Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

A bias for engagement

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marketing engagement

Photo: Shutterstock.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of engagement.

Engagement has tremendous power. It’s the sensation we experience, when someone or something connects with us and captivates us. 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 in business.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Look around you and see just how hard the typical business owner strives to destroy engagement at every opportunity.

  • 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.
  • 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 almost endless.

Choosing our bias

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

  • We can either develop a bias for engagement.
  • 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.

The art of steering

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art of steering

Photo: Shutterstock.

Not long ago, these brands thought they’d arrived. They were kings of the hill.

  • MySpace totally dominated social networking.
  • Blockbuster video owned home video entertainment.
  • Nokia was the world’s leading mobile phone brand.
  • And Internet Explorer had 94% of the web browser market.

Business success is a journey. The moment you think you’ve arrived, you’re in trouble. And it’s not just the big brands that are in danger. Small and medium-sized businesses are at even greater risk.

This happens when a business grows to the point where the owner gets ‘comfortable’, stops steering wisely and starts to coast.

Their hunger for success, when replaced with contentment, leads to famine, as their business and its services become irrelevant.

Here’s how to avoid this from happening to you.

The art of steering your business successfully

The art of steering a business successfully, begins with accepting that you’re on a journey. And that your task is to navigate your business through the opportunities and threats ahead.

  • Learn to identify the danger signs. This might include: Too many months or quarters of weak growth. Too long a gap since you last introduced a new product or service to your portfolio. Too few referrals. Too little awareness of new competitors or new trends.
  • Learn to spot genuine opportunities. This might include: Identifying gaps in your market. Finding ways to increase the value of your service. The introduction of new products for your existing clients. Seeking out new markets for your existing products. Improving your overall marketing strategy.

My first business mentor used to say that the reason so many businesses fail, is that failure is incredibly subtle. It’s seldom the result of one cataclysmic event or decision, but lots of small, daily errors repeated.

The way to avoid this is to grab the wheel of your business and embrace the art of steering. Fire your autopilot and take control.

A few notes you may find useful

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marketing notes

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I jotted a few notes down during this morning’s Pick My Brain client session. I hope you find them useful.

  • How many of your activities today will help make your business stronger in 12 months time?
  • How many of your daily business activities have you assessed recently: Either to check that they’re still relevant or still the optimal way to achieve your business goals?
  • How many of your hours today will be spent responding, rather than initiating?
  • How many times have you checked your phone notifications in the last 30 minutes?

Whilst the notes were for a specific business owner, they could be of wider interest. Especially for those of you, who are finding January 2020 is already looking a lot like January 2019.

How to be number one in a category of one

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marketing, cookie cutter

Photo: Shutterstock.

It’s tough being a service provider these days. There are so many of us in every industry. Not only that, a prospective client can find lower priced alternatives to us, on Google, in seconds.

With so many competitors, what can we do?

  • We could try and out-spend them on advertising. Of course, this eats into our profit margins.
  • We could try being the lowest priced. Of course, this almost eliminates our profits completely.
  • We could try joining a networking group. Of course, we’d be relying on fellow group members to provide us with leads… the very same people who need to attend the group because they can’t even get enough leads for their own businesses.

There are better alternatives though. And one that works extremely well, is to become number one in a category of one.

It’s the strategy I follow for my own business and one that could be just as effective for you and your business.

Allow me to explain how it works

Let’s imagine you’re an accountant. (You could equally be a mentor, financial advisor, lawyer, designer, trainer, marketing consultant or whatever). Anyhow, unlike your fellow accountants, you choose to work exclusively with creative professionals. This immediately places you as number one in a category of one.

  • The fact you understand their profession at a super-deep level, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their terminology and speak their language, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the threats and opportunities specific to their industry, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand their unique requirements, sets you apart from the rest.
  • The fact you understand the creative mindset, sets you apart from the rest.
  • And because you’re set apart from your former competing providers, your prospective clients will see you as massively more relevant to them and their business!

It’s hard to think of a service provider in any industry, who couldn’t transition themselves into being number one in a category of one.

Yes. Including you, my friend.

Energy and business success: The fascinating link

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marketing motivation, take action

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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

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 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.

You see, you get to choose

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, and wonder how those other business owners managed to be so motivated. Usually, they blame themselves for not being self-motivated enough.

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 you have a plan for 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 my clients every day. I’m telling you, it’s transformational!

And as your thoughts are what determine your actions, your newly-found excitement for your business provides you with the essential energy and motivation you want. That 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

Some 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.

Pretty soon, they realize January 2020 is starting to look a lot like last January. And last year wasn’t much different from the year before that. It’s little wonder they lack motivation, when they know that January 2020 won’t be the start of a New Year, just another chance to relive the same old year, all over again.

Fact: 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, because YOUR business is directly under YOUR control.

So quit settling, my friend. Decide the kind of business that would REALLY energize you. Then transition to it.

How to protect your business from damaging advice

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marketing, bad advice

Photo: Shutterstock.

In life there are certain people who you absolutely need to avoid. The same is true in business.

Some are easy to spot

  • The web designer whose website is a piece of crap.
  • The marketing expert, who embarrassingly needs to attend networking groups because their own marketing doesn’t work.
  • The business guru who claims to be in high demand, yet offers free consultations.
  • The copywriter whose content is poorly-written and lacks impact.
  • The leadership expert who’s just like all the other leadership experts. (Think about that for a moment).

Others are trickier to spot

  • The social media guru, who used tricks to attract half a million followers.
  • The accountant who understands numbers, but can’t clearly explain what they mean to their client’s business.
  • The strategist whose own strategy is failing.
  • The business development coach who has never built a successful business of their own.

Protect your business from bad advice

The personal recommendation of a trusted friend is usually the least risky way to find an expert provider. Just make sure the friend has recent, first-hand experience of the quality of the provider’s work.

Another option is to find someone, whose work you’re already familiar with. For example, if you subscribe to a provider’s Podcast, YouTube channel, blog or newsletter and they regularly share useful information, they’re giving you some powerful clues.

  • The fact they have turned up consistently, demonstrates a degree of reliability. This is especially the case if they have many years worth of material available.
  • You get to experience first hand, how knowledgeable they are from the quality of information they provide.
  • In addition, you’ll know in advance if they share information with the clarity you need.
  • You also gain an insight into their personality, which can help you determine if they’re the kind of person you work best with.

With an attractive looking website and some testimonials, anyone can claim to be an expert at anything. And that’s why we, as business owners, need to look deeper. Because the cost of hiring a bad business provider is far, far higher than their fee.