Marketing tips, marketing help and advice

They lost my business

By Jim Connolly | June 8, 2009

I have just been on the phone to my Internet service provider. I called them to enquire about adding a new service to my account. I waited patiently for 15 minutes, before hanging up and calling one of their competitors. I started off wanting to spend more money with a service provider and 15 minutes later, I was giving my account to their biggest rival; who answered my call within 20 seconds!

The interesting thing here, was that all the while I was hanging on the line, a recorded announcement assured me that my call was important and that they were “doing everything possible” to answer my call. (With the obvious exception of picking up the receiver!)

They lost my business and I’m guessing they will lose lots more, unless they improve things very quickly.

Marketing promises

Sadly, many companies fail to live up to the promises in their marketing. Every business I have ever studied promises to ‘go the extra mile,’ yet as we all know, great customer service is all too rare. It’s so rare that when we experience great customer service, it REALLY stands out and gives the companies that provide it a huge, competitive advantage.

Customer service

That’s why companies like Apple and Zappo’s have been able to develop a strong reputation for offering great service. They work really hard to ensure that what they promise and what they deliver are the same or that the service you receive is even better than you expected.

In other words, they gain a massive advantage in the marketplace, by simply doing what everyone else promises to do!

I think we can all benefit, by taking time-out to ensure that we are fulfilling OUR marketing promises. More than that, we need to constantly look out for new ways to increase the value of our services to the marketplace.

If we don’t, someone else will!

A letter from Google

By Jim Connolly | June 2, 2009

I received a sales letter last week from Google. That’s right, one of the world’s leading email providers contacted me; not via an email, but via a letter.

Email marketing and Google

Google already has my email address, because I am a user of a number of their services – including Gmail. So, it would have been very easy for them to have sent me the same sales message in an email. However, Google know that they will get a higher response rate from a targeted letter than from a sales email.

If the owners of Gmail are writing letters with sales offers, rather than sending sales emails, there’s a BIG marketing lesson here!

People hate sales emails and spam

People have a VERY low tolerance for emails, which are just sales messages. The letter from Google was exactly that – a sales message. However, I did open the letter and read it. Had Google sent me that same sales offer via email, it would have been deleted, unopened; as soon as I read the subject line (no matter how clever it was!)

The average person hates spam with a passion and many tend to consider all sales emails (no matter how well targeted) as spam. As a result, not only is a prospective customer or client unlikely to respond to a typical sales email, they are very likely to develop strong, negative feelings about the sender too.

Is email marketing dead

No, not at all! Email marketing, when handled correctly, is still extremely powerful and getting more powerful all the time.

If you re-read the above, you will see that I use the term ‘sales emails.’ Sales emails are extremely low leverage and increasingly ineffective. These are emails that contain a sales message and are often sent to a ‘list’, which the sender has either bought, borrowed or built by harvesting email addresses from business cards / directories etc.

Unless the sender has a good relationship / rapport with the people on that list, the sales emails they send will be deleted before they are read.

Email marketing & sales emails

Email marketing could not be more different. ~~For example, I write a very popular marketing newsletter~~, which contains a unique marketing article or some valuable marketing ideas / advice. Most editions have zero advertising. Occasionally, I will include a single, one paragraph piece to promote something I am involved in. The response rates are fantastic, because my readers already know me and trust me. Some of my readers even blog about how much they value my newsletter.

In fact, many of my readers tell me that they have ‘Jim Connolly’ marketing folders on their computers, where they file my newsletters, for future reading. How many people keep spam email or sales emails on file? No one!

Mail shots, direct mail, marketing letters

The overuse of sales emails is creating a growing resistance to them within the marketplace. Obviously, with so many businesses mass emailing sales offers to people, the amount of traditional marketing letters being sent has dropped enormously. As a consequence, marketing professionals are seeing traditional marketing letters, (sometimes called direct mailings or mail shots,) achieve better and better results.

A well crafted marketing letter, with a hand written signature, sent to a small, targeted group, with a compelling offer and a ‘call to action,’ can be extremely effective right now.

Mail shots or email marketing?

This is a HUGE subject. Here’s a very brief overview.

I suggest you try a professionally handled mail shot IF you provide a service, which is only offered to a relatively small geographical area. Some examples might include; accountants, commercial lawyers, franchise operators, insurance brokers etc. Let me be completely clear. I am not suggesting these types of service providers cease using email to market their services. I am suggesting they STOP using sales emails, START using email marketing AND consider trying a professionally handled, direct mail campaign as an addition to their marketing mix.

Jim Connolly’s marketing

I offer a service, which is sold internationally. As a direct result, 100% of my marketing is conducted online. My marketing approach is all about giving away free marketing advice, information and tips, to as many small and medium sized business owners as possible. Then, when they want someone to look after their marketing, they give me a call.

I don’t sell my services, people hire me instead. For those of you who provide services or products across a big or unlimited geographical area, I suggest you do exactly the same. Instead of sending sales emails; emails that just ‘push’ or attempt to sell your services – use email as a way to engage potential clients and provide massive value. Also, make sure that every person you send your information to has proactively sign-up to receive it. For example, don’t send newsletters or e-bulletins to people, just because you know them, are a member of the same network or you happen to have their business card.

Use email communication (and your website / blog / FaceBook / LinkedIn / Twitter) as a way to showcase your expertise and encourage potential clients to email you, call you, comment on your blog, follow your Twitter account etc, etc.

The results can be stunning!

A secret of success that can improve everything for you and your business

By Jim Connolly | May 27, 2009

The most successful businesspeople work smart. They understand the difference between movement (being busy) and progress (being busy doing the right things.)

Hard work alone is not enough, which is why many of the hardest working people out there, get very average results.

As they say, “if hard work alone was the secret to success, our grandparents would all have been millionaires!”

The secret to business success

I have been fortunate enough to work with and associate with some exceptionally successful people. One of the common traits I have witnessed with all of them, is that they use a ‘test and measure’ approach to everything of importance in their life and their business. This test and measure approach is also the cornerstone of successful marketing; so I am going to use a marketing example, to show how it works.

For example, when I write marketing emails, I will test different headlines (sometimes called straplines) against each other and measure the feedback – keeping the most effective headline. Every element of the email is similarly tested and measured; everything from the number of words used, to the time and the day it’s sent. This can increase positive response rates by (literally) thousands of percent.

Test and measure for business success

In business, the most successful people constantly test and measure what they are doing. This is how they manage to grow their businesses so successfully; even during a recession! They study the feedback from everything they do and then set their sail accordingly. This guarantees they move forward and make regular, measurable progress. When something is not getting the results they want, they quickly seek to either improve it or replace it. If something works, they seek to maximise it’s potential.

As a direct result, their businesses grow faster and more reliably than their competitors and they can look to the future with excitement, instead of apprehension.

A new year of the same old year over & over again?

When we compare that approach to the way most businesses operate, we see a major difference!

The so-called ‘average’ business owner will work really hard, yet spend their time repeating what they feel comfortable with. For example, if they feel comfortable attending networking events and writing marketing letters, that’s how they will market their business – even if this is not the right marketing mix for their business, (which it isn’t for ANY business.) For these people, 1st January is not the start of a new year – it’s just an opportunity to relive the same old year over and over and over again!

The good news is that any of us can dramatically produce amazing results in our businesses (and in any area of our life for that matter,) when we adopt the test and measure approach. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that we are making the progress required, to get the rewards that our hard work merits.

If your business has reached a plateau or your sales have hit a ceiling, the temptation is to work harder or work longer hours or both. However, what you really need is an effective marketing strategy to work with.

Why?

Because, even if you row your boat REALLY HARD in the wrong direction, all that hard work will actually take you further away from where you want to be!

What next?

I have prepared a list of ten, highly effective marketing tips for you here, which you can start using right now, to help you take your business to the next level.

I also recommend you subscribe to my marketing newsletter. It’s only sent once every 3 or 4 weeks and each edition contains valuable, free marketing advice. To get your copy (and your free ebook), simply click here.

Customer service in the Twitter age!

By Jim Connolly | May 12, 2009

I just received a text message from O2, my mobile / cell phone provider. It turns out that they wanted to let me know that they were about to withdraw one of the benefits of using their service.

However, rather than just admit that, for whatever reason, they were about to withdraw this benefit – they decided to try and “sell” this drop in service as something for me to get excited about.

Here’s what they did!

I get a great service from O2. So, I called them and was treated to a recorded announcement, from an over-enthusiastic voice actor. He wanted to tell me about some great new changes. The ‘great change’ is that O2 are removing a free service that I value and replacing it with, well, nothing!

It gets worse – because what followed was a sales pitch, to try and get me to buy things from an uninspiring list of companies, which O2 has deals with. In my opinion, these were simply the kind of regular ‘offers’ you get for free in the press.

So, O2 have stopped me receiving a service I wanted and used the removal of this service, as an opportunity to ask me to go and spend money with their “offer partners!”

So, I thought I would share my experience with my readers….

…and that’s what this post is all about!

Old style customer service

Until recently, big companies could get away with this kind of behaviour. Their customers had no voice and were largely powerless to do anything. Yes, they could move to another provider, but for a fairly small inconvenience like this, very few customers, if any, would go through he considerable expense of buying their way out of a phone contract.

Social media empowers customers like never before

But, in 2009, customers have a voice. If companies treat customers like fools, under-deliver or fail to back-up their promises, they can pay a hefty cost. Today, people have blogs, social networks and in many cases (like my own), they have access to the attention of hundreds of thousands of people.

In an interconnected world, it pays more than ever, to ensure your customers expectations are met or exceeded.

Samsung NC10 – It’s brilliant!

Companies can also benefit massively from their customer’s use of social media. For example, I wrote recently about the amazing Samsung NC10 netbook computer and it’s ability to work all day long, on a single charge! My glowing endorsement of this wonderful machine was all the more powerful, because I have no association with Samsung and gain nothing from endorsing their machine.

That makes this kind of endorsement super-powerful – far more powerful than a paid-for commercial or sponsored post. I know for a fact that people have now bought that computer, because of what I wrote.

If you want to drive up sales and boost the reputation of your brand, make sure you treat people better than they expect and better than your competitors do.

If you want to lose customers and hurt your reputation, just do the opposite!

Owning a hammer doesn’t make you a carpenter!

By Jim Connolly | May 7, 2009

Here’s why so few people get the marketing results they want from social media tools like blogging, Twitter, FaceBook etc.

If you wanted someone to make you a superbly crafted piece of handmade, wooden furniture, you would go to an experienced carpenter or cabinet maker. You know that it takes training and dedication in order to develop the skills required, to build beautiful furniture. You wouldn’t just buy yourself; a hammer, a saw, some wood and nails etc, and expect to immediately be ‘gifted’ the skills required to build it yourself.

For some reason, many people seem to think that different rules apply to anything connected to the Internet!

In marketing, I see people every day, who believe that just because the tools exist online, to help them build a network or community, that all they need to do is start using them. Then, they start blogging, using FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and wonder why they see very little commercial progress.

It would be just like giving me a carpenter’s tools and expecting me to build some beautiful furniture – I would end up with nothing more than bruised thumbs and an ugly pile of wood!

The best most people achieve from their online community / network building, is to develop lots of ‘links’ with others, who are equally unaware how to commercially benefit from all these tools.

If you are serious about using social media tools to help you improve your marketing, don’t end up with bruised thumbs! Learn the fundimentals of community building AND THEN start using these amazingly powerful tools.

Expert advice – really?

By Jim Connolly | May 4, 2009

Thanks to services like lulu.com – anyone can be an author.

Thanks to services like BlogTalkRadio – anyone can be a radio show host.

Thanks to WordPress, TypePad and Blogger etc – anyone can be a journalist.

Thanks to Twitter – anyone can have a following.

In an age where anyone can claim to be an expert, it pays to do some research before taking ‘expert’ advice!

Quick marketing tip

By Jim Connolly | May 2, 2009

Right now, no matter what kind of business you are in, one person or company is leading the way; locally, nationally or internationally. These elite providers get to work with the most commercially valuable clients and their name is usually on everyone’s lips – but why?

A great marketing question

Most businesses spend their time focusing on their own little ecosystem. They focus on their own business and their client’s or customers – that’s it.

Why not take some time out and do some research on what the top people in your industry are doing right now, which you could learn from or improve upon? This study of success can be extremely illuminating and a very effective way to make a lot of progress, very quickly!

Trust me – We’re great!

By Jim Connolly | April 27, 2009

This post is all about how to increase your sales and profits, by matching your actions to your promises.

Marketing & trust

Trust plays a BIG part in sales and marketing. That’s because we buy from people we trust. It’s also why testimonials and referrals are such powerful marketing tools. They provide a short cut to the trust building process. Even if you don’t know a service provider, the fact that a friend recommends them to you, immediately makes you massively more likely to do business with them, than with a stranger.

Marketing & consistency

There has been a lot written about the importance of building trust, yet very, very few marketing professionals ever mention one of the most important elements in the trust-building process. Consistency.

Even if a person or company has been recommended to you, you are unlikely to go ahead and use their services if they seem inconsistent, when you speak with them or check them out. For example, if Bob recommends an accountant to you, but when you call them you are left waiting for ages before an uninterested person answers the phone, you still won’t use them. That’s because there’s a lack of consistency between what you have been told and what you have experienced. This causes confusion and in marketing we know that a confused mind ALWAYS says NO!

Consistency & image

Many businesses (of all sizes), think that this consistency problem can be overcome by investing in a snazzy new logo and some well designed marketing material. Banks and phone companies are a great example of this. They will often invest a fortune (millions) on beautifully designed websites, brochures and commercials – only for you to find that when you call them, you are placed in a queue, before your call is transferred to someone who’s clearly not interested and usually reading from a script or check list!

Whilst it’s REALLY important to invest in great design, this is only part of the challenge. You also need to make sure that a prospective client’s experience of your business is consistent with that polished, professional image.

Marketing & customer service go hand in hand

Why not take a look at the overall experience a prospective client is likely to encounter, when connecting with your business? Examine every part of the process. This should include (though not exclusively), things like; how you deal with their initial email enquiry or phone call, how you handle the initial meeting and the follow-up.

How does their experience in these areas match up with your marketing promises of great customer service? Remembering all the while that GREAT customer service means that you offer significantly better customer service than your competitors! Every business I have ever studied promises great customer service, yet most provide an average service at best. They seem to do as little as they can ‘get away with’ – when they should be constantly searching for better ways to improve their customer’s experience.

This simple exercise should be expanded to include how well you look after your existing clients too – that’s if you intend keeping them! Right now, with so many businesses really struggling, your competitors are working harder than ever to persuade your clients / customers to switch to THEM.

When you decide to offer truly great customer service you; add value to your service, generate more referrals, win more new business and just as importantly, retain more of your existing clients / customers too.

The Seth Godin Blog – Highly Recommended

By Jim Connolly | April 17, 2009

Occasionally, a blog stands out to me as being extra special and when it does, I award it one of my rare ‘Highly Recommended’ awards. Today, I am highly recommending Seth Godin’s blog.

The Seth Godin Blog

For those of you, who do not already know, Seth Godin is a highly successful author, marketing expert and entrepreneur. However, it’s Seth Godin’s blog excellent blog that I would like to bring to your attention.

Seth’s blog is updated every day and primarily covers marketing. His blog posts are written for ‘real people’ not marketing experts. They tend to be short posts, thought provoking and always interesting!

Seth’s approach to marketing is very similar to my own, with an emphasis on building communities and delivering value – rather than pursuing people / business with marketing tricks.

As you may already know, I have worked in marketing for over 20 years and have run my own successful international marketing business since the mid 1990’s. In my opinion, you and your business will benefit greatly from a subscription to Seth Godin’s blog.

Keep it focused

By Jim Connolly | April 14, 2009

When you write a marketing message, make sure that it’s focussed 100% on getting the right message to the right person.

Too much marketing is vague; intended to appeal to as wide a group as possible. However, by being vaguely relevant to everyone, the message is going to be directly relevant to no one!

Motivation and marketing

The word motivation comes from two words; motive and action. If you want to motivate someone to take action, (email you, call you, visit you, buy from you) your message must be motivating.

Never dilute your marketing in order to give it a wider appeal. Instead, make your marketing as focused and compelling as possible, to the kind of people you want to do business with.

Do this right now

By Jim Connolly | April 13, 2009

Question: What happens whenever the economy gets tough?

Answer: People become massively more value focused!

Right now, there are businesses in the same industry, in the same town, selling to the same people; with very different results. Some will be struggling, whilst others will be seeing their market share increase – even in a recession.

We know that people are searching for great value right now, so ‘right now’, could be the perfect time for you to look for new ways to pump more value into your product or service. No matter what you do or how well you do it, there will be something you can add or refine, which will increase the market value of your offering.

Most ReTweeted

By Jim Connolly | April 10, 2009

I received a very interesting email on Tuesday, which will be of interest to ANYONE who is using Twitter as a way to market their business, but not getting the kind of results they need.

First off, for those of you who do not already know, I used to be the 3rd most followed person on Twitter in England and one of the world’s top 50 most followed people. As a marketing professional, I quickly saw the total lack of value in having such a massive, yet untargeted network and got my Twitter account reset to zero! After this, I started achieving amazing marketing results from Twitter – In total, I have now generated around £50,000 in new business, via contacts I made on Twitter – using the service for an hour or two a week.

Bob’s Twitter problem

Bob, not his real name, wrote to ask me for some advice. He said that he spends around 3 hours each day on Twitter and that he has over 50,000 ‘followers’ – BUT that he has nothing to show for it; other than regularly appearing on various lists as one of the most ‘retweeted’ people that day. Bob wanted to know how to transform what he referred to as “all this popularity” into income for his small design business!

Twitter is NOT the end game – It’s just a tool

Many people, who start off using Twitter as a way to market their business and make new contacts, end up quickly forgetting this and instead, become obsessed with attracting as many followers as possible. Building a large following on Twitter then becomes their end game – instead of building their business with the help of Twitter.

I took a look at Bob’s Tweets and they are mainly just him sharing other people’s favourite links. As a result, his ‘following’ is untargeted. He explained in his email that his ideal follower is the owner of a small business. As far as he knows, very few of his followers are in that position. Those who are, are usually following lots of other designers. He went on to explain that the additional traffic his website gets because of his Twitter use, has been of zero value to him. No sales, no new clients and no referrals.

100 followers and 2 new clients in a month

Yesterday afternoon, I was speaking with a client of mine, who’s an Accountant. He has only been using Twitter for a month, (around an hour or two in total spent Twittering) – YET he has already attracted 2 new clients directly via Twitter, using the same approach as me!

In February, I made over £7,500 from a project I undertook, for a contact I met on Twitter. In total, I have made in excess of £50,000 via contacts I have made via Twitter. I achieved this, even though I only invest around 20 minutes using Twitter, 3 or 4 days a week.

How come?

Professionally marketed businesses achieve great marketing results because they use an effective marketing strategy to develop their business. The other 99% of small businesses ‘play it by ear.’ Most marketing carried out by small businesses is undertaken simply because it’s free / low cost – like email marketing, blogging or using Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn etc.

These businesses will send out emails, purely because they have a ‘list’ of names and it’s free to send these messages. They will write a blog, without a clear idea of exactly what they are seeking to achieve. I had a comment on this blog from a reader, who has been blogging for 5 years, and has yet to acquire a single client through his blog!

Understand Twitter’s limitations

I have mentioned a few times already, that I have generated tens of thousands of pounds in business from people I MET on Twitter. The key word here is MET – I met them on Twitter – but I did not get to know them or try and market to them via Twitter. Twitter was exclusively used as a method to meet interesting people.

Twitter is a very poor tool, if you want to develop a relationship with someone. Because of this, I make it super-easy for people to email or call me. I advise my clients to do the same. The contact page of this blog, for example, has my full contact details; postal address, phone number and email. THAT’S where I ‘connect’ with the people I ‘meet’ via Twitter – NOT via Direct Messages!

Twitter is a great place to meet, but once you have met, if there’s any synergy between you and your new contact – GET THE HECK OUT OF TWITTER AND START TALKING!

For marketing, Twitter is NOT about numbers

Bob spends 3 hours a day on Twitter, ReTweeting other people’s links and communicating with a few dozen ‘regulars.’ That’s why his business is seeing no return for all his efforts.

From a business perspective, it’s far more profitable to have a smaller Twitter following, made up of people with a genuine interest in your core business. These can either be prospective clients or prospective ‘introducer’s’ – People, who will recommend you to their contacts.

When I had tens of thousands of followers and followed over 20,000 people back, I was wasting a stack of time dealing with messages and direct messages from people, who had zero interest in me or my business. They just wanted me to ReTweet links to their website, ask people to follow them or whatever, but they were really just sucking hours of my time each week, with no return on my part. I occasionally got 600 direct messages in a single day!

Quality is key – not quantity. Today, I have 2000 followers and I follow around 80 people. However, I have spoken to or met way over 100 of the people who follow me. Add those I have sent / received mail from and that figure is closer to 1000. NONE of these relationships have been built on Twitter.

Conclusion

You would not dream of meeting someone at a networking event, who was interested in your services, and then refuse to follow that up with a call or a meeting would you? Just because you meet that same person via Twitter, the rules stay the same!

In my experience, the most profitable way for a small business to use Twitter as a marketing tool, is to use it as a way to connect with targeted people. Once you have connected, if there seems to be a synergy, treat them like ANY other business contact and talk to them. Show them that they are worth more than 140 characters to you.

Also, focus on quality and not quantity. If you want to attract people with a potential need for your products or services, keep your Tweets on topic as often as you can. I have people who I study on Twitter, like Bob the designer, who make it impossible to easily find out what they do for a living, based on their Tweets.

Your profile might say what you do and link to your website or blog, but remember; if your Tweets do not get people interested enough, they won’t check your profile out!

A pain in the neck

By Jim Connolly | April 8, 2009

In case you were wondering how come I have not posted anything to the blog for the past couple of weeks, here’s an update!

Over the past eight weeks, I have been suffering with an increasingly painful trapped nerve at the top of my neck. The end result was that for the past two weeks, I have been totally unable to type with my left hand (hence no posts to the blog.)

After realising that the medication I was on was not going to work, I decided it was time to call in a Chiropractor – and there’s a valuable lesson here, for anyone in sales!

I actually met with three qualified Chiropractors, before picking the one I trusted the most to get me out of pain and mobile again. Interestingly, the one I picked was NOT the least expensive. He was actually the most expensive by some margin! However, he WAS the only one of the three to actually ask me about how the pain was making me feel; how the sleepless nights were impacting my quality of life etc. He engaged me on the most basic level, by connecting with me as a human being. He fully understood my exact position and all the problems the pain was causing me.

Twenty minutes later, he had a new client. Within 24 hours of my first treatment, he had reduced my pain by around 50%, I was able to throw the pain killers away and most important of all, I started being able to sleep again, after weeks of sleepless nights.

Sales lesson?

There’s an old saying in sales, which tells us that; “you buy the person, not the product / service.” By identifying the impact the pain was having on my life as a whole and showing me genuine empathy, my Chiropractor had set himself apart from the other two people I met. Their talk was all about them, how great they were and how affordable their services were. They came across like salespeople, which is always a mistake, because there’s so much resistance out there to sales / marketing messages!

As Seth Godin, a friend of this blog said recently, “Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.”

By the way, you REALLY should subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog – it’s excellent!

I have made many, many millions of pounds and dollars worth of sales over the years for my clients and myself and can honestly say, I have NEVER sold anyone, anything! However, LOTS of people have bought things from me!

Enough with the pitches – it’s 2009 for heaven’s sake!

Look for ways to contribute for free to your marketplace. Engage people and show them you understand their ‘pain.’ There’s a recession on right now and many of those in your marketplace are hurting – get out there and find a way to help as many of them as possible. For example, I offer free advice to people via this blog and my marketing newsletter. 95% of the people who read my material never even say thank you or comment here or email me – but that’s not important!

You see, there’s a MASSIVE 5% of people; who say great things about me, who recommend me to their clients and friends, who invite me to speak on their TV shows and radio programs and who pay me to handle their marketing for them. These people forward my newsletter on to other people, they recommend my blog to everyone and they link to me. That’s why this blog as almost 13,000 links, even though it’s just 6 months old.

This is also the reason why I have no advertising on this blog. I don’t want to sell you anything. I want you to come here, knowing that there’s no sales pitch. I want you to know that when I say Seth’s blog is great or that FriendFeed‘s a great service, I am saying it for free, because I genuinely believe it. If you like my work, use my ideas and see great results and THEN decide you want me to work with you, you will have to dig around the blog and find the one page, which tells you about my services.

Attraction marketing

Some call this approach ‘attraction marketing.’ That’s a fairly accurate description, because it’s an approach to business development and sales, which ‘attracts’ leads, enquiries, sales, orders and new clients / customers – rather than the traditional ‘pursuit marketing’ model. There’s another post all about attraction marketing here.

Have a great day and please feel free to be one of that rare 5%, who forward this post, tweet about it, get in touch or leave a comment!

6 words to transform your results!

By Jim Connolly | March 17, 2009

“Start with the end in mind.”

Those 6 words contain a piece of business advice, which is of more commercial value than many entire books on business success. The information in that simple, short sentence, could have saved many businesses from going broke and transformed many struggling businesses into super-star success stories.

By focusing with clarity on your desired end result, before starting something new, you massively increase your chances of success. However, many businesses will, for example, start a new marketing campaign, introduce a new service or maybe start a new blog / website – with only a vague idea of what they actually want to achieve.

With only a fuzzy picture of what they want to achieve, it’s very hard to know if they are even on target or not. It’s like setting off on a journey “up north” for the first time, without the address of the destination. You might know that you need to head north, but that’s not enough information – You need an address if you ever want to find the place.

Social media can be low leverage

I am seeing this more and more with businesses deciding to invest huge amounts of time and effort on social networking / social media, with no clear idea why. They will start blogging, using LinkedIn, FaceBook or Twitter – simply because they think they should. However, without a clear goal for all that effort, you can waste a LOT of time and effort! Social media can be a very low leverage activity and can eat into a vast amount of your time, unless you start with the end in mind.

In the past few weeks, several people with massive social networks have called or emailed me, asking what I think they should do “to monetize” their following. One guy, with over 40,000 followers on Twitter has told me that he is investing an amazing 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, building his Twitter network and has almost forgotten why he even started! Here’s what he told me;

To be honest Jim, I started off without a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve, so I just decided to get as many followers as possible. Now, I have all these followers, but 99% of them are not even in the market for my services; which is pretty niche.

Twitter focus

I started off using Twitter, in order to offer another channel of communication for the community of people who read my blog and my newsletter. Because of the number of readers I have, I soon gained a massive following.

Initially, I followed them all back and then quickly realised that I was following over 20,000 people, which was too time consuming. Because I had a clear picture of what I wanted to achieve from Twitter, I was able to literally reset my Twitter account (and delete the 23,500 “follows” I had too,) knowing with 100% certainty that I had made the right decision.

Before you start off with a new project, make sure you have a crystal clear idea of what you want to achieve from it.

You can only remain on target, if you know what your target is.

Blinded by the light?

By Jim Connolly | March 13, 2009

I was in a busy coffee shop yesterday, when I noticed that 25% of the tables were empty. The empty tables were all along one side of the shop, which was saturated with brilliant sunshine.

The sun, magnified through the shop’s 20 foot high glass windows, made those tables impossible to use because it was just too dazzlingly bright. People were walking into the shop, seeing the only available places were in direct sunlight and leaving again for the coffee shop along the road.

As I left, I spoke with the owner about this obvious problem. His response was typical of the way many small business owners think about investing in their businesses.

“Yeah, no one ever sits there when the sun comes out, but it’s just too expensive to fit blinds along that side of the shop.” I asked him how much he had been quoted for the blinds. “I haven’t actually looked for any quotes, but it’s got to be really expensive, those windows are 20 feet high!”

When is a cost not a cost?

Forgetting the huge additional electricity bills he’s going to have this summer, because of his air conditioning being needlessly overworked – what about the loss of trade? Even if his customer’s average spend is only £5 per hour, the 24 seats rendered unusable will be losing up to £120 an hour, each day between 11am and 3pm, when the sun is, as he calls it, “in the wrong position.” Ironically, his busiest period is between 12 noon and 2pm – when those seats would be filled with people on their lunch breaks!

I wonder how many times he will have to watch those 6 empty tables, before realising the difference between a cost and an investment?

It’s remarkable

By Jim Connolly | March 11, 2009

Earlier this week, I was writing an article for my newsletter; all about how to generate valuable, word of mouth recommendations and have the marketplace saying great things about you. I was writing the article, whilst sat in the lounge of a London hotel, where I had been staying for a couple of days.

Word of mouth marketing

Whilst writing article, a fellow guest asked me if I knew where there was a power supply, so he could plug in his laptop. I told him that I didn’t, because I was using a netbook, which has around 7 hours battery life.

I explained how I charge it in the morning and that I don’t need a power source for the rest of the day. After looking at the machine for 5 minutes and asking a few questions, he asked me for the model number, which I gave him (it’s a Samsung NC10) and promptly got his office to order him one!

It struck me afterwards, that I must have recommended the NC10 to around 20 people, since getting it just over a week ago. This is a great example of the power of word of mouth! By the way, I have no association with Samsung or anyone who sells their products. The reason I have told so many people about the NC10, is that I know how valuable that amazing battery life is to people like me; who often work away from their office and not always within reach of a power pocket.

Remarkable

It also struck me that in the 12 months I have owned my other laptop, I have never recommended it to anyone! My other laptop is bigger, faster and does everything really well. However, unlike the Samsung, with its amazing battery life, the other machine doesn’t do any one thing that is REMARKABLE.

‘Remarkable‘ is the key word here. People will only remark on you, your product or your business if you are remark-able in some way!

Just like my older laptop, which does everything really well, a business needs to offer more than a good quality service if it wants to attract stacks of word of mouth recommendations. People EXPECT a business to offer a really good service, so it’s not remarkable when they get it.

That great service you offer your clients / customers is extremely valuable – it will help you to keep their custom and encourage some of them to recommend you to their friends.

However, if you want to have thousands of people or tens of thousands of people shouting your name from the rooftops, you also need to get creative and offer YOUR marketplace, YOUR version of the NC10’s amazing battery life!

What if someone sees this?

By Jim Connolly | March 1, 2009

I read an interesting post on Seth Godin’s blog yesterday. It tells the story of someone, who had three people short-listed for a job as a housekeeper. The employer decided to Google their names and found they were totally unsuitable; all because of the information she found about them online.

Only last week, a web designer told me he had lost a highly profitable piece of work, after his prospective client checked him out online. He hadn’t written anything offensive and there were no negative comments anywhere about either him or his services. The client withdrew the project, simply because they were uncomfortable hiring someone who was regularly posting to Twitter after midnight!

Apparently, they said his late night Twittering suggested to them that he would not be awake enough during the working day, to handle their project professionally. The next day I read an article on the BBC website, about a lady who was fired, for saying that her new job was boring, on FaceBook.

Whatever you happen to think about these decisions, there’s a valuable lesson here.

We live in an age where most of what we do online is visible AND searchable. We also know that employers and prospective clients are now checking people and companies out online, before making hiring or buying decisions. Before you post searchable information online, ensure that is consistent with the image you want to project; either of yourself your business or both.

Twitter and me

By Jim Connolly | February 15, 2009

As you might already know, I stopped using my @jimconnolly Twitter account on 31st of January; one of the top 50 most followed Twitter accounts in the world. The reason for this, was that following tens of thousands of people took up way too much time – largely because of the hundreds of Direct Messages I received each day, (usually over 500 a day and occasionally over 1,000).

By trying to’ do the right thing’, I got it all wrong!

I got it wrong. As a community builder, I wanted to follow everyone who followed me. This worked initially; until the numbers grew so huge, so fast, with SO MANY people feeling the need to Direct Message me! The reason the numbers grew so fast, is because I wrote a LOT here about Twitter and this is a very well-read blog. Each post is read by thousands of people and I have posts here with 200, 300 and in one case, a post about Twitter which has over 600 comments.

In just a few months, I attracted over 23000 followers. At the time, even Chris Brogan (a Social Media genius), had taken 2 years to attract just 15,000 more followers. My Twitter account grew too big, too fast.

Following back

Following so many people back is what caused my problem.

I would still have seen ALL the @jimconnolly messages sent to me, without following everyone back – and these were almost always the most valuable. PLUS, I would have had MORE TIME to respond and connect with more people, because I would not have been ploughing through several thousand Direct Messages each week. But it was too late – So, I decided to leave that Twitter account.

Tweeting again “small time”

I had a ‘chat’ last Thursday with Laura Fitton @pistachio, and explained what had happened with my account and why I was no longer using it. Laura is a REAL expert when it comes to Twitter and has always been super helpful to me. Laura explained that I could actually clear the account, so I could keep the same Twitter user name (which is my actual name,) and use it to follow friends, clients and contacts.

In 5 minutes, I had lost well over 23,000 followers.

I had an account with 0 following and 0 followers.

As a result, my @jimconnolly account is active again – BUT this time, I am only following friends, clients and those who actually want to chat with me, (which will be quite a large number in itself.) If I am not following you on Twitter and you want to get in touch without sending a tweet to me (for whatever reason) – you can contact me WITHOUT being limited to 140 characters. After all, I have always been extremely easy to get in touch with.

I’m VERY contactable without Direct Messages!

You can call me on 01427 891274 if you need to speak with me.
You can email me via the blog, if you want to write to me.
You can get in touch with me via a comment on the blog, if you want to share your feedback with thousands of other people.
You can send a message to @jimconnolly via Twitter if you want to share your message in 140 characters.
You can even write to me via snail-mail – My FULL postal address is here.

I think you would agree, I make it very easy for people to get in touch.

The ‘right’ way to use Twitter!

It’s weird – we live in a society where it’s ‘cool’ to say “I’m learning all the time,” yet it’s ‘uncool’ to say; “I made a mistake and I’m putting it right!” So, I’m about to be very uncool!

I believe that each person should feel free to use their account however they want; so long as it’s not breaking any of Twitter’s rules. For me, it’s all about the value of the connections I make and NOT how many people I have following me. The value is in the quality, NOT the volume!

Robert Scoble @scobleizer follows 65,000 people. Darren Rowse @problogger follows around 9,000 people and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams @ev follows around 900 people. Each uses Twitter the right way FOR THEM.

All I know for certain, is that following over 20,000 people was wrong FOR ME.

I hope you can appreciate my decision and maybe even learn something from my experience.

Seth Godin, Robert Scoble & Chris Brogan

By Jim Connolly | February 10, 2009

In this post, I am going to share one of the success factors behind; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan with you. It’s all about one word; contribution.

A few weeks ago, I had a problem with this blog. So, I got in touch with two experts, who I knew would be able to help; Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan. In no time, both were kind enough to get back to me with some excellent advice and the problem was solved.

For those of you who don’t already know; Robert is the former ‘technology evangelist’ for Microsoft and is now one of the best known figures in technology. Chris is, in my opinion, one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘social media.’ Between them, they have a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of people. These are two very busy people!

Of course, these guys gave their help without a second thought. They also did so privately, OUT of the public gaze; so no one knew how helpful they had been to me, except me. That’s because they gave without expecting something in return. Neither of them know I have written this post or that it will be read by thousands of people today.

Seth Godin and contribution

As marketing expert and best selling author Seth Godin once told me;

“If you have an ulterior motive, your generosity is suspect.”

Wise words – especially as Seth shared them with me freely and in private! That’s right, these were not comments Seth made on a blog or in a Twitter message observed by thousands, to show how smart he is. No, it was just Seth taking time-out from a very busy schedule, to share an idea with me. (Thanks Seth!!)

I genuinely believe that it is not a coincidence, that each of the three people I have mentioned in this post, are at the very top of their chosen professions. For example, I was first made aware of Seth’s work, not by an advertisement or by his marketing blog – but after a good friend recommended him to me. I was first made aware of Robert’s work, after Leo Laporte recommended him to me. Again with Chris, he was recommended to me by a client of mine, who’s a fan of his work.

I would LOVE to think that after reading this post, some of you check out Seth Godin, Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan for the first time.