If you write nonfiction, I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea that your book can be the first step your reader takes with you, but not the last step. Although many people certainly make a great living selling lots of books, there are also lots of consultants, speakers, and trainers who make the bulk of their income from those offerings. Their book is just the first step in their readers’ journey. My guest today is Steve Woodruff, and this conversation is all about helping you get a glimpse into his business as a consultant, and how his books have been a great entry point for the people who hire him. Let me tell you a bit about Steve. Steve’s goal is to help people flip the script on the corporate status quo by finding their focus and making themselves clear. He believes that with the right tactics, anyone can win at work through better communication. He wrote his first book, Clarity Wins: Get Heard, Get Referred, to teach people how to rise above the noise and get referred. In his second book, The Point: How to Win with Clarity-Fueled Conversations, he trains people to use his Clarity Fuel Formula, backed by practical brain science, to communicate with clarity and focus. Steve’s career spans three decades, progressing from a sales and marketing director to a trusted consultant for corporate clients such as Pfizer and many others. Today he gets to focus full-time on helping others discern, articulate, and maximize their own strengths as an author, speaker, facilitator, and trainer. He enjoys spending time with his wife, Sandy, a lifelong educator, and sharing his love of the great outdoors and photography with his family. In this conversation, Steve gives us the inside scoop on the role his books play in his larger business. You’ll learn why he wrote them and chose the particular publishing pathways he did, how his books build the other parts of his business, how he markets them to the people who might hire him, and his advice for nonfiction authors who want to use their books to grow their speaking, training, consulting, and related services. As a side note, most of the business books I ghostwrite are intended to do the exact thing Steve talks about—act as a gateway that leads to more profitable parts of their business. If you’re a business author, or you ghostwrite books for business authors, you’ll learn a lot from Steve’s approach. Make sure to check out Steve’s books and other offerings at https://www.stevewoodruff.com.
