Building Reputation & Authority, Becoming a Best Seller on Amazon & More! Mike Saunders

Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Productivity & Results

Lance

We talk about a lot on this show is positioning yourself as an authority, increasing your reputation so you can not only make more sales and get more traffic, but so that you can leverage that into all sorts of other things that happen in the business world besides just selling that book. What I've lined for you guys today is an awesome guy named Mike Saunders who's an actual authority in positioning you and building up your reputation around the internet and everywhere else. He's got some great strategies that he's going to share with you. One of the real reasons, one of the neat things why I reached out to him to try to get him to share what he knows with you guys is that he knows how to help you become a best selling Amazon author quickly.

His big claim, and we're going to hold him to this, is how he can help you do that without you having to write one word. I think that that's really important because I know a lot of you have a ton a passion, have a ton of knowledge but there's just that hump you got to get over to actually getting that book out there. It's a piece that you need, it's something you have to have.

The Marketing World Has Changed

Mike

I would like to just start off by saying, gone are the days when people come to you as a business owner or service professional, or solo-preneur and say, "I can help you with SEO, with Facebook ads, with social media marketing" If you are hearing that you are talking to people that are removed from the marketing world in the sense that marketing has changed. What consultants like myself provide the clients has really, really changed and it really is antiquated to say SEO. It really is all about Google positioning and how people are perceiving you online and in your market. It really does come down to that building that authority and credibility.

What I will show you are some really easy ways that you can do some of these on your own or access these for really low services. It really is about the word positioning and part of my bio is that I have an MBA in marketing and I teach marketing strategy and branding for 3 different universities.

The academic definition of "positioning" is how your prospects perceive you and how your brand is perceived in the mind of your target audience. It's not what your saying and how great you're saying it, and how your copyrighting skills are, it's how you're perceived by your target audience. Many times that reputation precedes you even before the prospect picks up the phone, clicks on your website or agrees to meet with you.

Lance

You know there's something interesting that you said about the whole SEO, Facebook, all of this stuff is becoming antiquated and there's this perception in the marketplace as far as positioning and stuff goes. I know, for me personally, if I see something that I'm going to buy or I hear about a new company, or I hear about this guy Mike Saunders , the first thing I do is I go to Google and I type in your name. What I want to see is not that you have a blog. I hope that you have a blog, that's cool, and you did. I'm also looking for, is there 1 result or is there 20,000 results. It makes a big difference in my mind. With me, when I buy stuff, I'm really nervous about buying from somebody I don't know of. If I do a search on them and there's nothing there, I feel like it's a scam.

What Have You Done For Me Recently?

Mike

Yeah and that's a really good point. I would add to that a layer of recency. Meaning if you go to someone's Facebook page and you saw a post they did 2 and a half years ago or their last blog post was a year and a half ago, all of a sudden now it's like, "Wait a minute, are you still doing anything?" Or is everything that they're doing like their WordPress blog still has the Hello World on there and now all of a sudden you're way wet behind the ears and you're way too new.

I'm sure you are familiar with Dan Kennedy and many of your listeners hopefully have read a lot of his books, but he has made a statement recently that if you're not systematically or rapidly expanding and establishing yourself as a celebrity yourself, at least to your clientele and target market, you're asleep at the wheel.

Ignoring the digital economy around you and neglecting development of a measurably valuable asset. That's from one of the marketing guru's out there that is saying you have to do that yourself. It's not a matter of twiddling your thumbs waiting to get noticed and recognized because there's a lot happening around you. You should be the expert right now because the media is talking about you today and there are ways to do that.

Becoming a Brand Celebrity

Lance

That brings up a good point because I think that a lot of people that whether or not they've been successful in their tiny little niche or they're just getting started online, this sounds like a daunting task. Where people are thinking, "I'm not that important, I'm not a celebrity, I'm not these things." How do you go about, not only the mind shift but the actual implementation to making that actually becoming something? I know you mentioned media outlets and getting noticed on all of these things which you will crush your competition especially if you're in a small niche and you get noticed by these people. I've also been noticing that it's not uncommon these days for small solo-preneurs, small info-preneurs to be on some major news outlets, major TV shows, major radio shows, major media blogs because they're interested in these small niche celebrities.

Mike

Yeah, you're exactly right and we could do a whole master class on how to find your target market and focus on that target market because you cannot be all things to all people. You'll drive yourself nuts and even just in the deliverables of what you're offering to every customer, if you're doing one customer that has whatever their needs are one day, and then a whole other customer, you're recreating your content and that's a whole other discussion.

When you can target, laser target that niche, you've probably heard the phrase, "You get rich in the niche." You focus on that vertical and that doesn't mean you never take on a new customer from another vertical but you become that authority in that niche because authority positioning is about being about being and educator and advocate for your prospect and their success. When you share value and authoritative information in unique ways, so keyword sharing value, right? Your prospects and clients take notice and they call you the expert or the authority and you never have to.

There's a neat quote that I've heard from Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank and she says, "I became larger than life for one reason." When you're quoted in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or any media people assume you're a lot bigger than you are. Then she had to run like crazy to catch up with her own image. When you say that you are the expert in drain unclogging repair as a plumber and you say, "I'm the guru." People go, "Whatever." Third party endorsements like As Seen On, As Featured On, and guess what, just putting that logo out on your website means nothing. Imagine, let's just use that example as that plumber just came to mind, imagine if you were receiving that phone call from an incoming inquiry and they were asking about your plumbing services and you said to them, "Hey, are you in front of computer?" They're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am." You shot them a quick email and said, "Hey let me shoot you this email or go to this website." Maybe it's your website on the news page. Maybe on the website there's a page called News or Media.

All of a sudden you go, "Hey you see that link there where it says CNN? See that link where it is says Denver Post, Wall Street Select, Boston Globe? If you notice there there's a hotlink article and you don't need to look at it right now, but when we're done I want you to click through a few of those because that's where some of the places we've been mentioned with our services." Now all a sudden that local customer is seeing you get national attention and they don't care that it's in the Miami Harold and you're in Poughkeepsie, it doesn't matter at all. The fact is, you were being mentioned by third party reputable sites and that solidifies and seals the deal like nothing else.

Leverage!

Lance

I love that. The whole thing about that is what most people teach at least in the circles that I see as ... Figure out how to get your stuff on the NBC site so you can use their little logo but first of all that's easy to get done especially the way that they teach but it's a whole different way when it's a third party actual validation and actually something that you leverage having it done.

Mike

I think the keyword is leverage because you can put the "As Seen On" anywhere on your logos and profiles, and all that. That's nice for some people but it's getting a little over done. What you have to do is think about your sales process and it doesn't matter if you're an info-preneur or a solo-preneur, or you run company.

Somehow someway you talked to a prospect. A prospect emails you or they call you, or they set up a call, or you do a webinar. Somehow someway these positioning media mentions, these nuggets, these online pieces of real estate literally, right? Those need to be used in your sales process.

I'm So Awesome!

Imagine when, like the example I gave where it's just real time and you're like, "Hey go over to this. Hey you see that?" Now all of a sudden they're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I see that." Then when you're talking about your drain unclogging service or your whatever product that you're selling, now all of a sudden you don't need to say, "I'm so awesome." You're just talking from an authoritative position.

Brand Boost

Now, how do you get that? That's a whole other ball game because you can start Googling around and find PR agencies that'll charge 2 and 3, and $5,000. One of the services that I provide is called Brand Boost. Where I boost your brand with this type of stuff that we're talking about. If you wanted just a one time package that's $250.

What we do is we bring you on my radio interview show called Business Innovators Radio, do a 20, 30 minute interview. It's a really unique process because that interview becomes indexed by Google. Now when you talked to someone and say, "Okay, look forward to seeing you next week." They're going to hang up the phone and Google you even before your meeting. What do they see, well maybe they see that you were interviewed on Business Innovators radio show and they listened to that interview.

Then from that interview we do a media release campaign where we get you in dozens of online media sites. Here's this nice 2, 3, 4 page report with all of the media logos and you can click right on it and see your media release and then use them in your marketing. Because you cannot assume that just because it happened one time that it's going to establish the level of authority you want.

You want to have that pattern of authority and you want to use some humble brags, casually mentioning in your blog or your email newsletter, or your social media, "Hey, you know, I was just interviewed on," or, "Hey I was just mentioned in whatever, here's a link to the recent news release that just came out." Now all of a sudden you're laying those breadcrumbs for people to come find you and maybe someone that was on the fence about buying your product is going, "Dog gone, that other guy that's been selling whatever they're trying to sell, his competitor, her competitor they're just pushing and going buy, buy, buy, coupon, coupon and here's this person really being elevated."

Sales People Have Brochures, Experts Have Books

We could talk for hours and hours on why you should become a published author. One of the main reasons is this, Dan Kennedy said to me in another comment he says, "Sales people have brochures, experts have books." Then Chet Holmes, the late Chet Holmes ... If anyone's ever read his book called the Ultimate Sales Machine, he is just spectacular. You've got to read that book, so go to Amazon and buy it today. He said, "Experts close 3 times as many deals as sales people."

If that's the case and sales people have brochures and experts have books, you need a book. Guess what, you might be nodding your head going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard that 10 times last year. It's on my bucket list. I'm going to do it, I've got this burning topic that I want to have published. I just can't get started." Here's the breakdown, the breakdown is you're thinking of this project as the one and only spotlighted, award winning, grammatical piece of awesomeness and it doesn't need to be that initially.

Your Book

Through your course that you offer or through a package that I offer where, like you said at the beginning you're going to hold me to it, so I'm going to tell you how this could happen. We'll tie all together the media message and the positioning. Imagine this, when you talk to that person, that prospect, or that strategic alliance ... and again, maybe some of your listeners would like to speak at some local events, the chamber, the rotary, the whatever, well who are you?

When they Google you what do they see? If they start seeing some of these news releases or "ding ding" Amazon best selling author and now all of a sudden they're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Your book is on XYZ." The title and the topic need to be about the target audience that solves a problem that they have, and this speaking engagement would have a lot of your target audience there. This meeting organizer would love to bring in an expert right?

That expert needs to be able to bring some value. If you speak to a group of 5 or 10, or 25 people and they're your target audience and you're just speaking out of your expertise and you've got a few books in the back of the room or you can say, "Hey, it's available on Kindle at a reduced price." Now all of a sudden ...

Selling a book is not even the point.

Let me tell you something really interesting. A lot of people think, "Oh published author and royalties.". I'm not talking about getting paid for writing a book. You will get paid because you wrote the book and that's a massive difference. You remember I told you about the example of, "Hey when you can point someone in the direction of your press release." That's wonderful but then when you meet with them, could you imagine shaking hands going, "Hey, let's follow up next week. We'll talk about that proposal about whatever." Maybe a phone call. Could you imagine handing them a copy of your book or email them a link to your Kindle book. Now all of a sudden, is the deal a given? No nothings ever given, but is that going to dramatically raise your credibility and the chances of closing that deal? Good gracious yes.

Lance

One of the things that I always like to say is I want to be the guy who wrote the book on whatever that thing is because that's a phrase that's ingrained in our society. He wrote the book on that. Why not literally be the person who wrote the book on whatever it is. I love ... even your example, it doesn't matter what niche your in or what thing that you do.

First of all there's books on everything that you could ever imagine out there so you may as well have yours. Even like the plumber thing and then following that up with Chamber of Commerce, if you are in a business like plumbing or building repair, or whatever, you know who your best customers are if they're at the Chamber of Commerce. You don't come in as, "I'm a plumber." You come in as, "Here's some maintenance stuff, or however that you need to take care of in your business. If you don't here's what it's going to cost you and here's how you do it." I think that's a wonderful lead in and I think a lot of these smaller guys that do stuff like that are missing out on huge opportunities with this.

Mike

You got it in using the plumber as the example just because you wouldn't think of a plumber being the media mogul or the book author. Guess what, that's why it's effective. Too many times you hear the big Tony Robbins type speakers or the Brendon Burchard all of those guys, they've got these life changing stories. Guess what, at one point they were sitting in a small apartment room at their laptop just like many of us have started. What happens is too many people have this big brain block of, "I don't have a big story. I don't have and I can't do and I can't write some book."

In fact there was a guy that I interviewed on my show about 3 weeks ago and he's a New York Times best selling author and I said, "Hey what's your process for writing a book?" He goes, "Well let me tell you exactly what I do." He goes, "I've got a condo in Hawaii and I literally every time I've a written a book," and I think he's done 3. "I fly out to Hawaii for 3 weeks and I write for 15 hours a day for 3 weeks." I'm like, "Wow." Nobody's going to do that, now he can because he's multiple best selling author and that's his deal, and that's his gig. That gets him speaking in all of these things. Most people ... The Joe's of the world, the plumbers that are hearing this in that example, they're not going to do that and they're going to know where to start.

Here's the Secret Sauce

I say if you've got that little burning ember in the back of your mind that you've got that life story, that cause, that thing that you want to write about one day work on it. Write a page or two here or there and in a few years keep on plugging away. Guess what, guess what we do right now? Let's not wait for that thing to come out in 5 or 10 years. Let's get something right now happening online with the media mentions, online with all of the "celebrity" you're creating for yourself in your own sphere, and let's get a book written now. I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it and maybe this ruins it for some people but I'll tell you exactly what the secret sauce is. Still you know how it is, you can tell people exactly what to do and many people don't do it, they still need the help.

What you do is you put your mindset on who is my true target audience, who would I love to help? Who is my best client in the last year or 2 that I would love to get 10 more like that. It's like, "Shoot I sure have been enjoying working with Joe because Joe is a whatever and I was able to give great results and Joe paid. He didn't complain and boy Joe was a great guy." What you do is you come up with just one problem and one solution that fixes Joe. Who's the next Joe? How can you clone Joe? What you do is you think, "Okay, well Joe's problem was that he had X and my solution was I provided Y and the result was Z, and we all highfived and that was a great deal." That becomes now your book and so I bring you on my radio show and we do a pre-call for about an hour, hour and a half and we run through all of these questions and the strategy of the one problem, one solution so that we are speaking to Joe.

Guess what happens?

We come on the show and I interview you. It is a 20, 30, 40 minute interview and it becomes a number 1, a show, on the radio show so there's a piece of authority. We do a press campaign around the interview. We take that interview and guess what? I've asked so many people this and Lance can you confirm? You got someone, "Hey how'd you like to write a book?" "Love to." "Can you get it started tomorrow?" "I don't know where to start, I could never write ... " Then when you say this, "Well you know your business is XYZ, could you jump on the phone in about 20 minutes and let me interview you on what you do? How long could you talk about that?" "Oh, I could talk for hours. I know my business ... "

On this interview when I give you the prep and we talk about how to solve that problem and what our solution is, you can talk without any prep at all and you are going to be stellar because you know your business. Guess what happens after the call? I have this nice little service that sends me an mp3 and now I transcribe that call and it is now an interview style book. You become a co-author in an interview style book or if you selected a different package where it's your solo book and it's you, and it's your face on the cover and all that. A lot of people don't have the investment for a solo book project because that builds out a little bit more.

I've got a group of authors that I work with where you become now a co-author in this book and your names on the cover, and your chapters all about you. It's solving one problem and one solution, and it's got all your contact details. We do the media campaign around that. Now all of a sudden guess what? Wow, when you talk to your prospects and say, "Here's this press release talking about me becoming an Amazon best selling author. Here's my link to buy it on Kindle or here's this PDF I'll send you a copy of it." Now do you think when you go meet with them to talk about your whatever product or service, are they positioned a little bit better than if you just send them some spammy email?

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