My Book & the Perfect Title

Finally! I found a title for my internal marketing book as it nears publication.

Why the excitement? Because I’ve been wrestling with the title for quite a while. (I had the book’s concept in place long before the title.)

Any business professional who’s written a book about her/his life’s work knows the mixed blessing involved in such an endeavor. If business is good, you don’t have time to write. It’s much easier to focus on the book when business is slow, which is also when you need to spend time filling the project pipeline.

Truth is I’ve been able to balance my time between serving clients and writing the book. Much of my procrastination is due to my search for the “perfect title.” I struggled with it while minding the sage advice of several mentors:

• don’t use “internal marketing” in the title since it’s not a universally recognized concept
• find a clever, sexy title that will help sell the book
• forget clever … just keep it simple so people know what the book is about.

In the meantime, I worked on developing and expanding meaningful content while trying out various “working” titles on my clients, colleagues, mentors, friends and family (with my husband’s “Just finish the damn book already!” echoing in my ear).

Here it is (drum roll) … my book on internal marketing & communications, to be released this year by WME Books is: Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care.

It captures the essence of internal marketing: taking care of employees so they can take care of customers. Both employees and customers matter to organizations, and both need attention. Employees are people, too; yet they’re sometimes treated poorly in the workplace. Ditto for consumers in the marketplace.

So I finally have a working title that I love (thanks to all who’ve put up with me as I cleared that hurdle), and my manuscript is being edited. Now what?

As I’m learning from my publisher, Yvonne DiVita, my book journey is only beginning. Stay tuned …