Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

The secret your competitors don’t want you to know!

June 20, 2016 by Jim Connolly

How secure would your business be, if an expertly marketed, high quality competitor started targeting your clients and prospective clients?

Most people only consider this scenario after the fact. They wait until an exciting new business, product or service shows up. It’s only then that they think about how to respond.

We have to be smarter than that my friend.

The secret?

The secret to building a robust, thriving business, is to act as if that competitor had already arrived.

This means always, always looking for ways to improve the quality of your services. Listen to your marketplace, find out what concerns them and figure out how to help them. This will make your existing clients love you and ensure you attract a regular supply of new clients too.

Of course, I recommend you do as I have done and avoid having any competitors. Yes, it’s absolutely possible. Here’s everything you need to know.

The message here is simple: Don’t allow the arrival of “some guy’s business” to be what determines when YOU up your game. A new provider, product or service WILL show up in front of your clients. Take action now and be so well prepared that the new competitor doesn’t stand a chance.

You need to solve better problems

June 19, 2016 by Jim Connolly

Here’s one of the most important questions in business: What are the biggest problems facing your clients and prospective clients?

Whatever these problems are, you need to focus on how to solve them. Here’s why!

Why you need to solve better problems

The vast majority of your competitors offer a predictable range of services, which provide answers to a common set of problems. That’s why they [and maybe you right now] compete on fees or attract fee-sensitive clients.

I recommend you take a more profitable route. A route taken by the most successful people in every industry and profession.

Decide to solve bigger and better problems! If you do, you’ll attract more clients, earn higher fees AND always be in demand, because you will have pretty-much zero competition.

It’s an extremely effective way to grow a highly profitable business.

Think about it. You already solve problems for your clients or customers. So why not deliberately chose to solve the biggest [and most valuable] problems?

Build a great client list. No selling required!

June 18, 2016 by Jim Connolly

I’m going to share a powerful marketing idea with you today. It’s all about how to attract sales leads from extremely high quality prospective clients… no selling required.

And I mean HIGH quality.

These sales leads will come from people who already know you, who already value your work AND who really want to work with you.

Ready? OK. Let’s go!

I need to start by asking you a question: How much valuable, free information have you given to your prospective clients this year?

I’m specifically referring to things like newsletter articles, podcasts and blog posts, etc., which offer extremely valuable information [rather than thinly-disguised sales pitches].

No selling required. None. Nada!

If you want an endless stream of high quality sales leads or client enquiries, you need your prospective clients to be thinking about you. So you need to regularly give them something, which they will value. Something useful. Something that makes them interested in what you have to say.

Most small business owners waste their time, trying to get their marketplace excited, using sales messages and special offers. They haven’t figured out yet, that they need to develop a relationship with their marketplace, if they want to attract the best enquiries.

Notice I said attract enquiries? That’s right. When you stop selling and start helping, they [your future clients] come to YOU!

When you just send sales material into your marketplace, you’re missing the point. You are trying to sell to people, before you have earned their attention. It’s like asking someone for a date, before you’ve even said hello to them!

Engage and educate: Don’t sell

The secret to attracting high quality inbound sales leads is to stop selling to your prospective clients and start engaging them. Educate them, don’t sell to them. Help them with their problems. Become a welcome source of useful information. And use the one-to-many approach, so it only takes a tiny amount of your time. [Here’s what you need to know about one-to-many].

You will quickly begin to build relationships with the people who pay for the exact kind of service you offer.

And if you tailor the information you provide, so that it’s of most interest to your IDEAL prospective clients, that’s who you’re most likely to attract enquiries from. [Note the word attract again?]

Through the distribution of valuable, free information, you position yourself as an authority or expert in your field. You build a relationship with your prospective clients, where they naturally think of you as the source of the help they need. This makes it easy for them to turn to you when they need a new provider. Here’s a perfect, recent example of this in action.

Make no mistake, if you embrace this concept and do it correctly, the results can be breathtaking. Even life-changing. It’s a zero pressure way to build a massively valuable client list of amazing people, who really appreciate the value of your work. And with no selling required.

Get passionate about your business

June 17, 2016 by Jim Connolly

A business owner with passion is a formidable force. Here are 5 powerful advantages these passionate people have, over the average business owner:

Their passion inspires others to believe in them. Steve Jobs was perhaps the best known modern day example of this. When trying to hire John Sculley away from Pepsi, Jobs famously asked him: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
Their passion drives them forward, when others decide to quit. Passion acts like fuel. It propels you forward.
Their passion gives them the courage they need, to leave their comfort zones when required. People with passion will do things, which those who lack passion will avoid. And these “things” are usually the big, brave decisions, which separate the winners from the losers.
Their passion is contagious. It motivates the people around them. Whenever you are in the company of a passionate person, you know it instantly. I can’t think of a single leader, who lacks this powerful quality.
Their passion acts like a magnet, which attracts the people and resources their business needs. Passionate people also attract other passionate people. This compounds to propel their business [and life] forward at an accelerated pace.

Where does that kind of passion come from?

Passion is something we create ourselves. It happens when we have a clear and highly compelling goal, which we believe we will achieve. Foggy goals are no good. Puny goals are no good. We need goals that are clear and inspirational. And we need to believe we can achieve them.

Dream big dreams. Convert the dreams into goals… then create a plan to make your goals a reality.

It’s impossible to overstate the positive impact this can have on your business and your whole life.

1 Essential word your marketing needs, plus 1 you MUST avoid!

June 16, 2016 by Jim Connolly

Here’s a quick tip, to improve the effectiveness of your marketing. It’s all about a word you use regularly, which is negatively impacting how people feel about your business.

That word is… change!

People are hard-wired to fear change.

We know that change, good or bad, is a source of stress. Even something as positive as the change that comes from getting married, buying a new home or setting off for a week in the sun, is a cause of stress.

Because of the negative way people feel when confronted with change, it makes sense to remove the word from your marketing. Don’t worry, I am going to give you a massively more powerful, motivating alternative!

Improve rather than change

Whenever possible, use the word improve, rather than change. Improve, is a positive word. It’s an attractive word too, because we are always looking for something better.

For example, look how the phrase below becomes far more powerful, when change is replaced with improve.

“This copywriting tip will change your marketing results.” [It could make them worse]

“This copywriting tip will improve your marketing results.” [It will make things better]

Your prospective clients or customers fear change, but want things to improve. So, stop offering them what they fear and give them what they want!

Tip: Here’s how to ensure your copywriting is super-effective.

Be more interested in your client’s success, than your fee

June 15, 2016 by Jim Connolly

There is a powerful success factor behind every great business, which you can implement starting today.

It can be summed up in just 4 words: It’s all about them!

It’s all about them

The most successful business owners have figured it out. They know that their success is always going to be an extension of what they do for their clients. So, they consistently look for ways to be of greater value.

In short: They are more interested in the success of their clients, than they are in their own fees or prices.

Why the me, me, me approach doesn’t work

The least effective business owners are focused on what they can get from their clients or customers.

They talk about closing the sale, rather than opening the relationship.
They talk about up-selling, rather than upping the value they provide to their clients.
They focus on what they can get, rather than what they can give.

That approach comes across in everything they do. As a result, their client retention is poor and they get few referrals from their clients, because we don’t recommend greedy, self-obsessed people to our friends.

Some ideas for developing the ‘them’ approach to business

It starts with an understanding that it’s all about what you do, not what you say. Every business owner claims to be client focused. So, you need to demonstrate that you are passionate about the success of their business.

For example:

Keep in regular contact and if you find they have a problem, offer to help.
Help them make connections. Think of people you know, who you can introduce them to… then do it!
Take a little time out every day, to help one of your clients in a way they were not expecting. This can be something as simple as sharing a useful blog post or newsletter article.
Find something valuable, which has a low delivery cost to you. Then add it to the service they receive from you… at no extra cost.
Keep your promises. Surprisingly few service providers can be totally relied upon. Become one of this rare group and your clients will notice (and tell their friends).

As Zig Ziglar used to say: You can have everything you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

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