You’ve probably heard stories about consultants “going into their Batcave” to write their book or create some awesome product like an online course in order to establish authority in their fields.
What people mean when they say “going into their Batcave” is that the person in question basically disappears from normal human interaction for a long period of time to work on their product before emerging into the sunlight one day, book or course in hand.
And people are often in awe of the achievement and congratulate the new author/course creator profusely for their accomplishment.
Sorry to be blunt, but that’s BS!
The truth is, the whole “into the Batcave” approach is misguided at best and often causes the consultant’s educational consulting business to take a steep nosedive for many months, possibly never to recover.
Here’s why:
- First, many consultants make the mistake of writing the book or creating the course that they want to write or create rather than the book or course that their audience needs. The result? When they emerge from their cave and proudly announce their newly-minted creation, they’re met with yawns, if anyone notices at all.
- Even if the book or course IS what the audience wants, think about what happened to the consultant’s business during their time “in the cave.” Let’s say it took six months to write the book or create the course (such projects often take more than a year). That’s six months where the consultant’s primary focus is inward, working on their product, while outwardly, connections may be shriveling up. Not to mention that they may have to scale back their work with clients during this time, causing a cash flow shortage.
Worst of all, this didn’t have to happen. Think about it…
The consultant is creating content the entire time they’re working on the book or course, right? But they’re just hoarding that content, letting it pile up in some Google doc or on some course creation platform instead of reaping the content marketing benefits that would accrue to them if they were publishing content along the way.
Nobody sees it but them. What a waste!
Why not use that same content for multiple purposes while you’re creating it?
So, that section of the current book chapter you’re writing could quickly and easily be turned into a blog post or a podcast episode that maintains connections with your audience and continues to build your authority in your field.
Or that lesson for your online course that you just finished recording could easily be posted as a YouTube video.
Further, you could then take nuggets from the blog posts or snippets from your podcast episodes or videos and turn them into mini-content to post on your social media channels.
This way, you’re getting mega exposure to your audience and building your reputation while simultaneously creating your next big thing.
And when you’re ready to launch that big thing? You’ll have grown an eager following of people ready and willing to buy.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
You’re thinking, “Who has the time to do all of that?”
That’s fair. It does take a little more time to repurpose content from your big project into smaller, bite-sized pieces in different formats. But it doesn’t take that much extra time.
Instead of a six-month timeline to launch your book or course, it might take seven or eight months done this way. But when you’re done, your business is actually bigger and stronger than it was when you started–the exact opposite of what happens with the “Batcave” approach.
So, if you’ve been contemplating writing a book or creating an online course to grow your authority in your field, do NOT go into your Batcave to do it.
Instead, make every piece of content you create do double or even triple duty, growing your brand and sowing the seeds for a great book or course launch when the big piece of content is done.
To Your Success,
Willy
P.S.–Like the idea of putting out consistent content while you write your book or create your online course, but you know you won’t have the time to do it?
I have a few options for you:
- If you can swing the time to repurpose chunks of your big project into what I call “midi-content” (blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos), but you know you’ll never have the time to take the further step of posting nuggets from this midi-content on your social media channels, we can do that part for you. Just schedule a call to talk about our social media management services.
- Or, let’s say that you’re great at creating a bunch of mini- and midi-content (social posts, blog posts, podcasts, videos) on a particular topic and you’d love to have a book on the topic with your name on it. We can take all those smaller units of content and aggregate them into a book or ebook for you. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, just hit that link ⏬ and schedule a call to talk with us about our ghostwriting services.
Either way, we’d love to hear from you.
