SPS 243: The Advisor Breakthrough: Using A Book To Get Clients & Referrals with Shawn Sparks

throughout the country for over a decade . He's the author of multiple books , including the Advisor Quest , the Advisor Breakthrough , and his brand new book that's about to come out is called the Advisor Transformation . Now he's empowered over a thousand financial advisors to grow their businesses , sharing best practices about marketing sales and running a better business .

He's on a mission to help advisors run better businesses so that they can better care for the people that they serve . That's both in business and in life . This is going to be a fun conversation . Really , what we'll be talking about today is we'll obviously be hearing about his journey as an author , now publishing his third book .

Also , I think this will be really helpful if you are a financial advisor or a consultant our knowledge worker and you want to package what you teach and how you help people into a book in a way that's going to grow your business . I think this will be really helpful . Just to hear how Sean's done it . Sean , welcome , great to have you . What's ?

happening to me . Let's start with this . Before this , you were telling me a little bit about your journey of writing . Why did you decide to write your first book ? Let's start there , and then we can talk about how the books have evolved in growing your business since then .

They're getting in the late 80s and I was like this is the time , with technology and the way things are done , I want to document their life , how they got together and their journey as kids . I wanted to mark that and document that for my kids and their kids so that , as we won't have this later , we won't have this opportunity .

I decided , just for fun , to do an interview and capture their story and write a book about it and give it out at Christmas to all of our relatives . That's really where the whole journey for me in book writing started .

One of them was supposedly a legend , but he died when I was one years old . He was like would you ever wonder what his life was like , what he learned , what he knew , all those things that kind of he got me . He's like yeah , okay , that's why I think everybody should write a book .

And meanwhile he's convincing the guy that runs the book publishing business why everybody should write a book . But then I got to think about it . I'm like this really , in my opinion , should be a societal rite of passage . People retire and then they have this crisis of meaning . It's like what do I do in my life and all this stuff ?

And so , as I've thought about it , I'm like that should be something where everyone , when they retire , they take a year or two write all the lessons that they learned and if nothing else , it's exactly what you did , sean .

It's passing it on to your kids and relatives and it's so cool that you did that before you retired , obviously and capturing those things that had to be special for your family .

And if you can tell a story , or if you have a story , then you have a book . And now it doesn't mean your book is going to be for everybody . For me , my first book was very personal . It was for my family .

I would say to this day , it's probably the most important book because I'll tell you , my three-year-old my grandpaul is now 94 , my grandpaul is no longer here my three-year-old , when she gets older and she's going to want to hear stories it's not going to be stories that I probably forgot or me trying to remember things . It's going to be documented .

Here's exactly where your great grandparents came from . Here's how they fell in love .

Now I'm writing a book about my area of expertise , which I would assume came with a lot more pressure , and so I think that was the advisor breakthrough was the next book that you wrote , right .

There are a lot of lessons in business that I'm learning , and what's cool in my business is we basically coach financial advisors on how to grow and scale , and in our business you can do live coaching and one-on-one coaching all the time .

But I was learning a collection of lessons that could apply to everybody , but oftentimes in coaching , if you don't know about the lessons and the learnings before you need it , you're honestly reactive .

And I said , well , man , how can I package up all of these lessons I'm learning from hundreds of advisors and give them to these advisors so they are seeing them before and they are able to , you know , learn the lesson before it's too late ? And that's where I said , oh , my goodness , like I've got to share this in another way .

And that's where I started thinking about writing a book based on helping advisors scale and grow .

When I wrote it I said I'm not writing it for my business , I'm writing it for my clients people I'm serving and I actually had a little bit of like back and forth , like do I publish it at all or do I just make this exclusive to my people ?

And I was probably going to do that , chandler , to be honest , and I was going to just send it out to my clients and say this is a , it was gratitude , this is a way for me to say thank you for working with us and I hope this helps you .

But then my mind started shifting and the big question I went back to is if you have the ability to help somebody , make a difference for somebody with very little effort , which comes down to just sharing a message , Should you do it ?

And once I kind of posed that question it was like I believe if you can make a difference in somebody's business and life , you should always give it to them , you should always share . It doesn't mean I need to sell my manual , like my time .

I can't take everybody on as coaching clients , but I'll tell you , if it comes down to just offering a message of for me it was at the time 17 years of coaching advisors learning from them why would I withhold that from anybody ?

So I made the decision really quickly Once I started kind of phrasing that in my own mind I need to let the world have this , and then I decided to go ahead and launch .

So with the launch , I'll tell you what was important to me is that in between I wanted to make sure that I didn't lose the spirit of why I wrote it , which was the gratitude and to help my clients , but I wanted to at least give everybody else access .

So I did a pre-launch and I'll mention this just to your audience , because there are a lot of books that deserve to be read , but very few . There's a lot of them that are not read and I think a lot of people think , when they wrote their book , like when it's done , the job's done . I believe the opposite .

I believe your day one is when the book is written , how you leverage it , how you launch . It is everything If you took the time to create this . You need to get it out there .

So , with that being said , my book I did a pre-launch to , where I gave an advanced copy , once the hard copies came in , to every one of my members first , personalized notes letting them know I wrote this for you so that they would be the first to receive the message and it meant something to them .

You know , of course , the handwritten note inside the book and so on , but that's what I did is like a strategy . You know , doing the pre-launch with my current members first , and then I worked through how do I make it a big launch . And you know what ? I had allies to help me then , because they were a part of it .

So that might not be as much an issue as it is probably for most people in most businesses , but I would imagine that it sparked up a lot of renewals , referrals , even maybe old clients that didn't work with you in a while starting back working with you and like what was the effect in that way , Kind of engaging your clients with the book .

There's only 100 in this case and they knew they had a numbered copy of the book . That's good , it's 17, . It's based on the timeline of the relationship . Oh cool , Wow , this was not a normal like here's your book . It was like , very meaningful , that's cool . I did a , you

know like you do a video letting them know hey , this is not about me , this is about you . Thank you , I've got a book coming your way , an advanced copy , so you don't just like I think sometimes people think broad and they think big and they lose the personal touch , and I took the time to make each and every one of those a personal gift .

So the first step we haven't even launched it the feelings and the feedback I got from people who I cared about , who cared about me , it meant something , it touched their heart and I saved , you know , back then , like pictures of the notes I got back and the text messages and how much it means to them , because they were part of the journey with me that

created the wisdom in the book and so I made sure that my heart was very much shared , which meant something to them . So , before even launched it , the book was worth it . The time it took because they knew that . You know it was very special for me and their relationship and so on .

So I'm not even getting into the how much this like referrals , that the floodgates open up . I'm just saying like the heart of it is , like the spirit of me writing this was to give it back and help people who mean something to me and literally from like day one that happened .

This is what I feel like is is one of the big benefits of writing a book about your core business , and especially if you're in consulting or advising or knowledge work , where you have kind of a process that you're coaching to and that you're teaching to and stuff like that , is that a lot of people you're probably tired of repeating yourself on those same things

. The best way to stop repeating yourself is to write a book on those things and then just point to it , right , but then you put that book in the hands of what we do . I'm I'm assuming you do this . The same is put the book in the hands of every new employee , of every new client , so that everybody's then speaking the same language .

Like this is a part of the onboarding manual . You need to know our process . Speak like we speak , talk like we talk , use the frameworks that we use , all that . But then same thing with our customers of hey , we want you to know the methodology . Is that kind of how you guys have done it in the business ?

Or how have you leveraged it between employees , customers , clients , all that stuff ?

Some people learn better through reading . Some people digest the information better . Some people will learn things they don't have the question to ask about and now they can learn from another advisor , like I mentioned earlier , another experience someone else had . So it was an add-on to make our coaching better for them and more impactful .

And it's pretty amazing , like a lot of the problems they're reading about and what they're seeing and how we overcame them . They didn't even realize that was a problem they should be addressing and now they saw it through the eyes of somebody else's experience .

On that side of things like what have you seen since the first business book and we'll kind of transition this into the new book coming up here in a second . I want to talk like lessons learned between the two , but from , I guess , book number two that's the first business book what have you seen ? What have you seen on the back end of that ?

Has that largely been an engagement tool for your existing clients ? Has that been a big kind of driver for new business ? What does that look like for you ?

There was brand awareness and there was a philosophical awareness of who they were talking to . These were not leads who just responded to an ad . These were people who actually had my message in somewhat in their hands and they took the time to read it . I remember thousands of leads early on and I'm just like I got to the point .

I didn't know what to do with them . We had to change our system a bit to filter , just identify the avatar client and so on , but it was a complete game changer .

In the conversations we do strategy calls with my team and there's a big difference between somebody kicking the tires or somebody who's excited about the call , like , oh my goodness , this is what I need . This is a connection between the message , the learnings , with what they're wanting . It was a completely different type of lead .

On top of that , chandler , I found that books are an incredible resource for referrals . You give your message to one of your best advisors and then you can help them help their friends by giving them free copies and just want them . That's been really big . I believe a book leveraged correctly is one of the greatest tools for referrals .

We'll talk about your goals for your book , your dreams , your challenges , your next steps and we'll start putting together a plan . All right , so go to self-publishingcomcomcomcomcom Book a call with the team . Let's see how we can help with your book . It's time to implement .

You got to take it seriously . I think it's a waste of time to write a book , particularly if you're writing it for a broad audience , if you don't use the lessons and the ways of doing it . I just think a lot of people write the book and they're an author now and they feel great .

It's like not many people are , but I think that's when day one starts , like I said . Now , how do you do it ? There's like 101 , there's thousands of ways to do it . With me , I'll give you just a little bit of an example . I put the book everywhere Social media , everything . When I launched my book , I did 48 hours , 99 cent book giveaway .

I just wanted to catch traction . Yes , I used the Kindle version , which you're familiar with , and I was getting hundreds of orders in 48 hours and I was like what those orders didn't happen on their own because it was cheap . It's because that message went everywhere . We emailed everybody we knew 48 hours . We put it on all of our social media 48 hours .

I kept reminding them . I did a promo video explaining not the book but why I wrote it . Next thing you know is people that weren't even in my business we're getting it for 99 cents . Next thing you know is I started hitting traction and here's what's funny how big is your list ?

There's a question you got to ask yourself if you're promoting it , what about your email list ? Take the time . What social media accounts do you have ? Who you connect to ? I forgot to do LinkedIn , chandler . The promo was over and I was like , oh shoot , I forgot all about LinkedIn .

Six years ago I put a post out on LinkedIn and my order spiked and it was the full price . I'm like man . I wish it would have done that during the 48 hour deal , but I just looked . So the point is everywhere . You should be sharing this and don't miss any opportunities .

One thing that we do , sean , that might be helpful for you guys on the referral piece , because especially in your business , it's like all right , one advisor reads the book and then how do you get the book into someone else's hands ? That's also . And just how do you make that as frictionless as possible ? We have a URL on our site .

You might do something similar , but it's like I think it's like self-publishingcom , forward slash friend or something forward slash friend , and we tell our people it's like hey , if you ever are talking to someone who's writing a book and in your case it'd probably be an advisor who's looking to grow their business , just send them to this URL or just put in their

info and we'll send them a book and say you sent it and give you a shout at that kind of thing , which is just thinking through , how do you grease the wheels of the referral and make it easy for people to look good ? I feel like Hyatt , who we've both learned from .

That's something they did really well as part of their business accelerator is they'd say , all right , well , let's , let us send a book or a planner to someone you know who's a fit for business accelerator , and I always thought that was a really smart idea . Talk to me about the new book . So well , first off , do you have a physical copy handy by chance ?

I've come to realize my brain and my memory and I think all of ours is flawed and that we forget a lot of really cool stuff , because I know that about myself . Every time I'm learning a lesson or hearing something , seeing something works , I'm always documenting it .

So when I decided to write book two , I had a hundred pages of notes scribbled , with no formatting , no flow . Writing a book was not that difficult because I had the content . So fast forward six years to answer your question .

I have six years of learnings and I'll tell you the last three years have been the greatest learnings in my whole career and that information and what I was learning was documented and I got to the point . I get this feeling when I'm writing a book , I'm like I've got to share this . It's like an eagle in a cage .

I'm like I've got to share this and I got to that point again this last year and I was like I've got stuff that I need to let my members in our company , our clients , know . But this is a message I think that will better people's lives and I'm like , let's go , and this one's I mean .

Each time you write a book , it becomes easier as far as the process . So this was like . The first one was how to become successful as a financial advisor . This one is not about success . It's how to become , how to build a scalable business , one of significance , and those are two different things . And that journey . I think of it as like book 1.0 and 2.0 .

So that's why I decided to do . The second one is it was the knowledge I'd gained and what I've learned .

You're right , my best moments lessons , learnings is in a live coaching call and I'm like oh yeah , yeah , even if it's my own words and whatever , you have to be triggered to come up with what . I think , a lot of the best teachings are . So anytime that happens , my notepad . I'm like lessons , lessons , lessons , lessons .

So these last years , three years particularly , it was a whole new journey

for me and I was just very religious about documenting my journey and making sure I had that , and so if it was like Microsoft Word or something on a computer , I'd have to have the computer . I wanted it to be with me at all times . That's my Apple iPhone and it's a notes deal . It's got it . Future book .

Specific to the writing process , like anything else that you would like it sounds like document as you build , or document so that it doesn't feel like this monumental thing that you're doing all at once , but anything else that you would recommend , I guess specific for advisors on the writing process .

Day one and we've got to come to the reality is I'm not a writer , I'm not an expert writer , chandler . My first time I decided to write a real book where there's pressure , I sat down one evening in my office at my house and I started writing and I got three pages done and I was like , oh my goodness , I don't even know what to do .

I've never written a book before Like I wrote a book for family and I got what I would say is writer's blocked , where I was like I kicked the can and I was like I don't think I'm going to do it . And then I realized there are people who are experts at writing books , like I'm an expert at building , helping financial budget build their business .

Why am I trying to do this myself ? So I would throw away the how and I would say who . I hired somebody who had written hundreds of books and I said look , this is my words , this is my book . I need somebody to guide me through the process . I don't believe in ghost written books . I didn't want somebody to write it for me .

I wanted somebody to guide me through the process of getting my message in my head down on paper and I wanted to be actively involved . The moment I did that , everything changed .

My book started progressing because I was learning from an expert , as opposed to what I would say is the foolish way to learn is learning from your own experiences only , and so I believe , if you're really serious about it , find somebody who can help you along the way who's familiar with it , because a lot of the people who want to write a book , it never

happens , and one thing they did was they asked very , very , very . She asked very good questions . She held me accountable . I didn't put her down and this thing just kept pushing . The next thing . You know , I was like man , I was proud of it , you know that's great , what I guess as we look ahead .

So it's been a huge difference , difference maker , one of the best things that I would say I've done and something I recommend everybody do . I probably fell in love with my own ideas a bit early on and then what I realized is this book isn't about me at all . It's about the audience and who I'm serving .

And you need to find five avatar readers who this message is for . And when you get that manuscript 80 , 90% done you need to give them a copy of it and I wanna I tell them . I asked five really good friends . I said please tell me what you like , what you hate and what I need to change .

And you get this like red ink back and I believe that step takes your book to X in value , because your ideal audience has their input and some of my stories , some of my ideas aren't the best . It's what I might like , but it's about them , not me .

So that step , I think , is critical in the process to make sure your message is appealing to your avatar reader , if that makes sense .

What types of marketing do you find works best for a book targeting financial advisors ?

I could go out to hundreds of people I know that I've spent time working with for years and then I know that they're my friends and they can push it out with me . Of course you can do any traditional marketing . I think that's a good thing . I think that's a good thing .

Of course you can do any traditional marketing Facebook , things like that but I think the best is you gotta ask like who do I know that's an influencer and here's what I would say on that . So I've got a list . Like I hear my influencers , hear people that are in my space , that people look up to .

I need to get that book in their hands in a personal way and I need to give them the reasons behind it to where they'll actually pay attention to it . So who is an influencer ? Who knows your avatar , reader , financial advisors , a lot of well-known people in our space .

Get it in their hands and then they'll promote it for you if we earn the right , and so on . So I'd probably just say it's best advice , just kind of quickly through the gutters . Just don't try to get to the financial advisor . Get to the person who knows the financial advisors .

Well , actually , who's making the decision on homeschooling a lot of times is moms . So , like , go on the mom podcast and talk about homeschooling . But we often talk about . It's like we don't go on a lot to a lot of writers conferences , because then it's a red ocean . There's a ton of companies helping people write and publish books .

But if we go to an entrepreneur conference or a financial advisor conference or whatever else , we say , all right , hey , we can help you write a book . Well , we're the only girl at the bar and now it's interesting , it's intriguing and it's more of a blue ocean . So I really like that . Find the people who are speaking to your audience .

Retiree work with CPA Attorneys for State Planning my book ? I don't want to . Actually , who do I know that I have mutual clients with . Okay , so this attorney has seven of my clients . Oh , this attorney specialized in recently divorced women and helping them get through the financials . You know that side , that's who I go to .

So I'm going to go to the attorney and say , hey , we have a lot of mutual clients . These are the lessons I've learned in working with retirees . I want you to know that . I want you to have one of the first copies . And , by the way , if you know anybody who's struggling about financial decisions because they're a client of yours , I'll get my free copy .

Nice , yeah , that person is now promoting you instead of you having to promote yourself . So the centers of influence knowing who those people are would be the first step . And then you need to treat them like man , go above and beyond , like I've had . People do really nice boxes and really show up different Yep Personally . Give them to them If they know them .

They just let them know the philosophy behind the book and here's why it was written . You sell them and they will do the selling for you .

You should work with him saying , oh , you've got this problem . Well , here's this book . But we have a lot of mutual clients with this guy . You should read it , I think it might be helpful for you . And then boom , now they're reading that They've got the methodology . And when they need help , when they need help , who are they going to go with ? Right ?

I'm telling you right now that if it's not your heart , if it's not going to bring value to your avatar client and you run around , it's almost like you become a timid sales person Like I since your book sucks , I'm like you're not going to get any results . I am the person . If my name's on it , it's going to make a difference for somebody .

And now that I know the process , I will shop on the rooftops . I will , with complete confidence , walk in , talk to anybody and say this will make a difference for the people , for whoever they're serving , and so on .

But it goes back to you have this flimsy 30-page book and it's like been half-ghost written or whatever , and it's like now you want to be proud of the message that it matches who you are , what you do , your philosophy , your brand right .

And if you are proud of it and you know it'll make a difference , then you will have the conviction to get this in the hands of the right people or centers of influence , as we were discussing .

think people make and don't just go the cheaper out , don't just get the cheap , flimsy book . My books I get an audio version , I get Kindle for them to read on their phone . Soft cover , hard cover I always go hard cover if I'm going to hand it off to like the center of influence , my top clients .

You're going to get out of this book writing process what you put in and I would just say , increase the level of seriousness so it'll be something you're proud of . As we started around my grandpa , like this will be something I want to handle my kids in the future , dad's profession . This is something that was important to me .

I took the time to do it right and they will get a glimpse of my career long into the future , whether I'm here or I'm not , because it's an accurate reflection of who I am and what I do . So I would just say that I would increase the level of seriousness and make sure it's something you're proud of , even if it takes longer .

My first book took way too long . Actually , my second book took way too long to write , but you know what ? And then I was proud of it and it's something that I'm now leveraging forever .

There's Sean with shawen SeanSparkscom . Go there , opt in there if you'd like , and we can interact .