10 smart ways to win clients with your business book
You’ve written a book for your business. Congratulations! That’s no mean feat and you should be proud of your achievement.
But you don’t want your efforts to go to waste, right? You may have written your book to help people with your expertise, but you also want to use it to gain more (and better) clients. Because the fact is, the more people who hear about you through your book, the more choice you have about who you serve, and the higher the amounts you can charge.
In my last blog post, I walked you through the 4 magical ways a book brings you more business. Here’s where I take the theory and turn it into practice, by giving you 10 smart tips for turning your book into an ROI machine.
#1: Turn yourself into a thought leader
Don’t just promote your book, reference it. Whenever you write a blog post, create a LinkedIn article, deliver a talk, or speak on a podcast, mention a nugget of wisdom that people can find within its pages.
Make the book the intellectual spine of your business so that potential clients want to work with the author, not just another expert.
You can discover more about how writing a book positions you as a thought leader in my own award-winning book, Your Business Your Book. (See what I did there?).
#2: Be generous with your business book
The next time you’re talking to a potential client or speaker booker, offer to send them a free copy of your book. A great tip I learned from a professional speaker was to include a note referencing the chapter they plan to base their talk on (or for a potential client, the area of work they’re most interested in).
This elevates your value and makes you stand out. If nothing else, the person will have a reminder of you on their bookshelf for years to come. You never know when that might bear fruit.
#3: Create a companion
Many business books ask readers to assess their current situation. Instead of only having the assessment in your book, why not build an online tool and provide the link?
If you request an email address to access it, you’ll have an ideal way to keep in touch with the people who’ve read your book. And they’re highly engaged, making them likely potential clients. After adding value over several weeks by email, you can offer them a consultation.
#4. Repurpose your book
You’ve done the hard work of writing your book, so you deserve to repurpose the content in ways that bring you new income streams.
Examples are turning it into an online course, creating standalone consultations based on specific areas of the book, or selling webinars or seminars based on what you’ve written. Another option is to create an implementation offer, where you help your clients put the theory in the book into practice. This makes life more productive for them and is lucrative for you.
#5: License the content
Let other professionals, such as consultants or coaches, use your book’s IP under licence. This could either be as internal training or as part of their services. This gives you recurring revenue and free promotion to new audiences.
#6: Socialise your business book
One of the most successful methods I used to promote my book was to create a series of images based on punchy quotes from it, accompanied by a link to buy it. These had the dual benefit of highlighting my expertise and sending readers to the places they could buy it.
Think bold ideas, intriguing messages, or contrarian takes. Your aim is to pique scrollers’ interest so they want to learn more. This is a great way to draw more eyeballs to your book and, by extension, to your services.
#7: Use it in your speaking
If you speak at events, make sure you’re filmed at the next one holding your book. You can use this in a showreel to tie in your book with your public persona, thereby elevating your status as a speaker and an expert in your field.
When you have the authority of both a stage and a book behind you, people will gravitate towards you. This is a win-win and helps to give you the pick of clients.
#8: Use your book to weed out prospects
The more people who read your book before they work with you, the better. That’s because it’s a low risk way for them to learn about your ideas, knowledge, and – just as importantly – your personality. You should be as happy for the ‘wrong’ reader to decide not to sign up with you as you are for the right one to become a client.
This is a key way a business book enables you to focus your energies on the customers who are right for you. When there’s a synergy between who you want to work with and what they need, it enables you to charge more and feel much happier in your work.
#9: Team up with other experts
Identify people who work in complementary fields, who have also written books, and team up with them to offer a joint package. This could consist of working with clients together, speaking on stage together, or creating joint online courses or webinars. Think of the magic that could come from sharing and swapping clients with each other, aided by the authority bestowed upon you by your books.
Examples are a leadership coach teaming up with a presentation specialist, a marketing expert working with a sales coach, and an IT specialist joining forces with a project management expert.
#10: Create a community with your business book
Create an online or physical space where serious readers can connect with each other, ask questions, and have exclusive access to your expertise. This could be on LinkedIn, Slack, Zoom, or in person. No hard pitch, just interested minds focused on a shared topic.
This helps to build trust in you and will naturally lead to conversations where participants ask to work with you one-to-one. With you as the host, you’re the obvious expert.
The ways you can generate a return on your investment in your business book are almost endless – I’m sure you can think of more. Sometimes it’s a matter of thinking laterally and appreciating that the wisdom your book embodies is valuable not just to your readers but also to yourself.
If this has got you interested in writing a business book or self-development guide, why not get in touch?
