The Authority Package
There’s nothing like having your own book in hand when you go on a sales call, meet a business colleague for lunch, or board an airplane.
Here, I’d like you to have my book.
It’s a calling card like no other.
It’s a door opener and a “sticky” leave behind. It has a long shelf life and staying power. Your prospect can’t just throw it in a drawer with all the other business cards and brochures and shallow swag. It belongs in a bookcase, or on a credenza.
Adding author to your professional identity is equally empowering. It sets you apart in the blah-blah-blah blog era when everyone can have their own digital lectern (or bully pulpit), yet few are viewed as solid thought leaders.
It’s no accident, that author, authority and authenticity all share the same Latin root.
A paperback has power; the hardback version(cloth) even more so. A physical book has a certain primal power to it, a positive charge. While an ebook or Kindle version can be impressive or persuasive, a printed book has a unique kind of permanence.
A book shows you know your stuff. You are not only an authority in your field, you have taken the time to think through and frame all the key issues, and you have the discipline to put your thoughts down on paper.
The beauty of digital publishing is that a book on Amazon will most likely remain there forever. It is never out of stock.
The economics of print-on-demand mean it makes sense for Amazon to print and ship just one copy of your book, an amazing breakthrough for business authors. No longer do you have to pony up thousands of dollars for a first-run printing, that more than likely would remain unsold in your garage.
A book is all about repurposing. In 2012, John Miller and I co-developed this concept of an Authority Package, where the expert/author endlessly repurposes his (and her) original content across multiple media and product channels. And package, as in total package.
A book naturally has other spin-off products: a blog series, a YouTube channel, podcast series and book sequels.
In 2013, Florida-based consultant Hank Brigman had an instinct to productize his first business book, Touchpoint Power! (William Henry Publishing, 288 pages). Hank had asked me to read his draft manuscript and provide him with some minor edits. In the editing process and in extensive conversations at Hank’s home in Atlantic Beach, FL, I instantly became immersed in the growing field of Customer Experience.
Hank is a giant in the field of Customer Experience and Consumer Touchpoints, and has worked at an executive level in several Johnson & Johnson operating companies.
Through a connection in the contact lens industry, Hank was invited to apply his Touchpoint knowhow to a specific industry trade group, independent optometrists. Besieged by websites like 1–800 Contacts on one side and retail behemoths like Costco and Walmart on the other flank, independent optometrists are an endangered species.
With the trade group sponsorship, Hank and I co-developed a presentation deck, based on Touchpoint Power!, for a 26-city North American speaking tour. Hank handled all 24 speaking engagements in the United States. I knew the material so well, he asked me to be the keynote two Canadian events in Toronto and Vancouver.
We also teased out the book’s content into practice management software for independent optometry practices. Which goes to show you’ll not only have the ability to build out a consulting or speaking business from your book, you can actually create information products from your prose.
Flashback to 2010, a.k.a the Technology Middle Ages; late-morning for mobile and social. Technologist Mike Lingo had decades in IT, including seminal work for Cendant in building out the infrastructure for the timeshare industry. He had an urgent sense of the importance of the Cloud.
Forrester Research was developing a major paper confirming the shift away from on-premise computing, titled “The Coming Upheaval in Tech Services.” Yet CIO’s were reluctant trusting their digital livelihoods to third parties. Larry Ellison, now a Cloud proponent, was bashing his former protégé Marc Benioff, trying to derail the Salesforce.com juggernaut.
Mike Lingo’s employer, the venture-backed IT consultancy Astadia, approached me about creating a book it could distribute at Dreamforce 2010, the huge 45k-person Salesforce tribal gathering at Moscone Center that resorts to bringing in cruise ships because all the San Francisco hotel rooms are sold out.
In eight months, Mike and I co-authored a 115-paperback manifesto “Hey! You! Get Onto My Cloud” (Astadia Press). Astadia’s CMO John Miller gave the book a New York publishing house look and feel, and we didn’t ask the Rolling Stones for permission to grab one of their song lyrics.
We had the book ready for Dreamforce, a real differentiator from what the other Salesforce.com strategic partners (Astadia’s competitors) had to offer in their booths. The independent Lingo book was a formidable equal to the Forrester paper and also served as excellent positioning for 250-employee Astadia with the large global Cloud consultancies, Accenture and Cap Gemini.
Here’s the other thing about a book. If you really are an authority in your field and tell your story in clear, concise and compelling way, the book has an extended shelf-life.
Astadia had a data practice working with Informatica, a public company and a multi-billion dollar player in traditional database computing. In early 2012, when Informatica launched their Cloud division, they had limited Cloud know-how but an instinct that it was a market they needed to address, and quickly. The Informatica CMO approach Astadia and asked they could have copies of the Mike Lingo book for their annual sales kick-off in Orlando. Informatica felt that if their sales reps would read and understand the book, they would have immediate fluency in the Cloud story.
I’m certain there are hundreds, if not thousands, of anecdotes of how a single book, written in relative obscurity, was a seminal source of information, or inspiration, in a much larger pond.
It’s the butterfly effect for books. You have no idea how far your little book will take you.
Author Note: This post is a chapter excerpt from the forthcoming “Creating Your First Business Book” (copyright Tomol Press).
Photo Credit: Edward T. LeBlanc Collection at Northern Illinois University
