Ink, Impact, and Innovation with Chandler Bolt

Chandler: [00:00:00] "Hey, Kendall's my only son, he's a family name. I'm old. I can't have more kids. So the family name died with Kendall. But he said the only good that can come out of this is if other people's lives are positively impacted by the fact that this happened."
Chandler: "And that just hit me like a ton of bricks, because at that point, I was feeling very guilty about what had happened. There's all these tracks that you play in your head, which is, Hey, if I wouldn't have had this idea to go up there, he would still be alive. there's just all these things. And so I just remember hearing that and saying, All I'm going to do something."
Chandler: "And now I'm living for two. I'm living for my goals and I'm living to accomplish his goals because the night before he passed away, he was telling me about his five year goals and his dreams and all this stuff. And I realized he's never going to get to accomplish those things."
Dustin: "Welcome back to the seven figure lead podcast. I'm Dustin Riechman, your host, very honored today, to have really special guest, someone that I've admired from afar. I joked with them before we started recording that I've known him much longer than he's known me. he's. Actually been [00:01:00] pretty instrumental and some of the choices I've made and how I've created a seven figure leap and the structure of our coaching program and some of the things we're doing to scale here in the new year."
Dustin: "and I actually got to share the stage with him, traffic and conversion summit in Vegas. without too much fanfare here, Chandler, I would love for you to just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about what you guys do at self publishing."
Chandler: "Yeah. my name is Chandler Bolt. I run a company called self publishing. com. we change lives through books and grow businesses through books. we've published about, gosh, 4, 000, no, 4, 000, 7, 000 or so books in the last eight or nine years. We publish a ton of books all day, every day. We believe that books change lives."
Chandler: "we're just kind of scaling Inc 5, 000 company a bunch of years in a row and one of the fastest growing companies the U S and definitely one of the fastest growing publishing, companies."
Dustin: "That's awesome. Yeah. So I know back in the day when I first started hearing you on podcasts and starting to see you making waves, self-publishing school, and it was much more of a, school, a coaching program about how to, do this yourself. And now you guys, can you explain a little bit kind of what's [00:02:00] transformed from the days of self-publishing school into self-publishing.com and what that transformation really been focused on?"
Chandler: "It started kind of by accident as self-publishing school. I had published a couple of books successfully. People started asking, Hey, how are you doing this? And so we started teaching it and it was more of a group coaching and course model in the early days. And then we started having success with that."
Chandler: "But just scaled. And so then that worked really well and we continue to grow and all that stuff. but it's funny at the time of recording this a few days ago, the notification came up that it was five years ago today. this was on last Friday, but five years ago where I took a red eye to New York City on one of my first, you know, it felt like a first big business meeting, which, we do zoom meetings and we, you know, the business was doing millions of dollars in revenue at that point, but still, for whatever reason, just going in person to New York City to do a big meeting with people that didn't want to meet with me, who I've been harassed and for like over a year to meet with me and, And it was in a law firm and all this stuff."
Chandler: "That was the day that started me ultimately buying selfpublishing.com, which was at the time, it was really just a [00:03:00] domain name. They had 105 million books in print. and at that time, but there really wasn't much business anymore."
Chandler: "So we bought the domain. We grew it and it was just more of a content marketing play. So let's grow this and refer customers to self-publishing school, but it's obviously a very authoritative domain. So that started working and we built it up really from nothing. I mean, the site looked like it was built in Microsoft paint."
Chandler: "There was maybe 500 visitors a month visiting the site, even though it was just such a powerful and authoritative domain. So we built it up. The content marketing machine started working, then it started bringing in, 50 to 75, 000 a month, sometimes up to a hundred thousand dollars a month, for self-publishing school."
Chandler: "And then finally it just kept growing. And we said, you know what? Some of our best authors didn't really resonate with the school piece. Like I was self-publishing school sounds kind of like for beginners. That's probably not for me. So as we look to elevate the brand, We said, Hey, let's rebrand the company to self-publishing dot com."
Chandler: "So January of last year, 2023, we rebranded the whole company and, we're now self-publishing [00:04:00] dot com. We still own self-Publishing School as like a product line and a site and all that stuff. But that's the evolution of the brand. And then with that, I guess another kind of offshoot of why the change is."
Chandler: "We've always been an education company, but it kind of became part of what we do and not everything that we do. Cause we started rolling out services. We started doing cover design, formatting, editing, final mile of publishing, like all the stuff that people need to publish successfully, even marketing stuff."
Chandler: "So it just, I think made sense in a lot of ways and we're glad that we've done it. And now we're just scaling and trying to publish a whole lot more books."
Dustin: "Love it. Well, I've had, uh, personal, I guess, firsthand glimpse into all the great work that you do and the difference it makes, through our mutual friend, Tony DeLorenzo, who was a previous guest on the podcast as well. And Tony and his wife, Elisa wrote six pillars of intimacy. I've known Tony for, 15 years and I won't take credit, but I had some role in the whole six pillars framework helping him kind of work through that."
Dustin: "but it was like night and day they'd written like seven books and they're all done. Okay. Right. Like I wrote a book back in the day in marriage and it did. [00:05:00] Okay. But then when he did six pillars with you guys, I would say it was like of the process, the cover design."
Dustin: "I mean, just everything about it just was like, it looked. It looks way better than any self-published, book I'd seen, and that Tony had produced. And so that's been awesome. as Chandler knows, I'm on board with self-publishing to do my own, , great book, later this year."
Dustin: "So I'm excited to work with you guys and build a report back, my real firsthand knowledge of what it's like birth a baby book here, with you guys in your process, but I think another thing that's been really impressive to me is. , after you and I were at TNC, I was, at podfest and I got to, meet with Peter on your team, who's part of your partnerships team."
Dustin: "And, a couple of things about that meeting, it was supposed to be a 15 minute coffee chat and we talked for two hours. So, showed me values the types of people that are on your team and how much they really care, we're digging in real deep into what I do and, ways for us to partner up and, and, And Peter was also just, very insightful and like very, just very caring, he wasn't trying to sell me on writing a book with self-publishing. It was much more like asking me really good questions. He actually asked [00:06:00] me a critical question. He's like, yeah, I think we could be great partners, over time. And, I think we can send a lot of people your way because podcast guesting goes hand in hand with, book publishing and thought leadership."
Dustin: "he said, But I have one question for you. Like how many people can we send you before it all breaks? And I was like, that's a great question. So I started looking a little more at my business model and we're making some changes now to make it a more sustainable, more scalable. and again, looking at the model of what you've created Chandler, , It's been really instrumental, , for me and, and how I'm future casting for my own business."
Dustin: "So thank you for that. Thank you for having great team members who are really cool people, who are there in my corner."
Chandler: "yeah,"
Chandler: "That's a great question, by the way, shout out Peter."
Dustin: "Peter, yeah. Peter Unger, a good German guy. talked about our, our, our family lines and how they may have crossed at some point in Germany. We had a lot. I mean, it got pretty deep. We had a lot in common. so Peter's a great guy. he's like six, seven. He looks just like my older brother when my older brother was like, 25 years old."
Dustin: "So, it was just funny, small world stuff, but enough about Peter. I'd love to get as much as you're willing to share. It kind of, it's just [00:07:00] a snapshot. I guess it's not a real private since you're in the Inc. Five. Thousand. And there's a lot of data that comes with that, but like right now, snapshot, roughly what is self-publishing as far as like employees or revenue, you mentioned a number of books, which I love as the leading metric, how many people are actually publishing, but yeah, just, can you give us a snapshot of where you're at today before we talk a little bit more about maybe where you're headed?"
Chandler: "Yeah, we're probably, oh gosh, 70 or so employees will do 14 to 15 million in revenue or so this year. we should, publish about a thousand books this year. So we are on pace as we record this interview to break our single month record for books published of 84. and this is since we've started tracking her and our team actually doing the publishing and not just you know, authors that we're teaching and coaching and all that stuff, but that's books that are, , Published by our team."
Chandler: "We have, , published seven books so far today. So big day of book publishing and yeah, that's kind of where we're at snapshot as a business."
Dustin: "That's amazing. Obviously, you had founded this whole [00:08:00] thing, and it was your baby, and it's obviously grown a ton over the years, but sounds like you've been doing this for 10 years. Did I catch the..."
Chandler: "Yeah. Almost a decade. the first version started in 2014. Then our first year, we kind of worked out the kinks. There was three business partners. Then, three became two and we launched self-publishing school officially the following year. And then that went well and started scaling and then ultimately, bought out my business partner."
Chandler: "so we're bootstrapped, self funded. I own a hundred percent of the company. And, we've been, been in business for about a decade now, which is great. Crazy to think about."
Dustin: "that's amazing. what's your kind of day to day like now as a CEO? Are you still active in coaching? You actually like reviewing books? Are you really sitting at more of a hiring and leaderships? See,"
Chandler: "Yeah. more of a leadership role. would say, it's very busy and I've been very much in the trenches as we scale. So for the last, gosh, 15 to 18 months or so, I've been head of marketing and running the company. So that been working two executive roles, essentially. I mean, I [00:09:00] had a head of marketing, but prior to that."
Chandler: "And so that's been. A lot, but I just hired, a new head of marketing. so she's starting in a week or so. So that, that, that will really free me up from a lot of the marketing stuff. And I can get back into being more, more of the CEO of the company. so it's a lot of team development, Making the cash register ring."
Chandler: "So revenue focus like webinars and podcast interviews and stuff like that. and just trying to grow and develop hiring interviews, all that stuff, just trying to grow and develop the team. Yeah."
Dustin: "So sometimes the stuff is really personal. Sometimes it's just like, nah, this is like, I found a good business idea and I ran with it. But I love to peel back the onion a little bit for people and talk a little bit more about why."
Dustin: "Why did Chandler start this whole [00:10:00] thing? And, what's the value that it has provided to you? And maybe the, how that's evolved over the years, because it obviously started as one thing. And it's become a quote unquote, really real business. Like it started as a kind of a one man idea, maybe with a couple of partners."
Dustin: "And now you're, you know, 15 million, 70 employees to look after. but if you kind of go all the way back to the seed of the idea and why you started with these partners, like. What is the reason why you get out of bed and want to do this stuff every day?"
Chandler: "I'd say there's why I started it. And then there's why I doubled down, which is when I started it is I published a couple of books. They did pretty well. People started asking, Hey, how are you doing this? And I dropped out of school and I was working on a business that was kind of failing at the time."
Chandler: "And I'd done businesses before that, so I knew how to run a business, but not this type of business. so then, while I was working on that business, people kept asking about the book stuff. And it's kind of like, you can only get smacked in the face so many times before you turn around and look."
Chandler: "And you turn around and look and there's this line of people that are there wanting help with that thing. So the Asterix that I would make here for anyone listening to this or watching this is what's the thing that people keep asking you to help them with. And there's probably a business in there and it might be a better business than the one that you're trying to start or the one that you're actively growing, or it just might be a very profitable subset of a product within the business that you already have, So pay attention to the market votes with their wallet [00:11:00] and they'll tell you what they want if you listen. So that was a big lesson for me. So we started teaching it. We had our first cohort of 45 or so people, way back in 2014. They had a lot of success. So then that was for me, it's tough."
Chandler: "can't really sell something that I don't believe in. So it was kind of weird selling the first beta version of that. Cause I'm like, all right, well, I've done it, but I haven't successfully done it with other people yet. So join and I was super upfront about it and I was like, join and it'll be the best pricing it ever is."
Chandler: "You'll have the most access to me that you ever had. And, We're going to do everything we can to make sure that you're successful. Then they were, I think it was something like 60 percent of them wrote and published a book within six months or something crazy. that told me, all right, we're onto something."
Chandler: "And then we launched our publishing school. in the midst of kind of all that, I talked about this in my TEDx talk, kind of for the full story, but. had this experience where I went on a cruise with the company I was working for at the time, or I guess I wasn't working for them at the time."
Chandler: "Technically, I'd worked for them previously. and they would take their top performers on the [00:12:00] cruise, every year. And so I was like, Hey, can I come? cause I was number one in the company, number one in the country with them, my rookie year and broke some records and stuff like that. So they invited me back."
Chandler: "And on the last day of that cruise, we were up on the top of the ship. And it was kind of this tradition where we go up on the highest point of the ship. And there was a few of us there. We were talking about, you dreams and all this stuff. And I remember we were in mid conversation. I heard something and I looked to my left and I saw this little sonar thing start to spin and it started to spin and it swept around."
Chandler: "And it hit my friend, Kendall, in the chest and it swept him over the railing. And so it was one of those things where, I looked down and I thought, Oh man, he's, going to be hurt. Maybe he's got a broken arm or something, but it'll be fine. But I looked down and he wasn't moving. rushed the ship into port, they rushed him to the hospital and he passed away on the way to the hospital."
Chandler: "And it was this crazy experience where, I remember a week after. it was after the funeral and I was talking to his dad and he said, Hey, Kendall's my only son, he's a family name. I'm old. I can't have more kids. So the family name died with Kendall. But he said the [00:13:00] only good that can come out of this is if other people's lives are positively impacted by the fact that this happened."
Chandler: And that just hit me like a ton of bricks, because at that point, I was feeling very guilty about what had happened. There's all these tracks that you play in your head, which is, Hey, if I wouldn't have had this idea to go up there, he would still be alive. There's just all these things. And so I just remember hearing that and saying, All I'm going to do something.
Chandler: And now I'm living for two. I'm living for my goals and I'm living to accomplish his goals because the night before he passed away, he was telling me about his five year goals and his dreams and all this stuff. And I realized he's never going to get to accomplish those things. You know, a month or so, two months or whatever, after that happened, I found out that he had actually showed up to one of my random webinars and I had actually started a draft of a book.
Chandler: And so after he passed away with the help of his friends. We were actually able to publish that book. So that was just a very crystallizing moment for me, where at the time I was focusing on a lot of things that didn't really matter chasing money, fame, women, all the things, and I just realized there's a handful of things that actually matter. There's one thing that I'm doing that's making the world a better place at that time, and that was helping people write and publish books, and it gave me a sense of urgency. So that was the why to double down, okay, this thing's really making a difference. And at a time when I was kind of figuring out, okay, do I want to keep doing this? Do I not? It really gave me the clarity to double down and to start living with a sense of urgency, because it's cliche, but life's short, you're not guaranteed tomorrow. And so, uh, kind of just started attacking what was next with the business. And we've been really scaling ever since then.
Dustin: That's an incredible story, my daughter's name is Kendall. So it gave me a little extra chill bumps there. So yeah, sorry. Sorry. You. Went through that, but I'm sure that was very gratifying and surreal to actually be able to posthumously publish a book on his behalf and, and share the story there. So, that's amazing. It's gonna be hard to top, the reason why the Chandler just shared in the future. But, so understanding that. Origin story, the double down moment where you're at today. You seem like the type of guy that's got quite a bit of clarity about where you're headed.
Dustin: I'd love for you to share [00:15:00] three, five year sort of, vision of where this is all is there next evolution that's already planned? How big are you really wanting to get self-publishing.com?
Chandler: Yeah. I mean, the big vision is publish a hundred thousand books by 2035. We've published roughly 7,000 so far. We're publishing a thousand a year. At the pace that we're on currently. So that's we're on pace to be at about 20,000. So obviously we need to go five times faster than that. So that's the big goal. And I mean, I believe I was put on this earth to run a billion dollar company that changes the world long after I'm off this earth. It's still here making a difference. I feel like it. My God, give it abilities in a business and I believe that business is the best vehicle for good that exists. You get to create, you get to change the lives of your customers. You get to change the lives of your employees. And in doing that, you get to create a profit. That then changes the future of generations of your family that you can also donate to charities and nonprofits like I do. And like we do, we've built a ton of schools and houses and [00:16:00] all this stuff funded libraries. And so you get it. It's just a win, win, win, win, win, it's the skills and gifts that I feel like I was given is in the business arena. So that's the long term goal. But then, you know, in more near term, like you asked is I believe we can get this to 25 million within two to three years. We got to accelerate, we got to move faster and we got to get better at a handful of things. But then five to seven years, I think we can get it more in the 75 million to a hundred million a year range, it's going to take a lot of growth. We got to grow faster than what we're doing currently. We're learning to evolve and grow to that next level. What I'm realizing is that as the business gets bigger, the percentages get harder. That's just math. You know, we just, it's like, I think last year we added a million and some change in revenue over the year prior. Which when you're at 2 million, you just doubled.
Dustin: Yeah.
Chandler: But when we're, we're, we're at, it's like, all right, we had 11, 12 percent growth year. Like that's good for a lot of people, but that kind of sucks for our standards. So how do we accelerate growth at scale? And so that's a lot.
Chandler: Of what I'm thinking about [00:17:00] and what we're focused on as we move forward.
Dustin: Amazing. I think. It's kind of what I open with is, witnessing your evolution and where you're at ahead of me and a couple of things you said today that really stuck with me. One is, when trying to get all fancy about business ideas and niches and, calling and purpose, just boiling it down to like, what do people keep asking you for help with, I think that that's really key and, people that know my story, and how I got into what's kind of a weird niche is basically running masterminds around podcast guesting. It's like, okay, where does that come from? Well, it was cause I was selling meat sticks through podcast guesting, which was another weird thing to do. Everyone just started asking me like, how in the world are you getting on these shows? How are you getting these deals? How'd you get into Walmart? Like, how did you get this, outside success? And I was like, well, I can help you. And then, you know, that became one on one coaching, which became group coaching, which became cohorts. And now we're getting into to your own story where you had 45 people in a cohort and that was like as big as you could really see it at the moment. Right. And now, you've got a full self-publishing company that doesn't just do coaching. It goes way deeper. And now you've got 70 employees and we're on your way to, as you [00:18:00] said, 25 million in 2 to 3 years. A lot of people in our audience are, you know, Chandler 10 years ago or Chandler eight years ago, where it is a single person with a lot of passion, a lot of expertise and very strong God given talents. But, it's a one-man show or one-woman show for those early years. And then it evolves into, you know, the seven-figure business, which is what we do. The target of a lot of, our listeners. But I think it's really useful and inspiring to look at what does it take to go not only to seven figures, but to start seeing the bigger vision of multiple and eight figures and even nine figures, and, you know, ultimately, I guess 10 or however many figures it is to get to a billion, because he said, ultimately he'd like
Dustin: To, like
Dustin: A lot of zeros, a lot of digits.
Dustin: But no, that's, awesome. Chandler. I love here in the full gamut of the story and you're clearly passionate about what you do, not only because of the impact that it has for your clients, but as you said, for charity and for all the other impact that you can have with your family and in the world. So kudos to you. Keep up the great work. At this point, I usually like to basically turn the mic over [00:19:00] to the guest and let you share a smart strategy with the audience. I would assume you might want to talk a little bit about, building a business with the book that might be a key thing our audience would want to learn from you. But I'd really love to just turn it over to you for 5, 10, 15 minutes, however long you'd like to wrap on this topic and give us some knowledge bombs here.
Chandler: You know, I'll jump straight to the marketing and using the book to grow your business. We've got trainings on our site that if you want to learn the writing process or if you want to learn lot of that piece, can also check out my book published. It walks through the whole
Chandler: Process end to end.
Dustin: Awesome book. Highly endorsed. I have it on my bookshelf over there, so I won't hold it up on my end, but I'm glad you had one handy.
Chandler: So check out the book. It's a lot of foundational stuff, but I wanna skip straight to the business-building part 'cause I've hunched that that's probably what would be most helpful for the folks here. So when I think about using a book to grow your business, I think about three specific buckets.
Chandler: So there's using a book to get more leads, sales, and referrals. Okay? So if you're listening right now. Write that down in your phone or on a, sticky note on your desk [00:20:00] leads sales and referrals. So more leads, these are people who hear about you because of your book, So there's a bunch of people who have never known of self-publishing.
Chandler: com. But they saw my book published, they grabbed a copy of the book, they read the book and they said, wow, this is really compelling. I want to work with them, lot of people wouldn't know about, ClickFunnels, but they saw Russell's books, right?
Chandler: A lot of people wouldn't know about acquisition. com, but they read a hundred million dollar offers or a hundred million dollar leads, I could keep going on and on and on and on, The smartest, most successful people on the planet have used books. To grow their businesses. that's the more leads bucket use, the book to get more people in your ecosystem, then more sales we use the book at every part of our sales funnel.
Chandler: the root word of authority is author. You can't spell the word authority without the word author. So when you become an author, you become an authority in the mind of your best customers. And so if they're choosing between you and someone else who does the thing that you do, but also wrote the book on it, that's the way to go.
Chandler: Who do you think they're going to choose? So we use, know, chancellor, you have some sort of sales funnel or sales mechanism for your business. So it might [00:21:00] go from they view something to they give contact information to then maybe they show up for an appointment or book an appointment. Then they have to show up for an appointment, then they have to buy, or maybe.
Chandler: That's an e-commerce funnel or something like that. Use the book at any part of the funnel. We use it to help with webinar registrants, then to get them to show up and stay to the end. Or we just use it throughout the funnel because it increases the sales conversion of all different parts of the business.
Chandler: And then more referrals, this is turning. Active customers potential customers sometimes not even customers into active refers maybe you've heard the saying a book is a new business card i think a book is better than a business card because if i were to give you a business card today.
Chandler: You would probably throw it away within 24 hours. Like, let's just be real. That thing's going in the trash. For the conference, it's not leaving the hotel room, right? But if I give you a book, every time you see that book, you think of me, you think of my business. You're probably going to keep it, at least if your parents raised you anything like mine did, mine did, which is not to waste, So I give you that book, you then keep it. It's in your home or in your office. When you see that [00:22:00] book, you think of me and you think of my business. Or if someone comes to your home or office and said, Oh, that looks interesting. Maybe you say, Hey, yeah, I'm not gonna read it. Why don't you take it now? You just referred me business, so what we recommend for a lot of our customers, if you're listening right now and you've got a past customer list, this is a six-figure idea. Send two copies of the book. To every past or existing
Chandler: Customer, if you haven't published a book yet, work with us, we'll help you do that, But send two copies and say, Hey, here's one for you.
Chandler: And here's one for someone, you know, who needs help with the problem that you solve, so you've now just made it easy to refer you business because instead of me saying. Hey, you should really work with Dustin. He helps with podcasts, guesting, all that stuff. Now I'm soliciting on behalf of your business, which is cool.
Chandler: People certainly do that. But what's even easier is, Oh, wow. You're looking to get on more podcasts. Hey, here's a copy of this book by Dustin. It helps with podcast guesting. I think you'll love it. he can help with this, but like, start with the book. And I think you'll find it helpful. So now all of a sudden, I've just referred you business. This happened the other day. I was speaking at an event and there was [00:23:00] a guy there who said, Oh yeah, one of my coaching clients, I told him I was working on a book. He said, you need to read published. He said, I am listening to your book on audible right now.
Chandler: And he saw me speak at that event. He signed up as a client at that event to work with us. it's just, it's a no brainer. So I'll circle back, use the book to get more leads, more sales, more referrals. This is also how, I speak and we've got a speaking team that speaks at a bunch of events average.
Chandler: I don't even know what it is these days, but been in the 30 to 50 K range. And a lot of times it's much higher than that. especially if I'm going to speak and reason why it's not because we're getting, 30 to 50 K speaking fees is because we go there, we speak, we add a ton of value, we give away a ton of books.
Chandler: And then those people sit down and talk with us. a lot of them sign up on the spot to work with us. it's an example of us practicing what we preach and using the book to grow your business. So that would be my tip. Use the book to get more lead sales and referrals.
Dustin: It's amazing. It's like you've taught this before. I don't know. That was [00:24:00] a very,
Chandler: a chapter in the book.
Dustin: Clear.
Chandler: It's like chapter 25 or something.
Dustin: Yeah, also that I've seen this in action. So I've mentioned a couple of times I was in Vegas with Chandler and then I was in Orlando with, Peter and a couple of other members of your team, Matt few others.
Dustin: It's A pretty cool phenomenon to watch someone come from the stage, you know, get the books in the back in Orlando, I had my seventh yearly mastermind group. A lot of my people were there and two came and signed up, on the spot table and it was just like, the proof's right there.
Dustin: And then it was purely out of the authority of the stage and the book. And I think, those are really powerful, one, two punch, you throw in podcast to do it, a little more at scale, and I think you got real. Holy Trinity of marketing here. And so I'm a believer. I'm doing it.
Dustin: I'm getting the book. I was on three different stages in the past three months. And literally every time I got off the stage, one of the first things someone said is, do you have a book? I'm like, not yet. Chandler's going to help me with that. so, think, the author and authority, Is undeniable, right?
Dustin: Like the fact that, the book is just the source of so much authority. And it's just great. [00:25:00] It's great all points in the marketing system and, leads sales and referrals, as you
Chandler: Yeah.
Dustin: Eloquently put it.
Chandler: And once you get your book done, that's going to help tremendously convert a higher percentage of those people sitting in your talks and the leads, Because I know you have a pretty good strategy and you have a giveaway and that sort of thing. So I think that probably works pretty well, but I think a book take it to the next level, especially if you have physical copies.
Chandler: And then for us, that helps turn into. One on one sessions where we can kind of split the room and say, Hey, how many of you, a book is on the, maybe someday, maybe next year list. Okay, cool. Grab a copy of this book. It's there when you need it. We're ready to help. How many of you, this is on the next six-month list?
Chandler: Maybe this year you saw me do this to traffic and conversion summit. Okay, perfect. Sit down and talk with us while we're here. Like we Chandler: Of what I'm thinking about [00:17:00] and what we're focused on as we move forward.
Dustin: Amazing. I think it's kind of what I open with is, witnessing your evolution and where you're at ahead of me and a couple of things you said today that really stuck with me. One is, when trying to get all fancy about business ideas and niches and, calling and purpose, just boiling it down to like, what do people keep asking you for help with, I think that that's really key and, people that know my story, and how I got into what's kind of a weird niche is basically running masterminds around podcast guesting.
Dustin: It's like, okay, where does that come from? Well, it was cause I was selling meat sticks through podcast guesting, which was another weird thing to do. Everyone just started asking me like, how in the world are you getting on these shows? How are you getting these deals? How'd you get into Walmart?
Dustin: Like, how did you get this, outside success? And I was like, well, I can help you. And then, you know, that became one on one coaching, which became group coaching, which became cohorts. And now we're getting into to your own story where you had 45 people in a cohort and that was like as big as you could really see it at the moment. Right. And now, you've got a full self-publishing company that doesn't just do coaching. It goes way deeper. And now you've got 70 employees and we're on your way to, as you [00:18:00] said, 25 million in 2 to 3 years. A lot of people in our audience are, you know, Chandler 10 years ago or
Chandler eight years ago, where it is a single person with a lot of passion, a lot of expertise and very strong God-given talents.
Dustin: But, it's a one-man show or one-woman show for those early years. And then it evolves into, you know, the seven-figure business, which is what we do. The target of a lot of, our listeners. But I think it's really useful and inspiring to look at what does it take to go not only to seven figures, but to start seeing the bigger vision of multiple and eight figures and even nine figures, and, you know, ultimately, I guess 10 or however many figures it is to get to a billion, because he said, ultimately he'd like
Dustin: To, like
Dustin: A lot of zeros, a lot of digits.
Dustin: But no, that's, awesome. Chandler. I love here in the full gamut of the story and you're clearly passionate about what you do, not only because of the impact that it has for your clients, but as you said, for charity and for all the other impact that you can have with your family and in the world.
Dustin: So kudos to you. Keep up the great work. At this point, I usually like to basically turn the mic over [00:19:00] to the guest and let you share a smart strategy with the audience. Would assume you might want to talk a little bit about, building a business with the book that might be a key thing. Our audience would want to learn from you.
Dustin: But I'd really love to just turn it over to you for 5, 10, 15 minutes, however long you'd like to wrap on this topic and give us some knowledge bombs here.
Chandler: You know, I'll jump straight to the marketing and using the book to grow your business. We've got trainings on our site that if you want to learn the writing process or if you want to learn lot of that piece, can also check out my book published. It walks through the whole
Chandler: Process end to end.
Dustin: Awesome book. Highly endorsed. I have it on my bookshelf over there, so I won't hold it up on my end, but I'm glad you had one handy.
Chandler: So check out the book. It's a lot of foundational stuff, but I wanna skip straight to the business-building part 'cause I've hunched that that's probably what would be most helpful for the folks here. So when I think about using a book to grow your business, I think about three specific buckets.
Chandler: So there's using a book to get more leads, sales, and referrals. Okay? So if you're listening right now. Write that down in your phone or on a sticky note on your desk [00:20:00] leads, sales, and referrals. So more leads, these are people who hear about you because of your book, So there's a bunch of people who have never known of selfpublishing.
Chandler: com. But they saw my book published, they grabbed a copy of the book, they read the book and they said, wow, this is really compelling. I want to work with them, a lot of people wouldn't know about, ClickFunnels, but they saw Russell's books, right?
Chandler: A lot of people wouldn't know about acquisition. com, but they read a hundred million dollar offers or a hundred million dollar leads, I could keep going on and on and on and on, The smartest, most successful people on the planet have used books. To grow their businesses. that's the more leads bucket use, the book to get more people in your ecosystem, then more sales we use the book at every part of our sales funnel.
Chandler: the root word of authority is author. You can't spell the word authority without the word author. So when you become an author, you become an authority in the mind of your best customers. And so if they're choosing between you and someone else who does the thing that you do, but also wrote the book on it, that's the way to go.
Chandler: Who do you think they're going to choose? So we use, know, chancellor, you have some sort of sales funnel or sales mechanism for your business. So it might [00:21:00] go from they view something to they give contact information to then maybe they show up for an appointment or book an appointment. Then they have to show up for an appointment, then they have to buy, or maybe.
Chandler: That's an e-commerce funnel or something like that. Use the book at any part of the funnel. We use it to help with webinar registrants, then to get them to show up and stay to the end. Or we just use it throughout the funnel because it increases the sales conversion of all different parts of the business.
Chandler: And then more referrals, this is turning. Active customers potential customers sometimes not even customers into active refers maybe you've heard the saying a book is a new business card I think a book is better than a business card because if I were to give you a business card today.
Chandler: You would probably throw it away within 24 hours. Like, let's just be real. That thing's going in the trash. For the conference, it's not leaving the hotel room, right? But if I give you a book, every time you see that book, you think of me, you think of my business. You're probably going to keep it, at least if your parents raised you anything like mine did, mine did, which is not to waste, So I give you that book, you then keep it. It's in your home or in your office. When you see that [00:22:00] book, you think of me and you think of my business. Or if someone comes to your home or office and said, Oh, that looks interesting. Maybe you say, Hey, yeah, I'm not gonna read it. Why don't you take it now? You just referred me business, so what we recommend for a lot of our customers, if you're listening right now and you've got a past customer list, this is a six-figure idea. Send two copies of the book. To every past or existing
customer, if you haven't published a book yet, work with us, we'll help you do that, But send two copies and say, Hey, here's one for you.
Chandler: And here's one for someone, you know, who needs help with the problem that you solve, so you've now just made it easy to refer you business because instead of me saying. Hey, you should really work with Dustin. He helps with podcasts, guesting, all that stuff. Now I'm soliciting on behalf of your business, which is cool.
Chandler: People certainly do that. But what's even easier is, Oh, wow. You're looking to get on more podcasts. Hey, here's a copy of this book by Dustin. It helps with podcast guesting. I think you'll love it. he can help with this, but like, start with the book. And I think you'll find it helpful. So now all of a sudden I've just referred you business. This happened the other day. I was speaking at an event and there was [00:23:00] a guy there who said, Oh yeah, one of my coaching clients, I told him I was working on a book. He said, you need to read published. He said, I am listening to your book on audible right now.
Chandler: And he saw me speak at that event. He signed up as a client at that event to work with us. it's just, it's a no brainer. So I'll circle back, use the book to get more leads, more sales, more referrals. This is also how, I speak and we've got a speaking team that speaks at a bunch of events average.
Chandler: I don't even know what it is these days, but been in the 30 to 50 K range. And a lot of times it's much higher than that. especially if I'm going to speak and reason why it's not because we're getting, 30 to 50 K speaking fees is because we go there, we speak, we add a ton of value, we give away a ton of books.
Chandler: And then those people sit down and talk with us. a lot of them sign up on the spot to work with us. it's an example of us practicing what we preach and using the book to grow your business. So that would be my tip. Use the book to get more lead sales and referrals.
Dustin: It's amazing. It's like you've taught this before. I don't know. That was [00:24:00] a very,
Chandler: A chapter in the book.
Dustin: Clear.
Chandler: it's like chapter 25 or something.
Dustin: Yeah, also that I've seen this in action. So I've mentioned a couple of times I was in Vegas with Chandler and then I was in Orlando with, Peter and a couple of other members of your team, Matt few others.
Dustin: It's A pretty cool phenomenon to watch someone come from the stage, you know, get the books in the back in Orlando, I had my seventh yearly mastermind group. A lot of my people were there and two came and signed up, on the spot table and it was just like, the proof's right there.
Dustin: And then it was purely out of the authority of the stage and the book. And I think, those are really powerful, one, two punch, you throw in podcast to do it, a little more at scale, and I think you got real. Holy Trinity of marketing here. And so I'm a believer. I'm doing it.
Dustin: I'm getting the book. I was on three different stages in the past three months. And literally every time I got off the stage, one of the first things someone said is, do you have a book? I'm like, not yet. Chandler's going to help me with that. So, think, the author and authority, Is undeniable, right?
Dustin: Like the fact that, the book is just the source of so much authority. And it's just great. [00:25:00] It's great all points in the marketing system and, leads sales and referrals, as you
Chandler: Yeah.
Dustin: Eloquently put it.
Chandler: And once you get your book done, that's going to help tremendously convert a higher percentage of those people sitting in your talks and the leads, Because I know you have a pretty good strategy and you have a giveaway and that sort of thing. So I think that probably works pretty well, but I think a book take it to the next level, especially if you have physical copies.
Chandler: And then for us, that helps turn into. One on one sessions where we can kind of split the room and say, Hey, how many of you, a book is on the, maybe someday, maybe next year list. Okay, cool. Grab a copy of this book. It's there when you need it. We're ready to help. How many of you, this is on the next six-month list?
Chandler: Maybe this year you saw me do this to traffic and conversion summit. Okay, perfect. Sit down and talk with us while we're here. Like we
would love to create a plan with you. You can also get a book if you want. but we'd love to sit down and talk to you. And so that just really helps so that.
Chandler: They're not just inspired, but they implement and then hopefully work with you as well on the back of that talk.
Dustin: That's amazing. Well, I'm going to be working with Chandler's team. [00:26:00] We're going to have some special training coming up as well to go deeper into this. If you like that last 10 minutes, it's definitely just a foretaste of a lot more, a really cool training that we're going to partner on in the near future.
Dustin: But, outside of that Chandler, what's the best place for people to get into your world or to really, I guess, more importantly, take the first step towards discovering, the self-publishing process. Now they can work with you guys.
Chandler: Yeah, would say, first off, I mean, definitely register for the training that we're doing together and go there, check it out. I'm sure the link will be in the show notes, beyond that. two resources when you can get the book for free, so you can go to published book. com forward slash free.
Chandler: So that's published book. com forward slash free. and, you can get a copy of the book there, or if you're thinking, Hey, this is really helpful, like, I'd love to start to put together a plan and see how we could work together. go to selfpublishing. com forward slash apply so you can go there, book a 45-minute call with my team.
Chandler: We'll talk about your goals for your book, your challenges with your book. We'll start to put together a plan and see how we can help. So that's selfpublishing.com forward slash [00:27:00] apply and you can book a call with the team there.
Dustin: Awesome, man. So free book at published book dot com slash free. if you want to just hop right in and start figuring out your game plan for getting your book going, go to self-publishing dot com slash apply.
Dustin: Awesome, man. Well, this was as exciting and insightful as figured it would be.
Dustin: You definitely bring your a game on these interviews and, just real pleasure to get to know you a little bit more here, Chandler and understand more of your story. So thanks for your time. Thanks for all that you do in the world and look forward to working with you moving forward here. Okay.
Chandler: Yes, sir. Thank you, Dustin.