As an expert or entrepreneur, coach or consultant, speaker or leader, you are standing on a gold mine of knowledge and experience. Hidden underground is the precious substance that shines out in your work with clients; the mighty foundation you’ve built your business on; the deep source of energy that powers your mission and vision.
But as long as it remains buried in that mine, only revealed to the few who pay for a guided tour, it isn’t bringing either you or your market the full value of its wealth.
From your vantage point atop this gold mine, you probably know it’s time. Time to extract the treasure you are sitting on, shape and polish it into a dazzling asset and offer it to the wider world. Time to transition from a well-thought-of expert to a thought-leading author.
As the UK’s most experienced business book mentor, I have 14 years’ experience of helping 1,000+ entrepreneurs through the process of writing and publishing their books – creating beautifully crafted volumes that amplify their voices in crowded markets, magnetise their ideal clients and transform their businesses in ways they didn’t think possible.
And over the years I’ve seen that these five outcomes are what transform those authors’ businesses.
1. Clarity and confidence
Every author I’ve worked with finds that the process of planning and writing their books is an amazing piece of self-development – both personal and professional. Organising your thoughts, knowledge, experience and expertise into a detailed structure – the blueprint of a logical and enlightening journey for your reader – takes concentration but is always rewarding.
It forces you to interrogate the steps of your process, your client or customer journey, and the way you want to present your practice and your data to your readers.
Writing and editing your manuscript then gives you the opportunity to unpack and review everything about your work and your business.
Sometimes it shows you how you can improve your process and your clients’ journey; often you get a sudden insight about that extra step you need to add in, or where you can simplify or clarify for your readers and clients; other times it helps you realise how to use your own stories or client case studies to sell your work and engage with new prospects.
I’ve known quite a few authors get a flash of inspiration while writing about re-positioning or pivoting their businesses – for the better and often the bigger.
2. Authority and influence
There is nothing that shows you’re an authority or expert in your field like being the author of a published book. In an increasingly online environment, your printed book stands out as a physical product, representing you as well as containing your knowledge and skill in an iconic format.
Added to this, your e-book is an electronic asset you can send to prospects, clients, colleagues and partners at the touch of a key. And your audiobook speaks your own voice of authority directly into the ear of your listeners.
Your book’s ability to go far and wide across continents, speaking to people you don’t know and would never be able to contact, and being passed on through recommendations, reviews and online booksellers to ideal clients, is an extraordinary kind of influence.
Everyone respects an author, even more than you might imagine. In the world of entrepreneurs, lots of people talk about writing their books, but those who actually finish writing their books and get them published are still a small, elite minority, which makes us all the more valued and authoritative.
3. Prospects and clients
The third prize that will come to you as a published author – and in terms of building your business it may be the biggest – is more and higher value prospects and clients.
Everything you’ve invested, in terms of time and money, in getting your book written and published, will come back to you through your ideal clients coming to work with you, as opposed to you having to hunt them down; through being able to attract more clients, better clients, clients paying you higher prices – because the unique aspect of a book is that it is not an obvious sales tool.
I often say that nothing sells you like a book and why I call it your ‘undercover sales agent’, because a book is not a business card, it’s not a pitch, it’s not a marketing brochure – all of which are well-known sales tools, and which often end up in the bin.
Your book is an incredible tool to send out to prospects and clients; it is not an overt marketing tool. It just tells people as a matter of fact, as a matter of value, what you do and how you do it.
When you write your book and it is perfectly positioned for your market, it will draw your ideal prospects back to you and your services. So, prospects and clients are what you are writing your book for and what you will get as an outcome of writing your book.
4. Speaking and platforms
Are you looking to raise your profile by getting speaking gigs, or more or better-paid or higher-profile speaking gigs? Writing and publishing your book will be your golden key to these engagements and to guesting on the best podcasts and featuring at industry events – believe me, everyone loves an author!
Think about the experts and pundits we see on the media every day: almost inevitably they’re introduced as ‘the author of…’ Their book is the source of their authority to comment on their specialist subject. Not only does their book define their expertise, but it’s likely how the programme producer or journalist found them in the first place.
Amazon has one of the most powerful search engines out there. If you have a book published on Amazon and someone searches for your name online, your book title or keywords in the description of your book, Amazon’s algorithm ensures that you and your book will appear at the top of the search page. No book, no listing on Amazon.
5. Book magic
Confidence, authority, influence, clients, income and speaking platforms are all transformational and predictable outcomes from writing and publishing your book. From my experience of mentoring and publishing thousands of entrepreneur authors’ business books, I know that these are all the results you can expect.
But as well as these predictable outcomes, there are always some unpredictable results of publishing a great business book – results that sometimes seem almost magical.
Some authors have found their book has put them in touch with their heroes; others have been invited onto high-powered committees, unexpectedly doubled their business, become media pundits, been flown across the world to speak – the sky’s the limit!
And this is why I called my transformational book-writing app Book Magic AI. It takes you through the unique and refined processes I’ve developed to make writing your business book faster, easier and better than has ever been possible before. Why not give it a try?
