Ep 107: Turn Your Expertise Into a Book That Attracts Clients with Melanie Herschorn Transcript
Erin Austin [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Scaling Expertise. Here we talk to experts about how they have scaled their expertise and how they can help you scale your expertise. This week I'm very excited to welcome my guest, Melanie Hirshhorn, who is the founder of Big Impact Books. Thank you for joining me today, Melanie.
Melanie Herschorn [00:00:24]:
Thank you, Erin. I'm so excited to be here.
Erin Austin [00:00:26]:
We're going to have a great conversation. Before we get started, would you introduce yourself to the audience, tell them who you are and who you serve?
Melanie Herschorn [00:00:34]:
Absolutely. I am Melanie Hirshhorn and my mission is to help attorneys and other professionals share their stories with the world, to grow their reputation and make more money. And I do that by helping them write, publish, and promote reputation building books.
Erin Austin [00:00:54]:
So full service. So when you say help them write, meaning you help organize them and get the stuff in out of their brains.
Melanie Herschorn [00:01:01]:
And on out of their brain. Sometimes people don't like typing. So what I do is I meet with them weekly and I ask them the questions to get the chapters out of them verbally. We get it transcribed and then we plop it into the right places so the book starts to emerge.
Erin Austin [00:01:23]:
It's hard for me to imagine that there's a lawyer anymore who can't type. Now back in. You know, when I started practice, the partners didn't even have any kind of implement which they could do anything other than make no computers, nothing on their desk. And then there were a few who did the point and peck. But my goodness, I can't imagine. Words are our currency. I can't imagine being uncomfortable with that. But I guess it's a different thing when you're kind of plying your trade versus telling your story.
Melanie Herschorn [00:01:54]:
Absolutely. Although, you know, a lot of the books that we do are about the attorney's successes and their client wins and cautionary tales. So it's not like they don't say this stuff and talk about it all the time and write about it all the time. But I think that people come into the idea of a book as though it's this giant elephant and they cannot foresee a way around it. So I'm there to make it simpler and easier and doable in bite sized pieces.
Erin Austin [00:02:25]:
Right. You have one step at a time, right?
Melanie Herschorn [00:02:27]:
Exactly. One bite at a time.
Erin Austin [00:02:29]:
One bite at a time. That's how you eat. Who wants to eat an elephant?
Melanie Herschorn [00:02:31]:
Is that the thing? That's it, Yeah. I don't think I'd want to eat an elephant, but yes.
Erin Austin [00:02:37]:
So tell me, where did you start? How'd you get to where you are today.
Melanie Herschorn [00:02:41]:
Totally nonlinear. It's not like I went to law school and then became a lawyer. You know, that would just be super easy. I am not an attorney. I started out in celebrity PR in Hollywood. Then I got a master's in journalism, moved to Pennsylvania, worked on radio as a news anchor and reporter. Then I got laid off when I was pregnant.
Erin Austin [00:03:01]:
Oh, totally.
Melanie Herschorn [00:03:03]:
Legally?
Erin Austin [00:03:04]:
Yeah. I'm like, I'm sure there's a story there, but.
Melanie Herschorn [00:03:07]:
So I freelanced at a newspaper for another year, and then my husband got a job in Phoenix. And so we moved here about 13 years ago. And when I got here, I thought, well, I could pay a babysitter more money than I'll ever make a journalist, or I could do something else. And I had this idea to design and manufacture breastfeeding clothing.
Erin Austin [00:03:28]:
Really? That's a departure. That's interesting.
Melanie Herschorn [00:03:32]:
It was. It was a bit of a left turn.
Erin Austin [00:03:34]:
Yeah.
Melanie Herschorn [00:03:35]:
But I was going through that at that time. I felt so uncomfortable in my own body, and I love fashion, and I really just wanted to make myself and other women feel good. And so I did that for about eight years. And I sold the clothes on Nordstrom.com and on Amazon and in boutiques across the country. And then in the seventh year of business, I made a bad hire. And this woman who I hired to help me with marketing helped me really run the business into the ground. She belittled me every single day. Would say, how do you have a master's degree? You're so boring when you write, and things like that.
Erin Austin [00:04:12]:
Wow.
Melanie Herschorn [00:04:13]:
So I sustained that for too long. And then I closed the business and thought, all right, I need to start again. What can I do? And people were calling and saying, hey, can you help me with this business idea? I know you've been a business owner. And then authors started calling and said, hey, can you help me with my marketing? And I was like, oh, okay, universe, I see what you're doing here. By the third author, I went, okay, this is viable. And what I found was after helping authors market their books for quite a while, that people were coming to me with books that could have been so much better, and that there's so much predatory behavior in the publishing industry. You hear this? I hear this all the time. Oh, my publisher told me X, Y, and Z.
Melanie Herschorn [00:04:59]:
I paid them all this money, and then I got very little for it. And so, being the entrepreneur that I am, I thought, what? I could do this so much better as a marketer. I thought, well, I have to niche down because you can't help everybody. Then you end up helping nobody when you're trying to talk to everybody and talk to nobody. And I have always found attorneys to be just like you, brilliant. And my favorite thing to do when I talk to attorneys is learn about your story and learn from you. Because there's always so many nuggets of wisdom that I get. And I thought, well, there are also things that I don't know about the law, and I can't trust Law and Order and suits and the Young and the Restless, which I've been watching for 33, 34 years now, still on.
Erin Austin [00:05:51]:
And what?
Melanie Herschorn [00:05:52]:
Oh, yeah, every day, baby. That isn't always how things happen in the law. In fact, it's probably the opposite of how things actually happen. And I thought, well, there's this gap. There's a gap between the knowledge that attorneys hold and what we lay people know as reality. And I can help bridge that gap and help attorneys make more money in the process by stepping into their authority.
Erin Austin [00:06:14]:
That's interesting way that you got there, but I'm certainly glad that you got there. So, as you know, this is the Scaling Expertise podcast, so we're going to talk about scale and scaling. So I want to start off with a question about, you know, how do you define scale, both in your business and when you're working with your clients?
Melanie Herschorn [00:06:34]:
Okay. The thing that comes to mind first is that as a solo practitioner, you expect you have to do it all. If you are the janitor and the president and everything in between, you get sick, your business stops, you want more time in the day, you can't invent it. So in order to scale, you need to create team and create systems that other people can follow and realize that you're great, but you're not the only one who can do what you do. You're really not. And if you have this special sauce, put it in a system and make it repeatable. I may have not answered the question fully, but scale is getting bigger and reaching your peak of success, however you define that and doing it with help.
Erin Austin [00:07:25]:
Yeah. So many people forget that other people can be tools, to use the word, as a way to scale. You know, it's not just technology, it's not just intellectual property, which we'll talk about, but it can be other people, like we are, as the founders, the most expensive resource in our business. So anytime we can find someone else who can do it better, faster, because a lot of things that my assistant can do that I cannot do or take me all day to do, I.
Melanie Herschorn [00:07:59]:
Say you could do it. Good, you could. But is it worth that? Probably not.
Erin Austin [00:08:05]:
Right. People are the place to start. Yes. With scale. So with lawyers, we have this thing called billable hours that we still cling to after. I think every other industry on the planet has left it behind.
Melanie Herschorn [00:08:24]:
Maybe not therapists. I think therapists still bill by the hour.
Erin Austin [00:08:28]:
So, yeah, I guess hcps, I think, do in some ways, too, that when they come to you, what is it that they're feeling. Feeling in their businesses? Where are they in their business? And what are the pains are they feeling when they come to you?
Melanie Herschorn [00:08:40]:
I think that it's not as much a pain that they're feeling, but it's an inner desire. Somebody told me I should write a book. I've always wanted to write a book. I know I should write a book, but I don't know how and I don't know how. I don't know who, I don't know when, I don't know how, and I don't know if I can do it, but I know I want it. And I firmly believe that if you want it, you can do it. I would never suggest to somebody, you should write a book, and I'm going to force you to do it, because that's quite a commitment.
Erin Austin [00:09:13]:
Yes.
Melanie Herschorn [00:09:14]:
But getting back to the notion of billable hours. Yeah. You don't have five hours a day to sit and type out that book. Which is why I help people do it in two hours a week. Because you can find two hours a week. I was listening to Brendan Burchard's podcast the other week, and he's talking about the statistics of people watch four hours of TV a night, they're scrolling the Internet two hours a day. I mean, you could find two hours in a whole week to do this. And that accountability piece is very important too.
Melanie Herschorn [00:09:49]:
I keep my clients accountable. They know. They see my name on their calendar and they're like, oh, I gotta get that done. Oh, yes, Melanie's gonna be watching me and making sure that it's complete and so it doesn't interfere with the billable hours. But what it can do is back to scaling, enhance that. Because instead of taking time to do a consultation, for example, you send out your book, somebody already knows you, and they know, they want to hire you, and they come in without needing to ask you 17 questions, because all the questions were answered in the book. So that's a timesaver right there. I had a call last week.
Melanie Herschorn [00:10:26]:
A woman said to me, a friend of mine sent me your book. So I'd like to hire you.
Erin Austin [00:10:31]:
Nice.
Melanie Herschorn [00:10:31]:
I mean, I didn't have to actually do anything at that moment. Sure. I spent three years writing a book. It shouldn't have taken me that long.
Erin Austin [00:10:40]:
But you didn't have you.
Melanie Herschorn [00:10:42]:
But I didn't have me, exactly. I spent, you know, years doing it and all the learning and all that stuff. But, I mean, that one client paid back so much of what, like, reimbursed the cost of the book almost. So that's how you scale with a book. That's how a book really helps. It does some of the heavy lifting for you while you're asleep.
Erin Austin [00:11:03]:
Well, with lawyers, I mean, what. Most of my clients are coaches and consultants, but one of my favorite clients is a lawyer. And what makes her different from other lawyers is that she is extremely specialized. She has a very niche area of expertise. You know, she's not a litigator. Commercial transactions or what? You know, she has this very, very specialized area of expertise. When you're working with lawyers, how do you help them if they're just like, I'm just a commercial litigator. I'm just like, what do you do with that?
Melanie Herschorn [00:11:33]:
Well, I think it depends on the person. So I'm working with a criminal defense attorney right now, which is a big topic.
Erin Austin [00:11:42]:
Yeah.
Melanie Herschorn [00:11:43]:
But what we're talking about is how to build a functioning and successful law practice. That's what he wants to focus on. But if somebody came to me and they said, well, I'm a generalist, I would say, okay, well, do you want to work with a specific type of person? And they may say, not really. Then I'd probably say, do you want to write a book? And they'd probably say, not really. Those are the kinds of people that tend to want to write fiction.
Erin Austin [00:12:08]:
Ah, okay.
Melanie Herschorn [00:12:10]:
That's what I've noticed. You know, they'd rather be a John Grisham than, you know, than a Brene Brown.
Erin Austin [00:12:17]:
Right, right. There are a lot of lawyers. I agree. I know quite a few of those who would much rather either screenplay is. I used to live in LA for a long time.
Melanie Herschorn [00:12:25]:
Oh, right.
Erin Austin [00:12:26]:
Yeah, right. That is great. Well, speaking of books and screenplays and let's talk about intellectual property. And so, I mean, you're kind of unique in that, you know, because you work with lawyers. The term intellectual property isn't that foreign to your clients. But when you think about working your work that you do for your business as well as for clients, does the term intellectual property ever come up or is it just thinking about the business impacts or like, how does it fit into the conversation, if at all?
Melanie Herschorn [00:12:58]:
Oh, yeah, I'm thinking about it all the time. Maybe it's because I have friends who are attorneys who are intellectual property and trademark attorneys and stuff, but I think protecting your ideas is everything, especially as an online entrepreneur, which I am, technically. I'm. Everything I have is online. I don't have anything tangible other than my books, but I don't have tangible stuff. I have ideas, and we need to protect them because we don't want people to steal them. I will never forget. So when I was back in the baby industry and selling tangible products, there were several trade shows that we would go to every year.
Melanie Herschorn [00:13:38]:
And you knew if you saw somebody walking around with their iPhone videoing, that they were going to potentially steal what it was selling in your booth, take it back to China, and manufacture it at a much steeper discount.
Erin Austin [00:13:59]:
Wow, that is interesting.
Melanie Herschorn [00:14:01]:
So there was a lot of that going on. And if you've ever been in a trade show atmosphere, you become instant friends with the people. If they're kind, you become instant friends with the people at the booths near you. Even if you're selling competing products, there's really. It's not a competition. We would all notify each other, oh, here comes another video. Watch out. So all that to say, it's not that obvious when you're an online entrepreneur, when you're a coach, when you're a consultant, it's not that obvious.
Melanie Herschorn [00:14:28]:
Nobody's walking into your house and holding up their iPhone and filming you. But I hear stories all the time of people creating programs and then somebody coming in and ripping it off.
Erin Austin [00:14:38]:
Yeah, they're not coming into your home because you're putting it into the world. As we use our expertise, we put it in a package of some sort that we are offering to the world. Making sure that we are perfectly protecting it is even more important.
Melanie Herschorn [00:14:52]:
Absolutely.
Erin Austin [00:14:54]:
So what challenges did you face as you were scaling your business?
Melanie Herschorn [00:14:59]:
Oh, none. It's been so easy. Just kidding, everybody. What challenge haven't I faced? I don't know. Name one. I'll give you the story. Well, pick a challenge.
Erin Austin [00:15:12]:
You know, you're used to kind of doing customized work with your clients, but it's not really scalable because you do it all over, you know, new every time you have a new client.
Melanie Herschorn [00:15:22]:
Yes. Okay. So when I started out in this iteration of the business, I had a business coach, my first business coach ever told me that because I'm a writer, I should be writing people's content for them. And so for a year I did that. I had clients, I was writing their blogs, I was writing their emails. Now, of course, this was predating AI People were paying me and I didn't love it, but I thought I had to do it because she told me I had to. And I'm very dutiful. I realized I couldn't scale that though, because I was doing it myself.
Melanie Herschorn [00:15:57]:
Yeah, because you write, sometimes you're just not in the mood and sometimes it just doesn't flow. And having to be a writer 247 was really taxing for me. So my challenge was, how do I scale this and do I even want to do this? Got a new business coach who said to me, do you want to do this? And I said, I shrunk down in like a little. And I said, no, do I have to? Don't I have to? And she said, no, of course you don't have to do this. It's your business. You're in charge. And I went, oh, light bulb. So many of the challenges have been mindset things.
Melanie Herschorn [00:16:40]:
Me minimizing my abilities, all the trauma that I walk around with as a badge of honor, and making sure that I listen to what I know inside as opposed to what other people are telling me. Because when I listen to what other people are telling me and it doesn't feel right, I hit up against an issue. Right.
Erin Austin [00:17:05]:
Mindset is so important. I think we don't talk about it enough. Honestly, when we feel, I mean, I think we even started the conversation with us thinking that we have to do everything, that we're the only person who can deliver. And once we kind of get away from that, how liberating it is, and to look at our businesses differently, like how can I streamline package, systematize whatever it is to make a business that works better for us?
Melanie Herschorn [00:17:32]:
Those are very sexy words. Yeah, very sexy words. Streamlined systematized package.
Erin Austin [00:17:37]:
Yes. I was told I need to be spicier. I don't know. That's as spicy as I get right there. I like that. So now let's talk about contracts for a second. And so people are afraid of contracts. You're interesting because your clients are lawyers, but they're also.
Erin Austin [00:17:53]:
You have non employer clients as well, but think of them as a barrier to the relationship. And I think of them as like the opposite. They make sure we're all on the same page. How do you think about contracts in your business? And can you give us an example of when, you know, maybe it saved you to have the right contract in place?
Melanie Herschorn [00:18:12]:
Well, I can give you an example of when it failed me. That happens too, because I had the wrong contract in place. How's that? That was a big learning curve for me because I'm on the side of. Contracts are scary because I'm not an attorney. But as I've grown up as an entrepreneur, I read the contracts now because I've realized it's still English.
Erin Austin [00:18:37]:
Yes.
Melanie Herschorn [00:18:37]:
Which is my native language. And if I don't understand something, I can ask.
Erin Austin [00:18:43]:
Yes.
Melanie Herschorn [00:18:44]:
But what didn't help me was I was working with a client, this is four or five years ago now. And she signed the contract and we had a six month contract. We were going to work together. And by month two and a half, she started kind of ghosting me. And then by month three, I get this long email that she would like to take a pause. And then she never resumed. And there's that fine line of do I enforce the contract or do I let her go? Now the scared child in me is always of mine to let them go because I don't want people to smear me online or make me feel bad about myself or abandon me. If we're really going deep into what the real feelings are, I need to be abandoned.
Melanie Herschorn [00:19:34]:
So I made a decision to just let it go because I'm of the mind that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink and you can't force this horse to drink water. And it's just not going to end well. Especially for what I do. I can't force somebody to market themselves. It's like crazy pants. But that was a really important lesson because I now have it in my contract that you can't break the contract just because you feel like it.
Erin Austin [00:19:57]:
That's right. Very important. Yeah. Having, you know, the things, milestones, getting paid up front, which I'm huge fan of.
Melanie Herschorn [00:20:06]:
Oh, yes. Can we talk about that for a minute?
Erin Austin [00:20:09]:
Yes, please.
Melanie Herschorn [00:20:10]:
So I recall once, this is very much at the beginning of my entrepreneurial stuff, after the nursing wear, I did some work for a woman and it took everything in me to ask her for, are you ready? $250. I might as well have been asking for $250 million the way it felt. And it took her six weeks to write me a check for $250 and I had to go drive to meet her to pick up the check.
Erin Austin [00:20:43]:
Wow.
Melanie Herschorn [00:20:44]:
And I learned from that. Get paid first because people are not going to pay at the end.
Erin Austin [00:20:52]:
It is a big lesson that many people have to learn the hard way. If you have the right business model. I mean, granted, if you're billing hourly, it's very hard to charge up front. And that's a sign that you have to look at your revenue model there. But getting paid up front, or at least, you know, based on milestones, at minimum, very, very important. I agree. What is one major tip that you like to give to people who are thinking about writing a book? Like, where in their business might they want to be first? What should they be thinking about? If this is something that they want.
Melanie Herschorn [00:21:26]:
To do in the future, if they're thinking about writing a book or wondering if they should. What I would say is make sure that you don't plan to change what you're doing. Because when you spend so much time writing a book that is meant to boost your credibility, your reputation, your profitability, and then you go and you veer in a completely different direction. And you went from being a physician to doing underwater basket weaving. Your physician book is not going to help you get basket weaving clients.
Erin Austin [00:21:56]:
Yes.
Melanie Herschorn [00:21:57]:
So be sure that you're in this for the long haul.
Erin Austin [00:22:01]:
Have you come across that where people write a book and then they decide to become basket weavers? Okay. All right.
Melanie Herschorn [00:22:06]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is how the conversation goes. It's funny, you know, when you get to a point in your career where you can just sort of recite what people say because you've done this so long. I love when you get to that point and you really feel, I'm just having a moment right now, so thanks for sharing it with me. People come up to me, I wrote a book about 10 years ago and it's about, blah. Yeah. But I don't do that anymore.
Melanie Herschorn [00:22:29]:
What do you think I should do with the book? Oh, and I say, well, do any of this in your current line of work? And they're like, no. Well, I think it's just going to continue collecting dust under the stairs in that box.
Erin Austin [00:22:43]:
Yes, exactly.
Melanie Herschorn [00:22:45]:
I would say be sure that this is what you want. Now, I am a little bit conservative in that because I'm the kind of person who will never get a tattoo because it's too permanent. It was very hard to name my children because it was permanent. I never named my stuffed animals as a child because that was too permanent. So I had to be completely sure that doing my book on that topic was going to stick. And so I guess I project that onto others.
Erin Austin [00:23:18]:
Well, that is excellent advice. That's quite an investment to make and something that is not part of your near mid and long term future. Thank you for that. So tell me, what is new and exciting? Anything coming up in at Big Impact Books?
Melanie Herschorn [00:23:34]:
Yes, I have a new book coming out. I'm very excited. Oh, yay. I wrote it way faster than my first book. So my first book, it took me three years. This one, it's been about three months. So I'm definitely condensing things. I wrote most of it over the holiday break.
Melanie Herschorn [00:23:49]:
I'm just in the editing process right now and I don't have a full title, but I can share that. It talks about the benefits of writing a book, especially for attorneys, and also sort of how to start thinking about it and laying it out and really developing a book that's going to move the needle for your business.
Erin Austin [00:24:09]:
That is fantastic. Did you ever worry about losing business to your book?
Melanie Herschorn [00:24:15]:
No. No. Because here's why. Even though I give, like so much information, it's so hard to do things on our own. That's why people come to me and they're like, I've been writing a book for five years. I've got one chapter. Can you.
Erin Austin [00:24:32]:
I got a few outlines. Exactly.
Melanie Herschorn [00:24:35]:
Exactly. There's a reason that we have coaches and consultants. It's because they know what they're doing and they help us get to where we want to go. It's just like we said at the top of this, we can't be expected to do everything ourselves and find success. It takes a village. Yeah.
Erin Austin [00:24:52]:
I think people that gatekeep information because they're like, well, if I give away too much, then what do they need me for? Well, if they are diyer, they were never going to be your client. These are not the same people. They are not the same human beings. So I would not worry about that at all.
Melanie Herschorn [00:25:09]:
Exactly.
Erin Austin [00:25:10]:
Yeah. So we will make sure. Well, first tell us where we can find out more about you, connect with you, find out more about your book. We'll make sure we have all that stuff in the show. Notes for people to find out.
Melanie Herschorn [00:25:20]:
Okay. So you can always just get on my calendar at meetmelannie vip. So I'd love to meet you. And my website is your big impactbook.com. so it's big Impact Books, but the website is your big impactbook.com and everything is there. All the freebies, all the fun, everything.
Erin Austin [00:25:41]:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Melanie. It's been fantastic to talk to. You were a lot of fun and I had a great time and great information. Much appreciated. And to everyone, thank you for joining us. Please find Melanie at the links and all the great information she just provided. And thanks for joining us this week.