Today, I am absolutely-over-the-moon delighted to share with you a book that I can guarantee will change your life and how you do business. Yes. I am that confident about this book.

 Ladies and gentlemen, am thrilled to interview author of  The Suitcase Entrepreneur,  Natalie Sisson, someone who seriously walks the talk.

Natalie is not only awesomely talented, wise and generous, she is also, real, honest and of course, superbly successful.

I’ve had the good fortune of interacting with her quite a bit over the last year or so and each time have come away, inspired and impressed.

So, naturally, when her book came out, I was first in the virtual line wanting to read it. PLUS, I was even more excited and floored to know that she’d mentioned ME in the book! Woot! I’ve never been in a book. Have you?

Any way, here’s a shot of the page where Social Media Direct and I are mentioned. Pretty cool, isn’t it? It’s in Chapter 5, just in case you’re wondering. Not that you were, but hey, I just wanted to say, I’m mentioned in Chapter 5!

Before I share my review of the book [stay tuned for that!}, I’d love to share an interview with Natalie about the book and her online marketing strategy for it. Read on, folks, for there are some juicy nuggets waiting for you:

 

1.    Tell us a little about The Suitcase Entrepreneur book and what inspired you to write it?

In essence it’s the bible for living life on your own terms. It’s part inspiration and part hugely practical and it’s focused on helping you create freedom in business and adventure in life.

I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last three years, running my business and going on adventures and I felt it was finely time to write the book to show others how to choose their own adventure in life and business.

My book appeals to those just starting out (leaving the 9-5) by starting a side hustle, or freelancing through to an established entrepreneur looking to tap into the online world and the future of tools and technology to truly go global.

It will also appeal to the person who wants to travel more and who’s considering how to live and work from anywhere. In a nutshell, my book is packed with practical tips, strategies and stories on how you can: 

·       Package and sell your knowledge and skills to earn enough to work and live anywhere

·       Build a profitable online business from just your laptop and smartphone

·       Use online tools, social media and outsourcing to increase to give you more time, money and freedom

·       Travel the world for less and experience the joys of minimalism

·       Live life on your own terms and create your ideal lifestyle.

 

2.     What do you think is the ONE most important takeaway for small business owners from The Suitcase Entrepreneur book?

That setting up your business to allow you the maximum amount of freedom you desire in life is entirely possible.

 {Note from Prerna: As someone who IS doing this, I completely agree with Nat,!} 

I see a lot of people who start a business to be in control of how they spend their time and earn their own money. They start out with big intentions of working when they want and on what they want, and soon get bogged down into the details and minutiae of every day business.

My book shows them how to avoid that situation by starting with their ideal lifestyle vision first, and building their business around it – regardless of whether this involves location independence or world travel. The principles and strategies are timeless for entrepreneurs who want to live life on their own terms.

3.     How important was social media or online marketing, in general to your book promotion strategy? What worked for you and what didn’t? And why did you choose the methods of promotion that you did?

My entire business was built using social media – from the blog I started, to the social media sites I use as my sales, marketing and customer service tools, to the products and services I offer. This was all instigated by my knowledge of and love for social media.

In addition to outreach to other influencers and bloggers to review an advanced copy of the book, I also reached out to the many tools and services featured in the book to tell them they were included and whether they’d be open to sharing my book with their community.

Most of this was done via their websites, blogs and twitter outreach and resulted in numerous guest posts and partnerships to promote the book to their community – like with PayPal, Freshbooks and Hootsuite!

I also ran a 30 Day Blog Challenge for the entire month of August and into September to coincide with the launch of my book which features a daily prompt related to the 3 acts in the book. It got such an amazing response and was spread all over social media so that hundreds are taking part.

{Note from Prerna: Did you see my post for the challenge? It’s all about marketing yourself with class!} 

I never thought it would be so popular and how many lives it would change (I got daily emails telling me so). It has had a huge impact on my social media presence including 300% increase in traffic to my site, fans of my Facebook page, Twitter followers and most notably my Pinterest account where I set up a board just for the challenge.

In addition I ran this alongside a contest to win a $5,000 coaching day with me in San Diego which promoted the blog challenge.

All of this led to greater awareness about the contents of the book and sales at the same time.

What didn’t work was just assuming that my community would jump up and buy hundreds of copies of the book on the launch day, coupled with platform issues with Amazon, Kobo and Nook all not releasing the day I had hoped for.

So I changed my perception and approach to be much more about being in it for the long term and continuing to get the message out through strategically aligned partnerships, incentives and events like my book tour, speaking and interviews.

4.     Finally, what is your go-to business book for getting the goods about getting social? Yes, I know there are a lot of g’s there. **smiling** 

You know I really like Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It for a motivational read that just makes the social media aspect dead simple and tangible.

I’d follow that up with The Now Revolution by Amber Naslund and Jay Baer that did a great job of talking about the importance of social media for years to come.

Get Your Copy of The Suitcase Entrepreneur and Win Goodies!!

Natalie’s punchline  for the book tour ”Choose Freedom” sums up what her book is all about. If YOU are ready to choose freedom for your own self, go ahead and get your copy of The Suitcase Entrepreneur, available in print and digital format on Amazon, Nook and Kobo.

Sweetness: If you buy The Suitcase Entrepreneur and forward your receipt to me at contact@socialmediadirectbiz.com,  5 lucky folks will WIN the following goodies!!

• An exclusive, tightly focused  20-minute 1:1 Sauce-Up-My-Social-Media Session with yours truly to answer and fix  your MOST burning social media question.  Get your social media all sassy!

• A yet- unreleased  audiobook version of Natalie’s book! Sneak scoops, folks!

All YOU need to do is send me a copy of your purchase receipt from Amazon, Nook or Kobo to contact@socialmediadirectbiz.com and I’ll send you the link to my scheduler to set up our session and Natalie will send you her gift too! 5 winners, so plenty of chances to win!!