Jim Connolly Marketing

8 Small business tips, from a recent Zoom session

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Here are some of the small business tips I shared, on Monday’s Zoom session with local business owners. These are just the the bullet points, so you’ll need to fill any gaps so you can apply them to your unique situation.

In no particular order.

small business tips, Zoom notes
  1. Fire any client or customer, who regularly pays you late. As a small business owner, you simply can not afford to be their interest-free, cash flow solution. The time you gain after firing them, can then be invested in finding a new high-value client to replace them.
  2. Grab yourself life long, unlimited, free access to the world’s highest paid marketing writers. I explained it here.
  3. Take note of how much time you spend reacting today, rather than initiating. Make sure you get the balance right.
  4. What’s the biggest hurdle to your commercial success, right now? And how do you plan to remove that hurdle?
  5. Do your business hours reflect the needs of your clients or are they similar to your competitor’s hours? If the latter, you can achieve a HUGE win by adapting to your client’s needs instead.
  6. Do something today, which your future-self will thank you for. Do it tomorrow, too. Just by doing one small thing each day, you’ll radically accelerate your progress. Try it for 30 days. That’s what I did back in the 1990’s. I gave it a month… and I’m still doing it.
  7. You can’t hit an invisible target. Start replacing general wants, with measurable, numeric goals. For example, how many referrals a day do you want? What should next month’s income / profits be? How many new clients should you gain over the next 30 days, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months… numbers please.
  8. Answer this question, in detail: “If my business was perfect in every way, what would it look like?”. Remember, you’re describing your absolutely ideal business, not an even slightly watered down version. Think big.

I hope you find at least a few of these small business tips useful.

How to avoid the worst mistake in business!

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marketing idea, marketing opportunity

Image: Shutterstock.

One of the greatest barriers to business success, are our undiscovered mistakes. I’m referring to those errors we make, without even knowing it.

Undiscovered mistakes are especially dangerous. That’s because we don’t know we’re making them, so we’re likely to inadvertently repeat them. Again and again.

How do we stop these mistakes from happening to us?

My mentor’s advice to me

Here’s something one of my mentors shared with me over 25 years ago. It’s simple and quite brilliant.

  • He told me to undertake a review, every time something of any importance goes wrong. Today we’d call this ‘unpacking the problem’.
  • He advised me to do this in as much detail as possible, and as soon after the mistake has been spotted as possible, and that it was essential to do it in writing.
  • By unpacking the problem soon after noticing it, we can still remember it clearly. So we’re less likely to miss anything. Usually, it’s a small or minor-looking detail that’s causing the mistake.
    • IMPORTANT: Often, the minor detail is something we’re missing or doing incorrectly in multiple activities or strategies. Identifying it in ONE mistake, can dramatically improve our business results, when we eliminate it from all future activities and strategies.
  • By writing it down (especially on paper), rather than thinking it over exclusively in our head, we put space between us… and the problem.
  • He explained that the space between us and the problem, is where answers are born. This last step sounds almost poetic. However, it’s exactly what I’ve found happens. By looking at the problem on paper, and thinking it through in my mind, that space in-between is like fertile soil from which answers sprout up.

I have no idea as to exactly how this strategy works. I only know it does, and with surprising frequency. That’s to say, it’s worked for me again and again over the past 25 years. And I’ve literally lost count of how many others I have shared the idea with, who have seen equally good, or better, results from it.

Give it a try the next time something meaningful goes wrong. You have nothing to lose from the additional clarity the strategy will bring. And you could find it saves you a fortune… or helps you make a fortune.

Either way, it’s certainly worth trying.

Marketing seminars are worse than useless

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avoid marketing seminars, marketing seminars useless,

Marketing seminars are worse than useless.

Before I explain why, we need to acknowledge the following basic truths.

  • The marketing strategies and tactics that work best for a private school looking for students, differ wildly from the strategies that work for a chain of strip joints.
  • And the effective strip joint strategies are very different from the strategies required by an oven cleaning franchise.
  • And the perfect oven cleaning franchise strategies, are totally different from those required by a tech start-up… or a long-established family law firm…. or a record label… you get the idea.

Marketing seminars deliberately ignore this fact.

They provide strategies and tactics that are intentionally designed NOT to be specific to anyone attending, based on the most general, of general advice. They’re designed to sell as many places on the seminar as possible. It’s a cookie cutter approach. The exact opposite of what’s required.

Different industries and professions need radically different advice. Business owners need marketing strategies that are, at the very least, specific to their industry.

But even industry specific strategies aren’t that useless. Think about it… they’re giving the same advice to everyone… including tour direct competitors.

The danger of general marketing advice

General marketing advice is what the majority of businesses in any sector already use. It’s freely available on websites, podcasts, webinars, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube, etc. It’s available from well-intentioned industry bodies and institutes. It’s available in those For Dummies books. Which is why the marketing of most businesses, in the same sector, looks so amazingly similar.

Here’s what we see.

  • They provide a very similar sounding range of services.
  • They use very similar marketing promises.
  • They offer very similar guarantees.
  • They charge very similar prices.
  • They target very similar prospective clients.
  • And they suffer with the pain of very similar results, with (at best), a very similar slice of their marketplace.

The last thing they need is even more, general marketing advice; wrapped up as a so-called marketing seminar.

It’s worse than useless. It’s toxic.

Toxic?

Yes. Because as you can see, it makes your business less visible, less relevant and less attractive. It gives a prospective customer or client absolutely no meaningful reason whatsoever to notice you, contact you, hire you (or buy from you)… rather than hire a look-a-like competitor.

What’s needed is the exact opposite.

You need a strategy that will work for your specific business, based on your specific resources and designed to achieve your specific business growth targets.

That’s unavailable on any marketing seminar or in any marketing book.

Publish the process: Field Offices

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field offices, change scenery,

In the early days of the blog, I’d often share a look behind the scenes at my working day. It’s something I call publishing the process and today it’s back!

Just as before, I’ll share ideas I’m working on, the tools I’m using, useful new resources, the way I collect ideas… as well as things like sources of inspiration, etc.

Let’s kick things off with: Field offices

Lots of readers have asked me about how and why I use field offices. It’s something I’ve mentioned in passing in recent blog posts and newsletter articles. But never in any detail.

It’s a relevant topic to start with, as I sit in a field office right now; sipping espresso, with my MacBook Air finally connected to the coffee shop’s WiFi.

“[…] We get into ruts at work by following strict routines. That’s the problem! […]”

Dr. Todd Dewett

How many times have you had a great idea or flash of insight, when you’re in the shower, or when you’re at the gym or stuck in traffic?

It happens to all of us and it happens a lot.

One reason for this is that the change of scenery disrupts your routine and provides you with multiple, different inputs. Fresh sources of stimulation. And each of these influences how we think and feel, to a lesser or greater degree.

Like thousands of others, I’ve found that the same thing happens when I deliberately choose to break the routine of working from a non-traditional working environment.

Field offices offer 2 major benefits

  1. Field offices provide you with the same valuable, fresh / different ideas and insights, that often come randomly in the shower. However, by deciding to deliberately kick-start the process, you have far greater control over when it happens.
  2. Because you’re equipped with the tools you work with, for me it’s a laptop or a notebook and pen, you can capture the idea or insight and instantly get to work on it.

I also find it helps to use multiple different locations and settings. Here are the ones I’ve used recently.

  • A bench on the Chesterfield Canal.
  • A coffee shop (in the above photo).
  • The grounds of Lincoln Castle and also Conisbrough Castle.
  • My garden.
  • Sherwood Forest.

As with anything like this, some people will find it extremely useful, others will find it a lot less useful. I strongly recommend you, at least, to give it a try. See it it helps and how it helps.

How it helps?

Yes.

Field offices work in different ways for different people.

I find that they’re of most use to me when I’m stuck with an idea. Other people I know, find field offices most useful when writing reports. Whilst others, still, use them exclusively when they’ve spent too many days at a desk, and feel they ‘just need’ a change of scenery.

I hope you found this look at field offices useful. Moreover, I hope it inspires you to give it a try the next time you’re looking for a creativity boost.

You’re doing great. But compared to what?

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marketing comparisons, sales strategies

My eyes squinted earlier, when I switched on my 2012 MacBook Pro. The screen resolution is bloody terrible.

I absolutely couldn’t use it for work today. Certainly, not for more than a few minutes. At the most.

Except, that’s totally incorrect

I wrote over a thousand blog posts using that laptop. I was happy using it, too. And the screen hasn’t changed in any way since then.

But my expectations have!

These days, I’m used to working with crystal clear text and amazing colour accuracy.

The screen on that old MacBook is only low quality… in comparison.

There’s an important business lesson here

If I’d carried on using that same machine, I’d be blissfully unaware of the improvements that come from a spectacularly better screen.

Is it possible that you’ve carried on using a marketing strategy, only because you’re blissfully unaware of what you could achieve, with a spectacularly better strategy?

Most people won’t answer that question, until they have something to compare their current results with.

And when it happens, it will hit them like a ton of bricks.

A ton of bricks… really?

Absolutely. This is one of the most powerful breakthroughs in business. It’s a really big deal. There’s a lot to process.

Here’s what I often see when this happens with new clients.

  • First the elation of knowing they’re making massively more money than ever before. It feels great.
  • Then the frustration that they missed out on years of making massively more money than ever before. For some this moment can be devastating. Especially if they missed out over a prolonged period of time, did some calculations and figured out how much it has cost them.

The smartest business owners don’t wait for the comparison to interrupt them.

The smartest business owners go hunting for the comparison with a club!

The Million Dollar question. And answer!

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million dollar question, $999999 question

I spent a little time this weekend, speaking with a guy who made a multi-million dollar fortune, from scratch, when he was in his 30’s. Now in his 50’s, Bernard’s enjoying a much quieter life in the countryside.

He shared an idea with me, about what he called his secret to making money, especially when times are challenging.

Now I’m going to share it with you.

Bernard’s advice for making lots of money

He started by talking about how little attention is given to the figure of $999,999.

Yes, I know that sounds a little weird, but please bear with me.

Here’s what he said.

  • You never hear anyone say that want to live the $999,999 lifestyle.
  • You never see a TV show called who wants to be the owner of $999,999.
  • You never hear anyone talking about “a cool $999,999”.
  • And no one has ever told anyone that they look like $999,999.

His point is that it’s the cool million dollars that gets all the focus and attention.

Early, sustained motivation is the key

Here’s the core of Bernard’s idea, which I think gets his point across beautifully:

Ten by ten by ten is a thousand. Do that another three times and you get a million. Those who manage to make a million are the ones who can get motivated when it’s just $10 – – and then stay motivated when it’s only $1000, or $10,000.

Because the jump from $10,000 to $100,000 isn’t that hard. And from $100,000 to $Million it’s even easier.

Whether it’s building a business, building a fortune or building a subscriber base, there is a common thread.

The work at the beginning is disproportionately hard and unrewarding.

And the way we choose to navigate that difficult period will determine whether we reach the breakthrough, where it becomes easier and the rewards massively greater.

If you’re going through that hard, unrewarding period in any area right now, check your strategy and if it remains sound, keep going!

It really does seem this is the point where results are determined. It’s certainly where most people lose heart.

Like achieving anything of value, Bernard’s advice falls into the ‘easier said than done’ category.

But in fairness, no one suggests making a ton of money is easy.

That’s the very reason we’re advised to overcome the initial difficulties and persist.