The client runs a B2B services firm with a sophisticated sales team. Their average deal size is significant. Their sales cycle is long — sometimes 9–18 months. The challenge: getting past the first conversation with a sufficiently senior buyer.
We built him a book. Not for the public. Not really for marketing. For one specific purpose: as the opening artifact in a sales engagement.
His sales team uses the book as their primary engagement tool. A prospect agrees to a discovery call → they get a copy of the book before the meeting. The book is structured to do three things in advance of the conversation:
- Demonstrate that the firm has thought rigorously about the problem the prospect is wrestling with
- Walk the prospect through the firm’s methodology so the discovery call can skip the basics
- Pre-handle the most common objections (price, timeline, vendor selection)
The book opens doors that cold outreach never could. It builds trust before the first handshake. And it lets the sales team show up to discovery calls with prospects who’ve already been pre-educated.
Within seven years of publication, the book has generated over $26 million in new business for the firm. Forty-eight qualified referrals came directly from people who’d received a copy and passed it to someone in their network. A seminar series built around the book’s frameworks generates 15+ qualified prospects monthly.
The client calls my fee a “rounding error.” That’s not flattery — that’s math.
This is what a deployed book does. It works while you sleep.
