Jim Connolly Marketing

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Contacts for vanity. Relationships for sanity

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Marketing, business contacts, relationship building

I’d like to ask you a relatively easy question. How many business contacts do you have?

You can easily get an approximate figure by adding together your social network contacts, the contacts in your address book and email lists, etc. For most reading this, the number will be in the high hundreds. For many it will be in the tens of thousands. And hundreds of thousands for some.

Here’s a harder question. How many business relationships do you have?

Business relationships are harder to count. That’s because they are people you connect with on a deeper level. Not just numbers on the social networks you use. Not just names in your address book, who you have no history with.

Contacts = vanity

Building more and more contacts can be intoxicating. It’s often referred to as a vanity metric, because most of these numbers are visible, such as our social network contacts / followers / friends. The bigger the number, the more it strokes our ego.

We can be like the popular kid at school. Look at us. We’re a big deal. Even though we know hardly any of these people. We have the BIG contacts number.

Go us!

Relationships = sanity

Building relationships doesn’t seem as intoxicating. That’s because there’s no publicly visible number attached to it.

Think about it: Who else knows how many people rely on you when they need help? Who else knows how many people trust you or how many influential people you know. And who else knows how many people go to you for advice when they’re faced with important decisions?

Sanity numbers are a lot less public than our vanity numbers, but a lot more meaningful and massively more valuable.

With this in mind, how much time do you dedicate each day, to building and nurturing relationships? I’m talking here about going deeper than contact building.

For example.

Everyone who reads my newsletter can chat with me by simply replying to the email. I see it and reply to you personally. I’ve built countless relationships with people, who went from being a reader (contact on my email list), to being in regular dialogue with me (person I have a business relationship with and whose business I know).

The bottom line, is that business is ultimately all about people. That’s why it’s essential to focus on people and the strength of our relationships with them.

10 Proven ways to get free publicity

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Here are 10 proven motivators, which inspire people to spread the word about you, your product or service.

marketing free publicity

Read these through a couple of times. Then see which ones you can adapt and apply into your business.

  1. People will share your message, if it’s baked into your product or service. When you see someone using a laptop in public, the logo is visible on the lid.
  2. People will share your message, if they want you to notice them.
  3. People will share your message, if it makes them look clever. This is why social networks are packed with Einstein quotes.
  4. People will share your message, if they care about you and they believe sharing your message will help you.
  5. People will share your message, if it makes them appear generous to their friends.
  6. People will share your message, if they think it will make them look ahead of the curve or cutting-edge.
  7. People will share your message, if it’s remarkable. Extremely satisfied customers tell their friends when they receive an amazing service.
  8. People will share your message, if they are part of your community and want others to join them.
  9. People will share your message, if they believe it’s of great value and that their friends need to know. My newsletter is spread daily, by people who find something useful in it, which they want their contacts to benefit from.
  10. People will share your message, if it says something they aren’t brave enough to say for themselves.

Here’s an additional tip

Think about the last time you freely gave positive publicity about a company, product or service. Now consider what it was about your experience, which motivated you to spread the word.

Then, spend some time looking for ways to adapt and incorporate your version of that motivating factor, into your own products or services. This can be really effective, so give it the time and effort it deserves.

With the unique challenges facing business owners right now, the ability to generate earned publicity, rather than paid, has never been more valuable.

Your future. Your choice. Own it!

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Business decisions, choices

Even in today’s rapidly changing marketplace, commercial success is profoundly shaped by what we choose to do.

Just consider for a moment the business decisions we make, like those below. And think about how the quality of our choices will lead to very different results.

  • We choose the people we hire to join our team.
  • We choose the quality of vendors we use for our business.
  • We choose whether or not, to give our clients an experience worth talking about.
  • We choose the advice we take, as well as the advice we ignore.
  • We choose whether our business stands out or fits in.
  • We choose our commercial priorities.
  • We choose to be reactive or proactive in important situations.
  • We choose how we respond to possible opportunities.
  • We choose how we respond when our plans get derailed.
  • We choose who, and what, we pay attention to throughout the day.
  • We choose our clients or customers.
  • We choose the quality of service we provide.
  • We choose the projects we accept.
  • We choose where to set our prices or fees.
  • We choose our payment terms.
  • We choose whether to show leadership in our industry or not.
  • We choose who we believe can be trusted.

Our choices and our outcomes

In every area of life, better choices lead to better outcomes. For instance, the person who makes better diet / lifestyle choices will improve their health and fitness outcomes. The same holds true for the choices we make in business. That’s because our choices determine our direction of travel, as we navigate the way ahead.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that we can control everything. We absolutely can’t. What I am suggesting, is that we can control how effectively we choose to respond.

It’s no coincidence that the worlds most successful business owners are also great decision makers. Thankfully, by applying more thought to the choices we make, then monitoring our results, we can learn to make better decisions. And enjoy equally better results.

Stop selling

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Boost sales, no selling required, marketing

It turns out that everybody in your marketplace has at least 2 things in common.

  1. They hate being sold to.
  2. They hate having problems.

The most successful business owners have figured this out. In fact, they’ve taken those pet hates, and used them to develop a powerful, extremely effective growth strategy.

Instead of selling to prospective clients (or customers), they help them solve problems. And they do this via the products or services they offer.

Think about it, your business (and mine) exists in order to solve a problem or a number of problems. Every business does. Therefore, we should be approaching prospective clients as a problem solver.

This means talking to them, instead of pitching to them.

It means listening to their needs, so we get a clear understanding of their problem, then explaining how we can help.

When your marketplace sees you as a source of answers, they’ll regard you as a useful asset. And that changes the whole dynamic of how you do business. You become a massively more attractive proposition. Because we’re drawn to those who can help us or assist us.

In short, doors that were closed to you when you were trying to sell stuff, will fly open when you approach them as a problem solver. And you’ll find people start hiring you or buying from you, without you having to sell anything.

What’s really blocking you?

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Marketing iPad image

Today, I’d like to share some ideas about what could be blocking you from achieving the results you want. I’ll also help you dispel a couple of common myths, which could be seriously damaging your business.

It starts with a quick look back at yesterday, and what I did in the first 90 minutes of my workday.

I began by reading what I had planned. Next, I replied to some emails. A few of them were from clients. One of which ended with a brief Zoom chat over coffee. The majority of emails were from readers of my newsletter. I then wrote my next article, put the iPad Mini I’d been working on in my bag, left the coffee shop and came back to my studio.

It’s that last sentence, which is the important part!

You have the tools

I did everything I just mentioned, using a cheap tablet device (see above). At a push, I could have done it on a phone.

This means you already have the tools you need to market your business, even if all you have is whatever device you’re reading this with!

It means you have the tools to connect with your marketplace, share your ideas, show your work, make connections with amazing people, demonstrate your value, build yourself a community and engage with them.

So, you have the tools you need.

The right time is now!

Finally, I have a question for you: What exactly is it that you’re waiting for, before you’ll take your business to the next level? If you’re waiting for the right time, unless you have months and years to burn, the right time is now.

So, you not only have the tools you need, you also know that the right time to get started is now.

This means you’re finally free to figure out (or admit to yourself) what your real barrier is.

Yes, I sincerely hope you find these ideas useful, but more importantly my friend, I hope this inspires you to take action on whatever is blocking you.