Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is David Newman, csp. David is a certified speaking professional, a popular keynote speaker, and the author of the new book Market Eminence, 22 Strategies to Build a Bold Personal Brand, Become a Business Celebrity, and Drive Unstoppable growth. He works with founders, mid market CEOs and professional services firms who want to play bigger, grow faster, and become a category of 1. David's previous books are Do It Selling, Do It Speaking, and Do It Marketing, which is an international bestseller and has been translated into six languages. David is also the host of the globally ranked top 1% podcast, the Selling show with over 500 episodes. David, it's a super duper pleasure to welcome you back again and again to the show.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:22]:
We love having you. Thank you again for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
David Newman [00:01:28]:
Thank you, Susan. This is great. I mean, I need to have like a custom chair just in your studio. I'm coming back so often. Just keep the chair warm for me.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:38]:
I know, it's like that frequent user card or buyer card.
David Newman [00:01:41]:
Exactly. Buy five, get one free.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:44]:
Exactly. Is this the free one? I can't remember how many.
David Newman [00:01:47]:
I think this might be the fourth or the fifth one for sure.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:50]:
I love it. David, we're here with a purpose, of course, and that is this fabulous new book that you brought out, Market Eminence. Let's talk about why you wrote this book. What actually is the problem that you're looking to solve with it?
David Newman [00:02:08]:
It's so funny because this is a distillation and a compilation of things that I've been teaching and preaching and ranting and helping clients with for years and years and years. You kindly mentioned in my introduction the do it series of books. When I look back at Do It Marketing, which was all about how authors and experts can market themselves and separate themselves from the crowd, there is the DNA of what I'm writing about in Market Eminence in that book. And then we went to the Do It Speaking book, which came out in 2020. Poor timing on my part, by the way. You should not come out with a book on speaking and In January of 2020, when the entire world shuts down due to a global pandemic in March of 2020. But in that book I talked about how can you use speaking as an author? How can you use speaking as a Lead generator and as a one to many sales platform to sell more books and to spread your message further, faster and more effectively. That was the amplification strategies that are in market eminence and then Do It Selling, which came out in 2023.
David Newman [00:03:15]:
I realized that a lot of authors really hate selling. They really hate it. They would rather do anything else than sell themselves, sell their books, sell their services. They just probably want to think to themselves, couldn't I just write my book and my artists garret and then publish the book? And then millions of people will throng around the online bookstores and they'll go to their brick and mortar bookstore and they'll request my book by name and I can fill my virtual book signings with hundreds of people. And of course, none of that happens automatically. And it's like, what does it take to activate a base of fans and followers and readers and buyers? I looked at what's the common thread that I've always been teaching, preaching and ranting about? Really? It's about differentiation. It's about positioning. And as an author, so you separate yourself from all the other authors, all the other experts who either do what you do, write what you write, or look like, they write what you write and do what you do.
David Newman [00:04:22]:
Because of course, perception is reality. And then how do we earn attention, not just gain attention, but literally earn attention, meaning that we put value in the marketplace. We are radically generous, we are radically helpful in our nonfiction writing so that people are eager. They are eager, they are waiting, they are anticipating the next book or the next program or the next offer that we have. I put all of that into a wrapper and I called that market evidence, which really, if you boil it down into plain English, is a combination of visibility, credibility and brand preference. So that's where it came from.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:04]:
Wow. I'm thinking you have been eavesdropping on my conversations with my clients in terms of the way they feel about selling is exactly the way you said. It's like, I'd rather do anything else but sell my book. I've written it. They should just find it somehow. It's going to happen magically.
David Newman [00:05:28]:
Oh, yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:31]:
I hear you. One of the core messages in the first part of the book is stepping up to claim your marketing eminence. But that can be scary. You've already said, hey, they don't want to do it. How can authors start doing it? How can they start getting visibility out there?
David Newman [00:05:53]:
I'm going to refine your question a little bit because it doesn't just scare them it scares the hell out of them. It scares the living daylights out of them. Because, of course, most authors, most experts, most of the clients and audiences that I work with, when they first start. The initial idea is we need to cast as wide a net as possible. We can't afford to turn some people off. We can't afford not to be liked. We can't afford any sort of online haters to start nitpicking and questioning and arguing with us in public. So in other words, we got to keep our heads down.
David Newman [00:06:34]:
We got to keep cool. We got to play it safe. Let's stay in the middle of the road, because the middle of the road is the safest place to be. This is almost always like we start an engagement with an author or an expert, and this objection comes up almost right away. And I said, okay, think of an electromagnet. Let's say, you know, forget about market eminence, forget about turning some people away and whatever. Let's just talk about an electromagnet. Very, very powerful.
David Newman [00:07:04]:
It is designed to pull in all of the electrons that have a positive force, meaning all of the great fits, all of the people that you want as your readers and your audience and people on your email list and your subscribers and. And your fans. And it powerfully attracts all the best fits. Like any magnet, it's got two polarities, a positive and a negative. We turn the magnet around and it repels. It is a repulsive force. Now, who does it repel? It repels all the bad fits, all the people that would never want to buy from you, all the people, honestly, that you would never want to have as your readers and your clients, the people whose vision doesn't align with yours, whose identity does not match the identity of the people that you want in your following, and it is just, you know, bad fits and waiting to happen. Disasters.
David Newman [00:08:00]:
If they signed up as a client, if you have any kind of service that you offer, these would be the nightmare clients from hell. Imagine if we install this electromagnet. It attracts all the great fits. It repels powerfully all the bad fits. The people that you would never want as your clients, you would never want as your readers, you would never want on your email list because they're just not a good fit, like oil and water. I said, what if we installed that electromagnet? They said, oh, my gosh, that would be great. I said, well, that's what market eminence is. And by the way, this whole assumption that it is safe to be in the middle of the road.
David Newman [00:08:39]:
I'm going to share one of my favorite sayings that I share with clients, Susan. You do not want to be in the middle of the road because that's where the roadkill is. The roadkill is always right on those two yellow double lines. Somebody's trying to cross the road, some squirrel, some bird, some something or other, and they get squashed by an 18 wheeler going 80 miles an hour. So where is it safe? And it is safe on the fringes. It is safe when you are literally on the edges, when you're more edgy, when you're going out on a limb, when you're saying something that is worthy of attention, that is different, that is contrarian, that wakes people up, that literally wakes people up, sets them in the right direction, but that they haven't heard a million times that they would not have thought of. It's a new lens. It's a new perspective on.
David Newman [00:09:34]:
Onto the topic at hand that you're writing about or you're teaching and preaching about. That is how to stand out. You know, there's. I think there's a Seth Godin saying from like 25 years ago, but everything old is new again. He says the safest thing is to be risky. And the riskiest thing is to play it safe. Right? The riskiest thing is to blend in, be vanilla, fade into the background, not make a big fuss, and just stay safe. Stay in the gray zone.
David Newman [00:10:08]:
And I'm here to tell you, Susan, every author listening to this, if you're in the gray zone, you're in the same old lame o blending in, bland, boring category. It is incredibly easy for you and your work to be overlooked. People do not buy bland or boring or gray. They buy Technicolor. They. They buy different. They buy exciting, they buy distinction and differentiation that not only can they see it, not only can they understand it, but true market eminence is when you convey this in a way that it's felt, it's not just seen, it's not just heard, it's not just intellectually processed, but there's a visceral connection that you feel the difference when you're looking at this author or this author's work or their platform or what they stand for.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:59]:
What that reminded me of the Seth Godin was the purple cow. You remember when he came up with that, and it was like, so different and now totally, like, looking out in the field, is there a purple cow out there?
David Newman [00:11:12]:
Exactly right. You will always notice a purple cow. You will not notice the millions of brown Cows. But you will notice the purple cow. Exactly right. That's the idea.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:21]:
Well, I've got a confession, and that is that for many years, I played it safe. Even though I was in a niche market, I still played it safe. It's only the last few years that I've felt that it's okay to be contrarian. It's okay to be edgy. And the difference that it's made is phenomenal. It's like night and day. And I love it because I. I'm like, okay, this is really what I feel is me, you know, hiding didn't do me any good.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:55]:
So now it's like, okay, I can be edgy. I can say it. And I don't know if this came with getting a little bit older. I don't know what it is, but, hey, I love the roadkill as well. Sort of seeing that roadkill.
David Newman [00:12:11]:
You want to stay away from the middle of the road, my friends.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:13]:
You want to stay away. Examine that whole idea of being contrarian, because that's number two of your prompts, of your quotes, your brilliance in market eminence, and it's sort of finding that unique contrarian point of view.
David Newman [00:12:34]:
Yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:35]:
How does an author actually go about doing that?
David Newman [00:12:38]:
Fantastic. So I'm gonna give you three very specific writing exercises. Nothing better than to give authors a writing exercise, because hopefully this is how your brain processes information. And when you write it, you'll think about it more deeply and come up with much better answers. Everyone needs a contrarian slant. One of the early chapters in the book is about developing this slant, this worldview, if you will. Here's three questions to actually write down. Write down the answers to journal, free, Write, Brainstorm, Write down, you know, short phrases, keywords, whatever comes to you.
David Newman [00:13:17]:
Question number one. What conventional wisdom in your field or your area do you secretly think is completely wrong, but you've never publicly challenged? That's number one. What conventional wisdom. So this is about our responsibility as authors who want to stand out. Our responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff, separate the signal from the noise, separate the myths from the truths, or separate the myths from the half truths and really tell people what's going on. Right. The world according to you. That's question number one.
David Newman [00:13:55]:
Similarly, question number two. A different angle into the same contrarian slant. What harsh truth are your readers and audiences desperate for someone to finally acknowledge openly? I call this the elephant in the room question. What is the elephant in the room when it comes to your topic, to your area of expertise? What's the harsh truth that clients immediately would say, oh, my gosh, finally, someone who sees through the fog, someone who cuts through the noise, someone who's finally telling it like it is. I agree with that. Now also, you're going to get people who disagree with that, and that is 100% okay, because there are people who are going to be with you and there's people who are going to be against you. I would even go so far as saying, if you don't have anyone who's really against you, you also don't have anyone who's really with you. And so that's a problem when you're looking to build a platform, build an audience, build a tribe of people who.
David Newman [00:14:56]:
Who are eager to read what you have to write and eager to get connected and stay connected with you. Third prompt in the same category of contrarian slant, I want you to think about behind closed doors with your best friends, closest friends, author buddies. What strong point of view do you already hold that makes insiders a little uncomfortable, but resonates deeply with your ideal readers or your ideal clients? What strong point of view do you secretly say, oh, man, you know what? This thing never works. This is terrible. This is such a disaster. But right. Other people in your industry are like, oh, my God, you can't say that. That's a industry kind of secret.
David Newman [00:15:41]:
That's like an unspoken rule that we don't talk about that. That is also a third prompt, a third way to think, a third writing exercise that you can just start to jot down. What strong point of view do you already hold? You're not putting it on. It's not a PR stunt. It's not being weird for the sake of being weird. It's genuine, authentic, and deeply resonant with you. But it would make other people uncomfortable, other authors, other publishers, other institutions in your field or in your industry. It would make them itchy because you are now telling this radical truth that might go against the conventional wisdom.
David Newman [00:16:25]:
If you started talking about that, you started writing about that, you started posting on LinkedIn or your blog or your substack newsletter, this would be the first baby step in claiming your market eminence, in separating yourself from the crowd. All of whom are playing it safe, all of whom do not want to challenge conventional wisdom, all of whom do not want to tell harsh and uncomfortable truths, all of whom do not want to own and convey a strong point of view. You start doing those three things, people will start paying attention to you and your platform and your books like you have never experienced before and they'll be like, I was on her list for years, but I've never seen anything like this. This is amazing. This is awesome. This is tremendous. And you will activate or reactivate an entirely new fan base from the people that are already connected to you.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:24]:
Oh, that's so true. Because exactly that. Exactly what you're saying. Because when I decided to have the guts, the courage to go out and be more contrarian and say what I think and what I feel and challenge the norms, that's exactly what happens. It's like all of a sudden people are like waking up. Wow, you're saying these things. That's contrarian to what other people are saying. Yeah, that's it.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:50]:
That's what it's about. What I really love about the book too, that it's so chock full of these sort of like thinking prompts and mind spark questions exercises. What was it about all of those things that you decided to create the book in this format? I mean, it's a bit different from your previous styles.
David Newman [00:18:12]:
Oh, it's very different. It's very, very different from my previous three books. This is sort of walking the talk. People will pick up this book and they will literally either love it or hate it. I'll tell you why. If you're looking for a big wall of text, boring business book or marketing book, this is not that. Each section, and there's 22 of them. I think you mentioned that in the subtitle.
David Newman [00:18:38]:
There's 22 strategies about how to build your own market eminence and how to build your own platform as an author in this way. There is a big picture concept. There is a section called how to Think, which is a reframing kind of higher level strategic insight into that topic. There are specific exercises that you can write out and that you should write out. There are mind spark questions to sort of stimulate a little bit of a different or deeper processing of that question. And then there is usually, almost always there is a kind of a pull quote. And the pull quotes are all mine. They're from the book.
David Newman [00:19:20]:
They're not quoting other people. They are a way to sort of cement the idea in a little bit of a different way. Basically, if you were to hire me for lots and lots and lots of money, I shouldn't be saying this, but I will because it's part of the whole contrarian concept here. If you were to hire me for lots and lots and lots of money to come in and work with you or work with your team on building your market eminence you know what I would do? I would turn to page seven of the book. I would say, okay, team, let's fire up the whiteboard. Let's fire up the flip charts. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. And we would go through an entire deep dive day doing nothing more, nothing else, and nothing different than using the exact same frameworks, questions, exercises, and worksheets that I'm giving you in the book.
David Newman [00:20:14]:
I don't know of a lot of other consultants or business mentors that take their 10, 15, $20,000 program, put them inside the covers of a $20 book, and say, here you go. Help yourself, enjoy. It's all in here. When people say, well, the book, it's not really a narrative. No, it's not. It doesn't really have a lot of success stories and long parables and meandering examples. Nope. It is a workbook.
David Newman [00:20:44]:
It is a playbook. It is a consulting program within the covers of a very short, very tightly written business book that will help you get to the root of how you can build and show you exactly step by step how you can build your market. Eminence. Is it a workbook? Yes. Is it a playbook? Yes. Is it consulting between the covers of a paperback business book? Yes. Is it different than 99% of the books that you might pick up at your favorite online bookseller or your favorite brick and mortar bookshelf? Yes, it is. But this is a book that is meant to be worked.
David Newman [00:21:28]:
It is not just meant to be read.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:30]:
Bringing you in for those big bucks makes people do it. Because, yes, you'll buy the book, you'll read it and sort of, oh, yeah, I'll get to do that, sure. But you don't, you know, I mean, a very small percentage of the people who buy the book will actually do it, but you're making them do it. And then that's the truth where the change is going to happen. Because if you don't change, nothing's going to change.
David Newman [00:22:01]:
Well, and this is also what I tell my clients. This is such a great point. If everything was in a book, any book, even a book that laid out the most amazing secrets of the universe, you go to your online favorite bookseller or your favorite independent bookstore, there's a gigantic section on diet, fitness and weight loss. We should all be rail thin, tall and beautiful. If it was all in the books. There's another equally large section on personal finance and money management. We should all be zillionaires and billionaires by now. If Everything was in the book.
David Newman [00:22:35]:
But you're right. When my clients say to me, David, one of the exercises in the book is about gifts, about having radical generosity. And gifts don't mean presence. Gifts means being radically helpful, radically generous, giving away your best ideas in written format, video format, blog, social media templates, tools, scripts, worksheets, all of that great stuff. When people say to me, well, David, I can't give that away. That's what I get paid for, David, I can't give that away. That's my quote, unquote good stuff. I say, listen, here's the deal with that.
David Newman [00:23:11]:
The more that you give away, the more you will prove to your clients your deep and profound expertise in whatever subject matter it is that you work with them on. You know, if you have services and products and programs, the fact that you are withholding your best material from prospects, that's an immediate red flag. And what I have found, my clients have found is the more that you treat prospects like clients, the more clients you will get. So here's another challenge for our authors that are listening right now that may have some back end service or program that their book relates to. Take a piece of client content, client content, meaning things that you only give right now to your paying clients and make that your next lead magnet. Make that your next LinkedIn post, make that the next video or the next webinar that you present to your list and see what happens when you start treating prospects like they're already clients and you give away your best material. Then you become someone who becomes known for being radically helpful and radically generous. And when those people are ready, they will buy your book.
David Newman [00:24:28]:
They will buy your book in bulk. They will refer, they will recommend, they will flock to you in any way that's meaningful to you because they're already in the family. Don't withhold things, don't separate. Well, this stuff is for prospects over here in bucket A. This over here is the special reserve in bucket B. That's only for paying clients. I would never give that away. You should, you should, you can, you will and you must.
David Newman [00:24:58]:
Because that's how to activate people's enthusiasm for buying your books and becoming a fan and a loyal advocate and champion for all of your work.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:09]:
And if that's what you give for free, hey, what am I going to get if I pay?
David Newman [00:25:14]:
Yes, exactly right. That's what they're thinking. Imagine what I get if I became a paying client or a paying.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:20]:
Exactly, yes, yes, yes. Well, David, you've whetted everybody's appetite so now's the time to tell us how we can find out more about the book and about your services.
David Newman [00:25:34]:
Sure. All of the goodies that are tied to the book are at marketeminence.com and there are downloads, tools, trainings, worksheets, there's AI prompts because of course, you can't come out with a book in 2025 or 2026 without having AI prompts that help you implement some of the ideas from the book. So I included that. Fillable worksheets, all kinds of good stuff that's marketeminence.com all the rest of our resources, blog, podcast, all of those things are at the main website, which is simply doitmarketing.com beautiful.
Susan Friedmann [00:26:10]:
As you know, we like to have our guests leave our listeners with a golden nugget. So. So if a reader was to walk away with one big idea from the book, what would you hope that that would be?
David Newman [00:26:23]:
I'm going to supercharge your market eminence efforts by telling you that if you don't risk turning some people off, you will never turn anybody on. Go out, Be bold, be brave. I think the best authors are the ones that profit from being more of themselves, not less. Not hiding, not playing it safe. But amplify this. And please amplify it in the comfort of knowing that if you don't risk turning some people off, you will never turn anybody on.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:05]:
Such great wisdom. How did you get to be so smart, David?
David Newman [00:27:10]:
23 years of making mistakes. I think that's probably it. Susan.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:14]:
Amen. Yes, amen. I'm with you with that one. Well, thank you. It's always a delight to have you on the show. I'm sure we're going to have you again. Maybe when you write another book. I don't know.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:27]:
I don't know what's down the future for you, but whatever. Listeners, you're going to have to listen to this not only once, twice, maybe even three times or more, but because David has shared so much incredible wisdom with you. And it's worth it. It's definitely worth your time. Pick up the book and do those exercises. You'll save yourself a lot of money. Unless you want to, of course, hire David, which I'm sure, David, you wouldn't mind that, would you?
David Newman [00:27:57]:
It is completely acceptable.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:59]:
Well, thank you. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, lets you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books.Â
Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
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