Gary Henderson: 0:00

My name is Gary Henderson, and I built the creator studio to show you what's possible. Chandler bolt is our guest today. He's the. The brains, the magician, the artist, the creator behind the self publishing school and Chandler. And I go way back. We actually worked together for one month and we got fired. We didn't deliver the results that Chandler was looking for. We only got a month to do it and it just didn't work out in our favor. So I'm going to jump right into the studio with you. Make sure you're following the show. And just before I do, I want you to notice how everyone that comes into our studio. They're a little bit lost at first, we do these live and discord. And almost all the creators that we bring in it's their first time ever in discord. So go ahead and follow this show and let's jump right in and let's make chandler

Chandler Bolt: 0:54

What's happening? Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

Gary Henderson: 0:56

I can hear you loud and clear, have you ever been in Discord before?

Chandler Bolt: 0:59

This is my first time.

Gary Henderson: 1:01

It's your very first time. Well, welcome.

Chandler Bolt: 1:04

So sorry, I was a couple minutes behind. I'm like trying to figure everything else, everything out on the way in.

Gary Henderson: 1:10

No worries at all. We do this, um, we do it live. We record live. We've got a full community around here. This is kind of like a Facebook group and Slack got together and had a baby.

Chandler Bolt: 1:20

Nice. Love it.

Gary Henderson: 1:22

So, welcome to Gary Club. Chandler and I go way back. Um, way back so far that we worked together for a month and we got fired. So, like, way back to 2016. And I've watched Chandler from a distance. For just years grow into a very mature entrepreneur. When I worked with Chandler, it was like 2016. That's seven years ago. Chandler's a young guy was Forbes 30 under 30, but he's gone on to help over 7, 000 people publish a book and do over 42 million. So over 42 million helping 7, 000 people publish their book in about 9 years with a goal of reaching 100, 000 people. By the year 2035. So Chandler, welcome to the studio.

Chandler Bolt: 2:14

Very great to be here. We just, we just actually passed 50. So next big milestone.

Gary Henderson: 2:21

Wow. Wow. And this all started like, I don't know, you probably don't know this, but I went to college at Charleston and dropped outta school there as well. So you and I started at the same spot.

Chandler Bolt: 2:33

Yeah. Yeah. And both dropped out.

Gary Henderson: 2:36

I dropped out in 2000. You dropped out a couple years after me. So, Take me back to College of Charleston. You're, you're, I was, I lived in College Lodge, so I was in like the only dorm that was co ed when I was there. It was named the number one party dorm in the United States by MTV. You're going to College of Charleston. You're having a blast. What's going on? Why do you drop out?

Chandler Bolt: 3:00

Yes. So I dropped out of school. I mean, I, I got there and I realized I'm learning how to run a business from professors who have never ran businesses. Um, and that just didn't, it didn't make sense. I mean, and meanwhile, I was running businesses that were doing decently well. Um, and, and, uh, while at College of Charleston, I worked for a company called Student Painters. Um, maybe you've heard, uh, you know, Student Painters, College Pro, all that stuff. Um, and, and so, basically, they teach you how to run a business by running a house painting business. And so, my first year in Student Painters, um, did six figures and I was the number one, uh, entrepreneur in the country and in, and in the company for, for that company, obviously. Um, and, uh, so that kind of gave me the confidence of, hey, I'm learning more. About business by actually doing business than I am going to school Learning how to run a business from professors who have never in businesses So at that point I just said hey, I think i'm going to learn more and grow faster if I drop out

Gary Henderson: 4:03

I was almost the same way. I was bored. I was taking classes that I didn't enjoy. Um, I was enjoying Charleston a little more than I should have enjoyed Charleston and kind of did the same thing and said, like, I'm here learning and this is boring and I'm not going to make it. So I'm going to go drop out and do the same thing. So we kind of started our, our paths on the same way. You've definitely gone in a different trajectory than me. So this was, what, roughly 2000, maybe 12 or so?

Chandler Bolt: 4:27

this was Oh, man Something like that. It was either I think it was maybe 2013 At 23 end of 2013 if i'm not mistaken, maybe beginning of 2013

Gary Henderson: 4:40

Okay, because I was doing a little bit of research and I saw that you and your brother took your Christmas break in 2012 and wrote a book

Chandler Bolt: 4:46

Yep. Yep nailed it

Gary Henderson: 4:48

Yeah, so talk to me about, like, your brother's just, I mean, he's literally a rock star, and you're running this, like, 50 million dollar business now. So what was your childhood like? What was it like in South Carolina? What was it like with your parents?

Chandler Bolt: 5:05

I mean That's, I mean, that was just funny. That was the subject of our first book. That's was kind of the reason how I got into book publishing to begin with is I, I got on the phone with my brother one day and he was out on tour. Um, with his band and, and we were basically talking about like, I'm like, man, there's all these, there's these things I thought everyone learned growing up, but now I'm out in the real world and I'm realizing that no one gets taught this stuff. Like this is really just us that got taught this stuff. And he said, yeah, I had that same experience. And so then we decided to write this book about these 15 things our parents taught us growing up. That we thought were normal, but then got out in the real world and realized weren't so normal. And so it was his perspective as a business guy, mine, uh, as, uh, as a musician, or sorry, vice versa. His perspective as a musician, mine as a business guy, and on these same 15 things, right? And, and so, uh, I guess to more directly answer your question, like, I mean, we, very blue collar. I mean, my parents met working a night shift at a factory and it was just very much, hey, you work hard. You, if you're going to do something, you do it to the best of your ability and, and, and, and they just taught us a lot of, I don't know, like just, just to work hard and chase after what you want to do. And, and, and kind of, you know, you don't have to do it the conventional path. And I think that was really accelerated when I, cause my brother's about a decade older than me. And so it was really accelerated when his band started really, you know, being successful at a, at a, at a young age. And I mean, they, they did a 82 show tour with Taylor Swift back in 2011, um, which was like basically when I was. Starting college. Um, and so it, you know, just it really rocked my world of there's something else possible, right? You know, you go to the guidance counselor and you take the little career quiz and they tell you that you got, you know, about five options. Like they told me, Hey, you want to do business stuff? Like maybe the closest thing to that is like being a financial advisor. And so I did the job shadow. I did. And I'm thinking, all right, I guess I'm going to be a financial advisor. And looking back, I'm like, that would have been the worst possible. Maybe not the worst possible, but that would not have been a great fit for me, right? And so, he just showed me that there's so much more possible. Uh, and so that's kind of, uh, that's kind of the, the, the, the backstory,

Gary Henderson: 7:27

I really like that. I like that you got to kind of follow in your brother's footsteps a bit and pave your own path and you know, you wrote this book, You and Your Brother and what was it about books that like just really drove you in?

Chandler Bolt: 7:40

you know, it's funny. I'm, I mean, I'm kind of like the unlikely author, uh, cause, uh, I'm a college dropout and a C level English student with ADHD, right? And so, you know, not, not someone you would pick to write a book, but, and I didn't really like writing and I didn't like reading. And, you know, like either one of those things, um, but just that, it just felt like maybe some people can relate to this and feel like, okay, I have these things that I want to share and that I think would be helpful to share. And it just so happened that the mechanism that we chose was a book because it felt like this thing, all right, we can create this and then we can give it to our friends or give it to people and then it'll be helpful for them. Right. And so that's what kind of sparked the early interest. But then dovetailing with that is when I dropped out of school. I knew that there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't learned yet, you know, I'd really just went through most of the prereqs, or the prerequisites, right, and not to the main business classes, and so I kind of felt like I got the worst end of the education, like, I got the worst part, which is all the general ed stuff, which is not what I wanted to know about. And I missed all the advanced business classes, right? So I felt like I dropped out of school, but I need to act like I'm still in school. And so I just turned that to books. And that was when I started to, to, to fall in love with books and realize there are new, new problems in business. Every problem that, that we face has been faced by someone else at some point. And all we have to do is find the best book on it. And then read that book and implement what we read, right? It's, you know, I see a book is a 15 mentor. And so for 15 bucks in a handful of hours, you can learn from the best, smartest, most successful people on the thing that you're trying to get better at. And so that's when I really started to fall in love with books, not just. As a reader, but also as an author and seeing that books change lives, you know, they change the lives of readers and of authors. And so that's where that kind of morphed from someone who I would not, not, I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to, you know, read, I didn't want to write. I didn't want to do any of those things to really discover that there's just so much power in it.

Gary Henderson: 9:51

I agree with you. I think that, you know, Larry Wingate taught me that the world operates on 20 bills, and he said you should always have a book because you should always have something somebody could drop a 20 on and get to know you and build a relationship with you at their pace.

Chandler Bolt: 10:05

That's cool.

Gary Henderson: 10:06

Yeah, Reed Tracy told me, he said, you know, Gary, the best way to sell books is to just write a good book.

Chandler Bolt: 10:14

Yeah.

Gary Henderson: 10:15

You know, like, it was, it was the easiest advice in the world. And, um, I ended up publishing with Hay House. But he said, you know, like, if you want to sell books, write a good book. And I think you're right. It's, it's... It's our perspective. You said it. You said find a book, read it, and implement it. Like, it's really that simple and all the information's out there for 15 or 20. So, you started self publishing school in 2014 and you had a business partner at that time, is that right? So you started it. You had a partner and you guys were trucking along. I know we worked together in 2016. What happened in that kind of those first couple of years? Because from then you've just catapulted. So talk me through those first couple of years and then maybe take me to the transition of when the when you felt the shift.

Chandler Bolt: 11:03

Mm. That's a great question. I mean, I think early years it was just trying to get traction. Right. 2014, uh, we started, you know, bestselling book system, which ultimately became self publishing school, 2015. We launched self publishing school in February, and then we started to kind of have a little bit of a breakout year, but then as you alluded to. I had a business partner, um, showed up to one of my company off sites and found out from one of my employees that my business partner was kind of trying to kick me out of the business. So then, you know, went through mediation, negotiated a buyout, went multiple six figures in debt, you know, borrowed from my, my parents retirement, borrowed from other people and just to, to buy him out. And then that was really. When it was game on. I mean, uh, this is my parents retirement on the line and I'm obviously not losing that and So then we you know had to make a bunch of shifts in 2016 to just we were just losing a ton of money and just not the you know the we weren't running the company well and All that stuff and so then 2016 is where we really started to create the foundations where you know, I love this quote It says revenue is vanity Profit is sanity cash is king, right? And so we were chasing vanity revenue Well, meanwhile, profit is sanity. We were insane because we weren't making any money and it was insanity and uh, and so we had to make some really big changes in 2016 and then started to realize, okay, we can scale this thing profitably, but we, we, we need to real, you know, we need to know the business better. I need to know my numbers better. And then read a book called Extreme Ownership and that was a real wake up call for me. where I was pointing the finger at my business partner. I was, uh, I was pointing the, the, the, the, the, you know, the finger at anyone else besides me when things weren't going well and just realizing reading Extreme Ownership is like, hey. It's your fault, and, and, and you know, if, if you don't like the results in your business. Uh, uh, a a an old mentor of mine and an advisor, he, he used to advise for my company, his name's Michael Hyatt. He would always ask me this question, he'd say, what about your leadership led to this result? I. And so if you don't like what's going on in your business, what about your leadership led to this result? Right. It's, you know, if whether it's whether it's good or bad, what about your leadership led to this result? And so I just think that's just such a great question, um, to ask and reflect on. But then, you know, that, that really, you know, then we started just compounding growth, started building a really good team, started getting serious about systems, started getting serious about extreme ownership, uh, in the business. And we've kind of been stacking and building. Uh, since then.

Gary Henderson: 13:58

So you start this company and you start off on this trajectory. You start to get some traction. You figure out that you've got a bit of a rogue partner that's trying to push you out of the business. You go through all this stuff, you go all in, and then you realize that it's all on your shoulders. Like, it's, it's there. It's, you know, like your parents retirement, your, the business. You just probably pulled cash from friends and family to go all in, and it's all on your shoulders. Had you taken ownership before then, or is that, was that a new concept

Chandler Bolt: 14:30

Oh, man. I mean, probably in some ways, but nowhere near to the level of what I should have or really what's required in a leadership position. And I think that was probably a big, uh, a big shift, probably, I forget if it was 2016, 2017. I like to theme my years. And so I'll have a word or a theme. Uh for the year and so I think that about that time it was leadership and just realizing that you know Leadership was kind of this airy fairy thing that I was like, okay. Well, what does that even really mean? And and but realizing that nothing great is built without great leaders and without great leadership And and I was a horrible leader and so just really needing to look in the mirror and say all right If I want to build something great. I need to become a better a better leader and So then I think just starting to take more ownership in the way that that is required in order to do that.

Gary Henderson: 15:28

I think it's such a cool story and I believe everything's our fault as well. We, we play a role in everything as well. Um, so I'm right there with you. So you hit the Inc 500, 5, 000 list the first time in 2018. What did that feel like Chandler?

Chandler Bolt: 15:43

Yeah, that was a cool feel. A lot of those things is so interesting because it just feels like almost public, um, you know, public acknowledgement of a private accomplishment. If that makes any sense, it's like almost like external validation for internal work. And so some, some of those milestones, it just felt good to say, Oh, wow. Okay. We've thought that we were doing something good, and we've thought that we've had a lot of really good, good things going, but finally somebody externally is recognizing that. So it almost felt like a, a full circle moment in a sense of, okay, this is something special. And it's weird, I mean, in the world that we live in, external validation is a really big thing. It's, I feel like it's, Kind of double edged sword, right? Where a lot of people want to beat their chest and be very public about what they're doing and that's cool That's fine. That's never really been my style so much But I would rather build in private but then that being said like It feels good to be publicly recognized. So then I almost like kind of clicked a little bit where it's like, okay, this is really cool. And this feels good to feel like we've, we are one of the 5, 000 fastest growing private companies in the U S

Gary Henderson: 17:02

And that's pretty damn extreme ownership, going from partner buyouts in 2016 to 2017 to Inc. 500, 5, 000 lists in 2018. Like, that's pretty

Chandler Bolt: 17:14

yeah. It, uh, yeah, it's a lot, a lot of growth. It feels like, you know, we, we just, we kind of, we haven't in the early days, we have had explosive growth, but it kind of feels like, you know, since then, it's just been pretty steady. You know, we'll grow by anywhere from, you know, let's call it 15% on the very low end to maybe 40% or so per year. And so just kind of just that stacking, um, which I think is a lot, a lot more important is how sustainable. Is your growth versus, over how extreme is your growth? Extreme growth. Big growth, that's awesome, of course, but is it sustainable? And can you keep stacking and can you keep building over a long, uh, long period of time?

Gary Henderson: 18:01

Yeah, I agree with you there, too. It's, you know, having these moments, like doing big launches and doing things like that, or having a consistent revenue stream that comes in, and I know a couple of months ago you shared with me that you finally Stock started kind of topping these million dollar months and doing it kind of consistently. I saw it on LinkedIn and you were pretty proud of that. Like what was the buildup from, you know, you're hitting Inc. 500, 5000, you've done it four years out of, I think like four out of five, you've been crushing it. But a seven figure month, I had Ray Higdon on the podcast as well. And he was sharing that he did multiple seven figures a month or a couple months ago. Like, what does that feel like to do seven figures in a month after all this hard work?

Chandler Bolt: 18:39

Oh man, it feels great. I mean, it's, that, that one was a long time coming and, and I think what I alluded to in that post is, you know, a lot of people throw out, uh, sales figures and revenue figures and they're just pretty much all lying. Or maybe not intentionally lying, but just stretching the truth a little bit. And so that's something that kind of, it can make you feel like you're inadequate, or like you're not growing fast enough, or big enough, or whatever else, because you look around. But that was what was really important to me. Sure, you can have a big month when you do a big launch, or when you do a big thing. But what is that kind of going back to that sustainable month in, month out? Normal business. Like, what does that look like? And so we were going for that mountaintop. I mean, for a long time. And, and also like we report everything is like net sales. So like after refunds, after all that stuff, like we're not jacking up, we don't have crazy payment plans where it's like. Okay. This person's going to be paying out over like 20 months and all that. We're probably never going to see any of this money. Like, I think if you want to juice your revenue numbers, you can juice your revenue numbers by just getting a little bit cute with the math, right. And how you calculate it. But we felt like, Hey, we want to be very strict about how we calculate this. And then we want to go. I didn't feel good about it, you know, and go hit a proper million dollar month net sales, you know, no launch, all that stuff. And so it felt like we were on the precipice of that for, gosh, probably two years. Cause we've just been hanging out in that kind of 600 to 900 K range pretty consistently. And just, you know, for a long time. And so it was just funny. It felt like every month I'd, I'd, I'd show up to the team for our town hall and be like, this is the month we're doing it. It's like, then we wouldn't hit it. Wouldn't hit it. Wouldn't hit it. Wouldn't hit it. Right. So it just felt like we were so close and we were right there. And so I almost just at the end of that kind of felt like an idiot or a hypocrite, maybe. It's just like, I'm saying the same thing and then we keep not hitting it. It just feels like the boy who cried wolf. But then. You know, finally we broke through and I guess in March of this year, we had our first like non launch million dollar month. It's pretty incredible. And then, uh, you know, we, we, then we ran it back in April. So we did it back to back and then we tried to go for the three peat. I was still on team. You know, the quote is, uh, you know, once is luck, twice is coincidence, three, three times is skill. So it's like, well, we need to find out if we're skilled. Uh, and apparently we're not skilled because we didn't hit it the third month in a row. Uh, but then we hit it last month, but it was a launch. So, you know, we're, we're stacking and, and, and the goal is, you know, it's those four minute miles that come along the journey is how do you. Achieve the four minute mile and then how do you make the four minute mile the new normal and the new baseline?

Gary Henderson: 21:28

Yeah. So I have a question for you Chandler, what's the difference in the work you're doing now to hit million dollar months compared to the work you were doing way back in 2014 when you were just getting started and trying to hustle?

Chandler Bolt: 21:41

That's a great question.

Gary Henderson: 21:44

I think a lot of people, right? They, they think that it's some magic pill. It might be, but you're one of the only entrepreneurs that I'm going to talk to right now that are doing million dollar months. So like, is, is there something like if you would have known this? Nine years ago that man you would have got there a lot quicker or was it the momentum and just what are those those key points?

Chandler Bolt: 22:06

Yeah, great question. I mean there's so many things. Uh, I would say, you know, probably not a uh, A sexy answer, but i've got i've got two or three ways. I would unpack that this like one is it's not so much about Stuff that i'm doing but it's it's a lot more about stuff that the team's doing And so, you know, people in process, so we've got a really, really, really good team and then we've got good process and systems around what we're doing. And so that is, I mean, that's where you attribute a lot of this stuff because, you know, I can't, I could set a goal of hitting a million dollar a month this month, but there's only so much that I can personally do in this month to actually hit that right. You know, we've got, you know, 50 or 60 employees at this point. And so it's. Uh, you know, it's a lot of other people driving those goals. So I'd say really great people, really great systems. That's the foundation. And then focusing on, you know, the flywheel concept of just building something that will spin faster and where, and where are the areas of leverage? We're not only, is it going to help us hit this goal this month, but it's going to start stacking in months from now, years from now. We're going to be still getting fruit from that, right? And so trying to look for leverage and look for that long term, uh, those long term investments. And then the second bucket of advice I would give that, that, that answers your question is, uh, you know, is, you know, obviously you've got the, the, the people in systems, um, stuff, uh, that I already mentioned, but two of my favorite questions are. Um, how can I make things simple and how can, how can we do more of what's working? And so I think that's the, it really comes back to that as like, all right, we've got to constantly be stripping things out of what we're doing. And, and we've got our, you know, our stop doing list is like, all right, what should we stop doing? What should we stop doing? Because if in order to say yes to something bigger, I found that you have to first say no to something bigger, right? Because you say your, your level of no needs to rise. Um, because if you just keep saying yes to the things that you've always kept saying, saying yes to, well, you're going to have no space to say yes to bigger opportunities, right? And so I think it's actually the bigger no's predate the bigger yes's because they create the space for the bigger yes's, right? So that stop doing list needs to be really good. Then in addition to that, uh, how can we do more of what's working? Like when you start to get to. Any level of scale, it's like you've got one, two, maybe three customer acquisition channels, primary customer acquisition channels. Now, uh, hopefully I'm not losing people, but I mean, if you backtrack a little bit more, there's pre product market fit and there's post product market fit. Right. And so typically to get to your first million, you've got to get product market fit. And if you don't have product market fit, it's, it's super hard. And it's one of the hardest. Yeah. Faces of business, in my opinion, is getting to product market fit. So a lot of these assumptions are saying, all right, you've gotten to product market fit. Now, how do you scale and specifically million dollar months? That sort of thing is you need to have some scalable customer acquisition channels, right? So how are you bringing in customers, whether that's ads, whether that's. SEO and content, whether that's affiliates and partnerships, like all those things. And so that's the part that as we scale, I just think about, okay, it's a math equation, right? You know, it scaling any company is really a math equation is what's your CAC to LTV, right? Your cost to acquire a customer to your lifetime value of that customer. And then a lot of. You know, subscription companies or CPG companies or whatever will say, Hey, what's like, what's your CAC, CAC to LTV payback period, right? Which says, okay, how quickly do you get that money back so that you can reinvest it? Uh, and so I'm getting way in the weeds here, but those are kind of just, if I were to break it out into several Different components. Those are the core components that I would attribute it to

Gary Henderson: 26:00

No, I think it was amazing. The chat was loving it.

Chandler Bolt: 26:04

Yeah, I'm loving this chat. This is cool

Gary Henderson: 26:06

What I heard you say was you've got to formulate the process. You got to get the process, right? When do you think you started to get that right? Because obviously back in 2014, you didn't know the process You were just starting to create one. When do you think you nailed the process?

Chandler Bolt: 26:21

Well, I don't know that I would ever say that we've nailed the process because the process is always A work in process, or progress, work in progress, I guess, uh, um, but man, I, I read the E Myth back in the day, and then a book called Work the System, and that really opened my eyes. Like, that was one of the big things that I felt like, alright, society didn't teach me this, school didn't teach me this, like, why do we not teach about creating process and systems? And so that was a big light bulb moment. It was probably back in 2016, 2017, somewhere in that range. And I started to see the world through systems and, and, and three really great questions. Cause I'll, I'll, I'll give this to folks. And I think you should use this in your life and in your business, right? Now you learn about systems, the system and process. That's what allows you to pass things off to other people, right? And to scale and grow. If you don't have systems and process, well, sure you can hire great people, but then they've got no process to follow. So you're relying on how talented are they, right? And that only gets you so far, right? And so the process and systems are so important because if you think about, you know, every time that you go to Starbucks or McDonald's or whatever, uh, example you want to give Kava, like they have a repeatable process and that experience is incredibly, Consistent. Because they have a process, right? And so I started to learn about process and realize, Oh, wow, this is something I need in my business. And this is the, the, the, if I do not create this and create a culture of this, we will forever be capped at where we're, where we're currently at. Right? And so I do I create a system for? That was probably the hardest thing going on when it's starting out, which is like, okay, now I'm aware. There, there's, I have conscious, and if you've heard of the, the level of, of comp, levels of competence, right? It's like, I am now have conscious and competence, which means I'm aware that I'm incompetent, right? But how do I fix it? And, and so the three questions, just to come back to that. And, and this is the three questions to ask to figure out if you should, if something should be systematized in your life or in your business. Question one is, does it take more than five minutes to do the thing? Question two is, is this something that you're going to do more than once? And then question three, is this something that you don't like doing? Alright, now if it passes one of those, probably needs to be a system. Two of those, definitely. Three, you're out of your mind if you don't create it. Alright, cause let's just, let's just use an example, right? Takes more than five minutes. It's something you have to, uh, do more than once and don't like doing it. Paying your yearly taxes. I, after I started learning this, I, I, we, I realized we're going into the end of year taxes like, okay, did we think about this deduction? Did we do this? Did we check this thing? Did we check? And I realized we are creating this from scratch every year. Why on earth would you do that? It's like, I don't like doing this. I'm going to do this every, every year for the rest of my life. Uh, and, and, or until uncle Sam decides to stop collecting taxes. And it definitely takes me more than five minutes. So with flying colors, it passes all three of those tests. And the best way to either me not to have to do this. In the future, um, or to make sure that we're not missing stuff is to create a really great S O P and so a standard operating procedure, right? Kind of enter. You can kind of use that interchangeably as with systems. And so all that to say that is, uh, the mindset behind systems. And I think those are the questions that people should ask to figure out what, where and what they should systematize in their business.

Gary Henderson: 30:13

You know, I like that the time frame on this, you came up with these systems in this process and you leaned into this in 2016, you started to build those systems in process and then you hit Inc. 500, 5000, 2018. I don't think it's possible to scale. I definitely don't think you would have hit these million dollar months if you didn't have system and process.

Chandler Bolt: 30:30

Oh, no doubt. Yeah, no doubt.

Gary Henderson: 30:32

So you talk about a flywheel and we had Clint Murphy in talking about his flywheel and he's grown a great podcast and a couple hundred thousand followers now on Twitter. What does the flywheel look like for you to acquire customers?

Chandler Bolt: 30:45

Yeah. Um, that's a good question. Cause there's the flywheel to acquire customers and then there's like the overarching flywheel as a whole. Um, so if I, if I was to, we should publish this publicly somewhere, but if I was to break down the, the, the, the, the flywheel, like for us, and this is as a whole, it starts with getting better results. For our authors, right? Helping them be more successful with their books. That leads to creating raving fans. Raving fans refer and raving fans renew. Right? So they continue to work with us. They tell other people. And then, all right, raving fans, that creates what we would call a blue chip author. Um, or that leads to, if we do that really well, somebody who sells 10, 000 copies of their book or generates 100, 000 for their business from their book, right? So it's like kind of those high end success stories, and that leads to attracting future partners. Um, so. People who have audiences like yourself who say, Hey, some people in my audience, you know, maybe they want to write a book. So they bring us in to do trainings or maybe even some of our authors. They do so well with their books that then they, they say, Hey, I had a lot of success with this. You should work with selfpublishing. com, right? And so, so that leads to attracting future partners. That leads to helping us Lower our cost to acquire customer, um, which, you know, that go back to that, that math equation for scaling, right? Your CAC and so that leads to us having more margin to invest in innovation, which that leads to us getting better results for our authors and the flywheel starts over, starts all over again, right? And so when, if you were, I know you asked specifically when the customer acquisition piece. Well, then it's, it's kind of a microcosm of that. Okay. How do we get better results? And our acquisition, uh, you know, I don't know if I could specifically break it down there, but partnerships are a big part of that. And just looking for leverage in our marketing channels so that we can scale what's working and stop what's not working. Right. Cause I'm, you know, our marketing budget, you look at that as like, I'm, I'm a stock investor, right. Is I want to invest in the channels or the funnels or the whatever else that's, that's producing disproportionate returns. And I want to cut my losses and stop investing in this stuff. That's not working so well.

Gary Henderson: 33:12

It makes absolute perfect sense. You know, get the results for people, create the fans, and then let the fans do the work and sharing their results with everybody else and talking about how good it is. That's very similar to what Tony Hsieh did with Zappos.

Chandler Bolt: 33:25

Exactly.

Gary Henderson: 33:26

Like invest in creating great results for your clients. So Chandler, how do people know when the right time is to write a book?

Chandler Bolt: 33:35

I mean, the right time that it's kind of like the plan of tree thing, like what's 10 years ago, best next time is now. I mean, I believe that a book, it, it. It will help grow your impact, your income, and your business if you have one, right? It's just. It's a way to bring leverage to what you're doing and go from one to one to many, and I think it's one of the best things that you can do, especially as an entrepreneur, but then also if you're thinking to yourself like, hey, I've got some things that I think I can share and I think will be helpful for people, uh, it's a big part of your legacy and your impact also. So, uh, uh, not a non exact question, but those are the big reasons why I think people should do it and they should do it sooner than later because there's never going to be a perfect time to write your book.

Gary Henderson: 34:20

Yeah, I agree with you. I chose a platform book, which was interesting because I wrote a book about Clubhouse and that platform didn't take off the way that we wanted it to. So that was interesting, but I also got A amazing hardcover on the shelf of Barnes and Noble all over the U. S. and published by Hay House and I got a lot of credibility out of writing a book that was published. But you believe in self publishing and there's a piece of me that really wishes I would have self published. So why self publishing Chandler?

Chandler Bolt: 34:50

Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of reasons, you know, it used to be the way that you sold books was to get into bookstores. That was the only way to do it. And, you know, to get into bookstores, you had to have a publishing deal, have a publishing deal, you have an agent, and, and, and, right? There was all these gatekeepers. But now, 70% of all books sold are sold on Amazon and other online retailers and you don't need a publisher to publish on this platform. So it's really democratized the publishing industry and self publishing is, went from, you know, it was like the backup plan, the thing that you only did if you couldn't get a publishing deal, to now it's the preferred option for a lot of authors. Because of that distribution thing, yes, but then also, I mean, for things like, um, you know, the royalty rates are way higher, self publish, the cost to publish, it just makes more sense, it's faster, you retain the IP, you, you have ownership of the content, like there's so many things, um, that make just self publishing the preferred option for a lot of authors these days.

Gary Henderson: 35:50

I think it's a great option as well. I know I was extremely blessed. I had a personal relationship with Reed Tracy and that made my publishing contract. Really, really easy. But if I would have had to go through all the juggles and stuff, I would have probably just bailed out in the middle of the process. So what does the future of self publishing look like? Or like, we've got AI coming out, we've got the ability for anyone to write a book now relatively easy. What does that look like for us?

Chandler Bolt: 36:16

I mean, I think it, I think it's gonna, you know, in a future of self publishing, there's a lot of different components of that, but I think, you know, the power is, continues to shift into the hands of authors, which is a really awesome thing. That's one of our big goals and missions is put the power back in the hands of authors. Book sales are not going anywhere. People keep saying, Oh, the Kindle came out, book sales are dead. Um, and, and, but I mean, there's, if anything. You know, audio is, is really on the rise, like that's, that's, uh, the future is a lot in audio, but then I think AI will help in a lot of ways on, you know, we're using it right now to help come up with book titles, to help come up with book descriptions, to help, um, as, as like an enhanced editing tool to make your writing better, like stuff like that. So, um, those are areas that that I think it can be really, really helpful. Um, and there's still going to be the human component of, sure, can you use AI to, to write books? Of course. Um, are they great? Not, not currently. Um, they're okay. Um, but I think that that's going to be a differentiator even as that stuff continues to advance is the personal credibility and life experience and, and style around that. So I think, you know, I'm not personally worried about that for our authors. I think let's use it where it makes sense, um, to help create better books, better market our books, that sort of thing.

Gary Henderson: 37:44

I think it makes perfect sense. I personally am not a huge fan of A. I copy. I think it helps me get my process out. It helps me form an outline. It helps me get some thoughts down on paper, and then I can go get creative and be me. Um, the part with so you said our authors. What makes someone a good candidate to work with you, Chandler?

Chandler Bolt: 38:04

Yeah, I'd say, you know, if they're serious about getting a book done, uh, and they want to, you know, our goal is to save people hundreds of hours in the process. Save them thousands of dollars in the process and then help them write a better book that sells more copies and grows their business. So if someone is serious about doing that, we can definitely help them through the process. Obviously, you know, probably 90% plus of our authors are self published, but we help authors even if they're traditionally published because the stuff that we teach, it works, right? And it works, you know, mostly either path that you take. There's some things that you can't do if you are Uh, if you're traditionally published, because you don't have access to do it. And so that's where, that's several of the ways where self publishing is just better. Um, but I'd say those are, um, kind of the areas that, that, that we help people in. Um, the, the, the best fit. Like we're predominantly non fiction. Probably 80% of our books are non fiction. You know, maybe 20% or so is fiction. And then a handful of our books are children's books. So we've got kind of, you know, three different styles of books that we typically help with. But. Um, yeah, that's the gist of it.

Gary Henderson: 39:12

I love that. And You're working. You're running. You just said you top 50 million. What's personal life look like for Chandler these days? You're down in Austin, I believe, right?

Chandler Bolt: 39:21

Yeah, Austin, Texas. Yeah, so, um, bought my dream home and first time homeowner, so getting used to that is a lot of work. Um, but, uh, you know, building some roots. I've been traveling around and bouncing around for a long time and moving and And so just really getting some roots, uh, hoping to get married in the next year or two, start a family, all that stuff. So, uh, it's been grind mode for a long time and I'm definitely still working very hard, uh, but excited to, to grow in some other areas and, uh, and build some roots. I'm going to be an uncle here in the next month for the first time. So my brother's having a baby. Uh, and so a lot, a lot of fun, uh, exciting things on the horizon.

Gary Henderson: 40:02

It sounds great. And is there anything like, who's an author that you would love to work with

Chandler Bolt: 40:07

That's a really tough one. I mean, I would love to work with Jocko Extreme ownership author. That would be a really, really big one. Really fun one. Uh, I'd, I'd love to, Hmm, probably that, that, that's probably one of the biggest ones that I could think of. Maybe Gary Chapman author, five Love Languages. I think that'd be, uh, I, I, I think that'd be really fun one too.

Gary Henderson: 40:34

That's really, really cool. So Chandler, where's the best place for our audience to connect with you? Um, what social website, stuff like that.

Chandler Bolt: 40:40

Yeah. So probably, um, two things. So I'm on Facebook. I'm kind of old school. That's the only social media that I have. Um, and that's where you can find, I mean, obviously LinkedIn as well, but you can find me on one of those platforms. Uh, but one thing I wanted to do for this crew is, uh, I wanted to give you a, uh, a free digital and audio book copy of my new book. Um, so the book's called published, uh, the proven path from blank page, um, to published or sorry, to 10, 000 copies sold. Uh, and so I dropped the link in the chat. Um, it's publishedbook. com forward slash Gary. If you go there and get a free digital copy, free audio book, um, just as a thank you. So, uh, check it out. And Dr. Ali says it's a really good book. Yeah. And thank you for saying that. And thank you for being an author of Vintage Live too. Uh, loved having you there. So that's probably the best place. Or if you want to find out more about what we do, go to selfpublishing. com word slash apply, book a call with the team. If you're working on a book and if we can help.

Gary Henderson: 41:37

I appreciate you so very much Chandler. This has been amazing. I've got to tell you out of all the guests that we've had in the studio, I got more personal messages. of people like fans of yours, like I'm so excited for Chandler. I've got to be there when Chandler's there. I'm so excited for Chandler. So I'm glad you were able to make this. I really appreciate you. I'm taking some time out of your schedule Chandler.

Chandler Bolt: 42:01

Yeah. Gary, this was great, man. You're such a great interviewer. So well researched. So just like great questions. So I had a lot of fun with this. Thank you so much for having me.

Gary Henderson: 42:10

Most definitely. I appreciate you so much. I'm gonna tuck Chandler away so he can dip out. Um, he did have a hard stop at 45 minutes. We, um, are honoring a calendar and honoring a schedule. I really appreciate, like, creators are busy. And we're a small community. So it's really a big honor for me when someone like Chandler says, sure, I'll come in and I'll help you guys out. I will come in and I'll share my resources and my guides. I'll come in and I'll share some wisdom and it helps us to help other creators. If you're interested in writing a book, um, you know, really dive into Chandler, lean into the self publishing process, grab one of his books. If you liked it, go grab the free copy of the book that he gave us. Thank you so much for tuning into our show each week. My goal is to help you see what's possible being a creator. And Chandler bolt going to$50 million in revenue. Is definitely what's possible. Make sure you're following the show. And jump into our discord server and introduce herself. It's gary.club/discord. Have a great day everyone we'll see you next week