Memoirs, by definition, examine a part of the author’s life through a particular prism. That’s what sets them apart from autobiographies.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a memoir is an account of one’s personal life and experiences. More and more, however, those personal reminiscences are being used to serve a positively professional purpose.
When wealth manager David Rosell decided to write a book he could use as a marketing piece that people wouldn’t throw away, he originally conceived of a traditional approach to the topic of financial planning. During one of our initial meetings, he mentioned that he had lived for a month each in 65 different countries. I quickly started wondering if the stories about his adventures could somehow dovetail with his financial planning content.
I may be biased, but the resulting book, Failure Is Not an Option: Creating Certainty In the Uncertainty of Retirement, is a downright entertaining book about personal finances. But David’s book does more than just educate. By the time prospective clients have read his business-building memoir, they feel like they’ve gotten to know David as well as his values. That makes for a very different initial meeting.
Other professionals melding personal life experience into books that help build business include:
- A landscaper whose books combine vision with tips
- An insurance broker whose specialty comes from personal, family experience
- A financial planner who uses stories about his father to educate about money
- A real estate broker whose response to a son’s struggles echoes his approach to business
The list goes on and on. The professions are different. The messages are different. The books are different. The result is the same. By sharing a piece of themselves and their personal lives in memoirs that also focus on their work, the authors are providing the kind of transparency that customers increasingly seek these days. And that’s good for business.
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