012: Lisa Devlin – The Importance of Injecting Personality Into Your Customer Experience & Being Yourself!

September 30, 2020

“People say we are all in the same boat.
I don’t think we’re in the same boat at all. I think we’re in the same river, but we’re all in different boats. Some guys are sitting on a yacht sailing through, and some of us are clinging to a little floating branch by our fingernails – and that’s okay. Do what is right for you”

LISA DEVLIN

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Lisa Devlin – we are really excited to have her on the show.

After 10 years as a music industry photographer, Lisa fell into weddings when she shot her agent’s wedding in 2000. Lisa figured she would only have to work one day a week and for half the year. Sadly, in her own words, she was deluded! In 2011 Lisa founded Photography Farm, nurturing other wedding photographers with training and support.

Lisa is a much-loved and respected influence in the photography community and it is a pleasure to have her with us!

Check out some of the biggest points from Lisa’s interview below:

Can you offer a piece of advice, maybe something that made a real difference to your business or just your life in general, what would that be?

Gosh, one piece of advice. I think as we’re in such an extraordinary year, I would just say to people try not to panic. Even if you’re right at the beginning, because the thing about weddings, people will always get married. They always will. Love always finds a way. It is going to look different for a while. There are going to be things, we’re not traveling as much as we were, we’re not in bigger groups, and I think there will be an effect for a while, but just don’t panic.

Do you perhaps have some advice for our listeners that are looking for that authentic true-to-themselves engaging copy for their website too?

Oh you know what, Sally, it’s actually incredibly simple. I’ve had websites right from the beginning, from the year 2000 I’ve had websites as a wedding photographer. Up until this last incarnation of my website which was created for me in 2017 by Melissa Love, when we got to … because no matter who or what process you go through to get your website, you still have to write the copy yourself. You have to have that input. Even if you employ a copywriter, you have to give them input on what your voice is and what you want to say.

When it came down to do it, it just suddenly dawned on me that I was writing all my websites from my own wants and needs. I was putting across what it is that I wanted or that I needed to tell them. And there just wasn’t a point that I was actually writing the website for them. Because I’m not selling to me. I’m selling to potential couples.

How about if I completely 180 flipped it, and I wrote the entire thing for them and from their perspective, and entirely focused on what their wants and needs are? So recently this year I’ve been using some of my time in lockdown to study advanced marketing techniques. And I didn’t realize that this is a technique, that you focus on their needs and wants and help them to identify them. Then you become their problem solver. I just did this kind of instinctively, and it’s been really successful.

Just where you find yourself very blocked with writing copy, I think it’s just that we psych ourselves out. We look at so many other wedding photographer sites and we sort of know what we should say, so you end up basing your copy on that and it becomes really generic. Whereas if you start with your ideal client, the ideal couple that you’re trying to attract, you picture them then you actually imagine that you’re in a conversation with them. That’s the whole point of being there. You talk about shop window, the website, that’s your little boutique. Just imagine they walk in and you’re there and you just want to chat to them and figure out what it is that they want or they need from you. Then you respond to that and show them how you’re the person that can provide it or solve their problem.

And once you realize that, writing copy actually becomes a lot easier. It’s not difficult to make it conversational. You just act as in you’re in a conversation.

Can you your best kept secrets for your contact forms?

Well yes. Great point, because at the minute I’m doing this short mentoring program with some photographers, and one of the things that I did was I filled out all their inquiry forms. I pretended I was getting married and I filled them out to see what it felt like and what I got as a potential couple.

A lot of them had a really great voice throughout their website and they tried really hard on their copy and their images looked great. And we got to this part of their business and it started to go into really formal speech, and started to really fall flat. And I was thinking if you were those couples, okay you might fill out a dozen for photographers, then you might fill out 10 for florists and another five for cake makers. You can easily fill out 50 to 80 contact forms for suppliers for your wedding. That’s suddenly, that’s not fun. Especially if they’re really generic and [inaudible 00:20:42].

I’ve always done this, I’ve always played around with my contact form, just to try and make it fun to fill out, then to give me something to feel like we’re already colluding on. So yeah, just simple things Sally. You don’t have to say what’s your venue. Mine is “Where is this shindig?” It’s the simplest things. It says your name, your boo’s name. Doesn’t have to be … if they’re the kind of person that don’t know what the word boo means, they’re probably not my ideal couple. You know? It might potentially repel some people that are like, “I don’t know what this girl is talking about.” The funniest question is then when you get to tell them to talk about themselves and they don’t have to, but it’s lovely if they do and sometimes people really want to talk about themselves and their wedding and give you a good overview of what they’re planning. Then you’ve got lots to respond to. I ask them how did they meet, tell me about this wedding that you’re planning, then I say or tell me what your favorite cheese is or tell me what your Uber score is.

If you’re in the Highlands you probably don’t have an Uber score, but my clients down in London or around Brighton, and once you know you have an Uber score, I’m kind of obsessed with improving mine. I talk about that on my about page. And I talk about cheese. I say I’m on a quest, I still don’t know what my favourite cheese is but I’m happily questing to find out exactly what it is.

Even vegans have a favorite cheese, so everybody can fill that out. Some do and some don’t. I want them to look at each other’s Uber scores and suddenly think, “Is your Uber score better than my Uber score?” I tell them what my Uber score is. Then like I say, we sort of have this in joke now about Uber scores.

I didn’t know that Studio Ninja did this until recently. After I started my mentoring program and I was looking at ways that people could improve their contact forms, I was like, “I’ve got to go in and make sure mine is doing all the work that it can do.” I went in and changed so that it sets to respond to them straightaway to say, “I’ve got your inquiry, I’m going to get back to you.”

One thing I thought was you can just actually send your brochure at that point so it automates and takes care of itself, we’re all busy. Wouldn’t that be nice? And probably for the client it would be lovely to get it straightaway. But I want to respond to anything personal that they tell me. I don’t want it to feel like a template. So I save that for an email that I’ll send when I’m next to my desk and I use your little immediate response one to say, “Yes I’ll be in touch. Don’t worry, it’ll be within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, here’s my top five tips for improving your Uber score.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Lisa for coming on and sharing all of her awesome knowledge and expertise!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally