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Everyone wants quick wins and big success. But what steps can we take to exponentially drive more sales? Adam and Danielle, co-creators of Captivate, discuss 3 critical steps you can take that all work together to compound your results and create happier customers.
About Adam and Danielle:
Adam Force is a burnout survivor and an activist at heart. After working at WebMD for 10 years as the Director of Strategic Marketing, he started a second business – Change Creator.
Change Creator is an educational media platform for social entrepreneurs that helps change the status quo through its courses and services. They offer courses like – Captivate, a podcast with over 200 expert interviews, and a premier digital magazine (with 30 editions reaching 135 countries).
Danielle Sutton is the Founder of The Sedge. She’s passionate about supporting those who are enterprising to make the world a better place.
With an undergrad in business, specialization in social entrepreneurship, participation in a world-class accelerator, and consulting with Acumen, she’s excited to work with you and share her expertise to help you reach your impactful destination — all without missing the opportunity to revel in the journey along the way.
Join our new masterclass to learn how to create your most authentic brand story and powerful online presence – changecreator.com/gobig
We also recommend:
- Adam & Danielle: How Digital Conversations Drive Your Business
- Lauri-Ann Ainsworth: Key Areas Social Entrepreneurs Focus On For Faster Growth
- Eric Partaker: Practical Steps to Transform Your Health and Wealth
Transcription of Interview
(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)
Adam G. Force 00:03
Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week, we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. excited about today’s conversation, hope everybody’s having a great week, by the way. This conversation today was actually recorded on Facebook Live just this past this past last week. And it’s a really important conversation between myself and Danielle, and I wanted to share it here on the podcast, so that you guys didn’t miss it. And we’re gonna be talking about three really important factors that will help exponentially increase your sales in the end, right. And there’s a lot of interesting statistics around this as well. So not stuff we’re just making up. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk through it. And it ties into how we’re building trust with our marketing strategies, and being genuine with our company. So we’re gonna walk through three really important things that you need to consider when it comes to growing the business and earning trust with customers. Okay, if you missed our last episode, it was with Rene Garcia, and we talked about becoming the best version of yourself as an entrepreneur. So she is a transformational coach, she is somebody that helps with the money mindsets, and kind of breaking down those unconscious, limiting beliefs and things like that. So we can really step into the role we need to step into, because we can’t become a six figure entrepreneur or seven figure entrepreneur, or somebody that’s changing the lives of, you know, a lot of people if we don’t become that person, right, and so we have to kind of get out of our own way. And she’s really good at helping people with that. And so it’s a really powerful conversation. So if you missed it, definitely go back and check it out. It’s with Rene Garcia. Alright guys, not too many other updates at this point, we did. We always have fresh content going out on Change Creator calm, it’s also that content from Change Creator calm is flowing into the Change Creator app at this point. So any articles that are on the site will be flowing into the app, the app has a library of over 30 Premium magazines that are there with tons of insights, strategies, and inspiration from the top entrepreneur entrepreneurs around the social entrepreneurship space. Okay, lots of good insights there. So it’s only $1 a month to get access to the app. It’s just something that’s a really great handy tool on your phone for quick access to a lot of great content. Alright, guys, we’re gonna dive into this conversation between myself and Danielle and let’s kick it off. Okay, show me the heat. What’s up everybody, excited to be here with my partner, Danielle, we’re going to be talking about three big things that exponentially drive sales online today, and what you need to know about them, this is something near and dear to our hearts here at Change Creator because there’s so much changing right around the marketplace and online business since we reached the year 2000. And you know, the late 90s. Till now, as we got into the online digital space, there’s been a real hindrance on trust everything from before that too. But once we get into clickbait, and everything, there’s just been a lot of things that create red flags for people, interruption, ads, and all those types of things. So trust is becoming more and more important than ever today. And there is really no black and white solution to to solve for IT and business online. But there are steps that we can take that will help. So that’s what Danielle and I want to talk about today is three proven steps that you can take these are backed by all kinds of evidence. And there’s different areas of your business that we’re going to cover that have to all work together, right. So if you’re catching this as a replay, just put a replay in the comments, we’d appreciate that. And we’ll dive into this conversation on these three things. So I’m just gonna highlight Danielle real quick the three things The first thing actually I don’t know if we want to expose all three are gonna just go in order. But the first thing is brand storytelling, right? This is how we create an emotional connection. And this is what we call, Danielle right, is the core story for people and it’s grounded usually in the founder right of the business. This, why the business started, what it’s all about what their beliefs are, and things like that. And Daniel, I think you said it really good before, when you said that the core story creates the synergy. And it actually drives your business in all areas so that they become cohesive.
Danielle Sutton 05:19
Yeah, absolutely. Because we’re talking about how your brand story can help create trust, especially online, but in any brick and mortar business as well. But the idea of this consistency or synergy, think of when you meet somebody, for the first time, maybe at a party or something, and maybe they give you a good first impression, maybe they’re kind of cute, and you’re like, oh, it’ll be interesting to talk to them more. And you maybe you have a few touch points with them over the course of the night and you hear them, you know, talk about their job or talk about their family, or, you know, what they their hobbies. And, and everybody has had this moment where you’re talking to someone and thinking like, something doesn’t quite add up here, or like your spidey sense goes up, and you’re not quite sure what the red flag is, but you’re a little bit, maybe have your guard up a little bit. And that’s one example of when things are not consistent, or like something just doesn’t quite feel right. And that feeling translates into your experience or a customer’s experience with a brand or with a company, or even with a founder. So the power of kind of what Adam mentioned, your core story, when you know, authentically, you know, your purpose and your why and you’re translating that across all touchpoints in your business, it’s automatically going to be more consistent, because it’s true. And it’s very close to the values that drive your decisions and drive, how you produce your product and how you choose to market it with ethics in mind, rather than, you know, poor marketing practices. And all of these things add up into a feeling of trust. Right. So that’s why brand storytelling is something that we focus on as a whole in captivate as well.
Adam G. Force 07:13
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs today as the idea of social entrepreneurship is kind of growing over the years, you know, it’s in all these universities now. And this is, you know, this is who we love to work with, as well, because we want to change the world by changing the way we do business, right. And when we think about business, we all are, as human beings, we come from a good place. Nobody wants to see the rain forests get wiped out. Nobody wants to see all these, you know, oil spills, bad things, whatever’s going on that bothers you for bad business around the world. We want to do good things. And we’re not just money hungry people. So when we can start digging into those parts of who we are, and be very genuine about it, all the decision making from our business comes from that really genuine place, like you’re saying, and that threads throughout the business. So now when we get into the next two things we want to talk about the next one being design, all of a sudden, the that story is not just something on your bow page. It’s the North Star, if you will, for the decision making on the design and everything else that goes on in your business with the marketing. So the whole ecosystem is is actually affected by that story. Right? So it’s not, I think there’s some misconceptions out there about what a brand story is really all about, or what sales stories are for. They’re not just a simple thing you say. So storytelling is visual, and verbal, right. So I wanted to make a point about that. And then I think we can dive into the next area of the business that’s really important for trust, which is design. Anything else on your end, Danielle from brand storytelling?
Danielle Sutton 08:52
No, I think you covered it. And it segues nicely into design, because one thing you mentioned about when we’re talking about making first impressions and how this is connected to your core story as a brand, and is that you want the feeling of your visual design to speak to, you know, the personality of the business or you as a founder if you’re very tired or wanting the same. And, and it needs to make sense, like does the visual story tell, like match the spoken story? Like you said, Adam, and does it give that sense? Does it match the emotions? Again, we’re talking about consistency. Does the design match what you say you believe in and the type of you know, values that you live and embody in your business?
Adam G. Force 09:43
Yeah, yeah. And that kind of goes into the point about synergy that you made too, because it’s like, if something’s not making sense, you’re hearing all this great stuff you do and then it’s like something feels off. Right. You know, Neil Patel had a great stat that he outlined from usability.gov and it’s Having a credible I’m going to read this here, having a credible looking website that is well designed, was given a rating of four out of five, in the relative importance scale in a study by usability.gov. And that translated into how people rated that people rated the design of a website as the most important trust factor, because it enhanced the credibility of the company, and therefore made them more likely to become a customer. And I think it’s fair to say that you probably have heard this idea, Danielle, micro script. This idea that first impressions matter. Have you ever heard your parents or somebody say that first impressions matter? You going out for that job interview today, right first job out of college or something, if you haven’t been an entrepreneur your whole life, and they’re gonna say, first impressions matter, go in and meet somebody important at that conference, first impressions matter. And it starts with people subconsciously, kind of analyzing you as a design. So how are you dressed? How do you look how to carry yourself? Not much different than when they go to your website? As soon as someone learns about your business? And they’re interested? What are they gonna do? Google you? Let’s see what they’re all about. Are they professional? Do they have something of interest? And the first impression, whether they consciously will say it or not? subconsciously? They’re thinking, is this someone I want to do business with? Or not? within like, three seconds? Am I in the right place? Right? And that design, I’m a designer, I love design, I love branding, I love all that stuff. And I think it’s really important in business. And I would never design a magazine or website or anything without understanding the brand story or core story that we’ve been talking about. Because that is where the inspiration comes from, and tells you what that thing should look like. Right, Dan?
Danielle Sutton 11:56
Yeah, absolutely. And I like your point that somebody who lands on your website, they’re asking themselves in the split second, when they land, am I in the right place? is this from? Is this person or company or brand aligned with? Where I see myself? And how I wish to go forward? Where am I trying to go? Will this website help me do that, and if they see any flags that kind of point in a different direction, immediately, they’re going to bounce and being a nerd on analytics and all things. website. Amy are they’re the CO creator of a co founder of Change Creator and working on captivate with us, she has, you know, definitely has her brain in the analytics a lot. And as you know, bounce rates are a real thing. And it can dramatically change how well you are magnetizing the right people and not just having them come to your website the first time, but what is the next step for them? does everything connects so that they feel comfortable to take that next step with you? Because you’re not at a coffee shop? You can say like, Hey, can I buy you a coffee and learn more about what you mean? No, you have to make that impression, without you on the website, physically, through the design through the story, and give people confidence that they are in the right place. It’s worthwhile to take the next step with you like we talked about that too. And an exchange of value someone on your website, do they want to join your email list? Not if it’s not worth it? No way they’re there. It’s super important.
Adam G. Force 13:39
Exactly. It is. And, you know, as far as design goes, there’s an interesting definition of something that was captured by I think it was Nielsen Norman groups, and they do lots of data and all those surveys and stuff. And so it’s called the aesthetic usability effect. And the definition of that is, it refers to a user’s tendency to perceive attractive products as more usable. So people tend to believe that what that things that look better will work better, even if they actually don’t. Now this goes right now, we’ve been doing this little comparison of human beings, right, talking to somebody or sitting at the coffee shop, to the website, how they look, first impressions, all that kind of stuff. And this is no different. So if you know, I think it’s Robert Cialdini, he wrote that book, the psychology of influence, right, pretty famous book, if you haven’t read it probably should. You know, and he talks about this one area where whether people like it or not, subconsciously they have found that when someone is good looking, right, how shallow does this get, I’m telling you, but when someone’s good looking, they trust that person more, and they believe that they are more successful just because of that immediate impression of how they look. This is not far off. From what happens in the digital world now, and it goes with products, websites and your business, you know, all that stuff, they’re gonna assess you. And the first barrier is really connecting with them on that brand story, then the design making sense, right? Here I am, does this make sense? This is quality. And I love the saying that how you do anything, is how you do everything. So think about that for a second, because they’re gonna say, if your website looks like crap, and everything else is poorly designed, what does that mean for your product? Then? Why would especially when you’re getting into high ticket offers, how Why would you spend that money, you’re going to have to work a lot harder. Now, that leads us into a segue into the next thing, which is the user experience, which is also known as ux, right? So all of a sudden, let’s say you connect with them, they land on your site, they Google you, right, they learn and they go to you, they see part of your brand story is that it’s going to be that headline expression, what do you about what makes you different? And are they in the right place, then they’re going to notice your design? Do they feel like you have quality design that makes sense for them? If you get past those barriers of trust, now, they may be buy your product, right? But the trust development process doesn’t stop there. Just because you got the business, right. We have revenue channels that are about renewals, and we have customer loyalty that we want to keep on that’s why we have loyalty programs and all that kind of stuff. But what people really want there is something that is cohesive in the sense of does this company know me? Are they taking steps to take care of me and put care into what they do? And make my experience the best it can be? So that continues the trust process there. What do you think about that?
Danielle Sutton 16:46
Yeah, definitely. And it’s almost it makes me think of, the longer the relationship is, and as us relationship in the way we do with captivate, which is that encompasses, you know, somebody being on your website and choosing to join your email list and the stories that you exchange digitally. But it’s less likely to be a fluke, when it’s longer, and it’s still consistent, and they still get you and they’re still kind of serving, you know, the next piece of information or piece of value that’s, that’s useful for you as a potential customer or as a customer. And just every touchpoint reinforces you closer to a trusting relationship, like I can trust this brand even more, or it takes me further away. So it’s almost like two steps forward, one step back, depending how each touch point goes. And of course, you would like to build a stronger, more trusting experience over time. But it can go either direction. So that’s why it’s not a one and done thing like oh, my and I bet you have experienced this where you go to a website, and it is flashy, and it does sound great. And the quality looks pretty good. But then there’s you know, a broken landing page, or they send you an email with the wrong name in the header or, you know, something later on in your experience makes you feel like Oh, actually, maybe that was just a fluke, the first time like, it’s not as good as I thought. So first impressions count. But what continues in the long run is, you know, that consistency and stand with them on the path of supporting whatever, again, I’m here as a customer, here’s where I want to go, I’m choosing to go with you. The quote, the better you do at helping me get there, the better we’re going to enjoy.
Adam G. Force 18:38
Right. Deliver on your promise. Deliver on your promise. Exactly. Deliver on your promises. Because that’s that’s the other thing is like if you make a promise, which is what your offer is all about, and you don’t deliver, you lose trust immediately. Right. So, you know, you might have some hiccups, like Daniel mentioned, and I have seen research that will say, people will forgive you to an extent, if the design is really good. And you’re like, all right, yeah, whenever these things, you know, people move quick today online. But if your product to start, you know, it’s falling apart, it’s not delivering on its quality, not getting the result. Your going to lose that trust in the long run.
Danielle Sutton 19:16
And it erodes a lot faster than it builds, which you know…
Adam G. Force 19:21
Exactly, exactly. Now, there was some other thing too, that I want to share, because it’s really important for you guys. When you start adding these pieces together, there was a book by James query this atomic habits, and he gave this example about this cycling coach who made one 1% incremental changes to many, many parts of their process as a team. And within like five years, they were like the top of the world. And so, you know, it’s all these little tweaks that add up right and empower your business to make exponentially larger number of sales right? And so you have to consider How these all work together. And a nice quote, for statistics that from a company called hedge stream is that this is about the brand story though I forgot to mention this in the earlier part of the conversation, that if people love a brand story, they found that 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future. 44% will share the story that’s earned marketing, free marketing, and 15% will buy the product immediately. Right. So if you’re earning more trust with the design, connecting emotionally with the brand’s story that is threaded throughout the ecosystem of your digital footprint, and you have a good user experience, I mean, all of a sudden, these things are working together and you’re going to be increasing your trust, you’re going to be increasing your sales, you’re going to be increasing your loyalty and renewals, which put it all together and you have a substantial change in your business bottom line for sure.
Danielle Sutton 20:57
Yeah, definitely. It’s, and I think this comes up in our coaching call. Sometimes too, it can feel like every little decision or every little step can feel like a make or break moment. And in reality, it’s not that definitive, but every little step in every moment adds up and it does kind of combine into real big results and big momentum and big movement. So we kind of hold that tension in coaching, sometimes between this decision does have gravity, but also you just need to make it and see what happens, right? And it all adds up, you know, but it’s a cohesive ecosystem, it’s not one thing will make or break. Like if you just fix your homepage that will solve everything. No, unfortunately, that’s not it, it’s very important to fix your homepage, but it’s not going to make or break everything. No, you need to kind of consider all of these points along that customer journey.
Adam G. Force 22:01
Which it’s a good point, but don’t feel like I guess defeated in any way. Like, oh, you all know just one thing at a time, right? Just like the cycling coach that made small changes, we’re gonna we’re gonna change the, the the helmets that we use, we’re gonna change the tires that we use, we’re gonna and just little by little, everything starts work like what he called compounding over time, right?
Danielle Sutton 22:25
And it’s not hard if you’re basing it off your personal values, your authentic voice and your story. That’s why we repeat that part, because that makes all of these small things. Automatic, actually, when you…
Adam G. Force 22:38
And accurate and genuine I mean, so this trust conversation starts with they really having the right core story, which is why we focus on that so much. So, you know, that is that driver, that is the foundation of the house. Everything else is stems from that. So if you don’t have that, and it’s not done, right. It makes everything much more if we see it all the time, everything is kind of like makes no sense together. That’s not cohesive, you know, when you’re all over. It’s ambiguous. That’s, that’s the word I wanted. You know. And Danielle, there’s one stat guys from this Edelman report. Edelman does a report every year about trusts, and there’s so many good pieces of insight in there, we’ll get some maybe articles out there that kind of capture some of it. But at a top level. The Edelman Report, I’m pulling this up here, let me see if I have it. Yes. So they had this evolution of the trust in a brand, right. So 81% said they won’t do business with the brand. If they can’t trust that the brand will do the right thing for society. This is huge. It became It was first more most important about the product experience, then the customer experience. Now the impact on society is creeping up. And as we become social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference trying to do the right thing with our business. And if our core story, and then our everything we do is threaded through that and we’re trying to do something that’s right, you’re going in the right direction. With where customers heads are at today. It’s important to understand these things, and they call it you have to be aware like we’ve heard of greenwashing and stuff like that, there is this thing they call now trust washing. They will all the consumers out there say that too many brands use societal issues as a marketing ploy to sell more of their products. That’s 56% of people say that. That’s something to be aware of, because we don’t want to do it just because we saw the data. We want to do these things from our from who we truly are our authentic selves and come from a genuine place because otherwise people will know, people will will find out and you will lose that trust. Absolutely.
Danielle Sutton 24:46
And another term that you may have heard this referred to as impact washing right and it’s kind of comes down to walking the talk you know, being true to your values. Live your values. Be consistent in your values in the decisions that you make walk the talk. And that’s why it translates across these three specific things that we mentioned today that all create that trusting experience, because it’s not necessarily a black and white fill in the blank, you know, boom, check, Mark. You, you know, live the decisions that build your business. Exactly.
Adam G. Force 25:28
Well, listen, I think that’s a good note to wrap up. I think we’ve been on for over 20 minutes. And we’ll jump off here. I hope that was helpful for everybody. We’ll put a there’s a download we’re going to put about storytelling because if we can get you guys acclimated and start understanding more about storytelling for your business, it’s a great first step for you. So we’re gonna put our storytelling roadmap in the first comment or the description here, you’ll get a link and you guys can check that out. It’s totally free. Tons of good insights in there just to kind of get you started. Danielle, you good?
Danielle Sutton 25:59
Yeah. That was a nice chat.
Adam G. Force 26:02
Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast, visit us at Change creator.com forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward
