In this episode of Art of Online business, we are talking about a topic that I think we could all use some help with- copywriting.
This has never been a strong suit for me, so I am thrilled to sit down with Kris Jones today who is brilliant at writing copy in a way that doesn’t take up a bunch of our time.
I asked her to come on to the podcast and share her framework for writing better copy in a shorter amount of time to get people to take the action that you want them to take, honestly and authentically.
Kris Jones is a StoryBrand guide & Founder of Red Door Designs. Mentored by StoryBrand founder – Donald Miller himself & with over 20 years of experience and clients like Nike under her belt, she is extremely passionate about helping self-employed women get website copy that sells so they can multiply their revenue and focus on what they do best.
Good copywriting is all about knowing your audience, understanding their problems, and showing them how you can offer a solution. You don’t have to be good at long-format copy to do that. In this episode, Kris explains how to write stellar copy that hooks your audience from the start in less time.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How she captures the voice of her clients
- Why your copy is so important
- How to use stories in your business and copy
- How to use the hero, the guide, and the solution
- How to create a good hook
- What to include in your sales page
- What to put on your website
- Why you don’t need to be good at long-format copy
Links & Resources:
- The Art of Online Business website
- DM me on Instagram
- Visit my YouTube channel
- The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
- Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
- The Art of Online Business Podcast website
- Check out my Accelerator coaching program
* Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission
Kris Jones’ Links:
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I started in this industry like 20 years ago as a designer. And so I just was like, everything is design. If you have a great design, you are your golden. And what it was like to design is so powerful and and it’s a great way you can tell visual stories beautifully as well, but. What I eventually learned was that good design can only get used so far. You have to start with the copy and then bring that copy to life with really beautiful design and images. So I’m a big fan of copy first, so much so that I’ve kind of shifted my focus solely on the copy part of it, because that’s what I’m finding is getting the most results for my clients.
And what’s up, my friends? Welcome to today’s episode of The Art of Online Business podcast. Rick I’m already here and joining me on today’s show is Chris Jones. Chris is the founder of Red Door Designs and creator of the copy that sells in two and a half hours flat system. And that’s right. We’re talking about copyrighting today because this is the topic I think we we can all use help with. I’m raising my hand right now saying that, and I talk about it here on today’s podcast that I’ve never felt like I’ve been very good at writing copy, certainly better than I used to be, but it’s never been a strong suit for me. And so I was introduced to Chris by our mutual friend Neil Williams, who is one of my accelerator coaches, and you’ve heard Neil on the podcast here before. And so she’s like, You’ve got to have Chris on the podcast because she’s brilliant with writing copy in such a way that it doesn’t have to take us a ton of time. And so she is a story brand guide, copywriter. She has she’s been mentored by the by Donald Miller, who’s the author of Building a Story brand, and she has worked for the likes of some high profile clients like Nike, Jeff Bezos. But she really likes working with us small business owners, and she has helped her clients achieve results like increasing revenue by 300%, helping people scale from 30 K months of 300.
Cayman’s charging six times more for the same service that somebody was charging. And Chris really believes that story is the most effective way to grow your business. So I asked her to come on to the podcast here and share her framework, her system for how to write better copy in a shorter amount of time that gets people to take the action that you want them to take, not in a manipulative kind
of way, not referring to that at all. We’re talking about writing great copy that people can connect with and say, Yeah, I want that solution from you. And so before we dive in with Chris, if you’d like my coaching, if you’d like me to help you grow and scale your business in terms of, hey, ethical marketing, growing your team, becoming the leader slash CEO of your business, creating systems and processes in your business so that you can work a whole lot less. I’m all about helping you grow and scale your business while cutting down drastically the number of hours that you are working, helping you find the leverage points in your business. If you’d like my help, you’re an established online course creator, membership creator or coach. Go over to Rick Muller Forward slash accelerator or you can just shoot me an email, Rick, at Rick Mueller and we can start talking there. So without further ado, let’s go hang out with Chris Jones. Chris, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely. So I have to admit, when I first heard about your promise copy in two and a half hours. I was like, No, like, no chance. This is not something that is is possible and this is what you this is what you do. Like, this is like your whole thing is this concept of No, no, no. It’s completely possible to write amazing copy that I can increase conversions and connect with people etc., in just a matter of hours. Yes, I want to start right there. How is this actually possible?
Well, I’ve been in the industry a long time. That helps. Sure. And so I’ve done lots of different ways of solving this problem. But this is really the the most streamlined and effective way to do it. And the beauty is everybody that I work with is just busy. They’re overwhelmed. They have a million things on their to do lists and updating their website copy or creating new website Copy is always on there and it always goes to the bottom of the list. And I mean, month after month you’ve probably been there too. Oh yeah. And so really what happened was I would be doing these larger website projects and I would rely on my clients to create their copy and give it to me. And then that just became it became really quickly clear that that wasn’t working. The deadlines kept shifting back and my clients were struggling and they weren’t sure what to write about. And so I kind of made it my mission to figure out and crack the code on how to create really compelling copy story driven copy high converting copy in a way that felt effortless for my clients and really, really fun for me to. And so ultimately there have been multiple iterations, but where we are now with it, it’s just really dialed in. And what happens is I I’ve created these multiple videos. They’re very short. They’re like a five minute, 5 minutes each, and they give you a little bit of context around why I need what I need.
And then I ask you a question point blank. And it’s a very simple question and you answer it and then you move on to the next video. So through that process, it takes about 45 minutes, probably an hour tops. Through that process. I’m really extracting out of you the golden and nuggets of information that are within you because you’re the expert of your industry. You’re the expert. You know your clients better than anybody else. So I pull all the good stuff out of you, okay? And then I take that information and I craft a really beautiful, story driven wireframe. And that’s really fun for me. And then we get on a call, we get on a 90 minute call together where it’s a very collaborative process and we go through every section on your your wireframe. And a wireframe is essentially like a blueprint for your website. It’s all the words for your website in black and white, but it includes the hierarchy of type, the overall flow. It’s like it’s a very comprehensive. Document. And so we go through each each section first. I walk them through this strategy behind every single word that’s on the page. And then we go through and we just collaborate together. Does just feel like your voice And through the questions that I’ve originally asked you, I’m able to capture your voice because I can tell by the way you’re talking in your answers.
So this is a hard thing to do.
It’s really hard to do. I mean, it’s it’s really kind of impossible to do when you hire a copywriter to go away and write for you in a silo. I was talking to somebody earlier today who had paid kind of a ridiculous amount of money to hire a copywriter, and then it just was off the mark. And then they spent days and weeks revising feedback, revising feedback. And ultimately they ended up with copy that this woman essentially wrote herself. And so I’ve heard that story so many times. And it’s it’s painful because you’ve spent the money because you don’t have the time to do it yourself, and then you end up actually doing both. You do it yourself. You spend a bunch of time on it and you’re out the money. So that’s why I think really the key is that collaborative piece. I think that that 90 minutes of collaboration where you really understand why things need to be exactly what’s where and why, and then we can really get into the nitty gritty about the words and the voice. And so by the end of that 90 minutes, everybody is just so excited, feeling so good. They’re crossing it off their list finally. Yeah. And everyone’s happy, you know, It’s great. It’s really, really, really fun.
So when we say when you’re saying website copy, are we talking home page sales page about page? Yeah, those all the above are we talking about.
Essentially you pick your page. So yeah, about half the people that I work with, I would say the majority of people I work with pick their home page. But my home page is so comprehensive that it includes all the other pages. Typically, like I prefer a longer scrolling page versus having to navigate and bounce around from page to page on a website. So I like to anticipate what the reader’s going to be asking and what information they’re wanting as they’re scrolling down the page. So you don’t really need an about page because we integrate that into the home page and you don’t really need a services page because we integrate that into the home page. You certainly can have that. And if you want to go deeper into your services, that’s great. Or if you want to have a page that’s just about you and your background and goes into that in a deeper way, of course you can add to that. But my goal and what tends to happen is that people don’t need to go to any other pages because by the time they’ve scrolled through that homepage, they’re ready to book a call with you. It’s like a first coffee date. You know, you’ve had that coffee date and they’re like, okay, I want I want to have another date with you.
It’s like the one page website kind of.
Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s I love the idea of a one page website. I mean, fundamentally, you end up needing a couple more pages, but I think I like to call it a heavy lifting home page because it does all the heavy lifting in it and it operates as this like 24 seven sales employee for you while you’re doing what you love.
So I would assume that you do this on your own website. I do. Okay. So because like, what’s so what is the URL? Because I want people to be able to when they when they finish listening to this right now, they go check this out. Like to see an example of what you’re talking about.
Yeah, definitely. So my website is red door designs dot com with an S at the end and two DS in the middle so red door designs dot com.
Okay cool. Yeah. So. So you all go check out Chris’s website, like I’m going to do that after to check out to see the example of of this, because at the time we’re recording this here in the middle of November, we are going through another website design redesign. And because my site right now as as nice as it looks, it is not easy to navigate. So it is very confusing. Not only do I think that, but I’ve gotten that that feedback a lot. It’s not just like I want to make it so easy for people to find what they need to, to find. So you mentioned too, that you create this wireframe. I think that this is, you know, in, in like creating sales pages over the years and not me, but like working with people to help me do that. I thought I always heard this. I always thought like design first, then write the copy. But, you know, every copy is like, no, no, no, no. You write the copy first and then it gets designed. So how much of the work that you’re doing when you put together that, that, that wireframe, is that actually the design of the page that you’re sort of foreseeing?
Yeah, that’s such a good question. I, I started in this industry like 20 years ago as a designer and so I just was like, everything is design. If you have a great design, you are your golden. And when it was like, design is so powerful and, and it’s a great way you can tell visual stories beautifully as well. But what I eventually learned was that good design can only get used so far. You have to start with the copy and then bring that copy to life with really beautiful design and images. So I’m a big fan of copy first, so much so that I’ve kind of shifted my focus solely on the copy part of it because that’s what I’m finding is getting the most results for my clients. So the wireframe is, I would say it’s I would really liken it to a blueprint that an architect might create for a home builder. You wouldn’t want to hire a home builder to build your house without, you know, architectural blueprints. And that’s that’s really what this is. It it shows you the order of things. It’s not the design.
I tell my clients, like, don’t get caught up on the font that I’ve used. You know, there’s no I intentionally don’t include a bunch of color or anything because if your words aren’t working, then on your on your home page or on your wireframe, they’re never going to work on the design of your website. So we’ve got to really look at everything in black and white. I still think they’re really beautiful because I’m a design nerd. And so I like really I really to me it’s important that it looks beautiful and I show very clearly, like, if you were to hand this over to your designer, they would know where to put an image. Put an image here that’s roughly this size and put the bullet points over to the right of that. And then here’s where the headline goes and here’s where the body copy goes, here’s where the button goes. And it should be a bright color. So it’s you know, if you’re to hand it over to your designer, they would have a very, very easy time translating that into your current website.
Yeah. Yeah. And and your I mean, your framework, if you will, is Story brand, which is the Donald Miller story breaks that you’ve learned this like you’ve learned under under Donald and if I like so what is that So we always hear stories sell right And this is something that I’ve talked a lot about here on the show. I’ve had other people talk about stories, and what I’ve shared from my perspective is like, I don’t feel like I’m a very good storyteller and that I’ve had people literally this week. Today’s a Thursday. Earlier this week. People tell me, tell more stories. You want to hear more stories on the podcast? Yeah. And so that’s something that I’m consciously wanting to do more of here on the show. How are you incorporating the stories into, say, a home page, for example, that is serving as, as you mentioned before, like the about page, the services page, etc.? How are we using stories in a page like that?
It can be really confusing because we’ve grown up hearing stories like you read to your daughter. Like once upon a time this happened and that happened. And the formula for those is the same formula for the storytelling. When you’re talking about your own business or your or your marketing. But there’s a couple little mindset shifts or just little tips really, that once you know the. Um, it changes the way you do it. So essentially, every story that you’ve ever heard and this Donald Miller talks about this, and I, I’m simplifying it even more than that. But every story you’ve ever heard or movie begins with a hero that has a problem they can’t solve. And then maybe 20 minutes into the movie, they meet a guide who has the solution and gives them a plan to solve their problem. And then ultimately, that hero towards the end of the movie finds success. So the beautiful thing is, as a business owner, this totally lets you off the hook because the hero is kind of the star of the story and you’re not the hero, you’re the guide. Your customer is always the hero. So. The story begins with a hero has who has a problem. And if if your listeners take nothing else away from this, I would say write that down. Always begin your story with your heroes problem or your customers problem. What are they struggling with? If you’re telling like a story about your own personal life, talk about a problem that you’re going through and then talk about what you ended up doing. You meet a guide and that guide might be a book you found or wisdom that your neighbor shared with you and made you kind of help you move along in that journey to solving the problem. And then ultimately what what you got as an end result from that. Like I remember in one of your other podcasts, you were telling a story about maybe a latte or you’re making a coffee, or my beloved.
My beloved. I ordered this yesterday at the coffee shop right down the street from me, and I said, and I know all the people that work there and they know my drink at this point. So I walk up and it’s so I start off the day with like straight up Americano, like, I don’t do you know?
And then later, straight to the veins, right?
Straight to the veins, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my wife accidentally ate, drank it last week or something. She’s like, Oh, my God, that’s so strong. And I was like, Is it? So anyway, it is an oat milk latte with honey and cinnamon, and I like it super hot because otherwise I’ll just guzzle it. And I was ordering that, that I was ordering it at the coffee shop yesterday morning and they were like, I think I know your drink in there. So they were like, kind of like starting to do it. And then I said out loud and I said it, and I was like, Oh my God, that sounds like the like the most high maintenance order ever. And they’re like, No, it sounds delicious. But anyway, yeah, I was. That’s what I was talking about.
Yeah. So, I mean, your personal stories will begin with a struggle or a problem that you’re dealing with, and then you’ll navigate through and you’re the hero of that story. But when when you’re in business, your your customers or your clients are always the hero. And that lets everybody off the hook because you don’t have to talk about yourself. You just, you know, you do a little bit. You talk about yourself as it relates to your customer and the things that they care about, but ultimately they just want their problem solved and they want to find a guide who can solve it.
So can you give an example there? Because I know that as I’m listening and I’ve heard this before, like conceptually. I think it’s easy to understand, but when I know that so many people, myself included, have this, like, okay, when I’m if I’m ready to write copy of her, it’s like this block. Like, okay, I know I need to write. Start off with the hero. The problem the hero is my audience, you know, and then go through that. Can you give sort of off top of your head like kind of an example?
Oh, for sure. For sure, yeah. So there’s a retirement planner that I work with and his story now, this is the the shortest story ever, ever written, but you’ll hear that it contains all the components of a compelling story. So he would say or write on his website or on social media. Many people over 50 worry that their money won’t last them through retirement. That’s their hero problem. And then he was. Then he would introduce himself as a guide with a solution, and that would be my proven method takes the guesswork out of retirement planning. And then he would, as the guide, he would remind the hero of what’s possible, what what kind of success that they can achieve so they can spend with confidence knowing they’ll thrive. So let me read that all together. And so you can hear like the hero with the problem, the guide with the solution, and then the hero finds success. So many people over 50 worry that their money won’t last them through retirement. My proven method takes the guesswork out of retirement planning so they can spend with confidence knowing they’ll thrive. So, you know, there’s a million ways to use this formula. That’s one that’s kind of like his company tagline that he can copy and paste that into his email signature, into his LinkedIn profile, into all his social media profiles on his website. But you really take the storytelling formula and you can you can use it. You can have kind of your overarching company tagline story. Yeah, but lots of people will do this on their on their services page. So they’ll say, okay, I’m doing a workshop on this that solves this problem, and then they’ll create their own story around that as the description. And people are like, Whoa, I tell me more like I’m one in on that. I want that problem solved in this person knows how to do it.
What about if the problem like, so how do I ask this question? If you are the audience, you are the audience that you solve the problem for, which you then went and found other people that had the same problem? Could you be the hero? In the first part, and then I’m way over complicating this, I realize. But like where my brain goes to is like, so data, for example, although I am like, this is something that I have this conversation with every single member of of our accelerator is like, you’ve got to know your numbers. And most people don’t. Most people can’t answer, Oh, I got these sales came from over here and I can attribute these sales here or this is my profit margin, what have you. Right? And so but the first the first time this came up was for myself. But how I solved my own problem, which how I solve that is how I’m helping people. Now, does that make sense?
Yeah, completely. And that is the best kind of guide because you can show up with a level of empathy. You understand their struggle so much because you’ve been through it. And so no one’s a better guide than somebody like you who’s been through the journey and found success and come out the other side and now can show other people, Hey, come along with me. I’ll show you how to do it, too. That’s the best kind of guide. But what you don’t want to do is position yourself as the hero because you’re not the hero. You’ve already solved this problem and you know how to do it.
Okay, I got you.
Yeah. And when you position yourself as the hero, there’s only room for one hero in every story. So you immediately kick any potential client into engaging with you. And the other thing I want to share is that, you know, we talk about telling stories and telling stories. You’ve got to use story, but really, it’s not about telling a story. It’s about inviting your clients into a narrative with you. You’re inviting them into a story with you where they play the character of the hero and you play the character of the guide because the guide is the strongest character in the story. The hero’s actually the weakest character because they have a problem they don’t know how to solve, and we don’t know if they’re going to solve it or not. We hope they do, and they will if they work with you, hopefully. But that’s what keeps us to the end of of the movie. If if the hero solve their problem halfway through the movie, people will get up and leave.
Right. Right. How much of the how much of this framework consists of audience research? Learning more about the audience where they currently are because things shift, etc., etc..
Yeah, I mean, it’s critical to know your audience. It depends what type of research that you want to do. I mean, the type of research that I do about my audience is really just working day after day after day for many years with this particular audience. But you can also go onto Amazon and. Like find a book that your audience is really attracted to and then read the reviews and you can get lots of information and insight there as well about about their struggle. That’s really what you want to hone in on, is if you can articulate their problem. I should say it this way, the better you can articulate their problem, the more quickly they will automatically assume that you’re the one to solve it.
It’s also it’s kind of like when you said the financial planning or retirement planning example before that came up for me immediately was like, that’s like a that’s a hook for a video, for example, or an ad, you know, like get their attention and then go into, you know, solving the problem or like establishing credibility, giving some teaching there and then having some sort of call to action.
Yes. Yeah. Every every story. I mean, a hook can be lots of different things, but one type of hook could be starting with the problem. And if you start everything that you write with the problem that your customers are experiencing, they’re going to be pulled in because our brains find them just 100% irresistible. We cannot help but be pulled in and find out, is it going to get solved, How’s it going? How’s it going to be solved? You know, yeah, it’s really psychology, fundamentally.
So. There are some things in your in your bio that I kind of want to dive into a little bit where you’re talking about helping people scale from like 30 K months to 300. So ten x ing their monthly revenue is also like charging six times more for the exact same service.
Yes.
How are those things happening within the framework that we’re talking about?
Well, this framework is a very important part of an overall recipe for that. So this is not the one and only piece, but the client that was able to charge six times what he was prior to working with me. That was a branding overhaul. So we really we got him new photography, really professional photography, and we rebranded his logo, we updated as tagline, we recrafted his home page and his entire website. It was kind of the full meal deal that he did, but the storytelling was the golden thread that wove throughout all those materials. So the words on this business card aligned with the words on his website, aligned with the words on his LinkedIn profile, and what I loved hearing from him the most was he went to a trade show shortly thereafter and he goes, I actually walked differently. I like there was a confidence that he had when he when he knew he had the right words of what to say. And he knew very clearly the problem he solved in how to communicate.
What are some things that we can do, like those of us listening right now? Everybody listening right now? What are some things that we can do to. Ask her, like, what kind of questions can we ask ourselves to try to get these types of things out of ourselves? So to maybe start this process for ourselves?
Well, I do have a freebie that does walk you through this process. So there’s a five minute video and a Google worksheet that comes with it that literally will prompt you with each of these things. So don’t feel like you have to write this down or remember it. It’s there for you. But. The first thing to do is to brain dump, like have a document called my storytelling or whatever you want to call it, and then just brain dump all the problems that your customers share with you. And you want to do it in their words, not in your words. We really want to meet them where they are and not talk over their heads or anything like that. We just keep it conversational. When you have a call with a potential client, ask them like, What are you? What are your biggest struggles? What’s keeping you up at night? And write down the words that they tell you and just keep an on going kind of brain dump document. And the more you have, like if you have ten or 20 problems that your customers face, that right there is a recipe for ten or 20 social media posts. You can start with that problem and then talk about your solution. And and you don’t have to get into the nitty gritty about you want to tell them what you do, not how you do it.
So for the retirement planner, it was my proven method takes the guesswork out of retirement planning. Simple. He doesn’t get into all the detail. I just as I remove the guesswork and so that so you want to really brain dump the problems and then in in the worksheet that you can download from me, there’s an area there where you can can brainstorm three, you know, three different solutions or three different ways that you solve this problem. And then you really want to go heavy on success. So what is their life like going to be? After they worked with you. Like, what is that? Top of the mountain peak point? What are they going to experience? What kind of freedom are they going to have? What kind of peace of mind are they going to have? Or, you know, if you’re a chiropractor, like are they going to be able to climb mountains and play with their grandkids or whatever it might be? But really kind of I continually encourage people to really think big when it comes to the success portion of it. And then you’ve got you’ve got this kind of brand bible there of of problems, solutions and success. And if you if you focus all your communications in this way, people will engage. They can’t help but engage.
So let’s just say we brain up. Nine different nine different things.
Okay.
And then we’ve got three different ways to solve each of those problems.
Huh?
And then what it’s like afterwards. Success. What that could look like after feelings and all that stuff. If we’re writing a sales page, are we incorporating all of those things in there? Or are we taking the top things? Or like, where do we draw the line?
Yeah, definitely the top thing. So on a sales page, you want to weave things through the page. People need to hear things multiple times before they can commit it to memory. So there’s nothing wrong with kind of repeating the same notes over and over again. But yeah, pick the top five and narrow it down to to that and keep kind of streamline the communication for a sales page. I would, I would do that. But if, you know, if it’s social media you can just the more the better you know it depends on how often you want to post. Yeah yeah.
So brain Deb all the problems customers have in their in their words as much as possible. Yes and and ways to get those words we often overlook the obvious of like get on a quick call with them. Look at what they’re talking about in if you have a group, look at what words they’re using. Look at other Facebook groups. Look at like like like you mentioned Chris on Amazon reviews for books. And there’s lots of different ways that we can look at what actual words that people are using. Then three different ways to solve the problem. And then what is the light? What is their life? What can their life be like after the solution in terms of what’s possible, feelings, etc.? I would also assume that that’s where we’re using like case studies of people that we’ve worked with that BE Right.
Oh, for sure. I mean, yeah, there’s I mean, there’s as the guide, you want to show that you have empathy and authority and part of that authority is showing that you solve this problem for other people. So case studies would go under that that piece of authority. I mean, there’s there’s more that goes into a sales sales page than just this. But this is really the golden thread that like streams through your story, almost like you kind of think of it like, you know, a guitar player, someone who knows how to play guitar, you know, knows how to strum a chord and they, you know, push down the strings and it’s a beautiful chord and they repeat those notes throughout the song. Whereas if you don’t know how to play the guitar and use strum a chord and it sounds like crap, you’re not going to move toward you. You’re not going to move toward that person playing guitar and want to hear more. Yeah. So it’s kind of like music in that way.
It’s kind of cool when when we’re doing that. So like, and because I’m fascinated by this, because like, I think you can tell from my questions, like, I’ve always struggled with this. Like, I do not consider myself, you know, a good copywriter and it’s something that I do work on. But it just to be honest, like from very, very early on in the business, I always hired copywriters to help me with it because I knew that it wasn’t a strong suit of mine, even though it was one of the first things that I learned. You know, I kept hearing people say like, you know, this is been business nine years now. So ten years ago people were saying, if you don’t learn anything, learn how to write copy. Yes, then you can sell anything. Right? So but even with that, I still struggle with it. All these years. I’m much better than I was. But if we’re brain dumping all the problems, we’ve got the three different ways to solve the problem. This is what is possible afterwards. Where are we if we’re taking this sort of framework, putting it into sort of like the hero framework, like we’re talking about, where are we using the stories within that? Does that make sense?
Yeah, completely. So I’ll kind of break down the different sections of the wireframe. I think that might be helpful. So the very first section, the header is where you’ve got about 5 seconds to just communicate what you do and how it’s going to make their life better. So you could easily pull that from like the story that we just told about the retirement planner. So at the beginning of the page it might be I’m a retirement, I’m I or let me think about this. It’s hard to do on the fly. I take the guesswork out of retirement planning. And that I mean, that’s the problem that they solve. So that might be up in the upper header. And you know, they’re a retirement planner. They’re going to take the guesswork out of it. Then after that, you want to follow and you can you can go to my website for a good example of this, because I follow this, I believe it and it works. So then you want to start the story right there with the problem. So I, I will often say like, are you struggling with and then 3 to 5 bullets of what they’re struggling with. Again, like there’s so much psychology that happens just in. Articulating the problem your potential client feels like they’re seeing. They feel like they’re heard.
They feel like you. Oh, you get me. Like if you get me, you get this problem. You’re the best one to solve it. So they and they’re pulled in because they can’t they can’t not be just how our brains are wired. So they they’re like, okay. And then the next section is quickly. We’re always, as humans were, always scanning the environment. What’s in this for me? What is how am I going to benefit from this? So I follow that section with three really beautiful, important benefits that they’re going to experience. But after we’re done working together, a lot of people put features here, which again puts that would put me as the hero instead of my client. Yeah, you don’t want to put features there. You want to say this is what you’re going to experience after you work with me as a result of working with me. And so you really want to make that clear and then you move into it’s like it’s kind of like you’re earning their trust and you’re earning a connection with them and you’re letting them know this is going to be worth your time because I get your problem and I can help you reach really wonderful results. And then you’ve earned the right to step in and share a little bit more about yourself as the guide.
And so at that point, you step in with empathy and authority and tell them that, you know, this is how I solved the problem. This this is what I know about you and this is why I’ve, you know, spent many years, you know, figuring out how to solve this problem and working with people like you. Here’s how I do it. So every every guide gives their hero a plan. And you this is what you need to do next. So you you have a clear call to action, but you really want to break down a three step plan that’s like critical, very important part because they’re like, well, if you’re going to guide me and you can solve this problem and what do you want me to do next? And so you want to break it down, even if what you do might take 20 steps, you just want to really simplify it because they’re already overwhelmed when they get to the website. I mean, most people are just inundated with information and overwhelmed. So what to do next? Schedule a call. We’ll work together, create a custom plan or whatever your way of solving that problem is. And then step three is typically kind of the third, the third part of that step. It might be something wonderful that they’re going to experience.
So as you were talking about that, I’m looking at your site. Yeah, just the home page here. So just to reiterate Chrissy’s URL, it’s red door designs dot com. And what I notice about this, not only does it model what you just described, but I actually look at this and I think that it’s doesn’t have a lot of copy, but you’re telling the story of everything that you just said through. I think it’s very, very clear. And it doesn’t it’s not a lot of words. I think that you’re conveying everything in like I like clean websites, like very easy to follow. Thus why redesigning my site? But like what? I mean, I see you can focus on what you do best and I’ll make you look good doing it. And then you’ve got like three paragraphs here. I feel like this is like the most text in one section, except for the Here are three ways to work with me like you just described. Right? And so this is appealing to me because it’s of the simplicity of it. And I’m always talking about simplicity.
Scales Yes. And it’s the way people are digesting information now on mobile, on mobile phones. And just our attention spans, like if you can’t do the heavy lifting of simplifying and streamlining your communication with your client, like you’re you’re not really earning their trust or they’ll they’ll say, oh, I’ll come back to this when I have more brain energy to concentrate on reading all this copy and then they’ll never come back. Right? So the gift that I can give to you and your audience is that you don’t have to be good at long format copy. I don’t like long format copy. I like puzzle piece scene, beautiful story driven copy together. So it really flows and tells the story. But it doesn’t mean you have to sit down and write paragraphs and paragraphs of text.
Yeah, I love it. And I think that a lot of people listening right now just did a big exhale. It’s like, Oh, okay, this page doesn’t have to be 6000 words.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And you’d be surprised what happens when you go through that process and make it easy for your people to understand what you do and how you can help them. It’s like. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah, kind of like the jelly of them on the club from Christmas vacation.
For all the.
Christmas staycation plans. I said that to my wife the other day, and she’s like, What? What are you talking about? She’s never seen that movie. Anyway, what is the URL, Chris, for where people can get this PDF download?
So there’s I have two ways to work with me. One is if you want to DIY your own copy and you want to kind of dive deeper into what we’ve talked about today, go to clarity with Chris dot com and it’s a five minute video and worksheet and you can create your own version of what we talked about today. If you are ready for website copy that does the selling for you and you’re done trying to DIY it and you just want to check it off your list and be done with it in 2.5 hours flat. Go to red door designs dot com forward slash copy.
Okay, cool. And Chris is with a K everybody clarity with Chris dot com and I’ll link all the links up over in the show notes for for the episode here today. I’m fascinated Chris like I said I keep saying like this stuff doesn’t come easy to me. So I’m always like I’m always trying to learn more about this. And I know 100% that a lot of the the people that that I work with in Accelerator, for example, this is something that’s a struggle as well from a writing copy. So thank you for coming on and sharing your expertise. Is that the best place for people to go to connect with you or are there other places as well?
Yeah, that is the best place that you can go. And actually, I offer if you do the clarity with Chris download, I offer a free one on 120 minute clarity calls so you can get my eyes on your copy and make sure it’s done right. So that’s just a little, little nugget.
Careful, Chris. Be careful. I have a very passionate audience and I’ve had many other guests do something like that and they reach out to me. They’re like, Holy cow, your audience is amazing.
So I love I love the work and I find it just so much fun. So I’m all over it.
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you. Hey, if you happen to know somebody, one of your colleagues or one of your friends who can benefit from today’s episode here with Chris, I would super appreciate if you shared this episode with them. If you’re at Apple podcast, just click the three little dots next to the name of the episode and there’s a share episode option right there. If you’re listening on Spotify, you can just there’s a share button right there in the episode makes it super easy to share both the podcast and individual episodes with your friends. I almost said friends and family. Your family probably doesn’t want to listen to the podcast that you’re listening to. And as always, if you’ve not yet left a rating and review for the show over on Apple Podcasts, that is still very, very helpful and allows us to reach more people with what we’re trying to help people with here on the show. Thank you in advance for doing that and I appreciate my friend. Until next time, be well. I’ll talk to you soon.
