The 99 Authors Project – Season 6 – Episode 6 with Jan Wallen20 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, Janine Bolon here and welcome to today’s show where we bring you quality content on saving your time saving your money, saving your knowledge and while staying sane in this topsy turvy world that is ours, the Janine Bolon show is a syndicated program of four podcast shows that were combined in October of 2021. Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations and The Practical Mystic Show, were programs that we’re running since 2017. We have produced over 315 episodes, we’ve interviewed over 275 guests, and today we will be spotlighting one of our authors that is contributing to our 12th book, The 99 Authors Project Jan Wallen. Now clients who work with Jan raise their fees as much as 25%. Even if they’ve hesitated to do it before her clients often do that in the very first week or two of working with her. This is somebody who is not about saving your time or saving your money. She’s about raising your fees and that’s the name of her book. Now, she combines her corporate sales experience, experience raising her own fees and those of her clients and her uncanny ability to know her client’s expertise DNA™, which by the way, is trademarked this woman is so pro. That way they understand why their expertise brings value to their clients, and they can raise their fees. So Jan, thank you so much for teaching us money, girlfriend.

Jan Wallen
You’re certainly welcome. Thank you so much Janine for having me here.

Janine Bolon
Well, as you know, the 99 Author Project is about authors helping and teaching authors. And so we are going to go a little deeper into your book. But first, you know, what made you decide to even write this book to begin with? What’s your story behind the story?

Jan Wallen
Well, that’s an interesting question. And it’s an interesting story. I actually, during the pandemic, had some time really took some time to think about what was really important to me. And I realized that it’s always concerned me that so many entrepreneurs undercharge, and don’t know how to ask for money and don’t know how to raise their fees. And that this was something I’ve done throughout my career, I’ve learned to do that. And so I thought, I’ll write the book.

Janine Bolon
Well thank you so much for being the authority figure on that, because that’s one of the things that many of us in the coaching world are constantly trying to encourage our people to do with varying degrees of success. So it’s always nice to have somebody like you, in our back pocket literally as a paperback that we can refer to so awesome. So just out of curiosity, how long did it take you before you could call yourself an author?

Jan Wallen
Well, actually, I am a consultant. And I’ve done many things, public speaker, before I even wrote a book, and this is my second book now. And so I started calling myself an author after my free as soon as I wrote my first book. And what I’ve been surprised about is, being an author really makes a big difference. And I guess I got used to the word author and thinking of myself that way, pretty quickly. And then, when people started talking about me as an author, it did exactly it did it enhance my authority and it just meant a made it meant a lot more to me.

Janine Bolon
It’s amazing, isn’t it? Some of us come to it naturally, like you did. And then there are people like me that it took five books before I could call myself an author because of my where I was right where I was, yeah. So thank you for being one of those more brave souls.

Jan Wallen
Well, something interesting that happened to me that really pointed out how much it enhances your visibility and credibility and authority. I answered the phone one day, and someone gentleman was on the phone and introduced himself and said, I’m with so and so organization. We’re looking for an expert to come in and work with our people in our company. And we’re working on this. You were looking for the expert, you wrote the book, when are you available? He did not say we’re interviewing five people to see who we want. He said you wrote the book. You’re the expert. When are you available? Wow.

Janine Bolon
Wow, I love stuff like that.

Jan Wallen
I know it’s

Janine Bolon
Direct sales. What?

Jan Wallen
Yes. And it really does. If you look at it at bios or LinkedIn profiles or media kits or one of the other things I’ve done. I’ve been a guest on a lot of podcasts. And when you put that it just gives you that perception and recognition that you’re the expert.

Janine Bolon
Well out of curiosity, have you always been a writer? I know you’ve written two books now. But have you always written?

Jan Wallen
No, yes and no. Writing comes easily to me that writing is not what I do for a living, writing my book specifically and the other the other book as well, they’ve been an introduction I’ve been known in the business world already. And for the work I do with my clients, and having the book enhances that. And I also, especially with my current book, Raise Your Fees Without Losing Clients. It’s an introduction to my consulting services, as well as a jumping off point for people, a starting point, for people who want to raise their fees and don’t know where to start. So I write for that purpose, not writing for the sake of writing.

Janine Bolon
Right. Okay, cool. So did you have happen to have a marketing background? Before you started this?

Jan Wallen
Yes, interesting you ask, yes, I did. Marketing, both marketing and sales. I started in corporate sales, and in New York City. And then I went to a global consulting firm, where I started and managed a national selling skills program for their partners and senior consultants, who are not salespeople. They are experts in their area. If you’re a partner, you have to be able to bring in new clients. So the program was very successful and in less than two years, we increased the size and scope of engagement as much as 25%.

Janine Bolon
Bravo, that’s huge.

Jan Wallen
It is huge. Yes. And it was, it was great. And so yes, I, I have had that background. And as an entrepreneur, I use it every single day. I will say, though, that the principles of sales and marketing are something people can learn. It’s not as though you have to have a background in order to be able to do it.

Janine Bolon
And so what most surprised you then about the book marketing process, when you first published a book? Because it is different, you know, I was in sales as well, but I still was stunned on a few items.

Jan Wallen
Well, what surprised me is how similar it is to selling and promoting services. When you talk about results, and outcomes, in your book, or in your, for your services, everything you do, when you talk about results and outcomes, that’s when people want to work with you. They’re looking for results for themselves. So they want to work with someone who has gotten results and results for their clients. And here’s a quote that you might want to write down. When you talk about outcomes, your income goes up. That’s something I tell my clients and people all the time. So many times, you hear about how they work. For example, I’ve talked to any number of consultants and coaches and any number of people, and they describe well, we do training, and it’s so many modules, and each module we do training programs two times a month, etc. That’s not what people care about. They care about the end results that you’re helping them get.

Janine Bolon
Wonderful, thank you so much for giving us this mini short course that you are. So if you started marketing your book today, and now you have a marketing background and everything, but if you started off today, is there anything that you would do differently?

Jan Wallen
Yes, there is actually, now that I’ve done it, I would have built more time into the launch process to build start building the buzz sooner before you know longer before the book came out. And one of the things I did along that line and I would also do again sooner. I am active in a number of social media and other groups of people in business. I’ve always been in business and b2b. But so I’ve been in these groups who are this is the groups that are not connected with being an author or writing. And so I talked to people and I asked them, some of them, if they would read the manuscript and if they liked it, would they write a blurb to put in the front of the book? And they did. One of the things and one of the things I also would recommend doing is giving them examples of something. If you simply to ask people to write something, they have all good intentions, and your mind goes blank. So I would have started that whole process sooner. And the other thing along that line, I had a team of ambassadors. Those were people also from these groups I’m in and people I knew, I asked if they would spread the word to everyone they knew. And they agreed to do that. And I wrote some emails for them to send out and social media posts to post. And that helped tremendously. And was something else I would have done sooner.

Janine Bolon
Right, yeah. I hear that over and over from people. And thank you for being one of those that confirms it for us of start earlier. Yeah, start earlier rather than later. So what worked best for you when it came to selling the most books?

Jan Wallen
The ambassador’s without question. And that. Well, I would actually say two things. The ambassador’s and being a podcast guest. On a lot of different podcasts, the ambassador’s did help so much, because they they have they know a lot of people and they have been in business in different areas. And so they spread the word about the book, and the book launch specifically to everyone they knew. And then being a guest on podcasts has done the same thing. When you’re a guest on an appropriate podcast that has your audience in it, for example. They’re introducing you to a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise know about you. And so I started out, I took Nancy Juetten’s podcast, Live Visibility Lab. And that got me started in exactly how to approach that how to get matched up with the right podcasts, how to prepare for it, and then doing them successfully has introduced me to people who bought my book that I wouldn’t have known about.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, so definitely opens up your community. Now, this is one of my favorite questions, because I’ve never heard the same story twice. And that’s why I love asking this question. What did you try that was an epic failure when it came to selling books?

Jan Wallen
Interesting you asked that, I all of the things I did worked. And part of that is I have had the sales and marketing background. And I also realized there are some things that are different about marketing a book. And so I studied what I’ve always my all my life, I’ve studied success, no matter what the area, I look at what’s most successful, and I do the things that have been most successful for me and for other people. So I did those things. And they all worked.

Janine Bolon
Wonderful. Yeah, like I said, nobody has said that yet, in all of the authors that I have interviewed. Nobody has had that answer.

Janine Bolon
Always a trail blazer.

Janine Bolon
I love it. I love it. So what story do you like to tell about yourself that kind of gets the most laughs from your people?

Jan Wallen
Oh, it’s a really good story. One of my favorite. I was and I think people can relate to it, I find when I tell it, people really do relate to it. I was with a global consulting firm. And at this one time, there was an event going on, that had been organized by a partner. And there were two of us. Besides that, managing the event, making sure everything went okay. There were 110 people there. And we were going up the escalator on the second day, about 10 minutes before everything was supposed to start. And we were going up the escalator and I’ll never forget the partner turned to me and said, by the way, the speaker for today cancelled. Jan, can you take that over? And it’s like, my mouth dropped to the floor. And all these thoughts are crashing in my brain. And I’m thinking, I can’t do that. What about what? Oh, but what if I don’t? What if I do? I can’t. And all of a sudden, I just got quiet. And this thought came through that said, if you can do this, you can do anything. And I said, yeah, if I can do this, I can do anything. So I said yes. And all of a sudden, seven minutes later, I was in front of 110 people leading the conference. And you know what? That in itself has given me confidence the rest of my career and the rest of my life because it worked out just fine. Might not have been what was expected or what I was, but it worked out just fine. And so what I learned from that is believe in yourself. And there are people around you who can help.

Janine Bolon
I agree. That’s one of the amazing things is when you start really buying into the fact of hey, I actually have something that needs to be shared. Yeah. Yep. So what is the biggest change that you’ve seen in yourself since you became an author with your first book?

Jan Wallen
Yeah, I would say, all your questions are so good. I would, I would say the biggest change has been all the skills I’ve learned I’ve up leveled my skills a lot and learned a lot, especially about book marketing. And I was really one of the things I learned about early on right as my book was being published is I had the option to put QR codes in. And I thought, wow, now I’m, I’m an early adopter and a trailblazer, I’m always want to be the first to do everything. So I thought, wow, QR codes, I can’t wait to do this. I had seen another book that had them. And I saw what they did. And I thought, wow, I’m going to do that. And so then what I realized was, how important it is to be doing everything in multiple ways, not only one way. So QR codes are brand new. People now are getting used to them, and they love them. And so if I, I’ve learned things to try new things and look at what’s going to be the most successful. That’s, that’s a bit different.

Janine Bolon
So that dovetails nicely into the next one, which is, what are your top five tips that you would give an author who’s just starting their books now?

Jan Wallen
Great, great question. Now, I’ve always been in the area of business to business and business. So I can really talk more about that type of book and that type, that type of thing. Number one, I would say design your book to solve a challenge that your clients and people around you have. Number two maybe is even more important. Be sure it’s a challenge they already know they want to solve. I find so many entrepreneurs, part of what entrepreneurs do is come up with solutions and see, we see the world in a way that we can make it better. And the dilemma is coming up with an idea that nobody wants, or nobody realizes is a challenge. So number two, find a challenge that people really already know they want to solve and will pay to solve.

Jan Wallen
And then the third one, put your solution into a framework. For example, five steps. In my book, Raise Your Fees Without Losing Clients, I put mine into the five simple steps to the income you want. And when people see five steps, or five simple steps, they think to themselves, oh, I can do that. That’s exactly what you want. Give them a place to start, and a way to start seeing success. And then absolutely use QR codes. Not only in a business book, the book actually that I read was about how to get started writing and what the QR code codes do in that case, and in my book, send you to a video to watch the author. Watching me telling people about a chapter before they read it. People remember and understand better when they see it like a video. So a QR code is really, really good.

Jan Wallen
And then don’t put off writing your book. It’s easier than you think. And it doesn’t take as long as you think. I, for example. Well, let me say a different way. If you have your five steps, take those five steps. Those are five chapters. Plus, add an introduction. Then add a conclusion, a summary and a conclusion. And you’ve got your book. So don’t keep putting off writing it because we think it’ll take too long or whatever. I also use voice to text software I didn’t write the book per se. I’m a speaker I talk. So I talked into that. It types it up into a document and then I went back and edited. So I highly recommend that as a tip.

Janine Bolon
Wonderful, thank you so much. Because to me this is the goldmine is talking to all of these authors, and especially people like yourself who become definitely are the leaders in your field regarding what you do and then being able to kind of glean some of this from you. So, this may not be appropriate for you because of where your background was, but I still like to ask what is the one thing you most misunderstood about becoming an author?

Jan Wallen
What I most misunderstood was how much being an author enhances your authority and your credibility and your credentials. You put that and I had told the story about, someone called me and said, we’re looking for an expert to come work with our people. You wrote the book, you’re the expert, when can you come in? They didn’t say we’re interviewing people. They said, when can you come in? And it was like, a light bulb went off.

Janine Bolon
And do you have a primary story or primary thing that’s kind of your biggest reward about being an author? I mean, there’s a lot of stories we can share. But there’s usually a pinnacle.

Jan Wallen
Yep, absolutely. For me, the success stories. I’m hearing from people that they’ve read my book, and they’ve already raised their fees. What could be better than that?

Janine Bolon
You’re doing what I shared with them to do, right?

Jan Wallen
Exactly. Yes. And they’re so excited about being able to do it.

Janine Bolon
Oh, brilliant.

Jan Wallen
Had I not written the book? They wouldn’t be doing that. And I wouldn’t be hearing about it.

Janine Bolon
And who knows how many businesses would have closed down? Exactly, exactly. You’re not. You’re not like a doctor saving lives. But you’re like a doctor. You’re saving businesses; saving business lives.

Jan Wallen
Time to raise your fees. I can’t say that enough.

Janine Bolon
Right. Well, Jan, thank you so much for your time today as being one of our spotlighted authors.

Jan Wallen
No, I’m so glad to be here, you ask wonderful questions. And the answers really are going to benefit so many authors and want to be authors. It’s great.

Janine Bolon
And I appreciate your wisdom because I know it came with many, many years of expertise thrown in and many mistakes made. So thank you so much. And as we wrap up here today, if you are an author or you know of an author that you would like us to spotlight, please visit our website, Author Podcasting.com, where you will find the 99 Author Project listed. We talked to all authors from all walks of life as we build out book number 12, which is Advice From Authors To Authors due out in 2023. And this is Janine Bolon signing off with you today and all of us here at the 8 Gates that produces The Janine Bolon Show. We wish you a wonderful week. And we encourage you to get your message, your story, or your knowledge out into the world and make it a better place. Just like these authors that we’re interviewing this year. We’ll see you again next week. And until then you keep sharing what you know with others. You keep shining that light that is you and don’t forget to go out today and just do something for yourself that’s just plain fun. We’ll 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.