Jul 30, 2024

Write a Book to Grow Your Law Firm – Rob Kosberg, Best Seller Publishing

Apricot Podcast Episode 1

Episode Summary

Rob Kosberg, a bestselling author and founder of Best Seller Publishing, shares his journey from the real estate industry to becoming a successful author and entrepreneur. After experiencing the financial crisis in 2008, Rob turned to writing a book, which became a game-changer for his new business. He discusses the importance of writing a book to establish authority and attract clients. Rob also shares his experience with hiring a ghostwriter and the mistakes he made in the process.

Overall, his story highlights the power of writing and publishing a book to promote and grow a business. In this conversation, Rob discusses the importance of time and the cost of not knowing. He shares his experience of making a million-dollar mistake by picking the wrong ghostwriter, which delayed the process of writing his book. Rob emphasizes that time is more valuable than money and that the potential income lost during the delay was far greater than the cost of hiring the right help. He also highlights the power of having a book and how it changes the way people perceive you. Rob provides examples of clients who have successfully used their books to generate referrals and strategic relationships, resulting in significant revenue.

Takeaways

Writing a book can establish authority and attract clients to a business.
Hiring a ghostwriter may not always be the best option, as it can result in generic content that lacks personal connection and emotion.
Taking the time to write a book oneself can lead to a more authentic and impactful result.
Learning from past mistakes and experiences can lead to personal and professional growth. Time is more valuable than money, and the potential income lost during a delay can far exceed the cost of hiring the right help.
Having a book changes the way people perceive you and can lead to new opportunities and clients.
Using a book to generate referrals and strategic relationships can result in significant revenue.
The title and cover of a book are crucial in attracting readers and creating curiosity.
Writing a book is a game-changer for your business and can have a profound impact on your success.

Sound Bites

“We went from zero in this business to a million bucks in just over a year.”
“I’m actually doing a joint venture with Dan Kennedy, which is the first time ever.”
“I hired a ghostwriter and that was a terrible experience.”
“If I tell people it was my million dollar mistake, because it ended up adding more than a year onto the process.”
“It’s the money that you could have made in that period of time that’s far more valuable than the money that you could pay somebody to help you do it right.”
“If you don’t know how to make a million dollars and you’re making a hundred thousand a year, then not knowing how to make a million bucks is costing you $900,000 a year to not know that.”

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background of Rob Kosberg
04:17 The Power of Writing a Book to Establish Authority and Attract Clients
13:16 Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis
19:37 The Pitfalls of Hiring a Ghostwriter
28:12 The Importance of Authenticity in Writing a Book
32:26 Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis and Building a Successful Business
36:43 The Power of Perception
41:18 Generating Revenue
57:29 The Importance of a Captivating Title and Cover
59:53 Writing a Book: A Game-Changer for Your Business

Transcript

Nick Kringas (00:00.6)
All right, this is Nick Kringas. I am here with Rob Kosberg of Best Seller Publishing. Just a brief intro of Rob. Rob is a three -time bestselling author, and he’s been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine. His, not his most recent book, his most recent book, I believe, is published, Write with AI. Is that right, Rob?

Rob (00:26.73)
Write with AI.

Nick Kringas (00:28.386)
And then the one before that that I read was publish promote profit. And the system that goes behind that has helped countless entrepreneurs become the go -to authority in their markets. And just to gain authority and help them kind of promote the book and become a bestselling author and then use that book in a business purpose for marketing reasons to promote their businesses and to grow their businesses.

So it’s really good to have you on Rob. yeah, good to see you again. The first one, the first podcast that we did did not record and I felt, I know I thought it was great. we have the audio, so if you want to check that out, I felt terrible, but Rob was gracious enough to say, Hey, let’s just rerecord it. So,

Rob (01:00.714)
Good to see you again, buddy.

Rob (01:07.518)
And that was so epic too.

Rob (01:19.286)
Absolutely. And we spent the first 10 minutes talking about golf

Nick Kringas (01:22.896)
That’s right. As, as usual, as per usual. So Rob, I, I re I originally met Rob at a top one mastermind event that Todd Brown puts on. and Rob, you’ve been, I know you’re a part of multiple groups, including, including Russell Brunson’s group and now the top one. so just a little bit of background maybe about how you got to those groups and then we’ll get into, and then we’ll get into your background.

Rob (01:52.572)
Yeah. you know, someone might say I’m a mastermind junkie. I, you know, I, I’m a big believer in, in education and, in, shortening the timeframe between, you know, learning something and actually experiencing success in something. And, I learned that from my dad when I was in real estate. my dad sent me through various coaching programs, some pretty famous ones.

for people involved in real estate, Mike Ferry, Tom Ferry, those guys. I actually did the book for one of the books for one of the Ferry brothers on real estate, which was cool mindset and stuff that came years and years later. But so probably from my dad and the mentorship that he had when he was in real estate and then, you know, him mentoring me. And, you know, when I got into the online world, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m not

the, I’m not the youngest dude, right. In, that online space. In fact, oftentimes I’m one of the older guys in the room. And, and so like, I’m always like digging in. a huge believer in marketing because probably primarily in my earlier business career in real estate, and this is going all the way back many, many years. my whole, my whole business and, and mentality taught by my dad was.

You know, make cold calls, get out there and hustle, knock on doors, that kind of thing. And I did that for years and years and years, really, really successfully. And when I learned, via Dan Kennedy more than 20 years ago now that there was another way I was like, I would like to know that other way, please. And, and, you know, that, that went from, you know, direct mail and I did radio and television advertising.

Nick Kringas (03:37.702)
Yeah.

Rob (03:49.118)
It went from all of that to the online space. And, that’s where I got introduced to like Russell Brunson and, you know, Todd Brown, of course, where, where we met and, many others that, you know, have just helped me. mean, my entire business is, online marketing now. So it’s, it’s using my books in conjunction with book funnels and paid advertising to attract clients into my business every single day. So it’s a, it’s a game changer.

Nick Kringas (04:16.568)
Awesome. have, we have that in common is that one of the first people I ever learned from in online marketing was Dan Kennedy and he obviously not an online marketer, but I was running a restaurant at the time and I picked up a book called Moonlighting on the Internet by Yannick Silver. He mentioned Dan Kennedy as kind of the, the guru, the godfather of direct response.

Rob (04:39.418)
yeah.

Nick Kringas (04:46.564)
So I signed up for his newsletter and it was from there, he emailed me about a course that his SEO guy was putting out. And that’s how I was originally introduced into the SEO world. And I learned SEO for the restaurant primarily. Dan Kennedy was the source, was the first guy that I was really learning from in terms of marketing anyway.

Rob (05:13.076)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, he’s the, I think, you know, for our generation and I’ll expand that just a little. He’s, he’s the OG, right? He’s the, he’s the, original gangster of, of all of that stuff. so I, know, and I also, you know, some people don’t like Dan grumpy old Dan kind of thing, but I, I like, I like the style. I like, I like the straightforwardness of it. I love direct response.

that after many, many, many years of cold calling and hustling to know that there’s a better way and an easier way. Man, I was all

Nick Kringas (05:53.582)
Yeah, what drew me to his ideas was the, the idea of, this big dumb company versus direct response and, know, spending millions on, on just brand building and putting your name out there versus. Yeah.

Rob (06:02.516)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob (06:08.978)
Yeah, have a Coke and a smile, right? They got billions of dollars to invest in polar bear cartoons. You and I don’t have

Nick Kringas (06:15.032)
Right. No, no. When I was like, yeah, that’s not me at all. So I was, I loved his angle, which was like track everything, make sure that everything you put out there returns you a certain, a certain amount of money back for each investment. So, so I was really into Dan. So when you, now we can get into your story a little bit, but I read it in the book and, and feel we can totally go over it again. I don’t think that’s a, that’s an issue,

You were in real estate and then 2008 happens when it was just a mortgage and financial meltdown. So like you said, you were really successful in that world and then, well, take us back to like 2008. What was that like?

Rob (06:52.308)
Meltdown.

Rob (07:03.606)
about as horrible as you can imagine. you know, I mean, I was in real estate on and off for a long, long time since I was 18 years old. And by that time I was in my early forties. So, you know, I was pretty established. had multiple businesses. we did, closings. So I owned a title company, closing real estate. had a financial services kind of niche.

I owned a mortgage company and I owned a real estate company and we coached and taught and spoke on real estate investing. I, we had a ton of real estate investments. And, you know, I mean, it’s hard to imagine even now it’s not that long ago. It was 15, 16 years ago, but it’s hard to imagine. mean, imagine the real estate that you own and that you either live in

Or that you own as investment goes drops like in six months by 60%. like that’s what happened. you know, the single family home I lived in was about a, at that time, you know, conservatively two, two and a quarter million dollar property, equestrian trail, a paddock barn in the back acre, 8 ,000 square foot, magnificent four car garage.

And, and that house went from two and a quarter million to like 850 ,000. And I mean, I, I put down like real money, like $350 ,000 of real money to buy that house. And it was gone. It was gone. And the same with all the other real estate that I, that I owned. mean, I had tons of equity in my real estate until I didn’t. And, and add to the fact that real estate wasn’t moving.

you know, I mean, if I could have helped my real estate for five years or 10 years, certainly if I could have held it until now, it’s all gone way back up and it’s, it’s significantly higher than even its highs way back then. But I was, my business income was all around real estate and, that market had completely died. Shut down. The only, only homes that were selling were homes that were, government, you

Rob (09:26.606)
Frannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or FHA VA. And we didn’t do any of that. We didn’t do the lower income stuff. So, you know, I mean, for anybody who heard the first recording, I don’t want to begrudge that point, but it was terrible. It was, it was a nightmare. It was a complete nightmare. mean, I was, you know, I was pulling art off my walls, you know, original artwork

to sell it for pennies on the dollar. That’s not the time to sell, by the way. That’s the time to buy. And you know, I mean, I, I’m like, you know, the stuff that I sold my, you know, my Rolex is my, my, you know, the, know, stuff that it’s, thank God it still had value because, know, even though it was 25 cents on the dollar, I needed that money. And, and it, you know, helped me to pay my electric bill and

You know, keep the lights on and, keep me in a home. So it was a terrible, it was a terribly difficult time. and fortunately I did have mentors and, and, am a, I’m a spiritual person. had been for a long time. so my personal faith in God, really got me through that, but it was the worst time of my life. Now, looking back at it, fantastic. Right. Really? Honest to goodness. Looking back.

Nick Kringas (10:46.47)
It’s funny how that happens.

Rob (10:52.022)
There are two things I look back on. Number one, wasn’t that bad? like I lived in my house the whole time. It was more the worry and the anxiety and the fear. And, and, and I, and I had property foreclosed on and like the worst possible thing that could have happened did from the standpoint of, finances. but I was healthy. My kids are healthy. My wife is healthy. Like our, marriage is strong, all of that. And looking back on it, what a lesson I learned and

what amazing growth I experienced as a man, as a leader, just, looking back on it, I see it as great blessing at the time. It was so painful, worst time of my

Nick Kringas (11:37.964)
Wow. And then at the time you had kids, a wife, like you said, you had three kids at the

Rob (11:44.822)
Three kids in private school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, that was awful. yeah. You know, and look, I mean, I found my way out of it. and I found my way to something amazing that has led to, you know, 25, $30 million, you know, in, in revenue, thousands of people that I’ve helped with their books, all because I got advice to write a

Nick Kringas (11:49.663)
My goodness.

Rob (12:15.126)
for my financial services company, the real estate companies, all that had to be shut down. mean, we, I invested, I pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of my pocket, drain my savings thinking that real estate is going to turn around. It’s going to turn around. going to turn around and years, it took years for it to turn around. I mean, it didn’t really start turning the corner probably till 2013. looking back, but other markets were still worse. People were still

You know, for a lot of people, the recession ended. If you were in real estate, the recession went on for a really long time, but, but in financial services, it ended. And, and so fortunately I had that business. had, you know, this book, this ugly little book that I wrote, you know, on the advice of Dan Kennedy, that was a game changer. It, it exploded my business and, and led me into an entirely different business, which again, so grateful

Nick Kringas (13:15.312)
So it’s interesting. You said that you were doing all that you could to keep that business alive and for as long as you could. So at the time in this great turmoil and just struggle and pressure, you were trying to grasp and keep this business going, which I can certainly relate to. So looking back, would

Would it have been different maybe if you had way more money or to keep these things afloat? How would that have been different? You don’t think it would have been different?

Rob (13:53.568)
I would have lost more. Yeah. I would have lost more money. you know, the, the, if I had the knowledge that I have today, back then I would have shut it down much faster. the, the mistake that I made was just pouring all of my personal wealth to keep the business open when I should have just cut it to the bone.

And maybe even just shut it down entirely. You know, when, COVID hit and the world shut down right in March of 2020, we moved from California, which was where my office was to our, our home in St. Augustine. And, when it, when the world shut down, I was like, okay, I’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop the second, you know, that, that old term, the second shoe to drop. I’ve been waiting for it. And

You know, we had a, we had a war, you know, nice war chest and the business was, was going great, but the whole world shut down, right? Like, everything shut down. Of course, restaurants and, and in -person type businesses, they were, they were ground zero of COVID, gyms, restaurants. That was like the real estate market in 2008. And, but we didn’t know what we didn’t know. So when 2000 and, and, 20,

COVID hit, week one, when everything shut down, we’re flush with cash. We’re business is doing great, but I pulled the entire staff together and I said, I said, okay, you know, our office was shut down in California that, know, so I’m, I got to pay this big, you know, $10 ,000 a month office expense, but we can’t even go to it. So we all met on zoom and I said, look, here’s the deal. I said, I, I, right now we don’t know what’s going to happen in the

and so we have two options. We said, said, option number one is, the entire team goes half time. we cut you from 40 hours a week to 20 hours a week immediately, or we have to lay off a significant number. And I’m going to let you guys decide which, which route we’re going to go. and everybody, everybody was in favor of immediately going to 50%. business

Rob (16:18.39)
You know, it’s not like anything terrible happened, but I was like, I was ready, like for the shoe to drop. That’s what I should have done way back in 2007 when the signs started coming now. they were only on a halftime for three weeks and, we ended up doing half a million dollars. we had a killer month in April. We, had a big challenge. The challenge alone did a half million dollars plus our normal business. I don’t know. It might’ve been 700 ,000. We had a killer month.

and so immediately I put everybody back on them. Like, okay, we’re online. We’re an online business now. And this COVID thing doesn’t look like it’s going to hurt us, but that was the right decision to make. and I, and I liked the way I did it. I think we did it. I think I learned from my mistakes, 15 years ago, 16 years

Nick Kringas (17:10.276)
That’s, that’s just awesome that you, had a very, very similar experience, in COVID, although, you know, I’m, I’m in my forties now and I didn’t learn, I didn’t have that first experience. So there was my first experience. And I think, like you said, I think we, you know, we held onto things for too long. my brother was running the restaurant. had sold the restaurant to him, in about

So although I wasn’t in the restaurant, my I was getting an income, you know, we were holding the note for my brother and and I had retired my parents, they went to Greece. So they were very much reliant on that money. And if just like you said, if I acted a little bit more quickly, I was on top of the situation with my brother, he would be in a better.

I mean, he eventually closed the restaurant, but not until about a year and a half ago. So he kind of struggled through it and he amassed all this debt. He wasn’t paying us. so we did all we could, but it was already too late. Like if, if we had, you know, nipped it in the bud or got together really early on in COVID, I think it would have went a lot differently. So, so very similar, very similar situation that I wish I would have acted a little bit, faster or sooner.

Rob (18:35.926)
I don’t know. I don’t know if you can learn that lesson without learning that lesson. mean, maybe if, if you’re humble enough to listen to somebody and you have somebody around you that really experienced that, maybe then, you can save it, but like, I don’t know. mean, my dad and I were in business together and my dad had been in business for 40 years and you know, he, he didn’t know, you know what I mean?

He experienced recessions and that kind of thing, but nothing like what 2008 was. And, and so, you know, and, you experienced, you’ve never experienced anything like 2020 or your brother. And so, you know, I mean, we don’t worry about it, right. It is what it is. And it was a lesson that we learned, but you know, when it happens again and something is going to happen, it always does when it happens again, you

the experience will prepare you to handle things differently.

Nick Kringas (19:36.198)
Yeah, it just seems like you have better contingency plans because you, you know, more things that could go wrong and how to handle those things. But I mean, we went off on a little tangent, but back to, it was fine. I like it. I mean, you know, I, I’m interested in it. That’s why we, that’s why we went into it. but when you, going back to when, 2008 and you said that your mentors, recommended or advised you to write a book,

Rob (19:47.071)
Yeah,

Nick Kringas (20:05.498)
Tell me about that. Like what was the thinking there? What were you asking them? You know, what were you trying to do in the next version of your life?

Rob (20:14.452)
Yeah. You know, I had, I was known, for real estate, because I, I spoke on real estate. We advertised, we spent a lot of money in advertising. were Dan Kennedy disciples, even while in real estate. So we did radio advertising, we did newspaper advertising. And so now I’m going to get into financial services. I’ve closed my real estate and no one really knows me for

So I just asked, I said, look, what would you do? know, I mean, we’re coming out of this terrible recession. You know, we got absolutely hammered. We made a lot of mistakes. We lost, you know, everything, almost everything, more than everything, depending on how you look at your debt. you know, Dan said, you know, look, there’s nothing better than a book to get known and

great clients. of course, Dan has lived that model for many, many, many years. And it just rang true to me. So I wrote, you know, Life After Debt, which was, you know, kind of my financial services book. It’s not a direct investing book, but we did all different kinds of financial services, everything

short sales and foreclosure defense, which at that time was big, to, know, life insurance and investments and, that sort of thing. And, and this book basically, you know, made a, made a name for me, got me on the radio, got me a lot of free publicity, speaking engagements, that kind of thing. And almost from day one, I started getting clients from

And, and then we started using it in a paid fashion. we ran paid ads, offering the book for free. That was our book funnel. we’ll ship you the book for free. actually ship them the book for free. We even paid for shipping. We mailed it out. We did it all in, in, in the office, right? had hundreds of books that were going out every week. And, and of course we needed, you know, name, address, telephone number, email address, all of that stuff.

Rob (22:37.27)
So, you know, we just followed up with those people. did you get, did you get the book? great. you didn’t have a chance to read it. I understand. You know, well, look, I’m, on the phone now. Tell me, tell me about your problems. Tell me about your situation. What are you trying to solve? And people just became clients. And I mean, we went from zero in this business to a million bucks in just over a year, 13 months, and then multi -millions in the next year. And,

And this was 2009, 2010, 2011, when it’s still pretty bad out there. know, mean, stock market was still way down. Real estate was way down and we were exploding. So people, you know, started hearing my ads. were now spending, you know, 20 ,000 bucks a month just on radio ads and kind of owned the airwaves now from nothing. Like this is going from zero

20 grand a month, which at that time was a lot of money, or it seemed like it, for radio advertising. And so people just started asking, how are you doing it? And, and I love your book and can you help me with it? And one thing led to another, and that led to me helping people for free at first. And then, and then I saw that there was actually a business there. And so, started helping people to do their books

avoid the mistakes that I made with mine over the first few years, kind of shortcut the process. And, you know, that morphed into ghost writing and book launches and PR and media and, building book funnels and you name it, the whole, the whole thing now. And I sold my financial services company and went all in about a dozen years

Nick Kringas (24:24.954)
Fantastic story, Rob. it’s crazy, it’s right. So just to kind of recap, first of all, what a testament that Dan Kennedy, who we initially called the OG of direct response and of marketing says, you know, what you should do is write a book. There’s nothing better than writing a book to getting yourself out there and promoting a business, even if it’s from scratch or if it’s established. And then take that and fast forward and…

Rob (24:26.55)
Crazy,

Nick Kringas (24:54.904)
you from what I’m gathering, you got yourself out of a hole and within a year’s time back on your feet with a new company that was prospering and successful and bringing in money and you’re helping a lot of, a lot of people in the financial world.

Rob (25:10.334)
Yeah, it was,

When we were going through the most difficult time, mean, like literally wondering how I’m going to pay my electric bill. mean, hadn’t, I hadn’t thought about that maybe ever in my life. mean, even as a teenager, I was a hustler and, and working hard and always had a, had the nicest car of all my buddies. And, know, and this is like working as a bellman or, or working for hotels and stuff. And so, you

When we were going through that period of time, it seemed like forever, but looking back, it was about 18 months of like real pain. and then, you know, the, the new business exploded, took off. we had a lot of cleaning up to do over a number of years and, we’re able to do all of that, which was really cool. And, that business,

you know, bestseller, the financial services company, as I said, was a great start and sold. And then bestseller publishing, you know, is a company that’s done, you know, approaching $30 million in revenue and thousands of clients and dozens of employees and writers and, you know, just really, and really fun stuff. Great people. I actually, I don’t think you know this. I didn’t just arrange this until like two weeks ago,

I’m actually doing a joint venture with Dan Kennedy, which is the first time ever. I’ve done various stuff with him, but we’re actually doing a JV together where I’m going to market to my folks, his stuff. He’s going to market his, his folks, my stuff, and we’re going to do a three day challenge together. And, which I’m really excited about. That’s kind of a talk about, you know, full circle. pretty

Nick Kringas (26:40.953)
Wow.

Nick Kringas (27:02.937)
That is just outstanding. Congrats, Rob.

Rob (27:04.714)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I’m really, really excited about that. That’s, you know, in some ways a dream that wasn’t even a dream come

Nick Kringas (27:15.342)
Yeah, it’s almost like you have arrived where you’re, you know, now working with your mentor that, that told you to write a book and that we’re been studying forever. That’s fantastic. Man, you threw me off track with that one. That was a, that was a big one. Awesome. So when you, so now, like you said, you started the financial services company, you grew that you eventually sell it, sold

Rob (27:23.124)
where it all started, you know?

Nick Kringas (27:42.34)
because people were asking you like, how did you do this? And then people started asking you to help with their books and the same process that you went through. But if we can go back to the book, Life After Debt, a little bit and talk about, in three parts, like what you talk about now is publish, promote, profit. That’s your system for writing and getting a book out there. But in terms of that framework,

How did that go in terms of you writing that initial book? Could you talk a little bit about that? Maybe like, you know, what you would have done better mistakes you made, what went well, what didn’t go so

Rob (28:19.914)
Yeah. Yeah. yeah, there’s a lot. so, you know, I never thought of myself as a writer. and so my immediate assumption was, okay, there are two paths. I can write it myself, which I don’t want to do, or I could hire a ghost writer. And I didn’t, I don’t, you don’t know, I didn’t know anything. All I knew was I needed to look for a ghost writer.

Maybe interview some people and then have somebody help me to write it. I didn’t know what a good process was or a bad process or any of that stuff. I did have some marketing chops because of the Dan Kennedy, you know, world. so I hired a ghost writer and that was a terrible experience. first of all, it was a lot of money and I didn’t have a lot of money at that time, but I, I knew I needed to get this done fast. And so speed was more important than the money, even at that time.

And, you know, the mistake that that ghostwriter made actually led to our entire ghostwriting program. So again, it was a good mistake, but it cost me a year of, of this process. The short version of the mistake is actually a very common mistake in ghostwriting. But again, I didn’t know that at the time I’ve had many, many people, hundreds of people tell me.

that the same thing happened with them. And that’s basically that with traditional ghost writing, it’s generally you jump on a call like this. Of course, in those days, it wasn’t a video call. It was just, you know, a phone call and they ask you questions and you answer the questions. And so you show up relatively unprepared, which is easy for you as the author. But it doesn’t produce anything good. And so, so I did that over a period of probably

Four or five months. She asked me questions like you’re doing and I have answers. I’m good at talking. I like to talk. Right. And so she listened, she recorded, and then she wrote like, I still remember it was 186 pages. And, it was, you know, it was awful. It was a super generic, like, like it could have been written by anybody about anything. It was like one of those,

Rob (30:45.558)
What are those things called that are, you know, like shared, you know, generic books, generic trainings. I don’t remember what it is, but, and I hated it. Right. I, but that’s common that I didn’t know that at time, but that’s really common is that if, if a ghostwriter doesn’t have a really powerful process, we now call it enhanced ghost writing. And that’s our trademark process. Then what you end up getting is content.

Nick Kringas (30:53.708)
No, I get it. So some.

Rob (31:13.802)
but no real context, no story, no emotion, no connection, no dramatic points and conclusions and epiphanies. And, and so I read it. I knew I immediately hated it. I was like, you know, I’m not going to waste any more time with this person. They’re already paid. Thank you. You go on your way. And I just rewrote it. I just started writing it myself. It probably took,

A year, I wasted maybe six or eight months with her. It took another year before I finally got it done. And then I got it done and I got it published and I went all out on it, but that was a big mistake.

Nick Kringas (31:59.664)
So you had invested a large sum of money at that time, which you didn’t have to hire a ghostwriter because you thought it was the fastest way to get it done.

Rob (32:03.786)
Yeah, no.

Rob (32:10.122)
fastest and best way, right? I mean, you know, let’s hire a professional.

Nick Kringas (32:14.212)
And then it turns out that it’s not the fastest way by far. looking, looking back, probably costs you a good amount of time and way more than what it costs for the ghost rider.

Rob (32:25.878)
100%. if I tell people it was my million dollar mistake, because it ended up adding more than a year onto the process. And from the day I published my book and started using it, I made a million bucks in 13 months. So, you know, just if I could have saved 13 months, I could have made another million bucks, certainly. and maybe more than

Nick Kringas (32:54.405)
Maybe

Rob (32:54.902)
so I call it my, my million dollar mistake. And, you know, I, I’ve always believed that time is more valuable than money. the, the, wasn’t the fact that, you know, it’s a five figure check that I lost. It was the year, the more than year that I lost between the failed working with her and the additional 12 or 13 months. It took me to write the book. That was

That was the biggest pain point. that’s where the real loss is. Most people don’t understand that. I don’t think because they’re always worried about the money and they don’t realize that it’s, it’s, it’s the money that you could have made in that period of time. That’s far more valuable than the money that you could pay somebody to help you do it right. And expedite the process. So, so I, I picked the, you know, which is very common. picked the wrong.

Ghostwriter didn’t know what I didn’t know. you know, I thought it was kind of all the same and it’s just

Nick Kringas (33:59.94)
Yeah, I think that’s very common is that people are, you know, counting the money that’s going out as the only costs, but there’s so many, there’s so many other costs, you know, costs for other alternatives, like how, you know, if it’s the fastest way, how, how much is it going to cost me if it goes wrong? Like, like you went through. So I think what you said is just so important is that to look at all angles and all costs of this.

Rob (34:07.914)
Yeah.

Rob (34:30.55)
My income more than 10 X from the year before I wrote the book to the year after I wrote the book, more than 10 X. I was still making some money, you know, hustling, real estate, doing some various things. I 90 or, or, you know, so thousand, which I know it’s, know, to a lot of people, that’s a really good income and all that, but you know, it wasn’t enough for me to pay my bills.

with all the bills that I had from, you know, my companies and all that stuff. And the, next year I, I did, you know, over a million dollars. So, so it’s not, it’s not the, it’s not the cost of, you know, the, $20 ,000 or whatever, or, or, or like use a Russell Brunson’s mastermind 50 ,000 bucks is his lowest ticket, inner circle mastermind 50 K or, or, you know, Todd Brown’s,

If you don’t know how to make a million dollars and you’re making a hundred thousand a year, then not knowing how to make a million bucks is costing you $900 ,000 a year to not know that. Okay. So if you can pay somebody 50 ,000 to learn how to actually do what they’re doing, which is 10 times better than you, then pay the 50 grand, pay the money.

because it’s costing you $900 ,000 not to know how to do it. That’s honestly the way I look at it. you know, I mean, I think if you don’t look at it that way, you’re, you know, you may be kind of stuck in a bad mentality.

Nick Kringas (36:04.588)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Kringas (36:13.634)
It’s a super, super interesting and, relevant to me because, you know, I’m considering joining a few groups, but you know, I’m talking to Stacey about these different investments that I want to make in myself and learning and meeting new people. And, but we have, you know, we have my first daughter going to college in two years. So she’s all she’s thinking about is, know, we can’t put this out because then it’s going to take away

you know, from sending our daughter to the school that she wants to go to. And it’s, it’s been, you know, it’s hard, it’s been hard to, to kind of justify, but it’s the same thing that you’re saying. Like not, it’s not the money that’s going out and taking away. It’s all the money that we’re not making because we don’t have this knowledge. So that’s a super powerful. so when you’ve published the first book,

Rob (37:02.762)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Kringas (37:11.106)
I could imagine, you know, did you, did you have a, kind of a thought of like what type of services you’re going to provide?

Rob (37:18.954)
yeah, yeah. We already had a company, fledgling, but we had a, we had a company and we were, we were open -minded as well. meaning that we wanted to see what, you know, the book is, the book is generic, right? Life after debt, practical solutions to get out of debt, build wealth, et cetera. So it’s, was generic enough, which I probably wouldn’t do today, but it was generic enough for us to pivot. And, and, and so that is what we did.

and did very successfully. So we had a fledgling company at that time. And, you know, then the book helped it to explode.

Nick Kringas (37:56.738)
Awesome. So then when you let after the book is published, you said that now if we could move on to the, to the promote side of things, I know that you got time on the radio. But what, was that process? And I also know that you did a lot of it on your own. So what about that process? Would you have kind of improved or did you make, you know, what mistakes did you make early on? Tell me, us a little bit about that part, which

Rob (38:25.942)
Two, two big mistakes I made. Number one is I actually, I actually went published profit. I actually skipped the whole promotion part of my book. because again, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I needed to start trying to see if this book would actually help make me money right away. So I skipped the whole promotion part of the book. Now that I’m not saying I didn’t promote the

I’m saying that I skipped the promotion part is really about, creating a book that, attracts, you know, people organically on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, cetera. And because of its reviews and because of, the marketing that you do for it, it actually becomes a real best seller and, makes a big splash in the marketplace.

Publish, promote profits, a Wall Street journal bestseller, USA Today bestseller, number one book on Barnes and Noble, number one book on Amazon. I mean, it, it, made a significant splash, for me, which got me all kinds of media attention and opportunities. I didn’t do any of that with life after death. didn’t know. So I made the mistake of kind of missing that whole thing. Now I circled back around to it later, but I, I made that, that mistake.

What I did was I started using the book immediately to attract opportunities. And, the first thing I did, and this is, this is more the profit phase than it is the promote phase. Even though you’re promoting the book, it’s more about the book promoting you and your service, or you and whatever it is that you do. And, so I use the book to get on media. got free media opportunities would have been a lot easier if the

was a best seller and made a big splash. It did not. It was just a book. but again, I didn’t know what I didn’t know at that time. And, and so, the first big opportunity was, radio. got a free radio, opportunities, as PR and I just hustled. mean, I just, I just cold called radio stations. you know, I just, Hey, you know, I’m an author wrote this book.

Rob (40:49.426)
you have people that are struggling. Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know pitch. I’m just hustling, right? You know? and, and then it also got me speaking opportunities. it got me opportunities to talk in front of local groups about, you know, the, the need to control your financial future and all that was free. And that started bringing in money immediately. I mean, day one, that’s part of the amazing luck and blessing.

of the story is like, got a client the first day that I was on the radio and, thank God it’s so cool. You know? And so that it just took off from there. It was like, my gosh, we got something. We’re onto something. And it just exploded.

Nick Kringas (41:38.148)
That’s amazing. Yeah. It’s, it’s also brings to mind how people perceive you when you have a book. We talked about this a little bit last, a lot on the last call. but again, when, when I published my book and I made a ton of mistakes with it, SEO for law firms, it’s not as successful as it could have been because I just wrote a book. You know, I heard that that’s a good thing to do. So I wrote my own book.

I put it out there. I was able to get a bunch of reviews and we actually did get clients from it. But yeah, it wasn’t as successful as it could have been just because from every phase of the process of published promote profit, I think that it could have been just so much stronger if I knew, like you said, I don’t know what I don’t know at the

but I think it could have been just way stronger, but the perception that people have of you when you publish a book is, it’s pretty miraculous. I mean, I was, I remember three days after I published the book, it was a weekend and I was at my, brother -in -law’s house for, for a dinner, for a family dinner. And, my sister -in -law had, had a copy of the book and she wanted me to sign it. And I thought she was kidding.

And she was like, no, I want you to sign this. you know, I want to be the first, I got the first copy, you know, as soon as it came out, I was the, I know I was the first one to buy it. and I confirmed that for, and she was, know, she had a marker and she wanted me to sign it. So even your own family, know, golf buddies were, you know, like, my God, you wrote a book who could, could not believe that I wrote a book. was just like, it was like, you know, they saw me in a different light all of a sudden, which is, you know, I thought, you

Rob (43:10.378)
How cool.

Nick Kringas (43:29.643)
I kind of was taken aback and thought, you know, it’s not a big deal. I sat down for two months and pumped the hook

Rob (43:34.528)
Yeah. It works. It works better than you can ever imagine. You know? Yeah, it’s crazy. Just like you said, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like, no, that’s impossible, but it’s like, it just, it’s a game changer. It, nothing changes the frame that you’re seen in, like having your own book, even when you make mistakes, even the mistakes that I made with mine, you’re better

Nick Kringas (43:40.381)
Right. I’m sure you’ve seen it over and over again.

Rob (44:03.37)
do it and make all the mistakes, then try to do it perfectly. unless you work with a company like mine, then you can do it perfectly, but you’re better off just doing it, than not doing it for

Nick Kringas (44:14.714)
Guys.

Nick Kringas (44:19.322)
Well, that brings up another point is that a bunch of people want to make it perfect. So they’ve been writing a book for years, you know, and this thing’s never going to come out. I’m sure you’ve come across that,

Rob (44:30.164)
Yeah, that is probably the biggest challenge that we face is, you know, people will hire us. They’ll pay us a large sum and, and then not always trust, right? They’re, they’re afraid they’re there. It’s not good enough or I don’t know, or, you know, or they just procrastinate, they sit on it for months. And so we have to just remind them, look, it’s okay.

Number one, it’s probably not the only book you’re ever going to write in your life. Number two, if you think that it is, then you’re probably never going to publish it because you’re always going to think that there’s something missing from it. you, you know, look, when you have as many expert eyes on it as our company puts on it, I just hope people, I just hope our clients trust and eventually they do, but it is a big

big challenge that people have is dealing with that

Nick Kringas (45:30.82)
Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. And I’m, you know, glad to find out that after I published it with Kindle Direct Publishing, it’s very easy to go back and just update the manuscript and the same exact ISBN number. All the reviews stay there as long as you don’t change the titles from what I understand. So you can go back and make changes. It’s not the end of the world and it’s not set in stone. It’s not like you’re doing it at a tablet.

Rob (45:42.388)
Make changes.

Rob (45:57.172)
Not at

Nick Kringas (45:58.566)
Awesome. It’s good to know. then, know, just something that I thought about was that Dan, you know, if you look at Dan Kennedy, you know, he, he’s written probably dozens and dozens of book. mean, it’s probably his number one strategy for getting new clients are his books. And then same thing with Dan Sullivan, Dan Sullivan of strategic coach. He puts out, you know, they’re like mini books, but his goal is to write 100 of these little books in 25 years.

Rob (46:28.138)
Yeah.

Nick Kringas (46:28.55)
That’s one a quarter. Now he has this process of just pumping out book after book. And some of them are not great, to be honest. Some of them are a little bit redundant. They say the same thing over and over again, and they’re small. They’re not very impressive, but it’s grown strategic coach now into a, you know, probably a $40 million a year business, something like that.

Rob (46:49.278)
I have a, I have a bunch of them on my bookshelf. and I, and I joke about them. I’m like, you know, who, not how, like I didn’t need to read the book. The title is everything, but it’s okay. Like, like I love, I love, I love his books and his writing. has, you know, profound nuggets in his writing. And so, you know, but look, I mean, that’s a lot of content.

Nick Kringas (47:00.858)
Yeah.

Rob (47:16.798)
you know, a hundred books, one a quarter, you know, I want to put out one or two a year. excuse me, one in one or two years. So one every year or two. and if I can do that, which I have not done, but if I can do that going forward, I’m going to be thrilled. and you could put out pretty good content if you, if you think in terms of stretching it out every over a couple of year period.

Nick Kringas (47:43.406)
Right, right. And then something that Dan Kennedy just recently wrote in his newsletter is that, know, writers write. Like if you’re going to be a writer and do it on your own, it’s just all about like, you know, getting an hour a day in and just making sure that you write and get better and better at it. It was his advice. So now, Rob, let’s talk about in the last kind of segment of our call and time together, when somebody’s working with you

Rob (48:00.)
He’s right. Yeah.

Nick Kringas (48:12.25)
what the process looks like. And again, it’s a little bit redundant of the last call, but that one didn’t have video. So now you’re getting to see our faces. And perhaps, you know, put in like real example of people that have worked with you. Maybe that will be a little bit more, just paint a better picture of, you know, each step of the process.

Rob (48:18.036)
Yeah, yeah,

Rob (48:34.056)
I’ll go, I’ll give kind of a generic overview first, and then I’ll give a couple of examples that might be helpful as well. so, you know, the average person will come to us, with an idea and, know, with an expertise. So if we’re talking about, you know, estate planning attorneys or, know, an attorney of any kind, they have, they have within their, their practice, their best clients.

And that’s ideally who we want to write a book for. We want them to get more of their best clients. And so sometimes that means really niching down. So we, we take the first, you know, several weeks and brainstorm kind of with our marketing team, who the avatar is, what their pain points are, what their difficulties are to come up with a great hook, a narrow niche, a narrow avatar.

a great title, subtitle, table of contents, et cetera. And only until that’s done, do we move on to building out what we call our enhanced ghost writing program, which the short version of that is it’s a way to meet with a ghost writer and not experience all the failure and challenge that the average ghost writer has.

For us, that is by the writer being trained on our process and the client following our process. The short version of the process is every chapter needs a great story, case study example. There needs to be dramatic points, highs, lows, epiphanies, etc. Then there’s content, there’s open loops, closed loops, there’s content, and then there’s conclusion and next steps. And so when someone follows

the process, we, get the right story, which could be their life story, could be a client case study, could be something from history or sports. We get the right story told in the right way and within the right segmentation and then the right teaching. Then even though someone may be stuttering through it or, you know, speaking in long run on sentences, the writer still has

Rob (50:57.184)
the context and the body. And so the writer can take that transcript, that recording, and make that into a really powerful, compelling chapter. So we do that for, you know, we do it once, we like to meet once a week with a client. We do that over however many weeks necessary. Then we put a whole new set of eyes on it for editing. We put a whole new set of eyes on it after that for two rounds of proofreading. Then we do all the design, all the tech.

all the formatting and the publishing, which generally takes six months if someone will meet with us once a week to get done. Could be faster, but that’s kind of average.

Nick Kringas (51:41.516)
Got it. are there people that want to get it done faster that will meet more often or you don’t or okay got

Rob (51:45.78)
Yes. There are two kinds of people. There are the people that say they want to get it done faster. And then they do that for two weeks and then they fall back into, you know, more difficulties outside. and then there’s people that just, you know, we just tell people, look, let’s, we’re happy to go as fast as you want, but let, let’s just be consistent. Let’s set the same time every week, same day, and, let’s just get into a flow

When we do that, we can really work fast,

Nick Kringas (52:19.27)
Got it. So you can go as fast as someone will will go or wants to go but but it should be consistent.

Rob (52:26.836)
Yes, that’s the most important

Nick Kringas (52:29.09)
Awesome. So now, just any examples you can give about, you know, people that have really knocked this out of the park in terms of, well, the whole process, you know, I’ll open the floor to

Rob (52:39.54)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, the, other two big pieces are obviously the promotion of the book, which, which we do a lot of done for you promotion. we do for our clients, paid advertising. do three us -based press releases to a thousand, media outlets. do a big social media campaign. then we help them with whatever their profit, formula is. We have.

you know, a dozen different formulas that we follow, whether it’s speaking engagements or getting them actual media placements like TV, radio, podcast, etc. So, I mean, there’s a bunch. The most recent one is a client that came to mind because I used her as an example on my last workshop. She’s an estate planning attorney. She calls herself the law mother, which is kind of cool. And we did her book, launched it, became

super successful. and then we started getting her on a TV PR media. she actually did a workshop with me. She asked, she said, Hey, I have a bunch of my friends that are attorneys. Could we do something together so that, you know, we can, we can show them how they can do this. I’m like, you are the sweetest thing. mean, like she wants to help her attorney friends to like, like use a book and stuff, which was really cool. And,

You know, in the first 60 days, you know, she, she had kind of a three step plan that we helped her with. besides the stuff we do, like we got our media placements and speaking and that kind of thing. But, her three step plan was to use the book to generate referrals within the business. That’s always the first thing we recommend. she did that and, sent like, invitation out to her email

of her clients and those that were potential clients. And she got five new clients within 30 days, just from people that requested the book. That was 30 ,000 in revenue upfront that she did just from, you know, basically a short little email campaign that we helped her with. Then number two was strategic relationships, which we recommend. So she set up right out of the gate in,

Rob (55:05.334)
month number one, her, her plan was for a dozen, but she set up three or four right out of the gate with, accountants and financial advisors. And she basically gave her book to them. She gave them like 10 copies each, which costs $40 to, to print. And she said, anybody that becomes a client of yours, you know, it’s kind of a natural.

Right. And she had relationships with these people before, but now they have a direct way to refer her. within the first 60 days, she made another $30 ,000 just from referrals from people just, Hey, you know, you, you, you built out a nice financial plan with your financial advisor. and here, if you’re thinking about a trust for your kids or whatever, you know, read Pamela’s book, Pamela Moss Garrett is her name and, read her book and,

And she got, you know, did another 30 grand from that. And then just recently she was booked on, on, the Drew Barrymore show, national TV and, which was cool. So we booked her on a lot of different media appearances and whatnot. And so, you know, she’s got a picture with Drew Barrymore, you know, holding her book up and she did like a 20 minute segment on the Drew Barrymore show with, with Drew national TV. So her

you know, shot back up to number one and, and, know, she’s done multiple six figures now in the first six to eight months, just directly from the book, which is cool. Yeah.

Nick Kringas (56:38.436)
Wow, phenomenal. What’s the book called, Rob?

Rob (56:41.986)
it is, my gosh. it is, it’s well, it’s law. If you look it up, it’s by Pamela Moss Garrett. it’s got like a little castle on it is very cool. let me look it up. Ask me another question. Yeah. Come on, Rob. You should know lawmother .com is Pam, Pamela Moss. And so legally ever after, legally ever after is,

Nick Kringas (56:43.908)
Sorry.

Nick Kringas (56:54.054)
I’m gonna look it up right now. Plan for death, then head for life.

Nick Kringas (57:06.682)
legally ever after. I like that title a

Rob (57:09.194)
Yeah. And it, and it looks like the, know, our, our designers created it and it looks like the Disney castle. And I mean, not a trademark violation, but it’s, it’s a beautiful castle. You know, it’s kind of the fairy tale thing. Yeah. It’s very

Nick Kringas (57:18.441)
Yeah, yeah,

Nick Kringas (57:24.187)
That’s an awesome title. So how important is that title, by the

Rob (57:29.088)
Super, super important. title should be three words, one to three words, could be one word. I like one or three. and then the subtitle can be your more benefit rich descriptive, you know, descriptive of the promises, but title and cover super, super important. And her title and cover are just beautiful.

Nick Kringas (57:32.431)
And

Nick Kringas (57:52.176)
So the title, is it like yours life after debt? Is it painting a picture of like a dream outcome for the ideal client that you’re trying to attract?

Rob (58:04.894)
I, ideally you want it to be a positive slant. Yes. sometimes it can be a negative slant or, or neutral, but ideally a positive slant. or it can just be something that if you can find, you know, one great word that provokes curiosity and gets people to take the next step, you know,

think of, you know, Malcolm Gladwell’s book outliers, right? One, one word that, you know, is very, provocative, interesting. What’s this about? I think I know, you know, so if you can find one word like that, that’s really, really cool. Other words, otherwise three words, you know, I mean, mine, it’s not like publish, promote profit is that sexy, right? But it, it,

makes it spells it out pretty clear what it’s about right with AI. I mean, I’m, I’m in the kind of business that, you know, it’s a more pragmatic, than it is dreamy. Cause I’m not dealing with fictional authors. I’m dealing with, you know, nonfiction primarily.

Nick Kringas (59:11.566)
Yeah, makes total sense. All right, Rob, I mean, that’s all the questions I had. This has been fantastic talking to you. I think even better than the first time. Yeah, yeah. I looked at the time and was, you know, we’re going heading up and for

Rob (59:20.906)
Same. Yeah, fun. mean, we, go a long time, don’t we? I’m like, my gosh, who’s going to listen to this?

Nick Kringas (59:31.91)
Maybe nobody, maybe it’s just for us. All right, Rob. So this has been Rob Kosberg. It’s been great talking to you about the process of writing a book. And I think a lot of people will get a lot out of this and especially avoid the mistakes that you and I have made.

Rob (59:43.776)
Same buddy.

Rob (59:53.076)
Yeah. Yeah. Please write your book. I mean, it’s a game changer. It’s a game changer for your business. mean, there’s, there’s nothing better you can do with or with or without our help. Just, there’s nothing better you can do for your business then than

Nick Kringas (01:00:09.25)
Absolutely love it. Thanks, Rob.

Rob (01:00:10.942)
All right, buddy, thank you.