How Much Time & Money Should You Spend On a New Business Website? - #53

Show Notes

Every new business needs a website. Jill Kuehnert, co-founder with her husband of Lucky Fish Scuba, has created several iterations of their website, and each time, was able to apply lessons learned to make it (and their business) better and better. Lori Vajda and Nola Boea hear how her love story turned luxe charter service taught her a few things about building a website, a brand, and awards -- with a few key tips and some wise advice. ​

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In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Why you might want to DIY your website and ways hiring a pro can help
• The importance of stepping away from working IN the business so you can work ON the business
• How your website reflects your joy when you run a business that energizes you
• Tips to get web traffic and high-quality leads without paying for ads

(11:03) What to do right away, before you spend a lot of time getting your website perfect
(14:21) How to use photos on your website to enhance your brand and your logo
(14:57) An easy method to gather and use your customers’ language in your web content
(15:31) Where to find already-written, and super-relevant content to repurpose for your website
(16:13) An example of how plans -- and therefore websites -- change after you’ve been in business for just a little while
(18:46)     How great web content led to unexpected PR and prime stream of leads to their website
(20:29) A creative, no-pressure way to ask -- and receive -- reviews that can lead more traffic to your website and more customers to your business

Resources 

• Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts,  or wherever you listen to podcasts.
• Lucky FIsh Scuba
• Sticky Brand Lab’s DIY Website Course
• Sign up for one of our clarity sessions at  www.stickybrandlab.com/contact 
• ConverKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform  (Affiliate link)
• Episode 26: Four Couples Tell What it's Really Like Having a Spouse as Your Business Partner. (Includes Jill Keunhert) on Apple Podcasts    

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: Every business, even a new side business needs a website. It's one of the most important business tools a company of any size can have. Knowing what kind of design you need, how much it should cost, what add ons are necessary and whether you should hire a professional or do it yourself. The point is there are a whole lot of decisions that go into creating a good website. Before you spend a dime, make a decision or talk to a professional, you'll want to listen to this episode because we're here to save you a lot of time. And a lot of dough.

[00:00:32] Announcer: You're listening to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast, where time strapped professionals like you, learn how to create a business you love in as little as three hours a week.

[00:00:43] Lori: Today, we're exploring the cost of doing business. More specifically the cost of getting a new website for your business. And our guest today knows a thing or two about it. No, she's not a web designer or a developer. In fact, she's an entrepreneur just like you. And she has a story to share that could help you. But before she does, we're Lori and Nola and we're all about helping busy professional women start their side business quickly and without breaking the bank or feeling overwhelm. So, if you're looking to make a bigger impact in the world, as well as in your bank account, stick around because each week we come out with new content and information, so you can hit the ground running and be a self-empowered confident and authentic business owner.

[00:01:28] Nola: When you're just starting out, your business investments tend to fall in one of these two categories. Either tools that help position your business more clearly, or the tools that help you sell more of your products and services. Your business website can do both, which is one of the reasons why it will be one of the first financial decisions you'll face. So, investing dollars on your first website makes a lot of sense, right? We don't think so, but don't take our word for it. Today. We would like to introduce you to entrepreneur, Jill Kuehnert. Jill and her husband, Glenn Wright, own a private charter boat company in key Largo, Florida. Welcome back Jill!
[00:02:08] Jill: Great to be here, guys. Wow.

[00:02:11] Lori: Before we get into the importance of a business website, tell us what's the most entrepreneurial thing about you?

[00:02:20] Jill: I think in general, I am always trying to make things a little bit better. I am looking for the better chicken rice recipe. I'm looking for a better way to wear shoes to grocery stop, just different things. I'm always trying to like, how could we tweak this and make a little bit better? Not any of those other ideas. I just mentioned have turned into businesses, but
[00:02:44] Nola: Always thinking of a solution.

[00:02:47] Jill: Maybe, right. Or a tweak or a, you know, maybe it's being a little bit critical, but in a way that, this could be better. I think at first started, we had this camp that we go to in South Africa. Glen is from South Africa and every year we go to visit, just about, and spend some time at a campground up there. Well, once in a while, we'll sit around and like talk about how could they make this better from the rate that they charge people to come in and camp there to the buildings they have, the services, the amenities. Um, do you remember that show? I think he used to be on MTV Pimp My Ride? So, we always talk about like Pimp My Campground, or we'd be on somebody else's dive boat and be like, pimp my dive boat. You know, what would we do? Like add a water slide from the top deck of the boat that would go down directly into the water. or. These kinds of things is a game that we would play when we were out traveling around ourselves. And I've just now put that together as we're talking about it as something that probably that kind of critical analytical look at how other people were running in one case, a campground and other case, and other dive boat, led us to. put those critiques and action, when we started our own business.

[00:04:06] Nola: Very cool. Listeners, you may remember Jill and Glen from episode 26, called, Four Couples, Tell What it's Really Like Having a Spouse as Your Business Partner. And at that time, Jill, you shared what it was like being in business with your husband. But for those who may not have heard about the episode yet, or know about your own business journey, how did Lucky Fish come about?

[00:04:29] Jill: Well, Glenn and I both lived in Singapore for a long time. And before we met, actually, that's where we met. We were both working at the time that we met in different industries, different companies. And at that party where we met the first time, we were striking up a conversation. And he said he worked in the golf business. So, I thought, well, that's very interesting. Maybe I can get this tall hunky south African guy to teach me how to play golf. That'll be fun. So I said, maybe you can teach me to play golf. And he said, actually, nah, forget it.

[00:05:04] Nola: Well, bombed that one.

[00:05:06] Jill: Very, very hot to play golf here in Asia, it's very expensive. It takes a long time to get good enough at it to really enjoy it. I just he's, like, I don't recommend you learn how to play golf if you don't already know. So. So try it again. Well, what do you do for fun then? He said, I really love scuba diving. Scuba diving is something I do every chance I get. I go scuba diving around Asia. So I thought, wow, maybe this tall hunky guy can teach me how to be a scuba diver. And we can do that together. And he said, he'd be glad to help me. Lots of things happen. We get married. I quit my corporate job. I begin my own entrepreneurial journey as a consultant in science communications. It was sort of what I had been doing in my corporate job. But then when I got married and left the company, I began doing it on my own and focus more on humanitarian science, research projects, philanthropic kind of things. He still had his corporate job in Singapore. When that job finished and we had to leave the country, we came to Florida and that was, seemed like our moment to start up our own business. And that's when we channeled all of those criticisms and ideas that we'd had being on other folks' dive boats, and experiencing other people's scuba diving operations and started our own business, which is called lucky fish Scuba here in key Largo.

[00:06:33] Lori: How did you guys narrow your focus for your particular business?

[00:06:38] Jill: It was really Glen that saw the niche. When we first moved down here, he started working for some other dive operations down here. The usual setup for diving in the Keys is a scheduled boat or group of boats that will go out twice a day. Usually there'll be a boat that will take sometimes up to 30 or more divers on a single boat, one trip at nine, another trip at 1:00 PM or something like that. So, it was Glen who saw the opportunity, said, you know, I think there's a niche here that's not being met, for a private boat that will take a small group of people just on a, you know, on a dedicated trip. And he actually had worked, started working as a captain on another charter boat down in Isle la Mirada that was doing just that. So, when the time came for us to take the next step, it was really taking that market need that he saw and putting it into practice. We bought a new boat. That's another thing that's a little bit different about us. A lot of the scuba tour operators here they're really like working boats. You know, their boats are set up to get divers out to the site safely and then back, but we bought a new boat that's got some of the nice bells and whistles that make it a comfortable place to hang out in between dives and to go other places. So we also do snorkeling tours. We do eco tours, private eco tours with Marine Lab, which is the nice science Marine science camp here in town. And sunset cruises from time to time and those kinds of things. So, that's the little niche area that we're in.

[00:08:13] Lori: And that was pretty, even though you couldn't. Anticipate something like COVID, it turned out, I'm assuming here, given that it's a small charter, that your size really helped you as well.

[00:08:27] Jill: It did. There were two blessings within the great human tragedy that is COVID for us in our business story. I think, um, one is just what you said that people are now seeking out vacation opportunities that are outside in the fresh air. And that's how people began, to start traveling again. But the other thing, and this kind of loops back to the whole story about the website is that it gave us a little bit of a time out. When COVID hit, we'd been in business for about a year and a half and had gotten to a certain stage with some of our marketing and support activities, including the website. And then we got a timeout. Everybody was off business and we used that time to kind of take a step back and reflect on the kind of customers that we serve best. And then began translating that into updating copy for our website and other kinds of marketing things so that when things did open up again, you know, we were ready with that information. And I think if we hadn't that slowdown, that shut down where we could kind of just step back from working in the business so that we could work on the business together. I'm not sure how we would've gotten there.

[00:09:41] Lori: Well, you bring up a really good point that I wanted to get to as well, which was there's a lot of information out there to help entrepreneurs start or create a business website. Some of that is focused on how do you hire somebody? What do you need? Um, in fact, we even offer a DIY course for non-techie-preneurs because it can be really intimidating if that's not your forte to create a website. And, hearing your story or knowing a little bit about, that. We wanted you to come back because when you started your experience with your website, if I understand it correctly, you created your site yourself. Can you walk us through your very first website, the challenges that you faced, between your first website and the iterations that you did, including the ability to step out, step back and work on your business?

[00:10:42] Jill: And the story probably goes back a little bit to the consulting work that I had started my first business, my consulting practice, which is called Seed Stories. And I went through a lot of work, but working with the designer, to develop a custom website for that business. So, going through that process with that business, kind of, I always knew when we set up this business that I wanted to have a custom professionally designed website. That was going to be the goal. But I also knew that we needed to get something up there pretty quick and dirty. Because the sooner you get your name and you start getting your name out there, the sooner that whole process, which is so gradual and so incremental, can start to build.
So, I wanted to have a marker that was something there to, just to get us started. And number one was a DIY, do it yourself, quick and dirty host set up, three pages with some very, very basic copy. And then we got some professional designer developers on board with us to help begin crafting the website. The first thing they ask is, where's your copy? How are we putting this together? So they were very helpful with us in a process that took quite a lot of time to decide, you know, what kind of Services pages did we need? What kind of features did we want? And there was a little bit more copy, but it was still pretty basic at that the point that the custom website went live. And then the COVID shut down happened. And that's really when we started to go through that process of going back through every page of the copy and rewriting it using, words and phrases that we'd heard, our customers use, our own experience of the delight that we had, where we got energy from being with customers and having guests on the boat. How to get a little bit more of that flavor and personality into the text and images on the website. And right now, we just, two weeks ago, went live with the new design or redesign of the website. It's still pretty much the same copy, but some new images, some new design elements, a slightly different functionality in some ways. And then I think the next process for me is to then now to go back again through the copy and bring it up to date as we're entering into our over three years now in the business.

[00:12:59] Lori: Can you tell the story when you first launched your business, talk about your journey with branding and what that looked like and how that changed and evolved from just starting out to your most current website iteration.

[00:13:16] Jill: Yeah. So, as you guys know, branding is so many pieces, it's like, what's the name of the business? And then what, is there a logo and what does it look like? What's the look and feel? What's the vibe that people get from it? And I sadly did not have the benefit of the Sticky Brand Lab, podcast when I was just getting started. But I did have the benefit of a friend in the business, which was Lori. And, we looked at a lot of these things. We had a logo that we did pretty, again, kind of a quick and dirty thing with that. Just one color. And then over time. You know, what was really key for me is pictures. I'm a very visual person.
And, um, one thing that we do on our boat is take pictures with the GoPro or with the underwater camera for people. In my case, I think it was all my own pictures. I'm like when I look at this picture of this young woman diving off the boat in a perfect arc, into the blue water with her friend underneath, raising her hands. There are a couple of images that were really kind of iconic. Maybe it's not the right word, but really to me captured the spirit of what we wanted to share with people and using that to make a new version of the logo has got some kind of shaded ombre and to blue to pink and the new colors on the website as well.

[00:14:33] Nola: Can you tell us more about that process and how you came up with different verbiage and that whole active listening?

[00:14:40] Jill: I wish I'd had the benefit and all the value that I'm now getting from Sticky Brand Lab when I was at this part of the journey, but I did work with Lori. Now it's several years ago, on just starting to look at the reviews that we were starting to get in. And we started a practice then that I still keep up, which is keeping a document that has all of the reviews that people have posted on TripAdvisor or Google or. Facebook and being able to read those in one document, like one after another, you start to see like keywords and feeling words and certain things that really stood out to them, to the customer. And so, we use that as a kind of a written guide to inspire words that we could put into copy in other places.

And then, you know, um, I'm the one who does all of the correspondence with people. A lot of it is by email. So I began to notice some of the words that I was typing over and over again to customers about what was involved, what they could expect. And started using that language. I'm like, oh, here I am writing all of this over and over again. Why don't I just put this on the website? You know, why don't I just put it up there on the screen. Maybe I'll still have to type it to them in an email later or refer them to that. But that's a way of creating text or content like a one-on-one customer communication, but then taking the benefit of that to put on the website.
Those are great tips.

[00:16:13] Lori: So, how did that evolve as your business has changed over the last few years?

[00:16:20] Jill: One of the things I thought we would be great at and enjoy doing and get energy and help people with is teaching people to be scuba divers. We had a whole section of our website. We still do that. It's talks about learning to dive in Key Largo with private scuba lessons. And that has turned out to not be a great fit for us as a small private charter, very boat focused operation, bigger companies that might have their own dedicated pool space, or, they do go out multiple times a day with bigger trips. It's just easier, I think, for them to accommodate people with private scuba diving certification courses. So, whereas once that was a pretty key feature, prominent feature on the website. Now we have it as kind of a sub avenue. Another thing is we didn't think we would do much snorkeling, but private snorkeling tours have really, there's been just a lot, a lot of demand for doing that. And so, especially starting with spring break last year, we found a lot of interest in private snorkeling tours. Those are two operational examples of one service that we thought we would get a lot of, you know, energy and, and be able to really serve people where they need it from. And if we didn't, and then the other example of something that we didn't think we were probably going to do, but now we do the other one is the eco tour.

[00:17:45] Nola: And now, all of these are on your website, which is gorgeous by the way.

[00:17:49] Jill: Thank you. We're still beta tweaking it.

[00:17:53] Lori: How'd you get the word out when, especially when you just started your business? Now you're a few years in, so maybe that's also evolved.

[00:18:02] Jill: We did it a few ways. There's a scuba equipment shop pretty much across the road from where we are. We made a flyer and put some flyers there. We don't do that anymore. There was a pretty high-end resort that we were providing them. We were their tour operator for private scuba charters for a while. And we're not doing that anymore.

Most of our leads come through our website and we don't do any Facebook ads. We don't do Google ads. We're not in any of the paid tour magazines, or we don't have a paid listing on the Keys tourism website. We do a lot of, our own posting on Facebook and some on Instagram. There is a great Facebook group called Girls That Scuba that I was a very, still am a pretty active follower of, and member of, and right during the COVID shut down. I think we were just starting to open up, back up again, though. They did a great blog article on their website, which is very authoritative kind of in this area about best dive operations in Key Largo. And we were fortunate enough to be called out by name in that blog article as one of the best for small groups. And. The woman who wrote the article hasn't unfortunately been a guest of ours yet in person, but I don't even think I spoke to her, but she looked at our website and was able to pull out, and in her own words, convey our vibe in that, blog article, which included a link to our website. And that's been a very, very good source of third-party referral traffic into our website and all the leads that we get that we can trace back to, "I saw you in a blog post about best places to dive in key Largo." They're all very high-quality leads that come through that.

[00:19:59] Lori: Shout out to you because didn't, you guys get recognized recently as well?

[00:20:04] Jill: Yeah. Thank you, Lori. We were awarded one of the TripAdvisor Travelers Choice Awards for 2021. Thank you. And it says reviews from millions of TripAdvisor travelers placed this attraction in the top 10% worldwide

[00:20:19] Nola: You got a lot of traffic because of good reviews. Do you do anything specific to encourage people to leave, reviews?

[00:20:29] Jill: We've started something this year, just in the last few months. We take pictures with our GoPro while they're on the boat. And there's a website they're called Fotaflow, And we upload our pictures to their site. And then I can use that site to send a link to the customer like that day. So, then they get an email saying, hey, your pictures from our trip, are there. Then when they open it, it has all of their pictures, which have our logo on it. And then next to that, it has all the links to the review sites. So, it says if you had a great time, here's the link to our page on TripAdvisor. I feel queasy about like chasing people too much for reviews. I know when I've been on the side of being asked or kind of feel almost pestered to leave a review, or if it gets mentioned too much too directly, and then I kind of makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

[00:21:20] Nola: But leaving that link is subtle and it is a good reminder without being a pest. And you mentioned that you email these pictures to them, and obviously you're doing some email contact to prepare and all throughout. Do you use those emails then for follow-up to get follow up business or any other like year-round marketing?

[00:21:42] Jill: Yeah, that's in the category of things that other people don't do that I do do, I have an email newsletter? So once a month we send a newsletter out, you know, here's a dive that we did this past month. Here's what the conditions are looking like. Here's something that's happening inside the business, you know, kind of a behind the scenes little article. Second mate is our puppy dog, Suzelle. So, she always has a word to say to the folks out there in our newsletter. But I don't automatically sign up our customers to that newsletter. I always ask them if they want to subscribe and then I give them a link.
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[00:22:17] Nola: These are going to clients, basically, it's not really a lead generating type of email. This is more of a customer retention newsletter.
[00:22:25] Jill: Exactly.

[00:22:26] Nola: From your experience, what advice would you offer to aspiring entrepreneurs who need a website for their business?

[00:22:34] Jill: Just getting started, um, like something that doesn't give you too many choices right off the bat might be okay. Might be what you need as a business owner. You're already making a lot of decisions and choices. So, if you can start with a good, simple template or structure that allows you to just like, fill in the blanks for a little bit, just to get started. I think that's a great way just to get going. And then later on, you know, to, to make sure you are able to take that time out of working in the business to work on the business from the standpoint of what that message is, what the content is, what the images are, and to put as much of your own unique personality into it as you can, as you go forward. But not to let yourself get stuck or too spun up in making it perfect right away, because it's a moment in time, and time moves on and it's going to get better and it's going to change and that's okay.

[00:23:33] Nola: It can always get better.

[00:23:35] Lori: Yeah. It's the reason that we now offer a DIY website course. Because all of those things that, you know, the consulting that you got for the website on branding and services, everything needs to be cohesive. Is a way to get people, to create something beautiful from the start and then grow and decide if they want to tweak it. As you mentioned, when you understand what that looks like, you can tweak it, or if you want to upgrade it even more to pay for it, but there should be an easier way to get started because you learn a lot about yourself. What you love. Who loves you.

[00:24:20] Jill: Yeah. What makes you hum? What makes you sing?

[00:24:23] Nola: Well, switching gears a little, we want our audience to get to know you, Jill, a little bit better. So, we have a fun question for you, what is your dream vacation spot?

[00:24:35] Jill: My dream vacation spot is, believe it or not, on a boat, not on my boat. To be honest with you. My dream vacation spot is not on my boat because even though it's a beautiful boat and we live in a beautiful place, you know, it's where we live. So vacation to me is about getting away. Uh, when we were living in Asia, we had the chance to go on a couple of really nice what we call liveaboard diving boats, where basically you get on the boat at the beginning of a week, and then the boat sails from island to island or from dive site to dive site. And in Indonesia in particular, they have some just amazing places. We've done a couple of routes there when we lived in Asia, but not lately. So, my dream vacation spot would be to get back on one of those really nice boats. Basically, you wake up, you go diving, then you have breakfast, then you go diving again. You never have to move your hotel room. You never have to cook anything. You don't have to, you know, wash your gear out, they’re doing all of that for you. And it was pretty amazing when we did at the time. And now I appreciate it even more because I know how much work it is to take care of that.

[00:25:50] Lori: That does sound like a dream vacation spot.

[00:25:54] Nola: Really does.

[00:25:56] Lori: Thank you, Jill, for being our guest and sharing your business and website journey. And thank you listeners for tuning into this episode. To learn more about our DIY Website, visit stickybrandlab.com forward/courses. 

And Jill, for more information about your company, Lucky Fish Scuba, would you tell listeners how they can find out about you?

[00:26:21] Jill: Absolutely. We have a website which may not come as a surprise. Eerily enough. We have a website that can be found at luckyfishscuba.com and that's really the best one spot shop to see all of our work. We're on Facebook as well, at LuckyFishScuba, you can find us on, on Instagram at LuckyFishScuba as well.

[00:26:51] Lori: If you found the information discussed here helpful, and you decided to start working on your side business and website, let us know by posting here where you're listening or on our Facebook page, this way we can check out your website and send you love and encouragement and congratulate you on the amazing and badassery decision you've made.

[00:27:11] Nola: Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring and motivating episode. And remember, action creates results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love by taking 1% action every day. Small steps, big effects.

[00:27:29] Lori: Do you have questions about creating a personal brand, side hustle or small business? Sign up for one of our clarity sessions. For more information, contact us at stickybrandlab.com/contact.

[OUT-TAKE]

[00:27:45] Jill: Yeah, we were, um, I have the…
[00:27:52] Nola: Okay. She is up and walked away from the microphone. Oh, there it is. She is showing a picture on screen. It says
[00:28:02] Jill: trip, Trip Advisor,
[00:28:05] Lori: You’ve got the light hitting it.