It’s no secret that publishing a book that solves the problems of your ideal clients is a powerful way to gain the upper hand in a competitive marketplace.
That’s why I invited Diana M. Needham of Business Book Partners to be my guest this week on Radio Free Enterprise.
Diana helps business owners, professionals, corporate and military leaders, coaches and consultants dramatically grow their income buy helping them write, publish and leverage a book of their own.
But, as Diana makes clear in her 7 Questions Every Author Must Answer list, strategic planning at the beginning of the process can mean the difference between a book that sells 57 copies and then disappears and a book that will take its author and their business to the next level of success.
Please join us to meet Diana M. Needham and learn more about Business Book Partners.
Connect with Diana on LinkedIn
Download Diana’s 7 Questions list from Google Docs
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
My guest today is Diana Needham. Diana is a marketing strategist and CEO of Business Book Partners in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Carolina. Diana Needham, welcome to the program.
Diana M Needham 00:41
Well, thanks so much, Frank, for having me on. And I’m super excited to share with your audience today.
Frank Felker 00:47
Very pleased to have you here, Diana, you have a lot to share. What we’re going to talk about is a list of seven questions you put together that every author should be able to answer before they write their book. And I want to make it clear that we’re not talking about fiction authors who are writing novels, or science fiction stories or anything like that. We’re talking about nonfiction authors of business, how to books, people, like professionals, business owners, coaches and consultants that write a book to support what it is that they do in business.
And you have been doing this for so long that I’m sure to you. This just seems like you know, everyday stuff that it makes perfect sense for a professional or an entrepreneur to write a book to support their business. But we have to assume that not everybody watching or listening understands it quite as clearly as you do. Can you give us a couple of reasons why it makes sense for a professional or an entrepreneur to write a book?
Diana M Needham 01:50
Oh, yeah, that’s a great question, Frank. And you know, when we look at ourselves, as business owners, and business leaders, and coaches, consultants, what we do in the world, having a book opens the door for so many opportunities. One of the things that I work with my clients on is this foundational seven questions that we’re going to talk about today, because it’s important to have a strategy in place before you start writing. And what I mean by that is being really clear about who your audience is, and the result that you really want. So I’m sorry,
Frank Felker 02:33
well, I just wanted to what I really wanted to talk about before we got to, you know, making sure you have the right foundation and pray in place and so forth is what what’s good about it? I mean, why should I do it, it’s going to take me a long time, it’s probably going to cost some money. What’s in it for me as the business owner?
Diana M Needham 02:51
Well, what’s in it, where I was going with that is that being clear about who our audience is, so that the content actually speaks to them?
Frank Felker 04:05
That’s funny, isn’t it that I remember when I published my first book, and it was a long time ago was 15 plus years ago, that I was just surprised how it seemed to so people sort of looked at me differently, and perceived me as a different person than they had previously. And that was not as you say, that was not something that I had anticipated, or was trying to achieve. Now, I want to then because there’s seven questions that you want these authors to be able to answer and we, we want to be able to touch on each one. I want to get right into the first question that you asked and I may not phrase this exactly correctly. So please correct me as necessary. Is you ask that your author to be able to answer the question, what has compelled you or driven you to write this book to get this message out in the world? Is that that I state that fair? Close.
Diana M Needham 05:01
Yeah, yeah, me. So the very first question the thing and sometimes I have to pull it out of people is the big why behind this message. And in most cases, it’s a personal, there’s something personal about that it’s not what I would call ahead answer. So ahead answer might be there not very many books out about this topic or what’s out there is confusing or my clients can’t really follow it very well, you know, blah, blah, blah, like, that’s all head answer. What I’m looking for is what’s in here, what is driving you to get this big message out. And most of the time, it is because there was a personal experience, either in their life, or maybe in a client’s life. Like they saw the transformation that happened to their client, and they went, Oh, my gosh, this is magical like this, this, I turned their whole life around, turn their whole business around. And it’s in here, their mission is in here to help more people. asking what the big Why is behind the book and what’s compelling them. And I know that you know, this, knowing what that big Why is with what will keep us moving when we want to quit?
Frank Felker 06:20
Yes, that’s absolutely right. And, you know, our mutual acquaintance Chuck Boyce, once I heard him say, the, when he’s talking about the back cover of a book is, what is the big promise of the book that you know, will accrue to the reader? And yeah, but the and that’s just hit though. It’s not just for the author. I mean, not just for the reader, but also for the author. What is driving you to write this?
Frank Felker
So can you give us a couple of examples of people you’ve worked with? That had interesting Whys behind their book, their heart behind the book?
Diana M Needham 06:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the one example that comes to mind about that is a few years ago, I worked with this lady who wanted to write a book about the blending of essential oils. Okay, well, I know what essential oils are, but I didn’t know that you could blend different things together for different purpose. I mean, I just didn’t know that. So when I started working with her, and I was trying to pull out the big why behind it, she would give me that head answer that I just talked about. Well, there are very many books out about the blending of essential oils, what you read my maybe two sentences or two paragraphs, people are afraid of it. They don’t know how it works, yada, yada, yada. And I kept approaching it in a different I kept asking her in a different way. And I can remember this phone, this conversation, it was a phone call. And it was like I can remember it like it was yesterday, I said to her, was there a pivotal moment when something happened to you, or somebody that you cared about, that it became so blatantly obvious that this message had like, you have to get it out. There’s something in here, you have to get it out. And there was this long, awkward silence where I was holding the space for her to dig deep.
And then she said this. My husband was diagnosed with leukemia, every third day of his treatment. And I’m not even sure how I got myself to the hospital. But somehow, I got the car parked, and I got in and I pushed the button to get up to the fourth floor. They haven’t told me anything. I don’t know if he’s going to live or die. I got into the room and the doctors and the nurses were rushing in and out. And somehow in that process, I pulled off those little slipper socks that he had on his feet, you know, the kind that you have in hospital. And I noticed that there was this thick yellow coating on the bottom of his feet. And in that moment, I knew that if I mix five drops of this and three drops to this and two drops, like together, I could massage his feet. That’s the only thing that I could do to help him in that moment.
Wow. So you know, if you open with that, that powerful story is what connects us to our audience. And so you can imagine that if you were interested in essential oils, and you opened a book about the blending of essential oils, and the first sentence was, huh, it’s such a date, my husband was just diagnosed with leukemia and she goes into that. Then she could go on to say, oh, if you are a caregiver looking for or if you are someone that’s looking at essential oils for aromatherapy, that this book is for you. So that’s a really powerful example and I use that a lot to get people to really think about what’s In here, and that may have been the very first time she was able to connect the dots No. But that back to why is this so important? Because I, I had to get that answer to make sure that we were writing the right book to get the results that she wanted. That’s
Frank Felker 10:17
wonderful, great story. Thank you for sharing that. Again, I won’t go into it. But I’m reminded of when I wrote my first book, it was I felt compelled. It was a compulsion. I had to do it. And I think you’re so smart to ask the author. Well, let’s get in touch with exactly why that is. And then that will drive so many things forward. Well, as I say, we have to keep moving long. I would love to dig down farther into that. But that’s not going to happen, Diana. So we need to get on to the next question, which is, you need to you the author need to be able to define who your ideal reader might be. And why is that, that we need to know that? And what do you mean by that?
Diana M Needham 11:02
Yeah, well, what’s so important, especially when we’re writing a book about our business, we want to attract our ideal client. And in a lot of cases, we have to actually sit with and figure out who is that ideal client, like, Who is the person that I worked with that they got, not only did they get great results, but we had an amazing relationship? There was a connection, there was we were in partnership, I was invested in their successes, they were like, it all just flowed and it was seamless. Who is that person? That’s the person we want to be writing this book for? Now? Why would you want to write a book to attract those what I will call sandpaper clients? You know, the ones I mean, like when they call, you look at the phone and go, Oh, really, I have to talk to them again. You really want to write it and this is really important is write it to the person that you are here to serve. That is your ideal client. And when we can get clear, and I have to work with clients on this, sometimes pretty deeply, to make sure we’re writing the book to attract the right person. If it’s too broad and too general, it’s not going to land probably with very many people. Mm hmm.
Frank Felker 12:25
And, you know, it’s so funny that you say that sandpaper, I really didn’t know what you meant until you explained it, then I’m like, Yeah, I get it sandpaper client. We don’t want those people. And if we’re going to put the effort into writing and publishing a book, we certainly want to track people that we enjoy doing business with, and as you pointed out, that we can serve the best. And that’s who this is going to resonate with. So I think that’s pretty clear. And I want to then move on to the next question, which is, what is the problem that that person has, that you can solve? And that it needs to be such a significant problem, or at least painful enough that they would be willing to pay for the solution? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? And if you could give us an example of somebody who did that with your book?
Diana M Needham 13:20
Yeah, I mean, we were writing a book to grow our business, like that’s the whole purpose behind this. So we’re writing this book, or we’re going to use it as a marketing strategy. It’s, it’s more than just a I mean, we can use it we can book sales are important and royalties and all that. But really, at the end of the day, the money is coming from clients that are going to pay us. So again, it’s a dig deep kind of question, what is the problem that your ideal client, remember that person that you love to work with? What is their biggest challenge? What is the thing when they come into your world? They say, I need help with this. And they’re willing to pull out their credit card. Write your check. Yeah, right. What is that problem? Now you’re most of us our ideal clients have multiple challenges. That’s a problem that I run into, like they have multiple challenges. So if we’re writing our first book, what we want to do is write it to the biggest problem, the most common problem, the thing that most people show up in our world, and they have this problem. What is that? Because we know that they’re going to pay us for the solution.
Frank Felker 14:32
That’s great. And, you know, that clearly makes sense. And you’ve again, you’ve explained it very clearly, that the biggest problem is the one that people will pay the most to have solved. And the most common problem means the most people who will pay to have it solved so that but what about how can an author get to that? I mean, it sounds simple. But is that sometimes difficult? How can we figure out what the biggest problem is for the most part
Diana M Needham 15:00
You know, I think intuitively most of us know, however, for those who aren’t clear, sometimes it’s doing some research or like having a conversation, it may be going back to those perfect clients that we talked about earlier, and just doing a short little conversation about what was that big challenge that you had when you came to me? What was it that you wanted to solve? And listen to their words? Now, here’s the other thing, we tend to listen to other people and translate it into our words. Instead of what is it that they’re articulating? And you I mean, honestly, if we’ve been in business for any amount of time, it was only going to take a few conversations for us to clarify, oh, that’s the biggest problem as they articulate it.
Frank Felker 15:50
Mm hmm. Okay, well, yeah. So it comes back to the Would you like to know the answer? Just ask, that is often a straight path to getting to gold.
Diana M Needham 16:03
It’s so simple. We trip over it, right?
Frank Felker 16:06
Yeah, it’s right in front of us.
Frank Felker
Okay, the next question is, who is this book? Not for? Why is it important for us to know that? And how can we figure out the answer to that question?
Diana M Needham 16:17
Yeah, so you know who it’s not for. One of the reasons I asked my clients to think about that is because I want them to be prepared, that their book is not for everyone. Their book has to be really targeted specifically to their ideal client, and the biggest problem that their ideal client has. And if other people show up, they need to be prepared that they’re not there. They’re not their tribe. You know, those are the people that will write reviews that are more critical. They’re like, you just need to be ready and prepared emotionally. That your books not for everybody. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, right? I’m pretty clear. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. And I’m sure you are too, right. So just be prepared, that those people may show up in your world, they probably will and you’re not going to be loved by everybody. Oh, no. And it actually it’s the answer to that question is usually the opposite of their answer to the previous question. Like, who am I writing this for? Who’s not my audiences? Anybody else? Huh? Yes, almost like one of my business coaches says our message needs to be so clear that it’s a dog whistle.
Diana M Needham 17:37
We got the dog whistle, we’re sending out the dog whistle in the form of this book, and let the cats and the raccoons move on. That’s an analogy that I kind of it just it me, it’s meaningful, at least as meaningful to me, we just want to attract those ideal people that we’re here to help, and that we can help get the greatest result. And they’re going to give us a great testimonial. And that’s going to help us get more and more and more of those people. It’s a snowball effect.
Frank Felker 18:06
And I’ve always liked that expression, dog whistle. It’s unfortunate that today, it takes on all new meanings of God knows what in terms of politics and racism and this and that it’s unfortunate. But I’d like the underlying meaning of it, which is, these words will only resonate with your target audience. And it makes perfect sense. And that’s what you want. We have a world full of opportunity and different channels through which to communicate that opportunity. But as you say, it’s not for everyone. So we need to be able to cut through the noise for the people we want to reach. That’s a that’s an excellent point. All right. So now the next question is I I’m going to sort of paraphrase this and ask you to expound on it is what do you want the reader to come away from reading this book with? Is that about right? What they want them to learn? Please go ahead.
Diana M Needham 19:02
Yeah, yeah. Like what do you want them to understand? Discover, learn walk away? Like, that becomes the answer to that question becomes a guiding post as you’re writing. So you know, if you have some an answer there, I want them to come away with this. But somehow this whatever that is, is not in your content. It missed the boat. So it’s a guidepost for actually, you know, creating the content and when we can be intentional about oh, this is what I want them to understand this is I want them to understand that what’s possible with the blending of essential oils, I want them to know that it’s doable for anybody. I want them to not be afraid of it. I want you to like go, I want that’s what I want. Then make sure that your content gives your reader that feeling sometimes it’s kind And it’s the feeling it’s the they can grasp it, they can understand it, they can implement it, they can actually do something with it. It’s not theory.
Frank Felker 20:10
Mm hmm. So would the words actionable information apply there?
Diana M Needham 20:16
Yeah, absolutely.
Frank Felker 20:18
Okay. Now, again, you know, you’re talking about who the book is for and who it’s not for, and what you want them to come away with? Is there any thought that we need to narrow down what we want them to come away? from the book with? Or how specific should we be? Or maybe we shouldn’t be too specific?
Diana M Needham 20:42
Um, I think that’s an individual, you know, decision, but for most of my clients, it’s, it’s pretty detailed.
Frank Felker 20:49
Okay,
Diana M Needham 20:50
you know, here’s what I want them to understand. Here’s what I want to like, in essence, demystify, if there’s something that they I know that they don’t, but they’re, you know, that it’s a mystery to them. My clients have generally are pretty clear, you know about that. And again, it’s a guideposts for the writing process, to make sure that we’re writing the right book, for the right audience, to get the result that we want, so we can leverage it to attract more of those people into our world.
Frank Felker 21:23
You know, you just made me think of one thing, which is, is the information in the book, the same information or the solutions, the same solutions, as what I provide as a service?
Diana M Needham 21:37
Yeah, there’s clearly has to be alignment with that. If you’re using this book to attract clients, it has to all be in alignment. And another thing we haven’t talked too much, but let me just add here that this book is a marketing strategy that needs to dovetail with all the other things that you’re doing. So what you’re speaking about, what’s your podcast? What, when you’re on podcast, what is the topic that you’re talking about? What is the content that you’re putting out on social media, all of this needs to hang together? Not be disparate parts.
Frank Felker 22:14
Okay. And so then, I guess what I’m driving at here is, and I like that very much, is that you have one clear message. And this is the message you talk about when you’re interviewed on podcasts. And this is the message that you describe in your book. And this is the message that you try to help your clients with, within your business and so forth. And it all ties together with that big honkin’ problem that they have, that they need to get solved. And, and so I just think that that’s important that people understand. It’s all the same message, but expressed in different ways in different platforms at different times. Is that, am I putting the wrong words in your mouth?
Diana M Needham 22:59
And that’s, that’s absolutely right. And sometimes, it can feel like we’re a broken record. We’ve got the same message, and we’re beating to the same drum. And, and it can become tedious to us. But it’s certainly not tedious to our audience. And we but you know, as we all know, running a business, people have to hear that same message over and over and over. And one of the things that comes out as a result of being able to put your thoughts and ideas and your process or your concepts in a book, you become more clear what those things are. Yes, so that your social media content, your articles, your you know, everything else is in alignment, and it’s much more clear, you have more clarity, you the author, you have more clarity of your own message.
Frank Felker 23:53
There is no question about that. That is another amazing side effect and unintended or unexpected. You know, you read back over your own words, and you’re like, well, I never looked at it that way. That’s so funny. You’re absolutely right. Please remind me, I want to finish the questions, because that’s the the trail we’ve been following. But I want to come back to something you just touched on briefly at the end, which has to do with leveraging your book once it’s printed.
Frank Felker
So the next question in your list is what do you Mr. or Mrs. Author want to be known for? And I find that to be an interesting question, because it is sometimes different than what they may be known for. Now, they may be known as a chiropractor, or a lawyer or a veterinarian or goodness knows what. But the compulsion, the message behind their book might be something different. Can you speak to that and also maybe give us an example where it wasn’t directly in alignment with who they were currently what they wanted to be?
Diana M Needham 24:59
Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Thanks for asking that. Frank, this just give you an example. Earlier this year, we launched a book with that was authored by a retired Coast Guard captain. he happens to work for the Security and Exchange Commission. So he has a very high profile position. But his and his big message for the world is about leadership. And so he was so clear that that’s what he wanted to be known for. Yes, he loves this career. Yes, he’s not planning to leave the Security and Exchange Commission anytime soon. He’s not. But his big mission was about is about leadership. The big message that’s in here is about leadership. And he’s been able to leverage that book in so many different ways that have nothing to do directly with his role at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Frank Felker 26:07
Well, and maybe that makes sense, then is the right time for us to talk about how to leverage a book, how has he leveraged that book? And how can a professional or an entrepreneur do that?
Diana M Needham 26:20
Well, there’s so many different ways that you can leverage, like, once you have, you have this tangible asset in your hand, it is not so much about actual book sales, although, you know, if when we can be back in the world speaking live in front of people, it’s a great thing to have in the back of the room, because people resonate with your message, they want to take a part of you home with them. So you know, obviously, you do want to sell the book, but there’s so many other ways that you can leverage the book. One of I was just on a call earlier today with one of my clients. And he was telling me, what he does is he targets very, he’s an he’s very niched in a specific industry. And when he is keeping a list of ideal prospects, the people that he wants his clients, he’s got a list written out, when the as those people come to his website or come to his Facebook page, he knows who they are, he will send them he has a process worked out. And he will actually autograph a book, write a personal note inside it and send it to that business owner. Because it is a tangible, living, breathing, amazing marketing tool that explains how he works and the results that his clients get.
Frank Felker 27:50
That’s quite a calling card, and certainly separates you from your competition.
Diana M Needham 27:56
Yeah, he actually this particular author was a speaker at the largest national conference in his industry last year. And it was alive when he was able when you know, that was when we were able to do it live. They’ve now invited him back. And he did a virtual presentation. And he’s doing another presentation here shortly. But that book, you know, he would say that positions me as the expert, nobody else that he that does what he does, has a book. Imagine that that’s hard to believe. Nobody, nobody else, like there are other people that do that provide a service to his industry, but nobody has a book. And so when he can send a copy of I mean, it’s not a small book, it’s over 200 pages. It’s a significant book with a lot of examples of his work with clients. And he uses that as teaching points. So it’s an amazing asset that he leverages in so many different ways. And another way that people can leverage it that most of us don’t think too much about is referral partners. Sure, when you meet somebody that already has your ideal audience, and that is the fastest way for us to get in front of more people, is to align ourselves with people that already have our ideal audience. When you meet that person, and you autograph and send them a book or gift it to them from Amazon, however you want to do it. You know, yet another little thing is that if if the person you’re trying to reach is a CEO or a higher level person, if you get it from Amazon, most people aren’t going to open a package that comes from Amazon.
Frank Felker 29:54
Yeah, that’s a great way to get past the gatekeeper.
Diana M Needham 29:57
Yeah, where whereas if you send They don’t know who you are, it may sit on their desk, you know, for a while they get something from Amazon. They’re going, Oh, I didn’t order anything. I wonder what this is?
Frank Felker 30:12
It’s gift wrapped inside. And there’s a note. Yeah, that’s a great strategy. Yep.
Diana M Needham 30:16
Yep.
Frank Felker 30:19
No, you know, I wanted to mention also, because you’re talking about how to leverage the book, I just want to bring up the point that you and I both heard from, again, a common friend of both of ours, that we’re not necessarily writing a book, in order to make a lot of money selling a lot of books, we’re writing a book that sells a lot of us. So do you ever find authors that come to you that expect that they’re going to make a lot of money selling a lot of books? And you have to direct them away from that strategy?
Diana M Needham 30:51
Yeah, and sometimes, and yeah, and earlier, Frank, when you open the conversation today, you said, you know, we’re talking about nonfiction, consultants, leaders, you know, entrepreneurs that want to get their big message out, in my experience, a lot of people who their big goal is I want to sell 1000 copies in the first three months. They are not my people, because they don’t understand that this book is a strategic asset is a marketing tool, the money is coming from getting clients that will pay us at a high level to deliver this solution that they’re looking for. If if they’re just looking to make money from royalties, they’re honestly not my person. And I will direct them, you know, to other to other people. And other kind of red flag for me is if they don’t have a program developed or a service that they’ve already offering that they’re getting, they have testimonials, like they have a proven something that they’re selling. It’s amazing to me that there are some there are people that are far enough and long in their business, they don’t know what that program is, or that service or that coaching or consulting back. They’re not clear on that yet. It’s too early than to write a book.
Frank Felker 32:17
Well that’s a great point. And that’s great advice. I want to give you some time to talk about and I’m curious to know about the services that you offer your clients. But before we get to that, I want to wrap up with your seven questions. And it kind of is a good tangent from what we were just talking about what you want your book to do for you. That’s the seventh question. What is it that you’d like for this book to do for you? Man is author and your business. And you’ve put together quite a list. In fact, you have a checklist, where people can mark yes, no, what have you for the different things they’re looking for? Number one, I believe you’re going to give us a link where we can download these seven questions. Is that correct?
Diana M Needham 33:00
Yep, I’d love to do that. It’s a It’s a gift. For anybody watching, it
33:05
truly is a game.
Diana M Needham 33:06
And you’re thinking, you know, this makes so much sense to me like this, you know, 2021 may be my year to do this, like, take these seven questions and just work through them, you will find so much clarity, just answering the questions. And I don’t know about you, Frank, but I do my best work when I’m not in front of the computer.
Frank Felker 33:29
If that were the case, I would never get any work done.
Diana M Needham 33:33
I’d take it take it, you know, take it outside, take it like in your get in a comfortable place where you can just really think about the answers to you know, answers to the questions. And being clear about the result. That is where a lot of people that I talk with struggle a bit. Because even though they have a big message, and they know, the service that they provide, and they know the value of what they provide, they aren’t thinking more long term about the result that they really want. Do you want to be on bigger podcasts? Do you want, you know to be a higher level speaker like do you want? What is it that you want? Do you want to create a course from this book?
Diana M Needham 34:23
Do you want to take this and turn it into an info product? Do you what is it that you want at the end of the day? And if I could give you a story about that, please. I worked with an author. One of the early authors that I worked with her book had been out for a year. And she was so disappointed that she sold literally 57 copies primarily to friends and family. Right. And everyone had told her Claire you need to write a book clear you need to write a book and she had written articles for a women’s magazine for a long time. So she literally took these articles and put them in a book. fatal flaw in that is that she never answered these seven questions. Therefore, she didn’t have any kind of a strategy. And at the end of the day, the book was not targeted enough. So half the book was written to women leaders. And the other half of the book was written more general women’s empowerment. Okay, General, women’s empowerment is really broad. Mm hmm. women leaders more narrow. But she had a book that had both. And so she didn’t hit the mark with either.
Diana M Needham 35:49
She was disappointed in that it was a very well written book. And I can remember, she came. And we had an in person, we had a VIP day. And I was asking her, Claire, what is the result that you want? So the book is in your hand, what do you want to have happen? And she was given me a circular answer. And I like to work with nonprofits. And I like I like I like to do that ended on I kept asking in different ways, till Finally, she said this. I want to be doing two and three day workshops inside of companies helping their women leaders untangle the organizational chaos that they have on their teams. Wow. Oh, my God, like it’s like, scary opening the angel saying, Oh, I got something to work with.
Frank Felker 36:47
We can make that happen, Claire.
Diana M Needham 36:50
I mean, the kind of crazy thing about that, Frank is that if someone had asked her these seven, any of these seven questions, I mean, if just a few of them. Look at her background, she retired from DuPont, after 33 years in HR, or she wants to work with women. That would be so obvious. But nobody asked her. And so she spent this time and money and blood, sweat and tears, and she got this book, across the finish line only to be disappointed. This is like part of my big mission is to keep people out of that statistic. That 57 is primarily the friends and family as a real number. That’s what happens when you don’t have a clear strategy. So we got clear about that. Fortunately, she already had those people in her network. Like she’s been 33 years. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t have a network. It. So we were able to launch a bestseller campaign and we got you know that we got that designation and everything was great. Then she went off and wrote the book that she should have written to start with that book to women, leaders. That’s great. And it’s called elephants in the midst. So it’s all about those, those hidden and unspoken messages that happen inside, that you don’t know anything about. Or you’re aware of, but you don’t know what to do with them. So she went off and wrote the book, the right book, the second time now the first book isn’t throwaway. Because what she does is she bundles the two of them together, she sells them. And when she’s talking in person, she can sell both of them. It’s a great idea. It’s not that the first one was throw away, it is a high quality book, it just wasn’t targeted enough because she didn’t have a strategy in place.
Frank Felker 38:43
And also, we all learned so much going through the process of writing that first book, that I’m sure that she was better prepared for you as a client than she would have been initially. And with that in mind, I want to then before we wrap up to ask you about the services that you offer people, what stage of development does somebody have to be in with their book in order to reach out to you and what do you help them do?
Diana M Needham 39:12
Yeah, well, you know, most of the time people come to me and they have an idea. Like they have an idea, even if it’s vague. There’s again, it’s, there’s this mission, there’s this calling, there’s this knowing this is the time, this is the time, I’ve got to get this out. And so they have an idea, even if it’s vague. So when they come into my world, the first thing I do is work with them through these seven questions to make sure we’ve got the right strategy. Then they go off, they have to go write the book. If they need ghostwriting help, we mean that’s something that I can I can help them or get the right resource to help them with. But once the book is written, then they’re working with me on strategy on book cover design. On the interior layout on the Amazon bestseller campaign on their marketing strategy on, it’s really important to me at the beginning of the process that we can, we are clear on how we’re going to monetize this book.
Diana M Needham 40:15
I mean, at the end of the day, I say, you know, like a book does not fall out of the sky fully formed, there are investments that need to be made. If you want a high quality book that represents you, well, that gets you the result that you want. So let’s make sure that we are clear how we’re going to monetize it. Now, we might monetize it by selling. But most of the time, it’s programs services product, like we’re selling something, I’ve had people say, I want to be a paid speaker. Like that my big goal is to be a paid speaker on bigger stages, but I want to be clear at the beginning, how are they going to recoup their investment in themselves and in their business? Before we begin? So why cuz I’m about one stop, come with your idea, we’re going to vet your idea, we’re going to make sure that it sound we’re going to have these seven questions. I’m a marketing strategist. So I won’t let you write a book that I can’t see has. But you know, it’s going to help you like move your business forward. All the publishing the launching side of it, and I also help my clients define a plan for post launch. Okay, so I love this book, and I’ve got momentum. Now, what am I supposed to do with it?
Frank Felker 41:45
We’re running a little bit short on time. But there’s two other resources I know that you have that I wanted to make sure we touched on one is you have a Facebook group, I believe. And then also, don’t you occasionally run group workshops that people can get involved with?
Diana M Needham 42:01
Yep, yep, I do. My Facebook group is very, very obvious name. It’s build your business with a book. So if you’re on Facebook, and you’re watching this, and you’re thinking, Man, this you know, this makes perfect sense to me. You want if you want to plug into a community of entrepreneur authors, come on over to build your business with a book on Facebook. That is where I announced anything that I’m doing live, I run author interview series, I, I run a boot camp, I share with people, here’s what you have to have in place. If you want to be a best selling author, here are the things that you need to have in place. Lots of great information coming in, the best way to plug in would be to join our Facebook community. And I’m in there almost every single day, I do a facebook live every week. And there’s a lot of great information there.
Frank Felker 42:58
Is that the best way for people to connect with you, Diana.
Diana M Needham 43:03
Or you can email me directly at Diana at business book partners calm so feel free to reach out and email me directly if you want to have a conversation.
Frank Felker 43:14
Diana Needham, thank you so much for joining me today.
Diana M Needham 43:19
Well, thanks so much, Frank. It’s been delightful to be here with you today. And I hope that this message has been valuable to your audience.
Frank Felker 43:25
Thanks again to Diana and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker saying, I’ll see you on the radio.
