to, or the bread crumbs for me to follow. Yes, let's talk about some of the things that people don't necessarily think about. You've mentioned social media and obviously your own email list. You never know how many people, you rightly say, how many people are going to actually open this and read this. Well, they might see it, but not open it. Sometimes people open my emails, but they don't necessarily click through to listen to something, or watch something, or get something. Yes, so how do we do it?

Katrina Sawa:                Well, so there's about 20 different marketing strategies that I teach at my events and things like that. There's email, social media, and social media has six or seven platforms. There's networking, where you actually go in person, but also virtual networking. A lot of people are ... They're complaining about Zoom fatigue. Well, you have to get over it cause you got to get in front of more people. So, you have to figure out how to get the blue screen glasses of the screen or the ... Whatever you need to do to get in front of more people. You can't just avoid networking because you're not going out in-person.

                                    I'm on Zoom all day long every day when I'm working because I have to be, that's where the people are, right? There's also doing your own events. There's doing your own webinars, master classes, info calls. Those are some of the easiest things you can do, and it's absolutely free marketing, right? And you just have to put them on the calendar and do them consistently. Doing your own podcast requires a little bit more backend production, and stuff like that, so I don't recommend that unless you're making a good amount of money already and you have some time, or you can hire an assistant or production team to work with you on that.

                                    But everything else that you might do, videos, you can do video tips. You can do them on Zoom, record them, then upload them to YouTube and make them live over there, and then share them over on social media sites. And then you can put it on a blog post. And then you can send out an email linking over to your blog post. I mean, that's called repurposing your content. Other marketing strategies could be going and getting publicity.

                                    You can write articles in local magazines. You can write them in online magazines. I've written all kinds of things. You just have to go find them. There's plenty of sources out there where you can write articles. In your local area, if you just look at some magazines around there, look at the newspaper perhaps. I've written columns. I've gotten publicity on TV locally. I haven't gone national quite yet with the publicity on TV and stuff. That would be hiring a publicist.

                                    But you can go in your local area and get on a local news station for the morning show and get featured and showcase your book. I've been on many times, showcasing some of my books on TV, and it's free. It's free to do that. You just have to say yes. So, when you approach them and you say, "Hey, I'd love to come talk about the three keys to loving yourself successful," like one of my books, right? It can be for entrepreneurs or individuals in general on how to get rid of toxic people.

                                    You just give the little preview to the media on what you might cover in their three minute slot, and they say, "Yeah, okay, come on Tuesday morning, 7:00 AM." And you're like, okay. You just say, yes. It can be that easy, just by sending in a quick email or making a phone call, and then getting invited on. You got to know what you're doing a little bit, but I pretty much told you what to say.

Susan Friedmann:         You did. Oh my goodness. I mean, you gave us a book full of tips already of different sources for marketing, which was dynamic. Thank you. You said two very important things with regard to local media, because I'm a great fan of local media. I believe they are hungry, and that's why they say yes. You need to say yes, because they are hungry for information. I know that if I send a press release to our local paper, they'll print it verbatim. They may change the headline. That's about the only thing they usually change. But the rest of it, they'll print as is. Go and utilize that local media.

                                    They're people who need and want your information, and it's more than, as we said earlier, it's more than just saying, "Oh, well, I wrote a book. My brand new book is published." But giving them the value, just as you talked about earlier, what's the value that a listener, or watcher, or reader will get from that? And maybe even tie it into an event that's going on. I think that's always very sexy as well. What do you think?

Katrina Sawa:                Oh, totally. Yeah. I've done that when I had a speaker training. I went in and talked about how to become a speaker and what you need to do to get over your fear of public speaking, and then, oh yeah, oh, by the way, I have an event next month, and dah, dah, dah. Yeah, so the timing could be good, but it doesn't matter. Especially if, that you have a website and you offer some free stuff on your website, then people can always look you up. But the thing with the TV media for sure is you have to buy the recording.

                                    You can't just link over to it on the website because you don't know if it's ever going to go away. It could go away, and it usually does go away after a year or two, or whatever. So, you got to buy the recording. It's only 85 bucks or something though, in most places. Then you can embed it and upload it and stuff to your own website, and you can have it forever. So, highly recommend, if you're going to do that, you have to save the recordings of things.

                                    Just like, if you were in an online magazine, you need to take screenshots of the article pages and the headlines, or the covers, and stuff like that because you need those physical contents that you can then use forever. You don't just want to link over. That's a big mistake sometimes people do.

Susan Friedmann:         Couple of things that I picked up on when you were talking, especially about an interview is the fact that you have to have and rehearse these sound bites, things that you're going to say, drop little hints, let's say, about your book. Well, in chapter seven of my book, I talk about this particular tip, and it helps certain amount of people, whatever. And then your call to action. What do you have as a call to action? Do you have that website? Do you have a lead magnet, some kind of freebie that will entice people to come and give you their email address so that you can market to them directly? Obviously you don't want to just send them to Facebook or LinkedIn because you want to own your own list.

Katrina Sawa:                Yes, please don't just send them to social media. That's important to have a really good call to action for TV media, but I'll so anything you're doing. If you're doing a Facebook live, what's your call to action? You can't just say, "Well, if you're interested, message me if you want to talk. That's too passive. You have to say, "Let's talk. If this is your issue and you know you're having this issue, then I want to talk to you. My link to book a call is in the comments." You have to be more firm and assertive rather than wishy washy and passive in your call to action.

                                    Otherwise, people aren't going to take the time because they're too busy. They're busy just like you, and if you don't tell them what to do right now, and where to go, and what link, and what time and whatever, then they're just going to do nothing and move on to the next thing.

Susan Friedmann:         One of the tricks that I've learned is to actually buy what they call a pretty link so that I've got BrainstormwithSusan.com, for instance. So, at the end of one of my webinars, I said, "Well, if you want to brainstorm some ideas with me, I'm going to offer you a 20 minutes session and go to brainstorm with susan.com." Now, that links straight up into my schedule calendar, and they can book a call.

Katrina Sawa:                Yeah.

Susan Friedmann:         That's something that people remember rather than spouting off a long URL website name that you've gotten in two seconds.

Katrina Sawa:                Yeah. You definitely have to buy domain names for things that you're promoting. I have a lot of domain names for that purpose. So, if someone wants a call with me, it's askkat.biz. If someone wants my free follow up marketing template and audio, then it's jumpstartyourfollowup.com. If it's my event, it's lovingmoneylive.com. I mean, you just have to buy the different domains because it's easier and more memorable. Make sure that's spellable too, and use those in your call to action for sure, especially when you're talking them.

Susan Friedmann:         Yes. And something, as you rightly said, that is memorable, because it's so easy to forget. But if it's something that is easy to remember, the more, the better. Another thing that you talk about is putting your business on autopilot. Now, I told you it's me, myself, and now I, in my business. How am I going to put it on autopilot? I don't even feel I can leave my office sometimes.

Katrina Sawa:                Well, oh my gosh, there's so many different things. I want to wrap up the marketing thing really quick and I'll come back to this, but there's three types of marketing. The one I talked about earlier is new business marketing. You're getting in front of new people. Then there's database marketing, which is your current email list, or people that already know and trust you, like maybe your followers on social. Then there's referral source marketing. That's when you're actually specifically reaching out to other complimentary business owners that can refer business to you because you have similar target audiences.

                                    So, there's so many different things to do in each one, but we covered as much as we can in just a few minutes. A lot of that actually can be on autopilot. Some of the follow up, for example, in the database marketing, can be on autopilot. We like to call, when people opt in for a free gift, then you put an opt-in box on a page that says, "Hey, come get my free audio on blankety blank, or the first two chapters of my book, you get for free. Just enter your name and email." That kind of thing. That's an opt-in box, and that should be on its own page, a landing page, or just a page on your website is fine, as long as it's clear that, that's the one thing you want them to do on that page.

                                    Then, once they hit submit, it should automatically trigger them going and getting the free thing, which should be on a different page on your website ideally. Like, it just automatically redirects you to that, I call it a thank you page, which is the hidden page from everybody, right? That nobody can find the hidden pages. They're not indexed or anything like that. They get over there and then they can click to open and view, either download, or listen to the audio, or watch the video, or download the ebook, or whatever it is.

                                    They'll also get an email. So, that submit button would trigger an email, which is called an autoresponder. That can say inside, a lot of different things. It can say, thanks for getting the free thing. Here's the page to go get it right. And click them over to the Thank You page. And then by the way, most people who go and get that, usually want this over here, and it's only $27. If you're interested in getting the next step after this, then go over here. You can buy it for 27 or you can come to a free call with me. Here's the link to that.

                                    And then you can put testimonials in there. Then you can put all of that same information on the Thank You page. The reason we use the Thank You page is, is because people don't always get the email, right? So, the emails, sometimes the very first email that will be sent to someone when they opt in goes into their spam or trash immediately. And unless they are looking in those inboxes, then they're not seeing the thing they just signed up for. In many cases, I have people that sign up for free things a couple different times. Now, I don't know why they just don't get redirected to the webpage, and maybe they do. They just didn't notice that it was actually the deliverable page, but you got to do so many different things.

                                    All of that can happen automatically. Then subsequent emails that can go to those people who've signed up for your free thing can be pre-written and scheduled, and all of that can be automated. So, those are the main things that people need to automate, of course. And then systematizing things that you're doing. Standard operating procedure, an SOP. For example, I run the International Speaker Network and I book speakers. You were one of them, thank you very much.

                                    People fill out the form to apply to speak, which gives me their topic description, their bio and their headshot. And then that all gets redirected to my assistant, who then puts all the marketing copy together and sends the speaker the marketing stuff, and all of that is done by somebody else. I don't do any of that. I just entice people to come and join or apply to speak. That's all I have to do. I have to market and promote that opportunity.

                                    Then everything is done by my team, except for me booking what date the speakers are going to speak, but everything is done by my team, and I just show up. There's a standard operating procedure that my team implements on what they have to do and when, and how they post the recordings of the call when it's done. I have to record it to my cloud instead of my computer so they can find it easily, and I don't have to do any work when it's done.

                                    There's a lot of different things, that if you designate those steps that you're taking, if you write them down, then you can delegate it out, or put it into some kind of system that can be automated in a software of some kind. There's probably hundreds of things that we do in my business that I show people how to do in theirs to save you time and save you money and be more efficient, and productive, and profitable. You got to embrace this stuff or you're going to work way too hard and you're not going to get in front of enough people so you're not going to make enough money. Plain and simple.

Susan Friedmann:         Yeah. The whole idea of systematizing, I love. I mean, I've just fallen in love with that. I know that I had to go through every single step of what I do, for instance, with this podcast, from inviting a guest, to getting the information, their bio, their photograph, and then obviously the interview process, setting up the appointments, and then it's got to be edited and all the other things that need to go into this, and then post it. All the little steps, and I didn't realize in the beginning when I just did it, about how many different steps, and once I've got it down, now I can pass it on to someone and say, "Hey, this what I need help with, all these different steps."

                                    I think that's invaluable information. I know you've got something up your sleeve for our premium members, Katrina, when we go into the premium site that you're going to give us something juicy that is some of your secret sauce. So, we'll wait for that. In the meantime, how can our listeners get ahold of you if they want to find out more about your services? Because you offer some incredible services.

Katrina Sawa:                Yeah. I do have a lot of trainings. I do events, virtual and in person, so you'd check out the events page and the trainings page. But primary, I like to just send people to the free stuff page, the free trainings, because there's a lot of things there you can take advantage of to try me out, to listen to what I've got about, I have a free speaker training audio, I have a publishing info audio because I have a publishing company also.

                                    Then I have a Jumpstart Your Biz audio training and checklists on things you need to do every day to get in front of more people, and so on and so on. There's eight free things you can get. The website is actually Jumpstart Your Biz Now, not business. So, it's jumpstartyourbiznow.com, and then forward slash, free trainings, would be the one place I would send you to go get some free stuff. And then you're always welcome to contact me or connect on social media. Just tell me you heard me on Susan's podcast so I can remember how you heard about me. That would be great.

Susan Friedmann:         That'd be lovely. Yes, and I'll put all that in the show notes because sometimes our listeners haven't got anything to write with, they're in the gym or they're driving. So, yes, I'll have to put that in the show notes. Katrina, as you know, we always end up the podcast with a golden nugget. What is your golden nugget for our listeners?

Katrina Sawa:                Well, I would say one of the things that holds people back from doing some of the things that we're talking about here, and on the marketing, and the selling is their own, either self-confidence. Maybe they don't feel like they look good on camera, so they don't want to do videos, or they don't want to go in person networking or speak on stage because they feel overweight, or they're going to wait till they lose the weight, for God's sakes. Or, it's got to be perfect before they go, send an email.

                                    I have one client who drives me insane. It takes her four months to write the perfect email, and I want to just aah. So, stop. I would say stop that. Stop, stop, stop. There's never perfect. Good enough is good enough. You have to just get it out and get in front of more people and move on to the next thing. That's it. You got to stop waiting for perfect.

Susan Friedmann:         Plain and simple. Plain and simple. Yes. We often get in our own way because perfectionist gene is a killer. So, yes, I really appreciate that. Katrina, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and thank you all for taking time out of your precious day to listen to this interview. And I sincerely hope that it sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

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