Why your website probably sucks. EP #219 - Shorty

G', day, guys. Dan here with the how to Scale a video business podcast on Tuesday 24th September, episode number 219. So I'm sounding a bit chipper today because I just got back from five days away with my beautiful wife of 11 years, Sam, and we went down to the Versace Hotel on the Gold coast here in Queensland, Australia. Now, that hotel will be well known to anyone in the UK who watches I'm a Celebrity to get me out of here because that's the hotel the celebs come back to after the time in the jungle. And I thought it'd be a cool place to hang out. Obviously no celebs there just now. Although, although, very cool. Fun fact, we were having a drive in Rolls Royce Phantom for our anniversary through Hotel's got two Rolls Royce Phantoms, you can hire them for an hour. Had some champagne and Ian, our driver, told me that the previous night Baz Lman, the director, had a party in a suite and I'm like, oh my God, I wish I'd seen him. I didn't, I didn't see him, but I, I was in the same hotel when he was having a party. Does that count? Anyway, we had an amazing five days away, first break in about a year and we did wonderful things like whale watching. Who had, for a hot air balloon ride, had the trip in the Rolls Royce Phantom. So we were channeling our inner Alan Sugar and it was amazing. It was just great to be away. We had some lovely food, we saw some friends and we just had some downtime. Very, very much needed downtime. So we got back last night feeling really fresh and excited to get back into things. And so today we kick things off with our strategic call with our, with our members in the vba. And today was a hot seat. So once a month we hold hot seats and hot seats are where individual members can get on the call and they can ask us anything. So whatever challenge they might be having in the business and we, and we spend the call looking into that. And today we talked about websites and had a really deep conversation with a range of businesses about how important a good website is at communicating your message in an articulate way with your target market and an understanding what direct response copywriting really is. And in a nutshell, direct response is wanting to elicit someone to take a direct action on the web page. And I think where some people get confused in direct response is thinking that they're selling, you know, you know, get rich quick schemes or, you know, fat pills, you know, it's like, it's that, that is, that is used in a very kind of crude way for that market and actually works very well because it's, it's eliciting a response from the audience. But you can use direct response copywriting in a very elegant way. And, and the thing that became really clear on the call today was creatives 10 think they can do everything themselves. And one of the things I'm constantly referring people back to is just because you can doesn't mean you should. In fact, one of our clients shared a story that he'd spent the weekend putting a sink in and he thought it would take him a few hours, ended up spending most of the weekend fitting this butler sink and by his own admission said, I should have just paid someone to do it. But you know, how often have we done that where we, we have a crack because we think we can and you spend days and days doing a less than ideal job. And so I use the analogy this morning that if a client came to you and said, hey, look, you know, I know you can do everything for us, but we don't want to spend 20 grand, so could we just like get you to, can we hire you to film some of it and then can we borrow your gear for a few days to shoot some bits ourselves and then we'll kind of throw it. Could you maybe then sort of like tidy up for us and then we don't. We were not going to worry about color grading or sound design because we don't think it's that important. And then they put that video out. Would you be surprised if that client didn't get a great response for that video as opposed to one that was very well pre produced, had done lots of research into the objective of the video, had perhaps, you know, you know, spent some time really thinking about the locations and how it should look, choosing how to shoot it, what should be involved. You need hair and makeup to make it look good for the client. And then post production, color grading and sound design, delivering an amazing film that reflects the outcome that the client's looking to achieve. Now that seems like a pretty sensible process to you, right? But, but then we kind of decide to build their own websites and then write our own copy, because what we're experts in that. And then we're surprised that we don't get the 20 grand jobs rolling in regularly. And we were surprised that clients aren't sure or they ask for a quote, but they don't hear you don't hear back from them because, you know, you're not providing them enough information for them to, to build a level of trust with you. And what a, a great website and great copy will do is build trust and articulate in the words and the language that will resonate with your target market in a way that will have an enormous impact and how people feel when they show up on your website. And for many, many years I did this all myself, so I'm being really honest here. I did it all myself thinking I don't want to pay someone to do this properly. Which was, which was false economy because since we've updated our website and work with incredible copywriting team in Jamie Marie and savvy Copy, an incredible web designer and a team at Studio One Design with Greg, it's had an enormous impact on our business. We're also now working on speeding up our website. We're working with TuneWP where we're trying to get our load time to under a second. And we've had a massive breakthrough just in terms of how that impact.

Is affecting our bottom line. Basically, people are coming to us now that they're very clearly understanding what we do. And in some situations when someone's sitting on the fence about whether or not to join one of our programs, they go back and look over our website and they watch our case studies and they read the about us and they read about our accelerator program and it gives them all the information they need to make an informed decision. And that is what a great website will do. It will assist your prospect in making a decision about whether or not this is right for them or not. And I see so many websites following the same pattern of, you know, here's a show reo, here's, here's an example of our work, here's some brands we've worked with. We'd love to help you tell your story. We're really passionate, blah, blah, blah, and no one really cares about what you're passionate about.

You know, it's a fallacy to think as a video production company that every job you're going to do is going to be like, you know, amazing. In fact, next week I want to be talking about this on the podcast. You know, you're there to provide the service and make the ordinary look extraordinary and you want to give prospects confidence that when they land on your website that.

They can trust you to deliver. And there's evidence that you've done this before. For companies like them, that is the secret sauce to a great website. So I'm hoping to get Greg Merrilies on the podcast soon to talk about websites in more detail, but until then, have an awesome day. Ask yourself this has owning your own video business been everything you dreamed it would be when you first got started? It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you're genuinely achieving everything you set out to when you made that decision to grab the camera and go it alone. Are you really working less? Are you really earning more? And are you really in control? Chances are you're bloody good at what you do, but you're having to work like a dog, 70 plus hours a week, whether it's filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss of your own video company. When you're managing projects, constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cash flow, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress. Let's face it, that stress is the last thing you need when you're trying to run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about. Truth is, a business that provides financial, professional and personal freedom really is achievable. But maybe you've got that nagging feeling that you're overworked, lacking stability, and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now. It could be that you just don't know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the Video Business Accelerator coaching programs to really supercharge your video business. With these unique coaching programs, you'll learn all the tools you need to get complete confidence in the success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business that doesn't control your life. Let me show you how. Head over to Denlany.com and click on Accelerator.