Jim Connolly Marketing

The difference is huge. No. Bigger than that

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creative marketing, small business, Jim Connolly

You can tell a massive amount about a business by looking at its client list.

  • When you look at successful small businesses, you’ll find they are very selective regarding who they choose as clients.
  • When you look at the typical small business, you find their clients choose them!

The difference?

When you are selective regarding who you accept as a client, you get to work with people who value you and what you do. You get to work on projects that inspire you. You get paid on time, every time. You also do your best work under these conditions, resulting in happier clients and more referrals.

Plus, because birds of a feather flock together, the referrals from these high-value clients are likely to be high-value too.

When you are less selective, you end up with too many low-value clients. Too many bland projects. Too many past due invoices. Too few referrals. 

Whilst it may be tempting to accept whichever clients come along, there’s no medium or longer-term benefit. Yes, if you’re 30 days away from not being able to pay the rent, take it. But get selective as soon as you can.

How do you attract the best clients for your business?

I’m glad you asked.

Go deep and narrow

Focus on the very best prospective clients. And only focus on a limited number. In other words, build a list of fantastic prospective clients, which is deep enough for you to be able to study. You can then get to know more about them and what’s important to them.

How narrow? If you would smash your current revenues, profits and general growth goals with 20 more fantastic clients, focus your efforts on 40.

Targeting

Target your marketing, so that it reaches the right people. Use your inner Sherlock Holmes to discover who your ideal prospective clients are.

Okay. You don’t need to be Sherlock.

Simply use your preferred search/answer engine and look for clients who get great reviews from their own clients or customers. There’s often some valuable clues there. Also, do a bit of digging in the social platforms their industry tends to use.

Be just what they wanted

Next, craft your marketing messaging, so that it’s exactly what your ideal profile of client wants to hear. If at all possible, don’t use AI to copywrite your marketing messaging. If you do use AI, get someone who knows more about marketing than you, to review it. AI is okay(ish) for content, but ineffective for copywriting, which is a lot trickier.

Note: You’re not saving money by refusing to pay a local copywriter a few hundred dollars to write this properly.

Finally: Provide the substance

Our prospective clients are a lot less trusting than they used to be. It makes sense. We live in the age of fake news, deep fakes and amazing AI images. Any service provider can claim anything and look the part, too.

This is why it’s essential to provide substance to any promises and/or claims made in our marketing. We can be sure that before any prospect decides to contact you, they will do a degree of research first. This has always been important.

But in 2026 it’s essential.

Keeping it real

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creative marketing, Jim Connolly, keep it real

Today, I have some useful ideas to help you attract more prospective clients or customers and turn them into ACTUAL clients or customers.

You’ll love this!

Yes, marketing really is dead

You want to get noticed by the right people and convert them into clients. Now that traditional marketing is dead, you need a different approach. I’ve offered lots of advice on what to do, in this article: marketing is dead. If you haven’t read that yet, I strongly recommend you do.

Here’s another creative marketing strategy you can use, to build a more successful business.

It’s all about keeping it real.

Until recently, small business owners battled to get noticed, by looking as polished, big and successful as possible.

They’d (usually) get the best website they could afford. They’d learn how to use pre-AI Canva or another app, to build social platform templates, so their posts looked sharp.

Today, everyone can automate all that, for free or peanuts. Plus, you can have the content written for you, and have as much content published as you want, as often as you want. Just set it up and forget it.

So, we have lots of polished, sharp-looking small businesses out there, posting their content as often as possible.

This is where the keeping it real strategy comes in. 

By keeping it real, we look and sound authentic. Real is honest. And it’s a lot easier to earn trust from your prospects, when they feel you’re honest. 

It’s also easier to attract your prospect’s attention, when you differentiate from the cookie-cutter masses.

What does keeping it real look like?

Your version of real will be different from mine. However, you may find this useful as an example. As longtime readers will know, I have done things my own way for decades and never followed the crowd.

Such as.

I’ve never published on a schedule. I’ve had periods where I’ve published five times a week. Other times I’ve publish once a month. And I never had a set time or day to publish. As long as I thought people would find it useful, I’d publish.

I get offered money from advertisers all the time and have always refused. I prefer readers to know there’s no hidden agenda. I don’t write for advertisers. I write for you.

I’ve never had or needed a LinkedIn account. There’s nothing wrong with LinkedIn. I just have a wonderful network of amazing people.

I often not only reply to readers of my newsletter who ask me questions. I sometimes have a Zoom with them, if it’s appropriate. I love people. I love helping. It’s the way I’m wired.

More recently, I’ve started to use the scraps of paper that I write newsletter titles on, as the images for my newsletter. Previously, these were binned as soon as I decided on a title.

I’ve also used photos of the ever-changing walls of my studio. I used this one most recently here.

In 2016, when I discovered I was battling vision loss, I published it in my newsletter and on my blog. Yes, that might have stopped some people from working with me. I preferred that to hiding something important. My eyes have been fine now, with no treatment, for almost 2-years.

What about you?

Here are a few ideas you may want to run with. I’ve used all of these successfully.

Big value. Less often

Create something of substance (video, audio, newsletter, article, whatever) for your prospective clients, which they will find useful. Allow your personality to shine through it.

A chunk of useful information is a lot more attractive and valuable, than blitzing social media with quotes or other low-effort content.

Focus on your next 50 clients

If you’re an accountant, lawyer, trainer or consultant, etc., and you work locally to your clients, focus only on connecting with 50 prospects you’d love to serve. Remember, your goal is to build a client list. Not ‘likes’ from a drive-by audience. 

One way I have made this work for my clients, is to create a zine. They are great fun to do, people love them and often share them. Oh, and your competitors aren’t using them!

Publish your process

Consider publishing your process. This is better known today as showing your work. Creatives tend to be the only people who do this. But it works in many industries. You simply take photos or videos of parts of your working day, and add some text or audio for context.

Giving your prospects a behind-the-scenes look at your business may sound dull to you. However, it gives prospects a powerful way to identify with you. Not all of them. But the ones who DO identify with you are highly likely to become clients.

New to the newsletter?

I’ve seen a huge surge in new subscribers recently. If you’re one of them, or you have missed my most recent newsletters, here they are.

The stupid game: https://jimsmarketingblog.com/2026/07/13/the-stupid-game/

Traditional marketing is dead: https://jimsmarketingblog.com/2026/07/27/traditional-marketing-is-dead/

Get creative: Let others market your business for free: https://jimsmarketingblog.com/2026/08/07/creative-marketing-3/

Sign your work. Grow your business: https://jimsmarketingblog.com/2026/08/17/creative-marketing-sign-your-work/

Make this an amazing day!

Sign your work. Grow your business

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creative marketing, sign your work, creative thinking, Jim Connolly,

Struggling artists sign their work.

Successful artists also sign their work. But they sign it twice. I believe you should sign your work twice, too.

Allow me to explain.

Artists who struggle to sell their work throughout their career, sign their work by writing their signature on it.

Artists whose work sells for fortunes do the same. However, their work already carries their signature, before they sign it.

Their signature is a blend of things. Including their brushwork, subject matter, lighting or recurring themes/motifs they use. Maybe it’s an unusual technique or visual approach. Or a combination of other things that make their work identifiable as their own.

In short: their work is distinctively theirs.

Your second signature

The same is true in business.

Every small business has a signature. The name of the business, the company name or a trading name, etc.

Only successful small businesses have a second signature: something they created, with a unique blend of what they offer and how they offer it. And like successful artists, this sets their work apart from the masses.

It’s always been like this.

A tiny minority of small business owners in every industry, choose to set themselves apart. These are the providers who successfully charge the highest fees. They can do this, because their clients happily pay a premium for the provider’s signature differences.

That same opportunity is open to you, today. It’s creative marketing, so it doesn’t cost you anything, either.

And if you choose to take it, you’ll get another two life-changing benefits.

  1. Your clients will remain with you for longer. When your second signature is effective enough, clients won’t look for a better provider. If they do, they won’t find one.
  2. Your clients will also tell all their friends. In 2026, this is more important than ever before.

So, create that second signature.

Sign your work with it.

You’ll start to quickly attract the most profitable, highest paying clients. They will stay with you for far, far longer. And they will tell everyone about you.

As I pointed out in my previous article, one of the best forms of creative marketing is to get other people to market your business for free.

Why this should matter to you

Your prospective clients now face an endless deluge of AI marketing content from strangers and AI bots. It’s in their email, their LinkedIn account, their text messages, their social platform feeds, their forums and bot calls on their phones.

Because of this, your prospects rely more than ever on friends, family, groups and others they trust.

This second signature opportunity is a proven, powerful way to have trusted people recommend your business to everyone.

And like all my marketing ideas, it costs nothing or almost nothing.

It makes no sense, logically, to ignore the potential. Emotionally, there are a hundred things we can tell ourselves, which make us reject a business opportunity. But we only need one reason to go for it.

I bet you can think of at least one, outstanding reason to put this idea into play.

Traditional marketing is dead

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marketing is dead, creative growth, Jim Connolly

What we all knew as marketing, is dead.

It was designed for a world that no longer exists.

It’s no longer fit-for-purpose.

Here’s a perfect example of how vastly over-saturated marketing has become and how difficult it is to get noticed.

Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the world’s leading experts in social media marketing. Back in April of this year, Gary told an audience what his 30 person team was doing, to optimize their social media marketing. He said that the day before the event, his team:

‘… published 412 pieces of content, across 10 platforms, and 81 different social media handles‘. Remember, Gary knows every marketing trick, tactic and strategy in the book. And less than a year ago, Gary was recommending 100 pieces of content a day.

Back when I discovered Gary, he was posting just 4 or 5 times a week on YouTube and using Twitter. Yet millions of us knew him, worldwide.

Traditional marketing is dead

AI has provided us with the ability to produce as much content as we want. It will also publish it for us, so we can mass produce, with close to no effort. As a result, every day, millions of people are producing billions of pieces of content between them. This number is growing daily.

Traditional marketing can no longer force its way through.

That’s why I am going to show you how to achieve spectacular results, using a Creative Growth tactic.

Long live Creative Growth

Creative Growth is about creatively growing your business, boosting sales, revenues and profits, by attracting the right clients or customers. It’s about focusing on fewer tactics, and focusing in a less obvious, more creative way.

The Creative Growth tactic I’m showing you today, has no connection with the noise and nonsense out there. It’s a detailed look at a creative way to grow your business, which I have only mentioned very briefly before.

Let’s start with a question.

Did you know that you can make a year’s worth of high profit sales, simply by focusing on attracting a tiny number of influential contacts?

Tiny number?

Yes. If you’re a service provider, it could be as few as two!

However, these need to be influential contacts.

Here’s how this tactic works.

Let’s pretend you’re a graphic designer

And you want to grow your design business 200% over the next 12-months.

The senior partner of a large accountancy practice really likes your work. So, they recommend you to all their clients. Their clients who use your services loved your work. They then thanked the senior partner for recommending you. Naturally, the senior partner carries on recommending you.

That one, influential contact has the trust of 800 business owners. Their trusted recommendation lands powerfully, with high conversion rates. This could easily provide you with enough new clients, to smash your target. And provide you with lots more clients, over time, on repeat recommendations.

To make this happen, you switch from traditional marketing (marketing your services to thousands of individual prospects, who don’t know you or have any reason to trust you) to Creative Growth (identifying, and connecting with 1 influential person, who is trusted by 800 prospects).

All the time you remain focused on traditional marketing, you’ll miss out on amazing results like this.

Next step: Here’s how to get those influential contacts AND earn their trust.

Identifying the right, influential people

This part is easy.

You always start by asking yourself this question: Who is already trusted by a large number of my ideal prospects?

This will help you get started.

You often find that the most trusted people are those who provide expert advice. For example, accountants, lawyers, medical professionals, financial advisors, business consultants and business leaders.

Depending on your ideal prospect, trusted people could be those who are famous. Sports stars, musicians, actors, authors, TV stars and DJs.

That’s just to get you thinking. Do some research based on your business and ideal client or customer profile.

Earning trust and how to connect

This is not as easy as the previous step.

Influential people often encounter selfish individuals who are after something. The more influential a person is, the more often they are targeted. Understandably, this means they’re sensitive to outreach from strangers. So, even though our motives are good, we need to be patient. And give them time to see for themselves that we’re trustworthy.

An exception here, is if you already know someone who is trusted by the influential person you want to connect with.

Earning trust is about giving freely, over a period of time.

For instance, in 2011, music legend Nile Rodgers told his Twitter followers that he would be coming to London, for the UK launch of is autobiography. We had ‘tweeted’ occasionally with each other for about 18-months. Anyhow, I sent him a direct message with my phone number, said I would be at the launch and to call if he needed any help.

It turned out he did, and it was something I was able to assist with. We became friends. Had I hardly known him, it’s unlikely we would have connected the way we did.

What’s the best way to reach influential people?

For the past 20-years, based on the success of my clients and my own success, the best tool for the job by far is social media.

This is especially the case if you are hoping to connect with extremely influential people.

How do you earn trust, by ‘giving freely’ on social media?

Start by taking the list of influential people you created earlier.

Then use the search function to locate them on your app. If they are on the app, check how recently they posted anything.

Tip: also check how recently they replied to someone. On the Threads app, X app and other apps, it’s not uncommon for people to post rarely, but be very active in the replies section.

If they are active, follow their account.

Then spend time looking at what they have recently posted. You’ll get some insight into what they’re interested in, etc.

Next, when appropriate, look for ways to contribute something useful or helpful to one of their posts/replies. Keep it positive. Don’t push them or get too friendly too fast. Don’t reply to everything they post. Slowly become one of those people who often engages with them.

At this point you’re connected. Try to maintain a cadence with them.

Finally, when enough time has passed, and an opportunity arises from something they’ve said, where you can provide them with help, reach out. Similar to what I did with Nile.

And what’s the best social platform?

X (Twitter) gives direct access to influential people in every walk of life. It’s where the majority of my clients, and myself, get the best results.

Some people find LinkedIn works very well for them. So, it could be just what you need. Again, it depends on the profile of influential people you want to connect with.

In closing

Spend some time pondering Creative Growth. It’s different. So is the approach required and the results.

It is definitely too different for some people. They’ve told me they’re concerned about the risk of not doing things the way they’ve always done them.

It’s a natural human reaction, when we’re confronted with change. And we all deal with it differently.

I hope you’ve found this look at one of my Creative Growth tactics useful. If you did, forward it to a friend.

The stupid game

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get noticed, marketing, AI

You want to get noticed in a non-stop world. Great! I’m going to show you how to get started.

First, I want to share something weird with you.

Did you know that using AI on a task as simple as writing a pretend essay, can negatively impact your brain?

Here’s some background. Plus, why a less mentioned side of AI, contributes to all the look-a-like junk out there… and how YOU can cut through it!

The weird

A scientific study at MIT, scanned the brains of volunteers in a simple test. One group of volunteers was asked to use ChatGPT to help them write an essay. Another group was asked to write the essay without AI. 

Despite how simple the task was, the EEG scans of those using AI for the task showed poorer judgement, reduced brain engagement and memory loss, where they couldn’t remember key parts of their essay.

All of that came from one, easy, zero pressure task.  

Now imagine a business owner, using AI regularly across stressful, important, commercial tasks. Such as: strategy development, strategic planning, project notes, reports for clients, marketing copy, advertising, graphic design, social content. 

I know many, many businesses that rely on AI for all or most of the above. And many more, who rely so heavily on AI, that almost every written word they publish is AI or AI, plus light, human editing. 

The ‘voice’ of businesses like these have been silenced, or are being silenced. Very little human input. No uniqueness. HUMAN SLOP!

Nothing to see, worth seeing.

Nothing to read, worth reading.

Nothing to say, worth hearing.

Why does that even matter? Because our uniqueness is all you and I have!

The stupid game

Everyone’s trying to find the perfect social platform for them to make a big impact.

Everyone’s convinced they need a personal brand, when all that does is make them even less visible. These people conform to a predictable, personal branding recipe. They emerge somewhat synthetic. Lacking their uniqueness. Camouflaged.

Everyone’s using AI.

Everyone’s trying to beat the algorithm.

Everyone’s attempting to create the best prompts.

Everyone’s testing hashtags.

Everyone’s optimizing their content, their photos, their marketing copy, their subject lines, their titles, their message, their timings for mailings, articles and posts.

Everyone’s trying to get noticed… just like everyone else.

Thankfully

Some people are cutting through that cheap, nasty, unhealthy noise.

And they’re actually getting noticed. Ironically, that’s the very thing the busy, directionless, confused masses are working tirelessly to achieve.

How are those people getting noticed?

By refusing to play the stupid game.

Instead.

  • They embrace organic. They make space for analogue. As in, face-to-face human interactions.
  • They refuse to become part of the nonsense, which causes human slop.
  • They keep their minds sharp, by using them.
  • They publish or post when they have something to contribute. Something useful. Something they created.
  • They focus on people. Not algorithms.
  • They build systems for their business, not prompts for their AIs.

You are enough.

And the more people playing the stupid game, the more visible you become.

Just by being YOU. And letting the right people learn who YOU are.

Make AI grow your business

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AI grow your business, beat AI, small business AI, AI marketing

If you work as a consultant or advisor, and your business isn’t growing like crazy, you’re probably selling the wrong thing.

However, with a shift of focus, you can make AI greatly increase the value of your services AND drive up demand.

This will sound weird, but it isn’t. 18-years ago, I built a service that’s not only AI-proof. AI is making it increasingly valuable.

Here’s what this means to you and your business in June 2026 (and for years to come).

Your AI opportunity

I’ve written quite a bit over the past few years, about the impact of AI on small marketing agencies. The services these agencies offered, included; SEO, copywriting, AdWords, social media marketing, content marketing, graphic design, ad buying, flyers, social media management, marketing plans, etc.

For a few years now, all those services have been offered faster, cheaper (or for free), by AI providers. As a result, small and medium-sized marketing providers suffered massively.

The same problem impacts almost every type of business consulting. Including consultants in management, strategy, SEO, branding, productivity, systems design, PR, HR, business development, operations, compliance… you get the idea.

Here’s the thing: your prospects are up to their eyeballs in low-quality information, telling them how to do what you currently charge people for.

Your prospects need something different

What your prospects urgently need is.

  • Your expert judgement.
  • Your industry experience and expertize.
  • Your ability to stop the information overload that’s paralyzing their decision-making and costing them in lost time and missed opportunities.
  • Your decision-making.
  • Your emotionally-intelligent support.
  • Your proven ability to guide them in the right direction.
  • Your skin in the game. They know AI takes zero responsibility for its frequent, expensive mistakes.

In short: without you, all the information your prospects are drowning in is worthless and stressful.

How I solved this problem 18-years ago

When I created my Marketing Mentor program, it was intentionally designed to provide everything a client needed to get the results they want. This included all the support they need.

Not most of it.

Not some of it.

ALL of it.

From day one this has included unlimited access to me. It’s always been built around their unique situation, resources, needs and wants. And it’s always included explaining why (and how) they will benefit from each idea I share with them. They always have the full picture, because I always provide total clarity.

They benefit from my expertize and my experience. I help with their decision-making. And I work alongside them to implement everything. I don’t give them an idea, explain it and leave them to it. We make it work.

You and YOUR business

Friend: that’s the type of service I recommend you to offer.

Why?

Because that’s a fully-complete service with massively valuable benefits, which AI simply cannot provide.

It’s a service where demand increases, as more and more of your prospects switch to AI.

It will allow you to benefit from AI the way I do, rather than watch AI ruin your business.

If you want to know more about the Marketing Mentor program click here.

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com