Author Interview: Jerome Lewis

Author of "The Ultimate Real Estate Marketing Asset: 11+ Reasons You Should Use A Book To Gain High-Quality Clients and A Build Better Real Estate Business"

Jerome is a real estate marketer I met through a mutual client we shared, N. J. Richards (who recently did an author interview of her own for her book). I found out he was an author and he accepted my offer for an interview. He did things a bit differently from the norm in that he recorded his responses on a video that he posted on his Youtube channel. It took me a while to parse all of his text and I made some edits for ease of reading (so what you read isn’t exactly what he said). The link to his video is below.

What inspired your latest book?

My latest book as we stand right now is “Real Estate Success Secrets” and what inspired me to write that book is I published a book here you can see. I give you everything that you need inside of this book like marketing right. If you want to be successful in real estate you need marketing because you need to find deals. You need to find mostly off-market deals in order to you know have enough business and close the deals make all the money you want, take all the vacations you want, whatever you want to do. You need deals, and in order for you to get deals you need marketing. Marketing is the vehicle for you to get deals, so I wrote this book. I put everything in here because that's where I was at in my business. I was a little Advanced, right. I was a little further ahead, so I started here because my coach instructed me to start where you are and this is where I was, and one of the things I started to notice with, that people did not understand the importance of. they didn't understand or they didn't remember their belief in our industry. Real estate is the best industry to achieve wealth and Financial Freedom and people did stop believing that right because there's some work involved. You have to do some work. They stopped believing so I was like “okay, how can I get people to Rediscover that they've joined the best possible way to achieve wealth?” and I started thinking. I start putting that stuff together. 

Did you start with an outline or did you make it up as you went along?

I started with an outline.  One of the things about me when I write non-fiction books is I typically start with a problem that I'm trying to solve for a particular person. Sometimes it's myself, but most of the time it's my audience. So what problem can you solve and a really good example of a problem that I'm I'll solve for me but also my audiences like a lot of people have issues like I talked about it in this book A lot of people have issues writing their goals so I created a product right the ultimate real estate goal and business planner so whenever I work with someone I give them a copy of this goal and business planner so they can solve their problems and the cool thing is I use this too right so I practice what I preach so this is my goal book I I put my goals in here and that's what I did I start so I had an outline because I I understood the problems that people were experiencing based on my experiences within my industry and the niche and the audience that I serve.

What research methods did you use? 

I use Market data. I had conversations. I listen to people's problems, and I also watch some YouTube videos and read some articles. But I have so much experience in the industry, I'm just paying attention to what they're saying. I've done a little bit of research on Amazon as well to see what people are saying in other book reviews.

Did you draw on personal experience? 

I absolutely drew on personal experience. I'm listening to people, the issues that they're having within our industry, the issues that I'm experiencing, and seeing what I'm teaching my students. To go more personally, a lot of reasons why I write the books that I write is because I like people to help me solve problems directly. I don't want to hear stories. Just tell me the truth. There's an audience out there. It's like could you just tell me the truth and then you can share stories and stuff like that with me later. Some people just want factual, no fluff information. There's an audience that wants that and I'm part of that audience. There wasn't enough information out there to serve people that want no fluff information. So that's part of of my personal experience.

What else did you get the things you wrote about from?

I teach a lot of webinars. I do a webinar twice a week to my students so that's what I use. I also like to use AI to assist me in answering editing and buttoning up my content. 

How did you publish? 

I published to Amazon self-published. I do self-publish because it lets you move fast. Some people were about perfection. Publishers and all of those things add in complications. One of the things that I teach is getting your stuff done because you can always edit, modify, update things later. So I just I like to hit the ground running and I like to go fast because I have a goal to make money and solve problems. Perfection is not going to help me solve those problems.

Why did you do it that way? 

Because I have to help people solve problems and Perfection is just going to hinder progress.

What advice would you give have for someone looking to publish way? 

My advice would be…I have What's called the truth method. The truth method is five clear steps that guide you from start to finish, making the whole process straightforward fast and easy to follow. You start with your target audience. You respond to five questions that they have. Use video or AI to answer those questions. You unify your five questions, your Concepts, the overall book with a introduction. And you Unite with a conclusion. Then you're going to tie in a sales letter and a call to action. So what particular thing do you want them to do? You're going to tie that into your book. Lastly, you're going to headline your book. The title comes last. When you're writing the kind of books that we write - non-fiction problem solving books - the headline comes last. So this is what I would recommend that that they do. That's how they would go through the process of creating their book. Start with the target Niche. Respond with five questions. Use video or AI unpack with the introduction. Unify with the conclusions in your call to action and sales letter, and headline your book with a headline that's relevant to that customer or Prospect. 

Who did your cover and marketing? 

I have a team and I specialize in marketing so my graphic designer did my cover. I gave him the inspiration because I have a book that I had already done before. Like I was talking about a little bit earlier, one of the things that I noticed is like when I did this cover originally, was that my audience kept saying “oh we like that book. That book reminds of money. I kind of did it in a way that reminds you of money, so I took the same concept that I had before and then I just told my graphic designer “hey put this together. This is the new book, you know, do this.” These books look similar so people were liking that greenish money hinting cover. I did that with graphic designer and I do the marketing. I have a team and we handle the marketing. Because I specialize in marketing, I understand the importance of it. We use what I call the strike method. we're all about fast rapid action, so we can go out and establish ourselves, solve those problems and make money.

How many revisions did it take to get a publishable book? 

Honestly I did a lot, but if I had to quantify I would probably say for this one, every book I get better and better and we have templates. So for me to get a publishable book I would say it probably took less than ten. I don't think it was any more than 10 so about less than 10 revisions for this book to a point where I was happy.

What is the time ratio of time you spent researching versus the time you spent writing?

It's that's a little difficult to answer but what I would say it's taken me years. I've been in an industry for 7 years, in the real estate industry and it's a collection of everything that I learned within the industry. For this specific book I could probably say it took me about a year of research and realization that people needed to understand that real estate is the best industry to be involved in. It probably took me a year to do the research. The writing is the easy part because we have two processes generally. One process is that I'll take one of my webinars or my trainings and I'll have that transcribed and I'll turn that into a book so it doesn't take long at all. Another process that we take people through if they don't have a webinar or they don't have videos is, we have them use artificial intelligence. We'll have them write it with AI. So I've had some people complete their first draft in two hours! You can probably get it done in four hours but for me I would probably say the amount of time I spent writing this would be total four hours. 

How did you make time to write?

I just make the time. That's a big part of the reason why people don't get stuff done is because they don't make the time. They say one day someday they’ll do all of that. I specifically dedicate time to accomplishing what it is that I want to accomplish. There's this law called Parkinson's law. I'm a huge huge fan of Parkinson's law because a lot of that's what holds a lot of people back. They say “I'll write my book Some day, one day.” There's no time frame. So in general, I work in multiples of two. I would tell someone if they're writing a book like what I'm doing, 12 hours is the most you need to spend on that book. I intentionally sat down,  wrote it out and I said “I'm going to finish this book in 12 hours,” and that's what I did. So that's how I make time to write. I just actually do it. Sometimes people think I'm smart and I'm not. I just actually do the stuff. I don't overthink it. I'm not worried about perfection. I do the thing; so that's what's smart about me is that I actually do the work. 

What was your go-to writing software and app for your writing process? 

Go to writing software? I would say Chat GBT. It is a major, major, major tool and what it is that we do, in conjunction with using video. So you use a video, you talk about your topic, your expertise, your story, whatever that is you use. And you use Chat GBT with it. So what you would do is take the video, talk about everything inside of that video, then you would use Chad CBT to First correct the grammar and sentencing structure in that transcript. And once it's done that, you adjust and switch things around. There's some other stuff you can do. If you are interested in learning more about that, I actually published a book on it called the 5day client attraction book strategy, and we go into much more detail on how to use Chat GBT to help you write your book inside of that book.

How does your published book enhance your other Ventures? 

It helps a lot, because people have questions they want to know about particular processes and how things work within my business. I can't explain everything every time I talk to someone, so one of the things I can do is send them out a copy of the book. Or I can tell them to go purchase a copy of the book, so that's a big help. Another thing is, within our industry, when you want to be known as an expert or authority, one of the major components of that is having a book. So I have a book. I'm an authority and I'm an expert within my Niche. The other thing is, it really helps with marketing. So there is a process where we sell the book and then we offer other services to people so they can do business with us. So that's how it enhances and helps with other Ventures. It is a huge tool, and that's why I do so many. It helps it makes things more efficient and it makes us more effective.

Who are the people that would most benefit from reading your book and how did you determine it? 

Real estate professionals. When I say real estate professionals, I mean real estate agents, Real Estate Investors, real estate coaches, real estate content creators, mortgage brokers. I determine that because I've been in the industry, and I'm just paying attention to their language. I’m the Avatar of what they're searching for, and what they're researching. So anybody within real estate would benefit from reading this book on real estate success secrets; or anybody that's aspiring to be in real estate as an agent, as a real estate investor, just any real estate entrepreneurs. You would benefit from this. I have other books that benefit other audiences, but that's a topic for another time.

How did you decide what order to present your Topics in? 

The order I decided on in this book was logical sequencing. This book goes in a very particular order and I put the things that were most important first. This is a book all about real estate success, so in order to have success they need to understand that they've entered the best industry possible. So I made that the first topic. Why real estate? Because it creates more millionaires than any other industry, hands down. It's the best industry to be in if you're involved. If you're looking for Financial Freedom, get involved in real estate. The next thing needed to understand was marketing rights. Say I wish I had a copy there on the way, but I put it in order of the things that matter most logically in order for them to have success. If you follow the process that I'm talking about within that book, you will succeed. 

The things that I put in here are the secrets you need to know to succeed in real estate. Secret number one is real estate success. Secret number two, I talked about how real estate creates more millionaires than any other industry. Secret number three: marketing is the key to finding profitable deals. You need to find those right deals. Secret number four is implementation. You must Implement. It doesn't matter what we learn if we don't Implement. Number five is how to hit your goals strategically. The importance of having goals. Secret number six is systems. The significance of systems and then we talked about Marketing Systems within that. Secret number seven was coaching and mentorship. This is a huge proponent of people that have success. People that have success, they're involved in coaching and mentorship. And then secret number eight is putting it all together. Now I will be transparent. I did miss one secret but the cool thing about this is that you can always update your book. So the one secret that I missed was paid advertising and what I'm going to do with that secret is I'm just going to create a video and talk about paid advertising. So it'll be a companion resource in addition to that book because I missed that one secret.

How did you ensure that your advice, memories and Recollections were accurate?

I talk right in my videos, so everything that I talk about is true and verifiable. That part wasn't difficult at all.

What would you like people to gain from reading this book? 

I want them to gain real estate success. Within this book are the secrets you need to succeed in the real estate industry .if you're new or if you're experienced, this is what you need to know.

How did you go about deciding which topics to include and which ones to leave out?

I'm talking about exactly what you need to know to succeed in real estate, and I made sure to include everything that you need. There is so much to learn about any industry any topic, but we don't need to know it all. We only need to know what we need to know. so I made sure I put those things inside of the book. Some of us WANT to know everything, but we don't NEED to know everything. So I put what you need to know to succeed inside of this book. 

What did you find enjoying or challenging about Real Estate? 

I love real estate because it's the best industry you can be in. You make a lot of money and have a lot of success. It has allowed me to achieve Financial Freedom and success, so that's what I enjoy writing about. What's challenging about real estate is when you're promoting and you're marketing on the newer platforms like Facebook and Google, they will restrict what you're allowed to say and what you're allowed to talk about. So that's probably the most challenging thing about writing about real estate.

What are you writing now? 

I am not writing anything now, but I do have an idea in my mind. I have a podcast called “the real estate marketing implementation podcast” and what I want to do is take some of my guests and have them share one important secret, one important thing that people people need to know to understand and achieve success in an industry. I think I want to have about 12 guests and I want to put all 12 of those guests inside a book and that'll be another book within the Real Estate Success Secret Series.

What is your advice to other writers?

My advice to other writers is Parkinson's law: get it done. Don't expect your book to be perfect. I'm normally talking to a lot of non-fiction writers. Your agenda and your objective is to solve people's problems and people don't care if your stuff is not perfect. They care if you help them solve their problem and they're forgiving when you help them solve a problem. So research Parkinson's law. Put dates and deadlines on the stuff that you do. Ignore and obliterate Perfection and instead of trying to write or type out your book, I highly recommend that you do a video of your topic because it's easier for us to talk. We talk we talk much faster than we write. Then I would transcribe that video and use that as a basis and a foundation for your book.

If you want to watch the video where he says all of this, watch it below.

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