6 Tips to Engage Your Prospects in 6 Seconds or Less - With James Hipkin

Tara Bryan: 00:00:00

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's

Tara Bryan: 00:00:03

episode of the course billing secrets podcast. I am so happy

Tara Bryan: 00:00:08

to introduce you to James Hipkin. Today, welcome James to

Tara Bryan: 00:00:11

the show, we're so happy to have you here, give us a little bit

Tara Bryan: 00:00:14

of a sense for who you are, what your business is, and what

Tara Bryan: 00:00:17

you're up to

James Hipkin: 00:00:19

a tour, I'm really super happy to be here. I'm been

James Hipkin: 00:00:25

rattling around the marketing and advertising world for 40

James Hipkin: 00:00:29

plus years, the gray hair is quite legitimate. And the last

James Hipkin: 00:00:34

10 years I've been focused on designing and building websites

James Hipkin: 00:00:39

for large corporations. And then five years ago, we developed a

James Hipkin: 00:00:43

product more specifically for smaller businesses, what we were

James Hipkin: 00:00:47

finding is that while smaller businesses couldn't really

James Hipkin: 00:00:50

afford to work with us, when I looked at the horrible websites

James Hipkin: 00:00:55

they had, they really should be working with us. So I wanted to

James Hipkin: 00:00:58

create a product that would allow our knowledge and

James Hipkin: 00:01:01

expertise to become available to six figure business owners who

James Hipkin: 00:01:06

are looking to step up their game.

Tara Bryan: 00:01:08

Yeah, that's so cool. So so we haven't met

Tara Bryan: 00:01:11

before we just we're talking just briefly, but your story is

Tara Bryan: 00:01:14

very similar to mine, actually, because I have been. I own an

Tara Bryan: 00:01:21

agency. So we do full service elearning design and development

Tara Bryan: 00:01:25

for large corporations. And I had exactly the same thing where

Tara Bryan: 00:01:28

I was like, I love working with large companies. But there are

Tara Bryan: 00:01:32

all of these people who are trying to create courses, and

Tara Bryan: 00:01:34

they are atrocious and terrible. And they're not serving their

Tara Bryan: 00:01:38

people. So they're not growing, and they're not building the

Tara Bryan: 00:01:41

business that they want to build. And so it was exactly the

Tara Bryan: 00:01:43

same thing was like I have to help them like what can I do?

James Hipkin: 00:01:46

Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's our

James Hipkin: 00:01:50

we build websites for large corporations, these are often

James Hipkin: 00:01:54

have six figure budgets. And you know, it's very interesting and

James Hipkin: 00:02:00

fun work. But it also says we actually know what we're doing.

James Hipkin: 00:02:05

We've been working with the same six, seven different design

James Hipkin: 00:02:09

agencies and clients for more than 10 years. So clearly, we're

James Hipkin: 00:02:13

doing something right. So how do we bring that knowledge and

James Hipkin: 00:02:16

expertise to bear to smaller business owners? Who have got to

James Hipkin: 00:02:20

the point where, okay, we've got some traction? Now one time to

James Hipkin: 00:02:26

step things up. So that's how that's the people we support?

Tara Bryan: 00:02:31

Yeah, awesome. Okay, so let's get into it a little

Tara Bryan: 00:02:33

bit. Because I'm, I'm curious to know, the six seconds or less.

Tara Bryan: 00:02:37

So you are saying that there are ways to increase engagement on

Tara Bryan: 00:02:42

your website, and six seconds or less, right? That's what you're

Tara Bryan: 00:02:44

saying?

James Hipkin: 00:02:45

That's right.

Tara Bryan: 00:02:45

Okay. Well tell us all about that. Because it is,

Tara Bryan: 00:02:48

first of all, super important that you have a web presence so

Tara Bryan: 00:02:52

people can find you online and kind of do, you know, do the

Tara Bryan: 00:02:56

research of who you are before they're going to, you know, jump

Tara Bryan: 00:02:59

into your program, your coaching your course, or whatever. But

Tara Bryan: 00:03:02

you have to build it the right way. So tell us how we need to

Tara Bryan: 00:03:06

build it and what how we get people's attention in six

Tara Bryan: 00:03:08

seconds,

James Hipkin: 00:03:09

you said a couple of really important things so

James Hipkin: 00:03:12

that they can find you online. And so that you they can see if

James Hipkin: 00:03:17

you can solve their problem. And this is the most common mistake

James Hipkin: 00:03:22

I see in websites. The website bleeds away about how awesome

James Hipkin: 00:03:29

the business is, without any acknowledgement whatsoever to

James Hipkin: 00:03:35

the problem that they're trying to solve 100% This is what I

James Hipkin: 00:03:40

call Inside Out presentation where it needs to be outside in.

James Hipkin: 00:03:45

And the six seconds comes from the fact you've probably heard

James Hipkin: 00:03:48

that a goldfish has an attention seeking

Tara Bryan: 00:03:50

to ask if it was the goldfish. That's like that's

Tara Bryan: 00:03:54

where it's coming from. Yeah,

James Hipkin: 00:03:55

well, that's a myth. It's not actually true.

James Hipkin: 00:03:57

But regardless, as a business owner, you should be so lucky.

James Hipkin: 00:04:02

Right? Right. You've got six seconds or less to engage

James Hipkin: 00:04:05

somebody who arrives at your website. And most of the people

James Hipkin: 00:04:08

who get to your website, I've got there on our referral of

James Hipkin: 00:04:11

some sort. Per heard about you heard you speaking social media,

James Hipkin: 00:04:17

some way they've heard about you. So when they get to the

James Hipkin: 00:04:21

website, and the six seconds doesn't start when the page has

James Hipkin: 00:04:25

loaded, the six seconds starts when the page is asked for. And

James Hipkin: 00:04:33

that page load speed is the first trust event. If your page

James Hipkin: 00:04:38

is taking four and a half seconds to load, people are

James Hipkin: 00:04:41

going oh, how serious are these people? Right as opposed to if

James Hipkin: 00:04:46

it's there in a second or less. It's stops being a consideration

James Hipkin: 00:04:50

at all. The second way is what are they looking for are there

James Hipkin: 00:04:58

because they're going to ask themselves Are they in the right

James Hipkin: 00:05:00

place? And if you've been marketing yourself around your

James Hipkin: 00:05:06

name, and they arrive at the website and see some fancy logo

James Hipkin: 00:05:11

about a company name they've never heard of, they're

James Hipkin: 00:05:13

instantaneously going to be thinking about hmm, am I in the

James Hipkin: 00:05:16

right place. And you don't want them thinking about that you

James Hipkin: 00:05:20

want that to be a checkbox bank was looking for Tara Bryan, and

James Hipkin: 00:05:26

I found her there's. So then the third thing is give them a

James Hipkin: 00:05:31

benefit oriented reason to stay, lead with the problem that they

James Hipkin: 00:05:38

are trying to solve, not with your solution. Because what

James Hipkin: 00:05:44

you're trying to do is to engage them and you engage people by

James Hipkin: 00:05:48

acknowledging them.

Tara Bryan: 00:05:51

Yeah, that's so so true. So how do you handle that

Tara Bryan: 00:05:55

with people? Who are you're working with? Who who really

Tara Bryan: 00:06:00

can't articulate that? Right? Like, there are some people who

Tara Bryan: 00:06:03

are creating courses and programs and whatever else, and

Tara Bryan: 00:06:05

they can't articulate like, the problem they're actually

Tara Bryan: 00:06:08

solving? Well, usually

James Hipkin: 00:06:10

what I do is I give them an exercise, I asked

James Hipkin: 00:06:13

them to complete a customer avatar. And the customer avatar

James Hipkin: 00:06:19

has four quadrants, the upper left hand quadrant is

James Hipkin: 00:06:22

demographically what does your best customer look like? The

James Hipkin: 00:06:27

upper right hand quadrant is? What are their attitudes? Are

James Hipkin: 00:06:32

they confident? Are they self confident? Are they insecure?

James Hipkin: 00:06:35

What are their attitudes? The demographics help you understand

James Hipkin: 00:06:39

where they are and how to find them online? The attitudes help

James Hipkin: 00:06:43

you understand how to talk to them. And then the lower left

James Hipkin: 00:06:48

hand quadrant is define their pain. What is the thing that

James Hipkin: 00:06:52

they're struggling with? And then in the lower right hand

James Hipkin: 00:06:56

quadrant is where you what's their gain from working with

James Hipkin: 00:06:59

you? Right. Okay. And that gives you a really holistic view of

James Hipkin: 00:07:06

your prime prospect. But it that there's another step, and this

James Hipkin: 00:07:11

is the step that ever more often than not, yes, I have an avatar.

James Hipkin: 00:07:16

Okay, the next step is map their customer, their journey. Yep.

James Hipkin: 00:07:22

Map the journey from where they are to, I don't even know this

James Hipkin: 00:07:26

problem exists through to the kinds of events that might

James Hipkin: 00:07:30

affect their life that would cause them to start thinking

James Hipkin: 00:07:33

about this and go into the sort of consideration mode. And then

James Hipkin: 00:07:37

the steps that they've got going to take and the kinds of

James Hipkin: 00:07:40

questions they'll have at that phase, then into prospecting,

James Hipkin: 00:07:44

the kinds of questions they'll have in that phase, your goal

James Hipkin: 00:07:47

with the website is to support that journey. So that as opposed

James Hipkin: 00:07:54

to just yelling at them when they get there, you're becoming

James Hipkin: 00:07:57

a trusted compatriot in the journey to solve this problem.

James Hipkin: 00:08:05

And that brings me to the next of the six ways, which is

James Hipkin: 00:08:09

reasons to believe. Give them some credibility. You don't have

James Hipkin: 00:08:15

this doesn't have to be the great American novel. A couple

James Hipkin: 00:08:19

of powerful testimonials is much more effective than 13

James Hipkin: 00:08:23

testimonials in a carousel? Yeah, yeah, all you need to do

James Hipkin: 00:08:26

is just give them some objective evidence that your solution that

James Hipkin: 00:08:30

you're proposing, you have the credibility to do that, and then

James Hipkin: 00:08:35

map their pathway. I like to not use the word call to action. I

James Hipkin: 00:08:43

like to use the word pathway. Interesting, effectively, it's

James Hipkin: 00:08:46

the same thing. But that change in the the words changes the

James Hipkin: 00:08:51

mindset around it, what you're trying to do is create pathways,

James Hipkin: 00:08:55

most people have two or three sub segments in their target

James Hipkin: 00:09:00

audience. And each one of those sub segments should have their

James Hipkin: 00:09:04

own avatar. And you want to create pathways that call out to

James Hipkin: 00:09:09

those sub segments. So that they're like, you're telling

James Hipkin: 00:09:15

them the benefits they're gonna get from following this pathway.

James Hipkin: 00:09:20

And when they click the call to action button in that pathway,

James Hipkin: 00:09:23

they'll be taken to a page and two, powerful and profound

James Hipkin: 00:09:28

things have happened. They've told you exactly who they are.

James Hipkin: 00:09:34

And they've given you permission to tell them about your product

James Hipkin: 00:09:40

or service. So this is an engagement process that

James Hipkin: 00:09:47

ultimately gets you to the other word that I don't like to use,

James Hipkin: 00:09:53

which is sales. Ah, yeah, take sales out of your vocabulary.

James Hipkin: 00:09:59

And again, it's a effectively the same thing. But the mindset

James Hipkin: 00:10:03

change that's words are important. And think of it is my

James Hipkin: 00:10:08

my conversion event is an enrollment conversation.

Tara Bryan: 00:10:12

Mm hmm. Yep. That's so powerful.

James Hipkin: 00:10:16

And then that means that you're getting the

James Hipkin: 00:10:19

right customers for the right reasons. I've done a lot of work

James Hipkin: 00:10:22

in my past and loyalty marketing, big corporations, $30

James Hipkin: 00:10:27

million budgets, all around customer communication and

James Hipkin: 00:10:31

customer loyalty. And 90% of loyalty problems can be traced

James Hipkin: 00:10:36

to a flawed sales process. And this is why I use words like

James Hipkin: 00:10:42

pathway and enrollment conversation. Now, you'll notice

James Hipkin: 00:10:47

I'm talking about a website, but I haven't talked about anything

James Hipkin: 00:10:49

technical about the website. I haven't talked about design I

James Hipkin: 00:10:52

haven't talked about, because the piece that's missing from

James Hipkin: 00:10:56

most websites is strategy.

Tara Bryan: 00:10:59

Yep. 100%. Same thing with courses. Same thing.

Tara Bryan: 00:11:03

Sure. That's true. It's all Yeah. That's the conversation

Tara Bryan: 00:11:07

that's missing. i It's interesting that you say that,

Tara Bryan: 00:11:09

because I'm always people are like, what's the tool I should

Tara Bryan: 00:11:12

be using, like, doesn't matter. What matters is all of this

Tara Bryan: 00:11:16

stuff that you're talking about right now. That's the essential

Tara Bryan: 00:11:19

piece.

James Hipkin: 00:11:20

And that's the and then the sixth way. And the

James Hipkin: 00:11:23

sixth way, is make the page easy to consume. Lots of whitespace.

James Hipkin: 00:11:29

Use visuals to support the words, use the heart, a

James Hipkin: 00:11:33

hierarchy of language, your titles, and your subtitles

James Hipkin: 00:11:38

should be a different size. Don't use long line links.

James Hipkin: 00:11:43

Newspapers are printed in columns for a reason columns are

James Hipkin: 00:11:46

easier to read. So you know, blinds that cover the whole page

James Hipkin: 00:11:51

that are knocked out white on top of an image, that designer

James Hipkin: 00:11:55

may think this looks awesome, but no normal human can read

James Hipkin: 00:11:58

them. Right? Right. So the last of the six ways to engage

James Hipkin: 00:12:03

visitors is make the content appealing and recognize where

James Hipkin: 00:12:09

they are in their journey. Don't put the great American novel on

James Hipkin: 00:12:12

your homepage. Give them a clear pathway that they can follow.

James Hipkin: 00:12:18

And then they've given you permission to give them more

James Hipkin: 00:12:21

information. That's where you can give them more information.

James Hipkin: 00:12:24

But give them that information in a very digestible way.

Tara Bryan: 00:12:28

Yep, yeah. So good. I love all six of those are are

Tara Bryan: 00:12:31

awesome. So So when somebody is coming to you, and they're kind

Tara Bryan: 00:12:36

of getting started, like, what's the like? You have them do the

Tara Bryan: 00:12:41

avatar exercise, but like, what's the like a tip that you

Tara Bryan: 00:12:43

would give them like, this is a difference between this working

Tara Bryan: 00:12:46

and not working? Like what's what's that like? little nugget

Tara Bryan: 00:12:49

that you would give them?

James Hipkin: 00:12:51

Well, one of the things I see frequently, it's

James Hipkin: 00:12:54

more of a technical thing. Most people are right handed, they

James Hipkin: 00:12:58

scan a page from the upper left hand corner to the lower right

James Hipkin: 00:13:02

hand corner. Yeah. Don't put the call to action in the lower left

James Hipkin: 00:13:06

hand corner. Because they won't see it. Yeah, yeah. But the

James Hipkin: 00:13:11

image on the left, put the words on the right, put the call to

James Hipkin: 00:13:15

action at the bottom of the words. And, you know, this is a

James Hipkin: 00:13:21

very common mistake, because designers don't think about that

James Hipkin: 00:13:23

kind of thing, right? They're just want it to look good. But

James Hipkin: 00:13:28

you have to think about it from the point of view of the users

James Hipkin: 00:13:31

experience, and how users are going to actually interact with

James Hipkin: 00:13:35

the page. It's a subset of that six way which is make the page

James Hipkin: 00:13:40

easy to consume. It's a common mistake. Another common mistake

James Hipkin: 00:13:45

is video is very effective on a webpage. People by people, it's

James Hipkin: 00:13:51

a great opportunity for you to show who you are as a person.

James Hipkin: 00:13:56

The piece that often gets overlooked is the importance of

James Hipkin: 00:13:58

the thumbnail. Because you want the thumbnail to invite people

James Hipkin: 00:14:06

to click the play button. They want the thumbnail to

James Hipkin: 00:14:10

communicate all of the benefits they're going to get from

James Hipkin: 00:14:14

watching this video. You can't just assume that they'll click

James Hipkin: 00:14:18

it because it's there.

Tara Bryan: 00:14:20

So what's a good example of a thumbnail that

Tara Bryan: 00:14:23

invites them to watch the video

James Hipkin: 00:14:26

a headline that introduces the benefits the

James Hipkin: 00:14:29

things you're going to talk about in the video

Tara Bryan: 00:14:32

is in the thumbnail not in the the copy around it.

James Hipkin: 00:14:35

But you can do it there to do it in more than one

James Hipkin: 00:14:38

place. Interesting give people choices. people consume content

James Hipkin: 00:14:43

different ways. There are people who will always read first they

James Hipkin: 00:14:47

like to read they absorb their content that way there are other

James Hipkin: 00:14:50

people who are visual. A thumbnail with a big nice, nice

James Hipkin: 00:14:54

benefit oriented headline can be absorbed without reading it. And

James Hipkin: 00:15:00

they'll take action and they'll watch the video. So the video, I

James Hipkin: 00:15:04

worked with a Pilates instructor, we do a lot of

James Hipkin: 00:15:08

websites, for course builders. And this was a Pilates

James Hipkin: 00:15:11

instructor who was creating a course. And I said to her that

James Hipkin: 00:15:16

your landing page, your marketing landing page needs a

James Hipkin: 00:15:19

video. And you know, and your headlines are not very benefit

James Hipkin: 00:15:23

oriented. So she gave me the video. And then she said, Well,

James Hipkin: 00:15:27

I don't know how to write this copy. I don't know how to create

James Hipkin: 00:15:30

this better. And I watched her video and I said, Wendy,

James Hipkin: 00:15:35

everything you need to save said in the video. I just took the

James Hipkin: 00:15:40

words that you said and turn them into a headline in the

James Hipkin: 00:15:42

video. Yeah. Different people consume information, different

James Hipkin: 00:15:46

ways you can duplicate this information. Nobody minds,

Tara Bryan: 00:15:51

right? Yeah, no, that's so powerful. And you only

Tara Bryan: 00:15:55

have the six seconds. So somebody may watch the video. So

Tara Bryan: 00:15:57

maybe maybe the copy some maybe just browsing and like, you

Tara Bryan: 00:16:01

know, fast up and down. And the more that comes out the better.

Tara Bryan: 00:16:04

Yeah,

James Hipkin: 00:16:05

another trick that is really, really effective.

James Hipkin: 00:16:08

Most people don't buy the first time they're at the website. So

James Hipkin: 00:16:13

if you've created three pathways, mirror echo those

James Hipkin: 00:16:19

pathways in your main navigation. So that if somebody

James Hipkin: 00:16:23

comes back to the website, they can instantly look in the main

James Hipkin: 00:16:26

navigation goes, Yes, that's where I want to be. Interesting.

James Hipkin: 00:16:30

Yep, that's a good guy, and then put the administrative stuff

James Hipkin: 00:16:33

contact us. You know, all that other stuff. Put that up in the

James Hipkin: 00:16:38

secondary navigation or put it in the footer?

Tara Bryan: 00:16:42

Donald Miller calls out the junk drawer, put it down

Tara Bryan: 00:16:45

in the junk drawer down in the footer. Right. Yeah.

James Hipkin: 00:16:48

I mean, we strongly encourage people to

James Hipkin: 00:16:50

limit their main navigation to three to four things no more

James Hipkin: 00:16:55

than that. Yeah, yep. Yeah, you've only got six seconds.

James Hipkin: 00:16:59

Don't have them spending a whole lot of time trying to figure out

James Hipkin: 00:17:01

these nine things in the navigation. Which one do I need

James Hipkin: 00:17:05

to worry about? Right? Yeah, I'm thinking about the wrong things.

Tara Bryan: 00:17:09

Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. Okay, so give us

Tara Bryan: 00:17:12

a book or resource or tool, something that is like your go

Tara Bryan: 00:17:16

to that's helped transform you and your business. More than

Tara Bryan: 00:17:21

anything else? Do you have like a special book or, or anything

Tara Bryan: 00:17:25

that that the best thing that people

James Hipkin: 00:17:27

can do is go to six seconds or less.com. And

James Hipkin: 00:17:33

that will give you an opportunity to book some time on

James Hipkin: 00:17:36

my calendar. And we can have a 30 minute conversation about the

James Hipkin: 00:17:40

strategy behind an effective website. And I will audit your

James Hipkin: 00:17:44

website and give you some really valuable feedback on the things

James Hipkin: 00:17:48

you're doing well, and the things that could really be

James Hipkin: 00:17:51

improved. To improve the opportunity that you have with

James Hipkin: 00:17:56

the website to create value for your customers and value for

James Hipkin: 00:18:00

your business. That mutual exchange of value is the goal.

James Hipkin: 00:18:04

Yeah, so go to six seconds, or less.com. And I'd be happy to

James Hipkin: 00:18:09

audit your website and talk to you about some of these things

James Hipkin: 00:18:11

in more detail.

Tara Bryan: 00:18:12

Awesome. All right, you heard it from James, go

Tara Bryan: 00:18:15

check out his website. We'll put that also in the show notes. So

Tara Bryan: 00:18:17

you have it. Thank you so much, James, for being here today. Any

Tara Bryan: 00:18:21

parting words that you want to give to our listeners today as

Tara Bryan: 00:18:26

as we leave our session today?

James Hipkin: 00:18:29

I think the key thing I like to tell people,

James Hipkin: 00:18:32

there's so much flying around. There's so many shiny things.

James Hipkin: 00:18:35

There's so many choices out there. Stop trying to boil the

James Hipkin: 00:18:38

ocean. Pick a few things, do them well. And when you think

James Hipkin: 00:18:45

you're doing them, well figure out how to do them better. Yes.

James Hipkin: 00:18:49

And if you just just do that, you're much more likely to be

James Hipkin: 00:18:53

successful.

Tara Bryan: 00:18:54

Yep. Don't do more stuff. Just do what you're doing

Tara Bryan: 00:18:57

better. I love it.

James Hipkin: 00:18:58

The flowers prune the weeds.

Tara Bryan: 00:19:00

Yes. Perfect. I love it. All right. Thank you so much

Tara Bryan: 00:19:03

for being with us. Everyone else have a great day.