Jim Connolly Marketing

I just received a very angry email. And I have to share it with you

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marketing, unbelievers

Nicola (not her real name) was really angry when she emailed me. With her permission, I’d like to share her story with you. And a powerful business lesson, too!

Nicola had spent a ton of time over the past 2 weeks, looking after the needs of a prospective client. (She’s a web designer). The prospective client told her he desperately needed a new website. He understood his current site was ugly and hurting his reputation.

After a morning-long meeting at the prospective client’s office, a chunk of time spent creating a proposal for him, then several further emails and some phone calls, he finally told her:

He knew he urgently needed a new site. He knew her work was great. He knew her fee was reasonable. But he just couldn’t justify the expense to himself!

Nicola said she was “really, really angry” and asked me what she was doing wrong.

Now, I don’t know Nicola. She’s a reader. And said she’d emailed me out of anger and frustration. The guy sounded so keen. She was expecting a new project. And the disappointment was clearly hurting her.

It’s entirely possible that Nicola has lousy marketing. If she had professional marketing help, she’d ask them what wasn’t working. Rather then me. So yes, it’s possible her prospective client wasn’t motivated to become a paying client, because she handled it poorly. I have no idea.

However, there’s a super-valuable lesson here.

Here’s what prompted me to share this with you

A lot of small business owners wrongly blame their fees, their marketing or their negotiating skills, when they fail to land a new client. Yes, getting it wrong in any of those areas will lose you business. Lots of business.

But sometimes, it’s the prospective client’s mindset. And I believe this is a perfect example, which is why I wanted to share it with you.

Going back to Nicola’s original email, I noticed something interesting. The prospective client explained that he knew he urgently needed a new site. He also said he knew Nicola’s work was great and her fee was reasonable, yet he couldn’t “justify the expense” to himself.

I think it highly probable that this guy was simply one of the unbelievers.

Unbelievers?

Yes!

He knew on an intellectual level that he needed her services, but he didn’t believe it on an emotional level. And as emotions drive decisions, he was never going to hire her.

He sounds like many small business owners, who have an employee mindset when it comes to investment in their business. They know they need expert help, but on an emotional level they’re scared to invest. They believe it’s safer to do nothing. They know… but fear stops them from doing what they know they need to do. Note: He called her fee an expense, not an investment

It’s not your fault

It’s often not your fault when a prospective client walks away.

If you’re using professional marketing, rather than dabbling. If your prices or fees match your promises. If you’re offering real value, and they still decide not to hire you or buy from you… it’s very probable you never had a chance.

So don’t be too hard on yourself, the next time an unbeliever decides to waste your time. It’s them. Not you.

Never underestimate the power of being first

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marketing ideas

It’s 2018, yet we still remember Roger Bannister as the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

Apple became the world’s most valuable company, largely because of profits from the iPhone; the world’s first smart phone.  (Here’s the original iPhone press release.)

There are 2 useful lessons here:

  1. When you are the first to do something, it’s remembered for a very long time. We remember Bannister, even though Australia’s John Landy broke Bannister’s record just 6 weeks later. Landy was faster, yet remained relatively unknown because he wasn’t the first person to go sub 4 minutes.
  2. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The first iPhone was really buggy. It even lacked a basic copy and paste facility for over a year! However, it was extremely useful.

This begs the question

What product or service could you be the first to create for your marketplace?

Fortunately, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. For example, a service which is common in another industry may be unheard of in yours. It just needs to be new to your industry, profession or marketplace.

And it absolutely doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be useful.

Stop working so hard. Seriously. It doesn’t work

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marketing, business development

It’s true. When you’re working hard to build a business, and you’re not achieving the results you want, working even harder is never (ever) the answer.

Over the years, I’ve worked with some amazingly successful people. People who went from zero to great financial wealth. People who not only succeed at work, but also enjoy a great family life and social life. None of them work any harder than the average business owner.

They work differently, sure. But they don’t work harder. And they certainly don’t work longer hours. Far from it. In fact, the most successful business owners work far fewer hours, than struggling business owners.

How can fewer hours lead to massively better results?

When a business isn’t developing the way you need it to, the tendency is to try and compensate by working longer hours and working harder. If you’ve tried this for any period of time, you’ll know it doesn’t work. It can’t work.

Think about it:

If you’re rowing a boat in the wrong direction, the harder you row, the further off target you become. Longer days, spent working harder, simply pushes you further and further off target.

What’s needed is an escape plan. A plan to escape the cycle of long, hard days that result in too little reward.

A proven and infinitely better alternative

If your current approach isn’t growing your business, stop. More of the same is not an option.

Next, find out what needs to be done from someone who knows. Then do it. It’s what my clients do every day. And it works. Beautifully.

With a proven strategy and the support you need:

  • High-energy, super-productive days replace long, hard days.
  • Progress replaces movement.
  • Clarity replaces confusion.
  • Excitement replaces apprehension.

The difference this will make to your business (and you) is huge.

As business owners, we have permission to create whatever kind of business we want. We also have the agility to put new ideas into play, better ideas into play, and watch them blossom into something amazing. It starts with the decision to let go of what we have, so we can replace it with what we want.

Here’s the challenge.

It isn’t easy. In fact, it’s darn hard!

Don’t let anyone tell you the decision is as simple as it sounds.

It isn’t!

Sure, on paper, it sounds easy. But if it was easy, every business owner would fix what’s wrong with their business and thrive. The jump from doing what’s familiar (even when it’s failing) to something new (even when it’s better) is scary. It’s a leap into the unknown.

I’ve worked with small business owners since 1995. And I’ve found that it usually takes something major to happen, before a business owner will switch.

Though not always.

Sometimes it can be something as subtle as a birthday. Or the right words from someone, at the right time. And that’s what I hope this message will be for at least one person reading this: the right words at the right time.

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

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business development

Here are 5 practical things you can get started on today, which your future self will thank you for. They’re in no particular order.

Let’s get started!

1: Look for the hidden gold dust that’s under your nose. What was the last marketing email you received, which you opened? What was the last marketing message you read, which motivated you to make a purchase or make an enquiry? By decoding what prompted you to take action, you can get ideas, to make your own marketing more effective. There’s gold dust all around you, if you choose to look for it.

2: Look for trust-building opportunities. Trust is the foundation of every great relationship. We earn trust from what we do, rather than what we say. So show, don’t tell. Tip: This strategy works great.

3: Look for better problems to solve. By solving better problems, you increase your commercial value. Increasing your commercial value is the starting point, to attracting the best clients and earning the best fees. The good news is that most of your competitors will deliberately avoid the tricky stuff. They’ll avoid solving the problems that require additional effort. This presents you with a wonderful opportunity. An opportunity to set yourself apart from your competitors and position yourself as a highly valued provider.

4: Look for the main barrier to your success. Then invest the time and effort required to remove it. Once you’ve removed it, what used to be your second biggest barrier to success will be the new number one. So, invest the time and effort required to remove it. Repeat.

5: Look for outreach opportunities. Right now, there are people who already have the trust and attention of your prospective clients. These trusted people are of massive value to you and your business. Identify who they are. Then, figure out why they should introduce you or recommend you. Get this right and the results can be amazing.

I hope you find at least one thing here, which you can get started on today. If you do, your future self will thank you.

These 4 business owners grabbed the attention of their marketplace. You can too

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marketing blogs, individual

It’s not hard to make your business stand out and attract lots of great clients. In fact, it’s easy.

Here are 4 examples, from business owners who are getting it right.

  • The accountant, who set up a network just for her clients. So they can connect with one another, help one another and buy from one another.
  • The dentist, who provides sessions for people who have an irrational fear of dentists.
  • The coffee shop owner, who offers customers poetry evenings and creative writing events.
  • The gardener, who not only keeps your garden looking great, but also provides all the garden consumables you need and delivers them to you.

The challenge isn’t that it’s hard to stand out. You simply need to Choose An Edge.

The challenge is that it’s easier not to.

I feel like I already know you

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I’d like to share a short, easy to understand, yet extremely valuable idea with you today. It’s all about attracting high quality leads on a very regular basis.

I was prompted to write this, after some emails I received this morning. As usual, a number of them contained a version of the following statement: I feel like I already know you. These emails were from people I’ve never met. In each case, they were referring to knowing me via the ideas I share, either on my blog or the email version of the blog.

Why am I telling you this?

What this means for you and your business

Now imagine that instead of me receiving those highly targeted, premium quality leads, it was YOU.

You received them. With more tomorrow, the next day and the next. More leads than you need. And all from people who feel like they know you. People who know your work. People whose attention you have. People who already trust you. (Think about that for a moment).

This opportunity is open to you. Wide open. It requires a couple of things.

  1. You’ll need to generously, regularly share valuable information. Information so useful, that people will eagerly want to receive it and share it.
  2. You’ll need to accept that no matter how great your information is, very few people will take notice at the beginning. Which is fine. Because all you need are your first 10 people. They’ll share your stuff with 10 like-minded friends. Now you’re at 100, which becomes 1000 or 10000 or 100000. If you stick with it.

That second part is where most people fail.

They invest time and effort for weeks, sometimes months, and see little audience growth. They get demotivated. Then quit. Largely because they have been given incorrect expectations of how growing an audience actually works. Despite what many content marketing gurus say, building a valuable audience takes time. It requires patience and commitment.

Focus on the 10

The key is to focus ONLY on earning the attention and trust of those first 10 people. Turn up regularly and give them your best ideas (not sales pitches or advertisements). As long as the information you share is useful enough and you turn up regularly enough, your audience will grow. And the growth accelerates as more people subscribe. When I started my blog, it took me an age to get my first 100 readers. Today, I can get that many in 24 hours. So, stick with it.

I hope you found this information useful. But more importantly, I hope it inspires you to build an extremely valuable community.