Step-By-Step Guide To The Perfect Reader Playbook For Coaches And Authors

Implementing a psychographic marketing strategy is the only way to move beyond simple demographics and into the emotional triggers that actually drive a purchase decision. Gary MacDermid, an engineer-turned-marketing consultant, pulls back the curtain on the Perfect Reader Playbook to reveal the methodical science behind human behavior. He explains how his background in nuclear engineering influenced a data-driven approach to mapping the “Five Phases of Awareness,” illustrating why most entrepreneurs fail by jumping to a solution before their audience even prioritizes the problem. This discussion provides a tactical roadmap for building an “army of content” designed to meet clients at every stage of their journey, ensuring that your messaging is received with clarity, emotion, and trust.

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Watch the episode here

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Step-By-Step Guide To The Perfect Reader Playbook For Coaches And Authors

Welcome to the show. I have my co-creator for the Perfect Reader Playbook. We are going to talk about the genesis of how we came about creating this program, what it is designed for, and who it is designed for. By the way, every author or entrepreneur out there. We are going to talk a lot about that. If you want to go over before you listen, we are giving away the first three modules of the course so you can get a really great flavor for it. You can go over to PerfectReaderPlaybook.com, and also the new book coming out on March 3rd is there as well.

You will be able to buy that in pre-sale. Our guest is Gary MacDermid, and he is a highly sought-after motivational speaker, private investor, serial entrepreneur, professional engineer, and retired naval officer whose journey from humble beginnings to international success is inspiring audiences around the world. Guys, I do not say that lightly. It truly is. He has things going on in the Philippines and many other countries where he has been tapped to train.

You may recognize Gary from his powerful episode, Set Your Goals or Someone Else Will, on season 3 of the Amazon Prime series, Speak Up TV. His message of reclaiming your life through intentional goals and financial independence has resonated deeply with aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those rising from underrepresented communities. This is a really great thing that we have put together here. I hope you guys will tune in, enjoy, and go over and check it out.

It does not matter if you are an entrepreneur who is just beginning or maybe even an entrepreneur who has not had much marketing success. This is also related to books. We have a very layered program that really speaks to the science of marketing. Once you go through it, you recognize, “That is exactly why I haven’t been getting traction.” Stay tuned for Gary and me and this illuminating episode about the science of marketing and how the reader playbook will help.

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“Understanding Pain Points To Connect”

Gary, welcome. I’m happy to have you here to talk about the playbook. We have put so much work into this.

I’m excited to be here. I cannot wait to share everything we have been working on.

We have a new book coming out on March 3rd. Gary and I wrote this book around the program that Gary built. We are just going to talk to you guys about why it is so helpful. I want to start out with, as part of the report, we ask these questions, and it puts out the demographics. A lot of people stop at the demographics. We have the demographics of our readers or your business, and then we go into the psychographics. This is the part that nobody addresses. Tell me how you came up with this in the report. What were you looking at when you created this part of the report?

With the psychographics, it just comes down to almost anything that I have learned, whether it is in business or just marketing. You really have to know your audience. You’ve got to know who you are talking to with your message. When you write a book, you’re creating a narrative or a message that goes out to somebody. The starting point is really understanding who the target reader is.

Psychographics are an important part of that. Demographics, psychographics, knowing and having clarity on your audience, what excites them, what format they like to read in, how they read it, the pitch, the tone, and the manner of speaking. All of that lines up with that target audience. If you do not know that and you do not understand it, then you might miss the mark.

Marketing is so much about emotion. I do not know if you have seen the new Bud Light commercial, but I watched it this morning, and I was literally like, “Bud Light is back.” If you’re a patriotic American, that commercial just really hit your heartstrings. I feel like that is where so much of this misses, because if you do not know your actual client, you do not know how to impact them emotionally to get them to the point where they improve on that. Would you agree with that?

100%. It is the step of understanding the target audience, the psychographics, and the demographics. You mentioned the heartstrings. What are the pain points? When we write a book or just in business, when you look at business, what problem do you solve or what need do you serve, whether it is a book or a service? When you look at that, there are pain points. You get on those heartstrings, and you address those pain points. Sometimes you have to take somebody through to relive some of those pain points to get them to get excited about the solution or how they can do something better, quicker, faster, differently, or achieve something that they want to achieve.

In our book and in all of our programs, our avatar or our perfect reader is Samantha. What we’re really doing with the psychographics on this is what are Samantha’s core values? What is her decision-making process? That is such a big deal. You and I have talked before. I am an action person. You, being an engineer, weigh those decisions in a very different way than I do. Because of course, if you’re building a nuclear reactor, I could build one, but you certainly would not want to live anywhere near it.

Pros, cons, gas pedal, brake pedal.

It really is important that you know those emotional triggers we just talked about and communication preferences. We are in such a mass market moment. I was on a panel last night. We were talking about books for Gen Z, and millennials are on TikTok, while the rest of us older folks are in a lot of different other places. That factors into what you’re doing as well. Let us talk about those pain points. One of the things that we did in this was actually push through those challenges and pain points together. Talk about how you found those for this mission.

“Understanding And Targeting Your Audience”

It just builds upon everything we did for the demographics, the psychographics, and understanding the target. When you have clearly understood the target audience, the ideal customer avatar that you are working with, then you can put yourself into their shoes and see what a typical day is like or what some of the stresses would be in relation to the messaging, the author platform, or the book that you have.

It is just taking that foundation of that ideal customer, the ideal person, or the most likely person in your audience, and then building upon that, putting yourself in their shoes, and then seeing the challenges from their lens. That is what we do in this software. Do exactly that. We identify the audience and then we take ourselves through that journey of what that person is experiencing, how they see the struggle and the challenges or the pain points that they have so that we can know how to send the messaging so that it can be received as they go through that journey of the pain point, identifying the problem, looking for the solution, and then finding us as the solution.

You and I were working on a report this morning. Me more than you, but you were just tweaking the software while I was putting the input in. It was so clear to me that the person we were working with had such vague answers. I know you were probably looking at the report, but they had such vague answers that you could tell right away they had no idea what the problem was or who their audience was.

It was really like you can tell when someone just has no idea, and you know their marketing is just going to fail on that. That part looks at your primary problem, your current solution to frustrations, and purchase decision barriers. You cannot throw objections out there if you do not know what the actual purchase barrier is. There is a lot of stuff in there. The time costs.

If you do not buy this, what is it going to cost you 3 or 4 months down the line? Where will you be? I love it too, you have got transformative goals and desires in here, and attempted and failed solutions. Talk about those attempted and failed solutions because people do not like to admit that they failed sometimes, and it is the key to growth.

That is one of those things when you talk about pain points. It is the elephant in the room. When you look at the audience and the fact that they are aware of the problem, when somebody is aware of the problem, they have probably tried 1 or 2 or 3 or more different things and still have not solved the problem.

When you kind of call them out in a constructive way, we’re basically looking at our messaging, and we know if a pain point is one thing, we also should know what some of those failed attempts to solve the problem are. If you have a problem with your car, and maybe you have tried 1 or 2 things from Amazon but they were not made right, we are the solution.

We need to understand our unique selling proposition and how it might be different or better than some of the other tools out there. When you look at a customer who is aware of the problem, looking for a solution, it is most likely that they have tried 1 or 2 of these other things. Why would you have a different result when you work with us?

It is because of this. If you map out the stuff that they have probably done without necessarily knowing that they have tried that, there is a lot more likelihood that you are going to stick because if they have not tried it, or maybe they have considered trying it, now you’ve kind of met them where they are and showed them, “Do not do this. Our solution is different because of this.” You are now matching a solution to somebody who is looking for a solution and is aware of a problem.

“Understanding ‘Samantha’ For Connection”

I mentioned at the beginning about the free three modules we are giving you guys. One of them is our avatar, what we call Samantha. It is taking you through Samantha’s day so you understand this. Is Samantha really busy? When does she do this? What are those goals? How is she going to achieve them? The more you can put yourself in those shoes, the better off she’s going to feel. Samantha is going to feel like you’re talking directly to her.

You have hit that emotional pain point there. The other thing that is in this report that I love, Gary, is how many times have you gone to an event and somebody pitches what they do, which should be concise and to the point, and they’re just going on and on, and you can tell they’re explaining the process, not what they’re doing? Talk about those two pieces that you did with the pitch and the client diary.

As an investor, I look at pitch decks all the time, and I am around people who always want to pitch me an idea or a business proposition. What we do here is a similar conversation. We want to slow that down. This also goes back to when I used to be a consultant. I remember when I was starting as a consultant, and I was taught, do not just jump to the solution space.

Streamlining The Customer Journey

When you look at the interaction between somebody who is presenting an idea to somebody to get them to decide to move forward with a product or a service, we want to slow that down and try to make it iterative. When we just talked about the foundation of the ideal client, and then the different stages of the customer journey.

The unaware of the problem, the aware of the problem, looking for a solution, then finding the solution. You want to simplify and streamline that path. When you look at the pitch, do not just spit something out that could be all over the place. If you can find a way to address that pitch or ask a question of who you’re presenting to to identify where they are in that journey, are they in the unaware stage, where they do not even know they have a problem, or are they in the stage where they know they have a problem, and they just have not found the solution?

They’re looking for solutions, and you need to introduce them to their solution. If I am in that position where somebody’s just pitching to me, I would train somebody to ask that question or try to get some type of qualifying information to see where they are. Now, with software like this, we can do that all for them because we can basically explicitly tell them for this stage, unaware of the problem, looking for the solution. This is the call to action. This is the messaging. This is what the content should look like.

We give them a whole package for each stage of the customer journey, and then when they pitch, we’re training them on that awareness to know, “When you’re talking to somebody, find out what stage they’re in and then give them this package.” That’s how we deal with the software. We give them all the different packages for the different stages of the customer journey. We train them so that they can understand the cues of what that audience looks like when they’re in each phase, and then they have the recipe for success to present and affect higher conversion.

Before we jump into those phases, because those phases we’re going to talk about are actually the science behind marketing. For those of you who think that it is just spray and pray, that is not going to work. You really need to understand these pillars. You put together emotional hooks and triggers. I like this part because there are teb triggers or hooks in every single report that we do. From what you know about your avatar, you can go right to that hook. Is it an attention hook? Is it a fear hook? Is it a trust hook? How did you put that together in a way? What was your understanding when you put those together that all ten of those were important?

“AI, Behavior, And Customer Profiling”

This just goes to the science of the brain and statistical performance over time. Once you’ve identified that ideal client, and this is the same as when you look at personality or human behavior, and you look over time, there is a lot of repetition. If you look at someone’s personality and profile, same as an ideal customer profile. If he can probably describe somebody’s profile like, I am an engineer, and I like to go into the details.

When you take that profile, and you look at statistically over time how that person performs in certain situations, the great thing about AI and large language models is you can get an idea of how that profile will perform, think, answer questions, and make decisions. When you have that broken down into the customer journey, the unaware, the aware, looking for the problem, aware of the problem, looking for the solution, all of those different stages, now you can curate the different triggers.

Would a logical trigger or hook work for somebody who makes decisions 100% of the time emotionally? Maybe not. We curate some of the different hooks that will have a high degree of working. When you look at statistics, there are different buckets of triggers that usually work. We just make sure that we have something for each one of those.

We give that to the user so that they can try something that would most likely work. If they need to adjust, they’ve got 3 or 4 or 5 other ones that can be used in quick succession, so that you can, over time, dial in your strategy, and you have more than one tool, more than one skillset to just really apply and make tweaks as you improve and get to know your processes better.

Let us jump into that science, those awareness phases. What I see out there is marketing fails because of those five phases. People always jump right to phase four. I’ve talked about this in other podcasts. There is the unaware phase, the problem phase, the solution phase, the product phase, and then the advanced following phase, where I am your fan. Now people jump from “I have a course” to product, and they do not even get into it.

Awareness is a double. I’ll get your feedback on this. The unaware stage is not only that this person does not know they have a problem yet, but for the most part, it is that nobody knows I, as the expert, am alive. That is actually a two-fold unaware program there. I just came out of nowhere and sold you a product. What are your thoughts about that unaware phase? Do you feel like it is a two-fold problem?

I do think it’s absolutely a twofold problem. There is also another layer in terms of somebody might know they have a problem, or they might know that the problem you’re telling them they have is a problem. They also might not know the severity of that problem, or may not care about the priority of it. When I used to do consulting for nuclear power plants, this is where I learned. Do not jump straight to the solution.

“Prioritize Problem Before Solution”

You might be in a plant solving a problem, and then you see 3 or 4 other problems. The temptation as a consultant responsible for getting business and selling is to just point out, “We can also help you with this,” and you’re jumping to the solution. You’re already there. They know you. What I found and learned the hard way is that it is not the way to get somebody to make a decision. When it comes to that concept, if you look at those four stages, it is a process.

It is a customer journey for a reason. When we try to shortcut, and we see it, and it is obvious there is a problem there, the client or the person you’re talking to may also see it as a problem. In the priorities of knowing that it’s a problem and then also understanding that it’s a priority for them to solve that problem, if you try to jump that stage and you say, “Here is a solution,” but they have not even prioritized it or thought about how you can solve that problem, it may not be as important.

If you just jump to the solution like, “I can help you with that,” sometimes that backfires. Whereas if you take them through that journey, have them relive the pain, and you look at, “We notice that you have this other thing, something’s leaking over here.” You validate that it is a problem in the level of performance and then have them go through that journey to see where they are on it, and then maybe present yourself as a solution as opposed to jumping eagerly.

That is the same, slow the game down, and make sure that we validate where they are in the journey. Whether they make the jump from stage one to stage three really quickly, we do not want to make that jump for them. Hopefully that helps, but I do agree that there are those two problems of understanding the problem and understanding you as a solution. They might have both in that phase.

Even to take that a step further, a lot of people will come, not so much anymore since I call this out all the time; nobody brings me these books anymore. I used to get a lot of books about happiness. This author would come in and say, “Everybody wants to be happy,” or “Everybody needs to be happy.” At that unaware stage, not everybody knows they’re unhappy yet. There is another group of people who hold onto that unhappiness because it is serving them in some way. They are not going to budge at all.

It is really about getting in there with the right person and identifying that niche within all of that. That is where you have to really go into that unaware. Now you have made somebody aware. Now you’re in the problem. You are identifying the problem, but it is not you as the entrepreneur or the author. It is making that person aware that they have a problem. That is really the first step because a lot of people are in denial about their problems. I hate to say that.

Maybe it is a step 1B is to make sure that they might know they have the problem, but how big a deal is that problem? It is one thing to know you have a problem, take the unhappiness thing, but do you actually care enough that you want to solve the problem, or have you written it off, or just accepted the problem and are not really looking for a solution? We have to get them to take that next phase in the journey, and they have to take that step. We cannot force them. You cannot take the horse to the water and expect them to drink all the time.

I relate to it, and I know this is probably a very harsh example. When I talk to self-help authors, it is sort of like an alcoholic. Someone from the outside cannot help them. They have to hit rock bottom and really decide. That’s the way with all personal growth and development. You start to see something happening to you over and over, and it is not a great problem.

You have to see that it is recurring, and maybe it is coming up worse every single time. That is where you have to do that rock bottom hit before you say, “Where is your solution, Gary? I am now acknowledging I have a problem and I have to make this a priority.” In that solution phase, what are the things we have to present, because there are a lot of people out there presenting solutions? How do we have to be different?

“Highlighting Your Unique Advantage”

It is good that you’re asking how you have to be different. That is the concept of that unique selling proposition, or how you are different and better than the other solutions. Now that we have taken somebody through, they have understood they have a problem, and they want to solve it. Whether they have tried to find other solutions or not, we want to help make that process as short as possible.

Whether they have tried to find other solutions or not, and now you’re looking at our solution, now that you’ve identified us or see us, we’re going to also show you through that process. Here are some other solutions that others have tried. Here is how they might have failed, or here are some other approaches, and here is why our approach is better. We give that as part of the package so that the author or the user can figure out the best way to present that. You can expeditiously take somebody through that next phase of the customer journey as quickly as possible to decide on our solution.

You go into that product. Before we go to that product, I want to talk about those three that we just mentioned. Those require a content journey because you’re building trust along the way. What we just described is not sitting down at a workshop and saying, “I have got my audience that I think they are aware. Here is my problem. Here is their solution.” You have to actually build content along the way to build the trust to attract those people.

That’s another misconception that people have about marketing is, “We’ve identified it all, let us go to our product.” Three weeks later, you’re presenting a product without having validated and built the audience’s trust in it anyway. Would you agree with that? Do you ever just go in and say, “Within days, I may have a problem. I do have a problem. I want a solution.” It happens over time. It is not a direct decision. That prompts the entrepreneur, the author, to have to take that slowly, building that trust.

The human brain usually has to see something 6 or 7 times before you make a decision. If you just look at marketing in general, like direct mail, it is the same concept. You have to persistently nurture, and depending upon which phase the customer is in, there is different content for that phase. If you take both of those concepts, and you happen to see 6 or 7 times, it could be that each person moves through those phases at different times.

It may take seeing the same concept or the same pain point a few times to realize that you have a problem and that you need to prioritize it enough that you want to actually look for a solution. When you start looking for the solutions, it’s the same thing as, “I saw this one solution, but I am not quite convinced that that is the right solution.”

I see that marketing, now, I am in the solution phase. I need to see more of that type of content for that phase so that I can register and then make the decision to move to the next phase. That is why it is important to understand the phases and have an army of content for each phase so that you can present it one way, present it another way, get somebody to, over time, move to the next phase, and ultimately make the buying decision.

I am going to give you guys a great example. I used to be part of a mastermind of women who made over a particular dollar amount. There was this one woman who would show up to every call. Her problem was critical. She would raise her hand and articulate the same problem all the time. “I am overwhelmed. I have got kids.”

She would go over the problem every single time. It really got to the point after about six months that all of us would just roll our eyes like, “You’re not doing anything about the problem.” We are trying to help you. We are trying to give you solutions. There was just so much resistance to solving that problem.

It was almost like she just wanted to complain about it, but she did not want to solve it. That is sort of exactly what we’re talking about here. She was aware on some level she had a problem, and she was articulating the problem, but she was not in that solution phase yet, where she was actually pulling the trigger and listening to the steps.

There was no way you were going to sell her a product because she was skeptical at that point. We had not, after six months, gotten over that hump of “Here is a solution.” All the ladies in the call had a solution, but I do not know if it was not hearing, not acknowledging. It was very strange. Now we’ve gotten someone there, and we are in the product solution. This is where we actually start attracting and selling to people. Correct?

We’re continuing that nurture, hopefully expeditiously, to get them to that next phase of buying.

They decide they’re going to pull the trigger. This is where all of us have to have really good onboarding. They are aware. They are ready to buy. We have to be great with our messaging there, too. We have to be compassionate, empathetic, and still run a business because if we do not, we’re going to be one of those empathetic people who are reducing our price because we feel sorry for someone. We are not setting good boundaries. Get into that phase because that is really more about the “You’ve sold. What does your onboarding look like? What is your retention? What are you going to do next?”

You draw the line, you make the sale, and now it is the implementation, the follow-through, the customer service, and then the next sale.

You guys can all see that this is a very thought-out, scientific report that we have. The book that we have coming out is The Perfect Reader Playbook. It is actually available for pre-sale over on Amazon right now. It is really about that logical teaching you how to do marketing the right way. I love that Gary is so methodical. He has put this into a context where we can literally ask you eight questions, and that report is generated. In addition to the book, we have a course that goes along with this. The course is fifteen modules. It is quite a bit, but remember, you’re not going to do this all in one day. You’re going to work on each phase as you go along. Gary, what do you want to add about this?

It is a marathon, not a sprint. The idea is we’re learning at the same time, and we have software that facilitates the implementation of it. We work together with the software and with the course to teach and align on the sales process, the customer journey, and then you’re also understanding and developing the tools to use for each one of those phases. It is a combination of having a software that you can work with, but also at the same time learning and understanding the customer journey and how you’re adjusting your business and the way you present to hit each phase and get better at conversion and taking customers through that journey as fast as possible, over and over again.

“Building Sustainable Business Strategies”

That is because I see so many authors and coaches, and we get a lot of authors who write the book because they’re not getting enough business. When they come in, they have not developed any of this, or they’ve been doing the spray and pray and looking at the analytics and saying it is just not working. A business is a long-term sustainable business strategy. You do not just automatically start up, and you are making a whole lot of money.

Those who do usually do not continue to grow that business. It is a growth spurt, and then they cannot get it through. It’s really great that you developed it. I am so happy I partnered with you. You’re brilliant, and I love how you use AI for everything, guys. Gary showed me stuff. I just sit there, and I just go, “My mind doesn’t work like that.” It is really illuminating to watch how his mind works in all of this. Gary, any last words?

“AI Tools Paired With Learning”

Thank you, and I am excited about the opportunity to help more entrepreneurs. That is a passion of mine. It is like you said with the course and the tool. Tools are only as good as the people who are using them. AI can get you to a certain point, or it can do a lot of things that we could not do before, but at the same time, we built the course with the tool so that the business owner, the author, can learn at the same time.

There is no replacement for us as founders to be able to go out there, have the pitch, and talk to the customer. By having the tool that makes it very easy, and at the same time having the course where we’re learning that, and upleveling our skillset as a founder, presenter, and the number one marketer for our companies. That is really the secret sauce or the magic of having the two, which is being able to also learn and grow while using a tool to increase our level of comprehension and delivery in the sales and marketing process.

You guys, you have to keep in mind this is a science. There is a way to do it that works. If you’ve ever engaged someone to do Meta advertising or Google advertising, if they are a solid person who facilitates this, they have already told you you’re going to pay. You are going to spend 3 to 6 months in that unaware phase because they’re hitting people with messages over and over.

You have probably already encountered it, and you’ve gotten really frustrated with that person because you did not understand what they were doing. That’s another area where, when people do not understand this, they do not budget appropriately for it. They waste money on things that are instant gratification, that just are not going to work. You guys, you can find all of this at PerfectReaderPlaybook.com.

If you scroll down to about the middle of the page, you have a choice of buying the book. You can download three free modules of the program. We put the first three modules for free so you can actually see the value of it. You have the ability to run the report or run the report and take the course. You can do all of those things depending on what level you really want to work with. You can see we went from unaware to.  We went through all our phases, too. Gary, thank you for being on, and I am sure everybody’s going to see more of you in the near future.

Thank you for having me.

Important Links

• Gary MacDermid
• Perfect Reader Playbook
• The Perfect Reader Playbook

About Gary MacDermid

Gary MacDermid is a highly sought-after motivational speaker, private investor, serial entrepreneur, professional engineer, and retired Naval Officer whose journey from humble beginnings to international success is inspiring audiences around the world. You may recognize Gary from his powerful episode “Set Your Goals, or Someone Else Will” on Season 3 of the Amazon Prime Video series SpeakUp TV. His message of reclaiming your life through intentional goals and financial independence has resonated deeply with aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those rising from underrepresented communities.

In March 2025, Gary released his debut book “Set Your Own Goals or Someone Else Will”—a definitive playbook for breaking through mental barriers and engineering the life you truly want—not the one others expect you to live. The book dives deep into how to overcome self-limiting beliefs and get things done, serving as a blueprint for personal transformation and bold action.

Gary’s career began when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy after high school. A simple but powerful piece of advice from a Master Chief—to buy a home at every duty station—opened his eyes to the power of passive income. From there, he began acquiring properties across the U.S. and internationally. After earning a scholarship and completing a degree in electrical engineering, Gary was commissioned as a Naval Officer. He went on to lead design and analysis projects for nuclear power plants in the U.S. proving his talent for solving high-stakes, complex problems.

Eventually, Gary transitioned full-time into entrepreneurship, building a multi-state real estate portfolio and investing in private companies around the globe. He founded USA Private Equities, a company that acquires and manages real estate and businesses. He is also the co-founder of ProGrowth Solutions, a financial services firm offering accounting, tax strategy, and business advisory services tailored for entrepreneurs. Today, Gary is known as “The Cash Flow Engineer”—teaching others how to create wealth through systems thinking, disciplined investing, and intentional goal setting. Whether on stage or in strategy sessions, Gary is focused on helping people from seasoned business owners to first-time founders build lasting wealth and freedom.

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