Ask An Expert: Lori Osborne How To Get Your Website Working For You-Ep: 107

Hey welcome to sheet coaches coaches, I'm your host Candy Motzek. And I'm going to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to become the coach that you are meant to be. If you're a new coach, or if you've always wanted to be a life coach, then this is the place for you. We're going to talk all about mindset and strategies and how to because step by step only works when you have the clarity, courage and confidence to take action. Let's get started. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this special guest episode of she coaches coaches. I have an interesting guest for you. Her name is Lori Osborne, and she is the founder and chief Solution Architect for biz bolster web solutions. Now, Lori and I don't really know each other. But she reached out to me and said, Listen, I think I've got something that can really help your audience really help coaches. Let me tell you a bit more about her. She specializes increasing sales for small businesses through custom website development, pre built website packages for professional coaches sound like anybody you know, and SEO services as well as reputation management and a heck of a lot more. Lori has 30 plus years of small business and IT experience. She's been a small business owner for over 15 years. She is married to the love of her life. And they live in Florida along with their two adorable fur babies. Were kind of fur babies are they Lori?

Oh, two little doggies. I have a five year old and a 17 year old. Wow. You would never know she's 17. I know. It's crazy. Oh, five year old honoree carrier and she's a black lab.

Oh, nice. Unusually, those labs, so not normally, that long lived right?

Now she's, she's just, she's just hanging in there. She's not even sick. I mean, she's amazing. Made me God.

That's and I work in my she shed my backyard. And she's not here right now. But my dog is usually hanging out with me too. So I'm a real dog person. Talk to me about your story. Like how did you come to this place where you have this business and you serve this group of people.

I love to share my story because hopefully someone out there can relate a little bit. So I have been in technology like she said for over 30 years. I was in project management, software testing, website, testing, documentation, all the boring stuff that nobody wants to do. And in 2015, I was in Denver, Colorado as a technical project manager. And I found out I had a brain tumor and kind of stopped me in my tracks. We had already been talking about how we really needed to get out of the rat race I had just been in high stress for so long. It is a meningioma, which is they it was 97% of time. They're benign. And it is a benign tumor, but it is part of the in my pituitary. And it's part of my carotid artery. So they tried to do surgery to get it off of my optical nerve. And when they did, they nicked that carotid caused a brain bleed, because partial blindness in my left eye and a whole lot of issues with pain and speech and you name it. So basically, going through that and radiation, I just had to kind of stop and go, Okay, I'm not going back to the corporate world, I am not going back to high strength technology. So what can I do? If nothing else, just to continue to use my brain, even if I don't work again, what can I do to challenge myself and be productive, and hopefully someday make money. So I basically just started dabbling with different things that would be different from what I was doing, but I would still use my core skills. And I discovered website development and fell in love instantly. It is my passion. It is the first time in my life I've been able to use both sides of my brain. And it's kind of fun. It took a brain tumor to get me there. But I get to be analytical and logical and use that project management side but then I get to be creative and I've never been creative in a job before. So it's basically I just started building from there I fell in love with it realized how much small businesses needed. Services like I offer because you see the commercials for Squarespace and GoDaddy and all these and just go build it yourself. Well, not everybody is comfortable. Will or can build a website or has the time and ability. So I built the websites, started learning how to build websites, moved to Florida, and found some relief for my pain. So I started building the business more started learning more about SEO, more about marketing more about what business owners would need. And that's where we are today and just

follow my passion. Oh, there's something that you said about small businesses, and it's sure some of them can't, you know, like, it's just a whole different set of technical skills. But I think more than anything, what we don't talk a lot about, is that most of them, should it, you know, like a coach, not necessarily a brand new coach, just starting out. But let's talk a coach who's had, you know, a number of clients and got some hours on under their belt, they're starting to build some momentum. And now they're getting to this place where they have a good signature offering that they're going to put out to the market. So what is the best use of their time? Is it to become a not very good web designer? Or is it to do their thing? Coach, they serve their people create that impact, right? So this thing about, yeah, we could do it ourselves. But really, you know, Riley, why? Why do you want to? And so when you reached out to me, I was, I was really interested in speaking to you because I thought, Okay, here's something that would be really good. For my listeners, here's something to give them a different perspective. So what do you what do you find with working with coaches and online entrepreneurs?

What do I find in terms of their needs,

their needs? And also their? Like, are you often the second person that they've spoken to? Have they tried to do it themselves? And now they're frustrated, and they're coming to you? And just like, Oh,

why often? Yes, yes, I am often the either I've tried it, and I know it stinks. And I need someone to fix it. Or, okay, I've had my first website, it did its job. But now I really need a website. Or it's even I built a website, I even paid someone to build a website. But I have no SEO, because an SEO by the way, a search engine optimization. And not every web developer knows any not some know nothing about SEO. And if you don't build with SEO in mind, you can hurt yourself more than helping. So you know, I get a lot of that as well. But I definitely I find in every type of business, and definitely coaches people trying to do it themselves. Because there are tools that have made it seem easy. You know, I have also spent a lot of time getting people. You know, we were just talking about WordPress a second ago. A lot of people think you have to build a website and WordPress, and honestly, Wordpress, it's very overwhelming for most people that are not technology specialists. And so I get that, too, you know, someone either tries to build it, or someone else builds it for him and WordPress, and then they can't do anything with it. So I move I honestly the first two years I was in business, I think 90% of my business was getting people off of WordPress, onto platforms that they could support themselves. Because, you know, the other thing is not everybody can afford to pay someone every time they want to change a word or update a picture on their web.

Yeah, exactly. So there's that balance. I just wanted to sort of put a little additional comment here about SEO. So SEO, as you said, is search engine optimization. Now listen, a lot of people that listen to this podcast, don't even quite know what that means. So I will tell you my very beginner version of it. If somebody types something into we'll just say Google, because that's kind of the most popular right now. If somebody says I'm interested in this topic in Google, those results that come up, those are happening because of search engine optimization. So if you're a coach and you coach people on burnout, for example, it would be lovely to make sure that somebody could find you are in that area. That is

you're almost quoted the exact definition The only thing I would add is it's it's The work we're doing and the, in the tweaks that we're doing to help you get higher in those search results, ideally, to the first page. You know, and, you know, with coaches especially, there are so many of you, and it's so competitive, that a lot of it too, is getting down and figuring out the smallest niche that's going to be the most likely to be found. And that, you know, takes research and analysis then trying to figure out, okay, how can we find you specifically, and what you specialize in?

Yeah. So the, you know, one of the neat things about doing SEO with websites, and as you said, coming down to a real micro niche, you know, showing that you're a real expert in that small field, is that social media, which so many coaches spend a lot of time on, is, it's here, and it's gone. Whereas something like what you're describing, says, Hey, I could find you today. And I could find you next week. And given that you keep saying this up, I could find you next month, too. So you don't kind of, you're not always having to add fuel to the fire, like you're building the foundation of the fire, you've got some coals that you can rely on. So I hope that helps. And just, you know, for the the real new coaches out there, somebody who's never done anything about having a website, just for you to have little bits of knowledge, like Laurie is sharing, it's just going to make so much difference for you to do things right. The first time, right? Yes,

yes, absolutely.

So Laurie, tell me the kinds of coaches that you've helped create websites.

I, I've worked with a number of different coaches, health related coaches, business coaches. I'm trying to think of how to describe my favorite coach, Coach, Judy, I would say just personal development overall, you know, just really getting into to that piece. I've got one of my clients is an addiction specialist recovery specialist. So you know, kind of a pretty wide variety.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. And it's, and like you said, there's so many coaches out there, right. So it must be interesting to see all the different people and sort of their, their different levels of expertise and where they're pointing their service to. Yes,

yes. I've also got a couple of psychologists. And, you know, that's always fascinating, because, you know, you get into a whole new realm, when you start getting into the medical terminology, you know, that's something else gets keep in mind with SEO and, and Google ads, and those sorts of things. Because there's so many restrictions to what you can and can't say what you can and can't promise on Google before Google will cut you off, basically.

Yeah, so this is this is where you bring your expertise to that fine line between what helps and then what's too far, right? Yes. So when a new coach is thinking of getting a website, where is the first place they should start? Like, what should they be thinking of to begin with?

The very first thing you should be thinking about is your your brand. And, you know, the where that starts is, what am I doing, you know, the type of coaching that you're doing? The type of person that you want to coach and really understanding who that is? And I know, you know, when I start talking about a customer avatar and stuff, people are like, Yeah, but I can coach anybody. But do you want to coach anybody, you know, like, we tend to attract those that are are like us to some degree, but we also you have a certain type of person that's gonna you're going to work best with, you know, it might be a 50 year old woman, it might be a 12 year old child, but you're probably not going to do a 12 year old child and a 50 year old woman, you know, at the same you could but it's really narrowing down the audience because you can't really brand if you don't know your audience, because your branding is all about communicating with that audience and relating to that audience. So that's the first thing. The second thing would be putting that brand into a visual look. So I know who my audience is. I have a clue of what they like and I've got some great brand kits that I usually share with people that kind of help identify yourself a little bit as well like, I'm like girl next door. And creativity like those are my two things. And then getting you know the do I do I want to I want to be super colorful like what I have or do I you know, do I feel like it needs to be calming yellows because that's, you know, a nice soothing cool color. or blues, because blue is a neutral color that everybody relates to. So you know, getting into the colors and fonts and, and then get a logo. And all of that should be done before you're even thinking about a website. So those are kind of the places I would say start before you even start looking at the website piece.

Yeah. And so I like this. So really, there's three areas that you're talking about here. The first area is the who, who do you want to talk to? And how do you want to help them? Second? What is kind of that overall visual look, that's the colors and the fonts and stuff that you're talking about? And then logo. So interesting. I don't even have a logo, just by the way.

Really? Yeah, go figure, okay. Just be your name can be, I mean, many coaches, their name is their logo.

I'm not saying I'm not saying anything, I'm just kind of being like, I just want my clients who listen to this. And I want other coaches who listen to this, to know that. It's not like, I've got this all nailed down, like I'm learning as I talk to you, too, right. And so this thing about the type of person and who you want to talk to you and how you want to help them, that is a conversation that I often have with my clients as well. And it is a hard thing for a new coach to make a decision. One of the things that I like to suggest is, if you're going to have an excellent dinner party, who do you want around the table? Right? Those are the kinds of people that you want to talk to, because like you said, the 12 year old and the 50 year old? Well, I don't know, I love kids, believe me, really appreciate them. And I love all of the things that they bring in their creativity and their inspirational ideas and all of that. But I don't necessarily want to have a Saturday night dinner party with them. I'd rather have a group of my peers, who some of them are, you know, have some really neat life experiences, and they've learned something, and some of them are still learning something so that we're gonna have a great conversation. So that question for coaches in any online entrepreneur, sometimes gives them a place where they kind of golf, it's like, oh, my gosh, I gotta make a decision. Do you find that too? And what's your experience? Oh,

absolutely. And the biggest thing is fear. Because you're afraid if I limit it too much, I'm not I'm going to be turning away business. And it's not about that. It's kind of what we're saying, with the SEO within the niche. I hate that word niche niche. However, you're supposed to say, that area, the more expertise you have in an area, the more likely you are to attract those people where if you're trying to do everything for every buddy, you're not an expert to any one group, like even just talking just now I was thinking about another coach, I work with a parenting coach, you know. So here I'm saying I've got a parenting coach, a recovery addiction coach, a business coach, like those are three very different audiences, they would not market the same at all. And nobody, you know, my parenting coach doesn't feel like she's missing out. Because she doesn't do recovery coaching. She stays busy with parenting coaching. That's what she's known as. That's her expertise. But yes, I am. And I battled it. I mean, I couldn't develop. I just hired a social media, young social media guy. And he's like, we used to be trying to attract young people too. And I'm like, I don't mind doing websites for young people. But that is not my target market. That's not who I'm marketing to. I'm marketing to usually 40 to 60 year old women, business owners. That's who I attract. That's who enjoys working with me and who I enjoy working with. And we connect and we want your time, but that's how I want to have a dinner party.

Right? Those are the people that you know, like they're at a different level in their career, you know, you described an extensive career or high stress career, and that is a whole skill set to manage that kind of life. And once you've had that life, and then you're creating your business, you're gonna talk to people who have also had similar experiences, right? So much here and there. You know, there's so much business to go around. There are so many clients that we couldn't keep up with all of the ones so it just serves us best and serves our clients best to say hey, this is my this is my group. You know, this is why some people, you know, and I just thought of this right now when Think about the challenge that coaches have with narrowing down their niche and choosing this, their dream clients or their best clients. And I just think that, like, when you're in university, and you're deciding on your major, your, you know, first degree first major, you might have struggle a little bit, making that decision, but you didn't, you know, you didn't think, Oh, well, I'm going to do political science, and then spend a lot of time saying, oh, I should be doing engineering, like, once you are doing it, you know, kind of where you like to be, you know, kind of what you're interested in. So you just go with it, and you go all in, you don't spend your time going. Political Science. No, no, no, I want to be an engineer, you know, like, you don't worry about it in that way. And so I think that coaches could take a paycheck that, you know, especially midlife coaches, who have made those kinds of decisions, and you know, how their careers and done their degrees to guess like, Oh, I could just treat it in the same way doesn't have to be so hard.

Right. Exactly, exactly. And after developing a business, you, I mean, you get a sense of the type of people you attract, anyway, I mean, you know, we're, it's, like you said, there's plenty of business to go around, you know, we have to get out of that competitive peace of mind and not worry about what everybody else is doing or who they're doing it for, and just be focused on, you know, putting our best self out there, and then the right people are going to come to us, because that's who is attracted to us. And I have found when I start working with people that we don't have that it's a disaster, you know, if I, if I try to force it and try to work with someone that, you know, I don't, I'm thinking of one in particular, that just wasn't referred to me didn't, you know, I remember how she came to me. But you know, it just, it wasn't a match. And it's no fun to do work with people, when there's, especially with what you guys do, I can't even imagine trying to coach, if there's not a connection, not imagine

how, and then I'm thinking from the you know, from the, you know, website development and design side, you've got to bring your passion to it. And if you're sort of in resistance with that person, it's really hard to serve them and create, you know, help them create that best, most representative website for where they are in their business. Absolutely. Larry, you've given me lots to think about Thank you. And I know, this is all

my goal, my

little brain is going around in the circle, lots of circles, actually. So I know that you have lots of different ways that you work with coaches. And so could you tell us a little bit about the kinds of ways that you work with coaches?

Well, every everything we've talked about, I, I work through custom websites, I have my free package websites for coaches, I will update existing website, I will do an SEO evaluation, I have one time SEO fixes. And then I have SEO packages. And everything I do comes with an element of guidance, you know, I don't I don't just throw everything at you and go, go figure it out, you know, everything we're talking about, I I work with all of my clients and and better understanding their audience how to how to communicate with their audience, what you know, and I honestly, I start usually with the logo or something that looks like the logo. And let's, let's start there, and make sure is this really representative of you, and your audience, because I actually build websites, usually off of the logo, like the logo is my inspiration. So I kind of that's kind of why I say you start with that, because I'm going to go with the colors and the fonts, typically from the logo and build out because I'm assuming, and I will confirm when I talked to people that that logo came from a personal reason, because, you know, I, you know, like I said, my, my little logo here is literally based on my desire to represent the organizational piece that I said and the creative P. Right. So it's kind of you know, and that's what this this is like the the steadfast part of it. I'm not communicating very well, but hopefully. But it just, you know, but that's why I start with the logo, because it should be that first piece of the branding that we want to build out across the website. And so that's kind of the guidance that I'm giving as well. And then the other thing is, I do build webs sites that are easy to support, I offer support packages, but I recognize that my, my audience, my avatar doesn't always have the money to pay me to do every little thing. So I build on a platform that's easy to support. And then I offer video training. And I'm always accessible as well just to help people to be able to do it themselves if they want to. Oh, cool.

So it sounds like you're the combination of everything, meaning a little, there's always some personal support, so you don't feel like you're kind of, you know, left out left out in the cold and you don't know quite what to do. But then you still have the options. Do you want to do most of it yourself? Or just a part of it yourself? Or do you really want a lot of support? And so it just sounds like there's just an opportunity for everybody. So, listeners, if you know that it's time for you to be looking at a website, or it's time for you to redo your website, I would highly recommend that you check Laurie out Florrie, how can people get a hold of you? And if they wanted to find you? What's the easiest way for them to find you? On the web? And I have one more question. What's my question? freebie, freebie, Brandy.

No problem. So biz bolster.com, it is in my little box, there is my website, I highly recommend you go there. In the upper right corner is a little bit and let's chat if you want to have a free discovery session call that just talk about your needs. And no, no sales pitch just if you want to talk and if I can help you great. And then if you go to biz bolster, forward slash coach, giveaway coach dash giveaway, which I believe will be in our show notes here. I've got some packages or some promotions just for coaches. So there's a guide on how to be seen your guide to website and SEO, and a free SEO analysis. So if you do I already have a website, then we will do an intensive back end analysis of how that website was built, how it's performing, and what things that you should do to improve that SEO. And I go over that with you on the phone. So that you have to actually see it and understand it because it is written in an SEO terms, which is one of the more complex things that I do is I try to help you understand what in the world it is that we're talking about.

Oh, that's great. Okay. So for those of you who are listening to the audio only, it's bizbolster.com B I Z B O L S T E R.com. And I'll make sure to put the link for Lori's website, as well as the freebie in the Episode Notes. Thank you, Lori. I appreciate you spending time with me. And I really enjoyed the conversation.

No, thank you. Thank you very much. I love being here. And I love working with coaches you guys are I wouldn't be where I am without coaches. I mean, I honestly would not be it's been a life and business changer. I encourage everyone to have a coach.