Build Your Business. Become a Thought Leader. Publish a Book.

Succeeding in the information age is all about getting your ideas and expertise noticed. You need to become a thought leader. Doing that means getting your ideas out there, because as Mashable explained, “…thought leaders are made because their ideas made them famous.”

Courtesy of the thegoldguys.blogspot.com/ under Creative CommonsHow do you do that?

If you are a consultant, public speaker, or technical expert, it’s no longer about credentials. Instead it’s about demonstrating that you possess expertise and insight that will be useful to others. It is about building your personal brand.

Social media mogul Dave Kerpen in a post titled Branding: How to Become a Thought Leader on Inc.com explained why creating awareness of your specialized knowledge is so important, “Over the past six years, I've devoted a great deal of time to branding myself as a thought leader, or an authority in my field…[My activities]have led to millions of dollars in revenue and helped Likeable, my global social media firm, establish itself as a company to watch in the realm of marketing.”

What’s the first step? Kepren said, “Writing books truly established my credibility as a thought leader.” Entrepreneur James Altucher goes a step further asserting that, “ Self-publishing your own book is the new business card.”

B.J. Gallagher, explains why in a The Huffington Post Blog post, “You can use your book to leverage your business, build credibility with your clients, and create name recognition. Writing and publishing a book makes you an ‘expert’ without having a Ph.D. or university affiliation. Even if you lose money on the book, it can still be worth it in terms of increasing your fees, building your client base, selling more of whatever your product is, and building a name for yourself in your chosen field.”

So if building your business or furthering your professional career is a goal for 2014, you might want to add “publish a book” to your to do list.