To website or not to website that is the question

Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Disobedient Business Podcast! This week, we're diving deep into the world of website creation for early-stage businesses. Pippa is joined by the wonderful Dom Marshall from DMARZ Designs, an expert in SquareSpace and UX design. Together, they discuss everything from the pros and cons of building a website in your business's first year to the practical steps and middle grounds for those just starting out.

If you've ever been hung up on selecting fonts, colours, or even the decision to create a website, this episode is packed with actionable advice and humorous anecdotes to help you launch your online presence without getting trapped in a design vortex. Whatever your new business is, this episode offers valuable insights and tips to get your website off the ground effortlessly. Tune in for an engaging discussion that mixes practical tips with a fun, relatable approach!

Key points in this episode:
00:00 Welcome to the episode!
00:30 Website Essentials for New Businesses
04:00 Designing for User Experience
17:10 Efficient Website Creation Strategies
21:35 Overcoming Website Design Challenges
39:11 Final Thoughts and Guest Connection

About Dom
Dominique Marshall is the founder of Dmarzdesigns, a Squarespace website and UX design studio. She specialises in working with coaches, wellness practitioners, and service providers, helping them simplify and strengthen their online presence so they can go from shying away to showing up confidently with an intuitive, intentional, and impactful website. Dom offers multiple website design services, including two-week sprints, VIP design days, and website audits.

Where to find Dom
Website
Instagram
LinkedIn

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Transcript

Pippa: 0:30

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Disobedient Business Podcast. And this week, I am getting into it around creating a website when you are in those early years of your business. And I am talking to the wonderful Dom. Actually, there's a good place to start, Dom. Dom, do you prefer Dom or do you prefer Dominique? Dom. Excellent. So I'm talking to the wonderful Dom Marshall. Dom, welcome.

Dominique: 0:57

it's good to have you here.

Pippa: 0:58

It's so, we were already talking just before the call about, how we've kind of orbited each other for several years now, but we've never actually spoken. So, this is fresh, fresh and new and never previously debated and discussed.

Dominique: 1:11

Yeah, all gloves are off for this one.

Pippa: 1:14

to right, yes, let's get into it. I should have got one of those like special effect noise things where you can go ding ding. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so, um, as anybody that listens regularly will know, we are really getting into it with, the things that kind of preoccupy the minds of folks, particularly, service based business folks, where they're starting their businesses in that first year. And Dom and I are going to be kicking around websites and, the pros and cons and so on today. But Dom, first, before we kind of get into the, the juicy bits, tell us a little bit about you, your background, what you do, what's your business, just give us it all. Go on. Oh!

Dominique: 1:56

I'm the founder and creative behind DMARC Designs. I basically do Squarespace website design and UX design for wellness practitioners, coaches, and other spiritually curious small business owners, basically just to help them create a website that, you know, Reflects who they are and what they offer and have it as a means for them to stop shying away and sharing their amazingness and actually go forth and attract those opportunities that they actually want and propel themselves towards that big brand vision that they start with and just like, how do I get here? So it's like, let's get to it. So yeah, that's me. my background, I am, I used to work full time as a UX designer. I think I've been in my business full time for about seven months now.

Pippa: 2:42

Congratulations! That's amazing!

Dominique: 2:44

you. and it's weird because I've actually been running my business for, I think this is the fifth or sixth year. So even though it's been quite a while already, I think going full time in it just makes it feel like it's brand new. So yeah, go through all the ups and downs of that at the minute, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Pippa: 3:02

And isn't it funny though, and here is a little bit of a reality check, if you are listening to this episode and you are in those earlier stages of business. I heard you say, like, seven or eight years there, Dom. I was not dissimilar, to be honest with you, it was five or six. And had it not been for the pandemic, it possibly would have been longer. that's kind of the reality, folks. The stuff that you're being sold out there in the world that says, Sure, start a side hustle and I'll be full time in my side hustle within three months because I'll have made six figures, is absolutely categorical, hot, stinking bullshit.

Dominique: 3:31

Mm hmm.

Pippa: 3:33

Just such nonsense. Okay, I'm curious, because you peaked my interest now, so I'm just, the script has gone out of the window, not that there was one. Tell me a little bit more about this mythical UX designer stuff, because my youngest and I talk about this fairly frequently, and I totally get that UX stands for user experience. Great, wonderful. But that is such a, a broad term without putting some definition behind it. So what, in a website designer, online experience point of view, what, how, how is it, you know, what does that include? What, what is a UX designer?

Dominique: 4:08

So it's one thing I was grappled with in terms of figuring out how to talk about it for small businesses compared to the corporate world, because they are two completely different things. So even though it's like all encompassing, I would say for small business owners, see UX as a way to make your website as easy and intuitive to use as possible. It's about removing the friction. It's about, making it easy for people to navigate and actually find out who you are, what you do, and how to contact you. It's about just the experience and how you're making people feel when they're landing on your website, or even not just on your website, anywhere that you're showing up online, because it is about that. the experience in your brand world, essentially. It's like, how are you conveying that? How are you conveying the vibe that you want to come across? How are you conveying your personality? are you actually talking to the right people? Are you saying the right things? Are you sharing the right things? All of that stuff. So that's how I would describe it in layman's terms, essentially.

Pippa: 5:05

Yeah, no, that's perfect. And that would marry up with my experience of doing it, if you like. Not that I, haha, hilarious. Not that I would put myself out there as a UX designer in any way, shape or form. But my own kind of like practical day to day experience of crafting an intentional experience for people to go through. Which, amongst many things, definitely is all about reducing friction and helping people connect with you in some way. 100%.

Dominique: 5:29

Yeah, exactly.

Pippa: 5:30

Cool. Glad we cleared that up. So if anyone's ever been, sitting there seeing all these adverts for UX designers, et cetera, that's what we're talking about. So, so we're here to talk about websites in the context of, newbie business owners, probably more likely to be service based, but you know, newbie business owners generally. And in those kind of heady, well, they're kind of where heady days meet stressy days, those first 12 months, aren't they? It's like. It's, it's, Oh my God, I'm so fucking excited with, Oh my Jesus Christ, where do I even start? And everything in between, right?

Dominique: 6:03

of those

Pippa: 6:03

So I'd love to, explore with you the, well, so what I see in my coaching practice, I'm working with, both experienced, but, and also newbie business owners is that when they embark upon the And it's a task in their project management system, right, that just says create website. and that's the point at which I kind of want to find the, the homosymptom disappearing into the hedge meme and, and GIF and just kind of go, oh fuck, there's nothing about that that's going to go well. However, it really isn't. However, I see it often as a massive issue, a massive barrier. It becomes a big thing. And in my experience, it's often not been helpful, to be quite honest with you, to go down that pathway. Now, I don't think that's me pitching for saying don't have a website in the first five months of your business. Neither is it me pitching for saying do. So what I'd love to kick around, I'd love to kick around with you, is what the argument kind of for, and then we can come on to the the kind of counter arguments against, spending some time brackets and or money on creating an online presence in the form of a website as opposed to existing online anywhere, because obviously they can be two very different things, can't we? in that first 12 months, so It's really like an entirely open room of we can take this conversation wherever we want to take it. but can you, so let's, let's do the sell first. Let's do the, why, why would it be a good idea and what are some of the perhaps helpful things to know to create a website of some description in your first year in business?

Dominique: 7:43

So argument for having a website. I would say it's one o f those things where when you think about When someone recommends something to you, the first thing you do is you go to Google to search it.

Pippa: 7:54

Oh yeah, you do, don't you? Fuck.

Dominique: 7:58

so yes, granted, like if you've, if you're spending time building social media profiles, they will all be there, but there will always be people who won't necessarily want to do business with someone who doesn't have a website. Like no matter what it is you're doing, no matter how much your pricing is or anything like that, if you don't have a website, they're just not going to contact you. And I would say if even if it's your first 12 months and you're still just finding your footing with your business, I would advocate for at least even just having like a one page website just to have

Pippa: 8:29

Yeah.

Dominique: 8:30

just to have straightforward information about who you are, what services you're offering, who your target audience is, how people can contact you, and ideally a way to join your email list as well. Just so that you've got that foundation already set up and then as you're going through The business journey as it is, you can update the website and you've already got that foundation already set. You're not necessarily having to think back retroactively to like a year or two after you started your business and you're like, fuck, I don't have a website. I need to get one up now. Like I would always say, just get something up even no matter how small it is, just start that foundation. cause it's, it's something that you can always refer people back to. Like, say you start going to like networking events or. Join small business groups and stuff like that. It's always best to just send them to obviously send them to your Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever, but also send them your website because if they say, Oh, I know so and so who wants your services. Great. Here's my website. Here's how they can contact me. So

Pippa: 9:27

Okay. So, lots in there. talk us through a bit more about this concept of a one page website, because I couldn't agree more if you're going to go down the route of creating something and not get hung up on it. on the minutiae of the detail that you don't know yet, which we can get into a bit more in a minute. a one page website is by, absolutely by far the simplest way to go. Talk to us a little bit about the kind of purposes of that, or the, or the, what would be included on that in a bit more detail. What, what would a good one page website look like?

Dominique: 10:02

Ooh, what would a good one page website look like? In my head, I would say it would be almost kind of like a sales page, but not one of those waffly, novel, like, 10 page, ugh, I just can't.

Pippa: 10:15

What, you don't like those? Well, Dom, I am surprised. If it's going to take me longer to read your sales page than it is to read the book that I'm reading at the moment, you can fuck all the way off. Noob.

Dominique: 10:29

Really hammer home the empathy and why someone needs to buy your services, but it really doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to take an hour of my time to read your sales page.

Pippa: 10:38

Anyway, back to the one page website.

Dominique: 10:40

essentially like a sales page. so again, just starting off with a really clear statement about who you are, what, who you work with, what you do, a little bit of information about basically about you and about your business. So people can understand. What the vision is, what your mission is, what it is you're actually here to do, how you're here to stand out, bit of information about the services that you provide, obviously if there's like two or three that you have, give them prominent space on the one page, make the contact form really obvious and really clear, make your pricing really obvious and clear. even if it's just a starting from price as well. Cause I know one thing when you're starting as a small business owner, you're just like, Oh my God, do I show my prices? Am I pricing too low? Am I overcharging? That's a whole nother

Pippa: 11:23

going to say, mate, we could do another episode on pricing, couldn't we?

Dominique: 11:26

Yeah, it's a whole nother conversation. and yeah, it's basically just kind of thinking about, Essentially every page on your website is going to be a journey from top to bottom. So think about what it is you want people to know from the moment they first find out about you to what's the middle stuff. So like the services in a bit more detail, et cetera, and then how they can contact you, just keep it really. straightforward, and don't feel like you need to cram it with every little thing about your business because you really don't. But I would, yeah, I would just keep it really simple. And then obviously that can, that can grow into a two page, a four page website later down the line. But if you're really struggling to get started, just start with a one page and then expand from there

Pippa: 12:07

Cool, Cool, cool, I like that. So, here's where I see people, and this might be me going into the counter, I see, I'm mixing it up now, going into the counter argument and merging it all together. But where I see people getting really stuck, particularly folks that I've worked with that are brand new, and often coaches, to be honest with you, I've worked with a lot of new coaches that, trained and graduated through the same academy that I trained with back in 2016. And, in order to put said one page, or, or 10 pages, or any kind of pages together website, they've got to be a certain amount of clear about a certain amount of things.

Dominique: 12:46

Yeah.

Pippa: 12:47

And, They've got to write words, in some way, shape or form. And they've got to make decisions on things like vibe, and fonts, and colours, and photographs, and all this kind of jazz. And what I tend to find happens is, because that spirals, even when you're trying to put something into a one page of, it's never enough, or I'm not clear enough, or I haven't got, you know, I haven't done A, B, C, D, E, and a lot of other letters of the alphabet. it becomes this, well it becomes this 12 month long project. And that's fine. I'm not saying that that's necessarily wrong. I mean, maybe taking 12 long, but I think what worries me more with, particularly with newbie business owners, where they haven't worked in a kind of business world before, so they may be incredibly skilled at the thing that they do, but this is their absolutely, you know, like, first rodeo, etc. and that is that they use that, single task in their project management list as a reason, probably, certainly not intentionally, to do absolutely nothing else.

Dominique: 13:53

Yep.

Pippa: 13:54

So we kind of touched upon this before we pressed the record button a little bit, which is that idea that they've gotta get the copyright. They've now suddenly gotta go and get professional photographs or at least something possible. And, you know, a selfie in the bathroom is not, isn't the one. they've gotta be clear on their, or don't even get me started on niches. They've gotta be clear on their niche or they've gotta be clear on their elevator pitch or. They've got to be absolutely crystal clear about who they work with. And the one thing I can say without any shadow of a doubt, absolutely is 100 percent true, is that the clarity on all of those things does not come from sat here at this desk thinking about it

Dominique: 14:31

hundred percent.

Pippa: 14:32

and playing in Canva or any other app of your choice. It comes from doing, it comes from working with people, clients in whatever capacity the services are that you provide.

Dominique: 14:43

Mm.

Pippa: 14:44

So you've got yourself a bit of a chicken and egg situation there because people's own inbuilt need for things to be, maybe even not perfect, but good enough to be put out there for somebody to land on their website and be like, Oh, okay, fantastic. Pippa's got a website or whatever. hangs them up because they're not clear about all of those other things. And they end up in this massive, like, swirling, intercepting Venn diagram of never ends maze thing.

Dominique: 15:11

Yeah.

Pippa: 15:12

Because one, you know, the, the, I don't know, there's that image of the animal consuming its own tail situation. You just don't get the answer because one thing informs the next, and hence 12 months later your website's still not done. Or you've paid, or you've given up and you've paid a ton of money to a brand consultant and this and that and the other to try and get clear on those things. And not earned any money in the meantime.

Dominique: 15:32

Yeah. Which is why you wanted to make a business in the first

Pippa: 15:36

well, well, you can't win unless it was for fun, in which case they're cool. So I'm trying to find what the kind of middle ground between those is, and I'd love to know what thoughts you've got around, how do you have something, because I totally agree with you. If I was to see somebody that I didn't already know, or wasn't already recommended to me, because short caveats, and I, they didn't have a website, or I went to their website and it was truly dreadful, I mean, Probably more, I'd probably judge it more from a, ironically from a UX point of view than I would from a, whether I did or didn't like the font colour that they used or whatever. how, you know, get, get me to the thing that I want easily and if you can't do that then I'm gone. But how can we find a kind of middle ground that works for people that are in that situation where they can actually focus maybe 25 30 percent of their time on that and, you know, 70 75 percent of their time on actually finding people that will pay to work with them.

Dominique: 17:24

think that's, that's definitely one of the hardest things to do. Cause I know I was in that exact same situation and I'm a website designer. Can you imagine?

Pippa: 17:32

Yes!

Dominique: 17:34

Like that shit is hard to do. As much as, like, I know in the past I've done it and I know loads of others in the industry do as well, like, yes you can get a website in a day but is it actually what, is it really clear, like, is it clear for you as the business owner why you have the website and what it's actually doing for you? So, yeah, it is very, very tough. I, I guess the middle ground, this can be quite easy to say, easier said than done, but it's just being really efficient with your time. and just not seeing the website as not the whole of your business seeing it as a part of your ecosystem And again When you're a new business owner, the best thing for you to spend your time on is actually getting the clients and doing the work that you want to build your business on. Because like you said, unless you, until you start doing that, the clarity from everything else just isn't going to be there because you'll just go back and forth and you'll keep assuming like, is this actually what I want to do? Is this where I want to work with? And all of that stuff. So, and obviously all of that information will feed into your website because you wouldn't be able to, bring in more clients who align with what it is you want to do. So what is the middle ground Pippa?

Pippa: 18:46

ha ha ha!

Dominique: 18:47

I, I, I guess the middle ground, I would say one of the ways you could do it is to go down the website template route, the copywriting template route. it's basically just, it's one of those things where if you can, investing in those things will just help to start you off on the right foot. So you're not starting from scratch. I see. always the thing that will just get you that little bit further rather than you staying stuck in it, stuck in your head and assuming everything because the more that you do that, the more you're not going to move

Pippa: 19:17

Yeah, I actually, you know what, I think that's probably what I would have said about the middle ground as well. I would say find the, and I'll ask you what your thoughts are on this at the moment, in a minute, find the easiest possible platform to host something on which requires no fuck assing around with mobile responsiveness and all the rest of it that's built, that's 100 percent totally reliably built in, which is probably not going to be the kind of platform that you want to use long term. In fact, I guarantee it's not the platform you want to use long term for your business, but. You know talking does the job and absolutely that get yourself a one page website template for that platform Get yourself a template that comes with copy examples that basically says right above the fold So that's a bit the bit that you see on the screen before you've scrolled at all and bearing in mind folds are going to be very different whether you're sitting on my 14 inch Macbook or somebody else's 30 inch god knows what monitor You're going to see quite a lot more on a 30 inch monitor from a scrolling point of view And I fill in the blanks to as, to the best as you possibly, possibly can using your own tone of voice and not getting too preoccupied with, what it should say or how it should sound. And trust me, no one's gonna, no one's gonna be ready to hear that until they've been two or three years into business. But actually, if there's one thing that I could say to some people, it's like dispense from day one with whatever it should say, how it should sound, how it should be structured. and speak it into existence in the way that you would have this conversation, right?

Dominique: 20:46

right? How you talk. That's the simplest way to do it. Like, even if it's a case of, Recording yourself talking and

Pippa: 20:53

yeah, yeah. yeah.

Dominique: 20:54

There you go. You don't even have to think

Pippa: 20:56

Yeah, and if you're an oral pro and in actual fact I am very much a verbal processor, in the sense that if I've got something going around in my head, I don't necessarily need somebody to give me feedback and all the rest of it, but I need to talk at someone for all I'll I'm just really sorry, but you know, I don't necessarily need you to participate, but if I could just talk at you, that'd be great. but some of us are like that, kind of, we do our best work as such when we talk like this, rather than having to sit there with a blank page and write copy. That's like, lives in the same place as create content, doesn't it? We're just like, blech. So talking about find yourself, a great template, and with all the sort of copy tips and directions and things built in, totally agree. If you were without your, without, without your great experience as being a SquarePipe space designer, et cetera, because that's obviously going to color your decision as to what platform you would use. So in terms of platforms, that kind of cancels out the likes of I don't even want to say the word Wix out loud in a sentence because it upsets me deeply. possibly Squarespace, because on the one hand Squarespace is wonderful, templated, and all the rest of it. But actually, my personal experience, and I'm very happy to be corrected because I haven't used Squarespace for a while, is that even when you buy a Squarespace template, the minute you start plugging in your own colours or you change the fonts, Everything will go out of how the original designer intended it to look, of course, because all of the line spacing and the sizing and the spacing between the letters and all the rest of it was all way already Pre formatted to fit the font that they chose. So, you know, there is this There is this kind of suggestion that you just buy this thing and stick your own font in there But if you bought something that had this beautiful serif font in it, or a beautiful script font in it for a certain heading, and then you went and plugged your, I've decided on this font sans serif, et cetera, type thing in, it's not, the vibe, not, it's not going to be very,

Dominique: 22:52

It won't be the same.

Pippa: 22:53

even slightly similar, not at all, right? So where would you say is the, the easiest kind of plug and play straight into mobile responsiveness, just plug your information in? usable platform at the moment because, and I think somebody needs to design one because I'm not convinced one really truly exists but

Dominique: 23:12

No, cause like you said, there's always going to be a caveat once you put in your own branding and stuff because obviously The whole point of a template is for it to be a foundation for you to build on and change so that it actually matches your brand and your vibe rather than it matching what you bought it as in the demo. in terms of everything built in, obviously, I'm going to be biased as well as Squarespace because that's what I use. but I guess it all depends on what the service is. Obviously if you're service based, then most people will say either Squarespace or show it or WordPress. Yeah, same as you. I don't, I don't want to mention

Pippa: 23:48

Oh no, I just, it puzzles me, it really does and yet so many folks understandably used it when they started out and trying to find the time and all the resources to be able to migrate away is, it's not a two minute job, right?

Dominique: 24:01

No, exactly. and obviously if you're a product based business, then I would definitely say Shopify because that's what it's built for. but yeah, I guess one reason why I do like Squarespace is because it does have the desktop and the mobile responsiveness built in. they do have. default templates you can start with. They've even updated, their editor recently. So you can just pick font packs. So they've given you like headings and paragraph fonts that pair together really well. They've got color themes that you can pick from as well. So it kind of helps you to, helps to guide you through the process of designing your own website when you don't have the means or the funds to actually work with the designer to help you do it. but again, it does come down to, it, it, it. does involve thinking about the creative side, which can hang people up, but it's one of those things where I will say, imperfect is better than perfect, just start with something. Like it will always change. It's never going to be static. Your website is never going to be finished. So set yourself that time to be like, okay, I'm going to, I'm aiming for this for this reason. Let's do it and just get something done. And something that I did a lot when I was redesigning my own website was asking for support from other people. Whether they were people who were somewhat aligned to my idle clients or just people that I trusted just getting another pair of eyes on what you're working on can just help you to progress rather than Again, rather than you staying stuck in your brain and thinking is this right? Is this not right? Have I done it? Right? Have I not done it? Right? Just Getting someone else's opinion on it can just help you to take the next step to actually getting your website live.

Pippa: 25:36

And I'm going to say something that I think some people might think is quite, well certainly So, yeah. We will. If you, Evie and I were having this conversation, put it this way, I'm absolutely sure Evie would have something to say about this. However, however, for everybody else listening, Evie is a mutual friend who's a, amongst other things, graphic designer. So, I can't help but think, actually, if you're a brand shiny new business and you're kind of going down that single page website path of least resistance, I need something live, I want it to look my version of professional, I want to be able to send people to somewhere, even if long term, lots of things are going to change and so on. I think if I was going to be in that situation now, I would probably start with Squarespace. I agree with you. And I would probably buy a single page, as cheap as I can find, single page, Squarespace template. And I would change the content. Nothing in terms of the I would find the one that I vibed with, you know, so at least identify in your mind visually whether you're someone who's like lots of white space, bold colours, big font presence, or are you boho, wander on the beach, scripty font types of, you know, find one that kind of feels like you, and feels like the industry that you're serving. You know, can't just be, I quite like it, I vibe it looks like my living room. That doesn't work. and don't change the fonts. Don't get hung up on, I don't know whether you've seen this with folks that you've worked with, but so obsessed with the need to be individual that they get a template, they change out all the fonts, it's then a clusterfuck, they can't get it to look so called professional, or up and together, you know, it's not, coherent, you know, the whole thing doesn't hang together as a single thing. But what, who cares? I mean, maybe change a couple of colours if you really feel that way inclined. But keep the fonts. Somebody professionally way more capable than you designed it, well not than you, but than everybody else, designed it in such a way that those fonts work together and that spacing works and those colours work and so on. Just put your information in there, press publish and off you go.

Dominique: 27:44

literally. And that's all you need to do, really. You don't need to, yes, it's important to stand out in your industry and all of that malarkey, but when you're starting out, what you. What you start with in the first, say, three to four months could be very different to the vibe that you want to chat people with by month 12. So just starting somewhere is definitely, it's definitely something.

Pippa: 28:08

I'm sorry I shouldn't have laughed in the middle, but I'm laughing because I've done all these things like most of us have and I've probably had think and counting five domain names. I don't just mean as in I've purchased them and I've actually hosted my website on five separate domain names and I've probably design wise, if you can call it that, had probably the best part of 10 iterations now And they weren't even similar. If I could show you some of the, some of the things that I thought lived in the, this is the way I should display my business online because this is what people expect from me. I am a coach, and I do this, and I, you know, so on and so forth. you'd, you'd die laughing. I should, I might, I might have to try and dig out some of the images and stick them in the show notes. They were absolutely atrocious. And the one that, interestingly enough, represented me the least well, and through no fault whatsoever of the graphic designer and the website designer that worked together to put it together, and copywriter, whole, whole team, were the very first, people that I hired. So I qualified as a coach in the October, hired these three different folks, all who were used to working together. from November through January. Launched my website in February. Absolutely professional looking, up and together, functioned beautifully. SEO'd up the wazoo and all the rest of it. Total bullshit. Didn't represent me in any way, shape or form. Didn't resonate with me. Didn't resonate with people that I work with. And I probably spent five or six thousand pounds all told, across working with these three. But all people I still know and have a huge amount of respect for. Their work, Absolutely flawless. My contribution to this process, in terms of what I represented and what have you, total bullshit. Total bullshit.

Dominique: 29:53

and that's the thing that I don't think people understand when it comes to things like website projects or even branding projects. You can't expect the designer to know your business more than you. It all, it all stems from you and your vision and what your business is. We're just trying to help you elevate that rather than giving you something. So yeah, you definitely understand.

Pippa: 30:16

Amen to that. Yeah. I don't really want to use the metaphor of you can't polish a turd, because, you know, we're not suggesting your early business is a turd. Ha! But, you know, shit in, shit out. So if you don't have a really great grasp of who you are, what you stand for, what your values, and your character, and your personality, and all those kind of things are as they represent in your business, as opposed to necessarily everything about your personal life, obviously, all of that stuff informs a website design, all of that stuff informs the structure, the colours, the fonts, absolutely everything.

Dominique: 30:55

Like that's, that's why for my website design projects, I always start with the brand strategy side of things to actually understand stuff. the business as a whole. Cause I know that even though most website first impressions are built on what it looks like, it's how you're actually making people feel and how you're connected with them. It's actually going to get them to buy from you. It's the actual substance underneath the prettiness. And that's why in the brand strategy process, I've had a lot of clients be like, Oh my God, I never thought I'd be my, I've never thought about my business in as much depth as this before. And it's just like, yeah, this is all the stuff that you should really know, like from. from the top of your head to the tip of your toes like this is what is actually going to help people connect from you and yeah people just don't as especially newbie business owners and I know I was the same as well you just don't think to you just never think to actually think about those things in as much depth so that's And then there's no wonder why you end up changing your website like 10 20 times in the first three months. You're like, I don't know who I am.

Pippa: 31:56

And you know what? Whether you use this particular pink hex code or this particular pink hex code, might stop someone in, in their tracks, sure. You might grab someone's attention, or the massive bont, bontfold, font, bold font, fucking hell, bold font that you use in your head also might, but you're not going to hold their attention beyond that if you haven't got something to say to them. And I think that brand, voice, strategy, messaging, that whole communications piece. comes out of time, and it comes all the way back to what you and I were talking about about 10 15 minutes ago. It comes out of doing, it comes out of working with people, exactly the same way as your niche does, and exactly the same way of how you need to talk to folks does, and not so much that you need to change your own voice, but what it is they need to hear to feel like your services are the kind of services that they need. And you're not going to have that in day one.

Dominique: 32:52

No, exactly.

Pippa: 32:53

I don't think it's either of us saying that that stuff's not important, but if you don't have it at the beginning, and you don't have the luxury of waving a magic wand to like make it fucking be, because it's like, ta da, here it is, then my personal view is, go with something template wise that's aesthetically pleasing, that represents you as much as you think it could do as a personality, and your industry as a personality, Plug in the best words you can come up with, change very little until you know more, and then when you know more, change it.

Dominique: 33:28

Exactly.

Pippa: 33:29

Yeah.

Dominique: 33:31

Imperfection for the win.

Pippa: 33:32

Too right.

Dominique: 33:34

and build up from there.

Pippa: 33:36

get support from somebody. It doesn't have to be a coach, but get support from somebody that can help you deal with This idea of, I'm gonna put something out into the world that represents me online that isn't exactly spot on,

Dominique: 33:51

Mm hmm. A

Pippa: 33:52

you'll never press the publish button.

Dominique: 33:54

hundred percent. And this is why, this is why I actually started, offering website clarity sessions as well. They're basically website audits just to help. Cause I realized that people were just getting stuck. Like whether that was, you know, launching their website, creating their website, or even updating their website. Sometimes you do just need, like we were saying earlier, you just need that second pair of eyes or that second opinion to hash things out with and actually understand what things to change so that your website relates to your business goals, not just. based on not just have a website because it looks pretty like you want it to actually be working for your business and be bringing money in. So yeah, that's one thing that I've really enjoyed doing recently as well. It's just walking people through their website like I'm a brand new person that has never interacted with them before and just been like, This is missing. How about you add this and all of this stuff and people, people's minds have been blown at the things I've said to them. I'm like, it's as simple as

Pippa: 34:48

Yeah.

Dominique: 34:49

but unless you, you don't know what you don't know. So yeah.

Pippa: 34:55

I don't know, six or eight months or so, someone said to me, there's absolutely no way of contacting you on your website. I was like, all right then. Sure, I get that. Sorry, my bad. Still haven't got a contact page, but we just do the whole email in the footer situation.

Dominique: 35:09

Yeah.

Pippa: 35:10

Oh, it's a really interesting one, isn't it? I mean, I feel like we've kind of covered the fors and the againsts simultaneously rather than doing them separately. I'll tell you what, here's a question. I had a couple of clients, in our mini mind recently that I probably found this out about six months ago. Maybe. I had absolutely no idea that you could host a website on Canva. you know that?

Dominique: 35:31

I have heard about this recently. I haven't. I haven't looked into it myself because when I first read it I was like, oh dear god, please god no. And it's just, it's one of those things where I'm really noticing. big players in the software industry are basically just trying to be jack of all trades They're just adding absolutely everything into their platform and I don't understand why so Yeah. canva being a canva adding website builder was one that i'm just I don't understand it

Pippa: 36:01

Yeah, I don't, I'm, I'm, I don't know as it would be my recommendation necessarily, but I think one thing it definitely does have going for it is that I would probably say that the vast majority of folks, the first piece of software that they end up with a paid subscription for is likely to be Canva

Dominique: 36:18

Is

Pippa: 36:18

or possibly their email marketing platform, but one or the other. so that kind of takes away the need to have something else somewhere else. I heard someone talking about, and again, this could be absolute bullshit, that there being SEO benefits of the way Canva host their websites, but I'm not sure, you know, I don't, I don't even know how that's possible, but There you go. Someone told me that, but they are ridiculously easy to use. I had a client show me the backend of theirs a couple of months ago, and it was like, oh, okay. That really is easy to use, particularly if you've spent any time messing around in camera.

Dominique: 36:53

That's the thing, isn't it? It's how, it's the path of least resistance. That's essentially what it is.

Pippa: 37:00

Yeah, I've been a show it girl for the last four years now, maybe five years now. I both regret everything and regret nothing, depending on which way you look at it. The ultimate aim this year I'm putting out there is to move over to WordPress because we've got some more involved stuff on the horizon that's going to require things to be a bit more sophisticated than they are. boss. It's like the prospect of moving from one platform at the moment horrifies me.

Dominique: 37:30

That's the thing.

Pippa: 37:31

I don't think it is. I think I've got a very long list. And I had a bit of a dalliance actually into WordPress last week. Lucy is definitely the more webby of the two of us. I'm very tech orientated, but website stuff and I are not friends. It's a, it's a rabbit hole creator for me. because we are hosting a summit in the summer. And, I say in the summer, people are going to be listening to this, and the summit won't be too far away. We're hosting a summit in July, and so the summit's going to have its own website. And I thought, bright spark me, went, oh I know, if we're going to move over to WordPress later in the year, then we'll start this one, you know, start with me to go on, we'll start with WordPress.

Dominique: 38:06

Let's start with WordPress.

Pippa: 38:08

Elementor builder themes, and two days later, I threw the toys out of the apartment. Lucy, can you do it, please? It didn't, it didn't go well at all.

Dominique: 38:19

I feel for you,

Pippa: 38:20

It really, it really wasn't great. And I thought, I thought I'd done such a great job. And then I looked at it on mobile and I just went, That's so funny. Oh, anyway, listen. Okay. So we probably ought to wrap things up in a minute. But if you could give folks kind of standing on the edges of, Their brand shiny new business. One tip. what would it be?

Dominique: 38:45

Hire a website designer. I'm joking. I would say

Pippa: 38:47

Ha ha. No, not at all. Hire me, hire me, pay me, pay me, pay me. Too right.

Dominique: 38:53

Hire me. hire me. one tip I would say Hmm.

Pippa: 38:59

it doesn't have to be a hot take type tip.

Dominique: 39:02

Oh yeah. I'm, I'm not a hot take person. I'm just a practical, just give it to you straight kind of person.

Pippa: 39:08

No, me too.

Dominique: 39:10

I would say my top tip would be to just do spend time getting clear on your brand. but don't get caught up in the minutiae of it because it will chop and change from week to week, day to day. Just start with something that feels good to you that you feel resonates with to have people that you want to work with and just Go out there and do it and see how it works. And if you don't do that, you're just going to get stuck. You'll get stuck so much more by not doing it than doing it. So you're better off just Picking one thing that feels good, giving it a go for say, three to six months, see how it works, if it doesn't work, and it's just not feeling like something you want to continue on with, you can change. You're not in Pivot! It's totally fine to pivot, it's not the end of the world, it's A means of growing to the best aligned version of the business that you actually want in the future. So yeah, same as you said earlier, Pip, just do something actually work with the people that you want to work with. And that's the only way you're going to find out if it's actually what you actually want to share on your website or Instagram

Pippa: 40:18

Yeah. Because what I think, looking back, and I can certainly say this for pretty much every client I've ever worked with, but definitely for us, is that the first folks that you work with are not people that stumbled across you because they found you on Google. they are either people that you already know that are already within your community or network in some way, because of what you used to do for a living, or still part time doers for a living, or full time for that matter. or they're recommended to you by one of those people. Almost without exception.

Dominique: 40:44

Always.

Pippa: 40:45

So do that. Spend time with relationships rather than too much time faffing around with everything else.

Dominique: 40:51

Exactly.

Pippa: 40:52

Oh, listen, this has been just like the best conversation. I've got to have more conversations with you because I've enjoyed this conversation so much.

Dominique: 40:59

Yes.

Pippa: 40:59

where can people find you online and connect with you and say, Hey, help me with my website.

Dominique: 41:04

So you can find me at dmarsdesigns. com, Instagram dmarsdesigns. LinkedIn, although I don't post on LinkedIn, but I'm trying to, but I can't get over the corporate fields of it. But you know, that's a conversation for another time. but yes, you can find me in any of those places. Drop me a message. I'm here to support you And help you get over the line.

Pippa: 41:24

And that's D, that's D MARS as in D M A R Z isn't it? Yeah, cool, perfect. Oh yeah, no, it's fine, it's cool. Who would want to be a Marsmar anyway, seriously? amazing. Well, thank you so much for having this, very fun chat with me. That is all we have time for this week, folks. join us again next week for more disability business and fucking with the status quo. We will see you next Tuesday.