157 - Writing from the Core with James Gardiner

Welcome back to the Scale Your Small Business Podcast with your host, Jillian Flodstrom! Returning to the show today is James Gardiner, he’s a high-performance Olympic rowing athlete, high-performance coach, and author of the powerful new book ALL IN WITH LOVE: my journey to the hero within. In his book, he chronicles how he turned bad choices into a recipe for personal growth.   The inception of James’ book came from a creative spirit that needed to get out. Admittedly, he’s lived a colorful, interesting life with plenty of successes and just as many pitfalls. During the writing of his book, he was sharing his process with his community via social media. In doing that, he found that his community was growing with him, and was getting many new clients from his posts. Because he had so much visibility, he decided to fund the book’s publishing through crowdfunding on IndieGoGo, which allowed his audience to help support the work he was doing.    He was able to share his campaign through his regimented social media schedule–it wasn’t the same content going out on every platform every day. The posts James was making were intentional. They were consistent. And they were full of energy.    The key was personally reaching out to each and every individual who supported the book through his crowdfunding campaign. No templated responses, either. It took a lot of work, but the proof is in the pudding.    In his crowdfunding campaign, he gave donors five different options so they could choose the level at which they wanted to support. It included a signed copy, hardcover, coaching sessions, and big-ticket items like speaking events.    For those who didn’t find the book through the campaign, James’ publisher helped get the book into different locations for folks to purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, etc. In addition, James utilized his marketing knowledge and simply rinse and repeated what he had already been doing: sharing stories.    Planning was an essential part of the process. He used spreadsheets outlining posts when they’d go out, where, and what they’d say. He had a two-week build-up to a six-week campaign. But the beauty of the planning was, that once he began to implement the process, he reached a flow-state where he always knew what was going out and when.  Key Takeaways   Crowdfunding a book is a creative way to build a community, gain clients, and fund your story.    Consider going the extra mile and personally reaching out to those who support you.    Planning is an essential part of the process. Once you have everything in place, you’ll reach a flow-state where everything comes naturally.    LINKS   https://www.theherowithin.ca/ @JamesGardiner [email protected]