Sorav Jain's Author Journey
Kreators Series - Episode 1:
Sorav Jain is an entrepreneur, a digital marketing social media expert, a Consultant, Author, Speaker, and he runs a digital marketing agency called echoVME. Sorav is an author of multiple books and as a corporate trainer.
Sorav reveals his journey of becoming an author, his working style when writing books and his upcoming works in this video.
Transcript:
Our guest today is Sorav Jain, somebody whom I've been following for over a decade. It was 11 years ago when I first met the strapping young gentleman, at a course that my wife and I joined on Facebook marketing before Facebook marketing was even a thing. So that's how long I've been tracking Sorav.
Sorav is an entrepreneur, a digital marketing social media expert, a Consultant, Author, Speaker, and he runs a digital marketing agency called echoVME. Sorav is an author of multiple books and as a corporate trainer, he's trained employees in several corporates, including Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Navbharat Times, Genpact, HCL and a host of companies across Asia-Pacific. He regularly hosts social media marketing boot camps. I have attended one of them and till date, I would hazard that he's trained over 8000, 9000 people in there. So, Sorav, Sorav, Sorav, welcome.
Sorav: Hi, Pravin. Thank you so much for having me on your show and it's a privilege to be a part of this, because you have always been my early days mentor in my journey, and I know whenever I was stuck, I used to come to you. So, thank you for inspiring and thank you for doing great things like you always do.
Pravin: Lovely, Sorav, let's start off. Now the book I have in front of me is yours. 101 Content Marketing and I know you have written two or three other books. Could you tell us about that, please?
Sorav: So, this is the book where I talk about quick tips, snackable tips that people can just finish the book in 10 to 15 minutes. They don't have to spend a lot of time reading a book. So that's why this book was created because a lot of people are guilty of buying books and not finishing it. So, this was created. It is a heavy book, looks very heavy, but within 10 minutes if it just gets you one idea that you can implement and get some good knowledge out of it. The second book which I have written is “Become a Brand”, which is a little heavy book where I talk about the potential opportunities in building your personal brand on social media and how to really create your social media strategy for selling your content across on the internet for your personal brand basically. The third one which I wrote is “Sold Out”, which is fairly basically all about real estate lead generation on social media. These are three books and the one book, which I'm working on right now is “Housefull”, which basically is all about, how do you sell your events on social media?
Pravin: Brilliant. So, you’re all stringing it together. So, it's not just one book. It's a sequence that leads and I would put this more as a titbit that got me hooked on to your next book, your next book. And the way you name them is also brilliant, Sorav, uh, how's your book doing sold out. So that creates a buzz in itself.
Pravin: Now, Sorav, you are a multipreneur you are into a lot of things. So how do you sit and write? What goes into your thought process when you write? When do you write?
Sorav: Good question. So right now, I'm not in the book writing spree because I have done that last year and I committed to it. So, first of all, it requires a commitment. So that was the first thing, because that was my goal for 2020 and I was able to achieve it. So, every day. I think a lot of things will just be planned as a blog or as a YouTube video or as our content which is going on social media out there. So that's how basically a lot of things were actually planned, so the content which is created for social media compiled together and made it into the format of a blog post. So, that is how I actually made it into the format of a book. That's how I basically write books so content that's tested, people are engaging with it. And then I combine them together and make it in the format of a book. That's one. Second, I have this habit of making case studies after I have worked with multiple brands. So, every brand that I work with, I write case study after what I've done for the brand, which has to be presented to the client. And that case studies are what I combined into my other book. So those case studies go in books like “Sold Out” and “Housefull”. So, book writing for me, I don't dedicate my time to write a book, but I dedicate my time to create content for the internet or for my clients and then compile them as an experience for the audience is to be.
Pravin: The point number seven that you mentioned in this particular book is about content creation and curation. So, those who cannot create you go ahead and curate from other sources and bringing it together. In your case, your personal brand and also for echoVME, you are using experiential learning, case studies that you string together and curate. What is your advice for other people in terms of curating content and putting it together in some form that can be consumed by their audience?
Sorav: Right, a lot of people get stuck in the journey because they just can't create content and they think that they are not good for it. So, you need to then dedicate to process of not being original, but being good at doing collection or researching on good pieces of content. For example, if you see this 101-content marketing book is actually curation of multiple ideas together where I talk about 101 content marketing ideas and I've curated whatever I think is best that I found on the internet that people can actually do and implement it for their business. So, this is just an example of how curation works. When you figure out 10 ways to keep yourself happy. So, what would be all these ways with research, figure out every single way and then combine them together and present it and always say curated from certain multiple sources. So, curation is lot easier and it's your it and people value your effort because you're educating them by putting the effort in research. So, don't just believe in originality. Because a lot of people, if you are aiming at becoming an author, you just believing that you have to write everything original then you will get stuck. So, first time authors can always think of curating so that they can actually learn the process of how exactly it works.
Pravin: Brilliant! I would attribute one quote to Seth Godin, “There are no original ideas. Only original combinations.” So, curation is, you're putting it together and putting your stamp on it.
Pravin: Sorav, I have been following you, you have multiple sources of learning of staying on the cutting edge. Could you tell us how you do that? Whom do you follow? What do you do to get to be one of the latest cutting edges?
Sorav: Right, so I didn't think that I was like, constantly absorbed and analyzed the latest trends in the industry. So, I keep my hands on it and I keep, I subscribe to multiple sources of information, from multiple blogs and news portals online so every time, there is a buzz on social media or the subject, which is of my interest I get notifications and I read them in the morning, and that's a regular thing that I generally do.
Second is I follow multiple experts. Because, though I might be an expert for many of them, I also follow multiple experts, so I can learn from them. So, I'm a lifelong learner and I have my mentors. I learn from Sam Ovens, Russell Brunson. I look at what they have been doing, what their strategies have been and then I try to adopt that for my business. So, these are the ways that we can always, one, is to observe and learn and benchmark your competitors and to just look at the industry updates and the second is to actually figure out some expert in your domain, who is definitely better than you and one step ahead of you. And you can be under the guidance and mentorship to learn from them.
Pravin: Brilliant. I have been to your office as well, Sorav, a couple of times, including the newer one. How are you, transferring this virus of learning, it's wrong word today, but it's a virus that I see that buzz going around with everybody in echoVME. How do you ensure that?
Sorav: I think it's a cultural fit, we choose people who we believe have the same energy like us. So, we try to look at their passion for the subject and not really the experience in the process. But if they're very passionate and if they had done some good work for themselves or for the clients that they've worked with, we take them on board. And one thing that is constant here is that everybody keeps learning. So, the managers who are managing the team, they're supposed to be updating the team with new things. We keep innovating every week. So, we find out what new can we do for the brands that makes a lot of sense.
Pravin: Beautiful.
Pravin: How do you experiment here because I've seen that the book has a lot of examples of what you've done for your clients and how it has had a positive impact? And this is a Kreator series. So, I would need to look into Sorav Jain's brain to understand how you keep this experimenting part alive?
Sorav: Awesome, so I think when looking at innovation, we look at the topical subject, right. So, what's in the trend right now, for example, 2021 which means it's a year and people will take a resolution 2020 is end of the year and then 2021, one is beginning. So, start thinking, how can we really connect these dots and create something very creative. There is always, so topical content is always first priority for us. So that's where we source ideas from. The second is nature, everything like let's say it's raining in Chennai right now. And this is unusual rain. Never in Jan, we have seen Chennai raining right? So, you've never seen rain in Chennai. So, this is again where it's like, Okay. Can we do something for rains in Chennai during the hot time and create content. Now also, we look at what's the internet trend. Right now, there are people discussing US versus India, right. How things are in the US and how things are India. So, we immediately adapt this concept for all the businesses that we are working in. So, these are some of the ways that we try to create fresh content or strategy on by looking at a daily inspiration by looking at inspirations and what's going viral on the Internet, which music, which video is going viral. So, we tried to adapt the same for the businesses that we are working on.
Pravin: Beautiful. I love it because it falls under the alternative learning series that you have inspiration all around, you just got to be awake and be receptive.
Pravin: Beautiful. Last couple of questions.
Pravin: And this one is yes; you took a goal last year to write the books you've written it down. What's your focus this year. Is it courses? Because I love your Instagram course. What is the focus this year for Sorav?
Sorav: So, this year focus is to see how I can nurture the community that I have built up to my Instagram course. Second is, I have an institute called Digital Scholar. So, I want to take that forward in fact get you on board as one of the trainers. So that's, I'm pitching you in your session. So, I think my focus this year is to see how I can make sure that I educate and transform a lot more people digitally. As a coach, as a digital marketer and as an influencer, so this is my motto for 2021.
Pravin: One last question about Sorav, the person I know you love traveling. The wrong thing now, but then, what are your plans for 2021?
Sorav: So, I think I've already taken last three months, the moment the lockdown got the things started getting unlocked. I went to Pune, Jaipur, then Goa. So, I believe, once things, so right now to travel in India is my focus not traveling outside of India. But I think every month, I basically take a break. But one of the goals this year is to take a spiritual break and I'm filling out a destination. So that's in my agenda for 2021. A spiritual holiday.
Pravin: Ah, Sorav always inspiring to talk to you, especially listen to your alternative sources, the micro-marketing yarn and of course, one of your books, especially the 101 Social media part is you got to keep re-reading in and every time we read it keeps giving us a whole lot of other ideas and inspirations.
So, viewers and listeners, go check out soravjain.com for his books, courses and a whole lot of content that he's coming out with. Sorav, once again. Always a pleasure. Thanks a lot.
Sorav: Thank you so much Pravin. Wishing you a good day and you are awesome. Take care.