“In the professional category, you really want a mix. You want celebrity. You want credibility. You want trust. You want authority. You want expert status. You want differentiation from others. Your book can make a major contribution to every one of those objectives.” – Dan Kennedy
As I said in my post on step educational marketing, the hard part is creating the item of educational value relevant to their needs and that gets you permission to keep in touch with them.
I can say from personal experience, though, that it is well worth the effort. I finished my book, The 7 Easy Steps to Mortgage Freedom, in July 2015 and in combination with the marketing systems we have built around it, it is absolutely the culmination of everything I’ve learned about marketing in the mortgage industry. I’ve brought my Psychology degree, years of being a Broker and years more educating myself about the best marketing strategies, testing and implementing them and living with the real world results of those strategies. I am not coming from an ivory tower perspective.
My Brokers and I use my book every day to get clients and referrers.
This book was purpose written to be a lead generation tool and it moves readers to understand how and when they should use a Broker. It has since been further customised and personalised with new content and contributors to make it usable by individual Brokers under their own brands.
As a client who gets the book, it specifically tells you why you should care about your home loan, everything that is involved in getting a better one – Oh, and by the way, we can do it all for you at no cost to you if you’d prefer to save all the time and hassle.
Then it talks about regularly reviewing your loan as better deals become available – it’s good for you and good for us as your Broker. And again, we will do that for you so you don’t need to bother.
Then it talks about proper money management and potential pitfalls to avoid – but again, we can make sure that it is all done properly on your behalf and you are protected. Finally, it introduces the safest way that I know to build wealth, which involves us helping you again in managing the financial side of property investing.
The book isn’t revolutionary in what it says, nor is it controversial, but it just puts what we want our clients to know in a simple but trusted format that moves them in the direction that is best for them and for us.
I now use my book co-branded with other Brokers and referral partners so they can get the same benefits. Don’t get me wrong, writing you own book is the best outcome, but for those that don’t, the next best thing is using one like mine.
I think some people don’t immediately see the relevance of a book to my business, because they believe that you write a book to sell for a profit. They couldn’t be more wrong, it is far more valuable for me to give a book to potential clients and make sales commissions than writing a best seller, even if I was able to do so.