Jim Connolly Marketing

Your next client is already looking for you

Updated June 2026

By |

immdiate sales, immediate marketing action, small biz marketing

Photo by kaboompics on Pexels.com

You’re a small business owner. In my experience, this means you care about the needs of the people you serve. I want to help you do it better. Which is why I wrote this for you.

Let’s start with a simple, but important question: what keeps your prospective clients or customers awake at night?

There are only two answers.

  1. The things they’re worried about. Their fears, apprehensions or concerns.
  2. The things they’re excited about. Their goals, ambitions and the opportunities ahead of them.

Now you know what those two answers are, you can significantly increase your sales or attract more clients.

Here’s why those answers are so valuable

Anything keeping your prospects awake at night is an urgent priority. It’s where their attention is. They’re not casually browsing. They’re actively looking for help, right now. And I want you to be the one who provides it.

To get there, you only need to do two things. Both of them are relatively easy.

First, find out what your prospects are worried about or excited about. How? Talk to them. Read or listen to their social media. Look inside the forums, which people similar to your prospects use. You get the idea. Just pay more attention. Or as we used to say, grow bigger ears.

Second, show them (very clearly) in your marketing how your product or service will help them in exactly that area. How it will eliminate or greatly reduce the things they’re worried about. How it will help them achieve those opportunities they’re so excited about.

In short: speak directly to what they’re feeling.

Here’s another thing that makes this idea so extremely powerful: I assure you that the massive majority of small businesses never do this. It means that when you do, you’ll stand out immediately. Not by being noisier. But by being totally relevant to what’s most important to them.

You just need to listen, understand their need, speak to their need and then serve their need.

When you get this right, everybody wins. Most importantly that includes you, my friend.

The persuasion gap

Updated March 2025

By |

marketing tip, the persuasion gap, sales

Today, I’d like to show you a great way to make far more prospects hire you or buy from you.

Here’s what we know.

  • Testimonials from former customers or clients have limited persuasive effect on a prospect. Everyone uses them. And they’re always positive.
  • Samples of previous work we’ve done have limited persuasive effect on a prospect. Everyone uses them. And they’re always best-case examples.
  • Even being recommended to the prospect by someone they trust has limited persuasive effect. Everyone’s been let down by something recommended by a friend.

What’s left is what I call the persuasion gap: It’s the gap between how persuaded the prospect is, and how persuaded the prospect needs to be, before they will hire you or buy from you. 

So, how do you fill the persuasion gap?

We start by understanding a basic fact. When someone buys a product or service, they’re buying the future.

The future?

Yep!

It’s all about the future.

Think about it from the prospect’s perspective. Our product or service hasn’t been successfully delivered yet. It hasn’t worked as expected yet. It hasn’t provided the prospect with outstanding value yet. This is all future stuff. That’s what causes the persuasion gap. They simply don’t know if they’ll be delighted with buying from us in 12-weeks, 12-months or 12-years time.

To fill the persuasion gap, we need to convince them ahead of time. We need to convince them now, so they have a complete picture in their mind of a wonderful, future outcome. And to convince them, we need to confidently explain why we believe in the value of our product or service.

The more confidently we explain it, the better.

Why?

By confidently sharing the story of our product or service with prospects, and building their confidence in us, we help them fill their persuasion gap. That’s when they happily buy from us or hire us.

Photo by Cytonn Photography

Why email marketing doesn’t work in 2026

Updated February 2026

By |

email doesn't work 2026, why doesn't email marketing work, email marketing doesn't work, newsletter, email campaign

Photo by Le Vu

A reader shared an interesting observation with me. She told me she had “found out the hard way that email marketing doesn’t work in 2026″.

She asked me for my thoughts on why email is so ineffective. I said I’d share them here, as I’m sure some of you will find it useful.

Email marketing works

Email marketing does work. In fact, email marketing works extremely well. Better than ever, in fact.

Just ask any business owner who’s using it correctly. Whether it’s used for newsletters or promotions, the return on investment is off the charts.

Email marketing also works more predictably than any other form of marketing. And the tiny financial investment required makes it the most cost effective form of marketing, with the highest return.

Email marketing doesn’t work when…

What doesn’t work is ineffective email marketing. Just ask anyone who’s doing it incorrectly.

Here are just a few, very common examples of how small business owners get email marketing wrong.

why doesn't email marketing work, email marketing doesn't work, newsletter, email campaign

Image: Shutterstock.

  • A poorly written email won’t work. It will fail to motivate the reader to take action; to call you, email you, visit your website, make a purchase from you, whatever.
  • A professionally written email, sent to the wrong people, won’t work. It will fail to reach those with a want or need for your services.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a dull subject line, won’t work. That’s because no one will open it. The subject line has to be compelling or no matter what your message is, it will literally be ignored.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, offering a generic product or service, won’t work. No one wants to switch to a service that’s no better then their current service.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, but sent on the wrong day of the week, won’t work. At least, it won’t be anything like as effective as it would be, if you research the best time of day and best day of the week, to send it.
  • Oh, and if you send your emails too often, or not often enough… that’s right, your email marketing won’t work.

You get the idea.

Here’s another reason why email marketing is so extremely valuable to you and your business. It’s the only form of digital marketing where you own your reach.

Social media followers, YouTube subscribers, LinkedIn networks etc., are not under your control. An overnight change to these algorithms can see your marketing reach just a tiny fraction of ‘your’ subs/followers/contacts. That’s because these platforms own your connection. And they can delete your account whenever they wish.

So, instead of telling yourself that email marketing doesn’t work, ask yourself why YOUR email marketing doesn’t work. Otherwise, you’ll needlessly miss out on one of the most powerful forms of marketing on the planet!

Be first

Updated February 2025

By |

do it first, proactive

Here’s a powerful, proven thought experiment I often use, to help people rapidly increase the growth of their businesses. I believe you’ll find it useful, so here it is.

I’d like you to muse on the following.

  1. Think of a business, which offers a unique blend of services, unlike others in their industry.
  2. Think of a business, which dedicates time every week to improving its effectiveness in one key area.
  3. Think of a business, which is dedicated to customer retention, so it seldom loses a client or customer.
  4. Think of a business, which actively builds a valuable network of decision makers.
  5. Think of a business, which uses highly effective marketing strategies, so it attracts the best customers.

Now, take a few moments to consider the following. What will happen when that type of business moves into your area, targeting your customers and targeting your future customers.

Here’s how to protect your business, AND make a ton of extra sales along the way.

Let’s go!

Be the threat

Before something like that happens to you, it’s essential for YOU to do it first. Become that threat, to your existing competitors. Take action on every one of those 5 steps above and watch your business grow faster and stronger than ever before.

The hardest part is not applying those 5 steps. There’s lots of ways to put all 5 of them into play. By far, the hardest part is getting started as soon as possible and working on it until your business is protected.

If you’re not quite motivated enough to take action yet, this may help. It’s what we see happen every time a well-prepared competitor targets an area.

  • The competitor arrives with a well-planned strategy in place and is making waves.
  • The competitor also has total control of the time line. This gives them a massive advantage.
  • The unprepared businesses are shocked to find themselves in the middle of a commercial attack.
  • The unprepared businesses are left scrambling for ideas as they try to figure out what to do. All the while, the competitor is gaining more and more market share.

In short, don’t wait. Be the threat. Plan for massive success right now. Choose to become that proactive, uniquely valuable, constantly improving threat to your competitors.

Plus, once you get started, you’ll quickly find yourself with more confidence, energy and greater peace of mind. It’s a natural consequence of proactively planning for success.

Photo by Ant Rozetsky

Why your subscribers aren’t hiring you (and how to fix it).

Updated June 2026

By |

subscribers to clients, sell subscribers, marketing

Hannah has almost 2000 newsletter subscribers. Her open rates are always over 80%.

And yet in 5 years, she’s attracted just 4 paying clients directly from her newsletter readership.

She asked me what she was doing wrong. I suggested, with her permission, that as this is a really common problem, I’d share my answer with you.

Marketing data can mislead you

We’re now able to test and measure our digital marketing with great precision. And it’s causing hard working small business owners to make very expensive marketing mistakes.

For example. Service providers like Hannah, often look at the data for their newsletter’s open rates, clicks or shares, then write certain styles of headline or content, based on what’s popular.

That seems to make sense.

Until we look at the massive difference, between what’s popular with readers… and what generates bankable income for our business.

The key point here is that readers are mostly just that. They’re readers. They read our free stuff. And that’s it. This is especially the case when you provide free business information. The vast majority of people who subscribe have no intention of spending a dime with us. They’re looking for free information. Period.

Oh yeah. It really messes with your marketing data

That’s because the free stuff crowd are also the people most likely to open newsletters and click links.

They especially love sensational headlines. They’re attracted to them because they dabble rather than hire expert help, so their businesses are constantly struggling. Over-hyped headlines give them hope that they’re one ‘killer free idea’ away from solving their latest problem.

It’s not a coincidence that none of the 4 readers who hired Hannah directly from her newsletter, had high open rates or click rates. They almost hired her in spite of being on her list. This is because our ‘prospective client readers’ behave very, very differently from the ‘free stuff readers’.

The same approach that gets opens and clicks from freebie readers, leaves our prospective clients rolling their eyes.

Allow me to explain.

Yes, our prospective clients are certainly looking for great, useful information. And that’s a fact.

The BIG difference, is that they are also looking to provide their businesses with the resources and expertise it needs. This means when they consume our newsletters, podcasts, YouTube videos, whatever, they do so with a prospective need for our services and are building a picture of us.

And unlike the freebie crowd, they’re looking for clues.

For example.

  • They’re looking to see how reliable we are over a period of time. They want to know if we regularly show up with ideas or go missing unexpectedly for long periods.
  • They’re also looking for clues as to whether we’d work well together or not.
  • They want to see if our communication style is consistently clear and easy to understand.
  • And they want to see the depth and breadth of our knowledge over a period of time.

Plus a ton of other things they pick up on, which guides their decision to hire us.

In a nutshell: Don’t chase the subscriber data that has little, if any, real-world commercial value. Focus instead on creating for your prospects.

How to turn your customers, clients and prospects into fans

Updated February 2025

By |

Without doubt, customer experience is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. Here’s a look at why, plus some examples to help your business create an outstandingly valuable experience for your customers.

customer experience, marketing, word of mouth

Let’s go!

Isn’t it just another name for customer service?

Customer experience is a term often used incorrectly. Some use it interchangeably with customer service, but they’re very different things.

  • Customer service is about the quality of service you provide to your customers.
  • Customer experience is about the feelings your customers experience when they do business with you.

When deployed correctly, your customer experience becomes a powerful marketing asset. It’s an experience your customers will value enormously. An experience they’ll talk about and share with their friends and contacts. And an experience that will make them fiercely loyal customers.

That’s why I strongly recommend you embrace it and optimize it. To get your creative juices flowing, here are a couple of very different types of business, who provide an equally wonderful experience for their customers.

Customer experience in diverse businesses

1. A vinyl record store: When you visit a store that sells vinyl records, you notice something. Customers don’t simply walk in, ask for what they want and leave. No. It’s an experience. Customers connect with the staff and other customers, who are also fellow vinyl lovers. They talk about new releases, decks and cabling, etc. They listen to music.

It’s where they buy music and related hardware. But it’s so much more than that. It’s an enjoyable experience.

NB: Very similar examples can be found in the most talked about cycling stores, book stores and indie coffee shops, etc.

2. My dentist: Yes, it applies to every type of business, including dentists. I enjoy visiting them for my check-up. I look forward to it because it’s an excellent experience. The staff are friendly, welcoming and clearly love working there. The premises are creatively designed to be relaxing, but also to make it easy for patients to chat. The ambience is outstanding. Utterly unlike any other dental practice I’ve ever used.

I’ve lived in my area for well over 20-years and I’ve never seen that dentist advertise. Their patients do that for them, willingly, for free.

If visiting a dentist can be that great a customer experience, yours certainly can.

Your customer experience

I’ve seen amazing examples in every industry and profession. I’m certain it will work in your line of business, too.

What next?

Here’s a useful way to get started. List all the providers that you enjoy the experience of doing business with. Then look for what makes it so good. Write it down. Unpack it.

Now work on how to apply the very best from those experiences, in order to create an amazing customer experience of your own.

Photo by Count Chris 

Threads