In 2000, I just moved to New Zealand.
I didn't know a soul in Auckland.
I hadn't even been to New Zealand before.
And to top it off, I ditched my cartooning career to get into marketing.
Getting work wasn't easy
Who would trust an ex-cartoonist to do their marketing? Was I even able to trust myself? I felt like such a fraud. And yet, after a presentation–a short, rambling presentation, one of the audience members asked me to give her the notes.
I had no notes
But she was persistent. So I sat down and wrote the first version of The Brain Audit. It was just 20 pages long. 16, if you remove the filler-stuff. But it was my first book. Imagine the thrill, when I spoke at other events, and people were buying this book.
Except it wasn't a book
It was an e-book. And it was 2000. An age when people barely dealt with e-mail, let alone read a book on their computers. And yet, the book brought us clients.
At first, just local clients. Then it spread to the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan. That tiny little book grew in stature (and pages–it's now 180 pages). And to date, that book has generated over half a million dollars in revenue. Yes, one book!
$500,000 isn't something I'd dreamed of earning for a single book…
The money is nice. It lets us live well, travel, take three months off every year. But it did so much more for me.
It helped me organise my thoughts–make it a system.
It helped me avoid toxic clients. And get clients we could go to dinner with, instead. It helped me open doors. A lot of doors. And generated a sizeable revenue over the years. And most importantly, it proved that I could do it.
Today we sit at a juncture of pure chaos–and opportunity
When we look at the marketplace, everyone seems to be an “expert”. And yet, you only have to read the first few pages–or maybe the first chapter–to figure out the experts from the run-of-the-mill.
Because customers are being swamped with so much junk, they want to shop around a lot less. They want to find a trusted source and then stick with that source. A customer like that, becomes a client. Buying any books, courses, workshops and consulting from you. But for this to happen, you have to be able to construct the book in a way that's consumable.
People are sick of junk, yes, but they're more sick of mountains of junk
When you learn to write a book following a structure of “consumption”, it's a lot like a dinner. Where you start, and finish and come back for more. Instead, many books are so
overwhelming that the customers never finish, never coming back for more.
The more they come back, the more they ask questions
The more questions they ask, the more answers you can give. This in turn creates content for more books, more courses, more consulting.
In short, close to the perfect business!
There's no such thing as perfect, but getting a book together is the closest thing to starting down that line. Your thoughts are clearer. Your clients are nicer. You do stuff that you really want to do, instead of the same boring stuff.
The Brain Audit was my first book
I gave it my all. 20 pages was my whole world. I didn't know if I'd write another book. But I learned how to write books, conduct workshops, do courses and get consulting gigs. In fact, we got so busy that we didn't even have to do consulting by 2003. In just three years, we were moving away from things we “had to do” vs. things we wanted to do.
The workshops at Silver Spring-US and Auckland-New Zealand are an invitation to enter the world of structure. A world where consumption matters. It's not where you learn to write, but rather how to take the information you have in your head, and structure it in a way that it gets read, listened to, absorbed. Besides, it's fun. A heck of a lot of fun.
One speaker.
One topic.
Actual implementation, instead of blah-blah.
You know you're ready, but judge for yourself.
We'd love to meet you there. And oh, you get to meet Elmo! 😉
Silver Spring, US—https://www.psychotactics.com/dc
Auckland, New Zealand— https://www.psychotactics.com/workshops/auckland/
Regards,
Sean
P.S. Eight seats are gone already. That's about a third–and so far we've only announced it to a few clients. The remaining ⅔ may not last long.
P.P.S. Not everyone is allowed to the workshop. You have to have read The Brain Audit before the workshop. If you have, that's cool. If you haven't, then it's a requirement before the workshop. You will also get the entire workshop notes a whole month in advance.
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