Almost four years ago, a publisher reached out to me with a proposal to write a book. They'd been following my content on LinkedIn and were bullish that I was the right person to be an author. I was initially hesitant, but after some conversations with them I thought, what's the worst that can happen?
I don't think of myself as a long-form writer, I'm more of an operator. But in being an operator, I’m always in tune with trends among marketers. Around this time the new buzzy thing was influencer marketing, but most B2B marketers would hear "influencer" and roll their eyes. They thought it was a B2C thing with dancing, ring lights, and discount codes.
But I knew that opinion was a missed opportunity. Influencer is a blanket term, and for some of these folks it doesn’t fully represent them. Many are practitioners and subject matter experts who have distribution. Adding to this confusion was the fact that there was no real playbook for working with “influencers” on the b2b side. I was having countless conversations with exec teams and marketing leads on how to effectively leverage influencer partnerships, and where this fit into growth. Was it its own channel or did it fit better inside events and ABM? And then, I had my topic.
Writing took me two years. With kids, that isn't easy, so I was finding time in chunks here and there. The process was way bigger than I expected. Quotes, permissions, sign-offs from everyone you interviewed, all of it in a specific order. The consistency and patience it took to do this with young children is the part I'm proudest of.
I also made sure to write it the way I'd want to read it. The book isn't meant to go from start to finish linearly. It's constructed so that you are able to jump around, highlight, and figure out which framework pairs with which, and how it fits into your organization. I packed the book with real tactical examples from actual programs I'd run, and from the advice and stories of various CMOs and VPs.
Ultimately, the book was published and hit #1 bestseller on Amazon in 2024. The feedback I hear most often from readers is that they love the framework and the ability to jump around in the book to whichever chapters are relevant at the time. I love that I built something so useful.
Scott Leese, who's written several books, told me early on: don't write a book thinking you're going to get rich. You're not J.K. Rowling. You write it for leverage. He was right. The real return has been the lift in advising, consulting, and speaking after the book was published. Executives trying to figure this out didn't have a brand-side playbook, and now there was one. It also led to my partnership with ZoomInfo and building their original influencer marketing program.
Key metrics
- Number 1 Amazon bestseller
- Led to advising work, including a $200K influencer program build for ZoomInfo
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