How Writing a Book Can Build Brand Authority in Your Industry with Taurea Avant

Transcription: 

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
My guest today is a guru at authoring and publishing books and teaching others how to do so as well. Taurea Vision Avant is the author of more than 15 books and has been featured on ABC, Fox, CBS, and more. In 2009, she founded Show Your Success LLC, where she has helped more than 5,000 speakers, coaches, and network marketers write profitable books to grow their business. In 2019, she took her business to the next level, by creating the Book Profits Club, a club designed to help authors promote, profit and perform. So if you are looking for a new way to be seen as an expert in your industry, this is the episode for you. Taurea, I am so happy to have you. Thank you for being here.

Taurea Avant:
Absolutely. Dayna, thank you for having me. I am so excited. I love talking about what I love doing.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Absolutely. I will never forget when I first met you in person. It was like, I don’t know, maybe five years ago or so when I was first starting my law firm, and I was looking for ways to get myself motivated and just align myself with the right people. And I found your event online and I went, my mom came, my sister came.

Taurea Avant:
I remember.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep. And it was amazing. So you were one of the first people that I met in Atlanta that really was instrumental in me getting the right mindset to do something extraordinary. So it’s so amazing to have you today and I want to share you with everyone else.

Taurea Avant:
Well, thank you. Yeah, I remember. Let me tell you guys. Dayna was definitely what … I mean, you came a couple times too.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I did.

Taurea Avant:
So I just remember you and I remember just your energy. So just to see where you have gone today, and I mean all the amazing things that you’re doing. Kudos to you. Congratulations. And again, thank you for having me here.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Thank you for being here. So let’s jump right in. Tell us about your background and what inspired you to write your very first book.

Taurea Avant:
Okay. So I’m going to try to get through this quickly, because [inaudible 00:02:55].

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Take your time.

Taurea Avant:
Let’s be real transparent. Most people who have a minimal amount of success, we like talking about our journey, right? Because the journey is real. But I’m originally from Virginia, a graduate of Hampton University. So shut out to all of my HBCUs. Graduated with a degree in computer science and so technology. It’s my love. I love gadgets. I love software. I love everything about technology. Long story short for 10 years, 1999 until 2009 was what I like to call a trypreneur, Dayna. Trying everything under the sun. At the same time, still having a job, but I call it tryepreneur because I would try it and quit it and try it and quit it, which honestly find that’s the trend. I wasn’t the only one.

Taurea Avant:
A lot of people fall into that space of trying things and quitting things, and not really sticking to it. And it wasn’t until my father who was actually my last living parent. My mom, my birth mother, she passed away when I was 11 years old due to cirrhosis of liver. And so now my father at the … I’m at what, I’m 25. I’m 25 years old now just really getting started in life, from graduating and working those temp jobs. And I find out he has stage four lung cancer. And unfortunately the cancer did win the battle. And when he passed away, I decided to move to Atlanta. So that’s what caused me to transition and leave Virginia. Because I moved to Atlanta like most people do because this is the place where everything happens. Right?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I raised my hand to that.

Taurea Avant:
So when I moved here, I’m going to be honest. Great things were happening. We were having some really good connections and networking and all type of stuff. However, my business wasn’t doing very well. And so because I did not have even just a minimal amount of success, let’s just say, Dayna, I would’ve made 30,000 a year in that company. I might have would’ve been good. But because I made nothing, I was like, something got to work. Right?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That’s good enough. Yeah.

Taurea Avant:
You know what I’m saying? So it got me into network marketing where I was able to become one of the top income earners in the industry. But it wasn’t my final stepping stone. It was for me to learn how to work with people, learn how to coach, learn how to sell. Hello. And then I became a full-time coach in 2014. And so that’s really my journey. A lot of people through the process, I want you guys to understand. It seemed like every single time I took a step into something new, people always thought like, what are you doing? Like why would you do that?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I understand.

Taurea Avant:
You got to get a job. Right? “You know how to do this. Why would you join one of those companies?” Or, “You’re making money in this company. Why would you start coaching?” And so it’s always been that journey, but yeah, I’m really grateful. More than 5,500 plus authors have been birthed. But now the mission is not just helping people to be authors, but to help them be profitable.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That is fantastic. And I can relate too because people never understand. “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you work here first? Why don’t you get some experience here? You just started.” All of that. All of the noise I like to call it. So I totally get it. So what from that experience led you to writing your first book?

Taurea Avant:
So I was, it was when I was still in network marketing and I realized that I was like, you know what, Taurea? There’s still a very large population, especially in the professional space who don’t really entertain network marketing. Right? So you got to be able to position yourself so that people will respect you and that you can gain the ear of people. So that’s when I decided to write my book, and this is the thing. We don’t have to duplicate what we’d see other people do. You could write a book on how to be able to speak to people at networking events. That could be your whole business.

Taurea Avant:
So I wrote that book and the doors were opening up. Real estate organizations wanted me to come and train on goal setting. A bridal organization wanted me to come train on vision boards. I had B and I, they were like, “Hey, you want to come and do a workshop?” Now, mind you, all this time, I had been going to these events, trying to promote my network marketing business. And all of a sudden, when I become an author, now you want me to speak? And that’s when it was like, whoa.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep.

Taurea Avant:
[inaudible 00:07:02].

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
The light bulb went off.

Taurea Avant:
Yeah. The light bulb went off, and that’s when you met me doing workshops over at the Buckhead Library. And so moving forward, I’ve made it my business to really, really understand this space and understand how to be successful as an author, speaker, coach, or even in the network marketing space.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That’s amazing because my story’s similar to yours because I started my law firm right out of law school. And I said, who is going to trust a new lawyer with their business or anything? And then I started blogging and then I said, you know what? This blog article is pretty long. And so I just kept writing and writing. It turned into a book. And once I became a author, it’s a whole new level that you get to. So let’s dive deeper. Let’s dive deeper into that. Right? Because when I wrote my book, they’re like, “What are you doing writing a book?” But actually that book is now in two universities. So I’m happy that I wrote that book.

Taurea Avant:
Yes.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
You never know. Yeah. It does work. Everything that you teach really does work. So dive a bit deeper into how entrepreneurs can use writing a book to promote their business and brand.

Taurea Avant:
Absolutely, Dayna. Well, the first thing that I always share, and by the way, I don’t teach what every publisher teaches out there. A lot of times I can be a little bit more controversial because I’m not here to do what everybody does. I’m here to do what works. 80% of most authors, Dayna, they don’t make no money, any money at all. It’s less than $10,000 a year. Dayna, can you live off of $10,000 a year?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Oh no, no, no, no.

Taurea Avant:
Right. And I know nobody writes a book with the intention of making only $10,000 for the whole lifetime. So the biggest mistake that I see with authors is they write a book to sell the book versus writing a book to sell. If you look at both of our stories, right? You wrote a book to grow your law firm. I wrote a book to grow my business. We never wrote a book to be authors.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That’s right.

Taurea Avant:
And so you have to think about it in that way. And I say, if I probably would’ve done it any other way, let me just write a book so that I can write a book. I would’ve not had the level of success. I never came in the door thinking, how many books am I going to sell. In my mind, because I came from network marketing where in our company we would give out samples. So in my mind, I said, you know what? I’m going to use this as a way to recruit more people, et cetera, et cetera. So I would give away books. I would do content. Right?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
It’s like a business card. I thought of it like a business card.

Taurea Avant:
That’s exactly what it is.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Like an amazing business card.

Taurea Avant:
Right. It talks about you better than you could talk about yourself ever. Right?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Absolutely.

Taurea Avant:
And who likes to really be around people that just sit and brag about themselves all day long, right? Nobody.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep. Absolutely.

Taurea Avant:
You write it in a book.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
There you go. This is all I … this is what I have to say.

Taurea Avant:
Yeah. And so the first thing is we got to think about the planning of it and how you’re going to leverage it as a tool to grow something that’s bigger than just your book. It could be products. It can be services. You could be a massage therapist writing a book about overcoming or how to live a stress-free life because you want to get more higher ticketed clients that pay top dollar. So that’s how you got to leverage that book, in a way to grow your business.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Then I’ve also heard you say or read that you feel like 80% of authors do not have success, and there’s a certain reason why. Tell me more about that.

Taurea Avant:
Well, outside of writing the book to sell, they write the wrong book. Let’s go back to the whole situation of telling our story. And I don’t want anybody here to feel as though I’m saying that your story is not significant because it is. But there is always a time in the place. Right now though, what most people are doing is, Dayna, they’re going to this thing called the internet, right? I don’t know if anybody’s heard of it, but what they’re doing is they’re Googling how to do something. So how can I …? They’re not looking up yet the life story of Taurea Avant. They don’t care about my life. They care about their current circumstance.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Solving a problem.

Taurea Avant:
What they’re looking for is a solution. Yes. And so when authors write these books, they’re not writing a book that’s connecting to a solution. Now, some people will say, well, what about story books or fictional books? Those are still in a way solutions. They take that person from their reality and put them into this space of whatever it’s going to be. That’s why you have things like Harry Potter, which by the way, can I just tell you something?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Tell me something.

Taurea Avant:
Harry Potter bigger than just the book itself created a community-

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Absolutely.

Taurea Avant:
… of People who probably felt like they did not belong. Now you read this book, you get your cloaks, you get your wand. You go to the movies. They’ve got groups that meet up. This woman is ingenious because she made a book that now turned into a movement, which created a community. And so that’s what books should do. We don’t think beyond that, we just think, let me just get chapter one, chapter two, versus like, no. How can this book transform lives and really build beyond the book and create a big community?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
The bigger goal and the bigger picture.

Taurea Avant:
Bigger goal.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
It’s not just about the book. The book is a means to an end.

Taurea Avant:
The book is the appetizer. And it’s not even a good appetizer. It’s like one of the little fancy-schmancy restaurants where you get the little small little bite.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Leave you wanting more.

Taurea Avant:
Right.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Absolutely.

Taurea Avant:
Girl, yes.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That makes sense.

Taurea Avant:
You want more.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep. So what should someone’s first book be about?

Taurea Avant:
You got to pick one thing that you know how to do, and it can be a challenge. Right? One thing. Because one thing is that as people we are very, we’re multi talented. We know how to do a lot of stuff, right? And we pride ourselves on being able to wear multiple hats. I wear multiple hats. But the truth is when you become … There is a quote, “The master of none, the Jack of all trades.”

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
The master-

Taurea Avant:
The master of none. Right? It’s longer than what most people say. But the truth is this. You could become literally rich off of one thing. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook. Oprah Winfrey, broadcasting. I didn’t even know Elon Musk was not the founder of Tesla. I thought he was the founder. No, he was an investor that came and he came from money. But when we say his name, we know him from Tesla. So my question is, what are we going to know you for? John C. Maxwell, we know him for leadership. So think about one thing you know how to do. What is it that people maybe come to you for and ask you for, ask you to do? Or maybe things that you do every day. If you don’t know, jot it down. Our challenge, Dayna, that I find, especially a lot of people that are, especially in the entrepreneurship community, even in our community as far as African Americans, if I can say. I can only relate because that’s where I am, but I’m sure other communities can relate too. We are addicted to our own labor.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Wow.

Taurea Avant:
Well, I know how to do that. Imagine Dayna, if you said, well, I know how … I’m a lawyer, but I also know how to do hair. So let me start doing hair. I’m also going to dive into real estate. When you first became a lawyer, I’m going to dive into real estate and I’m going to teach a training course.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
[inaudible 00:14:09].

Taurea Avant:
Would you be married right now?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I know.

Taurea Avant:
You would not. But you pick one focus and that’s where you get known for. It doesn’t mean you can’t do other things. But the thing is y’all we got to be known for things. So pick the one transformation and that’s where you start. And then where you start with as far as writing the content is, remember people like instructions. So create seven steps to, 10 steps to, and make each chapter be one of the steps.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That they can follow. You know what’s one thing that I heard? In terms of building a business or even writing a book, what’s the one thing that you do with the least amount of effort? I’ve heard that before. And that could be something that you write your book about when you’re trying to think of a topic so because-

Taurea Avant:
And a lot of time we don’t … Dayna, [inaudible 00:14:55] cut you off, but a lot you’re of time because we do it without thinking, we don’t think it’s a big deal, but no.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
That’s so true.

Taurea Avant:
There’s somebody is looking at you like, “Wow, how did you do that?” Right?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep.

Taurea Avant:
When somebody comes into my house and they see my setup, they’re like, “Girl, how’d you set this up?” I’m like, “What? It’s not a big deal.” But people are willing to pay for people to come in and set up a studio for them or something like that.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Yep. It’s so true. So I also see the Book Profits Club logo behind you. So tell me, yes, it’s wonderful. Tell me about the features of the Book Profits Club and about how … what the process is for your lawyers, for your members and how long it might take them to write a book in your program. So what are some things that potential members can look forward to?

Taurea Avant:
So we have two different main programs. We have our book camp where I used to do one on one, but I don’t do one on one anymore.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I can understand.

Taurea Avant:
Working with someone to help them write a book. Right. So we have a book camp that we do four times a year. And then once somebody is done with their book, we have Book Profits Club. Now this is the deal, Dayna. I’m a big collaborator. I don’t know why God is all really instilled that into me. I want to work with people. I want to work with people. I want to work with people. And I kept on coming across so many other people that are teaching people how to write books. I’m not the only one who does it. And so I was like, okay, what’s the way that we can possibly work together, or what’s some of the challenges that I see with authors once their book is published? And so I came up, like I said in, well, like you said in the intro, 2019 Book Profits Club, which is designed to help authors profit, promote and get their books to perform.

Taurea Avant:
And we also partner with other people because I only do self-help books. I don’t do memoirs, biographies. I don’t do journals and planners. I don’t do cooks and poetry books and all of those, but there’s the other publishers who do, who still need to be able to show their authors how to promote, how to profit and things of that nature. So that’s what Book Profits Club is, and it’s a monthly continuity program where people can join. We have three different levels just based on where you are.

Taurea Avant:
And my goal is really getting authors to over $10,000 per month. Now, if you’re already at 10,000 a month, let’s get you to a week. And for some of y’all who are ambitious enough, let’s get you to a day. I mean, it really is not hard when you have a system in place. So we created an entire system that is designed to show you how to work less and make more money by leveraging your book the right way.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
And one thing that I think I’m blown away by from you is, as I mentioned in the intro, you have written more than 15 books. That is just mind blowing. So tell us about some of your favorites and what motivated you to write those.

Taurea Avant:
Okay, well, I’m going to tell you. I sometimes write a book based on maybe what I’m going through right then and there. I’ve even written books with a specific objective. I’ve even met people who’ve done that. So let’s say it’s a huge conference that is a yearly conference and you really, really want to speak at the conference. I’ve known people to literally write books just so that they can send it to the people who do the conference as an opportunity to pitch themselves, to be a life changer. I’ve just learned a system where I can write a book in days. This book right here, The 10K Book, my latest book. I wrote this in a matter of days.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Let’s see it. Pull it back up.

Taurea Avant:
Yes.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Awesome. The 10K Book.

Taurea Avant:
That’s a little shiny. Yeah. I get them all matte so I don’t know how it got a little …

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
It looks great.

Taurea Avant:
How to turn your book into a five figure business. I wrote that in days. And so first of all, I write only on that of what I know. Nobody bought my book because they want to see what I’ve researched. If anything, I need to go to school, do a dissertation. Okay. But I wrote a book based on my knowledge, but yeah. So you write your book based on what the intention. And can I just add this? The only reason why it becomes very … Okay. Let me not describe. It’s difficult. It’s work, but when it’s easy not to do it, it’s because you have not attached the person who needs your book to it. So you’re not thinking about the person right now that’s looking up, “How can I do this or my life, or I need help. I’m desperate.” You’re not thinking about that person because when you think about that person, you’re not going to let days go by and you haven’t worked on your manuscript.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Especially when it’s connected to what you feel is your purpose. I have to help people. I can’t be disobedient to this idea or this thought that I got for this book and just procrastinate. I have to. That one person is depending on me to finish this book.

Taurea Avant:
And it’s got to be that deep, Dayna. You got to literally look at it like that. You really have to be like, how dare I keep this information from this person who needs this?

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Taurea, you have dropped so many gems for us. Thank you so much for just sharing your beautiful mind and your advice. And this show is really about helping entrepreneurs just get to the next level. And sometimes we need to think outside of the box, and people think that if they’re not a creative or if they business isn’t related to creative or the arts or anything like that, then authoring is not for them. Right. But it’s bigger than that. It’s a tool for marketing. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes, and what you and I certainly know as well as others in your program is that writing books work for generating profits, not just for the book itself, but for the business.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
So for everyone that’s watching, take a look at writing and authoring a book and learning everything and connecting with Taurea. And speaking of that, Taurea, how can viewers stay connected with you, learn more about what you have to offer to help them with authoring their own book?

Taurea Avant:
Well, absolutely. So I always only ever give, and this is some coaching right now. Okay. Because I like to give one call to action so that you guys don’t feel like all over the place. I always give my free masterclass. And in this masterclass is where I’m really breaking down what it takes to have a book that generates over $10,000 a month. Once you go to the masterclass, you’ll be able to connect with me everywhere else. Just go to www.10kbook.com. And so just go there, plug into the class. You also can see where you can purchase books if you want to, and connect.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
I love it. Thank you so much, Taurea. Would love to have you back in the future. And I look forward to hearing about all the books that all the viewers are going to be writing sometime soon. So appreciate you, Taurea.

Taurea Avant:
Absolutely, Dayna. Thank you so much.

Dayna Thomas, Esq.:
Be sure to share today’s show with someone who can benefit and visit MyASBN.com and subscribe. If you have any questions or comments about today’s show, I would love to hear from you, send me a message or comment on Instagram at @daynathomaslaw. Remember to tune in next week and every week to make sure your business is launched and legal.