Author Archives: Ray Brehm

by Ray Brehm

I’ve  got to tell you about something and it’s not even book related. What!?  It is the best course on the Internet I’ve found and I buy everything. Yes, I am what Brendon Burchard says: be your own best Avatar. That’s me. I like everything and I’ve got my One Funnel Away Challenge box.

I am going to tell you how the challenge works. It is super cool!

This is a masterpiece and basically a 30 day challenge. It helps you create a product, a funnel and an offer. It gets you mentally prepared, and they give you all this stuff and it’s a 100 bucks. 

I’m not kidding. It’s probably the best course ever taken, especially at that price point. If you check it out, if you go inside the course, it has a members area. It also has a pre training for a week. So you get an extra week and they basically get rid of your false beliefs that you can’t do it. 

Then you go in there and the first week is all about creating an offer. The second week is all about your story. So all these things that you’re trying to piece together from different places, and you got your original story hooks working, then you build a funnel in the third week and the fourth week you start driving traffic to it. Then they’re trying to get you to actually create a business and a funnel in a month. And it’s unbelievable. 

The people in there is incredible. Steve Larsen is coaching in three or four videos every day. You get permanent access to him. I have not seen anything that takes you in such detail through your own online business than this course. 

You don’t need the box to actually participate. They give you everything digitally. But once you receive the box you will find great content in there! By the way, they suggest if you don’t have a product yet, they teach you how to create a funnel to affiliate their product, which is what I’m doing right now. You can be an affiliate and start making money on all their stuff right away.​

So I am opening my One Funnel Away Challenge box here. It contains a little MP3 player. It’s got all the challenge stuff on it. And you will find a solid hard cover book, I’ve been looking forward to reading to. I didn’t even know it was in here!:  If you suddenly lost everything in 30 days, what would you do? Brunson asks all the top people in the industry and they put it all in this book.

Also contains the One Funnel Away Challenge workbook. And I’ve been needing this cause I’m just printing stuff and scribbling all over and it has all the checklists and strategies for creating your offer and cool stuff. 

I admit I took the challenge just to learn about creating challenges cause I’m running mybookchallenge right now, a book draft bootcamp right now and I’m just taking other challenges to make sure I’m doing stuff right.​​

It is hard to compete with these guys though. Cause they were just got it dialed in. But I mean I took one week of the training, a day of the training is worth 100 bucks. I’ll just tell you that right now. So I want to share that with you. I am pumped and you know, I’ve got so much going on and I still said, you know what, I got to squeeze this in. 

So I’ve been like working on funnels and re invigorating my knowledge of click funnels and offer strategy. And I’ve just met a ton of great people in there too. Which by the way, is that part of the key to all of this is just who you meet. And with that said, I’m going to end on this note. 

I want to share with you a little deal I got today. This made my day.

Here it is. I commented to Russell Brunson, he’s added a wrestling tournament. Me, like he’s 20 years after college or 10 years or, I mean he’s younger than that I guess. But anyway, he’s doing a wrestling tournament. So I messaged him on one of his face, Instagram posts and he responded back and made my day. And it’s like, this is what it’s all about, is reaching out to other people, working together as entrepreneurs, working together as authors. ​

So if you’re interested in this One Funnel Away Challenge, and the reason I am writing this instead of driving home right now, which I should be doing, is because they said they just stopped doing it every month. Next month may 2019 is the last month. And then they’re taking a break for a month or two. I’m not even sure what the regular schedule is. 

So if you want to join next month, I think I’m joining again. I know I’m joining again. I believe I’m going to enroll in the next month again just because I could for 100 bucks. It’s unbelievable what you can absorb. I hope you join me. I hope you check it out. I’m going to do it again. I mean, I literally, you could do it every month for a year and it’d be worth it. 

Getting access to the whole members area and all that. I love this thing. All right. Have a great day here in mountain standard time. Talk to you soon. Thanks for reading !!

Are you in? https://go.raybrehm.com/onefunnelaway

by Ray Brehm

My interview on the Sell or Die Podcast is now live!

What is so cool about this is it all started with publishing a book. Jeffrey Gitomer and Jennifer Gluckow’s team reached out to me, right after I released The Snowball Book Launch and asked if I would join them.

I haven’t even started my own outreach campaign yet (which is crazy I know)!

It is so cool what launching a book (the right way) can do for you!!

From the Podcast Notes:

Many of our diehards are sales lifers and have a lot of information to share with the world. Writing a book is a great way to do that but where do you start? And how do you distance yourself from everyone with a laptop and a self-publishing deal?

Ray Brehm has been helping first-time authors get their books crafted and published for over a decade. Today, he’s on Sell Or Die to help you craft your magnum opus. Learn why Ray believes the real work begins AFTER you click publish. This is an episode you won’t be able to put down.

This episode is brought to you by, The Why and The Buy, hosted by Jeff Bajorek and Christie Walters. They interview entrepreneurs and sales experts to find out the why behind their success. Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

On today’s show…

05:04 – Why Ray coaches writers and what he has to say to newbies

07:05 – How do you break through the noise and market your product?

16:32 – Why entrepreneurs should look into writing books to promote their businesses

22:54 – Solving the riddle that is the Amazon algorithm

27:04 – Why most books fail

More on today’s guest

Ray Brehm is a bestselling author of more than ten books that motivate and educate entrepreneurs to write books and use them in their businesses or as their businesses.

See it on iTunes here:

https://go.raybrehm.com/sellordie

by Ray Brehm

I want to introduce you to one of my new favorite authors, she is author of Pre-School for Gummies.

Isabella Brehm. She is my daughter of course. And that is coming out in the next couple of weeks because we’ve got to get it out before the end of the school year. Each child wrote there, all five year olds. 

Each child wrote a chapter on a topic that helps you get through preschool properly and that’s why it’s called Pre-School for Gummies and Isabella wrote a chapter on being safe. It is awesome! They’ve got bios in there. They drew pictures of their tip.

Can you imagine going into an interview or putting on your resume that you published your first book at five? Well, boom! Isabella has. My son Ray did when he was five and he’s already got this mapped out.​

In fact, we’re starting this weekend on a Child’s Book Series for him and he’s already got it mapped out, it is about racing cars and all this stuff. So it is cool. They’re thinking this way. They’re little entrepreneurs. I love it! 

As for me, it’s a great week. This is the inaugural month of my Book Draft Bootcamp. And we are in week two of that and people are getting their drafts done in three weeks. They are all using a formula that I use. 

You kow? I’ve been through this. When I did my first book, it took 10 months and I thought, oh my God, I can’t do that again! And that was because there was no system and you’re constantly going back between logical thought and creativity, logical thought, creativity.

So I figured out finally that I had to get all the logical stuff in the structure set up so that could just be creative and just let ideas flow.​

And that’s what we’re doing in the Book Draft Bootcamp indeed, we are helping nonfiction authors get their books done professionally, quickly and in a great format for the reader. 

It all starts with creating a One Page Book Plan in five days. That is mybookchallenge.com We repeat it every month. The june one starts on June 1st. You can sign up there that’s free. After that you can in the Book Draft Bootcamp. It’s great. This is all leading up to the 2019 version of Bestseller University. 

There we learn Facebook for Authors, Click Funnels, Kartra for your Book Funnel. And it’s so cool because I was just on a webinar watching Rob Kosberg and he said exactly what I had in my script notes for my webinar about Bestseller University. He was talking about that he competes with Amazon. 

And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. 

In Bestseller University  you quit chasing pennies with the royalties. That’s great. Keep the royalties, but you want to take it to the next level with your book or it just doesn’t feel like you really did what you were meant to be doing. And that is creating a book funnel, making an engine of your business, that is the goal. So it’s in Bestseller University, we encompass all of it.

Get your book done, launch professionally, get that going. Royalties, adds, everything from the normal book publishing world and then take it to the next level and create a book funnel, monetize it and make hundreds or thousands of dollars per book sale as opposed to the pennies you’re making as royalties. And for first, this 2019 edition of Bestseller University, it’s going to be awesome because we are having a Book Funnel University as a bonus that’s going to be separate class later. So I’m throwing it all in here. 

Uh, and if you’re around you’ll see it on a webinar that’s coming soon. I’ve got the Book Expert Secrets Interviews. I’ve interviewed all kinds of people in the industry from the Self Publishing Gurus, Marketing Gurus, to the Digital Marketing experts and we’ve got all that in.

And then I’m giving a free year, that is right. The free year to my Mastermind for Bestseller University​. So anyway, this is all fun stuff.

Then I’ve got a book coming out on October 15, with 30 of us authors. It is about taking your book to that next level. It’s, about gamification, book funnels and ads. Just taking all that and getting information from all these experts put it together. I’ve done that also with the Book Expert Interviews.

 I’ve been busy, but I think you should be busy too. You should be, if you don’t have a book yet, get one. Go to mybookchallenge.com and take the five day challenge and get your book plan on paper. Boom! That’s a huge start! Instead of it just circling around in your head this idea you’ll get to next year or the year after, get that done.

If you’ve already got a book and you haven’t launched it properly, you could focus on that Bestseller University​ which is coming out. This will teach you how to do that perfectly building audiences. 

That’s with building audiences while you’re running ads for your normal launch on Amazon or wherever else, you’re also building audiences on Facebook. And there’s a super cool way to do that. So we’re teaching that as well. 

Move to a level up, get to the point where you’re making $5,000 per book, you sell thousand dollars, $10,000 per book yourself because you’re actually using that as an engine for your business. So all that stuff’s going on. 

So here’s one of the experts I’ve got in my Book Experts Secrets: Dave Chesson, Eric Van Der Hope, Jim Mollinelli,  Brian Bernie and Rebecca Kevis. 

So that is the kind of stuff that’s coming out on October 15th. Stay tuned and we will talk to you soon.

My question for you today is are you self-selecting into the right group?

I want to talk to you about something here. About a post by the famous, one of my favorite people, Steve Larson, formally of ClickFunnels; now out on his own OfferMind, I’m going to the OfferMind event in September 2nd and 3rd up in Boise.

He made this post. It’s just a simple post, and if you look at it, it says, “Work smarter, not harder,” and you can see somebody’s just walking up stacks of money and somebody else is climbing these big steps and it’s causing a big problem, right?

Here’s the thing. I won´t tell you to who the comments are from. But one person says, “That’s not working smarter, dumb ass, that’s having rich parents.”

-Oh, really? That’s nothing to do with anything.

Or, “That was the worst comparison of working smarter, not harder.” Or, “Or be rich.” Then we got a good comment there by somebody who’s going to make it big, already look like they’re making it big.

“I’d say smarter and harder and try and get there even faster.” That’s a good comment. Like try both, right?

“Well, if I had that kind of money I would definitely work smarter.” -Really?

So, my point to you is are you self-selecting to the wrong group? I can tell you right now on that post who’s going to be successful and who’s not just based on their comments, because here’s somebody saying, giving a positive quote out to the world. It’s very common quote, “Work smarter, not harder.” And immediately you’ve got people saying, “Well, if I had rich parents or if I was richer I would do that.”

Most of these guys, especially Steve, everybody that look up to they built their wealth themselves. It wasn’t because of rich parents. The government’s out there telling people that to hate successful people, to demonize success and entrepreneurs, and it’s working for some people, apparently.

Don’t let it happen to you. Self-select in the right group, and if you don’t agree with what somebody’s saying, that’s fine, too, but, man, I tell you. I can look in all these and everybody’s got them. There’s these comments, just little prickly comments people make, and it’s not being born with money. It’s being born with the ability to have the right mindset.

And, anyway, I love Steve Larson, and that guy tells it like it is. It was a great post, and so I posted on there, I commented back and said, I basically said what I’m writing to you in this note. Self-selecting, I said, “This is an epic post because you can see how people self-select what group they’re in”.

Either the negative and blame others unsuccessful or the successful or soon-to-be successful group just by their reactions, and it has nothing to do with the current amount of money they have. Because there was people on here that responded positively that had money and there was people that responded positively who don’t have money, and then the opposite’s true. Just people that are out to blame other people.

You just got to watch what you’re saying every day, watch your comments and think what you’re attracting to your life by what you say and self-select in the right group. Because we want to stick together and self-select from the same group, and that’s what is awesome about social media is you can be around the right people all the time, getting in masterminds, finding like-minded people. I love it.

So with that I will say have a great day and just make sure that you are self-selecting into the right group. Write to you soon, everybody.

by Ray Brehm

I am going to talk to you about one of the new books I’ll be putting out next month. It is based on my Book Draft Bootcamp. I just want to show you how easy it is.

It’s just one of the hacks that we use to create books. This is how it works: I just go to my Rev.com account and place a new order for a transcription or a caption.

In this case, I am going to do captions, because I could use them for two purposes. I can grab a TXT file, also I can grab and use the SRT file for subtitles. So, it’s double the bang for your buck if you do it that way.

Then I am going to upload the files, my training videos, in order, and that essentially is going to be the chapter order.

After that, I can have the SRT file so I can add captions to them for my course. I can translate those captions into Spanish, which we will be doing real quickly here. And I also have a TXT file that I just got to put character terms in, and now I’ve got a draft of my book, describing what I do in my Bootcamp.

So, that’s a starting draft, and man, that’s half the battle of getting the draft done, right? Check it out. It’s really cool. I just took my course videos, threw them into Rev. I’ll get them back in a day, probably less, even, because they’re all pretty short videos.

Then I’ve got transcripts and captions, and I could use them for a draft of my book and to add captions to those videos. It’s super cool, super easy.

Isn’t technology great?

We’ll talk to you soon.

by Ray Brehm

Today I want to talk to you about something you got to do before doing anything else with your book, it is called your Author Positioning Statement.

This is for you, internal to you, as you’re writing your book, as you’re telling the stories, as you’re gathering information, as you’re approaching your reader.

“How do you want to be positioned by your book after they read the book?”

• 

It is very simple. You put your name on the first line (blank line) and say is the most sought after… (blank) in the marketplace. So in my case, Ray is the most sought after book launch coach in the marketplace.

You need to do that for yourself, and that will help guide you in your book. That’s something we do in my bookchallenge to help authors get going. It is also gonna help you believe you can do it and be the expert, so get it done today! Get your author positioning statement done!

Want help getting your book done? Go to mybookchallenge.com Check it out. And we just finished this 60 seconds, so boom!

by Ray Brehm

Welcome to the Bestseller Revolution Podcast.

Hey everybody! Ray Brehm here, welcome to the revolution and this is my first podcast, broadcast, or TV show whatever you call it.

I have done a lot of interviews, I have recorded a lot of interviews with people, I have been on other podcasts, I am finally doing my own because… well if you don’t like it you can blame Russell Brunson. He challenged me to do it in his One Funnel Away Challenge.

I am in my second iteration of that and I am actually doing it again next month at the time of this recording. It is so good in fact, I am actually using Russell to train everybody that works for me for free, right.

You can do that once you’ve gone through it, once you can be an affiliate and he pays 100% affiliate commission, right. If people go through this, so it’s like, well that’s a no brainer. I am just gonna send people through. We’re gonna change the world, training everybody about funnels, digital marketing, some stuff that’s really valuable. Getting to the right people, the right audiences. Isn’t technology awesome?

Technology has allowed us in this day and age to target people, the right people. We can meet the right people, we can connect with like-minded people all over the world, whether you like underwater basket weaving, or digital marketing, or books like me, or revolution like me.

That’s what this is about. I named this podcast the Bestseller Revolution because, man we’re all mired in this and that’s what the Phantom Menace is. This societal mediocrity, this cursing of people, and demonizing people who are trying to be successful.

But isn’t that what the human spirit’s all about? It’s about getting out there and doing something you love and helping other people and, by golly, if that’s bad then you better join, you know, then I’m starting a revolution, which is what I’m doing with this podcast, we are starting a revolution, we’re revolting against mediocrity, we are going to be epic in our lives and we are going to be epic in what we do and love and try to bring people.

What if we got everybody in the exact job they loved in the world? How good would we be? We could just do away with all these politicians, right? So that’s what we’re doing, Russell Brunson made me do it.

If you’re watching me on video right now, you’re gonna see I am looking at some notes because, you know what, done is better than perfect. I gotta get this done, you’ll hear the intros and outros to this podcast, they may not be perfect. I spent a few hours on it but I had to get that out of the way because I felt like I needed some epic music to bring us in and out of the podcast. But that’s all I’m doing in this for now and I’ll get it professionally done later.

Done is better than perfect. If you’re watching this, if you’re listening to this, get started today. I’m using Anchor.fm, it’s a pretty simple tool to actually get your podcast out there and I just tested it by uploading video. So guess what, if you’re a content person you can get, you can record a video like I am doing now and post it on YouTube, which I will do after this and post the video right up in the Anchor and it becomes part of your podcast, you can upload stuff.

And then you can actually podcast from your phone, so you got, I uploaded my intros and outros to Anchor.fm and then I can upload an episode or I can record it on my phone and just merge those together in the app and publish and the podcast is out there and that will help me a lot because it needs to be easy if I am gonna try to do this every day and also not keep make it boring for all of you.

So, listen, here’s the story. In our lives nobody is gonna do this for you except you, no government’s gonna give you success or make you wealthy or let you live in abundance and you’ve gotta do it, so I hope you take this journey with me.

Mine started when I was 12 years old you know, I had a normal kind of middle class upbringing, but there was a dynamic in the house that didn’t really work for me and I was being emotionally bullied by my father and, don’t worry, all that has been fixed in adulthood and we had a great conversation about this a few years before he passed away.

But at the time, I was, I remember sitting at the living room table and, you know, the rest of them, brother, sister, mom and dad were in the family room and I was sitting there beside myself, like I did not like the life I was in and trying to find a way out. And, you know, I thought about running away, or living with cousins and all that stuff didn’t work because I would lose the family, the rest of the family, the friends, all that kind of stuff.

And a voice came to me inside and said “I love you and everything’s gonna be okay” and I said “Who is this?” and that voice said “I am you”. And there’s more to that story and I’ll tell you in another episode but the point here is that was the first brush I had with self-reliance and being able to achieve things I wanted to achieve if I just put my mind to it and that I shouldn’t ever have to rely on anybody else.

And it taught me that, it’s like, look, that voice is basically saying you can rely on me, you can rely on yourself to do well and that’s my message to you today, is that, you know, self-reliance, everything is possible.

I just got back from a weekend with Bo Eason and that is one of my origin stories. He made us work on it all weekend and he’s awesome, by the way. So, that is what we’re doing, some of the things we’re gonna do in here, so I am gonna share a lot of stuff I’m working out with books. I test everything, I try to do everything as far as marketing goes and you’re gonna see some super cool stuff here so stick with the podcast, I hope you do.

I am gonna try to keep every episode less than 10 minutes because I just, even if there’s great information, I love short and to the point things. So if you think I am rambling now, it’s the first episode, I am just trying to tell you what this is all about. Now, I do have some long episodes coming with some interviews, I’ve got interviews with some great, great people. In fact, I got one lined up with Steve Larson in a couple of months. If you’ve ever heard of the Tuttle Twins, the libertarian books for kids. Connor Boyack, I gonna be talking to him, there’s a ton of people.

And maybe we can even hunt down Frank Kern and besides me beating him in Connect 4, maybe we can get him on interview, I am gonna try to work on that next week when I’m down at his office.

But here’s the thing, done is better than perfect. This thing is, you know I am recording video and audio at the same time, I am not looking at the camera all the time I am looking at my notes because I gotta get this out there and I gotta share my message with you.

One of the things that I am doing right now and you’ll see a special episode on it and follow it as it go, I’ve got a book coming out Author Inc, it’s October 15th, 2019 and this is a USA Today Bestseller Campaign. So I actually went out and recruited Adam Hoge to help me with this, I got Derek Doepker on there, I’ve got Eevi Jones, Rob Kosberg, Emily Hirsh of Hirsh Marketing, Jeff Brewer of Launch Hackers Lab.

All these people are gonna be in this book and we’re targeting the USA Today Wall Street Journal Bestseller list and I am gonna share with you along the way, what’s happening, what’s going on, so I hope you’ll follow. And that will be easy, easy content for me to give you updates daily on that.

So that’s another thing we’re working on and I am gonna have a companion site here for this so go check it out Bestsellerrevolution.co and I’m gonna put tools out there, episodes, anything I talk to you about downloading, you can find it on that page. You can find out ways to work with me if you need to do that, on there.

So that’s what this podcast is about, this is just kind of the Phantom Menace episode, we gotta get it out of the way just to tell you what I am doing and I will talk to you more tomorrow. Let’s see if I can do this for 365 days. I have no problem talking obviously but it’s all the other rigmarole, editing and all that stuff.

This’ll be great, because I can just record and upload it and that’s why I spend a few hours today getting those intros and outro music and I hope you like them. I know they’re not perfect but that makes me feel better that it’s somewhat professional and we can get that out and now I can just go record and that’s what you should be striving for, is just to build the systems around you so you can just record and really, the truth is, what you see me doing now is what I am going to be doing with everything.

In fact, it already is, so for instance if I am writing a book, I am recording a video. I am recording the video so I can share it. Facebook Live, YouTube, it could be a training, so each chapter could be a training module and the audio could go to a podcast, the content could go to a blog.

So this is something we’re working on with my team, is just this content compounding and really everything I should do, should just be on video looking at you. And so I am doing that and if you’re listening to the podcast of course. I am looking at you through the logo Bestseller Revolution.I see you out there and you’re smirking or you’re making fun of me or whatever. I love it, all attention’s good attention. We will see you next time on episode 2, it won’t be the Phantom Menace and in fact do I have a name for the episode 2? It’s All About Belief, you’re gonna like it because I am gonna tell you and old track story and you’re gonna believe it yourselves. So take care, talk to you soon.

by Ray Brehm

Welcome to the Bestseller Revolution Podcast.

Hey superstar, welcome to the Bestseller Revolution, episode two. I’m still trying to think of the title, but you’ll have already seen it if you’re listening to this or watching this.

I think it’s “Belief in That I’m Stronger Than Waters” or something. And I’ll start it right off with a story. Senior year of High School, I’m a track guy, and I’m a half-miler, and that was my junior year was kind of my coming out year, I started to become fairly competitive in the conference and so forth, went to the regional track meet in Austintown Fitch, near Akron, in Ohio my junior year.

So senior year comes, and there’s really maybe two rivals in the conference. Kip Jennifer from Solon, and Casey Waters from Kenston. I had run with Kip on a summer team, so we were competitors but we were teammates in this summer league prior to senior year, and, interestingly, we ran enough together that I had started winning, and we both believed that I would win those races. At least, that’s how I see it. He might not say that. Kip, hi, if you’re there.

My other rival was Casey Waters from Kenston, and it was, everybody knew who he was the best and everything. He was in, we were Triple-A, he was Double-A Kenston, so a little bit easier route to get to state. So he had been to the state track meet before. Big name, very good athlete, and fast. We ran the dual meet earlier in the year, and I had been working out all winter, and Rick Cabbot was training me, a former graduate of my high school. And so I thought, you know, I got a chance.

And I followed and followed and followed him, two laps, and in the last 100 meters I started to pass him, and I passed him, and I was ahead, and he just gritted it out. He dug deep down, and he had these long strides, and he just started pulling, pulling, pulling, and I was going hard as I can, and I started, they call it getting the couch on your back, you’re running outta gas. I started running outta gas, and I couldn’t hold him off, and he passed me back on that last straightaway, in that last 100 meters in the dual meet. So in my head I’m like, oh my God. I was thinking, this is my year, I gotta beat this guy.

So the season went on, and I got some better times, and then the conference meet comes. And my coach, Roy Podojil, says, he pulls me aside, and basically he’s like, “quit hugging that guy, quit being best friends with him, “and beat him.” And I kinda wanna use some cuss words here, but I don’t think he said ’em. He wouldn’t. But it was kinda like, you know, quit effing around, and hugging him, and get mad at him and beat him. Well, so the first even of every track meet, at least back then, I think it still is, is the 3,200 meter relay.

So, four guys are running 800 meters. So that’s eight total laps, two laps each. And I was the anchor guy. So this is conference championships, so instead of a dual meet where there’s just two teams, there’s, you know, eight or ten teams there, kinda creating a crowd, and we had a really good relay team. McDwire, Bill Coach, and Matt Pyanth, but for some reason that day, in Kenston, their team actually was in the state championship the year before, so they were.

They gave the baton to Casey, probably he was at least 30 or 40 meters ahead of me. Well, 25 to 30 meters, I’d say, ahead of me, and I’m like, oh my gosh, you know? This is the best guy, he’s already beaten me, and I gotta catch up. But I had purposely, literally, he kept coming up and hugging me, and I finally started shoving him away, ’cause we were pals, but Coach Podojil said, “don’t be nice to the guy,” so I wasn’t nice to the guy. And this is a team event, this is a relay, and I got it 30 meters behind, and I just, like okay, first lap, I’m gonna close the gap.

And I did, I closed it to about five, ten meters with a lap to go, and on the backside of that turn, so it’s about 300 meters to go, I passed him, and that was the other thing we planned. He’s like, “Don’t wait til the end to try to pass him. Pass him early, break his spirit.” And I’m like, okay, I’ll try. And I caught up to him, and I passed him, and he literally fought me for two steps, and then let me go.

And I increased the lead and I won by ten or 20 meters by the time I got around the other side, and it was like, okay. I did it, I was just pumped. And then we had the, kind of the head-to-head race, the 800 meter championship, and that was probably an hour later, somewhere in there.

But when I got done with that race, I had caught him from behind, and completely changed my mindset. I actually… I didn’t even like, it wasn’t being cocky or anything, but I just did not even, you know, I warmed up, of course, but there was not this nervous warmup. It was kind of like, I know I’m gonna win. If I could catch him from behind in that relay, I know I’m gonna win, and even more importantly, he knows I caught him from behind and passed him and increased the lead, so I probably beat him total for that whole race 50 meters, 60 meters.

And the mindset completely changed. I wasn’t stressed, I wasn’t worried about whether my shoes aren’t tied right, I’m like, I know I’m gonna win this thing. I know I am capable of beating him head-to-head, because I caught him from behind. And that’s my message today, is that’s the same in everything.

And the first point of this is, had I not run that relay race, and I was just gonna run the 800 head-to-head with him, I would have been nervous all day, and, who knows if I’d have won? Because in my head, I wasn’t sure I could. But because I ran that other race, that extra race, and I was always in that relay, and caught him from behind on the anchor leg, there was just no doubt in my mind I could do it.

And that’s what I tell people all the time about writing a draft, or even writing a book. It’s, you know, you gotta get one out there just to see what you’ve got. It’s almost more important to get it out there imperfectly, and build that confidence in yourself, than, you know, most people I see are trying to get it perfect in their heads before they get it on paper, or they get it on paper, they’re trying to get it perfect here, before they put it out, and man, you can’t even figure out what you’re capable of until you put something out there.

And you gotta do it imperfectly. This is the biggest thing. And it never goes away, by the way. I struggle with it, it’s like, oh my God, can I do a perfect podcast, or can I do, I gotta script this out. If you saw my desk here, I’ve got just, you know, just, notes all over the place. But the whole point is, just get on there and do it. Get your book done, get your course done, get yourself on video, write that blog.

Whatever it is, you gotta get it done, and in order to believe in yourself, you gotta do more of it. I always use this analogy, but you can’t go out and swing a golf club and hit a perfect shot the first time out. You gotta go out and shoot some shots. But I just, to me, that story embodies this whole idea of getting belief on your side. Most of us are way capable of doing anything we wanna do, but it’s our belief that holds us back. And one of the ways that you can counter that is actually performing and trying and making an effort, and realizing, it’s never gonna be perfect.

This podcast is my second episode, and video and all that, I’m simulcasting, if you will, but I record the video for YouTube’s show, and then I’m gonna use it for my podcast, and, look, I know this episode’s good, I’m gonna look back and be like, oh my God, that sucked. I do that.

If I look back at my first book, it’s like, oh, what was I thinking? And there’s a quote, a couple people said or somebody, but you know, like, if you’re not embarrassed about what you were doing a year ago, you’re not trying hard enough. Well, probably, there’s some things I did a month ago that I’m like, what the heck was I thinking?

That’s because I’m progressing, and that’s all because of belief that I can do it. So every step you take creates belief, and that belief helps you take that next step. So you’ve gotta take that first step.

So that’s my short message for today. Thanks for joining me on the Revolution here, and tomorrow, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about the USA Today bestseller campaign we’re running. So the book’s called Author Inc. I’ve got 30 authors, I’ve got some high-powered people, I got a couple people I’m still recruiting.

High-powered, I don’t know what that means. High, they’re high on my list of cool people that I’d love to work with. My dream 100, if you will. So I’m dreaming a few people. We’ll see how that works out, I’ll let you know. But that’s coming out October 15th, but we’re already well underway of planning it, and I don’t usually do books this far ahead.

The Snowball Book Launch I launched well in advance, three months out. We’re putting this out June 15th on iBooks, and then Amazon will come 90 days out, so July 15th. It’s super cool to plan, I basically went out and, I don’t wanna say stalked Adam Hogue, but I went out and got him to be on board, so he’s on board, and he’s actually quarterbacking and he’s helping me architect everything, so, super cool, we’re gonna talk about that tomorrow.

I got some other stuff, we’ll talk about the new version of Bestseller University is coming out, I’ve been working on that webinar, and this is a welcome break of doing the podcast, but I’m gonna be back to that webinar next. And that is gonna be awesome.

That is… got so much more stuff in it than when I started it two years ago, and that’s another thing. Bestseller University, man there was no way I was ready, I could’ve procrastinated another year or two on that. But two years ago, in this month, right around now, I launched Bestseller University, the first edition.

Couldn’t be doing the one I am today with all the higher value stuff in there, all the stuff I’ve learned within the last two years is now crammed in there, and I’ve made it easier to use, and that would not happen if I didn’t believe I could produce a quality product by having produced that first one two years ago.

So believe it! You can do it! I know you can do it. And thanks for joining us, and talk to you soon.

by Ray Brehm

Welcome to the Bestseller Revolution Podcast.

Hey, Ray Brehm here. I told you I would talk to you a little about the USA Today Bestseller, how to become a USA Today Bestseller. And one of the things that the people that are hitting the big list, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, when they’re hitting them solo, there’s a couple main reasons.

One, they’re main stream. There the John Grishams’, all those type of people that just expect it to, but they still have their own audiences that buy a lot of those books. The other guys that do it, they’ve built their own audiences on other platforms. So, through their podcasts, through their videos online or so forth, they’ve built these huge audiences that buy their books, and every time they release a book it propels them up to those charts.

But for you and I, who are starting out, how do we get there? How do we get onto the Bestseller list? And one of the ways you do it is a Dream 100 Campaign. So I, for the book I have coming out it’s called Author Inc., and it’s about how entrepreneurs can use a book to actually build leads and sales.

Not just for the sake of getting royalties and so forth on Amazon and other platforms. And so, I’m bringing in other authors who have audiences as well, and as we share our audiences, and we do an anthology book where we each are contributing a chapter, we can create a much bigger audience for ourselves, and so that’s really cool.

Of course, there’s some other side of benefits to doing this. What I’ve found is, I’m building it now and I’m about in month four of building it, and we’ve got about five months to go. It solves a lot of the problems. The whole campaign itself serves a much bigger purpose than getting a book or a title on USA Today as a USA Today Best Seller.

One, it increses your audience tremendously because, think about it. I’ve got about thirty authors on this book, and we are all going to be sending our list to a page to get people to buy the book on pre-order status and also get some cool, just unbelievable bonuses. And so they’re buying a ninety-nine cent book and then they’re going to get, you know, two or three hundred dollars worth of training from just some top people.

So it’s really cool but that helps all of our list because, everybody on every list is gonna see the opt-ins, the bonuses, the freebies from everybody else that’s on the book so, every author gets a chance to exponentially grow their book. That’s probably the number one thing you could do, right?

The other thing it does, is if you follow any Dream 100 stuff, so Russell Brunson talks about it a lot. David Derricks, he’s the king of Dream 100. He’s got a book about it. It is to build alliances with people can help you sell your products, and in this case I’m actually Dream 100’ing people, get them on the books, so I’ve gone out and I’ve been recruiting some people. Some people I don’t even really know more than saying “Hi”. Some people I’ve never met before, but I want to.

And, we’ve got a lot of just really high level talent on this book. Me brining it together has helped build my credibility with other people on the book. It’s going to help all of us build our lists. The other people that are on the book, you could call it different tiers, but there’s some people that are A-Lister types, and they’re going to get exposed to some B-Listers and C-Listers, and so everybody’s benefiting from this. And that’s kind of the Dream 100 side.

The list building side is another thing. And then we’ve got everyone as people opt into these lists and say “Yeah, I want that bonus, I’m gonna go grab it”, People are just really getting into the funnels of all the authors and getting to the products that they’re really interested in. So, it’s just a great way to build an audience.

So that’s one of the other key aspects of it, and then of course the sales that I just mentioned. So really, you’re Dream 100’ing you’re building an audience, and you’re potentially creasing sales to your own funnel. And then you get the bonus of, if you qualify, of USA Today Bestseller and, or Wall Street Journal Bestseller. So those are the two we’re targeting.

Really the key to what we’re doing here is for USA Today, a Neilson Bookscan will count the number of books during the one week, so we’re targeting the week of its release, and it will only count books if there’s two audiences, or two platforms that they’re bought on, so can’t be just Amazon, and it’s got to be Amazon, something else.

In this case we’re doing iBooks, so, Apple, which may be tougher. We gotta get at least five-hundred books sold on Apple, and then we can get all the rest, we can push all the rest to Amazon. So that’ll be pretty cool when we get that done. We’re planning to get it done.

So really if you think about it, it’s somewhat complicated because we’re launching three campaigns. We’re doing a Dream 100 Campaign where I’m trying to get some A-Listers on the book. We are doing an Apple campaign where we gotta try to get five-hundred books, so we’re gonna start that sooner than the Amazon. And then, we’ve got an Amazon campaign where we’ve got to get probably in the neighborhood of six-thousand sales. We’re saying five-hundred sales on Apple, and then six-thousand on Amazon.

So, that’s the plan, and we’ve started about nine months out. I’ve got Adam Houge working with me on it, and he’s writing a chapter himself, and that is just pretty cool. So we are right in the middle of it. I’m about two and a half weeks away from releasing it on Apple, and working on those five-hundred sales and then, we will release it on Amazon, so, that’s the plan.

I just wanted to kind of give you a heads-up on how that all works. I’ll do a more detailed podcast on it later, but that’s what I got going right now..

We are in the midst of changing from spring to summer here in Phoenix, and its been a cool May. Normally It’s a lot hotter, and we are now just about into June and it’s just starting to heat up.

And that’s where the launch is, or it’s just starting to heat up on the launch. So, listen, if you’re ever thinking about trying to get that next title, because, look, publishing books awesome credibility. The next tier up is Amazon, and then about five more tiers up, you get that USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestseller.

It really kind of cuts you above the rest of all the Amazon Bestsellers and if you ever wanna talk about that, I’m gonna have some kind of formal program available, coming soon, but you can always grab a coaching spot with me, and we walk you through it.

I think I’m not advertising it anywhere else, but, you can always do that with me. I think it is ninety-seven bucks, or something, but you can just ping me for that. And then if you want a full campaign, coached through a full campaign, there’s some ways to do that.

Anyway, the main point is what’s your next step, and my next step? USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and once we get there it’s going to open up a lot of avenues for us, all the authors on this book.

Thanks for joining me today in this audio only version of the podcast, and I will talk to you soon.

by Ray Brehm

Welcome to the Bestseller Revolution Podcast.

Hey, superstar!

I am going to talk to you about a myth that’s out there. Drives me nuts. The myth is that business person doesn’t need a book right now and they can build credibility without it, and in fact, a few people in my world I look up to, they’re my mentors, they’re telling people, “No, you don’t need a book, go do this first.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?”

And let’s get right to it and talk about it. This idea that I don’t need a book right now and I can build credibility and a business without it. And some people think that, right? “No, I don’t need the book yet”. “Other things are more important.” But let me show you something.

The first thing I want to show you is what I call the Yellow Pages Effect. If you recall in the old days, if you ran into somebody at the supermarket or something and they gave you their card and said, “Hey, I can build your fence for you.” You would go check in the yellow pages, and you would see if they actually had a business listed in the yellow pages. If they didn’t, they weren’t a legit business. Right? That was the way that you found out if they were actually legit. So, you’re like, “Well, I’m not probably going to have them come over to my house and dig a hole and put in a fence” or whatever it is.

The next phase of that was when we got websites out. So when websites became mainstream, you would go out and check a business and see if they actually had a website just to see if they were legit because a lot of people are running around and giving out business cards, and they didn’t even have website and you’re like, “Well, how are you a real business?”

Now, I get it. People can create websites and look like real businesses, and they’re not. That’s true. But the one way to prove they aren’t a legit business is if they don’t have a website or they’ve got this joe@wordpress.com website or their email is aol or something. It’s like, “What?!” “Get a real business”.

So, those are the ways we’ve used historically to determine if somebody is a legitimate business person, but when you’re going into branding yourself and you’re the entrepreneur and your name is part of the brand, it becomes even more important that you have a book out there. And I think we’re already there, but if not, it’s coming very soon when people will go out and check and see if you’ve got a book to make sure you’re a legitimate person to do business with, that they should hire you to do work.

And what’s funny is I see a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of my friends even, that don’t have books, and they rate the people that they look up to whether they have a book or not, and they’re buying their books first, and they’re learning about that person and they’re connecting with them through this book. That’s called pre-framing. Basically somebody reads your book, and then they actually feel like they already know you.

Well, I can tell you. I have high ticket consulting prices, and people are paying that without even speaking to me on the phone, which is crazy. I thought that would never happen! But it’s because they’ve read enough of my books. They’re like, “Ah, I feel like I know this guy,” and they call me. They talk like we’re old pals. It’s a way to get connection and pre-frame people so that they’re more willing to work with you.

I think pretty soon it’s going to be mandatory that you have a book so that you see past the yellow pages effect or test when people are looking at what you have to offer. If you look at the top thought leaders out there. Brendon Burchard, multiple books, Russell Brunson, multiple books. Mel Robbins, Amy Porterfield, they’ve all got books. You know why? And that’s why they’re on the top tier because they’ve got books that a lot of the time that’s the first entry point into their business for a lot of people is through books.

Russell Brunson, when he released Expert Secrets he talks about how with that second book, his business continued to grow exponentially, and he thinks it’s one of the most powerful business tools out there. He’s got all kinds of book funnels running, and that book is kind of a low hanging fruit, a low risk way for people to give him a little money, check him out and see if they like him and get into his world and learn to trust him and see if what he’s saying is good information.

So that’s one of the reasons we do that. If you want to be an expert, you need to have a book. A book is a modern day business card, and it may be one of the first things people check out about you. And here’s the thing that gets me. People think, well, I need to get a lot of expertise first, then I’ll write a book. And really, the book is what shows you have expertise and gives you expertise in your area of knowledge. So, it’s not the other way around. You don’t have to wait until someone gives you permission when you hit some phantom number of level of expertise.

A book also will build your list, audience, and network. I’ve found the best affiliate partners and business partners just by connecting with them through either writing the books or being in together working on the books or sending them a book. Also, like I mentioned with Russell Brunson, ascends clients through your value letter. So, it’s a low cost entry point to you, and it’s automatic. Right?

So, you don’t have to get on the phone with anybody. They can read your book and determine whether they like you or not, and by the time they end up talking to you, you’ve got a much bigger head start on your relationship with that person.

I’ll give you another example, The Author Startup. This created instant credibility for me, and I really literally built my list my entire first year just through the book, through my opt-ins inside the book, and that was before I was ready to deliver anything else. It was just teaching people what I had learned about writing a book quickly.

And then I turned it into a light masterclass. I had clients reaching out to me without ever talking to me, just saying, “Hey, can I pay you to help me?” So, it’s much more important than most people think. And one of the things that other people think is, “Well, I need to wait until the end of my life and write a book about my whole life and my memoirs.” Or “I need to wait until my course is finished “or “my business is well under way.” And the truth is you need a book to start being recognized as the expert you are right now.

Your expertise doesn’t do anyone any good if they don’t know you have it. You know, if a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? No. You’ve got to show people, and you can massively expand your exposure by just having a book available on Amazon. And no matter where you are in your business here, just starting out, if you’re a seasoned pro, you know list building is critical, and the book starts the clock on that now.

So, you could be developing your course for eight months, but if you have a book out there, you’re building that list to deliver that course to in eight months instead of waiting eight months and saying, “I need to build a list.” You should always be building a list, and one of the very vest ways to do that is have a book because the people that are reading a book on your topic are high value leads. And the sooner you start making sales, the more of a mentor you create.

So, you could start selling a book, you could start selling a mini-course, and you could be testing different pieces of your course on the backside of that book. So, there’s so many things that you should be doing and using a book to do, and you should be doing it right now.

Now, here’s the other thing. Writing a book is not that hard. I’ve got a 5-day Free Book Challenge where I help people get the outline done. I’ve got a Book Draft Bootcamp wher we try to get everybody’s draft done within 26 days, but even if it takes a little longer than that, you could have something done in…Draw your line in the sand, start collecting leads, start building credibility with your book right away. Don’t fall for the myth that you don’t need it right now. You do need it right now, and it’s not that hard to do. Hope that helped you! Talk to you soon!