Why You Should Publish a Book Before Building Your Platform and Use It to Reposition Your Career

today. Excited to be with you for a BSPU call. Today is all about how to start a new venture. Maybe you’ve been in the corporate world for a long time and you have some skills and now you want to, you know, pivot towards consulting or coaching or maybe you want to reposition yourself. Maybe the audience that you’ve been serving or the business that you’ve had, you know, you’re ready to to make a pivot and to make an adjustment.

I want to talk about how to do that. And of course, I’m going to talk about how to use your book as the foundation for your next venture. I spoke to a a past client of mine, very well-known marketing uh person that you would know if I said her name. She once told me, she said, “You know, Rob, um, I feel like I have so many clients in my in her program that really would love to have a book, but I’ve always told them that they really need to like build a business and build a platform and build a foundation before they ever write the book.” And I was like, “Name, that’s exactly wrong. It’s the exact opposite of that. If you are an expert at what you do, if you are great at what you do, you have a magic, then your problem isn’t that you don’t have enough of a foundation or a platform. The problem is that you don’t have the credibility and authority to attract that platform. That’s what the book does. So, let me go through kind of the various things that I think will be helpful to you. And I’m even going to go into the details about what I feel like is the best way for most of you to attract clients. Okay? A lot of people will start out with their business building, their pivot, their consulting, whatever it is they’re going to do, and they think, “Well, I need to build a website. I need to start posting content. I need to network. I need to create offers.” That’s all backwards. If you want to reposition yourself into consulting, advice, coaching, a new vertical, the fastest way to change how the market sees you, which is the problem, is with a book. It is the fastest way. It is the greatest authority builder. If you change your positioning, you will change your perceived authority. And a best-selling book does that better than anything else. So, let me give you kind of step by step what my thoughts are. So number one, embrace the idea that the book is the foundation for this. Now I want to give you a few reasons why the book should come first in this. But let me say this. This is not about writing a book so you can fake out the market. Okay? This is for people that are experts at their craft. They know what they’re doing. They’re good at it. The problem is nobody knows that they’re good at it or they don’t really have any authority or credibility to show that they’re really good at it. So, the hardest part of launching a new venture shouldn’t be the delivery of your magic, right? You should be good at what you do. Maybe you don’t have all of it dialed in and maybe you need to create an offer and maybe that offer needs to be dialed in better. Fine. You should be able to deliver a result. And by the way, if you’re not sure whether or not you can deliver a result to people, that’s totally fine, too. The best thing for you to do is to find three or four people and help them for free. like deliver an amazing life-changing result to them for free. They’ll give you incredible testimonials that will help you to dial in your process a little bit and give you confidence that you can actually help people in the ways that you believe you can. Okay? So, if you’re not sure, then help some people for free. Really dial in your process, get some testimonials, and then go from there. Okay? The hardest part is not the magic. For those of you that are experts in the thing that you can do and how you can help, the hardest part is credibility. What does a book do? A book will compress all of your experience. That’s part of the idea of this. It takes your experiences, your stories, your examples, your case studies, and it compresses it in a way that displays your organized thinking, your model. This is something that a lot of people really underestimate about the power of a book. when you’re writing a book about like your magic, how you help corporations do ABC or how you help, you know, create cultures that thrive and that are happy and that are productive or whatever it is. What a lot of people don’t realize is they have this unconscious competence like they’re really good. You may be really good, but you don’t even realize like the steps that you’re doing, the things that you’re doing to get people a result. That unconscious competence gets distilled in a book. When you work with somebody on a book, they are pulling many times a writer coach or a ghostriter is pulling that model out of you that that your genius. Maybe you do unconsciously and help people unconsciously. It needs to be pulled out. There’s nothing better than a book to do that. So even before it gets in the hands of somebody else, it’s of benefit to you because it helps you organize your thinking and it helps you to create a model of your genius and your magic. Now after the book is done well and published and promoted now what it does is it signals to the marketplace hey that you are an expert. It differentiates you instantly immediately from those that would be your competitors. You stand out head and shoulders above them. Your value your perceived value is raised immediately. without a book, you’re another consultant and maybe you got a good stick and a good spiel, you know, but you’re just another person that has that title or that has that mode or modality, right? Without a book, you don’t want to be just another. With a book, you become the author of fill in the blank. The gal that wrote the book on fill in the blank, the guy that has the model of in his book fill in the blank. That framing alone changes your pricing ability. It changes access to decision makers. There’s nothing like getting a book in front of somebody that is a decision maker to establish and frame your authority right from the get-go. It opens doors to speaking opportunities and it certainly opens doors to media as well. The book is used in your marketing, but it isn’t your marketing. The book is your positioning. It is your authority. If you have that magic, the book, even before you sell your first client, the book can open doors that you never dreamed or imagined. So, let’s talk about the steps in creating that kind of book. Okay? Cuz maybe you’re at a point, as one of my clients, where you’ve written a book, you love that, and it’s doing cool stuff for you, but you would really like to do this. I have many friends and clients who have told me I wrote a book on this subject matter and it made me an authority in that subject matter but really I would prefer to serve a different audience. That’s true. You guys know that because of my book Life After Debt. I wrote this book I don’t know 18 years ago. All the time people come to me via email and through social media and they’re like, “Hey, we’d love to promote this book or we really think this book could do well in this environment.” And I’m like, “No, no, no. The book will do whatever the book does.” Why? Because I don’t serve this client anymore. I don’t have a financial services customer anymore. I have moved into a completely different space. So, if that is the case, then let me talk through you through with you what you should think about when writing a book to pivot when writing a book to create something new. So, the number one thing you need to do is in writing that book, you need to choose your audience first. So number one in the writing of the book, choose your audience first. This is the biggest decision that you need to make. Okay, this is where most people make a really like fatal mistake. They think, well, I need to go broad and I’m going to write a broad book. And look, sometimes that can work, but it never works as well as writing a narrow book, a book to your specific niche. And you should be thinking about who it is ideally and specifically that you want to serve. What is the niche? Who is the person? Because you have to think through about that audience things like, can they afford my services? Will they be the kind of people that I really will enjoy working with? What most people do when they’re pivoting is they just go wherever they feel like the traffic or the interest is. No, no, no, no, no. Just because there’s interest in run one direction doesn’t mean that’s the best direction for you. I was speaking to a prospective client and um they’re an expert in the education space and was really looking to pivot and do some consulting and really with his great skills. I mean really great skills he could serve any space. He could serve with what his magic is. he could serve the seauite and the corporate space or he could serve in the education space. So we were talking about it and I said you know you’re you’re going to have to make a choice. Of course I would prefer you can write any kind of book you want of course but I would prefer that you’re going to do best if you write a book that’s really narrow and and more niche specific and you can’t write a book directly to the educational space that also is applicable to the corporate consulting space. Well, in his situation, because of his relationships and because of him um speaking on stages and whatnot, the education space was like the space that was the easiest path because there were more opportunities in that space. And I said, “Hey, that’s great and that may be the best thing for you to do. I’m not telling you not to.” I said, “But you’re starting something brand new either way.” So, you’re going to serve a new client in a new way either way. I said, “Where will you have the biggest opportunity to get paid the large fees that you deserve for the magic you can bring? Is it in the education space or is it in the corporate space?” And he was like, “Oh, it’s definitely in the corporate space.” I said, “Then you have to consider that.” Yes, I know that that’s an easier path, but you have to consider that. And I want you to think about that. I’m telling you this story to explain that just because it’s the easier path or what you think is the easier path doesn’t mean it’s the best path. If you’re starting something new, then the best thing you can do is to start something new with a client that is going to pay you the absolute most money for the magic that you can bring. That may not be the easiest path to walk. So that’s the biggest decision that you have to make that is who is the audience that you are going to serve and be specific about that. Then you have to think about okay, how do I speak to that audience? That’s where the title and subtitle and the table of contents comes in. The broader you go, then yes, the more people it speaks to, but the less people listen. So, ideally, if you speak to a narrow audience, you’re going to speak to less people, but far more people are going to listen to you. And that’s really what you want. You want listeners. You want those that pay attention. You want those that embrace whatever your magic and specificity is. Okay? So your title, your content needs to be a signal to the audience. It needs to signal the problem that you solve. Signal the transformation that you can bring. Signal the pain that they’re going through and the pleasure that your process will bring them to. Your ideal client needs to read that and go, “Oh, that’s that’s for me.” Right? Not they need to read it and go, “Well, that could be interesting. That could be for me.” We don’t want interesting. We want, oh man, that’s what I need. That’s what my company needs. That’s what my business needs. That’s what the executives in my corporation need. So, we want to think about those things when writing that pivot book. We want to think about those things whenever writing a business non-fiction related book. But specifically, when you’re pivoting, you really have to think about this because you’re not sure who you’re supposed to serve. You’re not 100% sure. If you are, fantastic. But I would say take some time, really think about it. Make sure that that is the best audience for you to serve. Now, the next thing you need to think about when you think about, okay, here’s who my audience is going to be. Here’s how I connect with my audience. The next thing you need to think about is what are the stories that I have, the case studies that I have, and the examples that I have that demonstrate my magic, demonstrate my thinking, and how it is that I can solve a problem. Because you’re going to need to have those in there. And if you say, “Well, I don’t really have any of those.” then it’s going to be really difficult for you to demonstrate that. You can demonstrate it in other ways. You can demonstrate it with other types of stories, right? Whether it’s stories from sports or history or maybe other corporate type stories if that’s the space that you’re in. But preferably, you need to have your own examples and stories that pre-ell you and pre-ell your content. It shows what happens when somebody works with you. It shows what happens when your magic is applied. That’s the whole idea. Okay. So, number one, the book is the foundation. Number two, we need to make sure that the steps of the book are done correctly. You’re thinking about the audience. You’re positioning the book to your niche audience, and you’re doing it in such a way that your niche audience goes, “Wow, I need to work with her.” Part three, we then want to make the book successful. You guys know this because you’re clients of mine, but too many people do not know this. They will publish a book and cross their fingers and they will hope that the publishing of the book will work all of its magic. And that never, never, never happens. There’s too much competition on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and elsewhere for us to publish our books haphazardly and not market our books and not get reviews on our books for our books to do well. We’ve got to ensure that we check the boxes and go through the steps to make sure that our book does well. Because guess what? If it doesn’t do well, if you send your book out and someone goes on Amazon and types in your book and they see that you have three reviews on your book and two of them are three star and one of them is a fivestar and they’re like, “Who’s this guy?” Right? Okay. So, three reviews, nobody is going to think that that’s a sufficient amount of social proof. So actually doing your book properly, publishing your book properly, marketing your book properly, real bestseller status, real authority, it makes introductions to you easier. It improves your acceptance when you’re interested in a a speaking engagement. It boosts media credibility and it justifies you pricing yourself in a premium fashion, right? That’s why you’re repivoting or repositioning yourself so that you can get what you deserve for your magic. So publish it properly, launch it strategically, get the reviews that are necessary and then use media to amplify the whole thing, TV, radio, podcast, etc. Think of it this way because we’re talking about repositioning. You are not really launching a book. You are launching your brand. You are launching your business and the book is the foundation of it. Everything’s going to stand on that. So let’s ensure that the book is exactly as it should be. So that when those that come in that don’t really know you, but that you’re trying to win their speaking engagement or win their PR placement or win their business, they go, “Wow, I don’t know who this is, but this is somebody that we need to pay attention to.” Okay, that’s three. Number four, you’re then going to use your book to attract your ideal clients. You’re going to use your book to attract your ideal clients. Great, Rob. That sounds terrific. How do we do that? There’s three primary ways to do this with hundreds of subplots through the whole thing. So, we can use the book to generate leads. There’s a hundred different ways to use your book to generate leads. I use my books with paid advertising and media on Instagram on Facebook. I do free plus shipping funnels. I give my books away. I use my books to create workshops and webinars, right? Publish pro profit workshop. It’s lots of different ways to generate leads. I’m not going to talk about that. You can use your book to get on PR and media. Your book positions you as an authority. You get on PR and media. Your authority rises even more. I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about the best way to position yourself is via speaking. Now, for those of you not interested in speaking, then you want to focus on, you know, one of the many methods of the first two. Using your book to generate leads and opportunities or using your book to generate PR and media. But really, we only have two tools that we work with, and that is our ability to write and our ability to speak. That’s what you have. That’s what I have. So, if you can master your ability to speak, there is nothing that leverages you, positions you more as an authority than when the best-selling author of XYZ book gets up on a stage that’s literally above the rest of the crowd, introduced with a rousing applause, and then speaks their message of how they can help. There’s nothing better than that. It is the highest leveraged repositioning and client generating tool. speaking positions you as an expert instantly and you’re not going to get a great speaking opportunity if you’ve repositioned yourself unless you have the authority. So that that’s all going to come from the book. The book is going to be the basis of all that and I’ll share more about that in just a second. Your speaking opportunity attracts your ideal clients to you at scale. If you’re standing up even in a modest size audience, 100 people, that’s a modest audience. If you’re standing up in front of a hundred people that represent your ideal client, and now you’re positioned as their teacher, their speaker, and you are the best-selling author on the very subject that they’re interested in, if you do a halfway decent job at speaking, and then simply have a time to do book signings or to meet you and speak to you at the booth, you are going to get opportunities to get clients. It is the absolute best way. You are going to check all the necessary boxes for that person to want to give you money to get help. Now, you still have to get them over the threshold. Like, you can still screw it up. Okay? Right? You can act all weird. You know, you could not know how to take money. You you can still mess it up. But there is nothing that is going to position you better than being a best-selling author that speaks on a stage. And the stage, even a small one, of a hundred people that are your ideal clients. Amazing. Nothing builds trust more quickly. It shortens the sales cycle and it creates great opportunities for conversations. So, what do you need to do? Well, you need to build a simple speaking system. I shared about uh Kevin before. Um Kevin has kept me up to date on how he’s doing. Kevin wasn’t repositioning himself, but he was positioning himself in front of brand new people that had never heard of him, didn’t know who who he was, and hadn’t had any interest in him. And he did this by simply sending a copy of the book and following up with a call. So, who did he send the book to? Well, my suggestion because of what Kevin told me his desire was was to send five copies of the book out a week for speaking engagements because he said, “I only want two speaking engagements a month paid. I only want two a month paid to my ideal audience. How much better is it to actually be paid to speak to your ideal clients?” Wow. Paid to market to them is what it really is. So, I said, “Kevin, send out five a week, be consistent, and follow up with phone calls.” He did that exact thing in the first roughly 8 to 10 weeks. He booked his first two speaking engagements from people in companies that did not know him, had never hired him for anything before, but they got the book. They were impressed by the book. They were impressed by him. One was a $5,000 engagement, one is a $7,000. He hasn’t done those engagements yet, but he has signed the contracts and those are set up for the next coming months. And they are to his ideal client. So, you need to have a simple system like that. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need big funnels and multiple web pages and, you know, huge social media. Kevin has no social media at all. There’s there’s no platform that Kevin has. Yes, he has a website, but there’s no social media presence or platform. You don’t need that. Your book does all of the foundation building. And if you can get in front of people and speak, then wow. Kevin is a corporate consultant. This is a corporate consulting book. The title is You’ve been upgraded, lead happier, achieve more, and stay sane. He works with leaders in corporations, specifically in the medical industry. And he helps with their culture. And he coaches them. So he speaks at an event, gets five, seven, $10,000 to speak. Then three or four or 10 of them come up and they’re like, “Hey, we love you.” Two things happen, by the way, when you speak and do a decent job. People come up to you and they want you to speak at their event, which is coming up, so you’ll get more opportunities to speak. And number two, people come up because they want to hire you to do a workshop or to coach them or something like that. And that’s exactly what happens when Kevin speaks. It’s very simple. It is the simplest way. Now, again, if you don’t want to speak at all, then that’s not going to work for you. But I find that most authors are interested in doing some speaking. And so, if you are and you’re looking to repivot and you have some magic, you can help in some way. One of my clients had just after like a 25 or 30-year career had closed down his office as a real estate appraiser in the Northeast and he went through a situation where he lost 100 pounds in his 60s really transformed his life and his health and he wrote a book about that and he’s completely repositioned himself to help other men that are in their 50s 60s etc to lose weight so they can get regain their health and live for their spouses. their kids, their grandkids, etc. Beautiful. He’s already begun to get clients. He’s already begun to get speaking opportunities. Not because he has this 20-year history of helping people with weight loss. No, what he has is a best-selling book and he has his own story of how he lost 100 pounds in that period in a 18-month or so period of time in his 60s. And now he has a whole new group of people that he is dying to serve, loves to serve, and wants to help. You can do this. You just have to think about the steps that I’ve told you. Now look, I jumped ahead of myself just for a moment, but part five and kind of lastly in this is when you do this, you create a flywheel. And if you know what a flywheel effect is, it’s where you know the wheel begins turning and it’s really difficult to turn in the beginning, but then eventually momentum builds up and then it like creates this reciprocal effect where it’s turning faster and faster and faster because of the momentum that it’s built up. That ecosystem is created via a book and speaking engagements because the book builds authority. The authority opens up to stages and opportunities. The stages help to create conversations with people and the conversations with people are more stages. I mean Amy Dixs who knows more about speaking than anybody that I know will tell you the number one thing to get more opportunities to speak is to speak. Speaking and doing a good job gets you more opportunities. So the flywheel creates more and more momentum by doing the actual speaking. And guess what you’re also going to get? You’re going to get clients and customers. It’s a self-reinforcing loop. It is a consulting flywheel if that’s the kind of business you’re interested in. There’s nothing better than speaking to do that. So, you have an opportunity with a best-selling book to start a new venture to reposition yourself to envision a brand new you serving the kind of customer that you desire to serve. Your book is the foundation of that. Well, look, your magic is the foundation of that, but your book is the foundation for the message into the world. It creates your authority. It shows the world that you’re credible. And from there, you speak to the right audience. And then you do it via speaking engagements, attracting clients, creating this flywheel. And the sky is the limit. You can grow this kind of business as much as you want or as little as you want, but the opportunities are there for you to serve a brand new customer and a brand new clientele.