Why Getting Published Is the Missing Link to Positioning Yourself as a Thought Leader

Meet Joanne Martin, the woman building a platform for publishing success, she combines innovative marketing strategies with intuitive business leadership to help authors make their mark.

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In a sea of competition, what does it take to make your voice heard? Joanne Martin had long been an expert in digital marketing, but her visibility exploded after she co-authored a book. Becoming a published author catapulted her business to next-level success and made her realize there was a gap in the market that she was uniquely positioned to fill.

Martin realized that she could use her in-depth knowledge of branding and marketing to help business leaders find their voice. Today she works globally with clients to level up their businesses, increase revenue opportunities, and magnify their marketing impact through published literary works.

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Her technique blends mindset mastery, energetic transformation, and innovative business strategies to help aspiring authors share their stories in a way that resonates with their audience while generating long-lasting business success. These are her tips for maximizing your potential through publishing and placing yourself as a thought leader in your field.

Don’t be afraid to be different

It’s tempting to look at what other successful people are doing and try to replicate that, but what works for one person won’t always work for another. Your target market has unique needs and wants, so you need to make sure that your message resonates with them and connects to those needs. Publishing is a great way to do this because it gives your audience a deeper insight into your ethos and something they can relate to.

Publishing a book can also dramatically increase your visibility and allow you to reach a much wider audience than traditional marketing. The trick is finding creative ways to place your published work in the right spaces. Martin believes that it’s all about thinking outside the box and going beyond the usual channels to make your work accessible to the people who can use it the most.

“If you see something working, there is a tendency to get on the bandwagon,” says Martin. “I encourage my clients to look for opportunities that might be a little bit left field. Today so much of the focus is on social media and the noise within social media, but I prefer to look at collaborations. For example, some clients benefit more from leveraging networks, communities, and partnerships. It’s about being a bit more holistic in your approach and having the integrity to cut through what everybody else might be doing.”

Find your voice and connect to your purpose

In the cutthroat world of business, it can be easy to get lost in the fray. Many business owners find that the more they try to keep up with the competition, the less authentic they feel and the more doubtful they are of their own abilities. Writing a book can help you identify your strengths and reconnect you to your values. Just the process of writing alone can be a transformational experience.

“I think the major block people have is a mindset,” says Martin. “A lot of people think, ‘Am I good enough? Will people be interested in what I’m going to say?’ I do a lot of mindset work with my clients to get rid of the programming that is thrust upon us in our business journeys, and particularly in the corporate world where people will bury you alive if they have the opportunity to better themselves.

Martin has seen firsthand how writing can be an eye-opening experience for her clients. “When people start writing, it often clears the energy of the past and they come out as different people with more confidence, resolve, and resilience to step up and do whatever it is that they're on the planet to do. Many find that they completely reposition themselves and see huge benefits from that.”

Provide value to uniquely position your brand

Telling your story is one thing, but at the end of the day, you need to provide your audience with something of value. A book is an excellent tool to effect positive change in people’s lives. By providing people with solutions to problems or actionable steps they can take to achieve their goals, you increase your brand’s credibility, position yourself as an authority, and keep people coming back for more.

“There has to be something in it for the reader so that when they walk away from it, something falls into place for them,” says Martin. “This could be tips or secrets, calls to action, or activities that they can do to help get them to where they want to be. This is a requirement of writing in all of the books that I work on. And really, that's the way to lead the reader back to that particular author.”

Martin recalls instances where readers have reached out to her telling her how they printed out chapters of hers and carry those chapters around with them, or how they do certain exercises that she has suggested every day. “I did that for a reason,” she says. “Meanwhile, other authors say, ‘Nothing happened. It didn't work.’ And I tell them, ‘That's because you didn't give your readers anything. You told your story and that was nice, but you didn't actually give them anything to help improve their life in any way.”

To stand out from the crowds, business leaders need to come up with creative strategies to position themselves as experts in their field. Getting published is a highly effective way to connect with your audience, enhance your brand image, and fuel business growth. As Martin says, “Writing gives you a platform to speak your truth, demonstrate your innovation, and get your message out so that you can connect with and be more resonant with more people.