Gratitude and Launching My Book: Joel Pitney

Bunny: 0:01

I’m Bunny Terry and I’m joined by my co-host and producer Johanna Medina. Our podcast today is it’s true . I think it’s a really special one and I’m surprised that we haven’t had Joel Pitney on before. Joel is really the reason that the podcast is here and he is part of the team that helped me get my book published and we thought it would be fun and helpful and inspiring for you to hear from , Joel about how he helps others do what we’re doing now. I mean, if you’ve had a dream of writing a book or starting a podcast, maybe you’ve got a manuscript sitting in a drawer somewhere. You’re not quite sure what to do with it. Or, if you just have an idea and you’re looking for a ghostwriter, this is the team, the launch, my book team is the team that can make it happen. Um, it was really fun to talk to him again. Wasn’t it? Johanna?

Johanna : 1:23

Yeah, it was, I was saying , I mean, I agree because I was telling Joel when we were setting this up, like, man, I was used to talking to you once or twice a week for so long. And , and you are , you stay even longer. I kind of jumped in late in the game, but , um, Joel and the launch, my book team were such a big part of our lives for awhile and they really like literally launched, launched you off launch the book, launch the podcast. But they’re so good to have , uh, you know, like really just teaching us kind of that like teach a man to fish kind of thing. And then like there you go, go off and do it. And um, so that’s where we’re at now. We’re out doing it on our own, but it was nice to check back in with Joel and , uh, and see what he’s doing. Because even since we’ve talked to him last, he’s added some more services and the , um, the team has added more services to their , like what they offer. Uh, and he’s just like a really nice fun person. I , I hope someday we get to actually meet him in person, not just virtually , uh, I think it’s funny too, because as I have been, you know, producing and uploading these podcasts for such a long time, we had like so many women, it was like the women of life-saving gratitude. And now if the last four or five episodes, maybe six has been all men. So I was like, oh, that’s cool. We kind of have the diversity. And we have now a bunch of men. I don’t, I just thought that was cool to have like the different guests, but , uh, gosh. Oh, I was going to say too, I , I, I liked this episode because I think it’s also like you put a lot of work into your book and it was just it , I think some people sometimes look at what you did, you know, they don’t see what was going on in the background. They might think, oh, like it just magically happened . You know, like funny, just , you know , she’s always Brighty. She does her blog . She does, she’ll still say this was easy for her, you know? And then, there’s her book, but no, it took years and years practically her whole life. Honestly, this book has been in the works your whole life. So then the eight years since you were diagnosed with cancer and then writing a book and rewriting it and all the workshops you went to and, and the , the different people who read it along the way along the years, and then finally get into this point where you say, no, you know what? This is the year 20, 20 20. This is the year I’m going to publish it, no matter what, and you made that happen, but I don’t think you really could have gotten it out there without a launch, my book team and Joel’s help. So it’s all , um, you know, it’s a big part of it. So I think it’s really cool for people. It will be cool for people to see kind of the behind the scenes and , um, sorta step-by-step of how you got your book published and how Joel and his team can help other people do the same thing.

Bunny: 4:20

Well, and he says something really important. I think, you know, we talk about overnight success and how there’s no such thing as an overnight success, but there, there is a moment when you have to ask for help and you have to say, here’s, you know, I was, I was looking at all these different trainings for self-publishing , um , authors and all , I was trying to figure it out on my own. And there just comes a moment that when you have to ask for help from somebody who’s an expert in ways that you’re not. And, and Joel and his team were my experts. They were our experts when we wanted to do the podcast. And I, I think that’s the cool thing. I hear a lot of people who say, wow, how’d you do the podcast. It looks so easy. I’m like, well, you have to ask somebody who knows what they’re doing, because I had no idea it does. It does. It really, it takes a team. So and this is our look at , um, you know, what how you hire a team to fulfill your dreams. It takes a lot of people to get your dreams to fruition. And now I’m writing another book in an hour or so I go and meet with my coach for the second book. So that’s exciting as well.

Johanna : 5:40

That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. I think all of that, so true. And just the hard work asking for help the kind of team behind it, but also just the point when you say, all right, I’m going to take the point. I’m going to , I’m going to take the leap, you know , um, because I takes a lot of courage to, to just say, you know, you could have held onto this book for another eight years and kept working on it and kept working on it, you know, who knows what would have happened. But at some point you have to say, Nope, you know what, I’m ready to put my myself really out there into the world and , and trust that it’s gonna work or not work. And honestly, just the fact that we have listeners to this podcast and you have readers, I think is a Testament to , um, you know, how important that bravery was and that it is making a difference. So I’m so glad that you found Joel and you know, that you, you trusted them with putting your book out

Bunny: 6:38

Well. And what I would say to to people is , if you’re feeling self doubt , if you’re feeling a little fear , I know from experience that that means you’re doing the right thing. You know, if you’re, if you , uh, if you don’t feel any sort of hesitation than it may be that what you’re doing , um, I don’t know. I believe in confidence, but I also believe that self doubt and fear are natural occurrences when you’re doing something that’s really hard and worthwhile. So, so stick with it. And if you want your book published, or if you need a ghostwriter or you want to launch podcast, if you just want a consult call, these guys, they’re amazing.

Johanna : 7:21

Yeah. And it’s also, oh, sorry, I don’t want to do that. Well , uh , Joel , doesn’t mention on the episode, but they’re also going to donate , um, a kind of a gift card to their services to the sweetheart auction too . So none of their , so they’re going to a sweetheart auction, or you want to be a part of cancer foundation for New Mexico. That might be a good way to get into their services.

Bunny: 7:47

Right. Right. So, thanks, Joel, thanks to our listeners. Thanks for every time you listen and review and download and here we go. Hi, there and welcome to the life-saving gratitude podcast. I’m here with , um, I’m going to tell you somebody who changed my life and we met accidentally, except I’m sure he wouldn’t say it’s accidental since he marketed his business. He and his wife marketed their business very well. Um, his name is Joel Pitney and he is part of the group that runs launch my book that I found through, I think divine intervention or kismet or something. Um, when I was trying to decide whether I was ready to publish my book and I thought it would be fun, Joel, just to talk about the process that I went through, getting there, and then the ways, you know, you tell us a little bit of your story, but then the ways that you help people find their creative place and then get published and promoted because I’m asked this question a lot. And I, and I thought this is the podcast is the perfect place to talk about that process. It’s everybody says, how’d you get your book published? How where’d you, how’d you get there? And I thought, I’m going to go right to the top. We’re going to talk to the expert . So

Joel: 9:21

That sounds wonderful Bunny. And , I’m honored to be a guest on your show. Um, it’s great to be here. Uh, working on your book was one of the, was one of the highlights of last year for us. So , it’s great to be able to engage with you in this way.

Bunny: 9:37

Well, and I think I should let folks know that the reason I have this podcast is because you suggested it as part of the promotional piece of the book and, we’re rocking. I mean, I think we’re at episode 24, 25, so

Joel: 9:52

I’m so impressed. I’m so impressed. You know, there’s , there’s in , in the world of creativity, there’s a lot of people who have great ideas and start off with a , with a flash and then they kind of whimper. And, you know, with this podcast, you’ve just been hitting it week after week after week. And , and it’s, it’s very impressive.

Bunny: 10:10

Well, I have Johanna who is , not only my very able assistant and my daughter, but she’s producing this, that I’m , she’s just scheduling people it’s happening all the time. So we’re having fun. And I , I hope that we’re providing some inspiration. Um, but I wanted to tell people quickly what happened part of my process was, you know, we, I was in the middle of doing a digital training, a marketing training for realtors, with a partner. And we were at about , um, module 10, I believe, and COVID happened. And we basically shut down. We had been filming in the house together and all the time that I was doing it , I was like, you know, I can do this. I can mark it in my sleep it’s but there is still this thing at the top of my, to do list. And at the top of all the goals, every year, I went to a goal training workshop. The one thing that I would always put at the top of my list was published. The book, published the book, published the book, which was the book that I wrote while I was sick with stage four cancer. And then didn’t publish. And as you know, because I told you this in the beginning, I , um, maybe I, I don’t, I don’t know how successful I would have been in traditional publishing , um, it, on that platform. But I knew that I wanted my parents who are now 87 and 89 to hold a copy of my book in their hand while they were still alive. And I started, I just decided the day that we shut down, I thought, wait a second. I don’t know how long this is going to take. I don’t know how long we’re going to be sort of held hostage by this virus, but I’ve got this thing at the top of my list. And I seem to have a lot of time. So I started studying , self publishing and I signed up for some digital courses to do that. And I , it was really daunting. And I also was doing a study of some, a lot of online research about building a website as an author and as a self published author. And I typed in the words, best author websites. And this really pretty website came up. And I looked to see who created it, and it was you, it was launched my book. So then I went to your website and then I looked at it for about three days. And I thought, I didn’t , I just asked some questions. And that’s when I reached out to you. So here we are , a year and a half later. Yeah.

Joel: 13:03

I remember that first conversation. Yeah , that’s right. Yeah.

Bunny: 13:06

So I want you to tell our listeners who you are and what you do and, and, and the magic that you make happen.

Joel: 13:17

Great. Well, yeah. So , thank you for that. And , I basically, my, you know, I started a company called launch my book , um, back in 2013. Um, at the time I was , I was a writer. I still am a writer. Writing is kind of my number one is my number one skill. And that translates into all the work we do with authors. And I have book projects on my own and I help people write books, et cetera. But at the time I was writing for a magazine and we, the , the editor in chief of the magazine wanted to publish a book and we were kind of a small all hands on deck. Everybody does everything magazine, and I got tapped to figure out how to promote it. And I knew nothing about it. I mean, I had started, I had done some digital marketing and some social media, you know, before, so I had a pretty good grasp on some of those things. And, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. And we had a publisher for that book, a traditional publisher, and then we had hired a publicist and we had hired a marketing company. So I had all these professionals and experts around. And so I k ind o f just took it on fully. And I learned how to launch a book sort of by doing with all these, with all this support. And, u m, that book was a success, you know, we did really well. We w anted to be a New York times bestseller, which w e, we didn’t hit that goal, but we, we did make, you know, we were an Amazon b estseller. We sold, I think we probably sold 15,000 copies of the book or something. And, u m, u h, I moved on from that position. And when the publisher of that book found out that I was free, they hired me to start helping represent some of their authors. And so they brought me on board for a book, by an author named Alan Fox. U m, he he’s published a series of books called people tools. He had multiple versions of it, and he brought me on board to consult on that campaign. And we, we made the New York times bestseller list. And my job on that campaign was, yeah, it was, it was a pretty, it was a pretty, u h, lucky first, first consulting gig. And at that point, that started to lead to over the opportunities. And in the beginning, I didn’t even really know what I was, you know, I wasn’t a publicist. I wasn’t, u m, I wasn’t necessarily a marketer. I k ind o f just did a little bit of everything for people. And I called myself a book launch specialist. And so I started getting these little consulting gigs and had t rying to help people get their book out there. And slowly over time, I learned all the different things that you need to do, right. It isn’t, u h, people need authors need a little, they need help in everything, especially someone who’s a first time author, whether they’re s elf p ublished or working with t he traditional publisher, u h, they need guidance in all aspects. They need someone to kind of be the, the, the skeleton of the whole campaign, stitch everything together. And so I learned how to build off their websites. I learned how to run social media campaigns for authors. U m, I eventually learned how to self publish a book and all t hat, y ou k now, cover design and all the different things you need to do. U m, I’d had a lot of experience developing content, so I would help people strategize content campaigns. I learned how to do PR outreach from a lot of the people I had worked with. And so eventually that became sort of an all services book, launching company called launch b y book. U m, and, u h, in 2016, my wife and I decided to move away from New York city, which we were at the time. U m, and she decided to quit her job in fundraising a nd, and help me run the company. U m, and so she got on board and she k inda took everything to the next level c ause she started to help me think about everything in terms of services. I used to people just call me up and say, I need help. And I’d say, okay, cool. Why don’t I just do a bunch of stuff for you? And you can pay me some money, which is, y ou k now, anybody knows t hat’s not a very good way to run a business. And so she helped me to develop these very distinct product lines and services. And so we developed author website service and which is how you found us and t hat because you Googled a uthor website and we have ads that show up when people do that. U m, and we developed self publishing and we developed social media and we developed different forms of marketing campaigns. U m, and now we’ve expanded to offer copy editing. C ause my, my wife actually is a fabulous copy editor, so she just copied e verything a nd, and I’ve even started to do ghost writing where I will write books for other people. U m, so we’ve grown since then quite a bit. And w e, we now have, u h, five people on the team. We’re all based here in bend Oregon and everybody lives in bend, but we all work from our homes b ecause o f COVID. And we have a couple of s ub c ontractors who help us with different elements of what we do. So, yeah, that’s what we do.

Bunny: 18:04

So , for me, our very, first outing , I’m trying, I’m really trying to remember the sequence because it seems, it seems to me that I went from , uh , an idea and a really bad manuscript to whoa, we’re done. And I know, I know that’s not how it happened. I mean, this was , um, so we publish , my , my book was published on January. I mean, it was released on January 20th. We started talking , um, I don’t know when or why . I can’t recall.

Joel: 18:40

I think it was either the late summer. It was either August or September.

Bunny: 18:43

I think it was too. I think that I had done all of this research and I had really made a stab at doing a digital course on self publishing . And then I got to thinking, wait a second, there is this, there are like all these little Amazon pieces and all of these publishing pieces and there’s this design piece. And I was really overwhelmed because like most other people, I was still still trying to sell some real estate, still working very hard with the foundation, with the cancer foundation for New Mexico and, and also still trying to write and do marketing and social media. And I know that’s how, I mean, most people don’t have a book and also unlimited time and some people don’t even have a book. Some people just have an idea in their head. And , um, I mean, what you did for me is that you first , um, the , you know, the first piece of the process was it, you did do the copy editing, right? I mean, you took the book and, and copy edited it while we worked on the cover design the concept. But you also did. I mean, I told people these, I mean, Joel is like my writing coach, you know, it’s, it’s not only here’s, here’s how you do the mechanical pieces. It’s also, what’s the most important, you know, who’s your audience, what’s the most important thing you want to accomplish with this book? Um, I just noticed on your website, you have a couple of great recent blog posts about, you know, why are you writing the book? Who’s it for? Um, those are, those are really important. I mean, we know those questions because we’re marketers and yet , um, I mean, if you, if somebody was sitting out there , well , in fact, I was somebody reached out to me on LinkedIn the other day and said, you know, I, I have this book idea. I have a lot of random writing. I mean, what, w what’s your best advice for somebody who’s got this idea circling, but no way to put it into any recognizable form. Where do you, I mean, don’t, you start with those people. I mean, don’t, you have a lot of people who come to you that are just, you know, sort of it’s, it’s, it’s not concrete yet what they want to do with the book. Does that happen?

Joel: 21:04

Well , unfortunately, no. I, there are, I do work with people to actually I do work with people at that level , um, where we, where we actually write a book from scratch, I’m actually working on two books right now where , um, we, they have an idea or a general framework. And then we develop the book out of that. And we, we ask all the right questions, you know, who is this for? What do we want to say? What does it mean ? What’s unique. And what’s unique about this angle, that , that we’re going to be presenting in this book that no one else can see, right? They say, you have to sell a book, like set like six times, right. You have to sell it to, you have to, you have to sell it to the agents. You have to write it, you have to sell it to the publisher. Then you have to sell it to the retailers and you have to sell it to the public. Right. That was , I don’t think that was six, but, so it’s good when you, even when you’re writing the book, it’s good to answer that question right up front . And so when I’m working with someone in that, at that level, when I’m writing the book for, and with them, we definitely start there. Now for me, those are, those are rare projects. I don’t have a lot of people coming to me for that. Those are usually referrals and they’re kind of high ticket items. The majority of the people I talk to on a daily basis have already I’ve already written their manuscript, or they might be almost done. Right. And so I often don’t have a chance to get in there and ask some of those questions right away. Now, I would say roughly half of those people probably thought through those things really well, either themselves or with whatever professional they were working with to kind of develop it. Um, but half probably didn’t, they were just like, you know what? I need to get this book out. I’m just going to write it. And, you know, you are someone where that was much clearer. And so it’s a lot easier to work, you know, for us to kind of come in at that level and work with someone who has a very compelling topic with a clear sense of what the audience is , um, with clear and compelling messaging, a unique viewpoint , uh, everything else then becomes easy, right. Or a lot easier. Nothing’s easy, but a lot easier. Um, so I don’t, that doesn’t answer the question about what advice I would have, but I think it gives you a little background.

Bunny: 23:12

Well, except, well , I guess what I’m, I tend to, I’m contacted a lot by people who say , um, I feel like I have a really important story to tell. Um, but what ha you know, some of it is just , um, really vague ideas of what they think their stories should be and how they think it will help the general public. You know, I just, I, I mean, what I’m learning more and more is that I, I almost think you have to write when , when you’re writing a book and that’s, you know, I wanna , I want to get away from talking about the concept of writing in a minute, but I do think it’s important to say there are a lot of people who think about writing a book, but I think you got to figure out early on who exactly is going to be reading it.

Joel: 24:02

I agree. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is, do it figure out a way to do it, you know, I , I think, I think, you know, but, but also it might not be a book either. You know what I mean? Like , you know, I think there’s some people you have to kind of assess is that your talent. Right. You know, and even if you’re not an amazing writer, do you think you could do a decent job writing a book, right? Or do you want to hire someone? Do you want to hire someone like me to come in and help you, or, you know, kind of take your idea and your story and turn it into a book format that would be really compelling. That would still be someone in your voice, or maybe, maybe there’s another, another medium for you to share your concept with the world. Right. I mean, a lot of people are turning to podcasts these days. People will even skip over writing a book and they’ll just do a podcast instead of a book. Right. So you kind of got to think about , uh , you need to, you need to think about what’s going to be, what’s going to work for you personally, very personally, because writing a book as you, I think probably knew from the beginning, but are definitely discovering. It’s a marathon, right? Takes , it takes years to write the book. You know, it depends on what route you want to take. If you’re going to try and get a traditional publishing deal, it’ll probably take you another year or two to sell that. Right. And then you’ve got to build your platform and then you don’t just launch it. And it’s an overnight success. You have to keep schlepping. You have to keep reaching out for people. You have to keep pounding the pavement. You got to keep publishing podcast episodes and inviting guests and spreading the word and building this platform. So if this thing that you have dying to get out inside of you is something that you really want to bring. It has to be something that’s going to be able to sustain you for a long period of time. It’s gotta be something that you’re going to be willing to give 10 years of your life to. And I know that sounds daunting, but…

Bunny: 25:47

Now that I’m done through this process, well, it’s just true. It’s and in fact, do you see those? I see those guys. I get ads for people on Facebook who say, you can write a book in a weekend. And I’m like, wow .

Joel: 26:02

It’s lying there’s so much lying in this industry. It drives me crazy. And it’s it’s w I was just, I just got off a call with my team and we were discussing, we were discussing , um, you know, we were discussing some article that someone had read, you know , and there’s this, there’s this weird misconception that people have in the book with books. But I think probably in a lot of things in life, that things are just going to come easy to you. All you need to do is find the right angles. It’ll go viral, come up with some something clever, and everybody will want to buy it. Right. But the thing is, does anything in life actually work that way?

Bunny: 26:39

Well, it’s the whole business…

Joel: 26:41

I mean, anything, anything, anything successful? I mean, there’s always going to be a handful of examples of people get lucky, but anybody who’s achieved success in any, in any endeavor, in any realm of life, real success puts in a tremendous amount of work to get there. Um, and I don’t say this to discourage people, but if you want to write a book, you’ve gotta be, you gotta be willing to, you know , do your 10,000 hours. Right. Um, you’ve gotta be willing to, to it. Can’t just, even if you, it doesn’t have to be your full-time job, but it also, can’t just be a hobby. It’s going to have to be like a second job for you, unless you just want to have it published and have your friends read it.

Bunny: 27:22

Yeah. There’s that. But I do. I love.. You know, I’ve read the practice by Seth gov about four times now. And he says, where’s your hour. I mean, there has to be an hour, at least every single day that you devote to whatever your practice is . And you know, all the time that my kids were little and I was working as a paralegal and, you know , working 50 hours a week, I still had an hour a day where I just wrote, and I created that practice. It’s , it’s also the whole idea of overnight success. I mean, nobody, I’m sorry, nobody’s an overnight success. There’s a lot of, a lot of days and years that come up to that overnight success. But , um, so, so writing a book is somewhat daunting, but if somebody has a book that they’re ready to publish, they need to come and find you right?

Joel: 28:19

Yeah. Or someone like me. Yeah.

Bunny: 28:21

Yeah. I mean, well you’re my favorite, so.

Joel: 28:27

That’s nice of you. I mean, look, I think, you know this about me. I’m what I’m. And I sometimes wonder if this is probably , uh , not good for business, but I , I tend to be very honest, you know? And so I, I only like to work with people that are going to be a good fit, you know, and, and people who have the right expectations. Right. Um, if people are expecting some kind of an overnight success, it doesn’t really work because my approach is very, my approach is very, is very, long-term , it’s very author dependent. Um, even though I, as you, as I think you probably know, we , we provide all kinds of services, you know, we do, we did all kinds of stuff for you. Right. But there was also a tremendous amount that we needed you to do. And I , I think of you as a model example of someone who’s , uh , going to self publish a book, because you have been in so invested in the success of your own book, even though, and then if you’re that invested, like you have been then services from someone like me can be really leveraged because we can, we can put together the right packages. We can help you with the strategy. We can , we can help you find the right contacts to get PR and media. We can, we can create a professional looking cover so that your book stands out. We do all those things, but at the core of any author’s journey has to be this, this, this commitment. And so when I’m, when people are coming to me, I’m very careful to figure out, okay, is this, is this person, do they have the potential to do that? Do they, are they, do they have that mentality? Because I don’t like to work on campaigns where people are kind of half in it , um, cause they don’t succeed. And then people, they waste money and everybody gets frustrated. You know, I learned that the hard way .

Bunny: 30:06

That’s true. That’s true. You know, when I have coaching clients, I’m, you know, there’s this 80 20 rule that 20% of the people that , that you coach will actually implement , um, what you lead them to, which is really hard because I will , I want everybody in the world to be successful. And, and that’s a hard piece. Um, I know that you have some courses now because, because obviously your services aren’t free. And for somebody who’s just exploring, talk about the courses that you put together, because I’ve noticed them on your website. And I want to, I want to know more about that.

Joel: 30:43

Well, so this is a new experiment. We’re always experimenting. I’m always trying to find the best ways to empower the most people. And so, you know, we design services at multiple levels of budget, you know, sometimes we’re just helping someone, you know, and kind of teaching them what to do and they don’t pay. You don’t have to pay us as much money. Whereas in some ways we’re doing everything for them. Right. And so the latest innovation in that regard has been our courses. And we’re , we’re just, honestly, we’re just experimenting with them. Our first course that we created was a course about how to self publish a book. And we basically teach people, literally everything that we do. So the whole process that you went through with us, funny, you know , uh, from, from manuscript to having that book up on Amazon, right. We guide everyone through every single step that you need to take. And we have all kinds of, you know, there’s videos where I tell people what to do. And then we have all kinds of examples and checklists and how to guides and timelines and all the kinds of things you need to succeed. Um, that’s kind of the philosophy of our courses is like, all right, let’s just take what we do on a daily basis for clients and then create courses out of it. So for people who are really self motivated , they can take what we’re doing and run with it. Um, yeah. So the first one is the self publishing course, and then we’re currently developing

Bunny: 32:06

I mean, it sounds like those sounds like what you’ve done is you’ve created something that is cost effective in terms of do it yourself. But there, there, there is a ton of effort between manuscript and push the button and order it on Amazon. Isn’t there?

Joel: 32:29

There’s a ton of effort. There’s a, there’s a ton of stuff and people just don’t know. And there’s also a lot of misinformation out there. You know, when someone’s, you know, you were talking about like looking at different courses and you were probably were Googling all kinds of articles and , and you’ll, you’ll find five different perspectives on, on what platform you should even publish a book on. Right. And it’s very confusing. And also the sequencing is often not clear. So you might be able to find a bunch of different information about what you should do, but you don’t know how to kind of put it all together. And so that’s a lot, what we are we’re focusing on is sort of sifting through all the different perspectives out there, because we’ve done that ourselves. We’ve had to learn, okay, what’s optimal, you know , um , what’s the optimum publishing strategy. What’s the optimum way to do this and that. So we kind of sift through all that and then we’ve put it together into a whole strategy that we use for our company. And then we kind of lay it out.

Bunny: 33:20

Like, I didn’t know. I mean, it’s amazing what you don’t know. I mean, I think I’m a writer and I’m a little bit of a marketer. Um, but, but just like, I didn’t know how important the formatting piece was. I mean, we looked at that. I , I don’t, I can’t remember. I think it was eight or 10 times we went back and forth on the formatting piece and, and I’m going to give somebody a tip right now. I also did an audio book because Joel suggested it and I had the book done and then I started reading it. And in this, this seems elementary. It seems really elementary. When I started reading it, I was like, that’s totally, that’s, that’s, that’s completely wrong. I’m going to have, so we would have to go back and edit the, the written the hard copy, the formatted copy, because I would read a piece of dialogue that I thought I had read before. I mean, I’ve been working on this for eight years. I would read it aloud for the audio book and I would go, what the world, what did that mean? And that’s a big tip I would give somebody is if you’re writing a book, walk around and read it aloud to yourself and record yourself, don’t you think that’s good advice?

Joel: 34:39

I think it’s fabulous advice. And that’s what I do all my own writing. I always, I always do , uh , out loud reading every time and I’ll do it, whether it’s to myself or I’ll read it to some like a friend or family member. Um, and it’s, I, it’s not even to get feedback. It’s just to hear the words, because I think, I think I know people read words, but you also hear them. And so you’re going to hear things that you would never be able to pick up without if you were just rolling.

Bunny: 35:06

Something else I’ve found was that I had looked at these words for so long that I had. I understood. And I, and I feel like I also feel , I feel like I’m getting an elementary tips, but some of my listeners are just in the same place I was at the time, but I would, I had, I knew the story so well in my head that it wasn’t until I started reading it aloud that I realized I’m not explaining that in any way. That’s going to make sense to somebody who doesn’t, who’s not living in my brain. And so that was part of the magic of doing the audio book. I would tell anybody who wants to self publish or publish in any manner to definitely do an audio book. Don’t you think that’s a great marketing tool.

Joel: 35:52

I agree a hundred percent. And this is , uh , I don’t understand why more people don’t. I mean, I understand why people get in a rush. They don’t want to wait. And, but the thing is more and more and more and more people are doing are listening to audio books these days. There’s a lot of people who just won’t even read anymore. I’m one of them. I don’t , I barely read. I listen to almost everything because you can listen on your way to work. You can listen while you’re doing chores. You know, if I take my son to the playground, you know, and he’s off playing on the swings, I can listen. Right. So , um, why wouldn’t you want your book to be available in every single format possible? Right? I mean, people are going to show up in your Amazon page, which as you know, takes a lot of work.

Bunny: 36:32

It’s a lot of work!

Joel: 36:33

To get someone to hear about you and then make the effort to go to your page and consider buying if they get to your page and they don’t see the format of your book that they prefer, they’re going to leave. And so you’ve lost, you’ve spent, I mean, customer acquisition costs are very high, right? You spent 15, 20 bucks maybe trying to get them to that page, to think about a purchase. You don’t want them to leave because you don’t have the right format. And as I think you’ve probably discovered recording your own audio book is even easier than ever.

Bunny: 36:59

Well, it is. If you have Joel telling you what to buy and, and you have Toby, my husband created this , uh , this hilarious little sounds soundstage for me, but yeah, it really, and, you know, I paced myself. I had , uh , you know, I put all my , um, I put all my chapter numbers and chapter names on a sheet of paper. And I, you know, my goal was, I think I have 54 chapters or 56. And my goal was to get through a minimum of two a day, but the goal was for a day. And that is a lot of reading. That is a lot of , you know, I mean, you can already tell, we did a PA , we did another podcast episode this morning. We recorded one and I started to get hoarse at times. However, I have gotten such great feedback to my audio book. I mean, people have really, it’s gotten a really warm reception. So, so that was a piece, you know, reading my work aloud that I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t told me to do an audio book. And I got to tell you guys when Joel told me to do something, I just did it. But , um, um, the other thing that I think people want to think about is , um, you know, we had a lot of fun doing cover design. You guys were wizards at that. That was , um, I, that, I think that’s a , that’s a huge piece of a book success, isn’t it ?

Joel: 38:27

Oh yeah. Well, yeah. And , and this is something again, you know, just to take one step back. My philosophy of doing self is that if you’ve chosen to take the self publishing route, you want to do everything you can to make sure your book looks traditionally published. You do not want to have a self published stigma attached to your book because you’re competing against a lot of their books. You , when someone looks at your book, you know , whether that be the interior format or the cover, right. Or the website that it’s on, you want to make sure that it’s, that the potential readers mind, there’s no triggers that thinks, oh, this seems self-published yeah , you want, you don’t even want people. You don’t even need to be a thought. And the cover is probably the most important thing, you know, and there’s that old adage people. Don’t, you know, don’t judge a book book by its cover. And that might be good when you’re, you know, a good rule of life when you’re dealing with people. Right. But with books, everyone, judges a book by its cover. You’re gonna look at , that’s the first thing. You’re going to see

Bunny: 39:25

I’ve picked up a thousand books in the library because I liked the cover design.

Joel: 39:28

Right. And there’s a lot of, you know, again, there’s a lot of information out there. There’s these like design your own cover tools. You can get online or you can hire someone for like $50 to do your cover. And it’s like, you need, that should be one of the biggest investments you make. Besides the development. Your manuscript is a good cover. It’s gotta look good. It’s gonna , it’s gonna establish your branding. Um, it’s gonna be the first impression that most people will have of your book. Maybe not of you, but of your book. You know? So yeah, so we , we invest a lot in that. We, you know, that’s, that’s , uh , that’s really important. We have a very talented cover designer. Um, and we, we, we don’t cut any corners on that. I don’t think anybody should know .

Bunny: 40:06

And I think… so, so you, we talked about not judging a book by its cover, and of course you do. But the other thing that people don’t seem to take a lot of time with is the branding piece, which you, we took a lot of time and did that together and the website piece, because it all works together. It’s like, you’re , you’re branding your website, your cover, they’re all a piece of the same package. And , um, and I knew that website piece from my marketing background, but I even, I have that argument all the time with the realtors that I coach as , um, in, in the marketing arena is why do people not get how important your website is? I’m still bewildered by that.

Joel: 40:52

Yeah, no, I would , I, I remember one of the first podcasts you did, you interviewed a fellow realtor who used to be marketing in the hospitality industry, and he has a blog about the food or the , like the chocolate trail in Santa Fe. And I , and I know that not all realtors have their own website. And I remember looking at that website , um, after listening to that episode, I was like, if I were going to Santa Fe and bunny couldn’t help me, I would definitely choose this guy because he was able to establish something so much way beyond, you know, a Zillow profile or whatever, or LinkedIn, he was able to create this feeling. And he was able to distinguish himself from all his competition, which there are a lot of in real estate. Right. because he could create this beautiful visual brand and I was like, sign me up. Right? And it’s a similar , it’s similar with an author, right. You know, people think, oh, books on Amazon. That’s good enough. You know, I’ll, I’ll create a good reads account. If it’s traditionally published, you know, they’ve got a page on, you know, you know , uh, the publisher website, but it’s, it’s not enough. You can’t create a feeling there. You can’t create a brand. You can’t, and , and it also is the place that stitches everything together, right? It’s the place where your podcast gets posted. If you have a podcast or if you want to write a blog, or if you want to link to it on social media, it’s this place that you control and you can build, and you can create this, this whole aesthetic and this whole mindset.

Bunny: 42:22

Well, and I think that there’s this idea that people now , oh, you know, people check out your Instagram account or you know, that, that people don’t spend a lot of time looking at websites. It’s, I think it’s, that’s completely incorrect. I think that all of that is tied together. Every piece of your social media, your Amazon profile, all, and , and in particular, your website are all part of a piece that established you as the authority. I mean, I I’m, I am the authority on writing a book about lifesaving gratitude, but I have established that by being visually, that person, not just by saying, and I’ll be standing up and say that, but, but, but that’s, but your platform includes every bit of that, right?

Joel: 43:15

Yeah. Yeah. And social media, you know, that social media is , is a great teaser. It’s a way it’s a great way to reach people and peak their interest. But I think when people are , are , want to make a decision about, you know, invest some money or invest some time, you know, am I going to buy this, or am I going to spend a bunch of time reading this book? That’s when people want to know more. Right. And you can present that on a website in a way you just can’t on social media. You know, social media would just be a little bunch of little clips.

Bunny: 43:45

What you just said. Really struck me as you people. I mean, everybody is going to invest some money at some point, but the more important thing is getting people to invest time in getting in , in figuring, I mean, that’s how you have an impact on people is getting them to invest some time with you.

Joel: 44:05

Yeah. And that’s interesting. I never really thought of it that way. That’s what, when people buy books, they don’t care about the money because a book is cheap. Right. Most people, what is it? You know, it’s going to be 10 to $20. It’s like nothing. It’s like a , it’s like an expensive cup of coffee, right. Or maybe two . Right. Um, but what I think that when people are thinking about whether I’m going to buy a book is they have limited time. People like to read, they’re like, do , is this the thing I’m going to be reading for the next few weeks? Do I want to invest time in this? Right. I think that’s a really interesting insight.

Bunny: 44:39

It Is. And you actually brought it to this .

Joel: 44:42

Sorry. No, I think , sorry, that sounds, that sounds like self . I, I think you, I , I think I randomly said that, but I feel like you contextualize it in a way that I didn’t really understand.

Bunny: 44:52

Well, I think that’s really important. So let’s talk, I just saw this and I’m going to have to go back and read it. I saw this great blog on your website said that about like seven mistakes that authors make marketing themselves or on social media. I mean, let’s just, just give some quick tips to people. If you’re going to start building a platform , um, what are some really actionable , um, you know, other than sitting down in the chair, like Steven Pressfield says the most difficult thing about writing. It’s not the writing. It’s sitting in the chair and doing it, but what are the other, I mean, just sit, sit in the chair, give, give it an hour every day, be consistent, but what are, what are some other actionable tips that you can give folks? Whether, whether they’re just starting, well, the just starting as you got to sit in the chair, but, but if you’re a writer and you’re trying to figure out how maybe you’ve got a book that isn’t going anywhere, or you haven’t quite published it yet, what? Just throw out a few tips for folks.

Joel: 45:52

Yeah . Yeah. So if we’re , if we’re talking about, if we’re talking about tips for building an author platform, right, and this is, this could be prior to publishing your book, it could be trying to get a book deal, you know? So you need to build a following. It could be after you’ve already published a book and you want to reach more people. Um, we’ve already talked about a few of them, but I think, I think one of the main things, people get people off their , like , they’ll hear, oh, I need to get out there and do more social media. Right? Um, it’s very important that you find something that’s going to really work for you. And I think people skip over this because they think, oh, I should be tweeting or I should be on Tik TOK. Right. Or I need to be doing those little Instagram stories that are only 20 seconds long and doing a funny dance. Right. And so they start to get driven by the medium, as opposed to finding the medium, that’s the best expression of them. And that might take some experimentation, but it’s very important that you find something that’s going to be comfortable. So if you like to write, write , if that , if that is really what you like to do, then you should be writing articles. You should be writing blog posts. You should try to get your articles posted on third-party sites. You know, that are, that are dedicated to the themes that you write on. Right. That should be the way you work with the world. If, if writing is more of a thing you did for the book, but you don’t like to do on an ongoing basis and you like video, if you’re great on video, figure out the video medium, right. Maybe that’s something you should be doing and you can post video on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram. Right. And maybe, you know, a lot of people, you know, like you, you’re a fabulous interviewer. You love to talk to people. You love to bring out the best in people. You love to have conversations, right? So the podcast was a natural medium for you. It’s something that you, I know you have a lot of help from Johanna and you couldn’t do it without her, but it’s something you have so much passion for it. And you’re so good at that. You’ve been able to sustain it. And if it felt like more of a chore or something you thought you were supposed to do in order to market your book, then you never would be able to keep going. It’s gotta be something that you have a natural love for. And so I always feel like if you’re going to , if you’re going to organically build a real following for your work and your ideas, and eventually your book , uh , you need to love the process of, you need to find a way of reaching people that you actually genuinely enjoy. So I don’t, I don’t know if that, if that fits into the quick tip category, but I always feel like that before anything .

Bunny: 48:15

No, that’s perfect. And , um, because I tell people that I, people re you know, I do this, I do this marketing thing with realtors and will always say, well, am I supposed to be on Instagram or Facebook? I’ve said, you’re supposed to, first of all, be where your audience will be, where your potential clients are going to be, but B where you’ll actually show up. It’s like that question. The other question is, well, what kind of, what, what’s the best , um, database? And I say, it’s the one you’ll use. It’s not like, there’s not a, there’s not a space . You know, I can’t tell you which email platform you should use. I can’t tell you which , um, you know, online data, CRM, you know, customer relations management tools you should use, it’s gotta be the one you’ll use

Joel: 49:05

And that might be a Rolodex.

Bunny: 49:07

Yeah, yeah. It might be. That’s what Toby Anderson uses. It’s a Rolodex. But , um, you, you have to figure out what you’ll use because what I think people don’t get is that the writing to me, the writing is magical. I mean, I can sit that. I wake up every morning with words in my head. That’s the , that’s the easy part. The, the hard part is the marketing piece, knowing where to put your energy so that you gain people’s trust so that they want to invest time with you. And, and you eventually, that’s how you grow your following is by showing people that they can trust you.

Joel: 49:46

Right. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And if you, if you get that, then there’s all kinds of little tips and tactics you can use to then channel all that.

Bunny: 49:55

So let’s talk, I also want to talk for a second about this whole idea of podcasting, because you were so good , um , at helping us get started, you know, here’s, here’s the great platform here’s, you know, buzz reach out us about Buzzsprout. Do you do that outside of the book piece for people? I mean, if somebody was starting a podcast.

Joel: 50:21

Yeah. I mean the first, so, so kind of how I do everything bunny and, you know, I I’m like , uh , I think I’m like a high qualified hack , so I’ve had to figure out because I figured it out. Right . So I had , I had a really good friend , um, who , uh, he is an author, but he he’s really trying to build a thought leader platform. His name’s Carter Phipps . If everyone has a , he has a podcast called thinking ahead, it’s fabulous. If you like, kind of like big, big mind, big thinking about the future topics, it’s hid , he covers everything. Um, and he, he, he was realizing, Hey, you know what? I think podcasts would be a really good medium Joel, do you think he could help me figure out how to do it? And so I did, I just did a bunch of research and me and my team, we just, we went out there, we researched all the podcasting platforms. We tested a bunch of stuff, and we figured out the formula, we thought would be best for someone like him, which also happens to be most people that we work with. Um, you know, people with, you know, limited time, great ideas, a little bit of tech savviness, but not too much who need something that they can very easily get off the ground and then be able to consistently produce without a tremendous amount of support. Right. And so we, we just figured it out. And then we, we, we launched his podcast. Um, and then yours was the next podcast we did. And we more or less took what we learned from him and applied it to you. And then we learned some things when we were doing yours as well and applied it to the next one. So , um, that’s kinda how I, that’s how I learned everything.

Bunny: 51:58

So if somebody wants to… Can they get in touch with you and you help them with totally . Okay. Yeah , no book, You do have that?

Joel: 52:07

And we are going to make a little course about that too. Although there are some really, honestly there, if there’s, if you want help developing it, you can definitely come to us. But , um , if you’re very self motivated , I highly recommend Buzzsprout , which is the podcasting platform that , uh , bunny uses for the show. They have so many amazing tutorials on there. You can learn a lot just from that, you know, so, but you have to be very motivated if you need, if you need more help, we can do that.

Bunny: 52:35

Well, and I think there were so many steps to that because you don’t just start a podcast. I mean, you use, you integrate it with the platforms that you’re going to appear on you. Um, you know, we had to figure out how to do the , you know, even the design, our graphics for our podcast, we , um, loaded it onto the website, which I think has been really helpful. And it’s certainly driven a lot of traffic. I mean, if , if people don’t understand , um, driving traffic to your website, then , um , having your pods podcast on your website is Uber. I think, I mean , we’re , we get a lot more hits than we were ever getting before. And I thought I was a good marketer. So , um, this has been a good vehicle for me, but I also feel like we’re having an impact. I mean, people stopped me on the street and they say, I saw somebody I haven’t seen in a year and a half. And I saw at lunch the other day and she said, Bonnie, I listened to your podcast all the time. I like business somebody. I never would have put into the category of listening to my podcast, but she mentioned a guest that we’d had a couple of weeks ago. And , um, she said, I’ve changed what I’m doing because of what that woman said on that podcast.

Joel: 53:49

That’s amazing. I love it . You know , I know it’s just a little anecdotal story, but I think those things are just, they mean so much

Bunny: 53:59

Well, and I think I’m, for some reason , um, especially in the LA in the group that we have on Facebook, the life-saving gratitude group on Facebook , um, for some reason what keeps coming up, suddenly in everything I’m reading and everything I’m seeing is taking small steps , um, and tiny steps. And, but making changes by just pivoting and taking small steps in a different direction. And so I don’t have to reach a hundred thousand people on my podcast this week. I just want to impact one person in a positive way. So, and that’s what you did for me.

Joel: 54:44

Well, and , you know, yes, and we had , we , we enjoyed it greatly and still do

Bunny: 54:50

Well. Well, I know that there’s more and , I know that we probably have other projects under our belt, but I just, I really, I wanted people to hear about the process and I wanted them to hear what you offer, but I also wanted them to be encouraged that , um, even though writing a book is hard, even though starting a podcast may be daunting. Um, there are, there are real resources out there. I mean, you don’t have to be a writer and a self publisher. And , uh , and , uh, you don’t have to be an expert at every single thing to get your book out there.

Joel: 55:29

That’s true. That’s right. You need to be invested and you need to be committed, but you don’t need it’s right. There’s there are plenty of resources to support you and plenty of people out there like me, you know? Um, so absolutely well, and encouragement is huge. I , I think I, you know, I I’m, I have my own books I’m writing. I , you know , I feel like everybody who wants to, who wants to do it should do it and don’t be afraid and don’t be discouraged. And, you know, you’re gonna get, you’re gonna have a lot of self doubt along the way, you know,

Bunny: 55:59

But I would say, I also read, I just read a great post about self doubt , which is that all great things are accomplished in the midst of self doubt. Like, you know, getting married, running a marathon, publishing a book. That’s really when the biggest stuff happens, because if you felt comfortable with everything you were doing, you might be doing really mediocre stuff. So it’s when you’re doubting yourself that you tend to accomplish the most. But Joel, I’m so grateful that I did that search that day and found you guys because you encouraged me all the way to now. And we’re going to collaborate on more, but , um, I really appreciate you taking some time to talk to us.

Joel: 56:46

Yeah. I’m honored to be on the show. Well , and you know, you’re , as, as I’ve told you many times, you’re not only were you, you know, a fabulous client, you’re an incredibly inspiring person and I’m honored to know you.

Bunny: 56:59

We’ll do this again because it’s so much fun, but thank you for being here. All right. Take care.

Joel: 57:05

My pleasure.

Bunny: 57:11

That’s all we’ve got today. Friends. I want to thank you for joining the lifesaving gratitude podcast with your host BunnyTerry, that’s me and my producer and assistant Johanna Medina. We feel like we’re in the business of sharing the stories that save us, and we hope you’ll share as well by letting your friends and family know about the podcast follow and like us wherever you listen. And please take the time to leave a review, whether it’s a stellar comment or a suggestion, we are open to suggestions all the time. Also follow us on Instagram at life-saving gratitude pod. You can also follow me personally at @bunnyterrysantafe, you can sign up my website at bunnyterry .com to receive weekly emails about how to become the ultimate gratitude nerd. Thanks so much for checking in.

Bunny: Hi everyone. This is Bunny with the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. Just in case you don’t know me, I am a stage four colon cancer survivor and the author of Lifesaving Gratitude, which is a book about how gratitude helped me kick cancer’s ass. 

Today we’re going to talk to a special guest about how marketing and marketers can use gratitude to create business and connections with clients and also for themselves to create a really positive way to do their job. But first, I just want to thank you for being here and ask that you download the podcast if you’d like. And certainly subscribe wherever you listen to other podcasts. But enough about me and enough about the podcast. 

I want to introduce you to my special guest, who’s also a friend. Craig Cunningham is currently a realtor with Keller Williams, Santa Fe. And that’s how I met him. However, this is a recent career for him and he was, and correct me if I mispronounce the word, but you were a hotelier. Is that the way to say that?

Craig: Yes. 

Bunny: Yes. He’s spent 30 years in corporate sales and marketing. He’s traveled extensively. I’m going to let him tell you all the places that he’s been to, but he is the founder and principal of Cunningham + Colleagues marketing consultants. He was in the past the VP of marketing and quality for Seaport Hotels and World Centers and the VP of marketing for Core North America. So welcome Craig Cunningham.

Craig: Thanks so much for having me on your podcast.

Bunny: I’m excited. I know you have some great tips for all of our listeners. When I think about these podcasts, I always think about the people that are going to want the information we’re offering. I mean, we’re here to help people and we’re here to figure out how gratitude can make everyone’s life not just easier and simpler, but also fuller. So why don’t you start, Greg? Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us how in the world you ended up in this completely different career? And yet the truth is we’re still just marketers first and realtors, second. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell our listeners.

Craig: Yeah. So, as you said, I’ve been in marketing and sales for more than 30 years. I actually started off with an advertising and PR agency and then had the good fortune to be hired by my hotel client at the time, Wyndham hotels. At that time it was a North American chain and it’s now international. 

But from then on, I was in the hotel business. It’s definitely a career where if you are not focused on client service and the whole concept of gratitude, you’re not going to be successful. I always thought of our job as just surprising and delighting our guests and making them feel like they chose the right hotel to be with. And so it was always about waking up every day and saying, “What can I do to make somebody’s day and to give them a great experience?” And, of course, to do this you have to be grateful because they opted to choose your hotel over the million other choices that they had. 

So when I retired from the hotel business two years ago, I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to do with my life. I started doing more volunteering. I volunteer with Kitchen Angels here in Santa Fe to deliver meals to people who are not able to leave their homes. But I also started thinking of whether I wanted to do something else from a professional standpoint and the real estate business seemed like a natural extension, because it’s all about client service. You have to figure out ways to make people feel like they’ve made the right choice in working with you. So it’s all about being grateful every day and figuring out what can I do to help them today. How else can I extend what I’m doing for them in a way that they will appreciate and know that I appreciate them. So that’s what it’s really all about, because of course they could work with a million other other people

Bunny: Right. And let’s talk for just a second. Don’t you think that marketing has changed over the 30 years that you’ve been doing this? I mean, it seems to me that when we were kids, which was back before the crust cooled, we were sort of marketed at. Just talk for a minute about how marketing is different now than it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago.

Craig: It’s funny, because I was going to say the exact same thing. Back in the day, you were running a TV ad or a radio spot or a print ad and it was passive in that you just presented the information, unless you were direct sales. But really with the advent of so much digital media, you are instantly able to forge a relationship with customers through social media, through Facebook, Instagram, where you’re having a dialogue with them from the very beginning. This allows you to work in a much more personal way and to be able to find out much more quickly how you can serve those people. 

So I think it’s changed completely. Before you just sort of put it out there into the ether and hope that something worked, and now you’re able to engage. And I’ve found that so much in real estate where I’m getting emails from folks and then it evolves from the email into a phone call or a zoom call or something like that instantly. I think that’s so much better for both people. Especially for somebody like me who wants to find ways to engage with people and to be of service to them, it makes it a lot easier and more rewarding.

Bunny: I just think about the ways that I connect with my clients. It’s as if you’re somehow conveying to those people that you’re grateful that they showed up.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, my whole thought is that it’s not a transaction, it’s a relationship. And that relationship can be multifaceted. Once you’ve sold them a house or sold their house, I like to think that we’ve formed a friendship and a bond and that relationship is going to continue. And honestly, I don’t even care if I ever get another piece of business for them. Now think of them as friends. I want to have them to my house for dinner or go have coffee or something like that. 

I think that kind of thing that makes a difference for people in wanting to work with me.  It’s coming from a position of wanting to be of service to them and wanting to make them happy and finding the right solution for them. I’m working with some first-time-buyers right now and I kind of feel like they’re my kids. It’s about, okay, how can I really help them with this? And they’re grateful for the counsel I’m able to give to them, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with them. So it’s very rewarding. I think if you approach business relationships in the same way as you would with your friends, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.

Bunny: Well, talking about those first-time home buyers, I mean, that’s one of my favorite deals. You never make the most money from those transactions, but I’m so grateful to be reminded that we are providing the American dream when we’re selling real estate. Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s my favorite experience.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, for somebody to have their first home and to be excited about how they’re going to decorate it and what they’re going to do. And with this young couple, seeing them excited when they see a house brings out all my empathy and makes me want to really go the extra mile for them to make sure they find the right house at the right price for them. And then I just never want to stop. So then it’s like, “Okay, now I’m going to find this person for you to do the plumbing, and I’m going to find this person, etc, and I’ll be with you with you  to help explain things.” I just want to really continue to be of service.

Bunny: I talk a lot, especially on my blog, about Judy Camp, who was one of my first real estate mentors. She was a great friend and Linda Gammons partner for a long time before she passed away. But Judy Camp always says, “If you come from contribution, you can’t help but be successful.”

Craig: Yeah. I mean, just as I was saying, you can’t think of it as a transaction. I think, coming from contribution, how can I help you? How can I make this a better experience? How can I make this work? Because, especially in a real estate transaction, it can be stressful. It’s the biggest financial transaction for the majority of us. So how do you take the burden and the pressure away from them and sort of guide them through the process? I just think the main thing is that it’s much more fun, whether you’re doing volunteer work or in business, to wake up every day and figure out how I could make it fun for somebody else. Because then it’s fun for you and it gets you excited and passionate about what you’re doing.

Bunny: Well, it sounds like our big “why’s” are really similar. I certainly don’t want to put any words in your mouth, but it sounds like your big “why” is just to make the life of the people you come in contact with better.

Craig: Yeah. Of course making money is nice, but there are lots of ways to make money. It’s more about whether you are getting energy from it. And I think you really get energy when you’re working with someone and trying to figure out how you can help them, how you can make their day better, how you can make the service that you’re providing better. And also just doing things that saying, “What about if I do X, Y, Z?” and they’re  like, “Oh, you’ll do that for me?” And I’m like, “Of course.”

I have another set of clients where the transaction was fairly complicated and we were looking at lots of properties. Coming from a corporate background, I love to do spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations—things like that. And so after about the third thing we had to do, they’re like, “Oh, how are we going to organize all these bids?”  And then one of the guys said to the other guy, “Well, Craig’s going to do a spreadsheet for us. He’s probably already got it done.” So it’s that kind of thing where you’re looking for ways to make their experience better.

Bunny: So this is always a funny question for me to ask, because I have such a loose gratitude practice other than just waking up in the morning and saying, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” and then writing things down, but do you have a practice that you follow that helps you both in your business and your personal life?

Craig: Well, since I came into real estate with Keller Williams, which focuses a lot on being servant leaders and helping people, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing three things I’m grateful for that day. It could be that it’s a beautiful day or a dog or my partner or the opportunity to help somebody or the coffee’s really good that day, but waking up and appreciating what you have in your life is a good way to get in a good mindset for the rest of it.

Bunny: Oh, absolutely. Something I always say is that we kind of rewire our brains. We do. We create new neural pathways every time we say that we’re grateful. So in terms of nuts and bolts, is there a way that you let your clients know? I mean, I find that there are a lot of young people, young entrepreneurs or people who are new to business, who forget how to tell their clients how they’re grateful for them, even if it’s a line in an email. Do you have something that you do specifically over and over?

Craig: I think for me, it’s maybe more in the actions. I think of “This is really going to be helpful if I do this or if I provide this information.” I think it’s always in my voice and the way that I write. I try to always communicate openly and in a friendly and conversational manner. But then I also think “It would be really cool and really helpful if I did X , Y , Z.” I created a whole PowerPoint just on the neighborhoods in Santa Fe, because if you’re out of town it gets confusing. And that came out of a client saying, “Well, I don’t really know the neighborhoods.” And I thought that this would be a great tool for them. So I created it and then I was able to use it with others. 

So I think for me, maybe it’s sort of on the fly. I used to say in the hotel hotel business, “How can I make this a wow experience?” Because the other way to think about it is that every relationship is with people. When you’re in a service business you’re really in the business of creating memories. You can create good memories or you can create bad memory and it’s much more fun to create good memories.

Bunny: And that just comes from a spirit of generosity. I mean, you obviously want this to be the best real estate experience they’ve ever had.

Craig: Right. Right. I’m very grateful for the people that have helped me along the way. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to always work for people who were concerned about my career development and my personal development and became dear friends. And I’ve had a couple of bosses that have hired me twice in two different jobs. So I’m always grateful for the things that other people have done for me. 

So then I want to pay it forward. When I came to Keller Williams and I was introduced to the team here, there was so much openness and willingness to share and help and support. It has been fantastic. What strikes me the most is how grateful I am for what other people have done for me. And how do I pay that back?

Bunny: I mean, this is not a podcast to plug Keller Williams. It’s really more to talk about mindset, but the place where I learned it was sitting in that training room and learning that my mindset was the secret sauce. I mean, that’s the success piece, right?

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s not just about production and everything. It’s about weight and having a sense of gratitude and contribution and a sense of abundance. And I don’t mean that in a monetary way. It could be abundance in your health or your friends or all of that kind of stuff. And I think back to you. Your experience with cancer was far worse than mine, but I did have prostate cancer about nine years ago. Everyone I worked with during that entire time when I was going for radiation every day for 10 weeks was so supportive. And then on the last day of radiation, there was this very important meeting, and everyone knew it was my last day.My whole team had a celebration for me on my last day. That was turning something that was obviously a challenging situation into something where I knew they really cared about me and supported me.

Bunny: Wow. I’m interested to hear how your mindset was in the middle of that? 

Craig: I’m just by nature, an optimistic person. So even though it was scary, I felt like I was in good hands from a medical standpoint and I just felt like I was gonna beat it. I had done the education that I needed to and then it was really about having a positive mindset. 

This is probably too much information, but I’ll say it anyway. You’re doing the radiation stripped down to your boxer shorts. And so I jokingly put this Facebook thing about the fact that I needed a new pair of boxer shorts for every day. And people started sending me underwear—different pairs of boxer shorts for every day. So while I was sitting there in the big machine, where you’re sort of in there and it’s buzzing and scanning and all that kind of stuff, it got to be kind of a joke with the techs:  “Oh , what’s he going to be wearing today?”

Bunny: I love that.

Craig: That was a way to keep my spirits up. And also during that process, I really learned how to be very focused. I was in a waiting room with people that were going through, frankly, worse things than prostate cancer. Don’t get me wrong, prostate cancer is pretty serious. It is. People die from it. But I was seeing so many other people that were having a much more challenging time than I was. And we became a family. We all bonded together during that process, because we were all waiting, sometimes for an hour. So it’s things like that. And also things like the kitchen angels service, where it helps reboot you every day for how grateful you should be in your own life and grateful for the opportunity to help other people.

Bunny: Right. There are tons of people who do get what a gift it is. People who don’t even have a specific gratitude practice, but at least an attitude every day that you’re going to figure out something. I just wrote a blog post on limiting beliefs and one of the things that I wanted to convey is that we get to choose every single moment how we view the world. And maybe for somebody out there who’s brand new in business or who’s starting a new business. I just read a statistic that said that the entrepreneur demographics are changing. And now like 48% of new entrepreneurs are over 50. So hooray for the old people! 

But I know that there are people out there right now who are thinking, “Well, I’m not any good at marketing. I’m not any good at that piece of it. I can sell stuff, but I’m not good at the marketing stuff.” I’ve got to tell you, I’m married to a guy who doesn’t believe in self promotion because he came from a generation when you played down your assets, instead of being grateful for them and talking about them. So I’d love to hear what you have to say to somebody who has that limiting belief that they can’t market. And they can’t promote themselves.

Craig: You know, we could all market ourselves, and we do it every day in our interactions.  Whether we think of it as marketing or not, we’re marketing ourselves all day long in how we react and treat other people. The thought I had as you were talking about your husband thinking self-promotion sounds like a dirty word is that it doesn’t have to be you talking  about “me, me, me” and “I did this million dollars in revenue.” This is kind of a turnoff in some ways, because you’re talking about yourself. But if you’re talking about how you can help somebody else and how you can provide a good experience for them with your information and knowledge, you’re not talking about yourself in that context. You’re talking about how you can be of service. I think that’s a much easier way for a lot of people from a generation where we weren’t really supposed to be talking about ourselves.

Bunny: Well, it was pre-social media. Our face wasn’t out there. We just weren’t trained to tell people, “Here’s the reason you should hire me instead of the other person.”

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, now we’re all our own brands on social media. But I think that rather than saying to somebody, “Here’s why you should hire me versus somebody else,” you should just talk about how you can be of service in what you do in an authentic way. Then people are more likely to want to work with you, because you’re radiating a sense of positivity and an interest in them. And they’re not thinking that you just look at them as a transaction and then you’re onto the next person.

Bunny: I frequently use with my marketing coaching clients the example of a dinner party. If you went into a dinner party (and this is for people who are just beginning in whatever business they’re in, especially if they’re self-employed), you wouldn’t simply walk in, take your coat off and say, “Hey, I’m selling something, come and talk to me.” Right? I mean, that’s what you don’t want to do with marketing. You want to start by building a relationship. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Craig: I think it goes all the way back to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. People do like to talk about themselves. And so the first thing is you should be listening. That was one of the first things I learned in marketing client service. You need to ask questions and learn from your clients. Focus on what they need, as opposed to talking about yourself. You really want to establish a dialogue with them about their wants and needs and hopes and fears and everything else. Then you can talk about how you can address them. But nobody wants to go in and all of a sudden have you sit down and say, “Here’s my PowerPoint about me and what I’ve done.” It should be more of establishing, from the very beginning, a relationship of openness with folks. Then, after hearing from them, you can say “Well, here’s how I think I can you and here are some ideas that I have that I could share with you.” So I think a key thing is really listening from the very beginning.

Bunny: I even found that to be helpful when I used to first go on listing appointments. I was so nervous that I would sit down and I would immediately try to book an appointment. You know, if you’re not in real estate, a listing appointment is just like sitting down with a prospective customer. I would be so nervous in the beginning and really coming from a place of scarcity where I thought, “If I don’t get this listing, I’m not sure I can pay the rent next month.” And if you’re coming from a place of scarcity, you’re likely to self-sabotage. But that’s such good advice because things changed when I finally learned how to sit back and listen: “I’m here to help you. Tell me what it is that you need. Talk to me.” It’s so powerful to give a client time to talk to you. And I think people forget to do that, right?

Craig: Yeah. And I think sometimes we do it because we’re afraid. What I’ve learned so much over the years in business working with people is that people are terrified of silence, so they will immediately start talking. If there’s a second of silence, you jump in and start babbling. Lord knows I do it. But if you just let somebody talk and let it sort of sit there for a second and not just try to be filling in all the time. It drives me crazy when people are doing that. It’s much better if you can have the client talk and then ask some more questions and then be warm and reflective about it. Back to the Dale Carnegie thing, I think one of his first points was if you’re at the dinner party, ask people about themselves. Most people do like to talk about themselves. So ask them and don’t just start talking about yourself. 

Bunny: I think that even people who would say, “I don’t like to talk about myself,” really do want somebody to ask them and listen to them.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s not just asking them to go on and on. It’s more meaningful questions about, for example, why they decided to move here. Just those kinds of questions that get them thinking. Growing up in materialistic Dallas, the joke was that the questions at a party were like, “Where do you live? What do you do? What do you drive?” And so it’s not questions like that. It’s asking them more about their life experience,

Bunny: You just brought me to another completely different point, which is for any realtors out there listening: I think it’s really important to convey to your clients how grateful you are for where you live. I mean, if our lifestyle is such a selling point, don’t you think you should share that?

Craig: Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, living in Santa Fe there’s so much beauty. I’m looking out my window right now at the beautiful blue sky. When I leave my house in the morning and I see the mountains, and then when I’m coming home at night and the sun is setting over the mountains and I see all the different colors and everything, it’s just breathtaking. It’s great to live in such a great and wonderful environment and in a place that is very spiritual, going back with the native Americans—respect for the earth and nature and all of those things—I think it does help center us more than a lot of other places.

Bunny: How do you convey that to your clients? I know you’re doing something really cool online that’s different from some other realtors.

Craig: Well, I’m not just posting on my Facebook page,” Hey, I just sold this house or just sold that house.” Well, that’s great. But I’m more talking about new experiences in Santa Fe: new restaurants, or a new place to go hiking, or something exciting that’s happening at one of the museums or things like that—enthusiastically talking about the experience of living in Santa Fe. And if down the road, by the way, you’re looking at this stuff and you decide you want to buy a house here, I would love to help you. But it’s more about conveying the reason why we all want to live here

Bunny: And tell us about your blog, because I think it’s amazing.

Craig: So I created this blog, which is called Santa Fe Scenes. It’s that same kind of thing where it’s just talking about having fun in Santa Fe. One of the things was, you know, we’ve got the old Santa Fe trail and we’ve got the old Pincus trail, but did you know that we had a Margarita trail and a Chocolate trail? Stuff like that. Just being whimsical about it and talking about some of the things are unique about the city and sharing my own passion for Santa Fe. I was very fortunate to be able to do a lot of international travel for my job. I was grateful for the opportunity that I was given to see places that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise from Bogota to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and Beijing and places like that. So I’ve always been enthusiastic about travel and now living in such a beautiful place like Santa Fe, I want to share that enthusiasm with people.

Bunny: And you’re getting some good feedback on that I bet, right?

Craig: Yes, I am. I’m getting good feedback on it. It’s been a wonderful thing to reconnect with friends who are saying, “Good for you, you old dog! You’re back out there trying something new.” Because whenever someone says, “Oh, you’re a new realtor,” I say, “Well, I’m an old new realtor. I’m 61 and I’m starting this for the first time.” But it’s been great from that perspective and the support that you get from your friends. Then people are saying, “Oh, well, I know somebody who might be interested in sending you that information.” I think that’s one of the positive things that social media has done where we’ve been able to reconnect with so many people that we might have completely lost touch with.

Bunny: Oh yeah. I did a post not very long ago about how grateful I was, and it was in the middle of all the fear over Facebook and Twitter. And I just said that it’s such a great platform for reconnecting with cousins that I haven’t seen since I was six. I mean, I just turned 60. I’m an old dog and this is a new trick for me, but I think that if you use it the right way, it’s a real gift. I also think there are so many realtors, like you said, who just post either pictures of houses that they have listed or their accomplishments. And I think they’re really missing an opportunity.

Craig: Yeah. Because then you’re just talking at someone. You’re not sharing information and excitement about things with them. People don’t want to look at that stuff. They want to look at things like the fact that there are like six great chocolate tiers in Santa Fe. And then the next time I’m in town, I want to go to each one of them. Or discovering an amazing new hiking trail or a beautiful image of a shop window or a piece of art or something like that. 

Bunny: Yeah, it’s so much better than “I just listed this house at 123 main street. Don’t you wish you owned it?” Exactly.

Craig: Exactly. I think more people would react to it. I’d really like to have some of that green chili chocolate over at The Chocolate Smith or whatever. It’s much more interesting than a picture of a kitchen that has granite countertops. Oh my goodness.

Bunny: And, you know, Craig, I found that people will call me and they’ll say, “Well, I’ve been following you on Facebook for two years. And I feel like you’re my best friend. I think you’d be the right person to show me around and help me find a house.” And I bet that’s happening to you too.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, you mentioned that. One of the people I’ve been mentoring told me a story about how she posted a lovely picture of herself and then somebody called her and said, “I feel like I already know you because you just look like a nice person and I feel like I can trust you.” I think also that it’s our eyes and our smile and everything that conveys so much of what you’re talking about. If you have a spirit of gratitude and service and a sense of abundance, not scarcity, it shows in your face, your eyes, your smile, and your whole persona.

Bunny: Well, we’re going to have to wrap up here in a minute, but I would love to hear if you have just three great tips that you would give to somebody who feels kind of stuck in their marketing. It could be what you’ve learned in 30 years or in the last three days, whatever it is.

Craig: I think one is changing your question from “How do I market myself?” to “What can I do for this client?” or “What can I do that’s going to excite the people? How can I make them feel appreciated and valued?” And this can work in cases where you’re actually working one-on-one with a client or cases where you’re trying to figure out how to promote what you’re doing. How do I find ways to surprise and delight people? So I like to do that with social media buys, where you come up with quirky, little things to talk about that are authentically Santa Fe or a funny picture of my dog or something like that. You want to put a smile on people’s faces. And social media gives us so many opportunities to be able to do that in ways that we couldn’t before. So the main thing at the end of it is to put your client first, and then I think everything else will come from there.

Bunny: You’re absolutely right. I think as long as your passion is helping people, then success is just a natural by-product of that.

Craig: Exactly. People feel that energy and then they want to tell their friends about you.

Bunny: What I’ve found is that people want to be able to trust somebody, especially in this business where they’re making possibly the biggest purchase of their life.

Craig: Right? I’m thinking back to these younger clients. We were touring houses, and they were interested in one particular house and I was like, “No, I’m not going to let you buy this. This is not the right move.” And I think all of a sudden they’re like, “Wow, he really cares. He’s not just thinking ‘Tick tock, tick tock. We’ve seen three houses.’” This is not House Hunters International where there are the three properties and you have to buy one. So again, it’s not a transaction. It’s a journey. It’s a relationship.

Bunny: I think that’s the most important tip for somebody to take away. Whether you’re selling widgets or earrings or house cars or houses, this is not a transaction. It’s a relationship. We want people to trust you and come back over and over. I don’t know how you can love your job if you’re not doing it the way we’re doing it.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. And have fun with it. We get to meet interesting people all day long. We get to see things. We get to use our own creativity to express ourselves. I know there are people that are in jobs that don’t have that. But I also read things about  the janitor in an elementary school who takes real pride in what they do, and they are going to do the best job that they possibly can. So I think in almost everything, you can come at it with a mindset of “How can I make this a great experience for me and for others?”

Bunny: That’s great stuff. Tell us where people can find you and where they can find your blog.

Craig: Well, probably the most fun thing I’m doing is the Santa Fe Scenes blog. 

Bunny: Okay. And we’ll share that on the information page for the podcast. And then, of course, if people want to buy a house from you, they can find you through there?

Craig: Yeah. All my information is on there. So one stop shop.

Bunny: Craig, I’m so excited that you were here. This was fun. I think we could do it again.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Bunny: Because I think this is the place where people get stuck. People who are self-employed get stuck in this part. And so I think there’s a lot of stuff that we can talk about.  But I’m of course really grateful that you agreed to talk with us.

Craig: Oh, thanks. It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate it. 

Bunny: And to everybody else, thanks for being here. This is once again, the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. I’m Bunny Terry. You are welcome to go to my website if you’d like to learn more about me and about buying my book, which is all about gratitude and how gratitude helped me kick stage four cancer’s ass. And we’d love to have you follow us and subscribe on spot Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks so much, Craig.

Craig: Thank you. Next time.