How Jill Angie Increased Her Revenue 10x With Her Book

 

In this episode Dr. Angela talks with best selling author, Jill Angie about writing her first book and using her book to increase her revenue by 10x!

 

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Podcast: Download (25:03, 34.4MB )

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Learn how to make $10k with your book at PageUpPodcast.com

 

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In this episode you will learn:

• 03:00 How do I get out of my corporate job and live my dream?
• 06:00 Can I take my local business online?
• 09:00 How long will it take to write my book?
• 11:00 Can I really do it? Write a book?
• 13:00 How will a book change my business?
• 18:00 Can I get support to grow my list and scale my business?

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Full Episode Transcript:

A: Welcome, everybody to the author castle. It is so nice to have you all over for a little chat with my friend bestselling author, Jill. Angie. Hi, Jill. So we are here to really talk about what Jill has accomplished in the I think two years since her first book came out just about now. So Jim is the author of running with curves and also not your average five K. And she is the founder of the not your average runner movement, which includes an online running club, which you can go check out on Facebook, as well as a series of training courses. We’ll talk about her whole movement today. But really what I want to share with you is just how far and how fast a book can take you where you’re going and can bring people into your world. So as we get started, or actually before we get started, I’m going to tell a little story. A few minutes ago, literally a friend of mine, Liz O’Meara Goldberg Hylas, if you’re watching, messaged me, and she said, I am totally committed to running this year. And I just picked up Jill Angie’s book running with curves and I said to her, she said, I’m out. I’m really looking for inspiration. And I read her book once before. And as soon as I read it, I went running. So her plan is to read the book every day. But I thought that we could give Liz and all of you as well stand in for all of you the chance to get an autographed copy of Jill’s books. So let’s start off by you autographed a book for Liz and really, for everybody out there who wants to be inspired to run. I think when you actually make that commitment to yourself, it’s one thing but then having the resources like the ones that Jill provides is another so it was just so funny that Liz reached out minutes before this and I was like I’m getting you a signed copy and we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it on camera not just for you, Liz but for everyone else who is committed to running so there we go with your special, your special author of two really nice time ladies. We are gonna get that you very soon. So, Jill without this book, Liz and thousands of other people wouldn’t have found you. So let’s talk about where were you what was going on in your life before you decided to become an author? 

 

J: Um, well, I think I was doing with a lot of people do I had a died, you know, regular job in corporate America and I went to college and got all these advanced degrees that I thought, Oh yeah, I’m going to be in I was in pharmaceuticals. And I worked for one of the really big companies. And it was a great job, right. I traveled around the world and met lots of interesting people, but it was really somebody else’s dream job. Because like, I just didn’t, I didn’t feel that spark and like, I kind of went along for a few years trying to live that life and realize it just was not. It wasn’t what lit me up inside and I realized I wanted to do something. I had gone through a personal transformation somewhere around 2009 where I you know, got I lost weight. And I was feeling really good about myself. And I realized I wanted other people do the same thing, specifically other women like myself, so I quit the corporate job, like with almost no notice is kind of crazy. I came home one day and I said to my husband like, so, I’m going to give my notice work you in two weeks, and I could do this other thing now. It’s okay. Um, but it was great. And because you know what you were gonna do? I did, I did. I had actually been studying to be a personal trainer, and I was doing it part time while I work full time and, and but I said, you know, let’s do this. I’m going to So, you know, long story short, I became a full time personal trainer, and I really loved it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t quite making the income that I had made with the really nice corporate job and I was like, Okay, now I’m excited about doing what I love, but I’m not getting paid as much money as I would like to and here’s the thing about personal training. I think a lot of even, you know, just being a life coach, like, there’s, I don’t know, 40-50 hours a week you want to work. Like, there’s only so much, and then you do the marketing to get clients. And so there’s sort of an income cap. Yep. On Personal Training, because you’ve only got whatever time you have. So you’re doing that dollars for hours trade off. That’s exactly the problem I was running up against. So it was it was kind of frustrating, but at the same time, I also was like, had these I felt like I had other things sort of bubbling up inside me that I wanted to offer, I guess, um, I felt like I wanted to help more people than just one at a time. And I just was like, and, and with personal training. 

 

A: I guess the other thing too, is you’re probably down to people within a certain geographic Yes, yeah. 50 miles. 

J: Exactly. And I had no idea like, how to I’d heard that you could do online Personal Training, but I, I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to do it. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what a list was, I didn’t know how to build a list I didn’t like all I knew was I’m gonna put ads in my local paper, or put a sign out in front of my house, which I did. And I got, you know, I had a full cleaning client training roster, but it just it I still felt like something was missing. So you had a bigger message to get. Exactly and Is that how you decided to write a book? So it’s really the story about how I wrote a book is kind of funny because I so I was with some girlfriends at this in we live in Philadelphia and be well Philly is a, you know, part of the community there and they run a boot camp at the universities every year. So we all went to this boot camp, totally fun. And we’re sitting there and, you know, eating our lunch together and I said, you guys book, which I wrote a book about overweight women and how they can And they don’t have to be skinny before they start running. And they’ll kind of looked at me and they’re like, I read that book. Right. And and so I’m like, yeah, yeah. Good. Do that someday. And then he tucked it away. And I think it was like, maybe six weeks later. I don’t know how you came into my orbit. But you did. Somehow I came across you and you were like, I am teaching people how to write a book.

 

07:28

A: Get my car.

 

J: Yeah, exactly.  And, and I was like, Yeah, I have this. I felt like I had this calling to read a book and you showed up.

 

A:  And so the first time I did this program, the way that I invited people, which Joe was one of them was something like this. I’ve never done this before. But I have this crazy idea that if we got a group of actually one to five people, we ended up at 10. And like, if we got a group of five people together, instead of taking a year to write a book, we could do it in three months. And I was like, worst case scenario, it doesn’t work. I give you your money back. But I have no idea if we could do this. And this was a couple years ago when I went from working one on one with people to do a book over a year 18 months to the idea that we could do a group program and get everyone done in 13 weeks. So that worked. Yeah. So did I think you sign up in August or September 23. And then your book would have come out either in December or January. It was no

 

J: it was November was that it came out, right around Thanksgiving. 

 

A: Oh, it’s second edition. I can’t see. 

 

J: I want to see it was like November 20, or something like that towards the end of November. It was. I was I remember talking about it with my husband. And he’s like, Sure you can do this. And I’m like, I, I have no idea. But I feel like I have to like, I felt like this book. This book was just bursting out of me. And you know, you had sort of offered me the path to actually get it make it happen.

 

A: And but let’s talk a little bit about writing because this is the very beginning that we’ve done. 150 of these now we know it works. But at the beginning, we didn’t. And I’m like, was it hard to write a book like most people think 13 weeks to write a book is pretty close to impossible. You obviously do you think of yourself as a writer. 

 

J: So maybe a little bit Because I had been blogging I had kept shrinkingjill.com, which is the site is still up, 

 

A: I kinda want to go there right now. 

 

J: It’s really it’s really awesome. Um, I used to blog they’re kind of in secret, but I’m, I mean, I think when I was writing there, that’s when I sort of got this feeling of like, I love writing I just love You know, I guess talking to my ideal reader, and, but I didn’t. I guess the thought of writing a book seemed kind of enormous and huge, and I don’t think I would have started without help because I didn’t think of myself as an author. I thought of somebody who could be an author if she had the right motivation or the right help. So, um, yeah, but the writing itself of the book, parts of it just sort of poured out of me like they just been like a message from the gods. And part of them. I was like, This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And so it was, yeah, I was there with like the wine in one hand and the coffee on the other Like, oh my god, what have I done? But I think those were just moments when I was questioning myself like when when I got out of that space and stuff, questioning everything, and just sort of let it flow. 

 

A: It really did. Because, look, there are a lot of running books out there. There are a lot of people with more experience than you and for a lot of authors in transformation, when people sign up for the program, they’re excited. They have that vision you had at lunch with your girlfriends. And then they’re like, heck did I just signed up for like, Who am I to write a book? Yeah. So and I actually used it in the first time we taught it, I had this exercise where I would send people to a bookstore, to like, look at all the other books. And people came back and they’re like, well, I quit like that was over. But did you have moments where you felt like who is like little Gil to write this book? Like, do I have enough to say, I did. I had many of those moments, I think and I think what kept me going was First of all, I made the commitment, right? I put money on the line that, like, if I don’t finish my book, I don’t get my money back. Like that was the deal. And so I had to go all in on it. And I’m like it, maybe it may be a crappy book, it may be an awesome book, but if there’s going to be a book so I kind of think I let myself just sort of suck at it. Yeah, while I’m like I, you know, I can always go back, I can write this section and I can go back next week and rewrite it but I had to get something down and the more I got out of me, the more came down. And it was it was it’s a really it’s really powerful for just getting out of here like giving someone money. Yeah. Has this like, amazing effect of like, Alright, I guess I’m just gonna do it. Yeah.

 

J: It’s the difference between like, wanting it and then being it is a switch that flips in your head. The second you write that check. It’s like, Oh, well, it’s a done deal now. Right? Right. Like It’s just a matter of getting now there’s time. But the only thing that’s really yeah. 

 

A:So immediately out of the gate, your book was a huge hit. It’s one of our top three bestsellers of all time, it continues to sell really well, your first book, your second book sells well, too. But this book we immediately knew had sort of found its audience. And so can you talk about what happened going from, like our small town Personal Trainer with like a full roster of local clients, and a list of what what? 30-40 people.

 

J: 37 people on your list was my client? So their friend’s sister, my brother.

 

A: Okay, so from a list of 37 and then what happened? 

 

J: Um, oh, gosh, it was I it was really cool. So I should back up because I didn’t really understand what this building book was. You did. And you guys me through the process, you’re like, you need to put these things in your book and I’m like, whatever, you know, I just did it this lady thing. Um, but I didn’t really, I didn’t really understand what was what was going on. But then I mean, one of the things you have to do is, make sure there’s a way for them to reach out to me, and make sure there’s a way for them to you know, sign up to get more information. And, but as soon as I within probably two or three weeks, you know about the amount of time I guess it took people to get through the book. I started getting emails from women and they started like signing up to be on my, my email list and I didn’t even know what to send it of after they were on my list. I was like, Oh my gosh, they’re on my list, but no, what but I would get these emails from women that said, I read your book, and it changed everything for me because one one woman wrote me It must have been three or four pages of like, how many times she started running and how she so frequently felt like she just wasn’t good enough. And she felt like she wasn’t fast enough. And she all just all the stories that we tell ourselves, we all have them and that she read my book. And she said, You gave me permission to do it on my own terms. And I know and I kind of I was starting to get that was that was the motor name is Christina, I still remember it. That was the one that really got me. But I was getting a lot of emails like that. And then I was getting like, how can you know, how can you help us do more? And so I realized like this, this has become bigger than me like this is I’m, I need to step up and lead this revolution forward. And I think it just sort of took off from there. I started started a Facebook page, which people were flocking to it it was it was incredible. But then I realized on the Facebook page, it’s really hard for people to communicate and connect with each other. Like they can connect with me really well but to have conversations so I thought I’ll just start a group start a Facebook group so that they can chat with each other and Actually, I put a post on the Facebook page and I said, Oh, you know, if I start this little private group is anybody interested? and 300 people immediately raised their hand and said, Yes. So I thought, okay, that’s infancy. So, so I thought, okay, list building, how am I going to, you know, like, how does this work? So I created a way for them to join the Facebook group by signing up for my list, which meant I would send them you know, tips about running and so forth every week. And I like overnight. 300 people, literally overnight, and it was I want to say, I think it was September 23 2014, that I opened the doors to the group because we celebrated our one year anniversary this past year, and we were just approaching 3000 in like a year. Yeah, and it’s over 3000 3030 530 100 is ridiculous. And so, so you not only wear it To create a group and have a place to support people, but as people are joining that group, you are adding them to that you notice that 37, so exactly 37 to what? Well, right now it’s about 3200. But I actually just because what happens is people sign up and then like, maybe later on, they’re not interested anymore. And so they don’t always, they’re not always opening all the emails. So I went through about three months ago, and I thought, you know what, these folks, I don’t want to be sending them emails, if they’re not interested in hearing from me anymore, right? Like, nobody wants to jump in their inbox. So I went through when I cleaned out about 1000 people that had not been, you know, I knew I should do that too, but it’s sort of scary to see that number go down. Um, you know, what, I kind of I guess I just sort of took a leap because I felt like if they’re not, you know, I don’t want to be sending energy their way if if they’re not open to receiving it and and and that’s like, I hate when I get emails that I you know, from from people that I know signed up for and you know, things have changed for me and I don’t want them anymore. So I didn’t want to be that person constantly, like, Hey, here’s my stuff. So I’m like, I’m gonna do them a favor, I’m gonna help them clean up their own inboxes because I’m not gonna send them stuff anymore. And right around the same time I did that. I started a webinar that runs automatically Facebook that people can join and learn about interval running. That was just for your second book did you do this was this was before the second book came out, but um, but it’s supporting the second book for sure. But within two months, those thousand people I got another thousand people to rejoin. So I’m back over 3000 in two months.

 

A: I love that. And so like, here’s the cool thing. So now, if you wanted to add another thousand people to your list, do you feel like you could do that? 

 

J: Yeah, I would just double the number of times that the webinar runs. Yeah. They would just often dial it up and like back before you had your book and had your 37 people on your list if I said hey, If you want to get 1000 people on your list, would you have ADD? Like any idea? I probably would have fell off his couch like Haha, was it a company? Hey, are there even 1000 people in Philadelphia who want to work out? You don’t? Okay.

 

A: So so that’s awesome. So when you when we share with people the webinar if they want to see 

 

J: Oh yeah, yeah, if you want to see how an auto webinar works, you can go to not your average runner.com backslash webinar. Cool. Awesome. And so people go to that page notyouraveragerunner.com/webinar, they put in their email address, and they’re going to get an interval training. 

 

J: Yeah, they get they get access. I mean, they can pick whatever time I think it runs three times a day or something like that, but they can pick the time that they want to attend, and then they can watch the webinar and it gives them you know, different ideas for how to improve their running and love that 

 

A: Yeah, okay, so now you have at this point, like thousands of people following you engage with this message running with curves, not your average runner message. Um, has that translated to revenue? When? 

 

J: That’s a matter of fact. Yeah, I would say so a lot of people flying to Philly for personal training. Um, yeah, interestingly, about a single one, I always say, here’s the thing, people are always like, Oh, I should come to you for training. But then, you know, that’s, that’s really hard to do. 

 

A: But it’s a long way to fly.

 

J: It is, but I’m making I mean, I’m literally making 10 times more as a as an online running coach with the various branches of the business that I’m building than I was my first year of training. 

 

A: So what are some of the things that people buy from you, and how do they value? Okay, so there’s 

 

J: Yeah, there’s actually a lot of different ways that they can interact. So I mean, it starts out I have a little shop online and I have T shirts, and I just, yeah, I know. One of them’s night, his first laugh Yeah. My favorite first last. Last thing this Yep. And then there’s another one that says run your own race. And, and then I have virtual races which are super cool because basically you get to run a five K or 10 K, on your own terms on your treadmill in your neighborhood, you can set up your own finish line, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to sign up for in person raise if you feel like if that’s a little scary. Maybe or, or sometimes people live in Idaho, and there’s not a five k on every street corner like there is, you know, in the big cities, or sometimes they want to get a medal for their accomplishment. So I run virtual races, which will run on their own terms, and then get a gorgeous medal. And so along with the medals, I also sell the corresponding race shirts too, so you can actually get sure and you can download them and print out your bid. So it’s like a real race experience. 

 

A: Love that.