89: Victor Yocco on Tailoring Your Message, Finding Support, and Having an Effective Website

Victor Yocco went to school and studied psychology and communication. After school he became a researcher for zoos and science centers, but after a while he decided he needed a change. So he asked a friend who worked at Intuitive, a design and research company, if they had any open jobs.

Even though he didn't have any experience in design or user research, Victor found that he was a good fit for the job. His background in psychology and research allowed him to make the transition from researching zoos to researching user experience design.

The biggest obstacle Victor faced didn't have anything to do with his new job. While everything in his professional life was going well, his battle with alcohol was not. Victor's problem with drinking was interfering with his relationship and productivity. So he sought counseling and made a vow of sobriety. Since his pledge of sobriety, Victor has accomplished many things from articles to writing a book.

In this episode, Victor talks about why your message should change based on your platform, the importance of a support system, and the power of creating an effective website, among many other things.

Here are three things you can learn from Victor:

The Way You Communicate With Your Audience Matters

One thing artists often fail to realize is that the way you communicate with your audience can make a huge difference. You wouldn't communicate with people the same in person as you would online. The same applies to how you present information on your website.

When you talk to someone in person, you can take your time and gain rapport. But when someone comes to your website, you only have a limited amount of time to capture their attention.

"If you take that into the digital world, we know people have such short attention spans, and you are somewhat forced through a screen to project your message immediately... what it is they should be doing and why? So looking at what makes sense for your product... What key messages should you try to get across to people in that three seconds that you have?... You have to draw somebody's attention and you have to show them immediately why they should be there."

Something we can do as artists is start filtering what we show people on our websites. Instead of trying to show all of our art to people when they land on our homepage, we should share a curated selection of the type of work we do.

To get this point across, Victor points to the example of restaurants with a lot of items on their menus. When you give people a lot of choices at once, you make it hard for them to make a decision.

"When you were speaking earlier... and you used the word filtering, I really like that word because it's an important concept in psychology especially in persuasion, which there is such a thing as information overload and even too much of a good thing. An example is when you go to a restaurant and they hand you a menu, and there are eighty five things on there and they all sound good, that it's very hard to make a decision."

One of the best things you can do with your website is use ideas you see on other sites. For example, you can provide recommendations for people. This creates a more curated and focused experience for people who are interested in your art.

"Provide people with recommendations because they're on your site because they like your work or they trust you and think that your recommendation is going to hold weight. So really filtering is something that helps people process information in a lot better way then just providing 'Oh, here's everything. Do what you will with it."

Find a Support System

As artists, we believe we need to do everything ourselves. We don't want to rely on anybody else. We want to work as independent creators.

But this way of thinking often backfires on us. We become stressed out. We take on too many projects. We can't handle all the things coming at us.

That's why it's so important to have a support system. This is especially true if you going through struggles with drugs or alchol like Victor was.

"I say to everybody who feels like they might have an issue like drugs or alcohol... that one of the first steps that I found to be helpful was finding support. I don't know how I would have been able to do it."

You might think asking for help is a sign of weakness, but it's not. People want to help you through struggles because they care. Asking for support is a strength, not a weakness.

"Definitely when I was drinking, I thought asking for support was just an admission of being weak... and what I found was the exact opposite. Through AA, through my counselors, through my family members when I would talk to them about what I was going through. That I found support and I found people who wanted me to succeed."

Having a support system was critical to Victor's development and growth. He believes it was one of the most important things he did to change his behaviors.

"Asking for and getting support around what you want to accomplish I think is critical. And then if you are trying to change I behavior, I think you need to insert some other behavior."

Make Your Website a Positive Experience

There are a few simple ways you can make your website better for potential and returning customers. Your website is the best representation of your work online. So it should be as positive of an experience as possible.

One of the first ways to do this is by showing people that your website is secure and sells what people are looking for.

"People need to believe that using your product is a positive thing that will lead to the outcome they want and again you can address that through telling them 'Buying through my site is safe and secure but also showing them through different ways of displaying information that their information is secure using your site or that the products you have on your site are unique to you, and so that influences the behavioral belief that using your site is a good thing to get the products that you're selling."

Another thing you can do to convince people to buy your art is by showing that other people trust you. It's easier for people to buy when they see other people already trust you and like your work.

"Then there's also social norms that people need to understand that other people think that using your product or your website is a good thing. Can you display testimonials? Can you have people like or rate your product? So that it shows that other people have been there and used it and that it's a good thing for people too."

If you want to convince people to buy from you, the best thing you can do is show them how it will affect their lives. It's great that you love your art and want to sell it, but that doesn't mean other people will automatically want to buy it.

You have to show them how your art can make a positive impact on their lives. You have to show them how their life will change when they buy your work.

"When it comes to persuasion, one of the biggest things you can do is making sure people understand why what you're doing and why what your product is, is relevant to their life. So that's about how you display information and how you do capture people's attention immediately to say 'How does using my website make my life better? How does making sure that I purchase my art through you make my life better? What are some opportunities that you have to show people this immediately or make the experience so usable that they realize using your product saves them time, saves them effort that they wouldn't want to go a competitor to do that, or they wouldn't want to choose not to buy your product because your site, they don't understand how to use it, therefore they don't see how it's relevant to accomplishing the task they are trying to accomplish?"

Read more shownotes from episode 89