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I'm writing a book, so can you - Paul Zakr
158 Plays3 years ago
Happy Woo Wednesdays! I turn 37 this week so I thought it was fitting to announce that my new book for wedding photographers comes out by the end of the year. It was actually never a dream of mine to write a book but I felt a calling during the pandemic to share my decade long experience, mistakes to avoid and a roadmap to a thriving business in wedding photography (the best career in the world in my opinion). Get on the waitlist and you will be the 1st to know when you can get your hands on this. https://carissa-woo.mykajabi.com/the-woo-factor Do you like the title? Woo Them to HECK YES!: A Pro Wedding Photographer’s Tips for Earning Six Figures and Perfecting Any Couples’ Big Day I couldn't have done it without my writing coach Paul Zak and Book Launchers. https://booklaunchers.com/ Hot topics: Tips on how to start writing your very own book This episode is with Paul. He truly has a 6th sense for understanding people. I love his story about his dad being a Holocaust survivor. I love the story he shares about Steven King writing back to him when he was a boy. Do you want to write a book? This episode is for you. Connect with Paul here pzak.info. You have a soul-stirring story to tell. Or you’ve made an important breakthrough, undergone a radical transformation, taken a major journey, explored an alternative pathway, or uncovered a fascinating mystery. He's launching a new podcast "The Book I Had to Write" in May. So excited for this! Connect with Paul https://www.pzak.info/ Connect with Carissa Woo https://www.instagram.com/carissawoophotography www.heckyesmedia.co
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Transcript
Introduction to Carissa's Book
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, guys. Welcome back to Get a Heck Yes with me, your host, Carissa Wu. So I have a very special announcement. I am writing a book. And it comes out by the end of the year. And do you want to know the title? If it doesn't change, it's going to be Woo Them to Heck Yes, a pro wedding photographer's tips for earning six figures and perfecting any couple's big day. So I really wanted to write a book. So the first thing I did was hire
00:00:28
Speaker
a book coach. So today I'm speaking to my book coach Paul Zach
00:00:34
Speaker
And truly, I could not do it without him. He's written many books, and he's just been amazing to work with. So I guess the biggest takeaway if you guys are interested in writing your own book is a well-executed book can create life-changing benefits, transforming you from little-known expert to acknowledged authority, which means you'll have a greater reach, credibility, and influence. So he's going to give tons of tips today.
Role of a Book Coach: Paul Zach
00:01:02
Speaker
Enjoy.
00:01:07
Speaker
Welcome to Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. I'm your host, Carissa, and I've been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over a decade. I've traveled the world, built my team, and seen it all. I now coach wedding photographers hit 10K a month and build a thriving business. In this podcast, we are going to deep dive into how top wedding creatives get that heck yes from their dream clients. We are not holding back on the struggles of the business and how to push through the noise. Some healthy hustle, mindset shifts, up-leveling your money story,
00:01:35
Speaker
Time hacks because I'm a mom of two, a little bit of woo-woo, and most importantly, self-love and confidence are just a few of the many things we will talk about. I want to give you a genuine thank you for following along my journey. I hope to inspire you every Woo Wednesday so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon!
00:01:58
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Heck Yes with me, Carissa Wu. I'm here with my friend, Paul Sechszewski, and he is my writing coach and a little bit of bio about him. So since 2005, he's coached writers at all levels to overcome self-limiting beliefs and publish their most important stories through the application
00:02:18
Speaker
of craft and insight. His brand new six months to wow draft one-on-one book coaching program helps coaches, entrepreneurs, educators, and other experts to go from zero to a completed draft of the platform building life-changing book in six months. And he's helped me write my first book ever for wedding photographers. And I'm so excited for you to be on my show.
Paul's Storytelling and Writing Journey
00:02:44
Speaker
Welcome Paul.
00:02:46
Speaker
Thank you, Chrissa. That's a wonderful introduction. Did I have to show you your last name? You got my last name so well. I used to actually, I would write in hieroglyphs, Zach and then a chef like the guy with the hat and that was the way people got it. Oh, that's so funny. I'll just call you Zach Attack.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, that was my nickname in grade school, Fright Night. Yeah. Oh my God. That's so funny. Okay. So just a little bit of context for the listeners. I just told them, I'm writing a book, me and you, you helped me. It was through book launchers, but now you have your own thing. And we worked together for about, was it a year?
00:03:27
Speaker
I think it was about half a year, it was about six months. Okay, six months, and you created, you helped me from zero to now I have a full-on transcript. I printed it out, it was a beast to write it. And honestly, I couldn't have done it without you.
00:03:43
Speaker
I tell you this all the time but you are a genius because I'm not a writer and you know that and you walk me through everything and you put it all together so I couldn't be more grateful and you're gonna change my life but it's not gonna come out for another like I don't know six months but yeah you're gonna change my life or you have already.
00:04:01
Speaker
I'm really excited for your book coming out. And just for the record, I'm not a genius, but I appreciate all the kind words. Yeah, you actually had a lot of your book. You had a lot of the bones of your book already, actually. You're further along than the clients necessarily will be in my program now. So there was a lot to work with.
00:04:26
Speaker
But yeah. How did you get started? I mean, you could tell us a little bit about your background and growing up and how you got to this point and now like launching your own business. Yeah. Well, I grew up in Canada. In fact, I was just back there. And so if hosts and a boat come out as I talk and
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, I've been a writer since I was a kid. I just loved writing. I remember trying to write, and I was really obsessed with monsters as a young teen. And I remember, in fact, I was going to write an anthology. And I wrote to Stephen King and asked him to do the introduction. I still have the letter he wrote me from the early 80s. So writing was always big for me. So he wrote you back?
00:05:18
Speaker
He wrote me back. Yeah, he stopped doing that at some point in the 90s, but I have this postcard from him. It's really cool. What did he say? He said he couldn't do it, but he'd keep an eye out for my book. I actually did end up writing or editing an anthology that came out about 2003, but it was not about monsters. It was new Jewish fiction, very different. Awesome. How many books have you published now?
00:05:46
Speaker
I just have that one book, and right now I'm working on a collection of essays, of personal essays, about a lot of this stuff, actually, about growing up in suburban Canada, and ghosts, and being the son of a Holocaust survivor. Oh, wow. Yeah, all sorts of different stuff is going to be in there, so yeah. Oh, so what is this thing about monsters? What do you like about them, and what do you write about them?
00:06:15
Speaker
Well, just as a kid, I think there were things in my life as a young kid that were scary for me that I couldn't control. But monsters were things that I had some control over. And so that's partly what I end up writing about. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And it's funny, in my family background, there were real monsters and ghosts, but they don't look like the ones in the movies.
00:06:43
Speaker
You know, my dad's experience obviously is, you know, in Poland and the war and things like that, you know, so there's real historical echoes. Yeah. Is your dad still alive?
00:06:53
Speaker
He's not, yeah, unfortunately he passed away. Did he tell you all the stories about him? He didn't. He had a lot of survivors. He was on the young side, so he was what they called child survivor. But he was rescued by a Polish Catholic woman, his nanny. And in fact, after he passed, I went to Poland and I met her. And then I took my son when he was about a year old to meet her. Wow.
00:07:23
Speaker
crazy, life-changing experience. Really? Yeah, just to see that my son wouldn't have been there if it weren't for what she did. Oh my gosh. I actually have a little movie I've made about it. It's out there on YouTube. Oh, you have to send me the link and I'll put in the show notes. That's so crazy. Yeah, absolutely. Tell us about the book that you published.
00:07:47
Speaker
I lived in New York for most of my post-college life. I lived in New York or worked in New York City and I started working in the Jewish nonprofit world running literary events. This is in the early 2000s. I had been in the tech industry and had been a reporter and I started working with all these different sorts of writers.
00:08:11
Speaker
I realized that it had been a long time since there had been a collection of these new hotshot writers. It was right after 9-11, and the
Transition to Book Coaching and Collaboration with Carissa
00:08:22
Speaker
first event I did was with someone who ended up being a really big literary agent. I was young and hungry, and I made all the connections, and I put this book together.
00:08:36
Speaker
enough money to pay off the rights for the book, for the stories, and even buy an engagement ring for my now ex-wife. Oh, no. He got your son. Yeah. Well, it's funny. Publishing, we'll talk about it, has changed so much, but I would never get the advance I did then, but it was definitely a very cool introduction to publishing. Wow. Does your son like to write too?
00:09:03
Speaker
He writes poetry. His mom has been interested in poetry. So yeah, not quite the same. He's really into NFTs.
00:09:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Non whatever tangible tokens. Yeah. It's like the new thing. I don't care about it, but I know I should. He likes to make money even, even as a 13 year old. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. So how did you get here as like a writing coach and you're going to start your new podcast? So tell us like everything that you did that got you here now. Yeah. Um, well, I, um,
00:09:40
Speaker
In 2005, I was living in Boston, and I had taken a lot of writing classes. And as I said, I worked as a reporter and different things. And I talked my way into teaching my first class. I actually had no formal teaching experience. But there is an independent writing center called Grub Street in Boston. It's actually been in the news a bunch, if the name is familiar at all.
00:10:05
Speaker
Unfortunately for them, there was this viral story in the New York Times called, Who is a Bad Art Friend? It's about these two women who have been kind of fighting and those charges of plagiarism and kidney donation. It's kind of a crazy story, but not going to get into it here. But they both worked at Grub Street and a lot of people quoted in the story are from Grub Street. So they were all over Twitter, all over the media.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah. Anyways, so unfortunately Grub Street got a bad name, but they were really good to me and I started teaching there. I started teaching a lot of different sorts of people. One of my students was Juliana Hatfield, you know, the rock star from the 90s. So I just, I got really used, you know, I started to develop the skill of giving good feedback to different people at, you know, where they were and kind of just listening and trying to figure out what people needed.
00:11:02
Speaker
and not to impose the story I wanted them to tell, but to figure out what they were really trying to say and to help them say it. I'd say that's where I really, and for about a dozen years I was teaching writing workshops. Right through 2018, yeah. And I tried different things. I tried college admissions essays, I worked with teens, but I really like helping people who kind of, you know,
00:11:28
Speaker
who are adults and who have a story to tell. And in 2018, I got approached by someone here who had a pretty crazy story and was working on a book. And that's how I got my start as a book coach. I can tell you that story.
00:11:47
Speaker
Oh, and I can't like tell the audience more like how much you've helped me. I think it was like a couple of weeks we've been working together and we had a coaching call and you're like, Krista, like you are trying to be woo-woo, but you're not really woo-woo, even though your last name was woo-woo, but you're still not woo-woo. And I was like, oh my God, it's so funny that you said that because I think I was trying to be woo-woo because I just, you know, listened to like,
00:12:13
Speaker
Gabrielle Bernstein, or Gabby Bernstein, and I was trying so hard, but I think my success has come from just hard work and doing, doing, doing. Of course, it's mindset, but it was just funny that you got that about me, and I was like, wow, this guy is in my head. You just understood me, and I just felt like your emotional intelligence would just
00:12:36
Speaker
like no other, like I've never met anyone that could just figure me out so fast by reading like a couple chapters of my book.
00:12:45
Speaker
That's really kind of you to say. You know, I'd say that, again, it comes from that that idea of trying. It was something I had this amazing teacher in college, the woman who introduced me to personal essays. And she was this really kind of scary, formidable teacher. She'd gone to Oxford. She was
00:13:10
Speaker
war refugee, she was kind of mysterious, but she really, really taught me to read for what's on the page and to respect what the author is trying to say and not to impose my wish. And also she taught me the connection between writing well and living well and thinking well. And so those are just some of the things I just always try to bring forward, whoever I'm working with. So I'm not trying to
00:13:37
Speaker
you know, my background is as a literary writer, and that's, I'm definitely what I care about a lot. But I'm not necessarily interested in turning people into literary writers. I'm really interested in helping people tell their authentic story. So in your case, just having worked with you, I knew that you know, you're not a woo woo person. And so that just, I didn't feel like that was authentic to who you are.
Book Structure and Sales Techniques
00:14:01
Speaker
And more to the point, I think that a reader would pick it up. And I feel like my job as a book coach is to help writers really connect to what the readers are going to be looking for. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, that was so, so powerful when you said I was like, wow, he's really getting me. What was like the biggest struggle like of working with me and the best part of working with me?
00:14:29
Speaker
I've forgotten any struggle, Carissa. Say childbirth, I can't forget the bat. I'll take your word for it as a guy.
00:14:42
Speaker
I mean, you know, you're very busy. And so, you know, sometimes I know that we didn't necessarily have all the time to kind of dig in as far as you and I would both want. My favorite things about working with you are, and there are things that I look for and I really ideal clients. And this is what I'm saying to you before we started the show.
00:15:06
Speaker
I really like people who have already got track record of being accomplished. Because then I know that they're someone who likes to do stuff, likes to make things happen. You really know your stuff. I can tell that you're a wonderful wedding photographer, but more than I can tell that you're a wonderful coach because you really just know your
00:15:31
Speaker
stuff inside and out. It's like I would ask you something, I would text you and you would say, here are five things to add to the chapter. Thank you. That makes me so happy. I can't wait for it to come out. Let's see. One more question before we go into our hot topic, but how do you get heck yes from your dream clients?
00:15:53
Speaker
So I'm working on this. It's a little new for me, but I have my own coach who's really helped me develop my, uh, my offers. And, um, he is a huge fan of this book, The Prosperous Coach. Do you know Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin. And they have a process that is the one I'm using. And their idea is you're not trying to close sales. You're trying to, you're just trying to serve.
00:16:20
Speaker
And so the idea is you're just talking to people, you're targeted people, you know, people who have passed the threshold, who are good potentials. And you try and serve and you just get into coaching right away. And you know pretty quickly if there's magic there. And if there is, they're going to want to book you.
00:16:39
Speaker
Oh, I'm so happy you said that because I actually booked someone yesterday and I told her, like, I'm here to serve you. Like, you don't have to work with me. I'll tell you my offer at the end. But I want you to get an aha moment from this call. And she got an aha moment about her niche, like bringing her architecture background with her
00:17:00
Speaker
wedding photography and like merging it together to kind of create this copy and brand to like elevate her brand and raise her prices. So because I gave her the aha moment I was serving her then she hired me as a coach and yeah I said to do that with her couples too because you know they have problems they're
00:17:18
Speaker
They're feeling awkward. They never did this before. They don't know how to pose. So they have pain too. So we're here to serve our couples and tell them we're the posing expert. You all feel comfortable. I've danced my whole life. So it's like serve, serve, serve.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, as you can tell, I love people's stories. I'm always fascinated with people. People all have complicated, interesting paths. And if I can help them get that into their books and show up in their books fully, that's what I want to do. And yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
That's awesome. So today's hot topic, get your life-changing platform building book done in 2022. Three tips to getting started. I got in the last like two or three days, 18 inquiries.
00:18:10
Speaker
What the heck? Hey guys, you all know me. I'm Carissa Wu and I'm a coach for wedding photographers. I've also been a wedding photographer for over a decade so I've been through it all. I was a shy, awkward girl and I've come so far. I'm now beyond passionate about helping wedding photographers not struggle how I did for so many years.
00:18:32
Speaker
It was six years into my business and I was so tired of being ghosted, nickel undimed, and hearing the dreaded words, we went a different direction. I also knew I needed to find a way to not rely on referrals or paying $350 a month for the knot to get my leads.
Writing Tips and Chapter Organization
00:18:48
Speaker
I didn't want to have anxiety about when my next payday was going to come and I wanted to scale my business. Fast forward to now, I created my very own stack system to help wedding photographers get constant leads and master the dreaded sales call and get a heck yes in 24 hours or less.
00:19:05
Speaker
and charge more than 4, 5, 6K. No more waiting around, guys. This is our livelihood, our artistry, and our passion, and we deserve to be respected, valued, and paid for what we are worth. I've helped so many wedding photographers. Watch my 20-minute masterclass all about lead generation and closing the sale. The link is in the bio. You don't want to miss out on the wedding boom, and you don't want to miss out on booking your calendar for 2022.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's engagement season, guys, so you don't want to miss this. See you guys soon. Three suggestions for how to get started. One is that a lot of a lot of people who want to write books make the mistake. They just start writing and they they're they're the people that end up kind of really getting a little lost. You know, so the the big
00:19:59
Speaker
One big takeaway I try to give people is that doing some planning ahead of time is worth its weight in gold. Know what your big argument in your book is. It can take time to get that. Map out your chapters. In fact, as part of my program with people, the six-month program, we spend at least the first month mapping out their book. Wow. Before they've written a chapter.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, we mapped out, you helped me map out my book. So I think we put it into two segments, like the sales and then the actual like shooting the wedding. And so like getting the leads and the sales, how you could have this like life career, lifetime career, sustainable career. And then we also talked about like the pregame call that I had with my clients, and then the actual wedding day, how to be a,
00:20:56
Speaker
best director and pretty much like how do you sell yourself at weddings and get referrals like all the time. So we kind of put together this outline and yeah, you're right. It made it much easier to kind of conquer when we had that base outline.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'm really glad to hear you say that. I feel like sometimes when people hear mapping out, it's like, oh, I'm not going to get my creativity out there. Or it means it's going to be boring because it's this rote thing. And nothing could be further from the truth. Because actually, if you ever remember in your manuscript, we first broke it off into two. But I think at the end, there's at least in my last edit with you, there was three or four sections because I realized that there was a whole mindset that peace began in.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah. So things change. It's just like a blueprint for a house. You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint, right? Yes. But in the process, you might get pretty creative inside that house. So the book's the same way. You want to have a map before you start. So that's one thing. The second thing is stories. Don't be afraid of stories, your own story or other people's stories.
00:22:09
Speaker
I had a client this year, one of the people I was also coaching alongside you, a wonderful entrepreneur who helps female entrepreneurs who have kind of lost their way a little bit to kind of reconnect to their passion and what made them great entrepreneurs to start with. It's a great book. It's a wonderful coach. But in her book, when we were first working together,
00:22:37
Speaker
on the edges, I would see little snippets of her story. And it was pretty clear to me that she was the coach she was because she was exactly that person. She was writing about herself. Oh, interesting. And so I really encouraged her to get her story in there. I think that she felt some prohibitions against it and was feeling self-conscious, and we worked through some of that because
00:23:04
Speaker
There's nothing, you know, if you're a fan of Brene Brown, you know, vulnerability is strange. There's nothing better. I mean, you know, when a friend like opens up to you and like lets you in, then you become stronger friends, right? You all had that experience. And it's the same with writing. You want to hear stories. And so I don't be afraid of stories. Start to think about stories as you're mapping out your book. You know, there's,
00:23:31
Speaker
I could go further into that, that I actually help writers craft scenes. I use some of my background in different writing programs just to give some very basics about how you write a scene. You don't have to be Ernest Hemingway or Joan Didion or whoever. Do you mean like scenes like a movie? Yeah, exactly. You'll remember even in your book, we have little snippets of dialogue.
The Power of Publishing and Storytelling Techniques
00:23:58
Speaker
We show a character, we say she was this and this and this. Anything that's going to help the reader paint a picture. Interesting. Before I jump into tip number two, or you jump into tip number two, I wanted to ask you, why is writing a book life-changing? I know why, but I want to hear it in your words. The books I'm largely working on are what we call platform building books. They're for people who
00:24:25
Speaker
Most often, I'm working with people who are working on their first books. And so it's going to be life changing, because first of all, just getting a book done is this amazing feat, right? It's like being published. It just naturally confers this sense of accomplishment. I think you feel it internally, and then people around you recognize that you're a published author. So that's life changing. That's internal.
00:24:54
Speaker
And then just externally, publishing a book has all these benefits. You might be known as the great wedding photographer of Orange County, but now you have a book out there and you can go out and speak on panels and at conferences and the media might call you up. You've gone to what I call an authority. So you've gone from being an expert into an authority. So I feel like publishing a book accomplishes those things.
00:25:22
Speaker
Oh, I like those words, expert to authority. I never heard that before. Cool. I'm so excited for me to do authority. Okay, take it away with tip number two, I'm getting started with your book.
00:25:34
Speaker
So the first one is map out your book. The tip number two is stories. And tip number three, people sometimes are confused about how to just do a very simple chapter. A very easy way, if you're a new writer, is tell a story, give an anecdote.
00:25:55
Speaker
that somehow illustrates the point you want to make in the chapter. Chapters usually organized around one major idea. There's one big idea you want to, you know, one big kind of theme or idea you want to tackle. That's a chapter. So you try to think of some stories or examples from your own life or your clients or whatever. Use a good one to lead in, make your point, discuss, and then follow up.
00:26:20
Speaker
So those are just ways to organize a chapter. And we did that a lot. You always tell me like it was like you're going into like a door and then you're kind of like leading into the door and like you open it. And like, what do you find? What was that thing you always tell me? Oh, that's a great. That's that is a great metaphor. Yeah, exactly. You know, you want to hook a reader wants to have the experience of getting hooked in right away. You know, on some level, we don't want to just have our medicine right now that no one wants.
00:26:50
Speaker
You know, you want to be entertained, no matter what the thing is. And so our job, your job as a writer, our job as writers, is to entertain on some level, no matter what you're writing. And so there are techniques for that. One of them is to tell a good story. You tell a good story up front, you have your reader. Especially if you then break off the story and you leave them in suspense and then make your point and you come back to the story. That's a great technique.
00:27:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you used to tell me, you're like, you're like, what's the story? What's the story? What's a hook? What's a hook? What's your hook? Yeah, so we talk a lot about hooks with book launchers, which is the company that you and I met through. But also just generally, book coaches will talk about hooks. So yeah, telling a story is a powerful way to do a hook.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, like, um, I think I rushed you through number two, the scene one. So talking more about the scenes. So are you saying like always envision like there's a movie and there's a character in your book and like, how do they like overcome something or go through something and like come out on the end or what do they learn? Is that kind of what you mean? Or how would you like kind of, how would I explain that? Yeah, not necessarily. You,
00:28:11
Speaker
Jot down ideas, like if you, let's say you want to make a point, give me an example of a point you want to make when you're helping a wedding, helping a new wedding photographer. Give me an example of a time that, think about a client and where she or he is stuck.
00:28:30
Speaker
kind of, well, I would, before you said stuck, but I was going to say like, you have to always be directing like the best director because you're really like selling yourself at a wedding. Like people think DJs are selling themselves at weddings for other people to hire them, but actually, you know, wedding photographers too. So, you know, a cocktail hour, I'm like looking for a couple and see, you know, you could kind of tell by body language if they're engaged.
00:28:55
Speaker
and then kind of like doing a group photo and making it super fun and being interactive with the wedding party because if you are a good director, a really awesome director at a wedding, they'll actually ask for your number on the day of.
00:29:10
Speaker
And in their mind, they're like, we already want to book her because she showed up and she did a good job. We could trust her. We saw it with her own eyes. So that's a person. Even if they get referrals from other people, it's like they saw it with their own eyes. So it's a very, very, very hot referral.
00:29:28
Speaker
So I love that example because that chapter in your book was one of the first things you and I actually worked on. I think we worked on the heck yes phone call and then being a director, being the best director, if you remember right at the very beginning. We came back to that chapter a couple different times.
00:29:47
Speaker
Uh-huh. But it was one of your book's really big ideas. And when I think of you, I think of Carissa, like that's one of the things she really kind of teaches people. And if you remember, I'm pretty sure I had you come up with a story at the beginning of that chapter about a time where you didn't direct people and what happened because of that. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, don't get run.
00:30:11
Speaker
You'll get, I don't know the word, but you'll get run over by the running party that tries to think they're a better photographer than you, by the family that they said, oh, their kids are paying this much, you better work hard. You'll get kind of
00:30:27
Speaker
Oh, eatin' alive, that's the word. Like, eatin' alive by these things. If you don't set the stage up, you're a leader. Like, you're there to direct them. They paid you, you know, over 5K to do your job, and you can't just, you could be photojournalistic, but that's not really my style where you're flyin' the wall. Like, I feel like my style is very directive, and I get the shot because the wedding day goes by in a blink of eye, so you can't just leave it to luck. You have to kind of,
00:30:55
Speaker
make your, your trademark images and these images are going to, you know, go on the walls for generations to come. So yeah. I have no doubt that you're someone who did something maybe wrong the first time and you learned your lesson and, and, and I'm sure it came really naturally to you. Um, but what was helpful about us finding that, that one example of when it didn't happen is that for the reader,
00:31:19
Speaker
Now, they don't need to tell a whole story. We don't need a whole scene. A few sentences, a couple pieces of dialogue, that was enough for us to get hooked in. And then you were able to say, this is what you don't want to do. And this is how you're going to lose your wedding party. You're not going to get booked. That's all we needed to do. So that's what I mean by an example of a scene. So a scene can be something that's really long, like in a movie or a novel.
00:31:47
Speaker
But it's just borrowing those techniques. I call them seen snippets very often. It also depends on the writer I'm working with. Some writers really want to tell long stories, and others, you don't need that. There's a lot of knowledge that you want to pass back and forth. The story is just enough of a hook that the reader can picture the problem.
00:32:10
Speaker
So especially in a book like yours, we move from problem to solution, problem to solution.
Paul's Coaching Philosophy and Marketing Strategies
00:32:16
Speaker
Because readers are coming to your book, they are in different ways stuck in their business, right? Or they're wanting to do better. And so they're in, they're aware of those limitations and they want solutions. So that's how we frame the chapters in your book.
00:32:33
Speaker
Oh, I love it. Yeah, I think I'm glad I said that because it's like we're learning from my book about, you know, how someone could take their stories and turn it into a book. And obviously if they do need you, it's really hard to do it yourself. Mapping out, you know, a whole chunk of a book and publishing it. But any of the tips to how to get started and then before we go into fun rapid fire questions.
00:32:58
Speaker
Okay. I think that those are the three tips, you know, map out your book, don't be afraid to tell stories and tips for how to organize a chapter. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, so fun questions. What is the biggest accomplishment in your business?
00:33:24
Speaker
Well, my biggest accomplishment, of course, is my son. I have a 14 and a half year old son and I'm extremely proud of him. In my business, I'm very proud of obviously the anthology that I did, that I told you about.
00:33:44
Speaker
But more recently, I worked with a guy here in Santa Barbara, an author named John Steele, who knew Joseph Pilates, the founder of Pilates. He knew Joseph Pilates in New York City back in the 1960s. This guy, John, was a young lawyer.
00:34:02
Speaker
And once Pilates died, he helped to keep this struggling single Pilates studio alive. And so in some ways, John is one of the few people you could say that's responsible for the enormous global success of Pilates. So John had a pretty crazy story to tell and he had a lot of a manuscript and we started working together three years ago and he published his book last year with a hybrid publisher.
00:34:31
Speaker
And it became a number one Amazon new choice, I think is what they call it. And it was a number one book in the Pilates section and like 475 reviews. So I'm pretty proud of that, you know, that coaching experience. And what, like headline word, like, what is a book about?
00:34:56
Speaker
Why do people read it? Yeah. I would say people who are people who practice Pilates and kind of want to know where it came from. Yeah. I took like this workshop with Cassie Ho blogilates for pop Pilates. So yeah, I love Pilates. It's amazing. It's different than yoga though, right? Yoga has been around thousands of years. Yeah, I don't like yoga.
00:35:22
Speaker
Right. Pilates is a really new thing. And what's interesting, people don't know this, but Pilates was like, he, you know, he was a boxer. He had a very mysterious life. We don't actually even know how he created Pilates. So John tried to kind of tell this story, this hidden story of Joseph Pilates. It's pretty interesting. If people are interested in Pilates, I didn't know very much about Pilates. Again, just like I didn't know much about wedding photography. Part of what's really fun as a book coach is just getting introduced to new worlds.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's so crazy. I guess I'm naturally curious. Yes, you are. So how are you going to market your coaching program? Because I'm just curious because obviously I have a coaching program too. So what are your little techniques or marketing tips you're going to do to kind of launch this whole coaching program for people?
00:36:14
Speaker
My plan at the moment is to use, so I mentioned I work with my own coach, this wonderful coach for creatives, who's actually based in England. And he and I have been working together about six months. His name is Mark McGinnis. I'll give him a shout out in case folks are interested. He's been really wonderful. But together, we've come up with a kind of a three prong approach. You know, one is just very highly targeted.
00:36:43
Speaker
outreach to my network, the people who might be working on books or people who know people who are working on books. And so I just set up calls and not trying to get anything out of anyone. What I actually do is, we talked about serving before, so I will offer a free session. If I think someone, they felt a pretty lengthy application, and then if I think they might potentially be a good match,
00:37:10
Speaker
I just invite them and I start coaching and we see if there's a match or we see if there's magic. Yeah, it's cool for you because anyone could write a book. I know you probably like to work with maybe different people that you want to hear about, but since you're so broad and open to things, literally everyone's your target market, which is an awesome thing.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because book coaching, actually there's someone I know here in town who trains book coaches, and she often encourages people to get super targeted and have niche. And it may be that eventually I just become much more niche.
00:37:51
Speaker
But for now, it's more about the kind of person, honestly, than writing about. I want someone who, as I said, has done stuff, who really wants to write their platform book, but more to the point, are they coachable? You're a very coachable person. Are they interested in getting better? Are they open to my hearing me? Some people are just like, they have their vision. I've worked with those people, and honestly, they're not my ideal clients.
00:38:20
Speaker
I'm going to try not to work with those sorts of people in the future. Yeah, I think you call me like an idea machine. You're absolutely. I know I helped you edit a few things and if I would be trying to think, since I don't know the world of wedding photography, if I needed like three examples of something, I would text you or email you like this, give me some.
00:38:46
Speaker
Cool. So what is your woo factor? What is your zack attack factor? My woo factor, you know, I'd say it's this, uh, it's that kind of sixth sense for the, the story, the message that people are not getting on the page tagline, like your sixth sense for, for understanding people's vision and what they're trying to tell. That's a good one.
00:39:14
Speaker
tagline for you. I'm going to help you. Like, I mean, I'm sure you got it in so many reviews, but I told you like your emotional intelligence is just beyond. I really appreciate that, Chris. It means a lot coming from you. So yeah. Okay. So a coaching question. Um, if you had a magic wand in three months, where would you see your business? In three months, if I had a magic wand, I'd have three new clients.
00:39:44
Speaker
Okay, so I guess tell the audience where to find you and more about like the discovery free call that you're offering that will be the freebie and Yeah, how to work with you
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, so as Carissa mentioned, I just launched a new, I used to work very open-ended with people, which was fun, but could also get frustrating for both of us. And it didn't necessarily lead to a finished book. And so I really started to realize six months is just a really,
00:40:19
Speaker
good amount of time to work with someone, you know, a lot of kind of powerful things can come out of that. So it's this new six month to a wow draft.
00:40:28
Speaker
Not a, or a woo draft in your case. Woo wow. Yeah. So people go to pzac.info slash coaching. That's where they'll find information. And there's a, an application off that and it is a bit of a lengthy application. And, um, I know that might frustrate some people, but it just gives me a sense that someone's kind of really in it.
00:40:55
Speaker
And, you know, I think that if I think that they are going to be a possibly a good match, I will invite them to a free call and we will and we'll get right down to business. We'll start talking about the book, what they're what they're trying to do, how they're trying to change readers and what they hope the book will accomplish for them. OK, cool. And you have Instagram.
00:41:15
Speaker
I don't have Instagram. I'm the last man in the Western civilization. I may have to change that. I am on Twitter. Yeah, I'm not a huge social media person, but that may have to change, I know. But for me, it's really about meeting people kind of one-on-one. And I think once I have a chance to coach with people, we know pretty quickly if we're a good match. And I trust that process. Cool. And do you want to work with wedding professionals?
00:41:45
Speaker
I want to work with anybody who has been moved or inspired by our conversation. So I think people energetically feel someone's a good fit for them. So if you have a listener or listeners who think that I can help them, I'd love to hear from them. Yay. Thank you, Paul. I love this conversation. You are so amazing.
00:42:07
Speaker
Thank you, Carissa. I really appreciate your time. You've been really generous. And I got to say, I can't wait to see and hold your book next year. Yes, it's going to be amazing.
00:42:21
Speaker
Thanks for joining me this week on Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. Make sure to follow, subscribe, leave a review, or tell a friend about the show. Take a screenshot and post to IG. Tag me. Also, don't forget to download my free guide on how to become a lead generating machine. See you next time, wedding pros.