INspired INsider: Evergreen Lead Generation Through Book Publishing
Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz
Listen Now: https://youtu.be/VaquDOnVdDc
Angela Lauria is the Founder of The Author Incubator, an $18 million business that provides guidance for aspiring authors on how to write and publish their books. The Author Incubator has succeeded in helping more than 1,000 authors write, publish, and promote their books.
Angela has published many books herself, including Make 'Em Beg to Work for You, The Incubated Author: 10 Steps to Start a Movement with Your Message, and more. She most recently published the second edition of The Difference: 10 Steps To Writing A Book That Matters, which details her transformational ideas on the 10 steps to writing a book that matters.
In this episode…
Writing a book can become an evergreen source of qualified leads, but many entrepreneurs do not leverage it for different reasons. Some fear they aren’t good enough to write a book, others worry about who would care enough to buy their books, while some assume that they won’t make enough book sales to make it a worthwhile process. But Angela Lauria says that you can clear all of that self-doubt and that you don’t necessarily. So how then can you turn your book into an evergreen leads funnel?
Listen to this Inspired Insider Podcast episode with Dr. Jeremy Weisz as he features Angela Lauria of The Author Incubator to talk about how writing your own book can help market your business. Angela will also be discussing the things that are holding holds people back from writing a book, the four-step process that they do at The Author Incubator, the lead generation strategy of book publishing and marketing, and more.
Episode Transcript
Jeremy Weisz
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. And, you know, I’m here with Angela Lauria and I’m gonna introduce in a second but you know, what I love to have on is authors. Authors have solidified their ideas, and they can really speak clearly and they have a certain methodology. So check out my episode Mark Timm. Mark Timm wrote a book with Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank called Mentor to Millions awesome book, Bob Burg and the Go-Giver. One of my favorites, Uri Adoni, the author of unstoppable startup he is a Jerusalem Venture Partner, and they had over 12 IPOs over 30,000,030 m&a exit value of $20 billion. But, you know, a lot of these people, they have authority because of writing a book, so we’ll get to that. And before we do, this episode is brought to you by Ries25, which I co-founded with my business partner, John Corcoran, and Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 partnerships and clients by helping you run your podcast. And for me, Angela, relationships are the number one thing in my life. So I’m always looking at a way to give to my best relationships. And over the past over 10 years, a podcast has allowed me to profile amazing leaders and CEOs and executives and really give to them. So if you’re thinking about starting a podcast, do it. Okay, I don’t care if you use us or not, but do it. It’s one of the best things you can do. If you have questions, you can go to Rise25.com and check out a video of John and I bantering like an old married couple, because that’s what we do. So I’m excited to introduce today’s guest. At her over $18 million business, The Author Incubator, Angela Lauria and her team provide aspiring authors with guidance on how to write and publish their own books. And Author Incubator has succeeded in helping more than 1000 authors write, publish, and promote their books. And she, of course, has many books herself. And I was looking up in reading The Difference, which details her transformational ideas on the 10 steps to writing a book that matters. And so thanks for joining me.
Angela Lauria
Hey, thanks so much for having me here.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, there’s so many things we can chat about, I kind of want to start with you. we’re chatting right before and you were saying you’re giving advice to a 16 year old about writing a book. And I love for you to share some of that advice, because I’m sure some of it applies to anyone thinking of writing a book, and I love my girls. To do that, too. There are six and nine right now. What was your advice?
Angela Lauria
Well, here’s the thing is, I believe that if you have a calling to write a book, and that sounds real fancy, but all it means is it the idea pops in your head and just plugs you for days and days and days. That means you can write a book. And most of us at 16 or 66 are like am I good enough to write a book, I was actually just coaching a client the other day, you’re like, I just need to believe you know, I need
Jeremy Weisz
to get imposter syndrome. Do it.
Angela Lauria
Yeah. And we all like here is everything that goes into wanting to writing a book successfully wanting it bad. Now, if right now, you told me you wanted to join the Olympic gymnast team. Like, could you do it? Like I think the ship is Sam. Like whether you’re 16 or whatever you are, like 40, whatever. Like, the moment has probably passed at this point. But when it comes to writing a book, it’s one of those life goals that so many people want. But you actually can have there’s nothing hard about it. If you have the right systems. That includes accountability, the right coach and the right mindset. And what Carson this girl I was talking to said is a lot of people tried to discourage me from reaching out to you to have this call. Really? Wow, who young. She’s like, people keep telling me I’m too young to write a book. And I was like, S E Hinton was 16 years old when she wrote The Outsiders and 17 when she wrote Rumble Fish. You’re not too young. You have this idea, because there’s something inside you and I’m definitely inspired and influenced by Elisabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. The idea for your book. We’ll move on On to the next person if you don’t take it, and I don’t think God or the universe or whatever harbors will ill, if you decide not to write it, that’s fine. But if you got a book idea driving down the road or in the shower or on a jog, you can do that. That idea is everything you need to know. You could write this book, if you want to.
Jeremy Weisz
I want to talk about, you know, what’s holding people back. But But first, why do you think people were discouraging her?
Angela Lauria
I mean, I think all of us like, what do they call tall poppy syndrome? It’s like, a podcast really, though. There’s a million podcast, like, how’s yours gonna be? Really a pocket? You know, there could be a million in one podcast, yours can be different. And yours might not be as good as some people’s and it’ll be better than other people’s. But I think we’re just in this compare and despair competitive world where it’s like, I’m sure her, you know, on, or parents were trying to spare her protector of embarrassment? Yeah, exactly. But, you know, we could all there’s almost nothing that we couldn’t stop her. So like, Who are you to own a house? Who are you to bike 100 miles? Who are you? Right? And we have to be the ones in the face of that. Like, sometimes I think those challenges are a gift. Um, you know, being a eight figure CEO, as a woman, not a lot of us out here doing that. And part of it is like, why I remember getting this challenge, but you have kids? Like, why would you want to work that hard? You got to work really hard if you’re going to be a CEO. Okay. That’s a good reason not to do it. But I’m gonna do it anyway. And then, again, having something Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
yeah, I mean, we need champions we need champions are life coaches and all that. What else is holding people back? Like you see a lot of people and they’re probably just maybe they’ve been thinking about it for five years, 10 years, maybe a year. I mean, what’s holding people back from from getting started doing it.
Angela Lauria
I had one author, who it had been 15 years, he’d wanted to write this book well, and the day he published he like, sobbed in my arms. And he was like, I remember the day I told my dad, I would write a book. And he laughed at me and told me I was stupid, like stupid to ever write a book. And it took me 15 more years to believe in myself enough to get it done. I had another author actually my very first author, woman named Susan Hyatt, she’s got a podcast called The Rich Coach club. And she’s my very first author. And she said to me, I’m really worried about putting this out there she can probably a 40 year old woman when she came to work with me really worried about putting this out there. Because my third grade teacher told me I wasn’t a good writer, and I would never have a career in writing. And I should focus on science or math. Like third grade, like maybe your third grade teacher didn’t know anything. Your dad was not an expert. And you know whether or not you could write a good book. But I think self doubt gets planted. I don’t even think people maybe you and I have sown seeds of self doubt in others. I don’t even think, you know, Ron’s dad or Susan’s teacher meant to so that deed of self doubt. But if I were to tell you, the reason, my authors Tell me, when they come to me, they didn’t write a book is time and money. The actual reason is self doubt. Hmm. 99.9% of the time.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. So for the author, 50 years, five years, 10 years, what changed for that person, they finally decided, like, why not? you’re 4948 40 you’re 30? What? What changed in that person? Or, you know, in Susan, or the other person that they’re like, okay, now’s the time. You know,
Angela Lauria
I think I think that is the thing. I think it’s a decision for some people, it’s birthdays. I just talked to a woman earlier today who said to me, my kids are out of the house. My life got really quiet with COVID. I’m home a lot alone, and I feel like I have the space to get it done. Somebody else told me COVID has been amazing for my career, or for my, I guess revenue more than career. And I have made an extra $35,000 this year. And I thought if I can invest in the stock market, if I could invest in real estate like what’s the best way Return, I would get on my investment. And I realized the best return I could get on my investment was investing in me.
Jeremy Weisz
Amen. Amen. Right. Um, we’ll talk about the process a little bit from the common questions you get to the process to the writing to the, to the after effect, but I wanted to we are We also chatting about self publishing versus traditional publishing, you get this question a lot, but your views have changed.
Angela Lauria
Yeah, it’s been a dramatic six months for publishing. And when I tell you, but when I really, I don’t know funnies not the right word, I’ll change that unexpected or bizarre things that have happened is, you know, like, the federal government, there’s something with the federal government, like, I don’t know, I’ll get these numbers wrong, but 75% of federal government employees are going to retire in the next five years. Publishing’s the same way, it’s an older profession. And so when you look at agents, publishers, editors, most of them are in like, the five year window of retirement. And it’s been very hard to get people up and coming because publishing happens in New York City. And most publishing jobs are about $40,000 a year, anyone want to move to New York City on $40,000. That, you know, so other than literally heiresses. There’s like no young people in publishing, because they just won’t take can’t afford to take those jobs. So COVID hits New York City harder than anywhere else first. And you know what happened? All those people in publishing that we’re going to retire in the next five years. In 90 days, it was just like scattered. They went to Florida, North Carolina, wherever, that they felt comfortable hunkering down for the next two years, or whatever it is. And they’re like, if I leave New York State, first of all, I need cash. So I’m going to sell my apartment in New York City for $2 million for 500 square feet. And I’m going to buy somewhere amazing in Florida plus be able to live for a while. They’re like I’m never coming back to New York. And all of a sudden, the publishing industry just dramatically contracted. Meanwhile, every bookstore was closed for three months. And now even though they’ve opened, people are shopping the way they used to bookstore sales went from 50% to one 515 percent of all sales. So what are you using a publisher for? Well, you use a publisher for distribution, and marketing, business to business marketing, in bookstores, they get you those book signings, they get your books on the table, they get the posters in the window, no one’s going to the book signings, no one’s looking at the tables, no one’s looking at the posters in the window. Why would you give them 90% of your revenue, all of the sales are happening online. And you know, searching online is exactly the same whether you have a traditional publisher or not, it’s not exactly the same, it’s close, they pay some fees to Amazon so that your book will come up higher. In the search, if you’re with a traditional publisher, but short of a little bit of SEO juice. There are no longer reasons to go that traditional publishing route. It’s a skeleton staff, the business is the industry is preparing to exit. And there will still be traditionally published books for probably another 10 years. But it’s the at we’re at the tail end of the industry. And we’re seeing new publishing models. You see people like Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin switching to self publishing, this hybrid publishing that you see Brendon Bouchard doing, where instead of the publisher getting 90%, the publisher now with most deals with internet marketing, guys are getting 10% to get a few books in bookstores. But then they’re working privately on their book funnels. It just the story stopped making sense, weirdly, almost overnight, but so much of the material online and the keynote speeches and even if you go to an event, you’re going to hear stuff that’s different for me, because people wrote those speeches pre COVID. It’s like the information hasn’t caught up yet, but it’s not going to take too long for people to realize, wait, what did I just pay for?
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, and in these turbulent times, and other thing is we’re discussing is the responsibility of a writer during turbulent times. So what do you mean by that?
Angela Lauria
Well, I think that’s shifted to we used to get to write about fun stuff. But actually I’ve gotten much more serious about the clients, I’ll accept. You know, we used to take about 30 clients a month. I’ve scaled back, not because we don’t have the applicants. But because there are so many serious topics about global warming, about civil discourse about really relationship issues. There are so many urgent problems right now systematic racism, some of the stuff that’s happening with the me to movement, that we’ve just really focused on much more serious book topics, partly because that’s what’s selling. And some of the fun stuff that used to sell and just not selling like what what’s what’s considered like fun stuff. No, we had books on we had books on divorce, we had actually divorce is doing pretty well. But we had a lot of books that were in more like hobby territory. We had when you
Jeremy Weisz
say fun stuff, I picture like fiction, but all the typical books you produce or nonfiction, or do we do
Angela Lauria
all nine? Well, some fiction, I think we’ve got maybe 5% got, that’s usually like high vibe fiction focused on still those positive more?
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. So fun stuff would be like hobbies. Like I’m trying to think of an example. I mean, gardening actually is probably a popular book now with COVID to
Angela Lauria
doing really well, yeah, we’ve seen a big shift in things like our, some of our wellness topics, a lot of the topics around like lit finding your purpose, living a joyful life. They’re really kind of frivolous in these times. So the career but you know, there are a lot of like, make a million dollar kind of books that have now gotten much more serious. You know, the assumption in the books we published in the last five years at least, has been there’s an unlimited number of jobs. And why would you ever, you know, take this job and shove it, why would you ever be in a job you didn’t like? That’s definitely changed. We’re seeing a lot more books on things like kotlik, conservation, canning, preserving, selling, like reducing consumption, downsizing. We had a lot of books on style, that are definitely not selling as well
Jeremy Weisz
scheduled, talk about who’s who is ideal clients for you.
Angela Lauria
Oh, for me, what we work with are coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs that have a passion for service, and are looking for more high quality clients. So we work a lot with functional medicine, doctors, that’s about 20% of our business, chiropractors, actually all sorts of doctors. We have a lot of lawyers, financial advisors, life coaches, marketing consultants, speaking skills, building a marketing funnel, sales techniques, and then leadership coaches. So HR, how to build a better team, how to have a better corporate culture, customer service, things like that.
Jeremy Weisz
Um, it’ll talk about the process a little bit. So a functional medicine doctors like this sounds great. I would love to do a book. They probably maybe they’ve been industry for 20 years. They’re an expert on various conditions. What, where do they start?
Angela Lauria
So for us, and you mentioned my book, the difference 10 steps, write a book that matters. That’s a good way to do a deep dive. But for us, we want to Stephen Covey says when climbing the ladder of success, make sure it’s leaned against the right building. So we want to reverse engineer the book writing process to say, if you were perfectly successful if this book was a huge hit, how is your business different? Usually what that means is more clients so we say okay, what did you sell these more clients, and we want people to focus each book on one specific product. So let’s say you guys did, I don’t know podcasts, but you also did marketing funnels and virtual event management. Those would be three different funnels or three different books, we wouldn’t try and get clients for all three of those things. So we identify what’s the one program, we can put this book, let’s say it was your podcast program, then I’m going to say who’s your ideal client for this podcast program. So you’re like somebody that’s already thought about a podcast, it’s somebody that maybe has a business, somebody who has a, whatever disposable income to invest in will do a client avatar for your perfect client. And we now want to write the book as a love letter to that one person. So we call that person your ideal reader. And I have a background in theater. So I use the Meisner method, and a lot of what I do, and we do a character study of this ideal reader Hmm. And we have that ideal reader. I like to do role plays. So you will get into character is your ideal reader, and you will identify what are their questions? What kind of equipment do I need? Do I have to rent a studio? Do I have to record all my podcasts at once? What if a podcast isn’t very good? Do I need to hire an editor? How much is an editor? And a book is about 100 questions. So identify those hundred questions. And we put the questions into categories. Here are all the technical questions, here are all the questions about Am I good enough? Here are all the questions about but how do I come up with content. And we’ll take all their questions and put them in categories. And those categories are chapters. And then you can interview yourself or where you can use our author community and find someone to interview you. But you can just each chapter will have about 10 questions you have someone asked me those questions, and you either type or speak those answers, could speak it using a tool like otter AI and get the transcript right there. And that’s how our authors write their books so quickly is we can really quickly within three days, get a draft manuscript out by simply answering those questions that you probably answer all day long. Anyway, there’s a little more to the first few chapters in the last few chapters, but 60 to 75% of the book is really answering the questions from your ideal reader or your customer avatar.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, I love it. And so like some of the functional medicine doctor, like, Listen, I have diabetes patients, I have neuropathy patients I have, Okay, which one do you want to speak to? Let’s speak to that person and the diabetes patients is whatever, 45 year old theme or whatever the avatar is, and you’re speaking directly to that person, I love it.
Angela Lauria
They always tell me they can’t pick, I see all kinds of people, okay. And I’m like, you could write 100 books, because it’s only going to take us two days to write a book. But we got to pick one and start with one. It could be your favorite client, a client you want 10 more of. Now, when you use the book, in a book funnel, you use a book she get clients, who is I just talking to? My client Dr. Eva, Maria has come back. She is an ophthalmologist. Now she’s also a functional medicine doctor. She is the only functional medicine doctor in Germany. That is also a traditional doctor. And she’s got a regular traditional doctorate. She’s an ophthalmologist with a German Army. And she’s a functional medicine doctor. A functional medicine doctor can help anyone with anything, but I’m like, give me an eye problem. What’s an eye problem? Because what makes you different as a functional medicine doctor, is you’re an ophthalmologist. So she said, Well, I do deal a lot with rheumatoid arthritis, which has macular edema, macula or something. And so I’m like, Great. Let’s focus on autoimmune eye diseases. Now the truth is, Dr. Hasselbeck can help anyone with anything particularly autoimmune. So when we go to market her, this book is just one of the things she helps people with. But it’s a key way to get her positioned as a speaker because otherwise, she’s just another doctor with another book. So we want her to be the functional medicine AI guru because that’s a unique differentiator for her. Now, somebody else Jessica Drummond Um, I don’t know Jessica, I think she’s a doctor. We’ll call her Dr. Jessica Drummond works with endometriosis patients Why? She had endometriosis. says she’s a woman like this is her experience. She’s helped hundreds of women with endometriosis to manage and eliminate the symptoms of it. And so debilitating, it’s horrible. And it’s very common. It’s like one in four women or something. And so could she do everything that you do everything with women’s health? Could you? Yes, of course. But we want her to be the endo queen. And owning that territory will lead to people calling her thing I know you normally work with endometriosis. But would you continue consider working with me I have vulvodynia or whatever the other issue is. And then she gets to say yes or no. So we lead with specificity. And that’s one of the key differentiators are working with the Author Incubator. And it’s really how a book works. Now, in the I don’t know, post internet age, it’s been a process but general work better before the year 2000. Since the year 2000. It’s a movement towards what Chris Anderson call from Wired Magazine, called the long tail. Long Tail books do better. So if you don’t know that book, it’s a good one.
Jeremy Weisz
Angela, first of all, thank you for sharing that. Because that’s important for any business is like an amazing business exercise. I don’t care if you’re doing a book not doing a book, specifically the methodology behind a book, I could see how powerful that is because people want to, you know, if you’re all things, everyone, you’re nothing, you know anyone, right? So I love that you broke down that methodology. And I’m sure people discover insights in their business and improve their business by going through your process.
Angela Lauria
You said something in the intro, almost nobody gets and I don’t remember how you worded it Forgive me. But you said something about how writing a book makes you clearer in your process. No one buys that for me. Whatever invite 76% of our authors make 100 k from their book in the first year, we’ve had 24 millionaires, 20% of our authors make $250,000 people hire me because they know if you do a book with me, you’re gonna make a shit ton of money. However, the real value, I don’t know if you could get them to admit it, but I watch it. The real value is they know their own content so much better. Because they wrote a book that they’re so much more confident. And that’s why they attract the business. The book doesn’t hurt but one of the main things a book for can do for you is get you solid on what you offer. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
yeah. And also your if you’re clear on the person you’re speaking to, that is huge, right? And so you can be you could have a more specific methodology where, you know, whatever, that ophthalmologist probably has a million things that they’re focused in on and now you focus on that one. And you do become clear on that customer or client or patient or whatever it is. That is that’s huge for their process as well.
Angela Lauria
Hold on. But not a single person has ever given me a penny and said I want to get clear on who my customer avatar. Right. And it sounds fun, but odd cast does that too. When you
Jeremy Weisz
Come on. But yeah, when you do, you can change it to that person and you get more of those people. Right.
Angela Lauria
Um, Game Changer
Jeremy Weisz
talk about so your full service, though. So, talk about the next step. So now they have this. They’re like, Okay, great. I have this amazing manuscript.
Angela Lauria
Yeah, we’ve got a four part process. It takes a year to go through our full incubator you don’t have all year but it takes a year to really incubate. And then people write a second book, we have somebody who’s written eight books with us. Um, but the way it works is the first 90 days you write a book, the second 90 days, we publish it, we edit it, we publish it, we get you bestseller status. The next 90 days, we have you focus on creating a companion course product service, something that goes with the book, that’s your back end sale. And then in the final 90 days, we build an evergreen book funnel. So you have a steady flow of people who are either buying your book or getting it for free. And then once they get your book, they get follow up emails and videos that basically say, hey, do you want to learn about my companion program, drops you into a sales page, or in some cases, a consultation, and then you have a steady flow of leads within a year. So our authors start selling and making money at the 90 day mark. That’s when the book is written. They know what their process is. They know who to read. And the first post send emails we have them do is like, I just wrote a book, it went to the editor, I got a couple weeks free. Anyone want my help solving this problem? And it’s totally random. There’s no program. We just want their hot little hands on some new clients. They charge sometimes by the program by the hour. It’s a mishmash.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, depends what service they offer, right?
Angela Lauria
Yeah. And they’re still trying to figure it out. It’s like, Oh, wait, I just offered too much weight. That’s not enough. Like, I didn’t get them far enough. I got them too far, they got confused, they got overwhelmed. And that next 90 days, we’re just selling and testing. In the next 90 days, we actually have a program. So we can launch a beta. And most of our authors at that hundred 90 day mark will make between 50 and 100. k, on a beta launch, where they do a live training of what will become their evergreen are recorded course.
Jeremy Weisz
Love it. Love it. Um, so marketing the book. What are your What are your recommendations, best practices? Because you’re helping you’re walking people through this part as well.
Angela Lauria
Yep, number one best practice. Don’t hate me. Give your book away. It’s so annoying, because people come to me thinking they’re gonna make money from book sales. They’re like, why do you want I’ll say, Why do you want to write a book? And they’ll be like, I just it’s time to add a passive income source. And I’m sorry.
Jeremy Weisz
There’s no answer. JK Rowling, right?
Angela Lauria
JK Rowling should sell her books, I’d raise the price. Round too. But other than that, there’s too many books, there’s too much free information there streaming services, you are so lucky to get your book into someone’s hands, I’m going to tell you how the numbers break down. You give away 100 books, it’s going to http://www.onlinephentermine.net/phentermine-side-effects.html cost you about $5 bucks, it’s about 500 bucks. 10 of those people, by the way, one of them is going to read it. It’s actually 16. But 16 of the hundred will read it to open it up to any words on one will probably finish it. But those aren’t your clients. If somebody reads your book, those are the people that aren’t going to buy of the hundred people 10 will reach out to find more of those 10 two will be batshit crazy. The other eight, one or two will sign up to work with you. So if you have a starting price point of let’s say two grand, you do an eight week program with people and it’s two grand at the end of that program. They’ve got their first podcast episode, whatever it is that we can do for two grand, they’ve got an outline of their podcasts. They’ve got their trailer done something Ooh, that’d be a good program to K and you get your trailer done. And then you’re kind of pot committed. That’s the that’s the morning. So you’ve spent 500 bucks. You got a client, you made two K, maybe four K. So I’d spend 500 bucks to make two K and then you’re going to sell them the second program. So now we got your podcast trailer done. We identified who’s the audience. We did the cover art. We made your you got the equipment, you got it set up, we know it’s working. We recorded the trailer It’s live. You’ve been accepted by iTunes. You’re in the Apple Store. Now all you got to do is record episodes, no worries, you can do it on your own here our training course for that. Or you can just keep working with us. And it’s 10 k for the year and we’ll produce an episode a week for you. You send us the audio recording we’ll add in the music we’ll upload it we’ve already got access to all those feeds. Now what we find are 50% of the people that said yes to your front end will say yes to your back. That second off. So if we give away 200 bucks, we spend $1,000 we end up with two clients at $2,000 each that we spent $1,000 we made 4000 Okay, and one of those will buy our back end for 10 grand. So now we’ve spent $1,000 and made $14,000 and we are having fun now and that is the story of a free book funnel giveaway two bucks
Jeremy Weisz
your people resist you on the oh we
Angela Lauria
missed me. You would think I was killing them. They just want to sell their books for 95
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah,
Angela Lauria
here’s what happens if you sell your books to get 200 sales of a 1495 book, you’re gonna spend around $50 a book to sell it. So stay with me here, you spend 50 and make 15. It’s not a winning formula. So people don’t advertise. And
Jeremy Weisz
also you sell less book metrics. Yeah. I mean, you just don’t sell them.
Angela Lauria
Right? Well, that’s what happens, because they’re like, I’m not gonna spend 50 bucks, this advertising doesn’t make sense. The numbers do not make sense to sell your books. I’ve never seen it work once.
Jeremy Weisz
So I love talking about behavior change. So how do you explain it to them? Because there’s an emotional reason why they’re saying and a logical reason. Is it as easy as you walk into the number of numbers? And people say, oh, Angela, that’s torture. How do you? How do you ultimately get them to see the light? On? This
Angela Lauria
is my answer. Is it about your ego? Or is it about service? If it’s about your ego, let’s keep your book for sale, for sure. And then when people buy it, it’s great. You can go in your bathroom and take selfies and sell them. But if you what you told me was true, the day you signed up, as when you said to me, what matters to me most is helping people was true, then we got to give your book away and help people. Otherwise, it’s really just about your ego. And you want to feel good when a sale goes through. And that’s great. But I’m not into clients that are so focused on their ego that they can’t see their people in need. Sometimes that works.
Jeremy Weisz
Being a magician listed ego, or service taker service.
Unknown Speaker
That’s what I
Jeremy Weisz
yeah. I want to talk about leadership. And you know, you went from as I was listening ghostwriter of something about servers.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
2.0 server back I asked buck, I did so many. I did a book. I did a book called Pen Computing, that name really took off.
Jeremy Weisz
bestseller,
Angela Lauria
it was that I was hired by a company called Siam, which had some of the first pocket computers. So yeah, I was at the forefront. I did wolf 15 books on y2k. That was a really good use of my time.
Jeremy Weisz
So we go from that, Angela to a team a company and, and I was taught watching the videos, and you said, you may really me really kind of reflect on a couple things. And you said, I’m on the autism spectrum. I am not good at managing people. And I need you know, I, you know, have certain strengths and certain weaknesses. And so it made me really think about myself like, hmm, like, I need to, like map out my weaknesses and figure out, you know, be more aware of them, okay, and you’re, like, hyper aware of certain things about yourself. So I’m just wondering, what, you know, what those things are, what you feel your biggest strengths or your biggest weaknesses, and then how you, you know, create this company around those pieces. So, I don’t want to start with, you’re talking about a panel, you were saying with a couple other
Angela Lauria
people, but I want to go somewhere else with it that I think everyone one of the before I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, which is now Asti Autism Spectrum Disorder. I found a book that blew my mind, you probably found it too, because about 30 million people did, which is called Strengths Finder. And the cool thing, I think it was in the introduction, or maybe even the back cover copy. And it was like, for most of us, we identify what we suck at and what I suck at is peopling I save it like I am very easily misunderstood and I really frustrate people. And look I’m very hard for for I the way I described it growing up was I have a bad personality.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. So you don’t strike that doesn’t strike me. I’m not saying that to be nice. Really. I’m just like, I’m wondering. And that’s what we were talking before we hit record. I was like, You said that in the video. I just don’t get that sense from you that you aren’t so sure that you you know, whatever they whatever your stereotypical.
Angela Lauria
That’s the thing I talked about on the panel that I want to I want to go back.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Angela Lauria
The thing I talked about on the panel is especially women with ASD are traits are so different than men and what’s portrayed in the media as Asperger’s. So it’s often missed and on that panel discussion which you can find on maintenance. Graham. So it’s instagram.com slash the Author Incubator, I believe. And if you look at my igtv lock igtv, you’ll see these videos with me and some other people that are asked me. And it’s so different the symptoms and women to recognize that most women go undiagnosed. So it’s pretty fascinating conversation I had, one woman was in her 20s. One was in her 30s, I’m in my 40s, we are all diagnosed at different times. And we all had the same experience of people saying, You don’t seem like someone with Asperger’s. So, back to Strengths Finder. I know I’m super bad at people. And for me, you mean example that.
Jeremy Weisz
So what do you mean by that, like, where someone misconstrued something or I mean, it’s literally everything
Angela Lauria
in my life. But so for instance, I’m really good at strange attention to detail. And so let’s ask someone to give me a report. This just happened. Who did it happen? It wasn’t. This is an old one. There’s one that just happened today that I can’t remember. But so I had a, an ad company I was working with. And they sent an Excel spreadsheet report. And they had a 25 year old kid do the Excel spreadsheet report. And they dragged the formula wrong. So the formulas were broken. And so I got on the call, I was like, Hey, you must drag this formula, I can’t figure out how this formula is supposed to drag but see all these exclamation points. The formula is obviously broken. And he’s like, Oh, we save that column for later. We use that column for later. I’m like, the column that says return on investment. And like, that’s the column I need to see. Like, the reason it’s coded green, is because if it shows up green, I should know it’s good. And if it shows up red, it means it’s bad. So if this is the column for later, then you should probably quit your job right now. Because there’s no way I could continue with this company. So do you want to continue with the story? This is a column for later Do you want to talk about how we could fix the for me? And I get so fixated that column wasn’t enough the discussion of the debt. The discussion was about whatever the price of tea in China, but I can’t move on.
Jeremy Weisz
Hmm, why fixated on that
Angela Lauria
feel. Yeah, that has exclamation. Why do you think Excel invented the exclamation point, if you don’t send this to a fucking client, because they’ll think you’re an idiot. It goes something like that,
Jeremy Weisz
I could see that. I could see someone taking up not not nice. Not in a good one.
Angela Lauria
The 25 year old quits and cries to his boss and his boss calls me and says What happened? And then they get fired from the client. So usually, I’m not allowed to talk to humans, because I can like destroy them accidental. I’m usually right.
Jeremy Weisz
That’s a good example.
Angela Lauria
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that poor guy forgot his name. But it didn’t go well.
Jeremy Weisz
So Strengths Finder, here’s
Angela Lauria
Strengths Finder. So I spent my whole life trying to fix this thing, where I destroy the innocent 25 year old data analysts. And I get pulled into HR and they’re always sending me to rehab. I got fired from like, every job. I’m like, I make people cry. I don’t know why they cried. What do you mean, I was just literally going to teach you how to fix the formula. I know how to fix a formula. Why are you not excited? I’m about to teach you. And instead, like, people get all mad at me. So I spent most of my life trying to fix this, like therapy in the workshops and the EQ, my EQ is really funny. I’m like, on the emotional intelligence. I’m like, 95 on everything, except for like this one category where I’m 13th percentile. And it’s just like, I’m broken. In this one area, I did a 40 years of Zen, where they do brain mapping, okay. And they do this brain mapping. There’s a part of my brain that was like a black hole. And they’re like, do you have trouble with this thing? And they need they’re like, yeah, that whole part of your brain is missing. Hmm, like, yes, it feels that way. So what strengthsfinder said, is what if crazy idea again, this is before I knew I was on the spectrum, but crazy idea. Instead of spending all that money, time and energy, I’m fixing the broken things about you and getting them from like a two to a four. What if we, the awesome things about you that were a 10 and made them and 11 or a 12. And I was like Mind blown, because I had spent too many hours in tears in doctors and therapists office trying to fix my broken personality. So when I started Identifying like, what am I really good at? pattern matching? I’m a fucking beast, building strategy making people money. Oh my god, I know how to make money. It’s obvious like beautiful mine is just laid out for me like you want to add 100 grand? Got it give me two seconds on a whiteboard where they’re like, what were the things I was good at, focused on notes. And in the process of focusing on those, I made this huge revelation which whether you’re on the spectrum or not is true for you, too. If you are listening to this podcast, every everything amazing about me, every single one of my strengths and Strengths Finder, was because of my weaknesses. The reason I can see the patterns to the fastest path to money for you, is because I don’t have any empathy in my way, it’s broken, I don’t have it. I do not walk by anyone and know what they’re feeling. The reason why I can show people what their zone of genius is when they take years and years trying to find their path. And I’m like, this is what you should do is because I’m not confused by a whole bunch of things that get in the way, like, trying to be nice and trying to connect and emotionally vibing out whatever you neurotypical people do, I don’t do any of that. So I’m super blunt. And I’m like, why are you selling that? Why would you sell that? You should just like I did with Eva, Dr. Hasson back when she was just like, well, I believe in auto immune. I’m like, but you’re an ophthalmologist for the German army. Let’s do AI things, right.
And everyone else I think would be like, either not think of that, or they’d want to be nice, which I got zero. And so it’s the flip side of the same coin. The reason those things are attend for me are because the other things are two. And that’s when I fell in love with my ASD. And the thing that everyone on that panel with me said, was the same thing. Like we wouldn’t trade our autism like we’re fans. And so when somebody says, Well, you don’t seem like someone with autism or don’t Oh, the other thing we’ve all heard is, don’t get stuck on labels were like, Oh, no, pretty stuck on the label. Like I would never trade my faults now. Because my zone of genius is amazing. And I think it’s the same thing they tell you about people who are blind have better hearing people with who are deaf have better
Jeremy Weisz
sense. Yeah, totally.
Angela Lauria
I think it’s the same thing. And I think it’s funny,
Jeremy Weisz
I just I just released an episode this week with someone who’s blind. And that’s exactly what we talked about. And it totally they run blind, wine tasting experiences and other other things for brands to capture the other senses, because obviously, he doesn’t have that sense. Dr. Hoby. Shout out to Dr. Hoby.
Angela Lauria
Oh, my God, can you hear this episode? Yeah, it’s so great.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, you’re exactly right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
So um,
Jeremy Weisz
so who do you have to bring in from a team wise to compensate for the things that maybe you you’re focusing on your strengths and the weaknesses? Who do you have?
Angela Lauria
I just know, I can’t manage vendors. Yeah. And so I have people on my team that do that is a little weird, like some people get frustrated or feel slighted. I can manage clients. And I can do like, one on ones. But even I do rarely do one on ones, I’m better in groups. Usually people think they want a one on one with me. And then they’re super disappointed by it. Because it’s not what they thought it would be. And so everyone knows if you work with me are going to work in a group. I have all of the logistics done by logistics people, project managers on my team that are neurotypicals. And the reason why I think NTS are great on that is, if somebody asked me once, what’s the zoom link? I’m happy to give it to them. If they ask me twice, my brain says, I should really ask them if they’re an idiot. And if they ask me three times, I like accidentally refund their money and tell them I never want to talk to them again, which is maybe an outsized reaction. So I don’t even know what the zoom link is. You could probably pay me $1,000 and I couldn’t find it. And that’s very intentional. I have my team hide things from me. Because my answer is going to be so upsetting to people for no good reason. It’s just that Not a good thing to ask. And
Jeremy Weisz
so some of the team members you put in play as project managers, you know, basically they can be front facing answer questions, so you’re not interacting in that one on one fashion any other key hires for you through.
Angela Lauria
So I hire people based on their empathy skills for certain roles. So, for instance, I have a high empath, not that this matters now, but rest in peace. I have a high empath, who is my greeter at events. And so if somebody’s off, she’ll let me know, especially before a pitch. If somebody has bad energy, I hire psychics and empaths basically to read a room. So if anybody in the room is likely to bring down my sales conversions, we will surprise them with like, a one on one session with an editor and we’ll pull them out of the room for my pitch.
Jeremy Weisz
Oh, interesting.
Angela Lauria
I don’t read that at all. I don’t read a room at all. I’m already reading or it’s ridiculous how bad I am at it. Um, so yeah, so I have empaths I have psychics, all of my, my sales team are all psychic. And we accept people and by psychic I mean, some combination of high intuition, high empathy, and really good at like reading vibes. Because we have like a strict, no assholes rule. And so if anyone because it’s I do group coaching. So if anyone’s going to be an asshole, they’re going to screw up the experience for everyone. So that’s why we’ve gone I’ve noticed there’s a, I think this has to do with stress and anxiety. But we’ve gone from saying ad spend but taking about 30 people a month to about 20. And the reason why is there’s a very high level of assholes right now. And I think because people are so freaked out about
Jeremy Weisz
on everything in
Angela Lauria
life, the end of the world, it’s harder for us to find people will accept because you have to have to work with me. Like I can make you lots of money. But to work with me, you have to have a certain amount of I always call it turgidity. I’m not sure why I call it that. But like, you got to be able to handle some shit and be like, wow, what whoever this woman is, she’s a genius. And I’ll deal with whatever the perks are. And I’ll take things personally. Yeah. And if you’re just in a heightened state of anxiety, which a lot of people are right now. I’m going to trigger you and we know it. So I have them go through my psychics first. And make sure like psychically, they don’t send them we do a little astrology match. We do just like a little psychic energy that I was gonna ask,
Jeremy Weisz
you know, for your team? Do you do a certain assessment to get like, okay, they’re high empathy. They’re positive, Angela? What assessment or is that just a feat? I mean, for you? It’s not a feel in general, you must be doing some kind of assessment or do you have someone else? assess it?
Angela Lauria
With empaths? All the empaths I’ve hire have sort of declared their and happiness almost as a negative. And so we’ve had we have three empaths on the team. And they’ve all written books on empathy. One of them her book is called is it I hope I’m not I don’t want to be an empath is her book. So they look at empathy, which in some ways is the counter de se? They’ll look at empathy, the way I look at it. I see like, Oh, I wish I wasn’t asked me. I wish I didn’t have a bad personality. I wish I wasn’t so sensitive. I wish I didn’t have to avoid people. But it’s somebody that’s done the work, like I have with my situation. And they’re like, okay, now I know how to put up bubbles. I know how to use this as a superpower. I know how to click the light and turn it off. So that’s how I found them is they actually declare it. Um, for most of you know, I can tell an or typical, um, it’s pretty obvious to me who’s an empty and I’m pretty good at being able to assess people’s disc. I do have people do a fascination advantage, sometimes in enneagram or Myers Briggs, but I can pretty quickly like I would guess you’re an is tj.
Unknown Speaker
I don’t know.
Angela Lauria
I bet I’m right.
Jeremy Weisz
Is TJ Okay,
Unknown Speaker
it’s my guess.
Jeremy Weisz
Okay. Um, Angela, I have one last question or extra two last questions. Before I do I want to point people to TheAuthorIncubator.com check out more, you have lots of great videos, and they can see you know exactly what you do. And check out The Difference, the book The difference as well.
Unknown Speaker
If you click around, I think it’s maybe the OperatingTheatre.com/freebooks. But all my books are free. And if you want to write a book, The difference is an amazing manual for the steps to do it. We shared some of them today, but obviously I couldn’t, couldn’t teach all of them. So that website or I think it’s 10 bucks on Amazon, but you can get it for free.
Jeremy Weisz
So you go to TheAuthorIncubator.com if you go to the books, or they go to the Books tab or where should they go slash free books.
Angela Lauria
But what happens when you go to the Books tab? I should really know my website.
Jeremy Weisz
No, if you go to actually the top click want to make a 10,000 with a bow that’s
Angela Lauria
a workshop that I did. Yeah, workshop, I’ll
Unknown Speaker
get you.
Unknown Speaker
TheAuthorIncubator.com/freebooks will definitely get you there.
Jeremy Weisz
Okay, cool. So check it out. Let her give you a book. Yes, I would love Don’t be one of the crazy people that know. crazy person two out of 100 crazy.
Unknown Speaker
Yes.
Jeremy Weisz
Cool. Check it out. TheAuthorIncubator.com/freebooks, check out other parts of the website. So Angela, I always ask because it’s InspiredInsider. You know, what’s been a low moment that you to push through? And what’s been a super proud moment throughout your career? Yeah, what’s been a challenging moment?
Angela Lauria
Well, you know, I, it’s a boring answer. But COVID has been really hard. We had to 16,000 square foot venues, spending about 100 k a month just in rent. And I would have been happy to keep paying 100 k a month in rent, because I spent millions of dollars renovating these places. But I don’t see a world where events come back fast enough for me. So I have a kid who’s a freshman. And our plan has always been when he graduates, my husband’s from England and our deal was always when he graduates will go back to England. So I got four years before I leave. Two years before there’s events again, if I have to figure out a whole nother business model, I’m not going to go back to doing events to just leave again. So this sped up my timeline in a way I didn’t expect cost me probably 4 million bucks in the last six months and has definitely crushed my soul to have to walk away from these amazing buildings that we’ve designed. So I saw the video is the author castle. We have a castle and we have the academy and the Academy was built on Georgetown’s campus just off the Georgetown campus integrated with the schools which are largely empty. And we were doing six events a month three in each venue. Wow. Yes,
Jeremy Weisz
where is the author castle? What areas author castle also
Angela Lauria
in DC on the
Jeremy Weisz
beautiful The video is beautiful.
Angela Lauria
Yeah, it was pretty amazing. And we had an incredible six years, hundreds of events. And it was just gone a little bit too soon. So that’s been a huge loss. Yeah, that was really unexpected. But at the same time, super weird. My whole adult life. I guess since college, my favorite author was a woman named Marianne Williamson. I found her book or return to love in 1992. And it really set the course of my life. She made a bunch of tapes that were released by sounds true. I think there were a million and I listened to each of them a million times. There’s probably nothing she said that I hadn’t memorized in 20 years and January 1 in a weird turn of events. She walked into my life literally she walked into the academy building. She hasn’t walked out yet. She’s become my best friend, my business partner, my roommate for a while. And it’s so strange and surreal to have the person who inspired so much of what I do now coaching our authors and of course everything we say is in total alignment because everything I do I learned from her so Hear my words coming out of her mouth and realize, Oh, I got them from her. So I guess they’re her words. I’ve been saying, Wait, what happened? Um, so even all the books I recommend are all the books she recommends. And I’m like, This is crazy. We recommend the same books. And then I’m like, oh, probably got them because you recommend them. So that’s pretty fun and wild and weird. And she feels like my business soulmate. She said to me, on the first day we met, I feel like I’ve waited 20 years to meet you. And I was like, nope, pretty sure that’s me. I’m gonna, that’s my life. So it’s kind of exciting. She’s a couple blocks up the road. We’re gonna have dinner in a few minutes. And we’re changing the world together and all the ways I imagined in my childhood fantasies. So she’s like the big sister I never had and it’s so fun to create with her. Because she is someone who’s been such a huge I mean, that’s the fantasy right? I’m going to be on stage someday with my mentor. I’m gonna they’ll want me to be their business partner. And here it is happening.
Jeremy Weisz
I love it. Angela. Are there any books right now? We should give a shout out to
Angela Lauria
Well listen, you got to read Marianne Williamson. A Politics of Love which is her newest book. Hmm. Um, is obviously about what we need to make the world a better place right now in the US and beyond. And you know, her perennial bestseller A Return to Love if you haven’t read that is a game changer for everyone. So yeah, I would always recommend Marianne’s books. I think that is really what the world needs right now is more love.
Jeremy Weisz
Angela I wanna be the first one to thank you everyone. Check out TheAuthorIncubator.com. Absolute pleasure. Thanks, everyone.
Angela Lauria
Thank you.
