The Hatcher in the Wry
On Tuesday, July 16th, 2024, and first thing in the morning, my new book, The Second-Best Business Book Ever Written: The Pursuit of Thought Leadership in Sales, Marketing and Life will hit all the prominent online book portals (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BOOKS-A-MILLION, INDIEBOUND, Bookshop.org and others) so that CEOs, sales professionals, marketing experts, and anyone else in the business world can learn how to become a thought leader; the pinnacle of all the disciplines in the 21st Century Disciplines of Market Leaders.
Published by Inc Magazine for their 1.3 million readers (and also you) and their 22 million monthly web followers, my book was selected by Inc from as many as 5,000 manuscripts submitted to them last year with the understanding that only about eight books would be published. Damn; that’s something like one-sixteenth of one-percent that made the cut. As I’m told, my new book is one of the eight best business books of 2024.
That’s some pretty crazy rarified air.
But there’s one book, not a business book, that left an impression on me that was also published on July 16th, but it was in 1951; J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the enduring story of a real teenage heel by the name of Holden Caulfield. The book covered a lot of ground for a lot of people (it has sold over 65 million copies, and estimates weigh-in that more than 150 million people have read it), from de-stigmatizing mental health, shedding light on the importance of human connection, and popularizing the word “phony” in the English dictionary.
But it’s the word “phony” that has no place in the thought leadership lexicon unless you’re comfortable being an imposter, pretender, or worse yet, someone who refers to themselves as a thought leader. Truth-be-told, after you read my book, you’ll have the makings and the solid foundation of being an industry thought leader, or your company will have the framework necessary to claim the thought leader mantel.
To date, there have been more than 25 advanced reviews basically claiming that this might be the best business book written this century. I’m flattered, but I’m also wondering if some of these reviewers, most of whom I do not know, have lost some of their marbles, but I’ll take what I can get, and I hope you can take away a few nuggets after you get your hands on my book so that you can become a thought leader in sales, marketing, and life.
I’ll be watching you from the cheap-seats as you assume the coveted position at the top of the thought leadership mantel. And sure enough, I’ll have that wry smile hoping that maybe my book hatched a new industry thought leader. Thanks for buying it, reading it, and acting upon it.