Options and advice for thought leadership authors | Rod Robertson

Peter Winick

Using ghostwriters to publish thought leadership.

An interview with Rod Robertson about authoring books, the assistance ghostwriters can provide, and the doors that unlock from having a book published.

Today’s guest is Rod Robertson, Managing Partner of Briggs Capital, guest speaker at forums ranging from the Harvard Business School and the Babson MBA program, and author of two books The Human Vector and Winning at Entrepreneurship.

We start the conversation with Rod discussing how he uses thought leadership and authorship to drive business. He explains why having a published book can be important for clarifying your thoughts.

Next, we continue our discussion on authoring and publishing by talking about how a ghostwriter can help you put your thoughts to paper in a more timely fashion than a first-time author. Rod explains why the table of contents of a book is forcing mechanism to give your book structure. Then, he shows how it can be used as a marketing tool to draw in potential readers. In addition, Rod shares how he used an agency for his second book. Then, he discusses why they were more capable of driving the book to the market for him.

Our conversation concludes with Rod giving some great advice to the potential first-time author that might be listening.

Three Key Takeaways from the Interview

Having a book is a great way to solidify your thought leadership and drive business.
Working with a ghostwriter can allow a thought leader to take their book to market much faster than writing it alone.
Books on thought leadership need to have a strong table of contents at least 30% of the chapters speaking to the potential reader.

Options and advice for thought leadership authors can be difficult to find alone. Thought leadership Leverage can assist you navigating the world of thought leadership publishing. We can help you find a ghostwriter and provide a book launch strategy. So contact Thought Leadership Leverage and we can assist you!

Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership today. My guest is Rod Robertson. He is the managing partner of Bridges Capital. He’s a very experienced entrepreneur and businessperson. He’s written a couple of books. One was called Winning and Entrepreneurship. And he’s been a speaker at places like Harvard Business School, Babson and dozens of other places. But instead of wasting our time together talking about his accomplishments, which are many, I’d rather just dive in and have a have a conversation. So welcome aboard, Rod.

Rod Robertson It’s going to be fun. Let’s do it.

Peter Winick Yeah. So I would classify you not the first bullet point I would not put up as author. I would put more business guy, entrepreneur, etc. Author would probably be like number 3 or 4 in terms of maybe it’s level of importance for you, but maybe talk a little bit how you’ve sort of used thought leadership and authorship to increase your brand awareness and ultimately drive business for you.

Rod Robertson You know, it’s such clarity to me having these books because when you have to sit down and write these books and have fun, anything everyone doesn’t already know. It makes you organize your thoughts and a written word that doesn’t fizzle away. And everyone can pillar you forever with what you put in these books. So it’s you know, the book writing for me was great in that I learned the mechanics of it. And, you know, these books used to be 300 pages. Now they only can be 200 pages. Sure, they don’t want to read anything more than that. And so, you know, I’ve gotten very good at synthesizing, like everyone else, our thoughts and that we’re forced to do it.

Peter Winick So let’s stay there for a minute, because a lot of people think, okay, I’m ready to write my book. I’ve been doing whatever I’m doing for ten years, 20 years, whatever. I know it better than anybody else. And then once they sit down, they’re like, geez. Like, it’s really hard to articulate in the written word my thinking, my framework, my methodology. So it’s sort of one of the secondary benefits. In some case, a primary is it forces you to clarify your thinking and get it tight. And sometimes actually. Question Wait a minute, I used to think about it in this sequence, but now when I write it out, it’s actually ADT, not ABC or whatever, you know? So how did you respond to that?

Rod Robertson Yeah, I mean, writing the book was so much fun. It was so interesting because I’m a numerics guy being an investment banker. And, you know, the first book took me 550 hours all in. And so of that 150 was promoting 400. Yeah. And so, you know, and if you’re working pretty much full time, you know, you got to be regimented. I would pick every other day and I knew I couldn’t write more than two hours and write. I banged that out in a year and did well enough. The second one I co-wrote with somebody else. And which was really interesting. He was from Europe. It was a much more different mental exercise, but I put in 300 hours in that. So, you know, you got to look at the hours and the time. But once you have these books, it’s so interesting. You know, you get invited everywhere with the books. But I’m the same guy as I was the day before I sent the book out.

Peter Winick I won’t tell anybody. They’ll say the world thinks something different. I would question, you know, the first ratio you had if I if my math was right, it sounds like three quarters of the time was on the development of the book and a quarter on the marketing. I think in this market, it’s at least 5050, if not almost inverted. The other side of that. Right. So, you know, people think writing a book is difficult. It’s not easy, but writing it, if you’re not allocating the time, energy, effort, resources, etc., to the marketing side, even if you’re not a quote, marketing guy or gal, it’s for not, you know, because it’s got to get out into the not out into the world like the Today Show. But I always work with clients as okay, who are the avatars, Who are the let’s get really laser focused and say, if I got this book into the these 300 hands, that could be a game changer for me in my business and right to them. Not, you know, the housewife in Idaho and then the entrepreneur in Kansas and then the business leader, Hey, you can’t be all things to all people.

Rod Robertson Yeah, I mean, I bought my first book six years ago, and it’s totally, totally different than when my book just came out three months ago. And now with this huge pandemic and the politics and the tribalism and the disruption in the workplace, thank God my book came out, you know, right at the end of this and I was able to be into it. Anything that was written halfway through last year is being questioned as passé and like almost before the fall of the Roman Empire. I mean, the seismic shifts and everything that’s really and for the people that have a book in them, there’s no better time to be relevant than going after it now. And the ghostwriters, a lot of people, the writers and the ghostwriters can really help get jealous and get it out there quick.

Peter Winick Yeah. So two different things there I want to talk about of that relevancy piece. People put the. Wrong thought, leadership in the wrong modality? I think so right now at the sort of early, almost post-COVID stage, I don’t know what we’re at or where we’re coming up on a one-year anniversary. So it’s not over. It’s clearly not over yet. But there is a almost a rush of books literally coming out like in the last couple of weeks. And the next couple of weeks are sort of the first Covid books. And what’s interesting is if you know anything about publishing, you know, that means they were probably written six months ago in the normal world, six months. The world doesn’t change all that. Months and six months ago it was a different game. And it’s really, really hard to try to thread that needle. And I would argue and say, you know, should there really be a book, some of those concepts, or are there other ways to unleash it? So if you’re talking about principles of leadership, culture management, you know, I think it’s pretty safe to say, okay, it’s not going to be yesterday’s bread by the time it gets out, but you got to be careful what the modality is because at the time it’s.

Rod Robertson Writing a book before World War Two and after World War.

Peter Winick Two.

Rod Robertson What exactly And you know, with big tech changing things and that and the way everything’s evolving so quickly, I think it’s great that people so many people are putting the books on pause to business books because, I mean, a lot of what’s relevant in business has been totally reset. I mean, right now I’m going through 15 different companies financials since January, and we’re looking at broken balance sheets. We’re looking at disrupted cash flow. And so you can’t go back and do the EBITDA multipliers to find out what these businesses were.

Peter Winick Right. Right.

Rod Robertson Last year is chaos. So what people are doing to value their businesses today is they’re doing 50% to start. But the first question everyone says is, what’s the company’s pipeline? What is your client base look like? And if you have customer concentration, are those customers going away? And people are putting ratchets and all sorts of different tools around.

Peter Winick Yeah, yeah. You know, and that’s scary for an investment banker because normally you look at the financials and the history is what the history is and all things considered, plus or minus five, 10%, your bets pretty safe, right? You know, with some caveats there. Now, who knows what businesses are coming back, what businesses on the other side might do 400% more than what they did pre-COVID because they’re in the right space.

Peter Winick If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave us a review and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com/podcasts.

Peter Winick I want to go back to something that you touched on a moment or two ago, which is ghostwriting because I think there are a lot of misperceptions or lack of understanding about ghostwriting. So ghostwriting is a word, right? But underneath that, there is not all one size fits all. And I always say to clients, listen, you know, it’s a continuum. You know, the worst case of a ghostwriter is you do not you know, they write everything and you put your name on it. And I think that’s what people think it is. But the reality is, when you when you double click on that, there’s ghost writers that are actually partners in your thinking, you know, thought partners that will spar with you and challenge your thinking there. There are ghostwriters that are just masters of the craft of the written word and might help you elevate the way you communicate. There’s different levels. So tell me about your experience, because you seem to be in the pro ghostwriting camp, which I like. But what did that mean for you and what did you learn about that?

Rod Robertson Well, we’re all in a hurry, so for people to get their thoughts out, not everyone’s a professional writer or can articulate themselves correctly in writing. So it’s like a menu, just like you were saying, where you could start and it’s ten, 20% they can help you with. But building the table of contents is the key to the book. If you have only five chapters, the chapters in business books really shouldn’t be more than six pages because the average person reads business straight or reads a chapter at a time for, you know, 15, 20 minutes wherever they are, and then they’re done. And when someone looks at your 25 chapters, maybe seven of those chapters have to be, That’s me, That’s me. And then it.

Peter Winick Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rod Robertson You know, she needs, you know, a 33% hit ratio in your table of contents for people to buy, and they got to have some sizzle. Table of contents is so important. And once you built out the skeleton of the book, then the book flows so easy. And now at the end of every book, people love case studies.

Peter Winick Yeah. So I want to stay on that on the table of content because you bring up a point I haven’t really thought of before, which I love. I’ve heard a lot of people praise that table of content as a structural mechanism. Okay, so this clarifies my thought. We’re chapter five. We’re going to talk about this. And this is where I’ll put principle two. And it’s sort of an organizing mechanism to give you structure, right? But I haven’t thought about it, but I think you’re dead on that. It’s actually a marketing tool. So if I’m looking at your book versus every other, I think when people don’t realize that. What goes into a book buying decision is a couple of things. One is, hey, you know, if I’m a fan abroad, sure, I’ll buy your next book because I trust you on the last one. But if I don’t know who you are, the title’s important to cover is important. Whatever. How do I get to know them? I never thought because I do it. You know, you skim a table of content contents. But I never thought about it that way. You didn’t into. Yeah, because I’m mentally doing that going, that’s interesting. Not too much. That’s really interesting. Really interesting. I don’t know if the number is 33%, but if a couple of things, I’m go, okay, click. I’ll do it because the 20 bucks I don’t care about at all. It’s I’m not going to waste four hours of my life, you know, that’s worth far more to me than 20 bucks, you know.

Rod Robertson But the first book I wrote was me writing it myself. And I had enough in there and I got some great coaching when I wrote that book. The second one, I worked with this dude from Belarus, the Bill Gates bill. That was the common thing. But this book was so difficult to really absorb his technical manifesto. But then we are human mistake and I spiced up the titles and it’s doing great. And now I’m starting to think about a book and I’m with people for the Spanish world and there’s a huge gap. But he’s making the same situation where the steak, the sizzle, you need the sizzle and not the steak all the time. Because you know what? The last half of the book, people don’t really even read it. They get into the right.

Peter Winick Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it fades it out. So I want to. Switch for a moment to now the marketing side. So we talked about sort of structure, process, value of a ghostwriter table. It’s all good stuff. But you’re not doing this for your health, right. You know, there’s you have limited time in the day. Can you talk a little bit about either the passport and maybe to a lesser extent the current book, what it’s done for you from a business standpoint? And obviously direct clients are great, but doors open, like what’s the ROI, if you will, And can you give maybe some examples of doors that it’s opened in, things that it’s done for you?

Rod Robertson Yeah, it’s so strange and everyone knows it, but it really is strange. Once you have your book, it opens just about virtually every door. I sent a copy of the book I had. I sent out 200 copies of my books ahead to anybody. So that and I don’t quite know what to do with it, but, you know, it’s there. It’s solid. They see the picture of me in the back. I teach at the Harvard Business School and they’re like, okay, this case that it’s a differentiator in so many business fashions and you really need it and then you can get out there with this book.

Peter Winick So it stay on the differentiated four minutes. You’re an investment banker. Let’s assume for argument’s sake, you’re slightly better than average, maybe even a lot better. But let’s let let’s assume your average because statistically you’d probably be an average investment banker. No, no, no disrespect. But if I’m a company talking to four investment bankers that week, that month, that whatever, and one of them’s got a book, I’m always believe in the power of tiebreaker. Like it’s tangible, it stays on board, it’s on my Kindle or on my night table. You get to hang with me a little bit more in my head where your competitors wouldn’t. So could you comment on that?

Rod Robertson Well, in my world of investment banking, the business owners and managers are all over the age of 40 to 45. So a tangible book is good.

Peter Winick It still means something. Yeah.

Rod Robertson You know, even now, what is it? 73% of the books are sold in Kindle and 57 of all books are sold through Amazon. So everything’s online. I mean, my last 500 books I’ve read have been all.

Peter Winick You know.

Rod Robertson From other authors. But, you know, having that book, get it out there on the Kindle and now with this clarity of marketing, I mean, I mean, I don’t even know how to go about it. So I hired an agency the first time I did it myself, I went to all the. Sure. It was painful and it was difficult, but I did it. But the second book I understood I had to get an agency, you know, with the these platforms podcast, everything that they drove me into in the last month, I think I’ve been viewed by, you know, 5 to 10 million people for, you know, for serious some pretty serious dialogs. And only because I had the book I No. One you know right.

Peter Winick I mean that’s the entry ticket. Yeah. So let’s go back to the business stuff. So we talked about sort of tiebreaker. What other things has it done? Because if you did it once and it didn’t happen or why you wouldn’t do it twice, but the fact that you do it twice leads me to believe like not only did you enjoy it intrinsically, but it was beneficial to you in the business. So any other examples on how it’s benefited you from a business perspective?

Rod Robertson Yeah, I would say, you know, it was great fun. I mean, someone was down in Guatemala at this guy’s office and my friend called me and sent a picture of my book at this billionaire’s office who owns the largest liquor company in all there in the world. And he says, this book is great news. So that’s my friend. Right? That’s fun, you know? And then his son calls me the billionaire son calls and he wants to maybe buy a business. So, I mean, the book is out there and it’s shocking where it floats up. And now I have my first one crossing over with my second. It gets picked up everywhere. And, you know, you don’t have to put as much time in as the ghostwriters. Now, you know, I understood the value of these ghostwriters. Sure. Politician Now, who’s going to run for office, Get her book going, and she’s just going to dictate to this guy and he’s going to write up, you know, all sizzle. No, stay 150 page book, crank it out and get it in the market. 60 days. And she’s going to she’s going to buy 5000 copies of it herself and just handed out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect need for my people to learn from my book, to understand what they’re getting into in the business. And they might let one of my books, you know, on the back cover was The Highway to Business Hell, because I thought everyone making great money, big stuff. And you know, I get tired of the success stories. I’m going to talk about breed avarice. People, you know, make a terrible decision.

Peter Winick Sure.

Rod Robertson You’re partners. I mean, that’s just.

Peter Winick The dark underbelly of business that we’re all familiar with that we could learn so much from. You know.

Rod Robertson About a lot of business books that are just brilliant people exposing their things and trying to be modest but show, you know, how great they are. Yeah, people waste from a business book, you know?

Peter Winick Yeah. No, no, that’s exactly So as, as we start to wrap up here, run someone out there, I am sure is listening. That’s in a stage where you are before your first book. So they think they’re thinking it’s on the night table. Maybe they’ve gotten a quote or two or an agent or whatever, whatever. What would you. Advise them to be thinking about or doing when they choose or to help them make the best decision for them. Because there is no one right decision of do I go traditional publishing or whatever, but give them like a mini series, 3 or 4 pointers that you should think about and get right.

Rod Robertson I think everyone has a story inside of them and a book inside of them, and the professional help that can surround you can bring out the best and squash your worst. And you can deliver a very interesting book. And I guarantee five, ten years from now, you’ll be so proud to have that book. You know, And when you have the book, you find other people with books. I’ve opened up a whole new genre of friendships through these books. I mean, I’ve met so many fascinating people and you’re talking to people and I meet some great author and I said, We’re going to go, I’m a bit of a small fry over here. That that that the guy clicks on, he looks me up and he goes, okay, let’s talk. You know, it’s big, big fun, you know, And have I made money on my first book? You know, it was a successful book. I know it cost me 20, 30,000 all in. How much should I make? 50,000. I don’t know. You know, So it paid Well.

Peter Winick That’s direct book sales, though. But the business side because the money on the book is a rounding error the business side you know if you if you picked up 2 or 3 transaction paper it’s up, you know, ten, 50 times over.

Rod Robertson Exactly. So it’s great it’s out there. And if I say everything, all of us have a book inside of this and Yeah. And you know what? If you’re really serious about it, can get a hold of me drop me know that Ron at bricks capital.com and it would be a pleasure to talk to anyone that’s seriously considering it because it’s a huge time suck money so yeah you don’t want to embarrass yourself by putting out a bad product.

Peter Winick Well said. Well, I appreciate your time and I appreciate your insights and I appreciate you. Thank you. Ron. Thanks for coming on today.

Rod Robertson I enjoyed this. This was a lot of fun.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.