through if you were in 2025 going to launch a movement,
going to launch a tribe around the content of a book
and you have a book, like how would you leverage that
kind of in the marketing, the challenge,
and then into some sort of coaching program
to help people bring breakthrough on that topic?
Yeah, great question.
So when I, so I still think that's the right,
I still think strategically
that's the right way to think about it, okay?
Like a book is a seed.
A book is a seed, it's not a harvest, okay?
Like you're not gonna get rich
selling books at $10 a pop, okay?
The only people I know that got rich selling books
is like my friend Joel Osteen
and a few other people I know like that,
you know, John Maxwell, they've sold millions of books.
So they got rich selling books.
But we're talking about now like 0.000000,
I'm talking about like reality for most of us,
our books are seeds to create a harvest
of our dream customers, right?
So I know this, I know like I know like I know,
and I'm embarrassed and like idiot
for forgetting what I already learned,
you know, eight years ago, 10 years ago,
is a book reader, your best client,
your best client, your best follower,
your best future leader, your best next disciple, okay?
Is a book reader.
Like, you know, like,
so the next best is the book buyer.
Don't even read the book, but at least they bought the book.
That's your next best person, right?
Because at least they bought the book
with the intention to read it, read it.
So now when I created that saying, Bruce,
it was on the back of doing workshops, financial workshops.
I would hosting local events for all of you,
depending on what you're doing,
what you're trying to launch,
don't sleep on the power of local events.
Okay, it might not be applicable
to all of your what you're doing,
but I'm telling you right now,
like winning locally is so much easier
than trying to win nationally or internationally, okay?
Right, so when I was a financial advisor,
I wrote a book called Retired and Free,
it's here somewhere.
It's because you sold out, they're not even.
No, no, no, I didn't sell out, I didn't sell out.
There's the book, okay?
This was a brilliant, this was a brilliant strategy
from literally 10 years ago that would still work today.
This book is not on Amazon.
To this day, it's still not on Amazon.
Now, now that might be stupid,
because now I kind of, you know, people's,
some folks know who I am.
But back in the day, it was brilliant
because I would, I'd say, hey, come, you know,
I would invite people to a financial education night,
come meet the author, get a copy of my newest book,
Retired and Free, The Unconventional Path
to Uncertainty and Fulfillment.
Get the book before you can even buy it.
You can't even buy the book yet, it's pre-released.
Now they're like, I want to come.
I want a copy of a free book.
Why not give them a free book?
Because if they met me and came to my workshop
and they heard me speak, it was over.
They're gonna be like, this is my guy.
And then when they book appointments,
and then they become my client.
So like, I make money helping people become a client
of our financial company.
I knew the best way to make them a client
was to have them come to one of my events, hear me speak,
meet my wife, see our vibe.
So all this, so the book was just bait
to get them to the workshop.
Well, why would they come to a workshop?
Thing is, go on freaking Amazon, click two buttons,
now they have the book.
So that's, and guys,
that was a seven figure year business.
Could have been easily multiple seven figures by now.
So now to get to eight figures,
that model probably starts to,
might not get you to eight figures,
but I bet you most of you, all your dreams can come true
at probably multiple seven figures, okay?
You know, anyhow, today in 2025, as an online marketer,
I wouldn't give the book away for free.
But what I would do is I would find the lowest price I could
to cover the cost of just printing it and shipping it.
I don't like free plus shipping.
I think that's the wrong, I think that's very tired,
that's very, I think that season is come and gone.
Plus, I think it's also very de-edifying to the book.
Oh, my book's not worth anything, but pay for the stamps.
That's de-edifying, that's stupid.
Why would I make that, why would I make the mule
that carried the book more important than the book itself?
That's so stupid.
But again, marketers do stuff that marketing.
I would rather say, hey, it's $10
and it covers and includes shipping.
Right?
It's all in one, I would do an all-in-one,
and I will, we're gonna, you're gonna see me
do a lot of books, a lot of book marketing this year.
So, digital books, digital books.
Okay, let me tell you about digital books.
Okay, this is just me, that's just me.
I don't know about other people.
This is what I do, okay?
So sometimes somebody will talk to me about a book.
For example, I'm about to help you guys out right now.
Where is this book?
Okay, this is a great book, this is a great book.
And David perceived he was king.
All of you need to read this book.
They're like, well, I'm not a Christian, I'm not this.
I don't care, this is a great book, you have to read this book.
This book is not about a Christian,
this book is about a Jewish king.
He wasn't Christian either, so don't worry about it.
Okay, this is about a king, a historical king, King David.
This book is a tremendous book, and you need this book,
because all of you are in this group
and you're on a journey
that is gonna deal with your identity.
And if it has not already happened,
you're gonna have multiple death and rebirths
in your journey of becoming a pioneer.
And that's all about identity.
And this is the best book on identity
I've ever read in my life.
So I heard about this book, then I ordered the book.
This guy is kind of crazy.
He's old, this guy's old, and he's kind of outdated.
I had to order this book.
It took like three weeks to get here.
I'm like, what the hell,
who takes three weeks to get a book?
So I'm impatient.
He goes to your church?
He is, yeah.
Our whole church, we only have like 100 people in our church
and he goes there.
Yeah, makes sense, okay.
Well, dude, I reached out to this guy
to have him on the wisdom challenge,
he didn't even hit me back.
You should have asked.
I didn't know you were in the church.
Okay, so anyhow, anyhow, I'm like,
I'm not waiting for three weeks for a book.
So then I got, I think I got the Audible.
I got the Audible.
I think I got the Audible.
Yeah, I did, got the Audible.
Boom.
So then I'm like, dude, this is really good.
So then I went and got the Kindle.
So if I, now I have thousands of books probably,
my wife makes fun of me all the time,
because I'm definitely more of a book buyer
than a book reader.
But when I read a book, I read, I don't read a lot of books.
But when I read a book, I don't read a book.
I devour it.
I read this book, I've read this book three times.
I've marked it up.
I have typed out all the notes I underlined
into a Google document.
I've listened to it probably four times.
And I get the Kindle so I can just copy and paste things
into a .doc.
But that's me.
And that's only for a handful of books in my life.
I've probably done that with 10 to 20 books.
These are like core books that are huge for my assignment.
Okay, so that's just me personally.
For the mass market, I don't love Kindle.
I want people to have a physical hard book
in their house with my name on it.
That's just good branding and marketing.
They see my name every day.
I know people who have retired and free
when I was doing this on their nightstands.
They read it in bed.
You know what people do in bed?
Yeah, now they have me in bed with them.
I'm on the nightstand.
What's more intimate than being on the nightstand?
So you can't have your Kindle on the nightstand.
It doesn't make sense.
So I like putting a physical.
Plus, if you're a spiritual kind of person,
we can even talk about the spiritual implications of this.
All right?
The type of authority it opens up.
So I like physical.
But as a consumer, I like, I will get a digital copy only if I'm super into it.
So I'm never going to read on a Kindle.
I'm never going to read on a Kindle.
I only got the Kindle so I can copy-paste notes into a Google Doc.
That's the only reason I got it.
If I could start over, if I could pause time out, if I could pause the world, if I could
stop the world for, oh man, I'd love to have six months.
I'd love to have six months to pause.
I'm not sure how that would work, though, because it, you know what I'm saying, like
I still want to be able to go to the coffee shop and live, but I kind of would want the
world to stop for six months.
And so the point of that is if I could just relaunch my entire life and business, my business,
I would just spend nothing but those six months cranking out two or three books.
Like marketing without a book is literally stupid.
It's just stupid.
Not that it doesn't work, it works, but like nothing works as well as marketing with a
book.
Like nothing works as well.
Now, we've done over $50 million in revenue without a book.
So don't wait.
You don't need a book to get started.
Okay?
We could probably have done $200 million without a book.
So I've got to get these books finished, you know.
And a pioneer has to have a book.
That's your manifesto.
That is your, the book is where you say, this is my view of the world.
Here's how the world exists to me.
This is the manifesto.
Here's the pioneer playbook.
This is what it means to be a kingdom entrepreneur.
This is what it means to be a blank.
And if I were to die without these books being finished, this would be a huge regret of my
life.