Jim Connolly Marketing

Here’s what your prospective clients really want from you

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marketing value

Photo: Shutterstock.

So, what are your prospective clients (or customers) looking for, before they decide to buy from you?

The answer to that question remains the same for every business owner. And it holds true for every industry and in every economy. It’s simply this: They want a bargain. They want something from you, which is being sold for less than its value to them. Preferably, way less than its value.

  • This includes the “money’s no object” crowd. Think about it, when the wealthy customer spends half a million dollars on a piece of jewellery, they want to feel like a million dollars. A million dollar feeling, for just half a million dollars. What a bargain.
  • The same is true when the shopper on a restricted budget needs a new phone. They go for the best value in their price range. This may be a phone with some of the features, usually found on a more expensive model. What a bargain.

Whatever end of the market you serve, make your value clear. Explain what sets you apart from similarly-priced competitors. Shine a spotlight on what makes your product or service such an amazing proposition. And if there’s not much separating you from your competitors, pump more value into what you provide.

What do I mean by “pump more value”?

I’m not merely referring to ramping up your marketing message, so it sounds more compelling. I’m suggesting you do that… and go beyond that! I’m suggesting you actually increase the value of whatever you provide, so that it’s clearly better than your competitors, if it isn’t already. So that its value really stands out.

How?

Research what you’re competing against. Then look for one or more ways to rise above it. For example, see if you can; offer better guarantees, provide faster delivery times, render a higher level of customer service, adjust your trading hours so they’re a better match for your marketplace’s needs, make your product more environmentally friendly or offer better payment options. You get the idea.

Do this until there’s so much value attached to what you offer, that it’s the obvious choice. The best option. Well worth the money. An easy decision. A real bargain.

Given the current economy, placing a greater emphasis on value is critically important. People are thinking harder before they hire someone or buy something.

And when your prospects need more convincing, your marketing needs to be more convincing, too.

You deserve clients like mine

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workaholic, love work

My clients are amazing.

In fact, they’re totally and utterly amazing.

I’ve loved serving my clients for over 25 years. And I respect them. Every single one of them.

Why?

Because they’re not like the average business owner. That’s why their businesses succeed, when the average business fails in the first 5 years, or worse; slowly fails to deliver the results they need for decades.

My clients want to succeed, but they know that DIY marketing can only take them so far. So they choose me to be a part of their success. For which I’m eternally grateful.

The biggest accomplishment of my career, is nothing I myself have done. It’s that I get to spend every working day, with inspirational, smart, courageous people, helping THEM achieve. Imagine that: Every day since 1995, being fortunate enough to do something I love, with amazing people I admire and respect.

You deserve clients like mine.

How to work with totally, utterly amazing clients

Here are a few useful pointers, based on what I do.

  • Before I work with a client, I always speak with them to determine if we’re a great fit. I only suggest we work together and explain how my service works, after I’ve established I can definitely improve their results. I strongly recommend you do the same.
  • Only work with people you instinctively trust. If they lose your trust, fire them. Fast. By the way, I’ve only done this once in 25 years, because I take time to make sure we’re a great fit, first.
  • Treat different clients differently, based on their unique needs. No two clients are the same, so adapt to their specific wants and requirements.
  • Resolve to do everything possible, to help them succeed. I’m talking about going WAY above and beyond the claims you make in your marketing. For example, when appropriate, I connect my clients to my contacts, opening up possibilities they’d never dreamed of. Do the same. All or nothing. If you can help, help. Period. If you don’t trust your clients with your contacts, you should seriously reconsider who you’re working with.

And always follow the golden rule… care more about your client’s success, than you care about your own success.

You’re only as good as your last performance

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only as good as last performance, good last performance

Photo: Shutterstock.

I want to share maybe the most powerful mindset in business with you. Because when you understand it, it boosts your productivity, increases your confidence and supercharges your results.

It’s simply this: “You’re only as good as your last performance”.

Here’s how it works.

Why this mindset is so powerful

By learning from your last performance, your road ahead is always filled with potential. Always filled = never-ending. And never-ending potential is just another way of saying endless potential.

It gets even better!

Because you’re always free to bury an unsuccessful last performance, under a better performance, you can destroy the fear of failure from holding you back.

Here’s an example of how I embrace this mindset.

When I publish a blog post and find it didn’t resonate with my readers, (it bombed) I don’t just leave it there.

I understand that “you’re only as good as your last performance”. So I learn from my last performance, make improvements and replace it with something better.

I check things like the subject, the message, the conclusion, the clarity, and the relevance etc.

My NEW last performance is then an improvement. The previous performance is history. And knowing that if I get it wrong, I can always perform better next time, I’m free to work without fear. That’s huge. Because it’s exactly that kind of fear that holds people back from doing their best work.

In short: This mindset gives you the freedom to produce marketing (or do pretty-much anything), without the fear of failure crushing you.

When you embrace the idea, that each performance is an opportunity to improve, and that a bad performance can be buried under a great one, you’re free to blow the lid off your potential.

You’re only as good as your last performance in business

Here are a few real-world examples, of the way embracing this mindset helps business owners.

  • If your last public speaking opportunity didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, learn from it and make your next performance better. Because that’s the talk, which people will remember.
  • If your last newsletter or article didn’t generate the results you needed, learn from it and bury it under your next, newly-improved performance. Because that’s the one your readers will remember.
  • If your last marketing exercise failed to get the results you needed, learn from it. Make the required improvements. Then bask in the success of your newly-improved marketing performance.

As you can see, the idea can be applied extremely widely. This gives it the flexibility to help you in many of the most challenging areas of your business.

Embracing this mindset frees you to give the world a massively better (and always improving) version of you and your work. Oh, and just watch what it does to your results.

Given that you’re only as good as your last performance, here’s a suggestion. List some of your past performances, which you’d love to improve, then replace them with better ones. That’s a great place to start.

Just a quick reminder

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Remember.

  • You’re never more than one idea away from a life-changing breakthrough.
  • And it’s never been easier to put your ideas into action and show the world. YouTube gives you a free, global TV channel. WordPress gives you a free, global publishing platform and Gmail gives you free, global message distribution.
  • Whatever problem you’re facing right now, has already been overcome by countless other business owners. This means the answer you need is already out there. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Just try looking in better places or asking for some informed help.
  • Thanks to social networks, you can listen to your marketplace and find out exactly what they want. This means you can develop a product or service, knowing in advance that the demand will be high. No more guessing. And that means way, way less risk.

There are very real commercial challenges out there right now. No doubt at all. But it pays to remind ourselves that we have opportunities to overcome them, which previous generations of business owners couldn’t have even dreamed of.

Agility is the new growth

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marketing, agile growth

Photo: Shutterstock.

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve written a lot about the need for business owners to adopt agile thinking. So it may come as a surprise that the title of today’s post is taken from Matthieu Pellerin, the founder and head of Google’s Growth Lab.

Pellerin wrote a very interesting post yesterday, Inside Google Marketing: Agility is the new growth. In it, he generously shares what he’s seeing, regarding changes required when marketing during the coronavirus pandemic. I found the following quote especially interesting:

“Our raison d’être continues to be driving responsible and sustainable growth, but we’re now operating under a new mantra of ‘organisational agility’.”

Whilst his post focuses on what his team at Google are doing, there’s clearly a core message we can all benefit from.

The needs, wants and situation of your clients and prospective clients is changing rapidly. In some cases, daily. Your marketing messaging needs to be just as agile, if you want to be as useful, valuable and relevant to them as possible. This includes your email marketing, website content, blog posts, social networking updates and vlogging, etc.

You simply cannot expect a pre-pandemic marketing message to strike the correct tone. Pellerin gives an example of just how important he believes it is, to get agile and move fast:

“We readjust these plans regularly and continue to switch resources as needed. Our key product priorities are shifting at lightning speed”.

Next steps

If, like many people reading this, you’re getting fewer sales or new client enquiries, check the messaging you’re using. If it fails to address the new and evolving priorities of your marketplace, it will also fail to deliver the results you need.

Whenever possible, hire a professional marketing copywriter to create compelling, relevant content for you. If that’s not within your budget, do something yourself. And in either case, review the message at least every 7 days. Sooner if it isn’t generating the results you need.

Yes, this means spending more time on your marketing. However, an agile situation demands an equally agile response.

Mark Twain: Going out on a limb

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mark twain, going out limb, where fruit is

One of the foundations of success, is a willingness to go out on a limb. That’s because all meaningful progress is preceded by the decision to take a calculated risk; to go out on a limb and do something.

Risk, security and progress

Starting a family, starting a business, relocating – all of these life changing decisions require us to go out on a limb. One of the oddities of life, is that even though the decisions that lead to the most progress in our lives are preceded by risk, we tend to opt for certainty instead. The pull of the comfort zone is clearly too strong for most to resist.

The challenge with opting for the mediocre decisions, is that mediocre decisions lead to mediocre results.

In our strive for certainty and security, it’s easy to justify playing it safe. After all…

  • If we don’t state our opinions, our opinions can’t be criticised.
  • If we don’t start a business, the business can’t fail.
  • If we don’t ask that amazing person for a dance, they can’t say no.

Mark Twain and going out on a limb

I discovered a wonderful quote from Mark Twain, which describes the importance of going out on a limb far more eloquently than I can.

Here’s what he said: “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is!”

One of the great ironies in business, is that playing it safe is the riskiest thing we can do. This means a risk averse business owner places an incredibly low ceiling on his or her potential. They reach a plateau with their business no matter how hard they work, because every genuinely valuable opportunity has an element of risk attached. Progress means change. And change means risk.

Here’s an interesting fact:

In over 6000 years of recorded human history, no one has ever achieved anything outstanding by playing it safe. No one. The message is clear. We need to either accept the necessity for calculated risks, or settle for way, way less than we deserve.

So why not go out on a limb, as Mark Twain suggests? At least occasionally. And put yourself within reach of the fruit.

Mark Twain photo: Shutterstock.