Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • About Jim Connolly
    • FREE Marketing and Business Development Tips
    • Great blogs
    • Commenting Policy
    • Help for marketing professionals
    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclosure
    • How I use cookies
  • Marketing Tips
  • Let’s Work Together
    • Let’s Grow Your Business!
    • Pick my brain
    • Copywriting that attracts clients and customers

5 Words that can lift your business above the competition

November 17, 2020 by Jim Connolly

Think about it.

When you’ve delivered a project for a client, you want them to say to themselves, “this 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 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 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. This may sound harsh, especially if you’re not receiving regular referrals. But in every industry, people proactively recommend the products and services that really impress them. They want their friends to know. That’s how word of mouth works.

Some clients will stay with an “okay service provider” for years, just because it’s easier than switching to a better provider. The provider can wrongly assume this loyalty is a reflection of truly remarkable service. It isn’t.

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. 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 accepts they’re not exceeding expectations, it can be a challenge to figure out what they need to do, to turn things around. Every marketplace is saturated with average providers. And this can make it tricky to get out of that mindset. To see what’s truly possible and blow the lid off the service you provide.

Fear not! Here’s something I share with my clients, to help them overcome this challenge. The best way to elevate your own expectations of what’s possible, is to look 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 better ways to deliver your services, based on what you learn from these (and other) examples of excellence. It takes a little effort. That’s for sure. However, it’s a proven way to radically improve your services. And I’ve seen it work hundreds of times.

What next?

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

Even when some 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.

In short, they’ll refuse to acknowledge the problem.

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.

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 business.

Filed Under: Business Development, General marketing, Professional development

When you’ve run out of all possible options

November 12, 2020 by Jim Connolly

… you haven’t!

There’s always an answer. A way forward. A way to turn things around.

marketing tips

  • Often, the answer you need is already within you, but you need to dig a little deeper in order to uncover it. Start by asking yourself a better version of the question you need answering; because better questions will always lead you to better answers. Try taking your challenge for a walk, something creative people have done for centuries, with great success, in order to find the answers they need.
  • Sometimes, another person already has the answer you need. So talk to people. Especially those with specific, expert experience in the relevant area you’re challenged with. Your answer could be literally, just one conversation away.
  • Other times, the answer you need is in a book, a blog post, an article or newsletter. Thousands, maybe millions of other people have already had, and resolved, the same core challenge as you. Many of them have shared how they did it. So do the reading.

The key thing here, is that once you’ve accepted that there is an answer, you’re now free to focus 100% on finding it. And knowing this makes all the difference.

Think.

Talk.

Read.

You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll find exactly what you need, my friend.

Filed Under: Professional development

Scaling your way to success

November 11, 2020 by Jim Connolly

What’s the best way to scale your business for success? Here are my thoughts.

marketing tips

But first, a quick question for you: What do the following all have in common?

  • Kindness.
  • Honesty.
  • Caring.

The answer is that they’re attributes that are valued, extremely highly, by everyone. We are attracted to people who are kind, honest and caring. And given the opportunity, we prefer to do business with people (and brands), who are kind, honest and caring, too.

Now. Hold that thought.

Scaling your way to success

One of the BIG buzzwords right now, is ‘scaling’. Business owners are being told that it’s the cornerstone of commercial success. And that the best way to scale their business, is to automate pretty-much everything.

For example.

  • To let chatbots handle first-line customer service enquiries.
  • To automate their social media accounts.
  • To create impersonal, email / forum-based, drip-fed versions of their services.

In short: To cut back on the human touch as much as possible, whenever possible and wherever possible.

The huge limitation with that approach is clear. Automation software is…. well… software. And as such, is incapable of the human characteristics of kindness, honesty and caring.

The reason for the growth in automation-based scaling, is that it promises a lot and is extremely simple. It requires almost no effort. And it’s sold by the gurus pushing it, as a magic way to cut your overhead back to the bone; both in time and money.

Here’s the snag

As more business owners embrace automation-based scaling, prices and fees in their industries are being driven down and down. It’s a race to the bottom for those who’ve bought in.

Paradoxically, it’s also a race, which no one actually wants to win. This is why we hear these same business owners complaining about attracting fee-sensitive clients and how hard they find it to stand out and get noticed.

They’re discovering that it’s extremely difficult to build a successful business, with the most fee-sensitive clients, wafer thin profits and a customer base who will drop you in an instant, for a lower priced competitor.

Shrug!

Another way to scale… that actually works

While some business owners embrace the race to the bottom, where the winner is the cheapest provider, others have identified a far more profitable way to scale.

It’s a different race. A race to profitability and success. A race, where the winners attract the best clients, work on the best projects and earn the best fees.

You see, it turns out that kindness, honesty and caring, scale. In fact, they scale to infinity. People tell their friends about remarkable service. So, the word spreads. And they remain loyal to providers, who go the extra mile to look after their needs. So, they keep their clients for way, way longer too.

Yes, the cheapest clients in your marketplace will always shop for the bottom dollar provider.

But that’s fine.

Because every marketplace has a massively profitable niche, who eagerly pay a premium fee for a premium quality service. Why not scale your business for them, instead?

Filed Under: Business Development, Professional development

Today: An incubator for opportunities to flourish

November 9, 2020 by Jim Connolly

marketing tips, incubator for opportunities

There’s no doubt that these are worrying times.

There’s equally no doubt that this scenario is an incubator for opportunities to flourish.

Allow me to explain.

We’re looking at 2021 with no clear idea about what impact COVID-19 will have. None of us know when things will return to normal.

Perhaps just as worrying, is that things are almost certainly going to be very different from before, when they return to normal.

So even ‘normal’ will look different, whenever it arrives.

Here’s the thing: When faced with confusion, the tendency is to worry. To hunker down until things go back the way they were. That’s not going to happen. The past truly is the past.

This means that business owners waiting for the old, familiar ways to return before planning what to do, have no end point. No defining date to bounce back stronger. So they’ll drift, which is a lousy idea because you can’t drift your way to success or even survival.

Two points about this confusion and worry

Firstly, as business owners we need to learn to dance with the confusion. Move with the challenges. Live with the changing direction of our marketplace. This means planning for the super short-term as well as the medium and long-term. Checking the numbers once a month is like running blind. Keeping our finger on the pulse is essential.

Secondly, as business owners we have to be very aware that this same confusion and nervousness is impacting everyone else. Our clients and customers are confused. So are our prospective clients and customers. Their decision making is likely to be a lot less predictable than it used to be. We need to keep this in mind, as contracts come up for renewal. We also need to acknowledge that our marketing has to adjust (and adjust and adjust) to the evolving situation, or we’ll become irrelevant.

Flourishing

Every business challenge creates an incubator for opportunities to flourish. Before calling bullshit, take those two points I just mentioned.

  • One business owner will see them as 100% negative.
  • Another will identify (at least) a dozen opportunities to improve their business and own their competitors.

What makes this a perfect storm to flourish, is that the vast majority of business owners are focused on the gloom. This static majority wait and hope, leaving their marketplace wide open to the motivated and agile minority.

  • Interestingly, both types of business owner are equally fearful.
  • All that changes is the reaction they choose when faced with fear. Their response.

Fear either inspires us to respond with positive action, or causes us to respond by hunkering down and doing nothing. It’s where the phrase ‘scared stiff’ comes from.

The key here is that both responses are a choice we make. And our choice is a critically important factor in our results over the coming months and years.

In short, look for the opportunities. If you can’t see them, find someone who knows where to look. Adapt and adjust as required. If you don’t know how, find someone who does.

Filed Under: Business Development, General marketing, Professional development

What on earth are they thinking?

October 29, 2020 by Jim Connolly

feast famine cycle, what is, feast famine problem

I’ve been doing some thinking this morning.

  • I wonder why thousands of accountants pay, to use the exact same newsletter and marketing materials as their competitors… then complain because their look-alike firms attract fee sensitive client enquiries.
  • I wonder why marketing professionals join networking groups, desperately looking for leads, when they’re supposed to know how to attract the very best clients.
  • I wonder why most business owners have no idea who the top 5 or 10 people in their industry are, yet they can name the judges on a TV talent show.
  • I wonder why business owners say the reason their customers don’t recommend them, is that ‘their customers’ just aren’t that type, even though it’s provably incorrect.

Here’s one possible answer

Much like web designers who have ugly websites and communications companies who use bland messaging, I believe there’s too little thought given to the consequences. These situations occur when decisions are made (and avoided) with too little consideration of the effects they will have.

On a surface level, the decisions mentioned here are easy to make. So easy, they’re almost non-decisions.

For example.

  • Maybe the accountants with bought-in newsletters see them as a tiny financial investment, thus of equally little risk. They’re not thinking enough about the consequences of trying to grow their practice, with a cookie cutter approach.
  • Maybe the marketing person in the networking group hopes no one will notice the irony of their membership. And if their business is already struggling, they may not even care about the medium-term impact it will have on their reputation.
  • Maybe the business owners who are less informed about the top contacts in their marketplace, than the judges on a TV show, just want to chill after a hard day at work. They may not necessarily care that much, about the influential people in their niche.
  • And maybe the business owners who would rather assume their clients ‘just don’t recommend service providers’, aren’t ready yet to face the reality that they’re not referable.

Here’s the thing. Our results are always telling us something. It’s our job to listen. To take heed. And then to take action. That’s always sound advice, but never more so than today.

Filed Under: General marketing, Professional development

Failure

October 27, 2020 by Jim Connolly

failure

One of the great paradoxes in business (and life), is that the only way to succeed more often, is to increase your so-called failure rate.

The challenge here, is that many business owners have not yet figured this out. They avoid taking action on their ideas, unless they are convinced, in advance, the idea will work out exactly how they want it to. That’s an exceptionally high bar to set. So they tend to leave most of their ideas on the drawing board. Then kick themselves later, when they see someone else succeed with the same idea.

Broadly, there are only 3 potential outcomes after you take action on a business idea. And you can benefit massively from all of them.

  1. It might work out just how you wanted, right out the box! A quick win. An instant hit.
  2. It might work later, after you make some adjustments. By putting an idea into action, you attract feedback. Feedback allows you to tweak and improve. And improvements lead to success.
  3. It might flop. If it does, you get to learn from it and invest that learning into future opportunities. These failure lessons help you build an invaluable reservoir of feedback, which leads to better and better decision making. This is how ongoing, accelerated progress is made. (It’s also how we learned to ride a bike, despite wobbling and falling off at the beginning).

When you truly understand the value of feedback, it becomes a lot easier to take action with your ideas and insights. That’s because you will have eliminated any lingering, irrational fear of failure.

Failure is feedback. And feedback is your friend.

Those who try to eliminate the possibility of failing, only eliminate the possibility of success.

Filed Under: Business Development, Professional development

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 181
  • Next Page »
marketing advice, marketing help Hi! I'm Jim Connolly and I help business owners to make more sales, boost their profits and build amazing businesses. You can find out more here.

Featured by

marketing advice, marketing help

Categories

  • Blogging (399)
  • Business Development (1,324)
  • Copywriting (279)
  • Email marketing & mail shots (170)
  • General marketing (1,322)
  • How to (282)
  • Misfits (31)
  • Professional development (1,081)
  • Social media marketing (343)
  • Home
  • About
  • Marketing Tips
  • Let’s Work Together

Copyright © 2021 Jim's Marketing Blog

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok