A playbook for Generating Business Ideas

partners, or customers. People might be motivated to meet you and get to know
you if they know you’ve written a book on a topic they’re interested in.
j. Build Your Brand and Authority
Writing a book about an important topic establishes yourself as an authority on
that topic. It enhances your professional image. A book is to professionals in the
2000s what a business card was in the 1990s.
k. Prove Yourself to Potential Clients
Many people prefer to hire people who have experience and accomplishments
over people who do not. It’s kind of a catch twenty-two because you need to get
hired in order to get experience. You can shortcut that by working on your own
project. What better way to prove to a potential client that you know how to
market a product than by showing them the results you achieved marketing your
book!
l. Diversify Your Revenue
Another great benefit of self-publishing books is that it can enable you to
diversify your revenue streams. It’s beneficial to be diversified because you
reduce your dependence on the outcome of one asset. For example, if you
allocated equal amounts of money into 100 stocks, and one of them falls while
the other 99 gain, you would lose less money than you would have lost, had you
only invested in the one stock that fell. If only one of the stocks gains you would
gain more than had you only owned one stock that didn’t gain.
Just like it’s risky to have all of your wealth dependent on one asset, it’s risky to
have all of your income dependent on one source. There is a lot of uncertainty in
today’s economy. If you only have one employer and you lose your job, all of
your income is gone. If you're an entrepreneur and you only have one client and
that client goes out of business, you won’t have any income. Businesses can fail
for many different reasons, and often do. By diversifying you reduce the risk of

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potential negative outcomes.
m. Organize Your Thoughts and Learn
Writing forces you to teach yourself what you don't know and to articulate what
you do know. When you begin writing a blog post, you are forced to organize
your thoughts. If there are any gaps in your knowledge of the topic that you are
writing about, you will have to learn about it. Writing out and articulating your
thoughts is a great way to internalize something you've learned or experienced.
Writing helps you become more familiar with the topic you're writing about.
n. Improve Your Authenticity and Reduce Shyness
I believe authenticity is one of the best personality traits a person can have. I
suspect that the people you most admire and/or have the closest relationships
with are highly authentic. Furthermore, I believe that being authentic will lead to
more happiness and satisfaction with life.
Authenticity means being comfortable in your own skin and displaying your
personality proudly. It means thinking and acting the way you choose, not the
way others may want you to.
When I first started blogging, and for a long time after, I would get a big rush
from sharing my thoughts with the entire world. I was worried what people
might think. I was worried that it could be held against me. But I was also
excited to do it and about the opportunities it could create for myself.
Expressing my thoughts and opinions to the entire world has helped me become
more authentic and less shy to share my thoughts. It has helped me in social
situations, public speaking, and managing work meetings.
o. Get Paid to Learn
If you’re anything like me you enjoy learning about new things, building your
skills, and developing yourself. Writing a book is a great way to monetize what
you’re learning. For example, I wanted to learn about how to automate my

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marketing campaigns on Twitter, so I learned about a bunch of different apps
that can automate Twitter marketing and then created a
video
course
about them
and how to use them. I’ve used similar strategies on blog posts and portions of
my books.
p. Improve Your Speaking and Communication
Writing can help with your in-person communication because by writing you
can better internalize the subject matter. It forces you to think through how to
present every detail. After writing, I feel more comfortable and acquainted with
the topic. In addition, by opening myself and sharing publicly, I become less
afraid to do so in person.