Jordan was your typical speaker. He wasn’t completely booked out, so he was actively marketing to get more paid professional speaking gigs. He was using LinkedIn to direct message event planners, and those that hold those responsibilities within organizations.
I was approached by Jordan, who checked all the boxes of a speaker that we were looking for. They spoke about the industry we were in and to our exact audience. We started talking through LinkedIn messenger, and I was convinced he was going to be our next speaker.
I was not the only decision-maker, so I forwarded his information to my CEO and team members.
I was so confident about him being our perfect speaker, but it never turned out that way. In fact, despite years of events that we put on, we never ended up hiring Jordan.
Why? Because his website was antiquated, had errors, and wasn’t visually attractive to his audience AKA my team.
Because the audience we were hiring for were college students, my team did not think he would be relevant in such an age where digital presence matters. In fact, his website looked so outdated, it actually gave off the impression that he wasn’t active in this business anymore.
Not good.
It didn’t matter how confident I was that he would be perfect, because the only interaction that was positive to our organization was in private messages back and forth where the team wasn’t included, so they did not see him the way I did.
As a professional speaker, or service provider in general, you may have the mindset that there is nothing you can’t do. So maybe you’ve set out and create your first website yourself, using a template provided by Wix or a similar company that promises easy building, even for the least technology-savvy people.
As soon as you make that decision, your to-do list becomes a mile longer. Not only do you have to learn how to edit your website now, you now have to learn, or try to improvise, what makes a website successful and aesthetically pleasing.
I saw a business coach complaining online once that she had already sunk SIXTY hours into her website because she didn’t want to hire a professional… and she still has a ton to do hates the way it looks.
What else do you have to do besides find a template? Write all the content for your website, find photos of yourself or stock photos that are relevant to your industry and look cohesive together, choose a color scheme that looks good together and that will appeal to your target audience, design a logo, set up Google Analytics, create a subscriber list to collect emails in, set up your website hosting… What the heck is that?!
Don’t even get me started on all the tasks needed after you launch for website maintenance like updates and backups.
This is why when I went to start my own Web Design business. I set out to solve this problem for professional speakers and coaches.
Being an expert thought leader means that you should focus on your messaging, presentations, and bookings… NOT web design.
As time went on in my business, I learned that when speakers and coaches aren’t overwhelmed with all the design/tech confusion, and only have their message/verbiage to focus on, they produce amazing content.
Which brings us to today. When we work together, you get my Website Content Guide, a workbook that walks you through what content you need to provide with a series of questions/prompts.
Once I get this returned to me, I get to work my magic and create a website that is uniquely you and strategically designed.
Don’t be like Jordan and have a website that was actually working against him and cost him AT LEAST one project… but I would expect that we aren’t the only ones that have passed up on a speaker in desperate need of a professional website.
If I can help you in any way, whether that be taking on your website or even just supplying my Website Content Guide, please let me know so we can get you booked for your next big speaking event.
*I changed the speaker’s actual name to “Jordan” to protect their privacy.
