You may not know this, but you are not the hero of your story! Your clients are the heroes. Without them, you won’t have a business, so anything that you write – whether it’s an entire book, a newsletter or just a LinkedIn post – should be focused on them. Everything you write needs to support the people who will eventually pay you for your support.

Standing Out

Here are three ways in which you can use a book to help you to stand out.

Think it through. I’m guessing that you’re not completely clear, 100% of the time, what you’re all about and what your business or your service is about. I’m currently working on my third book and it’s really helping me to develop my thinking. The book that I eventually publish won’t be anything like the first version that I wrote. As I write and share my scribblings with others – through my Book Buddies group, here in Scribbles, and when I speak from stage – I gain new insights. Light bulbs go off now and then, as I think of a better way to say what I want to say. The service that I provide to my audiences is evolving as a result of all the thinking and writing that I’ve been doing, over the last couple of years.

Get them talking. Marketing works best when other people recommend you and spread the word about how great you are. A book allows more people to talk about you to more of the people they know. Go into plenty of detail in your topic, to give your readers a deeper understanding of what you do and they will find it easier to spread the word about you. Giving away copies of your book, to people with influence, is a really great investment.

Reach even more people. On your own, there are only so many people that you can speak to through your marketing. A book that can be bought by anyone, anywhere in the world, can give you a bigger reach. I know people who leave copies of their book in hotels where they stay, when they’re away for business or pleasure. You never know who might see it!

Stamp it Out

Writing a book is not about keeping your ego happy. If you write from a point of trying to impress other people, your book won’t help you to stand out. Well, it will, but it will help you to stand out in a way that shows you as someone who listens more to their ego than to their clients.

Whatever you write needs to show you in your best light. It needs to offer advice, ideas and guidance that will help other people to do something better, or more easily. Showing off how great you are at what you do will not be a useful read to anyone.

Being an Amazon best-selling author will not help you to stand out either. A few years ago, being number one on Amazon was something that many authors aimed for. But getting to the top of that list was not about how good your book actually is. It was purely about asking all your mates and all their mates to buy your book, on the day at the very same time. What does that achieve? It puts you at the top of the ‘best seller’ list for maybe an hour! And after that, people will forget about you.

The best books, the ones that survive the test of time, are the ones that serve and share. The best ones are written by people who write because they are passionate about what they do and what they have to say. Those writers put their egos to one side and focus purely on supporting other people. Those are the books that allow their authors to stand out.