British entrepreneur Chris Ducker has experienced the power of a book to grow his business not once, but twice.
His first book, Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business, was published in 2014 and continues to sell well today.
Four years later, Chris wrote and self-published Rise Of The Youpreneur: The Definitive Guide to Becoming the Go-To Leader in Your Industry and Building a Future-Proof Business.
Chris is a serial entrepreneur and owns and operates several businesses, including the personal brand education company Youpreneur.com. He employees more than 350 full-time employees. Nowadays he spends most of his time coaching and mentoring successful entrepreneurs, as well as investing in and advising startup companies.
Top Takeaway: Be Strategic About Using Your Book To Grow Your Business
Chris tells Published Author show host Josh Steimle that when Virtual Freedom was published, he didn’t want to be tacky or overly obvious in promoting his business Virtual Staff Finder. “I did want to be strategic, but, but I didn't want to be seen to be strategic, if that makes sense,” says Chris.
In the approximately 280 or so pages in the book, Virtual Staff Finder is mentioned only four or five times.
“But this I know for sure is the big deal closer: At the back of the book, we had a resources section. And at the beginning of the book, I said, ‘You're going to see lots and lots of resources mentioned throughout the pages of this book. To save you time skimming back through all of the pages to find them, when you're done reading it, I put them all at the back in a nice convenient list for you, along with website addresses what it's for, etc’.”
At the beginning of the Virtual Freedom’s resource section a note appeared referencing a companion guide to the book, downloadable for free at Virtual Staff Finder’s website.
Placing the guide on his website meant that thousands of people signed up for it, and in doing so happily submitted their email address to Virtual Freedom.
Chris says his strategy “worked brilliantly. There are 1000s and 1000s of people who have opted in for the companion guide over the last six years. And many, many of them have converted to paying clients.”
He says Virtual Freedom has been so successful because it’s: “A no brainer for people to pick that book up, learn what they needed to do and then say: ‘I can either carry on doing what I'm already doing and being overwhelmed and not really getting anywhere. Or I can follow the advice in this book, and go out and find a VA and build my virtual team, or option C is, I can use the author's company to help me do it’.”
With this approach, Chris gathered tons of new clients and about three or four months after that book came out, he literally doubled the size of the team working at Virtual Freedom.
Self-Publishing Is The Way To Go
Chris is a strong advocate of self-publishing, for a number of reasons. First of all, by self-publishing, an entrepreneur retains the rights to their book. Next, speed. With traditional publishing, it can take up to two years for a book to be released - a very long time-frame in the world of an entrepreneur.
Use a Developmental Editor
Regardless of which route an entrepreneur selects, Chris says that: “My big piece of advice, whether you go traditional or you self-publish, is that you must hire a developmental editor to work with you on the book.
“This isn't an editor who will check for spelling and punctuation and grammar, and all that stuff. Yeah, you should definitely get somebody to look over that side of things as well,” he explains. “This is a developmental editor, someone who can read the book, chapter by chapter, and help you develop a better book.
Links
ChrisDucker.com
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