Episode 62 - Building Online Success: Web Design Expertise with Katlyn Slocum
Episode #62 | Katlyn Slocum | Web Design Expertise
In this engaging episode of "The Curious Builder," host Mark Williams and web design expert Katlyn Slocum dive into the intricacies of effectively combining digital marketing strategies and web design tailored for the construction industry. They cover a range of topics from the importance of email marketing and geotargeting to the nuances of SEO and the impact of website aesthetics on consumer behavior. Katlyn also shares her personal journey in the niche market of construction web design, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs along the way. Tune in to get valuable insights on leveraging digital tools to enhance your business's online presence!
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About Katlyn Slocum
Katlyn Slocum comes from a family of business owners in the trades. She got to see first hand the hard work, dedication, and the many elements involved in running those business. Shortly after getting her Business degree in 2015, she started her web design business, offering design and SEO services to blue-collar businesses like the ones in her own family.
Since her business began 5 years ago, Katlyn has harnessed her education, experience, and partnerships to fuel the growth of her bespoke website agency, having helped dozens of businesses get tangible results through website strategy.
She has been featured on the Brad Leavitt podcast, Conscious Builder podcast with Casey Grey, Contractor Cents with Ruth King, Home Builder Digital Marketing podcast, Art of Construction podcast, Bridging the Gap podcast, and Profit Toolbelt podcast.
Today, she helps custom home builders and remodelers attract dream clients, book more projects, and meet their business goals through their websites.
Katlyn lives in Southeastern Ohio with her husband, Brandon, and two toddler sons. They enjoy eating at new local restaurants, playing card games, and enjoying the peaceful landscape of the region.
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Mark D. Williams:
On today's podcast, we have Katlyn Slocum is really neat because she focuses only on construction industry websites. I really appreciate how she niches down and really focuses on you know that demographic and I love how that her that her passion her fuel is really driven by the clients that she serves. She has a ton of information. So if you're looking to rebrand or refresh your website, or if you just want good trips and how to drive or sorry, if you're looking for good tips on how to drive more conversions to your website, or to get more traffic, we're gonna dive into all the nitty gritty on this episode. So without further ado, let's talk to Kaitlyn. Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Caitlin Slocum from Caitlin Slocum design. Thanks for coming on. Caitlin. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:43
thank you, Mark. Where,
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:45
where in the world are you calling in from today?
Speaker 1 0:47
A little town called Williamsburg, Ohio. My family just relocated here from Washington State last July. So we've been here almost a year. That's
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:57
right. I think actually, you had reached out to me I had I think the podcast is coming up now. Almost two years. And you'd reached out to me, I want to say like six months into it. And then you know, we had some scheduling stuff. But I remember specifically because I have some friends and family in Washington. And it wasn't until right now that you mentioned you're in Ohio. It's like oh, yeah, move that.
Speaker 1 1:16
I had just moved. I think when I reached out to you, yeah, I was living. My whole family was living in our friend's like one room and our friend's house. I was sitting there at my desk emailing you. Yeah. So it's it's been a good transition. Now. We're super happy here. Excellent.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:31
Excellent. Well, for those that aren't familiar with you, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your company, and we'll kind of dive into that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:39
so for those who don't know me again, my name is Caitlin Slocum and I am a web designer specifically for Holden builders, actually, how it started was more just overall trades and construction. I kind of niched into that industry, because all of my relatives, owns their own businesses in the trades. My grandpa own, opened his mechanic shop, like the year I was born, and he just closed it. So I'm retired. And so he had that for 30 years. My dad and my other grandpa were an H back, I worked for my stepdad who still owns a roofing company in Minnesota, southern Minnesota, Rochester area. So it's just like a familiar space. And then kind of transitioned into homebuilders because I liked the the design and the aesthetic that goes into building custom homes. But yeah, but I think this is my sixth year of business. And it's just kind of like slowly grown over time. And I've really focused Yeah, just like finding that sweet spot and the type of people that I serve and the niche that I'm in and it's been, I don't know, it's been helpful to kind of hone in on an area because I really get to know the type of businesses that I'm working with what their unique problems or challenges are in it has helped me, like kind of become an expert in the things that they're needing to help propel their businesses forward. So it's been fun.
Mark D. Williams<br> 3:09
You definitely picked an industry that needs a lot of help. As a stereotype. I assume most construction companies are pretty male dominated. We celebrate our women and construction for sure. But yeah, I think just like, you know, having been married for 10 years now. You know, it's like your wife telling, you need to update your brand, you need to get a new shirt, a new truck. It's like sometimes, you know, men in particular, I don't know what it is about us that we're just like, hey, it's not broken. Let's not fix it. And I look around and I'm like, there is a lot of really, really, really, really, really bad websites only thing worse than a really, really bad website. Is no website. Actually. No, I think about I think no website might be better than that. Oh, yeah. That's true.
Speaker 1 3:52
Yeah, it's 100%. I would, I mean, because what you put out there, as far as like, your online presence is what you're going to attract or like, if somebody's looking at a website, or a business card, or, or whatever it is that your branding is, and it looks thrown together and sloppy, you know, it's that that human part of us that's like, well, if they won't even put time into this, like, are they just gonna slop together my job like, it just it doesn't evoke trust
Mark D. Williams<br> 4:25
is an incredible tool. I mean, I think it's easy to, you know, I could probably get a little caught up in the other way where you get so obsessed and excited about you know, the brand and the experience, the user experience, and I really can appreciate a really good website, especially when you redesign it and you kind of update it. But, you know, you still have to be a good builder. And I feel like it's important for your website ops also match your brand. Have you found I mean, you kind of have an endless supply of potential clients. I guess let's start there. How do you how do most people We'll find you. And how do you seek out companies? I feel like there's an endless supply of people that need your services.
Speaker 1 5:07
Yeah. So when I first started out, I worked with a lot of family friends, like people, I went to church with who owned businesses. And so I kind of started there because web design was not like my path. I did not go to school for this. I kind of fumbled into it by like necessity, because I lost my job. My, the startup I was working for went out of business. The day after I found out I was pregnant with my second. So it was somebody who encouraged me to, I was doing some work for them. And they're like, You should just make this a business. And I was like, Yeah, okay, whatever. Um,
Mark D. Williams<br> 5:45
how old? Were you at the time?
Speaker 1 5:46
Ah, that's a good question. Well, I guess probably like 24. I was I was really shortly out of school. And I had a child at the time, I was just kind of like, all over the place, I was newly married, new in a new state, had a kid basically right after we got married, graduated after like, I was going to school after having our firstborn. And then yeah, I found a job and got pregnant again. And it was just like this whole thing. So after working with some friends and family, I freelance for a while, you might have heard of sites like Fiverr, or Upwork. And you can hire freelance designers. And so I use that as an opportunity to kind of play around with a variety of web platforms, like from WordPress, to GoDaddy, to Shopify. And just because I was so new to it, and I've never done it before, I was just really like, just playing around and trying to figure out what I liked and what I was good at. And what made sense for me, after that, I got into a local business networking group. When I decided I actually like this business could go somewhere, for the longest time, it was like just to make ends meet, I was doing odd jobs here and there just to put food on the table. But then it actually kind of I was taking interest in it. And I like working. And so I was like I could actually do this, if I you know, put put forth the effort. So I joined a local business networking group, got my initial branding done for very, very affordable, just to kind of like I don't know, put something semi professional together. started networking with this group of people got some jobs through there. And it was just like a slow refining process. Like as I learned more in the industry. And as I worked with more people, I just refined, refined, refined. Until getting like to the place I am now where I have a super clear vision, super clear branding, experience, like just all the things that I was building over these five or six years. So now today, I guess my biggest way that I mark it is by doing stuff like this, honestly, like podcasts. And I call them partnerships because they can be a bunch of different ways. It can be podcasts, it can be, you know, getting on an Instagram live with somebody in a different industry, but who's, you know, following or whatever, maybe there's something there where there's similarities, like I might partner with a copywriter who serves builders or who serves the construction industry. And they don't do web design, they do copywriting, but it's kind of a natural fit, because the two services go hand in hand. online webinars where I just, you know, give free knowledge and kind of teach. And then if people have questions or are interested in my services, you know, come to me through there. But I've found it's the most, it's like the best return on my investment of time, because I'm getting right in front of the people I want to help and the people I want to work with. And I learned that through a program that I went through for web designers who were wanting to grow and scale their business, and it's been great. It's been like my favorite. It
Mark D. Williams<br> 9:09
reminds market, it reminds me a little bit, you know, as a custom home builder, I sometimes will think about like, where do I put advertising or, you know, print advertising or things like that. And someone once told me, you know, fish, were the sort of you should go fishing where fish eat. And I've always appreciated that concept. And I you know, I'm in Minneapolis area. And so, you know, there's, let's say certain high end restaurants literally, as well as like maybe shopping districts or zip codes where, you know, people that are fluent and we build a, you know, a pretty high end home. And, you know, there's pretty stereotypes of places that they shop places that they visit and you can do geofencing and target those areas. It was kind of new to me four or five years ago, we would geo target, you know, certain locations. So I didn't realize that this was I mean, it sounds very like NSA or Jason Bourne. Um, you know, we're basically you know, if you have a cell phone, you know, enables tracking, which obviously a lot of them do with, you know, GPS and whatnot. If you walk into, let's say, you know, a jewelry store or a Rolex store, a fancy shop or a shopping mall, like if you have geocache that area, like their phone is going to be push notifications. I was kind of blown away by that. Yeah. But so interesting, where I'm going with this, as you know, you obviously want to get in front of builders. And, you know, let's say our podcast, for instance, you know, I believe there's a lot of builders across the country that listen to it. And, and so it's really smart and savvy, if you could kind of tell that was a motivation. Plus, I want to talk with you. We have a mutual friend and Brad, love it. And, you know, you had recently designed his whole website as well, I think, actually, when I first met Brad, was it two years ago, almost actually, right now, in May, it was down in Nashville with their contractor coalition, because the contractor coalition is coming to Minneapolis here now. And I'm really excited to visit my
Unknown Speaker 10:57
dad. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 10:57
yes. Come on. Yeah, please give me a ticket. Well, we're doing this thing called build buzz the night to open for it. And so I'll be hosting, you know, Brad, Nick, Morgan, Nick. And you're also you're also on the, the modern craftsman as well. And so again, between, you know, all these different builder podcasts, you know, I assume you've gotten a lot of leads. And that was one of my questions, you know, after you go on a podcast, and, you know, Brad's podcasts been around for seven, eight years. So his is a much bigger audience. But, you know, what kind of outreach in let's say, two weeks after yours airs, like, like, I'm gonna, how many people reach out to you like, what's it like?
Speaker 1 11:32
Yeah, it really depends on the podcast. So when I saw when I was in this program for web designers, and she's talking about partnerships, the first thing she has us do is basically put a list of 20 to 30, potential partnerships, some are going to be difficult to get medium difficulty, easy things like that. And so I kind of just started my search with like, Okay, what do construction industry, you know, professionals listen to like that kind of same thing. Where do they shop? What do they listen to? What do they read? And so I started with a Google search of like, you know, top construction podcasts. And so I wrote this whole list down, reached out to all of them. Brad's was one of them. And I had no idea who Brad was, I had no idea how large his following was, like, I probably went to his Instagram at some point. And I was like, okay, like, he's got a decent amount of followers, but it was already after I had reached out to him. And he responded right away with having me on there. So I was like, okay, that's awesome. And I had done a couple podcasts before his and didn't really get people hit me up. I don't I don't know if they just were the wrong type of market or didn't have as big of a following or whatever. But it was good practice for me to just start doing podcasting. After my episode. Launched. Yeah, it was a lot more vocal. I did get more kind of like emails and just saying like, Hey, I listen, your podcast, and I did get a few leads from that. Most of the leads I got was actually after I worked with Brad and he posted his website at like, 80 followers in a day. I think I had 15 calls scheduled in like a week or two period. That was insane. But yeah, like Brad's. When Brad had me do his website, like, that was totally unexpected. I was like,
Mark D. Williams<br> 13:31
I was gonna ask you about that. So what was the new ad, actually? So I didn't know that story. I thought maybe you were already working with him beforehand? No. And you came on the podcast. So you reached out to him? You went on his podcast? Yeah. What point was he walk us through that evolution? I think this is really fascinating. Why did he choose you? Because he would obviously would know a lot of different people. Yeah. And then walk us through that kind of that maturation cycle?
Speaker 1 13:53
Yeah. So I basically we just we had a great, like, really organic conversation on the podcast, he was asking you all different questions about web design. You know, he's been in business for over 10 years. So I'm sure he's had plenty of these conversations before he had a website. You know, he was doing some SEO and things like that. So we were just having a conversation about web design and strategy and branding and story brands, like how important messaging is, and things like that. So after the podcast, he was just like, Oh, that was really great. Like, I enjoyed that conversation and thanked me. And then he followed up a couple days later and was like, hey, a lot of what you were talking about really resonated with like my values and what I find important and things like that, and he's like, I've been looking to redo my website. Why don't we have a conversation and so like, that was totally unexpected, but I hopped on a call with him. We kind of talked about what his needs and his goals were. And then like the rest is history. I don't know he hired me and here we go. But that was like, not the goal of my pod but like going on his podcast at all, but it? No, it was awesome. It was like kind of my first launch into the custom home builder side in the niching there because I was still more in like the general construction space. So obviously like building a site for someone who does these beautiful, just stunning homes like visually, it's a lot more fun to put together a slightly like that than like a plumbing website, no offense, like a lot more to work with.
Mark D. Williams<br> 15:33
You know, one of the things that I appreciated about your website, I think you had something in there about I think you're speaking about your family that were builders and own their own businesses, but it said, you know that, you know, other people's passion fuels, your passion. And I think that's really a succinct way of saying that, you know, passionate people are inspired by passionate people. Yeah. And I'm curious to see like, how, you know, how does it show up in a story brand? I mean, I know my thoughts on a story brand, but tell the audience a little bit like, why are stories so powerful? And how do you weave? You know, let's talk a little bit about how you even design a website. I'd love to hear how you interweave this, this brand of a story. You know, the messaging? Yeah, maybe just tell us a little bit about like, you know, just like building a house, you know, you've dig the foundation, you, you know, you obviously you've got the frame, you've got the mechanicals and it's an evolution of a process. And I think there's a lot of similarities with working with a brand and with working with a website. Can you kind of speak in those terms?
Speaker 1 16:36
Yeah, absolutely. I compare that to a lot as well, because there's so many elements that come together to make a successful site, like you said, you have the foundation, you have the framing, you have the interior design, you have, you know, all these elements, the architecture. So I guess, like if we're talking about how I go through my process, the first step I do with everybody is really find out what their needs are, which is usually done on a consult call where I can just kind of figure out what's working in their business and what's not working. And then from there, we can determine what needs to be fixed or built. So for some, they have a website that, I guess, conversion wise does really well, but they're struggling with their traffic. So for them, the focus of their site might be optimizing their site for search engines, so that they can generate more traffic and bring in that many more leads. For others. Their traffic is great, but they're not converting on any of that traffic. So they might be spending 1000s of dollars on ads or marketing, and driving all these people to their website. But they're not getting any inquiries. And so the missing piece for them might be website strategy, how the site is actually laid out and put together it might be their messaging, where they're just not resonating with their ideal client. A lot of people that I work with are working with one type of client and they want to get to their like, you know, we're building $500,000 homes, we want to be doing $3 million homes, like they've gotten a couple of those and that's the direction that they want to be going. And so everything then from the written messaging on your site, your branding, like the visual aesthetic of your site, and how you structure the site is then needs to be geared to a different audience. You know, if you have a website that looks like it's just your everyday builder remodeler, you're gonna bring in a lot of those kind of like lowball clients who are price shopping and you know, maybe more of a headache, rather than the high end clientele you're trying to attract. So, the first part is really figuring out where are you now where do you want to go? And then we can make then we can start putting a plan or a blueprint together of what pieces do we need to make this happen? So for as many of my clients as I can I try to incorporate story brand I don't do it personally, but I have people on my team that I partner with Paul Cusi, who was also on Brad Levitz podcast, he actually did some story brand for Brad for his new site. The live like you're on vacation, and the words that are on Brad's site was the brainchild of you know those story brands, strategic sessions we had with Paul to really get Brad's story out there. And story is not just your company like who you are. I totally agree with you. People want to work with people who are passionate, who really care about what they do, but who care about you as the consumer or the client. And that's what story brand is about is about speaking directly to the needs and wants and desires and fears and anxieties of your ideal client and so that requires you coming out of your business and the Do the day to day like all the things you deal with to really seek to understand who the people are that you want to be working with, where do they live? Do they have families? What are their interests? When it comes to the service you offer whatever it might be building new homes are renovating or whatever that is, what are they scared of? What questions do they have about the process? You have to know those things in order to speak to them. And yeah, that's,
Mark D. Williams<br> 20:30
well, that's an interesting part. I was going to ask you about this, because it may be this is my fallacy. So and maybe it's my personality. I'm an extreme optimist. I tend to think about aspirational things. So I you know, if I'm going to dream, and I think, you know, building a home is sort of a dream that a lot of people have. And it's sort of tied in with the whole American dream. And of homeownership and what that means to people, in particularly the United States, it seems like, but where I was going with this question is, I feel like when I showcase stuff, it's you know, you want to showcase a lot of your best work, you want to showcase, you know, the things that are aspirational, so a lifestyle, I remember early on, trying to key in when I would meet with someone like what kind of lifestyle Are you trying to gain? And I'd ask a lot of personal questions about, you know, their children, you know, their habits, you know, the time they wake up and go to sleep, and what they watch and what they read, or how they exercise or all those kinds of things, because I was trying to paint a picture of a lifestyle that can be attained with the home that we had build them. But you've mentioned several times now about fears. I've never actually considered even that side of the coin even talk about fears, why why is understanding their fears important?
Speaker 1 21:41
I would say it's a mix of the two. So usually in story brand, there's there's an aspirational section, I think Brad actually has it on his own site, where it's like, imagine stepping into your backyard, and it's like Oasis, imagine welcoming friends and family home and just relax or like, whatever it is. So you're, you're putting those aspirational things out there, because then if I'm sitting on his website, or whoever's website and I'm reading those things, I'm like, yes, 100% I want that, that, that, that that. So you do still need to speak to the aspirational things. 100% the fears, I would say is important because more on differentiating yourselves from maybe your competitors, or what, what is holding them back from making the buying decision, and showing that this thing that you're scared of this thing that you're anxious about, we've got you we understand, number one, that you feel those scary, anxious things, and that's normal, so you're validating whatever they're feeling. And then you're showing them we understand, we care about that. And we this is how we do things to alleviate so it's, that's kind of like the problem solving side of things. So for a lot of my clients, you know, they might bring up, I'll ask them is this the do most of your clients is this their first custom home or have they built before and most of the people I work with the clients that they serve, this is their second or third home. So they have experiences from the first time they built that makes them hesitant to go through it again, or makes them really have to fine tune everybody or go through with a fine tooth comb to find the right builder for them. Maybe their priority is a clean job site, or maybe it's staying on budget, because their last project was you know, no communication, they didn't stay on budget, maybe their pain point is the builder they worked with previously didn't understand their needs, or they, whatever those that baggage is that they're carrying with them. These are all things that they're looking to like be alleviated before they feel confident to work with you. And so to address the things that they're worried about, and to assure them that this time is going to be different. And this is why it just helps build trust, and it gets them closer to that that buying decision. So both parts are definitely important in building this story. Interesting.
Mark D. Williams<br> 24:13
How, you know, in the placement of like videos and images. You know, when you were talking about you know, on Brad's website, you know, that you would read my first question is like, does anybody even read number one, like, the biggest turnoff for me is if I go to a website, and there's just a ton of content, a form of words, like I'm checking out, like, you know, and you can look obviously, on the back end, because I check, you know, maybe once a month with our marketing team of where people spending time on the website, what's a treasure? Yeah, how do you you know, maybe how do you move stuff around? I mean, obviously, I know my website extremely well, I would assume everyone would mode but obviously that's not the case. And so, so that was I guess my first question is, you know, the print and giving people information versus As you know, pretty photos, what how do you how do you? How do you balance that because you've got information which is needed. And if people really know you beforehand, it's going to help them. And some people, you know, not every person is like another person, right? So I mean, I, I tend to what else like bullet points, all skimming stuff, I don't want to read, you know, novels and novels of information, you know, I'm going to be on there for you. Well, you could probably tell me how many seconds somebody's actually probably on a page. And so you've got to grab their attention pretty quickly. So how do you balance content, which is very great when I'm saying content is called copyright? Versus like, let's say photos, I'll say video for my next question. Yeah.
Speaker 1 25:39
So I think if you have a very visual product or service, which for builders, you do, like your finished product of your homes is that speaks 1000 words. But like you said, number one, there's different types of consumers, you have your researchers who want a ton of information about the process. And I have all these questions and answer them, and they're going to read your blogs and whatever, you have more normal people who kind of scam they're looking for maybe specific things, and they're just kind of flying through the site to find who knows what I try. It's very hard, because before I even got into web design I was doing, I had a lot more search, SEO contracts month, month SEO contracts. So what my skill set was, was taking a website, ranking it to number one on Google, and then basically selling leads to whatever interesting company I was working with. So maybe I built a landscaping site, I'd rank it number one on Google. So it generate calls and forms like actual people who wanted to work with them. And then I would rent the site basically out to local landscapers who didn't have an online presence. So I still actually have a client. Right now in Washington, still, who's a local Lawn Care guy I sent him leads, and he pays me for them. So when I was doing that content is such a big thing with optimizing your site for Google because Google's whole job is to and how they make money is to get the most relevant website in front of their users as quickly as possible. And so content is so important on your website, so Google can see, okay, this is what this company does. These are the services they offer. If you have a blog, if you're answering relevant questions and things that people have, on your website, Google is able to match you with those searches. So the more content the better for search engine optimization. But as I've gotten more into web design, and the strategy of web design, like I could drive a ton of traffic through SEO, but then once they're there, are they converting and so this is kind of like this new realm that I've gotten into of like, where's that balance between we want them the site to show up on Google, and increased traffic. But we also want to capture as many of those as many as much of that traffic as possible. And that cannot be done when your whole site is just like jam packed with content in a super disorganized, or like, overwhelming way. I see a ton of builder websites that are doing all the right things as far as search engine optimization, they have downloads, they have blog posts, they have pages and pages of this is who we are, this is what we do, they have several service pages for all the different services they offer. But I call it like, so the navigation up at the top got like 20 links, and you got drop downs. And it's like, so overwhelming. I call them like cheesecake, factory menu websites, because it's like, Oh, that's very patient overload. Yeah. And as we know, like, you would, they're really well, meaning it's like, Oh, I'm just giving them everything. But if I go to a restaurant that has five choices versus like 300 choices, it's gonna be so much easier and simpler for me to make a decision at a simplified with a simplified menu, then, you know, like, it's just too much for our brains to handle. So, website strategy, which is what I specialize in is finding the balance between the visual and the content number one that Google needs, but also that the consumers need and then how we lay out the content to be in an eye catching or very short, succinct clips. So like, I might have a section that aspirational section which is like imagine life if check mark, check mark, check mark and it's like five things like people can read and scan through that very quickly and say, oh, yeah, like that's, that's what I want out of my life. Are you gonna have an FAQ section with dropdowns? So it's not just a bunch of, you know, text, Clemson or Row, they can click on the questions that are applicable to read and not be overwhelmed by just looking at this whole screen of you know, all these questions. And so it definitely is a very fine balance of bringing in the strategy, the story and the SEO in a way that it maximizes traffic but also maximizes conversions.
Mark D. Williams<br> 30:21
How do you is there? Is there a industry standard? In the sense, like if you get 1000 hits on your website, you know, and what is a conversion is a conversion? I mean, obviously, this is so dependent. I mean, I'm a luxury home builder, you know, I built four or five homes a year. So it's like, I don't, you know, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't handle 100 Anyway, so I know, this is a hard question to answer. But, you know, they'll say sometimes, like, on Instagram, like, if you get a 3%, anything above 3%, in terms of like, comments or interactions to a post is like, you know, anyway, where I'm going with this is like, if if there are business owners out there looking at their analytics, and they see that they get, let's just use the metric of 1000 hits in a month, you know, what should they be shooting for in terms of conversion rates as a general rule? And would a conversion also be like someone subscribes to your newsletter is that count as like, quote, a conversion? Because a lot of times, like, I know, my both my websites habit, that if you're new to the website, you know, it prompts you like, most new, do you want to be a subscriber for our blogs? I think we'll talk about blogs here in a little bit. Because I was very much a skeptic. And I'd like to tell my coming to vlog hood story here in a minute, but walk us through like, what is what are what are some good metrics to actually shoot for for conversion?
Speaker 1 31:34
Yeah. So again, like you mentioned, it's so dependent on your industry. I, what I try to shoot for for my clients is standard or average, which is a three to 5% conversion rate, and a conversion rate. It really depends on what you want to track. So for some people, they want to, they want the phone ringing, other people want form a webform filled out, that's their process. Another metric might be, hey, we want to grow our email list, which is super important as a builder, because of, especially if you, you have a high price point service, you need a lot of touch points until people get to the point where they're gonna make that buying decision. So building your email list, and then nurturing those leads is a great way to help with that. So that would be a separate thing that you track. So it really just depends business business, like what you're looking to improve upon. But a conversion would be if 1000 people land on your website, and how you're going to make me do math, let's say 100 people land on your website, three to five, web web form 3%. Yeah, that was saying three to 5%. Now that's like, internet, like that's like average. So that's going to be like every industry that's kind of like what to shoot for. So with a higher price point, you might have less, you know, one to two. But the important thing is that number one, you know what your numbers it number is, and then you can seek to improve that. So no matter where my clients fall, if they're wanting to increase their conversion rates, number one, I can tell them Yeah, that's absolutely reasonable. I can see XYZ things that we can do, even in your market, and even with your price point that can get you there. And then we seek for that improvement. Some a lot of builders, like you said, they're at capacity, they don't necessarily need more, but they want higher quality. So the type of leads that come in, they want to be their ideal client, they want to be more pre qualified. And so that's something that we aim for. But yeah, it depends on depends on what you're looking to measure. And then we know with a service based business, and it's the same for me, I'll have my website conversion. So somebody goes to my website, they fill out my form and book a call, then I have my sales process. And there's a conversion rate of out of how many people got on a phone call with me booked me. And then that's a separate conversion rate. So my, yeah, my job is getting the user to take the action, and then you as a builder, then take the sales process over and you have your own, like sales conversion rate. So that's your first touch
Mark D. Williams<br> 34:28
point. I mean, you know, for us, specifically, it's a 15 minute phone call, followed by a one hour meeting and then at that point, if they're not under design retainer, you know, they're not a good fit, you know, we've tried to shorten that, you know, when I first started 20 years ago, you know, you would take any phone call anything and you would just you would hunt it down. And you know, it seems like now it's sort of frustrating because I still like a phone and I will always have my phone number on there. But it's interesting because most modern websites, you there's no phone number on there, and and they want to find you through their process. And it's funny, because I assume you actually, this is a question I was gonna save for later. But I'll ask it now, how often, you know, I get probably three to five emails a week that I'll call them spam. Like, hi, you know, my name is Bob and I just happen to be on your website. And I noticed that, you know, well, it's a very good website, your SEO could use it boasts, I'd love to give you a free analysis of a website. So I'm quite as someone who does this for a living, how often do you get that
Speaker 1 35:26
oh, all the time, all the time. And web doesn't like web design ones where there'll be like, it's so clear that they don't really know what you do. Because I'll be I'm a web designer, and they'll come to me and they want to be help my clients with web design, and I'm like, What are you talking about? Like, this is what I do. No, no, no. Okay, so
Mark D. Williams<br> 35:50
yeah, I mean, I kind of figured that was the case, but, but I had to ask the question. I also, by the way, I think it's really smart that you've, you know, you're in such a niche. And obviously, that particular niches, like as big as the ocean, as we previously discussed. I mean, there's a lot of builders, I was gonna ask, one, let me ask this question. First. Going back to images. So what I'll maybe I'll share an experience to see if yes, resonates with your what you found over your last six years. So maybe four or five years ago, we did some long format video. And it was gorgeous, amazing home. And so I hired a videography company before that was kind of what we did. It was, you know, and but you know, it was expensive. I mean, first rate photography video was very expensive. And I thought for sure I'd put on my website people be blown away at the quality was cinematic, it was like, you know, the trailer to a, you know, an amazing movie Dances with Wolves intro I mean, it was whatever, it was great. And nobody watched it. You know, people would go to my portfolio, and they'd look at your photos, and they click, click, you know, through, and you'd look at how much time people spent on videos. And it was weird, because with Instagram, and even now, you know, obviously short form video, and there's a place obviously, for all of it. But you know, our attention span, especially with Instagram, it's like constant, you know, short little videos. Why on websites? And maybe this is just my experience, because I think we have high quality content, but I just don't find a lot of interaction with video on our websites compared to pictures. Is that something that you see as well? Or is that just me?
Speaker 1 37:21
Honestly, when I build websites, I try to really limit the amount of video I put on there. For a number of reasons. I couldn't tell you the reason why people don't sit and watch a long form video, I think because there's other avenues for us to do that. Like, for me, when I'm on a website, I don't even watch video, I'm like, if I'm gonna watch a video, I'll go on YouTube, or I'll watch a Instagram or Tiktok or whatever. It's just like a where I can easily I don't know, I couldn't answer that question on why people don't.
Mark D. Williams<br> 37:50
But it was to be true in your experience as well. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1 37:54
for sure. When I'm going through when I'm installing, like I install hot jar and analytics are, yeah, hot jar is an analyst or user behavior analytics tool. And when I installed those on my client sites before I started on a new site for them, I can see on both desktop and mobile and tablet, how people are navigating through the site, I can see every click, I can see how long they stay on the page, like just like what you were saying. And it is so like, even you would be shocked at how fast they even go through portfolio images. Like if they click on one and they're like, literally swiping so fast. I'm like, did you even see the picture? Like? And so I think, yeah, those things are just not something people are taking time to watch this full thing. I would say, when you're able to have it on a site as a background video, that's kind of short, where visually, you're seeing movement, and you're seeing quick, you know, cinematic stuff, snips of these different parts of the project or different projects or phases and things that you've done, I think that can be really effective rather than just static. But if you are going to be going through your site and there's a video and you push play and it's like five minutes long or whatever, I people
Mark D. Williams<br> 39:12
I'm not that you meant now that you mentioned it. I do I like that a lot actually. Yeah, both of you know, ns builders. And now that you mentioned EFT. I wouldn't have called it out before though. Notice it now that you write there's video kind of moving in the background? Short, they're very short form, if you will, what do you and, and I can speak to my experience about this in a minute. How often do people rebrand versus scrap and redo? So we're speaking specifically about
Speaker 1 39:46
their website? Yeah, I was gonna say funny enough. Most of the people that I work with don't even haven't even gone through a professional branding process. Okay here yet, so I've worked with a couple I'm not even sure that Brad Brad did.
Mark D. Williams<br> 40:04
Yeah, well and I, well I Britain the reason I bring that up is we had a website. And then I in this is where I think just having expanded network having other people help you both as like, you know, you know, we call it management group or brand management or whoever's helping you an outside because sometimes we get so focused on what we do, you know, you lose sight of, you know what you're doing, honestly. And so I remember one the first time I did a rebrand, they get you in at the price tag, I remember specifically style architects, it was a group of I think nine ladies here in Minneapolis, my wife put me on to him, and they were amazing. And, and I think it went from $3,500 to like 20 grand, because it was not a rebrand, I needed a reboot. And so and I was happy that, you know, they started with the rebrand and but but at the time you redesign the whole website, there's nothing left, it's frankly, just easier. And then it became very analogous to the difference between remodeling and tearing a house down and building a new one, which is what primarily what we do in our area. So it's like, this makes totally sense why you try to restructure this old website, when you start a new one. And I just went through this two years ago, again, had a great website. And you know, the technology tools have changed to on the web builder side. And, you know, obviously templates, and there's a bunch of stuff that you can do, but you know, knowing what to do with it, you know, is a whole nother talent. Anyway, long story short, I went in for a rebrand or and I did refresh the rebrand. But I also decided to rebuild the entire website as well. So it's yeah, it's interesting. I'd be in it sounds like that hasn't been your experience, because most of your people are just getting it kind of first, I guess you're not doing rebrands. But I imagine that's going to be an evolving sector for you as your name gets bigger and bigger, because there's a lot of established companies already out there. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 41:42
So it's like what you said with either tearing the house down and starting from scratch or remodeling. It's really difficult, especially when you get into these conversations of like, okay, why are you actually, if you came to me and got on a phone call with me, like one of the first questions I'm going to ask you is like, why this project? Didn't? Why now? Like, what, what are you hoping to accomplish in this? So and the answer is never as simple as like, oh, we just need to freshen up our or modernize our look, it's always deeper, it's like, we're not getting the type of clients we want. We want this type of client. And then as all these things, these goals start coming out, I'm like, okay, just sprucing up some fonts or some colors, or like adding different images is not going to help you get to where you're wanting to go. And honestly, like back earlier, when I was earlier in my career and doing web design, I would do just kind of a lot of moving around and shifting things. And it's like, it's as much work if not more to do that than to start from scratch and actually have a clear vision and a clear strategy forward for how this is going to be the most effective. So I would say like, more than nine times out of 10. If things are really failing on the website side where you're either not getting inquiries, or it doesn't relate to your values your ideal client anymore. It's outdated, whatever, most of the time, you need to start new build pletely new Yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 43:10
do you offer? You know, you're doing website design? How are you? You mentioned partners before? Like, let's say copyright, things like that? How are you actually managing people's brands as well? Or is that a resource or a person that you bring in? And the reason I bring it up is I'll just share my story. You know, a couple of years ago, as I mentioned two years ago, actually, you know, my wife had actually, this is the point of having people around you that can kind of, you know, tell you things that you know, like I have a great brand. I love my brand. It's amazing. It's the best ever. And she's like, my wife was like, Well, it's great. But it's really your clients have taken you to a different place than your brand represents currently. So it's not that there's anything wrong with your brand. It's just you're no longer your brand anymore. You change no different than like you you age, you know, now I have silver hair. My kids are very fascinated by this color in my hair. And so anyway, the my kids actually found a photo of me at my parents house recently, and I was blonde as a kid, and my daughter is just enamored that I had blonde hair. And so she took up my high school photo and she held it next to me last night in bed and she's like, I mean, I can kind of tell your face and your nose are the same dad but your hair does not look the same. And so anyways, speaking of brand refresh, you know, I guess I need a new dad brand. But anyway, the point was like, you know, I had to work I didn't the website was not my first stop. I went with a brand strategist. You know, we did naming conventions, we did brand and font and like you really sort of that helped you dig into like, who is your client? And then you look back, you're like, wow, I have really transcended who I was before, not by any deliberate thought or action, but really that was just the journey I was on. And it can go either way. I mean, you can go up you can go down you can go just to a different place too. Can you speak a little bit to how you adjust company's brand and what resources you would bring into the table on that, because a website is not just a website, there's so much more that goes into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1 45:04
100%. And I am not a brand strategist or brand designer. So when I have clients coming to me who have not gone through this process, I mean, I have limited knowledge in that space where I can give them the basics of you know, we're going to take your online presence from here to here. But my area of expertise is the strategy of the website is not the strategy of your brand, it's not your story. It's not who you are, like the essence of who you are, I'm not, I dig into who your ideal client is, and who you want to serve for the website strategy elements of things, but not for the visual. I mean, I do visual things, but like, in a perfect world, somebody would come to me with all of that already the brand strategy. So for example, I'm trying to think I have a, I would recommend going working with a brand strategist first, because like you said, they're going to get to the heart and soul of who you are, as a company where you want to go really dig deep into who are your clients. And then they're really good at put in taking a little bit of who you are and what you like, but pushing you to the side a little bit and saying this is the visual direction, that's going to resonate best with your clients. And so and, and bring that art to life in a way that's super effective. I tend to, more often than not, with the clients that I work with, we go the story brand route is usually the messaging is a little bit more important to them. And we do dig into those things, too. So when I partner with Paul, or any of my story brand guides, they're asking very similar questions, they're just crafting written content out of it, rather than visual content. So that still has a very powerful effect. But your brand is every way that you show up online and in person. It's visual, it's written content. It's your website. It's, it's everything. And so you really have to try to plan for all the pieces and try don't expect your web site designer to say what do I write here or do my logo like some do, but it's, they're very different, like an architect is not a builder. And a builder is not an interior designer, like sometimes there's overlap, but a lot of times there's not. So you need to make sure you have all the pieces together to make it the most effective and like successful project as possible. You
Mark D. Williams<br> 47:45
know, I think that's it reminded me to just when you're saying that, and I've always enjoyed having very thick, inflexible cards are very bold, and even the edges of my card have a color, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of handing out I think I can only fit three in my wallet at a time because they're so thick, but I without fail every single time I hand someone a card and it's funny, we're in a digital age. But there is something even though they probably just look at it, throw it away. It's that first. That first reaction of when they touch it and feel it every single person does the same thing like oh, and they'll kind of like wave it like a piece of wood like wow, that's and I reminded and reminds me of two things. One is my dad built homes for 30 years back in the 70s and 80s. And I remember one time he told me the story that comes to me now where he would he would spend more money or think maybe he would give the client a really over the top expensive and heavy duty front door knob and his you know his thought process was is that every single guest that comes to that home is going to press down on that lever it's the first thing they touch on a home it's not the first thing they see it's the first thing they touch and he wanted it to be very solid very sturdy and he was already thinking about the idea that if they if it man if their front door knob or handle is this solid how much how great must this builder be? Oh yeah, and I don't know if anyone ever
Unknown Speaker 49:19
tell on that house? Yeah. And
Mark D. Williams<br> 49:22
I was sort of enjoyed that about thinking about a car but I think the website is a digital manifestation of something physical like a card and a lot of people you judge people and you are judged right or wrong. I'm not saying one way of passing a judgement on the judgment but you people are you get judged by your website. 100% Oh, yeah. And so make sure it represents you stay
Speaker 1 49:43
like effects where I go for like even out to eat. My husband and my two boys are taking me out for my birthday slash Mother's Day on Sunday. And so my husband had brought up some brunch places we could go to and I was like bringing up websites and literally just if a website it's not I'm not appealing or updated. I'm like, it puts a picture in your mind. It's like, oh, well, their food must like, if I go to a website, and I see these delicious dishes and like kind of like a vibe of what I can anticipate going into this website and the website, restaurant and experiencing, you get the it evokes that feeling and that emotion of like, oh, this place I have to go to, and it can be anything from their colors to like, the pictures they use to their fonts is like, that's the vibe. That's what I want to do on Sunday. It has an incredible effect, like,
Mark D. Williams<br> 50:32
I think it can be I think it can be simple. Like I don't I think sometimes maybe people listening are like, oh, man, I have to spend all this money to make it super complicated. You know, I've seen a very, you know, I think actually, that's the hard part. To your point earlier. If your website becomes the Cheesecake Factory menu, you'll lose people. And you know, that's a huge turnoff for me. And I understand that there is, you know, money on the back end, you know, if you allow ads to be run your website and all that stuff, I find that incredibly distracting. Yeah,
Speaker 1 51:01
so, you know, write down and navigate through it.
Mark D. Williams<br> 51:05
But a question for you brought up earlier. And I wanted to bring it up now, which was you had mentioned SEO. And I think most people know its search engine optimization. But very few people, though, how to actually do it and what it actually means. But can you speak just broadly, why it's important, why it changes. And then let's talk specifically here as we sort of wrap up about the power of blogs, and I'll share kind of what I have experienced. But just because I was definitely I thought that was something that that my wife reads I mean, I definitely don't read blogs. And now I'm like, I love a good blog, and we push out an incredible amount of blogs, I sometimes get concerned that I'm pushing too many out because I, I you know, if you think too much like that everyone's like you, obviously, this is why you need people around you that can give you different points of view, I'm like, Well, I don't read them. So if I don't read them, nobody else must. Obviously that's wrong, because people were
Speaker 1 51:59
Yeah, or they don't read them in the way you think that they do. So I would say for me, like, I'm not a blog Reader, I'm not just gonna like go onto a website that has a blog and just start, like, open up an article and just start reading. So but I am on blogs every single day, because for my business, whether I'm researching something, or advancing my education, or sometimes it sounds silly, but like, I'll have a client, they're like, oh, I want this special functionality on my website. I'm not a web developer, which means like, I didn't go to school to learn coding, but I use coding and all of my websites to enhance features and design elements and things like that. So I might be searching something on Google, like how to do this functionality on a website. And I'm looking for the code. And the codes for those are placed within blog posts that's like, here's how to do this on your website and their blog post format. I'm scrolling through them, I'm looking for the code, they might have a little video tutorial, or a little explanation. So they have a blog post 500,000 1500 words long, I'm not reading that whole thing. But I've still visited their site, I've still established them as like, Oh, these these people are a go to people if I have coding questions. So they're not reading them in the way that you think that they might, but they have populated in the search results for what I was looking for. They solved my problem. And then I bookmark a lot of those sites to come back to later, which then they usually offer other services or have products that I might buy in the future. Because I trust them. Now they've proven to be, you know, a resource for me. So they might not just be going on Mark D williams.com. And just reading any, you know, whatever blog posts and reading the whole thing. But especially with like search results, if you wrote a blog post about something that someone was searching for, and that showed up at the top of the search engines. Now all of a sudden, somebody's on your website for a topic that they were looking up, they might not have even known your company or your custom homebuilding company existed. And now they do they're on your site, because you're talking about something that somebody's searched for. So that relevant content is super important and blog, great tool for that.
Mark D. Williams<br> 54:19
In your experience, I guess, two questions along this line. You know, obviously people are coming to you for help. But I mean, let's use Brad. I mean, Brad had a good website before he has a much better one now, but it's not like he had a terrible one. Or maybe he did I don't remember. But you know, I guess my question is if you had to rate people in the, you know, good, better best categories, what percentage let's just use builders because that's your target market. Where do you what if you had to, you know, tell me right now in the audience, like, what percentages would you rate of the websites out there in terms of, you know, maybe we should put bad in there bad good, better best. Where would you Where would you rate, the different websites that are out there as such? general rule that currently exist?
Speaker 1 55:01
Yeah, I would say probably. Probably 10% are best. Good. I would say most fall in good most have a lot of good things going on. And there may be missing just some best practices to really take them to better. So I would say probably, let's put 60% and good 10%. And best, what does that leave?
Mark D. Williams<br> 55:27
I got 30% left.
Speaker 1 55:31
So, okay, so 10. Bad, better. And then what is that? 20 in that?
Mark D. Williams<br> 55:40
Yeah, well, I was just curious. I've actually I'm a little surprised that good is that I would have suspected that bad and terrible were actually much higher than now.
Speaker 1 55:48
I'm so I'm speaking from a custom homebuilder. Place Like, there's a lot of Home Builders, but even between home builders, and like, I would say I work with more like on the luxury side. There's also a big difference there too. So I don't know. That's what I would say.
Mark D. Williams<br> 56:10
Okay. I was just curious and like, yeah, like, it's just more of a check in thing of the, you know, all the builders you work with before you come on online, especially talking about SEO, how many of them are paying for, you know, Google, you know, click paid for clicks? And also how many are already already have a blog? And then how many have that will start a blog after they work with you?
Speaker 1 56:37
I would say most of the people that I work with, are doing nothing for SEO. So they're not paying, they're not working with an agency. And I understand it to like, there's a lot of unknowns in SEO, there's a lot of Miss trusted SEO like, like you said, you get those emails from spammers all the time. SEO changes all the time. And so I feel like it's really hard to find a reputable or an honest or just kind of like a company that's realistic about SEO. So I can understand why they stay away from it. But in general, like I would say, maybe maybe 5% of people I've worked with have some background in SEO, where they've gotten their, their traffic's really great. They're ranking high on on Google, one company that I'm working with right now has done a phenomenal job in ad market that's very competitive. But these days also been around for 40 plus years. So they've got a lot of rapport and time and experience built.
Mark D. Williams<br> 57:39
Is it? Is it hard along speaking of longevity? So let's say you've had a company for a long period of time, I'll use my two companies, Mark Williams customers has been around for 20 years and the curious builder has been around for two years. Should an older company have higher website traffic than a younger company? Or not necessarily not
Speaker 1 58:00
necessarily know, the eighth the age of the domain? So like when you bought the domain and you created your websites? There there is some of that that factors into ranking on Google like because you you've been online longer, but if that's all you have, and you're not doing anything else with your SEO No, like you're curious, older podcasts could rank you know, well, it's much faster than a company that's been around for 100 years. It
Mark D. Williams<br> 58:27
doesn't well I didn't know I didn't Yeah, and I can share my story now Alexa briefly on that as well. It part of it is is you know Mark Williams Custom Homes is you know, a local Minneapolis builder, right? So I mean, I build you know, a handful of homes a year and um you know, I can't unfortunately I'd love to build in other parts of the world but I don't That being said, you know, we do consulting and other things outside of that that's a new thing but my question is, is that like the curious builder podcast and I got totally lucky that you know, if you type in construction podcasts actually don't know where I rank you could Google it now but if you type in builder podcast, I'm usually top three but I got lucky because curious builder. Yeah, I mean, exactly. I got two of the three words are in my title, which is complete luck, complete luck. But the other thing that I've complimented my team about is because for the last two years you know every single episode I mean because of the podcast while obviously most people are downloading and listening to it on Spotify or Apple or wherever they're downloading it. The we we publish every single episode that week on a blog post in this was another thing I this is totally my ignorance. I thought a blog post was like someone sat down and really wrote out a script like reading like a news article. And it can be that and it often is, but it also a blog is just like, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's pretty much just copyright just so just writing whether it has pictures or not. Also doesn't matter. It's just like something that you regularly updating Google just wants. It's like a it's like a it's like a giant monster. You just watched it, just watching content. And so I have Seeing our curious builder website just skyrocket because it's getting a crazy amount of fresh content weekly, you know. And now because of that we now do, I think we're up to maybe bi weekly on on Mark Williams custom homes. But then of course, if you're updating your website with, you know, land for sale or model home, yeah, and because of now, of course, you have to manage Instagram and Pinterest, and YouTube and all these other things, it's like, it's a full time job. I mean, for a small company, you know, I, I'm like, wow, I spent a disproportionate amount of time, but I also like it. So that's, that's probably also what I enjoy. And so I'm just curious, you know, I think sometimes it can be overwhelming for builders, and really, for any business owner, they're like, man, there's so many platforms to manage. And I've been told repeatedly over and over again, that at the end of the day, you own your website, and you own your email list. And I wasn't until recently that I even realized that there was value in that. And that, you know, to what your earlier comment was about the landscaper in Washington that you would build a following, and then sell those leads, you know, at some point, you know, if you retain your email list, you know, that's worth something. And I was just so far from my thinking, like, why would I develop an email list? Like, why would I
Speaker 1 1:01:13
do that, as it's got the highest conversion rate out of any marketing technique, you could use over ads over radio over print? I don't, yeah, it's like the stats on email marketing is insane. And we all hate it. Like, we subscribe to something because we want to download something. And then we get the emails and blah, blah, blah, we're not interested in so we unsubscribe. But for those warm leads, like people who actually are interested, they're your ideal client, you've provided a resource and they're on your list, they do care. They're not just unsubscribing super quickly, especially if you're offering more helpful content through your email list. And it doesn't have to be every week, like every couple of weeks, once a month, whatever, it is just kind of like keep warming them up. Oh, man. Yeah, the the success rate and conversion rates on those are low everything else. And
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:02:08
I didn't even know this was a thing, either. I mean, recently, we have a local bland development called Honey hill up in Orono. In Minnesota, and you know, we use a local company to do a dedicated email blast, and they charge you know, a significant amount of money, several $1,000. And I think they you know, they're they were boasting that their email following was 30,000. And but their convert, you know, their click rate, and their open rate was extremely high. And we did two simultaneously, we did one with a lower cost in a lower yield, but it had a higher open rate. And it was just really interesting to see that in action. And we got 1000 hits on our website in one day. Yeah, I was like, Whoa, that's a lot of eyeballs, you know, versus like, in at least you can track it. And now have we gotten anything out of it? No. But it's hard to say if that will resurface later. And then I think like, I think and not that print is dead, I think, you know, especially the magazines love to tell you that, oh, we want to do a combo package that it's not. It's the they're like if I'm told one more time about the sales funnel, I'm gonna have to eat the funnel and put some powdered sugar on it because it's like, I always add Yeah, no, it's like that. No, and I get why they're doing that I would do but it's like they're in I'm not saying they're completely wrong either. But it's, you know, hey, you have a magazine and you know, some of your money should go to the magazine ad and then some of it should go to a digital ad and all of that together is your brand. I agree with that. It's also hard to justify because it's so hard to prove analytics. Yeah. And I've talked to other builders and other businesses you know, how often do you pay you know four or 567 $8,000 for an ad a spread you know, becomes a lot of money where you can do some serious damage digitally with that money Yeah, you know, far less money far less investment. And in you know, in especially if it lives on on a blog or someone else's website, it stays there or once it's in a magazine, it might lay in someone's table for a month until the next issue comes out or a quarter or whatever it is and then it's gone. And again I'm you know, what's your thoughts on kind of that whole industry? podcast number two?
Speaker 1 1:04:15
Yeah, I'm not sure I was just gonna give a tip for if you are doing print advertising because I agree with you I don't think it's it's dead like there are just people consume information in different ways. But a tip to help at least somewhat track. You can like get a tracking phone number that routes to your office phone or wherever you want it to go. There's there's platforms like call sling and call rail and you can get and there's plenty of other ones but get a tracking phone number and use that phone number in your print ads. That way when you get a phone call you know it's from a print ad like good ol number for a magazine. You can get a separate phone number for a billboard or you can get a separate phone number for like if you run a radio ad, and then all of them you say, Okay, this phone number is this, but this phone number is this and you can then see what calls are coming from what source?
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:05:12
I recommend that you can do that with QR codes are correct. Yeah, yeah, totally different. We've done different QR codes so that we could track it on the back end that way.
Speaker 1 1:05:21
Yeah. So that would be my recommendation to anybody who's doing print just so you can, like knowing your numbers is so important. Because sometimes like we think, like, oh, like, everything's fine. But like, what would it take to get your company from like, Good to Great, it might not actually be as much as you think it would and make a huge difference, just by knowing your numbers, and then setting some goals like, Okay, we're here, I want to, like, let's strive for this, and then take a path and see like, what it will take to get there. I don't know, that's just always my biggest piece of advice is actually knowing what your numbers are across the board. So be more resources into the things that are working. Yeah. Right.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:06:05
Well, we're, we're out of time. I want to respect your time as well. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing your story and your business with our audiences. I hope you get a big uptick of people interested I usually how, what does that sales cycle look like for you? I didn't ask that question in terms of by the time someone calls you or it gets funneled through your website, how, how long does it usually take, you know, in terms of like, either queue of well, how many jobs you can even handle at a time? What does that look? Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:06:33
so my business has been going through a big shift I have a while I'm doing with my third baby in like seven weeks. Thank you, my, my business got booked out, basically in February until my maternity leave. So I have not been taking on new clients. I've been booking new clients for the fall now. So I'm in a new transition to where it is just me currently at least doing the website development and design. So one thing I'm working on for when I come back is hiring a junior designer to join my team so that I can take on more projects. But I've really limited myself to projects because I like I like working one on one with my clients to get them. Give them the best experience and also get them the best results. Also, I have a young family. So I only work so many hours in a week. So yeah, it depends. But yeah, right now I'm looking into fall of 24. And getting some websites up before 2025. I also have my new template for builders out. It's a Squarespace website template that I designed to just really help more people that maybe aren't a good fit for my custom packages, but still need, you know, a professional website that converts and that's built for kind of like a higher end market and it's got the best practice strategies in place. And so I'm trying to put other you know, products and services in place to help as many people as possible with my limited amount of hands, but hiring in the future, which is like a new venture for me that I'm very nervous. Oh, that's pretty exciting, but nervous. It's like a whole I respect anybody who runs a business and has employees and because that's, that's a whole nother level of business and managing people and processes and stuff, making sure the quality is still there. So yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:08:29
well, thanks again. We'll have all your contact information. Yeah, show notes. For those looking is it just Caitlin Slocum design.com. Yep.
Speaker 1 1:08:36
And Caitlyn is filled Catlin. No, he's not wise. Very
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:08:41
good. Well, thanks again. And thanks for tuning into the curious builder podcast.
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