 Hi, I'm George Cao and today I'm with one of my clients, Rochelle Melander. Hi, Rochelle. Hi, George. Thanks for being here. So Rochelle's going to be sharing some of the lessons she's learned in her business building journey and hopefully you'll all get some inspiration and benefit from this as well. So let me start by reading Rochelle's bio and I will, and then we'll go into some of the lessons. So and by the way, Rochelle, do you sometimes get people saying Michelle? Yes. Rochelle, Michelle, Rachel, Rachel's a big one. So all right, let me read your bio and so folks can have some context for what your business is. So Rochelle Melander is a certified professional coach and the author of 10 books astounding including Write Athon, Write Your Book in 26 Days and Live to Tell About It. That's the title of the book. She has worked in publishing as an author, as well as a book editor, magazine editor, blogger and writing coach. As a writing coach, she now teaches professionals how to turn their ideas into books, how to navigate the publishing world and to connect with readers through social media. She has lots of tools and tips at her website, which is rightnowcoach.com, which is W-R-I-T-E and O-W-Coach.com. And Rochelle, just to sort of complete this part of it, just to complete your background, you have worked in traditional publishing as well as independent publishing. And just for those who don't know what traditional publishing is. Yes. So most, you know, when publishing started or in the most recent years before indie publishing got a footing, all publishing was done kind of in brick-and-mortar publishing houses. And so I got my start working for them as a consulting editor and a consultant and an editor. And all of my books are traditionally published. My most recent book that's coming up in the next year, Level Up, will be indie published. I'll do that myself so that I have the whole gamut of experience. Amazing. Yeah. Lots of sort of hard-won lessons to share with your clients and your audience members. So when you, as you're, you know, those watching this are a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, share with us some of the lessons you've learned here in your business. I know one of them is sort of the importance of experimentation, but I'll let you kind of talk about your experience there. Yeah. You know, you had this, I don't even know when you did this, but you talked about the paper airplane analogy. And because one of my jobs is teaching writing to kids, we do, we make a lot of paper airplanes. Oops, that one kind of crashed. And so it just really resonated with me because anytime I write a book or launch a program, I've got all my eggs in that basket. And I'm thinking if this fails, then I fail. If this doesn't succeed, then I shouldn't be doing this. And that idea that you had that we should launch things like paper airplanes and maybe tweak them more lightly was a way for me to kind of let go, not put all my eggs in that basket. And when things didn't work, then I could step back a little bit and say, OK, what's, what's up here? What do I need to tweak? Let me look at this as information and more as a test. And then I can tweak it and make sure the next paper airplane flight goes a little better and a little better after that. And it's advice that I give to my writing coaching clients. I don't want anybody to spend 10 years on a book and hope that this is going to change their lives. But I was doing kind of the equivalent thing with my business. I was putting all this effort into launching these big programs. And then when nobody signed up, I was like, ah, I should just quit. Your way is a little bit better because it's lighter. I don't invest so much time. And I think that clients then experience it in a different way. And so they're more likely to be a part of an offering I make that's not given with such a heavy hand. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, the way you say that. And speaking of how clients take it, et cetera, you also mentioned in our conversation about this call that you are having conversations with your clients or potential clients and kind of getting some information. Maybe you can say more about that. Well, you know, one of the things I started to do since working with you is reach out to clients regularly. And not just when I have an offering, but reach out to them. I've gotten more free with my time. So if I haven't heard from a client in a year or two, I'll say, hey, let's just set up a conversation and hear how you're doing and what's happening. And sometimes that results in more work. And sometimes it results in just getting to know where they're at, which I'm happy to do as well. But that kind of rhythm of regularly reaching out to former clients and even to people who maybe stopped in and had one session or a sample session to regularly connect with them has really helped me build my kind of market of raving fans, you know, the people who are more connected to me than just those who hang out on my list. Yes. I love that. I love that so much. I think those hearing this, watching this will hopefully feel inspired to think about the people that have reached out to them, why their clients, previous clients, but like you also said, people who have had you've done sample sessions with, you know, I sometimes forget to add that group into the mix. So I thank you for saying that. And it's so true, you know, when you keep in touch in the personal way, you stand out because what I've noticed, I mean, I have, I mean, I've had a thousand people who have been clients or people who've been in my coaching programs, etc., more than a thousand. And so few of them keep in touch with me on the basis, like a personal thing, not just on their newsletter or something, but personally reaching out, thoughtfully reaching out and just kind of updating me on what they're up to, not even trying to sell me anything or asking me to refer them. Just say, Hey, this is what I'm up to now. And how are you doing? Or I noticed you've been doing this. How I'm so proud of you or so, you know, great to see it or whatever. So when you do keep in touch and reach out, you really are like one in a thousand, you know, and and it's so much more likely that someone's going to refer you business because you just kept in touch and you're on their mind. You know, I've noticed that a lot. It's like when I refer business to somebody, it's because they're on my mind. It's not necessarily because they are the best, best person in the whole world for that thing. It's just we don't have time when we're referring business, we don't have time to think, well, who is the best person in the world? Let me like think through and look through all my contact list. Oh, yeah, I just talked with Bob. I just talked with, you know, so-and-so. It's like, Oh yeah, of course, they're they're good at it. And they're, you know, I like who they are. And so naturally going to refer. Now, another way, of course, to keep top of mind is through content. And that's something that you do very consistently on your Facebook business page. I will be sure to link that in the notes of this video. But tell, tell us, share with us what you've been learning as you continue that journey for yourself. Well, I think I was an early adapter of content marketing. So I was sending an email newsletter as early as 2000 and have been blogging for for over 10 years. And some of the original people who are on my list are still on my list, you know, how many ever 16, 17 years later. So I blog regularly and I also commit to post regularly. And so I only blog once a week, but I post that everywhere on social media. I also make sure that I post other people's resources on Facebook and Twitter. And now I'm working on growing my Instagram following. So I'm posting on Instagram once a day. And to me, the biggest value I can offer people is as I guess I call myself the resource queen. So I am providing them with resources that I have called and cultivated as well as my own information. And I think, you know, I've always done this generously. And I got to a point in my business when I was worrying that I wasn't making enough money and was I giving too much away were people not buying from me because, you know, I just I just gave away so much in my newsletters and so much in my books. But I think what I've learned from you and from the MasterHeart community is that content sharing is really about building relationships. And you need to have a relationship with people before they're willing to hire you. And so what's interesting to me is that sometimes like today I got an email from someone who's been following me and on my list for like 10 years and is finally ready to hire me. Wow. And that's pretty remarkable. But that's the sign of a long term relationship. It wasn't didn't feel mutual because I hadn't heard from her till now, but she has felt like I've been part of her life nurturing her content creation, nurturing her writing all these years. So I think I think what I've learned from you is, first of all, don't worry about saturating the market with content or giving away stuff for free because you're building relationships. And that's a necessary step. Secondly, once you put that content into something saleable, like a book, a program, a coaching program, another sort of product, you're going to make it different and better just by taking all that content together into a 50,000 word book or a 25,000 word book. You're doing something that's going to make the content much easier for the client to digest, plus you're obviously adding some more stuff in there. And that's going to make it more likely that they're going to want to buy it. Even if they've read it all before, they're going to be like, Oh, it's so nice to have this all in one book or it's so nice to be able to go through this as a program. Sure, I'll be happy to spend whatever on it. So that's really released my fears and allowed me to do something I love, which is create and share content. Yeah, I love the way you talk about that. It is I found it to be so true. The more content I give, the more people are paying attention to what I'm doing. And even if I create an online workshop or a book, that is basically a combination. Like I said, it's a combination of some of the things I've already put out there for free. People buy it, you know, the same people who comment on my things buy it because they're like, you know, it's yeah. So it's yeah, you've said it very, very clearly, Larry. So I would love for you to share, Rochelle. I mean, we have a few minutes left and I want to be able to ask you about some of the offerings you have. But do you have any tips for people who are, you know, a question that I received recently is I've got so many ideas. I've got some, you know, experiences to share. But where do I start? Like I, you know, there are people who are paralyzed with feeling if they have to put everything in order and like they can't start because there's so much of it. How do you what would you how would you advise or encourage that person? That's a great question. I think so I think if if if you're a person who's meant to share content, you're going to have a lot of ideas. That's just part of the gamut. That's part of who you are. So I'd say start sharing in an informal way. So either through videos or blog posting and not necessarily your blog. You could do it as a guest blogger, but share some things and then measure the response. So kind of treated as a test marketing experience. And so I'd say take a month and share some things that are key to you. So maybe you have four book ideas or four program ideas. Share around those four topics and measure the engagement level, measure how many people like it, how many people share it or comment on it. That's really great information for you. And once you see that, then you can see where kind of that magical combination between your passion and your fans interest is. Because you really, you know, you really kind of need to write in that area. The other books will come because remember, these are paper airplanes. They're not big tones. So you can write this book and then in six months, you can write another book. So I think that that's been the best tool for me and my clients is to really work with reader and and client engagement. Wonderful. So tell us about the various ways that you do work with clients. Let's say somebody watching this right now and saying, gosh, you know, I would love to get Rachelle's inspiration, support and finally, you know, birthing my book or finally getting going on a consistent writing process. You have various levels of working with you and maybe you could share as many as you as you like. So I think, you know, the first thing I'd say is get in contact with me for a complimentary consultation. We spend 20 minutes together and we can talk about if your concern is kind of in developing that writing habit and overcoming fear or procrastination. Or maybe your problem is I don't know how to write a book or perhaps your problem is I don't know how to make my book work for me. I don't know how to share it through social media or publish it or any of that. So we can discern that and then talk about what's going to be best for you. Sometimes a big question like how do I publish my book can be solved in a 45 minute coaching session. Sometimes and my most popular package is a six session package, six 45 minute sessions, and I get to look at pages. And that's a great amount of amount of sessions for someone who wants to create a book outline or wants to overcome writer's block or or establish a writing habit so that they're doing it regularly and feeling really confident and comfortable. I also offer workshops from time to time and I have one coming up called leverage your content and it's really about helping people who've been blogging or speaking or doing programs take that content and shape it into a book. And because I've worked in books for so many years, I've got some great ideas for the structures that work well for that kind of already created content. I have some ideas for how you can figure out which content's going to sell best, all of that sort of thing. And so that's a quick one hour workshop with worksheets that will really help see the cats here that will really help. Your cat wants to write a book that should really help people. Beyond all that, I have a weekly newsletter and a blog post. So sign up, get connected. I often have some cool little freebies for clients. Very, very nice. So let's end this conversation by just kind of inspiring the viewer about the possibility of having published the book. When you published, whether you want to share about your own experience or a client's experience, what what is the difference in their sense of their their abilities as well as the market sense of their credibility when they publish the book? Maybe share a bit about that. Yeah, I think, you know, in my in my book, Write-A-Thon, I talk about writing a book as being like running a marathon. You know, it requires some training and discipline and and the ability to kind of sit down and work on something for a distinct amount of time. So just the process of thinking through the book and writing it is going to up your level of expertise and ability to connect with your clients and talk about your interests with your clients. So I believe, like for me, being a writing coach who's written and published 10 books really increases my credibility because I've been through it. I understand what it's like to do the process. And so when I'm coaching people through it, they have a sense that I know what I'm talking about. And because I've worked on all sides of publishing, they know I know it from all different parts, from being the client, the writer, to being the editor, to being the publisher. So I think that's really helpful. And I think that anybody who's going to be writing a book is going to experience that sense of credibility because most people don't read a book in a year. So the idea of sitting down and writing a book in a year is pretty impressive. So your clients are automatically going to be like, wow, they actually sat down and wrote something. And so just knowing that you have that is huge. The other thing is it gives people a way to stay connected with you. So even if they just have your book on their shelf or the Kindle, even if they never read it, whenever they're looking around, they're reminded, oh, George is the one that talks about joyful productivity, you know, and then they're connecting that content with you. So it's keeping you in their mind all the time, even if they're not even looking at the stuff. Yeah. I, years ago, I had promoted somebody's bookwriting program and I should have vetted that person better because later I was, you know, it was introduced by a colleague. So I thought, OK, well, then I go ahead and promote this person. Later, I was like, has this person written the book? And I searched and that person had not even written the book, but they were teaching people how to write and publish books and things like that. And I I just want to tell everybody, I mean, Rochelle is the real deal. I mean, having published the book, I mean, written, edited, published books, consulted on, you know, publishing process. I just love that I can refer people to you and then do it very comfortably and confidently. So thank you for what you do and you continue to maintain your credibility by all the content that you generously and resources you can generously share on your blog, on your Facebook business page, etc. So I'm going to be sure to put the links. I mean, well, whatever links you want, we can put that into the notes of the video. Now that you're on Instagram, we can put that in there as well. So thank you so much, Rochelle, for doing this. Yeah. Thanks for having me, George. This has been great. Great. The Internet seems to be cutting out now. So this is a good time for us to complete the conversation. So so for everybody interested, just go ahead and use the links in the notes of the video and connect with Rochelle. And you'll be inspired and and really supported as you write your book. Take care, everyone. Bye for now. Thank you.