Your Website Is Costing You Deals | David Nathan on Digital Presence That Converts - Burn The Playbook

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
This is Burn the Playbook.
Burn everything that's holdingyou back.

(00:30):
Welcome in.
This is Burn the Playbook.
I'm Mark Crosby and my guesttoday is David Nathan, CEO of
Scalar Marketing.
He left California, moved backto Boston and built an agency
his kids could be proud of.
Scalar helps science and techcompanies cut through the noise
with websites that don't justgrab attention, they express
identity.
For David, a website just isn'ta brochure.
It's the foundation of sales andmarketing.

(00:51):
He is also a board member atSamps, a father of five, and
somehow still finds time to run,hike, and gets lost in jungles.
Welcome Welcome, David.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
And Mike, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
Good to see you.
I wanted to unpack that lastnote that you had in your bio
there as far as getting lost injungles.
Kind of wanted to figure out, isthat something that you
typically do on purpose?
Does it happen by accident?
And does it happen often?

SPEAKER_01 (01:19):
It's a good question.
I would say I like to exploreand I like to put myself in
places that are maybe lessertraveled than most are
comfortable with so I oftensometimes I refer to that but
it's technically referring tothe time that I had spent in

(01:39):
Costa Rica I lived there for ayear and my job was to take
people on hikes so I was justlike 20 something 20 something
kid from the states takingtourists from all over the world
on hikes through the jungle withmy machete in hand and every
once in a while we'd go placesthat were lesser traveled and
the trails weren't as well keptSo we typically lose the trail

(02:02):
and have to find our way back.
So it's just kind of, you know,uh, I would say it's something
that I learned to do then.
And it was a really importantlesson that I've taken through
everything that I do.
It's like, we don't always knowwhere we're going, but we have
the ability to figure it out.
And even if we get lost and it'spouring rain and all you have is
a machete and surrounded byvenomous snakes, you know,

(02:24):
there's, there's still a lightat the end of the tunnel, you
know?
Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
Well said very true.
More people need to I hear that,and I love that mentality.
So how did you go from slashingyour way through jungles to
developing websites andmarketing?

SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
Sure.
Well, when I was there, that wasactually my year after college,
and I was still trying to figureout what to do.
I was a biology major in collegebecause that's what I grew up
around.
It's what I knew, and I kind ofwasn't sure what else to do.
So I studied biology, spent ayear in Costa Rica, came back,

(02:59):
had a a bunch of different jobs.
It was really like a year indifferent locations for about
four years, trying to findmyself, uh, eventually got to a
point where I was working in alab as a, as a lab tech for a
Marine biologist.
And it was not what I thought itwould be.
I kind of thought, you know,Marine biology is gonna spark my

(03:20):
passions and maybe I'll get amaster's degree and a PhD in
Marine biology, and I'll get togo on cool diving expeditions
and study coral reefs.
And it, it sounded glamorous atthe time but I remember very
vividly this one moment where Iwas sitting in the lab next door
listening to the professor ofthat lab talking about his

(03:40):
research and I don't rememberwhat his research was about but
I remember how excited he wasand I remember distinctly
thinking to myself why don't Ifeel that way like why have I
never found myself feeling thatway about the work that I'm
doing and I always thought itwas something wrong with me I
always thought maybe I'm MaybeI'm just dumb.

(04:00):
Maybe I'm lazy.
Like, I don't know.
But, you know, for some reason,I don't get into it as much as
the people around me.
And it was like literally thatmoment that I had this
realization that maybe I'm justnot supposed to be doing this
and that's OK.
Right.
And so I immediately I reachedout back to a friend who I went
to high school with.
We ran track together and shehad started a business with some

(04:22):
friends and had reached out tome when I was in D.C.
the year prior and just waslike, hey, you know, what are
you doing?
And she told me and startedgoing into business with them.
And I learned a whole lot aboutsales and marketing and business
development and growth and teambuilding.
It was an amazing three yearsworking with that team.
And then, you know, that led toa number of different other

(04:43):
experiences, eventually takingme to California where I was
directing sales and marketingfor a manufacturing company.
This was, you know, 2012, 2013.
So there was a whole world ofinternet marketing that was
really starting to come to lifearound that time.
Um, one of the books I read thatyear or over that four years

(05:04):
was, uh, the four hour work weekby Tim Ferris.
And I remember trying to get myboss to give me, you know, one
day a week.
That's kind of what Tim says,like, just get your boss to give
you one day a week.
And he would not, he refused.
Um, and you know, after fouryears of that company, I was
really feeling like, um, Iwasn't fully behind the products
we were making and selling.

(05:24):
And one of my jobs was, well, myjob was to sell and market these
products.
And And I wasn't really surewhere to go after that.
And I decided to move back toBoston and start Scalar.
And eventually, I wanted to makesome use of my college degree as
well and my background.
And I believe in the sciences.
And I believe that there's a lotof amazing innovations that

(05:46):
really need help telling theirstory.
So that's now what we largelyfocus on.

SPEAKER_00 (05:52):
Nice.
Very cool story.
Love that book, 4-Hour Workweek,although I've never had a 4-Hour
Workweek.
But there's a lot of goodprinciples in there.
And I still follow those.
Well, and that's not He's

SPEAKER_01 (06:02):
like, he's like, some people think like, that's
why, why would you want to dothis?
Well, the idea is do as much asyou do now in four hours and
then, you know, fill the rest ofyour week with that level of
productivity.
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (06:12):
Exactly.
Yeah.
A lot of good concepts there.
Um, so did you, did you nichedown into, um, you know, science
and technology as far as salesand marketing, like immediately,
or is that something that youfigured out over time?
So like what came first, uh, youknow, the niche or developing
sales and marketing andwebsites?

SPEAKER_01 (06:31):
So originally I thought I was going to focus on
analytics and, you know, intrying to think, you know, what,
what should my company do?
Um, you know, this was, I mean,bottom starting from the bottom,
right.
And I, I didn't come from anagency background.
I, you know, I wasn't working inmarketing for a biotech company.

(06:51):
So I was really trying to figureout what should this look like?
I didn't have the network.
I didn't have the portfolio.
Um, but I was always good atmath and I thought, you know,
maybe I'll sell analyticsservices.
And so my original tagline wasgrowing your business through
actionable results.
And because I didn't have anetwork, I was just going to
local businesses and trying toconnect with people.

(07:13):
And what I found was localbusinesses didn't have a budget
for analytics.
Go figure.
So I like they couldn't theycouldn't think that far ahead.
And, you know, so but most of myearly clients just needed
websites.
And the process really startedto jive with me.
I really liked the creativeaspect of it.
I saw a lot of websites outthere that were quite frankly

(07:36):
not terribly attractive oreffective.
And I knew what it was possibleto charge for websites if they
were good and you were workingwith decent sized companies.
So it just seemed like a gooddirection to go in.
And it probably took a few yearsto get to a point where we were
more focused on the sciences.
But again, I didn't really havethe network.

(07:57):
And if you don't have theportfolio, it's not the easiest
industry to break into.
So, you know, I had thebackground, which was helpful.
And I had like a couple ofclients here and there that were
science related.
And then we actually eventuallyconnected with a larger agency
that started pulling us in towebsite projects because they
didn't have an in-house websiteteam.

(08:18):
And that's really how we grewour portfolio.
So over the course of a coupleof years, we grew our portfolio
enough till we were able to say,you know what, this is a really
good niche for us.
There's a lot of help that canbe provided to these companies.
And there's a lot of, there's alot of like, I think scientists
tend to speak in a veryscientific way and websites are
often seen as like, let's justdump all this scientific

(08:40):
information on people and theydon't necessarily think about it
creatively and from a brandingperspective.
So I saw a really bigopportunity in the industry that
I grew up in anyways.
Um, and that's how we ended upfocusing on that.
So that was really like aroundthe beginning of 2023.
And we said, you know, I thinkour portfolio is there, you
know, our revenues at a pointwhere we can really start, uh,

(09:01):
investing in our own marketingand going to some more
conferences and things likethat.
So I started going to largerconferences and that's really
where it became our focus.

SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
Gotcha.
Why is it that so many websitesare just bad?
I mean, they're not userfriendly or they're not visually
appealing or they haven'tupdated them in 10 years.
There's just all these commonproblems that are so, at least
for me and probably you, justvery apparent.
Like when you land on a website,you're just like, oh, I don't
know what they do or how comethey still has a 2012 copyright

(09:34):
at the bottom or something likethat.
Why?
Why is it difficult forcompanies to understand that a
website should be important?

SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
So I think there's a number of factors.
One is not everybody tends to beon the cutting edge of the best
way to do things.
And I think the internet is justnot that old, right?
So you have this reallyinteresting phenomenon right now
where you've got really bigbusinesses that grew before the

(10:05):
age of the internet.
And you have the people thatwere in charge of those
businesses who are now on boardsor who are now running other
companies.
And they're saying, well, wedidn't need a website when we
grew our business.
So I don't think we need it now.
And to some extent, that's stilla little bit true, right?
Like there are companies thatdon't have great websites that

(10:26):
grow.
Like I'm not here to telleverybody, if you don't have a
beautiful website, you're notgonna grow your business.
But what I think is eventuallygoing to happen is you're going
to have these larger companieswho are resting on their laurels
and you're going to have theseyounger companies who are coming
up and saying, you know, we'regoing to do things in a modern
way and we're going to get infront of people more effectively
because we understand how theInternet works and we're going

(10:47):
to really invest in thosematerials.
And they're eventually going totake over these larger companies
that either are resting on theirlaurels or it's, you know, an
older CEO founder that says, youknow, I've gotten this far.
I'm retiring in a couple ofyears.
Why?
should I spend all this money onsomething that I haven't needed
till now?
And that's kind of how they'remaking their decisions.

(11:07):
But I think it's also, you know,web design is not the simplest
process, right?
And this is why a lot of largeragencies don't have in-house
website teams, because youreally need a lot of really
talented people with a widearray of talents to effectively
make a website.
And unless you have a regularflow of projects, it's really

(11:29):
hard to staff that team, right?
So it's from the creative side,from the copywriting side, from
the visuals and the creativeassets that you need to the, I
think that I say copywriting,you need the copywriters, you
need the technical developers,people who understand how to
build it technically and all thebackend things that need to be
hooked up and working properly.

(11:49):
So it's a lot of stuff that Idon't even know necessarily how
to do myself at the highestlevel.
But if you're trying to pullthat team together, it's a
really challenging thing to do.
So I think people end up usuallylacking in maybe one or two or
three of those areas and it'snot the cheapest process right
so when they're weighing theiroptions i think it often gets

(12:10):
overlooked because they don'tnecessarily value what it can do
for them yet right because we'restill i think in that
transitional phase where theinternet is just not that old
you know modern websites youknow websites have evolved
drastically in the last fiveyears even so

SPEAKER_00 (12:28):
yeah i was doing some research before this and
just looking looking at thedates as far as when the
internet was first developedwhat was the first thing sold
and it was the early 90s which Idon't know maybe I'm just dating
myself that seems like yesterdayas far as but that was like dial
up but then again I meaneverything these days is scaling
so fast with the internet and AIand everything that's coming out
of that so I feel like if youdon't have the website aspect of

(12:50):
your business nailed down likeright now then what does that
look like as you know newiterations of you know
artificial intelligence andagents and everything that comes
with that is like you know everysix months there's like a new
thing so it seems like it's hardto keep up it is well that's why
they need somebody like you tohelp them out

SPEAKER_01 (13:09):
yeah sure exactly hopefully you know

SPEAKER_00 (13:13):
what goes into like the mechanics of developing a
website properly I mean I thinkthat you know some people who
maybe don't have an appreciationfor you know all the the back
end that you were justdescribing you know I think like
oh if I need a website I canhave it up and running in like a
couple weeks like is Is that thecase for most companies?
Or if I really wanna do itright, how long should it take?

SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
So you can build a website in a couple of weeks,
right?
I mean, there's still thisdebate, will we be replaced by
AI, right?
Like could within a few hours,could you have a really
effective website?
I don't think we're there yet,but most of the projects we work
on, the timeline is usually fourto six months.
Every once in a while, apotential client will come to us

(13:59):
and like, we've got thisdeadline in two months?
And my response is usually,well, you know, why?
Why are we trying to do this intwo months?
Why do you wait till now?
Like, what's going on?
And here's why you might notwant to rush this.
You know, we can sometimes comeup with like a phase one, right?
We got to get something up.
So let's get something up.
But the full project's not goingto be done in two months.

(14:20):
So, you know, the way we breakdown our process is you've got
usually about a month up frontfor the strategy side of the
project, right?
Understanding the company,understanding the message
understanding the targetaudience and how we want to
speak to people and reallymapping out the site, right?
I think one of the reasons thatcompanies often come to us is
because there are sites just allover the place.

(14:42):
It's hard to find things.
It's hard to get from one placeto another.
There was not really ever anythought put into, okay, well,
when somebody lands on the site,where do we want them to go and
how do we make sure they getthere?
It's just, we've got all thisinformation and we got to throw
it on the website and put itsomewhere.
And over the years, it justbecomes this web of
interconnected pages.
that are hard to find.
And so there's a lot of effortput into just the organization

(15:06):
of the site itself, especiallyfor larger companies.
But then after, so after you'vegot the month of strategy, and
these are averages, but afterthe month of strategy, it's
usually about a month for wire,I would say maybe one to two
months for wireframing anddesign, right?
So, okay, let's map out thecontent, right?
We know now what we wanna say.
We're gonna fill in some gapshere and there, but we've got

(15:28):
the structure of the site.
Now, like what's the outline ofthe site?
homepage?
What's the outline of the aboutpage?
And then we can start filling inthose pieces.
Then we create the design.
And then the dev process is, atleast for us, is a good chunk of
the project, right?
Because we've approved design,but things shift in dev.
Once you see it live on awebsite, all of a sudden

(15:48):
everybody says, oh, wait, thisis actually going to go live.
Hold on.
This isn't working.
This doesn't look right.
And we know that.
And things feel different oncethey're in dev and live and
things are moving.
And it always feels a lotsmoother once it's actually
developed.
So it's usually like a two tothree month process for
development.
Uh, and a lot of that's just allthe QA QC, making sure forms are
working, making sure the CRM isintegrated properly and making

(16:11):
sure Google tag manager is setup and analytics is firing
correctly.
Um, there's just a lot oftechnical little details that
have to really be paid attentionto, for the site to work
properly.
Uh, let alone just making sureit's working well and it's easy
to use.
It doesn't glitch and loadsproperly and all these different
things.
So

SPEAKER_00 (16:29):
yeah, a lot of details like that.
four to six months seems like ashort time because i imagine you
got to get a lot of peopleinvolved there's a lot of you
know trial and error and likeyou said working out those
glitches and things like that umin addition to that though i
mean if you're focused on thewebsites i always find that
there needs to be some sort ofconnectivity for for brands as
far as you know to social mediato your linkedin page to

(16:50):
instagram and everything elsethat's out there um do you get
involved with that as far asmaking sure that or at least
bringing it to their attentionsaying like hey we're going to
develop this for the website butyou have to understand that your
digital footprint, it mattersfor your sales team, for your
marketing team and anybody elsethat's, you know, viewing your
product.
I think that, you know, I alwaystalk about, you know, there's a

(17:11):
misalignment sometimes withsales and marketing and that
everybody needs to be speakingthe same language.
You all need to be rowing in thesame direction.
So do you do that with yourwebsite digital development for
companies?

SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
Yeah.
So we don't necessarily getheavily involved in the sales
strategy side of things.
but where we're largely focusedis the visual side of the brand,
right?
So most of our clients that cometo us need some sort of touch up
on the branding, whether we'rebranding them from scratch or
we're doing a rebrand, thatdefinitely happens maybe 25 to

(17:46):
30% of the time.
And then the rest of the timeit's okay, this is our brand and
it's kind of outdated, right?
We don't want to change thelogo.
We've got a lot of brand value.
So we're not changing the name.
People recognize it.
You know, we like our colors,but it's missing something.
and the brand doesn't feelmodern, right?
So we're modernizing everything.
And then, okay, well, we'regoing to spend all this time
modernizing your brand andbuilding your website, but how

(18:10):
do you look on social media,right?
What do your LinkedIn graphictemplates look like?
What do you send people whenthey ask for a brochure?
What does your trade show boothlook like?
If you're going to spend allthis money and time investing in
your website, you better makesure your trade show booth
matches the brand that you justcreated and all these different
pieces that come together fromfrom your business cards to your

(18:31):
email templates to everything.
So yeah, that's a big part ofwhat we do just because, you
know, we want our customers tosucceed.
And, you know, we also wanteverything to be consistent and
brand consistency is reallyimportant.
Like, do you look the same andequally as good everywhere that
people find you?
And if not, then we just got tofind the gaps and fill them,

(18:51):
right?

SPEAKER_00 (18:52):
Yeah.
If not, like I always say,people probably move on to
something else.
I mean, I think that at least inthe markets that I have served
in the past and that I servedtoday, there's a lot of
competition out there.
A lot of people are saying thesame thing.
So even from a sales andmarketing perspective, I go to a
lot of trade shows and I knowyou do too.
And a lot of those booths, theylook exactly the same.

(19:12):
I mean, some of the messaging isthe same.
I mean, you know, if you go tosome of the more heavy hitter
ones, you know, they tend todifferentiate, but then they're
pouring in, you know, sevenfigures into those booths.
So they better look different.
But I always, I guess, find thatcommon problem of, you know, if
I look at your booth, I look atyour LinkedIn, I look at your
digital front print and I lookat your website and they're all
kind of disconnected, it doesn'tgive me a warm and fuzzy of

(19:35):
wanting to do business with you.
And I would think that whetherit's obvious or not, whether
it's measured in a KPI, thatfeeling has to come across for
somebody that potentially wouldwant to do business with you.
Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
Yeah.
And I really like that you'reusing the word feelings because
I don't think we often givepeople enough credit for being
people.
And this was actually a lessonand that I learned in my job
when I was in LA, we were a B2Bcompany and I was really trying
to push the owner of the companyto not to rebrand per se, but to

(20:13):
redo all of his materials andcreate marketing materials that
were attractive and told a storyand showed the products
differently.
And, you know, as opposed tojust these spreadsheets with a
little teeny photo that, youknow, it was just about the
numbers and the price and MSRPand specs and whatever.
And And his response to me atone point was like, we don't

(20:33):
need to do that.
That's a waste of money.
We're a B2B company.
Our dealers just want to knowthat the product's going to make
them money.
They don't care about all thatother stuff.
And in my head, I'm thinking,well, first of all, if the
products don't look cool,nobody's going to buy it from
the dealers.
So you're not doing your dealersany favors by not marketing
these products correctly.
And the dealers are people too,right?

(20:55):
Like, aren't those dealers goingto be drawn to things that are
cool to them?
They're all They're also people.
They also have feelings andopinions and preferences.
So that's really, it was like,it was a big thing for me,
especially when I startedScalar.
It's like, we're not, there's, Idon't believe in B2B.
I think, yeah, there's adifference in marketing when
you're marketing to consumersand marketing to other

(21:16):
companies.
Sure.
Maybe it's the avenue.
Maybe it's the types of ads andthe way you're speaking, but
ultimately it's P2P.
We're all people, right?
And if the products look goodand it's appealing and you can
create an emotional experiencefor people, whether that's a
consumer or or a dealer, you'regoing to be more, you're going
to be more effective.
And, you know, when you, whenyou talk about feelings, if

(21:37):
somebody comes to your websiteand the feeling they get is, I
don't think this company takesthemselves very seriously, or
this kind of feels like it's inthe stone age, or there's really
no personality behind thiscompany.
I can't even tell who worksthere.
Like the internet, just aboutthe internet.
And then I'll connect the twoideas.
The internet is, is seen as agreat equalizer, right?

(21:58):
So all of a sudden, you know,some random company in the
middle of, uh, you know, theMidwest somewhere that never had
access to the big cities, all ofa sudden can, can market and
become a big company.
Unlike they were ever able todo.
Right.
But the problem is they're nowalso competing against every
other company all over theworld.
Right.
So you can't just pick a nameand start with an a and B at the

(22:21):
top of the yellow pages anymore.
Cause if somebody in Australiapicked that name, you're
competing with that guy over inAustralia.
Right.
And the same thing, same thingwith business now.
It's like, yeah, it's anequalizer.
Everybody has the equalopportunity now, but that just
means you're competing againstthe whole world.
So you don't have to just lookbetter than the five businesses
in your area.
You have to look better than ahundred businesses.

(22:42):
And if someone finds yourwebsite, they're going to find
five to 10 other websites andthey're just going to go by what
feels right to them.
And that's where you really haveto pay attention to how you're
making people feel.

SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
Yeah.
And it better come through inyour messaging as far as how you
differentiate yourself betweenthose other five or a hundred
suppliers or companies that areout there and so there has to be
the brand continuity as wetalked about there also just has
to be something that sets youapart from that pack I mean with
everything that's going on inthe world as far as just
geopolitical issues supply chainissues with tariffs you know
companies are looking fordifferent suppliers whether they

(23:17):
they have to or they don'tthey're looking for contingency
plans or you know second sourcesor third sources so you know I
think you have to be a littlebit proactive as far as you know
doing this work like right nowand so when that happens other
procurement person is lookingfor a new supplier or somebody
to support their business, youbetter be getting them that warm
and fuzzy or else you just mightnot be in that RFQ, RFP, or

(23:40):
whatever you might want to callit.
But it's certainly important.
And I guess with that said, ifI'm a CEO, CMO, obviously
everyone wants KPIs and numbers.
So for those people, I guess,that are looking for, hey,
that's really great, David,about feelings.
But how does that translate tothe bottom How are you going to

(24:01):
measure these feelings?

SPEAKER_01 (24:04):
How do you measure feelings?
Well, that's a good question.
I guess, you know, so we're notnecessarily, you know, we do a
lot of SEO work, but we don'tsee ourselves as an SEO company
per se, right?
Where all we're going to do iswe're going to look at your
traffic and we're going to lookat your leads and that's all we
care about.
Obviously, if a company is notgrowing and the website's not
working for them, they're notgoing to want to continue

(24:25):
working with us.
But there's a whole lot ofother, I wouldn't even call them
intangibles because I've believethat they are very tangible.
Um, but there are other factorsthat go into how effective a
website can be that don't evennecessarily show within, you
know, how the website'sperforming.
For example, if your website'snot very attractive and it's
really confusing and it doesn'twork very well, how excited are

(24:47):
your salespeople going to be tohand out a business card when
they're at a trade show?
Right.
It's like, well, we just had agreat conversation and you're
asking me for my business card,but just here, but just, just
don't go to the website.
You know, like I think if yougive, if you give your team
something to be excited aboutand something to be proud of,
they're going to be much moreaggressive with spreading the
word on sharing that withpeople, right?

(25:09):
So that's one thing.
It's how quickly can yourmarketing team update the
website and make changes on aregular basis so that they can
try new methods of marketing, sothey can try new ad campaigns
and new avenues for marketingand spreading their message.
I mean, we talked to companieswho haven't touched their
website literally in yearsbecause it it's such a pain just

(25:31):
to add a new blog post.
You're like, how is that gonnabe effective for your marketing
team when they're literallyfrozen and can't do anything in
the digital realm, right?
And then forget all the dollarsthat you're spending and you're
sending people to your, ifyou're advertising and you're
sending people to your website,and it's just, you're spending
all this money getting peoplethere and then you're sending

(25:52):
them to something that is justkind of, right?
So, and I could go on withothers, but yeah, there's a lot
of reasons to improve it beyondjust, you know, the numbers, you
know, traffic and legion.
Although

SPEAKER_00 (26:05):
there's certainly a lot to unpack there from
everything you just said.
I mean, I think that the websiteshould be used as a weapon.
And if I'm a salesperson and Ihave been in a lot of sales
roles, I should have thatconfidence to know that if you
go to my website, there's goingto be some value that you'll get
if you go there, whether it's ifyou're looking for documents,
you're looking for moreinformation, or if there's some
videos on the products thatwe're, you know, demoing today

(26:26):
or talking about.
And I've been in that situationa lot of times as you were
describing as far as handing outthat business card and be like
don't go to the website thoughbecause you know you're not
going to be able to find whatyou want or I've even told
people like this is probablymany many years ago like oh if
you're looking for thatinformation just google it
because you'll never find it onour website exactly what kind of

(26:49):
like you know feelings are youyou know developing in that
initial you know discussion withsomebody if you're telling them
to google something or gosomeplace else to find the
information because it's easierthan something that we on

SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
right I mean look we also have clients who their
process for their sales team isstill okay if you have a client
and they need to haveinformation about a certain
product just email everybody andask if anybody has a nice
brochure or a flyer or someinformation they sent out at
some point right and these arerelatively decent sized
companies that are stilloperating this way but imagine

(27:22):
if your salesperson could justyou know they're on a phone with
somebody oh yeah you wantinformation about that product
here's a link to that product onour website and they're actually
excited to share that withpeople because it's nicely
organized the product looks goodand they don't have to scan
their five different hard drivesand old emails just to find
information to send people youknow it almost becomes or it
does it becomes a resource forthe sales team as well

SPEAKER_00 (27:44):
sure and at the end of the day if you're looking for
a KPI that's going to save themtime which is more money that
they can use to actually go youknow reach out to more people or
do other activities close dealsand things like that because I
know that I spent a lot of timeat least you know pulling down
information whether it's youknow spending sheets or delivery
information.
If that was more readilyavailable to a prospect or a

(28:06):
customer with 24-7 access orsome sort of e-commerce site or
just better organization, thatwould certainly save me a lot of
time.
I'm sure that other sales peoplewould probably appreciate that
as well.
But you have to be able to setit up in a way.
Speed

SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
is crucial.
You're in sales.
The faster you can getinformation to people, the
better.
If you have to wait two daysjust to get a response, but if
you get response in 30 seconds,you're like, oh, this company's
got their act together.
If they can get me informationthis quickly, they're probably
going to serve me better thansomebody who I'm still waiting
for them to send me a flyer,right?

(28:40):
It's just, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 (28:42):
I was just going to say, and that could also be a
differentiator from a salesperspective, because if
everybody has this complexity,especially like in, you know,
life sciences and the chemicalindustry, there's a lot of
complexity to gettinginformation because it could be
specific to a region or specificproducts and things like that.
And so if you're able to do thatmuch faster to where you can get
it to them instantaneously oreven self-service as compared

(29:03):
to, oh, I'm looking for thisinformation.
I'll get back to you in a weekor so.
That's a huge problem as far as,once again, that initial feeling
that you get from interactingwith somebody, which could be, I
guess, available on the website.
So what's your approach as faras when you're going through
this development process withyour clients as far as
communicating theseopportunities, if you will, for

(29:24):
really turning the website intoa powerhouse salesperson?
Would you agree that that thewebsite is your most effective
salesperson?

SPEAKER_01 (29:34):
It should be, right?
It absolutely should be yourbest salesperson because it
doesn't sleep, it doesn't eat,it doesn't need to shower, it
never needs to change itsclothes, right?
So imagine if you had somebodyon your team that was working
24-7, who always said the rightthing, who was always cleanly
shaven or at least cleanlytrimmed, right?

(29:56):
And they always said the rightthing and they always always had
a good attitude.
Like you can't find a personlike that, but most people's
websites, they just confusepeople.
They almost give people like an,a negative feeling.
And I find it, I'm not surprisedbecause I know this is how it
works, but it's amazing to methat people will easily spend,

(30:18):
you know, six figures a year ona mediocre salesperson, right.
On a five years they've spent atleast half a million dollars if
not more but they're not willingto spend a fraction of that to
build a website that's going toliterally be their best
salesperson for for the rest ofthe existence of that company

(30:41):
with some you know some upkeepbut not at the cost of a of an
employee right and that's kindof those are almost entry-level
employees at this point in termsof how much salaries cost
depending on where you liveexactly

SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
and you mentioned the word confusion and confused
buyers they don't buy i meaneveryone you know we taught
about that all the time.
And that's a huge problem.
And that's another reason whyeverything just needs to be
aligned.
What do you think when companiesare looking to hire an agency,
like what's the one mistake thatyou think that they make?

(31:15):
My guess would be price.
But what do you think is like,am I wrong or right?
What do they make the mistakedoing as far as when they want
to start up a website?

SPEAKER_01 (31:26):
So it's hard to say that price is a mistake.
because that could be too high.
It could be too low, but itcould be the right price, but
just the wrong agency, right?
So price definitely varies.
I think a big mistake that I seeis when companies work with an

(31:47):
agency because of the agency'sreputation, right?
Or not even, I wouldn't evennecessarily reputation.
It's like, it's a, it's a largeragency.
They're like, oh, they've got alarger team.
They've got all these differentpieces that they can use.
And usually when they're on asales call, they're talking to
higher ups in the company thathave been around a long time and
really understand the process.
And then all of a sudden theyget to the actual project and,

(32:08):
you know, they're spendingmultiple six figures on this
thing.
And now they've got someentry-level person managing the
project and really cause doingthe deliverables.
Right.
And, and I get that this is aby-product of growing as an
agency.
Like the top guys can't, our topguys and gals can't always be
the ones doing all the work, butthat's something to definitely
keep an eye out for.

(32:29):
when you're working with people.
I would say that's probably thebiggest thing.
It's like, I mean, I've evenseen companies like, oh, well, I
mean, this is in our world.
We work on Webflow a lot.
So this is a mistake that we seeoften.
It's like, we want to work witha larger agency.
They're saying they can useWebflow and then they get the
site built.
And numerous times we've hadpeople come back to us with a

(32:51):
mess on their hands.
They can't edit the site.
It's not working properly.
It doesn't look good.
But they said that they could doWebflow.
It's like, just because theysaid they could do it, Doesn't
mean they could.
They probably just hiredsomebody overseas to do the dev
work because they thought it wasthat straightforward and it
didn't really matter how it wasbuilt.
And they just wanted thebusiness.
But you really have tounderstand the technical

(33:12):
experience of the company andhow are they going to balance
design with technicalexperience, industry knowledge.
Like I said, there's a lot ofpieces.
So is the agency doing this allin-house?
Are they outsourcing a lot ofit?
Is it the same team?
Is it higher level, lower levelpeople?
You're not necessarily alwaysgoing to have that visibility,
but I would say that's that'sprobably the biggest mistake
that I see on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00 (33:32):
Gotcha.
What are some trends you thinkthat, um, you know, will
disappear in the next two yearsand which trends do you think
will emerge in the next twoyears as far as website
development?

SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Yeah.
So it's a good question becausetrends, I find like a lot of
trends don't always die easy andit's hard to really identify
what is a trend and What is justa way that people are doing
things that actually has somemerit and will probably
continue?
Especially with web, when thingsare evolving so quickly, it's

(34:08):
really hard to know, like, whereis this going?
But one thing that I'm seeing,and I wouldn't necessarily say
that this is a trend that'sgoing to die, but I think it's a
trend that's almost beingadapted maybe too early, is this
world of AI, right?
And, you know, I think peopleare really starting to think,
well, AI is more than just achat bot now, right?

(34:30):
And I've seen there's a couple,there's actually an agency that
I'm aware of and they buildbeautiful websites.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, they're really good atwhat they do.
And they had the idea about ayear ago to completely redesign
their website and turn theirentire website into essentially
an AI chat bot.
And the idea was like, let'smake the website interactive.

(34:50):
And I'm sure they have a reasonfor it.
And it's hard to know, like, isthis working or not just by
looking at the site?
But when I go to the site, whatbothers me about it I feel like
well now I have to think aboutwhat to ask just to find
information and I feel likeyou're making me work too hard
you know you build beautifulwebsites just show me how
beautiful your websites are anddon't force me to think what I'm

(35:11):
supposed to ask first right andyou go because you go to the
website and it's almost it'sjust like white with some text
and a search bar it's like okaywell now what do I do so I think
that's if anything that's atrend that's just being adapted
to early but I think it's thethought process is correct I do
think think AI is going tobecome more and more a part of

(35:32):
marketing and communications Idon't think it's there fully yet
so I don't know if that fullyanswers your question from the
perspective you're looking at itbut that's what comes to mind

SPEAKER_00 (35:43):
it does if you're going to do it do it right I
mean you can deploy a new shinytool but do it effectively I
think it's just like anythingelse as far as an effective
website or whatever it is thatyou're going to build or you're
going to make available for yourcustomers I just thought of like
two recent like AI conversationsthat I had one of them which was
a with an AI company and I had arequest you know it was with an

(36:04):
AI bot and I said hey I'm yourAI bot what's your problem I
said I need something andthey're like done it was fixed
it was over with it tookliterally like 30 seconds same
experience on another one thatactually develops websites I
said hey I need something it wasan AI bot you know called it out
and I said I need something theysaid they asked me all these
questions I had to repeat myselfand we went into this long

(36:27):
strand and then guess what I wassaying that the end of that
representative.
Can I speak to a real person,please?
Yeah.
So it was just reminiscent oflike, you know, picking up the
phone and calling and hittinglike, you know, zero over and
over again, just to talk to ahuman being.
So there's ways to do it, butit's like, do it the right way.
If you're going to deploy like anew tool, they make it easier,
not, not harder.

(36:47):
These things are supposed tomake it

SPEAKER_01 (36:49):
easier.
Yeah.
We're supposed to make people'slives easier.
And that's why I don't know ifit's just that the technology is
not quite there yet, or if it'sjust so early and people are
trying to be trendsetters andthey're trying to be on the
cutting edge of how toincorporate these technologies.
And we just don't really havethe models for it yet.
So it's, I'm not saying it'seasy to do, but maybe, maybe we

(37:11):
need to transition a little bitmore smoothly.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (37:14):
Gotcha.
Um, as far as websites, um, Iguess put on your futuristic
hat, if you will, what's awebsite going to look like in 30
years?
Like if you think of like wherewe came from in like the early
nineties, um, to now, I don'tknow, thinking back, like, are
they that much different?
Like, what's it gonna look likein another 30 to 40 years?
Are we gonna even have websitesor is it all just gonna be chat

(37:37):
GPT version 20?

SPEAKER_01 (37:39):
Yeah, well, that's a really good question because 30
years is almost, I mean, theinternet hasn't even been around
for 30 years, has it?
I mean, that was like just whenwe could have started accessing
the internet was probably about30 years ago and it was
literally text on a white screenand that was it, right?
You know, I would say, let'sthink maybe like five to 10

(38:03):
years from now, but this issomething that we're thinking
about a lot because we reallyconsider ourselves a cutting
edge company in terms of how wedo things in terms of how we
think about websites and whatwe're trying to do both visually
and technically.
So one thing that we're startingto do a lot of, which I think
this is only going to evolve andget more powerful is, is

(38:24):
thinking, well, how do weintegrate the website into more
of the company's process ingeneral, right?
So as opposed to the websitejust being a place where, okay,
people can go to the internet,search for something, find us,
give us their contactinformation, and then we can
have a conversation with them,right?
That's kind of what a websitedoes now.
And it tells a story and it getspeople excited and, you know,

(38:45):
there's, it's part of thatprocess, but that's about it.
So we're now thinking, okay,well, what about beyond that,
right?
Now you've got a potential lead.
How can you create an additionalexperience?
for that potential lead thatbrings them further into your
company until they become aclient.
And then once they become aclient, how do we use the

(39:07):
website then?
How do we create an experiencefor them as a client where we
can now manage their process,communicate with them, share
information with them, and keepthem in touch with us on a more
regular basis all through thewebsite?
And so we're starting to now dothis.
We've done this for a bunch ofcompanies now, and they're
really loving what it's doing.

(39:28):
And we're still kind of doingthis on a basic level because I
think as softwares get better,you can do these things for
cheaper, right?
So what might've cost$500,000five years ago, we can probably
do in 50 to$100,000 now, right?
And so that's a huge differencewhen it comes to like, okay,
let's really think creativelyabout what we can do because

(39:48):
most companies can't spend thosetypes of numbers, right?
But yeah, that's what I see itas.
And I mean, if you're talking inthe future, I mean, I don't
know.
I thought a few years ago, cameout with their like welcome to
the metaverse and this was kindof around the same time as covid
and i thought you know if covidkeeps going the way it's going
and and the metaverse keepsgoing the way it's going people

(40:09):
aren't even going to leave theirhomes and all of a sudden you're
having virtual meetings withavatars that look just like
people and you know maybe that'swhere this is all it was really
kind of doom and gloom like theoutside is going to be like
apocalypse and insideeverybody's living in this
metaverse you know who knows butyou know that's i think i think
there's there's room to thinkthat a website's going to just

(40:31):
become much more interactive.
It's going to really pull youinto a company and allow you to
experience that company and thepeople in the company.
And the more effectively you cando that, I think the more
effectively you're going tocreate those emotions in people
and get them feeling connectedto who you are, as opposed to
just showing them a bunch ofinformation.

SPEAKER_00 (40:52):
I think it's going to be like Ready Player One.
You ever see that movie?
No.
What?
Did I?
Maybe I should.
Yeah.
It's a Spielberg movie.
I think he's usually pretty goodabout some of those predictions
himself, but check it out.
Um,

SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
sorry for the non-secondary.

SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
It's all good, but let's move on to, uh, one of the
most popular portions of thispodcast, which is burner to
build it.
I'll ask you a few, uh, rapidfire questions.
You answer burner to build itand maybe a short answer as to
why.
So we'll start with number one,uh, keyword stuffed SEO blogs.
I think that's a popular thingto do.
Um, Burn it or build it?

SPEAKER_01 (41:30):
So I would say build it, but I would also say it
really depends on the company.
SEO is not always for everyone.
There's different reasons, butin general, SEO is still hugely
important and keywords and blogposts are a big part of that.

SPEAKER_00 (41:43):
Gotcha.
Number two, AI homepage copy,where I just plugged it into
ChatGPT, cut and paste it, andthat's my copy of my webpage
done.

SPEAKER_01 (41:53):
Burn it.
It's just going to feel generic,right?
Why that's not effective.
That's easy.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
Building Google before building for customers.
Burn it.
I can give a reason.
I mean, again, I

SPEAKER_01 (42:09):
think, you know, what happens when you're
building for Google is you haveway too much text.
You have, you know, way toomany, way too much information.
You know, there, there's reallyis a balance between how do we
build something that is actuallya compelling experience while
also communicating with Google.
If you're building Google first,your website's just not going to
be very attractive.

UNKNOWN (42:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:29):
It makes sense.
Um, what about, uh, aggressiveLegion forms on pop-ups when I'm
on your website so I can capturean email address or something
like that?
You know, 10% off, put in youremail if you want this, as soon
as I'm trying to find thatinformation that you put there
for me.
I would say burn it,

SPEAKER_01 (42:48):
burn it.
Um, look, especially as ascientific company, I get it.
We want to, we want to knowwho's looking at what we want to
track people.
We want to get people's contactinformation, but as a scientific
company, especially you need tobe a resource.
And if everything's gated,you're just making it harder for
people to access things.
And we have clients do this allthe time.
Like we're going to startgetting everything.
And eventually, eventuallyeverybody starts ungating things

(43:12):
because they realize it's justnot, you know, their, their,
their resource for this productis not that attractive to people
that they're going to go out oftheir way to give you their
information, make it accessibleto them.
Again, make, make it easy towork with you.
Not hard.

SPEAKER_00 (43:25):
Exactly.
It gives me a bad feeling to goback to, I guess, our previous
based discussion.
It's just annoying and it's nota good start.
Here's another one.
Founder's personal story on thehomepage.
Where does the founder's storybelong in this whole mix of
website development?

(43:46):
I guess that's not really theright part.
Burn it or build it.
Founder's story.

SPEAKER_01 (43:50):
In general, I would say burn it.
I do think there's room forfounder's stories.
I think your team is a big part.
When I talk to a client thatdoesn't want to show their team
I always say, why, right?
Like why hide who you are andeverybody's got different
reasons, but ultimately like youneed to show that there are real
people here.
And if your founder has a reallygood story, make that part of

(44:11):
the about page.
I think if it's a small enoughcompany, maybe, but you know,
homepage is, I don't know ifhomepage is the right place for
it.

SPEAKER_00 (44:19):
Agreed.
Blown somewhere, just not on thefront page.
It's about the customer.
It's not about you.
Dark mode websites.
Everything's dark these days.
burn it or build

SPEAKER_01 (44:31):
it so we like dark mode so I would say build it but
again it's not for everybody youknow you really have if you're
going to do that you need to beaggressive about it and you know
you have to build around it andit's not easy to do I think it's
you know it's just it takes alot of design talent to make
that work well so I think it'sreally cool I do think it's

(44:54):
attractive I think it can youknow for the right brand for the
right story it can be reallyeffective so I I would say build
it, but with a little bit of adisclaimer there.

SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Agreed.
Well, if everyone's dark mode,then everyone looks the same.
I guess going back to, you know,if you want to differentiate
yourself, then stand up from therest and go light mode.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 (45:13):
Yeah.
And if you don't do it well,it's just annoying.

SPEAKER_00 (45:16):
Sure.
Yes.
Number seven, website saysdigital brochures.

SPEAKER_01 (45:22):
Burn it.
That's what your websites usedto be.

SPEAKER_00 (45:25):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
It's not.
It's so much more than that.
I mean, even like a digitalbusiness company, It's just
letting people know we exist.
Like, no, it's not.
You need to create anexperience.
Brochures don't create emotion,right?
Brochures don't pull people in.
Brochures are what you sendpeople when they've already
gotten to know you and they'reasking for information.
That's not the job of thewebsite.

SPEAKER_00 (45:44):
Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 (45:45):
Number eight, more traffic equals more growth.
So I would say burn it too.
Obviously, if you can get amillion views from the right
people versus 10 views from theright people, that's probably
better but traffic doesn'talways mean the right people.
And I think that's really wherepeople have to pay attention.
We've had, we actually had aclient where they were getting a

(46:08):
lot of traffic from their ads.
And when we started working withthem, cause we do, we do Google
ads for our existing clients.
We actually ended up cuttingtheir traffic by about, I think
it was like by a factor of 10because they were getting the
wrong traffic.
And then once we had a 10th ofthe traffic, now it was
concentrated with the rightpeople.
And we were able to grow up fromthere.
But if we were an SEO company,just showing them like, look in
the, over the last three months,We've cut your traffic by a

(46:30):
factor of 10.
They're like, well, what are youdoing?
But traffic doesn't always meanthe right people, right?
Maybe you're getting a lot ofstudents who are just doing
research.
Maybe you're getting, I mean,this was, so they were, they
manufactured products for thefood manufacturing industry.
And one of the industries thatthey served was like bread
making industries, like bigmachines.
And the vast majority of theirtraffic was people looking for a

(46:52):
bread machine for their kitchen,right?
Not a potential client, but theywere getting a lot of traffic.
So it was just the wrongtraffic.

SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
Makes sense.
I can imagine how that wouldprobably ruffle some feathers,
especially as we're talkingabout KPIs and your traffic goes
down.
Like, what happened?
Yeah, you're not doing a goodjob.
This one's also a hot topic, andwe didn't really unpack this
one.
We could probably do it now.
But as far as GEO as compared toSEO, generative engine

(47:19):
optimization for AI, is thatgoing to be the next big thing?

SPEAKER_01 (47:25):
So here's the thing.
I would say burn it.
Because thinking of it asdifferent than SEO, I think is
getting just pulled in the wrongdirection.
You're talking about companieswho are trying to capitalize on
a trend.
And yes, I do think AI search isreally, really important.

(47:50):
But if you think about it, whereis AI getting its information
from?
Largely from the internet.
And if you're not competing whenthere's 10 results, you're
you're not going to compete whenthere's one result.
And AI is essentially returningthe top result for you.
And if you can't show up whenit's the top 10, you're not
going to show up when it's thetop one.

(48:11):
So there's still some really,really basic best practices that
you need to follow.
And yeah, there's a little like,you know, AI might, but I mean,
Google really likes FAQs too,right?
So to say like, well, AI reallylikes FAQs to do that.
Well, you should have been doingthat already anyways, right?
So I think GEO in terms of likea peeling to ai is is a way to

(48:34):
get people to get in front ofpeople and by using ai as this
new trend and like we're doingthings differently but really
it's the same practices and youjust need to be doing them well
already

SPEAKER_00 (48:44):
and if

SPEAKER_01 (48:44):
you're not you need to start doing them

SPEAKER_00 (48:46):
well well said um that brings us to the last word
let's give a sales and marketingleader one big takeaway with
something that they can do rightnow to help their sales and
marketing teams

SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
because we're talking sales and marketing i'm
actually going to give a lastword for each if that's okay
because I think they both needdifferent last words so for
marketing I would say give yourteam freedom to be creative I
talk to way too many marketingpeople that don't ever get to
think creatively they're toobusy processing spreadsheets and
managing ads and looking atstats and creating reports for

(49:21):
their boards it's like when wasthe last time we were just
allowed to like sit there andhave fun thinking and being
creative so give your marketingteam room and space and
encouragement to just have funbeing creative.
I think that would make a hugedifference.
And for sales, we kind oftouched on this earlier, but
give your sales team somethingto be proud of, right?

(49:44):
Don't expect your sales team tofunction at their best.
I mean, I get it.
We've got sales meetings andwe've got trainings and we've
got scripts and we've got allthese things that will help them
with the nuts and bolts ofsales.
But if they're looking at whatother people have and they wish
that they looked like that andthat the company that they were
representing looked like that,they're just not going to be as
effective as they could be.
So give your sales teamsomething to be proud of.

(50:06):
I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 (50:08):
Perfect tips.
Love it.
And where can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 (50:11):
Sure.
So I'm on LinkedIn.
I try to be pretty active onthere.
You can look me up by name andScalar.
You can go to our website,scalarmarketing.com.
And if you want to reach me inperson, I do go to conferences.
So if you're at a bigconference, we can meet up
there, but come to the SAMSconference in December.
SAMS is sales and and marketingprofessionals in science.

(50:33):
I'm on the board of SAMS.
It's an amazing organization forsales and marketing
professionals in science.
And our annual conference isgonna be in Boston on December
4th.
And it's a really amazingconference with thought leaders
and practitioners on everylevel.
The talks are always reallyinformative, insightful, and the
energy in the room, you'll leaveexcited and you'll get to meet a

(50:55):
lot of really cool new people.
It's gonna be at the Hyatt inCambridge this year.
So we'll have a beautiful viewof the Charles River and I will
definitely be there.
So it'd be a great place tomeet.

SPEAKER_00 (51:07):
Awesome.
Sounds good.
Maybe I'll see you there.
Thank you for joining Burn thePlaybook.
I hope you do.
Appreciate

SPEAKER_01 (51:11):
it, man.
Yeah, this was awesome.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (51:13):
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
That's how you burn theplaybook.
If this conversation fired youup, don't let it in here.
Subscribe wherever you get yourpodcasts.
Share this episode with someonewho's tired of playing by the
old rules.
And if you're ready to challengeyour own sales approach, let's
connect.
Find me on LinkedIn at MarkCrosby.
I'm Mark Crosby.
or head toDigitalRebelsConsulting.com to
see how we help B2B teams windifferently.

(51:36):
Until next week, keep burningwhat's not working and keep
building what is.

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Your Website Is Costing You Deals | David Nathan on Digital Presence That Converts

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Your Website Is Costing You Deals | David Nathan on Digital Presence That Converts