She Helped Sell Over 500 Businesses, And She Knows How To Sell Books, Too
If you’ve worked hard to build your business and even endured some failures before you created something that’s profitable, chances are that selling up is the last thing on your mind.
But according to Michelle Seiler Tucker, it should be the first thing on your to-do list.
OK, so maybe you don’t want to sell next week or next month, but making sure that you can sell your business when you want—and not when you’re desperate—is Michelle’s key message.
Michelle works with businesses and entrepreneurs to buy or sell businesses. A veteran in the mergers and acquisitions industry, Michelle is the author of three books, including Exit Rich: The 6 P Method To Sell Your Business For Huge Profit, releasing June 22 this year.
SELL YOUR BUSINESS ON YOUR TERMS WHEN YOU WANT TO
Michelle told Published Author podcast host Josh Steimle that a business is its owner’s most valuable asset.
“Like Stephen Covey says, start with the end in mind, and plan your exit strategy from day one. Because the biggest issue is that business owners will all of a sudden come to me and say: ‘Oh, I have to sell’. The sudden sale is usually prompted by an unexpected life event, some kind of catastrophe, either internal, such as a divorce or health issue, or external, such as a pandemic.
“At that point, it's the worst time to sell. Their business isn't worth anything,” comments Michelle.
WRITING BOOKS TO EDUCATE AND TO GENERATE LEADS
Michelle wrote Sell Your Business For More Than It's Worth in 2013 to educate and develop leads.
She says: “I really wanted to educate the marketplace because so many business owners don't know what a business broker is, or what an M&A advisor is. Many business owners hired a real estate agent to sell their business, which makes no sense. And a lot of owners attempt it on their own, and they're not successful.”
She wrote her first book to educate business owners that a business is their most valuable possession, their valuable asset, and that they need to hire an expert to sell it for them.
Because a lot of sellers and buyers want to keep a sale and all the accompanying details confidential, Michelle’s own business was confidential, and so she needed some exposure.
Even though she made a few mistakes with her book in terms of hiring the wrong people to help her publish, the book was a huge success. Michelle says: “That book got me in Inc twice. It generated so many leads for me than anything else I was doing. And I self-published.”
BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT IS VALUABLE
Michelle’s latest book, Exit Rich: The 6 P Method To Sell Your Business For Huge Profit, came about because a shocking 80 % of businesses will never sell, and this is because so many business owners don't build a business that somebody actually wants to buy.
Therefore, the first half of Exit Rich is all about building a sustainable, scalable business so the owner has a sellable asset. The second half is selling the business.
THE SIX Ps CREATE A BUSINESS INFRASTRUCTURE
Michelle has developed the six Ps that create value in a business. By nurturing and growing each one, an entrepreneur creates a sound business infrastructure and a business with value.
1. People - You don't build a business, you build people and people build the business
The first P is People. Michelle says that the biggest reason that businesses don't sell is because business owners have created a glorified job where they go to work every day versus a business that works for them.
“Owners have a habit of working in the business, not on the business. So we work with owners to hire for their weaknesses, focus on their strengths, and we help them identify what their strengths are, because so many business owners don’t know what their strengths are,” explains Michelle.
She encourages businesses to hire their weaknesses, put the right people in the right seats and ask the ‘Who’ question. In other words, who opens the door, who handles customer service, marketing, legal accounting, manufacturing, logistics, environmental, the list goes on and on. You need the business to run without you. You don't build a business, you build people and people build the business.
2. Product - Innovation Is The Key To Success
Michelle says that about 70% of businesses eventually go out of business after being in business for 10 years. The number one reason for that is because of lack of aim - business owners stop innovating and stop marketing.
“Innovation is key to success,” she explains. “If you look at Toys R Us, it did nothing different for 75 years. Blockbuster saw Netflix and didn't do anything.”
Why don’t businesses innovate? Michelle says that a lot of business owners are married to their ideas and don’t focus on innovation. They want to keep doing things the way they've always done.
Says Michelle: “You're either growing or dying. You have to ask yourself ‘Is my product, my industry, my service on the way up on the way out?’.”
3. Processes - Design Processes Around Your Customer, Not Your Business
Another reason why businesses don't sell is because all the data is in the owner's head. Michelle recently had a woman call her after her husband died of a heart attack and left his widow with a mountain of debt. He had no people in his business, no employees, only had subcontractors. All the business data was in his head. When he died, the business died.
Explains Michelle: “Most owners get this wrong. You need to design the processes around the customer experience, not around your own agenda. Ask yourself:
What do my clients want? Go and ask them.
What do you need? How can I make it easier for you to do business with us?
What processes make things easier for customers to do business with you?
4. Proprietary - The Number One Value Driver
The fourth P is proprietary—the highest value driver for a business. Businesses that have less than a million dollars in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) typically trade out up to three and a half times EBITDA. There are more buyers for businesses with more than $1 million dollars in EBITDA.
“Proprietary is the number one value driver,” says Michelle. “Proprietary can take you from a six, to eight, or a ten in terms of value.”
5. Patrons - Your Customers
The fifth P is patrons, your customer base. Most businesses in the U.S. follow the 80/20 rule, where 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients. Don’t take risks and have all your revenue tied up with one client.
6. Profit - Lack Of Profits Is Never a Problem
“The reason I put profits last is because lack of profits is never the problem” explains Michelle. “Everybody thinks lack of profits is a problem. I have clients that come to me all the time who have a process problem.
“But if you're operating on all five cylinders, you're going to be profitable.”
Learn more: If you got a lot from this episode, listen to:
Entrepreneur Writes Startup Guide After Hearing Crazy Startup Ideas, Financial Confusion
And:
Entrepreneur Sarah Frey's Growing Season: From Rural Poverty To Billion-Dollar Business
LINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle:
Today my guest is Michelle Seiler Tucker. Michelle works with businesses and individuals to buy or sell businesses, a veteran in the mergers and acquisitions industry. Michelle is the author of three books, including her latest Exit Rich: The 6 Point Method to Sell Your Business for Huge Profit releasing June 22nd this year. And listen through to the end of this episode, because we're going to talk about her prerelease campaign and some of the special offers she has going on around that book, if you get it before June 22nd. Michelle, welcome to the show.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Thanks, Josh. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you again.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, it's great to have you on. Michelle and I met a few months ago at a conference down in Florida. And now we're reconnecting here. And we're excited to see your book come out, Michelle. But before we dive into your book, and your other books, tell us a bit about who you are and what you do and who you do it for.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Sure. So I'm on mergers and acquisitions, mastering intermediaries, senior business analyst and a bunch of other stuff. So I really specialize in buying, selling, fixing, growing companies. I've been doing this a little over 20 years. And before that, I actually differentiate ourselves franchise consulting, franchise development. But let over 20 years, I've personally I've sold 500 companies, my firm altogether, sort of 1000. So we have quite a bit of experience. You know, I learned a long time ago, that what Steve Forbes said is true, 80% of businesses will not sell. That's eight out of 10 companies that will never sell. So we really specialize in not just buying and selling. But we specialize in fixing businesses, really fixing our infrastructure, so that we can build, help them build a sustainable, scalable business. I partner with business owners investing my capital, my resources, my core competencies in which to fix our business, grow their business and put them on a build to sell track. They buy businesses and flip them as well. So our core competencies is buying, selling, fixing and growing businesses. I'm an international speaker and an author of three books with probably about seven more books in me.
Josh Steimle:
Seven more, wow. Well, that's one of the things that I liked about your book Exit Rich, as I was reading, I got to get an advanced copy when we met. And reading through the book, it's not just for people who want to sell businesses, because I like to keep businesses. I want to hold on to my businesses. But there's lots of tips in here that are very, very relevant to just building a successful business.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Right. And, you know, yes, a lot of people say I want to keep my business, but also nothing lasts forever. So we want to make sure that we're building that asset, that sellable asset. So if you do have to sell, you actually have something that's sellable, because so many buyers don't really build a business that somebody actually wants to buy. That's why 80% of businesses never sell. And the first half of Exit Rich is like you said all about building that sustainable, scalable business. So you do have a sellable asset. And then the second half is selling the business.
Josh Steimle:
Now, we want to get into your author journey in a minute here. But tell us a little bit more about the book and some of the advice that you share in Exit Rich. What are some of the key points that would be relevant to our audience, since we're speaking to entrepreneurs here?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So one of the biggest key points is that business owners really don't think about selling their business until a catastrophic event occurs. Rather, that's internal or external, like health issues. Partners just be divorce, death. External is this pandemic. And so when you say I want to keep my business, I always encourage my clients to really follow what I call the GPS exit model. And kind of like Stephen Covey says, start with the end in mind, and plan your exit strategy from day one. Because the biggest issue is that business owners will all of a sudden come to me and say, “Oh, I have to sell.” And at that point--
Josh Steimle:
That’s the worst time to sell, right?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
That's the absolute worst time to sell. And at that point, their business isn't worth anything, Josh. So you really, you know, your business is your most valuable asset. And nothing lasts forever. When I wrote my very first book, called Sell Your Business For More Than It's Worth in 2013, did the research, I learned that 95% of all startups will go out of business within that first one to five years. But then when I wrote Exit Rich and did a research in 2019, I was flabbergasted to learn that the business landscape has actually flip flopped. Now it’s only 30% of startups will go out of business within those one to five years, but out of 27.6 million companies, those businesses have been in business for 10 years or longer. 70% of those companies are going out of business. You know, it used to be, oh my gosh, if you're in business for 10 years, you can be in business forever. Like I said nothing lasts forever. You hear about the big public companies all the time in the media like Toys R Us in business 25 years goes out of business, Kmart, Stein Mart, Pier 1, Godiva Chocolates closing down 1500 locations. GNC is closing down 900 locations. The Disney Store, my daughter's favorite store is closing. But the media doesn't talk about the private businesses in every street corner and every, every state across our great nation. These business owners are exiting poor. They're selling for pennies on $1 closing their business or even worse, filing bankruptcy. So Exit Rich is all about how to avoid becoming a statistic, how to avoid exiting poor, how to avoid closing down your business and filing bankruptcy. So Exit Rich is all about when should you sell, planning that GPS exit model from the beginning, the seller sanity check the mindset. If you've read Exit Rich, you probably saw there was some exercises that we guide our clients through in which to determine when is the best time to sell. And then we also go into the five different buyers, you know, what do those buyers look for? How to build your business to meet their specific criteria? Then we talk about the infrastructure on the six Ps. And then we get into evaluations, you know, packaging your business for sale, attracting the right buyers, negotiations, due diligence, and close.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. Can you go through those six Ps a little bit? I remember you talking about that at the conference we're out in Florida. And I found that fascinating.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yeah, absolutely. So the biggest problem that we find with business owners is they're not really building an infrastructure. You know, they focus on sales. They focus on marketing. They focus on getting clients through the door. And you've had businesses yourself before, you know, where the infrastructure wasn't necessarily there, right. So we really work with our clients to build the infrastructure on what I call the six cylinders, which is the most important components of a business. And the first component is people. And one of the most, I guess, the biggest reason that businesses don't sell is because business owners have created a glorified job where they go to work every day versus a business that works them. Owners have a habit of working in the business, not on the business. So we really work with owners to hire their weaknesses, focus on their strengths, hire their weaknesses, and we help them identify what their strengths are, Josh, because so many business owners are like what are my strengths, I don't even know. So we help them identify their strengths, and then hire the weaknesses, put the right people in the right seats and ask the who question, who opens the door, who handles customer service, marketing, legal, accounting, manufacturing, logistics, environmental. The list goes on and on. The clue, though, is you should never be an accident who, you know, you need the business to run without you. You don't build a business. You build people and people build the business.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. So that's, that's the first P right.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
That's the first P. The second P is product. And we'll go back to what I said about 70% of businesses going out of business, after being in business for 10 years. The number one reason for that is because of lack of aim. Aim, A-I-M. Business owners stop innovating and stop marketing. So innovation is key to success. I mean, if you look at Toys R Us, it did nothing different 75 years. Blockbuster saw Netflix, had the opportunity to buy Netflix, and didn't do anything. So innovation is key to success. And a lot of business owners are married to their ideas or married to their concepts. And they don't really focus on innovation. They want to keep doing things the way they've always done. And josh, you know, as well as I do, you're either growing or dying. There's really no in between. And so that's product. You have to ask yourself, is my product, my industry, my service on the way up or on the way out?
Josh Steimle:
All right. So the second P is product. Third P is what?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Third P is processes. This is another reason why businesses don't sell is because all the data is in the owner’s head. And when all these -- I just had a lady that called me out from Texas. Husband dropped out from a heart attack. Left her with a mountain of debt. And she said, can you sell the business? He had no people in his business. He had no employees. Only had subcontractors. Number one. Number two, zero processes. Because all the data was in his head. So when he died, the business died. So processes is number three, you know. And most owners get this wrong, Josh. You got to design the processes around the customer experience, not around your own agenda. A lot of owners design their processes around their agenda. And so you got to ask yourself, what do my clients want and ask your clients? What do you want? What do you need? How can I make it easier for you to do business with us? Because whoever makes it easiest for the consumer to do business with them is a company that's winning. I mean, Amazon is winning, because you can practically buy anything like deliver within two days. And so you got to really design. I mean, McDonald's did this back in 1950. Did you ever watch the movie The Founder?
Josh Steimle:
Oh yeah.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Based on the McDonald brothers. Great movie, right? Great movie. So McDonald's back in 1950 said, we want to design a fast food restaurant because there wasn't one. And we want to design a fast food system processes around the customer experience. What do we want the customer experience? Come up with three things. They said, we want to experience great tasting food that's hot, 30 seconds or less. And Josh, you've traveled all over the world. You know that you can eat at McDonald's all over the world and still get the same experience, right? Because of those processes.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. You can get a Big Mac anywhere.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yeah, you can get it hot. It tastes great. It's hot. It's not really healthy. But that wasn't the customer experience. So you really need to design your processes around the customer experience. Make sure they're productive, efficient. And most importantly, make sure they’re wallpapered. You know, you got to have those policy and procedure manuals, the SOP checklist, employee handbooks, etc. We're selling a company for $70 million right now. And they don't even have all their policy and procedure manuals together. So we're helping them get those together. So the fourth P is proprietary. Now, proprietary, is a highest value driver. Let me just give you a quick crash course on valuations. Businesses that have less than a million dollars in EBITDA even has earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. They typically trade at one to three, maybe three and a half times EBITDA last year in the SAS business. Businesses that have over a million dollars in EBITDA, there are more buyers for over a million dollars in EBITDA than there are for under, they typically start at five and up five multiple and up. Proprietary is the number one value driver. Proprietary can take you from a six to eight to 10. So there's six pillars to it. I'll just do it really quickly. Number one is branding. The more well branding you are, the more I can sell your business for, as long as your brand is relevant in the mind of the consumer. Nobody's paying any money for blockbuster. The most, you know what the -- who the most valuable brand is? What company?
Josh Steimle:
I think Coca Cola or Apple, but I'm probably wrong.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
You're right with Apple. Coca Cola is in the top 10. Apple, Apple is worth about $359 billion. And that's just for the brand. That's not inventory assets, cash flow, real estate or anything else. So build your brand. Trademarks are huge. And you know this, trademark, your company name, your slogans, your podcasts, everything, but the big mistake that business owners make around trademark is they go, they get an idea. They go to GoDaddy, you know, like yes, I got the dot com. And then they go to our local state and try and get a trademark, but they never ever look at the federal database. So I've had companies be in business 5, 10, 15, 20 years all of a sudden receive a letter, cease and desist that they have to stop using that company name. So you want to make sure--
Josh Steimle:
We're the international database.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Exactly.
Josh Steimle:
Are you familiar with the, there's a street wear brand called Supreme? Have you ever heard of them?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
I have.
Josh Steimle:
They just sold for $2 billion. But they only own the trademark for the US. They lost out internationally because they didn't get in. Some guy in Italy got the trademark globally. So I lived in China. Everybody in China's wearing Supreme clothing. And Supreme, the company doesn't get a dime of that.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
See how important that is? You just proved my point right there. I can't even -- that is so important to protect your IP. We're dealing with a big educational company right now online education. They don't have any federal trademarks in anything. You know, and then we have another company that has 12 different products and each product’s exclusive to retail chain like once in Walmart, ones in Target. They have each one of those products trademarked. So it's not just your company name, your podcast. You want to make sure anything that's exclusive to you unique to you. Patents are also big. I mean, it's why every shark on Shark Tank Cast, you have [00:13:47] Vinny, you know, do you have a patent on that? We sold a company for $18 million. It wasn't making that much money, but they had 18 patents. Contracts are big, manufacturing, vendor, distribution, franchise ORS, interpret exclusive contracts, especially client contracts, with, you know, if you have a client, any contracts that have subscription models for reoccurring revenue, buyers will pay more money for that. But here's a mistake around contracts. Contracts have to have that two sort of transferability clause. I've never seen an owner actually had the clause. 98% of sales or asset sales, not stock sales. So if the buyer refuses to do a stock sale, and you don't want to go to 5,000 clients, I have a client that has 5,000 clients, 5,000 contracts to get consent to transfer, then your deal can fall apart. So you need to be proactive and get that to [inaudible 00:14:39] transferability clause. Databases are really big, especially if they're nurtured, if they've got, you know, several touch points as they give me retargeted, repurpose. Facebook pay $19 billion for WhatsApp. And WhatsApp was hemorrhaging money, but they had a billion users. Celebrity endorsements are huge. We got a client that's got products in front of Oprah. Strategics and competitors will pay a lot more money for that. So what we're talking about are synergies that drive value. And then radio personalities. What's nice about radio personalities and why that's so valuable is because they can only endorse one skincare or one diet company or one educational platform. That's prime real estate that that company owns. Nobody else can get that real estate unless that company falls off, you know. And then ecommerce businesses with a lot of ecommerce, so many positions, top positions on Wayfair, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, these are all proprietary assets. Content, books. Books are huge. We’re selling another educational platform that's got a ton, a ton of books, and so much content.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. Well, you mentioned Stephen R. Covey earlier. I mean, they built a huge business around Covey and his ideas, Franklin Covey. They were doing seven, 800 million at one point. I think they're around three or four now. But still, that's a pretty good business.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So the Garber, Michael Garber with the [inaudible 00:16:02].
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, same thing.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
T. Harv Eker was on the millionaire mindset.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. I'm finding an interesting how many of the things you're talking about with building a successful business also apply to writing a book. I mean, if you're going to write a book, you need proprietary stuff in there. And you need those endorsements. Like a lot of the tips you're giving about building a business also apply to writing and publishing a great book.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Right. Yeah.
Josh Steimle:
All right.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
I agree.
Josh Steimle:
So that's the four Ps. We got two left. What’s the fifth P?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Okay. So patrons, patrons is the fifth one. Patrons is your customer base. Most businesses in America follow the 80/20 rule where 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients. Here's the big issue. A very solid company right now $70 million dollars, they have 70% of the revenue tied up with one client.
Josh Steimle:
It's a little risky.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yeah. So we have a media company, we were selling for about 10 to 15 million. Five clients is all they had, because they catered to casinos. During the process, they lost two of the five. EBITDA dropped in half. Revenues dropped in half. We ended up having to merge them. So you want to make sure you have customer diversification. Also, if you've been in business, you know, 20, 25, 30 years, the customers are aging out. So you got to change up your marketing. You got to innovate, you know, which to appeal to new generations. And then the last P is profits. We’re all in business to make money. The reason I put profits last is because lack of profits is never the problem. Everybody thinks lack of profits is a problem. I have clients that come to me all the time. They have Michelle, I’ve profit problem. I'm like, “No, you have a process problem. No, you have a deeper problem.” So if you're operating on all five cylinders, you're going to be profitable. That's simple, not you want.
Josh Steimle:
Perfect. Great. Thanks for taking us through that. All right. So now let's talk about your journey as an author about what was the first book you wrote? And why did you write that book?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So I mean, other than, you know, small, just story books when I was 15, 16, 17 years old, I wrote Sell Your Business For More Than It's Worth in 2013. And the number one reason I wrote that book is to educate. Two reasons: educate and lead generation. And I really wanted to educate the marketplace because so many business owners don't know what a business broker is. They don't know what M&A advisor is. So many business owners hired a real estate agent to sell their business, which makes no sense. And a lot of owners attempt it on their own, and they're not successful. So I really wrote the book to educate business owners, that this is your most valuable possession, your valuable asset, and you need to hire an expert to sell it for you. And as a legion, you know, what I do is top secret meaning that I don't have people go in and say, oh, yeah, hire Michelle, I sell my business through Michelle, because everything is extremely confidential. Most business owners have to stay on for two to three years. Sometimes longer. So the seller wants to keep it confidential. The buyer wants to keep it confidential. And we can't go out and talk about it, and neither can they. So I'm really the best kept secret. I needed some exposure.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. So how did that book do? Did it accomplish its goal of generating leads for you?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
You know, it absolutely did. I actually self-publish that book. And I went through, you know, some mistakes, hiring the wrong people to help me self-publish, ended up getting it done. And absolutely, that book got me an ink twice. That book was probably, I mean, it generated so many leads for me than anything else I was doing. And I self-publish.
Josh Steimle:
That's fantastic. What was your writing process on that? Did you write it all yourself? Did you have ghostwriters? Did you have editors? What did your team look like?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So I've tried it all. I've tried having -- I've tried having it dictating, you know, where you dictate it. And it never understands my accent. So I'm like, okay, I can't do that. It takes too long to correct it. And I didn't try a ghostwriter on my first book. I did on Exit Rich. A huge mistake. So my process is probably different than most. My process is, I take six weeks, six to eight weeks. And I always do it between Thanksgiving and right after a new year. And I always write during the holidays, I write from my home office. I'm from my office office, because they never leave me alone. I own multiple companies. I always tell everyone, don't call me, don't bother me unless something's on fire or somebody died, unless something tragic happened, don't bother me. And it's a holiday. So I usually have family, my husband's family at the house. And the same thing I tell my, I tell -- and when I started in ‘13, my daughter was just a baby, you know. So I get up very early. I tell him, don't bother me. But I get up at like 4 AM. And I start writing from 430 to about five, 530 at night. I take a few breaks in between. But I write all day. I type every word in the book. Every word is typed by me. And I start with a table of contents. I do start with a table of contents. And sometimes that gets moved around, shuffled around. The one thing that I make sure, Josh, is that it's not perfect. I write. I get all the content out on paper. Because if you make -- if you want to make sure it's perfect, you're never going to finish. And then so once I get all the content out of my head, because everything's in my head. This is things I've been doing for the last 20 years. Then I go back and check it and edit it, and maybe you know, tweak it, add some more content etc. Maybe sometimes move things around. And then I send it to an editor when I'm done.
Josh Steimle:
Perfect. This is really helpful, because everybody has a different writing process, a different way of getting it done and your method’s different. But that's great. Somebody listening to this will hear this and say, “You know what, maybe that would work for me.”
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yeah. I have friends who have been trying to write books for two, three, four or five years, and they've never finished a book. And I'm sure you have heard that story too. I don't like things to go on for very long. I want things done sort of like start it, finish it. Start it, finish it. It drives me crazy to have something out there that I’m still like, oh my God, I've been doing this two years, and I still not done. I just got to set that calendar for six weeks. I'm very determined. I, you know, make sure nobody interrupts me. And I get it done within six weeks. And I can set aside six weeks, you know, every other year, every two or three years. But I can't work on something for two or three years.
Josh Steimle:
So your first book, Sell Your Business For More Than It's Worth. Then tell us about the next book and what the inspiration was for that?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So the next book, okay, so then I wrote a chapter on Think & Grow Rich. And I think, you know, there's lots of different companies where you can contribute a chapter, and sometimes helps, you know, write it. Sometimes that helps business owners, entrepreneurs get the word out, educate on what they do, because some just, for whatever reason, don't have the time to write an entire book. I did write a book that hasn't been published yet. And it's about acquisitions, all about growing your business through acquisitions. And the reason I haven’t published that one yet, is because that's more on the buy side. And we have so many buyers, thousands and thousands of buyers. And so that's when I decided to come out with Exit Rich, and then after this book, then we'll publish the other book that's already written.
Josh Steimle:
Got you. So take us through the journey with Exit Rich. On this one, you did not self publish. You're going with a publisher, correct?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
I am going with a publisher, because it's very difficult to make the list. Yes, you can make Amazon bestseller. And I didn't make an Amazon bestseller, Sell Your Business For More Than It's Worth in several different categories. But if you want to make US Today, you know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, you have to have a publisher. So I did go with a publisher. But I wanted to make sure there were different deals that I could have got with Simon & Schuster and the, you know, big publishing houses. I wanted to own the content. It's very important for me to own the content. If I'm speaking on stage, I don't want to have to worry about oh, you can only like talk about that, you know, 10% of your content because you don't own the content. I don't want to have to worry about that. All the content is my 20 years of experience. So I went with a publisher, and I own the content. And I'm working with other people, you know, that helped me market it out working with publicists, working with different individuals to help make lists and things of that nature.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. So you're working with a publisher that doesn't take -- they're letting you keep the rights to the book though.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Right. Now that was important to me. And I decided to get a co-author, which is Sharon Lechter’s my co-author who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad with Robert Kiyosaki. And the reason I got a co-author because I was never going to do that is she's been a New York Times five times -- New York Times bestselling author five times. And that's important to me. So you got to look at what's important to you when you're writing a book. Also, most importantly is what is your objective? What is your endgame? What are you trying to accomplish? And I can make any, really any money off the book, you know, selling books. So you got to have an end game. You got to have a way to ROI to get a return on your investment.
Josh Steimle:
So what are some of the other things that you're doing to launch this book right, and get it onto these lists and get maximum exposure?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
So selling a lot of books. I've probably been on about 250 podcasts. I have a TV show airing right now that I've been on as we speak. I've been on radio. I've been on TV. I've been featured in Forbes, featured in Inc., featured in Inc., again, featured in Entrepreneur. I mean, everything you can think of we've been doing. It was difficult, though, because when we came out with Exit Rich, it was right there in a pandemic. We're supposed to all actually launch in 2020. And we had all these speaking gigs and everything lined up. And then everything stopped. And event coordinators didn't start with Zoom right away. You know, that was took many months later. So we're working with different organizations, like I'm speaking at YPO and different events like that. We've done a lot of Zooms, like I got Harvard Business coming up. On Thursday, we're doing Fishbowl. We're doing Clubhouse. We're doing, you know, big things speaking in front of Grant Cardone on stage, and things of that nature.
Josh Steimle:
That's a lot of work going on there. Are you working with a PR agency to help you with this or you have your own team or how's that working?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, that's a good question. Because I do have a publicist in New York, a very expensive publicist. And they did get us on some things. But my team, my own team outperformed them dramatically. They, publicist scheduled about 30 podcasts. My team scheduled about 230 podcasts.
Josh Steimle:
Wow.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Completely outperformed them. So I always say, don't rely on the publicist, you know, and you got to be very careful with marketing companies. And we hired a marketing company that came highly recommended. And then that just did nothing. I was paying a lot of money. No book sales whatsoever. So I had to switch gears, you know, I had to pivot in the middle of all that. So you try things. You got to see very quickly, what works, what's not going to work, and you got to pivot. You can't stick with, you can't stick with something, you know, especially, if that's not working.
Josh Steimle:
Got it. Now, the book as we're recording this, we’re recording this June 8, 2021, your book’s coming out June 22nd. Tell us about some of the offers you have for people who buy the book before the release date?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Sure. And I think there's another thing that's really important when you're selling your book is you want to have, you know, some really good offer, some good value. And I think we came up with the best. So Exit -- anyone can go. So June 22nd is the launch date. You can go to ExitRichbook.com for $24.79, which is less than Amazon. And it includes shipping for anyone that lives in the United States. We’ll email the digital download immediately. And then we'll send a hardcover to your doorstep upon launch date. And then we'll give a lifetime membership to Exit Rich book club, where we have video content, me doing deep dives and these different techniques and strategies I've been teaching for the last 20 years, plus documents, Josh, documents to operate your business, documents to sell your business. So sample employee handbooks, non-competes, org charts, policy and procedure manuals, sample letter of intents, purchase agreements. A lot of business owners don't even know what a letter of intent is and what it looks like. So letter of intents, purchase agreements, due diligence checklist, and closing docs, all the documents that you need to operate and sell your business. They will cost you probably over $50,000 if you went to an attorney to recreate, and I guarantee you cost me more than that to create all these documents are available for your review and your download. And then we're giving a 30-day free membership into Club CEOs, which is an entrepreneurship mastermind that I started, where we really help business owners pivot, you know, figure out what they need to do to build a business to run on all six Ps. They can build that sustainable, scalable and when they're ready sellable business, all for $24.79 at ExtraRichbook.com which is a pretty compelling offer, right?
Josh Steimle:
Should be. Definitely should be. I can tell you just getting those documents alone is worth well, like you said, it's worth about 50 grand. I've paid a lot of money for my documents and I don't even have all those documents.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yeah. So $24.79 is a great value and you can use these documents. You just have to remove Seiler Tucker and a lady email them to me the other day. she goes can I use this? And I go yes, but you have to remove my company name or company address, my company phone number. She goes, oh, that’s, oh, I didn't think about that. So yeah, she can use these documents.
Josh Steimle:
Well, this has been such a great conversation, Michelle. Is there anywhere else that people can connect with you or is the ExitRichbook.com was -- did I get that right?
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Yes, you did.
Josh Steimle:
That's the best place.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Well, ExitRichbook.com is, you know, a great place because all the testimonials are there. I mean, like I said, Steve Forbes endorsed Exit Rich and lectures my co-author. Kevin Harrington original shark on Shark Tank, wrote the foreword. We’ve testimonials from Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield, Les Brown, Brad Sugars with action coach. And it's really important when you're writing a book to get those testimonials, to get those endorsements. Also, my main website is SeilerTucker.com. And then, of course, everyone can follow me on social media. Michelle Seiler Tucker, Facebook, Instagram. Can I put me on LinkedIn?
Josh Steimle:
Awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much for being with us here today, Michelle.
Michelle Seiler Tucker:
Thank you, Josh. Thanks for having me.
