I am Charles Schwartz Show - Create A Killer Lead Magnet

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

In this episode, Charles sits down with Morgan Gist MacDonald of Paper Raven Books, a seasoned publishing expert who has turned her passion for helping authors into a thriving seven-figure business. Morgan shares her proven 8-step process for writing, publishing, and marketing a book that not only establishes your authority but also serves as a powerful lead generation tool for your business. Discover how to identify your target reader and curate the stories and information that will resonate with them most. Morgan emphasizes the importance of writing fast and revising later, ensuring that you maintain momentum throughout the book creation process. Throughout the episode, Charles and Morgan dive deep into the art of crafting compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) within your book. Morgan reveals her favorite CTA strategies, all designed to convert readers into loyal email subscribers. Gain valuable insights into optimizing your book’s presence on Amazon, the world’s largest online bookstore. Morgan breaks down the key elements of a high-converting Amazon book page, from crafting attention-grabbing titles and subtitles to leveraging keywords and categories to boost your book’s discoverability. Whether you’re a first-time author or looking to level up your publishing game, this episode is packed with actionable advice and insider tips for creating a book that not only showcases your expertise but also serves as a powerful tool for growing your business. Tune in to discover how Morgan’s 8-step process can help you unlock the full potential of your book and achieve the success you deserve. Key Takeaways: Uncover a surprising lead generation tool that can take your business to new heights Learn the the most effective calls-to-action (CTAs) that turn casual readers into devoted fans and loyal customers Discover the essential components that make your book stand out in a crowded marketplace and attract a flood of interested buyers Head over to https://podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. Key Points: 1:46 Leveraging Social Proof 5:21 Implementing Calls to Action 6:58 Book Launch Strategies 13:27 Targeting Specific Audience 15:33 Narrowing Down Audience 20:02 Brainstorming Content 27:16 Giving away physical copies 30:19 Different types of CTAs 33:38 Recommended lead capture methods 35:37 Essential business tools 39:27 Effective call to actions 41:28 Quick start guide importance 44:03 Importance of optimizing Amazon 47:03 Key elements for Amazon optimization 48:49 Update categories for optimization

Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. In today's episode, we learn how to create a killer lead magnet that converts like nothing I have ever seen. As it turns out, we all are approaching lead magnets wrong. Today, we learn how to craft lead magnets that establish your authority, the secret to making them irresistible, and the exact strategies Morgan Gist MacDonald, the mastermind behind paper Raven books, uses to build an incredible eight-figure business. Enough preamble, let's dive in. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn

everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. Today, we have Morgan with us. Morgan, thank you so very much for coming on the show. Charles, I'm so excited for our conversation. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be a lot of fun. We've been trying to do this for a while now. And one of the reasons was what you do and what I've done and how I've gotten my success and how I've scaled the business is the idea that you need social proof. And one of the best ways to do social proof is having a book. And the example that I use all the time is before what I would go on stage, like Charles Schwartz, you know, retired at 36, millionaire at 37.

There's a whole long thing of where I talked about, I wouldn't do that anymore. I come on and I'm like, Wall Street Journal bestseller. And I literally have to walk out on stage and be like, my name is Charles Schwartz. And I had to actually introduce myself because it has so much social proof that comes with it. And what I love is, yeah, it gives me that social proof, but you found a way to use it as a scaling method to also monetize on a huge level, help people finish the books and then use it as a scaling method. Not just like, oh, look, I've got this dream of writing a book, which is great. And we love that. And we support that legacy, but there's also a way to do it specifically. And we're going

to kind of go into it. So thanks for willing to come and share. Yes. I mean, you're so right about the social proof and there are ways that we can get even more social proof with reviews. We're going to talk about that strategy and how to actually get in touch with your readers and not just hope that people are reading your book, but know people are reading your book and be able to reach out to them and actually grow a business off the back of it. So yeah, we're going to dive deep. It's going to be great. We're going to get into it.

They'll take out notes. What I love about it is the idea of hope versus reality. You know, if you're like, oh, I'm going to start a company. I'm not a starter. I'm a scaler. There's a completely different narrative here. We're not talking about hope. We're talking about things that actually work.

Now, I know you and your team have broken it down into eight steps which is phenomenal so can you kind of if you just run through those eight steps for me if you're going to do this and you're going to implement something where you're actually going to get in touch with your readers where you're going to leverage reviews where you're going to use the call of actions and you're going to have this wonderful gift that is this book that is really going to be your resume and your funnel that you get to have physically in someone's hand it's got to be done in a specific way and i I know you've mastered that. So what are the, what are the kind of the eight ways that you would do that? And I'm going to jump in and bother you all the time. I'm like, what the hell do you do that? What do you got? Yeah. So I run a publishing company. This is

what we do all day, every day, right? Is we help people write and publish and market books. And so we've kind of distilled all of our best practices into eight steps. Now we're not going to be able to go through all of them in depth, but to give you a high level first, step one is decide what type of reader do I think will be most drawn to this type of book. And a book is a product, right? Like any other product we're going to bring to market, it's not for everyone. It will get traction most quickly if it's for someone. So we can dive into that if you'd like. Step two is to curate.

What are my stories and information that I want to share in this book? Because it's not going to be everything. You're going to select and strategically select a few stories. And really, it ends up being something like 10, 15, 20 stories total, like max. And whatever lessons, frameworks, principles, we're talking specifically about nonfiction here, right? We're growing a business, it's going to be sort of pragmatic, practical, how to maybe some memoir in there as well, like personal stories or case study stories. So that's kind of

the blending that we're doing. We're bringing stories with frameworks and you're going to have to pick, you know, they can't all go in the same book. So that's step two. Step three, write fast, revise later. So when we're working with an author and we're like, okay, let's get this first draft pumped out. We're looking to hit the first draft within about 40 to 80 hours total writing time. So if you do the step one, step two, and you get an outline, a structure together, you can get through a first draft in something like 40 to 80 hours. Yeah, you're going to revise, but you go fast through the draft and then you come back and do a few passes of revisions before it's ready to move into publication. Step four, craft your book's title, subtitle, and description. And so

the book needs both a title and a subtitle. The subtitle attracts the type of person like, oh, that's what I'm going to get out of this book. And the description is going to be on the Amazon sales page as well as the back of the book, although they don't have to be the same description. But you really want to give people a deep look into, again, what are they going to get out of this book? What types of stories are you telling? What types of lessons, frameworks, principles? What are the results they're going to get? Everyone's thinking, what's in it for me? You need to answer that question very firmly in the description. Step five, include a call to action inside the book. And Charles, I know we're going to go into deep on this one. Absolutely. I want you to get off the hook without

getting that one. We're getting that. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the linchpin. This is the mechanism that must be inside your book so that when people read your book, they are able to easily and excitedly join your email list. Now you can reach back out to them for backend products and services. So we'll talk about some of those best practices and examples. Step six, optimize for the Amazon bookstore. Amazon bookstore is just like Google. We got keywords that have search and competition, and we got to optimize for that. And there are categories that Amazon uses for visibility.

We want to hit number ones, not because hitting number one in the category is like the most amazing thing. That's not the point. The point is actually to trigger the Amazon algorithm for further visibility. And you do that through categories. Step seven, launch prep. We're going to set a launch date. We're going to get a book launch team. We're going to offer them an advanced review copy in exchange for their email address. If you have a platform already and you're wondering,

am I going to do pre-orders or am I going to do something else? I've got a suggestion for you. It will depend on whether you're going with traditional publishing and bookstore sales or whether you're going self-publishing or even hybrid publishing in some instances and have a different strategy. There's some bestseller list tactics that work for New York Times or Wall Street Journal, like we're talking about. We used to say USA Today, but their bestseller list died. The guy who ran that bestseller list retired and they shut it down. So now I'm about New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Now we're USA Today. But there's different strategies on,

do I do pre-order? Do I do something else? We can talk through that. Step eight is the launch itself. I've got some suggestions on ebook promotions that help bring folks in a launch style. And then I would say there's kind of a bonus step nine, which is relaunching the book every quarter. A lot of folks feel like, oh, I launched the book once and that's it. That's all I got. I got one shot. But really, as with any product, we're going to have promotions and we're going to keep bringing it out to market and getting more reviews on the book, more sales, and really becoming that bestselling author that we want to be. So that's the high level, Charles. Where do you want to go? We're going to jump into a lot of it. I think the most important is you start at the

beginning. And you talked about in the very beginning here is deciding what type of reader will be most drawn to this book. And this is a mistake a lot of people make. With everything and all type of product launches and all type of scaling and everything they're doing, they're like, hey, my grandmother made these really great raisin cookies and it's the greatest recipe and I'm going to make it special. And since I love it, everyone's going to love it. No, that's not what you do.

You identify your market, you identify what pain they're in, and then you become the advert, you become the painkiller for that. So as much as your book is about you because your name's on it, that's about as much as your book's going to be. It has to be about your audience. It has to be about the pain they're in and the value they get out of it. And you talked about in the subtitle, the subtitle, again, don't use my book as an example yes i wrote my book in nine days and we became bestseller in 16 days after publishing do not use mine as an example we're going to give you other examples that actually are effective but um but what you're doing yours it's really important to understand who your audience is because if your audience wants sushi and your entire book is about ice cream you're going to fail it is not going to

work i you. I've told people about this a million times when they talk about books, and this is why it's important to work with someone who's done this already, is sitting down and going, okay, I'm going through here. I've got my book. I see what's going on. My book is a funnel. That's all it is. It is a brochure and a funnel that's driving your audience, but you have to make sure you identify your niche. We're talking about this, niches is riches. Go inch wide, mile deep. Know who they are, what pain they're in, and what they're going through. So when you help people through this, if they're going to go through kind of step by step going,

okay, how do I really identify who this book is for, what pain they're in, what need I'm fulfilling? How do you walk someone through that? What are the steps that they need to understand now that we understand the concept of why we're doing it? We also need to understand the how. Yeah, I really like to start with their business model. Usually folks either have an existing business model or they have a business model that they are pivoting into. Like for instance, they've been a consultant inside a company and now they want to do their

own consulting. And so they're going to change who they want to talk to just a little bit. But you want to put yourself out like three to five years in the future and say, do you still want to be talking about this topic? And who are you talking to? Like who is going to be most drawn to your type of message? You know, if you're talking about productivity, you could say, well, everyone wants to be more productive. Or you could say, I, you know, I've worked a lot with, I don't know, professional moms, but actually I think I want to go more towards entrepreneurs who are working from home or traveling or nomadic lifestyle. Those are both productivity, but you might be able to, at this point, choose who do I want to

be talking to in three to five years. And the big warning that I give people at this stage of the game is you probably have expertise from the past. You don't have to keep talking about that if you don't want to. Right. Just because people have always asked you to speak on, you know, who knows, project management or whatever it was, doesn't mean that you have to write can be your new line in the sand and say, you know what? Now, when I'm looking at my future self and what I want to be doing in the future, I want it to be, you know, this topic and speaking to these people. And you just get to make that choice, you know? And so I really like to empower people and be like, if you don't, if you knew this book was going to be wildly successful, what do you hope the book makes possible for you? What business do you have? Who are you serving? Is it coaching? Is it consulting? Is it group programs? Is it memberships? Let's doodle that out a little bit and write the book that brings

those people in. I love that. I think the idea is that what got you here won't get you there. It's the Tarzan narrative that if you're swinging on vines, you got to let go of one vine in order to get to the next one. Or if not, you're just going to get locked and you're going to get stuck there. A lot of small businesses will look at books going, well, I'm not a coach. I'm not a speaker. I'm not, that's not who I am. Why should I write a book?

And I have someone that I'm working with right now. This is an individual who is an NCS or is a newborn care specialist. That's basically, I will guarantee that your baby will sleep in a newborn care specialist. That's basically, I will guarantee that your baby will sleep in X amount of weeks. That's basically it. My way of doing that is just duct tape or you put them underwater to the bubble stop. Guarantees they fall asleep. You have problems after that, but it doesn't work for me. This is an individual who's been doing it for a very, very long time and hates it. Doesn't want to do it anymore. She's one of the best in the world at doing it. She doesn't want to do it anymore. So what she's done instead is she's

pivoted her small business into what she wants in the future, just like you were saying, which is about placing newborn care specialists or placing these high-end nannies. So her entire book and her entire narrative is about, hey, yeah, this is how you make your baby fall asleep. And these are the things, but more importantly, this is what's going to be in your life. This nanny, this newborn care specialist, this is changing the path of your family. So I'm going to write a book about what you need to be looking for when you're hiring that person. Well, that establishes her as an expert in the field, that she's not going to be talking on this, but it's going to establish her business as this is elite, this is a resource.

And if someone's come in as the best supporting actor in a book where they can physically touch it, because they're going to go to bed with it. Just understand that they're physically going to be in bed with their spouse, with them reading whatever you've written. It's an intimate conversation. You've now established yourself in this intimate session where you're an expert. And she's building the book for the business she wants in the future. And I think that's an important narrative.

And when she first came to me, she's like, I just want to help out all moms. I'm like, oh God, no, no, you do not. And I was like, how much does it cost to place something? And she's like 120, $150,000 a year. I'm like, okay, you're talking to a very specific group of people. You're not talking about people who go to Chipotle or very rarely go to Chipotle. These are people who shop at different places. You need to know your audience because it changes the language. It changes your calls to to action it changes all of those things so getting very very specific with who you want to serve as you're using this as a tool because you're going to hand this out all the time now whenever she places a nanny we're literally just going to put the book in there and she's going to sign it and send it it's a it's a

it's a calling card that most people bypass and if you're not working with someone who has done this before you understand this is a huge tool when it comes to scaling. I'm curious with your experience, and I know you've been doing this for a really long time. Is there one type of example where you're like, oh my God, this person, Suzy Q created this book and all of a sudden her business went. And what were the secrets that she had when she did that? I know we're getting off topic here. We'll get back to the list. But you know me, I can't stay on target.

Yeah. Well, I'll try to give our author examples. And I just want to give like a little bit of just how I got into this because that's exactly what I did. I was a writing coach. I wanted to work with nonfiction books and I was scaling my business. I was bringing more editors to work underneath me. We wanted more clients. So I wrote a book called Start Writing Your Book Today. And that was in 2015. And the subtitles around, you know, this is a step-by-step guide to writing your nonfiction book from, you know, first draft to finish manuscript, something like that. Very clear, straightforward, right?

And that is the book that I just continue to promote year after year after year. And that is what creates, you know, a seven-figure business. And so, you know, I do this for other people, but I just want you to know that I'm always my first guinea pig. People don't think that. They're like, oh, I'm just a writer. I can't make a ton of money. If you know the right scaling techniques and you know the strategy and the tactics, you're

going to build a seven-figure business. And most people look at Booker and they're like, really? What about AI? What about all these things? It's not going to work. Because there are very specific things you need to do that the AI just doesn't know. It's cute. It's nice.

But it's not there yet. There are specific tools. So I guess the best example is yours. You might not have a writer anymore who I want to be in five years. I want to be a seven-figure business. I can't write that many books. I dare need to form an agency that I can now go do this and go crush it that way.

And let me give you a couple of quick examples. And I can include this in some notes that I give you afterward, because we sort of said, we're going to be talking to examples and case studies, and then I'm going to send all those to you so we can package them up really nicely for everyone. But a couple of quick ones. Dr. Terry Pease wrote a book called Love, Dignity, and Parkinson's. And she is someone who helps folks with a spouse or loved one who has Parkinson's. What do you do when you receive that diagnosis? How do you start to build that caregiving around the rest of your life with this person? And so that's an example of a pretty specific, you know, niche. And so she travels around the world speaking to hospitals and nonprofits and helping people to develop that caregiving system for Parkinson's. kettlebell fitness professional. That's what she knows, is kettlebell. So she has all these client case studies,

women specifically, who she uses kettlebells not only for physical strength, but for emotional strength and resilience as well. And it's a lot of, like, people don't often think about that. And so her book is really around sort of like, how do you become strong as a woman in all senses of the word? So she's got a filled out practice.

She runs retreats and workshops where she's based in Arizona. And then just kind of one more quick example. Beverly Asante-Pushman wrote a book called Ace the Half, which is half marathon training. They don't all have to be fitness books, but the ones that sort of came to mind most quickly. You know, like, how do you train for your first half marathon? And she works specifically with professional women who are really busy. And so how do you train? Where do you find the time to train and get over the fact that people might need you in life and just say, stop it.

I'm going out the door and I'm training. As a triathlete, I can tell you the best way to run a marathon isn't a car. You sit in there, you turn the music on, you just drive. The other runners, you hit them a little bit, they get out. No. The example is that what I love that you gave with the examples, it wasn't, hey, I'm going to be a caregiver for everyone who has a need that might need to be a caregiver and might in some situation.

No, you got very specific. These are the specific examples you got with Parkinson's. The other ones you gave examples like, hey, I'm going to do kettlebells. Now, I'm not going to do all weights. I'm not going to do all fitness. I'm not going to do HIIT training. I'm going to do kettlebells. Now I can do all weights. I'm not going to do all fitness. I'm not going to do HIIT training. I'm going to do kettlebell. That brought you down in the fitness.

So you're already dropped out of level. So now I'm going to do it specifically for women. Why? Now we're at another level. So you're bringing yourself and you're getting that, you're narrowing it down. And we talk about it,

inch wide, mile deep. And the same thing when you have the last one, where she said, she's only going to work with busy moms. I've got fitness. I've got half marathon, not full marathon, not triathlons, not ultra marathons, just half marathons.

How I do this, and you're narrowing it down. I think when the first step here is identifying your specific audience. So for me, it's two things. Who is your very, very, very specific audience? I could add more varies in there. I would, but friends of mine who have gone to Ivy League schools will pick on me for using it this much. You get in there, get as specific as you can as granular granular as you can and then after that

make sure it's not about it's about who you want to be in the future what is your goals in the future and that's a different way because most people like oh again my granny gave me this recipe for this raisin cookie no one cares who is the audience what pain on the end you get very specific and then build your business around that. So I think that's the, that's the first step. The second step is, you know, what stories, what are my stories and my information that I want to share? Now, before I let you jump in and give the answer, I'm going to try and give a guess at the information here. What stories and information do I want to share?

It doesn't matter. It's what they want to hear. What's going to help them, what pain they're in and having there? Because I can tell you stories about swimming with turtles and I can tell you stories about being, you know, diving in the Galapagos and getting seasick. No one wants to know about me getting seasick unless it has a narrative of how I worked through it in order to scale business. So when you're talking about the stories, I'm guessing it probably has something to do with part one, which is who is your audience and how do you serve? Well, I mean, I'm working with writers. We have really sensitive egos. We want to share so much

of our lives with people. We want them to know all the nitty gritty details about the boat and the seasickness and the Galof growth islands, right? Like we kind of want it. There's a part of us that wants to share that. And so we honor that, that there are going to be stories that you want to share, but let's do a Venn diagram. Let's figure out what do you want to share? What do they want to read? And we'll find the middle, basically, is what we're working on. So go ahead and brainstorm, you know, list out everything you want to share.

And then we're actually going to curate that, you know, and select what is most relevant. What does your reader need to hear from you in order to move farther down this, this journey that you're going to take them on in, in the book? Yeah. I think it's about becoming the best supporting actor. You know, we talk about this all the time. Don't,

don't be Luke Skywalker, be Obi-Wan Kenobi. Don't be, don't try to be Harry Potter, be Hermione Cranger. Um, be the best supporting actor. And your stories are always there to support them with that.

I mean, if people want to know about me throwing up on the back of a boat in 20-foot seas in Galapagos, it's just not going to help them grow their business. I think the other thing is, you know, people come up to me all the time like, oh my God, you're a writer. No, I'm not. That's insulting to anyone who's ever written anything, ever. I'm an author. There's a different

conversation there are people who may turn put words together and create symphonies people like aaron sorkin those are writers those are some that i'm impressed with for this i'm using this as a tactical way i'm using this as part of a way to scale my business that's going to to give that klt give you that social proof it needs to be done in a way that you kind of separate there are still mistakes in my book there will always be mistakes in my book that's okay my sister who i adore um i think she has two or three masters or advanced degrees in an initial church she refuses to read my book because i told her i said perfection is the enemy of execution sorry it's not going to be great i apologize it's just like i used to read it i went okay definitely so i think it's important you know when you're doing

that that that that breakdown that diagram can you give examples of people who are like hey i want to include this and you're like no we gotta do this so do you have any of those that come top of mind that are like okay don't these are the best ones you should include these are the ones yeah throw it up on a turtle probably not the one we want to include today. It's something you just said, Charles, about like, I'm not really a writer. And I think that should be encouraging. That could be encouraging if we choose to listen to it that way, to hear it that way, is you can author a book even when you're not the best quote unquote writer, because the experience of the book is not about

a turn of phrase or a beautiful sentence. The experience of the book is actually to get your reader from point A, they have some missing information, lack of understanding, they're demotivated, they don't know how to do something, getting them from point A to point B. And you're giving them those realizations and epiphanies and new understandings. So you don't have to be an amazing writer to be helpful. And to help out your audience, because I'm sure that your people are going to hear this as much as mine, can't spell. People, people in my mastermind, they know this.

They're like, okay, we know you didn't write that post because everything's spelt correctly and you actually use commas and period. I can't spell to say it save my own life like when i wrote my book um my assistant christine who i adore she literally after the i wrote a chunk of it and i sent it over she's like you do know that the word your has an r on it right yes and she was and because has a cuz on it right i'm like shut up and that was the reality is i'm horrible i literally got put on academic suspension in college because it was so bad. So if I am the, again, not a writer, this is not about being a writer. It's about authoring a book. It's about creating something that's going to help you scale. If you happen to be someone who can

spell, I automatically hate you, but I appreciate that you can do it. For those of you like me who can't spell and cannot write and think that punctuation marks are just optional. So one run on sentence for 17 pages is a great idea. It's something that's important. So more of the junk and share kind of example. Yeah. So I want to use Tom Ennis in here as an example because he is classic business guy. He worked as a consultant inside of a company. And one of his favorite things to do was run strategic retreats for the C-level folks,

right? CEO, COO, CMO, like all those folks. He would like to take them away for a few days and help them with their annual strategic planning. And he wanted to go off on his own. This was going to be his new thing. He was going to leave his in-house company and just start doing strategic planning retreats on his own. This was going to be his new thing. He was going to leave his in-house company and just start doing strategic planning retreats on his own. When we first started writing the book together, he'd been working as a consultant for 25 years. He had a lot of stories and he was

a storyteller. And he also was a musician and a groupie for these bands in the 70s and 80s and wanted to tell a lot of these like band stories and, you know, concerts and festivals and all these things. And I was like, Tom, how is this going to help your client with the strategic retreat or to trust you to pay you multiple six figures to put on a strategic retreat. He was like, well, fair. They probably shouldn't hear about my drug problem when I was, you know, doing the festival stuff. I was like, so we came up

with it. The very patient feminine energy. Okay, let's talk. I love the feminine energy came in. Okay, sweetness. You're like, what? Is that what we're supposed to do? Like, yes. Don't put the fork in the light in the outlet. Huh. I love that that came in okay sweetness you're like what is that what we're supposed to do like yes don't put the fork in the light in the outlet here huh i love that that came in all right he he jumped

right on board he's like he's like i kind of knew that you were gonna say that but i just i love these stories and it's like great let's find a different way to have a tribute to music so each um chapter starts with a a line from um you can't use a whole lyric uh because there's copyright issues but he would refer to a song or if there was like a poetic version of it or uh something that was in public domain he'd reference it so he would do like a small snippet that would you know a nod to to his musical background but then the you know the bulk of the book is really that strategic retreat and tom's story is also cool because as soon as he he transitioned from his corporate you know consult job and told folks he was going off on his own and

started handing out his new book at the same time he books 350 $350,000 in new gigs in like a month with his book launch. And I can't express to people how powerful a book is. In the age of just digital garbage, in the endless pictures, in the selfies, I can't tell you how powerful it is to take the book, like at an event and say, hey guys, I'm doing this, here we go. When I get booked to speak at events, I'll say, hey, how many people are going to show up? And they're like, you know, 600 people. I'm like, all right, I'm bringing books. They're like, what? I'm making books away to everybody.

And I'm like, seriously? And it blows them away. And what you'll learn really quickly is it doesn't cost you $15 to buy your own books. It's significantly less than that. So when I show up, I will build that into the cost when they go to speak. But I'll set up and say, hey, guys, at the end of it, I'll sign all the books. And we'll just bring a Sharpie that you like. um and just be able to sign everything and take pictures but you're physically giving that you're building rapport you're building connection whenever i've

done it for speaking and engagements and all that it's huge when i have clients that have written books specifically that are not speakers that are not going to go on tour they're not going to do that but they'll give it as a thank you gift they'll give it when people come into the office and they have meetings they'll give it away to hey you gift. They'll give it when people come into the office and they have meetings, they'll give it away and say, Hey, I know you're looking to hire us for the best landscaping, whatever it is, the best landscaping company. Wait, we wrote this. Here's a physical copy of the book, or, Hey, can we send you an evil? It's a great lean magnet to the gate view of a way. And those stories that Tom and I, and everyone else has are phenomenal when you're going to do those speaking engagements, or you can use them in that event. You can use that.

You're not getting rid of your story. You're just saving them in a repertoire for later. So for those of you guys who are authors, are aspiring authors, for those of you who are writers, I still am a little jealous of you that you can write and use punctuation. I'm a little mad about that. So I might not talk to you as much. Go talk to Morgan. For those of you, it's just a phenomenal way. It's just talk about the ultimate icebreaker.

It does. That just works really, really, really well. Now I'm going to jump around a little bit. Um, I want to talk about call to actions and I want specific ones here because this is the most important as you're driving people through. We know that books are designed specifically as a way as a funnel and there has to be calls to actions. And there's certain things about having calls to actions that drive your person.

This is, and again, for those of you who who are listening who don't know what a call to action is, this is what you want your audience, your very targeted audience, to do next. This is what you're asking them to do. So this is your call to action. Do this. If you want them to talk to you on the phone, if you want them to book an event, whatever it is, do this. I'm curious your thoughts on, I know we jumped a couple of steps, but I want to talk about call to action. What are the calls to action that you're talking about? These work really, really well and and converted and as many of those

as you can share and yes we'll put in a lab report but as many as you can share i'd love to hear it yeah i will definitely send um links so you can look at these called actions yourself live and some screenshots so you can see kind of uh what it looks like in the book on the website that sort of thing um my book my call to action is the free audio book. And I actually got this from Chandler Bolt, who's a self-publishing school. And so I did his like very first round in 2015 or something like that. So I've known Chandler forever. But that was something that he was experimenting with. And I was like, that's a great idea. So that's what I put in my book is you can go right to the beginning of my book and you can see free gifts, you know, audio book. And the crazy thing is that I still sell more on Audible

than I do any other version. So maybe it, you know, maybe I'm losing a little bit on Audible there, but I'm getting a pretty good conversion rate on folks joining my email list. So that's seven figure business. I think you're doing just fine. Yeah. Yeah. I think it all washes out in the end. Doug, Doug Bowers has a quiz at the beginning of his book. So his is sort of like a personality type driven book. And so he has a quiz you can take right at the beginning of the book. And that gives you your personality type and some additional information there. Adina Sampson is a singer songwriter.

So she actually has some songs that do relate to the content. And so it's called The Road Back to Me, and it's sort of like more emotional, spiritual, kind of like healing sort of thing. And so this is a song that is almost like a guided meditation sort of experience. So she has some QR codes that link to that soundtrack. And when we're talking about CTAs, what are some of the things, what are the kind of guidelines you show? Okay, do I do a quiz? Is a quiz right for me? Is a song right for me? Is an audio book right for me? What are the ones that are like, hey, you know what, this converts the best, your example, you know,

and then what are some of the guidelines when you're choosing a CTA or a call to action that you'd recommend? Yeah, so we wanted to complement what is in the book, right? So, and yet it has to be something that people kind of want before they even start reading the book, because what we're actually going to do is put it in the first 10% of the book, because when it's available on Amazon and someone clicks that look inside, they're going to be able to see the first 10%. So we want to capitalize on all that Amazon traffic. And we can talk about optimizing for Amazon visibility. If you think about all those eyeballs that are coming to your page, some percentage of them are clicking the look inside. We want to give them an easy opportunity to jump onto our list. So it's something that they will want even before they

consume the content. And so fast track courses can be great. Calling Hanlin has like a kettlebell, like quick start guide on how to get going with kettlebells. And any sort of checklist, people love checklists, guided meditations, if you're in sort of that softer sort of spirituality kind of realm, recipes, you know, it was brownies for breakfast was one of the books that we did a couple of years ago. And there was a, you know, it's all about how to how to live with a diabetic but eat still eat great food and there were some recipes right there at the beginning of the book and so yeah I'll give you I'll give you some of those sorts of examples but just think about anything that people they saw your book cover they saw your title they're interested in this topic but what can you give

them right up front that is going to be quick results and they'll be interested in this topic, but what can you give them right up front that is going to be quick results and they'll be interested in before they even dive into the book content itself? So with that CTA, which I don't know anybody who doesn't click look inside, honestly, if you're one of those weird people, it's like people put pineapples on pizza. What are you doing? Who are you? Every book I do, I click on the look inside. When they're doing this, do you give it to them in the black and white? Do you drive them to your website? What are you doing and what programs you use?

Once you're trying to capture those eyeballs and those clicks, what programs do you recommend using? We drop a link to it. So it's one single page and we always frame it as a free gift. You know, free gift. Thanks for, you know, reading this book. Now, technically, they haven't bought the book, but we don't really care. But that's the frame, right? So free gift, free resources. And then we give the title and subtitle of the resource itself. So just like with any lead magnet, you want to give it a snappy name snappy description and then we drop a link and a qr code uh you need both uh is my suggestion links used to work just fine but amazon

very recently disabled link clicking from inside look inside and um and so now we are also putting a qr code and then so once you add them there what is your favorite you know lead capture and method and this is important for people we haven't talked about the book about it as a novel we talked about this is a lead back this is a funnel this is it's being written in a specific way that's driving your audience and the pain they're into a specific shit this isn't oh my god i grew up in st louis and my mom used to no this is okay this okay, this is my, this is the pain they're in and this is how we're eliminating that. And that's how it's tactical here.

So what is the software that you'd recommend the most to your clients that they should use to capture everything? Yeah, a lot of our folks are just beginning or they don't have a significant email list yet. And so we're building out their website with either WordPress or Wix. And we're using something like MailerLite often because it's very intuitive

for kind of just getting going with building that email list. So it goes, you know, link to the WordPress or Wix website. And there's a form on that page that you would build inside of MailerLite. Those have been pretty easy tools. For a little bit more advanced, you might go something like ConvertKit

or GoHighLevel is one that especially folks who have an application funnel or something like that, GoHighLevel is a good software for email capture. What you're saying is a Google Doc where you manually enter it is not a good idea. Is that what you're saying? I would not recommend manual entry. Not a good idea. I am going to cheat here. You built something that most people can't, especially in your industry.

You've established a seven-figure business and you've crushed it. What are the tools in there? And we'll get back to what you do. I'm just curious now. I can't stay on target. What are the tools that you're like, wow, if I didn't have these four or five tools in my business, I just could not do what I do. I know we've spoken enough.

I know how you do it. Every time we get on the call, you're always just joyful and happy and all that. I'm like, she's got to be doing something different than most business owners because she's found a way to scale where she doesn't want to jump off a break. So what are the tools that you're like, hey, I know we didn't talk about, but what are the things that you're like, Hey, I wish I would have known about these five or six tools prior to. I, so I did use convert kit for many, many years in my business. And so that, I mean, I would, I would recommend convert kit to anybody who's in that scaling, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 email addresses, you can do just fine

on ConvertKit. We recently have moved into Zoho, which is not a common tool, but I chose Zoho because it's very customizable. So we actually have some coders who go in and we run off a high ticket application funnel. And so we need to know every single touch point for a specific contact. We need to know, you know, what web pages did they visit? How long were they on those pages? What emails did they receive from our CRM? And what emails did they receive? Maybe if they were emailing us directly back and forth, who did they talk to? When did we call them? When did they call us back? You know, store the recordings of any Zoom calls right there, SMS back and forth. So we actually can see that all on one contact record. But we really only

were able to get that through custom coding of Zoho. So I think that's probably you don't want to mess with that until you're already at like seven figures. But if you run a high-related business I owned an IT company everyone wanted me to do inside of QuickBooks and they wanted me to use these things and I was like no we literally did it

off a $12 a month Zoho app and this is not paid by Zoho in a rigid form and it did everything it reminded people it followed up

it processed it all absolutely okay back to becoming authors not writers um make it as easy as possible. So you're going to become writers.

I hate you. For the rest of you authors who barely made it through school and can't spell to say in their life, and thank God that we know what F7 is. Growing up, I remember my father was like, you're going to have to learn how to spell. I'm like, no, I don't. F7. It's all I need to do. F7.

It's all I need to do. And now I have an assistant who I just, whenever I send an email out, she will spell check it. So if you're ever looking at my Instagram and you see something spelled perfectly, I'll make it, you know, if it's messed up. I'm not great at proofreading. The team is constantly frustrated with me because I will just write up a broadcast email and hit send. And then people are like, Morgan, you've got three typos in a 500 word email. How is this even possible? So we all, we all need a proofreader.

We all need someone to come in and double check. We call it speaking Charlie is that's how they've literally renamed. They're like, wow, do you speak Charlie yet? No, man, because new people will come in and they just like,

listen, they're going to be a grammar Nazi with them. He's just going to, cause he's not going to change. He's just a, he's just a stubborn old mule. He's never, ever going to change who he is.

Okay, so we've gotten through, we've gotten the call to actions and we know the ones that work. We know that we got to have the QR codes in there. We know that we're driving these people to a specific way and a specific offering. Now, when it comes to the calls to actions, you know, a lot of people are going to be like,

well, which one works better? Should I do a quiz? You know, I can quiz people on what, you know, kettlebell to quiz people what you know kettlebell to use or what things to use for for diabetics or you know which ones have you seen over years and years and years of doing this building your damn seven-figure business i love that you go yeah it's super it's easy i love that i love it because you're just so humble most people are like look at me love that you come humbly um which one of the one do you like you know what this is the one someone you know if my life depended on it this is the call to action that

i would use which one are you like this conversely or easy which one do you love i love the audiobook it has an inherent value people feel like they are getting away like a kid in a candy store especially when they get the audiobook without buying my book from amazon people but what they don't realize is that they are on my email list and then they listen to the especially when they get the audio book without buying my book from Amazon. People, but what they don't realize is that they are on my email list and then they listen to the audio book and they're like, oh, I really like this girl, you know? And so then I'm following up like a crazy person with emails and then I'm getting them onto webinars. I'm getting them into Facebook challenges, you know, and then who cares about the ten dollar book you know i've got them in a challenge for uh you know multi-thousand dollar product or service so um the audiobook like

people inherently are like she's giving that away for free sweet i'm gonna go get it um no it's funny i think you say thanks oh good i do the same thing with my book i've been giving away for free and i'm gonna go suck giving away the audio book now. I'm stealing this from you. But whenever they do this, they get into our funnel, and then we have a drip campaign. And what I do is I recorded a bunch of videos. I did them one afternoon.

And I said, okay, here's what I was thinking about when I wrote this chapter. Here's what I was thinking about, and here's the story, and here's more details about it. So now they're looking for those emails, and I'm not asking for anything. I was like, hey, it's chapter two. When I was writing it, I was drinking a Slurpee and I sneezed and it came from my nose. Or it is. Don't worry.

You can tell that that is you. You're having that. And it doesn't feel like a touch. Because we know that before someone buys from you, it's anywhere between, I think it's like seven touches, bare minimum at this point. Those touches should be where you're building a relationship. You're building that rapport. Because remember, it's KLT.

People won't buy from people they know, like, and trust. Those touches allow you to do it. So if it only cost me whatever it would be to give away the $10 audio book, which again, you don't make all that money. The goal is you're capturing these people

and you're using this as a tactical funnel. That's what writing a book is. It's so important to do is you're using this as a way to acquire your leads so you can go out there and scale your business to seven figures in a short period.

Yeah, the other thing, you may not be able to do the audio book right away. Like you're launching the book and maybe you're planning on doing the audio book next. But what do I do before I have the audio book? People love a quick start guide or a checklist. So quick start guide, if you are talking through a process or a framework

and people want to really hit the ground running and get, you know, a printable visual that they can sort of flip through three pages or something and get that the gist of what your framework is, or if you are dealing with something that is either physical or has a lot of tools, even software based tools, a checklist of here's my, you know, for marathons or kettlebell or whatever, like, you know, here's the, all the things that I want to make sure I have before I start a training session or software-based, you know, here's all the things I want to have in order to run my business or strategic planning retreats. Here are, you know, my top locations for strategic planning retreat. So lists um are you know they have

stood the test of time in lead generation i found also and i wonder if you discovered this as well or seen this that whatever you're giving away has to give them a very quick immediate win so if you like kettlebells it's like okay here's i know you're gonna do kettlebell and you're excited about it i'm gonna teach you how to do it here's a plan but by the way here's the top three kettlebells that you go here's the best I'm going to teach you how to do it. Here's a plan. But by the way, here's the top three kettlebells that you can go. Here's the best way to do it. Don't buy these, buy these. Something that's a quick win that they're like, oh, okay, this person's already helping me. They're not trying to sell me anything. They're already being in a situation where they're trying to help. For example, you want to learn how

to do a triathlon. Really simple. Make sure you've got gas in the car and just drive. That's it. So put it in this situation where you're giving them an immediate fast win that doesn't cost them any energy, but eliminates the pain that they have. You know, when you go to work out, one of the things, and I've had clients that are trainers, they're like, what should my lean magnet be? I'm like, just tell them, just for free, just give them something. Just give them, just tell them that here's a laundry list of the supplements they need to have. Yes, you've got to train them and you've got to give them stuff. But here's a free quick little laundry list. And also like, well, I've already got some. That gives you that ability so that you've already been in service to them. And they're going to want to be and reciprocate that.

So making sure that when you're in your CTAs, you're giving something. That's a quick way. Haven't you found that too? Yeah, absolutely. Or like for fitness, you know, giving them like a, here's your free workout, you know, snack, and then here's your optimal workouts going to, you know, for three days a week and your alternate workout the other three days a week. And then here's your post, you know, recovery, you know, meal or whatever is going to be like, you know, something that fits on a page that people can, to your point, Charles, they can consume, they get it, they can wrap their head around it really quickly.

People love that stuff. Absolutely. Now, what some things that people don't love doing is optimizing their amazon let's just get that out of the way right now um it's so important because you know there there are people who have met like i've been giving away my book away for we published it in 2019 so i've been giving it away for god coming up on four years now for free. And we track this. Who opens it? How far do they get? And the majority of the people do not open it. But C2Los become client.

And this is weird. Kind of like, what? What? What? What? And a lot of that's because the way we deliver it and the way that our Amazon pays up. So not that everyone that you, just because you have a book doesn't mean they're going to read it, which most people will never get past chapter one. Sorry, they're not going to do it.

But some of those people who never purchased your book, never read your material are actually going to convert and they're going to help you with this, you know, bring an income in so you can scale your company. When you're optimizing your Amazon,

this is something that, please don't look at mine as an example. I have not done this with Morgan at this point. Please, what are the things that when you're like, hey, you're going to need to optimize your page. This is something that please don't look at mine as an example. I have not done this with Morgan at this point. Please. What are the things that when you're like, hey, you're going to need to optimize your page. What are the things that you're like, I got to do this. Here are the 20 things or five things or two things. Yeah.

Yeah. There's probably about 15 things that I would I will usually be checking. So I'll give you kind of a little diagram that we can put in the, in the report and sort of point to all the different things. Um, there's what you can see on the page and then there's also what you cannot see because it's in the, the backend, the search engine, right? So of the things that you can see, you know, of course you'd want to think about your cover, your title and your subtitle. In the Amazon bookstore, the title and the subtitle are actually the same font size and weight. They are, they take up as much equal real estate. So the, the title and the subtitle are actually the same font size and weight. They take up as much equal real estate. So the more that you strategically use your subtitle, that's just

another opportunity to get people to your page. When you think about the name that you use as your author name, you want to think about your description, the price of your ebook, paperback, hardback if you have it, or audio book want to i mean never launch just an ebook i don't think i have to say that anymore but don't ever launch just an ebook because people will think that you know they it's a it's a lesser they already discount it it's like oh well this is just quote unquote just an ebook and it's not that much harder to take it into a physical book at the very least audiobook is also fantastic so you want to think about those price points, whether you put it in Kindle Unlimited or the Prime memberships, that sort of thing. The description itself, again, the diagram will be

helpful because I'll point to all these things. You'll want your Amazon Author Central with your picture and about you and the reviews. In fact fact there's an editorial reviews section there's an a plus content section where you can put visuals and there's the customer reviews themselves so those three those that's um i believe the order in which it may be flipped it may be the a plus visual content is what people see first then the the editorial reviews, then the customer reviews. But those are power-packed sections that you want to think about for your Amazon page from the front end. And then the back end, keywords. I mean, mentioned it earlier, Amazon is a search engine just like Google. You want to find the keywords that have high search volume, low competition. We use a tool called Publisher Rocket.

We've been running these searches for years. So we have a whole library of search terms that we have found to work kind of over and over again. Charles, I can give you a few of them. They will cover everybody's book, but it will give you an idea of what's a good search term so that when you're doing this yourself, you can measure up. How does this measure up to Morgan's search terms that she's looking for? And categories. And Amazon's recently changed this. Your e-book used to have 10 categories

and now you have three. Hold on. Public service announcement. Because this happened this summer. If you have published a book, Charles, I'm looking at you. I know where you're going. It's On Amazon, hopefully you've already done this. Change those categories, go back into the ebook and update the categories because Amazon reshuffled everything. And even if it looks like you still have categories, we have found that you have to go back in and actually re-click

for the new categories. Did you do that already? We haven't. It actually gives me an idea later that we'll probably talk about after the podcast. I'll follow up with this that I think that could be really valuable because again, I published back in 2019 and we hit WSJ fast and I've hit Barnes & Noble and I've hit Amazon

and it's cute, it's nice, but we haven't touched it. So you've got something that was once successful that is now just dead. It's just not being used in any way, shape, and it's cute, it's nice, but we haven't touched it. So you've got something that was once successful that is now just dead. It's just not being used in any way, shape, or form. So I have an idea that we ought to be discussing after the podcast. For the rest of you guys, you have to stay tuned.

We'll see if Morgan and I agree on something. So, Nadia, you'll do it. You need to update the categories. We like to go very deep in the category and then we'll run promotions and pop the book to number one in that small category because, again, who cares about being number one in that small category because, I mean, again, who cares about being number one in a tiny category? What you actually care about is

triggering the algorithm to show you more widely in the next category up in that chain. So you can use the browsing bars and all that jazz. So keywords and categories are in sort of the backend of the metadata that are super important. No i love it the problem is you know we've been talking for you know 45 minutes to an hour here there's no way we're gonna get to everything there's walls of it there was there was a little things where you stuck in here and there like oh by the way you know don't use quotes because that's that's strange my in trademark infringement and it's like oh wait oh i didn't even see that there's so many little things because you've been doing this for so long that just it seems normal to you again it's kind of like to use the grandma making cookies thing she's like oh you

just put a pinch i'm like well how much is a pinch but that's like oh it's a pinch and you have this argument like we've been doing it for x amount of years i hate you just tell me what it is there's so many of those little things if someone's sitting down and they're like listen there's a ton of information there's so much more than you know i didn't even know about this i don't know what the publisher rocket was how do I use it how does someone sit down if they're going to go out

is there a resource they can go to is there a way that they can get access to you what is the best way for them to kind of say alright I get it

the best way for me to have social proof is still a book sorry it is what it is you know for me it comes out to two categories well three there's if Oprah Winfrey

is next to me going you're something you win that's inherited trust there's if Oprah Winfrey is next to me going, you win. That's inherited trust. There's that trumps everybody. This is what it is. And the other two that are kind of competing with each other right now is books and podcasts, right? If you have a top-ranked podcast and you have a top-ranked book and they marry together, all of a sudden, you might not be able to get Oprah, but it's going to get you in the step of getting Oprah. And, you know, when we work with people on the way where you do things, when

we're talking about scaling, it's not just one thing. You don't just plant a seed in a garden, but like, you're like, oh, did you add water to it? No. Okay. Did you add manure? No. Did you fertilize?

No. But I have a seed. It's like, can I, can you eat the seed? Cause that's all that's going to happen. I think coming into it and that there's all these different things and, people get scared when they're going to write a book they're oh my god i need to be a professional writer i can barely spell so get that out of the way right now author versus writer two completely different narratives two completely different things but the biggest mistake i think we talked about on here was why don't write a book that you want to write about

don't write a book that you're like oh this is gonna be fun because i went and i hung out with you know guns and roses in the 80s like no one cares pumpkin what is your audience well he knew they didn't get very very specific don't write a book about fitness write a book for moms that are using kettlebells get very very very specific and where you put your call to action the type of call that actions all change based on what you're doing and you know so if someone's like holy crap there's so much here then we only got headshot off time to do three of the eight. What are the next steps? Are there books they can read?

Do they just go to your house? Do you want to give out your personal address and your personal phone number? I'm sure that the husband will love that very much. Just call you three o'clock in the morning. She loves those phone calls. What is the best way that she can move forward? That someone can move forward. Yeah.

So I do some of these workshops occasionally where I'll take people in a deep dive through a lot of the topics that we're talking about, but I'm able to share my screen and kind of walk us through everything from the call to actions, the keywords and categories, how we're bringing people through to backend products and services. So you can see when I'm doing that next, if you go to paperravenbooks.com slash workshop, paperravenbooks.com slash workshop, I'll get you the link, Charles, so you can share it. And if you just want to check out our company, paperravenbooks.com, you can get all the info over there. There's a quiz, if you like quizzes, about which publishing path is right for your book. And I talk about self-publishing, traditional publishing, hybrid publishing. We didn't even get into that, but there's a whole

can of worms that you can open for different publishing options. But yeah, I would encourage, if you've loved this conversation, I would say go to paperavenbooks.com slash workshop. And that way I can take you a deeper dive in that free workshop. So that was my next question because my last name is Schwartz. So I have to ask the question. It is a free workshop. So you jump in the idea that, okay, this is a free workshop where you rip it apart and we kind of go from there.

And again, we're going to add all this stuff. One of the things that Morgan's great about is she gives laundry lists even before we jumped on this podcast. She's like, hey, did you have a chance to look at that? And I was like, maybe I just didn't see it. And I'm looking at it and it's over two pages long just from the notes for this. So we're going to add everything in the lap report and give it as much details as we possibly can. I really appreciate it. Again, how do people find you? Is it just Paper Raven or where else do they go? Is

there social work? Where can they get a hold of you? You can find me on most social platforms as Morgan G. Mack or Morgan Gist McDonald, if that one was taken. So yeah, feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, wherever, and I'd love to chat with you. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on to the lab. Thank you, Charles. Thanks for listening to this episode with Morgan. If you're an author who wants to use your book to get more clients, you've got to check out paperravenbooks.com. Morgan and her team are all about helping authors like you create awesome lead magnets

that turn readers into clients for life. I want to give a huge shout out to Morgan for taking the time to share her knowledge with us today. And to all of you listening, thank you so much for your support and for being part of the show. I've also got a special shout out to give today. I want to send a massive thank you to the one and only Jason Allen Scott.

This guy has been my absolute superhero when it comes to the I Am Charles Schwartz show. His wisdom and guidance have been insightful, and I'm so grateful for his help. If you're curious about what he's cooking up, head on over to podcastingforbusiness.co and take a peek.