Re-Purpose to E-Purpose

Re-Purpose to e-purpose…the concept is sort of like making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Those with the right talent can make a great purse. The rest will just have a fancy pig ear to show for their troubles.

Most people don’t like to write, don’t want to write, don’t have the time to write or think they don’t have the talent to write. So the idea of writing a book to showcase their expertise is something they may recognize as a good idea, and may hope to “someday” do, but is not something they’re going to sit right down and do. Internet marketing research has shown that business owners who have written a book and are offering it for sale are perceived as having much more expertise than their competitors, who may have as much experience and ability but don’t have a book.

But how to become a writer when you don’t want to do it? That’s what re-purposing is all about.

In the course of running a business, people write a lot more than they think they do. They write informational memos to their staffs. They write instructional material for new hires. They write copy to be used on their web pages. They may also write long emails, articles and blog posts showcasing their area of expertise. Without knowing it, what they’ve written is the meat of an e-book and audio book. There, in all of that work that’s already been done is something entirely new which can produce website traffic and revenue, if it’s put together properly.

E-books don’t have to be War and Peace, and shouldn’t be. They can be big hits even if they’re only about 50 pages long. The vast majority of audio books I have done are less than 50 pages, and have gotten a lot of attention for the owners of the sites they’re attached to. Sometimes the e-book is offered as a free incentive in exchange for an email address or physical address, depending on what the site owner hopes to achieve with the book. Sometimes it’s sold at a small cost, with the audio version added if the purchaser is willing to pay a higher price. Sometimes only the audio version is offered for sale. No matter how they’re used, the message is clear: you don’t have to BE an expert to have a book, but you’re perceived as an expert if you do have one.

Most business people don’t know they have expertise. They think an “expert” is someone else, because they discount all of the experience, knowledge and skills they have developed just in the course of doing their day-to-day work. That expertise is valuable to someone thinking of going in to a certain field, or wanting to improve themselves in their current one. People who want to know more look for books to help them. And increasingly, that search is on the internet, searching for e-books and audio books. It’s not a stretch to be perceived as an expert, and that “halo of expertise” is bestowed each time a new prospect discovers an e-book and audio book which solves their problem.

But how to take those pages and pages of seemingly unrelated material and turn them into a marketing tool for business? That’s where most would-be authors stop - they’d like to have a book, but don’t know how to make one happen. They can do what more and more people are doing: have someone else do it for them.

Last summer, I did an audio book on horse care for first-time horse-owners for a woman who runs a boarding stable. She deals with a lot of first-time owners and used to answer the same questions over and over again. Now, she has the audio book on her website and not only does she not have to repeat herself, she gets more boarding requests because she has a book, and horse-owners perceive her as more experienced and trustworthy than the other stables in the area.

Did she write the book? No, but she had written a lot of blog posts on horse care, and those were easily organized into book form, with chapters on horse feeding, horse veterinary needs, horse behavior, horse training, and so on. Add some helpful links at the end and voila – a book is born. Then I made an audio version and she had exactly what her prospects need, whether it’s something to read or something to hear. And she now has more boarding business than she can handle, thanks to her new expert status.

It’s the “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” thing - a talented communicator takes the assorted writings that the business owner has, organizes them into chapters, writes an introduction, conclusion and all of the words needed to string the articles together, and then makes an audio version. The business owner’s investment of time is what it takes to gather up the articles, blog posts, web text and emails. If they choose to work with me, then we’ll spend about half an hour going over what they hope to gain from having a book available and filling me in on the finer points of their area of expertise. In less than 30 days they have proof of their expert status…they have a book in e-form and in audio-form.

Now, more than ever, re-purposing makes sense. Business owners are working as hard as they can to make the same money they made this time last year and don’t have time to sit down and write a book. But with Re-Purpose to E-Purpose, they can have one quickly and affordably, with very little effort on their part. Re-Purpose to E-Purpose is the way to stop answering the same questions all the time, gain an edge on the competition, and get more respect from peers and clients.