One of the best pieces of time management advice you can give someone is this: Either do it or don’t do it! So many people waste so much time, with half-assed attempts at doing things. They make a decision to take action, but then lack the conviction or courage to do it correctly; to invest…
Monthly Archives: July 2011
These are the good times!
My friend Nile Rodgers from Chic, regularly reminds me that these are the good times, both through his music and his inspirational blog posts, which cover his recent health challenges. No, these are not perfect times. No, these are not ideal times. But the present is all we have to work with, so until someone…
How to fire your low quality clients and grow a rewarding business
Professional marketing is not just about attracting new clients. It’s about attracting high quality clients; the kind of people or businesses you want to work with, value your work and who pay you accordingly. Low quality clients from ineffective marketing The challenge here is that many small businesses do not market their services correctly. As…
What do YOU do when it rains?
It’s raining! One person walks down the street, notices the rain has started and begins complaining. They moan to themselves that they are going to get soaked, as they seek shelter. Another person notices the rain and is thankful. This person also takes shelter, but is happy that their garden is finally getting some much…
How to win in a world full of failing businesses
Hey Jim: Can you tell me how to do the wrong thing, correctly? You would be amazed how many times every week, someone asks me that question. No, they don’t use those exact words, but they are asking me to tell them the right way to do something, which is incorrect. Most commonly, they will…
It’s holiday time on Jim’s Marketing Blog
One of the wonderful things about blogging, is that you can write posts and then set them up to be published at a later date. So, even though I am enjoying a wonderful, 7 day break with my family starting today, you will still see posts published here next week. During my break, I won’t…
How can calories help your marketing and boost your profits?
If you want to earn a premium fee for your services, you need to provide a premium experience and market that experience. I call this idea; marketing the EXPERIENCE rather than the CALORIES. Allow me to explain. Experience and calories The reason there are restaurants that can successfully charge 5 times as much as others,…
Are you commanding attention or demanding attention?
There’s a big difference between commanding people’s attention and demanding people’s attention. Demanding attention Most of the small business marketing we see is trying to demand our attention. They send us emails we never asked for. They pester us on social networking sites. They call us in the office when we are busy and sometimes…
How do you look?
How good an observer are you? One of the lessons my mentor shared with me, was the commercial value of being a good observer. This means observing what’s happening and looking for the beauty or lesson in what you see. It also means looking at the subtext of conversations and the meaning behind what people…
Are you making this common mistake when selling your services?
How much do you charge per hour? The reason I ask you this, is that I have a suggestion for you. If you currently quote prospective clients an hourly rate for your services, I would like you to reconsider. In my experience, you will almost certainly do a lot better, if you quote based on…
What everybody ought to know about achieving their goals
I was walking home this evening, when I decided to stop and take this photo with my phone. It’s not a great photo, but my photographic skills are not what this brief post is about. This post is about the decision I made a decade ago, which made this photo of my walk home possible!…
