You have started a new business and are looking to gain new customers or clients.
Whether it is a sports nutrition company, being a baseball trainer, a public relations consultant, etc., you want to set yourself apart from the crowd.
You have heard the many advice on starting a blog to grow your audience.
Though that is a great idea, which I am a strong proponent of blogging, you will be in competition with other people because the blogosphere is really oversaturated with about 450 million blogs in every niche.
Two ideas that can help you to stand out and add more power to your blog is starting a podcast and write a book.
I will explain further.
Podcasting
Podcasts have been around for about a decade.
However, they have been exploding at record pace.
According to this 2013 article by Angela Moscaritolo on PCMag.com, they were 1 billion downloads on iTunes.
My guess is that is now probably between 1.5 billion and 2 billion downloads.
Another thing to keep notice with podcasts is that Apple came out with the New Carplay system last year, which allows a person to connect their iPhone to their dashboard of their car.
The Apple Carplay is set to be in about 50% of cars this year and have their own podcasting apps and also Stitcher Radio app.
So if your podcast is on iTunes or Stitcher radio, you will have a much better chance at reaching more people who are commuting to work.
One more thing to keep notice of is that they are about 300,000 podcasts in the world.
So that is ample opportunity for anyone to get out their message and separate themselves from the competition.
If you are not still convinced about starting a podcast, then this article “5 Reasons Your Small Business Should Start a Podcast Today” by Millennial CEO’s founder Daniel Newman on Entrepreneur.com will be shed more light on why you should have a podcast.
Writing A Book
Another great way for an entrepreneur/solopreneur to stand out from the crowd is to write a book.
The reason why this is important is because not many people write books.
According to this 2011 article by Publishing Perspectives, about 200 million Americans dreams of writing a book.
Not many follow through with their goal.
They might see the plenty obstacles like gaining the attention of a literary agent who can pitch your book proposal to publishers.
Many can circumnavigate this by self-publishing a book.
Back in the days when dinosaurs roam the earth (just kidding), self-publishing was considered taboo.
Many saw it as a person who did cut it to get a book published by one of the major publishers.
Now, self-publishing has become more popular.
And Amazon has made it easier for anyone to self-publish their books through their CreateSpace platform.
Now that is good news for anyone because they can get their message out to the world.
And the point that you have written a book will elevate you to another level because people will see you as an expert.
Like Shannon McLay.
Shannon was a successful financial planner with Merrill Lynch before starting her own company, Next-Gen Financial in 2013.
She started her blog, Financially-Blonde.com in order to gain recognition and earn new clients.
Though she was seeing success with her blog that even allowed her to become a contributor to AOL jobs, her business went to the next level when she wrote her book, “Train Your Way to Financial Fitness.”
Now you may see the importance of writing a book.
The question is “it is just enough to write a book?”
It really depends because even though you have written a book and separate yourself from the competition, another way that you can go even further is if you become a best-selling author.
You may have seen people who have achieved the New York Times best-selling author lists that have taken them to the next level.
However, they are other lists from recognized media that a person can achieve best-selling author status like USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Barnes and Noble and even Amazon.
I will focus this part of the article on achieving the Amazon Best-Selling author’s list from what I had learned from taking a class from Jimmy Burgess and Kimanzi Constable.
Amazon wants a person to become a best-selling author because it will help drive more business to their site and help them to make money in addition to you making money.
The way how a person become an Amazon best-selling author is to have their book ranked in the top 100 overall.
Though you might think that you can’t get your book in the top 100 overall, their is good news.
If your book is ranked in the top 100 in any category that you choose to feature your book, you will have become a best-selling author.
And Amazon update their best-selling author’s list every hour.
The interesting thing is that even if you don’t sell a whole lot of books overall, the point that your book sold enough at a certain time will allow you to achieve the Amazon Best-Selling status.
So you have seen how you can stand out from the crowd by writing a book and starting a podcast in addition to blogging.
The only question now is what are you waiting for.
First appeared in Vallano Media.
