Episode 192 - Peggy McColl on Book Marketing in 2012

Transcript

Susan Bratton: Welcome to DishyMix. I’m your host, Susan Bratton, and on today’s show you’re going to get to meet Peggy McColl. Peggy is a New York Times bestseller author. Her penname, her nickname, her moniker is The Bestseller Maker, and she has written quite a few books. We’ll have her go through the list of them, her latest being Viral Explosions, which is really about how to create virality that helps expand your business or brand, but mostly through the strategy of creating your own book or e-book. So we’re going to have Peggy on and we’re going to talk to her about what it takes today online, because the wars are lost, won and lost on the internet, how you can make a bestseller and what her recommendations are – e-book, hard book, go with an author, do it yourself. It’s going to be really interesting. So lets get her on the show. Welcome Peggy.

Peggy McColl: Thank you Susan. I was going to say welcome to you.

Susan Bratton: Do you want to be the host today?

Peggy McColl: I was a radio show host for just over a year, so I guess it’s still in my blood.

Susan Bratton: It probably is. It’s a fun thing to do, isn’t it?

Peggy McColl: It is. It’s very rewarding. I loved every minute of it.

Susan Bratton: Yeah. Well that’s great. Well thank you so much for being on the show. I was connected to you through a friend of a friend, and I had seen your work before and had been interested in connecting with you. So I’d like to jump right into it. What I’d really like to talk about at a baseline is your opinion right now, your latest most integrated thinking about the world in this moment, and if I wanted – not me personally but our listener – if our listener wanted to write a book, if they thought they had some expert advice that was unique and differentiated, that would be a value to a large enough group of people, what would you tell them to do?

Peggy McColl: What a great question.

Susan Bratton: Oh baby, that’s only the beginning. Now I’m putting pressure on myself. I’ll probably have all crappy questions from here.

Peggy McColl: I doubt that. All right, great question. Okay, what I would suggest is that a lesson I learned a number of years ago when I released my very first book is something I’ve never forgotten, and it’s something I share often with audiences when I’m doing speaking engagements, and that is the following: if you’re an author and you’ve written a book or you’re an author and you’re deciding to write a book, 5% of your work is writing the book. 95% of the work in order to make your book successful and get sales out there is marketing the book. And I remember the first time I heard that and I had written my first book, I had self-published, printed 3,000 copies, they were sitting in my dining room, and I was selling nothing. And of course we turned that around. But at the time I wasn’t selling anything, completely ignorant and ignorance is not bliss. But I heard this speaker say that, 95% of an author’s responsibility is marketing the book or 95% of an author’s job is marketing the book, and I thought, “Wow, it was a big job to get that book done. It was a big job to get that book published.” And so I think it’s really important for an author to realize that marketing is essential if you want to be successful in writing your book. I recently wrote my 8th book…. Actually there is a book that’s following Viral Explosions. It’s now available. It’s called 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing On The Internet. And I received a contract last October. In November I sat down one weekend and wrote that book and it was out by Christmas. So one of the great things for new authors, authors that are looking to create their work and bring it to the marketplace, you can do it in record time and record speed. So I suggest you get some help from someone whose blazed the trail before you or learned how to do it, lots of great stuff available online, and you can get your book out quickly. But remember, it’s essential to understand how to market that book.

Susan Bratton: So your new book is 99 things you wish you knew about marketing a book online or marketing online?

Peggy McColl: Marketing on the internet. It could be a book, it could be a product, it could be a service. It’s a very simple understanding. Even if you’re not, you know, even if you’ve been marketing online, there could be a refresher of some things, there could be some new things, but it is 99 things you should know.

Susan Bratton: Lets go back to the question I actually asked you now, and that is… I know, you, Peggy you totally pitched your stuff and reframed my question, which I appreciate your skill in that, but I’d really like an answer to my original question.

Peggy McColl: I thought I answered it.

Susan Bratton: Well, I’m just giving you a hard time. Just for fun. I’m just playing with you. But really I do want to know, the piece of information that I was looking for was if you think you have a book idea…

Peggy McColl: Okay.

Susan Bratton: what are, what’s the decision tree, what’s the logic trail that you follow to decide if it should be self-published or if you should go look for an agent and find, you know, a book publishing company and get an editor.  You know, that’s one road of divergence that I’m aware of. Are there more? And then when you do that what are the steps that you need to take today in the online world as it exists with Amazon people trying to push their stuff up, New York Times bestseller, you know, e-books with online distribution, you know. Kind of walk us down the road of that so we understand how to make the decision.

Peggy McColl: Okay, great. Well you can choose to self-publish or publish. I mean both options are available. If you want your book to the market faster then self-publishing may be the route for you. And there may be a lot of print on demand options for new authors now. What that simply means is no longer do you need to print thousands of books and store them in your home. Print on demand means that when a book is sold the book is printed and the book is shipped. And it’s a very cost effective way for an author to go. So if an author’s looking at getting their book done fast and they’d like to get it to the market and they do not want to go through the process of first finding an agent, which is required when you’re looking to go the publishing route. So if you’re going the publishing route, you need to find an agent first, and then that agent needs to sell your book to a publisher. But as an author, if we’re going that route, we need to have a fully prepared book proposal. That means that we’ve done our research, we’ve looked online or in bookstores or wherever to see what else is out there, how we compare to other books, why there is a need for our book in the marketplace now, why we are the perfect person for writing that book, and what is this book really about, what is the reader going to get, if it’s a non-fiction book. If it’s a fiction book, well then they want to know, you know, what’s unique about your book, maybe what it’s like, already out there. Why are you qualified to be a writer? So once you get an agent – and you can search for agents, you can use online resources for literary agents, and they agree to take you on then it’s the process of that agent finding a publisher. This process of going through a publisher can be very, very time consuming. Extremely time consuming. So for authors that are looking to get their books out faster where they can take the bull by the horns, then they can self-publish their book, which they can look at, they can do a search online, on Google and look for print on demand publishers. They offer packages. They offer the ability to get an editor for you. They cover design. They get your ISBN number. They can take care of a lot of things. Now what’s exciting about this year, 2011, is that the New York Times has announced they will have an e-book, New York Times Bestseller List. First time in history. And last year, in 2010 e-book sales tripled, and they expect that those sales will triple again in the next few years. And people are reading, you know, with that advent of e-readers and, you know, Kindles and iPads and the many different ways that you can read books electronically, a lot of people are resorting to e-books rather than physical books. So this is a great opportunity for a brand new author to get their book done in an electronic format. And if you’re not sure how to do that, Amazon actually will you, they have a service online where they’ll convert your book to e-book format and they’ll get it up online for you, get your ISBN number for you. That’s a relatively quick process as well, and you could be selling your book quickly, and if you promote it properly through online promotion you could end up with an e-book bestseller, perhaps even being one of the first to be on the New York Times e-book Bestseller List.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, I didn’t hear about New York Times doing the e-book bestseller. I know that a lot of times the top selling e-books are also the top selling hard books, so it’s going to be interesting to watch that space and see if there’s anyone who can break in, you know, to the bestseller list that isn’t also a mainstream kind of hardback publisher.

Peggy McColl: Mm hmm. Absolutely.

Susan Bratton: So, and that was really helpful. Thank you for giving us, you know, the story of the two options. I would like to focus on e-books in this next part of our conversation. I’d like to talk about digitally delivered content. And one of the things that I’m aware of is that you’ve used Hasmark Services, which is a book marketing company, and I’d rather you describe exactly what they do, but they leverage affiliate marketing, and I don’t know what you call it – I want you to tell me what the right word is – but what I understand is that they’ll go out and they’ll get, you know, hundreds or thousands of people to sign up, to promote a book. For example, when you did Viral Explosions, when you launched that, they promoted it for you, and they got all these people at the same time to do email blasts out for your book. So what I want to know is if you could take me through that process, not as you did it then, but as you would do it now. So if you need to alter, like “What I know now versus what I did then,” I’d rather hear the what you know now as the example of how you would work with a company, like Hasmark, what they do and how that works best in the market in 2011.

Peggy McColl: Okay, great question. Really good question. I’m not sure if you know this Susan or not, but Hasmark Services is owned by my sister Judy.

Susan Bratton: I had no idea.

Peggy McColl: Okay, let me tell you a little bit more background. I trained Judy. I used to do campaigns. I used to do that business. That was my business, and I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. It was too much work. And Judy was working for me part time. She was working full time for a company, which was in the process of laying off people and going through and going through, you know, severe layoffs, and she anticipated that the writing was on the wall for her. So she was earning part time income by working for me because I was so totally swamped. So I reached a point where I decided I don’t want to do these campaigns anymore for authors, I like teaching authors. I like teaching my bestseller program. I like guiding authors, working one on one with authors. That’s what I want to do and that’s what I’m more focused on. But Judy loved that work, so she said, “Well, you know, keep the business, only just give it over to me.” And I said, “Well why don’t you incorporate your own company and you do it, and if you get lazy I’ll just send them over to you,” and so that’s what she did, and of course she’s been phenomenally successful with it ever since. So I trained her and her staff how to do what they’re doing. And so not only are we related, but that’s the history of Hasmark Services. So yes they did launch Viral Explosions. And so the process works like this, and Judy does, you know, she has a list of thousands of affiliates that aren’t necessarily eagerly ready to jump on board with any campaign, they will do target marketing. So if they have a specific book that might be more appropriate for a particular audience, then they’ll narrow down their search with their affiliates and approach those affiliates and ask them, you know, “Would you be willing to help support, you know, Peggy McColl with the launch of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing On The Internet, which is what they will be doing ‘cause they’re launching that book May 10th of this year. And so they’d go out to all these affiliates, they get them on board to support a campaign that will happen on May 10th, so she will go out and she’ll approach partners. So the first step is to determine a date, so I’ve determined a date, May 10th. Now we go out and we try and get partners. Now here’s the thing, two things that really need to occur. One is you got to realize that these affiliates or list owners are being approached often. I mean everybody’s trying to get to their subscriber base. So you’ve got to find a way to stand out from the rest. So what I suggest in 2011 is that you put some creativity into your approach. Don’t just send out a blanket email that’s the same boring old thing that you see, you know, from every other author, “I’m doing a campaign, this date, here’s what I’m doing.” All right, they all know how it works. Most of them know how it works, especially approaching others that have been in campaigns before. So don’t waste your time with a whole bunch of garbage that they already are very familiar with. Respect the fact that they’re busy people. Then you can also think of what can you do that might incent them to be a part of your campaign. You can come up with some bonuses. You know, perhaps you could say we’re going to track the results for all the affiliates that are promoting this book, 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing On The Internet. And so how are we going to do that is we have affiliate software, so we’re going to set it up so that we’ll track it all. And the winners, we’re going to have some prizes and you can have like iPods, a trip. I mean you can have all kinds of different things that you’re going to give away. You could also offer something like, especially in my case, you know, since Peggy McColl is an online marketing person, that she’s going to do a free class just for the partners that promote her book, and she’s going to talk about the trends or the new distinctions of this type of marketing in 2011. That’s going to be an exclusive offering, only available for the partners that come on board. See what I mean? Like you’re coming up with some creative ways of getting people to go, “Yes, yes, yes, I definitely want to be a part of this.”

Susan Bratton: Yeah. When you launched Viral Explosions you offered all of your partners a flash drive with your programs…

Peggy McColl: Right.

Susan Bratton: How To Make Big Money Online, The Magnet For Money Platinum Edition program, Turn Fear Into Faith – that’s a great name by the way – and Relax Your Way To Wealth. These were all recordings and teleseminar programs, that you loaded up flash drives and sent them to your affiliate partners, right?

Peggy McColl: Exactly.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Peggy McColl: See…

Susan Bratton: That was good. .

Peggy McColl: If you do something like that, and it doesn’t have to be major, it doesn’t have to be life altering. Just something simple.

Susan Bratton: Something standout.

Peggy McColl: Yeah, you have to stand out…

Susan Bratton: Yeah, you have to rise above.

Peggy McColl: Exactly. So that’s a step, and then you get these partners on board, and then when you’re putting an offer together for the perspective buyers so that on May 10th they’re coming to what’s called, as you know, a landing page or a sales page or also called a special offer page, that there’s something on there that’s really attractive. Now recently I was working with Colette Baron-Reed. You know, we’re both Hang House Authors, and she called me Christmas Eve in a little bit of a panic. She was getting ready to launch the book called The Map, which she launched last week. And she said, “Peggy, you know, I’m launching my book. I just don’t feel like my campaign’s strong enough. I really want to get my book on the New York Times bestseller list.” So I said, “Okay, lets get on the phone.” And I had promised my husband I’m not working Christmas Eve ‘cause I tend to be a little bit of a workaholic. But here I was on the phone with Colette ‘cause she’s a friend and I love her and really enjoy her work. So I said to her, I said, “Colette, you know, your offer looks nice, it’s very nice. But there’s nothing that stands out from the rest. You need to create a really, like, wow kind of offer.” So I suggest that she has something where she charges a certain fee, it’s a few thousand dollars for a day with Colette Baron-Reed. I said, “Make that a grand prize. Hay House is the publisher, they’re doing this event called I Can Do It. Offer a ticket or a couple of tickets to an I Can Do It Event. People love that to.” And that’s perfect for the audience. So I said, “Come up with some, like some free, not downloadable, but some prizes in addition to the bonus gifts, and get some bonus gifts that have never been used before that are truly unique. Not the same old boring bonus gifts that we’re seeing everybody else’s campaign. So she did this and her book was wildly successful last week. I’m waiting to hear if it actually made the New York Times bestseller list. I suspect it may have ‘cause she had very strong sales throughout the week. She was diverting buyers not only to Amazon.com but to barnesandnoble.com and to I believe Borders as well online. And so that helps because the New York Times is looking at sales that are sort of across the board. Not just from one location, they’re looking for some consistent sales from this reporting agencies, which are Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon.com of course bookstores as well. And so she did a special offer this year that was truly unique, added some creativity, very attractive, and it produced some great results. As a matter of fact, Hasmark did a few campaigns so far this year, and I believe every one of them has made it on the New York Times bestseller list. She did Marci Shimoff. Now Marcy got very involved in her campaign for Love For No Reason. Marcy and Hasmark had 480 partners supporting that campaign. I’ve never seen a campaign with that many partners before. So it’s like, is it possible? Yeah, it’s possible. But Marcy was very, very involved, but she just didn’t leave it up to Hasmark to just go and do their work. She was very involved, right on top of it, getting partners as well, and completely passionate about making Love For No Reason a New York Times bestseller and she did it. And she did it. And Aria Ford did a campaign for the paperback release of The Soul Mate’s Secret. That book didn’t make it on the New York Times bestseller list now that I think about it, but very successful, like top ten on Amazon.com. She was up in barnesandnoble.com as well. Same thing, following the formula, created a beautiful offering, very creative, well done, professional looking and they are getting the results.

Susan Bratton: Question for you. When we’re talking about the 480 partners what I would like to hear is how the money works. What cut does Hasmark make? I mean books aren’t very expensive. There’s not a lot of revenue. There’s not a big pie to split up here. So Hasmark takes a cut and then the affiliates take a cut and then…

Peggy McColl: No.

Susan Bratton: Okay, so how does it work?

Peggy McColl: Okay, how it works is that affiliates get paid nothing and Judy gets paid a fee for her service. When I was doing that business I would have never ever taken a cut because as you said we’re not talking about a lot of, you know, big pieces of pie that we can cut up. And if an author is looking to make, like, money from their book, you know, good luck with that, because what this does is a number of things. Number one, it builds your credibility. Two, you know, gives you that bestseller status. Three, you know, gets you exposure to a bigger audience. And then you can offer other products and/or services from that, you know, as a result of that. So Judy’s services through Hasmark, she’s got three different levels and I think it’s like silver, gold and platinum or something like that. And the three levels of service are different rates, so it could be anywhere from – I don’t remember off the top of my head – but lets say $8,000, $12,000, $16,000. And what they do for that is they will create potential partner lists that they target and they’ll get partners on board. If it’s the lower level it’s like 50 partners guaranteed. If it’s the next level it’s like 75 partners guaranteed. If it’s the highest level it’s 100 partners or more guaranteed. And they will write the copy for the, to get affiliates, for the affiliates to send out, for social media, for newsletters. They will create the landing page copy, and they’ll do the web stuff, so they’ll create the special offer page and they’ll create the bonus page as well. So they do all of that. That’s the services that they offer. But it’s a fee, it’s a pay per service fee and that’s required for that. So if the affiliate’s not getting paid anything per book, Judy doesn’t get anything for book. And quite often it’s the author that pays for that service.

Susan Bratton: So how do the affiliates make money and what motivates them to be a partner.

Peggy McColl: You ask the best questions ever.

Susan Bratton: Thank you. I appreciate that coming from a former radio show host.

Peggy McColl: Well they’re not going to make any money, so they typically know that. What motivates them is, I mean it could be one thing or it could be multiple things. And it could be something as simple as they get to help an author. So if someone reaches out and says, you know, I’ve got this book, I’d really love your help, you know, I can’t get it out to the market without your help, if you’d be willing to send an email, blah, blah, blah, then that may be enough. Now strangely enough you will get a lot of partners on board just because you asked and just because you’re sincere and you let them know that you needed help to spread the word. That’s one reason. Another reason is if you’re having an offering of a bonus gift of some sort what that does, so for example I have this bonus gift that I’m using now. It’s brand new. It’s called How To Write Your Book In Record Time. And I wrote my 8th book in a weekend, so I decided to create this video presentation. It’s approximately 37 minutes long, and I’m giving it away in some of these campaigns. I gave it away in Colette Baron-Reed’s campaign. So what’s happening Susan is everyday I’m getting subscribers to my database that want to see this video. So if you went to Colette Baron-Reed’s gift page you’ll see the gift from Peggy McColl. So when people see it they’re like, “Oh I want that,” you know, “I want to know how to write a book in record time.” So they click on the link. It takes them to my website where there’s a sign up, which means I’m now capturing their email address. They can choose to give it to me or not. They can leave if they don’t want to. But a prerequisite for getting that bonus gift is to enter their email address. So this is a very good thing for me. As you and I are speaking I’m sure – I don’t have my email open – but today, like almost all day long I’m getting sign ups or I’m building a list. Now I have another program called Fast Track To Writing Your Book. So what I’m doing is I’m feeding a funnel. So people that are interested in the How To Write A Book In Record Time they’re very likely candidates to sign up for my Fast Track To Writing Your Book program or my mentoring service or something else, my Bestseller Class. So what does that do for me as a partner? Well it’s pretty obvious right. I get exposure. I build my email list. I get sales. You know, and I could have clients, you know, customers that I could end up having with me for, you know, years and years and years because they’ll likely want something else, or they may want something else that I have to offer. So it’s definitely a beneficial experience for the partners as well, especially if you look at campaigns such as, you know, someone like Marci Shimoff. If she has 480 partners that means 480 people are out there promoting Love For No Reason. If your name is somewhere on her, you know, sponsor list or her bonus partner list, then it’s great exposure for you. And this is why I find it easier for me personally – and this isn’t everyone’s experience – I find it’s harder and harder now to get partners. Now from my own personal experience, because I do this type of thing, because I teach this and Hasmark is involved, I tend to get partners easier. Why? Because my partners know that if Peggy McColl’s going to be doing it and Hasmark Services is going to be doing it, they’re going to get a lot of exposure. You know that that’s, you know, really part of her reach. Now for someone who doesn’t necessarily have that, you know, on their side, they’re maybe just starting out, so there’s different, you know, things that they need to do. They need to be more like a dog with a bone. They’ve got to be far more persistent. They’ve got to be more creative. They’ve got to really stand out, you know, as we talked about a littler earlier, to stand out from the rest, but can it be done? Absolutely it can be done. If you think of anything in this world, like, there’s always that 90/10 principle where, you know, 90% of the world is doing things sort of haphazardly, but 10% of the people are really shining. You know, they’re willing to do the extra work, they’re willing to go the extra mile. So my belief is that if you’re willing to do a little bit of extra work in this… So I’m not talking about a lot, but if you’re willing to be a little more creative and you’re willing to go the extra mile you’re going to get the results because most people aren’t willing to go that extra mile. So if you are then you’re far more likely to experience success than if you’re not.

Susan Bratton: So what we’re really talking about here for these partners is affiliates if you will, and they’re not even really affiliates, you’re right. They’re partners. These partners that are going to promote any given book, what they’re doing it for, their motivation is lead gen for themselves. Is that right?

Peggy McColl: Yes, yes.

Susan Bratton: Okay, so it’s really it’s just a big lead gen sharing circle?

Peggy McColl: Yes, big lead gen sharing circle. And you never know, like, another sort of caveat is that you don’t know how people are going to respond to your bonus offering as well. You know, I had no idea people, so many people would be signing up for my bonus gift, but it seems to, you know, it seems to be attractive. Now are all bonus gifts like that? No. I mean there may be some that only get a few leads. There may be some that get hordes of leads. So I think it really depends on, you know, like with Colette Baron-Reed, her book is called The Map, and here’s a book that’s, you know, it’s a self-help book, a promotional or a motivational kind of book. Is that a fit for, you know, Write Your Book In Record Time? Well, you know, I might not have thought so, but…

Susan Bratton: Oh definitely, yeah.

Peggy McColl: It turns out it is…

Susan Bratton: Oh yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Anybody who’s an author, they’re always incrementing their knowledge, they’re always incrementing themselves. I mean that’s probably a core value of people who write books. You know, and I bet it’s a very common core value. Yeah, it totally makes sense. So I’m in a couple of masterminds. And masterminds are syndicates of like online authors. And we do a lot of, I don’t call them e-books, I actually call them e-books with benefits. They’re audio/video e-books and workbooks that come together in a membership site with a forum to learn a new skill, we teach a lot of communication skills with our publishing company. And I’m in some syndicates where they also do a similar kind of a thing. They’re in relationship advice world, or whatever it might be. And when we cross promote each others products it works really, really well, almost as well as our own launches of our own products to our list because they’re similar. And when we get things are complimentary they work just as well. So people are people, and if you have a good addressable list and they trust your filter, you could actually cross market or cross promote a lot of variety of products, don’t you think?

Peggy McColl: Oh absolutely true. And that’s what’s exciting about learning the formula for marketing a book. It really is just marketing online.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Peggy McColl: And, you know, it’s repeatable. It’s, you know, duplicatable. We can do this and we can create a six CD audio program as I did with Magnet For Money and go after the same partners, and say, “Okay, now I have an opportunity where you’re going to earn affiliate commission from my product,” you know…

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Peggy McColl: So my $95 product I’m paying 40% of affiliate commission…

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Peggy McColl: you know, and on we go.

Susan Bratton: And that, that takes time. It takes time to build up your own product offering, your own funnel, and you have to start somewhere but you have to start with a vision even if, and I guarantee you, the vision is going to be tweaked, you need to start with a bigger vision than one book, or it’s almost not worth the effort in some ways, unless you can get that credibility like you said. So I want to go back to something that you said, and I just want a brief answer on this, but you were talking about partner bonuses, incentives, partner incentives, and I know that that’s always a moving target about what partners like to get. You know, everybody at this point probably has an iPad and that maybe not the, you know, it used to be an iPod, then it was an iPhone, then it was an iPad, you know, whatever it might be. What are the things that are kind of like over, so, so 2010 and what are the things that people are using as incentives today? And I know it’s always going to change, but I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on that.

Peggy McColl: Well interestingly enough iPad’s are still being used. You’re absolutely right, lots of people have them. I was sitting at the airport the other day and had mine out and you could see many people with them. So iPads still work, and the reason is they may not – and maybe not everyone in the family. Like my son sees mine, he’s 18 and he wants one, I know he wants one. And so even if, if there was a contest for an iPad even though I have one I’d want to win that. Why? So I can give it to somebody who doesn’t have one. So I think iPads are still attractive. The other thing that I see as attractive is perhaps a ticket to an event or entry into a program that perhaps the author has. So if they don’t have something maybe they can get somebody else to donate something. So if they, and depending on what the book is, so if I’m launching 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing On The Internet, I may go to someone like Stephen Stravakas who is a branding expert and he’s become a friend of mine. And I may say to Stephan, you know, “Would you be willing to offer a one hour coaching session,” and Stephan claims that he charges $5,000 an hour. Well that would be really, really attractive. Now why would he do that? ‘Cause he’s going to get exposures to thousands and thousands of people with my campaign. So those are the things that I look for is I look for, first of all, who’s your audience and what are they hungry for and what would you deliver that would be attractive to them? So if I’m going after affiliates and I know they’re all into marketing and perhaps branding is something that’s attractive, then I may go to him and ask for something like that.

Susan Bratton: I want to offer my book up to you.

Peggy McColl: Wonderful.

Susan Bratton: Well you’ve said a few times, you’ve said a few times to me, “That’s a great question,” and I hear that a lot because I wrote two books on the subject. I have an online training program called Masterful Interviews where I teach people how to ask the killer questions that nobody ever thought of and how to use social media to give people the content that they need to promote your work for you.

Peggy McColl: I love that. That is, that’s really, really attractive. ‘Cause if you think of authors as an example, like authors and business owners, there’s opportunities. Like you see all these teleseminar series that go on…

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Peggy McColl: you know, Healing With The Masters, The World Tapping Summit, and these guys are doing triple figure revenue.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Peggy McColl: And so, you know, it’s not just the fact that that’s the model and that’s what they’re doing; what’s really key here is how effective those interviews are. So what you have to offer will be tremendously valuable.

Susan Bratton: Thank you. There you go. You can have at it. You can have as many copies as you need. It’s infinitely replicable. So you’re on Twitter, you’re on Facebook, you have a Facebook page, you have a Facebook profile, you have a blog, you have a YouTube channel, you have your landing pages, you have your database. Where do you think your time is most well spent in increasing your database, your lead gen database of potential customers for your products and programs and books. What is it online, social or otherwise, that you do that you know is the thing that drives the most in bound new signups of potential leads for you?

Peggy McColl: I would say it’s giving away stuff. Giving away freebies. For example, the How To Write Your Book In Record Time. That’s a freebie. It’s building my list, it’s building my list rapidly. You can get other partners to promote something that you have to give away. Like recently Mary Morrissey promoted my How To Write Your Book In Record Time free giveaway, my 37 minute video presentation. So that’s definitely one of them. Now you asked about online, what immediately came to my mind, and I tend to go with intuitively responses, what immediately came to me is going to events speaking at events -- not just going to events but speaking at events, like I’ll be speaking at Author 101 University on March 3rd, 4th, 5th, I mean it’s 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th in L.A., and that actually increases my database line because I collect email addresses as well on there. I’ll be speaking at the 21st Century Book Marketing event. I’ve got all kinds of speaking engagements actually, and my calendar is really getting jammed full of them. I find that also helps. So I would also say giving away stuff, giving away free stuff online. My blog really helps build my level of subscribers as well because I’m writing and offering great content consistently. You know, I had, it took me a while to get to do a blog, and the reason is because I knew it was a commitment. I knew that I really needed to be blogging regularly. So I decided if I’m going to start I better darn well be ready to be committed, and so now I’m blogging 8 blogs a month. It’s time consuming. However, I find that it’s very valuable. It also allows me to use some of the information that I offered in my blog for presentations and for my course materials or when I was working on 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Marketing On The Internet, one of the reasons why I was able to do it so quickly is because I pulled stuff off my blog. It was things I was already familiar with, and so that helps. So those are the things I would say that make a difference.

Susan Bratton: Thank you. Yeah, I put together something called Social Media Super Powers, which was essentially a PowerPoint presentation with, I made it into a video, I just, I did like a Camtasia of that last year where I walked through the thought process, the decision tree, the logic path where if you were thinking about doing social media as a brand how would you make the decision about where to put your time and effort based on your natural talents, what exists in the world for your brand already. I literally walked you point by point by point so that at the end you could use this process of thinking to get to the answer of what you should do. And when I would speak last year, every time I would speak I would say, “And you can go to socialmediasuperpowers.com and download it for free.” And I mean I got a huge list from that. So it does really work, and it’s funny, that’s what you said, give away freebies and speaking. That’s exactly what I did. So I agree with you.

Peggy McColl: That’s great.

Susan Bratton: All right, this is really my last question unless you say something super good that I have to ask. No, I don’t. I’m just kidding. My last question is for your business as a bestseller maker you like to work with authors. And you love to help them learn how to do what you do so well. You have an opportunity here to tell us, all my listeners who are all either writing books or thinking about writing books, I could tell you that almost anybody who’s going to be listening to you talk right now has in their mind their next book idea or they’re thinking about it. So you have your pick of all these sophisticated marketers that listen to DishyMix, you have an opportunity to tell them why they should work with you, and I would like you to do it this way: I’d like you to tell them who your perfect partner is, who your perfect client is. Describe that person, so they can say, “Oh that’s me. I’m going to give Peggy a call.”

Peggy McColl: I love that question as well. You know, I just go back from Sarasota, I did a two day event with authors. It was called E-books, Bestsellers and Beyond. And intentionally kept the room small. There were less than 50 people there. About 40 of them were authors that had a number of people that were there to support the event. And as one of my clients said, it was a piggy love fest, which was really nice. I mean there was a woman there doing videos for authors, and she ended up capturing 20 video testimonials for me. And I would say that, you know, I don’t necessarily aggressively go after clients, especially for my mentoring. They come to me. They come to me naturally. The reason for that is because the clients that I love to work with are clients that are here to make a difference. You know, they’re passionate about their message or they’re passionate about getting their book out there in the world. They’re down to earth people. They’re not unreasonable. They’re not difficult to get along with. I quite often will say I don’t allow any BMW’s into my program, and I’m not talking about the car, I’m talking about bitcher, moaner, whiners.

Susan Bratton: I love that. I’m totally using that. That’s super cute.

Peggy McColl: And you know what, I have an affirmation that I use, which says I only attract kind loving thoughtful inspiring warm giving generous people into my life and into my business.

Susan Bratton: Me too.

Peggy McColl: Because I believe that if you are that you will attract that.

Susan Bratton: Definitely.

Peggy McColl: And so, you know, like I don’t want to talk about what my clients say about me, but absolutely it made me cry so many times this weekend the things that people were saying. So I would say that what’s happened for me as far as the clients that I feel very blessed to serve and I believe I’m here to be of service to them is that, you know, they tend to just come to me. They find me. There’s some sort of unexplainable way that they get to me. They just, you know, they’re inspired, they hear my name, they see something and they’re like, “I got to work with her.” They go to my website, they feel the energy. ‘Cause I believe there’s energy in everything. There’s energies in your email. There’s energy on social media. There’s energy on your website. People will get it. They’ll get who you are and they will decide if they want to work with you or not if there’s a notch. So I find the ones that I’m attracting, the ones that I want to work with are the ones that are a match to me, that are a match to me and that genuinely want to make a positive contribution to this world. They’re my ideal client.

Susan Bratton: Perfect. That’s really good, and that’s what’s important to you, and it’s really good to be so clear about it and that will absolutely attract those kind of people. So I think you might find a few here because the DishyMix listeners in general, they’re used to having, they’re used to hearing these kinds of conversations, which is great. So Peggy, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciated the professional way that it was super easy to connect with you and to book this and you showed up on time and it was a delight to talk to you and you gave some really great insightful valuable information. And so my entire dealing with you has just been a really high quality experience. And you know, you’re saying that’s what you want and I’m telling you you’re giving that too. So thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. And one last thing, where would you like to send my listeners to find out more about you? What’s the entry point for you?

Peggy McColl: Destinies.com. That’s my main website, www.destinies.com. It’s d-e-s-t-i-n-i-e-s, dot com.

Susan Bratton: Perfect. That’s where we’ll find you. Peggy McColl, thank you so much for coming on DishyMix. I’m your host, Susan Bratton. I hope you have a great day, and thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. Take care.