In this case study episode, I’m chatting with Kaylan Thompson. You’ve heard Kaylan in a past episode already (episode #51) where she teaches us how to hire your first team member. Now, she’s back and we’re talking about what it’s like to be an EM Shop customer! Kaylan uses the Nicole template from my shop for her gorgeous website. She’s had a lot of success in her business, and we’re talking here about how her website has played a role in that.
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Here is an overview of Kaylan’s interview! Listen to the full episode to hear all of her details about how her great new website has changed her business!
What was your website like before this new one?
Kaylan says that it was very sad. She was using Squarespace before and she had a really hard time getting it to a place where she liked it and was basically just using a landing page because it was too hard to do more than that. She says it was fine to have as she was starting out but she was embarrassed by her past website and didn’t want to send people to it or even look at it herself.
Kaylan says that she is really proud of who she is as a person but online, it wasn’t translating or showcasing her well. Your website greets new people for you and mine was greeting people in my sweatpants. She says that she had to make the investment in a new website if she wanted to take her business seriously.
What do you love most about your website now?
One of the best things about Kaylan’s new website is that she loves that the template came with so many places to add personality and have fun! If you listened to episode #51, you hear Kaylan talk about how much she loves Gilmore Girls. She was able to put references all throughout her website and make it look and feel like her! How fun?
What was the learning curve like with Showit?
Kaylan said she was nervous to switch platforms but it was so easy! We hear from so many people that are coming to Showit from Squarespace.
Switching felt really scary because Kaylan said she didn’t know much about websites and hosting and that part of it had the steepest learning curve for her. But between the Showit Blueprint Course and the amazing Showit team, she was able to take her site live in just 5 DAYS!
Kaylan found that the Nicole template had the layout that she needed and she didn’t have to do much to make it perfect. The only changes she made were to the colors and adding her own pictures. So easy, right?
“I used this template to design the brand for my business.”
WHAT? It’s true! Kaylan said that before she switched her website to an EM Shop template, she didn’t have a brand. So she let the template be her guide to create the beautiful brand that she has today. She played with the colors until she loved them and now she has a brand that looks like her!
“I knew I wanted my brand to be loud. So I went to the design center on Showit and just adjusted the colors that were already there to be a little bit brighter. Then I copied all of the hex codes for those colors and I downloaded all of the fonts (and purchased the paid one). Now I use Canva and any content I make is 100% cohesive with my website.”
Your website launched in 5 days! Any tips and strategies for anyone wanting to launch quickly?
Even though Kaylan launched her new website within the first week of purchasing her template, she said the one thing that slowed her down was photos. A great tip for anyone wanting to launch quickly is to have all of your photos compressed and organized in one folder for easy and quick uploading. Also, having an idea of what fonts you want to use will be helpful!
Another tip is to use the content in the template as a guide for your own content. The templates are already set up for that! Typically in these templates, the headlines are real words, and then after that is just filler text to help you know what kind of content goes well in which section.
What was the feedback like initially?
Kaylan hosted a really fun giveaway when she launched her website that asked people to go through her site and count all of the references to Gilmore Girls. As she created a ton of traffic, the feedback was overwhelming in a good way! She got so many comments from people saying things like:
“Your website is so fun!”
“Who did it?”
“It looks so professional!”
These are the things YOU WANT people to be saying about your website! They were on her website just having fun and interacting.
What kind of business growth have you seen since launching your new website?
“Ever since I launched, it has felt like I actually have a business.” Kaylan started booking clients and crazy enough, THEY DIDN’T HAVE QUESTIONS! They were saying that her sales page answered everything for them and they knew exactly what they were getting and what problem they were solving because they learned it all on the website. The new website turned discovery calls into meet and greets! And Kaylan says she is not nervous about new client calls anymore because most people have all of their questions answered.
What did you do to your sales page that makes it convert so well?
Filling out the sales page helped me craft my message for my content and was a great exercise in practicing speaking to her ideal client. Kaylan really loved the sections “Just Imagine” and “This is for you if…” because they really speak directly to your ideal customer and cultivate your sale. Also, she loved the “pull quote” style testimonials because it didn’t feel like there was too much text that it is overwhelming but it also gives validation to the offer.
What was it like pressing the buy button?
Kaylan says that the week before she bought her template, she was journaling about it every night and was very nervous about the purchase because this was the biggest investment she had made in her business. She prayed and asked God to bring the money back 10 fold if she made this investment and the moment she hit the buy button, she was confident that would happen! Within 1.5 months, she had made back the money she spent on her template!
What advice can you give to the fellow business gal who is considering an EM Shop template?
Kaylan says that her advice to anyone thinking about buying a template from EM Shop is that you’ll always regret NOT buying it but you will never regret buying it. There is no situation where buying one of these templates would cause regret, but if you sit back and keep trying to figure out Squarespace on your own, or spending countless hours just trying to make it into something you are remotely proud of, you will regret that time that you can’t get back.
Links Mentioned
Listen to the Breakthrough Brand Podcast
Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram
See Kaylan's template in action
Connect with Kaylan on Instagram
Listen to Kaylan's Podcast “The Joy to Lead Podcast”
How does Showit compare to Wix?
How does Showit compare to Squarespace?
