Using Interview Transcripts for Valuable Blog Content [Kathleen Gage Interview]

by Ellen Britt, PA, Ed.D.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed online marketing consultant Kathleen Gage about the launch of her newest book, Power Up for Profits.

We published the audio interview here and now have the transcript available for you below.

What I want to point out to you, besides the great interview content that Kathleen Gage provides on using a book to grow your business, is also how you can use interviews to get great blog content with very little effort, especially if writing is not one of your strengths.

You simply find an expert in your niche, record your audio or video interview with them, then have the audio transcribed. This way, you have two forms of content to place on your blog and your audience will appreciate the various ways to consume it.

Here is the transcript of my interview with Kathleen Gage on her new book, Power Up for Profits:

Ellen: This is Ellen Britt from The Future of Ink. Today, I am thrilled to have as my guest, a woman who doesn’t just talk success but who really lives it.

Now, I’m sure you heard over it, over and over again about people making great money by using the power of the internet. Yet, the world of online marketing has really been almost totally dominated by men. But you’ve got to listen to this. The impact, our economy is getting from women — listen to this. Women who owned businesses have an economic impact of $3 trillion. I was astounded to read that. Most importantly, this translates into the creation and maintenance of an incredible 23 million jobs.

Now, our guest today has taken her cues from these astounding statistics. She is anticipating the need to get women the right information to grow their businesses at this critical time in our history. That’s why I’m delighted to have global online marketing strategist Kathleen Gage here today, as she has the written the first ever book addressing this topic specifically for women.

Kathleen provides proven solutions for how to quickly, efficiently and cost- effectively establish a strong presence using a variety of online means. Her new book, “Power Up for Profits” is going to show you how you can quickly jumpstart your presence online regardless of your industry. She is a master in using digital media, particularly the book launch, to increase her visibility, as well as her mailing list and keep her client pipeline full. I’m really thrilled to have her here so we can learn more from her and pick her brains! So welcome, Kathleen.

Kathleen: Well Ellen, it’s great to be here. I was thinking women could pay off the national debt.

Ellen: What an astounding fact.

Kathleen: It is shocking.

Ellen: It is. I read those figures and I thought, “Wow, wow, wow. So, I know you are on kind of a tight schedule. You have been doing an event tour. I really appreciate you taking some time to call in today.

Kathleen: For you Ellen, anything.

Ellen: Well, thank you very much.

Kathleen: You are one of the people that I have so much respect for. Any time you ask me to do something, I am there to do it. That’s really a lot of what I keep to my market is you have to build solid relationships.

Ellen: Absolutely. Well first of all, before we get going here, Kathleen, I want to congratulate you on the publication of your latest book, “Power Up for Profits.”

Kathleen: Thank you.

Ellen: It looks fantastic. I have a copy of it here in my hands. The cover design is gorgeous. It’s very, very nicely done.

Kathleen: Thank you.

Ellen: Now, as you know, just to illuminate our audience a little bit, of course. The Future of Ink we are all about digital publishing. So I’m not going to concentrate on the actual material so much from your book, because you have discussed this in other interviews, and I also want people to go out and pick up a copy. Let me just ask you, how can our audience best get their hands on your book, Kathleen?

Kathleen: Well, the best way is actually to go to Amazon. They can just key in Kathleen Gage or I think you might even have a link you can send them.

Ellen: Yeah, we’ll put in a link here to the book…

Kathleen: Yeah. The would be the easiest way.

Ellen: — so they can pick it up and we’ll just go to Amazon and search for Kathleen Gage. You probably got more than one book listed up there.

Kathleen: You know, I do. So it’s probably easiest if they go through your link, but one of the things we did with this book is we did both the physical version and the Kindle version. It was really interesting how the majority of purchases were Kindle because people are very into digital these days.

Ellen: Okay, interesting. Well, I want to get into that in a bit.

First of all though, Kathleen, you are really well-known or you have been well-known at least in the past being just a master of book launches particularly the Amazon launch. I know you have used these successfully in the past to make sales and build tremendous buzz not only for your own books but for your clients.

Now, I sense that the launch of this new book is completely different. So what I want to ask you, Kathleen is to have you help us understand what has changed in the book launch world and kind of give us a peek behind what you are doing with your book launch at this time?

Kathleen: Absolutely. Well, what really has changed is people are in information overload. The old model, as I like to call it, which still works for some industries. I don’t want people to think that it doesn’t work at all. But for industries where people get a lot of information, the old model was you would get a whole bunch of joint venture partners who would give a bonus gift

When people bought the book, they got hundreds of bonuses or dozens of bonuses valued at thousands upon thousands of dollars which in the beginning, that was a novelty that worked really well because people were not inundated with information.

Well today, because of the amount of information we get and the amount of competition there is out there, you have to be a lot more strategic than just bringing in a whole bunch of partners together having a big blast and then you have a bit hurrah on one day and it kind of fizzles out.

Today, the model that I use is a very long-term model and it really sets you up for more strategic success. What we did with this launch is we did a lot of prelaunch marketing where we gave people an opportunity to get whether it was video, audio, pdf, books, eBooks and we would put them on the list. Then when we did the launch we actually only used bonuses that I gave, there were two primary bonuses.

What this did is it really established the book for its own merit. It wasn’t about oh, get all of these bonuses and then as a second thought, you’ll get the book. It was — get the book and you get bonuses that I created that really support the message of the book.

So there really was a whole different model that we used. There were a lot of interviews that I did, a lot of guest blog postings I did. What that did was not only give us the opportunity to sell a lot of books, it also gave me the opportunity to get out in front of new markets in a very big way.

As a matter of fact, yesterday, I was in Salt Lake City doing an event, a live event where most of the people had heard about the book. Many had bought it, but I also have the physical book at the event. I wish I would have brought more because we sold out in record time.

Ellen: Wow. Well, it’s a very attractive book. For one thing, I just really have to congratulate you on the appearance of it.

Kathleen: Thank you.

Well, one thing I teach people regardless of whether you are doing a physical product or digital as we are focusing on digital is you really want it to look good. It’s not just about having an information product that people are going to buy. But the look and the feel, regardless of whether it’s physical or digital, has to be top notch. We went through probably eight revisions on the cover to get to the look that we finally got.

If you are writing a Kindle book for example, and you want that to be your ticket into a lot of opportunities, get it professionally edited. I think the challenge that we have today is kind of a pro and con where it’s really easy to get digital products done today. That’s an advantage to authors, but the downside is a lot of authors try to do everything themselves and they basically put garbage to market.

Ellen: Oh, boy. So that’s definitely a downside there.

Listen, when you are talking about the new launch model, a new given — your own bonuses, I like that. From your point of view, I can see where that would be a real advantage. But help us to understand, because traditionally you would go to JV Partners and you could say, “Look, you can build your list too by having these bonuses,” and people will come over and they have to subscribe to get you a bonus. How do you present value for your JV Partners who are going to help you get the word out about this?

Kathleen: That is a great question, Ellen. Actually, one way is that they become an affiliate. In a world of online marketing, affiliate marketing is huge. So what they do is on the front-end, they will promote the book and they use an affiliate link where on the back-end, we are up-selling into different programs.

One of the programs we up-sold into is a four-week fast track profits that’s $197, and my affiliates get 50% of that. Then there was another up-sell at $397 and they would get 50% of that. So the benefit to the people helping to promote for some of them is that they can make money.

Some people promote it just because they really like the book, and they really have a real need to bring great information to their market. So they said, “I just want to promote it to be promoting it.”

Ellen: Oh, fantastic. Well that makes a lot of sense. I like this model because it really concentrates the power, in the author, in this case you, you in your hands because these bonuses are not — people are not spreading out all over the place going to collect the thousand dollars of that stuff and their focus is diluted. They are coming in and looking at your stuff and then coming into your bonuses and maybe even coming into your programs and stuff as well, because I really like that.

Kathleen: Well, that’s the long-term vision that really we have to have today when we are doing business online. As I mentioned in the past, it was go for the quick kill if you will, and then after that everything fizzles out. Well, now it really is about being strategic.

One of the things that I am really on a mission to do is teach people that running a business online is running a business. Unfortunately, there is a lot of people out there that say, “All of you have to do is press the button and you make thousands of dollars.” You can’t — I mean, you have done it, I have done it where we press the button, we send out a message and we make thousands of dollars, but we have a foundation that we have put in place.

The thing that I am really committed to is helping people to understand that the internet and e-products and digital products are a means to an end. They are a way to serve your market, but they are also a way to generate revenue and establish yourself in your business for the long-term.

Ellen: Yes. I still think that there are a lot of folks who think that they have to write a book. They write the book with the purpose of making a sale on that book. They think that that sale — the book is going to be their product. Can you disabuse those of that notion that might still be hanging on to that?

Kathleen: Absolutely. You know, you do make money on the book but it’s nothing really to write home about. We made quite a bit of money on the sale of this particular book. But where the real benefit comes is establishing yourself as an expert, building credibility, getting your foot in the door into different companies and different markets. But then on the back-end, the long-term benefit is that you have other products and services that you make available.

Everything from like I said, a $197 program on up to — I have programs that are really tens of thousands. So it really is establishing a journey that you are taking your market on where you introduce them to different levels of products and services depending on what their needs are. So it’s not just the front-end that you are concerned about. It’s looking at the long-term and the back-end.

Ellen: So really, what you are saying is Kathleen, if you are a beginner in your business, writing a book is probably not going to be the first thing you should do.

Kathleen: No. The first thing you should do is find out who is your market. That’s one that a lot of people bypass. They really need to know who is your market, what are you an expert at, how you compare to the competition? You have to establish that first. Then from there, you can grow into the products and services that you are going to offer.

Ellen: Well, you could do that with doing other kinds of digital content, like articles, blog posts and those types of things.

Kathleen: Oh, absolutely. That really is something in the training that I did yesterday. We spent quite a bit of time on what you need to do online to establish your expert status. You’re right. It is blog posting; it’s guest blogging; it’s interviews; it would be article marketing, social media marketing. So there is a whole process that you need to go through to really establish your expertise. The more that you have established your expertise and the more visibility you get, the easier it is to sell your book once you take it to market.

Ellen: And you go into quite a bit of detail in your book about that process.

Kathleen: Absolutely. Really, the book — yesterday I had some people that would ask questions on whatever area they were interested in. I said, “It’s all in the book. Get the book.” If you are brand new to online marketing, this book is a perfect tool to help you get established.

If you have been doing online marketing for a while, this book is a great reminder of some of the fundamentals that we need to always keep in place. It’s interesting because as I was writing the book and it would go to my editor, we did quite a few re-edits. My editor was great. She tightened it up quite a bit.

We started with 95,000 words. It got down to about 65,000 words. So she took out quite a bit and she tightened it up. Every time I would read the manuscript, when she gave me the next draft, I would learn something new. It was like, “Oh my gosh. I wrote the book,” and I am reminded. So that’s the beauty of a book like “Power Up for Profits.” The subtitle is, “The Smart Woman’s Guide to Online Marketing.”

I have had people say, “Well, why did you only target women?” And 85% of my market happens to be women. Nobody had ever written a book. Now, there are products that are developed for women, but nobody had written a book just for women. So it was used as a marketing strategy too because it’s a unique hook that I have gotten a lot of interviews as a result of. That’s something I teach in the book. You have to have a unique hook to be able to stand out from the competition.

Ellen: Sure. Well let’s say, there are folks out there who are in that place of they think they are ready to write a book. How do they figure out what book they should write? Maybe you can talk about how you decided to write this particular book and to help us to understand what’s the book we should write for our particular business?

Kathleen: Well one is, you need to know what your market — first of all, again, you have to know who your market is, what your expertise is. Notice what your market is asking for because a lot of times, people develop products, the information and digital products based on what they think the market wants and they have never gone to the market and said, “What is it you really need?”

If it’s in alignment with what you teach, if it’s in alignment with your values, then you want to create products and services based on what your market is asking for. So the book that I wrote and what I recommend to my clients is notice what your market is asking for. If you are truly an expert in that area, that’s what you should write about.

Ellen: That’s probably going to be mis-defined to some of my audience. They are going to say, “Well, how in the world I’m going to find out what my market want? What are some…” I mean, I know we can do surveys and stuff like that, but…

Kathleen: It’s very simple. You ask.

Ellen: I know. I’m just standing in the place of my audience there, Kathleen.

Kathleen: I get it.

Ellen: I’m listening to people. I can hear them scratching their heads.

Kathleen: Well, one: pay attention. A lot of times, we don’t see what’s right in front of us. Usually, there are anywhere from eight to ten common questions that your market will ask. I actually have to laugh when people say, “You know, I get asked the same question over and over again and I spent so much time answering that question.” I say, “One way to avoid spending so much time answering that question is put an FAQ section on your website, frequently ask questions.” That’s a great way to come up with a theme or a top for your book is.

Notice the questions that are being asked over and over again. You can also notice that if you belong to specific forms that are industry or market specific. What are the conversations that people are asking over and over and they are having over and over again.

That’s really a starting place and surveying your market. It is a good idea to survey your market. You can use a tool like surveymonkey.com. But really, it’s as simple as asking and paying attention because a lot of times people will create their digital products or their books in a vacuum. They create it based again on what they think people want, but they haven’t really taken the time to research their market.

Ellen: Now, can you talk a little bit, Kathleen, about how you are using this book to really increase your brand awareness. You did a real brand makeover some months ago, which looks fabulous by the way. I noticed that really, the name of the book is the name of your business.

Kathleen: Yes, it is.

Ellen: Yes. Then the colors kind of match and everything is kind of congruent. I’m assuming that was a very conscious decision. Can you talk to us about how branding with a book works?

Kathleen: Absolutely. Like you said, everything has been in alignment with the main brand. We actually hired a branding expert, and I hired a copywriter even though for years I have been my own branding expert, I have been my own copywriter.

I realized that I was too close to my own subject matter to really have the right perspectives. So I was able to hire somebody that pulled out of me some of the information that needed to be pulled out and we came up with the Power Up for Profits because that is my main message to my market.

Everything I do now is in alignment with that message. I’m taking this book to market at this time was a very strategic move in order to really amplify my message to the market which a book does give you an opportunity to do more interviews.

A book does give you an opportunity to have more guest blogging opportunities. So the book really was a tool to increase my market awareness.

Ellen: I love that. I just want our audience to understand. I know that we have some savvy audience, listeners too. But for those beginners and intermediate people out there want them to really hear what you were saying Kathleen that the book is a tool. It’s really not an end in itself. It’d be fantastic.

You sell a lot of copies and you can at least cover your expenses and that kind of thing. But it is a tool; it’s a branding tool; it’s the back of the room sales tool; it’s a calling card. We really want them to get that.

Kathleen: We have definitely covered our cost on the book. I mean, with the editor and all of the expenses that were involved in the book. We did cover our costs, but we were very strategic in the way we took it to market. One of the mistakes that people make is they think all they have to do is create the product or the book, put it up on the Amazon and the rest takes care of itself.

In a six-month period, I did some research on how many books are put on Amazon in certain time periods and in the last six months over a half million books, whether they be physical books or Kindle books have been uploaded to Amazon.

Now, that’s a lot of competition. How are you going to stand out from the competition? That’s why I teach my clients how to put together very, very strategic marketing plans, so not only can they can sell the book but they can raise the awareness in the market place that they even exist.

Ellen: Fabulous point. Now Kathleen, you are tying this somehow and into book tours and events some things. How is that working?

Kathleen: Well, the way it’s working is I have what’s called my Power Up for Profit Tour, and then I have a big event in October called, Power Up for Profits Live. So like you mentioned earlier, everything is branded and it all leads to what we call a one-stop.

My one-stop happens to be my three-day event in October in Portland Oregon. The book again is a means to an end. Everybody who gets the book is going to get a ticket into the event.

Ellen: Oh, wow!

Kathleen: Yeah. For three days, they can come and see me. They put a small deposit down that they get back when they come to the event. So we’re doing a long-term plan around this. This is one thing I always encourage people to look at is what is your plan for the next six months, the next year, the next two years, but not being so attached to the plan that if things change, you are not flexible enough to change.

But again, the book is raising the awareness that I even exist in the markets that don’t know about me. Because yesterday, when I did a straw survey with the people who were at the event, about half the people had never heard of me. They came because somebody said, “You need to come and see Kathleen Gage.”

Ellen: Let me stop you for a second. When you say, the event — I’m talking about a big event. This is one of your book tour stops?

Kathleen: There were about 50 people there, so I call that a small event. To me, that’s a small event. In another event, I had about 25 people. Another one, I had 40 people. All of those events give me more market awareness.

People find out about me. If they like what I have done, they are going to come to the three-day event. At the three-day event, of course I’ll have my book, but I’ll have other services that I am selling and other products that are much higher.

Ellen: Right. So the book itself, you are getting that out there. You are combining it with physical book tours and you are attracting 25 to 50 people at a stop. Those people are going to get a taste of you in person, and then a percentage of those folks, I hope they are going to come on to your big event in October where they can get more information about what other stuff you have to offer.

Kathleen: Absolutely. The thing is Ellen, for a few years, it was during the time that my father passed away and then my mom, I was caretaking her for about a two-year period until she passed away. I was 100% online. It was like I didn’t do any live presentations. I did very few teleseminars and webinars. I was actually creating products by mom’s hospital bedside.

Then once I got through that whole experience and I had time to grieve, I really looked at the fact that you can do a lot online. I mean, there are people making great livings by 100% online. But what I have found is, the greatest complement to your business is online and offline and really being strategic about how you integrate everything that you are doing into the end-result that you are looking for which ultimately is finding a great customer, a great client that you can serve at the highest level who is willing to pay you for your knowledge.

Ellen: Yeah. I just hope people are really getting this and underlining it. It’s like, “Okay. It’s great to have digital products and services and digital content,” but mixing it with this personal component is just so, so powerful.

Kathleen: Absolutely. So, I want people to hear that.

Ellen: Yeah. I’m holding your book in my hands. I’m flipping it over here, and I’m looking. You have got some fabulous testimonials in here.

Kathleen: Yes, I do.

Ellen: Dr. Joe Vitale, Janet Atwood, Peggy McColl, Kendall SummerHawk.

Kathleen: Ellen Britt.

Ellen: No. I’m looking at the back at the back cover. Can you give our audience some hints about how you get — really famous people to endorse your book?

Kathleen: Well, I’m going to say something that some people will go, “Well, that’s easy for you to say, Kathleen,” but you become famous yourself. I started where everybody else started in the online world. I was an unknown. But through consistent effort, I became known in markets, but the way that you become known is to have stellar products and services and to be willing to play at a bigger level.

A lot of people hold themselves back and they say, “Oh, I could never do that.” Yes, you can if you are willing to put in the time. But one of the ways that I have been able to get the kind of testimonials that I have gotten is time in the industry, being willing to take risks, being willing to ask too. I wouldn’t have gotten the endorsements if I didn’t ask people and having a stellar product because the book is something I am so proud of.

I would say it’s probably one of the best products that I have ever brought to market. It’s 300 pages of solid content, but I also get into mindset. So really, it’s the combination of the content of the book. It’s the combination of time in the industry and being willing to ask for what I want. Many times people don’t ask for what they want because they are afraid to be rejected, and you reject yourself if you are not willing to take the risks.

Ellen: That’s probably worth the price of admission to this interview

Kathleen: Thank you.

Ellen: Yeah, very good. Well, we’re getting close to the end of our time. I have another question for you though if you got another second.

Kathleen: Absolutely.

Ellen: So let say the launch and everything is over and the big event is over in October, how are you going to continue to leverage this book?

Kathleen: Well, the book — there is a lot of evergreen information in the book, so it will ride the way for quite some time. But again, it will be me fueling the fire if you will. I will continue to look for interview opportunities. I will continue to look for speaking opportunities and actually, I have been working on a plan for who I am going to actually hire that will go out and look for those opportunities for me, because there is only so much you can do on your own. As you grow your business, you do need to expand your team. So I will be looking for those opportunities.

Actually, the book in itself, like yesterday at the event that I did, I had three people who came up to me after the event and they said, “We have an organization we’d like you to come and speak with.” So just by taking the action, you create more opportunity if you are open to it.

Anything in life is about being aware and being open to the opportunities that present themselves. What we focus on, we get more of. So I am focused on, yes there is a lot of opportunity that the book is going to create. When it shows up, I have to be willing to say yes.

Ellen: Fabulous. That just underscores the idea that a book, once it’s done regardless of when it was published, it never loses its effectiveness as a tool because you’ll always be the author of Power Up for Profits, right?

Kathleen: Absolutely.

Ellen: People are not going to say when it was published. I mean, as you say, some people won’t even look at you for speaking gigs or for a lot of other opportunities unless you have that book under your belt.

Kathleen: It’s so true. A quick example would be, you can have two people who have the exact same knowledge, exact some experience, time in their industry. You have one who has a book and one who doesn’t. The one who has the book is going to be considered more of an expert and will have more opportunity because of that book. It takes effort to do a good book. We didn’t just throw this book together. This book took quite some time for me to write and then to go through the editing process, the design process, the publishing process.

There was a lot of effort that went into this. That’s something that I really encourage people to look at is, don’t just throw your products together. Really think it through and think through, “Once I create this, what’s the next opportunity?”

To give you a great example, I’m working on a boot camp where I’m going to invite ten people to join me at a boot camp. It’s going to be a $5,000 price point, and it’s going to be on how to do the old model of book marketing and the new model and how to strategically plan your book marketing into those other opportunities in your business. This was my plan from the very beginning. So I knew that it had to be successful with this launch in order for me to optimize that particular opportunity.

Ellen: I think that people can see now how you can go from writing a book. It is like, “Okay, yeah. I really need to write a book.” To having this idea, the branding and everything, and then “Boom!” having this whole plan that rolls out in front of it. So it’s not just the book. This is going to have ripples throughout your whole business.

Kathleen: Absolutely. A lot of it is, you have to create your own opportunities. You really have to think through what do I want to do with my business? What’s the impact? My bottom line with my client is, what is the legacy that you want to leave behind?

Because I work with clients who want to make the world a better place. Whatever part of that world is theirs and really committing to — I mean, to do whatever I have to do to get my message out in a way that has integrity.

Ellen: Very, very nice. Well Kathleen, it looks like we are just about out of time. I do want to encourage people to pick up Kathleen’s book, “Power Up for Profit: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Online Marketing.” I have to tell you Kathleen, my favorite part is the zip-line story in the back.

Kathleen: Thank you.

Ellen: I had the pleasure of hearing that story from you in person. I think you were presenting it in the NAMS Conference. It was one of the funniest things.

Kathleen: Yeah. I still have to laugh it. But it’s funny because I’m not going to tell this story. People can get the book to read it, but we’re going back to Hawaii in a few months and I’m going to do the zip-line. I’m just going to have a blast at it.

Ellen: Fantastic. It was a very, very nice event and a very fitting ending for the book I think.

Kathleen: Thank you.

Ellen: Well Kathleen, I can’t thank you enough for taking time today to talk with us. Where can our audience go to find out more about you and your work?

Kathleen: They can go to PowerUpforProfits.com. That’s my website, and my blog is there. They can find out a lot of information. I do encourage them to use your link to get the book. I can promise them, when they get this book, it will be a game changer.