Professional development Archives - Page 2 of 108

You’re better. They’re more successful. Why?

By Jim Connolly | September 23, 2025

marketing balance, marketing tips, marketing ideas

Today, I’d like to help you avoid maybe the most frustrating thing in business. I’m referring to watching your less capable competitors gaining more of the market, and making more money, than you do.

It all starts with understanding the following.

The most successful provider and the best provider, are seldom the same provider. In fact, it rarely happens.

That’s because being the best doesn’t automatically mean people will notice you, believe you, buy from you or hire you.

Why is that?

Commercial success requires a critically important balance.

You need to balance the development of a great service, with the development of a strategy to earn the attention, trust and business/patronage of your marketplace.

Here’s why that balance is essential.

If your prospective clients don’t know you exist, it doesn’t matter how exceptional your service or product is, because you’re not an option for them.
If your prospective clients DO know you exist, but your marketing doesn’t inspire them to trust you, they won’t hire you or buy from you.
And if your prospective clients know you exist, and they trust you–but your marketing doesn’t motivate them to take action, they won’t hire you or buy from you.

Without that balance in place: Trying to grow a business is extremely frustrating, as less capable competitors grab your share of the marketplace. You will already know competitors in your space, who are nowhere near as good as you, yet they’re flying.

With that balance in place: You get all the rewards your hard work and dedication merits.

Thankfully, this is directly under our control as business owners. And it’s easy. All it takes is a decision. The decision to adjust the balance, so our business attracts the volume and quality of clients we deserve.

But here’s the challenge

It’s even easier to ‘keep on keeping on’ and hope things just get better. Which is why this message is ignored by most people I share it with. It’s why there are business owners still whining about how unlucky they are 5 or even 10-years after they started their business.

It’s not luck.

It’s a decision. THIS decision.

And as business owners, it should be the easiest, most obvious business decision we ever make.

How many is “enough”?

By Jim Connolly | September 4, 2025

I have a very quick, yet powerful marketing tip for you today. It seems simplistic, yet it’s something that the majority of small business owners fail to do. And it’s essential for their success.

Decide what you want from your business, in all the key areas, not just financial areas. Then, turn that want into a target, by putting a number on it.

You can’t hit a target that doesn’t exist

Almost every business owner has a numeric target for profits, revenues etc. However, they tend not to have specific number based targets for the areas of their business, which are essential for achieving those financial targets.

For example, there are things you’ll need to do in order to attract 4,000 new customers over the next 12 months, which are irrelevant if you need to attract 40. The number is what gives you your target. And your target will then rule in and rule out, certain strategies. It will also let you accurately measure whether you’re on track or not.

I speak with business owners regularly, who are wasting time and money on advertising, social media, promotions, sponsoring events… which have absolutely nothing to do with the actual goals or needs of their business.

I see this most often with accountants, freelancers, trainers, lawyers, consultants, designers, coaches, etc. They almost always go wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep.

They try and reach as many people as possible (wide), with social media, advertising, promotions and such (shallow). They’re being vaguely relevant to a wide number of people, rather than directly relevant to a smaller number of targeted prospective clients. And vaguely relevant marketing is 100% ineffective. It totally fails to capture attention and is too weak to motivate anyone to do anything.

Here are just a few areas where you need number-based targets, in order to make the right marketing and business development decisions.

How will you know when you are attracting enough high quality sales leads? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you are getting enough word of mouth referrals? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your business is retaining enough existing clients? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your profitability is high enough? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you have enough subscribers? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you have enough visitors to your website? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your professional network is large enough? Put a number on it.

Let those numbers, which are specific to what you want from your business, guide you. It will give you clarity like never before. You’ll be able to make better decisions and focus on the right activities, to achieve your main goals.

Let your competitors grow YOUR business!

By Jim Connolly | August 30, 2025

There’s an old saying that tells us, let your past make you better, not bitter.

I learned the hard way that we, as business owners, need to use a revised version of that saying: let your competitors make you better, not bitter.

When I started my business it grew very big, very quick and for a few years, I earned a ton of money.

Until…

I started to get fewer enquiries from new prospects. Then, even fewer new enquiries. Around that same time, I started hearing about a marketing agency that had moved into my area, focusing, like me, on small business owners. I started to resent the new agency. I assumed they were telling prospects anything, just to get the work in and that they’d soon be found out.

So, I ignored them.

Until it became impossible to ignore them.

It turns out they were good. Very good.

The agency was a partnership of 2 super smart professionals. They were also hard working and agile. There was clearly no point allowing my ego to resent their success and blame them for my situation.

So, I stopped being bitter. Then, focused everything on getting better.

Here’s the key lesson I hope you find useful, from my mistake.

If you have a competitor or a number of competitors ahead of you, there’s always a reason. The challenge is that it’s hard to admit to ourselves that a competitor is stronger than us in 1 or more areas.

When we look at our high-performing competitors with non-ego clarity, here’s what we’ll typically find.

They market their services better than we do.
They offer an outstanding s ervice.
They offer a valuable variation of a service that’s only available from them.
They’ve found a cost-effective way to deliver their service, and pass some of that onto their customers or clients.
And some do all of the above, plus more.

As I discovered, it can be painful to admit that we need to up our game. That we need to improve. That the competition, who some see as their enemy, is doing something better then we are. That we are the cause, and the cure, of our situation.

But when we do… and truly believe it’s down to us… we’re 90% of the way to what can be our greatest success ever.

Why?

Because we’ll accept we need to make improvements. And when we focus on making improvements, our actions follow. We’ll do the work or get the help we need.

And THAT’S what’s needed for us to finally enjoy the results we’ve always wanted.

Follow-up: Increase conversion rates up to 80%

By Jim Connolly | August 20, 2025

Marketing, follow-up, following up customer

I’d like to share a way for you to quickly improve your sales conversion rates by up to 80%. All with a simple adjustment to your follow-up process.

When I say the adjustment is simple, it really is. However, right now, you may find it tricky. So, I’m going to show you what the adjustment is, then how to make it a simple process.

It starts with some data.

According to data from Sopro, “Sending three follow-up emails can increase your success rate by over 80%“.

There are lots of similar studies and all of them show very impressive results. The number of follow-ups changes and the success percentage changes, depending on your industry, etc. One thing is crystal clear though: if we follow-up enough times, our results will improve and the improvement will be considerable.

What stops most businesses from following-up often enough?

In my conversations with small business owners, it’s mostly down to 2 things.

Not wanting to be seen as a nuisance.
Not having a follow-up structure in place. When it’s random, confidence drops. I’ll show you a simple follow-up structure in a moment.

We’re not being a nuisance when we follow-up

When we follow-up on a prospect’s interest, we’re helping them avoid missing out. Our services or products are important enough for them to have responded to us or to have contacted us for information.

However, after a few days, our prospect has probably forgotten our email. They’ve had urgent requests from their customers, urgent meetings to attend… just like you and me. Yes, it’s important to them. But people’s attention is focused on the urgent, far more than the important.

How do we get the follow-up right?

Develop a follow-up structure

Here’s a simple framework that you can adjust to suit you and your business.

In general, I recommend you follow-up at least 3 times, 5 working days apart.

Use different send times.

Send 1 in the morning.
1 at lunchtime.
1 later in the afternoon.

Why?

Different people have different times of the day when they’re busiest. By following-up at 3 different times, we ensure hitting their optimal time at least once.

A few notes

You can follow-up using different platforms. Email, phone or social media can all work great. It can be very effective to use at least 2 different forms of contact.

When following-up, it’s important not to say sorry for interrupting them! You’re not an interruption. You’re a professional who wants to help and do what’s best for the prospect. Only amateurs let things fizzle out.

No prospect is the same every time you contact them. They have times when their cash flow is a problem. They also have times when their cash situation is excellent. They have times when they feel anxious. They have times when they feel confident. You get the idea. Only by putting a follow-up strategy in place do you stand the best chance of catching their attention at the right time.

Before you decide not to give this a try, consider this. How many new clients or additional sales have you been 1 follow-up away from over the years?

A personal note: I discovered this the hard way. I used to only follow-up once or twice. I then discovered the difference it can make to follow-up at least 3 times. I’d been in business 2-years back then and it lost me a fortune.