WHY WRITE A BOOK | Mike Steranka

How Financial Advisors Can Market Their Services With A Book

If there’s one thing I could tell all financial advisors who are interested in writing a book, it would be this: make sure you have a rough idea of how you plan to use your book for marketing.

Do NOT just write a book for the sake of writing a book. If you do, I can almost guarantee that it will be a waste of time.

Forming a plan of how you will use the book to get more clients will allow you to see how your book will fit into your business development strategy and give you the motivation to keep writing when the going gets tough.

Here are a few ways financial advisors can get clients with their books:

1. Give Your Book Away

Give your book to your prospects. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s the ultimate credibility-booster.

Give your book to clients. They will appreciate the gift. Give them two more copies to give to friends. If you have a niche, this strategy is even more powerful because people tend to know other people in the same niche.

Give your book to your strategic alliances and centers of influence. It shows that you’re a force to be reckoned with and it can lead to even more referrals. After all, your strategic alliances can look good by referring their clients to the person who has literally “written the book” on a particular topic.

A book gets people to talk about you because it fosters word of mouth. How many times have you recommended books to friends and family members?

I’ve personally recommended Think And Grow Rich several times in my products, emails, and podcast. Over the years, my recommendation has literally reached hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, I’m not saying your book will get recommended at such a large scale but wouldn’t it make a difference even if your book was recommended to five or six people in your target market per month?

Another amazing way to get more clients with your book is to give your book away at your niche’s trade shows, conferences, and seminars. Get in touch with the event organizer and ask if you can sponsor the event. If you’re a sponsor, the organizer will typically let you give away your book. If the event gives away a gift basket to attendees, this is a perfect opportunity to make yourself known.

2. Include The Digital Version On Your Site

You don’t have to give away the whole book if you don’t want to do that. I’ve seen some people have success in giving away the first chapter or two.

I’ve found that merely having the book there builds credibility. So, in every section of your website where appropriate, mention the book. You want to maximize your opportunities and people typically need to see the same thing several times before they act.

3. Repurpose Your Book's Content

A book is a repurposing gold mine. It’s typically a few hundred pages that you can expand across social media, email, your website, and more.

Here are a few ideas on how you can repurpose your book’s content:

Take photos of people with your book. This includes influencers, prospects, clients, and strategic alliances.
Share excerpts from the book. This could even be a photo of a highlighted passage in your book.
Post quotes from the books as status updates on your social media accounts.
Share your experience writing the book, including why you included (or omitted) certain parts.
Revamp book chapters and turn them into detailed blog posts.