Beyond Words: How Writing a Book can Grow Your Business

By Erin Harris, StoryArtisan

Some of the most important work we can do around our businesses and our lives is thought work. So, let’s do a little now, shall we?

We’ve completed 2023; we’re off and running headfirst into 2024. What lessons did you learn over the past year that will affect how you do things this year? 

Whether you helm a sprawling enterprise or nurture a budding venture, chances are you hold a trove of lessons—some jotted down, others still lingering as ideas.

Your lessons cover everything from business basics, like automating invoicing and leveraging your network, to those deeper lessons learned as a thought leader, like how to cultivate meaningful work relationships and build lasting customer connections. These little things are important to your business, and to you, they’re second nature. How can you expand your reach and use this knowledge to meaningfully help others?

Understanding the Power of Your Experiences

To aspiring leaders embarking on their first go at business or seeking to refine their existing operations, your wisdom serves as a powerful game-changer.

Even more important than your business basics are your personal experiences. Think about your time as a creator, as a leader, and as a thinker. Each encounter you’ve had in the role has left you with knowledge. You’ve learned countless lessons by working with people and other businesses, guiding employees, impacting local communities, and beyond. 

Each one of those experiences has given you knowledge you didn’t have before. You have amassed priceless information that other people need. 

Sharing Your Knowledge

Have you ever considered capturing this wealth of wisdom in a book?

It may feel like you’re no expert or you’re still figuring things out yourself, but when you really take the time to see how much you’ve already learned, you’ll be surprised to find it’s quite a bit. 

Rewind to when your business, product, or message was just starting to form. Things felt overwhelming. Quick success stories may be popular, but what you really needed was to hear the other success stories: the ones who were slow to get started. The ones who took the long way, perhaps making a few too many mistakes along the way. The ones who are still working it out but are making progress. 

There are people out in the world searching for what you have in your head and heart. Don’t be afraid to share it!

It can take time to collect your thoughts and write ideas down, but the sharing of knowledge—of stories—is innate to being human. 

Consider this: If you don’t write a book, the people who need the information you already know won’t find it. They will continue to experience the same problem over and over. 

How a Book Can Help Grow Your Business

For some people, even leaders, the idea of writing a book can feel intimidating. But rather than focusing on the hard parts, consider these benefits:

• Writing a book will help you collect and organize your thoughts. If you have created and run a business, chances are you have hundreds—if not thousands—of ideas. You’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Solidifying those ideas and lessons into comprehensive pieces of writing not only saves your knowledge in one place, but it can also be a tool of reflection on what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, and where you’d still like to go. 
• Writing a book will help you isolate your Intellectual Property (IP). On your journey, maybe you’ve hit on one subject, topic, or skill at which you excel. Maybe you have the perfect formula for creating a marketing campaign or the best sales strategy. Write it down! Use a book to teach others what you know in a way no one else could teach them.
• Writing a book will give you a product to offer. Simply put, a book is a tangible object you can create and sell, which could lead to writing another book, and another, and another. It’s also a way to generate additional income and grow your business.
• Writing a book will become the basis for additional courses and workshops. Writing a book is just the beginning. You could create online training courses and communities, write self-guided training booklets, host in-person training events, give keynote speeches about your experience, be a podcast guest, or start your own podcast. The possibilities are endless.
• Writing a book will establish you as an expert. Once you write a book about a specific topic, people will see you as “the person to go to for ___,” which will lead to people clamoring for a seat in your training, signing up for your online content, etc. 

Writing a Book Is More Than Just Writing a Book

Indeed, the many benefits of writing a book show that this pursuit transcends the mere act of writing. 

If you aspire to be recognized as an authority, generate supplementary income, wield influence, or leave a lasting legacy, consider the profound impact of capturing your ideas in a book. It can be surprising how much not just your audience benefits from it, but you do as well.

Not sure where to start? Get a free copy of The 5 Insider Secrets to Know Before Writing Your Book.