If you want to travel back in time like Dr Who, just take a look at the way some businesspeople operate right now!  It’s as if an entire swathe of business owners, are stuck in some kind of commercial time-warp.

These time trapped individuals are either unaware of the commercial possibilities that surround them in 2010 or they insist in applying 20th century thinking, to 21st century opportunities.  For example, they may use social media as part of their marketing mix, but they use it like a mail shot or advertisement, as a one-way, self-indulgent broadcast.

Only today, I read a marketing email from a new media company.  I was eager to discover what this so-called new media was.  It was simply another company selling Internet design services, who thinks this is still new media!  Come on: Internet design as an industry is well over a decade old.

I study small business marketing, all day, every day.  Here are the 5 marketing and business development mistakes, which I see most often.

1.  Swimming in the same direction as your competitors

The single most common marketing mistake most small business owners make, is that they tend to be far too similar to their competitors.  They will offer a similar range of services, make similar promises, charge similar fees and have similar looking websites etc.

The more you look like your competitors, the less visible you become. You simply blend into the background.  When a prospective client finds your website or speaks with you, if you seem just like all the others, your fee or price will be all they have to determine your value.  Think of it like this: Why would they pay you more than your less expensive competitor, if on the face of it, you look so alike?

Think about your prospective clients and the problems they have.  What are they worrying about right now?  Redesign your marketing, so that it makes it extremely clear that you can and will help people solve those problems.  Develop your brand based on the value you bring.  Don’t make the mistake of copying the crowd, hoping they must be doing it right!

2.  Waiting for it to be perfect

One of the key reasons people procrastinate, is that they are waiting for perfection and of course, things are never perfect!  Waiting for perfection before you take action means you will spend a lot of time wondering why you keep missing opportunities.  The late Jim Rohn used to say that people proudly proclaim that they are perfectionists, when in reality, the need for perfection is more of a problem than a plus.

In my experience, this need for perfection is far more likely to hinder your results, than enhance them.

3.  Doing what’s easy, rather than what’s correct

Many small business owners only use marketing ideas that they see as being either fun or easy.  Rather than do what’s required in order to achieve the results they need, they take the easy route.  The obvious problem with that approach to business, is that your sales figures are a reflection of what you do.  If you ignore the areas of marketing required for success, your results will reflect this.

Marketing should be extremely interesting and enjoyable.  If it isn’t, you are almost certainly either doing it wrong or you are using a form of marketing that’s based on chasing or pursuing people.

4.  Mistaking movement for progress

Many small business owners waste years, working extremely hard, doing the wrong things extremely well.  We all know of honest, hard-working people who seem to make little real progress despite all those long hours of sweat and tears.  One of the fastest ways to become extremely stressed, is to see little reward at the end of a great deal of hard work.

If you are going to row your boat with all your strength, make sure you are heading in the right direction first.  Otherwise, the harder you work, the further you will be from where you WANT to be.

5.  Thinking that customer service is not a key part of marketing

Many businesses treat customer service and marketing as 2 unrelated functions.  They are not.  They are 2 parts of the same thing.  A super-satisfied client base or customer base is the most powerful referral engine on the planet.  If you want to attract more word of mouth, you need to give your clients something to talk about.

You need to offer a level of service that has people wanting to shout from the rooftops.  The problem most business owners face here, is that they usually underestimate how good a service their competitors offer and overestimate how good their own service is.  They speak to former clients of their competitors and do not realise that this feedback is NOT usually typical of the service these providers offer.  They are the rants of angry, pissed-off former clients.

In short: To get your clients to remark on you, you need to be remarkable.

If you found this list useful, remember to share it with your friends!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Lots of people ask me how I manage to find the ideas and the time, to publish so much content online.  For those who don’t know, as well as writing posts here most days, I have also recently written and published 28 updates on my soon to launch site, over at jimconnolly.com.

That’s a total of around 40 posts published in less than 2 weeks; as well as working every day with my clients.

Here’s an insight into the 4 things that I believe make it easy for me to generate the ideas and the time required to maintain a regular blogging schedule:

1.  I study – A lot!

I have studied my subject, marketing, every working day, for the past 25 years.  I have read thousands of books and reports, from leading marketing experts world-wide.  I have studied every process within marketing and tested them until I knew precisely how they worked.  Please do not confuse this, with JUST reading about my subject.  That process is about consuming.

To truly understand marketing, you need to be proactive and create experiments, to test theories.  The results from all these years of study, is then invested in the work I do with my clients.  However, it has ALSO given me an enormous library of material to write about.

2.  I’m not a TV consumer

Other than sports, I’d guess I consume around an hour’s worth of TV in a week.  I’m not anti-TV in any way.  It’s just that I’m not attracted to the idea of spending 2 or 3 hours each evening sitting in front of a TV set.  I’d rather hangout with my family, relax with friends, read a book, go for a walk, write a blog post or listen to some music etc.  TV is one of the most influential mediums in the world.  Because everything we encounter influences how we think and what we think, I tend to think differently to the 99% of people who watch TV each day.

This one thing alone allows me the thinking space to create, rather than consume.  I’m writing this post during TV prime-time, by the way :)

3.  I have more time than most people – I’ve already had an extra 5 years!

According to Nielsen, the average American watches 153 hours of TV a month.  I’m not sure what the UK figures are, but based on Nielsen’s findings I have gained 1,912 full days, which is well over 5 years of (extra) time, since I dropped TV from my routine, when I was 21.  I have no idea how many amazing people, inspiring conversations and creative ideas I benefit from every month, simply by having all that extra time to think, relax and create.

4.  I seek out diversity

I make sure to spend time with a diverse mix of people.  I love to learn what different people think and how different people think.  I also listen to a diverse range of music and eat a diverse spectrum of food etc.  I believe that if we only expose ourselves to people and ideas, which are in tune with our own, we make it harder to discover anything new.  It’s like being stuck in a time bubble.  I also find that it stifles creativity.

The ideas within those 4 points

I fully appreciate that some of the ideas I have shared with you are going to be way, way too much of a change for most people to even consider.  They are based on what I do and are not intended as some kind of blueprint.  However, I believe that within those 4 basic points are ideas worth exploring, such as; making time every week for study, listening to a more diverse spectrum of voices and considering altering your content consumer / content creator, balance.  That’s why I shared them with you.

So, what are YOUR tips for increasing your creative output?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

If you follow your own advice or use your own products, we call it eating your own dog food.  Dogfooding is a great way to gain the trust of your marketplace and show them that you believe in what you say.

However, when someone tells the marketplace one thing and does the opposite, they erode trust in themselves and whatever they say.  I see examples of this in every industry and profession.  Here are just a couple of very common examples:

No dog food eaten here!

Most accountants I’ve met don’t eat their own dog food.  They tell their clients to build robust, valuable businesses, yet in the UK, those accountants will end up selling their own businesses for just 1.5 times their annual turnover!  They can be building a business, working long hours for 20 years, and end up retiring on a the equivalent of just a few years salary.

Many web designers don’t eat their own dog food either.  They usually have nice looking websites with good SEO, but decide to save money by writing their copy themselves.  So, they have a site, telling business owners to get a professionally designed website because it will help them look more professional and make more sales, yet their own copy writing is so ineffective that genuine potential clients simply click away.

Of course, there are examples of this in every industry and profession.

Do you eat your own dog food?

How do you put into practice the kind of advice you give to your own clients or customers?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

A business owner asked me recently, what my definition of financial security was.  I started by asking him what HIS definition was.  He said that if he had a million in the bank, that would give him enough to be financially secure for life.  I disagreed.

Financial security isn’t a number

Financial security is more than just an amount of money. This is why we see so many lottery winners going broke, even after winning 10 or 20 million!  Equally, there are many, many shocking stories of good, honest people, who have worked hard all their lives to save some money for their retirement, only to be conned out of it by crooks; promising them riches if they just sign some forms.

In such cases, simply owning a large sum of money did not make the people financially secure.  If financial security had been about having a certain amount of money, those people wouldn’t be broke right now.

Financial security: My definition

For me, financial security is about having the ability to make as much money as you need, plus more on top – AND the ability to use money correctly.  When I was a kid, the local window cleaner once told me that as long as he could get a bucket of water and a cloth, he would never be broke.  What the window cleaner forgot to mention was that when he was ill, his income stopped.  He forgot to say that when he got too old to climb a ladder, his income would stop.

One of my first employers gave me some better advice on earning money.  He told me that success came when you started getting paid for what you created, from the neck up, not the neck down.  He suggested I should feed my mind with valuable information and put it to work,  because that would increase my income. He was 100% correct.

It’s been said many times that if all the money in your country was evenly distributed among the people, that it would eventually all end up back in the same pockets again.  I don’t think this is completely true, but I do believe that those who don’t understand how to make or retain money correctly, would lose theirs to the people who understand the process.

Financial security and the ability to create massive value

I wrote yesterday about residual income and the value of developing an income that didn’t require you exchanging your time for payment.  It’s a useful way to make money, but there are many others.

For example, if Pete Cashmore the twenty-something founder of mashable.com decided to sell his business, he would make many, many millions.  Yes, Pete has worked hard (and smart) to build such a wonderful business, but he could sell-up and go and sit on a beach all day.  That example is not a residual income, but it’s a GREAT example of creating something that’s brilliant, which has enormous market value.  Many residual income gurus suggest anything other than a residual income is a waste of time – I think they are wrong.

Financial security: What is your definition?

That’s just my definition, there are many others.  How would you define it?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Today, I thought I would quickly talk with you about what some people call passive income, though is more accurately referred to as residual income.  It’s something I am working on with almost all of my clients right now.  It’s easy to see why.  The idea is that you create something once, then earn from it over and over again, without much additional input.  It scales wonderfully, costs little to set up and can earn you a fortune, if done correctly.

Residual income streams

For example, with some clients, I am helping them develop digital products, such as ebooks and audio programs.  I help them develop the product and then market it correctly.  Then, once the product is created, people can buy it over and over again.  There’s no additional work required on my client’s part, when they sell 10,000 products, than when they sell just 1.  Once they get that first successful income stream flowing, it’s a matter of repeating the process.

With the right guidance, it’s possible to generate a number of superb income streams.  I currently have 18 residual income streams myself and am in the process of developing number 19.  What I love about this process is that you can not only create a significant additional income, but because you are not tied to it with your time, it can significantly improve your lifestyle too.  When you get the balance right, you can make as much money when you are on the beach or asleep as you make when you are in the office.

Of course, the key challenge most people have when setting up residual income streams is that they don’t know how to develop or market the products correctly; which is where I come in.

I show them how to develop products that their marketplace will want, and then how to make them irresistible.  I then show them how to repeat the process, so they have a number of streams – It’s genuinely exciting! You know what?  It’s one of the things I love most about the work I do with my clients, as the potential is enormous in so many ways.

I very strongly recommend you look into setting up some residual income streams yourself.  If you would like me to help you, let me know.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

It’s always great when people take time out, to share your work with their friends and contacts.

In no particular order, here are just some of the people who were kind enough to share my posts and ideas, help and support me over the past 7 days:

Thank you!

Julie Walraven from Design Resumes

Maggie Shiels from The BBC

Brent Pohlman from MidWest Labs

Barney Austen from My Project Tracker

Tessa Shepperson from The Landlord Law Blog

Grant Griffiths from Headway Themes

Calvin Lee from Mayhem Studios

David Spinks from DavidSpinks.Com

Scott Gould from Aaron & Gould

Mark Harai from GAC Consultants

Sarah Worsham from Sazbean Consulting

Rob Mangiafico from Lexicon Internet Services

Jon Stow from Jon Stow Tax Consulting

Last and very much not least: Nile Rodgers – The musical genius behind Chic, one of the most influential bands of all time, who took time out yesterday to connect with me.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

I live in the countryside and this time of year, something visually amazing happens: Everything turns to gold!

The green country lanes of a few weeks ago are slowly transforming into golden, spiralling highways.

It serves as a great reminder to me that golden opportunities often start off by looking very different.

We only see the gold when the time is right!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

So, how are those business targets that you set for 2010 looking, as we approach the home straight?

Midway through September is an amazing time, for those of us who own a business.  It’s that point in the year, where we can still make the improvements required to achieve our annual revenue or profits targets, whilst ALSO being a great time to start working on the ideas that will move our business forward in the coming year.

Of course, this isn’t what most small businesses do.  They treat September like any other month and don’t start planning for January, until December.  With that kind of preparation, January for them is not the start of a new year  – It’s just yet another chance to relive the same old year, and frustrations, over again.

Thankfully, that approach is not for you!

People who read this blog are clearly interested in improving the number and quality of sales they attract (notice I said attract there?)  You are the kind of person who is motivated and also intelligent enough to invest your time studying marketing and business development.  It’s why you are here, right now, reading this.  You want a better future and you are committed to doing what’s required.  I applaud you!

Of course, there’s another reason to increase your marketing efforts right now.  You see, your competitors are back to work and refreshed after their summer break.  They too have targets and are also aware that the year is drawing to a close.  You need to be prepared.  How you prepare yourself is, of course, your decision.

But what an amazing opportunity!

What an amazing opportunity for you to use today as the launchpad to greater things.  This can be the day that it all turns around for you.  Today can be the day that you will look back on in 6 months or in 10 years and say THAT was the day I started making the progress, which turned my business and my life around.

Rest assured that whatever you do, I’m here to support you in every way I can; via the free information here on the blog as well as via my small business marketing service.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

I often wonder how many people can see through the marketing contradictions that surround us.

There’s the SEO company that emails or cold calls you with a sales pitch, because they are clearly not getting enough sales leads via their own SEO.  It’s hard to see why their SEO services should work for you, if they can’t even SEO their own site effectively enough, to generate sufficient inbound sales enquiries.

And what about the marketing experts, who subscribe you, without your permission, to their newsletter or email bulletins.  I wonder how poor the rest of their marketing is, when they make such a basic error.

Oh, and let’s not forget the copywriting experts, who write blog posts that few people read or share.

Anyone can claim to be anything

We need to evaluate someone’s commercial effectiveness by their professionalism and commercial achievements, rather than their claims.  This is especially the case, if you are thinking of investing in their services.

What kind of contradictions do you see?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

If Bob tells you he is a Thought Leader, he probably isn’t!

There are very few people, who truly practice advanced thinking.

There are even fewer, who demonstrate the additional attribute of leadership.

There are fewer still, who have both those 2 rare attributes, yet would feel the need to borrow that phrase to describe themselves.

I’m guessing that a genuine Thought Leader, might think of something a little more original!

Your client base is always a reflection of your marketing or lack of marketing.

If it’s filled with people, who value your time and expertise and are happy to pay you accordingly, it’s because these are the people who are attracted to what you have to say.  Equally, if your client base has too many fee-sensitive clients, who show little respect for the value of your time, then it’s these low value clients that your marketing is attracting.  Of course, if your marketing is simply not attracting enough paying clients, then your current client base will reflect that error too.

It’s pointless to complain about your lack of income or how little progress your business is making, only for you to continue to make the same marketing errors that led to your current problems.  If you would like to work for better quality clients, you need to start using better quality marketing.  You need to identify why your marketing is attracting the wrong profile of client or too few clients,  and then replace it with a more effective approach. If you do, you will be in a tiny minority of small business owners.  Most decide to complain, but stay the same and hope things will magically just get better.

If you want to finally start seeing the rewards your hard work deserves in 2011, you need to take action now. Here’s my advice:

• Get a marketing plan that works, based on your unique resources and situation – Then work that plan.
• Don’t waste another day mistaking movement for progress.  Make each step you take, a step forward.
• Stop adjusting your lifestyle DOWN to accommodate your lack of income – Adjust your income UP, and start taking marketing seriously.
• Live where you want to live, enjoy the peace-of-mind that comes from financial independence and reignite the passion that inspired you to start a business in the first place!

More of the same or a better tomorrow?  Thankfully, the decision is always yours.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

One of the fastest ways to generate a significant increase in your profits, is to find an additional product or service, which you can sell to your existing client base.  These people already know you and trust you.  There’s no need for you to sell yourself to them.  If they see the value in buying an additional product or service from you, they will.

I once helped a London based computer maintenance company, who were 90 days away from bankruptcy, to generate over 20k worth of almost pure profit in just 9 days; by offering a great new service to their existing client base.  The new service was what we now call cloud storage back-up.  A professionally copy written email was sent to his clients, offering to securely back-up their important files every evening, for a fixed annual fee.  The service was provided by a respected 3rd party, and rebranded by my client.

Almost 45% of his client base signed up within 9 days, with a further 17% signing up over the coming 3 months.  In 9 days, this hard working small business owner went from almost going broke, to enjoying his most profitable trading period ever!

Look for new ways to help people

As a business owner, you should always be looking for opportunities to provide the best possible service to your clients.  Part of this, is to look for new ways to help them solve problems.  The bigger the problem that your new product or service resolves, the more help you will be and the more sales you will make.  Equally, by providing an increasing level of help and support to your clients, you are also vastly more likely to retain their business.  They win, you win; everyone wins!

So, I have a question for you: What additional products or services could you offer to your existing clients or customers?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Many years ago, I attended a seminar, where one of the speakers asked the audience a great question.  She wanted to know:
“How serious are you about the success of your business?”

As you would expect, everyone in the room said that they were extremely dedicated to their business and it’s success.  She then asked one of the audience what his business targets were for the next 6 months.  He spoke in general terms about improving sales and moving things forward.

She then asked him another question:
“How different would your next 6 months look, if you knew with absolute certainty that you would win a million dollars, if you could increase your sales by 20%?”

The guy in the audience started listing; people he would call, people he would meet and people he would write to.  He then reeled off a whole series of marketing activities that he would get working on immediately.  The seminar speaker thanked him for his answer and then suggested he did all those activities regardless; because if he did, he would almost certainly become a millionaire anyway.

The point she made was that most of us hold back in key areas, when it comes to the development of our business.  There are things we know we should do, which we neglect, because they are tough or because they require us to step outside one of our comfort zones.  It’s easier for us to work hard doing the comfortable stuff.  You will seldom meet the owner of a small business, who does not work hard.

The thing is, hard work is not the secret of success.  If it was, our grandparents would have been millionaires!

A key difference between the most and least successful businesspeople, is that the most successful ones do what needs to be done.  They do what’s right, rather than doing what’s easiest or most comfortable.  They get the expert advice they need, so they make better decisions and can then work hard, knowing that they are moving forward by doing the right things, correctly.

The majority of small business owners try and forge ahead without the expert help they need and often waste years making little if any progress.  They relive the same year over and over, wondering why their hard work is getting such little reward.

Get serious. Get the right plan. Get working.  Get the rewards your hard work deserves!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

When it comes to communicating, it’s often what a person elects NOT to say, that has most impact on the way their message is received.

Lunch with 2 beautiful women

In 45 minutes time, my wife and myself shall be having lunch with Megan Fox.  I don’t mean we will be having lunch, whilst watching Megan in a movie; we will be sitting at the same table, talking with Megan – Just like we did on Sunday.

Here’s the thing:  Megan Fox isn’t Microsoft!

There’s only one Microsoft, but there are thousands of people called Megan Fox, including my family friend.  My friend is not Megan Fox the actress, she’s Megan Fox, who works at my pal’s restaurant.

It would have been 100% accurate for me to have told you that my wife and I will be meeting with Megan Fox for lunch today, and just left it at that.  However, it would also have been totally misleading.

Many business owners elect to selectively omit key information when marketing their services.  For example, in the UK, broadband Internet providers were recently told they had to stop advertising their fastest possible speeds as their headline speed, because only a small number of their users would actually receive that fast a service from them.  The vast majority of their users get a much slower service than that headline speed.

With the advent of social media / social networks, this is a very risky strategy.  The marketplace is better connected today than ever before.  The marketplace also has a voice, with consumers increasingly proactive in sharing their experiences of providers.  The companies that mislead the marketplace risk losing everything, however, those who who are genuinely exceptional have an opportunity to generate more word-of-mouth referrals than ever before!

What’s the answer for these companies?

Here are a few suggestions that will grab the marketplace’s attention and turn their clients into passionate advocates of their company:

• Build a great service and tell people how great it is.
• Develop a wonderful product and tell people how wonderful it is.
• Offer exceptional customer service excellence and tell people how exceptional your customer service is.

What am I missing from this list?  Please share your ideas.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

One of the things you really don’t need in business, is a reputation for being unreliable.

Although we often hear people discussing the well-known business development adage; that we should under promise and/or over deliver, few people talk about the commercial consequences of the exact opposite.  Few people discus the often serious consequences to one’s reputation, of over promising and/or under delivering.

Over promising or under delivering

Right now, there are approximately 200 trees around my home, which are at least 25% too high.  They were supposed to have been trimmed in July, then again in August.  In both cases, the businesses who said they would do the job, wasted weeks of my time before admitting that it was too big a task for them.  They were small local businesses, which I wanted to support with my custom.  It’s a big, expensive, profitable job and I am a passionate advocate of helping small businesses.  Each business owner chose to tell me that they could do the work and would do it, even agreeing start dates; before eventually admitting it was out of their league and they couldn’t hire the manpower needed.  They over promised and failed to deliver.

The marketing value of a reputation for reliability

In an ever-changing world, there is a HUGE commercial benefit, for those of us who develop strong reputations for reliability.  Every time we tell a client or contact that we will deliver a great project by a certain date or time, and we do, we increase our value to that person enormously.  Every time we tell someone that we will call them / email them in 2 hours and we do, again, we elevate their perception of us.

The opposite is also true and in my experience, far, far more common – So much so that those people / businesses that deliver a quality product, on time actually stand out!

How stupid is that?  We are working in the toughest economic climate in living memory, and you can still shine within your industry, purely by doing what you said you would!

What do you feel, about companies and people, who regularly under deliver?  If someone is good at their job, but is known as being unreliable, would you still recommend them to your clients, contacts or friends?  Maybe you would feel that the damage that it could cause to your reputation by recommending an unreliable provider is just not worth it?

Developing a successful business is challenging enough, when you know precisely what you are working toward.  However, when you are unclear about your commercial end game, you make it massively more difficult to succeed.

It’s like setting off on a trip somewhere you’ve never been before, with no directions.  You just end up following whatever roads look most promising; not knowing if they are taking you closer to, or further from, where you need to be.  This may work as a strategy for a Sunday afternoon drive, but it makes for commercial chaos when applied to business.

If you haven’t done this for a while, why not take some time out to get specific about just what you want to achieve commercially in the long term.  Be as specific as you can be and use as many numbers as you can.  For example:  Avoid terms like “I want to build a business that will make me financially independent” and find out what figure you would need to have, in order to achieve financial independence.

Without knowing your end game, you find yourself reacting to whatever the working day throws at you.

When you know what your end game is, you can take control and proactivey make decisions based on what you want to achieve.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

In seconds, I can spot a small business that is being marketed without professional help.

That’s because there is a recipe, which all struggling small businesses follow, when it comes to marketing.   Here are 3 of the most common examples from the recipe for small business marketing failure:

1. Use a similar approach to marketing and make similar promises about service, as your competitors.  This leaves your prospective clients with your price or fee as the only way to differentiate you from your competitors.  Equally, by blending into the background, you attract fewer leads too.  So, that’s fewer leads and they come from people who are fee sensitive. That makes this one a lose, lose.
2. Insist on using amateur copy writing to market your services, rather than having your material written professionally.  I’ve seen professional copy out perform copy written by an intelligent business owner, by thousands (THOUSANDS) of percent – Even though they were sent to the same database and had the exact same offer.  By “saving” a few pennies, the small business owner is usually missing out on thousands or much, much more.  It’s insane.
3. Having a website that looks nice, but is little more than an online brochure; rather than a dynamic, lead generating machine.  I’m totally lost why small business owners keep on getting this one wrong.  Is it that hard to figure out that the Internet is where your customers are and the place where well over 95% of all customers research new suppliers?  Get your site visible through effective Internet marketing and have it professionally copy written, so that it inspires or compels people to get in touch.

Of course, there is also a recipe for small business marketing success

The reason so few people follow the small business recipe for marketing success, is that unlike the recipe for failure (which is generic) the recipe for success is specific to that individual business, their unique resources and what they want to achieve.  Any small business, using the recipe above will slowly go broke; regardless of their industry or how hard they work.  However, for that same small business to succeed, they need a recipe for success (or marketing strategy), that’s based around their unique situation.

For example; how much time do they have available each week, purely for marketing?  A business with lots of time available for marketing will need a very different strategy from one that has less time. Equally important, different people feel comfortable using different types of marketing.  There’s no point giving someone a marketing technique to use in their marketing strategy, that they simply will not use. An effective marketing strategy, has to be one that’s built around the most effective ideas, that the business owner will use.  That’s why when I start working with a new client, I do a fact-finder; to learn everything I need, in order to build them the right strategy for their unique situation.

The bottom line is to make sure that you are avoiding what doesn’t work; whilst embracing what works best for you and your unique; personality, situation, targets and resources.

What forms of marketing do you most enjoy?

Which do you enjoy the least?

What are the most common marketing errors you see?

Share your feedback!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

 

If you want to massively increase the number of new clients you attract or the number of sales you make, I would like to introduce you to something I share with my clients.  It’s all about the Power of Ten Percent.

Here are 3 things I would like you to consider for a moment:

• If you were just 10% more effective at copy writing, how many more sales leads or enquiries would you have gained over the past 12 months?
• If you were just 10% more effective at negotiating, how many more deals would you have clinched over the past 12 months?
• If you were just 10% more effective at managing your time, how many additional working days would you have gained over the past 12 months?

Now, imagine you combined all these, so that you had:

• 10% more working hours – That’s an extra 26 working days or 5 working weeks added to your year!
• 10% more leads – That’s 10% more leads than you had before you added all those extra working weeks to your year!
• and you were 10% better at converting all those new leads into clients / sales!

It’s entirely possible you could be several hundred percent or MORE than you earn today!

Those individual 10% improvements are easy for anyone to make, with the correct marketing support.  However, when you leverage all those 10%’s together, you end up with a magical, compound effect; where those relatively minor improvements completely transform your results (and your life!)

One of the major differences between the small businesses that slowly go broke and those that achieve great success, as that the underachievers are always searching for that one nugget of information that will transform their results.  They waste years scouring the Internet for a silver bullet that doesn’t exist.  Conversely, professionally marketed small businesses learn how to generate life changing results, by simply making minimal adjustments.

Learn how to generate those 10%’s from someone who knows, and then watch what happens.  That’s where the real magic is!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!