How To Write A Best Selling Business Book
So just how do you write a best-selling business book? The reality is you can’t guarantee a best seller but you can optimise your efforts by doing certain things when planning, writing and creating your book.
Best-Selling Business Book
I am going to give you an example from one of my own business books. It is a best-seller.
The book is called, The Salon Punk
The purpose of the book was to generate leads for my specialist hair salon mentor programs.
Did it work?
Some background.
I was a hairdresser in the 80s and from 1989 onwards I managed to own three hairdressing salons. They were a huge success.
The book focuses on one salon’s story. The story is: I opened a brand new hairdressing salon of 2000 sq. ft. in a town of 35 established hairdressing salons. At least half a dozen had been there for over 30 years. Most for 10-20 years.
How did we become the No.1 salon in just 18 months?
In the book I wanted to share the success yet, I wanted to go back to the start of the salon and the day of opening. There were many disasters yet we got through them.
Eventually, the book rolls into the success and how that success grows.
Let's look at how the book opens.
EXTRACT FROM THE SALON PUNK by Alan Forrest Smith
I’m not sure why you’d want to read this book.
I can’t make any great claims of taking over the hairdressing world or winning endless hairdressing awards. I never had fifty stylists breaking endless records and I never had a salon that turned over millions of pounds in haircuts or hairdressing services.
Yet looking back at my 17 years as a salon owner I feel did do something pretty amazing in my own little world of hairdressing that you as a salon owner can look at and feel inspired by.
Before I did that amazing little thing I had to accept this one thing about my life as a hairdresser and salon owner. It was this.
Being a great hairdresser was and will never be enough to create a successful hairdressing business. It just isn’t. Your great and successful salon business only arrives when you begin letting the public know you are a great hairdresser with a great salon.
It’s about knowing; managing, aiming, pushing, directing and marketing your salon in ways that could cost you nothing and give you everything. It’s also about finding and using systems that are actually proven to work and work fast in a salon like yours.
And I know that because I’ve done that for many salons as a mentor and also done that for my own salons between 1989 and 2003.
I know for an absolute certainty that there are powerful things that must be done daily to make sure you have a hair salon business that is a success and that in turn gives you a much happier life. Happiness comes from doing the things in life you really feel the need to do. Your salon business either supports that or might actually be preventing that because of the lack of results.
If you are not making enough money or unable to cover your bills or pay your stylists or even unable to pay yourself – you’ll have a huge problem and that huge problem will make you unhappy with your life. A lack of money when you’re working hard can be a real killer. Yet it is fixable and can be fixed fast.
I had to slowly and sometimes painfully learn the art of turning my salon into a real business. A business that could give me the kind of life I wanted. The life I wanted then was really a life built around a young family that needed to be fed, looked after and nourished. I had to create a business that would do just that. That’s exactly what I eventually did. I could not afford for it to fail. Failure for me really meant no food on the table that really was my personal bottom line.
Eventual success in my salons gave me the ability to build my own stunning five-bedroomed converted barn on a farm, have around a one-acre plot of garden with its own orchard and space for my kids to play around and have the time and money to be able to live a more enhanced life as a hairdresser.
So when I say I am not sure why you want to read this book I am saying that because although it seems obvious to me now what to do with a salon to get it packed, to get busy and to be number one I suppose the truth is it was far from obvious in the early days for me (1985 - 2003). I made mistakes, plenty of them. Some mistakes were huge and almost cost me my salon and salons on more than one occasion. I will share those stories with you as you read along.
Yet, after 17 years with my salons and the hairdressing business I discovered, learned, uncovered and found some of the most incredible ways to make sure not only did we all stay busy but the phone rang constantly, the appointment book was packed and we even had a long list of clients waiting for a last minute appointment. This was an incredible achievement for a school dropout, ex-landscape gardener and punk rocker to hit the top slot in a town of 35 very established salons.
Anyway, be sure of this. Whatever you are going through in your salon right now is pretty normal. Even the salon stars of this world have troubles and issues that would leave you jaw-dropped in total disbelief if you knew them. I know, I’ve worked with some of these guys and seen it first-hand in the biggest to the smallest of salons. It is normal. It is fixable and can be fixed faster than you will know right now.
So this book is about my own experiences, my stories, my moments and also it is about real salon issues, it’s about turning your hair salon into a real business that will give you the happier life I know you deserve for yourself, your family and your future.
Are you ready for that?
Ready?
The Business Book Opening
If I had to describe in a handful of words the opening of that business book I would say;
Empathetic, intriguing, compelling and even driving curiosity. These words are what I would call drivers that push readers through the pages. The most common response to this book is, “I couldn’t put it down”
Now although it has those drivers created in the paragraphs and words it also has as its most compelling aspect. This is the story. The story is relatable, interesting and designed to be a page-turner. That is how this particular business book became a best seller in the salon industry.
47,178 words on 273 pages it ends like this.
Now look how the book ends.
EXTRACT FROM THE SALON PUNK by Alan Forrest Smith
Finally, life is life. Life is a period of time where we can create the most interesting, unusual or even spectacular. It has drama, tragedy, surprises and triumph. We see new life arrive, grow and develop. Sadly we even see death and all of the sadness surrounding death.
Yet life is also your blank book. It is a book that you can fill with whatever you want to fill it out with.
Your salon story is part of that book. If you had to write out the chapters now how would it read? Is it the story you really want to read? That is your choice of course but just know every choice can become another choice if that is what you need.
I wish you well and I will ask you to let me know exactly what you thought about what you’ve read here.
It ends on an inspiring, triumphant, you-can-do-it note that readers love. They felt empowered to know if this guy could do it they too could be that success in their salon despite any competition.
Notice how the ending is almost philosophical in its tone. It then lifts up and applies the story to the reader.
A triumphant ending that is designed to raise a question in the reader’s mind - How did he do that and can I do that in my hair salon too?
This is what increases the leads that in turn become mentor clients for me.
So here’s …
23 Tips On How To Write Your Own Best-Selling Business Book?
Gather your story together (the facts)
Keep your story real otherwise the reader will see through it)
Be honest (readers love failure to triumph - reveal all)
List your failures and turn them into life lessons
List your success and glorify them
Highlight a hero in your story (a hero can be a product of the owner)
Create a journey year by year
Make sure the story has a start, middle and end.
Finish the book on a high
Use pacing in the writing.
Keep your writing simple (unless you are Stephen Hawking)
Use emotional drivers and triggers
Offer a reason for the emotion - make them cry but let them know why
Make them smile and let them know why
Keep mystery.
Add as many ‘how-to’ bits as you can
Use chapters with strong headings or subject lines
Start every chapter interesting
Writer each chapter from start to end in one sitting.
Edit ONLY once the book is complete.
Hire an advisor to save time and mistakes
Hire an editor
Have it reviewed before it goes out?
The above is just a partial list because every single business book is different.
But I hope it helps you to write your best-selling business book.
Please ask if you’d love me to ghostwrite your business book and help make it a best-selling book.
Ghostwriter | Author Mentor | Book Consultant
Alan Forrest Smith
Send a WhatsApp to me here
+44 07793069486
