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Be irresistible to prospective clients in just 3 steps

By Jim Connolly | May 15, 2013

How to get noticed, be seen, stand out
By Rupert Britton

If you want clients and prospective clients to think of you as the go-to person, for whatever service you provide, I believe you’ll find this post really useful.

It’s based around 3 steps you can take, which will change the way people think and feel about you, so you become their irresistible choice.

What is a go-to person?

Firstly, I’d like to confirm what I am referring to when I use the term, go-to person. I’m talking specifically about those valued people in business, who we immediately think of when we have a need, related to their area of expertise.

When someone thinks of you as their go-to person for a particular need, they go direct to you.

  • They don’t ask a friend for a recommendation.
  • They don’t poll their friends on Facebook.
  • They don’t take their need to a search engine.
  • YOU get the call!

Clearly, the commercial value of being the go-to person for your marketplace is huge. Not only will you retain your existing clients for longer, you will also attract more inquiries from prospective clients.

To earn this valuable position, we need to focus on 3 core areas.

1. Demonstrate that you know your subject

A newsletter or blog is a great way to achieve this. By sharing useful ideas and information, people come to think of you as a valuable resource.

This is why it’s so important to avoid the common mistake, of only offering diluted information to your readers. If you hold back the good stuff, the really useful ideas, you will cause your readers to assume that shallow information is all you know!

Give away as much value, freely, as possible. Now, at this point some of you will be concerned, that if you give lots of valuable information away for free, people won’t bother hiring you. That is actually the exact opposite of how it works.

Here’s what really happens, when you offer extremely useful information for free in your newsletter or blog posts:

  • Some people will use your free ideas, with no intention of hiring you. As they were never going to hire you anyway, you lose nothing.
  • Some people will use your free ideas and get part of the way, then realise they need your expert help. These people will call you. Had you not given so much free information away, you’d never have positioned yourself as their go-to person.
  • Some people will see the value of what you do, then figure out very fast that it’s far better to hire you to do it for them.

It works. People in that 2nd and 3rd group make up almost all of my non-referred clients!

2. Demonstrate that you are approachable

If we want people to get in touch with us, we need to be as approachable as possible to them. This means taking every opportunity to demonstrate that we are friendly and professional.

Unbelievably, many business owners are cranky or confrontational, even when they are sharing their thoughts online, for the world to see. This is, of course, their prerogative. However, there is a price to pay for being cranky or confrontational. It makes us far less approachable. If we want people to feel comfortable approaching us, we need to be approachable. We need to show humility. We need to remove any barriers.

3. Demonstrate your reliability

Again, publishing a newsletter or blog posts is a great way to demonstrate your reliability. Of course, this is only the case if you have reliably published content over a reasonable period of time. If you write a newsletter or blog and the last thing you published was several months ago, it works directly against you. Instead of demonstrating your reliability and stick-ability, you do the opposite.

If you have been in business for a long time, let people know. When a prospective client reads my about page, they can see that I set this marketing business up in 1995 and that I have worked in marketing all my adult life. That, along with almost 6 years worth of publishing ideas via Jim’s Marketing Blog, offers those thinking of hiring me a huge confidence boost. You should do the same for your prospective clients and customers too.

IMPORTANT: Drawing a line

It’s important at this point, to make a very clear distinction between positioning yourself as the go-to person and positioning yourself as the freebie person.

Yes, it’s a privilege to be regarded by our family and friends as a person they know they can rely on for whatever they need. However, in business, we need to draw a line between what we are prepared to do for free and what we will offer as a paid service. Otherwise, we are likely to become a magnet for freebie hunters. Freebie hunters are people who abuse the nature of others, with selfish demands for free goods and services.

For example, I occasionally get emails from people, asking me to do unpaid work for them. These range from things that would take me a few hours, to tasks that would take me a week.

It’s worth mentioning that many of my clients started off as readers, yet none, not one, of my clients came to me after asking for freebies.

How to get the balance right: The one-to-many approach

There best way to offer free information, which is scalable and sustainable, is to adopt the same approach I use here. I call it the one-to-many approach.

Here’s how I do it: All the free work I do for people is offered via Jim’s Marketing Blog and the email version of the blog. I call it the one-to-many approach, because I create one piece of work and it benefits many people.

Offering one-to-one work for free, simply does not scale. It makes no sense for me to give an hour of my time to 1 selfish person, when I can use that same hour to write something, which will benefit thousands of people.

Finally

For some business owners and consultants, there is a huge mindset change required, to adopt the idea of freely sharing, valuable content. However, for those who embrace the idea, the rewards are huge. It’s the primary marketing model I have used for years and is the most powerful form of marketing I have ever seen. I can’t recommend it highly enough to you.

Creating your masterpiece?

By Jim Connolly | May 14, 2013

Armed with a computer and an idea, it’s possible to create something amazing and reach millions of people with your creation (or message).

So, with all that potential, what does the average small business owner do? In most cases, they act in a totally predictable way.

  • Rather than create, they curate.
  • Rather than innovate, they copy.
  • Rather than lead, they follow.

What am I going to do with it all?

A great question to ask yourself at the start of each day is, ‘what am I going to do with all this potential?’

You start every business day with a blank canvas. The decisions you make and the actions you take will determine what you create. One of the great lessons of business, is that those who fail to lead, create or innovate, seldom produce a masterpiece.

What’s stopping you from breaking free from the pack? What are your creative challenges? What have you achieved, thanks to embracing your uniqueness? Share your thoughts or experiences with a comment.

This is why you need to step outside your business

By Jim Connolly | May 10, 2013

Sometimes we work so hard within our business, that we find ourselves missing the bigger picture. We get so wrapped up in what we are doing, that we lose track of where we are going.

Looking at YOUR bigger picture

Take some time out today, to look at your bigger picture. Here are just a few things to consider:

  • Are you on course to achieve the goals or targets you set for your business in January?
  • Is your cash flow looking OK? How about 3 months down the road from now?
  • Are the fees or prices you charge keeping up with inflation or are your profits slipping?
  • Are you getting more referrals from your clients than last year or fewer referrals?
  • Are you retaining more clients than you were last year?
  • Are you attracting the right type of clients or too many time wasters?
  • Are you working too many hours?
  • Are you working too few hours?

It’s all too easy to mistake movement for progress. That’s why it makes sense to regularly step outside your business and see if you’re on course or not.

A small adjustment today could save you from a much bigger problem in 6 months time!

How a Special Offer went badly wrong

By Jim Connolly | May 9, 2013

It’s possible for a special offer to go spectacularly wrong, if you fail to look at the offer from the customer’s perspective. Allow me to explain.

Messages and subtext

My wife received an offer from a local restaurant via Facebook. It was an incredible offer, genuinely worth around 90% off the price of a meal for two, with no strings attached. The problem with the offer, was that it was too good. The cost cutting was too steep.

Because of this, the special offer message carried a subtext: A message behind the surface message of the amazing offer.

The first thing my wife said after reading the offer was, ‘that offer sounds like an act of desperation’. She then called me to look at her Facebook account, where her friends who had already been sent the offer, were already chatting about the imminent demise of the restaurant. The restaurant was then on Facebook, trying to reassure people they were not going broke, which made things even worse.

Poorly crafted offers can backfire

The reason this offer created so much negative attention, is that the subtext of the special offer spoke far louder than the actual message. The over generous discount caused people to assume that the restaurant was in trouble. The net result of that offer is that their customer base are openly discussing alternative venues, now this one is probably going broke.

In reality, the day before the restaurant made this offer they could have been in a strong position. Today, they are scrambling around Facebook almost begging people to come back. This now DOES make them look desperate and reinforces the (probably false) assumption, that they were in financial trouble when they made the very special offer

If you are thinking of slashing prices or offering to give free consultations, consider how your offer looks to the marketplace. Does it look like a generous offer from a financially strong business or the final, desperate actions of a business on the brink?

The price slashing problem

Generally, you are more likely to experience this type of problem, when you use price cuts as your special offer. This is because, when something is in great demand, there’s no need to slash prices. As a result, especially if the price reduction is big, people often assume there’s no demand. Such offers seem less like a regular marketing move and more like a panic measure.

As a general rule of thumb, you tend to find far fewer problems with special offers, which are based around providing additional value, for the same price or fee. These offers are usually a lot more profitable too, as the price or fee isn’t being heavily reduced. Price slashing also trains prospective customers to wait for the next offer, making it a lot harder to sell anything at full retail.

In short: Before using a special offer, think about the way the offer will be seen from the perspective of your customer / client and the wider marketplace.

Human Billboards? Really?

By Jim Connolly | May 8, 2013

Most small business owners miss out on great, free exposure, because they fail to advertise their products or services, to the people who see them each day.

For example, their car is seen daily by lots of people, yet they have nothing displayed on their car to promote their business. They wear a t-shirt during the summer, but don’t think to get one with their company logo on it. So, they drive a car that has a rear window sticker, promoting the dealership where they bought it and they wear a t-shirt that has the logo of the shirt’s manufacturer on it, but nothing anywhere to promote their own business.

Cyclists and the human billboard effect

The idea for this post came after I picked up my mountain bike from the shop, following its annual service.

As I waited for the shop owner to get my bike from the workshop, I noticed a cycling jersey for sale. It was extremely expensive and had 9 advertising logos and slogans printed on it, from companies who sponsor professional cyclists. In their desire to look like their professional cycling role models, some amateur cyclists will pay a hefty fee, to turn themselves into a human billboard. So, they not only give these huge companies free advertising, they pay money out of their own pocket, for the privilege of giving them the free advertising.

By the way, cyclists offer great, free advertising:

  • Most cyclists are in great shape and look extremely good in their cycling apparel. These healthy, fit people create a superb image, for the brands they advertise.
  • They often travel huge distances on their bikes, massively increasing the number of people who see the advertisements they wear. If they cycle in large towns or cities, thousands of people will see them.

We are all human billboards

Whilst amateur cyclists are the most extreme human billboard example I can think of, we are all human billboards to some extent.

The computers we use, phones we use, cars we drive and clothing we wear, all carry a logo. For instance, as I write this post in my local coffee shop, anyone walking past can see the Lenovo brand displayed on the lid of my notebook. If they look at my shoes, they will see the Nike Swoosh on them. I’m a human billboard for these brands right now. Look around you and you’ll see logos or brand names on the items you wear or products you use, too.

Your business and human billboards

Here’s something to ponder: How many people advertise your business, through their clothing, vehicles or tools? If you just answered ‘none’ or ‘not many’, you may want to consider changing that.

Some promotional goods can be extremely cost effective, but not if you do what most small business owners do with them. It’s not about thinking of them as freebies and handing them out to anyone, without a strategy. It requires a little more thought and planning than that.

For example, if you decide to get some t-shirts made:

  • Make sure they clearly display your contact phone number or website.
  • Don’t buy cheap. 10 good quality shirts will be seen by more people than 100 cheap ones, which look like crap and are often trashed after a few washes!
  • Give them to people who will wear them.
  • Give them to people, who you believe represent a good image for your business. Just as fit, healthy cyclists are the right image for cycling sponsors, there will be people who are an ideal fit for your business too. So, if you sell to the construction industry, give your t-shirts to tradespeople, etc.

Your mileage may vary

There are many factors, which will determine how effective this idea will be for you and your business. Your industry, the quality of your designs, your location and the ease at which your website or phone number can be remembered, are just some of the factors.

In my experience, this works best when you invest in quality. Adopting a professional approach will make your message stand out and ensure more people see it. It will also give people an insight into the quality you attach to your business.

Why isn’t my problem as important to you, as it is to me?

By Jim Connolly | May 6, 2013

I had a bad customer service experience today, which contained a valuable lesson. I’d like to share that lesson with you.

It started when I needed tech support from my email provider, Mailchimp. Every encounter I have had with their support team has been poor and today’s encounter was no exception.

My Mailchimp Customer service ‘blast from the past’

Now, any support person can have a bad day. Any company can have a staffing issue, resulting in customer service problems. What’s harder to understand, is why I had the exact same problem with Mailchimp today, as I had 7 months ago. If Mailchimp cared about customer service, that’s long enough for them to improve. Believe it or not, the problem I have is communication. No one I have emailed or ‘live chatted’ with at Mailchimp is able to understand me. This is even stranger when you consider that I’m a professional communicator.

Today, as I saw the ‘live chat’ going horribly wrong with Mailchimp support, I contacted a friend for help. Within 30 seconds via Twitter, she’d done what the Mailchimp support guy couldn’t – she immediately knew what the problem was and told me how to fix it. He wanted emails from me and screen shots, for an issue which didn’t require it. If he had listened, he’d have known it was a simple matter of changing one setting. That’s it.

Customer service matters

Today’s experience caused me to remember what my old boss used to call ‘the ultimate customer question’. It’s simply this:

Why isn’t my problem as important to you, as it is to me?

Customer service should ALWAYS matter more to the service provider, than the customer. As service providers, we can either delight our customers or frustrate them. We can take ownership of their problem or shirk responsibility and hope they go away.

That old saying is incorrect. The customer is not always right. However, the customer is always the customer. Until they’re not!

3 Ways to grow your business for pennies

By Jim Connolly | May 4, 2013

A lot of small business owners are struggling financially right now. So today, I am going to give you 3 ideas you can work on, which will help you grow your business for pennies or less

1. You can delight your customers more than your competitors do

This is one of the smartest marketing investments you can make. By delighting your existing customers, they become a superb source of new, high quality business. When someone receives an exceptional level of service from you, they tell people. They spread the word about your business.

Additionally, you will find that you retain your existing customers. This is really important. Otherwise, developing your business is like filling a bucket, which has a hole in it.

The key thing to remember here, is that the process of giving and receiving starts with giving. If you want your customers or clients to tell the world about you, you need to deliver an experience that’s worth talking about, first.

2. You can outsmart your competitors

Creative thinking costs nothing. By improving your creative thinking skills, you can get ahead faster and fly higher. You can spot opportunities that most people miss. You can solve problems faster and with better, more profitable answers.

Some people claim they are not creative, which is factually incorrect. We are born creative. However, to tap into our creativity and get the best results, we can all use a little help.

That’s why I have written dozens of creative thinking articles for you, on my creative thinking website. It contains dozens of free articles and videos, to show you how to think creatively, generate ideas and solve problems.

3. You can engage with your marketplace & learn what matters to them

Social networks make it easier than ever to connect with your future customers or clients. The majority of small business owners use these networks to sell or they automate their activity. They treat social networks as a broadcast medium, rather than a communication medium.

The smartest people use a human approach to social networks. They build relationships with people and listen to the needs of their marketplace. My best advice is to reach out in a human way. It works!

Where is your next breakthrough going to come from?

By Jim Connolly | May 3, 2013

Today, I want to talk with you about your next breakthrough and where / when it will come to you. I also want to share some advice, which may help you reach your breakthrough faster.

Fog lifter

Fog lifters

One of my colleagues used to call coffee, her ‘early morning fog lifter’. She said that a cup of coffee in the morning would lift the fog, help her think more clearly and get her brain working. She claimed that many of her breakthroughs followed a cup of coffee. I pointed out once, that she tended to read great books when she drank her coffee. She smiled and said yes, but that it was the coffee that opened her mind to the book.

Where are your fog lifters?

Part of our personal and professional development, is to actively seek out our own fog lifters. I’m talking about the books, seminars, teachers and audio products, etc, which give us the clarity required to see what was previously hidden from us.

I can’t tell you where or when you will find your next fog lifter. All I do know, is that the fog tends to lift more often, when you feed your mind with rich, mental protein. For me, that’s when the ideas flow and the breakthroughs come.

Small business owners: Do not let this happen to you

By Jim Connolly | May 2, 2013

I want to share something with you, which is responsible for the demise of so many small businesses. I’m also going to show you how to avoid it happening to you.

plan to fail

I witnessed an independent coffee shop self-destruct recently, just as the owner planned it to. Yes, although the owner said he wanted his coffee shop to succeed, his planning was all about failing. He literally (not figuratively) planned for failure.

Planning to fail

The owner set the business up in such a way, that his risk and financial investment was as close to zero as possible. That way, if it failed, his losses would be minimal.

So…

  • The scruffy looking building he moved into, stayed scruffy. He refused to fix it up or pay someone to. He said he thought it wasn’t important, even though he was serving people food and drink!
  • There was no investment in advertising or promotion. As his coffee shop was located in a small town, at the quietest part of the high street, no one knew the place was there.
  • He set the business up legally, so that there would be very little liability when the business failed and very few costs. He wasn’t going to lose his home or go bankrupt when the worst happened. This is smart, unless, as in this case, it was used as a comfort blanket to stop him from trying to succeed.

With no investment in making the business work and no penalty for failing, he did indeed fail – and extremely fast. You see, whilst he was playing at being in business, his hungry competitors outworked him and outsmarted him. Business today is extremely competitive and competing retailers are working damn hard to make their businesses work. Going into that marketplace, without the willingness to work hard or invest the money required, he could never have succeeded.

Giving  a business 100%

Every small business owner claims they give their business 100%. What many of them really mean, is that they give their business 100%… of the things they find easy to do. The things that require little risk. The things that keep them from leaving their comfort zones.

  • They hire a cheap accountant, rather than a good one. No one can afford a cheap accountant. No one.
  • They write their own marketing material, rather than get it written correctly so that it converts readers into clients.
  • They automate their social networking accounts, rather than invest the time needed to build relationships with people.
  • They ‘save money’ by having a crappy website that loses them business, rather than pay for a great site, which attracts clients.
  • They let their business plateau for months or years, rather than invest in the help they need to go to the next level.
  • They do 100% of the easy stuff, rather than 100% of what’s required.

The lesson here?

Business has never been more competitive than it is today. As we navigate the worst economy in living memory, it’s not enough to do the easy stuff. Everyone does the easy stuff. It’s easy! It takes courage to invest the time, effort and money required for our business to succeed, but the alternative is to ‘half try’. The demanding marketplace and our hungrier competitors will ensure that ‘half try’ attitude can’t prevail.

Those who succeed

The smartest small business owners have already figured it out. They know that success comes from doing the things, which the majority are not prepared to do. They understand the meaning of, ‘Go hard or go home!’

  • They think big, because they know it’s the only way to make big things happen.
  • They give it their all.
  • They make commitments, then follow them through.
  • They take action when it’s easier not to.
  • They look for progress, not excuses.
  • They make it as hard as possible for their business to fail.
  • They work hard. Really hard.
  • They know that shortcuts are almost always costly detours.
  • They plan their work and work their plan.
  • They refuse to starve their business of the resources it needs.
  • They leave work each day, knowing they gave it their best.

That’s the mindset you and your business are competing against. That’s the way the best people in every industry operate, including yours.

It’s also the most rewarding way, in every respect, to run a business.

Bloggers: Social search and the freedom to focus on quality

By Jim Connolly | April 29, 2013

Social search is changing the game for business owners who blog and create content. Thankfully, it’s changing things in our favour and that’s what today’s post is all about.

marketing tips, marketing help

Even the best search engine is flawed

Whilst regarded by many as the best search engine available, even Google search is extremely easy to fool and still often rewards frequently updated content, over high quality content. As a result, people like myself who find it easy to write regularly, and those who use super-smart SEO to game Google, often outrank far better writers.

Social search is here… well, almost!

Thankfully, traditional search is becoming less and less relevant, as social search, (recommendations from our social networks), soar. I can either go to Google or Bing and search for what a machine ‘thinks’ is a great article about marketing – or I can see what my friends, the people I know and trust, recommend.

Google themselves really get social search and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe more) on the development of their own social network. Whilst the Google team do not call Google+ a social network, it’s a place where you can network and share ideas with like-minded people. I connect there with almost 20,000 people and it certainly feels like a social network – a darn good one, too! You can join me on Google+ here.

Social search: Recommendations from people you trust

Even if your prospective customers are not asking their networks for recommendations, it has never been easier for them to find what their friends recommend.

With the advent of Facebook’s social graph, you will soon be able to get that information extremely quickly. Twitter search and Google+ search are already there and make it simple to see what your friends recommend. The image below is a screen shot of what I saw, when I did a Google+ search, to see what business books were being recommended by people I know.

I trust this far more than a search result, which could well have been gamed.

social search

 

Social search: Focus shifts to quality

I believe that those who have been put off blogging, because they either lacked the inclination to publish regularly or the time / money to get their SEO ‘right’, should reconsider.

I suggest they change their approach, so that they focus on publishing useful blog posts, when they have something useful to share – then share it on their social networks. If they are writing something of value, their friends will share it with their friends and a subset of THEIR friends will share it…

Ironically, if enough of their friends link to it and share it, it may also do well in search engines. This is especially the case if you use basic SEO (and you should).

For WordPress bloggers, I recommend Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin. It gives you the freedom to write exclusively for humans, whilst making your work visible by getting the basics right.

Google doesn’t own your voice!

Google is just a company, a huge and influential company, but just a company. Don’t give them too much control over what you have to say. You own your voice – not Google.

  • Tell us who you are and what you know.
  • Tell us how you can help.
  • Answer our most pressing questions.
  • Become a valued online resource.

The search engines may or may not ‘rank’ all that value. However, people will. And it’s people, not Google, who hire you. That’s the magic of social search. It’s also the model I have used here since 2008 and it works extremely well.

Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why!

By Jim Connolly | April 28, 2013

What questions are you asking about your business, right now? The reason I ask, is that questions are a lot more important to the success of your business, than many people seem to think.

“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why!”

— Bernard Baruch.

Bad questions lead to bad answers

For example, the reason we see so much junk written on the Internet, is because millions of business owners ask themselves the same question: How can I increase traffic to my website?

In almost every case, what they need isn’t ‘traffic’, it’s income. However, because they set off trying to increase traffic, rather than increase their income, they write those generic, over-SEO’d, 500 word minimum, keyword-stuffed blog posts and articles we see everywhere.

Their bad question causes them to chase the wrong numbers, rather than attract the correct numbers. They then wonder why they get so few conversions. Stop writing for Google. Really. Stop it.

Ask better questions

If what you want to do is earn X amount over the next 12 months, stop asking yourself how to improve your traffic.

  • Focus on how to attract targeted readers, who have a potential need for your services or products.
  • Focus on how to earn the attention of prospective clients.
  • Focus on how to solve their problems.
  • Focus on how to become a more compelling writer.
  • Focus on building a community.
  • Focus on developing products or services, which your prospective clients will find useful.
  • Focus on building relationships with your reader community – rather than automating your social networking accounts.
  • Focus on a human approach to business.

This post should not have been published

By the way: If I focused on ‘how to build traffic’ to this blog, rather than how to build a targeted readership, I would never have written this post or many of my most popular posts.

Why? This post has too few words to keep search engines happy. It isn’t keyword optimised either. Also, the title of the post is unfriendly to search engines. Instead, I choose to write for humans. People read this blog and hire me, recommend me, call me, email me and make my business fun. Not search engines.

If you want better results, you need better answers.

If you want better answers, start by asking better questions.

PicMonkey Review

By Jim Connolly | April 27, 2013

PicMonkey Review Update

Since writing this PicMonkey review in 2013, I no longer recommend you use the service. I’ve since discovered that PicMonkey set up user accounts, so that money is automatically taken from their accounts at renewal time, despite the user not requesting this! PicMonkey also  started inserting advertisements into the app, even for paying customers. As a paid PickMonkey customer, the service is promised to be ad free. This was only removed after a user backlash. Please consider this when reading the following review. Such a pity that the potential of the service has been tainted this way.

Here’s my original PicMonkey review

Today, I want to recommend a wonderful, free resource to you. I’m talking about (drum roll please) the PicMonkey app!

picmonkey review

My PicMonkey review

In short, PicMonkey is a web based app you can use for free, to edit photos and create designs. However, that brief description does not do the app justice. Not even close.

PicMonkey has become an invaluable resource for my blogs and websites. Just to qualify that, since last winter, almost all the graphics you see on this blog were either created or edited using PicMonkey.

From Photoshop to PicMonkey

Previously, I used Adobe Photoshop to compress images, resize images, fix images and place text on images. Photoshop is one of the best pieces of software out there and has an almost endless number of great, professional features. However, for someone like me, who just needed to quickly make images for blog posts, using Photoshop was like using a Formula 1 car to go to the shops.

Picmonkey review

With PicMonkey, I can do everything I need in a fraction of the time. Also, because it’s web based, there’s no need to install (or buy) software for all my devices. I just visit the site and am working in seconds. This also means that it works fine on Windows, Mac and Linux.

How free is PicMonkey?

Some products offer a free version, which is either time-limited or so scaled down as to be of little real value. With PicMonkey, the majority of the features are available free of charge.

In many cases, people will upgrade, not because they need the premium features, but because they want to show their support for what is a superb service. I use it daily and have not found anything I have needed to do, which required a premium account.

picmonkey review

I can not recommend this amazing app highly enough. It’s fast, easy to use and a superb productivity tool. Give PicMonkey a try.

If you are a blogger, or want to make images for Facebook, Google+ etc, it could be just what you’re looking for.

Picmonkey review update

[If you skipped my update message at the top of this PicMonkey review, I no longer recommend the service to anyone. Please read the opening paragraph to see why.]

Talk is cheap

By Jim Connolly | April 25, 2013

Does your business have a slogan associated with it?

If it does, I have a question for you: How closely does that slogan reflect the reality of your business?

Words are easy

For example, the businesses in every niche claim to offer outstanding customer service, yet this is factually incorrect. If they really DID offer outstanding customer service, the fact they ALL offered it, means it would not stand out. It would be, by default, average. To be outstanding, they would need to crank it up a level (or more) higher than their competitors.

talk is cheap

Other business owners have slogans saying they; try harder, go the extra mile and care more – usually without even knowing how hard their competitors work, how dedicated their competitors are or how much their competitors care.

Making claims about how great we are is easy. It’s simple. It’s just words. It’s also largely ineffective because so many people are doing it. What’s needed is a different approach.

Action takes courage and effort

The smartest small business owners have already figured it out. They know that success comes from being so good, that their clients are the ones making the claims and doing all the talking. They build a business worth talking about, with a story worth sharing.

  • Average business owners try to get more word of mouth referrals, for an average service, which their clients are not telling people about.
  • The most successful business owners focus on being remarkable, so their clients remark (talk) about them.

It requires courage, creativity and effort to deliver an experience, which is so good that people want to talk about it. However, the rewards are huge.

What everybody needs to know about Value and Trust

By Jim Connolly | April 22, 2013

If you want to make more sales or attract more high quality clients, you need to understand the following marketing fact:

If a prospective client sees enough value in your service and they trust you to deliver it, they will buy from you!

Value or trust: Which is letting you down?

trust, value, promises, testimonials

If people are not buying whatever you have to offer, one of those two are letting you down. People either don’t see enough value or they see the value, but don’t trust you to deliver it.

So, lets take a look at the most common mistakes small business owners make, when it comes to value and trust.

Do they see enough value?

Small business owners usually struggle when it comes to value. They offer a service that looks too similar to their competitors and there is very little value, in being just another me too, provider. Not only do they make their business invisible, by camouflaging it among all the other me too providers, they attract fee sensitive clients too. When one service looks much like another, prospective clients use fee (or price) as a way to determine value.

It’s hard to sell anything, when it’s barely visible. Whatever service you provide, stop copying your competitors. Do it your way. Make yourself visible. Pump as much value into what you offer as you possibly can.

Do they feel enough trust?

Even if a prospective client sees value in what we offer, they need to trust that we will deliver on what we promised. At some point, we have all been let down by a product or service, which failed to do what we expected. This makes us sceptical about the promises and claims we see. As a result, your prospective clients and customers need reassuring. They want to see testimonials. They want to check you out on Google and find positive feedback about you. You need to proactively build trust all the time.

Here is the most common, trust-destroying mistake I see small business owners making: They claim they will offer an outstanding service, yet they charge a bargain basement fee. Many would massively increase the number of sales they make, if they would only increase their fees or prices. People are immediately suspicious, when they see our prices don’t match our lofty promises. It seems too good to be true. They sense something doesn’t quite stack up. You’ve lost them.

What every business owner needs to know about fear

By Jim Connolly | April 20, 2013

Fear is a major stumbling block for many business owners. It causes them to make decisions, which seriously sabotage their chances of success.

The business implications of fear

Here are just some of the ways that fear changes the decisions and actions of small business owners:

  • It causes them to do what’s safe, rather than do what’s right.
  • It causes them to stay predictable, rather than express their unique worth.
  • It causes them to join a group, rather than lead a group.
  • It causes them to watch, rather than ‘do’.
  • It causes them to look for excuses, rather than look for answers.
  • It causes them to set puny goals, rather than goals that inspire them.
  • It causes them to wonder ‘what if it fails?’, rather than ‘what if it works?‘
  • It causes them to blame others, rather than accept responsibility.
  • It causes them to prepare for failure, rather than plan for success.

Overcoming fear

Thankfully, the fears that stand between where we are and what we want to achieve, can be overcome. Once our fears are acknowledged, we can find and apply strategies to remove them.

NOTE: I give some tips and suggestions, in this article on overcoming fear, which I wrote on another site a few days ago.

How to build a better business with small daily decisions

By Jim Connolly | April 18, 2013

Today’s post is all about how small, daily improvements can help you build an outstanding business.

If you found toast dull and uninspiring, you wouldn’t have it for breakfast every day. You’d try something new. You’d mix things up a bit. The thing is, it’s easy to change what you have for breakfast. It’s just a small decision.

The value of small, daily decisions

Where people struggle is with the bigger decisions, like changing your business from one that’s under performing, to a business that excites and rewards you. However, achieving that goal doesn’t come from making one big decision – it’s the end result of lots of small, daily decisions.

The most successful business owners already know this, which is why they never feel overwhelmed.

Here’s where the connection with breakfast comes in: You see, just as you choose what type of breakfast to have every day, you choose what type of business you have every day, by the daily decisions you make. Progress comes from these small daily steps. Whilst there’s room for making huge decisions, it’s what we do on a daily basis, which directs the course of our business.

Daily decisions that shape your business

  • The people you decide to have as clients or customers, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The business ethics you adhere to, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The business advice you choose to take or ignore, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The fees or prices you charge, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The level of customer service you offer, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The way you handle late paying clients or customers, will shape how rewarding your business is.
  • The value you place on your own time, will shape how rewarding your business is.

Daily decisions

When we take a step back and look at our business with perspective, what we are looking at is the result of the daily decisions we make. If you are happy with what you see and the direction the business is heading in, then carry on as you are.

However, if you are not happy with the current state of your business or the direction it’s heading in, then start making small changes today. Little, daily changes to your decision making is all it takes to create an outstanding business.

Never fit your lifestyle around the restrictions of an under performing business – always increase the performance of your business, so it powers the lifestyle you want for your family and yourself. That’s what you deserve. Don’t settle for less.

Stop waiting for guarantees

By Jim Connolly | April 16, 2013

If you have an idea you’ve been thinking about putting into action, I’d like you to consider the following.

  • What if your idea became a huge success?
  • What if it were to be the start of a pivotal moment in your life?
  • What if it were to be all this, yet you failed to put the idea into play?

Negative influences

The world is full of people, telling us what we can’t do. They are often sincere and mean well, but we need to be smart enough not to confuse sincerity with accuracy. It’s possible to be sincerely wrong! So, it’s down to us to learn how to choose which voices we listen to and how to process the information we are given.

I was prompted to write this for you today, after being reminded of the following, wonderful quote:

“Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.” ~ James Baldwin.

No guarantee of success

Anything we achieve in life of significant value, comes with no guarantee of success. Think about it for a moment: Asking someone to marry you, starting a family, starting a business – none of these come with a guarantee and they are all of great importance.

Ironically, one of the few things in life we can guarantee, is that we will get nowhere if we insist on waiting for guarantees.

So, what are you waiting for?

Don’t wait for permission. Pick yourself. Take control. Accept responsibility. Do the research. Plan the work. Work the plan.

Let Leonardo da Vinci inspire your creativity

By Jim Connolly | April 15, 2013

On the anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday, I am reminded of something da Vinci said, which had a huge impact on me.

Today seems an appropriate time to share it with you.

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci,  Notebook I

Creativity, ideas and answers

As small business owners, we are regularly presented with challenges and opportunities, which require our creativity. In many cases, we come up short because our creative muscles let us down. The thing is, whilst we are all born creative, as we grow up we seem to use our creativity less. Then, when we are faced with a situation that demands creativity, we’re less prepared than we could be.

As children, we gave our creativity a thorough workout every day. We painted, wrote stories, built with blocks, played with action figures, drew, acted in school productions, danced and played with musical instruments.

Then, we grow up

We become young adults and consider all that childhood stuff, childish. So, we become sensible. We acquire responsibilities and act responsibly. The challenge is, as Leonardo da Vinci said, inaction of the mind seems to drain it of its vigour and vitality. As a result, these super creative children grow up and become adults, who decide they’re not creative – simply because it’s been so long since they embraced their creativity!

Reconnect with your creativity, starting now

The great news is that you were born creative and your creativity is there, right now, for you to reignite and grow. What’s more, I can help you and it won’t cost you a penny!

As long time readers will know, I am passionate about helping people reconnect with their creativity and become as creative as they possibly can. Because of this, I built a free creative thinking website (not a blog), which is packed with creative thinking ideas, videos, articles and tips for you to use: You can visit it here. I hope you find it useful.

WordPress botnet attack: Improve your security

By Jim Connolly | April 13, 2013

If you have a WordPress blog or website, it’s important that you improve your security, as soon as possible. This post explains why and offers some tips to make your WordPress site safer and gives you links to 2 free security tools you can use.

WordPress botnet attack

Wordpress botnet, username password, distributed attack

Hosting companies worldwide are reporting a surge in attacks on WordPress sites right now. It was reported yesterday that a botnet, with an estimated 90,000 servers (and growing), is trying to log into WordPress sites by cycling different usernames and passwords.

Ars Technica reported today, that this ‘huge attack’ could create a botnet like we have never seen before. My security provider, Sucuri, (affiliate link) says the number of attacks has increased by almost 300% in just a few weeks.

(UPDATE) This free online tool from Sucuri, will check if your blog has been attacked. It also shows you if you’re using the latest version of WordPress and if your site has been blacklisted. You will see your results in seconds. Simply enter the address of your blog.

WordPress botnet: What to do

As this attack seems to use brute force to cycle through usernames and passwords, I suggest you beef up your log in security, by adding a WordPress plugin. This will block anyone from accessing your site if they attempt more than a certain number of failed log ins. The plugin I use is called Limit Login Attempts and is available for free, from The WordPress Repository.

By default, WordPress allows people unlimited log in attempts. This means botnets can target your website / blog with hundreds or thousands of different user name and password combinations. By limiting log in attempts to just a handful, you make it significantly harder for this type of attack to happen. (Update) Whilst this may help and is a good idea against general attacks, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has suggested that ‘log in throttling’ plugins may not be of much help with this specific attack.

Change your WordPress username from admin

I also suggest you change your WordPress user name from ‘admin’. Admin is the default WordPress user name and sites using it are massively easier to break into, because only the password needs to be hacked.

If you’re not sure how to change your WordPress username, there is a step by step guide here. You can also go to YouTube and search for: ‘Change WordPress username’. There are lots of videos showing exactly what you need to do. It’s very simple, takes just a little time and improves your security significantly.

Update your WordPress software and plugins

It’s important to make sure you’re running the most recent version of WordPress. New versions of WordPress often contain security updates, which will protect you from attacks that target older versions of the software. Before you update WordPress, it’s a good idea to back up your data first.

Make sure your plugins are up to date too. Out of date software is easier to hack and newer versions often provide additional security, which patches holes found in older versions.

Update your WordPress blog themes

If you use a blog theme, make sure that it’s up to date. It’s also important to either update or delete OLD blog themes, as these inactive themes can still be used to get into a site. Before updating your blog theme, remember to back up your data first.

These are just some of the things you can do, for free, which will make your site safer. With such an increase in WordPress botnet attacks right now, it makes sense to take some time as soon as you can, to improve your security.

News regarding this attack

VentureBeat: WordPress admin accounts target of botnet attacks.

TechCrunch: Hackers Point Large Botnet At WordPress Sites.

The Verge: Massive botnet using brute force attack to target WordPress sites.

UPDATE: WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg released some advice from his blog:

Here’s what I would recommend: If you still use “admin” as a username on your blog, change it, use a strong password, if you’re on WP.com turn on two-factor authentication, and of course make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest version of WordPress. Do this and you’ll be ahead of 99% of sites out there and probably never have a problem. Most other advice isn’t great — supposedly this botnet has over 90,000 IP addresses, so an IP limiting or login throttling plugin isn’t going to be great (they could try from a different IP a second for 24 hours).

How to get the attention of prospective clients and motivate them to take action

By Jim Connolly | April 11, 2013

Here are 2 essential areas to focus on, if you want to attract the attention of prospective clients and inspire them to take action.

Once you have improved your listening skills, it’s time to invest in the following.

Good communication, presentation

1: Have something worth saying

If you want to get your voice heard by your marketplace, you need to have something interesting to say. If you’re saying pretty much the same as your competitors, your voice fails to stand out. You become camouflaged, among everyone else offering a similar message.

Everything you do in order to fit in, will stop you from standing out. Show us who you are. Tell us what you know.

2: Say it well

A great message, poorly delivered, seldom achieves much.

Think of it like this: A perfectly targeted shot at goal that lacks enough power, will still miss the target. That’s why we need to invest the time required, to master the art of communication – So our message hits the spot.

We can ether write content or we can write compelling, inspirational content. We can either speak to prospective clients or we can speak to prospective clients with confidence, clarity and impact.

Common sense?

The first time I heard that message, ‘have something worth saying and say it well’, was from my mentor, Jim Rohn. I remember thinking at the time, ‘this is just basic common sense’.

That was over 25 years ago. I’ve learned since that these basics of effective communication are anything but common. In fact, they are so rare that those willing to master them, can achieve uncommon success.

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Hi! I'm Jim Connolly and I help small business owners to increase sales, boost their profits and build amazing businesses. Read more here.

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