Marketing tips Marketing help

The ‘from-to’ shift: How to sell what your prospects actually want

By Jim Connolly | January 21, 2026

The world’s top restaurants don’t waste much time marketing their food. If you think they do, prepare for your eyes to be opened. And for your marketing to radically improve.

Every business provides a product or a service, which solves a problem for the customer. In order to solve their problem, it needs to create a change. To move the customer from something to something.

For example.

From worried to confident.
From vulnerable to safe.
From broke to wealthy.
From discomfort to comfort.
From bored to entertained.
From struggling to succeeding.
From confused to clear.
From sad to joyful.
From scruffy to glam.
From lonely to connected.
From loss to gain.
From ignorant to informed.
From stressed to relaxed.
From pessimistic to hopeful.
From lost to guided.

You need to figure out the change your prospective customers are looking for. Their ‘from what’ and their ‘to what’.

Now, here’s the part almost every small business totally screws up (and how to avoid it).

The answer is not obvious

The biggest danger here is believing the answer is obvious. It almost never is.

Seriously.

For instance, no successful coffee shop focuses on changing you from thirsty to quenched. None of them.

They change you by creating an attractive atmosphere. An atmosphere, where you can go from stressed to relaxed, or from tired to restored, or from lonely to connected, from stuck to creative or from bored to entertained.

The world’s top coffee shops know this. It’s what their marketing focuses on. It’s why we see very little emphasis placed on the coffee beans used, yet huge emphasis placed on the welcoming, positive atmosphere.

Here’s another example.

The world’s most expensive restaurants don’t focus on taking you from feeling hungry to feeling full. You can go down the street and get the same number of calories at a burger joint for pennies. Instead, these restaurants focus on their exclusivity. They take you from feeling normal to feeling like a star.

You get the idea.

Your product or service

Determine what change or changes your prospect is truly looking for.

Focus on the ‘from what’ part. Your marketing message needs to meet them right there. It needs to talk to their current situation. It needs to address the discomfort they’re feeling. This means your message will be on the very same wavelength that they’re on. This dramatically and profoundly increases the sales impact of your marketing

Then focus on the ‘to what’ part. Your marketing needs to illustrate how your product or service transitions them to their end point. To the very thing they desire… and will happily spend money on.

Like every marketing tactic, idea and tip I use, this is an example of a quick and easy improvement you can make, which won’t require you spending a penny on marketing.

A marketing budget is the price you pay, for being just like your competitors. I’ve been telling small business this for over 3-decades. Marketing is about attracting high-profit clients or customers. This is an example, which you can put into play today.

The biggest lie in marketing isn’t what you think it is

By Jim Connolly | January 18, 2026

Photo by Singkham on Pexels.com

The biggest lie in marketing is almost certainly not what you’re expecting.

Here it is.

If you ask the average small business owner about marketing, they will tell you the following: “I don’t have enough time for marketing”.

That’s an unintentional lie.

They have the time. And they’re marketing their business all day, every day.

And here are over 30 examples to prove it

In no particular order.

The level of enthusiasm you demonstrate, when speaking about your business.
The way you and your team dress.
The way you speak — from the words you use to the warmth of your welcome.
The flexibility you show when a client or customer has a unique challenge.
The range of services you provide, especially in relation to how similar they are to what your competitors offer.
The eagerness you demonstrate for helping your clients or customers.
The cleanliness and age of your company vehicles.
The experience you give your clients or customers, which they share with their friends.
The way you handle phone calls.
The causes that you or your business publicly support.
The prices or fees you charge.
The reliability your business provides.
The confidence you inspire in people when you connect with them.
The type of offers you use to attract new clients.
The way you respond to email enquiries, both in the speed and tone of your response.
The content you use on your website.
The places you choose to advertise.
The type of advertising messages you use.
The groups your business belongs to.
The energy you have for your business.
The way you connect with people on social networks.
The time it takes you to make a decision.
The quality of the photos and other graphics you use.
The type of clients or customers you choose to work with.
The type of clients or customers you choose not to work with.
The leadership you demonstrate.
The guarantees you offer.
The consistency of the products or services you provide.
The professionalism of your marketing copy.
The working atmosphere you provide.
The way you communicate with your clients or customers.
The way you handle problems, both internally and external (client) problems.
The regularity with which you achieve deadlines.

It’s all marketing

Everything your business does is marketing.

That’s to say, it’s giving people a story about your business. It’s setting their expectations. It’s building confidence in your services or creating doubt. It’s telling the world what your priorities are.

In short, if you run a business, you are already engaged in marketing. And you’re doing it all day, every day.

So, the question is never if you market your business or not. The question my friend, is whether you’re doing it effectively or not.

Business success. In six words

By Jim Connolly | January 10, 2026

Photo by Clark Tibbs

It’s simply this: In business the winners get moving.

Here’s why those 6 words are foundational to your success.

Every business owner is presented with opportunities to succeed.
Every business owner can steal ideas.
Every business owner can choose to be a leader.
Every business owner can instigate, rather than wait for someone else to move.
Every business owner encounters problems.
Every business owner can choose to have zero competition.
Every business owner can give their business the resources it needs.
And every business owner has the same 24-hours available to them every day.

It’s what we do that determines our success.

Not our intentions, our network of business contacts, our cutting edge technology, our plans, our targets, our qualifications, our competitive edge, our ingenuity… or our skills.

Intelligent action always precedes success. That’s why in business, the winners get moving.

How the winning minority of small business owners are planning for 2026

By Jim Connolly | December 30, 2025

The vast majority of small business owners are making plans for the totally wrong things in 2026. Here’s how to avoid it happening to you.

The winners play to win

The small business winners in 2026 will all have something in common. They will be looking at the year ahead and planning for the right things. You know? Like how to make a lot more money, with bigger profits, and maintain their outstanding cash flow position. That kind of stuff.

They’ll then invest in their business accordingly. So, they plan for success and invest for success and guess what? They achieve the success they’ve planned and invested in.

The majority

The majority will plan for the wrong things. This is regardless of their industry. They’ll look at 2026 and consider it as a success, if they manage to make a marginal profit. Some will see survival as a victory.

They’ll then invest in their business accordingly. So, they plan for borderline survival and invest in borderline survival and guess what? Yep… they get borderline survival.

Your 2026 plan

If you’re in that winning minority, well done. You’ll find lots of great ideas over on my creative thinking website.

For everyone else, here are a few suggestions.

De-Commoditize

This is the main suggestion. By itself, it can massively increase your profits and revenues. Decide to make your business meaningfully different from its competitors. Then find someone who knows what they’re doing to create it for you.

You’ll never need to compete based on price ever again.

Don’t shoot for survival

This suggestion seems obvious, yet many small business owners unconsciously make the mistake, anyway. Don’t focus on struggling, or plan for mere survival. Important: Miss your survival target by 1% and you fail to survive!

When sharing this with groups of small business owners, I ask them to consider the following: If you were focused on enjoying your best business year ever, and planning for it to happen, would your thoughts and plans look the way they currently do for 2026?

Ponder the full cost of lowering your wage bill

When laying-off staff members or reducing their hours, a lot of employers forget to weigh up 2 potentially massive costs.

Firstly, morale and motivation can plummet. This results in a poor working atmosphere, which can also get picked-up by your clients, customers and contacts.

Secondly, remaining employees may start looking for a stable job elsewhere. And it’s not the least valued who are quickly snapped-up, it’s your most valued. So, there’s the potential to lose your super-stars.

You’re in control

Our results in 2026 will be determined by.

What we do
What we choose to ignore

Not outside factors. Not the economy.

That’s because we already know that in 2026, some will have their best ever year. Other’s in the same industries, in the same areas, with the same economies, selling to the same profile of client or customer, will struggle or go broke.

The lesson here?

Don’t waste another year.

Plan for what you want.

Focus on ways to flourish.

Don’t follow the crowd.

If you do the above, I’m telling you, you’ll align everything for your success. So, give it your best shot.

How to have zero competition in 2026

By Jim Connolly | December 11, 2025

no competitors, zero competition, niche marketing

One of the things I work on with many of my clients, is the development of a valuable niche for their business. A highly profitable niche, with literally no competition.

Here’s a quick look at the approach I use, plus some ideas you can adapt into your own business.

The niche model I use is based on the strategy I developed for my own business. Here are just 3 of over 70 processes I’ve developed.

Enriching my competitors

Instead of focusing on crushing the competition, I focused on enriching the competition. When I started my business in 1995, my strategies were so different from the other providers in my industry, they were no longer competitors. This gave me the freedom to enrich, connect and promote their marketing businesses. That remains to this day.

The following is from a previous article I wrote on this subject – the full article is here.

“I chose to proactively seek out opportunities to help my competitors flourish, to open doors for them, to share new ideas and strategies I’d developed with them, to connect them with useful people, etc. I was in my twenties at the time and many in the industry said I was young and naive. I saw things very differently…”

Tip: If you found that interesting, I strongly recommend you read the full article.

Closing sales replaced by opening relationships

Instead of focusing on closing sales, I focused on opening relationships. It has always struck me as odd that good salespeople are referred to as good closers. So, I decided to focus on opening instead of closing.

Opening relationships, to be precise.

Whilst sales closers have a toolkit of psychological closing techniques, I didn’t. Instead of seeing the sales process as a game of chess, pitting me against the prospect, I wanted to be on the same side of the table as the prospect. In their corner. Looking out for their best interests, exactly as I would if they were already my client. This transforms initial meetings with a prospective client. It switches things 180 degrees, from the usual chess game.

Yes, it does mean being willing to openly, honestly tell a prospective client if you don’t think you can help. When this happens, you’ve still planted some amazingly positive seeds.

You’ve just demonstrated to a prospective client that you can be trusted. You’ve also demonstrated that you offer an exceptionally professional service. In my experience, these same prospective clients often go on to become regular sources of high-quality referrals.

This approach has set me apart and allowed me to further develop my reputation as a trusted adviser. That’s because it’s in such stark contrast to the usual strategy, of closing tricks and needy follow-up emails.

Building an influential network, not a big network

People in the marketing industry are known for the size of their networks. They’re at every networking event. They’re amongst the most active people on Linkedin. I took a very different approach. Instead of focusing on growing a large contact network, I focused on growing a small, but influential network.

Even when I was starting out, I never saw the value of what’s usually thought of as ‘networking’. For example, I think I had my last lot of business cards printed around 2002.

Oh, and I’ve never had a Linkedin account or had any need for one.

Why?

Business is all about people and the depth of the relationships you have with them. I chose to intentionally develop strong, meaningful relationships with people who I believed to be the best fit.

Initially my main focus was senior media people, marketing experts and mentors. I was 29 when I started my business, no one knew who I was and I needed to be around people who were able to help me get known and develop. If you followed the link I shared earlier, you’ll have seen how my first 6-months in business went.

As with every person I have shared this selective networking approach with, I too have found that you automatically get many of the benefits of a large network. Such as massively expanding the reach of your work, your opinions and your ideas.

For example, you’ll find that from time to time, your influential contacts recommend you and your work to their audience. An audience that respects their endorsement. Another example is media coverage, something I have professionally benefited from enormously. Lots of journalists have known me for years. They trust me and are comfortable enough to contact me, and cite me, when they need expert opinion.

Tip: One way to get started is to think who would be really useful for you to know in 12-months or 18-months time. And today, start to look for ways to earn their attention and then their interest. It’s not by cold emailing them or pestering them. It’s about being useful to them. Gently. Over time.

I hope that quick look at 3 of the 70+ processes I’ve developed, has encouraged you to seriously consider a more niche approach to the growth of your business in 2026.

Ultimately, you can choose to compete against the masses or develop your own, wonderful niche. You can choose to blend in or stand out. You can choose to be ‘yet another’ or uniquely you. It’s always a choice. And a really easy one, if you think it through.

From failure to fortune: The feedback loop you’re missing

By Jim Connolly | November 5, 2025

Photo by Ross Findon

With 2026 less than 2-months away, I’d like to help you overcome one of the biggest barriers to business success. If you do, you’ll set yourself up for an amazing 2026 and beyond.

Ready?

Then lets go my friend.

It starts with one of the biggest paradoxes in business. The only way to succeed more often, is to increase your failure rate. (I’ll give you 3 examples of why this is provably correct in a moment).

The challenge here, is that many small business owners have not yet figured this out. They avoid taking action on their ideas, unless they are convinced, in advance, the idea will work out exactly how they want it to. As I’m sure you know, success seldom happens like that. So, their ideas are discarded. Including the ideas that would have made them a fortune.

Here’s how we overcome that loop and increase our success rate dramatically.

The failure success reality

When we can see something that clearly makes logical sense, our minds find it very easy to accept. Here are the 3 logical outcomes from taking action on a business idea we have. And we can benefit massively from all 3 of them.

It might work out just how we wanted. A quick win. An instant hit.
It might work later, after we make some adjustments. By putting an idea into action, we attract feedback. Feedback allows us to tweak and improve. And improvements in what we do directly lead to improved results.
It might flop. If it does, we get to learn from it. This learning can then be invested in the next business idea. Every big success in my business and my life, came this way. These failure lessons help us build an invaluable reservoir of feedback. Feedback that leads to better and better decision-making. This is how all ongoing success happens.

When we fully understand the value of feedback, it becomes a lot easier to put our ideas into action. That’s because we will have eliminated our irrational fear of failure. Just like every successful business owner before us.

Failure is feedback.

And feedback is our friend.