You do not have to have a book, but you do have to have a remarkable product to introduce your business to your customers on a massive scale. A BOOK can certainly do the trick.
I believe that with so much information available in the world today, you have to do TWO things.
Number One: You have to develop a genius product that engages people in an experience. Our company currently does that with books, but we could just as easily do that with a graphic novel on management, a song about sales, a screenplay on leadership. Whatever it is – it has to have a real brilliance about it! That’s number one!
Number TWO: you have to create positive emotional anticipation around that product.
Let me discuss the development first. I’ll use Edge! A Leadership Story and our client Bea Fields as an example. When Bea came to us to write a book with her, she knew she needed to do something that would make her a pioneer. She needed to elevate her game.
She did that, NOT by regurgitating old information to some ghostwriter, and NOT by creating a simple how-to book.
How did she do it? By stretching out of her own comfort zone and collaborating with other creative experts to deliver her new message in a new way. She told a story. Not a parable like other business books. A full, character driven, intimate portrayal of her average client and what they experience by engaging in her provocative coaching services.
She developed a truly innovative product. And how was that arrived at? Over more than a year, we ground her up and challenged her every motivation, every one of her principles, who she thought her demographic was, what her core values were, how she could better her client, and on and on. And now after she engaged in that year long process of discovery, only two weeks after the book has been released, here she was last night with over 300 people on a conference call. Why were people listening? Not because she did what she had done before. NOT because she did what others had done before. Because she stretched.
So Number ONE is create a truly innovative way of communicating with your audience.
My second point is in relation to navigating the marketplace. Once you have created that pioneering product, you have to then go out and create what I call positive emotional anticipation.
What happens when you know you want to see a movie in the theater? You see a trailer…maybe you hear an actor on the morning news or the late show…another actor hosts Saturday night live…reviewers tell you they loved it…you have an expectation before you go into that theater. And often, that expectation is incredibly high.
CONSIDERING that you have created that truly innovative, genius product…if you can create that positive emotional anticipation that people feel when going to the movies, people will have that super high expectation before they even engage in your message. And then you’ve got them.
Because what do we all do when our expectations are exceeded? We leave that theater and we tell everyone they have to go and see that movie. We go for coffee and chat about it. We get online and post it on our facebook accounts. This is how the best-selling books of the future will be created.
Through Genius Products and marketing and PR that create positive emotional anticipation.
EDGE! A Leadership Story has both. If you have not read the book yet, I guarantee that you can feel the positive emotional anticipation around this story through this blog alone, but check out “Edge! A Leadership Story” on Google and you’ll see what I mean. If you are moved and excited by all the momentum around the book, and you pick up a copy, reading it will blow your expectations out of the water.
Create the Product that delivers the experience. Then Create the Anticipation. When the two meet and both deliver, a home run occurs.
