The 99 Authors Project – Season 3 – Episode 11 with Janine Bolon20 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello, and welcome to the show. I’m Janine Bolon, and today we are going to be talking about how to market your book from your personality type. Now, you know the Janine Bolon show is a syndicated program, and we used to run four different podcasts, but then we syndicated in October of 2021. And since that time, I’ve wanted to help people with their money, help them with their knowledge, help them keep their sanity, and how to make sure they make a living at whatever business they decide to get into. And so with all these thoughts in mind, today’s focus is going to be on authors, but this also works for business owners too. So, no matter where you find yourself, if you’re wanting to make a little bit more money, you have a side hack, or something like that, this show is going to work for you as well. So, the topic is really How to Market to your Personality Types. So, whether you’re an author or a business owner, or what have you, even if you have this little side hack, maybe you’d like to make jewelry for your friends and family, you’re wanting to expand your business a bit, whatever way it is that you’re trying to bring in revenue let’s talk about the myriad of different ways you can potentially sell your products. And one of the things is most of us do not want to sell, right? We don’t want to be a salesman, and I agree with you on that. Actually, I don’t like that aspect of my business either. So, what did I do? Well, what I chose to do, when I was 10 years old, I wanted to sell earthworms because earthworms were free, I knew how to get them, I could harvest them off the pond bank of where I lived in southern Missouri, and then once I sifted and sorted through them, I could then take them to the local bait shops. So, even at that young age, I wasn’t what I would call a salesman, but what I was very good at was making relationships, I was very good at fostering relationships with people and being able to work with them in that way. So, one of the most important relationships you have is the relationship with yourself. Be very clear on what your targets are, and what it is that you want to accomplish. Now, if you have something nebulous with I just want to make a lot of money, Janine, well, number one, that’s totally appropriate. Because there are things, money is a tool, it can help us get to where we want to go in life. But it is ever so much better. If you can have clear, concise targets, I don’t like calling them goals because with my experience with the sporting industry, goals are very binary, you either get the goal, you either get the ball in or you don’t, right? You either are able to kick that football through the goal, or you’re not. And so it’s very binary, I like to use the term targets because for my brain, it’s like, if I get close, I still get points. It’s like horseshoes, right, or darts. So I use the word targets, it’s important to set a target. So, when it comes to your marketing strategy, or however you’re trying to grow your business, or your little side hack, whatever it is you’re doing to make a little extra cash, it’s helpful to set targets and not a do or die sort of target. It’s more like I say to myself, I want to meet five people, five new people a week, I’ll say something like that. That’s how I grow my business. The more people I get to know, the more people that I set up relationships with, the more my business will grow because more people know about me and what it is I’m doing. Now when it comes to marketing to your personality type, whether you’re an author or a business owner, or have that wonderful side hack that you’re running off your kitchen table, the thing is, what is it that you’d like to do? How do you like to engage with people, and then you market toward that. So, I see people make a lot of different types of mistakes. And we’re gonna go through a list that I’ve written out here, and that is the first one is just when we were talking about the most important relationship is the relationship you have with yourself. Number one, are you a marketing professional, and for 99% of us that is no, we are not marketing professionals. We are professionals at doing something else, whether it’s you’d like to hand sew, or you do monograms or you’re an author, or you have a product that you’re selling you understand software, you have a new software product you’re developing, whatever it is that you’re good at, realize, okay, I may not be a marketing professional, but what I do know is how this product, how this service, how what I do, can help people. Right? You know, that is something of value and that is the first thing that is very important that you get into that relationship with yourself. That is, what I have is of value. Now that can be a little tricky, and if you really examine yourself, you’ll understand that a lot of times the reason why you hide, or the reason you may not tell people, you’re an author, or you may not tell people that you’re a business owner, or you will downplay what it is you do is because the confidence isn’t there. So, the very first thing to acknowledge is you are not a marketing professional, but you are a professional at what you do. Alright, you have had somebody purchase your item from you before, therefore, they handed you cash and said, thank you so much for that beautiful pair of earrings. Thank you so much for teaching me this skill set. Thank you so much for that software package. Okay, you have had somebody purchased from you before, therefore, you know, that what you have is a value because you’ve already had the exchange, alright. So, the next thing is, realize you have a passion, you have a message, start writing that down in a way that you can describe to somebody in two or three words, what your passion is. So, when I was helping people with my books, Money, It’s Not Just for Rich People, Ditch Your Debt While Banking Bucks, and I’ve written five books on money. The thing that I called myself was… people said, oh, Janine, what is it that you do? Do not go into any kind of explanation. This is not where people are wanting you to go. What you want to say to people is, in my case, I said, I’m a financial first responder. Well, nobody had ever heard those combination of words together, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, what is that? I say, I teach people debt free living. I stop right there. That’s all I say. What’s important is that you don’t overwhelm people with all the things that you do. As you and I both know, you are a multi-dimensional being, there are so many things that you do, especially if you run a business, or you’re an author, you guys have so much that you do you’re like renaissance professionals, right? Because there’s so much. So, what happens is we overwhelm people with what we know. And so it’s very important that you break down what it is you do into three words or less, and you give yourself that title. Now, right now, when people ask me, so, Janine, what is it that you do? I’m a white glove broadcaster. That’s what I tell people now, because now I sell $15,000 packages to businesses, to help them with their podcasting and broadcasting needs. So, we do everything. That’s why we call ourselves white gloves, right? I have a whole team that helps me. So, that’s what I do now. So, as an author, or business owner, or side hack person, that you’ve got the side hack you’re doing, that is how you want to define yourself. So, the next step is it’s kind of overwhelming, isn’t it? I mean, there’s so many different things you could do. When you first are learning how to sell your message, or sell your book, or sell your business products. People tell you, okay, you need a website, you need to get on social media, you need to know how to network, you need to take your book on a virtual tour, you need to take your business on a virtual tour… Are you not offering online programs?

Janine Bolon
Hey, have you done a talk show? There is so much that just pummels you. So, what I want to encourage you to do is when you start feeling overwhelmed, stop, take a deep breath, and move, like get out of your chair. Or if you’re standing talking to somebody say excuse me, I need to take this phone call, or I need to make a phone call, get away from whatever it is you’re doing, and take a deep breath and realize that you don’t build your business, you don’t build a following you don’t build a community in a day. You can’t. It’s over time, and what will help you is consistent effort. So, what I’d like to share with you is how you go about marketing to your personality type. And I started this program called the 99 authors project. I started that in February of 2022, because I realized there were so many authors running around just very confused, they have great messages, there is so much amazing knowledge between your ears, and I know you want to share it. And so what we want to do is walk you step by step on what you can do to market to your personality type. So, with the 99 authors project, which by the way, you can still sign up for, you go to www.authorpodcasting.com and you’ll see 99 authors. This is something that I’m going to continue through until I stop. It’s something I absolutely love interviewing authors. I’ll start with the first 99 I’ll write the book. And then I think I’ll just keep interviewing authors, as long as authors are wanting to talk to me, because I’m learning so much from all of you. But also, there’s a lot of wonderful people to promote. But the 99 author project I started in February of 2022 and I have had the pleasure of interviewing 23 authors already, and here we are only into May. And one of the things that I learned from them is just the sheer overwhelm of everything that they were trying to accomplish. And up to this point, no one has found the golden ticket to book marketing. Now people can educate you on sections of it. Like there are wonderful people out there who can get you on the best seller status list on Amazon, they can get you on the New York Times best seller list. I mean, there are highly trained professionals that if you pay them, they will make sure your book gets to those levels, alright. But is that appropriate for you? Is that appropriate for your model? Is that appropriate for your marketing?

Janine Bolon
So, let’s talk a little bit about you specifically, now of the 23 authors that I have already had the pleasure of interviewing, I wanted to let you know that it wasn’t until I interviewed author 23 that I finally started getting repeats on the question I asked him, which was, what is your biggest level of success with marketing your books? What was it that you did that was the highest level? And then I would also ask them, what was your biggest epic failure? And it took until author number 23 that I interviewed before I started to get a repeat. Now, as a scientist, you guys know I’m trained as an analytical biochemist. As a scientist, I expected to see a pattern way before I hit my data point of 23 interviews, and I asked all of these authors the same 13 questions. It’s fascinating to me that I didn’t see a pattern develop until I hit author number 23. So, that’s why I was inspired to definitely come out with this podcast program, because I knew it was like, oh, my gosh, no one has found the golden ticket. It’s like, pretty much you can market according to your personality type. Now, what does that mean? I’d like to talk to those of you who are self proclaimed, self labeled introverts. As an introvert, you have an ability to observe and understand and discuss very well when you’re in small groups, or one to one. So, those are the people that I highly recommend that you go into networking as your form of marketing. However, sometimes you get nervous, and you just start speaking, because you’re afraid to let there be any dead air. As we say, in the radio, you’re afraid to let there be any silence. When it comes to conversation, you’ll start stuttering and that sort of thing. So, for the introverts out there that are self proclaimed, self labeled, I would like you to realize that your most powerful aspect is the silence that you will bring. That you will bring a level of gravitas, if you will, there will be a willingness to listen to you because you are choosing your words carefully, you’re not speaking fast, like the New York minute, you are speaking with deliberation. And because you speak with deliberation, you will be seen as an individual who is well thought, and you think well, and so we want to use that to your advantage. So, when it comes to your marketing, make sure you have your three word introduction, such as I am a white glove broadcaster, and people will go, what is that? And then make sure you only have one sentence and that is we help businesses broadcast their promotional podcast, period, right. It’s one of those things that you just say very quickly, very eloquently. Make it quick, and people if they want to learn more, we’ll say, oh, that’s interesting. Tell me about that, they’ll want to learn more. Then have only a three sentence, okay, so this is for our introverts. Alright, for those of you who are highly extroverted, you love the large crowds you want to get on stage and share your message. Well, I highly recommend that you start going to Toastmaster meetings. Toastmasters was the single best way for me to take all the energy that I had, all the expressiveness I wanted to bring out, and make sure that my presentations were spoken very well. What you want to do is whatever your topic is on, whether you’re a business owner, an author, whatever it is, whatever you’re talking about, whatever you’re promoting, make sure that you get practice on that talk for at least 20 to 25 times, that you have stated it over and over, and you get good, constructive criticism on that before you really start pushing your product or your service on that. And Toastmasters can help you really deliver a high quality message in that way. There are so many aspects, so many wonderful people out there that if you want an opportunity to go about speaking more than I highly recommend you reach out to me, there are multiple ways, go to www.authorpodcasting.com and click on the Contact Us button, and definitely reach out to me and say, hey, Janine, I would like to learn more about how to get out and do speaking gigs. I have layers and layers of people who are looking for speakers that would love to hear from you. So, that’s for our extroverts.

Janine Bolon
Now, what if you’re one of these type of people that you’re like, okay, well, Janine, my marketing personality type, I don’t even know what it is. I’m just plain overwhelmed. Okay. Well, what I want to walk through is, let’s talk about the basics shall we? And the first one is, do you have a website? Now there are many people out there who will argue with me that you don’t need a website that you can do a lot without having a website, this is totally true. They are absolutely correct. You can use Facebook, you can use LinkedIn, there’s a lot you can do on these social media platforms to start to build. However, as soon as you can afford it, I want you to hire people to build out a very simple website for you. And there are wonderful people such as the Free Web guys, I just was contacted by them. I talked about their services and what they do. There are many people out there who will build a website for you that is super simple, for free. And you’re welcome to reach out to me and say, Janine, hey, I heard this episode, I want to learn more about it, go to www.authorpodcasting.com, we’ll be glad to help you with that. Okay. So, the first thing is get yourself a website, you need a place that has a landing page that is all about your book, and has a button on it that says, buy my book, and then you have it, buy my book, right? And then you can send them to Amazon, if you want to, if that’s what you’re doing, you’re in the middle of a launch. But after your launch, have that button, go to paypal or stripe, so that you have their address, you know, people are giving you their address, and then you can start doing follow up with those people. You can ask them through cards, then you can mail cards to them, and you can say, hey, you know, have you read the book yet? Would you give me a review? Because as we all know, we authors live for reviews, right? As business owners, it’s important that you follow up with postcards to those people and say, hey, thank you for buying my product. There’s a fact I don’t know if you guys know this or not, there is a fact out there that was devastating when I heard it. 67% of people leave one business for another because they don’t think the business owner cares about them. Can you believe that? As hard as we work to bring people into our business circle and our author, circle and followers, we care about these people, we would not be out there serving the community the way we do if it weren’t for the fact, we cared for them. Well that’s why so many leave. So, that’s where we have to do follow up. So, the first thing is make sure you have a way for people to buy your product, make sure you have a way for people to make a calendar appointment with you, an appointment to talk to you. And then yes, then start doing social media and networking and doing online programs and talk shows. But first, there are three things that in order for you to market to your personality you need to do. And that is number one, make sure that you have a way for people to find you, and that is usually through a website. Number two, make sure that there’s a button so people can buy your product or service by mashing a single button, and that puts them into your marketing sequence. And number three, make sure you have a way that people can book an appointment with you online, so they can talk to you for 20 minutes to 30 minutes, so they can get to know you better, and then you can ask them for speaking gigs. Alright, it just depends on your personality. If you’re more introverted, ask them to let you speak to their particular small group. Do you have a group of people that meet that are on Zoom, like five or six of you that I could give a talk to? That way you can practice in smaller environments and get some really good feedback.

Janine Bolon
So, this is Janine Bolon with the Janine Bolon show. We are currently running the 99 authors project. If you’re an author, I would absolutely love to hear from you. If you’re a business owner that has a book that you’re using as a lead magnet, we would be happy to promote you as well. Feel free to reach out to us at www.authorpodcasting.com/99 authors project, just go to www.authorpodcasting.com you’ll see the link up there, and we would love to have you in our program. And if you have any additional questions, please reach out to us at the same website. We would love to hear from you. Take care of yourself today. And one of the things I would love for you to remember about yourself is that whatever information you have between your ears, whatever you are inspired or prompted to do, please share your knowledge with someone today. People need what you have, the world is a better place because you’re in it. And as you get ready to move through the rest of your week. Please realize that today it’s important that you do something fun just for yourself. Alright, have a great day. See you next week.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.