Business development Archives - Page 22 of 24

New Year’s resolutions: How to make them work

By Jim Connolly | January 1, 2017

You know the story.

Your local gym will have 300% more members, because it’s January.
Thousands of abandoned blogs will have new posts published, because it’s January.
Business owners worldwide will set new targets, because it’s January.

And by March, almost all of these will revert back to their old ways.

That’s because setting a target or goal, simply because it’s January, brings very little motivation. Once January passes the motivation fades. Gyms are emptier, blogs are quieter and business owners slide back into their comfort zones.

However, some will succeed! These are the people who make a resolution to improve… a powerful and highly motivating resolution.

New Year’s Resolution?

The Oxford Dictionary defines resolute as: Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering. When you set yourself a target or goal, with purposeful, determined and unwavering commitment, you succeed.

So, if you want to be one of the magnificent minority, who set and achieve their New Year’s resolutions, don’t set them just because it’s January.

Instead, give yourself some BIG, compelling, inspiring and motivating reasons to achieve your goals. Then resolve to achieve each of them with purposeful, determined and unwavering commitment.

IMPORTANT: Don’t set puny goals. The more exciting your goal is, the greater your motivation to succeed will be. Here’s a short post, which explains how this works. It’s from one of the greatest minds that ever lived: A Goal Setting Tip From The Genius Of Michelangelo.

Once you’ve set and achieved these exciting goals, set some more. Remember, there’s no need to wait until January!

Finally my friend, I wish you and your family, health, happiness and peace in 2017 and beyond.

How to stop stalling and do your best work

By Jim Connolly | December 31, 2016

No, it doesn’t really matter what brand of computer you choose to work with. The same is true of the software you use. Leonardo da Vinci changed the world, writing with a quill.

No, it doesn’t really matter how you plan what you write. Best-selling author John Boyne, like many, doesn’t plan at all. He doesn’t even know where the story is going, until after he starts writing it.

No, it doesn’t really matter how inspired you feel. You don’t wait for inspiration to appear… you command it to appear.

What matters

What matters is that you get started. So learn to identify your stalling tactics. Then, call them out for what they are.

Now you’re free. Free to focus on doing your best work in 2017 and beyond.

12 Ideas to make 2017 your best year ever

By Jim Connolly | December 27, 2016

Let’s get started.

Yes, outsmart your competitors. However, make sure you outcare them too.
Think big. Average ideas bring average levels of motivation. Big ideas bring big motivation.
Be a source of encouragement. Highlight people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.
Take a 30 minute walk (or longer) every day. Here’s why.
Eat right. A high performance machine requires high performance fuel to operate optimally.
Be a student. Not a follower. The difference is huge.
Decide to solve trickier problems. There’s a direct link between what you earn and how difficult it is to replace you.
Deliver on your promises. This is a great way to build a world class reputation.
Fail more often in 2017 than you did in 2016. Why? Because if you’re not failing often enough, you’re sticking to things you already know and no longer growing.
Decide to personalize your business, so it’s uniquely yours. One of a kind. Rare and valuable.
Start your projects with the end in mind. Get crystal clear on your outcome, before you start the work.
Be fast to forgive others. While you’re holding a grudge, they are out dancing!

I hope you find these useful. More importantly my friend, I hope you put at least one of these ideas into action.

Your recipe for success

By Jim Connolly | December 22, 2016

Achieving the success you want in 2017 is a relatively simple process. It’s a matter of doing the right things correctly.

It’s a little like baking a cake

If someone gave you the recipe for a delicious cake and you followed it closely, you would end up with a delicious cake.

No one would claim you were lucky to have baked the cake so well. It would be the natural end result, for someone who has studied the recipe and followed the instructions.

Growing a successful business works in a very similar way. To succeed, you need the correct recipe, though we call that recipe a strategy. And this is exactly why so many business owners screw it up. Instead of following the right strategy, they dabble.

Could this be happening to you?

If your business isn’t growing the way you want it to, here are some useful points to consider. It will help you identify if you need a better strategy.

What recipe for business success am I using, to ensure I’m doing the right things, correctly?
What experienced, highly credible source gave me the recipe for business success, which I’m currently risking my entire future on?
Was my recipe developed for me and my unique needs, experience, resources and goals – or am I dabbling with general info I grabbed from webinars, blogs or books, etc?
If things are not working out, how much more time and money am I going to waste, before I invest in the help I need?

Get the exact recipe for success, which you and your business need. Then follow it. Don’t waste another year dabbling, hoping or worrying.

The bottom line: When you’re rowing your boat in the wrong direction, working harder simply moves you further and further off target.

Stop offering freebies. Seriously. Stop it!

By Jim Connolly | December 10, 2016

Time. It’s our most valuable commodity. So why is it that business owners tend to massively undervalue it, by offering freebies?

Freebies send a toxic message

Offering free consultations is an extremely risky marketing strategy. That’s because so-called free offer marketing carries a damaging subtext.

It tells people that you are under-employed. That you have too few clients and too much dead time. This causes prospective clients to wonder why… why you’re not attracting enough new clients or enough paid work from delighted, ongoing clients.

Free consultations, free assessments, free advice, free 30 minute evaluations — they all have one thing in common. FREE.

When you use free as bait, guess what you attract?

Yes, you attract freebie hunters. These never-to-be-clients are attracted to freebies, like moths are attracted to flames. Freebie hunters generally fit into one of the following:

People who have no intention of paying anyone for advice.
People who have no way to pay because they’re broke.

Here’s the thing: Neither of those groups provide a fertile marketing environment.

Yes, it’s entirely possible you will attract a paying client by offering freebies. However, you’re unlikely to attract the kind of client you want, deserve or need.

Tip: Read this, it will show you how to market your services effectively, by giving value away.

Your January opportunity

By Jim Connolly | December 7, 2016

We’re just a few weeks away from January. And January is an extremely important month for your business.

Why?

Because January is when your most savvy competitors will launch their New Year marketing campaigns. It’s the time of year when people are most motivated to embrace change. Making your clients or customers much more likely to switch providers.

You can treat this as a threat or as an amazing opportunity.

To make January work to your advantage, I’d like you to ponder the following 2 questions:

What are you going to do, to ensure you retain as many of your clients in 2017 as possible? Remember, marketing is not only about attracting new clients. Marketing is also about client retention. In fact, everything your business does is marketing. Read this to see why.
What are you going to do, to benefit from the January opportunity? You can choose to be one of the savvy business owners, who benefits from a valuable surge in new clients. You can start 2017 on a real high. You can create a wave of momentum to carry you through the year ahead.

I strongly recommend you put a plan in place, to cover both of those opportunities.

Don’t let January just happen. Get intentional. Consider ways to engage with all those prospective clients or customers, who will use January as a catalyst for change. Position yourself as the obvious choice for them. And look for ways to render greater value to your existing clients in 2017. Then communicate all that extra value to them in the weeks ahead.

Get this right and it will provide you with an opportunity to strengthen your core client base and build upon it.

That’s a super-effective way to create unstoppable momentum in 2017.

How to unlock your amazing creativity

By Jim Connolly | December 2, 2016

Would you like to become a creative thinking powerhouse? Would you like to be able to come up with answers, to the challenges facing you and your business? If you would, then today’s post may be just what you need.

I used to work with a guy who had a thinking cap. He said that when he needed to be creative, if he put his thinking cap on, it would help him generate the ideas he needed.

Did it work? Yes. Absolutely!

But here’s the thing: If you wore his thinking cap, you may not find it so effective. That’s unless you too believed all the things he did about that old cap. Otherwise you’d quickly figure out that it was, in fact, just a normal cap and that he generated all those ideas himself.

Similarly, if you used the same tools as me for generating ideas (coffee, long walks and music), you’d be unlikely to get the same creative flow that I get from them.

It’s not platitudes: You truly are unique

You think like no one else who has ever existed. Your unique mind and all those experiences you have lived through, have created an astonishing, unique, creativity machine.

If you want to tap into that creativity, do what feels most natural to you. It may involve a thinking cap. However, it’s just as likely to involve meditating or using a mind map or getting on an exercise bike or dancing to James Brown!

Sadly, many people wrongly believe that they are not creative, because they followed a creativity strategy from a book or a course, which didn’t work for them.

Ironically, the very fact that generic “how to get creative” bullshit doesn’t work for you, only confirms how original your own mind truly is!

Here’s a suggestion: Try 1 new way to inspire your creativity each day. Rule nothing in or out (and that includes having fun!) Then, put the ideas that worked together, to build YOUR very own creative toolbox.

Tip: I recommend you read this, What Is Inspiration?

Uncovering the pattern for success

By Jim Connolly | November 30, 2016

business development, biz dev

There’s an interesting pattern, which predictably repeats itself in business. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And you wouldn’t want to, because it points to a valuable business lesson.

Here’s a tiny sample of the pattern in action.

Just a small minority of business owners look for opportunities to encourage others.
Just a small minority of business owners genuinely go the extra mile.
Just a small minority of business owners are prepared to invest enough in their ongoing education.
Just a small minority of business owners are willing to lead.
Just a small minority of business owners can be bothered to make tough decisions.
Just a small minority of business owners are motivated enough to eat well and exercise regularly.
Just a small minority of business owners care enough to share a useful blog post.
Just a small minority of business owners are willing to truly stand out from their competitors.

That pattern matters. It matters because it’s also just a small minority of business owners who succeed in any meaningful way.

And that’s no coincidence.

What everybody needs to know about focus

By Jim Connolly | November 26, 2016

You tend to attract whatever you focus on.

Those looking for opportunities tend to find them.
Those looking for answers tend to find them.
Those looking for resources tend to find them too.

Of course, it works both ways.

Those looking for excuses tend to find them.
Those looking for distractions tend to find them.
Those looking for problems tend to find them.

The message here is simple. Focus on what you need. Focus on what you want. Focus on progress.

Your customers are telling you something important, which you’re probably missing

By Jim Connolly | November 23, 2016

marketing tips, marketing ideas, marketing tips and ideas

In business, it’s easy to confuse silence with satisfaction. The thinking looks like this:

No one’s complaining, so everyone’s happy.

That’s 100% incorrect! It’s not only incorrect. Thinking that way can destroy your business. Allow me to explain.

When a customer receives an average service, they don’t tend to make a noise. That’s because an average service isn’t good enough to motivate them to praise you and it isn’t bad enough to motivate them to complain.

Silence equals indifference

As a business owner, you need to understand that silence is a sign of indifference. And indifference kills businesses! If you have too many indifferent customers it’s impossible to succeed in any meaningful way. That’s because a customer who feels they receive an average service will switch as soon as an above average provider or outstanding provider approaches them.

Now, if only a tiny subset of your customers never recommend you or thank you for going the extra mile, you’re fine. However, if too many of your customers are silent, take heed. Figure out why they’re not occasionally taking 2 minutes to thank you and why they’re not telling their friends about you. Then put a plan together to switch them from indifference to delight. From silent customer to passionate advocate.

In a nutshell, give them something extra to care about before someone else does.

How to crush the feast or famine cycle

By Jim Connolly | November 16, 2016

If your sales results are too erratic or you find yourself in that feast or famine cycle, this post is written just for you.

Most businesses offer products or services, which people are only interested in when they have a problem. If your business provides the answer to a problem, there’s a very good chance you’re using the wrong marketing approach.

I’m going to explain why and also show you how to get it right.

Knowing you before they need you

Coaches, accountants, designers, dentists, trainers, financial professionals, lawyers, translators, consultants, etc., are only sought after, when someone has a requirement.

Here’s the thing: If they already know who you are, before they need you, you are massively more likely to earn their custom, than some provider they have never heard of. For instance, my most recent client had been a subscriber of mine for months, before hiring me.

I once heard Mercedes’ head of advertising say, that if Mercedes focused on showing people advertisements, the week before they were about to buy a new car, it wouldn’t work. So, Mercedes focus on getting their marketing messages in front of us when we’re kids. Then, when we’re 35 and are thinking of buying our first luxury car, we think of Mercedes.

Whilst that approach is too long-term for most small businesses to consider, the advice is sound. It’s all about the client or customer knowing who we are, before they need us.

Switch from short-term gambits to a long-term strategy

Make marketing an ongoing part of your business, not something you do when you lose a client or when sales are down. Remain relevant to your marketplace. Stay in their mind (sometimes called ‘front of mind’). Keep earning their attention, through strategic, useful, permission-based marketing.

In a nutshell: If you want great, long-term results, you need to make great, long-term plans.

10 Things to start today, which your future self will thank you for

By Jim Connolly | November 4, 2016

Here they are in no particular order.

Dream bigger dreams. Big, inspirational dreams are far more motivating than puny goals.
Get into the habit of walking daily for 30 minutes. It will improve your life in so many ways. This Stanford study agrees.
Too busy for a 30 minute walk? Get serious about solving your time management problem. This will help you.
Focus on what you want. Not what you fear.
Stop aiming for perfection. Instead, strive to be better than you were yesterday.
Look for opportunities to step up and lead. Your marketplace desperately needs leaders.
It isn’t the 1980’s — So, instead of focusing on closing sales, focus on opening relationships.
Start a blog or a newsletter. If you already have a blog or newsletter, start taking it seriously. Here’s how to become an overnight blogging success.
Avoid toxic influences. Everyone and everything you connect with has an impact on you. Choose wisely.
Stop waiting for things to improve. Instead, plan for improvement, then work the plan.

I hope you found those suggestions useful. More importantly my friend, I hope you do something with them.

Where will your next client come from?

By Jim Connolly | October 28, 2016

There’s a world of opportunity out there, just waiting for you to embrace it. Those are not simply optimistic words. Allow me to explain.

This morning, I was working with some great clients in Brisbane, Australia. Yesterday, I worked with a wonderful, long-time client in Nebraska, USA. Tomorrow, I’m working with an exciting start-up in Hamburg, Germany.

All this, without leaving my studio in England.

The nature of business is changing

Barriers that once restricted who we could work with have been removed. For many, perhaps most service providers, geography is no longer a limitation.

We live in the age of low-cost (and no-cost) global, digital communications. We can video conference, call, screen-share, email and provide our expertise with clients, anywhere on the planet. This means; designers, coaches, copywriters, content providers, marketing professionals, illustrators, software developers, business advisors, PR consultants, therapists, translators and countless others, can now work worldwide. As such, the growth potential of your client base is pretty much limitless.

The opportunity in front of you is something, which past generations of small business owners couldn’t have dreamed of.

And the best part? It’s yours. Right now. If you want it.

Are you bridge building? You should be. Here’s why

By Jim Connolly | October 24, 2016

You offer an amazing service.

Your customers love you.

The challenge is that your prospective customers have no idea how wonderful your business is. They’re unaware of how your service runs rings around their current provider. They just don’t know how much they need you.

The answer is to build a bridge. You need to bridge the gap between your prospective customers and your business. With a bridge in place, you can connect with prospective customers, explain why they need you and motivate them to buy from you or hire you.

Make sure bridge building is a high-priority part of your marketing mix.

How to be an overnight success

By Jim Connolly | October 22, 2016

Here are some proven examples, of how to be an overnight success.

Angry Birds creator Rovio became an overnight success, after 51 less successful games, 8 years of hard work and almost going bankrupt.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling, became an overnight success in 1997… though she started writing fantasy stories as a child, more than 20 years earlier.
The Beatles become an overnight success, after playing more than 1000 small gigs. They were paid just £5 for their first gig.
The fastest book ever to reach its Kickstarter target, was written by Seth Godin. Most people say it took around 3 hours to break the record. It didn’t. Godin said it took around 8 years. That’s how long it took him, writing blog posts almost every day, to build a big enough community to reach his Kickstarter target in 3 hours.

The overnight success formula

So, here’s how to be an overnight success in 2 steps:

Choose the date you want your overnight success to happen.
Work hard for years, leading up to that date.

Shortcuts to success are seldom shortcuts and they never lead to meaningful success. Be extremely cautious of anyone suggesting otherwise.

How to raise your business to a whole new level

By Jim Connolly | October 21, 2016

If your business is growing slower than it should be, this post is just for you.

To get your business moving forward, there are 2 things you need to focus on. I have set them out as 2 questions. Oh, and don’t worry, I’m going to help you find your answers too!

So, here are the questions:

What do you want to achieve with your business?
Are you willing to pay the price?

What do you want to achieve with your business?

Many small business owners lack sufficient clarity, regarding what they want their business to achieve. When I ask them, they will often tell me things like; I want a profitable company, I want a thriving consultancy, I want to retire in comfort. They hardly ever give me anything specific.

The challenge here, is that without knowing what your ultimate business target or goal is, you have no way to measure if you’re on track or not.

This lack of clarity about what you specifically want to achieve, means it’s extremely easy for you to make poor long term decisions. It’s what causes hard working business owners to spin their wheels.

It’s like the old saying, “When you don’t know where you’re going, every road will take you there”. As a result, we find many hard working small business owners taking costly detours.

The key is to get specific. To describe, in detail, what you want to achieve with your business.

Here’s how to find your answer!

A great way to get really focused on what you want from your business, is to ask yourself this question:

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

Then, start writing your answer down in detail!

Avoid vague terms and use specifics. Include numbers in your answer whenever possible. For example, include things like:

What you want to generate in revenues and profits over the next year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years.
What you want to earn from your business.
What you want your business to sell for, if your exit route is to cash in at some point.

You may also want to describe the type of clients you want, what your working day would look like, where you’d locate your business, etc. Make sure to include everything that matters to you.

Once you have a clearer picture of exactly what you want to achieve with your business, it’s time to answer that second question.

So, are you willing to pay the price?

You will seldom find a small business owner, who doesn’t work hard. That is not what this question is about.

The question is about whether we’re prepared to do everything required, to make that clear image of our future business a reality. The question asks us if we are prepared, time after time, to leave our comfort zone.

Success requires us to pay the price in advance. This means committing to do 100% of what’s required, rather than avoiding the necessary tasks, which we’re uncomfortable with. Hard work alone is not enough. If hard work was the key to success, our grandparents would have all been millionaires!

Success also requires laser-like focus. We need to put our evergy and efforts into a small number of areas – – rather than try and be everywhere. For example, choose one or two places to put your content marketing. I use a blog and a newsletter. I couldn’t have built this site or my newsletter list, if I’d split my time between Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube, podcasting, Snapchat and Clubhouse, etc.

What next, Jim?

Once you have got clear about what you want and you have decided to do what’s required in order to achieve it, it’s time to take action.

The best place to start, is to take a look at your current business activities and investments. Then, eliminate everything that is not taking you toward your business goals (or targets).

Next, replace the activities that were taking your business nowhere, with ones that are consistent with your new, clearer picture of the business you want.

This is the starting point of creating a great strategy. If you need help getting your strategy right, this 2 hour session with me could be just what you need.

The café owner whose ignorance is killing her business

By Jim Connolly | October 19, 2016

Why do hard-working business owners often make very little progress?

Here’s a perfect and extremely common example. I hope you find it useful. More importantly, I hope it inspires you to make better decisions.

The café owner who’s killing her business

I visited a great little café yesterday with my wife and son. We stopped for a coffee and a slice of cake. The home-made cake was stunning. So beautiful that I took a photo. I was going to share the photo with the 85,000 people who connect with my various social networking accounts.

I had no signal from my phone, so I asked if the café had Wi-Fi. I was told by the owner that they did, however, it’s not advertised and it’s password protected. She explained that they hide the Wi-Fi, to stop people coming in and using it. The café owner brought me the password. It was super-strong with a huge line of mixed numbers, letters and symbols. After failing to get it right for the 2nd time, it was time for us to leave.

Ignorance of marketing is not bliss

The café owner had it all wrong. She thought she would gain financially by blocking people from using the café’s Wi-Fi. She told me she was concerned people would come in, buy just 1 or 2 drinks and in her words “steal the Wi-Fi”. She hadn’t figured out that there are excellent reasons why the larger coffee chains eagerly offer free Wi-Fi.

It attracts paying customers. Given the choice of a place with Wi-Fi or without, most people will choose a place with Wi-Fi.
It gives customers a fast and effective way to spread the word about their experience.
It lets customers share photos of their coffee, breakfast, lunch etc, on their social networks. This is free, powerful, visual advertising for the café or coffee shop.
It allows customers to share where they are on social networks, in case a friend wants to join them. This further increases custom.
It makes the café a place where people can enjoy a coffee, whilst reading the news or catching up with their friends on Twitter, Facebook etc.

Like almost every small business owner, the café owner is making basic marketing mistakes that are losing her a fortune. We only went in because the place was almost empty and we were in a hurry. She has no idea of the opportunities she’s missing out on, just from that one marketing error. In the short time we were there, I spotted around half a dozen areas, which are losing her a fortune.

When I asked her, “how’s business?”, it was no surprise when she replied that business is slow. Of course it is. How else could things be going, when her ignorance of marketing is killing her business? That’s a rhetorical question.

Smart and average

Smart business owners identify that their business needs help and they get that help. They refuse to dabble with their livelihood.

The average business owner hunkers down and works hard. They’re unaware that hard work is not the key to success. So they end up frustrated. Why? Because no matter how hard they row their boat in the wrong direction, they never end up where they want to be.

Choose wisely my friend.

Mind your own business!

By Jim Connolly | October 13, 2016

If you want to rise above your competitors, you have a couple of options open to you.

Destroy the competition: Bad-mouth them. Spread nasty stories about them. Call them out when they screw up. Try to ruin their reputation, so your business looks better in comparison.
Mind your own business: Look for ways to improve what you do. Become a respected innovator. Out smart and out care your competitors. Make your service so uniquely valuable that you have no competition.

The best way forward, is to focus on your own business. Pay attention to what you can control. Do everything you can with everything you have. If you mind your own business correctly, you’ll never have to worry about the competition again.