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Should Online Entrepreneurs Write a Book?

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. For more information go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce. That’s Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur, everyone. I am your host, Sean Jackson. I’m joined, as always, by the voracious Jessica Frick. Jessica, how the Frick are you?

Jessica Frick: I am voracious. How the Jackson are you, Sean?

Sean Jackson: I am very well. Voracious, by the way, both means appetite — like you’re super hungry — and also it means to be eager in how you approach an activity. I am referencing the latter, not the former.

Jessica Frick: Well I’m eager to do this show with you. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Sean Jackson: Oh, I know. This will be a fun show. We left the last show with our question of the week, which is: Is it worth it for an online entrepreneur to actually write a book, especially nowadays? You say …

Jessica Frick: Not really.

Sean Jackson: Okay, tell me why.

Jessica Frick: I think that it certainly could be worth your while, but I feel like there’s so much pressure on digital entrepreneurs to put a book out there, and it doesn’t have to be there. There are so many other ways you can go about it. I think that in a lot of ways, books are not as relevant as they once were. There are other opportunities to get the attention and respect. You don’t need to put all the effort into a one-time content release.

Sean Jackson: Okay, I understand the point. Basically, of all the things that you can do, a book may not be worth your time, especially given the fact that some of the production of content can lead to more tangible results more quickly than all the effort that’s required for your typical book.

Jessica Frick: Yeah, what about you? What do you think, Sean?

Sean Jackson: I think you’re completely wrong. No, to argue the other side of that — I will say you are correct in the assumption that it is a lot of effort, but most things online are a lot of effort. Either they take a lot of time to get really good at it or take time to put together. They both have a certain degree of effort. Though typically a book — be it a digital book or a printed book. In this case, let’s say it’s a printed book. Yeah, it’s a pain. All of my friends who are authors will say that it is like birthing a child — even though none of them are women, so I don’t know what they are referring to. But I like the analogy.

I do think it is huge. But here’s why it may be worth it: you can use your book to establish instant credibility and authority in the space that you write about. Seriously. It’s not like anybody’s going to read the stupid thing. You’re going to be able to sit there and say, “For this subject matter, I’m the expert because I literally wrote the book on it.”

I’ll give you an example. Rob Garner — good friend of mine who wrote the book Search and Social. It was a laborious process. His research intern actually happened to be my intern. We were sharing the same intern at the time. I know how much effort went into that book. But you know what? When Rob walks into a room now, he is the definitive authority on search and social. Why? Because that was the name of his book. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re in a space that you need that type authority. What do you say to that?

Jessica Frick: I say that your company, Rainmaker Digital, actually sold courses on how to build authority, and they didn’t require writing a book.

Sean Jackson: Okay, well, when you put it that way. That’s probably good, because Brian Clark, our CEO, has never actually written a book even though he has been hounded to do so. You may have a point there, Jess.

Jessica Frick: I am just saying, Sean. There are a lot of ways to gain authority that don’t require you write this set-in-stone piece of content. I think there are a lot of really gifted authors. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be where I am in my career if it wasn’t for books. Somebody’s got to write them. To those of you who are out there doing that soulless task, thank you.

Sean Jackson: Speaking of today’s show, we have a very special guest, don’t we, Jess? He is a New York Times bestseller, right, Jess? What else is he? He’s a …

Jessica Frick: He is a consultant. He is a speaker. He is an entrepreneur. He has written a number of books, and I cannot wait to hear what he thinks about this.

Sean Jackson: On our show today we have the most delightful Chris Brogan, who started in his book career with Trust Agents, a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal — and pretty much every other bestseller list out there he was on. He’s going to be joining us to talk to Jessica and I about why you should or should not write a book, what book publishing is really like, and the essential things you need to know if you’re going to go down that path. Stay tuned, and after this break we’ll have Chris Brogan on the show.

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Welcome back from the break, everyone. Jessica, will you please introduce the infamous Chris Brogan?

Jessica Frick: Today we have an American author, journalist, marketing consultant, and speaker who has spoken for many of our events. He is an all-around amazing guy. We have Chris Brogan.

Sean Jackson: Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Brogan: Hey, I am so grateful to be here and thrilled to talk to both of you beautiful people once again.

Jessica Frick: We are so happy to have you, Chris. As I mentioned before we started talking, Sean and I have been having a discussion about whether you need to write a book. My question for you is: Do digital entrepreneurs really need to write a book, for real?

Chris Brogan: No. I think the digital entrepreneur …

Sean Jackson: Well, that takes care of it. We’re done.

Chris Brogan: Okay, so let’s get to the next topic, motorcycles. Who thinks they’re neat? Who’s never had one? Me. The thing about a book … First off, I always wanted to be an author. I was five years old and I was like, “I am so going to be an author.” I figured I’d just write comic books for my life, and that didn’t quite work out. But then I started blogging.

Why You Should, or Should Not, Publish a Book

Chris Brogan: The reason I started blogging way back in 1998 was because I was submitting fiction stories to magazines and stuff like that — not paying any attention to what they really wanted, like, “Well, clearly you should publish this. I wrote it.” They weren’t taking them, which was weird, seeing as the stories had nothing to do with the magazines that I was trying to send them to.

I finally got fed up and I said, “I’ll make my own website and do my own damn thing.” Then I got semi-famous in blogging. Somewhere way back in ’08, when I’m at the pinnacle of my hype of, “Oh my gosh, Chris Brogan’s an amazing blogger,” I’m at a conference and I am asked if I want to write a book. I was really flippant. I was like, “Why would I bother doing that? That seems like a lot of work.” It was my whole life’s dream to have been a published author, and the first time I get the deal I’m like, “I don’t think I want to do this.”

To shorten the story up a lot, I take the deal, I call my friend Julien Smith and I say, “Hey, you want to write a book with me?” He was like, “Okay.” Literally that’s how the call went. So we wrote a book together. By weird circumstance it became a New York Times bestseller as well as a Wall Street Journal bestseller, USA Today, Inc. — all these other places. I was like, “Oh, I’m pretty good at this.”

Julien and I wrote another book and it didn’t do as well. Then I’ve written seven more books since. Now it’s a disease. But the first-ever book did incredible things for my career. Did I need it to have a career? No, not at all. To answer your question as longly as I could — that’s a Trump word — the answer is you sure don’t need a book to have a career but it doesn’t hurt.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, let’s talk about that. I’ve had several friends of ours who have written books, right? Rob Garner, Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, etc. All of them, they talk about the challenges of it, etc., but at the end of the day … This is what I call it: it’s the $15 business card. It is the thing that, when you walk into any room, you put that book down and you suddenly become the expert, the authority, the person who knows end-all be-all about whatever subject you just wrote about. Would you concur with that? Is that what helped in your career, giving you enhanced authority, or did it just open up brand new avenues of people who had no idea who Chris Brogan was to begin with?

Chris Brogan: That’s what I thought at first. I thought, “Well, clearly I must know something, I’ve got a book.” Some people ride that wave a lot more than other people. Some people really stick to the credentials of having published a book as if that’s why they have a voice in the fight or whatever. Now, I’ll tell you that with Trust Agents, it got into the hands of lots of people who didn’t know who I was. I’ve heard, absolutely, face-to-face with CEOs of very large companies — I don’t want to name names because I don’t want to malign people, but they would say things to me like, “Well, you must be pretty smart because this is a New York Times bestseller.”

Sean Jackson: Right.

Chris Brogan: There’s no correlation in that sentence. One is bestseller, not smartest author. My best books — because I don’t think Trust Agents was my best book — my best books sold the least. I can tell you that there’s really no correlation to me. That said, once you’re a New York Times bestselling author … A lot of people are Amazon bestselling authors. I could do that in a day. I could make one of my old books a bestseller if I work hard enough at it for a day. Once you’re a bestseller with the New York Times, that label’s there forever, and you can lord that over other people.

Beyond that, there’s not a lot of grand value unless you’re in some particular industry that really cares. Tech industries tend to care a little bit more. If you’re the guy who literally wrote the book on Java or JavaScript or something, you’d certainly probably carry a little more weight with me than some schmuck hacking around. I’m a big fan of meritocracy, so I don’t necessarily find that he or she who has published wins because they actually had the discipline to write a book. I just think that they’re the people who saw a project through. That’s the only credit I’ll give them, is that it’s hard to publish.

Sean Jackson: Right. Let’s talk about that a little bit. It’s funny, I talked to Brian Clark … When I first met Brian Clark back in 2008, 2009 he’s like, “Why haven’t you written a book yet?” Guy Kawasaki had been writing quite a bit by that time period, and that was where the evolution of a lot of the early influential marketing bloggers were moving towards, was starting to publish to gain that additional authority, if you will, by having a physical copy that is really a manifestation of what they’d been writing for years on their blog about.

Talk a little bit about what is that initial process? You obviously saw a benefit in doing it, and I do think there is a benefit — whether it’s to gain authority or to increase the exposure of your thinking to new people that may not be consumers of what you currently write. I do think those are tangible, actual benefits, but you pay a price to get them. That price is to get a book done. If you were doing this from day one back with Trust Agents, what would you do different? How would you start? Knowing that our audience who’s listening are going, “Gosh, I’m so scared about doing this. Where should I start first and what should I be doing?”

What Publishers Really Look for in Selecting an Author

Chris Brogan: There’s a Groucho Marx quote that I repeat it so often it’s almost my quote by now. Groucho said, “I would never want to belong to a club that would have me.” The day that Julien and I made the New York Times bestseller list we called each other. I say, “Hey, that’s cool,” and he goes, “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.” That was our voice too. I was like, “Hey, that’s cool.” He was like, “Yeah, that was cool. Hey, so what else are you doing?” That was it. Believe me, there’s days when I’m feeling miserable about myself that I cry into my vodka and I say, “I’m a New York Times bestseller.” Beyond that …

Let’s just say it’s day zero and we’re going to write a book. The things that I didn’t know about the book publishing industry that everyone who isn’t in there still doesn’t know is this: Number one, people publish books because the books sell, not because the idea is good. Craptons of authors tell me, “I think I’ve got this amazing idea for a book.”

By the way, almost 90 percent of the time when someone says that to me, the answer is “No, it’s not a really good idea.” It’s a horrendous idea for a book, or it’s a book that someone else wrote, and this person who’s telling me this isn’t a reader so they don’t know this. I can quote seven books that have a similar title or whatever. That’s one problem. If you’re not into books and you’re not into the book world and you’re thinking of writing a book, you’re already at a huge disadvantage, you boob. Number two, what book publishers want is sales, and they need you to guarantee some amount of sales. 96 percent of business books sell less than 5,000 copies.

Sean Jackson: Oh, wow.

Chris Brogan: That’s a startling number. Then again, you’ve got to understand, the American Department of Labor statistics said that — Americans anyway — read an average of 19 minutes a day total. Not 19 minutes a day on your paper book, 19 minutes a day total, including texts, tweets, Facebook posts, and all that. You who love books are already a dying breed. You thinking about writing a book are saying, “I think I’m going to write a book that no one’s going to read.”

I get sent about 12 books a day. Sorry, 12 books a week. That would be horrible if I got 12 a day. I get sent about 12 a week, which is still quite a lot. I can tell you that 60 to 70 percent of them I never crack the cover — even if they’re friends of mine. I’m just looking at it going, “This looks like work.” I’ll just read books that I think look awesome. So there’s that.

I’ve just dissuaded you twice. I’ve said that books are made for if the idea sells, not if the idea’s good. You’ve really got to sell a great book. What book publishers look for is your platform. If you don’t have a massive Twitter following, Facebook following, Instagram, or YouTube — if you don’t have a massive “x” following, you’re already at a disadvantage and they’re probably not going to say yes to giving you a book. Or they’re going to make you write something that you don’t want to write. Or they’re going to make you partner up with two or three of your other schlub friends until the numbers look like the kind of numbers that they think are going to help you market your book.

There are no marketing teams inside of book publishers dying to sell your book. They’re all working for Stephen King and those kinds of people. You basically get a court-appointed marketer, and they’re awful. I have never ever worked with book marketers — except for my friend Peter at Wiley, Peter Knox — except for Peter and his team. Every other team I’ve ever worked with in book publishing as marketers are the worst humans alive. I don’t understand how they call themselves marketers. As far as I understand they’re just good at talking on conference calls. They don’t actually do anything.

Sean Jackson: Right.

Chris Brogan: You’ve got to be the 100 percent marketing master. By the way, when you have a new book out, it’s like you’ve just joined Avon and you’re dying to have enough people to have lipstick parties and no one wants to go to your lipstick party.

The minute you start talking about how hyped you are for your book and you start putting up stupid infographics with your stupid quotes from your stupid book, your friends hate you and they’ve already unfollowed you. They haven’t unfriended you so you don’t know it, but they’re not reading your sh*t anymore. They’re sick of you already and they hope you die with your book in your … By the way, should you self-publish, which is highly recommended in a lot of ways, you’re going to die with your garage full of books you bought.

There’s a lot of negative, obviously, in my sentiments here, but there’s a reason. It’s because we glamorize books and we glamorize authors and all that. Listen, I’m working on my tenth mainstream book. I’m in the throes of writing the book right now. I want you to think, “This guy has a disease,” not “He’s that awesome.” Further, if you’re going to write a book, what you have to spend your time doing is writing the book. Not thinking about writing the book. Not talking about writing the book. Not researching a lot. Not buying all the book-in-the-box courses you could ever fit into. Type, because that’s how books get written.

Jessica Frick: That actually brings up … I have a follow-up for that. I’m going to show my fangirl for a minute, this is so embarrassing. Chris, one of my favorite things that you ever wrote was It’s Not About the Tights, which was digital-only.

Chris Brogan: Yes.

Jessica Frick: Why do you even need to worry about paper if it’s just going to fill your garage?

Chris Brogan: Yeah, I don’t know that you do. I printed a couple dozen of those myself on CreateSpace, just so I could hand them out to people. Seth Godin once said a very long time ago — and everything Seth says is true — Seth Godin said that books are like the perfect souvenir for the event. You have this moment where you meet an author or you see a speech or something like that, and you’re like, “Oh, it was great,” and you want to bring the book home. I have a very limited number of It’s Not About the Tights books that I have handed out to people for that reason. “Man, you’re going to dig this.”

Of my books, on the average, 96 percent of them sold in a digital space. And a great portion of those sold as digital copies. So you’re right, you don’t have to worry about the paper. But I can tell you that the strategic value of having some printed books is that should one want to get speaking and consulting gigs, having a physical copy means someone will actually read it. There’s a lot of people like this fiancée I have named Jacqueline, who buys a lot of books that she knows what the titles look like and she knows the covers, and they’ve never been opened.

Why the Real Money in Publishing is Not Publishing a Book

Sean Jackson: That was something else about writing your books, though. It did open up more speaking opportunities, paid speaking gigs, and big conferences. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been paid to go to big companies to speak internally to them.

Chris Brogan: Yeah. For Trust Agents alone, the book itself, publisher company royalties … Julien and I probably made about $30,000 each on it since 2009.

Sean Jackson: Wow.

Chris Brogan: No one’s buying a Lamborghini on that. For my consulting — back when that book came out in 2009, for the three years right after that I probably brought in a million or so. Closer to $2 million dollars total in revenue — not salary, let’s not be crazy. Closer to $2 million dollars in consulting, speaking — doing all kinds of stuff that was directly linked to that book being out in the world.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I think that’s something too. As an online entrepreneur, obviously you’re inhabiting a lot of the online space. You’re there, you’re engaged with it, you’re understanding it. The book does provide almost a transit to more of the offline world because of the speaking engagements. But it demands you to show up. Trust me, if you sucked as a speaker — which you don’t — but if you did, you would do it one time and people are going to be like, “This guy’s a snooze-fest.” So given your personality type, it was a good transitory step from the book to speaking to consulting to having more engaged conversation in the offline world while you mastered, of course, the online world as you did.

Chris Brogan: Yeah. Sometimes the book got me to some strange places. I was on the Dr. Phil Show. Lots of people get on the Dr. Phil Show who don’t have a book, like Cash Me Outside girl, but there’s plenty of us schmoes that show up there as the “expert,” and quite often they’re authors or whatever.

The same thing, though: that fact that someone could be a decent author in no way guarantees that they’re an awesome speaker. I’ve been on speaking tours where five or six authors — sometimes 100+ authors are all on the speaking tour, and we are so different from each other. Some of us love the stage. I am a would-be David Lee Roth on the stage. Others are like Morrissey, just trying to get away and hide in the corner as best they can.

Sean Jackson: What’s the challenge? Seriously. You said, and I agree with this, “Sometimes you just have to shut up and write.” You got to get into it. How much research do you put in prior to it? Everyone has the inspiration to do it, and that inspiration can consume them for years if not decades. But at some point they will say, “I have the time. I’m going to commit the time. I am going to write.” At the same token, how much pre-research should you be doing?

You’re correct, the title and the idea matters the most. But there’s also the format of it. Is it going to be more informational? A lot of books on our space tend to be very informational. Even though I love The Art of SEO, you’re not reading it cover to cover, you’re popping into certain sections. There’s other authors like Adam Grant, who’s one of my favorites, who really have that Malcolm Gladwell-esque type of tone. All of them had to do some research on both the idea that they were trying to promulgate as well as the tone and format. How much time did you spend on that, or would you recommend spending on that prior to just shutting up and writing?

Chris Brogan: Quick side note. I messaged Adam Grant the other day and I was like, “Hey, your new book with Sandberg just showed up on my desk here. What the hell? Didn’t you just write Originals? This isn’t like you.” He wrote back and he was like, “Man, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll never do it that close together again. It was just the perfect opportunity. It fell in my lap. I had to do it.” I said, “Hey, want to go on my podcast?” He’s like, “No.” I was like, “Okay,” and we’re friends.

What I loved about it was that he was who he is, you know what I mean? He’s really honest and really straightforward. He goes, “Yeah, it’d just be overexposure at this point. I just don’t want to do it.” I’m like, “Awesome,” but I loved that so much more. So many people do niceties for each other — and believe me, I wanted him to come on. I wanted to ask him a bunch of the same dumb questions he’s been asked. But I love that he said no. It makes me like him so much more. Almost like when you ask a pretty girl out and she says no.

Sean Jackson: He’s my favorite author, by the way. I communicate with him on LinkedIn and I frickin’ … Both that and Give and Take — both those books changed my life. I love that guy.

Chris Brogan: We spoke together in an event a couple years ago. He’s super sweet and lovely in person as well. He’s exactly the way you want him to be.

Sean Jackson: Awesome.

The #1 Rule You Must Follow to Successfully Write a Book

Chris Brogan: Just so you know. Research and stuff like that. This is a funny topic because I have a weird habit of when I write my books I don’t really research anything. I just write my books. I just write ideas. I say, “Well, you know one thing I think would be kind of cool,” and then I go on that for a while. It’s one way to write books. Trust Agents — Julien and I wrote a whole bunch of stories about people that we thought were interesting and concepts that we thought were cool, but we didn’t really do a ton of research, per se. We just told stories that we knew.

In The Impact Equation — we created this impact equation and we talked about stuff that we thought would make sense to that. There wasn’t a great deal of research, it was more like construction. Then other books that I wrote … Google+ for Business — there was a little bit of research of course, because it’s a technical platform. Strangely, that was one of my better-selling books for a platform that no one ever talks about anymore. I even got a lot of speeches for that one.

Then some of my other books … I wrote one about entrepreneurship and I did zero research, I just wrote the book. This time, my fiancée Jack said, “You’ve got to research and stuff like that. You’ve got to do some stuff you don’t normally do. You’ve got to go interview people. Get out of your Chris Brogan-ness a little bit and knock on some doors and see what people are doing.” She goes, “I love you and I think you’re a great writer.” Because she’s my fiancée, she has to say that. She said, “A lot of your ideas are still your ideas. It would be neat to actually bounce them off some real humans a bit first and see what they think, so that you can react to that ahead of time in the book instead of whatever.”

So I’ve been doing this weird thing, interviewing — I don’t remember his title. He’s the super big-ass head of digital media and marketing inside of Marriott International. Guys like that, like big CMO and CEO-type roles. That’s been fun. I’ve never done that for one of my books, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Lord knows how it all is going to play out.

This is such a long answer, but to say how much should you research or not depends what you’re making. If you’re making a really techie book, you probably have to research a lot. If you’re making some book that has health claims in it, you’re going to have to research a lot. But the real answer is you can start writing even while you’re researching.

There’s a couple different ways to write a book. I am the absolute strangest way. I start on page one and then I end at whatever the ending page is. I don’t write the way a lot of people do, which is mish-mosh all over the place. You could start wherever you want to start. Just start collecting pages, so to speak, and then use your editing phase to put that stuff all together. That’s what most normal humans do.

That’s why I say get going right now. If someone’s listening to this — which I feel bad for you because I’ve been rambling — but if someone’s listening to Sean, and sometimes Jessica and me, I would say, “You poor soul. Shut up, shut off the recording, and go write a damn page.” When I’m writing a book I write between 2,500 and 4,000 words a day across all

Sean Jackson: Geez.

Chris Brogan: So in the book I’ll guarantee myself 2,500 words a day. Most people average around 300 words a day. I’m saying get good or ****. And start putting words in, because if you don’t, you’re never going to have a book. I meet tens of thousands of people a year that tell me they’re thinking about writing a book, and then I meet a few hundred authors a year.

Sean Jackson: Chris, this has absolutely been fantastic advice, seriously, dude. You speak the truth because you live the truth, and I can’t thank you enough for sharing the truth with us and our audience. Jess, do you have any parting questions for our good friend here before we conclude this segment?

Jessica Frick: Chris, if people want to follow up with you, where would they find you?

Chris Brogan: I try to make that as easy as humanly possible. If you Google “Chris” I’m usually right after Chris Brown, so there you go. If not, ChrisBrogan.com. You can send an email. The thing I always tell people, too, is just grab my newsletter. The reason I say that is because then you can just hit reply any day of the week and talk to me right through my newsletter, any day. I’m always responsive. Always happy to help.

Sean Jackson: ChrisBrogan.com, everyone. Chris, thank you again for being on the show. We will be right back after this short break.

Hey, everyone, this is Sean Jackson, the host of The Digital Entrepreneur. I want to ask you a simple question: What is your business framework for selling digital goods online? Now, if the question perplexes you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people don’t realize that the most successful digital entrepreneurs have a framework or a general process for creating and selling their digital goods in the online space. One of the best free resources is Digital Commerce Academy.

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Welcome back from the break, everyone. It’s that time of the show where we give our recommendations for the week. Jess, what are you recommending our audience try?

Jessica Frick: For digital entrepreneurs — if you’re an author or not — you need to be organized. Whether it’s for your business as a whole or your side projects and your business, I recommend Trello. We use Trello at PushFire. I know Rainmaker Digital uses it. It is an easy way to organize any project that you may have — whether it be in a specific timeline or just in general — until you get it done. I’m completely addicted to finishing projects in Trello. They make it so much fun to drag a cart over. Check them out at Trello.com.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, the nice thing is that they have a teams aspect too, so you can bring in other people to it. I am going to make a bold prediction on the show, folks. Here’s my recommendation. I’m not getting paid for it. There’s no affiliate link. I could care less whether you actually do what I’m about to tell you or not. But here’s what I think is going to change … I think it’s something so big, it’s going to be as big as the iPhone was to mobile telephones. Are you ready?

Jessica Frick: Oh my god, Sean. With a lead-in like that, come on.

Sean Jackson: It is Amazon Echo Show and it is coming out this summer. It is basically the Amazon Alexa device — you know that speaker that you talk to and everything?

Jessica Frick: Yeah.

Sean Jackson: It’s coming out this summer with an interactive screen. I think that is going to change the entire way a whole group of people interact with the technology. Let me explain why, folks. You can pre-order it now, so if you get a chance, go pre-order the thing. It’s the Amazon Echo Show or Amazon Show or Echo Show — I’m still not 100 percent on the brand name.

Here’s why I think it’s going to change the world. It has a video camera built into there. You can basically talk to the device and say, “Echo, call Jessica,” and it’ll bring up a video conferencing instantly if Jess has a device in her home. It also will show … “Hey, how do you make this XYZ recipe?” I know AllRecipes is working on a skill for the device so that you can say, “How do I make chicken tetrazzini?” and it will show you a video of how to make it. And you can pause it with your voice.

If you’ve ever used an iPhone or an iPad in the kitchen — which, by the way, mine looks like crap because I do all the time — you’re going to want one. Not only in the kitchen, but then, all of a sudden, when you’re getting ready in the morning you’re going to want one in your bathroom so you can watch the news or talk to it or see what’s happening. You probably will have one in your car. I think the technology — and it may not be the Amazon product per se, but it is the idea of that interactive voice video for $230, which is its pricing coming out the gate. That low cost combined with that much capability is really going to change the way that we interact with technology for decades to come. Bold prediction?

Jessica Frick: Super bold, but I think you’re onto something. I don’t know. You were telling me text messaging was going to take off years ago and I thought you were insane. I’ve learned not to just write you off as some crazy future seeker.

Sean Jackson: Well, I gave a big thing because I really want people to check this out. I really want you to think about what a world would look like with that. Our time is coming to an end, and we need to leave it with the question of the week. Jessica, you ready?

Jessica Frick: I’m ready.

Sean Jackson: What we’d like to discuss next time is the following: What is the biggest mistake online entrepreneurs make? What do you say, Jess?

Jessica Frick: You know I’m going to say it’s operations. They’re not designing the business for success.

Sean Jackson: Okay. Well, you can’t have success unless you do the marketing of the product or service correctly. I’m going to take the other side, which is the marketing product side. What do you think, folks? We’ll let you ponder it over the week, and Jessica and I will debate it like we always do on the next episode of The Digital Entrepreneur. Have a great week, everyone.

Jessica Frick: Thanks for listening.

The Transcript

A Different Way To Think About Your Online Competition

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

You are listening to The Digital Entrepreneur. The show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. For more information go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce. That’s Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur, everyone. I am your host, Sean Jackson. I’m joined, as always, by the eclectic Jessica Frick. Jessica, how the Frick are you today?

Jessica Frick: I am eclectic, Sean. How the Jackson are you?

Sean Jackson: Very good. I got a new thesaurus, so I’m going to try new names.

Jessica Frick: Oh boy.

Sean Jackson: Oh boy.

Jessica Frick: Oh boy, it’s on now.

Sean Jackson: We left last week’s episode with the question of the week, which is this: How much is too much competitive research? Obviously you’re going to do some of it if you’re an online entrepreneur, but how much is too much? Jess, what do you say? Should you do a lot of it, a little of it, or none at all? What do you say?

Jessica Frick: I think you need to do a lot of it. Obviously you can’t focus all of your attention on it, but I don’t think you should ever really take your eye off of the game.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I understand that. But here’s the thing though — if you’re a small business guy or gal, your time is probably the most valuable asset that you have, and you never have enough of it. There’s only 24 hours in the day, that’s it. If you are spending too much time worrying or looking at what other people do, don’t you think there’s a tendency to start to morph into meeting what your competition is doing and not trying to concentrate on your unique proposition by yourself?

Jessica Frick: Well, I can see how being untainted with your view of your product could certainly help you be unique. But if you don’t know what’s in the market and perhaps what’s failed or why, or what the market even is asking for, how could you possibly know whether a) you’re unique, and b) whether you’ve really got something you want to put your weight behind?

A New Way of Thinking About Competition

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Maybe it’s a matter of semantics. Competitive research, to me, implies this concept of, “I have a competitor out there. I’m going to be watching them diligently and I’m going to be meeting them step by step by step.” As opposed to — and I’ll throw out a new idea — alternative research. We have alternative facts. If we have alternative facts, we can have alternative research, right?

Jessica Frick: Oh boy. Oh Jeez. Okay, so what is alternative research, Sean?

Sean Jackson: Alternative research is this concept of, “What are the alternatives to my product or service that are available out there?” Not, “Who is my competition?” per se, but, “What are the alternatives that I’m competing against?” Maybe people are using a very simple Excel spreadsheet to do their job. That’s an alternative to what you’re doing, that’s not a competitor. You’re not going to compete against Microsoft, for goodness sakes, but it is an alternative to what is out there.

So maybe, as part of your normal work week, thinking about what are the alternatives that people are turning to, and then looking at that as a way to understand your audience better. While at the same time realizing that those alternatives have competing factors that you may be able to address. What do you think of that?

Jessica Frick: I think that’s really smart. I think the message here is, “Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’, but know why you’re better than the Jones’.”

Sean Jackson: Don’t ignore them either. That’s right. I think that comes down to it. I look at competitive research, and I’ve seen companies that have actually gotten so fixated on it that they’re trying to match feature for feature, or they’re trying to play … They get pulled off of their messaging and start to morph into their competition’s messaging, which pretty much makes them indifferent — not indifferent, what is it?

Jessica Frick: Yeah.

Sean Jackson: Non-differential in the marketplace.

Jessica Frick: Yep. Master of none.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. So I think there’s a balance. But I do think you are correct. You need to be keenly aware of the ecosystem. What is happening there? What is going on? What are people looking at doing? That could be a direct competitor — a product or service that is literally targeting you — or it could be, “Hey, people are figuring out some other way to accomplish what they want.” That’s the alternative that they are using. Knowing that may make your product better if you can make that alternative not so attractive.

Jessica Frick: I think that — what you just said — is airtight. I got nothing.

Sean Jackson: Oh wow. I finally got one right? Oh my gosh, Jess. It only took us so many episodes for me to be right about something. Holy cow! I feel so special.

Jessica Frick: Yeah. Nailed it.

Sean Jackson: So, now that I’ve won one, Jess. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about who we have on the show today. Because we have a very special guest coming up in the next segment.
Who is that, Jess?

Jessica Frick: We have Jon Henshaw from Raven Tools and now TapClicks.

Sean Jackson: Exactly, and Jon, I think, understands this idea of competitive research. He created up a product that was a leader in its space. Where many people came in and copied him, etc. He has gone through the trials and tribulations of being the only person, to having tons of people — what that did to his business, where it led him, and what he learned from it.

When we get back from the break, Jess and I are going to be interviewing Jon Henshaw from Raven Tools — a very close friend of ours — about how he thought — and thinks — about competitive research in the technology space. You won’t want to miss this, so stay tuned.

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Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. Jessica, we have on today’s show, a good friend to both of us, actually, our good buddy, Jon Henshaw. Will you please introduce Jon Henshaw, The Awesome One, to our amazing audience?

Jessica Frick: The Awesome One, and of course the All-American water polo player.

Sean Jackson: Oh, good one.

Jessica Frick: I know, but I do have a much better intro. Jon is the director of digital marketing and product evangelist for TapClicks and Raven Tools. Big news there, TapClicks and Raven Tools. He is the co-founder of Raven Internet Marketing Tools, an online marketing management and reporting platform that was recently acquired by TapClicks. He has lived all over the world, and is most certainly a subject-matter expert and one heck of an awesome guy. Jon Henshaw.

Jon Henshaw: Awww. That’s the greatest intro I think I’ve ever had. I want you to introduce me as “The Awesome One” to my kids. I want to see how they react.

Sean Jackson: More importantly, to his wife actually. She wouldn’t even know who that is.

Jon Henshaw: Right. She’d be like, “What? Who are you and why are you saying that?”

Sean Jackson: Hey, Jon, thank you. Thank you for being on the show, man. Really appreciate it.

Jon Henshaw: Thanks for having me.

Why Being One of the First in a Market Can Be a Challenge

Sean Jackson: So let’s get into this, Jon. Your story is fascinating to me, insofar as what you did with Raven. I got into SEO back around 2006ish, 2007, and Raven was at all of these SEO conferences that I kept attending. It was great because Raven was the only person there with a suite of tools that were designed for the SEO space at the time. Your story is fairly interesting. While you were the first ones, you weren’t the only one. Tell us a little bit about how that was — to be one of the first out of the gate — and the metamorphosis that occurred over the years.

Jon Henshaw: Well, it’s interesting, because being first out of the gate is both a blessing and a curse. It’s the type of thing where you’re definitely getting attention for what you’re doing, because you essentially were in a position of innovating. If nobody’s done it before, you’re basically innovating. You are creating something that nobody has yet.

At the same time, when you’re the first person doing it, it’s not exactly the best. It’s just the best we had at the time. When we first launched it, it was not good, and people told us. We actually took it into a private beta after that. The reason why was because we had some big agencies both in the U.S. and the UK. They saw what we were doing. They needed it, and they didn’t want to build it themselves because it was complex, what we were doing. They were basically like, “If you will work with us, we will help you in what we need,” as far as … We had a few problems we still weren’t solving for them, so they worked with us to help them solve those problems.

After about six to nine months, we re-launched it and that ended up being successful. That’s even a good piece of information for anybody trying to enter a space and to do something where maybe there isn’t a solution there yet. That is, you’re going to get the best product when you work really closely with the people who need that product. That was really what set us on a good foot and made us, I would say, successful — particularly for the first several years.

Sean Jackson: Right. I think that’s an interesting part and a good story. You were coming into the SEO space when it still had a big black hat or black box mystique around it. It was this very unique art form, etc. You were one of the first people to put all of these tools into a suite that people could use to manage their online marketing, specifically in the search marketing space. But there was a downside to all this, Jon. Because you were the first one, you had to focus and make it better. Then you released it out there and everybody starts saying, “Wow. Raven Tools, Raven Tools, Raven Tools,” But then something happened along the way, which is …

Jon Henshaw: Competition.

Sean Jackson: Exactly. Which is the whole point of today’s show.

Jon Henshaw: Was I supposed to answer that?

Sean Jackson: Yes, you were. You did. That had to drive you crazy. Here you are, small guys in Tennessee coming out with this tool, and everyone’s finally raving about Raven Tools. You got it working, and then every day it seems like there’s somebody new. Talk about that.

Jon Henshaw: Well, it was interesting at first. When it’s such a small field of players everybody knows about each other. Back then, we would really know about our competitors because there weren’t that many people to look for or look at. On top of that, if you’re very competitive, like I am, you’re always going, “What are they doing?” and trying to second guess what their next move’s going to be. “What do they mean by that particular blog or press release?” That type of thing. You drive yourself crazy.

That is okay, particularly when it’s a small field and everybody’s innovating, because it keeps you innovating at a very quick pace. The same is true for them. What you do, then they’ll do, and then the other person will do something. But I would say, as the market matures in that area and you start to get more people, it’s not really sustainable. As you start to expand what you do …

In other words, if you’re constantly innovating, then you’re most likely making new tools and new features, then another tool, and then a new feature — which was generally the case with us and especially those early competitors. Then you get to a point where you can’t live like that. I think for us, we started to want to make our own path and have our own vision. I remember where we started with SEO. I had this vision of, “Oh, I want to be more than SEO now,” There was a whole, “We could go way down this path, and we can do social and we could do paid,” that type of thing. The other people we were competing with earlier on started to go down another path, and that seemed like a really good idea at the time.

It seemed like that would help us remain competitive and make us unique and different, but something along the way happened that I didn’t see coming — some of this is from lack of experience — that was the bigger you want to get and the more that you want to do, it opens up opportunities for new competitors to come in and take a piece of your pie. What I saw that started to happen was — there were people who would go, “You know what? That’s a really awesome tool that they’re doing over there. I see they’re making money off of that. We’d like to make some money off that too.”

Sean Jackson: Yeah.

Jon Henshaw: I think the very first one where people started coming in was with the rank tracking. Nobody was doing it. We were one of the very first people — we may have been the first person, or first company to do a web SaaS-based model of rank tracking. I think before us there was WebCEO, but that was all desktop-based. You ran it off your computer.

I think we were one of the first ones to actually, back then, do the scraping and then get the data as a web service. A lot of people started seeing that and entering that space. Before you knew it — I would look around and it was, “There are five companies doing this now, there are 10 companies, there are 20 companies.” It was insane. It seemed like practically every week there would be a new company that’s like, “We do rank tracking. We do it better than Raven. We do it better than — ” maybe some other competitor that started to become more well known. It gets kind of crazy.

Of course, we’re off trying to do all these different things. I guess what happened was … They have an advantage that you don’t have if you start building your product more diverse, bigger, and with more tools than maybe it needs to have, and that is that they are focusing on that one thing to try and make that better than you. That’s their core focus and that’s their only focus. It is easy to not be able to compete as well as you go forward if you’re focused on too many things.

Sean Jackson: Right.

Jon Henshaw: It’s easy for them to actually come in and take market share if they’re only focused on that one thing. So that was something that we definitely experienced around at least the ranking and a few other areas that we added to our platform.

How to Respond to Knock-off Products

Sean Jackson: But how do you handle this? What is the recommendation that you have to handle this going forward? Here you are, you’re creating up something new in a space. You’re getting attention. You start to make some money. You decide that you can do so much more and you start branching off. All these people come, chipping away. How do you handle that? How do you recommend people look at that? Inevitably, if you have any type of success online, this model will be something that happens to you. How do you recommend people should handle this?

Jon Henshaw: I can tell you how we did handle it, but I’m not sure that’s the right way to handle it. A lot of it depends on your resources. I think the trouble we got into was that I in particular had a very ambitious vision for what I wanted the product to be, but at the same time my business partners and I wanted to remain bootstrapped. We were prideful and liked the ability to retain control and make decisions on our own and to not have to be able to deal with a demand from a banker or something like that. We liked that level of control, yet we wanted to build this gigantic thing. Looking back on it, that’s really hard to pull off. I think very few people pull it off.

If we had gone originally the VC route and we actually had a lot of money and we could spend it on a lot of resources, I think it may have worked out a lot better than I thought it would have — or did, that is. In that case it might work out. But if you’re asking me, “What have I learned?” Looking back, I would not have tried to build so many different things — especially tools and resources — that were very different from each other.

The reason why is because a lot of the things that we were known for early on ended up being chipped away and taken, from those other companies who were only focusing on those core tools. Whereas we were trying to do all these other things. I would even say that is what led us to why people use Raven today the most, and why we were even of interest to TapClicks to acquire us, which is, at the end of the day we were able to sustain the best link management and link building tool out there.

We had it at the time, but we had people like BuzzStream come along and because they were micro — just totally focused on it — they were able to just innovate and make a better version of that than what we had originally done. What we were able to do is the reporting. Because we had become so diverse and made tools all around this, it enabled us to connect to a ton of data connections, so we evolved into a marketing report platform almost unbeknownst to us. Originally it was all about management tools and outreach, that type of thing. When it was all said and done, we ended up becoming more of this analysis and reporting tool set. We allowed these other people to come in and grab market share on the smaller areas.

Sean Jackson: Gotcha. Let’s talk about how you factor in the competitive side for our audience to think about it. In other words, you were doing a lot of innovation, but it wasn’t necessarily driven in response to your competition. It was more driven into the view that you had in this world. “I want to achieve this. I want to create this. I have the resources to do it, hence I’m going to go do it.”

But when you started to see that competition, how did you respond to it? There is a psychological aspect when you saw some people that were innovating on tools that you had literally created up and were basically drawing away. What would you suggest our audience think about that? How to respond to that competition, if you will?

Jon Henshaw: You obsess over it. If you are a person who it’s your company and it’s your thing, or you’re the product person, it’s really difficult to not obsess over it. So you definitely obsess over it. If anybody out there is like, “Yeah, I obsess over it,” then you’re normal. If you’re not obsessing over it, you’re not normal. You should probably be doing something else.

So you obsess over it, but the most practical way to approach it is don’t freak out, just look at what is it they’re doing that you can do and what is it that they’re not doing that you could do. That’s generally how I would approach it. I would go, “Okay, that’s really cool, what you did. I don’t like it because that’ll probably appeal to my prospective customer, but now let me think of what’s the thing that I can usurp that with? What is the thing that I think is next? What is something that is current that I think would be incredibly useful to our customers and potential customers. Something that would be very marketable.” That’s what we would do.

That would be my advice to anybody out there if they’re sitting there like, “Okay, here’s my product. I already have my road map. I’m happy with where we’re going, but now this competitor over here has come in and they’ve released this really cool feature and I don’t have that.” Then I think the approach is basically, “One, can you add that and can you do it quickly? Then two, can you make it better?” Then the third part being, “Is there something they don’t even have that’s not even related to that, that if you added would make you look even better than them?” That’s generally how we’ve approached it in the past and that is how I approach things today.

The Best Way to Make Sure Your Online Efforts Don’t Get Derailed

Jessica Frick: Obviously you’re a data guy, big into analysis. Is analysis paralysis even real for digital entrepreneurs? Can you go too far? And if you do, how do you know that you’re there?

Jon Henshaw: As far as data goes, data’s important to me, but I’m more interested in the result of that data. I want to know, “What did you find?” A lot of times people can get stuck in looking at the data constantly, even thinking, “I don’t have enough data.” The truth is that you’re never going to have enough data.

The other problem with obsessing over data is that you can never come to conclusions sometimes. In other words, we did a bunch of research around different areas, and when we looked at it we were like, “I have no conclusion. I’m not even sure what to do here. The data’s all over the place.” It’s so difficult to get to that. So instead of getting mired down in data — especially if that data doesn’t have a clear direction or solution — what we would do in those situations is … Just talk to your customers.

It’s literally almost from a UX perspective. How they do those type of interviews and things. Talk to your existing customers. Talk to the people who are loyal to you. Talk to the people who will be honest with you. Talk to the people who have left, if they will give you the time of day. Find out what it is that was keeping them there, why they were drawn toward it, why they left, or why they went to that competitor.

That’s the type of research that, I think, ends up giving you the most insights. Especially when it’s person to person, not some survey. Literally spending time with them on the phone or in real life and getting an idea of what’s really going on there. Then as you start to collect that — you don’t have to interview 100 people or 1,000 people. Typically, in the past for us, once we’ve talked to about 10 or 15 people we had a pretty good idea of what was going on around a certain area.

From there you can use both data and your gut to make better product decisions and maybe pivot or change some of your roadmap to take care of some of the issues that you found after talking with them. Those things will present themselves. They’ll start to become obvious. I think the problem that people get into is when they stay at one of those extremes, meaning that you’re almost always going to make bad decisions and get in trouble if you are only following your gut, and you’re almost always going to miss something or go the wrong direction if you’re only looking at data.

To find that happy medium, to not do things based on a giant committee but have a couple decision-makers … “You guys make the decision and just do it.” It’s either going to work or it’s not. That combination of: get enough data that’s actual hard data, that’s quantitative, but then get that qualitative part. Then you just have to make a decision from there and hope it’s the right decision.

Sean Jackson: Jon, I want to follow up on that. I’m going to tell you, as someone listening to this, I would be thinking, “This is all great information, except for what you just said.” Which I 100 percent agree with, which is, “Talk to the customer.” Literally talk to the customer. But here’s something that can happen. The customer, especially if they are someone who switched to the competition, may call your baby ugly. Not your physical baby, but the baby that you put blood, sweat, and tears in. Months and years of building up and seeing your competitors attack.

Talking to someone who’s left … How do you get over that? There’s no question that Raven Tools — the passion and soul that you and Scott brought to this was huge. You can see it manifested in the product. And then to talk to someone who’s left you has got to be gut wrenching. Someone who you’re talking to and they may not even get it. Or they may be paying you, but they’re not really happy about it, they just were told to do it. How do you get over that psychology of having someone tell you the truth?

Jon Henshaw: By me not talking to them. That’s really what it comes down to, seriously. The amount of confirmation bias that I bring to something — I don’t think I’ve ever done a survey where my bias wasn’t all over it based on either what I wanted the answer to be or what I was interested in. Probably the only way to go about doing this is to make sure that a founder — or somebody who’s a stakeholder in the sense of stock and financial interest and that type of thing — is not doing the actual asking, is not doing the interviewing.

You always want to try to find somebody who has the least stake into it, in that sense, to be the person who does the interviewing, who does the questioning, or that works with the data. That’s your best chance of it not being tainted. If you’re a co-founder, or if you’re somebody who’s in that decision-making place and you still can’t deal with that data, well you have your own personal problems. You’re going to have to deal with that yourself.

In other words, part of being a leader and making good decisions is that you can handle things that you don’t like and information you don’t like, and you can make good decisions based on that. The best decisions we’ve ever made with a product have always been either having a third party or somebody who is truly impartial do the questioning and gathering that information, running the analysis and creating those insights, and then presenting that to us so we can make good decisions.

Sean Jackson: You know what, Jon? I loved how you ended this interview, and I think you’re 100 percent spot on.

Jon Henshaw: Wait, it’s over?

Sean Jackson: Yes. I cannot thank you enough for being on our show today and truly sharing both your insight — which was a hard learn, to put it mildly, over many years. Again, congratulations on your new role with TapClick. We truly appreciate you and everything you do for us.

Jon Henshaw: Thank you, and I have to say — you said it earlier, but both of you are wonderful friends. I’ve known you for a long time, and I really look forward to seeing you soon, hopefully at State of Search or something like that.

Sean Jackson: There we go. Jon Henshaw, everybody. We’re going to be right back after this short break.

Hey, everyone, this is Sean Jackson, the host of The Digital Entrepreneur. I want to ask you a simple question. What is your business framework for selling digital goods online? Now, if the question perplexes you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people don’t realize that the most successful digital entrepreneurs have a framework, or a general process for creating and selling their digital goods in the online space.

One of the best free resources is Digital Commerce Academy. Digital Commerce Academy combines online learning with case studies and webinars created by people who make a living selling digital goods online. The best part is that this material is free when you register. Are you interested in joining? Well I’ll make it easy for you. If you’re listening to this show on your phone and are in the continental United States, I want you to send a text message to 313131 with the keyword “DIGITS”. When you send the text message, we will send you a link to the registration form right to your phone.

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So if you want to start building or improving your framework for selling digital goods online, then please send a text to 313131 with the keyword “DIGITS”, or send us an email at Digits@Rainmaker.FM, you won’t be disappointed.

Welcome back from the break, everyone. It’s the time of the show where we give our recommendations for the week. Jess, let me guess what you’re going to say. I think you, being the nice sweet person that you are, are probably going to say that people should be looking at …

Jessica Frick: What’s your guess?

Sean Jackson: Um … Raven Tools?

Jessica Frick: Yes, that is my tool to recommend. When I worked with Rainmaker I used Raven all the time. Now that I’m working with PushFire, obviously we are huge fans of Raven Tools and also TapClicks. The difference here — I think for those who are listening to this show, you’re probably not enterprise level just yet. You may be running an agency, in which case TapClicks is a fantastic option for you and your client reporting. If you need just the essentials — bringing everything together, helping you do a comprehensive overview of everything that you should be knowing as far as the digital landscape is concerned with your business — Raven Tools has what you need.

Sean Jackson: This is not a sales pitch. This is a recommendation. I would concur with your recommendation, but not in such a sales-y way. Mine is actually something that Jon told us that he likes to use. When he’s doing competitive research he actually likes to use SimilarWeb, which is kind of interesting. It is a service site I hadn’t really learned or heard a lot about. He’s definitely a big fan of SimilarWeb. I’ve used it. It’s a good way to get sites and categories in some sort of order and listing. Then on the SEO side, they use — at Raven Tools — all of the different SEO services out there. Right, Jess? They are very comprehensive in what they do.

Jessica Frick: Absolutely.

Sean Jackson: The one that he tends to turn to though is Majestic. Even though Moz is fantastic, Ahrefs, etc. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Majestic has been a tool, from the SEO perspective — looking at the backlink structure, looking at some of the SEO details that are somewhat technical, to be fair. He tends to lean towards Majestic.

So that’ll be my recommendation. Using SimilarWeb to look at sites and categories and rankings they’re in, and then, of course, conversely looking at Majestic for the SEO aspect of your site at a fairly detailed level. You’ve used Majestic. It’s a phenomenal tool, like all of them, but it can be very detailed, which is why Raven makes it so nice. At the same token, those are the two that I recommend. We’ve got Raven, TapClicks, SimilarWeb and, of course, Majestic as our recommendations of the week. Jess, ready for the question that we want to leave everyone pondering as we conclude this episode?

Jessica Frick: I’m ready.

Sean Jackson: Should you, as a digital entrepreneur, write a book?

Jessica Frick: No.

Sean Jackson: No? What?

Jessica Frick: You can, but you don’t need to.

Sean Jackson: Ah. Well, that’s a good point. Maybe you don’t need to.

Jessica Frick: I feel like everybody’s saying, “You have to.” I’m going to guess you’re going to say you do.

Sean Jackson: Well of course I’m going to say you do. I think if you’re going to be in the online space and if you really want to stand out … You remember how we were talking about how weird do you need to be or how unique and remarkable you need to be? I think a book puts a big value on there. I call it the $15 business card. Trust me, you go into any meeting and you put that down — no one’s going to read the thing — boy, you become an instant authority just because you have a paperback volume with your name on it.

Jessica Frick: I think we should discuss this more at length.

Sean Jackson: I think it is deserving of a deeper conversation, which we will do on the next episode of The Digital Entrepreneur. Everyone, have a great week.

Jessica Frick: Thanks for listening.