Jim Connolly Marketing

Predictable?

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Predictable, marketing tip

Predictable can be life saving: The braking system on your car is a great example. You need to know that each time you put your foot on the brake, you’re going to slow down or stop as expected.

Predictable can be reassuring: It’s reassuring to know that the quality of products or services you receive from a vendor, will be predictably excellent.

However, predictable can also hurt your business. Imagine a prospective client is looking for a new service provider. For whatever reason, their previous provider didn’t fulfil their needs. The last thing that prospective client will want, is another provider that seems too similar looking, to the one they just fired.

Conversely, they’ll be extremely attracted to providers that combine being reassuringly professional, with fresh ideas and uncommonly great service.

That’s where YOU come in my friend. At least it should be.

Don’t let predictability bite your ass

Being predictable in the wrong areas will destroy your marketing.

  • It will attract fewer enquiries.
  • It will motivate fewer prospects to hire you.
  • It will position your business as a commodity. People buy commodities based on the lowest price or fee.
  • It will camouflage your business and stop you getting noticed.

This is the total opposite of what you need in order for your business to succeed.

Make no mistake, it takes guts to build your own version of how a service provider in your niche should operate. It’s hard to zig when your competitors zag. It’s so much easier to play follow the follower. That’s why only the top few percent in any industry truly stand out.

Those of us who want our business to fly need to be smarter than that. We need to only be predictable where it matters. Because the alternative is to be invisible. And a business that lacks visibility, places a very low ceiling on its potential.

Are you listening or paying attention? The difference is huge

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decision making, paying attention

There’s a big difference between paying attention, and listening.

Yes, listening is indeed one way to pay attention.

But commercially, we learn a lot more about a person, a company culture or a company as a whole when we pay attention to what they do. Their actions reflect their motivations, beliefs and priorities with much greater accuracy than their convincing, carefully polished words.

Here’s what one of my mentors taught me when I started out in business. It’s saved me from making bad decisions countless times over the years.

What people say, is what they want us to think they will do. What people do, is what they actually do.

I’ve found that advice to be enormously valuable, before making any important, commercial decisions. I hope you find it equally useful.

Almost everyone will ignore you

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Marketing to everyone

Almost everyone will ignore you.

And that’s perfectly fine.

Because some people will love you.

The message in those 3 sentences is worth remembering. For example, when you’re creating a new product, or putting a marketing strategy together.

Here’s the thing

You can’t appeal to everyone.

You don’t need to appeal to everyone.

Think about it, if everyone wanted to hire you or buy from you, you couldn’t cope!

So focus your marketing, and wider business development, on some people.

Some people?

  • The kind of people who ‘get’ the way you work.
  • The kind of people who value your vision.
  • The kind of people who will love working with you or buying from you.
  • The kind of people who make the very best clients or customers.

In a nutshell, ignore everyone with your marketing and focus very specifically on some people.

It’s the fastest, least expensive and most straightforward way to dramatically improve your marketing results. And build a world-class client base.

Moving your business forward

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work harder, the success code

If the work you’re doing right now feels comfortable, it’s almost certainly not moving your business forward. It’s not helping you make meaningful progress and not leading you toward the attainment of your goals.

Why?

Because your best work never feels comfortable. Here’s what your best work looks like.

  • It’s the kind of work that forces you to grow into the person who can take your business up a level.
  • It’s the kind of work that inspires you to make better decisions.
  • It’s the kind of work that gives you energy and makes you feel truly alive.
  • It’s the kind of work that attracts the clients or customers you want.
  • It’s the kind of work that gives you a sense of real optimism.
  • It’s the kind of work that causes you to make exciting plans for your future.

Look at that list. Now, ask yourself if the work you’re doing is honestly your best work. And just as importantly, if you’re not doing your best work, find out what’s blocking you.

Service providers. Please stop making this mistake

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marketing stop

This is borderline crazy. It’s totally unsustainable. And it applies to all service providers, not just the 3 examples I mention here.

There are training providers, coaches and consultants out there. Right now. Today. Selling training, coaching and consulting. And they’re wondering why no one is interested.

Seriously.

The economy is horrible, budgets have been slashed. But for some reason, these trainers, coaches and consultants are trying to sell their services.

That makes no sense at all from a marketing perspective. It’s literally the wrong way round.

Why?

Because no prospect on the planet gives a crap about the service the provider offers.

Prospects care exclusively about their own urgent need. So, prospects are looking for the end result. Prospects pay for the end result. Prospects hire those who offer the end result.

Telling a prospect who’s urgently looking for that end result, all about how amazing your service is, or that it delivers, is tone deaf. It loses you prospective client enquiries. It’s not like the prospect thinks the provider is going to say their service is terrible and fails to deliver.

Look at the marketing of any small business in the service industry. Especially their websites. The vast majority use their homepage, their primary opportunity to grab the attention of the prospect, to… tell prospects how great they are, list some high profile clients and testimonials.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

By this point, they’ve already lost the prospect’s attention, and their enquiry, to a professionally marketed competitor.

Any service provider making this mistake needs to fix it.

Then look at everything else. Because if they’re making that kind of elementary, fundamental marketing error, it’s certain they are making lots more expensive mistakes, too

One moment of anger

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pause, angry reply

That’s all it takes to ruin a reputation.

This holds true, even if that moment is preceded by 10 years of good service to the local community.

I was thinking earlier about a struggling store owner, who was having a bad day, at the end of an equally bad year. Before he finished a 13-hour shift, he checked his company’s Facebook Page. He noticed a complaint from an angry customer.

That complaint was the final straw.

The store owner responded with an unprofessional mix of sarcasm and anger toward the customer. By the time the store owner arrived home, he’d decided to delete his outburst. It was too late. His comment had already been widely shared.

He offered a full apology, and explained that he’d cut his workforce by 40% after almost going bankrupt during the pandemic, and that he was stressed out and angry after working crazy hours.

Even so, he lost a number of regular customers at a time where he desperately needed them.

Anger and the cold light of day

In the cold light of day, it’s easy to say that we would never be that stupid. That we would be more measured in how we handled things.

But these situations don’t happen in the cold light of day! They happen when we’re stressed, worried or fearful. And sadly, that’s the lived experience of more business owners today, than at any time in recent history.

In business, it’s really important to press pause and think before responding. Go for a walk. Get up and do some stretches. Focus on your breathing for a while. Whatever. This can put just enough space between you and the rawness of the situation, for you to offer a more considered response.

In that above example, the store owner chose to respond in the moment, just as he was leaving for home and full of anger. If he’d waited until he arrived at home to respond, this would never have happened, or it would have had a more agreeable conclusion.

The challenge here is educating ourselves to do the sensible thing when emotions are high. But it’s worth the effort. Because it improves literally all of our relationships. Not just the commercial ones.