Turn Attention Into Dollars – with Jim Kukral

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Jim Kukral is the author of Attention! This Book Will Make You Money. I read Jim’s book and immediately starting implementing his advice in my business, and it’s working. In this interview, Jim provides even MORE actionable advice and insight that can help you become a successful freelancer.

Check out the interview below and let me know what you think in the comments.

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Prefer to read the entire thing? Here’s the full transcript.

Transcript

Robert: Hey everybody, it’s Robert Dempsey, with Life of the Freelancer. I am really excited to bring you this interview with Jim Kukral. Jim is a marketing guy, he’s an entrepreneur and he’s a speaker. He wrote a fantastic book called, “Attention: This Book Will Make You Money,” that I did a book review for. It gives a metric ton of actionable advice for self-employed folks like you and me that we can do at very little to no cost to really bring more attention to ourselves and to our business.

In this interview, Jim gives even more advice that you can take and start to implement in your business. If you do it, you’ve got to take action on this stuff that he talks about, but if you do it that will practically guarantee really to bring customers to your door. Check this interview out with Jim. Take his advice, turn it into action and start building your business.

I will see you on the other side. Thanks.

Robert: Hey everybody. This is Robert Dempsey with Life of the Freelancer. I am speaking today with Jim Kukral, author of “Attention: This Book Will Make You Money.” It is an Internet marketing guide to helping people make their stuff happen.

Jim, how is it going?

Jim: I’m doing well. How about you?

Robert: Great. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. I was introduced to the book through a blog post that Chris Brogan did. When I was speaking with Chris the other day, he again mentioned your book as one of the must-read books. The thing I like about “Attention” is that me as being a self-employed person can take those concepts that I’m sure even with your much larger customers you’re giving them, and make this stuff happen. That’s really cool.

Jim: The one quote I came up with in my life is, “Doers get what they want, and everyone else gets what they get.” That’s why I wrote the book, is the Internet Marketing Business, and any business really, but right  now there’s never been a greater time in the history of the world to go out there and build a brand, to build a business by using essentially free tools or very inexpensive tools, and get your name out there and do something. That’s what I try to focus on helping people do. Get out there and do, because if you’re out there doing, you’re going to be successful. That’s why the book was written so that it would inspire and motivate people to go out there and make things happen.

Robert: Right on. And to that effect, I have so many bookmarks. I have your book on a Kindle, which is why I’m glad you have the cover there behind you. It doesn’t really show up well on this. A lot of what you talk about and what I’ve bookmarked really seems to revolve around people getting over their fear of doing things that could really bring just massive amounts of attention to themselves and their business. Do you find that’s one of the major stumbling blocks for people?

Jim: Yeah, I’ve got thing called “Five Day Bootcamp” that I built which is just a bunch of audio things that just inspire people to take action, just like what I talked about. But to your point, one of the biggest things I talk about in the book is, “Is your ego holding you back from making money?”

There are a lot of businesses, brands, and people out there who are so worried about how they look and how people are going to perceive them that they don’t want to go out there and try something different, or try something unique or better. I give tons of examples in the book about how people are taking 25-year careers and making millions of dollars from just standing out and being different.

One of the guys is Matthew Lesko, who is the question mark guy. Have you ever seen that guy?

Robert: Yeah.

Jim: He’s got the green suit with the question marks all over it. The guy’s got a 25-year career of being the weird, annoying guy in the question marks. But what he has done is he gets people to look in his direction.

This guy, he wears that suit everywhere. He wears it through the airport. He wears it to Target. He wears it wherever he goes. What happens is people notice him. He doesn’t care about what people think about him.

By the way, the truth is that, I interviewed him, the truth is that 99% of the people who see him love him. They come up to him and they want to take his picture and shake his hand and give him business. Then they take out their wallet, I don’t have my wallet, and they pull money out and they hand it to him.

He doesn’t care about his ego. He’s got products. He gets people to look his direction and he makes money. So that’s really some of the things that we talk about in the book.

Robert: So is he literally carrying his books around with him also for sale? You’re saying that people break out their money.

Jim: That was a metaphorical saying that when you get attention, you get people to look at you, you’re either good or bad or ridiculous or whatever it is, people notice you. We all understand this concept.

The problem is you’re exactly right with the fear. We’re scared to go out there and actually try those things because we’re so worried about what people think. From birth, we’re taught, “Go out there and be like everyone else. Do the same thing that everyone else has been doing since the dawn of man. Don’t stand out. Don’t be different. Be like everyone.”

In business, in business and in life, especially in business, if you’re not different, you’re like everyone else in the middle. When you’re in the middle, you don’t get noticed. Try playing on the edges. Play on the edge of anger and fear and disappointment. If you create an emotion in somebody, in a customer, right? This is what this is all about, customers.

If you create an emotion, you can create a reaction. A reaction is what you need to be successful in business. Getting people to take their wallet out and hand you money metaphorically, online, in person or whatever. That’s what you have to do.

Robert: That’s an enormous point too because, well to add to that point, I was reading a blog post the other day that even said that nowadays being unique is not even really enough. You’ve got to start stepping it up. Tell the story. Tell the story in a unique way, so you still have to be unique. But you have to go that extra mile to really, as you say, stand out amongst other people.

I know for me as a small business owner, all that same fear is there. Just like you said, from birth we’re conditioned to, “Oh, don’t stand out, don’t do this and whatever.” But I’ve seen the people that finally just let it go. And they’re like, “You know what? Screw it, I don’t care. I’m just going to do it. Why the hell not?” That’s the stuff that really gets attention.

Jim: Well, yeah, you’ve got to be your authentic self. Like Matthew Lesko isn’t a very quiet person. He’s actually like that in real life. Before this we were talking about Billy Mays. Billy Mays is a really nice guy. That comes across on camera and in his brand that he had. You can’t decide to fake it unless you’re the best actor in the world.

The tough part is figuring out who you are, figuring out what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about and who you are, and then just playing to that course authentically.

Me, I figured out that I’m a teacher. I love teaching people how to do things, how to be successful. I also figured out that I love motivating people. While I don’t have a lime green suit with question marks all over it, I certainly would consider doing something like that if I knew that it would help my brand or help my business.

That’s what this is all about. We’re all in this because we want to try to make more sales, more leads and more publicity. That’s what we’re all trying to do. If you get over the fear, you’re going to be more successful.

Robert: That’s a really good segue too to start talking a bit more about you. [laughs]

Jim: All right.

Robert: So let’s talk about you, Jim.

Jim: [laughs]

Robert: I know that by training, if you will, by schooling, that you are a PR guy. You got the degree in PR with a minor in sales and marketing. You’ve been doing it for a bit. Now from what I’ve, and no offense to marketing people out there, but I went to a lot of marketing events when I was in Florida. It was like marketers marketing to marketers. So they’re like, “What are the rules of social media and this, that and the other?”

With what you’re doing, from what I read your book, and then I found out more about you after that and I’m like, “Whoa, this guy is trained in marketing!” It’s so almost anti what you talk about in the book. So I don’t know, if you could talk a little bit about your background a bit more too, and then how you really got to the point of writing “Attention.”

Jim: Yeah, I’ve doing this for over 15 years. I got started in the Internet business back in, what, 1994 or 1993, right when it started to become like a business. I started out doing coding and building websites. This was before Tables existed in HTML, that kind of stuff. So I was doing coding, design and I realized something really quick. I realized that I was a very bad designer.

[laughter]

Back then I was doing graphic design before the Internet. I realized something else about 1999, was that I’m a better marketer. I could learn how to make money online by doing affiliate marketing and search and email and all those things.

So that’s kind of where I got my start. Why did I write this book? I wrote this book because so many lessons that I learned in life either about getting jobs before I was self-employed or helping other people or just getting noticed. You read the book. There are countless stories in the book where I talk about specifically how I used attention-getting ideas to get myself a job or a vendor position or whatever it was I was trying to do.

So it was really a labor of love. I wanted to share those techniques and those ideas with other people who want to find jobs, who want to get better careers. It’s all about doing what you want to do.

You don’t have to go to work nine to five and sit in a cubicle. You get this more than anyone, Life of a Freelancer, right? You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. There’s nothing wrong with it. If you want to be…figure out what you want, then go out there and make it happen. Stand out and you’ll what you want more often than not, I guess.

Robert: So you said too that you came to the conclusion that you are a teacher and you love to teach. You do a lot of speaking as well. How long did it take you to get to that point in your career, to be like, “Ah, this is what I’m really passionate about. I’m going full-out with it.”

Jim: It’s frustrating because it’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I feel like I have a strong brand. I’ve been blogging since 2001. My first blog was a month before 9/11. I was writing about my day driving to work and things like that. It’s really frustrating for a lot of people because it can take 10 years, or it can take a year. It’s going to be different for everybody. You’re going to eventually figure out what you were meant to do and what you want to do. For me it took a lot longer.

You’ve got to decide what your real goals are, and your goals shift, right? Your goals shift. Before I had children, my goals were a little bit different. Eight years ago, nine years ago now, my goals are a lot different now that I have kids. So you have to figure out what you want to do and just really stay focused and go after that.

If you want to be a speaker who’s on the road 60 events a year, then you’ve got to go out and you should write a book. You should go out there and make a plan to go out there and do that. But remember you might get what you want, which can be really frightening. That’s why you really have to think about it, because do you really want to be on the road 60 events a year? Think about that if you’ve got kids at home. I don’t. I’d much rather do a couple limited events and sell information products and run my own web businesses and things that.

So I guess my advice is just really try to stay focused on what you want to do. Write your plan out. Write it down and figure out here’s where I want to see myself in two years, five years, 10 years. Focus on that plan and then just make headway trying to get there.

Robert: Right on. Even with that too, as you said, your priorities can shift too. So nothing is fully set in stone. It’s not like the traditional, like the way my parents were raised. It’s go to college, get a job, stay in that job forever, retire, done. It’s like, no, your plan can be a bit fluid.

Jim: Absolutely, and that’s what’s great about the business of the Internet and everything. Everything can change so fast. Where was Facebook and Twitter, what, four years ago, three, four, however long it’s been? Things have changed a lot since that time. We are able to build our brand, build our business, do things like this. We couldn’t have done this years ago. I mean, how cool is this?

So things change. Things move fast. And, again, it goes back to the doing thing. If you’re not trying, if you’re not doing things like this, this is a great example. Just getting on a recording and having a conversation and then broadcasting it on the Internet is just a great example. Try. Do. Go out there and you’ll find that you can be successful with not really a lot of money spent, just some time and some creativity.

Robert: Yeah, absolutely. The tools are definitely in place. As you said, to allow really anyone to do some of the same things we’re doing now with that too, that means that a lot more people are just putting stuff out there.

So I’ve read some articles too and I’d love to hear your take about this of almost, it’s been talked about before, information overload. Now it’s almost like every brand is getting on Facebook. Everyone’s creating a Facebook page. That’s funny that you’d mention Facebook too. The movie, “The Social Network,” I think it’s coming out today.

So everyone is getting into it. I guess really it goes back to a lot of the stuff and the techniques that you were talking about in the book of how to really stand out. But do you think that it makes it just that much more important, then, for people to really get out and try just some potentially crazy things, because there is just this flood of information on social media and the Internet and everything?

Jim: Well, you’re right. There are a million things going on, Facebook, Twitter, the Internet. There’s a lot of noise. There’s an absolute lot of noise. But just like before, before there was noise. There’s still an opportunity for people to stand out on the edge of that and get noticed, you know, the one red dot in the middle of a sea of black dots. This is basic stuff that we’ve all been taught forever. A million marketing books have been written about this type of stuff.

The reason my book’s different and the reason that I wrote it is it’s really all about getting eyeballs to look at you and using the web and social media and offline as well. But what do you do with it once they get to you? Because there’s the disconnect. There are a lot of people who would say, “All right, well, everyone’s looking at me. Now what?” Right?

You’ve got a lot of bloggers out there now who get a lot of attention, big name bloggers too. But they don’t know how to make money for you know what. They don’t because they’re not marketers. They write really great content and they’re really authentic great people. But if you looked at their income statements, you’d be pretty darn surprised at how much they don’t make and how much potential they could be making because they’re just not marketers. They don’t know how to do it. So they were good at getting the eyeballs, but they weren’t good at taking the eyeballs and translating that into revenue.

That’s the shift that we’re starting to see right now is everyone’s saying, “Man, it’s easy for me to build a brand online, get noticed, get attention. But now what? How do I quit my job finally and turn this into, not $10,000 a month, but a $100,000 a month? How do I make a million dollars a year? How do I make $100,000 a month? This is what we’re seeing now, and it’s absolutely possible.

Robert: One of the things too before we started recording, and I’m like, “How do you describe yourself because you do so many things?” One of the things you did say is Internet marketing.

Now Internet marketing, from what I see as Internet marketing, there is the literally marketing on the Internet. Then there’s the people out there just selling products to people that are like, “You can make X amount of dollars if you follow my exact system.” There’s that kind of shady side of Internet marketing, which I know you’re absolutely not on that side.

So where was I going with that? [laughs]

Jim: What’s the difference maybe?

Robert: Yeah, well, because what you’re talking about, it seems like is, and I always ask people, “What’s the difference between, say, marketing and sales?” Because what it sounds like you’re talking about is you’ve done that marketing. You’ve gotten the people to your doorstep. Now you have to start converting those people into customers. Is that sales, or is that still a marketing function?

Jim: I see them together. I’m a marketing and sales guy. I think a function of marketing is to drive sales, and I lump them together. To your point about, I heard you say the word shady. People hate marketers, OK? Because why? Because marketers are the ones responsible for slamming ads at them wherever they go, so it’s natural that human beings are kind of like, “Man, marketers stink.”

But it’s misguided. It’s misguided, and I’m not blaming people. It’s misguided because there are a handful of bad ones around who have junk products, make false promises, and only care about making money.

They are really good marketers and they get that stuff out. And people buy it and they get it, and they’re disappointed because they didn’t make a million dollars from opening the box. And to your point, a lot of information marketers get a bad rap who have really good products because of that exact fact.

So if you’re watching this right now and you’re one of those people who have bought the 22-disc DVD set about how to get success online. I bought a whole bunch of those things. I spent a lot of money on that stuff.

Robert: Same, yeah.

Jim: I want you to consider this.  The reason perhaps that you didn’t get successful from that was maybe that you thought you were just going to buy the product and open the box and read a couple things. And you thought you were going to get a system that you were just going to click a button and you were just going to make a million bucks.

Think about that for a second. I think that’s why a lot of people get bad raps with this stuff. Most of this stuff is really good and it works really well, but everyone seems to think there’s an easy button. Everyone seems to think that you just open the box and all of a sudden riches start coming to you.

The people in this business work like crazy. Chris Brogan writes a great article in his site called “The Myth of Overnight Success.” If you read that, you’ll understand that there is no overnight success. People in this industry work really, really hard. It’s different than having that nine-to-five job where you work at the job and you just come home and then you don’t have to think about it anymore.

So I guess my long-winded point is do. Apply what people are trying to tell you to do. It’s not that easy. We all bust our butts to work really hard. Information marketing, and by the way information marketing is really shifting right now.

What you’re seeing is a lot of the people who are big-name celebrities who made careers and fortunes selling through direct response on television are realizing that, wow, we could shift our expenses from expensive television, and start creating our own communities and products and selling them directly through the web. And instead of making a million dollars a month, we can make ten million dollars a month, because that’s how we can do it with the reach with the brand.

So it’s all shifting right now. I would advise anyone out there to stop worrying about the bad products. Do some research online and find the good ones. Social media, there are so many ways you can search now and find out what people are saying about a product before you buy it. That’s my long-winded diatribe against the people who say bad things about information marketers.

Now I’m not even an information marketer in that typical sense. I have products and businesses, but I am a little bit different. I don’t sell the dream as much as everybody else. That’s probably why I don’t have $10 million and I’m not sitting on a beach someplace. Because how to make money in that business is you sell the dream. You sell, “You want to be like me and drive a Ferrari and live on the beach in Cabo? Then you need to buy my system.” I don’t sell that.

Robert: Yeah, and to that point too, and on the about page on your site it says that you’re, and one of the reasons too that I was really attracted to the book and your story, is that you’re out there doing it. It’s not just sitting there coming up with this stuff and selling it as a packaged product not actually having done it really much, or only doing it on the people that are buying your stuff. It’s from the lessons that you’ve learned in putting it in place and having the businesses.

Jim: Yeah, from me or my clients. Like I said, I’m a teacher and I’m a tactical guy. I’m not big on the 40,000-foot social media and Internet marketing theories. I’m a guy who, as a small business owner myself, I’ve worked on the agency side, the client side, for big companies, little companies, owned my own businesses, entrepreneur, and people want tactics.

People want something that they can read or watch or listen to and they can take back to their office and make it happen right then and there. That’s what people need. That’s what small business owners need. That’s what entrepreneur need. That’s what I try to focus on, specific things that are going to help you just be successful right away.

Robert: And with the caveat, I would say, that you will actually get out there and fricking do it. Because either way, the leg work, you’ve got to do the leg work to make this stuff happen.

Jim: You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to just get out there and do it. That’s a huge part of my message. That’s why I love talking with people like you because you’re out there doing it. You found me. You said, “Let’s do this interview.” We’re doing it. We scheduled a time, and we’re doing it.

It’s really that simple, isn’t it, when you really think about it? But for some reason most people are so afraid of it, either if it’s the technology that they just can’t seem to figure it out. It’s really not that hard. What we’re doing right now was not a big deal, and it was not expensive by any means to do this. One of the things is Skype, which is free. The other one, you may be using a recording tool that’s, what, $20 or something?

Robert: Yeah, I think the Skype call recorder on my Mac is, yeah, it’s like 11, 12 bucks, something like that.

Jim: It’s $11. Now you’re going to be able to take this content and put it on your website, put it on YouTube, wherever you’re going to put it, and broadcast your brand and your helpful information out to people. It’s going to build trust to people like you for you. It’s going to build brand equity for you, because you’re going to be able to distribute it on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and your blog and everything. It’s good and it was so easy to do, wasn’t it?

Robert: No, absolutely. I think the thing is too, at least for me personally, I could have approached this a few ways. It’s like, “OK, there’s this guy. He wrote a book.” You know, like who the hell am I? I have nothing out there. I’m literally sitting in my basement recording this and whatnot. I could have said, “Nah, Jim will never talk to me.” I could get caught up in that, or I could, well what I did was, I’m like, “Well, maybe Jim will talk to me.”

Jim: Absolutely.

Robert: “So let me see if I can contact him just to find out.” You said yes, and I was like, “Oh, this is fricking awesome.” I’ve been looking forward to this ever since you said, “Yeah.”

Jim: You know, look, one of the things you’ve got to do nowadays to get the word out about what you’re doing is you don’t turn down things. I’m glad to be here. That’s the other thing Matthew Lesko, the question mark suit guy, he said, “Man, before people knew who I was, I would have paid for people to know who I was.”

When you get somebody to ask you to do an interview or something, always do it. Never ask them how big their audience is. That’s the old stuff that people used to say, “Oh, how big’s your audience?” That’s ridiculous. I’ve done podcasts and interviews and video things for people that have zero audience who haven’t even started a business yet or started a blog or anything yet.

It’s about getting distribution of your message out across the Internet. You never know who’s going to be watching and who’s going to read it. Somebody from the biggest magazine or TV show in your industry could end up watching this and say, “Wow, that sounds like a cool book,” and call me up and say, “Can you send me a review copy?” All of a sudden, I’ve got great press from that.

So just go out there and try this stuff. Everyone’s approachable now online. The web has democratized the A-list people. I’m Z-list in terms of my niche. We’re all A-listers now. We’re all approachable. If you ever meet somebody who says, “How big’s your audience?” then you probably don’t want to interview them. My opinion.

Robert: Yeah, right on. Well, personally I don’t want to talk to those people anyway, so forget them.

So you have a second book that you’re writing too called “The Ultimate Pitch.” What’s the pitch for “The Ultimate Pitch”? [laughs]

Jim: That’s the tough one. Everyone expects me to have a great pitch. It’s called “The Ultimate Pitch: 17 Sure-Fire Strategies to Get Everything You Want in Life and Business.”

Robert: Badass.

Jim: OK? So here’s the pitch. The pitch is, “Would you like to have everything you want in life and business?” Your answer is?

Robert: Well, obviously, yeah.

Jim: OK, well then, you need to read the book.

[laughter]

Jim: There’s the short pitch.

Robert: That’s cool.

Jim: But, no, it’s really all about figuring out how to get the things you want in life, back to the whole birth thing. When we’re born, what’s the first thing that we do? We cry because we’re scared or we’re hungry or we need a diaper changed or something like that.

We figure out pretty early as human beings that when we sound off, we get people to react to us. What we do, what we say, how we act gets people to give us the things that we want. When you’re out trying to pick up somebody at a bar, I’ve been with the same woman 17 years so I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I think I remember when you used to use body language. There’s what you say. It’s how you look.

We’re always pitching. Everyone’s always pitching in life and in business. I’m pitching now. You’re pitching when you talk to your customers. Billy Mays was pitching when he sold on TV. There are so many varying levels of it. So the question is how do we learn from the people who are really good at it, and take those techniques and tactics and put it into our own life and our business situations and be more successful?

Robert: Fantastic. Is there a relative date for that to be released yet?

Jim: That book’s not going to be out until summer of 2011.

Robert: Right on. Yeah, because writing a book is a ton of work.

Jim: It really is. It’s really a lot of work, but it’s absolutely worth it. I’ll tell you, anyone out there who can get a book deal now, you should try and get one with a major publisher, it’s your big giant business card. It’s no longer important for you to have to presell your products or services or your consulting business anymore, because if people read your book, they call you and they say, “Hey, we read your book and I really like what you talked about here.  We need help.”  And you don’t have to sell them anymore.  They just want to hire you.  It’s a big difference.  And you can raise your rates.   And it’s just kinda cool to have a book.

Robert: [laughs]  And a big sign, like a big cover on it too that you can stick with it.

Jim:  Yes, and a big sign!

Robert:  No, but really, it is a fantastic book.  Jim, so to wrap up this conversation, I mean the book has a little metric ton of advice.  I finished it in a sitting.  I just couldn’t put it down.  I’m like, “OK, what am I going to do?”

So then it was almost a matter of: “He’s given me so much that I could do.  Which direction do I want to go in?”  And I started doing it, though, based on the advice in your book.  And so you’ve given additional advice during this conversation.

But for someone that’s sitting there, you know, again, a self-employed person watching this or listening to this on iTunes or whatnot, what is maybe just one more piece of kind of parting advice that you would give to these folks?

Jim:  Parting advice.  Well, we talked about the ego.  We talked about the mode of doing it.  I’m trying to figure what other big piece of advice I give people.  Realize that it’s possible.  Everybody knows a lot about something.  I don’t care what it is you’re good at, or what it is that you know a lot about, or what you are passionate about, everybody knows a lot about something.  You could be the world’s best iPhone application downloader.  You could be really passionate about soda.  You know, you could be really good at fixing fly fishing.  Whatever.

My point is this, is that you have a knowledge or a skill that other people will either want to know about or want you to teach them how to do.  And your devaluing your experience and the things that you know a lot about, even if you are the best video game player in the world, you are devaluing and not realizing the fact that other people want to know how to do that or be better at it, or teach you to do it.

So take the knowledge in your head and transfer it to the web.  Put it down and come up with some type of course, or product, or service that other people can consume, and make it easy for those people to purchase it from you.

Now, you’ve probably already started doing this in the type of a blog.  This is where a lot of bloggers start.  They say, “Well, I know a lot about the green business.  So I’m going to start blogging about green.”  My wife’s got a great blog in the green business.

But where the disconnect happens is people just keep giving that information away for free.  It’s great to build your brand.  I’m not down on blogging.  It’s great to build your brand, it’s great for search engine rankings.  But at some point, when you are really an expert, you need to take it to the next level, which is taking the information out and packaging it in a way that allows people to buy.

And remember how people buy. People buy products and services in packages.  You buy a box of cereal.  You don’t buy a couple pieces of cereal. You don’t buy the concept of a cereal.  Right?

Put it in something with bullet points and a price, and put it online and say, “If you want to know how to do what I know how to do, then I will charge you this much, and I will teach you how to do that.”  And then make it real easy for people to buy from you.

Last piece of advice:  Forget the PayPal button.  You gotta get rid of the PayPal button.  Get a merchant account.  Actually take credit cards.  The truth is that everyone has credit cards.  Even though they may be broke, they still use them.

A lot of people aren’t used to PayPal, they don’t like PayPal, they don’t get the whole idea.  And I know what you’re saying.  Everyone’s watching, they are like, “Well, they can still use their credit card on the PayPal.”  It’s different.  There’s a big PayPal logo at the top and they have to down there…it’s different.  I’m telling you, it needs to be just like when they go to Amazon, or just like when they go anywhere else, just a regular credit card transaction.

So if you do those things, what you are going to find is that people are going to go, “Oh, he does that, or she does that, and I need that.  And they’ve made it real easy for me to give them my money.”  And then you have a sale.  And then you have a business.  And then you can start building a business around the lifestyle we talked about in the beginning, which was your lifestyle.  What do you want?  Right?  If you want to work 20 hours a week, then you should be building a business that allows you to get there, not the other way around.

Robert:  Fantastic advice.  So, Jim Kukral.  Marketing guy, author, speaker, entrepreneur.  Thank you very much for your time and just the ton of advice that you’ve given during this conversation.  Much appreciate it, sir.

Jim:  Hey, it’s my pleasure.  Glad to be here.  And let me know when this is up.  And everyone who’s out there, if you buy a copy of the book, I hope you enjoy it.  Actually, I know you’ll enjoy it.  And thanks very much.  Anytime.

Robert:  Right on.  Bye-bye, Jim.

Jim:  All right.  See you.

Robert:  Hey, it’s Rob Dempsey again.  I hope you really enjoyed that interview with Jim.  I mean the amount of actionable advice that he gives for self-employed folks like you and is really just unparalleled.

And again, Jim’s biggest message is that when you are building a business, you can’t be afraid to do something that could get you a lot of attention.  And once you have that attention, turning those folks into customers.

And to help you do that also, with Life of the Freelancer, I am starting to create a series of products.  There are two things that I’m doing.  Number one is these workshops.  So these are a combination of video, audio, and text, like workbooks with checklists and things of that nature.

My first one is: Becoming Successfully Self-Employed, and that’s up at LifeoftheFreelancer.com.  Up on the store you’ll find that.

I’m also creating a series of how-to videos for very specific issues that I’ve encountered in my 10 plus years of working for myself and that the people I am interviewing have identified as well.

So take Jim’s advice.  Buy the book “Attention”.  Get those people in the door.  Check out Becoming Successfully Self-Employed at LifeoftheFreelancer.ocm, and start making this stuff happen for you.  As Jim says, you can absolutely do it, you just gotta get out there and do it.

So I’m Robert Dempsey at Life of the Freelancer, and I will talk with you later.

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