I’ve noticed that some of the most capable, talented service providers have some of the most dysfunctional and least impressive websites.
This is painfully common for writers. They can turn out sharp, incisive, strategic content all day long for clients — but their own sites keep getting pushed to the back burner.
And then they’re embarrassed to send potential clients there, because the site doesn’t communicate the awesomeness of that writer.
In a recent Q&A I held with a small group of writers, their average grade for their own site was a 3 out of 10.
Today I’m talking about a few reasons that happens. (And how to start moving that in a better direction.)
#1: It’s so much easier to write about someone else
For most of us, it’s much easier to talk someone else up. When we have a kickoff call with a new client, we notice all the cool and interesting things about their business.
It’s usually just easier to see someone else’s bright spots than to see our own.
Partly it’s because the things we’re good at may not strike us as all that impressive.
Peter Drucker poses this question in The Effective Executive:
“What are the things that I seem to be able to do with relative ease, while they come rather hard to other people?”
(Because it’s Peter Drucker, he assumes the person asking this is a man. Whatever, it’s still a good question.)
When you can, get someone else’s eyes on the parts of your site where you write about yourself. Are you underselling your superpowers? Do you even have an idea of what your superpowers might be?
#2: It doesn’t pay the bills (right now)
We know full well that a sharper, more impressive client attraction website would help us to sign better clients.
But our week is full of urgent deadlines and projects that get the bills paid right now.
Even though we have an inkling of how good it would feel in the future to have a site we’re proud of, we never quite find the urgency . It falls into the dread category of “Important but not Urgent,” and that’s a recipe for putting the task off for months. Or years.
In a perfect world, you can fix this problem by getting into a course, workshop, or framework that’s designed to get the task done and shipped.
I recently attended Maven’s three-week Course Accelerator Bootcamp. It’s designed to take a project that usually eats up months and months, and focus on the key tasks that need to get done. It also uses the power of a cohort to make that work easier and more fun.
And yes, I’m going to be using what I learned with Maven in my next workshop. 🙂
#3: We work on what feels natural, not on what’s needed
When writers sit down to work on our sites, we often write a blog post. It plays to our strengths and lets us show off. And to some degree, that’s smart.
Yes, clients want to be able to see that you can put words together in a way that will make them look good.
But no, they will not fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your writing and then chase down the details of how they can hire you.
They need what I call a path to client — the simple steps they can follow to get their questions answered, Content is part of that path, but there are other steps, like a clear Services page, a solid About page, and a repeatable process to get the deal signed.
#4: We don’t put the right E in our VEP
Another issue I see on a lot of service professional sites is they create content for people who do the same work they do.
Graphic designers write about the fine points of graphic design. Writers write about how to write well. Web developers write about the latest interesting advance in web development.
There might be a good amount of content on your site that shows you’re an expert. But it’s not relevant to what your potential client actually cares about.
The “E” (expertise) in your VEP isn’t just what you know how to do — it’s what you know how to do that benefits your clients.
My own freelance clients don’t care about the structure of my calls to action or the architecture behind my bullet points.
They want to trust that their customers will get the “I want to buy that” feeling when they read the copy.
#5: We don’t put any fuel in the tank
A few writers in our Q&A sessions did feel really good about their sites. (And that makes me happy!)
But even a superb website won’t help you get clients if you never send anyone there.
Systematic outreach is a critical part of finding more clients. Even Brian Clark didn’t magically get a ton of traffic in the early days of Copyblogger — he reached out and found it.
Reaching out is one of those things that, for some of us, can feel like taking a quick jog to Mount Everest and then doing some jumping jacks. But there are techniques that make it less horrible-feeling. (Ed Gandia does lots of wonderful work on this.)
And the more you do it, the less impossible it feels.
If this is you, use your “how I do hard things” techniques.
- Keep it small, to start.
- Seek out some respectful, gentle accountability to keep you on track.
- And please know that you can do this.
We’ll have opportunities to help if you need it. 🙂
That’s The Fierce for this week!
Sonia
Update on the upcoming small-group workshop
My next workshop is all about fixing the dysfunctional or just plain embarrassing aspects of your client attraction website.
We’re going to work together to get the key pieces of your site into place, and to fine-tune them until they hum.
We’ll look at getting the right content planned and published, arranging it into a “path to client,” and choreographing a process for getting good clients signed up.
We’ll also be talking about non-intimidating, step-by-step strategies when it’s time to reach out to prospects and get the word out about your awesomeness.
Best of all, we’ll do the work together. You’ll be able to show up, get the pieces created, and use the power of the group to help get over the hard parts. I’ll also be including one-on-one time and critiques for the first students who sign up.
The final bits and pieces are being constructed now, and I’m really excited about the transformations we’re going to make together.
(For existing members of the Creative Fierce community, there’s nothing else you need to do, you’ll have full access to the workshop.)
Sign-ups should start at the end of this month (October, 2021). I can’t wait to see you there. 🙂
