The Wise Why

Kirsty van den Bulk
Hello and welcome to The Wise Why, this morning I am joined by Lee Vanstone, I hope. Said that correctly. Lee and I have met over the last wall year two years at networking events and it’s been really interesting for me to see somebody following the path that I was on, you know, three years ago and I’m now. The 4th year and. Lee is still. Growing and it’s just awesome. And I was there. I can’t speak this morning. I hope that helps you, Lee. So as usual, the show is not about me. It is about my guest. That was me trying. To add live. There I will. Go straight over to Lee Lee, please introduce your.

Lee Vanstone
Oh. Hi I am Lee from Lee Financial development. I’m a word press specialist and I hope this is to find their audience, help them align with their needs of the business and help them think about their long term growth plans for their website. So thinking beyond the launch as well as thinking about the launch itself.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And I love that about you. You do do something that’s quite unique. You don’t work with templates. Could you expand a little bit more on? That for people because. We’ve all any business, every business out there knows that they need a need. A website. I constantly tell people that your website is your department store, your socials are your shop front window. All of these different things, but without a website, you really don’t have a present. Could you explain your real point of difference here?

Lee Vanstone
Yeah, absolutely. So the way I build the websites is I every business has a very unique marketing challenge. So with a website. That I pay from scratch, it gives you more flexibility to to develop, and then you’re less boundaries of what you can offer. My whole philosophy is that with websites I want to try and save people time. ISO brings people to the traffic to the website. My job is to help improve engagement on the website. People that so if I save people time, I particularly work with lots of volunteer businesses and and also volunteer organisations and for them it’s about trying to make them more productive. So I. Can build functionality within the website that can be matched to their exact needs, but also can be adapted over time so as they grow we can adapt and add things to it so you’re no longer kind of beholden to long subscriptions. We can actually build spoke to you, so that’s. The kind of position I go with, we’re moving away from templates. You’re kind of removing those parameters. There’s no kind of limit to what you can do, so if you need to integrate it with third party systems, then you can do that as well. So that is a kind of approach.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And I want to. Talk about that.

Lee Vanstone
I do with.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah. No, I just wanna touch on that for a little minute. Lee, about. Where you are when you launch your business, I mean, we all know you start kind of with a very basic website. You start with one or two pages and a contact page. But actually if you were to look at my website now, I think there’s probably over 200 pages on there. I don’t know without looking. So I wondered if you could expand a little bit more. About building a website for today, but future proofing yourself and the way that you do it with code for the real future.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah, absolutely. And so from. When I start with any project, it’s really trying to find out the fundamentals of what you’re trying to answer from the website itself, so it’s really getting to understand the structural website is important kind of for you, even jump in and think about how. It’s. Going to look so I will sit down with clients and actually ask them about what’s are. What are the motivations people come into a website in the 1st place? Is it they want to buy a product from you? Is it they want to buy a service? Are they looking to book an appointment? We’ll find another information out from kind of having a consultation together. We’ll really get to kind of understand what they’re look. For during that process, I’ll also ask them about their long term goal growth plans. So whether that’s to increase by having new locations or they can add more courses in the future, cause what I want to do is I want to give people the autonomy of their own websites to grow. I will be there to help support them as and when they need to. Shorter resources and time themselves, but want to be able to empower businesses to be able to look after websites on their own as well. So quite commonly people want to be able to load blog posts or have new courses. I want to be able to give people the power to do that because I’m. I’m I’m on my website often, but for many people they’re on their website, but to couple of months so actually making sure that the front of the website is is as easy as the back end is very important to me. That’s what with my business.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And can we just talk about this cause a lot of? People think you. Build a website you put in some. Some some special software to improve your SEO. You put other software in to keep it safe, but actually it’s a lot more complicated than that, isn’t it? I wonder if you could explain about the service and the aftercare that you do.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah. So with WordPress or any other platform, Drupal now updates that are needed. So overtime technology is evolving all the time. There are security patches and new features are added all the time. So as a website owner it’s important that you keep on top of it. So with now more and more threats of cyber attacks and things like that. Important that we try and keep on top of it as a website supports. Provider I have to remove that overwhelm trying to look after the website and try and help them with being more accountable with their website. So kind of checking in and doing the updates to kind of keep things ticking over and make sure they are secure. They are testing their customers in the long term and as I mentioned. The future playing as well, it’s also think about how we can plan for the future. So appreciate with different budgets and things we need to kind of spread over plan to actually having an idea of how we’re gonna go from A to B is really important. So that’s how I can. How in my business, how I can have facilitated with them and kind of almost try and break it down into smaller chunks and try and look at the big picture all in one go, is that what’s that kind of can give? People love overwhelm. That’s right off with my support.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate that. So how did you get into web design? Because, yeah. I fell into it because I launched a business and I did the and I’m not gonna say it’s a mistake, but like many people, I launched on a shoestring and I started with a template from a site that I would never go and use. Now I’ve now got WordPress and I’ve got my web designer who is just awesome. But how did you get into web design? How did you find it?

Lee Vanstone
So for me, since I was a child, that was being a creative person, I’ve always been a bit frustrated that I’ve they’ve been great at drawing. But for me, I’ve. Always. Loved kind of exploring ideas and being quite creative. So I did a lot of creative writing when I was a lot younger and I. Kind of enjoyed that. Area but for me, another passion of mine is sort of problem solving. So I’ve done a lot of. Back in the day, I’ve done kind of escape rooms and used to do a lot of puzzles and things like that. And kind of bringing. Those two passions together, when I was kind of trying to think what Korea would go into. Too, I did a lot of computers, so for me it just felt a natural fit to go put. With development I can kind of bridge both worlds really, so I can kind of be creative with the design and have a website built, but also how people think about ideas they may not have thought about past with as well. So that’s kind of how I got into it really. So starting from an agency background. And moved into it and decided actually I enjoyed having the variety of working different clients from higher generics business to a engineering home business to now. Most recently I’ve done quite a few charities. I’m able to kind of bridge these gaps with. Building my curiosity and trying to find out other people’s businesses, but also be able to help them solve the problem that they’re trying to solve with their new. Site. And try and actually instead of just kind of investing in the here and now actually help them continually invest and help it grow so that the website adapts with the growth of their business. That’s my.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Thank you. And so when you start with the project, you start with this very small. Sort of understanding that you scale quite significantly and and that’s one of the things that I really like about your work is the way that you. Scale your use. Of colour. I think your use of colour is very strong, which is why you know I love colour not I’m wearing any colour today. I wonder if you could just touch about that kind of design aspect of the website.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah. So from the same point of view with solving other problems with. The kind of functionality, but actually with the design, it’s important as they. Web design business to actually think about accessibility or how people interact with websites and the usability. So there’s lots of things that as owners we can do to kind of help improve that in terms of me as a business while I’m putting designs together and I’m thinking about how things work always think about. Actually, how different people will interact with it. So when we talk about colour, talk about having good colour contrast levels. So it’s easy for people to read, especially if you’ve got a lot of content you want it to be.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And.

Lee Vanstone
Easier to read, so actually looking at colours is really important. I’m also looking at lengths of content as well, so if you’ve got quite wide columns on your website, if you give people a. Quite a hefty paragraphs to text. Then try and actually look at and bringing that down and introducing more headings, because that will make it easier to read. And also make it more accessible for everyone, because that’s the aim really. With accessibility, it’s not. It’s not a tick box exercise. It’s actually trying to make it usable for everyone. Usability is really important, and that’s what we’re trying to go on with my websites is that I want people to. Since there were certain there’s no, there aren’t any boundaries for people engaging.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And the way we consume content has changed. I mean this is the thing. Uh, yesterday I had a problem with my mobile and had to go into a shop and it was really interesting because I’m from a generation that didn’t grow up with mobile phones. You know, I didn’t I I launched the Internet onto into the consumer marketplace. You know, when I worked for. Intel we launched the Pentium processor and we didn’t even have wireless cards that went to and not gonna try and say the piece. Yes, I am. No, I’m not. But into the into the wireless card slot. So the world’s changed. We are now consuming information so quickly and since then what you said about the headers is that why you’ve moved to this new kind of new way because you know, five years ago you could write lots of content, but nowadays it’s much sharper, much quicker. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah. So it’s more about trying to make things more. Because people are with going on websites and there’s less sort of attention span people want to digest things quickly. So what back and back many years ago was to have lots of paragraphs of text is no longer enough. It’s you need to kind of look at actually about the layout of text. So whether you can break up with images or you can look at formatting things differently. So if you’ve got. Some list of all items, then using bullet points and extra formatting around it will just make it things pop on the screen a bit better and hopefully we’ll help people read it as well. So by having those headings. People, naturally, can kind of skim through the headings that you’ve got on the page and quickly find information because we now want to make sure that we you almost got hand told people through your website and direct them to the next location, which is why having great call to actions will help guide people to ultimately go to your end goal, which is hopefully either. Buying products inquiring with you or any other options like that where you’re, yeah, what your goal is? For your website. You.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Thank you. So. Aha moments. I mean, how long you been trading now?

Lee Vanstone
So it’s 2 1/2 years. Next month. So yeah, loving it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So this is a huge journey. I know because I’m. I’m into my yeah. Into my faulty. I can never. I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic. And that means I gotta workout numbers and it’s 930 in the 1940 in the morning. It’s not gonna happen. So yeah. Any other hard moments on the on the way or moments where you’ve really learned from something. I know I’ve had plenty. My first website being one of them. Has there been anything along the way that has really changed the way you deliver your business?

Lee Vanstone
I think for. Me the, the the biggest one is really how different people will. Interact with the projects and look for a lot of people. They actually really and they want really want to understand how they can improve their accessible nature of their websites or they want their curious about how things work and as the background I came from before I was a senior developer and an agency background by mental people. And when I’ve come into the website development and I train clients after the build as well, I love being able to kind of help. Mentor and educate people, and when they then go and implement it and then pass on to other people, that’s what I get really buzz, big buzz off. Because it means I’m sort of inspiring other people to kind of think about it. And there’s there’s so many things that we can do. There’s also there’s a lot bigger things we may need developing, but actually there’s quite a lot, as I’ve mentioned earlier, but businesses can do to help in the short term themselves as well. They’re levelling content or think about creating new landing pages. Like think about how they put together, especially when you’re looking at sort of mobile phone is a ways that we can kind of. OK. Less daunting to you’re not scrolling forever and ever. Can we put things in scrolling scroll bars? The big thing I see quite a lot is we have scripts have low reviews on your websites, but if you’ve got a lot of fast moving elements such as like sliders, if you’re using animations. Like content and how that can be really overwhelming. So trying to explain to people the benefit even though it kind of it’s kind of a trend at a a point now actually moving away and actually. Just putting the content in front of people in a way that’s digestible and nicely designed. It’s what we need to do. So so yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you. The sliders do my head in and I mean I I want to watch video but I want to see the image and I want to choose whether or not I click through. Being that I’ve got dyspraxia, I can get overwhelmed and that’s me bouncing. I am gone. You know it that that information overload. Can be too much and I love the fact that you just talked about designing for everybody, because as somebody who has neurodivergence and I, it’s it’s been really interesting. My journey recently cause I didn’t realise how much I designed for that as well. So thank you so much for sharing that. I want to know about Lee because you do some really cool stuff in your own. Time, don’t you? You’ve got something major coming up.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah. So in my in. My spare time I’ve I’ve always mentioned like I like. Being creative and the other part of my passion outside of that is actually going out and scoring places so. As part of that, about eight years ago, when I started my previous agency job, I got a place at the Oxford half back then, and I was not keen runner at all. Back at school at 5800 metres, that’s probably the slowest that. But actually that developed passion and over time I joined my local running club. Very openness, which is an amazing thing which I’m now part of and helping shape. With the local community, which is awesome, but for my next big kind of challenge outside of work is training for my 4th marathon in October the Chester Marathon. Which is gonna be awesome. So, yeah, I love the big challenge. I pushed myself a little bit of my comfort zone, which is why I’m here today as well because, yeah, I really want to kind of find a bit more about myself. I think when you put yourself through these challenges, you learn about how you adapt to them. And people say to me all the time, like, how do you want for so long and in the end? Well, my. You don’t just mentioned like you learn so much about yourself and how much you like you can how the lot of resilience and and things like that and that’s. Something I’m trying. Bring us to my business. Really. Is there are going to be some great days. We all really high and some other days where like you’re. Not and I. Think that’s where I’m doing my run? I can kind of relate to it as well. So yeah, I really look forward to kind of getting started. So yeah, this week is the first week of training. So yeah, quite a way off the long 20 mile runs, but we’ll get that. Tell silent.

Kirsty van den Bulk
But I want. Honestly, I want to applaud you not just for doing the marathon running, but also for joining me today, because I remember mentioning this to you when I first met you and you just went white. In fact, I think you went green at the idea of going live on a Friday morning with me. And I was like, but it’s personal branding. People get to know you. The person behind the. Friend and you were just like no way. And it took us a bit of time to get together to have a coffee and then over that coffee. I don’t know quite how I managed to convince you, but I did. And I’m really pleased that you have joined us. We’ve had a couple of comments. I’m just gonna go to Luke. I’ve known and have where this is lovely from Luke. This is one of the nice things. Love about going live and I’ve just got goosebumps. OK, Luke, Luke has just said I’ve known and worked with Lee for many. The years the chop chop and a very talented and very tall and I’m not sexy right and and very talented and web design. Thank you Luke. That is just the nicest thing I have ever I think I’ve ever had on the wise. Why is where somebody has said how great my guest is. So thank you, Lee. What’s next? What you gonna do next? What’s your next challenge? You’ve done done the UM. You’re doing a marathon. You have set up setting up a business is it’s not easy. So what’s next for you?

Lee Vanstone
I think the next thing for me really is, as I mentioned, I I love being able to kind of educate and mentor and that’s nothing I really like. So. I think the next couple of years I’d like to try and work on doing more public speaking, so that’s maybe that’s going to speak at a conference and maybe maybe it’s actually the WordPress conference in Italy at the moment. So I think my long term really is. Keep pushing myself out of my conversation and yeah, look at maybe doing one of those things. So kind of outside of my business, I do run the WordPress Oxford meet up and that’s kind of my initial kind of stepping stone to kind of push myself out and be that kind of. Organiser and the key speaker. So yeah, that that’s my aim really. I think it’s obviously to keep growing my business support side websites. But also yeah look at maybe doing a bit more. Training as well. That’s that’s why I’m gonna before.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Love it. So Haas just joined us and she said, wow to the marathon challenge and I’d never have guessed you weren’t a podcast regulator. See everyone’s, everyone’s. Coming through this one. It’s brilliant. You see, welcome to the Wise Why where we take newbies you’ve never been on a podcast before and I make sure that even before we go in the studio, you actually have stepped into your presenter zone. This is where the tables. Stand. Now this is always an interesting point because it could make us go off on a tangent. I have no idea. So this is where you. Get to ask the question to me.

Lee Vanstone
OK. OK. So as I just mentioned that obviously you talked about public speaking and we’ve had a lot of talks about talking on camera and things like that.

Kirsty van den Bulk
How?

Lee Vanstone
Have you got any kind of tips on helping me kind of get to that position where I can kind of go to? Those big conferences. We should start laugh question, but is there any like tips you could offer me to kind of help me push myself out of concern a little bit and kind of any points to kind of help me shape that talk?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we have to do is learn how to step in. I call it presenter shoes. Now this is. A very simple acting technique and I’m going to. It’s really interesting because every Friday I go live when it’s time, time, every Friday and every Friday. I say now this is a really bad thing to admit, but every Thursday I always, the Friday. I always say to myself. Today is the day that I’m going to spend the time to get myself ready. And I’m not going to do any work beforehand. I’m going to prepare now. My preparation takes half an hour. Now my preparation is actually based off being an actor going on stage, and I have tried to do 45 minutes and I have tried to do anything else, but it’s half an hour and the reason for it is you have the 30. Five minute call. So if you start preparing. Too early. So when you’re when you’re going on. Stage. I’ll just explain about the 35 minute call. The 35 minute call is where an actor prepares before they go on stage. We go and arrive at the theatre. We have to sign in. We have to do our makeup. We have to style ourselves. We have. To get into our. Costume and then 35 minutes later it’s called the half hour call. So 30 minutes later you’re called beginners to the stage and then you’re in the wings getting. Yourself. Ready now? Those last five minutes are really important. But that 30 minute before those last five minutes. Is where you. Yeah. And a lot of people over prepare now, if you remember, I know you quite well. I didn’t send you the questions that we would potentially going to discuss until this morning. There is a moment of knowing your script and you know knowing what you’re going to say and 1:00 on that one, I’m going to say, you know, you you do you and you do you better than anybody else and nobody knows what you’re gonna say anyway. So stop trying to learn.

Lee Vanstone
Script.

Kirsty van den Bulk
The minute you start to learn a script is the minute you’re going to start tripping yourselves up. You haven’t spent years like me being an actor, training on how to learn a script, so why now? Are you going to start putting pressure on yourself to learn a script? So the first thing we do is we take the script and we. Visually, we we rip it up. OK. So we absolutely think about ripping the script up and throwing it in the bin. We no longer need it. We don’t need that crutch, because what we’re gonna do is we’re going to take pictures. And we’re going to visualise pictures. So if you think if you’re doing a PowerPoint, you put a picture that is relevant to what you’re talking about, we don’t overload our PowerPoint with lots of text. We put a picture in the picture is the clue we think in pictures because actually we remember everything that happens to us. As pictures. So when we’re walking down St know it’s much harder if you are blind and we I do have techniques for people who are visually challenged. There are lots of different things, whether it’s auditory, we have got lots of different ways of doing it. So please at the moment I’m only talking about people who who are not visually impaired. But for the non visually impaired, even actually four people who are visually impaired, actually it’s about remembering the picture, painting a picture. So you take a picture that you see and it’s your visual clue and you place those either in your PowerPoint or in your mind like a structure that you follow and if you. Follow them as a picture. What’s beautiful is you haven’t put them in an order. So if you don’t put them in an order, you’ve not got pressure to follow a script. So again we get rid of that. So what we’re doing now is we’re creating up and freeing up that that process of presenting. And so the whole idea is that we see it as a myriad of pictures like a collage and we know that we want to touch these points. But we’re not going to put pressure on ourselves of which order we’re going to put them. In because if we miss one. Out we can always go. Ohh, I forgot to. Mention the other thing that we don’t do is we don’t worry about arming and armoring. We don’t worry about stumbling over our web. I start the podcast and I stumbled. Did I go? Ohh no, I go oh, I own that. I made a mistake. It doesn’t matter. That’s the human element. So instead of putting all this pressure on ourselves, we actually lift. The pressure, but all of this starts with breathing and in the last five minutes before you go on stage, what did I say to you in the in the studio? I said, lift yourself up. Createspace, for your breathing, your belly breath. Your voice cannot come out if you’re not breathing properly.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
If you don’t have and I’ve done a whole video on this on YouTube, you can go and check it. If you are not using your breath to support your voice, your voice will not work, your voice will get tighter and tighter and tighter. If you’re a woman, your voice will go higher. If you’re a man, your voice will get deeper, but ultimately you will get. Dry so we. Look at our breathing. We look at how we’re standing. We lock our. Legs and we lock our legs and we’re leaning forward. We’re leaning back. We’re then leaning into the audience. So there’s lots of different things that we can do, but actually we have to relax our legs, we need. To keep our hips then. To get the power pose. We need to keep our. Feet on Terra Firma. We need to keep them rooted. We need to keep our knees relaxed. We need to keep our feet under our hips. It’s really simple. And when it comes to moving and a lot of people ask me about movement, you move on a thought. So as you’re thinking, your next thought, that’s when you move. Because actually the thought moves the make creates the movement, otherwise you’re just moving and moving and moving. You end up pacing. So you move on the thoughts. The next thing you want to move to something you then talk and you don’t worry about gestures. I could go on for hours. This is what I talk about. This is what I do. And every single person wrapping it all up is unique. Week and every single person who comes to work with me, I make sure I keep that uniqueness. One of the really things I I don’t want is to create a public speaker or a presenter on camera who is a mirror of me, because that’s not real. You are you, you do you and you do you better than anybody else. I hope that was good enough and gave. You some advice?

Lee Vanstone
Yeah. No, that’s good. Yeah. So I’ve. I’ve tried to do some practise for calling to my phone, like. And they’re coming quite animated. My hands. I’m, like, trying to, like, stop doing that. It’s a comfort thing.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Right, so don’t stop doing it. Just don’t do this. So if you can give out on camera, if you look at what I’m doing, I’m keeping my. My. I’m. I’m. I’m using my hands. I’m so we’ve got a shot. So let’s just talk camera quickly before we finish. You have a shot size, so if you’re out here, you can see what’s wrong. So if you were to do that movement here, you would do it like that. You would try and keep it. Let’s get myself into a position. So you do it like this. But if you do this, you’re breaking the 4th wall, and when you break the 4th wall, you’re then coming through the screen. And actually you’re then jumping into people. It’s the same as when you lift your voice and you scream down the microphone. You’re jumping into someone’s living room. The 4th wall is known as the T. TV. So when you go on camera, you’re now like a TV presenter, you’re in someone’s home, you’re in someone’s hand. You don’t need to shout at them. You need to invite them in. There’s nothing wrong with using movement. Just don’t do this and break the 4th wall.

Lee Vanstone
Does that make sense? Good. Lots, lots. Lots take more lucky.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I told you it was because somewhere so.

Lee Vanstone
I’m a sponge lover.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah. So Peter Morrison joined us then. It’s been an interesting discussion. And Luke come back and said having done a couple of public talks myself, the advice is spot on. Thank you, because I’m live, I could get it completely wrong and it’s about telling compelling stories it is. And if you were struggling on how to tell a story, you go to my website, you can. You can read the blog on storytelling. Cause I’ve got all of this on my on my website. Funny enough and I used Stanislavski’s seven questions. It’s the seven questions an actor uses to prepare themselves by exploring the subtext of a character is also the same structure we use when we’re storytelling, and it’s also right for this the same structure we do when we write our posts and our our copy, the social media. So go steal it for free. The compelling stories, which are are far better to do from visual stimulation over fixed text. Heavy size, yeah, we. Don’t want to. Overpower our audience. Thank you, Luke. I appreciate that. Lee, how would you like to? Finish off your episode. Is there a nugget of wisdom you? Would love to share.

Lee Vanstone
Yeah, I think that’s just. Kind of the way with. Just. One bit of big advice I’ve kind of touched her through the whole podcast really, is that before you kind of think about how it’s gonna look, really just trying to understand your customer rather than trying to build a website for yourself, you’re always thinking about the other person. So think about the different ones as you have. So spend time and it may mean it takes you longer to get to the website. Building process, but actually we’re putting that time in in the early stages. It means in the future you can then. Grow a lot faster because you’ve already put those foundations in place. So yeah, really planning is key. It’s distinctly like social media. Consistency is key, so keep on top of. Your website it’s important.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you so much for being great this morning. It’s been an absolute hit. Thank you very much.

Lee Vanstone
You very much. Thank you very much.