Holly, talk about how to write so that you're telling them there's a solution, but you're not letting them off the hook. They got to hire the person behind the copy first. They got to hire the business behind the copy to get off the hook.

That's the objective. Absolutely. Yeah, we absolutely have to ask people to take some kind of an action.

So that is really big is making sure that you have that really direct call to action. So I always remind people that things like contact us, read more, learn more, these are not direct calls to action. So we need to really be telling people what to do, make an appointment, shop our online store, buy the course, whatever it is, that really direct thing that we want them to do.

And then the other piece of that that is really important is giving people a really simple kind of process plan. In StoryBrand, we talk about the three-step plan all the time, is giving people three simple steps to move forward. So if the first step is simply just maybe to schedule a consultation, schedule a free consultation.

And then the second part is to receive and review a proposal or sign a proposal. And then the third part is have a really awesome business. Obviously, there are a lot of other steps in there, but by breaking it down really simply like that into three simple steps, it does give people a way to move forward and it tells them exactly what they need to do.

So they're not, like you said, just kind of being let off the hook. You're saying, look, here's how you can get the success, one, two, three. And it makes it really manageable and kind of bite-sized for people to take that action.

We're all about eliminating the overwhelm, right? Right, right. No, that's great. And talk about, for the folks who are listening here today or folks who may be watching on YouTube, talk about how you don't want to, everything involves work, right? So you're going to engage me and your business is going to be better for it, and there's going to be work associated with it, but we don't necessarily want to tell them how much work is involved in the marketing copy, right? Because if we tell them, like, let's go back to the weight loss analogy.

I need to lose 20 pounds, and the reason I need to lose 20 pounds is because my blood pressure is high, my cholesterol is high, and I have young children, and I want to live to see them grow up. Okay, that's the reason I want to lose 20 pounds. So you're telling me that you have a system, you have a process for weight loss, and you're specifically focused on weight loss for heart health and weight loss for heart health for older parents with younger children.

Great. The message resonates with me. Now, if you were to tell me that it's going to take six months and I'm going to have to work out really hard every day for six months, you know, no matter how much I want to live to see my kids grow up, that six months seems impossible to me.

So, you know, at what point or how do you craft the copy? And then, you know, do you tell them? Is it your, is it your responsibility to tell them that there's work involved? Or do we tell them that there's work involved after the business onboards them? How does that work? Yeah, I like to tell clients when they're, when they're thinking about this, not to get too into the weeds of the process that you have to offer, right? So we really want to stay focused on the success, the benefits that people are going to get, the value rather than giving them all the little tiny parts and pieces of what's involved, right? So, you know, I actually worked, this is a great example of a client I worked with recently that has a software program and their website had a lot of pages highlighting all the different features of the software and all the ways that it worked and all that. And I actually recommended that they just remove all of that. Because I was like, we really just want people to schedule a demo to see the software.

Let's focus our copy on how you're solving their problem, how this, this tool is going to make their life easier, it's going to make their job better, it's going to remove a lot of the stress and overwhelm so that they go, yeah, I got to see this. When you get them on the demo, you can show them all the bells and whistles, right? But we don't necessarily need to get into the weeds of all of that on our website, in our marketing copy, especially if people aren't buying something right on your website, especially if you need to talk to them more, like, you know, a weight loss, for example, you know, if I'm signing up for that, you probably want me to book some sort of consultation or an appointment, then you can talk to me more about what's involved, right? And the timeline and the process and all of that. But really, I feel like the, the website and some of your copy is really just designed to get people to take that first step, like get them in the door first.

Yeah, so what Holly is really very polite, and she's not willing to say is nobody cares what your processes, they just said nobody cares about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby. So what you need to do when you're meeting new people, whether it's through your website or through solicitation campaign, email or direct mail, you need to introduce them to the fact that you have a solution, the solution works. And that's my next question to you, Holly, is let's talk a little bit about building credibility.

But you have a you have a solution, the solution works, and you've provided the solution time and time again. And all they need to do is engage you and everything's going to be okay. That's all they really need to know.

They don't need to know the 15 ways that you're going to go through this process to help them that comes down the road when they're emotionally committed. So Holly, part of that emotional commitment, right? And we there's there's three steps that we use, I'm sure you use as well. And there's maybe a fourth that we add on if the client doesn't have its visibility, credibility and differentiation.

And the fourth one is maybe, maybe we gin up a little urgency like you're talking about, right? So talk about talk about the credibility piece. How do you how do you bring out credibility for the businesses with whom you work in your copy? Absolutely. I mean, you definitely want to let people know that you know what you're doing, right, that you understand what what they're struggling with, you have a way to help them and it's it works.

And so there's a few ways that I always recommend doing that. One, one great way, of course, is testimonials, right? So this allows other people to sort of brag on you and talk about how you were able to help them. So a testimonial or some sort of, you know, case studies that allow people to say, Oh, gosh, yeah, that business had the exact same struggle that I had.

And she was able to help them. So I bet she can help me too. Right.

So that's a great, that's a great way to do that. And also just sometimes even statistics or numbers, right, the number of clients you've worked with, or, you know, the, you know, back to our weight loss analogy, you know, the number of pounds that people have lost, maybe going through your program, whatever it is, kind of coming up with some of those numbers that are going to be really powerful to show Yeah, hey, this does work, I think are some really great ways to do that. Yeah, so so the credibility that you that you are who you say you are is critically important.

And then, Holly, talk a little bit about and this is where I think testimonials come in, talk about okay, studies, talk about believability, right? So they have to believe first that you're the real deal. Now, once they believe that, then they got to believe that they can do it, right? So like, I mean, since we're doing the whole weight loss thing, so they see the 400 pound guy who's down to 180 now, and he's living a great life and everything in there. And they're thinking to themselves, well, this guy was on death's doorstep, I don't need to lose 200 pounds, I got 20.

And these are the same 20 pounds I've been trying to lose for five years. How do I know that I can do it? So what do you what do you build into the to the copy to make sure that people not only find you to be an expert, but they also believe that they can do what is necessary to be done? Well, having the having the variety of testimonials, I think, from different people at different stages, being able to show like, hey, this works for everyone. And then another area that I really encourage people to focus on is the photos that they're using.

So the pictures on your website, or the pictures in the marketing materials should really communicate success, and they should be targeted at your specific client, right? So showing people that have lost weight or showing people that are, you know, happy in their business, because their business is profitable and growing, whatever it is, showing those, you know, happy, successful people so that when potential customers are looking at your website, they're going, well, that person really, they kind of look like me, right? They're happy. And they're, they're playing with their kids, like, I want that too. And so I think sometimes we forget about the pictures.

And, and people want to just put up, like you said, pictures of themselves, or, you know, just some kind of like, abstract photos, but really look for those happy people that are experiencing the success that you have to offer. And I think that goes a great, goes a long way toward the credibility factor, too. Okay, great.

Now, let's talk about voice. So if you're if you're a newspaper reporter, and you're writing a story, you write, you write in your own voice, because people want to hear from you, right? But if you're writing copy, I think you tell me whose voice should the copy be in? Is the copy in the voice of the business? Is it the voice of the customer? What is your what is your take on that? Yeah, I think it actually varies a little bit, I think, depending on the business and the kind of business you have. I mean, typically, I'm trying to capture the voice of the business, while also sort of speaking the language of the customer or the client, right? And it also depends on your business and the kind of voice that you want your business to have.

Is it a little bit more of a serious business? Or are you do you have something to offer that's really like fun, and you know, you want to seem a little more lighthearted. So some of that really is kind of taking a step back and thinking, all right, well, what do we want the voice of our business to be? What do we want to communicate? You know, if I'm a funeral home, I'm probably going to have a more serious tone, right to my business, versus like a kids, you know, play area, where kids can go and play and I'm marketing to parents, right? These are two very different things. And so we're going to have a little different voices there.

But making sure that we're being consistent in that voice. So if we've decided that we're going to be the lighthearted and fun business, then be lighthearted and fun. Don't just suddenly one day be super serious on Facebook, you're going to kind of throw people off a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. So Holly, it takes I'm telling people now this is not this is not Holly speaking. And she didn't prompt me to say this.

I write copy for my business. And it's taken me, I want to say 30 years to get to the point where I know, you know, and I know I have a good piece of copy. And I know the copy is going to work.

But even then, even then, sometimes it doesn't hit the mark. Sometimes instead of, you know, instead of generating, you know, a dozen new leads, every time I send out the the piece of direct mail to 100 people, it only generates two, or sometimes it falls flat and it generates none. So this I cannot express to you how much this is art and science it is there is a tremendous amount of trial and error.

Now you as the business owner who's listening, you bring to this an intimate knowledge of your client. And Holly being the expert will unlock that knowledge from you and put the copy where it belongs. So Holly, share with us if you if you can, if you if you can think of a really good success story, take us through a business that came to you and they said, Listen, we're not getting any leads from our website, or we're not getting any conversions from our email campaigns, where you've helped them by taking what was already there and shaping it and making it really special.

How have you helped a business? Give us an example. Yeah, that's great. I'll actually go back to that software company that I mentioned earlier, because they had some really great results that they just shared with me actually a couple of weeks ago.

And, and so when they came to me, their website wasn't terrible. I mean, it they had, they had done some work to it, it looked okay, it wasn't awful. But again, their their whole message was largely about all the features of their software, and less about how their how their customers life was going to be better by using this software.

So that was really the big change up that we made, we eliminated a lot of pages from their website, consolidated some things really changed up the copy, again, changed up some of the images to have more of those smiling, happy people that were enjoying life after using this software. So we made all those changes. We also added a lead generator to their website.

So something that people could you know, download in exchange for an email address that would allow them to capture some leads so that they could continue to market to those folks that were interested in the program. And so they actually just got in touch with me a couple weeks ago and told me that, you know, normally they get a couple of demos per week, that was kind of their normal average. And that here recently, they had been seeing eight and even 10 demos per week.

And so they really felt like the website was was really working there just by changing up the focus to be on the customer and not, you know, getting into all of the weeds of this software and how it worked and all the different details and things that it included. They could do that on the demo, right? But now they were actually getting people booked. And when we first started working together, they told me they actually have a pretty good close rate.

So they really just needed to get more people to see the software. They needed to do more demos with folks. And so by streamlining their website, really making that call to action super clear, focusing on the benefits to the customer, it's really allowed them to increase the number of people that are scheduling a demo to see the software and try it out.