Don't wear a mask on your website

Imagine that you’re looking for somebody to roof your house.

You’ve scoured the internet and had a few people come to your place to give you a quote.

After a few duds, the perfect contractor finally comes. He’s polite, says all of the right things, knows his stuff, has endless references and a fair price.

But there’s only one problem: He’s inexplicably wearing a mask and hasn’t even told you his name.

Would you hire him?

That’s a dramatic example, but it’s what a lot of businesses do online with their websites.

Many businesses fill their websites with a lot of impersonal sales-speak and call it a day – no names, no faces and no real information about the person customers will be interacting with.

Before everyone had a website, small business owners did a lot of their sales face-to-face. You’d meet with somebody in person and get a feel for them. They could say all of the right things, but if people didn’t trust them, or got a bad feeling, they wouldn’t get hired.

Human beings need to be able to get to know somebody before they can trust them.

Now our sales processes happen online, before people even interact with us – which is great, but if we’re not careful we can deprive our customers of the need to get to know and assess us.

You’re going to choose the roofer that you trust the most. And your clients are going to choose the option that they trust the most.

To get a leg up on your competitors: add headshots, tell your business’s story and add some personal information to your website.