An interview with Andrea J. Lee, Author, Multiple Streams Of Coaching Income

Interview conducted by Rosemary Hauschild, MBA, Owner & Principal, Impact Coaching International.

Impact Coaching: Why did you decide to write a book?

Andrea: There are actually quite a few reasons. The main one was that I had all this stuff going on in my head, and I needed to get it out. Im a fairly creative person and tend to do a lot of reading. I also journal. But somehow that wasnt feeling very satisfactory. I felt compelled to be more cohesive and linear about the information I had in my head. And, you know what? I said, Im just going to start it. I think theres a book here, so lets go for it and see what it becomes.

And there were business reasons, too. Writing a book is good for business. Ive sold several hundred copies, and that has helped sell other products on my website. Plus, its helped attract more one-on-one clients and consulting opportunities.

Writing a book has a certain cach. Its a great credibility builder. Its almost like youve got a little bit of that pixie dust. Wow! You did something cool! It greases the wheels for everything else that goes on in your business.

Impact Coaching: At what stage in your career did you write your book?

Andrea: Ive been in business since 1999. So, I was a couple of years into the experience of actually living the information that I wrote about in the book. I think I wrote it at that particular point in time, because I felt as if I had walked my talk to a significant enough degree that I felt confident that the information was true and good and worth sharing. I didnt want to write a fairy tale. I wanted to write something that would really help. I published in November, 2004 not even six months ago. Along the way, I did a lot of pre-promotion, talking about the fact that the book was coming. That began in April and helped create a good launch in November.

Impact Coaching: How does this book fit into your overall business activities?

Andrea: I follow the marketing funnel model of doing business, so the way I see the book is as a wonderful vehicle for the top, widest part of the funnel. In many ways, the book is like an introduction to everything else that I do. If someone comes to me and says they want to coach with me one-on-one, now one of the wonderful things I get to say is, Have you read the book yet? Read the book first and our work will go that much better if you have that as a foundation. So everything gets filtered through the book. Theres a common body of knowledge, a shared mind space that everyone comes to me with, having read the book. So were able to cover ground a lot more quickly.

One of the biggest compliments anyone paid me about my book was that it bent their brain. Of anything I could have asked for my book to do, it would be opening the mind space and the hearts of readers so something in the book would lodges in their minds and change and open the world up. So, once a person has read the book, if its right for us to be working together, their mind has been opened by it, and we dont have to work as hard.

Impact Coaching: What were the main writing obstacles you encountered and how did you overcome them?

Andrea: One of the main obstacles, really, was confidence. In the book I talk a lot about confidence, so it was only fitting that I should have a crisis of confidence while writing it. Even though I had been a consultant and coach for many years, when I started to put things onto paper, I started to ask myself, Does this make sense? Does it actually connect the things Im trying to connect? I asked those questions as a natural process of caring about the effectiveness of my intellectual property. It wasnt that that all of a sudden I worried that it was bad material. Rather, I cared enough about my material to make it as good as it could possibly get.

Now, how did I get over that is an interesting question. I come from the school of thought that theres nothing truly original. Its just that someone is filtering it through a different experience. In actual fact, whenever you are creating something, if you will finish it to 80% completion, its ready to go. The other 20% can be finished along the way. I believe its about actually completing something to the point where it can have a use in the world and can stop being a secret. The other 20% is okay to do after. There are still lots of imperfections in the book. I embrace those imperfections, because its written with that spirit in mind. The information is too important not to get out, because the margins or page numbers or type font isnt just perfect.

Each person needs to make their own choice about whether this philosophy works for them. But, thats how I got over the crisis of confidence.

More specifically, I took the content that was going into my book and gave people another way to experience it before the book came out. I did that in the form of a membership site called www.multiplestreamsofcoachingincome.com. It was a mirror image of the content of the book. I was delivering, expanding, refining and correcting the material I was generating for the book with real live people who would tell me, Hey Andrea. That stinks! That was terrible. It was all about completion, not perfection.

Impact Coaching: During this very public process, were you ever concerned that someone might steal your intellectual property?

Andrea: No. I held the attitude that, hey, if you can do it and get it to market faster than me, then bless you! Life is not about policing other peoples actions, so I focus my energy and strength into going for it. In doing so, its almost like theres an aura of intention around it and people get that its going to happen, so theres no one around whos going to steal it. Plus, nobody is going to be able to put it quite like I do.

Impact Coaching: Once you were ready to publish, you registered your copyright in the United States. What was that process like?

Andrea: You know what? Im woefully ignorant about that stuff. And Im happy to be so. I enlisted the help of a book shepard. It was a process I was very grateful for. A book shepard is a person who takes you through the process of self publishing your book, guiding you through all the various gates and fences to lead you to where you want to go. So, I was actually able to entrust to her handling the copyright application, getting a cover, getting an ISBN number, finding a printer, pricing that printer out, deciding on how to typeset my book, what font to use all of those great things that normally would have taken me quite a bit longer to do myself, including the copyright stuff.

Impact Coaching: What method did you use to publish your book?

Andrea: I self published. I did not go to an existing New York publisher and pitch my book. I decided to go my own route. I found a small press that guided me through the process. As a result, I retain control of my intellectual property, how I package/repackage it, whether or not I want to read it onto CD and sell it. I can do any of that without having to go back and renegotiate with a publisher. Plus, I keep 100% of my earnings.

I also published the book in the United States. I live in Canada (Calgary, Alberta), but I wanted all of my book operations to operate out of the US, because my target niche market and most of my clients live in the U.S.

Impact Coaching: Why did you self publish instead of doing an e-book?

Andrea: I think that a print book still has a great deal more to offer a business than an e-book. From the point of view of leverage, there is still more credibility in the publics mind when you are the author/publisher of a print book rather than an e-book. And I dont think its a distinction thats ever going to go away. An e-book can be a great way to do an excerpt from your book. But if you are have a body of knowledge thats going to be significant, thats going to present your primary message, go for the brass ring and try a print book. I would sit down and do the numbers and get with an intellectual property coach and make the decision, because theres going to be a big fat difference between the impact of a print book and of an e-book.

Impact Coaching: Isnt self publishing extremely expensive?

Andrea: Actually, self publishing ended up being much more affordable than any other route. In total it cost no more than $5000 to get it off the ground. It really was a business decision. Of all the different business development or promotional things I could do for my business, I wanted to invest in this book.

Impact Coaching: How did you decide what roads you would go down with your marketing?

Andrea: One of the wonderful things that happens when you embrace the phrase done is better then perfect * is that it applies just as much to the marketing process as the writing process. So, by starting a membership website where I was already in dialogue with a lot of people who were developing an interest in the book, the word spread about the book and created a little bit of a bubble of anticipation before it even came out. Thats one of the benefits of figuring out what it takes for you to just go ahead and do it.

Impact Coaching: When you launched the membership website, did you already have a strong data base of people who knew you?

Andrea: Yes, I did.

Impact Coaching: How many people do you need to have in your data base in order to attract people to a membership website?

Andrea: To make anything significant beyond onsie-twosie types of leads, I use the number 1,000 at minimum. Theres something that happens at about 1,000 thats bigger than just the sum of the parts. The number you need also depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to be a best seller on Amazon or the USA Today best seller list, you will need a lot more than 1000, obviously. But if your goal is to get it out there, get it started and get it completed, 1,000 is lots. And you dont have to have 1,000 on your very own list. You can have 1,000 of your own or access to thousands through joint venture partners.

Impact Coaching: What other key techniques did you use in marketing your book?

Andrea: Joint ventures were definitely important. Its really about approaching people who have a similar target market to yours and asking whats in it for them. It might be your personal goal that youre looking for joint venture partners because you want to sell more copies of your book. But thats not the way to approach a joint venture partner. I get approached by a lot be people wanting to do joint ventures. And I can tell you that the most frustrating phrase I hear is, Ive read your book, and I know joint ventures are important. Will you do a joint venture with me? I say, Sure, what would you like to do? and they say, Well I dont know. I just thought it would be nice to do something together. In the second edition of my book, which is now available, I address this issue.

Impact Coaching: What was your most productive joint venture for this book?

Andrea: Chris Barrow, a million dollar coach, and I did a couple of things together. He was going out on the road to lead training events for coaches. I went with to deliver a bonus morning of training on multiple streams of coaching income. I provided value to Chris because he didnt have to come up with a new piece of content. He was able to bring the answers to the questions about multiple streams of income to his clients without having to do any extra work, so that made him look great. And, for me, I was able to go talk to a room full of people who were already interested in developing their coaching business. These are people with whom Chris had already developed a relationship and by him pointing to me and allowing me to share the stage with him, he really endorsed the book and that led to book sales.

Impact Coaching: What other marketing advice would you give?

Andrea: When youre writing your book, figure out what it is that you stand for and answer the question, What is the boldest, most outrageous, most provocative question you can answer in your book? Take a stand in your book. If its outrageous and its something that shakes up the industry, so much the better. That, in and of itself, will provide a viral quality to your book that will help market it.

Impact Coaching: What was the foundation for all of your marketing activities?

Andrea: I do a lot of inner work. It doesnt matter what it is you want to do, what goal you want to achieve, if your who isnt developed well enough youre not going to get very far. Who you are, how you do business, your values, if your needs are met -- all those things affect your ability to succeed in business whether you are marketing a book or something else.

I actually look at my business as a personal development vehicle. And so there isnt a time when Im not working on my who. My marketing strengths and my business strengths come from a pretty vigilant me working on my who mentality. As I build my relationships, as I learn to deal with conflict better, as I figure out where my strengths are and I can play in my gifts more often, then Im contributing all I can to the world. All those things are foundations for being a good marketer.

Impact Coaching: What do you see as the key marketing skills or support systems any author needs?

Andrea: Ill give you two.

Number one is relational skills. All marketing is conversations and relationship building.

The one thing marketing skills-wise that everybody should embrace is that you must create and complete and continue. When youre marketing, do as many things as you can. Test. What fails is great, because youve ruled that out. What works is great, because you get to correct and make it work even more. The more different techniques you can use, and the more quickly you can use them, the faster youre going to get to the one that works really well. Fail fast. Succeed quickly. Dont just sit at home and wonder what the perfect marketing strategy is. You might think theres maybe three things to try. Well, you might hit the jackpot, but the chances of it are a lot greater if youre out there hustling and trying everything you can get your hands on. Again: Fail fast. Succeed quickly.

Impact Coaching: In thinking about the whole business side of writing a book, what are the key things you would recommend to other authors?

Andrea: Delegating is a big part of it. From a business point of view, I try not to do anything that is hard for me, that doesnt come naturally. Thats not to say that I live the easy life, but I know when learning something is going to cost me more than paying someone else to do it. It starts with self awareness and eagerness. Its a philosophy of life for me. If I was able to do everything in this world, then you wouldnt be here. As long as there is something here for me to do, Ill be breathing. So the fact that there are so many people out there, for me its like its a glorious cornucopia of talents that if Im not using, Im wasting my time and wasting their life energy. So, put it out there. Im going to get new business because of the space Ive created, because I delegate something.

Another important thing is the way I wrote the book was using web technology called a blog. And, it doesnt have to be public. It can be a private website that only I know about. This gives me the structure and creates a container into which I can pour my creativity and thoughts about the content of the book. Its like a more official version of a journal, and its electronic which makes it easier to do. Each entry in the blog became a chapter. And, I knew then, that if I wanted to have a 280 page book, which is what mine ended up being, I needed to have this many chapters of this many pages. It was enough for me to let go of the stress of where am I in the book and am I getting anywhere? The blog broke it down in such a way that I was able to see the chunks. The blog was like a key that unlocked my creativity and allowed it to pour out.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Photos of Andrea Lee and Chris Barrow as well as a graphic of the book are available by contacting the author.

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