Finding Your Purpose and Connecting with Customers with Michelle Vandepas

To access Michelle's free training: 

• Designed to give you information on writing and publishing your book that you may not have known. We have taken some of our most frequently asked questions and turned them into bite-sized modules to give you tools to succeed in the publishing industry.

https://gracepointmatrix.teachable.com/p/intro-to-publishing

Welcome to the Because Business is Personal podcast, where empathy meets marketing strategy. Today I'm excited to share my conversation with Michelle Vandepas, an accomplished author, speaker and coach with profound insights into publishing, online marketing and living with purpose.

Michelle lives in the Colorado mountains with her family, 40 goldfish and the occasional mountain lion or bear sighting. She finds grounding in the natural beauty around her home. We began our discussion learning about Michelle's interesting hobby of keeping giant goldfish in a greenhouse. This led to sharing stories of our past experiences working in movies filmed in Colorado.

As a book publisher, Michelle helps clients get their important messages out into the world through books and other mediums. During our talk, she provided wisdom on viewing books not as the business itself, but as a key part of one's overall marketing strategy. Michelle also discussed challenges of supply chain issues during Covid and over-reliance on major distributors. Her insightful perspective came from decades of experience in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Incorporating empathy is central to Michelle's approach. She emphasized understanding oneself as a marketer to authentically connect with audiences. Michelle suggested practical ways listeners can immediately foster human connections crucial to business success. Her message underscores focusing outreach on those truly needing your solutions over chasing arbitrary metrics.

Michelle offered lessons learned from weathering difficulties like lost reviews and supply problems. Her passion for empowering others with messaging shined through. I encourage you to visit Michelle's website to learn how she may assist with your book or message. Thank you for tuning in to gain these impactful insights on living purposefully through business.

Eager to harness the power of Empathic Marketing to propel your business growth? Get your hands on my #1 Amazon Best Selling book, 'Empathic Marketing,' or book a '30-Minute Gap Analysis' session directly from my website: www.becausebusinessispersonal.com.

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Transcript

Mike Caldwell: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Because Business is Personal podcast, the podcast where empathy meets marketing strategy. I'm your host, mike Caldwell, but I'm also known as the marketing medic. Now, the reason for that is because, before becoming a marketing strategist, I actually worked as a paramedic for 12 years, and it was during that time that I realized how important it was to truly understand the problems your patient was facing before you started providing treatment. And it's the same understanding, the same empathy, is just as crucial when it comes to understanding our prospects and making sales, and that's why, in each episode, we'll dissect the art of empathic marketing, exploring how top professionals infuse empathy into their strategies to build stronger relationships, boost their sales and make a lasting impact. So buckle up and prepare to turn up the dial on your marketing effectiveness. As we gear up to dive deeper into the realm of empathic marketing, I'd like to share a couple of special offers with you. First, you can get a free copy of my international bestselling book Empathic Marketing. You only need to cover the cost of shipping. Reading this will provide you with a much more in-depth understanding of the empathy-based marketing approach that we explore in this show. Next, I'm offering a 50% discount on a transformative 30-minute gap analysis session with me. Reading this session will identify the hurdles in your marketing efforts and together will develop an actionable roadmap aimed at winning you more clients and making you more sales. Just visit my website, wwwbecausebusinessispersonalcom to grab your book or use coupon code podcast to take advantage of my gap analysis offer. So why wait? Let's start turbocharging your marketing strategy today. Now let's get started with our episode.

Mike Caldwell: 2:01

Everyone welcome back to the Because Business Is Personal podcast. Today we have Michelle Van Depass, who is an accomplished professional who captivates with her empowering message and unwavering support. As a seasoned author, speaker and coach, she has a wealth of experience and profound insights into publishing, online marketing and living with purpose. Michelle lives in the mountains of Colorado, as I once did, where she lives with her family, 40 goldfish and I'm going to have to ask some questions about those goldfish and the occasional mountain lion or bear. Oh my, michelle is often walking through nature, thinking of new ways to help her clients live their most authentically successful lives and also grounding herself in the beauty of the world around her, whether at home or through her travel. So welcome Michelle. So excited to have fellow Coloridian here with me.

Michelle Vandepas: 2:58

Yeah, absolutely, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Mike Caldwell: 3:02

Very cool indeed. So the book I wrote is called Empathic Marketing and my podcast is called Because Business Is Personal. So clearly I like to dip into the human side of things. So before we get into all things business, my first question is what is something not business related about you that our listeners may find interesting or quirky? And if it involves 40 goldfish, I'd love to hear that answer. I was going to say it.

Michelle Vandepas: 3:30

so I got a couple of stories. But 40 goldfish is pretty cool. So you're from Colorado. You may know about the growing domes where you have their big like translucent greenhouses that will go through the mountains and you can put a big fish tank in there. The idea is that you can grow tilapia or something right and then you use that water to garden. But I put 99-cent goldfish in there and I've had some of them for a decade now and they're like this big and I got a big like propagating baby. So I've got like six little babies like this from this year and then I have like huge goldfish. They act like coy and they swim around. They're super cool and I go up there when I need a moment of zen.

Mike Caldwell: 4:25

Wow. And so I had like one goldfish growing up in my little goldfish bowl and I had to change the water all the time and that was a pretty involved process just changing the like. We had to take the goldfish out of the one jar and put it in another one. How do you? How do you do that with?

Michelle Vandepas: 4:41

I don't, I don't, I just don't. So probably should Send me hate mail, please, nobody. But what I do do, what we do do, is we have an aerator in there and we got a fountain that circulates the water and I think that helps, and then I put some live plants in there once in a while and I think that helps. And so the water can get a little dirty, but eventually it cleans itself out.

Mike Caldwell: 5:06

Oh cool, it's more of a natural environment.

Michelle Vandepas: 5:08

It's a very yes, that's a good way to put it. It's a holistic natural environment.

Mike Caldwell: 5:13

Okay, but why don't you hit me with another non-business interesting Michelle fun fact?

Michelle Vandepas: 5:21

So I took my daughter to be an extra in a movie one time was Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and she didn't get to be cast. But I did, oh, no and yeah. So I asked her is it okay if I go? She's like yes, she was like I don't know, maybe 14 or something, at the time in Florence, colorado. Do you remember Florence from your days here, tiny little town South of Colorado.

Mike Caldwell: 5:47

Springs Right? Yes, I didn't get. I spent most of my time like in the heart of the Rocky, so I didn't get too far that way.

Michelle Vandepas: 5:54

Tiny little town and they filmed down there and I went down for like three days of filming and it was super fun and I'd never been on the film set before and there was a waitress or cafe owner and all of this and we told the celebrities in the movie not as a caterer. And then the movie came out, my whole family gathers around their word glued to it, right, and you see me changing that. The opening scene is I'm changing from the cafe sign from open to closed and we're like, oh, opening scene, that's so cool. You can't see my face or anything. And then we watched the whole movie and that's it. I got like this. It's like that. I have like a half a second in the movie. You can't even see my face, but it was super fun.

Mike Caldwell: 6:48

Well, I was actually in a movie in Colorado as well, and I was on the screen much longer, but you couldn't see me, and so when I was in Colorado, I was a paramedic, I was a firefighter paramedic, and I also worked on some of the movies, some of the movies that were filmed there, and so I can't remember the name of the movie, but it was Danny Glover and Dennis Quaid.

Michelle Vandepas: 7:10

And Danny.

Mike Caldwell: 7:10

Glover was a serial killer and he had this really cool car where he had like all like nudy pictures of girls, like that, upholstered, his frenzied of scar, and he used to kill people by slashing their femoral arteries, anyway, and Dennis Quaid was the cop that was chasing after him. And anyway, the scene that I was in, they're on a train just north of Vale. They're the hosts. Let's say yeah, yeah, докум, if you got today's movie, yeah, but they'reinsideeston absolutely acknowledged this right now, sorry, ah, in conditions like this. And they were, they're fighting Danny Glover and Dennis Quaid. They weren't there when I was there there was the stunt doubles, but they were fighting on the roof of the train and we kept. We had to do all these like test shots and test shots there there's a whole bunch was crammed into this caboose and then when it was actually we were finally ready to shoot the scene, like okay, everybody off the caboose, everybody, you know Gone. So I started to leave, like where are you going? I'm, like you said, everybody off. Like no, the director and the medic stays in the caboose. So everybody else had to get off and we had like huddled down so you couldn't see us. Well, you know the Dennis and Randy. Dennis and Danny stunt doubles were fighting on the roof above. So yeah, I was, I was in the movie for you know a couple of minutes, but you couldn't see me because I was and I did.

Mike Caldwell: 8:25

I met Danny Glover. I treated him a fair number of times. He the dry air in Colorado really bothered his nose and so he kept getting nosebleeds. He got a lot of nosebleeds out there just from the dry air, but anyway, that's, you couldn't see how's there? Alright, so let's. So let me tell. Tell me a little bit about your business and what you do.

Michelle Vandepas: 8:47

Well, first and foremost, I'm a book publisher, but what that really means is I help people get their Message out, live their purpose through some usually business or entrepreneurial venture in a book usually is part of that. Okay, get your message out and you have a fabulous book. Right, empathetic business. Did I get that Pathic?

Michelle Vandepas: 9:14

marketing marketing, marketing Title. I just love it. Impact, so I'm sure and talk about that and so you know it's part of your message, is part of your Foundation, it's all kind of part of your and so I coach a lot around. How do you bring your Message, your purpose, your meaning and your business together and get, find all the different ways to find your audience, and the book is part of that.

Mike Caldwell: 9:39

Okay, yeah, cuz I think a lot of people Published their book with the plan and that's gonna be their business, like their book, right. But it's really just a glorified credit card, or not? Credit card business card.

Michelle Vandepas: 9:51

It's a great business card that gives you a published author, gives you some decent authority, right totally, and you know people will buy from you because you have a book, or they will be impressed because you have a book, even if they Never read the book.

Mike Caldwell: 10:07

That's right. That is so true. So what motivated you to become what you are today, and have you had any regrets since making that decision?

Michelle Vandepas: 10:19

So, as an entrepreneur, I think all of us have some sleepless nights on occasion, right?

Mike Caldwell: 10:24

Yes.

Michelle Vandepas: 10:25

I don't have regrets. I don't think I had another choice. Really I've been doing this Not the book, these but I started in marketing, like in the 90s. I had a couple of small businesses and I was helping other people market their businesses. And when you're helping other people market so much of that is coaching, right you have to like ask questions and listen and find out how they want to market when you know I mean, I'm going back a ways here like get the internet, we're talking about putting flyers up at grocery stores, right and you're figuring out how to get the word out about your business. And that just sort of naturally morphed into what I do now, which is coaching and consulting and helping people grow their businesses Through what I would call a holistic approach and aligned approach and using books and Podcasts and all those other ones to help get your message out.

Mike Caldwell: 11:27

Okay, and you kind of touched on it with, like the, with the flyers and different things. But since you have been doing this for so long and you know sort of not yeah, I guess I think I got my first email address and maybe like 1999 or something, so the internet wasn't really that big, you know. So how, how has what you do changed? What are the sort of compare and contrast, like the pros and cons from them? Because everybody Everything's, it's so hard now, but, like, how does it compare and contrast to the earlier days?

Michelle Vandepas: 12:00

Yeah, you know, what's interesting is on the outside, everything's changed, but internally, nothing is. You're still doing business with people. You still have to make connections. You still have to look at people in the eye. I mean, yeah, you can like set up your shopping cart and hope people like click and buy, but there has to be people underneath. That AI is not going to take over the world. That's my personal view, because we still need that in our archery, still need human connection, and so none of that has changed.

Michelle Vandepas: 12:32

I talk all the time about think how your great grandparents did business. Think about going to some rural community and you go to a farm stand. That's really at the root of all of it, and so none of that has really changed. If you're struggling in your business, it's probably a lead thing, my gas and it could be all kinds of things, but it might be you don't have enough leads, you don't have enough clients, and the way to fix that is go talk to more people. Okay, right, which is what you and I are doing right now, exactly and Expanding our reach, our network. Hopefully, we're having some fun doing it. Yeah, so that is changed. Yeah, the internet is changed. It's really busy out there, but there's more people to sell to. So you still have to find your, your sweet spot, your niche.

Mike Caldwell: 13:23

Okay, it's. I see you did a Ted talk. I want to ask you about that in a second. But I am applying to get my own Ted talk now, like you say, to reach out, get that exposure. And you know my? Of course you don't know. I just I'll tell you my Ted talk is entitled AI may be the future, but human connection will always be the present.

Michelle Vandepas: 13:44

I, so I heard a podcast yesterday with the guy who started Khan Academy.

Mike Caldwell: 13:56

Okay, what is that?

Michelle Vandepas: 14:00

KHA and Academy. It's like the biggest school YouTube. Like, if you want to learn about a math equation, you go to Khan Academy and they'll just teach you for free. Okay, cool. All right, but he's talking about future of AI and business and it's like he's building this thing out. That's like Star Trek, the holly-holly bones, where they Halledeck yes.

Michelle Vandepas: 14:26

Well, that actually sounds super fun, right to go on the house. So there's pieces of AI I think I'm looking forward to I'm not quite there yet, but but it's never gonna replace these kinds of conversations.

Mike Caldwell: 14:38

No, and I'm actually using chat GBT more and more every day, and it's just my research assistant now, and so I still make those human connections one-on-one because those are necessary. But before, when I wanted to learn about my audience, I'd have to go into all the different Facebook groups and read the comments and ask questions, wait for responses, go to Amazon, look at my competitors, books, see what the comments are to get an idea of who my audience is. And now chat.

Michelle Vandepas: 15:06

Chatted me. What's that I'm a GPT chatted me, did I? I put my name in GPT chat to find out, to prepare. That's what I'm asking, right.

Mike Caldwell: 15:19

Oh no, I did not do that. I did not do that because chat GPT is only yeah, so it only goes back.

Michelle Vandepas: 15:30

it's two years before now and prior to that, so it doesn't have a lot of new stuff.

Mike Caldwell: 15:34

So if I wanted, to talk to you now. It wouldn't know the last two years about you.

Mike Caldwell: 15:37

That's the most important stuff, right, but for my customer avatar it can do a lot of the research a lot faster than I could before, and so I do a lot of the stuff I teach is from Eugene Swartz Breakthrough Advertising, which is a really famous marketing book, and chat has read that. So I can ask you, based on Eugene Swartz Breakthrough Advertising Problem Awareness Scale, where is my audience in X, y and Z? And it'll give me that answer based on how I asked it, and so now when I talk to my avatar, I can speak to them at the level that they're at, and so it's very helpful for those reasons.

Michelle Vandepas: 16:16

Well, I can't wait to watch your TED Talk coming.

Mike Caldwell: 16:20

Yes, yes, all right, let's see what my next question is. So can you share an interesting story about a major challenge you faced in your business and what did you do to overcome that?

Michelle Vandepas: 16:39

There's been so many. So you know, in the middle of COVID we lost books on the docs and in the tankers and in China and all that stuff, right, oh no, publishers had supply chain issues and books lost. I don't know if I'm allowed to really say who, but there's one big distributor of books that everybody knows. It's a pain in the freaking butt.

Michelle Vandepas: 17:15

Oh no okay and as a book publisher, you know, when you have just really one or two places where most people buy their books and you have to be on their platforms, it's really difficult as an entrepreneur to like have all your eggs in one basket right.

Michelle Vandepas: 17:34

I don't like that, and so I'm always looking for other ways to get books out and other ways to distribute. What are other ways that you can connect with your audience and where else can we sell it? Because otherwise we're just relying on, like Amazon or Amazon Mobile or whatever the equivalent is in Canada.

Mike Caldwell: 17:52

Same to yeah, yeah.

Michelle Vandepas: 17:53

W H Smith in the UK. Right, and we. As an entrepreneur, you can't put your eggs in one basket, so that's one of the things that keeps me up at night still.

Mike Caldwell: 18:03

Right.

Michelle Vandepas: 18:03

I'm learning about that. And then, of course, always, I think, for every entrepreneur how do you get enough leads? How do you get the right leads? How do you get the right leads faster?

Mike Caldwell: 18:13

Right.

Michelle Vandepas: 18:14

And I don't even like to call them leads, and I think this speaks to your language. How do you find your clients and your future customers to need what you have Right, and so the background is lead, but that sounds so cold and harsh, and really what I'm looking for are the people that need what I have, and we're a good match.

Mike Caldwell: 18:38

Okay, I have a real estate coach client, so he's a realtor coach. He teaches other realtors how to be better realtors and realtors are all about their database. Right, how big is your database? And like you, he hates that term. He's like no, you don't need a database. You need between 50 and 100 ultimate humans in your life. So, he likes to call his database ultimate humans and he treats them like ultimate humans. He doesn't treat them like data right, and that's a huge difference when you look at that way.

Mike Caldwell: 19:12

Yeah, yeah. So what did you do when your books disappeared off the docks? Like, how'd you overcome that?

Michelle Vandepas: 19:21

Oh yeah, I'll cry a lot.

Mike Caldwell: 19:23

Just crying works. Yes, crying is very helpful.

Michelle Vandepas: 19:26

Our clients were like yelling at us and there's nothing we could do, like everybody was just so burned out during COVID. You know, it's like it's hard to remember. It wasn't that long ago, 2021, books just were not getting shipped from various places and the end of 2020, things were just stuck. If you guys remember, we saw pictures of tanker ships that stuck in canals. Right, that's right. A lot of those were full of books Okay.

Michelle Vandepas: 19:56

And supply chain issues. We all thought it would be toilet paper. Well, it was books, amongst other things, and so you know. You have an author who is so excited for a book launch and then their books don't arrive and there's nothing we can do. We're like it's out there in the middle of the ocean somewhere. That was hard. The only thing you can do is tell the truth and try to work through it together. There's really nothing else you can do.

Mike Caldwell: 20:21

So, as a book publisher, it sounds like you're in a David and Goliath situation. So like how do you compete against Amazon? How does that even work?

Michelle Vandepas: 20:33

Right? Well, you can't. You have to put your eggs in their basket.

Mike Caldwell: 20:37

Okay.

Michelle Vandepas: 20:37

And then sell through Amazon. You can't compete with them, so we publish through Amazon as well as through other places, right, okay, and they take their cut. That's true of the bookstore, too. They take their cut, and distributors take their cut, and printers take their cut, and then if someone returns a book, everybody loses that whole cut, right? And so it's not a question of competing and I think this is probably true with most businesses. It's finding out who you have to play with, like, in our case, amazon. And then who else can you play with and what other baskets can you find, or what other playgrounds can you find and where is your? You know what is our niche and what is our specialty and what is our gift to the world and how is a company? Can we go serve the people that need us and not just rely or compete on one place like Amazon, right?

Mike Caldwell: 21:35

Okay, yeah, I think that's such a huge lesson as entrepreneurs Before I got into marketing, as to the degree I am now. Google came up with some new rules and the big Google slap it's called right.

Mike Caldwell: 21:49

So, everybody was just making money, hand over a fist with Google. Then they just Google slapped and they shut everybody down and so that flow of cash was just stopped. And then a lot of them move said oh well, we've got Facebook, we'll just move over to Facebook. And so they just did. They just moved everything to Facebook. And then a couple of years later, facebook came out with all these restrictions and I had one client we just lost our account and we weren't breaking any rules, right, facebook doesn't care. Like. We tried to ask them, they're like well, let's just start another. Like we can't reactivate your account, but if you want to start a new one, you could do that. I was like I'll happily do that, but I'm going to keep doing what I was doing. And you said I couldn't do that. Just please tell me what I was doing wrong.

Mike Caldwell: 22:33

And they won't tell you Right, so you got to be diverse and you get it.

Michelle Vandepas: 22:38

You know there's a, there's a thing hang up and call again. You'll get a different person. Amazon's like that Facebook. You don't get people, but it's you just keep trying, keep trying and keep trying. Hang up, reach out, reach out, reach out. Eventually maybe you'll get someone who knows the answer, but maybe never. I had 700 reviews of mine taken down from Amazon because someone complained that I was in the industry, and so 700 reviews were pulled. Nothing I could do about it, because enough time had passed and I don't tear up when I talk about it anymore. That was a hard thing and there was not a thing I could do about it. Sorry, I mean you're in the industry, you can't leave reviews. I actually wrote them all before I was in the industry, but I mean I was always kind of in the industry, but before I had my own publishing company.

Mike Caldwell: 23:32

Right, holy smokes. But that's also another valuable lesson is just to never quit and keep trying Like say, hang up and call again. Yeah, hang up and call again.

Michelle Vandepas: 23:43

Try again. Yeah, yeah, you never know.

Mike Caldwell: 23:48

We live off the grid here and I Nice. So we started that 20 years ago and so my biggest story for that is when we wanted to put we needed a deep well. So we had a deep well, we needed a pump and the inverters that you used to convert the direct current from your battery to alternating current. They were smaller 20 years ago and the amount of power that a well pump uses when it turns on, you know when your fridge turns on and the lights go dim.

Michelle Vandepas: 24:14

I'm on a well.

Mike Caldwell: 24:15

Okay, so you know, like it's an energy hammer, it's called right.

Michelle Vandepas: 24:18

Yeah.

Mike Caldwell: 24:19

And so that's a big spike. So my inverter could handle the well pump running, but it couldn't handle the well pump starting. All right. So I went to the well pump store. I'm like, yeah, I got this problem. Like what can I do? Nothing Like get a bigger inverter, you know. I'm like, well, that can't be right. And then somebody said, well, you could use a DC inverter, dc well pump instead of an AC well pump, but that doesn't pump as much water as your shower head will use, so you can have like a five minute shower once your pressure tank's done. Then you're out of water, so you can do that Anyway.

Mike Caldwell: 24:54

But I just I'm like that can't be the answer. There's got to be a solution. And I just kept going to place after place after place and then finally I went to one place and he's like, well, why don't you just use a soft start well pump? Like I'm an idiot. He's like, why don't you just use that? I'm like, what is a soft start well pump? He's like, well, most, most motors, they go from zero to a hundred like in a split second, and a soft start just slowly ramps up so you don't get that energy hammer. So why don't? I don't understand, why don't you just use that? I've spoken to a dozen people and you're the first person to tell me this machine exists, right, and yeah, and it was so obvious to him. So obvious, so easy, such a simple solution.

Michelle Vandepas: 25:38

And there's a couple of things. Number one that's what makes you an entrepreneur is you're just going to keep hammering away at it to find the answer right. Yep, and a lot of tenacity comes with being an entrepreneur, and there's a lot of just you know, hang out and call again. You just got to keep with it, and not every entrepreneur has that, but it is one of the things that can make you a little bit more successful. Oh, you got to have it and yes, yes, we.

Mike Caldwell: 26:08

Yeah, I do cry sometimes, but you have to tear it out Off the grid is not easy either.

Michelle Vandepas: 26:17

I'm not off the grid but I'm on a well and you know our electric goes down quite a few times every year and we have generator and some backup stuff, as you know, a big greenhouse growing dome.

Mike Caldwell: 26:29

So that's right, yeah, yeah. So how do you incorporate empathy into your marketing strategies, and can you share an example of where that made a significant impact?

Michelle Vandepas: 26:41

Yeah. So I think the big thing that I would call empathy is having empathy for yourself as the marketer, as the business owner, as the salesperson, that you don't have to be everything to everybody, you don't have to do this certain way. You don't have to sell, sell, sell. You don't have to be like this Dackass kind of person excuse me right that when we have our own heart and our own empathy for ourselves, well, it's just going to be more natural. So when I work with clients for a job and they're like well, I know I'm supposed to like go get Instagram, and I'm like why Talk to me, talk this through. Maybe you do, maybe it's a good strategy, maybe it's not for you, let's talk it through.

Michelle Vandepas: 27:33

Well, everybody says I have to be on Instagram and I'm not on Instagram. And then you get all this self-conflict and you're internal and it's like, oh, I don't want to do it. No, I don't. So I think the empathy starts with us knowing who we are, what we need, what our best marketing strategy is. You can be on Instagram or not. There's a million ways to market. It depends on where your audience hang out. What do you like to do? How are you going to be able to sustain it. All of those We'd start there.

Mike Caldwell: 28:09

Wow, so it sounds like that's a great answer. I've never, no one's ever spun it that way before, so that was, that was a great insight. Thanks for sharing that, and it sounds like every market is different, but do you have a favorite platform, or is it always?

Michelle Vandepas: 28:24

No, I do, and I'm on Facebook and I have a love hate relationship with Facebook. I'm also on Instagram and sort of on TikTok and sort of on LinkedIn and sort of on threads and sort of everywhere, but mostly because I've been on Facebook for so long I know I know it inside. Now I don't have to think about it, I just get on and post something. But I try to follow my own advice and I know that some of my audience hangs out on Instagram, so I try to do Instagram.

Mike Caldwell: 29:02

Okay, what do you think the future of books is? Do you think you? I don't know.

Michelle Vandepas: 29:08

I ask everybody else. I want to ask you what do you think the future of books is? I've been studying this for a long time. You know fiction is growing. People love fiction. It's a category that's growing leaps and bounds. I don't think AI books. I think there's place for AI, but you know, ai books are flooding the market right now and Amazon and Google Books and everybody is like giving so many complaints and we get our books ripped off and we have to follow copyright violations with Amazon and Google and everything all the time. That will settle out. But the real future of books, you know, I don't know if we can go into a holodeck.

Mike Caldwell: 30:00

Yes.

Michelle Vandepas: 30:01

Right, you know, if you want to read about, I don't know, world War II, which I don't, but that's what popped into my head Do you want to go into a holodeck? And maybe that was a really bad example.

Mike Caldwell: 30:16

That's a really bad example.

Michelle Vandepas: 30:18

You want to experience Rome and the Trevi Fountain? Are you going?

Mike Caldwell: 30:22

to pick up a book about it?

Michelle Vandepas: 30:23

Are you going to go there? Are you going to go into a holodeck? You know, I mean I still love reading, Lots of people still love reading, but I wish I knew the real answer and everybody who talked to gives me a different one. I mean, I've talked to big publishers and editors at the big five companies and they're like books will never go away, Maybe not. Paramount sold Simon and Schuster recently, like this last week, I think.

Mike Caldwell: 30:52

Okay, everything's just changing, it seems fast, because has television gone away like cable TV? Yeah.

Michelle Vandepas: 31:03

Forget it. Like my dad watches cable TV sometimes and I was visiting and I'm like what, what's the commercial? Like what? Why are you watching this? Yeah, I remember. So it was only been six months. We really had chat to BT and it's only been four words really been the newest version right, Like April or something that's right.

Mike Caldwell: 31:30

Yeah.

Michelle Vandepas: 31:31

Look how quickly that has changed everything.

Mike Caldwell: 31:34

That's right. That's right, yeah, because I think even me, I like I watch a lot of Netflix and I think Netflix is becoming old school now I think that might be like phasing out more people are just doing YouTube and different things like that.

Michelle Vandepas: 31:47

Oh, I have two teenagers in my house still and they're on Reddit and YouTube. Yeah, okay.

Mike Caldwell: 31:53

Yeah, yeah, and it's funny with me and books. I love going on vacation and I'll bring like three books and I will go through all three books, like I just I'm a voracious reader but for some reason when I'm at home I rare like I'll read marketing books and stuff, but I don't really read for pleasure as much, which is but was that your kind of jacket to go?

Mike Caldwell: 32:17

No, no, I don't know. This is like an internal question I've always had for myself. Like I love going on vacation and reading, why don't I just read at home? Yeah, because I think reading is more of a commitment and I don't want to tell myself I'm committing to not doing any work, where I can just flick on the TV for just a minute and take a break, and you know, a minute turns into two hours.

Michelle Vandepas: 32:44

But I commit to that two hours in the front. What's that? 20 years ago, reading wasn't a commitment. Reading was just something you did.

Mike Caldwell: 32:52

That's right, yeah, yeah. So I'm just kind of curious as to where books are going to, where books are going to end up.

Michelle Vandepas: 33:00

Yeah, I don't know. I wish on you. I mean, for now they're here.

Mike Caldwell: 33:04

Yes, yes, all right, let's see. What else can I ask you here? Can you share one actionable marketing strategy or tip that our listeners can implement today to start seeing like results today?

Michelle Vandepas: 33:23

All right, you know, the thing that works for me is to be real personal, and you've been around a while, so this is called a Dean Jackson email for anyone who's been around a while in these circles. But you put something in the subject line that says, hey, are you still interested in marketing? Or I might say, are you still trying to write your book? And I'll write an email that's like two or three sentences and I'll send it to my whole list and I'll get a hundred responses. Hey, how did you know? I've been thinking about you. Wow, it's so nice of you to reach out, michelle, right, and I've sent it to thousands of people, but it sounds so personal.

Mike Caldwell: 34:11

Okay.

Michelle Vandepas: 34:12

And that's how I want it to be. I want it to be personal, I want it to be like they feel like I've reached out to them, and then I will answer each one individually, say I am thinking about you, I'm always thinking about all my clients. Is it time to talk again? Tell me what's going on, right, and that usually results in conversation, which will result in some sales. But it's back to being personal. Connect with people. Sure, to be cheap, chat can write your newsletter, but you don't need it to reach out to people.

Mike Caldwell: 34:49

So what if you don't have a list? What can you do?

Michelle Vandepas: 34:53

Do the same thing on social for people that don't have. I work with a lot of people who are over 50, right, and a lot of those people don't even really want to do social or don't have social even younger people too. I mean now everybody's kind of burned out on it, I think, or a lot of people are getting burned out on it. You know, you can go to a library and do a free course. You can go to a coffee shop and put up a flyer and say, hey, I'm doing a 20-minute presentation about marketing or weight loss, come listen to me. You can ask your friend to hold an old-fashioned Tupperware party. I mean really, it's connect with people, right. Open a farm stand and put your lemonade, sign up and while you're there, talk about how you can also help other people market their lemonade.

Mike Caldwell: 35:48

Wow, yeah. So actually I think COVID made this worse. But we don't want to have, we're afraid to have that actual, real human connection now.

Michelle Vandepas: 36:02

Yeah, COVID made it worse. We want to have this screen to separate us and the phone.

Michelle Vandepas: 36:08

So you know, I found it interesting. You and I were having a hard time connecting today and your phone number was there. You know, if you have problems, here's my phone number and I texted you. I'm like why don't I just pick up the phone and call, like, oh, what happened? What happened to the? It's? Like it's almost rude now for some generations, right, why are you calling me? Right? Why don't you just text? So I'm never sure anymore whether you're supposed to text or call or zoom or send a telepathic message or email. And COVID made all of that worse. Like some people are like, don't talk to me. There's generational pieces to that. There's technology pieces to that. Yeah.

Mike Caldwell: 36:55

So I live in rural Canada. I'm in Quebec, which is the French province, but I live in an Irish community. I was Irish settled and all of my it's really cool One of my neighbors. The reason he has his property is because the queen deeded it to him. So the queen said if you clear this land and farm it, I'll give it to you. Like that's how most of the families up here. They're still here, right? Wow? And because of the generational thing like it's gone three generations but now the fourth generation doesn't want to farm anymore and plus, farming doesn't really work like that anymore, like it's all big cattle operations, right?

Michelle Vandepas: 37:37

It's really hard to the oh my gosh.

Mike Caldwell: 37:39

Like I talked to my neighbors and they they talked about how much a steak costs in the store now. But they're like we're still getting the same price for our beef that we were getting 20 years ago.

Mike Caldwell: 37:49

Like we're not selling our cows anymore. But you know the price of a hamburger, the price of steak has got up 10 fold, anyway. So most of my neighbors are in their 70s and 80s and we don't talk on the phone. If we need something, we go, we drive. We have to drive because, like my neighbors are, all we're a mile away from each other. But if I need help from my neighbor, I drive to his house and I knock on his door and I sit there and I have a coffee or a beer with him for 20, 30, 40 minutes before I can tell him why I'm there. Like that's, that's how we work, like it's pretty cool we're, we're way old school, yeah, cause, yeah, the phone is just way too modern and we don't like to use it. My one neighbor asked me this is like going back five or six years if I'm on that internet.

Michelle Vandepas: 38:36

Yeah, and and here's the thing when your well goes down and your internet goes down and you're don't have power because the truth is taking down your power lines, you guys are all going to still function.

Mike Caldwell: 38:52

Yeah.

Michelle Vandepas: 38:53

You're going to figure out how to make it and how to help each other and come together in community. And I'm in the similar community. I'm not off group quite like that, but I am in the mountains and we all know trees come down and it's my neighbor out there with a chainsaw player in the tree. It's not any anybody from any state or government place, right, and I think there's some resilience there that we have lost that comes from connecting with our community that we all need. That in some instances, covid made it stronger for some people and and disconnected it for some people, right, right, and I do think we have to. I love the internet. I make my living off Facebook more or less, right, so I connect with my people, and I also understand that we have to come in community because we don't know what's coming tomorrow, and that's the way we're all going to be able to continue and have resilient lives.

Mike Caldwell: 39:59

Yeah, because it's just funny, because where I live now I know all of my neighbors in a five mile radius and not consider them friends in a five mile radius, but, like in in in university I lived in an apartment building. I didn't know who my neighbor across the hall was. Right, no idea, no, their name and what do you prefer? It's much better having that human connection. Like I say, we don't, we don't take advantage of one another. But like I say, I know, like this is a terrible, horrible, horrible story. But I had an old dog, 18 year old dog, and I was. I went into the woods and I came out and my dog was on the ground, he had had a stroke and we live in the middle of nowhere and a vets so far away.

Mike Caldwell: 40:41

And so you know, I went to my neighbor and I'm like my dog had a stroke. He's not dead. Can you help me? Right, and that's a pretty significant thing to ask somebody to help you with. And he's like. You know, I got him like here you go, you go away. When you come back we'll have a little bit of take care. Yeah, and I say that's the type of support that we can provide each other in this situation. So is there any way that we can start to foster that support with, with strangers who aren't familiar with that degree of connection?

Michelle Vandepas: 41:14

Oh, you know I'm not an expert in this. Ask me something about book marketing In terms of, you know, when you build your business though, I'll bring it, I'll kind of bring it back around. I think having that human connection is really what we're talking about. If you can Not be scared to pick up the phone or text or email, or walk down to the local post office and Actually talk to the person across the counter a little bit, you're going to do better in business and in life, and I think that's really the message that and that's not always easy and in this Um level of anxiety on the planet, is not always easy, so that's right. So, if you want to help yourself and grow a little bit and understand reality, human connection.

Mike Caldwell: 42:14

Perfect. Let's end on that. If any of my listeners Good how? How do my listeners reach out to you for your support? What can you do for them?

Michelle Vandepas: 42:24

Yeah, michelle coachescom is my website. Michelle coachescom, michelle with 2 else.

Mike Caldwell: 42:36

So who can you help the most right now?

Michelle Vandepas: 42:40

Um, somebody who has a book inside of them and knows it's part of their message and they want to get their message out into the world. Whatever that is Weight loss, holistic health it's usually nonfiction, right, trauma related anything and they want to use their book and more to get their message out. That's what I do. Big umbrella, how does your book fit? And be a Ted talk, maybe a podcast, maybe getting on podcasts Right, let's figure out how to get your message out and where does the book fit in that?

Mike Caldwell: 43:14

Perfect, and I'll put all your links in the show notes so people can find it nice and easy and reach out to you.

Michelle Vandepas: 43:21

All right, this is a blast. I can't wait to share it.

Mike Caldwell: 43:24

All right, thanks, michelle. I'm so happy you're on the show, yeah.

Michelle Vandepas: 43:28

I'm glad we connected. Have fun up there in Canada. I want to come visit. Sounds great.

Mike Caldwell: 43:33

This year's been bad for mosquitoes, but that's why I miss about the mountains of Colorado, the lack of mosquitoes, but we have less cougars here, so Right, so there is that All right?

Mike Caldwell: 43:47

Thanks, michelle, thanks, bye, bye, and that is a wrap for this episode of because business is personal. Thanks for joining us and don't forget to take advantage of my two special offers. First, you can get a free copy of my bestselling book, empathic Marketing. You just pay for the shipping. Or you can have 50% discount on my gap analysis session with the coupon code podcast. Just head over to wwwbecausebusinessispersonalcom or check the show notes for details. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to follow, subscribe, leave a review and share the podcast with others who might benefit. Your support means the world to us, so stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue to delve into the intersection of empathy and marketing strategy. Remember, because business is indeed personal, every connection counts. Until next time. See you then.