This month in the blog we’ve been looking at the challenge of building up your business reputation and how you can do this by showing your business expertise to potential clients. Whether you’re new to business or you’re changing direction, you need to develop a strong reputation in order for prospects to trust you and to want to do business with you.

When you provide a service such as coaching, consulting or training, one of the best ways in which you can demonstrate your expertise and thereby build your reputation, is by writing about what you do. Share your knowledge through words, helping other people to solve their business issues and they will learn to trust you.

Last week I gave you a few ideas on how you can share your knowledge through writing (and you can see all those ideas here.) If you’d like to take the challenge one step further than just writing a regular blog or newsletter, I encourage you to think about writing a book. This can be quite a daunting task for many people, but, done well, a book is a really great way of building your reputation. Not everyone has what it takes to write a book, so the very act of doing it will give you some serious ‘street cred’ points! However, there are too many books on sale now that actually do more to harm the reputation of their writers, so here are three key issues you need to carefully consider:

1. Plan your project. Don’t just start writing. Invest some time into planning what you’re going to write about, to make sure that your message is clear and that you have a purpose that runs through your entire book.
2. Take your time. There are companies and courses that promise to help you write a book in less than six weeks! The more time you put into your writing, the better the end product will be, so be prepared to give it at least six months – if not more.
3. Get professional help. If you’re not a skilled writer, look for some help with the actual writing. If you’d like to pen your own book, bring in experts down the line to help with tasks like editing, proof reading and typesetting. Once they’ve worked their magic, then you need to invest in having your book professionally printed so that it looks the best it can.

There are many companies that can help you at all the different stages of writing and publishing a book. If you need any recommendations for any of the different stages, do get in touch and I’ll point you to the best people who I’ve worked with for both my own books and those of many of our clients.

Once you’ve got your book, you’ve got a really useful tool for growing your reputation and your business. I always have copies of both Magnetic Marketing (full of marketing advice) and One in Ten (packed with business inspiration and motivation) with me when I go networking. I often give copies of the latter to potential clients or people of influence, so if you’d like a copy, either for yourself or to give to some else in business, just click here to email me, or call 01635 578 500.