Marketing tips, marketing help and advice

1000 Great business ideas are no match for a lousy attitude

By Jim Connolly | December 30, 2021

Yesterday morning, I had a very productive Zoom session with a client.

So, why am I sharing this everyday occurrence with you?

The session took place, at his request, despite the fact he has COVID.

Thankfully, he’s fully vaccinated and hasn’t needed to go to hospital. He was well enough to focus on work, albeit in a limited way. So, the session was shorter than usual, however, we managed to achieve a lot towards his 2022 business goals.

My client’s attitude is inspirational. Not just yesterday, but over the 15 years or more that I’ve known him. And that’s what prompted me to write this.

You see, without the right attitude, we set a very low ceiling on our potential.

Attitude is essential

After more than 25 years of working with amazingly successful people, I’ve found (100% of the time) that knowing what to do is only part of the success equation. And a surprisingly small part, too!

Knowledge unused, is knowledge wasted. Even a thousand great business ideas are no match for a lousy attitude.

It’s our attitude regarding what we know, which makes all the difference.

Our attitude to what we know, is what shapes our decision making.
Our decision making determines what we do, and what we fail to do.
It’s what we do and what we fail to do, which determines our results.

If you don’t want 2022 to be a rerun of 2021, focus on your attitude. Look for ways to align it closely with what you want to achieve.

Because when you do, you can achieve almost anything.

The direction you’re facing

By Jim Connolly | December 27, 2021

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Think about it.

Whether we’re walking, cycling or driving, we travel in the direction we’re facing. The same is true in business.

When we’re not happy with where our business is going, we need to adjust, so it’s facing in a better direction. That’s how we get onto the right path. The path from where we are today, to where we want to be.

To keep facing south when we want to go north, makes no logical sense.

Marketing 101: Engagement and connection

By Jim Connolly | December 14, 2021

It’s hard to overstate the commercial importance of engagement.

Engagement is the sensation we experience, when someone connects with us in a positive way. It creates a bond between us and them. It fosters trust and forms an extremely resilient foundation on which to build a relationship.

And it’s of immense value to you and your business.

Rather than create powerful engagement and connection with their clients, customers or prospects, many business owners accidentally destroy engagement. And they do it multiple times every day.

For example.

They send us impersonal auto reply emails; rather than reply in person when they’re available.
When we call them, we get a call tree (those automated messages with multiple options).
Their social media accounts primarily broadcast famous quotes and sales pitches, but very little inter-personal communication. No dialogue. Just monologue.
And of course, the only time we hear from most prospective vendors is when they’re trying to sell us something… rather than staying in touch with us with useful information, so we know where to go when we actually need them.

The list of engagement-destroying tactics is vast. And it’s expanding daily, as business owners rely increasingly on technology, to handle human interaction.

Choosing our bias

It seems we have a choice to make as business owners.

We can either develop a bias for engagement, which fosters connection, loyalty, relationships and trust.
Or we can develop a bias for the impersonal approach.

We can choose to go narrow and deep or wide and shallow. To build meaningful connections with engaged prospective clients or push surface level, automated interactions to strangers.

True, the impersonal approach is cheap and quick. That’s why it’s so popular. But that cheapness needs to be looked at in context.

If we think it’s expensive to take time and engage with our clients and prospective clients, we often haven’t fully considered the cost of being disengaged.

After all, if we choose to disengage from our marketplace, the very lifeblood of our business, we set an extremely low ceiling on our potential.

In a nutshell: Whenever possible, try to engage. No, it isn’t always possible. But when it is, and it often is, see it as an opportunity to build a deeper engagement.

That’s when we make progress

By Jim Connolly | December 11, 2021

When we remember to control our focus.

When we remember that unlike a dog, we don’t need to run after every stick that flies through the air.

That’s when we make progress.

Two things to do, in twenty twenty-two!

By Jim Connolly | December 8, 2021

As we approach another uncertain year, here are a couple of essential areas I recommend you focus on. They’re from a talk I gave to business owners, which the group found extremely useful.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Move with the changes ahead

Crisis precedes change. We’ve all seen changes as a result of the pandemic. People have changed. Priorities have changed. Habits have changed. Outlooks have changed.

Whilst it’s not possible to know what will change in 2022, we can still be ready for it.

How?

I was in business during the last recession and also during the 2000 Stock Market crash.

The most valuable lesson I learned, was the importance of dancing with the certainty of uncertainty: Developing a willingness to adapt as required, in a hard to predict landscape.

It’s easy to slip into a fixed or semi-fixed way of doing things, but it hampers innovation and growth. This is especially the case in business. Even more so in times of change, when our fixed ideas are no longer appropriate for the tasks at hand. I used this approach with my clients this year and 3 of them achieved their best financial year ever, despite 2 of those 3 being in industries that were very negatively impacted by the pandemic.

There will be outstanding opportunities next year for business owners with the flexibility to adapt. So make it a key focus in your 2022 business planning.

Build a better, not bigger, contact network

We all saw how valuable, or otherwise, our contacts were this year. Thanks to Linkedin and similar services, anyone with enough spare time can build a huge network of contacts. However, the value of a network is in the calibre and quality of the people you’re connected with, not the size of your network.

The general advice I give business owners is to go narrow and deep. Not wide and shallow. For example.

IF MY NETWORK has 10000 people, BUT they lack influence or hardly know me, it will have a commercial value of close to zero.
IF YOUR NETWORK has 10 people, BUT they are highly influential, know you and are motivated to help you, it will have a massive commercial value to you.

Here’s an exercise to help you get it right. Draw up a list of the 30 most influential people in your marketplace. These people could include high quality prospective clients or maybe influential introducers; (introducers are people who can recommend you to lots of clients or buyers). Then, put a plan together that will allow you to earn their attention. This targeted approach takes time, but the rewards are enormous, and it should be a part of your planning for 2022.

With a more flexible approach to the unknowns of the next 12 months, and with lots of highly valuable new contacts, you will dramatically increase your potential for the year ahead.

The BIG FAT workaholic lie

By Jim Connolly | December 5, 2021

Workaholics are never really workaholics.

It’s not work, which the so-called workaholic is addicted to. Instead, they’re hooked on the feelings that come from doing something they love. That passion and joy is what inspires them all day, every day.

When you do something you love, it’s natural to want to keep doing it.

It’s why Nile Rodgers still creates and performs.
It’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger is still making movies.
It’s why Bill Gates is still making a difference.

Nile was 69 in September. Bill is 66 and Arnie is 74. None of them need the money. What they do need, is the pleasure associated with their “work”.

Conversely, someone who finds their work frustrating, boring or stressful, pays to go on vacation… to get away from work! They spend a tiny amount of time each year, doing what they truly want to do. They have the equation completely the wrong way round.

No one is ever a workaholic

If you get paid for doing what you love, you may be a passion-aholic. You could be a joy-aholic or even a pleasure-aholic. But you’re not a workaholic. No one is addicted to working just for the sake of work.

Work without meaning is a way to pay the bills.
Work without meaning is stressful.
Work without meaning saps your energy.
Work without meaning leaves you doing things you don’t want to do, for the majority of your life. That’s just wrong!

If work feels like work for too many days in a row, take action. Transform your business from something you work in, to something that fills you with joy, passion and pleasure.

Can you do it?

Yes. Of course you can.

How do I know?

I know, because since 1995 I’ve helped business owners worldwide make this happen and I experience it in my own life, every day. Every. Single. Day.

Let your expertise delight your clients

By Jim Connolly | November 21, 2021

Joel is a good friend. A good friend with a really ugly website. Man, it’s horrible. He knows it too. But thankfully, he’s finally figured out why his site, (and his previous 2 sites) have all looked like crap.

There are 2 widely applicable, valuable lessons here. Lessons that I’m going to share with you, at Joel’s request.

Let’s get started.

Joel hired talented experts

Previously, he’s hired high-end website developers and graphic designers… only to stop them from designing the site he needs. He’d insist on changes and additions to their designs. He’d even take advice from friends with zero design experience and insist on the designer implementing those changes. The end result was always terrible.

But not this time.

This time he took the advice I gave him, before his new site was created.

This time he let the designer do the designing. He let the expert apply her expertise.

Over coffee yesterday, he showed me the final draft of his new website. And it’s stunning. Something to behold. A work of art. It’s a work of art because Joel got out the way and gave the designer the freedom required, to delight him.

Blocking experts happens more than you think

Joel’s former approach to hiring experts and then blocking their expertise, is pretty common. And it’s always been there. I first wrote about this exact problem, almost exactly 10 years ago!

Ask any service provider; from wedding planners, to nutritionists and accountants, from architects to photographers and investment consultants, and they’ll have examples they can share.

I think there are two lessons here.

One for you as a service provider. This is by far the most important.

One for when you’re hiring an expert.

Service providers

When someone hires you, they do so because they need your expertise. They’re relying on you.

If you allow your expertise to be derailed, resulting in a low quality end product, or a lower quality end product than it should have been, you’ve let your client down.

Your client deserves (and pays you for) your very best work. Period. On every possible level, you can’t afford to deliver low quality work. No one needs that kind of reputation.

Whilst Joel admits he was wrong to ask for those design changes to the work of his previous 3 web designers, the designers were even more responsible.

As professionals, they should have educated their client and explained why his input was taking the design in the wrong direction. That’s exactly what I did, when Joel showed me his previous website. He then got out of the designer’s way with the development of his amazing new site.

Had the very first designer given Joel the same advice that I gave him, all the nonsense that followed could have been avoided.

When we’re hiring an expert

When we hire an expert, we need to remember that we do so because they have an expertise we need. An expertise we don’t possess. Once we hire them, our job is to get out of their way. For example, I let my web design guy know what I want, then give him the freedom to deliver it. And I get a great result every time.

Joel’s new site goes live on Friday and launches on Monday 22nd. And for the first time, he’s really excited about it. Also for the first time, the designer has asked him if she can include his new site in her portfolio. She loves it too.

That’s what happens when an expert is proud of their work, and their client is delighted with the end result.

How to get the energy required for business success

By Jim Connolly | November 14, 2021

get excited, get energized, business success

I have a question for you today. An important question.

The question is this: Does your business excite you and energize you?

Well, it should do.

In fact, it HAS to!

Seriously.

Here’s why excitement and energy are essential

It’s impossible to build a truly successful business, unless that business fills you with energy and excitement.

Think about it.

The energy is what keeps you moving forward. It’s the essential fuel source behind every successful business owner.
The excitement is what fuels the energy. It’s also what the marketplace needs to feel, whenever they have an encounter with you or your business. It’s highly infectious. It’s what inspires people to hire you, buy from you and recommend you.

And that energy can be yours. If you want it.

Choose energy. Choose success!

You can choose to either create an inspirational business, or carry on like 99% of small and medium-sized business owners, in a business you love, which doesn’t love you back.

Small business owners suffer more stress, work longer hours and work harder, than they would do if they were an employee. They work themselves harder than any boss would, with none of the perks of being a salaried employee.

And that’s nuts!

New clients often tell me they would see other business owners, who were brimming with energy, enthusiasm and ideas, and wonder how those other business owners managed to be so motivated.

Usually, they blame themselves for not being a very self-motivated type of person.

Thankfully, they’re 100% incorrect.

ANY business owner can become highly motivated and fully energized. However, it isn’t going to happen while they’re working in a business that’s zapping their energy or failing to inspire them.

Business owners are intelligent people. They’re not going to feel highly motivated and energized, working in a business that isn’t fulfilling them.

Clarity is the key

All that energy only comes, when you are crystal clear about what you want from your business AND how to achieve it. This massively improves the way you think and feel about your business. That’s because you know what you want, know how to get it and can see progress toward your dream / goal / target. I see the impact this has on business owners every day. I’m telling you, it’s transformational!

That kind of clarity and direction is all that separates you from those supercharged (and highly successful) business owners.

The challenge you need to overcome, if you want to access that energy and excitement, can be summed-up in one word: Settling.

Settling: The destroyer of dreams

Most small business owners have spent so long with their daily grind, that they unconsciously start to settle for things the way they are. Sure, they hope things will improve. Occasionally, they’ll try something new. But they find themselves with the same core problem. So they (wrongly) blame themselves for lacking the self-motivation or energy.

To turn this around, you must refuse to settle.

Stop LOWERING your lifestyle goals, so that they fit around the limitations of your under performing business.
Start INCREASING your effectiveness, so your business provides everything you need, and more.

Here’s the best part.

You are in control

You don’t need to settle for ANYTHING.

You’re the boss. That’s the whole point of being a business owner.

You get to build whatever kind of business you want. You choose how enjoyable your “work” is. You get to decide what you earn, where you work, where you live, the number of hours you work and the quality of your clients. You get to choose how interesting and fulfilling your work is.

You get to choose it all, my friend. Because YOUR business is directly under YOUR control.

Years spent in an industry does NOT equal experience. Here’s why!

By Jim Connolly | November 6, 2021

Recently, I’ve been mindful of the title of the classic Jimi Hendrix album, Are You Experienced?

That’s because over the past couple of weeks, I’ve encountered lots of examples where people have incorrectly been labelled as experienced or inexperienced.

I think it’s time someone called out the automatic assumption, that experience can be measured by age. Or that experience can be measured by how long someone has been in a particular line of work.

As no one seems to have stepped up, I thought I would.

Time absolutely does not equal experience

In business, experience isn’t magically acquired with each passing day.

That’s to say, if someone spends 5 years repeating the same old mistakes from year 1, learning nothing new, they don’t have 5 year’s worth of experience. They have 1 year of experience, repeated 5 times.

Commercially valuable experience, (the kind this post is about), is gained through the acquisition of relevant knowledge and feedback, which the person then works with, in order to be better informed and make better decisions.

They’ve increased the depth and width of their relevant knowledge.

They’ve increased their commercial value to their marketplace and their business.

They’ve become commercially experienced.

Young and highly experienced

Here’s a great example of someone who’s young, but very experienced. I work regularly with a young guy who’s the CEO of an amazing technology company. He’s eager to learn. He loves to test and measure ideas. And he applies what he has learned in order to improve.

He’s VERY successful.

And despite his age, he’s very experienced.

The exact opposite

Conversely, I hear regularly from business owners, who’ve been in business 20 years longer than my client, but have a fraction of his experience. They have a few years worth of experience, repeated 10 times.

They’re still repeating rookie errors, really basic mistakes, which have lost them and cost them a fortune.

In summery

There are many amazing, relatively young business owners out there. Great providers, who care about what they do and who deliver as promised.

The same is true of many older business owners. (I am one of them, after all).

If we attribute someone’s commercial experience to their age or their time in business, we’re likely to make some lousy decisions. And the same holds true if we erroneously attribute experience to ourselves.