Connection Before Conversion: Copywriting Strategy with Genevieve White

Summary Highlights

🌍 Meet Genevieve White: The Copywriter Championing Connection Over Conversion

Genevieve White is a travel and tourism copywriter, coach, and author of Boldly Go, the definitive copywriting guide for travel professionals. Based in Scotland’s Shetland Islands—closer to Norway than mainland UK—Genevieve brings a unique perspective shaped by years as an English teacher abroad and a deep passion for meaningful travel experiences.

After teaching English in Hungary, Romania, and China, Genevieve settled in Shetland where she spent years writing for Promote Shetland, crafting content that encouraged visitors to discover the islands’ remote beauty. But it wasn’t until she formally trained as a copywriter that everything clicked. She discovered that effective copywriting wasn’t about perfect grammar or flowery language—it was about genuine connection, clear communication, and confidence.

Today, Genevieve works with boutique stays, cultural tours, and sustainable travel businesses to help them find their authentic voice and attract guests who truly align with their values. Her human-centered approach emphasizes storytelling that highlights what makes each destination genuinely special, moving far beyond generic travel brochure language.

Through her coaching practice and her mailing list, Campion Club, where she shares twice-weekly copywriting insights wrapped in stories from her life and work, Genevieve is on a mission to help travel professionals write copy that creates connection first—with conversion as the natural byproduct.

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✨ Why Your Everyday Is Someone Else’s Awesome

One of the most powerful concepts Genevieve shares in this episode is deceptively simple: your everyday is someone else’s awesome.

She recounts working with a client who runs a Scottish farmhouse stay. Initially, the host’s copy was flat and generic—it could have described any rural property anywhere. But when Genevieve started asking questions, the conversation transformed. The host lit up talking about her sheep, each one named, including one that reminded her of a character from Friends. She described children feeding the sheep apple slices, their faces lighting up at this simple interaction.

This seemingly mundane detail—spoiled sheep with names—became the heart of compelling copy because it represented something the host had stopped noticing: city children experiencing genuine connection with animals for the first time.

The lesson? Stop trying to sound like every other vacation rental. The details you’ve stopped noticing—the sounds, the rituals, the quirky personalities of your space—are precisely what create memorable experiences for guests. When writing copy for your direct booking website, resist the urge to describe your property the way a corporate hotel would. Instead, channel the energy you’d have telling a close friend why your place is special.

As Genevieve puts it, when you love what you’re writing about, that energy transfers to everyone who reads it.

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🎯 The Three Foundations of Effective Copywriting

Before you write a single word of copy, Genevieve insists you need three foundational elements in place. Skip these, and even the most polished prose will fall flat.

Understanding Your Ideal Guest

Copywriting ultimately isn’t about being clever or demonstrating grammar expertise—it’s about truly understanding who you’re writing for and using language that appeals to them. Genevieve doesn’t mean surface-level demographics. She’s talking about psychographics: What do they worry about at night? What book are they currently reading? How do they commute to work?

She even employs a drama technique called “hot seating” in her group trainings, where participants rapid-fire questions at someone role-playing their ideal guest. This playful exercise reveals insights that traditional questionnaires miss, helping hosts move beyond generic “families looking for relaxation” descriptions toward genuinely understanding the humans they want to serve.

For vacation rental operators building their guest acquisition strategy, this foundational work determines whether your copy resonates or gets ignored.

Clarifying Your Brand Voice and Content Pillars

Many hosts get distracted by visual branding—colors, logos, fonts—while neglecting the words they use. Genevieve emphasizes having real awareness of what your brand represents, including your core themes and content pillars, which should underpin every piece you write.

Why are you running this vacation rental? What values drive your hosting decisions? What experiences do you consistently create? These answers form your content pillars—the recurring themes in everything you write.

Just as importantly, you need to identify your unique voice. In an industry drowning in bland, AI-generated content that all sounds identical, your distinctive voice becomes your competitive advantage. This connects directly to improving conversion rates on your website because guests can sense authenticity—or its absence.

Writing Conversationally, Not Formally

Here’s where many hosts stumble: they slip into “writing mode” and suddenly sound stiff and corporate. Genevieve notes that effective copy sounds like someone speaking to you—copywriting is much more like spoken English than written English.

Her solution? Record yourself explaining your property to a close friend, then transcribe it. The difference is immediate. That recording captures your natural enthusiasm, your authentic vocabulary, and your genuine personality—elements that disappear when you’re staring at a blank page trying to sound “professional.”

The most effective vacation rental websites don’t sound like they were written by a committee. They sound like a conversation with someone who genuinely loves what they do.

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🎙️ The Recording Trick That Transforms Your Copy

If there’s one tactical takeaway from this episode, it’s Genevieve’s recording technique. When clients struggle to find their voice or produce copy that sounds alive, she has them record themselves speaking about their property as if talking to a friend.

The transformation is immediate. Suddenly, generic phrases like “enjoy peaceful surroundings and comfortable accommodations” become vivid stories about “sitting on the back deck watching the sun set behind the hills while our sheep—especially Justine, who thinks she runs the place—wander over hoping for apple slices.”

Gil shares that he carries a small voice recorder for capturing stream-of-consciousness thoughts, and Genevieve agrees this practice is invaluable. Every smartphone has a recording app, eliminating any excuse. When an idea strikes or you notice something special about your property that guests always mention, record it immediately.

These recordings become your content bank. When it’s time to write email marketing campaigns or update your website copy, you’re not starting from a blank page—you’re working from authentic material that already sounds like you.

This approach also helps hosts who’ve been told they’re “not good writers.” As Genevieve emphasizes throughout the episode, copywriting isn’t about literary prowess—it’s about communication and connection.

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🔍 The Voice Audit: Discovering Your Linguistic Fingerprint

Near the end of the episode, Genevieve introduces a concept she calls your “idiolect”—your linguistic fingerprint. It’s the unique combination of words, phrases, expressions, and communication patterns that make your voice distinctly yours.

She challenges listeners to conduct a “voice audit” by reviewing text messages, DMs, and emails to close friends (it must be friends, where your most authentic voice emerges). Look for:

• Phrases that appear repeatedly
• Pet words or favorite expressions
• How you greet people and sign off
• How you transition between ideas
• Quirky sayings picked up from your region, family, travels, or even your kids

Developing your own voice is one of the biggest favors you can do for yourself and your copywriting, once you have the foundations in place.

This idiolect becomes your differentiator in a crowded market. When every other vacation rental describes itself with the same tired adjectives (“cozy,” “spacious,” “convenient”), your authentic voice makes you memorable. This directly impacts your direct booking success because guests remember—and book—properties that feel like they’re run by real humans, not faceless corporations.

The voice audit exercise takes maybe 30 minutes but can fundamentally shift how you approach all your written communication, from your website to social media to guest emails.

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🤖 The Right Way (and Wrong Way) to Use AI in Copywriting

Genevieve takes a balanced stance on AI that many hosts will appreciate. She acknowledges AI’s capabilities while warning against its overuse, particularly the “distressing amount of completely AI-generated content” flooding the travel industry that sounds bland and uninspiring.

Her recommendation? Never start with AI. Don’t use it to generate ideas or first drafts because ideas are best when they come from you, from looking inside yourself and around you for story ideas that are unique to you and your destination.

Instead, use AI as a collaborative partner after you’ve created a first draft. Feed your writing into AI and ask for honest structural feedback (specify “honest” because AI tends to be overly flattering otherwise). AI excels at spotting when structure isn’t working or when you’ve gone off on tangents.

But critically, don’t blindly accept AI’s suggestions. Interrogate its feedback. Don’t let it flatten your unique voice while “improving” your writing. The goal is collaboration, not delegation.

This measured approach helps hosts leverage AI’s benefits while maintaining the authentic voice that converts website visitors into bookings. When used correctly, AI becomes a helpful editor rather than a replacement for your creativity and lived experience.

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💡 Connection Before Conversion: A New Framework for Hospitality Marketing

Throughout the conversation, Genevieve returns to her core philosophy: connection before conversion. This represents a fundamental shift from traditional marketing approaches that prioritize immediate bookings over genuine relationships.

Genevieve believes copy should create connection first, with conversion as a natural byproduct. When you write to genuinely connect with your ideal guest—addressing their actual concerns, speaking their language, sharing stories that resonate with their values—bookings follow naturally.

This approach aligns perfectly with the broader shift in direct booking strategies away from transactional, commodity-based competition toward building authentic brands. Guests increasingly book based on alignment with hosts’ values, particularly around sustainability and cultural sensitivity.

For hosts competing against OTAs and trying to build direct booking channels, this philosophy offers a clear differentiator. Airbnb and Vrbo can’t create genuine connection at scale. But you can, property by property, through copy that sounds like an actual human who cares about creating meaningful experiences.

As Genevieve notes, when copy allows potential guests to see themselves in your story—the stressed parent imagining their kids feeding sheep, the remote worker picturing themselves at your desk with mountain views—that’s when connection translates to conversion.

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📚 Rapid Fire Insights with Genevieve White

Book Recommendation:
Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Despite the intimidating title and focus on sentence structure, it’s actually a meditation on the relationship between writing and thought, written entirely in short sentences that demonstrate its own principles.

Mindset Advice for Starting Something New:
Don’t be frightened by competitors—reach out to them. Genevieve has built meaningful collaborations with people she initially perceived as competition, learning immensely from those relationships. As Gil notes from his own experience, reaching out to competitors requires confidence and positions you as their peer rather than someone trailing behind.

Tactical Direct Booking Advice:
Conduct a voice audit. Review your text messages and emails to friends, noting recurring phrases, favorite words, how you greet people, and how you transition between ideas. Your idiolect—your linguistic fingerprint—is what makes your copy memorable in a sea of generic vacation rental marketing. Once you’ve nailed the foundations (ideal guest, brand pillars, voice), developing and channeling your unique idiolect is one of the most powerful things you can do for your copywriting.

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🎧 Connect with Genevieve White

Ready to transform how you write about your vacation rental? Genevieve offers both done-for-you copywriting services and coaching to help you develop the skills yourself.

Join Campion Club: Genevieve’s twice-weekly email list shares copywriting insights wrapped in stories from her life and work. It’s her number one priority for building community with travel professionals who want to write better copy. Sign up at campioncopy.com

Grab Her Book: Boldly Go is the definitive copywriting guide for travel and tourism professionals who want to move beyond generic language toward copy that genuinely connects.

Follow Genevieve:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Whether you need help finding your voice or want someone to collaborate on your messaging strategy, Genevieve’s coaching approach emphasizes drawing out what already exists within you rather than imposing formulas that don’t fit your unique property and personality.

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🏡 Ready to Put Better Copy to Work?

If this conversation has you rethinking how you talk about your property, the next step is making sure your website can actually convert that improved messaging into bookings.

Too many hosts invest in great copywriting only to place it on websites that aren’t built to convert. Your site needs to be fast, mobile-optimized, and designed specifically for vacation rentals—not generic templates that work against your goals.

CraftedStays helps serious hosts create guest-first websites that convert—fast. Purpose-built for short-term rentals, our platform lets you test and improve your copy as you learn, without paying an agency every time you want to make a change.

Start your free trial at CraftedStays.co and turn your authentic voice into direct bookings.

Transcription

Genevieve: Copywriting ultimately isn’t about being super clever or you know, being some kind of grammar expert. It’s ultimately about really understanding. Who you’re writing for, being able to use the language that’s going to appeal to them. So again, that comes back to understanding who you’re writing for and then having the, the confidence.

Genevieve: There’s a lot of confidence involved in successful copywriting, um, to really. Put your ideas forward and catch the attention of your ideal guest or your ideal customer. It was just so much that really appealed to me about copywriting as a way of writing that was so different from some of the more academic style of writing that I’d done in the past, and it’s something that I also see my clients fall in love with as well when they realize that it’s not all about full stops.

Genevieve: Adjectives and adverbs. It’s about, you know, plain, clear conversational writing that that moves people ultimately. 

Gil: Yeah.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on a agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it.

Gil: All to work, but if your site isn’t really built to convert, you’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire. And even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can’t iterate, you can’t test, and you really can’t improve on things.

Gil: You don’t need a custom $10,000 website to get the conversion rates that really matter. You just need the right platform. That’s why I build craft estates. It’s purpose built for short term rentals and designed from the ground up. To help you drive more direct bookings, you can finally turn that traffic into bookings and you can keep on testing and improving.

Gil: As you learn, you can make changes all on the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to craft estate.co and start your free trial. Now, let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the book Solid Show, the podcast where we bring in top operators to discuss operations, hospitality, and STR marketing. On today’s show, we have Genevieve White. She’s calling in from Shetland. She’s a copywriter, and coach. We have a phenomenal discussion about how she approaches copywriting, how she really goes through the process, what’s the foundation she has, how she coaches her students through.

Gil: How to become masters at copywriting. And it’s, it’s a really interesting concept because I always felt like I was never a really good copywriter, but just hearing her and thinking through kind of her process there, she breaks it down to simple terms that makes it feel less daunting. So I hope you guys enjoy the show and really learn really some of the fundamentals of how she does copywriting, how she coaches and teaches students how to do so too.

Gil: So without further ado, let’s bring her in.

 Gil: Hey, Genevieve, welcome to the show.

 Genevieve: Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. It’s lovely to be here, Gil.

 Gil: Yeah, you’re on a completely different time zone. It’s a lot darker where you are than where I am.

 Genevieve: Yeah. Um, yeah, I, so it is pretty late. It is quarter to 10 in the evening, but I’m very happy because I have finally got my little five-year-old to sleep. I thought there was gonna be a third guest on the show for a little while, so, you know, you gotta take the winds. She’s asleep, so it’s all

 Gil: Oh, I also have a five-year-old, and luckily when I do these shows, he’s already in school, so I get to have my focus time there. So, but I empathize with you. There’s, uh, having them sound asleep and you getting your own time is quite nice after a long, long day.

 Genevieve: It is. It is very nice. But I think they have a second sense or sixth sense, I should say, when you’re trying to get down to something important. Because normally she’s asleep two hours ago, but tonight mm-hmm. She’s just got to sleep, so, whew.

 Gil: Yeah. Well, it’s great to have you on and thank you for making time. I’m, I’m glad your, your family also adhered to the schedule as well too. Um, before we get to get too deep into it, do you mind giving folks an introduction on who you are?

 Genevieve: Not at all. Um, so my name is, is Genevieve White. I’m a travel and tourism copywriter and coach based in the beautiful Shetland Islands.

 Gil: Where, where is the Chapman Islands at?

 Genevieve: Well, that’s a good question. So the Ship Islands, it’s, we are technically part of the United Kingdom, technically part of Scotland, but actually we’re quite far away from mainland Scotland. We are actually, we’re a group of islands that. We are actually closer to Norway or, or, or as close to Norway as we are to mainland Scotland.

 Genevieve: So we’re very, very northerly. So if you think it’s dark now, Gil, wait till December. We have very little light at all.

 Gil: Oh my. How long would it take you to fly to the UK

 Genevieve: Not, it doesn’t take long to fly. Um, it’s just about an hour an hour’s flight to Aberdeen in the north of Scotland, but that’s kind of pricey. So you’re looking at a 12 to 14, 14 hour boat journey. Very rocky boat journey. So,

 Gil: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s no roads in between, like I would imagine it’s probably 400, 500 miles away is is my

 Genevieve: yeah, yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. As far away. 

 Gil: Genevieve, uh, please let me tell me more about yourself, kind of where you are, what you do, kind of how, what led you down this path of really tourism and hospitality?

 Genevieve: Well, it’s been a long journey to get where I am today. Um, so I have always loved travel. I’ve always been obsessed with travel and uh, in my younger days I was a teacher. Uh, I taught English to speakers of other languages and. Myself and my husband, we traveled around teaching in Hungary, in Romania. Um, we taught in China and we traveled all over the place, um, teaching, and then we moved to Shetland and settled down and had a family.

 Genevieve: And for many years I was a teacher and also a freelance writer, writing for a bunch of different publications. And then just a couple of years ago, I thought, you know, I just really, something just. It wasn’t quite right in my life. You know, I, I felt like I wanted to do something different. So I sat down and I did that icky guy thing where you think about what you really love and what you’re really good at, and what you can help people with.

 Genevieve: I’ve forgotten all the different components, but I did that and I sat down and I thought, well, you know, what, what do I really love? What’s my passion? And that was travel. And it was also teaching people what am I good at? Well, I’m good at writing, and I put it all together. What can I make money out of?

 Genevieve: Obviously that’s a, a big consideration as well, and I came up with this idea that I was gonna be a copywriter, but specifically in the travel and tourism field and best decision I ever made. Fast forward a couple of years. I’ve built a business. I’m just so happy with, I work with wonderful clients from all sorts of different interesting places.

 Genevieve: So even if I’m not really going anywhere, I do a lot of arm share traveling and uh, yeah, just get to work with lots of people. I do, uh, I mean I still write because I do offer done for you copywriting services, but my absolute favorite thing and what I really get. The most satisfaction out of is coaching people to write their own copy for their travel and tourism business.

 Genevieve: That’s what I, I really love.

 Gil: Yeah, I, I’m very inspired by. Kind of your story there. And even the mention of Ikigai, I, I’ve read Ikigai maybe, gosh, maybe like six years back, and it didn’t make sense to me when I, when I first read it, it maybe I wasn’t at the right space. But I think that as time went on, and especially when I started to go down the path of entrepreneurship and thinking about what I wanted to do, I’ve always had this idea of starting my own software company and now looking back to it.

 Gil: It almost felt like I was being pulled into this, being the founder of this company, crafted stays and wanting to do what I do now. And I don’t know if it’s like small little sl seeds planted throughout my life of like the experience that that kind of led me, like molded me to be a founder, me reading the books that I was reading.

 Gil: Um, but. And I don’t know what it was like for you, but kind of like that experience of being pulled into this new role or you’re calling for. What was it like for you? How did you find that copywriting? Was that one thing? I’m sure it wasn’t this formula that you went through, it just kind of naturally kind of pulled you in that direction.

 Gil: I would love to hear from you from like from the mindset standpoint. What was that like?

 Genevieve: Um, you mean from the, the, the mindset of, of establishing myself as a copywriter

 Gil: Yeah, like how did you know that like copywriting was, was your thing?

 Genevieve: Um, I suppose I’d come into it kind of gradually. Um, I’d done quite a lot of work for an organization here called Promote Shetland, which is essentially selling Shetland as a destination, and I’d been doing that. For years, actually, before I formally trained as a copywriter. And that was all about, you know, writing blog posts that would encourage people to come and, and visit Shetland and also to live and settle in Shetland.

 Genevieve: ’cause we always need more people, if anyone’s listening. Um, if you want to move to, um, uh, a remote GIO in the north that come plays. Um, so, so I, I, I knew I could. I knew I could do it. And then I thought it was a really, I, I, I, I trained as a copywriter just to kind of, almost just as on a bit of a, a whim to see if I, if I liked it, if I could do it.

 Genevieve: And actually I love about copywriting is in many ways it was very different from a lot of the writing I’d ever done before. There’s something very, I mean, it’s a craft, it’s a skill, but it’s something that I think. Anybody can do. If you have, if you have the, the, the, the love for what you’re trying to sell, if you have the, the passion for it, and if you have an understanding of some of the key tenets of copywriting, because copywriting ultimately isn’t about being super clever or you know, being some kind of grammar expert, it’s ultimately about really understanding who you’re writing for.

 Genevieve: Being able to use the language that’s going to appeal to them. So again, that comes back to understanding who you’re writing for and then having the, the confidence. Um, there’s a lot of confidence involved in successful copywriting, um, to, to, to really. You know, put your ideas forward and, and to, to catch the attention of your ideal, ideal guest or your ideal customer.

 Genevieve: Um, so, so yeah. There was just so much that really appealed to me about copywriting as a way of writing that was so different from some of the more academic style of writing that I’d done in the past. And it’s something that I also see my clients fall in love with as well when they realize that, you know, it’s not all about full stops.

 Genevieve: Adjectives and adverbs. It’s about, you know, plain, clear conversational writing, um, that, that, that moves people ultimately.

 Gil: Yeah. You, you mentioned some of the things that I see our foundations or the frameworks towards really being a, a, an excellent copywriter. You mentioned really knowing who your guest avatar or who, who you’re speaking to, who your audience is, knowing the story and what you want them to know about you, what you’re trying to deliver, the message you’re trying to deliver there.

 Gil: As you kind of think through that, what are some of those foundational pieces of copywriting that maybe you go in your course or you think about as you coach your student towards being masters at copywriting?

 Genevieve: Mm. So yeah, there’s a few things. Um, obviously first, first thing, as you’ve mentioned, and the absolute foundation is getting very clear on your ideal guest, and there’s all sorts of ways that you can do that. Um, which we could. We could talk about a little bit later, some strategies for doing that. Um, secondly, it’s about deciding on a voice.

 Genevieve: So as a, as a small business, you’ll maybe know a little bit about branding, but many people kind of get a bit carried away with, with colors and logos and all of that. And it’s actually something that’s very important to writing copy is having a real awareness of. What your brand is. Why are you doing what you’re doing?

 Genevieve: What are the, what are the main themes and ideas behind your brands or the content pillars as, as they’re sometimes called. And then becoming really, really aware of that and having that kind of, you know, underpin every piece that you write. And then voice is so important. Um, having the con there is. I should say this now in the travel and tourism sphere, I’m not going to completely knock ai.

 Genevieve: AI has loads of brilliant uses, but there is a distressing amount of completely AI generated content, which is. Very bland. It’s not doing anybody any favors. It’s not inspiring anybody because it just, it just sounds the same. So one of the things that I really spend a lot of time on with my clients is voice, um, identifying.

 Genevieve: Your voice, your brand voice, and um, you know, if you’re a, if you’re a small business, and many of my clients are just like, you know, it’s just one or two people behind the business. What is your own unique voice and what, what elements of your personality and your own personal story can you bring to. Your branding and, and your copywriting as well.

 Genevieve: So I’d say these were like three kind of foundational things that I spend a lot of time on with my clients.

 Gil: So if I, if I captured that correctly, there’s one is understanding who your audience is and making sure that you know, you know who they are.

 Genevieve: Mm-hmm.

 Gil: Two is really around the overall branding of things, your content pillars. It could be also, possibly even your mission and values of things.

 Genevieve: Absolutely. Yeah.

 Gil: Um, and then third is really kind of the, the characteristics of your voice in itself.

 Gil: Uh, how you want to present your words on pages, um, and kind of how you sound, uh, whether or not that’s verbally or words on pages.

 Genevieve: Yeah, and I think that verbally versus words on pages is something I spend a lot of time with on my clients as well. Because a lot of people when they’re copywriting, they go into writing mode and suddenly they start to sound really, um, stiff.

 Gil: Yeah.

 Genevieve: start to, you know, they, they, they, they, they, they don’t sound like themselves anymore because they’re writing how maybe they were taught to write at school or how they think that a professional business should sound.

 Genevieve: And actually the most effective copy is conversational. It sounds like somebody is speaking to you. Copywriting is a lot more like spoken English. Then it is written English. So we look at that a lot in my sessions with clients as well. So, um, for example, today I was working with, um, a client who has, um, a lovely farmhouse property in a place called St.

 Genevieve: Andrews in Scotland. It’s a, it’s a beautiful old, um, university town in, in Scotland. Anyhow, um, she, um, I’d asked her to do some. Uh, to, to, to do a little bit of writing. Um, that could be potentially for her website or potentially for emails, but just writing about the kind of experience that her guests could enjoy.

 Genevieve: And it just sounded very stiff. There was no real, um, sense. It could have been anywhere. You know, she, the, the, the, and this is, this is, this is something that happens as well, that you find people, people write. Copy about their destination and their place, and it just is so generic. If you, if you read something you’ve written and it just sounds like, you know, this could be anywhere.

 Genevieve: Something’s wrong. You need to really, really make it more specific. Anyway, I think I’m moving around a little bit too much. To get back to the point I said to her, would you actually, uh, we, we looked at something she’d written and I said, imagine you’re telling a close friend about your, about your property, about about, about your beautiful farmhouse experience.

 Genevieve: Would you use this? These words, these exact words. ’cause they just sound like they’ve been lifted out of a travel brochure. And she said, no, I wouldn’t say that. And they said, right, okay. So then what we did was we just like recorded her speaking about it like she was talking to a friend and the difference in the language, it was just so much better.

 Genevieve: It was so much more her, the personality just came through. So that’s what I always suggest to my clients. If you’re struggling to write and if you’re struggling to come up with, if you’re struggling to come up with a kind of natural sounding voice, just record yourself and imagine you’re speaking to a friend, transcribe it.

 Genevieve: You can edit out the ums and the As, and you are gonna notice such a difference immediately. Your copy is gonna sound better, it’s gonna sound more alive, more dynamic, more vibrant, and more you.

 Gil: I like that. I like that a lot. ’cause you’re, I think you, you, you probably at this time being previously a teacher and, and now being a coach on this. You found certain tactics to kind of harness and kind of tap into people and use kind of tricks to help them understand, like how do you kind of bridge where they are and where they need to need to be.

 Gil: I, I really love the concept of imagining that you’re talking to a close friend and describing what, what, what your message is and rather than typing it out there. So that’s a, that’s a pretty unique tactic there. Um, are there any other kind of. Tricks that you learned along the way that has been highly effective for your students to capture?

 Genevieve: Well, I did this, this is something that I did in a group training, um, last week. Um, I was training a bunch of like local business owners and, um, so you’d need to do this with someone else if you were trying this at home. Um, but um, sometimes we do, in the past I’ve distributed questionnaires for people to like.

 Genevieve: You know, get to the bottom of who their ideal guest is, their ideal guest avatar. But it’s just a big list of questions and it’s a little bit boring in trainings. And I like my trainings to be very lively and interactive. So what I decided to do, I thought, we’ll not do this boring questionnaire malarkey, we’ll do something different.

 Genevieve: So I don’t know if you’ve ever been to like a drama class skill, um, but we do something called hot seating.

 Gil: Okay.

 Genevieve: So, um, what, what we got volunteer to demonstrate at first, but I said, I want you to imagine that you are your, you are your ideal customer. So you’re not you anymore. You’re not the business owner. I want you to imagine you’re the ideal customer and then everybody else in the group.

 Genevieve: Just fired questions and it was fast fire. Any questions you could think of? What did you have for breakfast today? Um, you, what’s, what do you worry about at night? Um, how do you travel to work? What book are you reading at the moment? How did you vote in the last election? Fast, fast, fast fire questions.

 Genevieve: And, and the person in the hot seat, they weren’t allowed to overthink it. They had to answer quite quickly. And so that’s a really effective technique in drama classes because it really helps you to, to kind of get into a character. And it was a really effective technique as well. Um, and a lot more fun than a questionnaire for.

 Genevieve: Kind of just getting to know your ideal guest and building up a picture of them just through answering these questions. So yeah, if you’ve got, um, a group of friends and you fan safe, you know, a little drama activity. Have a shot at this. Um, it’s, it’s good fun and you might learn a lot and then, but take notes afterwards.

 Genevieve: Don’t just go away and forget about it and enjoy the rest of your day. Note down what you’ve learned, and then that’s just a really nice start, a nice way of starting to build your customer avatar.

 Gil: Yeah. I imagine, um, I don’t have it with me right, right next to me, but I have this little recorder and it’s this very old recorder that was probably produced. Maybe 15 years back, but it has, it’s very easy for me to start recording and I used to carry it around with me everywhere where I had a thought on things.

 Gil: Um, but I imagine a tool like that is very effective as a copywriter where if you have stream of consciousness thoughts, you can. Just kind of start to dictate to yourself and you, maybe you can play back and translate it down the road, but a tool like that is very effective for you to capture these moments because what you’re trying to do is like, kind of going back to your, what you were saying earlier about your own voice being conversational when you’re talking to it, rather than writing your mind just goes in a very different place and you’re able to just think a lot faster.

 Genevieve: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I would recommend it to, to anybody. Definitely just ha getting into the habit of recording your voice. Um, and it’s, it’s a great way of not letting your ideas slip away as well. Um, ’cause you know, you might not have a pen and paper handy, but if you can just record, record it as it occurs to you, um, just start to create those banks of content, um, it’s a great idea.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And everybody has a phone nowadays and almost every phone has a recording app on there, so it’s, there’s no, there’s no excuse. I would say.

 Genevieve: definitely not.

 Gil: Um, I’m interested hear in hearing your kind of how you work with. The done for you side of things. It’s one thing to write on something that you are intimately involved in.

 Gil: You shave, you have a story on things. H how do you translate that when you are doing a done for you type of copywriting where you’re representing someone else? I’m, I’m, I’m imagining there’s an immense amount of research that you have to do to learn about that. About who the audience is, what the message is, and all that.

 Gil: I would love to kind of have you walk us through kind of your thinking process or maybe your onboarding process of taking on a new client where you’re helping them with their copywriting.

 Genevieve: Well, yeah, there is definitely a a lot of research, but I would say that for me, the most important thing, I mean, just if you’re listening. Now and you’re thinking, oh, I fancy getting my copy done for me and it sounds a lot easier and I might get this wife to, to write it for me. I would say it’s never an easy fix with me.

 Genevieve: ’cause you’ll, I will never just be like, oh yeah, I’ll write you stuff for you. Um, bye. Even if I am writing it for you. Um, we will spend quite a lot of time together. I’ll have loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of questions to ask you because ultimately, you know. Your business, you know what you want to achieve.

 Genevieve: You know your visions, you know your dream customers. And yes, I can do, I can do a lot with research, but I also need to, um, I’ll need to speak. With you a lot. I’ll need to get, um, I mean, I can access a certain amount of reviews myself, but probably you, yourself will have collected, you know, customer testimonials are so important for copywriting as well, not just to have as like pretty little quotes, um, on your, on your Instagram, but for, for building client stories and things like that.

 Genevieve: So. You’ll probably have lots of this stuff that isn’t even on display, so I, we’ll definitely have at least one session on a Zoom where I’m just like. Asking, asking, asking, asking lots of questions. And then it really depends for a done for you project, it really depends what the client wants, what their timescale is, how much they want.

 Genevieve: Um, so every, every project is different. Um, but as well as doing my independent research, I do spend, you know, a fair bit of time. Getting the answers from the client. Um, so, so yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not a, just like, I’ll see you later. I’ll go off and write for you. Um, bye. You’ll, I will pester you. So if you want a pester free experience, don’t get me for done for you, because I’ll ask lots of,

 Gil: Yeah. I imagine that you’re, you’re asking questions because. That’s, that’s the most effective way that you’re able to really make sure that you’re delivering the content that really resonates with the person on the other side. And if you ignore these questions, it’s, it’s really hard and not repeatable, possibly.

 Genevieve: it has to be. Yeah, it has to be done. Something I also really like to do. Because some people come to me and they are just really pushed and they’re like, you know, Jenny, like I do need stuff written for me. But what I often offer is like a kind of, uh, hybrid I find that can work really well. So I’ll say, okay, we’ll have a meeting.

 Genevieve: I’ll write this stuff for you that you need done urgently. Um, but we’ll do it in a way that I’m doing the bulk of the work, but you’ve got a input in it. But then we’ll maybe meet for a subsequent coaching session because. What I, what I love about coaching is that vis-a-vis done for you is that I like the idea that I’m giving people the skills to go away and keep putting into practice. What they’ve learned from the experience. Something, there’s something about just going in and doing all the writing and then just leaving people. It doesn’t sit right with me. I like to feel like, um, you know, if a bus knocked me over tomorrow, they’d be able to use what they’ve learned from me to go back.

 Genevieve: ’cause you’re always, you know, if you’ve got a website, you’re always tweaking it, aren’t you? You’re always changing it. You’re offered changes. So it’s nice. I like to be able to give people. The skills to, um, to go back and make changes so that they don’t feel they’ve always got to be getting me back and paying for more.

 Genevieve: So I think that hybrid approach, which again is a kind of bespoke element. It depends on people’s needs and timescales, where I do a little bit of writing, then a little bit of handholding, and then give people the skills they need. If that’s what people want, I think that can work really well too.

 Gil: Yeah, it almost feels like the, the produced content is only. One piece of the puzzle there where a lot of work goes into really understanding your ideal guest avatar or the the audience on the other side, and your brand voice and all that, all the things we talked about. That is almost half the piece to the puzzle.

 Gil: And the other half being the actual message, the content that you’re actually writing there. So

 Genevieve: mm.

 Gil: there’s um, an immense amount of work just to get to that first piece of content that you’re writing. But as you move on, it gets easier and easier because you’ve already done all the heavy homework of really figuring how you wanna write, and then it just molding it to the content that you’re writing each time.

 Genevieve: Absolutely. I think copywriting is like, you know, 70% thinking, and then there, if you do the thinking bit and if you spend time on that, on, on the processes, the ones you’ve just outlined there, Gil, the writing is, is painless, relatively painless.

 Gil: Yeah. So what’s, what’s the process like? Say, say you’re bringing on a new client. What does the whole onboarding experience look like? We, we talked a little bit about it, but from a process standpoint and timeline standpoint, say someone’s coming to you, they have a short term rental stay and they’re trying to revamp their website, walk me through kind of what you kind of guide them through.

 Genevieve: Well, in our first meeting I’d be asking questions about, well, their timescale, their budget. I’d be asking questions about their. Their short term and long term vision, what they want to, what they want to achieve. I’d be asking, um, questions about, you know, their, their brand, um, you know, their, um, competitors.

 Genevieve: Um, yeah, I mean, I’ve got a, I’ve got a document with all the questions and it’ll be tailored as well, because I’ll do my homework. Before. Um, I mean, even if, if they don’t have, they might have an old website if they’re wanting a revamp or they might have existing content on social. So I’ll always do my homework and find out as much about them as I can before the meeting.

 Genevieve: So I’m not going in completely, you know, completely uninformed. Um, but we’ll work, we’ll work through in that initial call. Um, you know. All that I can find out about them to, to get a sense of what would suit them best. And then after that I’ll go away and I’ll have a think and I’ll usually suggest two or three options.

 Genevieve: Um, so for example, I had a call the other day, um, with, uh, uh, a company that wanted, they, they didn’t actually have a website and they wanted a new website and they, they wanted it quickly, so they were a little bit, um. Yeah, they were, they were a little bit kind of, could we, we’d like to have the skills to write copy in the future, but we’re also under a lot of time pressure.

 Genevieve: They didn’t have a huge budget as well, so, um, they, I then went away and based on what. Had been able to glean from them about them, which wasn’t much as, they didn’t, um, have a, a website. They didn’t have much in the way of socials. But from what I’ve been able to glean in the call, I was able to put together three different proposals.

 Genevieve: One which was very, very coaching oriented, oriented. The other, which had more input from me, more actual like, um, done for you copywriting. But then with the follow-up coaching, and then a third, which was almost like we were kind of collaboratively writing it together. So I was giving them prompts and an outline of what the content could be.

 Genevieve: They were writing it. We were kind of going back and forward a little bit. So each one had a slightly different timescale and a a slightly different budget, and then it’s up, up to them to choose. So it’s very. It is very, it’s very flexible process. Um, and it’s, it’s, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very collaborative.

 Genevieve: I’m always about, you know, collaboration all the way through and, and just, you know, the, the process is, is quite. Fluid and it, it can change because, because life happens and things happen and there’s budget constraints and things get in the way. So, you know, I’m, I’m very open to, to being flexible throughout that process.

 Gil: Yeah, and, and on. You mentioned that they were trying to build this really fast and they might not have all the details and they don’t have a website yet, so they probably haven’t put the thought into it. If you’re speaking to an organization or property manager host, and they don’t. They don’t know who their ideal guest is.

 Gil: How do you kinda walk them through that process? What are the data points that you might want to look at?

 Genevieve: Um, for, for their ideal, I ideal guest. Well, I mean, I would, I’ve. I give them, I’ve actually got a document which has got all of the different things that they could, could consider. So, um, it’s a little bit like, um, you know, the, not so much the demographics, but more like the, the, the interests, the concerns, you know, um, where they’re active on social media, um, you know, their. Income and you know, their kind of average income and all, all that kind of stuff. And then I would give them that to work through and then they would, they would feed that back to me.

 Gil: Nice. Nice. I, I don’t know that’s, is that concerned ethno ethnographic studies? I’m not sure.

 Genevieve: Um, yeah. Is that what it’s called? I’m not sure.

 Gil: And I think there is a term for it. I, I, I, I don’t

 Genevieve: Ethnographic, yeah, I’m not sure.

 Gil: Okay.

 Genevieve: I’m not sure. I should probably know. I don’t know what the exact term is. It’s, it’s, it’s late. It’s late at night. Words are flying from my brain.

 Gil: Yeah. Um, as you think back at some of the, the students that you’ve either coached or clients that you brought on board, what’s one of your favorite ones that brings you a lot of joy? Whether or not it was a client that kind of turned 180 degrees and they were able to come in with a very broad idea, but they’ve learned a lot along the way.

 Gil: Or maybe you’ve shaped. You, maybe you’ve done the, the content for them and their business sword, like do you have a, do you have a, as you think back, a story, a favorite client that you worked

 Genevieve: Yeah, I, I, I genuinely love. I, I genuinely love all of my clients because they tend to be people who, um, a lot of them have been following me on my, on my email list and getting my emails. So they, they very much, they feel like they know me and they’ve come to me because they, they like my methods and they like the, the, the, the gospel of connection that I talk about in my emails.

 Genevieve: You know, it’s all about building connection and, and, and the, the human first approach. So. They’re all for that. And I don’t really, I feel, touch wood, I haven’t really had any wrong fit clients so far. And I think the things that really just make me smile and I, I couldn’t say I have a, a favorite client ’cause that’s like asking me to choose a favorite child.

 Genevieve: Um, I, uh, it’s the little moments where, um, they’ll have produced something and, uh. I mean, I’m, I’m always asking them for stories. You know, tell me, tell me stories about, about your place. Tell me, tell me, tell me kinda sensory stories about your destination. And, um, there was this recent example where, um, the person had done their.

 Genevieve: Homework and there were some stories and they were just, they were just a little bit flat and, um, it could have been about anywhere. And um, they were, they were nicely written and everything. But then you just probe and you delve and you start to ask questions and suddenly, bingo, they just light up. This, this, all of these quite bland stories about birds tweeting and sheep buying, and suddenly she started to speak with great fondness about her sheep and how she’s got names for them all and how one of them sounds like Justine or one of them would be Justine from friends if she was a human.

 Genevieve: I don’t know. I, I don’t even know who Justine from friends is, but she. She absolutely lit up and she was talking about how the guests, the children, feed to the sheep. Um, little bits of apple and the sheep are so spoiled. And, and, and when she was talking, she changed, she became a different person. Uh, and, and suddenly I was like, okay, that’s, that’s you, that’s, that’s, you know, this kind of. almost aspect of what you do. You are getting these like children who’ve maybe come from cities completely divorced from country life and nature, and you are, you’re giving them the joy of being able to feed, uh, your sheep, who you’ve named with Apple. And that’s awesome. And that’s, that’s what you’re gonna write about.

 Genevieve: So then, because I always record. Um, our conversations and have a transcript afterwards. We had her voice and I was like, look, this is your voice. It’s amazing and you’re funny and, um, you’ve, you’ve got a lovely turn of phrase. And then we were able to working with the transcript, you know, actually just fashion it then there, and then into a story.

 Genevieve: This is what you can do. So, you know, I was able to say to this client, you, you’re an amazing storyteller. And she said, Hmm, yeah, but it is just sheep. And, and, and, and, and I said yes. But this is one of the things I always like to say to my clients, your every day is somebody else’s awesome. You know, the everyday awesome is, is what you have to channel because you know, you’re surrounded by sheep.

 Genevieve: You don’t, you don’t, you just, they’re just part of your life. But it’s starting to recognize the little bits of what you offer that, that they’re just every day to you that are gonna just make somebody’s, you know, be somebody’s special memories for years to come. So it’s seeing these little light bulbs when people realize that actually.

 Genevieve: Yeah. And seeing people light up and then it’s. Always when you, when you see that fire in somebody’s eyes, okay, that’s, that’s what you’re gonna write about. Um, because if you love what you’re writing about, it comes across, that energy comes across and it, and it, and it, and it just enthus everybody who reads it.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah, it, it makes a lot of sense. Why. Your clients kind of gravitate towards you. And you mentioned, you mentioned the word connection there, and I think that’s what I’m getting out of this conversation right now is that your client here found a way to connect with someone else out there that may not.

 Gil: Know their life. They might not know they’re, you’re, you’re bringing someone else into your life, even though it may seem mundane in what you do, but you’re, you’re, you’re creating a piece of content that’s allowing you to connect to someone else.

 Genevieve: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And you’re also through that content. You’re not just connecting, but you’re allowing, you’re often allowing. Your reader, if they’re a potential guest to put themselves in the story. So, you know, the, the tired, stressed out parent who’s sitting reading this email about children feeding sheep with apples, she could be like, oh yeah, that’s me.

 Genevieve: You know, so, so it’s, it’s, it’s about connection, but it’s also about allowing your ideal guests to see themselves and to identify, um. Yeah, to be, to be part of that narrative.

 Gil: Yeah, for and for our listeners there, I don’t, I don’t know if you picked this up, but some of our listeners have had coaches in the past, and there’s a big difference between a really true professional coach and. Maybe a mentor or a trainer or someone that teaches you things. What I captured out of the way that you teach your students or coach your students is that you’re not necessarily giving them the answers.

 Gil: You’re asking them very pointed questions to kind of draw it out of them where they have, they’re growing themselves rather than you just injecting your knowledge upon them.

 Genevieve: Hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But my clients, if they’ve been reading my emails that they get twice a week, they should already have a lot of the knowledge. Um, yeah, hopefully if they’ve been paying attention.

 Gil: but I, I, I, I do find, like, so I have a, I have a coach myself, um, and he’s not specifically in the short term rental business, but he’s been with me for a good portion of my career and has seen me go through. Many different places, even from the corporate Silicon Valley world, all the way to being a founder myself.

 Gil: And I find it very fascinating just how he talks to me, how he asks me questions and. It’s not like he may or may not have the answers, but he’ll never tell me what the answer is. He’ll never tell me the right path to go or the things I should do or the things I need to commit to. It’s oftentimes an excruciating process on my side to go through a bunch of different questions and then realizing, oh, there is a path towards that.

 Gil: Um, and it’s, it’s a very unique skill, um, and I find that the real coaches out there. Do a really good job at really asking you the right, right questions to make you think about things harder, and I think the learning experience on the other side is just, it’s just very different.

 Genevieve: Yeah, your coach sounds amazing and you’re absolutely hit the nail on the head, Gil. I think it is all about questioning. It’s about. Probing questions. It’s about leaving space, I think when I started coaching, because I’m a bit of a chatter box and it’s like, um, don’t, like an awkward silence, you know? Um, so I’d ask a question and if the answer wasn’t coming quickly enough, I would just like have to have to like, you know, come in and say something, but I’m getting a lot better at just giving people.

 Genevieve: A little bit of space. Um, so you ask a question and then it’s okay if there’s a little bit of silence while people think. Um, ’cause it’s that silence and space to reflect that often, you know, brings about the, the greatest, the greatest breakthroughs. And yeah, the answers, I mean, I always say to my clients, you know, your business, so the answers are within you and you’ve, you know your stories.

 Genevieve: I don’t know your stories. So it’s teasing those stories out and letting them see the stories that’ll connect with their ideal guests, who, again, they know, um, better than I do, better than I ever would, so. Hmm.

 Gil: Yeah. Genevieve, we usually end the show with three questions. Um, I would love to ask them to you now. Uh, first question, what’s a good book recommendation for? For me, I’m constantly looking to learn to grow and to read and constantly pick up new skills. What’s a good one that you would recommend for?

 Genevieve: Well, because our conversation has been about copywriting. I am gonna talk about, um, a book about writing, which I think is a, a really different book, which I think you might, you might like. It’s called several short Sentences about writing.

 Gil: Okay.

 Genevieve: And, um, it is, it’s about sentence structure, which sounds really boring, but it’s not boring at all.

 Genevieve: It’s a book that’s completely written in very, very short sentences, but the sentences themselves are a meditation on writing and relationship between writing and thought. So, um, yeah, I would re, I would recommend that and the, the person’s, the writer’s name, which I’ve made a note of, it’s, it’s quite a tricky one to remember, is Verlin Lan Klinkenborg.

 Gil: Okay. I’ll have to look that one up. That one’s a unique one. I, I’m glad I asked the question. I, I love this question because I never know what I get and sometimes I’ll get something that’s common, but every once in a while I’ll get something quite unique that makes me wanna go on Amazon and pick up the copyright away quite, I do that quite often.

 Genevieve: it’s actually, it’s a struggle to choose just one book. ’cause I’m one of these people, I don’t know if you’re like this, but just have like an overflowing pile of books on my bedside table. And I’m, I, I’m a bit of a dipper in and dipper route of books. Um,

 Gil: am, I’m exactly,

 Genevieve: and out of.

 Gil: I am exactly the same way. It’s, it is been a while since I picked up a book and started start to finish without picking up another book in between. Um, and I don’t know if that’s, I, I don’t know if that’ll ever change, um, but yeah. I’m hopefully not a hoarder of books, but I do have a lot, a lot of books.

 Gil: I,

 Genevieve: If you have to hoard something, books are not a bad thing to

 Gil: they are not, they’re not. I read a little while back that, um, there’s a strong correlation between a child’s intellect to the number of bookshelves they have in their home. I was like, okay. Then I’m doing pretty good because we have a lot of bookshelves.

 Genevieve: yeah, both of our children will be geniuses. That’s good.

 Gil: Yeah. Genevieve, second question for you. What’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

 Genevieve: Hmm. Yeah. So mindset advice. Yeah. I don’t know if this really qualifies as mindset advice, but it’s something that that’s really helped me. Um, and that is that don’t be, uh. Don’t be frightened or stressed out by people that you perceive as potential competitors. Um, reach out to them because, uh, it actually goes against my instinct to do that, to be honest with you.

 Genevieve: But I’ve done it and I’ve had some fantastic experiences, um, and met, you know, learned so much from reaching out and even like working alongside. Potential competitors and, and collaborating with them. So yeah, reach out to reach out to competitors and you’ll, you could learn a lot.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I, I like that one. Um. In the direct booking space, there’s a few of us in the space that help. Folks build direct booking websites. And in, in many ways, we are competitive to one another, but not many folks know this. We, there is a Slack channel between us that we just share ideas. And we used to meet, and we haven’t met in a little while now, but we used to meet about what’s changing in the, in the industry, what we’re learning, um, what we’re working on.

 Gil: And in the beginning it did feel. Awkward. It felt weird, uh, because you’re, you’re feeling like, should I safeguard something that’s nes near and dear to me? Um, but over time you start to talk more openly about things and you feel more comfortable with it. Um, I don’t, I wouldn’t say it’s completely on like the, you would talk to the friend the same way.

 Gil: Um, but it’s less frightening now that I’ve done it a few times and had a conversation, many, many conversations with. Folks that from the outside would appear as competitors.

 Genevieve: Absolutely. Yeah, I think. I think you’re right. It’s uh, yeah, you get over that awkwardness and then maybe it never is completely chill, but it feels a lot better and it gives you a sense of confidence, I think. ’cause I think it takes a certain amount of confidence to reach out to a competitor and then it

 Gil: I. That is very, very true. You’re, you’re almost, when you feel comfortable to reach out to them, you’re almost putting yourself at their level

 Genevieve: You are.

 Gil: and especially if you aspire towards them or you think of the successes that they built, you reaching out almost kind of levels things out where you see them more as a peer than someone that’s farther ahead than you are.

 Genevieve: Yeah,

 Gil: Yeah, I like that.

 Genevieve: Uhhuh. Yeah.

 Gil: I like that. Awesome. La last question. What’s one piece of tactical advice that you would give to someone that’s either trying to get started in direct bookings or trying to amplify their direct bookings?

 Genevieve: We’ve spoken a little bit about voice today, and I think that that’s something that we’re not speaking about enough. In the tourism industry, um, the fact that your unique selling point is your, can really be your personality and your voice. So here’s something I’m gonna suggest to everybody who’s listening is we all have.

 Genevieve: What’s called an elect now, an elect is your, it’s like your linguistic fingerprint. It is your way of speaking that is completely unique to you. So it will be little words that you’ve picked up from your region. It’ll be funny little sayings that your parents have had. It’ll be little things you’ve picked up from your kids.

 Genevieve: It’ll be words you’ve picked up from your travels. It’ll be terms of phrase, it’ll be just. Expressions that maybe your friends, um, have a laugh at you, for se that’s your elect. And something I like to get my clients to do is to become aware of their elect and, uh, to start to note down. Phrases that are specific to them.

 Genevieve: So the takeaway activity is just have what I call a voice audit. Look through your text messages, um, your dms, PMs, whatever you call them. Emails to friends. Now it has to be friends because that’s where we get the most authentic voice. It has to be close friends, take a note, just. Note down, any phrases that pop up again and again?

 Genevieve: Any, any favorite words, any pet words? How do you greet people? How do you sign off? How do you transition between ideas? How do you move from one idea to the other? Start to become aware of this? And start to channel it in your own writing, um, because that is, developing your own voice is one of the biggest favors you can do for yourself and your copywriting once you’ve got the foundations, um, in place.

 Genevieve: And by that of course I’m talking about your, um, nailing that ideal guest avatar and your, your brand and your why and all that stuff we spoke about earlier as well. But that’s a nice little action that you can take away and do after you’ve listened to this.

 Gil: Yeah. I, I really like that. I like, I’m glad that you, you introduced that and you didn’t let us walk away from the show without sharing, sharing a bit of knowledge there. Um, I should have asked you this earlier. You mentioned something about AI and how ai, we’ve seen AI overused in a way that. Creates this blandness, um, that, that’s very, very generic.

 Gil: And I, I know exactly what you mean. It’s, it’s used quite often and it’s all around us now. It’s like, it’s unavoidable. But I’m interested in hearing from you if there’s any use cases or methods that you use AI for in, in your space or, or do you find that you still go back to fundamentals and um, you kind of stick to kind of.

 Gil: Some of the things that you learned that worked really well over the years.

 Genevieve: Sure. So I feel that, um, I know lots of people that say, oh, you know, AI always beats the blank page, and I use it to help me generate ideas. Is, I don’t like that because I think that, um, ideas are best when they come from you. So even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it makes you, you feel a bit a bit sick, start to start to relish the this blank page and start to look inside yourself.

 Genevieve: Um, look around you for story ideas. If you are, um, doing what we discussed earlier and making a note of things as they occur to you, you’re not gonna have that blank page anyway. You’re gonna have a bank of, of ideas that, um, are yours and that are special to you and are unique to you and your destination and your experience and what you’re. So don’t start with ai. Ai. What I find is good is if you’ve written something like a first draft, put it into AI and ask for feedback. Um, sometimes AI is really good at spotting when a structure’s not working. Ask for it to give you honest feedback though. ’cause sometimes AI tries to like flirt with you or butter you up and tells you it’s brilliant.

 Genevieve: So always make sure you say. You. Okay, thanks. Can I have some honest feedback? And then it’ll roast you a little bit and you don’t have to listen to what it says, but nine times out of 10, I think is feedback’s pretty good. Um, yeah, especially structural with structural things. So I find if, if I’ve written something and, and it’s, and it’s a bit waffly and gone off on a, on a tangent, I think AI is quite good at, at, at noticing that.

 Genevieve: Um, so yeah, I’d say start with your own ideas. Then go to ai, ask for feedback, um, especially like ask it about structural things. Give, always give AI information as well, you know, like. It, make sure that it knows who your ideal guest is, who are you writing for? What’s the purpose of, of, of, of, of what you’re writing.

 Genevieve: Um, so it can give you good feedback. Um, and, uh, but then, but then also, and this is, um, important, don’t just take whatever AI says as, as as gospel. So if you’ve written something. You know, interrogate his feedback. Um, don’t let it rewrite something and completely flatten out. Um, your, your unique voice. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s about using your brain.

 Genevieve: Don’t let it, don’t let it do the thinking for you, but use it as a, almost like a collaborative writing partner, might be the best way to phrase it.

 Gil: Yeah, and I find that not just in this use case, but almost all use cases of, of, of ai when you’re trying to perform it, when you’re trying to use it to perform a task or to to do something with it, it’s oftentimes the collaboration process with AI are when you get the most meaningful outcomes there when you’re going back and forth with it.

 Gil: I oftentimes find that if you ask any AI to do something on your behalf. It’s gonna give you something that’s video, very mediocre, very, very mediocre as if an intern, uh, turning the assignment. Um, but if you’re going back and forth and you’re idea with it, that’s where you’ll get the most benefit.

 Genevieve: Mm, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, spot on.

 Gil: Yeah.

 Genevieve: Um, so yeah, use it. But, but yeah, your own stories are what matters and your own words. And, uh, human, human connection.

 Gil: Nice. Well, Genevieve, it was a huge pleasure having you on the show and having you share really the fundamentals of copywriting, how you approach it with your clients, and some of the little tips and tricks that you kind of see to just kind of along the way there. I really appreciate that.

 Genevieve: Oh, the pleasure was all mine. Gil, thank you very much for having me on your show.

 Gil: Yeah, and I’ll be sure to include your contact information in the show notes for whoever might want to kind of reach out to you and maybe get some coaching advice or if they need help producing content. Um, definitely reach out to you and yeah, just see if there’s anything that connects with.

 Genevieve: That’d be amazing. I think my number one priority is, is building my email list at the moment. So if you could, if you could give that a re-plug, I’d really appreciate it.

 Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Genevieve, thanks again for being on the show.

 Genevieve: Thank you, Gil. Have a lovely day and thanks again for inviting me.

 Gil: Alright, goodnight. Bye.

 Genevieve: Good night. Bye-bye.1