In this episode of the podcast, Jennifer Bourn teaches us everything she has learned over the last nine years of servicing small businesses and why constant communication and active project management has been the key to success. Bourn Creative raise their rates every six months and seem be getting busier and busier. Listen to the interview to learn how they do it.
I'm giving away a copy of the Post PromoterPro plug-in valued at $59. Just tell us the number one thing you have done to increase conversions on a website to enter the draw. Leave your answer in the comments section below.
Congratualtions Melanie! Jennifer has awarded you as the lucky prize winner because..."your tip is actionable for anyone with a website, and it doesn't require any additional investment...it's one of those things everyone knows, but almost no one actually does."
Some of the highlights of this episode include:
Here are Jennifer’s answers to the questions in our Elevation round. Watch the interview to get the full scoop.
You can reach out and thank Jennifer on Twitter: @jenniferbourn  or her website: http://www.bourncreative.com/
Jennifer suggested I interview Ryan Sullivan with WP Site Care and Natalie MacLees from Purple Pen Productions. Natalie and Ryan, keep your eyes on your inbox.
Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below and tell us the number one thing you have done to increase conversions on a website.
14 Responses
Troy – Thanks again for having me on the podcast! Chatting with you was a blast and I hope your members and tribe find it helpful 🙂
I did realize something listening to it back though … As Genesis recommended developers, I have Genesis on the brain pretty much all time time and totally misquoted myself while chatting with you! Whoops 🙂
I said we’ve done about 300 Genesis WordPress sites … and that’s not quite accurate! We started building WordPress sites in 2008, and didn’t convert to Genesis until 2011, so we’ve built/customized about 300 WordPress sites total, and a little over half are Genesis sites.
Sorry about that!
Troy – Thanks again for having me on the podcast! Chatting with you was a blast and I hope your members and tribe find it helpful 🙂
I did realize something listening to it back though … As Genesis recommended developers, I have Genesis on the brain pretty much all time time and totally misquoted myself while chatting with you! Whoops 🙂
I said we’ve done about 300 Genesis WordPress sites … and that’s not quite accurate! We started building WordPress sites in 2008, and didn’t convert to Genesis until 2011, so we’ve built/customized about 300 WordPress sites total, and a little over half are Genesis sites.
Sorry about that!
Hey Jennifer, thanks for clearing that up and thank you for a fabulous interview. I’m sure our tribe will love it.
Jennifer & Troy,
Thank you both for a sensational “brain export” of fantastic business advice for any agency. My brain is hitting a hosting memory_limit trying to import it all!
I’ve passed this interview on to my team as a must-watch. It’s that good.
You talked about so many of the areas in which we are both struggling and succeeding at the same time as we’re experiencing the same sort of growth curve that you mentioned. The one where you keep doing work that clients love, getting more clients, then raising your rates only to see the door just gets being knocked down by more and more clients who want to work with you!
Nice problem to have, but as you rightly pointed out early on, it’s so critical not to lose the very thing that helped build your reputation in the first place and be so careful about managing projects and clients.
Thank you again.
PS I’m flying through CA a couple times a year, Jennifer. Will be keeping an eye on your speaking schedule to see if we can cross paths at an event soon. I want to thank you in person for being awesome at what you do and inspiring others to do the same.
Jennifer & Troy,
Thank you both for a sensational “brain export” of fantastic business advice for any agency. My brain is hitting a hosting memory_limit trying to import it all!
I’ve passed this interview on to my team as a must-watch. It’s that good.
You talked about so many of the areas in which we are both struggling and succeeding at the same time as we’re experiencing the same sort of growth curve that you mentioned. The one where you keep doing work that clients love, getting more clients, then raising your rates only to see the door just gets being knocked down by more and more clients who want to work with you!
Nice problem to have, but as you rightly pointed out early on, it’s so critical not to lose the very thing that helped build your reputation in the first place and be so careful about managing projects and clients.
Thank you again.
PS I’m flying through CA a couple times a year, Jennifer. Will be keeping an eye on your speaking schedule to see if we can cross paths at an event soon. I want to thank you in person for being awesome at what you do and inspiring others to do the same.
(sorry about the duplicate comment Troy, Disqus picked up the wrong Twitter a/c. Oops 🙂
Six of one, half dozen of the other.. That is still amazing. I learned a great deal listening to this Podcast. Thanks Troy and Jennifer, this was a great session!!!
Great episode! Jennifer love the active PM tip. I’ve been planning on doing this too. Contactually would be great for handling this (thanks for that Troy!). Great listen. Will share.
My tip for conversions is making sure there is a distinct CTA or phone number in the header and simply making sure every page has a very clear goal with a in-your-face CTA to accomplish it. To many websites don’t lead the user to take the next step.
Thanks Rusty! So happy to hear you found the interview helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Melanie – The active PM has been something we have evolved into over time as we have grown and it has made such a HUGE difference!
Thanks for sharing your tip! I find the same thing sometimes … I’m looking for a way to take the next step and can’t find out how easily, or I want to contact someone and can’t find any contact information. A few times, I can’t even find the person’s name (not even on their About page)!
Joao Paulo – Very interesting! In my experience it all comes back to the brand and whether or not a pop-up is a fit for the brand. For high end, luxury, or boutique brands with premium prices, I actually think they can hurt consumer perceptions for a brand.
But if it is a fit, you simply can’t deny that pop-up opt-ins (especially when done with OptinMonster) work well and increase opt-ins.
The conversion data for opt-ins fascinates me too … we put the exact same opt-in on our site on the home page, blog sidebar, and a landing page, but used different code in each place to easily track where the opt-ins were coming from. Over an 18 month period, less than half of one percent EVER opted-in on the home page. All of our opt-ins (about half from each) came from the sidebar opt-in and landing page opt-in.
Our data showed that the home page opt-in was a waste of space and valuable home page real estate, so we dot rid of it. I think when new visitors found us through out home page, they weren’t ready to part with their email address, and needed to spend time on our site first to get to know us, see if they like us, and build a little trust that we do know what we’re doing.
Thanks so much for sharing what’s been working for you!
Wow! Thank you so much Peter!
Growth can be tough, especially when you have a pipeline full of people who want to work with you, and not enough time to do all the work in front of you — even with raising fees. But if you ALWAYS make your brand a priority, you’ll get through the growth with an army of raving fans.
I look forward to meeting you (hopefully soon)!
Congratulations Melanie. Jennifer has chosen you as the lucky winner of the PostPromoter Plugin! Jennifer likes you tip “because it is actionable for anyone with a website, and it doesn’t require any additional investment. It’s one of those things everyone knows, but almost no one actually does.” Great stuff Melanie. We’ll be in touch soon to award the prize.
Awesome! Thanks so much!!