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In this episode of the Unsensible Podcast, Kimberley Lau and her team discuss the critical elements that can make a brand appear untrustworthy online. They explore the importance of visual presentation, the choice of words, and the necessity of testimonials and case studies in establishing credibility. The conversation emphasizes that even basic branding elements can significantly impact how a brand is perceived, especially in the B2B tech space. The team shares practical tips on how to avoid common pitfalls that can lead to a brand being perceived as a scam, ultimately guiding listeners on how to build trust and credibility with their audience.
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Jonathan Nguyen (00:00)
back to another episode of the Unsensible Podcast. And today we're doing a segment called Click. I'm about to introduce you, yeah, that's right, to hear that voice in the distance. That was Kimberley. Kimberley is a cross-discipline marketer who has been on both the experiential side and now she's in the strategy side.
Kimberley Lau (00:08)
Double click.
Jonathan Nguyen (00:25)
At the moment, she spends most of her time, you've probably spoken to her, if you're a client, on project management and keeping projects delivered. Kimberley, how are you today?
Kimberley Lau (00:37)
I am very well, thank you. How is everyone doing?
Jonathan Nguyen (00:41)
We're very good. Did you manage to keep this podcast running on time? Let's move on. also, we had a time zone mix up recording this podcast, mostly my fault. the call also is Jess, who is everything comms. If you've spoken to her before as one of our clients, you'll know that she gives sage advice from behind her.
Kimberley Lau (00:42)
I believe.
Jessica Ogilvie (00:42)
mmm
Kimberley Lau (00:45)
It's a little bit difficult when we're all based across the globe.
Jessica Ogilvie (01:05)
Sage.
Jonathan Nguyen (01:07)
desk full of airplanes Jess why do you have airplanes?
Jessica Ogilvie (01:13)
Well that's an awkward question. I'm sitting in someone else's office. I do like planes. This is not my permanent office, but there's just a lot of planes back here. Because the person who owns this office does like planes. A lot. I am a plane nerd. I am a plane nerd. Terrified, but also aware of. it's not... Is it a good combination? I'm not sure. You can know too much about things.
Jonathan Nguyen (01:26)
You are a plane nerd. Don't pretend that you are not. You are an AvGeek.
have Karis, who is our everything brand person, everything creative person. And she is cool. She looks at art.
Jessica Ogilvie (01:48)
Actually, genuinely.
Jonathan Nguyen (01:48)
and goes to museums.
Kimberley Lau (01:50)
Yeah, Carrot is actually cool.
Jessica Ogilvie (01:52)
Yeah. Legitimately.
Karis Cheng (01:52)
Yeah, I feel like if you have to
say I'm cool, like already not cool. So just let me keep my cool.
Kimberley Lau (01:55)
Okay.
Jonathan Nguyen (01:58)
I am not going to spend all day jib-jabbing today. is your topic. So let's double-click, Kimberley, what is happening.
Kimberley Lau (02:02)
You love it, you love it though.
Jessica Ogilvie (02:04)
Captain Jib-Jab.
Kimberley Lau (02:08)
Double-clicking, what
are we double-clicking on today? Today we're double-clicking on six things that make your brand look like a scam online and how to avoid. I know there's a lot of opinions in the room about this topic, especially we've got the head of De-scam, Karis, in the room, and how, you know, the importance of building trust and credibility, especially in the B2B tech space, and how to make sure that you're
making a good first impression when someone's scrolling through your website or, you know, walking past your conference booth. So.
Jonathan Nguyen (02:44)
what is a scam? Why are we talking about scams? Our clients are legitimate business people. They're not scammers.
Jessica Ogilvie (02:51)
No, but they have, they sometimes look like them and that's the problem. Or they sound like them. I think the thing, well, we, talked about this because we thought it was an interesting topic because it's quite easily, well, unintentionally done where you fall into a few traps with the way that you present yourself, what your branding is, your website, your little booth at the conference. And if you fall into some of those pitfalls, pit holes, I was going call them pit holes.
Kimberley Lau (03:07)
Yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (03:20)
They're not pit holes. That is not a thing. Don't fall into those traps. And you can build a lot more trust much more quickly with the people you're trying to reach. So I think we wanted to do this one first and double click on that because it's an interesting one and there's lots of examples. So yeah, that's what we're talking about today.
Jonathan Nguyen (03:40)
right, so we've got an actual here. Let's put, we're just riffing, but let's ask a proper expert, what makes things look like a scam, Karis?
Karis Cheng (03:52)
God putting me on a spot. So I know. We talk about this all the time because trust and credibility is such a essential concept in B2B SaaS. So we ask ourselves this question, like, well, how about we think about it oppositely? And by thinking about scams maybe we can come up with something that these brands shouldn't do.
Jonathan Nguyen (03:54)
all on spot here.
Karis Cheng (04:16)
So I think the first thing for me as a visual nerd that jumps out is you have to be very mindful of how your messages looks like. And that is very deep. Yeah, I was told this is already out of trend, so we shouldn't do that anymore. It's revealing our age. Yeah, that was, yeah, sorry, cut that, cut that. But yes.
Jonathan Nguyen (04:26)
Very demure.
We've dated ourselves.
Kimberley Lau (04:33)
Yeah, that was very last week.
Jessica Ogilvie (04:38)
That's gone completely over
my head. But yeah, this pretty much, yeah. Sorry. Go, Caris.
Kimberley Lau (04:41)
Yeah, it's because Jess is uncool. Jess has no idea.
Karis Cheng (04:44)
You
Jonathan Nguyen (04:44)
Just is still planking. Just is still planking.
Kimberley Lau (04:47)
Cheers!
Karis Cheng (04:48)
my God, where was I?
Yeah, so when you go to a landing page and you read the hero copy, even before diving into what font selection it is, just looking at how these characters are being arranged, you can tell a lot about the company, like whether it's all caps A lot of people like to use all caps and sometimes they just feel very screamy, like, trust me, I can bring you this all in one packages, blah, blah, blah. Or...
Sometimes it's like kerning, kerning meanings the spacing in between letters. If they're very, very tightly packed, when you read, just feel like you take a deep breath and then read the entire paragraph and you don't have space to ponder. So just by like taking consideration and being careful of like how you arrange the messages visually, it's already a very good starting point, I would say, for a lot of tech brands
Kimberley Lau (05:18)
Yeah.
Karis Cheng (05:38)
because usually it's a lot of copy to explain technology and if you can make a good hierarchy and present this information in a very visually clear way, people can understand it and then you will look less untrustworthy.
Jonathan Nguyen (05:54)
we have loose kerning, how can I fit all the words like synergy and AI and best ever and technological advances and best in class and industry leading? How do I fit all those words in with, you know, open kerning?
Karis Cheng (06:09)
I'm gonna...
I'm gonna throw that one to
Jess. She will tell you you need less copy.
Jessica Ogilvie (06:17)
yeah, I like...
Kimberley Lau (06:18)
Less is more, less is more.
Jessica Ogilvie (06:19)
less is more. This is true. It's very easy to fall into the trap. This is a theme for me, obviously. This is a trap. There's traps everywhere. This trap of more is more when it comes to words is an easy one and so many people fall into it because it's that perception that I need, I have a lot to say, I have a very, very, very powerful product and I will use all the words and all the adjectives available.
Jonathan Nguyen (06:45)
the most powerful product.
Jessica Ogilvie (06:46)
then it's very extremely best in class. When you go down that route, people turn off and you make yourself sound like a car sales person. To Karis's point, you start getting a bit shouty and at the same time, people are stumbling over all of these adjectives and trying to figure out, they've read the whole sentence, but they get to the end and they still don't know what you do. What you're trying to do is, I think I kind of compare it to
Kimberley Lau (06:58)
Thank you.
Jessica Ogilvie (07:14)
you know, the user experience, if you're talking about a user experience, you try to take away the friction and help a user to move through their buying experience with you. And that's the same thing with reading. You don't want people to stumble over, you know, such verbose and flowery language. You just want to tell people what you do as simply as you can in a way that you might explain it to your mum or a friend. and in that, what you're doing is showing that there's a human behind the words and that
Kimberley Lau (07:24)
and
Jessica Ogilvie (07:44)
that just implicitly helps the person that's reading it start to build trust because you're not hiding anything and you're not hiding behind the jargon, the best in class, all of the adjectives that really aren't needed. But that's quite, it's hard to do immediately because there's this perception that you need to do that to do a good job when actually the tip I'd have here is have the confidence to speak plainly and simply about what it is you do.
and how you can solve a customer's problems. So that's words.
Jonathan Nguyen (08:16)
Yeah, we speak to a lot of founders every day and I've definitely not met any industry followers. Every single person's an industry leader. So following? It's like all the thought leaders and there are no thought followers.
Jessica Ogilvie (08:26)
yeah. no, who knows? There's no followers. Everyone is leading the pack. Leaders out there.
Kimberley Lau (08:29)
There is no...
Jessica Ogilvie (08:37)
No, no one's a sheep. There's no sheep there.
Kimberley Lau (08:40)
So
that's the words, that's the words in terms of visuals. Visuals are a huge second choice of words. think thirdly, there's a huge emphasis on visuals and how, and the types of imagery and photography you use on your website. I know Jonathan has a lot of opinions about this topic in particular, know, that headshots and, you know, AI generated photography.
Jessica Ogilvie (08:43)
Words, choice of words.
Jonathan Nguyen (09:07)
Jonathan
has lots of opinions on lots of different things. You know, there is a saying about opinions. So I will give a very short opinion on headshots and I'll let Karis talk about the menace of stock photography and now the menace of AI photography.
Jessica Ogilvie (09:09)
I was, I was about to say that Jonathan has a lot of opinions. And.
Kimberley Lau (09:16)
Yes!
Jessica Ogilvie (09:28)
Menace.
I like that word, menace.
Jonathan Nguyen (09:31)
people look at you and make a judgment something like 0.03 seconds They decide whether you're a leader whether you're intelligent and whether you're friendly these attributes Will stick with you until they meet you and you make a concerted effort to prove them otherwise
So it is shocking to me, aside from the website, which I think, you know, a lot of startups start with a website that the founder built in PowerPoint on WordPress late at night. headshots look like that even when they go to raise money.
and the headshots are taken either from that drunk night they had at a party or standing up against the wall looking like they have just been nabbed in North Korea. Yes, exactly. So doesn't make you look credible.
Jessica Ogilvie (10:18)
Serial killer vibes.
Jonathan Nguyen (10:26)
And for crying out loud, do not send it to a conference organiser when you've got a speaking gig on stage. That is horrible. I said I would be brief, so that's as brief as I can get. Karis, tell me. Tell us.
Jessica Ogilvie (10:31)
Go.
and, scene!
Karis Cheng (10:44)
Yeah,
Stock photography, again, most of our client works with a SaaS product, meaning there is no physical packaging or anything you can show people. And so a lot of time they resort to, okay, let's go on stockimage.com and search for people working hard in front of computer, people pointing at PowerPoint and stuff like that.
Jessica Ogilvie (11:06)
The pointing at the PowerPoint one is hilarious. I don't think I've ever sat there with someone gone and look at my PowerPoint, just come here really closely and let's all point at this. It's very fake. Yeah, this collaboration happening live.
Karis Cheng (11:07)
Diverse at two.
Kimberley Lau (11:09)
What?
Karis Cheng (11:14)
Yeah.
Jonathan Nguyen (11:16)
It's yes, the blank expression is.
Karis Cheng (11:17)
Let's all collaborate.
Yeah, so a very, very easy test. If you do not look like that when you work day to day, do not use that stock photo because anyone, anyone can tell. And when you use something like that, then people are just like, what are they covering up? Why are they not showing us the real deal? are there real people? Are there real clients? Are there real product behind this company? So a lot of time we advise our client to try and find photos that have honest, like candid expression.
Jessica Ogilvie (11:29)
good tip.
Kimberley Lau (11:31)
Yeah.
Mm.
Karis Cheng (11:52)
And also truly people in their element kind of like caught off guard doing something instead of like, ha, this is a great PowerPoint. Look at me working. And that would help, I think that would help a lot.
Jonathan Nguyen (12:06)
Yeah, it's really not expensive.
Kimberley Lau (12:06)
Also like those over retouched
photos as well. How do we feel about those?
Jessica Ogilvie (12:10)
Yeah, the fake faces.
Jonathan Nguyen (12:12)
That's
a very, I noticed that more so in Asia than, yeah, it's something about the beauty standards here. And maybe it's, you know, the TikTok filter phenomenon, right? That everyone wants to have face melted plastic skin.
Kimberley Lau (12:18)
Yeah, yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (12:28)
Yeah, that's a good point.
Kimberley Lau (12:30)
Yeah.
Because as soon as I see that, I'm like, that's fake.
Karis Cheng (12:37)
Yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (12:37)
Or
the overexposed stock model. I don't think she goes, so she's not so well known on tech brands to be fair, but you know, it's the equivalent of that. The collaboration shot is the B2B equivalent of the overexposed stock model who is in everything.
Jonathan Nguyen (12:48)
Yes.
She is a Finnish, she's a Finnish model I think, yeah. She looks kind of Asian but I think she's a Finnish or a Swedish model, yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (12:56)
She's kicking back on an island somewhere. Is she? Yeah, she's like, I thought she had a pan-Asian vibe going.
Karis Cheng (13:09)
Yeah, and other tip because these stock image are quite rare, especially if we're operating in Asia, the diversity selection is quite minimal and what... Well, staring at one. Public service announcement, if you're Asian, sign up to be a stock model to help us out.
Kimberley Lau (13:17)
Yeah.
Jonathan Nguyen (13:20)
There are no Asians. It's not a career choice for Asians. You're not an engineer or a doctor. You cannot be a stock model.
Jessica Ogilvie (13:26)
No, what are you going to be? I know.
Kimberley Lau (13:31)
Yeah.
Karis Cheng (13:34)
One other thing, Illustrations sometimes help as a visual element. We do a lot of collages as well, so we can pick in piece together different images to explain concept, to explain technology, and so that could totally help.
Kimberley Lau (13:43)
Okay.
Jonathan Nguyen (13:50)
But isn't the solution AI? Isn't the solution to artificially generate all people? There's no model releases. You don't have to, you know, set up a shoot. Just a few commands into ChatGPT
Jessica Ogilvie (14:00)
You don't have talk to people.
Kimberley Lau (14:02)
Well, I think that's a whole
new topic that we can explore maybe in the next podcast.
Jonathan Nguyen (14:10)
But I will say one thing, you can tell.
Kimberley Lau (14:14)
You can tell.
Jessica Ogilvie (14:14)
you can totally
tell. Yeah, don't pretend you can't tell.
Kimberley Lau (14:17)
Do you think
both people can tell? Or do you think it just could, you know?
Jonathan Nguyen (14:19)
I think
it's like font on a subconscious level, you start to recognise that all the images are the same, that they're weird in the same way, right? That hyper real, like non real world. I think there'll be a trend against the AI thing. And I think the brands who are doing things by craft and texture.
Jessica Ogilvie (14:23)
Yeah. Yes.
Kimberley Lau (14:24)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Jonathan Nguyen (14:44)
Cost signaling that they can afford to do this, that they can afford to spend money on this are the premium brands. Mark my words, this will be a counter trend. Anyway, sorry, I derailed you. I derailed you.
Kimberley Lau (14:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jessica Ogilvie (14:53)
But see, that's a good point. I totally
Kimberley Lau (14:53)
Yeah, no, that's a...
Jessica Ogilvie (14:56)
do. I'll just try to go off onto a 0.5, 0.5.
Kimberley Lau (14:56)
Yes, you've derailed us. We're on to point five. We're on to point five. I mean, a big thing I noticed.
Jonathan Nguyen (14:59)
you
Wait, how many points have we had
so far, Kimberley? What have been our points? We've meandered.
Kimberley Lau (15:08)
We've had point one, is
typography and the importance of having consistent typography that doesn't shout or scream or make you feel like you can't breathe. We've got number two, was less is sometimes more with your choice of wording. Keep it simple. Remember that you're speaking to an actual human and cut out the jargon.
Number three is the importance of headshots for overall trust and credibility. Number four was the use of stock photography and tips for how to visually demonstrate your brand through photography, illustrations, and visualizations.
Jessica Ogilvie (15:50)
Such a list.
Kimberley Lau (15:50)
So I think.
The point five that I wanted to touch on was attention to detail. So to really elevate your brand. And I don't know if it's just because, you know, we're in the space and we see a lot of sites and B2B brands, inconsistency such as using British spelling versus American spelling, inconsistent tone of voice.
how you know, font hierarchy.
Jonathan Nguyen (16:14)
And just to be clear, you
can use either, right? You can use British or American. You just have to pick one and stick with it.
Jessica Ogilvie (16:19)
pick a side and
Kimberley Lau (16:20)
Exactly.
Jessica Ogilvie (16:20)
stick with it.
Kimberley Lau (16:20)
Just pick one and go with it. But, you know, avoid mixing the two. I pick up on that a lot. Another thing is, you know, inconsistent hierarchy with font. I was on a website the other day and the sub headers like text was larger than the header text, for example, things like that. That just really, you know, upped the quality of the website. Another thing is like contact forms.
Jessica Ogilvie (16:42)
And why do we think that that also
Kimberley Lau (16:45)
Sorry, contact forms, you when you have trouble like filling out a contact form or you fill out a contact form and no one replies to you, those things all add up and add to the credibility of your site, in my opinion, yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (16:46)
No,
Karis Cheng (16:59)
I think that's why Kim,
your checklist that you shared a couple of weeks back on LinkedIn on when brands do their rebrand, it's like a major help because we know there are so many details involved in a rebranding exercise and that's usually when accidents happen and when you forgot to switch something. So that checklist that you share is very, very helpful. So can go and like check it off. Like is the contact form working? Have I changed the brand name and certain...
Kimberley Lau (17:08)
Yes.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Karis Cheng (17:29)
places.
Kimberley Lau (17:30)
Yeah, definitely. think a lot of the time, you know, get handed over these guidelines, but actually implementing them is a different story. And then that's when the attention to detail really comes in and is important in the final execution.
Jonathan Nguyen (17:42)
And
this is a growth thing, right? Like when you first start out, the stakes are so low, you're just selling to your mum and her, know, ladies club luncheon people. So it's totally fine, you know, bit of snark from the ladies, probably okay, but is a club.
in Australia, the Retired Servicemen's League.
Kimberley Lau (18:05)
I figured. I figured.
Jessica Ogilvie (18:07)
yeah, nice
obviously there's a difference though between selling to your mum and selling to an enterprise or investors. Just in case you didn't know that there is a difference. When you're saying attention to detail, I'm thinking why is, I feel like attention to detail is something that people that don't have attention to detail say is not important and it is. And why is that? think, you know, if you are a founder, it's
Kimberley Lau (18:08)
Yeah, definitely.
invested.
Hahaha
Thank
Jessica Ogilvie (18:35)
I don't know, is this a stereotype that attention to detail is not necessarily going to be your strong point? Maybe it is, but if I am going to jump into the stereotyping area, then I'd say why is it important? Because again, it comes back to that whole point of knowing your audience and who are you selling to, and that people are making judgments about you the whole way through. So think we've talked before about knowing your audience.
Kimberley Lau (18:46)
Yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (19:03)
don't know whether I can add that in as a little bonus kind of tip that underpins everything. But if you're talking and selling, you're selling to your audience who's going to buy your product, but you're also selling in a database space, you're also selling to other, I think people refer to them as normies. And those people are going to be using other clues about how you present yourself, what experience you give them onboarding, how you present.
Kimberley Lau (19:19)
That's not fair!
Jessica Ogilvie (19:28)
you in any touch point and they're using other clues and attention to details, one of them, because if you, they're thinking, if you can't get your font right or your spelling right or your contact form, right, then how are you going to do what you're, you know, claiming that you can be doing exactly, exactly. And why should I trust you comes back to trust.
Kimberley Lau (19:31)
there.
Yeah, get your tech right. Exactly.
Jonathan Nguyen (19:46)
It's not even the tech, right? So like if you're selling into a bank, the person that's bringing you in is probably the product manager who's building a new, innovative credit card product or innovative FinTech app for the bank. That person's probably predisposed to, founders and innovation and driving things and just very vision focused.
high risk appetite. So they're staking their career on you working out as a new innovation. You will make their career if the project works. If the project doesn't work, they're screwed. So the stakes are high. They will not be promoted. They're done. So that person is going to probably be very much like you. But then
he or she needs to go and sell to 50 other people, most of whom aren't like that. If you ever look inside a bank and you do the ratio of compliance people versus marketing and product people, the ratio is way skewed towards compliance people. So you've got to get past that gate.
Jessica Ogilvie (20:59)
Yeah, that's something you forget. I forget that. Yeah.
Jonathan Nguyen (21:03)
Yes. So if they look at you and they go, you guys can't even stick to grammar properly. How are you sticking to the regulations that I live and breathe every day properly?
Kimberley Lau (21:04)
And that, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I guess that brings us back to the point of, you know, know your audience and speak to that audience.
Jessica Ogilvie (21:21)
Yeah, they can sit under all
our little checklists. Universal kind of do that for everything. Now you're on ends.
Kimberley Lau (21:28)
Yeah. think another, another,
another point, which I think we had down as a 0.6, which maybe seven now, is the importance of case studies and customer store, you know, customer success stories and testimonials. yes.
Jessica Ogilvie (21:39)
Yes.
Jonathan Nguyen (21:40)
technical term TPE third party endorsement.
Kimberley Lau (21:43)
Yes, third party endorsement
Jonathan Nguyen (21:47)
Look, we are double clicking so I'm not leaving anything offline. If it's synergistic, I'm going to bring it in.
Kimberley Lau (21:49)
We're double clicking.
Jessica Ogilvie (21:55)
Good. Look at you go.
Jonathan Nguyen (21:57)
spent too long in corporates.
Jessica Ogilvie (21:59)
Why third party endorsement? Why do we think that's important?
Jonathan Nguyen (22:04)
I mean, as impressive as you are to your mum and the ladies down at the RSL club, as soon as you start to grow and you start to scale, you're now selling to people who you don't know. So the general rule is your first 100 clients, and you can say if you're in B2B SaaS, it's gonna be your first 10 clients, look nothing like your next 10 clients.
Jessica Ogilvie (22:30)
Mm.
Jonathan Nguyen (22:30)
because
your first 10 clients all came from your network, I guarantee it. That's how you were able to convince people you know to take a gamble on you because they've worked with you, they've invested in you in the past, and then your next 10 clients are not gonna be that So you need to establish trust. What are the ways to establish trust? person.
Kimberley Lau (22:31)
Mm.
Jessica Ogilvie (22:54)
sorry. Word of mouth. yeah, just besides all those things. Well, it is as in that is is in addition to the handy checklist that we had before. Word of mouth as in it's well, is it word of mouth? It's third party endorsements. I'm going to we're showing not telling. If I tell you I'm trustworthy, you are you may take that with a pinch of salt. If someone else tells you I'm trustworthy and that I've worked and delivered, delivered what I said I would.
Kimberley Lau (22:57)
Besides all the things we just talked about. Yeah.
Jessica Ogilvie (23:24)
then that's going to be very, you know, a lot more powerful. So that's why. Yeah. Well, that's why, you you use, you'd see it on websites. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's table stakes to use a reference that you like to use a lot. Jonathan.
Kimberley Lau (23:31)
It's a
Karis Cheng (23:38)
Yeah.
I have a example. It's like, don't know whether you guys do a whip before you go to restaurant, you go check out the menu online and look at a photo and see what the experience is. So I think that's a way of like just seeing how it's done, knowing the track record and reassuring yourself that, this person or this company has done it with ABC company. And then you have that sort of mental image of expectation. It also helps a lot because through these case study,
Jessica Ogilvie (23:47)
Yes.
Kimberley Lau (23:48)
Yeah, always.
Karis Cheng (24:09)
a company can show like what kind of client will work best with them. And yeah, we always recommend our client to have this case study and third party endorsement.
Kimberley Lau (24:18)
Definitely. It's like, it's... I feel like you can't really get away without having those. So I think that touches on the, I think, seven. I've got a bonus point in there from Jess. The seven. We like seven. I know you do. You do, you do. Seven.
Jonathan Nguyen (24:18)
I think it's very hard to sell without them.
Jessica Ogilvie (24:26)
Yeah, it's a key.
I like seven. I like seven. I prefer seven over six.
Jonathan Nguyen (24:37)
You know it's the favorite
number. It's the universal favorite number.
Jessica Ogilvie (24:38)
It is. And it deservedly so, if you ask me. Seven.
Karis Cheng (24:44)
Definitely eight Chinese.
Kimberley Lau (24:46)
Seven,
Jonathan Nguyen (24:46)
So
Kimberley Lau (24:46)
that's interesting. Yeah, I was gonna say.
Jonathan Nguyen (24:47)
let's recap what were the seven.
Kimberley Lau (24:51)
Well, firstly, typography, the importance of having solid typography. Don't scream, don't shout, don't over-exaggerate. Number two was less is sometimes more. So keep it simple. Remember that everyone's human. Use simple language, avoid plain language, avoid jargon. Point three was headshots, the importance of headshots and consistency in building trust.
Jessica Ogilvie (25:08)
plain language.
Kimberley Lau (25:19)
within your leadership team. Fourth is the use of stock photography and recommendations for how to choose the type of stock you're using and the visuals you're using to represent your brand. And that could be through the use of visuals and illustrations as well, if you're struggling to find suitable stock photography. The fifth point is attention to detail. So, know, grammar, spelling.
Glitches on the website, those all add up. And it's super important for quality purposes to have those things checked. Number six, the importance of knowing your audience and who you're speaking to. Because you need to remember that you're the incumbent in the face. Yeah, it's not your mum. It's not your mum. Remember, it's not your mum. And bonus point.
Jessica Ogilvie (25:59)
It's not your mum. It's not your mum.
Thank
Kimberley Lau (26:10)
Seven, the importance of testimonials, third party endorsements and case studies to really back and prove your claims. Remember the restaurant review. You're looking for a five star. You're looking for a five star review.
Jessica Ogilvie (26:22)
Mm.
I like that list. It's a good list.
Jonathan Nguyen (26:27)
Kim, Kim, Kim,
Kim. Well, this list seems very basic guys. Like on our website at one point, we called ourselves world-class thinkers and tinkerers. These seem to be just very 101. Where are the like deep insights on brand positioning and you know.
costly signalling and all these wonderful neuro concepts I thought you'd introduce. Aren't we smarter than that?
Jessica Ogilvie (26:59)
We, that's such an interesting question. If we are smart, other than that, the, it's a good question. And I would like to point out at this point, something that we often talk about at Unsensible which is you don't want to boil the ocean, start with the basics. as basic as this sounds, a lot of people don't get it right. So start with the basics and then.
Kimberley Lau (27:20)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Ogilvie (27:27)
you can go to the next stage. Don't run before you can walk. That's another excellent tip to follow. But essentially, we're talking about iteration. So get the basics right. Once you got the basics right, people start trusting you and you don't look like a scam. You can move on to bigger and more advanced things that smart people at Unsensical can talk to you about.
Kimberley Lau (27:45)
Definitely.
Jonathan Nguyen (27:49)
And it is smart, right? Because this is Pareto. 80-20 rule, right?
Jessica Ogilvie (27:54)
Yes.
I love these references.
Kimberley Lau (27:59)
Like Jess said,
know, we, worked with a ton of clients, the seven things that we might feel are obvious are actually in fact not so obvious. People might think of two or three of these things, but not think of all of them holistically. And it needs to be done in a how it all comes together. can't just be one or two of those points to make you a credible and trustworthy brand. So to us, it might feel obvious.
Jessica Ogilvie (28:16)
and how it all comes together as they experience.
Kimberley Lau (28:26)
But I think to the normies, it might not be.
Jonathan Nguyen (28:30)
Yep. And a lot of this is execution. You've got to do it. I'm pretty sure everyone knows it. Every founder knows it subconsciously.
Jessica Ogilvie (28:39)
think, yeah,
subconsciously that's the key. You know it subconsciously, but if you actually have to articulate it and act on it and make decisions on it, it's sometimes not so obvious.
Kimberley Lau (28:40)
subconsciously.
Jonathan Nguyen (28:50)
was this a successful double click first episode, Kimberley? Was this everything your heart desired?
Kimberley Lau (28:55)
feel like it, you know what?
I feel like we, you know, been a project manager and been different. I feel like we've stuck to our seven points and I'm very impressed that we've managed to keep Jonathan under wraps. And this is, you know, kept within the time limit and not a two hour podcast. So keep your opinions for next podcast.
Jessica Ogilvie (29:00)
Please don't fail us now, Kimberley. Otherwise, I'm going to have to go hide under the table.
Jonathan Nguyen (29:12)
under wraps. Surprise!
I can see the time, it's 32 minutes in, so we've done very well. Edited down, it might even be shorter. Yes, like a tiger. Thank you everyone. Take us out, take us out, Kimberley.
Kimberley Lau (29:23)
Wonderful.
Jessica Ogilvie (29:23)
that's
lovely and tight. Less is more.
Kimberley Lau (29:30)
Well, on that note, thank you everyone.
Well, thank you very much, everyone. I hope you found that episode useful. You've got some key takeaways, seven key things to make sure your brand does not look like a scam online. And stay tuned for the next episode where you'll be joined by many more opinions.