I have a passion for words, some people consider me to be geeky when I get on my soapbox about incorrect spelling, misuse of words and poor sentence construction. They’re not usually unkind about my geekiness, but I can almost hear the eye-roll they’re suppressing.
Is that why I’ve written more than 30 books? Not at all.
They were written due to an entirely different passion.
Let’s backtrack a bit. Before I became a full-time writer I was a management trainer and HR manager. I realised that a lot of managers became managers because they were very good at something – but not usually management. They got promoted and found themselves responsible for managing one or more people – and no training.
The classic case is where the best sales person in a team is promoted to sales manager. At best you get a mediocre sales manager, because the skills that make someone good at sales are diametrically opposed to those that make a good manager. And, of course, you lose your best sales person.
Then I also realised that the lines of communication from those at the top of the organisation that set the goals and objectives, and the people at the sharp end who are responsible for doing the work, were fractured – sometimes non-existent. So job satisfaction was low because the individuals didn’t have any clue about the impact of their input.
That led me to write Grow Your Own Achievers, a guide for managers to develop their people.
This was followed by two series of 13 books each, Hands on Managing Yourself and Hands on Managing People – each book covering the basics of a management skill, from meetings and communication to team building and attitude management.
As my career evolved into full-time writing the next book was How to market your business better in 30 day’, written as a 30 chapter book with an action plan at the end of each chapter.
Then I wrote two books, 10 years apart with a co-author and friend, Peter Roper. First The Reputation Game – and then The Reputation Gap. Exploring how people perceive you and how to influence that ‘gossip’ that goes on in the background to enhance your reputation.
The most recent book was The R.A.V.E. Toolkit, a handbook for small business owners about all the ways they can market their offering and engage with potential customers.
These most recent books are all focused on helping people who are trying to run a business doing something they are passionate about and find the content generation all a bit much.
So, I can hear you thinking, what has this got to do with me?
It’s all about your passion. What gets you up on your soapbox about your area of expertise? What are people often asking you about? What do you think ‘doesn’t everyone know that?’ about, only to find that they haven’t a clue?
If you’ve got passion, you’ve got the book waiting to emerge.
