Start your book this weekend!
When I first considered writing a book, I immediately rejected the idea because — like you — I didn’t think I had enough time. In fact, the idea of creating intellectual property, such as a book, made me want to lie on the floor and cry because my life was already so full and complex.
So I shelved it. If I’m really honest, in my heart I didn’t believe that I would ever write my own book. Yes, I would write plenty of books for others, but I didn’t think I’d ever have the bandwidth to write my own.
You know what? I was wrong!
Once I realized that I could have my cake and eat it too by immediately using the content I was writing for a book to currently create content AND make money, I understood that I was free. Free to create my own book and help others avoid the mistakes that I’ve made.
What Inspired Start Your Book
My wonderful friend and pelvic pain specialist extraordinaire, Susie Gronski, helps many people through her online courses and coaching. I’ve wanted to do the same for the last year or two. But I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen.
I decided to launch a course to show how financial advisors to write a book. But when I looked into what it would cost to create the infrastructure to host a course, it just didn’t make sense for where I’m at in terms of my following and my availability to create ongoing content.
That brought me back to writing a book. It finally felt right. Especially when I realized that I could divide up the work and publish a series of ebooks and then aggregate the ebook content into a book to be published in 2020.
That was the spark I needed.
What I’m learning
Now that I’m eating my own cooking and writing my own book, I realize how true the arguments are that I use to convince advisors to write a book. For example, a book forces you to get super clear on all your processes for working with clients. Yep!
Not only am I getting incredibly clear on all the tools I use to help my clients write their books, but I’m discovering some new ones as I write that I’m immediately putting into practice. It’s really exciting to get even clearer on my value proposition because I know I am positioning myself to deliver even more value to my clients than I did before.
For example, I’ve always encouraged my clients to get clear on who they serve and what areas of their practice they want to grow. While writing my first ebook and workbook, I clarified that thinking even further into the concept of creating a reader persona.
What is a reader persona? Well, I’m happy to explain. It’s a fictional representation of your ideal client type.
So instead of directing your content — and book — towards a generic affluent pre-retiree couple, you might create a persona with these details:
A couple in their late 50s
One a federal employee, the other an airline lobbyist
Three grown daughters
$1.5 million in savings
$275,000 in yearly income
$1 million in equity in their suburban Maryland home
What are their goals?
Retire at age 62
Relocate to the North Carolina coast
Pay for their daughters’ weddings
Manage a chronic health condition
Identifying your target reader
How do you pull that together into a reader persona? It would read something like this:
Steve and Beth, who are 55, married after attending Penn State together. Beth is an auditor with the Government Accountability Office and Steve is a lobbyist with Bank of America. Their joint income is $285,000 a year. They have three grown daughters, Kathy, Cary and Sarah. Cary is engaged and planning a wedding over Memorial Day weekend next year. They live in a four-bedroom colonial in Bethesda, an exclusive suburb inside the Beltway.
They are avid tennis players and fans. They belong to the Georgetown Prep Tennis club and travel frequently to watch professional tennis. They also belong to the Potomac Peddlers, a cycling group. They also enjoy cooking and travel yearly with college friends from Penn State. When they retire, they hope to relocate to the coast, potentially in North or South Carolina. Steve suffers from Type 1 Diabetes.
Beth manages their finances and investments. They haven’t worked with a financial advisor previously, but are considering it because they aren’t sure if they will have enough money to retire at age 62 and are also concerned about health insurance, given Steve’s health condition. They are sophisticated online consumers, both own iPads, and they buy many products via their Amazon Prime subscription.
Now, that’s specific! As you write your book, you filter your ideas, your solutions and your take on client problems through the filter of Beth and Steve. If Beth and Steve wouldn’t relate to it, drop it. This is a great way to stay focused on your target audience.
Start your own book this weekend!
As I write my second ebook and workbook, the knowledge that there are many, many really good, honest financial advisors out there who have so much to offer potential clients inspires me. I want to help you tell your stories so that you can help all the people out there who either are getting bad advice right now or who are floundering, trying to solve their financial and investing problems on their own.
So start your book this weekend. If you need help, check out my discounted 2-pack ebook and workbook, Start Your Book!
