079 peep laja how to increase your sales without spending more in advertising by EntrepreneursRadioShow

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

EPISODE #79: PEEP LAJA In this episode, Travis speaks with internet guru and successful entrepreneur Peep Laja. Over the years, Peep has been helping entrepreneurs increase their revenue through conversion and teaching them how to optimize their website to get the most out of their products. Peep is the founder of ConversionXL and his wisdom gained through experiences in the past has been crucial in his success today. A lot of things can be learned from this episode as Travis and Peep discuss various strategies that entrepreneurs can utilize to increase traffic and translate this traffic to sales and income. Peep also gave his idea on the common problems that prevent entrepreneurs from converting traffic to business from their website. Things like poor value proposition, using vague language on their website, lack of focus, as well as actions that lack market research and inadequate evidence are some of the common things people inadvertently commit in marketing their product or website. Peep also gave tips and suggestions on things to utilize in order to help your business be the best that in can be in converting traffic to revenue.

Peep Laja – How to increase your sales without spending more on advertising Travis: Hey it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode number 79 of the Entrepreneur's Radio Show, a production of Rockstar Entrepreneur Network. Today I'm going to introduce you to rockstar entrepreneur Peep Laja. It isn't pronounced like it reads, but trust me it's Peep Laja. Now Peep does something that all of us need as a business owner which is conversion optimization. Now, before you put the brakes on and X out of this window or close the app and stop listening because you worry that I'm going to go into a bunch of geek speak that doesn't make sense. Hang in there with me. I assure you what we'll talk about will keep it in a straightforward language so that you can take action on it and apply it to your business. Now, something funny also, Peep rips me anew and during the interview as I was going deeper and I think you might enjoy it. And now, I don't want you to worry, we still ended up friends after it was all said and done, it really didn't get that bad. But listen for that and give me your feedback on it. Now we also talk about what you're probably missing that keeps you from having a constant flow of new clients, along with lots of other important things that you need to know about conversion optimization. So, just so that we're on the same page, conversion optimization is about increasing the amount of business that you get from the sources of marketing that you use. So be sure and stay with us until the very end if you can because I want to share some inspiration with

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

you, plus I've got a contest that I want to tell you about where you'll have a chance to win $73,000 in cash and prizes and a Lamborghini. So be sure and hangout with me until the very end. As you know, everything we do is about helping you and as many entrepreneurs as possible find success and take it to that next level, and hopefully help somebody else in the process. We believe that that is the definition of a rockstar entrepreneur, someone that helps others with the success that they have. Now, before we get started I want to remind you that there's two ways that you can take these interviews with you on the go. The first is if you're an iTunes person you can go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and click on the iTunes button right there in the menu bar and it will take you directly to the podcast on iTunes where you can subscribe to the show there. The second option is while you're at rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com you can click on the Stitcher button and download their free app that allows you to stream all of the shows that you like anytime, anyplace without having to download them or synchronize them. Plus they have a cool way of introducing you to other shows that you may like. So now that we've got that out of the way, without further ado, welcome to the show Peep. Peep: Thank you, thanks for having me. Travis: Yeah, as always, I'm super excited to have you come hangout with us here. I don't know if you're familiar with the format of the show but one of the things we like to do is we like to get a little background as to what brought you to where you're at today and how you found success in your business, how did you become this expert in what you teach? Peep: Well, I used to work in Dubai many, many years ago in an online real estate company, though we sold property online. And so I got fed up with living in Dubai for various reasons and thought, "Hey, I'd like to go explore the world." So I managed to land the job with a new British start-up internet television company in fact, and I could work anywhere I wanted. So I decided, "Hey, I want to learn Spanish." So bought a one-way ticket to Panama of all places. And went and got there, and life was good. Until that start-up, their main investor pulled out all the financing and they couldn't pay me anymore. So I tried to have the choice, whether to go back home and admit defeat or try to make it somehow. Travis: Right. Peep: So I decided to give it a go. So I approached local real estate and tourist companies because I didn't speak Spanish at that time. And so I selected companies that sell to foreigners, sell to English speaking people. And then real estate companies and tourist companies seemed the right fit. And since I have been doing SEO and Adwords and that kind of stuff in my last job, I said, "Hey, why don't you hire me as a search marketer?" And I got a bunch of no's and they all said, "We're interested in what you're offering but we don't need anybody full-time for that." And that gave me an idea. So I

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

registered a domain name called panamainternetmarketing.com, created a website that like I'm an SEO company and emailed those guys back and said, "Hey, I have a company now, I'm offering this as a service", and landed my first clients. So that's how I become an entrepreneur, and I did SEO and PPC and that kind of stuff. Until, in and when I got good results for my clients, good rankings and increased traffic, their sales didn't necessarily grow that much. And that's when I discovered that, "Hey, there's something more to online marketing than the traffic." That's how I got into the conversion stuff. Travis: Interesting, that makes me want to go down a whole different path. So you're stuck in Panama and you don't speak Spanish. Peep: Right. Travis: This sounds like something that I would do. Peep: It was fun. Panama was also great for language learning because hardly anyone speaks English. You can go to a local tourism agency and they maybe have one guy who speaks English. So I was there for a year, I left Panama speaking Spanish. Travis: Very cool. Now take me back to the conversation, you said something that's interesting. You talked about conversion and conversion happens in many, many places. It could be the conversion of a click, it could be a conversion of a visitor, it sounds to me like your methods for increasing traffic and things, well you said were not increasing the business. So it sounds to me like your conversion is deeper in the process than just increasing traffic. Am I correct? And if so, how? Peep: You mean what I do right now? Travis: Well, you were talking about really kind of this turning point and I think early in your business when you were focused on SEO and-Peep: Yeah, I was just focusing on traffic, that's it. Travis: Yeah, focusing on traffic but you noticed that increasing traffic didn't necessarily correlate to increased sales because that's an assumption that most people make, right? Peep: Exactly. Well, there was some correlation but it was not proportionate. Travis: Well, I have my own opinions why, but why? Peep: Well, frankly because the website sucked. In order to get a conversion. And when I talk about conversion, yes it can be getting email subscribers or selling products but I'm mostly talking about either lead generation or money, people buying something. So ultimately it all comes down to the

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

money but some organizations are very lead driven and the transaction happens why sales people face-to-face or over the phone, or what not. Travis: Right. Peep: So in order to get a lot of leads, In order to get increase your sales, yes traffic matters, you need an audience, and relevant, you know, the expectations that the traffic has. Let's say that you put an ad in a website for farmers, there's an ad that say, "Hey, I'm selling Dell PC's," it's totally irrelevant. So that traffic is not going to convert because it's just a mismatch between audiences. So there's where traffic is a huge impact but apart from that if it's targeted traffic then it's your website that has to do the job. Travis: Right. And that's exactly what I was talking about, it goes deeper down. I like the fact that you said conversion is about leads and sales because there's so many people that are lost on this topic. There's even a lot of big businesses that conversion is a like, they're looking for a like. Peep: Yeah, that's BS. It is so complicated to translate a like into money, you know. Like there are various methods out there and various social media, people that I've provided frameworks for calculating that, but it's not the same as somebody coming to your site and pulling out their credit card. Travis: And a like on a site should be a passive benefit of the lead, or the sell, right? Peep: Yeah, and of course in today's world a conversion is a multi-touch process. It takes sometimes 10 interactions with you before they're even considering buying. They first hear about you from a friend then they'll Google you, then they'll see an ad then your re-marketing ads and following them all over the internet. And then they join your list and like your thing, and then eventually they'll buy. So it's not necessarily the first time on your website and they buy right away. In fact that rarely ever happens. It's like maybe 1% of people buy something on their very first visit if your website's good. Travis: Right. I think what you're describing is really a sales funnel, even beyond. Beyond the remarketing that follows people all over so they do finally opt in. And then you follow-up and you provide value and stay top of mind with these people why they're still in the research phase of whatever your service is or product is, right? Peep: Exactly, but it's not a straightforward funnel that there's only one particular right path that they're in. Card page and now they go to the checkout page, and then there's other page. So, it's not a straightforward funnel that it's what a traditional mean as a funnel. So it's a multi-touch world, they'll also probably interact with you on various devices; they'll follow you on Twitter with their smartphone and so on. Travis: Well, I think sales funnel is becoming more and more of a common vocabulary in this day and age over the last year, year and a half. It's been part of marketing vernacular for years but I think the

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

vast majority of business owners are becoming aware of the importance of having a fully integrated funnel. Like you said, maybe person A doesn't go linear down the path. But when it gets off the path there are-- Things are designed in a circular way so that they can gently guide a potential buyer back to buying from you again without becoming a nuisance in the process, right? Peep: Right, exactly. So ideally you would map out all the different touch points. If you go to an Apple Store, the physical retail store, all the leads for the laptops, they're like at a 45 degree angle. So you need to tilt it up in order to see the screen. Why is that? It's to get that first interaction. It's done on purpose. So similar concept, you want to put out as many possible interaction points as you can to have people do something, follow you, like you, and so on. Eventually all that will increase the likelihood of them buying from you. But the linear funnel is very much alive as well, especially let's say on e-commerce, or SAS, or whatever it is, where you have on-boarding process, or you find a product, add it to the cart, and then go through the check-out steps. That funnel is very much alive and you need to measure and optimize that for sure. Travis: So I'm familiar with some of the-- What you talked about with first interaction is microcommitments, setting up micro-commitments here in there that initiate engagement or some type of interaction, right? Peep: Right, exactly. Travis: And I think we know this because we get geeky on marketing metrics. I don't know that most business owners really, completely understand that. But micro-commitments can be a series of littlebity steps that may not say, "Hey, I like you guys," but at least its small indicators that they'll at least take, say 30 seconds to do a quick survey, right? Or they'll click a link to go deeper in the site, or whatever that engagement may be, right? Peep: Exactly. Travis: Now, how long before you made this transition? It sounds to me like you were really forced into becoming an entrepreneur, right? Peep: Yeah, I was kind of cornered. So it wasn't like I planned or wrote a business plan, it was like, "Have to pay the rent now." Travis: Yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention. So what was the transition period before you really started finding some serious levels of success? Peep: Well, of course, that depends on your definition of serious levels. Travis: Just according to you.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Peep: According to me, I think the Panama business it took off within a year. It was doing so well that I thought I'm going to set-up a Pan South American Conglomerate and then set-up all this inter-market nation with all the countries because I was the very first SEO company in Panama. I knock on the door of Air Panama and the CEO said, we have been waiting for somebody like you. So being at right place at the right time is huge. So I felt that that is happening. But in order to do that, in order to build a huge company I cross borders. That means that it's going to take many, many years and I had to choose whether I'll be in Panama and spend my years there and other countries nearby. And hence miss out on all my family, friends, and their kids growing up, and all that stuff. So like personal life. And then I made a decision to just axe the business and leave. So moved to the United States afterwards and also since I'm from Estonia, so I live part of the year in Estonia and part of the year in the US, usually 3 months all year I'm Estonia. And so I started my own marketing thing also in Estonia. My marketing blog there became the most read marketing blog in the whole country within one year. So that was pull for me. Of course I was a big fish in a small pond literally because Estonia is a small country and digital marketing is a niche-field also, at least it used to be back in 2008 and 2009. So I would say that the level of success when I say, "Yeah, I made significant progress and I'm doing well", all of this used to be like a 1, 2 year period in all these different mentions. Like my current blog, ConversionXL, within 1 year I had a 100,000 readers so I think that's pretty good. Travis: One of the reasons why I like to ask and deconstruct this is, and I've said it in several interviews. I feel like so many people are dishonest about the level of success, or what it takes to become successful. They present it in a way that it was a flawless, straight-upward trajectory of success, and I like to deconstruct it and show it that it's really kind of like a boxing match. You've got to fight your way through, and it's a very flawed and jaded. Or maybe not jaded but it's easy to become jaded along the way. But it's a flawed process that requires that you just stay in there and keep pushing. And if you're persistent you can find those levels of success even after traumatic levels of failure, right? Peep: It's absolutely right. All these years I've had so many different ventures and some of the projects that I really invested in, really believed in, and really worked my ass of, those failed. I had start-up software as a service company called Cramedum, platform for building online courses, membership size, that kind of stuff. And I really invested in my time, money, all this stuff and had to shut it down, it didn't take off. And there are some projects where it was like I started it as an afterthought, I said, "Yeah, might as well put up something and see what happens," and those things took off. So again, I come to the point of being at the right time, in the right place, its super important. Look at famous entrepreneurs, Kevin Rose Digg. Digg was big, the front page of internet before when it was became that. And his other companies that he started afterwards, they all failed even though this guy had millions, this guy knew everybody, had connections, money, backing, could not make it work because he was doing the wrong thing.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Right. I think it's easier, people like me and you, we're fast-starters to where we can be brave enough to go to a country that we don't speak the language. And when we're just crazy enough to think that we can do it, right? Peep: Yeah. Travis: And see now, not everybody has that. Most people are filled with doubt and fear. And so, I want everyone to realize that you can have incredible levels of success but you've got to be willing to make some mistakes, maybe look silly, maybe fail several times along the way. But if you're tenacious enough you can push through those things. And so my guess is 50% of the people don't have the bold tenacity like me and you to go to a completely new place that we don't speak the language, right? Peep: Yeah, but you don't have to do that. There are so many safer ways of doing it, and yeah, every failure, it's all full of lessons and it all contributes to eventual success, fail fast, succeed soon. Travis: Right. I'd read something the other day and it said, "No efforts are ever really wasted." And I reflected on that and I've had several things that I've worked my ass off on and acquired a skill, only to not use the skill. And I think, "Man, what a waste of time." Only later to find that it made me much more capable in other things, right? Peep: Exactly right. I started IT in college and hated it, and my first job out of college I was a software developer. I was like, "What a waste of college years, I should've studied something I enjoy." But in hindsight it was fantastic, now I work with so many developers and designers, and so on. So I speak the language, I can call their bullshit, and I also I can create my own software at a small scale if I need to. Travis: Exactly, great point. So walk me down a path of the conversion. Now I completely agree with you that the most important part of conversion is leads and sales. But there's so many aspects of this that people get wrong whether it's a website and other things. Can you give me just off the top of your head? It doesn't have to be exactly 5 but give me the top 5 problems that you think most people typically have with converting traffic to business on their website. Peep: Well, the number 1 problem on most sites is missing or poor value proposition. It's by far the most common problem; I see it all the time. People are smart with very little patience. So, if they come to recite and instantly they can't figure out what is this about, what can I do here, how is this useful to me, and basically answering the question, why should I buy from you and not the competition? If they don't understand that very, very fast, you're going to lose them. Travis: Right.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Peep: So people comparison show all the time. They don't compare whether to buy from you or not to buy anything, typically it's either to buy from you or these 10 other guys. So you need to make a case that if I am your ideal customer, why should I buy from you? And most people fail to do that. Most people are not evening trying. So, the most common strategy is sameness, yet another something. So that's one. Number 2, excuse my language, vague bullshit. So people are just overly vague about what this website is about, what they offer. They try to put fancy passwords and, I don't know what in the copy. So people don't have the patience to play mind games or they won't invest time to figure out and using fancy words and being vague does not make you sound smarter, and it's the opposite. Clarity trumps persuasion every single time. So be very direct about what you do and who you for and what they can get out of you. So, look at your headlines, look at your copy, if it's vague make it clear, make it specific. So that's something I see all the time. Then lack of focus. What is the one thing you want me to do on your page, and not just the website? Your website might have 200,000 pages; it's a decent ecommerce site. Every single page needs to have one particular focus. What do you want people to do there? Also, lead magnets to get people to opt in so you can market through them over email or whatever means. Uninteresting lead magnet is a problem. Most people don't give a good enough offer to opt in to your list, or fill out a form on your landing page, whatever. So lead magnets are usually terrible. For 5th mistake I would say inadequate evidence. People say, "We're the best, we're the fastest, top ranked," whatever. What's the evidence, where's the proof? So it's so easy to use superlatives like "We're the best solution for X," but people don't believe superlatives, people believe specifics. So instead of saying "Best pizza in town," say, "We deliver pizza in 15 minutes." That's specific; everyone's going to believe that. So if you make claims without backing them up you're going to lose. So, anything you claim, you need to provide evidence that that is the case. So yeah, that's 5. Travis: Okay. I've been taking notes here and I'll go back over this. Number 1, missing or poor value proposition. So it sounds to me like they haven't done a good job of maybe having a clear, concise, USP that says we help homeowners do ABC. Is that what you're talking about? Peep: Correct, yes. Travis: Okay. So-Peep: Yeah, so the problem with that is it's about you but it should be about the customer. Travis: So, helping homeowners get ABC without EFG, something like that? Peep: What does the homeowner want? Travis: One of the businesses I own is a home improvement company, and there are quality-focused homeowners that want the removal of risk and poor workmanship. So what do you feel like would be Peep: By saying home improvement, you mean do repair jobs and stuff?

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Yes, correct. Roof replacement, side replacement, things like that. Peep: So, what does the homeowner want that you can only figure out by doing qualitative research? What if the homeowner wants, what are the main touch points, what are the main sources of disappointment in most cases? So usually it's like incompetent people who are always late, don't keep promises, go over-budget. If those are the main things then you can say something like, "We fix a roof on time, on-budget." On time, on-budget of course is a cliché, you should not use that. Coming up with great copy is not something you come up with on top of your head in one-Travis: Yeah, I know it's not easy and it's a little unfair. Let me tell you what we use. You rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. The USP is quality home improvements with an emphasis on service, accountability, and a lifetime guarantee of your satisfaction. Peep: Okay, that's a bunch of vague BS. And you're using language that people do not use. Of course I haven't done research on your audience so I might be wrong, but that will be my first thing, because you're using complicated language as oppose to language that people use when they talk to each other. Its like, "I really need an accountable partner." People don't use that kind of language when they talk to their friends and neither should you. Travis: So it should be language that is common between two people that are having conversation about a business? Peep: Exactly. So you want to capture the voice of the customer. So the best way to do it is you conduct qualitative surveys, whether you do online surveys or telephone interviews, or face-to-face interviews, whatever means. Where you're asking your ideal target group, people who would need home improvement services in whatever area you're offering them in, talk to those people and ask them questions, and pay attention to the exact language and the wording they use to answer your questions. And then you take those sentences and reflect them back to them in your copy. And that's going to resonate the most. Travis: So just do a survey and ask them what they're looking for? Peep: Exactly, but you should be more specific. Travis: What are you looking for in a home improvement company? Peep: No. It's too generic. You want to put people in a particular situation. Like let's say, "When was the last time you needed help? What was the problem?" My roof was leaking or whatever the problem was. Then of course you want to only talk to people who recently experienced something. So they still freshly remember the experience. These people, they don't ever have generic reasons, they have specific reason, "My roof is leaking" or "I'm trying to sell the house and I want to increase the value." So

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

you want to put them in the same frame of mind that is going to reflect the actual story, so you need to capture the use of story. And then it's like, "When you were looking for a service provider to help you with this issue, what were the doubts and hesitations you had before buying from us?" for instance, it's the use of your service. Travis: Okay. Peep: And if, let's say, they sign the contract with you yesterday, so now you interview them. What were your doubts and hesitations before you sign the contract with us? And then they say, "Well, I wasn't sure if you're gonna get it done on time. And it seemed expensive to me," it was like basically you capture the sources of friction in their own wording and basically their fears. And what kind of questions did you have in your mind. Maybe they became a lead on your website, so when you were looking at our website, what kind of questions did you have in your mind that you couldn't find answers to on our website? And again, you want to identify the main questions people have, and also, of course you identify whether there are gaps in terms of content in your website. Travis: So that helps you build out a headline that speaks their language? Peep: Yeah, not just the headline but all of the copy and the way you word your value preposition. Because you want people to come to your website and nod saying, "Yes, that's me. I have these problems." And people having conversations in their brain all the time, they have been thinking about their leaking roof for a long time. So if they see that you use the same language, of course they don't give it any conscious thought, it's all subconscious. When they see that your website speaks the same language as their brain, it's the same conversation, then they're gonna be more interested, they're gonna be more attention, their comprehension is gonna be better. Travis: Yeah, it will feel like you're reading their mind, right? Peep: Exactly. Travis: Okay. And so, then your second item was vague BS on the site. So that really kind of seems like a combination of one, the missing or the poor value proposition, maybe it's just from a different angle, would you agree with that? Peep: Yeah. Travis: Okay. Peep: So value proposition is not a slogan. So value proposition is what do I get for my money that is-How is this value better or different from what other people offer? So it's not just about describing what we do, it's also giving a reason to buy from you, you know.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: That's a great point. And so I guess the point for-- I'm thinking of it and applying it to my own situation, so it's a clear, concise way of stating what differentiates you or makes you better than the competition. Peep: Exactly, and doesn't necessarily need to be better, it might be just different. For instance, if you focus on green stuff. We all use only renewable energy materials, and whatever, whatever, you know. So you appeal to a certain audience that are going to care about that stuff. So it's better to some people but it's not better to some, if you know what I mean. Travis: It doesn't matter to some people and some people it's everything, yeah. Peep: Exactly right. So you might also want to-- If your, my service is for everybody, that's not going to resonate with anyone because there are no average people. Because the average person, if there's a 47-year old man in New York and 14-year old girl in San Diego, the average is gonna be a 35-year old transvestite in Alabama, you know. Travis: Right. That's a good point. And I think that speaks to even a connotation of number 3 which is a lack of focus. So I take that to having a clear understanding of who you're talking to and then speaking in a clear, concise way to them, am I correct? Peep: Correct, exactly. It needs to be clear and people need to be nodding while they're reading it, you know. It's like people need to agree with how you state the problem and the solution. Travis: And so, do you feel like that entails going deep with creating your most ideal avatar and then centering your message around speaking specifically to that person? Peep: Yeah, definitely. Creating customer avatars or personas is a great way and most businesses will have more than one customer personas, which is why on many websites, it's a good idea to try to qualify the visitor first. And this is by giving them instantly a choice. It can't be as simple as I am in interested in 1, 2, or 3, and then the rest of the copy is going to be very specific. Or it's gonna be told the actual user stories. For instance, there's-- Is it Basecamp? The project management software that do a good job selling to you via their existing customers with goal of you saying, "Hey, I'm just like this guy. They're using the software, maybe it's a good fit for me too." Travis: Well, you know, I've seen a manufacturer do something very similar to what you were talking about. So homepage, there's a porthole for are you a retailer? Are you a homeowner or are you a contractor, right? Peep: Yeah. Travis: And so, you go through one of those, whichever one that applies. So the vernacular and everything is geared towards that. Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show

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Peep: Exactly right. However, you need to first understand whether these audiences are equally important. Probably one of them is 80% of their business and the others are just 10 and 10. So hence, in that case you make your website about the target group that is 80%. But you give some more options than are your contractors or whatever. But those are like say, links of lower priority in the whole visual hierarchy. Travis: So what I hear you saying is-- My headphones, they're faded out, can you hear me fine? Peep: Yes. Travis: Okay. So what I'm hearing you say, just to make sure that I'm understanding this is let's say that one group is 80%, you give them more of the prime real estate of the website, is that correct? Peep: Exactly right. So for instance, a website that is this case is campaignmonitor.com, it's an email marketing software. So you go to their website and it's all about the end user, you know. This is what the software does; this is what you can do with it. However, they have a link for agencies and there are many. So there they're qualifying and when they click for agencies, the copy there is going to be geared towards ad agencies, marketing companies. But, I don't know their financials of course, but this is a clear case where bulks of their users are just end-users, not re-sellers. Travis: Right. Peep: So hence, for agencies, it's just a small link. Travis: Right. So you deduced that due to the way things are set-up that obviously end-users as the majority of their clients or at least it should be. Peep: That is definitely my hypothesis. Well, knowing that they are more dedicated, data-driven company, I think that is the case. For a lot of websites out there, you can't make judgments like this because most people are clueless about this stuff, that most people are not data-driven, their website is based on somebody’s opinions, usually a user’s opinion, highest-based person's opinion, or somebody's wife's opinion. Or they're copying they're competitors, not knowing that their competitors don't know what they're doing either. Travis: Right. Yeah, that completely makes sense. So, let's move on to number 4, poor lead magnet. Now, I've seen cases where people, and I forget specifically who it was and it probably wouldn't be good to say anyways. But some fairly well-known companies that their positioning for you to opt-in was get our newsletter. And I'm thinking, "Really, that's your offer?" That's not very compelling to me. Peep: Yeah. Or be up-to-date with our news. So yeah, that's not going to work. And I work with a lot of enterprise-level customers. Do hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue, and when we're working with them to grow their revenue, I'm constantly surprised by how big and successful companies Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

actually clueless inside. So you think that this big famous company that I know very well, they have optin to our newsletter. That means that's a good idea. No, they don't know what to do with either. So conversion stuff is new for most companies. There are few companies out there that are very savvy data-driven and so on, but most are not. It's like most companies have been focusing on reach, and traffic up to today. But with PPC getting ridiculously expensive now and SEO, always changing and getting more and more difficult. Hose dials, SEO and PPC dials have been dialed to the max. So now conversion is the biggest opportunity for growth for most businesses. I guess that's kind of led us astray from the initial question. Travis: No, that makes sense. This show is all about business in all directions, so I love any direction that it goes. This is an organic conversation. What you're describing is just the natural maturation cycle of a business model, and the internet's going through that maturity cycle right now, right? Peep: Yeah. It's not that that's the way, or that's the logical and right order, the first to focus on traffic and then conversions. You can optimize their website for conversions even without any traffic. Sure, you can't split this, I mean, maybe testing will take forever but you can still optimize even without traffic. Travis: Just using commonsense, best practices? Peep: Well that too. Of course, best practice is a slippery slope. If something works for you or something works for some company does not mean at all that it will work for you. But there are many things you can do. One, use your testing. You don't need any traffic to do user testing. You go to usertesting.com, get 5 to 8 or 10 testers, create a test plan, have them do a most business greeting called things on your website, find products, check out, buy, whatever. That's major source of insight. And figure out, do interviews with your customers, your target group, even if you have just 20 customers. Give each one a call and just make sure that you ask good questions. They're not questions like, "How would you rate us from 0 to 10, that is going to be absolutely useless. So you always want to ask open-ended questions. You want to uncover reasons and motivations. So qualitative survey. Then you can install tools like SessionCam on your website that besides creating heat maps, the fence and click heat maps on the site you can record actual user sessions. People who visit your website, their whole visit is recorded so you can just play back the video of them using your site, it's going to be very insightful. Travis: And just watching, it gives you some common sense. It's obvious; you don't need to be a wizard to understand what's going on here. Peep: Yeah, exactly. So you're gonna be seeing that people are not finding stuff. The form that you have on your website, like people are entering incorrect data or they're getting validation errors, meaning that your validation formula sucks. Or maybe there's a fee. For instance, a client of mine, online resume builder, and it's a 5-step flow and a lot of people are dropping off in the 3rd step. Why?

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

We don't know, we can't figure it out. So we watch the videos, the session replay videos, and we observe people fill-out the forms. And people fill-out the forms; everything is fine until they get to the field called references. And it had a 3 mandatory references that you needed to provide. People didn't have any; at least they didn't have 3. So most of them or a good portion of them just abandoned, close the browser. And we would have never found this out had we not watched those videos. So it can be very insightful. And of course, there are conversion heuristics. So, just looking at your site and not just saying having opinions of what's good and what's not, their conversion frameworks. Lift framework is one of the most famous ones. But basically, when you're evaluating any page on your website, there are certain criteria that you should evaluate. Not whether you like it or not, that's completely irrelevant. What you evaluate here is, a major thing is clarity. Can we make this page more clear, more focused? Can we make the wording, the copy more clear? Is it too vague? So you assess the vagueness, the clarity level, so that's one. Then you assess distraction. So what is the one thing we want people to do on this particular page? And anything that is not directly contributing to people taking that one particular action should be removed or minimize, make smaller, not as important. Or if there's anything moving or blinking, this automatic sliders, carousels, rotating images. Those are all distraction that are killing your conversion, they should all go. Then you evaluate the value proposition of course, whether it's clear what people get for their money and why I should buy from these guys. You evaluate friction, what's causing anxiety here. Like maybe I don't feel safe about the credit card, do I give proof to my claims? Do I concern coms about privacy and security, and all those things, trust symbols? If there is enough information for people to make a decision, maybe my form has 27 fields, maybe it's too long. So simplification. So you evaluate these kinds of things and by using this certain framework that immediately helps you do better analysis for each page on your site. Travis: Do you feel like the double opt-in is unnecessary friction? Peep: No. In the long run no. You will have more opt-in, yes. But in the long run the quality of your list is gonna be better if you have double opt-in. I always use double opt-in. Travis: Okay, that's good to know. And so the framework you were talking about, you referred to as lift framework? Peep: Correct, yes. By wider funnel, my friends from Vancouver. Travis: Okay and so number 5 was inadequate evidence. And so, inadequate evidence to me that sounds like the lack of social proof? Peep: Not just social proof but any kind of proof, social included. So if you say, "We're the best roof builders in Alabama." So how is that claim true? And then you say, "Well, we won then your roof builder's competition 5 years in a row." Well, that's proof, you know. Or you say, we were voted whatever in a magazine, or public opinion poll, or we have served 5 million customers since 1995. That

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

demonstrates that maybe people use you and you've done this for a very long time. So this is all social proof. Travis: So use empirical proof whenever possible? Peep: Exactly. And if you're in B to B, mention some of your more better known customers, "We work with all these companies." So whatever proof you can manifest, the best proof is some third party proof. If you say that my car consumes the less fuel, then what's the EPA measured number there, how many miles per gallon? Travis: Man, this is a lot of great of information. It's a lot to think about, even the levels that you've gone into with the lift framework and the SessionCam are brilliant. We've used some similar software like that before. How do they track eye movement? I don't quite understand that. Peep: Well, they don't, they use an algorithm for that because basically they look at the mouse cursor movement. And there's some evidence that people look where the mouse cursor is, so there's some correlation. Travis: Okay. Peep: So that they won't tell you exactly that this is where people look, but they give you general areas on your page that seemed to get more mouse cursor hovering action. Travis: Okay. It seems kind of creepy that they could potentially be watching your eye movement. Peep: Yeah. Of course there are tools that enable to do that but eye tracking is still very expensive. Travis: Okay. Peep: So yeah, it's done with mouse. So click tracking of course is easy, they just record where people click and then areas that get more clicks get more red in the heat map. Travis: Right. Hey, we're running a little long on time. What do you say we transition into the 3 questions that I sent you, are you ready? Peep: Let's do it. Travis: Alright. We call it the lightning round. So the first question was what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you'd recommend and why? Peep: So years ago when I started, it was the book called Purple Cow by Seth Godin, of course, which is all about how you can stand out in the market comes down to the value proposition thing we were talking about. But recently that book that changed my life was The Lean Startup. If you're starting a

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

business or growing your business and you have not read Lean Startup, you're doing yourself a big disservice. I told you earlier that I had a startup called “Train them that failed.” Had I read Lean Startup, that business might be very well alive and very successful because I did every mistake in the book. So read Lean Startup. Travis: Interesting. And so, even if a business is past the initial startup phase, you feel like it still applies? Peep: Absolutely, for further expansion react into the market, changing your core offering, developing new services. A lot of B companies use Lean Start-up method. Intuit being one of them. Travis: Okay, great. I want to put that-- I've heard several great recommendations about that book. I've always set it aside because I think I'm pass that phase, right? Peep: Right. Travis: And so that's encouraging to know, I've heard a lot of great things about that book. Thanks for that. What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and why? Peep: Well, I would recommend SessionCam that we already talked about briefly. So yeah, SessionCam that records your user's sessions plus the attention heat maps like click heat maps, and scroll maps. So you can see how far down people scroll in your site. It's very insightful. There are many other tools that do similar things but the SessionCam, I've been using it for the last maybe 3 months and that's my favorite so far. Travis: And you've tried some of those other ones. I think Crazy Egg does it. Peep: Yeah, there's ClickTale but ClickTale doesn't record dynamic content. So if there's personalized content, it would just show that this is the area where the dynamic content goes. It doesn't show you what was the content that the users saw. So that's the problem with ClickTale. There's Crazy Egg but Crazy Egg does only heat maps, no user session replays. Travis: Okay. Peep: So SessionCam gets my vote here. Travis: Okay. So SessionCam it is. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or your attitude in business? Peep: That would be Richard Branson, “Screw it, let's do it.” Travis: I read that book. Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show

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Peep: Yes, that was amazing. Travis: Yeah. Hey, Peep, what superpowers do you have that you'd like to share with us that very few people know about? Peep: Whoa, what superpowers? Well, I can look at your website and some data, and I can tell you where your website is leaking money. I have that magical gift. Travis: That's a great gift to have; many people need help with that. You've got to promise to use that gift for good. Peep: Yeah, that's always the case. Travis: If you had to start over today, what would you do to get the fastest results? Peep: Quantum marketing, help people for free with my skill. Travis: And why do you say that? Peep: You need proof that you know what you're talking about, you need results that speak for themselves. So I would instantly start a blog for quantum marketing and to showcase my work, and show that I know who I am, what I'm talking about, prove my expertise. And then I would reach out to some companies that I think I can help. And without no money, so there would be very little friction on their part. Of course there's always gonna be some friction. Travis: Right. Peep: But land my first customers that I'm gonna help for free to build a portfolio, case studies that I can then use as proof in my future sales process. Travis: Yeah, great point. I agree with you 100%. Hey, can you hangout a couple more minutes with me? Peep: Sure. Travis: I'm gonna wrap things up. Listen, how do people connect with you? Peep: My blog, ConversionXL.com, it has my contacts also on it, it's my blog, it's very popular conversion blog, and also very useful, so read it. Travis: You're a genius my friend, it's been an honor and a lot of fun to hang out with you and talk about these things. Peep: Well, thank you for having me. Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Listen, I want to remind you guys that you can get all the links to the books and the resources mentioned in the show in the show notes. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. It's a brand new site that we're building out that's completely focused on giving you the resources to grow your business. Before I close the show today I want to remind you that building an extremely profitable business is a formula, a lot like what Peep has been talking about even with conversion. Just as I mentioned at the intro of the show with each and every show. This is a formula that I've used to build multiple million dollar businesses. And so based on this and my belief that we need as many successful entrepreneurs as possible right now, we've put together a free program called the Business Breakthrough Sweepstakes. See, I've already taken your advice Peep. Peep: Excellent. Travis: So again, this program is free and you'll have a chance to win $73,000 in cash and prizes and an opportunity to win my personal Lamborghini. For more information just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and click on the sweepstakes promotion. My quote for today comes from John F. Kennedy, and the quote reads, "Things do not happen, things are made to happen." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. Remember, no matter where you're at in your journey as an entrepreneur, what you're doing really does matter so keep it up. To your incredible success, you want to say goodbye Peep? Peep: Goodbye everybody, come to ConversionXL.

End of Interview Travis: Yeah, go see Peep over there. Take care.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

How We Can Help You We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That’s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost. Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever! We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within your business. This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons are. As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re in the middle of a daily management. And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial. This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show “Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

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