—The Blog Series: Blog 4
Part 1: Develop Your Concept
Develop Your Concept to Target Your Prospects
Throughout your years in business, you’ve accumulated vast knowledge specific to your field. Now your goal is to write a book that will draw droves of fresh prospects to your door.
Perhaps you see your newness to book writing as a disadvantage. After all, you might be familiar with copywriting, but book writing is another animal. Book writing uses different techniques than copywriting because the reason the audience is reading is different, and so the way they read is likewise different. Book writing is not sales writing. Sales writing—style and content—is designed to sell a product or service. Book writing—style and content—is designed to provide solutions the reader can immediately implement.
If you do see your newness to book writing as a disadvantage, I can assure you it isn’t. From this point forward, I’ll show you how to combine your knowledge with top-selling book-writing strategies, and turn any perceived disadvantage into a highly profitable advantage.
We’ll begin by developing the concept you have for your book, the first step of your plan. Think of your plan as your project blueprint.
Thousand-Dollar Tip—Make the most efficient use of your time. Set aside two months of evenings and Saturdays in which to complete your book. If you allow gaps of time between writing sessions, you’ll forget where you were and waste valuable time repeatedly rereading previous material.
1. Your Brand
What makes branding so powerful?
“A brand is more than a name. A true brand cannot be copied because a true brand is more than a product. It is a promise, a reflection of the entrepreneur’s body, mind, and spirit. . . . If you keep your promise and give people the same things you want, you may be one of the few entrepreneurs who turns their business into a brand.” (Source: Robert T. Kiyosaki, Midas Touch (coauthor: Donald Trump), (Scottsdale, AZ: Plata Publishing, 2011).)
Your brand is your promise to your customers, the promise of what you will deliver—the product as well as its quality. It is also the unique experience your customers have with you, the experience you provide. That experience can be professional, personal, funny, extravagant, or anything innate to you that leaves a lingering, positive impression, both in the mind and in the heart of your customer.
In simplest terms, branding is the art of making a distinctive and genuine promise and providing a distinctive experience for those your business serves.
It is also the art of doing so long term.
Each contact your customer has with you builds a perception of your brand, until that brand becomes for them the consistent promise and experience that you always deliver.
So then, what makes branding so powerful? Great brands—product, service, and the experience they give us—earn our loyalty, and inspire us to recommend that business to others.
What does this mean for your book?
Your book must be an extension of your business’s singular and genuine promise, as well as the particular experience your business provides, whether professional, personal, funny, extravagant, or anything unique to you that leaves a lingering, positive impression, both in the mind and in the heart of your customer.
Incorporate your brand (promise and experience) into your book via the tone and style you write with (the emotional and intellectual level that you communicate on as an entrepreneur), as well as the choice of words you use.
I’ll refer to this use of the word brand frequently throughout this blog series. Why? Because your book is the first experience many prospects will have with you. Your book is the first step toward targeting the prospects you most want to do business with—those who most want to do business with you . . . which means with your distinguishing brand.
2. Your Target Readers
Who is your target reader?
He’s the premium prospect—gender, age, income level, and all related demographics—who you want to hook and reel into your business.
When you began your business, you researched and pinpointed your target customer’s demographics. Use that same information now to fix in your mind precisely who you’re writing your book for.
That might sound obvious, but it needs to be underscored. You don’t want to bait your hook for salmon if what you want to catch is swordfish.
The content you put in your book, and the tone, style, and word choice that you write with, will determine the fish you hook for your business.
3. Your Book’s Content
You might already know what information you will include in your book. If not, consider the size and interests (or needs) of the audience you’ll be marketing to. Will you be marketing to everyone (general-interest book content such as exercise, nutrition)? To a common-interest group (football fans, antique car collectors, Civil War reenactors, watercolor artists)? Or to an occupational or business niche (homeowners who can’t get stains out of their carpets, entrepreneurs who want to write business books)?
Next consider, What is that audience mad or frustrated about? What scares them? What thoughts wake them up at night? (Nothing motivates like fear.) What hobby or interest are they passionate about? What need do they have that no one is providing a solution for?
Or pinpoint the solutions you have in your arsenal that differentiates you—and places you apart—from your competitors.
If you’re uncertain which solutions your prospects need, simply ask your customers, clients, or patients what information they most come to you for, or would like to see you provide. Or, post a poll at your business website and plainly ask visitors what solutions you provide that they use most, and what other solutions they would most like to see you provide. This is also an excellent opportunity to make note of any ideas they supply that you can use to expand your business.
To make sure your book is successful bait, make sure it is bait (content) your prospects want. Need. Are hungry for. What your current customers want most from you will likewise be the bait that will lure your prospects.
Of course, you don’t want to put everything you know into your book. The goal is to get the prospect to come to you for further assistance.
Also ask yourself, “What else does my reader want to get out of my book? In addition to solutions, perhaps a chuckle, a dose of inspiration, a weight lifted from their shoulders?” What fits your specific audience?
Once you have an idea of the basic content—information, solution(s), experience—your book will provide, then read on.
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The content for this blog series is taken from my book Business Gold: How to Write a Book to Spotlight Your Expertise, Attract a Ton of New Customers, and Explode Your Profits!, available at Amazon.com. (The publisher, Business Book Productions, is now PogoFish Media, owned by the author of this article).