How to write a book in 3.5 months and do it right?

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The thought of writing a book can be daunting but if you put process and accountability in place, you can do it!

Most of you know that I wrote the very first book on Account-based marketing (ABM) back in 2016. That book took us almost a year and the process wasn't easy. But we knew why we were doing ti - We did it to establish credibility and build awareness in hopes of leading and building a brand new category.

Note: At that time ABM was not even a thing. Seriously!

Almost a year ago, we decided to write another book called ABM is B2B (#ABMisB2B) to since there has been so much change that has happened in the industry.

Ton of folks asked me how the process worked since the book has over 85+ reviews (around 5x more reviews than any in this category) and is a finalist in the best books to read for 2019 next to some really amazing books.

So how did we do it? Here's the entire process and timeline:

• Nov - Got board approval to go do it and budget
• Dec - Hired an amazing editor who does comedy by night to make sure that the book doesn't become another B2B (Boring 2 Boring) but rather Blockbuster to Blockbuster
• Dec - Selected a publisher who can get the book by August for the #B2BSMX conference and backtracked the timeline. The book needed to be done by April to hit the publish date so we got to work ASAP. Most people procrastinate since there is no real deadline but as soon as we got a deadline, we become intentional and making decisions, quick.
• Jan - Started writing. Set a week with sprint meetings (1 - 2 hrs) daily with different groups - 12 select customers, internal teams across sales, marketing and customer success along with 15 key influencers in the industry.
• Jan - Next week, we created a core group of 3 people to make the review process fast, intentional and created a clear picture of success - DON'T SKIP THIS PART.
• Jan - Made sure my editor was in the office for the entire week to be part of this and helping draft up the outline (Not after the fact)
• Jan - Inventoried what content we already have with the outline
• Feb - Finalized outline, and key areas for stories, and the TEAM framework and got approval. The good news is that the stories were from the 450+ FlipMyFunnel episodes we already have been working on the last two years so we didn't have an issue with NEW content, but rather WHICH content. If you want to write a book, start curating/writing/creating content now so when you are ACTUALLY ready to write a book, the content is already there. Big idea!

• March - Sent early draft to 35 people - influencers, customers, investors, and the team members in the B2B Marketing and Sales world. Since each of them I had personally built a relationship with, literally, 100% of them took the time to read, provide feedback in a week and agreed to give a quote. I guess when you GIVE every day, the day you need something, people will do whatever it takes to help you. I am so grateful for all the people who helped and I mentioned them all in the acknowledgments and a quote in the front of the book. This is probably the most important page of the book!
• March - End of the month, finished the draft with the editor and had a cover design. The most common feedback was that this is not an ABM book - this is B2B book helping marketing and salespeople to win which led to the topic of ABM is B2B. My publisher was like are you sure you want to have a three-word title with two acronyms - I said, I LOVE it! This book is not for everyone, it's for a specific audience.
• April - We sent the final draft out to the publisher with a new cover design iterations, copy editing and we were done.

Top 3 book objectives:

1. Every B2B CEO, CMO, and CRO should want to read the book to change the way they think about ABM and make it more of a business transformation - a better and more efficient way to do marketing and sales. So this meant we need to make the book easy to read, have case studies, including a framework that can easily be understood and implemented across the organization (with thousands of copies out in the wild we believe we are fast approaching this goal)
2. Be ready and in hands by August 11th for 1,000 attendees of the #B2BSMX conference with a keynote to launch a new narrative in the market around ABM has grown up and has become a B2B (Done)
3. Aspire to Have over 50+ reviews and if there were book clubs where sales + marketing read together (Last I checked we had 85 reviews)

Four lessons from writing a book:

1. Have a Picture of success - Know what you stand FOR since if you don't have a point of view on the book, you will never land the plan
2. Take Extreme Ownership of the process - Keep the group tight and know your name is on the book so don't compromise on values (like we didn't want this to be a Terminus book but rather an industry book for better marketing)
3. Be Authentic - Write what you are passionate about and the way you talk. That will require you less time to write and you will have more fun doing it. Hire a partner (like we did with the comedian editor) to have a different angle to play with
4. Kindness pays off - When you are already in the habit of GIVING and when you put something out, the community will come through to help you in anyway possible.

Challenge for you:

What is stopping you from becoming intentional about your book or next big project? Just start today. Like NOW!

Thank you for everyone around the world who is reading #ABMisB2B book and if you want me to write about how to PROMOTE the book, I am happy to share that in another book article in the coming weeks. Just let me know in the comments.

Hope this helps!