IAM1887 – Author Connects Clients With Their Inner Guidance System

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

In the episode, the guest speaker is Keith Leon S., an internationally acclaimed author, co-owner of a successful book publishing company, and international speaker.

Throughout this episode, Keith shares his journey of success, touching upon various key aspects:

Career Highlights: Keith has shared the stage with renowned names like Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, among others. His work has gained widespread recognition and has been covered by outlets like INC Magazine and Huffington Post.

Latest Ventures: Keith recently completed a US book and media tour for his recent work, “Walking With My Angels: A True Story.”

Passions: Keith's primary passions lie in connecting individuals to their inner guidance systems, which he refers to as angels, and aiding them in disseminating their mission and messages worldwide through their very own books, an approach he dubs as “The World’s Greatest Business Card”.

CEO Hacks: Keith underscores the importance of networking and relational skills, and also shares his unique philosophy towards entrepreneurship. He believes that everything one does can make a notable difference.

Definition of a CEO: To Keith, being a CEO is about fostering connections and making a difference in the lives of the people he interacts with.

Keith Leon S Teaser 00:00

It's just a gift that keeps on giving, because they will either go home, read the book, and call you to get the free thing, or go home, throw the book on the table, and every time they pass the book, it says, call you to get the free thing, and it harasses them incessantly until they do so.

So it's not if you'll hear from them, it's when, and that's a process that I created, and I teach. I have templates and everything for people that work with me, but that's the quick version of it.

Intro 00:27

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you are in search of.

This is the IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:53

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories topics. Or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call the CB Nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on operations. The systems will set you free. So think about systems, think about flow, sustainability, potentially working out in your morning routine, waking up early, e-commerce, and different business models. Think of the operations in the models that basically set up the foundation to allow the creativity within organizations, but also to make sure the trains are running on time and things are going as they should.

Now, this is extremely important because we often can turn to the sexy parts of business and forget about the operations and how important that is. I really want to focus this month on this specific topic so sit back and enjoy this special episode at the IAMCEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Keith Leon S of Leon Smith Publishing. Keith, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Keith Leon S 02:14

Ah, thank you so much.

Gresham Harkless 02:16

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jumped into the podcast, I want to read a little bit more about Keith so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

Keith Leon S is a multiple international bestselling author, co-owner of a successful book publishing company, an international speaker who's spoken at events that include Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, Neal Donald Walsh, Barbara DeAngelis. John Gray, Brian Tracy and Marion Williamson. He's appeared on many TV and radio shows, including the Jenny McCarthy Show, and his work has been covered by Inc. Magazine, Huffington Post, just to name a few.

He's recently completed a book, media, and live event tour in the United States with his book called Walking With My Angels, A True Story. He has two passions in life. One is to connect you to your inner guidance system, which he calls angels, and the second is to help you get your mission and your message out to the world with Your Very Own Book, which Keith calls The World's Greatest Business Card.

Keith, are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

Keith Leon S 03:14

I am. Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me.

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Gresham Harkless 03:17

No problem. Super excited to have you on and you're doing so many phenomenal things. I guess I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you get started with your business, all the awesome things you are working on?

Keith Leon S 03:28

Wow. My CEO story is my wife and I wrote a book, seems a hundred years ago now. It's actually 2002. We wrote a relationship book, got John Gray, the number one guy of all time in relationships to endorse our book cover. Endorses on the front book cover, but unfortunately, even though I had that, I didn't know how to market the book yet. I didn't know it was my business card, which you talked about that I teach people about. I didn't know any of that. I just had John Gray's endorsement on a really great book and probably sold 12 copies. Then my second book, however, it's called, Who Do You Think You Are? Discover the Purpose of Life.

That book, I interviewed all the top authors, speakers, marketers in the world about their life purpose and 10 of those people are from the movie, The Secret and some of the people that you read that I've spoken with since that's why all of those people took me under their wing and taught me everything they know about the business of books. So the 2nd book international bestseller. I was speaking in front of a thousand people instead of 20. I learned how to get media and press to do all of that from the masters. And so that's my CEO story is I went from Keith who to being well known as the book guy in nine months.

Every time I'd get up to speak, even though I was talking about life purpose, that's what the book was about, I'd get up and tell that story about how I basically got all these people to mentor me and had an international bestseller because of what they taught me. So after I'd speak, everybody would come up and go, Hey, aren't you that book guy? Aren't you the book guy? And I was like, I get it. I get it. As well, I stepped full-time at that time into helping others get their mission, their message and their business out to the world by using a business card that people actually wouldn't throw in the trash, which is a book, that little teeny tiny piece of paper that people use as a business card.

I never really had any success with that. But when I started using the book, the way that I teach people as a business card, giving the book to them, already they were like, wow. And then giving it to them with an offer. For free and telling him how much the value of the offer that I gave them is, then people were just like, Whoa, and they started calling me and doing business with me. So that's really the quickest I could tell the story. I went from Keith to the book guy in 9 months and developed a process to use my book as a business card, which ultimately grew my business. And then we actually created a way to write a book where you don't have to write a single word. You just show up to seven phone calls, and in those seven phone calls, we pick your brain, get you to speak your book, then we record that and turn it into a book.

So that was the complete game changer that put us on the map, and why if you go now and search BabyPiePublishing, which is our company's original name on Amazon, you'll just see book after book, after book, after book that we published because people were able to just speak it.

Gresham Harkless 06:26

Yeah, that's definitely awesome. So being able to be the book guy, because you've been able to learn so much and obviously execute from those names that I mentioned and you mentioned as well, too, is definitely phenomenal.

Keith Leon S 06:37

Yeah, being mentored by all the masters was just unbelievable and it just speeded up the process. Like it accelerated it, like it threw gasoline on it, and then everything shifted so fast that I found myself standing at the top of the mountain going, wow that was fast, but I knew if I hadn't got mentored by all those people, it would have taken 10 years and a million dollars to get what they gave me in three months time. It was crazy.

That's why I've really been enjoying mentoring others ever since, because I know that I wouldn't be where I am without mentors. And so it's my duty, my job, my responsibility to mentor others and pull them up with me.

Gresham Harkless 07:17

Yeah, I definitely appreciate you doing that. I wanted to hear a little bit more on the different things and the different ways you can do mentoring or help support some of the clients or people that are trying to figure out how to get their message out and use the book as a business card.

Keith Leon S 07:30

Yeah first to do the book without having to write a single word, just contact me and ask me to tell you about the You Speak It book program. We're a full-service book publishing company, so those who are writers who are just looking for editing, layout, any of that support, fantastic. Let me know, we can do that for you.

How about what we give all of our authors that we work with? So whether they just hire us to do either team or do the speak a book processes is mentoring, how to use that book as a business card. So, if you already have one, open it up and get a stamp made that has your contact information and put that right on the front page, underneath your title name, contact information and then what I do is I've learned that when people say, what do you do? I used to talk their ear off, like forever, and they would ask me for a card basically because they wanted to get the hell away from me, not because they wanted a card, right? They just wanted to be like, God, how do I shut this guy up?

So anybody, does that describe you at home? Raise your hand if that's you. I'm raising mine.

Gresham Harkless 08:36

I'm raising mine.

Keith Leon S 08:36

So that's how it was. Yeah what I learned was they'd say, what do you do? And I'd go, Oh, I am one, and two or three things, right? I am a bestselling author and a book publisher. And they call me the book guy. And I found that tagline to have them go. What does it mean? The book guy? Then I say, Oh, short answer again. That means I can take you from first thought to bestseller wherever you are in that process. I can meet you where you are, get you to where you want to be. Yay. I finally didn't talk their ear off. Didn't throw up all over them. Then they say, Do you have a card now?

I don't blow it by giving them a teeny tiny piece of paper. I go. Yes. Yes, I do. And I hand him the book and I open it up to that stamp that I just told you about with the contact information. I open it up to say, as you can see, I've clearly marked my contact information right here. So take this book home. My gift to you read it and when you're ready, give me a call and I will give them some kind of offer, like first session for free and then tell them that, by the way, that has a value of $500. So when you're ready, notice I said that twice to them because you don't want them to call you until they're ready.

When you're ready, give me a call. Tell me that I gave you this book and I will give you that thing and then just stop talking and they're just like blown away when you just give them a book and a $500 worth of value, like it was nothing to you, 520 bucks. Clearly, you must be successful, right? And you didn't talk their ear off, you just stopped talking. Then that usually either opens up a further conversation, or they say, Oh my God, will you sign my book? Or like I had a woman kiss me one time because I gave her a business card. When's the last time you got kissed, given a business card away, right? Oh my god, you're so sweet! I'm like, wow, life is good.

So, it's just a gift that keeps on giving, because they will either go home, read the book, and call you to get the free thing, or go home, throw the book on the table, and every time they pass the book, it says, call you, and get the free thing. It harasses them incessantly until they do so it's not if you'll hear from them. It's when and that's a process that I created and I teach and I have templates and everything for people that work with me, but that's the quick version of it that I just gave you.

So anybody listening right now, if you just did that one thing, right? It would just change everything for you.

Gresham Harkless 10:56

Absolutely love that. I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. So you might have already touched on this, but this could be for yourself or your publishing company or a combination of both. But what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Keith Leon S 11:09

Yeah, it really has been the book as a business card piece. But as a publishing company, I would say if you ask 100 people how do you like your publishing company? 99 of them are going to say, I hate them, they suck. They didn't help me at all. They didn't do no mentoring. I got no services. It's just I felt like a number and that's the one thing that really sets us apart is all the people that publish with us feel like a family member.

So, that's not something I can bullet point or even if you hear it right now, If I'm saying it, it means one thing, but if you go to my site and read all the testimonials of my authors who said it, or when people ask me for references and I send them straight to my authors. It's what other people say about us that means everything.

Gresham Harkless 11:52

Yeah, absolutely. I was just about to ask you for what I call a CEO hack, which can be like an app, a book or a habit that you have. Is that what you feel like the mentorship and being able to reach out to people and ask them for five minutes or whatever that might be for that mentor should be for like, that's your CEO hack.

Keith Leon S 12:09

Yeah. That's what truly got me to where I am today. I learned how to ask really well-known people for support in a way that was so stupid easy for them to say yes that they did. That's what I love to teach, all the authors and the people that I work with personally is I give templates, if you're asking for endorsements for a book, there's a template. There's a specific way to ask those people that makes it easy, and they're used to that way. And if you ask the hard way, which is, will you read my book? No. Will you give me an endorsement? No. That's not every time, because it sounds like a lot of work.

But if you say, here's a short excerpt of my book, would love an endorsement. Here are three pre-written quotes, you can either choose one as it is, change it a bit, or if you're feeling saucy, write one of your own, right? Now they're just like, if they open up a book excerpt, they can see what the book is, writing style, they get enough and if you're really doing it, an endorsement quote should only be one or two sentences, two sentences the most, right? In one or two sentences, you can only be so creative. So chances are that one of those three quotes that you sent them is exactly what they would have said.

So a lot of times they just go like that one and they're just like, thanks for making that so easy. And you're like, you're welcome. And then you put endorsed by boom on your front cover and that's how easy it was.

Gresham Harkless 13:33

Absolutely. I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. This might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you mentioned earlier, or it might be something if you hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Keith Leon S 13:46

No matter what, anything I do, for years and years and years, I've always ended the same way, and that's, even if you're CEO of a business, I want you to know that you make a difference in this world. Everything you do is making a difference. People forget to tell you that you made a difference in their life. But you may have had a phone call with someone today and you just thought, it didn't really go that well, but they could have been with someone who was going to take their life that day and they didn't feel like anybody saw them or cared about them.

And even though it was a sales call, the fact that you called them and talked to them like a human being, and especially if they did what I was teaching you, be vulnerable and transparent on the call, right? Then they feel connected, felt a connection to you, and then they taught themselves how to offer themselves that day, and you wouldn't know because they wouldn't tell you.

So, I am blessed and fortunate to be in a position where people are constantly coming up saying, here's how you made a difference in my life. So if people aren't telling you that, I just want to be the one to tell you for them, whether you know it or not, you make a difference each and every day that you're walking this planet. So thanks for being the gift of you.

Gresham Harkless 14:47

I appreciate that reminder. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show. So Keith, what does being a CEO means to you?

Keith Leon S 15:00

Pure connection and making a difference with the most amount of people possible.

Gresham Harkless 15:07

Truly appreciate that, I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you, find about all the awesome things you're doing and get a copy of all the phenomenal books that you've created.

Keith Leon S 15:22

Yeah if you go to Leon Smith publishing, LeonSmithPublishing.com, that's the site that tells you all about the books that we published and we can help you there as well. If you go to beyondbeliefbooks.com. Beyond belief books that will show you what we talked about really quick in the intro, but to talk about on this call, because we're, doing some CEO business stuff.

But I did write a book called Walking With My Angels and really introduces you to the part of you that has access to any question that you would want to answer too. So if you go to beyond belief books, you'll see the programs and products there. I would suggest to anybody picking up a copy of that book, it's called Walking With My Angels and it would serve any CEO to read what you'll read in there.

Gresham Harkless 16:10

Awesome. Thank you so much. Keith. We will have those links and information in the show notes. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:15

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Subscribe and leave us a five star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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