Want to learn how Jonathan Milligan created 7 income streams in 12 months from 1 book? It’s an amazing framework and a personal case study that works! Listen to this episode for the step-by-step plan you can model for your own books and business.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- How Jonathan Milligan created 7 income streams from 1 book in 12 months.
- The framework Jonathan used to create these products.
- The first thing you should do when getting started.
- The exact prices he used for his funnel.
- Why your gifts matter.
- And so much more!
About Jonathan Milligan:
Jonathan Milligan is a career coach/blogger who resides in Florida with his wife (Charity) and two kids (Kayla & Jordan) and has been blogging since 2009. He spent over 8 years of his life as an Executive Search Consultant where he assisted Fortune 500 companies in identifying and hiring top talent for their organization. Today, Jonathan is an active writer, blogger, and personal coach. His passions include spending time with his kids, reading, March Madness, surprise get-a-way trips with his wife, and watching funny YouTube videos.
You can connect with Jonathan at www.BloggingYourPassion.com and http://JonathanMilligan.com
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Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below:
Today I’m rolling out the red carpet and inviting you to join me in this expert interview with Jonathan Milligan. Hey Jonathan, welcome
JONATHAN. Thank you Shelley.
SHELLEY. It’s so great to have you, and I actually got introduced to you through one of my Author Audience Academy members, Rebecca Livermore. You were doing a summit and I got on your list, and I was just, “I have to have him on my podcast!” I’m so glad that this worked out and that you can share what you’re going to share today, but I love how you created multiple products from one book. I teach repurposing all the time and I love this real life case study. Before we just dive in I’d like to share a little bit of your bio so that people kind of know a little bit about you. Jonathon is a career coach and blogger who resides in Florida with his wife. Where in Florida are you from?
JONATHAN. I’m in Jacksonville, the North East part of Florida.
SHELLEY. Awesome, my sister lives in the panhandles, they’re close to Pensacola. We go down there multiple times a year to see my nieces and my sister and her husband. Jonathan has two kids, Kayla and Jordan, and he’s been blogging since 2009.
You’ve been blogging a long time, that’s awesome.
He spent over 8 years as an executive search consultant where he assisted Fortune 500 companies in identifying and hiring top talent. Today he is an active writer, blogger, and coach. His website is bloggingyourpassion.com.
I’m so excited for you to share in today’s Center Stage Spotlight all about what you did with one of your books. You’ve done an entire training on this, but just tell us a little bit about the book and then the process. The headline that got my attention, and this is a very good headline by the way, How I Created 7 Income Streams in 12 Month from One Book; love it.
JONATHAN. Sure. The book is designed to help people who are bloggers, primarily. I’ve had many people tell me that it’s more of a business book, which I totally agree. But, as we have to, especially when we’re writing and creating books, we have to speak to specific audiences. I didn’t want my book just to be in there in a general business category, I wanted to be very specific. I spoke primarily to bloggers, people blogging online, how do you go from a passionate idea to a full time income.
That was the primary process of the book, but the whole idea of creating the income streams actually came out of a coaching session where I was coaching somebody else. We were sitting at a Panera Bread and he came across as very distracted, as many of us entrepreneurs.
SHELLEY. Amen!
JONATHAN. We’ve got lots of ideas. One idea after the next, after the next, after the next. Finally I told him, “let’s draw up a plan where you can take this one message that you have and create multiple income streams.” I sketched it out, literally, on a napkin. When I walked away that day I thought, “I need to take my own advice. I’m working on way to many projects. Instead of going wide, what if I dedicated a year to going deep with a single message and created multiple income streams?” That’s where the process came about.
SHELLEY. I love it. Have you read the book Essentialism?
JONATHAN. I have.
SHELLEY. He has a picture in that book where it shows the impact you can have when you have a singular focus versus the impact you have when you’re spread out in all these other areas. That’s exactly what you practiced in that year, that singular focus, that singular message, and the amazing impact that it could have. I love that it was sprung out of your own coaching, and on a napkin. Did you take a picture of that napkin?
JONATHAN. I don’t think I did, but I did a lot of different ideas of redrawing that process since then, for sure.
SHELLEY. For authors who have a book that could potentially have multiple income streams, where do you think they should start in this process?
JONATHAN. I primarily am helping writers, speakers, and coaches. First I think it’s important to identify what your gift order is. For some of us we’re writers first, that’s what we need to process, to organize, and to figure out the step by step process of our book, or whatever it might be. That’s how I work. Then, I’ve got friends who they’re stronger in the speaking. They want to get out and get interactions with people and be in front of people, get feedback. As they get that then they can begin to put their framework together that leads to a book, that leads to an online course, that leads to many other things. I think that’s the first step, identifying where your strengths lie. It needs to be something that’s natural for you, don’t try to be like somebody else.
For me that’s where it started, putting together a single framework, that was on one page, that my book concept was going to be about. From there that became the chapters of my book, then I fleshed it out in more detail and walked through it. That led to some of the other income streams that was can talk about.
SHELLEY. I love that. I read on your about page on your website that you had an “ah-ha” when you read the book Strength Finders 2.0, and I had the same experience about a year and a half ago. I’ve been behind a computer screen doing internet marketing since 2004, full time since 2011, but my greatest strengths are networking and speaking. Once I realized that it was like the heavens opened. That is such a key element, and it’s something that I teach as well, because I saw the power of it in my own life. Know yourself, know your strengths, and start there. What are some of the potential income streams, that once you have that framework in place, could someone potentially create?
JONATHAN. I’ll share my specific strategy with what I did, but again you don’t have to go in this order. Go in your own order, but some people like having a structured approach. For me it started with writing the Kindle book, going into greater detail, and getting that Kindle book published. That was income stream number one. Then I quickly repurposed that into paperback book, because what many Kindle authors fail to realize is that there are still lots of people that want the book in their hand. That was something that I heard, even though I was planning on doing the paperback, I kept getting email after email, “I don’t read on the Kindle, are you going to make this paperback?” I said, “yes, it’s coming.” Within two weeks that became income stream number two. I went through Create Space and got the paperback done.
Then, I spent a weekend recording my audio book with ACX.com and I got the audio book up. Literally in the matter of a month from the Kindle book release to the audio book I had those three income streams. I walked through that process, that was kind of the first step. Then, what I intentionally did, was just about six to eight weeks later is when I released the next income stream, that was an online course. For me it was a membership site, for a lot of people it can be an online course. This is especially important for non-fiction authors because, your book often describes the what and your course can teach the how.
SHELLEY. Exactly.
JONATHAN. For me that was an important concept because I didn’t want to get down into the weeds of mentioning to many tools because tools change. I wanted to keep my book evergreen, so I taught foundational principles of what it takes to become a full time blogger. Then, if they want to learn some of the moire technical hows, setting up your Word Press, using the different social media, and driving traffic to your site, they can do that deeper dive by going to your membership site or taking your course. That distinction really helped me, and it led to my best launch ever to date. It’s one of those things like, “if you like the book you’re going to love the course.”
SHELLEY. Exactly. I love that, because I’m immersed right now in learning webinars. I’ve been doing webinars for years, but that’s one of the things that Amy Porterfield teaches in he course. I’m in her course, but she says, “teach the what in the webinar and the how in your course.” You’re doing a similar thing but with book and product. I love that, that’s such a great thing. I love how you said it was your biggest launch yet. Your book was the natural lead in to your course. Have you mentioned the title of your book yet?
JONATHAN. The 15 Success Traits of Pro Bloggers.
SHELLEY. The 15 Success Traits of Pro Bloggers. I love that! I love that concept of taking the book. I don’t know if you know this, but if your market has a demand for it you can have it translated into other languages. That could be another version. I’ve done that with one of my books. You have the Kindle book, the print book, the audio book, those just naturally come from one piece of content. Now you have the membership site, what came next for you?
JONATHAN. Next was the little bit higher priced group coaching. Again, all of this in my mind is creating a pathway of belonging for people. They’re getting the ten dollar book and getting value from it, they get into the course or the membership site that gives them more detail. Still, you’ve got a certain segment of your audience that still will ascend to more products and services that you can offer. So, there’s the group coaching. I do it in 90 day mastermind groups every Monday. So, it’s just one single call a week for me. I let people in every 90 days, I open it up for a short period of time. That you can allow people to go even deeper with the book. Now they’re working some of what you taught in the book into their own life and they’re being held accountable, they’re with a group.
That was one, and the next income stream was looking at the pieces of your book that resonate with people and they are logical speaking opportunities. I identified three different parts of the book that were easy keynotes. For example, in the middle of my book I have the four keystone habits of pro bloggers. That’s really designed to help people who feel scattered know that these are the only four areas that you need to be spending your time in each week to build your business. The book is much greater than just those four things, but doing that as a keynote is a perfect segue to somebody saying, “I want to know what the other success traits are,” which leads to the book, which leads to the course, which leads to higher priced group coaching. All these work together.
The final one is hosting a live event. I hosted a $4,000 a person weekend workshop. We limited it to just 15 people. It’s the first in person workshop I’ve ever done. It was great, it was awesome. We had people in a room where we could actually work with them and help them create their own blueprint to follow the same process. That is how all of them work together. I started the process in October of 2014 and it culminated with the live weekend workshop in October of 2015.
SHELLEY. I love it. Take us a little bit through the price points, because I think it helps authors wrap their minds around. In your sales funnel, I call it the Author Audience Funnel because I try to get authors to think beyond the book. So many times we’re just focused on the book, book, book book. I’m like, “there’s so much more!” That’s why I love your story, your case study, it’s a real life example. Would you mind sharing that with us. Start with the ten dollar book?
JONATHAN. Sure, then for me the membership site is $30 a month, or they can purchase a whole years worth for $300, so I get about half and half for people choosing one or other of the options. The 90 day group coaching model, that I primarily price between $1,200 and $1,500 for the 90 days. With that they get access to a weekly Zune call with all the members, I have a private Slack group where we can communicate and give feedback throughout the week. Then, if they really are stuck they can do what I call rapid fire sessions where I’ll jump on the phone with them for a specific problem, help them out, figure something out. That’s kind of the group coaching. You can even go beyond that, which I’ve done too when I have time, and offer the one-on-one coaching at a higher price.
That should give you a little bit of an idea how I’ve structured things. Once you get this whole thing working then you’ve got seven new income streams, and they all come from a single message. The example is I’m getting ready to go write my next book, which is a little bit different than this book, and I’m getting ready to repeat the same process. You can build multiple brands off of the same concept.
SHELLEY. That’s exciting! Are you willing to share what the new book will be about?
JONATHAN. Sure. This is a book I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I’m actually almost done with the book proposal. I have a traditional publisher that is really, strongly interested in it.
SHELLEY. Awesome.
JONATHAN. So I might be going the traditionally published route on it. It’s called The Gift: What You Have That The Richest Man Can’t Buy. It’s a business fable where you follow the journey of a person who’s in his early to mid 30’s, he’s not happy with his work, things aren’t working out for him. He goes through this journey of discovering what his true gift is, which unlocks his potential. It’s great, I’ve really enjoyed writing it. My background is in career coaching, well it wasn’t really career coaching, I was an executive recruiter I should say. I had the opportunity to get to know a lot of people who were unhappy with their work. I took some of the principles I learned during that time and incorporated them into this book, that how do you find the work you were meant to do?
SHELLEY. I just got chills, that is awesome. I love that, because that is one of the things that I love seeing; when people really connect with their gifts, their potential, their God given abilities, and really allow those to shine. I say, “it’s your time to shine.” I love that. We’ll be looking forward to that book and what you have coming out.
Now, if people want to connect with you further, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
JONATHAN. If you want to see this framework that I created, or you want a little bit more on the inside of my book you can go to bloggingyourpassion.com/book, but you can also find me at JonathanMilligan.com. I talk a lot on that blog about productivity, time management, using your gifts, so there’s that too. Those are the two primary places you can find me.
SHELLEY. This has been incredible. I think I could talk with you for hours, longer obviously. When I was introduced to this concept from your email all the sudden I realized, this is exactly what I’ve done over the last year. I wrote it out and I think I have over ten income strings that originated from my one book Procrastination to Publication. It immediately gave me a framework for what I’ve been doing, so I love it. I’m so excited for what you’re doing. What is one take action tip that you could give to our listeners? I always like them to end with something they can apply, they can take action with, on what you’ve shared today.
JONATHAN. The action tip that I’m going to give everyone is, people are waiting for you to pursue your dreams. They’re waiting for you. Often times we sit back and we doubt ourselves, we’re unsure of what lies ahead, we don’t know what God’s up to in our life, and we doubt our gifts, we lack confidence, we let fear hold us back. But, when you step out, when you have the courage to take that step, what you’ll find is that you embolden other people, that other people are encouraged to take that step. Keep in mind that there are people waiting for you to pursue your dreams. The people that I’ve been able to help may not have been helped had I not had the courage to step in, step up, and pursue that. Whatever might be holding you back right now, just remember that every single business, every single successful person that you see, it started with one single step of courage, one decision to be courageous. Be courageous, step out, and the rest will begin to unfold. I’ve seen so many times, Shelley, where God has gone before me and I could see where He knew all along where He was wanting to go. It just took me to have the faith to begin taking one step at a time.
SHELLEY. That’s so good, and it’s so true, because so many times we don’t see the exact path. When I launched Author Audience Academy last year I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but people have told me that it has birthed books that they’ve been dreaming about for 20 years. If I would not have taken that step they may have found someone else, they may not have. Like you said, we have a calling, we have a gift, we have those strengths that God has given to us for a purpose. Have that courage today, step up, check out Jonathan’s websites, bloggingyourpassion.com, buy his book, check it out, check out his funnel; it’s really, really smart and strategic framework. Think about how you can then, potentially, model after that, but then have that courage to take that step.
I’m so thankful that you’ve joined us for this episode today, and I’ll see you next time. Thanks so much Jonathan.
JONATHAN. Thank you!
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