Tucker Max 4:10
No one cares. But I’ll tell you what they’re interested in. They’re interested in themselves and how we can help them. Right. And so here’s what I would tell you about Scribe your listeners about Scribe. If you’ve ever wanted to write a book, then we have absolutely the best place to start. It’s called ScribeBooksSchool.com. Right. So literally typed out in scribebookschool.com, it’ll take you what we did. You know, when the pandemic hit last year. I basically got online for a week. Because when everyone was home in like April, right, I was like, Listen, if you’ve ever wanted to write a book, now’s the time and I’m going to teach you exactly how. And I spent a week online for probably like six hours a day, teaching our exact process like literally the exact things that we do with our authors. Every didn’t leave anything out, didn’t you know keep the secret sauce or any of that nonsense. And then that ended up becoming like this amazing video course. And so we thought for a second Oh, we could sell that. And I’m like, now I’m in hell with that, because we have a high-end service firm, right. And so if we’re selling a course it doesn’t, it doesn’t work. So we just decided to put it up for free. There’s a ton of people who sell courses on how to write and publish books. And none of them. bless their hearts. They’re trying, but none of them know what the hell they’re talking about. And I say that almost without exception, because the type of people who really know how to do this don’t make video courses. And just because of the way it worked, we did and so we decided to put up. And so it’s ScribeBookSchool.com start there, right? Now, what if you don’t have a lot of money, or you can’t afford to invest a lot of money in your book, everything, there’s free, every piece of information you need is there for free. Now, if you if you’re successful, and you realize, oh, a book might actually help me in my career, or it’s a marketing expense for me, it’ll promote me, it’ll promote my business, I can actually. And you know, I can devote some resources to this. And I don’t have a lot of time to do this, because it is a large investment of time to do a book, right? Anyone who’s like, Oh, you can write a book in a weekend is a clown selling BS, do not listen to them, you can write a book in a weekend, and it will be off, and it will make you look bad, right? Like all the people who sell write a book in a weekend courses all look bad, right? Because that’s like, you know, you could build a house in a weekend, it’s just going to be a lean-to. And it’ll be awful, and it’ll fall down. Same thing with a book. So if you feel like, you know, like, I need to invest money in this, I have money to invest in this, and I need, I want to buy my time, or I want to get expert help. So that’s what Scribe does. We have a whole company, we help people write and publish books, right? So we’re a service firm, not a traditional publisher, right? So you don’t want to pitch us on a nonsense. You come in, you need help, we can pick you up almost at any point where you are. So most people who come in pay 40,000. And we take them from their idea, all the way through to publish the book and marketing. Right so we help them you know, position it conceptual conceptualize, what am I even going to write about? Who’s going to care about it, right? How’s it going to help me the crucial questions you have to answer before you spend any time writing a book, we literally walk you I mean that we don’t even do sales calls, we basically do exploration calls. And those are the calls we actually start with on the first call before even paying us money, we got to know if you have a book and you if it’s worth your time, should you invest money, right? So we start that, and then we take you through the whole process, or you can write the book yourself. And we can do publishing and marketing. Or you can say you know what, like, I want to write it. But I want you guys to coach me along the way we can do coaching, we can do it as sort of more of a ghostwriting process where we interview you and get it all out of you and you’re just on the phone. But it’s all your ideas, your words, your your your process, or your your, your ideas and your words, your voice, right? Like we’re actually really good. I can’t tell you how many times people have been like, hold on, you worked on that book. And that book, those books are totally different. I’m like, right? Because our job is to bring out the voice of the author, not our voice, right? So basically, if you want help writing, and publishing and marketing a great book, we’re the place to go.
Jeremy Weisz 8:34
Tucker out of that process. I’m sure you discovered sometimes when you teach something, you learn even more or uncover even more that you already know. I’m wondering from when you were teaching the Scribe Book School process? What’s an important piece of that process that maybe people going through it? You think this is super important, and people underestimate the importance of that portion? In the process of writing a book,
Tucker Max 9:00
man, there are so many. But let me stick with the two biggest. So the the biggest the number one most important thing is the thing I talked about, it’s called position, right? Which is essentially understanding the relationship between three questions. What are you going to get out of your book? Why are you writing it? And not a lot of people are like, Oh, I just want to help people. I’m like, Okay, cool. So then don’t put your name on it and, and write it anonymously, like Well, hold on. I’m like, okay, it’s okay to want something for yourself from a book. That’s not selfish. Write it, and even if it is selfish, you get to get things from your work, you know, it can help you and other people. And so, really understanding what do you want to get from your book? Is it money? Is it is it a notoriety? Is it prestige? Is it visibility? Is it legacy these are all great thing, nothing wrong with any of them. But you need to really understand what you’re looking for. Because if what you want is visibility. That’s a different book than if you’re going to write a book for legacy, probably a different book, right? And by the way, most people have multiple books in them. So it’s like, don’t try and cram everything in. Anyway. So first question is, what do you want? Second question is, who do you need to write a book for to get that? Right? So like, Jeremy, if you’re like, you know, what, Tucker, I want to write a book. That’s gonna get me clients for Rise25 for my podcasting company. Cool. Great. So then we would talk about, okay, who are your clients? Right? Who do you need this book to get in front of, in order for you to get clients? And then you would tell me a profile? Well, they’re like this right? There, I’m just gonna make something up. There are entrepreneurs who have businesses who love talking, and maybe a thought about a podcast, and a podcast could absolutely help them in their business. And the way it’ll help them is because either they’re talking about what they do to people who are interested, like sharing their knowledge, like, let’s say, a mortgage broker who’s teaching people how to buy houses, right? Like, that might be an interesting podcast, or they use the podcast to interview prospective clients, but not like, I’m pitching you, but more like, I want to, I’m going to talk to all the big people in this field and get their knowledge and wisdom. Right. Okay, great. Awesome, that I know exactly who you’re talking about? Because those are our clients, too. So that’s your audience. So number one is what do you want? Number two is what’s your audience? So let’s stick with you. Because that’s an easy one, you want more clients for Rise25 your audience are entrepreneurs who are looking for clients, right? And like and want like to talk? And like to, you know, entertain people. Third question, how do you reach those people? Right? What do you have to say, that matters to those people? Why are they going to care? Now, in your case, the answer is obvious. You can teach them how to position a podcast, how to set up a podcast, how to run a record, a great podcast, how to run it, how to promote it, everything about podcasts, you know, you are a podcast what I am, right. And so like, that’s, if I’m a business owner, and I am, and I want to start a podcast, and actually I do, which is why I’m here right? Now. We had a different call about that. Right? Then I’m very interested in what you have to say. Because what you have to say, is getting me something I want, right? I want to know about podcast, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I this is actually kind of what I did what I’m doing. I’m gonna go read if I think okay, I’m thinking about podcasts. I’ve heard this. A lot of people have them, I think it might help might help me in my business. But I’m not sure how I don’t want a big podcast. Like I can’t be Tim Ferriss, or Joe Rogan. But like, you know, I’m just confused. I don’t know where to start. How do I think about this? As soon as overwhelming? Do I have to buy $1,000 microphone? I’m like, oh, Jeremy knows. And so I’ll read your book and be like, Man, I’m gonna do one or two things. I’m going to read it and say, this guy’s brilliant. I can just do all this myself. Right? I’m not going to though, because I have a lot more money than I have time. And so I’m going to read your book and say, Fuck, I’m just gonna hire this guy knows his stuff, and look like and then I look at your site. And I’m like, oh, he only charges that. Oh, I mean, let’s go. So that’s the basic reason you’re going to write a nonfiction book. Right? So our company only does nonfiction and memoir, which some people don’t think of nonfiction. For some reason. We don’t do fiction fiction is an entirely different animal. They’re completely it’s a completely different process, to think about it. But that’s the number one thing is positioning. Right? What do you want? Who do you have to reach? Why are they going to care? That makes sense.
Jeremy Weisz 13:55
You know what? I think that’s instructive. Tucker, for any business. You know, that’s why I want to hear about your book process, because it’s the way any business should think about knowing your audience. How do you reach your audience? Exactly.
Tucker Max 14:11
What do you do with your podcast? clients? I bet you do the exact same process or something very similar, right?
Jeremy Weisz 14:16
You have to Yes, yes. Because and that’s why I want you to go through the book process because it is a process of positioning and marketing and thinking through your business. So I don’t care if you’re in my opinion, I don’t care if you are obviously thinking of writing a book you could check out ScribeBookSchool.com, but I think any business owner, in my opinion, would probably it would be very valuable for anyone to go through that exercise those exercises is not just about writing a book. I mean, that’s only the end product of what everything what everything what happens, right? Yeah,
Tucker Max 14:51
yeah, well, so that’s why you want though to deal with experts in each media field because even though positioning as a general thing is important how you position And podcasts is not the same as how you position them book books, although they’re similar. It’s not like they’re just, you know, it’s not French versus Chinese. They’re, they’re similar enough. But there’s some intricacies that if you’re not deep in that field, you might get a little bit confused or lost by, you know, so that’s why that’s why even if I was doing a podcast, I’d still talk to you. Because I’m like, okay, Jeremy’s gonna think of that one thing that I’m not going to see, even though I know positioning very well, you know,
Jeremy Weisz 15:27
one of the common reasons I know people come in think I just want to help people. But when you dig deeper, you find kind of those, those the real reason, what are some of the common reasons that you find people do want to do a book?
Tucker Max 15:40
Well, let me when someone says I want to help people, it’s not that they don’t want to help people, they are lying about that. It’s just that a lot of people think they’re not allowed to want something from a book or from something else. Right that like, they have to say, I’m only here to help people. And that selfishness. And I mean that in a benevolent, good, good way, right? Or self. So let’s use a different word, self-care. I think when you’re doing any project, an important part of self-care is understanding what’s in it for you, that you also have to, like, if you dig deeper in our process, I went over it click, we have two questions. Like, the first question is, why are you reading a book, but it’s two different questions. What are you going to get for it for yourself? Only? Then the other question is, what’s your reader going to get from your book? Both are super important. They’re never the same thing. Ever. I, you aren’t going to get podcast knowledge from your book. You already have it. That’s why you’re writing the book. I’m gonna get podcast. All right. So we are never getting the same thing from a book me as your reader, and you as the author ever, not once, like, if you read my books, you would laugh a lot. I didn’t. I mean, I laugh maybe when I did it, or maybe the first time I’m not getting laughter from writing my book, right? Like, it’s not, that’s not how it works. It’s an exchange. You’re giving me your knowledge, I’m giving you my money. Right. And it’s a fair exchange, and we’re both better off. Because you get 15 bucks, you wouldn’t have had, I get a bunch of knowledge I wouldn’t have had we both value them higher than then than what we’re paying.
Jeremy Weisz 17:28
Well, you have a book Tucker on how to write a book. Right?
Tucker Max 17:32
Yes, it is. So it’s funny like that’s basically what I did is I got on on the video and I taught is actually a webinar and I taught a whole book. So we tell most of our authors to write short books, because for a lot of reasons. We wrote a 500 page book on how to write a follow on advice. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you why. Because like, if you really want to do it, right? It’s a shitload of knowledge. It really is, man, there’s just no way around this. And so we decided we weren’t going to do the high-level skip over the surface of writing a book, we were going to tell you how to do everything and do it right. So both the course Scribe Book School and the book are serious deep dives. Because what I wanted, my intent was if someone someone like me, when I first started writing, I was like, 27, I had no money. And I didn’t know anything about writing. I couldn’t afford even, I’m not even sure I could afford to apply to my company to work. And it’s free. Like, because I’m not sure I even had a fact I didn’t have a computer. When I started writing, I’d use my friend’s computer. This is you know, I’m 45. So this is 18 years ago, so different things. But like, um, so I wanted something that was completely comprehensive. And so no one would with any amount of money or anywhere in the world, I would say they didn’t know what to do. Right? You will always know what to do with Scribe Book School. It would that’s so that’s why I wanted to go that deep. Most people shouldn’t go that deep, not because you’re trying to hold your knowledge back. But just because like, the most people don’t need that depth. Right. And that’s actually what happens with us is people start reading they’re like, God, this is actually really complex. And they’re right, I see it, I understand all this. It’s super complex. I’m just gonna hire them. Probably 20% of our clients who pay us anywhere from 40 to 100 grand read the book first. Which is actually blew me away. Then I knew the book would work and it would be important, and it has been I didn’t realize that many would read the book, but they do. And that’s, that’s why a lot of anyone who ever tells you just write a book, it doesn’t matter what’s in it, no one will read it is screwing you. They are wrong. Because you’re let’s think about that. Let’s say only 20% of the people Well, who bought our book read it, or even 10%? Those are the buyers. The buyers are the reader. And so if you want to impressing the people who are trying to give you money, then you will be out of business or you’re at least limiting yourself.
Jeremy Weisz 20:15
Yeah, and the people who care will take the time to read it, research it in and and. There are several when I did research, Tucker, I was like, I like to pull out what I feel like are these turning points? And have you discussed them as turning points? So I want to talk about one of those turning points. But before we talk about because it was a dinner conversation, I think it was dinner conversation with a woman who you started lecturing on on this, but I want to talk about that. But But I’m curious, you said that people have multiple books in them. And I don’t know if you’re allowed to talk about this or say this, but who are some of the authors who have published maybe the most amount of books with Scribe Media?
Tucker Max 20:53
Yeah, I mean, if you we I don’t think we’ve published a no, we post like one or two anonymous books, and they weren’t famous people. So
Jeremy Weisz 21:00
they’re like, Oh, I have like, three books. I have four books. I have five books with Scribe Media. Me are there. Who are the people that have multiple times? Yeah,
Tucker Max 21:08
it’s Cameron Herold on Rise25.
Jeremy Weisz 21:09
Yes, yeah, yeah, he’s, yeah. Okay. Yes. three books. I’ve listened to
Tucker Max 21:13
all of his books. Yeah. So we did a meeting meaning SOC, you know, vivid vision and free PR. We did those three Who? We’ve got it. We’ve got a mortgage broker in Canada, that is named Dustin Woodhouse, I think he’s done three or four books with us. We’ve got a bunch of done to, like, really like maybe a dozen or more to the to three dozen. I don’t think anyone’s on more than three. I mean, we’ve only been around six years. So it’d be tough to do more than three. You’d have to be a machine man.
Jeremy Weisz 21:49
Cameron Herold, I mean, just as talk about your comment on you want to be really good. I’ve had probably at least six people on my podcast that have said they bought Cameron Herold’s Meetings Suck for all of their friends, like and all of their executives in their company. So they’re like, hey, and they’ll buy like 20 copies and distributed to every leadership person in their company. You know,
Tucker Max 22:13
no, Cameron’s books are because they’re awesome. He designed them so that they are they’re 15 to 25,000 words. They’re really short. And they’re designed to be able to be read on a cross-country flight and to absolutely nail a very specific very painful business process. You know, so meetings, it’s, once you have them, right? You’re fine if you don’t have a right screws, your own company and it’s millions of dollars loss, right? vivid vision, which is basically like, like a mission statement, corporate alignment, right? huge problem. If you don’t have it dealt with pre PR. How do you get attention? marketing, there’s no one needs less marketing.
Jeremy Weisz 22:54
You know, the the inception of the company I find interesting. Take me back to that dinner with the woman. And what she asked you and what you said,
Tucker Max 23:05
Yeah, Melissa Gonzalez. She basically were an entrepreneur dinner and she told me she’s like, Listen, for a decade, people have been asking me to write a book about what I do. I tried it was a pain in the ass. I didn’t have time. I’ve got kids in this business, right? And I looked at traditional publishing was painful and awful. Just none of that makes sense. It’s a dumb process. Oh my god. It’s kind of it’s just like, Well, how do I do it? Then? How do I get this book out of my head without having to go through the normal process? And I kind of looked at her and I’m like, hold on a minute. Are you asking me how to write a book without writing? And she’s like, yeah. And so I give I hate elitist snob writers. I hate them. But man, I acted like one then I started giving her my most elitist, snobby writer answer, which boiled down to you need to learn how to write a book, right? The only way to write it is to do the work. And I still, you know, saying stuff, like everyone wants to be a star. No one wants to put in the work and like all of that nonsense, right? I basically was working. And she she like, right, you know, you’re too lazy. You don’t want it. You gotta want it more like all those things. And me, man, I’ll never forget the look on her face, dude. And she rolled her eyes out of her skull. And she goes, Tucker, this is an entrepreneur dinner. Are you an entrepreneur? Like Yeah, of course. It’s like, No, I don’t think so. Because a real entrepreneur would help me solve my problem wouldn’t lecture me about hard work? I was like, Man buff on Google. Like, I was so mad at her. But I couldn’t actually get mad at her because she was right. She was 100%. Right? I was shaming her because she wasn’t fitting into my idea of as a writer as opposed to thinking okay, is there another way to solve this problem? And so I became obsessed with the issue because You know, when someone calls you out in there, right? Then it’s like, oh, you can’t get past this. I can’t. And so it took me about two months because I’m slow. And then I realized, Oh, this is a solved problem. Like scribes have existed for 2000 years. Socrates didn’t write a word down. Plato did right. Jesus didn’t write a word down. The apostles did. Buddha didn’t write a word down. Malcolm X didn’t write a word down. Marco Polo didn’t Julius Caesar did we go down the list? Most of the great minds are huge. Some of the great minds of western and eastern civilization had people write their stuff down. For me. It’s a skill like being a lawyer. Having the ideas is very hard. cumulating the knowledge turning the wisdom, that’s very difficult. Any, anyone with the right skills can write it down into a book. And so now it’s important to note like she didn’t want a ghostwriter. It was like, Oh, just gonna ghostwriter ghostwriting. The way it’s done right now is is someone writes their version of your ideas, and then you pay them to put your name on it. We didn’t want to do that. We wanted this to be her ideas, in her words in her voice, right? Everything her. And so I was like, Okay, yeah, let me just make a modern scribe process. And so like, I kind of wrote out all the steps on a whiteboard. And I realize I only need her for about 40% of the book, which is an important 40% of the content, right? But it’s like, the rest is essentially subbing it out to very skilled people in a discrete process. And it worked. And the funny thing is, man, Jeremy, I’m such a bad entrepreneur. We finished it book came out. It’s amazing. She loved it. And she’s like, I forget what I charged her. It was basically a trivial not just because it was like a project. Like I had to sell my bruised ego. And she’s like, What should I tell my friends you charge? I’m like, charge for what? It’s like, for finding books. I’m like, why would you tell them that? Because they’re all asking me how I did this. And I’ll refer them to you. I’m like, I don’t want no, I’m not doing this for the rest of your friends. Like what? What am I? I’m working on a higher birth. dummy. And so she but she’s like, Okay, I’m just gonna tell them whatever. And like, they started coming to me and then Zach, who my co-founder, he you know, really well. He was working with the another project. And I’m like, Hey, dude, if we split the money, can I just give these people to you? I don’t want to do this. And I told them my exact process. And Zach’s a great writer, he’s like, Oh, totally. And after about two months, he’s like, you know, we’ve done a quarter million sales. He’s like, maybe we have a business. And I’m like, ah, maybe we do. So
Jeremy Weisz 27:40
did you meet? And what Zach’s background,
Tucker Max 27:43
then I don’t even remember how we met. he emailed me about something. And then like, I gave him a project to work on. And then he killed it. And he’s like, he was one of those. I think it was like, 24 when I met it. Yeah, cuz he’s 30 now. And he was like one of those people. I’m like, Oh, this dude’s a star. He just hasn’t found his place yet. And it was just really, honestly, total luck that that came together with him. He hadn’t really done anything before that, truly. But like, the dude has grown into an absolute Rockstar. Like, he’s my company right now. So we didn’t take any outside money, no VC, no investors, we have three owners me, him. And my CEO is also a star JeVon McCormick. Absolute, like, it’s funny. When we started, I was the only one that was known. I was the one that everyone paid attention to. I was the star. And now a good argument could be made that I’m the least important of the three. I totally serious man like, and I bet you in the history is written at least a Scribe, I JeVon is actually going to be more important to it than I will be.
Jeremy Weisz 28:49
I want to go into the roles a little bit. Because we were talking before, you know, Zach is building this, this is my role. And then I know you wrote a long post, which I think is very instructive around why you fired yourself as CEO. So I want to start there. Because there was a, you know, kind of another turning point where you realized you needed to take it to the next level. And you also put your ego aside and realize that wasn’t you? Yeah. Why? When you were coming to that for yourself? Was it more of like a natural evolution progression? Have you thinking about it or was it just hit you one day of the goals you want to accomplish where you want to see the company and that wasn’t you?
Tucker Max 29:41
It was a little bit of both. So we got about a million and a half 2 million in sales, and the wheel started coming off. Like once we kind of like got past eight or 10 people like the amount of stuff you can keep in your head right or I can keep in my head. Exactly, at least and once we got past that point. Then the wheel started coming. Because anyone who’s grown a business will know, starting a business and scaling a business are so fundamentally different things that like, it’s like the difference between fiction and nonfiction like people think they’re similar because both of them get printed on dead trees. And they are, they’re so fundamentally different. It’s, there’s really no one that overlaps between the two, basically. And I don’t mean that literally the basically, right, because they’re that different. movies and TV shows are very similar in a lot of ways. But starting and sailing companies are completely different skill sets. And so JeVon was a client of ours, doing a book with us. And I got him to start coaching me on how to be a CEO. And I realized real quick that one, he was awesome at that. And two, I didn’t want to do it, it sucks to want to scale a business man. But like, you know, I was young, a lot younger than I was like, five years ago. And like he, there’s a lot of ego tied up and being the CEO and all that nonsense. And so I convinced him to join our company. And he told me, he’s like, Oh, come on as CEO and president. And then I thought about that for a second. But I’m like, now we can’t do that. Because that’s not true. Like it, if you were here, you would be the CEO and all but name, and I don’t live lives. I just won’t do it. And so let’s just, I’m gonna step aside, but like, I was resistant, you know, like I, and the thing that really tripped it for me is when I asked myself, why am I doing? Is it for me? Because then I’ll stay CEO? Or is it for the mission of the company? Then I’m like, no, it’s for the mission. Okay, well, then I gotta get out of his way. Because that dude’s gonna kick ass at this company. And yeah, I got a big role to play. And I’m still very important to the company. But my important import is not in learning how to scale it, different skill. And so he became CEO, and now we’ve done 50 million in sales since he joined, and we’re like a 70, person Full Time Team 250 300. Freelance, we’re like, we’re huge company, 800 books published another thought 1100. And process. We’re a big company now
Jeremy Weisz 32:12
Tucker talk about, you know, cuz he was doing something else. And you were thinking of, in your mind, I can’t even afford you. Right. So talk about how you got him aboard, essentially, on the mission.
Tucker Max 32:28
He was a president of a software company. He wasn’t the founder. And the founder wouldn’t give him equity. But was paying him a high salary. I think it was almost a million dollars a year. It was like a lot. Like, we weren’t even in the universe, excuse me of that salary. And so, man, it was it was real simple. I’m like, do you, I basically, it’s just storytelling. Right? It was understanding what he wanted. And seeing it aligned with what we were we were going right. So it’s like I didn’t you know, manipulate him. It was like, Okay, what he wants is in the same direction as Where are we going? And so then I just painted a picture for him. And I’m like, Look, the company, you’re at school, Fine, whatever, but the dude is not going to give you ownership, which is bullshit, because he built that company. That company was very small when he got there. And he texted. And I’m like, so if you came over here, I’ll make you an owner. Like you’ll earn equity a lot. I said, eventually, you can have as much as I like, I’ll tell you even with me when she’s already, right. But more importantly, anywhere else, you go to work for someone, you’re going to be their person. Right? You’re working for them. Like, here. You’re working with us. And you’re leading. And he was a dude that like I don’t want to say he wanted to be famous, but he wanted to be recognized or what have you done? And I’m like, Look, man, he was a baller. He deserves right. I’m like, I can absolutely help you get that. Like, I think you’re still I told him you are a star the world just doesn’t know yet. I can make sure the world knows. That’s all it is, is just putting your stuff out. It’s not I didn’t say I can turn you into a star. It’s like no, like we’re doing it he loved our mission when we did all that I’m like you can not just join this mission you can lead this mission and you can get credit for what you’re doing in front of the world and you can own your share of it. And he was that’s that’s the only way you sell stars man is you don’t sell them like you paint the picture for what they can get and if it aligns with what they want they come
Jeremy Weisz 34:48
yeah in a big pieces someone wants to as they’re building it. They want to have ownership in it as well of
Tucker Max 34:55
course course I mean, like that’s it I don’t, it would be offensive to my soul. If that man did not own at least as much as I did in this company. He’s we weren’t getting to, we might not have gotten to 5 million without him, we definitely weren’t getting to 50. Like, we were gonna be a we were going to be a small like, I don’t mean this disparagingly we were going to be a small lifestyle company, we probably would have gotten to about three to 5 million in sales with a very small team. And we never would have gone above that, because I don’t know how to scale a company. I wasn’t super interested in learning. So that’s what we would have been.
Jeremy Weisz 35:37
What did you observe Tucker with? I’d love to hear how the CEO what, what he implemented and then I would love to hear kind of Zach’s what Zach’s building and what your your role is now. So with the CEO, what did you What did he come in and implement that?
Tucker Max 35:58
Besides everything? Yeah. No, I mean, seriously, dude, like, you know, we were, we were basically running our accounting out of a shoebox, not literally, of course, like we’re on zero and all that. But like, we didn’t have sophisticated financials, like we had a basic p&l, we didn’t have serious controls, you know, now we have a diet, we have financials in the 50 $200 million company, like like the way that they’re set up right now, I mean, 50 to 100 million a year. In top line. We’re our financials are at that level, maybe even above. And then a whole operations back in like, we knew it, you don’t know anything we knew how to do Jeremy, we knew how to do two things. We knew how to write books, there were bad acid, our process, and I knew how to talk about it and get attention. And that’s the only thing we knew how to do. He has along with the people that he hired, we have an awesome executive team. He has created a scalable process for writing books that is still deeply creative, and and respectful and nurturing of the individual going through it. That’s so freakin hard, man that’s like, I’ve lived through it, right? It is almost inconceivably difficult. What we have pulled off as a company and he led No one’s ever done, like no one has ever done. even close. I know, every company that in the book space, right? I’m not saying other creative processes that haven’t been scaled. That’s silly. In the book space, no one’s come even close at all, to both the scale and the quality and the customer service man, like our NPS score now is through the roof. And do I can’t tell you, you want it. You want a disaster of a customer service company? Go get people to pay you a lot of money to write a book. And then how like, because dude, there’s so many expectations with that, and so many emotions, so much emotional involvement and ties is one of the highest hardest parts, which I didn’t understand going in at all. Because I’m just looking at it. Like, it’s easy for me to write a book because I know how to write a book. But like for people who don’t know how to write a book, and this is their first book, this isn’t writing a book, man. This is like having a kid or something. Right? It really is or like getting married or picking out a grave plot or a house. This is a deeply emotional process. Which I did. Of course, it was for me like that, too, when I wrote my first book, but that was 15 years ago, I’ve forgotten right. And so we have this astoundingly high touch high-end customer service company for a deeply emotional process. And it’s amazing, it works. He’s led that whole thing. I probably if we’re dividing up percentages, I’m responsible for about 5% of that. And he and the executive team are responsible for Zach and I are responsible for maybe 10 in the executive team are responsible for the other 90.
Jeremy Weisz 39:08
So CEO role was Zach working on his xo.
Tucker Max 39:13
Yeah, so right now we’ve kind of divided up. Um, so it’s funny, Scribe JeVon, runs, exact team runs. Zach and I are in the meetings anymore. Like the exec meeting. We don’t even waste because we basically are just getting in the way now. Zach has dove deep into programming and AI. And so he’s essentially long term building that skill set. And I think we’re gonna, there’s a lot of things we can do in that space. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Well, we have a lot of spam. And that’s just that is one of the growth spaces in the world. And he’s legitimately a genius. And so he’s picked that up fast and he’s gotten really good and we’ve got multiple ways that we’re going to grow there. I’m not sure what I have stayed in Milan. We’re about to launch. I’ve actually not talked about this anywhere, I’ll break it on your show real, this is genuinely news, right? And not like it’s gonna be front page of Wall Street Journal, but it is actual news, we are launching a traditional public. So our model Scribe is fee for service, right? It is what we call professional publishing, but basically high-end self-publishing, right. So you want to self-publish, you want to own all your rights, you want to control the creative process, but you don’t want to deal with the work you pay us. Right? traditional publishers, you pitch them, they give you an advance, and they own they have creative control, and then they own the back end, and you get a royalty, we’re actually going to launch it personal public, but we’re gonna launch a very, it’s gonna look and feel very different. It’s gonna be a 21st century traditional publisher, but the same, the same basic model, right? We have not launched it yet. And that I can’t tell you that well. We’re actually are not locked in on the name. We’re basically are but like, it could be one of two things I don’t want to say is this. And the site’s not up yet. But we’re launching a traditional publisher with days and April 14. By June 1 is latest, the site will be up maybe may 1.
Jeremy Weisz 41:15
So talk about David Goggins for a second because he was considering traditional, right versus
Tucker Max 41:21
got an offer 300 $300,000 offer from Harper One, I think, he turned them down, because he decided he wanted to create a full creative control owner’s rights and kind of control everything. And we’re the only option for high-end publish. I mean, there’s plenty of little crappy self-publishing companies that do like dingy little work for cheap. If you want to do really high end, professional self-publishing, we’re really the only option that essentially there’s another company called Page Two, that’s pretty solid, they’re good. They’ve done a few books that are actually really good. So there’s two options, but like, we’re the big one, and they’re like a smaller boutique firm that does excellent work as well. And so he picked us and I mean, the rest is history, man. He wrote, like, you know, we help them with, you know, writing and editing can’t hurt me. And then we did all the design and all the publishing. So like, like his cover, which is one of the best book covers I’ve ever seen. Our creative director did. She’s an amazing designer by that she’s like world-class. And then we did the marketing, which I will admit marketing, David Goggins was not hard. It’s basically picking the places we’re gonna go and telling them we’re coming on. So it’s not like, I don’t want to be like, oh, we’re marketing Gee, he was David Goggins. Or, you know, when he was famous, this is now but he was, he’d been on Rogan. He was well known. So it was not hard to hear the hot biggest Impact Theory by far, the top, a top 20 Rogan episode. So it was pretty easy to get get attention for him. I can tell you his numbers, because he just told me I’m allowed to talk about this. He installed right now about 2.5, roughly 2.5 million copies of his book. So in about a year now. Yeah. Amazing. There’s a two and a half years, year and a half.
Jeremy Weisz 43:11
Yeah, it’s a great book. I listened to it. Um, talk about the Founder of Chipotle. And in his story on a second.
Tucker Max 43:19
Yeah, so his name is Monty Moran. He did a book called which is great title. Love is Free. Guac is Extra. He. He’s the founder of tapotement. And so he did a book with us. Super nice guy. He’s a perfect example. I hope he doesn’t mind me talking about this. He is a perfect example of why high-end scaled self-publishing, or high-end scaled, like let’s call it you know, ghostwriting. scribing doesn’t exist, except before us. Because it’s so hard to do, right. Like Monty had so many fears around his book, and so many concerns and worries, I mean, justifiable. He’s not like some weirdo. Every first-time author is afraid. That’s just the way I was. He was less afraid than I was. But like, he had a lot of concerns. And it was a big emotional moment. for him. It is sort of like birthing a baby. Except it’s not another human. It’s yourself. Right. And so, it took a long time. Yeah. For him to really be comfortable with his book and be comfortable with what he was saying and, and, and how it was being presented and stuff like that. And the book ended up fantastic, man, it’s really good. I think he’s really proud of it. Um, yeah, so like, he’s a really good. It’s funny, like, you know, he’s a great example of someone who, like, he was pretty freaked out when I was about to come out. And like, it’s so funny. You talk to him now. He’s like, Oh, yeah, this book’s amazing. You guys were great. I’m so happy with everything. Everything couldn’t have been smoother. And I’m like, hold on a minute, buddy. Which is like, it’s funny when I talk to my Life, you know, like, we have three kids, right? And like, should be like, should be talking to some other woman who’s pregnant with the first kid. She’s like, Oh, it’s amazing. The birth is beautiful. You know, like, you love it. And I’m like, wait a minute, I was there for all three, because we did home birth. So I was there for the whole time. I’m like, I remember things a little differently. She’s like, and she’ll look at me. And she’s like, yeah, you’re right. Like, I have a memory of the pain. It just doesn’t. Like, it’s like, it doesn’t resonate with me anymore books in the same way. You will, I always tell our authors, you’re gonna hate your book, when you’re editing it, you’re going to be afraid of your book right before it comes out. And you will forget all of that six months later, and you’ll have nothing but love for your book.
Jeremy Weisz 45:46
I love it. There’s so much more to cover. But one last question, Tucker. And before I ask it, everyone, go to ScribeMedia.com. And go to ScribeBookSchool.com And check out more. I mean, there’s other stuff on there, your journey has been pretty amazing. And there’s other information on the internet. So I kind of wanted to talk about scribe but going, you know, going from raised in Kentucky two years to Chicago to Duke law school, the best-selling, you know, book, author, millions of millions of copies Scribe Media, I want to just talk about something and I was watching your interview as a good interview with Tom Bilyeu. And one of the things he talked about, which was interesting, which is about kids, and want, like, I think he asked you a question, and you said, you know, this is gonna sound like a trite answer. But I wanted to have you talk a little bit about how kids, your kids have changed you. And what you’ve learned from from having kids.
Tucker Max 47:01
My kids has changed, man. I mean, we could have done a whole episode on this. Yeah. That’s not a small question. That’s like, tell me your thoughts on life. All right, what if I had to give one if I just
Jeremy Weisz 47:19
what comes to mind recently, because I know we were talking about Yeah, and there’s another good episode, we talked about psychedelics and things like that. And I’m how you want to raise your kids. And I thought it was interesting.
Tucker Max 47:33
So here’s what kids are meant to me. Like if I was summoned up to one thing, right? I’d rather talk about this for an hour. But if I if you’re like, not, you got two minutes, what are you going to say? I would say kids, my experience with kids are the kids are a mirror. Right? So whatever it is, you are, however it is you show up, you’re going to see it in them. And then how you respond to that defines both what kind of parent you are and what kind of human you are. Right? And, like the example I can think of that still, man, it just it like so resonates with me or not resonates but it’s so like, it’s seared into my memory. Man, I’ll never forget this. As long as I’ve ever I can give you 50 examples like this, but there was one. When my son, Bishop, he’s 6 7 6 and a half now when he was like, three, um, he like, you know, dropped the glass or something, and it broke. And like, I didn’t think I yelled, like, if you would stop the record right there after I said, You know, I said, Bishop, what are you doing? Be careful, like, and I basically said it like that. And I’m like, of course, I’m not yelling at him. I’m just telling, you know, like, Hey, man, I’ll never forget the look on his face, too. Like, he looked like, it looked like I had stabbed him in the chest. Like, seriously, like, and like, I’ll never forget it, man. Because it was like, it was like one of those moments. It’s not like he was like, that’s one of those moments where if you don’t stop and really sit with what happened and how you feel about it, your life goes in a different direction. I had a choice to make at that moment. was I going to see for you what I thought I did. I can, I can rationalize that all day. He needs to learn this. He’s got to toughen up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t justify my actions in my own head. But the reality and three, he’s not manipulating me. That’s his real reaction. Whatever I think about what I did, doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s deeply wounded. His dad is mad at him, and he doesn’t know how to handle that. And that it like That I had to face that, that I’m angry and that I snapped at my son in a way that wounded him. hurt him. And like, unintentionally, you’re not right. Doesn’t matter irrelevant with real. And so like I had to make a decision. And what thank God, wouldn’t it if I’m telling the story? Because I’m sure there’s times I didn’t handle it right. I’m not telling that story because I didn’t know he didn’t like sound like oh, I just rationalized it, put it on my head. But that time, I was like, oh, buddy, come on, hold on. Come here. He like broke down in tears. And so um, you know, I you know, what? Are you okay? Yeah, like, well, you’re crying but you don’t seem okay. Are you sad? Yeah. What are you sad about? Oh, no, no, no, because he’s three you don’t know. And so I’m like, I’m like, are you sad? Because daddy yell. Yeah. And then we have a rule in our house. It’s okay to make mistakes. You just have to clean it up. Say sorry, and clean it up. Right? And I said, Okay, what daddy shouldn’t yell at you? I’m sorry. Daddy made a mistake. You understand? Like you meant you made a mistake dropping the glass daddy made a mistake yelling. Yeah. Okay, well, what’s the rule? If you make a mistake, you say sorry, included up okay. I’m sorry, buddy. I’m sorry. I yelled at you. And then he went. And I it’s like I felt is whatever is released sadness, right? The release, physically. And I’m Dude, I’m not kidding. Jeremy 20 or 30 seconds later, we were back. He was bouncing around happy, we’re cleaning up the glass that he broke, everything was fine. It was like, dude. And so that was the flag in the ground where I had to, like really understand that how I show up to them is going to be mirrored back on me. And so it forces you to look at yourself and most people don’t want to I didn’t want to that’s been the thing that the most challenging thing about having kids. And the defining thing about having kids and everyone knows there’s amazing moments. There’s terrible moments. Yeah, I don’t need to talk about that. That’s the thing that’s been paramount for me in Parenthood.
Jeremy Weisz 52:12
Tucker, I want to be the first one to thank you. This has been amazing I think in book titles in general I don’t know why but like maybe your next book is just say sorry and clean it up or something you know like a parenting book but I’m not sure. But But thank you go to ScribeMedia.com. Check it out. Tucker, thanks again.
Tucker Max 52:32
Of course man. My pleasure.
