← This Can't Be That Hard
This Can't Be That Hard
316 - Why Your Website Isn’t Converting (and How to Fix It) with Caitlin Teixeira
00:36:39
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- [00:00]
Annemie Tonkin
If you scroll to the bottom of the this Can't Be that Hard website, way down in the footer you will see Made With Love by Katie Means Business. And Katie is my guest on the podcast today, which is belated. Like I should have had taken the opportunity right after the new website launched last year to have her on the show and talk through that process. But honestly, in some ways I didn't know when the website first launched how it was going to be received. I had a pretty good suspicion that it was going to go over well because I was really pleased with it. But at that time I didn't know if it was really going to make a meaningful difference in the way that people interacted with my website, chose to purchase or not purchase courses, all that sort of stuff. I am here a year later to say very enthusiastically that the website is working great. But beyond that, I wanted to have her on the show because she did such a great job over the course of our time working together of educating me on some of the ways that my old website wasn't helping people find their way to what it was that they needed or wanted from me, right? I was having a much higher bounce rate, drop off rate, whatever you want to call it, where people were kind of showing up and they didn't know how to find the things that they needed to find. And here I thought I had done a pretty good job of making my messaging clear, sort of describing who I was, making it all flow together. And it wasn't that I had done anything particularly wrong, it was just that I was missing some of those like special little elements and threads that took people from one place to another. And obviously I'm not doing a great job of explaining that right now. And I'm just going to warn you that this episode is not as, as scripted or as bullet pointed as some.
- [02:00]
Unknown
Of my episodes are.
- [02:01]
Annemie Tonkin
And that's because I think at the core of the matter, the concept of what does and doesn't work in a website is hard to explain. It's hard to put into words. You can have all the right pieces and if those pieces don't meld together properly, then your website isn't doing as much as it could do to get you hired. Katie did an amazing job of sort of pulling out of my muddled words the truths that drive her business and make her so good at what she does. And I believe that no matter if you've got a website that you feel like is really working for you, or if you are struggling to either book clients or get people to show up on your website in the first place. I know that she's going to have some great tips for you, and at the end of the show, she shares a freebie that she's got that will give you even more practical ways to improve your website. So be sure to stick around for that. And in the meantime, enjoy the show. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie Tonkin, and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems and that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how. Katie, welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. I say that, and I feel like you've spent so much time in my business that it seems completely wild that you haven't been on the show yet. But welcome. Better late than never. How are you?
- [03:47]
Katie Means
I'm good. Thanks for having me. I feel a little like I've never left.
- [03:52]
Annemie Tonkin
Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I'm sure that I'm going to say this when I record the. The intro after this, but Katie designed my website. My. My newest iteration of my website, which was a massive upgrade from any other previous iteration of the website that yours truly designed. And so if any of you have worked with a web designer before, take to do a full design. You know, this is like. It's like having a. A partner for a while. Like, you are so commute. You know, you're in so much communication. You are working together on all kinds of stuff that feels really personal. Um, obviously your website is sort of your window to the world. It's the first impression that a lot of people have of your business. And in some ways, you. You know, it's a big undertaking to. To do that. And when Katie and I worked together just under a year ago, it was my first time working with anybody. And I knew it first for this particular kind of work. And I knew that. I mean, I am so particular about things, things that I don't even know that I'm going to be particular about until I'm in the moment. And then I'm like, actually, this is what I want.
- [04:57]
Katie Means
That's funny. I don't remember that at all.
- [05:02]
Annemie Tonkin
That is a lie. She's a liar. No. And I feel like I warned you about that in the beginning, and you had such an amazing sense of humor and also level of patience and tolerance. For all of this that I needed to work through. And I think artists, you know, which is who we're talking to right now, can all relate. It's like this is. It is such a personal thing. And so anyway, that is a long winded introduction. All to say that I feel like this is a person, folks who knows me, knows my business as well as just about anybody else and did such an amazing job of communicating all of that. And I am excited to have this conversation because I don't know how that works. And I just want to sort of talk more about sort of the ins and outs of like taking everything about a person in their business and like somehow turning it into a, like, visual and written representation that somebody can, you know, digest in a relatively short period of time.
- [06:05]
Katie Means
Thank you for that intro. My goodness, it. I work primarily with service providers and in the face of personal brands and I think you're onto something and in very good company that your website feels so personal to you. And I hear that from everyone and it's as personal as my website feels to me. It's a direct reflection of you because you are your business. And so every color and every font choice and all the word choices and exactly how you're represented, it feels. Feels as personal as taking a selfie in a lot of ways. You know, when you take maybe five to 10 to 30 selfies before you find the one that you like. Like, because you're particular about the way you show up in the world. Not you specifically, but just it matters.
- [06:51]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah.
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Katie Means
To us. Those details matter to us. And. And so to take somebody and hear them and understand you as a person and what you do and how you want to show up in the world and then distill that and turn it around and translate it into website form when I can do, nail it and have somebody look at their website and be like, oh my God, that feels just like me. Yeah, that is so exciting because I know that that is not the only thing we want a website to do, but it makes it feel authentic. It makes you feel like home. It makes you feel like it's really your website. It's not just a website you hired someone to make, it's really your website. And that's an exciting part of what I get to do.
- [07:32]
Annemie Tonkin
Right. And I sort of liken it to. So I've had a bunch of websites over the years for iterations of my photography website, iterations of my education website. I've had some other, you know, websites here and there over time and again. This was the first time that I had ever worked with somebody else, not because I think I'm some great web designer, but just because I didn't even know where to start to, like, communicate with somebody else about what I was trying to convey. I follow very much, like a gut feel when it comes to that. And so I was just like, well, I can't put this on anybody else. And I wanted to back up and kind of start our conversation by telling everybody a little bit about how I found you. So I was not actively looking for a web redesign. I knew that my website was not doing everything it could be doing, but I. It was sort of on my, you know, on that long list of, yeah, I should get to this one of these days. And then I had signed up for a private podcast series that you were featured on, and you were talking about this sort of feature that you had put on your website for a short period of time that was like an interactive game.
- [08:45]
Katie Means
There was a digital scavenger hunt. Yeah.
- [08:47]
Annemie Tonkin
Okay. Yeah. So do you want to just give everybody sort of the. The quickie rundown of what that was and what the purpose of it was?
- [08:54]
Katie Means
Sure. It was very silly, and it was something I did mainly for fun and just for, like, some levity, but I obviously really like making things on the Internet. I'm also a 90s kid, and I remember a different Internet than we have right now.
- [09:11]
Annemie Tonkin
Right.
- [09:11]
Katie Means
And I. I think the mix of those two things gave me some nostalgia to just create something silly on the Internet. And what I came up with, in collaboration with a friend, her name is Rachel. She did a lot of the brainstorming with me. We came up with this digital scavenger hun. And how it worked was there was a post on my Instagram grid that was just a question mark, and if somebody clicked on it, the caption said, there's, like, nothing to see here, or something like that. But if you click Read more, it expanded, and it would be like, wait, hold on. What? You're still reading, right? Wow. All right, we could be friends. Here's. You know. And then it started off a narrative journey, and it told you where to go next, and you followed the prompts through this scavenger hunt, which was on my website. And the story arc was very Goonies esque. You were. You were a pod of ragtag kids on an adventure to find some pirate booty. And you had that treasure map and you. And it was silly. It had nothing to do with my business, but it was so much fun to write. And I put it Online. And if you solved it, you located the treasure, you landed in a place called Fort Nonsense, which was the hideout of California Captain Kate and her treasure. And you could put in your mailing address and I would literally send you a treasure box in the mail. And it was a tangible. It was fantastic. My friend Rachel, the one I mentioned earlier, she designed the treasure box with me. So it literally looked like a treasure box. It was awesome. We had a lot of fun with it. And so I used that just for my own giggles, but also because it was fascinating. And I didn't expect this when I set off to do it, but to watch how people interacted with it. And it taught me so much about experience, design on the Internet, like, and gamifying things and how much time people will spend, or not spend, or how they get fed up or how they problem solve. And there ended up being a ton of applicable knowledge I won't get into now. But that is the scavenger hunt in something a little larger than a nutshell.
- [11:23]
Annemie Tonkin
It's a big. It's like a coconut shell. Well, I. So, I mean, I'm sure all of you listening are like what I want to, you know, I want to play this game. Or maybe you aren't. But I was just immediately drawn in. I heard about this and I was like. And I went and I solved the scavenger hunt. Although I don't, I guess I didn't put in my address because I never got a treasure box. And now I'm kicking myself.
- [11:46]
Katie Means
But I will send you one. I still have a few extras that.
- [11:51]
Annemie Tonkin
Would make my day. So I was so just drawn in by this person whose job was to do, you know, a very sort of specific technical thing, who was having so much fun with it and who was focused on really this element of surprise and delight. Right? Like, how can we invite people into a bigger story, have like a human to human connection, even though we're here to sell something, whatever. And I was like, okay, she's not talking. This was, this had nothing to do with photography. It didn't have anything to do with like online education of photographers. But I was like, I think I'm going to call her and see what it would. Whether she'd be interested in helping me redo my website and fast forward. That impression was so accurate to the way that you helped me approach my website. And what we ended up with really was, I think a website that is both very functional, you know, gets people where they need to get and we'll talk a little bit more about that as well, but also has these little moments of, like, fun and like, ooh, that's cool. I've never seen that before that I'm really proud of. Which, you know, forgive me for saying that about my website, but, like, it is. It is something that I think. I don't think I've ever had a website that I was so pleased with. Just from like, the perspective of here. It was the first time that I didn't design it, and yet I feel like it is the most reflective of how I want to show up in the online world.
- [13:23]
Katie Means
Well, boost my ego, why don't you?
- [13:25]
Annemie Tonkin
I will. I'm here to shout it out. It's all true. So let's get a little bit into the bigger sort of umbrella story here, which is designing a website or thinking about your website from the perspective of, like, what are our goals and how do we achieve those goals with the website? And I'm going to let you kind of dive in.
- [13:46]
Katie Means
All right, thank you. I'm glad we prefaced this with talking about translating your energy into website form because that is such a big part of the process. Because, of course, you want your website to look and feel like you and we want it to be fun. Check that box, too. But at its core, we need a website to perform. We need it to accomplish certain goals, and that requires it being technically sound in certain ways and having a strategy that fulfills those goals. And I think the best websites kind of hit the whole trifecta there of being technically sound, of having the strategy, and of capturing the brand in a way that makes you feel the kind of joy that you're talking about when you look at your website, which still just gives me it really. I'm so tickled to hear that. Thank you.
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Annemie Tonkin
Oh, no, thank you.
- [14:36]
Katie Means
So when we started making your website in particular, there was a strategy. And that strategy would be different than the strategy for most of your listeners, probably because your listeners are largely service providers. Hi, Hello. Service providers. And you come from a service based background. But your website now, your business now is digital products for the most part, and content creation. And those are two different kinds of businesses. Whereas a content creator. So for your website, what was important was taking the large archives of content that you have and making them easily searchable by the right audiences. So that way somebody who wanted to get into all the content that you had wouldn't feel overwhelmed or lost. It would have, like, fun water slide vibes. Like, it would be. It would be something that was easy and fluid and entertaining to meander through rather than feeling like this, like an onslaught of content coming from all directions and we can't make sense of it. Whereas a service provider, the goals are around building trust and safety and clarity and demonstrating your value. So that way folks are willing to hire you for one on one services. They're willing to gamble their money on someone they don't know.
- [15:54]
Annemie Tonkin
Right.
- [15:55]
Katie Means
And say this feels like a safe enough bet for me to swipe my credit card and I probably won't get burned. That's the strategy there. Whereas the strategy for like a nonprofit per se, a nonprofit would be more focused on activating volunteers and engaging donors. Right. Completely different goals. And so step one, we kind of need to know what business you are and stemming from there is going to give you better results when it comes to your website as opposed to this is something we talked about a little bit right before we pressed record that I see a lot of folks cherry pick things from other people's websites that look really cool or are just exciting and neat or good ideas. I've done it too, so I totally get it.
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Annemie Tonkin
Yeah. Yeah.
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Katie Means
But it ends up becoming this sort of Frankenstein website where the flow doesn't work. You get all these really cool pieces together and then you stack them up and you're like, why isn't this working the way that I need it to work? And that golden thread that holds it all together just isn't there. So we have the kind of business that you are is relevant. Right. But also where you're at in your business and the kind of problems your business has. So on Anime's homepage, one of the sort of top options there is, it asks you to like wave your. If you wave your magic wand, like what do you want more of in your business? And there's three kind of doors to choose from and you sort of open the door that makes the most sense for your business and you head in the direction of that solution. And it's similar when I'm working on a website strategy as well. Like if your prop main problem in your business is I need more clients, we're going to focus on the tried and true best practices that help your website convert visitors into clients. And that is things like making sure you have clear messaging above the fold, making sure your call to action buttons are really obvious and lead exactly where they need to lead. Whereas if your business goals, if you're a little bit more established and you have a nice influx of clients, your business goal might be optimizing your client load. It might be okay. I Don't need more clients. I need better clients. I need the kind of clients that align more closely with what I'm trying to do and pay better. I'm trying to optimize the client load. They're not just get more and more clients, but better, more aligned clients. And in that situation, we're focusing on removing credibility blockers and adding the credibility boosters that clients are looking for to say, oh heck yeah, this person. Not only do I like trust them and they get me and all that, but they really know their stuff and they can deliver this at a level that is above and beyond a different provider.
- [18:44]
Annemie Tonkin
Hang on guys, I have a quick message for you.
- [18:48]
Unknown
Let's talk marketing for a minute. If you need more clients or better clients, but you struggle with what to.
- [18:54]
Annemie Tonkin
Say, where to show up, or whether.
- [18:56]
Unknown
Anything you're doing is actually working, I want you to come try out the Consistency Club. This isn't another course to watch. It's not another workbook to fill out. At its core, the Consistency Club is like having a marketing manager in your back pocket. Each month my marketing director, Dana and I create a set of email and social media templates designed specifically for photographers to help you create and nurture your clients and leads consistently without spending hours staring at a blank screen. And we've just added some powerful new features. New inside the Consistency Club we have a library of bite sized marketing training videos covering everything from creating an opt in to making a reel to writing a welcome sequence. We also have a built in data tracking system so you can very quickly and easily see what's working and what's not working in your marketing. And finally, specifically for our flodesk users out there, we've just rolled out one click email templates that you can open and send from right inside your account. What we've created with the Consistency Club is simple, it's strategic and it starts at just $20 a month. Honestly, it's the best marketing money you can spend as a photographer. Head to thiscan't bethard.comclub and join us today.
- [20:17]
Annemie Tonkin
Right, like to the. To the extent. Okay, so just to sort of break that down in photography speak, so you get to a point where you're getting plenty of inquiries, But a solid 50 to 60% of those people are turning you down and saying oh, this is above budget or this is, you know, this is more than we were prepared to spend. And you start to think to yourself, what is it about my website? Or my first impression, the impression that they're getting when they sign up for a phone call with me or when they reach out in my contact form, what is it that's not telling them that this is going to be around that expensive? Like, there are ways to signal that information beyond just saying, here are my prices or here are my starting prices. There's like all the other sort of subtext that cues someone's brain to prep them or not prep them for that investment. So exactly. Is that what you mean? Yeah.
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Katie Means
By the time that someone arrives to a sales call with you, I want them to already know what is special about. Like, they should already be sold. Pretty much. Like, I want warm leads showing up here. I want leads who are already like, I'm pretty into this. I just need confirmation that I vibe with this person. They don't actually have core questions about how you do what you do or what it costs or anything like that. Let's get all that out of the way. Which I like this as a win for the introverts out there who find it awkward to pitch themselves on calls. Like, let's not pitch ourselves on calls, let's pre pitch ourselves. So when people show up, they show up kind of like friends already. They show up with the kind of warm energy of already having established some kind of rapport or having that sort of foundational information where you don't even need to feel like a salesman about it. You don't have to do the salesy thing you have. I mean, it's still a sales conversation. Sure, sure. But yeah, we've already established the value in your process and generally how much it costs. And you just got to seal the deal.
- [22:17]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah. To go back to our meta conversation, I felt like after hearing you on that podcast and then going and playing your game and reading through your website, we had a sales call. I'm sure. But I, you know, and I do tend to be a pretty fast decision maker or like a. I'm sold. Except that I want to make sure that you're going to show up on the call that we schedule, because I don't want to deal with a service provider who's then going to, like, flake on me all the time and that, you know, there's no, like big red flags that I somehow miss. So by the time that I actually got on that call with you and everything, you know, matched up the way that I was anticipating it was just like, great, send me a contract. Where do I sign?
- [22:59]
Katie Means
So if you don't mind, I'd be curious to run this as like a little demonstration.
- [23:05]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah.
- [23:05]
Katie Means
Perhaps of credibility blockers credibility boosters. Right. There were some things that you were looking for that would have signaled to you. Ooh. And there were some things that. That you saw or needed to see that had you thumbs up me. Right. And so what are some of the things that you were guarding against? The one that you named was like, is she going to show up to this call on time? Because I don't want to work with somebody who's, who's flaky or late or, you know, that's, that's important.
- [23:32]
Annemie Tonkin
Right.
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Katie Means
And you've already named a great many things that were wonderful about me. Thank you so much. But I'm. I'd be curious to show people what, as a consumer, because we need to kind of take ourselves out of our own brain and put it. Put our consumer hats on. When someone else is looking at your website and they're evaluating you, what are they looking for? And I'd be curious what you remember about that.
- [23:57]
Annemie Tonkin
You know, sometimes. And I'm just gonna, like, fully put my consumer hat on and not try and teach here, but just talk about my experience. And this is with you and with other service providers that I'm out there trying to hire to do everything from, you know, like, oh, I need my windows washed or whatever to work in my business. And everything else is that you're looking for someone who meets a certain threshold of trust. Right. So it looks like they're established. It looks like they've got some good reviews, that whatever they know what they're doing. And then it. Depending on what it is that they. You're hiring them to do and how expensive that is, honestly, you start to want to know what makes them tick, if they're. Especially if we're talking about not so much like a company with a bunch of employees, but a single service provider. So it's like, are. Is this someone that I'm really going to want to invite into my home? Is this someone who's. And again, it depends on what we're hiring someone for.
- [24:57]
Katie Means
But do they pass the vibe check?
- [24:58]
Annemie Tonkin
Do they pass the vibe check? Like, am I going to regret having them, but having to sit and talk to them for an hour and a half or having them play with my kids or whatever. So I think that from a photographer's perspective, we are having to jump so many hurdles before someone even bothers to reach out. And some of them are hurdles that, like, go both ways. That vibe check thing, I am always, you know, it's like when you're in a job interview, you're interviewing Them too, like, oh yeah, do they want to hire you, but do you want to work for them? And so when it comes to, you know, I, I don't think that we need to share our life story. I don't think that that's particularly effective from a sales perspective. But I do think that the big, like, it's great to hit on some of the important things, both verbally and non verbally. And I from. To go back to your website, I remember one of the things that you focus on in your messaging a fair amount is accessibility. Even though in the end I feel like we went around and around a lot because my colors are probably the not, not the most accessible when it comes to like text on the page. So we had to do some, some like judging around that. But that was really, it was really helpful to me because that is important to me. Accessibility is important to me. So I learned a lot of things from you. But I knew that I was going to be in good hands with someone who was going to help me prioritize that as we went through the web design process. Because as much as I'm like philosophically on board with it, it's not something that I personally know a lot about.
- [26:28]
Katie Means
That makes a lot of sense. You know, when you get like a really great dress or something like some sort of fabulous outfit, but you kind of need like the right undergarments to make it work. Right. Like, I want to make sure you've got like the right undies under the dress. I want this to not just look great on the front, but, but then it's inaccessible or the SEO isn't there or the messaging is weak or, you know, it looks like an art project, but it really sacrifices user experience. Experience. Like we need the, all the pieces of this project puzzle to come together in a way that sings from all these angles for all these different kinds of people, for yourself, for your business goals, for your own identity, for all of it, the whole thing. And when I think about going back to credibility builders and credibility blockers and I think of it like stacking points like, so if I was going to hire someone, or rather, how about this? I can picture meeting somebody out in the world with mismatched socks on and thinking, oh, well, you know, he looks like cute and quirky.
- [27:34]
Annemie Tonkin
Quirky, right.
- [27:35]
Katie Means
I can also picture somebody with mismatched socks on that I meet out in the world and I go, oh, somebody's having a day.
- [27:43]
Annemie Tonkin
Right?
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Katie Means
And what would cause me to differentiate there is the sum total of these little indicators. It's not the fact that he's got mismatched socks on. Is. It's like, is their hair also messy? Do they seem frazzled? Like, you know, do they have unkempt nails? I don't know. Like, is. Is their tie askew? Is they. Are they missing shoes? I don't. Like, there's just. So there's a. It's a sum total of tiny, tiny, tiny things. And so it's okay if your website doesn't check every single box, but we're trying to limit those credibility blockers. Right. And stack as many of the credibility boosters as we can. And the more we stack these and lower these, even if you missed one, right, like, accessibility was a harder one on your website. That didn't mean the Internet police are going to come for you and your business is going to blow up. Like, you're still very, extremely credible and doing wonderfully. So it's okay. So what can you do? Like, what. You know, how. Like, let's just stack as much as we can rather than feeling like it's an all or nothing. Or feeling. Yeah, I guess just feeling like it's an all or nothing.
- [28:54]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah. But I. I love what you're saying about all these tiny signals. We'll call them signals that we all give off at all times in our lives. And when it comes to a website, I think what was really amazing to me working and anybody who has worked with a designer, it's not unlike the difference I'm sure that our clients feel between, like, oh, I've never hired a professional photographer because I have a, you know, mirrorless camera or something. I have a good camera, so I'm pretty sure I can take great pictures. And then they hire a professional and.
- [29:29]
Katie Means
They'Re like, whoa.
- [29:31]
Annemie Tonkin
Ah, I see there's a difference here. Don't really know how to put my finger on it, but, you know, it is ironic, therefore, even though I've seen that play out a thousand times and been like, yep, in my own experience being like, I don't know, I think I've done a pretty good job here. And it's just going to be more work than it's worth, what I feel like has happened. And, you know, I have people all the time asking, like, how do I build credibility in my sales process? And all this other stuff. And it's like, I can say, well, share testimonials or make sure that you're hitting on various, like, elements of your expertise, but you can check all of those boxes technically, and if they don't sort of work together to paint the same cohesive picture. It would be like taking a paragraph of Faulkner and a paragraph from, like, you know, Jane Austen and a paragraph from something else and trying to put those things together and say, oh, here's my new novel. And it doesn't make any sense. Like, all. All of those individual parts work fine, but they don't speak to the same.
- [30:41]
Katie Means
Message when every chapter's got a different vibe. Yeah, that would be a not good signal. That would be a weird signal.
- [30:48]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah. So I feel like, even though, I mean, again, like, with the accessibility piece, it was like, okay, I want it to look a particular way, but it's also important for me that it is accessible. And we had to, like, finagle and finesse a lot to get it to a place where it was like, it checked both boxes well enough. And I really appreciated the fact that if I had tried to do that on my own, one or the other would have been completely sacrificed. And so anyway, that's just like, one small example of how someone who is an expert and knows what they're doing. And honestly, it's also an objectivity thing. Like, when you're trying to do your own, you're so in the weeds, you're not looking at the bigger picture. And so I know in photography with websites, a lot of times you have this, like, I want my website to read like an art gallery, right? I want somebody to come in and just be wooed by my art. And we all. Hopefully anybody listening to this podcast knows that's not. That is not enough to get you hired 99% of the time. And so, you know, finding that balance between having a website that you're really pleased with, the sort of artistic side and the visual vibe of your website, but also finding a way to make that take people on a sales journey that leads them to booking you, that.
- [32:14]
Katie Means
Was something I appreciated about working with you as a visual person. You're an artist in your own right. And so working together felt so much more like a collaboration where you had specific ideas of what you wanted to look like, and you had a vision and you had things that you were clear that appealed to you or didn't appeal to you. And I could kind of trust. I could. I could guide that and I could. I could take that and I could mold it, or I could take your direction and run with it, But I could also just kind of trust that you had the vision on that side, whereas I had the understanding of how users actually interact with websites and what works from that Perspective so we could churn out an art project that still had the foundation that it needed to accomplish the goals that you have. And when both of those pieces of the puzzle come together, when both sides of the coin match, like Chef's kiss, I feel like those are the websites that are like, not only is it gorgeous, but like, it's delivering. This needs to deliver. You don't want to spend a whole bunch of money on a website and then be like, yay, I have a pretty website. Yeah, Like, I want you to feel like you have a pretty website, but I also want to see that you're bouncing rate goes down. I also want to see that you're getting more bookings. I also want to see that when people are showing up to calls with you that they already know all the things that they need to know. So those feel like easy conversations for you. I want you to have a website that makes you feel like a million bucks so you have the confidence to show up as the expert that you are, that you can stand in ownership of how freaking fabulous your work is. And it's so much easier to show up from that place. And when you're wearing that outfit that makes you feel like a million bucks, it's a little easier to pull that confidence out and like, own it, work it, done.
- [34:05]
Annemie Tonkin
Yeah, absolutely. Mic drop. Like, that is so true. If you are, if you feel like your best foot is forward in the world, it changes the way that you show up when you are having those in person conversations or those, you know, those interactions. So I love that so much. I, you know, I feel like this episode may not have been as like, practical, tactical, but I feel like that in many ways is. It's helpful. It's not just helpful. It's super important to understand that it's not just the parts. It really is the sum of the parts and the way that the parts come together and that, yeah, you really opened my eyes to that. So I appreciate you sharing and hopefully opening some other eyes to that out there in the world.
- [34:50]
Katie Means
Thank you so much.
- [34:52]
Annemie Tonkin
Tell everyone where they can find you and go stock your website. And I believe you've got a freebie for us too.
- [34:59]
Katie Means
Yes, please come stock my website. Please come say hello on Instagram at Katymeans Business. I love chatting with people in the DMs, so feel free to pop a little hello in there and say, hey, listen to the episode and let me know what you think about it. It is not weird. I literally love it when I see messages to respond. I do have a freebie. So if you came here for tactical practical, I won't leave you hanging. I have my own mini podcast series. It is called from service provider to Trusted Expert and it will give you seven website wins to help you build authority and book clients through your website. Whether you are starting fresh like you don't even have a website or you are refining a website you already have, this is going to help position you as a go to choice in your field world. Love that. Thank you. You can find that at katiemeansbusiness.com forward/expert.
- [35:48]
Annemie Tonkin
And just to be clear, it's C A I T I E. There are many spellings of Katie out.
- [35:54]
Katie Means
There are so many.
- [35:59]
Annemie Tonkin
Yes. As I said, we will put that in the show notes but katiemeansbusiness.com say it one more time.
- [36:04]
Katie Means
Expert, Expert.
- [36:05]
Annemie Tonkin
And that's easy. All right, well, thank you so much, Katie. I will. I will talk to you soon.
- [36:10]
Katie Means
Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
- [36:13]
Annemie Tonkin
That's it for this week's episode of this can't be that hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. If you like the show, be sure to check out thiscan'tbethard.com to explore all the resources we have for photographers. And of course, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review of the show on itunes or Spotify. As always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.