When Marsha Friedman started out in PR in 1990, she began to realize that successful CEO’s, professionals, and entrepreneurs had one thing in common; they all had their own book.
Now, with 23 years of public relations under her belt, Marsha readily identifies books as a formula for success across all industries. As founder and CEO of one of the most successful boutique PR firms in the nation, Marsha has been exposed to countless PR and marketing strategies, but one has stood out to her as the most effective marketing tool—a book.
Marsha’s own book, Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increasing Your Profile and Exploding Your Business, has itself become a staple in the public relations industry and has led to speaking engagements, events, and more clients. She finds that as a professional, handing a potential client a book rather than a business card makes a huge difference because it establishes her as an expert. “A book gives you a credibility that positions you as an expert in your field,” she says, while a business card makes you just another professional.
But what does it mean financially to hand over a book in lieu of a business card, especially after the significant costs of producing a quality book? Marsha addresses this concern, saying, “People worry about investing money in books that they may end up giving away rather than selling. They do not realize that if even one of those clients reads the book then ‘signs up,’ that one client could potentially pay for the entire book production expense…and that is just one client.” Marsha makes an astute observation that I frequently notice myself; using the book as a marketing tool brings more return than a professional could make in book sales. “Books are truly marketing gold. Think of the expense as $20 per book sold, versus $100,000 per potential new client,” Marsha says.
In Marsha’s experience, the most common industries in which professionals utilize a book to leverage their credibility are the healthcare, financial services and legal fields. “Particularly in the health field, companies are taking advantage of the importance of having a book or a spokesperson to highlight a problem and offer their product as the solution. I have seen a company’s worth go from $60,000 to $6,000,000 because they understood the value of constructing a spokesperson with a book.”
However, savvy professionals harnessing the power of books are not exclusively limited to these industries. Marsha has noticed many people using a book to move into another career. She says, “Building their profile as an expert can transition them into another field by demonstrating what they know, what their background is, and what they can do.”
Marsha understands the power of books as marketing tools…do you?
Marsha’s book, Celebritize Yourself, is available on Amazon.
