Nobody asks themselves this when they start an expert author business. Instead, they bypass it because it’s uncomfortable. It demands ruthless clarity.
Everything you do – every book, every online course, every webinar, every live event – has to serve the answer to this question.
Instead, people ask, ‘What can I sell?’ Or worse, ‘How do I get more customers?’ – when they haven’t got any, or if they have, it’s a trickle.
Look at it properly and both of those questions are all about you.
Your product. How much money you’re going to make. At the end of the day, it’s all about your ego.
The usual make money online (MMO) industry, which you have explored to learn how to sell more, never addresses the real issues.
When I was flogging underground how-to manuals under a pseudonym in the 1990s (offline) and at the start of the 2000s (online), I was very good at selling. I could hustle; I could shift product. But I didn’t know why I was doing it.
I’d come up with a book idea, and just advertise it. There was no overarching mission.
The question that really matters, and it’s dead simple, is this: what change are you trying to make?
It’s not about your bank balance. It’s about what you’re doing in the world – what change are you trying to make in the lives of the people you serve? What do you want to be different because you pulled your head out of your backside, showed up, and did the work?
This is where all great marketing begins. It doesn’t begin with your nice logo, a fancy social media plan, or hiring an expensive web developer to make your site look good.
If your messaging isn’t clear and precise straight out of the gate, you’ll struggle – and I’d go so far as to say you’re screwed before you’ve even begun.
Sure, you can make some coin hustling products that don’t serve a higher purpose. But that’s exhausting, and at the end of the day, soul-destroying. I know I’ve done it, and I’ve been there.
When I left the underground market and disappeared for a few years, I went off-grid. When I returned, I started building Eatweeds, but I didn’t begin by asking, ‘How do I sell foraging courses?’
I started with something far more important: what am I trying to achieve in the world?
The change I wanted to make was, and still is, to see wild plants used as food and medicine in every household in Britain.
The byproduct of foraging, when approached correctly, is a profound connection to the land. It teaches people to fall in love with their land base. And when they fall in love with it, they do not kill it, destroy it, abuse it, or extort it.
When you know the change you’re making, your messaging sharpens. It becomes focused, and your audience is clear.
Your pricing is no longer a guessing game. You’re not just selling; you’re building a bridge from where your audience is now to where they want to go.
The trap is lazy thinking. Saying ‘I want to help people’ means nothing. Saying ‘I want more sales’ – that’s a side effect of your mission, not the mission itself.
You need to go deeper. Get clear on the specific shift you’re responsible for. And if you genuinely succeed in answering this, what will be different for the people who trust you?
This is your taproot, your North Star, your compass. Everything else builds around it.
So today, answer the question: what change are you trying to make?