Today’s conversation fits under the P of Product. And since many of us have online businesses, that means the digital presentation and packaging of your products which includes your website.
So today I’m bringing you my very own web guy, Mark Hunter. I’ve been working with Mark since the early days, probably close to 10 years now. He’s helped me with at least four of my websites. He’s the perfect person to talk about building effective websites that combine tech and humane business practices.
Mark Hunter is an Australian-based entrepreneur who started off as a programmer. His friends and team members comment that he comes across as disarming and kind because he is more interested in the other person’s perspective than winning his own agenda.
When he isn’t creating websites and marketing strategies for his clients, Mark likes to spend his time training others on little tips and tricks they can use to work more efficiently in tech.
"I really think it's important to start with the strategy behind the website" -Mark Hunter @markofapproval @sarahsantacroce #humanemarketing Share on XIn this episode, you’ll learn about building effective websites that combine tech and humane business practices and…
- The important basics (aka strategy) when creating a website for the first time
- The tech that’s needed and tools Mark recommends
- The mistakes people make with tech
- How to marry tech and the human connection
- How to keep a site safe once its up
- and so much more.
Mark’s Resources
Mark’s Freelancer Process & Workflows Symposium
Connect with Mark on:
Sarah’s Resources
(FREE) Sarah’s One Page Marketing Plan
(FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter
(FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto
(FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course
Marketing Like We’re Human – Sarah’s book
Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course
Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com
Thanks for listening!
After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There’s no opt-in. Just an instant download.
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Warmly,
Sarah
Imperfect Transcript of the show
[00:00:00] Sarah: Hey, Mark’s a good to speak to you. See, you hear you. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:06] Mark: Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate you having me here.
[00:00:08] Sarah: Yeah. It’s it’s so great to finally have this conversation. We’ve been talking about. Having you come to a humane marketing podcast for awhile full disclosure. I said it in the intro, you are my personal web guy.
[00:00:22] So we just want to say that upfront, but I couldn’t think of a better person to have this conversation with around. Kind of the marriage between human, the human connection and tech. Cause I often, you know, I’m often kind of challenged on this thing about technology because I do say, yeah, we kind of went overdrive with the technology bit and it’s time to come back to the human connection.
[00:00:51] But I never say let’s go back to the stone age and digital technology. I think we really need to learn how to use both. And, and that’s kind of what we’re here to discuss. So I’m, I’m really looking forward to it. We positioned this conversation on there, the, the P of product, because I think, you know, nowadays anybody who has either sells products or services while they need a website, I think that’s where I, I think it’s a good place to start.
[00:01:23] So if you think about, you know, a new business owner just kinda like, okay, I need a website, where do I start? Where would you tell them to start?
[00:01:33] Mark: Well, usually depends where they come from, but I’m not just the, you know, the typical I’ll do a website, you know, for a couple of hundred bucks, 12. I really think it’s important to start with a strategy behind, behind the website live.
[00:01:47] And then it tells a few things like, obviously I have to know if they’ve got a business in the first place of they’re starting a new one and how they see the website fitting into the business. And I think people underestimate the strategy part of it. I mean, there’s a few things that happen in the past when if ever have just, yeah, I’ll build you a website, you know, but I said that they’ll sort of turns me into a commodity.
[00:02:10] And then I sort of become like this, you know, with, with wielding and I kind of do this, do that, and they don’t really get the value of me in my insights in that regard. So that’s why business myself more as a digital consultant and website developer, and actually, you know, You know, somebody builds websites.
[00:02:32] So I, some of the things got Sarah.
[00:02:34] Sarah: Yeah. What w like, what does this strategy involve? Because that’s kind of a word we throw around, but in terms of website building, what are some of the things you discuss with clients?
[00:02:47] Mark: Well, first of all, I look at how the website fits into the greater marketing plan, because some people think you build a website and, you know, they’ll get a flood of people.
[00:02:55] Okay. So how’s the website going to help you get, achieve your goal? On most people I have have sort of different markets. A lot of them are like coaches and course creators and the websites they had to actually create that relationship. We talk about the human touch, but sometimes people have to lower the shield enough to even reach out by an email, to book a consultation.
[00:03:15] I mean, for me, I don’t like to reach out to a person and I feel comfortable doing so. So if the website strategy is. But I’d love to use it with lead generation sort of force countable head about, you know, somebody jumped, grabbing you on a call and trying to sell you something. Let’s say it’s to get somebody on the phone, having a conversation.
[00:03:34] Cause that’s one of the most valuable places you can get somebody to then your website can really fortify you in that area. You know, by actually telling people through the home page, what exactly you do, and you don’t have to use all this hype USO language I’ve seen people do in the past. More or less either a clear, clear on what it is you do, who you help, if you can help them.
[00:03:57] And, you know, just to invite them to have a call in the case of the coaches, right. Invite them, you know, here’s how I can help you. Let’s see if you want to grab a, if you want to get in the chat, he’s my Calendly link or something. I’ve got a colleague who does this. I’ll use a contact form first. So not anybody who’s grabbed my Calendly link quite honestly.
[00:04:15] You know, that’s depending on where the website wants, how it’s going to fit into the plan of going from ideas in terms of the whole. You know, marketing rotation.
[00:04:25] Sarah: Yeah. It’s kind of this, this path I talk about in the second book I’m selling, like we’re human. It’s like, you want to take your people on a gentle sales path.
[00:04:36] And that does start with the website. Very often. It might start at a networking event, but you know, in our case, let’s say it starts on the website and you’re right. It’s, it’s always about thinking. Well, what do you want? For them to take us the next step and that’s not, you know, pushing them in through that direction, but if you’re not clear, well, then they’re definitely not clear of what their next step is.
[00:05:02] And so they’re going to leave again. So is their next step an opt-in or is it in the coach’s case? Maybe a directly a conversation with. You need to think about that. And that’s kind of what I think you mean by strategy. How does your website fit into the bigger picture? What are the services you’re offering?
[00:05:24] Are you selling products, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:05:27] Mark: How does it move them along? This website might be as simple as somebody is booking in to have a call with you and learning more about you. There’s different goals of the website, and sometimes it’s not, they’re going to lay on your website, then pay the, going to take the car.
[00:05:40] It might be, they’re going to read your blog post first, learn more about you, or they’re going to look, check out your portfolio if you like a web designer. Right. Right. So yeah. So it’s basically getting people comfortable with you and just showing your human side always have a headshot to yeah.
[00:05:58] Sarah: Well, that kind of goes more into the content already.
[00:06:02] And I guess is that the next step? I think people would probably think that. Maybe, maybe not even they, when it comes to someone to help them with web, with the web design, they probably just think, okay you know, the tech, maybe they don’t even think, well, they’re definitely don’t think strategy.
[00:06:19] Maybe they don’t even think content, but content is probably the next step after strategy. Right? That
[00:06:26] Mark: is correct. And I will tell you there’s kind of an iterative process because a lot of the times when my. I suppose to come up with the content, which can be a real, so it can be like pulling teeth.
[00:06:36] Sometimes we do dive into the next step and they’re back to content because it’s content driving to right in entire website, all these different pages. And then I feel like disillusioned, like, well, where’s the visual thing coming into it. They’re going back to content. They all build on each other. Right.
[00:06:53] They lay us, they look at the strategy, right? Without the strategy. You don’t know who you’re talking to. You don’t know who. What your offer is like, they might know, you know, I do coaching on let’s say relationships, but that ever had, they’re gonna package that offer. They don’t know the people that going after.
[00:07:10] Like you could say a relationship coach for women, right. That is very, very broad. Right. So that’s why the strategy must be done first. And then the content is basically the words that you use to actually show people there about. And almost like a journey each page in of itself. I have like a structure depending on the name.
[00:07:29] So I usually work with coaches, as I said, in the course creators, but the pages are typically like, you want you and I also that big hero, you know, for people who don’t know what that is facing people later, when they go to a home page, which is typically what they’re going through, when they’re trying to check you out, is that big section that usually has in your, in your case of Sarah center, crochet, what are your websites?
[00:07:48] You have your picture here. People get to know a bit of you. Cause you’re the. But I also see the headline and what you’re about and that’s important. And then in the things below the fold, like, yeah, I’m just like kind, it’s really important. And it builds on a strategy and that is the biggest place people will tumble, especially like if you’re copy and pasting and I nightmare of text or we’re still, they don’t have any content I give you like, One family member gave me like two lines per page.
[00:08:21] I’ll become a copywriter as well. Sometimes, you know, an extra service. Yeah. It,
[00:08:25] Sarah: it, it’s kind of similar. The struggle sounds very similar to what I’m dealing with in marketing. You know, people. To hire a marketer to just go out there and create acting pains. Like, you know, I need to be I need to do Facebook ads, but if you haven’t actually done the deeper work in, in, you know, in my case, it’s the seven P’s Medallia.
[00:08:48] It’s like, if you haven’t done the deeper work and know who you are, what your values are off. Obviously also what you’re offering is who your people are and only then your price, you need to know your price. You talked about package. Well, for me, it’s pricing and that includes packaging. Right? Well only then are you ready?
[00:09:07] You really to go into promotion? And it sounds to me. Without this reflection, you’re not even ready to put up a website because how are you going to, you know, have the content to put into those pages, if you haven’t actually taken time to, you know, go into that deeper reflection.
[00:09:27] Mark: That is very true. I see it a lot more than I care to see it quite honestly.
[00:09:31] But at the same time, it actually gives me the ability to give them a bit of coaching beforehand, which for a lot of people could actually be an extra service people say, well, yeah, You’re not actually ready at the point where you need to do the website, you need to get, you know, your stuff in order. So let’s have a couple of sessions where I can help you.
[00:09:48] It’s not going to workshop, fit tight pieces to give out the strategy, the content, and that’s even before the tech stuff. Right. So,
[00:09:56] Sarah: yeah. Yeah, it is. And I’m, I think I’m, yeah, it’s good to see that you have realized that opportunity because I’m sure that there’s still a lot of. Tech guys out there who are like, yeah, but I don’t do that stuff.
[00:10:14] And so, because I’ve heard story after story of clients who, who are stalling with their website, this website is still not up. Even though they hired a web guy and the web guy just says, well, come back to me when you have your content. And so it’s like, Floating website that is never going to get done because they don’t get the help they need.
[00:10:34] So, you know, either you help them directly or you refer them to, you know, someone who can coach them through actually getting, you know, all of these things together because yeah, it’s, it’s really not just a design and tech and those are the last steps in, in, in the things that we want to talk about.
[00:10:54] So yeah, let’s talk about design and then finally The tech part.
[00:10:58] Mark: So design obviously does play an important role because it’s, you know, the visual appeal of your website. And that’s one of the pieces where you’d really need to understand their branding from, you know, obviously from the first two parts, see it all built on each other, you know?
[00:11:15] So if you’ve, if they’re a dentist and they’re trying to appeal to the upper echelons, I mean, you wouldn’t actually. I had a website, that’s like a rock band website. They know have like a black background with conduct grungy. You know, Rangi heavy metals like tooth decay, right? So just like online entrepreneurs, you have to be very aware of how the visual design from the font, from the font type to the colors, to even why the position on the page fit into, you know, the, how they want to be seen as part of their branding.
[00:11:48] A lot of people confuse Legos as the brain. It is part of the branding and it’s needs to be reflected, but it’s not, obviously the main part is important that everything is reflected. That’s where the design comes in. People often have a hard time with that. Especially a lot of people are not visual and sometimes they’ll have a designer even do a Photoshop, like a lot of people who worked with, well, not lot.
[00:12:11] A few people had this, like this PSD Photoshop file where I’ll actually create that design. If you’ve got a client years ago, who was a movie producer, Back then we didn’t have that. We were blessed with some of the tools we have today. So as a programmer and, you know, code Wrangler, I was able to pull it together.
[00:12:28] And then, you know, so there are, there are templates out there too. They can give you a headstart for anybody, you know, needing to get that visual, you know,
[00:12:37] Sarah: Yeah. So it sounds like there’s a certain level of design that you can help your clients with. Like if they have no idea and they’re, this is their first business and now they’re just starting out.
[00:12:49] There’s a certain flexibility on, you know, WordPress. We’re going to talk about WordPress in a minute. It is limited somehow, like eventually you know, I, I share my rebranding story and how I hired Naila the designer who came up with the beautiful design for humane marketing. Well, That I had to go, you know, actually to someone who made design their business.
[00:13:16] And so that’s another thing that often is, you know, when you first started out, you’re like, well, I thought, you know, the web person is, you know, doing everything. I’m like, well, they’re different, they’re still different jobs. Yes. You know, mark can help you with a beautiful website to a certain extent, but then if you want to go to another.
[00:13:37] Level of design. Well, then you need to actually hire an artist or, you know, someone who has those skills. And so that’s what we did, for example for, for both of my sites, actually Naila didn’t do the first one, but I worked with cat and other designer. They gave us the files that then you use what for, for the actual tech part.
[00:14:01] So it’s like, you’re really different layers and stages to, to create a website. So now let’s get through the tech and I know that you have been a fan of WordPress for, for many years. That’s kind of way. What you built your business on as well? Is that still the number one site building tool that you would recommend or are there others?
[00:14:26] Mark: I would say that is the number one source I would recommend, but I’m not going to push a client. Who’s not sold on that. I’ll say, you know, here’s my friend, you know, Joe, who can do weeks. So if that’s what they want, but to me, I believe it is the most, you know, I say on the platform out there and in the past two months, I believe that more than ever.
[00:14:45] The people that work, Chris at automatic have revamped the entire code base so that the performance is like lightning fast. Now, even the help chat and go, then you add very special caching plugins, like more than one to edit for you, which was a premium one. And it’s so I can actually potentially be lightning fast, although it does obviously depend on the host as well.
[00:15:05] And how, you know, like there’s some hosts that have additional caching on the. So with WordPress, it’s really no reason you can’t get a lightning fast site that can rank like 98 and 99 and even 100% grain in the Google insights. And that’s what I’ve gotten for a few of my clients and myself just by that wouldn’t have been possible.
[00:15:24] It wasn’t not for WordPress recent developments. And also obviously my optimizations,
[00:15:31] Sarah: it sounds like. Yeah, constant in upping their game. It’s not like some other kind of free website building things where you’re like, eh, yeah. Do they just want to make money or do they really want to have a stable, ongoing website?
[00:15:50] Kind of delivery. So yeah,
[00:15:52] Mark: the impact, not just the market share.
[00:15:55] Sarah: Yeah, exactly. So talk to us about. You know, the, the, that the rest of the tech there’s the WordPress, the main site, but then there’s all these other things around it, like the plugins, but also you know, membership sites and all of that.
[00:16:10] Talk to us a bit about that.
[00:16:12] Mark: So the tech can kind of get a bit tedious in terms of configuring since. You know, dragging things around and page builders when you have to design is kind of where it’s showing the mice, but it’s sometimes it’s something I could easily pass off to a team member if that makes sense.
[00:16:27] But WordPress is, as I said, it’s very flexible. So obviously you’d have a theme for WordPress. You’re going to get a theme. I only stick to what I like to be known for. So we use the Astrophe or what, not even deviate and I’ll use the elemental page builder because I used to, it’s going to be those two items, the page builder and the.
[00:16:45] Literally worked together to be molded into anything you can imagine without having to in the past and 10 years ago, I’d have to get a theme specific to that industry. Now it’s kind of, you know, how you can roll your own with those two tools. So there are my two, my powerhouse tools, and yes, it’s just a matter of getting the settings, right.
[00:17:03] Which oftentimes you can import pre-configured depending on the client, if they need those things. It’s really. I mean, I’m not a lot of saying that tickets started kind of nitty gritty, but obviously things like can for another apps, like auto active campaign that all play together with WordPress.
[00:17:21] Plus me, myself as a programmer. If I need to asthma coach weeks, it’s usually occurs to people who are paying, you know, more of a higher level e-commerce site. I can apply those to, for the project. I know how to program with WordPress, which is one of my unfair advantages. If you’d call it that I can, you know, work the system.
[00:17:39] Sarah: Yeah. You’re like a wizard, you know, whenever something is not working well, You find the solution basically. And I think that’s where your programming skills come in, because it is a pretty flexible system we’re pressed in general, and then you have all these plugins, but there’s just always something that is not working, you know?
[00:17:59] So, and so that’s when I call you and say, ah, this is not working anymore. And you know, and then you need to somehow change the code a bit. So, so I think. Yeah, it’s, it’s never just WordPress standing alone. It’s always WordPress communicating with all these other tools that you needed to work with.
[00:18:21] Mark: And that’s a good point we should actually forgot to mention, which was on top of my mind is workers in of itself is not overly complicated, but then it’s kind of very flexible and you can’t have like flexibility and simplicity and the same, you know, box, because if you’ve got the flexibility, you can do anything you want and go up and down any path.
[00:18:40] Yeah. And then you’ll hit some troubles. If you don’t know WordPress intimately you’ll hit the, hit the snakes.
[00:18:45] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where my limitation is. It’s like, yeah, I know. We’re prison been using it for 10 plus years. But then every now and then it’s like, why is this not working? And that’s usually because they just like, I add a new tool and then they’re not communicating correctly.
[00:19:04] So, yeah. The one thing I wanted to ask you also is in terms of. You know, all these plugins that we can add on and kind of automate everything which one comes to mind that really has this human connection in mind where it’s like, yes, it’s tech. Yes, it’s automation. But at the same time, it does prioritize a human connection.
[00:19:27] Anything comes from.
[00:19:30] Mark: Well, I think it’s like, you know, like driving a vehicle, it’s the person behind it that can either run you over or stop and help give you a hand. I mean, most plugins and tech aren’t malicious. I mean, there are some that I wouldn’t actually get one from those, you know, internet marketing sites where they sell them individually.
[00:19:48] But to think of something that could be used to humane. I mean, you could do social sharing, but then use Yoast SEO to kind of customize what is shared and use your copywriting skills to really talk to the person you want to read it. So when it’s shared on Facebook, for example, they’ll see something, you know, like let’s do marketing the right way and, you know, check out this webinar or whatever, you know, something that’s in your standard of how you want to be.
[00:20:17] Obviously you could do the opposite. You could put really, you know, put a big picture of a skull and crossbones there as well, and, you know, say, buy my webinar or else, you know? So,
[00:20:25] Sarah: so what I hear you say is like, if the tech is not the problem, it’s the human, he uses tech the wrong way. It’s
[00:20:33] Mark: a little bit about that too.
[00:20:35] I mean, you see a lot of funnel building technology out there and some of it can be quite high. But all you really need and people don’t realize this is if you have a good page builder like elemental, you can get a landing page template lot from the landing page factory, which is a website that sells templates and you can call it a roll your own, or have somebody write it for you.
[00:20:56] You can integrate a WordPress. That’s actually inside of WordPress. You can appreciate the new speed that WordPress has given you the caching. And you’ve got your landing page and you can actually have like commerce. There’s actually a plugin called cart flows. You’ve probably heard. And that’s why the people who make the theme Astra and they’re really good in the community.
[00:21:13] They give a lot to the community. So they really got the heart in it and cut flowers can actually lay to create a funnel. And it, you do like the bump offers instead of, you know, you don’t, you know, these old diets when you come back and oh, by the way, one more thing after you purchase and steadying to see, like might just stay for an extra $12.
[00:21:31] Would you like to grab, you know, my templates to help you. More humanely, for example. So all my stuff is same as the choices is, and that I feel what to put in a site where, oh, I didn’t budget for this, but that makes sense.
[00:21:45] Sarah: Yeah. Again, what I hear is yes, it matters. So the tech is not necessarily what matters to human matters, but also when you buy a new tech.
[00:22:02] Gadget plugin, whatever click funnels. Let’s talk about ClickFunnels after, but when you buy into something, check the humans who created it. And that’s, that’s a big, hot for me because I remember I’m just going to say it here. The, this other tool called Kartra that I just never, never liked. And the reason I never liked him is because of the humans behind it, because they were giving me this vibe of.
[00:22:29] Let’s just see, you know, how much we can get away with and how much we can push to sales and all of that. So that is super important to see. Well, what are the founders ethics, what are their morals? They just into making another buck or are they really building a tool like WordPress, where it’s not just, you know, for more money, but it’s really something you know, that is supposed to be helping their community?
[00:23:01] Mark: No, I agree. 100% of you and all with me. Some of those things like ClickFunnels and Kartra they have what they align logo on the landing page and the kind of like brings. Which is good for the right crowd, but I’ll admit quite personally, because I’ve seen, I sort of crowded hanging out with those sorts of things.
[00:23:17] And not that they’re bad, but they’re not the crowd that I would want to associate with. So when I go to a landing page and I see one of these symbols, even as a Facebook ad, I will click on the ad straight away just because I see that branding to me, it sends a red flag to me because I know they offer training as well on how to do traditional cell.
[00:23:36] And to me, it’s not something, it’s something that gives me anxiety. If I was to sign up for the lead magnet, then you know, I’ll get all these updates.
[00:23:42] Sarah: Yeah. It’s so important to recognize that and say, these are the brands I want to actually stay away from because they’re just not aligned with my, with my ethics and my humane approach to business.
[00:23:57] Mark: No tell it’s mindset too. I will tell me I can use that, but if you use that, you know, I’m not happy to help you, but at the same time, You might have trouble with the market you’re going after. Cause it in copywriting, there’s this word called sophistication, which means the market’s used to, like you say, freelancers, for example, in virtual assistants, they’re used to seeing these kind of last the solution.
[00:24:19] You’d be looking for the secrets and all that. And then when they see that they go, right, but somebody that’s called sophistication, they’d outgrown that somebody coming from let’s say traditional to online. Yeah. Caught, caught up in the romance there.
[00:24:31] Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You get pulled into this world where everybody, all of a sudden is like that and, and, and again, We’re not saying now all our listeners stay away from these two brands, but if you do see sales funnels from these brands, well pay extra attention.
[00:24:53] How it makes you feel, whether this is the kind of tech that feels you makes you feel like a human, or maybe not. Maybe you’re like the sheep in a fun. Yeah, this is so good. Let’s talk about safety and backup and. You know, it’s every entrepreneur’s nightmare to get hacked. And I remember at least once where my website got hacked we were still working together as well back then.
[00:25:20] So, so yeah. Tell, tell us a little bit about, you know, once the website is up, what kind of maintenance do we have to deal with? And it’s probably not what most entrepreneurs want to deal with, but unfortunately it’s part of, part of running a business.
[00:25:38] Mark: And he is part of it. I mean, if you want to run a business as certain expenses and you have to budget for them.
[00:25:43] So obviously updating your website is very important. That’s number one, because when you don’t update, I’ve had clients have come into their project to, you know, to remodel redo. And I seen like 20 very pending updates. You know, what does it mean updated since 2019, you know? And, and that brings peace in of itself.
[00:26:01] And that’s why it’s, you know, I put people on a planner like uptight, and if anything goes wrong with the. On the one responsible, assuming I was the one who was looking after that tech. So I usually don’t take on clients who, in this I’ll build the website as I can’t be responsible for, you know, certain things.
[00:26:20] Economic is extremely important. I know you use, I think he’s updraft don’t you or something like that. There’s some great backup tools. I’ve got a few of my own that I use security, yottabyte security. It’s very important. And it’s usually one thing you’ve learned how to preach it. And that should be in here.
[00:26:34] Some people say to me, oh, we don’t need that. You know, it’s not that important, but you’ve got to remember, you know, everything you get, they get your database. And even though they can’t get the password, cause they’re encrypted, they get the emails with everybody in your database. Let’s say you got a membership site.
[00:26:50] They get all their emails or an e-commerce site where still they got the people’s addresses. A lot can go wrong. And particularly in countries like the EU, there are really stringent policies behind privacy. And it had that kind of thing happened is a European’s worst nightmare. So probably easiest place to build a cell securities.
[00:27:08] Port is somebody from the EU, but yet, oh, it’s, Wordfence put. It’s
[00:27:14] Sarah: really also your reputation that’s at stake. Because if, if then all your clients get spammed by who knows who yeah. It, it always comes back to you. So it’s your responsibility really? To you to make sure your website is safe and secure.
[00:27:31] Mark: Yeah. I had one quantity to just do not want to pay for that service and she didn’t show enough. She got. And then she was paying for it after that.
[00:27:40] Sarah: Yeah. So it’s always, you always pay more after I had to clean
[00:27:45] Mark: them up to clean up the clean up the mess, the cause of mine. The worst thing is I use an email system to, to send out emails a lot of the time, if they’re not as well as getting a database what’s happening is you’re actually being blacklisted for your domain.
[00:27:57] If you don’t catch it soon enough, I had a colleague who hadn’t touches e-commerce for three years. It was just making sense. You said for some reason I can’t update the site. I went in there and I said, wait a minute, why is this person here who worked for you? You’re like three years ago, got 200 posts next to his username.
[00:28:14] And I clicked on it and there was all these, it wasn’t the user, but he’s using, they would be hacks on somehow. And there was all these political agenda, propaganda posts on his blog feed. You didn’t even bother to check. It’s very important to you. The track.
[00:28:29] Sarah: Yeah. How do you see tech evolve in the next decade or so how, how do you think.
[00:28:39] Like, because I do feel like we’re going in this movement towards more back to more humanity, but we’re never going to get rid of tech. You know, actually there’s going to be more tags. There’s going to be AI. There’s going to be more automation. So how do you see these kind of two different things evolving over the next 10 years?
[00:29:00] Mark: I see. It’s going to be like, there’s going to be a cycle. I think, unfortunately, going to enter before we get to the us. And that people are going to try and use, take like the deed when the internet first started to automate and kind of memory of the times when you had those spam farms, like blog posts that will kind of span and all that kind of stuff.
[00:29:16] That, that I have a feeling people that had gone to this ear of trying to leverage these AI copywriting tools, which kinds of tends to be the trend. But I think pretty soon they kind of realized you’re going to need to use those tools as a guideline, as opposed to the actual. And resolve a lot of people right now, trying to automate the social media posts.
[00:29:35] We’re having a computer writing for them and that’s, to me, there’s no soul, there’s my heart in that. And you can see right through right through it. I mean, just because you see words, I can’t explain it there with some kind of, I’m not spiritual, anything like that. There’s some kind of feeling you get when you read somebody’s words and they’re kind of human.
[00:29:55] I mean, I guess I could be spiritual. I’m not talking about from a Wu point of. I’m talking about the feeling or real human digital touch. It is more intimate than in all four of those people that anything that could be automated or written. I mean, there’s a lot of tools out there in direct response copywriting that these iOS are using.
[00:30:16] I would study them for using focus, started the psychology and how it can help people use the psychology. Like some of these tools will say that. What are the objections? People have a, maybe an objection that people are just scared of, you know, backing up the website in case their server crashes. And you can actually explain how that is not a concern and do them that sort of way.
[00:30:35] Instead of using fear and guilt, which I figured the two most disruptive psychological triggers anyone could care to use. So one of the best places to learn copywriting, I believe is from a person called Joanne we’ve you heard of her? No. She’s really great. She’s kind of taken copywriting in the new human sense.
[00:30:54] So there are two sites that have really got copywriting blocks. One is more traditional, but it’s still probably worth checking out. I can’t remember the exact name of the guy, but he has a website called SWAT foil.com, which shows you all the traditional swipe files and Joanne Wade kind of almost wraps this new she’s called the hackers.
[00:31:12] You might have heard of Colby hackers. She wraps this new kind of human touch around it and kind of grooviness around it.
[00:31:19] Sarah: Yeah. But not in a fake kind of way where it’s like, you know, feels like too much either.
[00:31:26] Mark: No, it’s not too much, you know? For those people you really got ahead on in the beginning. It’s, there’s too much noise nowadays for them to leverage the slimy tools, if you want to be harsh and these were slimy, but everybody now is doing what I love.
[00:31:41] They’re not trying to, you know, buy this ebook and sell it again for, you know, double the price everyone’s creating their own authentic message. It creates a lot of noise with, it creates a little opportunity to be you at an attractive. I love this quote from one of my good friends, Marie Mason, you are uniquely made for the person.
[00:31:58] You are meant to attract something along those lines. It’s a really great quote you gave me, but it’s kind of like, you know, you have in, you, you’re made for the person you’re meant to be with in terms of your market and your people who follow you. I don’t even like to use the word followers because I’ll get up in a Verity and I’ll have to think, technically they’re following.
[00:32:18] I don’t know if it’s at the same time, it’s kind of like a community to me,
[00:32:22] Sarah: right? Yeah. They’re just people who agree your worldview, how you see your, the
[00:32:28] Mark: world. They’re not numbers is what I mean. Yeah. They used to, you see, and I know it kind of sounds cliche, but yeah. And I’m seen as a number myself. I just, it doesn’t feel good.
[00:32:38] Sarah: Yeah. So, yeah, again, I think what you’re saying is like, yeah, there will be probably can’t help, but think about the Corona virus, there will be an explosion of, you know, us using more and more and more, even more than now of these automation tools and whatnot. But we’re getting to the limit where it’s like, well, those things just don’t work anymore because more and more people see through them.
[00:33:06] They’re like, there is no soul in this ad. I just, just, just feel like automated and slimy. And so we’ll have to come back. And I think that also means, yeah, we kind of have to maybe, you know, lower our expectations instead of, you know, getting a thousand people on to our webinars. There’ll be less people, but it will be the right people.
[00:33:31] That’s how I think of it. So I think we have gone through these, this era. Like everything had to be big and growth and everything, but in the end, you know, like the return on investment and how it made us feel just wasn’t worth it. And so we’re, we’re going towards, you know, smaller communities, more impact and yeah, real authentic
[00:33:57] Mark: chase them.
[00:33:57] I never share with anybody on this podcast when I first started off and kind of got the idea of things I could do. I was offered these kinds of opportunities. I would not take now, but at the same time, there was a mind block stopping me because somehow inside of me, there was lucky immediately. There was something like grabbing a sign, you can’t do this.
[00:34:17] You know, you’re not qualified you. This, this is, you know, there’s something internal. So I was thinking some, you know, it’d be nice, but how can I make. I couldn’t find that pieces back then to say, how could I make it? You know, you need, because that was what people were doing back then. How can I make it me?
[00:34:32] And every time I fought, you know, I should just do a test and put this out there. There was something that would stop me would literally freeze like the amygdala in my brain. I wouldn’t do it. And now I’m grateful for that. Actually, that, that protected me. I thought it was hindering me. I not now
[00:34:48] Sarah: protected me.
[00:34:49] My area is protecting you from the, yeah. The, the, the. The salesy stuff that just never felt
[00:34:59] Mark: good to the marketing.
[00:35:03] Sarah: This has been great. Do you want to add anything that you can think of? You know, someone is just right now thinking about their website and, and where do I start with all of this? There’s a lot of information.
[00:35:17] Where do I start? Where would you tell them to say.
[00:35:20] Mark: I’ll tell them to actually get introspection in terms of their who. So what else do you have to do as I look at, I guess, some purport competitive research, and that’s really what it is. I’ll tell them to go to our website and actually pluck out the problem language and evaluate sorta messaging other websites are using and how you would want to be different in terms of your messaging, but also make up almost like an avatar, like make a list of these are typically.
[00:35:48] Struggles people are having, these are typical things people want. So you kind of validating, but also getting more ideas and then kind of thinking about crafting that message and your offer in your own head, at least before you start trying to tinker with it yourself you know, there’s nothing wrong with installing WordPress and playing around.
[00:36:07] But in my experience, anybody’s done that. I just applying in the end, I’ll say, what do I do next to me? Even my friend, you know? And he said, what I do next mark? I’m sorry. Did you create any pages? I’ve got pages to create. I don’t know what to put there and I know WordPress inside outright. So research, research.
[00:36:24] Sarah: Great. Yeah. Compare and see what you like, but also what you don’t like on other people’s. Yeah, this has been great. Where can people find out more about you and how can they work with you?
[00:36:38] Mark: So the best place to find out about me is go to my website, which is mark of approval.com. And you can pretty much see everything from, from there really.
[00:36:48] You mean get my social links to my LinkedIn and connect on. Let me just say, you know, I sleep on series podcasts, a lot to connect or, you know, go to my Facebook group and check out what I’ve got going there. Oh, check the website, for example, there’s no lead magnet at the moment, but you know, I’m going to work on something.
[00:37:05] People can actually, I’ve got an idea in mind that would help you. I’m going to put something up because a website’s never, ever done. So my website looks good that you’ll never be done. Neither will yours.
[00:37:16] Sarah: That’s a great way to end it. Yeah. It’s not like it’s, it’s something that you just put out there and then, you know, you just let it sit there for the next five, 10 years.
[00:37:24] It’s never done. You always go back and tweak things. And it’s small little words, you know, I had, I asked my audience you know, for feedback about the new humane marketing website. And one of my clients said, you know, I really don’t like the word grab that you have in your opt-in for the one page marketing plan, because grab gives me a feeling of there’s not enough.
[00:37:50] Do you have to do it fast? And there’s this grasping aspect to it. I’m like, you’re totally right. It’s so true. And yet it’s a tiny little word, you know, for leathers. And so I changed it to. You know, completely different energy to the word, get then grab. And that’s what we mean. Like it’s never going to be done.
[00:38:11] It’s always, there’s always more of you that you can bring into it. There’s always more you know like words that you can change and obviously more plugins you can add there’s, you know unlimited amount of plugins, but also the content will change. Yeah, so good. I always have one last question that I ask all my guests, mark.
[00:38:33] And that is what are you grateful for today or this week?
[00:38:38] Mark: The funny thing is it’s kind of the thing I’ve always been grateful for. I don’t believe you have to have one new grateful thing every day is probably to look at how far we’ve come in terms of technology. I mean, I never take it for granted and I think anybody should, you know, once you had Photoshop, you got camp as an alternative, you know, So many apps now there’s really almost no excuse, you know, where you can’t find something that’ll work for you.
[00:39:03] So I’m grateful that the industry technology industry is kind of boom so much. I’ve been blessed to be a part.
[00:39:12] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, there’s technology that we’re using in our online businesses, nevermind the technology that’s gonna, you know, cure cancer and you know, all of these new things in health that are going to come out, I’m sure.
[00:39:25] In the next decade. So yeah, totally, totally. With you. So grateful for technology. This has been great. Thanks so much for coming on to the show, mark.
