Time Sensitive!
Are you feeling like you’re twiddling your thumbs all day waiting for new clients to appear in your email inbox? Ugh! That’s the WORST feeling! Refresh, refresh, refresh and all that’s there is an email from your mom, your kid’s school and pills that promise magic! Time to step away from the computer and see if you’ve got a viable business! But before you step away, please add this event to your calendar (and keep on reading!): May 20 from 5pm-7pm: The Breakthrough Network Mixer. This month they're at the Freight House. Don’t get distracted with the whims of Facebook, but please RSVP here, or look for the latest event here. How to get that loving feeling back for your business at this event: The Breakthrough Network Mixer is one of Reno’s BEST networking events. Tons of friendly faces, a great kicked-back vibe, and plenty of opportunities to practice your pitch. You can go to this event and feel even worse about your business, or you can use the tips below to make a splash and feel refreshed! Step 1: Bring a friend or colleague. If you have multiple people in your business, bring them ALL. (For multi-people businesses, EVERYONE should do all of the steps below.) Step 2: Get crazy on their Facebook event page. Chime in with, "I CAN'T WAIT," and "Will there be clowns?" and any fun thing to show enthusiasm for the event, and give people a reason to say HI to you ("Ohhhh, I saw your funny comment on Facebook!"). Step 3: Show up as a GROUP. In matching shirts (or capes), if possible. Carpool! Step 4: Set an in-house goal to be achieved at the event. This is just an excuse to introduce yourselves to people. Goal example: shake hands with the most cat-owners. "Hi, my name is Ian. Do you have a cat? .... Sorry, I work for Waking Girl Web Design and we're having a contest to see how many of our designers can talk to the most cat owners. So no cats? ... A nice dog? That might count. So what do you do? Tell me about you!" This question can be adjusted to be STRATEGIC, but not too obvious. People attend these mixers in the following categories:
Step 5: Be there to HAVE FUN and SUPPORT others! Step 6: DO NOT BRING ANY BUSINESS CARDS (you can bring a few to put into a raffle, or hide some in your car for security). If someone asks for a card, say "Oh man, they're in my other pants which I left at the pool; [PULL OUT PHONE] oh but text me your name and business, so I've got you! OR, do you have Facebook on your phone? Comment on our page!! Ok, and I'll take YOUR card." Then offer to comment on THEIR Facebook page. Be generous! Facebook LIKES and COMMENTS are FREE for you but extremely valuable for everyone at that mixer. Step 7: COLLECT BUSINESS CARDS. If someone has a cat or an excuse for a cat, take their card. When you get back to the office the following day, see who collected the most cards. THROW A PARTY. With paperclips and coffee. Sit down on Facebook and go track down all the Biz Cards on Facebook. Give them a howdy shout-out and try to make it specific, so they know they actually talked to you and you're not just passing this off to an assistant (TAKE NOTES ON BACK OF CARD). Don’t mention what you do; mention the conversation and what THEY do. This is not a sales gimmick; this is friend-building! WHAT'S THE POINT OF THIS? You send a magical ripple through the business owners of the Reno area that's electric, alive and screams, "We're right here, as we've always been, ready to do business with you, you, you, and you, and your cat." Business owners who work with or live with your ideal customer are going to feel your electricity and refer you, or tell stories about you, or become part of your friend-building network! You’re going to get practice talking about your business and finding your HOOK. What is the thing that GRABS people?! Maybe you thought your services were awesome, but it turns out people are really in love with your testimonials. Maybe you’ve been stuck on pricing, but people just want an easy way to refer mutual clients! Go to the masses and find out! These events happen every month-ish. If May 20 is a no-go, find out the dates for the next few and put them on the calendar. Best results if you show up AS A GROUP (and then spread out once you get there. No buddies!). LET ME KNOW IF YOU'RE UP FOR THE CHALLENGE! Need some help with your strategic pick-up line!? Comment below or ask us on Facebook! The focus at Waking Girl Web Design is to 1) Wake up your website and 2) Wake up your business. Usually we have to also 3) Wake up your customers. There's nothing like a good old-fashioned menu bar to lull an Internet Junkie to sleep: Home, Services, About Us, Cont--zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. We utilize a navigation structure that is jarring, intriguing and sometimes alarming. Why? Because it wakes people up. This is wild, tell me more! Now, nobody will wake up if they don't get to your website, so we also have to 4) Consider the Google gods. Google occasionally relies on a good old-fashioned menu bar, but Google also looks for key words in your links. No one is doing a Google Search for "home services about us contact." No one (ok, except us--the search brought up a broad bit of nothing). What ARE people searching for? How about: YOUR COMPANY NAME instead of Home ACTION WORD instead of Services INTRIGUING WORD instead of About or YOUR CALL TO ACTION instead of all of the above and Contact is just fine :) [or Connect, Reach Out, Engage, Talk] When we first started building websites (in the 1990s) the human brain could handle 4 to 6 choices at a time. We fought hard to keep our websites' navigations in that 6 or fewer framework. Now, our brains have gotten OVERWHELMED with the constant incoming media, and are pleased with 1, 2 or 3 choices. 1 2 or 3 I talk to clients daily who want to complicate their websites, while the big tech companies are getting sleeker. I was shocked and validated the first time I used Square Cash and had 0 options. All I could do was follow their little maze of forms and buttons. There were no choices. There was only moving forward in their chosen path. And I trusted the process and sent money through their brilliant email-only system seconds later. The future is now. Customers trust the web more today than ever before. They don't need to read 17 pages to determine if they're going to buy your product or schedule an appointment. They need to see a handful of reviews, and then you have to open the door and make it easy: one intuitive non-choice at a time. But people have asked for my About page! Great! Ok, we can still have tons of content, and that can include your pithy bio. Let's create a hidden blog page that runs in the background of your site, spitting out content when it's called on through a Google Search or from the depths of the Inner Virgo of your website. Hrmm, that seems anti-climactic when you give me what I want. Why does this feel odd? Because what you really want is not an About Me page. You want an ABOUT YOU page. That's right! The business owner should be asking about the NEW CLIENT, not spouting out hobbies, facts, and degrees. Wanna know the number one thing that makes someone decide to BUY from you? Feeling validated. That's it. Not your service description, not your logo, not your pricing*, and certainly not your About page. It's your ability to listen and validate the needs of your customer base that will make them call you, email you, text you, Facebook you, want you, need you, review you. So you may have an industry where an About Us page is somehow validating to the customer, but I'm seeing higher conversions on pages that engage the customer and demonstrate that the customer is in the right place, and that you can help them. But don't they need to know my certifications and history to know that? No. Your certifications and history just tell us that you went to school and that you may have dabbled in something important once. We don't want your history, we want your NOW. Business trends change every 3 months; we don't care what you did 3 years ago. Are you #validating NOW? How to demonstrate validation on your website:
Is your customer in pain? Imagine how much more pain they'll be in after reading mountains of information. Make it easy; they're in pain! Is your customer in panic? Give them the call to action RIGHT THERE and EVERYWHERE. Is your customer a busy parent? Make it easy to come back to your information later with an email reminder or Facebook notice. Is your customer a business owner? Give them the prices and a phone number that is answered EVERY time. Do you want to be notified of new ways to wake up your website, wake up your business? Get on our Like List! Want a FREE Site Navigation Review? Leave your website URL in the comments below! |
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