Alright, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm Jackson Callum, I'm your show host.
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guests, guest leaders who
are building fantastic visions out there.
Ultimately, I just want to go through some of the things that might help you with your
vision.
If you have a vision that you're pursuing, drop a link in the comments and let us know
what that is.
If you're a business or a brand, if it's a non-profit that you run, be happy to promote
it, be happy to talk to you about it, and if you like to apply to be on Vision Pros
and be interviewed about that vision, then by all means, feel free to reach out.
I'm excited.
I'm so excited I'm putting this comment out there right away.
Welcome to Vision Pros.
My name is Jackson.
I'm the founder of First Class Business, co-founder of Able Health, CEO of Podbooker,
and I'm super excited today to have Ashley DeTeo on our podcast of DeTeo Publishing
because she's one of our secret weapons.
In terms of creating our content, helping me know which content we should be aiming
towards doing research and development the whole nine yards.
You'll get to see her incredible value in just a little bit when we bring her on stage.
So we're also going to talk about where her vision comes from, how she came to know what
she knows about business ownership, entrepreneurship, writing children's books, and the whole nine
yards.
If you're an aspiring author, you absolutely want to listen and hear what advice she has
for us.
So without further ado, let's bring Ashley on stage.
Ashley, thank you so much for being here today.
Hi, thanks for having me.
I'm really excited.
I am too.
So for those who don't know, Ashley and I have a longstanding friendship and a very,
very... You know what they say?
The world is small.
Yeah.
In our case, it was microscopic.
So I'm going to show the story of that real quick.
Ashley was, and I were both part of a Facebook group.
I was searching at the time with my first wife, the ideas of world schooling and traveling
with our kids and maybe living in Costa Rica or somewhere abroad.
And so I met Ashley in a Facebook group and she had literally written the book on world
schooling.
And so here I was reaching out to this author saying, hey, you know what?
My family might want to travel.
Do you have any advice for us?
And then I noticed that, or she noticed, one of us noticed that our mutual connection was
actually my wife.
And I remember asking, how do you know, how do you know my wife?
And it turned out Ashley and my wife were roommates in college.
And I was like, what the heck?
Like how does that even happen?
And so we start talking, we get into this passions assessment thing.
Ashley takes it.
Next thing you know, she's like, oh my gosh, Jackson, I'm launching this company called
the tail publishing.
I've got this really cool nonprofit called the Hidden Voices Project that I want to
launch.
And like she's off to the races.
And she allowed me to hang around and support her as she continued to build those processes
out.
So that's kind of my side of it.
Ashley, I'd love to hear from your side.
Like what are the details you want to add to that?
It's fun to hear it from your side because I'd forgotten that you had first down me
through the world schooling group.
But yeah, that was such a fun time of life.
And you came in right at like this moment where I think so many different elements of
my life were coming together where I was like, I want to do this of building a business because
I'd always kind of had an entrepreneurial spirit.
I started my first business at age 11.
And I remember when my mom told me that I was an entrepreneur, I was like, that is the
coolest word ever.
So cool.
We ran this for like four years.
Stretching copywriter.
And so I kind of always had that desire to just be my own boss.
And then we were living in Mexico at the time.
And there's just so much, you know, that people just start their own businesses because of
the way their economy works.
And anyway, people have to be very entrepreneur minded living in developing countries.
And it was just really neat to see people just go for it.
And I'm also a bit of a perfectionist.
And so seeing people just go for things and build businesses and helping my husband build.
He's a veterinarian, so we were building his clinic and things like that.
I was like, I like this whole aspect of building a business.
And then at the same time, I was doing all this work as a writer and editor.
And I'd just been commissioned to write this book on world schooling.
And I was learning the entire publishing process and falling in love with it and just blown
away by how it's been revolutionized in the last decade or so.
And all the opportunities that were there, I was like, I want to do this.
I want to turn this into a business.
And then you walked into my life of like, hey, what's your passion?
Do you want to go business around it?
And I was like, yes, I do.
I do.
So it's wonderful how those things just, there are no coincidences, right?
Well said.
There are no coincidences.
I agree completely with that.
So you start moving to, and you're working at that time with the Nomad Capitalists, which
continues and always will continue to blow my mind.
And we're going to pull that up on screen so people can see what this is.
So here Ashley was in Mexico, living the dream of their family, supporting her husband who
was, in terms of living near his family and he's a veterinarian.
Alberto is amazing, by the way.
I absolutely love getting to see him when we do little retreats and stuff together.
We'll talk about the writer's retreat in just a little bit and how if you're an aspiring
author, the writer's retreat that the Teo Publishing puts on gives you absolute clarity
and full access to a workshop and environment where you can learn how to publish your book
profitably from how to market it, how to research it, how to get the framework of the book, and
also working with those individuals in a very cool place to enjoy the process of overcoming
any writer's blocks, challenges you might have, or just fears of learning what you need
to learn in order to become a publisher.
So back to Nomad Capitalist, Ashley developed and worked with the owner, founder of Nomad
Capitalist, to develop content in the financial sector that is above and beyond any financial
topics I've ever researched.
And I've done some pretty big projects for financial stuff.
So imagining what it takes to research these topics that they talk about, if you scroll
over services or articles, for instance, Jaime, we'll take a look at some of the types of
content and article that exists in this, in this website.
So from real estate planning to citizenship by descent, offshore company, offshore trust,
like some of these things I've never even heard of, Ashley, what percentage of the content
did you guys manage?
What was your involvement in the process?
How does that look?
Because there's other entrepreneurs I know who are out there who would love to have somebody
they could trust take over their content, but it's so hard to find anybody of your caliber.
So what were you doing for them?
Yeah.
So I worked with Nomad Capitalist for six years and managed all of their content, essentially,
whether it was editing the content that Andrew had already written before we met, or once
his business started growing, you just didn't have the time for that.
So he said, Hey, I want you to go back and edit things that I've written in the past
to make them not sound this way or this way and add in this information, update things
here.
And then it moved into me writing for him.
And then it just grew and grew to the point that I wasn't just writing it, but I had an
entire team who was creating the content.
And I was, we created an entire system for content production.
And even looking back at, I think at the time, you had 1500 articles that, how do you manage
that much content and make sure that the older articles are getting updated, that this very
fact sensitive topic is up to date and that you're giving people the information that
they need that's clear and correct.
And then pulling in the whole research aspect of his company and how do we include all of
this amazing information that he's gathered and share that with people.
And so we created an entire formula to determine, how do we update?
How do we prioritize the content that we have?
Do we update old things?
Do we create new things?
And so it was very, I'm very grateful for that time that I had working with them.
And my background is I have a degree in international relations.
So politics and economics are my bread and butter.
I love, love, love anything to deal with those topics.
And so writing for them was just a natural outgrowth of my interests.
And yeah.
And so I'm going to put this on there.
I'm going to ask some questions.
We're not actually going to get into the questions, but these are questions that you should consider
asking Ashley, if you're a little bit somebody to help with their, with your content marketing
strategy, like I have a million that came out of that, like, oh my gosh, 1500 articles
right?
You want to sort through and figure out the game plan of going through now.
So I put in the, is it to update articles?
Right.
And that question from my perspective is a bit rhetorical.
I know that feeling of needing to update my content because my voice changed.
Right.
And why does it change?
Well, if you're evolving as a human being, you know, like if you are progressing in life,
you might find you don't agree with yourself from five, 10 years ago.
Right.
If, if you're not, if you're scared to admit that, then you're probably not very self aware
or you're not changing in life.
I'm constantly changing.
So if I looked back at passion pro eight years ago, right?
When I had started that content, this, this happened recently when the last six months
we looked at it, we relaunched passion pro.org and my method of coaching, my method of teaching
back then included a lot of condescension.
I wasn't aware of it.
I didn't know.
I was just, I was kind of a self righteous prick.
I'm just going to throw it out there.
Like I could read the cops like, man, like what a jerk.
I mean, I had to rewrite that, but that's just immaturity.
Right.
That's just an experience.
That's not, that's just, actually it's the opposite.
It's developing leadership skills.
Right.
And realizing that, you know, I meant to say this, this is what I wanted to get across.
And this is why this content desperately needs updated.
And so it's very helpful.
Well, if you have a content library that does not represent your brand culture in the here
and now, then you either got to go back and adjust it or suffer the consequences of your
market seeing a disalignment, misalignment, not understanding like, wait, is this you
or is that you?
Or you work with somebody like yourself and, you know, you figure out my new voice and
help me update and adjust that content.
So that's amazing.
Do you have any more thoughts on that before we move on to the next question about your
vision, your call?
Yeah.
I think one of the things with that, you know, what you're speaking to and what I found with
clients in the past who do have lots of content that needs to be updated is once they've put
out enough articles, one, they've changed and grown as a person and two, they have enough
data to understand what's working and what's not working.
And sometimes the way that you speak to people changes their, the way that they respond.
Absolutely.
And it also changes who you attract.
And so I've had clients come to me who are like, I need you to go back and edit this
content because I'm just getting angry people who come in or, you know, people are, I'm
setting them up to be disappointed because I'm talking about my services in a way that
doesn't actually represent what they're getting or whatever it might be that, you know, if
you've had some experience with your audience and realize that you're not delivering what
they want, you need to figure out like, okay, well, what is the audience I actually want
to target and how do I speak to them?
And two, how do I change to speak to the audience that I do have if it is that you want to keep
that audience?
And so I think understanding your audience is so key to like everything we'll talk about
here and anything that has to do with, with writing and business and books and all of
it like very customer centric.
You've got to keep that in mind.
And so whether you're going back to update new articles or update old articles or create
new ones that I feel is a very important element to the process.
Absolutely.
You know, and it's, it's the subtleties in copy that often win, you know, the, the attention
of the audience in the right way.
And we've talked, we've masterminded about this a lot.
You've taught me a lot about copy over the years.
And so one of the references that the audience should be aware of and thinking about is I
try to remember my invitations should reflect that of a wedding invitation, right, or an
invitation to a party, right?
And there's a huge difference between receiving a wedding invitation that says you are cordially
invited to, right?
You know, you got this professional look versus come to my wedding or else, right?
You did the same thing.
I mean, theoretically you're trying to invite inspired demand force, whatever, somebody
to move forward, but it's the nuances of language and understanding the reality that, you know
what?
Some people like, I don't know, the cast of the hangover, perhaps their wedding invitation
might say something like come to our wedding or else.
Like that could be a very tongue-in-cheek thing that has to do with their culture of
friendships.
I mean, I've seen people like my brother who had Darth Vader interrupt his wedding, you
know, okay, cool.
Like I loved it.
It was fun.
I wouldn't be something I would do.
Maybe I wouldn't the future, but I wouldn't have in the past, right?
Our audiences need different types of lingo and I've seen you mold and adapt that because
not only have you published for Nomad Capitalist, but you also recently published, I believe
it was your first children's book, Wallace the Westie, The Christmas Wish, which our
kids got to read, which we bought and absolutely loved.
So I have to get a dog now.
Thanks to your book.
So let's talk about that.
How do you do that or what inspired you to write a children's book?
You know, that book I wrote, I actually wrote another book from that series that I haven't
published yet.
Three, almost four years ago now, it's just like a story for my son.
And I then went on and started writing the one that is actually published and because
it's kind of the like, how Wallace comes to be a part of Alice's family.
And I was like, that should be the first one.
And I started writing it and then I just, you know, so many things that I'm working on
all the time that I just left it there, but always had this idea of like, oh, I could
create this whole series and it'd be so fun.
But I'm more of a nonfiction person writing for businesses and different things like that.
And so I just put it on the back burner.
But after the, the profitable publishing writers retreat that we did in November, I was like,
I need to just publish something now.
I just, I need to get back into doing it because I've been doing it for other people.
I've helped so many people publish their books.
I need to get back into publishing my own books.
And I was like, hey, I've got this manuscript.
I should, I should try and get this out.
But it was, you know, beginning of November and it's a Christmas book.
And so I was like, all right, pressure's on.
And so I went into, you know, I've done this so many times that I was like, I bet I can,
I can still get this done.
And so I went through my process of finding an illustrator, went through the process
of writing and editing the rest of the book and giving, you know, the storyboards to the
illustrator and the whole process of getting that all done.
And I ended up going with an illustrator from the Ukraine because she was, I mean, just
phenomenal and totally worth it.
But they were dealing with like power outages and bombings and all of it.
And so it took a little bit longer to get all the illustrations back.
And so I finally had it formatted and ready to go on December 20.
And I was like, okay, we're still five days before Christmas.
I'm publishing it.
And so I threw it up there and did just like minimal marketing.
And it still hit number one on the holiday children's holiday books and children's animal
pet books or something like that.
It was several cow d'gories on Amazon that it hit number one.
I was like, man, this is good to know that I can make this work for myself because I
do this for other people and I know how to help other people, you know, get to number
one on Amazon and all of the other things because being the best seller on Amazon is
just minus school compared to all the other things you can do with a book.
But it was fun just in like those few days, that little window I had to market it to see
how far I could take it.
And it's been really fun.
I took it to my son's classroom and read it to his class.
And it's fun to have that experience and be like, okay, I can do this again.
What an amazing series of memories too, right?
And a legacy like this.
The day when your grandma and great grandma, right, great grandma, Ashley and the family's
talking about you accomplishing that and doing that, getting to do it, like those memories,
you know, are eternal.
And so that's amazing that you did it.
Let's talk about the vision then.
So what is your vision, Ashley?
Broadly speaking, what is it?
That is a very good question because I have, I'm an IDES person.
I've got lots of visions.
You're one of my visionaries who's on top of a mountain and you see lots of different
sides, right?
So feel free, you know, like, go ahead, let's hear one or two of those sides.
Okay.
Yeah, I think one of the things I've had to learn is how to hone in on the vision I want
to build.
And like you mentioned at the beginning, the Hidden Voices Project, that is still something
very much that is part of my vision.
But I know I have to build other things to get there.
And so you're standing, you know, the big vision and then all the smaller parts build
up to achieve all of it.
And so I think right now my big vision is just to magnify other people's voices, to put
light and truth out into the world.
And that's through, I love the power of words and I love taking what's in people's minds
and making it even clearer on paper than it was even in their head.
And I love visionaries for the same thing of like people have a vision.
And I don't think there's a person I've talked to who hasn't had a, you know, a passion and
a vision for something that they want to achieve.
And writing takes such a discipline of taking that vision and putting it into words and making
it something tangible that they can actually share themselves and that other people can
then grasp onto and understand it.
And so whether that's, you know, an article on a website or a podcast or any type of content
marketing or an e-book or an actual physical book that you can take to conferences and
sell, it's this idea of putting your message into the world, investing into the message
that you have inside of you and sharing that with people and then helping people realize
not just how to get the content out, but then how to make an impact with it.
I love that.
And you say here, get your ideas, getting your ideas in front of the people who matter,
right?
And helping these authors, these entrepreneurs realize, you know, who it is that wants what
they have.
And we're all children in this regard, still learning that art of that process every day,
right?
As a child, you know, and you eat ice cream for the first time, you know, your desire
is to share it with everybody must love this if I love it.
You know, and we kind of still feel that way when we create something and when we have
a message.
So it's helpful to have the guidance of somebody like yourself who knows to think strategically
and realize like, okay, let's think through who I am.
Who are the people that this message really matters to?
Because if we're not, if we're not reaching that audience, it can be very hard to, to
profitably publish because then you're spending lots of time and money putting your content
in front of people who don't cherish it and don't value it.
And so a lot of times you have value, but if you're putting it in front of the wrong
people, they're going to possibly make you close up shop and feel like, wow, you know
what, maybe what I have isn't so inspiring after all.
So let's talk about your vision for entrepreneurs a little bit further.
What is your vision for entrepreneurs?
Okay, that is a great question.
So I think I've taken on this little motto for myself and my business is that it's to
help entrepreneurs become authors and authors become entrepreneurs.
And so many times entrepreneurs, they, they have this incredible value to offer to the
world with everything that they've achieved and the knowledge they've acquired and the
systems they've created.
There's, there's so much there, but they don't always have the skills or even if they have
the skills, they don't always have the time to put that into words and to share that with
other people.
And so they might understand the marketing side of, you know, publishing a book and getting
cells and things like that, or they might understand, you know, certain elements of
it, but they, they probably don't have the time or skills to put it all down on paper
and create the product, the book in the first place.
And so that is often where I come in and help with entrepreneurs specifically is this process
of figuring out, okay, well, what's in your head?
What are all these ideas?
What are the systems?
What are the, who's your audience?
And the research and all of those different things and figuring out the outline and then
often I'll go straight for them.
Sometimes they'll put down words up to a certain point and then say, okay, now you write the
rest.
And so helping them actually get the message on the page and then taking it from there
and, and what parts they need helping them with the process.
So at Detail Publishing, we have our five phases of profitable publishing because it's
not just about putting a book out there.
It's about actually being profitable with that book.
And so there's the writing phase and I have so many people come to me once they finish
that phase and then like, I wrote a book, let's make me a millionaire.
I'm like, okay, well, that's the first phase.
Now you've got four more to go.
And so walking people through the editing process of if they've already created something,
how do we edit that and make it, you know, polish it to make it shine.
And then the publishing process, to me, it's kind of just become like, oh yeah, publishing
is so easy.
I'm going to throw the gauntlet down real quick.
You said they probably don't have the time.
I'm going to tell you right now, if you're an entrepreneur, you don't have the time.
If you're an author who has a life, you don't have the time to do it all unless you're that
rare unicorn who works super fast compared to everybody else and gets it done.
Even then, like, is it worth doing that when you could be doing other things with your
time, you know, and is it worth the risk?
People aren't really inspired by a book that only has one review.
You know, like that doesn't necessarily allow you to feel the way you wanted to when you've
published and thought, you know, I kind of want to have a book that competes with thinking
grow rich, you know, and maybe that's not your ass version, but most authors that I
know, most entrepreneurs that I know have a certain level or milestone they want to
get to.
And when they attempt to do it alone, just because it's free, well, you get the same
results that most people get when they try to do something free without the skill set
intact to do it.
Like the bike my dad put together that was completely backwards and we had to take back
to the store and let the store do it.
So yes, we should stick with what we know and find the people in our life who can empower
us to get the things done that empower our mission or vision to move forward.
And you're a great example of that.
You're good.
I know people like you gotta understand this stuff's hard.
I mean, that's why you need people like Ashley in your life.
Well, under clarify, I help people self publish their books.
So I have publishing company, but we don't.
We're not like a publisher.
And there's there's a big difference there.
And it is so much more accessible now and so much easier to get your ideas out there.
But just because it's easier doesn't mean that it's easier.
Well, talk about that.
So these aspiring authors, right?
Where are they getting stuck in the process?
You know that that perhaps and we'll talk about what they should do instead.
But first, let's just talk about the things that are, you know, perhaps over the hill
for some of these people.
Where do they get stuck?
Well, it comes down to that idea of if you are going to self publish and you want to
be profitable, you need to replace the entire publishing industry because they have an entire
army of millions of different people doing different jobs to make books be successful
and profitable.
And we could go into lots of things about the traditional publishing industry.
Well, I have a couple of questions on that.
So I've heard that royalties, right?
What you make when you go the traditional publishing route are quite small in terms
of what a royalty is, if you're new to that, is the percentage that you make for every book
that you sell.
So traditional publishing, more or less, you make what?
It ranges from like 5% on the low end to a very, very generous 25% on the high end.
Multi-million people who are selling millions and millions of copies.
If you're Dave Ramsey, you're going to get a high percentage because they know how much
Dave Ramsey can distribute the book by himself and add value to their publishing and say,
hey, look, we published Dave Ramsey's book, right?
He gets compensated for that.
If you are Joe Schmoe trying to publish a book and nobody knows you and you don't have
an audience and you're talking 5%, good luck getting higher.
If you do get 10%, 10% of a $14 book, $1.40, you know, for that book sold.
And it may seem like the traditional publishers are greedy, but has actually alluded to and
talked about, there are many people to pay for the process of your book.
And those companies are taking a massive risk as well on investing in you.
And so we can talk about it from a doggie dog world to make people look like the enemies.
But at the end of the day, you know, our goal is to create vision, transparency regarding
the options.
And both options have their merits.
But how do you compete against that, actually, when you don't have a million people, you
know, doing a million things, what are the pros of going the self publishing route with
somebody to assist the process or perhaps even tackle the process?
Such a funky term, you know, self publishing.
That's what people look for on Google.
So that's what you have to market to.
But you know, then you have different schools that exist like Chandler Bolt School.
I was a fan of going through the process and learning what I need to learn about publishing
my book eight years ago.
And really far and like, you know, I ran into a massive wall of like, oh, man, this is just
phase one.
You know, like, dang it, I got to do all this stuff.
Yeah, it makes sense.
All right.
Well, maybe someday.
And so I've done that.
I've gotten through a couple of phases.
But even even with different self publishers, you've got different styles, different people
who can inspire you different methods.
You're the person who I know I want to publish the marketing funnel is wrong with, you know,
and so let's talk about that.
But what what separates you from the traditional publishing path and also separates you from
other self publishing programs that you've seen out there?
Yeah, so I'll address each question.
So separating us from the traditional publishing path.
It's all the benefits of self publishing where you own the book, you own the rights to the
book, you you get say in the creative process of talk to so many traditionally published
authors who are like, I hate my cover.
I hate my cover.
Or things they had to cut out of their book because their editor said that they needed
to cut it because or else they wouldn't, you know, publish it.
And so there's so much more creative freedom and ownership with the self publishing side.
And I train my editors to understand that of the author always gets a say that whenever
we're saying, you know, this is what we suggest and this is, you know, how we would edit this
and maybe we would cut this out, but at the end of the day, it is your call.
And so that is, I think, the big differentiation between what we offer and what the traditional
publishing industry offers.
But we offer all of the services that traditional publishing offers in terms of editing and
the publishing and the marketing and helping you with just all the different steps of it.
And that is where we differ from all these other different self publishing.
So let's say somebody goes it alone and they publish their book on Amazon today, right?
They get all the way through the process of publishing.
It looks kind of pretty.
It says what they wanted to say.
They put their title on there and they just, they hit publish.
And you know, am I likely to, what's my percent chance of waking up tomorrow a millionaire?
It's really close to zero.
Why?
I thought Amazon like took care of that for me.
I thought everybody in Amazon would see my book.
What the heck?
So Amazon, there is a just business books.
A new business book is published on Amazon every 45 minutes.
And there are millions and millions and millions of books on Amazon.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if they're at the billion mark now.
They've opened up the floodgates for anybody to share their ideas, which is a huge benefit
for all these people who don't want to go the traditional route and who, you know, may
have been rejected.
I think I talked to somebody who got rejected like 80 times from different publishers.
And so these ideas can get out there, but at the same time, that means that everybody
else's ideas can get out there.
And so if you don't know how to shine and get above all of that, you're just going to
get lost in a sea of ideas and millions of books.
And so you have to know how to market.
And that's phase four is marketing your book.
And because you can have an idea and you can put it out there, but if nobody knows it's
out there.
Yeah.
So what should these aspiring authors like, what should they be doing instead with their
time?
You know, like if they're, they hear you out, you know, they, they now understand a little
bit of the struggles that exist there.
What should they do now?
They should hire me.
I think it's well said.
I'm glad you said that.
I'm glad you didn't beat around the bush.
I agree.
They need a hire.
And so what should go into the process of hiring?
And I like to talk about this a lot in the show because a lot of people, um, they rush
in and they hire somebody because somebody said they should hire them, you know, or because
somebody else referred it.
But if you don't, if you don't do your own due diligence, you leave yourself susceptible
for not understanding the value of what you're getting out of the process.
So when I'm evaluating a self publisher, what questions should I be asking Ashley?
What, what, what preparation should I make for a conversation with you or with somebody
else who's potentially going to, uh, you know, eat my book alive, if you will.
I think the first thing is to look for their vision of, are they helping me with all of
it?
I like that.
I like the vision side, you know, just saying.
Because I've worked with so many authors who've come to me after they've hired someone
else and usually they're not hiring something like this where they get all of it.
It's usually, oh, I hired an editor or I hired a ghost writer or I hired this person or I
hired that person.
None of these people can see the whole process.
And so they'll give you something, they'll produce something for you, but does it fit
into the entire equation?
Most of the time it doesn't.
And most of the time we have to just throw out what these other people did.
And so when you go into hiring, I, oh, I've just seen so many.
If you don't understand the entire publishing vision, then you cannot hire somebody to execute
that vision for you.
And so you need to find someone, and I would say come to me who understands the whole process
and understand what's actually going to work and every element that has to go into place
to actually make it profitable.
Is there that element of understanding your audience?
I'm going to help you understand who you're speaking to and how to reach them and how to
write to that audience.
Are you going to have somebody who understands how to edit so that you don't look unprofessional?
It's so cringy to see businesses with typos that like it's, you can't quite trust them
because they might correctly.
There's a billboard we drive by when I take my kids home and it says, it says, uh, comarical
real estate loans, not commercial, it says comarical.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, like how do you mess up, you know, your own business name or core
benefit on a massive billboard and then leave it there for months.
I mean, I guess it's attention grabbing.
But I'm wondering if there's a market for you for a landing page to create a rewriteyourbook.com
or deadbeatbooks.com.
So we've thrown that out there to help people maybe, maybe recover in their authorship program.
I bet there's a lot of people like you said, there are people who come to you for it.
I think it's great for people to also come to you the first time, you know, and maybe
not maybe avoid the process altogether.
But some of us are stubborn.
We have to learn the hard way and different facets of life.
So let's talk about these business owners and the content shift gears, shifting gears
a little bit.
You're welcome to keep that up.
I mean, like scroll through things that visual effects will be cool for people.
But in terms of entrepreneurs, let me grab my little question here.
Business owners are getting stuck.
I'm going to own this one.
You know, getting stuck on the content, you know, getting stuck on the treadmill of and
the belief that content is king.
You know, great content might be king, but content that is crappy is just crappy.
You know, so if you're getting content out there and it's not reflective of what your
audience needs, then, you know, maybe that's not your skill set, you know, and maybe you
can learn, but, you know, hire somebody like Ashley to help you do it and utilize the process
of working with such a provider as a coaching opportunity rather than just hiring a coach
who coaches you on the process, but never delivers what you actually need.
I think that's probably one of the shifts that I hope the business market starts to
take.
So what would you do?
Wrong question.
What should a business owner, what would you do as a business owner instead of tax?
And I guess, I'm going to do a little bit further.
I see a lot of business owners creating content because of what their friends recommend or
their mom recommends, you know, or their cousin record or another business owner who's not
even invested them recommends, right?
A mentor who's not close enough to the situation to recommend great.
You know, maybe you should write about this because I like the subject.
That's not a good idea.
That's not a strategy.
That's a slot machine, you know, and a gambling addiction is kind of what it is.
What do you recommend doing instead?
What should the process look like for a business owner in relation to creating strategic copy,
Ashley?
Okay.
Very good question.
I think like you were saying, content is quote easy to put up.
Like you can create stuff and throw it out there and have your ideas.
It takes time to, you know, kind of get it down and put it out there.
But strategic content is a whole different ballgame because it's again, going back to
that audience of who am I speaking to and what do they need?
What value do I offer?
And by offering this value, what results am I going to get?
And so it's all about relationships with content, that you're building a relationship with people
by offering value to them and then because you have presented that value and provided
them with this valuable relationship, they're going to maintain that relationship and buy
into the relationship, whether that's with your services or your products or whatever
it might be.
And so what I love to do with entrepreneurs and business owners is to look at, okay,
what are all the ideas?
What are all the things that you want to say?
And then more importantly, what is it that you want people to do because you've said
it?
And then look at the other end of the spectrum is what do people want to hear and how are
they going to be served by buying whatever it is you are offering?
And so coming from both ends of like, what do I offer?
What do I want to say?
What do they need?
What do they want to hear?
And finding that golden copy middle of like, okay, so how do I say it?
And understanding what people are looking for and the questions they're trying to get
answered and finding this, yeah, just that blend between those two areas of what you want
to say, because you could just say whatever you want.
It's research and development.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
Yeah.
It's dialogue, right?
With your copywriter too.
Right.
And I'm going to highlight that too.
Like it's the team behind that.
The biggest myth that I see happening in the world related to copy is people come to a
business and they say, I'm a copywriter.
I can do your content.
Bull crap.
Copywriter is part of a department.
You know, and that that creative department, the copywriter has an editor.
They have a publisher and these people are going to discourses getting convinced that
they have the magical power to be the best copyright in the world because they're given
a series of templates that nobody cares about, but they need to, they need a job.
They need to make some money.
So they start acting like they're a copywriter.
And then I hear business owners saying, oh, I already have a copywriter.
And I'm like, yes, that's why you're on the track to lose like the other 96% of businesses.
You've got to have access to somebody with the spectrum, the full spectrum of a team
behind it.
And without the proper dialogue, without the proper time dedicated to the conversation,
especially for business owners, right?
And people who are authors of important messages, messages that reflect their life, like a self-development
book, what are you doing?
Trying to, and sorry to consend, but sorry, not sorry.
What are you doing trying to publish that without validation and without a team to help
you think through the disciplines of what elements might need to change?
And again, Ashley has been a phenomenal help in mentoring me through the process of making
sure that when I publish the marketing funnel is wrong, that I publish it with the right
dynamics and aspects.
And she's going to challenge as well some of the concepts that I come up with, my team
challenges some of those concepts.
And we're actually going to showcase a little bit of this right now, because one of the
powers and benefits as a business owner of creating a book is that it gives you a new
level of authority or credibility if you do it right.
If you do it wrong, it can ruin your credibility and authority.
So it's very important that you don't just rush to publish every 45 minutes, like the
rest of the market that you actually publish something of extreme value.
So we've been, I'm big on this concept of the power marketing funnel and this chart
that you see over here, while it's, yes, a higher level formula than what I've seen
in the market, which the market only knows about the fact that you go, you get the consumer
state of mind, they don't even know that they just know that, okay, if I'm in a market,
people have to be aware that to be interested that if you consider what I'm doing, they
have to have intent to buy, evaluate and purchase.
And not everybody knows this, but a lot of the business owners out there, you know exactly
what I'm talking about when I refer to that marketing funnel and woohoo, we're at a 4%
success rate as a country in terms of developing businesses that stand the test of time.
That is not good.
I'm not happy about that.
What we don't have is somebody talking about the psychological actions that the seller
needs to take in order to influence the mindset of the consumer.
And there was one missing component here that we figured out.
We first, we had two missing components, but we've now realized that, okay, I've got to,
if I want somebody to be aware of me, I've got to intrigue them.
And if I want them to be attracted to me or rather interested, I've got to attract them,
right?
And then we miss the level of inspire, right?
If I can inspire people, that leads people to, to consider my offer and so on and so
on.
And I wouldn't have this developed to the degree that I do and have a, have the model
for that design without incredible input from Ashley and from my designer and from other
team members who've kind of played with the concept with me over time.
So I think there's extreme value in, and also making sure that you are, are thorough, but
you also have somebody to kind of kick you in the booty every week and say, move your
project forward, you know, like keep it going.
Here's what we need.
Let me spoon feed you, you know, what, what you need next in order to move to the next
step.
And I've seen the tail publishing do a phenomenal job of that for my business, for other people
who I also work with and associate.
We just had Tony Lopes on.
You were the ghost writer for Tony Ropes book, freedom at risk.
You know, and, and then we of course have our mutual relationship with Rick from Epiphany.
There's so much overlapping proof of the value that you put on the market.
And that's exactly why we want to do here on vision pros today.
So I'm super honored to have you, Ashley.
And I hope that the world catches, you know, this catches the world's attention and that
any aspiring authors and business owners or professionals who understand the value and
need of copy 100% consider you and interview you as part of their strategic plan to move
their own businesses and their own hopes and dreams of publishing and establishing their
legacies moving forward.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me, Jackson.
And I'm, I'm excited to follow up with you on your book and give you the little push
you need to keep going on it.
Well, we're doing that every day in our Slack channels, right?
But you know, that's, that's, you know, you are there for me on that.
And I do need to, I have my little task every Wednesday to make movements on my books and
make sure that they're coming out and moving forward.
So and thank you for all the help that you've done as well for publishing, for helping my
kiddos get their books published.
We didn't have time to talk about that today, but they've been in a previous episode.
And again, Ashley has been the catalyst and helped us with the manuscript on that and
the process of understanding how to make that a fruitful experience.
So if you want to get in touch with Ashley, you can reach her, I'm sure on Facebook, I'm
sure of course on LinkedIn, you can go to her website, you can sign up for the manuscript
reviews.
She's super approachable and ready to help.
And let's do our best.
If you found value in this or know an author or an entrepreneur who would find value and
getting their message out to the world, to the people who matter to them, then definitely
connect them to Ashley and to Taylor Publishing.
Thanks for being here, Ashley.
And everybody have a phenomenal day.
We'll see you later.