74. Mastering Wealth & Publishing Success with Susan Dean, CEO of Dean Publishing
In this episode of Money Mindset Hub podcast, Carla has a conversation with renowned entrepreneur Susan Dean. Susan shares her journey from being a youth worker to becoming a successful coach, businesswoman, and the owner of Dean Publishing.
She attributes a significant part of her success to overcoming personal money blocks, and shares how writing a book helped establish her brand and career. With Dean Publishing, Susan is able to empower other aspiring authors to launch their own books and enhance their brands.
The episode is filled with insights into the process of publishing, branding, overcoming self-sabotage, and even creating generational wealth.
Free book structure download: www.deanpublishing.com/Sreview
Author retreat: www.deanpublishing.com/retreat
Connect with Susan:
-
Welcome back to the Money Mindset Hub podcast. I'm your host, Carla Townsend, and I'm a money mindset and success coach for female entrepreneurs who are ready to manifest a masterpiece in their life and in their business. So let's get started.
Welcome back to the Money Mindset Hub podcast. Now I have the most incredible guest, Susan Dean here with me. So Susan Dean is the founder and owner of Dean Publishing. So she was always destined to help others flourish beginning her career as a youth worker, Susan became a qualified business and life coach in 2003. 20 years ago, that would have been unknown back then. And an early adopter of the industry. Making a difference has always been her passion. Susan has always listened to people's stories using her tremendous empathy to empower others towards success.
So this has become her signature trait. In 2014, Susan's expertise in hearing and delivering heartfelt stories extended to publishing. So since then, Susan has produced and published hundreds of stories of inspiration ranging from business success to personal triumph and charity development. Susan loves to wake up every morning and work in her purpose-Built Publishing house, bringing stories to life alongside her two adult daughters who form an integral part of her business.
A dedicated Australian publisher, Susan lives her dream every day, and now she teaches others how they can do the same. Wow. What a journey. Yeah, definitely a journey that I feel everything that has happened has led me to where I am today. Yeah. Well, let's just take it back a bit, but just share a little bit about your story and how it all begun.
What made you pivot into publishing? Yeah, well, I think when I was at school I always loved poetry, writing poetry was my way of releasing emotions. I'd write poetry like people would write songs, you know, I probably couldn't, even though I was backup singer in the band voice wasn't as good as what my poetry was, but I used to write poetry.
That was my release. I liked writing stories. I liked, reading stories that made a difference, that made you think. And so from there, I always loved helping people. I was kind of one of those, kids that had come home and say, Oh, mom, my friend can't live at home at the moment. Her mom's gone to hospital.
Can she come stay with us? And they'd be living with us for a year or two, so I was always that person that loved sort of, helping people if I could. And I think that that's just something that has always been inside of me and being a passion and something that would always drive me to making a difference in some way, shape or form.
But I think at the time it was like, you know, you're going to school and you go to the career officer and I wanted to be a social worker, but I didn't like school and at that time it was HSC which is like the VCE equivalent. And it was four years of uni and, uni wasn't like it is now.
My kids go to uni and it's like, I wish I went to uni. Like they had fun. it was this big thing. It's like left become a secretary. The typing skills have come in handy. The touch typing skills. But was never my passion. I actually went back as a mature age student, become a youth worker.
And that's really what I wanted. The social work was more in the office and doing all of that. So I actually really wanted to be a youth worker and a youth officer. And that's where I ended up. And you ended up doing a bit of everything. I worked with a lot of these kids that were high risk, but I would tell them a story.
You know, I had a friend that did this, or I had a friend that had parents that, you know, couldn't look after her. And so she did this and she wrote a list of what she could do. And then they would say. Do you think I could do that too? So when you tell people what to do, no one wants to be told what to do, let alone a teenager that's got a huge chip and rightfully so on their shoulder, but by sharing stories, they would say, do you think I could do that too?
Or do you think we could do that too? Do you think I could do that sport or do you think I could write a list? And so story was always something that I found really moved people to make their own decisions. And so the transition from youth worker, ended up moving through. I ran a couple of different businesses while my children were little.
And then the long and the short of it was my husband knew that what we were doing in the business, which was jewelry business, wasn't my passion. It wasn't helping people. Yeah. I made them look beautiful, but it just wasn't at the core. So my husband was building a fire as all good men do and put the, put the fire.
I have to say that because the, the next story is that he ripped out a little piece of paper and it says, do you like helping people? And he said, Hey, maybe this is what you're looking for. Anyway, long story short, it ended up being Dr. John Gray, the author of men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. So a lot of people know of the book, if they don't know the name John Gray.
And so I started to train and I was the first female coach in the world to be trained with John Gray and his coaching. And I started to run relationship workshops. I've been with my husband for gosh, I should know my count, but I'm up to, I think, about 34 years married. So yeah, long time childhood sweethearts.
And basically from there, we ran his courses. We ran his relationship courses and life coaching and then building the business up. I then moved into business coaching. I'd ran multiple businesses. But I ended up always life coaching them, even though you were coaching them in business, it was always about who you are that affects your business, your mindset, everything else.
So combining the two is then I transitioned into writing a book and using the book to help grow my business. I kept repeating my story or repeating what I could do. And I just wanted people to get my heart, my soul of how I could help them. And so a book allowed me to get out to the masses.
And of course then for me it was like, well, there's only so many people I can help. What if I could help other coaches or other people such as yourself that help people overcome their, their blocks? Or maybe it's a health practitioner or it's a fitness coach or whoever that might be to tell their story as a ripple effect.
I then get to help these people write their books and share their message and their expertise in the world. So for me, it was this big ripple effect of paying it forward. And I went, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And. Wow. Like I get to do all the things I love. I get to help them in their business.
I get to help them in their life. I get to share stories. I get to help the readers that are reading it. And I just went, yep, this is it. So I kind of get to do everything that I love right here and now, until I can't do it anymore. I've got no you know, passion of retiring at all. I love that you say that too, because I feel like when you are so lit up by what it is that you're doing, there's no such thing as retirement.
It's like, Oh, like semi retire and maybe work less days, but there's no end in sight. It's like, I'm not going to get to this point and then go, okay, I've done it. I'm going to stop. So I love that you say that. And I know that you always talk about one of the best lead magnets that you can ever have is a book to share your story.
And honestly, I think it's so true. And obviously, I've seen some of your books. I've read some of your books that you have published. And they are brilliantly done and brilliant lead magnets that I can only imagine have such a huge ripple effect to the businesses and to the people running those businesses.
And not only that, but again, it flows on even further. It supports them to reach freedom. For them, for their families, for their children, for the children's children. A book is something that never stops paying it forward. 100 percent and that's why I always say put the effort into the book. I don't proclaim that I'm the editor.
I've built an amazing team around me. I'm the ideas person. I'm the person that works with the authors and says, okay, well, maybe we can do this and let's do a landing page and let's do a bonus and let's grow your database this way. And so I do the strategy and the. And then what do you want this book to do for you?
Because you're not going to get rich from a book, but you can from what it does for you. Speakers, coaches, trainers, whatever your business is, I always remember back into the expo days, you know when I'd have a stand whether that be a coaching stand, you know like I talked about, started in coaching gosh, in the early 2000s and everyone would say.
Okay. So you're a swim coach or a sports coach. I go, look at this body. Do I look like I'm a sports coach? No, I'm a life coach, but basically they didn't know a lot of what coaching was back then. And so the advantage was there wasn't as many coaches. The disadvantages is people didn't know what it was.
So we're not only had to enroll them in what coaching was, but then hiring me as a coach. The problem today is that there are so many people out there that are coaches and we're starting to get the smartness about us that we can. You know, you don't mind me swearing. We can smell the bullshit.
We can see if someone's authentic or they're not authentic. And when we're putting forth our hard earned money to invest in a coach or somebody to support us on where we need, we wanna make sure that they're authentic. We wanna get to know, like, and trust them. We wanna feel that we can click because there's a lot of coaches out there, but the individual should be shopping for the person that they click with because one coach may be amazing for somebody else, but not the most amazing coach for you. So we get to shop now because we know what coaching are. People are open to it. We're always a little bit.
Behind in Australia than what we are in America and so forth. But even over there, you know, typically they'll have an accountant and a coach, here we're building towards that where everyone is saying, well, you need a coach and not just one, I have multiple coaches, for different for different parts of my life or my business.
And the point is that.
📍 Now we need to stand out more than ever, even now with, AI coming out and, it's going to be the next wave that will be bigger than what the world wide web was like, this is crazy times, right? What's the one thing that no one can take away from you?
Is you and your story, who you are, why you do what you do, how you can help them, get them to know like and trust you, is a book and you can go to any event anywhere and you can get a brochure and you can get this and that and you'll throw it in the bin.
No one can throw a book, even if it goes on the bookshelf and you kind of keep looking at it and go, damn, I'm going to pick that up. I've had clients that say, I've had your book for like two years and I picked it up. I read a few chapters. I'm ready now. So a book is around for a long time.
You invest in it well, you do it well, no one can take that away. No, AI can take that away. If you're not a great writer, it doesn't matter. There's ways of being able to help do it, but no one can take your story away.
No one can be exactly the same as you. No one can look like you. These are the things that we need to hold onto so tight now, because, that's our uniqueness that nobody can copy. Oh, absolutely. Do you know what is so crazy? I was just listening back to one of my podcast episodes. It's going live on Monday.
And I was literally just saying that that was one of the biggest blocks was, but the market's too saturated. There's too much competition. How am I going to stand out? So that was one of the money blocks that I was discussing because at the end of the day, you've got to learn that you are your superpower.
You are what people buy. Look how many coaches there are. Health coaches, fitness coaches, business coaches. But like you said, we shop around now and we shop for the person that we resonate with. We resonate with them. We resonate with the way they speak, the way they tell their stories, their energy. For me, that's probably the biggest one.
If someone has a great story and they write really well, but then I hear them speak and I just don't get that connection instantly. I'm like, nope, I can't like your writing sounds great, but I need to hear someone's energy to then go. Yes, you are my sort of person or you're not. And that's the thing.
We are all different. I think a lot of the time we can use that as such a big excuse to be like, no, no, no, there's too many. There's too many, everything. How many billions of people are there on this planet? But if you've got one life, so you get to choose how you use it and you get to choose the excuses that you stop yourself from doing it.
A hundred percent. In agreeance that, that, that's why it all goes in combination, you know, a book, a podcast, an audio book a physical book, all of these things, people need to see things in lots of different ways, like you just explained, visually, auditory, you know, kinesthetically, connecting, and when you're out there and you've got a book and you've got a podcast, or you be on other podcasts, or you're on your socials, they're seeing you in lots of different ways, and then they're reading, say the book gets a longer time with you, and maybe a podcast and this and that, but you've got to be in, A couple of different mediums because people are making that choice every day.
And if it's not a now thing, you could be something that I pick up later, whether they've put the book on the shelf, whether they go back and listen to the podcast, but a hundred percent, it's a good thing now.
Cause in my day, it was damn hard. People were like, what do you mean people pay you to help them for their life?
Like, what do you mean? And so it was a hard gig back then. It's easy now. It's just. You've got to break through the noise. You've got to be you. Don't change you. Be you. But then be you in all these different formats and the people will find you because you're out there.
And that's, that's the difference now. But people are looking now, which is even better than having to explain to them. People are looking now for their next coach for the next mentor. So it's a good time, but just be yourself. Get out of your own way. Get out of your imposter syndrome, get out of your shit.
And one of the things that I always say, and I think you mentioned before is back yourself. Cause no one can be you, just be you back yourself ,and keep doing it. It doesn't happen overnight. Yeah. And I know something that you have mentioned and I've got here, but having a book gives about a whole different level of authority in your field too.
It's, it's something that's truly established. I mean, I even feel like when people find out that I have a podcast. They instantly look at the business differently. It's not just some online business that's been around for a few years. It's like, Oh, you're, Oh, you've actually got a website. Oh, you've got a podcast.
Oh, you've had guests on there. You've been on the podcast, you've been in a magazine. Then they realize, Oh, there's so much more, set up, I suppose, and I think that when you see someone as a published author, it adds that whole other a level of authority. I find that too. So what do you think then is the biggest reason why people just put it off and don't do it?
I think that you're absolutely right in that sense, because what you're doing by doing your podcasts, by writing a book, you're coming out behind that door, you're coming out and you're sharing yourself. it's quite vulnerable. You are really putting yourself out there. What that does for the reader or the listener it's a little bit like, well, they'll trip up because if they're not for real, they're not going to come and open the door if they're a little bit sort of secretive or a little bit behind the scenes, that there are a bit, you know, people are wearing now that they're worried about trusting people because there's so much scams out there now. So you can have the best website in the world. You can have the best marketing in the world and the best ads, but we all know that gosh, now it can even be created by AI.
So we're going to be even more cautious. So we want to see the person. We want to hear the person. We want to read about this person. So if you're prepared to put your book out there into the big wide world and on Amazon and on all these bookstores and you're prepared to put this book out, well then you're a little bit more trustworthy.
You're an authority. You then get to show your wares. This is why I think you should work for me essentially in the book. This is what I know. This is what I want you to know. And people always worry, Oh, will I give away too much? No, give away as much as possible. People still always need that help even more than before.
So websites now used to be a thing. They're not, we can't trust a website anymore. It can look pretty. We want to see the person. We want to hear the person. We want to read their book. We want to know that they're out there. They're exposing themselves. They're vulnerable. They're sharing their knowledge.
Now I'm building trust. Now I'm ready to hire and invest my money with you. So that's what I think is very important. And it shows that authority and you get to have that time with the person without them actually having to connect with you yet. And you can take that book away, read it, study it, go, Oh, I like this person.
Oh, I like it. Oh, they do know a lot. And it's building that trust as I go for them to then reach out. And as you said before, lead magnet, we put bonuses, we do QR codes, which everyone knows about now. I used to use them. No one used them. Now everyone knows what they are, or they've been living under a rock.
We put them in. So we bring people in with bonuses to then grow your database as a business. That's all the reasons why people should be doing it. But the reason that they stop is themselves, that maybe it's not good enough, my story's not big enough or good enough.
Maybe. It won't be good enough and this is where I, you know, why I built a team is so people could one, have that reassurance that it's going to be great two, to help tweak because we don't expect people to be expert writers. That's not their craft. Their craft is the coaching, the speaking, the health, whatever product or service that they provide.
So we've got a team that help critique their story or their words and make it sound amazing. Make sure it's not plagiarized, make sure it's referenced correctly. All of those things that come into a high quality book because the high quality book will then show that it's a high quality service and product.
So you go cheap on your book and do these, you know, not so great self published covers that sometimes I go, Oh my God, you put all that work into a book. Why is it look so terrible? No one's going to pick it up. But basically they don't put the effort and the money into the book, but the book is their real estate and their quality for them to then come in and work with you.
So what stops us as imposter syndrome, which I think a lot of, you know, women, a lot of people. Worry about, and even I do, and I've had six, I've had nothing and I've got huge success now. And so I don't think it goes away. It's just about telling that little voice to shut up or dealing with stuff like your blocks from childhood.
And, I've got a doozy money block that I had you know, that really stopped me moving forward, but when we're self developing and we're getting coaches and we're getting people to help us through this, that's where our life and our business gets better. And people are starting to see that. So, you know, get out of your own way.
Yeah. Stop worrying about everybody else and play your own game and be authentic and be vulnerable. The books now are combinations of stories, how to's, knowledge. They're not just the hero's journey anymore. they need to be a combination of how to's, value for the reader, some tasks that they've got to do. It's like a workshop and a, and a how to and a story and a, and a building authority all in one. But get out of your way. You know something that somebody else could be learning from you. Get out of your way because if you don't get out there, that person can't find you. So my biggest thing is...
Just do it, do it well, and just get out of your own way because there's someone there that needs your help. And this sounds really terrible, but it's selfish that you're not putting yourself out there because someone needs you. If they can't find you, how can you help them? Yeah, I think you need to be selfish.
Selfish is just prioritizing yourself. It's prioritizing yourself, your work, what you're actually here to do. So I think being selfish is a necessity to success, to be honest. So I first off want to touch on, I suppose, because people might be wondering, okay, well, what's the actual process of how do you even write a book?
Where do you start? What does that sort of look like? And then I definitely want to touch on what was your money block and what was that transformation you had? I suppose to give the The listeners an understanding of where you were to where you are now because you have built generational wealth and truly become self made.
So let's go straight into first off what does it actually look like to publish a book through Dean Publishing? Yeah. As you know, I'm very passionate, so I'll try and keep it short and talk underwater. So basically how they start is they can connect with us if they go to deanpublishing. com. There is lots of ways where you can connect with an expert. I do those calls cause I really want to know who I'm going to be working with cause we work very. Closely with our authors. So you're not just a part of a group. You're not just somebody because your story is unique and you need that person to be there for you and your unique story.
So our top level is that we work one on one with you. So that you work with me and we do what we call a business mapping. Where do you want this book to do? What are you doing in your business? So I look at it from that perspective. Then you go and work with our chief editor that looks at the structure.
What's the book. And now it's more about the book. What needs to be in the book? What order does this need to be in? A structure is like the concrete slab in a home. If you don't get the structure, right, you ride all over the place and it becomes a hot mess. So we get a really good solid structure for your book.
-Then you go and work with a author coach and the author coach will say, okay, go away and write. You might use them now and again. You don't have to use them sequentially. And they're there to support you on the writing journey. Go back and forth where you need support. And sometimes some of our authors use it to go, I'm just going to talk this chapter out.
Could you help ghostwrite this little bit for me? So sometimes that can be a little bit more time. And then we just, you know, advise the author if it's a little bit more, but if not, if it keeps within the budget, we do that. Cause sometimes we move parts of hours from editing over to graphics, depending how long the author takes.
And then of course, you go to graphics and now we bring the book to life in its visual form. We format it really well. You know, if there's tips and tricks, we, we make the book look visually nice. it's okay for a fiction book to just be words, but when it comes to nonfiction, we, we want to be able to really easily digest all the different sections where we're moving from story to how to, to here and there.
So we do that, we format it beautifully, then we distribute it, whether we go for the bricks and mortar and we go with a distribution center, we've got You know, contracts with like your Simon and Schuster's and your other big ones where their distribution of books is in line with ours. We just use the same type of agents that go out.
And then we show people how they can manage on their own Amazon account if that's what they choose. So we talk about all the different ways. One way is not always the best way. It's about what's the best way for you as the individual author. And then of course we get it out there into the world, and then if people want to go on and do audiobooks, we again do the same, we distribute.
So we do everything from concept of idea to printed book out into the market. And also we do bulk orders to small orders. Again, bespoke, what does that author need as they're starting to build up? Some of our authors are more established, they're speakers, they want to order thousands. Then we might do offset or overseas and different things like that.
So we're really that one stop shop that helps guide you to get a professional book that will stand up against any other high end book, but you get to own the right. So you get to use it as a business tool, however, works best for you. So that's kind of the process we are launching next year a way that people can do a little bit on their own.
So we're launching an online course that they can do bits and pieces on their own and then reach out to us when they need certain parts. That's new. That's so that we can help more people. So that'll be available if people want to check that out. Start following us on our socials as we start to release this out.
It's all been recorded. We're just doing all the last downloads, workbooks and everything that will go with it. So there's lots of things. And of course, if people want to use supported AI, we've got a whole bespoke system for that, that helps them kind of get that first. Kind of ideas out that they can then use to tweak.
So we've got our own purpose built system for that. So lots of exciting things coming. The very long and the short of my story is coming from a youth worker, married young, had kids in my early 20s. Always worked for myself so that I could be at my kids concerts at school. And I've been an entrepreneur pretty much all my life since I left working for the department of human services because I love that flexibility. For me, it was always about having it all.
You know, I want it all. I want to be greedy as in have it all. And I'm not just talking money. I'm talking lifestyle, being with the kids, doing everything, taking time off to look after my 85 year old elderly parents. Now I I've got grandchildren. I get to play with them. I have Nana days. I think that you've got to build the business.
The way you want, wasn't always the way we've been ripped off, we've lost everything. We nearly had to pull kids out of their private school at we owed more on our house than what it was worth. We were probably 60, 000 in debt, in credit cards. We were a one hot mess trying to keep our head above water and drowning very, very fast.
Got taken advantage of by people , we were just very trusting and just did have different morals and, and visions than us. Finally backed myself. And that's when I went out completely on my own with the Dean Publishing, never looked back. Prior to that, there was ups and downs and loss and things like that, left with tax debt to pay lots of really shitty things.
Money block I had from probably way back, I believe everything happens between the nought to seven mark. And I think my dad's friend came around with a yellow Lamborghini type car. And he was showing my dad and I was crying because I was too young to go. And my sister got to go have a ride in this car.
So I was really annoyed. And my dad's standing there holding my hand quite tight. And I think under his breath, he's like, you know, wanka, so I'm just like, Oh, so these people with the big, beautiful, rich cars and all of that, they're not good, you know? And then it kind of built onto having to try and prove to my dad and if it was money and is he proud?
My dad's a lovely man, but these were the stories I took on. And so it was like, if I become successful, if I made a lot of money, I was a wanker or I was all about money and, and, and it blocked me so much. And when I realized, you know, it was earlier on and through coaching, it's like, if you don't charge, they won't have that worth. And on top of that, if I can make more money, I can help more people. And so I give back. I'm a big charity giver. I do lots of charity work and I give back to organizations. And if I want to go and donate 1, 000 or donate, you know, whatever I want and even larger amounts, I can do that because I've built, I've looked after me and now it's become generational wealth because I didn't build it like this, but both my 30 year old daughter and my other daughter now work within the business and they basically are the ones that, you know, help grow this business and bring in the youth about the business that.
I don't know about half of this. So now it's about generational wealth. So I'm now not looking after me. I'm looking after my kids and my grandkids. And so I have to make sure this business structure and everything's well, and it can scale. And so that's kind of the long and the short of it. But, you know, moving through your money box is so, so, so important because you need to have that, where did it come from releasing that, but then creating that new way of where wealth is a great thing and a positive thing.
So that's hopefully the long and the fast and the short of it. There's lots of little bits in between, but we now own two beautiful five acre properties in the Macedon ranges. We live across the road in a gorgeous home that is all paid off. And we then have a beautiful five acre property, which is in the Macedon ranges where we run a wellness center and we run, our writers retreats and things like that.
That's amazing. I mean, The short story is like, whoa, you went through all of that, like all of some people's worst nightmares, right? Especially while you're trying to grow a business, also raise a family. You're trying to raise a family. You don't need to be getting ripped off by people, bridges burned, tax debts, all of this stuff happening.
But it does go to show. 📍 That no matter the situation that you're in your past financial history, or even currently, if you're in a shitty place, it doesn't dictate what is possible for you in the future, but you're the one that has to decide that for yourself and draw the line in the sand and go, that is done.
That is done. I'm going to learn one of the lessons I need to learn from that, but then I'm going to move forward. And this is the moment where everything gets to change. And I set boundaries. It sounds like from your story, there was a lot of boundaries that needed to be set. There was more structure that needed to be put in place.
There Just a lot of things that had to be released and it's a journey, right? Because your money mindset is a form of personal development, your money blocks and your success blocks. Are the same thing. Often money blocks are not even directly linked to money. They're more around self worth and self belief because they're the ones that stop us from actually going out there and being successful.
And I also love that you touched on that of this feeling of, well, rich people they're wankers, they're idiots. Like you had probably that fear of success because if you become too successful, then people treat you differently. Dad won't be proud. Dad might treat you differently.
Your, your family and your friends might look at you differently and treat you differently. And then, going on through life, you've had that, you've experienced that, you know? And I just think now I love it. The more wealth that I build, the more I can share. I buy tickets to concerts and invite friends and say, no, don't worry about it.
There might be a 300 ticket. It doesn't matter because I get to share what it is. So for me, it was always about sharing. So when I can get the holiday houses, when I can get the boats. When I can get all those, it just means more fun that I can invite people along to, this center that I bought was purely for everybody.
It was never bought for me. It's an absolutely beautiful center. You know, we have a stage and an 18 seated theater. It's a beautiful property, manicured gardens. But I bring community here. I bring people here around wealth and around health and mindset and community.
That's what this space is. So people can come, other people that have got expertise can come and share and just really built it so people could come and write their books here and in a beautiful surrounding. And I couldn't do that if I didn't remove those blocks around money, if I didn't start looking at different ways.
Like you said, you stop yourself. You're the only person that stops it. And where you were, doesn't mean it's where you can be? And I've seen two sides. I've seen the people that maybe felt ripped off or dumb hard buy or lost all their money for whatever reason could have been stock market could have been COVID could have been anything.
And they give up. They lay in bed and they do nothing with their life. And that saddens me because I know you can get back up. Takes a hell of a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of determination, but gosh, don't set yourself a one and two year goal. Set yourself a five and 10 year goal. Set yourself out there and you'll achieve it.
It's taken us to be honest, I was speaking to my husband the other day and I go, you know what? It's probably taken us about six years, seven years to get back to really go we're set. We're set now. We're right for life. Like we're, we've got our super soda. We are full. That was a hard ride, but it's a much nicer way.
Now I'm in my, you know, mid fifties and, and heading towards the sixties mark. Now that we can relax, we can now know we're building generational wealth. And once you've got that wealth, you build on it and build on it and build on it. We were in minus minus minus. And now we're back to where we were and it did take seven years of damn hard work, but we now feel that we can still build on what we've got, but we can relax a bit now and start enjoying it.
So. Choose you. You're the only one that will stop yourself and you're the only one that will get the help you need or get what you need to support you to move to that next step. Yeah, I think that's great too that you showed that as well. I mean, we spoke just before we started recording. You know, there's this big I suppose it's pretty common to see the overnight success type vibe on social media now being portrayed.
But you just saying that, I mean, you're very well established now, extremely successful. And you're saying it took seven hard years solid years of really putting everything into it to get it to where it is. That wasn't overnight. And I'm sure along the journey too, there was times where it's just like, is this even going to work?
Is this going to pay off? I feel like that's just the journey of entrepreneurship, right? It's a rollercoaster. It goes around and up and down. But I think if you're consistent, you don't give up and you set some timeline markers, but you kind of have, I want to be here in 10 years.
This is where I want to be and this is where I want my business to be. And that's where I, I have what I call sometimes the Dean's formula, which is design, educate, automate, nurture, and serve. And the D is for design, design your life, design your business, design your wealth, design what you want, and then go out and bloody get it.
I love that. What a fantastic acronym. So yeah. And design your book, of course, get it out there, you know, design your podcast, whatever it is that you need to do to get your message out there, but just back yourself, be you, no one will be you. And that way you don't have to change who you are.
Like I see people go, okay, what brand do I need to be? Okay. I'll be that, or I'll design myself to be like that. No, Be you. Yeah, there's branding and design around that, don't get me wrong, but be you. Then that way, your authentic self will attract the right people. Yeah. Do you know what? I feel like it is only about now.
The last couple of months, I just previously had a couple weeks ago, I had another brand shoot and that was the moment where I realized, Oh, I think I finally know my style. I know what I feel good in. I know what colors I always go for, I'm 32 and it took me this long to figure out who, who am I?
What do I like? What makes me feel good? Not what everyone else is telling me, not what I see online, not what I think I should be, but like, who am I? It's so funny because I literally said to one of my friends, I said, I was just trying to steer clear of, you know, the beige aesthetic and the black and white, because it's everywhere.
And she was like, Carla, look at the clothes you wear. They're black and white and beige. She goes, look at your house. It's black and white and beige, they're all earthy tones is literally you. And I was like. Oh my God. I've been trying to steer away from it, but then I don't want to be like them, but that's who you are.
I think one way to truly find it is what do you wear? If you look at your wardrobe and go, I'll never wear that. I'll never wear that. What's left? That's your brand colors.
Don't look anywhere else. You don't need to be told what else, but if you love those colors, stick with that and go from there. And I feel like as well, having looked at a couple of your books, and I obviously have a few in my library that I'm building because literally one day I just want my office to feel like a mini library.
And I've noticed that even the branding is so on point. Do you find that people already have their established brand or they've realized through this process of. Oh no, wait, this is what I really want it to be. They kind of become the brand? It's a bit of both. So when you're doing a book as a very personal thing, we're quite equipped to handle people when they have those tears and we're very supportive and our authors get very close to the team.
And I hand select my team for that purpose, because you're sharing, you're very vulnerable. And so people do explore, I've helped build brands from, Doing a book. We have one of our books she was a psychologist and coach. She was very conversational. And you know, we, we came up with the title, Real Talk, Real Change.
She was real and I just said, you know what, Nat? You know, I said, it's like having a chat with Dr. Nat. And so then we started to build this brand chat with Dr. Nat, and we're now doing a book about the Rum Doc, and he's the Rum Doctor. And so people sometimes come in and build their brand when they're doing their book, and they go, Oh my God, we did one the other day, Flowmasters.
She said, I want to work with people. I know they're this and I know that. And I said, you know, my husband's a bit like that. And he always says he goes with the flow. When we go with the flow, there's no work life balance. We don't start at nine and finish at five we go with the flow. And so we ended up with, well, you're creating flow masters.
She's built a whole brand around that and books and everything else. And things like that come about or people come to us like. Erica Kramer has got her book Confidence Feels Like Shit. Here's my brand. This is it. It's pink. We're leopards. We're that. So then we grab it and go, okay, what else can we do with it?
We'll take bits of that and put that there. Ignite your spark with Rebecca, how do we put little sparkles throughout? Because Fiction books, as I said before, you just format the book and it's just words on paper. When we get to nonfiction, we're getting to know you, like you, trust you.
We want it to be like we're entrepreneurs half the time and we're all probably ADHD and everything else in between. And I know I am, I'm like, so you, you want something that keeps you interested. You want them to read the next chapter. So it's got to be written well, but it's also going to be visual that they're kind of going This is in an interesting book.
We've got like little tips and tricks and little things that I can do. I'm keeping interested in reading this book. So we've got to get smarter because we're going to get people's attention a lot longer now. Our attention spans getting shorter and shorter. So the books are going to read well, be visual, everything.
So we bring the brand into the book, not just on the cover, but throughout the book as well. And we bring the brand of their voice, you know Hey gorgeous. Hey sister, or whatever that might be for you bringing the brand in so that when they're reading the book, they feel like they're talking to you or you're talking to them.
They feel like they can hear you through your words. we make sure it's still grammatically correct and things, but we bring in your brand in the words, in the style, in the look. So they come in different ways. Some have got it set, some create it and some we. We don't have, so we do the best with what the title is.
Yeah, I love that. Have you had any weird and wacky requests that are really out of the blue that you haven't had before? How would you approach it if someone came to you and it was really different? Sometimes they might come with a particular title of a cover and we might suggest.
That'd be a bit different. And sometimes people think you can do anything on a cover. They don't realize you've got to make the words a certain size. We've now got to make them look still okay as a thumbnail, which never used to be the same, but there's lots of work that goes into a cover. People don't realize we spend thousands on a cover Alone, because the work that goes into it, the little tweaks, we did do a book just recently, which is Autism Feels from Orion, and basically we did it where it's a different style, where some of the words are bolded so people can read it a lot easier.
So that was really interesting to do a new book like that. We've had translation books in German, I don't think we've had anything left field because I get to know them on the expert call first, um, to see if They've got that business. They've got that want that why they're in the right place.
So we've not had anything wacky other than we take on any challenge. Oh, that was the other thing. We did another branding. We did a book called Legless to Legless and we took photos of his prosthetic legs, which he took off, we shadowed them. We gave them to him and now he's branded. That he's taken it as his logo and his brand.
So we actually helped him by default build his whole brand and his book is called legless to legless. That's cool. That's very cool. So yeah, we do lots of fun, creative stuff like that . I feel like that's really good because I know with traditional publishing houses, you don't really have much of that and it's sort of what they say goes.
And that's the unfortunate thing when you are wanting to be you. And I, I actually had somebody that wrote a financial book. I can't remember the title of it. And she was taken up by a traditional and she said, they don't know my clients. I do. They've changed the whole book. The book's completely not on target.
It might look pretty. And they think they're going to sell more copies because it looked pretty, but it actually wasn't doing what she wanted to do with her clients. And they took out everything that she wanted. And she said, they don't know my clients. I do. And so we say, you know your clients, but let us help you draw it out so that we can create the book that's on brand.
That's you. But also we then go on to help with other products. So do they want a journal? Do they want to add other product range? So as a solopreneur. You can, with your knowledge and education, build a product range. So a bit like McDonald's, do you want fries with that? You can say, okay, this is my coaching.
You can either package up your products in it. You get a book, you get a journal, you get a workbook. We do workbooks. So things like that, that somebody can add on to their already existing products, but keep branding them and keep adding things, you know, quote cards, game cards that we have speakers use.
So, so many different products that they can build from that as well. Yeah. And that's incredible too. And I think a lot of people listening probably wouldn't have known that. I would've just thought it's just all books, but you do do that as well. I've seen the quote cards and the journals and the workbooks and all of that, which really just.
It goes along with the whole brand, but also I suppose there's that lead magnet of the actual book. And then everything else is kind of like the upsell or the workbook for the program, which the book is leading them to you know, there's so many different ways to do it. And I love that. So, and even with the virtual world now, people are doing online courses, but we're all just getting a little bit over the download, the download, the download, where did it go?
Where's my downloads again? You know, especially when I do it on my phone. But the point of the matter is, is that you can actually physically send them out a book or a workbook and things like that. So there's lots of other ways that you can connect with people, even when you're doing virtual work as well.
So that they've got something tangible. We all like that tangible as well. That I think is getting less and less. So yeah, we work with people and having that business coaching and that idea and entrepreneurship combined, that's why I believe like it kind of all lands to being that one stop shop is because you can't just come in and go, here's my words, how can they edit it when they haven't even spoken to you or know you and that's why, you know, we work closely with our authors in that respect, but we've also got this other program that's coming out. That's going to be amazing as well for people. Yeah, I suppose that's it too, because it is like a lengthy process. I know. I don't even know if we mentioned it here, but I know that we've both discussed this before, but it does take around 9 to 12 months from start to finish normally to get the book actually all written, published, formatted out there.
And that can be a long thing. And obviously there's an investment for that. So any other way, like this course sounds like it'd be amazing to for people that are just like, I just want to start, but I'm not ready for that full commitment, how can we start and get going? And I know obviously you do retreats as well.
So I'm going to link that as well. You do authors retreats and you also have a free book structure download. So I'll put all those links in the show notes. So if anyone's wanting to actually start, but they have no idea about the structure, I think that was my first question to you. When we had our chat like a little while ago, I was like, but how do you structure a book?
And I downloaded that and it was so helpful. So thank you for that. I'll put those links in the show notes for the book structure download. Information about your author's retreat and also all of the links to your, your website and your social media. Is there anything that you wanted to finish on Susan?
Because I know we could talk for days. I know. Look, I think it's just, get out of your own way and share your story more than ever. With everything that's out there, you need to let people know who you are. How can you help them if they don't know who you are? And I always used to say, if people could just feel and hear what's in my heart, I would have an abundance of clients.
'cause I just wanna really help them. And so then I say that to the listeners. Someone needs you. Someone needs your service, someone needs your help. If they don't know about you, how can you help them? And to be able to get it out into the wider audience through a book is how I grew my business, how I want to show others how to do it themselves.
And yeah, just share it. No one will have your story. No one will have your exact expertise. So yeah, combine the both and just get out there and do it. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on and I know everyone's going to love this episode. Thank you so much. My pleasure.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, I would absolutely love it. If you can please leave me a five star review and let me know your thoughts. And if you know anyone who would benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them until next time.
Remember everything you desire and deserve is just on the other side of your own resistance. So take that next step.