Professional development Archives - Page 85 of 91

How to have your cake and eat it too

By Jim Connolly | September 16, 2016

There’s a lot of common knowledge out there, which is wholly incorrect.

For example, have you ever stopped to consider the actual meanings behind these popular old sayings?

You’ve got to be cruel to be kind. No you haven’t! It’s perfectly fine to be kind to people, without the cruelty. Just be kind. You will find it works better, too.
A man’s best friend is his dog. No it isn’t! Surely it’s his wife, his children, his parents or siblings. I know a lot of men who own dogs. I know none who would choose their dog over their children.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too! Yes you can! Every cake you have ever eaten, you bought or were given first. You had the cake, you ate the cake.

Critical thinking

Just as people repeat old sayings without giving them much thought, people often apply ideas to their business, which they have failed to give enough critical thought to. That’s a recipe for poor decision making. A precursor to lousy results.

A smarter approach is to regularly review the data, which you’re basing your business decisions on. Your decisions concerning the importance of customer service, marketing, operations, accounts and training etc, will have a massive, direct impact on your results.

How to massively improve your email marketing results

By Jim Connolly | September 14, 2016

In 2016, email marketing is more powerful than ever before. This begs the question: Why do almost all small businesses get such uninspiring email marketing results?

I’m going to answer that question for you. I’m also going to explain what you need to do in order to massively improve the success of your email marketing.

Free and easy?

The cost of marketing has changed dramatically over the years.

For example, the cost of sending a traditional, paper-based mailshot to just 1000 prospective customers was considerable. There was the price of the stamp, the printing, the ink and the paper. Then, you paid someone to fold all the letters and stuff them into the envelopes.

Today, sending a marketing email to 1000 prospects (or 100,000 prospects) takes seconds. There’s no paper, no ink, no envelopes, no envelope stuffing and no stamps.

The cost of email marketing is close to zero. Except… it isn’t! You now risk paying a different, far higher price.

Allow me to explain.

Different prices and different thinking

In 1995, my London-based marketing business was paying around £1000 to reach 1000 prospective customers via traditional mail (mailshots). I used high quality stationery and printing. It was still quite an investment.

Before spending that kind of money, small business owners used to think long and hard.

They made sure they were contacting people with a potential need for their offering. They couldn’t afford to contact people with no requirement.
They checked that the contact name and address were correct. They couldn’t afford to send letters to the wrong people.
They used to work hard to optimize their copy or content. It needed to be just right. They couldn’t afford to get their message wrong.
They removed prospective customers from their list, if they failed to get a response after a set number of mailings. (Unlike now, where the person receiving spam email has to ask to be removed). They couldn’t afford to keep mailing someone who wasn’t interested.

Now think for a moment about the poorly targeted marketing emails that flood your inbox. It’s clear that way less thought goes into them. The vast majority are junk and totally irrelevant to you or your needs.

You regard those who send these unwanted emails as pests. Spammers. Assholes. This is where the cost comes in for email marketers in 2016! They build a lousy reputation and get equally lousy results.

Reputation points: The price you pay for average email marketing

Every time you send a poorly conceived email marketing message to someone, you pay a price.

However, unlike before, the cost to you isn’t only monetary. You pay with something even more valuable. You pay with your reputation. You pay using the currency of reputation points.

For example, when you decide to add someone’s name to your list without their consent, you lose reputation points. When you email people too often, you lose reputation points. When your message is pushy or needy, you lose reputation points. When your offer is irrelevant to the recipient, you lose reputation points.

Business owners who service a regional marketplace can soon find their name and reputation seriously damaged. They can only alienate their marketplace so many times, before people get sick of them.

Of course, when your marketing emails are like those I just mention, you pay a second price. You get crappy response rates. Too few sales. Too few new client enquiries. Too few leads.

The answer?

It starts by accepting that email marketing isn’t free. There is a hefty price to pay for a casual approach, both in reputation damage and lost opportunities. Remember, a casual approach to business causes casualties. Treat each email you send as if you were paying to send it. Because in a very real sense, you are.

So, get permission to email people. Then send them targeted, expertly written, relevant information. Do this only as frequently as required.

It works. And it works extremely well.

Here’s how I helped Irene make over $32,000 in 9 days, with email marketing. That was 2 years ago. Today, the results are even better, for those of you serious enough to take email marketing seriously.

Learning how to overcome fear

By Jim Connolly | August 25, 2016

I want to talk to you about something really important today. I want to talk to you about overcoming fear.

Here’s the thing: Fear stops intelligent business owners from doing what they know they should do. It stops them from creating a uniquely valuable service. It stops them from charging what they are worth. It stops them from rejecting low quality clients. It stops them from standing out and getting noticed.

We can study how business works, read the books, attend the seminars. However, nothing much happens until we overcome the fear. Because fear blocks us from moving forward.

Yes, we

I very deliberately say we, because I feel that fear too. I think we all do.

Where some of us differ from others, is that we learn how to dance with the fear. We develop strategies, which stop fear from causing us to make bad decisions. We then free ourselves to make the improvements we know we need to make. And our businesses move forward.

How do you find the strategy that will work for you?

In my experience, and I’ve helped hundreds of people overcome their fear, there’s no single, universal answer. Everybody is different. Different people require different strategies.

One thing everybody has in common, is that our business (and life) is improved beyond measure, when we learn how to conquer our fear.

I was prompted to write about this, after hearing from someone, who I helped overcome her fear just a few months ago. She outlined the improvements she has made to her business, now that fear was no longer blocking her from making the right decisions. It was inspirational to see the progress she has made.

Sure, I can help you too. The bigger point is that I want you to focus on overcoming your fear. However you do it. It’s the key that unlocks your full potential and allows you to move forward with clarity, enthusiasm and confidence.

How to discover a winning idea

By Jim Connolly | August 21, 2016

It’s entirely possible you have a winning idea tucked away right now, without even knowing it. The thing about great ideas is that they often look like bad ideas, until they become hugely successful.

Remember laptops?

In 1985, The New York Times asked; “Whatever happened to the laptop computer?” They pondered why laptops failed:

“[…] I.B.M. never legitimized the market with its much rumored ”Clamshell,” probably because the company realized that laptops are a small niche market, not a mass market.”

Similarly, when the electric light bulb was invented, some people said it would never become a mass market product. It was thought that there was no affordable way to get electricity to every home.

Is your idea a winner?

I speak regularly with business owners who want to know what I think of their business ideas. The challenge here, is that good ideas are not anointed. It doesn’t matter what I think or what your friends think. That’s not what makes an idea a winner.

If you want to know how good your idea is, you need to ship it. Get it out there. If you do, you will find it’s almost impossible to fail. It’s a win, win thing.

Here’s why:

If it flops, you will learn something, which you can invest in the next idea and greatly increase your chances of success.
If it flies, you have a success on your hands.

So, put your idea out there and give it a chance to fly!

So, are you building a tribe or writing drive-by content?

By Jim Connolly | August 15, 2016

Why do the vast majority of small business owners see such poor results from their content marketing? Why isn’t it attracting sales or new client enquiries every day?

The answer is that almost every small business is making the same mistake. And this mistake makes it impossible for them to succeed.

Here’s what you need to know, in order to get the best possible results.

Content marketing and leaky buckets

The problem with trying to fill a bucket, which has a big hole in the bottom, is that the water flows out just as fast as it flows in. It’s a never ending task, unless you get a new bucket or fix the hole.

Most content marketing advice, including that written by many so-called experts, is based around the idea of treating your content marketing, like a bucket with a hole.

It’s about attracting drive-by readers with ‘killer’ headlines.
It’s about churning stuff out, rather than publishing useful information.
It’s about using a cookie-cutter approach, like hundreds of thousands of others, which makes you and your content invisible.
It’s about SEOing your thoughts, rather than expressing your thoughts.

Seth Godin said it extremely well:

“The copywriter/editor who trades in meaning for lists, using calculated SEO keyword loading and sensationalism designed to attract the drive-by audience, earns the privilege of doing it again and again, forever.”

It’s like trying to fill that broken bucket. It’s also the total opposite of growing a tribe.

They drive by

The thing about drive-by readers, is that they drive by. They are attracted to hyped up headlines and quickly go from one, “The growing trend that will scare the crap out of business owners everywhere”, article to the next.

If your content marketing is based around chasing them, you’re making life way too hard for yourself.

Grow a valuable reader community

To grow a great community or tribe around your work, you need to attract the right people, retain their attention and earn their trust.

This means showing up regularly with useful information, rather than sensationalist, predictable content for the drive-by crowd.

It means avoiding so-called content marketing systems or anything, which claims to be a one-size-fits-all “solution“. All that junk will do is make your content marketing invisible. It will leave your content camouflaged, amongst the hundreds of thousands of others using the same cookie-cutter approach.

Instead, focus on building deeper connections with people who will value your work, share your work, call you, email you, hire you or buy from you.

Anything less is a waste of your time and will stop you benefiting from the amazing opportunity, which could be yours if you use content marketing correctly.