I was going to send this out solely to my Published Author Masterclass, but then thought, there’s an important lesson here, why not share it with everyone?
To provide context for those of you who aren’t (yet) members of the masterclass, it’s a program to help entrepreneurs write and publish a book, as well as create a thought leadership system around that book, all designed to build an entrepreneur’s personal brand and grow their business. It’s the same formula I used to generate over $10M in revenue for my own business.
The Masterclass launched in beta in July, 2020, and along with it, I began releasing sections of The Published Author Workbook as I completed them. The workbook is the guide everyone uses as they participate in the masterclass, and it gives you all the information you need to write and publish your book, as well as build your author platform.
My thinking with the workbook was that since everyone in the masterclass is starting from a different place (some people are already 60% done with their book when they join, whereas others don’t even know what book they’re going to write), I would simply give them all the information and resources they needed and then they could skip around the workbook and use the parts that were helpful to them. There’s a section on writing, another on editing, another on publishing, etc.
I’ve received a lot of great feedback and praise for the workbook, but there were also hints at something missing, and in the past few weeks, it became obvious I need to make a big change to the workbook. What was missing? A clear roadmap.
It’s not that the workbook is missing any roadmap at all, but I underestimated how clear and well-defined it needed to be. I recognized my error when, a few weeks ago, I created a simple roadmap for the masterclass, shared it with someone, and he said, “Wow! This is amazing! This is game-changing!”
I was surprised.
“Really?” I thought. “Is this really that big of a deal?”
I figured everyone kind of knew this was the roadmap or success path and they were all on it, but as I spoke to more people, I saw that my workbook didn’t have the signposts it needed, and an overhaul would be necessary.
I began working on a revised version of the workbook, which thankfully doesn’t require starting from scratch because all the essential ingredients are already there, they just need to be rearranged so that instead of the workbook saying, “If you have questions about writing, go to the writing section and find what you need,” it will say “Week 1—do A, then B, then C.”
Along with this major revision to the workbook, I’m shortening the path to a 6-month schedule instead of 12-months. That is, the workbook will teach you how to go from no book to a published book in your hands within six months, and will walk you through what to do each week to make that happen.
Does that mean you have to do it all in six months?
Not at all, you can go through the workbook and the masterclass at whatever pace suits your needs, including faster than six months if you want. Purchasing the masterclass will still give students a 12-month membership.
The two lessons you can learn from my experience are:
- You may think you’re making things easy for your customers or clients when it could be even easier. And that gap between what you think is easy and what your customers think is easy may be the difference between success and failure for your business.
- Just because you’ve made a large investment in part of your business doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change course or overhaul things if that’s what it takes to get from point A to point B. It would be easy for me to say, “Ugh, I’m almost done with this workbook, let’s just finish it as-is,” but if it isn’t the best workbook for the authors I’m working with then it’s not the workbook they need, or that my business needs.
How can you simplify your business to better serve your customers? How can you provide them with a roadmap or success path that is clearer?
If you’re an author working on a book, how can you provide a clearer roadmap, formula, system, or framework for your readers?
Have you considered writing a book to grow your business? Whether you’re ready to write that book right now, or you have to wait a while to jump on it, now’s the right time to join the masterclass.
Liked it? Share it!