Marketing tips Marketing help

Much better than I expected!

December 16, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

Think about it:

When you’ve delivered a project for a client (or customer), you want them to say to themselves, “this work is much better than I expected”.
When you tell someone about the service you offer, then quote your fee, you want them to say to themselves, “this quote is much better than I expected“.
When someone experiences your customer service, you want them to say to themselves, “this service is much better than I expected“.

Much better than I expected

There’s some REAL power in those 5 words. They’re a sure sign that you’re exceeding expectations. And the most successful business owners strive to exceed expectations, with every interaction.

Here’s why:

They know that by truly exceeding expectations, they’ll retain more clients. They know they’ll also receive highly valuable client referrals. And they know they’ll build an exceptional reputation, too.

The reason the majority of small businesses fail to achieve this, is that it presents the business owner with 2, tricky challenges. When you overcome them, you can benefit from all the advantages of exceeding the expectations of your clients and your marketplace. And that’s what I’m going to share with you today.

Let’s start by looking at those 2 challenges and how you can turn things around.

1. Almost every small business owner thinks they’re already exceeding expectations

They know how hard they work. They know how passionately they care about their clients. They then confuse their hard work and passion with delivering a remarkably good service.

Working hard doesn’t mean you’re exceeding expectations. After all, you can work darn hard, just delivering exactly what your client expects from you! That kind of hard work is merely meeting expectations. Not exceeding them.

How do you find out for sure, if you’re exceeding expectations?

Simple. Just look at the number of referrals your clients give you.

Some clients will stay with a service provider, just because it’s easier than finding a better provider. However, we know for certain that people regularly recommend exceptional services and products. They want their friends to know. That’s how word of mouth works.

So, when a business isn’t getting a regular stream of client referrals, it’s a sure sign that the business isn’t exceeding what their clients expect from them. And it’s a wake up call to put things right, to up their game, to go from average to remarkable.

At least it should be.

2. It’s harder to exceed expectations than to meet them

Even if a business owner knows they’re not exceeding expectations, it can be a challenge to figure out what they need to do, to turn things around. With the marketplace saturated with average small businesses, it can be tricky to get out of that mindset – to see what’s truly possible – to blow the lid off the service you provide.

Fear not! Here’s something I share with my clients, to help them overcome this challenge.

You can elevate your own expectations of what’s possible, by looking outside of your industry and beyond your competitors, for guidance and inspiration.

For example:

Compare your customer service to Disney.
Compare your product’s build quality to Rolex.
Compare your design quality to Apple.
Compare your distribution to Amazon.

Then, look for fresh ways to deliver your services, based on what you can learn from these examples of excellence. It takes a little effort, but it’s a proven way to exceed expectations. And I’ve seen it work dozens and dozens of times.

What next?

In my experience, it’s the first of those challenges that’s the toughest.

Even when some small business owners know they get very few referrals, they’ll still fail to accept it’s down to them.

They’ll say their clients expect too much.
They’ll blame their clients for being ungrateful.
They’ll tell themselves their clients aren’t the kind who recommend others.

They’ll just hope ‘something’ changes and everyone will magically start recommending them. In short, they’ll refuse to accept responsibility. They’ll complain… but stay the same.

The second challenge is a little less tricky.

It means embracing the edges. And that feels riskier than staying in their comfort zone. But as any entrepreneur (I mean real entrepreneur) will tell you, the riskiest thing you can do is cling to the overcrowded middle ground.

The wonderful opportunity in front of you

Make no mistake, consistently exceeding expectations takes real commitment. And that’s why so few of your competitors will do it.

It’s also why this wonderful opportunity is open to you. It’s an opportunity to attract the best clients, to attract endless referrals, to retain your clients for longer and build an outstanding reputation.

So grab it with both hands my friend! And make it the cornerstone of your 2019 marketing strategy.

How to become an idea generating superpower

December 12, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

You are an idea person. And as such, you have the ability to blow the lid of your potential and (literally) grow the most amazing business you can imagine.

However, in order to unlock this often overlooked superpower, you need to know how to get started. You’ll also need to know how to overcome the stumbling block. In this brief post, I’ll help you with both those challenges.

We need to start by understanding that there are 2 types of idea people:

Those who have lots of ideas.
Those who have lots of ideas… and do something with them.

Putting our ideas into action

The person who has lots of ideas and doesn’t use them, sets a very low ceiling on their potential. Conversely, those with the motivation to put their ideas into play, give themselves ever-expanding possibilities. Here’s a quick snapshot of how that latter group tend to operate, when it comes to ideas.

It looks like this.

An idea will come to them.
Then, they make sure they capture the idea whilst it’s still fresh in their mind. For example, using the record function of their phone.
Next, they write the idea down.
They then chew on the idea for a while and determine its potential.
And if they believe it’s worth working on, they develop a simple plan to get it out of their head and into the world.
They take the first step on that plan.
Then the next…

Over the years, I’ve found that the key difference between those who work on their ideas and those who do not, seems to be their mindset regarding failure and criticism.

Failure in context

Those who act on their ideas, see failure as essential feedback. They know that nothing ships perfectly first time. That’s why your software is constantly updated and your hardware is a dinosaur, after a few years.

Updates, improvements and advancements come from feedback. In short: No feedback, no progress!

This means we need to eagerly seek out feedback whenever possible. Not try to avoid it.

Criticism in context

Those who act on their ideas understand criticism and handle it accordingly. They don’t allow critics to derail them.

They regard criticism as inevitable, ESPECIALLY if their idea is a big success. Every great idea, product and service has critics. There are no exceptions to this rule. This means if we try to avoid criticism, we’re proactively trying to avoid success, albeit unconsciously.

Note: I cover criticism in more detail here: Why people criticise you and how to deal with it, in just 3 steps.

The great news is that whether we are aware of it or not, we are all idea-generating powerhouses. And by capturing our ideas and putting the best ones into play, we open up endless possibilities.

Do lead magnets work?

December 7, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

Business owners often ask me “do lead magnets work?“, as a way to grow their newsletter lists. If you’re considering using them, or you’re wondering why they’re not working for you, you should find the following useful.

Let’s go.

Lead magnets?

For those who don’t already know, the term lead magnets was made popular by internet marketing gurus / social media gurus (and pretty much every get-rich-quick guru). However, the concept has been around for decades.

It refers to a freebie, which is used to entice people to give you their contact details. The most common freebies include ‘special reports’, white papers, ‘exclusive’ audio / video content or some kind of important information that’s only available via email. In return for the freebie, people are asked to provide their contact details.

Because of the negativity attached to lead magnets, many internet marketing gurus refer to them as ethical bribes. I’m not sure why they think a bribe sounds better!

Lead magnets and lists

Probably the most common use of lead magnets, is list building for newsletters. On the surface, they seem like a no-brainer. You certainly can attract lots of contact details with them.

However, there’s a major downside.

They are notorious for attracting the lowest possible quality contact details. That’s because the use of free stuff as bait, is most attractive to so-called freebie hunters; who are attracted to freebies like moths to a flame.

Why does this result in low quality?

Many / most freebie hunters use dedicated email addresses, just for getting their free offers. They check the email address only when they’re waiting for the freebie to arrive. As such, lists built from lead magnets can be really poor quality. Yes, you’ll probably attract some genuine contacts, too. But the overall quality will be massively lower than a normal list.

That said, there are some instances where lead magnets are worth considering.

Lead magnets can work

One example where lead magnets can work, is if you’re building a newsletter readership, where your business model is advertising. Offering a freebie, to people who pay you with their attention, and never need to pay you financially, can be a pretty good fit. So, if you’re offering a newsletter, and your advertisers pay based on the size of your list or reach (which they shouldn’t, but that’s another post), lead magnets will work.

I’ve also seen lead magnets used successfully for the sale of low-cost, downloadable content.

Interestingly, this is exactly what internet marketing gurus sold for years. Before they all switched to selling online training courses, they used to offer ‘information products’. Remember them? Those ebooks that claimed to blow the lid off your potential, or show you how to make a fortune while you sleep… and all for just 29.99.

Sigh.

Where lead magnets work least well

Without doubt, the area where lead magnets work least well, is with service providers; lawyers, accountants, coaches, consultants, mentors and designers, etc., etc.

I regularly hear from service providers, who have built lists using lead magnets and seen terrible results. In fact, I was prompted to write about this after an email I received from a reader in Sydney, Australia. She’s a copywriter and has built a list of over 45,000 lead magnet contacts, which she’d mailed for 12-months. It didn’t generate one paying client. She showed me some of the emails she’d sent, and as you’d expect from a professional writer, they were superb. But the list itself just wasn’t worth mailing.

There are a couple of key reasons why lead magnets are so ineffective for service providers:

The level of trust and commitment required to download a freebie, is close to zero. The trust and commitment required to buy a low-cost information product is moderate. BUT the trust and commitment required to hire the services of an expert is absolutely HUGE.
The service provider needs to somehow reposition themselves as a professional, who offers a high quality service. This, after showing they were fine offering ethical bribes / freebies, in an effort to get clients. At best, it looks needy. At worst it looks shoddy. Either way, that’s a heck of a barrier to overcome!

Lead magnets conclusion

Before you think about using lead magnets, consider why you need them.

For example, when a newsletter provides useful information and is valued by its readers, the readers share it with their friends and contacts. It grows organically, because of its value.

And if your website has a sign-up form, which people are not using, you should uncover why it’s being ignored.

The most valuable lists, by far, are those that grow organically. Organic lists grow because people are genuinely interested in knowing more about what you do. These interested people are of enormous value to your business, as an excellent source of prospective clients.

There is definitely a place for lead magnets, as I mentioned earlier. But especially if you’re a service provider, the way forward is to identify why people are not sharing your content or subscribing to it, without the freebie. Fix the core issue, my friend. Then you’re free to build the highly valuable list your business needs.

They lied. You absolutely must make mountains out of molehills

December 4, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

I have a beautifully simple, yet powerful marketing tip to share with you today.

It’s all about mountains and molehills.

I know.

It sounds weird.

Allow me to explain!

I vividly recall speaking with the owner of a London-based office supplies company. I’m going to call him John. He was introduced to me at a talk I gave, at The London Chamber of Commerce some years ago. After my talk, John approached me and said he had something he’d like to share with me.

He explained that for years, he’d been frantically trying to work out why his major competitor was doing so well. That’s because on the surface, they seemed very similar to John’s business. And yet they’d grown 5 times bigger than John’s business, serving the same marketplace.

Then he discovered their secret!

John hired one of his super-successful competitor’s former employees. He quickly discovered the root of their success. It wasn’t any one thing / tactic, which made that competing business so successful. Instead, it was the cumulation of a ton of little things, which created an outstanding level of service that the marketplace adored.

He’d been looking for a mountain and totally missed the little molehills, which made all the difference. With a number of relatively small improvements, John was able to significantly increase his revenues and profits.

In short, if we create enough molehills, we end up with a mountain.

Yes, the mountains may look more exciting. But by improving lots of molehills, even by a relatively small amount, it can have a mountain-sized impact on our business.

Turn risk into your secret weapon

December 1, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

I have a very quick, yet extremely useful business idea to share with you today.

It starts with a question: Have you noticed how the best decisions you’ve ever made had something in common?

Well. They did. It’s simply this.

They were all big decisions. Really BIG decisions. The decision to buy or rent your first home, to get married, to start a family or start a business, etc., are all huge, life-enriching decisions.

Plus, in each case, you made these decisions even though you had no guarantees of ‘success’ in advance.

The same is true of business success

Our biggest commercial successes also come from making big, risky decisions, which offer us no guarantee of success. So, if we have a poorly calibrated view of risk, we place a very low limit on what we can achieve.

We miss out on the big wins. We fail to make the life changing progress, which only comes when we embrace the risk that always precedes, meaningful success.

If our business is growing too slowly, we need to identify the big business decisions we’re avoiding. Because the answer we need is ALWAYS right there.

Destroying your competitors: Here’s what you need to know

November 28, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

If we want to elevate our business above the competition, there are a couple of broad routes available to us.

Here they are.

Destroy our competition

We can choose to take every opportunity to denigrate, belittle and diminish our competitors. We can bad-mouth them. Maybe even spread nasty stories about them or call them out when they screw up. In short, we can try to ruin their reputation.

The potential pay-off is that if we make our competitors look bad, our business should look better in comparison.

Mind our own business

Alternatively, we can choose to constantly seek out ways to improve what we do. We can dedicate ourselves to out-caring our competitors, and set increasingly high standards of service excellence. We may even choose to become a respected innovator. Or strive to become a leader in our industry.

The potential pay-off here is huge. Because if we mind our own business correctly, we’ll never have to worry about the competition again.

For serious business owners, there’s only one choice. My friend, we need to focus on the things we can control. And do everything we can, with everything we have.

Note: I wrote about this here, How to crush the competition. It includes a great tip, for how to outmanoeuvre your competitors.