Jim Connolly Marketing

Risk reduction 101

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want something done, ask busy person, sayings

In business, reducing your exposure to risk makes sense.

Eliminating your exposure to risk make no sense whatsoever.

Why?

It’s impossible to eliminate risk from any business. Even if things are going great, and we decide to just carry on with whatever we’re doing, we risk becoming obsolete. We risk becoming irrelevant. We risk losing clients or customers to agile competitors.

In seeking to eliminate risk, we automatically eliminate every great, genuine opportunity. Think about it, every genuine opportunity comes with an element of risk. 

In short, reduce your exposure to risk, for sure. But don’t try to eliminate it.

10 Huge business wins you can start on today

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Here they are in no particular order.

  1. There’s a type of thinking that can only be done by writing. So, the next time you’re working on an idea, solving a problem or developing a new service, etc., write it down in detail. You’ll get a better answer and you’ll find it faster.
  2. Don’t chase the latest success hacks. Instead, focus on proven strategies that work in every economy.
  3. Treat your time with the respect you deserve. Throughout the day, ask yourself is this the best use of my time right now? If it isn’t, stop and do something better.
  4. Get around the right people. Spend as much time as you can with those who will motivate you, inspire you and encourage you. This is probably the easiest tip on this list and certainly one of the most powerful.
  5. Do the extra 5%. Commit to do everything required for the success you want, rather than the 95% of things that most people do. That extra 5% brings with it a disproportionately massive improvement.
  6. Clearly define the vision and mission you have for your business. With clarity and direction, you’ll get ahead faster and fly higher.
  7. Regularly look for opportunities to do something, which your future-self will thank you for.
  8. One of the best investments anyone can make in their business is this: Strive to always exceed expectations. Raise your own bar. Then raise it again. And again.
  9. Provide your business with the resources it needs. When we starve anything of essential resources, it stops growing. Our business is the same.
  10. Eagerly look for a difficult problem to solve. The more difficult a problem is, the more the market will pay you to solve it.

If you found this useful, remember to share it with a friend.

Standing out: You’re the only safe choice for your prospects

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attraction marketing, earn attention

It’s really important that your prospective clients or customers specifically hire you or buy from you.

Allow me to explain.

It’s a fact that if your prospects go to one of your competitors, you have absolutely no way of knowing what kind of terrible experience they could receive. Anything could happen to them.

But on the other hand, you know for absolute certain what will happen when a prospect comes to you.

  • You know that you will look after them.
  • You know they will receive outstanding value.
  • You know that you will care, really care, about them and the service they receive.
  • You know that you will go the extra mile for them.

In short, if they choose you, you know they will be delighted.

A powerful business mindset

I have clients today, who first hired me over 20 years ago. This marketing mindset is what attracted them, and my total commitment to their success is what keeps them coming back. It’s the mindset behind everything I do. It’s 100% them-focused.

I recommend you do the same.

You see, I truly believe you have a professional AND moral obligation to ensure that your prospects hire YOU or buy from YOU. Because it’s the only way you can guarantee for certain that they won’t make a MASSIVE mistake.

You care passionately about your clients or customers. You go to great lengths to ensure their happiness. So, let the marketplace know. Show them that their total satisfaction is what matters to you. That it’s what drives you. That it’s what motivates you to continuously improve.

Now make that message, from that mindset, the cornerstone of all your marketing. It’s already the cornerstone of everything you do. That message is exactly what prospects want to hear… and you know that what you’re telling them is the truth.

Marketing 101: The sales multiplier tactic

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sales multiplied, marketing tips, inbound marketing

At the beginning of my marketing career, I was introduced to a very effective marketing idea. I call it the sales multiplier tactic. It’s spectacularly powerful and there are several ways YOU can benefit from it.

Here’s how it works.

The core idea is extremely simple. If you want a business that grows quickly, design your business so that when someone uses your services, they get more value from it if their contacts also use your services.

  • This was how LinkedIn grew. Early users asked their contacts and clients to join, so they could connect. TikTok did the same.
  • It’s also how every hit TV show becomes a hit. The first viewers tell their friends about it, so they can chat about the show with them or share in-jokes, which only fellow viewers would understand, etc.

However…

What if you already have a business and it doesn’t have the sales multiplier tactic built in? After all, the vast majority of business owners are in this position.

One option is to retrofit the sales multiplier tactic to your business. Retrofitting takes a little time and creativity, but it’s relatively easy.

However, there’s an easy and extremely popular alternative that any business can use.

Making the sales multiplier tactic work for your business

A highly popular alternative option, is to add it to your marketing, rather than your service.

One example is my newsletter. It works like this.

  • Someone within a company or network subscribes to my newsletter.
  • Then, they read one, which will help overcome a problem their company or network has. So, they forward it to a few other people.
  • Why? Because it’s easier for them to get their colleagues on board with an idea I mentioned, if they’re able to read it for themselves.
  • Some of those colleagues will subscribe and do the same.
  • This is how I’ve attracted many of my largest clients, as details on how to hire me are at the bottom of each newsletter.

That example only works because it’s an ad-free newsletter with useful information, not a series of special offers and sales pitches. For the sales multiplier tactic to work for you, your marketing needs to contain something helpful, interesting or informative. This holds true if you’re using it on a podcast, a YouTube channel, your social media account or anywhere else. 

Whichever route you choose, if you get it right the impact it can have on your sales results is amazing.

Needed

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needs not wants, professional service provider

Today, I’m going to show you how to grow your business, build your reputation, keep your customers or clients happy and generate extremely valuable referrals.

Better still, all it takes is one adjustment to the way most small businesses operate.

When I share this idea with business owners, I use the following example. Think about some of the most powerful commercial logos. Apple, Chanel, McDonald’s, Adidas, IBM, Google and Target, etc. All of these designs look simplistic. A child could reproduce any of them in a few seconds.

Now, imagine for a moment what happens when a business owner hires a great designer to create their logo. The designer then gets back to the client with exactly what the client needs… a powerful, extremely effective, yet brilliantly-simple design. Like one of the world-class examples I just mentioned.

Because the client is not a design professional, they want MORE for their money. So, they demand changes.

  • More detail.
  • More lines.
  • More complexity.

If the designer gives the client what the client wants, the client ends up with a confusing piece of junk.

If the designer gives the client what the client needs, the client ends up with an effective, professionally designed logo.

How to get this right

The best service providers use education, to help the client understand what the client needs.

When the service provider does this correctly.

  • The client ends up with what they want and what they need.
  • The service provider ends up with a delighted client, who has a great piece of work. That’s the kind of client who provides valuable referrals.
  • The marketplace gets to see your very best work, which helps you build an excellent reputation.

Your clients deserve your very best work. And so do you, my friend.

Take their attention to the bank

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marketing, small business

Photo: Pexels

So, you want to get your products or services noticed? Of course you do. You work hard, your business is excellent and more people need to know about what you do.

However, before you start working on how to get noticed, you’ll need to put some foundations in place. Otherwise, you’ll blow a ton of money, waste your time and miss out on some potentially great opportunities.

With this in mind, be sure to check the following.

  • Do you have an accurate way to measure the number of prospective customers or clients who notice you?
  • Have you determined the number of people you need to notice you, in order for your business to flourish?
  • Are you able to accurately track whether you are getting noticed by the right people, or just a poorly targeted mix?
  • When people notice you for the first time, do your *touchpoints build an image of trust? *Touchpoints are the places where a new prospective encounters you, such as your website, Linkedin, your newsletter, your office, your store, your advertising, etc.
  • Will new prospective customers find your marketing message compelling enough, to motivate them to place an order, to contact you, to come back for more, etc? [This tip will help you]
  • And have you made it extremely easy and intuitive, for them to recommend you to their friends and contacts?
  • Do you have a robust strategy to get their permission to stay in touch with them?
  • Are your systems, both online and offline, regularly tested, to ensure they’re working, or are you losing prospective customers or important data, without even knowing it?

The key is to make sure you don’t simply get noticed, but that you get noticed by the right people. And that when these prospective customers notice you, you’re optimized to turn their attention into money in the bank.

Get this balance right and you’ll convert more people into customers in 2025 than ever before.