Jim Connolly Marketing

Big blog update

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I have just relocated this blog; from being hosted at WordPress.com to being self-hosted professionally.  This will allow me to provide you with far more resources and remove the limitations of having the blog hosted at WordPress.com.

Mr Mark White – “Thank You!”

The entire relocation / migration process has been expertly handled for me, by business blogging guru Mark White.  You probably already know Mark from his massively successful Better Business Blogging site.  If you don’t, you need to stop reading this, grab a coffee and take a look at the masses of highly valuable information there.  If you are in sales or own a small-medium sized business you will love it!

Thanks for all your expertise Mark!

To make it in sales – fish for whales!

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When I started my first sales job, over 20 years ago, my boss gave me a piece of sales and marketing advice that has helped me generate millions of pounds worth of sales – and I am going to share it with you right now!

“To make it in sales, fish for whales!”

I asked my former boss what his comment about fishing for whales actually meant.  He explained:

“Jim, if you go fishing and you catch 10 goldfish, you won’t even fill a cup – but if you catch 10 whales, you will fill half the beach!”

Sales leverage

With that simple explanation, he taught me how the amount of time and effort required to win a £50,000 sale, was not a great deal more than it took to win a sale of £5,000.  This simple idea totally blew my mind!  It was my introduction to what I know today as leverage.

I immediately realised that if I wanted to succeed in sales, I needed to prioritise my sales efforts and focus on where I could deliver most value as a salesperson – because that’s where all those whales are!

If you want to dramatically improve your sales figures, make sure your time and energy is invested wisely – fishing for whales and not goldfish!

How to get your fees or prices right in 3 steps!

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One of the most common marketing mistakes I see small businesses and consultants make, is that they set their fees or prices too low. They claim to offer a valuable, high quality service, but then lose credibility (and sales), by offering that service for a bargain basement fee.

In this blog post, I am gong to give you a superb three step guide to make sure you get your fees or prices right every time.

Marketing and mixed messages

When your marketing messages promise a high quality service, but your fees are suggesting a bargain-basement service, you send out a damaging mixed message.  In marketing, these mixed messages are to be avoided at all costs, because they create uncertainty and they lose you business.

If someone is uncertain or confused about something – and you ask them to make a decision, they will always (well 99% of the time) simply say ‘no!’

A mixed message makes us feel uncertain, so in business, rather than risk making a mistake, the natural human response is to walk away from the deal.

It’s about value and NOT about being ‘cheap’

Your future clients are looking for value! They want to get as much ‘bang for their buck’ as possible and they already know that ‘cheap’ products and services offer very poor quality.  When the economy is weak, people are even more focused on value than usual.  Businesses and consumers will eliminate anything from their outgoings, which they think is not offering them great value.

Three steps for setting your prices or fees perfectly

  1. I always suggest to my clients that they start by researching their competitors; to see what the average price or fee for their industry is and to see what kind of guarantees or promises they are competing against.  Here’s a great free guide to show you how.
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  2. Next, after researching what your competitors are doing, you should aim to go one better.  Look for ways to pump more value into your service, so that it’s MORE VALUABLE to potential clients than what your competitors are offering.  Can you stay open later?  Can you offer a unique guarantee?  Give yourself enough time to really examine all the opportunities to increase your value.
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  3. Finally, you need to set a price or fee that accurately reflects an attractive proposition for your new, highly valuable service.  You achieve this by using the exact same technique used by all marketing professionals – Test, measure, test measure.
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    Test your new price / fee and measure the response you get.  Then, adjust the fee until you hit ‘the sweet spot’ – the fee that allows you to make a GREAT profit AND gives your clients GREAT value!  I have written a great free guide for you, which will show you what to do – it’s here.

Make sure your prices match your promises.  It will not only make it far easier for potential clients to see the true value of your services – it will make your business far, far more profitable too.

The marketing power of association

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It’s a fact; before someone becomes a client or customer of your business, they need to trust you.  One of the fastest ways to create an image for your business, which people in the marketplace will trust (and desire), is to make “the power of association” a part of your marketing mix!

Marketing and short cuts

People are programmed to look for short cuts when it comes to making decisions!  This is why the recommendation of a friend is so powerful.  If there are 10 equally good print companies in your area and you need to pick one, the one that has been highly recommended to you by half a dozen of your friends will win your business every time!

The recommendation of your friends quickly and powerfully reduces the level of risk you feel about using the recommended company.

In marketing, you can ‘leverage‘ the power of association to create a similar decision making short cut in the mind of all your prospective clients!

The marketing power of association

If your prospective clients associate you or your business with a highly respected person or organisation, they mentally link you and them together.  This instantly elevates your reputation in the marketplace!

For example, an unknown designer can make a fortune, simply by having Brad Pitt say he loves wearing their clothes!  Yesterday, he or she was an unknown designer – today they are a super-cool designer to the stars!   Their designs are no better or worse than they always were, but their new association with Brad Pitt means there will now be massive demand for their work.

Brad Pitt’s praise created a short cut, by showing people these designs were ‘cool.’  His comments would also generate a stack of invaluable free publicity. That’s the power of association!

How the power of association helps me

If, for example, someone has never heard of me, they might be cautious about using my free marketing advice.  However, when they learn that I have contributed to The BBC or CBS or their favourite newspaper – they instantly see me in a different light.  My work takes on a totally different perspective, because of my associates.

How the power of association can help YOU!

More importantly, the power of association can be used to massively improve YOUR results!  If you want to benefit from the power of association, you need to do two things.

  1. Firstly, you must be extremely selective about who and what you associate yourself and your business with.  You need to deliberately target people and organisations that will increase your reputation in your marketplace.
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    For example, phone your local radio station and ask if they need a newspaper reviewer for their early show.  (That’s how I got my first coverage on The BBC!)Think of the people and organisations that are most respected in your profession and form associations with them.
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  2. Secondly, you must make sure that everyone knows about your high calibre associations!  It’s not enough to be linked to some great people and organisations; you need to make sure the marketplace knows.

The power of association can also work AGAINST you!

I spoke with an accountant recently, who told me he had wasted over £1,000 sponsoring a business event.  The event was a free-to-attend lunch and seminar; hosted by a well-known UK business development organisation.

Although he got a handful of leads from the event, they were a total waste of time.  He explained; “they just picked my brain for free accountancy advice!”

The reason his sponsorship could never have worked is simple.  He had just associated his accountancy practice with an organisation well-known across the UK for providing free, low quality business advice! Also, the people attending the event were those who are looking for FREE, generic advice.  These are the very worst people to market his premium accountancy service to, because advice from a qualified accountant is neither free nor low quality!

So, it’s extremely important to be selective, regarding who you associate your business with.  The right associations will attract business and the wrong associations will lose you business even faster!

Avoid this common problem

As I mentioned earlier, a personal or professional recommendation CAN be a wonderful source of new business.  The problem here, is that very little is ever said about the DAMAGE that can result from having your business recommended by people who lack credibility or are unprofessional!

For example, I was emailed by one of my newsletter subscribers, who runs a small law firm.  He had been a member of one of those networking groups; which meet for breakfast once a week to swap referrals.  To remain a member of this network, you have to provide leads every week.

He found that a few of his fellow networking associates were using the same ‘high-pressure techniques’ to generate leads for him; as they were using to generate leads for their own direct sales businesses.

Two years later, his law firm’s professional reputation is still tarnished; because of the hard sell approach used by his former networking associates!

What next?

Every association you have is either helping you gain credibility and trust within the marketplace or it’s bringing your reputation down!  Take time to list and then evaluate the credentials of everyone whose name or logo you use in your marketing.

Next, decide which side of the scales they are on!  Are they helping you or hurting you?

If they are not improving how the marketplace views your business, you should seriously consider disassociating from them immediately.

Good marketing advice?

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I have just been reading some dreadful marketing advice; given by a self-proclaimed ‘marketing guru,’ to the owner of a small business. The advice was in answer to a question posted on Twitter.  The advice was totally incorrect and showed that this so-called marketing ‘guru’ didn’t even possess a basic understanding of marketing.

I checked-out the guru’s website and…

Because the advice was so obviously given by someone with no marketing background, I was curious and decided to check out her website.  In seconds you could see that this lady was clueless when it came to marketing!

Her website was horrible.  It lacked even basic Search Engine Optimisation, the copy writing (wording) was shockingly poor and the site looked really ‘cheap!’

The site was littered with marketing buzz-words, and as you would expect, there were the obligatory links to various affiliate marketing programs promising to make you RICH RICH RICH!!

Bad marketing advice can kill a small business!

We live in an age where anyone can set up a website or blog and claim to be an expert on anything!  That’s why, as a respected name in marketing, I decided to start a website a couple of years ago – www.jimconnolly.com – that just GIVES AWAY FREE MARKETING information to anyone who wants it. No, you don’t even have to subscribe to anything or register – it’s ‘just there’ for you to read, listen to and enjoy the results!

Small businesses and those just starting out, rely heavily on free advice.  I wanted to make sure there was a 100% free, reliable marketing resource for them, which they could use to massively improve their sales results. Because I base all the marketing information at jimconnolly.com on ideas I have used to generate millions in sales for clients and myself, people know they can trust the advice there.  Of course, it’s also the reason I launched this marketing blog!

Jim who? – Never heard of you!

If you don’t already know who I am, I have been a marketing professional for over 20 years and I have run my own successful, international marketing business for the past 13 years.  I have generated many, many millions of pounds and dollars worth of sales and my marketing material now reaches millions of people each year, spanning over 70 countries.  My newsletter is read by thousands of people on every continent and my audio programs are used all over the world.  I have also contributed to programming on The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in the UK and CBS and CNN in North America.

I hope you find this blog useful. I am adding new material all the time and I encourage you to leave a comment and share your thoughts with other readers. Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, using the buttons below!

Spot opportunities and improve client retention!

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As the owner of a business or someone involved in marketing, you should regularly ask your clients for feedback.

2 REALLY GOOD reasons why YOU need client feedback:

Firstly, it allows you to spot opportunities that you would have missed AND avoid problems before they happen.  For example, if you ask your clients what additional services they would like you to offer, and a uniformed reply comes back – you have just identified a whole new income stream for your business!

Secondly, it can help you spot if a particular client is unhappy or thinking of leaving!  Clients who are disgruntled are often among the first to reply to feedback requests!  By listening to their problems and resolving them, you can reduce the number of clients you lose. This is an excellent way to quickly improve client retention. Client retention, sometimes called ‘attrition’ should be a part of every business’s marketing mix.

A simple email, asking clients what they think about some of the key elements of your services is all you need. Ask them to score each section on a scale of 1 to 5 and see what comes back.  Always provide a section for them to leave a comment, idea or suggestion.

The answers are often very illuminating – AND ALWAYS useful!