How to Publish a USA Today Bestselling Book Without Even Knowing How to Write with Jamie Wolf

Hey hey, Kathryn here! I’m so glad you’re tuning in. If you’re new to the show, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m all about keeping it real with you. Showing you all the sides of entrepreneurship (& life). I mean it’s all connected, right? 

Jamie Wolf is the CEO and President of Million Dollar Story Agency. Her purpose is to inspire others to dream big, implement fast, never quit, and stay surrounded by epic, amazing, inspirational humans—always!

Jamie is the founder of Wolf Tide Publishing. A Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author herself, Jamie has helped many 6-, 7-, and 8-figure entrepreneurs reach bestseller status and STAY in the Top 25-100 for 12+ months. 

So without further ado let’s welcome Jamie Wolf to the show!

Kathryn Thompson  00:02
Hey, hey, I am super stoked to have Jamie on the show. I know that. So often we hear so much about promoting ourselves on social media and showing up and creating content and doing all of it, you know a lot of the traditional marketing stuff in order to grow your business. But Jamie's here to share with us how to publish a top-selling book as a way to generate leads and customers in our business. So no further ado, I'm just going to turn it over to you, Jamie so that you can share with our listeners who you are and what you do.

Jamie Wolf  00:32
Fantastic. Katherine, thanks so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. My name is Jamie Wolf. I am the owner and founder of something called Million Dollar story agency. Wow, that's a mouthful. A couple of reasons that it has that crazy long name is I had a mentor that said everything you do three words. Okay, the million-dollar story had to type in, you know, agency, because that is the type of work that we do and the format. But it's million-dollar story for a couple reasons. One is, as a woman, I have worked in tech and business for a long time in investing and working with venture capitalists, angel capital people. So I worked in a very male-dominated field for a really long time and saw insane amounts of money fly around, and everyone got very comfortable playing with that kind of money. And then I went to work with women, not to say there aren't women making millions and millions and millions of dollars, and I have published a bunch of them. But women tend to shy away from the thought of it is absolutely okay normal acceptable to say I'm going to have a million dollar run rate, or more. So I really wanted women to start talking about the fact that we are fully capable and should be loud about saying, Yeah, we're building a million dollar business. So let's talk about it. Let's just keep saying those words. And they don't feel icky in any way or impossible because they are absolutely possible. And then secondly, as you build these big businesses, you will fall down, get up, fall down, get up, fall down, pivot, get up, and you become somebody in the process of doing all of that you become someone who wears the clothing, not literally you don't have to go spend 10 tons of money. But you as you can see looking, if you're seeing me you can tell I'm not like overly fancy here at the moment. But you know that the concept of who we become in the process of generating a million dollars is we just step into the role of service and being bigger and leading the way and being brave and all of those things. So wow, that was a long winded way of by way of saying why it's called Million Dollar story agency. And what we do is we help entrepreneurs, specifically, who have offers that start at 5000, go up to about 50,000, or more specifically, co-author books that we take to Wall Street Journal USA Today bestseller, and then we feature those authors in Times Square in New York City where we do a big celebration book launch and put the author's on the NASDAQ billboard. And there's a whole host of reasons we do all that, but that's what I do.

Kathryn Thompson  03:14
That's amazing. And I love that, you know, you came out of that male dominated workforce. I feel like when I worked in corporate, I worked with a lot of in a lot of male dominated industries. And so I love the shift of like really empowering women to really step into that and to own the fact that yeah, it's it's okay to have a message to create that million dollar business to stand out to take up space. And I also love the reference of where, you know, you're like, I'm not all fancy, no one's gonna see the video. It's just audio. But it's one of the things I often talk about too, is like as our as we step into that version of building a million dollar business, what does that actually look like? And are we holding on to some preconceived idea of what a million dollar business owner should look like? I ditched corporate and I ditched the suits, because I didn't want to wear suits. And I love wearing my leggings and my comfy shirts. And so I'm like, I'm going to reinvent what the million dollar business owner looks like. And there's nothing wrong with suits. If people want to wear stilettos in suits. That's cool. But I'm also like, you know, just be be us. So how does so in terms of the books that you publish and co-authoring? What is co-authoring mean?

Jamie Wolf  04:33
Sure, great question. I tend to call these books, anthologies, and then realize that was about as clear as mud. So then I started talking about well, you collaborate, you're sharing a stage everyone can picture like, oh, you know, pay to play to be on stage. You know, I got to be with Tony Robbins or somebody else if you're already at that level, you're not paying to stand next to Tony Robbins or Dean Graziosi or you know, people like that, but it is the idea of In the pages of a book, we make the pages the stage, you share this stage, it does a couple of things for you. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to address it because sometimes people who aren't in this space and there's no reason you all should know this, but the thought of oh, I might get lost in the noise. I, you know, I want my own book, I want to shine.

Jamie Wolf  05:25
Fine, go do that. The thing is, you don't have to write just one book. So please don't you know, Jack Canfield has 500 million billion whatever copies like a lot, a lot of copies, because he wrote several individual books. And he co-authored with so many different people over and over and over. So first let go of once you write one book, you're done. You're not please don't be done, keep going. And then secondly, yes, you can have your own book when it's the right time, and you have enough content. But if you co-author one, you go way faster. So in our world of entrepreneurship, we have to be agile, we have to adapt, we also Chase shiny objects, and we get bored really fast. So if you start a book, and your publisher says, oh, yeah, we'll put that out two years from now, two years from now you'll forget why you ever wrote that content, because you have grown and evolved and moved on to something bigger and better, or a pandemic happens, and the whole economy and world changes. And if it took two years from what you were preaching to have it get published. Good luck with that. So when you only have to write 20 pages of content, instead of 200 pages of content, we go faster. And then for people who say oh, my God, I don't like to write, I can't, please don't make me put a sentence together, I would rather eat asparagus, you know, we can take care of that for you. Because the beautiful thing about technology is, we can use and repurpose content that you've already put out, we can give you a framework, we can show you how to record we can work from a transcript. caveat, please don't just publish a straight transcript. It's excruciating to read. So that's not quite the same. But in a co-authored book, the beauty is, and I joke, I am really good at math. But if we pretend that I'm not great at math, if I have an audience of 1000, and you Catherine have an audience of 1000, and we put ourselves together, each of us now automatically has an audience of 2000 without doing any extra work or having any extra spend. And on top of that, my audience who didn't know who you were, and your audience who didn't know who I was, we now you know, link arms and go, Hey, have you met my friend, Catherine, she's amazing, you can trust her. That audience just became warm, even if it's only lukewarm. It's warmer than just straight cold. They know you. So they will trust who you are edifying and recommending. So you double your audience size. And it's now a warm audience with no work. So if you have 10 authors in a book, if some of them have a million followers, or a 40,000 email list, imagine what happens to your material distribution. So a book is a distribution tool, if you come from the more traditional business, concept of ecosystems and supply chains, and distribution is all about moving. I like to say, you know, you can generate as much electricity, any which way, shape or form is politically correct to generate that electricity. But if you don't distribute it correctly, where you can flip your switch, and nothing is going to happen. So we want to think of a book as a distribution tool. And we want that switch to get flipped and have people go, Wow, I need this. I want this. So anthology back to the original question is just a group of people being in the same book, and it does not have to be on the same topic. I create books around themes. So the most recent book we did was million-dollar identity. Going back to that concept of who you become in the process of having a 678 or nine-figure business one before that was million dollar moms million dollar dads. It was entrepreneurs who were talking about raising children as entrepreneurs or raising children in a unschooled environment. We have one coming up called Million Dollar faith, we have another one coming up called Million Dollar proximity, that concept of sometimes who you're in the room with, changes your trajectory, and we want to share stories about that. And you can see as a writer, I'm also talkie wordy so I'll I'll be my head for a minute.

Kathryn Thompson  09:46
I love it. I love it. And I love that you explained the what a co-authoring is because I think that's a question that a lot of people would say is like, I want my own book or I want my own stage and all of that and one of the Things I'm such a proponent about is like, how do we leverage other people's audiences? Whether it be podcasts, whether it be books, right? Like how do we go faster, quicker, without having to put a ton of effort and time into something. So I think of social media content, right is like this, this very organic growth, which is a long term game in a lot of ways. Whereas this really allows you to position yourself one as an authority, but also partner with other people in the industry, you touched on something really important, and that was the million dollar proximity, and that the rooms that you put yourself in the communities that you put yourself in, have the capacity to catapult your business and completely skyrocket it. Can we talk a little bit about that piece of it? Because I think the I think the co authoring is kind of that in a way, right? It's just done in book format. So how have you seen the authors that you've worked with today, their businesses completely transformed? Because they've done a book or they've put themselves in the room with massive leaders in the industry? Let's just say?

Jamie Wolf  11:09
Absolutely. So that lets me talk about a couple things. So what a great question. One is, you know, I work with lots of people, I talk with lots of people. As with anyone, you have all sorts of different types of personalities, and different people are motivated by different things. So once in a blue moon, and this is the exception, rather than a rule, someone will say, Well, who else is in the book, because I don't want to lower myself by being in the book with someone who isn't as important as I am. But that is truly rare, which makes me a happy camper. Most people will say, if they're really, really elevated, and at the top will say, I want to give back to the community, I want to reach down to the people who are rung or to lower, you know, behind me, not lower behind me, they haven't gotten to my stage yet. Because I know what it's like to be hustling and be scrappy. And so if I can simply buy my name, and my authority and credibility that I've already created, lend that to the other folks who are going to be in this book and elevate them simply by saying, Oh, I was in a book with Dr. Myron golden. Oh, I was in a book with Kiana and she's been, you know, a multiple Wall Street Journal bestseller. And she's on TV all the time. And she's been at NASDAQ and featured and like, Wow, can I be in a book with her. So there are many big influencers who know the power of their name. And they're absolutely fine with sharing that stage with a lesser-known no-name person in the book. And then there are a group of people who, you know, they just crossed a million dollar run rate, or they're now heading for the $10 million run rate. And they haven't quite gotten there yet. And they're saying, We're striving and we're hustling you maybe haven't heard of me, because I work in kind of this off grid sort of area. And yet, if I'm together with a bunch of other people who have the same mindset that I do, that's going to elevate everything. I think, two good examples is in New York last month, the last book launch that we had, you know, I'm sort of behind the scenes and working with the hotel, and we just come off COVID card proof requirements, and like, there was a lot in transition, and we were working with unions. And it was like, you have a cap like absolutely no more people in the room than this. Yeah. And it's like, okay. And then one of the super huge influencers said, hey, guess who just flew into town to be on the Good Morning America show? Can he come to dinner? I'm going, the obvious answer is yes. But I also know all of these restrictions and contracts that I've signed and things I've agreed to in the background as I hold that thought one second. So I ran off and it's like, Look, I'm not eating, if you need me to step out of the room, I will do that this person needs to be in the room. And so arbitrarily, because great people, no other great people, and it's a magnet and attracts everybody in that room, then got the opportunity. And of course, he's very good at what he does. So he walked around to every single person gave them a hug and said, What's your phone number? I'd love to stay in touch. And he's like, he just collected 40 texts, you know, amazing being able to text people and start dropping his offers all the time. And then the other thing that happened in that room is I met someone. It was someone who came in as a guest, not someone who had participated in that particular offer. But man And then another month when we launch this thing that we've cooked up, it's gonna be really, really fun. And so you just never know. Okay, so the second part is you asked how does it change their business? And that lets me talk about ROI for books.

15:15
I tease people. So I always ask, what does success look like to you when this book is done, whether it's your anthology, or your own book, when it's all done, and it's written, and it's published? What has to happen for you to be very pleased? Because I will tell you this, if you're writing a solo-authored book, and you are taking it to Wall Street Journal bestseller, if you write it yourself, you might spend $100,000, if you have a ghostwriter, you might be spending $250,000, between the ghostwriter the editor and getting it launched all of the marketing efforts. So it is not inexpensive. It's not a do-it-yourself self-published effort to get a book on those great big lists. So you're saying, how darn many books do I have to sell to first break even if I've just spent 200, grand, and then make money. So I'll say, Hey, do you write about zombies vampires, maybe. Because if you're not writing about those things, you will not sell enough copies of a book to warrant the marketing expense. However, if you're a business owner, you're running Facebook ads, you're running YouTube ads, you're running Google ads, you're paying people to help you with the organic marketing that you're doing, I hope you're not like doing all of it yourself. There are expenses in running your business. So you have outlay every single month, regardless, and the bigger your business is, the more monthly outlay that you have. So if you're going to spend it on thing a or you're going to spend it on thing B and at this point, thing B is this book and marketing it all the way to Wall Street Journal best seller if what you're doing within that book is very strategically positioning your offer. And if your offer is a $20,000 offer, then you don't have to sell very many of those in order to have an ROI. And then after that, you go past that. The other thing, if you can say, hey, my most recent book was number two on the Wall Street Journal list. And did you see me on the NASDAQ billboard. And if we have this launch event, and you got collecting about six months worth of marketing material with all the photoshoot opportunity and you're networking and like the paparazzi, because of all the people that you're with, once you hit best seller, you get invited to higher level podcasts, you get invited to be a keynote speaker, you get invited to participate in summits, you get invited to come to be the guest speaker on something, you get invited to co author in other books. So you start snowballing. The publicity PR takes notice they start either soliciting you to purchase their services, or they just start writing articles about you. And so now, your SEO and your ranking is just climbing higher. When people type your subject area, your name comes up. So again, yeah, you could say, Damn, that's a lot of money to put into a book. But the ancillary product and result that you get from it is huge. And now maybe you have the ebook version, the digital version of it that you can use as your lead, lead magnet for low cost or free. You have a print book version that you can now stick into a book funnel with your free plus, free plus shipping printed tangible book. And we know a whole bunch of influencers that have done that very successfully, they may be actually losing a little bit of money on that book, because you have the cost to print it, you have the cost to fulfill it and ship it. And yet what it's done is it's brought people into the beginning of your value ladder. So the money gets made on the end. And then when we turn the books into audiobooks, which we always do, then you have that little additional thing that you can sell. So by the time you've got your ebook, your print book, and your audio book, maybe you're only making 40 5060 bucks off of that. But that means you've got 60 bucks to acquire a customer. And so now you've got money to pay for your Facebook or your YouTube ads. And then if you're selling a 5000 10,020 $5,000 thing on the back end, that's 99% to 100% profit for you. That came from a book. We create the book, it goes out into the world it doesn't disappear in 30 days. or 365 days or two years, it is always out there. So please keep your links active. Yeah,

Kathryn Thompson  20:10
I love that you touch on the whole ecosystem of it, because it's one of the things I often teach my clients, but I also really am like a promoter of his like, if you create a podcast episode, like it's living and breathing, it's out there. If you're a guest on someone's podcast, if you're publishing a book, it's living and breathing, but we don't want to look at the ROI of like, What's it costing me to produce the book? It's like, what is the ROI, the return that you're gonna get from being in the room with these influencers? Being in the space and community with them? Having the photo ops? Again, right, it's like the elevation and the traffic that comes into your business as a result? What is the qualification? Like? Do you reach out to authors? Or can they reach out to you and say, hey, I want to be in a book, like, how does that work?

Jamie Wolf  20:58
It goes both ways. So I have a site. And on that site, people will come in, and they will simply ask to schedule a strategy call with me super short, or someone on my team. And there are qualifying questions. So once they get to schedule the call, if they can't answer certain questions, you know, money commitments, and things of that sort, they're disqualified, they don't get to the phone call. The other way it happens. Sometimes it's word of mouth. So people come to me and say, you know, I've got a group of us, weird example. But really interesting about how you can be in the same space but not compete. If you think about a divorce attorney, who works with celebrities, and say they've got a multimillion-dollar house, and they've got multimillion-dollar investments if the retainer for that attorney is $500,000. That's cheap, compared to what that person might lose. If the divorce doesn't go, well. Yeah. So if you have a high end divorce attorney like that, well, what else happens in the divorce if they're kids, maybe you need a psychiatrist that deals with children. If there are, you know, assets that have to be sold in order to be split, okay, maybe you need a real estate person, maybe you need a financial investment person, maybe your stress is really high. So now we need a sleep expert, or breathing expert. You know, if you think about divorce, you maybe not, don't think about someone who helps you how to breathe, but in a book that is targeting somebody who might be going through this scenario. And even if you don't have that money, and you hope you never ever, ever get divorced, it's kind of like watching the wreck on the side of the highway, you're so curious, you're just gonna dive in and read the book. Not to make light of horrible situations. You know, as everybody has seen between what's his name, and what's your name, you know, everybody is obsessed with how awful and toxic that whole scenario is. I'm not trying to make fun of it. But the idea is that you can come together around a theme. So sometimes people will come to me and say, this is something that's near and dear to my heart. I know about six other people that would also speak to this. In every single book, though, Katherine, regardless of what the topic is, what's really reassuring to me is the themes are so similar. It doesn't matter that you're a steady eight or nine-figure earner now. Yeah, you had a rough start. And I assume or presume that everybody who's super successful, especially if they got their younger and faster, maybe came from a great education, a really stable home, decent finances, and that's not the case. It doesn't matter where in the world you've come from, or how broke you've been, or whether you were a refugee coming over by boat and you almost drowned or you were someplace else and didn't speak English and got here or you were white trash or any color trash, it doesn't matter. Yeah, all of the stories go get up. believe if I can do this, you can do this. And you go God, if I hear that one more time, I'm just gonna puke because I haven't done it yet this, but then you back off of that. And you go, you know what, you're right. I can they did. They're gonna give me some help. They got mentors. Let me try to and you get to pick the people that you align with. And that's the other kind of cool thing about a book. It repels the people that aren't your qualified clients. So a lot of the way I invite anyone out there considering writing a book if they are doing it for a business reason, please be super strategic. You want to do something that's going to tell stories so that you are relatable. You want to qualify your prospects. as potential customers and clients, you want to repel the people that you don't ever want to work with that maybe have money mindset issues, it's maybe it's nothing wrong with them, they're just not ready yet. They haven't gotten to where the thing that you offer is going to serve them now, and that's okay. Maybe they will come back. Do you want to teach a little you want to address objections? So that ideally, by the time they are done reading your content, and they've seen some success stories and some case studies, they will have a closing call with you, and not a sales call?

Kathryn Thompson  25:38
Yeah. I love that a closing call not a sales call, because I think we've been taught, you know, to get on these discovery calls these sales calls, especially as coaches, consultants, online business owners, right. And it's like, I hear so much from my clients, you know, Catherine, I'm, I've been doing these discovery calls or sales calls, they feel like such a waste of time. And it's because they haven't pre-qualified the people, right? Like even your process, I've got these qualifying questions. And then if you can't answer them, you're disqualified. And yet, a lot of entrepreneurs getting into the industry, almost, there's that validation they need, or someone booked a call, so I'm just gonna get on the call. And then the clients I end up working with because I sell a hell or high ticket is they're burnt out, by the time they come to me, because they've tried all the things that just don't work. Or they've seen success, but it's been with the wrong type of clients, they've worked with clients that have drained them energetically, or whatever it might be. So I love that you talk about really pre-qualifying and getting strategic. You also, you know, there's the back end of this, right. It's like the writing of the book is one thing, publishing the book is another but then creating the momentum around it after because you host events, right? And that's a big part of selling it. So can we talk a little bit about that strategy piece of why an event and going to New York and doing all those things is so important if you want your book to stand out?

Jamie Wolf  27:03
Absolutely. So a couple of things that are funny, we were chatting about, you know, we don't have to look fancy to be running a multimillion-dollar business. And I grew up in corporate, I also grew up in New York City. And so when I was a kid, it was just an error, where everyone was pretty formal, if you walked out the door, and my family was like, crazy about it. So for years and years and years, super dressy was kind of like a nightgown. For me, it was just what I wore, I was really comfortable. But I live in a really small town in the country now. And we've had COVID and I don't have to put shoes on and, and things of that sort. And so this whole thing of going to New York and wanting to be respectful of the people I was going to be around, I knew that I had to go back to my former self and put the makeup on and get the hair done and wear the shoes and, and all of this. And so I've got some pictures of me where I took us like look at what everybody went to just to get me to put a really nice dress on.

Kathryn Thompson  28:05
I love it. I love it.

Jamie Wolf  28:09
But coming together, there's just something and I think people can really, truly relate to this after a couple of years of zoom. Yeah. I am talking to you, we're having a conversation, this is a great connection, it is not the same as seeing you in real life. It's not the same as having a cup of coffee, or a five star dinner with you in a place where you are. So we host our events at the Knickerbocker hotel, because it's about a half a block away from Time Square. It is one of the best hotels in New York City. It's very, very exclusive. When you walk in the door, you just feel darn important. And so I think it's not that we have to have ego. But when you know kind of like at the Olympics, you train for four years to be on your best performance and the world is watching. And why would you like Marianne Williamson said why would you not shine your light as brightly as you could add that moment because you've been gifted with this experience or expertise that you now have turned into a business so that you can assist other people who have dreams and goals, but they don't quite know how to use what they got yet. And so that's where you step in. So when we host an event in person, and no business is taking place, although kind of like on a golf course, there's always business taking place when you got a bunch of people who just are entrepreneurs and they strike up a conversation and their juices start spinning so but there wasn't intentional business. We didn't have speakers. We didn't have anyone selling from the back of the room. It truly was a moment to celebrate, have book signing and it was fun. And I do have to remind myself on occasion because I've written a lot of books and it's like, oh, yeah, I'm an author. Yep. something out there. For people who haven't done it before, it's like, holy cow. I'm a best selling published author. Yeah, it's a thing. And so I don't ever want to like just treat it and take it for granted. So it's important to celebrate, and it is the culmination. So when we talk about books, we break it up into you know, there's the writing part, that is the littlest biddies portion of the whole thing. And again, someone who thinks about I've always wanted to write a book, I have a book inside me, I have this cathartic story, oh, my God, this thing happened. Go ahead and write that book later. Let's not do it for your first one. If you're focused on business, please. And I do not mean to sound insulting, I'm sorry. I'm making fun. And all of those stories are certainly important. You know, Brene, Brown is very famous for talking about being vulnerable. Those stories are obviously important, and we do relate to them, I just want to make sure that for your time, energy, effort, and money, the first thing that you do, is going to give you rewards and recognition. When it's elevating your credibility, your authority, your visibility, your influence, it's making sure that you are bringing people consistently who are qualified into the beginning of your value ladder, you got their email address, you keep nurturing them with a nurture sequence, and eventually you're going to interact with them. So we write it, we publish it. That's also like a teeny tiny thing. There's a lot involved. There is and I get way too granular sometimes, oh my god, the formatting and that this and that, that other because someone says, can't you just upload it for me? And I'm like,

Jamie Wolf  31:52
on a chalkboard? No, like, yes, you can do that. But at the professional level, we want to make sure we've done all these other things. So that's another little thing. The marketing is huge. And the marketing is the difference between, you know, 5 million new titles get published on Amazon, every single year, there's gazillions of books on Amazon. If you check the box, I wrote a book, great, if all you want to do is print the book and hand it out as a business card or take it to conferences with you, if that's success, great. But if having a Wall Street Journal bestseller, is important to you, you may already be at the top of your game, you may already be verified on Instagram with a little blue checkmark, you may already have more money than you need. But you are willing to pay the money to have this next thing kind of like getting your honorary PhD. It's just a nice to have. It makes you feel better. People look at you differently. They respond to you differently. Amazon Best Seller is great. Wall Street Journal USA Today best seller is better. New York Times bestsellers better, I don't help with that. But you know, that's a different category. Like if you're a former president, you're probably going to have a New York Times bestseller. But the idea is, there are different reasons, again, success looks different. Sometimes there's just a tax write-off, you know, I got to really get rid of like this kind of money at the moment and have it be an expense. So I'm happy to send this money and get this fringe benefit from it. It's okay.

Kathryn Thompson  33:33
Totally, totally. And you talk about success looks differently for everyone is something I often say to people is like, you've got to define what that success looks like. And so I like that you ask people before, like, What would success look like? If you publish this? Like what is it is that 100 new leads into your businesses, you know, what? Are you selling 100 new offers, like, what is it? Or is it just visibility? Or a fringe benefit? Like what is the goal behind it? So if somebody came to you, and they didn't have a group of people they want wanted, didn't have a group of people, and they were just a solo person saying like, hey, I want to write about this. You work to build that in? Or how does that work if you just have a one off person coming to you with an idea.

Jamie Wolf  34:16
So I take everybody's ideas seriously and talk about them and try to think of where is the market for that we have a waiting list. So we have book titles that we feel are strategic for our business, and our group of entrepreneurs because one of the things that we promote sort of quietly behind the scenes is the opportunity to do joint ventures the opportunity to do affiliate partnerships, the opportunity to host each other on their podcasts or have each other at their events. And so, we do create a community within the million dollar story agency community, so that were twice the words but the idea is that we do want people who are aligned. So we've had people who sell the business to government, we've had people who sell business to business business to consumer. So it doesn't all have to be in the digital marketing space. Also be E-commerce, it could be a, you know, a, like a pavement management group, we've got one of those who's selling to municipalities. That's the word Yeah. But if someone comes in with an idea, I want to explore why that's relevant, and why they don't have anyone else that would fit that, because that's also like, really, because when I said to you million dollar proximity, I think a lot of people can relate to being in the room, like you're just wanting, people will pay $50,000 to join an inner circle or a year long mastermind. Not necessarily because they need to learn one thing that they can go, Yep, that was worth $50,000. But so they can get in the room with other people who have $50,000 to invest in their own growth. Yeah, and that is, the other thing is these investments are never like, Oh, I'm handing this money to use. So you get this thing done for me, like I'm not fixing your car. We are investing in your growth as a business person. And so again, what does success look like to you? What does where does this fit in your overall strategy? And I'm not in charge of your overall strategy?

Kathryn Thompson  36:30
Yeah. And that was gonna be my next question for you is that, you know, do you help people that like, that come to you, strategically positioned themselves? Like if they come to you with a story, and they're like, this is what I want to talk about? Like, does your team support them in like really honing that positioning within the book? Or is that up to the person coming to you with the story?

Jamie Wolf  36:52
That's an interesting question. So a couple of the things that I've learned, I think we've published like, 80 authors so far. And a couple of the things that I have learned is that, you know, if you're a person who's got too many million followers on Instagram, and you don't want to write a sentence, and so we ask you to talk and you talk, and we transcribe it. And then our editors go to town, and we come back with this beautifully polished work in your audience goes, who the hell is that? Like, that does not sound like who I listened to on Instagram. So we give people a framework, so that from chapter to chapter to chapter, the flow doesn't make the reader seasick. Yeah. So that like the beginning is all about the same context, the middle, you know, the next part, the next part, the next part, so we put it into a succinct framework, so that there is a flow across the entire volume of work. However, within each chapter, depending on what your business is, and who you are, and how you speak, it could come across pretty differently. And I've learned that it's really important to keep that difference. Because your audience knows you. And if we make it too academic, excuse me, to grammatically correct. It actually loses something, I have learned the hard way, that if you have a Gary Vee sort of person with that kind of colorful language, and you have someone who's very, like family-oriented, yet, but them in the same book causes problems. I never wanted to be the person who's censored anything I've learned, it's my responsibility as a publisher to censor to get a content agreement across the board. That, you know, obviously, like every Facebook group you join says no hate speech, no bullying, no stuff. So of course, we have that as a baseline. But as far as the type of language, or anything that feels a little bit in your face, we've had to tone some of that down. But other than that, we let it go. Because it's important for each audience to really recognize the person that they follow.

Kathryn Thompson  39:22
I love your question. Yeah, I love it. Because I think as a creator, like as entrepreneurs, right, typically, we have it's a creative expression of a lot of what we're doing right? Someone like Gary Vee is very known for his personality as colorful language. And he's known for that and you either love it or you hate it. And so I often wonder when you're going and co authoring, like, how much stipulation or writing and ripping apart is actually really done. And so I love that you protect the person's essence and personality, but also equally, can see you like whose personalities and voices will fit together better than others? So that's awesome. How did you get started in this like where, like, I want to know your story. I'm so intrigued.

Jamie Wolf  40:12
I host a podcast called Million Dollar pivot. And I started that, because I'm old. And I have friends who come with you stop saying that all the time. And it's like, but really look at the calendar. And so, because I have lived as many years as I have lived, I have had many pivots, and most of them have not been my idea. So the concept of how do you pick yourself up again? How do you respond to what things are coming in your direction? Can you do it with some modicum of grace, and get up and make it worth your while, again, the backstory to that as succinctly as possible as I was in corporate, I have three children, and they're all adults now. But the middle one, when she was not an adult, got sick. And so it changed up our existence, we ended up, I ended up CO founding a company that was a medical device and disease management company, kind of like the movie Lorenzo's Oil, you know, a parent that was just super motivated to find a way to help my kid, and then understood that there were other kids that could use some of this technology. I didn't know what the word entrepreneur was never heard of it, just knew that I was doing a thing to help the kid and super silly, odd. I never read Oprah Magazine. But for some reason, there was an old magazine laying around, and there was an MD in there who wrote regularly a little feature segment. And I read an article of his and it's like, oh, he would be a great person to be our medical adviser. So I emailed him because he gave me an email address. And I was like, This is my idea. Can we talk? So I got a message from the secretary like you can have 15 minutes on this day, gotten on the phone an hour and a half later, we were still talking. And he's like, so do you have a company? No, not yet. Like, do you have investors? Huh? No. It's like, but you've got the product, right? It was like, not really is like, when you have those three things come back to me. And that's like, really, and he's like, yeah, you've got something here. So that was how a person who wrote for Oh magazine became our medical director for the company that we've essentially created and, you know, eventually created the product eventually got the funding. But that was how I got into that. And then I tell people, and then I had my Steve Jobs moment, where I got fired from my own company. That was interesting. So it was horrible. And it was painful. And it was terrible, and involves financial loss, as well as everything else. But I had been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. And so it's like, I am not going back to a nine to five and like eight days of paid vacation. I'm just not doing that. Now that I've tasted with this other thing is like, and I worked harder than I've ever worked in my life. I work 24/7 for that company, because it was for my kid. And I would talk to anybody. It's like sales. I wasn't doing sales, I was helping my child.

Kathryn Thompson  43:28
Totally.

Jamie Wolf  43:31
It really was fascinating. So I went to work for something called economic development. Never heard of that before, either. And if you haven't, like me hadn't heard of it. Anyone listening? Every single town, city, county region, state country has economic development that is simply an entity there to design jobs. So the one I went to work for was for warehousing, manufacturing, and distribution. But they sat in a place with a lot of universities, and a lot of retired corporate people with money. And so they said, Jamie, we don't have anyone who knows anything about entrepreneurship. Would you come be director of entrepreneurial development as like? Absolutely. So I did that for a while, I found myself saying, getting asked similar questions over and over and over. I'm not a super patient person. And so I know how to solve this problem. I'm just gonna write down all the questions and all the answers and put it in a book. And it's like, oh, and then I've always wanted to write a book. So I'll write the book book. And I was like, yeah, no published author. Wow. writing and publishing is so different from marketing and selling. That was my first understanding that just because you've published a book does not mean that you have moved that book off the shelf at all. And in my case, I didn't stop to think about what success looked like before I did it. I was just solving an immediate problem. And then my ego got in They're not like, Well, damn son. I'm like, nobody wants my book. Why does nobody want my book? It's because I hadn't done any SEO, I hadn't positioned it correctly. I hadn't thought about marketing or advertising or anything. I was just giving my book to other people who were annoying me. Entrepreneur, shiny objects, went to work as a consultant went and did all these other things. And then I moved to this little ed ed itty bitty town, and I kept having birthdays. And it's like, what am I going to do to stay relevant? And nobody in this town is going to pay me what I'm used to getting paid. So what do I do about that problem? That was when I entered this world of online marketing, digital marketing, digital courses, coaching and started learning this and my original intent, to be honest, was to help people who had already written, published and marketed to Amazon Best Seller thinking, I got my degree from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York, I love everything to do in nutrition, I hate my job, I wrote this book, and I'm gonna make so much money, I can quit my job. And I'm just going to help people talking about nutrition, and that scenario never plays out. So it's like, with my business background, I will just take this person who I know has the money, because they invested in getting that book done. And I'm gonna go help them build the business. And in the process of doing that, I kept meeting people like, oh, you know how to write. Can you help me write? I was like, Heck, no, I have no patience. I'm not being you're writing coach. And writing is easy. What's, what's wrong? I'm a horrible person, anyway. Can you help me publish mess? Like, seriously, go look on Amazon KDP list of instructions do that. And then I realized, you know, people want to stay in their lane. They may be really good at all that Instagram, social media, and the thought of reading a set of directions and following them stops them in their tracks. I'm the person that gets stopped in their tracks if you asked me to do a video on Instagram. So again, like we each have our strengths and weaknesses. And then people said, Could you help me become a best seller? And I was like, Oh, dear God, it's an algorithm game. Don't do that. What a waste of time. Yeah. And then a dear friend of mine, said, Jamie. Yes. It's like, you are always telling people to listen to what the market tells you. Are you listening to what the market is asking for? So that was when I started saying, Okay, people want help writing people want help publishing, people want help marketing, they did make a very good case, if you've got five fitness instructors, all side by side, they look really good. They've got a loyal following. But if one of them raises a hand and says, Hey, I'm a published best-selling author, new people who don't know them yet, we'll go, there's something about that one, I'm gonna go with that one. Don't know what, but it's just this instinctive. We feel like they must be more trustworthy, or smarter, or more importantly, they're gonna get me better results. Because actually, I really don't care about the fitness guy. I just want better results. And so becoming the best-selling published author does that. And then I was like, I want to start an agency, but I don't have a book to publish, like, how do I go hire all the people for the agency if I don't have a book? So I just asked 10 people's like, would you write a chapter? That is the very strategic way I got started doing.

Kathryn Thompson  48:32
Amazing, amazing, it's like, you kind of just like, yeah, breadcrumbed YOUR WAY too, right? It's like, you've got all this experience, though. And it's true. It's like people oftentimes is like, for as a copywriter, you know, it's exactly that right? As people like, I don't want to write my copy, like, you know, I'm good at, I can talk and I know what I want to say. But to actually then put that into like written word. It's just not my jam. And I love to write to so. So that's so awesome. I was so intrigued by like, how you got into what you do.

Jamie Wolf  49:02
I really wish I could say it was so intentional, and so strategic. And so I have a goal, I'm going to get from here to there, and I'm going to do it fast. I do feel like having read as many stories as I've read from different successful entrepreneurs, that when you organically stumble into something, it does seem to really be a good thing, that when it happens by accident, and if young will that the universe or whoever else is leading you to where your set of strengths intersects with somebody else's thing that you can really help them with.

Kathryn Thompson  49:40
So and I totally, totally agree with that. It's not like that. And again, my story is like a pivot, pivot, pivot. Right. And, and I think like you said, lots of successful entrepreneurs is like, how did you get into that? It's like, oh, well, you know, you know, you stumbled into it in a lot of ways, but the universe led you there, right? It ultimately led you there. I know we've covered a lot, and I know my listeners are gonna love it. I'm so intrigued with that, yeah, the work that you do. And I know that they will be as well. Is there anything else you feel like we haven't covered that you want to touch on.

Jamie Wolf  50:16
The other thing that will make my blood pressure go up quickly other than I want my own book, I don't want to co author I don't want to get lost in the noise. There's no ROI in a book, what does a book do? For me, we've covered all those things. The last little piece that will make my blood pressure go up super quick is if someone says not a priority, like I really want to write a book, but I've got to get my business better. Like I really want to focus on this next challenge this next summit this next launch this next, whatever it is, I would argue that if you do write a solo authored book, you can do so in a way where you create your entire business at the same entire time. So we already talked about how you got your front end of the funnel, if you just parse a book out into different formats, because people consume information differently. If you have an end result that you deliver, you know that you don't go from zero to end result, you have to take a sequential series of steps, that can be your outline for your book. So first, you do this, you have a mini success. Now you feel confident to take the next step, you have a mini success, you accomplish that goal. So you're creating the infrastructure or the framework. When you outline your book. That way you can create your course modules that way. And so you got the whole thing together. And again, if you write that book, right, you are addressing objections every step of the way. So it makes people want to go get that course from you more quickly without having to deliberate about it. So it's going to shorten your conversion time, shorten your conversion costs. The other thing is, if you really want to get your business going faster, she sauce, go to the book now. Yeah, because then people will know who you are. And they're gonna read your story and go, Katherine,'s okay, like, let me go get that course that she's got. So I feel like you can do both simultaneously, especially if you're like, gonna do a chapter and not a whole entire book, you can get that out quickly. But a book should not be the thing that is delayed. And again, once you do one, please do more than one. And you know, co author with this set of people, that set of people the other set of people in allows your interest to keep growing, we are curious people, we want to explore all sorts of different things. So you met these cool people do a book with them, you meet these cool people do a book with them. So that would be my last little pet peeve is like don't put it off for heaven's sakes.

Kathryn Thompson  52:51
Yeah. And it's so interesting, because it's like, I think we do you know, and again, I get a lot of clients that are like, you know, I've spent years trying to grow my social media, and they're like, putting out all this content. And, you know, they're online, and they're getting visible and all the places and yet, there's some really strategic ways to leverage the communities that you're in that don't require a lot of the costs right to drive leads, cold leads from Facebook ads, or YouTube or whatever to your business to a lead magnet, right is like that book for whatever reason. And I think podcasting too, is like, you instantly get this like authority because it's like, if they're published besides so and so or they're on social show, they must be trustworthy, credible, right? It creates instant credibility without having to like create a name for yourself through your content, or other ways in which I think can be the I say, the long game or the slow growth kind of thing, right? So if you're wanting to really accelerate your business, book, podcast, you know, these ways in which you can leverage other people's audiences, but also share your business in a very strategic way and what you're known for. It's just such a beautiful way to do that. So yeah, don't put it off.

Jamie Wolf  54:06
What I love about what you're saying and I hope people are really hearing this is neither you nor I are advocating my way or the highway. Yeah, we do need to do a wide variety of things. I don't ever want someone to be and I have been in the past the person is like, oh my god, I gotta do Instagram. Now. I gotta do Facebook. Now I gotta learn Tik Tok. Now I gotta write a book. Now I gotta plan a summit. And it's just like, Oh, my God, I again, I don't do multitasking Well, anymore these days where I don't no longer fool myself that I can. So we're not advocating that you do everything all the time. But this is a tool. A book is a tool and social media and podcasting, and when you put them all together, holy moly, so very powerful. It is the way that will accelerate you to where you want to go quickly while being that long-term game. So You've got both covered, which means, oh my gosh, you have a stable, thriving business, which is what we want you to have.

Kathryn Thompson  55:07
Totally, totally Well, it's been such a pleasure connecting with you and having this conversation, where can people find you if they want to connect with you if they want to learn more about how they can co author a book with your agency?

Jamie Wolf  55:20
Sure. So million dollar story.co is the best way. Now. I've already told your listeners that will throw you into registering for a call and you might get kicked out at that point. So the little trick is at the bottom, it'll say support at and there's an email address. And so if you read the qualifying questions, and you aren't there yet, but you still really want to talk to me go find the email address at the bottom of million dollar story.co. And you can come in through the backdoor that way and get to me

Kathryn Thompson  55:53
earlier, I love it. And we'll link all of that up in the show notes so that our listeners can easily access that for you again, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show. Jamie,

Jamie Wolf  56:02
thank you so much. Thank you for being a great listener. Yes. Thank you