You may be the ultimate success story. You’ve scaled your business, sold it for millions, or launched innovative products and services that disrupted your industry. By all accounts, you’re successful.
However, you may not be considered an authority in your field — yet.
That’s because business success and authority are not the same thing. You may have achieved every objective you’ve set for yourself, but until others view you as the go-to expert in your field, your industry, your market, or town, you still lack authority.
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The Authority Gap
The authority gap is the difference between believing that you’re an expert and having other people see you as such.
This gap is what separates you from invitations to speak at national conferences or to join boards of directors. It flips the switch from you pursuing new opportunities to new opportunities being dropped in your lap.
Fortunately, there is a way to bridge this gap — by writing and publishing a leadership book.
Is writing a book the only way to shrink that gap? Not at all, but it is the most efficient.
Writing a book is one of the most effective marketing tactics for building authority because a book allows you to package your expertise as something tangible, to share what you know in its pages, and in doing so, to be perceived as a leading authority on that topic.
Public perception of you can shift based on the fact that you’ve added “author” to your list of accomplishments. The reaction is similar to how people perceive a keynote speaker or professor at the front of the room — the person at the front of the room is presumed to know more than those seated.
