The Secret to Fast Track your Business
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The Secret to Fast Track your Business
Think. Write. Lead. - Issue #44
Happy Saturday, my friend! Do you like stories? I really hope so, because today I’m going to tell you one that will inspire you to write more and really become a thought leader in your niche.
Last Spring break I took my family to Universal Studios Florida. We stood in line anywhere from 60 to 130 minutes for the most popular rides (which last less than 5 minutes each).
At the entrance of each ride, though, there was another way to get to the ride faster (less than 30 minutes). That was the entrance for the Express Pass holders. These people paid an extra $120 per day to skip the regular lines and get to their destination faster.
Did you know there’s also an express pass available for solopreneurs to grow their businesses faster?
LinkedIn gurus tell you to post content for a year or more, write a newsletter or start a podcast to start building an audience and earning their trust.
But there’s a faster way: writing and publishing a great book.
A book is like an express pass that will get you to the front of the line in your industry much quicker than any other method or channel, if you do it right.
Let me illustrate this with a true story.
From Burnout to Peak State
In the summer of 2021 I was feeling burnt out and ready to quit. I was the Director of Digital and Content Marketing at a sales training company and was on my way to become VP of Marketing.
But I couldn't do it anymore. I was working 10-hour days, answering emails from my boss in the middle of the night, carrying the blame for an underperforming team, and overall, feeling empty inside.
It was then that I read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The book talks about the concept of being in your Zone of Genius as opposed to your Zone of Excellence or just your Zone of Competence. In case you are not familiar with the concept, here's a quick summary of the four zones Hendricks describes in his book.
1. Zone of Incompetence. Here, there’s an obvious misalignment between the tasks you need to perform and your talent or skills. In this case, you should either be retrained, redistributed in the organization, or find a better match outside the company.
2. Zone of Competence. These are tasks that you are good at, but that other people can do better. Work that falls under this category should be delegated or redistributed to people more suited for it.
3. Zone of Excellence. Here, you have some talent and skills for the tasks you need to do, but the work doesn’t give you energy. You may be successful in the short term, but over time you will burn out.
4. Zone of Genius. When all talents, skills, and strengths are all aligned, we are in our Zone of Genius. The things in your Zone of Genius are the things that you are uniquely good at and that you love to do. This is where you can add most value to the company and yourself. This is where you should be spending most, if not all, of your time.
After some self-reflection, I realized I was feeling miserable because my job kept me in the Zone of Excellence, managing people and attending Zoom meetings all day. I'm in my Zone of Genius when doing something creative, like writing content or telling stories.
So I looked for another job as an individual contributor. My boss could not believe that I would leave a director role to become a content writer. But I'd rather be happy than have a title.
It turned out to be a great decision. Having less meetings and no people to manage, gave me more time during the day to be in my zone of genius. That new rhythm awoke something in me.
I became more active on LinkedIn, posting every day (something I had wanted to do for a while but couldn't do because of how busy I was). I took Justin Welsh's LinkedIn course and joined his community of solopreneurs.
This newfound creative outlet forced me to find a niche and a topic to write about. Perhaps I could start a side gig out of it, I thought.
At first, I started writing about reinventing yourself (something I had done quite a few times in my life) and how to find a new career. But there were so many people already writing about that on LinkedIn! And I really didn't want to be helping people out with their resumes and job interviews, nor become another self-help guru wannabe.
Somehow I stumbled with the topic of thought leadership, so I read every article and book I could find about it. I interviewed practitioners.
Thought leadership looked like a promising topic. What if I could figure out the steps you need to become a thought leader and share my discovery journey on LinkedIn? Perhaps some people would be interested.
From my initial research, it seemed that thought leadership would be a topic that would interest startup founders and C-executives. After all, the books I'd read about the topic always addressed them. But then, something interesting happened.
People started interacting with my posts, commenting and asking questions. But when I looked at their profiles, I noticed that none of them were the executives or company leaders I was expecting. No, they were coaches, consultants, content creators.... mostly solopreneurs.
My niche had found me.
So, I decided to pivot and write for them. But all the content out there already was off. It seemed that to be a thought leader you had to be already someone in leadership, like a big company CEO, a PhD from an Ivy League university, or someone famous. No one spoke about how to build thought leadership from scratch, or how to go from solopreneur to thought leader.
That was a huge gap. And I decided to fill it.
In the next few weeks, I began putting together a framework anyone could use to position themselves as thought leaders in their niches. And because I'm a writer, I thought, hey this could be a book!
It was mid-October and I knew Nanowrimo was coming in November. What's Nanowrimo? Well, it's the National Novel Writing Month, when writers from all over the world commit to writing a novel during the 30 days of November. I had participated in Nanowrimo once in 2007 and it was fun. So I decided I was going to write the book in November.
I finished the first draft on December 2nd. I worked on the second draft in December and sent the manuscript to my editor on the first week of January.
The Solo Thought Leader: From Solopreneur to Go-To Expert in 7 Steps was published on March, 4th 2022 and it became an instant Amazon bestseller.
All in all, it took a little over 4 months to go from idea to published book. But as impressive as that may sound to some, what's more impressive are the outcomes.
I'm regularly being invited to speak at events or podcasts as a thought leadership expert.
People quote me and my book as an authoritative source in thought leadership.
People contact me asking for mentoring and coaching.
And of course, I'm making money from my book.
And that money not only comes from the royalties of copies sold. It comes from a book ecosystem I've created around it.
Now, here's the point I want to drive home with this story:
A little over a year ago, I was a burnt out marketing leader in a corporate job with minimal knowledge about thought leadership. I had no social media following and nobody knew me outside my small sphere of influence. Now, I have a business fueled by my book and I'm recognized as a thought leadership expert.
It's so cool that it seems unfair.
And for four months of work to write and launch the book.
I see those 120 days that I invested in writing, publishing, and marketing the book as the $120 you pay for the Express Pass at Universal Studios.
Although most people would think a book is what you do last, when you are at the pinnacle of your career and you can write a magnum opus retelling your greatest achievements, I think it should be the other way around.
There are many ways to build and grow a business. You certainly don't need a book to be a successful entrepreneur. And having one won't guarantee fame and riches either.
But if you are a solopreneur, content creator, or aspiring thought leader, becoming a solo author is a powerful way to fast track your career.
THINK.
Are you playing it safe with templatized social media posts or are you making big bets with your content?
Have you believed the myth that writing a book is very hard? Read this if the answer is yes.
What would a great book in your name would do for your business or your personal brand? Imagine the possibilities.
WRITE.
Here are some exercises to get your creative juices flowing without committing to anything big yet.
Write down 5-10 ideas of what your first (or next) book could be about.
Pick the best idea and think of exciting titles for the book. Jot down some ideas.
Write a paragraph of what the book is about (what would you say at a Cocktail party if someone asked you about your book?)
LEAD.
Most content creators are happy publishing blogs and Twitter threads. But those are ephemeral. They get lost in the infinite scroll.
Solo authors, on the other hand, don't just spread their innovative ideas in bite-sized LinkedIn posts, or lay out their thought leadership in convenient online courses.
Those are okay. But everybody else does that.
The fact is, nothing spells out thought leader like a published book.
And it all starts with documenting your knowledge and insights into a system, methodology, process, or guiding principles — and publishing them.
You may already been an expert on something, but unless you have published a book on the topic, it’s hard to prove it.