Transforming Businesses into Extraordinary Brands
In the creative agency and web hosting spaces, partnerships are vital to business growth. The right strategic alliances can take your business from zero to sixty in no time by helping you acquire new clients, extend your reach, drive revenue, and build a network where referrals can flow between your agency and your web hosting partner.
Here are five critical things to share with a web hosting company while exploring the option to become a valued agency partner:
Earlier this year, I was research a new content collection tool called Content Snare. The software facilitates the collection of any type of content you need (like website content) and allows you to create custom templates, upload images and screenshots of the design, add instructions, and more. It completely mimics my internal process for gathering website content from clients and so far, I’m in love.
What’s funny is that just as I was researching the software, the founder James Rose reached out to connect about his brand new podcast, Agency Highway. It’s aimed at helping freelance designers, developers, and small agencies do better business. He had heard about my business and client management course Profitable Project Plan and wanted to talk shop and have a conversation for the podcast.
This is one of the best podcast interviews I have participated in because James and I are so in sync with our approach to client work that I swear, we probably could have kept talking for hours. But lucky for you, we reigned it in for a sweet 30-minute show that dives into client onboarding and client management, the early years of Bourn Creative, and the changes made in my business to create the life as a business owner I wanted.
WordCamp Sacramento 2018 is on! Happening September 15-16, 2018 at the Sacramento Convention Center, WordCamp Sacramento is once again bringing two days of WordPress-focused learning, networking, and fun to California’s state capitol.
I was lead organizer for WordCamp Sacramento in 2016 and 2017, growing the event from 180 attendees to 500 attendees, but there is a two year term limit on the position of lead organizer. This rule is in place to ensure that WordCamps remain a community event and don’t “die on the vine” when one community member leaves or moves away. What this also means is that this year I’m only the Speaker Wrangler and Brian is only the VIP Dinner Wrangler, which means we aren’t responsible for the overall planning, food, and coordination and I am not involved in the event design.
As Speaker Wrangler, I am in charge of the event curriculum and the management of the speakers, and now that the speakers, the sessions, and the official WordCamp schedule have been announced, I can tell you that I am over the moon excited about the event, especially the all new, two-day Beginner Track!
The conversion process on every website, especially online stores, must be as easy as possible. Moving a prospective customer from the awareness stage, to the consideration stage, to the final decision stage should be simple, straightforward, and completely obvious.
Friction happens when something on your website slows down or stops the progression of a prospective buyer from moving through your sales funnel. Identifying points of friction in your sales process and addressing them can help increase sales from your existing traffic dramatically.
There are 7 fundamental ways to reduce friction on your website and increase conversions:
The silent saboteur of website conversion rates is bad website design or a pretty design that’s all fluff and no strategy, smarts, or structure.
Your website is the central hub for your brand online, the primary vehicle for interaction with your audience, and destination where conversions are taking place. No matter what type of conversion you are seeking — sign up, subscribe, click, register, enroll, buy, join, hire, watch, etc. — the website design must support the sales process, make the content easy to engage with, and naturally guide visitors through the website and ultimately to take action.
There are five primary opportunities to simplify your website design and increase conversions:
At Bourn Creative, we use WordPress to design and develop custom websites for clients around the globe. WordPress has been our tool of choice as a small businesses content management system since 2009 and we not only believe in WordPress as a website platform, but as a community.
You may not know it, but there is a thriving community of people around the world that work to create, build, and improve WordPress. From designers and developers, to marketers, copywriters, business owners, project managers, freelancers, translators, and more, many people not only work to make WordPress a successful open-source platform, but a welcoming, open community. And, the two biggest ways of fostering community around WordPress is through WordPress Meetups and WordCamps.
As a site owner, you put a lot of effort into driving traffic to your website. You write blog posts and invest time and effort into organic SEO and social media marketing. You publish an email newsletter, send email blasts, and leverage email automations and follow up campaigns. You’re a guest on podcasts, you guest blog on other popular websites, you host webinars, and you even invest in paid traffic like Google AdWords, Facebook ads, and Instagram ads.
After all of that work, the very worst thing that could happen when someone visits your website is that they leave without taking a single action. Once a person reaches your website, your job is to get them the information they need quickly and easily, persuade them to stay on the site longer, and then get them to take action.
There are five core ways to easily provoke action on your website and increase conversions:
Bourn Creative is excited to announce that a new Bourn is joining the ranks of speaker! Both Jennifer Bourn and Natalie Bourn will be speaking at WordCamp San Diego 2018, happening April 14-15, 2018 at the San Diego City College Math and Science Building.
The whole family is excited to spend the weekend in San Diego and cheer Natalie on in her first speaking gig! If you’d like to learn more about their sessions or attending WordCamp San Diego, here is some more information:
Once a visitor reaches your website, your job is to keep them on the site as long as possible, help them progress in their buyer journey, and encourage them to take action. Content that is optimized for conversion delivers value, builds trust, and gets visitors to take action faster.
When evaluating your website content, there are six main opportunities where you can make small changes that result in big increases in conversions.
The more risk a consumer believes there to be, the less like they are to make a purchase. When asking a visitor to take action, it is your job to minimize or eliminate all perceived risks so they can take action with confidence, be comfortable with their purchase, and feel like they made the right choice.
Mitigating risk is about more than just moving your site from HTTP to HTTPS. In fact, there are 8 key areas you can focus on to mitigate risk and improve website conversions:
Autumn is always a crazy time of year. When summer ends and kids go back to school, the vast majority of people get back to work with a focus on getting specific things done before the end of the year. Often, those specific things include a brand redesign, a website redesign, or website improvements and feature additions to start the year off strong. Business is always busy and booming in the fall, and this year it was even crazier than normal because of all the live events we attended or spoke at.
I LOVE live events.
Have you ever been in a conversation where you’re communicating you’re point and the other person is communicating their point, and you find yourself getting increasingly irritated and frustrated because you’re talking about the same thing, but speaking a completely different language?
Have you ever shared something important with another person, and they respond with some comeback that makes you say, “Yes, that’s what I just said!”
Have you ever been listening to someone explain a topic only to be left confused because they use a completely different vocabulary than you do?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone.
Clear communication is a skill that is developed over time, and without it, professional conversations between service providers and clients can devolve into a frustrating and confusing experience. That’s why one of the very first things we do with new clients is ensure we’re both speaking the same project language and using the same vocabulary.
Here are 3 important tips to empower you to communicate clearly with clients and equip clients to communicate clearly with you:
“Design isn’t crafting a beautiful textured button with breathtaking animation. It’s figuring out if there’s a way to get rid of the button altogether.”
Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at the ninth International Food Blogger Conference on What Bloggers Need To Know About SEO. Speaking and training is one of my favorite things to do, and the conference was happening at the Sacramento Convention Center near my home, so saying yes was a no brainer.
Plus, in April 2016, I started my own personal blog Inspired Imperfection, where I share recipes, family adventures, and candid commentary on life, so this event was also going to be an awesome opportunity to meet other local bloggers! While I travel to business events and conference after, the International Food Blogger Conference was actually my first blogging-specific conference.
The two-day food blogging conference ran Friday and Saturday with back-to-back sessions and add-on events happening the Thursday before the event and the Sunday after. Sessions were delivered by a mix of individual expert speakers, moderated panel discussions, and sponsored sessions.
This past Thursday Bourn Creative founding partner, Jennifer Bourn, joined Jason Tucker and Bridget Willard for WP Blab, a WordPress-focused, conversational interview show. WPblab streams live every Thursday at 7:00 pm Pacific and is part of the Watercooler Network.
As a co-organizers for the Sacramento WordPress Meetup, co-organizers for WordCamp Sacramento 2015, and lead organizers for WordCamp Sacramento 2016 and WordCamp Sacramento 2017, Jennifer and I book a lot of speakers and beg a lot of community members to share their knowledge with us through speaking.
The Freelance Conference claims the spot as the longest running, industry agnostic, freelance business conference in the world.
#FREECON is an event created by freelancers, for freelancers. It was born in the spirit of those who leave or are desiring to leave a job with the dream of time, freedom, better income, and the ability to control your own careers and life. The conference combines that shared vision with the reality of what it takes to make the dream of self-employment come true; a set of skills that few of us come equipped with in full.
Until this fall, I had never attended the Freelance Conference… But earlier this year, I had the opportunity to connect with event founder Emily Leach for a personal and frank conversation about freelancing and our experiences over the many years of being our own bosses. Not only were our experiences similar, but our views and philosophies were aligned so well that she extended an invitation to speak at the Freelance Conference — and of course, I said yes right away.
What do your project plans look like for client work? Are they working for you, or just more work for you? If you’re looking for a better process for your business, I teamed up with WPSessions to share a practical system that Bourn Creative has not only tested and refined over five years, but used on hundreds of real client projects. This is a battle-tested solution that will help you relieve stress, boost your profits, add value to your service offerings, and create happy clients.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, this webinar was created just for you!
“A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.”
“I want to work less and make more money,” is a common desire among internet business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs, but often with so much work to do, it seems next to impossible.
If you focus on sales and marketing, you end up falling behind on client work, and if you focus on client work, you risk losing potential new business. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get ahead of the work you have so you can take the evenings or weekend off… and maybe you’re even so busy that things are starting to slip through the cracks? I have been there, and almost 10 years ago, it all came to a head one night when I realized that I had a big problem in a very embarrassing and public way, and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible or my business would begin to suffer greatly.
After celebrating Bourn Creative’s twelve year anniversary this July, I decided to share my story, the lessons, learned, and how I overcame exhaustion and stress to run the streamlined, freedom-based business Bourn Creative is today.
Freelancers, entrepreneurs, independent professionals, and even small agencies at some point, all have the same problem — riding the income roller coaster, where in some months you’re overflowing with cash and in others you’re barely scraping by.
When income fluctuates between extreme highs and lows, stress levels rise, sleep is lost, and a constant state of worry begins to take over. I know because I’ve been there.
In the early years of Bourn Creative, I didn’t have a problem finding new clients or landing new business. So while my income has never been a challenge, my cash flow was a big challenge, and that affected the forward movement of my business and the stress levels associated with being a freelancer.
Here’s exactly what I did to get off the income roller coaster and improve cash flow:
Client testimonials are an incredibly powerful marketing and sales tool that can solidify credibility, build trust, and compel action. When done right, testimonials become a lens through which prospects see what is possible.
Taken one step further, testimonials become stories — mini case studies — that prospects can relate to, identify with, and place themselves into as the main character.
The problem is that most business owners have a hard time getting useful testimonials and clients stories because they don’t ask for them the right way or at the right time.
Here’s how to get testimonials that not only work for you and help make sales, but become personal and persuasive stories:
Development is clear cut. It works or it doesn’t. The code is well-written or it’s a mess. Design on the other hand, is subjective, with the success of a project often based on the client’s ideas, perceptions, opinions, and personal experiences of what good design is.
Jennifer Bourn (that’s me) is founding partner and lead designer of Bourn Creative. While she spends her days designing high-end, complex, custom WordPress sites and brand suites, she has also sold well over a million dollars in just side projects and add-ons ranging from in price from $75-$3,000 — and the journey has been good, bad, and at times, down right ugly.
Jennifer recently teamed up with iThemes Training to deliver a free webinar called Selling a Million Dollars In Design about selling design services that skips the hype and sugar-coating, and gets right to the mistakes made, lessons learned, and business practices implemented over the 12 years Bourn Creative has been in business.
“Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.”
Design shapes perception and perception is not only reality but the foundation of your brand. Making the decision to invest in professional design for your business is making a decision to put your best foot forward, actively shape perception, and show up in the world as professional, authoritative, credible, valuable, and trustworthy.
While investing in professional design is a no-brainer for savvy businesses who want to accelerate their success and increase sales, making the decision to hire a professional designer can be wrought with stress, worry, and frustration if you don’t know what to ask when interviewing a designer or what to watch out for when signing a contract.
Bourn Creative celebrated its 12 year anniversary this past summer, and for 12 years straight, I have heard horror story after horror story from business owners who signed contracts without understanding the terms, didn’t receive the files they should have, ran into problems and delays, and encountered challenges that caused them to walk away with nothing or a design they didn’t like.
Each and every time I hear these stories, it breaks my heart a little bit because these situations can be avoided with a little due diligence up front.
Listed below are eight red flags to watch out for when hiring a designer. If you encounter any of these situations, say no thanks and move on.
