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Look within if you don’t want to be without

By Jim Connolly - Published January 17, 2010

If your sales are down or business has gone flat, who or what do you blame?

I hear some people blaming the economy

Even though they have competitors that are doing really well, many people choose to blame the economy for their lack of sales.  If they had zero control over their business and were literally unable to change or adapt anything, that might be a reason – but they can make the changes required.

It’s like them blaming the weather for getting wet, because they decided to go out, in heavy rain, without a coat and umbrella!  When the economy changes, we adapt.

I hear some people blaming the marketplace

I regularly hear from people, who blame their customers and prospective customers for being too price conscious or fee sensitive.  The marketplace is attracted to VALUE not ‘cheap.’

For example, if you needed a heart surgeon, would you hire the cheapest you could find, or the best you could afford? That’s how value works.  It’s not cost cutting, it’s value gathering.

I seldom hear people blaming themselves

Regardless of the economy or what your competitors are doing, you can grow a massively successful business.  However, there’s one important proviso here:

You have to do the right things correctly.

That’s the part where businesses fail.  They see sales are down or that growth is way too slow and they look for answers OUTSIDE themselves, rather than WITHIN.  When I meet a new client, I am able to help them dramatically improve their sales and income, because they tend to sell and market their services really ineffectively.

I don’t change the economy for my clients and I don’t perform Jedi mind tricks on the marketplace for them either.  All I do is look within their business, find what’s wrong (or missing) and coach them on how to fix it.  As soon as they start doing the right things correctly, their results change and they start growing their business.

Instead of blaming the economy or the marketplace for your business results, take a look inside your business.  That’s the only thing YOU have control over and as soon as you identify and fix what’s wrong, your results will improve.

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Updated June 5, 2015

Jims Marketing Blog – Now with added love!

By Jim Connolly - Published January 16, 2010

Here’s some good news for those of you, who are kind enough to comment here and share your opinions with my readers and myself.  As from right now, when you leave your comments, you will be able to share YOUR most recent blog post with MY readers!

How come Jim?

The CommentLuv WordPress Plugin

I have just installed the CommentLuv WordPress plugin.  The CommentLuv plugin automatically visits your site when you comment here, as soon as you enter your web address (URL).  Then, as you type your URL in, this little program retrieves a selection of your last blog posts, Tweets or digg submissions. (By the way, I have also added it to the AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT Ideas blog too!)

You can then choose one, which will then be included at the bottom of your comment.  See the example below, and check out the box just under Danny Brown’s comment:

I’m always looking for ways to make the blog genuinely more valuable for you.  This latest addition will hopefully help commenters attract some new readers – as many of the people who comment here have superb sites!  This is just a way for me to say “thanks!”

What do you think?

I would love to know what you think.  Leave a comment and show your fellow readers your most recent post, Tweet or digg in the process.

As always, it would be great to hear from you.

(UPDATE: I found this plugin attracted a huge amount of spam, so have removed it.)

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

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Updated November 5, 2012

Pay to enter? I don’t think so!

By Jim Connolly - Published January 15, 2010

Have you ever thought about offering a paid version of your website or blog?  Ever wondered what the advantages or challenges might be?  If so, then you may find this brief post interesting!

I asked a question on Twitter yesterday. I wanted to know if people had paid to access a blog or site, for so-called ‘premium content’.

Resoundingly, the answer was “No!”

Typically, people said that there was so much free content out there, that there was no need for them to pay for it.

The assumption, was that the paid content would be of no more value than the free content.  This, of course, may well be true.  It’s hard to tell, when sites that offer paid content don’t usually let you see the good stuff until you have paid.  It’s quite a leap of faith to pay someone, without knowing exactly what you are going to get for your hard earned money!  Those that do give a limited peek at the premium content, still give us no idea as to the consistency of the quality of that information.

In addition, that paid content business model has another issue associated with it, which I think is worth considering.  If the paid stuff is so-called “premium content” then it suggests that the non-paid content is at best average and at worst, worthless (by default, as they gave it away rather than putting it in the paid area of the site.)

An alternative income for new bloggers?

There is another income model for bloggers and content providers who offer consistently high quality content, which is based on a donation or tip option.

For example, I pay for the brilliant twit.tv and I do so voluntarily.  Leo Laporte creates hours and hours of video and audio content every day, and I get so much value and enjoyment from it that I actually WANT to repay Leo in some way.  In other words, the value of his work is such, that people like myself feel it’s only right to show our appreciation, with a donation.

The difference with the donation model, is that people get to experience the quality first.  There’s no barrier to entry – it’s open to all.

I get comments on the blog and emails all the time, from people that say a version of “I can’t thank you enough!”  I believe that a percentage of these people would actually want to use a donate button, if I had one here.

Summing up

I’m very reliably informed that even the most popular business blogs / sites with paid areas make surprisingly little – Even though they are often fronted by well-known business blogging personalities.

In my experience, people are generally a lot more generous and giving than is commonly believed.  If you are seeking to make an income from a business to business site (like this one), and your site offers great content on a consistent basis, I would definitely go with a donation-based system rather than a pay to enter option.  If the content’s genuinely good enough and you have a business audience, I believe people would pay.

It also means that those people who NEED the help but can’t afford it are not excluded.  For me, that’s EXTREMELY important!

Would they pay enough for you to be able to rely on it as a single, full-time income? I doubt it – but it may be a useful additional income stream.  In my opinion, it depends on the number of readers you have, the subject of your blog, it’s value to your readers (and just as importantly), your reader’s relationship with you.

If I used the donate model here?  I would also list my donors; so that the thousands of people who get the content for free each day can see who’s paying for the servers I use etc.  This would also give the donors a tangible reward, as their links drove traffic to their sites from an intelligent, business audience. I would also allow people to donate any amount – many donation buttons have set amounts.

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Updated June 5, 2015

The secret of a top 10 blog

By Jim Connolly - Published January 7, 2010

I’ve had a few emails this week, after technorati.com ranked this blog inside the world’s top 10 small business blogs for the first time.

technorati, small business, blogsWhilst this ranking will go up and down all the time, to have actually reached that spot is quite an achievement, for a marketing blog that’s little over a year old.

People wrote to me wanting to know how I did it, so here’s my secret!

I write exclusively for people – NOT Google!

Ask any top marketing writer (or copy writer) and they will tell you that it’s a challenge to produce material, which inspires people to take action, to; buy from you, visit you, call you, share your work, click links or email you etc.  That’s because people are complex.

As a marketer, people need to find your message both interesting and motivating and that’s no easy task – Especially if you are simultaneously trying to write that same message so that Google’s search engine software likes it!

So, here’s my secret sauce for a top 10 blog

This blog is read by people, enjoyed by people and designed to help people.  If I get enough genuinely useful content onto this blog, people will share my work and people will link to this blog, allowing me to reach more people.  By repeating that process, people have increased the profile of this blog and it’s readership.

Notice a common thread there?

Yep – it’s all about writing for people!

I love SEO – But I write exclusively for YOU

I don’t try and get certain keywords or phrases into my posts, to score highly with search engines.  If I did, it would change the way I write and dilute the effectiveness of what I share with you.  As a result, 100% of what you read here is written exclusively for people.

I love SEO.  It’s one of the reasons I use the Headway WordPress theme on this blog (affiliate), which is extremely SEO friendly.  I also use tags for my posts to help with my SEO too.  However, I do not deliberately write anything to keep Google happy.

Ironically, by writing exclusively for people, I have attracted around 16,000 links to this blog, which has gifted me a pretty good search engine ranking for many key marketing terms.  For instance, people going to Google searching for marketing blogs will have been able to find this blog on page 1 for the search term; “marketing blogs” for the past 6 months.

In my experience, many bloggers spend way too much time ‘optimizing’ their material for search engines and looking for that one killer trick that will magically send their website / blog to the top of the pile.

While they are waiting for that quick fix, you and I can focus on delivering the best content we can, to people.

Thank YOU!

I would like to personally thank EVERYONE who reads this blog, links to it and shares it with their friends.  As you can see, without your support, this blog is nothing.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

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Updated November 5, 2012

Have something worth saying and say it well!

By Jim Connolly - Published December 31, 2009

I want to share a valuable piece of advice with you, which I received from my mentor; the late, great Jim Rohn. Here’s what Jim used to say;

“Have something worth saying and say it well.

Jim would use that phrase when speaking about effective communication and I believe it’s also a very simple, powerful way to remind ourselves how to focus our marketing efforts. Let me explain what I mean, looking at both parts of that message, 1 part at a time.

Have something worth saying

Are your products or services worth talking about, or are they pretty similar to other people in your industry? You see, no matter how good someone’s marketing is, it will fail to generate sales or motivate people to buy from them, if its a great message, about an ‘average’ or slightly better than average service.

  • People are bored by ‘average.’
  • They see average everywhere.
  • Average, is camouflage that stops you getting noticed.
  • Average, is bland.
  • Average, doesn’t compel people to do anything.

People need to ensure that their business, products and services are REALLY worth talking about.  Not only is this required if you want to generate word of mouth publicity, it’s also required if you want your marketing to work.

…and say it well

Many people really struggle with effective communication, yet unless we know how to communicate effectively, we can never achieve anything worthwhile in business.  This is why it’s so important that when we have something worth saying, we learn how to say it well.

No business wants to be “the best kept secret” in their industry.  However, the majority of what we see and hear from small businesses is very poorly communicated.  A business that cannot effectively communicate what it does and why people need to buy from them, is placing a VERY low ceiling on their potential.  If such businesses are intent on handling all their own marketing, at the very least, they need to make a study of effective written and verbal communication.

Bottom line: By having a business, product or service that’s worth talking about, and learning how to effectively share this compelling news, marketing becomes a great deal easier.

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Updated June 5, 2015

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marketing advice, marketing help Hi! I'm Jim Connolly and I help small business owners to increase sales, boost their profits and build amazing businesses. Read more here.

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