Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Time wasters and your business!

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It seems that some things in business just never change. Like those people we affectionately call time wasters.

I was prompted to write this, after being emailed today by a reader, who had wasted a lot of time dealing with a time waster.  This guy claimed to be interested in using her as a freelance designer for a large project.  She later found out, after meeting his colleague at a networking event, that the person she had been dealing with, was simply pumping her for free advice, for a project he was going to do in-house, for his boss! The reader explained that she has only been in business for 6 months, and “feels like a fool” to use her own words, for falling for this trick.

As businesspeople, it’s important for us to learn how to spot the time wasters as soon as we can, BUT without missing the people who are genuinely interested in our products or services.

I wrote a post about time wasters, that gives a few tips.

In my experience, I find that the longer you are in business, the better you become at spotting time wasters.  Do you find that too?  I’d like to know.

Sometimes, it’s possible to spot patterns of behaviour, that immediately alert you to time wasters.  In my own business, for instance, I’ve discovered that whenever someone tells me via a social network, that they are going to get in touch to find out about working with me, they never do.  After all, if someone’s interested in speaking with me, it’s easier for them just to call or email me.  Interestingly, 100% of my clients simply got in touch with me, without any public pre-announcements.

Here’s where I would really appreciate your help!

It would be extremely useful if you would share any of YOUR tips for spotting or dealing with time wasters.  If you have anything you would like to share, please leave a comment and maybe help someone avoid the kind of frustration, that lady in the email experienced.

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

Marketing time for your business?

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This quick marketing tip is all about how to improve your marketing results in the medium and long term.  In fact, it will give you one of the marketing foundations behind the most successful businesses in the world.

Marketing & small businesses: Never enough time!

I often hear the owners of small businesses, saying that they don’t have the time to market their services as an ongoing activity.  They tell me that it’s only when they lose a major account, that they have the time available, to dedicate to marketing.

The primary problem with this approach to marketing is that it simply does not work.  It causes a business to reach a plateau or spin its wheels.  This happens because periods of growth mainly come, AFTER there has been a loss of business / revenue / profits.  The loss of business having prompted the marketing.

When I hear the time argument, I explain that when marketing is conducted on an ongoing basis, it actually takes very little time each month.  Unlike panic-based marketing, when there’s been a big, sudden drop in business, working to a marketing strategy takes surprisingly little time.

In contrast, successful businesses of all sizes, work on their marketing all the time. It’s just a normal, ongoing business activity.  The difference between the two approaches to marketing is that one type of business uses tactical marketing, whilst the other uses strategic marketing.

I wrote a post about this, which explains the difference between tactical and strategic marketing and also explains compound marketing / leverage.  Be sure to check it out!

Tailor your marketing strategy to your resources

When I work with my clients, I always start off by ensuring that their marketing strategy is tailored, to match their resources.  It has to be manageable and easy to do.  It also needs to not get in the way of their core business.

Your marketing strategy needs to be similarly developed around your unique situation.  When it is, marketing becomes manageable and easy to implement into your working week.  This is the secret to developing a predictable, confidence inspiring flow of sales / new business.

Time wasters: How to spot them and avoid them!

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If you run a business, you will already know how precious your time is.  This is why it’s so important to ensure that you avoid time wasters, and that’s what this post is all about.

Time wasters

One of the biggest time sucks in business, are those seeking free advice from you, with no intention of repaying you in any way.  Often, these time wasters will disguise themselves as prospective clients or customers, in an effort to get the benefit of as much free information from you as possible. These are the time wasters I am going to focus on in this post!

Unless you have nothing better to do (and I know you have), you need to identify and remove these people from your business as soon as possible.  You see, that “free” advice is only free for them! That so-called free advice costs you, in lost productivity and the inevitable slump you feel, after realising you have been suckered!

How to spot the time wasters

If there is someone right now, who you suspect is just trying to get as much free advice from you as they can, with no intention of repaying you for all that great information, I have a simple tip for you.

Try this: Ask them for some measurable time scales!

For example, ask them when they will have the funding in place.  Ask them when they plan to get started with you.  If they give you vague answers like “soon” or some other general answer, ask them for clarification.  If they are serious, they will value and respect your need for clarity.  It shows them that you are keen, interested and professional.  However, if they were not genuinely interested in working with you, they will immediately realise that their game has been tumbled.  They will then go and find another victim to drill for free information and you will have lost nothing.

Of course ultimately, the way you decide to allocate your time is down to you.  If you want to spend more of your time speaking with people, who have a genuine interest in your services, you may find that simple idea useful.  It has worked for my marketing business for more than a decade and saved me more time than any time management strategy I know.

Save time & spot opportunities with RSS

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An idea for you and your business – From Jim Connolly
With the advent of the Internet, there has never been more information available to you.  Although this has created an unbelievable number of opportunities for you and your business; it has also created a problem:
THERE’S JUST TOO MUCH INFORMATION OUT THERE!

So, how do you make sure you get the information you need – without missing anything important or wasting your precious time, trawling through stacks of websites?

RSS

RSS marketing business time managementRSS (Really Simple Syndication), is a simple tool that allows you to receive all your important Internet content in one place! If, for example, you like to keep up to date with the new posts on this blog, RSS will send you my posts once they have been written! No need to keep checking back here – you will automatically receive all my new stuff and can then read it whenever you like!

OK, I clicked the RSS button – now what?

Most Internet Browsers have their own built in RSS reader.  Firefox uses something called Live Bookkmars and Internet Explorer has it’s own built-in RSS reader as well.  So, once you have clicked the RSS button on this blog or any other website that provides an RSS feed, you can simply look in the RSS section of your browser and get the latest from all your favourite sites!  The only proviso here is that the site or blog needs to offer a ‘feed’ – almost all blogs do and all news websites.  Pretty much every regularly updated website offers ‘feeds’ these days.

Are there any other benefits to RSS?

Oh yes!  There are news sites like Google News, which will let you receive news stories about your industry or local area as soon as they break, via RSS.  This is a GREAT tool for competitor analysis! You can even set it, so that whenever someone posts information about you or your company, you will be the first to know!

The benefits of RSS are massive!  This article from Mark White clearly explains everything you need to know and points to some useful resources.  However, none of this will help you unless you decide to start using RSS!  If you want to save time and become the best informed person in your industry or profession, you really need to start using RSS!

Are you an existing RSS user?

If so, please leave a comment here and let us know how RSS has helped you or your business!

To make it in sales – fish for whales!

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When I started my first sales job, over 20 years ago, my boss gave me a piece of sales and marketing advice that has helped me generate millions of pounds worth of sales – and I am going to share it with you right now!

“To make it in sales, fish for whales!”

I asked my former boss what his comment about fishing for whales actually meant.  He explained:

“Jim, if you go fishing and you catch 10 goldfish, you won’t even fill a cup – but if you catch 10 whales, you will fill half the beach!”

Sales leverage

With that simple explanation, he taught me how the amount of time and effort required to win a £50,000 sale, was not a great deal more than it took to win a sale of £5,000.  This simple idea totally blew my mind!  It was my introduction to what I know today as leverage.

I immediately realised that if I wanted to succeed in sales, I needed to prioritise my sales efforts and focus on where I could deliver most value as a salesperson – because that’s where all those whales are!

If you want to dramatically improve your sales figures, make sure your time and energy is invested wisely – fishing for whales and not goldfish!