Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Craig,

I certainly understand, as I said in my original question, that I`m not a designer.  I make no claims what-so-ever.  And I`m not taking these comments personally.  But, as you`ve read some of my other posts on this forum, when I answer someone who has a question, my answers are to the point, well though-out, and address the question in a direct manner that has strong content and solves a problem.  If I can`t contribute a solid, useable, meaningful resolution, I simply won`t post.  My reaction to Mike was it appeared that his contribution was nothing other than an excuse to post a response without having spent any time analyzing the problem.  Just taking up space. 

Does that mean I`m taking these comments personally?  I don`t think so.  As I mentioned previously, I thought you had some good points as does Dean.  The difference is there wasn`t just some broad statement that seemed to indicate a lack of critical analysis; but instead in the posts by yourself and Dean there was analysis, critique, suggested resolution.  Which makes it meaningful rather than just off the cuff. 

And I certainly don`t take them as an attack on my credibility.  I`m quite confident with my place in the world.  I know what I do well which is training salespeople and consulting with companies on their sales and management problems.  I also know what I don`t do well, one of which is playing web design guru.  Which is the reason for my original question.

I mentioned above that currently I`m getting 15-20 people new opt-ins a day.  I`m not happy with that number.  On the other hand, I lose very, very few subscribers.  I`m happy with that number.  But I`m capable of discerning that the former is partly a result of my lack of design ability, while the latter is a result of what I do well--giving good, solid, worthwhile, meaningful sales and sales training content, help and advice.

 

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Paul McCord Author, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals http://www.powerreferralselling.com

Paul as I said before, I think you could have looked over your website closer than you did before making a post.

For example look at your seminar page, then look at your coaching page. The first thing I noticed was that on the seminar page all the bullets are right up to the edge, and yet the coaching page actually has indentions of bullets. It seems silly, and I am not sure what you are really looking for. I still think my advice stands on its own. Hire a professional, because if you are too busy to notice things like I just pointed out, no ones advice is going to help you here.

Lets say you go back and change the bullets too all be indented, or as someone else earlier pointed out make them real bullets, you still have the problem of how it looks overall. I am sorry I was not as detail oriented as the other posters for you, but didn`t see the point, and I hope you get the help you need, and have much success in your website ventures.

Mike

Paul:

I did review your website.  I did not read your entire post or anyone else`s responses.  I wanted a fresh view.  You caught me at a perfect time.  Recently, I performed the strength finders profile by Marcus Buckingham, author of First Break All the Rules.  I completed a character profile flag page and use Franklin Covey software.  I trained myself to be a day trader last year and use interactive coaching sessions online.  All of these promise results.

Your website is information and service driven.  You describe who you are, what you have to offer, what can be expected during coaching sessions.  It is a great website!  Your face as the signature gave me instant connection to you, the person offering to help me improve.  The only part I had difficulty with: the size and style of font made it hard to concentrate and read.  I suggest that you bullet point and outline at the top of the page, then have the points link downthe page.  The menu is too small, the text is too big.  Fix this!  You have too much to offer to have people turn away from your website due to poor layout and planning.  Consider adding audio with Microsoft Live office.  This will give your clients connection with your voice as well.

I hope this is the advice you are looking for,

Katherine

Y`know, that`s a really good idea, the audio! Why not have an audio clip of you, reading your introduction...or preface...the "Why this book should help you." There`s definitely a connection between people and images, and another type (but just as profound) a connection hearing the author`s voice.

It`s an "okay" idea. I`m sure there are some who will listen to the audio but adding on one more feature isn`t going to do him much good at this point. He`s obviously demonstrated that he`s getting traffic to the site. But the layout, nav, and presentation is so poor that it hampers some of the conversion.

I`m not saying audio isn`t recommended but last on the priorities right now

There are almost 2000 words on the front page. That`s an upsetting number.

How many words are in your book? Craig has given you some excellent advice; I recommend listening. If the average visitor is willing to pay attention for 4 seconds, they have to read 500 words per second in order to digest the front page.

You should not dabble in web design. Sales is your area of expertise. Hire a web designer, copywriter, and so forth. You really need to scrap the current site ... after printing it first ... and get professional advice.

The existing site layout and structure in my opinion is just fine. I think many of you would be surprised at how well this site could perform with a few `minor` modifications.

It has been my experience that a simple, basic site outperforms the pretty and fancy stuff sites hands down. Most webmasters haven`t a clue to designing websites that sell and most people make the mistake of relying on their webmaster to design them a functional site that actually works (sells the product or service).

I`m currently writing a book about this very topic and with the available tools widely available on the Internet, most people would probably do well to design their own site than pay a webmaster (now there is always an exception to this rule of course, but for most people, they`d fair pretty well).

Paul,

I`d keep your picture at the top where you have it now. I`d get rid of the opt-in box at the top right, not enough space to `sell` the newsletter. Even though the newsletter is `FREE` you still need to sell people on the idea as to why they need it. That`s why I`d remove it from the top and put it elsewhere (we`ll discuss that in a moment).

At the extreme top where you have Power Selling.....I`d probably replace that with the title of the book:

Creating a Million Dollar
a Year Sales Income

Sales Success Through Client Referrals

In the white space below, I`d suggest working on that headline...(most editors and publishers don`t know how to market -- which is why the vast majority of books in the bookstores don`t sell well). So the headline & marketing of the book is something you`ll have to work on and test on your own.

In the body of your initial post, you wrote the following sentence:

"is accurate in the sense that these are the techniques and strategies these mega-producers use to create their million dollar a year incomes"

Modify that statement and test as a headline:

Get Instant Access to Techniques and Strategies That Mega Sales Producers Use to Create Their Yearly Million Dollar Incomes...

YOURS FREE: Sales Strategies and Techniques From Top Sales Professionals Earning Million Dollar Incomes...

I don`t know, just keep on testing...that`s the name of this game. No one is right the first time and that`s why we test.

I wouldn`t worry to much about a `hyped-up` headline, these people are in sales and every salesperson wants to be top in their respective field, so I`d tell them...the 2 headlines above aren`t that `hyped-up` because we`re not telling them that they`ll earn millions, rather we`re sharing with them strategies used by other million dollar income producers.

Plus....you have lots of `proof` to back-up your claims so I wouldn`t be to concerned about hyping up the jargon.

But again...you`ll never know for sure without testing it. A hyped-up headline may work very well for this audience, and it may not...but there is one sure way to find out and that is to test it

A lot of the content you have needs to be `aligned to the left` and not centered. The way it is now makes it difficult for a reader to scan and read. You don`t want any unecessary speedbumps that may cause your readers to veer off course (clicking away).

If your overall goal is to sell your book, I`d make the focus of the site to collect as many email addresses as I possibly can. Once you collect those email addresses, you can then send them a series of emails whereby you establish yourself as `their expert` by providing strategies and tips from the book and in each series of emails that go out to them, you`d obviously try and upsell the book (soft sales approach).

Perhaps one day you host a teleseminar where subscribers to your mailing list can listen in on an interview or perhaps you host a questions and answers type forum on the call and at the end, you push the sale of the book...with some type of audio bonus offer (mp3 that they can download and this could be of a interview or whatever)....maybe interview one of the top sales people mentioned in your book...

The great thing about the audio is that once it`s done, you can archive it and when new members join your list, they`ll be able to receive them and now your sales process is automated and working for you 24-7.

So sell the benefits of why they should join your mailing list...this is off the top of my head using content from your site:

YOURS FREE: Sales Strategies and Techniques From Top Sales Professionals Earning Million Dollar Incomes...

Make 2007 Your Breakout Year---Right NOW, because if you don’t do it now, next year will be just another disappointing year

You Will Learn How To (no one wants to "learn" anything so change this to)

Millionaire Sales Professionals Reveals How to:

*  Turn Your Clients into Your Personal Sales Force

*  Create Relationship with Clients that Makes Them Want to Give Referrals

*  Guarantee You Get Quality Referrals from Each Client--
Even if They Think They Don’t Have Referrals to Give You

*  Avoid the Two Biggest Sales Mistakes that Cost You Referrals

*  How to Contact a Referred Prospect for Greatest Success

*  How to Work a Networking Event to Maximize Your Time and
Quickly Develop a Relationship with True Prospects

*  How to Create Partnerships with Other Salespeople and Companies to Put Your Sales and Reputation on the Fast-track

*  How Not to Have to Sell Price

Join Our Mailing List Right Now and get instant access to the most in-depth, innovative, career changing techniques and strategies on referral selling, prospecting, client relationships and sales training on the market.

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Craig provided you with some excellent advice and I hope you take into consideration the things he mentioned in his posts. I would encourage you to test everything.

I think you`re on the right track and think you did an excellent job of putting this together on your own. I personally know people who have sites that many would consider crappy and amateurish, and yet, those sites are producing a million dollars a year in revenue (from the site alone)...and you couldn`t pay those people to change anything on those sites because they`re scared it`ll mess up their sales/conversion rates...so don`t give much thought to what most people say about design...however, aligning text properly and creating a readable site is important though.

Someone mentioned the fact you had 1,000 plus words on your homepage...don`t give much thought to that either...unless you tested it of course. Without testing it, no one can say for certain that it`s bad.

I have a site whereby I sell a $3,000 product right off the homepage and I have 32,000 words on that page....no kidding  AND I sell several of them per month.

There`s a big debate about long copy versus short copy...my answer? Test it and see what works for your audience.

Hope this helps
Cartess

-------------------------

Website Startup Coach: Step-by-Step Coaching to Help You Build a Profitable Business Online!

Not really the best advice in the world.

I think many of would be surprised as to how many mistakes a do-it yourselfer can and will make.

While there are many available tools and templates available to design a site, many of us don`t see the opportunity costs involved in doing it on your own. I`m not just referring to something self serving as my own profession- website design, but anything for that matter.

Most small businesses get into the habit of seeing how much money they can save by doing everything on their own but fail to realize what the economic trade off and costs are. It`s a funny paradox- in an effort to save money, SBOs will actually costs themselves money.

If everything was simple, the OP and others would have had no need to get a site critique to begin with. As you say, if it`s so simple he would have gotten it down pat on the first turn :)

After browsing through your portfolio, I`m even more convinced that his existing layout and structure will totally outperform anything you put together for him. Like I mentioned earlier, most so-called web designers haven`t a clue about marketing and making their clients websites sell.

The web designer is more into making a fancy layout and putting pretty colors and graphics together. When clients hire webmasters, they do it with the intention to hopefully make money. But most are totally disappointed after they`ve spent thousands of dollars on a website and can`t even get the site to convert prospects into paying customers.

In order for a webmaster to accurately design profitable websites, they need to have some idea of marketing/advertising, and the more experience the better. And the reason I say its better for some people to design their own website is because the client knows their product and customers better than any webmaster. And oftentimes, when the client puts their own site together, they`ll typically communicate the right copy on the site which tends to convert at a much better rate than the designer.

Most business owners rely on the webmaster and look at them as the expert but unfortunately, this is where most designers drop the ball. Instead of providing their client with the information they really need to know, they simply put together a fancy website and leave the business owner hanging. Unfortunately, the web designer doesn`t know any better and really is not in a position to help their client because when it`s all said and done, they don`t have the marketing knowledge needed to assist and it shows in the type of websites they build.

Did I say `everybody` should design their own websites? No I didn`t. There are many ocassions when it is necessary to pay a professional to do it. But in many cases, a lot of webmasters haven`t the slightest idea as to knowing how to sell anything online, much less building a site.

In my opinion, if a web designer hasn`t sold at least $100,000 worth of products/services online with a website they designed, then they shouldn`t be building web sites for anyone (and I`m not talking about selling web design services).

I can point you to several websites I own that does over $200K per year and by your standards you`d say it sucked and that it`s not making any money. But without understanding the marketing/selling process, you`d make an inaccurate assumption.

I had a client who I built a website for that was earning over $75,000 per month in online sales...his sister came to town and told him how `unprofessional` the website was and that it didn`t give them the `corporate image` she felt they needed...They hired someone else to redesign the site and almost immediately, sales dropped from $75K per month to about $18,000 per month.

They tweaked and tweaked that site and the highest they got to was $25,000/monthly...4 months later they decided to switch back to the original layout I created for them...did I create that perfect layout in `one month`? No I didn`t....it took us about 6 months to finally come up with the layout and the proper message on that site to make it work....most web designers don`t know how to test...in fact, most don`t even bother to test...nor educate their clients on the idea of testing...thats why I think its worse in some cases for people to rely on their designers....their designer don`t have a clue.

12 months at $75K/monthly comes out too: $900,000

12 months at $25K/monthly comes out too: $300,000

Which would you rather have? Same amount of money was spent on advertising/marketing, but the latter site didn`t convert....why? Because the designer didn`t have a clue. And to his benefit, when he was able to get up to $25K, it had a lot to do with the fact he used content from the old layout that we had already proved to work after 6 months of testing.

Please don`t take offense to my post as it was not intended to offend, but to merely to use as an example. Once he cleans up some of the basic stuff on his site, which is something he can clearly do on his own, I believe it will outperform most web designers.

He came here to get a critique so he can go back and make changes to his website based on feedback provided here. And if I`m not mistaking, that is the purpose of a critique...and instead, he got lots of advice from people telling him to hire a professional.

From what he has online now, he has the basic understanding on building a simple website and making changes to it as needed...and that in my opinion will get him a lot further along than what most web designers claim to do.

For what he is trying to accomplish...he doesn`t need a professional web designer. He has everything he needs. If anything...the only professional he`d need would be a copywriter....NOT a web designer at this point. And the copy is probably something he could put together on his own....heck, he`s signing up 15+ people per day already, with some fine tuning, he could be up to 30 per day and eventually to a point where he`s signing up over 100-200 people per day.

He doesn`t need a professional web designer, he`s got that part covered...all he needs to work on now is properly laying out the content, testing some headlines and body copy, and that`s pretty much it. He doesn`t need  a professional designer for that.

In fact, I`d love to see what a professional designer would put together for him. And to be fair...I could totally be wrong. Why? Because without testing, no one really knows for sure...but from my own personal experiences, and from that of clients, I can say with certainty that simplicity outperforms fancy in most cases (when it comes to sales/conversions).

Cartess

-------------------------

Website Startup Coach: Step-by-Step Coaching to Help You Build a Profitable Business Online!

Well now hang on a minute. :-D Cartess is one of the best marketing guys I`ve seen so far on SuN, not that there aren`t a number, but his advice is immediate, direct, and explicit. And he provides examples. That`s what I mean by best.

But think about that word "best." Then the context I just used. Does that mean Cartess is the ONLY marketing guy on SuN? Are his methods the ONLY possible way to sell anything? Of course not!

Having looked over example sites of his, I see a "similarity" to the push-push-push hype of a get-rich-quick scheme. But only a similarity. There are very clear and important differences in the actual writing, the actual formatting, and the actual content! It`s those differences that matter---they`re an art.

To that point, I don`t think people should "casually" sit down to design their own Web site. Yes, I take the point that when someone has a direct and personal passion, the site "can" take on a tremendous energy. Look at Startup Nation!

But although people may have a passion for singing, I`ve heard some absolutely horrendous voices! Anyone can look at that show where people want to be a star, and the auditions are the show. Many people believe they`re fantastic, but need a reality check.

So too, people can be excited about their product. They may be super experts in that product as well. It doesn`t at all mean they know how to sell the product! Cartess himself refers to how there may be some fantastic editors in the publishing industry, but few of them know how to market a book.

This is more than just a critique about a Web site. Paul`s site is walking the line between a legitimate methodology in gathering referrals, improving the business, selling, and so forth. As it is, the site "looks" the wrong way. Not horribly and fatally wrong...just "leaning" over toward the "in-your-face" sites people don`t like.

There are reasons cliches have become such. People sometimes get a real benefit when an author uses a cliche. In the same way, there IS a useful purpose for telemarketing, although it`s been abused.

The trick is to gain from the historic advantage of what has worked, and what`s become somewhat cliched. Do it differently, but along the same lines.

One thing I`ve learned in all my philosophicizing is that no matter WHAT someone creates, it never can be dismissed out of hand. ANY creation, derivative or unique is a creation, after all. It took work, imagination, and time. There`s ALWAYS something that can be held and brought forward in someone`s creation. The issue is to find those things, highlight them, separate them from what could be excluded.