Overview

Jim was on Episode 17 (B2B Sales Guidebook), and he’s back to talk about his new book – B2B Sales.

Jim is talking to us from Spain this time, and the weather looks beautiful.

He does writing in both Ireland and Spain, and even runs his business while traveling. His new book deals with these types of issues.

Jim updates us on how things are going with his first book and the impact the 2nd book has had on his sales.

Previous episode – https://www.discoveredwordsmiths.com/2020/09/14/episode-17-jim-irving-b2b-selling-guidebook/

His Book

Transcript

Episode 69 Jim Irving

[00:00:00] Jim: Are you working on your author career, but struggling to get that first book published, does the goal of being an author seem too lofty or thoughts of having multiple books and making a full-time living are as fantastical as living in Cinderella’s castle. Welcome to discovered wordsmiths a podcast where aspiring authors can be.

Join Stephen Schneider is he finds and talks to authors. You may not know, but authors that have gotten their book on the author career path here, what they’ve done to get there and where they want to go. Now, settle back. It’s time for a bit of inspiration and advice. Come listen to today’s discovered wordsmith.

[00:00:44] Stephen: So today discovered word Smiths. I’ve got Jim Irving with me and I’m very excited about this because Jim is the first person I’ve interviewed for the second. It’s been about a year since we talked. And it sounds like a whole lot has happened with you. So [00:01:00] real briefly you were living in Ireland.

If I remember right. And now you’re in Spain. So tell us what’s going on with you a little bit. There I’m one of those lucky people let’s go to a certain age. We live in Northern Ireland and right in the middle of some beautiful country. Six years ago, we decided we wanted to have a bolthole somewhere to go.

That would be easy to get to. We’re not that far from an airport. So we chose Spain in case some Russian mafia is coming after you or something. Yeah. Which is very late. Yeah. So you’re reading the wrong books. So we’ve got a place here. We’ve had it for five years, but of course, with cool.

[00:01:40] Jim: We hadn’t seen the inside of it for over a year, so it was locked up. So we got here two days ago. There was a lot of dust. But now we’re back and functioning and touch the technology seems to be working. Yeah so we just moved back and forth between the two and I work between the two as well.

[00:01:58] Stephen: Nice, good. I’m [00:02:00] not as lucky to have two houses and especially not lucky to have houses between different countries. What’s that going between different cultures and, just changing your life like that. Every now I have to get slightly political, of course, because two things have happened.

[00:02:15] Jim: First of all, we would come, we would move location every six or eight. Flights for low cost walk on, walk off apart from security, of course. And it was really easy. And then of course, two things hit the United Kingdom. One was COVID. So now I have to have proof of vaccination at both ends. I have to have tests done at both ends.

So that’s much more common than. And the other thing is Brexit. So we’re no longer part of the EU. So I actually have to line up, get a passport stamp. Do all of the things you do when you go to another country, which we haven’t done for pretty well, all of my adult life. So there are two levels of inconvenience, but still it’s a two and a [00:03:00] half hour flight that takes 15 minutes at the same end.

[00:03:03] Stephen: And I know we’re here. So yeah. And do you get writing done in both places?

[00:03:09] Jim: Yes. In fact, my first book was mostly written here in spin. My business was quiet and I was able to just focus away from my home address on just the writing. So this is where I did most of it. And to be honest, spin Northern Ireland are very different called hot different cultures, different societies, but do you know what the technology is and see.

The environment for ratings the same, as long as you’ve got a quiet room and some thoughts in your head, you can go for it. And yeah, I had some technology glitches in the past, but now generally things are pretty stable and I just work away in whichever most of my clients from my business for the last 18 months I’d be working with on zoom.

So it means not the slightest difference to that. Which room or which country I’m sitting in, [00:04:00] we just carry on. I’ve had three customer meetings today. That’s great.

[00:04:04] Stephen: And I love that because not only am I a big proponent of writers and authors in that, but the intrepreneurial lifestyle and the mobile intrepreneur lifestyle.

I’ve got a talk I’m working on for middle school parents with middle school kids about the future of work, how things are gonna change these kids in fifth, sixth grade. Can’t really look forward to a cashier job at Walmart or McDonald’s or something they’re not that’s right. That’s right. And they absolutely are.

[00:04:36] Jim: And I wouldn’t like to be in the business of selling city center office space at the moment. Because everyone that I knew was either said, we’re not going back to it, or we’ll go back to a couple of days a week. I think the demand for that is probably gone for a generation of. At least.

[00:04:52] Stephen: Yeah. And I also show in the talks like you don’t have to earn as much if you don’t have to live in a big city where your [00:05:00] job is. If a house in the city costs 500,000 on two feet of land, you can go to someplace like where I live that house, it’s twice as big with three times as much land costs, like a hundred thousand, so you don’t have to earn as much. Yeah. It’s been a very interesting dynamic working through this as someone who’s already mobile and gradually seeing companies step away from the office, coming together on zoom or other options are available. But working away and realizing actually it does work and you can do it now.

[00:05:36] Jim: Obviously some things require a building, an office, a factory, of course they’ll never teach, but a lot has Tuesday. And I believe in my world, in the world of sales, the what is it? You call them in the U S is it the foot soldiers and the people who are, who just are rude warriors, that’s it. Sorry.

Warriors soldiers. Maybe that applies to the road warriors. [00:06:00] I don’t see corporate finance departments, allowing people a car and head out and do your thing, I think is going to be. Only if a transaction is above a certain value, only if it’s a central situation or it’s strategic, do you go out and travel and physically meet?

[00:06:18] Stephen: And I was at a conference over the weekend and there was some people from the show that I enjoy watching. And the first two seasons was in the studio and they evaluate videos. But the first two seasons, everybody got flown. They were in the studio, makeup hair. And then COVID hit and they now they’re all sitting at home in their living rooms with iPhones.

And so it’s a national TV show recorded on iPhone. So you deal with sales and business. So yeah, you’re right. This is totally changing perspective. We’ve had that cause we’ve done it, but many company, people just it’s always been this way. That’s how we’re going to do it. And suddenly they’re finding.

We don’t [00:07:00] have to do it that way. It’s really changing that. And it’s the last two years have been the dictionary definition of disruptive change. Yeah, we used the full stop. Th this is essentially like the hurricane for the whaling ship. Hopefully it has a bit of a better outcome.

Ultimately,

we’re chatting a bit today. Your first book that we talked about was the B2B sale selling guidebook. So how of things before we talk about your neck, your second book, how have things been going with that book in the last week? Sales have been good, but I got an enormous shock. When was it? About six months ago.

[00:07:44] Jim: Another author emailed me and said, did you know, you’ve won an award? And I said, tell me more, what are you talking about? And the bottom line was that book authority based in New York had named my first book. One of the world’s best books for sales [00:08:00] for 2021. Yeah. I didn’t even know. I don’t know how I got on the list.

I don’t know how, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m very happy. So the good person in its own, right? If you look on Amazon, I’ve only got five star reviews. And I’ve got a good number of them and it’s no one this award. So yeah. So that’s been, for a first attempt with no support sitting in a room in Northern Ireland or Spain and writing what I thought I’m really pleased because when you start on this thing, as you just don’t know if it’s going to work.

If one person is going to buy or not, if it’s going to have any interest. So that was the first thing that sort of, so that’s the sort of the overall. The second thing has been even more interesting for me as an individual. I did it on my own with no thought for anybody else and thought that was the way it happened.

Now, I can’t speak for a science fiction romance or any other genre, but in the sales world I have reached out to [00:09:00] and other authors have reached out to me. And there’s a global community of the authors who. Teaching professionalism, teaching ethics, all of that sort of thing. And we meet and chat and share comments.

And that’s led to my third book, which is still not finished but yeah, I found a community of people who live in my world who aren’t competitive and, or I’ll keep maze to myself and, you can have yours, they’re very open and friendly and that’s been fantastic. So that was a very wonderful surprise at the end of the.

[00:09:32] Stephen: Wow, congrats on the award. That’s fantastic. And you, you said it’s selling well doing well. That’s what, the other thing I love about Indy because a lot of traditionally published from what I hear, they basically. If they do anything, they do a big push at the beginning and then it hasn’t sold or it’s not selling enough and it’s gone, but yours is growing over time.

[00:09:53] Jim: Yes, that’s shows and it has been growing. It didn’t start high. Although to be fair, For the S for the [00:10:00] second week after lunch, I was number seven or eight in the world. So in this category so technically our best seller but it’s not always be at that level, but every month they get money every month something comes in, every ones, people are taking it.

And it’s been interesting. I don’t know what it’s like in other boot markets, but in my book market, I went for all three. Physical copy of the book, audio book and Kendall and the others. And I would say the biggest seller is the physical book. Number two is audio book, and number three is ebook interesting.

It’s what I expected, which actually talking to others from what I’ve heard and seen non-fiction does much, much better physical. Then ebook whereas fiction, it does much better e-book but they’re both climbing for audio book. And a lot of people with COVID are discovering some of these non-fiction books.

They enjoy listening to them while they’re running, walking the dogs out, driving, [00:11:00] and they’re getting a lot more information out of it rather than buying a physical book, put putting on the shelf and not touching it. Yeah. Yeah. Now my, my antidote to the physical book problem if as you’ve seen it, isn’t it the physical book is designed for salespeople is very short each chapter.

So it’s designed for pickup 10 minutes put down, but the end of the chapter has a lane page for no. And I’ve had no end of comments. So people say, fantastic, read the chapter, write down five or six things I want to do next year, read the next chapter. So that worked out quite well. And that was just a random idea in terms of structure that, that I presented, but it’s worked.

[00:11:42] Stephen: Okay. Yeah. This leads me to a question. You live in Ireland now, Spain, back and forth a bit. You won an award in America. So do you sell your book all over and do you use anything other than, yes.

[00:11:56] Jim: I used one of the book publishing [00:12:00] aggregators, so I worked with them. The, what I’ve got is based in the UK, the us, and they do physical books and eBooks they take care of all the admin. It’s only printed in a physical book by. But it is printed worldwide, but the ebook is apple, basically any form of tablet. There’s a compatible version. So it’s gone into the shopfronts and apple, Amazon, Google Barnes, and noble, all of those sorts of people. My experience personally, is that something like 80% of the sales are coming out of Amazon.

[00:12:37] Stephen: Okay. Yeah. So that’s a, important information because you’re a professional award-winning writer and that’s what others want to hear from is someone like you, let’s talk a bit about your new book. You’ve got a second book out. How long has this been out and tell us about it? What it’s called, what it’s about?

[00:12:56] Jim: The second book has been out about 10 months now. The first book [00:13:00] was for professional salespeople. It was about selling, understanding the fundamentals of selling and then the art and the science of selling professionally and ethically. So that was the first book. When I sat down and thought I might write a second book, I realized that I covered half of my career because half was doing and half was leaving.

So the second book is called the B2B leaders play book. And it’s for anyone who is either running a small business, running a division of a corporate or running sales teams in any of those environments. So it’s particularly in the entrepreneurs and small business where suddenly you’re not just a business owner, but you’re running your sales in the first couple of years.

And then you hire someone and you’ll know a sales leader, if you’re going to do that and I come to and say, oh, you’re going to do that in law. Boy, do you get training in the world of [00:14:00] small business and sales? Just do it. That’s where it’s come from. So the second book of the B2B leaders guide book is really all about helping those who are in that situation, whether they’ve been in it for years or whether they’re new and the structure is the same, very short chapter.

But this one builds on the first eight chapters are on starting how to start, what approach to take. What’s the right thing to do. The second is on building that whole thing about creating a team and everything around that. And then the last section of each chapter is on improving. And so for anyone who’s running a high-performance team sales as a boat.

[00:14:44] Stephen: Twenty-five percent of it. The rest of it is about people management, discipline, structure, process, setting priorities, just all of that stuff about. And you’ve had, this is from your experience through [00:15:00] years of doing this. And obviously if it’s the same style, same structure, your first book, it’s, award-winning, you’ve been selling it quite well for over a year that you’ve got a second book.

[00:15:12] Jim: So I can see people in the sales starting with the first moving up in the world and having the second or the leaders having both. It’s not sold quite so many. There’s a smaller group of people who lead rather than do again. I’ve got nothing but five star reviews so far. So I’m really pleased.

And a couple of people, one of the big bloggers in the UK in this space said some phrase like the. Book you need, if you want to be a leader in sales or something like that. Hey so I’ve had some many soulmates and I’m very pleased with that. And as I said, I’ve now started into the third, but the third is that year yet.

So yeah, so the second has just been a follow on, in the same style with exactly the same structure, but the contents are, those are [00:16:00] those who are leading or about to lead high performance.

[00:16:04] Stephen: Nice. So you, your business, you’ve got clients, you work with clients. You’ve done that for years. Have any of them read the book after working with you and give a feedback?

And is there any other interesting ways you’ve gotten the word out or you’ve talked to people getting the book into people’s hands.

[00:16:22] Jim: Okay. So the answer to the first question is yes. I’ve had some people who have. Thought about engaging with me, I’ve gone and bought the book too, to see if I’m okay to engage with and then engaged.

So in that sense, even if I wasn’t making any money on the book, it’s actually brought me business for my one company. Because you’re an expert, you have a book like the book and they know, yes, this guy knows what he’s talking about. The second thing, yes, that’s happened. People have started to train.

And then sit in a home in the evening and have just clicked on and going, yes, I’ll have this. So I have a number of people and I, the thing that makes me [00:17:00] smile so often is that I’ve had people say, I’m doing session number four with them. And one says, before we start. It’s you and the audio book and I laugh and go, yeah, you must have bought it there.

Yeah. So yeah, so people are having it as the drive or drive to meet people or whatever, and they’re having it. So yeah so that’s been a nice experience. The other thing that I’ve done, just because I don’t think social media per se, is the place for a business leaders book sale. Now I may be completely wrong.

Funnily enough, I am just engaged, especially. In social media to look at that side for me. But what I have done is I’ve been very active I’m in the top 2% on LinkedIn. So post logs, giving content, giving value, helping people who then of course see who is this guy, click and end up on the website. I think that’s important to point out for others listening.

Other authors, you write a [00:18:00] nonfiction book, you write it for sales people, a sales leaders. That’s not the group. That’s going to have a fun place on Facebook and get there to chat. They’re there for business. They’re there for work. So LinkedIn is the social media that fits with what you do and the book.

[00:18:17] Stephen: And I think that’s important because I think a lot of authors there’s groups on Facebook and they’re, they push sales and this and that and I think authors get internally oh my God, I’ve got to be on Facebook. And I’ve been hearing more and more authors say, no, I’m not on Facebook. I do other things.

So you have found what works for you.

[00:18:34] Jim: Yeah. And I just had that as a gut-feel. I spoke to everyone that I know that uses Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, and nobody was using those for business. And I’ve got a broad range of friends in the business. And it’s for communication and family and friends and chart.

And I thought I’m not going to put advertising money or effort into that medium because I [00:19:00] don’t see anything coming back out of it. So do you do anything else give talks at seminars or conferences or anything like that? I’ve done quite a number of this with sales leaders, the big us author.

There’s a guy who’s very near the top world way called Andy Paul. And he runs a seal podcast. He’s had it send them multiple millions of downloads. So I’ve appeared on his podcast and he’s asked me to come back again at the end of the year when the third book comes out. So I’d done that in terms of getting out to audiences and because of this community thing, when the second book chemo, a number of people who are more established near.

I said, oh, Jim’s new books out and sent that out to their followers. So that sort of informal activity has been quite good for me. But I’ve not done a book tours or planned campaigns or anything like that. It’s been organic through people and through their [00:20:00] networks. Yeah. What about just your business expertise?

[00:20:03] Stephen: Are there any conferences or anything for business that you’ve gone to and talked on the subject of sales or.

[00:20:11] Jim: No for two reasons. One, all of this happened as COVID was bubbling and then a lot too. And I know a couple of my friends in these conversations who are also authors have done virtual conferences, and I think the feedback has been it’s okay.

But it’s not fun to. That’s all about meeting someone in the corridor and saying, oh, are you the guy that you know, and all of that stuff. And of course that doesn’t happen in the virtual world, certainly not to the same extent. So my feeling is that I wanted to leave that until the world had normalized.

[00:20:44] Stephen: And you’ve mentioned a couple of times of third book coming. What’s a little, give us a little brief about the.

[00:20:50] Jim: Okay this is the really interesting one. And then this is a pure case of happenstance or timing or whatever you want to call it. So I decided I went [00:21:00] to MIT to write a third book.

[00:21:01] Stephen: Now the first two were both done within a year of each other. And do you know what that’s like for an author? My wife has got the fastest wit of anybody I’ve ever met. And I said to her, you know what, honey, I think I’m going to write a third. And before I could finish the sentence, she said, I’ve got the title.

And I said, oh, what is it? And she said, the B2B divorce guidebook.

[00:21:27] Jim: So that’s good. That was so cute. That is going in the forward of the book. Yeah. So we’ve not been given permission for this my third day, what will be my last book? So I started to write it going back to sales. A lot of people said they wanted practical tips to help them in their day-to-day life, which was the theme of the first book.

So I started to write that and it wasn’t a writer’s block. It was just coming along quite slowly, separately on LinkedIn, as I’d done before I ran a competition. And I said to people, tell me [00:22:00] the one thing you’ve learned. That’s the most important thing you’ve learned in your career in sales? I was inundated with.

And so I had, I couldn’t separate two winners and I named two winners and set their prices off. And I messaged both of them and said, Hey, would you fancy taking what you wrote as an answer on LinkedIn, expanding it and making it a guest chapter in my book, both answers came back instantaneously. And at that point, the little bulb in my head went on.

So what I did was I then consciously reached out. It’s going to be a thirty-five chapter. I’ve written another 10 chapters, a new content and 25 people from around the world, Poland, Canada, UK, us Australia. I’ve contributed a chapter where, what they believe in, I believe run consistently. And these people have been junior salespeople.

People who’ve retired, [00:23:00] people who starting as coaches and. The biggest selling business author in the UK, one of the biggest sales authors in the U S a real mixture of people, all talking about their favorite thing and their most important learning. So this one, I’ve not finalized it yet, but it’s going to be something like the B2B selling tips.

Okay. And that should be around about November. In fact, in Spain here, I’m going to finish my last two chapters and there are about four or five of the guests who have agreed to do it still to send their content. And and then it’s that long task of assembling, which what’s the order going to be? Is everything consistently lay those, et cetera.

So there’ll be two or three weeks hard work in there. And then when that’s done after the publishing process and. But that’s very different. So one third of it is me 2000 other people. And some of the lessons, there are people in there who [00:24:00] were that sales person who boosted and shouted and did all the things and then had a coming, coming to their senses and says, don’t ever do that.

Do this. I’ve got people who were talking about resilience and then people who are talking about. Here’s something that I’ve done to prove that I’m more professional than others. And it’s just going to be a complete book pool of individuals, most powerful tips in the world of sales. So this will be a pure sales book.

No, no other content. But I’m really quite hopeful. And all of those people have been really gracious and helpful. We’ve worked together on each of those 25 chapters. They of course, will be launching out to their communities, their friends and everything else. So it’s been a really interesting experience.

I would say it’s been as hard workers writing myself because it’s a, it’s a herding cats scenario. Twenty-five individuals all with their own lives, all doing their own thing, all signed to continue. But so I’ve taped far less, [00:25:00] but I’ve spoken and done email much more. So it’s been a collaboration.

So it has been really interesting. And as I say, sometime in November towards the end, probably that should be becoming an a, I’m excited about this.

[00:25:13] Stephen: It’s interesting. Cause I had a similar idea with the podcast. I’ve talked to so many authors and learn so many things that I’m going back through some of the early episodes, first time authors and taking some of the things they’ve said, putting it into a book, with similar that’s a great idea because I would call them broken glass to find that when I was writing the first.

And, here’s a year and a half worth of tips from new authors for new authors.

[00:25:42] Jim: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really strong idea. And that’s the author’s equivalent of what I’m doing.

[00:25:48] Stephen: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. And I would love to talk to you again in a year or so after this book’s out and been telling to see how your sales on the first two books get affected.

[00:25:59] Jim: And I think that’s [00:26:00] beneficial for others, too author. I would hope that with the visibility of all these other networks, and this is great because for those who. For those who’ve been in my world and over retired, it’s a way to give something back. They’re not wanting. I think we just want to say, don’t ever do this, do that, et cetera, for those who are up and coming, it’s an interesting way to become visible for those who are established big main players, their content is going out to all of those other communities.

[00:26:30] Stephen: So it really is in the literal sense. It’s a win-win. The person reading it is going to get more content from more sources than you would get in a traditional book. The authors are getting visibility and hopefully I will see that both sell well, but also impact the first two books. I think you’re very astute in that comment, I’m hoping that there will be quite an impact on the first.

[00:26:54] Jim: I agree. I hope we will find out that’d be great actual live data and [00:27:00] information from somebody that’s lived through it.

[00:27:04] Stephen: All right. Jim it’s been really great catching up. Do you have any last minute about your books or advice or anything for the people listening?

[00:27:12] Jim: So for authors? I think the first thing is don’t give up and a world opens out to you and all I can do is speak from my own expense.

But I’ve got this marvelous world at the end of my career, where I’ve got new friends in Canada, Australia, Poland, the UK America, who I’d never met before. We’re all doing the same thing. We’re all working in different geographies and we all share and help and comment. And so I would be surprised if there wasn’t something like that in other boot writing stories.

So that, and that was a real shock to me as someone who how wrong are we to do it, by the way, there’s someone who took new advice and sat there with a blank sheet of paper and ended up writing. Do you know what it’s worked out quite well, but [00:28:00] that’s been the big surprise for me. There are communities out there who are positive communities who will help and advice.

And you’re a part of that. Because you’re doing that for offers. Yeah. So I found one in my world, but you’re doing it generically for authors, which I think is a great thing to do. Yeah.

[00:28:17] Stephen: Thank you. I that’s my goal. I hopefully, there’s some authors that have been inspired and are helped by listening to other similar authors.

[00:28:24] Jim: Yeah. Sure. Yes. Again, Yeah, it has, it looks like it’s pretty sunny there. I’m just seeing some reflected light behind you, but I’ve got blades closed because it’s too bright and, but there’s a lot of sunlight out there and not to make anybody jealous, but I’m going to go and do one of the things that spin is famous for when I’m finished this, I’m going to put my swimming trunks on and wonder the a hundred yards to the beach and swim in the warm sea, which has.

[00:28:55] Stephen: Bam. That is my point of the future of our work [00:29:00] world. You can live in Spain, go swimming. For me, it’s 10 o’clock in the morning. I can go swimming for a while and come back and continue to work because of our, in our world, the way it is now. Yes, absolutely. That would not have been possible. It started my career.

[00:29:17] Jim: You have to be, you have to sit on the office phone, you have to make calls. You have to do all of those. Today, my goodness is not changing.

[00:29:24] Stephen: Hey, real quick, before you go, we were chatting a bit off camera before this started. So part of your experience is Silicon graphics and you have worked on. With Silicon graphics back in the day many years ago, but some great movies.

Tell us briefly about that for us to get out of.

[00:29:45] Jim: So I worked for SGI for about six, seven years. I started running Scotland and then became a UK director and then became the person that runs. The workstations that did all of the graphics you saw running the [00:30:00] people running, both that, that division and the people who sold it across Europe, Africa, and middle east, and saw, I met with the partners and the software vendors who were writing the software that enabled the special effects to happen in the note of places like Soho square, which has the creative center in the UK and Europe.

And the people that were working for me were selling. That this is the time at which you may remember it. The Boeing triple seven was the first plane ever designed from start to finish without any modeling, physical at all. And it physical modeling completely. It was completely done virtually until.

And that was SGI in Europe. The formula one teams rental, ODI, Mercedes, we’re all moving to doing this is incredibly exciting things, but yes, at the same time you then had Star wars, Terminator Lord of the rings all of those were happening at that time. Fantastic time of my career, right? I You talk about being [00:31:00] at the leading edge.

Our tours were hanging over the bleeding edge. To get thanks because the studios and the designers were saying that was fantastic. And that was fantastic. Three months ago, we did it better. Now it’s it was this ramping up, better and better technologies just coming all the time. So it was a fabulous time and incredible environment.

Company knows subsumed into Hewlett Packard. It did all of that, but it wasn’t a giant scale company. So therefore it was always going to be. A challenge to survive in the world that we know today, but I’m very proud of that. It’s a company that created so many things that we think of a standard mode.

The virtual studios on election night, the virtual studio setups virtualized cubes, which are quite frequent, freaky, where every surface is glass. And they’re trying to figure out how to drill into the oil Wells. They failed. All of those things and a ton of stuff [00:32:00] around space travel, a ton of stuff, our owned car design plan design, et cetera.

All of that happened over that period. Yeah. Wonderful. And for all the youngsters listening because I know there’s a lot of authors younger than we are SGI was Silicon graphics, which were these huge workstation computers and it was a company that was. Much better computers than what you could buy for the home.

At the time they were well, th the thing that we used to say when we were doing presentations was that for the last decade, every film, low listed and shortlisted for special effects at the Oscars, every film used Silicon graphics. So it’s, when you say that you go this was this whole industry.

Oh, by the way, toy story. All of that stuff that could only happen because the technology was there. These were not, no technology has caught up and changed, but at the time, PCs had no capability to do that. And it was [00:33:00] workstations and Silicon graphics was the top of the mountain controlling everything that happened there.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we change we’ve changed the way that people go to the movies and the way that. Getting their cars, the way that the planes they fly in are designed all of that.

[00:33:17] Stephen: Not to get your wife to fly to America and come after me or get you in trouble. But man, it really sounds like a fourth book with a memoir of your career.

[00:33:27] Jim: Might be something to think about. We have to whisper that one. Oh, okay. How about you? Talk to me, I’ll write it. I’ll ghost. Write it for you. And then we’ll put it out that way. Oh, that’s really a great idea. Yes. Yes. As I can’t see her

[00:33:48] Stephen: until the last minute plausible deniability, right? Yeah. Just as long as your wife’s not hiding somewhere. I can’t see. And listening if she is. I live in Alaska.[00:34:00]

All right, man. Hey, it was great chatting with you. I wish you luck on the books and we’ll try and catch up again. Absolutely. Listen, great to speak to you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you again for the opportunity to to ramble on about all manner of things. Hey, it’s great. Thanks, Joe. Thank you very much.

Take care. Thank you for listening to discovered wordsmiths, come back next week and listen to another author. Discuss the road they’ve traveled and maybe sometime in the near future, it might be you.

So it really is in the literal sense. It’s a win-win. The person reading it is going to get more content from more sources than you would get in a traditional book. The authors are getting visibility and hopefully I will see that both sell well, but also impact the first two books. I think you’re very astute in that comment, I’m hoping that there will be quite an impact on the first.

I agree. I hope we will find out that’d be great actual live data and information from somebody that’s lived through it.

All right. Jim it’s been really great catching up. Do you have any last minute about your books or advice or anything for the people listening?

So for authors? I think the first thing is don’t give up and a world opens out to you and all I can do is speak from my own expense.

So that, and that was a real shock to me as someone who how wrong are we to do it, by the way, there’s someone who took new advice and sat there with a blank sheet of paper and ended up writing. Do you know what it’s worked out quite well, but that’s been the big surprise for me. There are communities out there who are positive communities who will help and advice.

And you’re a part of that. Because you’re doing that for offers. Yeah. So I found one in my world, but you’re doing it generically for authors, which I think is a great thing to do. Yeah.

Thank you. I that’s my goal. I hopefully, there’s some authors that have been inspired and are helped by listening to other similar authors.

Yeah. Sure. Yes. Again, Yeah, it has, it looks like it’s pretty sunny there. I’m just seeing some reflected light behind you, but I’ve got blades closed because it’s too bright and, but there’s a lot of sunlight out there and not to make anybody jealous, but I’m going to go and do one of the things that spin is famous for when I’m finished this, I’m going to put my swimming trunks on and wonder the a hundred yards to the beach and swim in the warm sea, which has.

Bam. That is my point of the future of our work world. You can live in Spain, go swimming. For me, it’s 10 o’clock in the morning. I can go swimming for a while and come back and continue to work because of our, in our world, the way it is now. Yes, absolutely. That would not have been possible. It started my career.

You have to be, you have to sit on the office phone, you have to make calls. You have to do all of those. Today, my goodness is not changing.

Hey, real quick, before you go, we were chatting a bit off camera before this started. So part of your experience is Silicon graphics and you have worked on. With Silicon graphics back in the day many years ago, but some great movies.

Tell us briefly about that for us to get out of.

So I worked for SGI for about six, seven years. I started running Scotland and then became a UK director and then became the person that runs. The workstations that did all of the graphics you saw running the people running, both that, that division and the people who sold it across Europe, Africa, and middle east, and saw, I met with the partners and the software vendors who were writing the software that enabled the special effects to happen in the note of places like Soho square, which has the creative center in the UK and Europe.

The virtual studios on election night, the virtual studio setups virtualized cubes, which are quite frequent, freaky, where every surface is glass. And they’re trying to figure out how to drill into the oil Wells. They failed. All of those things and a ton of stuff around space travel, a ton of stuff, our owned car design plan design, et cetera.

Oh, by the way, toy story. All of that stuff that could only happen because the technology was there. These were not, no technology has caught up and changed, but at the time, PCs had no capability to do that. And it was workstations and Silicon graphics was the top of the mountain controlling everything that happened there.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we change we’ve changed the way that people go to the movies and the way that. Getting their cars, the way that the planes they fly in are designed all of that.

Not to get your wife to fly to America and come after me or get you in trouble. But man, it really sounds like a fourth book with a memoir of your career.

Might be something to think about. We have to whisper that one. Oh, okay. How about you? Talk to me, I’ll write it. I’ll ghost. Write it for you. And then we’ll put it out that way. Oh, that’s really a great idea. Yes. Yes. As I can’t see her

until the last minute plausible deniability, right? Yeah. Just as long as your wife’s not hiding somewhere. I can’t see. And listening if she is. I live in Alaska.

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Episode 69 – 2nd Interview with Jim Irving – B2B Leaders Guidebook

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Episode 69 Jim Irving

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Episode 69 – 2nd Interview with Jim Irving – B2B Leaders Guidebook

Overview

His Book

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Episode 69 Jim Irving

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