Someone asked me what my biggest lesson was from writing Million Dollar Weekend.
My answer?
We all can do harder things than we realize.
Writing a book is hard. Building a business is also hard.
But they’re not impossible.
There’s been so much I’ve learned from creating Million Dollar Weekend.
Here are 5 reflections from the entire book process (and how you can apply them to your life).
Let’s dive in…
1- Success leaves Clues
Writing a book is no small decision. It takes YEARS to create (it took me 4). And after it’s finalized? It will be around for the rest of your life.
While I’m a huge advocate for taking action, some things are best learned by talking to others who have already done it.
Before I started, I chatted with best-selling authors like James Clear, Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi and others to collect advice and check if I wanted to actually write a book.
When I did start, Tahl Raz (my co-author) had me write 30+ book reports on the top entrepreneurship books to see what they did well and what we could improve on.
Example of a book report from David Goggins’s best seller.
You can shortcut success by looking at the breadcrumbs of the greats.
2- Build WITH your customers.
When most people hear the word “author” they think of a lone writer clacking away at a typewriter in a cabin out in the woods.
At least that’s what I picture. 😅
But not only is that BORING, it’s ineffective.
Instead, I applied the marketing strategies I learned at Mint (explained in Million Dollar Weekend) to create the book WITH my customers.
I call this the Survey to Sale Method. More on this in a future email.
After I wrote the first draft, my early readers pointed out what was missing and what I needed to double down on.
We ALL have gaps in our thinking. The best way to fill those gaps is to survey your audience, get feedback, and iterate. All the way to the first sale.
Help from early readers 💚
3- Work backwards from your goal
One of the biggest lessons I learned from James Clear was to plan the book marketing FAR in advance.
I started working on the launch 18 months before the book’s release date.
We created a master spreadsheet where we coordinated podcasts, scheduled content, secured bulk buys, tracked the Launch Team growth, and forecasted sales. Essentially planning every aspect of the launch MONTHS before we needed to.
Marketing your product should not be a surprise. The best way to do that is to plan in advance.
We planned content for every single day leading up to the launch.
Once we set our goal of 25,000 book sales within 30 days, we could plan how we could get there. Planning that far in advance helped us coordinate a huge marketing effort that helped drive a ton of sales for the book.
If you don’t have a clear goal and timeline for your business… make one today.
4- We can do hard things
I hired Tahl Raz so I wouldn’t have to write the book all myself. Got Charlie Hoehn to work his editing magic and then got line-by-line feedback from 1,000+ amazing beta readers.
I thought I was learning to delegate better. But the reality was I was scared that my book wouldn’t help people. So I tried to avoid most of the work.
That came to a head one night when my publisher said the book was due in 2 weeks. I read the latest version of it and couldn’t honestly put my name on the cover.
I had to face myself.
Then I started getting feedback from people 1 by 1. I meticulously went over every word. And started working 15 hour days to improve the book (thank you girlfriend for bringing me food!). I realized I could do a book that can help change peoples lives in a weekend and that every one of my readers can do the same for themselves!
Feedback and help
This is the same for everyone. You can do hard things. You can live an amazing life. You can start today. But you have to face the thing you’ve been avoiding.
5- Focus on the input, not the output
I didn’t constantly check my book’s performance on Amazon…the first time I checked the Amazon ranking was the morning of the book launch (peaked at 18).
(I still don’t know what it is today. Literally, can someone tell me? Ha!)
Instead, I reminded myself constantly to focus on the inputs in my control:
- How many emails I reply to
- How many DMs I answer
- How many social posts we create
- How many people I ask to be on their podcasts
Our ego and vanity love to know the outcomes of our actions. But if we can get the joy and reward from the inputs – we will sustain longer and results will come.
Yay 🥳
What a wild ride…
This book is my life’s work. It’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned in entrepreneurship in one place.
If you’re willing to take a chance on yourself, the world wants you to win.
Uncle Noah’s rooting for you. 💚
PS. If you read the book and loved it, let me know below in the comments!
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