Professional development Archives | Jim's Marketing Blog

Business and Timing: How to know when the moment is right

December 17, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

A reader shared some interesting news with me. It contains a valuable lesson, which could really help your business grow in 2019. So with her permission, I’d like to share it with you.

Georgia said she is almost ready to launch a new business. Everything is in place. She’s just waiting for the right time.

An excerpt from her email: “[…] I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on this project since 2014 but things have been hectic to say the least. I’m hoping things settle down now, so I can get started.“

The perfect time to start

The problem with waiting for the perfect moment is that it never comes. Perfection is elusive and fleeting. That’s because life is a series of challenges. So, as one challenge passes a new challenge arrives. And even if you were to find a magical moment where everything was just perfect, one unexpected phone call or some unexpected news and everything changes.

The decision to wait for the perfect time is simply a stalling tactic. An excuse. Albeit a super-effective excuse.

Super-effective?

Yes, it gives us permission to do nothing, indefinitely, because the perfect time never comes.

If you’re going into 2019, with a project you know you should have shipped a long time ago, take control of the situation.

Do the research.
Check the numbers.
Seek out the advice and feedback you need.
Put a plan together.
Then set a launch date.
… and stick to it.

Because as I wrote here, in business the winners get moving!

Much better than I expected!

December 16, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

Think about it:

When you’ve delivered a project for a client (or customer), you want them to say to themselves, “this work is much better than I expected”.
When you tell someone about the service you offer, then quote your fee, you want them to say to themselves, “this quote is much better than I expected“.
When someone experiences your customer service, you want them to say to themselves, “this service is much better than I expected“.

Much better than I expected

There’s some REAL power in those 5 words. They’re a sure sign that you’re exceeding expectations. And the most successful business owners strive to exceed expectations, with every interaction.

Here’s why:

They know that by truly exceeding expectations, they’ll retain more clients. They know they’ll also receive highly valuable client referrals. And they know they’ll build an exceptional reputation, too.

The reason the majority of small businesses fail to achieve this, is that it presents the business owner with 2, tricky challenges. When you overcome them, you can benefit from all the advantages of exceeding the expectations of your clients and your marketplace. And that’s what I’m going to share with you today.

Let’s start by looking at those 2 challenges and how you can turn things around.

1. Almost every small business owner thinks they’re already exceeding expectations

They know how hard they work. They know how passionately they care about their clients. They then confuse their hard work and passion with delivering a remarkably good service.

Working hard doesn’t mean you’re exceeding expectations. After all, you can work darn hard, just delivering exactly what your client expects from you! That kind of hard work is merely meeting expectations. Not exceeding them.

How do you find out for sure, if you’re exceeding expectations?

Simple. Just look at the number of referrals your clients give you.

Some clients will stay with a service provider, just because it’s easier than finding a better provider. However, we know for certain that people regularly recommend exceptional services and products. They want their friends to know. That’s how word of mouth works.

So, when a business isn’t getting a regular stream of client referrals, it’s a sure sign that the business isn’t exceeding what their clients expect from them. And it’s a wake up call to put things right, to up their game, to go from average to remarkable.

At least it should be.

2. It’s harder to exceed expectations than to meet them

Even if a business owner knows they’re not exceeding expectations, it can be a challenge to figure out what they need to do, to turn things around. With the marketplace saturated with average small businesses, it can be tricky to get out of that mindset – to see what’s truly possible – to blow the lid off the service you provide.

Fear not! Here’s something I share with my clients, to help them overcome this challenge.

You can elevate your own expectations of what’s possible, by looking outside of your industry and beyond your competitors, for guidance and inspiration.

For example:

Compare your customer service to Disney.
Compare your product’s build quality to Rolex.
Compare your design quality to Apple.
Compare your distribution to Amazon.

Then, look for fresh ways to deliver your services, based on what you can learn from these examples of excellence. It takes a little effort, but it’s a proven way to exceed expectations. And I’ve seen it work dozens and dozens of times.

What next?

In my experience, it’s the first of those challenges that’s the toughest.

Even when some small business owners know they get very few referrals, they’ll still fail to accept it’s down to them.

They’ll say their clients expect too much.
They’ll blame their clients for being ungrateful.
They’ll tell themselves their clients aren’t the kind who recommend others.

They’ll just hope ‘something’ changes and everyone will magically start recommending them. In short, they’ll refuse to accept responsibility. They’ll complain… but stay the same.

The second challenge is a little less tricky.

It means embracing the edges. And that feels riskier than staying in their comfort zone. But as any entrepreneur (I mean real entrepreneur) will tell you, the riskiest thing you can do is cling to the overcrowded middle ground.

The wonderful opportunity in front of you

Make no mistake, consistently exceeding expectations takes real commitment. And that’s why so few of your competitors will do it.

It’s also why this wonderful opportunity is open to you. It’s an opportunity to attract the best clients, to attract endless referrals, to retain your clients for longer and build an outstanding reputation.

So grab it with both hands my friend! And make it the cornerstone of your 2019 marketing strategy.

How to become an idea generating superpower

December 12, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

You are an idea person. And as such, you have the ability to blow the lid of your potential and (literally) grow the most amazing business you can imagine.

However, in order to unlock this often overlooked superpower, you need to know how to get started. You’ll also need to know how to overcome the stumbling block. In this brief post, I’ll help you with both those challenges.

We need to start by understanding that there are 2 types of idea people:

Those who have lots of ideas.
Those who have lots of ideas… and do something with them.

Putting our ideas into action

The person who has lots of ideas and doesn’t use them, sets a very low ceiling on their potential. Conversely, those with the motivation to put their ideas into play, give themselves ever-expanding possibilities. Here’s a quick snapshot of how that latter group tend to operate, when it comes to ideas.

It looks like this.

An idea will come to them.
Then, they make sure they capture the idea whilst it’s still fresh in their mind. For example, using the record function of their phone.
Next, they write the idea down.
They then chew on the idea for a while and determine its potential.
And if they believe it’s worth working on, they develop a simple plan to get it out of their head and into the world.
They take the first step on that plan.
Then the next…

Over the years, I’ve found that the key difference between those who work on their ideas and those who do not, seems to be their mindset regarding failure and criticism.

Failure in context

Those who act on their ideas, see failure as essential feedback. They know that nothing ships perfectly first time. That’s why your software is constantly updated and your hardware is a dinosaur, after a few years.

Updates, improvements and advancements come from feedback. In short: No feedback, no progress!

This means we need to eagerly seek out feedback whenever possible. Not try to avoid it.

Criticism in context

Those who act on their ideas understand criticism and handle it accordingly. They don’t allow critics to derail them.

They regard criticism as inevitable, ESPECIALLY if their idea is a big success. Every great idea, product and service has critics. There are no exceptions to this rule. This means if we try to avoid criticism, we’re proactively trying to avoid success, albeit unconsciously.

Note: I cover criticism in more detail here: Why people criticise you and how to deal with it, in just 3 steps.

The great news is that whether we are aware of it or not, we are all idea-generating powerhouses. And by capturing our ideas and putting the best ones into play, we open up endless possibilities.

Turn risk into your secret weapon

December 1, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

I have a very quick, yet extremely useful business idea to share with you today.

It starts with a question: Have you noticed how the best decisions you’ve ever made had something in common?

Well. They did. It’s simply this.

They were all big decisions. Really BIG decisions. The decision to buy or rent your first home, to get married, to start a family or start a business, etc., are all huge, life-enriching decisions.

Plus, in each case, you made these decisions even though you had no guarantees of ‘success’ in advance.

The same is true of business success

Our biggest commercial successes also come from making big, risky decisions, which offer us no guarantee of success. So, if we have a poorly calibrated view of risk, we place a very low limit on what we can achieve.

We miss out on the big wins. We fail to make the life changing progress, which only comes when we embrace the risk that always precedes, meaningful success.

If our business is growing too slowly, we need to identify the big business decisions we’re avoiding. Because the answer we need is ALWAYS right there.

Are you excited about your business? You should be. Here’s why!

November 26, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Shutterstock.

How excited are you about your business?

Here’s why I’m asking. It matters. It really, really matters. That’s because people notice. They notice when you’re enthusiastic and just as importantly, they notice when you’re going through the motions.

The thing about enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is highly contagious: When someone talks to us with enthusiasm, we feed off their excitement. We lean forward and pay attention. We feel more confident about them. It’s a positive experience, which leaves a powerful impression on us.

However…

A lack of enthusiasm is equally contagious: When someone talks to us about their business with too little enthusiasm, we feed off their lack of interest. We politely nod. Our interest drops. There’s no energy. We soon forget them and whatever they said.

We can’t expect our customers, contacts or the marketplace in general to be enthusiastic about our business, if we’re not. It starts with us. So, don’t hide your excitement. Don’t keep it a secret. Let it shine through everything you do.

Steve Jobs, money and success

November 22, 2018 by Jim Connolly

Photo: Shutterstock.

It’s an interesting fact that very few of the world’s most successful businesspeople, set out with money or success as their primary target.

They aimed to be valuable.
They aimed to make the world or the marketplace a better place.
They aimed to make a difference.

However, money or success was not their primary focus.

Here’s how they did it!

Steve Jobs famously said:

“I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money”.

If Jobs was focused primarily on the money or success, he’d have been able to cash in when he was in his 20’s… super rich and exceptionally successful.

When Einstein said, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value”, he showed where his focus was. Again, it was about the value. Einstein carried on working until his death, even though he could have quit decades earlier with his reputation set in history forever.

To understand how the most successful and wealthy business owners achieved their success, we need to look at why most business owners struggle.

In it just for the money

You can usually tell pretty fast, when you encounter someone who is primarily in it for the money. That’s because it’s both obvious and extremely unattractive. And this makes it very hard for them to succeed.

Here are some examples we see all the time, which you will recognise instantly:

They are the salespeople, whose eyes light up like a wolf when they spot a potential sales victim.
They are the ill-informed marketing gurus, who STILL say the money is in the list, because they haven’t figured out the value is in the community.
They are the affiliate marketers, who leave spammy links and comments on blogs and Facebook.
They are the pests, who send us unwanted spam email.
They are the pushy business owners, who corner us at events. The ones who pretend they want to know about us, when we know it’s just an old, cringe-worthy networking tactic.
They are the struggling restaurant owners, who use slightly lower quality ingredients and hire slightly lower quality chefs, and end up with a low quality restaurant that no one recommends.

They are the kind of business owners you thought of, as you were reading those examples!

The way forward for smart business owners

Focus on value. Create products or services that are meaningfully different from the competition. Solve better problems. Create work you are proud of. Offer remarkable service and outstanding quality. And delight your customers at every opportunity.

Persistently create value and use marketing to make it visible. People are extremely attracted to value and they pay a premium for it too. Just ask the owner of any high priced Apple product, the owner of a luxury car or the client of any leading service provider.

Get this right my friend, and the money and success will surely follow.