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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

The common factor behind self-made millionaires

October 24, 2020 by Jim Connolly

In every industry, during every economy, there are businesses that thrive. There’s no mystery as to why this happens. In fact, we can choose to become one of them. And that’s what today’s message is all about.

I’m very specifically referring to the business owners who:

  • Have the courage to do things their way. As Warren Buffett says, the best investors sell when everyone else is buying, and buy when everyone else is selling.
  • Have the courage to turn away the wrong kind of projects and clients. They know that no business can thrive without a strong client base or customer base.
  • Have the courage to develop innovative, new products or services.
  • Have the courage to refuse to do average work. They know that people judge them based on the quality of their work. So they set the bar high and increase their value.
  • Have the courage to set deadlines and deliver as promised. They’ve figured out that this is one of the best ways to earn the trust of their clients.
  • Have the courage to charge 100% or 500% more than the industry average.
  • Have the courage to focus on what they want. They’ve learned that we tend to move in the direction of what we focus on. So they refuse to focus on what they fear.
  • Have the courage to lead. When everyone else is waiting for someone to take action, these business owners lead by example.

Time and again, I find that the most common factor behind successful business owners and entrepreneurs, is courage.

The role of courage in business success

Fact: A courageous business owner will always outperform a fearful one. This holds true, no matter how smart the fearful business owner is.

For instance, many of the most fearful and least successful business owners I have met or studied, were very highly educated. However, as former US president Calvin Coolidge famously said, “The world is full of educated derelicts“. They were great at detail. Wonderful with research, yet lousy when it came to leaving their comfort zones. They lacked the courageous mindset of an entrepreneur.

Smart and courageous

Conversely, Apple was co-founded by a courageous university drop-out. And Steve Jobs was not alone. Dell founder Michael Dell never graduated. Nor did Henry Ford, Wendy’s CEO or Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. (Ellison is worth an estimated $54 Billion, around 10 times more than Sir Richard Branson). Smart people for sure. That goes without saying.

My point is that their lack of academic qualifications had no negative impact on their success, and that gaining academic qualifications is no guarantee of success.

In the 25 years since starting my business, I’ve worked with thousands of business owners. I’ve found that nothing can stop a smart, courageous business owner from succeeding. And that nothing can stop a smart, fearful business owner from being average… at best.

The good news is that courage is NOT the absence of fear.

Courage is a choice we make.

Courage is how we choose to respond when faced with the risk that comes with every genuine opportunity. It’s how we choose to respond when faced with the current uncertainty.

And we can choose to start acting with courage, whenever we wish.

Filed Under: Business Development, Professional development

Closing the sale

October 22, 2020 by Jim Connolly

marketing competitor, competition

When I started out in sales and marketing, it was all about closing the sale.

In fact, good salespeople were often referred to as good closers.

Decades later, I still see sales recruiters asking for candidates who have a proven record of closing.

Here’s why we need to be extremely careful before adopting the closing mindset, or any of the countless closing tricks and techniques.

Closed for business?

The challenge with the closing mindset, is that it positions the prospective customer as little more than a barrier. A hurdle between you and the sale. An obstacle to be overcome. Little wonder so many closing techniques are based on psychological tricks.

The use of long, uncomfortable silences at key points in the sales process, for example, is used to put pressure on the prospective client. So is refusing to accept a “no” from them, by asking what they need additional clarity on, each time they clearly just want out.

In a nutshell, the focus is on outmanoeuvring your opponent. It’s them against you. A confrontation.

Here’s a very different approach, along with why I strongly recommend you use it.

Opening relationships

I built my reputation in sales by adopting the polar opposite approach. Instead of focusing on closing, I focused on opening.

Opening relationships, to be exact.

I found (and still find) the idea of closing to be self-defeating. I discovered that you can achieve a great deal more, by opening relationships with people. This means taking time to listen to them. And then learning about their challenges and what they want / need. If our marketing is targeted correctly, we’re automatically only speaking with people who are our ideal profile of client.

When handled correctly, and preceded with effective marketing, this means there’s no need to close anything (or close on anyone).

The whole process becomes a naturally-flowing conversation, where we seek to help people overcome a challenge, with the products or services we provide.

It’s a beautiful, fulfilling way to do business.

It also means refusing to sell anything to anyone, if we believe it’s not what they need.

Too passive?

This approach may sound passive, but consider your friends. Consider the people you like. The people you trust. The people you love to have around you. Are they aggressive towards you? Confrontational? No! That’s because we prefer those who respect us and are open and honest with us.

We like people who are open and honest.

We buy from people who are open and honest.

We trust people who are open and honest.

We recommend people who are open and honest.

In short, the more open we are, the more opportunities we’re open to.

Filed Under: Business Development, General marketing, Professional development

The 6 word secret behind all success

October 20, 2020 by Jim Connolly

goal setting, business goals

It’s simply this: “In business, the winners get moving”.

Here’s why.

  • Every business owner has ideas and occasionally great ideas.
  • Every business owner is presented with opportunities to succeed.
  • Every business owner can choose to be a leader.
  • Every business owner can instigate, rather than wait for someone else to move.
  • Every business owner has potential to be better today than they were yesterday.
  • And every business owner has the same 24-hours available to them every day.

It’s what we DO that counts.

  • Not our intentions.
  • Not our network of business contacts.
  • Not our cutting edge technology.
  • Not our plans.
  • Not our targets.
  • Not our qualifications.
  • Not our potential.
  • Not our competitive edge.
  • Not our ingenuity.
  • Not our skills.

Action always, always, always precedes success.

That’s why in business, the winners get moving.

Filed Under: Business Development, Professional development

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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.

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