Becky Robinson's Blog, page 66

Featured on Friday: Wired for Authenticity Author @hennainam

This has been a week of in-person gatherings for several members of our virtual team. While more and more of the Weaving Influence crew are now based in the Northern Ohio/Southern Michigan region, there are still a number of us who are scattered across the United States (with one working regularly from China, and another based out of Columbia, South America).

Pulling the team together in person is one way to keep things authentic, but so are secret Facebook groups where we share jokes, and Google hangouts where we have the opportunity to see facial expressions and check in on more than just work. Growing and supporting a virtual team isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth the effort, as this week has confirmed.

We’ve had a few weeks of “down time” (it’s never truly slow around here!) since our last book launch, but we’re getting back into gear as we get ready to promote The Disciplined Leader next week, and then the new book from today’s author, Wired for Authenticity.

Meet Henna Inam

Henna Inam is a sought after speaker, successful author, and CEO of Transformational Leadership Inc. Her unique workshops, tools, and online community help managers create innovative, engaged teams that drive measurable results.

Henna and her global partner team work with Fortune 500 companies to deliver executive coaching, leadership development, and team workshops. Clients include Coca-Cola, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, CNN, and Bank of America. Prior to starting her company, Henna worked for 20 years at Procter & Gamble and Novartis. She has lived or worked across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Join thousands of subscribers and get actionable leadership advice from the Transformational Leadership Blog.

Connect with Henna Online

Find Henna on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Learn more about Transformational Leadership by visiting her website.

Support the Launch of Wired for Authenticity – June 22-26!

Coming up in a little over a week, we’re participating in the official launch of Henna’s first book, Wired for Authenticity: Seven Practices to Inspire, Adapt, & Lead (now available on Amazon). Get involved by telling your online communities about it using the resources found HERE.

Think of the biggest leadership challenge you’re facing right now. What if you could be coached on a powerful tool that would help you resolve this challenge? On June 16 at 12 pm (ET)/9 am (PT), you’ll want to block off your calendar and join Henna and Becky for a webinar on the ideas found in Wired for Authenticity, because that’s what Henna wants to share with you! Register today, and invite a friend!

Don’t forget to check out book’s NEW website, and start spreading the word as we get ready for the launch. Are you a leader who wants authenticity and adaptability? Start by reading Wired for Authenticity and then join us for an exciting launch later this month!

Why I’m Taking This Show On the Road

I’m headed out this morning on what I’m calling the #witour, The Weaving Influence Summer Tour, along with my three daughters and one of their best friends. We’ll cover more than 1200 miles during an estimated 20 hours of driving, over 5 days, eventually landing at my parents’ home, where we’ll relax and enjoy for nearly a week before flying home.

I’m excited about this trip for several reasons, but the most important one is people.

I get to be with my favorite girls for 10 days.

We get to meet and spend time with 10 members of my team, a few of whom I’ve never met in person.

We’ll see at least two long-term clients.

The reason I do what I do is to create opportunities for others, and this trip represents the creation of opportunities on so many levels, for the most important people in my life.

If you follow the #witour through the pictures and stories I share along the way, here’s what I hope you’ll see:

I love my team. The idea for this trip has been percolating for quite some time and the execution of the trip is long overdue. Although I’ve met Megan, who joined Weaving Influence in 2013 and started our digital publicity service, we have not seen each other during the time we’ve worked together. I’ve talked with Max, who is our community manager, on video calls many times, but we’ve never met. Of the ten team members I’m seeing this week, four will be first-time meetings. Though we collaborate closely and talk regularly, in-person connection is powerful and important.

I love our clients, and I’ll use any means to get their messages out. We have a few amazing sponsors who have provided hotel rooms and are hosting meals on our journey. Though I could and am investing in this trip myself, it’s fun to highlight and appreciate the great work our clients are doing. I’m also grateful for a chance to connect face to face on this journey with two of our clients.

Work is best when it fits into life. For several years, I’ve worked at home. My girls see what work looks like because they are often with me (or nearby) when I’m working. This tour will immerse them even more in my work world. I’m excited for them to meet more of the tremendous people who comprise our team, meet clients, and to see that work can add joy and fun to life. Work is no longer 9 -5, in a central location but can mold to fit the lives we choose. Work is in my home office; work is in my newly-leased traditional office space; work is on the road or around a restaurant table. Work is with me wherever I am, and I can choose when and how to dive in and give work my attention, as I choose time away and unplugged.

Relationships are everything. I could not do what I do without the team of people who work with me, nor could I work without the clients who hire us. My extrovert-self is fueled by connecting in person, and these moments on the tour will create connections and memories of inestimable worth. (More from me on relationships and the tour here.)

Tell me something! How do you share your life and work with your family? What fuels your joy for work?

Featured on Friday: TBB Member @dadofdivas

I could say it 50 or 100 times a week, and it would always be true: without Team Buzz Builder, our book launches would not be as successful. As the Book Launch Director, knowing there are “go to” individuals who will host guest posts, accept books to review, and use their social media accounts to promote our authors gives me peace going into each and every launch.

I’ve written about several of them in the past, and each time I ask the questions, I’m always interested to see what kind of responses I’ll receive. Most of them list things like “community” and “meaningful interactions” as reasons they like being a part of our team. Getting to be a part of some of those interactions, hearing that kind of feedback always makes me grateful.

Today we’re focusing on a man who you might know better as the “Dad of Divas”, the man who reviews everything from Wind In Your Sails to Brazilian hats!

Meet Christopher Lewis!
I really appreciate you taking the time to answer a few questions for me, Chris! First one: Why do you like being a part of TBB?

I love the opportunity to interact with brands and other bloggers in a meaningful way and Team Buzz Builder offers this!

What benefit do you think you receive from being a part of Team Buzz Builder?

A close-nit community that supports each other and offers some great opportunities to work with brands too.

So, if someone asked you why they should join, what would you tell them?

For both the community learning and brand opportunities that it offers!

Let’s get personal… tell me about your work/family/life/hobbies!

I work full time as a college administrator. I have two daughters ages 10.5 and 7.5, I live a very busy life. I write at dadofdivas.com and dadspotlight.com. I podcast for the Dad Spotlight Podcast. I am an elected school board member and President of my Neighborhood Association.

Want to learn more about Christopher? There are lots of ways to connect with him online, and I suggest using them all!

Find him on Twitter (@dadofdivas, @dadspotlight, and @drclewis), Instagram, Facebook (Dad of Divas and Dad Spotlight), Pinterest, YouTube, and tumblr.

Are you a Team Buzz Builder Member who would like to be featured in one of our Friday posts? Email me for more details!

The #WITeam Says: Happy Birthday @beckyrbnsn!

Three years ago I’d been working with Becky for one month. We were in the process of launching of Dare, Dream, Do by Whitney Johnson, and Becky was ready to step out in faith to start working full-time for her own company – pursuing her entrepreneurial dreams while helping others reach their goals.

Whether she’s encouraging a first-time author, offering social media advice to a client, or helping an ever-growing team of contractors (and now, employees) see their dreams become realities, Becky has always been the driving force of Weaving Influence.

As a company, we are successful, but it’s due in large part to Becky’s belief in her vision, her team, and her clients. Many of us “behind the scenes” folks have long dreamed about working from home or working for ourselves, but we lacked the courage to sell our skill sets. Becky was able to see beyond our inability to promote ourselves and offered us an environment to learn, grow, and produce in the most flexible way possible.

When I started working with Becky, I had very little confidence in my own abilities, and wasn’t sure I had anything to offer. Three years later, as the Book Launch Director and senior member of the contractor team, I am grateful for the lessons I’ve learned while working alongside Becky, in addition to the new skills and techniques that I have picked up along the way.

On behalf of the #WITeam, thank you, Becky, for opening doors of opportunity. Your generosity, support, and willingness to try new things are why we have seen amazing success and growth in the last three years, and it’s been an honor to work alongside of you during that time.

Would you join with the Weaving Influence team in wishing Becky a very happy birthday?
Send a Tweet!

 

Are You A Thought Leader?

A popular term in today’s digital world of content creation, “thought leadership” is not really a new concept at all. In fact, The Oxford English Dictionary gives its first citation for the phrase in 1887 by describing Henry Ward Beecher as “one of the great thought-leaders in America.” It was revived or reinvented by marketers in the 1980s, and in 1990 was used in a Wall Street Journal marketing article by Patrick Reilly.

When defined, a thought leader is an individual or firm that is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded. But in a world where people find desired information in thousands of locations – their favorite online publications, blogs, social platforms or served up in email newsletters and podcasts – becoming a thought leader is a much more common thing.  Therefore, competition is plentiful.

During my first month at Weaving Influence, I’ve been fortunate to work with a number of amazingly talented thought leaders and authors. I’m learning more about them and their contributions to our world through their books and the original content they create. Working smarter, being more fulfilled in life, becoming the leader you aspire to become – it’s much like attending an insightful, personal development seminar every day! These individuals are truly talented thought leaders who are sharing their insights into our world to benefit those who are willing to open their minds and become a better person.

Are you a thought leader? Being known as one seems like a fairly hefty mantle to wear. But the truth is, many of us are thought leaders on a smaller scale, we just don’t realize it.

You may be a thought leader among your peers and circle of friends, regularly offering insight to your area of expertise: Where should we have dinner for our anniversary? When visiting Chicago, what should we plan to see? Do you know how to plant a raised vegetable garden? That’s how thought leadership begins, with expertise that blossoms into widely-respected knowledge in your specialized field of expertise.

What will you do with your knowledge? How will you nurture it and grow it to become larger than life?

You can learn how by emulating the leaders that you aspire to be like, and using your own knowledge to help your peers, the next generation and potentially generations to come.

To become recognized as a thought leader takes diligence and hard work while you are gaining experience in your craft, and while spreading your insights. But it’s never too late to start. Large or small scale, the world becomes a better place when we share insights and lessons learned from each other.

Be a coach, a student mentor, or an admired leader. Create thought leadership in your own world and nurture it. Don’t be overwhelmed by the concept, just feed it. Watch it grow and many will reap the benefits.

 

Tell me something! How do you nurture your own sense of leadership?

 

Featured on Friday: Meet Team Member Christy Kirk

Working in a start-up company is not for the faint of heart, and in the summer and fall of 2013 the Weaving Influence team was swimming to keep our heads above water.

We were starting to feel the growth pains as one by one our fellow contractors moved on or moved away, all while the company continued to expand, with  Becky, Amy, and I trying to juggle project management and book launches. Megan had arrived that summer to begin our foray into Public Relations, Rachel was hard at work creating graphics, and Joanna continued to as behind the scenes support, but we desperately needed help.

Help did come, eventually, starting when Christy came on the scene. It was like someone had thrown us a life ring! Although she started out with us working part-time on just a couple of projects, it was the boost of energy we needed to take Weaving Influence to the next level. When she made the decision to leave her other job and join us full-time, Weaving Influence folks from Michigan to Tennessee cheered!

Christy has been a tremendous asset to our team, in so many ways. Her enthusiasm for the work, her responsiveness to clients, and her great sense of humor make her irreplaceable at Weaving Influence. It’s been a while since I’ve featured a team member on Friday, but it’s high time you met another of our #WITeam superstars…

Meet Christy Kirk

Hey Christy, thanks so much for doing this! Can you tell mus a little bit about your personal life?

I am a mother of 6:  Three children ages 8, 13 and 20, two cats and a dog. In addition to making sure they are all fed, bathed and properly clothed, I am the Director of Social Strategy for Weaving Influence.  I began working in social media while still a journalist and transitioned to working full-time in social strategy around 3 years ago.  Before that I was a television journalist for nearly 20 years. I love the constant change involved in social media.  It’s not quite the same adrenaline rush as meeting a show deadline, but it’s the closest thing I can find.  Plus, it’s a wonderful creative challenge to share stories in such a variety of formats.

Tell us something unusual about yourself.

I never make a recipe the same way twice. I’m always trying to improve or advance everything I make.  It drives my husband crazy because even the favorites are constantly being updated.

What’s your favorite pastime?

Nothing makes me happier than being curled up with a good book.  There are books and magazines in every room in my home.  Reading is fun and fundamental! (If you are old enough, that line should make you smile.)

Tell me your favorite part of the job with Weaving Influence…

My favorite part of working for Weaving Influence is the opportunity to constantly try new things.  We’re trying new approaches as a company, for clients and in the social space.  While most people don’t like change, I thrive on it.

How long have you been working with Weaving Influence?

I’ve been working for Weaving Influence for almost 2 years now.

What’s your official title?

My official title is Director of Social Strategy, but I started as a social implementer and project manager.

As the Director of Social Strategy… what’s the best social media tip you can offer?

Here’s my best social media tip: Experiment.  Social media is not like so many things in life where you can develop a plan and stick to it.  Social is constantly changing, so even the best plans, need regular tweaks.  Also, don’t be afraid to try something new.  It might work, it might not, but you’ve learned something regardless.

Connect with Christy Online

Find her on Twitter @McBuck48, and make a connection with her on LinkedIn.

Want to meet more of the team? You can find us HERE. And don’t forget to follow our Weaving Influence accounts on Twitter @weaveinfluence, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

The Not-So-Glamorous Parts

My new office space is filled with books and shipping materials today, as we’re sending out advance review copies of The Disciplined Leader by John Manning.

Shipping and distributing books is something we do to serve our clients. It requires many hands on deck, and we pull in occasional workers to get a fast turn-around on books in, books out.

Getting books out in the world prior to a launch is a great way to fuel early buzz. We encourage clients to share advance copies with as many friends and colleagues as possible, because we find that the number of books authors send out prior to launch is a great determiner in how many Amazon reviews they can expect to gather soon after launch week. Early Amazon reviews fuel excitement and provide important social proof for a new book.

Packaging books is a time-consuming activity and requires coordination and planning. We stock up on shipping labels, shipping envelopes, and stationary. Many authors choose to include a bookmark and some take the time to individually sign bookplates, which we add to each book, transforming each advance copy into a valued (signed) edition.

If you are launching a book soon, it’s helpful to plan in advance for all the details related to sending advance copies.

Here are a few considerations:

Shipping Method. We typically ship books media mail, when time allows, for the lowest price per book. Depending on the weight of the book and distance we’re shipping, the price to ship first class is often comparable, so shipping media mail doesn’t always make sense. If you choose to ship via USPS, you may want to consider wait times and other inconveniences of processing books at the post office. Our team has a pretty sweet arrangement with our local (small town) post office, in which we drop off large quantities of books for them to process in between other customers. This saves our team hours of time and our authors money. While using service like stamps.com may seem like an easy solution to the waiting-in-line-at-the-post-office dilemma, it hasn’t worked well for us, despite several tries; we’ve struggled with importing large lists and then needing to spend time correcting addresses; it’s not as seamless or easy as you think and it doesn’t play with Infusionsoft, our favorite CRM.

Mailing Lists. One of the pain points in distributing early copies of books is incomplete or incorrect address lists. If you plan to ship books, working on address lists far in advance is very helpful. Another work around is sending an email with a form, linked to your CRM, to gather addresses. For some clients, we use our own system and forms, simplifying this often-confusing process. The lists can then be exported from the CRM and merged into a file for printing labels.

Packaging. We’ve seen some author stand out by choosing branded packaging to match their company or book branding. Chip Bell had fun with an advance mailing of actual sprinkles prior to sending his book Sprinkles. Other authors choose specialized packaging. A brightly colored envelope is certain to get more attention than a white or other typically colored package. Alexandra Watkins did a great job with this, including Hello, My Name is Awesome stickers on every envelope. Fun packaging requires advance planning, and will likely create additional expense but is certainly worth it for some authors.

Messaging. If you are going to invest in shipping out hundreds of advance books, the message you send with the books is important. What action do you want people to take? How will you follow-up? The message you send with the books is also an opportunity for building a relationship with each recipient. Craft your message carefully. If you plan to spend any extra time, time spent on personal notes is probably the most valuable part of this process.

Support. Many of the authors we serve underestimate the demands on their time during a book launch. Sending out books is an additional activity that is not likely as high leverage. Plan in advance how you will deal with the extra administrative details related to your book promotion. Will you hire a temporary assistant? Work longer days? Enlist your kids? Outsource to a team like ours? Be proactive in planning for support; you’ll need it more than you expect to.

Every book you send into the world represents the opportunity to make a difference through your words and content; each book is a seed that can grow and bear fruit for your business.

Tell me something! If you are an author, what else can you share about the not-so-glamorous parts of your job?

Featured on Friday: The Disciplined Leader Author @JohnMManning

One thing about working – even virtually – with strong personalities and visionaries (and don’t forget the INTJ – hi there!), is that no one is ever satisfied with the status quo. Despite having 50 book launches under our collective belt, we’re always looking for new ways to share, new promotions to try, and new ideas for the next time.

This week two of our directors met to come up with ideas for new processes, strategies, and team organization. To hear them talk about it, you would have thought they had just been handed an all expense paid trip to Hawaii; their giddiness about coming up with fresh ideas and better ways to do things as a company was – and is – contagious.

As one of the few introverts in a virtual team of extroverts, not to mention the “safety first” gal, I’m usually the one with the panicked look on my face as I realize I have to flex out of my comfort zone and learn something new. But no matter how much I might like to be comfortable, I also realize that even with 50 successful book launches, there’s always the next one on the horizon and something new to try.

Meet our next author and his book…

Meet John Manning

John Manning is the President of Management Action Programs, Inc. (MAP), a general management consulting firm based in Southern California. Since 1960, MAP has tapped its talent and expertise to help 170,000 leaders in over 15,000 organizations nationwide create breakthrough results.

John has diverse experience in business leadership, having held executive positions in Fortune 500 companies in operations, marketing, and sales. Formerly the Director of Operations for McKesson Water Products, Inc., he was also part of a leadership team that took the company national.

A resident of Southern California, John enjoys mentoring young professionals and entrepreneurs. An avid cyclist, John is passionate about spending time in the great outdoors. He is devoted to his wife Robin and his entire family.

Connect with John (and MAP) Online

Find John (and MAP) on: Facebook, Twitter (John)/Twitter (MAP), LinkedIn (John)/LinkedIn (MAP), and YouTube. Learn more about the work of MAP by visiting their website.

Support the Launch of The Disciplined Leader – June 15-19!

Coming up in about a month, we’re inviting you to join with us as we help John launch his first book book, The Disciplined Leader (now available on Amazon for pre-order). Get involved by telling your online communities about it using the resources found HERE.

On June 23 at 1 pm (ET)/10 am (PT), you’ll want to mark your calendars and make plans to join John and Becky for a webinar on the ideas found in The Disciplined Leader.  As with all of our webinars it’s absolutely free to attend, so register today, and invite a friend to join you!

Don’t forget to check out book’s NEW website, and start spreading the word as we get ready for the launch. Ready to discover your leadership disciplines? Start by reading The Disciplined Leader and the join us for an exciting launch next month!

You Tell Me! What book (leadership or otherwise) are you currently reading?

5 Keys to an Amazing Webinar

I have to admit it—I’m addicted to webinars. I probably listen to at least one a week, often it’s two or three. I will sign up for webinars on marketing, healthy living, any subject that piques my interest, and of course, I listen in on as many webinars from Weaving Influence clients as possible.

Webinars are a wonderful marketing tool: they are helpful in building email lists, creating advocates and selling products. For the attendee, webinars are a great way to learn something new and have access to a writer or thought leader you admire.

But let’s be honest, not all webinars are created equal. While some leave you excited and energized, others can bore you to tears.

Are you planning a webinar? Here are the 5 keys to making sure you leave people wanting more.

1. It’s a visual media. Use great images!

Researchers estimate that 65% of the US population are visual learners. That’s why YouTube is so successful! Webinars are visual, so put some time and effort into your slides. Have a graphic artist friend? Get help designing slides that are beautiful, with images that help expand your ideas. Please do not just type a lot of text and then expect to read it to your webinar audience. They will leave. In droves.

Another tip: Consider going on camera for a portion of your webinar. By getting to see you, your audience feels more connected and they’ll be more receptive when you make your call to action. Sharing short videos is a winning strategy, too.

2. Don’t go it alone.

Do you talk to yourself? Do you enjoy talking to yourself? A webinar without a moderator/host or additional speakers feels like you are talking to yourself for an hour. Does that sound appealing? Probably not, for you or your audience. Get someone to lend a hand. A moderator can help keep the pace of the webinar moving, ask pertinent questions, run a poll and make a sales pitch, so you can focus on sharing your message. Having additional guests helps the webinar evolve into a discussion. Doing a Q&A format with multiple guests can be an exciting and informative hour.

3. Let the audience participate.

Webinars often feel like a lecture, but the best ones feel like a conversation. Invite your audience members to type questions in the chat window and answer as many as you can. During one recent webinar, author Mark Miller spent nearly the entire session answering questions, then promised to answer more in his “Today’s Challenge” blog posts on Fridays. You can bet his webinar audience will make sure to read his blogs each week. I’m guessing many signed up for his RSS feed, too, so they don’t miss a post. His generosity and real interest in helping people came across in the webinar. Expressing genuine interest and concern is how you build a strong community of advocates.

4. Get social.

You’re creating a community – so create a hashtag that brings them all together. The hashtag can help drive awareness in advance of your webinar. It can help you interact with participants and field their questions during the event (you’ll want some help with this, trust me!). It will also help you follow-up and answer any lingering questions or comments.

5. Get the bugs out.

This is a no-brainer, right? Technical problems like crackling audio, videos that won’t play or slide glitches make you appear unprepared.  Test and re-test your presentation from the audio to slide progression to any mixed media you may plan to incorporate. Technical issues can pop up even with the best advance planning, but practice will help eliminate as many issues as possible in advance and help you become more comfortable and focused.

The most important tip is sometimes the hardest: relax and have fun! 

This is an opportunity to share your passion with others. You may get tongue-tied, you make skip a slide, or a misspelled word may slip by all your proof-readers — don’t focus on these small hiccups. Instead, realize that you have an amazing opportunity — you’re connecting with people who feel passionate about the same subject that fascinates you. You are building a community.

Tell me something! What’s your best tip for creating a successful webinar?

image source: kelseyannvere

If you’re interested in finding out how Weaving Influence can support your next webinar, find out more here. To register for our upcoming (free) events or to watch a replay of one of our past events, visit here.

Lessons from 50 Book Launches

Since early 2012, my team and I have helped to launch 50 books, mostly business/leadership titles. We’ve worked with a variety of authors, with a combination of first time and veteran authors. We’ve done a mix of traditionally published and self-published titles. We even launched one book, Leaders Open Doors by Bill Treasurer, twice: once when it was self-published (iUniverse) and again when it was picked up by a traditional publisher (ATD.) Typically, we are hired by each individual author, but we have also been directly hired by a publisher on several projects.

In the early days, we focused primarily on social media publicity. In mid-2013, we added digital publicity to the mix. Along the way, we’ve been incorporating past learning to become more effective and efficient over time, supporting our authors in reaching the widest possible audiences with their messages while reaching their big picture goals. (Here are some early lessons we learned in launching 7 books.)

I’ve spent some time reflecting about the most important ideas I’ve learned about book marketing through these experiences. While these lessons are specific to the types of books we promote, I hope authors in other genres will find value here as well.

I’ll share the bad news first.

Selling business books is difficult. New books release every day; it’s a noisy and crowded space. First-time authors, without well-established online brands and networks, will invest more than they expect in publicity and will see a return far smaller than they hope for. Even repeat authors are often disappointed by book sales results.

We’ve seen greater success for first-time authors who choose to publish with a traditional publisher, partially because a traditional publisher gives additional credibility to these debut authors and also because publishers have greater access to distribution channels than self-published authors typically do.

We also saw a stunning exception to this lesson in the marketing spearheaded by Alexandra Watkins on her book, Hello, My Name is Awesome. By the time she hired us to work on her book, she had been executing some stealth pre-marketing, building excitement and momentum for her launch for an entire year before her pub date. Her results — exposure to top-tier clients for her business, along with strong book sales — have been tremendous.

Most authors will never see a dollar for dollar return on book publicity investment from book sales. Very few authors ever make up their investment in book publicity on book sales alone. Creating the online influence necessary for massive book sales is an investment in years — not months. Successful people invest heavily, with both time and money, over long periods of time.

Balancing publicity spend to equal book sales is impossible. The math just doesn’t work. The only way to make peace with investing in marketing and publicity is to realize that your return will come from other areas: speaking fees, consulting fees, and other service offerings. As we have gathered more data through many book launches, I do the best I can to set reasonable expectations for book sales with authors. However, the truth is that most numbers are disappointing to most authors, even the ones publishers would laud as among the top sellers in any given time period.

Here is some better news.

Investing long-term in building a network online makes a measurable difference. Yesterday, an online acquaintance launched a book. I don’t know this guy well, but he’s published more than a dozen business books. I noticed yesterday that his book was ranking around 100 on Amazon on its release day, despite the fact that the new cover, as far as I can tell, is not on his main website nor his social channels. I asked this friend the secret. His answer? No secret. He’s been sharing content online for ten years and has an email list of engaged contacts numbering nearly 100K. He shared the news of his book release with those people. No secret. Only focused, consistent sharing of value over time, which resulted in people who buy his books when he releases them.

It’s simple and difficult all at once. Getting traction to sell books and reach more people with content is an endeavor that could take decades. The more books you write, and the more you add value for the people who buy and read them, the more you will see results for subsequent book releases.

For those who don’t have an expansive network, the best strategy is partnering with others. Every author has some already existing network of friends and colleagues. One of our first priorities is in reaching out to those networks, no matter the size, to mobilize those important people in sharing our clients’ books. We encourage clients to make specific asks of those people, and most times people are very gracious and generous in supporting our clients’ book launches.

Additionally, one of the unique approaches we employ with clients is to leverage our company network and connections on behalf of our authors. In this way, we can accelerate our clients’ connection building by introducing them to our networks. Our Team Buzz Builder network has been a tremendous asset to many first time authors; these individuals voluntarily read, review, and share our authors’ books, extending the reach of every campaign.

We focus our efforts to create the best possible outcome for every author. Although it may seem like bad news that selling business books is difficult and requires significant investment of time and money, investing in getting your book out into the world is far preferred to the alternative — writing a book and NOT promoting it. Every book promotion is a long-term effort. As I’ve written before, quoting a publisher friend, if you are going to invest time to write a book, you need to be married to the message, which implies a long-term commitment to sharing the book with the world. What is a long-term commitment, if not an undertaking that requires discipline, dedication — sacrifice, even.

Through partnering with authors to launch 50 books, we have outlined (and continue to improve upon) a process that works. While results vary, depending upon a client’s past experiences, we are confident that our processes make a big difference in helping our clients achieve their desired results over time.

Our 50th book launch is celebrating a new take on a business classic, The New One Minute Manager. Find out more or buy copies today!