Best Seller Podcast

David A. Paterson, author of Black, Blind, and In Charge, recounts memorable anecdotes from his time as the 55th Governor of the state of New York, after succeeding Eliot Spitzer, as well as after leaving office. He wrote the book to tell stories he thought were particularly important for everyone to understand the intricacies of serving as the governor of a state, especially with a legal disability.

The book also touts some lessons he learned along the way, particularly how running for office is like being a small business owner. In the book, Paterson recalls his transition from Lieutenant Governor to Governor, after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer. Even before he was sworn in, the slowly became aware of the crisis that awaited him, including a $40 billion debt. Paterson says that one thing he would do differently, if given the chance, would be to clean house and carry on with people who were about his mission.

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Mike Skrypnek, author of Entrepreneur Secrets to a Grow, Get, Give Life categorizes himself as a “mindset, transformational coach” teaching other entrepreneurs and business owners in mid-careers how to grow their business and gain more freedom to pursue their passions. In Skrypnek’s case, he wanted to make a bigger impact in life and started with one big goal – to give $1 million to charity every year; however, he wasn’t sure how to accomplish that. He wanted to live his passion seven days a week, not in the periphery, so he sought the advice of those who had done it prior. For Skrypnek, this book is a byproduct of a lifetime of experience that he felt would be beneficial for others so he wanted to get it out there.

Skrypnek felt it was important he write this book to get the message out because ‘give, grow, get’ means different things to different people. It can mean growing your business, your personal wealth, and getting the freedom entrepreneurs seek to give back as a result of that freedom. He used the word “impact” as his guide in order to build “a mountain of credibility” to give as many people as possible the opportunity to live their passion. Once people find that passion, he adds, “it changes everything.”

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**LISTENER CONTENT WARNING: This podcast contains a discussion of sensitive topics some listeners may find offensive.**

Marcus Anthony Ray, author of Seven Years of Skin, took his life experiences and put them into print in a tell-all book. It is a gripping, honest portrayal of what happens when someone gets everything they want seemingly without consequences. His journey as a male exotic dancer began in his 20s as a way to make money to save his parents’ house from foreclosure. Ray himself says that the “deep dark world of ‘anything goes’ sucks you in” and the book highlights his journey into this world and how he was able to crawl back out, which many others weren’t as lucky, and change paths, including becoming an award-winning motivational speaker.

He says it was a difficult book to write but decided to publish it as a cautionary tale of when boundaries start moving too far without checks and balances. He is seeing similar patterns emerge in the world we live in and he wants to create awareness about the need for boundaries and accountability.

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David Newman, author of Do It! Speaking: 77 Instant Action Ideas to Market, Monetize, and Maximize Your Expertise, wrote the book because speaking is the ultimate marketing strategy, the ultimate leadership brand builder, and the ultimate sales tool. The book takes a deeper dive on how to use speaking to build your c-suite leadership, platform or build your sales stamina to increase revenue.

Newman says that one of the most powerful words in marketing is “decide” – decide who you are and who you’re not; decide who you’re for and who you’re not for. Experts today who win more business, he adds, “are the experts that win attention. One of the best ways to get attention is having an executive speaking strategy.” Newman also has the following advice for those wanting to build their speaking presence, “Figure out where are your folks already meeting so that you can fish where the fish are.”

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Debbie Allen, author of Success is Easy: Shameless, No Nonsense Strategies to Win in Business, wrote the book to help change mindsets on a broader scale about how people accept failure and how they accept success. Allen is a firm believer that success is constantly around us, but that we need to grasp it and choose what we do with all the information we acquire. Her main motivation to write the book was to encourage people never to accept failure and change mindsets to continue to develop relationships and skills that help you grow to the next level. As a very successful entrepreneur, Allen wants to share her success with those who are still searching and provide the connections to help others get ahead because entrepreneurship “is a lonely planet.” She also suggests how using the words “shameless” and “no nonsense” in the title is a reflection of who she is – shameless is just another word for “scrappy entrepreneur” and no nonsense is how she gives it to everyone in her circle.

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Dr. Greg Reid and Jeffrey Klubeck, authors of Mastermind Group: An Exclusive Invitation, wrote the book with the purpose of restoring the original concept of what a “mastermind” is and felt many have deviated from that concept, created by Napoleon Hill. Klubeck believes “there’s so much value in the power of a mastermind,” but that many equate counsel with opinion and that couldn’t be further from the truth. An opinion, Reid states, is “based on lack of knowledge, ignorance or inexperience.” A council is based on having the mentorship of those people who have paved the way to success. The concept of the book is to create a mastermind alliance where people can not just get that great counsel from their peers, but also ignore people’s opinions. It’s about creating a spirit of collaboration, vulnerability, community, and empowerment that harnesses the minds of those who have achieved a level of success others are striving for.

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Seth Earley, author of The AI-Powered Enterprise: Harness the Power of Ontologies to Make Your Business Smarter, Faster, and More Profitable, wrote the book for business leaders and managers who need to understand what has to be done in order to be successful. Earley also adds that the book is for the type of business audience who will use AI to make practical decisions, such as how you need to apply day-to-day business decisions and what you’ll need as a foundation, which is good data and a structure for the information.

Earley goes on to define ontology as “a knowledge framework, a way of organizing all of the information in the organization.” He urges readers to think about what an organization does on a day-to-day basis and put them into big buckets. “The big buckets are the foundation of the ontology. You create the big buckets of all this information and then you create the relationships between these big buckets and that actually captures knowledge about your services, about your offerings, your solutions and it helps your customers get to exactly the information that they need or your employees.” The book teaches executives to learn how to separate what’s possible from what’s practical, evaluate the claims of a vendor to eliminate the hype, and how to select the right problem to solve.

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Chad Burmeister, author of AI for Sales: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Sales has dedicated his life to innovating the sales industry and getting it to the next level. He is bringing best practices and incorporating the use of AI tools for sales professionals. AI creates many improvements to the sales process that everyone in the industry should be aware of; for example, it can help analyze big data so sales professionals can focus on their best prospects and how to better sell to them.

Burmeister says his goal is to bring technology to market to ensure companies and sales leaders understand how to leverage it. He believes how much you sell is how much frequency you do and how good you are at it. He adds that he preaches “revenue equals frequency times competency” to entry-level sales professionals and asks them, “get the ‘f’ up,” – meaning the frequency. With AI automating many human tasks, it’s understandable sales professionals are feeling apprehensive about the technology. In order to stay industry relevant, Burmeister says, “make sure that your day job isn’t just pushing blast emails” because even with automation, computers will never have enough input to make the right decisions.

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John Hewitt, author of iCompete: How My Extraordinary Strategy for Winning Can Be Yours, wrote the book to highlight his five-decade journey in the tax industry and underline the mistakes he made so they can serve as inspiration for others to avoid those same pitfalls. Hewitt says what he loves about taxes is “helping people save money and give them peace of mind,” as there are multiple gray areas of the law and numerous loopholes to help people keep some of their hard-earned money.

Throughout his lengthy career, Hewitt has been driven by two main things: 1) people that believe and support him, and 2) the naysayers that say he can’t do something. His drive to win has been a constant for fifty years and he says the difference between himself and his competitors is that he proactively asks his franchisees how to continue to improve the company and the brand. His competitors preach to franchisees instead of listening to them. He adds, “To be the best at your business, you have to have the best system. To have the best system, you have to be improving.”

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Mark Boundy, author of Radical Value: Elevate Your Company and Career by Unleashing the Power Within Customer Centricity has had a long, successful career in sales and has seen the industry go through a number of changes but, at times, the sales professionals have been stuck in certain patterns that don’t put the customer front and center. He says that people are buying the same way they used to in the past, the main difference being how they inform themselves before making purchasing decisions. Boundy states that, “Customers don’t come to your website to learn about you. They come to your website to see themselves reflected.”

He wrote the book because he wanted to share the importance of and how to sell at true value price, as throughout his career, has possessed a specialty of selling at a higher price, yet many of his peers were not doing the same. The book is written for professionals who want to radically think how they sell, as many sales methodologies only spend ten percent of the time on customer value, when it should be a much bigger number.

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