Collaborative Book – A Business Game-Changer

Cindy
Hello everyone, and welcome. This is the Business Book Bistro. I’m Cindy Carothers, and I’m delighted to bring to you fellow authors and business people who’ve written a book so that you can learn from them what’s working to leverage their book for sales and profit, spread their message or grow a movement.

Again, I’m Cindy Carothers I’m known as the Beyond Book Sales Coach, and today I am very, very pleased to be welcoming Pam Hamilton to our show. Welcome Pam.

Pam
Hey, how’re you doing? Glad to be here.

Cindy
I’m so glad you’re here today too. Now I’m going to read her bio. Let me switch over to that because I didn’t memorize it and I don’t want to get it wrong.

Pam has over 27 years working as an attorney with small business owners and entrepreneurs, She discovered her greatest gifts lay in supporting the clients through the mindset and visibility issues that were blocking them from the success they so desperately wanted. Breaking out of invisibility has been a key turning point for Pam’s business, and she is proud to share her story in the best-selling book, Get Past Your S*H*I*T – because I don’t know that you’re allowed to say it here on Facebook. You can hold up a picture of it and we will know what it is.

So let me start out by asking you why is it that you wrote your book?

Pam
So, you know, I wanted to write a book because I wanted to tell my story; because I knew that telling my story would help people.

And I ended up doing it as part of a collaboration because writing a whole book can be so daunting, but writing as part of collaboration, you’re just getting to write your part, your story, and I really enjoyed doing that.

So I wrote it so that I could share my story and hopefully inspire others to become more visible and get past their stuff too; let go of the baggage.

Cindy
It’s made a big difference in your business hasn’t it?

Pam
Huge, huge. It’s helped me one, I became more visible, before I wrote the book, but in writing the book it forced me to really lean into that truth and live it more completely and just be open to doing things like this. To being on Facebook, to be live and even doing live talks, and so it’s been a really, really game changer for me.

Cindy
And it’s something that you help other people go through now.

Pam
Yes, yes. Even if they don’t want to be a speaker or do so much as an author, being able to live fully and authentically yourself lets you attract the right people to you so you grow a business you love. And having a business where you do what you love is so rewarding and so great and so I just want that for people. I want everybody to be able to have that experience.

Cindy
And that writing and participating in this has helped you gain some visibility. How is it that you’re using your book to actually market your business? Or are you using your book to actually market your business and if so, how?

Pam
So I’m using my book, a little bit for everything. So, even if you saw my one sheet that that Cindy was reading from, I have a picture of me holding my book. So that it shows that I’m an author and being able to say that I’m a published author, especially of a best-selling book, really gives me more credibility in sharing my story and in being able to engage people in my story. And it’s given me a little more confidence in building out the courses and the trainings that I’ve dreamed of doing and in being able to grow my business. So, instead of just working dollar per hour as an attorney, I’m now really expanding my coaching side of my business which I really love doing by being able to bring out the story and being able to bring out and talk about my visibility and talk about it in the book.

And so I share the book, a lot. And it gives me more leverage and more exposure and I’ve gotten people asking me to do more things since I wrote the book.

Cindy
And I’m sure you have a lot of specific practices and tactics and exercises that you take people through but there’s also a big mind piece component that goes along with getting visibility. Can you can you talk to how that changed, and how you got your own mind to change?

Pam
Yes. So you know I became invisible by choice, initially, and I didn’t know I was making the choice to be invisible.

Cindy
How old were you then?

Pam
But I was nine. So, I’m nine years old, and I’m talking with a friend that I really like. And you know when you’re a kid you don’t know ‘in love’ or ‘love’. You know you really like this person and you want to marry them, but you don’t think of all these other words. And it turned out she was into this guy. And at that moment is when I realized I really liked her, you know? And I really liked girls. And that made it kind of hard because everything in society at that time said, “No, you’re supposed to like boys.” I mean this was back in the 60s.

So, in the early 60s. I mean I was born in 1960, so at nine it was 1969. We hadn’t even had Stonewall yet. We had had nothing that would give me even a word for what I was experiencing.

And I thought I was the only one in the world, and it was really crazy. And so I, at that moment, decided I had to keep this secret, and I had to hide who I was.

And from that moment, I became invisible.

And even as things changed and it became more allowable and you weren’t going to get electrocuted – you’d have your brain fried because you were gay. It wasn’t a mental disease or anything like that. As that came about, visibility had become a habit by that point. And so, I stayed invisible. I mean I lived invisible; I hid in plain sight. And so, I would struggle with it because I wanted to have a business and I wanted to do all these things that you can’t do and be invisible.

And so I struggled with it.

And then I had this dream.

And in the dream, I realized, it showed me very clearly that I was the person that was the judge, jury and executioner.

I had internalized all of that self-hate. And I was judging me at every corner.

And so, if I was the judge, jury and executioner, I could change it.

If I was the one making all the decisions, I could change it. And it started with changing how I felt about me.

And so then I made that journey and that’s a big journey to make. It wasn’t overnight, it took time, but I made the journey.

And so it helped me begin to come into my own and begin to be more authentic and begin to be myself and not hide who I was.

Cindy
It really is all about making a decision – that you’re not going to stay where you are, that there’s some kind of benefit. beyond,\ (where you are now),  and then making that decision and then you keep making it every day, every minute, every second.

And certainly what you went through is a huge kind of a piece that kept you invisible – and it was mental.

And I think the exciting thing is that it can be changed. You can change your mental outlook. You can change how you process things. You can change how you show yourself to the world.

It’s your decision and it can be done and that’s kind of like the real message. You can do it. I, Pam did it and you can do it too.

Pam
Right. And that’s the whole point of understanding that your mindset is the most important asset in your business, it’s the most important asset of your life. Because how you perceive things dictates how your life is going to go. And so, no matter what your condition is, no matter what your situation is, you can keep carrying that baggage with you, or you can decide to let it go and live something else.

And then, in every moment, you have to understand you’re shaping your mindset in every single moment of every single day. You have a choice. Am I going here – this way? Or am I going this way? Right? Am I going this way, or my going this way (pointing)?. And you can make that choice each moment.

And sometimes you will slip up but then the choice is “Now that I made the slip up, am I going to just go all the way down hill, or I’m not going to say, Okay, I messed up but that’s all right; that’s human. Let me go back. Let me go do it right now. Let me keep moving forward.”

And it’s all up to you. It’s all about your mindset.

Cindy
And it is such a key piece of marketing.

And the book – Get Past Your S*H*I*T – it is really…I just don’t know about the censors, I don’t know.

Pam
I just call it baggage and stuff because I don’t like cursing for some reason.

Cindy
The book itself is full of stories about people like you who have figured out a way to get past whatever baggage they are holding onto I will say.

Pam
Yes.

Cindy
And I heard you say that it was a really interesting and enjoyable collaboration. It’s changed, who you are and how you show up in the world. Is there anything while you were writing or marketing or publishing or monetizing your book that happened that surprised you; something unexpected that you hadn’t anticipated?

Pam
So a couple of things happened. So one, when I when I was writing the book or my part of the book, even though I knew it was a collaboration, I still had this image of what I was going to do with the book.

But in a collaboration, it doesn’t work that way. So my name is not on the front cover as the author. But I am listed as one of the co-authors on the back. And so that was a different thing that I didn’t expect to have to overcome.

And then also you don’t get to put your gift inside the book for people to come to.

So it was like, “oh, okay, so I have to read reimagine how I’m going to market this”.

And at first I thought, “Oh well. This isn’t going to help me”.

But then I realized “No. This can help me.”

And so again, it’s all about mindset and it’s all about perception. I had to change up what my marketing was going to look like to promote the book and promote myself as a coauthor of the book.

Cindy
Now if there was one thing that you would suggest, a piece of advice you’d give to people who might be struggling to make their own choices to be visible? Is there something that they can do? A step that they can take that will start them down that path in some way, shape or form?

Pam
Yes, actually there is. Sometimes, depending on how visible you are each step can be more comfortable or uncomfortable, but I’ve written a small guide called ‘Five Tips to Getting More Visible This Week”.

And in it, I actually put up some specific steps you can take, starting with things as simple as just being able to guest comment. And move on to guest blogging. But taking simple steps that might not be as uncomfortable as it would be if you had to just go straight out there whole hog and do something. It allows you to take small steps to build relationships and be able to move forward and get more visible in the industry where you’re trying to be visible.

Because every industry has its challenges. And so, yes you can absolutely take small steps and get visible and you can start today.

Cindy
And I’m typing furiously away here, putting the link for that into chat. It is – I’m going to spell it out for people who might be listening instead of reading. (That’s everybody here that’s in cars – please do listen and don’t read or watch.)

It’s Building visibility.com. Very simple. Building visibility.com, forward slash five, the number five tips.

Pam
dash tips.

Cindy
Oh, there’s a dash, you’re right.

You’re absolutely right; thank you very much for that.

So anyhow, if you are someone who is feeling as though you’re not as visible as you want to be, or where you know you’re not as visible as you need to be, Pam’s gift is something that you will want to get ahold of and take a look at it, Read through stop in and see her. I know we didn’t post your Facebook group or anything like that Pam, but you want to want to do that because I know you do weekly lives on a few topics, so why don’t you tell us what that is?

Pam
Yes, that’s facebook.com. Yeah, it’s a whole big one.

 Facebook slash groups,

They make it so hard.

Cindy
Tell us what we can search for Facebook.

Pam
Build A Biz Insiders.

Build A Biz Insiders is the group name.

Cindy
B*I*Z?

Pam
Yeah, B*U*I*L*D a B*I*Z Insiders.

Yeah, on Facebook, and Facebook groups.

And you know we’re growing as a group, and I do Facebook Lives every week on various topics.

And people can vote on what topic it is. So yeah,

Cindy
We are almost at the end here and I just wanted to ask if there was any final piece of advice that you’d like our listeners to take away from today?

Pam
So the one thing I would say is, write a book – even if you’re writing as part of a collaborative. If you don’t feel like you’re up to writing a whole book on your own yet, writing as part of a collaborative will still give you that experience. And the experience of writing a book or writing a story will help you grow as a person; it will help you clarify your message. It’ll help you really tap into and it will help you tremendously with your personal growth, and it’ll give you a major boost in your business that you wouldn’t even expect. I’ve gotten so many offers to talk, to speak, to share my story since I wrote the book that I wouldn’t have gotten without it.

Cindy
And writing a piece, a short piece, is faster than trying to put a whole book together by yourself, even if you agonize over every word like I do; it has to be perfect. It is much easier to write five- six- twelve paragraphs, than it is to write 12 chapters in a book. And you’ve gotten a whole lot of benefit from doing that.

Pam
We had to write a whole chapter so it was thousands of words but it wasn’t as many as a book.

Cindy
OK. All right. I stand corrected there.

We’re gonna wrap up now and I want to thank everyone who watches whether you’re live right now or whether you are on the replay.

I’m sure that you’ve gotten some good ideas today in marketing and monetizing your book. Actually in anything that you do, mindset is going to be key. And whether you’re making your mindset shift from going from invisible to visible, or whether it’s something else that you’re struggling to come to grips with. I think Pam’s had a lot of good advice for you. She’s got a lot more good advice for you in other places. And I can’t recommend her highly enough and that you go check her out.

I would like to remind everyone that we’re on here live every Friday at noon.

If you’re interested in being a guest, if you’re a business person who’s written a book, and you’re using it to market your business or monetize some aspect of your business or spread your message, build a movement, I would love to chat with you, perhaps have you as a guest here for a future show of the Business Book Bistro.

Please tell everyone else that you know about us; hopefully they will come and join us and catch some of the wonderful replays we have here on Facebook or on my blog.

And that’s what I have to say.

Cindy Carothers, your host, signing off with a thank you to the viewers for watching. Thank you very very much Pam for coming on today and sharing as much as you did as deeply as you did.

I really appreciate having you on. It’s been a treat. So thank you very much Pam. Thank you everyone else and I will see you all next week. Have a good weekend everyone.

Bye.