6 Tips to Engage Your Prospects in 6 Seconds or Less – With James Hipkin

In this episode, Tara introduces you to James Hipkin. James helps business owners can engage their prospective customers in 6 seconds or less!

Six-figure business owners who are or who want to be using digital marketing to drive growth. James is an accomplished, forward-thinking marketing professional with 30+ years of multi-disciplinary experience in marketing and marketing communications companies serving high-profile, global brands and B2C clients in consumer packaged goods, durables, transportation, telecommunications, and financial services.

He has been involved in digital marketing for more than ten years, first as president of a direct marketing agency Brann Worldwide’s San Francisco office, where he led the evolution of the agency from traditional direct marketing to digital. Clients included Apple, Wells Fargo online bank and Nestlé. He went on to become the head of a mid-sized agency’s interactive group, with Toyota as the main client.

Over ten years ago, he joined Red8 Interactive (https://red8interactive.com), a long-term vendor and became an owner and managing director.

You can reach James on his site: www.inn8ly.com (for a free website audit)

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Transcript
Tara Bryan:

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's

Tara Bryan:

episode of the course billing secrets podcast. I am so happy

Tara Bryan:

to introduce you to James Hipkin. Today, welcome James to

Tara Bryan:

the show, we're so happy to have you here, give us a little bit

Tara Bryan:

of a sense for who you are, what your business is, and what

Tara Bryan:

you're up to

James Hipkin:

a tour, I'm really super happy to be here. I'm been

James Hipkin:

rattling around the marketing and advertising world for 40

James Hipkin:

plus years, the gray hair is quite legitimate. And the last

James Hipkin:

10 years I've been focused on designing and building websites

James Hipkin:

for large corporations. And then five years ago, we developed a

James Hipkin:

product more specifically for smaller businesses, what we were

James Hipkin:

finding is that while smaller businesses couldn't really

James Hipkin:

afford to work with us, when I looked at the horrible websites

James Hipkin:

they had, they really should be working with us. So I wanted to

James Hipkin:

create a product that would allow our knowledge and

James Hipkin:

expertise to become available to six figure business owners who

James Hipkin:

are looking to step up their game.

Tara Bryan:

Yeah, that's so cool. So so we haven't met

Tara Bryan:

before we just we're talking just briefly, but your story is

Tara Bryan:

very similar to mine, actually, because I have been. I own an

Tara Bryan:

agency. So we do full service elearning design and development

Tara Bryan:

for large corporations. And I had exactly the same thing where

Tara Bryan:

I was like, I love working with large companies. But there are

Tara Bryan:

all of these people who are trying to create courses, and

Tara Bryan:

they are atrocious and terrible. And they're not serving their

Tara Bryan:

people. So they're not growing, and they're not building the

Tara Bryan:

business that they want to build. And so it was exactly the

Tara Bryan:

same thing was like I have to help them like what can I do?

James Hipkin:

Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's our

James Hipkin:

we build websites for large corporations, these are often

James Hipkin:

have six figure budgets. And you know, it's very interesting and

James Hipkin:

fun work. But it also says we actually know what we're doing.

James Hipkin:

We've been working with the same six, seven different design

James Hipkin:

agencies and clients for more than 10 years. So clearly, we're

James Hipkin:

doing something right. So how do we bring that knowledge and

James Hipkin:

expertise to bear to smaller business owners? Who have got to

James Hipkin:

the point where, okay, we've got some traction? Now one time to

James Hipkin:

step things up. So that's how that's the people we support?

Tara Bryan:

Yeah, awesome. Okay, so let's get into it a little

Tara Bryan:

bit. Because I'm, I'm curious to know, the six seconds or less.

Tara Bryan:

So you are saying that there are ways to increase engagement on

Tara Bryan:

your website, and six seconds or less, right? That's what you're

Tara Bryan:

saying?

James Hipkin:

That's right.

Tara Bryan:

Okay. Well tell us all about that. Because it is,

Tara Bryan:

first of all, super important that you have a web presence so

Tara Bryan:

people can find you online and kind of do, you know, do the

Tara Bryan:

research of who you are before they're going to, you know, jump

Tara Bryan:

into your program, your coaching your course, or whatever. But

Tara Bryan:

you have to build it the right way. So tell us how we need to

Tara Bryan:

build it and what how we get people's attention in six

Tara Bryan:

seconds,

James Hipkin:

you said a couple of really important things so

James Hipkin:

that they can find you online. And so that you they can see if

James Hipkin:

you can solve their problem. And this is the most common mistake

James Hipkin:

I see in websites. The website bleeds away about how awesome

James Hipkin:

the business is, without any acknowledgement whatsoever to

James Hipkin:

the problem that they're trying to solve 100% This is what I

James Hipkin:

call Inside Out presentation where it needs to be outside in.

James Hipkin:

And the six seconds comes from the fact you've probably heard

James Hipkin:

that a goldfish has an attention seeking

Tara Bryan:

to ask if it was the goldfish. That's like that's

Tara Bryan:

where it's coming from. Yeah,

James Hipkin:

well, that's a myth. It's not actually true.

James Hipkin:

But regardless, as a business owner, you should be so lucky.

James Hipkin:

Right? Right. You've got six seconds or less to engage

James Hipkin:

somebody who arrives at your website. And most of the people

James Hipkin:

who get to your website, I've got there on our referral of

James Hipkin:

some sort. Per heard about you heard you speaking social media,

James Hipkin:

some way they've heard about you. So when they get to the

James Hipkin:

website, and the six seconds doesn't start when the page has

James Hipkin:

loaded, the six seconds starts when the page is asked for. And

James Hipkin:

that page load speed is the first trust event. If your page

James Hipkin:

is taking four and a half seconds to load, people are

James Hipkin:

going oh, how serious are these people? Right as opposed to if

James Hipkin:

it's there in a second or less. It's stops being a consideration

James Hipkin:

at all. The second way is what are they looking for are there

James Hipkin:

because they're going to ask themselves Are they in the right

James Hipkin:

place? And if you've been marketing yourself around your

James Hipkin:

name, and they arrive at the website and see some fancy logo

James Hipkin:

about a company name they've never heard of, they're

James Hipkin:

instantaneously going to be thinking about hmm, am I in the

James Hipkin:

right place. And you don't want them thinking about that you

James Hipkin:

want that to be a checkbox bank was looking for Tara Bryan, and

James Hipkin:

I found her there's. So then the third thing is give them a

James Hipkin:

benefit oriented reason to stay, lead with the problem that they

James Hipkin:

are trying to solve, not with your solution. Because what

James Hipkin:

you're trying to do is to engage them and you engage people by

James Hipkin:

acknowledging them.

Tara Bryan:

Yeah, that's so so true. So how do you handle that

Tara Bryan:

with people? Who are you're working with? Who who really

Tara Bryan:

can't articulate that? Right? Like, there are some people who

Tara Bryan:

are creating courses and programs and whatever else, and

Tara Bryan:

they can't articulate like, the problem they're actually

Tara Bryan:

solving? Well, usually

James Hipkin:

what I do is I give them an exercise, I asked

James Hipkin:

them to complete a customer avatar. And the customer avatar

James Hipkin:

has four quadrants, the upper left hand quadrant is

James Hipkin:

demographically what does your best customer look like? The

James Hipkin:

upper right hand quadrant is? What are their attitudes? Are

James Hipkin:

they confident? Are they self confident? Are they insecure?

James Hipkin:

What are their attitudes? The demographics help you understand

James Hipkin:

where they are and how to find them online? The attitudes help

James Hipkin:

you understand how to talk to them. And then the lower left

James Hipkin:

hand quadrant is define their pain. What is the thing that

James Hipkin:

they're struggling with? And then in the lower right hand

James Hipkin:

quadrant is where you what's their gain from working with

James Hipkin:

you? Right. Okay. And that gives you a really holistic view of

James Hipkin:

your prime prospect. But it that there's another step, and this

James Hipkin:

is the step that ever more often than not, yes, I have an avatar.

James Hipkin:

Okay, the next step is map their customer, their journey. Yep.

James Hipkin:

Map the journey from where they are to, I don't even know this

James Hipkin:

problem exists through to the kinds of events that might

James Hipkin:

affect their life that would cause them to start thinking

James Hipkin:

about this and go into the sort of consideration mode. And then

James Hipkin:

the steps that they've got going to take and the kinds of

James Hipkin:

questions they'll have at that phase, then into prospecting,

James Hipkin:

the kinds of questions they'll have in that phase, your goal

James Hipkin:

with the website is to support that journey. So that as opposed

James Hipkin:

to just yelling at them when they get there, you're becoming

James Hipkin:

a trusted compatriot in the journey to solve this problem.

James Hipkin:

And that brings me to the next of the six ways, which is

James Hipkin:

reasons to believe. Give them some credibility. You don't have

James Hipkin:

this doesn't have to be the great American novel. A couple

James Hipkin:

of powerful testimonials is much more effective than 13

James Hipkin:

testimonials in a carousel? Yeah, yeah, all you need to do

James Hipkin:

is just give them some objective evidence that your solution that

James Hipkin:

you're proposing, you have the credibility to do that, and then

James Hipkin:

map their pathway. I like to not use the word call to action. I

James Hipkin:

like to use the word pathway. Interesting, effectively, it's

James Hipkin:

the same thing. But that change in the the words changes the

James Hipkin:

mindset around it, what you're trying to do is create pathways,

James Hipkin:

most people have two or three sub segments in their target

James Hipkin:

audience. And each one of those sub segments should have their

James Hipkin:

own avatar. And you want to create pathways that call out to

James Hipkin:

those sub segments. So that they're like, you're telling

James Hipkin:

them the benefits they're gonna get from following this pathway.

James Hipkin:

And when they click the call to action button in that pathway,

James Hipkin:

they'll be taken to a page and two, powerful and profound

James Hipkin:

things have happened. They've told you exactly who they are.

James Hipkin:

And they've given you permission to tell them about your product

James Hipkin:

or service. So this is an engagement process that

James Hipkin:

ultimately gets you to the other word that I don't like to use,

James Hipkin:

which is sales. Ah, yeah, take sales out of your vocabulary.

James Hipkin:

And again, it's a effectively the same thing. But the mindset

James Hipkin:

change that's words are important. And think of it is my

James Hipkin:

my conversion event is an enrollment conversation.

Tara Bryan:

Mm hmm. Yep. That's so powerful.

James Hipkin:

And then that means that you're getting the

James Hipkin:

right customers for the right reasons. I've done a lot of work

James Hipkin:

in my past and loyalty marketing, big corporations, $30

James Hipkin:

million budgets, all around customer communication and

James Hipkin:

customer loyalty. And 90% of loyalty problems can be traced

James Hipkin:

to a flawed sales process. And this is why I use words like

James Hipkin:

pathway and enrollment conversation. Now, you'll notice

James Hipkin:

I'm talking about a website, but I haven't talked about anything

James Hipkin:

technical about the website. I haven't talked about design I

James Hipkin:

haven't talked about, because the piece that's missing from

James Hipkin:

most websites is strategy.

Tara Bryan:

Yep. 100%. Same thing with courses. Same thing.

Tara Bryan:

Sure. That's true. It's all Yeah. That's the conversation

Tara Bryan:

that's missing. i It's interesting that you say that,

Tara Bryan:

because I'm always people are like, what's the tool I should

Tara Bryan:

be using, like, doesn't matter. What matters is all of this

Tara Bryan:

stuff that you're talking about right now. That's the essential

Tara Bryan:

piece.

James Hipkin:

And that's the and then the sixth way. And the

James Hipkin:

sixth way, is make the page easy to consume. Lots of whitespace.

James Hipkin:

Use visuals to support the words, use the heart, a

James Hipkin:

hierarchy of language, your titles, and your subtitles

James Hipkin:

should be a different size. Don't use long line links.

James Hipkin:

Newspapers are printed in columns for a reason columns are

James Hipkin:

easier to read. So you know, blinds that cover the whole page

James Hipkin:

that are knocked out white on top of an image, that designer

James Hipkin:

may think this looks awesome, but no normal human can read

James Hipkin:

them. Right? Right. So the last of the six ways to engage

James Hipkin:

visitors is make the content appealing and recognize where

James Hipkin:

they are in their journey. Don't put the great American novel on

James Hipkin:

your homepage. Give them a clear pathway that they can follow.

James Hipkin:

And then they've given you permission to give them more

James Hipkin:

information. That's where you can give them more information.

James Hipkin:

But give them that information in a very digestible way.

Tara Bryan:

Yep, yeah. So good. I love all six of those are are

Tara Bryan:

awesome. So So when somebody is coming to you, and they're kind

Tara Bryan:

of getting started, like, what's the like? You have them do the

Tara Bryan:

avatar exercise, but like, what's the like a tip that you

Tara Bryan:

would give them like, this is a difference between this working

Tara Bryan:

and not working? Like what's what's that like? little nugget

Tara Bryan:

that you would give them?

James Hipkin:

Well, one of the things I see frequently, it's

James Hipkin:

more of a technical thing. Most people are right handed, they

James Hipkin:

scan a page from the upper left hand corner to the lower right

James Hipkin:

hand corner. Yeah. Don't put the call to action in the lower left

James Hipkin:

hand corner. Because they won't see it. Yeah, yeah. But the

James Hipkin:

image on the left, put the words on the right, put the call to

James Hipkin:

action at the bottom of the words. And, you know, this is a

James Hipkin:

very common mistake, because designers don't think about that

James Hipkin:

kind of thing, right? They're just want it to look good. But

James Hipkin:

you have to think about it from the point of view of the users

James Hipkin:

experience, and how users are going to actually interact with

James Hipkin:

the page. It's a subset of that six way which is make the page

James Hipkin:

easy to consume. It's a common mistake. Another common mistake

James Hipkin:

is video is very effective on a webpage. People by people, it's

James Hipkin:

a great opportunity for you to show who you are as a person.

James Hipkin:

The piece that often gets overlooked is the importance of

James Hipkin:

the thumbnail. Because you want the thumbnail to invite people

James Hipkin:

to click the play button. They want the thumbnail to

James Hipkin:

communicate all of the benefits they're going to get from

James Hipkin:

watching this video. You can't just assume that they'll click

James Hipkin:

it because it's there.

Tara Bryan:

So what's a good example of a thumbnail that

Tara Bryan:

invites them to watch the video

James Hipkin:

a headline that introduces the benefits the

James Hipkin:

things you're going to talk about in the video

Tara Bryan:

is in the thumbnail not in the the copy around it.

James Hipkin:

But you can do it there to do it in more than one

James Hipkin:

place. Interesting give people choices. people consume content

James Hipkin:

different ways. There are people who will always read first they

James Hipkin:

like to read they absorb their content that way there are other

James Hipkin:

people who are visual. A thumbnail with a big nice, nice

James Hipkin:

benefit oriented headline can be absorbed without reading it. And

James Hipkin:

they'll take action and they'll watch the video. So the video, I

James Hipkin:

worked with a Pilates instructor, we do a lot of

James Hipkin:

websites, for course builders. And this was a Pilates

James Hipkin:

instructor who was creating a course. And I said to her that

James Hipkin:

your landing page, your marketing landing page needs a

James Hipkin:

video. And you know, and your headlines are not very benefit

James Hipkin:

oriented. So she gave me the video. And then she said, Well,

James Hipkin:

I don't know how to write this copy. I don't know how to create

James Hipkin:

this better. And I watched her video and I said, Wendy,

James Hipkin:

everything you need to save said in the video. I just took the

James Hipkin:

words that you said and turn them into a headline in the

James Hipkin:

video. Yeah. Different people consume information, different

James Hipkin:

ways you can duplicate this information. Nobody minds,

Tara Bryan:

right? Yeah, no, that's so powerful. And you only

Tara Bryan:

have the six seconds. So somebody may watch the video. So

Tara Bryan:

maybe maybe the copy some maybe just browsing and like, you

Tara Bryan:

know, fast up and down. And the more that comes out the better.

Tara Bryan:

Yeah,

James Hipkin:

another trick that is really, really effective.

James Hipkin:

Most people don't buy the first time they're at the website. So

James Hipkin:

if you've created three pathways, mirror echo those

James Hipkin:

pathways in your main navigation. So that if somebody

James Hipkin:

comes back to the website, they can instantly look in the main

James Hipkin:

navigation goes, Yes, that's where I want to be. Interesting.

James Hipkin:

Yep, that's a good guy, and then put the administrative stuff

James Hipkin:

contact us. You know, all that other stuff. Put that up in the

James Hipkin:

secondary navigation or put it in the footer?

Tara Bryan:

Donald Miller calls out the junk drawer, put it down

Tara Bryan:

in the junk drawer down in the footer. Right. Yeah.

James Hipkin:

I mean, we strongly encourage people to

James Hipkin:

limit their main navigation to three to four things no more

James Hipkin:

than that. Yeah, yep. Yeah, you've only got six seconds.

James Hipkin:

Don't have them spending a whole lot of time trying to figure out

James Hipkin:

these nine things in the navigation. Which one do I need

James Hipkin:

to worry about? Right? Yeah, I'm thinking about the wrong things.

Tara Bryan:

Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. Okay, so give us

Tara Bryan:

a book or resource or tool, something that is like your go

Tara Bryan:

to that's helped transform you and your business. More than

Tara Bryan:

anything else? Do you have like a special book or, or anything

Tara Bryan:

that that the best thing that people

James Hipkin:

can do is go to six seconds or less.com. And

James Hipkin:

that will give you an opportunity to book some time on

James Hipkin:

my calendar. And we can have a 30 minute conversation about the

James Hipkin:

strategy behind an effective website. And I will audit your

James Hipkin:

website and give you some really valuable feedback on the things

James Hipkin:

you're doing well, and the things that could really be

James Hipkin:

improved. To improve the opportunity that you have with

James Hipkin:

the website to create value for your customers and value for

James Hipkin:

your business. That mutual exchange of value is the goal.

James Hipkin:

Yeah, so go to six seconds, or less.com. And I'd be happy to

James Hipkin:

audit your website and talk to you about some of these things

James Hipkin:

in more detail.

Tara Bryan:

Awesome. All right, you heard it from James, go

Tara Bryan:

check out his website. We'll put that also in the show notes. So

Tara Bryan:

you have it. Thank you so much, James, for being here today. Any

Tara Bryan:

parting words that you want to give to our listeners today as

Tara Bryan:

as we leave our session today?

James Hipkin:

I think the key thing I like to tell people,

James Hipkin:

there's so much flying around. There's so many shiny things.

James Hipkin:

There's so many choices out there. Stop trying to boil the

James Hipkin:

ocean. Pick a few things, do them well. And when you think

James Hipkin:

you're doing them, well figure out how to do them better. Yes.

James Hipkin:

And if you just just do that, you're much more likely to be

James Hipkin:

successful.

Tara Bryan:

Yep. Don't do more stuff. Just do what you're doing

Tara Bryan:

better. I love it.

James Hipkin:

The flowers prune the weeds.

Tara Bryan:

Yes. Perfect. I love it. All right. Thank you so much

Tara Bryan:

for being with us. Everyone else have a great day.