Sell Your Knowledge, Not Your Time

Why Every Business, Author & Expert Needs

a Book & a Platform

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Independent professional, business owner or author/expert, invest 10 minutes to discover how a book and a platform can help you automatically attract your ideal

clients, have the perfect salesperson, and create multiple streams of income.

SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, NOT YOUR TIME

What if you were able to earn more and “work” less? What would that allow you to do in life? Ever had thoughts about speaking to crowds, sharing your wisdom with conviction and authority? What about authoring a book? Or developing course content? What if you could double, triple or quadruple your income? The key to all of these things is to put pieces in place that will allow you to sell your knowledge, rather than your time.

Now, more than ever, you must have a platform. As a business. As an author. As an expert—and we are ALL experts in something. Your platform is your knowledge and know-how. It is everyone who knows you. All your connections and contacts. It is your “list”. It is also your ability to get attention and create “buzz”. It is also your products and services. Your platform is your currency. And when you have one, it is a source of prosperity and is leverage for life.

As an owner, when business is slow, having a platform gives you a way to fill your restaurant quickly or get people in your store (e.g., one idea is to send a time-limited special offer to your “VIP” club via text messaging or your e-mail list). For an author, it might mean getting picked up by one of the big publishing companies—they buy platforms, not books. For an expert, it means having people sign up for your in-person or online webinars, teleseminars, and courses. For all three, it means the ability to create multiple streams of income.

Platform building consists of five pieces:

Position: You are an expert and authority. Positioning you to magnetically attract people who want to do business with you. This requires you to show up and be regarded as a problem-solver or provider of solutions;

Publish: Strategies to turn your knowledge into a book or booklet. Have your book add real value and benefit your customers, readers, or target audience so they are willing to give you their precious contact information. This way you can attract your ideal clients/customers and begin a relationship with them by educating them. This also allows you to grow your “list” of everyone interested in your valuable products and services;

Productize: Once you have the above two pieces in place,

Posi�on  

Publish  

Produc�ze  

Promote  

Profit  

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your list of people interested in your expertise positions you to sell your valuable products, services, and knowledge;

Promote: As your list grows, it is easier and easier to promote yourself, your products and your services because you have established a relationship with your ideal clients such that they know you, like you, and trust you. Automation, mobile marketing, and social media are vital for this piece of the platform. As your business grows, you need to be able to handle the growth in clients and sales. The success of this phase requires putting systems in place to capture, educate, and nurture your ideal customers;

Profit: When you have position, have published, have a product or service to promote, then you are in a position to profit. A way for customers to buy from you is the final piece of the platform puzzle. You can sell your product, your service, your book, etc. We have a list of 55 kinds of products you can create from your expertise. Products developed from your expertise is how you create multiple streams of income and have your business working for you, even when you are sleeping.

THE MASTER CLIENT MAGNET

Do you have enough clients? What is your comfort level regarding sales? How about networking? If there was a way for you to automatically attract your ideal clients and have your ideal salesperson, what would that mean for you and your business? Can you imagine what life would be like if you were able to consistently have the opportunity to provide your valuable products and services to your ideal customer all the time? Being a published author will do this for you.

Here are seven reasons why a book is the best way to magnetically draw people toward you who can most benefit from your wisdom, knowledge and experience:

Authority: Books represent authority. Period. When developed correctly, a book can set you apart from everyone else in your field and elevate you to “expert” status. When this happens, people naturally seek you out over your competition. And they won’t hem and haw about price. In our Platform Building Program, we show clients how to construct just such a book.

Instant Credibility: Because a book represents “authority”, this means it can increase your credibility. Instantly! More credibility means less time is required for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you. This is a major advantage that will help you develop your business more quickly.

Sell Without Selling: Hate networking? Lack marketing know-how? Dislike “selling” people? You know you offer high quality products and services so how do you let people know? A book can be your best friend when it comes to “selling”. A properly constructed book can serve as your ideal “salesperson”.

More Revenue: A book is a symbol of expertise and because of that it can increase your revenue from the moment you start writing it. All that is required is to know how to use this to

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your advantage as a marketing and promotion strategy. There are 14 different strategies you can use to communicate about your forthcoming book that have the potential to increase your income while you are still writing your book!

Multiple Income Streams: All material from a self-published book can be structured and re-used to create more than 55 higher-priced information products and programs. Proper design of these products and programs will allow you to help many more people than you can in person. This also means the ability to generate multiple income streams, giving you the ability to work less and earn more.

Access to Media: When you are a published author, you gain access to a privileged club. A book means you have access to media gatekeepers and when properly leveraged, you can receive highly credible media coverage that most people can’t afford to buy. People love to hear presentations by expert authors who provide valuable help for a problem they have.

Personal: For many, the largest benefit to being an author has nothing to do with money and everything to do with a desire to share a passion and message with the world. Information publishing is the most powerful, profitable and time-saving business model there is for sharing your valuable message with the world. As each one of us does this, not only do our pocketbooks benefit, but more importantly, we have the opportunity to share our unique gifts. It provides a way for us to give back, making the world a better place. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone fully expressed and shared their unique gifts?

THREE STRATEGIES: WHICH ONE IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

The single, most common and costly mistake you as an author, expert or business owner can make is to run off and publish your book—and create your platform—without first educating yourself about the three main ways you can make money from a book (or booklet). Once you have evaluated each approach, only then you are in a position to make a conscious choice about which one best suits your vision and situation. The selected strategy will then inform how best to implement the five pieces of your platform.

The “Writer” Strategy In this approach, all focus is given to writing a book about a subject you like. And most people hope to get picked up by a large publishing house, ideally with the goal of being able to live off royalties generated by the book. Because the subject matter is very interesting, most authors will spend little (if any) time conducting research to see if the book is something that others actually want to buy.

Let’s assume a best case scenario and a publisher wants your book. As a first time author, the typical arrangement is that a publisher will negotiate a deal of 6-10% of net receipts of book sales. And in nearly every case, the publisher will also require you to surrender

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subsidiary rights. Let’s examine what this means in practical terms. Large publishers rely on wholesale book distributors (Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc.) to get your book into local bookstores. Most wholesalers have an arrangement to buy books from a publisher for 55% of the cover price. On a $20 book this means the publisher makes $9 on each book. And if your deal is 8%, that means you make $0.72 per book sold. If you are hoping to support yourself from book royalties, the bookstores would have to sell 69,444 books in order to generate $50,000 in income for you. Now here’s the kicker—and a little known fact—most books average 3,000 sales in their lifetime. Yes, in their entire lifetime! Do the math. Average lifetime sales means a measly $2,160 for you.

Oh and because the publisher requires you to surrender subsidiary income, you loose the right to create additional products (income) based on material contained in your book (ouch!). The other thing to bear in mind is that publishers are inundated by book proposals. The only way your book even sees the light of day with a publisher is if you have an agent. If you send your manuscript to a publisher directly, it immediately goes in the trash. Yes! Bear in mind that for every 1,000 writers, only 10 end up with a publisher. And of those, only 1 will be able to live off book royalties.

So when is having a big publisher useful? When the author is very well established and has a national and international following (numerous books and a comprehensive platform). The author is then in a powerful position to carefully negotiate their contract with the publisher.

This strategy works for those who: Want to author a book purely for self-expression; Are willing to self-publish if a publisher won’t pick them up; Don’t care if a publisher ever picks them up.

The “Business” Strategy This strategy is perfect for you the business owner. It also works well if you’d like to focus on writing a quality book (or booklet) and creating products that help people solve problems. The approach incorporates both business innovation and marketing techniques, focusing on quality content aimed at your ideal clients. The goal is to use the book as a way to introduce and position you as an expert and authority for a specific niche market. This strategy requires relatively few copies of your book to be sold.

In this approach, your book is meant to serve as a starting place to attract your perfect clients. After reading your book, those most interested in what you have to offer will clamour for more. Before the book is written, its structure is purposefully crafted. Also, before your book is written (or complete) follow-up products and services are strategically identified and created to be natural “next steps” to

You  the  Expert  

Your  Book  Sells  You  

Client  Magnet  

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take based on the content in your problem-solving book. At appropriate intervals, your book introduces your follow-up products and services, letting readers know exactly what is available to them as a “next step” with you.

If you have already published your book using a traditional publisher, you can use this method. Most authors can buy copies of their book from the publisher at 50% of the cover price. Then you can set about scheduling and conducting interviews, book tours, workshops, speaking engagements, etc. Having copies of your book to sell at these events means that instead of making $0.72 on a $20 book, you will make $10 a book. If you also hope to use this method in conjunction with the traditional publisher to distribute and sell them through wholesalers and bookstore chains, you’ve got to schedule and engage in aggressive marketing the moment your book hits stores. You’ve got a 90 day window to make a splash, generate interest and get people buying your book. If the bookstores haven’t sold enough copies at the end of the 90 day window, they have the option to return all your books (yikes!).

The best way to utilize this approach to attract high-paying clients is to self-publish. Aim and develop your content specifically for your target market that is willing to pay for your products and services. Create a compelling cover with all ten key cover elements on it. Include excellent “back matter” that promotes everything you have to offer your readers. And use insider tactics to create a quality book designed to be a superb saelperson for your products and services.

This strategy is great for anyone who already has a publishing deal and they can’t take advantage of the “Investment” strategy (below), or those who’d like to attract high quality, paying clients.

The “Investment” Strategy This is the supreme wealth-building and retirement funding solution. Identifying and leveraging what you know is worth 1,000 times what you are currently being paid. This method capitalizes on your innate gifts and acknowledges your inherent talents and wisdom. Like the “Business Strategy” above, this strategy also makes use of business innovation and marketing techniques.

The “Investment Strategy” approach turns what you know into a transformational book, specifically designed to introduce a whole series of higher-priced information profit centers. Each of these information centers are meant to help your readers in ways a book cannot. Vital to this method is the use and re-use of all material created by you (articles, blogs, booklets, books, videos, interviews, speaking engagements, workshops, slideshows, course material, etc.) to create many products and information systems.

All techniques used in the “Business Strategy” are utilized in this strategy, along with additional components. To be effective with this strategy, a plan and a system is a must before you start your book. A system is just a series of activities that have been thoroughly tested and refined so that when you do them, they consistently produce predictable results time after time. Your book must be easy to read and its content used as the basis for your other information products (we have a list of 55 product ideas). And like in the previous strategy, when and where appropriate your book will contain references to your “next step” products and services.

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The basic components of the “Investment” strategy are: Make a list of problems you are good at solving. Research and find a target market that wants and is willing to pay for what you can solve. The

ideal target market has 20 characteristics, including these six:

Aspiration or problem; They are aware of their aspiration or

problem; They are easily accessible via publications,

organizations, mailing lists, etc.; They have money to spend; They have a history of spending money to

solve their problem or fulfill their aspiration; They are people you would really enjoy

working with. Develop your content into a book and information

products in a way that generates lifelong streams of income. You need a strategic plan. Outline your information plan.

Create an initial book and information products. There are two basic approaches:

Deductive: Turn your expertise into a book that delivers what your target market wants and is willing to pay for. Then create an expanded line of information products and programs based on the foundation material in your book.

Inductive: Write your book last. First you make your information products, conduct speaking engagements, teleclasses, seminars, workshops, etc. This approach to book writing takes much longer because you systematically test out all your theories and then only include the best ones in your book. Use this approach when you want to create really high quality book content.

Establish affiliations and joint venture partnerships to reach a wider audience.

At Insightful Marketing, our Platform Building Program is meant to help you evaluate which strategy makes the most sense for you. We then create a customized, five-step plan that uses one of the three strategies, targeted for your niche, and leveraging your unique knowledge and skills. We share with you the single biggest obstacle independent professional or business owners say that prevents them from writing a book, and how to easily overcome it.

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STEP 1: POSITION YOURSELF

You are an expert and authority. Proper positioning means you to magnetically attract people who want what you have to offer, whether it’s a physical product or an information product. This step involves initiating relationships with those new to your expertise. And it involves further cultivating existing relationships. The aim of both is to help people get to know you, like you and trust you. This requires you to show up and be regarded as a problem-solver or provider of solutions. It also means building a comprehensive Internet presence, such that you are regarded as the “go to” expert in your niche.

STEP 2: PUBLISH CONTENT

Once you have positioned yourself as an expert, you are ready to create your book or booklet. If you think writing a book or booklet has to be a difficult lengthy process, think again. Depending on which book strategy is best for you (along with your systematic plan), it will either be appropriate to write a booklet or book.

Booklet Content for a booklet can be as simple as you answering your ideal client’s top 10 frequently asked questions, along with 10 “should ask” questions. Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are top questions

Ensure  your  mindset  is  in  the  right  place  

What  am  I  doing  this  for?   What  if  I  am  not  tech  savvy?   Am  I  good  enough?  

Create  videos  

10  Frequently  Asked  Ques�ons   10  Should  Ask  Ques�ons  

Build  your  online  presence  

Website   Opt-­‐in  to  build  mailing  list   Your  content  on  many,  many  websites   Help  people  find  you  

Create  posi�oning  content  

Keywords   Book  &  Product  Titles   Unique  Selling  Proposi�on   Social  Unique  Selling  Proposi�on   Your  Pla�orm  

Create  your  compelling  story  

Determine  your  "why"   Develop  personal  narra�ve   Help  reader  know  you,  like  you,  and  trust  you  

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clients ask when buying products or services in your niche. Your answers to “should ask” questions (SAQs) establish you as an expert and authority in your niche. SAQs are also meant to educate your clients in order to help them make the best buying decision. These are questions your clients would be asking, if they had the expert insider knowledge you have. Imagine your grandma wants to buy something; you’d want to help her know the best questions to ask when buy what she wants, right? SAQs are insider tips regarding products and services sold in your niche. When you do a good job of educating and empowering your clients to make a good buying decision (via SAQs) you are top of mind and are seen as the natural choice when it comes time for your client to buy.

Book The average business book is about 50,000 words, which is about 169 pages. Book content aimed at your idea clients affords the ability to provide much more information than a booklet. Each chapter is meant to educate and introduce your ideal customers to your other more-comprehensive information products. This allows them to dive deeper into the knowledge and wisdom you have to offer.

Have your book or booklet add value and benefit your customers so they are willing to give you their precious contact information. This way you can nurture and educate your customers, as well as grow your list. The following five elements are required for this step to effectively set the stage for the next step:

Book creation formula: First, you’ve got to decide what will and won’t be in your book (what you don’t cover is just as important as what you do). Next, you’ve got to design it with “the end in mind” ensuring you let interested readers know how they can take next steps with you. Third, create your content and repurpose existing content you’ve already created. Fourth, get someone else to edit your book; a fresh set of eyes makes all the difference in the world. Lastly, convert your book into the format expected by the publishing mechanism to be used;

Publish your book: Select a publishing platform that best suits your overall plan. Some self-publishing examples are Amazon Kindle, Amazon CreateSpace, iBookstore, Ingram Lightening Source, etc. You need to decide if you will offer a physical book, a digital book or both—each has its own purpose. This stage also requires a price to be set; there are strategies to setting a price point for each kind of publishing mechanism.

Create your author page: If you publish with Amazon, one of the greatest benefits is the ability to create an author page for yourself. You’ll need a professional photo of yourself, your bio, and your USP. To make this author page really effective requires three more elements.

Create a one-page book selling page: This is a webpage that is specifically constructed to market and promote your book. It is also meant to be a way for you to give your interested readers bonus content. Lastly, this is a primary way to build your list of ideal customers.

Create a mini promotions kit: An effective kit contains six elements, including your photo, bio, and all the ways in which people can find you (social media, videos, blogs, articles, etc.).

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STEP 3: PRODUCTIZE YOUR KNOWLEDGE & KNOW HOW

By this point, you’ve positioned yourself as an expert is your niche. You’ve also published your book or booklet and have begun to educate your customers. Teaching your customers what they need to know allows for them to get to know you, like you and trust you. Plus you are growing your list. Creating “next step” products based on the information in your book provides an opportunity for those who really like what you have to offer to dive in deeper and receive more help from you, help that a book just cannot offer.

The purpose of your “next step” products is to provide your customers with a systematic solution to the problem you are helping them tackle. Each product is a way for you to share your expertise in a way that leads your customers through a step-by-step process that helps them overcome the challenge or problem they currently face.

The following lists the five elements required for this step:

Product creation formula: There are at least 55 types of products that can be created from the contents of your book. We will help you identify which one(s) best suit your situation.

Create a product sales page: Each product you offer will require its own web page.

Create a membership site: Enhance your customer’s learning experience. The best way to continue to nurture your relationships is by using a membership site that can store all your product content. This is also a way to build community amongst your audience so they can support each other, too.

Create a physical product: Create a complimentary physical component to any digital or online offering you have. Customers will experience more value.

Design and implement upsell strategy: Those who are really benefitting from your products and services will want more. Let them know how to get more of what you have to offer.

STEP 4: PROMOTE & BUILD YOUR LIST

A list of people who know you, like you, and trust you positions you to later sell your valuable products, services, and knowledge. As your list grows, it will be easier and easier to promote yourself, your products and your services. Automation, mobile marketing, and social media are vital. You must have systems in place to effectively (and automatically) capture and immediately follow-up customer leads.

There are five components that must be carried out to ensure maximum success:

List Builder Campaign: For this stage, we need to set aside “marketing” and instead create a campaign. These days people don’t make impulse buys—instead they need between 10 and 20 contacts with you before they are ready to buy.

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Crowd Grabber Campaign: A specially constructed flyer, for use during speaking engagements.

Leverage Social Media: Use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ to further promote and build your list.

Promote Your Book: Once all of the above are in place, its time to promote your book via your list.

Promote Your Product: Use your list to promote your product, too. Once again, setting up a campaign specific to your product is important.

STEP 5: PROFIT FROM MANY CHANNELS

When you have position, have published, have a product or service to promote, then you are in a position to profit. A way for customers to buy from you is the final piece of the platform puzzle. You can sell your product or service. You can sell your book. You can offer webinars, teleseminars, or training modules.

Key to this step is setting up business systems for clients to purchase your products and services, along with a way to collect their purchase information so you can monitor what and how people are buying your products and services. The following items included in this step:

Sales System: Set up physical and online shopping carts. Capture customer’s e-mail and mailing address.

Webinar/Teleseminar: Create a webinar or teleseminar. This provides a way for you to strategically promote and sell your products and services while educating your customers.

Live Presentation: Once you’ve created your online presentation, its time to create your in-person presentation.

Leverage affiliate and joint venture opportunities: Strategically identify and partner with others that offer complimentary products and services. Teaming up is a highly effective way to increase your audience exponentially.

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FREE MARKETING RESOURCES

For more information, check out the following complimentary marketing resources offered through our website ( www.insightfulm.ca/free-marketing-resources ):

o The inSIGHTer: A blog dedicated to innovative social media, Internet and mobile marketing strategies that actually work, despite a “down” economy.

o Marketing Secrets Revealed o Website Design Checklist o Social Media Checklist o Why SEO Isn’t Enough Anymore o 11 Tips to Make Effective Marketing Videos