Rita Ernst of Ignite Your Extraordinary: How To Grow Your Business or Brand By Writing A Book
How do your book efforts fit into your balance sheet?
The time you spend on your book is time away from other areas of your business. For me, this eventually meant fewer new projects and clients in my pipeline, creating a temporary revenue gap. I chose to publish my book on an accelerated timeline and had to plan for this in my budget. If I had allowed more time to meet publication deadlines and kept more focus on my consulting business, there would have been a much smaller economic impact, and, of course, the more things you outsource, the less disruption you’ll experience in your primary business.
As a part of our series about “How You Can Grow Your Business or Brand By Writing A Book”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rita Ernst.
Rita Ernst owns Ignite Your Extraordinary, an organizational consulting practice emphasizing the convergence of happiness and productivity to create positive, committed, high-performing organizations. She holds an advanced degree in Organizational Psychology from Clemson University. Her professional credits include adjunct professor for graduate and undergraduate classes, publication in national magazines, and featured podcast guest. Her first book, Show Up Positive, was released on June 14, 2022.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what motivated you to become an expert in the particular area that you are writing about?
In high school, I fell in love with the field of psychology. The summer before my senior year, I was an exchange student in Japan. American manufacturers struggling to match the quality and price of Japanese goods were attempting to integrate Kaizen and team-based practices into their operations. I wanted to design and facilitate those changes, leading to the discipline of organizational psychology. The convergence of happiness and productivity has always been my professional holy grail.
Can you share a pivotal story that shaped the course of your career?
As an internal consultant during my corporate years, I felt more like the little sister requiring a formal introduction before I could speak to the adults. It was frustrating, so I decided to move into an HR generalist role where I could own relationships with senior executives and have the partnership I’d always envisioned. The business loved my approach because my perspective was bigger than implementing HR tools and practices. Had I not made that change, I would lack the assuredness to approach any business owner or executive as a respected colleague. Too much deference is not beneficial to a strategic business consultant.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Are you working on any new writing projects?
I am excited by the recent launch of a multiple workshop series to support the activation of the Show Up Positive movement within an educational institution. It is rewarding to give back to educators who give so much to our children. These teachers and administrators are eager and interested in using their agency to create a culture that fuels and fulfills them. They know that their attitude impacts the environment in their classrooms. Challenging the frame that the board and legislators hold all the power is freeing and empowering. I want this model to expand the integration of Show Up Positive in the professional development curricula for educators everywhere.
Reminding teachers of all the good within them that no one can take away is a message I can get behind. My current writing projects are articles for media outlets and keynotes. I am expanding and building on the ideas within Show Up Positive, and a rough outline for a follow-up book focusing on leading teams from the Show Up Positive framework is forming in my head. I plan to release the second book in the late summer next year. With over 200 #ShowUpPositive Sparks to serve as inspiration, I have envisioned several books in this series.
Thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. Can you please tell us a bit about your book? Can you please share a specific passage or story that illustrates the main theme of your book?
Show Up Positive is a call to action to create the workplace culture you want by being the coworker you wish you had. It is a playbook for pivoting from being depleted by work to restoring pride, ownership, appreciation, respect, and personal fulfillment. Written in two parts, part one contains real client stories demonstrating how easily organizations fall into the downward spiral of negativity, while part two provides 50 words to inspire intentional practices that infuse interactions with positivity.
“Show Up Positive starts as a choice. It requires you to say yes to what matters to you and to create the energy, impact, and change you want to see in your world. There is no one path or right way to move forward. You are on a quest that is about the journey rather than the destination; it’s about finding your place in the world and discovering your ideal way of being.”
You are a successful author and thought leader. Which three character traits do you feel were most instrumental to your success when launching your book? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Writing a book didn’t intimidate me, and the concept was so clear in my mind that it was just waiting to pour out of me. I knew the true challenge would be building reader awareness. People would have to know it existed to find and read it. So from the outset, I relied on my resourcefulness. I tapped into my network to find an independent publisher who could provide the insider guidance I needed. I contacted four-time best- selling author Precious Williams, whom I’d met through a LinkedIn connection. At this point, Precious was releasing her third book. I had watched her parlay her authorship into a massive speaking career, so I knew she had hard-earned wisdom to share. She introduced me to her publisher Charron Monaye of Pen Legacy, and I knew I was in excellent hands.
I’m also a go-giver, cultivating a circle of clients, friends, and colleagues that are supporters and fans. I had these moments while writing when a particular story or turn of phrase excited me. Then, days later, I’d doubt myself and question whether anyone would care about what I wrote. I knew I needed a group of beta readers who could give me feedback on the first draft. I chose people from different areas of my life, some who’d been friends for years and others who were relatively new colleagues. It was a big ask to which every person generously and enthusiastically said yes. Having feedback from so many different perspectives that affirmed my words and message gave me the courage and confidence to keep moving forward. Time and again throughout the launch of Show Up Positive, my network showed up for me in the most significant and affirming ways.
Last but not least, I choose passion. Writing an independently published book has become a bit of a commodity. People speak little of contributing value to others and focus instead on their personal gains, such as vanity or authority. In stark contrast, I wrote Show Up Positive to share a solution to a common problem I saw overrunning organizational cultures in every business sector. This book is my way of serving more hard-working people who deserve a work environment that leaves them energized instead of depleted.
People hear my passion when I talk about the book and respond with a genuine interest in purchasing and reading it. When reviews speak about how page after page of the book resonates, I feel good knowing that I’ve fulfilled a personal value of exceeding expectations, and I get genuinely excited by the transformational stories of readers incorporating the #ShowUpPositive Sparks into their work because they are accessing their full potential and using it as a catalyst to bring more good into the world. I wanted to write a resource that people would turn to again and again. To have that confirmed ispriceless.
In my work, I have found that writing a book can be a great way to grow a brand. Can you share some stories or examples from your own experience about how you helped your own business or brand grow by writing a book? What was the “before and after picture?” What were things like before, and how did things change after the book?
Show Up Positive is a few months old, so I am still in the middle of this growth experience. As an organizational consultant, I’m selling my expertise and services. The book is the best business card because people are experiencing constant negativity at work and feeling helpless to change it. It is a universal conversation that receives instant engagement. Most business owners and executives are uncomfortable talking about feelings. So when the negative attitudes start hitting their KPIs and bottom line, they are completely flummoxed. They welcome solutions that have an immediate impact and eliminate all the blaming and finger-pointing.
These outcomes have always been at the core of my organizational development work.
What’s often missing is the readiness to seek help. Firstly, owners and executives chasing rapid growth fail to grasp the operational bottlenecks costing them money and driving employee burnout. Secondly, many need to be made aware of the valuable expertise organizational psychology brings to constructing the structure, processes, people systems that break through those bottlenecks and institutionalize more effective operational practices. Thanks to time fallacy, these leaders think they should be able to do it themselves and that they will get to it, but they don’t. Unfortunately, most see a decline in business and their reputation as an employer before they make this work the priority it needs to be.
In the few months since Show Up Positive was released, my inbound leads have tripled. The book naturally promotes my solution to a problem every business is keenly feeling. I’m still the same person, I just have a much better bullhorn for getting people’s attention.
If a friend came to you and said “I’m considering writing a book but I’m on the fence if it is worth the effort and expense” what would you answer? Can you explain how writing a book in particular, and thought leadership in general, can create lucrative opportunities and help a business or brand grow?
I would answer with the question, “What outcome do you want to achieve by writing a book?” I know people who have self-published a book with little concern about how many copies they sell. Their reason is to have the accolade of author and to be able to give prospects and business connections they want to impress a copy.
I know others who self-publish an ebook as a sales tool. They use it as a lead magnet on their website and to increase their expert authority on the subject.
Another popular authorship approach is to be a chapter contributor to a published work. With 10–20 contributors, you create a more extensive network for initial sales that can shoot you to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. The result is a well-recognized honorific to add to your professional accomplishments.
None of those reasons interested me, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t enough for someone else. In many ways, I chose the more difficult road because my purpose is to speak to millions of readers to whom I am unknown. I not only want them to read the book but to start their own Show Up Positive movement, as well, changing their work experiences for the better.
What I know definitively about self-publishing is that at $2.00 royalties per copy sold, recovering your investment through retail book sales alone is challenging unless you already have a huge audience that will eagerly buy to support you. That is why I, like many other authors, pursue speaking opportunities and training programs based on the book. These expand your reach and reputation much faster than single sales.
Additionally, there will always be participants who want additional help with implementing the book’s concepts, resulting in more consulting opportunities. A book can be an economic and reputation engine when positioned correctly.
What are the things that you wish you knew about promoting a book before you started? What did you learn the hard way? Can you share some stories about that which other aspiring writers can learn from?
One of my best decisions was hiring a local marketing firm for my book launch. I knew I needed to promote Show Up Positive and lacked the know-how to do it effectively. Randy Blevins of Think Tank Marketing is a seasoned local marketer with significant experience promoting arts organizations and crafting community engagement campaigns. I was confident in hiring him because I knew his work and trusted that he had the local relationships to get the attention I needed. He secured outstanding media placement, advertising, and launch events that broadened my reach and opened doors.
After I appeared on several local news stations, PR people I didn’t know solicited my business. I am too aware of the scammers who make big promises they can’t deliver.
My investment was already in the five figures, and I was unwilling to risk my savings on someone I didn’t know or trust. The lesson is to identify your key team members when establishing your book budget, especially promotional support. If I had a do-over with the wisdom of this experience, I would have started building a relationship with a trusted and highly recommended expert whose services I could afford identified through my network simultaneous to my search for a publisher.
Based on your experience, which promotional elements would you recommend to an author to cover on their own and when would you recommend engaging an expert?
The book launch is valuable promotional real estate. Had I understood that and the return it can generate, I would have thought much bigger about the scope of my launch.
There is an art to pitching and positioning, and existing relationships with media outlets open doors. Hiring professional expertise is a spend-money-to-make-money proposition.
I chose to handle my social media, although I sought Randy’s expert guidance on the strategy. As a small business owner who left that cushy corporate paycheck almost two decades ago, I understood the reality of cash flow and budgets. It is like a home remodeling project. Often, you can only afford half of the changes you want and the highest-end products for limited parts of the project. However, you hire the electrical work, which requires expertise, and paint the walls yourself. Someone with the connections and know-how to get the right media placement for your book is like the electrician; hire them.
Wonderful. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your own experience and success, what are the “five things an author needs to know to successfully promote and market a book?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
1) What is your goal; what does success look like?
Clarifying your purpose is always the best place to start. Authoring a book generates many benefits — sales, distribution, influence, accolades, and advancement. How you prioritize them depends on your goal. As I mentioned, many people write books without the intention of pushing traditional retail sales.
I aim to start a movement, igniting individuals to take back their workplace culture by modeling what they want it to become. Getting Show Up Positive into the hands of millions of readers is the start. Therefore, I immediately took the profits from my launch sales and reinvested them in more awareness-building marketing efforts. Also, because my goals are broader than book sales, securing speaking opportunities is a cornerstone of my strategy.
2) How much are you willing to invest upfront?
Your audience can only buy your book if they know about it. Hiring experts to get you and your book featured where new people will find you is essential and having a large budget for advertising and events builds buzz and momentum. My budget was modest, so my strategy for earned media appearances was pivotal in generating several unsolicited inbound leads that contributed to a broader audience reach and allowed me to recoup my investment.
3) Why does your book matter?
While working in pharmaceuticals, I learned that competitors who weren’t first or second to market fought over table scraps. This economic principle holds for authors as well. To be media-worthy, you need a compelling hook. Unless you have personal celebrity, you must have a novel take on a subject of broad interest, a noteworthy way of presenting the information, or someone well-connected in your camp to garner unpaid media attention.
4) What social capital do you have to contribute?
Cultivating a large audience interested in your content gives you a more substantial initial sales base and more resources to tap for social proof, like testimonials and reviews. People from my network recommended me for speaking opportunities at industry conferences, made introductions that led to lucrative book sales paired with leadership workshops, and connected me with numerous guest opportunities on podcasts. Media outlets prefer contributors with their own audience to bring to the collaboration.
5) How do your book efforts fit into your balance sheet?
The time you spend on your book is time away from other areas of your business. For me, this eventually meant fewer new projects and clients in my pipeline, creating a temporary revenue gap. I chose to publish my book on an accelerated timeline and had to plan for this in my budget. If I had allowed more time to meet publication deadlines and kept more focus on my consulting business, there would have been a much smaller economic impact, and, of course, the more things you outsource, the less disruption you’ll experience in your primary business.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)
Glennon Doyle is a modern philosopher and advocate who inspires me greatly. I thought about her books and why I enjoyed them when deciding to abandon the traditional business book writing style and write as if I were speaking directly with the reader. She is a true practitioner of the Stockdale paradox — frank about the brutal facts while operating with unwavering faith that she has the capacity to claim what she wants and prevail. I admire her courage and success in connecting with women and activating them, and I would love to replicate that in bringing the Show Up Positive movement to the world. We share a passion for affirming individual agency and encouraging personal transformation.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Please visit www.igniteextraordinary.com to access all my details and offers, including social media and Show Up Positive order links.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success with your book promotion and growing your brand.
