Meet The Members: Lisa Peck

I was so happy to have interior designer, Lisa Peck, principal of Minneapolis based Lilu Interiors and the owner of Sylvie and Mira textiles join me for my most recent Meet The Members conversation on Zoom.

Meet The Members is an exclusive opportunity for members of my Facebook Group for interior designers, #DesignWealth, to meet my guests live on Zoom and ask my guests their questions.

Today, I will be sharing with you my own 5 top takeaways from my/our conversation with Lisa, but if you were listening live, and would like to share additional takeaways, i invite you to do so in the comments on this post.

Ready?

Top Takeaway #1: Instagram Growth Strategies

Lisa is a prolific user of Instagram, as are most interior designers. She has gone from very few followers to over 21,000 very engaged followers over the past 5 years.

We discussed how she grew her following, given how busy she is in her 2 other businesses, alongside managing 4 employees, raising her children who are still at home, having time with her hubby and participating in her volunteer activities.

Some of you will be surprised to hear that Lisa has not hired outside help to grow her following, but has instead relied on her children [ at times ] as well as her administrative assistant for help.

She has disciplined herself to spend an hour each early morning commenting on the feeds of those she knows are reciprocal in commenting back, as she understands how this positively impacts the Instagram algorithm, thereby helping her posts reach a wider audience.

When asked about her actual ROI, Lisa said that it keeps her clients engaged with her, since they watch her feed [ but rarely comment ]. She also mentioned that having a large number of followers was an important metric she needed to achieve for one of her longer term goals.

Lisa also had many other tips for Instagram growth for those who tuned in live, and the graphic below shows some more of them.

{MY NOTE: Make sure you are watching your Instagram INSIGHTS if you are serious about growing your Instagram following. Deliver your content at the time when you are getting the most response. Notice how Lisa knows that Sunday is when she gets the most new followers. She always posts new content on Sundays].

Top Takeaway #2: Instagram Reels Are Essential To Master For Instagram Growth.

Lisa’s natural curiosity and love of research has led her to try and use several different apps to create her Reels. As you can see from the image below, Lisa’s Reels get very high engagement.

Lisa was kind enough to share 4 of these apps with us on the call, listed in the image below, and I also included a 5th: Canva.

Carla Aston, a previous guest on Meet The Members, was live with us on this call and she added in how using captions and voiceovers were winning her new followers, as viewers feel a more personal connection with you when they can hear your voice.

Lisa also did a deep dive into how selecting trending music was an important strategy which helps the algorithm to work in your favor. Unfortunately, the little arrow that used to appear next to a song on a reel that indicated that that music was trending has disappeared with the latest algorithm update.

It was noted that original audio is now surging as the preferred music mode to get the algorithm to work in your favor, but of course, this can change at any time.

There are many YouTube videos that can teach you how to save your favorite original music on Instagram. Search Google like this: “How To Save My Favorite Music From Instagram Reels* to watch a few.

Top Takeaway #3: The Importance Of Layering Touchpoints For New Client Acquisition

After our conversation about Instagram, we moved onto discussing how Lisa managed her new client acquisition activities. With 4 full time employees, two part time outsourced employees, and herself to keep busy and support, this is an important aspect of her business that demands a specific plan of action and constant intentionality.

Lisa stressed the importance of choosing at least 4 ways to consistently touch your past clients, your referral partners and your current clients.

In her case, she uses 6 different methods. One of them, updating her website, is a project she has in process at this moment.

She shared so much great information in this part of the Zoom but what stood out for me was how Lisa makes every interaction HIGHLY personalized…and fun!

For instance, she has sent her referral partners kites, as gifts, in the Spring. Isn’t that a great idea? She calls her referral partners whenever she sees their name in the news….just to say congratulations or great job. She makes it a point to do this all of the time.

Her gifting process is exceptional and after hearing all about it, I think everyone on the call was convinced that highly personalized, fun gifting was an idea they needed to incorporate in their own businesses, if they didn’t already have it in place.

Top Takeaway #4: A Smart Strategy To Help Keep Your New Client Pipeline Full

Lisa shared that, when she first started her business, and even now, she’s willing to take on younger clients with lower budgets. Why? She knows that this type of client will eventually be buying a larger home, building a second home, investing in vacation rental property, leasing commercial office space, etc.

And when they do move and/or expand, they turn to Lisa due to the extremely personalized outreach she maintains with her past clients and referral sources.

This strategy, implemented when she first started, has insured her a steady stream of repeat business and referral business, to this day.

Lisa shared she currently has 4 jobs on the books for millenials with new construction homes over 1 million dollars each in value.

Top Takeaway #5: Intentionally Select Key Referral Sources And Work To Deepen Your Relationships

I loved listening to Lisa discuss how she had very intentionally selected the builders, architects and trade partners she wanted to foster relationships with and how she manifested those referrals through deepening her relationships with them, over time and across various touchpoints.

Today, those key referral sources send her consistent business.

In addition, she shared that, when the building boom slowed in her area, she knew that many of her builders/architects had to lay off design related staff.

She was on the phone with them to remind them that her firm was already set up, with processes in place, to be their right hand resource when and if they needed that service.

This proved a fruitful strategy for securing new business, too.

Re: Lisa’s Textile Business, Sylvie and Mira.

We had quite a discussion about how Lisa started her textile and rug business, Sylvie and Mira, named after her two daughters. She shared that she’s grown it very slowly and purposefully, and that her clients love knowing they can have her create one of a kind personalized, customized designs - just for them.

She also shared that her textile and rug line is bringing in enough income now that it will be a nice supplement in her retirement years.

As you can see if you’ve read this far, Lisa’s a very saavy marketer.

One of the ways she marketed Sylvie and Mira [ which is not sold anywhere online direct to consumer ] was by financially sponsoring my own Facebook Group for a defined period of time, so she could reach the interior designers in it.

As a result of her sponsorship of my Facebook Group, Linda Holt reached out to Lisa to ask her to collaborate on a custom rug for Linda’s own living room - which was being re-done as part of the 2019 #OneRoomChallenge.

Here’s an image of that beautiful rug in Linda’s own home, taken by Emily O’Brien Photography. Having Linda select Lisa for the honor of creating a custom rug for Linda’s own home gave Lisa a tremendous marketing boost, since Linda’s living room was widely shared on the #oneroomchallenge hashtag, and Linda was so generous in giving public credit to those who helped her furnish her living room.

See the entire post showing Linda’s gorgeous living room at the end of this post.

I loved having Lisa as my guest on Meet The Members. Lisa: thank you for your time and for sharing so generously!

I hope this post will encourage all of you who are interior designers to join us for Meet The Members, LIVE, every Saturday beginning at 9:30 am CT [except when I’m travelling or on vacation ] so that you can meet my wonderful guests face to face, ask your own questions and glean your own top takeaways.

If you’re not yet a member of my Facebook Group, and would like to be, please send me a Request To Join at:

https://facebook.com/groups/designwealth .

Please remember to answer the 3 easy questions you will be asked or else I cannot admit you.

The Links

Get to know Lisa on these links:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sylvieandmira | https://instagram.com/liluinteriors
Website: https://sylvieandmira.com | https://liluinteriors.com

Linda Holt’s blog post: the reveal of her living room for the Fall 2019 One Room Challenge:
https://www.lindaholtcreative.com/2019/11/one-room-challenge-fall-2019-project-fresh-start-reveal/

Don’t miss my last two Top Takeaway posts with previous Meet The Members guests, Carla Aston and Veronika Eagleson.

Carla Aston: Monetizing Your Website or Blog For 24/7 Income

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/2022/6/10/an-interview-with-carla-aston-her-top-takeaways-for-you

Veronika Eagleson: Influencer Marketing

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/2022/6/14/5-top-takeaways-on-influencer-marketing-from-veronika-eagleson

Lastly, I invite you to follow me on Instagram here:

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and to subscribe to this blog so you are the first to get it in your inbox whenever I publish. When you subscribe, you will get my complimentary download which gives you my 10 Top Tips For How To Drive More Traffic To Your Website For 24/7 Revenue Generation.

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Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.

In Gratitude,

Leslie Carothers
CEO, Savour Partnership
Named One Of HFN’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home