Last week I wrapped up a lot of things in the business. We had confidence rising, my book launch, my birthday and whilst I still have a few private clients I’m massively heading into strategy mode so I wanted to give you a checklist of some of the things for your to review and start thinking about.

One of the big things that I’m looking at is all around reviewing wyhat I have and simplifying it.

Marty Neumeier who is one of the god fathers of branding who wrote the brand gap and the brand flip says (and I was sharing this with some of my BBA ladies)  “When brand communication comes through intact – crystal clear and potent – it goes straight into people’s brain’s without distortion, noise, or the need to think too much about it”

I’m also a student of story brand which is all about clarifying your message and I think having a crystal clear message is one of the foundations to building a standout brand.  So just on that note – I’m always learning. Like there is never a time where I’m not doing a course or reading a book or listening to a podcast and that’s not work for me, it totally inspires me, motivates me, makes me happy.   I also have creative outlets but I love my business and even this podcast is a creative outlet for me.

So all the learnings and knowledge I have and keep learning I want to share with you – but saying that I’m always improving things in my own business as I go.

So there are a few things I want you to review and simplify today.

• Your website messaging – I’ve just gone and updated my website and I may take a look at it again in a week but basically I culled it and made sure there a few key things:

I’ve been looking at my website and asking myself –

• Is it crystal clear
• what pain point I solve
• Who I am and
• What I want you to do

When you go to my website.

If I don’t know what you do or understand it in 3-5 seconds then I’m out of there. I don’t have the time or energy to work it out.  So it’s up to us to really make things as clear as possible.

So I added the problem that my clients face:

DO YOU STRUGGLE TO STAND OUT IN YOUR MARKET?

Do you want to build a stand out brand that cuts through the noise?
 Do you want to have the right systems, structure & strategies to scale?
  Are you ready to get more confident to show up and grow your audience?
  If the answer is YES then welcome! 

I always say to my corporate clients – your career site or your website is your one source of truth so make it count.  Do you tell me what problem you solve as soon as I land?

It’s the space you have the most control over, everything else is borrowed or rented space so it’s really important that everything leads back to your website, because even if I love your Instagram or facebook or whatever you’re doing – I am absolutely going to go and check out your website and if that isn’t working for me, or if there is a brand disconnect then the first thing I’m feeling is a lack of trust.

There’s something not right here and I’ll go somewhere else so looking at your website with fresh eyes and making sure it’s super clear who you are, what you do, what problem you solve and what they need to do next is so important.

So I culled a whole lot of text from my website front page where I thought it was repetitive.

2. The 2^nd thing I did was introduce myself, who I am, what I’m about and who I work with.

Something I’m super passionate about is naming and claiming your audience.  Some people are for everyone but I’m not.  I want to work with you if you want to be bold, if you want to do things differently and if you want to think bigger, play bigger and stand out.

If you want to be a wall flower and not go big (which is fine because we all do our things in our own ways) then I’m not for you.  So spell it out.  Tell me who you’re for so that I can identify with it and say yes that’s me or no that’s not me.  So I’ve written (and you can see all of this on my website.)

Hi, I'm @SuzChadwick, a fluff-free Business Coach, Brand Builder &  Speaker (plus a Gorman and lychee martini lover) working with businesses who want to be BOLD, DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY and THINK BIGGER.  I support you to build your business and/or personal brand in a way that helps you stand out and perfectly reflects who you are.

HOW CAN YOU GET STARTED?

3. The 3rd thing I did was look at was my links and calls to action based on problem V solution

So on my front page I didn’t actually have buttons that were calls to action specifically.  I had boxes with images that said “Brand Builder’s academy, Speaker and Brand Strategy” but that’s so passive so now I’ve got

HOW CAN YOU GET STARTED? – JOIN BBA

Then the boxes are the same but they have – JOIN BBA, BOOK ME AS A SPEAKER, BOOK A STRATEGY SESSION – these are verbs – these are what you need to do now.

Don’t be passive.  Don’t have huge paragraphs of text that all look the same.  Keep my attention, mix it up, I have links and buttons that are different colours that stand out.

Go and look at it on your mobile and please for goodness sake don’t have pop ups – they are my biggest issue on a mobile because sometimes I can’t get of them and then I just click away – remember brand experience.

I go on my mobile and click on all the buttons and I see what it looks like, is it right, is it easy, is it clear and can I tell you – I’m still working on bits of mine!

Even my FREE optin at the top of my website it’s had “your best year yet planner” Access now – but my question is – do you know that it’s free?  No you don’t so I added and underlined FREE.  You have to be obvious.  Never assume that people know that something is free or they know what to do next – spell it out!

4. Credibility

After this section I’ve testimonials and then as seen in – so how are you building credibility?   These are things that I’m looking to update after the last round of BBA as I have some amazing quantifiable case studies from my BBA students – one had her best month in the 6 years that she’s had her business whilst doing the course and another one basically built a passive income stream and tripled her income within 2-3 months of doing the course – so quantifiable results from clients is really worthwhile.

So obviously speaking to your clients and showcasing these things are really important but it’s also the way you show case them.  I’m thinking of three boxes with clear financial benefits of doing the course as well as mindset and actions that they’ve taken because that’s been massive for a lot of my bba ladies is that they are fearlessly going after big things and to me that is how you make more money and get more clients – it’s going after things in a big way, so it’s balancing those stories without making it war and peace.

5. About page – reviewing this, can I make it better? Is it clear? Does it really share who I am and what I’m about?

I love personal details about people on their about page so that’s something I’ve done with photos of my travels and family etc because that’s a big part of me.

One thing that I really want to do next is create some visual content around my Vision and values.  I love how Rollie nation have done that so I’m going to take inspo from them and do something similar.  Remember I’m always saying for you to look outside your industry and see who’s doing things really well and things that you love and then take inspo from them.

6. Menu bar

Ranking things in your business.  Now I have to say I probably changed this about 10 times this week because I was trying to condense things then I was asking myself what is the most important thing in my business?

So for me and I’ve shared this before – Brand Builder’s academy is the number 1 thing in my business now.  It where everything else will be born from basically.  So I’m looking at a membership for BBA graduates called Brand Accelerate,  there may be a speaking arm to it, a retreat, events etc – but it’s for BBA graduates so for me BBA is number 1, so after about me, I’ve go courses and BBA is the first thing.

Then coaching, speaker, podcast and book.

Now I’ve got these in the log scroll on the front page too so whether you’re scrolling or you’re in the top menu it’s consistent and clear.

So these are just a few things that I’ve been updating and reviewing but I think it’s super important to look at your website and your business and ask:

• Is there redundant information here?
• Am I yammer on or am I getting straight to the point?
• Am I crystal clear on what I want people do and do I have call to action buttons?
• Am I making it easy for people to understand who I am, what I do and how they can work with me or is it super hard?
• Does this work the way I want it to on a mobile device because 64% of my users are engaging with my site on mobile!

LINKS

• Your Best Year Yet Review & Planner Download
• Buy the Book: Play Big, Brand Bold
• Brand Builder's Academy