I was recently reading an executive summary of the book Intellectual Capital by Thomas Stewart. One of the action points they made in this summary talked about knowledge, obviously because the book’s called Intellectual Capital. But usually knowledge seems to be valued for knowledge’s sake. One point made in this book talked about how you should only treat knowledge as an asset if you’re going to get some kind of return on your investment, some kind of economic return. That got me thinking about intellectual property, not only of authors, but of any business owner.
What we create in our companies, no matter what is, selling insurance or books or hot dogs, we’re selling an idea and an experience.
Now, you may say to me well how is selling a hot dog an experience? Think about what hot dogs are. They are something that we eat at baseball games. They’re our camp food; they’re our cook out over the fire with your dad with a stick kind of food. Hot dogs can be an experience depending on the emotion you attach to them. Again, that’s using intellectual capital—knowledge—as an asset. I used my knowledge of things associated that can happen when you’re eating a hot dog and I turned it into a story or experience that added value to a sixty-nine cent food.
Think about how you can add to your bottom line, how you can grow your company, using the ideas that you have in your head. Think of those ideas that connect with your reader or your target market.
You should be developing skills and abilities, yes, through knowledge. Then you should use that knowledge and try to work creatively to connect that product to your client or your target market or the person that you hope will be your future customer. While a pen, in and of itself is just something used to write, by giving that pen as a gift for a specific event it adds sentimental value.
How can you use that kind of idea to connect with your potential customer, using written communication? That’s the key of Writing Career Coach. We recognize that every single thing we encounter is the opportunity to have or share a story. It’s creating a memory. If you can find that emotional connection with your client and then provide them with better than expected service and service after the sale, that is how you develop ongoing relationships with your customers. That is how you get repeat customers and build those referrals and clients.
Next time you are trying to decide where to apply your education, budget, or however you designate it, consider putting some money aside to look at ways to help you recognize the emotional connection that you can have with your customers. Look at the return on your investment. Don’t just run after an expensive MBA because it adds some more alphabet soup to your name. Rather, look at the return you’re going to get on that knowledge and how it’s going to help your bottom line and help your client get more from their experience with you.
Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.
This article is excerpted from my article “How can I market my writing.” The entire article is available free under the “Articles” tab at 
Do you 
