Is writing a book the best way to replace your business card?

Anonymous

July 23rd, 2015

I'm in the process of writing a comprehensive book on Disaster Preparedness. I consider this a necessary step to capturing all my head-knowledge in one place and to use it as a springboard towards developing training materials, blog posts, white-papers, etc. But it also occurred to me that a book would be a very compelling form of business card.

Does anyone have first-hand experience of this approach to reinforcing network connections?

Michael Barnathan

July 23rd, 2015

A business card primarily serves to show people how to contact and remember you while also presenting a branding opportunity for your company. A book contains much more information, and might be overwhelming as a networking material unless someone is already *very* interested in hearing more about your company.

John Anderson

July 23rd, 2015

Totally agree with Michael. I wrote a book once and it took over a year squeezing in time with my full-time job. Assuming you don't want to do the book full-time, it will be an uphill battle.

A middle of the road approach might be to have your business card with a very prominent blogging URL. This will allow you to focus on your business, and have an outlet to communicate your POV on your business and trends that your clients can connect with easily. Maybe an occasional white paper or two when you need a deeper dive than you can accomplish on a blog entry.

It will help you keep your content much more timely and relevant, reach your audience much faster, without being a complete time drain.

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