Marketing 101: The Importance of Having A Website with Lori Lyons | MDIDS2E11

Welcome, welcome. Welcome. This is Paul thinking, this is the maverick do a different podcast. And this is the maverick universe where anything can happen. And we're talking about how to do it different create different thoughts, different viewpoints, different ideas to create a magnitude of abundance in our world and to create the life we really want. today. Well today I've got someone special with us, and someone who will is going to help you with everything you're doing. This is Laurie Lyons and she's a CEO of igniting your business marketing strategist, website designer hence just wait and a coach who shows entrepreneurs how to get more leads more clients, and I know you're looking for that hand. How about this? A little bit more money with captivating digital online presence, which is what everybody says they want. However, it seems so elusive for people to actually get sometimes Laurie is here to help us figure all that out. Lori welcome To the podcast, how are you?

I'm great. How are you doing, Paul?

On to an awesome, this whole idea of what we do on the internet and websites? And I know man, I'm from old school, you know, I just want to meet people face to face go and engage with them only in this day and age, everybody's online. Now is has things changed? And how has the internet changed marketing for businesses?

Well, what I tell my clients is the way that the philosophies and the principles of marketing have not changed, since they, you know, exchanged leather for scones and you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, we still mark it. And it's still the same principles, but the way we mark it is very different. And there's so many avenues that we have in so many different places that we can go that sometimes it can get overwhelming and confusing for a small business owner or for anybody.

Yes. So how do we unclutter that complication?

Well, one of the things that I that I specialize in is making things simple. So just because it's simple, doesn't mean it's easy. But we can uncomplicate and go back to the basics. Because really marketing boils down to three simple things. Right time, right audience right message. And that's the basics and the principles and everything we do no matter no matter what we put out into the world, it all boils down to that is, are we spreading our message? Are we spreading it to the right people in a way spreading at the right time. So whether you put it on social media, or you put it on your website, or you put it in an email funnel, or whether you put it out in whatever form you're doing even a book, then that can they can all come back to those three main principles.

So, as an owner, I know I've struggled with this over the years is, how do I know? Or who do I lean into? Like, I know, I don't always have the answers, like as to what my message is, what the right thing is, how am I going to reach the right audience? How do we dial that in?

Yeah, sometimes it's just a matter of, of trial and error. Sometimes it's a matter of who you're comfortable with. And a lot of it will show in the marketplace who's coming to you. Because if you're speaking to that right group of people, they're going to hear the message and they're going to reach out to you in one way or the other, whether it be by email, or whether it be, you know, Facebook Messenger or wherever, however, and the WhatsApp, however many forms of communication that they have. But I found over the years that when, when my message has changed, my audience has changed and different people will reach out for different ways. As I've gotten older, and I'm working a lot more with older entrepreneurs, who are what I call encore entrepreneurs, people who've been out in the workplace, either they've retired and they're bored. Or they've always said, You know what, when I get out of this corporate job, this is what I really want to do. I want to I want to go help people do this, then then for them, it can be very overwhelming and very confusing. So let's make it simple. But it's all it's all you know, going back to what you to your message, and getting it out there in the right way where your audience is.

Do you think people overcomplicate all this?

Absolutely.

What, why?

Because I think in our world, we have the internet gurus and the people that that go out and they say, We can sit here, you know, we're on you and I were on a cruise. And you know, his wife was there. So hold on. But we were on a cruise together and we were making connections and we were talking we were you know, we were meeting people. But we were also hearing very successful stories of people who were making multiple, seven figures and how they were doing it. But so you get caught up in that world and it's really hard on the internet, where you're seeing all the ads, and you're seeing all the people say hey, this is you know, is this purple, perfect Utopia world but you don't see all the hard work that went into into it. It's that, you know, overnight star that's been working for 20 years to get overnight stardom. So I think that that's what happens.

Yeah, absolutely. Where they see what's on Facebook, and they're like, that's what I need to do. And then they hear someone who says, Oh, I've got this great, you know, this great funnel, and you've got to follow this path. And they spend the next five years building up the perfect funnel, that is imperfect because they forgot to figure out the basics of the right audience and the right message and and so how do we, how do we battle against that? Because that message is out there in abundance for and especially the new entrepreneurs are so susceptible to that. So what are you what is going on with your world? How are you helping to mitigate some of that pressure that people have have to do all that and make it simple.

Well, it's interesting because I have it right here in my household because I am not, you know, I am I am over 50. But I have a son who's 25 and who grew up in the YouTube world and everything, you know, if it's on YouTube, you know, oh my gosh is believable. So he's looking at all these Roma's and he's an entrepreneur, he started his own business, proud mama moment here, but he's doing really well. But he's looking at all these YouTube rich, rich people on YouTube that are showing their their Lamborghinis, and their, you know, their Ferraris and their, their extravagant lifestyles with their private jets. And, you know, and it can be, it can be enticing to them. But they don't realize what they've what they've had to get to, or they don't realize that it's all for the cameras.

Yes. very leery of the Lamborghini that was just rented for the hour, exactly a very leery of the piles of money that really are just facades that they bought off the Amazon. Right, the be be leery. And I see it all the time. And when I got into the this realm, if you will, I got to have the chance to look on the backside and look behind the curtain and recognize that all these things are happening. And I've been able to stay grounded because of that over the years. The so yes, so our message is stay grounded, stay focused, and watch what can happen when you do so because you can build the multimillion dollar business. Only it takes the work takes effort. Yes,

Yeah. And I like that stay grounded. Because I think that's, I think that's, that's critical for all of us, no matter what your age, and put the work in, you know, it, you can't you can't build a house without building the foundation first. And if you've got a good foundation, and you start working on that foundation, and make that foundation really good and solid, then you know, then then the world is the limit. I mean, you know, you can go wherever you want to because you've got a good solid foundation. And I think that also includes your principles and what you believe in, I think that includes your your philosophy of life, that you know, and you see that, you know, and I don't want to like, like, just totally push them into the ground, all the all the internet millionaires, but because I think there's a lot of value in what they say. And there's a lot of value in what they do. And you can use them as a role model in a leader. But you hit it if you stay grounded, and do it your way and do it what makes sense to you, then I think you know, then the sky is the is the limit, you know, you could do whatever you want to.

Okay, now this is not the type of conversation that usually comes from somebody who makes a living out of build building digital and putting us into the digital world. So explain that dichotomy, if you will?

Well, yeah, because the digital world is where you know, is where we're where we are, and what we're going to have to be on. And it's it's going to, it's going to change, we're probably have a very different conversation and 50 years about what it looks like. But in today's world, in today's business, digital and online is where you have to be. And social media is a part of that. And I've talked about building a good foundation for me, the website is a good foundation, if you have a good place for all of your followers and all of the people who want to come and find out about you as a website. And there can be a lot of different purposes, there's a lot of different reasons, some of it is to capture your lead gen. You know, and and I had a conversation with somebody one time he said, Oh, website should only be lead gen. Well, yeah, you want it to make money off of your website Hello. But it also should should give somebody a flavor. You know, you talked earlier about you know, how do we know what people are we we find out who they are on social media, but then we go find out all about them on their on their website. So my thing is social media is the soundbite your website is the full story.

So we need both.?

Yeah, they complement each other.

Because so many people in and I'm sure you've seen it on social media. Well, listen, I don't need a website. I don't need a funnel. I don't need any of that stuff. I just need to be on social media. What do you say to that? What do you say to those people that are doing that?

If you were if you have a way to bring them to bring your followers off of social media, and own them, more power to you, whether it be in an email list, or however you own your social media, and I heard, I love podcasts and I was listening to an Amy Porterfield podcast and I thought she put it in a good way. She said "social media is rented property."

If your people are only on social media, and you're not gathering them off, and putting them into an email sequence or putting them on your website in some way, shape or form you Don't on them. Right? You know, a couple of years ago, Facebook went down for a while. And the multiple, you know, the panic over that was just incredible and just amazing.

Yeah, so that. So definitely people make that mistake, they go to social media and they don't build their own list. And so they we drive them to our website, we capture their their contact information, when they're there one way or the other through some sort of lead gen, right. And so, and I heard you say the different components on is our website a lead gen, or is it what, what else could it be?

It could be a way to sell sell product, it's an e-commerce site, it could be for some, it can just be strictly an informational site. I have a client that's an attorney, that all he wants you to do is go to his site and find out if he's the right attorney for you. That's it. He didn't care about any of the other stuff. That's all he wants and that's his purpose for having a for having a website. You can use it as a repository of your content. You know, I have another client who she is a huge YouTuber. And she keeps some of her library of free video on her website. So she can drive traffic to our website, she can get their email address, and she also sells from her website. So she has a bunch of different reasons.

With the website, is there a reason to have multiple websites that and a website that does, you know, here's a website that sells, but there's also that like your attorney is, here's a website, that is my credibility website.

Well, you're asking the website designer, so I'll tell you, you can never have too many websites. I actually am working on for for my my business, but they're all going to work together. So you want to make sure that they kind of all complement and work together. And in today's technology, you can send you from one to the other pretty easily. You know, on my main website, I have a podcast tab. That takes me right to my podcast, which is on another website, just just because it kept it cleaner and easier. And it didn't, you know, my main website is pretty, pretty big with all the different things that I have and all the lead funnels and you know, the lead gen and all the stuff that goes through there. So I keep it I keep it separate to keep it pretty clean. So you can have a bunch of different reasons, I think a lot of it depends on sometimes it can get really overwhelming. For a business owner, I happen to have a team that can do this for me. And some do but it can get overwhelming if you're trying to do this all yourself.

Oh my gosh, yeah, I will and I am going to be a strong advocate and and look to lean into you right out to get some free advice. But that being said, it's oh my gosh, you're either going to be an entrepreneur, you're going to be a strong business person, or you're going to be building websites, you cannot do both, you cannot. It is impossible. And every entrepreneur, they know every solopreneur that feels Oh, I can do it. And I don't need a team, I don't need people by my side, that inevitably, their website goes down and their business is frozen for a month because they have no idea how to get back up because of one little link that goes to zero in their back office somewhere. And yeah, you need a you need a team I learned that long ago.

Well, and also the more professional you become, you want a professional looking online presence, you want a professional looking LinkedIn banner, you want a professional looking everything. And you know, and I laugh and I say homemade is only good with chocolate chip cookies.

So, to not to sell you re only you do all the social media like banners, and I heard you talk about LinkedIn banner, and stuff, you help coordinate those type of things.

We coordinate, yes, we don't actually go in and do your posting for you. Because there's, I mean, there's high school kids that will do that for you. But we look at it from an overall plan. And we also when we're looking at your website, we don't just say okay, let's throw something up there to give you a plus presence, we look at the marketing strategy behind it, what do you need? How's it going to flow with the rest of your digital presence? Because it kind of flows in and if on the podcast, if you picture something, an arrow going into a circle and an arrow coming out of the circle, then that's what your your website is, you've got stuff coming in and stuff going out. So you want to make sure it's all part of a good strategy. And then we'll look at the other social media and see where you know, make sure your branding is consistent. And we don't do branding, but we can I can tell you if it's consistent or not.

Yes indeed and to create that that vision where it's all integrated together. Weather is so important. I've seen so many people make the mistake of, of isolating, oh, they'll hire a web designer. And they'll basically, they'll there'll be isolation, working in isolation, being consulted in isolation from everything else that's going on in the world, for that company, and it never ends. Well, no. Never Ends. Well, you know, one of the things that that has come up in my world with my websites, and remember, I was gonna get some free advice. Yeah. So here's is an the question comes up? Well, if we have this multi tab website, why do I need a second website? And why wouldn't I like when do you do go to? Like you said the podcasts doing it separate versus just another tab?

Yeah, it just really kind of depends on on what the functionality of it of the other tab is, you know, how big is it going to be a lot of times with with on, you know, online learning is a big part of our of our world, a lot of people have online programs, and some of them can get pretty unwieldy and big. And, you know, while while there's platforms out there that can handle a large, a large website like that, a lot of times I will talk to my clients about putting them on a subdomain, which is a separate, similar but separate website. So a lot of it, it's not an easy question to answer, I'd be happy to give you the 50 cent answer, but it really just kind of depends on what is there? What is, you know, what you're adding to it? And what is the load that it can handle? Do you have enough enough space? And you know, can your hosting handle it? You know, so there's all kinds of things that go into it. So, unfortunately, it's not an easy answer, but it's

no understood, when he talks about load is that about, you know, how much you have on it is how long it's going to take to boot up? How, how much Wi Fi that you can access? Is that what we're talking about?

Yeah, kind of, it's, um, I most of my sites I build are in WordPress, we do some custom work. But we are in WordPress, and I recently took over a site from a client that had 47 plugins to it. Now, plugins in the WordPress world are what gave you the functionality. So it was you know, and, you know, had I helped her build that site, we probably would have laid it out a little differently. So we didn't need 47 plugins, because then you start getting, the longer the more plugins you have, the longer it takes to load. And that's pretty much with any, a lot of a lot of platforms that they're using, they're depending on what they call plugins, it could be a different word. But the more functionality you add, the longer it's going to take to load, the more memory it's going to take, the more space it's going to take on your hosting, and a lot of people will look for the cheapest hosting, that doesn't serve them because it's slow. And you might be sharing a server with 1000s of other people that have really large websites. So it can really slow. So there's a lot of things that go into it.

Do you What's your connection with the recommending server servers, recommending certain certain places that would be best and safest for us to go to?

Well, you know, it's interesting, because I used to when I first started in the business, I would, I would say here, go here or go here. And I would I would send them to XYZ company, because I had an affiliate and I could make $60 on Yeah, I get a good commission back on it. So why don't we send them there? It was good hosting. I felt good about it. But then they were sold and uh, you know, somebody bought a bunch of the popular hosting services. So I started looking at and now I have my own server. So so instead of making $60 One time I you know, I can I there's a lot of flexibility I have with it. So I would tell most business owners depending on who they're looking at, explore your options. Because the GoDaddy or the Bluehost, or the Hostmonster, or the SiteGround. Some of those aren't always your best option. Although, from a price standpoint, they can look pretty darn attractive.

So for your clients, this is definitely another piece of the puzzle is that you can host their website on your server. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I will tell you guys, everybody that's listening here. Pay attention. And I'm maybe jumping in gun. Is there a way that they can talk to you for a consult on this type of stuff?

Absolutely. Absolutely. My website is igniting your business.com but I also have this really cool thing is Laurie Lyons li ons three sixty.com And you can see all of my stuff on that. It's got you can schedule a call with me. It's got my websites on it. You know, you can you can get a free gift there.

So to say it slow one more time for all those that are listening really quickly.

Yes, go ahead. Laurie lor. I will Lions fly ons, three, six o.com.

Excellent. And on there, they can go and get a console with you.

Yes. Beautiful schedule a little schedule icon right there.

And so to to kind of give a rundown, we've talked about a lot of different things, give them a rundown of what you're an expert in what the console would be about and what your services are.

Sure, I, I'm a marketing strategist, first of all, and I own a website design agency. So like, by talking to me, we talk about where you are, and where you want to go. So it could be we're talking about some marketing coaching, where we could be we're talking about a long term engagement, it could be we're talking about, you know, your you've had your website for five or six years, and it's no longer serving you because your business has grown. So we look at a combination, we can walk you through messaging and walk you through making sure that what we are going to build for you from a website standpoint, really works in your marketing strategy. So it can really run the gamut for you.

Oh, beautiful. And the thing that we were just talking about servers, ask her about servers guy, I gotta tell you, in all my years, the thing that's given me the biggest headaches that never would have thought was where I was hosting my websites. Absolutely, absolutely. It's a bigger challenge than most people ever talk about or ever know, until it's too late.

Absolutely. And well, the caveat with that, though, is I have to build your website. So of course, yes, absolutely. So you want my server? You know, you get but but yeah, it you know, don't don't just go by price on that, because it's gonna it's going to end up at some point, it's gonna, it's gonna hit you. It's gonna hit Yeah,

yeah, that and there's so many. It's the internet's at one of those odd places. I wasn't, you know, of the generations, same as you that grew up with this. And then recognizing that, oh, the server could have other people on there that ruin the deliverability of my website, or of my engagement. I'm like, But wait, I don't even know them. And I just hired the service. What do they have to do with my business? Everything?

Oh, absolutely. I had a client not too long ago, who, who came to me and she, she wanted to do the 399 a month hosting on a, you know, on a shared server. And she was just complaining, we'd built her a really nice site, she was like, I can't get it faster. I'm like, we can't get it any more streamlined. But what we can do is move it to our server. And we did and it her, you know, her spin speed of her site improved dramatically. And it was simply because there wasn't as much people, it was less traffic, we all know what traffic looks like on the freeway.

And sometimes people you know, it's the we can make it simple. It doesn't have to be so complicated. But you've got to lean into people like you to trust and to work with hands on to really create an ease of a business and ease of life. Absolutely not stress that more. Because the worst thing in the world is when all your digital efforts and all the work that you put in and all of a sudden your business comes to a screeching halt. Because some craziness happen that you just never thought of. That that's why call Laurie. That's like, talk to Laurie

Laurie Lyons, three sixty.com.

She's there. And I gotta tell you, she's a wealth of knowledge, wealth of expertise. And the fact that she will give you that time as a consult, and to talk to her. Take advantage of it. For all of you that this isn't, I'm not here to sell any thing. And this is just conversation and for all the entrepreneurs around the world that are listening in, pay attention, these are key components and have someone like Laurie to to advise you is ultimately one of the best uses of your time you could ever have. Any with all the people that are listening in any last words for everything that we've been talking about or anything additional for the entrepreneurs that are out there?

Yeah, I would say you know, don't sit on your laurels, go back and kind of review what you're doing from a from a digital standpoint and look at where you're where you're what you're putting out there in the world in social media, look at what your website looks like. You know, if you don't put gas in the car, it ain't gonna go anywhere. So kind of figure that your digital is your gas for your business because in today's world, that's where we are. So you want to make sure you're paying attention to it on a you know, on a regular basis. Don't just let it go. Don't you know even if somebody else is doing it for you, make sure you're watching what they're putting out there.

Here here. Yes, indeed. Laurie Lyons three sixty.com Absolutely. Go find her at This has been just a tremendous time. Thank you so much for being here. And being a part of this, and sharing your knowledge and your expertise and letting everyone know.

Thank you so much. So welcome. It's been a pleasure. It's been fun playing