Hello, everyone.
Welcome to this week's episode of Scaling Expertise.
we talk to experts about how they have scaled their expertise and how they
can help you scale your expertise.
This week, I'm very excited to welcome my guest, Melody Hirshhorn, who is
the founder of Big Impact Books.
Thank you for joining me today, Melody.
Thank you, Erin.
I'm so excited to be here.
We're going to have a great conversation.
Before we get started, would you introduce yourself to the audience?
Tell them who you are and who you serve.
Absolutely.
I am Melanie Hirshhorn and my mission is to help attorneys and other professionals
share their stories with the world to grow their reputation and make more money.
I do that by helping them write, publish, and promote.
Reputation building books.
So full stop.
So when you say help them, right, meaning you help organize them and
get the stuff in and out of their brains and out of their brain.
Yeah.
Sometimes people don't like typing to do.
So what I do is I meet with them weekly and I ask them the
questions to get the chapters.
We get it transcribed and then we plop it into the right places so the
book starts to emerge.
It's hard for me to imagine that there's a lawyer anymore who can't type.
Now back in, you know, when I started, practice, the partner didn't even
have, Any kind of implement which they could do anything other than me, no
computers, nothing on their desks and then there were a few who, did the
point and peck, but my goodness, I can't imagine, you words are our currency.
I can't imagine being, uncomfortable with that.
But I guess it's a different thing when you're kind of in.
Transcribed Planning your trade versus telling your story.
Absolutely.
Although, you know, a lot of the books that we do are about the
attorney's successes and their client wins and cautionary tales.
So it's not like they don't say this stuff and talk about it all the time
and write about it all the time.
But I think that people come into the idea of a book as though
it's this giant elephant and they cannot foresee a way around it.
So I'm there to make it.
Simpler and easier and doable in bite sized pieces.
Right.
Yeah.
one step at a time, right?
Exactly.
One bite at a time.
He wants to eat an elephant.
Is that the thing?
Yeah.
That's it.
Yeah.
I don't think I'd want to eat an elephant, but yes.
Wow.
So tell me, where did you start?
How'd you get to where you are today?
Totally non linear.
It's not like I went to law school and then became a lawyer.
You know, that would just be super easy.
I am not an attorney.
I started out in celebrity PR in Hollywood.
then I got a master's in journalism, moved to Pennsylvania, worked on
radio as a news anchor and reporter.
Then I got laid off when I was pregnant.
Oh, I'm like, I'm
sure there's a story there, but
so, I freelanced at a newspaper for another year and then my
husband got a job in Phoenix.
And so we moved here about 13 years ago.
And when I got here, I thought, well, I could pay a babysitter
more money than I'll ever make.
As a journalist, or I could do something else.
And I had this idea to design and manufacture breastfeeding clothing.
That's a departure.
That's interesting.
It was, it was a bit of a left turn.
Yeah.
But I was going through that at that time.
I felt so uncomfortable in my own body and I, love fashion and
I really just wanted to make.
Myself and other women feel good.
And so I did that for about eight years and I sold the clothes on Nordstrom.
com and on Amazon and in boutiques across the country.
And then in the seventh year of business, I made a bad hire.
And this woman who I hired to help me with marketing helped me really
run the business into the ground.
she belittled me every single day would say.
How do you have a master's degree?
You're so boring when you write.
And things like that.
Wow.
So, I sustained that for too long.
And then I closed the business and thought, Alright, I need to start again.
What can I do?
And, you people were calling and saying, Hey, can you help
me with this business idea?
I know you've been a business owner.
And then authors started calling and said, Hey, can you help me with my marketing?
And I was like, Oh.
Okay, universe, I see what you're doing here.
By the third author, I went, okay, this is And what I found was after helping
authors market their books for quite a while, that people are coming to me with
books that could have been so much better.
And that there's so much predatory behavior in the publishing industry.
hear this, I hear this all the time, Oh, my, publisher told me X, Y,
and Z, I paid them all this money and then I got very little for it.
And so being the.
entrepreneur that I am.
I thought, what?
I could do this so much better.
as a marketer, I thought, well, I have to niche down because
you can't help everybody.
Then you end up helping nobody when you're trying to talk
to everybody, talk to nobody.
And I have always found attorneys to be just like you brilliant.
And my favorite thing to do when I talk to attorneys is learn about your story
and learn from you because there's always so many nuggets of wisdom that I get.
And I thought, well, there are also things that I don't know about.
The law and I can't trust law and order and suits and the Young
and the Restless, which I've been watching for 33, 34 years now.
That's
still on?
And what?
Oh yeah.
Every day, baby.
That isn't always how things happen in the law.
In fact, it's probably the opposite of how things actually happen.
And I thought, well, there's this gap.
There's a gap between the knowledge that attorneys hold.
And what we lay people know as reality, and I can help bridge that gap and
help attorneys make more money in the process by stepping into their authority.
that's interesting way that you got there, but I'm certainly glad that you got there.
So, as you know, this is the scaling expertise podcast so
we're going to talk about.
Scale and scaling.
So I want to start off with a question about, you know, how do you define
scale both in your business and when you're working with your clients?
Okay.
the thing that comes to mind first is that as a solo practitioner,
you expect you have to do it all.
if you are the janitor and the president and everything in between,
you get sick, your business stops.
You want more time in the day?
You can't invent it.
So in order to scale, you need to create team and create systems that
other people can follow and realize that you're great, but you're not
the only one who can do what you do.
you're really not.
And if you have this special sauce.
Put it in a system and make it repeatable.
I may have not answered the question fully, but scale is getting bigger
and reaching your peak of success, however you define that, and doing it.
with help.
Yeah.
So many people forget that other people can be tools you to use
the word as a way to scale.
You know, it's not just technology.
It's not just, Intellectual property, which we'll talk about, but it can be
other people like we are as the founders, the most expensive resource in our
business, So anytime we can find someone else who can do it better, faster, because
a lot of things that my assistant can do that I cannot do or take me all day to do.
I was going to say, you could
do it, you could, but is it worth that?
Probably not.
Right.
people are the place to start.
Yes.
with scale.
So with lawyers.
we have this thing called billable hours that, we still cling to
after I think every other industry on the planet has left it behind.
maybe not therapists.
I think therapists
still build by the hour.
So
yeah, I guess, HTPs, I think do in some ways to, that, when they come to
you, what is it that they're feeling in their businesses where are they in
their business and what are the pains are they feeling when I come to you?
I think that it's not as much a pain that they're feeling, but it's inner desire.
Somebody told me I should write a book.
I've always wanted to write a book.
I know I should write a book, but I don't know how, and I don't know how.
I don't know who, I don't know when, I don't know how, and
I don't know if I can do it.
But I know I want it.
And I firmly believe that if you want it, you can do it.
I would never suggest to somebody, you should write a book and I'm
going to force you to do it.
Because that's quite a commitment.
Yes.
But getting back to the notion of billable hours.
Yeah, you don't have five hours a day to sit and, type out that book.
Which is why I help people do it in two hours a week.
Because you can find two hours a week.
I was listening to Brendan Burchard's podcast the other week and he's
talking about the statistics of people watch four hours of TV a night.
They're scrolling the internet two hours a day.
I mean, you could find two hours in a whole week to do this.
And that accountability piece is very important too.
I keep my clients accountable.
They know, they see my name on their calendar and they're like,
Oh, I got to get that done.
Oh, yes.
Melanie's going to be watching me and making sure that it's complete.
And so it doesn't interfere with the billable hours, but what it
can do is, back to scaling, enhance that because instead of taking
time to do a consultation, for example, you send out your book.
Somebody already knows you and they know they want to hire you.
And they come in without needing to ask you 17 questions because all the
questions were answered in the book.
So that's a time saver right there.
I had a call last week, a woman said to me, A friend of mine sent me your book.
So I'd like to hire you.
Nice.
mean, I didn't have to actually do anything at that moment.
Sure.
I spent, three years writing a book.
It shouldn't have taken me that long, but you didn't have you,
but I didn't have me exactly.
I spent, you know, years doing it and all the learning and all that stuff, but.
I mean, that one client paid back so much of what, like reimburse
the cost of the book almost.
So that's how you scale with a book.
That's how a book really helps.
It does some of the heavy lifting for you while you're asleep.
Well, with lawyers, I mean, what most of my clients are coaches
and consultants, but one of my favorite clients is a lawyer.
And what makes her different from other lawyers is that
she is extremely specialized.
She has a very niche area of expertise.
You know, she's not Litigator, commercial transactions, or what,
you know, she has this very, very specialized area of expertise.
When you're working with lawyers, how do you help them if they're just
like, I'm just a commercial litigator.
I'm just like, what do you do with that?
Well, I think it depends on the person.
So I'm working with a criminal defense attorney right now, which is a big topic.
Yeah.
But what we're talking about is how to build a functioning
and successful law practice.
That's what he wants to focus on.
But if somebody came to me and they said, well, I'm a generalist.
I would say, okay, well, do you want to work with a specific type of person?
And they may say, not really.
Then I'd probably say, do you want to write a book?
And they'd probably say, not really.
Those are the kinds of people that tend to want to write fiction.
Ah, okay.
That's what I've noticed.
You know, they'd rather be a John Grisham than, you know, than a Rene Brown,
so to speak.
Right, right.
There are a lot of lawyers.
I agree.
I know quite a few of those who would much rather either screenplay.
I used to live in LA for a long time.
Oh, right.
That
is great.
Well, speaking of books and screenplays, you know, let's talk about intellectual
property and say, I mean, you're kind of unique in that, you know, because you
work with lawyers, the term intellectual property isn't that foreign to your
clients, but when you, Oh, Think about, working, your work that you do for your
business as well as for your clients.
Does the term intellectual property ever come up or is it just, thinking about
the business impacts or like how does it fit into the conversation if at all?
Oh, yeah, I'm thinking about it all the time.
Maybe it's because I have friends who are attorneys who are intellectual
property and trademark attorneys and stuff, but I think protecting your ideas.
is everything, especially as an online entrepreneur, which I am technically
I'm everything I have is online.
I don't have anything tangible.
other than my books, but I don't have tangible stuff.
I have.
ideas and we need to protect them because we don't want people to steal them.
I will never forget.
So when I was back in the baby industry and selling tangible
products, there were, several trade shows that we would go to every year.
And you knew if you saw somebody walking around with, Their iPhone videoing that
they were going to potentially steal what it was you were selling in in your
booth interest, take it back to China and manufacture it at a much steeper discount.
Wow.
That is interesting.
So there was a lot of that going on.
Mm-hmm . And, if you've ever been in a trade show atmosphere, you become.
Instant friends with the people, if they're kind, you become instant friends
with the people at the booths near you.
Even if you're selling competing products, there's really, it's not a competition.
we would all notify each other, oh, here comes another video, watch out.
So, all that to say, it's not that obvious.
When you're an online entrepreneur, when you're a coach, when you're a
consultant, it's not that obvious.
nobody's walking into your house and holding up their iPhone and filming you.
But, I hear stories all the time of people creating programs and then
somebody coming in and ripping it off.
Yeah, they're
not coming into your home because you're putting it into the world,
as we, you know, use our expertise, we put it in a package of some sort
that we are offering to the world, making sure that we are perfectly
protecting it is even more important.
Absolutely.
So what challenges did you face as you were scaling your business?
Oh, none.
It's been so easy.
Just kidding, everybody.
what challenge haven't I faced?
I don't know.
Name one.
I'll give you the story.
Challenge.
You know, you're used to kind of doing customized work with your clients,
but it's not really scalable because you do it all over, you know, new
every time you have a new client.
Yes.
Okay.
so.
When I started out in this iteration of the business, I had a business coach,
my first business coach ever, told me that because I'm a writer, I should
be writing people's content for them.
And so for a year, I did that.
I had clients, I was writing their blogs, I was writing their emails.
Now, of course, this was pre dating AI, people were paying me.
I didn't love it, but I thought I had to do it because she told
me I had to and I'm very dutiful.
I realized I couldn't scale that though because I was doing it myself.
Yeah.
because you write.
Sometimes you're just not in the mood and sometimes it just doesn't
flow and having to be a writer 24 7 was really taxing for me.
So My challenge was how do I scale this and do I even want to do this?
Got a new business coach who said to me.
Do you want to do this?
And I said, I shrunk down and like a little, and I said, no,
do I have to, don't I have to?
And she said, no, of course you don't have to do this.
It's your business.
You're in charge.
And I went, Oh, light bulb.
so many of the challenges have been mindset things.
Me minimizing my abilities.
all the trauma that I walk around with as a badge of honor.
And making sure that I listen to what I know inside as opposed to
what other people are telling me.
Because Cause when I listen to what other people are telling me and it
doesn't feel right, I hit up against an
issue.
Yeah,
right.
Mindset is so important.
I think we don't talk about it enough.
Honestly.
when we feel I mean, I think we've been started the conversation with us
thinking that we have to do everything that we're the only person who can
deliver, and once we kind of get away from that, how liberating it is and
to Look at our businesses differently.
Like how can I streamline, package, systematize, whatever it is to make
a business that works better for us.
Those are very sexy words.
Yeah.
Very sexy words.
Streamline, systematize, package.
Yes.
I was told
I need to be spicier.
I mean, that's as spicy as I get right there.
I like that.
So now let's talk about contracts for a second.
And so people are afraid of contracts, you're interesting because your
clients are lawyers, but they're also you have non lawyer clients as well.
but think of them as a barrier to the relationship.
And I think of them as like the opposite.
Like they make sure we're all on the same page.
How do you think about contracts in your business?
And can you give us an example of when, you know, maybe it's safe to,
to have the right contract in place?
Well, I can give you an example of when it.
Bailed me
because I had the wrong contract.
How's that?
that was a big learning curve for me because I'm on the side of, Ooh,
contracts are scary because I'm not an attorney, but as I've grown up as an
entrepreneur, I read the contracts now because I've realized it's still English.
Yes,
which is my native language.
And if I don't understand something I can ask.
Yes.
But what didn't help me was I was working with a client as four or five years ago
now, and she signed the contract, and we were had a six month contract we were
going to work together and by month.
Two and a half, she started kind of ghosting me.
And then by month three, I get this long email that she would like to take
a pause, and then she never resumed.
And there's that fine line of, Do I enforce the contract, or do I let her go?
Now, the scared child in me is always of mine to let them go.
Because I don't want people to smear me online or make me feel bad
about myself or abandon me if we're really going deep into what the real
feelings are and it'll be abandoned.
Um, so I made a decision to just Let it go.
Because I'm of the mind that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make
it drink and you can't force this horse to drink water and it's just not going
to end well, especially for what I do.
I can't force somebody to market themselves.
It's like crazy pants.
but that was a really important lesson because I now have it in my contract.
That you can't break the contract just because you feel like it.
That's right.
Very important.
Yeah, having, you know, the things, milestones, getting paid
up front, which I'm a huge fan of.
Oh,
yes.
Can we talk about that for a minute?
Yes, please.
So, I recall once, This is very much at the beginning of my entrepreneurial
stuff after the nursing wear.
I did some work for a woman, and it took everything in me to
ask her for, are you ready, 250.
I might as well have been asking for 250 million, the way it felt.
And it took her six weeks to write me a check for $250 and
I had to go drive to meet her.
To pick up the check.
Wow.
And I learned from that.
Get paid first because people are not gonna pay.
it is a big lesson that many people have to learn the hard way.
if you have the right business model, I mean, granted, if you're billing out,
really, it's very hard to charge up front.
that's a sign that You have to look at your revenue model there.
but getting paid up front or at least, you know, based on milestones at minimum.
Very, very important.
I agree.
what is one major, tip that you like to give to, people who are
thinking about writing a book, like where in their business might they.
want to be first, what should they be thinking about if this is something
that they want to do in the future?
If they're thinking about writing a book or wondering if they should,
what I would say is make sure that you don't plan to change what you're doing.
Because when you spend so much time writing a book that is meant to boost
your credibility, your reputation, your profitability, and then you go
and you veer in a completely different direction, and you went from, being
physician to doing underwater basket weaving, your physician book is not going
to help you get Basket weaving clients.
Yes.
So be sure that you're in this for the long haul.
have you come across that where people write a book and then they
decide to become basket weavers?
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
This is how the conversation goes.
It's funny.
you know, when you get to a point in your career where.
you can just sort of recite what people say because you've done this so long.
I love when you get to that point and you really feel, I'm
just having a moment right now.
So thanks for sharing it with me.
People come up to me and say, I wrote a book about 10 years
ago and it's about blah.
Yeah, but I don't do that anymore.
What do you think I should do with the book?
Oh, and I say, well, do any of this in your current line of work?
And they're like, no, well, I think it's just going to continue collecting
dust under the stairs in that box.
Yes.
I would say, be sure that this is what you want.
Now I am a little bit.
conservative in that because I'm the kind of person who will never get a
tattoo because it's too permanent.
It was very hard to name my children because it was permanent.
I never named my stuffed animals as a child because that was too permanent.
So I had to be completely sure that doing my book.
on that topic was going to stick.
And so I guess I project that on to others.
Well, that is excellent advice.
That's an investment to make in something that is not a part of
your near mid and long term future.
Thank you for that.
So tell me what is new and exciting.
Anything coming up in at big impact books.
Yes, I have a new book coming out.
I'm very excited.
I wrote it way faster than my first book.
So my first book, it took me three years.
This one, it's been about three months.
So I'm definitely condensing things.
I wrote most of it over the holiday break.
I'm just in the editing process right now.
And I don't have a full title, but I can share that it talks about the benefits
of writing a book, especially for attorneys, and also sort of how to start
thinking about it and laying it out and really developing a book that's going
to move the needle for your business.
That is fantastic.
did you ever worry about losing business to your book?
No.
No, because here's why.
Even though I give like so much information, it's so
hard to do things on our own.
That's why people come to me and they're like, I've been
writing a book for five years.
I've got one chapter.
Yeah.
Can you help me?
I got a few outlines.
Exactly, exactly.
There's a reason that we have coaches and consultants.
It's because they know what they're doing and they help
us get to where we want to go.
it's just like we said at the top of this, we can't be expected to do
everything ourselves and find success.
It takes a village.
Yeah, I think people gatekeep information because they're like, well, if I give away
too much, then what do they need me for?
Well, if they are DIY er, they were never going to be your client.
These are not the same people.
They are not the same human beings.
So I would not worry about that at all.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So we will make sure, well, first tell us where we can find out
more about you, connect with you, find out more about your book.
We'll make sure we have all that stuff in the show notes for people.
Okay.
So you can always just get on my calendar at meet Melanie dot VIP.
So I'd love to meet you.
And my website is your big impact book.
So it's big impact books, but the website is yourbigimpactbook.
com.
And everything is there.
All the freebies, all the fun,
everything.
Fantastic.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Melanie.
It's been fantastic to talk to you.
You were a lot of fun and I had a great time and great information.
Much appreciated.
And to everyone, thank you for joining us.
Please find Melanie at the links and all the great information she just provided.
And thanks for joining us this week.