Many times people underestimate the value of spending time reading to get information for every area of their life and business. I’d like to hone in on business, marketing, and business growth. Remember, writing is a business, selling is a business, all of us are salespeople, all of us can apply this to our daily business growth. These are the principles I’ve applied to Writing Career Coach to grow my business exponentially while other businesses contracted, particularly in the publishing industry.

1: Don’t NOT read a book simply because you can’t read the entire thing. Confucius said “Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It’s true. Every journey in writing and business begins with the first step. Whether it’s a new idea for a marketing strategy, a new idea for a story, or a dream of some place you’d like to be. If it’s a problem you realize it needs to be solved. The same is true when you’re learning new principles for your business. You need to begin by looking at books. However, all of us have been intimidated by having too much to do and not being able to take one more thing in. Don’t let this stop you from reading books.

What I’ve found is that reading only a page or two, even if that’s all I can read in the entire day, the book will usually give me one or two good ideas that can help me to grow my business, or help me refocus my thinking to develop my business. Remember, if small words were useful than blogs would not be as big as they are. If you needed 50,000 words to convey an idea articles would be defunct. The reality is we can really learn a lot in short sound bites. Never decide that you are not going to anything because you can’t do everything. Go to books. Get a variety, get a few on CD and just listen to them. Scan through them, look at them, even if you’re only looking at the Table of Contents.

Remember, when you incorporate this with the idea of applying new ideas and adding action steps, any amount of information can substantially help you grow your business.

Take these things that you’ve learned and grow them. Use them to develop yourself as a writer and a business person. Grow your company, build your team, expand your reach, and solve more problems.

2: Apply one or two new ideas.  Take, for example, “Good to Great” A wonderful book by Jim Collins. But it’s a very long book. I read it twice. The reality is there’s no way I can apply everything in there. However, key concepts in that book completely changed the way I viewed my business. Although I didn’t get to finish it the first time, when I listened to it the second time and re-introduced myself to the ideas and concepts I was able to, again, shift my focus, change the way I viewed things, and that new perspective has a greater impact.

Think about this. The person that you are with, it is not just what they say it’s how you respond to what they say. Our parents may say, “I think you’re great”, but it’s your belief that they believe that, that really impacts and changes the way you view yourself. If someone says oh, I think you’re great, but they say it with sarcasm, obviously you’re not going to take that as seriously and it’s going to have a very different impact than if somebody says “I think you’re great!” and you know that person loves and cares for you.

Why is that? It’s your reaction, the way you internalize the information. The same is true when you’re reading. Applying it, internalizing it, and reacting to it are going to have a huge impact on the growth and development of your success.

3: Read all over the place. When I began as a fiction writer I was reading a lot of non-fiction, which is kind of funny. I wasn’t reading novels very much. I’d only read one or two a year. I really enjoyed reading self-help, personal growth kind of books. I also liked reading biographies and history books. What happened is my interest in the biographies began to transition me to business and leadership focused books. Those in conjunction with the fiction I was now reading as I developed my craft was the birthplace of Writing Career Coach. The fact that I read in so many different areas and tried to apply those thoughts and ideas to my life and business that I was able to grow and adapt the way I did.

Look at your own life. What kind of things are you reading? If you are a fiction writer, are you focusing only on books in your genre? Are you taking in other areas? I have teachings on how reading books outside of your genre will help you develop more well-rounded characters. If you’re a business owner trying to think of a stronger marketing strategy, are you only focusing on reading marketing books? If you’re only focused on those you’ll be doing everything that everybody else is doing. You need to expand your vision and look at other areas to see how other people are doing it, who may not be “marketing professionals”. That’s where innovation is born.

To summarize, you are what you read. Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, personal growth or leadership, no matter what you’re reading all these things will impact you. If you take those thoughts and ideas, even if you’re only getting partial thoughts and ideas, and apply sound bites, if you will, to your business and life, that creates the subtle, incremental changes that over time will create a huge impact.

Let me leave you with this thought. What’s the difference between changing the way you eat and going on a crash diet? The diet may suddenly change things and bring great results instantly, but they’re not long term. On the other hand, eating healthier and replacing things with healthier choices, will over time make you healthier and you might lose weight and gain muscle at a slower, steady pace, but it’s maintainable indefinitely. The same is true with your business. Many people try to crash diet their business to success with a get-rich-quick mentality, but by introducing healthier changes, smaller options to their business, they are creating a long-term growth trend which over time allows for a more solid base and higher projections in the long run.

Tiffany Colter, Special Teams Blogger

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.