You have a great idea in your head and you really want to share it with the world. You think you should write a book because you feel like you're an expert in a certain field but you have no idea how to get started and what to do.

Writing a book sounds like such a complicated process and it'll probably take you years but you can't afford that because the world moves so fast. How do you make this happen?

Since I published my book in April, that's exactly what a lot of people ask me.

I run a learning session at HubSpot to answer those questions and as always, I don't want to hide this behind closed doors but I want to share it with the world. 

Instead of writing a nice, long post I thought it might be cooler to record a video where I go through the slides I used at HubSpot for that learning session. 

I cover 3 things:

Disclaimer: By no means do I claim to be an expert on writing and publishing books. I simply want to share with you my experience and what I've learned while I was going through this process.

How I Wrote a Book in 2 Months [Video]

Did you know that for 69% of marketers say that converting contacts/leads into customers is their top priority for the next 12 months? 

If your company is up-to-date with what's happening in our digital world, this shouldn't surprise you. 

But there are many more trends you need to be aware of and planning for if you want your business to be fit for the future.

I've said before that we at HubSpot love data and research. The State of Inbound 2018 is our most comprehensive resource on the current state of inbound marketing, sales strategy and operations. It's designed to be your go-to resource for strategic data and in addition to the global report, it has specific reports focused on ANZ, Asia, France, DACH and LatAm. 

I went through the global report and I want to share with you today some of the most important stats in my opinion that you need to take into consideration when you're planning for the future. 

15 Facts About the State of Inbound That You Can't Miss

We live in an inbound world where outbound no longer works. The traditional methods we’ve been so used to when doing PR are outdated simply because they are outbound.

There are two ingredients that you need if you want to make Inbound PR work: a different mindset (a methodology) and a tool stack (technology).

Let’s start with methodology.

When I began working on the Inbound PR concept, I felt that it would be helpful to have a visual that could easily explain some of the thought processes underlying the entire notion and the tactics that would make it work.

So I took the inbound marketing methodology and flipped it into its PR version, focusing on the media as the key persona. Let me throw a quick disclaimer here: Inbound PR can work for any stakeholder group: customers, media, employees, etc.

The Inbound PR Methodology

I'm fascinated by culture. I'm also fascinated by leadership so when I stumbled upon this HBR research on what leadership looks like in different cultures during an online course on International Project Management, I had to dig deeper into it and decided to summarise my learnings in the below infographic. 

Before we get there, though, let's make sure we're all on the same page with what leadership is and why cultural differences play a role. 

Leadership can be defined as the ability of an individual to influence, motivate and guide others.

Regardless of where they work, good leaders distinguish themselves by their judgment, their ability to relate to others and their integrity. Those skills and qualities are fairly universal across the globe and organisations.

However, culture influences the degree to which each quality is practiced and valued.

Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal advice to use to comply with the EU's GDPR. It just provides some useful information but you should seek legal counsel to ensure you comply with the GDPR.

The GDPR or EU's new general data protection regulation is coming into effect on 25 May.  

Lots of companies and individuals have been scared of it over the last year since it was announced. 

Instead, people should be excited because the GDPR is fair towards how people really want to be communicated with, by whom, about what and how often. 

GDPR is full on inbound. 

It states that companies must be transparent and fair with how they collect, process and use personal data. Though it’s a European law, it affects any marketer that gathers data on a global basis.

This basically means that people need to first give you consent that you can collect and use their data to communicate with them and only for specific reasons. 

And that's exactly inbound because inbound pulls people into your business where they willingly share their information with you in exchange for content value vs. outbound where you get lists of contacts who've never heard of you before or have never been attracted to your content (nor agreed to receive it) and blast them emails out. That's now illegal!