Jim Connolly

Stop competing for business. Seriously. Stop it

July 18, 2018 by Jim Connolly

In most industries, there’s no shortage of providers. Quite the opposite. There’s a surplus.

There’s way too much choice. And that’s why it’s so competitive.

Imagine this

Tomorrow morning at 9am, all your competitors decide to quit. They literally cease trading. Leaving their clients with no option, but to hire you.

As a business owner, this would present you with a huge opportunity. With no more competition, you would be able to cherry-pick the very best clients. You could choose to only work with clients who are happy to pay a premium fee for a high quality service. You could decide to only work with clients, who gave you the freedom to do your best work.

You’d be free to do things your way.

Now imagine this

Tomorrow morning at 9am, all of your competitors carry on as usual.

If you still decide to cherry-pick the very best clients. To offer a premium service for a premium fee. To only work with clients who give you the freedom to do your best work. To do things your way… you will still have no competition (or very, very little).

Competition is a mindset.

How to achieve more than ever, by doing less

July 16, 2018 by Jim Connolly

One of the best kept secrets in business, is something I call reduction. It’s a strategy I share with my clients and today, I’m going to share some of it with you.

Less can be more

Ineffective business owners strive to do more and more. They focus on productivity hacks, growth hacks, life hacks and short-cuts. As an unavoidable result, they become increasingly busy, increasingly stressed and increasingly frustrated.

The most effective business owners use a different approach. They’ve discovered that the biggest wins come from doing fewer things. Less is more.

For example:

Fewer unfinished projects, equals more clarity.
Fewer social media interruptions, equals more focus.
Fewer repeated errors, equals more progress.
Fewer dodged decisions, equals more respect.
Fewer missed deadlines, equals more trust.
Fewer hours wasted, equals more productivity.
Fewer angry words, equals more happiness.
Fewer broken promises, equals more belief.
And fewer excuses, equals more achievement.

If you find yourself stressed, working long hours and making too little progress, don’t add even more to your workload. All it will do is create unnecessary, additional stress.

Instead, focus on reduction. Because with the right strategy, less can be more. So much more.

P.S. Here’s another reason why you need to stop working so hard.

A marketing tip from the world’s most successful coffee shops

July 12, 2018 by Jim Connolly

What are people hoping for, when they hire you or buy from you? That’s one of the most important questions in marketing.

Think about it.

People visit Facebook, because they hope it will entertain, inform or connect them.
People donate to charity, because they hope it will make things better for others.
People relocate to nice areas, because they hope it will improve their quality of life.
People subscribe to a newsletter, because they hope it will be useful.
People buy big name brands, because they hope it will ensure high quality.
People buy from local providers, because they hope it will help the local economy.

Your prospective clients are just the same. They’re hoping for something. And it isn’t always obvious.

A marketing lesson from coffee shops

Ask the owner of any successful coffee shop and they will tell you, the quality of their coffee isn’t the secret of their success. It isn’t even the secondary reason why people choose them over their less successful competitors.

Instead, these coffee shops thrive because they focus on what people hope for, when they visit a coffee shop. People hope it will provide them with a great place to meet friends, a change of environment, a space where they can relax… and a thousand other non-coffee-related things.

Struggling coffee shops fail to provide the kind of experience, which the marketplace is hoping for. So even if their coffee tastes great, it doesn’t matter. That’s because no business, in any industry, can succeed or even survive, by failing to meet or exceed what people hope for.

As business owners, our task is to uncover what our prospective clients are hoping for. And then make it a foundational element of our service and our marketing. Offering a great service (or great coffee) isn’t enough, by itself.

Don’t give these people your time or money

July 6, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Today, I’d like to save you time, money, energy and stress. I want to help you avoid making the extremely costly mistake of using someone’s title as a decision-making shortcut.

Whilst some titles are defined by meaningful, proven attainment (like the title Doctor or Professor), others are way too vague. They tell us almost nothing. They can be misleading, too. Here are some examples of titles, which sound like one thing, but often mean something completely different.

The CEO

Anyone can be the CEO of nothing. Think of it like this: Bob and Mark are both CEO’s. That title tells us they are both the head of a company. However, it tells us nothing about their company or their achievements. Bob could be CEO of a 3 month old business that’s in the process of going bankrupt. Mark could be the CEO of Facebook.

If you are thinking of giving your money, time or attention to someone, just because they have the CEO title, dig a little deeper first.

The Internet Start-up founders

I get emails most days, from people calling themselves the founder of an Internet Start-up. Some Internet start-ups are funded by millions of dollars worth of investment. Some are run by people with a proven track record of success. Some are built around a great idea and amazing people.

Others are 2 weeks old, unfunded, with no business model, trying to be the next Amazon.com… only better.

Their title, by itself, means nothing.

The best-selling business author: from Gladwell to Godin to minimum wage

Then there are best-selling authors. Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin can rightly claim to be best-selling, non-fiction authors.

Because they are.

However, they are also a world apart in the wide, 3 tiers of best-selling authors.

Top tier: Gladwell sells millions of copies of each book. His advance for one book alone was over one and a half million dollars. He’s big news and is interviewed on major TV networks, worldwide, when each new book is launched. His name is widely known within the general population. He can (and does) commanded $40,000 for a single speaking engagement! One of his book titles “tipping point” has become and everyday part of the English language.

Middle tier: Godin is successful, but sells a fraction as many books as Gladwell. Godin appears on affiliate marketing blogs, podcasts and in marketing publications to promote his books. Whilst a pole away from Gladwell, Godin’s influence is considerable within his niche.

Bottom tier: These are the best-selling authors, who sell surprisingly few books (as few as three or four thousand) and make very little money. Just search Google for “how much does a best-selling author earn”. You will see it can be as little as $15,000, over a period of 2 years. Often less. That’s for a year spent writing the book and maybe another year promoting it. So, these best-selling authors earn less than minimum wage.

There is a huge difference between Gladwell at the top and the people at the bottom. So, if you’re approached by someone who calls themselves a best-selling author in their marketing, do some research.

The top 10 rated experts in the world

Then there are those, who title themselves as a world top 10 (or top 50) expert because they appear on a top 10 list from a well-known magazine or website.

Some of these lists are endorsed. They’re 100% legit. They’re compiled by staff writers — people who work for (and are paid by) the online publication or magazine. The publication puts these lists prominently in the main body of the main website.

However, a version of this is also a very commonly used tactic to create fake credibility. Today, lots of very well-known publications use unpaid and unknown bloggers to provide free “content” for them.

Here’s why

The publication gets content. These publications need lots of content to maintain their search engine rankings. (Google rewards frequently updated websites). Most big publishers are cutting back on staff, so getting all that content is increasingly difficult.

This is where unknown, and unpaid bloggers come in. They provide a cheap way, in every sense, for the publication to keep Google happy.

A popular form of this free content are so-called “top X lists”. The blogger lists people, who they happen to know, as one of the top 10 (whatever) in the world. These lists are not voted for. They are just the opinion of a blogger who’s trying to gain exposure with free content. Anyhow, these lists get linked to and shared a lot… by the people who are included on them. Those links and shares are SEO ranking factors for Google. This is why the well-known publications allow them.

The unknown blogger gets exposure. The blogger gets to claim they write for the well-known publication, even though these posts are not endorsed, not paid for and not part of the main body of the website.

If you look deeper, you’ll see there’s usually a small disclaimer on the page where these lists appear. It is also VERY common to find the blogger’s friends added to these lists. The friend will then add the blogger to THEIR top 10 list. As such, the people on these lists are not part of the top 10 in the world. And they’re not endorsed by the magazine / website, which they claim in their marketing. Literally anyone can be number 1 on these not-what-they-seem-lists. It looks impressive. It means nothing.

In short, titles can be extremely misleading. Sometimes by accident. Sometimes by design.

Because of this, using titles as a decision-making shortcut can lead us to make bad decisions. So, always credential people, before you give them your attention, time or money.

How to attract great clients or customers. No selling required!

July 3, 2018 by Jim Connolly

I’m going to share a powerful marketing idea with you today. It’s all about how to attract high quality prospective clients (or customers). With no selling required.

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

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, blog posts, videos, podcasts etc., which offer useful, valuable information (rather than thinly-disguised sales pitches).

No selling required. None. Nada!

If you want an endless stream of high quality clients or customers, you need to be front of mind when they have a requirement. You need them to be thinking about you. This means 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, your prospective clients come to you.

Engage and educate: Don’t just sell

The secret to attracting high quality inbound sales leads, is to focus on engaging your marketplace. Educate them. Inform them. Inspire them. Help with their problems. In short, become a valuable resource.

By engaging in this way, you’ll quickly begin to build relationships and credibility 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 directly relevant to your IDEAL prospective clients, that’s who you’ll attract enquiries from. (Note the word attract again?)

Through the distribution of valuable, free information, you position yourself as an authority in your field. You also build a relationship with your prospective clients, where they naturally think of you as the source of the help they need. This makes you a safe pair of hands.

It also makes hiring you or buying from you way less risky when they need a new provider.

Make no mistake, if you embrace this marketing idea and do it correctly, the results can be breathtaking. And with no selling required.

5 Tips to help you build a massive, valuable newsletter list

June 29, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Here are 5 tips, to help you build a valuable newsletter readership or list. I used each of these ideas when growing my first newsletter, which had over 45,000 subscribers when I published the final edition in 2008.

Let’s go.

Newsletter Tip 1: Go easy on the pitches

Make sure it’s a newsletter and not a badly disguised advertisement. Here’s the thing: People avoid advertising. We skip the commercials on TV. We pay developers to remove the ads from the free version of their apps. We see advertisements as unwelcome interruptions.

If your newsletter reads a little too much like a sales pitch, it will be largely ignored. This leads nicely into the next point.

Newsletter Tip 2: Be useful

The more useful your newsletter is, the more your readers will value it and share it. Your ultimate goal is to build a large, targeted reader community, who become either clients, customers or advocates. None of that can be achieved with predictable, pedestrian content.

Useful content is what gives your newsletter wings. It’s what inspires people to subscribe, stay subscribed, share and make purchasing decisions. So, before you hit send on a newsletter, make sure it’s packed with valuable, useful information. Offer answers to your reader’s problems. Share useful tips. Point your readers to useful resources.

The more value you pack into each newsletter, the more your readers will value it… and the more they will value you. Think about that for a moment.

Newsletter Tip 3: Get the design right

Even if your content is wonderful, people won’t take it seriously if the design looks poor. The first bite is with the eye.

If your newsletter provides valuable information, but the design looks amateurish or outdated, it’s like serving them a delicious meal on a dirty plate.

So invest in the best design or newsletter template you can. Because whether your newsletter looks cheap or is presented professionally, it all reflects back on you.

Newsletter Tip 4: Ask readers to share

Even if readers think your newsletter is great, it may not occur to them to share it. People are busy. Really busy. By reminding them, you plant the idea of sharing the newsletter in their mind. Moreover, you do this at the exact point, where they have just read it and enjoyed it. I used to have a section at the bottom of my newsletter, which said:

“If you have found this newsletter interesting, please share it with your friends”.

When I added that short message to my newsletter, the results were immediate and measurable. It’s amazing what a simple reminder can do.

Newsletter Tip 5: Help it spread

Convert people who had your newsletter forwarded to them, into subscribers.

Imagine your friend had just forwarded a great newsletter to you. You’d want to get a regular copy, right? You don’t want to have to rely on your friend, remembering to forward each edition to you. So, I added the following sentence to the above message:

“If you have had this newsletter forwarded to you and would like a regular copy, click here.”

Never underestimate the power of a subtle, non-pushy reminder.

Make no mistake — newsletters can be an extremely powerful marketing asset. It’s why I make my blog available in newsletter format. And it’s why I ask you to take your newsletter seriously and invest in it accordingly. Give it the time and effort it needs. Because the rewards for getting it right are huge. No. Bigger than that.

Don’t miss this: How to build a subscriber list that builds your business.