Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I met Carolyn this fall when we were both part of the bookMORE Wedding Summit. She's a florist and event designer, but more importantly today she also helps wedding pros stop getting ghosted. Trust is a key part in how to do that and that's something we're talking about today.
You're listening to Sustainable Photography, a podcast us all about business tips, inspiration and confidence building. I'm Ingvild Kolnes, the host of this podcast and after over a decade as a photographer, I now help talented photographers run sustainable businesses. And for full transparency, you should know that I'm a mentor with paid offers and I will probably mention some of those in this episode.
Hi Carolyn, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to talk with you today.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Oh yeah, of course. I'm really curious to get to know you better and I want to know how you became a floral designer.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it was not a straightforward path, but I spent many years working in global health and I always found myself hanging out with farmers in countries I lived in abroad because farmers just always knew everything all the time. So it was like if you had a question, you go ask a farmer. And so when I came back from my last job abroad, I was kind of passing the time by being in farm school while I was looking for a job and I ended up just becoming a farmer. So I started farming flowers about six years ago and then got into wedding work as a result of that. So I started freelancing for other florists and then eventually started doing my own weddings and then actually ditched the farm and now only do wedding work. So that's kind of how that all happened, by a complete accident.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: That's really interesting though. And I saw on your website that you've been in the Peace Corps and stuff.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, my husband and I, we always joke we got married so we could do Peace Corps together because back then you had to be married for a full year before you could be posted in the same country. So we got married on our lunch break so that we could hit the deadline because I was in graduate school and I didn't have time to wedding plans. So that's the story of how we got married. But yeah, we served in Mali and then also in Guyana and South America together. So yeah, that's just been a part of our love story too, of just kind of traveling the world together.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: That's really cool. I always ask when I have guests on the podcast what they think of as a sustainable business and I'd love to know your perspective on that.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's interesting coming from a farming background too, because there's this sustainable agriculture idea and what that means can be very different to different people. But I kind of think of sustainable in kind of three different dimensions. So for me, it's about the social sustainability of what we're doing like being responsible to other people, supporting our own communities, like supporting our own colleagues and being really instrumental people in our social circles whether that's wedding vendors or just the wedding industry at large or in our private lives. And that means also having a business that allows us to have social lives which I know some people just don't during wedding season. And that's not sustainable.
So that's one aspect. It also comes down to environmental sustainability for me which is in floristry, sourcing local materials, not using things like floral foam which breaks down into microplastics.
Being responsible about how and where and whether I source something for a client and kind of just like knowing where things come from and what the impact is because I am not perfect. I can't nail it 100% all the time. But if I can reduce my impact and also share with clients what that impact is and what the alternatives are it's always a better thing to do than to just do whatever the client wants. The clients don't run my business. I run my business. And part of that is environmental sustainability for me. And then lastly, it's financial sustainability.
So you can't stay in business if you're not making money. And we all need like none of us wanted this system that we're in. We didn't ask for this. We didn't ask to have to pay rent and mortgage and all that. But we all need money. It's a material reality. So we have to charge enough money and make enough profit that we can pay ourselves well. We can pay our bills, we can support our communities, we can put money back into our communities and without that, it's not sustainable at all. So those are kind of the three pillars for me is the social, the environmental and the financial. And then I think as I've gotten older in this business I think it's also a matter of energetic sustainability. So literally, what can your body handle? And for me, that's meant building in weeks off, not taking three or four weddings back to back to back to back hiring more help like just not doing everything myself because my body can't do it.
It's really hard work. So that's become sort of a fourth little sneaky thing that I'm like, you know what? For my business to work I really need to be able to manage my own body, my own energy, my own physical labor a little bit better.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with all those. I mean, you just have to have it. There's not like one thing. There's so many aspects of it. Yeah, it's really key to make sure that you're getting paid and that you have time off and yeah, you need all those things.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And putting all of that stuff in place isn't something that you just wait on until you reach a certain level of business. I heard that during the book More Wedding Summit recently, people saying, oh, I wish I could be at that point, or I can't wait until I get to this point where my business feels sustainable. And it's like, no, you have it backwards. Like, you are in charge. You have to build the business that feels sustainable, and then eventually you'll get to whatever point in income that you want or whatever your goals are. But you don't have to wait to build these things in to your business.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: No, I find the same thing. And I hear from a lot of photographers that they think that they have to wait a certain amount of years before they can have the prices that they really want or that it has to take a set amount of time. And it's like, no, you have to figure out what you need, and then you have to just create whatever it is to make that happen. You can't just wait around for things to magically one day sort itself out, because it won't if you have too low prices, it's going to be a struggle to get to the point of having higher prices unless you just make a decision and increase them.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and that's like both the beauty and the curse of being a small business owner is we make the rules, but then we're also hamstrung by these limitations that we put on ourselves. So really unlearning this idea of being a starving artist, that's not what we're going for. We're all very creative and artistic people, and we deserve to be compensated for that. So, yeah, it's a challenge for sure with especially newer folks who are like, oh, but I have to put my time in. I have to learn, I have to have this many weddings or this many, and that's just not true.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely not true. But what we're talking about today is actually Ghosting. Can you talk a little bit about Ghosting, what it is and why? Is that something you care to talk about?
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Ghosting really came out of the dating scene in the mid 2010s where people would get a match on Tinder or something and then no one would respond. And so now it's just become this vernacular for all of us in the wedding industry of someone inquires with you and you send something back or you follow up or maybe even you have a call that you think goes well, and then they don't respond. And there's no reason, there's no closure, there's no communication. It's just silence. And the reason I am really interested in this topic and like to speak on it is because it's such a frustration for people in the wedding business.
When I talk to people, a lot of times their number one thing that they're worried about is getting Ghosted or not getting enough bookings or that kind of thing and you dig a little deeper and it's, oh well, people are ghosting me all the time. So people are getting these leads, but they're not actually booking them. And so then it becomes a question of like, well, what do I do to book these people or stop this problem? Really? Because it's painful when someone doesn't reciprocate the energy that we're putting into an interaction and then they just don't respond. It really hurts.
It does.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: And it's so common. Like you said, I think everyone's had that happen to them at some point. I certainly have. And I mean, sometimes you care more than others if it's someone you feel like you had an actual connection with and then suddenly you just don't hear back. And you told me that you have something called the trust void. Can you tell me more about what that is? What is it that you call the trust void?
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. A lot of people have heard this marketing mantra of you have to be know like and trust, right? So the idea is that it's almost a meme at this point, but the idea is that people have to like you enough or know that you exist, right, to even inquire with you. So that's what all of your marketing is kind of about. Like they have to be able to find you to know what you do, what services you offer, all of that stuff to even start to inquire with you. They also have to like you enough to like your work. I mean, not you as a person necessarily, they don't know you from your website, but they have to like what you're doing enough to inquire with that's, what you're putting on social media, that's your website, that's your portfolios. All of that stuff is creating this atmosphere of people saying, yeah, I really like what Ingville is doing, I'm going to inquire with her. But then there's this missing piece of trust and this is where the trust void comes in, is that people are getting these inquiries, but they're not doing anything to build trust with potential clients. So there's just this void where people already are like, yes, I want to know more. And then wedding pros are just sending a one page PDF or something and then saying they get ghosted. And there's been zero effort to actually build a relationship and trust with a potential client. And the thing that is problematic about this is that wedding days are a big deal. There are no do overs. This is an emotionally charged process and purchase for someone and they have to be able to trust you before they can give you money for their wedding. They just have to be able to trust you. And so when you have this trust void, you get a lot of people inquiring and a lot of ghosting. You get a lot of non response or initial response and then silence. You get a lot of, like, what am I doing wrong? Because you're not building any trust. Like, people can't trust that you're going to do what you need to do for their wedding. So a lot of what I'm teaching right now is focusing on kind of what happens after someone comes knocking on the door. How do we build trust with people? Because that's the missing piece. So that's what I see in a lot of people's businesses right now, is that there isn't a plan beyond send them basic info, and that's why you're not booking the weddings you want.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's true for any kind of photography or creative work. I think it's so common to just not hear back, and a lot of people automatically assume it's because their prices are too high. Can that be the case, or is it always about trust?
[00:12:27] Speaker B: I think there are some instances in which that can be the case. So if you, for example, you have no pricing at all on your website. There's literally no way for someone to know whether they can afford you unless they inquire. So you're kind of forcing them to inquire with you to even learn whether they can afford you or not. So of course, you're going to have people in that process who say, oops can't afford Carolyn. I'm out of know. So that does happen if you are not putting your pricing somewhere. And for me, I only do bespoke work. I only do custom work. So not everything has a set price. It's very variable, but at least a starting minimum, a starting price, something so that not everyone has to inquire with you just to learn what they're getting into. So I think that can happen. But I also think not everyone reads your whole website top to bottom before they inquire. So if they really didn't do their homework and they inquire, and then they go, oops, your minimum is too high, I can't do that. Sure, that would happen. But I think there's an assumption that, well, if I sent them my services and pricing and they didn't respond, it must be my pricing.
And that's a really false assumption because there are so many other things going on in our clients brains and lives, honestly, that it could be a lot of other reasons. And I think that wedding pros are really quick to assume it's all about price, and it's all about this one piece of information that I sent, which, if you're only sending one piece of information, that's a problem. But also, the price is not necessarily the problem. Your client could be on vacation, and they just inquired because they couldn't sleep and they were jet lagged, and now they're gallivanting on a mountain and they can't respond for a week. And you never followed up with them, so you lost the sale. They could be sick. They could have lost something in their inbox. It might have gone to spam. There are so many reasons why someone might not respond right away that have nothing to do with your pricing.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. But if a big piece of it is to build trust, what are some concrete things that we can do to build that trust?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Yeah, so there's a lot of things you can do after someone inquires to start building a relationship. And I want to say here that nobody's going to build a relationship and a reciprocal trust without some time passing. It doesn't happen overnight. So it's not realistic to send them one email and assume that you have formed a relationship and assume that they know what you're about or what you do or any of that. So one really basic thing we can do is continue to follow up with people over an extended period of time. I don't know about you all, but I have really found this year that people are taking longer times to make decisions about things. So in the past I might have been able to book someone within a week. Now it takes more time.
I send them one thing and then a couple of days later I send them something else and then a few days later something else. So it's really like a process, but it shows that we are trustworthy when we are willing to put in the effort to actually establish a relationship and build that trust over time. There's also just basic things that we are always doing to show that we're trustworthy. Like our portfolios and our past work and our connections with other vendors and all of that stuff. Our testimonials, like sharing those that's one of the best ways to build trust with people is to say, hey look, someone else says I'm trustworthy, you should believe them, not me. That's just a really effective way of showing that you're trustworthy. But also just being, I don't know, like treating it like a relationship. This isn't a transaction. This is someone you're probably going to be working with for a year or more if you're booking early, if you're a photographer and you're working with them for engagement, shoot wedding, maybe they have a baby, maybe they have a new house, maybe they have family photos they want later. You could potentially be entering into a relationship with someone for many years based on this first step that they're taking. So really thinking about the long term, like how do I build this relationship? Because it could pay dividends for years and years and years instead of the short term. Sort of like how do I close the sale, how do I make a transaction, how do I book this wedding? It's really not about that. It's about how do I connect with this person in order to, yes, get the sale, but also establish a relationship that's going to stand the test of time. And so in communications, it's being open about what you do about your personality, about your own story, my silly lunch break marriage story that's in my emails.
So just being a human about it. We're humans interacting with other humans. We need to just bring some humanity into the process.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like that perspective. But when you write to your clients again and again after two days, four days, what do you typically send them?
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So I have a lot of things I send.
I think actually, it may be in the freebie that you're sharing with your listeners, but I basically have a series of ten emails that I send. If someone doesn't book a call, and obviously if they book a call with me, I stop sending them a ton of emails in most cases. But I really start up by welcoming someone into the business and saying, this is what I do, this is our expertise. Kind of sharing with them the story of how I got started, what it means to me to be able to do this work, like really personal stuff, honestly. And you don't have to over share, but just why do you do this work? There's a reason that we all got into this business, and it's very different for different people. So your clients want to know that. They want to know who they're working with. So being really open and honest about who you are, what you do, why you do this thing, and why it's like the best job ever, because I think it is. I love it.
And then also, yeah, I send a lot of just like, welcome intro stuff. I send a lot of this is our expertise. These are the testimonials from clients that used particular things that we offer. Again, just like building that trust with social proof, saying like, this is what we were able to do for this client. Look how great this is, that wedding in this portfolio. Here's the gallery. I also send a lot of resources. So my whole approach is that not everyone is going to be a good fit for me, but I want them to leave my business better than they started off. So maybe that's referring to another vendor, like even another florist. I refer to other florists all the time. If they need help with other vendors, that's something I'm happy to help with. I send them blog posts that are relevant to them. If I'm like, I don't think we're a good fit, but here's a bunch of questions that you can ask a florist so that you can succeed without me, because that's my goal. I want them to succeed with or without me. So I send a lot of just extra resources, extra value. How can I give them more? So that even if we don't work together, which is fine, they leave here better than they found me.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really nice.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I try to send. And then, of course, at the very end, there's like a hey, you didn't respond to the last nine emails that I sent.
Are you sure? Because I would like to work with you, but if you're like, I'm not going to keep emailing you. So that's the last email.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I understand. It has to come to an end at some point.
Come on over to Instagram at Ingvild Kolnes and say hi. I'd love to know what you've learned from this podcast and what you want more of in the next year.
Part of the communication, you do it's in most cases probably also to find out if you want to work with them.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: How do you know if you want to work with someone or if you don't want to work with someone?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question because it's changed over time as I've gained more experience in this business. I don't know, I mean sometimes you just get on a call with someone even and you're just like your spidey senses there's something going on that you're like, I don't know what's happening, but this feels wrong, right? And every time I've ignored that it has been a total disaster.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: And it's just been either like, I took a client that was not a good fit, and then it was like, way more work, way more effort, way more problem solving for that person that actually took away from my other clients, or it was, I dodged a bullet after being like, yeah, I actually don't think we're a good fit. And then they lose their minds and go off on you and you're like, oh wow, okay, great. I'm so glad I said that. So I just have really learned to lean into what I'm feeling even if it makes no sense. Our bodies somehow are able to tell things that we can't logically figure out and yeah, it works every time. So don't ignore those signals from your body. If something feels bad, don't do it. You don't have to have any other reason than just this felt weird and that's fine. But I think in general I'm looking at people's when they inquire with me, I ask them just to say a little bit about their wedding and what it means to them and that kind of thing. And those responses are often very telling. The people that for me are not a great fit have one sentence. The people for me that are a great fit have a novel about how important this wedding is, all the family involved, all this stuff. So I'm like, oh great, that's who I want to work with because they have a story to tell and it continues. I ask people in my emails to respond and most people don't. There are some who write me back a novel about this is how we met. We met in college and he proposed on a mountaintop and this and that, and it's like, okay great, we're going to do just fine. So the people who are really responsive really have a lot to say about what this means to them, about the event itself being a big deal to them. Those are my people because I take their weddings so seriously, both artistically and just from a project management side. That's what I did for many years. So I'm all in on complexity and potential. Family conflict is something I actually love to work with because I'm a skilled negotiator, so that's a way I can offer more value. So there's just a lot of tells for me when working through this process with someone. If they're replying to emails they're writing me a lot. They care a lot about their wedding. They have families involved, sometimes tricky family dynamics involved, and they mention that those are all green flags for me, and I've kind of designed my process to capture that information where possible.
And so then the red flags are things like, I don't really care about my wedding. Not that they're saying that, but it's like one sentence, or they don't respond to things that I ask, or they don't really know what they want and they don't have a vision and they didn't really think about it. And I don't know. We just need flowers. Okay, I'm going to refer you to someone who just does flowers.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. And I feel the same way about photography because you can really tell when someone's just looking for a photographer or if they really want to book you. So yeah, I feel like it's a huge difference. And I've had that feeling of just knowing that this is a wrong fit. And you're always right.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It never fails. It's so amazing.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: I don't know how, but yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: It's really magical.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Can you give me some examples of when you've used your communication sequence to reach or to follow up with couples or clients of any kind and it's worked well for you?
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, so all of that is automated in my business now. So everything that I send, except I send one email that's like a video hello from me and that I do live for each potential client, and it takes me about five minutes, but everything else is automated. So as soon as they inquire, they get a welcome email, they get my pricing guide, then a couple of days later, they get the next thing and then the next thing. So it's all automated. And I will stop it manually. If they book a call or if they're like, sending me back a novel about their wedding or whatever, or if I'm not available, I'll try to get on it pretty quickly. And instead of sending a welcome video, I'll say, I'm so sorry, we're already booked, and then refer them to other florists. So there are times when I have to kind of step in and stop the automation, but otherwise it's completely automated. So writing the emails took a long time, but now I spend maybe like five or six minutes on each new lead before they book a call. So that's super manageable for me and my energy and the rest of the things I have going on in my life and my business. And my booking rate is 100% when I've put this into place. I haven't had a call with someone that didn't book in the last, like, two years.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: It works. Yeah, I'm confident that it works.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: I'm sure. Yeah, because when you've poured that much into it and you've told them all about your story and how they can get the resources that they want, and you're not just saying, like, book me, book me, book me, you're actually providing them with real value, and you're telling them that you want a great result for them. And it's not about you. I think that matters so much.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think even with sales calls, which I don't like that terminology at all, because I don't think people are going to make a decision on a 20 minutes call when they can't talk to each other in private. I think it's a wild expectation that people have. But even on that, I've talked to wedding pros who are like, yeah, I spend the first 15 minutes telling them what I do and what I'm about and all of that stuff, and I'm like, they're already tuned out by minute four.
You don't need to do this whole song and dance about all of that on a call. You can send it in an email and they'll read it or not, but it can be so much easier than we make it.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: I think so, too. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: And it doesn't have to be like, not everything is a self promotion. We have to always think, how does this help my client? What are they getting out of this interaction, this communication, this tidbit, this tip? There has to be something in it for them. Even before you book them, even at the very early stages, there has to be a reason for them to keep going with you.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah. But what if someone's already been ghosted, they've had an inquiry and they replied and they haven't heard back? Can they kind of pick that up again and start replying? Or is it like, okay, so if you haven't replied after, like, a week, you should just let it go? What do you think?
[00:28:28] Speaker B: I mean, what do you have to lose by not following up, right? Like, they've already not replied to anything, so you might as well keep following up. Like I said, there's tons of reasons someone might not respond to your first couple emails, but respond to your, like, you know, I've had it happen to me, where someone is like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you sent this because everything else went to spam, or, I'm so glad you sent this. Because we've been in France the last two weeks on vacation, and I inquired, like, the weekend before we left, and now I'm coming back to my inbox and realizing that I didn't respond, but I'm really interested in working with you kind of a thing. So it happens all the time that people, they have stuff going on, right? They're busy, they have lives. They're whole people. They're not just a wedding sale. They have lives. So we have to remember that they're not on our timetable. We're on their timetable.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: So give them space, give them time, keep following up. You have nothing to lose by following up. And if you are reaching a point where you're like, I really don't think this is going anywhere. It's been a couple of months, and they haven't responded to anything. Yeah, of course. Let it go. I don't think you need to follow up with everybody obsessively. It's just if you're really like, I really want to book this person, or we had a great interaction, and then they dropped off. There's probably a reason for that. It's not you. You can't take it personally.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you really can't. I've had a couple of Elopements in the last few weeks where both of them required follow ups. One of them, I think they inquired in March and they decided, I believe in September last year because they had stuff going on. There was something with their cat, and there was something else, and I could have easily just been like, okay, I'm going to forget about those people. But I had, like, a system where I was like, okay, so in a few months time, I'm going to follow back up with them and see what's going on. And they booked. And the other couple, they replied to my initial message, but then we had a meeting, and after the meeting, I do the same kind of process where I follow up, and I didn't hear back until I sent that final, like, okay, I assume that you're not interested. I'm moving on. And that's when they replied, and they're like, no, we're ready to book. And I was like, okay.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: People are funny. They do that stuff. It's just how it goes sometimes.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Because people are busy.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting that I think six months went by or something for you.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: I didn't follow up, like, every couple of days, though.
I had a system.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes total sense. But yeah, I don't think I've booked anybody who went that long. I think I've given up on people before the six month mark.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: I think it's different with Elopements because people usually don't have a date. They just know they want to do it and then at some point, so I think it's quite different. So hardly anyone that talks to me know what date they want to get married.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: That must be fun for you.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Well, it's better in a way, because then I can kind of fit them into my schedule instead of me having to keep my weekends open, for example.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Well, I don't do Elopements anymore because it's just too much to squeeze in with big weddings that are big productions. I can't just pop off a bouquet in the middle of all that chaos.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: No, of course. Yeah, that wouldn't make any sense. Yeah, of course.
When I started out as a photographer many years ago, ghosting wasn't that much of a thing. If I got an inquiry from someone, I would book them. I mean, that's just how it went and now it's just becoming more and more common. Do you think it's going to be something we see more of? Is there something we can do to.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Kind of stop it from happening?
[00:32:26] Speaker A: I mean, as a trend, like, what do you see happening?
[00:32:30] Speaker B: I think as we become more online in our lives and more, I guess, disconnected from the person on the other end of the device, whether it's the phone or the computer or whatever, I think it will keep happening. I don't think there's going to be some turnaround where we all suddenly are courteous when we put our info into a website and feel like we owe someone an explanation if they're not a good fit for us. So, I mean, I do think it will continue and I think the best thing to do as a business owner is to embrace that that's a thing and try to engineer the backside of your business to route people where they need to go. So just like on your website, you would have like, oh, if you're interested in elopements, go here. If you're interested in maternity photography, go here. If you're interested in full service weddings, go here. On the backside of our business. We need to kind of filter out, like, hey, if you inquired with 15 vendors for this service, I'm just going to send you a bunch of emails automatically, and you're probably not going to read them and probably going to ghost me. And that's fine because I didn't spend a ton of energy on it. If everything is automated, I spent the five minutes to do a little video and that's fine, I'm okay with that. But I think people get really burnt out when they're getting, let's say ten inquiries a week, and then they're trying to email ten people manually throughout the week, even with a template to stay on top of, it is really tough. And then stuff is falling through the cracks and, oops, I forgot to email this person this week and so I have to do it next week. And that's just not sustainable. And with the way that Ghosting, I think, will continue to be a fixture in our sort of inquiry process, I think you really need to have a system for what happens if someone just inquires and does nothing else. And what's the lowest energy way that you can manage those people and get them to a yes or no point.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's great advice because you can't really fight it. I mean, it's going to happen whether you want to or not, so you might as well just try to deal with it in as easy way as possible.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, it's important to not take it personally. It's not any sort of indictment of you or your ability or your creativity or your ability to make a living in this industry. None of that has any bearing on whether someone replies or not, it's on them. So I know a lot of wedding pros feel very slighted and hurt and dismissed and frustrated and baffled and there's a lot of big feelings about it. So as much as we can just accepting that this is a process that is just going to happen and it's not our job to interfere with what is just naturally happening, we just have to manage it on our side and we can't take it personally, we can't let it say something about us because it's about them.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's also very good advice because we can't really control someone else's feelings or desires or anything else. So we just have to deal with it as best as we can. And if we're going to get annoyed every time we get ghosted, then we're going to have a hard time moving forward since we're probably going to be seeing just as much of this, if not more.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think really managing your expectations and feelings around it is going to be really important. Because like you said, if you get annoyed every time it happens, how much of your business life are you spending? Annoyed that's going to interfere with the other clients that you do have or the work that you do need to do. You can't let it affect you in that way. It just has to be something that rolls off your back and you just move on because yeah. Otherwise you're going to have a bad time and this business should be fun and enjoyable as much as it can.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it should. And maybe also kind of reminding yourself that you haven't booked a new client until the contract is signed and the retainer is paid, because at least it used to be. Every time I'd get an inquiry, I'd feel like, oh, I have a new client, but that does not work anymore.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You can never count your chickens before they hatch. Right. Until the contract is signed and honestly, with COVID even after the contract is signed, you may not get your full.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: It's a different world now than it was a few years ago.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: It is for sure, yeah. Do you have any final advice when it comes to ghosting in terms of how we can deal with it, to have a more sustainable business.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: I mean, I think we covered a lot of it automating things that you can automate so that you're not spending your time and your effort on people who were never going to book you anyway. And I think also the rest of your business on the front end. So your marketing, the things you're saying on social media, the things you're saying on your website, the photos you're sharing, your portfolio, all of that stuff should be engineered to the best fit client that you have, that you want, that you're like, if I could just clone this person 100 times, I would be set for life. So really keep in mind that all of the booking process from marketing, from the no stage where people are learning that you exist up until they sign a contract and even after, is designed to be a process where you are sussing people out. You're getting rid of the people that are not a good fit, you're welcoming in the people who are a good fit. And so all of that stuff needs to kind of be aligned with who you want to be signing those contracts in the end. And so really making sure that you're speaking to those people when you write something, you're sharing the photos that are going to resonate with those people. And then on the backside that your emails are speaking to that same person, your follow up is engineered for that same person. We're not going to worry about the weirdos who inquire with us about services we don't offer. We're not building our business for those people.
I have people inquire with me about things like floral preservation or silk flowers and it's like, literally, there's no evidence that I do any of that. I have no idea why you're emailing me. So I'm not worried about those people. I'm worried about how do I get more of these perfect clients that I love working with. And I think letting that guide your decisions as you go and build this out or as you're writing or as you're showing things is really the only way to make this as efficient as possible and as sustainable as possible for you. Because you're going to start seeing the difference when all these amazing people are coming through your doors and you're getting less and less of those weird, oddball inquiries of stuff you don't do or people that you're yeah.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great ending. Note and if someone wants to keep learning from you, Carolyn, if they want to follow you and see what you're up to, where do they go?
[00:40:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sometimes on Instagram at Carolyncolb, and Carolyncolb.com is my website where I'm offering education and teaching, this backend sales system. And you can get on my email list and there's freebies and all sorts of things. So that's the best place to find me probably is the website.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll link to all that stuff and your freebie in the show notes so that you're easy to find. And yeah, I just have to say thank you so much. This was a really good conversation. I really enjoyed it.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Thank you, Ingle. This was really fun. Thanks so much for having me. And I just hope it's helpful to somebody out.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: I'm sure. I'm sure. Thank you so much.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: You just listened to an episode of Sustainable Photography. Please share this episode with the photographer you care about.
