How to Publish Your Book: Simple Steps for Entrepreneurs – ep 109

Mostafa Hosseini  00:01

Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. Today I’ve got another amazing guest and in this episode you will discover why small business owners should never write a book. The easy way to differentiate yourself that most small business owners miss the number one myth about client conversion and you will watch yours truly get exposed and coached by my dear friend Michael Dylon. Welcome Michael Mostafa, thank

Michael DeLon  00:32

you for having me, it is going to be an absolutely fantastic combo. Good

Mostafa Hosseini  00:36

to have you. Great to see you. And I really look forward to our conversation. Gang. As usual. If you’re watching or listening later, please make sure to like and subscribe to the show on whichever channel you are watching. If you have any questions, post them as a comment. If you know anyone that could benefit from, you know taking their business to the next level without writing a book and establishing themselves as an expert, tag them in a comment below, or send them the link.

 So this is going to be a very interesting conversation. Michael knows his stuff. He is a paperback expert. And so another thing I was going to share is that customer retention costs about six to 10 times less than new lead generation. Lead new lead generation is very expensive. Now I’m sharing with you the blueprint and the checklist to my program simple retention formula where I shared a step by step process on what you need to do to stay in touch with your customers. increase your retention rate and keep your customers and get referrals. If that resonates with you put the word retention as a comment and we’ll send you the link.

Now let me do the proper introduction to my friend Michael Dylon. And we’re going to dive into like I said, a very interesting conversation. Michael Dylon creates credibility. As the president of paperback at back expert. He helps business owners publish a book that positions them as the expert in their field. Business owners seek out Michael to clarify their brand strategy, make them best selling authors and set up their profitable podcast. They use his credibility marketing strategies to get more clients get more referrals and grow their revenue. Welcome, Michael.

Michael DeLon  02:26

Thank you so much. I am so excited. Let’s have a great, great chat today.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:32

I look forward to this. We’re about are you?

Michael DeLon  02:34

I am in Little Rock Arkansas. Right kind of central South of the United States.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:40

And what’s it like out there? What’s the weather like?

Michael DeLon  02:43

You know, it’s kind of turning fall on us. Summertime in Arkansas is hot and humid but it is kind of taking a dive and so I went out this morning for a walk and it was probably 68 and just cool crisp is beautiful.

Mostafa Hosseini  02:55

That’s what it said well we’re it’s becoming very Foley yes up in Calgary Alberta as well like the the some of the trees are turning yellow already. And we’re getting grid ready for Christmas. It’s not

Michael DeLon  03:08

here soon. So

Mostafa Hosseini  03:13

do you guys have snow down there?

Michael DeLon  03:14

You know about every, every other year we’ll get a snowstorm it shuts the entire city down. We have one snowplow and the good thing is right outside my house is a hill. So I’ve got sleds and winter gear, we go out and we just spend two or three days in a sledding and join it then it melts and we’re back to work.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:29

Love it. Love it. So let’s dive into it. Michael, tell us about you. What is your story?

Michael DeLon  03:36

Yeah, hey, thanks, man. Long story is I’m a follower of Christ. I’ve been married 32 years. I’ve got four kids, two older sons who are biological, two daughters who are 1411. They’re adopted. We did foster care for about eight years, foster about 25 kids. And our two daughters came through that experience. Now, my wife and I got married in 91st, five years of our marriage, we’re like this, okay, she and I are complete opposites. And even though she and I both grew up in church, nobody ever taught us how to be married. And so after five years of conflict, we went to a a marriage conference by a Christian ministry called family life.

And we sat in a ballroom for a weekend, as they unpacked for us God’s blueprints for marriage. I didn’t know we had blueprints. And so we learned that weekend and we brought those back and we started applying those blueprints to our marriage and our marriage better. Now, back in that time, early 90s. I was selling Christian radio in Indiana. And what I found is that nobody wants to buy Christian radio. What is Christian radio? Well, it’s so you’ve got a radio station, right?

different formats. So you’ve got rock and roll you’ve got country? This is Christian formatted radio. Okay. So I was the guy selling you advertising to reach my audience. What I found that after two years, nobody wants to do that they want to sell their products and services. So I was at a crossroads. And I had to make a decision, I was either gonna get really good at selling, or I was gonna get really good at marketing. So I chose marketing. I bought the books, I went to the seminars, I followed the gurus, and I learned how to do marketing for small business owners.

So my business would grow the radio station because my clients business would grow. Right, so So now fast forward to about 2000. God led us out of that that radio station to a startup.com that some friends of mine was starting back in the day when Amazon was just getting started. So I don’t know if you remember William Shatner was on the radio talking about the world’s largest bookstore, right, Amazon. So our company was out. I was selling websites and banner advertising to hospitals and car dealers. You didn’t even have a website back then. Well, that company was ahead of its time.

So Mustapha, that means it went bankrupt. And so I found myself standing in my, in my living room, looking at the ceiling going, God, what am I supposed to do now? And he spoke to my heart. He says, Michael, I want you to ministry to families. And I want you to family life down in Little Rock. We’re that ministry that changed our marriage, right? So we said, Okay, we were missionaries. We raised our financial support. We moved from Indiana down to Little Rock, Arkansas, join this ministry. I thought it was in Nirvana, man, why would I ever do anything else with my life, then help other people with their marriages.

So I climbed the corporate ladder. About six years later, I’m on the leadership team. Then they started going through corporate reorganizations. And after the third reorganizational chart was rolled out, my name was no longer on the leadership team. And they started, they started shuffling me around the ministry to do different jobs. And it was tough. That began a two year what I call prison term. Because I was in a job then that I hated at a ministry that I loved.

It was emotionally exhausting. So after two years, I gave up I said, God, I gotta get out of this place. He says, What do you want to do? I said, I want to go help small business owners with marketing because they struggle with it. They hate it. I love it. And he said, Go. So on January 1 of 2013, I escaped from prison. And I left the ministry, I started a marketing consulting firm in Little Rock. And I would call yesterday, Mustafa, I think I can help you grow your business.

And you’d meet with me, we’d have a great conversation. And somewhere in that conversation, you’d say, Now, Michael, what have you done in the last few years? Who have you helped? And I’d say, Well, I’ve helped marriages and families that family life. And you say, way to go, Michael, that’s so honorable. Oh, look, look at the time. I’ve got another meeting coming up, Michael. Let’s reschedule and keep this conversation going. And you’d asked me out the door. I wasn’t getting any clients, Mustafa. And so I knew I had to fix that.

So I went to my church one day, paste the hallways on the second floor, looked up, I said, God, how do I help Mustafa because I know I can. And he gave me the idea to take all of my marketing strategies, and put them in my book. So I published my book on marketing back in 2013. Then I would call you and say, Mustafa, I think I can help you with marketing, I’d mail a copy of my book to you. A week later, I’d walk into your office for our meeting. And there it was, my book was on your desk, dog eared, highlighted, underlined, you’d read my book. And in that meeting, you’d say no, Michael, in your book, you said, how do you help me do that?

And you’d hire me. And the next guy, and I started gaining clients, and I thought, Okay, this is really cool. Now, let me ask you a question, Mustafa only trick question of the whole day. What changed between those two appointments? The first time I met with you? And the second time did did my background and ministry change? Nope. Did my understanding of marketing change? Not a bit. Only thing that change was how you thought of me. copy my book, I instantly became an expert in your mind.

And when I walked in your office, you had pen in hand ready to take down the solutions I was going to offer you that changed my business and my life and planted the seed that today has grown to become paperback expert, where we help business owners and experts create a book without writing a word. And then use it in their marketing to gain clients get referrals and grow their revenue. That’s my story, buddy. And I’m sticking to it. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  09:26

1. That’s a great story. So you said you escaped the prison of job and you started your own business. Did I get that right? Yep. Yep. Tell me about the fear that you had to overcome. And how how did you step out of that prison with that fear of you know, of the unknown and losing my my steady paycheck and I’ve got a family to feed and I got a mortgage Your rent and bills and the rest of it,

Michael DeLon  10:01

you name it, buddy. It’s called faith. Right? So as a missionary serving in that organization called family life, they never, they didn’t pay us, we actually had supporters, people like you and your wife would send money to the organization every month. And we had about 100 people doing that on a monthly basis. That’s how we got our money. So if you didn’t send your money I didn’t need. Okay, so that’s how we live for a decade as missionaries.

And so our whole our whole life is is around faith and trusting God to provide number one, so I was going, I was making a leap from 100 streams of revenue, because usually it’s like $50 $25, or something to one, me providing everything there. That’s what you’re talking about. I think what happened is, I was so emotionally exhausted from being in prison, knowing that I have so much more to give and to contribute to the world. I was being shackled. And so to break free, I was free to, and I had to have the confidence in myself, that I knew I could help people.

And I knew some small business owners. I’d read a ton of Dan Kennedy, I’ve been to two or three conferences. Do I get marketing, my background is Marketing for Small Business Owners, most small business owners aren’t, they’re not educated in marketing. They just do marketing because they have to. And when you look at what they do, they spend way too much money on stuff that doesn’t work. But they don’t know what else to do. And so I had my strategies and things I’m like, I know I can make this work.

So it was a lot of self confidence, a lot of trusting God, and praise God, a lot of support from my wife, who said, I’m behind you. And we obviously had a runway right? If it didn’t work within six or seven months, then I would have had to go get a J. OB. But that’s okay. I was willing to step out and give it my all and make make it work. And it’s been it’s been like a year play pinball. Right with with the whole pinball. You’ve never played ping, oh, we gotta get you some pinball, dude, it’s got that little ball, it’s got that little ball that bounces around and goes.

That’s how my business has been bouncing around, reinvent, I’ve reinvented my business probably no less than 12 times in a decade. Because you try something, it doesn’t work, what you modify, you go something else you modify, you go something else. That’s okay. That’s what business owners do. That’s what entrepreneurs do. So it was a lot of fear. And it was a lot of putting myself out. But it was a lot of belief in my background of marketing, what I believe to be true in marketing, and in how I carried myself in that, that really carried me through those first few months and years.

Mostafa Hosseini  12:54

You know, one thing I noticed about the people that do missionary work, is they become really good salespeople. And that that’s like a skill of a lifetime. Yes. Like I think it helps them survive. During the tough years and with the business because they know how to sell. They’re not afraid of getting you know, door slammed on their face and getting a few squares and this and that. So it’s a it’s a really good skill. Like there’s no, it’s the highest form of sales that you could practice door to door knocking and doing missionary work. Well,

Michael DeLon  13:30

it is that dude, it was the hardest, most challenging thing I’ve ever done is to raise support for my own family to call you and say, Mustafa, would you and your wife support me and my family for $50 a month, $100 a month. And they just wait for you right that that’s I can sell things and ideas but to sell me. You’re right. That’s hard. hardest thing I ever did.

Mostafa Hosseini  13:58

That’s it sometimes. And I may be crazy. Sometimes I feel like going out there and getting a job and doing some door to door sales. Oh, yeah. Just to you know, refresh myself techniques and because people are scared of cold calling. Like you got to do a door knocking and see. That’s like, yeah, like, speaking of like, you know, I think is Brian Tracy that talks about eating the frog. Yeah, he has that book, right. He’s like, I think it was him.

There’s nothing worse than getting like a door slammed on your face. Right? Once you get okay with that everything else is just easy peasy. No big deal. You could probably sit down and make cold calls all day and not even worry about it. It’s

Michael DeLon  14:42

funny. So here’s here’s here’s my little secret there. When I was raising support, it took us about two years to raise all of our financial support that we needed for our family. Okay. I converted a bedroom in our house as my office. And every morning I would walk into my office and I would dial for dollars because I was trying to get appointments, right? And it got that phone got really heavy, right? Mentally because it was like, oh, and I finally made a deal with God, here’s my deal. I said, God, okay, my job is to pick up the phone and dial the phone number.

Your job God is to get me a person, a busy signal or an answering machine. Don’t care. My I’m going to do my job. I’m going to pick up, I dialed the phone, check this out over two years of raising support. I dialed the phone 10,000 times in order to raise enough support to get enough appointments to raise enough support to get us down to the ministry. We had to track every call. I mean, it was amazing. But I had to make that deal with God so that I wouldn’t procrastinate. Not picking up the phone, because I’d come up with all kinds of reasons not to call. Yeah, on the fly in the room. Oh, there’s

Mostafa Hosseini  15:52

anything so anyway? Did you ever have like days where you’re like, I just don’t want to do this anymore. This is really tough. And Oh, totally.

Michael DeLon  16:00

Yeah. And we actually had a support coach down in Little Rock. So I was in Indiana. I had a coach and little rock that I talked to every week who had been through the same process. And they’re like, I know, Michael, it’ll get you’ll get there. Be faithful. Make the calls. Trust God. Make the calls. Yeah. Oh, no, do there are days. So it was

Mostafa Hosseini  16:20

like the faith and trusting, trusting God, that kind of Oh, totally. Oh, 100% truth through and 100.

Michael DeLon  16:27

And having a plan. Knowing I need to pick up the phone, I need to dial that phone 50 times today. So

Mostafa Hosseini  16:36

you were to making these calls to yet support us to support support your missionary work? Yep.

Michael DeLon  16:42

Well, I was, I was making the call to get to make an appointment. So I would call you. Hey, hey, Mustafa. So good to meet you at BNI. Last week, I tell you why I’m meeting with people and sharing what I’m doing from a missionary standpoint to build marriages and families. And I would love to meet with you share it with you and see if you and your wife would be in a position to support us financially. Could we meet next Thursday? That was pretty much the phone call? And you would say yes or no. Most of the time you said yes. Because I’m a good guy. Nobody likes to say no. And then I would go meet with you and do my dog and pony show. And I would do that over and over and over and over. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:17

Oh, yeah. Love it. Love it, you’ve got a very interesting story. So what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

Michael DeLon  17:24

What do I do and who do I serve? My core business is a paperback expert. We help business owners thought leaders and experts create a book without writing a word, make them an Amazon Best Selling Author, create a podcast for them. And then we teach them our credibility marketing systems, so that they can use their book their authority to gain the attention of their ideal clients, to convert them into appointments.

And to get more referrals from their happy, satisfied clients and centers of influence. That’s what we do. And we work with business owners, really, across the United States, some in Canada, starting to get outside of even that, because what we do is you don’t write your book and we’re gonna get into that of why you should never write a book. But you don’t write your book with us, you actually are interviewed by one of our writers, but we’ll talk about that when it comes.

Mostafa Hosseini  18:17

Alright, let’s let’s just get into it right now. Why do you see that say that people should never write a book because the perception usually out there is like, you gotta like take two or three years or maybe even more. And like getting the right place with the right mindset, set the candle up, pray and meditate and get into zone and an even like, 10 take like 1015 years to become the top expert on the planet.

And maybe then you or someone else will give you a lead that you know, you you you have permission to write a book and call yourself an expert. I think I’m close. Right? I send this up. But yeah, that that that’s the notion out there. Well, how do you do it? And what how do we address some of the stuff that I just mentioned?

Michael DeLon  19:10

Yeah. So so first of all, why do I say never write a book? Because to open up your computer and sit in front of a blank screen, which is usually what people do, is just, it’s not the it’s not gonna come out. Your thoughts are not gonna come out very well. Number one, number two, you’re gonna start typing. And you’re gonna say, oh, no, that’s not how I want to say it. Backspace, Backspace, Backspace, Backspace.

Tighter. Oh, no, that’s bad. It’s called self editing. It will take you forever. What we tell you to do is instead of that, alright, Mustafa, you’re an expert in business and follow up systems, right? You’ve been doing it. So I would say, open up like Google Docs, or Microsoft Word, doesn’t matter. Build a really fast outline. What are the 10 things that business owners need to understand about follow up and just want you to do for it there’s there’s two Then chapters of your book, under each one of those put a few bullet points of stories of people you helped or things you want to talk about. And then now you got an outline.

Now, hit the dictate function of Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and start speaking based on that outline. And it’s going to transcribe your words into the document. Hit save often. Now you’ve got all of your thoughts out onto a document, and you’re probably 70% done with your book. Now you can go back and kind of do some editing or hire somebody to do the editing, right?

Speak to right is the faster way to do it. Number one, number two, when you sit down and start typing, versus when you’re speaking, you’re using different parts of your brain and you sound differently. Yeah, I want you to sound in your book, like you do on your podcast like you do. Like you do when I’m talking with you. We capture that in your book because your book is published in your voice. So it’s easier. It’s faster. And it sounds like you when you speak to write your

Mostafa Hosseini  21:11

book. Yeah. And it’s easier to read and connect with no question. Yeah, yeah, I like books that are conversational. And, and it’s like, you know, right, the regular day to day conversation that I don’t have to like pick up addiction, honestly, and reading a book these days. Almost every page, I have to look at the dictionary and see what this guy What is this word?

Michael DeLon  21:35

Don’t get mad idea. When you write a book, it needs to be probably at about a third or fourth grade level. Zig Ziglar. I said seven I think is coming down from there. Because you’re not doing it to impress people. Yeah, you’re doing it to communicate and to reach their hearts. So they’re going Oh, I like this person.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:52

Oh, yeah. Oh,

Michael DeLon  21:55

yeah. It’s uh, yeah. It’s a tremendous business tool.

Mostafa Hosseini  21:59

I call it passing the five year old tests like, like, an a test to see if a fiber doesn’t understand it. Yeah. Chances are a lot of people out there donor Senate. So

Michael DeLon  22:10

in a book is not the place to show off your brilliance that comes when you’re face to face go as deep as you want face to face. I love your five year old test. That’s great. Yeah,

Mostafa Hosseini  22:23

similar idea. Just different different, what we call different things. Mmm. Interesting. Interesting. So you talk about building a marketing system? What does that mean?

Michael DeLon  22:41

So Michael Gerber wrote the E Myth years ago. Yeah. And a lot of people read it, but very few people implement it. And one of my pet peeves right now, Mustafa is everything on the internet talking about helping you scale your business. If you want to scale your business to a 678 figure business, come take my course, I assure you, nobody’s going to scale your business, if you don’t have systems in your business. Don’t ever sign.

Okay. And most business owners don’t have systems. So what we do and how we’ve built our business is one system at a time, we build a system, we codify it. And then we build a second system that integrates with that usually, then we build a third system. So think of a stack of pancakes. These are called stackables. Every system stacks on top of the other. So pretty soon, I mean, my son who Caleb who runs the business with me, he told me the other day, we have about 67 systems running in our business, and 20 to 30 of those are marketing related systems. The others are operational systems. But you know what they’re all codified, they’re in a place so that if I get hit by a truck, or he gets hit by a truck, somebody else can come in and run the business.

So what we’ve done in the marketing world for our clients, is we’ve taken the systems that we use in our business, codified them in a step by step manner, put them into a PDF with video assistance, assisted training. And then when your book is ready to be published, we create with our client a credibility marketing gameplan. We say Mustafa, what are you trying to make happen? What what are the assets and marketing you’re currently doing?

And then we’re gonna go get a few of our playbooks or marketing playbooks, and we’re gonna say, Great, take these playbooks, follow them, implement them in your business, and they’re going to coincide with what you’re already doing to bring your marketing to a new level because now you’re a credible expert because you’re an Amazon Best Selling Author. And this system will run every time because it’s a system. It might need some tweaking for me once in a while.

But it’s a system that runs every single time. I’ve got a system around so many things like podcast interview host right? There’s a system that’s going to happen when we’re done here, Mustafa, okay. I was interviewed earlier today, guess what the system happened. It happens every time I’m interviewed. And what it does is it separates me probably from every other guests you have, because nobody else does what I do. That’s credibility marketing, because I’m trying to reach your heart.

I want to be the first person you think of, and the one you feel the best about, when somebody mentions to you thinking about writing a book, I want my name to pop into your brain, and you say, you need to talk to Michael, go to paperback expert, check him out book at a point because Michaels the best. That’s what I want. And all of my marketing is built around that philosophy. Love it,

Mostafa Hosseini  25:49

I am a Systems guy too. And, and it just saves you a lot of headache, saves you prevents a lot of thinking, for example, every time I send an email, and I create a message, I save it and turn it into a template. Yes, so that next time that I want to send a similar message. I just honestly just copy paste and and and modify. And I can share it with my team. But I guys, here’s a library of templates for all the emails and messages that you can use. Absolutely. And then everything that I do I try to I call it step eyes, the process to step by step what happens? Oh, yeah. And then. So again, like same thing, you could pass it on to your team. And if I die, and something happens, then yeah.

Michael DeLon  26:40

So business. And I learned this from one of my coaches, right? You need systems, and then people and then resources, you build the system first, then you hire somebody to run that system. And then your business grows. And then you’ve got resources, money or other things to resource your people, right? So many people get that backwards.

And it’s like, no, no, no, build the system that somebody can run. And then let them run it and let them make it even better than what you can. But you said something really good is so that you don’t have to do it as entrepreneurs. I mean, we have limited time and ability. I’m only good Mustafa, I’m only good at four things in life. Okay, I figured this out. Finally, outside of these four areas, I am mediocre at best. But in these four areas, I’m wicked good.

So what we’ve done in our business with my son Caleb is he’s built systems and taken a bunch of stuff off of me that I was doing. He doesn’t matter a lot better than me so that I can focus on what I’m great at. And what’s happened is our business continues to grow. Because I’m in my area of excellence all the time. That’s what’s causing our business to grow. But it didn’t happen until we’ve started building systems.

So we just take that systems approach to business and apply it to marketing, and give our systems to our clients and teach them how to implement those systems. It becomes a life changing for them.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:06

Love it. Love it. It’s like you’re speaking my language. We could talk about this for hours. Oh, yeah. Oh speaking systems, what does the process of creating a book and releasing it and becoming a best selling author look like? So you start by recording it? And then what happens? Yeah,

Michael DeLon  28:27

close. So we back up a little bit. Let’s say let’s say today, you you tell me Michael, I want to be a best selling author. Let’s go. First thing we’re going to do is spend about a month clarifying your message, helping you come up with a crystal clear message that unique to you, and compelling to your audience. Here’s what here’s what I know most often it is more important. What you say. Then where you say it.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:59

It’s more important what you say then where are you saying? Yes. What do you mean by that?

Michael DeLon  29:05

I can take a bland message to every meat media channel out there. Tick tock Facebook, LinkedIn doesn’t matter. And it’s not going to get anything because it’s bland. Mustafa. I’m a financial advisor. I’m a registered ir a C PIF C five to dash L L. I went to who cares? But if I can say, Mustafa, I can hear here’s here’s a good one. How about this? Home inspecting, right? How much more bland does again than a home inspector?

Somebody when you buy a house they come in, they look at your house if anything’s wrong with right. That’s pretty bland. That’s a that’s a pretty commodity. They’re they’re important people. They’re great people. It’s just pretty commodity, right? Who cares? We had a guy come to us who was a home inspector bland message. I said all right. Chris, tell me, what’s your back? What do you do for fun? It’s like, oh, well, nights and weekends. I’m a high school football referee.

Then he lit up. He started telling me about all this stuff and how refereeing football ties into what he does home inspection because there are rules and there are flags and there’s all kinds. I said, Do this is it. So we took him and moved him from being a home inspector. We published his book, it’s the Official Guide to Home Inspections. And we made him Chris Perry, America home inspection referee. Now he has a unique message that’s unique to him.

His competitors can’t do this. Because they’re not high school football referees. When he goes into realtor’s offices to talk to them and get get business from them. He’s wearing his football outfit, when he’s in when he’s doing your home and looking at your home. And he finds a problem, he puts a yellow flag on it, because he’s a referee. Okay. That’s what I mean, by taking a story and getting that clear message. That’s the first thing we’re going to do. Okay. So once we have your clear message, then we move into the book creation process.

That’s where we get one of our writers who interviews you through conversation, we build the outline for your book, they guide you through the whole process, because we suffer, you’re an expert at what you do, you can talk about what you do all day long. We just structure a conversation to get all the content from you. And then our writer massages your words into your book. And then we create a stunning cover like we did for Chris Wright that just pops then we promote our promotions team makes you an Amazon Best Selling Author guarantee, we’ve got the entire marketing engine to make that happen.

And we do that for credibility purposes. Because when somebody hears that Mustafa is an Amazon Best Selling Author stops them in their tracks. They lean in, as he told me what other people must be listening about other people will see behind his book, I should read his book. If you don’t have a podcast, we create a podcast for you. We interview you on every chapter of your book, because experts get interviewed, we syndicate that podcast, we give you the video of the podcast, we put on your website on YouTube on LinkedIn as a marketing tool.

Then the last step is where we create your credibility gameplan where we teach you our marketing systems, and we bring to the table the marketing systems that are going to work for you based on what you’re trying to make happen and what other marketing you’re currently doing. That whole process takes about a year. So we’re with you that whole time to get you a crystal clear message that unique to you is compelling to your audience. Create your book without writing a word make you an Amazon Best Selling Author, create your podcast and teach you how to market yourself now. That’s what we do.

Mostafa Hosseini  32:55

Love it. Love it. Love the process. Can we have a lot of coaching moment here? Can I get exposed a little? Absolutely. So I feel like I feel like that first step is probably the most important step of all. The message piece. Absolutely. Once that’s figured out, everything else becomes so much easier. Yes. Can we work on my message a little bit? Yeah,

Michael DeLon  33:17

absolutely. All right.

Mostafa Hosseini  33:19

What do you need to know? How do we do this? Well,

Michael DeLon  33:22

first of all, let’s let’s pretend we’re getting ready to start your book. Right? You can do a you want to you want to create a book. Say okay, who’s the book for? Who’s your audience? Generally,

Mostafa Hosseini  33:32

the book is for stablished business owners who have between half a million to $5 million in sales. They have a proven high ticket offer north of 5k. Okay, they have a team of between five to 50 people. Live in US family, people didn’t have kids, they are married

Michael DeLon  34:01

or they are they? Do they have a brick and mortar business? Or are they coaches or can it be it doesn’t matter? Mostly

Mostafa Hosseini  34:08

service service businesses? Alright, let’s let’s say my ideal client is a coach. Okay. coach or consultant.

Michael DeLon  34:18

Awesome. Okay. Now let’s shift. Okay. What is it that you do?

Mostafa Hosseini  34:26

You know, how businesses go out there spend a lot of time and money to find leads. They get the leads, and they do nothing with the leads. Yes. And they leave a lot of money on the table. Yeah. Because they don’t follow up. Yeah, we fix the follow up problem for them. Okay.

Michael DeLon  34:46

And ballpark, how do you do the automation or I mean, what are you doing? You know, we actually

Mostafa Hosseini  34:51

pick up the phone and call those people have a very friendly human conversation with them, to see where they’re at And what we can do for them, qualify them and work on booking an appointment with our sales team or to coaches and getting referrals from them basically. Awesome.

Michael DeLon  35:11

Okay, now, here’s where the fun comes up. Tell me a bit about your background. What? Why do you do what you do? Where do you where do you go? Oh, by the way, did you have you always been in Canada Calgary. You grew up in Calgary.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:25

I grew up. I grew up in Tehran, Iran, and Canada, both. So I grew up most of my life in Canada, but I was born in Tehran, Iran. Okay, I went to school here in Calgary, you want to know the story of how I got here to the US? I do. Okay, so came to Calgary, went to school, got got my marketing degree and, and the business degree started a marketing agency. And we need a to z marketing. Now the story is that every time I ran into cash, customers appointments and referrals or whatnot, or I had a deadline to make payments, I would pull my hair out for a few days.

And then I would come to my senses, because I learned from Kennedy about power retention and follow ups. And then I would pick up the phone and make around a calls to my list. And on the day off shortly after I would get cash appointments, referrals and whatnot. Then I started sharing this process in my course simple marketing formula telling people that people, here’s the script. Here’s the process, call your list. You’re going to see cash today. Nobody would do it. And then I’m like, huh, but these are your people. This is the script. Turns out people hate to pick up the phone.

Yeah. And so then later on, we’re like, what if we do it for you? And we manage the calling your list for you? Who wants that? They’re like, yep, Sign me up. So that’s the story behind. And so over the years, retention and follow up have been has been our most profitable, highest converting marketing activity period. And so that’s the story. And now we have a team that does the follow ups. And we specialize in follow ups.

Michael DeLon  37:13

Awesome. Tell me about your family. Your immediate

Mostafa Hosseini  37:18

two boys, one is two and a half. Almost three. One is almost seven. Two boys. Okay. Very active. We’re huge outdoors fans. Spend a lot of times in mountains hiking, biking, skiing, barbecue, you name it.

Michael DeLon  37:35

Okay, and why you could live anywhere in the world. Why do you still live in Calgary?

Mostafa Hosseini  37:47

Well, we came to Calgary. I went to school here and I settled I started my family here. It’s a beautiful place. We love the mountains. Love the people have a lot of great friends here. It’s affordable, doable. So yeah.

Michael DeLon  38:12

And you said in there somewhere that you got to Formula marketing, a simple marketing formula?

Mostafa Hosseini  38:18

Yes. What do you say well, marketing formula. And now six simple marketing formula turned into your six different six subset of formula. One of them will sink simple retention formula, simple. Lead Gen formula, simple conversion formula. I have a lot of simple formulas. I love simple fan. So one of my 8020 fan. One

Michael DeLon  38:43

of my things that I use at all my mastermind groups and things that I teach is kiss kiss, keep it super simple. Yep. And that’s really we are we like to make things very complex. Okay, so what’s the transformation that your clients receive? Somebody comes to you and they hire you to do your do your thing? What’s a year later, let’s say or whenever? What’s their like? What? What success look like to your clients? What are you giving them? What’s the result that they’re getting?

Mostafa Hosseini  39:18

So we get them appointments, we get them referrals, they get to build their brand. They get to increase their profits because customer retention or referrals are a lot more profitable, then new lead gen. They get to increase the average lifetime lifetime value of their customers because customer retention rate goes up and the keep their customers and as a result of that they create more recurring revenue. Happy customers refer and stick around.

And so the big the residence becomes healthier and they stop leaving money on the table. It’s like they’re sitting on a vault off Cash with their list that they’re usually doing nothing with and it’s sending and collecting dust. We come in, and it’s a done for your service where we pick up the phone. Because we love picking up the phone, they hate it. And we make the calls on their behalf. And we make all of that happen.

Michael DeLon  40:21

So you have a process where you can deliver cash, customers cash and a constant flow of revenue, or a constant flow of referrals. Yeah, right, that’s what you do. You just, if I understood your, I’m gonna get more customers, because you’re following up with them, I’m gonna get more appointments, those customers is going to turn into more cash for my business, which is gonna make me a healthier business, and everything and get me a constant flow of referrals. Because you have a process, you have a simple marketing system that does that for me. Yeah, right. So that’s

Mostafa Hosseini  40:58

them where we come in, they barely do anything, except for an hour of us interviewing them to understand the offer. And then we create the scripts, we clean up the list, we start dialing and start booking appointments and referrals into their systems.

Michael DeLon  41:14

That’s amazing. Okay, so really your, your, your most of your customers or prospects who are coming to you, as I’m thinking they are looking for more appointments in their head, because they think that they can close those. If I just had more appointments, Mustafa, I’d be if I had more, if I had more quality leads or appointment, I would be closing more people.

And what you’re saying is great, we’re gonna find those for you in the back end. You’re not a lead generation company, you’re, you’re a back end, you’ve got to you’ve built a list of people over the last five years in your business, we’re going to nurture engage that list of people. And from that list of people, we’re going to get you more customers more cash and a constant flow of referrals. Absolutely. And it’s all done for you. Absolutely.

That’s yeah, that’s where we would start landing on your message. Okay, because that’s really what real business owners wanting? Okay? I don’t I honestly, really, and I’ve learned this in my business, they care less about all the systems and all that stuff. What do I want, I want more customers, I want more cash. And I want a constant flow of revenue of referrals. I don’t want to do it. Because I don’t have time for all of that what I want is to go sail boating with my family, I want to go watch my kids, I want to look at my bank account and know that on the first day of the month, I’ve already got money in the bank.

Because I’ve got a flow of I’ve got a system that produces customers and cash and referrals every every, I’ve got a system that does that my system is called Mustafa. Right? So we speak to that. So I would say the title or subtitle of your book of your of your message, and it takes a little bit longer than a few minutes. But how to get more customers cash and a constant flow of referrals without lifting a finger. Because the client isn’t doing it, you are doing out Okay, here you go. Here you go. How to Dan Kennedy classic, right how to fill your calendar with more customers cash and a constant flow of referrals without lifting a finger. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:47

I have without picking up the phone. Oh, with that,

Michael DeLon  43:50

oh, that’s even better. without picking up the phone, are you? And that’s just one idea. Because I mean, there’s so much more there. But right off the bat that what we want to do is say okay, now why? Why is that unique to you? Obviously you’re done for you service, right? You’ve done this in your life. So you know the systems work, you’ve built systems.

And now you have a team where you just you become the the fractional profit center of this company. Because you’re going to work in the in the back end, you’re going to work in the most profit. You know who you remind me of? Jay Abraham. Are you familiar with Jay Abraham? He wrote a book. Hang on, hang on. I’ll be right back. He wrote a book called Getting everything you can out of all you’ve got. Yeah, this book is probably 30 years old. I try to read it once a year.

It’s because he does exactly what you just do, he comes in and he partners with the company, he goes into the database. And He, He resurrects a dormant database, and he makes millions of dollars for companies and then he shares in the revenue. Because the company either isn’t smart enough to do it, they don’t have the system’s to do it, or they just flat don’t want to do it. That’s what you do. And in doing that, you’re going to help that business owner achieve that goal of filling his calendar with more customers cash and a constant for referrals, without picking up the phone.

That’s a message that resonates with your audience. It’s unique to you. And it’s clear and compelling. Now, let’s take that and create a book around that. So every chapter dives into one of those aspects. And you unpack your six simple marketing systems. There are six chapters, we’ve got an opening chapter of you and your story. That’s seven chapters, and we get an ending. There’s eight chapters. Your book is now outlined, Mustafa. Now we just have to hook it for the writer and get the content out of your head into print. And make you an Amazon Best Selling Author. See how easy that is?

Mostafa Hosseini  46:09

I look, I’m a huge fan of yours. You know what I’ve done? I’ve already spoken the book. That’s correct. It’s already almost ready for release. So I got like, exactly like you say asked me to write couple of pages. I will rather die. Yeah, asked me to speak 100 pages of a book. I’ll do it in two hours.

Michael DeLon  46:35

It is, you know, ratable.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:36

Yeah. So much easier to add. Especially if like somebody’s interviewing you like your process. Right. Now what I’m doing to you right now, this could probably turn into a book. Absolutely. Right. So you guys, you’ve got a great system, and I absolutely love it. I want to do it any other way. Thanks. So thank you. That message was very powerful. And I’m going to test it. I’m going to split test that on both my network and see what that does. So you’re watching or listening. That was our Mustapha exposed and coached moment and Michael did a beyond amazing job with that. Thank you. Thank you.

Michael DeLon  47:12

That was lots of fun.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:13

That was fun. Um, Mark, Mark, what story behind this coffee bean thing that you talked about? Yeah,

Michael DeLon  47:21

well, the coffee you know, I love coffee myself. I drink it every day. If you if you had a bag of coffee beans, and you open them and pour them out on the table in front of you, the coffee beans, they look the same and they smell the same. Yeah. In business. If you look like and sound like all of your competitors, you’re not giving your audience or reason to lean in and choose you. You’re a coffee bean. Okay? Just like my my home inspector guy.

He was a coffee bean until we discovered his unique message of being a football referee. Now he’s America’s home inspection referee. He’s unique now. Everybody, just what we did with you. We just went through a process to discover some things that were unique about you we created a message that’s crystal clear and different unique. Everybody listening has that inside of them. Take a friend to a coffee shop. hit the record button on your computer and have them ask you the questions I asked Mustafa recorded all listen to it and a theme is going to pop out that becomes your clear message that’s going to make you not a coffee bean is going to make you unique.

Because Mustafa people are going to buy you more than what you do for them. I’ve got to like you’ve got to know I’ve got to trust you. And that’s why telling your story is so important. I love the story of of where you were born of why do you live where you live? You’re a family man. You’re an outdoors guy that helps we start connecting with you. I like you. Okay, let’s talk about what you do. But uh, you know, buddy, if I don’t like you, I’m not gonna have the second conversation with you. 100% 100%.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:10

Michael, just up would you? Do you usually printed books? Do you do a digital version? Once you have it? Well, how do you go about that? We

Michael DeLon  49:24

do both. So we’re going to print we’re going to publish an Amazon in Kindle. And we’re going to create a PDF or what I call magnet. So you can put it on your website to drive people to your website to download a free copy of my book so that you get them in your funnel so that you can nurture and market to them. But you definitely want physical copies. Because, Mustafa, don’t tell me the right don’t tell me the number because you probably don’t know how many eBooks do you have on your computer right now?

And how easy is it to find all of them right? Well, we get them all the time in our PDFs and then This is a high bar, you mail this to somebody, it makes an impact, especially when you mail it in a nice box that says, hey, elevate your credibility. You open the box up it says, Create a book without writing a word. It as a handwritten thank you. It’s got my my print newsletter with my family on it.

And then it’s got a copy of my book, you get this in the mail, it makes a difference. It makes an impact. It’s memorable. You go back to Dan Kennedy, this is his shock and all package right. I call it a welcome and wow kit. I want to welcome you so.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:40

And guess what? You could follow up on that all day long. All

Michael DeLon  50:43

day long. Hey, did you get that big blue box in the mail? Or did the Pokemon lose it? Yeah, well, no, man, I got him. Great. Yeah, it’s an experience, right? Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:54

Then you wouldn’t have you wouldn’t have like a fear of following up or a fear of bothering them and whatnot. You just call me back? Did you get my book? Did you get that package? Did you like it?

Michael DeLon  51:05

Have you read it yet? No. Hey, make sure you read chapter three. And it’s really, really important based on what you told me in that first conversation. Chapter three is your chapter. I’ll call you to come three days. Oh, yeah. Nobody does that.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:17

Right. Absolutely. So

Michael DeLon  51:19

so many things. But yeah, physical books. You’re not going to get rich selling your book on Amazon. Okay, get that in mind.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:25

Do we got to partner up? Yeah.

Michael DeLon  51:31

Because crazy.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:33

That’s it? Like, this is a great. Now. Do you get a lot of people that do this? Print it, send it and follow up on that? Oh, totally. Yeah, have a chat offline.

Michael DeLon  51:50

Here. I’ve got one financial adviser. He has mailed out about 1100 books over about a six year period of time. Okay. He’s converted 300 into clients. He’s made a fortune. But what about the 600? Or 700? That haven’t? Yes. Where he could probably get you. What if he converted? A few more?

Mostafa Hosseini  52:10

Yeah. Another 10 percenter that that’d be 60 more customers. Yeah. Any question is, can you handle it?

Michael DeLon  52:20

There’s one of my coaches says there’s no such thing as too much business. You can always hire somebody else to filter them. And you know, you think about a I’ve got a realtor number one realtor in Dayton, Ohio is one of my clients. He’s built his real estate company, like a doctor’s office. So when you list his house or when he lists your house for sale, he doesn’t go look at it. You come into his office. He’s got four offices, his people prep you, he walked in for 15 minutes.

This is Mustafa, thank you for trusting us. I’m going to market your house, I’m going to sell your house for the highest price, the shortest amount of time with the least amount of effort. I’m so grateful. They’re like, well, don’t you need to see my house? He’s like, Nope, because he’s a marketer. So he lists more properties, because he’s not driving around everywhere.

People come to him higher credibility. He has a process in place. And he goes from conference room to Conference Room signing and just talking to people about the listening is great. John, he’s going to take care of you. I’m so grateful for your business. Thank you so very much. Oh, by the way, do you have a copy of my book? Take a copy of my book. Brilliant. Oh, yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:28

But the thing is, even if they don’t read the book, doesn’t matter. You just differentiated yourself from 5000 other realtors in town who are just like, I’m awesome. I’ll do a great job at selling your house. You should like That’s right. Hire me.

Michael DeLon  53:42

I have a virtual tour. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s like

Mostafa Hosseini  53:47

100%. That’s like, and like what my mug Michael, what you what I love is what you and your team have put together with a process of the done for you. That is one hour or two, how long? How long? Or how long of an interview is it? Yeah,

Michael DeLon  54:04

great for it’s so the whole process takes less than 24 clock hours of the clients time. There are a series of 90 minute interviews with your writer. The content, then they’re going to go right you’re going to review and thanks. So over a period of about seven months of working with us. You have less than 24 clock hours in the whole process.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:25

Love it. Love it. Michael, tell us about it the credibility calculator and what’s what the deal with that is Yeah,

Michael DeLon  54:37

so if I said Mustafa, define credibility, man, and if I asked 20 people that question I didn’t get 20 different answers. Same thing with marketing. When I wrote my book back in 2013. I googled definition of marketing. And I got about you know, 1000 different definitions. Most of them were academic. They made no sense at all. So I made up my own definition for marketing, marketing, everything you do to gain and you’ll love To retain a customer.

So in credibility, because that’s what I talked about, nobody can define it. So I looked at what what does the prospect need to know, to define you as credible or not? What’s the criteria your customers using? So we created the credibility calculator, it has 20 questions, takes less than five minutes to go through. And I will deliver to you a credibility score zero to 100.

And then we follow that up with five videos that teach you how to increase your credibility. It’s really important for you to understand how credible Are you? And how does your customer think of you remember early on when I told you that I published my book, and I’d mail it to you and I’d walk into your office and you’d hire me? Why did that happen?

Because I had instant credibility in your mind. Yeah, how credible Are you take the credibility calculators that our website, it’s absolutely free, and get your score, and then learn how to improve your credibility score.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:07

Love it now. Gank to get access to the credibility calculator, visit paper back expert.com Perfect is paper back expert.com. And there’s a link on top of the page, click on it. And you will how long does it take Michael to do this?

Michael DeLon  56:25

Less than five minutes?

Mostafa Hosseini  56:26

Yeah, 20 questions five minutes quickly, you’ll and are they gonna get a score on? What’s going to happen and what the results look like?

Michael DeLon  56:35

Yep, we’ll give you we’ll email you the results that will say Mustafa, you scored a 37. And then you’re going to have five videos that follow that up that help you understand how to take that 37 to a 47 to 67 to a 97. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:50

Love it. Love it. Love it. So again, the link again is in the descriptions of the show it is in the comments. And if you go to if you’re listening to this, paperback, expert.com Mica, what is your life mission? in as few words as possible?

Michael DeLon  57:04

My mission is to facilitate growth in organizations and individuals.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:13

Love it, love it, love it. In the little time that we have left can ask you some personal questions. Absolutely. What’s a new thing you have tried recently was a new

Michael DeLon  57:23

thing that I’ve tried recently. I am learning about investing in overfunded life insurance, to build cash values to be able to invest that those cash values in real estate. So that’s what I’m learning right now of how to build wealth through life insurance properly funded, and in real estate. So we’re reading all kinds of books and having conversations with lots of people.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:50

That is like way over my head. That sounds really, yeah,

Michael DeLon  57:54

I’ve got a vision. But you haven’t asked me yet. But I’ve got a vision of a 200 year vision for my family and our business. Because my business isn’t going to stop when I retire or die. I want it to keep going. My son who’s 26 runs the business with me. I want his children and their children to work in our family business, and to provide education and health care and in houses and cars for them, so my vision is taught 200 years down the road. I’m trying to build that right now. I

Mostafa Hosseini  58:24

love it. I absolutely adore that 200 Year Vision idea. This is beautiful. Yeah. Whilst people can’t think of past tomorrow, actually.

Michael DeLon  58:35

You’re right. We have limited vision here. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  58:38

1. Give me two of your favorite books.

Michael DeLon  58:42

Well, the Bible is number one by far above everything else. From a marketing perspective, God give you two more for marketing. One is called The One Thing by Gary Keller. And the other one that I think every listener needs to read is The 22 Immutable Laws of marketing by Jack trout now, Reese,

Mostafa Hosseini  59:02

I have read that book and it is an absolute must read for everybody. Yep, it will save you light years of headache in the market at work. Oh. What’s one advice that made a big impact in life or business?

Michael DeLon  59:16

Be yourself early on Mustafa. I would not do video because I didn’t have the right studio or the right lighting. And I thought I had to be perfect. I was trying to do video the way I thought You thought I should show up. Be yourself. When I started being Michael. Everything changed things

Mostafa Hosseini  59:33

a lot easier. I’ve had the similar experience when I’m in a business work when I became myself. People are like, Oh, this is actually a nice guy. Call me all sorts of names. And yeah, it was just it was not there was no flow. It wasn’t it wasn’t a good experience. If you had a Facebook or Google ad, where everyone around the world with access to internet cuts See your message? What would your message be for people around the globe?

Michael DeLon  1:00:08

It would be somewhere around. Be yourself, tell your story. We all have a story that needs to be told that we don’t tell me your story of being born in Iran and then being raised in Canada and having your family. Are you telling that story in your marketing to get people to bond with you? Because even though I wasn’t I don’t I don’t have that same story. I was born in Indiana.

 I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. Thanks. So I move helps you connect, tell your story and connect at the heart. Here you go. And I learned this from a marketing guy, Roy Williams, when you win the heart, the mind will follow. Reach the heart, be yourself speaking emotionally, then bring the logic in. But too much too much marketing is the other way around. When the heart the mind will follow. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:07

1. Love it. Love it. Michael, is there anything that you’d like to add that we maybe we then get a chance to talk about before we wrap up?

Michael DeLon  1:01:15

We’ve talked about everything. Usually at the very end. The one tip advice I always say is just be yourself. I’ve hammered that I think, be yourself. Let me know who you are in your marketing on your podcast and your videos through your book. Be yourself tell me the background story. It’s going to change your business going to make things much easier, much more fun. Be yourself.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:39

Love it. Michael, this, this was very valuable you this was a value bomb, you dropped a lot of amazing valuable nuggets, gang gang, go to paperback expert.com, get your assessment with the credibility calculator, do reach out to Michael and his team. If you want to become become an establish yourself as an expert within your market and to stand out and differentiate and make your client and customer acquisition a lot easier to reach out to have a conversation and tap into their knowledge and wisdom.

 I know a lot of people that are working with Michael, the guy is is a master at what he does. And he’s a systems guy. So definitely, definitely, at least worth having a conversation with. Yeah, right and then take it from there. Now, here let me try this what we came up with. And like I mentioned earlier, if you want to fill your calendar with my customers cash and a constant flow of referrals, without picking up the phone, type toward retention and a comment below and we’re going to send you the checklists to simple retention formula, so you can achieve that easily and simply.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Michael again. We will see you guys next week on our next episode. Until then, again, please Like Like and subscribe to the show. If you have any questions for me or Michael, put him in a comment below. And make sure you share this episode with someone else who could benefit from establishing themselves as an expert and establish and create their credibility. And we’ll take it from there. You’ve been listening to daily confidence for entrepreneurs, have yourself a great day. Thank you