One business tool most entrepreneurs, consultants, managers and companies pass right by is their own published book.
Certainly, if you have written and published a book, it's a pretty good bet that none of your competitors have done the same.
So if your competitive objectives include beating your competition, passing them by and leaving them in proverbial dust, authoring your own book may just be your magic answer.
Consider this: By publishing a book, you can push all the pieces of your knowledge and expertise neatly into place.
You have accumulated thousands of insights over the years, from your failures as well as your triumphs, so why not fill your book manuscript with them and give others in the business world, especially in your target market, the chance to plumb the depths of your experience and expertise.
Beyond the added benefit of personally gaining some new insights of your own as you actually write your book, you'll become known as the leading authority on your specialty, a guru that everyone in need of your services will come to feel they must turn to for help with problems that you alone seem maximally suited to solve.
If this notion of becoming a thoughtleading book author appeals to you--and it should with significant competitive advantages harder and harder to come by these days-then it may be time for you begin writing your tome.
Or is it? The truth is that before you put on word down to paper (or computer screen), you'll first need to answer this: What book focus should you choose so that all this hard work truly advances your business goals? Here are sub-questions to help you answer the larger one: * For what do you want to become famous for? * What value proposition do your clients currently enjoy from you? * What is it about your services that currently attract new customers? Your answers here will enable you to define your "thoughtleading" image, i.
e.
, the reputation your book will help you gain as a "thought leader.
" By zeroing in on how your target market now defines your highest value, your book concept will become clear.
No sense writing a book that will only tangentially help you grow your business! How do you typically respond at a networking event when asked what business you're in? If you had to rip out a fast e-mail to a prospect that expands on your value proposition, what would it say? How do your sales presentations articulate why someone would be wise to hire you? Your book should embody whatever might be the answers to such questions.
Many of your readers after all could become future customers, once they attain a deeper understanding of what you know and, as a result, how you could help them become more successful.
If you spend enough serious time tackling this issue of what you book must truly be about, and come up with answer, you have passed the first hurdle of book authorship.
The second will involve a rather challenging commitment.
Actually writing and then publishing a book is not for the faint of heart.
I think other major life goals that require huge amounts of time and sweat equity, such as getting (and staying) married, having a baby, raising a family, buying a house, studying for a Ph.
D.
, surviving medical or law school or starting your own business.
Reaching that magical moment when you hold your very own book in your very own hands requires loads and loads of time, stick-to-itiveness, personal organization and...
uh...
writing.
But once book authorship happens, you'll be welcomed into a very special, and exclusive, society, where your stature will automatically jump 5-20 professional rungs.
Employ this new stature and business tool smartly and most (or all) of your serious competitors will fade away, never to be heard from again.