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Nicole Gebhardt
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Resources Mentioned
Books Mentioned
Closed Sundays | Nicole Gebhardt
Power of Habit | Charles Duhigg
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What You Will Learn In This Episode
[0:45] – We thank our sponsor, Wirecast Pro
[1:17] – Nicole’s inspiration to start her own company
- Having kids after failed pregnancies
- While taking care of her family she wanted to add value to herself
[2:55] – How Nicole helps her clients
- She looks at where you are now
- She looks at where do you want to be in three years
- How can she create a marketing strategy to get you where you want to go
- She looks at where the client enjoy using their time
- She wants to know what your strengths, what are your skills, and here you want to spend more time
[5:56] – What Nicole’s book, Closed Sundays, is about
- “How the best of the best share their faith through their actions, through their works. Not through a fish on their business card. Not through, you know, bible scriptures on social media”
[9:19] – Nicole’s vision for book publishing
- Dan Ritchie’s goal for Functional Aging Institute
[11:47] – “Create a book for where you’re headed so that you don’t outgrow it.”
[13:52] – Advantage of working from home
[20:12] What Nicole learned from Russell Brunson
- “Find what you’re comfortable with and know that and then just adopt it.”
[23:41] – Time out to thank sponsor, Wirecast Pro
[24:11] – Imperfect Action Round
- The biggest problem is starting without help
- Most of Nicole’s clients write the wrong book
- Figure out what you’re really good at and go get that one client and just keep pushing them through
- Be aware of the temptation to try to pull in other ideas
- Start scattering your resources, your time, your attention, and having to learn new things all the time
- Maximize the value of clients
- Link with other people to go on with your goal
[31:45] – Expert Authority Checklist
[33:00] – SPONSOR Wirecast Pro
[33:17] – Expert Authority World
Episode Transcript
Intro [0:01]
EA Interviews Episode 28. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.
Mario Fachini [0:13]
Welcome Expert Authority World. I’m excited for today’s episode. I have a question for you. Have you ever had a message? Have you ever wanted to get it out there? Have you ever thought about putting it into a book? Do you want to leave a legacy? Do you want to attract more clients? Do you want to get more speaking gigs? A lot of people strive for all of these but very few achieve it. And that’s why I’m excited to bring to you today Nicole Gebhardt from Niche Pressworks. She’s going to dive into detail right after we thank our sponsor.
SPONSOR Wirecast [0:45]
Congratulations. You got started with your cell phone and I welcome you to the live streaming game. Now you’re comfortable on camera and going live regularly. But I caution you, don’t get stuck in start up mode. This is why I stepped up my game with Wirecast Pro and advise you do too. Get your 30-day free trial at EAinterviews.com/wirecast.
Mario Fachini [1:07]
And we’re back. Nicole, how are you doing this afternoon?
Nicole Gebhardt [1:07]
Awesome. Hi, Mario. Good to see you.
Mario Fachini [1:09]
Good to see you. So tell me what inspired you to start your company? Why do you want to get into book publishing.
Nicole Gebhardt [1:17]
All right. So let’s start back at the beginning. I’m actually a recovering corporate girl. So I used to work at Caterpillar. I manage and employ communications and PR. I loved that path. I was quite happy climbing the corporate ladder. And I had a great career lined out with Caterpillar. And after a long story, we basically went through several loss pregnancies and miscarriages. I discovered that what it was working so hard to create at corporate was actually destroying my family goals. So it’s kind of a stress related thing that we identified. And so when my babies were finally born, I have two girls now. They are two years apart. When they were finally born, I left that career and came home. I just fought too hard to have them. So that’s the short version of a very long story. But I left to be home with my kids. And I was bored. And so I started looking around and seeing where I could add value. And I brought my corporate communications strategy experience to the small business owner. And that’s where I started. So I started working with marketing at the beginning. And eventually, we moved into book publishing as our number one marketing strategy that we have to work with business owners. So that’s the short version of how I got here.
Mario Fachini [2:26]
Well, I’m so glad you’re doing it because you’re one of the people and it’s why I want to do on the show that actually has heart and actually is making a difference. I know what you’re doing with your authors. And I’m so excited to see it over the years. And how do you identify, let’s say, working with them? You know, who’s your ideal prospect that – everyone wants to write a book but how do you decide, you know, what you qualify for the program or not? Because I know just like my program, you don’t work with everyone.
Nicole Gebhardt [2:55]
Yeah. I think, so my ideal client really appreciates the idea of working on a strategy for the book. So you know, we have a lot of people who come to me, they’ve already written the book. And for me, that kind of sucks the fun out of the whole project. Because I really like to look at where are you now. Where do you want to be in three years? And then how can I create a marketing strategy to get you where you want to go? And the number one asset that we’re going to create is a book. But we also need to look at your business model. We need to look at your ideal client. So we identify the strategy about where you want to be in three years. And then from that perspective, we create the book. And the way we’re going to implement it and create a whole formula and a sales funnel. And that’s my ideal client that appreciate somebody that’s going to go to that depth with them and help them figure out all those steps.
Mario Fachini [3:39]
So what is the process you take them through? I know you touched on something that made me smile, the sales funnel. Because a lot of people, they do their book and they have their message but they don’t really think about the marketing aspect. And I know you have a background in marketing, communications, PR. How do you incorporate that into your book strategy?
Nicole Gebhardt [3:58]
That’s a deep question. So it really is looking at where does the client enjoy using their time? So that’s one of the biggest things. Like, I’m not going to create a strategy around your book that involves heavy social media and blogging and email marketing, right? That’s all stuff that we are trying to avoid for you, right? Because that’s a time suck. So what I do is I look at what are your strengths, what are your skills, where do you want to spend more time. And we work with a lot of people that just all they need and all they want is a strategy where they just go out and hand out their books as fast as they can. And they let the books work for them. And we also work with people who are professional speakers and they’re trying to get speaking engagements and get paid to speak. And so a completely different strategy. So it really is the gamut for each client is for me to look at and say, “What are your strengths? What do you want to focus on doing? And then what’s the book and the strategy around it that’ll get you there the fastest?”
Mario Fachini [4:51]
Sounds like fun to me.
Nicole Gebhardt [4:53]
You’re talking – we’re singing to the choir here, right? Both of us love this stuff. So yeah.
Mario Fachini [4:57]
But the people listening and watching, they might think it’s this big giant mountain that they have to jump over. And, you know, I’ve done live events. I’ve done my book signings. And I’m going to talk about what you’ve accomplished, which is awesome. And I’m sincerely super excited for you. And I remember it was just a few years ago when you launched. Tell everyone about Closed Sundays. Because one of the things I admire about you and I practice this as well is actually taking downtime from business. Because so many people, I think, have “I hate this. I absolutely hate it. I abhor it. Whatever.” I know that’s a strong word. But so many people have this like, you know, “I just got to work nonstop and that’s not the key.” One of my favorite things I share is stop the glorification of busy. And what’s the book you came out with a few years ago when we met at an event? It drew me to you. Tell them about that. What’s the name of it? And why’d you write it?
Nicole Gebhardt [5:56]
Yeah. So you and I met back in 2015. And I just finished writing a book called Closed Sundays. And it was actually a response to, I’ve had a bunch of people that were saying, “I feel like God is leading me to come out about my faith and my business.” And they wanted to know how to do it. And I was like, “You know, I really don’t know. I’d seen good examples. And I’d seen bad examples.” And so the book that I wrote was a study of what I felt like the best of the best we’re doing. And it was a research project that I had written. And I kind of followed different people and came to a conclusion as I wrote the book at the end of it, which really was how the best of the best share their faith through their actions, through their works. Not through a fish on their business card. Not through, you know, bible scriptures on social media. But really, as you got to know them and their authenticity, you get to appreciate the value system that they had. And then that’s where you discovered their faith. So that’s what the book was about. And that’s really was a pivot point for me. There were a couple things I did in the strategy of that book, which now represent about 50 to 60% of my business. So that was another whole cool story.
Mario Fachini [7:00]
Do you want to dive into that? I’d love to hear it.
Nicole Gebhardt [7:02]
Yeah. So there was a business leader who was actually in my community that I wanted to get to know better. And so I strategically interviewed him for the book because I wanted to see if there was some partnership opportunities for me or for us and that’s what happened. So I interviewed him for the book. We got interested in each other’s work through that. I shared it. It was all part of the strategy. He knows that now, which is kind of fun. But it was my opportunity to leverage the book to build a relationship that I wanted. And through that now, we have a business partnership. And I’m the official publisher for his company. And so they work with trainers around the world – personal trainers. And we publish books for all their personal trainers now throughout the world, through that relationship from that interview in the book.
Mario Fachini [7:49]
So thank you for sharing that. I want to dive into the transformations that you’re having. Because I’ve been following you. And I love what you’re doing sincerely. And even the training that you came out with that I invested in, you have phenomenal work. There’s a lot of people who do book publishing but there’s very few who do it your way to your level. And I know no one does it exactly like you. And didn’t you just break the milestone of 100 published books in the last few years?
Nicole Gebhardt [8:17]
We did. So yeah, we published our 100th book in November. And I think we’re already up to 120 here, just you know, three months later. So our growth has been exponential which has led some major transformation. So now, you know, I’ve got a team of four employees. And I went from being terrified of hiring my first I remember the struggles for my first book that I had to hire a cover designer just to contract a designer and editor. It’s really a scary thing when your business owner to start outsourcing and trusting your clients to somebody else’s work. And then to start saying “I need my own employee” is another major step. So it’s just baby steps every step of the way. But yeah, we’ve grown and it’s been a fun journey. I’m thrilled. I don’t know, you know, what’s next. Our goal next is 1000 books.
Mario Fachini [09:02]
Well, you’re on your way for that. Congratulations again on your success. And I look forward to seeing the 200 mark, the 500 mark, and I have no doubt you’ll be able to reach 1000. So out of all the authors you’ve had come through your program, who would you say is the biggest success story transformation that you were able to provide for them?
Nicole Gebhardt [9:19]
I was trying to think of my favorite. Again, I think really it’s the guy I just talked about. So Dan Ritchie is the founder of the Functional Aging Institute. He’s the person I was talking about that I interviewed. Through him – when I met him, he had a personal training studio in our community where they were training people who work with the 55 and over market. So that was their specialty. It’s that niche market of boomer fitness. And at the time they had said, “You know, our goal originally was to train 1000 people in our community and change the lives of 1000 boomers.” And then he and his business partner saw that, “Wait a minute. If we trained 1000 trainers to do what we do. And each one of them impacted 1000 lives, we could change a million lives around the world.” So that was their vision. So that story is in the book, Closed Sundays. And that’s the vision I wanted to get behind. And now what I love is, I think for them, 60 of the 120 books that we’ve done have been for them. And we’re a major part of that vision of changing 1 million lives. And so that’s kind of the coolest success story. I mean, every one of our authors has huge pivot point moments from their book. But for me, to know that that one relationship from that one strategy has helped 60 trainers train. If they reach 1000 people with their book, that’s 60,000 lives that we can start to affect. That’s kind of cool.
Mario Fachini [10:39]
That is very cool. That’s a huge impact that you’re making. Because so many people, again, if you have a skill set, if you have a business, that’s fantastic. I would always encourage someone to build a business instead of work for someone else. But at the same time, are you making a transformation? Are you making an impact in the world? Because you can do a lot of things and it’s kind of like you’re just kind of there, which is good. Start your business if that’s what you want. But I see business as an opportunity to do and be so much more. And I just love seeing people like yourself that are really pushing the envelope and making an impact and succeeding and they have the business, kind of like the whole trifecta. So congratulations on that. So I kind of my – I’ll change the question here for you because this might seem really loaded. And you saw the questions before we started. And I ask everyone this, how has your book helped your business? But I’m going to add one in there. But if you want to touch on that real quick, I mean, this is – I didn’t set this up. You just happen to publish books. But how would you say book has helped your business? And how would you recommend it to someone else?
Nicole Gebhardt [11:47]
You know, what’s ironic is I have ghost written four books in the last couple of years. But I haven’t had a chance to update mine. So the last book that I’ve got publicly posted is the Closed Sundays book from 2015. I just did a light update to it just recently. So I keep craving the time to rewrite my book. The nice thing is I’ve been able and fortunate to really just build a business based on referrals from that first book that we did. So the book I did previous to Close Sundays was a book about how do you leverage a book to build your business. And that was huge for me. So for any business owners, the same process, right? The moment you become a published author, your brand automatically goes to the next level. I think what is unique again about what we do and when we look at strategic is, I have to help you as an author not only understand where you’re going to be the moment your book comes out because it’ll already be two or three rungs higher than where you were when you started your book. But my goal is to help you create a book that’s going to last you for three years. So we got to create a book for where you’re headed so that you don’t outgrow it. And that was actually less than what happened to me. I outgrew my first book quickly because it took me to the next level. So Closed Sundays is a book that was strategically designed to help me for three years,. We’re at that three year point and now it’s time for me to get another one out.
Mario Fachini [13:05]
You know what? Thank you for sharing that. Because I never have verbalized that in eight years of helping people publish their books. Because I have video marketing for business owners just off screen here. And I did mine strategically so I wouldn’t have to redo it in three, four, or five years. But I’ve never said it. I don’t think I know I didn’t write it with the intention of going this is on a three year game plan. I’m like, I want to do this one time and never have to change it. I have. But you were a lot more intentional about that. So thank you for my own benefit right there. I’m going to add in how speaking helped your business because I know you do speaking and training and you’ve also done your own live events.
Nicole Gebhardt [13:52]
You know, it’s funny. I just started doing some more speaking. So we’ve actually been really fortunate that I haven’t done a lot marketing. I’ve been hyper focused on the growth on the backside and we’ve been blessed that our businesses come as referrals. So I’m actually working on the business coach now and saying, “You need to get out there.” I don’t know that I necessarily need to get out there for the growth of my business as much as for the impact that I want to make to help other people understand the power. Anytime you’re out there telling your story and inspiring others, I think it’s really important and really valuable. I am kind of a homebody. I love working from home. I created a co-working space. I’ve had the corporate office with the window. And my dog and my cat and I we all prefer the opportunity now to work from home. And my team – I have four employees – they all work from home too. So I’m a homebody. So I don’t do a lot of speaking but you will see me this year do a lot more Facebook Live and coming out and probably some podcasting. Really just storytelling and getting more involved in our client’s story and helping them expand their network through the stories that we can share about them.
Mario Fachini [14:56]
I think it’s also because your a homebody. Because so many people – straight up, when I started my company and I went full time in 2008 and I haven’t looked back since, the first thing I did was like, “Okay. I got my five clients. I’m now a millionaire.” They were like $500 or 1,000 a piece. But I was working at GNC at the time. So like compared to seven an hour, I was a millionaire. I was like, “What do I need? I need thee corporate Cadillacs to drive around to appointments for me and my team.” But I didn’t even have yet but I shoot in the head. Then I was like, “I need an office.” So I got an office. And I was doing this – like I was trying to build this whole corporate thing. And I am so not corporate either. And I wanted to stress this point. If you think you need to be – clearly Nicole is successful. She just admitted she’s a homebody. I don’t know if you see a giant window behind me but I’m not in the corporate office either. There is a lot you can do anywhere in the world. I’ve even conducted some of my trainings next to a pool on my birthday when I was in Florida a few years ago. And if you have a laptop, if you have a webcam, if you have a microphone – here’s the thing, you just need the idea, you need the desire, and you need to go for it. Would you agree?
Nicole Gebhardt [16:10]
Yeah. You know, what’s funny is I was really hung up on this too. Like I said, I started a co- working space with a conference room. And we built it all out, blood, sweat, equity. We’re having a great time. It was a co-working space with myself, a web guy, a video guy, a photographer, and then a fine artist. And we had our own studio and conference room and everything. And for ten months, I was loving it. And then ten to 11 months, I was like, “Something is amiss.” And by the end of the 11th month, I realized, “I hate this. Like, I hate driving 20 minutes to get there.” I’m killing all kinds of time. I had a bunch of friends. But it just wasn’t working out. And I realized I have created a business I didn’t want. And so it was funny, because there were five of us in the office. And two of us, we had the same aha moment. And then a third one that we all were like, “Yeah. We really don’t want to renew.” So I bailed on that and came home. And this is the business I really want to make. This is the one you know – like I said, I fought hard to have our girls. My girls are 16 and 18. And I’ve been fortunate to be here for every day of it. And what’s so cool is, Mario, I find that there are a lot of people just like you and just like me. Most of my clients work from home. So you know, if a listener is struggling with feeling like they need to have an office to be credible, start looking around, you’d be shocked. How many awesome people are working from home now?
Mario Fachini [17:23]
I’m really close to queuing up the song Work from Home. We could play that too. But absolutely. So much has changed. And I’m thinking back to the office I had and I had a call team. Let’s kick it back into the 2000s. What do successful companies do? I was modeling after all the companies 100 years ago. I’m like, “I got my 12 clients now. I need to get more clients. So what am I going to do? I need to call people.” And then I was like, “Well, I can go faster. It’s time to scale.” I’ve been in business about six weeks. So I was like, “I need a call team.” And I got five people that make phone calls. We had auto dialers and different things. And I’ll never forget, I have the office, I have all these things going on. I was like, “Okay. Here’s my password.” And I thought I was tough. You know, I thought I was cool or whatever because I’m giving them access to my office and all of this. Only to find out it was like, “The weather is bad we can’t make it in Can I do these in a few days?” And I’m sitting here going, “Well, this defeats the whole purpose of the office.” And then I had this brain idea of I’m having someone drive 45 minutes away from their home to come into my office because it’s cool through crap weather to make phone calls that you can do from a phone from your home. So I bought five magicJacks at the time just to get all numbers, to get the area codes matched up and everything. Now there’s Google Voice, RingCentral and all these other things. But it was just like, “Yeah. I’m going to be you know, Microsoft and Dell.” It’s like it’s a different business model. But you don’t need that to be successful. You said podcasting, Welcome to the show, folks.” You can do this with the microphone from anywhere. I want to touch on the live casting. Because I’ve seen you on video. And I think you’re great on video. I love watching you in the training program I got from you. But tell me about your video strategy and why you think live streaming is important. What the video done for your business?
Nicole Gebhardt [19:29]
You know, for me, it’s practice. So I’m doing Russell Brunson’s 30-Day Challenge, which is really great. If you’re a web geek at all – like I’m a marketing geek. And you got to know about me like, I study marketing three to five hours a week. And invest a lot of money in continuing to study it. So I do that in the hopes that my clients don’t have to. That’s really what I’m doing. But Russell, in his training, talks about publishing constantly. In the 30-Day Challenge, about halfway through it, they start telling you, you need to get in the habit of publishing daily. And so then you find your medium. And ironically for me, the worst medium for me is short social media posts. Like 140 characters for me is the worst.
Mario Fachini [20:12]
Why is that?
Nicole Gebhardt [20:12]
I have no idea. But it is so liberating to finally know that. Like, that’s why I don’t do social media. That’s why I hired now a millennial, Katie, she’s going to be in charge of the short run social media. My thing is long run content. Like, I’m really great at writing books. But I’m not great at writing 140 characters. But the other thing that I really have always liked is, video, and particularly this, video interviewing. And it comes from my Caterpillar days. You never know what God’s going to enforce you to do when you’re young in order to be prepared when you’re old. But when I was in Caterpillar, one of the things we had to do was creating monthly video. And I had to go to Caterpillar installments and interview people. And I was being groomed for the corporate PR channel at the time. Caterpillar had their own employee news channel. And so that was one of the things we’re looking at as a career opportunity for me. So I painfully did it when it was hard. And so now it’s a lot more fun and a lot less scary. And so that’s what I found as my favorite medium is to do a Facebook Live. And then I will probably convert those and have it audio ripped into an audio podcast. So I’m not painfully involved in that process. That will be what Katie does. And from there then, you know, you can create transcribed audio. So there’s all kinds of cool things you can do from that. But yeah, I think the secret – my takeaway from Russell Brunson was find what you’re comfortable with and know that and then just adopt it.
Mario Fachini [21:30]
I like that. Because there’s so many people – everyone knows me for video. That’s what I wrote the book on. That’s why I’m doing this on video and I love it. Because you get to – having the phone calls, having the emails going back and forth just to set something up, and then not be able to see the person. I mean, there’s recordings I’ve done where I’m just sitting here going, “Well, that’s a nice mic flag. And it’s like I’m just staring at the wall talking at nothing.” If you’re going to take the time and energy and do it, I’ve always encouraged people to do it on video. Some people have an aversion to it. But isn’t it a lot more fun to see the reactions and everything?
Nicole Gebhardt [22:08]
Well, I think the interesting thing is, for me, it’s more fun. So you and I love this. We do work from home. It does require you actually get dressed. And that was one of the fun things that Russell said, “You know, if you don’t want to get dressed then go audio or go write. Do blogging on media, whatever. Find your thing that’s not scary that you’re going to be comfortable and do it.” But yeah, for you and I, it’s video. I think the other interesting thing for business owner to consider is where will your listeners be? So the reason I’m going to do videos because I’ve got a lot of listeners that are on Facebook, right? And then I can copy that over and post it on YouTube. But I, personally, am in love with podcasts. I love listening to audio podcasts while I walk the dog. So that’s why I’ll probably rip it into an audio version and share it there. So from a strategy of marketing perspective, like starting with video is the easiest for us. And it makes a lot of sense because we can do this then we can turn it audio and you can then have it transcribed and turn it into print. It’s really hard to turn anything from print into video, right? So start at the top and work backwards. Yeah.
Mario Fachini [23:08]
Nicole, thank you for telling me about the podcast. Because I’ve been asking a lot of people where they’re listening to them since I launched mine. And I’m glad to know you listen to it when you’re walking the dog. And when this airs, it’s going to be funny because when this episode airs I’m just going to be picturing you – there’s a click to tweet, you know the episode is live and everything, and I have a feeling your assistant is going to be doing that. But I appreciate what you’re sharing. We’re going to thank the sponsor and then come back for the Imperfect Action Round. You ready for that?
Nicole Gebhardt [23:39]
Yes, sir.
Mario Fachini [23:40]
All right.
SPONSOR Wirecast Pro [23:41]
Instead of trying to get your prospects attention, why not be so captivating they can’t look away. That’s a quote from my book Video Marketing for Business Owners that I created as a reminder for both my clients and myself for success on camera and that’s why I use Wirecast Pro for my professional productions. And I advise you do as well. Get your 30-day free trial today at EAInterviews.com/Wirecast and start filming your show professionally the way your brand and audience deserves. Once again, that’s EAInterviews.com/Wirecast.
Mario Fachini [24:11]
And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Nicole, are you ready to take Imperfect Action?
Nicole Gebhardt [24:19]
Every day, sir. Every day.
Mario Fachini [24:22]
All right. First question, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making? And what’s the fastest way they can fix it?
Nicole Gebhardt [24:31]
Oh, the biggest thing is they start without help. So you got to have a coach. You got to have somebody who’s looking at you. My client’s biggest mistake is they write the wrong book. They usually write the book they’ve been dreaming about for three years. And by the time it comes out, that idea is already four years old. And it’s not at all where you’re headed in the next three years. So it is about eight out of ten times when a client comes to me with a book that’s half written or fully written. We start over. And that they understand why. Like they realize once they come to me that, “Oh, this won’t get them where they want to go.” And so usually we try to reuse some of that content. But a lot of times we just start from scratch.
Mario Fachini [25:12]
I really like that. Jessica, you getting a note of that? Okay. Good. Like I said earlier, I literally just I’m ambitiously lazy. I didn’t want to rewrite the book every single year. So I was like, how can I design it where it doesn’t have to be rewritten every year? But I was never that intentional. A huge value add for me right there. So you got me thinking about some other stuff. So the next question would be, what is the fastest path to the cash? We’re talking about business, how can people that want to start out get the money the fastest? Or someone that’s already in motion, how can they get it more quickly?
Nicole Gebhardt [25:52]
One of our competitors in this industry is a woman named Dr. Angela. And she talks about the We portal. And just really niching down to what’s the one thing you can do really well over and over and over again? And define one product for one type of person and just recruit the heck out of it. So a lot of business owners are trying to be a jack of all trades. Like, “I could make money here and I could make money there.” And they start diluting what they do. And that’s the fastest way to build a business you don’t want. Figure out what you’re really good at and go get that one client and just keep pushing them through. You won’t have to keep creating new proposals and customizing pricing and everything. So that’s my solution really, the fastest path to results is to niche down to something that you are particularly very good at and just keep driving it. And be aware of the temptation to try to pull in other ideas and start scattering your resources, your time, your attention, and having to learn new things all the time.
Mario Fachini [26:48]
I love that. I agree 100%. I tell my clients all the time, “Go an inch wide and a mile deep.” Too many people spread out and you nailed it. So the last question of the Imperfect Action Round is, how do you maximize customer lifetime value? So we’re talking to entrepreneurs and business owners, you get your prospects. I liked your one strategy of interviewing people. Apparently, that’s a good thing to do. But how do you maximize that once they come on board how do you turn it into more than just, “Okay. We did the book and we’re done.”
Nicole Gebhardt [27:22]
You know, I started to do that and you can go deeper and deeper. And what I realized is, for me, there’s actually an ending point that I prefer to end it. So I could keep going deeper with the client but I start diluting my own skills. And so what I decided to do is to maximize the value of the people that we’ve worked with is to really focus on getting a great case study what we’ve done for them and turning that into a story. And then helping them leverage the network. But for me, there is an actual ending point. And we could go deeper. I could keep working with him for a year or two. And I would love to. I mean, we become close friends with all of our clients. But I’m going to be the opposite on that. And say, “We found our niche by saying this is where we’re done. We’re about 90 days into your book. And then we’re probably – you’re ready for something more. You’re ready to go into podcasting. You’re ready to work with somebody on video. You’re ready to work with somebody who’s a specialist on refining your stage presentation. There are other things that we just want to be a jack of all trades in all areas.
Mario Fachini [28:23]
I like that. And I don’t think you’re doing the opposite. You know your power medium and you’re sticking with it. Because the second you go into video, into podcasting, into this, especially live events, I think a lot of people go the natural progression is, “I have a book. I want to speak. I want to do video podcasting.” That’s more of a personal preference if you ask me. Some people do both. And then it’s, “I want to do my own live events. Every single one of those that I’ve done is completely different even though they’re very similar.” And there are a ton of work to do them the right way. Because so many people don’t. But you’re absolutely right, there are different skill sets. I can’t even imagine you taking all your authors and the frequency you’re doing books and kick off live events for each of those also. You need a whole other division.
Nicole Gebhardt [29:17]
Yeah. What’s funny is I understand it. And so I do in the strategy to direct them, “This is where you need to go.” I try to link them up to the right people to get them to go on. But we have looked at our business and said, “This is our natural stopping point. And when you’re ready to do another book, we’ll be right here ready for you.” Other than that, like, “You need to run with some pros in other areas that can help you next.”
Mario Fachini [29:37]
Excellent. Well, I appreciate your answer. Because all I’m asking for is honesty. I’m not looking for anyone to come up with the right answer. Because you’re right answer is different than someone else’s. And that’s why I love doing this because, you know, we can let the audience decide what they want to do. All right. Nicole, what book would you recommend? What’s the best book you could recommend that’s made the biggest impact for you?
Nicole Gebhardt [30:01]
You know what? I’m a bookaholic, right? So at any given time that’s free. I’ll tell you the book I’m reading right now that I really like is the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Really, really great book. Read that with a highlighter, a pen, and a piece of paper. I’m always working on myself and so kind of a lab of my own. But really cool much better book than I ever thought it would be. I’m not real big fan of the cover design. So it’s kind of funny. But really read the book.
Mario Fachini [30:31]
Like a story book?
Nicole Gebhardt [30:31]
Yes. It’s one of those that I’ve been reading for months because it’s so good that I absorb it. And then I put it down and I ponder and work on that for a little while and pick it back up. So it may take me three months to read that one but it’s really good.
Mario Fachini [30:47]
Well, I’ll have to check that out. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes. And I appreciate you for saying use a highlighter. I love reading with a highlighter. So Nicole, where can people find you?
Nicole Gebhardt [31:00]
The website is NichePressworks.com. Some people say niche. Some people say niche. It’s kind of fun. The way I describe it is, if you drink your tea with your pinky out, you can call us Niche Pressworks. And if you drink beer, you want to call us Niche Pressworks. So funny that I picked a name that people don’t agree on how to pronounce it, which is, you know, oh, well, the domain work. So anyway, that’s where you can find us and learn more about what we do.
Mario Fachini [31:27]
Very good. Well, Nicole, it’s been an absolute pleasure. And I wish we had a lot more time but this was a lot of fun. And I am glad you got to come on.
Nicole Gebhardt [31:36]
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks everybody for joining us.
Mario Fachini [31:39]
All right, We’ll see you next time. Have a great day. And God bless.
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