Note: This is a 12-month program and registration closes July 15, 2020. No exceptions!
“You should write a book.”
Has anyone said that to you?
Have you ever said it to yourself?
Are you an entrepreneur with a business doing at least $1M in annual revenue?
Then you should write a book, and here’s why…
My Story
I started my marketing agency MWI in 1999. We alternated back and forth between periods of success and periods of failure until 2013 when we almost went out of business.
Only then, out of desperation, did I begin to build my personal brand and engage in thought leadership. I was reluctant at first because I didn’t want to be like many of the “thought leaders” I saw out there, but I gained enthusiasm for the work as I realized it was a great vehicle–not just to grow my business–but to serve others and make an impact.
I’ve since written or been featured in over 300 articles in over two dozen publications including Fortune, Forbes, Time, Inc., Fast Company, TechCrunch, and Mashable.
I’ve appeared on national and international TV, national radio shows, and over 100 podcasts.
I’ve delivered a TEDx talk and been paid to speak around the world.
I’ve created LinkedIn posts that have been read tens of millions of times.
And then came the book deal.
No, my first book wasn’t a New York Times bestseller. It was never featured in the Wall Street Journal. To date, it has only sold a few thousand copies. And still, that book has helped my agency land deals, put me on stages to speak in front of my ideal audience, and even got me an all-expenses-paid trip to hang out with Richard Branson on his island for a week (crazy story, I’ll tell you all about it some time).
It wasn’t just the book, or LinkedIn posts, or the speaking, or the articles, but together they created a thought leadership system, a system to which I can track over $10M in revenue.
It wasn’t easy, but that’s because I didn’t have anyone to coach me. Every time I tried something new I had to do it ten times the wrong way, in order to figure out the right way. Now, I coach entrepreneurs and executives to do what I did, but without all the trial and error and wasted time and headache.
My accidental success with thought leadership led me to research personal influence and create The 7 Systems of Influence framework. I’ve used that framework to coach Fortune 500 execs as well as entrepreneurs and now, for the first time, I’m launching the Published Author Mastermind to help entrepreneurs like you to publish a book, build a thought leadership system around it, and leverage that system to grow your business.
Your Book
If all you want to do is get a book you could join Chandler Bolt’s Self-Publishing School, or hire a ghostwriter through Tucker Max’s Scribe, but there are three reasons entrepreneurs are joining the Published Author Mastermind:
- Focus on entrepreneurs. This mastermind is for entrepreneurs only, and in fact, it’s only for entrepreneurs whose businesses are doing at least $1M in annual revenue (if you’re still working toward that goal, please consider my masterclass).
- Support for everything else. What about your personal brand website, building an email list, PR, hiring ghostwriters, hiring editors, pitching publishers, or self-publishing? It’s a lot of work to write and publish a book, and while other services provide parts of the puzzle (and you may actually use those services in conjunction with this mastermind), the mastermind will take you by the hand and walk you through all the steps from A to Z so you’re never sitting there thinking “Wait, what am I supposed to do now? Argh, I don’t have time for this.”
- More than just a book. Everything in this mastermind is built around helping you not only publish a book but publish The Book that targets the ideal audience for your business and then helps you build an attention system to turn your audience into paying customers.
Right now, your business is supported by multiple attention generators that feed into your marketing and sales funnel, like this:
You already know this, but let’s review:
At the bottom is your business, which we’ll call your “business” bucket.
At the top, you have to get the attention of your customers. Entrepreneurs and marketers have invented a thousand ways to do this through advertising, PR, social media, websites, webinars, and more.
Once you get your audience’s attention, they go into your funnel, you put them through a process to turn them into customers, and money fills up your business bucket.
The first $20M question for any entrepreneur is “How do I do this?” What’s the right mix of attention generators for you and how do you create a funnel that turns that attention into customers and cash?
The second $20M question, once you’ve figured out your process, is “How can I do it better, faster, and cheaper?”
But there’s a third question–why? Why are we going to all this work? None of you merely wants to make money, you have bigger dreams–you want to change the world. You want an income, but you also want to make an impact. Therefore the ideal attention generator wouldn’t only generate cash, but allow you to make a positive impact on the world while growing your income. It might look like this:
- Impact – The difference you want to make in the world.
- $$$ – If you’re not making money, then you’re spending money, and that’s fine (I invest in advertising and PR, just like I recommend you do), but ideally generating attention would make money as you do it, not merely as a result of doing it.
- Passive income – Making money is nice, but making it while you sleep is better.
- Easy – Because easy is better than hard unless you’re working out.
- Effective – At least as effective as traditional marketing you could invest in.
- Immediate – It produces immediate results, and…
- Long-term – It also produces long-term results.
- Synergistic – Each attention generator supports the others, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
“Yeah right Josh, this sounds like a wonderful, magical attention generator but there is no such thing!”
You’re right, it is magical, and I’ve got the perfect person to help you start believing–Walt Disney.
In 1957, Walt Disney created this strategy map for the magic kingdom of Disney.
In the upper left, you’ve got TV, in the upper right, you’ve got music. Down below you’ve got merchandise, books and comic books, comic strips, and Disneyland. All of these are buckets for the attention Disney generates. They all make money by themselves, they all make an impact, but they also support each other, and tying it together are the movies, right there in the middle.
How could you create an empire like Disney, with multiple buckets, each generating attention, each making money on their own, each making an impact, and each supporting all the others?
First, you’ve got your business, and then many entrepreneurs do other things on the side that make money like consulting, training, coaching, speaking, events, courses, and membership groups.
What ties them all together?
A book.
A book is a business card on steroids. It’s instant credibility. Whatever other buckets you have, a book will help you fill them faster.
Once you have a book you’re not just an entrepreneur, you’re a thought leader, and your thought leadership system looks like this:
When you’re an entrepreneur and thought leader, your new and improved attention system will look like this, with your traditional attention generators still funneling attention to your business, but now with your new thought leadership system also pushing attention to your business bucket, as well as all your other thought leadership buckets:
You may still invest time and money in traditional attention generators like PR, advertising, and social media–I still do, but I prefer to focus most of my attention on my buckets because they make money for me while generating more attention for my business than I could any other way.
This is why the Published Author Mastermind is so much more than a book-writing service, it’s a program that will help you create a thought leadership system, with a book at the center, and add to the existing attention system for your business. That’s something no other program offers.
Who’s Already In It?
Many of my coaching clients are joining and we already have new entrepreneurs signing up as well. Some of our current group members are:
- Stacy – Raised over $8B for investment fund clients, which has led to over $30B in follow-on funding.
- Andy – HBS graduate, founder of a $10M company in the solar industry with customers in 55 countries.
- Blake – Owner of three active 7 to 8-figure businesses, including a real estate investment fund with $125 million in assets under management, consisting of more than 1 million square feet of office, retail, and industrial space.
These and the other members are hungry entrepreneurs like you. If you want to join them, you need to be ready to:
- Dream big–this is about changing the game, not making incremental progress. We will challenge you and you will be uncomfortable.
- Dig deep, see yourself as you truly are, and combine your strengths and weaknesses to find your Genius Zone.
- Build long-term success and not a get-rich-quick schemes (we’re more into the Perennial Seller model advocated by Ryan Holiday than creating short-term best sellers).
- Serve others and make an impact.
- Commit to your goals.
Notice what’s missing? That’s right, you don’t have to write to join the group and have success. As an entrepreneur, you know what it means to be an architect, to get paid for creating a system that gets work done, rather than doing all the work yourself. You know the difference between an owner and an operator. By bringing in the right talent to help you, you can architect your book but employ a team to get it done faster and better than you ever could on your own.
Where is it held?
Online via Zoom video call. You can attend from anywhere in the world.
When is the mastermind?
Starting July 16, 2020, and thereafter on the third Thursday of every month (excluding major holidays) from 12 noon to 2 pm Eastern (that’s New York time) for twelve months.
“Hey Josh, what if I can’t attend?”
No worries! We record every mastermind so you can catch up later.
But wait, there’s a bunch more!
What else do I get?
If we did nothing else but hang out once a month during the mastermind, you’d leave each one saying “That was amazing! More than worth it, I can’t wait to do it again!” But you’re going to walk away with so much more than that.
In addition to the monthly mastermind, you get:
- The 7 Systems Published Author Workbook. Among other things, this resource will walk you through exercises to make it easy to define and refine your vision, find your Genius Zone, and identify your ideal audience.
- Private online group. 24/7 access to an exclusive online group where everyone’s asking questions, answering questions, asking for help, getting help, building business relationships, and more.
- A new network. The entrepreneurs in this group are people you want to know. The network itself is worth the investment.
- One-on-one coaching. Every month you get a one-on-one coaching call with my partner, Jess Larsen, an expert on the 7 Systems who has coached top executives and is an expert content marketer.
- 7 Systems onboarding. Between a one-on-one call and the all-day kickoff event, you’ll get grounded in the 7 Systems which will not only improve your book but your entire business. Here are some of the testimonials I’ve received when I’ve done this onboarding for coaching clients in the past:
- “I’m shocked at the value I got from this.” – John
- “This is definitely the kind of thinking I need to be doing.” – Andrea
- “This is the most life-changing call I have had this year.” – Blake
- “It gave me permission to do what I’ve been wanting to do but didn’t think I could.” – Stacy
- “Absolutely great!” – Andy
- “It’s really helpful to realign on things that are in the back of your mind but you don’t realize the full value of what you’ve done, and then seeing the opportunities that come from it.” – Kylie
- “Really good, I’m in for more.” – Brad
- “Great to connect things and think about things as a whole.” – Greg
- “I loved it! It’s really helpful for me to get to the heart of everything I’m trying to do. It’s so helpful to have someone on board who can encourage me and get down to the core of how to execute my plan successfully.” – Scott
- “I’m in awe.” – Walter
This mastermind will not only change the course of your business, but your relationships and your life as you create a plan to take your influence to the next level, inspire and motivate a broader audience, and create real impact.
Extra Goodies
- Podcast opportunities. I’ve made dozens of introductions between mastermind members and podcast hosts within the past month, alone. I have a friend who does podcast publicity for his clients and charges $1,000 per booked appearance. When we come across those opportunities we pass them along at no extra charge.
- PR. You will be featured in at least three articles in top-tier publications like USA Today, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur. My marketing agency normally charges $3,500 per placement, but again, no extra charge for you.
- Training from pros. I’m bringing in experts at book publicity, getting paid to speak, and book crowdfunding to give you the insights you need to make sure you don’t walk away with merely a published book, but a book your audience will know about.
That’s just a taste of what we’re throwing into the mix. There’s more to come.
Are You The Right Fit?
I like working with people who have a track record of success, but I’m even more interested in those who have success in their futures. I look for individuals who are:
- Uncomfortable with self-promotion (yes, you read that right)
- Hard-working and scrappy, with real grit
- Service-oriented
- Humble and ready to learn
- Headed for greater things, even if they may have already accomplished great things
One of our members says:
“I’m inspired by other entrepreneurs who are out killing it in their respective industries, who are proving to the world that good people can be successful, and who care about helping others. This is my tribe. I get energy, motivation, enthusiasm and ideas when I’m around these like-minded entrepreneurs. Personally, I’m not inspired by the Grant Cardones and Tony Robbins of the world because they don’t seem real to me. I identify most with good people, who are working hard, making a difference in their companies – who are creating companies where their people can become the best versions of themselves – professionally AND personally. I am inspired by people who help others in meaningful ways, who make an impact in individual lives naturally – who are generous and have an abundance mentality.”
That’s the type of leader I want in these masterminds. Does that sound like you, or who you want to be?
Do you want to become friends with this group of entrepreneurs and executives and have their support as you write, publish, and leverage your book to grow your business and make an impact on the world?
Then apply now to secure your spot in the Published Author Mastermind. This is a 12-month program and registration closes July 15, 2020. After that, we won’t open the doors again until next year–no exceptions.