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Episode 243 - Don’t Let these Non-Verbal Cues Prevent You from Booking
175 Plays1 day ago
Are you communicating silent cues on your website that deter potential clients from hitting that ‘Inquire’ or ‘Purchase’ button? In this episode, we share five key takeaways from Vanessa Van Edwards’ book Cues that you can directly apply to your website.
Today's episode is sponsored by BDOW!, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website. Use the code DAVEYANDKRISTA to save 20% on your subscription.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out over at https://daveyandkrista.com/dont-let-these-non-verbal-cues-prevent-you-from-booking/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
We have plenty of photos on our website where we're not both looking at the camera, but the first time that we introduce ourselves on the website, we are both looking at the camera and smiling. You can see our eye crinkles.
00:00:11
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
Promotional Segment for Badal
00:00:34
Speaker
Today's episode is sponsored by Badal, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website. Deliver the right message to the right visitor using our advanced targeting rules. Whether you want to display a pop-up to only new visitors or generate a unique discount code for those who subscribe to your list, you can get the job done using Badal.
00:00:59
Speaker
One of my personal favorite features is the show a tab function. Basically how this works is when visitors close the popup, it minimizes to the bottom of the page so that visitors can open it back up if they'd like, but it also remains out of their way while they browse. You can check out how that feature works over at the Davey and Krista website. Also use the code Davey and Krista to save 20% on your subscription. Create an experience on your website using Badao.
Recent Reads and 'Cues' by Vanessa Van Edwards
00:01:28
Speaker
All right. We've been on a reading kick lately. We have. Actually, that's not true. You're you're always reading. I am reading. I pretty much always have a book I'm reading as well. But I think that the books that we've read recently, pretty much every one of them, we've been like, oh, we need to do a podcast episode about this. You know, so courage to be disliked was one of those. But this is another one of those. I actually did not finish this book, which is insane because it's such a good book. No, I 100% agree that it is such a good book. I believe we were reading this book as as we were getting ready for Spark. We were. And basically just, I was totally consumed with getting ready for the Spark conference. said ah I know, and I probably, and I did, you know, there's some things but in this book that would be very practical for Spark. yes But anyway, the book is this, it's called Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards. and She's the founder of the Science of People. She's written another book called Captivate, which we both really liked. Both that book and this book, very tactical. Super tactical. And I love these books because even if, you know, there's no way, at least I won't project here, there's no way I'll remember everything in the book. But even if you pick up two or three things, those are two or three things that you can use in everyday life. Yes.
00:02:37
Speaker
so super helpful.
Balancing Warmth and Competency in Communication
00:02:39
Speaker
Now, I love this blog post that you put together. So, and that's sort of, those are the notes for this episode here. yeah So, if you're interested in what we're talking about, refer back to this blog post because Chris has written a blog post, five ways to communicate trust and competency on your website and communicating trust and competency is at the core of cues. So, where do you want to start?
00:03:01
Speaker
Well first I think we should explain what she means by trust and competency or warmth and competency. So when she's talking about warmth and competency, the the secret to I think being more relatable to probably booking more work is having a balance of both of them.
00:03:17
Speaker
Warmth means that you're smiling, you're approachable, you're likable, a joy to be around, and and competency is displaying the fact that you're really good at what you do. And the one of the premises of the book is that you can't be all one and not have any other because you need to balance out both. And that balancing out both, your warmth and your competency, it's a lever. A continuum. A continuum? Yeah. A lever is what she's for sure. Okay. A lever. A lever.
00:03:43
Speaker
that there might be some situations where you might need to be more warm and there are other situations where you might need to be more of an authoritative figure. All of us are naturally bent probably towards one or another but that doesn't mean that we need to make our natural inclination control different scenarios that we can turn one up or turn one down when we need to.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
Applying 'Cues' Concepts to Website Design
00:04:04
Speaker
And there is a balance that needs to be struck in most situations, right? If you come off as too warm, maybe you don't come off as quite as competent, yeah right? And if you come off as all competence or all, you know, authority, right, you might come off as kind of a jerk, you know, and not likeable. And I think both of those things can potentially prevent you from achieving whatever your goal is. yeah And on your website, that goal might be to get somebody to purchase something or get somebody to reach out and inquire or get somebody to opt into you know your newsletter, you know whatever it might be, you're trying to get them to take an action. yeah so And the book did not actually, specifically, it's not written all about websites. There are a lot of like speaking examples and in-person communication examples.
00:04:46
Speaker
but There are a lot of really tangible things that I think can be applied to a website to help balance both approachability as well as authority. And so that's what this episode and blog posts take away. Awesome. Well, the first step you have listed here, hi all right, is posing with confidence. Yes.
00:05:06
Speaker
So though your body language conveys so much about how you feel about yourself, how you feel about different things. And so it's really important to make sure that you are communicating effectively with your body. If you're taking a headshot, you want to stand up straight. You shouldn't cross your arms because people naturally kind of want to stay away from people who have their arms crossed.
00:05:28
Speaker
it's um It's a good idea to gaze certain ways sometimes in different photos because you're your gaze in a headshot can actually direct where somebody's looking. So, for example, if you have a point on your website that's like maybe yeah a lead magnet and you really want people to notice that lead magnet, try putting a photo there of yourself looking at or pointing to the lead magnet. It seems really simple, but the way that your body is acting in photos can communicate a lot.
00:05:54
Speaker
And such a bummer because, you know, my favorite headshot is me crossing my arms. Yeah. Is that because you can see your tattoos? No, I don't even know. Can you see? I don't think you can see my. t I don't know. It's just like a natural way for me to stand. Yeah. But she does make a very compelling. I did get to that part of the book and she does make a very compelling case for changing it. I think she actually eludes to like an A.B. test that she ran. Yeah. So you should relax your shoulders, not cross your arms and you want to exude openness.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yes. And I think along those lines, step two here, remember to smile. Yes. It's so important to remember to smile. And you want to make sure that that is a true smile. Even babies can determine a real smile versus a fake smile. And she says that the only way to determine a real smile is to see those crinkles around the eyes. So it's a good idea to really, when you're having your photo taken, especially for something like a profile photo or your website,
00:06:48
Speaker
laugh If you're having your photo taken, especially for something like a photo or a website, you want to make sure that those eye crinkles show and then it's an authentic smile. I used to have these head shots that I loved on our photography website, on our brand and website design business where I was looking down very softly at my camera and smiling at the camera.
00:07:10
Speaker
But people can't actually see my smile and they can't see my eyes. And so I think it's not quite as trustworthy as if I smile looking right at the camera where you could see my whole face and my eyes. Yeah. And I think real quick before we go on to step three here, how important is it that every one of your pictures on your website is exactly like that?
00:07:30
Speaker
Oh, they don't all have to be like that. But I would say like maybe the first time that somebody sees you on your website or when you get to the about section where you're introducing yourself for the first time, that one should be you looking at the camera. We have plenty of photos on our website where we're not both looking at the camera, but the first time that we introduce ourselves on the website, we are both looking at the camera and smiling. You can see our eye crinkles.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, and I just wanted to mention that because I think over optimization is a real thing. Yeah, right. And so, you know, there's some times where you're not going to follow the rules exactly, but it's going to work for, you know, whatever reason. So anyway, let's move on to step three, add warmth through your copy.
00:08:11
Speaker
will add warmth and credibility. So a lot of warmth is gonna come across in your language or if you're doing things like emojis or gifs, I definitely don't think that you should overdo them. But if you're doing something that maybe could be a little more authoritative or a little more dry, it's a really good idea to use language and use gifs and emojis that kind of perk things up a bit.
00:08:38
Speaker
If you have something that needs to authority ah communicate more data or it can communicate more authority, credibility, including things like data and case studies and testimonials are a good way to balance that out. so I think ideally if you are creating something like a website or especially a sales page, you want to make sure that you're weaving both of those things throughout the page because you want to make sure that you're coming across the right way and you're also going to speak to different buyer personas who are viewing that content.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah.
Understanding Buyer Personas and Design Elements
00:09:07
Speaker
And I think understanding the buyer persona is key here, right? Like there are for sure certain persona, like your ideal customer profile, depending on what it is that you do and your brand, right right? You might be speaking to somebody and like, I don't know, that's making a really important decision about investing, you know, their hard earned dollars in retirement. And you probably shouldn't put a heart emoji in that. yeah I mean, there's certain things, right? Where it's like, Oh, you know, I don't know if I want to trust this with my life savings.
00:09:36
Speaker
right But I do think even if you're doing a situation like that where it's like hardcore investing, you might not have some warmth cues, but you could also have like smiling photos and like some words in your language that communicate warmth. 100%. That's not to say, oh, as a result, it should then be dry. right you know but you want to be careful about how you add those warm cues. And I guess that's true of any situation, yeah but really understand your ideal customer profile. yeah All right, awesome. Step four, fine-tuning your fonts. I promise that she had this in her book. I did not just add this.
00:10:15
Speaker
So she talks about how fonts can convey feelings and perceptions and some fonts are gonna feel more professional, some are gonna feel a little bit more warm, some are tied to memory which I don't completely agree with because she said that reading things in comic sans makes them more memorable. I think it's more of a traumatic experience if you do that so please don't ever do that.
00:10:36
Speaker
But it just goes to show that the font choice is so important. Some fonts naturally feel more approachable. Some naturally feel more elegant and high end. And so it's really important to understand how a font was originally created, what its use case was, and the feelings that it has. And most of the time, if you go and you're looking at using a particular font, you can look up details about how it was created, why it was created, and you'll see that some are created for readability. Some are created for type.
00:11:05
Speaker
Some are created to feel like more high-end and elegant. So, very important. And we have a lot of other resources about fonts if you head to our our blog. Yes, I feel like I've learned a ton about fonts recently. Yeah, who knew fonts were so important. They are. That's Vanessa Van Edwards too, not just me. and She's not a designer. She's a scientist. I love the font meme that's like, I will always find you.
00:11:30
Speaker
I don't know what that is. Have you seen this one? No. All right. We'll try to find it and throw it in the show notes or whatever. We should use it as the image for this up here because it's like, I will always find you. And one of them is written just like in a really like elegant font and it looks like a love note. I will always find you. Okay. Then the other one is written in sort of like, you know, with the dripping down from the words, right? Like the horror story. I will always find you.
00:11:56
Speaker
So fonts matter, fonts matter. we do All right, step five, correcting your colors. Yeah. So color is not just about like choosing your favorite color or choosing colors that are going to resonate with your audience. There's actually a lot of psychology that goes into color choices. So yellow and orange are going to be more joyful and exciting. Red is going to help something stand out. Green is going to feel fresh and organic. Blue is going to be associated with feelings of peace or calm or producted productivity. It also might be helpful to know that if you put somebody in a blue room, it's going to calm them down. So that's why you tend to see a lot of blue use in certain places. Also universally blue is just
00:12:39
Speaker
more of a favorite color for a lot of people so that's why it's also a popular choice but you want to make sure that you're paying attention to the colors and specifically like the color hues within the color so there are different kinds of blues there are brighter blues and warmer blues and cooler blues and so It's important to pay attention to how you're using color on your website, especially because certain colors can exhaust the reader more quickly. So yellow, for example, is hard to read and it actually causes eye fatigue when it's overused in things like a website.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah. I don't have anything to add to this one. Sorry. Yeah. You know nothing. That's fine because you tried to match like blue and brown the other day and you could do that depending on the tones, but yours were not right. So, yes. Hence why I have nothing really to add here. I just trust Krista when it comes to colors and type for that matter too. Yes. Because I did almost get Comic Sans tattooed on my body. Gosh, you guys, maybe we'll put the example. No, I don't know. We'll put it somewhere. I've shared it before, but he said, yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
I didn't though. You saved me from the chair and they changed it to a serif. The tattoo artist probably thinks I'm like the most particular person in the world. I'm just saying my tattoo could have been more memorable with Comic Sans. Traumatic. All right. Well, if you haven't checked out Q's, highly
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
00:13:58
Speaker
recommend. Again, ah the book isn't written for website design. No.
00:14:02
Speaker
Krista has just taken what she's learned from the book and applied it to ways that you or has given you ways you can apply it to website design. So just highly recommend from a communication standpoint. Oh, yeah. Especially if you're doing like videos or social videos, there's a lot that you can take from this book and bring it other parts of your business and life.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. All right. All right. Thanks, guys.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:14:25
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands at Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcast and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.