#Smallbizchat Podcast LIVE is a monthly video interview show where small business owners can get answers to their questions.

The focus of #Smallbizchat is to end small business failure by helping participants succeed as your own boss.

Please join us live every third Wednesday of the month from 8-9 pm ET Live on my SmallBizLady Facebook Page, YouTube Channel and LIVE on Twitter. 

Kendra Lee is an Author, Speaker, and Revenue Generator. She is the founder of KLA Group, a sales consultancy and marketing agency that helps small and medium companies get seen, get heard, and get traction to achieve their dreams. She’s the author of The Sales Magnet. For more information: https://www.klagroup.com/

SmallBizLady: What are the biggest mistakes people make when building a website?

Kendra Lee: There are three big mistakes we see people make when building a website. 

The first mistake is ignoring SEO while they are building the site. Too often we hear “Oh, we’re going to add SEO after our website is done.” SEO is more than adding a few keywords and links. While keywords and links are important elements, it also includes proper URL structure, meta descriptions, headings, and content formatting. These are all designed and incorporated as you are building your site. Ignoring SEO basics can make your website virtually invisible to search engines. 

The second mistake is not planning the experience you want users to have on your site. The easier your website is to use, the longer people stay and explore how you can help them. We call this, the user experience (UX). A poorly designed site can lead to a frustrating experience for users. This includes slow loading times, difficult navigation, no obvious content flow, color scheme, graphics, unclear or no calls to action and more. You want to design your website with the user in mind. It should have a clear path to accomplish their goals, whether that’s finding information, making a purchase, or some other objective.

The third mistake is creating content too focused on you, not your target market. If visitors can’t see themselves in your content, they won’t convert. Speak to them in their language about their specific needs and concerns. Frame your services in a way it’s obvious to prospects that you understand them and can help. Create a content strategy not just for your blog, but for your web pages, too. It should include consistent messaging and relevant information no matter where a user lands. 

SmallBizLady: How do you determine the right content strategy for your business?

Kendra Lee: Determining the right content strategy for your business boils down to balancing three factors: resources, long-term goals, and your target markets’ needs. First, assess what you can realistically invest in terms of time, money, and expertise. Next, align this with your business objectives for the next 1-3 years. For example, do you want to expand into a new market, grow revenue by 20% percent, launch a new product, or simply retain clients? Finally, focus on your target markets’ needs, making sure your content answers their questions and solves their problems. Get this mix right, and you’ll have an effective, executable content strategy.

SmallBizLady: How important is SEO when it comes to content?

Kendra Lee: SEO is incredibly important when it comes to content, almost like the secret sauce in a top chef recipe. Think of it this way. You can have the most compelling, insightful, and beautifully written content, but if it’s not optimized for search engines, you’re essentially shouting into the void. The only way prospects will find it is if you push it out to the through another marketing or sales channel. Over time, good SEO practices help your content rise to the top of search engine results, making it easier for your target audience to find you. But SEO isn’t just about algorithms and keywords. It’s also about understanding your target market and tailoring your content to their needs and priorities. This two-pronged approach ensures that your content gets found and that it resonates with the prospects you’re trying to reach.

How to Manage the Content Beast

Geoffrey Klein, aka Mr. Purple, is a TEDX speaker, an adjunct professor and a visual content producer and author of, THE CONTENT BEAST: Create Story Driven Content To Connect With Your Audience. Geoffrey helps people and organizations communicate more effectively through the power of story. He currently serves as President & CEO of nine dots, a visual content company that helps businesses share their message to connect with their audience. For more information: https://ninedotsmedia.com/.

SmallBizLady: Why is content still so hard for small businesses?

Geoffrey Klein: Most small businesses are not in the business of creating content (though they need to be). The face a variety of challenges:

• Not Enough Time
• Not Enough Money
• Not Enough Ideas
• Lack of Organization
• Lack of Creativity
• Maintaining Consistency
• Quality Content
• Volume of Content
• Providing Value
• Establishing Relevancy

It takes a commitment to invest in content creation and distribution, whether you do it yourself or you outsource it.

SmallBizLady: Do you have a choice, or must everyone produce videos to market their business?

Geoffrey Klein: No choice- everyone must produce video. Video is highly engaging, shareable, and excellent for demonstrating products or services quickly and effectively.

Video continues to be the visual content of choice as it engages audiences more and more.  Whether this is Behind the Scenes (BTS), Testimonial or Case Studies, or simply recording a selfie video of what you are doing at that moment in time, video is an essential component of content creation.

We are visual creatures with 60% of us being visual learners. A few facts to back stress the importance of visual content. The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text.  90% of the information processed by the brain is visual.

There are times when you want to invest in a more polished, produced video. Hire those with that expertise. Other times, just grab you iPhone and hit record. Either way, the point it to start making videos and sharing them with your audience.

SmallBizLady: What is your best repurposing strategy?

Geoffrey Klein: Play the hits. We often feel pressure to come up with new ideas for content all the time. You can take content from before and repurpose it. It’s like when an artist releases a greatest hits album.

Queen’s greatest hits compilation released in October of 1981, turned out to be one of the bestselling albums of all time. You can just take a content from three months ago, or six months ago, or a year and share it again. Remember, your content is aimed at what your audience wants. When you’re creating content, yes new concepts are worthwhile – more important, though is to repurpose your best content; change up the visuals, adjust the copy, update the format. Or not.

How to Develop the Perfect Pitch

Precious L. Williams is a 13-time national elevator pitch champion. Besides helping women entrepreneurs and business leaders, she is also a top corporate sales trainer, helping sales teams to create killer communication skills, craft messaging and understand how to pitch and build sales programs. Precious is an international keynote speaker and trainer for global brands including: BMW, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Harvard University, Columbia University, Intuit Quickbooks, Yelp, and many more:  https://perfectpitchgroup.com/

SmallBizLady: What are the elements of a great pitch?

Precious L. Williams: The elements of a great pitch start with the BASIC pitch elements:

1. Your name
2. Name of company
3. Who do you serve and what is their main challenge/problem?
4. Why should they choose you?
5. Your secret sauce.
6. Call to action.

These must all be there BUT not in that order.  To make a GREAT pitch, start off with:

1. A question, a startling statistic or a quote (interrupt pattern)
2. Use your target market’s language for describing their own challenge or problem-NOT YOUR OWN LANGUAGE
3. Why should they choose YOU to be the Problem Solver (Give them a taste or example of your own)
4. Bring confidence to the table whether you are an introvert or extrovert
5. Create a 1 liner that sums you up that they’ll never forget
6. Close with a Call to action. IT MUST BE SPECIFIC-tell them what to do next (go to website, check out this, try this)
7. Follow up!

SmallBizLady: What are the biggest mistakes people make when pitching?

Precious L. Williams: The biggest mistakes people make when pitching are:

1. Being boring
2. Not specific on target market-sounding generic
3. Not understanding the time limit
4. Being inauthentic
5. Having no drip or sauce
6. Not representing their knowledge or talent
7. Believing a pitch deck and technology are all they need
8. Not being able to talk about their business beyond the surface
9. Not being prepared to answer real questions
10. Not understanding What are the goals of your pitch

SmallBizLady: How many different types of pitches should a business owner have in their pocket?

Precious L. Williams: Out of the 6 types of pitches, you need to know 2-3 well for your business.

The 6 types of pitches are:

1. Elevator
2. Media
3. Investor
4. Sales
5. Speaker
6. Interview

SmallBizLady: How often should you update your pitch?

Precious L. Williams: For the different types of audiences you may pitch in front of, this is a continuous process of iteration.  The way I pitched years ago to investors, media or elevator pitches has changed significantly over 10 years. I have gotten better in understanding my audience!

Did you find these interviews helpful? Please tell me how they helped and then share them.

Would you like to be a guest on #Smallbizchat Live?

If you are a small business owner, author, or subject matter expert, we’d love to have you appear as a guest on #Smallbizchat LIVE. Submit your name, headshot, Twitter handle, bio, website, topic and 3 questions and answers in paragraph form to demonstrate your expertise. To submit your materials to be a guest on #Smallbizchat click here.