Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips & ideas to help you grow your business, by Jim Connolly

Page 91 of 172

Keep on: Pass it on!

Keep on

  • Cash flow looks like it could be a real problem next month.  Speak with someone who knows how to fix it.  But keep on!
  • The last person you gave a presentation to didn’t buy.  Give a better presentation to a better prospect next time.  But keep on!
  • Your last newsletter or blog post flopped.  Write another one that’s better.  But keep on!
  • Your product or service is not generating enough inquiries.  Improve your message.  But keep on!
  • Traffic to your site is down or growing way too slowly.  Study the data and adjust.  But keep on!
  • Your next event doesn’t have enough people booked.  Review your message and make it more attractive.  But keep on!
  • You told someone about your new idea and they told you it would fail.  Ask them why, determine if it’s valid. If it is, adjust.  But keep on!

Someone you know really needs to hear this message right now.

Pass it on and make a difference!

Photo: theps.net

May 27, 2011 /

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees

This is part 1 of a 3 part series. Links to part 2 and 3 are at the end of the post.

I have a question for you:

If your business was perfect in every way, what would it look like?

If part of the answer includes; “I would work with great people on exciting projects and for the best fees in the industry” — You will love today’s post!

Everyone in business is a problem solver

Think about it and you quickly realise that every business exists, to solve at least 1 problem.  The bigger the problem, the fewer people there are who can solve it, and the more money they can charge for providing the answer.  That’s why the person who solves the problem “who can clean my car?” earns less, than the person who solves the problem, “who can fly me to London by end of business today?”

Why this matters to you

How many other businesses in your marketplace, can solve the same problem as you?

Quite a few, right?

So, why not consider increasing your value, by developing a uniquely valuable service?

Consider becoming the person in your niche, who not only solves problems, BUT solves them in a more remarkable way than anyone else.  Make doing business with you as interesting and rewarding for clients as possible.  If you do, there’s an extremely good chance:

  • You will attract more clients.
  • Earn more.
  • Develop fantastic client relationships.
  • Retain clients for longer.
  • Generate tons of word-of-mouth referrals.
  • And make the business of business a lot more fun too!

Interesting businesspeople are attractive.  They stand out.  We talk about them for all the right reasons.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees part 2.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees part 3.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Photo: kevindooley

May 27, 2011 /

Are you an entrepreneur or a freelancer?

A reader contacted me earlier.  He referred to himself as an entrepreneur.  He said that he designed graphics for websites.  I asked him what would happen to his income, if he didn’t show up for work for the next 6 months.  He said he wouldn’t make any money.

He isn’t an entrepreneur; he’s a freelancer.  People pay him in exchange for his time and that’s how he makes money.

An entrepreneur is different

An entrepreneur makes money whilst she is at the gym or walking her dog.  Her business is bigger than she is.  Her business has independent value.

Many people who refer to themselves as an entrepreneur are actually freelancers.  Where things start to get interesting for the freelancer, is when they realise this and develop ways to make money, which are not linked to the number of hours they work.  This approach scales beautifully.  It’s limitations are capped only by the limitations of your imagination.

I challenge you to think like an entrepreneur

Think of something, like this great audio product, which YOU could produce and make money from whilst you’re doing something else.  Once you do, I promise you will never look at making money in the same way again.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

May 26, 2011 /

Massively increase your success rate with this 1 great idea

Have you ever had a great idea, which you dropped because people told you you were wrong?

  • The Twitter development team were wrong to build a site, where you can only post 140 character messages. Tweets are way too short.
  • Steve Jobs was wrong to launch the iPad, which is a premium priced product, during one of the worst economies in modern history.  It’s just too expensive.
  • The Groupon team were wrong to build a billion dollar email marketing business.  Email is dead.

The wrong way to get it right

When someone doesn’t have your vision, they will look at what you are doing and tell you that you are wrong.  The thing is, their lack of understanding can’t be the compass you use, to determine the direction of your business.  That’s because they will tell you that you are wrong, even when you are right; purely because they can’t see it or they don’t get it .

If you have done your research and you believe something is right, you need to go and build it.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Photo: KungPaoCajun

May 26, 2011 /

Stop imagining and start experiencing!

Imagine this for a moment…

  • No more wondering how much potential your business really has.
  • No more confusion regarding the marketing and development of your business.  Just clarity.
  • No more mistaking activity for progress.
  • No more wasting your time or money on ineffective marketing.
  • No more being on your own, when it comes to the development of your business.

Stop imagining it and start experiencing it

You work hard and deserve to see the rewards for all that commitment.  I want to help you.  Allow me to quickly explain.

So far this year, I have offered just one new place on my marketing program.  New places are rare and fill fast, because working with me, one-to-one, on the development of your business gives you a unique opportunity.  When people work with me:

  • You get to attract clients and client inquiries.  This means people buy from you. You don’t have to sell.  Ever.
  • You get to pick the exact type of client you work with.  This means you can build a massively valuable client list.
  • You get to market your services based on value, not cost.  This means no more working for fee-sensitive clients.
  • You get to increase the value of your services.  This means you become far more attractive to prospective clients.
  • You get to control the path of your business growth.  This means you can plan ahead with peace of mind.

So, why am I talking about this right now, when places are so rare?

It’s because today, I am opening up 3 (yes three) new places on my extremely popular Marketing Program!  To find out more about this amazing opportunity for your business, simply use the form below.  (If you are reading this via email, click here to see the form.)

I will happily answer any questions you have.  To avoid missing out, be sure to get in touch as soon as possible.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

May 25, 2011 /

Here is some biased advice for your business

Biased advice has always had a bad reputation.

Common knowledge tells us that unbiased advice is best.

Common knowledge is wrong.

If I hire an advisor, I want her to give me biased advice: Pro-me, biased advice.  Yes, I want independent advice, based on her expert conclusions and not because she is being paid to push a certain product or service as the answer, however, I want her to look out for my interests.

When you tell me your advice is unbiased, I’m not sure whose side you are on!

If you currently offer unbiased advice in your marketing, why not consider this.  Think about offering prospective clients independent advice, which is based around their unique needs and what’s best for them.

Jump off the fence and plant your flag firmly on their side.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Photo: Mykl Roventine

May 24, 2011 /

The secret to getting YOUR voice heard

Just as shouting loudly for too long will cause you to lose your voice, blogging for traffic can do the same.

Focusing on traffic (numbers) ahead of people, will influence what you say and how you say it.  The challenge with that approach is that it’s hard to get your voice heard, when it’s simply part of the noise created by all the other people, saying the same things.

Yes, if your business model is based on how many page impressions you can create, it may be a useful strategy.  This is not the case for 99.9% of people though.  Our success is linked to the relationships we build with the PEOPLE behind those traffic numbers.  This means allowing your readers to connect with you.

The numbers

If I were to write posts here just for “the numbers,” this blog would cover far fewer subjects and read very similar to every other traffic focused, marketing blog.  I would be trying to tie in my blog posts to recent news events.  I would also jump on every new social media bandwagon and blog about it.  I would regularly have to use infographics. I would bore the shit out of you, talking about the latest crazes on Twitter.

That approach may attract traffic to this site, however, those people would leave just as fast as they arrived.  Why?  Because there are thousands of sites already writing those posts. I would lose my voice in all that noise.

Amplifying your voice

What gives you your voice, is your ability to share what you think.

  • Your thoughts
  • Your words
  • Your opinions
  • Your insights

The irony here, is that it is the people with the least generic approach to blogging, who often have the largest and most engaged readerships.  These are the blogs we share and link to the most often, because they have something interesting to say.  Those links (sometimes called inlinks or back links), are the single biggest factor in the volume of traffic a site gets from search engines.

By blogging about our area of expertise or professional interest, using out own voice, we are far more likely to motivate people to want to share what we have to say and link to it too. This is a very liberating message, for those who connect with what it means!

If you want to build a great community of readers and prospective clients, have something worth saying and say it well.  Say it in your own voice and give yourself permission to be human.  That’s what makes you unique.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Photo: walknboston

May 23, 2011 /

OK: This is just not good enough!

Great marketing and an OK service is not enough, if you want to grow a successful business.

Think of it like this.  Imagine you see some snazzy marketing, which inspires you to buy something.  Then, when you use it, you find that it’s not as good as the marketing suggests.  It’s OK at best.  Below average maybe.

You are not happy. You feel like you have been duped.

What do you do?

  • You may seek a refund.
  • You may blog about how it failed to meet your expectations.
  • You may tell your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc, how the product failed you.

What wouldn’t you do?

  • You wouldn’t buy from that company again.
  • You wouldn’t give them permission to market to you again.
  • You wouldn’t recommend their product to your family or friends.

Here’s the thing: No matter how good the marketing is, if the product or service behind it is just OK, you set a very low ceiling on the potential of your business.

When I start working with a new client, one of the first things I work on with them, is how to transform their product or service into something that’s of unique value.  We look for refinements and improvements, which will be of genuine value to their prospective clients.  As a result, their marketing messages become massively more attractive and their clients want to tell the world how much they love the service they receive.

It may take less thought to bring yet another OK service to the marketplace, but the return is very poor.  That’s because your prospective clients are not looking for an OK service.  Even if some of them are, most of your competitors are already providing an average service, which is why they are competing against each other based on prices or fees.  When competing providers offer an OK service, prospective clients use prices or fees to determine the best value.  That’s why I get my clients out of that fee-sensitive loop FAST, regardless of their industry or profession.

Offer more unique value than your competitors.  Get as far away from average as you possibly can.

That’s where the best clients, highest fees and most rewarding work is.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Photo: volante

May 22, 2011 /

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Marketing tips & ideas to help you grow your business, by Jim Connolly