How to Make the Pivot with Telling Your Story that Will Change Your Life

Eric James Eden: 0:58

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest today is Aurora Winter. She is a writer and entrepreneur who's written many books and helps entrepreneurs and business leaders turn their words into wealth. Welcome to the show.

Aurora Winter: 1:15

Oh, it's great to be on the show with you, Eric. I love your podcast. Congratulations for almost having 50 episodes right now.

Eric James Eden: 1:23

Thank you. Thank you Appreciate you joining us today to share some of your stories and your advice for marketers and executives. I understand that you've written how many books.

Aurora Winter: 1:41

I've written seven books myself, not counting my new fantasy series. One of the books I want to talk about, because it was a remarkable marketing feat, is called Marketing Fast Track. At the end of this podcast I'll tell people how they can get it for free. I also have a book called Turn Words Into Wealth. Then, just for fun, see, I'm writing a fantasy series called Magic, mystery and the Multiverse, which I'm launching on Kickstarter. The value I'd really like to add to the listeners today is how can they turn their words into wealth? By telling them a couple of stories and one statistic. The statistic that I want to share out the gate to catch your attention is that studies show that the value of adding a story is phenomenal. In fact, adding a story to whatever you're up to can increase the value of your product or service by 27-fold. It's not a trivial thing to be left to the side or left to accident the stories that you share and how you share them. If time permits, we can get a little bit into the neuroscience of communications so that you know the building blocks of correct communication, because anybody who's been trained at university as I have known that an MBA we are taught exactly the wrong way to do it. What I'd love to do, as Eric says, is share a remarkable marketing story that other people can do. It changed my life. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've launched a couple of seven-figure businesses. I had a TV production company that raised $5 million. I had a yacht sales company that became the largest yacht dealership in Western Canada and was a seven-figure company. I've trained coaches as the founder of the Grief Coach Academy, which is now sold and runs somebody else. What the story I want to tell you is the story of pivoting to a new business. I was running the Grief Coach Academy. I was known as the person who trained coaches and therapists and other caring individuals, helped help themselves or help people through grief. You know what I get bored easily. I was tired of talking about grief and I wanted to do something else. I wanted to test a pivot and see if people would want me as they knew. I had my email list and most people all knew me about grief and grief coaching. My back stories my husband died suddenly when he was only 33 and I was 31,. I really wanted to help people through grief. I still do want to help people through grief, but I wanted to pivot. People were starting to ask me would you help me with my marketing? Would you help me write a book? I've seen you've run a bunch of books. How do you get on radio? How come you're on podcasts? How come you're on TV? Can you help me with my messaging, my marketing and my media, starting to hear that the first part of this story that everybody can do is listen, pay attention to what people are asking for. Then I wanted to do a minimum viable product, so to speak to use Silicon Valley terms to see if people who already were on my email list, who already knew me but knew me in a completely different capacity, would be willing to invest and follow me with their credit card, not just oh, yeah, a good idea, but hey, a good idea that doesn't have to change. Attached is not proven. I wanted to do a minimum viable product. What I did is I reached out to somebody who had previously interviewed me. He was the director of coaching for Tony Robbins at that time, a wonderful man named Mark von Muser. I said hey, we've done a great interview. I know your coaches liked it when I came in and taught them some specifics about coaching people through Greece. I wanted to be willing to interview me about marketing. I said most people don't know that I'm also a serial entrepreneur who's launched several other seven-figure businesses. I know that you're green at marketing and I'd love to interview you about marketing. So I gave him the list of questions to ask. I choreographed the interviews so that I got out my stories that I thought would be of most value, and I was really pleased with the interview. And he said oh my God, you were amazing. You changed lives. So I took that interview, I transcribed it and I turned it into a little book. It later became this printed book Marketing Fast Drive. But when it was merely a PDF, I used that PDF to reach out to TV hosts who had previously interviewed me about grief and grief coaching and stress and how to reduce stress and how to increase happiness. And I said, hey, I've got a new book coming out about marketing. Would you be willing to interview me on TV about marketing? And in fact I secured two TV interviews before it was more than a PDF. Then I added a little cover and in a weekend made this is a prettier version, but in the weekend made the book Turn Rids Into Wealth. And then I offered it to my email list. I had a very modest email list at that time of about 12,000 people, but again, they knew me from a different perspective. So it was a desk and I offered them the Marketing Fast Drive book for free, but they had to pay shipping and handling. The reason I did that is I really wanted to see the people who were interested and even if people put in $4.77, it's enough that it's more than a casual interest. They're actually put their hand up. Yes, I'm interested in learning how to fast track my marketing and I'm willing to hear from Aurora, even though I know her in another way. And then once people got that book, we mailed them out the book. My assistant did that. And then they got a series of videos that added more value about their marketing. There were standalone value, not pitches, but standalone. Here are some things to do for your marketing and at the end of this podcast I'll tell you how you can get some videos and free book as well. And the result was not only those two TV interviews, but immediately somebody signed up to get help with her marketing. Then I had several people sign up to get a much larger package to get the spoken author launch, which is basically videos, audios, a book, something that they could turn into a podcast or 200 pieces of social media. Anyway, bottom line that immediately proved the idea worked and it generated $250,000 in 90 days. So I'm like, okay, I think this works. So it was a very good minimum viable product. In fact, it worked very nicely to give me confidence that, yes, people did want to know more about that, and the secret sauce is how can you create something that's a minimum viable product that you can do fairly quickly? It took me much longer to write most of my books because they're pros. But marketing fast track is a conversation and, yes, I tidied it up recently so that I told people here's what happened after this book came out and added some quotes and it's also got a chapter the first chapter from another book called Turn Origin to Wealth, and Amazon is the number three search engine. So can you have a book on Amazon or even if you don't have a book on Amazon, can you offer people a PDF or a little print book that will identify the people who are potential prospects for what you're up to. So that's one of my remarkable marketing stories, eric.

Eric James Eden: 8:52

That's awesome. So you said that anybody can do this, can make this kind of pivot. Tell us what was hard about the pivot, because the result is obviously great. Was it easy or was it hard?

Aurora Winter: 9:07

Oh, the hardest thing for me is I'm a recovering perfectionist, so there's part of me, that's what he made. It's a conversation, that's not a book. I need to write it all pros. And I quelled that by saying, okay, rory, you can write the pros book later, after we prove the market feasibility and that people really want this, and so I struggled with my perfectionism. I think that was the biggest thing that was hard about it. Some things that would be perhaps easier for somebody like you to do, eric, with your journalism background, is how do you create the content? So I had to choreograph the interview. So that's something that I helped my clients do. I trained people to become media savvy and I have a background in film and television, and so it was easy for me. But it may be something that other people need to spend some time, because if most people just talk about their, where's the point? So that was a bit of a challenge.

Eric James Eden: 10:06

Yeah. So what's the point? That sometimes the big question. I think People should read the whole book Marketing Fast Track. There's a lot of great marketing books out there. Give us the golden nugget of why people should prioritize reading this marketing book.

Aurora Winter: 10:25

I think this marketing. First, you can get it for free. You can go to samepagepublishingcom, so there's no cost. You don't even have to pay shipping anymore, but you get the e-book now. Or you can visit aurorawintercom and get it for free. The reason I think this is a precious marketing book is that it's unlike others in that it actually shows you what a minimum viable product book looks like. It gives you an example of one that actually worked to generate $250,000 in 90 days, which is not a bad result. A lot of people bury their minimal viable product after they come up with the fancy schmancy one. You want to read the fancy schmancy one. Read the book. Turn Words in 12th Blueprint for your Business brand and book to create multiple streams of income and impact. That's the fancy schmancy one. What I like to see is I like to see how did they really do it? Google's launch of email only had three features on Gmail, but you can't see that anymore. You can't really see how it evolved. You can only see where it got to now. Why I think this is such a value for people is so often we see we maybe know a story of how they started. Like we know, oprah started with nothing. And then we see where she is at the end, but the steps in between are hidden. So this example of marketing fast track, the little book that launched a new business, is an example of oh, there's a step I could do, and it shows you. And then it explains the emails that I sent. It gives you the real story I like that I like that.

Eric James Eden: 11:57

Give people the example so that they can follow in your footsteps. That's amazing. So let's hear the second story.

Aurora Winter: 12:05

OK. So there are many times that my life has been changed in a very short period of time and when I went. Oh, that's interesting. So another theme in my life is pivoting I always seem to be starting new businesses, doing new things. So after my husband died suddenly, when he was 33 and I was 31 and our son was four, we had been running a yacht sales and yacht charter business. That was a seven figure business and that was very successful. But, he was the one who knew how to sail. I was the one who knew how to crutch numbers and create a tax shelter and do market feasibility studies. Anyway, I was also working as a screenwriter at that time. I love writing and I was invited to an accidental series of things to pitch my idea, my screenplay, at the Banff Media Festival. So the first part of the story that everybody can do is when you get invited to do something outside of your comfort zone, say yes. That's the first part of the story. So I was happy writing away in my office and at that time I didn't have any training really in pitching and so I was quite anxious that I was going to have the opportunity to completely launch this new book and new career or else ruin my reputation forever because I'd be pitching my TV idea, my script idea, to about 600 movers and shakers in Hollywood and in Canada who were in the audience. And in case they missed it, somebody called me the next day and said oh, would you mind if I followed you and did the documentary feature film about this pitch, your first pitch. I'm like, ah, ok, second time of saying yes to something I was uncomfortable with. Anyway, so I practiced. Third lesson prepare. I practiced my pitch. I was very uncomfortable, my neck went into spasm because I'm like I've never done this before. I'm going to be jealous in front of all these people. But I drew upon at that time I was also teaching aerobics, so I drew upon a strength from another area. I'm like, ok, I can teach in the red with class, so I'm sure I can do this. Anyway, I got up and I pitched my idea for a TV movie called Lost Rituals and to my great surprise it sparked a bidding war spelling television and in Hollywood and Canadian broadcasters and Canadian producers and American producers and even one British producer. They all thought, oh, this sounds really great. And it sparked a bidding war which then made a really great documentary feature. It became a half an hour documentary called the Big Break and it still aired on CBC television now and again. For a while. It was used to teach the art of pitching at the Banff Television Festival. The result of that was that book, that script, got optioned and indirectly I became a little bit famous in the film business, at least in Canada, and led to basically six-figure, fixed, six-figure job which then later led to me going to the Cannes Film Festival and NADP and other things, and then later led to me meeting somebody and forming a film and television production company and raising $5 million. So there's a couple of lessons in here that I'd like to point out, because I think everybody can do this. I was really uncomfortable saying yes, but I said yes to do a pitch, yes to have it documentary, and then I gave it my best pitch. But I practiced and then I was open to what might happen and while the immediate obvious result that I was hoping for was that book, that movie, lost Rituals Would Get Made, something I think even better happened and I got offered this whole time job as head of development for Canada's largest film and television production company, which changed the trajectory of my life. Before that I was a young widow writing screenplays on the side who had run a yacht sales company with her husband, who was dead. Then the other thing that this points out something short, 20 minutes or less can change your life, can change your business. So get your message clear, talk about things that you are passionate about and in 20 minutes, if you have the right message to the right audience, delivered with the right energy, it can change the trajectory of your life and your business, that's right, and it's amazing that you're able to do that.

Eric James Eden: 16:42

I think pivoting itself is hard. It's a hard thing for people to do because, as you pointed out, it puts people outside their comfort zone. But you just got to sometimes make that leap to change everything, like you said.

Aurora Winter: 16:58

I find that I do because I get to be a restless person. There's different personality types. Another little takeaway nugget from this is know who you are and what jazz is you. What fuels you? I'm the kind of person who loves starting things. I'm a quick start, I know my Clifton strengths and strategic maximizer, activator, learner and relator, which makes me a great coach, because I'm naturally strategic. I see how to activate whatever they're doing and how to maximize it. I love learning and I love relating to people. But who I am not is the person who likes just chugging along running the business with a 5% growth, and it's not me. I like to do something new and knock it out of the park. As your workforce, as I'm sure going to do when you launch it very soon here, eric, you're up to something new and exciting.

Eric James Eden: 17:50

Yeah, I'm excited about it and I think that I have always been more like the people who come out of college and they're like I'm going to be somebody and I'm very just, have a healthy amount of ambition. But more than that, I've always just had curiosity, which I think is one of the best things culturally and in business, because curiosity will enable you to make pivots, because you can wonder can I do that? And then wonder how can I figure that out? And as an example you pointed out of an MVP of that's, the best way to sometimes figure things out is to break it down into manageable chunks, and that's exactly what an MVP is, so that I really liked that example. Talk to us a little bit about turning words into wealth, because I like this concept. Being a journalism major, tell us a little bit about.

Aurora Winter: 18:49

So I love this book turned words into wealth. This I have actually given away all my copies. This is my proof. Copy doesn't normally come with the gray bar. It's a blueprint for your business, brand and book to create multiple streams of income and impact. And as I'm explaining it to you, I'm going to tell you the neuroscience behind it. Okay so, neuroscience, you always want to do things in three steps. One is the crock brain. Catch attention with something short. So the title turned words into wealth. Or the longer title turned words into wealth blueprint for your business, brand and book peels to the crock brain little short thing. You know what category I'm talking about. The second thing we always need to do in neuroscience is talk to the mid brain, which is all about relationships, which wants so for proof. Being on Eric's podcast as an example of social proof at Eric wants to interview me we all love Eric or Rora must be worth speaking to. But this book also one outstanding nonfiction book of the year I ends. It's one multiple other book awards, so other people think this book is worth reading. So that's the second step of neuroscience. And then the third step is deliver your message. On college. They basically tell us give an Excel spreadsheet verbally and the other person will open it, analyze it and agree with you. That's not so much break it into those three steps. So what I what was heavy on my heart as I saw people writing books is they would spend the average first time author spends three and a half years writing their book and then they would drop the ball from a marketing point of view right at the finish line. So their book wouldn't invite the reader who wanted more to go to their website to get more value, to hire them as its me chair, to hire them as a culture consultant or whatever the thing was, and it wouldn't have baked into it the value proposition going forward. So nonfiction books solve a problem. Turn words into wealth solves the problem of how do you monetize your message. How do you turn your words into wealth. There's seven different models of how to turn your words into wealth and I share stories of how I did it, how my clients did it and how famous people do it. Now, when I share how I did it or how my clients did it, it's baked in oh, maybe Aurora would work with me. Oh, aurora knows what she's doing. She's done it multiple times. Maybe she'd work with me. And it's in integrity, part of the content. It's a valuable part of the content, just like the two stories that I told as examples of remarkable marketing. This is why I like to help people at the same page publishing, because most people forget, or they sell themselves short, or they're too shy or I don't know various different limiting beliefs that they don't bake in the value proposition. If you break in the value that you provide into your book, then you can give the book away and it will make a ton of money because it will help build a six, seven or eight-figure business.

Eric James Eden: 21:44

From a marketing perspective, I really hate it when I see people trip at the finish line.

Aurora Winter: 21:49

They run a marathon they trip at the finish line.

Eric James Eden: 21:52

It's hard to watch. It's really hard to watch and, in particular, this example is a thrill of victory and the agony of defeat of if someone spends three years writing a book and then they don't really deploy these strategies for the marketing of it. Yeah, that's just. It's tragic is what it is.

Aurora Winter: 22:15

Totally tragic and it can be prevented. So I've got a book launch checklist. I do with my clients. We have a 90-day lead-up of launching somebody's book later this month and we've already organized. We've got the Refuse sorted, we've got the. It's already won four awards before it's published. So when we launched that book on the marketplace it arrives like a finished product, so set at. When people's book only has one review on Amazon, they didn't think about marketing it. They don't have a call to action, they don't let people know. Otherwise they can be of service. But I also help people with their fiction books. I'm helping a lawyer write nine legal thrillers. His first legal thriller has got over 50,000 readers and over 2,000 reviews on Amazon and for FunZ. I am also writing a fantasy series which is launching on Kickstarter. I'm like fantasy, magic, mystery and multiverse. It's a young adult fantasy series, so I'm always exploring. There's no growth in the comfort zone, as my mother would say. So I'm always pushing the envelope, going from fiction, from nonfiction to fiction, going from launching on Amazon and other traditional publishers to hey, let's try Kickstarter.

Eric James Eden: 23:24

So thank you for sharing these stories and these tactical, practical ways that people can get going to turn their words into wealth. Can you share the offer that you mentioned so that people can get this info and start that journey?

Aurora Winter: 23:43

So people can get the book Marketing Fast Track, the little book that launched a new business, and it generated $250,000 in 90 days, and you can see under the hood how it was constructed, because I'm being transparent. They can get that book for free on my webpage, samepagepublishingcom, or you can go to mynamearorawintercom a-u-r-o-r-a-w-i-n-t-e-rcom, and not only will you get the e-book Marketing Fast Track, but you'll also get five free videos that will help you attract capital, clients and media coverage and some other goodies as well, and then we can stay in touch. So that's, I think, a very worthwhile use of your time, and then you know what Marketing Fast Track is. It's a very short book, but it doesn't take long to read. And then, if they want, like a more fully baked book. The book Turnwords Into Wealth is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Eric James Eden: 24:44

Amazing. I think everyone listening should share this episode with their friends. People need to hear these stories about how to do exactly that turn their words into wealth. Thank you for spending the time with us today and sharing these great insights.

Aurora Winter: 25:01

It was great to be on with you, Eric. Thanks so much.