Effective Website Strategies Featuring Ezra McCarthy

But before we dive in , a quick word of caution While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date financial and tax information , nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered as financial advice specifically for you or your business .

We're here to share general knowledge and experiences , not to replace the tailored advice you get from a professional financial advisor or tax consultant .

After reaching out to several , he could not find one that was responsive at a reasonable price . This led him to start designing websites and fill the gap in the service industry .

As Ezra did more work online on his website and marketing , he saw an increase in the number and the quality of leads , and today Ezra helps others grow their business through online marketing , specifically by creating websites . Welcome to the podcast , ezra .

You know , should I do it right away , right when I start my business , or should I wait till I , you know , get to a certain level ? Um , do you have any like strong feelings about when they should do it and why , why it might be important to get a website ?

And today , online referrals , online reviews that is where people go for recommendations , and most people don't even know what their neighbor's name is . So you know , especially older folks . A lot of us well , not necessarily myself , but a lot of the service industry is older , and so we've all heard that phrase . Oh , I just use word of mouth .

Now , word of mouth is good , but in this day and age , word of mouth is online reviews , it's Google , it's going , and I tell people this question . So I'll ask you Daniel , do you shop on Amazon ?

It looks way too nice to be a real person and it says beside it , they do a great job oh , the way they painted my living room . And you look at that and you think , okay , somebody was in their underwear in their basement typing out a fake review . This is not real and that's not what I'm talking about .

Having a website that connects with someone that says this is who we are Because , as we know , in the service-based industries , you need , you cannot be .

There's a phrase in the lawn care industry we use , like Chuck in the truck or basically that guy that's showing up in a sleeveless shirt smoking a cigarette , coming in and just that's not who most of these people listening to this podcast are .

So we want to showcase through your website we're a professional company and therefore we can charge a professional price and all those things play into it .

Everyone's outside all the time . Everyone's playing in the streets . My kids I have a six and a four-year-old and a one-year-old as well but the six and four-year-old are playing outside all the time and with the neighborhood kids everyone's outside , everyone knows each other .

Then we come back to the United States and this was just a few months ago and I'm showing my six-year-old and four-year-old around the neighborhood they have like a neighborhood pool and just showing them how to get around the neighborhood and there's like literally nobody outside and it's like a weekend , it's beautiful , we're in Florida , it's sunny , beautiful day and

they're like where's everybody ? There's all these cars , but there's no people and they're like it's a ghost town here . So you , you know , it's obvious the way you put that like nobody knows their neighbors anymore . So when someone says , yeah , my , my , uh , I get my jobs from word of mouth , it's it's not because the neighbors are talking .

It's probably because there might be a facebook group that they're in sure , and then they're sharing , like a link to someone's website or something like that . So I think that's a really excellent point on why you would really need a website in this day and age . It's just like real estate that you got to get that set up .

Once I did get a website and I started to begin to gather reviews from real customers when I first started . We're probably all familiar with a man hour rate , or how much you're charging , whether it's per square foot or per the day . However you're calculating that .

When I first started , I didn't have the confidence to charge what I really needed to make a living .

But as I began to get more leads coming in and better clients because of my website , because of my reviews , no longer was I just competing on price , but so many people were coming that I was able to set my own prices and people were coming and saying , hey , I want to work with you because I've seen your reviews , I've seen the pictures on your website ,

and so , literally , people were coming pre-sold . I wasn't having to chase people to sell work , they were chasing me , and if you can , as a business , flip that script so where people are coming to you . It changes your attitude in the sales process because you're not trying to okay , let's rush them .

Let's try to push them over those sales tactics , but instead they're trying to okay , when can I get on your schedule ? Not , how much is it ?

know you . You know before you even come over to their house to give give the quote . So that is definitely a compelling case .

There Can is a you know along the same lines about attracting clients , can you also use your website to kind of like qualify your clients and keep certain people away from you , because that's a a big you know you want to attract good clients but at the same time you want to repel , like those , those clients that , uh , that are nightmares and that we've all

had , sure and and I think a website can do both of those you think of a magnet .

So if most of your jobs are residential , if most of your jobs are , let's say , between five to $10,000 . So you want to find that perfect job and then craft everything , your copy , which is the wording you want to craft , uh , every single thing towards that .

And by doing so , if someone calls and they want one wall painted in their house and then they go , they're going to say , okay , this may not be for me . And then there's a couple of things I'd like to note . On the contact form , the more friction you have on your website , and what I mean by that is you look at Amazon . Great example one-click purchase .

Literally you can click once and it's bought . So that is low friction and because of that , more people will buy . So on that contact form , I've seen people and they have literally 20 things that they have to fill out . Here's an example For the address where you have to put in your address .

Some people they have something for like one , two , three main street , Then they have city , Then they have state , Then they have zip code . That doesn't matter . There should be one single bar for your address and then maybe a phone number and what they want .

Now , if you're getting a lot of people that are submitting things that are just way below your minimum , you could have something that says our minimum , our minimum job , starts at , let's say , a thousand dollars , and that way someone going through it if they're someone is just wanting a hundred or $200 job , then they're just not going to fill it out or less

likely to . So you can either increase friction or reduce friction , depending on your lead flow and who you're trying to attract .

I've also seen folks do something where they say have some sort of question that requires them to put in like the budget , and so the person has to like , select their budget like zero to a thousand , thousand to 5,000 , whatever , and then you know you don't , you don't have , maybe don't have the minimum stated , but if you know , when someone says I'm zero to a

thousand bucks ahead of time , you can , you know , either qualify them with a phone call you know to to refer them away or change your sales process .

I've seen some people will , they'll do for the smaller jobs , they'll uh , do a virtual estimate on the smaller jobs instead of the in-person , because it's just , you know , it's easier to do a quick virtual jump on , zoom , show me your whatever small job that you want done and then you know , figure out if that makes sense to actually work with them .

But yeah , that have that's .

I like the idea of you know using your website , in that website form , to qualify folks and and be able to know what's happening you know , and with your , with your prospects ahead of time , so that you're not blown blindsided by oh , I just want you to paint my mailbox um , or whatever and one danger there too as well if your website is bad and say you're

doing large commercial jobs , residential , the high quality people that are going to spend 10 , 20 000 on a $20,000 on a paint job , they're going to be repelled .

No one goes into business , I would hope , saying that's who I want and so having a good one is going to help , but the the the opposite is also true . If you don't , then you're going to repel the people who you're wanting to help .

To look over your website and with a , with a critical eye , or have someone else , and and really think am I attracting the right type of clients ? So that's , that's an excellent point . Um , so are you a Seth Godin fan ?

And then he , he , uh , he stalked me I mean in a good way and then sent me a package and I was just flabbergasted . But you know , that's literally an example of , I'm sure if you're a fan , you know purple cow standing it out , standing out and as a painting business

. If you haven't read that book , the whole synopsis of the book can be boiled down to be different . And so here are two things that you can do to be different . I'm not a sponsor of this . I use them , I love it . It's called mymetalbusinesscardscom and literally you can buy and a metal business card and I've got one right here I can show you .

So we're literally this and if you're listening , I'm showing him . This is a metal business card and , as you can see , I'm hitting it and it's metal . Every time I hand this to someone . This screams quality . This screams I am not the cheapest person around .

I've had people hand it to me and they think , and they say , hmm , or something to the effect of you're not going to be cheap . But you know what ? What that does . It's one more thing as soon as you show up , you show up , you're clean , your shirt's nice , even if you've been working , if you may look like a painter , that's okay .

But your demeanor , your website , your business cards , you've got great reviews . All of that goes such a long way , as I mentioned , because then it's not about how much are you , it's when can I sign up ? So and I may have derailed the conversation there , but- .

I gotta put it on the refrigerator or something . Uh , I don't know . So . So you definitely , I definitely agree with the metal business card . That's's a good hack to stand out for sure .

Could you kind of , for folks that haven't read the Purple Cow , kind of give that scenario that he gives in the book , where you got a bunch of brown cows that are trying to outmove each other .

And they're just oh , this is great . And then he's driving along and 30 minutes later the green hills are still there , the beautiful cows , everything . But he noticed they're no longer entranced , they're bored with it . Then he said what if , as they're driving along off in the distance , they see a purple cow ?

Not only would they talk about it , but they would tell others . And as a business , as a painting business , whatever it is , we need to do something to stand out . And I'll give you an example . I was painting for this lady , probably maybe 50 to 60 , maybe I shouldn't guess , but she was middle-aged lady . I was painting her living room , kitchen , bathroom .

I got done . I had heard about this from another painting company and I said I'm going to try this . The job was done . She wasn't living there , I can't remember if she was selling or moving out .

I went and bought some flowers and I bought a card and I just wrote in there Thanks for the opportunity to serve you , or hope this really helps , and I left the flowers there , I left the card . The job was done .

She texts me she was just blown away and you know what , when she has another painting need , do you think she's going to be looking online for the cheapest person around ? No , she's going to be saying , okay , where is Signature Paints ? That was my other painting company . Where are they ?

I want them to work with me because it's just one thing , one way to stand out from all those around you . And you're that purple cow and you know . Do you think she's going to tell people about that ? 100% , it's the complete opposite of that dirty slob who comes in , forgets their stuff , leaves paint everywhere .

That is not who we were as a company , and I would presume most people that are listening to this are not that as well .

And in that month we're going to get your website done in three weeks or less , or it's free for a year . So you say how can you do that and make money ? Well , we allow you to split that over a period of time and so you can cash flow it , and then we walk with you and give you continued support through that .

So we're not just dumping you and saying , well , here you go and you say , why would you do that ? I'll give you an example of a guy . I was in a web design group and he told me this guy had built a website for a church . Great thing to do . Well , then he handed them off to the guy , the pastor .

I mean , he wasn't a web designer , he just left it up . Well , that domain got hacked and rerouted to a terrible website , one that a church should not be .

Someone looking for a church would not want to be on , and so we will literally walk with you and our goal is to create a long-term relationship to serve you and to help , and we don't lock anyone in long-term contracts .

It's not we're going to lock you in and tie you down so you can't leave , but our whole goal is to help people grow their business long-term that's awesome , cool .

We'll include the link in the show notes and with that , I'll talk to you later , ezra , and I wish everyone a happy week .