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Episode 101: Building Trust & Increasing Demand
193 Plays4 years ago
Vanessa Kynes is back on the podcast and we're chatting about the two elements necessary for booking services or selling products: building trust and increasing demand.
As we mentioned back in episode 100, we're going to start answering your questions at the end of each episode. So, if you have a question to submit, send us a DM on Instagram. And who knows, maybe your question will become the topic of an entire episode.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-episode-101/
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Transcript
The Influence of Copywriting
00:00:05
Speaker
It doesn't have to be just sales and discounts. And I think that this is the power of copywriting is that a good copy can convince you that the state of your life right now, all right, is you just can't bear it any longer. However you're living your life right now, you need to stop and you need to buy the service or you need to buy this product so that your life becomes better in whatever way, whatever benefit that your product or service offers.
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
Guest Introduction: Vanessa Kynes
00:00:49
Speaker
Vanessa Kynes is back on the podcast and we're chatting about the two elements necessary for booking services or selling products, building trust and increasing demand. As we mentioned back in episode 100, we're going to start answering your questions at the end of each episode. So if you have a question to submit, send us a DM on Instagram and who knows, maybe your question will become the topic of an entire episode.
00:01:13
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. And as I just said, we want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast, especially as we tackle our next 100 episodes.
Milestone Episode and Format Discussion
00:01:28
Speaker
To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at DavyandChrista. Now, on the episode.
00:01:40
Speaker
All right, episode 101 of the Brands at Book Podcast. Welcome, Vanessa Kynes, starting to hold episode one in the hundreds. Here you are. I love it, and I'm so excited for you. I know that you've been waiting to hit episode 100 for a while, so congratulations on making it this far.
00:01:59
Speaker
Thanks. And you know, it's funny, I was just explaining to you, episode 100 will actually be recorded tomorrow. So recording that with Krista, and I feel like I put unnecessary pressure on episode 100. You know, it's like, Oh, what are we gonna do that's special for episode 100? You know, so we're just gonna
00:02:15
Speaker
We're going to answer questions that people have about the podcast and about what's going on in our lives and things like that. So I'm excited to dig into some of that stuff. And then we've also been talking, this is something that I've had conversations with you about, is maybe changing up the format of this podcast a little bit.
00:02:32
Speaker
And one of the ideas that we're exploring is doing sort of like a mailbag section, maybe towards the end of each episode. I've also considered maybe putting, answering like one question, like if a really good one comes in at the beginning of the episode before we start interviews or whatever topics. But we'll see. We'll see how things go. I've decided just to take the pressure off. It's really funny thinking about a physical mailbag at this point because everything is so digital.
00:03:01
Speaker
I would love, just a little video clip, pull out of an actual mailbag. It's just really cool to think about how that term exists then, but how it manifests now. And I would love to hear from readers or listeners, I guess you should say, and what questions they have. So I like this idea.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, well, maybe we'll actually make people if they want, if they want to send us a question, they actually have to send it via physical mail.
Social Media Sharing and Engagement
00:03:24
Speaker
What do you think? No one would do it. We're like, I don't even know where the post office is. Be sure to ask Davey fun personal questions too. Because I think he'd be interested in sharing like his favorite brew or his favorite CrossFit exercise.
00:03:38
Speaker
It's funny just thinking about that in terms of what we share. I don't get on Instagram very often and it's one of those things that I keep on saying, yeah, I know I need to do more of that. And for some of the reasons that we're talking about today. But with friends, like in-person conversations or even if we're just connecting, it's funny like anytime we record a podcast, we usually spend 20 minutes just catching up before the podcast and I'm happy to.
00:04:03
Speaker
you know, share thoughts about different things and make different recommendations and share what's going on. But when it comes to things like Instagram stories, I just struggle putting it out there. Yeah. So speaking of Instagram stories, like I was not super active, but mostly active multiple times a week. But then once the pandemic hit, so that was like March, it's July now. I just feel weird. And I think because so much time has passed, I don't even know what to share anymore.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I know maybe other people listening have had that issue too. So I need to just jump back into it. I'm afraid I just need to start sharing weird topics. We're buying a house. I'm thinking my first questions might be like, hey, which rug do you guys like? And just little home decor questions to kind of warm people up to my account again.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I think if somebody came to us for advice, and we substituted pretty much anything else in there, whether it would be like Pinterest or otherwise and said, Hey, I just haven't done this for a while. What do you guys recommend doing? My guess is we would just tell people like, Hey, just you just need to start doing it. Yeah. So maybe we should just take our own advice.
Home Living and Moving Experiences
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, I think we're part of the overthinker club club. I think some people would just be like, Yeah, like most people haven't noticed that you've even been gone. So like, don't be weird about it and just go for it.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, you have a move coming up, you were just, and you moved a lot, just in general, but it's been a crazy few years for you. Yeah. So are you excited about getting into a spot where you'll likely be for more than a year?
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping this is a long-term home. So a little bit about this, and we have three kids, but we just really prioritized neighborhood and commute. Time is always important to us. So it's the same neighborhood where my head's been to this university. He's a professor. So he is like a four-minute commute, which is pretty enviable, right? Unless you work from home, that's probably the best.
00:05:54
Speaker
But we are just really patient and worked really hard to find what we wanted. And a bunch of our friends from our church live on the street. So we're hoping it pays off to buy a very cute but small house because we think we're going to be spending more time like outside because it's the South. I mean, it's hot in the summer, but you can be outside most of the year. So we're excited. But you know, it's a big investment. And we're going to be talking a lot about that today on this episode, but just all of the questions and reviews and just
00:06:22
Speaker
trust that goes into purchasing a home, it's just a big deal. Because it's been around for 68 years, but I don't know what's happened the prior 68 years. And it's care and maintenance. So it's a big deal.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, the joys of the choice of home ownership. And we've been in transition for really the last two years now. So it's been two years since we sold our house and we've been in the build process. And so that's finally wrapping up and we're hoping that we'll be in our home sometime in the next, certainly within the next two months. So we can't wait, especially with everything going on in the world, if you're going to be stuck somewhere, you know, it's nice to be stuck in a home.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah. Now, I have a question. Have you guys planned and purchased all your furniture? Is Krista have a Pinterest board for all this? Because I've been using Pinterest a ton for furniture, picking out things. Yeah. I mean, just to give you an idea of who Krista is, and I don't think that this is surprising to you, but for anybody listening out there, she has been pretty much all our stuff is already packed up to go. And we are six weeks out. We don't have a moving date. And there's all sorts of stuff that has to happen since then.
00:07:30
Speaker
And that's one of the things I admire most about Krista and I appreciate not always when we're in it because for instance, like we'll be I'll be like, hey, I just need to I need to rest. I need to go and read or whatever. And she'll be like, I'm going to go pack right now. I'm like, what? Just come and rest. But I do appreciate that because that is how she is in all sorts of things. So as far as like
00:07:51
Speaker
making decisions as far as furniture and stuff like that, she's made those decisions over such a long period of time that I feel like, okay, we're not rushing around to make those decisions now. And then, of course, that helps with the investment aspect of it as well so that we don't have to dump all this money in right now because we've planned for it over such a long period of time. So, I think, does that answer your question?
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, she has known what her space is going to look like once you guys purchased your home design and things like
Building Trust in Business
00:08:23
Speaker
that. And that does not surprise me at all about Krista. I have been that way in the past. We've made international moves in cross country. This house is only like a block away. So I'm going to Lazy Wrap this time where we literally can make like a bunch of trips. I mean, we'll get a U-Haul, but I don't think I have to be quite as prepared and
00:08:42
Speaker
I've been doing a little bit more relaxing, but maybe that's just my old age, like I'm getting tired of moving. So I figure it gets done. But anyway, I'm excited for y'all and I'm sure it's going to be such a beautiful space for you guys and your family.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we can't wait just to be around friends. What I mean there is because I don't want any of my Maryland friends listening and be like, what do you mean be around friends? What I mean is like we will literally be next door to friends, you know? Yeah. And I always thought it was interesting growing up. Like when you're growing up and you see your best friends all the time, right? And they're over at your house and I mean, your whole world, right? Is almost based around going and hanging out with friends, right?
00:09:20
Speaker
I feel like growing up, we just have this assumption like, of course I'm gonna grow up and live right next door to my best friends, right? And then, you know, that of course, I would say, I'd say for most people doesn't happen, right? Yeah. Even if you live in the same area. So, I am really excited about that proximity where, you know, I can walk basically right down a hill and be at good friend's houses. So, I'm really excited about that.
00:09:45
Speaker
But we should probably dive into the subject for today, which is basically the two elements that are needed in order for somebody to purchase or book. And those are trust and demand. I think that this conversation is going to be conceptual a little bit. I hope that there's very practical aspects of it too. And I think it's an important conversation to have.
00:10:09
Speaker
as people start thinking about their own booking and sale strategies because i think sometimes we overthink it alright and we are going to do an episode on creating a funnel talking more about the tactical aspect of generating leads and then nurturing those leads and then hopefully
00:10:26
Speaker
Getting those leads to either purchase your product or book your service But I think first we can simplify things by focusing on Trust and demand. All right, these two aspects that are needed for purchase So hopefully people walk away from this episode feeling like okay, maybe you're having a fresh perspective on on how to approach this topic Yeah, no, it's really interesting to think about because I feel like the last couple years of my business have been fueled by previous trust
00:10:57
Speaker
of taking care of clients in the past. I haven't been as active on content, although quite a bit of my content is evergreen anyway through Google and Pinterest. But I think so much about this because you have to start somewhere. And obviously, if you're beginning your business, you're beginning small, but that trust fuels your business in the future. And you will continue to get leads if you care for people well, no matter whether it was
00:11:22
Speaker
a small client in the beginning or a big client now. I think this is one of the most important pieces to running a long running business, I'd say. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things that's incremental, but like you suggested, once you start showing up in a spot repeatedly, consistently, those areas typically continue to work for you even when you're not putting active effort into them. This is why we talk about creating content so much is because
00:11:50
Speaker
Yes, especially when you're writing your first 10, your first 50, your first 100 blog posts, right? It takes a lot of time to do that. And the first blog post you ever wrote and you publish, you probably didn't see a ton of return from that, right? There might not have been a ton of eyes on that. And then you wrote two and maybe a little bit better and three and so on.
00:12:12
Speaker
But you hit a point, right, where you have so much content out there, and hopefully as a result, a little bit more search visibility, those things have hopefully been shared to places like Pinterest and across social media. And you just started to build distrust with people that, you know, you can, you know, like you said, haven't been super active the last few months. But you feel like some of these areas like Google and Pinterest are still working for you. Oh, they totally are. And also just personal, like we're going to talk about
00:12:39
Speaker
just personal recommendations from other people. And maybe you originally, I think our story, like our introduction came from Matt Schmoyer discovering me from something else for Pinterest related and then him referring you to me and me showing up on the podcast and et cetera, et cetera. And that was two years ago now. So it is amazing to see how those kind of snow bank, is that the right word? Where they build up. Snowball. Snowball. There we go. Live in the south now. I haven't seen snow in a while.
00:13:07
Speaker
how they snowball into something bigger. And I think we just always need to remember that perspective in our businesses that things we're doing today are kind of for the future too.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, so what it comes down to, I really think there's sort of one question that I tend to come back to and ask myself whether I'm answering this question for people. And it's, are you really able to do that for someone like me? And that is whatever benefit your product or service promises. So are you really able to do that for someone like me?
00:13:39
Speaker
And I think if we can answer that question adequately for people, then we typically book them or they typically purchase our product. And one of the first examples that come to mind is with photographers, right? And so you might have people land on your website, see that you're an awesome photographer,
00:13:57
Speaker
but not really believe that you could get those types of images for someone like them. Maybe they don't feel like they're quite as cute or bubbly. Maybe they feel like their significant other just hates pictures and would never want to do something like that or pose like that or whatever the issue might be. And so if you can convince people, like, no, I can really get these results for you, that's 90% of selling probably right there.
00:14:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And when I think about photographers, because I remember doing our engagement photos and how awkward it can be, I remember my photographer saying something like, just whisper something in her ear to get that shot, that like intimate close-up shot or whatever it was. But just even seeing on your website, like a testimonial from a client saying, hey, we, he made us or Dave and Krista made us feel so comfortable and it was so fun. And we love our new images because
00:14:54
Speaker
I do feel like when you look on photography websites, the result, I mean, you can see the results, but they're so incredible. Like they don't even look real life. They're so beautiful. So for me, looking at a photographer's website, just seeing client testimonials share that they loved their experience with you would be key.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing. I think what it comes down to is it's not good enough just to do good work. There's extra effort beyond that and I think that comes in the way of education for people. But like we said, I think sales and bookings, they come down to two things. They come down to trust, building trust with people and creating demand.
00:15:31
Speaker
And so when people feel like they actually need your product or service and that you're the best option for them, then that's typically when a booking will happen. So the question becomes, how can we get people to that spot? How can we build trust with people? How can we build demand around our product or service? And
00:15:52
Speaker
I think that for the sake of this conversation, we can talk about trust and demand as two separate things, conceptually. But on a practical level, the things that we talk about in terms of building trust with people also generally build demand or desire for your product or service. And then the things that build demand, build trust as well.
00:16:11
Speaker
But I want to approach these two topics, trust and demand, a little bit differently. All right, so maybe we can break down trust real quick first, go through some examples of how you can build trust with people and then tackle demand. Let's do it.
00:16:26
Speaker
One of the things that I was thinking about was how important reviews are. How important it is that people are out there saying good things about your product or service. How important it is for people to actually leave those reviews somewhere. People can have a great experience, but if they don't tell anybody about that experience, that's not very helpful for you as a business.
00:16:46
Speaker
And I just think even if the purchase is super small, even if it's just a couple dollar purchase, trust is still such a huge factor. And one of the ways that we gauge, okay, whether we can trust somebody is through reviews. And so I was thinking about Amazon purchases of household products. So let's say paper towels, for example, and how I purchase paper towels.
00:17:09
Speaker
As you can imagine, I don't do a ton of research. I'm not Googling best paper towel, you know, and I'm not figuring out the different ways that people rate best paper towels. I am going to Amazon and I'm typing in paper towels into the search bar, and then I'm filtering. I'm filtering by two things.
00:17:26
Speaker
As you can imagine, prime because I want it quickly. But the second thing I'm going to click is four stars and up. And so what I typically purchase is going to be whatever I see as the highest rated product that's within the price range that I expect to spend. I'm not reading every review. I'm not reading any reviews actually. I'm just looking at the aggregate star rating and then I'm making my purchase.
00:17:50
Speaker
Now, trust was still important. I still filtered by reviews. I still wanted to get a general sense that this product was actually going to be delivered. There wasn't something weird about this product that people hated, so trust was still important. But it wasn't so important that I had to do further digging and research in order to make that purchase.
00:18:13
Speaker
And that's fine because if it ends up being a bad purchase, I'll just buy a different set of paper towels the next time, right? No harm there. Let's say house shopping just because you just went through the home purchasing process. We're in the process of building a home. That bigger investment, right? So give us an idea of the different things that you wanted to know about the house you were gonna buy.
00:18:41
Speaker
Oh goodness, can we do a whole episode on this? One of the ways I developed trust was were they maintaining the property? And so any updates, were they permitted? So I contacted our local city, pulled the permits from the house. This is all public information to make sure that, hey, that HVAC unit that you said is brand new, like was that done correctly? Did the city check up on that? I actually know the builder or the contractor who did their new kitchen renovation. I looked up reviews for him.
00:19:08
Speaker
I'm a little bit of an information hoarder. I don't know what an diagram that makes me, but those things are really important to me because I'm about to inherit this really expensive property, and I want to know that things weren't just willy-nilly constructed. I want to make sure that they were constructed well. I looked up Google reviews for all of the plumber and the inspectors and want to make sure that those people were doing a good job. Those can be $300 to $400 inspections, so you want to make sure that you're getting the best person for that.
00:19:37
Speaker
I don't know how people did this in the past. Imagine buying this house in 1960. It was built in 52. It's like, how do people know who to trust then? Yeah, and that's the question, right? How are we going to build trust with people? But that's a decision that once you sign the papers, once you close on that house, if it doesn't work out, it's a lot harder to get out of that purchase, right?
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, and so it makes total sense that you would go through the process of doing all of this different research. And likewise, what we did, you know, when we were picking a builder is we wanted to make sure we were going to get quality work from somebody who is reliable and dependable, you know, and that he was going to build a house that was going to last because we hope it's a house we stay in forever.
00:20:25
Speaker
The point being is trust was so much more of a factor in that decision. If you are selling products that are relatively inexpensive, you might have to do less to build trust for the first purchase.
00:20:40
Speaker
Alright, but you still have to build trust if you are a luxury level Business that needs to be one of your primary focuses right is building trust with people so that when people are making the Purchasing decision that's pretty big that they are confident in that decision and and it's just made easier so it's really interesting actually you bring up cheaper product because
00:21:05
Speaker
Just yesterday I had someone email me and they had purchased like I have like a $19 product that I put up years ago I don't even think I still have it listed and she was so happy with it that she went in to purchase my Pinterest course which is in which is like over $300 and so it is really interesting that even showing up well and that $19 product led to enough trust for her to invest and I guess you guys call it like a value ladder or whatever, but I'm not sure and a
00:21:32
Speaker
several hundred dollar product that I never would have made the sale for probably had she not been happy with the $19 product. So it's interesting how that works too. Yeah, absolutely. And that's right. I mean, you alluded to something that's important is bringing people up the value ladder. And that's why if you have a really expensive product, if you do have a less expensive product that you can put in front of people that when they consume, when they use whatever, they love it, then it's a lot easier to bring them up to whatever the next rung is in the value ladder.
00:22:01
Speaker
And there's different sales strategies there too, right? For anybody who's ever watched late night television, not that anybody watches late night television anymore, that's not Netflix or Hulu or whatever. But back in the day when you'd see those commercials and it was like, get this, it's free shipping.
00:22:17
Speaker
all you have to do is pay for shipping and we're going to cover the cost of this other stuff. That's what we call a tripwire. So basically, you get people to take out their wallet to spend $1 or $6 on whatever. And statistically, you know that it's going to be easier for you to convince them to get out their wallet again to spend more money with you.
00:22:35
Speaker
So that's something that we should probably cover as we cover the more tactical aspects of building a sales funnel. But I think that there's three things that we can do that are super simple in building trust with people. One is to make ambassadors out of your current clients.
00:22:52
Speaker
And yes, okay, I know everybody's rolling their eyes, like, of course, all right, we want people, we want to serve people well, so they talk about us. But I think that making it easy to share about your business is kind of like the key aspect that some people sort of, I guess, gloss over, like how important that is. And I don't know if you've ever used anything or found something interesting, where you want to tell people about it, but you're not quite sure what to say about it. Have you ever had that issue before?
00:23:20
Speaker
I do make lots of recommendations, but I don't know if I've ever provided a specific tagline. I've just told them about the product and why it was helpful for me. One of the examples that comes to mind is Till Agency. One of our clients, for instance, she's been more than happy to share about us because we've been able to get her some great results when it comes to paid advertising. But I remember in the beginning, she was like, how do I describe you all?
00:23:45
Speaker
you know, of course, you're managing my Facebook ads. So I get that, but you all do so much more than that, right? So we do ad development, we do consulting, you know, there's just other aspects of our business that's not just Facebook ad management. And so she basically wants she's basically like, I just don't know what to say when I recommend you all. And we actually wrote up a little blurb and said, Hey, this is this is how you can explain what we do and who we do it for.
00:24:10
Speaker
Alright, and from there it was really easy for her then to recommend us to a bunch of other people and since she's been able to do that. So I think making it as easy as possible to share with friends, of course you want people to know things like, oh, your URL or your IG handle or whatever, right? But even if you were trying to explain, you know, for instance, like we love sharing about Dave Ramsey, you know, and
00:24:30
Speaker
You probably likewise, right? But if there's so many different taglines that Dave Ramsey has where it makes it really easy for us to explain, you know, yeah, he's a guy that's all about getting out of debt and building wealth. If he didn't have those different ways to explain about him, it'd be a lot harder to recommend him. And I don't think people would get it.
00:24:51
Speaker
Also, you'd have to be prepared for her personality, which is things like saying debt is dumb. He has a specific personality, but he's very tough love. I think if you didn't prepare someone for that before they started listening to him, they might find him a little bit hard to swallow, especially if you have a lot of debt and you're not very good with your money, but people just love that about him too.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, I just think when you can explain to somebody in a way that they can understand what somebody does and why they're good at what they do, why they're worth what they charge, it makes it a lot easier for that person to share. So thinking about that. The second thing though is showing up consistently and showing off the results that you get for your clients. And I've been thinking about this concept of showing up
00:25:32
Speaker
and why that's so important and this is sort of a weird example but you know we have a number of really great parks in our neighborhood and there's just a level of comfort like there's some people that we see at the park you know when I'm up there with Jack and Krista when we're you know walking the dog at the end of the day and we see them you know up there
00:25:52
Speaker
almost every day, right? And we don't really know who they are, but there's a level of comfort there, right? Just by seeing them every single day. Whereas, you know, if I'm up there with Jack and there's somebody up there that I've never seen before, what's a person's like normal natural reaction? I mean, you're not gonna like take your kid home, right? Because it's a park and you just assume people are gonna go there and play with their kids. But at the same time, you might be a little bit more hesitant to like,
00:26:19
Speaker
I don't know, interact with that people or that person because you just don't know kind of who they are. Does that make sense? I just think that the concept of showing up consistently builds trust. Going back to what we're saying about Instagram, things like that, am I really building trust with people by showing up on stories once a month? Probably not. Yeah, I also think about this in terms of your blogging consistency. I think we both recommend not having dates on your blog because
00:26:47
Speaker
if someone comes to your website and sees your last blog post was 2013, maybe that's a little early, 2018, they're gonna think, oh, is this person even active in their business anymore? Whereas the reality is you might be so busy with clients that you're not blogging as much, but it does kind of leave them feeling like, ugh, maybe they're not doing, maybe they won't be the best for me.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah, I just think that showing up consistently and going back to the first point that we're making, I do a lot of different things. I own a paid advertising agency. I own, co-own, Davey and Krista, I co-own a till agency as well. And, you know, so if somebody was trying to describe like what it is I do and I'm just showing up,
00:27:32
Speaker
once a month on IG stories or whatever, that makes it more difficult for that person to say, hey, you know, this is you should check out, you know, this guy, Davey, you know, and then you're kind of listing random things and people are like, whatever, right? So I just think that showing up consistently with a consistent message makes it easier for one, people to trust you, and then two for people to share about you. There's also just the added little part of just being top of mind. The moment if someone sees you all the time and associates you with Facebook ad management,
00:28:01
Speaker
which I've seen people ask that in groups and your name or till come up multiple times in the comments. So whatever you're doing actually is working there. But just being top of mind for people to be the first person that comes to mind when you say hey Pinterest management or Facebook management is key. Maybe I mean there are times where I'm trying to think of someone and I've kind of forgotten their name because probably I haven't seen them online recently and I'm like digging through my
00:28:25
Speaker
Instagram contacts and things like that. So that's probably important message for both of us as we've been a little bit quieter and Instagram recently. Sure. You know, unfortunately, like the business isn't really connected to my Instagram. So it is more of a personal account. And Davey and Krista, not because of anything I do, but fortunately, we are much better at sharing consistently over there. But one of the things that I think we do well over at Davey and Krista, it's not a super personal feed.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I think maybe it could be a little bit more personal than it is. But I think we do a good job of showing off the work that we're doing and then trying to answer questions around that work. Because again, going back to this idea that it's not good enough just to be good at what you do, I think people want to know a little bit of context. And again, they're trying to answer that question. Can you really do that for someone like me? My style is a little bit different than that. Are you really going to be able to do brand design for someone like me?
00:29:21
Speaker
and so i think by talking about some of the challenges that come up in a project by interviewing our clients and saying hey why did you decide to go with us why did you or what was one of the challenges about about the project and hearing people's answers around those i think gives people more context and that context again builds trust because people start believing
00:29:41
Speaker
Okay, yeah, you know, like this project didn't just go super smoothly the whole time, you know, there's different, there's a bunch of different services that we had to incorporate into this website. And how do we do that? And so those questions start to become answered for people. Yeah, that's really helpful. You do you guys do a really good job with your team on Davey and Krista showing what you guys do and
00:30:01
Speaker
the variation and just the styles. So I love what you guys do there. And I mean, there's like a million web designers out there. So just showing up consistently makes it easy for someone to come straight to you because they just saw your Instagram posts or they've been thinking about it for a while. Many people who are investing in websites probably don't make the decision right away. They've got to save the money. So for trust, I think that's important. And also just showing the number of people that you guys are working with also builds the trust like, hey,
00:30:30
Speaker
These 50 people have trusted them. I can trust them too.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, and it's different for every business. For us, we have a nurturing timeline that might be years. And I think when people start a business, and especially if they're bootstrapping that business and it's not something that's funded or they're not coming into it with a ton of money, it makes a lot of sense for people to go the template route. And of course, we sell templates as well. But for somebody to move up the value ladder, as we were talking about earlier, and move into a semi-custom or custom website,
00:31:03
Speaker
I mean, I hear from people who – I talk to people on a weekly basis who say, hey, I've been following you for years now and we've just been using this and I think we're ready for that. And so it's important to continue building that trust in that time period. The challenge for some people though or for some businesses is that you have to build trust in a relatively short amount of time.
00:31:27
Speaker
especially I'm thinking wedding vendors, when somebody gets engaged to the time they've booked their wedding vendors, that's not a long period of time, maybe a couple months. So how do you build trust with those people? Well, I mean, I think that any time you can extend that runway a little bit is best.
00:31:44
Speaker
when you can even get maybe top of mind for people who know they're probably going to get engaged sometime in the next year, right? How can you be talking to those people? Because if you started building trust with those people a year before they actually get engaged, then it's much more likely that you'll be among the first or maybe even the only photographer or planner or florist that they reach out to to work their wedding.
00:32:08
Speaker
Didn't you have a guess? Was it Devin that does this where he kind of reaches out to couples? Do you know what I'm talking about, Devin? Yeah, on Insta stories. Does he reach out to couples before they're engaged but like are serious, seem like they're really serious so that the moment they get engaged, is that how it works?
00:32:23
Speaker
No, I want to say that a lot of what he does in terms of Instagram outreach is through using hashtags where it's people that have actually got engaged. Okay. Knowing him though, I wouldn't be surprised if he's figured out a way to kind of like
00:32:38
Speaker
you know, just find couples who have been like together for a long time and maybe look like they're in that season of life. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, if you can start the early you can start building trust, the better. And again, you know, kind of building that network of trust, you know, different touchpoints of trust. I mean, it's always easiest. And I was talking about this with the till team, actually, at one of our recent team meetings is
00:32:57
Speaker
When somebody comes to us and we've already been getting results for a friend of theirs who's using us, the selling part is already done before we ever get on a quote unquote sales call because the trust is built. At that point, it's just working out the details, talking about a little bit more of our process and payment and things like that.
Creating Demand for Products and Services
00:33:20
Speaker
Anytime you can increase the runway where you can build trust, that nurturing runway I think is best.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So the next thing I want to talk about is building demand. I go back and forth calling this demand or desire. Demand sounds very economics, but I think everybody should take a macroeconomics class. There's a few things I just think that I've learned in economics that have very much – because I feel like they're psychological principles, like diminishing returns, economies of scale, things like that where they've just been so helpful in running a business.
00:33:53
Speaker
But demand is probably the best way to put it. So how can we increase demand for our product? And I think that one of the best ways to increase demand for our product is by focusing on the benefits of our product, the benefits of our product.
00:34:11
Speaker
So basically, we're trying to convince a prospect that one, their life is going to be greatly improved by using our product or service. And two, that our product or service is the best option for them out of all of the alternatives out there.
00:34:26
Speaker
All right? So how do we do that? We do that through benefits, not through features, all right? And benefits and features, and we've talked about this on this podcast before, they're different. Benefits are going to convey how something's going to improve one's life, typically in these three categories, all right? Health, wealth, and reputation. I really think that captures pretty much
00:34:50
Speaker
the motives of people out there. Okay? Health, wealth, and reputation. And so, I would make sure that when you're talking about the benefits of your product or service, that you're really focused in on, okay, what category am I speaking to here? Am I speaking to health, wealth, or reputation? And this is as opposed to talking about the features of your product or service.
00:35:11
Speaker
Now, it's not that features aren't totally or completely unimportant. Features typically cover the specs or the specifications of a product or service. The former benefits, that's ultimately about your customer or client, whereas the latter features are about your product or service. And what we have to remember is that people care about themselves.
00:35:33
Speaker
They don't necessarily care about the product itself. They want to know how that product is going to benefit them. And so if we can communicate that in a compelling way, again, going back to the idea of building trust, we've built trust, but I think we've also built demand for that product or service.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I get this sometimes too, because if somebody is asking about Pinterest management, I'll send them like a proposal sheet that kind of details like what it includes. And I think in the end, like people don't really care that the package includes utilizing Tailwind tribes, which is like a scheduler app for Pinterest. What they care about is ultimately is it going to increase traffic to their website and more client leads or more sales?
00:36:15
Speaker
And so sometimes they don't really care about all the nitty gritty, especially if they're hiring you to do it for them. They just want to know what the results are going to be. And if that's saving time or money, like you mentioned, well, sometimes I think it's important to say, hey, here are the features, but this is why the feature is going to increase that benefit.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, especially as people make the luxury level jump, this is something that they really struggle with, right? Because, you know, the question, I mean, there's probably all sorts of feelings there. One, okay, am I good enough to offer a luxury level service, you know, things like that. But I think one thing that people struggle with is really communicating the benefits of the luxury level service and justifying that.
00:37:00
Speaker
or in a way that justifies the price. And people get really worked up about that. But going back to our categories, health, wealth, and reputation, I think when it comes to luxury level services, what area are we benefiting people? Well, I think reputation is one of the areas where people who are trying to make that luxury level jump can really hone in on because it's okay. Well, oh, so-and-so photographer is doing my wedding.
00:37:24
Speaker
and you know you're gonna look really really good in those photos and you're going to have a one-of-a-kind experience, right? And these are all benefits that something that somebody who cares about reputation or would be enviable for somebody who cares about reputation. So I think by being benefit focused and really having those categories for understanding like what you're speaking to is super helpful.
00:37:47
Speaker
One of the things I want to talk about though, and these are just talking about some ways that we can be benefit-driven or build demand through being benefit-driven, is education around your services. This probably doesn't apply to many people, but especially if you've started a new business, you've created a new product that people don't even know they need yet.
00:38:08
Speaker
then building demand for your product becomes super important because people don't know they need your service. It's so new that people don't know why would they want it. So you have to answer that question. And one of the best ways to do that is through educating people about your product. I'm thinking about, for instance, I saw an ad recently for something you put on your back and it tells you when you slouch. Yeah, I've seen this. I need it right now. Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
That's right. Me too. I need it right now as well. But I think that the ad was good because it caught my attention and so I clicked in and did a little bit more research and stuff. But it was one of those things that I didn't really know I needed until I started thinking about it. I was like, I do slouch a lot and my shoulders are in a little bit and I get some headaches throughout the day and it's probably because of the way I'm sitting in my chair and so on and so forth. But they had to do the work of explaining, okay, why would I ever attach something to my back that's going to shock me when I start
00:39:06
Speaker
when I start slouching my shoulders, right? So education becomes super important. Yeah, I think here's an example, a more boring example, just in insurance. So when we are buying a home that is not in a floodplain, but I've read enough and done enough research to know that 25% of homes not in a floodplain flood.
00:39:29
Speaker
And so just little things like that, that's a little different type of, I guess that goes into the health category of your three categories for economics, but just, well, and wealth, you know, like you don't want, you want this insurance because otherwise if you don't have it and something happens, then you're going to be out of, you know, savings trying to pay for it. Yeah, it could be 100. Yeah. Your whole house could be destroyed by flood. So anyway, just little things like that. But I think the education of understanding that 25% of homes that flood are not in flood plains,
00:39:56
Speaker
was enough for me, like, hey, this is something really worth considering with our really expensive investment. So a little bit less exciting than a shocker to keep your posture good, but nonetheless, educating me on why it's necessary or why I should consider it.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean for sure, but it really comes down to, I think for most products, I was thinking about there was this drill at Home Depot and we're getting ready to move and so we're going to be hanging all sorts of stuff on walls and it made it easy to exchange different attachments to the drill and then also the way it charged so you weren't constantly like,
00:40:36
Speaker
you know, having to plug it in and things like that. And so, you know, it really spoke to the benefits, things that I would care about as somebody who doesn't really – I'm not even good with a hammer, all right? So, you know, let alone machinery. So, it doesn't matter, I think, what you're selling. I think most of the time people are going to care first about the benefits. Features are important after that, right?
00:40:58
Speaker
even if you saw great photos on somebody's website, and they fell in love with you and were like, I need these photos. And then you were like, Oh, well, I'm actually only going to show up to your wedding for one hour. That's my top package. You know, that's the only offer offering to have you'd probably be like, well, now I need somebody to cover at least, you know, six to eight hours or something like that. So features do matter. But they just, I would say they almost don't matter until somebody has pretty much made made up their mind on your product or service. Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. Second thing I want to talk about is creating urgency. And I think that this is one of those things where it might be hard to understand, okay, well, how does this relate to demand? I think that the products that move, the products that actually get bought, the services that actually get booked, it's not only that people do a good job of saying, hey, you need this, but it's the marketers who have also created urgency around their product.
00:41:55
Speaker
So, going back to that example of, and I wish I could remember the name of it, that thing you put on your back between your shoulder blades so that it keeps you sitting in an upright, good posture position. I could probably benefit from that, but I just can't come around to buying it. I feel like there's not that sense of urgency. I guess if my posture issues become bad enough, I'll get it.
00:42:21
Speaker
So there is this aspect, there's this importance in creating urgency around your product and service when it comes to demand. I think when we talk about creating urgency, people typically go to sales and discounts. It doesn't have to be just sales and discounts. And I think that this is the power of copywriting is that a good copy
00:42:41
Speaker
can convince you that the state of your life right now, you just can't bear it any longer. However you're living your life right now, you need to stop and you need to buy the service or you need to buy this product so that your life becomes better in whatever way, whatever benefit that your product or service offers.
00:43:02
Speaker
Right? Now, some of that urgency is built in. Again, going back to the wedding industry, I know there's a lot of wedding industry people who listen to the podcast. There's a nice built-in sense of urgency for those people because they can't just make their vendor decisions the day before their wedding. You have a limited amount of dates. You should always tell people like, hey, I can only hold your date
00:43:24
Speaker
if you sign a contract, if you make your retainer payment, whatever it is, whatever your policy is for your business. So there's nice urgency that's built into that. But I don't think we should always go to sale when it comes to urgency. Hey, if you book now, so you get everything in this collection, but I'm also going to throw in bridal portraits or a family session sometime after the wedding, whatever it might be.
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. And it gets people excited and making the decision. I find that, especially planning a wedding or buying a home, there's just so many micro decisions. And so helping somebody just commit to something right away with throwing in an extra package or throwing in a bonus is super helpful. And taking a load off their shoulders now that they don't have
The Power of Digital Marketing and Transformation
00:44:14
Speaker
to worry about it. By the way, the name of the product is called Upright. I licked it up. Yes. I think that's it. Yeah. Which is a great name. Great name.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah. They're ads. I mean, they definitely will catch your attention. I'll be seeing it all the time now that I've officially googled it on my phone. Yeah. Now that we've said it out loud, and I know Facebook says they don't listen to your conversations, but we all know. We all know. Anyways, the third thing that I want to talk about, this ties in a little bit into urgency, what we're talking about, or at least an example that I want to chat about, is showing off the transformation that your product or service offers.
00:44:46
Speaker
So going back to our copywriting, I think good copywriting, it kind of paints a picture of what your current life is right now, what your current life situation, your current status, what that problem or pain point that you're struggling with right now, and then paints a picture of a better reality. Of course, one of the first examples that come to mind, health and fitness industry.
00:45:08
Speaker
Anytime you're looking at a supplement or a diet program or exercise program, whatever, you're going to see before and afters. You're going to see these crazy transformations that people have gone through. What question are they trying to answer? They're trying to answer that question that we posed at the very beginning of this episode. Can you really do that for someone like me? If I see some super jacked guy, can I believe
00:45:34
Speaker
that I can follow the same workout program as him and then look like him. That's the gap that whatever that health company that's trying to sell me a product has to bridge for me. I can really experience transformation like that and I can do it
00:45:53
Speaker
you know, without whatever, answering whatever objections I might have, maybe, okay, well, you know, I have a bad knee, and so I don't actually, but let's say I did, I would need something in the sales copy to say, oh, I can actually do that without some high impact sport, right? Most of us, I don't know if I have many listeners in the health industry, but I think we can all learn a thing or two from how the health industry does it. They do a great job of showing off that transformation.
00:46:21
Speaker
And even for you, for you all who you're like, well, what about like wedding pictures? I'm not trying to paint like a terrible image of their life now. Well, of course not like you're not, you know, it would be, I think bad copywriting on a wedding photography website for, for you to be like.
00:46:38
Speaker
I don't know, super negative about their current state, right? But you could say, I mean, but you can still put in front of people what they could have, right? Hey, we want to document this beautiful relationship that you all have. We want to capture all of the nuances of the relationship you have with your significant other.
00:47:00
Speaker
So, there's still ways, again, going back to being benefit-oriented around those three categories, health, wealth, and reputation. There's still ways of showing off the transformation that you can achieve for people. Yeah, I think in our industry too, like other than wedding professionals' time, how can this product save you time so that you can rest more or that you can free up time to do something that is more valuable or more income generating in your business? And I feel like that's a big motivator, probably that falls under the health
00:47:30
Speaker
category or maybe of those three. But when I'm thinking about my copy, it's all about like, hey, you use these tools and the search to get more leads without having to invest tons of hours into reaching out and networking and showing up at wedding fairs or whatever it happens to be. Those are usually the social proofs that I would say I'm using in my business to commit people to make the leap to Pinterest, for example.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that for you, you have that extra step. You have to justify, like, why is Pinterest important? You have to establish that with people at the outset. And so education becomes super, super important, but then also showing people the benefit of, hey, well, I helped so-and-so, so-and-so got more traffic, and so-and-so was able to grow their business, right?
00:48:20
Speaker
So showing off that transformation is super important and then also giving people context to it. And the example of wedding photographers comes to mind because I think again, maybe that's one of the more challenging areas to show off that transformation. In one sense, it's easy because you post a picture and it's beautiful and you hope that people see it and are like, oh, I love that. But you still have to bridge a gap a little bit, all right? You still have to bridge that gap of, okay, well, can you do that for whoever's looking at that photo?
00:48:50
Speaker
Anyways, we're wrapping up here. We always go long, but I think it's always good. Talking about trust and demand, we can talk about those two things separately, conceptually in a podcast like this. I think at the end of the day, a lot of these things are done together. Pretty much anything that we do to build trust is often building some level of demand. Anything that we're doing to build demand is typically building a little bit of trust as well.
00:49:15
Speaker
So that's a good thing, right? So you don't have like trust-building activities on one hand and then your demand-building activities on the other. And it also means that what it comes down to is really, I think, two elements. I think you can take, okay, well, how do we build trust and demand? Social proof and creating content. What do you think?
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with those. And this just on a simple level, responding to people's emails and treating people like they are the only person you're working with. My realtor, for example, right now, I sometimes forget that she has who knows how many other clients that she's serving, but she always makes me feel like I'm her only client. And so just from a really simple perspective, that trust building, respond to emails, you use people's first names,
00:50:00
Speaker
even after they've continued to work with you, engage with them on Instagram, like their posts, just little things like that can make people feel like you were worth the investment.
Future Podcast Ideas and Listener Engagement
00:50:08
Speaker
100%. And I think that's something that we skipped over when we were talking about trust is doing the extraordinary thing, or I'm sorry, the ordinary things extraordinarily, and for sure. And I think that's, for Davey and Krista, people always ask, are you speaking about yourself in third person? I'm not. I'm just referring to the business name Davey and Krista. For Davey and Krista, I mean, that's one of the things that we've chatted about at our team meetings is one of the things that I hear is,
00:50:34
Speaker
Oh, somebody emailed us for support. And support's one of those make or break things. If people have bad support instances, then that's really a trust destroying situation. But for instance, I've gotten a few emails where it's like, hey, Alex got back to me. Alex is one of our team members, lives down there, down by you. You guys know each other, of course, really just filling in listeners.
00:51:00
Speaker
And he was so helpful and yada, yada, yada. And those are like those, I think those things make a huge difference, you know, because especially when it comes to something like websites where there's a technical aspect of websites, no matter how easy a website platform is, there's a technical aspect to it. People are going to get stuck sometime. And so it's really, it's not so much, okay, am I going to get stuck as it is? What happens when I'm going to get stuck? So I 100% agree. I mean, all those quote unquote little things, super important.
00:51:30
Speaker
But I feel like we have a couple more podcast topics that I would like to cover going forward. And if you listen to episode 100, you know that we're going to answer some listener questions at the end of the episode. Since we're recording this episode before episode 100, we don't have any right now.
00:51:47
Speaker
But we have to do the more the tactical aspect of building a sales funnel. I think that's definitely an episode we have to cover. I think something else that we got to do is maybe a couple skills that we think all business people should learn, especially when you're first getting started. I think that'd be an interesting topic.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, I would say email, like responding to emails. Well, you know, I'm just thinking copywriting, for instance, like how, don't get me wrong, we outsource a lot of our copy to a copywriter we really like, but I still think you do so much writing in your own business that if you can master some of the basics of copywriting, that can make such a big impact on your business, right? Whereas there's certain other things where I'm like outsource it all the time, every time.
00:52:39
Speaker
All right. Well, that's it for today. If you have questions, let us know. Like we said, we are going to start doing some mailbag segments here, answering some questions that come in maybe for the next 50 or 100 episodes. Okay. I have a question for you though. Sure. Where do we submit our mailbag question?
00:52:57
Speaker
Oh, this is a good question. I'll probably create some sort of form on the website. Okay. Just where if you go to davianchrista.com forward slash contact, I think is where you get to our contact form. If you go there, I'll probably just make like a one of the drop downs be brands that book question or whatever. And you can submit questions there. But of course, on Instagram, you know, you can send us a DM, you can comment on any of the episodes that we release. I'm going to see all of that.
00:53:23
Speaker
I'd say send us a message on Facebook, but we're so bad at checking messages on Facebook that that's probably not a great place to send us messages. Yeah, I might get lost. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Vanessa. Hey, good luck on your move. By the time we record again, you will be on the other side of that move. So I'm excited to chat with you about that process, but I hope it goes smoothly. Yeah. Thank you. We're excited.
00:53:48
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.