How to Create a brand that works for you
In this episode of The Progression Show Andy Audate interviews one of the speakers for The Progression Conference National Tour, Suzy Prudden. She is the CEO of Itty Bitty™ Publishing and she is going to give you a wealth of knowledge on how to publish your book.
Suzy talks about her story before Itty Bitty™ Publishing, how she opened her first company in 1965 as a fitness expert and the challenges she’d had to face. “Every challenge turned out to be the best thing afterwards” says Suzzy as she narrates how 8 months after being interviewed from The Oprah Winfrey Show she was homeless. When faced with a challenge, you need to look at the positive side of the situation and ask the right questions that will keep you moving forward.
Suzy Prudden is a believer of magic and she indulges herself with positive thoughts saying “whatever you focus on is what you create”. She urges you to write because there’s an audience that needs your story and the person with a book gets the job done faster than a person without a book.
Finally Suzy tells what she will be sharing on The Progression Conference National Tour.
You will learn:
- How your thoughts create reality
- Challenges are stepping stones to bigger success
- What mindset should you have to keep progressing on
- What type of branding do you need
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Transcriptions:
Andy Audate
I want to change lives. I want to show people how to progress and their money. I want to show people how to progress their mindset. I want to show people how to progress in their brand so that way they can take care of their family. Take care of the finances and experience freedom.
All right. So today I'm super excited to have on the podcast, on the show, the Suzy Prudden. I'm talking about she's going to bring you a wealth of knowledge about publishing your book, your life story. Taking it from your brain, putting it on paper and creating a legacy. She's a CEO of 80 Biddy publishing and a speaker on the progression of conference national tour.I'm so excited. Thank you for being on the show Suzy.
Suzy Prudden
Thank you for inviting me and introducing me to all of your phenomenal attendees.
Andy Audate
100%. So Susie let's backtrack a little bit before you became the CEO of 80 bitty publishing before you started sharing other people's stories and their memoirs and their life stories in book form. Who was Susie then before the book publishing?
Suzy Prudden
The suzy has been many different things. I started my first company when I was 22 in 1965. And it was a fitness school in New York city. My mother was the nation's foremost authority. She started the president's council on physical fitness and sports. And so when I had to run away and got married because my mother told me I couldn't date the boy I was dating.So I married him. And then, I mean, that's what you do, right? And then I say that in a natural born leader and a natural born entrepreneur. So I started my company as a fitness expert because she was a fitness expert and I use the name cruden which is her name. And now my name to launch myself it was her name that got me in the doors and my name to get me in there.And I became very well known in New York city. I basically had the largest fitness school for children. In New York and people thought I was a little weird because I taught two year olds. And yet the schools started calling me after a few years wanting to know what I was doing. And it became a prerequisite If you wanted your child to go to a good nursery school in New York city, you sent them to me first at the age of 15 months or they're around and I would teach them. And that was my specialty. And I ended up writing my first book. I sold it in East Hampton long Island to an editor from William Morrow at a cocktail party in 1971.That was my first book 1971. It was fitness for children four weeks to four years. I don't think she really cared about the topic. It was my name that was important. And after I sold the book then I went and got an agent who then negotiated the book deal. And I've had agents ever since. And I recommend that to anybody who wants to go to a big publisher.I've done 11 books. I have a New York times bestseller. I've been on all the. Talk shows I've been on Oprah I've then after I sold my business I did my admin 83 and then I went on a journey, eat, pray, love. I just didn't eat very much. And then I discovered the mind and that's a very big playground. And I started creating body-mind technology.
Andy Audate
What do you mean? You discovered the mind? Like, what does that actually mean?
Suzy Prudden
Well, I didn't know that there was a power in the mind. I didn't know that you, when you think of it, you create it. I didn't know that. But then I learned that I did workshops and discovered that I had a power much greater than I realized, which was my own mind.And because I was a body person, I started to look at how the body and the mind work together to teach you what you need to know to move through life more easily. Cause every part of the body represents an aspect of your life. And if you're having difficulties with it, body area. It usually corresponds with the life area. And I worked with Louise hay for a while. She published one of my books metta Fitness Your Thoughts taking shape, which is the book that got me on the Oprah show. And then I wrote a book after that called change your mind, change your body. So those of you who are watching this and listening to this realize that your thoughts create your reality and you have to.Notice your thoughts cause you always get to be right and that's a whole training unto itself. And then I discovered hypnosis and became a hypnotherapist, had the largest weight loss hypnosis centers in Los Angeles in 2008 came and everything dissolved. I was a franchise and I lost my franchise which was a wonderful thing.Cause then I just opened up Suzy prudden international. Worked with entrepreneurs to help them get past.
Andy Audate
So is that in your story, is that when there was a challenge and you overcame their child's during the challenge, it was a challenging time but ends up being a blessing afterwards.
Suzy Prudden
Every, every challenge has turned out to be the best thing afterwards, eight, you're going to like this story eight months after Oprah, I ended up homeless.I had spent my money and I didn't know. How to make money other than what I had done. And so I spent 10 months living with friends and I would, I would, because I was, this is funny because I was a famous person and I had done. 18 national tours. And I became a very respected speaker. I thought of speaking opportunities during this time when I didn't have a place to live.So very often I spent a week at Rancho LA Plaza, which is a five star spa in Mexico, all expenses paid because I was teaching there two hours a day. And I went to Maui for two weeks because I was conducting a workshop. And then I went to Maui for six weeks because I was taking a workshop. So I had all these experiences during this time.When I had no money and no place to live that were quite extraordinary. And I realized that as I was going through this, this was probably one of the greatest gifts I could receive. So the best thing that anybody can do is when they're in a really challenging situation, is to look at what's the gift.What am I learning from this experience? How can I use this to make me a better person, make my life a better life and to do more, which is my focus to do more on the planet that makes a bigger difference to make people's lives better for them. So that was a period that was really tough.
Andy Audate
And and after overcoming, well, let's talk about the during, because I'm sure there's some listeners.Who are, who are, who may hear you in here, the, the growth that you've had since the growth that you've had in your businesses and your, in your life. But let's talk about the mindset that kept on. I kept you going because there's people while you were experiencing those few months of homelessness as people who started being homeless at the same time and are still currently homeless or go through an extremely long period of time of homelessness and end up dying. So what would you say is the mice that allowed you to keep progressing on it?
Suzy Prudden
Well, that's a good question. And there was a moment and anybody who's been where I was knows this moment, when you make a decision am I going to let it all go and stay in this really awful place? Or am I going to go step back into life?And I watched that decision. As I thought about it, there was an alignment. And on one side of the line was just let it go. Just let it go, go get a shopping cart and the hell with this. Excuse me. Or it's like, okay, Susie, it's going to take a lot of work, but you can do this. And that's the road I took. And every morning when I woke up, I'd say, okay, so what do I have to do to make money today?What do I have to do to improve my life today? And basically I have a very strong relationship with a higher power. And so I would say, okay, I call the higher power. God, some people call it the force. Some people call it the radiator. I don't know. It depends on your belief system. I call it God, I'm not a religious person, but I'm extremely spiritual.I say, where do you want me? And then I would go into my day and that's where. That's where my day led me, but there's one thing that, and this may sound very strange. I believe in magic. I really believe in magic. So while I was living in a room in someone else's house and I was working on a book a friend of mine lived in that same house and we were working on the book together and out of nowhere.I got a phone call from an attorney that I had worked with. This was in 1990, in 1986. I'd had a lawsuit because I fell at studio 54 and the attorney called me, no, this was before 86, 83. So now it's 1990. That's seven years previously and called me and said they just made a settlement and I'm sending you a check.Now at a nowhere. So, but I believe that those things happen. So they had another great experience that happened around that same time. And the reason I tell this is allow yourself to imagine having, instead of constantly focusing on the, not having.Because whatever you focus on is what you create now.I don't know. I do know why I created the homeless situation in the first place. I was pretty arrogant and the university said enough is enough. We've got to bring her down a peg. And so they did. And I remember saying to friends of mine, I had a beautiful little house in Topanga, which is just North of Los Angeles, a wonderful community and not a beautiful little guesthouse.
And I said to friends, one day, the only way I'm going to leave this house is if the universe throws me out. So it did, it did. So you actually be very careful what you say and very cognizant of what you think. My sister and I, I was visiting her in New York city, which is where I used to live.Live in LA now.And we were sitting in her apartment commiserating because both of us were going through a really difficult financial time. And both of us had been very wealthy at one point. And I talk about that in my talks, I was born rich and that took me 48 years to lose it all so that I could have the rags to riches story.
And, but I didn't start that way. And we inherited a lot of money. And so we were joking around and he said, well, maybe someone will die and leave us some money. And then the other person said, wait, that's not a good idea. Don't don't, don't put that out there because that just it's just a close family. And so the other one, one of us said, we don't know who, well, maybe someone we don't know will die and leave us some money.How off the wall is that
Andy Audate
that's pretty, that's pretty crazy.
Suzy Prudden
Yeah. It's totally crazy. So I'm looking at my image and I'm seeing that the light is here with this note here, but I do have another side to my face. So anyway,Oh, good. Okay. Fabulous. So six weeks later my uncle called me. No, was it my aunt? Not my cousin. And I go, Oh no, my uncle died. And he said, no, no, no. Susie, do you remember dr. Shenfeld? Now my grandfather is a German Jew but he came over here in 1906 and he's a very wealthy man. They own the bridges private bank in Germany.And during the war three of his university colleagues were turned in concentration camps and he bought them out. He paid money to the Nazis to freedom and he brought them here to the United States and he supported them for the rest of their lives because they were pretty damaged from the concentration camps, with their families and shunned off. His daughter inherited the money. And when she died, she had no issue. So she left it to my sister and me and my uncle. And one other person that I didn't know.
Andy Audate
What was your relation?
Suzy Prudden
the relationship with the daughter was that she was the daughter of the man who my grandfather basically my grandfather saved their lives.
Andy Audate
Your grandfather saves this group. These, your grandfather saves is a group of people who were going through a part of the concentration camp and they can't, your grandfather took them from there, from wherever they were in Germany, brought them to the United States and take care of them for the rest of their life.And there was, there was, they had a, they had a camps. And their kids.
Suzy Prudden
Their daughter, Oh one person's daughter
Andy Audate
Passing away and choosing that your grandfather's lineage to their, to their state, for, to your grandfather's lineage. And are you where the benefit is that the benefit, the people who benefit from your grandfather's lineage? So now you come up on this money, you had no idea.
Suzy Prudden
Yes. I said maybe someone will die and leave us money. So they did.
Andy Audate
And it was someone that you don't know. And so would this conversation that you had with your sister as you watched what you started? Oh, I messed up. I fucked up by saying that someone's diary was money.So what happens if it's someone we don't know ended up and you guys maybe laughed about it?
Suzy Prudden
Yep. So you've gotta be careful. I got a lot of great stories about asking God for money and it's showing up. And so I'm going to, I mean I don't know about anybody else but this year january was a phenomenal year. Business-wise February was less than stolen. So I've been looking at that and going, okay, so what do we have to do to turn this around?And as I'm. Looking at it and saying, okay, we need to turn this around. We need to bring in more money. It's starting to come in. I mean, it's like you can open the flood Gates and, and, and for those of a view, and I guess they're all aspiring speakers. There's an audience that needs your story. And for those of you who want to write a book, we do too.Is it okay if I segue into this? Okay. There's two types of books that we publish, Oh, actually published three or four times. We publish the right year storybook. It's called legacy press. And you can, you can write your memoirs and leave your legacy. And then there's nobody publishing, which is not it's, it's a very different type of book.
You have to realize 95% of Americans don't read and we all need information. And every speaker. Needs an informational product that they can sell to somebody hand to somebody send to somebody who is the decision maker where they want to speak because a person with a book gets the job faster than a person without a book, but you don't have to write and you shouldn't write a 300 page.Anybody publishing his books by experts. Which gives information where I like to say with the new dummies difference between dummies and Eddie Biddy, dummies are 350 pages. You have to read with a yellow highlighter. Any mini books are the yellow highlights, if it
hurt and makes sure that people go from your book to your work, which is where you capture them. And their business. So you want to use your book as a lead generator and then, and by giving people stellar information that you know, so that it positions them where people say, wow, they've got a book and now let's put them on stage.
Andy Audate
That's powerful. And I know when you shared this with me late last year, that's when that's when I discovered Suzy last year and then we decided to work together. And so she is coming on the progression conference national tour. Now share with me what will you be sharing on the stage at the progression conference?
Suzy Prudden
Basically how to write a book, either a memoir, if that's what you want to do, or a itty bitty book and how to, how to P it's really about how to position yourself as an expert, because every single speaker and I'm, I'm assuming that the people coming to your event are all speakers or. They really want to be speakers.Am I correct?
Andy Audate
Or they want to be brands they're growing, they're growing their brand.
Suzy Prudden
They want to be a brand. Well, then there's nothing better to use than a book. Yeah. And I mean, when, if anybody that Googles me, Suzy S U Z Y Prudden. You'll see all my fitness stuff first. And that's because I was a brand.As Suzy Prudden, I had my own TV show on NBC in New York city. I was the fitness person in the prime of your life for three and a half years. I had a seven minute segment on live television, every Sunday. Cute. And people would recognize me wherever I went. I was the brand. Suzy Prufden was the brand. What was interesting when my sister and I started anybody publishing it had been Suzy pruddenv itty bitty. And my sister decided, I asked you to redo a coverage, took my name off and put your amazing itty bitty. And after my ego got over it, I looked at it and said, actually, that's a million dollar business.Yeah, because it was no longer attached to me. It was wider. So for those of you who are listening right now, if your brain is building your personal brand that everything has to be your name first.So my name was on everything. Suzy prudden, this Suzy prudden TV, Suzy prudden, radio, Suzy bird. It was all Suzy Prudden. Now it's all itty bitty. So I am rebranding myself. And it's interesting because people are beginning to say, I've heard of you and it's not Suzy Prufden. Now it's itty bitty, but then people see my name tag.It's funny. They'll see my name tag on my shoulder right up here. And, and they say, are you that Suzy Prudden? And I said, yes, I am that Suzy prudden. And then they'll say, are you related to Bonnie Broda? And then I'll say, that's my mother. Yes. So, so branding and, and, you know, with the progression to it, that's a brand that is a brand and you're doing everything that you can to make that so that when people hear it, they go, Oh, that's I know who that that's Andy.And you're doing it very well, by the way. And now for those people who are going to be in your audience, they have to think, okay, so this is what I do. And this is who I am. How can I make what I do and who I am synonymous? So in my first career, my name was synonymous with exercise also I'm second generation prudent, which makes it even more so.Because my mother wrote 18 books and she started the president's council on physical fitness and sports. So I came by that career like it was born into me and then I had had enough and I wanted to stretch out on my own. I was stepping up. This is interesting because in 1988, I wrote the book, Mehta fitness, your thoughts taking shape for the hay house.And I was trying to bridge. That creates a bridge between fitness which is where I've started and metaphysics which is where I was at that time. So I called it Metta fitness, but the bookstores there as fitness. So they put all my books, which are actually metaphysical books in the fitness section and fitness people in the eighties were not interested in metaphysics.
Metaphysical people in the eighties were not interested in fitness. So the book did. Okay. But it only sold, I guess, about 40,000 copies. It didn't do what we had wanted it to do because people could not compute that. I was talking to Barbara in Angeles who went from relationship coaching which is very well known to soul work.And people are scratching their hands. And she said, she's never done anything more difficult than to make a bridge from where she was to where she is and have people understand it because they would put her, her new books into the relationship personal growth when actually she was going beyond relationship into the relationship with the soul inside yourself.That is you. So it's a, it's a conundrum when you're in, in switching brands. And that's the point I was switching genres basically.
Andy Audate
You suggest, like, let's talk about the person, because I see in one light, you know, one of the Tony Robbins, former mentors caught wind of me and I went to his house and I got to sit down with him. And he, and he was sharing with me. He's like, Andy, you're going in the right direction with this progression stuff. But he, when he mentioned Tony was that Tony has a bit of a pickle in his hand. And the challenge is that for every seminar Tony has to present. Right. So, Andy, if you're going to go on this route, let me just kind of warn you.And he was kind of sharing with me if you're going in the route of promoting andy audate and the progression and bring them together you're going to have to be the one of the people that has to present or you can go with the routes where progression is the brand or something else is the brand. And you'll focus on that brand versus your personal.So what are your suggestions in the branding since you have so many years of experience, what are your suggestions in the brand. Personal or is it focused on a business outside yourself?
Suzy Prudden
That's a great, great question. And it really depends on what they're doing. For example, if it's an actor, it has to be their name.If it's, if it's a writer of novels or something like that, it has to be their name. It's like James Patterson. If I see a James Patterson book I automatically buy it except there's one author that he works with that I don't like. So I won't buy that book but for the most part. If I see a James Madison book I know that it's going to be an easy read.I can be very tired and read it and get full enjoyment out of it. So it's a great book for me when I'm a reader and it's my downtime.if it's an actor, if it's a writer or somebody like that for you, the progression train. What is its progression? What progression conference, the progression tour.That's perfect because then you are by Andy. And so now what happened when we went from suzy prudden itty bitty, whatever it was to your amazing anybody we took because I have a history. And the history is quick. So when people think of suzy prudden, they think of fitness, but I'm not doing that anymore.And so we had to get me out of the way. So I would suggest that someone has to really look at what they are doing and does it have a name? Can you create a name that is not you. It can be as yours is the progression conference by Andy instead of Andy's conference, that happens to be a progression. So it's interesting because a lot of people want their name to be first.That can be a hindrance later on.
Andy Audate
Cause cause, cause nobody knows it. So in this day and age do suggest that the, like for the people that are listening in this day and age, do you suggest that people should put their name first, like safe, starting from completely scratch. And they're, they're a personal brand like myself showers.They put their name first completely from scratch. They just woke up today and created the name of the business so I can put their personal name first or should they put the business name first or, or the product?
Suzy Prudden
Okay. So I'm going to say it depends on what you're doing. For example, every single itty bitty author.When I, when I work with them, what I do with anybody books is to help people take their book and turn it into a seven figure business. And what I see whenever I work with people is how they can use their book to create programs, seminars, webinars, podcasts, teleseminars all the different things. And then if they name it, they have to, they could take their part of their name.
Okay. Let me backup, pull out a lot. Is, was a dancer in the twenties and thirties who injured himself. Ver that's 1920s. He injured himself and in healing, he created a series of exercises. They built him now. He was just, he had a little studio in New York city. He taught people just here and there. It's like I did in the beginning.I had classes. I had one-on-ones. But if you look at the way the fitness industry has moved. Pilates programs are in every gym and every spot in the world. That was his name but he didn't call. I think his first name was Henry. He didn't call it the Henry Pilates movement. Somehow it just became so you have to play McDonald's okay.
I like McDonald's. Yeah. Yup. So you have to play with it and you also have to be careful you don't become attached. Cause for a while, I was very attached to my name. It had to be suzy prudden. And then when my sister took my name off the book and I looked at it, my ego and had a moment, it was like, really, you don't take my name off.And then I looked further, went, wait a second. That's a big business because my name isn't there because if my name had been on my company, There's a, there's a, there's a, there's something in the mind says wait a second. That's fitness. And it's not. It's like, now I'm doing publishing. I never, ever thought I would be a publisher.I never dreamed of it. It just fell. And it was a God gift. I was talking to God and I said I'm really tired of doing what I was doing. I was coaching doing hypnosis. I said, I want to do something bigger. I want to reach more people. I want to make a bigger difference. And that holiday season was 2014, my sister and I asked her to change the cover on a book and make it smaller.And she did. And that's how, where she took my name off and it was itty bitty a year. Amazing itty bitty weight loss. Because my specialty at that time had been weight loss. When we wrote the book. This is funny. We wrote the book in 2006 and we did what we were told to do by buying the 2000 copies and.Making it a certain size. And we followed all the instructions that our coach gave us 2061, 2000 copies. I think I had 1800 left.
Andy Audate
Oh my gosh.
Suzy Prudden
I know. And so when we, when we started at video, it was a whole new concept and actually, it, it, it's an amazing concept because you have, you have 15 things you want people to know about your expertise.So it's your it's, it's your amazing itty bitty speakers manual.15 things you need to know to get booked on stage consistently.
Andy Audate
Oh, so you, you taking the cost of them having a 350 or page book and. Things that people ain't know ain't going to read in the first place. And you brought it down to a concert where people could still read and still consume in a short bit.So, Hey, here's the bite size of the actual remove the stories and the fact that you need that that's in the usual books and give it to them. Anybody. Now I understand clearly what is any video? Suzy Thank you so much for you in front of, you know, sharing your wisdom today with us. How can people be getting contacted with you?
Suzy Prudden
Oh, that's a great question. Thank you. Www dot I T T Y bittypublishing.com. Anybody publishing.com and there's a you can you can fill out a little opt in and our office will call you and I will get on the phone with you and say so. What do you want to write about who you are? What do you do? And what do you want to write about?And we do have legacy press, which is your memoir. We do have a, we do have a children's line and we actually have, we just started a cookbook line. So we're having a blast and we're helping people get out in the world make a bigger difference and make a name for themselves.
Andy Audate
Powerful powerful Suzy thank you so much.I can't wait to see you onstage in a couple of months at the progression conference. Hey, if you don't know Suzy Prudden for who she is today and the success, the tremendous amount of success that she's given to so many entrepreneurs and artists and authors like myself, make sure to check out [email protected].
And in addition to that at the progression conference where we're taking. Then we're taking that message and expanding it and working it together with Susie and I. So go to progression tickets.com to learn more about the progression conference. Once again, progression tickets.com Susie, once again, thank you so much for your time.
Suzy Prudden
Thank you for inviting me on your show.
