I just read my favorite sales strategy book of all time: The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honesty and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results, by Todd Caponi. When it comes to B2B sales strategy, fashions have been shifting for decades. But whether we’re supposed to form relationships, challenge people, sell solutions, or always…
A great business book will be full of magic words that reflect new and crucial concepts. What’s the best way to explain those? Here’s how to make a glossary that works without drowning in jargon. If you’re writing a business book, you’ll inevitably face a difficult problem with language. Some of the unfamiliar words you’ll…
There’s a simple, ironclad chain of logic that tells you everything you need to know about writing a business book. Start with why. Why are you taking on the challenge? It’s going to take a lot of your time and effort. It will require an incredible commitment of creativity and energy. So why bother? The…
I was privileged to work with the authors of an amazing book last year: Data Leverage: Unlocking the Surprising Growth Potential of Data Partnerships, by Christian Ward and James J. Ward. The reason I call this book amazing is that it answers a fundamental question I’d never considered before: What is the value of all…
This is the year! 2019. Are you going to write a book this year? If all you have is burning desire and willpower, you will fail. You need a plan. This is that plan. (While this plan is designed for non-fiction, much of this advice may help fiction writers as well.) Here’s what not to…
I write business books. Every chapter is a 5,000-word package full of stories, detail, statistics, insights, and recommendations. You don’t just sit down and write one of those at random. Here’s what it takes to create one. In the last 10 years I’ve written, cowritten, or ghostwritten six books. Five of them were case-study powered business…
On its face, this is an absurd question. But my friends are hearing this question and wondering about bias in the publishing industry. Today I’d like to explode those myths. The impetus for this post was the testimony of a female author I know who is trying to sell her next book. She has asked…
I work on a certain kind of business book. It’s about a shift in the world, and the shift in strategy that companies and people need to make in response. There is a best way to write a book like that, and Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin’s Talk Triggers is the best example I’ve seen in…
There’s this book called Talk Triggers by Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin. It has alpacas on the cover. And you should buy it, because it’s really useful. If you’re in an agency, or in marketing, you’ve probably heard clients say “We want to create something viral.” It’s practically a meme. And it’s insipid. You cannot…