The One-and-a-Half-Pound Business Card

It won’t fit in your wallet. It’s hard to hand out at networking events. And you can’t throw it into a fishbowl to win a free lunch. But a book about your business success or philosophy can be an impressive, revenue-generating calling card. A golf course designer I know produces books on demand to accompany every proposal he sends out. They’re beautiful, hardbound art books, and the pages come right off his laser printer. A client of mine is a real estate developer in San Diego with an inspiring rags-to-riches-type story. He hired me to ghostwrite his book, and we produced it like a “real” book with a barcode, reviews on the back cover, and everything. The result? He gives it to all his clients and employees, and Hard Work: Success Made Easy was named Best Business Book by the San Diego Book Awards. I’m currently working on a book for an entrepreneur who sold his company a few years ago. He’s hoping his book will inspire young people to accomplish something on their own, and he sees it as a way of giving back. Lots of consultants write books and sell them to earn extra revenue, because they simply can’t work directly with everybody. A book is an affordable alternative to hiring an expert, and sometimes people who buy those books become real clients down the road. The value of shelf life. Unlike a business card, a book is less likely to get tossed aside or filed away. Books literally have a shelf life, which helps them stay top of mind and makes them easy to pass around or recommend to colleagues. A book makes an impression on people because it provides instant credibility. Even self-published books can have a certain authority about them if you produce them with care and attention to detail. (Note the word “author” in “authority”!) All books show that the author has a real commitment to the subject at hand. Putting the pages together. Self-publishing tools make it easy to create beautiful books all by yourself, filled with inspiring text and breathtaking images. Or you can write a synopsis and try to get a publisher to back your project. Or you can outsource everything and keep total control over production. My real estate client went from idea to finished book in six months. We started with a series of face-to-face, recorded interviews. When the manuscript was done, we hired a designer to lay out the pages, a photographer to shoot the cover, a specialist to write the index, and two proofreaders to make sure everything was perfect. Concurrently, we ordered a barcode and an ISBN number, obtained blurbs for the back cover from the most prominent businesspeople we could find, and paid a company to provide cataloging information so the book could find its way into the library system if we wanted it to. We even went to the extra effort of creating a publishing entity and designing a logo for the publishing “company.” When the writing, editing, and design work was completed, we printed 5,000 copies of the book and my client started giving them out to everyone he knew. The first 300 or so were given out with great fanfare at his company Christmas party. The book made quite an impression with my client’s colleagues, prospects, and customers. It also generated several articles and interviews in the local media, which really enhanced the return on investment. Try doing that with a regular business card! While writing and producing a book may not be for everyone, it could be a tool worth considering for your marketing mix. Every businessperson has a story to tell, and a book just could be one of the best ways to tell yours. 2008-11-15T20:12:37Z

2008-11-19T15:51:30Z

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the-one-and-a-half-pound-business-card

2008-11-19T15:47:55Z

Make an impression with a book about your business.

The One-and-a-Half-Pound Business Card

2009-02-24T09:47:11Z