Why Writing a Book Builds Business Credibility with Doug Robbins

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with author and speaker Douglas Robbins—her husband—to explore how entrepreneurs can write powerful books that build credibility and grow their business.

They share the origin of the Author Accelerator program, the mindset shifts needed to start writing, and why storytelling is a game-changer for business owners. From overcoming self-doubt to publishing and marketing tips, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who’s ever said, “I know I have a book in me.”

TRANSCRIPT:

Jennifer: Hey, hey, a brand-new episode of the Happy Productive Podcast is about to begin. It’s time to be inspired by simple and actionable solutions for you and your business. If you’re an established entrepreneur or just laying down the first brick of your future empire, the mantra is the same, we will flip any failure into a positive and use it to our advantage.

This show is all about turning coal into diamonds. With the right plan and mindset, anything is possible. I’m Jennifer Dawn, your host, business coach and founder of Best Planner Ever, and I’m here to help you achieve all your ambitious goals.

Success is closer than you think.  Let’s do this.

Hey, hey, welcome to a new episode of the Happy Productive Podcast.

My guest today is going to be so much fun, whether he wants to be fun or not, you guys. Douglas Robbins, welcome to the show.

Douglas: Thank you, Jennifer Dawn. How are you today?

Jennifer: I’m really, really good. Okay, you guys. So here’s the funny thing. Those of you who’ve been around me a while, Douglas Robbins is actually also my husband. And I’m super excited to have him on the show. So you’re probably going to hear us chuckling and poking at each other just a little bit.

And that’s because he’s my husband, I’m his wife, and we can do that because we love each other. But the most important fun thing that I want to talk about is writing a book because nobody knows this better than Douglas. And he actually leads our author accelerator program. And so many of you may not even know that we have an author accelerator program.  The beautiful part of this is that it actually came about from one of our retreats. So last year, we were in Sedona, Arizona, leading a retreat.

And during one of our wonderful retreat gatherings, we had a lot of clients who were wanting to write a book. And that’s one of the things we definitely want to dive into today of what that even takes, what that really means, what goes into it. And I saw so many clients were wanting to write a book. And so at the retreat, I was like, guess what, we’re just going to start an author accelerator. Doug is going to lead it. He didn’t even know until I said, hey, guess what, Doug, you’d be perfect for this to lead it.

And that’s what he has done. And he now has several groups and he’s helping so many business owners get their books into the world. So Doug, let’s start with you, though, a little bit of tell us just a little bit about your writing journey, because you have just released your seventh book. So just tell us a little bit about your writing journey.

Douglas: My writing journey began many, many decades ago  in high school. I was not a big student.I didn’t really want anything to do with the school or classes or anything at all, frankly, institution related. But a teacher did ask like us to write a poem. And in that poem was a snarky little teen angst type of poem and I wrote it. And there were some funny lines. And then I asked my father to listen to it. And I didn’t often get a lot of attaboys or acknowledgement from him. And I read it to him. And he really enjoyed it.

He laughed. He thought it was funny, insightful. And then I brought it to the class and same thing. The teacher enjoyed it. Other students enjoyed it. And I felt like it was a eureka moment And I found a power in words that I had never really known elsewhere. You know, you’re getting when you’re a kid, you’re a teen, you don’t really have a lot of control. You’re just shuffled through things and you’re supposed to get good grades and play the game and all that.

And so I found a power in words. I was like, oh my goodness, words affect, words affect each other. And it’s the words that we carry with us, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they can inspire and they can damage. So words really have a great power. And that changed the course of my life a bit at that time.

Jennifer: I love it and now you’ve actually just come out with your seventh book. Tell us a little bit about that.

Douglas: Well, it’s a book that started long ago. The germination of it started long ago when I just started wondering, what do Native Americans do during Thanksgiving? Because it’s not, you know, it is a reminder of often genocide or systemic issues. And so it got me actually really thinking and going down this avenue of creating a story that sort of brings this to light. And the story is comical, but the undertones are much more serious. And ultimately they take over the native, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Jennifer: I love it because of what I learned, because I actually helped Doug with some of the edits during the writing of this book.  And I learned so much, so much history that I didn’t even know. And I didn’t know that Thanksgiving is actually the day of mourning for Native Americans. And so just learning that was so powerful and so many other things that you included in the book. It’s just a super, super powerful story.

Douglas: Yeah. Yeah. It’s very powerful because Thanksgiving is about sharing and joy and family togetherness and abundance and all these types of things. Often it’s about overeating and watching football, but nevertheless, so it just got me thinking of the disparity, right? On one hand, you’re, you’re, we’re saying how wonderful everything is, but on another hand, we’re ignoring some, some issues, some very serious issue that has been taking place in this country for, for decades, if not centuries.

Jennifer: Yeah. Agree, agree. Overeating and watching football, two of my favorite things, no question whatsoever, but we’re going to come back. And at the end of the show, I definitely want you to share like where people can find your book. And what was the name of it?

Douglas: Black Cloud Rises. And the protagonist is named Black Cloud.

Jennifer: Nice. I love it. Okay. So sitting here, listening to you talk about how you just released your seventh book. I know that there are people listening right now that are like, I’ve got a book in me, right? There’s a book in me. It’s, it’s sitting there in my heart, but I just don’t know like how to get it out, how to get it out into the world, how to get that book on paper. And you guys, when we first started our author accelerator, I remember giving Doug some guidance. I’m like, we’re coaches.

That’s what we do. We coach people, coach them on the writing process. And Doug didn’t do that. He instead made it more of like a writing class. Okay. You submit your work. We review it. The group reviews it. And I hate to say this. He won’t hear me say this very often, but Doug was right. He was right about how to lead this author accelerator group and help our clients get their books out of their hearts and onto paper. And so can you just speak to a writer who is, I know I’ve got this book, but I have no idea where to even start. Could you just speak to that for a moment?

Douglas: Yeah, it’s funny because I’ve had so many people say to me, oh, you should write my story. You should write my book. You should write, I was like, no, I write my books. You have to write your book. And it can be intimidating if you haven’t written before per se, a blog or an email or something like that. If you’ve never crafted something that’s 30, 40, 50,000 words, it can obviously be a little daunting and where to start.

And we have all these thoughts swirling around our heads and all these experiences and anecdotes. And that’s really how the author accelerator program was born. Because again, a lot of business folks, they’re not professional writers, but they have these great stories and they want to get their information out there about not so much, not just about their business, but about their expertise.

And so that’s what the author accelerator program can do is give that credibility, that expertise, that sort of stamp of approval by having a book. And I got to tell you, it’s satisfying to me because I’ve had several people in the groups come through and say, I’m not a writer. Most people start with, I’m not a writer, fill in the blank. And, or they get bad information of from someone don’t write this. Nobody needs to hear another, another business book. Oh my Lord. Nobody wants to hear your story. But the truth is your story affects us. Your story matters.

Your story can influence others. And I can’t tell you how many times where people started seeing in the group itself, how their story was affecting other members of the group. And that’s why like, it’s so imperative to have others to bounce ideas off of and share in this journey. But that’s it. We help guide you soup to nuts. Okay.

Let’s get an intro. Let’s get some ideas down as far as what you’re trying to say. And then we figure it out as long as, as, as we go, it’s not going to be perfect up front. You’re not going to know everything up front. And I said this, the conscious mind can only hold about 40 bits of information a second. It’s not designed to hold everything that we know, bless you.

That’s what the subconscious, the subconscious is the storage basically. And so once you start writing, it starts triggering memories and triggering ideas and leading this story to that story and threads, you start seeing the thread. And so really within a few weeks or a month or two, people finding their voices, finding that muscle, finding that power in their voice, because the truth is we all have voices and we need to use them in this world. That’s why we’re here.

Jennifer: I love it. And so then as your writers, as they start to embrace this, and I’m sure there’s probably some challenges where they’re just like, wow, but do you see them start to get to a place where they get into a groove with the writing? Does that happen where they find their voice?

Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. They find the voice, they find that muscle and you see them finding a groove. Like they get, once we figure out, okay, you need a beginning, middle end of every chapter. Every story has a beginning, middle end. Every chapter has a beginning, middle end. And once you start understanding the structure of it, that’s when the gloves come off because now you have a structure to work from or a model to work from. And that’s where you see the, the, the real transformation take place.

Jennifer: Beautiful. And what are you seeing as a business owner?  Because I know that you’re writing, you, you personally write a lot of fiction books, but usually as a business owner, we’re going to be writing some kind of a nonfiction book. And so what are some of the things that you’re seeing that the people in the author accelerator, what are they using the books for in their businesses? What are you seeing?

Douglas: Yeah, that’s funny. I actually, the first book I ever tried to write was nonfiction, but it was so vast. I’m still, I’m working on it slowly over the years and will one day finish it, but it just kind of constituted a lot of information. But so I’m sorry, I asked the answer to ask the question again.

Jennifer: Yeah. What are you seeing? Cause I know like I’m getting ready to write my next book series. It’s going to be a series of nine books, the Oh Crap Survival Guide series. But I’m very intentionally writing those books for my ideal client. I want them to be a lead generator for the business to get more awareness. And so right now you have a lot of people going through the groups. And so what are you seeing business owners using their books to do?

Douglas: We haven’t had anyone finish it. There are a few people that are close or several people that are close, but it’s exactly that credibility. It makes you an expert in the field. I get, you can get on podcasts more easily. So it sets you apart from probably 95% of other or similar business owners who do not have a book. So what’s the difference between you getting on a show or not? Some credibility, some expertise and having a book that people can hold in their hands can, can, can be the difference.

Jennifer: I love it. So many people think, Oh, I’m going to write a book and I’m going to be the next Stephen King. I’m going to be the next JK Rowling. I would love you to speak to that. And it’s not that you can’t sell a lot of (1copies of your book. And of course we all want to do that when we go through the effort of writing a book. But like, how would you speak to the person who comes in with, Oh, I’m going to write a book and I’m going to sell 10 million copies.

Douglas: Right.

Jennifer: Right.

Douglas: Good for you. And when you send, send, sell 10 million, I’ll be very happy for it. Look, it’s, it’s a battle like anything else. I mean, the sky does not open when you finish a book. Believe me, I have run into that myself always just, okay, I did my part. Now it’s supposed to just happen because I wrote the book and it would be nice if it worked that way.

And it feels like it should work that way, but it doesn’t work that way. Writing is half the battle. And it is a battle for sure, because it is a long game. It is a distance run. It is a marathon. So that’s part of it. Obviously that’s the big part. You have to have a book, but then you really have to focus on marketing. And that’s a totally different beast in itself, but just like running a business, it’s the same thing. You can’t just figure out organizational stuff and not put it out there.

You have to put it out there. And that’s obviously, there’s a vulnerability to that. And a lot of people don’t want that vulnerability, but it’s the only way to get your voice out there, your business out there, whatever is by taking risks. But yeah, marketing is certainly is a key piece, obviously. Even if you got a publishing deal with a big house, a traditional house, it’s not the same as it used to be. You would still really need to do a lot of marketing, social media stuff, all the footwork you’re probably doing now in your businesses.

Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen that as well. Like people think, oh, I’ll go get a six-figure book deal. And if you’re already an established name, yeah, that might still be a possibility, but for so many new authors, that’s just not happening. And even publishing houses expect you as an author to be able to market and sell your book. And I’ve seen many business owners that until they could demonstrate that they could actually sell their own book, the publishing houses aren’t even going to look at them. It’s just things have definitely changed.

Douglas: Yeah, they’re different. There’s some similar challenges to being an indie or a self-published person and a traditional. As Jane just mentioned, if you’re a big name, great. Yeah. If you’re a Hillary Clinton, sure, they’re going to run ads for you and you’re going to do a big book tour and she’ll get a big advance and all that. But if you’re not a big name, you’re going to have to fight for it. You’re going to get in the trenches and you’re going to be doing it, but there are ways to do it as well.

Jennifer: Yeah. I feel like the marketing, like writing the book is like the first mountain that you climb. And then marketing the book is second climb. And honestly, in some ways it’s almost like the marketing is the harder mountain to climb because there’s so many different things you can do to market your book and get it out there. Absolutely worth doing, especially as a business owner, to give you that credibility and that authority, depending on what your business goals are. But definitely go into it understanding that there’s two very distinct mountains that need to get climbed when you’re like, hey, I want to write a book.

Douglas: Yeah. And it’s like anything, hire people smarter than you. Like, I am not a marketer. That is not my bread and butter. That’s not my, that’s not my zone of genius, if you will. I’m the writer. I have a podcast. That’s where I feel like I’m, those were my strengths to spin my wheels, trying to market. Yeah. I can do some things and I figure some things out, but hire the right people who can run Facebook ads. And so anyway, YouTube, whatever it might be, shorten the curve. And so you can focus on the things you’re best at.

Jennifer: Yeah. One of the things that I have seen in your groups of why they’ve done so well in helping so many people like get their book into the world is that weekly accountability. And guys, look, weekly accountability is not the sexiest topic. A lot of people are like, I don’t want to be held accountable, but that weekly accountability to submit something that seems to be a real key element as to why your authors are succeeding. Can you just speak to that for a second?

Douglas: Oh, absolutely. That is such a key factor because people want to show up for others. We might not always show up for ourselves, but we want to show up for all those. We don’t want to let other people down, et cetera. So when, Hey, your slot is coming up at two o’clock on a Tuesday.

You’re going to say, Oh my God, I got to write something here. I’m going to put something out there because they’re waiting for me. I’m the one submitting this week. And time and time again, it’s almost like a college paper or a high school paper. You procrastinate. It’s midnight the day before and you start working on it. So you have to do it and you do it. And sometimes that fire under your feet yields a good, good results. That accountability piece is so imperative. And then you have that positive constructive environment. It’s a safe space. No, no jerks allowed.

It’s just, it’s there. It’s a nurturing environment. And in many ways, I wish I had this through the writing process because it can be a very isolating process. And you finish this book. That’s taken you a year or two, a right to write. And then you submit, you give it to people to review, to review and they go, Oh, you got all these problems.

You’re going to change X, Y, Z. But if you have people making commentary along the way, that’ll shorten the curve for the inside. So I can’t say enough about accountability group regarding writing. It’s really imperative to, to, to writing. And again, shortening the timeframe, shortening the curve. Most of the people in the groups have said just that it’s that accountability piece that has kept their, their feet to the fire.

Jennifer: I love it. And it’s interesting for me because I’m not in the author accelerator because you’re running that piece of the business, but I’m on the business coaching side. And these clients will show up and they’ll, I’ll see them when they first get started. And of course, I give them that encouragement of just keep going.

I know in the beginning to get started on the book, even if you don’t have any idea about what you want to write, you just know, I want to write a book. Great. Just stick with the process. And I see them four, six ish weeks in, they start to get into a groove. They start to really enjoy it. And I see that happening on the business side when they show up and I’m like, Hey, how’s the book going? And they’re really, really excited because they found their groove.

They found the rhythm. They figured out like what they wanted to, to write about. And so I think as a writer, is that, is that a normal thing where you don’t always know exactly what you want to write, but you just got to get in there and get started.

Douglas: Yeah. If you’re looking for perfection, writing is not the place. It’s especially with newer writers. It’s really like stumbling forward. Just put some stuff down. Don’t worry about if it’s perfect or where it’s going to be placed exactly in it. Just start writing on the thoughts that are most pressing and then just keep doing that. And eventually you’re going to start seeing these connections. Oh, that’s chapter three.

Cause that leads to that. And you start feeling encouraged by your own writing. Once you start reacting to it, Oh, I’m reading this chapter. Oh, that’s pretty good. And now let me add a little here. And so that first draft that rough draft is simply you putting the stuff down, throwing paint on the wall, if you will. And then when you come back to it, you can refine it. And that’s when you, that’s when the good stuff starts happening. You’re not going to write gold on the first sentence or the first paragraph or first, whatever. Just do go through the process. It’s almost like going to the gym and working out. You haven’t been there in six months.

Are you going to be an Olympic athlete then? No, you’re just going to get a pump some iron. You’re going to feel pretty good after that’s the same thing. Put it out there, get it out there, get it on the page. You worry about the refinements later.

Jennifer: Although Doug, when you do write something for the first time and you think it’s gold, we all do. I write something and I give it to Doug and I say, Oh, read this, honey. It’s so good. And he reads it and he’s yeah, that’s crap. And then he writes his stuff and he says, Hey, it’s done. It’s ready to go. And I’m like, yeah, you got some work to do here, buddy.

Douglas: Yes. And it’s hard, right? Yeah. Go ahead. Yes. Because the reason is, and sometimes, you know, you feel like it’s done. I read this book, Black Cloud Rises six months ago. I thought it was done because it was done in my head and my head fills in the blanks. It reads between the lines. It knows what I’m trying to say. But a reader, the first reader doesn’t know any of that, just knows what’s on the page. And so that’s why it’s so important to have people reading the book, accountability groups or friends or whatever it is, before it gets to that final draft, you need input from others. It is critical.

Jennifer: Yeah, agree. And

Douglas: all the big writers have it.

Jennifer: Absolutely. And even though you may not want that input, you’re like, wait, no, I thought it was done and I got to go back. I got to keep working on it. It’s so important to really make a good book because you make a great point. The reader is not in your head. And what they’re reading is so important because at the end of the day, as a writer, you work for the reader, right? That’s your client. That’s who you work for, is you work for that reader. And so putting out the best product to them, just like any business, I think is super critical, especially if you want to be successful as an author.

Douglas: You work for the muse and the reader. Yeah.

Jennifer: Yes. I love it. Awesome. Doug, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here with me today. Those of you, if you’re feeling like, Hey, I want to write a book, we can absolutely help. This is one of the things that we’ve done with Freedom Builders. So Freedom Builders is our signature group coaching program, where we obviously help business owners create businesses that fuel their freedom. And as one of our value ads, when you are a member of Freedom Builders, you could be in our author accelerator and it’s all included.

So there’s no additional charges. And I know right now, there’s a lot of companies that charge a lot of money to help you get your book written. And Doug and I have both experienced this thousands and thousands of dollars wasted, frankly, on programs and resources that didn’t deliver what they said.

And I don’t want to call anybody out, but I do want to make it really clear that when you get ready to write a book, there’s a lot of companies and organizations that want to charge a lot of money to help you write that book. And Doug and I saw that happening and we did not like that at all. And so we wanted to create something that had a lot of value that would really help you get your book into the world.

And so that’s why our author accelerator is part of Freedom Builders. And then we of course have tons of marketing resources and places we can refer you to so that you can get your book out there and into the world, but for without breaking the bank or without having to kill your 401k, anything like that. If you’re like, Hey, I want more information. Just please reach out to us at Jennifer Dawn Coaching. We’re happy to share. Doug, would you mind just taking a quick minute, tell everybody where they can find you and where they can find your new book?

Douglas: Thank you, Jennifer. You can find me at douglasrobbinsauthor.com, but you could find the new book pretty much anywhere, Black Cloud Rises. And I think it’s a really powerful, unique story of when people don’t feel seen. And I think there are times that we often, we all feel unseen for one reason or another, but it’s essentially about bringing the past into the present to heal it. And we all need to heal the past, whatever it might be, but you can find my books at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, wherever books are sold. Black Cloud Rises.

Jennifer: I love it. And if you’re interested in Doug’s books, you can go to douglasrobbinsauthor.com. We’ll put that in the show notes. If you’re interested in the Author Accelerator, if it’s time for you to get your book out of your heart and onto the paper, you can also find Doug directly at doug, D-O-U-G, at jenniferdawncoaching.com. And feel free to reach out. We’ll put that in the show notes. This was fun, honey. Maybe we’ll have to do this again.

Douglas: This was fun. And it was nice to hear on a recording that I was right about something.

Jennifer: I know you have it recorded. And so you’ll have to then put it somewhere.

Douglas: I’ll just play it whenever you give me trouble about anything.

Jennifer: That’s right. You can say, Hey, honey, this one time y’all was right. And you were. Nice. I love it. I can’t wait to see what happens from our next retreat of what we manifest together because beautiful things and lots of beautiful books coming out into this world with your guidance and assistance.

Douglas: And we all make a difference. The world needs it.

Jennifer: It does. Absolutely. Awesome. All right, guys, write that book. If you need help, reach out to us. That’s it for today’s show. Get out there and have a happy, productive day y’all.

Douglas: Bye folks.

Jennifer: I really hope you found today’s episode of the happy, productive podcast. Inspiring every successful business is formed by sets of small, consistent and attainable steps. If you want to learn more, come visit us at jenniferdawncoaching.com to take your next step and learn how to meet your business goals and really to knock them out of the park.

On the website, you’re going to find free resources along with links to all of our life-changing coaching programs that have transformed the lives of so many of our clients, including the coaching academy and our unbreakable retreats.

Many of them started their journey by listening to this podcast. Thank you so much for listening today and stay tuned for our next episode.

Links

• https://jenniferdawncoaching.com
• https://app.jenniferdawncoaching.com/freedomquiz