Lorraine Ball owns Roundpeg, an Indianapolis digital marketing company that she founded twelve years ago. I learned about her through an article the Indianapolis Star’s excellent series, “5 Questions” series. Dwight Adams interviewed Ball and asked her five questions about starting and running a business. That’s interesting and helpful, but here’s what caught my eye.
Writing a book to promote a business
“Along the way, she wrote a book, “Business Map: A Guide to Business Success for Small Business Owners,” that outlines in clear steps how to craft an effective business plan from its earliest stages to its presentation to its continuation as a living document.
It’s actually the third book Ball has written for small-business owners. “Entrepreneur’s Notebook” offers advice on how to make marketing investments more effective, and “Confessions of a Networking Junkie” shows how to build business contacts.”
Ball offers the three books on the Roundpeg web site. You can buy two of them or just request the free one. Here some things she’s done that may give you an idea or two.
Writing a book establishes your expertise
The people who are likely to read these books are the same people who may want to hire a firm like Roundpeg for digital marketing. Having them on the web site is a way to make Lorraine Ball and Roundpeg distinctive.
Think about the buying process
Ball only offers the books on Roundpeg’s site. That means that the only people who will stumble upon them are people who have already found Roundpeg. It also gives Roundpeg a way to capture the names and other information of people who have visited the site.
Your book and book project don’t have to be fancy
If you follow Ball’s example, you’ll avoid some of the complications of self-publishing a book that will appear on Amazon and compete with other books. Those books may not drive much traffic to your site, so sidestepping a more complicated self-publishing process may be a way to keep things simple.