As a marketing professional, I’m a keen student of human behaviour. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me, is when I see intelligent businesspeople looking for answers in all the wrong places.
For example, I hear of business owners asking their web designer to write the marketing copy for their new website; even though the designer is not a copy writer. I hear of people asking their accountant for legal advice; even though she has no legal training whatsoever.
I was inspired to write this post, after my first marketing session with a brand new client yesterday. This guy used the complete opposite approach. When he first called me to find out what I do, I asked him what motivated him to get in touch with me.
He said; “I got in touch Jim, because I want my prospective clients to think and feel the same way about me and my business, as I think and feel about Jim Connolly and his business. The best person to show me how to achieve that has to be you – right?”
Business success comes from making good decisions and backing them up with action. Most businesspeople are hard workers, but find they are working hard doing the wrong things or doing the correct things – In the wrong way. As a result, they don’t really own a business – they have simply bought themselves a really stressful job.
You deserve better than that!
Thankfully, you can improve any area of your business, simply by acting on better advice.
Photo credit: Jessica Flavin
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I agree completely with what you are saying although sometimes finding the right/best person to advise you can be the hardest part of all!
I think that’s where the Internet and social media can help. It’s a lot easier to hire someone, who’s work you know (as in the above example) than a guy that you have never heard of.
Thanks for the comment Jutta.
That was a great compliment! Yes, so important to get advice from the right person, and also to be clear about what you actually asking for. Asking the wrong person can cost you dear!
Jane
Can’t really add much to that Jane, other than that, as usual, you make a lot of sense. Thanks for popping by the blog!!
Nice timing for your post – We just had a client asking us for advice for large issues way outside our realm of expertise. They spent countless hours analyzing data that was not related to their issues. And there were obvious large problems on their site they were un-willing to change (initially).
A little guidance and “coaching” got them to realize where the effort should be spent, and hopefully they will contact the right people to get the job done correctly.
Rob – LexiConn
Hi Rob,
I’m not sure why people gravitate to the wrong people when they have an issue, but I hear about that kind of issue pretty-much all the time.
Another lesson I am slowly learning, Jim. I often struggle even to seek out experts. Recently, I hired an accountant with QuickBooks skills to clean up some old data. He completed everything in a few hours. The cleaned up balance sheet and some other tweaks make it easy to forecast and make plans for the future and if a banker ever had to use it, it would make sense. His fees were well worth it.
But I was afraid to ask for help. Fear of something that could reap great benefits.
Good point Julie. I think it’s important to work with people you ‘feel’ good about – who have the skills you need. That’s why blogging is such a great tool for developing new clients. I get a lot of people enquiring about my services, because they have come to know me from the blog.
I get that, Jim, but so many people don’t… I mentioned you and blogging in my post yesterday, “Are you On Board?” recapping my Chamber lunch. I agreed with the speaker for the most part, except when he said, “Blogging?” I think blogging is dead, microblogging is the wave of the future, no one wants to read anymore… I consider you one of my favorite bloggers because of the attention you give to building your community. So in my post, I listed you and several others as examples. My point was that if blogging is dead, why is all the buzz on the microblogs pointing to the good blogs… Why? Because you and the others provide information and advice that far exceeds anything you can say in a Tweet. All of the major social media tools have a purpose. Using them together well is where the voice of the Masters come in handy!
Sadly Julie, anyone can stand in front of a room and talk, regardless of their level of expertise. I wonder if he meant to say that HIS blog died?
I’m pretty sure your speaker reads ‘websites’ like CNN.com, which of course are blogs.
I am currently unaware of a single non-celebrity who has a popular ‘real’ Twitter account, that does not also have a blog too. Micro blogging is useful but extremely limited.