Professional development Archives - Page 4 of 54

Build a better contact network, starting now

By Jim Connolly | April 23, 2024

building business contacts, better contacts

They say it’s not what you know, but who you know that counts. That’s because knowing the right people is essential for business success. It’s also why you’ll never meet a successful person who hasn’t built an extremely valuable contact network. Today, I want to help you build an equally valuable network of your own.

It starts with a question: How many business contacts do you have?

You can easily get an approximate figure by adding together your LinkedIn contacts, your social network followers/friends and the contacts in your address book, etc. For some reading this, the number will be in the hundreds. For many it will be in the thousands or tens of thousands. And for others it will be a hundred thousand or more.

Here’s a far more meaningful question: How many business relationships do you have?

Business relationships are harder to count. These are the people you connect with on a deeper level. Not just numbers on the social networks you use. Not just names in your address book, who you have no real history with.

Vanity metrics

Building more and more contacts can be intoxicating. These contact numbers are often referred to as vanity metricks, because most of the numbers are visible to others, such as our social network contacts, and how many followers or online friends we have.

It’s a way for normal people (like me) to finally be like one of the popular kids at school. Even though we know hardly any of these people, we have the BIG contacts number. Go us!

Business relationship building

The number of meaningful business relationships we have is a lot less public than our vanity numbers, but a lot more meaningful and massively more valuable. With this in mind, how much time do you dedicate each day or each week, to building and nurturing business relationships?

Here’s a tip to help you get started.

I want you to imagine you already had meaningful relationships, with 6 people who are useful and/or influential. Now write those 6 names down. Next, take time over the coming week to learn a little about them and how to get in contact with them. Finally, get in touch with each one, introducing yourself and letting them know how YOU can assist THEM.

[Important] Read this: Bring your seed, not your need.

The number of positive replies you receive will depend on lots of factors. This includes things like, how useful your assistance is to the other person, how effective your initial introduction is, how interesting you make yourself sound, and even how good your timing is, etc.

But if you stick with it, always seeking to improve your approach, you will find yourself building extremely useful, mutually beneficial business relationships, with amazing people.

Plus, they’ll get to see just how awesome you are, and introduce you to their contacts.

They know they need it. So why aren’t they buying?

By Jim Connolly | April 20, 2024

It’s so frustrating. A prospect has seen your marketing. They’ve spoken with you and had all their questions answered. They admit that they genuinely need what you’re offering. However, they still don’t make the purchase.

Typically in this situation, the temptation is to provide additional reasons why it’s exactly what they need. But that’s not what’s stopping them. When the prospect tells you they need what you’re offering, what’s stopping them from buying is that they’re not ready to buy.

At this point, you need to switch your focus away from the benefits of the product or service. Instead, focus on uncovering why the prospect is not ready. There’s always a reason. And it’s usually extremely easy to overcome. Tip: A great place to start is simply by asking them.

So take a little time to find out why they’re not ready. Then remove the barrier. When you do, you’ll make the sale.

How to know what your prospects REALLY want from you

By Jim Connolly | April 8, 2024

Here’s what we’re told. The key to business success is to give the marketplace what it wants. That sounds easy enough.

We ask them what they want.
We provide them with what they want, and we do this to the best of our ability.

The trickiest part there is step one. That’s because history assures us that people tend not to tell us what they actually want.

Some will tell us what they think we want to hear.
Some will tell us what they think makes them look smart.
Some will tell us what they think makes them look considerate.
And others will tell us what they think makes them look edgy, unique or creative.

If we really want to know what people think, we need to study what they do. Their actions speak louder and with greater accuracy than their words. That’s worth taking into account, the next time you’re tempted to survey people.

Here’s an alternative approach.

Try this instead

Social media provides you with a wonderful way to see where the attention of your marketplace truly is. You can see what they’re excited about, what they’re worried about, what they’re investing in and what their challenges are, etc.

This can give you valuable feedback, equipping you to make better decisions and spot new opportunities.

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Unleash the power of vigorous, written marketing

By Jim Connolly | April 2, 2024

vigorous written marketing, marketing copywriting, content marketing

Most of the written marketing I see is at least 75% too long. Overlong marketing lacks impact. It also lacks clarity and totally fails to motivate prospective customers or clients.

I want to help you avoid this expensive mistake.

And it starts with one of the best-known quotes on the subject.

Vigorous, written marketing

And it starts with one of the best-known quotes on the subject.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.
Professor William Strunk Jr. – The Elements of Style.

The vigorous writing referred to here, is writing that is strong and full of energy. That’s the kind of writing that moves people to take action; to contact you, buy from you or hire you. It’s the kind of writing that gets the results you need.

How can you and your business benefit from the power of vigorous, written marketing?

The answer comes from understanding why the problem exists.

Google usually gets the blame

That’s because Google’s search algorithm needs overlong, written content. It prefers 2500 words to 250. So, for over 20 years, online marketing writers have been rewarded for high word counts. That’s certainly not what’s needed for vigorous, written marketing.

But Google isn’t responsible for the wider problem.

Email marketing and off-line media is just as ruined by overlong content. Neither of those formats have ever required the writer to dance the Google dance.

The problem exists because most written marketing is created by people who lack sufficient training. It’s either written by business owners who ‘dabble’ or by below-par marketing writers.

The solution?

The business owner wishing to switch to the vigorous, written marketing they need has two options.

Learn how to do it effectively.
Pay someone who already knows.

How to decide?

The cost (in time) of learning is considerable. It takes years of practice. However, you’ll start seeing improvements relatively quickly.
The cost of hiring an expert is lower. And it’s a lot faster.

The price you pay for starving your business of vigorous, written marketing is far higher than either of those options. So pick one of them and run with it.

Photo by Cherrydeck on Unsplash

Why you need a story. From the original Mad Man

By Jim Connolly | March 18, 2024

Someone asked me why her business needed a story. She thought it was, “a load of trendy nonsense”.

When I answered her question, she emailed me back to say it had changed her perception completely. She said it would improve her approach to marketing forever.

So today, I decided to share my answer with you. I hope you find it just as useful.

Why your business needs a story

My answer begins with a quote from advertising legend, David Ogilvy. Ogilvy was the inspiration behind the hit TV show, Mad Men.

Here’s what he had to say.

“There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands of whiskey, or cigarettes or beer. They are all about the same”. “[…] The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit”.

That message isn’t new. It was written decades ago, as you can tell from the examples he uses. But it’s even more valid in 2024, than when Ogilvy shared it.

Think about it. Apple’s iPhone is the best selling mobile phone in the world, despite being one of the most expensive. It doesn’t have the best display, the best camera, the best signal reception or the best battery life.

But it does have the best story.

Emotions drive decisions

Your prospective clients or customers are motivated by emotions, far more than logic. The way they feel about you and your brand, is what will drive their decision to hire you, buy from you and recommend you. And it’s your story, which determines how they feel about you. (I explain why in this post, Does your business pass the coffee shop test?, which you might find useful).

Build a story, my friend. A story that people will embrace and share.

Is it easy? No. It takes a little creativity.

Is it possible? Yes. Very possible.

Is it worth the effort? Absolutely.

Small ideas. Huge impact. Fast

By Jim Connolly | March 12, 2024

A very quick way to improve your results, is to seek out, and deploy, the small things that can have a huge, positive impact on your business.

Here are some ideas to quickly get you started.

Get connected

Every week, set time aside to connect with at least one of your customers or clients. Not to sell them something. Simply to ask how they’re doing and catch up with them. Business relationships become stronger, when they’re based on more than just selling.

There’s another huge benefit.

Ongoing communication with your customers helps you understand their challenges, their needs and their wants. This understanding makes it easier (and less risky), for you to successfully create useful new services or products.

Deep Work

There have never been more distractions fighting for your attention. That’s why in 2024, those who focus uninterrupted on their work give themselves a competitive advantage.

One way to do this, is to turn your phone’s notifications off when you’re working. And if possible, find somewhere to work where there are fewer distractions. This focused approach is also known as Deep Work, after the title of Cal Newport’s book.

By working with a deeper focus, you’ll get more done in less time. Deep Work tends to be of a higher quality, too.

Plan in advance

If you don’t know where you’re going, every road will take you there. That’s unproductive. It’s also why I recommend you plan your days, your weeks and your months in advance. After all, how can you know if things are going according to plan, if you don’t have a plan?

Flakey forms and sham spam

This idea takes no time and might stop you losing important sales enquiries. Go to your website and make sure your contact forms and subscriber forms are working. It only takes a few minutes, but it could help you avoid missing-out on an important business/sales enquiry.

Also, check your website’s spam folder. Genuine business contact form enquiries are sometimes wrongly filtered as spam and you never see them. I learned this one the hard way! It doesn’t happen often, but often enough to justify checking occasionally. Why not check your spam folder after you’ve finished reading this? It takes very little time.

In short, the small things in business can be hugely rewarding, but easy to miss. That’s why it pays to keep our eyes open.

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Stability through impact

By Jim Connolly | February 25, 2024

There are 3 ways you can guide the direction of a business.

You can aim for stability.
You can aim for impact.
You can aim for stability through impact.

Here’s how those 3 options pan out, and why one of them gives you the best chance of fully unlocking the maximum potential of your business.

Primary focus on stability

Business owners with a primary focus on stability, plan and act with a safety-first mindset. This often blocks them from making the improvements they need, even when their business isn’t growing. If something ‘kind of works a little’, they’ll hold onto it tight.

They do this rather than try something new, which has vastly greater potential.

Primary focus on impact

Business owners with a primary focus on impact, plan and act with a mindset that’s driven by the desire to make a meaningful difference. They have a vision of the impact they seek to create and are motivated by the desire to see that vision become a reality.

Within this broad group are business owners who are well-prepared, with a thoroughly researched idea, which they are passionate about.

However, this group also contains business owners who have a deep belief in their idea, but their idea hasn’t had the necessary rigour applied. There’s little or no demand for it. The numbers don’t stack up.

We see this all too often, when a new business opens with an expensive launch, lots of bold claims and in no time, they’re gone. It’s heartbreaking.

Focus on stability through impact

The business owner whose primary focus is stability through impact, understands something that the vast majority of people totally miss.

They’ve figured out that a balance needs to be achieved.

They know that hunkering down, avoiding change and hoping things will magically improve is a terrible strategy. You can’t hope your way to the top. Or to the middle.
They also know that stability is essential. If you’re only focusing on making an impact, without ensuring you have a stable foundation, you’re very likely to fail. Nothing of value can be built on flimsy foundations. You need that stability. It’s a must.

So, what do they do?

They decide what impact they want to create. In other words, they choose the thing that they want to be known for — the difference they want to make to their marketplace or the world. Then they do the research, create a strategy and put a plan together. A realistic, costed and robust plan.

Then, they get to work.

With the stability of working to a solid plan, and fuelled by the motivation of making an impact, you can fully activate your maximum potential, whilst minimizing your risk.

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Ten times ten, times ten

By Jim Connolly | February 10, 2024

colorful plastic numbers for kids to learn from

Ten times ten, times 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. And from a $1Million to $10Million is even easier than that.

Whether someone is 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.

That’s a major reason why so few people achieve massive success with their business, their finances and their subscriber base.

The way you navigate that difficult, early period is critically important. It’s what determines whether you reach the part of the journey, where everything is easier, and the rewards are earth-shattering.

Grab yourself an unfair competitive advantage

By Jim Connolly | February 9, 2024

There’s a balance required if you want to rise above the competition. Yes, you should strive to be the best provider you can be. But that’s only one side of the scales. You also need to be the best marketed.

Think about it. There’s a world of difference between being the best… and the best selling.

Here are just a few very common examples.

The best selling movie is never the best produced movie. It’s the best marketed movie.
The best selling sportswear brand is never the best quality sportswear brand. It’s the best marketed sportswear brand.
And the best selling album is never the best recorded album. It’s the best marketed album.

It may sound unfair, but your best selling competitor is the one with the best marketing. This doesn’t mean their marketing is outstanding. It only means that they do more of the right things than you and their other competitors. So they get noticed more than you. And they are better at converting that attention into paying clients or customers.

Give your business the advantage

If you’re sick of watching competitors doing better than you, you need to decide to outperform their marketing, the way you already outperform their service. Because an average service that has great marketing, will beat a great service that has average marketing — Every. Single. Time.

Fortunately, if you decide to fight back, you’ll have better marketing and a better service. That’s an unbeatable combination. I’m telling you, your competitors won’t know what’s hit them.

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