190: Personality is Your Secret Weapon: Website Edition

Foreign welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks constantly live launching or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today.

And my special guest today is Christina Marie Anderson. Christina is the founder of Wondersoul Company, a brand strategy and web design studio known for crafting personality packed websites. With a background in luxury client experience, Christina helps second career women turn their expertise into education by designing and building high performing WordPress websites that act as an on brand experience. And Christina, I am super excited to chat with you today. But before we get into all the questions I have about you and your business and how you work with your clients, just can you tell us just a little bit more and a little bit more about your journey, your background and how you got to where you are today?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me here today. It's very exciting for me to be here. As you mentioned, I help second career women turn their experience and expertise into education for the next generation and I'm super passionate about helping women build something for themselves. A lot of women, you know, get tired of the corporate careers at some point and I hope that they find me when they do because I really love helping my clients take what they know and turn it into a profitable, profitable business through their website. And as you mentioned, I have a background in luxury client experience. I actually started out working at luxury resorts all over the country. It's a very long story of how I got from there to building websites. But that background that, you know, true foundation and luxury client experience really is a foundation for everything that I do now in my business and for my clients.

So tell us a little bit more about the kind of people that you work with. I know that all of us, you know, we're all online business owners and most of us have digital products or we want to have digital products. So how having a website in our business is crucial. At some point some of us might go for a little while without having one, but eventually we're all going to want to have a website. Kind of walk us through when we should launch our website and should we try to do it ourselves or should we jump right in, hire somebody? What are your general recommendations there?

You know, I may go a little bit against the grain on this one. There are a lot of web developers out there who will tell you that you should hire a web developer right away. But I actually like when my clients have done it themselves first. That shows me that they have fortitude, that they. They meant it when they started their business, but it also gives them perspective. So people who have not previously tried to do their website can sometimes think that it's not that hard. It's difficult. Anybody who actually has tried to do their own website can tell you from their experience that there's so much more that goes into it than just like, what looks pretty on the page. So I love when my clients have already tried it themselves and they know that they are over it. But so in terms of hiring a web developer, I do think that that's, you know, maybe one to two years into business. You have income coming in. You're not putting your website on a credit card. Of course your website should have a return on your investment. But I really want my clients to be in a safe and comfortable financial position for them and know that their business is ready for growth before they're saying, okay, Christina, like, I'm ready to invest.

So, majority of the people that you're working with, they've had. They have some type of website out there. They may even do doing it themselves over the years. I'll put myself in that category. I do all of my own websites there. What kind of mistakes are you seeing that they have made?

You know, the number one mistake that I see, people who build their own websites and write their own copy, is talking about themselves too much. I can usually pinpoint if someone has done their own website, written their own copy, when in the, you know, the hero section, that very top section of your website, their headline starts with the word I. I help you do this. And this is a really common trap to fall into. We feel like our websites are about selling ourselves, and they are about selling ourselves, especially when your personal brand is your business. But it's more about connecting, how you can help with the people that you help. So it really needs to be more focused on them and how they see themselves and the transformation that they are looking for.

So I can definitely see that. I know that I've made that mistake at some point in the past myself. And one of the things that you do is help people kind of get their personality out into the world or let their personality shine through their website. And you have a little bit of an unconventional process to do this. So can you walk us through that and should we as business owners want that personality to shine on our website?

Of course. So first of all, I'll start Kind of with the tail end of that question there, why you should want yourself to shine through your website. These days, people are buying from people. They need to know you, they need to like you, they need to trust you. Yes, that sounds like a marketing cliche, but it is still the truth. And when you can show who you are through your website and really create what feels like a personal connection, despite the fact that it is a digital landscape, you haven't actually spoken to your website visitors yet, but it really should feel like that when your website launches. It should feel like you're starting to have that personal connection with your audience. And in terms of my unconventional process, this may be the first place that I'm really sharing this. So this is my little trade secret. I pull a ton of information for my clients websites from the initial discovery call I have with them. And this might sound a little counterintuitive, but once I start sending my clients forms and questions, they start to think too much about what I'm asking them. And this is something that I see across, you know, different businesses, different types of business owners is we're too close to our own business. So when you ask us to think critically about our business, we don't really have the perspective to do so. But in that discovery call, people are incredibly candid about who they are, what they do, who they help, and like the hills that they will die on the things that are important to them, their values in their business. And more often than not, the headline that I write for any given website is pulled directly from something that was said in the discovery call before the person was started to clam up and, you know, think too critically about what I was asking them.

I think that's brilliant because I've been thinking, I went through a website design earlier this year and I was thinking about, yeah, when I started writing or filling out all of those forms or the Google Docs, I'm like, she's right. I had to really start thinking. And then probably my personality wasn't coming through and it really wasn't giving her the information that would be necessary to kind of communicate my message, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Process that you're. That you're doing there. So, Christina, the next question I have for you has to do with the process that you have of emphasizing how important automation and streamlining is with our website in our business. And I know that when you're going through this process and you're working with your clients to do this, this is something that you focus on can you walk us through this and you how this helps your clients with their website?

Absolutely. So as we all know, you know, in the year 2024, a website can't stand alone in your marketing process, in your client pipeline, your client relationship management. And so when I start a website build with any new client, I like to take a holistic look at all of the different tools that they're using in their business and how they're using them. And it's not just about making sure that they have a great website that converts, but it's also about understanding what happens when someone clicks, book a call or sign up here for this free gift and making sure that all of those pieces are working in tandem. And I'll give you a really simple example of a project that I am working on quoting out right now. And this is for a woman who offers Zoom yoga classes and on her existing website there is a button to email her for the links to the classes. My understanding is that these are free classes, so someone just needs to reach out, say hey, I'm interested and she will send them the link. But I saw a really great opportunity to automate that using email marketing. And now we think of email marketing tools like Mailerlite or like Mailchimp or ConvertKit as being these tools to send our lead magnets and then market to our audience. But they can also be used really strategically in a situation like this where someone hands over their email address in order to get those Zoom links and then they are sent to that website visitor, that potential client, automatically through something like Mailerlite, ConvertKit, Mailchimp. And that literally saves time for the like the person who is my client in this scenario, instead of her receiving an email, having to add it to her to do list, send the links back, it happens in the background automatically. And that's just one small example. But this is how I look critically at all of the different actions that are going to happen on a website. And some people see automation as a bad word, that, you know, automation and personality packed websites don't necessarily go together. And I would argue that automation can be used strategically to better serve your clients. I think there's certainly a line where it goes too far and where it can feel inauthentic and. But as long as the intention is to serve the client, the website visitor, then automating and streamlining these processes through your website is not just essential, it's a smart idea.

I would agree with you. I would say it's definitely essential. And for us to have businesses where we can serve our clients. We need to have these automations in place now. Christina, any last minute tips for the audience?

I'll take this one back to my luxury client experience days and this is like a core tenant that I live by in my own business. And it's to never leave your audience wondering what comes next. So anytime they click a button, what information do they need on the other end of that button to make a choice? Anytime they are receiving, you know, something from your client relationship management system, an automated email or, or even something that's not automated, something that you're sending out, are you giving them all of the pieces of information that they need at this time? Are they going to come back to you with questions or can you add more information not to be overwhelming, but to clarify things up front so that they are never wondering what comes next? And again, I think this applies to everything we do in business, but certainly on your website where if you confuse people or they don't have the information they need, they're likely to click off and not come back. So it's incredibly important to make sure that you're giving all of that information, thinking through all the scenarios of what someone could expect on the other side of whatever action you're asking them to take.

And that's just a good suggestion in marketing in general is knowing that customer journey, when somebody just first gets to know us, what steps and actions do we want them to take?

Absolutely.

That is a great tip there. Now, Christina, if anyone would want to go and look at some of these luxury websites that you have personally designed, where would they go and how would they find them?

Yeah, absolutely. People can look at my portfolio which has some really great case studies in there of the websites that I've worked on. They can find me@wondersoulco.com and my portfolio in there really helps show the transformations that I've given my clients, showcasing some of my favorite products.

Perfect. Thank you. We will make sure that those links are in the show notes and you have a free gift for them also. I do.

I just released a new lead magnet. Just released this when Shortly before this podcast was released. It's called the Lead Magnet Lead Magnet and it is a lead magnet template pack. There are three lead magnet templates that are built in canva for the three most popular types of lead magnets for podcasters, keynote speakers, consultants. And inside of there there are also copy templates to help you write it. So really all you need is an idea, a thread of an IDE idea and everything else is inside of that free gift to help you build the lead magnet and then also a welcome email that you can use to deliver it to your audience once they sign up.

Wonderful. And we will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes and you have like an Instagram account or what social media do you use?

Threads is my favorite place to be. I'm at Wander Soul Web Design on threads. I share all of my thoughts over there, whether they are weird or not. So if you really want to get to know me and understand my personality, my perspective as a web designer, as a business owner, that's where you should find me.

And I'll include that link also. And I know a lot of people out there are really loving Threads.

It's so much fun. It feels more authentic than any other social media that I've been on recently.

I love it. So, Christina, thank you so much for joining me and sharing all of your wonderful knowledge with us.

Of course. Thank you again so much for having me, Destiny. It has been a real treat to be here this morning.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.