Jim's Marketing Blog

If you’re wondering, “Why isn’t my business growing?” this information packed article is written just for you. I’m going to share 10 extremely common reasons why your business is not growing that limit or stop the growth of a business, PLUS how to quickly turn things around.

Let’s get started.

Your business isn’t growing, because you stopped growing

Your business is a reflection of the decisions you make and your decisions are based on what you know. So, for your business to grow, you need to grow. After all, you can’t give your business the benefit of knowledge, which you don’t have.

Read the books. Study those who’ve achieved what you want to achieve. Seek expert advice. Grow. Then watch your business grow too.

Your business is not growing because you’re selling based on price

This only works if you’re the lowest priced alternative, and you’re not. Your prospective clients can go to Google and find a lower priced alternative in seconds. Only one provider can be the lowest priced and it changes daily, sometimes hourly, as desperate business owners price-drop in an effort to attract sales.

It takes a huge amount of planning and a watertight strategy, to sell based on being lowest priced and still make a worthwhile profit. Some big brands manage to succeed on wafer thin margins, but it’s a very precarious approach.

Usually, small businesses only market based on being low priced, because it’s easy to lower prices or fees. It takes very little effort and zero creativity, to simply undercut your competitors. We call this the race to the bottom. It’s a race you don’t want to win, as you end up working for peanuts and attracting the lowest value clients.

Clients you attract through low fees are the easiest to attract and the easiest to lose, when a competitor decides to undercut you.

Instead of selling based on being the lowest priced, look for opportunities to add more value to what you do. Not only will this make your business more profitable, it will allow you to compete for better clients… those who value you and what you do.

You’re starving your business of the marketing it needs

No matter how great your business is, unless you market it correctly, no one will know. Sadly, it’s a fact that an average business that’s marketed correctly, will always outperform a wonderful business that has ineffective marketing. This is why some lousy businesses make a fortune, whilst some great little businesses struggle.

By starving your business of professional marketing, by default, you’re relying on amateur marketing. This makes no sense, as it is both more expensive, and vastly less effective, than getting expert help.

In a nutshell: If you want great marketing results, invest in great marketing.

Your business is not growing because your branding doesn’t work

Yes, if people knew how great you were, they’d hire you. But when they connect with you for the first time, all they have to form their decision on, is what they see. That’s why your image matters so much.

Here’s a question for you to ponder: How do you look, when a prospective client encounters your business branding / image for the first time?

Most small business owners operate behind naff logos, poorly designed websites and amateur looking social networking accounts. If you want prospective clients to consider you a professional, you need to look the part. No matter what promises you make, what testimonials you offer or what guarantees you provide, no one will take any notice, if your image looks like a DIY project.

So, at least invest in a professional logo for your business and some decent photography for your social networking accounts. An amateur (or dated) logo and photograph dents your credibility and will lose you a fortune. The same is true of an unprofessional looking or dated website.

Give your business the impact it deserves. And attract the clients your business deserves.

Your business isn’t growing because you’ve camouflaged yourself

This is one of the most common mistakes made by small business owners. Very, very few small businesses stand out. Perhaps 1 in every 10,000. Instead, they opt for the fake safety of being just like their competitors.

This is why we find that when we look at the providers in any industry, they seem so similar. You could swap them around and no one would notice.

They offer a similar range of services. They make similar promises. They charge similar fees. In effect, they become invisible. Almost impossible to tell apart. They have camouflaged themselves within the masses.

If you want to stand out, do something outstanding. Something remarkable. Something uniquely valuable. Find a new service, which your competitors don’t provide. Develop a new pricing model.

Just don’t be like all the others, if you want to get noticed.

You’re associating with the wrong people

There’s a direct link between how we think, and the people we habitually associate with.

• If we associate with people who inspire us, we feel inspired.
• If we associate with people who encourage us and motivate us to stretch, we grow.

That’s why it pays to be selective regarding the people we associate with. For example, when we associate with people who are doing better than we are, the natural inclination is for us to rise to their level. Of course, the opposite is also true. When we associate with people who are doing as well as us, or less well, we find ourselves spinning our wheels.

As Jim Rohn used to say about potential: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.

So, choose wisely. Associate with people who will inspire you to be better. People who will encourage you and motivate you to be the best you can be.

You’re networking with the wrong people

In business, it’s extremely important to build great connections with influential people. This is the exact opposite of what the typical small business owner does. They go for numbers instead and look in the worst possible places.

Think about it: We’ve all met business owners who struggle to find new clients, even though they’re members of a networking group and have hundreds, maybe thousands of Linkedin contacts.

That should be impossible.

Right?

Surely, with so many contacts, these struggling business owners would be able to reach out with a message and quickly attract more client enquiries than they need. However, this never happens. Why? Because they are connected to business owners who lack the influence and contacts, to be able to make a difference!

The most successful business owners use the exact opposite approach. I recommend you do the same. It looks like this: They deliberately target the most influential people in their marketplace and put a strategy together, to connect with them. They do this months before they ask anything from them.

And no, you will not find the most influential people in networking clubs, asking struggling business owners for introductions. You’ll have to do a little research. But that’s fine. You’re aiming for quality, not numbers.

Your business isn’t growing, because you’ve become comfortable

Small business owners usually start off with great plans, but somewhere along the way they settle. Instead of focusing on building their business, so it provides them with the rewards they want, they switch.

They switch to lowering their lifestyle expectations, so it meets the limitations of their under performing business.

It’s up to you to switch things back the way they should be! This means leaving your comfort zone, setting exciting goals and then making the commitment to take the action required.

You’re getting too few referrals, so your business isn’t growing

Business owners who get too few referrals have to quickly figure out why their clients and associates are not referring them. This is a tough challenge to face. It means accepting there’s a serious problem and then being willing to fix things.

Yes, it’s serious, extremely serious, if you get too few referrals.

Not only are you missing out on a regular supply of valuable leads, your clients and associates, for whatever reason, do not want to recommend you. And there’s always a reason.

A customer survey may help you find out why. However, honest conversations with those whose opinions you trust are often extremely useful too.

Just as importantly, when you get the feedback you need, make sure you do something with it. It’s hard sometimes to accept you have areas of your business, which you need to improve. I’ve seen business owners ignore really valuable feedback, believing they’re already offering an amazing service.

Don’t make that mistake. Listen to what the feedback is telling you. Then take appropriate action.

You’re not failing often enough

Many small business owners let their fear of failure stop them from putting their ideas into action. The challenge with that mindset, is that without trying fresh ideas, you stagnate by default.

When a business is new it’s easy to risk everything. After all, unless you start out with a ton of money behind you, (like Sir Richard Branson and Seth Godin), you have nothing to lose.

However, once your business is established the penalty for failing seems bigger.

Here’s why:

• Business owners tend to over estimate the price of failure. They imagine all kinds of unrealistic worst case scenarios.
• To make things worse, they also tend to under estimate the potential rewards. They seem unaware that just one good idea can improve their business beyond recognition.

The fear of failure is the biggest hurdle to your success. It robs you of opportunity. It causes you to play it safe, which is the riskiest thing a business owner can do. Interestingly, the most successful business owners see failure very differently.

It looks like this:

• If they try something and it doesn’t work, they learn from it. They then invest the lesson in their next idea. This makes them far more likely to succeed the next time. So, they win.
• If they try something and it works, they learn from it and earn from it. So, they win.

That mindset regarding failure is what I recommend you work on. It was an area of my own development that needed a lot of improvement. But when you learn the commercial value of failure, everything starts to fall into place. It’s like removing a blockage that’s been a barrier to your success. You will never look back.

Now what?

If your business is not growing the way you want it to, it’s likely that several or more of those 10 reasons require your attention. Put them right and you’ll enjoy the rewards. So, take some time today to focus on just one of those points. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll achieve the results you know you deserve.

Photo: Shutterstock.

Okay, this one is a little weird.

While going through some of my old notebooks at the weekend, I rediscovered this list. It’s a series of points I put together back in 1998, to help guide the development of my (then) fledgling business. The list had things added and removed from it over the years, but these raw, original points were extremely useful to me. So I thought I’d share them with you.

Photo: Shutterstock.

In no particular order

• Marketing is already full of robots in suits, so work like an artist. Make your work your signature. Think Warhol, Basquiat and Haring.
• Eagerly seek out demanding clients, who need you to be at your absolute, creative best. They force you to stretch and improve.
• Do something every day to earn the reputation you want. People need clues.
• Avoid energy vampires.
• Focus on being as useful as possible.
• Love the marketplace you serve. Especially those who are the hardest to love. They need it the most.
• Keep learning. You can’t share what you don’t already know.
• Let your work be your megaphone, your networking and your primary source of recommendations.
• Set deadlines. Tell the client what to expect, when to expect it and then deliver as promised.
• Don’t borrow money. If you do, make sure it’s not for a depreciating asset.
• Focus on creative ways to produce amazing results.
• Do something every day to help those less fortunate than yourself.
• Try and connect good people to other good people.
• Learn from the success and failures of others.
• When you think it’s correct, have the courage to take a different path from everyone else.
• Eagerly look for the tricky kind of projects that others run away from. It’s the most rewarding work.
• When work starts to become boring, stop. Identify the problem. Then fall back in love with the service of others.

I hope you found that useful.

Photo: Shutterstock.

It’s said you are often just one idea away from the breakthrough you have been looking for.

So here are 15 powerful business development ideas, to help you achieve the breakthrough results you need.

1. If you write a blog or newsletter, ask yourself, if you’re building a tribe or simply writing drive-by content? Almost everyone gets this wrong. Here’s why this is so important.
2. Embrace brevity. People are busy and their attention has never been in more demand. Keep your marketing messages as short and useful as possible.
3. Do at least one thing each day, which your future self will thank you for.
4. Remind yourself that the process of giving and receiving starts with giving. Making selfish demands from strangers doesn’t work. It also damages your reputation. Bring your seed, not your need.
5. Fail more often this week than you did last week. Why? Because if you’re not failing often enough, you’re sticking to things you already know. This means you are no longer growing. This is why Steve Jobs famously reprimanded members of his team, if they were not failing regularly enough. Then, fail more often next week than you did this week… repeat.
6. Stop aiming for perfectionism. It will stop you getting started, kill your creativity and block your progress. The next time you find yourself blaming perfectionism for your lack of progress, call it out for what it is: a stalling tactic.
7. Stop doing work purely because it pays the bills. Start doing work that makes a difference. This post explains why.
   
8. Get expert help in any area of your business, where you are under performing. Things don’t just change for the better because you hope they will. Hope is essential, but it’s not a business strategy.
9. Remind yourself that you pick your clients, they don’t pick you. This is true of 100% of the most successful business owners and consultants I know. Pick clients who value you and allow you to do your best work. Build your client base deliberately. Here’s what you need to know.
10. Get serious about the value of your time. No one ever lay on their deathbed, regretting they hadn’t spent more time watching TV. Throughout the day, ask yourself, is this the best use of my time right now? If it isn’t, go and do something more productive.
11. Make the decision to do the tricky stuff. Every business owner claims to give their business 100%. What they REALLY mean, is that they give their business 100% of the stuff that they are comfortable with. Decide to get less comfortable with the limitations of your comfort zone. This will help you.
12. Learn to embrace your inner freak.
13. Get the most from your creativity. There are hundreds of free, creative thinking ideas here.
14. Believe that almost anything is possible. No matter how bad things may be right now, with courage, hard work and passion, you can achieve almost anything. This post gives a great example of what I mean.
15. Build a great reputation by setting deadlines and delivering on them. Think about it: Telling a client that their project will be ready “by the end of the week” is far less powerful, than telling her it will be ready “by 9am Thursday”. Keeping your deadline promises is a superb way to earn trust and build an excellent reputation. I explain this in more detail here.
16. Give people more than they expect. Don’t under-promise though. Instead, over-deliver.

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