Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Quick tip: Know your outcome!

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I wrote recently about how people often look for the right answers to the wrong questions, so the best they can hope for, is to discover how to do the wrong things, correctly.  Here’s a quick tip, if you want to avoid the cost and frustration of this happening to you!

Know your outcome

In order to start getting the right answers to the right questions, you need to get back to basics and ask yourself what ULTIMATELY is it that you want to achieve – Your outcome.

For example: A guy recently asked me how to improve the results of his paper company’s telemarketing team.  That was the wrong question, because it’s not the outcome he wanted to achieve.  What he ACTUALLY needed to know, was how to cost-effectively increase the quality and volume of sales into his company.  I explained this to him and was able to show him how to cut his overhead by more than £50,000 a year and increase his sales at the same time – sending his profits into the stratosphere!  Had I simply answered his question, he would have seen a smaller increase in sales and far smaller profits!

Take a moment to consider the outcomes you want to achieve for your business and see if you are focusing on the right questions and answers, for what YOU want to ultimately achieve.

Do you set time aside to ask questions that ensure you are on track?  What kind of questions do you find useful?  Let us know!

https://jimsmarketingblog.com/2010/04/26/the-right-answers-to-the-wrong-questions/

Do you give too much away for free? Read this!

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As a marketing coach, I get asked that question all the time.  In order to answer it for you, we need to split the kind of expert or specialist advice you can offer, into one of the two following categories:

General advice – Which is designed to address common questions or challenges.  For example; “Are mail shots as effective as they used to be?”

Specific advice – Which is designed to address someone’s particular situation.  For example; “I have a 3 partner law firm and need to attract more local, commercial clients.  What should we invest our marketing budget on?”

Giving general advice away for free

This is what I do, here on the blog.  In my case, I write about general areas of marketing and business development, which I hope will be of value and interest to as many small to medium-sized business owners as possible.  Giving general advice in this way, is known as content marketing.  This gives  prospective clients a chance to see my approach to marketing and to get to know me a little.  It also helps me reach more people with my work, as many of the people who find something they find really useful here, share it with their friends and social networks.  It works for my readers and it works for me.

However, before you decide to become a distributor of free information, you need to factor in the cost of writing and delivering it to your marketplace.  I spend a huge amount of my time on this blog and have paid out on things like server hire, programmers and designers.  The information on sites like this is only free for the reader, not the provider; so consider the time and financial costs before you proceed – BUT DO PROCEED!

I highly recommend offering general advice for free, as a content marketing tool.  This blog and it’s Twitter account, has generated the majority of my fee income over the past 12 months and massively increased my name awareness within my target market.

Giving specific advice away for free

This is a lot trickier, because of the enormous amount of risk attached.  So, although giving specific advice to people on their unique problems can be a way to generate new clients, you need to be cautious before adopting it as a business development option.

Let’s look at it from a time management perspective.  You only have so many hours in a day and it can be enormously time consuming to plough through all the details of someone’s problems, in order to give them the answers and instruction they need.

For example: In a quarter of the time it takes me to give free, specific advice to just 1 person, I can write a blog post, which will be seen by thousands of people that day!

Also, let us not forget those freebie hunters out there, who will never spend a penny on your professional help and simply leech free information from you, posing as a prospective client.

The bottom line

If you run a busy enterprise and you value your time, the best way to market your services via free advice, is to focus on helping as many people as possible; as I do here.  Yes, if someone contacts you with a specific problem and you believe that by showing them a little of what you can do, that they will pay you to provide the help they need – do it!

However, we can’t expect the marketplace to place a monetary value on our expertise or time, if we don’t!

Marketing tip: Use a wider marketing mix!

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How well do you prepare for unexpected, potential business problems?

Some people are great.  They cover all the bases and sleep well at night.  Others are not so good; like the trainer I heard of, who had 30 people in a conference venue waiting for his seminar, only to find that his laptop was broken.  He failed to take a second copy of his presentation, to use on a replacement laptop.  The event was cancelled.

A USB thumb-drive with a copy of his seminar presentation would have cost him pennies and saved him thousands in refunds.

From a marketing perspective, I’m always amazed that so many business owners rely too heavily on a single, major source of new business, leaving them exposed and unprepared, if that source stops delivering.

I remember speaking with the owner of a printing business, who attracted most of his sales leads from a networking group he attended.  Although it worked for him, others in the group saw little in the way of results, so the group folded.  Overnight, he lost his primary source of new business.  His income dropped like a stone and he ended up having to let some staff go, because he literally couldn’t make payroll.  It took him almost 18 months to get back to where he had been, before the collapse of the group!

Your marketing strategy needs the right mix

As I have said many times, one of the secrets to a successful business, is to have a number of effective marketing processes working for you all the time, to form a marketing strategy.  The most successful businesses I know, use 8 or more different forms of marketing at any one time (often more.)  This broader approach to marketing provides 2 massive benefits:

  1. It means the business is never over dependent on any single source of sales or enquiries.  This makes your business far more robust and better prepared.
  2. A number of effective marketing processes working together, creates something called compound marketing leverage.  Like compound interest, compound leverage gives you a disproportionately large increase in sales; because the sum of the parts is greater than the total of their individual values.

If you are over dependent on a small number of marketing activities, the time to develop a broader, more robust and reliable marketing mix is now!

So, how many different forms of marketing are you using right now?

The right answers to the wrong questions?

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One of the problems with people who use a DIY approach to marketing, is that they often waste time and money, looking for answers to the wrong questions.  As a result, the very best they can then hope for, is that they learn how to do the wrong thing, correctly.

I was prompted to write this, after hearing someone talking earlier about the problems they have, because of the URL they are using for their website.  It is hard to spell and apparently, even the site owner’s friends often misspell it.  The URL also has no SEO benefit, as it does not contain anything that a potential customer would associate with the actual products offered by the site.

One of the reasons this blog is on page 1 of Google (and has been for a year) for the term “marketing blog” or “marketing blogs” is that the words marketing blog appear in my URL.  As a result, almost 100% of the 20,000 links that point here, have anchor text that tell Google this site is related to the term marketing blog.

The site I mentioned earlier is pretty new, has just a handful of links pointing to it and apparently, it gets very little traffic.  So, the solution to the guys URL issue is simply to get a more people-friendly and seo friendly URL – and THEN to market the site effectively.  However, the site’s owner was focusing on how to overcome all the problems with the existing URL.  In other words, he was looking for answers to the wrong question.

This is easily the single most common marketing problem I see among business owners and entrepreneurs.  To quantify that, I would guess that well over 95% of the marketing questions people ask me, fit into this category.

Of course, the reason this is such a widespread problem, is that the people who are right now wasting their time and money looking for answers to the wrong questions, are totally unaware.  They will think that I wrote this post for someone else.

I produce a great deal of free marketing material, in an effort to help as many people as possible.  As someone who’s passionate about helping people, this conundrum is perhaps my biggest frustration.

Lucky me?

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I live in a small village, in an area known for its natural beauty.  We occasionally have people walk past our home, who are on their holidays.  They see the open fields, the winding canal and the streams that snake their way through the village, and occasionally tell me;
“You’re very lucky to live in such a beautiful place.”

Lucky?

As with most things in life, luck had nothing to do with where I live.  In order to move from London, where many of my friends were and where 100% of my clients were based, required a huge amount of planning, financial investment and hard work.  I had to totally redesign my business model and leave the city, where I grew up and had lived almost all of my life.

Planning and action

As a marketing professional, I see people every day, who are hoping that they will get lucky one day and suddenly attract the income and lifestyle from their business that they have always wanted.  Their marketing is ineffective, their sales are disappointing and yet they decide to carry on by themselves, so nothing changes.  Sure, they work really hard, but hard work is not the secret of success; if it were our grandparents would all have been millionaires!  We have to be smarter than that.

If you know someone, who is working hard but not getting the results they want from their business, tell them not to wait for things to “just get better.”  In my experience, the world doesn’t work like that.  Every successful business and person I have ever studied, achieved their success through careful planning and taking action to make those plans real.

When we do the right things correctly, it’s amazing how our luck changes!

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

Welcome back Danny Brown!

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Like many people, I was overjoyed this week to read that my friend Danny Brown is back to business, after his recent health challenge.  You can read about it here on Danny’s blog.

If you have not previously heard of Danny Brown and wonder why so many people have been talking about his return this week, this might help.  It’s a post I wrote last November, recommending his blog and explaining why it’s a must read, for myself and many others.

I appreciate this is not the typical kind of post you expect to see here, but I really wanted to share this great news with you!

If you are interested in; PR, social media, fund raising or marketing, I also recommend you join Danny on Twitter, via @DannyBrown.

Have a great weekend!

This just looks horrible!

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In marketing, we know that feedback can be extremely valuable.  That’s why marketing professionals like myself test and measure everything.  It’s too easy to wrongly assume that something is working or under-performing, just based on hunches or ill-informed input.

I was talking to a lady yesterday, who had recently redesigned the window display in her soft furnishings shop.  She told me that the day she changed it, several people commented, to say they didn’t like it.  One said “it just looks horrible!”

However, she explained that since changing the display, she was attracting considerably more paying customers than before.  Had she acted on what those first people told her, she would have quickly gone back to the previous, under-performing window display.  Instead, she decided to wait until there was some measurable data and THEN make an informed decision.

Whenever we get verbal or written feedback, it’s important to treat it in the correct context.  Here are a few questions I ask myself, before I decide to act, which I would like to share with you:

Is the person commenting from my target market? If not, it could be that their feedback is well-intentioned, but not reflective of what your marketplace thinks, wants or needs.

What is this person’s motive? Why would someone go to the time and effort, to get in touch with you regarding something they like or dislike about your business?  There’s ALWAYS a reason!  Some are motivated by a desire to help, others by a desire to hinder.  Some are motivated by contribution, others by envy.  Figure out their motive, then listen to what they are saying in context.

Are they an expert in that field? Never act on expert advice, unless it’s given to you by an expert.  There was a guy in our village pub last week, giving the waiter some medical advice. (He’s a retired history teacher with no medical expertise or experience.)

 

Boost your sales and profits: Getting your prices right!

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I see a lot of small businesses right now, opting to lower their prices or fees (herein called prices), in order to boost sales and grow their business.  However, I’m also seeing a smaller number of businesses, increasing their prices for the exact same reason.

Before you decide to cut or increase your prices, here are some things to consider.

Price cuts are easy – Increasing them again, well…

As I have said many times before, lowering a price is easy, but increasing that price again can be a far bigger challenge.  This is why it’s essential that you make sure the numbers add up, before you do anything!

For instance:  Imagine my friend Bob decides to reduce the cost of his widgets by 25%.  Depending on his profit margin, he may need to 2 or 3 times as many widgets, just to have the SAME profit figure he had before his price cut.  Many people slash their prices, only to find that the extra sales they generate, leave them worse off than before AND with more clients or customers to service too.

Price cuts can work, but only when the numbers are working for you.  For example, if you sell three times as many widgets after a price cut, you might be able to get a better discount from your supplier, increasing the profitability of each widget sold.  This is part of something known as the economy of scale.

Price cuts or price increases?

Though people typically associate price cuts with increased trade, it’s also possible to attract more customers and achieve far higher profits, by increasing your prices.  Yes, it depends on what industry you are in, but I have seen amazing results come from people, who have benefited massively from having an above average price tag.

For example: Around a year ago, a new bar opened in a town close to where I live.  The owner decided to use her prices, as a way to position her bar.  So, she opted to charge 20% MORE for drinks than her most expensive competitor.  People said she was insane, as pubs and bars here in the UK have been really struggling in recent years.

This price increase was designed to act as a barrier to entry, to what she referred to as “the town’s drunks.”  However, because these people kept away, her bar became a magnet for those looking for a more peaceful night out.  She knew that people would be happy to pay the additional 20%, for a better quality atmosphere.  12 months later, she boasts the busiest and most expensive bar in the area.

Remember though, the bar owner did not just increase her prices for no reason.  She was charging more BUT she was also giving the marketplace something of greater value than the increased price of her drinks.  The value is what sold it – Not the price increase!

So, what about product sales?  Apple Inc famously made record breaking sales and recorded the best trading period in the company’s history, during the height of the last recession.  They did this, despite selling hardware that was often several hundred percent more expensive than other brands.  They offered a great range of products, marketed them superbly and then charged for them accordingly.

Prices and promises

Before changing a price, always remember that your prices need to match your promises, if we want people to trust what you say.  That’s because of the well established link between quality and price.  For example, it’s unlikely that the best architect, web designer or lawyer in your area, works for the lowest fees.  It’s equally unlikely that the best restaurant in town offers the lowest priced menu or that the least expensive homes are in the best neighbourhoods.

The marketplace gets very sceptical, when they see the promise of a great product or service, for a bargain basement price.  That kind of mixed message causes confusion and as a result, it’s sometimes harder to win new business after lowering a price than it was before (depending on your industry.)

Prices and value

Your prospective customers want you to give them more value than they pay you for.  So, you can either:

  1. Lower your prices and offer the same quality of service / product as you do today.
  2. Keep your prices the same BUT add more value, so they get more value for money.
  3. Increase your prices BUT pump massively more value into your service / product.

Here’s what doesn’t work though:  Lowering your prices so that you are no longer profitable enough or increasing your prices, without pumping massively more value into what you are offering.

Pricing is a key part of your business and I have written about it many times.  If you want to know more about pricing, value and how they can work for your business, here are a few links you will find useful:

Marketing & value

The hidden cost of price cuts

How to set your prices or fees in 3 easy steps

Standing out from the crowd

I would like to know what you think about setting prices or fees and what your experiences have been.  Please share your feedback with your fellow readers and myself, with a comment below.

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

Content marketing: What is it and how does it work?

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This is a quick post about content marketing and how to get great results from it.

Content marketing

Millions of small business owners (including me) use content marketing as a way to market their services.  They produce content for; newsletters, blog posts, articles, audio, video, social media sites etc.  The idea is that their content will engage prospective clients or customers and generate enquiries sales and also position them as an expert in their field.  Make no mistake, content marketing is extremely powerful when used correctly.

However, as many small business owners discover, there’s an enormous difference between producing content and producing content that actually helps them grow their business.

In marketing, we know that the messages that resonate with us most powerfully are those that make us think or capture our imagination in some way.  Generic messages do the exact opposite.  They pass us by, undetected.  They wash over us, because they’re predictable.  Yet these generic messages are the stock-in-trade of most of the content marketing pieces we see each day from small businesses.

Why?

I believe one of the reasons, is that it feels a lot “safer” to toe the line, follow what the crowd are saying and just blend into the background.  It takes courage for a blogger, for example, to offer their unique perspective on a topic or allow their personality to shine through their work.  After all, what if they are wrong?  What if their point of view generates negative comments?  It would surely be the end of their world as they know it!  So, rather than risk ruffling too many feathers, they opt to rehash generic ideas, which feel safer, because most people seem to agree with them.

Here’s the problem with that approach: It acts like camouflage and stops you getting the visibility you need!

To be visible, we first need to have something to say, which is worth listening to and sharing.  People only pass on content to their friends or network, if they find it useful or interesting and believe that others will too.  In short, people share the good stuff!  The most successful content marketers never seek a full consensus.  They just try hard and deliver content, which will be as valuable as possible to their target market.

Some important content marketing questions

  1. Who am I writing to? You need to know your target audience and focus your content exclusively on what they will find value in.
  2. Why am I writing to them? You need to know your desired outcome or outcomes, so that you can check if you are on course or not.  You can’t manage, what you can’t measure.
  3. Does my content showcase my expertise? Give genuinely useful information to your readers for free (and do it with a smile)!  Don’t send a watered-down version of your expertise into the marketplace.  Why?  Because how on earth are your readers supposed to know that you are any good, if all they see is a half-assed, diluted version of how great you are?I give away tons of free information on this blog, which encourages my readers to share my work with their friends.  As a result, I get business enquiries every day, from people who want to work with me.  This post, for example, gives links to over 140 marketing tips and ideas.

So, what are your content marketing tips or experiences?

Whether you are new to content marketing or a seasoned campaigner, it would be great to hear your feedback.

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

Marketing with confidence?

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Would you spend money with a business, if you thought they were going broke and you wouldn’t get what you paid for?

That might seem like an odd question, yet since starting my business in the mid 1990’s, I have seen countless small business owners create nervousness within their marketplace, by the often illogical things they do, when times get tough.  They see sales drop or lose a big customer and BOOM – their thinking goes into scramble mode and they put panic measures into place.  These measures often serve to give the impression that the business in question is acting out of desperation.

Here’s why this is a problem: People do not spend money with, or recommend, businesses that they think are likely to go broke!

Now let’s compare that approach, to what we see when a business is inspiring confidence within the marketplace rather than creating nervousness and doubt.

Marketing with confidence

Ask anyone who has been in business for a while and they will confirm that it’s far easier to attract great new clients or generate more sales, when times are good.  One of the reasons for this is that when times are good, we feel confident and that feeling of confidence comes across, not only in our decision making but in our conversations and everything we do.

I was speaking with the owner of a web design business recently, who told me that he had just landed a massive new contract.  He believes that the primary reason he won that contract, was that he was able to quote for it from a position of strength.  He explained that because business was good, he conducted the meeting with this new client feeling confident and relaxed.  Then, he quoted a fee for the project that truly reflected the high quality of his services – Rather than a bargain basement fee, which he had been doing last year as he scrambled for new business unsuccessfully.

Now, I’m not saying that when times are hard, we should just smile and quote higher fees – Far from it!  What I am saying, is that we can either inspire confidence in our business, which will help our situation – Or we can generate doubt and make people feel nervous about our commercial future, which will only make things worse.

We can focus on answers or we can focus on problems.

We can focus on what we want or we can focus on what we fear.

If you control your focus, seek advice from people who have the answers you need and work REALLY hard, there are very, very few business challenges that you can’t kick the crap out of!

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

How balanced is your marketing?

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With most things in life, there’s a balance we need to adhere to if we want to get a desired result.  Marketing is no exception!

I was speaking with a motor mechanic yesterday, who explained to me the importance of balance in high performance cars.  He said that many people will add a faster, more powerful engine to a car, but fail to upgrade the breaks and steering for all that additional speed and power.  The end result is often a serious crash.

Business owners and entrepreneurs also need to be aware of the importance of balance, when it comes to their marketing.  Otherwise, they too can see their efforts crash!

Marketing balance

For example, many people invest in great SEO and generate lots of targeted visitors to their website, but when these new people arrive, they are greeted with home-grown, pedestrian copy writing.  In other words, all that SEO money is wasted because the messages that greet these new readers are not powerful enough to get them to take action.  Equally, many well written commercial websites have very poor SEO and get very little traffic, so their message is seen by too few people to generate the volume of enquiries and sales they need.  It’s all about balance.

Another common marketing imbalance, is the way people allocate their time.  It’s not uncommon for some people to spend more time adding content to sites like Facebook and Linkedin etc, than they do developing THEIR OWN site or blog!  I wrote last year about a guy who I saw adding content to Twitter every day, yet his blog had not been updated in 3 months.

Here’s a suggestion: Take a moment to review where you currently invest your marketing time and money and see if you can spot something, which is setting your results off balance.  Here’s a very popular selection of marketing ideas, which you should take a look at, if you want a more balanced approach to your marketing.

How to make great decisions when things go wrong!

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It’s a fact: The way we respond to challenges is a key factor in our commercial success.

This is why I want to share a simple piece of advice with you, which may help you make better decisions AND avoid making mistakes when you are next faced with a challenge (particularly, a BIG challenge!)

I have coached, mentored, trained and worked with thousands of businesspeople and have found that often, it’s their response to a problem that seals their fate and NOT the original challenge or problem itself.

This is because they go into a mindset, which I call scrambling mode.

Scrambling mode is the term I use to describe the wild and often illogical actions, which many entrepreneurs and business owners take, when they are suddenly faced with a big challenge.  Scrambling mode sees the person so desperate to do “something,” that they become more focused on movement than they do on progress.  Rather than develop a properly thought out plan of action, they panic.  This leads to poor decision making, which in turn creates more and more problems.  So, they start off with one, often easy to resolve issue and end up with a stack of far more serious challenges.

A common example I have heard of many, many times, is what business owners do, when they unexpectedly see a worrying drop in sales.  Faced with this situation, the logical thing to do is figure out what caused the drop in sales and either fix it or replace it with a more effective way to attract new business.  However, I have personally witnessed business owners decide instantly, to take seriously damaging action!

In one case I know of, the business owner immediately dropped her prices by 15%, without realising that her existing customers would expect a similar deal.  She eventually offered the 15% discount to everyone, unaware that she NOW needed to increase sales by over 40%, just to cover the cost of the 15% discount – never mind recovering the lost revenue!  She was broke within 4 months.

In short: Scrambling mode sees intelligent people looking for answers in all the wrong places and creating unnecessary additional problems.

How to avoid getting into scrambling mode

To learn how to avoid the damage caused by entering into scrambling mode, we need only observe how people that respond effectively to sudden, unexpected problems act.

In my experience, there are 2 steps, which these people take:

  1. They take time to identify exactly what the challenge actually is.  As soon as they know what’s wrong, they focus all their attention on getting the challenge solved.  I wrote about this last week in this post, focus on answers, not problems.  When we focus on answers, one of the by products is that we start to feel more in control, which lowers our stress and makes us more resourceful.
  2. They immediately seek qualified advice, so they make good decisions.  Typically, they will have already identified knowledgeable people in each key area of their business.  This means they know exactly who to speak with, when something goes wrong and don’t have to blindly go into the marketplace and find someone.

This means a good time to build YOUR team of advisors is now; not when you are working against the clock!

Floppy disks in 2010? Give me a break!

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Last week, something occurred to me, which I would like to share with you.

I suddenly realised that right now, in 2010, many software companies STILL use that little image of a floppy disk, as the icon for the “save” feature on a software program!

It’s years since computers came with floppy disk drives as standard and many more years, since they were the primary way to save information.  As a result, there is a whole generation of young adults in the workplace, to whom that floppy icon will be pretty irrelevant.

Marketing and relevance

In marketing, we know that our message needs to be relevant to our marketplace, if we want it to resonate with them and motivate them to; buy from us, call us, visit us, click our links or email us etc.  This means that we need to avoid making assumptions and base our marketing around the challenges and opportunities, which are currently facing our prospective clients.

However, it’s NOT just about your marketing message…

You see, no matter how good your marketing is, its effectiveness (and your sales results) will always be capped or limited by the value of your services or products.  This means your marketing AND your products and services need to me relevant to today’s marketplace.

The bottom line: Great marketing by itself is NOT the secret to sales success.  For any company to enjoy sustainable sales success, it needs to be marketing something that is just what the marketplace needs.

If you offer a range of services or products and they have remained fairly similar for a while, it might be time to review them and see if they are still 100% relevant to your clients and prospective clients.  Speak with people in your target market and find out what their challenges and opportunities are today and moving forward.  Your commercial success will always be linked to how well you adapt to, and service, their requirements.

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

No matter how good your marketing is, its effectiveness (and your sales results) will always be limited by the value of your services or products.

Over 180 marketing and business development ideas!

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marketing ideas, business development, ideas, marketing

Here you go: Access to over 180 220 ideas and answers to help you with your marketing and business development – all in one post!

21 Powerful habits behind successful business owners.

10 examples to make your business massively more valuable.

5 Quick and easy wins for your business.

21 Tips to build a better business.

7 Naked truths about marketing.

4 Proven ways to quickly attract more sales and enquiries.

10 Ways to create unstoppable momentum for your business.

3 Things you absolutely must know, before marketing your business.

7 Habits of the most influential leaders.

25 Reasons to write a business blog.

12 Things every business owner needs to know.

10 Inspiring reasons to get things done.

10 Reasons your business isn’t growing… and how to fix it.

7 Proven ideas to attract more sales or client enquiries.

5 Power tips to keep your business growing.

7 Motivating tips to help you get things done.

6 Ideas to make clients fall in love with your business.

10 Amazing ways to get people talking about your business.

3 Critical steps for a profitable, successful business.

15 Proven ideas to help you grow your business.

7 Ways to improve your sales results… right now.

10 Facts about your business that will make you feel totally inspired.

4 Ways to attract more client leads or sales from your website.

7 Ways to make your marketing more powerful.

Tip: If you found this useful, you can get my latest ideas delivered direct to your inbox, for free, right here.

 

Are you building a business?

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One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received came from my mentor, Mr Jim Rohn.  Jim used to say; “start with the end in mind!”

In other words, know where you are going, before you get going.

Here’s the thing: Most small business owners I speak with (and I speak with them every day), have only a fuzzy picture of what they ultimately want to do with their business. Many have no real idea at all!  With that lack of clarity, it’s impossible to make the right decisions, as all planning is done in the short or medium-term at best.  Moreover, without knowing your destination, how can you even know if you are on course or not?

I have spoken with many consultants and advisers, who have faced ill-health or approached retirement, only to realise that when they stop working, their income will stop too.  They exchange their time for money and as such, even if they earn well, once they stop exchanging their time, they stop receiving the money.

Such people have NOT built a business – They simply bought themselves a job!

No matter what stage in the life journey you are at right now, here’s a great question to ask yourself:  Am I building something that has value in itself or am I simply employing myself?

You will be amazed how things will change for you, when you have a clear picture of your end game.  Decisions that were once hard, will become easy.  Questions you have never asked yourself will suddenly come to you and with these questions, you will find answers that will drive you forward, with a purpose.

More marketing pests: Your feedback please!

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Several times a week, I get email from people, who claim to enjoy reading this blog and want to know if they can be one of my guest bloggers.  Clearly, they have never read the blog, as there is no guest blogging here. (The clue is in the blog’s name!)

Several times a day, I get email from people, telling me they enjoy reading my blog and would like me to link to them.  Clearly, they have never visited the blog, or they would know there are no link-exchanges here.  I link to a few sites, all of which are owned by people I know and trust.  NONE of them asked for the link.  BTW: I just added Danny Brown’s blog to my links (Get well soon Danny!)

In yesterday’s blog post, I wrote about the mindset that says it’s ok to piss-off 99.9% of people you contact, to reach that 0.1%,  who may listen to or read your message. That post was about cold calls from unprofessional tele-marketers, but the same applies to other forms of impersonal, mass produced junk marketing too.

…and the best part?

The massive majority of email I receive, asking for links and postings, comes from marketing companies or SEO / SEM (search engine marketing) companies; on behalf of their clients and in their client’s name! It’s their client’s reputations that are being rendered toxic – and I’m willing to bet that in many cases, their clients don’t even know the damage being caused to their name or brand.

Marketing: Make everything count!

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If you are serious about getting the maximum return from your sales and marketing efforts, this message is for you:

In marketing, nothing is neutral.  Every marketing activity is either working for you or it’s working against you!

For example, look at Internet marketing.  When I look at 99.9% of business websites or blogs, I can see immediately that they are not generating many sales, leads or enquiries.  The owners of those sites wrongly assume that this is “just how it is.”  They know that they need a site to help market their business, and wrongly assume that the results will come magically somewhere down the road.  It doesn’t work like that.

Keep doing what you are doing and you will keep getting what you are getting!

If your site is NOT a lead / sales generating machine for your business, then it’s not a neutral marketing function.  It’s working against you, by blocking all that business you should and could be winning.  The same is true of every activity the typical small business invests time, money, energy or all three in; without the correct results.

Successful, growing businesses typically invest in between 10 and 12 marketing activities, which are deliberately designed to produce results.  Their marketing is working for them.

However, we know that those businesses that just get by, invest in a few marketing activities, which they HOPE will start working one day.  They get the occasional result, but typically find that they waste hours of their time and sometimes quite a lot of money too, on activities that under perform.

These are not neutral marketing activities. These activities are actively wasting the time and money of these businesses.  Worse still, it’s totally avoidable!

Be sure to review your marketing activities and pay particular attention to anything, which you consider to be neutral; neither helping or hurting your business. If it’s neutral, that means it genuinely is NOT helping you and needs to be stopped and then either fixed, or replaced.

Remember: Keep doing what you are doing and you will keep getting what you are getting!

Focus on the answer, not the problem!

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Today’s post contains a simple idea, but a massively valuable one too!  It can help you solve problems or challenges more effectively and reduce your stress levels at the same time.

It’s all about focusing 99% of your time on the solution and very little time worrying about the actual problem itself.

Don’t focus on the problem

To solve a problem, you need to be in a resourceful state.  This gives you your best chance to find not only an answer, but a great answer.

The thing is, when a problem comes along, especially a BIG problem, people tend to focus most of their time thinking about the various horrible things that might happen, as a result of the problem.  This immediately places us in an unresourceful state.  We worry.  We panic.  We become fearful. It’s hard to think clearly under that kind of dark cloud.

The bottom line: Once you have identified exactly what the problem is, it’s time to move on to the answer!

Focus on the answers

Focusing on answers always places our mind in a positive state.  Rather then the cycle of doom and gloom that is created when we focus on problems, a cycle of positivity, creativity and clarity is created, when we focus on answers.  Focusing on the answer puts us back in control and allows us to put our energy where it’s needed most – Finding a solution!

One of my readers was presented with a huge “challenge” recently, when her biggest customer pulled their account!  She emailed me to explain how she used an idea from this blog post, to “turn it around”.  The post is about the importance of using great questions, to focus your mind on creating great answers.  Anyway, here’s what she said in her email to me (reused with her permission):

By taking your advice on problem solving, I noticed that the usual cycle of stress and worry didn’t happen.  Previously, I would have literally worried myself sick, imagining all the consequences of losing this account and playing out all the worst case scenarios in my mind over and over again.

So this time I immediately focused on an answer instead.  I grabbed a pen and a pad and started writing ideas down, first to see about rescuing this customer’s account and then, to see about replacing them with another account.  That was 12 days ago and I have won my former customer back and gained another, even bigger account.

I estimate the idea from your blog post has earned me close on $45,000.

Thank you Jim!

Someone once told me that worrying was the lowest possible use of the human imagination, and I think he had a point.  In my experience, most people who regard themselves as poor problem solvers, are simply GREAT problem solvers, who use their imagination and creativity to focus on the wrong things.

Blowing the lid off your potential!

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What limitations have you attached to your business?

I often speak with business owners, who have restricted the growth of their business because of limitations they have placed on themselves, often without knowing.  Interestingly, in the majority of cases, these limitations are groundless.  In other words, a lot of business owners are missing out on countless opportunities, needlessly!

For example, I spoke with a business coach last week, who currently limits herself to working with businesses that are based within a hundred miles or so of her physical address; even though she delivers her services remotely, via email, the phone / Skype etc.  In other words, there’s no need for her to place that restriction on herself.  As a result of this pointless, self-imposed limitation, she has placed a very low ceiling on the growth potential of her business.

I’m not suggesting for one second that business owners should just randomly offer every service they can possibly think of to everyone.  I am simply saying that it’s crazy to ignore the benefits to your clients and yourself, of offering a more complete and valuable service, based on what makes good, commercial sense.

This reminds me of a software company I met a few years ago, which produced specialist software for the chemical industry.  They had introduced a training package, aimed at helping users of their software, who wanted to get the absolute maximum from it.  Within 18-months, they had created a new, six figure income stream for their business.  They spotted the need and decided to do something about it, rather than say; “we’re not a training company!”

I think it’s a good idea from time to time, to take a fresh look at our business and check that we are not offering a range of services today, based on the way things were 6-months, 12-months or even a few years ago.  Times change, and as they do, new opportunities and possibilities are unearthed.  However, unless me move our thinking forward, it’s way too easy to miss all that great potential.

By the way, there are 32 questions here, which are designed to stimulate your mind and help you spot new opportunities to develop your business – Check them out!

32 Questions to kick-start your business!

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Would you call yourself a creative person?

Creativity plays a big part in the development of any successful business.  In fact, your ability to creatively solve problems and spot opportunities will to a large part, determine just how far you and your business will go.

In my experience, one of the best ways to kick-start our creativity, is to ask ourselves questions, which lead us to creatively search for answers and new ideas.  So, here are 32 questions, designed to help you think creatively about the development of your business.  Remember to share them with anyone in your network, who you think might find them useful, using the links below!

  1. What additional, valuable products or services can I offer to my existing clients or customers (herein called clients)?  This is the fastest way to generate a massively profitable boost to your revenue and profits.
  2. Am I fully utilising technology in my business?  Are there processes that I could streamline, which would give me more time to deal personally with my clients and prospective clients?
  3. How can I improve the way I deliver my services?
  4. Do I take time out, to thank people as often as I should?
  5. What new markets could use my products or services?
  6. How can I improve the quality of my products or services, so that they are of even more value to existing and prospective clients?
  7. Am I associating with the right kind of people, for what I want to achieve?
  8. What three things could I do, which would improve the visibility of my business?
  9. How can I reach 500% more prospective clients with my marketing message?
  10. How can I make my day-to-day work more fun?  This is really important!
  11. What’s the best way for me to encourage more people, to recommend me to their contacts?
  12. Is my marketing focused enough?
  13. How can I improve my time management?
  14. Do I take action on the ideas I generate, so they have a chance to make a real difference?
  15. Should I be thinking about doing some kind of joint venture with another, high quality company?
  16. Am I limiting the development of my business, by not investing in professional help in the areas where I am weakest?  If so, which area do I need to invest in first?
  17. How often do I ask my clients for their feedback, regarding the service they receive from me and what additional services they would like me to offer?
  18. When was the last time I sat down and studied my marketing goals?  If you have not got any written, measurable, specific marketing goals, stop reading this and write some down right now!
  19. Is it possible that my services look too similar to my competitors?  Most service providers look way too alike, so the marketplace uses their fees as a way to judge their value.
  20. If my services do look too similar to my competitors, how can I differentiate myself, so that I have something uniquely valuable to bring to the marketplace?
  21. Do I get enough leads and enquiries via my website or blog? If not, how can I increase this, so my site becomes a lead generating machine for my business?
  22. When was the last time a client sent me a “thank you” note?  If this has not happened for a while, it might suggest that you have not exceeded their expectations lately!
  23. Who would make a good endorsed relationship partner for me?
  24. Do I attract enough word of mouth referrals?  If not, what is this telling me?
  25. How aware am I, of my client’s problems and challenges?  You need to know what’s happening in your client’s world, if you want to be able to really help them.
  26. Do I have a shallow a network, spread over a wide area – Or a deeper, more meaningful one?
  27. How many other websites or blogs link to my website or blog?  This is important, as inlinks account for the massive majority of your search engine optimization (SEO)
  28. Am I working to a marketing strategy or am I simply doing tactical marketing?
  29. Just how good is my customer service?  Remember, you don’t compare yourself to what your competitors offer – But to the finest level of service you can possibly offer.
  30. Do I still have the same passion for my business that I used to have?  If the answer to this is yes, get passionate again!
  31. How many of the people I network with on Twitter, have I actually spoken to or met?
  32. Are my online marketing activities producing bankable results, or just a ton of meaningless, social media numbers?  If you have the friends, followers and fans but not the bankable results, you might want to review your strategy.
  33. Do I exceed people’s expectations?

OK – What would you add to this list?

What would you add to this list, as a question that might help get people thinking creatively about the development of their business?  Please leave your suggestions below!

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