How to Stand Out Online in an AI World (Stop Being a Commodity) | Nick Gulic

Most service business websites look professional.

And that is exactly the problem.

In this episode of The Website Growth Show, Rana Shahbaz speaks with Nick Gulic about why websites are becoming commoditised in the AI era and how service businesses can stand out without chasing trends.

Nick explains why AI is raising the baseline of content and design quality, why average messaging no longer works, and why personality is becoming the true differentiator for service businesses.

They discuss:

• Why most service websites sound the same
• How AI is increasing competition at the entry level
• Why personality is the new competitive advantage
• How to define clear messaging pillars
• The difference between value proposition and messaging
• Why solid and human copy converts better than robotic content
• How design must align with brand personality
• Why not every website is about lead generation
• How to reduce friction to improve conversion
• When SEO still works in an AI driven world
• Why social content is shifting from how-to to opinion and experience

Nick also shares real case studies, including a SaaS business that scaled organic traffic dramatically through focused strategy and cohesive messaging.

If you run a service business and feel like your website looks fine but is not driving meaningful growth, this episode will challenge how you think about differentiation, branding, and conversion.

Money is a motivator, but continual learning is key.
Websites need to be marketing tools that convert traffic.
AI is changing the landscape of content creation.
Differentiation is crucial in a commoditized market.
Showcasing personality can lead to explosive growth.
Finding your unique voice is essential for connection.
Messaging should be human and relatable.
Design should reflect the brand's personality.
Success metrics depend on the specific goals of the website.
Identify gaps in your marketing strategy to improve. Holistic advice is crucial for aligning business strategies.
Niche focus can enhance service delivery and marketing effectiveness.
Google Ads work best for emergency services and mass-market offerings.
SEO is evolving and can still be effective despite claims of its decline.
Social media content should reflect personality and expertise.
Video content fosters deeper connections with potential clients.
AI tools should complement, not replace, personal input in marketing.
Reducing friction in the conversion process is essential for success.
First steps to improve a website include assessing its appeal to potential clients.
Personality-driven marketing can lead to better client relationships.

Transform Your Website into a Growth Machine
The Power of Personality in Marketing
Finding Your Unique Voice for Business Success
Crafting a Compelling Value Proposition
Human-Centric Messaging for Better Engagement
Designing Websites that Reflect Your Brand


"The key to growth is showcasing your personality."
"Everyone has a personality."
"Content has to resonate with your audience."
"Not every website is about lead generation."
"Stop and look at what you're doing."
"Finding where

Transcript

Rana (00:00)
Here, how can you make your website your number one business growth tool? So to achieve that goal, what is your recipe? That's, it's such a difficult thing to answer because it isn't any one thing. I think that it's continually changing and you know, I think you have levels like ultimately your website needs to be, it's a marketing tool and needs to fit in, the chain of marketing. So you have, I have seen throughout my career, every single time I doubled down on personality, I had very explosive growth.

And that got me a lot of attention. And then when I wanted to do something like a course, people knew me because of my personality and then they all bought the course. all these businesses, lifestyle businesses who are, you know, doing okay, want to go into another level, improve their businesses or improve their marketing spend on websites. What is your, you know, best advice to those people? How they should approach marketing? So I think that my best advice is stop and look at what you're doing and see, to figure out where is the gap? Where's the you ever like seen smart people talk?

you know, and when they write posts on social media platforms or they write essays and things like that, it's, they could be so smart. And when you talk to them, it's like, wow, this person is so intelligent. But as soon as they start creating content for the masses or for public, it's like they switch flips and they start talking like a robot. Gap. For service businesses, what is your favorite ways, one, two, three ways, which worked for you very good in the past to bring traffic to those service people?

Rana (01:32)
Most businesses spend money on a website, run ads to SEO and still wonder why it's not driving real growth. The site looks professional but it doesn't stand out, doesn't connect and doesn't convert. Today's guest Nick Gullick believes that's because most websites are missing one thing, personality. Nick isn't just a web designer. With a background in business consulting, sales and growing real service businesses, he has seen first hand that websites don't fail because of tech. They fail because they sound like everyone else. Nick helps service businesses stop blending in

break out of commodity thinking and turn their website into a real growth tool by leading with clarity, contrary thinking and human messaging. In this episode, we are unpacking why personality beats polish, how clarity drives conversion and what actually makes a website work in today's AI-driven world.

Rana (02:20)
Nick, welcome to the website growth show.

Nick Gulic (02:22)
Hey, thanks for having me.

Rana (02:23)
I'm really excited to learn from you. How can you make your website your number one business growth tool? I know you have your unique take on that one. So I'm excited to learn.

Nick Gulic (02:35)
I'm excited to chat about it and talk about it.

Rana (02:37)
Excellent. Before we go into the tactics and tricks, can we start? What is exciting you to keep building website for that long?

Nick Gulic (02:46)
Okay, so that's interesting question. Honestly, money, getting paid money is always nice, have to do something to earn a living. websites are something I seem to be good at. What I like about websites is it needs a lot for it to be to do a good job, you need more than just knowledge of how to build a website. There's design knowledge, there's copywriting knowledge, there's marketing knowledge.

My background before getting into web design was business consulting. And before that, I was a BDM and I was a sales manager and I was growing a business in a different field, was growing an accounting firm. So that all of that experience helps with what I'm doing now. And then it's just continual growth, continual learning, continual education, like you can't, you don't make a mistake learning something new.

because that knowledge can be applied. You know, and design is broad and you can grow so much in in design knowledge, and you can grow so much in copywriting and you can grow so much in marketing. And it's always changing and businesses are evolving and the market is evolving. And so you have to keep improving. And I like that that's that suits my personality. I like to learn and grow.

Rana (03:57)
Fantastic and I like your honesty that the money is the main driver. think we all work. That's money is the, you know, big part of that, but doing what you love and earning money is the best part. So.

Nick Gulic (04:10)
I should clarify like I'm not money driven. just the reason why I keep doing anything is because well, I need to do something. So you know, I get paid doing this, I get paid well doing this. So that's what I'm doing. If I wasn't getting paid, I'd be changing every six months, probably trying something new every six months. So yeah, the money definitely helps keep it going.

Rana (04:13)
Yeah.

Amazing. And we are discussing here, how can you make your website your number one business growth tool? So to achieve that goal, what is your recipe?

Nick Gulic (04:41)
That's it's such a difficult thing to answer because it isn't any one thing. I think that it's continually changing and you know, I think you have levels like ultimately your website needs to be, it's a marketing tool and needs to fit in, in the chain of marketing. So you have traffic generation. It's typically coming back to your website. Then your website needs to convert that traffic into some sort of inquiry or some sort of, next step.

progress the conversation, and then making it actually happen is different for everyone, you know, depending on the business type. I think that the way things have been evolving in the market, what we're seeing is we're seeing an influx of, let's call it average content. But the average is improving because people are now using AI to generate content and you can make

very professional seeming content very easily. And I think that's going to spread to design as well, ⁓ with AI generated design, that's going to keep improving. And so what's going to happen is people who are entry level will be able to jump on it to chat GPT or whatever AI tool they like. And they're going to end up with a professional seeming website that seems very polished and they will

If you're doing the same thing, you're going to be competing against people who have no experience. and how will you stand out and how will, why would anyone use you? So we need to figure out how to differentiate and how to stand out and how to, grab that attention because the attention is, is what's going to allow us to step away from being a commodity because that's where everything's heading. Everyone's getting commoditized. So I think I'm betting on personality being the thing.

Um, I have seen throughout my career, every single time I doubled down on personality, I had very explosive growth. had good things happen. Um, years ago when I was on Facebook and I was in Facebook groups, I was very, um, how do we say this? Uh, very bombastic. Uh, I really called people out. Um, I said, I thought things were stupid, I was very not aggressive, but you know, I would share my views and I would

be very not I can't find the right word for it. Like kind of forceful in that. And very blunt. And that got me lot of attention. And then when I wanted to do something like a course, people knew me because of my personality, and then they all bought the course. And this past, I'll say six months or so, maybe more, maybe, yeah, about let's say about six or seven months, I've been really active on LinkedIn.

And I've been making jokes and just doing what I consider almost not trolling, but just being a joker and you know, comments, joke posts, and it has gotten me a lot of attention and I get messages all the time and that I get leads from that which I wasn't expecting because I was just having fun on a social media platform. And I'm seeing that personality gets your attention. And people

Ultimately, the people making business decisions and buying decisions are people who are, you know, potentially in their what mid thirties who grew up with memes and grew up with jokes. And so the market is changing and the stuff that used to work five years ago, where it was very professional and there were formulas for how to write your, you know, USP and how to talk about your service in a way that would resonate. And it's like the advice of, you know, make it so a five year old could understand it and all that sort of stuff.

is now changing and it's no longer as effective because everyone's doing it. And when everyone does it, that's common, you become common. And then when you're common, you're a commodity. So I think the growth, the key to growth moving forward is going to be stepping out, breaking out of being a commodity. Whether that format, whether that takes the form of like a funnel, whether that takes the form of, you know, interactive

lead magnets, all of that stuff is kind of irrelevant. That's just a specific tactic. The broadest, the broad strategy is going to be showcasing your personality, I think.

Rana (08:38)
Now, this is fascinating. And I love this differentiation, how you're approaching marketing. As we in the marketing world say, the people buy from people. So you are a true example for that. And I was reading your recipe on LinkedIn, how you approach websites. Normally, most of people we approach from start from strategy and design, development, promotion, and continuous optimization.

This is exactly you mentioned. You start with a strong personality, which is, think, can be a game changer. And once you start from there, people connect with you, then everything aligns accordingly as well. So I love it. But those people, like myself, who don't have strong personality, very common people, how can they stand out? How can they market?

Nick Gulic (09:24)
Well, everyone has a personality. It doesn't necessarily mean that your personality is strong. I think that you have a viewpoint that maybe not everyone has. And I think it's finding those little things, the stuff that you think, but you may be too polite to say, you know, the contrarian takes, it's just finding what is it that I think that's different to what other people think. And I have a lot of that, thankfully, so I can

do that. And I have things like, you know, personality traits, like, you know, I am a bit of a joker, so I can play on the joker card. It's finding what is your actual what is your personality? And that that's a little bit of soul searching, a little bit of thinking, there's you can't force, like a personality that isn't you. And that's I see that sometimes people are like, you know, I want to be funny and and whatever, but they're not. And if that's not who they are, it's never going to work because they're to be

false, or they're going to pay someone to write for them, you know, maybe ghost writing on LinkedIn, or, you know, write the website copy, and then a client's gonna go, this is great and connect with it. And then when they speak to them, they're not going to get that experience. And then they have the dissonance between, you know, I wasn't, this isn't saying it doesn't feel right. This isn't what I expected. And then it's going to fall off. So finding your personality, finding your views, I think the views are really good.

take, like the stuff that you think that is maybe the stuff that, know, there's always something that if I said this, I know people are going to argue with me and it's having the courage to actually share those views. And that is hard. That is hard because clients, they do it all the time. I want something bold. want, you know, something attention grabbing. And then when you do it and they see it and it gets to the point where they actually have to make that their thing.

then they get a bit scared and like, actually, you know, there's going to be some people out there who don't like this. And that's, that is, that's the point. You need to repel the people that aren't going to fit with you. If you want stronger connection, the stronger connection happens when you're pushing some people away, but the people who like it are going to hold on tight. It's like saying, I like music or saying, I like eighties funk.

you know, there's a difference. The 80s funk is very specific. Anyone else who likes 80s funk is going to love that and be like, Oh yes, I like that too. If someone doesn't like it and they're like, Oh, 80s funk, then they're not going to talk to me. And that's great because the people who do are going to be much stronger in terms of connection to me. Uh, and that is, that's how I think it needs to go about. It's finding those specific things about your personality, the specific views that you hold, uh,

And there's a lot, mean, people could realistically go and ask, like an AI tool to help me figure out, you know, ask me questions to find my contrarian viewpoints. you know, help me ask me questions to help me identify my personality. mean, I'm not going to do that. I'm kind of on the anti AI angle, but I know a lot of people use that stuff. And so they, they could try that way and see if it triggers some sort of thought I'm

Rana (12:13)
Exactly

Nick Gulic (12:22)
all for getting inspiration from all over the place. Because I think that, you know, thinking of everything by yourself is quite challenging.

Rana (12:29)
This is very interesting. I totally agree with you that I should not mimic as being a Nick. should find, we all are unique. I should find my own strength and double down on that personality. That is the key, not finding someone and copying it because you will not be able to do it over a very long period of time. So this is fascinating, very good start that this is what we are looking, not the technical stuff, there's so much information.

the stuff which makes difference and help you stand out and connect your website with your target audience. So this is brilliant. So once you find out your personality, in your recipe, that's the most important part. How do you implement that personality onto a successful website?

Nick Gulic (13:15)
Cool. So this is, it starts getting deeper into strategy. So this, that I should specify that coming up with that personality is part of the strategy process in the way I handle it. You know, I do a strategy session where I interview them and I find out these things as well as the business, the marketing target audience, all that sort of stuff. Um, and then from there, work out things like their positioning strategy, like how are we going to actually position them online?

positioning statement, like how we're going to actually talk about it, and messaging pillars. So typically, there'll be, you know, three to five key things that they believe, and they hold true to themselves, like their values and their kind of their, main points, I guess, that they believe in their business that they embody in their business. So for example, I have a client who's a business, a sorry, building consultant.

His whole thing, one of his messaging pillars is about getting them in early. So if you get them in early, they can make a difference. If you get them in too late, then the difference is going to be minimal because it's already gone through too many parts of the process. So that's just one of the pillars. So that means that when he is creating content and stuff's going on the site, it isn't necessary that he says exactly that, but he needs to make sure that that message is being conveyed. So.

He'll have some piece of copy and then he'll look at it and go, okay, is this fitting in with my messaging pillars? Is it true to my messaging pillars? so that, that is essentially the thing. it's coming up with, know, okay, what is, what is it that I'm trying to say ultimately? if this is my personality, this is my view. How, how do I say that specifically into words? ⁓ and then crafting a story.

And typically this stuff happens like homepage is like the big thing. Homepage is where you learn the kind of the everything. And so the broad story. so that homepage needs to tell some sort of story. It has, usually you'll have, you know, I mean, this is the stuff that probably people are covering all the time. They land. mean, story brand is the perfect example. Like that structure for a homepage works very well. so.

do that. and I know you had, interviewed the guy from Storybrand not long ago yet.

Rana (15:23)
Exactly.

Yeah, Dr. JJ

Peterson and last three, four years we used it on Story Brand Framework really helped creating a website.

Nick Gulic (15:31)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah. So anyone who's listening to this after this episode, if you didn't listen to that one, listen to that one. cause that structure is very effective. There's a reason why that book is so popular. but that's essentially how you tell a story on a website. So you figure out how am going to tell my story and guide people through this journey of working with me and. Yeah. Making sure that whether someone is first coming to the site, it.

they can go through and get the information they need. If it's a repeat person, what are they looking for and giving them that access to that. And then keeping the consistency of your message from your website to your marketing to what happens after. Because I think that's a big thing where people fall over, they will spend money and effort and energy and time crafting this great bit of

you know, let's say copy for a website or, or the website or whatever. And then they contradict that by jumping onto Canva and generating social media graphics, you know, and they're not being cohesive and consistent with the brand. And then they'll write posts on LinkedIn that are incorrect. And then they'll, you know, have a client message them and they'll email in a way that isn't true to the brand story that they're telling on the website. So that website, sorry, that website is

an embodiment of your brand online. And you just need to make sure that everything else embodies the brand and it's consistent. Otherwise you get people falling off because it isn't, doesn't make sense. It isn't what they're expecting.

Rana (16:58)
Exactly.

In your ⁓ recipe for building a successful website, the second step is clear value proposition. The example you used that their key messaging is to getting them in earlier. Is that the value proposition? ⁓

Nick Gulic (17:14)
No, that was that was just one

that was one messaging pillar. So the their value proposition was more these guys specifically was making building projects more more profitable. That's their core value proposition. So we had a few ways to go for these guys. And this is probably important. This is how I was talking about, you're going to the right personality. So with these guys, when we went through the process, we had the option of going more daring on personality, and being a bit more aggressive and being a bit more

Rana (17:17)
That's the ability.

Nick Gulic (17:40)
a contrarian or going a bit more tame and a bit more restrained. And they went the more restrained path because that fit the personality of the business owner. So their view, not their view, their approach was all about driving value, improving, you know, being a high value solution. So it was making building projects more profitable. And then from that, it's like how, what structures, how do we do that?

what's our different ways of making that happen. And then that was the, you know, getting us in early, this guarantees and like a couple of other things. I can't even remember all of them right now, but yeah. ⁓ so that was the hell.

Rana (18:13)
Yep.

So getting building projects ⁓ more profitably is their North Star. That's the message they want to convey. And that can be like your destination in your Google Maps. That's the destination you want to go. And you are finding the ways, ⁓ different ways. Ways could be different to reach that target. But when you are clear about your destination, normally everything aligns. You know where you're going and what messaging you need to use. Brilliant.

Nick Gulic (18:24)
Yes.

Rana (18:44)
And the third step on here is the solid and human messaging. What do you mean by that after you found a personality, you found your value proposition. Now third step is solid and human messaging.

Nick Gulic (18:56)
So have you, ⁓ have you ever like seen smart people talk, you know, and when they write posts on social media platforms or they write essays and things like that, it's, they could be so smart. And when you talk to them, it's like, wow, this person is so intelligent. But as soon as they start creating content for the masses or for public, they, it's like they switch flips and they start talking like a robot and it isn't natural. So

making sure that the language is more human oriented and more natural and is the way you would say things is, is I think one of the keys in making sure that content resonates. I, I use this word a lot and it's like so overdone now, but it's the word that fits. Like it has, the content has to resonate. People have to read and go, yes, that's me. Or yeah, cool. Like, and, and enjoy it. And they don't enjoy it when if, when

when it puts them to sleep. So if, if you're writing like a robot, and if you're writing like, it's like an essay from when you were in school, cause those things had no personality. the teachers didn't want that. They wanted to see that, you know, you had, you knew what you're talking about. Personality wasn't a thing they were judging on. So nothing we wrote back in school days had personality. Well, at least mine didn't, mine also didn't show the knowledge either. yeah.

Rana (20:11)
think we are all guilty of that.

I think it again, this step again ties into your personality part. So if you have a personality, you won't be writing like essays.

Nick Gulic (20:18)
Yeah.

Yeah. And look, I, one of the things that I do is I read out like read out loud what I'm writing when I write content. Uh, and when I read out loud, I'm like that, that I would never say that. And if I would never say that I'm never going to write it. Um, it has to be stuff I'm comfortable saying. Um, like, um, you know, sometimes there's jokes that it's like, wouldn't actually say that because it's a, it's a joke, but, um, but in terms of copy, needs to be stuff that I'm comfortable reading and saying out loud.

And if I would never say it out loud, it's probably not appropriate. Like it's not human.

Rana (20:51)
Got it. Got it. Excellent. And now we have the personality part set. We got the value proposition. We know how to convey the message, not like a robot, like as we speak. That's the best way to write content. How does these three things help you design and develop a website which converts?

Nick Gulic (21:09)
So the design aspect comes back to how do I need to structure this page to tell a story? And there's also all these things that factor in. So who's this audience? What sort of like psychographics are there with the audience? Also to some level, what demographics are there? Like if the audience is an older audience, my design is gonna be different to if it's primarily younger.

understanding who you're designing for is so important. Being able to take the and you know, things like the brand, brand persona, brand personality, things like how do we want people to feel? What kind of brand is this? So they shape design decisions, you know, so if someone is going to be traditional, it's going to be a very different design to someone's cutting edge. And knowing which is appropriate, we'll come back to the personality.

So you can't do this ultra traditional, um, you know, old school, you know, type of design when the personality is cutting edge and like edgy and whatever, unless you're doing as a parody, um, in which case you can kind of do whatever you want. Um, so understanding the personality and understanding who you're designing for at shapes the brand and the brand style. And then you pick.

you'll find a design direction based off that brand style, the way you'd lay out the content and the page is based off the messaging and the story you're trying to tell. there's a level of just like, this is the right move where it's almost not instinctive, but kind of, you kind of make a decision like, yes, this will work. And lot of experimentation. When I design, I'm experimenting a lot. I'm trying so many things. So

Sometimes clients will be like, Hey, have we, you know, what about if we tried this? It's like, did try that, believe it or not. I've tried everything that isn't, it didn't work. Um, so, know, you try trial and error for a lot of stuff, but yes, coming up with design direction is based off brand personality.

Rana (23:09)
Excellent, and I think everything is aligning what we're discussing and getting to the end product. So once you go through all this process, how do you the success of a website project?

Nick Gulic (23:21)
depends what the goal was. So I had a client who came to me because they, they were a software distributor. This was like years ago now. They're a software distributor and they wanted to land the Australian district or what Asia Pacific distribution license from this American software company. So they just wanted a site to make them look right for these guys to land one deal.

That was it. They wanted one deal. It's a, but it's a big deal. and so design a site, you know, we just did the same process. Who's the audience. And we knew exactly who it was, which is great. Cause we'll get very specific and designed something that we knew they would like that made them look right. Made them look, you know, kind of a bit bigger than they are like professional and you know, high end and people that were like, are willing to invest in promotion and marketing.

Just make them look right and they landed the deal and they were happy. And then a year later, they shut down that website. ⁓

Rana (24:18)
They

used a website like a proposal for that one deal kind of thing.

Nick Gulic (24:22)
No, it

was literally no, because they were doing meetings and they it was just when these people are going to go look at this site, they're going to check them out. They need to have a website needs the website and it's basically match the story they're telling. So their marketing, their marketing was, you know, the lead generation was essentially happening, not online. You know, this was like conversations and meetings and networking and all that sort of stuff to get them in the door. But then they were going to get looked up after.

Rana (24:34)
exactly.

Nick Gulic (24:48)
And when they got looked up, they needed to look the part and match. So that's one, like that's one type. But then I have another one who they, it's actually, it's actually the same people. So it's really funny. Same people, once they landed, not the next deal they landed, but the one after that, they, a piece of software, it was old looking, terrible. And they got basically exclusive rights to distribute it worldwide. And they needed

They wanted that to be big. So we rebranded, did a site, handled SEO, got them like, you know, did some commercial work, ongoing improvements. and that has worked really well. and the measure for that is them in their business and their business growth. So, you know, sometimes there'll be a specific number that you can identify like conversion rate. you know, usually I I'm big on money. Are you making more money by doing this?

If you are, we are winning. I've had clients where we'd launch and they wanted to get more inquiries and we launched and then their phone started ringing way more and they were very happy because the more inquiries they wanted, they're now getting. So it just depends on what the objective is. It's not always leads, which is funny. And that's got me into arguments with people online before when I tell them not every website is about lead generation.

⁓ sometimes the lead generation is happening already as you literally just for some sales support, you're just, they need to look the part and needs to close deals. you know, but then a lot of times it is about lead generation, or direct sales. Sometimes they're selling off the website. So whatever their objective is, as long as that objective is happening or it's the rate of it is improving, then it's a win.

Rana (26:18)
Amazing. I'm glad you mentioned and you shared very distinctive ⁓ case studies as well. And this is the whole reason of I'm doing this efforts of this website growth show, because I know there are many stories. And most people think maybe getting hundreds of thousands of traffic or maybe millions of social media followers is the only way to grow a business. there are, know, this is a classic example that one business wanted to find a big

convert a big deal and they created a website and they have done a great business. So thank you very much for sharing these exact stories here.

Nick Gulic (26:50)
I'll tell you now, most

of my clients are not that big. Like they don't, they don't get, um, know, millions of traffic or a lot of them don't even have in much in the way of social media presence, like minimal, if anything. Um, so for them, they're real actual small businesses, small to, you know, slightly growing, um, you know, a small team and it's improving the money they're already spending.

You know, they're usually spending something they're either going out into the world and networking in person, or they're running ads or they're doing SEO and they want that to happen better. Or sometimes they're coming with like none of that and they, need that stuff as well. but it's helping them practically. Like you don't have to, like, I don't know. I don't have any client who is trying to be, you know, some venture capitalist funded startup, you know, making billions of dollars or anything like that.

They're normal people who just want to make some money and, you know, live a happy life and get, you know, reasonably wealthy along the way. They're not trying to, they're not trying to like explode the universe. So, yeah, no, that's, you don't have to be like chasing the, the big ⁓ influence of types to succeed.

Rana (27:58)
Fascinating and this is very, very helpful and very useful for many businesses. with all this experience, all these businesses, lifestyle businesses who are doing okay, wants to go into another level, improve their businesses or improve their marketing spend on websites, what is your best advice to those people? How they should approach marketing?

Nick Gulic (28:19)
Um, the best advice for, cause it's, it's so many, so many different scenarios that they could be in. So I think that my best advice is stop and look at what you're doing and see, try to figure out where is the gap? Where's where am I falling over? Where's this not working? Because you have a goal. So you, you figure out what your goal is, out where you are now. Okay, cool. What's, what's missing for me to hit my goal? What, what do I need in place?

Is it, do need more, more leads? Is that what it is? you know, if you need more leads and it's like, okay, well, that could be that you, your website is not converting. it could be that you're not getting traffic to your website. it could be that, know, whatever other lead gen, like you might be doing social selling, maybe that isn't effective enough. so finding where the gaps are and what needs to be improved is a good step. and then obviously improving it, or you talk to someone.

but not someone who's selling something specific. I guess this is like a warning to people. When someone does, for example, someone does SEO or someone does paid ads or someone builds websites. Typically, when you go to them and say, Hey, I want this, their solution is going to be whatever it is that they do. Because when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So talk to maybe someone who's a bit more of a marketing strategist or something like that. Someone who is going to look at

look at it broadly and go, okay, cool. Here is like your full situation and come up with a strategy for you. If you're if you're going to anyone for like third party advice, that's typically what I what I would recommend. Like that's what that's my approach as well. Like I say no to so many people because it's like they don't need my service. They need marketing or they have bigger problems. Yeah, so or you know, their their website needs a minor tweak and then they're fine. So

Yeah, it's, it's find where your gap is and work on fixing the gap, plugging that gap, or speak to someone who's going to come up with like actually analyze it for you and tell you what the gap is. That has no bias to, you know, their specific solution being, being the, being the plug.

Rana (30:16)
This is such an important advice. think you, as I said, you you can go to the experts for who are experts in a specific thing. They can do their job. They might be good at their job, but because everything is not aligning with your value proposition, with your story, with everything, generally it's difficult to convert one specific thing. And that's why having a holistic advice from an expert like yourself who knows how to create a story.

develop it and promote it. So it's very important. So I agree. Nick, I think you are doing, is there any niche you specialize on, or do you build websites for different businesses?

Nick Gulic (30:55)
I pretty much focus on service businesses. So people providing services. ⁓ I don't really like, I don't enjoy e-commerce. don't like, think, ⁓ anything direct to consumer can be fun. Like when there's products involved, that can be really fun to work on. if you're designing, but it's not my area. ⁓ you know, as much, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of overlap in the skills, but it's just not what I've ever worked. Like my background's in all service businesses. I worked in accounting.

Rana (31:14)
different skill set here.

Nick Gulic (31:22)
And then I did sales for an accounting firm and then I was a manager and then I did business consulting. And then I did, that and business coaching. And then I started doing the web stuff and a bit of marketing. So I've always sold services and I know services really well. know, selling, I've never sat there and tried to sell products, you know, like it's not, not my area. Yeah. I typically recommend other people. Like I have people I trust.

Rana (31:23)
Yep.

Nick Gulic (31:45)
⁓ you know, so when someone comes to me for e-commerce, there's people that I recommend for it. you know, everything depends on the need. my, wouldn't say that I have a niche because I think niching is kind of a, ⁓ or niche if it's, if anyone American's watching, or listening, I don't have a niche or niche, you know, if I did, it'd be like more service businesses, if anything. ⁓ but that's, that's not really niching. just one big, big subset. Yeah.

Rana (32:06)
Yeah. Now that's our niche as well, We

are main focus on service businesses as well. So with your accounting background, because we have account customers in accounting and maybe law firms, those people, we have discussed the strategy to build a website. So you need a personality and clear value proposition, messaging that connects now and the design of the website. Now website is ready. Getting traffic is another big thing to

to the website. So for service businesses, what is your favorite ways, one, two, three ways, which worked for you very good in the past to bring traffic to those service people?

Nick Gulic (32:42)
Well, everything has worked in the past. So my first accounting gig where I was in charge of sales and marketing, we ran ads, Google ads, and that was very effective. You just got to have the right fit for Google ads. So if you're a premium offering, typically Google ads aren't the best. If you're kind of more of a mass market offering, Google ads are fantastic. If you have something that's kind of a need it now, and you do emergency services like locksmiths or plumbers or

you know, stuff like that. Google ads can be amazing. You know, for me, I would not do Google ads today.

typically service businesses should have something they're doing already. they're not, it's very rare that they're going out and building a site and having no marketing already done. That's kind of silly. They should be marketing already. And the site should be appropriate for that marketing. I think what happens a lot with, especially accountants, like as that example, they get their clients from networking. So they need to referrals and networking, right? So the site, they're not, if they're not,

Rana (33:33)
Referrals are a thing for ⁓

Nick Gulic (33:38)
planning on changing that, then they're going to keep doing that. Then the website should probably be more sales support. So make it so when someone refers you, the person being referred checks the site and feels a lot more comfortable and safe making that inquiry. then when you try to tell someone, mean, biggest, one of the biggest things that frustrate me is when someone says that they're premium, that they have high attention to detail, that they're good quality, and then they have it.

just terrible looking website with mistakes on it and typos or just cheap looking design. It's like, well, there's like, that doesn't make sense. You're telling me that you're premium, but if you're not premium there, where else are you not premium? If you cut corners on your website, where else do you cut corners? Because you judge people based off what they show you. So if, if I, if I, if I'm sitting there telling everyone about personality and then I'm writing content that is dry and boring,

Rana (34:22)
Exactly.

Nick Gulic (34:31)
Then it's like, well, you're kind of, you're not living what you're saying. That's, know, if you're, if you're doing that, then where else are you cutting corners? Where else are you not living what you're saying? so I think it's really important to, for people who network to make sure that they have a website that matches the story, the story that they're telling other people. Because it, it's not that you'll fail if you're not like, this is, I think people need to really make like, understand I'm not saying you're going to fail if you don't do this. It's just, makes the job harder.

Now, if you can have your sales process easy or hard, I mean, you probably want it to be easy. Why make it harder for yourself? Why make it so you have an uphill battle from the first conversation? So that, you know, typically, so as businesses will have some sort of marketing they're already doing, if they're looking to add something SEO is tricky to recommend right now, I actually think it is worth it. And I would probably be going quite hard at it. And I have for other people, I don't do it myself, because I don't

have the time, more energy to spend on it. but SEO can work really well. It's just everyone's saying, it's dead because of AI. but you can get recommended a lot very easily by just doing all the proper SEO stuff and maybe a couple of steps extra. ⁓ so that client, mentioned the SAS product who, you know, did the rebrand and SEO and everything. we've the, the SEO and it's not me doing it. Like I have a team that does the SEO. they're pushing for the AI, ⁓

showing up on AI. Yeah. And, and these guys are getting recommended a lot. And so they went from when we first started working together, they were lucky. They were happy if they got two like trial signups, like two leads basically a month. And now they're getting 26 a week. And that was like three months ago. I don't know what the current numbers are, but they were getting 26 a week from two a month.

Rana (35:51)
Overviews. AI overviews, yeah.

from SEO, SEO work they're doing.

Nick Gulic (36:12)
From, from

SEO. Yep. So I mean, you know, combination of the website being, you know, tight, the branding being right. And, know, the messaging being good and everything being cohesive. They're getting a lot, um, you know, and so we, uh, we stepped it up with the SEO to like start doing aiming for the, um, the AI overviews. Um, and they're getting something like, I think last month, like one month before, whenever it was, um, 35, um, visits from the AI things.

Rana (36:20)
Exactly.

Nick Gulic (36:41)
which is pretty decent because it's really decent intent, like buying intent there. People are asking for something specific that it's less about them doing just broad research and then, you know, typically when they're clicking through, they're interested. Hi, yeah. So, so that's been that's been a thing. I think SEO actually will surprise a lot of people who are saying SEO is dead. But I don't know for sure.

Rana (36:53)
Your numbers are lower from AI, but I think the conversion is very high from AI traffic.

Nick Gulic (37:06)
I just, it's just the thing that I suspect. Also, cause so many people are saying SEO is dead and I'm very contrarian. So when they say that, I'm like, no, it's not. I think social media content.

Rana (37:12)
Well, actually, ⁓

I'm publishing Nick Eubanks, who is a VP of SEM Rush today in the podcast. And he's really excited for the days ahead about the SEO. So it is lot of noise out there that SEO is dead. SEO is, old SEO is probably dead. SEO is evolving. And many people are very optimistic about the days ahead.

Nick Gulic (37:20)
Yep, nice.

Mm-hmm.

I think anyone who's a true SEO will really enjoy it because experimentation is becoming the big thing again. Everyone's like, well, if no one knows what works, experimentation is necessary. And good SEOs really enjoy that because they know that's part of the job. But experimentation also gets expensive. It isn't guaranteed. But yeah, I think SEO is a big one. think that social media content is...

Rana (37:54)
Yeah, exactly.

Nick Gulic (38:01)
for service businesses, think social media can be a big thing. If you can find a way to blend the right kinds of content with your personality and show your viewpoint. I'm thinking that the type of content that, you know, the typical like how to do this type of content, I think is going to be less effective in the next year. I think it's going to be a bit more on the showing your experience and expertise and kind of

more about you and getting your personality out there versus, just the boring, Hey, here's five ways you can blah, blah, blah. Because people will look that up on like AI stuff. If it's something that people can just look up and get you sharing, that is not helpful. You giving almost an editorial or giving an opinion piece about it without necessarily being preachy. I think that will kill. ⁓ I think that's going to do really well. I think.

I think YouTube has potential, but it's challenging. It's very hard to get that right. that's where I'm probably going to be putting some time and energy into this coming year. so LinkedIn already works for me in person networking works for me. you know, and I'm thinking probably combo of combo of newsletter and YouTube will be my, like this coming year, like the next thing that I add, I'm going heavier into video. I think.

video online can be tricky to get a lot of visibility with. Um, but I think it goes way further with conversion. So people get to know you, they get your personality. Um, you know, I read this thing and I don't know how true it is because it's a stat and stats can be bullshit a lot of times. Um, but it was something like seven hours of footage before people feel that like level of connection. Um, so

Rana (39:23)
I got it.

Nick Gulic (39:41)
That's a lot of footage. You know, lot of like, not just footage, sorry, it's like, you know, I guess seeing you and hearing you and you know, that engagement with your stuff. So doing video gets you there closer, gets you there faster. So you know, people build that connection, they feel like they know you. I've had a lot of people tell me like, after I first time I did a video, it's like, Nick, it's so great to see and hear you. I feel like I know you much better now.

That was actually like two or three messages that came from like that and a couple of comments as well, which was cool.

Rana (40:10)
No, no, I agree. The video is the next best thing to the face-to-face meeting. So again, today's keyword of this discussion is the personality, which is, think, going to save us not just in marketing, but the AI world as well. So AI is a tool, can do everything for you. But if it doesn't have your personality, I think it will be very difficult to get any meaningful results from AI. What's your opinion on this,

Nick Gulic (40:23)
Yes.

Well, I 100 % agree. I don't think, I think a lot of people are using, using it almost as a crutch. so, and this is like a, this is kind of my, you know, really like my, strong opinion when it comes to it. I think that people will go, this is really hard. I'll use AI to make it easier. So what happens is it's almost like a crutch. You've got a broken leg. and there's a crutch there. And if your leg feels sore, you can lean on the crutch.

And so when you start leaning on it though, what happens is you're not working your leg as much. And the next time your leg gets a bit sore and then you lean on the crutch sooner. And the next time you lean on it even sooner. And then eventually you can't walk without the crutch. And then if someone takes a crutch away, you can't walk. And that's what using AI is like now. People are using it to basically think for them. And I've tried this before. I've tried to do content with AI.

And what happens is I'll come with this piece of content and then it's like, what do I do now? No, this isn't right. And instead of me sitting there trying to think of how to fix it, I'm like, ⁓ let me just ask again, because it doesn't really cost you anything to ask it again. It was easy, easy come. You just go, that's not good enough. Hit the button, do it again. Hit the button, do it again. Hit the button, do it again. And just keep doing that until you get something you think is okay.

There's a lot of people out there saying that it's about the prompting is really important. Are you going to get your personality into it and all this stuff. And, you know, I think that they think they're getting their personality into it. I think that it's making their personality less. Um, and yeah, it's getting, the personality is getting weaker. The personality is changing into something like that. Because when I've tried to do that and try to make it more my personality, when I've looked at it,

Rana (42:01)
We carry on.

Nick Gulic (42:12)
And I'm reading it and then when I leave it and come back to it and then when I read it out loud, it looks fine to me. And then when I read out loud, I realized actually, no, that is terrible. That's not me. Um, but when they're not doing that final step, they're like, yeah, that's, that's great. Their personality is changing. Um, and it isn't, it isn't what they think it is. Um, but they love it because it's making things easier. So they're like making their, making everything more efficient. They want this very efficient road.

Rana (42:31)
Yep.

Nick Gulic (42:39)
to nothing, road to nowhere.

Rana (42:40)
Yeah.

It's a very interesting topic. And I think we can do a separate podcast just on AI and personality as well. So I'm trying to, I'm just conscious of the time and I'm trying to get, you know, most out of you of our time together. So as you mentioned the different marketing channels, once you have the site, right, you have to market to bring in traffic and all the channels you mentioned again, your personality part will really help with that as well, particularly with social media. So if you're good at video.

Nick Gulic (42:54)
No props.

Rana (43:08)
Maybe YouTube may work really well for you or the Reels will work very good. But if you're better at writing content, maybe LinkedIn and other blog posts or other stuff work.

Nick Gulic (43:18)
I

one thing to note, if you, if you have a trade, so if you do physical work, short form content kills, like show people your day to day stuff, because me working on a computer every day, I don't do any of that. So, you know, I've seen like, uh, I have a friend who is a pest control person. Um, and he started doing video content while he's like in a roof spraying and it's like, Oh, look at these bugs and.

All this stuff is showing everyone all the dirty yucky stuff and his business exploded. It grew. He had to hire more people. He started getting contracts with like national companies to handle like big areas and he had to hire more people to handle it. His business exploded because he was showing the stuff that people don't normally see and electricians plumbers, like anything where you're doing something physical, get that phone out, start filming some content and put it onto like Tik Tok or whatever and just

try to get your personality into it a bit, like, you know, be funny or whatever your personality happens to be. That works really well. It's interesting. Yeah.

Rana (44:18)
Fantastic advice.

very, very useful and brilliant advice. know you only need, most people only need a phone to do that. They don't need fancy tools to start with. So this is very, helpful. Last piece of, before we get to the money part, which is exciting part for everybody, last puzzle here is the conversion. So you got the site right, you got the personality, you got traffic coming to the site. Now the last part.

before the sale happens is conversion. What is your biggest advice on conversion for service-oriented businesses? What really worked well for you?

Nick Gulic (44:53)
okay. So friction is always a problem. anytime, like if you want someone to change something, change behavior, you want them to take action. There needs to be, there's a couple of things as X there's this formula for change. used to teach this in, business coaching. So the formula for change is there needs to be a dissatisfaction with the current situation. There needs to be a desirable outcome, something that they want. There needs to be an easy.

first step. And all of that together has to overcome their resistance to change. So if you don't have, if their situation now they're happy with their current situation, it's going to be harder to make them take action. So when someone's fine, it's like as much as they want something, it's like, ⁓ like there's no urgency. There's no, there's no need to change it because they're happy. They're making a lot of money or they're, you know, whatever they're comfortable. if

They're uncomfortable, but they don't have anything they really want. They're just going to be unhappy. Then what are they going to change for? They've got nothing they want. It's like, just going to be more of the same. or if you have all that and they're like unhappy and they're, you know, they're, they have something they want, but then to change it is hard. Then they're just going to be frustrated and angry because they can't, you know, they're unhappy. They're saying they want, but they can't change anything about it. ⁓ so you need to make sure that your, your first step is easy. Like.

You know, see people doing like contact forms that have so many fields and it's like adding all these fields in make it hard. Or they make the, the, that first step sound like it's a big deal. You know, it's like, you know, let's basically like almost like signing up. It's like, no, no, no, make it, make it low risk to them. Make it something and a step. Yeah.

Rana (46:23)
This

is a very good, very important point. So can you please explain it with an example? Like let's say accountancy website, their ideal goal is to sell the customer. So don't expect to sign up a new customer because before that they need to speak with you, understand your personality. It's a high ticket sale and there is so much needs to be going before the sale. So instead of asking for a sale, what can you do? What's the first step they should take on a website?

Nick Gulic (46:52)
So depending on the kind of accountant you are, so if you are more of a, let's say the masses, you're targeting the masses and you're trying to get high volume clients, then anytime you're doing high volume, typically get a free quote works because that's what people want. You you're going to, you're, someone who's competing at the price level. Usually people are looking for price. You know, your price very competitive on price. So you make, get a free quote and just name, phone number, email address, whatever you need.

the basics, maybe a message, you know, and very easy for them to do it. They put an inquiry in, you speak to them close, like tell you know, go through the process, ask them questions, give them a price, close a deal. That's what I used to do when I worked in the accounting firm. If you're not if you're kind of structuring yourself as a bit of a higher level solution. And if you're, you know, you're going to be maybe a bit more costly, you don't want to be the the price competitive option, then it's

think about what is the first step for someone to take action? What do they need? What is their resistance? You know, what is it that they, you know, why are they worried? What are they worried about? You know, someone's going to accounting firm. It's like, are these guys going to be better? You know, is this process going to be horrible for me to do? And, you know, am I going to have to have an awkward conversation with my existing accountant? And am I going to have to chase down all this paperwork like

figure out what these pain points are and go, okay, cool. What's the first thing that I can do to make this easier? Maybe the first action is a, you you make it sound quite easy, no obligation conversation based situation. And I'll give you advice about where you're at. You tell me where you're at. I'll tell you kind of, I'll give you some advice, like something along those lines. Like maybe, maybe that's the first step.

You know, it depends on what your business is like and also depends on how many leads you're getting. If you have a lot of people calling, calling, calling, and you're getting people wasting your time, you're going to make that first step. You're going to add more friction because you don't want the people who are time wasters calling you. If you're getting no leads, then you want to make it very easy because you need to get some. So it's, hard because it's different for everyone based on the situation. But you know, I'm a fan of making it easy.

until you need to make it harder because you can't handle all the leads.

Rana (49:00)
Okay, so making it easier is one thing to improve conversion. Any other thing worked for you to improve conversions on the website?

Nick Gulic (49:03)
.

On a practical standpoint, you know, making it so people don't have to go to another page. I'm doing that now on my side, I think. But I've, you I used to typically do like, I'll make it so when you click the button to make an inquiry, it will pop up with inquiry form. You know, making it so easy, it really easy, having it it's on every page. You know, if you are a lower cost, like cost competitive option, have a contact form, like first thing on your site, like have it in your like,

pretty much in your hero banner, make it there like big. they, you know, request a free quote and it's there. Cause that's the big thing people care about. You know, everything else supports that, but make it up like big and right there. And then again, like easy to get to from the bottom of the page as well. And like multiple, multiple places throughout. but it's, it's a tactical, it's a, it's a tactical thing based off your strategy of, you know, what your brand is and what your business is and what your lead gen strategy is.

So if you are, like I said, if you're low cost, if you're cost competitive, you make it really easy for them to get a free quote. ⁓ if you're going to be a higher, like, you know, like white glove type service, if you're premium thing, concierge type service, then you make a sound like it's it's a more of a pleasant thing for them. and you know, you make it sound more nurturing and more friendly and whatever. And then there's all the steps in between that you could pick. ⁓ mine is, I think at the moment, you know, it's like, let's have a chat about your business strategy.

Something along those lines like this talk. I should probably look at it. I'm actually due to look at it. So it's tomorrow's I've got a two and a half hours scheduled copy session of looking over my own copy and revising. So

Rana (50:37)
It's always, always difficult to do your own operation. So ⁓ I think it sounds complicated to increase conversion, but I think at the end, if you keep it simple, simple call to action normally works best on your website. So that's what you do it. People who are listening and we discuss strategy, we discuss design and development, promotion and conversion. That's a lot of heavy, heavy stuff to make your website, convert your website into your

number one business growth tool. So how can we make ⁓ for those people easier? What is the first easy step they can do this week to achieve this goal? The people for them websites is not working.

Nick Gulic (51:16)
Okay. So easiest, the easiest one is probably to look at your site, just look at it and go, okay, cool. If I was a client, if I was a potential client, if I was looking for the service and I'm not me, I am the person I'm trying to work with. Is this, is this a website that speaks to me? Is this a website that will make me feel something? Is this a website that will talk to my problem? Is this a website that looks different and stands out?

against everyone else, maybe not visually, but in terms of what they're saying, does it say like, mean, you know, if your website says like, you know, we care about quality and we care about results driving real, real results. That stuff is the same shit that everyone says, like you sound like everyone else. ignore it. consumer behavior is continually changing. So it's like, you know, and you might've written that five years ago and it might've been great then. but now it's like, okay, am I saying the same stuff as everyone else?

Like me looking at this, if I was a potential customer or potential client, is this something that would make me want to speak to them? Is there anything here that talks about an outcome I want? Is there anything here that talks to a frustration that I have? Is there anything here that makes me go, this is the kind of person I want to, I want to talk to, I want to hang out with, you know, is this someone that I can trust with my stuff? so you look at your site with,

Almost like fresh eyes, as if you are a customer, if you're a client and go, okay, is this going to work? Would this work on me if I was a client? And if you see stuff that makes you go, no, not really. then that's something to think about and something to start thinking, okay, how do I make it different? What is it that isn't working for me? And what would I need to be there for it to work for me? Cause that's realistically, that's how I approach things.

Rana (52:52)
This is.

Nick Gulic (52:54)
When I, when I work, it's like, what would work? You know, would this work? No.

Rana (52:58)
This is a brilliant advice. in my experience, it's not important just for website. It's really important when you show your personality, you connect with the right type of people. And having the right type of clients is very important for a long term, your happiness, your business success. So otherwise, you will maybe find clients who are after just a transactional value. They pay something, they won't get out of something from you, which normally a very difficult.

customers to deal with and your life is always in a mess. So we learned this as well. So I think that's why as we say, we work with purpose driven businesses. We all want to make money, but when someone have some purpose, we really connect with those people and our and our team's happiness go increase by doing that. So Nick, this is a brilliant stuff. And I think we touched on really important.

stuff on making website your number one business growth tool. I'm sure this conversation will really help and if I would take only one thing out of this conversation, this personality part, I think that is very important going forward. So thank you so much for sharing amazing advice.

So brilliant advice, So thank you so much. And where people can connect with you and if they need to work with you, how can they do that?

Nick Gulic (54:14)
Well, I'm on LinkedIn a lot, like every day, a lot, like too much. So LinkedIn is great. It's the only social media platform that I use at the moment. And if not on LinkedIn, if you wanted to work with me, then my agency website, so it's creative click.com.au because I'm Australian, Australian company, but I am global. Like I have a lot of clients who are overseas. So yeah, LinkedIn or the agency website.

Rana (54:40)
Excellent, we will put all these links into the show notes as well. once again, Nick, thank you so much for your generous advice.

Nick Gulic (54:46)
No problem. Glad to help.