Business development Archives - Page 78 of 83

Why your clients could be killing your business and how to stop it

By Jim Connolly | September 19, 2016

Are your clients destroying your business? That may seem like an odd question. However, it’s an extremely important one. And for most people reading this, the answer is a definite YES!

You see, a huge part of the way your prospective clients will feel about working with you, is defined by who you already work for.

Allow me to explain.

How your client’s define you

Here are just a couple of examples of how the wrong kind of client can ruin a great business.

Firstly, when a prospective client checks your portfolio or testimonials, they get an immediate insight into the quality of clients you’ve worked with. If you’ve worked for clients, who failed to give you the freedom you need to do great work, this will be directly obvious to prospective clients. Most designers, copywriters, accountants, trainers and coaches fall into this trap. And it’s usually fatal.

Secondly, if you work for clients who don’t pay you on time (or pay you enough), you will always have cash flow problems. This leaves you constantly desperate for income. Prospective clients and customers can smell desperation a mile off. They will either be put off working with you or they will use it to drive your fees or prices down.

In each of those instances, your entire commercial future is being dictated, by the quality of clients you choose to work with.

The answer: Pick your clients and choose wisely

Working for anyone who will pay you is usually a very bad idea.

It fails you in the short term (you’re miserable).
It fails you in the medium term (you’re not rewarded financially or professionally).
It fails you in the long term (the process keeps looping). This is how negative cycles are created and allowed to persist.

Yes, it’s tempting to grab whatever work you can get. However, it’s the root cause of the problem. It’s not the solution.

Thankfully, the opposite is also true. When you work with great clients, on inspiring projects and your time is valued, it places you in the VIP vendor box.

Prospective clients see that you work with great people. They see the projects you’re involved in. They draw the conclusion that people like you, don’t come cheap. You then attract more great clients, you get paid what you’re worth and this too creates a cycle.

A highly profitable, enormously rewarding cycle.

For more free information on the subject, read this: How to build a successful business. It contains lots of ideas and examples.

Attract sales, leads and new clients

By Jim Connolly | August 31, 2016

If you want to attract more clients, sales or sales leads, you’ll LOVE today’s article.

I need to start by sharing one of the cornerstones of great marketing. It’s simply this: Focus on your prospective clients and their needs, rather than your own needs.

Some call it paying it forward.

Others call it contribution.

You can call it whatever you like, but it’s the same thing. Focusing your efforts on the other person and not on yourself.

Why?

Bring the marketplace your seed, not your need

I live in a rural village. It’s coming to the end of harvest time. Ask a farmer about the harvest and she’ll tell you this: If you want a bountiful harvest, you need to bring your seeds to the soil. Not your needs. You can tell the soil how much you need a great harvest. You can pester the soil for months with selfish requests… and nothing productive will happen.

The marketplace is very similar. It doesn’t give a shit about what you need!

This is why pestering people for leads at networking groups is such a soul-destroying waste of your time. It just makes you look needy. The same is true of sending strangers marketing emails they never asked for. Ditto, posting needy marketing messages on social networks. All of these are super-low leverage and reflect poorly on you and your brand.

That’s what self-focused marketing looks like. You see it every day. And it has never been less effective.

Here’s a way better alternative for you to consider.

Attract sales, leads and clients

The thing is, you don’t need to pester anyone. Your prospective clients present you with an opportunity to plant as many seeds of contribution as you want to. [Think about that for a moment.]

For example, I reach tens (and tens) of thousands of prospective clients daily, by giving away as much useful information as I can via my blog and social networking channels. Without pestering anyone, I generate sales, leads and enquiries from new clients every day.

However, to earn that privilege I have to consistently focus on you. I have to uncover your needs, so I can deliver valuable, free information that will be of use to you and your business.

The bottom line is that the process of giving and receiving, starts with the giving part. If you want to receive more, give more. They say: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

So start today

Give value, not pitches.

Be useful, not annoying.

Offer help, not deals.

Attract attention, not scorn.

Repeat tomorrow.

Learning how to overcome fear

By Jim Connolly | August 25, 2016

I want to talk to you about something really important today. I want to talk to you about overcoming fear.

Here’s the thing: Fear stops intelligent business owners from doing what they know they should do. It stops them from creating a uniquely valuable service. It stops them from charging what they are worth. It stops them from rejecting low quality clients. It stops them from standing out and getting noticed.

We can study how business works, read the books, attend the seminars. However, nothing much happens until we overcome the fear. Because fear blocks us from moving forward.

Yes, we

I very deliberately say we, because I feel that fear too. I think we all do.

Where some of us differ from others, is that we learn how to dance with the fear. We develop strategies, which stop fear from causing us to make bad decisions. We then free ourselves to make the improvements we know we need to make. And our businesses move forward.

How do you find the strategy that will work for you?

In my experience, and I’ve helped hundreds of people overcome their fear, there’s no single, universal answer. Everybody is different. Different people require different strategies.

One thing everybody has in common, is that our business (and life) is improved beyond measure, when we learn how to conquer our fear.

I was prompted to write about this, after hearing from someone, who I helped overcome her fear just a few months ago. She outlined the improvements she has made to her business, now that fear was no longer blocking her from making the right decisions. It was inspirational to see the progress she has made.

Sure, I can help you too. The bigger point is that I want you to focus on overcoming your fear. However you do it. It’s the key that unlocks your full potential and allows you to move forward with clarity, enthusiasm and confidence.

So, are you building a tribe or writing drive-by content?

By Jim Connolly | August 15, 2016

Why do the vast majority of small business owners see such poor results from their content marketing? Why isn’t it attracting sales or new client enquiries every day?

The answer is that almost every small business is making the same mistake. And this mistake makes it impossible for them to succeed.

Here’s what you need to know, in order to get the best possible results.

Content marketing and leaky buckets

The problem with trying to fill a bucket, which has a big hole in the bottom, is that the water flows out just as fast as it flows in. It’s a never ending task, unless you get a new bucket or fix the hole.

Most content marketing advice, including that written by many so-called experts, is based around the idea of treating your content marketing, like a bucket with a hole.

It’s about attracting drive-by readers with ‘killer’ headlines.
It’s about churning stuff out, rather than publishing useful information.
It’s about using a cookie-cutter approach, like hundreds of thousands of others, which makes you and your content invisible.
It’s about SEOing your thoughts, rather than expressing your thoughts.

Seth Godin said it extremely well:

“The copywriter/editor who trades in meaning for lists, using calculated SEO keyword loading and sensationalism designed to attract the drive-by audience, earns the privilege of doing it again and again, forever.”

It’s like trying to fill that broken bucket. It’s also the total opposite of growing a tribe.

They drive by

The thing about drive-by readers, is that they drive by. They are attracted to hyped up headlines and quickly go from one, “The growing trend that will scare the crap out of business owners everywhere”, article to the next.

If your content marketing is based around chasing them, you’re making life way too hard for yourself.

Grow a valuable reader community

To grow a great community or tribe around your work, you need to attract the right people, retain their attention and earn their trust.

This means showing up regularly with useful information, rather than sensationalist, predictable content for the drive-by crowd.

It means avoiding so-called content marketing systems or anything, which claims to be a one-size-fits-all “solution“. All that junk will do is make your content marketing invisible. It will leave your content camouflaged, amongst the hundreds of thousands of others using the same cookie-cutter approach.

Instead, focus on building deeper connections with people who will value your work, share your work, call you, email you, hire you or buy from you.

Anything less is a waste of your time and will stop you benefiting from the amazing opportunity, which could be yours if you use content marketing correctly.

The truth about Steve Jobs, research and planning

By Jim Connolly | August 12, 2016

Steve Jobs was a remarkable person. Like many, I have studied his career for years and been amazed at what he achieved, in such a very short time.

steve jobs research, steve jobs focus groups, steve jobs planniing — Photo Copyright: Albert Watson

One of the things that happens whenever someone has a massive impact in any area of life, is that their ideas get misquoted or distorted.

Today’s post looks at one element of Steve Jobs’ work, which is often quoted, yet has no foundation in fact. I think you may find it surprising too!

It’s not Steve Jobs’ fault

I was prompted to write this after receiving an email from a reader, who decided to do zero research before starting a new business. She failed to gain a single customer. Here’s an excerpt from what she said, used with her permission, anonymously.

She said:

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I launched it without any planning or research. Steve Jobs never did any research. I thought if it worked for Steve it would work for me. It didn’t!’

Have you spotted the often quoted, incorrect assumption from that quote? It’s that totally incorrect fake-fact that Steve Jobs never did any research. This is absolutely incorrect.

Allow me to explain.

Going with your passion

It makes perfect sense to go with your passion in business. If you get an idea for a product or service and you think it stands a good chance of succeeding, do it! My own business was started that way and I know the same is true for many of the business owners reading this.

Steve Jobs was exceptionally passionate about his work and it shone through everything he did. In fact, people who worked with him often refer to his ability to create a reality distortion field, where he was able to convince them of almost anything he believed in.

Passion is essential. However, to ‘just do it’ as Nike say, and start a business or launch a new product without any planning or research, is extremely short-sighted. This is why someone as intelligent as Steve Jobs would never do that.

That’s right, Steve Jobs knew the value of research and planning. He didn’t become super successful by accident.

Steve Jobs, research and planning

Steve Jobs was the most interesting, fascinating and least understood businessperson I have ever studied. I firmly believe he was a genius and I don’t mean a genius in the, ‘everyone’s a genius’ kind of way. Jobs was truly exceptional.

Now, his approach to business was indeed pragmatic, however, he did invest in research. No, not as heavily as some of his competitors, but in his last year at Apple, Apple invested over $2Billion in research and development.

I bet that’s the first time you heard of the billions Apple Inc. invested annually, in R and D?

Why? Because it gets in the way of a better (fake) story… the idea that a company can become the most valuable in the world, on the hunches of one man. Steve Jobs knew his own brilliant mind and was an exceptionally good decision maker. One of the best, if not the best. However, to suggest, as many do, that he did no research and just launched into projects blind, is incorrect. Even a genius appreciates the value of planning, research and development.

If you have an idea for a product or service, go for it. As Steve Job’s said, ‘real artists ship’! Just make sure to do the research and planning, first.