Do you know the purpose of your website?
You might be thinking, “That Miami Queen of whatever the heck she thinks she’s queen of is nuts. Of COURSE I know the purpose of my site!”
Ok, then answer the question. I’ll help by giving you a few choices, and then tell me what you think the right response is:
A. My site’s purpose is to make me lots of moolah.
B. The purpose of my site is to advertise my services so I can make lots of moolah when customers come through my door.
C. My website’s purpose is to act as a resume for my brilliance in my field so that people want to hire me or come shop at my store so I can make lots of moolah.
D. The purpose of my site is to give my potential customers an answer or solution to their most pressing needs so that they know I can help them; and so they call me right away, and then once they are my customers and I help them, then I can make lots of moolah.
What do you think?
I’m guessing that you have figured out what the best choice is, even with the moolah attached (because of course we want to have that, and we’d be lying through our teeth if we said otherwise).
Elon Musk Inspiration
Here’s something you can ponder. Do you know who Elon Musk is? Aside from being one of the world’s richest men (worth about $21.3 billion in US dollars as of August 2017*), he is also an exceptionally amazing entrepreneur, even if his signature is still entirely illegible (check out the Wikipedia entry about him, and you’ll see what I mean).
Early in his career, he had co-founded an online financial company called X.com, which merged with another financial company that processed payments online called Confinity in 2000. If you know what “PayPal” is, then you know what we were are talking about, because that became the name of this spectacular venture.
After he left PayPal (with a cool $165 million in US dollars in his pocket), he went on to work on a passion he had (and has) for space travel called “SpaceX.” But, he’s largely in the news these days because of his leadership with Tesla, the famous electric car.
But, his success isn’t what I’m interested in talking about here. What I want to point out is a statement attributed to Elon Musk:
Going from PayPal, I thought: ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’ Not from the perspective, ‘What’s the best way to make money?'”**
This is key, right here, folks.
Yes, we ALL need to earn money. Me too! I love making money. But, not until I’ve figured out how I can help someone.
What VALUE do you bring to the world through your business?
What problems do your potential customers have that you can help them solve?
If you sell a certain product, what solution does it offer the end user?
You see, when someone is searching for the answer to a pressing need, they want to find a business or service that can help them.
Your website isn’t about YOU. It’s about your customer and his needs. It’s about what you can do to help HIM.
So, if you are in the planning stages, don’t create a website until you explore the issues and challenges that are facing your potential customers, and find a way to address them the second they find your website.
If you do some random searches for solutions to a variety of problems, you’ll see what I mean.
For example…
Let’s say you have an big ol’ oogy spider or snake in your house? And, let’s say you’re like me and aren’t going anywhere near it?
Of course, you have a problem, and the first thing you want to see when you go to the search engine when you type in, “get rid of oogy spider in my Miami house,” you want to find a website advertising a fast service promising to get over to your house and take care of it, pronto!
As far as I’m concerned, that business is going to be on my speed dial.
Hopefully you understand the importance of answering your customers’ needs clearly land quickly, through an easy to navigate, fast-loading website.
Trust me – you get rid of the oogy spider or snake, and you’ll get the moolah!
Sources:
*Elon Musk wiki entry can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
** Quote found at https://www.forbes.com/sites/richwinley/2015/10/08/entrepreneurs-5-things-we-can-learn-from-elon-musk/#4c96004d4098
