Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

It’s a ‘6 word secret’ to business success

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Marketing, business advice, get moving

It’s simply this: In business the winners get moving.

Here’s why those 6 words are critically important to the success of your business.

  • Every business owner has ideas and occasionally great ideas.
  • Every business owner is presented with opportunities to succeed.
  • Every business owner can choose to be a leader.
  • Every business owner can instigate, rather than wait for someone else to move.
  • Every business owner has potential to be better today than they were yesterday.
  • And every business owner has the same 24-hours available to them every day.

It’s what we DO that counts.

  • Not our intentions.
  • Not our network of business contacts.
  • Not our cutting edge technology.
  • Not our plans.
  • Not our targets.
  • Not our qualifications.
  • Not our competitive edge.
  • Not our ingenuity.
  • Not our skills.

Intelligent action always precedes success. That’s why in business, the winners get moving.

4 Proven ways to quickly attract more customers

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Marketing tips, attract customers, attract clients, more customers,

Photo | Miguel Á. Padriñán

How easy do you make it for prospective clients or customers to spend their money with you?

That may sound like an odd question. After all, every business owner should be making the purchasing process as effortless as possible. As we all know, this is often not the case. In fact, we regularly encounter challenges that stop us from choosing a particular vendor.

Thankfully, it’s not that hard to significantly improve your sales or client acquisition numbers. Here are 4 things we can all do, to massively improve things.

1. Make it as easy as possible for people to contact you

A common mistake most business owners make, is to require too much information on their contact forms. When someone is making an initial enquiry from your website, you need their email address, name and message. That’s it. Just the most basic details so you can contact them.

Every additional piece of information you’re asking for, loses you enquiries from prospective clients.

Ask for the minimum amount of information to get the maximum amount of enquiries.

It makes absolutely no sense to have unnecessary hurdles in the way, which are reducing the number of enquiries you get. And as you know, fewer enquiries means fewer clients. Remember, you can get whatever information you need, after you’ve connected with them. At that point, it’s a lot more comfortable for the prospective client to give the information you need.

2. Be open for business when they need you

Most businesses copy the opening hours of their competitors. A better model, is to base your opening hours on the needs of your marketplace.

If you’re available when your marketplace needs you but your competitors are not, you win. Being available doesn’t mean using a call-handling firm to take details. It doesn’t mean having an AI bot on your website. It means having a member of your team available, who can provide an informed, human connection.

Sounds like a bit of a pain, right?

Exactly!

That’s why your competitors aren’t doing it. And why the opportunity to gain a huge advantage could be staring you in the face.

3. Provide flexible payment options

I’m often amazed at the limited payment options offered by small businesses. That’s never a smart move. But in the current economy it’s a very expensive error.

Thankfully, it’s totally avoidable.

In the years since the pandemic, a massive number of new payment providers have come along. It’s never been easier to accept payments. Plus, the rates are exceptionally competitive because they have to be! If you haven’t checked out how low the charges are lately, take a look.

4. Use Risk Reversal

I do this with my Pick My Brain service and people love it. It works like this. If someone uses the service and doesn’t believe it’s worth the fee, I offer them an immediate, 100% refund. It means they can hire me with total peace of mind. No one has ever requested a refund, but the offer shows how confident I am, that I will provide massively more value than they pay for.

Clearly, this type of risk reversal doesn’t work for every business model. However, if you think it could work for you it’s definitely worth exploring.

Take a moment to review the suitability of those four options for your business. Any one of them could potentially bring a significant improvement to your business.

Protect your business from time thieves

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marketing tip, packaging, time wasters

Photo: Shutterstock.

Your time is easily the most valuable asset you have. So today I’m going to show you an effective way to eliminate time wasters and replace them with high-quality, eager prospective clients.

Let’s go.

Salt and sugar

To begin, I’d like you to think for a moment about how similar salt and sugar look. They’re almost indistinguishable to the human eye. Even close up.

So why don’t people regularly add salt to their beverages by mistake? Sure, at home people know where they keep the salt and the sugar. But when they’re out? Why don’t we constantly see people in coffee shops and restaurants, having salt and sugar related accidents?

Looking for clues

A salt shaker looks very different from a sugar bowl. That’s why we never pick up a sugar bowl and assume it contains salt. Or vice-versa.

  • The container (packaging) gives us powerful clues about what’s inside.
  • These clues send us a direct message regarding what to expect.
  • They also guide the action we decide to take.

People use clues like this all the time. And that includes our prospective clients. When they need a new provider, they’re looking for guidance that confirms we offer exactly what they need.

So, what kind of decision-making clues are in your marketing?

For example. Do your clues set the right expectations regarding your fees, or do they attract fee-sensitive enquiries? Do your clues motivate people to want to purchase now, or do they attract early stage researchers, who’re not ready to buy? You get the idea.

If you’re sick of wasting your time with the wrong kind of client enquiries, check your clues. Look at your marketing through the eyes of a stranger; someone who doesn’t already know the type of clients or customers you want to attract. Then, make sure your messaging clearly positions you in the correct way.

I hope you find this idea useful but more importantly, I hope you give it a try.

How to be number one. In a category of one!

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marketing, outstanding, average

It’s tough being a service provider. There are so many of us in every industry. Not only that, a prospective client can find lower priced alternatives to us, on Google, in seconds.

With so many competitors, what can we do?

Well.

  • We could try and out-spend them on advertising. Of course, this eats into our profit margins.
  • We could try being the lowest priced. Of course, this almost eliminates our profits.
  • We could try joining a networking group. Of course, we’d be relying on fellow group members to provide us with leads; the very same people who need to attend the group because they can’t even get enough leads for their own business!

There are better alternatives though. And one that works extremely well, is to become number one in a category of one.

It’s the strategy I follow for my own business and one that could be just as effective for you and your business.

It works like this

Let’s imagine you’re a financial advisor. (You could equally be a mentor, lawyer, designer, trainer, accountant, marketing consultant or whatever). Anyhow, unlike your fellow financial advisors, you choose to work exclusively with creative professionals. This immediately places you as number one in a category of one.

  • The fact you understand their profession at a super-deep level, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their terminology and speak their language, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the threats and opportunities specific to their industry, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their unique requirements, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the creative mindset, sets you apart from the rest.

And because you’re clearly more relevant to the creative industry, you will stand out as the obvious choice, to be their next financial advisor!

It’s hard to think of a service provider in any industry, who couldn’t transition themselves into being number one in a category of one.

Including you.

Yes, including you!

It’s time

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right time, perfect time, now

The right time, and the perfect time, are not the same time.

But many small business owners are totally unaware of it.

And it screws up everything.

The right time

The right time to take action on improving your business is the moment you know there’s a problem. It’s an easy to identify moment. And it makes zero sense to allow a problem to persist; it only gets bigger, and costs you more in time and money to fix.

This means the right time is always, always, blindingly obvious.

However, even really smart business owners totally miss it.

Why?

Because they’re not actually looking for the right time. No. They’re looking for, and waiting for, the perfect time.

The perfect time is an expensive illusion

It’s an illusion, because it exists in an impossible to identify moment.

Think about it.

  • If things are going great for your business, they might get even better. Now is not the perfect time.
  • If things are ‘okay’ or even if things suck, then maybe they’ll pick-up. Now is not the perfect time.

So, when is the perfect time to improve your business?

You missed it. Because we can only ever know the perfect time, after it has passed. We identify it on reflection. It’s rear view mirror stuff.

That’s why the most successful businesspeople focus on the right time. It’s clear. It’s existential. We experience it. It’s in front of us.

In short, if you have an ongoing business problem, the right time to do something about it has passed. The next best time to do something about it is right now.

Your competitors are clowns

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Marketing, competitor research

It has never been easier for you to research your competitors than it is today. In minutes, you can tell if someone is serious competition to your business or simply a dabbler.

For example.

  • You can visit their website and tell instantly if it looks professional and up-to-date or not.
  • Their site will also show you the range of services they offer and the guarantees they provide.
  • In some cases, you can see what they charge and whether they offer payment terms, etc.
  • You can also check their social media footprint and see if they are using it professionally and how large their social networks are.

Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of business owners. One of the things I see over and over again, is a tendency to underestimate the service offered by their competitors. This is a potentially fatal mistake.

Here are 2 of the main reasons why this happens.

1. Hard work and dedication

They work so hard on their own businesses and care so passionately about their own clients, that they can’t imagine their competitors being equally committed. In reality, the vast majority of business owners work their tail off and try extremely hard to keep their clients happy.

We need to avoid underestimating our competitors at all costs. It’s a mindset that can cause us to ease off the gas. To coast. And in doing so, we make it way too easy for our hard-working, professional competitors to eat our lunch!

2. Biased reporting

There are a lot of people out there, who will tell us what they think we want to hear. Others will tell us what they want us to believe. In either case, their reporting is not telling it like it is.

Here are a few examples.

  • If you attract a new client, who was fired by one of your competitors for being impossible to work with, that new client will seldom tell you. Instead, they’ll often say they left because the service was lousy or another fake reason.
  • Similarly, when you hire people who previously worked for one of your competitors, they’ll often trash-talk about them.
  • Many business owners use the same suppliers as some of their competitors. If you ask a supplier how your competition are doing, you’ll often get negative reports. Don’t take too much notice. Remember, those who are unprofessional enough to share (or fabricate) news about their customers with you, are unprofessional enough to give fake feedback.

It’s worth taking feedback like the above with a large pinch of salt.

In short

If you’re going to assume anything about your competitors, assume they are hard-working professionals who are targeting your clients. That will stop any chance of complacency from creeping in.

Join a cluster. Own a corner

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marketing, corner of market, cluster

Have you ever noticed how the major fast food restaurants seem to cluster in certain parts of your town or city? It happens for the same reason that theatres cluster on Broadway, New York, and the same reason that trading and financial services cluster in London’s Square Mile.

It’s not because they’re lonely.

It’s because they’re following a proven business strategy. A strategy that can work for your business, too.

Clusters create crowds

Once a location becomes well-known for a certain product or service, prospective customers looking for that ‘thing’ will head there.

This means a business moving into that location will open their doors on day one, knowing there will be crowds. Crowds they can potentially attract a subset of and convert into customers.

If that business is savvy, they will provide a uniquely valuable version of what the others offer. Something a section of the crowds desire, but can only get from them. This provides them with their very own corner of the market. It’s a strategy that works extremely well.

Before you assume this strategy is of little or no relevance to your business, think again.

Adapt. Then deploy

Look at the components behind that extremely successful strategy. When you do, you’ll discover something interesting and more importantly, potentially very useful to you and your business.

You’ll discover that you can adapt and deploy part of what makes that strategy work, into the online marketing of your own business.

How?

Be where your competitors are online. For example, be part of social media conversations around your industry. Join forums that are dedicated to your industry. Join Facebook Groups or LinkedIn Groups. You get the idea.

Offer something different from your competitors, which is uniquely valuable. So, when prospects find you, they can see you’re unlike the others.

Every single one of the prospects, who wants the unique value that only your service provides, can only get it from you. Do this correctly and you will have created your very own corner of the market.

Not sure where how to stand out in a meaningful way that works? Don’t worry. This will help you. And so will this.

How to have great business ideas

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How business ideas, How to have great business ideas, have business ideas

Photo | Steve Johnson Pexels.com

Today, I’m going to show you how to have great business ideas and how to put them to work for your business. This includes a step-by-step guide that you can easily follow.

Think about it: Behind every successful business are a series of ideas. Great business ideas, which open up new opportunities or set the business on a more fruitful path.

The challenge with great ideas is that they often look like average ideas, until after they become hugely successful. As a result, most great ideas never see the light of they.

In fact, I bet you have a few tucked away right now, without even knowing it.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

How a great business idea was mocked

In 1985, The New York Times announced the death of laptop computers, in an articled entitled; “Whatever happened to the laptop computer?” They wondered why laptops never became popular (seriously). Here’s how one of the greatest business ideas in history, was openly mocked:

“[…] I.B.M. never legitimized the market with its much rumored ”Clamshell,” probably because the company realized that laptops are a small niche market, not a mass market.”

Erik Sandberg-Diment. New York Times 1985.

And when the electric light bulb was invented, most people said it would never become a mass market product. It was thought that there was no affordable way to get electricity to enough homes.

How to have great business ideas that win!

Business owners sometimes ask me what I think of an idea they have. The challenge here, is that it doesn’t matter what I think or what their friends think. Great business ideas are not anointed. If you want to know how good your idea is, you need to get it out there.

If you do, you will find it’s almost impossible to fail.

Really?

Yes, really!

It’s a win win thing.

  • If it is a great business idea and it flies, you’ll have a success on your hands.
  • If it flops, you’ll learn something. Something that you can invest in the next idea and greatly increase your chances of success.

Ironically, the only way to guarantee a business idea will fail, is to try and protect it from failure by locking it away.

It’s a lose lose thing.

  • The idea you fail to ship can’t succeed.
  • The idea you fail to ship can’t teach you anything new.

This not only insulates you from success, it also insulates you from learning and growing. This used to be a major problem for me when I started out in business. I was in my late 20’s and lacking in confidence. I’d sometimes have a great business idea, but I wouldn’t put the idea into action.

I knew I needed to do it. I also knew it couldn’t work if I didn’t ship the idea. But for me, putting an idea into action, even one I thought was great, felt way too risky.

Thankfully, I discovered a way forward, which I’m now going to share with you, step-by-step.

Here’s the business idea strategy, which worked for me

I’ve shared this strategy with countless people over the years and the results have been amazing. It’s actually really simple.

My breakthrough came when I figured out that the part of my mind responsible for putting ideas into action, was weak. It needed strengthening. I thought one way to do this, would be to treat it like a weak muscle. To make a weak muscle strong, you start off by working with very light weights. As the muscle grows, you slowly increase the weight you’re working with. Eventually, the muscle becomes strong.

Here’s how it worked

I started by acting on what I considered to be small ideas. Ideas that were unlikely to set the world on fire if they worked, but where there was relatively little downside if they failed.

  • I’d get a business idea.
  • Every time I put one of these ideas into play, I’d write it down in a journal, along with the results.
  • With each new business idea in my journal, my idea muscles grew a little.
  • I also noticed that even with these small ideas, my business was starting to see some very encouraging results. This further built my idea muscles!
  • Pretty soon I found it easy to get great business ideas, big, meaningful ones, and ship them.
  • Every day since I’ve eagerly looked for ways to get great business ideas to help me make opportunities or solve problems.
  • And if they’re interesting, I always put them into play.

As the frequency and size of the ideas you act on increases, so does your ability to get great ideas. This is reflected in the development of your business.

And something else happens. Business in general becomes a lot more interesting. That’s because working on new business ideas, even small ones, is extremely invigorating. It causes you to think differently, meet new people and explore new opportunities.

Just remember to start with small ideas. Slowly build it up. And be sure to chronicle your results, so you can see the progress you’re making and also learn from the feedback.

In short: How do you get great business ideas? You put the small business ideas you already have into play. Each time you do, your ability to have great ideas and ship them increases.

Opportunity is banging loudly on your door. Let it in!

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woman in black long sleeve shirt sitting on chair

Photo | Andrea Piacquadio.

The pace of change is accelerating faster than ever. This is creating a multitude of exciting opportunities for business owners. Including you.

Here are just a few of the opportunities you might want to explore.

New needs and wants are emerging. This means you now have masses of new prospective clients (or customers) you can serve. It also means you have the opportunity to offer more services or products to your existing clients.

New ways to access knowledge are at your fingertips… for free. With AI, you can get a detailed summary of every best-selling business book ever published. You can then question the summary, so it explains whatever parts of the book you’re most interested in learning from. As I write this in July 2024, that service is freely available from services like Google Gemini, Perplexity AI, ChatGPT and many others.

New and improved ways to work smarter are available to you. You can decrease stress whilst simultaneously increasing your productivity. That’s a huge win win.

New ways to sell your services are available to you, thanks to the newly-competitive payment provider sector. This makes it easier for clients to hire you or buy from you. Plus, it’s more profitable for your business, too.

New partnership possibilities are springing up. All this change brings almost unlimited potential for you to radically expand and improve your partnerships. Joint Venture opportunities are everywhere, just waiting for you.

It’s utterly exhilarating

I work with small business owners daily. Based on the results I’m seeing month after month, I firmly believe this is a golden age of opportunity for small business owners. I’ve never seen anything even vaguely like it, in almost 30-years of serving small business owners. It’s utterly exhilarating. Don’t let yourself miss out.

You’re better. They’re more successful. Why?

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marketing balance, marketing tips, marketing ideas

Photo | Andrew Draper

Today, I’d like to help you avoid maybe the most frustrating thing in business. I’m referring to watching your less capable competitors gaining more of the market, and making more money, than you do.

It all starts with understanding the following.

The most successful provider and the best provider, are seldom the same provider. In fact, it rarely happens.

That’s because being the best doesn’t automatically mean people will notice you, believe you, buy from you or hire you.

Why is that?

Commercial success requires a critically important balance.

You need to balance the development of a great service, with the development of a strategy to earn the attention, trust and business/patronage of your marketplace.

Here’s why that balance is essential.

  • If your prospective clients don’t know you exist, it doesn’t matter how exceptional your service or product is, because you’re not an option for them.
  • If your prospective clients DO know you exist, but your marketing doesn’t inspire them to trust you, they won’t hire you or buy from you.
  • And if your prospective clients know you exist, and they trust you–but your marketing doesn’t motivate them to take action, they won’t hire you or buy from you.

Without that balance in place: Trying to grow a business is extremely frustrating, as less capable competitors grab your share of the marketplace. You will already know competitors in your space, who are nowhere near as good as you, yet they’re flying.

With that balance in place: You get all the rewards your hard work and dedication merits.

Thankfully, this is directly under our control as business owners. And it’s easy. All it takes is a decision. The decision to adjust the balance, so our business attracts the volume and quality of clients we deserve.

But here’s the challenge

It’s even easier to ‘keep on keeping on’ and hope things just get better. Which is why this message is ignored by most people I share it with. It’s why there are business owners still whining about how unlucky they are 5 or even 10-years after they started their business.

It’s not luck.

It’s a decision. THIS decision.

And as business owners, it should be the easiest, most obvious business decision we ever make.

Assess. Improve. Execute

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marketing tips, curiosity, sales leads, sales

Photo Finn Hackshaw

Today, I’m going to share a marketing idea with you that helped me increase a client’s sales results by just over 180% in 5 months.

It can be summed up in 3 words: Assess. Improve. Execute.

Here’s how it works.

Assess

The first step to boosting your sales results is to assess your current situation. I spent some time digging into my client’s sales and marketing process and identified her company’s primary problem. It turned out they offered a superb service and when prospects learned about it, they absolutely loved it. The problem was that they were getting too few chances to demo their service. This means I needed to radically increase the number of high-quality client leads they attracted.

Once we identified the root of her problem, it was time to improve things and free my client to dramatically increase her company’s sales results.

Improve

There were a number of areas in my client’s marketing that were under-performing. This is why she wasn’t generating the volume of high-quality enquiries she needed. She knew her marketing wasn’t working the way she needed it to. But like many business owners, my client assumed the enquiries they attracted were about average in number and quality. She was wrong on both fronts. A common mistake, which had been needlessly losing the company a fortune.

By making a small number of essential improvements at the very beginning, we were able to considerably increase her results. And fast. Really fast.

I remember the easiest adjustment I made, was to improve the focus of their sales message. It had previously focused on what their business did, how great their service was and how amazing their team was. It’s a common mistake.

If your marketing has a similar focus, it’s a bad, bad idea!

And here’s why.

No one buys a service or a product. They buy the result. For example, you don’t buy exercise equipment. You buy looking good and feeling great. So, sell the result of investing in your service.

Anyhow, we then dug a little deeper and uncovered a series of similarly untapped, windfall opportunities.

One of them was for me to transform their website into a lead generating machine, by improving their marketing copy. I needed it to make prospects on their site feel massively more curious.

Curious? Why curious, Jim?

Think about it. Every client or customer enquiry you have ever had, or will ever receive, only happened because that person needed to know something. So, if you want your marketing to attract massively more leads, it needs to create more curiosity… and answer fewer questions.

Previously, their website tried to answer as many questions as possible. I rewrote their marketing and made sure it provided just enough information.

Just enough information to inform the prospect and ignite their curiosity.

Just enough information to compel, to motivate and to inspire eager prospects to contact them with a high-quality enquiry.

We wrapped these ideas into a plan, along with half a dozen other tactical improvements. Now we were good to go!

Execute

Oh man! Without doubt, this is the stage that excites me most. This is why I do what I do.

It’s where we execute on the newly-improved marketing and measure the feedback. There’s something wonderful about the energy I get from clients, as they see their business performing the way they always wanted it too. And often far, far better.

Assess. Improve. Execute. Focus like a laser on those 3 steps and watch your business grow.

From? To?

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marketing tip, business journey

Photo: Nick Fewings

Today, I’d like to share a very powerful marketing strategy with you, which few, if any, of your competitors are aware of.

Every business provides a product or a service, which solves a problem for the customer. In order to solve their problem, it needs to create a change. To move the customer from something to something.

For example.

  • From worried to confident.
  • From vulnerable to safe.
  • From broke to wealthy.
  • From discomfort to comfort.
  • From bored to entertained.
  • From struggling to succeeding.
  • From confused to clear.
  • From sad to joyful.
  • From scruffy to glam.
  • From lonely to connected.
  • From loss to gain.
  • From ignorant to informed.
  • From stressed to relaxed.
  • From pessimistic to hopeful.
  • From lost to guided.

Now, here’s the part very few business owners get right.

You need to figure out the change your prospective customers are looking for. Their ‘from what’ and their ‘to what’.

Warning

The biggest danger here is believing the answer is obvious. It almost never is.

Seriously.

For instance, no successful coffee shop focuses on changing you from thirsty to quenched. None of them.

They change you by creating an attractive atmosphere. An atmosphere, where you can go from stressed to relaxed, or from tired to restored, or from lonely to connected, from stuck to creative or from bored to entertained.

The world’s top coffee shops know this. It’s what their marketing focuses on. It’s why we see very little emphasis placed on the coffee beans used, yet huge emphasis placed on the welcoming, positive atmosphere.

Here’s another example.

The world’s most expensive restaurants don’t focus on taking you from feeling hungry to feeling full. You can go down the street and get the same number of calories from a burger joint for pennies. Instead, these restaurants focus on their exclusivity. They take you from feeling normal to feeling like a star.

You get the idea.

Your product or service

Determine what change or changes your prospect is truly looking for.

Focus on the ‘from what’ part. Your marketing message needs to meet them right there. It needs to talk to their current situation. It needs to address the discomfort they’re feeling. This means your message will be on the very same wavelength that they’re on. This dramatically and profoundly increases the sales impact of your marketing

Then focus on the ‘to what’ part. Your marketing needs to illustrate how your product or service transitions them to their end point. To the very thing they desire.

This marketing strategy is designed to directly address the wants or needs of your prospects and position you as the answer. Almost no small business marketing does this and amazingly few medium-sized businesses.

How to create a new, high profit service

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Here’s a tried and tested way to create a new and highly profitable service that will be irresistible to your marketplace.

It’s based on an easy to follow, 3 step formula.

new profitable service

1. Identify their major problem

Identify the biggest challenge facing your clients and prospective clients. If you think you’ve identified it, BUT it isn’t a big enough problem to keep them awake at night, you haven’t found it yet.

So keep looking!

That may sound dramatic, however, there’s a direct link between the size of the problem you solve and the success of your new, high profit service.

2. Create the solution

Create a solution that will overcome the challenge.

Yes, you’ll need to get creative here. If the solution was patently obvious, it wouldn’t have an entire marketplace suffering with it.

Thankfully, big problems don’t always require a big or complex answer. However, the solution to such pressing problems can require some extra creativity.

With that in mind, here are a couple of tips to help you find the answer you need.

  • Look outside your industry for the solution. Problems in one industry (or region / country) have already been solved in others. The most famous example of importing a solution from a totally different industry, is from The Ford Motor Company. They developed the automotive production line, based on how Chicago’s meat-packing plants worked.
  • Ask others for their ideas. By encouraging people you trust to provide their input, you multiply your chances of cracking the problem. It’s possible one of them will figure it out. It’s also possible that one of them could propose a solution that doesn’t work… but which sets you on a new direction that leads to the answer.

And finally.

3. Market your highly profitable new service

Create a marketing strategy that will inform and convince your marketplace, that you have the answer they need.

When marketing your solution to existing clients, you should find a massive level of interest.

Once you’ve provided an extremely valuable service to enough existing clients, the word usually spreads and spreads.

This then leads to a consistent flow of high quality client enquiries. Initially from your local area, then spreading into new locations; opening up an ever-expanding market.

Obviously, if you don’t have any existing and / or former clients, you have a trickier task at hand. Existing clients already know you and trust you. It’s very easy to share an idea with them.

When you’re contacting strangers it’s a very different proposition. There’s no one-size-fits-all marketing approach. The way forward for you will depend on multiple factors. Note: If you’re in this position and want some alternative strategies and ideas, I strongly recommend you read this: 10 Reasons your business isn’t growing and how to fix it.

The most valued service providers are those who solve the biggest, most serious problems, and then market their solution effectively. By using that 3 step formula correctly, you can become amazingly valuable to the market you serve.

People will tell their friends about you.

Your reputation will sky-rocket.

And you’ll attract the very best clients, whilst enjoying the rewards that come from your new, highly profitable service.

The content marketing your prospects want from you

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Marketing, list writing

I regularly write about the importance of creating marketing that’s useful to your prospects. So, here are some specific examples, which you can adapt and apply to your own marketing.

Let’s go.

Their needs and your products or services

Start off by thinking about the services you provide or your product range. Then, consider the following topics or ideas and how you can incorporate them into your content marketing messages.

People have an inbuilt need to feel connected: Share ideas to help your prospects connect with useful contacts. The Wall Street Journal wrote about how I achieved this for one of my clients – 4 Marketing Strategies That Paid Off For Small Companies.

People also have an inbuilt need to belong: Share the opportunity to become part of your community. Lots of content marketing fails to address this. Newsletter creators talk about their ‘list’. Podcasters and Youtubers talk about their ‘subscribers’. These are all self-focused. Instead, do as I have done and build a community.

For example, when one of my community hits reply to my newsletter, they can email me direct. And they always, always get an answer from me. No AI. No automation. Just me. I make it very clear that I’m part of the same community as you… the small business owner community. Your prospects value that kind of connection. They’re less attracted to being part of an impersonal list.

Everyone is trying to succeed at something: Share ideas to help your prospects achieve their targets, goals or dreams. Obviously, as with pretty-much every topic here, if you offer a specific product or service that can help them in this area, incorporate that into the content.

We all need to feel safe and secure: Share ideas to help your prospects reduce risk or feel safer.

Everyone wants to avoid wasting time: Share ideas to help your prospects maximize their time, or help them complete certain tasks faster, etc. I’m not a time management expert, but I’ve shared tons of ideas in this area, based on decades of running a successful business, without working crazy hours. The response is always excellent. So don’t be put off sharing from your experience.

People want to improve and expand their knowledge: Share your industry knowledge, sure. But also share your experience with them. For example, if you’re an accountant, don’t just focus on tax, profit and loss or the latest business news. They can get that anywhere. Tell them the common factors you’ve identified in successful businesses. And the ones you’ve identified in those that flounder or fail.

Your specific experience is extremely valuable. It sets you apart from all your competitors. And in doing so, you make it far easier for prospects to feel a sense of connection with you.

We also want to avoid unnecessary stress: Share ideas to help your prospects feel more relaxed and assured. If there’s a specific product or service you offer, which can assist them with this, incorporate that into the message or idea.

Aim for unmissable

Are any of those topics missing from your content marketing? If they are, look for ways to incorporate them. Because this kind of useful, relevant information is the cornerstone of successful marketing. You’ll know you have the balance right, when your content marketing is so useful that people would miss it if you stopped.

A new beginning or oiling the keys?

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content marketing topics

In business, things have changed more in the past 4 and a half years than they did in the previous 2 decades. The ‘old’ way of marketing, which many have patched up and tried to repair is not fit for purpose in 2024. It’s too irrelevant to be adapted.

It’s like oiling the keys on a typewriter, in an attempt to compete against the productivity of a laptop.

Here’s a proven, vastly better way forward.

Give your marketing a fresh beginning

What I did with massive success for my clients during the pandemic, and have carried forward since, is to start their marketing again. A totally new beginning. I started by asking them to answer the following question.

If you were marketing your business for the first time, based on today’s economic realities and marketplace expectations, what would your marketing need to look like?

By answering that question, you rid yourself of the toxic baggage that’s holding you and your business back. You give yourself the freedom to perfectly match the needs and wants of your prospective clients or customers. You free yourself of the legacy mistakes that are currently working against you.

That type of radical improvement is simply not possible, when all you’re doing is oiling the keys.

Go!

So, go on. Imagine you are marketing your business for the very first time. Take a look at the all-new landscape your business is surrounded by. Now, match your marketing strategy, your marketing tactics, your marketing messages, your promises, your guarantees, etc., so that they’re exactly what your prospective clients want and need.

I can tell you from experience, get this right and the results are spectacular.

Make 2024 your best year ever, even if you’re struggling today

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Business results, reflection, take action

Next week marks the 2nd half of 2024. If you want to finish the year strong, no matter how things are going for you right now, today’s newsletter is exactly what you need.

What follows is based on almost 30 years of experience, helping small business owners achieve their best results. It’s a very straightforward approach. And it works in every industry and profession.

And it starts with us taking a look at how our business has performed over the first half of 2024.

Reflection and action

If we reflect on our progress and discover we’re on course to hit or smash our 2024 targets, we need to take action.

  1. To stay focused.
  2. To persevere.
  3. To carry on doing the right things, correctly.

If we reflect on our progress and it looks like we’re not on course, we need to take action.

  1. To accept the urgency of the situation.
  2. To decide that more of the same is not an option.
  3. To get strategic. Important: Most business owners don’t know what an effective strategy is. Here’s a short, brilliant explainer video, by Professor Roger Martin.
  4. To make better decisions.
  5. To take better actions.
  6. To finish strong and turn things around.

And here’s the GREAT news

Whether we’re on target or off target, we can still make this a very successful year. Equipped with the right strategy and support, our decisions will improve, our actions will improve and our results will improve.

The key is to act. And to act in accordance with the results we’re currently experiencing.

Lots of small business owners get this wrong. Many of those who are off target today, will stay focused, persevere and carry on… with more of the same. They’ll stick with what they’re doing and hope that things will improve.

Over the years, I’ve helped thousands of businesspeople to transform their results. In every case, their turnaround success started after they took that number one step above. They accepted the urgency of their situation, which inspired them to make the required adjustments. 

Yes, I do this same exercise myself

On a personal note, the only reason my own business has been successful over the years, is that I have learned to review my progress, or lack of progress, and then to act accordingly.

If I was using the same approach to my business in 2024 as I was using even a few years ago, my own business would be contracting today.

We all need to reflect on where we are, and then act accordingly. So please take time to see where your business is today, look at its direction of travel, and make the required adjustments.

Photo: Richard Stachmann on Unsplash

When was the last time?

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people looking at laptop computer

Photo by Fox on Pexels.com

When was the last time you tested different pricing models?

When was the last time you were contacted by a media outlet, for your professional opinion?

When was the last time you tested a new marketing tactic or strategy?

When was the last time you did something radically different from your competitors?

When was the last time you undertook detailed competitor research, so that you know what you’re actually competing against?

When was the last time you received a great referral from one of your customers?

When was the last time you updated your marketing materials?

When was the last time you took the lead in your industry?

When was the last time you took an idea that’s common and successful in a different industry, and applied it to your business?

When was the last time you seriously challenged one of your long-held business beliefs?

When was the last time you partnered with another business on a project?

When was the last time you updated your business goals and targets?

When was the last time you added a new product or service to your portfolio?

When was the last time you looked for new ways to solve problems, for your customers and prospective customers?

When was the last time you seriously asked yourself, if your business is growing as fast and as profitably as it could be?

When was the last time you saw a significant, sustained increase in profits, and what did you learn from it?

When it’s been too long

If it has been too long since you last did, or experienced, some of the above, now would be a great time to put that right.

Make a list. Then work your way through it. Some of these will be more challenging than others, but all of them are important enough to invest the effort required.

How to turn Free Offers into paying customers

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make free offers work, marketing free offers, freebies
Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

Yes, free offers can massively increase your sales. But you need to use them correctly in order to get the best possible results.

Let’s go.

There’s a famous saying that tells us, when it comes to business, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. We’ve been trained to believe that a freebie is seldom really free.

Why should this matter to you?

Allow me to explain.

Is it a free offer or just a mutual exchange?

I remember visiting a new cafe in my local town. They had signs everywhere offering free WiFi. The guy next to me called one of the staff over. He explained that he wasn’t able to access their free WiFi. He was told that in order to access it, he would need to set up a free account, giving his name, his email address and his postal address. The customer replied, “No way! I thought you said it was free? I already get more than enough spam”.

An awkward conversation followed, with the owner trying to defend their position and the customer saying the free WiFi offer was deliberately misleading. And of course, all this happened in front of the other customers. That negative exchange will have totally changed the customer’s experience.

The impact of a fake free offer will vary from person to person and from situation to situation. But it will be there. And you need to be aware of it, if you refer to mutual exchanges as free offers.

Full disclosure is a must

There is a way to largely mitigate the negative impact of the kind of free offer used by that cafe. It’s all about providing full disclosure. If you want people to take some kind of action in return for the offer, make it clear. If you ask for contact details, let people know why, right there, in the same space where you make the free offer.

People respond a lot better, when you’re being open and honest with them. For example, if you ask for their details, tell them what you intend to do with that information. If you don’t plan to sell their information, or send them ads from 3rd parties, tell them. Tell them that you respect their privacy.

Note: This also applies to online lead generation (or lead gen), where people are asked for their personal details in return for some kind of freebie. And remember that there are regulations governing the way you request, capture and store data, etc. These vary from country to country.

A genuinely free offer

If you make a genuinely free offer, (like the example below) with no strings attached, nothing concealed, it creates a much better impression than the previous examples. It also sets you apart from the masses. People will look for the usual disclaimer, but it won’t be there, because there isn’t anything for you to disclaim. They’ll quickly see that you’re being totally honest with them.

It will instantly improve how they feel about you, your business and the services you provide. It will help you earn their trust. And it will directly, dramatically improve the story they tell their friends.

The deli counter: A great free offer template

If you want a template for the best kind of commercial free offer, look no further than the free samples on a deli counter. It’s simple. And as long as the food is delicious, it’s highly effective. The prospective customer tastes the food ahead of buying it. If they like it enough, they’ll buy it.

Another reason why I chose the deli counter example, is that the profit margins on food are typically hundreds of percent. So the free offer costs the business very, very little. The prospect, however, attaches value based on the retail price.

Your free offers should strive for the same type of balance: A low cost for you to provide it, but a higher perceived value to the prospect.

In short, I recommend you take a structured approach to your use of free offers. Do the research first, based on what your goals are for the offer. Remember that full disclosure is extremely important on many levels. And whenever possible, use that deli counter example as a template.

An important lesson from the last 7 days

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marketing tip, biz dev

Today, I’d like to share a profoundly important marketing and business development idea with you, which is often ignored.

What makes it “profoundly important”? It’s literally (not figuratively) essential if you want to build a successful business and a very bright financial future! That’s why I am also going to show you how to get started.

I need to begin by asking you a question. How many of the marketing or business development tasks you worked on last week, were due last week?

Your answer to that question is important. It’s a great snapshot of how long-term or short-term your current horizon is.

The next 6 months, 12 months and 36+ months

It’s natural to focus on making your next sale or getting your next customer enquiry. It’s really important, too. However, it’s profoundly important to come up for air and look to your future. To work on the foundations of your marketing and business development, which will determine your success over the next 6 months, 12 months and 36+ months.

This might include answering key questions like.

  • How can you greatly increase the number of sales you make, in the next 6 months, 12 months and 36 months or more?
  • And how can you increase the profitability of those sales?
  • What could you be doing in order to significantly improve your customer retention rate and the number of customer referrals you receive?
  • What valuable, new product or service could you be working on, for your current and future customers?
  • Who are the useful people you need to introduce yourself to now, so you’ll have an existing relationship with them in your medium and longer term? There is a direct link between how well connected you are, and how successful your business will be. There’s more information on this here, (in the 3rd marketing tip).

Today’s important tasks absolutely need to be worked on. But the only way to build a spectacularly bright future, is to work today with our future in mind. We need to regularly make time to think, plan and work on our longer-term success.

This means resisting the temptation of being so wrapped up in today’s business challenges, that we have too few foundations in place, for the future success we are capable of achieving.

Plant a seed today

Make time today, even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes, to advance a business idea you have. In doing this, you’ll be planting a seed for the future success of your business. Then tomorrow, plant, water or feed  another seed. And again the day after.

When harvest time comes, you’ll be very glad you did.

Photo by Stas Knop on Pexels.com

Your customer and your business, are one

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customer focus, focused on customer, us and us

What I am about to share with you is gold dust. And if you take a moment to read it, it can radically improve the success of your business.

It starts with this very simple idea.

You cannot develop greater value for your customer or deliver higher levels of service to your customer, without benefiting from it equally. That’s because your customer, and your business, are one.

Now I’ll explain why.

There’s only us and us

In business, when it comes to the vendor and the customer, there’s no us and them. There’s only us and us. You already know that customers are an essential part of your business. Logically, when you make things better for them, you make them better for your business, too. Your customer, and your business, are one.

A common objection I get when explaining this to business owners, is a version of the following.

But Jim, if I go to that extra effort and expense for my customers, it will cost me in time and money. The customer will benefit, but I’ll lose out.

Here’s where the confusion occurs.

Business owners will look at their current numbers, subtract any extra time or financial investment, and it doesn’t add up. What they’re missing is that their current numbers are a fraction as high, and a fraction as profitable, as they would be with the improved model.

Invest in delighting your customers

How do you switch to the improved model? You do it by developing your business, so that it’s transparently designed to be of massive value to your customers and prospects. I provide lots of useful information in that link, which you’ll find useful.

Here’s what we see from those rare business owners, already embracing this customer-focused attitude.

  • They attract the best customers.
  • They thrive in every economy.
  • They retain existing customers for massively longer.
  • They generate a buzz around their products or services, simply by doing what they do.
  • They never need to sell based on price.
  • They enjoy a hugely valuable profile in their marketplace.
  • They attract high-value opportunities, from brands who want to collaborate with them.
  • They are far more productive.
  • They attract endless word-of-mouth referrals.
  • They truly enjoy every working day, because all of the above things are happening.

All that, and more, can be yours, when you fully embrace the idea that your customer, and your business, are one. You’re then free to grow a high-profit business, doing your best work, for the best customers.

Do this correctly and you’ll be amazed at how quickly, and how dramatically, things improve for you.