In this day and age, a book under your name has become the best business card. It ups your credibility factor in front of other people. So how can you go about creating the best business card you can own and leverage it to transform your business? Susie Carder interviews Mario Fachini, the Founder and CEO of IWDNow Marketing & Publishing, one of the most sought-after publishing companies. Mario believes that everyone under the sun is a publisher. The crucial element is to think of the product you’re selling as a service. If you know that what you hold in your hands gives value to people and makes their lives easier, won’t you want more people to have it? So tune in and learn how to leverage your book and transform your business!
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Our guest is Mario Fachini. He’s a high school educated, college dropout, never having to be in college or having a formal education or never having a real job. He spent years as a dead broke web designer wasting too much time chasing down the wrong clients. Believing in his heart that the sky was the limit but waking up every day feeling like because of his background, that limited the sky.
Until he refined and enhanced the publishing and promotion process of his first book to attract prospects, with little effort using the tools and knowledge that he already had in place with his own business, he was able to create one of the most sought out publishing companies. Please welcome my guest, Mario.
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I’m excited that you’re here. Thank you for joining us, Mario.
Susie, it’s a great day to be alive. I’m excited to share with your audience.
We did your formal bio. That’s sexy and great but let’s talk about what’s your bad-ass list. Why should we listen to you? What gems are you going to share? What is your secret sauce? What makes you amazing in business? This is your time to shine and brag a little bit. I know it’s uncomfortable for us to do that but it’s important for us to hear your story, why you are who you are and why you’re passionate about what you do.
I’ve always had this passion for helping people. It started at a young age from being the odd kid or the one who was left out or picked on. We all go through that phase where it’s like, “Who are we becoming? What are we doing?” I always noticed, even though it wasn’t in an official capacity, people would talk to me and people wanted to share. I enjoyed helping them and giving them insight into everything. This was long before self-help books and everything.
One of the things that always helped me was books. Being able to pick something up whether it was for pleasure, reading a story for fun or if it was to learn something. I hesitate to say personal or professional. I’m 8, 10, 12 or whatever the case is. It wasn’t professional even though I did start my first business at twelve. I wasn’t into self-help until late high school. I could even argue early college. I knew what I liked. It was helping people, giving them some encouragement or we would call it adding value and making the world better.
I know what it felt like to be left out and I didn’t want it for people. I also never wanted to work a job. I always wanted to have owned my calendar and be able to help people. It was own my own calendar, make my own hours, work for myself and make good money. I was like, “A job doesn’t hit any of those.” As I mentioned, I started my first business at twelve. I sold that to start this one when I was in college. I haven’t looked back since but there are different things I’ve done over the years. It’s all based on marketing.
When I started putting the pieces together, not only going, “I like reading books. These are a great way to help people.” I was like, “I have a knack for bringing out people’s essence.” I call it extracting your expertise. All the people I helped in high school, talking to them, having a fun conversation, people would come to me and share things they wouldn’t tell anyone. I realized while I’ve never shared anything that someone asked me to keep private. I’m not referring to sharing that. I realized this is a skillset not everyone has.
I’ve used it for business to learn more about businesses and go deeper with the messaging and how to put it into a book that you can leverage to give to prospects, to sell it to people, to sell from the stage and get your message out there and share your expertise with a wider range of people. You’re awesome. I’m awesome but there’s no way we’re doing a thousand significant phone calls this week. Do you think you could pull that off?
Share your expertise with a wider range of people.
No, that’s why I speak. Instead of doing a thousand significant phone calls, I’ll do an event and be able to impact thousands of people or through a book, ads, videos and YouTube, trying to do the same thing. We’re kindred spirits with that.
It’s the same message but better ways to leverage it.
Who do you serve? Who’s that ideal qualified client for you? What are we supporting them in?
I love helping everyone but not everyone is a good fit. It might not be me. There are tons of great people out there. It might not be my personality. I don’t think it’s a bad one but there’s always that factor. I have a caveat on this. It’s generally not people that are in business for the first time or brand new. However, there have been some exceptions to the rule who maybe they worked in Corporate America at a high-level career for twenty years in the same core competency and they said, “Forget this, I’m starting my own thing.” Now they are an entrepreneur and you could argue it’s their first year but the reality is they have decades of experience.
The person I’m looking for is the one going, “I’ve done all this stuff. I still feel like I’m not fully leveraged. I want to serve more.” It’s that heart and purpose. They don’t know the steps because like anything, there’s a lot of steps to publishing. I’m not looking for someone that needs to be sold on why a book is a good thing. I’m looking for someone who goes, “I know they’re good. Everyone has one. I’ve always thought about it. I don’t know what to do.” We’ll do it for you.
Talk about that experience because a lot of people say and I’ve hired people in the past. “It’s done for you. It’s turnkey.” Then you get in and it’s like, “This is not turnkey. This is not done for you.” Share what your process is. How do you help us be not published authors but bestselling authors? You’re about helping us leverage that book and make money with the book. We always tell our students, “You got to have a book,” but a book is an expensive business card. You’re teaching that next level as well of monetizing and leveraging it. How do you do that?
There’s something on there. I’m glad you brought up in it is the bestseller component. It seems now everyone under the sun, everyone and their brother, everyone and their cousin is a publisher. While I’m glad there are more people that want to serve, I would hope and I’m being very optimistic here. I’ve never led with, “I will make you a bestseller.” I’ve never led with, “I’m going to do this for you.”
If you’re already at a certain level and you genuinely go, “I have this massive audience of people,” whatever size that might be to you and you want to serve them more. I personally feel the second you have the book in your hands, that’s the biggest leverage point you can have. Too many people get caught up on, “I’m this bestseller. I’m a this. I’m a that.” I’ve had people on my show that are New York Times bestsellers and they flat out told me, they’re like, “It did not make or break the business. It added to it, however.”
I go, “How much do you think it was the actual best-selling status versus you got your book in the hands of 10,000 to 20,000 people?” They’re like, “The jump came from, I’m serving more people in a higher leveraged way.” It’s the same thing with Barnes & Noble, Wall Street, USA Today, Amazon and all that. I have a two-time International Bestseller, it’s not the make or breaker. I’ve never sold, “I will do that for you.” I’m like, “I will help you get your book published with my team.” We have strategies and a good amount of people have done it. It’s a good goal. I enjoyed receiving it but at the same time, I don’t sell it.
There are many people who lead with it. The second one of them changes the algorithm, you’re toast. The sad thing is before 10 or 20 years ago, no one cared. I don’t think many years ago when Napoleon Hill was writing Think and Grow Rich, he’s like, “I’m doing this so I can have another star for status.” He legitimately wanted to help people and have a way to pass on the knowledge. We go through the process and as I had shown, you got to have a cover design and a title. One of the core things and I downplay this. It’s a dime a dozen.
There are a lot of great graphic designers out there that could probably help you with the cover but there’s not a lot of people who can extract your expertise in a way where it’s easy for you, that you can turn it into something else. That’s one of the things I’ve always prided myself on whether it’s a normal conversation or we’re going through a project or having fun. It’s why I love EA Interviews. I get to talk to cool people like yourself and go, “Let me dive deeper with that. Let’s talk about that a little bit further. Tell me more about that.”
It’s going that 5, 10 levels deep, if not more. I don’t trust anything unless it’s got twenty revisions on it. We polish it in a way where it’s easy for you to say, “Here’s what I want to share but you don’t need to sit there for 12 to 16, 18, 24 months constantly working on it because I specialize in business book publishing.” We don’t have that time. Even if you magically could fold time. You’re like some Einstein Quantum Physics person, look at all the people we could be helping in that time. It’s like, “This has to get done and out there too.” I bridge the gap on the professionalism but also where it’s not going to take you in two years.
My first book in 1995 took me seven years. I did not know what I was doing. I had to figure it out myself. Back in the day, there wasn’t you. There weren’t people that helped you. You had to figure it out. In my industry, we had one publisher and I got denied by the publisher.
That’s a whole other thing.
We self-published and I ended up creating my own publishing company but it took me seven years to write the first book. One because I didn’t know-how. Two, I was trying to fit it into my schedule as I had a training and development company. I had a second business. We had a real estate development company. These companies, when you are writing a book and then not knowing how. Not even understanding, “How do you go to Congress of Library and the graphic design?” Bestseller? I didn’t even know anything about that. I looked at it like, “Now, I got to sell it. Holy crap.”
It wasn’t pushed back then and that’s a good thing. If you never got awards in school, it’s easy to start a business and go, “Look at me.” At the end of the day, we can help anyone but my one caveat is, “Do you genuinely want to serve your audience?” If I get the slightest inkling someone’s doing this for another notch on the wall, star on the wall or whatever, “See you.”
The reality when I look back, the minute I published the book, my speaking fees were able to go up. I got booked more. My credibility went through the roof. I didn’t even know that that was part of the strategy. My client said, “Do you have a book? We need you to get a book. If you write a book, we’ll buy it.” I’m like, “I don’t know how to do that. Let me go figure it out and I’ll get back to you.” Looking at my Power Your Profit, which is book number ten, it was always a tool to leverage what I was teaching so when I left, there was something there for them to implement.
It’s such a powerful tool for credibility, raising your fees, gaining influence and great sales strategy, sending a book. If you’re going to send a book, send a book with a purpose. I get so many books. I’m sure you do too but they just send a book. It’s not what I want to do, like, “Could you take a picture and post on social media? Can you read it and give me your feedback? I want to thank you for the interview.” I get books in the mail. I’m like, “Did I order this? I don’t think I ordered this.” There is no note. Let’s have some intentionality around it.
I like it when mark the pages and say, “You’ll like pages 36, 79, 142.” It’s like, “Here’s what we talked about.” It’s something that relates to that end. To your point, you’re talking about it’s able to increase your credibility and public speaking. Everything you mentioned, I talk about that in the book. The root word of authority is the author. I don’t think there’s anyone that has a book or has ever had a book or will in the future that someone looks at them and goes, “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
If you took the time to get it out there, even if it wasn’t fantastically done, which I don’t recommend but the reality is you took some time, energy, money and did something more than a LinkedIn or Facebook post to make that happen. No matter what, it’s going to raise you up. The question is how much. I see some that it’s like, “Congrats,” sincerely. If this was where you’re at, this is where you’re at but at the same token, it’s also the flip side of the coin going, “This is your brand.”
You need to want to serve your audience genuinely.
That whole thing is under a giant spotlight. You took the time, you know it’s a better thing to do but how well did you do it? Now, we’re going to scrutinize you like videos and movies. We’re conditioned to see A-list actors in big-budget films. Maybe it’s their dream to do their first film. Good for them but we know what the standards are. If you’re too far away from that, it can hurt you even more.
Make sure it’s quality. Don’t throw something together and throw it together. Again, that’s for that, “I’m an author.”
You can also keep it as an eBook. That’s a thing I noticed. “I’ve got five books on my own. Go check them out.” There’s no audiobook. There’s no print version. Most people stick it with an audiobook because it’s easier, cheaper and faster. It’s that commitment level again.
If you’re going to go in, go in.
I went to one year of college. “It’s good for you.” So what?
I went to no years of college, that’s good for me but I do have my PHD, which is my Public Highschool Diploma.
I do not have a degree or anything either. I went a few more years than that but people equate it. It’s that finalization. I remember someone telling me, “Does it mean they’re smarter?” They’re like, “No. It just means they committed and followed through.” That’s something in and of itself.”
If you look at both of us, we’re entrepreneurs so we have a ton of education. I have a ton of education. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education, just not traditional. Don’t sit me in classroom. I’m ADD, which is my superpower.
We also didn’t stop after college.
No, we kept going. You have the books and credibility. A lot of people want to write a book, start a show but there’s no intentionality around it. It’s like, “I have a podcast,” so what? Let’s talk about your show. Why did you start it? How did you leverage that to support what you’re up to in the world?
It was to help more people. I’ve always wanted to help more people. I always knew there’s more inside me. Some of this stuff was my own personal head trash holding me back. I lost my dad on Good Friday of 2017. It rocked everything in my world. For a while, it was like, “What am I doing?” I felt lost. It was a year later I was like, “I’m still here.” I was young at the time. I was like, “What am I going to do with my life?” It felt like everything was gone.
I remember being at church one Sunday and the guest pastor was talking about, “Are you honoring God in your work?” I was like, “Maybe.” I’m trying to sell myself on yes but the fact that I was doing it, I knew the answer was no. I go, “What am I going to do for this next stage of my life?” I go, “How about everything I’ve ever hesitated on?”
I had already done multiple books at that point so it wasn’t like that was the thing for me at the time even though it very well could be for someone else. I will tell you that they’re very beneficial. The show, video, publishing and public speaking, are four ways that all are very synergistic. It’s the one I had missing that I had contemplated.
We are producing multiple shows for other people over the years. In addition to the publishing, I’m a public speaker and I knew a lot of other authors and speakers, I have a great team and we could help them but I go, “I’m going to connect the world. I’m going to do this.” It freaked me out more than the publishing did and I failed English seven times.
I saw it as a way to connect with more great people like you and bring everyone together we can have a bigger impact and make a difference. I go, “I got to do this.” I’m happy to say that was years and hundreds of episodes ago. I remember episode zero or the trailer, you will hear me freaked out crying. I have no idea what I’m doing but I feel led to do it. I’m glad I did.
There are so many people and I have clients that are still waiting for this pandemic to get over. I’m like, “It’s not getting over. The business has changed. Catch up.” There’s always a pandemic. There’s always something in the world that can stop us as entrepreneurs from a financial collapse to a recession, to depression or to a health crisis. What have you been doing to stay active, your clients engaged and still growing your business inside of the tumultuous times?
I would say going deeper. It goes back to that serving and adding value. If it’s someone you meet for the first time, instead of, “I’ll get around connecting with them,” do it quicker. If it’s a client, you have to existingly follow-up with them a little bit more. If you talk to them once a year, maybe make it twice. If it’s twice a year, maybe make a quarterly. I’m always looking for ways to serve and add value to people. I don’t care if it’s a client or someone I meet or this or that or the other thing. You have to know your sales numbers and know what your goals are and your unit cost and all these different things.
At the end of the day, I feel like there are some people who are focused on that, they lose the human side. There are other people who are focused on the human side, they never take one iota of a second to go, “What is my strategy here? What am I doing going into this next quarter, the next year? Whether it’s sales, the book, the show, this or the other thing, they’re just doing stuff.
That’s better than nothing because hopefully they’ll meet someone like you who can set them on the right track. At some point, you can’t move the parked car but at the same point, if you’re trying to drive cross-country and you don’t know where you’re going, it might take you a long time to get there if you ever do.
What I love about this show is we get to get real, which you’ve been very transparent and very real. Thank you for sharing that. My biggest learning lessons in life have been the things that have been our biggest challenge or failure. What’s been your biggest failure? What did you learn from that experience?
If you trust yourself, you’ll learn and succeed faster.
I would say, it’s not trusting myself sooner. If there’s one thing I can’t get back, it’s time. There are things on my heart I’m bringing to fruition now that have been on my heart for the better part of many years. A lot of them I have moved forward with but there are still things that I’m like, “Why did I hesitate?” Some of the times, it was people I was close to that aren’t even around anymore or other well-meaning people that I trusted at the time who are still saying the same trash to me. I’m past it but it did affect me at the time. If you started a business after twelve or in college, good for you because you probably had the mental and emotional wherewithal to be at a better place to be able to do it quicker.
If you didn’t at the time, good for you for starting young. At the end of the day, people are going to say stuff whether it’s in business or out of it and you have to go, “Do I trust myself more or them?” Maybe it’ll work or it won’t but I believe if you trust yourself, you’ll at least learn faster. Surround yourself with good people who can show you the way and guide you so you don’t need to learn it on your own. That’s experience but I like wisdom. Learning from others’ mistakes, not my own.
You’re going to spend the money anyway, you just might spend it not getting the sales, in your breakdown or your failure. I look at, “Who’s playing ten times bigger than me? Who can look at me and go, ‘Don’t do that, do this.'” That shaves that learning curve off. You said that wisdom is when I’ve waited and beat myself up. The reality is it was the perfect time when I finally did it. Me giving myself permission to not beat myself up and go, “Here’s why I waited.” There’s so much more knowledge, more connection, community to hit the ground running versus that huge trial and error and learning curve. Thank you for sharing that.
You’re very welcome. It’s one of the things when we’re going through the publishing process because there’s a lot of stuff that gets dug up. For me, in my first book, I had failed English seven times. Who am I to write a book? Forget the bestseller thing. That’s not even on my radar but I want to get through this thing. It was such a transformational process. It’s one reason I fell in love with it. It’s to be able to give that transformation to other people.
One of my clients, Lorie, lost her hand at nine in a meat grinder. She had never told anyone in decades. We were on the phone for one of the sessions and I go, “How are you feeling?” We’re now into the writing. She goes, “I feel like there’s this weight that’s been lifted off me. I feel like I no longer have to hide. I’m naked and vulnerable with the world. It feels freeing.” Even the people closest to her didn’t know she had a prosthesis. This was in 2014. The book is, Taking my Hand Out of My Pocket. It was very revealing. There are people that showed up at her launch party and they were like, “I’ve known her for many years and I had no clue.”
There are always things that it might not be that or it might not be this but everyone has their own thing they’re hiding from. It always comes up in the process somehow. Subconsciously your body knows you’re now making this available to tens of thousands of people. You can’t talk your way out of it. If you’re good at sales or conversing in general, there’s a comfort level of, “I didn’t mean it this way. You go, “I understand.” There’s none of that. You have no safety net. It’s why I love it because if you’re doing it, you did something right.
If you could be remembered for one thing, Mario, what would that one thing be?
The first thought that came to my mind is kindness. I don’t know if that’s too cliche or something but at the end of the day, there are so many evil and bad people and stuff in the world that we could all use a little bit more hope and kindness.
I don’t think it’s cliche at all. It says a lot about your character. What’s one question you wish I would have asked you?
You’ve done a good job but I would ask about the live streaming and the video.
Let’s talk about it. Share with us the benefits of live streaming and videoing.
There are a lot of tough questions in my life but one of them is, “Do you enjoy being in front of the camera or behind the camera?” When I was studying video production and special effects animation, I was also modeling and acting at the time. On some days I’m like, “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m setting up the shot.” There are other days where I just show up and it’s like, “I’m here.” There are benefits to each. I’ve always loved being able to visualize what I’m thinking.
Since forever with video production and now with live streaming, even though that’s been around for many years but most people don’t realize, it’s another medium. To the same point of before, in front of or behind the camera, the question people ask now is, “You love video publishing and now podcasting, which one’s the best out of all of them?”
I go, they’re all different mediums to share your message but I’m still going with publishing. Once that’s done, I never need to go back and touch it again. With a show, you got to keep going on. With video, you might have to change it, tweak it and if you put one video on anywhere, is it going to last? It will last in perpetuity but unless you’re doing a series of them regularly and consistently, it’s not going to stand out in this world. The book still will.
One of the hacks that I do in my book is my manuscript. That’s my script. I don’t have to go, “What am I going to teach?” If you look at the average video and our attention span is 5 to 7 minutes, that’s it. If you look at TikTok is less than three minutes so you got to get in there. People are like, “I don’t know what to say.” Quit inventing new stuff. Use the stuff you have and share from your books. I’ve got ten books and there’s a ton of content in there.
It’s your best stuff. It’s not like, “I need to reinvent the wheel.” You already put the time, energy and money into it. I love opening up and going, “This day is a chapter six kind of day. We’re going to talk about this.”
It makes it so much easier. I’ve built a multimillion-dollar company doing that, just repurpose. What do I do in coaching? Repurpose. This system works.
That’s the thing people don’t realize about going deeper, an inch wide and a mile deep. Everyone’s going, “I need more content.” Why not optimize what you have to the point of show notes? There are a lot of shows that have more episodes than mine. I’m approaching quickly though. It’s getting less and less but a lot of shows that have been around longer still have never tweaked the show notes on a single episode.
It’s like, “You’re going to do another 100 episodes, the exact same way without changing your show flow, asking the audience anything, doing this tweak in the audio, the video or even enhancing the links, the visuals, nothing.” “It seems to be working.” Yes, it seems to be but it’s not optimized. There’s a difference. It’s the same with a book. “I’m on my 15th book or my 20th book.” Why didn’t you do a better 2nd and 3rd?
Did you monetize, number one? Who cares if you have a book if you’re not monetizing it?
We could all use a little bit more hope and kindness.
There are a lot of people who are good at content creation. “You need to create content,” but again, to your point of intention, purpose and with profit, to what end? I never set a goal of doing twenty books. I probably have 10 or 20 in my lifetime. It’s getting easier and easier to do. I’m like, “I could do a book. I have three more in my head already but they’re not business but they could be.” The point is I’m not doing them for the sake of doing them. I’m very intentional with each one. Each one is a different message and a different audience you’re speaking to.
You use a lot of technology in your business. What’s your favorite app? What’s your favorite software or business software that you use?
That’s easy. I’ve been using Basecamp for over a decade with my team. There are 99 others. They’re around if you follow my stuff but Basecamp is one that I’ve told everyone about. It’s great for collaboration and now in the new version, they’ve integrated the chat, uploads and other features. It’s how I got my first book and this one.
I appreciate you. I appreciate the gifts that you gave us and the diamonds that you dropped but we’re not done with the gifts or the diamonds. You have a gift for us, a way that we can play with you and find you. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
To the point of always adding value and serving, I would love nothing more than to hear everyone who read this said, “I decided to do a book,” whether it’s with me or someone else sincerely, get it out there. Get your message and your expertise in the world. Not everyone qualifies all the time either so I decided to make a free course on publishing available. You can get it at this link I’m making available to your audience because I know there are some people who while they listen to the audiobook and get the printed copy, also like learning.
One thing I look for in authors and honestly, I’ve never revealed this. People on my show, do they have a book? Do they have a course? To your point, if I’m having them on the show and you want people to fall in love with them then what? It feels like you’re driving them off a cliff if there’s nothing else. If you’re a visual learner, I have a free Business Book Publishing Course that will walk people through and be able to go a little bit deeper in real-time. It’s about an hour’s worth of videos and to get people started if they’re serious about it. Remove the excuses. There’s no reason that someone shouldn’t be doing it because I know myself, I have plenty available to help people in addition to other stuff that’s out there.
How else do we find you? We find you at EAInterviews.com. Is social media the same?
I’m @MarioFachini on all the social media platforms and that’s the best way to reach me.
I appreciate that, Mario. Thank you for being my guest. Thank you for dropping your wisdom. Thank you for giving us such diamonds. Please like and share if he made a huge difference for you. Please share with your community. Make sure that everybody knows who he is. He’s got some juicy stuff for us. Thank you for being here. Have a great day.
Susie, it’s been a pleasure.
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