Which Comes First, Your Book or Your Business?

It's sort of like that chicken or the egg question: which do you work on first, your book or your business? Should you write a book first and then develop a business when you start attracting attention? Or should you build your business up first and then write a book as the biggest, tastiest piece of your marketing pie? It's the kind of pondering that can put a well-meaning entrepreneur into the overwhelm zone--and neither the book nor the business move forward! Here's the problem with this kind of thinking: it assumes that the book is a separate project from your business, when really the two can be developed together. Here's how you can easily fit a book into your business strategy.

What Will Be Your Focus?

Let's look at your business going forward in the next 6-12 months. Is there a particular area, subject or service you would like to introduce or highlight in a new way? Perhaps you've been coaching on business success and you want to start a coaching program around marketing to women or you sell a product that teaches how to write copy, but you want to start teaching it live as a bootcamp. What exactly is it you want to bring to your business and what kind of results do you want to see from the effort?

What Do You Want People to Do?

Now let's pretend someone on the street has just heard about your new offering. What would you want them to do next? Go to your website to learn more? Attend a free public seminar? Call or email you? Think of all the different "next steps" that could be possible for a person who comes across your information. Write out these steps as if they were on a map that leads the person right to you or, more specifically, into the top of your product funnel. These steps might be simple such as going to your website for a tool or a report. Or they could be a little more complicated, like having them fax in a request for seminar tickets. I like to have a sprinkling of both kinds--it can help you gauge the quality of your prospect.

Plan Your Book Accordingly and Launch It

Fortunately for you, you don't have to wait for someone on the street to tell someone else about your business and your new offering--you are writing a book. And all of those different ways you want people to come back to you, to make contact? They will be placed in the book as your calls to action. Your book will also highlight your knowledge and expertise with the subject you've chosen, be it marketing to women or how to hire the best people. It would also mention all the new business offerings in this area. Once you have written and launched the book, you can promote the book. And here's the magic of this: it looks like you're promoting this one book, but you're really selling all that other stuff you have going on that's connected to the book: your paid newsletter, your workshops, your coaching programs, your contests, your products. How are you doing that? It's all in the book!

The great thing about this book-and-business strategy is that it can be repeated again and with different subject matter and different offerings. Successful entrepreneurs such as Jack Canfield, Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump have been doing this for ages. Isn't it time for you to get the word out--and make a profit as well?

© 2008 Sophfronia Scott