Marketing & Website Strategies That Actually Work for Small Business!

Alright everyone, welcome to Website and Marketing Integration. I'm really thrilled to be here with my friend Jake Anderson. Jake and I are old pals from the Guardian Academy, and Jake was a neighbor for a short period of time when he was living in Roanoke. He now lives a little further down the road, so we haven't seen each other in a while. So it's great to have Jake here. Jake is someone that I have a profound amount of respect for. Because of a multitude of skills, but he's here to talk about website and how to integrate your website into your marketing and sales strategy. I'm here as co-host, and I'm going to kick things off by talking probably more from a philosophical principle and strategy perspective, and Jake will get into the more strategic, tactical, and tool-oriented side of things. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna overcomplicate it. We have another workshop coming up. I'll send the link when we send the replay. But philosophically, so when I talk about philosophy, principles, strategy, tactics, and tools, it's a system developed by our mutual friend Lucas Roschesky called the Clarity Hierarchy. And those of you that are in the Solopreneur Success Circle community have been to presentations or have a replay available that talks about this. But The premise of the Clarity Hierarchy is that, and this is very true when we're talking about marketing and sites in particular, is we are, and as human beings, we're enamored by tools and tactics. We love to learn new things and we love to acquire tools and we love to acquire tactics. We're always looking for that one more thing that might be missing from our marketing and sales strategy or from our client acquisition strategy as it happens on our website or what have you. But what the Clarity Hierarchy encourages us to do is to start with philosophy and work your way up to the tactics and the tools. So the Clarity Hierarchy begins with philosophy. And philosophy, quite simply, is what do you believe? What is your assertion? What is your hypothesis? What is it that you— what are your values and the ideas that you are putting forth into the world and testing. Principles are kind of the fundamental truths, the things that we know to be true. They are falsifiable, but they have not been falsified yet. You know, so gravity, for instance, is a law of physics that, you know, we all assume to be true, even though quantum physics is constantly proving that some of the things that we used to think of as laws are no longer laws. Strategy is your plan for getting closer to what you want. And the idea is, as you're moving up this hierarchy, you, you're testing your beliefs, you're applying principles, you're strategically planning your approach, and that will lead you to the tactics, the, the what you are doing, the things that you are doing to, to enact your strategy to based on your principles to test and achieve your beliefs. And then tools at the very top is how you are doing what you're doing. And so when I think about the topic for today, websites and marketing, I think what I would encourage you to do— and I will again in a couple of weeks, there's going to be a Be a Blessing marketing workshop and you're all invited to attend. And I'll go into a lot more detail about all of these things. But just to give you some things to think about as Jake works you through some of the, the, the more practical and pragmatic side of things is you need to know, you need to define what marketing means to you. You need to define what sales means to you. You need to define what your website is for and how it is integrated and how it, it fits into your marketing and sales system. And so the way that I think about marketing and sales is even though we often conflate those two things, they are two different things. Marketing is how you are getting the word out about your idea, about your cause, about your product, or about your service. Marketing. How, how, how are you spreading the word? How are you getting people to become aware and pay attention to what you do? And how are you earning their trust and permission so that you can have a more direct conversation with them, which will move you into the sales side of things? And the difference between marketing and sales is with marketing, you're trying to spread the word and build awareness and earn attention. When you're in sales, you have people that are interested in what you can do for them or what your idea or cause will do for them, what your product or service will do for them. And you want to enroll them on the journey that you can take them on so that they will invest, whether that's time and attention in your cause or idea, or whether it's finances, um, and effort in your product or service that will help them get closer to what they want. So your website is what I would call an asset. It is, or you can think of it as a resource. It's, it's one of the things in your sales marketing system that provides leverage that will help you get the right people to come take a deeper step into your world to become more connected and engaged with your idea, cause, product, or service and enroll in the journey that you can take them on by investing time, attention, money, and effort in that product, service, cause, or idea so that they can get closer to what they want. And so one of the things that I would, uh, encourage you to think about is to, you know, as the face of a brand called Creative on Purpose, I'm definitely big on the whole idea of applying your creative capacity, your ability to solve interesting problems and to engage in collaborative endeavors that get you closer to what you want with and for the people that you care about, and that you do it with intention and that you maintain the integrity of your system, but also the— your own personal integrity. And so when we talk a lot about marketing and sales and tools and platforms like websites, oftentimes we can— if we're spending any time on the internet, you will hear lots of gurus and digital marketers give you very dogmatic advice about how these things should look and how these things should be put together and what things are working now and what things are working now. So for instance, has anybody, anybody heard the news that email is dead? Okay, this is something that is, is out there in the digital marketing world. And it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe, but I can point to dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of brands that are doing very, very well with email marketing. And a lot of that has to do with getting people onto their website to opt in for some sort of lead magnet or whatnot. Email marketing, Eve, is— I would say that email is a tool for sure, and that you can have an email marketing strategy. And, or that email might be also considered a tactic. It really depends on the exact application. But another one that you might have heard is that you're only one funnel away. Everybody familiar with one, one, you're only one funnel away. This is a Russell Brunson thing, which is a way to get you to buy ClickFunnels. Maybe, but I can point to lots and lots of folks that are not using funnels in any way in their marketing or sales system in order to get closer to what they want and to market their brand and to earn sales. So in the Be a Blessing marketing system, what we think about is creating instead of a marketing funnel, which relies on people behaving like fluids in a funnel being dragged by gravity to a central point. We think of creating a marketing web, and that website may be the, the center of that web, or it may be a node in your marketing web that helps people become aware and earns attention, but gets them to move closer to the real— the place where you have the real engaged, direct, personal, relevant, anticipated conversations. So just to give you, for instance, my website is not the center of my marketing web, and it's not— and you can have funnels within webs and all this sort of thing. But the, um, the center of my web is actually my Substack publication. But I, especially since I've reconnected with Jake and, and kind of reconnected with the, the importance of websites, I've decided to optimize my website as an asset, as a resource that helps people gives them the information they need to decide whether or not they want to join me on my Substack publication, because that is where I have the, the clearest, most direct, respectful, relevant, and anticipated conversation with them so that I can continue to educate them through my marketing endeavors and move the right people at the right time into the sales cycle, into the sales side of things. So just some principles for you all to think about. What is, you know, what is your website as an asset? What is it for? How are you know, what leverage does it provide? And in your marketing and sales strategy or in your marketing and sales system, where does that asset fit? And how can you leverage that asset to help get closer to what you want, whether that's client acquisition or brand messaging or distribution of products and services, or maybe just distribution of an email newsletter or podcast or what have you. And so the— if you, if you come at it getting some of those philosophical and principle-based and strategic things first, I think that you'll find that you are able to leverage— use your website as a force multiplier, which just means as a point of leverage that helps you get closer to what you want with greater ease and velocity. So that's, uh, that's my little spiel on the philosophical principle strategic side of things. And now I'm going to kick it over to you, Jake.

You know, uh, first off, thank you, Scott. That was amazing, just the way you've teed this up. And, and as I get into my piece, it's going to look like that you and I have spent days planning this together because you're going to see so much congruency between what Scott just said and then what I'm going to be talking about with the website. Um, I love, uh, like, one of the things that Scott said I just want to emphasize is that, excuse me, when it comes to kind of how you approach marketing, you know, there's so many tools out there. There's social media and there's email, you know, the website. I mean, it's, it's another mechanism that you can use to, um, really communicate your value. And ultimately it, it all kind of comes down to— and this is the way that I see it, at least, um, as we're kind of using these tools in our strategy— is that you're communicating your value so that the right people take action. And I wanted to lead with that because I think that's important to really keep in mind, whether, you know, because the website, again, it's just another tool that we can use to communicate our value. Um, the one thing that I personally am drawn to with the website is just the creative freedom to kind of express yourself and your brand. And I'm a designer. I've been a designer for many years, so I certainly will— I want to be upfront about that because there's certainly a bias there in design and aesthetic and kind of how all that kind of shapes into, you know, the way that you can communicate that value and, you know, through the formatting. But ultimately, that's really the, the big thing that I wanted to kind of start off with. And that being said, I'm actually going to share— I do have slides, um, just because there's a few things that I want to kind of dive into a little bit deeper. But most of, you know, as, as I kind of wrap up, I do want to go through questions that people have about the website and make sure that I'm filling those gaps for you. So let me share. Oh, Scott, can you give me permission to share my screen?

There we go.

Cool.

So let me know when you can see my screen.

Good. Cool.

So this is what I just kind of led off with, is, you know, communicating your values so the right people take action. Um, I kind of see this as, as I said before, this is certainly the case with the website. Um, as I'm approaching any kind of work on somebody's website and I'm working with a client, I really like to, like Scott had mentioned, like the philosophy, the principles, the tactics, there's a strategy, tactics, and tools. And typically the frame of mind as somebody kind of approaches this project is really kind of up in the tactics and tools area. It's like, here's a tactic, I need to do this. And But I really like to go down to that strategic level because when we can go down to the strategic level, we're able to build something that's more aligned, congruent, and meaningful to what you're trying to accomplish and the goals that you have for your business. So I wanted to move next into just a few questions. I mean, these are pretty simple questions that you may ask yourself. Maybe there's questions that are not on this list that you're asking yourself about the website, which we can cover in Q&A. But these are the things that I want to answer at least with this initial slide deck to be able to kind of get some clarity and direction on how to start thinking about the website in your marketing. The first one is like, do you need a website? Right? Think about that. Do you actually need a website? Is this something you need? And if you do, I don't like the word need particularly. I, to me, it's more of a strategy and it's like thinking about where it fits in with the strategy. And I'm going to kind of go through a little bit of a case study and a couple case studies really that will help maybe shape your thinking around it because I don't have a black and white answer. I'm not going to say no or yes. It's really a maybe type answer. Where does it fit in? Scott was talking earlier about the marketing web and how, you know, the center of his marketing web is the Substack. Well, how can we think about the website in terms of how this fits in with your overall marketing strategy? And what's a smart investment? So, you know, when it comes to building your website, you can do it yourself. There's an investment of time. You can pay somebody like me to build it for you. There's going to be more of an investment in money. And there's always, there's a lot of degrees of extreme when it comes to investment, you know, something you can spend a few minutes to do. It's something you can spend months and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars even to spend. So what makes it a smart investment? And I kind of, you know, I already said this, it's like, do you need a website? And the answer is maybe, but I'm going to get a little bit more specific into, into what this actually means, like, by maybe, just to kind of help you distill this down a little bit. The first thing is, um, in some industries, and in— everybody has different businesses. Some people are— I think the vast majority of this room are mostly coaches and consultants, so I don't know if this necessarily applies to you, but it depends on business. And in some industries, the website is kind of more of a requirement. And, um, and I, I got a case study that I'll touch on for a minute about it being a requirement. And it's like, it's either a requirement being that it's actually required, um, and I think there's somebody in our success, uh, Solo, Solopreneur Success Circle that had mentioned, um, that she's got a project that like the industry says, we're not even going to entertain your project unless you have a website where we can look at it. So that's what I mean, like it's actually required for you to even be able to get any business or generate any traction in what you're doing. You actually have to have the website and it has to be there. The other thing that's a little bit more hard to spot is there's like kind of an unspoken rule. And this happened to me. This was my last company. I had, and I'll give you a little bit of a story here. I had, I used to own what was, it was an event lighting design company. So what I did was we would go in to special events and we would build these lighting applications for like these upscale weddings and special events. And, and I want to show you a chart because this is kind of some data here. I had started this company in 2008 and for the first 4 years we, we did $27,000 in total revenue. And then something happened in 2012 that ended up leading to kind of this explosive growth that you see for the last 6 years. And what ultimately happened there was that there was this unspoken rule in this industry that you had to have a certain digital presence for recommendations to venues and working with certain planners and getting in certain spaces. And I wasn't aware of that until I started having venue managers coming up to me saying, we love working with you, but we can't— we're hesitant to refer you because your website isn't to our standards. So I had to actually go through and go through this whole branding process, had to update the website, and I had to spend, you know, I spent a bunch of money and time on the website to develop it, to get it to where it was ready. And then at that point, that's what happened there. Was I went through a positioning exercise and updated all the website. There was an immediate 400% increase in leads, and then it ended up leading to all this growth that we had over the last 6 years of that business. Now, there's a lot of nuance to this story, and I, you know, because there's more to it, there was a partnership that was involved that also led to it, but ultimately it led to listening to the market, understanding that there was an unspoken rule about the website and why it needed to be there, because there was a chain of command where I had strategic partners that were referring business back to my company, and there had to be a website presence and it had to meet certain standards for, for people to even actually care about it or for it to, for it to even be considered as a recommendation. So again, I'm not going to get into a lot of details around this story because it's very nuanced and I probably would eat up several hours on this call. It's just not appropriate. But, but I do think it was— I do find this to be an interesting case study because it was the biggest— like Scott Perry, we talk about this, you know, in the community. It's like, what's the most immediate constraint? Well, in this instance, it was actually the website. And it was by removing that website or by removing that constraint, optimizing the website, I, I opened up this floodgate of momentum through all these referral partners that I had established because it made it easier for them to communicate my value to the people that they were showcasing rooms and so forth. The other thing is like when you're asking yourself, what, like, do you need a website? It kind of comes down to what it is that you actually want. So this is another thing I, I think about in this decision. So this is what I mean. There's a, there's a number of things that you can think about in terms of, you know, why you might want a website. So for some people, they want to make it like a content hub. It's like, I want to post blogs. I want to be a blogger. But thinking about it from, you know, understanding that it's mostly coaches and consultants that we're kind of speaking to here and thinking it through that lens, or even service providers. Maybe you're a copywriter or you're selling, you know, design or some kind of a service. There's 3 things that really come to mind for, for me as far as why you would want a website. And the first one, which I believe is probably the biggest lever, is increased credibility and perception of value. People still will go when, especially people that you don't know or people that are new to your world, one of the first things people tend to do is they want to look at your website or they're trying to see, they're trying to figure out what you're all about. And the website is just kind of a default place that people tend to go and they're there, they're looking at your credibility, they're looking what you do and they're trying to figure you out. Of course, they can get that on social media. They can get that through email or whatever these other channels are. But the website is kind of the home base. Where people go to for, for researching your, for, for researching you. And this is like the second piece is kind of like tied in with the first one is that it ends up becoming a sales communication tool because it's communicating your value. And as to what Scott Perry said earlier about the difference between marketing and sales, it's a way to kind of help transition that person from, you know, from marketing into what could potentially become a sales conversation. Because their level of awareness of what you do and your value becomes heightened and it increases probability for them to take that step forward. The last one, more visibility via search. I don't personally— I'm not big in SEO, which kind of sounds interesting because I'm in websites.

I—

this is more like if somebody Googles you and somebody Googles your name, or your business, what shows up? Is it— do you even have a presence if somebody goes and searches for you? Um, and it might even be for if, if you happen to be somebody that is looking for a team. I know I went through a process where I was recruiting some freelancers and they kept responding back to me like, hey, where's your company?

What's your—

because this, for the first 18 months of me doing web design, I didn't have a website. And it In, in that turning to where when I was trying to recruit certain freelancers to come work with me, it became a little bit difficult and there was a constraint there because they were trying to research me and my business to see if it was something they wanted to actually commit to because they were trying— again, this usually a default place that people will go and look for when they're trying to understand what it is that you're all about. So, so just something to think about if somebody's actually kind of the branded search. If somebody is actually looking for your brand online, do you show up in search? So these are, again, these are the 3 things personally. I mean, there's other things too. You can, you can create, you know, content and you can have a whole content management system on the back end where you're publishing article or podcast. To me, that stuff is more secondary to this. This is kind of the big, I guess, levers when it comes to especially these top 2. And this is a— this is actually a text message I got from somebody who I ended up closing as a client. I thought was kind of funny. Yes, they spelled— misspelled afford, but it says, hi Jake, I'm not sure if I can afford you after looking at your website, but when you get the chance, please call me. And this kind of goes back to this first statement, increase credibility and perception of value. I never got messages like that until I launched my website that I have now. And now when I'm speaking to people, people automatically, of course, you know, let's talk to the nuance. I am a web designer. So people are naturally going to want to go look at my website to see what kind of work I can do. But, um, but I was able to increase perception of value just by having a website. The next thing is, where does this all fit in? So the way I see it, especially like online, there's all these different channels, social media, email. I kind of see the website as more of like a sales companion. It just kind of follows you around. It's, it's, it's there, you know, when you're sending emails out and I've worked with clients, it's like in the signature, there's the website. You know, if you want to learn more, go check out the website. Maybe it's a landing page. People who are quietly researching you, like the cold and the curious, like the cold traffic or just the people who are just curious, you know, what does Paul up to, you know, I'm trying to learn about what Paul's into these days. Oh, he's got a website. And they're just kind of quietly curi— you know, exploring the curiosity of what it is that you do. Um, you know, it's that companion that kind of follows you around whether you're on Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever it is, or going— there's always that home base that they can kind of go back to. Um, for referrals, I mean, this chart right here, this is all referral business. This was a tool that I created for referrals because all the strategic partners, they were referral partners. So that's where, that's where it fit in for me. If you, if you get a lot of business from referrals, it can, you're kind of giving them a tool as well that they can use for communicating your value. What makes it a smart investment? The, the old, the, the old faithful, it depends, right? It really depends. It depends on risk. Personally, I think a lot about risk when I think of investments in this, in the context of a website, the higher the stakes on attention, the higher the risk. If Apple Computer came to me and said, can you redesign our website? That's a far higher risk than if it were kind of like an independent consultant or somebody that, you know, because there's millions of people that are looking at that website every month versus maybe 10 or 20, you know, so it does come down to risk. That's typically what you're thinking about how people are charging for websites. And I'm going to get to that here in a minute. It depends on your goals. What do you want in specifically function over form? I'm not sure if anybody's familiar with, with that language, but what is the actual function of the website? And then from there you back into the form, the form being what actually makes up the structure of the site. So if you do want it to be a place where you, it is like your content hub and you do want a place to publish articles or audio or, you know, maybe it syndicates into, into some things. Then that's certainly going to drive the investment and how much investment goes into it. And it also depends on data. This is like the part that makes it smart, right? Is the data. So I have personally, like I've had people come to me, brand new businesses have never taken on a single client and they want me to build a website and I'll just tell them, no, I'm not. I mean, respectfully, like I just don't. Like you come to me when you're ready to optimize, not for startup. And I'll go back to this chart because this chart tells a lot of story. There's another thing why this happened here. You got to remember there was 4 years that I spent in this industry collecting data. I paid a company $20,000 to build my website, my brand, and people thought I was crazy when I was doing it. But the reason I was so confident in that investment was because I had 4 years of data, you know, swimming around event spaces, learning the market, understanding what was going on. And I had my offer down and I knew it was time. And plus, I kept having the constraint. I kept hitting the wall. I kept having partners come to me saying, we're embarrassed to refer you because your website looks so bad and this thing that you have looks terrible. So I knew it was something that I needed to optimize. So validation— now I'm not saying you got to wait 4 years like I did, but having data and validation around what you're building is certainly going to make it a smart investment. If it's a startup and you don't have any data and you go and pay somebody thousands of dollars, it's just a bit— it may end up working out for you, but just understand there's a bigger risk to that. How much can you spend on a website? How much you invest? I'd say probably the lowest I've seen somebody quote is $500, and I've also seen $9,800. $30,000. And I know that looks like a really big range, but anytime you're dealing with— the, the point I want to make with this is that anytime you're dealing with somebody in creative work especially, um, you're going to see pricing all over the place. Uh, it's, it's very difficult for me to, to just come out and say like, here's kind of a good ballpark of what to expect. It depends on your expectations, the level of risk, the quality of person you want to work with. Are you doing it— you're going to do it yourself, are you going to hire somebody? Like, what does all that look like? I won't spend a lot of time on this slide. I actually just kind of threw this in last minute because I just wanted to at least make that point. And then the last thing I want to talk about, and this is kind of a little bit more tactical, this is probably the thing that maybe most people are looking for from, from my whole spiel here, is thinking about— I call these hero sites, and this is something I've I've come across as I've been working in web design and I've worked with various different projects and, and kind of distilling it down to what actually matters when it comes to the website itself. And the thing that I have learned is the less choices people have, the higher the conversion on the site. So one, one of the mistakes that people tend to make on their website. Um, you know, are you familiar with the hero banner? It's like the first thing you see above the fold when you first log in. Um, I can't tell you how many times I'll go to a website and I'll go to, and I'll look at the hero banner and it's asking me to do like 4 things. It wants me to book a call and wants me to subscribe to a newsletter. It wants me to download some PDF. And I'm like, I really don't even know what I'm supposed to do. There's too, you're asking me to do too many things. And I had ended up working with a client. I'm going to show you this. This is a text message right here. Um, from a client that I worked with and I, this is the first, I call them hero sites. I don't know if there's an official name for them. It's basically just a landing page type site. Um, but we did, he had all these call to actions and we just simplified it down to just one clear call to action. And it was one singular page and we hit on these main points here, which I'm going to get to in a second. And I launched and the day of the launch, he sent me this text message. He said, I already got 2 leads. They've come in today through the new website. I haven't done any marketing. So what this tells me is that there was traffic. There was already people going to his website. It just wasn't converting because people were overwhelmed and they were confused and there was too many things that was asking them, this person to do. So this Hero Site is a way to really simplify things down to where, um, you're able to truly match intent. You know, when somebody is coming to your website, they're really there typically. Now, I don't want to say that this is true for everybody because some people are just looking at your stuff because they're just really curious about you. It's like the tire kickers, the person who's, you know, at the trade show and they're just there for the free samples. But for a good majority of people, they're there because they're actually interested in you in some way. They want to learn about you. They want to learn about what you do. It might be that they're interested in working with you. There's a good possibility, but that's the intent. When somebody goes to that homepage, they're not really there because they want to read your blog. People don't go to your homepage because they're looking for blog articles to read. They're there because they want to learn what it is that you do and how you can help them. So the first thing, and I kind of put this as like, these are some of the main components that you want to make sure that you're covering in your website on that first landing, kind of that landing page is the first one is signal. It's like, what is your value proposition? What do you do and who do you do it for? Like, what is your value prop, right? That's your signal. The second one is proof. Case studies, testimonials. Case studies are really powerful if you do them right. If you have really solid case studies, they can be really helpful. Accolades, data, portfolio, anything that supports that what you do is legit. That you're, you know, it's there to kind of show your quality. Depends on what it is that you're doing. If you're a coach, consultant, case studies would probably be a good thing to put. Maybe even data, potentially. Depends on what kind of coaching you're doing. Um, you know, for somebody like me in design, portfolio is going to be a big one there. And this can also be a combination of things. Solution, I, you know, you could also call this your offer. It's like, okay, well, how can you actually help me? You know, what are, what are my options here? Now, I'm not saying that you need to put every single thing out about what it is that you do in your offer and list every single detail. That's completely up to you. But understanding that there is things that you have available for people, whether it's one-on-one coaching or maybe you do something in a mastermind type setup, whatever it is, like, what, what's your solution for me? You know, I understand your value proposition. I understand that, you know, this proves to me that you're legit. What can you do for me specifically? Differentiation positioning kind of falls into place here as well a little bit. That's why I put that note. The next one is the human. Who is the human behind all this? You. You know, what does Dr. Jeff say, Scott Perry? There's like how many billions of people in the world, but it's only one of you. And that's pretty cool, right? Like, that's such a unique advantage that you have., and what you do is that there's only one of you. So show that, show that person, show that background, that experience and, and your values and, you know, put that, infuse that into your brand here. For clarity, like FAQs are good for like object, you know, kind of speaking to some of those like immediate objections that people might have and just offering some clarity. It can also be a help for qualifying. Um, And I don't want to get too deep into the tactical stuff because the reason I don't is because everybody's got different businesses and this may apply to yours and it may, may not. So, um, just understand that like being able to kind of crystallize things a little bit, um, through some kind of FAQ, and this may not even make sense for what you're doing, but it is a good thing to put into this type of a website that ends up, you know, kind of covering some of those objections. The next step. What do we need? What do you want me to do? Don't give me 5 things to do.

I want—

what's the next clear next step you want me to take? Is it to be on your email list? If that's what it is, that's fine. If that's the clear— just make sure it's very clear from the very get-go what that next step is. Book a call. You know, do you want me— you know, what do you want me to do? And then alternatives. And this is the thing, because I know, like, We're all very, I'm going to go ahead and stop my screen share because I want to go ahead and pull this back to, back to the room here. I'm somebody and I'll raise my hand. I've got so many ideas and I got so many things I want to be creative with. And, you know, I've got resources, articles and content and all these things, right? And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have that in your website. But that alternative, like there's alternatives to social media where you can go and connect with people. I have found that that type of content, especially if the intent is— the intent of this website is to communicate your value, because my goal is to generate leads. I want people booking calls with me. So that needs to be the clear next step. And I need to communicate my value in a way that gets people to take that next step. To, to get on a call with me so I can then move through what would be a sales process. But yes, I know you've got articles, you've got this awesome newsletter that you publish, you're doing a lot on LinkedIn, you might have a podcast, you have all these different things. These are all alternatives and ways that people can further connect with you online. Put that down below, put that lower, put that in the footer, right? Because if you put that up top and you try to, you know, it starts to overwhelm people. And, um, and that's kind of what I mean by like with the hero side, it's like taking them to point A to point B, whatever that first next step you want them to take and getting them to that next step is, um, as seamless as possible while also making sure that, you know, there is awareness around what it is that you do in, um, in some of these other facets of your business, uh, through content and so forth. So. Other ways to connect with the other offers. That's what I mean by alternatives. The other thing, the last thing I'll say about the hero site is, is really being conscious about intent. So like when somebody comes to your website, understanding the intent behind why they're there is— there's a couple of questions and I have a little bit of a variation of this. I think it's from R3, Scott Perry. It's, it's like, am I in the right place? Why am I here? Am I in the right place? What's the next step? I think that's a good solid framework. The way I kind of think about it in my head is a little bit, little bit of a variation of that is, is this for me? Like, I'm here, like, is this for me? Is whatever this person's offering, is this for me? Which would be, am I in the right place? Are you worth exploring? Like, is this worth exploring for my life? You know, people are, people are looking for solutions or looking for assistance in something in their own life, and they're trying to evaluate whether or not this is something that's worth, you know, their currency of time and energy to continue exploring. And then the last question of how do I take that next step? You know, how are we, how are we leading through this customer journey and this journey that you're taking me on to ultimately get me to where I want to be in my life and my business or whatever it is that you're doing to help people. So, so that's it. That's my spiel on websites. I do want to— coming up on Q&A time. Sorry, Scott Perry. I just now saw your— excuse me. Yeah, I don't have any— I don't have any more presentation. So hopefully that was helpful. If anybody has questions, we are now, I guess, officially in Q&A time. So happy to field whatever questions you have.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jake. We had some things coming in on the, on the, in the comments. And so I, I'll start with Eve and Clay and Scott. And then, you know, for the rest of you, this is your time. I'm able to stay a little beyond the top of the hour here. So we'll get to as much and as many. But yeah, I just love— I love that there's— Jake and I did literally no, no advanced planning on this call. So you're— the fact that there's so much alignment is just, you know, a real testimony to the power of these ideas and these approaches that just work because they work. So I hope that everybody got some value out of both of our presentations. But who'd like to kick off? Eve, Clay, Scott, I'm inviting you to go first, but anybody that wants to jump off mute and ask a question, you're welcome to do that now.

So I'll go back to that question about— I don't really care about the email as a marketing tool personally, and I'm not a coach. I'm an interior designer, so I live in a particularly visually driven world, and without a website I can't do pretty much anything. So that's part of that. And then, you know, funnel-wise, I'm reading a lot of interesting things about what you said, which is, are you just dragging us down to the bottom of the pile to give us something and it doesn't really have value? And that kind of thing. So I don't really have a— I mean, my question, I'm in the midst of developing this website and have been for a very long time and have shifted gears a couple of times to see what is that above the fold grab, what is that first hook that is going to resonate before you even scroll. So do you feel, Jake, Scott Perry, whichever, but that, that is the most powerful place to put your value, or is it the most powerful place to have your prospects, prospective clients, prospects, um, recognize themselves as someone who belongs in your website and will be encouraged to continue to scroll beyond that landing spot. So I'm curious if you have a tactic or strategy for what should be there. And I know it's different for everybody, so I'm just gonna say for a visually driven environment.

Go ahead, I've got a good answer. Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, that's a great question, and it's something I've been in a lot of conversations. I follow a lot of website roasting threads as well from people who are way more advanced than me in website. And it comes up a lot. And, and I will say that in that hero section, I think one of the mistakes that people can tend to make is that they try to get maybe too clever up there and they end up losing because the person's like, I just need to make sure that I'm in the right place. Interiors, like So we need to make sure that when people get there, that it's very clear that you do interior design. And if there's any more specificity around, um, around that, maybe it's, is it commercial interior design? Is it residential? Like, where, where are we at here? Am I, I just want to make sure I'm in the right place. Um, there's also this. Yeah. And there's also this thing too. Um, and you're in design, you're in business. Certainly I can relate with you. Like when you're in design, any, any kind of field in design. And I always preface this because I'm very biased towards websites because I'm in design. I've always been in design. And the website becomes really important to your business when you're in design because people want to see your work. And there's something, it's called teasing continuation. This is like concept. And so like, think about your hero banner. It's like very clear your value proposition. I create beautiful interiors for residential homes. Like, okay, got it. Like, I know what you like. I know exactly what I'm here. That's what I want to create, a beautiful interior in my home. I'm trying to figure this out. Maybe there's a little bit of distinction there, but below that fold or kind of connecting with it is your work. It's like the work needs to be a big part of your website because that's what people want to see. They want to see your work. They want to see all the beautiful and they want to get lost in that work. So it's like when it comes, I'm actually going to be going through a process of updating my website with this approach is, is teasing continuation, seeing all the beautiful imagery., that, um, that represents your work, and then it kind of pulls them through the process. And then from there, you can add in, um, elements of, uh, things that are more connected to the type of person you're serving. You know, maybe there's a farm style— and I'm just— I have no idea what your business is, I'm just thinking out loud here— but maybe there's like a certain Maybe country homes is like the thing. I don't know, whatever, you know, maybe it's urban. Completely swung and a miss on that one. But yeah, it's, it's client self-identity and you can get into that, you know, certainly as you, as people scroll, you're teasing that continuation. They're going through, they're getting lost in the work, but as they're in your work, they're also finding those mess— that those points of messaging that speaks to that self-identity that you're talking about. So, so it's a way of like that above the fold. You just want to make sure that you're not losing them by using like they have to almost like encryption. It's like, I feel like I got to decode this message here to figure out what this person does. You know, it's like it makes sense to them, but like, I don't really know their business. I don't know all their values or anything. I just know that I need interior design and I want to make sure that I'm at least in the right place first. So being, making that clarity and being very clear and specific, making that the priority. And then if you can find ways to dress it up with some personality, sure. Like, absolutely give it some personality. Just make sure you don't encrypt it so much to where people aren't sure what it is that you do. So that would be my, my take.

I think you, you really landed on something in your follow-up comment. Eve, which is this idea of generous polarization. Like, if your marketing— if, if your site is part of your marketing process for vetting and validating who you, who you work with and who you don't, what you do and what you don't do, being intentionally and generously polarizing is a really good idea because it stops you from wasting time with people that you can't really help or don't like to help. And it helps the— so I, I shared a link to Jake's site and mine, and you'll see like two very different approaches to websites. And because Jake and I have two very different intentions for what we want our website to do. So Jake mentioned function over form.

I—

one of the things about the way I've designed my my marketing web and my sales system is I don't work with anybody unless I know them. And so I'm not trying to sell you on anything. You will not see any testimonials or case studies on my website. You will not see a bunch of my articles. It's very clear who I'm for, what I do, If you'd like to learn more about my process, here's something you can download without even opting in. If you want to go deeper, here's something you can opt in for. And if you really want to have a conversation, sign up for the newsletter, which takes you to my Substack. Because— and just an interesting aside about— I, since I have designed my website this way, I can't tell you how many people have, like, there's no contact information on my site either. Like, I don't— you can't— you don't get my email. Like, you— there's no connect form or any of that kind of thing. And yet I still get probably a half a dozen to 10 messages a week, and they always lead with, I couldn't figure out how to get in touch with you. You know, nobody's going to work with you if they can't connect with you. To which I say, oh, that's interesting, because you're connecting with me, right? So that whole idea of function over— like, I am, I am really being kind of pointed about the way I am presenting myself and the difficulty that I— the barriers that I set to connecting with me too easily. And I don't want you— you know, the other thing that people say is like, I would— I don't know what you offer. I don't know how much you cost. Those are not conversations that we're gonna have because if you're leading with how much are you, you're not for me. So just, you know, again, with the whole idea of intentionality and function over form, I'd say that it sounds to me like you're, you're already dialing it in. And the last thing I'll just go ahead and drop, we have two more webs, uh, two more free workshops coming up. I referenced the Be a Blessing marketing workshop coming up. Um, that's Saturday the 15th of March, I think, or 14th of March, whatever it is. Um, and then the, the AI and marketing is with my friend Eve, who's going to talk about creating customer avatars with AI. Um, but, uh, the whole premise of Be a Blessing marketing is the best marketing in the world is to be the very best at what you do in the way that you do it, which Jake was talking about with the Dr. Jeff premise, right? Like, there is really only one and only you. There's only one person who has your values, who has your talents. And if you know who you are and what you believe and where you belong and what you're good at and who you're for and who you're not for, you can bake all that into your entire marketing web. But again, as an asset within that web, whether it's a center or a node, make sure that functionally the, the site is presenting what it needs to present. Like for me, the, the website is just another breadcrumb. I, I want people to— I want to be difficult to find because if people take the time to find me, they've already demonstrated that they're probably not a bad fit, and then we can validate from there. And, you know, as a graphic designer or as a, as an interior designer, like, the best way for you to grow a business is to be the best in the world at what you do. I had a guitar studio for 20 years. I was the most expensive guitar teacher in town, and I was the, the most popular and, and had the longest waiting list. I didn't have a website, and people told me over and over again, nobody's going to work with you if you don't have a website. Well, and yet I made a very good living for a long time being the most expensive, the hardest to find, and the hardest to, to, to work with. So it, it, it— getting clear about who you are and what you do and how you do what you do and all that sort of thing will, will help with the, all the website design stuff. I think we lost, um, Scott Perry. I don't know. Clay, I, I saw Clay, you raised a great point, which is, you know, first, and Jake touched on this, like this whole idea that, you know, there is a website can, um, be a marker or a signal of, of, um, of, uh, authenticity or validating, you know, it can serve as a credential. And so in some domains that can be really important. I don't know if you had any follow-up on that, Clay.

Yeah, that was just kind of a comment. But the— I guess one follow-up I have is I know Jake, you mentioned about, you know, you're not ready for me. You're really not at the level for me because you're just kind of starting out. So I guess my question is, if you are starting out with a website, like I know I've tried websites a couple of times and just got overwhelmed, thought I would do it myself and just didn't have the time. But, you know, what would you suggest, you know, getting out of the gate, um, you know, as a something like a starter? And I think it's very powerful too, you know, saying, you know, again, something that's very simple and just This is who I am, and if this is what you're looking for, this is what I offer, or what have you. But yeah, would that— you offer— would you suggest like, you know, paying someone $500, or, you know, someone like me that's maybe just getting started with a website?

Yeah, so, um, the reason I made that— I'll tell you why I made that comment, and that'll probably help clarify. Um, when, when I work with somebody who, who's kind of starting out, they don't have any data. Like they don't have any— so what ends up happening is they'll spend a lot of money on developing the site and then like 3 to 6 months later, everything about what they do and how they serve has changed. And then it feels like a big loss for them. So for me, it's like, I'm not just going to take your money because I know this is a story that's going to unfold. I would— I would— it's kind of uncomfortable for people. I'm a believer of just like, just go out and serve people and just do your work and go find people. And, you know, whatever tool you need to use. I mean, there's— what is it called— card, card.com, if you want to put together something just to have something very simple. Some people just have a Calendly link, just like, hey, if you want to talk to me, like, here's my— just book a call, you know, whatever it is, however you want to communicate, get on an email list, go sign up for a Substack or whatever, giving them a next step. But when it comes to really making that bigger investment to the website, I just, I just find that it's, it ends up not being a smart investment out of the gate because you don't have any excuse me, you don't have any data. And there's so much volatility in that beginning process that you're going to look 6 months later, or maybe not even that much. It can even be like a month later, like everything's changed now that I'm working with these people and I'm seeing this is, this is really what they want out of me. And this is what I want too. It's also what you want to do. All that's changed. And then you're looking back at a website you just spent thousands of dollars on that really means nothing. Anymore. So, um, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of solutions out there. Email is fine, you know, like a Substack is free. Uh, Card, C-A-R-R-D.com, is a really user-friendly, just easy thing to spin up. Or just throw it on a Google Doc, or, uh, you know, have a— book a call with a Calendly or Scheduler. That would be my recommendation starting out. Make it about the work, make it about the work that you do. It should always be about that, honestly. But sure, especially in the beginning, I just can't emphasize that enough. And getting data and getting feedback and, and helping that give you direction on where you're going in your business.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, Scott Perry is chiming in with something similar. I think the whole idea, another way to think about what Jake was just sharing is, you know, what's, what's, what's sufficient? Like, what's the minimum effective dose? If all you really need is for people to get on the phone with you, then a Calendly link, a landing page with a Calendly link is probably enough. The, the other thing that I would share, um, for you, Clay, specifically, is like the— get something up so that you can start getting the feedback that you need to iterate and improve it based on the data, based on the feedback, based on, you know, what— how it engages the field and whether or not it's getting you closer to what you want or not. Um, and, and, you know, because I know that you're a musician and I had this struggle when I was a musician, like I— most everybody I know that starts a business starts with their logo and their website, which is fine. But, you know, if— and then what ends up happening is you, you know, you figure out how to get traction and build momentum and get business, and you're iterating and improving your offers, and you're delivering on your promises to prospects and leads and clients and so forth. And then like every musician I've ever spoken to, when I say, oh, give me your site, they'll be— they say, oh, please don't go to my site, I'm so embarrassed, I haven't looked at that thing in, you know, 20 years or whatever. And I was exactly the same. And people would say, why do you— like, why does your website look like shit? And I said, well, because I'm too busy playing gigs, like I don't have time. So it's, it's something that can be really powerful at the beginning for— because I think there is part of what Jake was sharing, there is part of this exercise is you are by working on your site, working on that brand image, you are clarifying for yourself like what your brand is and what your brand promises and what your positioning is and you know what who you're for and who you're not for and what promises you're making and can keep and all that sort of thing. So it's always going to, you know, I think anything, any of these things that we've talked about are going to be works in progress. But the first step is to get something out there that's good enough to get started. And if it works, then just leave it alone.

They're all tools. You don't need them. You don't have to, you don't have, you don't have to use them. It's just a way to communicate your value.

It's a— yeah, Nick Peterson has a great riff on this where he talks about needing to get a screw out of the wall. And so you go to— so you get in the car and you travel across town and you go to Lowe's and you— there's 27 different choices and the guy, salesperson sells you on the Swedish bespangled, you know, left-hand torque, whatever, like sells you on all the features and benefits. And, you know, after spending an hour at Lowe's, you come home and you take the screw out of the— you burned 2 or 3 hours where all you really had to do is go into the kitchen, get a butter knife, and you get the screw out of the wall. Like, what are you trying to accomplish? Um, it's usually has much less to do with the features and benefits and more about getting the thing done that you say you can get done. You're very welcome, Jeff.

Yeah, absolutely.

Any, uh, any final questions before we wrap this up? You're very welcome, Scott Perry. Good to see you.

Yeah, sorry, I don't know if this is maybe as applicable to other people as it is to me, but in terms of having your bio and in design, it seems like the bios range a lot where— so my strategy was to put an image and a mini bio on the main scroll page and then offer you an opportunity to go to a more lengthy bio on a different page. Do you think that's a good strategy or would you offer a different one?

So you're saying like on the actual homepage you would have kind of a, kind of a block of mini snapshot of you to give a summary that it's like read the full story about you. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's fine. I think that's a good site because on the, I, I personally think having some kind of a presence of you on the homepage is, is good. If there's a bigger story that you want to share that you think is important to your brand, like on my website, I've got an about section where I call it pull, don't push. It's like my greatest lesson in marketing. It's why I call my business Gravity Web Studio. And there's a whole there's a whole story behind it and I wanted it to have a place, but it's too much to put on a homepage. It needs kind of its own space. And you can have a— yeah, it's certainly more appropriate to kind of give that its own page.

Yeah.

Company story or like my longer story. But there's also a company story after 25 years. And then I have a social enterprise that weaves into that. So I wanted to have somewhere to land it all. But, but I was getting feedback that if my face isn't on the front landing page somewhere and people don't know who is behind the brand, that they're not as engaged.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's important to, to, to have that presence of you kind of back to that hero side I was showing. There's the human element piece that when you kind of infuse that into the— it creates more relatability and alignment, you know, with your visitors.

Yeah, alignment's what it's all about, actually.

That's right.

My service is all about values alignment, and that's why I'm not focused on my portfolio, because in fact, um, it doesn't tell you that story if you look at pretty pictures of someone else's house. So I wanted a site that doesn't look like any other designer's site, I want it to be based on this is who we're for, this is how we're different, and this is why you might want to work with us. And then the portfolio thing is if you want to go see more work, go see more work. There's just like a scrolling thing with a few photos and some testimonials on the main page, and it's not a big focus. But when you said it should be you know, everywhere.

I was like, ah, well, yeah, yeah.

Oh, sorry, I was just going to ask Eve, are you, are you, um, offering services in a specific geographical area only?

Um, well, yes, I'm in Toronto and I can only serve people with full-service design that I can travel to. So I can't even do a paint consultation online. There's no way.

So yeah, yeah, there's some things. If you go to, um, if you go to my site and go to the About Scott section, you'll see a template that I borrowed from, um, Jake and my friend Jeff Moore. Um, it's called the Compelling Introduction. Um, and it's, it's, it's a way of doing a longer form bio that, that kind of make sure that helps people get clear about who you are, what you do, who you're for, who you're not for, and that sort of thing. That might be worth looking at. But there's also, like, for if you're, um, more of a, you know, whether or not you have a brick-and-mortar location, but you're, you're, you're serving a geographic, a specific area, that you have a lot of advantages in terms of You know, if you want to be developing a niche and get the right people to consider you, having that geographical identifier can be super powerful.

We're not a big city. We have a million designers, and yeah, standing out in this environment, if you're not really established with a big team and high, high, high, high-end work to brag about. You're just another designer in Toronto. And that's one of the reasons why my differentiation isn't really about what you're looking at, because what you're looking at doesn't look like anybody else's and it won't look like yours. So I don't really want that, that vibe to come out when you're on the website. That's why it's like so different. It's going to be so different from any other designer's website. And my work is different and my clients are different. And basically it's about— it's not about entitlement and it's not about luxury and it's not about how much money you're going to spend. It's about how do you feel reflected, cared for, and valued in your own home when nobody's looking? Because looking isn't it. So yeah, yeah, it's, it's a hard proposition to communicate is what I'm having challenges with. And you and I, I know you from Purple. So, you know, therefore I'm there for strategy because I need to understand more about how my ideal client is thinking in the framework of they've got shit to do in their house. They don't want to wreck the planet. They have enough money to do the right thing, but they don't know what the right thing is. And that's a— I don't know. I'm betting all my apples in one market stream because it aligns with my values around being able to have design as an entitlement in the 21st century, which is becoming to me something of extinction. We shouldn't still be doing all this shit. We can't keep sending these bins to landfill. They're not going anywhere. Um, and the residential industry is way behind contract and commercial in terms of sustainability, so nobody talks about it.

Yeah, well, it sounds like you've, you've got your finger on the pulse of a lot of positioning type of language and, and, uh, identifiers. And I think that like people usually talk about the value of niching and it's all about the demographics and the features and benefits and that sort of thing. And you can go that way and do very well. And then there's the— like you can go in the opposite direction and you actually alluded to this, like the first 7 years of my business, my positioning was I worked for Seth Godin, and that was actually all the positioning I needed. Because if you knew who Seth Godin was and you wished you could work with Seth, he wasn't going to work with you. But here's this other guy that's worked with him for 7 years. And so, but they're not mutually exclusive. Like, you can, you can play, play in both sandboxes. Swim in both streams. And it's actually the positioning can enhance your niching, and the niching can enhance your positioning. So it sounds like you've got your thumb on the pulse of those things.

I'm not sure. I know these people exist. I don't know where they hang out. I don't know where they're getting their information. That's why I can tell you 20 years of word of mouth. It's all I knew. And now it's dead because I've served that already. It's done. Some of them are dead now. Like, I know what to say, but, um, I'm starting out of gates with zero from COVID Like, it died. So now I'm, I'm kind of like, okay, another round. Got to get another round going. What, what's going to do it?

Because, well, there's something called the rearview mirror exercise, which, like, if if you've succeeded in the past, then look in the rearview mirror and whether or not it's the same people or not, like, look at the thing, like, what did you do to succeed in the past? Because rather than build something brand new from the ground up, which takes a lot more resources in terms of time, energy, money, and attention, if you can leverage and, you know, if you have some traction with with things that have worked in the past, it takes less time, effort, money, and attention to go from traction to momentum and from momentum to scaling and that sort of thing. And so—

Work right now, I'm just curious because our world changed dramatically from the rearview mirror view to what's in front of me. And that's where I've been struggling is I like everything that worked in the past was I did nothing and people just sent me to the next people and the next people and the next people.

And I'd encourage you to look at the fund— look at the fundamentals, right? So if you look at things from a first principles point of view, everything ever sold, whether it's an idea, a cause, a product or service, has come down to is the offer irresistible enough to an audience that is interested and eager enough? And do you have a way to put that, to have that offer collide with that audience in a way that is compelling enough for them to simply start or continue a conversation with you? And when you look at things from a fundamental point of view, basically my assertion, Eve, is that everything that used to work in marketing and sales still works. The fact that we're doing it with digital tools and tactics and strategies and platforms is— those are just— that's the form. But the function of how you develop an idea, connect that idea with the right people, and deliver upon that idea is fundamentally the same. So yeah, I would just encourage you to— I mean, yes.

I never did it. In the first place. That's, I think, what's making it harder for me is that I've got nothing in the back to lean on anymore because I didn't do anything in the first place. So I'm sorry.

You said that you had clients.

Oh, I had lots. I've had lots. I've served lots and lots of clients, not with a mindset of serving them from their values and creating a system that will help them identify what those are and how they apply to the project they want. That's what I'm doing now. And I developed all of this because I was finding more and more as we got towards 2020 that the people that I was engaging with or being sent to and referred to and didn't have values that I approved of to help them with. And inevitably they would screw me over and I would leave with no money. So I, like, during COVID was like, okay, How do I stop this? It's the bleed. I have to stop the bleed. So my first impetus is to repel anyone who doesn't fall into this fairly narrow vision for their life forward in the legacy and the stewardship and the things that they value. And so I thought, well, why not lead with that? And, um, and then see if there's a way to reach those people. Uh, because they're not hanging out on social media, I don't know where they are. That's my biggest challenge.

Go ahead and take us home, Jake.

Thank you.

If you had any addition—

I really appreciate it, and I'm really grateful to be here and to have happened upon this invitation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, the thing I would, I would wrap up with is, um, differentiation and being unique and, and being rebellious and I like to use the word rebellious is like, I'm not doing what everybody else is doing. I'm going to rebel and kind of do my own thing and do it my way. I'm not going to follow the rules. Um, and, uh, there is definitely, um, like talking about getting signal, like there's nothing that'll get signal like differentiation and being, uh, kind of being the rebel in your industry. And, um, so, uh, my, my thought is to lean into that and to stick with that mindset. That's just my opinion. I think that's a sound approach to move. It's very uncomfortable for people to be that way because people get, especially when you're talking about business and customers and there's money and it's like, I've got to kind of stay in this like lane of conformity with how everything's supposed to be done. And, um, You know, when you— it's just hard to really distinguish yourself in anywhere because you're just kind of like everybody else. And so I, I just say that to show that support and championing for you to continue exploring that. And I think, as you know, I'm a firm believer that, you know, if you really stay true to your mission, and you stay true to your values, that over time the people that you're meant to connect with will, will show up in your life. And just be very receptive to that, you know, be receptive to where— because if you go out there and you're, and you're very clear about your mission and what you're trying to accomplish, um, you'll get introductions. You'll have, oh, you should go, and somebody will say, you should— there's a community that probably not even probably can't even find anywhere on the internet or anywhere that has nothing but the people you're trying to help. But because you put your, your energy out there and your message, somebody caught wind of it and was able to kind of make that connection for you. So, um, you know, if you're consistent with that, over time it'll start to, to fall in place. It's a lot of uncertainty that comes with that, and that's where it can be uncomfortable, especially when you're kind of the weird person in the crowd that's doing everything wrong.

That's my whole life. The weird person in the crowd. Outliers are me. And we're all living in a place of uncertainty right now. And that's part of the problem in my industry is there that with this uncertainty in the world, there is a fallout with our industry that's a direct link. And so even more so, right? Even more than it would have been just otherwise if we come out of COVID into a world that we remembered.

Yeah, well, I think we're always living in, in a world filled with uncertainty. It's just sometimes it's, it's more apparent than other times.

But, um, and it never used to.

So what I heard— we had this thing that we say inside the Guardian Academy that I really love: play your game. Right? Play your game on your terms without compromise. And you can't win a game that you don't want to play, and you can't win your game if you're playing someone else's. And so what I'm hearing you say is that you have this assertion that you want to test, and so the best thing you can do is engage the field and test your assertion and get the data that you need to iterate and improve your assert— you know, your next assertion, your next iteration of, of your idea. And, um, you know, that, that then Now you have a process. Now you have a system that you can optimize and continue to more effectively and efficiently get closer to what you want. So, you know, the bottom line is go out and go out in the wild and test your assertions, engage the field, collect the data, assess the data, strategize based on the data, and then execute the next idea. All right, gang, we're going to need to wrap it up there. We all need to get on with our—

yeah.

Absolutely. Clay, Scott, Jake, very, very, very much appreciate you lending us some of your valuable time and expertise.

Sure.

Absolutely. My pleasure.

Great.

Thanks a lot, everyone.

Yeah.

Okay. See ya.