Jim Connolly Marketing

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Why I believe it’s wrong to “give until it hurts!”

By

Have you ever heard the saying; “give until it hurts” and wondered what it means?

I believe that many misunderstand the statement.  They think that it means we should just give, give, give and only stop when we are out of resources; (time, money, energy etc.)

The wise man or woman knows that the time to stop giving, is BEFORE they feel the pain of giving so much, that they end up hurting – and unable to help anyone else.

Andrew Carnegie, perhaps one of the world’s best known philanthropists, is reported to have decided as a young man, that he would spend half his working life building a massive fortune, so that he could spend the second half, giving all his billions away.  Yes, he helped people along the way, but not to the point where it hurt him or his business so much, that he was unable to help all those millions of people later in his life.

This may sound like a contradiction, but I believe the key to successful giving, is to help as many people as you can!

Help as many people as you can, but as efficiently as possible

Through this blog, I provide free marketing tips and advice to thousands of people.  At the moment, I spend around 3 hours a week writing content; which I can do without it “hurting” or harming my business.  Just think how much LESS of an impact it would have, if I used those same 3 hours each week, to give 3 people an hour of my time.  If you are currently giving until it hurts, you may want to consider a similar approach.  Try putting your expertise in one place and then allowing as many people as possible to benefit from it.

I believe we each owe it to our families and ourselves, to get the balance right – So that we learn how to help as many people as we can, without the pain of neglecting our families or our own businesses in the process!

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

The marketing power of confidence

By

Have you ever noticed that it’s easier to attract new clients or customers when business is already going well, and that it’s harder to attract them when your business is struggling.  One of the primary reasons this happens, is that business owners tend to act, communicate and make decisions very differently, when times are good than when times are tough.

Marketing in good times: Typically, business owners act with confidence when times are good.  They speak in positive terms about their business, their marketplace and their future.  They make decisions based on what they want to achieve.

Marketing in tough times: Typically, business owners act with trepidation when times are tough.  They speak in neutral or negative terms about their business, their marketplace and their future.  They make decisions based on what they fear.

Marketing and confidence

Confidence plays a massive part in the success of any business, for example:

  • We buy from people, who we feel confident about.
  • We recommend people, who we feel confident can deliver.
  • We follow people, who we feel confident can lead.
  • We buy products that we are confident we can trust.

When we listen to people who speak with confidence, we tend to believe in them.  However, when we listen to those who lack confidence, we don’t.  In both cases, the speaker transfers either their confidence or their lack of confidence to us, depending on their disposition.  This is why leaders in every area of life, are those who can inspire confidence in their message; be that in a boardroom or sports arena.  By the way, I wrote about another aspect of marketing with confidence here.

The great news, is that confidence starts from within.  WE get to decide whether we project confidence or concern.

Marketing tip: Take a look at the information you currently feed into your marketplace.  This includes your interactions on social media sites, as well as marketing-specific messages and business conversations.  Now, check them to see how likely they are, to inspire confidence in you or your services.  If you think there’s room for improvement, seek to inject a more positive, confidence inspiring message from here on!

What makes you feel more confident about a potential provider?  What can providers do, to help you feel more confident about them and their business? Share your thoughts!

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

How to avoid fee sensitive or cost conscious clients

By

Why would one person earn 10 times more than someone of the same age in the same profession?

I’ve spoken with service providers in the same town, serving the same marketplace and yet one person is out performing the other by over 1,000% in financial terms.  They work the same number of hours, so why would one of them be earning so much more than the other?

To have more, we must first become more

Although we are all equal as human beings, in the marketplace, we each have a market value.  This market value is determined by the amount of value we bring to the marketplace.  The greater the value, the higher we are rewarded.  The solution to earning more, is to become more.

This is why it’s so important NOT to follow the crowd and emulate what you see your competitors doing.  The more you comply to what’s seen as your industry average, the more average your market value will be and thus your results.  The more generic advice you take, the more you will develop a generic business.  That’s why people like me exist!

The industry average is substandard

Those who achieve at the highest levels in any industry, do so because they have cultivated their value accordingly.  They see the industry average as substandard.  You know what?  They are right!  The only people who actively seek out an average kind of service, are those who are focused on price.  These people have no understanding of value – so they buy services based on the lowest prices.

Naturally, the providers in every industry who offer an average service, are attractive to these fee-sensitive or cost conscious people.  They complain about people being fee sensitive, yet they do nothing to attract business from the higher end of their marketplace.

They leave the cream, to those providers who have increased their market value.  It’s insane!

Become more

Take every opportunity to increase your skills, especially those skills that boost your market value.  If you work in a highly competitive industry, like most of us, look for ways to add unique value to your services.  By continuously investing in yourself, you will become a more valued provider and will attract enquiries and leads from people who are focused on value, rather than fees.

What are you doing right now, to increase your market value and attract the right kind of clients?

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

You are on your way – But where?

By

In 3, 5 or 10 years time, your business will truly arrive!

The question is; “where?”

Over the past 15 years, I have worked with thousands of business owners all over the world and in my experience, people tend to focus too much on instant gratification.  They are unwilling to invest in ideas unless they believe there will be a super-fast return. This is why so many scammy products exist; offering us super-flat abs in 3 weeks or Internet millions in 3 months!

Paying the price in advance

I’m fortunate to know many self-made millionaires and one of the major differences between them and the other 99.9%, is that the most successful businesspeople are prepared to pay the price for success, in advance.  They know that before they can reap, they have to sow.

For example:

  • They take time to learn the business of business.  They know how a successful business is supposed to work.
  • They take time to research the needs of their marketplace and the best way to service those needs, with the most value possible.
  • They take time to deliberately build contacts with the right people – Not the people who just happen to attend networking events.
  • They take time to understand the meaning and value of integrity.
  • They take time to read the success stories of other successful people, so they can develop their own recipe for success.
  • They know that success is not about money, but lifestyle.  You won’t find them jetting off all over the world doing business, missing their kids growing up.  That’s not success.  It may lead to financial wealth, but success is valuing the things that money can’t buy WAY MORE than the “toys” that money CAN BUY.

For most businesspeople, January does not signal the start of a new year.  It’s simply another chance to live the same old year, all over again. The same financial frustrations.  The same business worries.  The same bullshit that they hope, will one day “just stop.”

If you want a better future, you have to be smarter than that!  This starts with a commitment; to spend less time looking for quick fixes and more time deliberately planning (and working toward) the kind of future you REALLY want.

How to make better marketing decisions

By

If you want to make better marketing decisions, you may find today’s post really useful.  It’s all about something I call bad numbers.

Allow me to explain!

Bad numbers = Bad data

Imagine you wanted to know what the average small business owner thought about social media.  If you asked that question via a poll on something like Facebook or Twitter, the results would be inaccurate and potentially damaging.

Why?

Because you would not be asking the average small business owner!  You would be asking the average small business owner, who already uses social media.  That group would give a very different response, than you would get from a true, random sample of small business owners.  Any decisions you made based on that data would be based on bad numbers.

Everyone says…

I spoke with a fellow blogger recently, who changed the size of the font he used on his blog, because; “everyone said the font size was too big.” When I checked it out, everyone was actually just 3 people who commented on his blog.  The first person said that he found the font size was a little large, then 2 of their friends said that they thought it was on the large side too.  This guy gets around 300 unique visitors a day, so he based his decision on a flawed group of just 1% of his readership!  After making the change, he immediately saw the average time people spent on his site drop by 15%.  He has now reverted back to the original size font and has regained that 15% again.

Before you make a business decision based on numbers, it’s extremely important that the data you are working with is good.  This means you need to be able to rely on the quality of the data and the size of the data sample, needs to be statistically relevant too.

For example, I spoke with the owner of a new, London based accountancy practice a few years ago.  He told me that his last mail shot provided a zero response rate.  As a result, he said he was no longer going to use mail shots as part of his marketing mix.  I looked at the letter he used, and it was actually pretty good (for a change.)  I then asked where he got the database that he used for the mailing, and it was one of the world’s leading suppliers of databases.

I then asked how many letters he sent.  Here was his reply: “We sent 12 letters out, because we got 12 contact names and addresses for free, to evaluate the database they wanted to sell us.” He was basing his decision that mail shots did not work, on a mailing to just 12 people!

Before you make any decisions with your marketing, make sure you are basing those decisions on good numbers.