TYS podcast - Why Gen Z is ghosting you and how to fix that

Yes. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So, as Halle mentioned, I am the founder of Work Simple and Your operations Fairy Godmother. I help creatives, especially in the wedding industry, build better backend systems and leverage automation in a not scary, not impersonal way, so that you can show up as vibrantly as possible in and beyond your business.

Endlessly frustrated by all of the like administrative BS that you have to go through in corporate and being like, why is this so clunky? Why does this take forever? As someone whose brain like hates an administrative task, anytime I was put on something that was super clunky, I was like, I'm not gonna do it this way, but I'll fix it.

None of us had to do the tedious admin or do things the slowest way anymore. And it made our team more efficient, it made our work better, and it made me not lose my mind. And now I get to do that for creatives instead of corporate, and that just makes me happy too. That's seriously so relatable and I feel like too, so many people have an element of just reduced attention span.

Whether it's a DHD, you know, and like formally like that, or it's just, you know, I think our brains are so used to things being made more like simple. Shorter. I mean we, we, we can only focus for so much and it takes one text or one interruption for the whole day to just go off course in, in my opinion.

Yeah. And I find a lot with my clients. And you probably relate to this in your business at some point of like a lot of the stuff that I end up coming in to automate is stuff that in your head is just super quick and easy. Like, oh, responding to this email, I already know what I'm gonna say. I say basically the same thing every time, and I'm just like, let's just template that and then you never have to send that again.

Like, then it doesn't have to take up any of your energy, any of your creative energy. Um, and it's also not impersonal 'cause it's what you were gonna send anyway. Totally. Also too, um. I like that point of just like the quick and easy because you're so right. I mean, I kind of feel like this is a pain point sometimes in my marriage where it's like, Luke, we'll do this and this and this and all these like little things.

It's taking you away from like the most important tasks. Like, I don't really care about these five little things like that can happen any day. Um, but when it's like, the most important things are those things, and sometimes I think we use those little tasks to like get us out of like having to work on the big scary task.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like sometimes it's like a procrastination task tactic where we're like thinking we're being productive because like, oh, I sent five emails, and then when it comes to the thing you need to do, it's like, well. I didn't do that, but you still felt like you were, you know, productive.

Literally. Yeah. And I don't know, I remember when I was working in corporate, there was kind of this like five minute rule. Like if you're walking past something that needs to get done or this needs to happen, like just it's five minutes or less, just do it. But I think we're, if we're training ourselves to just like do it because it's.

It's such a short task. Again, if we're not remembering, oh wait, I could automate this, I could make this easier, and then really focus on other bigger things, like mm-hmm. There's kind of this shift. We need to take this shift that needs to happen. And I think that's a difference between our generations.

It's funny because I am like, technically I'm Gen Z, like I'm right on the cusp. And so I really see things from both sides because I get a lot of content from my clients or people in my network who are like Gen Z is like ghosting and they have no patience and they have like whatever people complaining about the Gen Z wedding market.

Um, and then also as a Gen Z myself, I'm just like. Yeah, I'm not waiting 24 hours for a response in Gen Z terms. Like we grew up with technology, like we grew up with automation and smartphones and just like tech in our hands. And so I think that this generation, more than any generation before it is expecting automation and expecting that your business seems very tech savvy.

And so I also really see things from that perspective of my own experience of being like, well, yeah, like I don't expect to wait around if I like click to see more information on something. Totally. And Okay. That's an interesting point too, because it's kind of like, I feel like people are dancing around a lot of like the automation thing because there's like, I would say one of the big myths I'm seeing is people don't want it to feel like it's less human or it's not authentic.

So are, are there any things that you are finding that help with that balance of quick tech savvy, very much like automated responses, but not losing the human side of things. Like where do you think the balance is? And maybe you can talk more about like what you recommend in terms of like, let's just use this like initial inquiry follow up as a good example.

Like what would you like walk someone through? Yes. My stance, I am in automation first, AI as needed systems person. Because to your point, I think there's a lot of AI fatigue, , and of reasonable criticisms of ai, but I think that we are really tired of seeing AI content engaging with I AI emails and chat bots and like.

Um, and I think we're really tired of it and it, that's the part that feels really inhuman and disconnected. , But to my point before, I think that automation is almost the reverse of that. Like you get the benefit of not having to do it, but it's still the email that you wrote, you would send. And it, the way that I like to frame it, especially for my creative clients who are more resistant to automation or the term automation, have this kind of scary connotation to it or impersonal connotation is that.

Um, but if you're sending that email. It's kind of a template anyway. 'cause you have that template in your head, it's just not written down anywhere. And that's those little things adding up like you were, like we were talking about before, but make it a template and then put it in that sequence. And not only is your client then getting the email at the right time, always.

It should just be a templated email that's being sent to every client. Totally. And like, okay, let's talk about the inquiry response, because I think so often, if you're fine with talking about weddings specifically Yeah. There's a lot of like opinions on this, right? And I don't think there's like one right or wrong.

I think it really depends on who you're serving, the market you're in, , what works best for you and your business price point. Like there's so many different things, right? Mm-hmm. Um, I'd say the biggest thing that a lot of people are trying to navigate is. Do I send my pricing in the response or do I wait and do it more custom after we hop on a call or somewhere in between.

I mean, um, you inform us like you're the expert. You're the one who kind of like sees this. What are you finding in terms of like automating that response? Like, what's been most helpful for, for your clients? Yes. So two things that I am seeing in the market. Our Gen Z price transparency is super important to Gen Z.

That goes beyond the wedding industry. I mean, just, I used to work in HR and just a few years ago, LinkedIn made it required to have salary range posted on jobs because of the push from Gen Z. Like, I'm not gonna apply if I don't know what I'm making. And that translates to every aspect of our economy as well.

And so I wasn't gonna be a lead for them anyway. Like I wasn't even a real lead 'cause I was never going to be able to. Afford their services with my budget. And so I think that the first thing is. I'm seeing a lot of push, even in the luxury market to have a starting price on your website. , If you offer packages, even if your packages come with add-ons to just put like a starting price or a price range, , and that can help.

In that first email, gen Z loves information and informed decision making, and especially in this economy where money is tighter than ever for a lot of couples and a lot of people in general. We're taking our time to make these big purchases and these big decisions, and the more information we have, the more confident and comfortable we are spending that money.

, Gen Z is also used to being advertised to because we're advertised to constantly. All of us are through our phones. . And so having information about your services and what working with you is like and what it's gonna feel, what I want you to feel like on your wedding day, especially for a photographer, you can put all your pretty images on, like a three page sheet that walks through like.

If you don't have them on your website or you're anti having them on your website for some reason, definitely have starting prices in that welcome packet. , Or have some kind of like package. Price expectation. If you do fully custom pricing, which I know some photographers do, give a range of what to expect or a few different ranges of if you're having a micro wedding, here's what you might expect to spend.

Hold back your pricing, get them on a call. Really sell them on the value and then make your pitch. And I don't know, it's been so interesting because I've seen it both ways and I've been like, I don't know, able to book $15,000 packages doing it that way. Right? But when we're seeing this transition to Gen Z, it's like, oh man, like it's a little bit harder to get people onto that call.

And so. Transparency piece I've been finding has been working a little bit better right now. So we're also in that transition where, you know, you have to decide too, like, who is your client? Like is it Gen Z? Is it a millennial? Like what is it that you're, you know, really trying to pitch and who are you trying to pitch it to?

That matters. So it's like you shouldn't switch everything to Gen Z if that's not your client. Totally. I said this was like, just such an interesting conversation because I think a lot of people are really feeling that shift, , and trying to figure out, okay, like. Is this kind of aligned with me to like make changes in my processes like that.

Yeah, and it also like if you're giving them something of value too, so let's say in there you could have examples of, I don't know, whether it's just like not just your work, but also, hey, if you're getting married, like here's what a timeline could look like and really educating them on like an eight hour versus 10 or 12 hour.

, That's something that you can like, serve them and help prime them. So then going into the, you know, consult call, maybe you're not telling them exactly your pricing, but they're already thinking like, oh man, I think I will want , the 10 or 12 hour versus like, eight Just doesn't feel like enough.

Like maybe whether it's like part of their, you know, regular process or where do you, where do you see people saving the most, like, time in their business or even just like mental capacity? A few different, there are a few different areas that I like to focus on in my business. . There's the client onboarding, so that's the inquiry, lead response sequence, your documents, so your like proposals, contracts, things like that.

, That's the most time saving because especially when we're thinking about calls. If you have a booking tool, whether that's internal to your CRM or something like Calendly, that's already gonna be a time saver. And if you don't have a tool like that because you don't think you need it, you do. , It's just gonna be like a game changer.

It also takes a little bit of our sensitivity out of that process because we are not the ones doing the active responding. Um, our tools doing that. And then the ones that are interested in moving forward continue to move forward with you. And those are the ones that you get to meet and spend your energy on and heart on.

So that client onboarding piece is what I see being the biggest time saver. , But I think another big piece that people don't think about as much, especially in the wedding industry, is client offboarding. So when the wedding industry, we think about , okay, the wedding day's, the big day, and then as a photographer you're doing a gallery delivery at some point after the wedding.

Who they know that are engaged, because chances are, if they loved having you as their wedding photographer, they're going to wanna recommend you to everyone. Similarly, they're gonna wanna leave a review. I hear people all the time who are like, I feel so awkward sending this. They, they liked your work.

They're gonna be like, oh my gosh, Halle was amazing. You should have her for your wedding. We had so much fun. We really felt like we connected. And that's going to help inform future leads about, . Whether or not they want to work with you. And so client offboarding is not necessarily the time saver, but it's the one that I see being skipped that can add a lot, a lot of value to their business.

And if you're not tapping into that or you know, having some sort of referral program or way to continue to serve them. And even too, it's just like I always get them onto my email list after we kind of close out their project with their wedding. I don't wanna bombard them with like mini session emails when they just had engagement photos and stuff.

But once they're actually off of my like, okay, we've been delivered, like you've, you've got your wedding photos, like you've graduated. Then I'll get them onto my email list. And I think that's a place where you can really like, continue to serve them or have them like be in the know of like a newsletter.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you're, a lot of wedding photographers also do like. Family photography or like maternity newborn, if your clients are getting married and then like a percentage of them are also planning to have children, and you also do maternity photo shoots and newborn photo shoots and things like.

Being present, whether that's through an email list or having an email that gets sent out a year after their wedding, being like, Hey, I remember this day we had so much fun and I hope you have a great one year anniversary. That can be an automated email that doesn't feel impersonal, but it's like a check-in where they're kind of like reminded that you're there if they wanna come back to you for any other photography of their life.

You know, maternity or a newborn or family, it's maybe a shift I might make in the next several years. But, , really niche down. Like my marketing too, like my outward facing marketing is very much like weddings, but internally it's like, yeah, that's what my email list is for. So once you offboard them and get them, you know, graduated from weddings and onto your email list, just a great way to just continue serving, so, yeah, totally. Um, okay, so let's walk through a little bit of like the work you do. So I know you help people set up systems and I know a lot of people are probably in this phase of do I need systems or do I need a virtual assistant?

But what I see happen a lot is that people hire a virtual assistant or a part-time employee. And now they're suddenly more overwhelmed because now in addition to doing all this work that was overwhelming before, they have to train someone. They have to get someone up to speed on their processes that probably aren't written down.

They are basically using this person to not their fullest potential. , And they're spending a lot more energy. To de to be able to delegate out to this virtual assistant. And so that's where I think systems can almost be a good supplement before you have a virtual assistant. Because if you have your systems built out, you have like.

, That just goes along with having a business instead of them, you hiring someone on and them being like. Wait, what do I do? And asking you a million questions all the time. , Having those systems in place and good documentation or good templates or both. , And that's something that like someone like me can help set up so that when you do hire a virtual assistant, and I see this with a lot of my clients that go from working with me.

That's so good. And honestly, I have experienced that myself. I. A couple years ago I had a virtual assistant for a season of life, and you know, I realized like as I had this assistant, we were still building a lot of the systems out and part of it helped me build the systems. But you know. Over time, I was like, man, like we could have really saved a lot of time and questions and headache had we built the systems first, so, mm-hmm.

I wanna echo exactly what Gail is saying and just if you are really feeling overwhelmed and you haven't taken first a look at your systems, I think that's really a great place to start. And so for people who maybe haven't taken that step to really evaluate where they could implement systems, if someone was to do a quick audit on their, , processes.

, But if you are looking at your own internal systems and being like, okay, how can I make this better? The first thing that I do in my audits is have my clients make a bullet pointed list. So I think people get really overwhelmed by the idea of. Documentation of like a standard operating procedure. An SOP has to be this like big document that has all of the different steps and everything's written out.

I do this and jot down like what your base steps are for every client and what tool you're doing them in. So if you have a CRM. A lot of those are gonna be lumped together into, like, I do 90% of these steps into Dodo. Maybe I meet via Zoom or Google Meet. , But like those are still being sent out via my booking.

, And so the first place you can look is, can I consolidate my tools? Can I, I think especially if you're a newer business owner, you're probably using a lot of. , A bunch of different free tools to get the job done, which is great because it's free and it's a good place to start. But you get to a point in your business where that's really overwhelming and you can afford, you can start, you start to be able to afford consolidating some of those tools so that everything's in one place, which is gonna save you a lot of time and a lot of headache.

Can I just, like, even if I don't know where or how to automate it or I'm not comfortable with automating it, 'cause I'm worried about losing the personal touch, can I template it because that's still gonna save me time. And then can I practice using my templates because. If you create the systems and you don't practice them, you're not going to change how you do things and you're gonna stay overwhelmed.

, So those are the places that I would start if you're thinking about, okay, my systems are a mess. I'm gonna fix that this year. That's a good place to start. And I think that really is a good place to start. And I love how you laid it out, because if you're not comfortable with automating it, I think at the very least what you were saying about just coming up with a template, making it easier for yourself, that's still in, its in, in, in its own way, a type of system, right?

Mm-hmm. Like you're able to. Have a template and that's a part of your system, and then slowly come to automation as you feel comfortable, but it's really just like exercising that muscle and I think asking the question, how can I make this easier for myself? Especially around those tasks that you're maybe avoiding and.

Like that is where. These can be really life changing for people. And I know for me personally, like my life has been completely changed by having systems in place and you know, there's always ways to improve and there's some audits that I'm gonna be doing in different parts of my processes as I'm always looking for ways to improve and you know, be more efficient.

But you know, just with the steps that you can take, even just starting at a minimum. I remember the first time we put together systems and I look back and I'm like, oh man. Like I'm always asking myself the question, why didn't I do this sooner? Yeah. I think that's the biggest regret people have around it, you know?

There are a million things that we could be doing better in our business if we had unlimited time, unlimited budget, et cetera. You're doing the best with what you've got and you're learning as you go. And we all, that's, I think that's so good. And, you know, um, I, I would love to talk, I know you brought up tools, consolidating tools.

You can make things branded and pretty. It just takes a little bit more work right now in dubsado. But again, you're getting it at that lower price point. And honestly, the things that they've rolled out in like the new Dubsado is. , I think that their user interface is a lot better.

They have booking, which is really important., And so I think those two tools are really comparable in what they're capable of. And. If you don't have a CRM and you're listening and you're like, what is that?

Um, is. Um, CRMs are historically terrible at task management. , They're not, they're client relationship manager. They are for managing your leads, your projects, and your payments from those projects. They all have some kind of task system built in, and if you're a whiz at automating, you can ma, you can MacGyver that to make it a pretty good tool.

Put in some of those key dates and it will automatically tell you when everything is due and gives you a really good high level view across clients. That's what a lot of these tools really struggle with. So that's what I always say to look for with a tool. I know that I love Notion because it's pretty, but it does a really bad job of giving you a high level view.

What do I need to do to get me through this week? And click up. And this template that I've got coming out is a great way to have that all in one place. I love how you brought this up too, because I think so often our to-do lists live in our head. Mm-hmm. Or on like a sticky note or someplace where it can just be lost or just taking up too much mental space. Space. And so, uh, we actually use clickup as well.

We've been using it for years. And I love it because I'm able to have my tasks for take your shot as well as for my photography business and videography. And so having something that kind of like. Help separate out those different areas of your brain I think is super helpful. I have a friend who literally, and I, we actually had a whole episode on this, if I can link it below, but like, they use Asana, that's like their task management tool.

Just for business, it can also be for your life. And when you have tools like this, like Clickup, that you know, you can really create the different spaces and have it really function in a way where it's like telling you, yeah, kind of at that high level, like this is what I need to do today, and kind of segment that out.

So, so helpful. I love it. Yeah, and I think a lot of people, like, don't get me wrong, my whole other screen over here is like covered in post-it notes, so I am like, I am the biggest defender of the things that I talk about not doing. . But I having one place where I can go and put things that have deadlines and it's saying like, Hey, today you need to do this is super helpful for my brain.

I offer also a free template, , on my website. And so that's just more high level general. . But it's a really great option and it has a free forever plan. So I'm also on a paid version of it. But you can get started on a, on a free version that if you get the functionality you need out of it, that's one place to just like put all your stuff.

That couldn't be more true because I know for me it's like I have so many ideas written all over the place and I, I do that on purpose. 'cause I just know when I'm like, even just in this podcast episode, I've got, you know, my whole, , this is what, how my brain works just to , oh, I wanna circle back to this idea.

You're like murder board. I know. Literally. Yeah. And so I have a whole pile of these, like, you know, just whatever. And I think that also. Helps me stay focused when I'm listening to a, like a training online or just, I'm a constant learner. I'm learning on my podcast, I'm leading things like there's so many stuff and our brains can only handle so much.

Um, but walk us through kind of like when you set up a, you know, automation or you know, clickup, what is it that's, that it's doing when you have like something like this template, like what is it kind of setting them up to do? Yes. So the, one of the benefits of this template and most of the things that I set up for my wedding clients specifically, so I've worked with like wedding planners, stationary designers, and wedding photographers primarily, where you have kind of a package like here's what I offer and here are the base things that I need to do for every client.

So having a task that's a wedding date and having that date in there, and then all of the other tasks are connected to that date so that when you save it as a template and then you put in the right wedding date. It automatically dates everything of , okay, and in two days I send the sneak peeks and in a week I send a follow up email, and then in like four weeks or eight weeks, I send the gallery, then I send this review email.

Even having those . Listed out and auto dated because also if you have a lot of tasks, we've done this for wedding planners too. I'm planning to launch a template for them as well this year. But it's a lot bigger because they have like often 12 plus months of tasks, , and a lot going on. But having like 12 months of tasks, really overwhelming, first of all.

And so that's why I find that in Clickup, especially with these templates, being able to have those relative dates where it's like I enter a date, I click, uh, used template. It populates in my thing. I change the name of my client like Morgan and Kelsey's wedding and put in their wedding date and then boom, the things will show up as they're due on my like, what do you have to do today?

And so it's like you do have to take that step to the side to just kinda like, okay, let's pause, let's evaluate. Let's implement this and then it really helps you speed up just where you're going and how, how you get there. So I think that's just super wise. So everyone, listen to Gail, listen to everything she's saying.

This is such good wisdom. And you know, we've talked through so much in this podcast and I think at that you've just offered so much great nuggets and resources and things like that. For people who are listening and want to work with you, where can they find you? And I know you talked a little bit about it, but what are some of the things that you currently offer?

Client onboarding, client offboarding, , reviews and referral management, things like that, those are something that we can get done in one week. So you can really go into busy season feeling really confident about those, getting those timely responses to Gen Z. , I also mentioned that I do operations audits.

So if you are like. I am overwhelmed by even the idea of looking at my systems. I don't know where to start. I don't wanna have to think about it. That's a good place to start and get professional recommendations and an action plan, , custom built for you and your business and how your brain works. , And then if you are looking to overhaul, let's say you're moving from HoneyBook to dubsado, you're seeing some of these cool dubsado things.

Everyone. You're moving from HoneyBook to ddo. You know where to find me. Obviously I'm biased. I love Dato, so I will speak of them highly forever. Um, but anyway, okay,, thank you so much for just like everything that you've shared today and obviously you have so much to offer. So for those of you listening, go ahead and check out all her work and we'll see you next week.