Lets Start A Publishing Company With Adriana Monique Alvarez
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Start A Publishing Company With Adriana Monique Alvarez
Want to start a publishing company of your own?
Well meet Adriana Monique Alvarez, who is the CEO and Founder of AMA Publishing, where she teaches women how to start highly profitable publishing companies.
Several years ago, she identified hundreds of her clients talking about writing their books and saw they needed someone to show them how to do it.
The concept of helping women move into publishing as entrepreneurs triggered her to launch her own publishing house, Adriana Monique Alvarez (AMA).
It has become an immensely successful publishing company that has established more than 120 bestselling authors within two years.
She’s an international bestselling author and has been seen in Forbes, Huffington Post, International Living, Addicted2Success, Elephant Journal, FOX, ABC, and NBC.
Now with her book “HOW TO START A SIX FIGURE PUBLISHING COMPANY,” she mentors high level coaches, consultants, and service providers on how to start their own
high-earning, global-impact publishing houses.
Within its pages you will discover 7 big publishing secrets:
- The single fastest way to multiplying your impact and serving more people without burning out.
- How to shift from offering services to creating coveted opportunities.
- Why your lack of experience doesn’t matter.
- The one decision that can lead to making $8k a month right out the gate.
- How to build an international business without leaving your home office.
- The people you never want to market to.
- How you can succeed in publishing even if you don’t think you are good at sales.
She is currently living in the middle of nowhere Colorado where she is renovating her grandparents’ home and learning how to homestead with her husband, Derek, and two sons, Sam and Grant.
So is this a business that someone can start from the kitchen table, or do they need a huge network to start with?
And what would be the the number one of the big seven that she would advise everybody to focus in on first?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Adriana Monique Alvarez
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Adriana such as:
Adriana shares the reasons why for so many of us a tight niche is the quickest route to business success.
Why it so important to get past the scarcity model of life that can hold so many people back from achieving big.
We talk about the human ceiling that so many of us surround ourselves with by choosing the wrong peer group.
and lastly…….
Why it is so important to price more than others around you to both foster personal belief and customer interest.
How To Connect With Adriana
Return To The Top Of Start A Publishing Company
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here– enjoy
The Transcript Of The Lets Start A Publishing Company Interview
Intro
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock and start getting the dream business and life you will of course, are dreaming God. Let’s join your host David Ralph from the back of his garden in the UK or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast Join Up Dots
David Ralph
Yes, good morning to you man. Welcome to Join Up Dots thank you for being here with us thank you for not going elsewhere. And and thank you for not watching that programme on Netflix that everyone’s talking about something about squids game show I don’t know of you, anyhow, leave it don’t go there. It’s not worth it. Today’s guest on the show is the CEO and founder of ama publishing where she teaches women how to start highly profitable publishing companies. Now several years ago, she identified hundreds of her clients talking about writing books and she saw they needed someone to show them how to do it. And the concept of helping women move into publishing as entrepreneurs triggered her to launch her own publishing house. Adriana Monique Alvarez ama see what she’s done is clever as become an immensely successful publishing company that’s established more than 120 best selling authors within two years now with a book How to Start a six figure publishing company she mentors high level coaches, consultants and service providers on how to start their own high earning Global Impact publishing houses. Its pages your discover seven big publishing secrets. Yeah, why your lack of experience doesn’t matter. Brilliant, the one decision that can lead to making 8k a month right out of the gate, and another five to now she currently living in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, where she’s renovating her grandparents home and learning how to homestead with her husband, Derek and two sons, Sam and grant. So business that someone can start from the kitchen table or do I need a huge network to start with and well be the number one of the big seven that you would advise everybody to focus in on first? Well, let’s find out as we bring them to the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Adriana Monique Alvarez. Morning.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Amazing, thank you so much for having me.
David Ralph
You know, I’ve only been talking to you for about four minutes now and you’ve used the word amazing about five times Ay ay ay you naturally sort of gushy and amazing. Do you do? Do you embrace? Or are we just getting you on a good day?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
No, my husband would tell you, if somebody is not a morning person and someone isn’t, you know, that type of person. They might find me annoying because I’m always excited about something
David Ralph
wife is a terrible morning person. My daughters are even worse. And I wake up like Tigger on Crystal mess. I love life. And I bounce out of bed. And I’ve had to learn over the years to mute myself because it just wasn’t worth it. Did you have to mute your behaviour because of other people in the house. You don’t want to tell them that there’s a blue sky and it’s wonderful outside when all they want to do is pull their head under the duvet.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
And I have not reached that level of wisdom that you have. I am still the one that’s oblivious. And like oh my gosh, look at these clouds. There’s pink ridges and odd you know, it’s Wednesday and the farmers markets later and they have sushi at the market downtown. And you know, I’m still doing that.
David Ralph
Oh, you’re the Wi Fi one. Yo, yo, no Wi Fi. I want a piano. Don’t be your husband or my wife. I will tell her I won’t just do it naturally. And we’re gonna have a wonderful time. Now, let’s get straight into the only thing I don’t like about you. Adriana is you only teach women how to start highly profitable publishing companies. What about men? What’s wrong with us?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Oh, my goodness, I actually had a feeling you’d say that. Yeah, nothing’s wrong with you. This is this is the thing I’ve found. I worked initially with almost all men like I can’t. I can maybe think of one or two women I worked with in the first seven years. And then when I had two babies and 12 months, the men made a mass exodus like, oh, yeah, I don’t think I don’t think this is for us. And all the women moved in. And so I thought, well, you know what, I better I’ve never market myself to women, because they’re the only ones who want to hang around me. You know, I’ve got babies in my lap. I’ve got spit up on my shirt. I’m completely sleep deprived, dark circle. So that’s how it all started.
David Ralph
And is it something that has limited your choices, or does it make your choices stronger?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I think it makes my choices stronger. The thing that I learned is that whatever choice I choose whatever route I take, it naturally is going to include some people more and some people less. And so I’ve just decided to lead into it and go, You know what, that’s, that’s just kind of how it works it all it all comes out in the wash.
David Ralph
It does, doesn’t it. And that’s one of the things that I try to get through to my clients and my listeners, but you can’t go too narrow. Even if you’ve only got, you know, 200 people a year that you can make multiple six figures out of 200 people, you don’t need a lot. And by being totally defined, you just understand the more you understand how to communicate and speak their language.
Unknown Speaker
I completely agree with you. I am a real big fan of small, raving, proactive interactive on fire communities. And, you know, this is what I tell my clients, you don’t need 1000s and 1000s of people around you for you to have a great business to have a wonderful life. In fact, the way that I like to look at this is I would prefer to have people around me who I absolutely adore them. And they feel the same way about me. And we do really good things together. In fact, I just wrote my email list. And I told them, I went to this Lee Brice concert, I always get his name mixed up. And he has this song. I like your soul. And that’s the standard for my business. If I like their soul, and they like mine, then let’s do something together. If they’re just looking for a service provider, and they’re looking for the cheapest person or they’re looking for this at the other. I’m not I’m not there woman
David Ralph
you would have had as we say over here scumbags in the past you would have had terrible clients that just sucked you dry or or did you not? Did you breeze through and not make the mistakes that literally everybody else makes?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
No, I made every single one of them twice. You know, the reason I can say that, and it feels so good to have landed here is because I was raised to be a really good people pleaser. And I can do back bends like none other. And so I did have a few scumbags. Yes. And then I realised no amount of money is worth it. And if I wouldn’t want to have a meal with him if I wouldn’t introduce them to my husband and my kids. Don’t need to be working with them.
David Ralph
Will you introduce me to your husband? Well, yeah, I am I have I passed the scumbag test.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Definitely, definitely. I am so in love with your introduction. Like everything you say in there. I’m just going. Yes. Oh, yeah. That’s how I feel too. So you’re definitely pass the test
David Ralph
that there’s love. There’s love in Yeah, I can I can feel it. Now, let’s jump into these seven publishing secrets. Because one of the things that I why I wanted you on the show, I get so many coaches asking to come on the show. And they bore me. They bore me chronically, but you are actually teaching somebody to start a six figure publishing company, you’re actually teaching them how to change their lives, not in a whimsical way. You’re doing it in a strategic practice build way. Now? Why don’t you just want to keep it all to yourself? Why are you sharing your publishing company success with other people?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yeah, that that’s actually a good question. My husband often asked me that. The truth of the matter is, is that I really feel like especially at this season in time that we’re in this, this place in history, voices being heard being uncensored, people actually being able to speak their truth and find the people who agree with them and can run with them. It’s really, really important. Otherwise, isolation really can set in and I don’t want that to happen. And I recognised about a year ago that I can only do so much like you said, I actually can only work with so many authors in a year. And I’m capped out I maxed out and it’s not that many. And so when I thought about how many 1000s of people are really ready to share their story, get their voice out. I couldn’t be the only one I had to clone myself so to speak, so that we could expand the reach and we could actually hear from people who they’re ready to be heard and they just need someone to champion them.
David Ralph
Well, I’m gonna do I’m gonna do as I’m sirens every time you say something that I think Yeah, Matt spot on. Okay, so, oh, that’s my Simon. So what we’re saying there for everybody out there is there’s enough people in the world to make a good living and that there’s a real scarcity model that people have at the beginning. They have an idea in their head and say, Oh, I can’t share it. I can’t you know, ask a mentor in case I steal the idea. It’s all mine. But it doesn’t matter, isn’t it? Everyone could steal your ideas. As I always say there’s a billion podcast As Alabama we’ll make it a nice living. There’s a you know, 100,006, figure publishing companies, teachers, they’re all making a nice living, you don’t have to be precious about it. And the more you give away your best stuff, the more you earn, it’s a weird thing that you have to sort of get past somehow. Do you remember when you was precious about your stuff and thought, Oh, I can’t give it away? Did this is this is my earning potential.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Hmm, yeah. And I love how you say that when you get precious about your ideas. And this is when I had a real big aha moment that none of these were actually my ideas. When inspiration hits us, and we don’t even know of yet I don’t even know where that came from, where I just got this idea, this would be cool. We forget, we’re connected to every person on the planet, we’re connected to the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars to every plant, flower tree. And how interesting that I think that’s my idea. And the other thing I found to be really intriguing is that there’s going to be multiple people at once to get a similar idea, because it’s actually meant to move us forward. It’s meant to spread an idea faster. And so when I get offended, oh, how dare Sally Sue come up with a book that’s a similar title, or whatever it might be. I’m forgetting the bigger picture. And it’s like you said, it’s dipping into that scarcity. There is more than enough for everyone. There always has been, there always will be.
David Ralph
Now let’s talk about actually starting a publishing company. Because in the introduction, I said, you know, can you start this from the kitchen table is it can some not man, I’m sorry, man, you might as well switch off here. But a ladies out there that is sitting listening to this podcast, if I started scribbling, I already in a good position, just the fact that they’ve got the ability to listen to a podcast game the information, they’re probably online, is it enough for them to start with?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yes, it is enough for them to start with that I will. There’s a there’s a caveat. There’s a yes, but and I also just want to throw in there for any men, I do have a home study. So as long as you’re fine, you know, me having lots of mom examples, then you’re golden. This is really what it takes. Everything that someone needs to start a successful six figure publishing company is included in my training. However, there are some secret sauce ingredients that someone has to come in with, or they have to be willing to borrow some of mine. And that is self belief. Because you can have all the information, you get all the tools, you can have community, you can have all of the things. But if you don’t believe in yourself, if you’re going to get up every single morning, and your self doubt is gonna run the day. It’s not gonna happen.
David Ralph
I agree with that, oh, I didn’t do the cyber Oh, now I, I am building a course at the moment to teach people how to make 10 grand a month online. And I realised so many things through doing it over the last few years that I can give them but I can’t give them mindset. I can drive them to that way. But if they are somebody that just hasn’t got it, no matter what tools you give them, it’s not going to work. It’s it’s the persistence that overrides talent, doesn’t it? Persistence overrides effort is always the persistence, but you get up and you go again.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Okay, I’m so glad you said this. Because
David Ralph
your assignment name do assignment.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
You’re right, I completely forgot about my siren duties. You know, people love to talk about talent, and gifts, and abilities. It’s all good. And well, but I’m going to tell you at the end of the day, the people that I see who have the most success who have the most beautiful lives, they’re not necessarily the most gifted or talented. However, they are willing, like you said, to get up every day, if I were to look at one aspect that these people have in common is their day to day habits or their day to day rituals, whatever they can look at, and they do really regularly that dictates success more than talent ever will.
David Ralph
Now, is it just turning up? Or is it actually I’m gonna play some words and I’ll be back with you. Here’s Oprah.
Oprah Winfrey
The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, oh, I got all of this. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move and the next right move and not to be overwhelmed by it because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment. You know, you’re not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph
So She said that and she blended in what was going through my mind. But is it about persistence? Or is it about turning up and doing the right things, as she said, because you can be persistent, trying to, you know, hit a brick wall, but it doesn’t mean you’re ever going to get through it. So does persistence only apply? Which strategy?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Hmm, good. Good point. I think that the strategy is very important. And I will tell you one of my favourite strategies, and I’m using this word loosely, this is not typically how people would use the word strategy. But one of the best things that someone can do is, know who they are, know what matters to them, have an idea of what they’re actually here to do? Did they come into this life to just pay bills? And take the trash out on Tuesdays? And that’s it? Or are they willing to get quiet enough? Like you said, Skip the frickin Netflix? And go, what if I, what did I enjoy as a child? What calls me what am I passionate about? This is going to be a huge part of that being able to show up every day wholeheartedly, and bring something meaningful into the world. And sometimes in the beginning, especially, it’s hard to know what the right thing is. And I’d say two things like look at people who’ve went before you, but also get really quiet and follow your gut instincts. This is a big part of entrepreneurship, if you can’t trust your own gut, it’s going to be challenging it might take it might be a longer path
David Ralph
is a longer path. But I think that the be the wrong turns are as vitally important as the right turns, you know, I’m at a point now that my business is thriving, I’ve got multiple businesses, and they’re all doing extremely well. And I can switch off on one and go off and do another one. And then I can switch that one off and come back and do it. And it’s just like a natural flow, but I’m in but I don’t think I could have got into the flow without drowning for a bit and splashing around and and struggling against the current. Did you feel the same way?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yeah, I would say this flow that you talk about this is this is the maturity of the business. And this is what people often try to do is skip steps. And in the beginning, like there’s no skipping the beginning, there’s no skipping the experimenting a lot and looking at it a lot. And there are some you know, entrepreneurship is full of ups and downs. And what I say is, I find that those can be smoothed out a bit. If we stay light with it. Most adults really don’t like being the beginner. I observed children when they’re learning something new, trying something new, and they just stay a lot lighter, a lot more fun. This is what’s been key for me. It’s just a big experiment. If I blow up the whole room, it’s okay. I can try it again tomorrow.
David Ralph
When was the last time that you blew up a room. And you were sad, actually happy with it. Because there is a self sabotage I can apply. I remember five years ago, Join Up Dots was getting more and more successful. And I suddenly for I don’t think I can deal with this. It was like the success was coming to me. But I wasn’t ready for it even though I wanted it. Do you remember any parts of your business doing the same thing when you deliberately tried to blow up the room because it was running away with you somehow?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Oh, yes. And this, this is when I know I’m bumping my head against my, my next limit. My next big thing, a big one for me. My parents have been successful my entire life. They are two very unique individuals. They knew what they wanted to do at a young age. They hit success early. They’re very stable and established. And when I started making more money than my parents ever had, I felt the biggest internal panic you can imagine. And I was literally doing things to blow it up and to mess it up because it was new uncharted territory, and it really scared me.
David Ralph
What do you think he did?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I think because I my best guess is that my entire life. I had looked up to my parents. And when I passed where they were, I didn’t know who’s who am I looking to now who’s my mentor? Where do I go from here? It felt lonely. It felt like uncharted territory. And all of a sudden, I wasn’t sure if it was safe to go that high.
David Ralph
It’s interesting. This is fascinating. I wasn’t expecting to get into this. But do you think Ben that everybody has a human sealing around them? I haven’t considered this before. You think there are people that were happy when we’re on the same level but then when we step ahead of them, we have I actually have to find the next human ceiling to bash against.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I do I have found this, like, I have noticed this discomfort show up when I start making a substantial amount more than maybe the circle of friends I’m around, or the people that you know, live closest to us. This was actually something I really began to practice. We lived overseas for five years, we travelled full time with our kids. And I noticed that if we travelled to a place, and it was, I was aware that there were people who were making far less, so it’s a beautiful destination, but the average person here is not making that much money. I could feel this internal. Okay, how do I feel about this? Am I okay with this, and this is some this is where I practice was overseas, be not getting myself to a place where I wouldn’t dip my income, or stop my efforts, because of what I saw around me. But I would stay true to the vision holding that big vision of where I knew I wanted to go.
David Ralph
I quite like that feeling when you go, I can give up. You know, because being an entrepreneur and a multiple business owner, there’s a lot of striving over time, there’s a lot of doing stuff that you don’t know the answer. And it’s scary times, but you just have to keep them going. And then there’s those times that you can just rest, you know, is like being on life’s vacation. And if you put me into a place where the economy was a lot less than I am experienced about I think I would embrace it. I think I would grow my hair long not shave, wear shorts that you know, and just kind of become a bum and I think I would love that for a period of time.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Oh, yeah, I and you know what, I did do that for a period of time in my 20s. I was a volunteer overseas and orphanages. I lived on $300 a month, my entire 20s until I moved back to the States at 27. Almost 28. And I fully embraced it. I loved it. I was so far outside of the American Dream rat race, like non stop, how much bigger How much more can you get? And it was really a key foundational component because I find I can emotionally mentally spiritually revisit that place because it is easy to get to a spot where it’s never enough. I mean, where you you have a goal you get there and you don’t even stop and take a victory lap. It’s like, because there’s always a next big mountain top that we’re going for.
David Ralph
Now you’re on a property, I don’t know 100 acres or whatever in Colorado, you’re renovating your grandparents house. That’s the kind of perfect place to go. I just become scruffy No, no one can see me I just sort of like stroll around in me flip flops or we phones and how do you keep focused on your business when you’ve got all that? That nothingness around you?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
That’s a good question. For us. What we’re doing is is it’s actually helping me to find what true success and true wealth really is because for example, we have been working on planting so many trees for the last year we’ve been on a tree planting mission. And then we switched to an herb garden. So we have an herb garden outside now we just did an herb garden and a superfood garden inside. So we have 60 varieties growing inside the house. Now we have
David Ralph
an I asked you Adriana, is it the kind of herbes that you have very bright light on and you have to sort of keep it away from the police? Is it that kind of herb
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
that Oh, my goodness, that does grow a lot in Colorado. In fact, our neighbour, yeah. Our closest neighbour sells that. I don’t sell that. No, I don’t grow it. No, actually, I’ve never tried that stuff. Because as we started off with my husband, and I have agreed that since I’m already so happy without that, without any alcohol and without coffee, we just don’t know how I would respond to that stuff. You know.
David Ralph
Now I’ve never asked anyone to take drugs, but I now want you to take drugs. I want to I want to see what’s going to happen.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I know it would be a trip. Yeah, for sure. But no, I grow things more like cilantro and dill and red amaranth and strawberries and cherry tomatoes. That’s really my that’s my speed right there.
David Ralph
And does that does that strengthen your your business once again, as in, you have a distraction where you’re still growing, you’re growing through your growing herbes instead of growing a business. And in many ways a business is nothing different. Do you have to nurture it, you have to turn up every day you have to water it. And nature kind of does this in a very pleasing way where everything just kind of takes care of itself doesn’t get to rust? Does that give you clarity for your own business? Do you bring the sort of simplistic way of growing stuff naturally into your actual business?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve noticed for 14 months being so engrossed in nature, having my feet in the ground planting so many things, I have a tuned myself I have synced up with nature’s rhythm. And it has created profound effects on my business and decisions I’ve made in my business. And it is that one word, we are simplifying, simplifying, simplifying,
David Ralph
that’s three words. I don’t want to be pedantic but you’re not really simplifying. If you say the same word three times you’re adding stuff that you don’t need.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
So true, okay, let’s just stay with the simplify.
David Ralph
There we go. I’m happy with that. I’m happy well, so everything is good. And let’s jump back into the actual creating the publishing company, because you’ve got seven big publishing secrets. And I am intrigued, I’m intrigued of all of them. But the one that I’m very intrigued is the single fastest way to multiplying your impact and serving more people without burning out because that is the problem that all entrepreneurs have, you know, I’ve had it a couple times. And I, I burnt out, I thought, for me, and then I really burnt out, and then I thought, why, okay, I and now I’m focused on it all the time. But it’s, it’s almost like, if you don’t have the burnout, you don’t create the urgency and hustle, you have to change your situation. So many people are in corporate land, where they go to work, and then they come home, they go to work, and they get paid for just turning up. And when you’re actually a business owner, you have to rip up the rulebook. And you have to create urgency, don’t you, you have to build it up. So I often wonder whether you once again, you have to burn out before you find the right ways for you and your business.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Such a good question. This is not something that I’ve personally experienced. But I think part of it is there’s I think there’s a couple components. I never went to college and I never worked in corporate and so I never adapted to that rhythm and sort of that way of being, like I told you I was that volley volunteer overseas very slow pace of life, very different type of focus. The other thing is, is I was raised by a mother who is she’s owned a health food store for 40 years, she’s a medicine woman, you know, health and well being. I don’t know of anyone who models it better than her. And she would always tell me, this is the most important thing, your health and your well being nothing else can ever be more important than this. And so I’ve never been the person who works 60 hours a week and is running on, you know, coffee and wine and you know, junk food and all that I have my mom’s voice securely in my heart. And so, for me, I just knew having a happy marriage, having a happy family having a healthy body. Those we’re not going to ever fall after business. Business had to be around that. And so what I tell people is, is you know, if you know what your values are, and if you can trust the process, this is the other thing is, I think it’s so easy to look around and be like, Oh, Sally Sue made $5 million in four days. But that’s just really not the truth. You know, there’s there’s some backstory there that we don’t know, building it brick by brick and taking care of ourselves along the way. That’s that’s really what matters to me. And I tell my clients that all the time, that’s my definition of success for them.
David Ralph
So how do they do it? They move out burning out, well, what is the steps that you give them?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
The first thing that I tell them is they have to be willing to charge more than most people. I feel like where people price themselves is one of the most important aspects because if we look at how many clients you’re going to work with how many hours that comes out to so my goal for my clients, because most of them are mothers is that they’re not working more than three to five hours a day on their publishing house. Because I know the other things that are pulling at them. So pricing is really, really key. Now what goes right along with pricing is who their target market is I just got off a call before this podcast interview with a client. And I told her, You need to absolutely focus every bit of your efforts on those who have at least million dollar businesses or more. And we created a plan around that, because the price points make sense. She’s a single mom with two kids. And her going after a few $100 at a time, it, it’s gonna fry her for sure
David Ralph
that this is linking up with your first caveat your your bat, where it’s about personal belief. And she’s gonna struggle with that, because she doesn’t quite believe in herself, because she’s still in the process of building the business. And it’s not until the first person says yes, and pays for them, being you’re in the races, it is I liken it to supersonic flight where you get to a point and you’re suddenly really bumpy and everything’s crashing, and then it’s really, really smooth. And man, personal belief that you have is integral to get through that Sonic Boom, isn’t it on your pricing and say, Actually, oh, my god, someone that is willing to pay me this was gonna pay me this, you know, because you don’t quite believe in yourself.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
It’s true. One of the things I like to do with my clients, like she’s a private client. And so what I do with her, is I weave her back to moments in her life, where she had that confidence where she was in those types of circles, or where she did experience wealth, or this opulent energy. And so I weave that in and I just remind her, you have tasted it, you have experienced it, you have known it, you have felt comfortable with it. And we just expand that as much as we can in this moment that you’re absolutely right. The moment if I literally say if you can have the faith and the belief and hold that. And you can keep expanding how long you can hold it and get a client at that range at that, that place, it will completely change the way you do business will change the way you look at yourself the way you look at the world. And if you can do it once you can do it over and over. And so it really is holding that belief long enough to get the first client.
David Ralph
How did you get your first client because I know that’s a stumbling block for so many people, they’re in a corporate gig and they go, Oh, I can do this. And there’s a lovely lady I know who’s just started her own. I don’t even think compliance business and bi are so knowledgeable on compliance. And both of them know it inside out. And I said to them, you know, you you know, you’ve got to do the marketing, and you’ve got to get people around, you don’t try to do it all yourself. Just focus in on what you do really well and get people that do their thing really well. But I know they’re gonna try and do it themselves. Because that’s, you know, the way the world. So how do you actually get past that?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
So when we first started our business, it was in 2009, the real estate market crashed, the the economy was tanking. I believe in that time, 10 million Americans lost their home. And so it was not the time when people are going, Yeah, you should start your own business. Everyone looked at me and my husband and said, you just got married, you just bought a house, you need to go get a job, you need to get benefits. And I just I knew I would never fit into that. So we started our business, you know, did the opposite of what everybody said. And I joined a little local networking group and I would attend I would go early, I would practice my 62nd commercial I would focus on I’m going to in this meeting, invite three people to coffee to tea to breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever it was. And so every single week, I took three people out to coffee. And I got to know them their business, what do they do, who they looking for? Who do they want to be introduced to? What would help them. And I made sure that I really focused on the people who weren’t yammering on and on about the economy. And I did this for three months. And one day a lady was sitting across from me and she said, I have someone I want to introduce you to. And she introduced me to her best friend who owned three restaurants in Tucson, Arizona, and they became a very high end client for us for the next three or four years. And that was the start of it. And that’s how it continued to go. We we worked with really well established companies who most of the owners were baby boomers, they they had this step and this is this is a skill. This is a practice. This is something that will never go out of style. This is what I do every day. Now. I have done so much on social media for the last five years that I would say the most important thing to my business today. Are those conversations I have It might look a little different, I might not be sitting at the coffee shop with them. But the conversation is essentially the same 12 years later.
David Ralph
So somebody wants, again, the corporate guy, they’re listening to this podcast and thinking, I’d like to start my own business, that they’re sitting there with a laptop, they’ve got a laptop, do they have to, you know, have a network attached to them? Can they can I just start if I don’t know anyone at all, even if I have got that caveat of, I’m after this, I’ve got the eye of the tiger. I’m going to make this happen. Every morning,
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
definitely, one of the best tools that someone can use is Google. So if you know, you know, this is what I’d like to do. This is something I could provide. I figure out who would benefit most from my services? And what other professionals or what other services do they also invest in? So I look at a few different things. Who do I want to work with? Who do they also work with to get where they want to go? So what other ways are they investing money? Where are they at in their business? And I you could get on Google and you can literally search for this. Okay, just as an example. I told the client she was looking for some contributors in her book, and she wanted alternative practitioners like chiropractor, she wanted women’s health, like the doulas and the midwives, and all this. So she got on Google, she did a Google search for the best doulas near New York near Chicago near La. She started reaching out to them and saying I’m putting together this project, would you like to contribute a chapter to it? And it opened up conversations? And sometimes they said yes. And sometimes they said, No, but oftentimes, she’d asked him, Well, who else do you know, she ended up failing that book. And actually two more right after, simply by using Google, you can also do the same thing on LinkedIn, there’s, there’s all kinds of platforms and places you can go look up the people who you want to work with, initiate a conversation, and make sure that you’re leading with what’s in it for them.
David Ralph
There was a guy who was on my show, I can’t remember his name. Now, I will reach in the back of my mind, but it was about seven or eight years ago. And he created this book, it was a young guy, he was about 15, or 14 or something. And he wrote to 100 people to ask for forward and he got 99 knows or, or 99. Didn’t know, knows he just didn’t get any response. And the one person that wrote back and did forward was Donald Trump before, obviously, he became mental and took over the world. And that’s one of those persistent things, again, that he was willing to reach out and keep on reaching out. And he broke down that why would somebody do this? Why would somebody speak to me why, you know, it’s, it’s all about outreach, isn’t it? It’s outreach, providing value and believing in yourself. I think we’re providing a framework to follow here.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Definitely. And that’s just it. One of the things I tell myself and my clients is okay, if I reached out to five people a day for 30 days, and this is the data I have this is how many people responded, this is what it led to. And I want a different result than I just increase my numbers. It’s that simple.
David Ralph
When is it too much VO and it gets to be spammy. And you’re you’re just sort of blasting out because you see that all the time. Don’t you’re on LinkedIn, I hate LinkedIn, I get so many. I actually quite enjoy LinkedIn now. Because I get these messages when I say, Hey, David, and you really need to read my book, How to Start a six figure publishing company. And I go back to them and go, Why, why why do I? Why should I read it? And they come back and I go, we thought you might like it. And I go, but why? Why do you think I should like it? And then they just sort of disappear. There’s no for fall to why they’re actually reaching out?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Exactly, no, it’s a very good point. So the way that I like to reach out is number one, I have an idea of that this person is a leader, or outspoken or has a cool point of view that it makes him a little bit different than other people in their industry. Because if I don’t have if I haven’t thought it through, like you said, if this is just like a copy and paste world, number one people can feel it. But number two, you don’t have any way of actually having a dialogue those people they just go oh wait, I don’t know what to do from here. I don’t know I’m just throwing it out. Right. So the key is is what is it that you can truly support them with? How will this make their life better? How will this impact their business? And one of my favourite things to do is not actually directly ask them to be in my project or my book. But to get to know them just like I did in the early days and figure out whose networks they’re connected to, because I can have a short term focus of Oh, Sally Sue could be in my book, or I can get to know Sally Sue. And I could be introduced to a huge network that might bring me over the next year 30 to 60 clients. So it’s about determining which way you want to go about it. But you you do you have to pause, you have to be smart about it, you have to think about how you want it to feel when it lands in their inbox, because we all have had plenty of you know, those types of messages that are just annoying, right? See
David Ralph
plenty? Yeah, yeah, you’re diffusing it, it’s a tsunami, it never stops, is it’s just, I think it’s getting worse. I bet. There you go, I’m gonna say it to you, I think it’s getting worse in the, in the 15 years I’ve been online, I get more of these just sort of spammy or foretell approaches than ever before.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Absolutely. And this is, you know, to, to kind of, quote, one of one of my favourite authors, he talks about how you have to become the master, let, let’s be straight up. If you are okay, being mediocre, and being new to something doesn’t mean you’re mediocre, you probably have built these skill sets for years in some way, shape, or form. You have to be willing to master your craft, and not be mediocre. Because the most of those types of messages that we receive, they are incredibly mediocre. These are not people who are at a place of mastery. Imagine what it can feel like when you determine what you are really good at, hone in on that and make this feel like a good experience, you’re going to be completely different than everybody else. And also I would say this to most people are sending these types of messages and things in and on social media. For me, a good move is to, to move away from that fight, find other ways to communicate with people outside of social media.
David Ralph
Yeah, smoke signals. it weren’t for the Indians. And so we could we could do the same thing, get a blanket and a fire. And you can talk to whoever you want. Well, let’s hear from Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph
When he looked back, I stopped asking this question, but I’m gonna ask it today. Do you have a big dot moment when you really become clear? And you really suddenly thought I get it? I know what I’m I’m here for?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yes. So when I got pregnant with my third child, my daughter Anita, I had a full term stillbirth at 38 weeks, and the pregnancy was incredibly magical. And the loss, the ending, that’s not how we typically see it playing out was the big, the big. Oh, I get it. It happened at a time when everything was going very well for me in my life in business. It was all it was all good. And she was that reminder of don’t forget what really matters. Don’t get caught up in it. Don’t drink your own Kool Aid. At the end of the day. There’s only a handful of things that matter and make sure you stay rooted and grounded to those things.
David Ralph
Yeah, I think that’d be nice. Brilliant. I’m so sorry about your newsman. But um, yeah, that’s, that’s brilliant advice for everyone. So when you listen to those words of Steve Jobs are the words of the time or do you think that they’re going to be troops for forever?
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I think that’s timeless truth.
David Ralph
How can we change the dots? So he talks about into stepping stones? Adriana? How can we look back and make sense of it, but actually make sense of it moving forward? Or perhaps we can’t,
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
you know, what I find is choosing to live life at a slightly slower pace or dramatically slower pace can help. When we get into autopilot and everything is fast and everything is exactly like it was yesterday and the day before. We don’t have enough space for reflection and to sit and look at the clouds and to be in nature. And I think it’s going to be really hard to connect those dots or to be able to try Trust, life trust the bigger picture. When we are just in this Go, go, go, go go.
David Ralph
So it’s all about slowing down and focus, I suppose.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Yeah, intention perspective. That’s what I love about nature. We have went camping, we’ve went up into the mountains, we’ve done tonnes of nature since the beginning of summer. And I’ll tell you standing at 10,000 feet gives you a different perspective. Sleeping on the ground gives you a different perspective, cooking over the fire and sitting under the stars and being completely overwhelmed by the sky you are under a gives you a different perspective. We need things that shift our perspective. This allows us to go Oh, yeah. You know what? I had this huge moment. This happened during the summer, I had written a story about my daughter and my children. I was being interviewed on a live video. Okay. And this lady asked me a question. And I have an aha moment. While I’m speaking to her, I don’t remember if it related to her answer to her question or not. And I said out loud. I buried a child. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. And it was a huge aha moment. And sometimes when we don’t have enough space and enough nature, and enough of the grounding elements, we can only see things in the way it’s been said to us the way our culture sees it the way our family sees it. We have to sometimes have these things that get us off in a completely different direction. And we go Oh, yeah, it’s all good. We’re gonna make it.
David Ralph
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that totally. Well, this is a direction that I’ve been heading and I never deviate from it because this is the part of the show that we call a sermon on the mic. When we send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back into a room and see a young Adriana sitting there what age would you like to speak to him? What advice would you give her? Well, we’re gonna find out because I’m going to play the music and when it fades, is your time to talk. This is the Sermon on the mic
Unknown Speaker
here we go with the best bit of the show the Sermon on the mind, the sermon on.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I am going to choose to speak to the four or five year old me I can see this little version sitting with plastic Barbie heels legs crossed on the Lazy Boy and smoking a cigarette but she picked up somewhere on the highway. And I want to remind her that her boldness, her absolute love of everything. Her ability to get easily excited to be passionate to be brave, to roar and to not care how anyone else feels about it. That aspect of you will carry you far. Protect it. Celebrate it, honour it. You are not here to squeeze yourself into other people’s moulds. You are here to be who you are. Full Strength straight up.
David Ralph
Adriana, what’s the number one best way that our audience today can connect with you? And of course, start learning about a six figure publishing company.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
I would love them to visit us speak so it’s ama speaks calm.
David Ralph
Simple as that. We’re have the link on the website to make it even easier. Adriana, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Joining up those dots. And please come back again when you got more dots to join up because I do believe that by joining up those dots and connecting our pasts is always the best way to build our futures. Adriana, thank you so much.
Start A Publishing Company with Adriana Monique Alvarez
Thank you, David. It’s been my pleasure. I have really enjoyed our conversation.
David Ralph
Adriana Monique Alvarez Yeah, so if you’re a lady out there, and you’ve got nothing to start with other than a laptop, she will teach you how to build an international business without leaving your home office. She’ll teach you how you can succeed in publishing. Even if you don’t think you’re good at sales and you can start your own six figure publishing company can’t say better than that. And you can come across the Join Up Dots and go through to AMA speaks.com. Until next time, my friends you stay focused on the future you stay focused on delivering what the world needs and the world We’ll start delivering back to you, I promise you, because that’s how it works. Until next time you stay sexy. See, Cheers. Bye bye.
Outro
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