Reality TV Came to the Web & We Rocked Small Business Websites With Some Tough Love.

I want to give a big virtual hug to everyone who attended our wildly successful last-minute *surprise* Live Web Makeover Call on September 17th. I still cannot believe how many of you actually WANTED to be the star of what I think is the next big thing in “Reality TV” for the Internet. You’re masochists, I tell you. Masochists!

I also want to share the 3 website marketing action items I sent callers away with on Thursday.

These are really easy things you can do right now. The first one you can do all by yourself in about 5 minutes. The second one you can do this Saturday night over a beer with friends (but not two because it may skew results.) The third action item requires you to make a modest investment in your ability to DO web marketing more effectively, more quickly, and more confidently.

Still with me? Here we go:

1. Write a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) for your website. Put “perfect” to bed for now and just tell the world what makes you or your offerings so fab, okay? 20 words or less is preferable. 10 words or less is even better.
2. Get 3 people NOT in your industry to use your website. Assign them a task and then sit back and zip it while they work your web. I guarantee you’ll uncover at least half a dozen usability and/or copy-related issues immediately, most likely ones you can fix quickly and easily.
3. Get audited by the One Hour Marketing Coach (me). This is a laser focused, high impact way to kick your website marketing into high gear. The “Express” and “Premium Express” Website Audits ain’t super cheap, but they’re priced for small business entrepreneurs who want to start playing for keeps with their websites (instead of just playing … )

Tough love works in marketing. And we all need a little love now and then, don’t we?

Thanks again to Tawnya Sutherland over at VAnetworking.com for hosting the Live Web Makeover Call. And for letting me run with a crazy, last-minute idea that I was dying to try. Sometimes you have to just let creative “flow” take over and see what happens. In this case, a lot of great web entrepreneurs learned all kinds of rapid-action tactics and strategies they could start applying to their websites right now.

Not a bad result for “going with the flow” eh?

By the way, how many of you out there would like more of these types of live, reality-TV style calls to help rock your website?