I can’t bear to watch exceptional people miss publishing opportunities.

Put me in a room with someone who either knows a lot about something, runs a business, is a speaker, or a coach, or a teacher, or has had an interesting experience and I just can’t help myself from giving them ideas [...]]]>

I just can’t help myself.

I can’t bear to watch exceptional people miss publishing opportunities.

Put me in a room with someone who either knows a lot about something, runs a business, is a speaker, or a coach, or a teacher, or has had an interesting experience and I just can’t help myself from giving them ideas about the book(s) they could write. Once I start talking, it is hard to shut me up!

It happened yesterday, when I had gone for a friendly neighbourly coffee with Suzy Oge, who runs the Women’s Business Initiative here. I already knew that the WBII has committed to producing the next Crave book, CRAVE The Hague, which will feature exceptional, local, women-owned businesses. But the fact that she was already involved in one book project didn’t put me off having a few more ideas!

It happened today, when marketing and advertising guru, Bea Stanford, popped in for a bowl of parsnip soup. Bea,  in case you have missed her (in which case, shame on you!) is the brains behind the Insego social networking group, that originated out in the wilds of Enschede (so far from the Hague she can go shopping in Germany) but has grown so rapidly that it now has hundreds of members all over the world.

Both women have three big things in their favour. So huge, in fact, that they are  easy to take  for granted.

• The first thing is that they are already the figureheads of a large social network. While Suzy’s tends to favour live networking, Bea’s is mostly online.  When you are at the top of a network it means that hundreds, if not thousands of people know and respect you.
• The second thing is that they are already experts in something. Suzy knows heaps about planning and growing businesses and Bea knows about marketing and advertising both on an offline.
• The third thing is that are driven, ambitious and passionate about helping the people in their network. Like me, they love to share what they know to help others to grow.

And, the way I see it, this has two implications:

• The people in their networks are pretty likely to be delighted to feature in any book they might want to produce
• The people in their networks are pretty likely to want to purchase any book you might want to produce

So you can imagine how excited I was to get the chance to have an impromptu brainstorm with them both. We ended up having ideas for a whole series of products. Not just one idea, but tons of them. Collaborative books, how to books, programs, workbooks, ebooks and more. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am never short of ideas.

If you would like to book a brainstorm with me then I would be happy to do so over Skype. Be sure to book at least half an hour though – you don’t want to miss out on any ideas!