Your Website Is Ugly and So Is Your Strategy

Let me start with some radical candour, because I'm a giver. I looked at your website this morning. I was on the jet at the time (it's a set, the pilot is a lamp), and I had to put my oat flat white down. Not because I was moved. Because I was frightened.

Your homepage has a carousel. In this economy. Five slides, rotating every three seconds, each one a stock photo of a handshake and the word "Excellence" in a font that came free with a printer. Nobody has ever waited for slide three. Not even you. You've never seen slide three. I have. It's a photo of your nephew's band.

Your website is ugly

I say this with love, which I invoice separately. Your logo is a clip-art globe. Your contact page is a phone number in grey on a slightly different grey. Your About page opens with "Founded in 1997, we are passionate about solutions." Passionate. About solutions. Nobody is passionate about solutions, mate. People are passionate about footy, sourdough and telling me I'm "a lot." Solutions are just things that happen in a bucket.

Your site also takes eleven seconds to load on a phone. I timed it. In that time I closed two deals, did a cold plunge and recorded a video about patience.

So is your strategy

When I asked about your strategy, you said "word of mouth." That's not a strategy. That's a hope wearing a cardigan. Word of mouth is free marketing, and you know how I feel about people who think marketing is free. They're the reason I have to explain my invoices out loud, slowly, like a hostage negotiator.

Your backup strategy was "a social media page." It was last updated at Christmas, by your cousin, with a photo of a pavlova. The pavlova has more engagement than your business. Think about that. Then stop thinking about it, because thinking is my job and I'm on the clock.

The Reach Around Funnel™ fixes both

Here's how it works. At the top of the funnel, we attract. In the middle, we nurture. At the bottom, we invoice. Then we flip the funnel, because the Reach Around Funnel™ is actually a tornado, which is 312% more dynamic than a funnel and much harder to audit.

Step one is a rebrand. Your new logo will be your old logo, but pink and lowercase, because lowercase says "approachable" and pink says "I've paid an agency." Step two is a new homepage with one word on it. The word is "Scale." Scale what? Exactly. Mystery converts. Step three is a video of me on your homepage, pointing at the camera through gold confetti, which lifts trust by up to 900 trusts.

"But Rich, I like my website"

Of course you do. You also like your strategy, and look where that's got you: reading a blog on a weekday morning instead of sitting on a jet. A real one. Mine's a set, but it's a set I own, which is more than you can say for your domain name. I checked. It's registered to a web designer called Darren who moved to the coast in 2014 and has stopped answering emails, spiritually and literally.

Now, don't get me wrong. Ugly websites can work. Ugly is authentic, and authentic is the number one trend this year, according to a poll I ran with myself. So keep it ugly. But let me make it ugly properly, on purpose, for a fee. Is that a contradiction? No. That's called range.

Key takeaways (bolded, for you)

• Your website is ugly. Be honest with yourself. Your mum already was.
• Your strategy is hope. Hope is not a stage of the funnel. I checked the tornado.
• Ugly can be authentic, but only when I do it, and only after the deposit clears.

You're welcome. Again. Always.