Making Millions from Your Book with Cameron Herold

Cameron Herold is the Founder of the COO Alliance & Second In Command Podcast as well as the author of five books and an international public speaker. By the age of 35, he’d help build his first TWO $100 MILLION DOLLAR companies and by 42, he engineered 1-800-GOT-JUNK?’s spectacular growth from $2 million to $106 million in revenue.

So you get it. The guy's a machine. And he's a machine well worth talking to about what a book (let alone five) can do for a career, seeing as his have added millions of dollars to his bottom line. He also knows how to engineer a fantastic book launch, since he's an expert on generating PR (exhibit A: his 2019 book, Free PR). Exhibit B: his tactics have landed him everywhere from The New York Times to Oprah.

In this episode, we talked about how to get the media to care about you (hint: it involves picking up the phone), why to put an 800 number on your book cover and how paying for 1000 copies of your own book to give away may be the smartest business decision you can make.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Anna David:                  00:00                Well, Cameron pleasure to see you and to have you here.

Cameron:                     00:05                Hey Anna, good to see you again.

Anna David:                  00:06                I will possibly get a very interesting version of you since you've been in self quarantine for two weeks.

Cameron:                     00:13                You may get a very different version of it. Yeah. I'm a little stir-crazy right now.

Anna David:                  00:16                Okay. I'm excited to take advantage of and exploit that. Kidding. So, the very first time we ever talked about books was when I interviewed you for Entrepreneur Magazine and you told me something that I had never heard before, and I've now I've heard since, but it really stuck with me, which was, you said I never cared really about writing a book. I just knew, my speaking fees were $15,000 and I wanted to double them. And I knew by writing a book that would happen. And since then, I don't even want to know what you're speaking. I do want to know what your speaking fees are, but talk to me about that decision.

Cameron:                     00:51                Yeah. And actually, at the time that I wrote Double, Double, I think my speaking, these were only 7,500. Now, 30,000 plus business class travel in the US 40,000 international, plus first-class travel. And they're now 5,000 just for zoom webinars. So yeah, the book sales have definitely helped.

Anna David:                  01:09                And so Double, Double you wrote that on your own?

Cameron:                     01:13                Yes, yes and no. So, I, this was before, you know, Siri or anything else, but there was a software platform called Dragon Dictation. I walked around my house and so I see everything backwards. So, I'm like when the book's done, it should all be these chapters and each chapter should have this content. So, I just made little kind of lists of stuff I would want in every chapter. And I walked around my house talking and it transcribed it all for me. I sent that off to an editor and she pulled it all together and sent it back. I added notes and sound bites, and then I sent it off to some entrepreneurs and they provided feedback and I got kind of content creation around the chapter. And then it went through, you know, seven rounds of editing, etcetera. So, I didn't write it completely, but it's a thousand percent, all my content with the helps of an editor, but not a ghost writer.

Anna David:                  02:06                And so I think you’re thinking about it backwards is probably the key to your success, because in a way you're thinking about your audience and marketing before you're even thinking about writing.

Cameron:                     02:17                Yeah, for me, it's all about how do I give this content to the reader in a way that they can actually work with it and use it? Because I was that dumb kid in school, and I didn't want to have to dig through the information to find it. I just needed it right in front of me.

Anna David:                  02:33                I've read that, that you said you were the dumb kid in school and that just astounds me, but I believe you.

Cameron:                     02:41                I can show you my University transcript and it would blow your mind. It is it's filled with D plus, C minus, withdrawn. B, like, yeah, I think I got one A in all of University.

Anna David:                  02:54                And how did that transition happen from dumb student to business leader?

Cameron:                     03:01                The A transition because I fooled around with my law TA and she gave me a copy of the exams. That's why I got the A, otherwise it was destined to be a D minus I'm. No, it just happens. Charlotte Robinson and how did, what happened? Sorry, I got distracted.

Anna David:                  03:17                Did this transition happen? Obviously? You know, you're who you are.

Cameron:                     03:22                Pretty simple. I've always been like, in high school I struggled, in University I struggled, but I've always seen the cheat sheets. I've seen the shortcuts and I've seen that. I almost feel like entrepreneurs are like flies trying to work harder. And they're like flies trying to bang their head against the window. That if they work harder, they'll get out the window, but they won't, they just end up dead on the window sill and I've always looked for the door that's open near the window and I just go out the door. And so, for me it was less of a, it's not like I became smart. I just found the best information and was able to synthesize it in a way that it's simple to use.

Anna David:                  04:00                And that's probably the key to your success as an author too.

Cameron:                     04:04                Well, yeah, and a lot. And I've said this for forever, that my, I don't know if I've ever really had unique ideas. I've had a few, but the vast majority of things that I teach companies to do have been done forever, I've just overly simplified it so they can do it. And I've gotten away from the theory and giving them more like, because I've built so many franchise companies, whenever I give the content, I tend to give the system on using it. Yeah.

Anna David:                  04:31                And I can't see a got junk truck without thinking of you, by the way.

Cameron:                     04:35                I was in, where was I recently? It was in a small town. I was in Lake Tahoe and I saw a Got Junk truck. I'm like, that's so weird that I would see one in Lake Tahoe, but yeah, they're everywhere.

Anna David:                  04:45                So, you went into the source book with a clear intention. Well, how did you launch your first book and how did you implement your intention?

Cameron:                     04:57                So my first book started about three years after Facebook and about two years after Twitter had started. And I was a pretty early adopter on both of those platforms. So social media for one sharing content was one. I took all of my content from Double Double and had each chapter sliced into 10 separate blog posts with headings and captions that was done 10 years ago. So, there was 300 blog posts ready to roll that I pushed out over the course of a few years. My speaking events, you know, certainly talking about the book at speaking events, getting the audience to hold up, photos of them, holding the book, sharing that on social platforms. Really pushing for reviews, asking for reviews, and getting that was a big one. But then my big lesson came to me at a speaking event. And this illustrates that me not being that smart. I used to take 10 copies of my book with me to an event, first 10 people to come to stage with 20 bucks, they get a book, I'll be like, Hey, I made 200 bucks and I'd put it in my pocket and I'd blow it on wine or go for a massage or spend it on food. And it didn't add up. It was 200 bucks. It was like a rounding error. It didn't really matter, but I was the little hustler.

                                    06:09                I was like, Hey, I just made 200 bucks. And then I was at this event and I saw this guy and he gave out; he was the former VP of marketing for Kodak. And he handed out a copy of his book to everyone in the audience. And so, there's like 200 people in the audience. I'm like, God, that must have cost you a lot of money. He goes, not really like the cost of the books and shipping, maybe $4 a book. So, it cost me 800 bucks and everybody in the audience gets it. I said, well, did the group pay for you to have that book out there? And he said, no. And I realized that me making $200 was way less advantageous than him having spent 800. Because if everyone in the audience gets the book, I get more speaking events, I get more coaching, I get more [inaudible], etcetera. Right? So that began, that was around eight years ago, every single speaking event that I've ever done, everyone in the audience gets a book, but I took his system and my system and merged them. So now what I do is when I land a speaking event, two weeks later, I send the event organizer a note and I say, ah, crap, I totally forgot to ask you about books.

Cameron:                     07:16                How many people will be in the audience? I can send books for everybody for $10, including shipping. And they usually come back and go, that'd be great. There's 300 people. I go, cool. Here's another $3,000 invoice. And they're good with that. About half the groups come back and they go, no, we can't afford $10 per book. And I go, you know, I totally get it. How about $5 including shipping? I don't even make much money off that. If at all, I think I make like a buck, a book. And about half the group says, yes. So I get paid and I make a little bit. Of the 25% that still don't have any money. I go to them. And I say, my treat, I'm giving everybody a book. It has to happen. I'll sign them afterwards. And so what ends up happening is I end up making money on a bunch of the events, but still every single time I've ever spoken now for the last seven or eight years, everyone gets one of my books. That's been the biggest.

Anna David:                  08:04                And every single time you get speaking offers, and hired to, you know, at this crazy price to come in and consult with the companies I imagine.

Cameron:                     08:15                Yeah. And I don't think my speaking price is that crazy compared to, you know, Simon's getting between a hundred and 200,000 now you know, Jim Collins is getting still the hundred, [inaudible] getting the a hundred, so I'm not priced at that star level yet, but 30,000 is certainly really good. And then my zoom webinars, you know, for five grand for that is really, really good. My key though, is how do I really deliver great value? And how do I have other offers to be able? Cause I think every speaker dies broke, right? If you're just a speaker, at some point you become irrelevant. There's someone new or there's someone better looking or someone with fresher content, your message is tired. The speaker has to have other things to offer. So, you know, I've got my five books, I've got my coaching of COO's and CEO's, I've got my COO Alliance, I've got my referral program. So I have multiple revenue streams that that audience can sell it to.

Anna David:                  09:10                And by the way, you're giving hardcovers not paperback.

Cameron:                     09:14                Yeah. The cost difference is like 50 cents per and it just feels better. I've never gotten a paperback, it always feels cheap to me and the cost difference to have a really nice dust jacket and a hard hardcover is like insignificant.

Anna David:                  09:28                And you were the first person I saw that I, when I got a free book that you have a bookmark in there. So what's the strategy with that?

Cameron:                     09:35                That's again, just the hustler. Like how do I upsell? And one of my new books now has from Joe Polish's idea of the 800 number on the front cover, we can get to that. But so yeah, every book has a bookmark that says, you know, if you're reading Double, Double, these are the chapters you should read. If you want other books, you should go to these ones. You know, here's my other offers. It kind of has the other, it cross sells everything else.

Anna David:                  09:59                And I always thought when Joe talks about the 800 number, that that was really dated, is it not dated?

Cameron:                     10:05                No, because the reality is it's still, no one is doing it. So it's new, right? It's a dated idea. That's almost come full circle again, just because no one's marketing a number. Nobody's seeing a number and no one's ever really seen it on the front cover of a book. You know, we've seen 800 numbers on vans and other places, but now on the cover of Meetings suck, it says, call this number for a free recorded message from the author. People call it. And it says, by the way, you're an idiot if you don't buy a copy of this book for every single one of your employees, because it's written for them, not just for you. And it explains how investing $15 in a book for them will save them $10,000 a year per person. So I've literally created the upsell right there.

Anna David:                  10:49                And, but that would really only work for a book that will serve a company because not that many places need bulk orders.

Cameron:                     10:58                Correct.

Anna David:                  10:59                And okay. So, the first book, so, you know, your marketing efforts were before people were posting, you are probably one of the first people posting blog posts made out of the book, posting on social. I mean, right now it's just the cacophony is deafening.

Cameron:                     11:16                Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of information out there right now. I think audio books are probably more being digested more than the print versions now. In fact, I just sent myself a note a week ago to up the prices of all my audio books. I used to keep them cheaper. And now I'm seeing that they're accounting for about 50, 60% of revenue. So I may as well price them at pretty close to the same price as the hardcover. So I'm going to price them at 75% of the hard cover price.

Anna David:                  11:47                And do you sell exclusively on audible or all audio platforms?

Cameron:                     11:51                I didn't run BookBaby as well, pretty much just Audible at this point.

Anna David:                  11:54                And they allow you to switch the price? I didn't even know that.

Cameron:                     11:59                Yeah, you can, you can control the price.

Anna David:                  12:01                One amazing thing in terms of revenue from Audible is that they give you a bounty URL. And I think you get $75 something insane for each person. You commit, you convert into an Audible customer, but most people are already Audible customers, right? So that's why it's so valuable. So what I have seen two of your talks that are from books, I've seen the free PR talks, and I've seen the vivid vision. Let's talk about transitioning a book into a speaking gig.

Cameron:                     12:34                So all of my speaking events are actually from my book content. There's nothing that I've ever spoken on that's not in my books. So that's not true. I've started doing a little bit of speaking on the CEO, COO relationship that I'm working on the content for that book as well. So it's, I'm kind of playing with the content and, and dancing around the book content, but you know, my highs and lows of CEOs talk is chapter 12 from Double Double. My How to Grow When it's Slow, the one that I'm doing right now for all these YPO chapters and EO chapters all over the world, income speaking to YPO Saudi Arabia tomorrow, over zoom. So that's all based on chapter 11 from my book, Double Double. If I do my you know, my leadership at a hundred miles an hour, my growth and culture, those are all of that content for the most part or at least the base level content was all in Double Double. A lot of it's been refreshed over the years from my experience of having worked with so many companies. And then free PR was the very first chapter I ever wrote of Double Double and now its own book.

Anna David:                  13:43                So the book comes first, except in the case of the one you're doing now?

Cameron:                     13:50                Double Double, I was already speaking about a lot of the content. So then it became the book and the content. It became kind of circular. Free PR, yeah, it was already part of it. And as I wrote the book, it, it built the speaking event even stronger. But people want to hear it in my voice and they want to hear the anecdotal stories. And, you know, it takes six hours to read a book or eight hours to read a book when they're hearing it from you in an hour, they're getting, you know, the real synthesized, higher energy, less hyperbole, I guess. And there's always something about like, you know, hearing it from that person and then reading the book and then practicing it, kind of starts covering more of the learning cycle as well.

Anna David:                  14:37                And let's talk about free PR for authors. What is the best way for an author to get free PR when they're launching a book?

Cameron:                     14:44                So it's really thinking about who the audience of your book is. And then where does that, and what's your book kind of content about? And then where does that audience get their content? So if it's a business book you want to go towards business media, if it's a non fiction book, you'll want to go towards, you know, people that cover that genre, where your audience hangs out. But I guess it really just depends on who you're, you know, there's millions and millions of books. It's hard. But if I was to say, if I was a business, you want me to use a business author as an example. So if I was a business author of let's add the book Meetings Suck, I would go on Twitter and look up hashtags of you know, public relations. And see who's talking about meetings. I would look up hashtags of meetings since who has talked about it. I would do Google news searches for meetings and meetings suck and see which writers have written about it. And then I would do direct outreach to them saying, Hey, do you have two minutes?

                                    15:42                I think I have a good story for you. I would look at how my systems have helped my customers in certain cities. Like I've got a guy Alex from info trust in Cleveland who ranks as the number one, sorry in Cincinnati, number one company to work for in Cincinnati, he loves the content for meeting sucks. So I would contact all the Cincinnati business media about how my content helped this local company. And I'd spin it up because they are already kind of the hero in that city. And then I would go after acceleration partners and Bob Glacier and leverage the fact that he's getting all of his press, but I used to coach him with his meetings. And then I'd go after Ryan Holmes for Hoot Sweet because I led their strategic planning meeting. So you kind of go after your customer's successes in the market that they're in, and then that leads to more media. And then you can point new media to the old media and say, Hey, I've been covered. Why don't we do more? You kind of ladder up the media.

Anna David:                  16:35                And local news is worth it, in that case?

Cameron:                     16:38                Yeah. Well, any news is worth it because it's never about getting the story. So as an example, when I get your, you know, this podcast interview that we're doing, it's great, your audience will hear it, but I'm going to post it five times on Facebook over the next 12 months. It'll go five times on LinkedIn over the next 12 months, it'll get shared five times on Twitter. It'll get linked to my press page of my Cameron Herald website. If we talk a lot about the COO Alliance, it'll end up on the COO Alliance website. It'll get shared with my email list and then I'll push it out to my team and they'll share it on their social platforms as well. So that's kind of, you kind of put the log on the fire and light the log on fire, but then I'll find a couple of certain platforms and I'll boost it or I'll drive ad traffic towards it to kind of make it fuel. Do that after every single story you get, it doesn't matter if you're in the Boston Globe or Forbes Magazine or on Oprah. It's what you do with the story. It's not about the story.

Anna David:                  17:38                And it's wonderful for the people who are interviewing you and they probably notice and then want to cover the next book.

Cameron:                     17:45                Yeah, exactly. Right.

Anna David:                  17:46                That is fantastic. So, and is it like finding, plugging your content into news, basically doing a journalist job for them? I feel I've heard you talk about that.

Cameron:                     17:59                Yeah, because at the end of the day, journalists don't really have time to wake up in the morning and find new content. They don't have time to go out and do investigative journalism. You know, imagine if I said to you, Hey Anna, can you write a story and have it done by four o'clock today? You'd be like, ah, yeah. Then you'd be like, God, what am I I'd be like, Oh, write a story about a guitar. You'd be like, okay, I can write a story about a guitar or write a story about a pair of Tivas or Birkenstocks. Yeah. I could write a story. So when you have an angle, you can write a story. So the journalists need new stories. What you're doing by picking up the phone and calling them and saying, Hey, do you have two minutes? I think I have a good story for you. They're probably going to say yes to that. And then you're off to the races.

Anna David:                  18:42                And calling even in this day and age where no one uses the phone is a good idea?

Cameron:                     18:46                That's why you phone them. Cause nobody uses the phone. So let's say as an example, if your phone rings and you don't answer it, how many phone calls a day do you get right now, four?

Anna David:                  18:57                Yeah. Are we counting spam calls?

Cameron:                     19:00                No, just normal phone calls.

Anna David:                  19:02                Okay. I need to tell you, I hate the phone. Hate it, hate it, hate it. So if somebody called me and I used to be a journalist, I'd be annoyed.

Cameron:                     19:09                Okay. But if they left you a message and said, Hey, I know you don't know me yet, but I think I have a great story for you. Give me a shout back. You have to call cause you're a fucking journalist and it drives you crazy and you need to pick up the phone to figure it out.

Anna David:                  19:22                Okay. And how are you getting their phone numbers?

Cameron:                     19:25                Google, Muck Rack Cision or Media Atlas, places that you can scribe for it. But the reality is if you get 200 emails a day, I have a one in 200 chance of getting your attention. If you can get four voicemails, even though they're transcribed and you don't even have to listen to it. And I don't tell you what the story is, I have a 25% chance that you're going to call me back.

Anna David:                  19:45                Wow. What are the biggest outlets you've gotten coverage in using that method?

Cameron:                     19:50                All of them I've been in everything except David Letterman. So I personally, I could show you right now. I've been in the physical print edition of Forbes Magazine, the printed edition of Fortune Magazine, the print edition of inc, the print edition of Success, the print edition of Entrepreneur, the print edition of American Airlines Magazine, the print edition of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco, Chronicle and USA Today, as well as the online stuff that they repurposed later. You know, with 1-800-GOT-JUNK. That's me personally with 1-800-GOT-JUNK. We've been on Oprah. We were on Dr. Phil 17 times, you know, name it. The only thing we never got with 1-800-GOT-JUNK was Letterman.

Anna David:                  20:33                But they are coming to you a lot of them and that never, you got that all.

Cameron:                     20:38                All, yeah. We landed 5,200 stories about our company in six years, I led the team as one of my six reporting areas. We had no PR experience. We never used a PR firm. We didn't send out newsletters. We picked up the phone and called the journalist and said, Hey, we think we have a good story for you. And we got stories about our customers in Chicago. And then after we hit Chicago for a week, we'd go to Dallas. Then we'd do San Francisco. Then we'd do. And we just do the same shit different week. And after 50 weeks, we'd go back and start city number one again.

Anna David:                  21:07                And so have you never hired a publicist ever?

Cameron:                     21:10                Well, back in the day I had Savad Coffee Savad who was a 35,000 a month on retainer. I had a guy named Ray Drawsnin out of San Diego from a 5,000 a month, 20 years ago. But after you learn the game, you realize that you're way, way better off to do it in house than you are to pay a PR firm. If you hire a PR firm, you've got one of their people for about a day and a half a week, but for 5,000 a month, you've got an amazing PR person five days a week. Like it's irresponsible not to do it in house.

Anna David:                  21:39                And you know, I would say that your book, vivid vision, really, it started a movement. Now there are companies that sell here's how you do a vivid vision. How do you write a book that starts a movement?

Cameron:                     21:56                I think I wanted to give away an idea that was going to help people and it just with no ask. It's just the problem is that so many people are really trying hard to build a company and none of their employees have any idea of what they're trying to build. And I get frustrated watching them and I just wanted to give them the system that's been missing for them for so long that I was handed back in 1998 by an Olympic coach. Like here's how visualization works, use it. So I, my Beehag my big, hairy audacious goal is to replace vision statements with vivid visions worldwide. I don't care who does it, as long as it gets done.

Anna David:                  22:38                Should an author do a vivid vision for their book?

Cameron:                     22:41                Yes. And a person could do it for their life and the CEO should do it for their company and a couple should do it for their family.

Anna David:                  22:49                How should an author do a vivid vision? Should they you know, project, you know, it's five years from now and this is what this book has done for me?

Cameron:                     22:57                Well, it's always three years out. You're going to leave because go five years, it's too far out there. And if you only go one year, it's not far enough that it's too similar to what you're [inaudible] today. So lean out three years into the future. Describe who's reading your book, describe what the testimonials and reviews are like. Describe what the media is writing about. You describe how it's helped you in your speaking. Describe how it's helped you position your brand. Just think about all of the different parts of the book and how it's working. And then once you've got that draft written, you figure out how to make every sentence come through. And that's the plan that goes into executing the vivid vision, right?

Anna David:                  23:34                And how long should someone, you know, a launch, which, you know, might be whatever you call it a month. It's pretty exhausting. I just went through it. How long should somebody be sort of hustling their book?

Cameron:                     23:46                I guess it depends strategically on what it is you're doing. Right. I never did a pure book launch because I was looking at writing a really great book that would continue to sell. And I didn't really care about the game of being a best seller, even though I got, you know, the Amazon bestsellers are easy to get. You just do a normal push and it ranks number one on that day. Wow. You're an Amazon best seller, yeah for a fucking hour. But like, what's one of the things that drives me crazy as people go, I'm an Amazon number one bestseller, and you look down, they're like Amazon rank number 214,000. Like, so, and then I didn't want to play the game where you have to pay to buy the Wall Street Journal or New York Times several ones of the bought ones. Didn't really matter to me. The ROI for me, wasn't going to be there of all the effort and time and expenditure. I didn't see the shift on or lift on sales. So for me, it was more push the book out, get people talking about it, get good reviews, listen to my readers so that if there were problems, I can do it on the next draft, and make sure that it goes out to super tight with no spelling, no punctuation, no grammar, no font issues. Like really make sure it's tight.

Anna David:                  24:58                And then, but, you know, the free PR are you doing that for months afterwards? How long should that effort be?

Cameron:                     25:06                I don't know. I think I'm different from most authors, right? I, again, I'm not a book publisher or a book promoter so much as I'm a guy who's written five books, right? I'm not an expert on how to get it out there. I mean, it keeps selling. I just wrote a really good book. Like if you want your book to sell, worry less about the promotion and worry more about, about, you know, what are your what's your clients really need to read? And then also realizing that you're probably going to make more money off of your speaking and your coaching and the additional than you. I happen to make a lot of really good money off all my books, but like the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs just sends money in every month. But I just talk about it when I do interviews, I don't really have a big effort. It's not my core. Right. I guess if I only had one book and that was just me and I didn't have a CEO Alliance, I'd probably go deeper into pushing it, but I have lots of products.

Anna David:                  26:04                And what would you say, could you estimate the amount of money you've made as a result of being an author?

Cameron:                     26:12                With or without speaking fees?

Anna David:                  26:14                No. With the speaking fees.

Cameron:                     26:16                Oh God millions. Yeah. In the millions because certainly over a million. Wow. Because of the coaching, because like my coaching clients pay me $2,700 an hour. My speaking is 30, in the millions for sure. It's built my entire brand. Right. People contact me all the time and say, Oh, your book has changed me. Or this book really helped me or this book, that's just starting to fuel. I'm just starting to realize now the impact that I think a lot of my books have had, like in the last year.

Anna David:                  26:51                Well, I've read quotes from you where you say, you know, somebody will come up to you and say, you know, we were able to build to a 300 person company and add, you know, million to our bottom line as a result. So your book is not only helping them, it's actually translating into money for them.

Cameron:                     27:07                Yeah. Well, I think again, it's because I wrote the content of my books, almost like a manual for like a how to, and when you franchise you have to simplify it. It has to be a very easy to understand manual, not a complicated one. So I really try to synthesize and simplify everything so that, you know, any company can use this stuff.

Anna David:                  27:29                And what would you say is the most satisfying part of being an author?

Cameron:                     27:35                I've had a number of notes from people who have said that I've saved their life because of one of my chapters, the Highs and Lows of CEOs, where I talk about most entrepreneurs are clinically bipolar. And how bipolar disorder has been nicknamed the CEO disease and teaching people how to ride that roller coaster. You know, Tim Ferris publishing that on his blog 10 years ago. I think that's been a very satisfying one. You know, it's great getting the inspirational ones that people about vivid vision and free PR and stuff, but I've had a number of people say that I've saved their life. I had one guy who was six, five, $5 million business, but a million dollar EBITDA, happily married, good kids. And he came up to me and started once said, can I hug you? And I said, yes. And started hugging. And then he started shaking as he was hugging me. And I looked up and he had tears streaming down his face and he said, I've been suicidal for six months. And now I realize I'm just an entrepreneur. That's that was the moment for sure. One of, I've had that a few times.

Anna David:                  28:35                Yeah. I just remembered, I heard that I've heard. So I've heard three talks based on your books and you're such a good speaker and this is we're going to end in a moment, but I do want to say one thing on a personal note. You, when I first met you intimidated me so much because nothing you were doing, but just who you were, the respect people had for you, the way you always spoke your mind, which I don't see that often, there doesn't seem to be any people pleaser in you. And I was so moved when, you know, we had that group dinner in LA probably eight or nine months ago. And you said to me, I'm just the kid who can't believe he got a seat at the table. And it was just the cutest thing ever.

Cameron:                     29:18                I've, every day I feel that I'm like, Oh my gosh, I get to do a little podcast with Anna right now. This is awesome. Like, I hear so much about you over the years. And I feel that whenever I go out on stage, I've got, whenever I do calls with my coaching clients, I always feel like I'm, gosh, I hope I can pull it off this call. Like, it's weird. I don't know why it's still there.

Anna David:                  29:39                But how, how nice it kind of reminds me. I saw Jay Z at Madison Square Garden and he was just like, I sold out Madison Square Garden. He's done it a million times. But just to see that he really meant how amazed he was just, it was cool.

Cameron:                     29:52                Yeah. I still not that big of a stage, but I've stood on some stages of like 2500, 3000, 4000 people like 4,000 is as big as, you realize. Fucking weird. Yeah. Weird.

Anna David:                  30:05                So if people want to find out more about you get your books all the things, where should they go?

Cameron:                     30:12                One thing for sure they should check out is the Second in Command podcast. Cause I only interview COOs. Everyone's interviewing the entrepreneur. I want the rest of the story. So we've got some really great interviews on the Second in Command Podcast. All of my books are available in Amazon, Audible and iTunes. They just look up my name, they'll find them all. And then, you know, Cameronharold.com or the COOalliance.com and my core two websites.

Anna David:                  30:35                Awesome. Cameron, thank you. So, so, so much, this has been a pleasure.

Cameron:                     30:38                You're welcome. Thanks Anna. Great seeing you.

Anna David:                  30:40                And thank you all for listening. I will see you next week.