Why We Don't List Our Services On Our Website
One of our recent clients started backpedaling on her messaging when she asked her clients what they thought of her website copy. Their feedback: They weren’t completely clear on what she did, and said she should be more specific about her services. (This is yet another example of why feedback can hurt your brand. Read the full article here.)
But the value and depth of what this client offers is quite unique and new, and it cannot be fully explained in text. In fact, listing her services in a crystal-clear manner would actually undermine the full scope of her expertise and abilities.
Sometimes the best strategy is to keep the messaging of what you do vague , and instead own your own brand voice and focus on the problems you address, specifically for whom in what situations, so viewers can self-identify as potential candidates.
The goal is to magnetically attract your ideal clients (while repelling everyone else) and then get them on the phone for a quick call so you can both assess whether they are a good match. Once you qualify them as the ideal client who is positioned to get the best value out of your offering, you can more comprehensively explain the process of what you do.
When you offer something new, you cannot use old verbiage to explain it
This is the sales funnel of the future in the service industry. High-level strategists and consultants cannot do their capabilities justice merely with copy on a website. To truly understand how and why one strategist knows more or is better than another requires the buyer to understand the topic well.
But if the buyer understood the topic well, the buyer would not need your help!
Rather than trying to educate clients on your area of expertise so they can properly assess the value you offer, branding provides conscious and subconscious cues to help you make a decision about whether to pursue the next step (like a phone call) without expert-level understanding. Your brand and website communicate in nanoseconds how professional and expert you are. Your price communicates how good you are compared to the next guy. The clarity of your message quickly tells clients whether they are attracted to what you have to offer.
But that clarity doesn’t have to be around the exact services you offer. This is an easy mistake to make. Many entrepreneurs, worried about confusing potential clients, undermine their own credibility by listing services with the intention of being clear about what they do.
If you specify that you “sell life insurance, sell health insurance, and invest in retirement funds,” you might clearly say what you do, but you are also grouping yourself with everyone else in insurance sales. If you are actually a high-level consultant who is able to advise your clients on all aspects of their financial life and retirement, that list of services does not distinguish you from the guys who might have absolutely zero ability to give sound advice and just want to sell product.
Listing a lot of services pigeonholes you into the role of a service provider who sells commoditized products instead of an expert who can solve problems in a way that the client might not even be aware of.
But how can you explain what you do on a website to a client who doesn’t know enough about your industry to fully understand why you work the way you do and why it’s valuable? You can’t.
If you are a consultant working in a new or specialized way that is not easy to explain concisely, I suggest the strategy of offering a lead product.
Bypass the educational component completely. Instead, identify your ideal client by specifying who they are and listing the challenges they need to solve, and then get them on a quick call to discover if they are actually good fit. If they are, sell them a lead product: an offering that solves a problem, doesn’t require a huge initial investment, and allows them to experience your value (instead of having to understand it).
Example: Our lead product
Branding is a perfect example of an industry where clients have a wide variety of ideas of what it might be. Some people call me because they need a logo, others because they need a website, others because they need messaging, and some because they know they need all three. Almost nobody contacts me for one of the most valuable things we offer: branding. We have such a deep understanding of our market that we know it’s important to start with the overall goal, make sure the business strategy will achieve the goal, and then build a brand message, logo, and website based on that strategy. Without this critical first step, it’s unlikely that merely designing a nice-looking brand identity and coming up with a punchy message will achieve the goals for the business owner.
I won’t explain further because if you’re just looking for a logo you might not even get what I’m saying, and that’s my point. Stop explaining, and start showing. I communicate aspects of what we do through content creation. But my main website copy focuses clearly on three things: our voice and personality (which repels some people and attracts the kinds of clients we like to work with), the kinds of businesses we work with (1- to 3-person services businesses) and a 50,000-foot overview of what we do (entire brands in 1- to 3-day intensives).
And even with that brief explanation I can promise you that few people who get on the phone with me actually believe we will deliver a fully functioning website by 6 p.m. at the end of the Brandup. (We do.) And nobody knows how much business strategy is involved in the initial Brandshrink. (I’m letting the cat out of the bag right now.)
They usually just vaguely understand that we do “branding,” whatever they think that means, but they know they like our style and think that an article or two I wrote and my general philosophy are intriguing.
That’s enough to get the right people on the phone, at which point I can suss out within about 10 minutes whether we are a good fit for one another, and then explain how our process works and what they can expect.
For clients who are a good fit, my close rate is 100%. And I can say that with certainty because anyone who doesn’t close is not a good fit! Wanting to work with us is a critical requirement to being a perfect client. Go figure.
This works well for us because we understand that our job is to connect with the right people, not explain everything we do on our website. Our job is to communicate the right vibe through our design and messaging. Nowhere on our site will you see a list of all the services we can provide.
Back to the client
The client in question is Sandy Papavero. She is brilliant when it comes to the financial health of small businesses and their owners. She’s not strictly a financial planner, but she does financial advising. She’s not an insurance salesperson, but she can help find the best products to protect business owners when needed for the overall plan. She is not a lawyer, a bookkeeper, or a CPA, but she understands the value of each role when building and protecting the financial health of a business. She is not an organizer, but she can advise on the importance of having files and documents in order and, more important, in what order, and how it can save and even make you money.
Sandy is the secret weapon for $1 to $5 million small businesses that want to scale to $10 to $20 million businesses. She is the quarterback for the whole operation, and a much-needed maestro for business owners who have a great product or service but are doing well despite their disorganization and financial illiteracy (there are many).
You can’t box in this powerhouse. But if this description sounds like you, you should set up a quick call and see if her Stockpile Session might be the first step toward meeting your financial goals.
Takeaway
In the service business world it is a challenge to convey with copy why you’re better than the competition. When people try, they often say something like they have more years of experience or they are passionate about their work or care more about their clients. But just because you have been doing something for 30 years does NOT mean you are better than someone else (I think we all know people who never learn or grow). And how do you measure how much someone cares?
Instead, you have to create cues for prospects to allow them to self-identify as the perfect client. The goal is simply to attract those people (while repelling the rest) and, if it’s a fit, sell them something small to let them experience your brilliance.
When you are doing something new, with a unique process, and you bring a variety of skills to the table to solve problems in a more advanced way, you will never be able to use copy to fully explain that expertise to a novice. That's why building a brand, and often a lead product, are such a powerful tools.
