Who is Lennard Goetze? (Feat. Zev Asch)

Introducing Lennard Goetze and BeMore Advisory

I want to introduce you to Lennard M. Goetze, Founder and CEO of BeMore Advisory, because what Lennard does is somewhat different from traditional business coaching—and that distinction is precisely why I work with him.

Lennard is a strategist, publisher, partnership builder, and business developer whose strength is recognizing what people, businesses, and organizations could become beyond what they are today. His career has crossed business development, healthcare, publishing, nonprofit leadership, communications, professional education, and strategic alliance building. BeMore Advisory grew out of that multidisciplinary experience.

BeMore is not simply a professional consulting practice. It is a business-evolution framework. The premise is that established professionals and organizations frequently possess far more intellectual and commercial assets than they are actually using: expertise, relationships, reputation, content, programs, intellectual property, audiences, and ideas. BeMore looks across those assets and asks a deceptively simple question: What else can this become?

That is where Lennard and I complement each other.

My work tends to begin inside the business—with the entrepreneur, leadership decisions, growth barriers, operational realities, and the patterns that keep an owner or organization from moving forward. Lennard often looks outward and across the horizon: positioning, visibility, strategic partnerships, publishing, new programs, alliances, audiences, and opportunities that may not have been obvious from inside the business.

Together, those perspectives create something broader than conventional coaching.

It is also why we are interested in building an alliance of business developers rather than pretending any one advisor can do everything. A strong coach may identify the problem. A strategist may recognize the opportunity. A digital expert may build the infrastructure. A communications professional may articulate the story. A partnership developer may open an entirely new channel. The real value emerges when those disciplines stop operating as isolated vendors and begin functioning as complementary resources.

That is the larger BeMore framework: ASSESS → IDENTIFY → CONNECT → BUILD → POSITION → AMPLIFY → EVOLVE.

For me, the attraction is straightforward. After decades in business, I have learned that growth rarely comes from one person having every answer. It comes from putting the right people, experience, relationships, and resources around the right opportunity.

That is why I work with Lennard, and why we are interested in meeting other experienced business coaches and developers. We are not looking to replace what someone already does well. We are building an ecosystem in which each of us can bring our strongest capabilities to the table—and collectively offer entrepreneurs something far more complete than any of us could provide alone.

BeMore commentator Zev Asch is a business transformation coach, entrepreneur, author, and educator with more than 40 years of experience working in and around small and family-owned businesses, including 14+ years coaching owners through the realities of growth, leadership, and operational change. He ranks among the Top 10 of more than 500 worldwide mentors on GrowthMentor. Zev is the author of three business books and host of the growing The Entrepreneur Next Door podcast, available on YouTube and major audio platforms. His practical—or, as he describes it, “street-smart, in-the-trenches”—approach combines decades of experience with pattern recognition and hands-on implementation. Most recently, Zev has partnered with BeMore Advisory, where he contributes to client development and writes for The Evolutionist, sharing practical perspectives on entrepreneurship, leadership, growth strategy, business transformation, and the human relationships behind sustainable success.

THE BOOK IS NOT DEAD

 Why the Printed Word May Matter More Than Ever

An Op-Ed on publishing, literacy, artificial intelligence and the enduring cultural power of the book

By: Lennard Goetze, Ed.D

There was a period, not very long ago, when the obituary for the printed book seemed almost ready to be written. Bookstores were disappearing. E-books were arriving. Information that once required a trip to a library could suddenly be summoned from a computer and, eventually, from a phone carried in one's pocket. Search engines replaced encyclopedias. Social media compressed ideas into posts, captions and fragments. Video became ubiquitous. The very notion of sitting quietly with several hundred pages began to look almost antiquated.

The numbers reflected a genuine disruption. The number of physical bookstore establishments in the United States declined from 13,136 in 1992 to only 6,448 in 2016—less than half the earlier number. Between 1995 and 2000 alone, the number of independent bookstores reportedly fell 43 percent.

Libraries faced their own crisis, particularly around the Great Recession. The American Library Association reported in 2010 that nearly 15 percent of public libraries—roughly 2,400 locations—had reduced their operating hours, while 13 state library agencies reported being aware of public-library closures caused by budget problems during the previous year.

Yet something interesting happened while we were preparing for the disappearance of books. They did not disappear. In fact, there is mounting evidence that the book has demonstrated remarkable resilience.

The Association of American Publishers estimates that U.S. publishing generated $33.4 billion in revenue in 2025, an increase of 2.5 percent over 2024 and approximately 16 percent above 2021. Trade publishing alone reached an estimated $21.7 billion.

And print remains remarkably powerful. In 2024, print formats represented 50.5 percent of overall publisher revenue. Within consumer trade publishing, hardcovers and paperbacks together accounted for nearly 73 percent of revenue. Print book unit sales increased again in 2025, reaching approximately 762 million copies through outlets tracked by Circana BookScan. It marked the second consecutive annual increase reported by that source.

Even the neighborhood bookstore—the institution supposedly doomed by e-commerce—is demonstrating renewed cultural energy. Independent bookstores staged a notable comeback after their earlier collapse; Harvard Business School researchers documented a 35 percent increase in independent booksellers between 2009 and 2015. More recently, the American Booksellers Association reported continued membership growth and hundreds of new bookstore openings and new store models in 2025.

Perhaps we misunderstood what was happening. Perhaps technology was never killing the book. It was forcing us to rediscover why we needed it.

The Book Does Something Different

Reading is not merely the transfer of information. A book asks something of us. It asks us to remain with an idea. It asks us to enter another person's imagination and temporarily surrender the constant temptation to click somewhere else. It asks the author to organize thoughts with sufficient discipline that another human being can follow them from beginning to end. That process is profoundly civilized.

Through books we encounter people we will never meet, cultures we may never visit and historical periods we cannot experience ourselves. We inhabit another person's grief, ambition, discovery, faith, fear, humor or imagination. Reading therefore performs one of society's quietest acts of diplomacy: it teaches human beings to enter worlds beyond their own.

Writing performs the complementary act. To write seriously is to take the noise inside one's mind and impose structure upon it. Experiences become observations. Observations become ideas. Ideas become sentences. Sentences become arguments, stories and philosophies.

There is something peaceful about that transformation. Human beings have always needed ways to make sense of what happens to them. The book remains one of our most intimate technologies for doing so.

Why Write? Why Publish?

This question becomes particularly important now. Why spend months—or years—writing a book when someone can publish a thought instantly online? Because a book says something different. A post says, I have something to say. A book says, I have thought deeply enough about something to build a body of work around it.

For the scientist, physician or educator, a book can organize years of knowledge into something teachable. For the entrepreneur, it can establish a philosophy behind an enterprise. For the advocate, it can become the intellectual foundation of a movement. For the survivor, it can transform experience into guidance for someone who has not yet traveled the same road.

For the novelist, poet and storyteller, the book accomplishes something equally important: it preserves imagination.

Publishing is therefore more than commercial distribution. At its best, publishing is an act of preservation. This happened. I learned this. I imagined this. I believe this matters. Here is what I want another human being to understand. The book gives those thoughts a home.

Then Came Artificial Intelligence

And now we have entered another technological revolution. Artificial intelligence can summarize information, organize research, generate language and accelerate portions of the writing and publishing process. It is already creating enormous disruption within publishing, including difficult questions about authorship, originality, copyright and the proliferation of machine-generated books.

But AI may also produce an unexpected cultural consequence. It may increase the value we place upon authentic human authorship.

When unlimited quantities of competent language can be generated almost instantaneously, the scarce commodity is no longer words. The scarce commodity becomes a human point of view worth listening to. Who lived this? Who discovered it? Who believes it? Who struggled with it? Who is willing to put his or her name on these ideas and defend them?

AI can help an author research, organize, edit, translate and explore. Used responsibly, it can lower barriers that once prevented people with important ideas from developing them into publishable work. It can make sophisticated publishing tools available to individuals who might never have had access to traditional publishing infrastructure. But technology also makes the author's identity more important, not less.

The future book may therefore carry a new kind of value: not merely information, but authenticated human perspective.

A Technology That Has Been Evolving for Centuries

Perhaps the greatest mistake is asking whether the book will survive technology. The book is technology. The scroll was technology. The codex was technology. Movable type was technology. The printing press was revolutionary technology. The paperback was a technological and commercial innovation. So were desktop publishing, print-on-demand, e-books, audiobooks and digital distribution.

The book has never been frozen in time. Its container evolves while its central purpose remains remarkably stable: one mind communicating an organized body of thought to another. That is why the resurgence of publishing should matter beyond publishers and bookstores.

A society that reads preserves its ability to concentrate. A society that writes preserves its ability to think. A society that publishes preserves its ideas beyond the moment in which they were created. And a society that maintains libraries and bookstores preserves physical places where ideas can still be discovered rather than merely delivered by an algorithm.

The great cultural challenge of the coming decades may not be choosing between books and technology. It may be learning how to use technology without surrendering the intellectual habits that books helped civilization develop.

We should encourage children to read. We should protect libraries. We should support bookstores. We should encourage experts, elders, innovators, teachers, advocates and ordinary people with extraordinary experiences to write.

And perhaps we should redefine what it means to become an author. Writing a book is not merely producing a product. It is saying: "Here is what I have learned during my time in this world. Here is the story I believe deserves to survive me. Here is an idea I want to place into the hands of another human being." Civilizations have always found ways to leave messages for the future. Ours should continue writing books. Not because we are resisting technological evolution. Because we are part of it.

About the Author

LENNARD GOETZE is the CEO and Founder of BeMore Advisory, a strategic development firm dedicated to helping professionals, organizations, innovators and mission-driven leaders determine what comes next—and build it. BeMore Advisory combines business evolution, strategic communications, publishing, program development, partnership building, reputation enhancement and educational marketing to transform established expertise and promising ideas into greater opportunity and measurable impact.

A longtime publisher, campaign developer and Chief Business Upgrade Strategist, Goetze has built his career around recognizing the unrealized potential within people, organizations, intellectual property and professional initiatives. His publishing background has included developing educational platforms, professional publications and thought-leadership content that turn specialized knowledge into accessible, influential communications.

As a Partnership Campaign Blueprinter, Goetze specializes in identifying connections that can accelerate growth—bringing together professionals, organizations, advocates, businesses and complementary resources around shared opportunities. His work frequently extends beyond traditional marketing to the creation of new programs, networks, campaigns, collaborations and pathways to visibility.

At the center of his work is the BeMore philosophy: successful people and organizations often already possess the expertise, credibility and ideas they need. The next challenge is discovering how to leverage those assets to evolve, expand their influence, create new opportunities and build a lasting legacy.

 

THE BOOK IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

This article is part of BeMore BEYOND THE BOOK, a workshop created and presented by Lennard M. Goetze, Ed.D. to help published authors transform their books into platforms for visibility, authority, opportunity, enterprise and lasting impact.

 

Your book carries an idea. What will you build from it?

Discover BeMore BEYOND THE BOOK and explore what comes next for you, your message and your work.

 

Visit: BeMoreAdvisory.com
BE PUBLISHED. BE VISIBLE. BE INFLUENTIAL. BE MORE.

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EXTRA 

YOU WROTE THE BOOK. NOW WHAT WILL YOU BUILD FROM IT?

Finishing and publishing a book is a significant achievement, but for professionals, entrepreneurs, clinicians, educators, and thought leaders, publication may be only the beginning. The greater question is: What can the book now become? Beyond readership and sales, a book can serve as the foundation for a professional mission, business, institute, educational program, consulting practice, community, media platform, or movement. It can evolve into courses, lectures, podcasts, partnerships, and new opportunities. Most importantly, a book can become an author’s most powerful calling card—demonstrating not merely who they are, but how they think, what they know, and why their ideas matter.

 

YOU WROTE THE BOOK. NOW WHAT WILL YOU BUILD FROM IT?

 Author Platform Development & Professional Promotion

INTRODUCTION

Your manuscript is finished. The editing is complete. The cover has been approved. The book has been formatted, published, and made available to the world. For many authors, this is the moment they have been working toward for months—or perhaps years. There is understandable satisfaction in finally holding the finished book. It represents knowledge captured, ideas organized, experiences documented, and a considerable investment of intellectual and creative effort.

But for the professional, entrepreneur, clinician, executive, educator, innovator, or thought leader, publication should not necessarily represent the end of the process. It may be just the beginning.

The more important question now becomes: What is this book supposed to do?

A book can certainly be written to be read and sold. There is nothing insignificant about that objective. But for an accomplished professional, the potential value of authorship can extend considerably beyond retail sales.

• The book may become the framework for an institution.
• It may become the blueprint for a professional mission.
• It may articulate the vision of an entrepreneur.
• It may document the philosophy of a thought leader.
• It may establish the intellectual foundation for a consulting practice, educational program, research initiative, nonprofit organization, professional community, institute, company, or movement.
• It may become a curriculum, lecture series, podcast, conference presentation, media platform, advisory practice, or second book.
• And sometimes its most immediate value is considerably simpler: the book becomes the author's calling card.
• A business card tells someone who you are. A book has the potential to demonstrate how you think, what you know, what you believe, what you have accomplished, and why your ideas may matter.

 

That distinction changes the purpose of publishing.

Instead of asking only, How many books can I sell?, the professional author can begin asking a different series of questions:

Who should read this book?

Who should know that I wrote it?

What does this book establish me as qualified to discuss?

What conversations can it help me enter?

What organizations, institutions, companies, media outlets, conferences, associations, or professional communities might find these ideas valuable?

And perhaps most importantly: What do I want this book to make possible next?

These questions move the author from publication to positioning.

They also introduce the central premise of Part III of The Author Platform Blueprint: the professional value of a book does not have to end when the book is published. Properly developed and strategically positioned, the publication can become the intellectual foundation from which a much larger professional platform is constructed.

The book is the asset. What we build around it determines how far that asset can travel.

PROLOGUE

THINKING AHEAD: FROM AUTHORSHIP TO OPPORTUNITY

There is a tendency among first-time authors to think sequentially: first write the book, then publish the book, then determine how to promote it. For professional authors, that sequence may leave considerable opportunity unrealized. The better approach is to begin thinking ahead.

Ideally, the author should begin considering the professional life of the book before publication is complete. What appears on the surface to be a publishing project may actually be the first stage of something considerably larger.

The central question is no longer simply: “How do we promote the book?”

It becomes: “What can we build from the book?”

That distinction is fundamental.

A book represents a concentrated body of intellectual property. Within its chapters are ideas, methodologies, philosophies, observations, stories, research, professional experiences, arguments, and solutions. Those elements can often be translated into other forms of professional activity.

• A chapter can become a lecture.
• A methodology can become a workshop.
• A philosophy can become a consulting model.
• Research can become a conference presentation.
• An argument can become an op-ed.
• A professional perspective can become a media interview.
• A collection of principles can become an educational program.
• A book's central thesis can become the foundation of an organization, institute, initiative, company, advocacy campaign, or professional community.

The author therefore has an opportunity to move from having published something to representing something. That is where author-platform development begins.

 

THE BOOK AS PROFESSIONAL ARCHITECTURE

Entrepreneurs routinely create business plans before building companies. Architects create blueprints before constructing buildings. Researchers develop protocols before conducting investigations.

A professional book can serve a similar function. It can provide the intellectual architecture for what comes next.

For one author, that may mean becoming a recognized speaker.

For another, it may mean developing an advisory or consulting practice.

For another, it may mean creating an educational program, institute, nonprofit organization, professional network, or new business.

For an innovator, the book may explain the philosophy behind a new approach and provide credibility when approaching potential partners, investors, institutions, or collaborators.

For an established professional approaching the later stages of a career, the objective may be different. The book may become an instrument of legacy—a means of organizing decades of accumulated knowledge so that it can continue educating, influencing, and creating value beyond the author's immediate professional activities.

There is no single correct destination. The important task is to define the destination intentionally.

FROM “I WROTE A BOOK” TO “WHAT DO I WANT TO BECOME?”

This is also where authorship intersects with professional development.

Publishing changes how an individual can introduce himself or herself to the world. The professional is no longer merely an executive, clinician, scientist, entrepreneur, educator, consultant, or specialist.

The individual is now also an author.

That additional credential creates an opportunity to reconsider professional positioning.

What expertise should become more visible?

What ideas deserve a larger audience?

What professional identity should the author develop?

What audiences should know the author's work?

What relationships would advance the author's mission?

What opportunities have previously seemed inaccessible?

And what does the author ultimately want to become next?

These questions are larger than conventional book marketing. They concern professional identity, visibility, influence, opportunity, and legacy. This is the territory of BeMore Advisory.

The objective is not simply to promote someone because that person has written a book. It is to identify the intellectual and professional assets contained within the publication and determine how those assets can support the author's next stage of development.

The resulting strategy may encompass speaking, media, publishing, professional networking, strategic alliances, advisory opportunities, institutional relationships, thought leadership, education, entrepreneurship, or additional intellectual-property development.

The precise combination will differ for every author. But the underlying principle remains the same: Do not allow publication to become the finish line when it can become the starting line.

• You have written the book.
• You have articulated the ideas.
• You have created the intellectual asset.

Now comes the question that launches Part III of The Author Platform Blueprint:

WHAT'S NEXT?

The following phases are designed to answer that question by transforming the completed publication into an intentional program of author development, professional positioning, relationship building, and opportunity creation.

Phase 8: Developing the Author alongside the Book

Book marketing should begin before publication rather than after the finished book becomes available. During the final stages of production, the author-development process can begin concurrently. This may include:

• Professional author biography
• Author website
• Book website or landing page
• LinkedIn positioning
• Professional photography
• Media biography
• Speaker biography
• Speaker topics
• Media kit
• Press materials
• Newsletter development
• Email database development
• Social-content planning
• Professional association outreach
• Conference identification
• Podcast identification
• Media research
• Advance-review strategy
• Endorsement development
• Launch-partner identification

The objective is to have the professional infrastructure substantially developed before publication.

 

Phase 9: Converting the Book into Professional Opportunities

For professional and expert authors, book sales represent only one potential measure of return. A book can also function as a credential and business-development instrument. A properly positioned publication can support several professional objectives.

Speaking

The book's principal themes can be developed into keynote presentations, professional lectures, webinars, workshops, panel discussions, educational programs, and conference submissions. Rather than developing speaking topics independently of the publication, the book becomes the intellectual source from which a portfolio of presentations can be constructed.

Media

Publication provides a legitimate reason to introduce an expert to journalists, podcast producers, television and radio producers, editors, and other media professionals. Individual chapters can also be converted into topical media pitches, allowing publicity to continue well beyond the original publication announcement.

Thought Leadership

Book content can be adapted into articles, essays, op-eds, newsletters, professional posts, webinars, videos, and other educational formats. This allows a single intellectual investment to generate a continuing body of public-facing material.

Consulting and Advisory Work

For consultants and subject-matter experts, a book can function as evidence of methodology, perspective, and specialized knowledge. Organizations evaluating a prospective consultant or advisor are able to examine not only the individual's résumé but also a substantial representation of how that individual approaches important professional questions.

Corporate and Institutional Opportunities

A professionally positioned author may become more visible to companies, nonprofit organizations, universities, research organizations, professional associations, healthcare organizations, foundations, and investors seeking specialized knowledge. Potential opportunities may include advisory relationships, consulting engagements, educational programs, board participation, partnerships, collaborative research, speaking, and project development.

Networking

The book provides a legitimate basis for initiating professional relationships. An author can approach an executive, researcher, association leader, conference organizer, investor, journalist, or potential collaborator with something substantive to share rather than a conventional introductory solicitation.

Lead Generation

The publication should be integrated with the author's broader professional infrastructure. Readers can be directed to a website, newsletter, speaking page, advisory practice, educational program, organization, course, professional community, or other appropriate point of engagement. The book therefore becomes one component of a structured lead-generation system.

 

Phase 10: Strategic Distribution and Relationship Development

Not every book needs to be sold to produce value. For certain authors, a strategically distributed complimentary copy may have considerably greater potential value than the retail price of the book.

A targeted distribution program can identify individuals and organizations whose awareness of the author may have professional significance. Potential recipients might include:

• Corporate executives
• Investors
• Healthcare leaders
• University faculty and administrators
• Researchers
• Foundation executives
• Professional association leaders
• Conference directors
• Journalists
• Editors
• Television and radio producers
• Podcast hosts
• Nonprofit executives
• Potential collaborators
• Potential employers or contracting organizations
• Other recognized experts

This process should not consist of indiscriminate distribution. Recipients should be selected according to specific professional objectives, and books should generally be accompanied by individualized correspondence explaining the relevance of the publication.

Phase 11: Publicity and Media Development

A publication creates multiple opportunities for media outreach. Rather than promoting only the existence of the book, the publicity program identifies specific ideas within the manuscript that may be relevant to public and professional discussions. Potential publicity materials may include:

• Publication announcements
• Press releases
• Expert commentary pitches
• Feature-story proposals
• Podcast proposals
• Television and radio pitches
• Op-ed submissions
• Byline articles
• Professional interviews
• Q&A features
• Seasonal or topical commentary
• Research-related commentary
• Conference-related publicity

A book with ten substantive chapters may provide ten or more independent publicity themes. This substantially extends the useful promotional life of the publication.

Phase 12: Lead Generation and Strategic Networking

For an expert author, the marketing program should ultimately answer four questions:

Who needs to know this author?

Why would that individual or organization value the author's expertise?

Which aspect of the book provides the strongest basis for an introduction?

What professional relationship would we reasonably like to develop?

These questions form the basis of a targeted Author Opportunity Map. The map may include:

Speaking Targets: conferences, associations, universities, corporate meetings, professional education programs.

Media Targets: podcasts, publications, television programs, radio programs, newsletters, trade media.

Advisory Targets: healthcare companies, technology companies, startups, nonprofit organizations, foundations, research organizations.

Partnership Targets: universities, professional societies, advocacy organizations, healthcare organizations, educational institutions.

Investor and Innovation Targets: investors, incubators, accelerators, venture groups, health-technology companies, and innovation programs where the author's expertise may have relevance.

Professional Engagement Targets: organizations that may retain the author for consulting, advisory, educational, writing, research, or leadership assignments.

The resulting program connects publication activity with measurable professional development.

TBC