Photo by Taton Moïse on Unsplash

Before I start, it’s been a huge week here in the Connolly household. My son Lewis got a place at his first choice university. That has nothing to do with marketing. I’m just sharing a proud dad moment with you.

Okay. Now let’s grow your business with some marketing ideas!

Overcome a common marketing problem

I’m hearing from a lot of small business owners lately, who have the same challenge.

Here’s what they’re telling me.

They offer a great service. They’re working at least as hard as they always have. But their results are either plunging, dipping or not growing in any meaningful way. And the ads or marketing that used to work, are no longer as effective.

If you’re in a similar position, there are a few things I recommend you take a look at.
 

Demand

Has your marketplace shrunk? A growing number of services that people used to pay for, are now available for free via AI. Initially it was content writers whose services saw a huge drop in demand.

Now it’s far wider. Including; SEO providers, photographers, recipe planners, course/training creators, those selling online information products, web developers, commercial artists, designers, data analysts, technical writers, paralegals and tutors.

Note – This applies exclusively to those who serve the middle or lower end of the market. If you’re one of them, focus on what you can do, which AI can’t do. And make that a key element in your marketing.

Otherwise you’ll no longer be competing against lower-priced competitors, you’ll be competing against zero-priced competitors. 
 

Templates

If your marketing is based around a checklist, template or online course/program, you’re really hard to hire or buy from. That’s because you’re invisible. You’re camouflaged amid the millions of others following the same type of cookie-cutter approach.

Instead, look for intelligent opportunities to zig when they zag.

It’s not about being different.

It’s about finding ways to capture attention, which your prospects will love. It’s about knowing how to earn the trust of your prospects, before they hire you or buy from you. It’s about becoming a must-buy proposition. It’s about being the obvious choice for your prospects to make. That’s the exact opposite of the template approach to marketing.
 

New needs and wants

I’ve mentioned this a few times this year, but it’s something that’s created a huge shift in the way you need to market your business. The speed of change over the past 3 years has been greater than at any time in living memory. And it’s charging ahead at an accelerated pace.

This means your marketing needs to adjust to the new needs and wants of your prospects.

So, talk with your prospects. 

Dip into forums and social media.

See what they’re excited about.

See what they’re worried about.

See what they’re paying attention to. 

This is critically important. You can’t market effectively unless you know who you’re marketing to and what they want.

Einstein’s marketing tip

I’m certain you’ve read the following quote. You may not have applied it to your marketing efforts, though. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. 

When your sales results are going in the wrong direction, or going nowhere, it’s time to stop doing the same type of marketing.

When I explain this to business owners, they almost always draw the wrong conclusion. They conclude that I’m asking them to try different types of marketing.

I’m not.

I’m asking them to adopt a successful, uniquely them, marketing strategy.

That’s why some people reading this will find it interesting, then go to YouTube in search of sales hacks and tricks (template information). But the entrepreneurs reading it will see this as an opportunity to close out the last 4 months of the year thriving, and enjoy an amazing 2024.

If that sounds like you, it’s you that I serve

It’s you that I’m rooting for.

It’s you that I write for.

It’s you who share the my blog or newsletter with your friends.

And it’s you that email me with your success stories.

To your total success!

Today, I’m going to share some ideas to help you achieve that major breakthrough you need.

• Maybe it’s an invitation to appear on the biggest TV show, program or podcast in your industry.
• It could be the endorsement of the person best-known and most respected by your prospective clients or customers.
• Perhaps it’s a new marketing strategy that increases your client base or customer base, by a thousand percent.
• It might be an introduction to an investor, who has the courage and finances to back you.

In fact, it could be any type of breakthrough that would lead to a life-changing improvement.

If you want to achieve that level of success, there are 2 business assets you need to develop.

1. Door building readiness.
2. Success readiness.

Let me explain why those assets need your urgent attention, if you want something amazingly transformative to happen.

1. Door building readiness

Breakthroughs don’t magically happen.

In order to achieve a massive breakthrough, you need to build yourself a door. A door, which your breakthrough opportunity can knock on.

Let’s take a look at what this means, based on those examples above.

• Are you ready to do what’s required to attract the attention, and earn the interest, of the producers of those TV shows, programs or podcasts?
• Are you ready to do what’s required to get yourself in front of the best known, most respected person in your industry. And when you have, are you ready to do what’s required, to earn their trust?
• Are you ready to do what’s required, to have a marketing strategy that’s powerful enough to drive a thousand percent increase in clients or customers?
• Are you ready to do what’s required to create a product or service that’s so uniquely valuable, one of the world’s wealthiest investors will want to invest? And then, are you ready to do the work required to capture their attention?

So, that’s the door building readiness you need.

Now it’s time for success readiness.

2. Success readiness

This second question relates to the readiness, which turns the breakthrough opportunity into massive breakthrough results.

• So, you get the invitation to appear on that prime time TV show, program or podcast. But are you ready to get the media training required in advance, so you give a great account of yourself?
• You got the endorsement of the best known and most respected person in your industry. But are you ready to put plans in place, in advance, so you can maximize the potential of this superpower endorsement?
• You just witnessed a one thousand percent increase in clients. But are you ready to build a scalable process, in advance, to handle or onboard that thousand percent increase?
• You now have access to all the capital your business needs, thanks to that investor. But are you ready to study, in advance, how to grow a business with that spectacular level of funding?

What’s the lesson here?

Breakthrough opportunities come to those who carefully plan for their opportunity in advance. Breakthrough success comes to those who are fully prepared, when their opportunity arrives.

It’s important to know that the breakthrough you’re wishing for, need not be a wish. It’s something you can make happen, with planning and preparation.

And you can repeat this process again and again and again.

A company pays a salesperson $125,000 a year.

That salesperson has generated an average of $250,000 a year, for 3 years, in high-profit sales.

They did great.

No they didn’t!

They were terrible.

In fact, they were worse than a waste of money.

And here’s why.

They were losing their company a fortune!

You see, that salesperson left the company and was replaced by a new salesperson.

The new salesperson was also paid $125,000 a year.

And using the same source of leads, over the following 3 years they generated an average of $750,000 a year in high-profit sales.

In the space of 3 years, the first salesperson under-performed by $1,500,000.

Data and information

Too many business owners, and sales/marketing directors, who should know better, make decisions based on data, when what they need is information.

Information is what you get, when someone applies knowledge, experience and context to data.

• Data will show you that your salesperson is generating a 100% profit.
• Information does that. However, your information-based decision-making causes you to research the average conversion rate for your industry. It immediately identifies a major problem that’s losing you a fortune. The salesperson is way, way below average and needs training or replacing.

This same data error is made by most small and medium-sized business owners, when they advertise.

• They run the ads and data shows an ‘X’ percent profit is being achieved. They then look at ways to further increase that profit figure, with better written ads, better timed ads, better designed ads or placing ads on different platforms. This is an extremely limiting approach.
• The business owner using an information-based approach, would start by looking at the ad data. THEN, they’d expand their potential by examining the profitability of investing in email marketing, joint ventures and endorsed relationships, etc.

Just ONE, successful Endorsed Relationship campaign can generate more high-profit income for you in a week than you usually earn in a year. I’ve seen far higher returns than that.

In short, data is extremely useful. But you can’t make informed decisions without information. Data is just a single component. And using it by itself, can ruin an otherwise great business.