Jim Connolly Marketing

21 Tips to massively improve your business results

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marketing busy, marketing noise

Photo: Shutterstock.

In no particular order.

  1. People buy what they want. Not what they need. It’s why people renew their phones every 12/24 months, even though their ‘old’ phone works fine. They want a new phone. They treat themselves to a new phone. But they don’t need it. Once you understand the difference, you can massively improve your marketing.
  2. Avoid using buzzwords. Those who don’t understand them will be confused. Those who do understand them, will cringe. And buzzwords get old, really quick.
  3. When you want to generate high quality cash flow fast, find new products for your existing customers. It’s far quicker and more profitable, than finding new customers for your existing products. I’ve helped hundreds of business owners enjoy windfall profits this way. Yes, windfall profits. It’s that easy.
  4. Stop waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Make it happen. Create it.
  5. Embrace brevity. Shorter messages are more powerful. Most marketing I see is 75% too long.
  6. Keeping your promises is a proven way to build a great reputation. (Read more).
  7. You don’t have any clients, customers or subscribers. They’re not yours. You simply borrow them. This means there’s no room for complacency. You need to earn and then re-earn their custom, attention and trust.
  8. Learn how to make your marketplace curious. Why do prospective clients call you or email you? It’s because they need to know something and their curiosity motivates them to get in touch. So, you get a sales lead or client enquiry. And a chance to convert them into a new client or customer. As I said a few days ago, don’t explain everything in your marketing, unless you want very few enquiries. (Read more).
  9. If you want your marketplace to talk enthusiastically about your business, do something worth talking about. If it’s remarkable enough, they’ll remark on it!
  10. A confused mind always says no. Keep your marketing as brief and clear as possible. Fewer options. Fewer words. Less fluff.
  11. The most successful business owners decide who their ideal clients are, then market exclusively to this super-valuable group. You should do the same. The average business owner relies on DIY marketing and takes whatever comes along.
  12. People buy for their reasons. Not yours.
  13. Include deadlines in your marketing messages. They’re an exceptionally powerful way to motivate people to take action. (Read more).
  14. Everything your business does, is marketing. The way you answer the phone, your payment terms, the way you reply to emails, your location, the way you write, the design of your website, your prices, your social network activity… it’s all marketing. This means it needs to be intentional and consistent.
  15. Don’t rely on Facebook, Linkedin or any third party for your communication channel. It’s like building a house on rented land. Instead, attract people via third party platforms. And then encourage them to subscribe to your email list.
  16. Building an email list is a massively better option than buying a list. The people on paid-for lists don’t want to hear from you. These so called opt-in lists are mainly just lists of people, who completed a form on a website once, without reading the small print.
  17. Businesses with a fixed marketing budget never achieve much. It shows they regard marketing as a cost, rather than an investment. This is then reflected in their results.
  18. The most powerful marketing is permission based. When people subscribe to your list, your message is treated very differently, than an unsolicited email from a needy stranger.
  19. The more your services or products resemble what your competitors offer, the less visible your business is.
  20. Tell the truth. It’s the easiest, least stressful way to build a great business and your marketplace will respect you.
  21. If your business isn’t attracting regular sales leads or client enquiries, your marketing is broken. This means the very thing that feeds your business isn’t working. It’s losing you a fortune. Needlessly. Why are you allowing this to happen? Think about that for a moment.

Taste your words before you spit them out

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what meaning, taste words spit out, does it mean

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One of the best pieces of advice I ever received, was taste your words before you spit them out. The idea is that we should pause and think before we say something to someone, especially if we don’t know them well. It’s easy to be misunderstood otherwise.

The same idea applies to the information we share via the written word. And I’m going to share 2 quick examples with you. One was embarrassing and the other expensive.

He didn’t taste his words before he spit them out, when he said ‘after you’

Very recently on Twitter, a service provider was forced to rethink the snappy, 2 word profile he created. The profile simply read: After you!

  • His intention with those words, was to suggest that he’s the kind of person who puts others first.
  • He then figured out that people were misunderstanding it to mean he was after them… in pursuit of them or pestering them. That’s not a good look.

There was no real harm done as he had just started the account and had very few followers. So, he switched the profile to something clearer and laughed about it as he told me.

Crushing defeat?

The second example is regarding a seminar that had to be cancelled, largely because of the seminar’s title. The crushing defeat seminar was all about how to crush defeat and come out winning. It seems when people saw marketing for the seminar, the title was misunderstood to mean the event was all about defeat that crushes you.

A place to feel sorry for yourself. Obviously, that was the exact opposite of the desired impact.

In both of those examples, had this person tasted their words before they spat them out, the problems could have been completely avoided. The first example didn’t cause any real issues. But the second example had been advertised for a week, before he figured out what was happening. Even if the trainer had shown the seminar’s title to some people and asked what it said to them, he’d have been aware of the problem.

Taste your words with some outside perspective

Those examples may seem obvious. But sometimes the errors we make are more subtle and harder for us to spot. That’s why if you’re not an experienced marketer or copywriter, it’s important to think hard and also get some feedback, before you publish a title (The crushing defeat seminar) or strap-line (After you). The same is true of the calls to action you use, the wording on the buttons or tabs on your website, your newsletter title and the name you give to your services, etc.

A great place to start is with marketing you have, which isn’t generating the response rates you need. Sometimes a better name, title or strap-line can make a massive improvement to your results!

When the vision pulls you, you don’t have to be pushed

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when vision pulls, don't need pushed, Steve Jobs vision

One of the most common questions people ask me, is in relation to blogging. Specifically, they want to know how I manage to push myself, to write and publish content as often as I do.

Here’s the answer.

Push or pull?

This quote from the late Steve Jobs answers that question beautifully:

If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.

– Steve Jobs.

If your vision of blogging is that it’s a necessary evil, you will fail on every metric.

  • You will fail to write as well as you can, because when you work through gritted teeth, it shows.
  • You will fail to show up with new information, often enough.
  • You will fail to engage people.

My blogging vision was different

I saw it as a professional and personal development opportunity. I knew that in order for me to share useful information regularly, I needed to feed my mind with useful information regularly. I quickly found another massive benefit to blogging, which is that writing regularly makes you a better communicator. That’s a huge asset for anyone.

So, even if I failed to attract a commercially valuable reader community, I’d still benefit. Firstly, I’d become far more informed. Secondly, I’d be better able to communicate my ideas than I would have been, had I not written all that content. This made it impossible for me to fail.

If you’re struggling to publish content regularly enough, don’t carry on working through gritted teeth. Change your vision. And then let that vision pull you.

Thankfully, Jobs’ concept works in every area of your life and isn’t limited to content creation.

Tip: If you found this useful, you can get my latest ideas delivered direct to your inbox, for free, right here.

Rediscovered: My business development notes from the 1990’s. Take a look!

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Okay, this one is a little weird.

While going through some of my old notebooks at the weekend, I rediscovered this list. It’s a series of points I put together back in 1998, to help guide the development of my (then) fledgling business. The list had things added and removed from it over the years, but these raw, original points were extremely useful to me. So I thought I’d share them with you.

marketing notes

Photo: Shutterstock.

In no particular order

  • Marketing is already full of robots in suits, so work like an artist. Make your work your signature. Think Warhol, Basquiat and Haring.
  • Eagerly seek out demanding clients, who need you to be at your absolute, creative best. They force you to stretch and improve.
  • Do something every day to earn the reputation you want. People need clues.
  • Avoid energy vampires.
  • Focus on being as useful as possible.
  • Love the marketplace you serve. Especially those who are the hardest to love. They need it the most.
  • Keep learning. You can’t share what you don’t already know.
  • Let your work be your megaphone, your networking and your primary source of recommendations.
  • Set deadlines. Tell the client what to expect, when to expect it and then deliver as promised.
  • Don’t borrow money. If you do, make sure it’s not for a depreciating asset.
  • Focus on creative ways to produce amazing results.
  • Do something every day to help those less fortunate than yourself.
  • Try and connect good people to other good people.
  • Learn from the success and failures of others.
  • When you think it’s correct, have the courage to take a different path from everyone else.
  • Eagerly look for the tricky kind of projects that others run away from. It’s the most rewarding work.
  • When work starts to become boring, stop. Identify the problem. Then fall back in love with the service of others.

I hope you found that useful.

15 Powerful ideas to help you grow your business

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ideas grow business, marketing ideas business

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It’s said you are often just one idea away from the breakthrough you have been looking for.

So here are 15 powerful business development ideas, to help you achieve the breakthrough results you need.

  1. If you write a blog or newsletter, ask yourself, if you’re building a tribe or simply writing drive-by content? Almost everyone gets this wrong. Here’s why this is so important.
  2. Embrace brevity. People are busy and their attention has never been in more demand. Keep your marketing messages as short and useful as possible.
  3. Do at least one thing each day, which your future self will thank you for.
  4. Remind yourself that the process of giving and receiving starts with giving. Making selfish demands from strangers doesn’t work. It also damages your reputation. Bring your seed, not your need.
  5. Fail more often this week than you did last week. Why? Because if you’re not failing often enough, you’re sticking to things you already know. This means you are no longer growing. This is why Steve Jobs famously reprimanded members of his team, if they were not failing regularly enough. Then, fail more often next week than you did this week… repeat.
  6. Stop aiming for perfectionism. It will stop you getting started, kill your creativity and block your progress. The next time you find yourself blaming perfectionism for your lack of progress, call it out for what it is: a stalling tactic.
  7. Stop doing work purely because it pays the bills. Start doing work that makes a difference. This post explains why.
  8. Get expert help in any area of your business, where you are under performing. Things don’t just change for the better because you hope they will. Hope is essential, but it’s not a business strategy.
  9. Remind yourself that you pick your clients, they don’t pick you. This is true of 100% of the most successful business owners and consultants I know. Pick clients who value you and allow you to do your best work. Build your client base deliberately. Here’s what you need to know.
  10. Get serious about the value of your time. No one ever lay on their deathbed, regretting they hadn’t spent more time watching TV. Throughout the day, ask yourself, is this the best use of my time right now? If it isn’t, go and do something more productive.
  11. Make the decision to do the tricky stuff. Every business owner claims to give their business 100%. What they REALLY mean, is that they give their business 100% of the stuff that they are comfortable with. Decide to get less comfortable with the limitations of your comfort zone. This will help you.
  12. Learn to embrace your inner freak.
  13. Get the most from your creativity. There are hundreds of free, creative thinking ideas here.
  14. Believe that almost anything is possible. No matter how bad things may be right now, with courage, hard work and passion, you can achieve almost anything. This post gives a great example of what I mean.
  15. Build a great reputation by setting deadlines and delivering on them. Think about it: Telling a client that their project will be ready “by the end of the week” is far less powerful, than telling her it will be ready “by 9am Thursday”. Keeping your deadline promises is a superb way to earn trust and build an excellent reputation. I explain this in more detail here.
  16. Give people more than they expect. Don’t under-promise though. Instead, over-deliver.

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How to get the best, free marketing advice

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marketing research

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There’s a lot of free marketing advice available online. Some is good. Sadly, most is ineffective. Today, I want to help you identify the best marketing advice and show you how to avoid the worst.

A new client with a familiar problem

I was prompted to write this after my initial session with a new client. I went through some questions with her, as I do with all my new clients. I quickly noticed that she was making a number of serious marketing mistakes. During our session, I asked her where she got those marketing ideas from and she named around half a dozen marketing sites.

I soon figured out what had happened.

Today, I want to help you avoid making the same, expensive mistake. I need to start by drawing your attention to 2 types of marketing blogger.

1. The marketing blogger, who doesn’t have a business

Many marketing blogs are written by people who are career employees, paid to produce lots of content. Others are employees, who were previously entrepreneurs, but they failed to build their own business and are now paid to produce “content” for their employers.

Think about that for a moment: On sites like these, you’re taking marketing advice from someone, who has either never marketed their own business or whose own business failed.

2. Guest bloggers on popular marketing blogs

The vast majority of top marketing blogs rely very heavily on unpaid, guest bloggers. Guest bloggers are people who write for free, in return for access to a popular blog’s readership.

None of the guest bloggers I checked on the sites my client mentioned, had the assets you’d expect from a competent marketer. In other words, they were unable to market their own brand.

Think about that for a moment: Their readers are taking marketing advice from bloggers, who feel forced to work for free. Bloggers who still haven’t figured out how to grow their own valuable readership, community or tribe. Bloggers who still have no idea how to market their own brand, other than by guest blogging. Taking advice from them lost my new client a fortune.

Check the source

No, not every employee / guest blogger who writes about marketing is clueless. Some will be knowledgeable. At least a little.

My point is simply this: Always check the credentials of those offering free marketing advice, before you act on what they tell you.

They should have an about page on their site, (like this one). See if they’ve achieved what you need to achieve. See if they have a proven track record at the highest level. If not, then find a better source.

Well-written and sincere

Lots of bloggers write extremely well and make a compelling point, when what they’re telling you is incorrect or ineffective. They may be sincere, but it’s possible to be sincerely wrong.

I estimate my new client has lost at least 5 years worth of business growth. And probably missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues. All because she followed the same, ineffective marketing advice as thousands of other small business owners.

Don’t let it happen to you.

Before you invest your time or money on marketing, check the source.

Always, always check the source.