Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

3 steps to increase your fees and attract legions of high quality clients

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A service provider recently told me that she was sick of working with clients, who didn’t value her time.  Her primary complaint, was that client don’t pay her enough for the services she offers.

 

She believes she is worth more.  And she is wrong. At least for now.

The problem with average

I asked her what she charged and she told me.  I then took a quick look at the services she offers and her fee is about right.  She charges an average fee, for what looks like a typical, average range of services.

If she wants to increase her fees and have a client list of great people who value her time, she needs to stop complaining and do the following 3 things:

  1. Increase the value of her services, so they are actually worth more.
  2. Increase her fees, so they are in line with the newly increased value of her services.
  3. Market her services correctly, to the right people.

The marketplace is not stupid.  It demands value, just like you and I do.  If you provide that value, they will happily pay for it.

However, if someone takes an average service to the marketplace, he or she will always struggle; both with the quality and quantity of business they attract.

I strongly suggest you take every opportunity possible, to find ways to increase the value of your services.  Then, adjust your fees and marketing accordingly.

What do you think?  Do you have any examples, either from your own business or another, of successfully increasing fees / prices?  I’d love to know what you think, so please share your feedback.

Join me for a year!

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Have you been thinking about joining my marketing mentor program; where I work with you for a whole year, helping you to grow your business and boost your profits?

Well, if you have, I’ve some very good news for you.

There is a position available in just THREE WEEKS!

You can find out more about the program here, along with how to get in touch.  This really is a great opportunity for us to work together on the marketing and development of your business and for you to benefit from the most powerful strategies I know.

If you are interested, I recommend you get in touch as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

3 things you need to know, if you want to make it BIG!

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This is one of the most valuable ideas I have shared with you here on the blog.  It’s something, which is behind all great marketing and every successfully marketed business.

It’s all about clarity

 

Many small business owners are fuzzy or vague when it comes to explaining exactly what they do and why you should work with them or buy from them.  Yes, they know what their profession is and what range of products or services they offer, but that’s not enough if you want to market your services effectively.

Before you can successfully market anything, you need to be able to answer the following 3 questions uncommonly well:

  1. What is your service?  This needs to be expressed in clear, buzz-word free terms and in as few words as possible.  Around 1 in every 100 small businesses I see online gets this right; including those in my own profession!
  2. What is the true value of your service to a client?  This also needs to be expressed clearly, with the focus on how the prospective client will benefit as a direct result of your offering.
  3. Why should they purchase that product or service from you in particular?  There are probably thousands, maybe millions of people working in your industry; all claiming to know what they are doing.  So, why should a prospective client hire you?  What is uniquely valuable about what you provide?  This is the most common mistake I see and yet it is the most important element of your whole marketing! In fact, unless you can give someone a genuinely good reason to trade with you, rather than one of your competitors, you are NOT READY to market your services.  If you try, your results will be disappointing no matter how hard you work.

A confused mind always says no

Clarity is extremely important.  When I started out in sales, my boss taught me that, “a confused mind always says no!” In other words, if you ask someone to make a buying decision before they are clear regarding the offer, they will almost always opt for the status quo; to keep things as they are.

If your prospective clients or customers are unclear in any way about specifically what you do and the value (to them) of what you do, you are wasting your time and theirs, trying to market to them.  They will find your marketing fuzzy and you will miss out on all that business you deserve to win.

So:

  • Get specific.
  • Give prospective clients a uniquely valuable reason to hire you or buy from you.
  • Cut the fluff from your marketing messages.

Then watch the results!

Revealed: The only 2 types of marketing that matter

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Are you a traditional (old school) marketing type of person or is online marketing more your kind of thing?

Quick rant: I wish the media would stop referring to digital marketing as “new”!  It’s been in common use for a decade now and some of us were using it back in the mid 1990’s! OK, rant over ;)

I spoke with a small business owner last week, who told me he had been suffering from a lack of business recently.  He went on to say;

What really frustrated me Jim, was that I had to go back to some old school marketing techniques in order to generate the sales inquiries I needed.

I asked him why this frustrated him.  He told me;

It frustrated me because it worked really well and I’m a new school marketing kind of guy.  I’m into online marketing and social networking, not writing marketing letters and calling people.  I’d rather stick with Internet marketing.

If you are going to divide marketing up into 2 different sections, it should be effective marketing and ineffective marketing, not old school marketing and new.  Some of the newer forms of marketing are often ineffective, whilst some of the old school marketing tools are more effective than ever.

For example, one of the best kept secrets in marketing right now, is the incredible power of a traditional marketing letter, with a hand written signature.  With so many businesses using social networks, email and other forms of Internet marketing to reach their prospective clients, fewer and fewer people are sending personalised marketing letters.  As a direct result, a small personalized mailing, with a targeted message to a small, hand-picked group of people, can be extremely effective.

The bottom line: Before you rule anything in or out of your marketing mix, make sure it’s on merit.  If it works, use it.

PS – Here are my top 10 marketing tips, to get you started!

Content scraping: Someone built a site from content scraped off my blog

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17th May UPDATE:

The person identified in this post has now been in touch with me and explained that the issue was not caused by them directly, but a web-designer, who was apparently using my content on this person’s site, without the person being aware.  In view of this and the damage it would cause to this person’s reputation (and because I am a very nice guy) I have removed the mentions of this person’s name from the post and the 2 images, which showed how a replica of this blog was made using my content.

I recently had someone build a whole site, from content they scraped from this blog!  So, I thought I would talk a little about content scraping and show you what it looks like, (literally, there are pictures so make sure you have images turned on if you read this post via email!)

Content scraping

Content scraping is what happens when someone takes content from your site, without permission, and uses it to populate their sites; often claiming they wrote it.  Content scrapers are being encouraged to continue, because search engines have still not figured out how to block those sites from their search results.  So, they populate a site filled with other peoples content and then use that content to attract traffic, which they use to sell ads and in some cases, infect visitors with malware.

I have a LOT of sites who use my content every day, without attribution.  The example below, called (name removed), is something different though.  They not only scraped my blog posts, without naming me as the author, they also scraped my pages, including the page that sells my services, my audio program and my “Top Marketing Tips” page, see image below:

Images removed:

Here’s my original. See below:

Before I continue, I would like to point out that I tried to speak with “name removedt” last week but only managed to get through to one of their colleagues.  They are now aware of the site.  I left my contact details, however, name removed has not contacted me back. (see update at head of post!)

It seems that this example is not a regular scraping exercise to sell ads, but rather an attempt to build an entire site with my content, which I assume will then be sold to someone as a business opportunity.  They may decide to keep it and add advertisements later, of course.

Extremely common

In reality, there is not a great deal you can do.  In the above example, I am based in the UK and the site is hosted in The United States.  This means you are dealing with international law.  Other sites using my stuff without attribution are hosted all over the world.

You can contact the company hosting the site and ask them to remove it.  Past experience suggests this is almost always a long-winded waste of time, as the hosting company either refuses to do anything, or the site is simply moved to another host.  Equally, it’s hard to identify who is behind content scraping, as they usually steal someone’s identity, which I think has happened with the example above.  I don’t believe name removed had anything to do with this.

NB: I will update this post if name removed responds!

Content scraping tip: Insert links

The reason I see so many of these scrapers using my work, is that I have at least 1 link in every post I write, which points back to this blog.  As soon as my work is scraped and then published, I get a notification of their link.  I found this to be more immediate and a lot more accurate than setting up Google alerts.

Some scrapers have my posts live on their blogs within 5 minutes of me publishing them.  The reason it’s so fast, is that they usually do the whole thing using software.  As soon as one of my posts reaches their RSS feed, it’s published on their blog as a post.

Attribution

All the content on this site is licensed under creative commons.  In other words, you are VERY WELCOME to use my posts on your site or in your newsletters, so long as you attribute them to me under the terms of that license.  Most sites that use my content do this.  Probably 99%.  In such cases, I actually benefit from them sharing my work.  They allow me to reach new people, whilst being able to share something they found useful with their readers.  Win-win.

Google has recently claimed to be cracking down on scraped content, so that it no longer ranks as highly in their search results.  The hope is that this will make it unattractive for people to scrape content.  It remains to be seen if this will have any positive impact.  Certainly I am seeing no drop in the number of scraper sites that use my work each day.

What are your experiences or opinions?

Do you know of any effective strategies for dealing with content scraping, which you would like to share?  Do sites scrape your content?

Please share your thoughts!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

How to grow a great business and a profitable future

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If one of your competitors were to take a look at your marketing plans right now, how worried would they be?

I often speak with small business owners, who have no real plan or strategy for the development of their marketing.  They only really think of marketing when something has gone wrong, (like losing a client) or they are suddenly concerned by a drop in business.  If they treated their cars like that, they would never service them and only visit a garage when there was already an expensive problem.

That’s a great way to blow a ton of money, on a car that will pretty soon end up on the scrap heap.  It’s also a pretty stupid approach to business development and marketing!

In my experience, and I have worked with thousands of business owners since starting my own business 16 years ago, many small business owners spend more time planning their annual week in the sun, than they spend planning the year ahead for their business.  They carefully shop around for a great flight deal.  They invest in weather appropriate clothing, so they look and feel great.  They scout out the best restaurants.  They research the area where they will be staying.  They do this willingly and actually enjoy it too.

Net result: They have a GREAT time during their holiday, enjoying lots of truly memorable experiences.  This is followed by 51 weeks of frustration, working hard in a business that’s making little progress, because of their lack of planning!

I love people who have a good work ethic.  But working hard without a plan is a waste of your time.  It’s pointless.

Start with the end in mind

Think about what you want to achieve with your marketing.  For example:

  • What do you want your business to look like in 12 months, 3 years or 5 years?
  • What type of clients or customers do you want to work with?
  • What kind of income do you want from the business?
  • How many hours do you want to be working each week?

Is your current marketing taking you toward what you want to achieve?  If it isn’t, stop!  Stop immediately and review everything you do in order to generate business.  Then ruthlessly question the effectiveness (actual results) of each element of your marketing.  Replace what isn’t working, with more effective alternatives. Whatever you do, don’t be like the guy who is pissed off with the performance of his business, yet continues to keep on the same ineffective loop.  Rowing really hard in the wrong direction, still won’t get you closer to where you want to be.  It takes you further away.

There are thousands of free marketing ideas for you here on the blog. So, if you don’t like the direction your business is heading in right now, change it.  Don’t complain and stay the same. YOU are the driver!

What everyone ought to know about being comfortable

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Business development

How comfortable are you right now, in relation to your business?  In my experience, the majority of small business owners are either VERY comfortable or comfortable.

Sure, most of them will say, that they would like more money, better sales figures, higher profits and revenues, but deep down, they have become comfortable with things as they are.  They have adapted their aspirations down, so that it fits their income ceiling.  It’s not what they wanted originally, but over time it has become comfortable enough for them to lack the motivation required to achieve the quality of life they DID want.

This comfort is usually only broken, when something big suddenly happens.  Maybe they lose a major client, suffer an illness or see a sudden slump in business.  This then gets them focused on GROWING their business again, rather than being comfortable.

Then I get a call

People tend to call me for help in 1 of the following 2 scenarios:

  1. Business is fine, but they want to achieve more.  They want to take their business to the next level.  They want the freedom to live where they want to live, drive what they want to drive.  These people are never comfortable and they use their high standards to ensure that they keep on growing.  Ironically, they are what other people call “comfortably off” because they tend to be extremely successful and wealthy.
  2. They neglected to invest the time or money required to grow their business and after years of being “comfortable” achieving very little, they suddenly realise they are 6 months away from going broke, if they carry on as they are.  The sudden realisation of how serious their situation is, motivated them to actually do something proactive to grow their business, so they called me.

There is a 3rd scenario, but these guys don’t call me.  These small business owners are watching their business under-perform and doing nothing intelligent to improve things.  They just do more of what didn’t work, copying the same mistakes and making the same errors.  The marketplace has a habit of punishing complacency.  As a result, we see the majority of small businesses fail.

The message behind this post, is to do something NOW, to make things better.  Don’t wait for some commercial disaster to motivate you to stop settling for less than you want from life!

Increase your results, don’t lower your expectations

If your lifestyle is still not what you wanted it to be when you started your business, stop lowering your expectations to fit your results.  Improve your results to match your initial goals and dreams.  If your business has reached a plateau, where no matter what you do you can’t seem to break beyond a certain income or turnover, fix it!

Don’t just keep on doing more of the same. 

If you are cutting down the wrong tree, no matter how hard you work at chopping that tree down, it’s still the wrong tree.

Find out what’s blocking you from achieving what you want and learn what you need to do to fix it.  I have spoken to people and received heartbreaking emails from people, who decided to carry on going around in circles until the inevitable happened.  It’s horrible.

I want better for you!

My wish for you

I want you to see the realisation of your dreams.  I want you to be able to have the rewards that your hard work deserves.  I want you to have the freedom of choice, that a successful business offers you.

Most of all, I want you to build a wall of financial security around you and your family, that NOTHING can break!

My promise to you, is that I will continue to do everything I can, to help those of you with the spirit to follow your dreams.

Marketing 101: Brand advertising & direct response advertising

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Here’s a quick marketing tip for you:  Did you know that when confronted with a number of purchasing choices, if the potential purchaser is only familiar with one of the options, they are massively more likely to buy it?

Well, it’s true!

That feeling of familiarity is enough to make that purchase feel less of a risk, than buying a completely unknown alternative.  So, it makes very good business sense, to give visibility to your brand’s image.

Brand advertising and Direct Response advertising

The above example is often achieved using brand advertising. Brand advertising is what you see, every time you watch a TV commercial.  A product or service is presented in a great light, but with no obvious call to action.  They simply want to build familiarity of the brand and make you feel good about it.  It’s a model that generates billions in sales every year.

Then there’s direct response advertising. You see examples of this, every time you watch an infomercial.  Unlike a typical commercial, they not only show the product, but keep asking you to buy it.  They offer you toll free numbers and show you all the payment options they have.  The whole deal is done via the infomercial and it’s a very powerful way to make sales.

Direct response marketing is also the only kind of marketing you will hear most Internet based marketers mention.  Despite all the facts that suggest the opposite, it’s fashionable to say that brand marketing is dead and a waste of your time.

Brand marketing is not dead

This is why companies like Nike pay professional sports people to wear their products.  Does anyone actually think companies like Apple or Chanel are marketed by morons?  These guys are masters of brand marketing / advertising and they use it to generate millions of sales.

Yes, every business should use direct response marketing, but this is not a binary decision! It’s not one kind of marketing or the other.  You can use them both, so long as you use them correctly.  You can invest in some smart brand awareness AND get all that direct response marketing goodness too.  A retail outlet can use their valuable window space, to reinforce their brand and garner familiarity, as people walk past and drive by their shopfront every day, without dropping every other form of marketing.

Brand advertising in small businesses

There are 3 people who work in my local coffee shop, who each have the new Samsung Galaxy S.  They work different shifts and hardly see each other.  They are not friends and their ages range from around 17 to about 50.  None of them went for an iPhone or a different Andriod phone or a Windows phone.  They ALSO bought their identical phones from the exact same shop; even though it was considerably more expensive than buying their phone online.  The shop?  It’s the small, independent phone shop directly opposite where they work 8 hours a day.  The one that had a huge Galaxy S banner in it’s window for months.

Yes, it could be a total coincidence, that 3 people of differing generations would all go for the same, relatively expensive smart phone.  BUT it’s also very possible that it was not coincidence at all, but just another example of what marketing professionals see all the time; people picking the option that’s most familiar.  They saw that banner hundreds of times a day, consciously and unconsciously.

Through that simple, inexpensive piece of brand advertising, the small, independent phone store created a situation for the coffee shop staff, where:

  • They became familiar with the name of one particular phone model.
  • They became familiar with the look of one particular phone model.
  • They associated both of those to that particular store, which is where all 3 bought their phone.

Marketing fashions

I’ve been in marketing for almost 25 years and in that time, I’ve seen a number of fashions come and go.  The thing is, the fundamentals of marketing and the principles of influence are not part of fashion.  They are part of human behaviour.  The key motivators are the same today, as they were when I was working in London in the 1980’s, as a hungry marketing exec, learning directly from people who worked alongside the best of the best, like the great David Ogilvy.

Success leaves clues!

Whilst we associate brand advertising with BIG companies, as we saw in the phone store example, elements can be successfully ported across to small business.  By keeping YOUR brand, logo / name in front of your prospective clients, you help to make them feel familiar with you.  Of course, if you also help the marketplace to feel good or positive toward your business, you can increase the impact of your marketing enormously.  This is yet another reason for you to develop a content marketing strategy for your business.

The bottom line: Marketing your business is not a binary decision.  You should include whatever is most likely to deliver the best results for you, regardless of the fashions of the day.

Marketing copywriting: The power of reasons

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Today, I thought I would share a very quick, yet very powerful copywriting idea with you.  It’s all about the power of reasons and it can dramatically improve your copywriting results!

The power of reasons

If you give someone a request, it has been proven time and again that they are massively more likely to comply, if you give them a reason.  By the way, Brian Clark covers this as part of this excellent persuasive writing post on copyblogger.

As you might expect, if you give people a GREAT reason to do something, there’s a good chance they will do it.  However, even if you give them a relatively weak reason, they are still more likely to take action, than if you give a request, with no reason.  In other words, from a conversion perspective, it’s best to explain WHY you want someone to do something, rather than just ask them.

Here’s an example of what I mean.  Imagine you want people to to subscribe to your newsletter.  You would almost certainly get a significantly better response by offering them a reason to subscribe, rather than just asking them to.  Look at the following 2 requests:

Subscribe to our newsletter today.

Or

Subscribe to our newsletter today, for the latest news, information and special offers.

So, whenever you ask your readers to do something, give them a reason.  The better the reason, the more likely they are to proceed.  If you want to show your friends how helpful, wise (and cool) you are, share this post with them!

…see what I did there ;)

Is fluff killing your business?

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Fluff is your enemy! The kind of fluff I am referring to here is the overly long copywriting, which takes your powerful marketing message and dilutes it into something weak and uninspiring.

To be or not to be?

When I started studying copywriting, back in the 1980’s, one of the first lessons I learned was the importance of brevity.

Think about it: Shakespeare spent decades, writing some of the best known works in history. Yet, his most famous quote contains just 6 words. None of the words have more than 3 letters:

“To be or not to be.”

Short. Powerful. Easy to remember. Perfect!

As a copywriter, I know that the sooner I can make a point, the more likely it is that people will read it. People have never been busier. They value brevity. They lack the time or patience to wade through acres of vague, pedestrian copy.

If I can get the value of a 1000 word blog post or article into just 300 words, I know I have achieved something. I will have taken 1000 words worth of value and concentrated them into a more powerful, compelling 300 word message.

How can fluff kill your business?

Most small business marketing has horribly poor conversion rates. It’s too wordy. It often rambles and usually tries to achieve too many different things at once.

In order for you to generate inquiries or sales, your marketing copy must motivate people to take some kind of action; buy from you, call you, click a link, email you, subscribe to your newsletter, etc.

If you want to see an immediate, measurable improvement in your marketing response rates, de-fluff your copy. Make each piece of content direct the reader to do one thing. Don’t deviate.

The power of clear, focused marketing

I know, with 98% certainty, that you are a business owner or entrepreneur. No, I can’t see you from here, but that’s who Jim’s Marketing Blog is aimed at. As a result, I have a highly targeted readership.

In short: Embrace brevity. Focus each message on just one desired outcome. Know your target audience and write exclusively for them.

The secret to attracting great, FREE media publicity

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In yesterday’s post, I wrote about the importance of getting your stars out; a term I use to describe showcasing any references to you or your work in the media.  One of the people who commented on that post, asked a good question.  He wanted to know how to get that kind of media publicity, where you are referenced as an expert in your field.

That’s what today’s post is about!

The most typical route, is to hire a kick-ass PR agency and get them to use their skills and contacts each time you want to be mentioned.  That’s not how I did it and it’s not what I am going to cover in this post.  I would like to share an alternative approach, based around my concept of combining visibility with being remarkable.  As I have said here many times before, if you want to generate word of mouth publicity, you need to be remarkable in some way.

People remark on that which is remarkable.  The media are no different.

Being remarkable

If you are a designer, coach, accountant, advisor, even a GREAT one, that’s probably not enough for The BBC or a national newspaper to call you.  There needs to be something remarkable about you, before those guys remark on you.  Before the media became interested in me, I had worked hard for years to get a lot of people talking about me.  I had developed a newsletter, with thousands of readers, which contained marketing ideas and advice that was powerful and often very different from the conventional wisdom of that time.  People started seeing amazing sales results from my work, so they spread the word.

I often found myself going against the flow, which was also a great way to capture people’s attention.  For example,in the mid 1990’s, I was telling people to give away as much free advice as they could.  My fellow marketing professionals said I was insane!  Today, we call it content marketing or tutorial marketing and it’s commonplace; thanks to the advent some years later of business blogging.  I got noticed, by doing what I believed was right and saying it with conviction, without seeking permission from anyone.  A few years ago, when lots of marketing people switched to being “social media gurus” I decided to pass.  Today, many of the top social media people are transitioning away from social media, into becoming personal development and self-help gurus.

Remarkable people

One of the people attracted to my different style of marketing, was my good friend, the Grammy Award winner, Bruce Elliott-Smith.  When I saw Bruce picking up his award in Hollywood, it was hard to believe that when we first met in the 1990’s, he ran a great little insurance business.  He was as hard working and dynamic in that business, as he is today.  A great way to get people talking about you is to do remarkable things, with remarkable people.  My long term association with Bruce and his reference to me as “a legend when it comes to results” was a door-opener, when it came to media exposure.

When I coached a BBC presenter live on air, during her first ever radio program, it generated a lot of interest in me.  However, it was the legwork I did in the years before that day, which encouraged them to call me to be the guest on Lara King’s first solo show.  The fact I am media trained and was already a regular BBC contributor, meant they knew who to call.

Showing how remarkable you truly are

In short, whilst there are many tricks you can employ to gain the attention of the media, the real secret is to be visible and remarkable.  You don’t need to do anything earth shattering, I certainly haven’t (yet), but you do need to be prepared to stand up and stand out.

  • It means taking the opposite approach, to what you see every day online, where grown adults follow and quote Internet gurus, like sheep.
  • It means avoiding going with the flow, when you think the flow is flowing toward bullshit.
  • It means developing your own ideas and having faith in them.
  • It means having the courage to risk being wrong.
  • It means being you.  Being proud of who you are and confident in what you believe.

The more you try to blend in, rather than express your unique individuality, the less remarkable, (which in this sense reads newsworthy), you become.

Here are 2 quick tips you can get working on right now, to get the right people talking about, and to, you:

Your visibility – Get yourself a blog and use it as a super-effective platform for people to find you and discover your story.  Pack it with YOUR thoughts.  Update it regularly and watch what happens.  If your message is compelling enough, people will share it across their social networks and they will link to it.  When you get the links, you start getting search traffic.  This makes you easier to find, when the next reporter or journalist is looking for an informed opinion in your field of business.

Your remarkable self –  When they discover you, make it very clear that they have just found someone with something new/fresh to say.  The less your site reads just like all the others, the better.  Why would a reporter or journalist quote me or my site, if I was just repeating what Jay Abraham or Seth Godin say?  There would be no point.  Similarly, if you emulate the style / opinions of those at the top of your industry or profession, you cease being remarkable.  This is why it’s so important for you to be you.  Be your own breaking news.  Be your remarkable self.

Is it easy?  Nope.  That’s why most people don’t do it.  It requires courage, hard work, study and confidence.  That’s quite a challenge for any of us.

Is it possible?  Yes.  That’s why so many people DO do it.

In my experience, very few people know just how incredible they are.  You are almost certainly at least as remarkable as those who are already capturing the attention of the media and the masses.  Please don’t keep it a secret!

Get your stars out!

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I was joking on Twitter earlier, about how I was featured in one of the world’s best known newspapers today, but with the wrong surname attributed to me!  I bet Seth Godin doesn’t have that trouble :)

Anyhow, the columnist very kindly linked to a post here on the blog in his article, and the link is even more valuable to me these days, than the name check.  However, being mentioned by an influential person or quoted in a well-known publication, can be a great marketing asset IF you use it.  That’s what today’s brief post is all about.

When someone discovers your website for the first time, they will often use social proof as a short-cut in their decision making process.  This can be as simple as visiting your blog and seeing lots of comments and shares, or reading testimonials on your website from clients who love your work.

Awards you have won and coverage you have attracted from well respected media providers are also potentially very powerful influencers.  Yet, many people seem a little shy about showcasing these kind of marketing assets; even though they can create a powerful initial impression for those new to you and your work.  You are showing them that others have deemed you worthy of those awards, testimonials or media mentions.

Get YOUR stars out!

Modesty is a valuable character trait, but so is self-confidence; especially in business.  So make it easy for people who have not yet interacted with you, to see just how awesome you are.

How to handle your marketing for success

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“Handle with care“, is a term usually associated with objects, which have the potential to be dangerous or volatile if used incorrectly.  In my experience, handle with care should also be associated with marketing advice.

Just about every form of marketing has the potential to massively under perform, if handled incorrectly.  For example, email marketing in the right hands, can generate fantastic results, but when handled poorly, it not only under performs, but angers people too.  That’s because poorly handled email marketing can look a lot like spam.

Before you implement any kind of marketing, you need to run it through the following 2 questions and get a “yes” as your reply:

  1. Am I using the right kind of marketing for what I want to achieve?
  2. Am I using this form of marketing correctly?

Why not take some time today, looking at the various forms of marketing you use and running them through that simple, 2 question filter.  Handle your marketing with care and either remove or repair anything that contains a “no” response to the above questions.

The power of love

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Remember the dreams and goals you had, when you first started your business?  I want you to fall back in love with those dreams.  I want you to spend the next few minutes with me, using that power as a way to massively improve your business and your entire quality of life.

I once heard a business expert on stage, telling her audience that they needed to be prepared to pay the price for success.  In my experience, it’s failure that we pay the price for.  We enjoy the price of success.

Many small business owners are paying the price right now.  They don’t really run their business.  Their business run them.  Many work extremely long hours, often because they underestimate the value of their time, sell it too cheaply, to the wrong people, and get stuck in the trap of not being able to afford the help they need.  They are constantly under-resourced.  They are paying the price and it’s a hefty one.  But it’s not the price of success.

We enjoy the price of success

No one pays the price for success, at least not in the traditional way.  Before starting my business, back in 1995, I was paying the price for having a highly paid job.  By most people’s opinion, I was successful.  I was in my late 20’s and was earning over 10 times the average UK salary.  However, I regularly worked 14 hours a day and spent a lot of time away from home.  I worked a minimum 6 days every week, often engaged in activities that were necessary, but extremely dull.

The days were too long and emotionally unrewarding.  I used to feel drained and slept poorly.  I hated it.  I had I earned a ton of money, but I was not successful.  I lost contact with many good friends.  My quality of life was shit.  I was paying the price of failure.

Turning it around!

Then, when I started my business, I decided to live by deliberate design.  I chose to build a business where I was able to make the money I needed, by doing the things I loved and working with great people.  I wanted to be there for my family and friends.  In short: I wanted to be one of those people I read about, who LOVED what they did for a living.  So, in 1995 I started my own business and began enjoying the price of success. Work ceased to be “work” from that day on.  Yes, I worked some very long days (and still do occasionally), but it didn’t feel like work.  I doesn’t honestly feel as if I have worked a single day since 1995.

Today, I’m enjoying the price – And you should be enjoying it too!

Falling in love again

Remember when you set your business up?  You had dreams or at least goals, that you would enjoy a better quality of life and more freedom, right?  If you are like most small business owners, you may love what you do, but you have lowered your dreams / aspirations, to fit the reality of how your business is performing.  That’s the start of a cycle that you must break free from.

My suggestion is that you do the exact opposite!

My suggestion is that you fall back in love with the dreams that inspired you to start your business and rather than lowering your expectations to fit the limited resources of your current business, INCREASE the performance of your business, so that it provides you with the lifestyle you wanted to begin with.  More free time, better working conditions, working with people who truly value your time.

It’s hard to be inspired, going to work each day worrying about money and feeling frustrated about the things you can’t have.  Once you get into that trap, it can be like Ground Hog Day:

  • You feel uninspired, so perform poorly – You then perform poorly, because you feel uninspired.

You need to break that cycle.  You need to take a fresh look at your business, from the ground up and make some decisions.  For example:

  • Look at your workload.  Are you working smart enough?  Do you manage your time correctly?
  • Look at your client list.  Do you want to work with these people?  Do they pay you enough for your time?  If not, stop playing with your marketing and professionally market your services to people who WILL pay you what you deserve.
  • Look at your systems.  Can they be improved, so that you spend less time on unimportant things and more time developing your business?
  • Look at your contacts.  Are these really the people you need around you?  Are they capable of giving you the top flight support and advice your business needs in order to succeed, or are they just people you met?
  • Are you really committed to doing what is required for success, or happy to just keep your head down and hope things “just get better” some how?

The day you decide to INCREASE your expectations and make your business perform to your increased expectations, is the day you start enjoying the price of success.

It’s not always easy, but it is always possible.

No, it doesn’t happen in an instant.  It can take a while.  You can’t turn a ship around in an instant either, but you CAN change it’s course in a second.

Break the cycle.  Fall back in love with those dreams or goals you had.  Make today the day you start enjoying the price!

Get rid of fee sensitive clients, once and for all!

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Are you looking to attract more clients or customers right now?  If you are, here is a very powerful piece of advice, contained in just 2 words.

Excellence sells

The massive majority of your competitors do not offer excellence.  They may be average, good or even very good, but few businesses offer genuine excellence. Take a look at your competitors websites and you will see them offering an almost identical range of services and the same tired promises or guarantees.  If one of them (say you) were to break out of that limited way of thinking, so you stood out for all the right reasons, you can own the marketplace; or at least the part where the most valuable clients are!

Doing the right things, uncommonly well: That for me is the essence of every company I know, who provides true service excellence.

This is the opposite of the generic approach I mentioned a moment ago.  Don’t offer a range of services, because it’s what the other guys offer.  If you do, you will simply blend into the background and attract fee-sensitive prospective clients.  These people use fees or prices as a way to differentiate the average providers, as they seem so similar.  When a prospect meets or speaks with 3 potential providers, making the same promises, offering the same kind of services and the same kind of testimonials and the same guarantees etc, there’s little left other than fees, to base their decision on.  All things being equal, the least expensive seems the best value.

I strongly recommend you avoid that approach!

Developing service excellence

Develop services or products based around the needs and wants of your marketplace.  For example, if they want a provider who answers the phone at 8am and none of your competitors do that, DO IT!  It gives you an immediate competitive advantage and costs peanuts to provide.  Listen to what your marketplace wants and then figure out how to deliver it.  Oh, and don’t worry about delivering it cheap.  When you are offering service excellence, people are happy to pay an excellence premium.

If you look at most industries, there are usually just a tiny minority of providers, who are at the very top.  They tend to get the best clients, charge the highest fees and operate the most valuable businesses.  The bottom of the industry is a little larger, but not much.  In fairness, as a percentage there are very few really poor providers in most industries.  However, there is a HUGE middle, occupied my average providers.

Of course, these average providers will tell you that they offer a very good service, but when you compare them to their counterparts, they are usually very similar.  They don’t set out to be average and most don’t even realise they are average, which is why there are so many people in that “average” space.

Success leaves clues

I wrote recently about life-long learning and why we need to constantly invest in ourselves, if we want to reach our full potential.  This is equally important, for those of us who seek to offer service excellence.  Thankfully, success leaves clues.  This means we can study the most successful people and brands and discover what they did in order to achieve so much.  Yes, it takes time and no, it’s not easy – But the rewards can be amazing!

How familiar are you with the businesses at the very top of your industry?

How did they become so respected and successful?

When we become students of excellence and invest what we discover into our businesses, we start moving away from the camouflage of average providers in our industry.  Marketing your services, when you are offering something that is genuinely, clearly of more value than your competitors, is the foundation of great success.

Do you make this common marketing mistake?

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How do you feel about using new marketing ideas?

If you’re not prepared to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary

It amazes me how many people refuse point-blank, to make the changes required for their business to succeed.  They will attend the same dead end networking groups, waste money on the same ineffective advertising, send the same under performing mailings out; in fact they will do ANYTHING, so long as it’s familiar to them.  It’s the mindset of stagnation.

The most successful small business owners actively seek out new ways to develop their businesses.  They understand that progress is only possible, when we improve what we do and how we do it.

The drive for improvement, by default, means a willingness to change.

How prepared are you, to try something new in order to improve your marketing results?  In my experience, your willingness to embrace new ideas and test new tactics and strategies, will determine how far you can go with your business.

Those with self-imposed limitations place a very low ceiling on their potential.

Those with the courage to try something new, can move mountains.

The secret to learning everything you need in order to succeed

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Have you ever heard of the inoculation theory of education?

This is where people go through school or college, get a diploma, degree or whatever, and then use that to inoculate themselves from having to do any more studying.  I member the late, great Earl Nightingale recounting a conversation he had with a young man, who had recently graduated.  He told Earl he would never read another non-fiction book again.  He was done with learning and wanted to start working.

The challenge with that extremely common approach was highlighted by Jim Rohn.  Jim used to tell us:

A formal education can make you a living, but a self-education can make you a fortune.

Life-long learning

I was a very poor student at school, but committed at the age of 21 to dedicate myself to life-long learning. I determined to read the books, attend the courses and do whatever was required, for me to be the best that I could be.  Almost 25 years later, I am still a ferocious reader and am more committed to learning than ever.  I can tell you with total certainty that my decision to embrace life-long learning, is directly responsible for every success I have achieved.

In my experience, learning, true learning, means more than just blindly accepting everything you read or hear from an expert.  It means gathering information from the best sources you can find, and questioning what they say! Those you see online, accepting and agreeing like drones with everything their gurus tell them, are learning nothing.  They are simply gathering information, of often dubious value, from people who are just as fallible as you or I, and treating it as fact.

I see the process like this:

  • Read the books
  • Attend the courses
  • Listen to the audio programs
  • Put what you have discovered to the test
  • Measure your results and keep what works

Repeat…

The cost of attacking your competitors online

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Have you ever heard the saying, that when you bad-mouth a competitor, it actually makes you look bad and not them?  Well, the same holds true when you decide to invest your time attacking competitors online.

It seems a popular way to gain traffic to YOUR blog, is to attack the top bloggers in your niche.  If you piss them off, they may mention you, putting you on their readers / followers radar.  If your attack is nasty enough, they may even blog about what you said.  This might gain the attacker a short-term traffic spike, but at what cost?  I honestly don’t think these people realise just how bitter it makes them look, to try and destroy a competitors credibility or dent the business, which their victim uses to put a roof over their family’s head, just for traffic.

Yes, if you identify that someone is making what you believe to be a mistake, it’s good to let that person know.  A while back, Yael Rozencwajg from Yopps.com noticed an error with the way my blog’s email RSS was working, so she emailed me to let me know.  She didn’t write a blog post to say what an idiot I was for missing the error or what a smart-ass she was for spotting it.  That’s because her intention was purely to help me, rather than attack me in order to get a response that she could convert into traffic.

The law of return

As a person of faith, I have a great deal of respect for the world’s Holy books.  In each of those I have studied, there is a belief that we tend to reap what we sow.  This is something professional development experts refer to as the law of return.  It works on the sound premise, that we tend to get back whatever we put out there.

Negative seeds (actions) produce a negative harvest (results) and positive seeds produce a positive harvest.  For example, Yael’s kindness in taking the time to offer me some help, has just resulted in her being highlighted to my readership, in an extremely positive way.

Of course, the negative feelings we have about those who bad-mouth their competitors, are formed by that same law of return.  Their attacks tend to damage themselves, rather than their intended victims.

I sometimes see people offering poor or misleading marketing advice.  In each case, I write a blog post to ensure my readers avoid making mistakes by following that kind of bad advice.  However, I do this without calling out the person.  This means my message gets out, is seen in a 100% positive light and is actually more likely to be acted on.  If I ever woke up feeling like I needed to attack Seth Godin or Jay Abraham, in order to gain readers, I would like to think I would recognise it as a sign that I ACTUALLY needed to work harder on MY OWN business.

Yes, you can gain traffic by attacking your more successful or better known competitors, but who needs to attract that kind of reputation?

The secret to business success that even Tony Robbins missed!

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In recent months, a number of people have asked me about a term I use a lot, here on the blog: Intelligent action.  They wanted to know what intelligent action actually means.

I developed the term a decade ago, by questioning something that self-help guru Tony Robins said, in his Personal Power audio program.  He claimed that the following 2 sayings were contradictions of each other.

  • Look before you leap
  • He who hesitates is lost

To me, those sayings are not only extremely complimentary, they also combine to form the basis of how all successful decision makers operate.  Here’s what I mean:

Look before you leap: Before you take action (or leap), you should get the information required (or look) to ensure you make the best decision.

Then…

He who hesitates is lost: Once you have the information required in order to take action – Use it! Opportunities in business, and in life generally, are often time-sensitive.  That is to say, you can miss out on an opportunity, by hesitating for too long.  Before you know it, the moment has passed and the opportunity is no more.

Intelligent action

Success comes to those, who take intelligent action.  Intelligent action is the fusion of research and activity.  Combine those 2 together and you can achieve real progress in any area of your business.

So, look before you leap, but once equipped with the information you need, remember that he (or she) who hesitates is lost – So take action.

3 simple ideas to improve your marketing results

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How well do you know your prospective clients?

For marketing to work, it needs to strike a chord with the recipient.  It needs to ask a question or make a statement that stops them in their tracks and grabs their attention.  To do this, your question or statement needs to be directly relevant.

This means you need to know what THEY consider relevant and important.

Here are a few simple ideas, which can quickly give you a much clearer picture of the needs of your marketplace and allow you to target them more effectively:

  1. Whenever possible, ask your existing clients about what they see as the threats and opportunities facing their business and their industry.  Look for the most common replies.
  2. Put a survey on your website, for non-clients.  Make it as brief as possible and offer some kind of reward for filling it in.
  3. Listen to your marketplace using social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  Many small business owners treat social media as a way to sell, yet it can be of enormous commercial benefit, to simply listen and learn.

That kind of market data can be worth a fortune to you, and not simply as a way to better target your marketing messages!  It can also help you develop new products and services, based on what your marketplace actually wants, rather than what you assume it wants or needs.

When your services and your marketing are developed around the needs and wants of your prospective clients, it makes everything you do massively more effective.