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Centurion Platforms

Casting your personal vision.

Centurion Platforms are "brand-adjacent" and create a halo effect for the brand, but don't come from the marketing department.
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About Your Book

Books are expensive. You choose between time, money, a dream deferred, or compromise (cheap books tossed cynically into the world). If the cost is going to produce a worthy result, or if you're going to share what matters to you with people who matter to you, a book is still a great idea, but what you really need is a platform.

 

CEO Platform Example

We start with a book, but you need more than a book. The platform will usually also include at least a website, podcast, presentations, and marketing support. The best platform will not be "on brand," but will create a halo effect for your brand based on who you are as a leader.

In the case of Max Yoder and Do Better Work, his company was a learning management platform and the book is really about nonviolent communication. The effort did amazing things for Lessonly and its culture, as well as customer expectations, and ultimately added real value when Lessonly was acquired by Seismic.

DBW_book

Possibly True Reasons Business Leaders Write Books 

We found these stats elsewhere, and they seem a bit lofty and sample-dependent. But on the whole, they're helpful to think about the business rationale for developing a platform (if the subject will matter to you over time).

94%

Business authors say writing a book generates more leads.

96%

Business authors say they created more clients with their book.

87%

Business owners say their book helped them charge a higher fee.

95%

Business authors say they have booked more speaking events.

48%

Business authors say they developed higher quality clients.

Culture

Business owners often say their book strengthened corporate culture.

Credibility

Business authors say their books amplify their credibility in their market.

Message

Business authors say their book invites their message in more settings.

Authority

Business owners say their book enhances their authority in all circles.

How We See It

Done right, you should treat your book like a $3 business card.

You don’t make money on your book. You make money on your idea and the value your idea brings to your audience. Your book is just proof you’ve thought about your idea long and well enough to make it worth someone else’s attention.

It costs about $3 to print each copy of your book, and you should treat them like business cards. You should give your book away to exactly the same people you’d offer your regular business card, and for the same reason. It’s your name, your promise, and the start of a conversation.

It Goes Deeper Than That

Your platform is an invitation to what matters the most to you.

If you know what “heavy is the head that wears the crown” feels like, you know the work of leading people is sacred. It’s usually work you do alone, obediently and in front of God. There’s beauty in that place, and it’s meant to be shared.

You should absolutely expect your efforts to produce a financial return. But you also know that when a company or any effort belongs to Jesus, His KPI is how many people are loved to reconciliation with His Father. 

Your business is more than just business. Your life lessons are more than just life hacks. Your book and your platform should be too.

Our Small Batch Process

Centurion Response serves 10 clients per year, and we structure the details of our engagements according to their visions.

You are the centurion, the one going humbly to Jesus on behalf of people you lead. Our job is to help you in your response. We build our timelines with you, and we generally spread payments for six to 12 months beyond project completion to maintain the sense of continuing collaboration.

Explore

We'll talk about you and what responding to Jesus in the context of your audience looks like. We'll define the initial gist of your vision and begin to walk around with it.

Capture

We conduct interviews, do research, and find ways to round out and position your vision. This phase is about clarity more than expression. It's where the beauty will shine brightest for you.

Ratio

This is your response to God, so we never want to "steal" the experience from you. Who faces the blank screen, and who offers feedback? We'll determine this together here.

Amplify

Call this the media planning phase. What are the best ways to convey your vision so it will be adopted? What should be created, when, and how will elements work together?

Deploy

This is the production phase, where we "do the stuff." The work before this phase allows us to do various elements at the same time here, as opposed to the lift of a book and then "now what?"

Host

Here we're talking about tracking, managing, and growing. The vision that might only be a hunch today is bigger than you know, and a good system makes ongoing response easier.

What You Get

Will vary based on your vision.

We work from a deliverable-based rate sheet, with a minimum engagement fee. While we don't do ala carte projects, we recognize you may already have other partners and we have plenty of ways to integrate with them.

Timeline

We can go faster, but we see the best results on a 6-12 month start-to-launch schedule. Depending on how you want to manage ongoing support and tracking efforts, we think in terms of 18-24 month engagement periods with a down-tiering payment schedule associated with it.

 

Relationally

Unlimited access and time

Executive guidance, not agency menus

Prayerful pursuit of your best interests

Flexibility on timelines and workloads

Extended payment plans

Introductions to peers

 

Deliverables

Book

Website

10-episode podcast season

5-10 videos (interviews or course material)

Workbook

TED-style presentation(s)

10-20 magazine/online articles

Launch event

Pre- and post-launch marketing plan 

Guest speaker and podcast opportunities

Success metric plan

Review and subsequent vision suggestions

Book the Conversation

You don't have to have any of this figured out yet.

Our calling is to help revitalize the rustiest weapon in the Kingdom: testimony. Testimony is not a person's before and after story or a one-time experience presented as a sales pitch for church. It's supposed to be you, God, and His will in your life combined as Presence. We focus on centurions because we see the price centurions already pay for their obedience, and that's where we believe we're called to serve. We don't know you yet, but we're already praying for you.

Call. Let's see what happens.