Why a business book is a powerful tool
A business book written with a professional writer is a great tool for promoting your own business. The specifics of this kind of literature are that it occupies a niche where, very often, there are no competitors — because they’ve written nothing about themselves.
The particular category of people who consume information through long texts is fairly narrow. But the total number of people in it is still millions, and you can reach them without a desperate fight against your “colleagues.”
A book always builds the authority of a person or organisation with deep command of their field. The budget for writing one is incomparably lower than the investment demanded by paid ads and pushing your own assets across this or that network.
The catch: you can’t rewrite a book
The upsides of writing a business book are obvious, but you have to account for the specifics of the process.
This isn’t a post or a video online that you can delete or tweak. You can release a book into the world only after everything in it has been carefully checked — first and foremost for fidelity to the idea and the high professional level of the material. A work about your business carries far more weight than some post, because it’s a book. And handing it to one buyer or another is an irreversible act, so if some global “screw-ups” surface later, there’s nothing to be done. They’ll stay on record, others will read them and “ram” them back at you wherever they can.
Where work on a business book begins
You need to identify a representative of the business who’s ready to walk the entire writing path alongside the ghostwriter. This has to be someone capable of seeing the full mass of what needs to reach the reader.
The ghostwriter will do his part, no question. The emphasis, the hooks that pull a reader in, turning technical material into something interesting, building the skeleton of the book, and so on. But he isn’t a specialist in the field he’s writing about, which means there has to be someone who is. Someone able to supply useful, engaging information and to check after the writer helping shape the book whether everything has been laid out correctly from a professional standpoint.
The client’s voice and the frontman’s involvement
It’s highly desirable that the person who’ll be talking about the book with the audience takes part in creating it. There’s a reason I stress on my page that I write in the client’s voice. Once the business book exists, it has to be presented. People will have to talk about it. And it will have to be defended — both from haters and from the jabs of competitors. This works best when the book is an extension of the frontman, who’ll stand in its defence and make it as useful as possible for promoting the business.
The audience dictates the style
Of course, while striving to reproduce the client’s voice, you have to weigh other factors that matter no less. The style has to be settled. A professional writer can offer different options, but at the same time the audience dictates the style.
In my own experience, when writing a book for a mid-sized or large business, the client quite often wants to deliver all the information in, let’s say, corporate language. But if we’re writing a work framed as a dialogue with a broad audience of consumers, that can do real harm. A book should bring the business and the person closer, and a language alien to the consumer won’t help. Against that backdrop, sincere words about how the company wants to understand the people who, say, buy its product will look like a lie — with consequences to match.
A completely different situation arises if the goal of the business book is to attract serious investors. Here a corporate style is a perfectly acceptable affair, since it’s already a conversation within a frame everyone understands.
There are various combined approaches and one-off solutions that fit exactly this and nothing else, ever again. That’s the writer’s territory, and on this question it’s worth listening to him — and maybe even doing as he says.
Filtering the material is also client focus
Style settled, it’s time to start working. Be ready for the ghostwriter to say something like “this is boring.” I do it periodically, and it sometimes irritates the client. At first glance, not the most client-focused move. Here I am, having taken an order to write a book, and I start hating on the material. But if a writer truly aims for a good work, he has to filter the material and keep out anything that overloads it or creates the risk of being misread.
Client focus isn’t maximally agreeable communication — it’s a sincere drive to write something useful. In this case, for the business.
The main goal — to earn trust
And then comes the ending and the conclusions, which have to be shaped according to what exactly is the aim. In writing this kind of literature, you need to achieve the core objectives. Of course, the main goal may seem to be attracting new clients or investors. But that isn’t the goal — those are the consequences that appear if we deliver the main thing: we earn trust.
If a company is trusted, people will order its services or buy its product. If an investor sees a sincere, professional conversation, he’ll be ready to commit his own resources to that team.
A business book is a look inward and from within, presented through emphasis on strengths — one of which must be candour and the absence of a false bottom. Then it will work.
This article as an example
For better understanding, I’ll offer this article as an example. Yes, it too is business literature, and its goal is attracting clients. So its text can serve as a kind of demonstration.
Trust is earned through professional level. I demonstrate experience and knowledge by highlighting various moments of working with previous clients. I talk about specific things only a professional could know.
Trust is earned through the desire to give the client what he needs. I raise the point about client focus and write that, for the sake of the client’s goal, I can disagree with him and even argue. The priority is what he’s after. Anyone who actually does something difficult knows perfectly well that “yes-manning” a leader without real help in making the right decisions is always a catastrophic path that does nothing for success.
Trust is earned through the manner of communication and delivery. Without needless pomp, I describe my work and what awaits you if we start working together. Confident presentation of information, but without the pressure of a contractor hungry and greedy for money.
All of this adds up to a picture in which you can make a decision in complete calm, on the basis of: here, I see the style, the approach, he speaks sincerely, he’s someone to work with. Or not. But even in the case of a refusal, you’ll see everything in advance — which almost none of my colleagues will offer you. There you’ll get a figurative minefield of unknown quality and approaches.
And here I’m already playing on exclusivity, “hooking” the potential client who’s wavering and ready to move on. I do it by demonstrating exclusivity, trying to lift myself above my own competitors. Though I don’t consider them bad, since I basically don’t know how they write.
A cynical manipulation? No. It’s a demonstration of level and capability: the best I can do for my potential client at this stage.
The takeaway
Your business book can be exactly like this. Or completely different. Either way, the client will ultimately decide everything, because it’s his business, his expense, and he needs his own result.
Want to give it a try — head to the services page. We’ll talk, and maybe even write something.
