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From coach to author, how I did it

On 5 October 2012, a book titled “Hope Won’t Pay the Wages” was published on Amazon with me as the author. My very first book.

After it was finished, I was thinking about all the people that had been instrumental in its creation and development: the idea itself; the people that I interviewed; the book coach who helped me to write it; the web developer who put the dedicated website together; the cover designer; the proof reader.

And I realised that, when I thought back to how I met those people and where the initial connection came from, almost every single person could be tied to a conversation I had had whilst networking.

The main concept of my book is to draw out learning points from business owners and entrepreneurs. But not from those that are fantastically successful (there are plenty of those types of book around) but from the people who faced their worst possible business nightmare - corporate collapse - and survived. For it is through adversity that we learn the most.

I work with companies that are in distress or facing insolvency and, as I always said, there isn’t a Linkedin group for companies about to go bust. This thought led me to adapt my day to day work into a book so that the experiences of those that had been through difficult times could be passed on to others.

My initial idea was to just pull together a series of blogs or articles, although the concept of a book was flittering on the edge of my thoughts. Never having been a writer, if I thought about it too much, I became paralysed with fear. So I decided to just get on with talking to people, see what nuggets I could glean and worry about what to do with it later.

I used breakfast meetings and online forums to find people willing to be interviewed. Ultimately, of these people, only two were prior contacts of my own. The rest were new and the tales and the learning points I got from them were dynamite.

Once I had my research gathered, the big question was ‘what was I going to do with it?’ I was introduced to a book coach, Gail Powell, who was running a course to help people get a business book written. Gail really helped me find focus and clarity; unlocking my limiting beliefs and giving me the tools to take action and get motivated about making my thoughts become reality. At another networking event, a web developer, Axita Ltd, liked the idea of the book and offered to develop my website and book cover for free. And, as if by chance, I was also mentoring an academic who ended up proof reading my manuscript; it was amazing how it all seemed to come together.

Somehow it all just fell into place. The book is proving to be incredibly popular. As well as creating awareness of an area of business where greater support is needed, it also provides that support. But the lessons learnt are applicable to every business owner and everyone that has read it has found something that they can take away and use in their own enterprise.

I now even have interest at a government level, with Vince Cable’s Enterprise Directorate Strategy requesting a copy and subsequent meeting to help them aid their own research and policy development.

To become an author I would have to take my own advice. Prepare to be flexible, react and move; no matter what life throws at you. You have to be really passionate about what you do because this will translate into the book. Meeting and speaking to people and learning from others’ experiences, as well as listening to their feedback was invaluable to me. Without this input my book would certainly not have been published at this stage. Get out there, meet people, discuss ideas and see where it leads – believe me there is no one winning formula.

Andrew R Miller has over 16 years of experience working in insolvency and turnaround for one of the big 4 global accountancy firms, including a period spent in the insolvency unit of a well-known high street bank. He is a qualified chartered accountant and qualified business coach. In 2011 he set up his own coaching business; ARM Coaching Services and developed the concept of a Turnaround Coach, a confidential and independent service to help directors at a personal level. His book can be found at http://www.hopewontpaythewages.co.uk/ his coaching website www.armcoaching.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chew PR .