There’s a thing in sales called “talking past the sale” the person already wants to buy, then the sales person keeps talking and ends up talking the customer out of a good decision.
That’s just one reason to keep websites simple.
The two main people we want to serve with a gig-getting website is a person who wants to buy and is checking for red flags (Justin) and a person who wants to refer us (Casey), and just needs a tool or content to send to their friend.
We want to give both of these people only the good stuff and get them into action.
RED FLAGS
Justin will do as much as he thinks he’s supposed to to be cautious and prudent. If he feels he must look at every thing on your website to make sure he doesn’t miss anything… great. We’re trying to prevent him from getting any red flags. A simple red flag could be that show how creative and imaginitive and how much of a bold artist i am and Justin assumes that that means i’m an artist who does things their own way. I might not show up on time, i might not shower, I might say something political or irresponsible.
Everything carries possible baggage and possible red flags. So, we keep it short and to the point and we’re good. We’re not responsible for getting everything spotless for Justin. Justin is not responsible for reading 7 pages of content carefully and figuring out what it means. We can say, “Sounds fun,” and shake hands.
TOOLS FOR REFERRAL
We want to have the best tools for referral possible for our friends. Casey is trying to make a mutually beneficial connection. She wants an easy way to say, “Hey! Scot’s good” We put that up front and center and casey can click in, get the good stuff and copy and paste it, or share the site. If we give Casey every article about us that’s ever been written, she might not send the good one over. She might get confused about how to sell us.
FOCUS
When Justin and Casey are hunting through our sites, they could be on a long journey until a tab get’s opened up in front of our site. They get pulled away and they don’t take the action. They might not see our tab again until they’re busy or the gig is in the past.
Let’s get them to understand the value, then take action immediately and get it off their plates for them.
We also want to focus our offering. We are specialists. Specialists are more valuable. Specialists get respect. Specialists are able to create transformation. The more information we add to the website, the more general we seem.
SINGLE PATH
Let’s keep Casey and Justin chugging along on one track that takes them exactly to the desired action. Trust me, they want to get it done too. They want us to be successful and they want it to be easy for them. If we give them links out to other things including our social media, they may go. Then, it’s up to them to come back and do the action.
If there’s a quote from an article that Casey absolutely must copy and paste, then put that quote on the site. Edit it down to the essential part. If our social media is rocking and we have 200k followers and we think Justin will like that, write on the website “200k followers!” That’s easy.
Let’s keep it short. Let’s make it easy for Justin Case