Ch 10: Mission Control - Establishing Your Home Base

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Transcript

0:40

Hello, and welcome to the market, your message show. I'm your host, Jonathan Milligan and author of the book. Your message matters, how to rise above the noise and get paid for what you know. And we're currently in a book club series. Going through chapter by chapter. I have my latest book. Your message matters. And today we're going to jump into chapter 10, but you might be jumping into this episode and have no idea about the book or why we're on chapter 10. If you want a copy of the book, obviously you can go to your local bookstore. You go to Amazon, you can go wherever you want. Get a copy of the book. But as a listener, you can actually get a free copy of the book delivered to your address. You can go to your message matters. book.com. Again, it's your message matters. book.com. All we ask that you pay 4 95 for the shipping, and we'll send you out a free book. And you could binge listen to this audio course, one chapter at a time. And so what I'm doing is I'm giving you a little bit of behind the scenes. I'm breaking things down. I'm giving you some extra lessons, more context. And so really see it as a free course to help you. Not only go through the book systematically chapter by chapter, but also get a little bit of coaching along the way. So today we are in chapter 10. This is the last chapter in part two. And then we're going to start getting into this idea of marketing your message. But we had to clearly define our message first and that's what we've been doing. So chapter 10 is called mission control. Establishing your home base. Now I kick off the chapter on page 1 34. Talk about a story. My wife and I on one of our wedding anniversaries, we went to New York city and we were walking through central park. And it was a different part of central park I'd not been to before. And we saw this castle up on the hill. Just above this cute little pond. And I was like, I've never seen this before. It looked like something that just shouldn't be there. It should be in. I don't know some place else. That's more historic. I don't know. It was just like this medieval castle looking thing in the middle of central park. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about? Later I found out it's called Belvedere castle. You can Google it. Look it up. But I'm not going to take time to read through the whole story. But I was curious what was this castle? What was it for? It was actually built to be a Victorian folly. And what that means is no practical use at all. It was really just for looks. And what was crazy about this? Because it had no purpose, like back in the 1980s. It had been spray painted on bordered up. Right there in the middle of central park. And it's got no use. But. A few years ago, the city decided to renovate it and turn it into a gift store. And allow people to tour it, go up in and things like that. And now millions of people every year visit this castle. It has meaning and purpose. Now, Jonathan, why are you telling us a story? Because when it comes to building a website, which I believe you need to have a home base online. A Homebase is your own. Virtual real estate, you carve out because we never want to be building our business. On rented land. Now, when I say rented land, I'm talking about Facebook, Twitter. We can use those places as social embassies, but we want to bring them back to our home base, where we have full control. And so having your own website. Is very important. To having a sustainable business. So I'm going to pick up on page 1 35. We're going to go through this a little bit and I think it'll really make sense on. What does what. What does your website serve? What purpose does it serve? Okay. So page 1 35, creating a website to launch to the world. There are only two ways to create a website. And frankly one works the other doesn't. One kind of website serves like a Victorian folly. And the other as a money-making tourist attraction. Remember my story? About the castle in New York city. Without realizing it. Most people build a website the way a person might build a folly. They focus on advertising their qualifications. Instead of demonstrating their expertise. When we only focus on advertising our qualifications, we make the website about us and our own credentials, but there's a better way. It starts by understanding the difference between displaying your expertise. And demonstrating your expertise. Now pause, timeout. This is a huge coaching moment. Because this is, this can create a real aha for you. And you can see why either, why maybe you've struggled in the past or why you've seen other people struggle in the past. There is a difference between a brochure and a magazine. If I can use that illustration. Our brochure does what. It's just kinda talking about. It's advertising. What does a magazine do? If a magazine is done correctly, people want to keep going back to it again and again, because it's got what helpful articles it's got advice. It's got funny stories. It's got lessons to learn. Picture's nice to look at, it gives us a reason. To pay attention to it. I want your website. To not be a brochure. I want it to be a magazine, something people keep coming back to. That's the difference. Displaying your expertise is like having a brochure website. Demonstrating your expertise. In other words, adding a blog, adding more to it. Is different. It's like a magazine. So most online entrepreneurs begin with a static brochure website. And you can find these all over the internet. It consists of maybe five web pages and it's just displaying their certifications or credentials. It's heavily focused. On the expert as the hero. It's no different than taking a brochure. And displaying it online. And the emphasis is on things like about me. View my work. Contact us. There's nothing wrong with those. But if you only have those, I think that's a problem. Did you give. You don't give any reason why people should ever go back to your website. The second option is to demonstrate your expertise. And I use this illustration in the. In the book. What do Yoda, Mr. Miyagi and Gandalf all have in common. They deflect the attention away from themselves and they focus on the mission at hand. Their aim in life is not to display their credentials are even to make the story about them. Their goal is solely found in guiding others and making them the hero. They accomplish their mission by demonstrating their expertise. And using the four and they do this like a way as of like lessons, questions, challenges. Goals. And at Feis, right? That's demonstrating your expertise. So what I want to teach you in today's episode are the five a must haves. For every Messenger's website. Number one. A concise aspirational headline. So the first thing a visitor should notice when they visit your homepage is a headline that instantly connects them. We want them to say, oh, this is for me. And the best type of headline is one that has less than 10 words. And it's aspirational in nature. What do you say what's aspirational? I don't know what that word means. It's a statement that inspires them toward a goal desire or status. That they want to achieve. For example, if I brainstormed for my own business, Here's some possible aspirational headlines. Transform your passion. Into a platform. Discover your message. Launch your platform. Discover your hidden genius do work that matters. I work from anywhere, influence people everywhere. All those are aspirational in nature. So that's number one, number two. We want to have the big three challenges that your audience faces. As a guide, you want to show empathy with your audience. You want them to know that you understand the challenges and the frustrations they face? So you want to list those out on the homepage of your website? So here are some of mine. Overwhelmed by technology challenges. Trying to figure out how to rise above the noise. Worried about what the critics will say is the fear of not being good enough stopping you. I am identifying with the struggles and the challenges. That's number two, number three on the must haves. The big three success steps you offer. Now another role of being a guide is to have a plan. And it's great to show empathy. But if you don't have a plan, we're all just. I'm trying to sit around and comfort one another. We need to have a plan. There needs to be a plan. And so you want to think about. What. Kind of plan. Would you put together to help somebody out? Now it's important. Don't have a 21 point plan. Even if you have a framework and it's got nine things, 15 things that's okay. But on the website itself, the homepage we want to display. Just. Three. So for example, mine might be step one. Discover your message. Step to launch your platform. Step three market your message. And you can see those are clear steps. Someone would have to take, you got to first discover your message. Then you got to launch your platform. And then you've got to learn how to market your message and build your business. All right, so that's number three. The big three success steps. Number four, a direct call to action. To subscribe. This is really important. We want to put people. Or get people to join us on the journey. By getting on our email list. And we need to have a call to action. Now the call to action might be things like start here, registered a day. Download now. Get a quote, start a free trial, whatever your business is about, but you need to have a call to action or a reason for people to subscribe. And you want to put it on your website and make it obvious. Some places that I like is like front and center on the homepage with a big button. Maybe up in the top menu navigation bar. Maybe in the top, sidebar on your blog. So people see it. Are some places I would think about. And then finally, number five. And this is what demonstrates the difference between your website being a brochure and a magazine. Number five is a reservoir of ever growing content. All right. So you remember what I gave you that story at the beginning about Belvedere castle. Do you want your business to be. The first version of a Belvedere castle, which was boarded up and spray painted on. Or do you want to be the second? Which was a money-making tourist attraction. The way that we make a money making tourist attraction out of our website. Is a block. A blog gives your reason or your reader a reason to come back. Now we're going to cover this more in, I believe chapter 12. But for now, I want you to make the decision that you're going to have some type of blog. Now if you're like, what Jonathan, I don't want to write. I want a podcast. Podcasters can still benefit from having a book. Putting their transcript. They're getting search traffic from Google. Same thing with YouTube. It's it all leads back to your blog and your website. Where you can get people on your email list. All right. So those are the five things you need to know. So I want you to think about that. And that is your exercise is to think through those things. You may even want to take a little bit of time. To relisten, jot down some things. Really what you need to do is number one. You want to write down an aspirational headline? Number two. Write down what you think are the three big challenges. Number three, what are the three big success steps? Number four. What does it call to action? Is it start here. Download now start a free trial. And then making that decision to start a blog. Those are the must haves and we'll get more into it. If you'll stay with me or get. Down into it. Where are you going to get real practical? Especially in chapter 12. As it relates to blogging, podcasting, all the good things. All right. So that is it for this episode. Again, if you do not have a copy of the book and you want me to send you a free copy, go to your message matters book. Dot com I get it. Your message matters book. Dot com. All right. Take a moment in like share, review our show, let us know how we're doing. And until next time, never forget your message matters.