Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write a Book
Books get you attention. Attention gets you money.
Contributor: Tucker Max
As an entrepreneur, what do you really need? What does every entrepreneur always want more of, especially for their business? Attention.
I don't mean that in the narcissistic "everyone look at me" sense. When I say every entrepreneur wants more attention, what I mean is that attention is the key to everything else entrepreneurs want and need. It all starts with attention.
Need to sell more products or services? Start with getting people's attention, then you can show them how your product or service benefits them, leading them to make a purchase. Want to attract the best talent to your company? You have to get their attention, and show them why they want to join your company. Want to raise money? Got to get attention from VC's angels, and PE funds to pitch them.
Want media coverage? Media coverage itself is about attention, but the paradox is you can't get any without getting the media's attention first. Want to speak at conferences or create authority for your product or company? How will anyone know they should listen if you haven't gotten their attention about what it is you have to say yet?
You see where I am going here? There are many, many ways to get attention, but in my experience, writing and publishing a book is not only one the best way to get attention -- it's one of the most under-utilized by entrepreneurs.
How does a book get you attention?
A book is great for getting attention because it's a multi-purpose marketing tool with unique and special abilities to create attention that you can turn into almost anything else you want -- sales, media, word of mouth, authority. So, how does a book get you attention? There are four main ways:
1. A book gives you authority, credibility and expertise.
A lot of people like to say that "a book is the new business card." I disagree, because everyone has a business card. You can go to Office Depot and get business cards, but you can't go to Office Depot and author a book.
What I like to say is that "a book is the new college degree." It used to be, about 40 years ago, only about 10 percent of people had college degrees. If you had one, it was a major signal of credibility and authority. It meant something. But now that everyone goes to college, it doesn't signal as much credibility.
So what is a signal of credibility and authority now -- one that's reliable and rare? Writing and publishing a book.
A book sets you up to be judged. It's really easy to skirt by and get a college degree. You can't really fake your way into writing a good book. Either you know what you're talking about or you don't. And a book shows you can commit to something and follow through. It shows you gets things done, things that are hard and prestigious and require a lot of skills.
Yes, being judged is risky, but that's why you get so much credit for a good book. A book puts you in a place that most people are unwilling to go -- being judged -- and it usually requires a lot of work. It requires you to actually know something, and it requires that you show that knowledge to the world. If you write a book that's stupid, people are going to think you're stupid. But if it's good, people are going to say you're smart.
Most people are not willing to take that risk, set themselves up to be judged, and show the world what they know or don't know.
At my book publishing company, this is why we won't just work with anyone who throws money at us. If you don't know what you're talking about, you can't just vomit out nonsense, call it a book, and get all the benefits. You have to write a good book to gain credibility and authority, and a good book is defined by how interesting and valuable other people find it.
I don't mean that in the narcissistic "everyone look at me" sense. When I say every entrepreneur wants more attention, what I mean is that attention is the key to everything else entrepreneurs want and need. It all starts with attention.
Need to sell more products or services? Start with getting people's attention, then you can show them how your product or service benefits them, leading them to make a purchase. Want to attract the best talent to your company? You have to get their attention, and show them why they want to join your company. Want to raise money? Got to get attention from VC's angels, and PE funds to pitch them.
Want media coverage? Media coverage itself is about attention, but the paradox is you can't get any without getting the media's attention first. Want to speak at conferences or create authority for your product or company? How will anyone know they should listen if you haven't gotten their attention about what it is you have to say yet?
You see where I am going here? There are many, many ways to get attention, but in my experience, writing and publishing a book is not only one the best way to get attention -- it's one of the most under-utilized by entrepreneurs.
How does a book get you attention?
A book is great for getting attention because it's a multi-purpose marketing tool with unique and special abilities to create attention that you can turn into almost anything else you want -- sales, media, word of mouth, authority. So, how does a book get you attention? There are four main ways:
1. A book gives you authority, credibility and expertise.
A lot of people like to say that "a book is the new business card." I disagree, because everyone has a business card. You can go to Office Depot and get business cards, but you can't go to Office Depot and author a book.
What I like to say is that "a book is the new college degree." It used to be, about 40 years ago, only about 10 percent of people had college degrees. If you had one, it was a major signal of credibility and authority. It meant something. But now that everyone goes to college, it doesn't signal as much credibility.
So what is a signal of credibility and authority now -- one that's reliable and rare? Writing and publishing a book.
A book sets you up to be judged. It's really easy to skirt by and get a college degree. You can't really fake your way into writing a good book. Either you know what you're talking about or you don't. And a book shows you can commit to something and follow through. It shows you gets things done, things that are hard and prestigious and require a lot of skills.
Yes, being judged is risky, but that's why you get so much credit for a good book. A book puts you in a place that most people are unwilling to go -- being judged -- and it usually requires a lot of work. It requires you to actually know something, and it requires that you show that knowledge to the world. If you write a book that's stupid, people are going to think you're stupid. But if it's good, people are going to say you're smart.
Most people are not willing to take that risk, set themselves up to be judged, and show the world what they know or don't know.
At my book publishing company, this is why we won't just work with anyone who throws money at us. If you don't know what you're talking about, you can't just vomit out nonsense, call it a book, and get all the benefits. You have to write a good book to gain credibility and authority, and a good book is defined by how interesting and valuable other people find it.
Related: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Writing a Book
2. A book raises your visibility and gets media coverage.
When a media outlet wants a comment on something, who do they go to? The expert, right? And how do they know someone is an expert? Because they wrote the book. Experts write books. Commentators write blog posts.
Once you have a book, media coverage is 10 times easier to get. It's not just the media either. “Has a new book” is a standard, and often required, box to tick for the gatekeepers who control access to areas you most want to enter -- lecture halls, television studios, boardrooms, media pages, special events, people’s minds. Charlie Rose doesn't say “My next guest has just posted a cat video.”
How many people in your field have you seen get a lot of attention simply because they wrote a book? Even if you knew more than them, they got the attention that you didn't, only because of the book. If you want visibility in your field and media coverage, being an authority and expert is key to this, and the way you do that is to write a book.
3. A book helps people find you.
Google is the top ranked internet search engine, followed by YouTube. Do you know who is in third place? Amazon. And even more relevant to entrepreneurs, Amazon is the No. 1 search engine when looking for products and services, with 44 percent of searches for products and services starting there.
This goes beyond just attention. An ad can get attention, but no one goes searching for ads to make a decision about buying a product or a service. When people look for buying information, they turn to experts or authorities. And where's the first place they think about to find information from an expert? Same as the media. They look at the person who literally "wrote the book" on the topic.
Having a great book brings people to you, lets people know exactly who you are, and shows them how you can help them. It's the best marketing tool you could ever use to not just build your brand, but actually attract clients.
Here's a perfect example. When we started my company, Book In A Box, we realized we had a rocket ship that we didn't know how to drive. We needed to learn how to scale our company. What did I do? I went to Amazon to read books on the subject.
Turns out, there's not a lot of great books out there about how to professionally manage and scale a fast growing company. The best I could find was written by Cameron Herold -- it's called Double Double, and he has another one called Meetings Suck. I read the book, and thought, "This is genius. But I need more. I need this guy to coach me directly." I reached out to Herold, and he now advises our company -- and owns a piece of it. That's how valuable he's been.
And it all came about because he had a really good book that led me to him. There are probably 500 other people out there who could have taught me the same things, but Herold is the only one that had a great book that I could read and use to determine that he was the guy to teach me.
I never would have listened to a sales pitch or paid attention to an ad. I had to see proof, and his book was it, and it caused me to come to him.
4. A book helps people talk about you.
There is no better marketing than word of mouth. When someone you trust tells you to use something, you listen, and you use it. Anything that helps other people talk about you and your business is the best marketing tool possible. A book enables word of mouth better than almost anything else.
This is because a book puts your story into people's mouths -- in your words. When people talk about you, they're literally just saying what you want them to say. A good book causes people to repeat your terms, phrases and ideas to other people.
We use this idea to help our authors position and frame their books. We say, "Imagine someone at a cocktail party who read your book, talking to someone else in your potential audience. What would they say? Imagine what you want them to say to the other."
Once you understand that -- once you can picture that conversation naturally happening between two people -- you can almost construct the positioning and narrative of your book from that conversation.
This is exactly what Herold's book has done to me. Whenever I meet entrepreneurs who need help scaling their business, I tell them how I solved the problem, and I tell them the things I learned from his book. Even if I don't directly refer them, they end up reaching out to Herold.
If you can write a book that is valuable to a people, they will want to talk about your book to someone else who has that problem. Why? Because it makes them look good. That's how word of mouth works. I look good to people when I tell them about Herold's book, because it's a great book, and it makes me look good to provide valuable knowledge to other people.
Books turn attention into money.
Attention is great, but most entrepreneurs don't just want attention and nothing else. The reason entrepreneurs want attention is because they can turn it into money. Remember what I said earlier, that a book is a multi-purpose marketing tool that creates attention that you can turn into almost anything else you want? I'm going to make this concept even more simple: Book = Attention = Money
There are so many ways for entrepreneurs to leverage the attention from a book into money. I'll run through the most common ways to do this, with examples for each:
A book can launch consulting and coaching companies.
At Book In A Box, our largest client base is consultants. Once they reach a certain level of success -- enough to afford us -- they can't really go much higher without a book. In fact, it is often the book that takes them from small time with a few clients to building an actual business.
You might be thinking something like, "But if I write a book talking about what I know, why will people hire me to be a consultant for them?"
Well, like I said, the book is how people find you. A great example of this is Dorie Clark. In only a few years, she went from an out-of-work journalist, to such a well-respected marketing and branding consultant that she is now a professor at Duke, and speaks to such groups as the World Bank and the IMF. How'd she do that? Well, a lot of hard work of course, but she attributes most of success to her two books, and how they really put her on the map.
And I already talked about how I found Herold -- his book made me want to hire him more. Most of what he teaches me on a day-to-day basis is in his book. I'm basically paying him to help me apply it to my situation, and maybe for the ten percent of weird one-offs that aren't in his book.
2. A book raises your visibility and gets media coverage.
When a media outlet wants a comment on something, who do they go to? The expert, right? And how do they know someone is an expert? Because they wrote the book. Experts write books. Commentators write blog posts.
Once you have a book, media coverage is 10 times easier to get. It's not just the media either. “Has a new book” is a standard, and often required, box to tick for the gatekeepers who control access to areas you most want to enter -- lecture halls, television studios, boardrooms, media pages, special events, people’s minds. Charlie Rose doesn't say “My next guest has just posted a cat video.”
How many people in your field have you seen get a lot of attention simply because they wrote a book? Even if you knew more than them, they got the attention that you didn't, only because of the book. If you want visibility in your field and media coverage, being an authority and expert is key to this, and the way you do that is to write a book.
3. A book helps people find you.
Google is the top ranked internet search engine, followed by YouTube. Do you know who is in third place? Amazon. And even more relevant to entrepreneurs, Amazon is the No. 1 search engine when looking for products and services, with 44 percent of searches for products and services starting there.
This goes beyond just attention. An ad can get attention, but no one goes searching for ads to make a decision about buying a product or a service. When people look for buying information, they turn to experts or authorities. And where's the first place they think about to find information from an expert? Same as the media. They look at the person who literally "wrote the book" on the topic.
Having a great book brings people to you, lets people know exactly who you are, and shows them how you can help them. It's the best marketing tool you could ever use to not just build your brand, but actually attract clients.
Here's a perfect example. When we started my company, Book In A Box, we realized we had a rocket ship that we didn't know how to drive. We needed to learn how to scale our company. What did I do? I went to Amazon to read books on the subject.
Turns out, there's not a lot of great books out there about how to professionally manage and scale a fast growing company. The best I could find was written by Cameron Herold -- it's called Double Double, and he has another one called Meetings Suck. I read the book, and thought, "This is genius. But I need more. I need this guy to coach me directly." I reached out to Herold, and he now advises our company -- and owns a piece of it. That's how valuable he's been.
And it all came about because he had a really good book that led me to him. There are probably 500 other people out there who could have taught me the same things, but Herold is the only one that had a great book that I could read and use to determine that he was the guy to teach me.
I never would have listened to a sales pitch or paid attention to an ad. I had to see proof, and his book was it, and it caused me to come to him.
4. A book helps people talk about you.
There is no better marketing than word of mouth. When someone you trust tells you to use something, you listen, and you use it. Anything that helps other people talk about you and your business is the best marketing tool possible. A book enables word of mouth better than almost anything else.
This is because a book puts your story into people's mouths -- in your words. When people talk about you, they're literally just saying what you want them to say. A good book causes people to repeat your terms, phrases and ideas to other people.
We use this idea to help our authors position and frame their books. We say, "Imagine someone at a cocktail party who read your book, talking to someone else in your potential audience. What would they say? Imagine what you want them to say to the other."
Once you understand that -- once you can picture that conversation naturally happening between two people -- you can almost construct the positioning and narrative of your book from that conversation.
This is exactly what Herold's book has done to me. Whenever I meet entrepreneurs who need help scaling their business, I tell them how I solved the problem, and I tell them the things I learned from his book. Even if I don't directly refer them, they end up reaching out to Herold.
If you can write a book that is valuable to a people, they will want to talk about your book to someone else who has that problem. Why? Because it makes them look good. That's how word of mouth works. I look good to people when I tell them about Herold's book, because it's a great book, and it makes me look good to provide valuable knowledge to other people.
Books turn attention into money.
Attention is great, but most entrepreneurs don't just want attention and nothing else. The reason entrepreneurs want attention is because they can turn it into money. Remember what I said earlier, that a book is a multi-purpose marketing tool that creates attention that you can turn into almost anything else you want? I'm going to make this concept even more simple: Book = Attention = Money
There are so many ways for entrepreneurs to leverage the attention from a book into money. I'll run through the most common ways to do this, with examples for each:
A book can launch consulting and coaching companies.
At Book In A Box, our largest client base is consultants. Once they reach a certain level of success -- enough to afford us -- they can't really go much higher without a book. In fact, it is often the book that takes them from small time with a few clients to building an actual business.
You might be thinking something like, "But if I write a book talking about what I know, why will people hire me to be a consultant for them?"
Well, like I said, the book is how people find you. A great example of this is Dorie Clark. In only a few years, she went from an out-of-work journalist, to such a well-respected marketing and branding consultant that she is now a professor at Duke, and speaks to such groups as the World Bank and the IMF. How'd she do that? Well, a lot of hard work of course, but she attributes most of success to her two books, and how they really put her on the map.
And I already talked about how I found Herold -- his book made me want to hire him more. Most of what he teaches me on a day-to-day basis is in his book. I'm basically paying him to help me apply it to my situation, and maybe for the ten percent of weird one-offs that aren't in his book.
Source: entrepreneur.com