Become an Author to Build Credibility as an Expert

Years ago, an associate of mine who read one of my books and attended some of my training sessions called me and said, “I really love your material, but why don’t you put more emphasis on your ideas about ‘creating your identity as a brand’ and how it affects your networking efforts? These ideas have made a huge impact on my business, but I don’t hear you talking about it very often.” They were right. I had not talked a lot about identity in my material, and I agreed that I should say more.

When I started my first business decades ago, I had no idea how important it was to focus on branding my company and myself in the marketplace as a way of enhancing my networking efforts. I understood the concept from an advertising and marketing perspective, but with a small business I didn’t have the advertising budget to mold myself or my company into any kind of brand—at least, that’s what I thought at the time. So I ignored it. I realized later that I had made a big mistake in not pursuing any strategies to brand my identity. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that I started to think about branding and how it would help in my networking efforts.

Networking is all about relationships. Relationships are about establishing credibility. Credibility takes time. What I needed to do was expedite that process as much as possible while still creating genuine credibility in the marketplace at large. Without having much of a budget, I had to get creative about how I would make this happen. 

I saw that if I wanted to increase my visibility and enhance my credibility in the community, I needed to be viewed as the local expert. The way I decided to start creating that brand was to begin writing articles. Now, you may say, “What is so special about that idea? I’ve heard people suggest it before.” Well, here is the bottom line: hearing it and doing it tend to be two very different things.

How to Get Started

You can derive the same identity-building, brand-boosting benefit from writing articles as I did. It may surprise you, but editors and reporters need good story ideas and will use them wherever they can find them. Think about the things you know and understand best. What elements of that knowledge might be of interest to the general public, a specific industry, or some targeted demographic? Review the types of media outlets that write for your chosen audience. Consider newspapers, magazines, and industry journals, and, of course, take a good look at online opportunities such as digital magazines, online newsletters, and information sites.

Either by phone, letter, or email, tell the editor why readers will be interested in the feature idea you have or why it is newsworthy. What are you doing in your business that strikes a chord in the community? What can you share that will educate the publication’s readers? A word of caution, though: too many people who seek to be featured in newspapers or magazines send the equivalent of a company brochure. They fail to realize that editors and reporters need hooks, angles, ways to relate to a distracted, overworked, frenzied readership.

The associate that I mentioned earlier chose a topic he knew about and worked with it for some time. He was in the travel industry, so he wrote a series of articles about travel and sent them to various outlets each month for several months. He received some responses—all “No, thank you”—until, finally, one local newspaper called him and said they would like to use his piece in the next day’s edition. After it came out, they contacted him again and asked if he would like to do a monthly piece. Before long, another media outlet saw his work and asked him if he would like to write for them.

Those initial efforts turned into opportunities for him to write regular articles for several media outlets. More importantly, it totally changed his business. Although many travel companies were going out of business at that time due to vast changes in the industry, his business was growing and thriving, because his articles created an identity or brand for him and the company he owned. He continued to be an active networker and noted that the articles he wrote put him way above his competition by enhancing his credibility with the people he met. He regularly capitalized on this by taking his recent articles to the business networking meetings and sharing them with his fellow members and visitors. He also told me that he began to include links on his website to some of the online articles he produced as a way of enhancing his credibility with existing and potential clients.

This businessman’s experience serves as a great example of what is possible for your own networking efforts. When you get some of your pieces published, promote them. They may not increase your sales overnight; however they can greatly enhance your credibility throughout the networking process, which absolutely increases your sales over time.

So, if this is such a great idea, why haven’t I said more about it in the past? Well, in my book Masters of Success, I talk about success being the “uncommon application of common knowledge.” If you ask a successful person the secret of their success, you will almost never hear a secret! Writing articles regularly and continually to increase your credibility and enhance your networking opportunities is not a secret. It is simply an idea that most people are not willing to implement. 

Build Your Credibility

Building credibility and recognition are two important pieces of the networking process that help grow your network and your business. Becoming an author is a technique that has worked well to develop personal and professional credibility for many people I know. Authoring is an extremely powerful advertising and branding tool, because with each article and/or book you write, you are building brand recognition for yourself and your business.

As an example of how powerful it is to be labeled an author, just look at the way the media reacts to it. If you approach the media and ask them to interview you about your business, nine times out of 10, they will tell you to take out an advertisement. Yet, repeatedly, I have seen them interview anyone with a book!

The bottom line is 98 percent of people won’t actually do it. Or they might do it for a little while and give up. The associate that encouraged me to talk more about this strategy agreed, and he said, “Do it for the 2 percent of people like me who will apply the idea. It will make a difference for them, as it did for me.”

If you believe you can stick with this strategy over time, sit down and jot out topics of four articles you could write that fit with your business and networking goals—and that you believe would serve the readers of a particular publication. Then, draft a letter addressed to the editor of that publication, and pitch your ideas. If they say yes, it’s time to start writing! If the answer is no, consider following up with them to determine what kinds of articles would better fit their needs.

Well, there you go. That is a lot of advice and I am glad that I took my associate’s good suggestion to talk more about branding for the 2 percent of people that will follow through. So, the question now is: Are you part of the 2 percent or the 98 percent?

If you have already authored and published articles or a book, how did it impact your branding and credibility?